//------------------------------// // Chapter Sixty Two // Story: HiE - A Hollow in Equestria // by Charlie_K //------------------------------// Chapter Sixty Two Applejack tried not to yawn. Yawning was a symptom of being tired, and there was way too much work left to do before the day was finally over with. And if she let one yawn out, there was bound to be more to follow. That was the simple nature of the beast, and unlike timberwolves, there was no way to chase them off with the clanging of pots and pans. Exhaustion simply feared and heeded nopony. Oh well. It was time to get back to work, and Applejack simply wasn't one for making excuses. She was certainly no slacker! A lot of ponies who didn't participate in the agricultural avenues might assume that managing Sweet Apple Acres consisted of nothing but bucking apple trees all throughout the year. But they couldn't have been further from the truth if they tried. It was true that the farm was most often associated with the practice, but that was just a tiny portion of it all! And it could only be done so frequently in between harvest periods. There was also a great deal of upkeep that had to be tended to throughout the year. Fences had to be mended, harnesses had to be kept oiled for longevity purposes, fields needed to be plowed, soil had to be properly supplemented with the right nutrients, repairs had to be made to the barns and other out buildings, animals had to be fed, etc. There was a whole infrastructure that had to be seen to! And right now, for Applejack, that infrastructure included making a visual inspection of the southern orchards, examining the bark and leaves of each tree for signs of a possible blight infection. If they didn't keep such things in check, there was too great of a risk of it spreading. Already one tree had been contaminated, and in need of being removed to protect the others. But these things tended to spread quickly, and had to be checked regularly. If they were a day late, there was the remote possibility of it spreading like a wildfire. So constant vigilance was necessary. It was a part of the job that was tiring, and tedious at points, but for the most part it was work that she still managed to love doing. To her these trees were far more than just being the backbone of the farm and her home. These trees were important to her in a way that outside ponies just wouldn't properly understand. They didn't see the delicate balance that existed between them. To her these trees were just as important as her friends. And in a few cases, some of these trees were her friends. So naturally she cared about them enough to look after them, and make sure they were doing alright. But it was so much more than that. Tree inspection, as far as Applejack was concerned, wasn't just checking on various investments. It was also a time during which she could think about whatever it was that needed thinking on. In this case it was the friends she had outside of the farm; Rainbow Dash specifically. She'd helped when Twilight, Spike, and Ulquiorra had been carrying out their investigation. She'd answered all questions truthfully -naturally- and been horrified at the accusations that had been laid against her and the others. She'd allowed for the Espada to carry out an investigation of all the buildings around the farm that could've possibly been used as a holding area. And she hadn't objected to when it came to inspecting the stuff in her room, even when it had uncovered certain items she would've preferred to stay hidden from view. But other than that, there really hadn't been much that she could actually do. That fact left her feeling helpless, and that was a feeling that she absolutely hated experiencing. Helpless was just a few small steps away from being useless. And no Apple who was worth their salt, would ever tolerate being useless. "Benny," Applejack mumbled as she pressed her forehead against the bark of the nearest tree. "Ah sure wish ah knew how ta help out RD. Tha' mare's in big trouble, an' ah can't do nothin' 'bout it. Jus' standin' around an' makin' wishes ta mahself an' such, ah jus' feel so danged useless right now. An' ya know how much ah hate feelin' like such..." She felt helpless. She felt useless. She absolutely hated feelings like that. She was a farmer, and that meant being useful to other ponies. But here she was, talking to one of her trees, and bemoaning the fact that she couldn't do anything. This was pathetic! If she could bend her legs around properly, she'd kick her own butt for feeling so stupid right about now. "Right then," she said to herself as she pulled her head away from Benny's trunk, and straightened her hat. Just because she couldn't help Twilight and the rest of them find out what had gotten to Rainbow Dash, didn't mean she could just sit around and mope about it. She had work that had to be done, and work that could be done. "Applejack!" Applejack froze in her tracks, caught by the sudden, booming voice. She looked around, trying to find who was talking to her, but found herself to be alone except for the trees. And she knew Benny and his lot sure didn't talk back. Or at least, not like that anyway. "Applejack!" the voice boomed again, causing her to jump anxiously. "W-who's out there?" she asked, again looking around, but seeing nopony around. "Discord? If tha's you then this ain't funny!" she stated firmly. "Discord can't help you right now, Applejack," the voice stated. "Nopony can help you. But you can certainly help out somepony. Are you willing to face the trials to do that?" Confusion on top of confusion, stacked upon piles of more confusion. Applejack didn't have the slightest clue what was going on around here. But at the mention of helping somepony out of whatever jam they were facing, it was hard to focus on anything else. "Ah don' know who or wha' ya are. But ah ain' scared o' helping nopony!" she stated firmly. "Marvelous!" Without warning the ground below Applejack's feet started trembling. And then the trembling turned into all out shaking, sending Applejack down into a laying position for better stability. The ground started shaking harder than before, and Applejack was scared to even look up at her surroundings, not wanting to see the decimation that was surely unfolding all around Sweet Apple Acres. But regardless of whether or not she wanted to witness the decimation unfolding, she was given no choice in the matter, as it played out before her. The ground was reduced to a hard, blackened soil, completely devoid of any signs of grass. She didn't even know how to describe the process that had unfolded all around her, as all life in the ground just disappeared like nothing. The apple trees in her orchard were the next to suffer, with leaves and fruit gone in an instant, and the bark turning from a healthy shade of brown, to a dead and dark muddy gray, as they withered up, being twisted into a nightmarish fashion. Even the sky itself wasn't left unaffected, as the cerulean blue was quickly washed out by a horrible blend of orange, yellow, and brown. It was like back in the crystal empire when Cadance's shield had finally given out, and Sombra's sky was now in full view. Except this was much, much worse to be experiencing firsthoof. A sudden and violent roaring sounded around her, as the ground began to cave in and fall away. Before Applejack knew what to expect, she was at the edge of a cliff face, overlooking a steep drop into a sea of bubbling lava, subjecting her to both fur-singeing heat, and the rancid smell of sulfur and brimstone. By now the quaking of the ground had finally stopped, allowing her to climb back up to her hooves, and quickly back away from the edge, both to distance herself from the noxious fumes, and to get away from the heat that made her face feel like it was on fire. "Applejack!" She looked up at hearing the strange voice again, unsure of where else she should look, as it sounded like it was all around her at the same time. And as she looked up, she saw six objects of equal size gradually descending out of the sky. But she saw nothing for them to be descending from, nor did she see anything that would explain the sound of old gears turning, and rusted chains rattling, that was accompanying them. It looked like they were simply descending right out of thin air, or even out of the dirty clouds that hung overhead. The descent stopped, roughly at equal level with the top of the cliff she stood on, allowing her to properly see what they were. Six steel cages with vertical bars running all along the sides, and solid bottoms and tops, each attached to a thick looking chain. And in each one of the cages was one of her friends, each of them screaming incoherently and trying to break loose. Spike, Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. No answers came. Instead, what she was presented with, was more ground shaking. She watched in confusion as six sections of the ground opened up before her, looking like the sections had simply dropped below the non-existent grass line, and were rolled open like the lid to a bread box. This allowed for six strange-looking apparatuses, each of them made from some dull gray metal, to jut out above the surface. Each of them looked like some sort of break lever, similar to what she'd seen on the railways whenever she attended a rodeo competition. And as she looked, each of them was perfectly lined up with one of the cages, and all of them more than one pony's length away from each other. "Wha' in the wide world o' Equestria's goin' on here!?" Applejack demanded to know and stomped her hoof. If this wasn't Discord's work, then she sure wanted to know which ornery sidewinder was able to be pulling all of this off. "This, Applejack, is your opportunity to help somepony out," the voice stated, casually, yet with enough menace in its tone to send shivers up and down her spine, despite the intense heat she could feel even from as far back from the edge as she was. "You wanted to be useful. So be useful, and help out your friends in their time of need. Pull a lever." Six levers. Six cages. It didn't take a genius to figure out that each lever corresponded to a specific cage. And although Applejack had no idea of just what was going on around here, or what might happen if she tried working the levers, she knew that she had to do something. Her friends were counting on her. She looked over each of the levers, and then back at the cages that held her friends. It seemed simple enough from her perspective; pull a lever, lower a cage. But which one to pull? The answer to that question was deceptively simple. Get Twilight down first, then she can help figure everything out. With that thought in mind she walked over, wrapped her forelegs around the lever, and pulled back. But despite pulling back, it didn't budge on the first try. So she pulled much harder, resulting in the lever going all the way back with an audible "thunk" from locking into place. The next thing Applejack knew, Twilight was screaming as the cage dropped at an accelerated rate, and landed right in the lava. Applejack screamed in response as she moved to the ledge, helpless to do anything but watch as the molten rock made fast work of her friend stuck inside and unable to get out. The heat was intense enough, that it made her immediately burst into flames, causing her to scream louder and harder than ever before as she was engulfed, until she could no longer scream anymore. It was disturbingly quick how Twilight had gone from a healthy, lavender unicorn, to nothing more than a pile of burnt cinders, and bare bones, in the middle of the cage. "Oh dear. Somepony didn't get the rules. And now look at what happened. Such a pity." "Rules!?" Applejack yelled, furious at both this turn of developments, and the utter casualness of the taunting voice behind it. "Ya never said nothin' 'bout no rules!" she bellowed at the sky, too angry and upset to think of anything else to say. "It's not my fault you were too impatient to hear everything. And now your impatience has caused one of your friends to suffer the consequences," the voice stated mockingly. "Now listen, and listen closely, as I won't be repeating myself. You're in the position to help your friends. But you can only save one of them. As you learned the hard way, each lever is connected to a cage, and once pulled that cage is dropped onto the lava below. You have to determine which four of your remaining five friends you'll sacrifice, in order to save the fifth. And then you must confirm your decision, by dropping the selected four onto the lava where they'll meet their demise." Applejack didn't know what to think, or how to respond. At first all she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears, two beats faster than her own heart. But that sickening voice had managed to cut through the noise like a hot knife through butter, and hammer out the awful details of this entire ordeal she found herself trapped in. And that just made the anger in her burn even hotter. "An' what if ah refuse ta play yer fuckin' game!?" she asked, referencing one of the few foreign words she'd learned from Twilight, to emphasize her disgust with everything she was facing. "If you refuse to comply, then all five of them will pay the price. You're familiar with the concept of convection, right? If you don't decide which of your friends you'll sacrifice to save the other, then all five will die from the heat rising off the lava, heating up their cages in the process, and cooking them to death. Or they'll simply succumb to the poisonous fumes rising up from the molten rock below. Either way it's a long, miserable way to die. So you can either save one, or let them all die together. The choice on the matter is entirely yours to make." Applejack didn't know what to say. She didn't even know what to think at the moment. There were way too many unspeakable horrors playing out before her at a mile a minute. Sweet Apple Acres had been turned into this... this... this reject from the deepest pits of Tartarus. Her friends were being held hostage by some unknown entity. Twilight was dead. And she was being told that she had to kill four of her remaining five friends before her, or else all five of them were going to die together. What should she do? What could she do? Somepony was going to die regardless of what she did, the only difference was just how many somponies died. And no matter what decision she made, she was going to have to live with the fact that she was the one who killed her friends. How could she live with herself in the aftermath of this? Wait. Wait just a minute. Maybe that was it. Applejack grinned to herself. Whoever was messing with her head obviously never considered this turn of events taking place. With that thought in mind, her grin grew wider. "Now listen up, ya ornery sidewinder, whoever ya are! If ya don' put mah friends down on the ground right now, ah'm gonna jump in that lava mahself. Then who're ya gonna be tormentin'?" she demanded to know. If this... whatever it was, wanted to play hardball, then she could play just as easily. She wouldn't be the source of amusement in such a sick and twisted manner; she absolutely refused such! "... Plan B then..." Well... that was really ominous sounding. Applejack really wasn't certain she wanted to know just what "Plan B" was, but she highly doubted she'd be getting a say in the matter, as her ears were already picking up the sound of two more cages being lowered out of the sky. Already her grin was dropping into her stomach, secure in the knowledge that she might've just made everything worse. "If you try and cheat," the voice paused as the cages lowered, "then they will be made to pay the penalty in your place." Applejack gasped in shock and horror at the sight of the two new ponies who had been brought into this mess; her brother and her sister. "No! Not them! Please don't do this!" she pleaded, her confidence thoroughly shattered at this new revelation and turn of events. So much for having this situation in the cleft of her hoof. "Then you have little choice but to follow the rules. Now... pick which one of your friends you're willing to sacrifice the others for," the voice commanded. Applejack didn't want to do any of this. But she knew that she didn't have any choice in the matter. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to available decisions, and no matter what she did, there were going to be horrible consequences to be had all around. How could she choose between her friends and her family? How could she possibly choose which of her friends she cared about less than the others, to the point she was willing to kill them? But if she didn't made the choice, it was going to be made for her. "Girls, ah'm so, so sorry for this," she stated and gulped, before closing her eyes, reaching out in front of her, and grabbing at the closest lever. Spike's scream assaulted her ears, followed by the sound of the cage dropping and crashing into the lava. Maybe he'd be alright, seeing as he'd been exposed to lava before with no ill effects during the whole dragon migration clusterbuck they'd all faced. But she didn't have time to think on that, as she hurried over to the next lever to pull on it. One by one, choices were made, One by one, friends were sacrificed in the name of protecting family. By now the outside world was shrinking around her, her vision tunneling from one lever to another. She honestly couldn't tell who was the next to follow after Spike, or in what order they were dropped to their death in the lava below. And she honestly couldn't bear to keep track of who was dying, and the fact that she was the one who was killing them. "Excellent..." Applejack could practically feel the voice cutting through the haze of her mind, forcing her attention back into the world at large, and on the one remaining pony left out of the six she'd been forced to choose from. Just seeing their faces almost made her sick where she stood. "This was a development I didn't see coming. I had money on somepony else being the last to live," the voice stated. "Like ah care," Applejack replied, "ah'm done. Ah played yer damn game, ah'm done. Let the rest of 'em go!" The voice merely laughed in response. It was a bellowing, riotous laugh of utter amusement. And that fact alone was enough to make Applejack's anger evaporate and be replaced with a sense of fear, afraid to even wonder what might be next. "Played the game? My dear little earth pony, this was just the elimination round to determine the participants. Now the real fun begins!" Applejack watched, unsure what to think or feel, as three of the switches retracted back into the ground just as they'd appeared, now nowhere to be seen. The two levers that were still in the rearward position slowly reset themselves with loud accompanying clicks, locking them forward again. And then it was the sound of more heavy gear machinery, as the two cages that held her brother and sister were moved closer to the one remaining cage, until they were all in line with an accompanying switch. "The one you didn't sacrifice. You love her, right?" the voice asked her. "Ah love all mah friends," Applejack replied. "Cute answer, seeing as now she is all of your friends that're left. Now no more cuteness. You love her, don't you? That's why you didn't drop her into the lava, isn't that right? She means more to you than any of the others, doesn't she?" Applejack couldn't bear to answer the question. She remained silent, hanging her head in response, unwilling to say a word. "Answer me! Or I'll make one of the others pay the penalty for you!" the voice barked. "Do. You. Love. Her?" "Yes!" Applejack finally yelled in response to the question, unable to keep her composure anymore, as more disturbing thoughts began to pour into her mind. What if it hadn't been random selection guiding her hoof? What if instead it had been an unconscious decision on her part to dump the others into the lava? "That's a good little filly," the voice mocked her. "Now tell me who you love more. Your friend... or your family? Which would you willing sacrifice to save the other?" "No! Please, please don' make me do this! Please!" Applejack pleaded. Surely she wouldn't be forced to go this far. Nopony could be so cruel as that... right? "Well the politeness is appreciated. But I'm afraid I can't do that. Somepony important to you has to die now. The only question is who will it be? The choice is yours. And don't make me have to remind you, yet again, of what will happen if you don't comply. Because this time the consequences will be much more significant," the voice warned. Applejack gulped. She didn't even want to think about what "much more significant" meant in circumstances like this. "The clock is ticking, little Applejack, and let me tell you, it's not going to get any cooler around here by waiting! Your brother might be able to withstand the heat, but little Apple Bloom is soon about to feel the excruciating agony of having her entrails barbecued from the inside out! Now pick! Who are you going to kill in order to save the other!?" Impossible choice after impossible choice. Applejack didn't know how much more of this she could take. She was already starting to feel like her sanity was slipping away from her, from the sheer degree of sadism she was being subjected to. How could anypony actually make such decisions? Shutting her eyes, she reached out and grabbed the closest lever, before wrenching it all the way rearward. She was met with the sound of the cage falling, chain rattling in the process, as the sacrificed pony fell to their death down below in the lava, screaming all the way down. "Well, well, well. I'm certainly glad that I'm no friend of yours. To think that you'd kill each and every one of them, just to save your family. It's all rather depressing really..." "Shut up! Jus' shut up!" Applejack yelled as she fought to hold back the tears. "Oh I'm sorry, but we're not done just yet. There's one more round we have to play, before the game has ended." "NO!" Applejack yelled in horror, realizing just what that last round was going to entail. "Please! Please don' make me kill mah brother er sister! Please, not that! Anythin' but that!" she begged. "Make you? My dear little Applejack, I'm not making you do anything. It was entirely your decision to kill your friends in the name of protecting your family. Just like how it's entirely your decision of which one of your siblings gets to live to see another day," the voice stated mockingly, in a tone that was too sarcastically sincere to ignore. "So get to choosing. Before they both die, and you're left with nothing!" the voice finished in a far more menacing tone than previously. Applejack wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to curse the voice, the world, and anything else around her, in an effort to vent the emotional turmoil that was within her. But none of that was going to do her any good right now, as she sat here, pondering the horrors before her. No matter what decision she made, it was going to be the wrong one. She was going to make the wrong one, and sompony was going to die because of it. How was she possibly supposed to choose between her big brother, and her little sister? "Five seconds. You have five seconds to save one of them. Otherwise you lose both of them! Five! Four! Three!" Applejack wanted to protest. But her mind seized up, and the words died in her throat. There was nothing she could do now, except for one thing. Shutting her eyes as tightly as she could, she reached out and grabbed hold of the lever closest to her, and pulled it back with all of the might her earth pony heritage afforded her, until it locked into place with a resounding click. This time she didn't even hear the scream, as it was drowned out by her own unrestrained crying. One problem with maintaining a property as big as Sweet Apple Acres, was the difficulty that was encountered whenever it was necessary to locate a pony. Big Macintosh knew this fact quite well. And despite being well versed in the layout of each of the orchards, that didn't make finding Applejack any less difficult a task to accomplish. Carrot Top was over for dinner on this fine evening. But that wasn't anything new really. Being a fellow farmer, as well as their closest neighbor, it wasn't unusual for the orange-maned mare to be over once or twice a week, to partake in the company and hospitality that the Apple family was so well regarded for, swapping crop talk, and helping in the preparation of a joint meal; usually some of the tastiest vegetable soup encountered. Of course that hospitality meant a number of different things. And when company was involved, that meant actually coming in and sitting down to dinner, regardless of the state of the chores. It was simply the polite thing to do under such circumstances. And in this case, that meant Big Macintosh going out to try and find his sister, and drag her back to the house, knowing that she had the habit of getting distracted when she got task oriented, and didn't always have the sense to come in out of the rain. That was a fact he knew for himself all too well. "Applejack! Quit yer hidin' already! It's supper time!" he called out, hoping his voice would travel far enough to snap his sister out of whatever distraction had worked its magic over her. The response he got, however, wasn't anything like what he was expecting. Instead of Applejack announcing her presence, and possibly calling him a lunkhead for interrupting her work, he was met by the immediate sound of crying, followed by what sounded like intense -and painful- vomiting going on. Now he was at least one step beyond simply being concerned, and was beginning to border on panic. In a flash he galloped over to where it sounded like the commotion was coming from. She was a lot further away than he'd initially thought, suggesting all the commotion was actually much louder than what his ears had picked up. When he finally did find her, her face was streaked with tears, her front covered in puke, and she was in the process of choking and struggling before finally being able to breathe again. And once she did manage to breathe, the crying started again. "Uh... Applejack?" Big Macintosh asked as he cautious approached where she sat. What could've gotten her so upset? Had she eaten something that didn't agree with her? "B-Big Mac?" Applejack asked as she looked up at the sound of his voice, coughing in the process. As she looked at him just standing there, her eyes once again started tearing up and spilling over. "A-a-ah'm so sorry, Big Mac, ah'm so sorry!" she whimpered as she started crying all over again. Confusion. That was the only thing that came to his mind right now. Big Macintosh didn't know just what was wrong, or even how to go about correcting it. All he knew for certain was that his sister was in a great deal of need right now, and -as much as he wished otherwise- elder sibling duty demanded that said need had to be seen to by him, vomit or no vomit. That meant crossing over to where she sat as she cried, and hugging her close to give her the physical comfort she needed right now. And now that he thought about it, he might just skip the vegetable soup tonight.