Applejack finds a mysterious journal written by a legendary criminal, and after a minor magical accident, she finds herself with a slight change of wardrobe as well. Applejack... what's happening to you?
One day, Applejack happens upon a strange old journal that appears to be written by a master criminal - Black Jack the Outlaw, a mysterious stallion with powers beyond that of any normal earth pony, who terrorized Equestria with his gang of miscreants in days long past. What secrets are hidden in the pages of his old journal?
This, as well as magical mishap at Twilight's place, would trigger a series of events leading to an adventure unlike any the six pony friends have ever encountered before.
"My shadow has gone mad. He takes himself for a man, and - imagine it - he takes me for his shadow!" -The Shadow, by HC Andersen.
CHAPTER I: A TRUE ACCOUNT
”Careful with that, Mac! Don't want an even bigger mess to clean up, now do we?”
”Nope!”
”Apple Bloom, did ya dust them closets yet?”
”Just about, sis!”
”Well get goin' then!”
Spring cleaning at Sweet Apple Acres was always a chaotic ordeal, but Applejack was finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Every available family member had pitched in and after a hard day's work, they had managed to disassemble the orderly disorder that normally dominated the Apple household and somehow put it back together in something resembling actual order. All that remained now was to go through the attic and all the closets, where they stored all the old junk they didn't have room for, and decide what was to be kept and what was to be thrown out to make room for all the new junk they didn't have room for.
Applejack had taken it upon herself to organize the undertaking – she was no Twilight Sparkle, but she knew from experience that unless somepony kept all those Apple family members under control, getting the house tidy could turn into a huge mess in no time flat. Of course, that didn't stop her from getting her own hooves dirty. She was still Applejack, after all.
She brushed some sweat off her brow and allowed herself to a moment to catch her breath. Just a bit more and they could all get some well-deserved rest, and for once it seemed they'd get through this year's ordeal without any accidents or disast...
”Hey, AJ, um, where do you want this thing?”
Applejack turned around and her eyes went wide as she saw Red Delicious staggering around with an enormous heavy-duty barrel-stave trunk in his hooves. The dusty old piece of luggage was bigger than him, and it was obvious he couldn't see where he was going.
”Red Delicious, fer crying out loud,” Applejack said, ”put that monstrosity down before ya hurt yesself!”
”Where?” Red Delicious wobbled closer, following the sound of her voice.
”Anywhere!” Applejack eyed the towering monolith with a rising feeling of dread. She just knew that thing was bad news. ”Let Big Macintosh handle it.”
”Huh?” Macintosh had been busy digging through one of the closets. Distracted from hearing his name, he backed out to see what his sister wanted. In doing so, however, he bumped into Red Delicious who lost his balance and careened straight into Applejack, knocking her off her hooves.
”Doggone it!” Applejack growled, her hat having fallen off her head in the fall. ”Red, what in the hay are you...” She cut herself short and her face froze in a grimace of terror as a great shadow loomed over her. Red Delicious had finally lost his grip completely and the immense trunk now came toppling down over her.
Luckily, Applejack had quick reflexes and managed to roll out of the way in the last moment. There was a terrible crash and the lid of the trunk flung open, spilling its contents on the floor.
”Will ya look at this mess!” Applejack exclaimed, picking herself up again. She took a closer look and gasped. ”Aw no!”
The trunk had fallen right on her hat, leaving only a piece of the brim sticking out from underneath. Applejack bit a hold of it with her teeth and after some tugging she managed to pull it out, but to her dismay it had been squashed perfectly flat as a pancake.
”Gosh, I'm really sorry, AJ!” said Red Delicious, hanging his head in shame. ”I didn't mean to demolish your hat like that. Uh, or almost kill you, I suppose...”
Applejack sighed. ”Aw, don't sweat it, Red. Accidents happen, and at least nopony got hurt.” She gave the hat a hard poke with her hoof and it instantly sprung back to its original shape. With a relieved smile, she put it back on her head. ”Look at that, good as new. That was a close call, though. Ah just don't feel like myself without m'hat.”
Turning her attention to the mess on the floor, her smile turned into a frown. Scattered around were old sewing equipment, a few ancient toys, bits of broken furniture, several dead moths, a broken clock, a jar full of outdated bits, a bunch of medals and trophies earned by old relatives Applejack hadn't even heard of... was that a cow skull?
”Is this some of Granny's old stuff?” Applejack mumbled, starting to pick up the various items and returning them to the trunk. Most of it was probably junk, but you never knew what might have sentimental value. As she reached for the last item, her hoof suddenly stopped. It was a worn old book, plain brown; looked like a diary or journal.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, Applejack picked it up and started to flip through the pages while skimming the entries. Then she stopped skimming and started reading more carefully. ”What in tarnation? This wasn't written by any Apple pony...”
”You done with that?”
The deep baritone voice snapped Applejack out of her musings and she looked up to see Big Macintosh standing over her. ”Huh?”
”You done with that trunk?” Mac clarified. ”Where ya want it?”
”Oh! Yeah, yeah,” Applejack reluctantly put the book down.”Um, just carry it down and put it with the rest of the old stuff.”
”Okay.” Macintosh closed the lid and picked the massive trunk up like it was nothing. Watching him carry it off, Red Delicious collapsed into a chair, relieved to let the larger stallion do the heavy lifting.
Applejack held on to the journal, however. It was definitely something she wanted to take a closer look at.
~*~
A few days past. It was early in the afternoon and Twilight Sparkle, personal protege of Princess Celestia and bearer of the Element of Magic, was starting to feel extremely stressed out. Again.
”Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?” she asked nobody in particular in an increasingly frantic voice as she methodically turned the entire library upside down. ”It has to be here somewhere! Where is it?”
”Where is what now?” asked Spike, closing the door behind him. The baby dragon had just returned from an errand and looked at the mess with a slight frown on his face. Twilight's mane was coming unkempt and she had that starey look of barely contained madness in her eyes. That was never a good sign.
”This week's to-do list,” Twilight said without pausing her search for a moment. ”Oh, where did I put it?!”
”Um, I don't think we've made a to-do list for this week,” Spike said.
”No, I mean the to-do list for all the to-do lists we need to make,” Twilight clarified. ”Without it I won't remember all the things I need to remember to do this week, but I can't remember where I put it!”
Spike considered this for a moment. ”I don't think we've made a to-do list to-do list either, Twilight.”
Twilight Sparkle stopped dead in her tracks. Her eye twitched and she stared into empty space. ”Oh no,” she gasped. ”That... That means I forgot to make a to-do list for the to-do lists of the things I didn't want to forget, and then I forgot that I forgot about it! Spike, that's exponential forgetfulness!”
”Okay,” Spike said. ”You've officially lost me now.”
”What else have I forgotten that I've forgotten about?” Twilight was starting to hyperventilate. ”How am I supposed to remember everything I need to remember when I can't even remember the things I've forgotten!?”
”Twilight, calm down!” Spike said. ”You're making my head spin! Look, it's just another of your checklist. Wouldn't it be better if you could just keep all of this in your head to begin with?”
Twilight blinked. ”...That's it! Spike, you're a genius!”
Somehow, that didn't make Spike feel less uneasy. ”I am?”
”The solution is obvious!” Twilight turned her starey eyes towards him and flashed a wide, toothy grin. ”All I have to do is make sure that I always remember everything that ever happens!”
”Um...”
”And I know exactly how to accomplish that!” Twilight exclaimed, triumphantly raising her hoof to the ceiling. Then she frowned and looked around the giant mess she just caused. ”Now then... Where did I put my alchemy set?”
Spike put his palm over his face and groaned.
~*~
Fortunately, Twilight did manage to find her alchemy set and soon she had set up a bubbling little laboratory, the centerpiece of which was a flask of light purple goo simmering under a magical flame.
”Perfect!” she said. ”I was lucky to have all the ingredients at hand. I was afraid I would have to make another trip to Zecora's place.”
”That's great,” Spike said, giving the concoction a suspicious look. ”But... what is it?”
”A memory potion,” Twilight replied. ”Well, it's technically more of a liquid memory charm, but same difference. Point is that once this is done, I will never have to worry about forgetting anything ever again.” With that, she sat down in front of the flask and stared at it intently. Slowly, very slowly, the purple mixture started to deepen and darken in color.
After a few moments of silence, Spike asked: ”So, are you just going to sit there?”
”Yes,” Twilight replied without taking her eyes of the flask. ”This is a very precise and delicate procedure. This mixture must be heated exactly right – too little and the charm won't work, too much and it can have dangerously unpredictable results. I can't afford to forget about it for a single moment.”
”Oh.” Spike shrugged and started to walked towards the kitchen. ”Well, you do that, while I go help myself to some delicious ice-cream and... Hey!” Suddenly realizing that he wasn't moving forward, he looked down to find himself walking on air as Twilight levitated him off the floor with her magic.
”Yeah, not going to happen,” she said, magically carrying the frowning dragon to her side. ”We are going to sit here quietly and watch this bubbling purple goo cook to perfection even if it takes all afternoon, and there will be absolutely no distractions whatsoev...”
And in that very moment, the doors flung open and two familiar ponies dragooned themselves into the library.
”Hey, Twilight! You in here?” shouted the sky-blue pegasus with the multi-colored mane.
”Suuurpriiiiise!” cried the hot pink earth pony at almost the same time.
Twilight drew a deep sigh. Rainbow and Pinkie. Of all the ponies, it had to be Rainbow and Pinkie.
Pinkie Pie immediately started bouncing around the library in her typically hyperactive way. ”What do you have there Twilight it looks like fun is it something fun can we have fun today Twilight oh please say yes oh pretty please say yes....”
”Girls, girls!” Twilight said, trying to calm Pinkie while at the same time keeping her attention of her experiment. ”Not to be rude, but I'm kinda in the middle of something important. Was there anything particular you wanted?”
”There most definitely is!” said Rainbow Dash. ”I heard the latest Daring Do is out and since you are my go-to pony for awesome books, I thought I'd drop by and see if you had it.”
Twilight pointed her hoof. ”Bookcase over there, second shelf down.” At least she remembered that much, since she had turned that book over several times looking for her non-existent checklist. She hadn't even read it yet herself, but if it got Rainbow Dash out of her mane for a while she'd gladly wait.
Rainbow zoomed over to the bookcase in question and soon found what she was looking for. ”Daring Do and the Curse of the Obsidian Mask!” she read, then hugged the book tightly with a giddy smile. ”This is going to be awesome!”
Twilight glanced at Pinkie. ”And what about you?”
”Oh, I bumped into Rainbow just outside,” Pinkie said, ”and then I felt the corner of my right eye twitch, and you know what that means!”
Twilight wasn't even going to try to remember what Pinkie's assorted twitches meant, especially not while trying to pay attention to both her friends and her potion at the same time. ”Remind me.”
”It means something exciting is going to happen!” Pinkie exclaimed and started bouncing up and down again.
Oh no, Twilight though. She doesn't mean here, does she? That's the last thing I need right now! ”Haha, well, that sure sounds fun but as you can see, there's nothing exciting whatsoever going on in this library. Why don't you try one of our other friends, like Fluttershy or Rarity or Applejack? I'm sure they have all sorts of exciting things going on.”
There was a knock on the door and Applejack barged in, flanked by Rarity and Fluttershy. ”Howdy, Twilight!” Applejack greeted. ”Dash, Pinkie, fancy seeing ya'll here.”
Twilight sighed and hung her head. ”I give up.”
”Fluttershy and I were just done with our weekly spa get-together when we ran into Applejack,” Rarity explained. ”She said she had something exciting to show you, Twilight, so of course we had to tag along to see what it is.”
”Um, as long as it isn't a scary kind of exciting,” Fluttershy whispered.
”Oooh! The Pinkie Sense strikes again!” Pinkie squealed. ”What is it, AJ? Wait, let me guess! Is it a giant pony-eating spider? No, a rampaging dragon on its way to town? Ooh! I know! An ancient prophesy foretelling the day an ancient force of evil will return to conquer Equestria, which just happens to be tomorrow and only we can stop it!?”
For each guess, Fluttershy cowered down a bit more and whimpered as her knees started to quiver. Twilight had a similar reaction, except she was looking more and more stressed out.
”Now hold yer horses,” Applejack said and pulled something out of her saddlebag.”It's just an old book Ah found when we were spring cleaning a few days back.”
Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief and nearly collapsed on the floor. Twilight perked up. That didn't sound so bad. She liked books, after all. ”What kind of book?”
”It's an old journal,” Applejack said. ”Except it definitely wasn't written by any Apple. Listen to this:” she opened to book and read: ”Property of Black Jack the Outlaw, the wildest stallion of the Southern Territories, leader of the Badland Broncos. A true account of a life of robbery, burglary, larceny and all forms of double-dealing dirty deeds. May history be my judge and jury.”
The ponies exchanged surprised looks. ”The owner of the journal was a criminal?” Twilight asked.
”Criminal is putting it lightly,” Applejack said. ”The fella was some sorta criminal mastermind. Ah've read this whole thing and, well, take this part fer example.” She cleared her throat and started reading: ”June 13. This mornin' a train carrying cargo and passengers left Hoofstone heading north. What nopony knew was that the train carried a secret cargo of San Palomino gold for the Canterlot mint, under heavy guard by civilian royal police. Nopony, that is, except me and my gang...”
As she read, her pony friends settled down and listened carefully. Before their mind's eyes, the story of Black Jack and the Badland Broncos started to unfold.
The huffing locomotive moved at a steady pace along the lonesome railroad, cutting like a dark line across the landscape. Even though the train had only recently left Hoofstone, there was nothing to see for miles around other than the dry desert, cacti and wind-bitten mesas were hoodoos reached like giant fingers to the sky. The blazing sun made the interior of the train uncomfortably warm, but the two passengers of the second-to-last car tried not to mind the heat. They weren't riding the train out of convenience, after all. They had a job to do.
They were both earth pony stallions. One of them was large but lean, his coat a warm chocolate brown with bright white Sabino markings on his snout and ankles, and his flowing mane was black. He was certainly handsome but had sharp, almost chiseled features and piercing gray eyes as hard as steel. A pristine white stetson hat crowned his head and he wore a golden star pinned to the front of his duster. Though the same duster hid his cutie mark, it too was a golden star. He was staring out the window with a grim expression, tapping his hoof on the edge of his seat.
“You're worrying over nothing, Lawmane,” said his companion. “He's not going to show.” This other pony was dirt-blonde and silver-coated. As a stallion he was a decent specimen, and he probably looked rather dashing when not sitting right next to someone like Lawmane. He was just a little bit smaller, a little rounder around the edges, and his eyes were softer. The golden acorn band and markings on his dark blue hat revealed him to be a captain in the Royal Cavalry, and his cutie mark was a pair of crossed sabers.
Lawmane shrugged. “You don't know that, Val. You don't know him. He's definitely in this area and I don't think he'd pass up a chance like this.”
“How could he possibly even know about the transport?”
“He got his ways. I told you...”
Lawmane fell silent as voices from outside the coach ahead caught his attention. The next moment the doors opened and two mares stepped inside.
“Well, here we are!” said one of them, speaking in a soft, melodic drawl. “And plenty of room, too!”
She was a unicorn, and quite a looker too – her coat was a light tan, her curly mane and tail shone like gold, and she had a bright pink rose tucked behind her ear. Long, dark eyelashes fluttered over a pair of dazzling amethyst eyes. Her cutie mark was a simple light purple shape that, for the most part, resembled a heart broken in two.
Lawmane rose from his seat. “Ma’am...”
The unicorn's eyes went wide. “Oh my! Oh my, my! And who might you be?”
“Lawmane,” he said. “Royal Marshals. I'm sorry ladies but you can't...”
“The Marshal Lawmane?” The unicorn gasped in delight. “Well ain't that just the bees knees? I've read all about your daring adventures, Mr Lawmane.” She giggled. “You might say I'm a bit of an admirer of yours.”
The silver stallion chuckled. “I see you still have the same effect on the marefolk, old friend.” He bowed his head at the newcomers. “And I am Captain Valiant, at your service.”
“Oh, but where are my manners?” the unicorn said. “My name Jessy Belle, and this here lovely little thing is my niece, Pilfer Swift.” She gestured to the winged pony at her side. The pegasus looked rather young, little more than a filly, with a white coat and a rust-red mane held up in a ponytail by a big green bow. Her cutie mark was that of three magpie feathers crested over a small pile of coins. She wasn't as glamorous as her 'aunt', but cute in a more unpolished way. Her blue eyes were wide with wonder as she seemed to regard everything around her with open fascination.
“Charming,” said Lawmane. “But I regret to inform you that this is a reserved coach. I'm going to have to ask you two to leave.”
“What?” Jessy Belle looked perplexed and quickly produced a train ticket from her saddlebag “But... But I'm sure this is where... Oh no, there must have been some kind of mix-up with the tickets! But there's no more room in this whole train.“ She gave the two stallions a desperate look. “Oh won't you please make an exception, just this once?”
“We won't be any trouble,” Pilfer chirped in. “Honest.”
Lawmane and Valiant exchanged glanced. “I don't think...” Lawmane began.
“Oh, preeetty please?” Jessy Belle pleaded. “Surely two strong, able gentlecolts like yourselves have nothing to fear from two little ol' ponies like us?”
As she spoke a faint, almost invisible aura appeared around her horn. The spell was very subtle – neither Lawmane nor Valiant noticed it, but suddenly all the tension seemed to drain from the atmosphere. Valiant relaxed and smiled, gently elbowing Lawmane in the side. “She's got a point there, marshal. A bit of company couldn't hurt, could it?”
Lawmane hesitated for a moment, and even as the two mares made large puppy eyes at him, his stony expression didn't budge. But then, finally, he sighed. “Fine, you can stay.”
Jessy and Pilfer both let out little squeals of joy and took their seats. Smiling brightly, Jessy Belle winked at Valiant. “Getting to meet Lawmane and a young captain at the same time? This must be my lucky day!”
Captain Valiant could swear that the coach felt even warmer now.
~*~
Meanwhile...
In the first coach before the engine, various pony travelers tried to find ways to pass the time while the train crept closer to its destination. Some were reading, some engaged in chit-chat, others were gazing out of the windows or simply staring into thin air, lost in thought.
One earth pony in particular kept looking at his pocket watch, almost as if he counted the minutes ticking down while waiting for something. He was medium sized and khaki-colored, with a wavy dark blue mane and a cutie mark the shape of a row of aces. He dressed in a bright red waistcoat, but his most outstanding feature was the black eyepatch over his right eye – an expensive memento of a Baltimare bar fight in his younger days. He stroked his neatly trimmed mustaches while his healthy eye tracked the arms on the watch. It struck eight minutes past four - that was the first que. The one-eyed pony smiled and returned the watch to his pocket, producing a deck of cards instead.
“Well, I don't know about you fellows,” he said to the coach at large and started to cut the deck with a dexterity honed by years of practice, “but I'm getting mighty bored over here. So, who's up for a game of cards to pass the time? Anyone?”
As it turned out, several of the other passengers were indeed interested and soon a group of players had gathered to participate in the game. As he started to deal out the cards, the pony with the eyepatch tried not to smile too much.
Most who looked at Wildcard's cutie mark could guess he was a gambler. However, surprisingly few ever noticed that it featured five aces rather than four.
~*~
Meanwhile...
Standing on a cliff overlooking the desert valley, two ponies waited for a train.
The earth pony was the larger of the two, and resembled a dark patch of night against the clear blue sky – coal-black mane, coal-black tail, his slender and sinewy body the same dark gray as a thundercloud, making it hard to discern his cutie mark: four black spades arranged in a cross. He had a long lariat wrapped around his neck, and his only article of clothing was the large black hat resting on his head, worn from many travels and adventures. The only splash of color on his person was his eyes – a startling shade of gold, like two bright moons against the darkness.
He drew a deep breath, scraped his hoof against the cliff and turned his head south. “The train will be here soon. Right on time.”
“I wish I knew how you do that,” said his partner, a somewhat scrawny-looking white and black unicorn in a top hat. “And speaking of wishes, I also wish I was on that train.”
“We've been over this, Mountebank.”
“Yes, Black Jack, I know.” The unicorn named Mountebank sighed. “But we both know I wouldn't even have to be here if Calamity hadn't been late, again. I just hope she actually shows up.”
“Cal ain't ever let me down before,” Black Jack said. “But if fer some reason she don't show, Ah'll be countin' on yer magic to back me up 'gainst them pegasi.” He gave the unicorn a sideways grin. “'Sides, even Ah don't wanna try jumping unto a moving train less Ah got any other choice.”
“I don't mind that part,” Mountebank grumbled, “but I'm an artist, not a fighte...”
But Black Jack silenced him with a wave of his hoof, having just spotted a cloud of smoke and dust at the horizon. His golden eyes narrowed and his body tensed into a ready position. “We're out of time. No turning back now, Monty. We ride... now!”
On the mark, the two ponies galloped down the slope, Mountebank struggling to keep up with Black Jack. “Don't call me Monty!”
~*~
“So tell me,” Jessy Belle said, magically wafting her face with a hovering fan, “why do a couple of heroic ponies like you two have this whole coach reserved anyway?”
“That ain't a public matter, ma’am,” Lawmane muttered. Despite Jessy Belle's magical charm, he remained rather curt with them.
“Let's just say we're transporting something rather valuable in the cargo back there,” said Valiant, who seemed quite a bit more eager to impress the girls. “We're the last line of defense, as it were.”
“Why Captain, you make it sound as if we've just wandered into some storybook adventure,” Jessy Belle said, keeping her tone playful. “Should we expect a band of rowdy train robbers to barge in here at any moment?”
“Hardly,” Valiant laughed. “Half the ponies on this train are civilian police, and that includes a squad of pegasi guards in case of an aerial raid. You'd have to be either very brave or totally crazy to attack this train.”
“You don't say?” Jessy Belle chuckled. “Sounds like some fellas I know.”
“And even if a train robber makes it to the strongbox in the cargo wagon, only Lawmane and myself know the combination,” Valiant continued. “Not that they'd get that far. The wagon itself is locked and has spells to keep unicorns from teleporting in, and only Lawmane has the key, so...”
“Val,” said Lawmane sharply. “I think you need to stop talking now.”
“Ah... r-right,” Valiant suddenly looked very embarrassed for having let that much information slip. “Well, the point is that we are all quite safe, Miss Jessy Belle, so there is no need for you to worry. Even if some no-good brigands make the attempt, they won't get far.”
Jessy Belle wafted her fan with increased intensity. “I'd say! I can't imagine anypony who'd be daring enough to try it.”
“I know one,” said Lawmane darkly. “Black Jack.”
Valiant gave a nervous chuckle. “Now, now, Lawmane, let's not start that again...”
“The Black Jack?” Jessy Belle gasped. “But I thought he was just a story to scare misbehaving foals with. You mean to say he's real?”
“He's real, alright,” Lawmane said. “Him and me, we've crossed each other on more than one occasion, but he always slips through my hooves in the end. He's an infernal genius, the Neighpoleon of Crime, the sort who's in it just for the challenge.” The marshal glanced at Captain Valiant. “Had it been my call, we would have bought this entire train and filled it with troopers. Black Jack is not to be underestimated.”
“Oh my!” Jessy Belle frowned. “Don't he sound like the most awful cur! But I'm sure two strong and brave stallions like yourselves would never let any harm come to... Oh, will you stop fussing, child?”
The last bit was aimed to Pilfer Swift, who had grown increasingly fidgety as the others talked. “But I'm bored!” she whined.
“Oh, well, why don't you run along and see what Cousin' Wild is up to?” Jessy Belle suggested. “Celestia knows there's never a dull moment around him.”
“Okay!” Pilfer bounced out of her seat and left the wagon. Jessy Belle gave Lawmane and Valiant an apologetic smile.
“Kids,” she said with a shrug. “Now then, marshal, why don't you tell me more thrilling stories about that awful Black Jack fellow...”
As Pilfer Swift made her way down the train cars, she happened to bump into one of the other passenger. “Oh, excuse me,” she said.
“Be more careful,” the other pony muttered, but didn't pay her much attention. As he turned his back, Pilfer quickly peeked inside the wallet she had taken from the pocket of his coat. “Cheapskate,” she whispered with a disappointed frown, letting it slip into her saddlebag.
Oh well, at least she wasn't bored anymore.
~*~
The poker game had been a tense one and Wildcard was playing a high-risk game, though not quite in the sense the other players assumed he was. By now he had singled out one of them as his mark – a large, carmine red stallion with a dynamite cutie mark. He was hot-tempered, he was reckless, he was considerably less intelligent than he thought himself to be. He was perfect.
The big guy was leering over his cards and was just about to announce his bet when a young white pegasus with a rust-red ponytail just happened to bump into him. “'Scuse me, mister.”
“Ey, watch where yer goin',” growled the red pony.
Wildcard couldn't stop himself from smirking slightly. That was the second que. “Hey now, we're still playing aren't we?”
“We sure are,” said big-and-red, “and I'm bettin' a hundred bits.”
“I fold,” said one of the other players.
“Me too,” said the pony next to him. One by one they folded until only one remained.
Wildcard cocked his head, letting his eyes linger on his cards a bit for dramatic tension. “I'll see your hundred bits,” he said, showing his cards: Three sevens, ace of hearts, ace of spades. “Full house.”
The red pony grinned triumphantly. “Full house,” he declared and spread his own cards: ace of hearts, ace of diamonds, ace of spades and two jacks. “Looks like I win!”
There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at the cards.
“Wait,” said one of the more dim-witted players. “There ain't that many aces in poker, is there?”
Wildcard flew out of his seat. “Why you slimy, double-crossing no-good swindling cheater!”
“What!?” The red pony stood up as well and shook his hoof at Wildcard. “Nopony calls me a...” But in that very moment, several aces fell out of the sleeve of his jacket, landing in plain view for all to see. The red pony's mouth fell open in shock and confusion.
“Aha! Caught you red-hoofed!” Wildcard declared. “Cheater!”
Something seemed to snap inside the red pony and he lunged at Wildcard. But the gambler was prepared and dodged the blow, which struck a different passenger instead. “Why you...!” The accidental victim threw himself over his assailant, and in seemingly no time at all, the situation had degenerated into an all-out brawl full of flying hooves and shouted curses.
Wildcard, however, had quickly ducked out of their midst and leaned against the wall near the coach door, just watching the spectacle. A few moments later Pilfer appeared at his side, having somehow also wormed her way through the battle unscathed.
“I nicked a few wallets while I was at it,” she whispered, patting her saddlebag. “I figured why pass up the opportunity?”
“Good girl,” Wildcard chuckled. “Get ready now, your big number is coming up.”
“What's going on here!” came a cry as several large stallions barged into the coach – Lawmane's undercover police, no doubt. Holding his leg out ever so slightly, Wildcard made the leader trip and stumble straight into the melee. His comrades tried to help him, and before long they too were involved in the fight.
Wildcard just kept on smiling. Chaos reigned.
~*~
“What the blazes is going on over there?” Lawmane frowned. Even all the way in the back of the train they could hear the commotion from the coach in front.
Jessy Belle gasped in feigned terror and pressed her body close to Valiant. “Oh my stars, is it him? It is him, isn't it?”
“N-Now keep calm, Miss Belle,” Valiant said, trying his best to keep his own head cool as well. “It's just a scuffle of some kind.”
Lawmane didn't look convinced. “The men should have broken it up by now. Something's wrong.”
“Oh, I knew it!” Jessy Belle looked close to fainting. “That terrible Black Jack character is coming here to rob us all blind!”
Lawmane got out of his seat with a grim look on his face. “Come on, Val.”
“You don't seriously think its...?”
“Black Jack or no Black Jack, we've got work to do.”
They made their way through the train – Lawmane in the lead, followed by Valiant, with Jessy Belle carefully trailing behind. From the corner of his eye, Lawmane thought the saw a speck of black against the golden desert when he passed one of the windows, and he momentarily turned his head. The next moment, Pilfer Swift just happened to run straight into him.
“Marshal!” she cried, grabbing his duster. “It's awful! I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden they were all fighting and I didn't know what to do and...”
Lawmane just brushed her aside. “We'll handle it, miss. You go back to our coach and stay there.”
“Y-Yes sir!” Pilfer gave him and Valiant a salute as they walked by her and exchanged a wink and a smile with Jessy Belle when they passed. Once she was back in their coach, she closed the door and held up a small key. She smiled. “Oh, yes indeed sir.”
Opening the door on the opposite side of the coach, she climbed over to the cargo wagon at the end of the train and unlocked the door with the key. Well inside she found the large metal strongbox holding the gold they had come for. It was of course too heavy and sturdy for her to do anything about, so having successfully done her part, she simply sat down on the box and waited.
“So far, so good,” she said, smiling to herself. “Oh, I hope the rest of the plan goes this well.”
~*~
Black Jack had timed their run perfectly – with the momentum of the downhill rush, they came in at full speed next to the tracks just as the train started to pass them by. Naturally, they couldn't match the locomotive for speed, but they didn't need to keep up with it for very long.
Black Jack kept the pace without any sign of tiring, while Mountebank looked quite a bit more winded. “Is it... time... yet?” he gasped.
“Just a bit more!” Black Jack called back.
“Oh, come on!”
“Alright, get ready!” Black Jack slowed down enough to bring himself right next to Mountebank. Seeing the unicorn's horn glowing with magic, he nodded. “Do it!”
Mountebank released his spell and the two of them vanished in a white flash. The next moment they reappeared above the train, landing on the metal roof with a loud thud.
“Never... again...” Mountebank groaned.
Black Jack slapped his compatriot hard on the back. “Good job, Monty. But don't let yer guard down just yet, a'right?” A devilish grin spread across his face. “This here's where the fun part begins!”
~*~
It was an amazing fight – an unrestricted free-for-all with ponies punching, kicking, wrestling, butting and biting each other all over the coach. Even the undercover cops seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing and simply pummeled whoever they could get their hoofs on. Wildcard couldn't have hoped for a better diversion.
“WHAT IN THE HAY IS GOING ON IN HERE!?”
The bellowing roar washed over the fighters like a torrent of cold water and they all froze in place, hooves still raised in the air. Standing by the door, glaring at them with his cold and hard eyes, Lawmane had defused the situation instantly.
He stepped forward and turned to one of the roughed up ponies, whom he recognized as one of his men. “Constable, report.”
The police-pony scratched his head, looking rather embarrassed. “Yes, sir. There, um, there was a fight...”
“Obviously.”
“Ah, yeah, seems like somepony had been cheating at cards, sir, and things just got out of hand.”
“It's a lie!” groaned a large red pony who had been knocked to the floor in the fray. “I ain't no cheater!”
“Sonnova...” Lawmane sighed, covering his eyes with his hoof. “Okay, y'all, fun's over! Everypony get back to your seats or I swear I'll arrest the lot of you!”
“Hey!” came a voice in the crowd. “My wallet's missing!”
“Hey! Mine too!” came another voice. “Thief!”
A loud murmur broke out as more and more ponies found their pockets picked. Looking around, Lawmane's eyes narrowed as his instincts told him he'd missed something vital.
“I didn't do it!” moaned the red pony, getting up on unsteady hooves behind the marshal. “I ain't no cheater! And I ain't no thief either!”
Without even looking, Lawmane struck the red pony with the back of his hoof, knocking him out. “Hold it! I change my mind. Everypony stay right where you are!” Lawmane turned to Valiant, while slowly raising his hoof to his own pocket. “Captain Valiant, prepare to conduct a full search of this...”
There was a loud, metallic thud from above their heads. Lawmane paused and looked up. “The hay was that?”
Everyone went quiet and listened. There were more sounds from above – the unmistakable noise of hooves running over metal. Valiant's eyes widened. “They're on the roof!”
“Wings, deploy!” Lawmane barked. “I want all of you out there right now! Go!”
One by one, the pegasi poured out of the train, leapt into the air and spread their wings, letting the draft catch them. They were all experts, some of the best flyers in Equestria, and perfectly capable of keeping up with the train. Spotting the two intruders on the roof, they started their attack run.
“Get ready!” Black Jack said, loosening his lariat. “Here they come!”
The first pegasus to get close to Jack took a buck that nearly knocked him out of the air. The second was dodged, the third ate a punch. Jack moved with the grace and explosive power of a seasoned fighter. He threw his lariat, roped one of the pegasi and swung him like a flail against the cloud of attackers.
At his side, Mountebank was doing his best but growing increasingly agitated. “Dammit!” he swore, wildly firing bolts of magic from his horn just to keep the pegasi away from him. “Where's Calamity when you actually need her!?”
Suddenly there was a shadow against the sun and then a gray and red blur struck the swarm of pegasi, scattering it completely like a perfect bowling strike. The newcomer was a flurry of kicks and punches, and landed on the train with so much momentum her hooves caused sparks to fly where they skid across the metal. She was an enormous pegasus mare, almost the size of a male workhorse, iron gray in color with the bangs on her spiky crimson mane hanging down over her face, obscuring one of her ruby eyes. The cutie mark on her flank was a black tornado with a bolt of lighting shooting out of it.
“JIIIIIIHAAAAAAAA!” she hooted. “Someone order a Caaa-laaa-mity?”
”Oh look, the muscle's finally here!” Mountebank yelled over the fray. ”Well, I guess that means you don't need me anymore, see you when it's time to square the gold, ta-ta!”
He vanished in an audible poof, teleporting to safety inside the train. Black Jack and Calamity took position back to back, hooves raised, as the pegasi guards circled them like vultures. Black Jack glanced at the mare. ”Yer late.”
”I reckoned it was only fair to give y’all a head start,” Calamity chuckled. ”Remember, the one who bucks the most city slickers today buys the cider!”
Black Jack grinned. ”Don't hold back, Cal. I want every single on'a these feather brains outta commission for the rest o' the day.”
”Rest of the day?” Calamity laughed. A pegasus swooped down to attack her, but her uppercut sent him flying into one of his comrades instead. “When I'm through with 'em, they won't be flying for a week!”
~*~
In the train coach below, Mountebank appeared in another white flash. Relieved at a chance to catch his breath, he corrected his top hat that had come awry in the scuffle. Well, that could have been... Then he froze in place as he suddenly noticed that the coach was full of ponies staring silently at him, including a captain of the Royal Cavalry and Marshal Lawmane himself. ...worse?
“Who the hay are you?” Lawmane asked.
“Um...”
Not knowing what else to do, Mountebank did what he did best: He improvised.
“They're mad!” he suddenly cried, pointing up. “Mad, I tell you! They're fighting on the train!” He stumbled over to Lawmane. “It's him! It's Black Jack the Outlaw! He's here!”
Lawmane's head snapped towards the ceiling and his mouth twisted into a sneer. “Black Jack...”
The crowd was quickly getting agitated. “Black Jack? … Wait, that Black Jack!? … He's here? … What do we ... Somepony do something! ...”
“Don't panic!” Valiant called out. “Everything is under control!”
“No! Panic!” Mountebank countered, elbowing his way to the door where Wildcard waited. “Nothing is under control! The pegasi can't hold him! He's unstoppable!”
Lawmane meanwhile headed towards the opposite door, brushing ponies aside like they weren't there. “Val, keep things together down here.”
“Wait, what?” Valiant shot him a look of pure panic. “Where are you going?”
“I'm gonna face Black Jack myself.”
“You're doing what? Dammit, Lawmane, I need you down here! You can't just...”
But Lawmane was already gone. Valiant swore a terrible oath under his breath.
~*~
Stepping outside the train, Lawmane managed to pull himself up on the roof just in time to dodge an out-of-control pegasus who instead slammed straight into a passing water tower. The rest of the pegasi garde weren't doing much better by the looks of it – it seemed the train robbers had already put more than half of them out of commission.
Calamity landed hard on the coach in front of him, with a look of unbridled excitement on her face. ”Howdy, marshal! Let's dance!”
”Out of my way, Calamity!” Lawmane growled. ”I'll deal with you later.”
Calamity simply launched herself at him, hooves raised. ”That ain't no way to treat a lady!”
Lawmane rolled on his back, caught her in a suplex and sent her flying straight into the swarm of pegasi. “Your point?”
Getting back on his hooves, he looked up to see Black Jack walking towards him across the roof of the speeding train, as calmly as if he was taking a stroll down the street.
”Lawmane...” the dark stallion greeted with a wicked smile, taking pleasure in drawing the name out. ”Ah knew you'd come to face me in person. That's what Ah like 'bout you – very easy to understand.”
”Wish I could say the same about you,” Lawmane said. ”A full frontal assault ain't your style, Jack. What're you planning?”
Black Jack shrugged. ”Who knows? Maybe Ah'm just gettin' sloppy? Ah s'pose this'd be your big chance to finally catch me, then.”
Lawmane's eyes narrowed. ”This train is metal. Your bizarre powers ain't gonna work on this footing, Jack. We're even.”
Black Jack grinned. ”Interestin' theory.”
His head snapped with the speed of a viper's strike, sending the lariat flying towards Lawmane's neck. The marshal jerked back in the last moment and let it rope snare his foreleg instead. Giving it a hard tug, he pulled Black Jack close and landed a mighty punch across the outlaw's face.
They started trading blows, and Black Jack never stopped smiling. It wasn't any fun if it was too easy.
~*~
Once Lawmane had left the train, Valiant found himself in the unenviable position of keeping the situation from getting any worse than it already was. “Okay, I want everypony who doesn't work for us to sit down and remain calm while those who do conduct a search of the train. If you all cooperate nobody needs to get... Hey, you two!” The last part was directed to Mountebank and Wildcard, who had been trying to shuffle closer to the door. “Stop right there! I have some questions for you!”
“Maybe we should do as he says?” Mountebank suggested.
Wildcard saw a water tower rush by outside the coach windows. Third cue. He grabbed Mountebank. “We're out of time! Just run!”
And ran they did, out the door and down through the train. “Hey, come back here!” they heard Valiant shout behind them. “Don't just stand there, you idiots! After them!”
“Now what?” Mountebank asked when they reached the last coach. “It's still too early to disengage, and the captain is coming to arrest us.”
“Hm, yes,” Wildcard tapped his chin, “seems like it's time to use the secret weapon.”
Valiant and all his men burst into the coach, but instead of trying to escape, Wildcard simply approached them with a confident look on his face as if he planned to fight them all off by himself.
“We have you cornered,” Valiant said. “Give up and come quietly!”
“Come quietly?” Wildcard chuckled. Then, in one swift motion, he ripped his waistcoat open. “I think my little friends here may have some objections to that!”
Valiant and his men stopped dead in their tracks. The entire inside of Wildcard's waistcoat was lined with dynamite.
“This is your secret weapon!?” Mountebank shrieked in horror.
“That's right!” said Wildcard triumphantly. “So you and your men better retreat to the next coach, captain, or I'm going to blow this whole train halfway to Tall Tale!”
Valiant hesitated. “You're bluffing!”
“Oh, so you're a gambler as well?” Wildcard grinned. “But see, where I'm from there's a saying: Never bet against a mustang from Mustangia when gambling with your life!”
Valiant gritted his teeth. “...Everypony, fall back! Retreat!”
“Much obliged,” Wildcard chuckled.
Valiant glared at him. “You'll never get away with thioouuff!” He was interrupted by a certain mare more or less tackling him out of nowhere. “Miss Jessy Belle, this is hardly the time!”
“Oh, captain!” Jessy Belle cried, clinging to him. “I'm so scared!”
Valiant suddenly felt oddly lightheaded. “P-please control yourself!”
Jessy Belle looked deep into his eyes and her horn shimmered with magic power. “You will protect me, won't you?”
“O-Of course I will... protect you,” Valiant said. He had a strange look in his eyes, as if lost in thought or daydreaming.
“You won't let anyone harm me, will you?” Jessy Belle asked.
“I... won't let anyone... harm you...” the mesmerized Valiant mumbled.
“And you'll tell me the combination to the gold transport strongbox,” Jessy Belle pressed on. “Wooont you, captain?”
“Yes... The combination... is... right 15, left 16, right 23, left 42...”
Having produced a quill and parchment from her saddlebag, Jessy Belle quickly jotted the numbers down. “Thanks, sweetie.”
Valiant shook his head. “...Wait, what? Why did I... !”
CRACK!
Something hit him hard over the head and he blacked out. Jessy Belle sighed. It were dark times when a lady had to resort to carrying a brick in her bag. She turned to Wildcard and Mountebank. “Ready to go, boys?”
“You bet,” Wildcard said, taking off his explosives-laden waistcoat and throwing it carelessly on the floor, nearly making Mountebank jump out of his skin.
The three of them then quickly climbed over to the cargo wagon. “Hey guys!” Pilfer said, waving at them from her seat on the strongbox. “Are we winning?”
“Yes, sugarcube, we most definitely are,” Wildcard said, disengaging the couplings that held the wagon to the rest of the train. “Boss! Cal!” he shouted. “Time to go!”
~*~
Black Jack had to admit, Lawmane hadn't been all wrong about them being even – Jack was a better technical fighter, but the marshal was an experienced brawler as well, not to mention absurdly durable and strong as a bull. Jack wasn't at all weak, and he definitely landed more blows than he took, but they just didn't seem to do much damage.
Throughout the fight, he had made sure to retreat down the train until they were battling close to the cargo wagon. A bit further ahead, Calamity had already body slammed the last pegasus into submission and now circled the air above the train, trying to decide if her leader needed any assistance. At this point Black Jack and Lawmane were both breathing hard and had begun to feel the bruises.
A particularly vicious attack knocked Black Jack on his back. He only barely rolled out of he way of Lawmane's next strike, which actually put a dent in the roof of the train. Black Jack kicked hard with both hindlegs, sending Lawmane staggering back long enough for the outlaw to somersault back on his hooves. He just needed to hold his opponent off for a little longer.
There was a loud clanking sound – the cargo wagon had been disconnected! “Boss! Cal!” Wildcard's voice called out from below. “Time to go!”
Black Jack made a move for the wagon, but suddenly he felt a heavy body press down on him from behind and a strong foreleg wrapped around his neck in a vice-like grip. Lawmane had managed to put him in a submission hold. “Oh no, you don't!” the marshal grunted in his ear. “You ain't running away this time, Jack!”
Black Jack struggled, seeing the cargo wagon starting to drift away behind the train, but it was no use – Lawmane was too strong. Managing to draw a wheezing breath, Black Jack bet everything on one last card. He reached back and placed his hooves directly on Lawmane's head.
In an instant, Lawmane felt his mind invaded by a surge of power from the black pony. Golden eyes stared right into his soul and a black storm threatened to overwhelm his consciousness. Lawmane let out an angered cry and pushed Black Jack away, falling on one knee grabbing his head. “Stay.. out of my head... you freak...”
Black Jack got on his hooves and saw his chance. He ran, leapt and marginally cleared the divide, rolling as he landed on the cargo wagon roof. Moments later, Calamity came swooping down to join him, passing right over Lawmane who was still reeling from Black Jack's mental assault. He made one final attempt to leap after the pegasus, likely driven more by stubbornness than anything else. However, Calamity simply twisted in the air and – letting out an almost child-like laugh – sent him back with a kick. She landed behind Black Jack, who watched the train power on ahead with Lawmane still on it. “So long, marshal!” he called out. “Better luck next time!”
Realizing the outlaw was once more beyond his reach, Marshal Lawmane put another dent in the train. “BLAAACK JAAACK!”
With the wagon slowly creeping to a halt, and the train disappearing in the distance, Black Jack allowed himself to slump down to a sitting position. That last move had drained more of his reserves than he'd expected it to, and though he would be fine once he had earth under his hooves again, for now he didn't want to move around. He touched his neck and cringed a bit. “Cal?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Remind me not to try takin' that fella head on again.”
“Sure thing.” Calamity gave him a glance and a wry smile. “So, that mean I can have him next time?”
Black Jack's only reply was a tired chuckle.
~*~
Still feeling somewhat dizzy, Lawmane managed to climb back into the coach, swearing under his breath the whole time. Curse Black Jack and his witchcraft! Earth ponies ain't even supposed to have magic! Cheating son of a...
A groan that wasn't his own caught his attention and he found Valiant picking himself off the floor. The captain had a large bump on his head and looked about as bad as Lawmane felt. “Val, what the hay happened to you?”
Despite clearly being in pain, Valiant managed to look severely embarrassed. “I... Well, that is...”
Lawmane sighed. “You know what? Save it. We need to get the driver to stop the train. They can't run far with a strongbox full of gold, so we can still catch up if we leg it.”
“What about the pegasi?” Valiant asked.
“Scattered all across eastern San Palomino, I'd say,” Lawmane replied. “And thanks to Black Jack and that pet natural disaster of his, I doubt any of them will be doing any more flying today. Get the rest of the men ready, we'll just have to make do with good old-fashion running.”
Valiant held back another groan. “Running. I'm really not in any shape to...”
He fell silent. Both he and Lawmane had detected a strange hissing sound, as well as the feint odor of chemical smoke. They both turned their heads at once, staring at the source of the sound.
A discarded waistcoat. Roughly a dozen sticks of dynamite. And a long fuze almost completely burned out.
“You've got to be kidding me,” Valiant said, just before Lawmane grabbed him.
“Take cover!”
~*~
“We're rich! We're rich! We got a whole pile of gold! We're rich!”
The cargo wagon had almost completely slowed to a halt. Inside, Jessy Belle had wasted no time unlocking the strongbox and admiring the stacks of gold bullion inside. She and Pilfer Swift had now taken to dancing around the box, chanting to themselves about their new-found wealth.
Somewhere in the distance, a loud explosion resounded through the stillness of the desert, sending a slight tremor through the metal frame of the wagon. Leaning towards one of the walls, Wildcard sighed. “You know, I really am going to miss that waistcoat.”
“You can buy another one,” Jessy Belle told him. “By the way, did you hear? We're rich!”
The wagon finally stopped moving and the wide side door slid open, revealing Black Jack and Calamity outside. “Settle down, y'all,” Black Jack said. “We ain't home free yet. Hurry an' get that box on the cart. Pilfer, yer on lookout.”
They had rolled to a stop in a rocky area where a great mesa rose to the sky right next to the train tracks, but directly in front of them a narrow ravine split the stone in two leading deeper into the Macintosh Hills. A large wooden cart waited for them further down the path - between Black Jack's planning and Wildcard's sense of timing, they had rolled to a stop in the exact right place. High up above on one side of the ravine, a giant wedge-shaped spire of rock loomed over them like a bad omen.
Wildcard, Jessie Belle and Mountebank got to work moving the strongbox, which proved easier said than done:
“Damn, this thing weighs a ton!”
“Put your back into it!”
“Monty, why don't you use your magic to lift it?”
“I'm trying! And don't call me Monty!”
“Who would have thought an iron box full of gold would be this heavy?”
After about a minute - at which point their collective efforts had managed to push the box to the edge of the door - Calamity rolled her eyes, picked the whole box up with her bare hooves and carried it over to the waiting cart. Jessy Belle stared in disbelief and Mountebank coughed, trying to look nonchalant. “Ah, well, I was just about to... Good show, Calamity, good show.”
“I'm glad she's on our side,” Wildcard said, “I'll tell you that for nothing.”
Strapping herself to the cart, Calamity turned to Black Jack. “That just about wraps it up, huh?”
Black Jack scraped his hoof against the ground. “Nah, not quite...”
“Black Ja... I mean, boss!” Pilfer Swift fluttered over to them. “Some ponies are heading this way down the tracks, I think it's the marshal and his men.”
Calamity chuckled. “That Lawmane just don't know when to quit, does he?”
“Ah'll deal with it,” Black Jack said. “The rest o' ya head down the canyon, Ah don't want ya'll gettin' in the way.”
They did as he said, Calamity pulling the cart and the others helping by pushing it. Pilfer Swift shot a worried look back at Black Jack, whom they had left near the mouth of the canyon, standing still as a statue. “He's not going to try fight them all on his own, is he?”
“The boss is about to do his thing, is all,” Calamity explained. “You're new to this gang, so you don't know yet what he's capable of. Trust me, filly, he knows what he's doing.”
Black Jack had his eyes closed in concentration, drawing deep, controlled breaths while focused on feeling the earth beneath him. Already he could sense the vibrations of the approaching posse. Nopony was close enough to see, but little swirls of dust had appeared around his hooves, whirling in synch with his breathing.
Suddenly he reared up on his hindlegs, then brought his hooves down hard on the ground. An invisible pulse of power resonated through the earth, the rock, the mountain. For several moments nothing happened. Then, with a mighty cracking sound, the base of the stone spire split in half and the whole thing came crashing down, shattering against the canyon walls. Black Jack didn't move out of his spot, even as giant boulders struck the ground mere yards away from him. When the dust settled, the rockfall had neatly sealed the entry to the canyon. Satisfied, Black Jack turned and galloped after his gang.
On the other side of the rocks, Lawmane and Valiant – still singed and sore from the previous explosion – now found their path blocked by an insurmountable barrier of stone. Without a word, Lawmane struck one of the boulders hard in frustration, and when he turned around, nopony who saw his face dared say a word. Black Jack the Outlaw had escaped him once again.
By the time they found an alternative path, the bandits were already into the hills carting their ill-gotten loot along. The six partners in crime joked and laughed among themselves, drunk with success. This had been their first heist as a team, but it would not be the last. Later they would lose most of the gold due to a unfortunate series of unlikely events, finding themselves back where they started. But it didn't matter: There would always be another plan, another treasure, another narrow escape.
And so Black Jack and his Badland Broncos rode on towards new adventures.
“...an' escaped with all the gold,” Applejack finished reading. “This whole book's full 'a stories like that, an' Ah...” She noticed that all her friends were looking at her in awe. “What?”
“That was awesome!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“Stuuupendous!” Pinkie Pie chimed in.
“I admit, that was a pretty exciting tale,” Twilight said. “You say you found it while you were spring cleaning?”
“Yeah, Red Delicious found this big ol' trunk in the attic,” Applejack explained. “This journal was stashed inside. Ah asked Granny 'bout it but even she don't know where it came from. That means it musta been there fer a very long time. Whaddaya think, Twilight? This the real deal?”
“I'd guess so,” Twilight said. “The name Black Jack does seem vaguely familiar – I think I must have read it somewhere before, but I can't quite place it. Of course, Marshal Lawmane is a well known historical figure.”
“Lawmane! Lawmane!” Pinkie Pie sang. “Strong as a bear! Quick as a panther!”
“Oh! Applejack, maybe this Black Jack was an ancestor of yours!” Rarity suggested. “That would explain why your family has his old diary.”
Applejack frowned slightly. “The thought did occur to me, but Ah can't say Ah'm all that comfortable with that. Black Jack may've been a criminal genius, but he was still a criminal. Us Apples pride ourselves as honest, hard-workin' ponies and Ah'm just not sure Ah want us ta be associated with somepony like that.”
“Eh, you're taking it too seriously, AJ,” said Rainbow Dash. “I sure wouldn't mind being related to somepony as cool as that, even if he was a bad guy.” A thought seemed to occur to her and she held up her borrowed copy of Daring Do and the Curse of the Obsidian Mask with glistening eyes. “Hey! What if Black Jack fought Daring Do? That would be awesome! Who'd you think would win?”
“Black Jack, obviously, on account 'a havin' been a real pony,” Applejack deadpanned, “where's Daring Do is a storybook character.”
“Sounds like somepony is a bit proud of her possible ancestor after all,” Rarity teased. Applejack let slip an embarrassed cough, averting her eyes and scrunching her mouth like she always did when caught being less than perfectly honest.
Rainbow Dash still seemed unwilling to give up her fantasy scenario. “I dunno, what about all that weird magic stuff Black Jack was doing? I mean, come on, mind-crushing ponies and cracking mountains by stomping his hooves? He must have been making that part up.”
“I wondered about that too,” Fluttershy whispered. “Earth ponies can't do things like that, can they?”
“I wouldn't be so sure about that,” Twilight said. “He may have exaggerated, but all ponies have magic. Unicorn magic is the most obvious kind, of course, since our horns form a natural magical conductor to our minds, but you pegasi can control the weather in ways we can't. Earth pony magic tends to be a lot more subtle, but it's still there.”
Applejack wrinkled her brow. This topic didn't seem to sit well with her. “Don't know about that. Ah ain't ever felt 'specially magical.”
“Maybe not,” Twilight said, “but I've seen you knock the apples from an entire tree in a single buck, without leaving a mark on the tree itself. That's not just a matter of muscles, is it? How do you do that?”
Applejack shrugged. “Ah... Ah dunno, it's just somethin' Ah known how ta do. Ah don't actually think about it.”
Twilight nodded. “It's something you can do intuitively thanks to a lot of practice, just like I have practiced casting spells. Earth ponies have a magical connection the earth, or rather, to nature itself. Just because your way isn't as flashy as ours doesn't mean it's less magical.” She shrugged. “Of course, I've never heard of any earth pony with powers like Black Jack's, but theoretically speaking, it's not impossible.”
Applejack regarded her hooves. “Well, no offense to ya'll, but that just makes me more conflicted 'bout all a this. Earth ponies usin' magic is just a bit...”
“I understand,” Twilight said, giving Applejack a friendly pat on the shoulder. She still remembered that one Winter Wrap Up when she tried helping out at the farm – she knew that getting by without magic was a matter of pride for the Apples. Maybe I said too much? “Oh well, I suppose this all comes down to how you feel about it, Applejack. What do you want to do?”
“Ah dunno,” Applejack said, looking down at the journal resting on the table. “To be honest, part 'a me just want to stuff this book back in the attic an' forget all about it. But... if Black Jack really is my ancestor, wouldn't that be disrespectful? Even he deserves to be remembered, right?”
“I think this is a decision only you can...” Twilight paused. She blinked. “Wait, what did you just say?”
“Ah said it might be disrespectful to...”
“No! After that!”
“...Even he deserves to be remembered?”
Twilight's eyes widened and she felt her pulse start to race again. “Remembered. Remember. Memory...” Her head snapped around with a look of abject terror on her face. “My memory potion!”
In the other end of the room, completely forgotten over its flame, the potion had boiled into a tar-like consistency and gone from purple to almost pitch black. It now bubbled with such intensity that the flask was starting to vibrate.
Rainbow Dash was the closest and reacted first: Bolting towards the chemistry set, she reached her hooves out. “I've got it!”
“Wait!” Twilight cried. “It's very...”
But it was too late. Rainbow Dash had tried to grab the flask but yelped as it burned her hooves. On reflex, she lobbed it aimlessly into the air.
The flask sailed through the air in a perfect arch heading straight for Rarity, who gasped in horror. “My newly styled mane! Nooooooo!” Reaching out for whatever was closest at hand – which turned out to be an unabridged copy of The Canterlot Tales – she desperately swatted the potion away from her. Miraculously, the flask didn't break and was sent flying once more, this time towards Pinkie Pie.
“Weeeee!” the party pony squealed and, to Twilight's horror, struck it hard with a squash racket.
Where did she even get a squash racket!?
Pinkie's strike was perfect, but her aim was not. Even faster than before, the flask now hurtled straight for Fluttershy, who simply stared at the oncoming projectile as if paralyzed.
“Get down!” In the last moment, Applejack threw herself over Fluttershy and they both fell to the floor. The flask grazed Applejack's head, knocking her hat off, before impacting on the table with the journal. The mistreated flask finally gave in and shattered.
An explosion rocked the library and filled it with a dense black smoke. Coughing and nearly blind, the six ponies hurried to open all the windows and doors to vent the building.
“Is everypony okay?” Twilight asked once the air had cleared up enough for them to see anything.
“I... I'm alright,” Fluttershy said, picking herself off the floor. “Thank you, Applejack. You really saved me there.”
“No sweat, sugar,” Applejack replied. She looked around. “Anypony see where my hat went?”
Rainbow Dash coughed loudly. There was still a lot of smoke in the air. “Yuck! This stuff smells like burning hair and timberwolf breath!”
“It's ghastly!” Rarity coughed as well. “Oh, I just know I'm going to reek of this for the rest of the day! This is the worst. Thing. Ever!”
“No really. Anypony see my hat?”
“Oh-oh...” Pinkie Pie had been investigating the site of the explosion. Twilight's table had been completely demolished, but that wasn't all. Pinkie turned around, holding up two objects in her hooves. One was the journal, the other Applejack's hat. “Sorry, Applejack.”
The other ponies gasped. The journal's brown bindings had turned a dull black, as if Twilight's potion had somehow doused it completely. Stranger still, the hat had turned black as well. Not scorched or stained – it looked as if it had been evenly dyed.
“My hat!” Applejack took the misfortunate piece of headwear from Pinkie, staring at it with a shell-shocked expression. “How could this happen? It was my favorite, too!”
“That's not all,” Pinkie said. She held up the journal and flipped through the pages. They were all blank. “Look, all the words are gone.”
“What!?” Twilight levitated the journal to herself and started looking through it. Pinkie was right, there wasn't a single stroke of ink on the yellowed pages, as if nothing had ever been written on them. “But... that's not possible! I don't understand.” Twilight turned to Applejack. “I-I'm so sorry, this is all my fault! If I hadn't forgotten...”
“It's... It's alright, Twilight,” Applejack said. “Ah ain't mad at ya. Shucks, it was my fault fer disractin' ya with that story.”
“But...” Twilight bit her lip. “The journal is ruined.”
Applejack shrugged. “Well, at least this way Ah don't need to decide what to do with it. Maybe this was fate?” She frowned. “Truth to be told, Ah'm more upset 'bout the hat.”
“Well, it's not entirely ruined, is it?” Fluttershy said. “I mean, you can still wear it. Um, if you want to, that is.”
“Fluttershy is right!” Rarity said. “Black is never out of style. Go on, Applejack, try it on.”
Hesitant at first, Applejack placed the blackened hat on her head. At least it didn't feel different. “How Ah look?”
“Why it looks splendid!” Rarity said. “Very chic, and it goes well with your colors.”
“You look like a different Applejack, but in a good way,” Pinkie commented. Fluttershy nodded in agreement.
“Well, Ah'll be,” Applejack said, daring a smile as she corrected the hat somewhat. “Ah s'pose a slight change of style ain't nothing to cry about, guess Ah can try to get used to it. It's still a good hat, anyhoo, an' it ain't like the color matters to me.”
“That's the spirit!” Rainbow Dash gave her a hard pat on the back. “That hat is now at least 20% cooler.”
“Ah'll just take yer word for that,” Applejack chuckled.
Twilight, however, was still examining the journal with a deeply troubled expression. “Still, I'm really sorry, Applejack. I just don't understand how this could happen.”
“Ah told ya not to worry, Twi,” Applejack said. “It's alright.”
“No, it's not!” Twilight insisted. “Look, do you mind if I keep this journal for now? If I can figure out what happened to it, I might be able to find a way to fix it.”
Applejack sighed and smiled at her friend. Leave it to Twilight to make a fuss over some old book. ”Tell ya what, sugarcube, you hold on to it for as long as ya like. Take yer time with it.”
Twilight's frown slowly turned into a smile. “O-Okay.”
Satisfied, and secretely glad that her dilemma had somehow sorted itself out on its own, Applejack turned to the others. “Now, whaddaya say we all pitch in an' get this place cleaned up?”
Everyone cheered at once: “Okay!”
Cleaning the library took the rest of the afternoon, but the six friends made time fly by turning it into a game; Pinkie improvised a song about cleaning, and Fluttershy even manage to convince some nearby birds to help out. When they finally left the library they were tired but happy.
“I had fun today!” Pinkie Pie declared. “And I'm so glad my Pinkie Sense didn't predict the rise of some insidious force of darkness that would threaten to destroy the bonds of friendship between us!”
“I think we can all agree on that one,” Rarity chuckled.
“Well, Ah needs ta get back home,” Applejack said. “We've got a big apple order comin' up this week fer the Solstice Parade in Canterlot. Lots a' apples to buck tomorrow.” She waved the others off. “See ya later, losers!”
Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie all stopped and looked at each other, frowning. Had they heard that right? “What was that, Applejack?” Rarity asked.
“Ah said: See ya later, girls!” Applejack repeated over her shoulder as she trotted down the street.
The remaining four ponies exchanged looks again. Surely, good old Applejack would never... Well, would she? No, that could not be. Wordlessly, they all agreed they must have simply misheard her, and so continued on their separate ways.
Non of them noticed that Applejack's shadow seemed somehow longer than it should have been.
~*~
“Mwahahaha!” Captain Baybeard, scourge of the seven seas, laughed maniacally. “Ah got ya now, Princess Celestia! With you as my hostage, nothin' will stop me an' my crew from plunderin' Canterlot of all its precious booty!”
“You'll never get away with this!” Princess Celestia spat, struggling against the ropes holding her tied to the great mast of the pirate king's ship. “Your voodoo curse may have sealed my magic, but you can never defeat the Power of Friendship!”
“Well, Ah gotta start somewhere,” Baybeard said. “All hands! Set sail fer Canterlot! There'll be nopony to stop us this time!”
“Nopony except me!” Suddenly a pony dressed in black, wearing a black mask over his eyes, swooped down on a rope and landed in front of Baybeard. He drew a sword, flourishing it dramatically. “Aha-haa!”
Baybeard gasped. “Dread Stallion Roberts! Impossible! How did ya escape the Labyrinth o' the Changeling Queen!?”
“With the Power of Friendship!” Roberts declared.
“Curses!” Baybeard swore and drew his own sword. “Ya may have survived the Temple o' the Rainbow Drinkers an' defeated my dragon servant an' outwitted my changeling allies, but ya were a foal to come here! Now Ah, Cap'n Baybeard, will knock ya down!”
“Today I avenge my father!” said the Dread Stallion Roberts, crossing swords with the captain. “It's just you and me, Baybeard! One on one!”
“Make that two on one!” Celestia declared, having somehow freed herself from her bonds. “Sorry to butt in, Roberts, but I also have a score to settle with him!”
“How can this be!?” Baybeard gasped.
Smiling triumphantly, Princess Celestia raised a sword in her hoof, pointing it at Baybeard. “I kept you talking so you wouldn't notice my faithful phoenix companion biting through the ropes! Also, I have a sword now.”
“Yar! How unfair!” Baybeard drew his extra sword. “Lucky Ah brought an extra sword! Have at thee!”
Applejack stared at the scene playing out in front of her. She had a huge grin on her face, and had to bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. Too. Darn. Cute!
Outside of their clubhouse, the Cutie Mark Crusader has assembled leftover planks and some old curtains into a crude construction that might pass for a ship with a generous helping of imagination. The fillies themselves were dressed up in makeshift costumes: Sweetie Belle wore a crown and harness made out of golden paper, and had a pair of fake white wings tied to her back. Scootaloo wore a black cape and a mask tied around her head. As for Apple Bloom, she had put on an old slouch hat, an eyepatch and a fake beard that was too large for her. She also wore what looked like an ordinary piece of wood tied in a string around her neck. All three of them were armed with wooden swords – Apple Bloom wielded two – with which they now enacted what was surely the most epic swashbuckling battle in Equestria's history.
“Foals! Ah'm invisible!”
“You mean invincible.”
“Yeah, that too!”
“Not without this you're not!”
“No! My voodoo medallion! The source of all my powers!”
“The curse is broken! SOLAR FLARE!”
“AAAAAARGHH!”
Applejack completely lost it. Laughing out loud, she started stomping the ground in appreciation of the performance. The three fillies stopped their play fight, having not realized they were having an audience.
“Um, hey sis,” Apple Bloom said, looking a bit embarrassed “How long've ya been watchin' us?”
“Oh, since ya threatened to plunder Princess Celestia's booty, just about,” Applejack replied, still highly amused by the mental image of the princess fighting a pirate. “So this is, what, Cutie Mark Crusaders improvised theater?”
“Nah, we already tried that once,” said Sweetie Belle. “It didn't work.”
“We're just playing,” Scootaloo said. “We're still kids, you know? Not everything we do is about cutie marks.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom nodded. “Sometimes we just wanna have fun the ordinary way.”
“Oh, so this here's recreational fun?” Applejack chuckled. “Gotcha.”
Stupid foals, don't know a thing 'bout the real world.
Applejack blinked. Where did that come from? It had just been a stray thought – she had barely noticed it, but it seemed so... mean. They were just fillies playing a game, for goodness sake.
“Sis?” Apple Bloom's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “You okay? Ya kinda zoned out on us fer a minute there.”
“Oh, sorry,” Applejack replied. “Ah got my head inna clouds today. Anyhoo, Ah just came to tell ya it's almost time fer dinner, so Ah'm afraid Cap'n Baybeard will have to make her darin' escape now.”
“Oh, okay.” Apple Bloom put her swords down and climbed off the alleged pirate ship. She waved at her friends. “Bye, girls! Ah had fun today!”
“See you tomorrow, Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle called after her.
“I'll get you next time, you no-good pirate!” Scootaloo added, cheerfully waving her wooden sword in the air.
“No-good pirate, huh?” Applejack said as the two sisters wandered side by side towards the farm. “Ya usually play the villain?”
“Most the time we take turns,” Apple Bloom explained. “It's fun being the baddie, but ya never get to win. Ah don't mind much, though.”
Applejack smiled, then glanced at her sister. “There's just one thing Ah don't get.”
“What's that?”
“How was Baybeard plannin' on sailing to Canterlot? It's on a mountain.”
“It's a flyin' ship. Duh.”
“Oooh...”
The two sisters kept chatting about simple things on their way back to the house. Apple Bloom did most of the talking, telling Applejack about her day at school and the most recent attempts of the Crusaders to acquire their cutie marks, all of which had of course ended in failure as usual. But Apple Bloom remained cheerful non the less, and Applejack felt at ease. After the afternoon's events, she appreciated the peaceful stroll through the orchards.
“By the way, what happened to yer hat?” Apple Bloom asked, just as the two of them were passing by the barn.
Applejack chuckled. “Ah, nothin' much. Ah'd gone to see Twilight Sparkle 'bout something and we had ourselves a bit of an...”
Right then, a strange sensation came over Applejack. A shiver ran through her body, racing down her spine, causing the hair of her coat to stand on end before hitting her tail and causing it to twitch. Accompanying the reaction was an odd feeling of immediate peril. Acting entirely on instinct, Applejack stopped dead in her tracks and held her hoof out to halt Apple Bloom as well.
The next moment a large hay bale landed right in front of them with a heavy thud.
“...accident,” Applejack finished. She looked up. “What the hay?”
A beige, blue-maned head peeked out from the barn loft, looking very awkward. “...Sorry, AJ!”
“Red, ya klutz!” Applejack shouted, suddenly very irate. “That's the second time ya almost dropped somethin' on my head!”
Ah have a mind ta come up there an' drop you!
“I know, AJ! I-I just don't know what went wrong,” came Red's embarrassed reply. “Really sorry!”
We'll see how sorry ya are after Ah break yer legs!
Applejack had to force herself not to say those words, and she found herself surprised at her own ferocity. She'd never hurt a family member... would she? “Be more careful, fer Petes sake!” she shouted instead, and then stormed off towards the house without waiting for a reply, her good mood ruined.
“Ah, swear, that pony!” she muttered. “If we didn't need his help to fill our order, Ah'd be tempted to tell him to pack his bags an' go home.”
Apple Bloom had to trot to keep up with her sister. She frowned slightly. “Aw, ya don't really mean that, do ya AJ?”
“No, Ah guess Ah don't,” Applejack sighed. It seemed those strange feelings of aggression still lingered with her. “Ah s'pose Ah'm just cranky 'cuz Ah'm hungry.”
“But how did ya see that hay bale comin'?” Apple Bloom asked.
That was a good question. Applejack was pretty sure she hadn't seen or heard it. She had... felt it, somehow. Had she just experienced one of Pinkie's mysterious precognitions? Thinking back, hadn't her tail twitched just before something fell from the sky?
No, that couldn't be. Pinkie Pie could do that because she was, well, Pinkie Pie. Normal rules just didn't apply to her, and there was no way an ordinary workhorse like Applejack could ever do what she did. It must have been a coincidence.
“Ah just had a feelin',” she told Apple Bloom. “Now come on, let's see what's fer dinner.”
~*~
Dinner turned out to be both palatable and very sturdy, as was usually the case in the Apple household. The whole family were seated at the table, enjoying the meal with the gusto only hard-working farm ponies could muster. Applejack's mood hadn't quite recovered, though, and her appetite seemed to suffer from it. Her brother and sister didn't seem to notice, and Red Delicious did his best not to meet her eyes. But when it appeared she wasn't going to finish her second helping, Granny Smith gave her a concerned look.
“Applejack, ya ain't eatin' like ya normally do,” the old mare noted. “Is anythin' wrong?”
“Oh, is nothin', Granny,” Applejack said. “Ah guess Ah'm not that hungry today.”
“But ya said ya were hungry just a while ago,” Apple Bloom argued. “An' you've been working hard all week. Ya need yer strength, sis. We still got two fields ta buck tomorrow if we gonna meet the Canterlot order on time.”
“It's not so bad,” Red Delicious said. “If you girls can manage the south field on your own tomorrow, we should still make it in time.”
Big Macintosh gave Apple Bloom a playful nudge. “Think yer up to it?”
“You bet we are!” Apple Bloom replied, confidently sticking her chin up. “When it comes ta applebuckin', me an' AJ are an unbeatable team!”
“Ah dunno,” Big Mac teased. “That's a looot a' apples we're talkin'.”
Who cares 'bout some stupid apples?
“Who cares 'bout some stupid apples?” Applejack heard herself mutter. She immediately gasped and clamped her hooves over her mouth, but it was too late. Red Delicious nearly choked on a piece of apple pie. Granny, Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh all stared at Applejack as if she was Nightmare Moon herself.
“...Applejack, dear, are ya sure yer feeling alright?” Granny Smith asked. She sounded genuinely worried, which only made Applejack feel worse about the whole thing.
“Ah... Ah dunno, Granny,” she admitted. “Somehow Ah just don't feel quite like myself today, like my head ain't on straight or sumthin'.”
Granny Smith sighed. “Ah know what's wrong. Yer overworked, plain as day. Always out there inna fields buckin' them apples or throwin' hay around or chasin' cows. An' when ya ain't workin' the farm yer out with yer friends, helpin' ponies in need or saving the world an' what have ya. Now Ah'm mighty proud Ah helped raise such a heroic, hard-workin' little pony, but ya need to take it easy once inna while, dear.”
“Ah... Ah guess yer right, Granny,” Applejack said. “In fact, Ah think Ah'll hit the sack early tonight. Need to be plenty rested tomorrow anyhow. 'Scuse me.”
She left the table and then the kitchen, too embarrassed to look at her relatives. If she had, she might have noticed the concerned looks they were giving her. As the evening proceeded, though, they all agreed with Granny's assessment and left it at that. Only Apple Bloom seemed to suspect something more serious was going on, but as she couldn't exactly put her hoof on what, she didn't bring it up.
Climbing the stairs to her room, Applejack thought about what Granny had said. It didn't seem quite right to her. She'd been overworked before – she still remembered that one applebuck season when she had stubbornly worked herself into an insomniac stupor. This was different, though. She didn't feel exhausted, just... not quite herself.
Closing the door behind her, she sat down on her bed and went through what she knew. In retrospect, hadn't she started having those strange thoughts sometime after the incident at the library? She'd breathed in a lot of that nasty black smoke – they all had, as a matter of fact. The more Applejack thought about it, the more she worried. If there was still some magic in that smoke, then what if there were side effects? Twilight hadn't said anything but Applejack had always been somewhat suspicious about this sort of thing, it wasn't like her magician friend didn't mess up on occasion. No matter how much talent she had, Twilight Sparkle was still only a pony after all.
Ah better talk to the others first thing inna mornin', Applejack thought. Find out of any a' them been thinkin' strange things as well.
There wasn't anything she could do about it at the moment, though, except trying to get some good old fashioned rest and hope her brain sorted itself out while she slept. She took her hat off and hung it on its usual rack. It still seemed somewhat bizarre to her: The even coal black color really did make it look like a whole different hat, and even now she felt a twinge of unease about that. But then she shook her head and convinced herself she was being silly. It was just a hat.
Even though she wasn't especially tired, she lay down on her bed and waited. Sooner or later sleep would come to her.
~*~
Later in the night, Applejack found herself sitting by the small table next to her bed. She didn't recall getting up, nor did she know the time, but her room was dark save for the silver light of the moon shining through her window. Finding a box of matches, she struck fire to one and lit a candle. A golden glow spread through the room but rather than fill it with light, it merely caused the shadows in the corners to deepen.
Applejack watched the candle burn in a strange daze. The small flame flickered like a beating heart and the mare felt mesmerized by it. Putting her hooves on either side of the candlestick, she started drawing deep, slow breaths while she kept on staring into the flame. The flickering slowed and the fire seemed to pulse in time with her rhythmic, controlled breathing. For each breath the flame seemed to grow larger; to the size of an apple, a pineapple, a melon. Her focus increased and the room around her started to fade away. Nothing existed except Applejack and the flame. Applejack was the flame.
But then something changed. She felt something creep across her mind like a spider and suddenly she knew, with terrifying certainty, that she was not alone. There was another presence in the room with her – it made no sound but she could feel it moving behind her, looking over her shoulder, breathing down her ear. She wanted to turn around and face the intruder, or better yet run for the door and never turn around. But her body would not move, and her eyes would not tear away from the billowing flame. She was paralyzed. Trapped. Her rising panic made her breath grow quicker and more shallow. The fire shuddered but continued to grow, evaporating the candle but still flared brightly. She could see shapes in the flames – a flowing mane; eyes of molten gold; a large, slender stallion rising from the flames like a beast out of Tartarus itself.
Overcome with panic, Applejack was finally able to turn away and then she saw it. The light from the flame cast a long shadow on the wall behind her. Her own shadow, but at the same time not. It reared as if trying to tear itself away from her, screaming silently at her with its open mouth...
~*~
Applejack jerked awake and sat up in her bed. There was no candle, no flame, no mysterious shadowy presence in her room. It had all been a dream. Drawing a deep breath to calm herself, she raised a hoof to wipe a drop of sweat from her forehead.
She froze. Her hoof had brushed against a familiar brim of felt. She was wearing her hat.
Applejack tore the hat off her head and stared at it. Why was she wearing it in bed? She never went to sleep with her hat on. Had she been so distracted she'd forgotten to take it off this time? No, she distinctly recalled hanging it on the rack before she want to bed. This was all wrong.
“N-Now calm down, Applejack,” she whispered to herself. “Ya just had a nightmare, and it's got ya a bit spooked. Ya were probably just... sleepwalkin'. Yeah, ya put yer hat on in yer sleep. Fer some reason.”
Not wanting to get out of bed, she simply placed the hat on her nightstand. She eyed it for a moment as if she expected it to pounce her, but then she shook her head. Stop bein' stupid. It was just a bad dream. Yer not a little filly anymore and besides, ya got a lot of apples to buck in the mornin'. Go to sleep!
Applejack knew, with the experience of an adult, that she was unlikely to dream the same nightmare twice. So, repressing her last bit of foalish anxiety, she turned on her side and closed her eyes. It didn't take long for sleep to overtake her groggy mind once more and soon she drifted into a new, different dream.
~*~
In this dream, she was walking through a desert at night. Though the sky was dark, the landscape shone white in the moonlight. White sand, white buttes and mesas. White like eggshell, or bone, or old paper.
Applejack didn't know where she was or where she was going, she just kept walking through that lifeless ivory wasteland with no goal or aim. It seemed to her like an endless prison without walls. A strange thought, but accurate.
She stopped to rest by one of the large buttes that dotted the landscape. Looking up, she thought for a moment she could discern a face in the moon: The features of a beautiful mare. She seemed very familiar somehow, but Applejack couldn't quite recall her name. It lasted only for a brief glimpse, and the next moment the mare in the moon was gone.
Losing interest and finding nothing else to look at, Applejack turned her attention to her shadow, cast against the nearby cliff by the moonlight. The more she looked at it, the more she found that something seemed off about it. Puzzled, she walked closer and turned her body to have a better look. The shadow seemed too long somehow, and too slender.
Then the shadow turned its head and grinned at her.
“Who's a silly pony?”
Applejack staggered back and stumbled on her own hooves. She turned and ran, not knowing from what, but knowing somehow that she was in grave peril. Racing across the sand, she heard her pursuer laugh behind her. She cast a look over her shoulder and was horrified to see her shadow stretched to monstrous proportions and at the other end a dark figure ran after her, matching her pace. It was no longer a flat, lifeless shape but had begun to take the form of a large pony. Even from a distance, she could see golden eyes flash in the inky darkness.
“Ya can't outrun yer shadow, li'l filly!”
Something grabbed a hold of Applejack's hindleg and tripped her, causing her hat to fall from her head and roll unto the sand in front of her. Her shadow had wrapped itself around her hoof like a tendril. She struggled to get up but more black tentacles lashed around her and pulled her down. She felt herself sinking into the ground – no, into the shadow. Becoming the shadow. In desperation she pushed her muscles to their limit and reached her hoof to the moon above.
“Oh no ya don't.” The shadow pony approached, watching her struggle with a grin on its face. By now it almost resembled a real pony, tall and slender and dark as a thundercloud. “Ya ain't gettin' away this time, sugar. Ah've spent all day stuck in the back of yer dull farmpony skull an' lemme tell ya, Ah'm mighty sick of it. So, Ah'm taking over now. Nothin' personal.”
Darkness overwhelmed Applejack, her struggle in vain. She tried to scream, but could make no sound. The pony had become a shadow, and the shadow had become a pony.
The black stallion picked up Applejack's fallen hat with his mouth and casually flicked it unto his head. “Yep,” he chuckled. “Ah still got it.”
Then he flickered like a flame and faded away like smoke, taking his shadow with him.
~*~
For a brief eternity the desert lay empty and silent. Then the flutter of wings disturbed the stillness and a majestic dark alicorn descended from the sky.
Princess Luna inspected the place where the hoofprints in the sand vanished abruptly. She let her gaze sweep across the white landscape and frowned. It was not necessary for her to personally enter all nightmares, nor was it desirable. Fear still served a purpose, after all, particularly in adult ponies. But something about this one bothered her. This dream felt wrong somehow – she could feel it in the air and in the sand under her hooves. She wondered what exactly had just transpired there.
Then she sighed and shrugged. She should have noticed it sooner; there was nothing to be done about it now. Dreams were fickle things and with the dreamer gone, this one had already started to fray and dissolve at the borders. Once the night princess left I would soon disappear all together.
Berating herself for her own lack of attention, Princess Luna continued on her way and allowed the desert to be just a dream.
~*~
Morning had broken and the light of Celestia's sun shone through the window to Applejack's room. Though the brim of her black hat shielded her eyes from the light, the pony still stirred from the warmth. Pushing the hat up on her head, Applejack's eyes opened and squinted in the bright glare.
The pony who looked out of those eyes, however, was not Applejack.
Yawning, the pony who wasn't Applejack climbed out of bed and stretched her legs, as if getting used to her body. Scratching her mane, the pony looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time, then approached the mirror by Applejack's dresser. Peering into the mirror, the pony saw the reflection of a young mare looking back – orange coat, blond mane, eyes that now narrowed in a slight frown. For a moment, a shimmer of gold flashed across the emerald green.
“...Well now,” said Black Jack the Outlaw, “this gonna take some gettin' used to.”
