After the flash, Applejack quickly whirled around to take in her new surroundings. She seemed to be in a cavern dimly lit by torches on the walls. Before her stood a wide pit filled with hollow wooden posts that were all randomly spaced from each other in a staggered pattern. However, all of the posts were between 2 to 3 feet away from each other, and all of them were about as wide as one of her hooves. Far out in the middle of the pit, hanging on one of the posts, was her hat.
“Ah got this, too,” Applejack said defiantly, and quickly leapt forward onto the wooden poles, immediately landing with each of her four hooves on one of them. The round time keeping device was left on the edge of the pit.
Applejack had to pause as she stood with her limbs slightly spread out across the wooden posts. She also notices that the posts all had a little give to them, and were wobbling slightly under her weight.
Applejack eyed a nearby post in front of her and slightly to her left, and then swiftly moved her front left leg forward to it while moving her back left leg to the post her front leg had previously occupied. She then looked over at where her hat was, a quickly planned out her path across the veritable forest of hollow wooden posts. She then found a post to her right, and proceeded to step forward with her right legs in a similar manner.
“Ah can keep this up,” Applejack said as she kept moving forward, slowly and steadily, watching her hooves carefully as she traverse over the darkness below her. She looked up and saw that she had slightly veered to the left, putting her off course a bit.
“Hmm,” Applejack said to herself, and she eyed two poles to her right that were rather close to one another. Smiling, Applejack lifted up her forelegs and pivoted to the right, letting her forehooves fall onto the two poles.
Immediately, the poles snapped, causing Applejack to cry out and rear back up on her hind legs. She stood with her rear hooves each on a pole, panting heavily as she tried to mentally clam herself after the near fall. Then, a cracking sound caused her ears to twitch. She could feel the poles that she was standing on begin to bend, buckle, and break.
Applejack looked ahead of her and spotted out another pair of poles. “Ah. . . got this,” she said breathlessly, and then, gathering up her courage, she pulled her forelegs in close to her chest and jumped forward.
She landed on the next pair of poles, and she held her forelegs out as she felt the poles wobble from her landing. Eventually, the wobbling stopped and Applejack was able to find her balance. She sighed in relief, pulling her forelegs back in, only for the pole her back left hoof was standing on to snap.
“Woah!” Applejack shouted as she found herself balanced on only one leg. She took a quick glance down out of reflex, and her heart pounded when she saw the blackness below her. “No, no, no!” she cried out as panic overtook her, and she quickly hopped forward on her right back hoof to the next pole she could she. She did this a second time, then a third, and then a fourth. After that, the pole her hat was hanging on was right in front of her.
Applejack swung her left back leg, catching her hat with her hoof and tossing it upwards, where it then landed right back onto her head.
Applejack stood wobbling slightly as she stopped to catch her breath again. As she stood on one leg with the rest of her legs outstretched, she looked up at her hat with wide eyed amazement. Then she carefully lowered her body, resting her other three hooves on nearby poles.
Applejack breathed a sigh of relief as she let her body relax. She then chuckled and said, “Heh. Like Ah said. Ah got this.”
Applejack then moved around on the nearby poles, shifting the positions of her hooves so that she could turn her body completely around so that she was facing the solid ground where she had left the machine. As she was planning her route back, Applejack suddenly noticed a hissing sound coming from somewhere. The sound also seemed to be accompanied by a low whistling noise. Before she could put any thought into the strange sounds, however, Applejack suddenly noticed that her front left hoof was getting rather warm.
Unnerved by this, Applejack lifted up the hoof and question and took a close look at it. Immediately after, a plume of flames shot out from the pole the hoof had been resting on a second ago.
Applejack’s face was terrified, and the terror increased when she felt warmth from underneath her front right hoof.
Applejack immediately got up on her hind legs again as more flames shot out in front of her. When the flames dies down, Applejack immediately walked forward, as she could already feel her back hooves heat up a bit too.
Applejack quickly walked forward across the poles, determined to get across before she was blocked off by the flames. However, a pole she would’ve placed her left back hoof on suddenly spat out flames, nearly causing Applejack to fall backward. The heat of the flames behind her motivated Applejack to regain her balance, and she turned herself on her right hoof to the right and hopped across sever more poles before more fire burst out in front of her.
Applejack twisted her body to the left, towards the ledge where the mysterious machine still sat, glowing with its green light to illuminate the dim cavern. Before Applejack could hop forwards again, another plume of fire seemed to almost graze her rear. Applejack shouted as she half hopped, half fell forwards. She reached out with her forelegs, and Applejack suddenly found herself standing on her front legs with her hind legs and tails up in the air.
Not wanting to stop for anything, Applejack briskly walked forwards on her front legs, moving from pole to pole, desperately trying to land her forehooves square on each pole. Fire spurted out of the poles behind her and all around as she got close and close to solid ground.
There was soon only one pole left between Applejack and solid ground. However, this pole shot out flames right before she could land her right forehoof on it. Applejack cried out as she wobbled on her left foreleg in her upside-down position.
“Somepony turn these darn things off!” Applejack cried out in desperation.
Immediately, all of the plumes of fire ceased.
Applejack blinked, still balanced in her precarious position, but amazed. “Huh? That worked?” she wondered aloud.
The pole in front of her suddenly spat out of a puff of smoke that floated into Applejack’s face. Her eyes watered, and her nose began to twitch.
“Oh no. . . oh no. . .Please no- ACHOO!”
Applejack’s body shuddered from the sneeze, but she remained shakily balanced on her left foreleg.
Applejack opened her eyes, a look of relief on her face. “Oh, thank Celestia,” she whispered gratefully.
Then the pole she was balanced on snapped, sending Applejack plummeting down screaming. She screamed and flailed her limbs for a long moment, only to stop when she noticed that she didn’t seem to be falling anymore. Applejack lay on her back for a moment, staring up at the torch lit chamber above. Then she sat up on her haunches and looked around her. It quickly became clear that the pit was no more than six feet deep, but the bottom and sides of the pit were made of dark, black rock, making it appear to be much deeper than it truly was.
Applejack was dumbfounded for a moment, then growled with rage and quickly got up on her hooves. She ran over to the side of the pit and smacked her head against it, shouting, “YOU! DUMB! STUPID! PONY!”
Suddenly, something landed on Applejack’s head. She stopped smacking her head against the wall and turned to see that it was the strange device. It had been knocked off the edge by the vibrations of Applejack’s head banging. Applejack quickly noticed that the device had been triggered, and before she could even make a remark, it zapped her; and she and it vanished.