Just an Old Ponytale...
Chapter 1-
'The candle light was swiftly fading as crashing noises could be heard coming from the door. Suddenly, a hoof broke through. Twilight looked to the ground and let out a sigh. "I'm sorry everypony..." she said as the darkness around her slowly engulfed the candle. "I'm... sorry..."
It was a wind-raged, stormy day in the small town of Ponyville. The pegasi (mainly Rainbow Dash) had once again forgotten to keep up with the years normal weather schedule. This, of course, meant that there would have to be a doozy of a downpour to make up for lost rain and everypony was outside preparing the town for the incoming storm. Twilight was just finishing up on bundling a large pile of branches when Applejack walked up beside her. "Hey there sugarcube! How ya comin' along there?" the farm pony asked in a sort of enthusiastic voice.
"Pretty good." Twilight responded. "Just finishing up on my part of the preparations. How about you? How are you coming along Applejack?"
"Just finished my part as a matter of fact." Applejack proudly proclaimed. "Just seein' if anypony needed a hand er somethin'."
"Actually..." Twilight's voice perked, "I'm working on a project with Zecora and need help with a potion for something-" Applejack sharply cut her off.
"Now, hold on there sugarcube. Don't you tell me that ya done got yerself all involved with Zecora's... oh, whatcha call it... whatever it is that she does." Applejack asked with a concerned tone. The winds started to pick up around the two ponies as everypony else was moving on into their houses for the weather.
"No, no. It's nothing like that at all. You see, I was just curious about her culture and how she does things." Twilight calmly answered. Too calmly to fool Applejack. The rain was setting in as it started to drizzle.
"Don't lie to meh Twi. You and meh both know there's somethin' more to it." The drizzle quickly turned into a downpour in just a few seconds. The two ponies were soaked almost instantly. The wind bellowed as it beat the droplets of rain on the two friends.
"Come with me to the library. We can talk more later once we clear out of this storm." The two started making their way to Twilight's. It didn't take too long for Applejack and Twilight to reach the library although their advance was greatly hindered by the strong wind currents of the storm. After fighting against the gusts of wind for what felt like an eternity, but in reality was no longer than a few minutes, the two finally crashed through Twilights door into the library. Twilight lit her horn and began to search around for another source of light.
"So....." Applejack said as to indicate that she still wanted to know, but didn't want to ask again. Twilight got the hint.
"The potion that I'm working on for Zecora will have the ability to turn ponies into undead zombies." Twilight bluntly stated. Applejack's jaw nearly hit the floor as the words passed through her ears.
"Wait a minute. Yer tellin' me that yer workin' on a potion to bring back the dead?" she asked in shock.
"Ah, you mis-judge me." Twilight smugly remarked as she found a candle stick and lit the end. She then proceeded to pull a book from one of her shelves. "Let's see, what page was it again?" she asked herself as she flipped through the book. She finally came across the page she was looking for. "See, Zecora comes from a exotic and distant land, and from where she comes there are many types of dark and mysterious magic." Twilight said as she pointed to the page in the book. "She is the only zebra left that knows how to make a cure if an outbreak were to ever to happen again."
"What do ya mean by happen again?" Applejack asked as she took the book from Twilight and started reading the pages.
"Well, legend has it that every five-thousand years there is a great shift in the planetary structure and causes a strange happening that triggers-" Applejack held up a hoof to signify for her to stop.
"Ya don't have to go much into detail Twi. If Ah don't believe ya ah can read it fer myself, right?" Twilight grunted.
"Well... To put it bluntly. Zecora needs me to make a potion that can raise and turn the living into undead so that she can study its attributes and counter-act the problem by making a cure." Applejack glanced at Twilight with great opposition.
"Then why couldn't she do it herself?" Applejack asked rather annoyed. "And more importantly, why are ya doing it? Dontcha think that this seems a bit... dangerous?"
"Zecora has gone back to her home to take care of her parents. They seem to have come down with something... well, bad." Twilight responded. "And yes, it is quite risky... but Zecora needs somepony she can trust with such a task and well... nopony else would do. Trust me, I wasn't too fond of the idea myself either. She basically begged me to help her." Applejack still wasn't having any of it.
"So let me get this straight. What yer tellin' me is that ya need mah help to make some fancy smancy potion that can turn others into mindless zombies so that Zecora can save us from some crazy epidemic?" Twilight nodded. Applejack looked at her with a very skeptical look. "How does this cure findin' process work exactly?" Twilight looked to the ground and kicked her front hoof around on the floor a bit.
"Well..." she started. "That's the thing. When we create this potion, Zecora will have to have some sort of test dummy to study for its effects." Applejack raised a brow at this. "I'm not saying you or anypony else! She will probably just go and find a graveyard somewhere to do the test on some already deceased ponies." Applejack still was very doubtful.
"Ah thought that zombies was just an old ponytale ta scare tha little 'uns into not goin' out at night." Applejack stated.
"That's exactly what I thought too." Twilight said. "But you can never be too careful with these type of things. Besides, Zecora wouldn't lie to me about something like this, would she?"
"Ah guess not, but ah'm still don't know about this Twi. Your messing with something your not familiar with." She looked at her friend in defeat. "What do ya need me ta do?"
Twilight's face lit up at the hearing of this. "Wait... so you'll help me?"
"If it's ta save Equestria from some crazy legend about undead ponies then sure, why not?" Applejack still greatly disliked the idea all in general.
"Yay!" Twilight squealed as she clapped her hooves together. "Alright, let's get started. The materials are upstairs. Follow me." Twilight led Applejack upstairs where a table was partially set-up with a few beakers and some random ingredients right below a glass window. "O.K. Applejack, your part's easy. All you have to do is hand me the ingredients as I call them out to you." she said as she was finishing up on fixing the table for the experiment they were about to conduct.
"Hey, where's Spike?" Applejack asked as she waited for Twilight to hurry up and finish with the table.
"Spike's with the princess on a very important mission deep in the north." Twilight answered.
"What kind of mission?" Applejack inquired.
"Dragon diplomacy."
"Oh." Twilight finished setting up when another question popped into Applejack's mind. "So... when is this here ummm... zombie, magic, shift thing gonna happen anyway?" Applejack asked as Twilight set a note of materials needed for the potion on the table and began to work.
"From our calculations, it should happen within a few weeks actually." Twilight stated quite composed. "Ground pepper please." Twilight held out a hoof.
"WHAT! A few weeks!" Applejack gasped as she handed Twilight the bag of pepper. "Why haven't you told any of us about this?"
"Because of that reason right there." Twilight answered. "I don't want everypony freaking out over something that we can easily prevent. Palm leaf." she said mixing in a few more ingredients before holding out her hoof again.
"But what if yer wrong and we can't prevent it?" Applejack theorized.
"I thought you didn't believe in that kind of stuff Applejack." Twilight joked. "Anyway, we only need one more ingredient. Potato." Twilight held out her hoof once more.
"Potato?" Applejack asked as though the thought of a potato being a component confused her.
"Come on Applejack, we have to finish this potion quickly or it won't work properly, then we would have to start over from scratch. I don't have enough Blue Grass to have something like that happen. It's the last ingredient and then we are done. Potato."
Applejack swiftly was able to locate a potato and handed it over to Twilight who ground it in with the rest of the materials. Twilight then took what she had created and poured the contents into the beaker. The liquid inside bubbled as it changed from crystal clear to muddy brown. "Perfect!" Twilight said as she looked at the potion with pride. "My first potion, and it's to save Equestria. Sounds like a accomplishment if you ask me."
"Yea, some accomplishment." Applejack stated under her breath. Twilight heard her, but pretended not to.
"If from what Zecora tells me is correct, this potion has the ability to turn any living or dead creature into a bonified zombie with one drop to the tongue." Twilight then turned to Applejack. "I will deliver it when she comes back from taking care of her parents. Thank you for helping me. Would you like to stay the night Applejack? The weather only seems to be getting worse." The rain was absolutely flowing outside and the winds were in a frenzy.
"Ah'm glad ah could help save Equestria and all, but Ah think ah should be on mah-"
CRASH
A tree busted through the wall right on top of the table the potion was laying on, knocking Twilight and Applejack to the ground. The potion was air born from the crash. Twilight quickly looked up and saw to her horror that the potion landed right into Applejack's mouth. Applejack involuntarily gulped...