Twilight sat in one of the rooms inside the Boutique, nursing a cup of tea. From the doorway, she heard Rarity approach, gently so as to not wake up a sleeping Spike.
Twilight turned away from the window, and flashed Rarity a smile. “Hello,” she said, gesturing to Rarity to come in. “Don’t worry, Spike is a heavy sleeper.”
Rarity nodded and trotted inside. “You seem rather, ah, shaken, dear.”
Memories of Twilight’s home returned to the forefront of her mind, unbidden. “I suppose I wasn’t expecting everything to be so… different, yet at the same time…” She breathed out. “Other timelines I visited were radically different. There were timelines where Equestria had been invaded by changelings, forcing ponies to live in constant hiding. Nightmare Moon had won, and the day had been forever extinguished. Sombra had turned Equestria into a war-torn battlefield. But this…” She snorted. “Ponyville is intact, you’re practically exactly where I left you, but at the same time Applejack is so cold, and whatever she’s got going on with Rainbow Dash never happened in my timeline…”
Rarity gave Twilight a half-smile, designed to reassure. “Well, from my perspective, it all seems quite natural.” She sat herself down. “Tell me… if Applejack and Rainbow Dash never got together in your universe, whatever did they do with their spare time?”
Twilight shrugged. “Applejack loved working on her farm and taking care of her family. Especially Applebloom. She always had a hard time helping her with her homework, though, and I remember this one time when she came over to me to help her understand some of the things she was supposed to help Applebloom with…” Twilight chuckled. “Applejack had to skip a lot of school in order to keep her family afloat. She never really regretted it, though, but I did catch her trying to re-learn a lot of the things she missed.”
“And Rainbow Dash?”
“She’d practice. She didn’t become a Wonderbolt as fast, so she would spend her time flying, working in the weather team, and slacking off work. In my timeline, she was very lazy, although she’s been getting far better about work recently. She also loved hanging out with her friends and Scootaloo.”
“Scootaloo? Sweetie Belle’s friend?”
“That’s the one. She and Rainbow were almost inseparable sometimes.”
Rarity leaned back. “Well, that’s interesting.” She raised an eyebrow. “So no time for relationships in your timeline?”
“I suppose not,” Twilight replied. “They never got together, if that’s what you mean. Nor with anypony else.”
Rarity stroked her chin. “So, if you return to your timeline, Rainbow and Applejack will go back to being apart, I suppose.”
Twilight nodded. “I imagine that’s true.”
Rarity sighed. “Well, that’s rather sad.”
Twilight’s eyebrow raised. “How is the timeline returning to normal sad? The world will go back to how it should be.”
Rarity’s hooves became animated. “Well, I may not be as good friends with them as I am in your timeline, but I do have my own observational skills, and the only times I see either of those two happy is when they’re together.” She folded her forelegs. “It seems almost cruel to take that away from them. In this universe, they’re all they have. With Applejack, oh, that’s obvious. She’s so gloomy all the time about what she went through…”
“What did she go through?”
“She left Ponyville,” Rarity began, a little off-put at being interrupted. “That forever drove a wedge between Applejack and her original family. I think at the time Applejack didn’t mind. She wanted distance between them and her. So she lived with her family in Manehattan. Learned business. Became a bit frostier than I remember her. I don’t think the city suited her well.”
“Then what?”
“The Oranges died,” Rarity said after a brief pause. “I think that was the last straw for Applejack, losing her second family. But just because her lot wasn’t quite cruel enough, moments after losing her adoptive parents, she had an accident. A truck hit her, hard.” Rarity shuddered. “I don’t know the details, but it nearly broke every bone in her body. Only her sheer stubbornness kept her alive, and even then, I’m not entirely sure how. A doctor named Trabecular stitched her back together using titanium, replacing most of her bones and some other things in the hopes that she’d pull through. And she did, but… well, you saw what she became.” Rarity shrugged. “A quirk of magic, determination, and science, I’m told. Unique, too. Applejack is quite special, but whilst she’s as hard as metal, she’s just as cold and unfeeling.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Quite.” Rarity’s face turned hard. “So you can see why it seems unfair to take the last thing she cares about away from her. But then, I’m no time-traveller, and I’m neither Applejack nor Rainbow Dash, so I can hardly make that call.”
Rarity got to her hooves. “I’m getting rather sleepy, so I think I’m going to go get my beauty sleep. I’ll see you in the…”
“I have one last question,” Twilight began. “Why do you believe me?”
Rarity hung at the doorway.
“I suppose it comes down to my judgement of character,” she said. “Besides, something about you feels right. Although that may just be the fatigue talking.”
Twilight giggled. “Perhaps, although I have theorized about our group being friends even before we met each other. Some ponies are just… correct, I suppose.”
“That doesn’t sound very scientific.”
“Perhaps it isn’t, but then again, I am the Princess of Friendship.”
Rarity chuckled. “Quite the glamorous title.” She began to close the door. “Good night, your highness.”
Almost hidden by the sound of the bedroom door shutting, one of the smaller window panes in the guest room smashed. A small, heavy object clattered on the decorated wood-panel floor.
Rarity opened the door again, her eyes wide with shock. Twilight, her nerves sharpened after her fights with Starlight Glimmer, jumped towards Spike, her wings shielding him.
There was a muted bang, and dozens of tiny glowing pellets, each the size of a marble, bounced through the room. Twilight, despite the shock, recognized them to be thunderstones, the little rocks that pegasi used to generate artificial thunder and lightning when their factories were offline.
The detonation shockwaves caused the half-open bedroom door to smash back into Rarity’s nose and toss Twilight across the room like a rag-doll, Spike still shielded under her wings.
The rest of the window collapsed inwards and an armoured shape emerged like a bat out of hell. Two green, glowing eyes, hidden behind shielded lenses, fixated themselves on Twilight. The shape pulled out a large, rectangular shape from beneath a cloak that, as the light shone off it, appeared to be threaded with metal.
“Twilight, get away!” Rarity shouted, holding her nose. “He’s…”
The rectangular shape fired a small discus, which bounced off the walls and hit Twilight in the back of the
Rainbow’s ear twitched as she lay in bed, her hoof halfway through tracing the scars on Applejack again. Rainbow had a keen sense of hearing, keener than most ponies gave her credit for. It was said that in a land far away, there were a tribe of monk-ponies who could hear what suit and number a card was simply by how it rubbed against the other cards. Whilst Rainbow wasn’t sure she could quite manage that one just yet (if she played cards, she’d just stick to stuffing a bunch of cheat cards up her feathers) but she definitely could recognize the sound of a thunderstone going off.
“Weird,” she muttered, sitting up somewhat by propping herself against the pillows. “We didn’t have a storm scheduled for today.”
She looked down at Applejack’s sleeping body. She was an early riser. A hangover from her childhood on a farm, Rainbow reckoned, even if she had never come forward with that theory.
Her ears flicked again. Of course it came from the direction of the Carousel Boutique.
Rainbow groaned, and slid back down under the sheets. Great, she thought. Now she had to decide what to do.
She wasn’t like Applejack. She didn’t go out of her way to put herself in danger. After all, she wasn’t quite as indestructible. In fact she was very destructible. A crash a week was good for the soul, she reckoned, but wasn’t good for her hospital bill.
So, on one hoof, danger was bad. That was a strike in favour of staying in bed, next to her little heroine.
On the other hoof… Twilight would be in danger. It was too big a coincidence that thunderstones would be going off around the Carousel Boutique the night a time-travelling alicorn was staying there. Of course it was about the alicorn. And Twilight was the only pony who had offered any kind of solution to Rainbow’s little Titanium Jack problem.
A world where Applejack wasn’t miserable? Yes, please.
Rainbow let out a long, interminable sigh, leaned over, and kissed Applejack on the cheek.
“See you in the morning, I guess.”
Twilight stirred in a dark, cramped room. She tried casting a spell to light up her surroundings, but it didn’t work. A spell dampener had been placed on her horn. It was standard fare for any unicorn kidnapper. Apparently it was just as potent on alicorns.
“Good evening,” came a voice from the darkness. “I considered waiting until morning to do this, but I simply couldn’t sleep.”
Twilight strained against ropes that kept her pinned to a chair. “Who are you? Where’s Spike?”
“The dragon is fine. He was a complication I didn’t want to deal with, so I elected to leave him at the, ah, Boutique.”
“And?” Twilight continued. “I asked two questions.”
“Ah, of course. My manners fail me.” As Twilight’s eyes became accustomed to the dark, she began to make out the shape of an elderly, stern stallion by the far side of the room. “The people of Manehattan call me Captain Cobalt. A rather silly nickname, but considering my nemesis goes by Titanium Jack, I shan’t complain.”
Twilight heard the sound of armoured hoofsteps as the stallion made his way over to her. Even in the gloom, she became able to take a good look at his features. Wrinkles had started to take over his face, mostly focussed around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, like a pony who was well accustomed to scowling, laughing, or both. Glasses were propped onto his nose. He looked nothing like the kind of pony Twilight would have thought to be a kidnapper and an enemy of Applejack.
“Now,” Captain Cobalt went on, “Please explain what an alicorn has to do with good old Titanium Jack.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Twilight replied.
Captain Cobalt laughed. It was a natural laugh, one that belonged to a kind, open, and honest pony. If Twilight hadn’t known better she’d have mistaken it for Applejack’s laugh, back when she still could.
“I’ll believe an awful lot, young mare,” he said. “Let me guess. Magic shenanigans?”
“Time-travel, actually.”
“Ah…” Cobalt flashed Twilight a big, earnest smile. “Fascinating. From the future?”
“Present.”
“Ah-ha. Alternate timelines, then.”
“Something like that.”
“Not the strangest thing I’ve heard,” Cobalt commented, leaning against the wall. “I had heard of a time-travel spell up in Canterlot, but it wasn’t supposed to end up with stranded alicorns.”
“That was Starswirl’s original. It’s based on stable time-loops.” Twilight frowned. “It’s a bit complicated.”
“I’m a smart pony.”
Twilight swallowed. “I can tell. This version of the spell cuts the stable loop using a constant across space and time. This means that it changes the present drastically, deviating it from events in the past.”
“Hmm. And I imagine you want to return, yes?”
Twilight hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. I need to go back and stop a pony named Starlight Glimmer.”
“Never heard of her.”
“She’s probably never even heard of me in this timeline either.”
“Is Titanium Jack in your timeline?”
Twilight hesitated again. Something in Cobalt’s voice had turned cold. “Not as she is here. In my timeline she’s a caring, loving farmpony.” She frowned. “What’s your problem with her?”
“I suppose you could say I simply disagree with her.”
“Kidnapping ponies seems a bit extreme for a disagreement.”
“I disagree strongly with her. Let us say I want to prove a point.”
“What point?”
“That she isn’t invincible.”
“Is she?”
Cobalt smirked. “So far she is.”
“So far?”
The stallion stepped back towards the shadows. “I’ve been training and developing weapons to stop her. Blunt trauma is ineffective, as whatever magic warped her body simply absorbs the force like a sponge. Cutting weapons are equally useless. They bounce off her fur as if it was chain-mail. Piercing weapons didn’t work either. Her cells are too tough and the slightest misalignment means her fur, once again, prevents the weapons from penetrating.”
Twilight swallowed. “You’re trying to kill her.”
“If she wasn’t so tough, I wouldn’t have to.” He picked up a series of devices. “Thunderstones can be used to disorient her, temporarily, although her senses are unusually hardy. In order to work around that, I use discus throwers to get into her blind spots. Their heavy weight has proven helpful: a solid blow to the back of the skull has been demonstrably effective. Freezing her joints, whilst temporary, paralyses her and weakens her cells. I actually wounded her the last time.” He picked up a small crossbow. “Ponies have been developing magical arrows for centuries. Far more effective than bullets, which aren’t heavy enough the carry the magic charges required. I miniaturised them to be fired from this crossbow. Fire is good, it reacts with the titanium and causes debilitating pain.”
“...you’re insane,” Twilight muttered.
“It’s my opinion that everypony that thinks Titanium Jack is good for this world is insane,” Cobalt said. “Cutie marks… they keep the world in balance. Everypony has talents they can use, that keep the world spinning. Mine was healing.” Cobalt grit his teeth together. “If Titanium Jack can just ignore the limitations on her own body, that throws the entire world into chaos. Manehattan became a war-zone because she led her one-pony crusade against crime. Somepony has to stop her, but nopony can because she can just ignore her own body’s limitations because of some magical quirk.” He breathed out. “I need to fix my mistake and take her down before the world gets thrown even further out of balance.”
“It’s already out of balance! If you defeated Titanium Jack, the unstable nature of the spell would just replace her with some greater evil!” Twilight was sweating now. Cobalt had a crazy look in his eye. “If I could just get the spell back, I could reset all of this! Save the world from the real problem, Starlight Glimmer!”
Cobalt paused. “I have no quarrel with that,” he said. “But it seems to me that you do not need Titanium Jack for that, and for my purposes, I need you right where you are.”
“Why?”
“Bait, of course.”
Applejack’s eyes drifted open. She felt cold. She barely ever felt warm these days, not since the accident. She looked over to the empty side of the bed, and rubbed her eyes. Rainbow Dash was not there.
“Where’d you get to, then?” she muttered, rolling onto her hooves. She rolled her neck, stretching out her muscles. She looked out the window, which was left conspicuously ajar. She sighed.
“Why you don’t just wake me up when there’s trouble…” she grumbled, and reached towards her luggage, and pulled out a long, yellow cape.
Captain Cobalt was waiting near the window, his wrinkled face covered by a metal mask. The armoured green eyepieces glowed in the night. His hooves were wrapped around his modified crossbow.
Twilight struggled against the ropes that held her prisoner. Cobalt certainly knew how to keep a unicorn prisoner. She tried to undo the magical dampener, but it made no difference.
“Listen, just let me go,” Twilight said. “I can go and tell my friends that you left.”
“It isn’t my intention to escape,” Cobalt replied. “Your friend, the fashionista, she’ll have found Titanium Jack by now. They’ll be searching for this place.”
Twilight looked around. “Where is here, anyway?”
Cobalt shrugged. “Just some abandoned tree-house. Seemed conspicuous enough, so I figured it’d be either the first place they check, or the second.”
Twilight breathed in. “Golden Oaks?” she muttered, looking around. It was too dark to make out the features of her old home, but there was only one tree-house that she knew of in Ponyville. She smiled. At least she was in comforting surroundings.
Cobalt stared out the window. “They really are taking their time, aren’t they?” he commented, then turned back towards Twilight. His eyes widened behind the mask.
Twilight was gone.
Twilight struggled, panic taking over her every sense. She was hundreds of feet above the ground. Acceleration had forced her insides together, and she wanted to throw up. She fell a few feet before being stopped by something soft and comfortable.
She let out a scream.
“Jeez, don’t be like that,” came a familiar voice. “Okay, okay, yeah, so, maybe I was a bit fast, but c’mon, that guy had a crossbow. Crossbows mean business, y’know?”
Twilight, panting, looked up at a nearby cloud. Rainbow Dash was lounging on her side, her forelegs propping her head up as she stared at Twilight.
“R-Rainbow?”
“One and only.” Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a withering look. “Why’d you have to go and hang out with one of TJ’s supervillain club?”
“Supervillain club?”
“Oh, yeah. Every superhero has one, right? That was Captain Cobalt, yeah? Whew, nasty piece of work. Methodical but mad. Kinda nice to hang around with, right up until he tries shooting something.”
“How did you…”
Rainbow pointed at herself. “What, how did I rescue you?” She snickered. “I just flew in. Don’t tell TJ. She likes to think she’s the only awesome pony around here.”
“Wh-what?” Twilight began to rub her head. “I’m sorry. I feel kind of disoriented.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Okay, so, you got kidnapped by one of TJ’s enemies. I heard some thunderstones go off, so I quickly checked every house in Ponyville to find you. Then I found you, then I quickly undid your ropes, grabbed you, and flew out the window I came in. It wasn’t hard.”
“Why’d you come?”
“Uh, ‘cause I’m nice like that?”
“I mean,” Twilight went on, “Why didn’t you tell Applejack?”
Rainbow became deadly serious. “‘Cause I wanted a chat with you without TJ.” She sat up on her cloud. “So, this is gonna sound real sappy and mushy, but I love her, okay?”
Twilight nodded. “I got that impression.”
“Right.” Rainbow leaned into her cloud. “I’m real tired. Ever since I met her, she’s been cold as ice. It’s like she’s addicted to misery, and I want it to stop.” She gave a withered smile. “She left Ponyville as a filly ‘cause she wanted some sort of second chance. I dunno what for, but anyway, life just spat back it right in her face and crushed her.”
“She never needed a second chance in the first place,” Twilight countered. “In my timeline…”
“Yeah, exactly!” Rainbow exclaimed. “That’s what I want. I tried making her happy, because behind the cold anger and hate, she’s awesome, and turned all that pain she has into something cool, but I can’t. I get her to smile every now and then but it’s fake and empty and I need it to end.” She breathed in. “I want my second chance to make her happy, and I’m crazy enough to believe dumb stories like alternate timelines to get it. Because there’s a chance, right? A chance you’re not totally crazy?”
Twilight paused, examining Rainbow Dash. She had thought that aside from Rarity, Rainbow had remained relatively intact in this timeline, aside from becoming a Wonderbolt earlier and being in a relationship with Applejack, but the look in Rainbow’s eye was insane, obsessed.
“Are you okay?” Twilight asked.
“I’m fine. Y’know, as much as can be expected.”
“You know that in the other timeline, you and Applejack aren’t together?”
Rainbow nodded. “But she’s happy, right?”
Twilight nodded slowly.
“Then that’s good enough for me. Maybe it’s been me all along. Maybe without me, she’d…” Rainbow snorted. “I dunno. I think farmpony Applejack sounds like somepony worth losing everything for, y’know? Is she?”
“She is a pretty impressive pony,” Twilight admitted. “I prefer her to your version.”
Rainbow looked down at Ponyville. “Yeah, well, if you’re right, they’re one and the same. I need to make sure she gets the life she deserves, not… this.” She breathed in through her nose. “So, this is me saying I’ll help you, even if TJ doesn’t. Bolt’s honour.”
“Won’t that upset her?”
“What, more than usual? Probably. I can take it, though.” Rainbow pointed down. “We should get back down, huh? I think I hear violence. Lots of it.”
Captain Cobalt leapt away from the window, his crossbow tucked in the crook of his foreleg. He scanned the inside of the library, looking out for any sign of movement. He had lost his hostage, which put him at yet another disadvantage compared to Titanium Jack.
Still, he had his traps, he had his weapons, and he had his mind. Where other villains had fallen to Titanium Jack’s implacable advance, he had survived because he learned, and unlike Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Chrysalis, his objective was to defeat Jack and survive, not conquer the world. His ambitions went no further than restoring balance to the world.
When a pony knew what they wanted, they could achieve more than a demon who wanted to swallow the entire world.
Which would she use as an entry point? Ceiling? Door? Windows? Titanium Jack was a direct, forward sort. She wouldn’t bother with the ceiling, and she wouldn’t bother with the windows up on the second floor. That left door, bottom floor windows, and the…
The walls cracked and bent under the force of a powerful blow. Cobalt spun, his crossbow bolt aiming towards a hole punched into the wall. Outlined against the moonlight was the shadow of a mare in a bright yellow cape.
Cobalt’s eyepieces flashed, and under Applejack’s skin was revealed a glittering, titanium alloy skeleton. Flashes of metal could be seen in her muscles, in her mane fibres, and in her eyes. The skin of a regular pony was her mask: her true power, the frankenstein nature of herself lay below the flesh.
Hero? She was the monster of a horror story waiting to happen.
“Evenin’, Doc’,” she said. “Heard you made it out of prison.”
Cobalt edged away from his opponent. “Are you really that surprised?”
Applejack snorted. “Ee-nope.” She took a step into the library. “I reckon you ain’t gonna go…”
Click!
Applejack looked down, and let out an exasperated sigh. A cloud of green gas began to spread from a small mine Cobalt had planted in the dark. She looked up at Cobalt. “Really?”
Cobalt’s armoured hoof cracked across Applejack’s jaw. Pistons in the armour hissed and bent, and Applejack’s head spun around, reeling from the titanic force of the blow. She gasped, and immediately began to cough as she inhaled, quite against her will, a mouthful of the gas.
Cobalt’s breather filtered the toxins out as he darted away. He fired his crossbow bolt at Applejack’s hooves, and a web of ice spread from the tip, encasing her legs and preventing her from escaping the gas, which she was swallowing every time she coughed.
Under the metal mask, Cobalt didn’t smile. He was too workmanlike for smiling now. He pulled out a small device and approached Applejack cautiously.
The titanium mare was too busy fighting the gas to stop him. When he was in position, and her mouth was open, he flicked a switch on his device and forced it down her throat. More gas began to pour out of Applejack’s throat and nostrils as he held the device down.
“Come on, go to sleep…” he grunted.
Thrashing, Applejack’s hoof caught him on the chest. Armour or no, the force sent him reeling. He staggered back, and immediately began to reload. The ice would be melting by now.
Applejack coughed out the smoke grenade and snapped the ice, which had already begun to weaken. She took another two steps towards Cobalt, who was trying to get to his hooves.
Snap!
The fumes left behind by the smoke immediately caught fire. Applejack’s eyes widened in surprise as her entire body went up in flames, along with a large portion of the library. Windows were blown outwards by the force of the explosion, and Captain Cobalt was tossed against the wall, his back colliding with a windowsill with a crack.
As flames engulfed the library, Cobalt scrabbled at the window to escape, leaving Applejack thrashing in fire behind him. He fell through the broken glass and landed in a heap under the window, panting heavily.
He loaded a heavy steel bolt into his crossbow. Weakened by the fire, he should be able to get through that thick skin of hers…
He limped around to the front entrance of the Golden Oaks Library, which was turning into little more than a burnt out husk. He lifted the crossbow and waited.
With a crash, Applejack erupted from the flames. Her titanium mane was blackened and warped, the metal in her beginning to soften and melt. The pain must be extraordinary, the doctor in him thought.
He fired. The bolt sailed through the air, aimed for Applejack’s heart. By instinct, Applejack raised her hoof to defend herself, and instead of being a killing blow, it simply sank into her foreleg instead.
Cobalt grunted, and reloaded.
The flames around Applejack began to die out. She collapsed, gasping for air. She tore the bolt from her hoof. Like molten metal, her body began to reform. Cobalt swallowed.
“Well, I didn’t know you could do that…”
Applejack struggled to her hooves, her green eyes piercing Cobalt. She began to walk towards him, then trot, then canter.
Like the hero in a western, Captain Cobalt drew his discus thrower and fired, which bounced off the ruins of the Library and hit Applejack in the back of the head. It let off a series of sparks, causing her mane to erupt into flames again, but not to the extent it had before.
Capitalising on the distraction, Cobalt fired his crossbow again, going for the neck. Applejack had cooled off enough that her fur was able to deflect the weapon, though.
Cobalt struggled to get away. He was running out of tricks. Victory was becoming increasingly improbable. He shifted his priorities to survival.
Applejack wrapped her hooves around his neck. “You must really hate me, doc’, to put me through all that.”
Cobalt tried to think, but as oxygen to his brain was becoming a scarce resource, his thoughts only came in pieces.
“I don’t hate you…” he grunted.
Applejack had tears streaming from her eyes, no doubt due to the pain of being set on fire twice. Her mane stopped reacting with the air and the flames died out.
“You sure act like it.”
Captain Cobalt spluttered, gasping for air. “Y-your parents would be very disappointed in w-what you’ve become…”
Applejack sneered at him. “I don’t got no parents,” she said, and let go of his neck, only to grab the back of his helmet and smash it downwards to the ground. One of Cobalt’s eyepieces cracked. “They all died, remember?”
Cobalt clawed at the dirt, trying to escape.
“Your medicine didn’t help them, did it?”
“I…”
“Only me,” Applejack snarled, grabbing Cobalt’s spine. “Why me? I didn’t ask to be rescued! I didn’t ask for you to hate me! I didn’t ask to be the pony to save Equestria from threats bigger than me!” She began to pummel through Cobalt’s armour, which bent and cracked under the force of her blows. “I didn’t ask to lose both my families! Not my real parents, not the ones that were left, and not the ones I ran away to!”
Broken, Cobalt collapsed at Applejack’s hooves. Unlike her titanium body, his armour was only a shell, and could easily be removed. Smashed by her sheer, unnatural strength, it was twisted and snapped in key places.
“Well, I won’t lose anythin’ I care about again! Because you, ponies like you, you made me not care, didn’t you? Everypony took away too much for me to ever care again!”
Unconscious, Cobalt had missed his opponent’s outburst.
Applejack stumbled back, still reeling from the pain. She coughed up the last dregs of gas that had been trapped inside her lungs, and examined her hoof.
Cobalt hadn’t known that the metal in her fur could melt and reform like blood clotting and scarring. Lucky. If he had known, he might have done more to capitalise on her more temporary weaknesses.
Guards from Canterlot swarmed the street, surrounding the ruined Library. Applejack looked up at them and quickly wiped the tears out of her eyes.
“Civilian arrest,” she told them. “That’s Captain Cobalt. I hear he’s escaped from prison.” She examined her tattered cape. “Great. I just got that fixed.”
As Cobalt was carried away, Applejack sat down heavily onto the ground. She hadn’t been expecting a confrontation with her sworn enemy when she lay down with Rainbow Dash to sleep that night.
She felt a hoof on her shoulder. She looked up at Rainbow Dash, who was looking at her with concern.
“You look awful,” she commented.
Applejack managed a half-laugh.
“You should see the other guy.”
Rainbow wrapped her foreleg around Applejack. “You’re gonna be okay, yeah?”
Applejack ran her hoof through her mane, feeling the metal fibres prickle her skin. “I dunno any more. I’m just so… tired. Of everything.”
Rainbow pressed her head against Applejack’s neck. “I know the feeling.”
“You also been set on fire?” Applejack joked.
“You didn’t hear? It was for a show. I thought it’d be cool.”
“You serious?”
“Well, they put me out pretty quick, so it probably wasn’t as bad.”
“Sometimes I wonder if perhaps you ain’t made of metal.”
“Nope. One-hundred percent organic pony.”
The two leaned against each other in the night. Applejack closed her eyes. “Don’t I know it.”
“It’ll get better,” Rainbow promised. “Come on. We should head home.”
Applejack nodded, and got to her hooves, using Rainbow to prop herself up. She caught a glimpse of Twilight, looking at the pair from the sidewalk. She narrowed her eyes.
“Give me a minute, sugarcube,” she grunted, and let go of Rainbow to walk towards Twilight. As she approached, Twilight observed Applejack with a mixture of awe and fear. “Hey.”
“Um… hello, Applejack.”
Applejack looked back over to Rainbow Dash. “Listen, for some reason, she likes you. I can tell, and I also know that somepony had to have gotten you out of that library and it sure as hay weren’t Rarity. So on account of my marefriend taking a shine to you, I ain’t gonna get mad or nothin’.” Applejack stared into Twilight’s eyes, her expression as steely as her bones. “But I don’t trust you, and I sure as hay ain’t lettin’ you take everythin’ I have left away from me.”
Twilight opened her mouth to argue, but Applejack held her hoof up, silencing her before she could speak.
“I know you’re gonna say that in your timeline, I’d be happy, thing’s would be normal, that none of this is natural… but here’s the thing. In this world, all I got are my bad decisions. It was a bad decision to leave Ponyville. It was a bad decision to stay in Manehattan, to get my adoptive parents killed ‘cause they had to pick me up from school, to become some sort of monster… but all that led up to the one good thing I’ve got, the one thing that lets me pretend, just for five minutes, that I could have some sort of normal life.” She held her hoof up. “I ain’t givin’ that up for your assurances that if I trust you, you’re gonna make me a farmpony and everythin’ will be hunky-dory. You got me?”
Twilight swallowed. “I get you.”
Applejack nodded, slowly at first, but it gained intensity. “Good. Do yourself a favour, and give up on findin’ that spell. I don’t need no second chances no more.”
Twilight nodded, and Applejack trotted back to Rainbow Dash.
“We can go now,” she said.
Rainbow glanced over at Twilight.
“Yeah, sure.”
Cobalt sat in a cell, bandages wrapped around his waist, legs, and the eye that had been cut when one of his eyepieces smashed. He sat in silence, with only his thoughts to keep him company.
Outside his cell, his broken, smashed helmet was lying on a small table, little more than a curiosity to the guards in Canterlot.
He breathed in.
“Well,” he muttered. “That could have gone better.” He clutched his bandaged side as he shuffled to the wall, where he leaned, wincing at the pain. “Still, a good experiment is one where you learn something new.” He reflected on Applejack’s ability to reform her armour like fur when it was heated. He smiled. “And I feel I have learned quite a bit today.”
***