Applejack's eyes struggle open and meet with a sweltering light overhead, glazing her body in a layer of sweat. She can feel a stinging sensation towards the edges of her lids, and quickly turns away from the blinding sight, only to find the rest of her surroundings covered in a veil of darkness.
Fuzzy shapes begin to form as Applejack's eyes adjust to the available light, and almost instantly she tries to make out what they are. It doesn't seem like much, at first. What looks to be a rusted sink is crammed in a corner, with a small oven located next to it. Large bags are huddled together, some fairly smooth, some bulging with more solid ingredients. A teal apron hangs on a hook attached to the wall, and very faint shades of pink lay in specks across its surface. The stains had most likely started out as red, but had grown pale through countless washings. The Earth Pony doesn't think about it much, as it is was probably jam or something of the sort. A thick curtain hangs perfectly still at the back of the room, and Applejack is unable to see what is behind it.
Curious, the mare tries to bring herself up to a sitting position, only to find her legs bound to the table she is laying on. Thick ropes dig into her hooves when she shifts, and, surprised by the sudden burn spreading through her body, her muscles go slack and she slides back down the metal. Despite her sweat, patches of Applejack's back still manage to catch onto the surface, and the pull of gravity tugs painfully on each spot before they unstick.
"What the hay is going on?" Applejack can feel her heart beating rapidly in your chest. The ropes are too tight for her to break through with force from this position. Thinking fast, she strains your neck towards her forelegs, but both ropes are too far away from her to tear at with her teeth. Unable to hold herself up anymore, Applejack once again relaxes your body. Her head falls loosely to the side. The orange pony's body clenches tightly as she takes in what she sees.
On a cart beside her lays a knife. Not just any knife, but a dagger. It is coated with the same thing that had been on the apron, except Applejack was wrong before. The stains did matter. From this close she could tell what the substance was.
Blood.
Applejack had at first considered the restraints a limitation to her movement, but now she realizes that they are also leaving her body exposed to what ever might come at it.
"Help! Somepony help!" The sound of the blonde mare's cries bounces off the walls without leaving the room. No pony can hear her. The noise hurts her ears, but she misses it once the eerie silence returns. Applejack's breaths become quick and sharp, and she begins to feel dizzy. She shuts your eyes tight, trying to ignore the dagger next to her so that she can calm down. The Earth Pony's hooves are shaking, but she forces herself to focus on calming down. Fear won't help her right now. Once Applejack's head is clear, she begins to think of ways out of her situation, but, as she is unable to move, there is almost nothing Applejack can do. She simply has to wait for the pony who has captured her and go from there.
It isn't long before that pony shows up.
Rhythmical hoof steps echo throughout Applejack's surroundings. There is simply no hesitation in her captivator's movements. Just from the way they walk, Applejack can tell that they know exactly what they are going to do, like they had done this so many times before. Applejack doesn't even notice her body tense up until she feels her restraints tighten against her skin. The sound grows louder, and Applejack can tell that the pony is close. Then it stops. The pony stands there, in the darkness.
"Hello, Applejack."
The orange pony is about to spit out the traditional 'how do you know my name' question, but the real question is 'why wouldn't they know your name'. They had captured her. Specifically Applejack. Of course they know her name. What is unsettling is that they probably know more than just that.
"Q-Quit standin' there in the shadows tryin' to scare me, it ain't gonna work! G-Go on, sh-show yourself!"
"I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just preparing you for the shock."
"What shock?" The sentence buries into Applejack's head until it runs into an idea. "This . . . this thing ain't gonna spew out electricity, is it!" She raises her back off of the metal table as much as she can, attempting to avoid getting electrocuted, but she was only making a fool of herself, squirming around helplessly.
"No, nothing like that. The other kind of shock."
"What do ya' mean the other kind of-" In that moment, the pony steps out of the shadows. The mare has a sleek gray coat, and a short mane of straight, lavender locks. It is perfectly cut, and no hairs are out of place. Her aqua eyes study Applejack's face, looking for a reaction. It comes quickly.
"Maud?" Applejack can hear it now, the emotionless sound of her voice. Like a computer almost, but smooth and soft. The mare should've been able to guess who she was from the first time she spoke, but Applejack's mind had skipped over the pony as she went through a list of possibilities, assuming her not to be a threat.
"Yes."
"B-but . . . why? What's going on?"
"Oh, it's quite simple, actually." Applejack's chest grows tight as she walks past, but Maud slides quietly behind herr prison of a table without even a glance at her prey. She carefully takes the blood stained apron off of its hook and loops it over her neck. She calmly smooths out any wrinkles on its surface before continuing.
"I'm doing this for Pinkie Pie."
"Pinkie Pie?" Applejack had meant to say it aloud to herself, but fear forces it to a level just short of a yell.
Maud steps over to the sink and the faucet squeaks out water. After a moment, she wipes her soaked hooves on her apron, turning its aqua coloration into a dull gray with the clear liquid.
"You see, Pinkie Pie has random intervals of depression." Maud walks behind Applejack's head once again. This time she keeps her focus on the dagger, but the gray mare avoids the cart all together and walks to a small control panel that Applejack had overlooked while distracted by the sharp knife. "It happens a couple times each year. I consider it my job to keep her happy."
Maud looks over at you before continuing.
"If I didn't do this for Pinkie, she'd gain a dangerous amount of damage in consideration of her mental health, and she also wouldn't be able to activate her element of harmony. She is in control of the second most important element, according to the studies I preformed on it. Yours, on the other hoof, could be recreated if it had to be. Honesty. Important, but rather simply, really. If anypony asked me about this secret job of mine, I know I would tell the truth, but Nopony ever does."
"Maud . . . Maud this is crazy! Pinkie doesn't want . . . what ever this is!"
"I'm not sure if she wants it, but I know she needs it to happen."
"A-and why me? Aren't we friends? Family?"
"You just made amends with your Grand-pear, correct? You've seemed very happy lately."
"That doesn't have anything to do with this!"
"You'd be surprised."
Maud presses a button on the control panel, and the loud hum of a machine echos throughout the room. Applejack frantically searches for the source for the sound.
She doesn't even notice Maud sneaking behind her.
With one swift movement, Maud takes hold of Applejack's neck. She can feel Maud's firm hooves dig into her skin. The purple-maned mare raises Applejack's head quickly, and cuts off her air flow. Gasping for oxygen, Applejack's forelegs instinctively writhe and twist in panic, but she is unable to bring them to her throat. With her head tilted, and her eyes on Maud, Applejack nearly misses the large metal arm that is extending from the ceiling, and heading straight towards her. Applejack begins violently jerking her head from side to side as much as she can, but Maud's grip doesn't loosen. The world around her spins as Applejack's lungs try to take a proper breath. Her eyes roll back into her head, but she can feel something cold and hard press against her scalp, and just as soon as it started, it stops.
Maud releases Applejack from her grasp, but to her surprise, her head doesn't fall back. As the orange mare is left coughing and wheezing, Maud steps over to the control panel and shifts a few levers. The hum starts again as the metal structure on Applejack's head, which she now realizes was attached to the arm, carefully pushes her to the table. Applejack strains against it, but to no avail. At this point, she can't even swivel her head, or for obvious reasons lift it.
Maud continues her explanation.
"Pinkie Pie's level of sadness can't be affected by simple means of cheering up. She needs a direct source of joy." Maud gestures to the machine. "So I extract other ponies' happiness using this."
Applejack's heart starts to race. Take away her happiness? What does that even do to a pony!
"No Maud, please! Don't!"
"I couldn't do that now, even if I wanted to." The farm pony lets a sigh of relief before she realizes that if Maud wasn't able to do anything, she wouldn't have Applejack hooked up to the machine like this. She prepares a response, but her thoughts get clouded in her head. She is too scared to think properly.
"You see, everypony has a sort of barrier between their stored happiness, and anything trying to take it away. In order to get to your happiness, Applejack, I need to destroy the barrier. I need to give you a blow of the exact opposite, despair and misery."
Applejack's mouth goes dry as Maud presses another button and forces her head to the side. To metallic clips force Applejack's eyes open, with a few drops of fluid dripping from above to keep them hydrated. Applejack listens intently for any sign of the dagger being picked up, but Maud makes no movement towards it once again. When the blonde mare realizes what she is heading for, however, she begins to feel nauseous.
Using her teeth, Maud takes hold of the curtain and yanks it aside. Applejack's stomach tightens, and her body pushes out its breakfast, leaving her throw up to splash onto the floor. On a matching table lays Applejack's dog, Winona, with a thick rope tied around her snout. Her legs are forced to the side, and large bruises spangle her body, no doubt the cause of Maud's kidnapping. The farm pony's pet turns her head to look at her with tear filled eyes. She gets lost in those eyes, pleading and innocent, so much so that she doesn't even notice the sound of metal from behind her until Maud places herself in front of Applejack's face. The dagger is gripped between her teeth.
"Maud, what are you- no! No no no! Don't do it Maud, stop!" Maud appears to be deaf as she calmly steps over to Applejack's defenseless dog, not just a dog, but a member of her family. So many hard days had ended with Winona comforting the orange pony as she rested on her lap. Applejack watches in horror as she raises the knife to your pet's throat.
"Maud, please! Stop!"
"I'm sorry, Applejack, but I have to do this."
"Maud-" Even if Applejack was able to close her eyes, she would not have been able to escape from the sickening sound of skin being torn entering her ears as Winona's neck is stabbed and sliced across, her consciousness torturing her for a few more seconds before death draws in.
"Winona! No, Winona, no!"
Maud canters off to the other side of the room and studies the readings showed on the control panel. Applejack is sobbing, loud and hard, and her tears make her cheeks stiff with sorrow. After a bit, Applejack's not even yelling words anymore, just wailing. Maud rushes over and presses a hoof to her neck. Her cries become raspy breaths, but Applejack continues to shake.
"It didn't work. Your barrier is still up."
With the dagger still placed in her mouth, Maud walks over to where Winona's body rest. She pushes the table out of the way, and Applejack sees her with another curtain in her grasp from behind where Applejack's pet once was. She pulls it aside.
"No. You didn't . . . no. No! No no no no no!"
Maud tears off the leather gag bound to Applebloom's mouth.
"Applejack! Help me!"
"I'm sorry, Applebloom, but Applejack won't be able to help you."
"Maud, please! Don't kill her, kill me! Please! Kill me!"
"I'm afraid that's not how it works, Applejack. I'll need a better impact from this one, so I'm gonna have to slow it down. You've made this so hard for yourself."
Maud delivers a deep cut to Applebloom's leg. Her body tightens as she shrieks in pain. So does Applejack. Maud stares at the blonde mare before slowly digging deeper into the gash, exposing a sliver of bone, before slicing from underneath and pulling upwards. A chunk of flesh is removed from the appendage, including a section of the filly's cutie mark. The knife plunges once again, scraping against an ivory sheen, tendons ripping away from muscle. Applebloom continues to cry out as pits of blood are gouged from her thighs. Using a saw from on top of a nearby oven, Maud then separates the leg and hip from the filly's body entirely, and blood pours from the injury. The Earth Pony is now quickly losing strength.
"Stop it! Don't do this! For Celestia's sake Maud, please!"
"Apple . . . Applehah . . ."
Maud forces Applebloom's jaw open, and she struggles weakly with a moan of agony. Maud plays within the mouth for a bit, a whimper of fright shaking the filly's cheeks, which are matted with tears and sweat. Without warning, the dagger slices through Applebloom's tongue before wearing away at the gums. Applebloom stops her cries to cough blood away from her windpipe until the area around her teeth is raw. Maud then pulls each tooth, one by one, and wipes her bloody hoof on her apron. The knife then enters into Applebloom's chest, dangerously close to her neck. Applebloom continues screaming, but after a moment, she can only muster a gargle as blood trickles out of her mouth. Skin is peeled painfully from Applebloom's chest, and Applejack is forced to gaze into the newly exposed insides of her sister's stomach.
"Ahhmmmm . . ."
"Maud, just end this for her! At least do that!"
"Yes, I think you've had enough."
"A-Applebloom, I'ma' so sorry . . . I shouldn't have happened this way. I love you so much." Tears gush from her blurred eyes.
" . . . Love . . . love y-" Maud twists the dagger into Applebloom's heart, and she goes completely limp, her chest refusing to rise. Maud dashes over to the control panel.
"That did it. I would've hated to have to do that to your brother. Marble seems to have some feelings for him. Lucky for Big Macintosh, I can continue without him." She adjusts a few dials on the panel, putting Applejack's head in its original position. Her hoof hovers over a red button.
"Maud, what have you d-"
Suddenly, Applejack's eyes become heavy. Her breaths draw out long and slow, and her body is completely drained of energy. The farm pony's mind goes blank, and she is unable to think back on resent events. Then memories start flashing randomly in the back of Applejack's mind. She grasps them for just a moment before losing them again in a mass of confusion. As this happens, she finds that has to tell her heart to beat, her lungs to breathe. It's hard. So hard. Applejack become exhausted by the overwhelming amount of strain and ideas her mind has to support. She can feel herself becoming tired, but her body refuses to shut down for even a moment. After what seems like just a few moments later, but at the same time years and years, it stops. Applejack looks down at yourself.
Her orange coat and cream mane have become dull shades of gray, and she sees that Maud has collected an orange liquid from the machine.
"This is your happiness, Applejack, and now that I'm more experienced at my craft, I was able to leave your other emotions behind. Marble gave up most of her happiness for Pinkie, though fear was left as her main emotion, as I'd accidentally extracted most of the others. Limestone's main emotion afterwards was anger. I manged to survive without any emotions, ignoring the twinge of love that I've spared for Pinkie's sake, and the rarest flickers here and there. We all lost most of our color. I used all of this happiness to bake cupcakes for Pinkie Pie, which is what I will also do with yours. However, now that I'm finished with you . . ." Maud carefully places the glass bottle containing Applejack's joy down on a small table. " . . . I can't have you telling my sister what happened here."
Without any sort of warning, Maud jams the dagger it into Applejack's gut as she screams.
"This is about the time when most of my victims say their last words, and the angry one's usually wish me well in Tartarus, despite the fact that I'm actually taking the time to help Somepony, and all of Equestria, with the Element of Laughter in mind. Still, it convinced me to be what others call merciful. Now that I think about it, some emotion for you might have emerged momentarily. You should be flattered. I usually hire a rogue Changeling to temporarily replace another, before they create a convincing death and return to me, ready to take the place of somepony new, but for you I've decided to stage the death myself, which involves much more risk. Rest easy, the last memories your friends have of you will be true, not of an impostor."
"Maud . . . Please . . ."
Maud unclips Applejack's restraints and tilts her chin, and the Earth Pony is too weak to do anything about it. She can feel her useless body and it starts to slide before meeting the floor. Applejack's foreleg is left at an unnatural angle.
"Look at me Applejack. I'd prefer to see the light leave your eyes . . ."
" Unngmm. . ."
". . . It always makes me feel less dead inside."
With that, Applejack's eyes glass over, and she falls away from Equestria.