//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Dance, Fucker, Dance 
// Story: Lavender Ponyville 
// by Quadraginta 
//------------------------------//

	It was not a single conveyor belt. It was several. Five, to be exact. Five conveyor belts, all placed next to each other, all going at the same speed in the same direction towards the same destination. 
Twilight did not sit there and wait for the conveyor belts to take her where she needed to go. She ran along the conveyor belts, with the Denizens giving chase. Her explosive magical ball from earlier had not slowed them down at all.
Twilight paused and tossed a ball of explosive magic at the Denizens. Magic splashed over the walls and conveyor belts and stuck to two of the Denizens, slowing them down in a giant mess of sticky magic. They were left stuck inside the magic, their hooves just barely off the conveyor belt, left dangling and thrashing about.
That only left the look-alike. 
Twilight turned around and continued running along the conveyor belt. A sudden sparkling sound wizzed by her ear, causing her to flinch reflexively in the process. Ahead of her, she saw a massive explosion of electricity that was barely out of Twilight's reach. 
She was lucky. Too lucky. Luck that somehow left Applejack, but just aided her. But just how long would that luck last, in a place such as this? 
She looked back to see the look-alike's horn charging, just before it threw another ball at Twilight. She threw her own magic ball back at it, causing them both to explode in mid-air. Twilight's luck hadn't run out yet; as the explosive energy from both of the balls had competely enveloped the look-alike, and it face-planted into the ground. 
Twilight formed one final magical ball and tossed it. It hit the look-alike directly, causing a massive explosion, an explosion much larger than those that had all just happened. 
When the energy settled down, Twilight saw the look-alike stuck in place from the sticky magic, and paralyzed from the electricity of it's own blast. 
Twilight did it. She had won the battle. The battle, but not the war. 
What an overused expression, she thought to herself. Overused or not, it was true. 
Her magical capabilities were stronger than most unicorns like her, but using all that magic still left her feeling quite drained. She fell to her knees, taking deep breaths, trying to calm her thundering heart. She was going to have to get used to the feeling of battle if she was going to survive the tower, and if she was going to survive the rest of her encounters with the Denizens. And now that Applejack wasn't with her anymore-
Applejack. She choked back a sob at the loss of three of her dearest friends. First Fluttershy, then Rainbow Dash, and now Applejack. Half the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony were dead now. Was Equestria safe with only three of the Bearers still alive? She couldn't worry about that, for now. She had to keep moving.
She ran the rest of the length of the conveyor belt, eventually reaching the end. She looked back to check if the Denizens were following her. They weren't. 
At the end of the conveyor belt was an escalator that went upwards. She gathered a little bit of what little magic she had left and formed a mine of sorts, sort of like a land mine which would trip if anypony, or anything got too close to it. She stuck it to the handle next to the conveyor belt, which, unlike the conveyor belt itself, did not move, so it stuck in place. If the Denizens broke free from their traps and got close enough to the mine, she would hear the explosion. A smart strategy, one that, unfortunately, just drained her of the rest of her magic. Well, not all of it. She had enough to form a weapon out of solid magic. Something simple, though, such as a blade, or a blunt object. 
But she would save that for later. For now, she would allow herself to recharge, and if any more Denizens came her way, she would run. 
She quickly ascended the escalator, not slowing down at all. She was still surprised at how life-like the dream had become. When she first dreamed of this town and realized she was dreaming, it was as if she were in a lucid dream. More vivid than any other lucid dream she'd ever had, but it still had that feeling of.....'off-ness' that told her she was dreaming. Now, though, everything felt as real as waking reality. She still knew it wasn't reality, though. What she didn't know was if she was ever going to wake up. Perhaps if she made it to the top of the tower, she would.
Wait. Applejack said there was no top. What did she mean by that? How did she accumulate that knowledge? Was there literally no top, just an endless amount of floors and stairs and winding paths that seemed to lead elsewhere yet stayed in the same location yet still, in the end, ascended? Either way, Twilight had already gone too far to turn back. 
She finally reached the top of the elevator, which led to a floating platform and a door that looked as if it connected to nothing. It was literally just a door on a floating platform. 
She opened the door, revealing a portal-like rectangular hole where the door had once been. She stepped through the portal. The door slammed shut behind her. 
She stepped into a small, dark, medieval-looking square room. It was dimly lit by several torches placed on the walls. A single, lone figure standing in the middle. The figure had it's back turned to Twilight, and was lying face-first on the floor. Twilight saw a circular-looking object on what looked like the head of the figure. 
"Applejack?" Twilight whispered. She immediately clasped a hoof to her mouth, but she was too late. The figure heard her. It stood up slowly. It then turned around, just as slowly, it's head bowed, it's hat covered it's face, but Twilight would recognize that hat anywhere. It was Applejack's hat. 
The figure lifted it's head to look at Twilight, making eye contact with Twilight, with Twilight's frightened eyes staring directly into it's own insane eyes. 
"Applejack...." said Twilight. 
"Twi...." said the Applejack Denizen. That suprised Twilight. So far, this Applejack Denizen was the only Denizen to speak. "You thought you'd do me a favour, but you only damned me eternally to be a Denizen."
"Is it really you, Applejack?" Twilight asked uncertainly.
"Twi...." Applejack said again as she slowly stepped towards Twilight. "I'm not quite gone, yet, unlike the others. I don't know how much longer I can keep talking to you like this, before I lose myself. I can't stop hearing these voices in my head. I can't stop. But listen to me, and listen to me good, Twi. There's no top to the tower. No matter how high you climb, you'll never reach the top. But there is a way to beat the tower."
"How, then?" asked Twilight. "How do I beat the tower?" 
"I don't know. Actually, I don't know if you even can. But the voices keep talking, so many voices on top of each other. They're the voices of everypony who's ever died here. Our suspicions were right, Twi. Whoever dies here is eternally damned to be a servant of the tower forever. But there is a way to beat the tower and free every soul trapped in here. I keep listening to every voice, and I keep trying to single them out one by one, listening to a bit here, and a bit there. Over time, I've managed to keep my sanity and gather enough information, and-" Applejack began convulsing violently, her facial features contorting into a deranged mask.
"A-applejack?" Twilight asked, getting ready to run. Eventually, though, Applejack calmed down, but her eyes looked more insane than before, and she now had a noticable twitch, and she spoke faster now, as if in a hurry to finish telling Twilight what she had to tell. 
"Twi! The tower is a maze. You have to reach the Terminal. Once you reach it, you'll reach Her lair. Kill Her, and this will all end. We'll all be released, and then the town will disappear from our dreams. This whole nightmare will end. Hurry, Twi. You have to- DANCE FUCKER, DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!" Applejack had finally let go. A fireaxe formed out of thin air and was now in the hooves of Applejack. She swung the fireaxe at Twilight, who narrowly dodged it each time. 
"Dance for me!" Applejack screamed, every syllable of every word she spoke ladled thickly with vocal insanity. "Dance for me!" The way Twilight dodged the fire axe's swings, it was almost as if she was dancing, but that didn't satisfy the now-insane Applejack Denizen. 
"WHY WON'T YOU GOD DAMN DANCE FOR ME?!" Applejack threw the fireaxe at Twilight, who dodged it. Applejack then pounced upon Twilight, tackling her to the ground, and attempted to bite her, snapping her jaw open and shut mere inches from her face.
Unconsciously, as Twilight struggled against the Applejack Denizen, she formed a ball of magic between herself and the Applejack Denizen. Expelled from the ball of magic was a blade that looked to be formed from solid light. It impaled the Appelack Denizen, using it's continued momentum to propel itself and the Denizen to the ceiling, where it stuck fast. The Applejack Denizen was stuck to a sword made of solid magic stuck fast into a brick ceiling, with no hint of it, or the Denizen ever coming loose.
Twilight immediately jumped to her hooves and dashed to the other side of the room and banged through a door. She slammed the door closed behind herself and was left standing in a dark hallway, with a rectangle of light on the other side of the hallway. She made her way towards the rectangle of light, not looking back, and not wasting any time mourning for her now insane friend Applejack, who she would do everything in her power to release from the tower.