Dimensional Travel and Celery Stalks
or
The Opposite of Pinkie Pie
Applejack wiped her brow with the back of her foreleg. She'd had a busy couple of days, helping the Rye family bring in their crop between the frequent rains.
They'd begun to plant a patch of rye over in the next valley. The soil was poor and rocky, and unfit to grow much else in—for that reason, it'd gone unplanted for years.
Unfortunately, since the land had lain unused for so long, the weather patrols had the habit of using the airspace above the valley to warehouse their surplus rain clouds. The Rye family had contacted the Cloudsdale office of the Weather Bureau, and been assured that the practice of parking rain clouds there indiscriminately would be brought to a halt—but old habits die hard, and the frolicking pegasi of the weather details were prone to inattentiveness.
The Weather Bureau had been evasive when pressed for which of the weather teams were assigned territories near the valley. Papa Rye had his suspicions, but the pegasi were usually flying too high for him to see clearly. One that stood out seemed gray with a yellow or golden mane; but there was no way he could discern a cutie mark at that distance with his ailing vision.
A complaint to the Weather Bureau would usually result in at least a couple of sunny days, at least until enforcement became lax again. It was during one such period the Rye family had been hustling to bring in the crop before it could get rained on again and ruined.
The land had been soggy even after a couple of sunny days to dry out. Applejack had had to clear a few pounds of mud off her hoofs at the end of each day, and had begun to monitor her hooves carefully for rot.
As it happened, they'd harvested the last couple of rows of rye as it began to drizzle, and had barely made it to the barn by the time a downpour had started.
The last few bundles had been spread out to dry in the barn, and Applejack trudged back from the valley, looking forward to some leisure time to relax in Ponyville with friends before returning to Sweet Apple Acres.
The sun felt good on her coat. She was glad to escape the overcast gloom of the valley. She spotted a purple unicorn in a sunny field.
"Heya Twilight, whatcha doin'?"
Applejack walked up to her friend, who was standing in an open meadow surrounded by books, papers, and scrolls, all spread out on the grass. Most of them were open, and the papers were held down and the scrolls held open by a haphazard array of stones, some of which seemed to have been plucked hastily from the ground. Some of them were shedding dry clods of dirt into her notes, and others were leaving damp spots from the fresh earth still stuck to them. Luckily, there wasn't much of a breeze.
"I'm about to further my investigation into—" she began excitedly, and then corrected herself. "I'm about to do an experiment…it has to do with a spell I'm working on."
"What kind of spell?"
"I want to open a dimensional rift!" the purple unicorn exclaimed proudly.
"You want to what now?"
"I want to create hole in the fabric of time and space…tear open the very substance of existence!" she explained happily.
"Uh…doesn't that sound a bit dangerous?" Applejack asked with a flatness in her voice that belied her concern.
"Not at all, not at all," Twilight waved dismissively with her hoof. Examining a page dark with crowded, scribbled figures, she said, "If my calculations are correct, it should take a great deal of energy to hold the rift open even for a moment—I'm not trying to open a portal right now…I just want to create a little hole, just to make sure my calculations are correct and that it can be done."
"Uh-huh…."
"Creating a rift is a very unnatural state," Twilight explained, falling into lecture mode. "It's as if the weight of all time and space is holding itself together. If you open a hole, it's like digging a hole in the ocean—the water will rush in to fill it. The tear will heal itself—the hard part is making the tear in the first place, and holding it open for any length of time."
"Uh…sooo…what do you want to do with a…with a hole in time and space?"
"Well, if I could get one to stay open, I could use it to fold space and travel great distances!" she beamed, clapping her front hooves together.
"Couldn't you just teleport?"
"Unicorns can only teleport short distances," she explained. Reigning in her irritation at the question, she reminded herself that Earth Ponies couldn't teleport, and wouldn't be likely to have much knowledge—or concern—about anything so irrelevant to their lives.
"And they usually can't carry much with them when they do teleport," Twilight continued. "If this works out, we'd be able to move things great distances—and anypony would be able to, without any more trouble than it takes to walk through a doorway!"
"I thought you said it'd take a great deal of energy—"
"Well, in the beginning, yes of course…but, once done, we might find a more efficient way of doing it…or even establish permanent gateways to other places!"
Twilight grinned almost madly at the Earth Pony, waiting for a reaction.
A silence ensued.
"So, like, what kind of places could you go?" Applejack queried slowly.
"Anywhere! Anywhere in Equestria!" Twilight said in a rush of breath. It was excitement and the thrill of discovery that was driving her frantic speech. "I could step from the library here in Ponyville right into the library at Canterlot! I could carry books back and forth in the blink of an eye, as quickly and easily as I could carry them from one room to another!"
Applejack looked at her, not very impressed with the possibilities it offered in terms of warehousing books.
Twilight floundered for a moment. This was big. "This is the kind of thing Star Swirl the Bearded was working on at the end of his career!" she protested.
"You mean that country music singer you dressed up as on Nightmare Night?" Applejack asked blankly.
Twilight growled her frustration. "You could do stuff like…you could pull a cart of your apples all the way to Manehattan in as much time as it took to cross the street!"
"I could sell our apples in Manehattan?" Applejack repeated, pricking up her ears. The earth pony was deafened momentarily by the 'cha-ching!' of a cash register bell that rang in her mind. Excitement began to creep into her voice as she speculated, "I bet our apples would fetch a pretty bit in Manehattan! Fresh from the orchard, at that!" A vision of a line of businessponies lining up to her cart on the sidewalk to buy apples from her danced before her eyes. "Imagine that," she murmured rapturously.
"Yes yes yes yes yes!" Twilight said, turning around in a circle tapping her front hooves together.
"Well, let's get to it!" Applejack exclaimed. After a moment's pause, she asked, "Uh…is it safe to stand here?"
"Yes, that's just fine," Twilight smiled. With a toss of her head, she motioned with her horn toward the center of the meadow, away from Applejack. "The most propitious place to try should be over there, by the rock with the red paint on it!"
The rock was a couple strides away. The red paint was still glistening wet in the sun.
"So you're going to try it now?"
"Any minute now!" Twilight nodded feverishly. "It'll be the easiest to do when the celestial bodies fall into a particular alignment!"
"The celery what?"
"The celestial bodies—the stars, the moon!"
"Ah…gotcha."
"Okay…here goes…" Twilight said, taking a last glance at a sheet of figures close to her front-right hoof. Instinctively, she took a broad stance and lowered her head. Her horn began to glow.
The glow increased. Sparks began to jump and fizzle from the point of her horn, and it began to glow bright enough to cast a purple hue on the grass and flowers in the full daylight of the afternoon.
A point of light popped into existence about a stride to the left of the painted boulder, throwing off a few rays of energy. Twilight's face twisted with effort and she grunted as the light wavered and flickered, and then began to grow steadily.
The "hole" grew suddenly larger and maintained its size; it was large enough to push a carrot through, but too small to admit an apple. It wavered a moment, dilated again.
The edges of the hole were a blazing orange, like the fleeing edge of a piece of paper that was burning. Air seemed to be drawn through the rift, or perhaps out from the rift. Was it breathing?
Twilight ground her teeth with effort. She could feel the hole, tugging one way and then another—it was almost like a living thing, straining this way, then that, unpredictably. Every tug threatened to snap the rift shut.
She'd underestimated the turbulence involved as the hole tried to close itself.
She spread her hooves further. They burrowed into the earth as though a huge weight was bearing down on her.
Suddenly there was a loud "Crack!"
More quickly than it could be perceived, the hole fell to the ground, growing with a roar. It seemed to stop a moment when it contacted the ground. Then it grew and raced toward them, throwing the grass and dirt into the air, gouging a trough as it ripped toward them.
Twilight let out a yelp. Dirt was thrown into her eyes and mouth as the ditch ripped past her.
Applejack was rooted to the spot. She didn't really see it until after it'd happened, it'd all happened so fast. Not afraid of much, the terror rose in her—she'd never seen anything so fast or destructive, and it was rushing right at her. At its rate of growth, it'd be nearly large enough to swallow a barn by the time it reached her.
She spun on her hooves, digging into the ground to propel herself forward, away from the rampaging rift.
The ground seemed to become fluid beneath her hooves, though, and instead of digging in, her hooves pushed through it. It felt as though she were above a void, and the entirety of the ground was but a hoof deep—and in her terror, she'd punched through it.
She kicked, but didn't move.
Well, she moved plenty, but not in the direction she'd been intending. She felt herself being drawn backward. She tumbled into a barrel-roll, as though she'd fallen onto her side…but she hadn't fallen onto anything. She was just falling.
It was an odd sensation—falling without landing. She couldn't tell which way she was falling, either—it felt more as though gravity had shifted, and she was falling kind of sideways and uppish.
She was surrounded by a soft, roiling cloud of dirt and grass blades, with a roar that blotted out all other perception for a moment.
As she passed into the vortex, the sand and dirt she was being pelted with stopped stinging her. Then the roar subsided, and everything felt still.
She looked around. She had neither landed nor stopped moving, though.
Then things got weird.
She felt forces tugging at her. She felt as though she were being squeezed and stretched at the same time, as though her bones were turning into a gooey liquid and her head was being squeezed.
Just when she thought she couldn't take any more, and was about to scream, the roar returned. It seemed more powerful this time, and the air had a different quality—it didn't smell of sunny meadow and grass—it smelled of dank and grime and wet stones.
Then something slammed her entire body with more force than she thought she'd ever experienced.
Twilight's cry of "RUN!" was lost in the roar of the rift. Her vision was blurred from the dirt being thrown into her eyes and the resultant tears. Her chest was tight with fear—not fear for herself, but fear for her friend. Her heart leapt with relief when she saw Applejack spring gracefully back and turn, out of the path of the rift, and gather herself up to fly off at a full gallop.
From where she stood, it looked as though the hole were rolling. As a multidimensional thing, or lack of thing, her brain could only process it as a 3-dimensional object…it was a boulder of non-existence rolling and growing, tearing up the earth as it went.
She watched with horror as the rift veered suddenly to the side, altering its course to rip right through the grass where Applejack had begun to run.
Applejack was easily the fastest earth pony she had ever seen. The rift overtook her as though she were standing still.
There was another loud rushing sound and a snap.
Twilight stood, blinking in the meadow. There was a rustle as all the airborne dirt fell to the grass at once, and then silence.
"AJ? Applejack?" she cried out. Her voice was rough from the dirt she'd inhaled, and muted by remorse.
The gouge in the earth had broadened and deepened as it went, reaching its largest just past the place Applejack had been standing. Two strides further, and it diminished to nothing, marking the place where the rift had winked out of existence.
If Applejack had gotten two strides further, she would still have been in Ponyville.
Applejack's eyes were open, but she had the distinct impression of not seeing anything.
She was looking at something, but it seemed unreal, and didn't make any sense.
Slowly her thought returned to her. Then she realized she was resting nearly upside-down, her head on the pavement, and her body leaning upward against a wall.
"Get a job, rummy!" a crass voice yelled at her, and moved on.
"Yep. This is Manehattan, all right," she said aloud.
Applejack sighed. She rolled over onto the ground, stood up, and shook herself out.
She looked around. It was grimier than she remembered it from when she'd been there as a filly. It smelled different, too—it was an unfamiliar smell she couldn't place.
"Heck if she didn't get me all the way to Manehattan!" Applejack marveled, and then chuckled.
Ponyville was a long way off; while she was in town, she might as well look up Aunt and Uncle Orange, she figured.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she got closer to the street, and noticed that none of the carriages rushing past were being drawn by horses. They weren't all driven by unicorns, either, as she would have guessed—pegasi and earth ponies were driving them as well as unicorns.
"Out of the way, rube!" said a gruff voice as somepony jostled her on the sidewalk.
Applejack turned, her simple motion pushing back against the pony that had bumped into her. She wasn't a particularly large pony, but years of hard work and apple-bucking had left her solid and athletic—exceptionally athletic even for an earth pony.
"Eh-xcuse me?" she said, narrowing her eyes.
The other pony had stumbled from being pushed aside as she turned. He winced a little from her baleful glance, and mumbled "Uh…excuse me," before rushing off. He looked consciously away from her so as to avoid her gaze, hiding his face from her as he melted back into the crowd of ponies moving up and down the sidewalk.
Scanning the sidewalk, Applejack had never seen so many ponies with little goatee beards before. Must be some strange Manehattan fashion, she supposed.
She spied a familiar form—further down the sidewalk, a purple unicorn with a familiar gait.
"Twilight! Twilight!" she called out, making her way through the crowd.
It was Twilight's mane alright…a little tousled. The trip through the rift must've roughed her up a bit, too.
Applejack trotted up to her. "Twilight…so the rift got you too, huh?" she asked boisterously, touching the pony on the shoulder.
The unicorn turned. It was Twilight, alright.
Her brow furrowed for a moment. "Night," she corrected curtly. She looked Applejack up and down. "Night Comet…but friends just call me 'Night.'"
"What the hay, Twilight? You fall on your head?" Applejack asked, confused.
"I think you have me confused with somepony else, Sensible Shoes."
"Sensi—what's wrong with my shoes?"
"Nothing," Night said, her mouth twisting. She sputtered into laughter.
"Twi, quit fooling around—"
Just then there was a break in the crowd, and Applejack took in Night's full form.
On her flank was a pale purple shooting star, against the darker purple of her coat.
Applejack's mouth dropped open. "S-sorry," she stuttered.
Night was the very vision of Twilight Sparkle…she even sounded like Twilight.
"I guess I do have you confused with somepony else."
"Very confused, I'd say."
Applejack didn't quite like Night's tone…it was as tart as Twilight's could be, at times. Applejack was so flummoxed at being confronted by this doppelganger that she took no lasting notice.
Manehattan was as big as cities got, Applejack thought. It wouldn't be surprising to run into somepony who looked just like somepony she knew.
With the same coat.
And the same mane.
And the same voice.
"So, Sensible Shoes, new in town?"
"Yeah…no…sorta," Applejack replied. "I used to live here a long time ago…I'm just kinda back for a visit."
"Been gone a while," Night observed dryly.
Night looked Applejack up and down, appraising her. There was a silence. Night broke it by observing, "You look pretty fast, though…wanna race?"
Race? Applejack wondered. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around this pony somehow not being Twilight Sparkle.
"I know where there'll be some clear sidewalk," Night called over her shoulder, leading the way.
Uneasily, Applejack followed. The way the purple unicorn's muscles rippled beneath her coat suggested a filly more athletic than Twilight was…maybe even as athletic as Rainbow Dash. She was about to say, "No teleporting," but as she watched the unicorn's confident gait, she doubted the unicorn would have had to resort to any such measure to win a race.
Applejack was a match for Rainbow Dash…she didn't doubt she could be a match for a delusional Twilight Sparkle, or Night, or whoever this unicorn actually was.
They walked along. Applejack was aware of the loud 'clack!' of her steel-shod hooves on the pavement. She was even a little aware of her own accent…not embarrassed, just aware, in a way she hadn't been since she was a young filly taking voice lessons from her Aunt Orange. "What the hay's wrong with my shoes?" she grumbled.
They rounded a corner, revealing a block with nopony on it.
"Race you to the far corner!" Night called out. She crouched down, waiting for Applejack to take a starting stance.
"You're on!"
Night coiled and launched herself forward, taking a long, graceful leap. She landed, stuck it, and stood there looking over her shoulder at Applejack.
Applejack started a moment later, launching herself shortly after Night did.
Only, it didn't work that way.
Her feet slid out from under her. She'd pushed too hard, and her steel shoes skittered across the pavement, finding no hold. The wind was forced out of her as her chest met the pavement.
Night burst out laughing, but, to her credit, did choke it down to a sputtering giggle after her first outburst.
Applejack growled, gritting her teeth. She picked herself up in a smooth movement, using the slipperiness of her shoes on the pavement to push herself up by simply drawing her legs together.
Nice move! Night thought to herself, impressed. She made a mental note to herself to try and practice the trick sometime.
"Okay…ready?" Night said, once she'd finally overcome her laughter. She took her stance, and Applejack followed suit. They launched off again, this time Applejack taking care to apply her power to the pavement sparingly.
She got two strides up the sidewalk, and instinctively began to dig.
Night was still standing at their "starting" line, having just hunched down and only stood up when Applejack took off.
Applejack's shoes were throwing off sparks as they ground against the pavement. She inched forward, actually losing momentum. There was a great deal of movement and noise, however.
Night's mirth seemed to increase with Applejack's rage.
Applejack slowed to a trot, building speed even more gradually and carefully.
Then she fell.
She fell again…and again. Grinding her teeth with fury, she could see nothing but the far end of the block, focused with a singular desire to get there…faster than Night.
Night just stood there, watching the orange earth pony's progress up the block.
When Applejack had made it two thirds of the way, and actually began to find her pavement legs, Night took off like a shot. From a perfect launch, she blazed past Applejack…and came to a quick dead halt just short of the corner.
Applejack's teeth were creaking from her grinding of them. Her nostrils were flaring, her eyes were wide, glazed, and bloodshot. She'd built up a head of steam by the end of the block.
Night's mane was ruffled by the breeze of Applejack jetting past her.
"Ha!" said Applejack triumphantly, overtaking the cocky unicorn.
Applejack's teeth chattered as her hooves skittered across the uneven pavement, still casting sparks. Her shoes weren't any grippier for stopping than they were for starting. She wasn't slowing down much, and she was rapidly running out of sidewalk.
She did a faceplant into a light post, which rang like a discordant piano. The force of her impact shook the powerlines.
Night trotted over, bending down. With a little too much mirth in her voice, she said, "You win, Sensible Shoes."
Applejack mumbled into the base of the lamp post. "Uncle."
Applejack's forehead was throbbing, and her hat misshapen from her meeting with the lamp post. She'd left a dent in the post, too…if somepony looked closely, her likeness could nearly be seen.
Despite her amusement, Night felt a little sheepish about the trick she'd played on the strange earth pony, and treated her to a hearty dinner.
"So, you have anyplace to stay in town?" Night asked, after wolfing down three platefuls of grass and daisies in a very un-Twilight-like manner.
"I've got some relatives…but I'm not sure where they live."
"Who are they? Maybe I know 'em."
"The Oranges?"
"Oh, the Oranges!" Night exclaimed.
"You know them?"
"Everypony knows the Oranges!" Night exclaimed. "Especially Suave Orange. I've even met him a couple of times—his kid sister, Blossom Orange, is a good friend of mine. They just moved recently, though, and I haven't seen their new place yet. Dust Cloud would know where she lived."
Blossom Orange? Thought Applejack. Something about the name made it stick in her mind. "Could we go find this Dust Cloud? It's getting late, and I'm gonna need a place to stay…."
"No problem! Even if she doesn't know where they are, I bet you could stay in Dusty's workshop…it's huge."
After a moment's thought, Night added, "If she doesn't keep you awake by working on her machinery all night, that is…."
The sky began to darken. "That's funny…it doesn't feel like rain…." Applejack observed.
"Rain?" Night repeated. "Who said anything about rain?"
"The sky's getting dark."
"Uh, the sun's setting?" Night said.
It'd been shortly after noon when Applejack had witnessed Twilight's dimensional-rift experiment…it couldn't be sunset already.
Applejack stopped in her tracks. She hadn't been out cold, she didn't think—just stunned by her passage through the rift. She couldn't have been stunned for more than a few minutes. It was too early for sunset.
Night turned around.
"Really?" Applejack asked.
"Really what?"
"The sun's setting?"
Night was going to make a flip remark…but the confusion on Applejack's face stopped her. "Uh, yeah," she pronounced instead, inflecting it with slightly more than two syllables.
The look on Applejack's face spooked Night a little. "We'd better get you to Dusty's," Night said, thinking to herself, maybe Dusty can help this strange disoriented pony.
"Hello-ooo!" sang a voice behind them. "Hey, Night! Hey, Blo—oh, who's your friend?"
Applejack turned and gave a start. A soot-black unicorn was trotting up to them; in the dimming light, the flat, dark quality of her coloring made her appearance look like an absence of light—like a hole or a void of some sort was advancing on them. The impression was enough to trigger Applejack's memory of the rift tearing unstoppably toward her; she felt a queasy feeling in her belly.
Applejack swallowed, relieved to realize that it was just a unicorn.
"Hey, Anthracite—this is Applejack! She's new in town!" Night called out easily.
"Pleased to meet you!" the black unicorn called out, but oddly, stopped a few strides short of them instead of advancing to meet them.
A moment later, Applejack saw why—as she shook herself out, the blackness of her coat turned out to be dust. A black, sooty cloud rose from her coat, wafting silently away.
Beneath the dust, her coat had a much lighter color. Her hard hat clattered to the ground, emitting a poof of black dust when it hit, as she shook herself again. A black steel lunchbox clattered to the sidewalk beside her helmet.
Coiled under that hat, and consequently free of the dust, was a lustrous mane of a deep, gem-like purple hue. It was bound by a short length of ribbon, not unlike the way Applejack wore her own hair. The line on her forehead that had been protected by the helmet showed her coat to be a gleaming white.
"Rarity?" Applejack gasped in amazement.
"What's rare?" asked the unicorn offhoofedly, as she dropped to the pavement and began to roll and wiggle around, trying to wipe some more of the dust out of her coat. She left some dark smears in the pavement, but her coat was still a dingy gray. She'd shed enough of the dust to reveal at least the outline of her cutie mark, which appeared to be three black rocks. Her own shoes flashed in the waning light, the steel polished bright by many long hours walking on rock.
She nuzzled the ground, slowly gyrating against it to scratch herself here and there.
Anthracite giggled, now on her back with all four hooves in the air. "Hey, I love your shoes!" she said almost giddily, smiling at Applejack. "They're a lot less worn out than mine!"
The dirty unicorn sounded exactly like Rarity…and her mane was too fine and glossy to be anypony else's.
But Rarity could never be so pleased to be rolling around on the ground, much less with black dust all through her coat. Heck, she'd even come through her ordeal of being imprisoned underground by the diamond dogs without getting her coat soiled.
Anthracite jumped up, having rid herself of as much of the black dust as she was likely to. When she closed the distance between them, Applejack got a whiff of the strange smell she'd been encountering all over Manehattan.
"Are you here to work in the mines?" Anthracite asked pleasantly. Her horn glowed beneath its covering of dust, distracting Applejack's attention momentarily by the effect it gave to the light. Anthracite's hard hat was surrounded by a glow and lifted up, coming back to rest on her head.
"The mines?" Applejack repeated, and then shook her head briskly. "No…I'm, uh…here to visit family."
"Ah…welcome to Manehattan, then!" Anthracite exclaimed. "You work in the mines back home?"
"Mines? Why would I work in mines?" asked Applejack, perplexed.
"You look like you could pull a mean wagon full of ore…we always need good strong ponies in the mines," Anthracite observed affably. "And your shoes! You look like somepony who spends a lot of time walking over rocks."
"Well, a little, I guess…I work on the family farm."
A silence ensued. The wheels of Applejack's mind were turning. A unicorn who looked exactly like Twilight Sparkle, but wasn't, and enjoyed running—and was good at running. Not to disparage Twilight, but nopony would mistake her for an athlete…and this Night pony was fast.
Now, a unicorn who had Rarity's exquisite mane, rich voice…and, somewhere under all that dust, a white coat, who wasn't Rarity, and didn't mind being dirty.
Anthracite's coat was ruffled from her roll on the pavement…hanks of it stood up in disarray, rising this way and that. She seemed gleefully oblivious of her appearance.
"Uh…what do you mine for?" Applejack asked, finally.
"Coal," she said. It struck Anthracite as kind of a stupid question—she'd arrived in her mining hat, covered in coal dust—but she wasn't going to say anything unkind to this new pony. Applejack's eyes crossed in confusion for a moment, but righted themselves.
"We were on our way to Dusty's," Night chimed in brusquely.
"Oh, Dusty's!" Anthracite exclaimed. "I have to go see her myself…some issues with the mining equipment, and whatnot."
As they turned to go, Applejack leaned toward Anthracite, asking quietly a question she suspected might sound stupid, and didn't want Night to hear. "Rar—An—anthr'cite? What do you do with coal?"
"Why, you burn it, dear," she smiled. "It burns a lot hotter than wood…the fires of industry can't burn on wood alone!"
After they'd gone up the sidewalk a ways, Anthracite added, "and call me Ant! It's a lot easier than 'Anthracite'…and I spend a lot of time underground, just like a happy little worker ant."
The wagons that were whizzing up and down the street were giving off smoke and soot. That was the smell of the place, it came to Applejack suddenly—the smell she hadn't been able to place—the sulphurous smell of coal burning everywhere.
This wasn't the Manehattan she knew.
They turned down an innocuous-looking side street. An immense building took up most of the block. Applejack was startled when they stopped beneath its great doors.
"In here?" Applejack asked, in amazement.
Applejack looked up, craning her neck. The pair of doors was immense…far taller than would be required to admit the largest barn in Sweet Apple Acres.
The doors were so large, there was a normal-sized door set in the foot of one of them. Rarity—Rarity's double, Anthracite, rather—knocked loudly twice on the door with her hoof, and without waiting for an answer, went inside.
"Hey, chief!" Ant called out.
Coming through the door, Applejack emerged into a crowded workshop. The acrid smells of coal, tar, and oils assaulted her nose. There were wheels and gears everywhere—easily enough to build at least half a dozen flour mills.
Examining one assemblage, Applejack jumped when she realized it was exactly like one of the carts in the street, only huge.
It was so huge, in fact, that she'd almost overlooked it entirely, seeing only the lower parts of the wheels—immense wood-spoked wheels, with bands of steel binding their outer perimeters. The parts were so large and distant from one another she hadn't noticed them to be parts of a whole; her initial impression had been that they were just odd structural members of the building.
It was parked right in front of the doors—poised, obviously, to be driven out when the need arose.
Looking up she saw two spherical boilers made out of shiny brass, each large enough to house a dozen ponies inside. Between the two and set back just a little was a tall, thick smokestack that gave vent to the fires that would heat both boilers.
The top of the immense vehicle seemed outfitted like a sailing ship, with several decks. It even had a couple of masts that were rigged for sails.
"Hey, guys!" called a scratchy voice from up above, startling Applejack again as she was just beginning to recover from the jolt of perceiving the towering vehicle.
The sepia-colored figure swooped down gracefully from the top of the vehicle, alighting in front of them.
"Blossom Orange! What are you doing dressed like that?" the pegasus exclaimed. "Is it the night of the masquerade ball already? My sweet Luna…have I forgotten it again?"
Applejack's mouth hung open. The pegasus was the very vision of Rainbow Dash—only with a light-brown coat instead of blue, and instead of her rainbow-colored hair was a mane and tail bearing stripes of different shades of brown. She was wearing a canvas apron, pockets filled with tools, most of which Applejack couldn't even describe. There was a pair of goggles hanging around her neck, another pair atop her head, and spectacles resting on her nose. Her mane was better kept than Rainbow's was…but only slightly. Instead of Dash's rainbow-lightning-bold-cloud cutie mark, this pegasus had only a dingy brown cloud.
The sepia-colored pegasus consulted three timepieces that were strapped to her left foreleg.
"Wait a minute," she observed. "The ball's not until March!" She looked at Applejack quizzically.
Blossom Orange? Applejack wondered. Apple Bloom?
Applejack shook her head. Maybe Twilight's experiment had slammed her in the head somehow, and she was experiencing some sort of hallucination.
The pegasus stepped forward, looking at Applejack curiously. "You're not Blossom Orange," she pronounced. Yet, she still came closer, gazing deeply into Applejack's eyes.
Applejack saw a flash of Rainbow Dash's intensity deep within this pegasus' eyes, and it sent a shiver down her spine.
"Yet…you are Blossom Orange," the brown Rainbow Dash said quietly—too quietly for anypony to hear besides Applejack. The confusion on the pegasus' face echoed the profound confusion and disorientation Applejack was feeling about the whole situation.
"This is Applejack," Night said abruptly, having taken no notice of the moment that seemed to be happening between Dust Cloud and Applejack. "Maybe you can help her."
"Oh…hello, everypony," the pegasus who apparently was Dust Cloud said, her awareness of the whole group restored. "Applejack…of course…pleased to meet you," Dust Cloud said rather properly.
"A pleasure, I'm sure," replied Applejack, automatically. Her accent seemed to her to hang in the air like molasses…yet, "a pleasure, I'm sure?" Why in Equestria would she ever say such a thing? The strangeness of this place must be getting to her….
But, Apple Bloom? Applejack thought. What was going on between Apple Bloom and Rainbow Dash in this weird world she'd been tossed into?
Applejack's temples began to throb, and the room swayed a little.
"Whoah there, Sensible Shoes!" Night said.
Applejack's head jerked up. She was up against Night, shoulder-to-flank; apparently, she'd begun to fall over, and Night had darted up beside her, propping Applejack's body up with her own.
"Thanks, Twi," Applejack murmured. "I mean, uh, Night."
Night's brow was furrowed with concern. Dust Cloud and Anthracite looked worried, too.
"You look like you could use a little rest," Dust Cloud said slowly.
"I guess…uh…I am a little tuckered out," Applejack admitted hesitantly. "I'm fine, though!" She restored her weight to her own hooves, and shook herself briefly.
"Still, it's getting late," Ant noted.
Night reminded her, "You wanted to get to the Oranges for a visit, right?"
"Oh, you know the Oranges?" Dust Cloud asked brightly. Then her face dimmed somewhat in disappointment. "It's far too late to bring you to the Oranges," she said with a little regret. "I have a very comfortable couch in my study—we can call on the Oranges tomorrow." "Besides," she whispered gravely to Ant and Night, "I'm not sure she could make it all the way to the Oranges."
"I'm just fine!" Applejack insisted with a stomp of her hoof. Even her sudden flash of anger had made her dizzy again, though. As proud as she was, and as much as she hated to admit it even to herself, she suddenly felt unsure she could walk any great distance. "But I don't want to be goin' around botherin' folks late at night…" she added, a little too hastily for her own satisfaction. "Are you sure it's okay, R—er, Dust Cloud?
"No problem at all," Dust Cloud assured her, with some relief in her voice.
Dust Cloud led Applejack to her study, with the other two ponies in tow. Applejack's eyelids were heavy, and she didn't form much of an impression of Dust Cloud's office beyond that it was as cluttered as Twilight's library on a bad day, and smelled even more heavily of books than Twilight's abode.
"I guess I am plum tuckered out," Applejack admitted quietly to herself as she reclined on the couch. The door closed, leaving her in the comforting embrace of darkness. Before the voices on the other side of the door had faded away into the distance, she'd begun to snore.
Dimensional Travel and Celery Stalks
or
The Opposite of Pinkie Pie
Applejack awoke slowly. There was some sort of argument happening outside the door, and she slept fitfully for a while, trying to ignore the noise. It kept tugging her toward wakefulness, though.
The voices were very familiar…Rainbow Dash's rough scratchy voice, and another familiar voice…although the other voice seemed to be speaking with an odd cadence and inflection. It reminded her of Apple Bloom…but the elegantly clipped syllables sounded like Rarity's refined speech. Half awake, Applejack would first assign the voice to Apple Bloom, then to Rarity, and then back again.
There were a few thuds, and Applejack thought she murkily heard words like "Jezebel" and "hussy."
There was a muffled "No you shouldn't—"
Then Applejack was wide awake. She jumped eight hooves straight up off the sofa, all four legs in the air as the door was flung open, smashing into the wall with a loud report. Although the door hadn't been locked, it'd been latched, and the knob was nearly broken out of the door where the hoof had stricken it open. The doorframe was shattered to splinters, and the strike plate was hanging down, swinging loosely on the one remaining screw that anchored it.
"Nyeangh!" Applejack exclaimed. Her limbs flailed, and she landed on the floor in a heap.
Applejack rubbed her eyes, still gritty from sleep. She was looking straight up into a familiar face.
Dust Cloud was still sputtering, "Darling, you shouldn't! We don't know what will—!"
"Apple Bloom?" Applejack asked.
The filly whose eyes she was gazing into blinked uncomprehendingly for a couple of moments.
"Blossom Orange," the filly finally corrected.
Applejack knew this filly.
But it couldn't be….
She felt like she was staring into a mirror, but also staring into the past. This—Blossom Orange—had the same-colored coat and flaxen hair as herself. Her mane was piled on top of her head, coifed in tight curls, as Applejack had worn her own hair as a young filly when she was staying with the Oranges.
"Oh, Dusty," Blossom Orange said, covering her mouth with her hoof. Barely audibly, she whispered, "How could I have doubted you?"
Blossom Orange backed up to allow Applejack room to stand up. Dust Cloud had rushed forward, but once Applejack had recovered her senses, she stood up quickly.
Blossom Orange was Applejack…she was the Applejack who could have been, if Applejack had stayed in Manehattan with her aunt and uncle Orange.
Blossom was petite and delicate…her movements and voice were refined.
Blossom gulped as she beheld herself…beheld, rather, what she could have been. She took another step backward, a little afraid of this large, powerful pony before her who somehow was her.
"So…Dusty…er, Dust Cloud…tells me…you call yourself…Applejack?" she asked, looking Applejack over warily, but with curiosity.
"Yes…so very pleased to meet you," Applejack said, echoing the pronunciation and cadence of Blossom's voice. Then she shook her head, suddenly embarrassed, lest she be mistaken for mocking Blossom's accent. More naturally, she said, "So…you're Blossom Orange?"
"Somehow," Blossom replied blankly.
Applejack skritched the back of her head. "So, uh…do you have…a kid sister?"
"Yes," Blossom nodded.
"I thought you would be her," Applejack said. Her own words seemed to be confusing her for a moment. She shook her head quickly to clear it.
"Well…at least nothing disastrous seems to have happened," Dust Cloud breathed in a sigh of relief. "I'm not nearly well-versed in dimensional theory…and this is so much more than…theory." Dust Cloud rested a hoof reassuringly over Blossom's shoulder. "So you feel it, too?" she asked.
Blossom nodded slowly. After the longest interval, she added in a breathy little voice, "But I don't know how it can possibly be…."
"Well, even I can understand, I'm apparently you," Applejack said. Then, having heard herself say it aloud, the implications began to weigh upon her.
"I quite honestly am baffled," Dust was saying. She added in a murmur, "And I think I speak for all of us…."
It was Applejack who finally broke the silence. "So what do we do now?"
"I don't know," admitted Dust.
Applejack's head was spinning. Twilight—Night Comet, rather—didn't seem to have Twilight's knowledge of magic. Night wouldn't be of any help getting her "home," whatever or wherever that was. Dust seemed to be the most learned pony of the group…and she'd already admitted not having any clue.
"What about Princess Celestia?" Applejack finally said, slowly.
"Mad Celestia?" Blossom gasped.
"Mad what now?"
Dust patted Blossom's shoulder reassuringly. "That's just an old mare's tale…."
Applejack felt her hopes dashed…Princess Celestia had been her final thought, the only being she could possibly think of who'd be able to help her. She was afraid to ask, but steeled herself to. "What about this…Mad Celestia?"
"Just a story told to frighten young foals," Dust explained dismissively, although Blossom still looked a little shaken. "They say Equisonia was ruled by two sisters…Princess Luna, who controlled the night, and Princess Celestia, who controlled the day. But Celestia was overcome by madness, and blighted Equisonia with the sun—nearly burned it to cinders with never-ending daytime. It is said that Princess Luna had to seal her up in the sun to keep her from wreaking any more havoc. Princess Luna assumed control over both day and night…and it's said that Celestia remains united with the sun to this very day…."
"It's also said that in a thousand years the stars will aid in her escape," Blossom murmured.
"Then…then who sits on the throne of Equest—Equisonia?" Applejack asked in amazement.
"Why…Princess Luna, of course…."
"And there's no Celestia?"
Dust shook her head. "Not outside of old mare's tales, anyway," she laughed. Then, after a moment, Dust added, "Princess Luna is wise and capable…I can't imagine there'd need to be more than one princess to rule."
"D'ya think Princess Luna might be able to help us?" Applejack asked.
"I can't think of anypony else who might," admitted Dust. "She's very accomplished with magics…and if she doesn't know herself, she would know somepony who would…."
"…or at least know where to start," Dust added a little nervously.
"So it looks like I'm gonna be here a while…." Applejack said glumly.
Nopony wanted to add, "Maybe forever…."
But they were all thinking it.
Dust Cloud tried to lighten the mood. "There's that party tonight at The Warehouse," she offered. "Everypony will be there."
Blossom felt as demoralized as Applejack did.
"A party?" Applejack repeated dully.
"Yes…it's Friday night," Blossom added in her precise, clipped little voice.
"Everypony will be there," Dust repeated. "You'll get to meet Flit…and of course Pinkie Pie will be there. I doubt there's any party in all of Manehattan that doesn't have Pinkie in attendance."
"Pinkie Pie?" Applejack repeated. A shudder shook her…it was the first name she'd recognized since arriving in Manehattan…this Manehattan.
She was becoming so acclimated to the strange, she felt almost fearful hearing of something so familiar. Everypony she'd met so far had seemed in some way or other to be the opposite of their familiar counterparts in Ponyville.
And, she wondered, what could possibly be the opposite of Pinkie Pie?
It no longer bothered Applejack that she had been swallowed by the rift on a Saturday afternoon, and the following day, in this Manehattan, was a Friday. Frankly, her head hurt too much contemplating such things, and she'd resolved just not to think too much about it, and simply take everypony's word for what they were telling her.
She did feel she was among friends—everypony she'd met was somehow the same as their counterpart. She felt as familiar with them as she'd felt with her friends back home…and having met only a day before, they felt eerily the same way about her.
Applejack didn't really know what to think about Blossom, though. She and Blossom couldn't have seemed more different…but they were clearly two iterations of the same pony.
As a young filly, Applejack had been burning with desire to visit Manehattan—her Manehattan.
But that had been so long ago, and she'd had so many years since, living a satisfying life at Sweet Apple Acres with Big Mac, Granny Smith, and Apple Bloom. Applejack could barely remember much about Manehattan, much less what it had been that had drawn her there.
For being the same pony, she and Blossom couldn't have been more different. Blossom was as refined as Rarity was back home in Ponyville.
Applejack couldn't help but giggle at the thought of Rarity. She supposed Rarity would be just as flummoxed by a meeting with Anthracite as she herself was with Blossom.
She was certain Rarity and Orange Blossom would get along "swimmingly" with one another, though…their meeting would have been a pleasure to watch.
The visit with the Oranges was uneventful. Blossom's little sister wasn't there—she was out at her music lessons. Suave wasn't there, either—Blossom explained proudly that he was a big star of the stage, and was out at rehearsals all day…and admitted a little sheepishly that he spent most of his nights partying at clubs with young starlets. Applejack had seen his red face with its exquisitely-trimmed hairline moustache and slicked-back mane all over town. Despite Suave's overwhelming resemblance to Big Mac, she hesitated to imagine her brother's counterpart basking in the admiration of the public eye…or in the eyes of young starlet fillies, as was apparently the case.
Applejack wondered exactly what her part in this new world was, if she was to be stuck there forever. Was she one of the Orange family? Was Suave her brother? And if Blossom was Applejack, and Applejack Blossom—it made her head spin.
Applejack spent the afternoon helping Dust work on her machinery. Applejack didn't know a whole lot about machinery, but she was strong and could help move things around. It was also good to have some simple work to keep her mind off her problems. It didn't surprise her that she was stronger than a dainty little society pony like Blossom…but knowing how athletic Rainbow Dash was in her own world, she was surprised and a little disappointed to find that she was notably stronger than Dust Cloud. When engrossed in her machinery, though, Dust was every bit as focused and obsessive as Twilight Sparkle could be.
It was a good thing that Dust was so engrossed in her work—it prevented Blossom from feeling any jealousy. Conversation was still a little halting and awkward between her and Applejack.
By early evening, Blossom and Applejack seemed to be warming to one another.
"So…Applejack," Blossom began in her well-modulated voice. "What's Dusty like in your world?"
Applejack inadvertently let out a snort, and a look of panic crossed Blossom's face. Not noticing Blossom's apprehension, Applejack said, "She's uh…very different. Goes by the name of Rainbow Dash, back home."
Blossom watched her intently.
"RD…well, she has a blue coat, and a rainbow-colored mane and tail."
"Oh my!"
"She's a great flyer…and a great runner. I reckon she'd give your Night Comet a run for her money. That there'd be a race I'd like to see," Applejack mused.
There was a long silence. Blossom seemed to be working up toward asking something.
"Applejack? In your world…you and this…Rainbow Dash…are the two of you—"
The two of them jumped as the door burst open, and Night bounded in, bellowing at the top of her lungs, "Party time!"
Two lengths behind her was Anthracite, who called out, "Quitting time, Dust—time to wrap up your things and get ready to go!"
Dust's head appeared out of a hatch in the machine she was working on, accompanied by the head of a spanner just beside it. "I just have a couple of adjustments—"
"NO!" Anthracite yelled back, stomping her hooves.
Blossom was giggling quietly into her own hoof—apparently it was an exchange they'd had often. "She's right, dear," Blossom chimed in gently. "You've been working hard all day, with hardly any break at all!"
"Quitting time's quitting time, and the shift whistle has blown over an hour ago," Anthracite continued. "I've gotten all cleaned up and ready for tonight."
Indeed, Anthracite's coat was the lightest shade of gray Applejack had ever seen it. The line where her hard-hat ended was barely visible, blurred by the bath she must have taken. The color of her coat was even enough throughout that it could have been mistaken for her natural color. Her mane was damp, and tied loosely in a practical fashion. Ant seemed to keep her mane and tail shorter than Rarity. Although not as long or as carefully groomed, her hair was easily the equal of Rarity's in its richness and deep color.
"There's one thing those heels of steel are good for, Sensible Shoes—and that's MAKIN' NOISE!" Night's front hooves pounded the floor in a flurry of applause that was surprisingly loud for how soft and grippy her shoes were. Playfully Anthracite drowned her out by pounding on the floorboards with her own steel shoes. Applejack joined in with a laugh.
Dust emerged from around the corner of one of her machines, shrugging off her tool apron as she went. Blossom was beside her, scrubbing at a spot of grease on Dust's face with a lace-trimmed hoofkerchief.
As the light of day fled from the sky, a dimmer, flickering half-light took hold of Manehattan's streets. Gas lamps sputtered and spat into life above the sidewalks. It was that moment of evening when the artificial lights looked dim in the wash of the waning light from the sky.
Applejack could hear a distant thrumming blocks before it became loud enough to identify. It was a throbbing beat of drums—of music.
The draught horse at the door let them in with a nod upon sight. He looked like he was about to say something when his eyes fell on Applejack, but Anthracite bobbed her head close to Applejack's, batting her eyelashes at the door keeper, indicating that Applejack was with the group. He admitted them with a suppressed smile at Anthracite. "Us working ponies have to stick together," she whispered at Applejack with a wink.
Inside, the floor was already thronged with ponies. The blare of the music stunned Applejack. Varicolored lights pulsed in time with the beat of the music, their colors changing, synched to changes in the music. Other than the flashing lights, the place was quite dark, and it took Applejack's eyes some time to adjust.
She looked to her companions, but none of them seemed fazed by the sensory overload in which they'd been immersed.
Slowly, the space took shape in Applejack's sight. It was indeed a warehouse; brick walls rose perhaps thirty hooves, and then the walls all became glass windows of unmatched opacities and levels of grime for the next sixty hooves up or so. The ceiling itself lay above a lattice of grimy iron trusses, the shadows from the flashing lights playing on them so that the ceiling almost appeared to be a shadowy, writhing, breathing thing.
Applejack found the whole scene unnerving. The noise, the flashing lights, and the creepiness of the patterns playing across the ceiling were making her nervous, and she took a few deep breaths, forcing down the urge to bolt.
A bottle surrounded by a white glow floated up to her. Anthracite nudged her with her shoulder, and Applejack realized that she was giving her the bottle. Applejack uncorked it, and took a swig.
"Hey…this cider tastes kind of funny," she started to say. It tasted to her as though it'd begun to go bad. Many of the other ponies were drinking apparently the same stuff, however; she took another swallow, and it tasted better to her.
"Just relax and have fun," Anthracite said reassuringly, taking a couple of loud gulps from her own bottle.
Applejack took another swallow, a couple of breaths, and the tension seemed to just radiate out of her with one of her exhalations. The throb of the music seemed more agreeable, and the flashing lights almost soothing, particularly in how they were in time with the music.
"I figured you were a girl who liked her cider," Night smirked. Her horn was pulsing with light, keeping in time with the music. Looking around, Applejack saw that many of the unicorns were casting rays of light with their horns, or fizzly showers of sparks, just for fun and to add to the atmosphere.
Her eyes finally adjusting to the light, Applejack saw that Blossom and Dust had moved to the side, and were standing in a quieter place near the wall. They were sharing a bottle of cider, Blossom taking occasional modest sips, and Dust not much more.
A hush seemed to fall on the room. Just as Applejack was noticing, it became even quieter. The music was still playing, but the excited murmur of the talking ponies became suddenly more subdued.
What few windows there were were propped open as wide as they would go.
Applejack fancied she heard a frenetic squeaking. Her gaze was drawn upward by a couple of dark shapes darting in through a window. A few more followed. It took Applejack a moment to figure out that they were bats. They seemed in a hurry, as though they were heralding something…or fleeing from something.
There was a distant scream from outside. It got suddenly louder as a larger figure popped through the window.
Barely big enough to fit through the opening of the window, to see it so unexpectedly gave Applejack a start. The yellow Pegasus was stretched to her full length, wings tucked tightly, legs pressed tightly together ahead of her and behind her to even fit through the window. As it was, the fit was so close that Applejack could have sworn her arrival sounded like a cork being pulled out of a bottle.
It was of course the pegasus who was screaming, and not from alarm, but from the sheer joy of flight. The moment she popped through the window, at incredible speed for such a small space, she spread her wings to catch the air and slow herself with a mighty "FWOOMP!"
Applejack squinted as the wave of air hit her. Still going quite fast, the Pegasus with the black-streaked pink mane flapped once, launching herself into a somersault, emerging from her roll with one hoof forward. Now propelled slightly upward, gravity tugged at her speed. She planted her one outstretched hoof at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal members of the window opposite the one from which she'd come.
The steel window frames groaned and creaked, stretching outward a couple of hooves, absorbing her impact like a net. The windows all turned opaque, a circle of white radiating outward from the impact of her hoof as the panes broke and shattered within their distorting frames. Much of the glass was held in place by the black wires embedded in it for safety, but some of the clear panes just broke, the glass catching the light and flashing prettily as it fell.
The yellow Pegasus pushed back from the broken wall of glass, doing a backward flip. There was a press of ponies backing away, clearing a space on the floor for her to land. She landed all four hooves simultaneously on the concrete floor with a CLACK!, her legs spread and bending easily to absorb the last of her momentum.
"It's that crazy bat pony," whispered somepony behind Applejack.
All pony eyes were on her—not a pony spoke, and the music even seemed muted.
She let out a belch that shook the air more than the beat of the music had, and snickered.
There was a moment of silence, and nothing was audible besides the crackle of the glass above, continuing to break as the forces placed upon it continued their work. There were intermittent cascades of ringing glass shards and dull, clacking rectangles of broken tempered safety glass.
Applejack's mouth just hung open. Instead of three butterflies on her flank, this Pegasus had three black silhouettes of bats.
"By Luna did you see that!" Dust cried out, more exuberantly than anything Applejack had ever yet heard her utter. "Do you know how hard that is to do? To fly full-speed through a window not big enough to admit you without tucking tightly?" she was saying excitedly. "For the last few dozen feet, you're just a projectile—no flapping, no upforce—you have to estimate how much speed and altitude you'll lose, and calculate your trajectory through something too small to step through!"
Dust began stomping her hooves in applause, and was soon joined by more and more of the other ponies.
The yellow Pegasus pretty much ignored the attention, squeaking at a bat that swooped down toward her and landed in her hair.
"Flit, that was smashing!" Blossom called out, barely loud enough to be heard above Dust's gushing admiration.
Anthracite let out a piercing cat call, and tossed a bottle of cider at Flit. It tumbled end-over-end through the air. Flitter Bat thrust out a wing to stop it—it bounced back off her wing with a soft thud, flipped over once, and landed neatly on her outstretched hoof. She took a couple of hard swallows, exhaled, and belched again.
Night and Anthracite were stomping even more loudly than Dust, although Dust's enthusiasm was unmatchable.
The group merged together again, forming around Flitter Bat's arrival.
"Blossom—why in Equisonia are you dressed—?" Flit was saying, and then stopped herself. "Wait a minute…you're not Blossom!"
"I get that a lot," Applejack admitted, a little embarrassed.
"This is Applejack; Applejack, Flitter Bat," Blossom chimed in, making a proper introduction.
"That sure was one fancy piece of flying!" Applejack enthused.
Flit replied with another belch, and then smiled. "Thanks." Crossing her eyes and looking upward at the bat perched in her hair, she added, "And this, of course, is Angel Batty."
"Well, that seems to be everypony, except for—" Dust was observing.
A shrill, squeaky voice yelled out, "Whee! Let's go!"
With that, the music started up again to full volume. They all turned to see a pink pony beneath a cascade of pink hair snap her head back, upending a 40-oz bottle of cider, and gulping noisily until it was gone. She jumped six hooves straight up into the air, flung the empty bottle down onto the concrete floor, and shattered it. She landed back on top of it, all but pounding it into sand.
With her bouncing gait, she bounded up to the group of friends. Her eyes were open wide, so very wide, and there were glow sticks tangled in her fluffy mane. "Applejack, I've never seen you here before!" she exclaimed.
Applejack gaped at her. "Pinkie Pie?"
"Well, duh!"
"Did you get sucked through the rift, too?" Applejack asked, amazed.
"No, silly, I live here in Manehattan."
"Then how do you know who I am, if you've never seen me before? Have the others told you about me?"
"No, the other's haven't told me anything—I said I've never seen you here before. Besides—" she added, "I knew you were here when you landed in that alley."
"You were there when I landed in the alley?" Applejack asked blankly.
"No, silly…I just knew you landed there."
Applejack shook her head thoroughly, trying to clear it. "Wait…how come…how come everypony here is different, but you're still Pinkie Pie?"
"I'm a Pan-Dimensional Universal Constant."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," Pinkie replied, looking pensive and tapping her chin with a hoof. "You should ask Twilight Sparkle."
"You mean Night Comet?" Applejack asked, confused. Night Comet didn't seem like the kind of filly who'd have any such knowledge.
"No, silly, Twilight Sparkle!"
"Twilight Sparkle's in Manehattan?"
"No! Twilight's in Ponyville."
"Where in Equisonia is Ponyville?"
"There's no Ponyville in Equisonia."
"Then how do you know about Twilight Sparkle?"
"Because I live in Ponyville."
"I thought you lived in Manehattan?"
"I've lived in Manehattan ever since I was a little filly."
Applejack opened her mouth to talk, but no sound came out. After her head had throbbed five times, she asked slowly, "So you live in Manehattan."
Pinkie nodded.
"And you live in Ponyville?"
"Yup."
"How can you be in two places at once?"
"I'm not in two places at once," Pinkie Pie said.
"Wat?"
"Oh, gosh, I've got to be dozens of places at once…" Pinkie said quickly. "Aqueduct, Belmont, Equestria, Equisonia, Mane, Manehattan, Oatland, Ponyburg, Ponyton, Ponyville—"
"How come you're in all those places, and I'm only in Ponyville?"
"You're not in Ponyville, you're in Manehattan," Pinkie said blankly.
Applejack face-hoofed.
Pinkie added, "Pwnsylvania…."
"Pinkie, I can only face-hoof with one hoof at a time," grumbled Applejack.
"Then you're not drinking fast enough!" she replied brightly.
"How can that be?"
"Because you haven't been lifting that bottle—"
"NO! All those places at once!"
"I told you," Pinkie said, rolling her eyes. "I'm a Pan-Dimensional Universal constant…or a Universal Pan-Dimensional Constant…I forget which…or maybe it was something else…." Pinkie looked upward, squinching her lips together and stroking her chin thoughtfully with a hoof.
"Oh, I remember!" Pinkie exclaimed suddenly. "More cider! I'll get you one, too…you'd better finish that one." With that, she bounded off into the crowd.
Applejack stood there, blinking. Then she shrugged. It was as good advice as any, she thought to herself. She upended the bottle.
Applejack caught up with Pinkie Pie again later in the evening. Despite her fuzzy thoughts, her mind always returned to the problem of getting back home to Ponyville. "So, Pinkie, you seem to be the only key to all this," Applejack began.
"The only constant, you mean…."
"Yes," Applejack said, closing her eyes. "Do you know how I can get back home?"
"Oh, that's easy!" Pinkie said.
Despite their circuitous conversation, Pinkie's enthusiasm got Applejack's hopes up.
"How do I do that?"
"Okay, what you do is, Tuesday morning—go to the corner of Celery and Stalk. The Carrot Frappe opens at 8:00, but Ed doesn't get there until six minutes after eight on Tuesday mornings, and he has to unlock all the doors, so you don't need to be there until 8:11."
"Okay…yeah…8:11 Tuesday morning, on the corner of Celery and Stalk."
"Right. You order the carrot and celery frappe."
"What the hay is a carrot and celery frappe?"
"Not the hay frappe…the carrot and celery frappe. Oh, they're to die for! Oh, and get wheat grass—don't forget the wheat grass. Carrot and celery and wheat grass."
"Okay…carrot, celery, and wheat grass…and then what?"
"Then you drink it," Pinkie answered.
"And that'll get me back to Ponyville?"
"I don't know," Pinkie shrugged. "But you'll have a carrot, celery, and wheat-grass frappe—trust me, you won't even care about Ponyville once you have one of those in your hooves!" Pinkie licked her lips at the very thought.
Applejack was about to protest, but Pinkie spoke again. "I'd go with you," Pinkie said, but added sadly, "but you have to go alone."
The next morning, the throbbing in Applejack's head wasn't entirely due to the thrum of Dust Cloud's machines. When her eyes were closed, she felt as though she could still see the flashing lights from the previous evening, and feel the driving beat and rhythmic swaying of the crowd. She had memories of dancing, and watching Flitter Bat pony-surfing, held aloft by the hooves of the crowd gathered at the warehouse.
As much as she was enjoying spending time with her new old friends, Applejack waited impatiently for Tuesday morning. She even got to meet her brother Big Mac—or rather, Blossom's brother, Suave…but young fillies thronged and swooned everywhere he took her, and they didn't get to converse much. Applejack was amused to see a blurry picture of herself sitting with him in a café on the cover of two of the tabloid newspapers, though.
Applejack arrived at the corner of Celery and Stalk on Tuesday morning. She could have set a watch by the arrival of the black-and-white horse, apparently Ed, who emerged from the Carrot Frappe at 8:11 AM and began opening the place up for business.
She ordered the frappe per Pinkie's instructions, not completely sure what a carrot, celery, and wheat grass frappe would even be. Even after she paid her bits and Ed hoofed her the paper cup, she still wasn't completely sure what it was.
She eyed the thick-looking, khaki-colored fluid suspiciously.
It smelled delicious….
She took a cautious sip, licked her lips, and eagerly took another. It was delicious.
The level of liquid in the cup seemed to be going down, though. She'd never seen a cup made out of paper before, and didn't trust it. Alarmed, she examined the outside of the cup for a leak, but there didn't seem to be any.
She jumped as a slurping, gurgling sound issued loudly from the cup.
Holding it up to her face, she raised her hoof just in time to see the viscous liquid slip into a hole in the bottom of the cup.
That was impossible, though—the cup was resting on the bottom of her upturned hoof. There was certainly no hole in her hoof, and there wasn't any of the delicious frappe dripping down her leg.
There was a moist, gurgling sucking sound, like someone with a runny nose taking a really deep breath. Then her hoof yanked up, and stuck to her forehead. The paper cup was crushed flat, but there was very little liquid left inside it to spatter. Crossing her eyes and looking upward, it was difficult for her to tell, but the paper cup appeared to implode and disappear inside her hoof. She tried pulling her hoof away from her head, but there was a great suction—she felt air rushing into her hoof, and then it sucked itself back onto her forehead.
Before she could frame a thought, both her hoof and her forehead seemed to become soft and stretchy. At first she thought she was turning to liquid and her hoof was joining her forehead…as things got weirder, it became obvious that her head, forehead first, had become malleable and was being drawn into the hole in the bottom of her hoof.
The rift!
Space was distorting around the hole that had appeared in the bottom of her hoof. She let out a strangled cry as reality bent around her, and her head disappeared into a hole much smaller than its size.
Her neck followed…she could feel her leg bending up to accommodate her body being sucked into it. It was an unpleasant sensation, but fortunately, there was no pain involved, except for the tugging and stretching of muscles in directions they didn't normally move.
Her head was emerging into the hazy white space. She gritted her teeth and let out a grunt as her own front leg swallowed itself up, and at the singularly unpleasant sensation of her hoof turning itself inside-out in order to absorb itself.
She felt the "snap!" as her hoof completed its inversion, and she emerged completely into the mid-space.
She tumbled gently, rotating around several axes. It might have made her feel ill, but there was no sensation of up or down; despite tumbling, it didn't feel exactly like tumbling. It was as much only what her eyes were telling her that made her suspect she was tumbling.
A waxy crumpled-up bit of paper hit her in the forehead. She felt herself speeding up, and a sucking sound was getting louder. The lazy air about her began to be drawn in the direction she began to "fall."
Charging at her at an alarming speed was a large bright spot—it seemed to be coming at her much faster than her sensation suggested to her that she was going toward it.
It was apparent that it was the end of the vortex she would leave through—she was powerless to avoid being drawn into it. She was glad it was larger than the last one she'd just been dragged through…she didn't fancy being turned inside-out again.
The rift was bright with sunshine and the smell of summer meadow…but she couldn't see a meadow. There was just a blinding glare of sun reflected off the plaster of a typical house, and a smudge of pink as she clenched her eyes shut, rushing toward it at a speed that appeared would kill her.
Her face-to-face collision with a pink pony was barely as hard as it would've been if she'd walked accidentally into her at a leisurely pace, however. The rift snapped shut, giving a light tug at the end of her tail before it ceased to exist.
"Hey, AJ!"
"Pinkie Pie! Am I in Ponyville?"
"Yup!" Pinkie said brightly. Her face was covered with a viscous khaki liquid that smelled like carrots and celery, which she was happily clearing away with her tongue.
"Thank Celestia!" Applejack gasped.
"You're just in time to see Twilight's dimensional rift experiment! I was just on my way to go watch."
"Oh no! We've got to stop her!" Applejack exclaimed, shaking Pinkie Pie with her hooves.
"We can't stop her, silly…if we could've stopped her, you wouldn't be here."
"What do you mean I wouldn't be in Ponyville if we could stop her?"
"Well, duh, of course you'd be in Ponyville whether you stopped her or not," Pinkie Pie said with a roll of her eyes. "I said, you wouldn't be here, behind Berry Punch's house…you'd be out front with Twilight."
"Wat?" Applejack asked blankly.
"C'mon, lets go watch the show," Pinkie Pie called over her shoulder. She trotted around the corner of the house on three legs, suddenly carrying a box of popcorn on her upraised hoof.
Applejack's stomach was roiling. She had no idea what Pinkie Pie was talking about, although after the weirdness of the past week, she was half tempted to just stay put and try to do nothing. But she had to at least try to warn Twilight Sparkle…that much she resolved to do.
She put her head down, and galloped around the corner of the building. She blazed past Pinkie Pie, who was trotting leisurely toward the meadow where Twilight and another pony were sitting.
"You can get a good view, but it won't be as good a view as you had last time!" Pinkie Pie called after her.
What in tarnation is she talking about? Applejack wondered to herself.
Then she skidded to a stop, driving four grooves into the soft turf with her hooves.
The pony beside Twilight was orange with a loosely-tied gold mane and tail, wearing a straw cowboy hat.
"Blossom Orange?" she murmured in confusion.
Snippets of their conversation wafted toward her in the breeze, as her heart thudded in her chest.
She saw Twilight stand up, spread her hooves, lower her head, and begin to work her magic.
Her cry of "No!" caught in her throat as she realized the snippets of conversation were her final conversation with Twilight, before she'd been swallowed by the rift.
Every hair in her coat stood on end as she watched Twilight's horn begin to glow and cast sparks.
The roar was almost immediate—it happened much more quickly than she remembered it. She saw the cloud of dirt and grass it tore out of the ground, and she saw herself turn tail to run from it…and then disappear inside it.
The moment after it'd swallowed her, it shrank and disappeared, collapsing in on itself much faster than her hoof had.
The debris cloud collapsed to the ground, leaving the faintest trace of airborne particles wafting away.
Applejack stood rooted to the spot, processing what she'd seen.
She was brought back to reality by the crunching that was sounding beside her. "See? Like clockwork!" Pinkie Pie said, her cheeks full of popcorn and expelling little bits of it with her speech.
"Bu-bu-bu-bu-buh-buh-but how can that be?" Applejack stammered.
"I knew you'd get here before you left, so I came to meet you. I didn't hear about the rift until last week, when I almost tripped over it while I was putting away some rye flour at Sugar Cube Corner."
Applejack shook her head.
"Twilight told you about it last week?"
"No! I said I almost tripped over it in the pantry at Sugar Cube Corner."
"That rift," said Applejack motioning over her shoulder, "appeared in the pantry at Sugar Cube Corner?"
Pinkie Pie nodded.
"How can that be? How could that have possibly been the same rift?"
"Of course it was the same rift…can't you taste it? Gosh, I don't know how many corners that rift had…it was a doozy!" Pinkie Pie said. "It twisted back on itself at least five times…if you can really call it twisting. You're lucky you didn't show up three months ago, or Fall of next year!"
If Applejack hadn't gone through what she'd gone through, she would have just ignored this as just being one of Pinkie's random tangential remarks. As it was, it made the bases of the hairs in her coat tingle.
"So, you're saying that the rift happens three times?"
"No, it only happened once! Don't make me call you 'silly' again!" Pinkie Pie said crossly, and then returned to her normal tone. "The same rift pokes into Ponyville at least four times, and into Equisonia at least twice—the time you arrived and the time you left."
"How—how—how—how—?"
"You can't expect sequential coordinate points defining a multidimensional rift to be in any kind of temporal-spatial order from one dimension to another, can you? Sequential coordinates have their own sequence, but they can be scattered anywhere through a half dozen dimensions, right? That's how you wound up arriving back before you left."
Applejack's pupils were bouncing back and forth from one side of her head to the other.
"I told you it was a doozy!" Pinkie enthused. "If she outdoes herself sometime, she may even get to meet Star Swirl the Bearded!"
Applejack slowly reined in her bouncing eyes, and queried, "How did you know it had to be a carrot and celery frappe, with wheat grass?"
"Oh, I didn't!" Pinkie exclaimed. "It didn't matter what kind of frappe it was. That's just my favorite frappe flavor…carrot and celery."
"How could you know that? We don't even have frappes in Equis—Equestria!"
"How could it not be my favorite?" Pinkie's eyes were open so wide she looked almost maniacal. "It was delish, wasn't it?"
Applejack blinked.
"Well…what about the wheat grass?"
"I don't care one way or the other about wheat grass," Pinkie explained. "But I remembered this was going to be a licorice rift, and I don't normally like licorice, but it goes great together with wheat grass."
"A licorice rift?" Applejack asked skeptically.
Pinkie nodded "Uh-huh. Can't you taste it?" she repeated, smacking her lips. "Every temporal-spatial-dimensional rift has a flavor of its own…this one is licorice, with hints of vanilla and twigs. I hope Twilight does something that tastes blue next time. I like blue—there's just not enough blue flavor in the world."
Applejack's head was beginning to throb again. "How did you know it would be licorice?" she muttered tiredly.
"I told you, I almost tripped over it last week in the pantry," Pinky squeaked with a roll of her eyes. "Of course I could taste it then…it was like being smacked in the head with a bundle of licorice roots. That's how I knew it was going to be the same rift!"
Applejack swayed unsteadily on her hooves.
"We'd better get over to Twilight and tell her you're okay, before she has a heart attack!" Pinkie noted. "Oh, hey! I found some more of that frappe behind my ear…you want any?"
