Applejack stared into the void. The darkness was all-consuming and all-encompassing. It was the darkness of being completely alone in all of time and space. Just her, alone.
"Hey, can I git some help from y'all? This sector of the multiverse is lookin' kinda sparse."
"Whatever do you mean, darling?" asked Rarity, sliding next to her from out of nowhere. "The space is alright, isn't it?"
"Yeah... but it don't got that 'oomph' it's supposed to have."
"Oh, that's probably my fault," said Starlight Glimmer. "You're expanding space too much, Rarity. I don't have enough Time to fill in all the space you're making. And besides, you could make things a little easier on Rainbow Dash."
"Uhh... you don't have enough Time?" asked Applejack. "You can't really expect me to believe that you can run out of Time. You're like the Queen of Time."
"Actually, that is a huge problem I have to deal with. I have about 100 trillion universe cycles of duration of Time to work with and assign to each universe... but after I use it all up the multiverse will just kind of... end..." Starlight said, biting her lip. "But don't worry! That's what Rainbow Dash is for."
"Right. Well anyway, I'm gonna need some of that Time if I'm going to get this batch of space populated and stuff."
"Do you really need it now?" asked Starlight.
"Why not now? The space is there, ain't it?"
"It most certainly is!" crooned Rarity.
"What I mean is," said Starlight slowly. "There's already a ton of other multiverses out there running. You've completed another 100 Big Bang spells just this decade, Applejack. Why not... I dunno... take a break?"
"A break? What do I need a break for?"
"Darling, I think what Starlight is trying to say is that you're a little too good at your job. This space will still be here when you get back. You could spend a couple lifetimes on some worlds. Ooh! I know! There's this neat little planet of Twilight's you could take a break on. Get a nice memory reset, live a few lifetimes, and pop right back to work when you're done! I highly recommend it. Nobody makes a planet quite like Twilight. Except for maybe Pinkie..."
"Look—I don't need a vacation. I get the most satisfaction from just doing my job. And that's making something from nothing and makin' it as fast as possible."
Starlight frowned. "Applejack, you're doing too good of a job. Most of the multiverses we make have only a dozen or so actual planets with sapient creatures on them. And the rest of the billions of Galaxies are empty. You have no idea how upset some of these creatures get when they finally take over several hundred galaxies and they still don't meet an alien race."
"Isn't that more Pinkie and Twilight's fault? They should make more creatures. Heck—just put a bajillion ponies everywhere on every nice planet. That'd be fun!"
"Worldbuilding takes a bit more care than that, Applejack," said Starlight, frowning slightly.
"Well then, if it's takin' 'em so long to get life up and running. Why not let me take a shot at it?"
"You're specialty is Matter, sweetie," said Rarity. "Why not just take a vacation for a couple centuries?"
"Nope, this is far better than any dumb vacation will ever be," said Applejack. "Starlight, gimme some of that Time for one more big bang spell. I'll try my hoof at some worldbuilding. That," she said staring at Rarity, "sounds like a much better vacation."
Starlight shrugged. "Okay Applejack, knock yourself out."
Applejack stared into the void. And then promptly punched it in the face.
A huge rupture in space-time exploded outward into a small bubble universe. Applejack slipped inside the universe and got to work.
The stars still simmered from the Big Bang spell, and Applejack had a rather long time to wait before anything substantial could really be attempted. She spent a lot of time reading over several million books from Twilight on worldbuilding. When that got boring (which was all the time) she talked to Pinkie and Sunset, gaining more information about the creation of life.
Her first attempts were laughable. A copy of Equestria didn't seem to sprout so much as a seed. The earth was fertile, the sun shone, the weather even rained correctly. But nothing Applejack did ever made any difference.
Reluctantly, she asked Discord and Fluttershy what was wrong.
They appeared next to her. She still had a hard time getting used to Discord's long snake-like longma form. Fluttershy though—chaos did a real number on her. Applejack always felt a little uncomfortable around her, as Fluttershy always seemed to be undoing with entropy everything that Applejack stood for.
They listened to her problem well though, and as usual, their advice was as annoying as they were.
"Life is a group effort, Applejack," said Fluttershy.
"It takes a little bit of everypony to get something like this off the ground," said Discord.
Applejack frowned. "I really gotta rely on everypony else to get some measly life to grow?"
Discord shrugged. "There are many pieces to all of this Applejack, it's when everything works together in Harmony that life can truly thrive."
Applejack sighed, "Alright fine."
It took her ages to get the information as well as the materials from everypony.
Matter from herself.
Space from Rarity.
Time from Starlight Glimmer.
Souls from Sunset Shimmer.
Knowledge from Twilight Sparkle.
Life from Pinkie Pie.
Death from Spike.
Chaos from Fluttershy.
And Harmony from Discord.
Microscopic life ebbed and flowed—reproduced, died and evolved—on Applejack's planet. It took her a very, very long time but when all was said and done, she reached up to the first apple tree with her hooves, and took a bite.
It tasted disgusting, but that was okay. She felt proud she had been able to get this far at all.
She planted some apple seeds into the ground, and smiled.
"If you wanna bake an apple pie from scratch, you just gotta make yerself a universe first."