Once I escaped the cocoon, I looked around to find the culprit, which didn’t take long. She looked to be a mix between a spider and a human, having the upper body of a human woman, and the bottom of an almost complete spider, save for the spider head. The human part was green with black hair, and had completely red eyes. The human half was wearing a blue blouse, and had cuffs on both of her wrists, the chains dangling from each one separately. The spider half was black, with cuffs on each leg, chains hanging off of every cuff. I also noticed various scars all over her body. And to add further confusion, I noticed she was holding a doll in her hands. And not the stereotypical creepy doll, but a doll that was clearly made with love and care. It had black hair, blue eyes, and white "skin". It was wearing a blue dress, and blue ballroom shoes. I'm not sure why she has a doll, but judging by her expression, it was clearly very important to her.
"Hm?" It seems she noticed she was being watched, and turned to me, her eyes go wide. "Who are you? How long have you been there!?" She then realized she was still holding her doll, which she quickly hid, her face turning red in embarrassment.
"I'm Danny Phantom, and I haven't been here too long." I answered, a little caught off guard by her sudden questions. "If you don't mind me asking, what's with the doll?"
"Th-that's none of you business, Phantom!" She yelled defensively. "Now leave, I want to wait for nightfall alone!"
"Well, it's not really 'alone' with them here." I say, pointing to the people in cocoons.
"They don't count, they're my dinner." She says with a huff.
"Dinner? Aren't you a ghost?" I asked in confusion. "Ghosts can't really eat anything."
“Look, I’d rather not talk about. Just leave, this is none of your business.” She huffs.
“I can’t just leave when I know a ghost is gonna needlessly kill three people for food she doesn’t even need to survive.” I say with a bewildered look, physically incapable of understanding her thought process.
“If you won’t willingly leave, I’ll make you!” She threatens, lunging at me. I must’ve really made her made, because she rammed into me with enough force to crash into the wall, and cause the barn to collapse.
I must’ve lost consciousness for a few moments, because when I woke up, I was back to normal, and she was gone. Looking around, I noticed all the cocoons were gone. But in my search, I found that doll the ghost had.
“It must’ve fallen off her when she rammed into me, and the barn collapsed.” I guessed, only to realize I was getting closer to the ground. After I few moments, I realized it was because my legs had turned intangible. “That’s not a good sign.”
Deep in current timeline Danny’s mind
Future Danny’s POV
“I remember this, it’ll take at least a month for him to gain somewhat control over his basic powers.” I muttered. “Maybe I can give him a hand. We both want the same thing, and we both wanna do it in the same way, so he shouldn’t notice me helping him…”
Reality
Current Danny’s POV
Despite my best efforts, I kept sinking, with only my upper chest and up visible. Suddenly, I felt that same strange energy wrap around my body. Then I started to come out of the ground, almost like something was pulling me up. And after a few moments, I was completely out of the ground, and was hovering off the ground. Whatever that was finally stopped, and I landed on the ground. As much as I wanted to stop and try to figure out what happened, I didn't have time.
'Though I'm not sure why I'm trying to play the hero, I don't even know them.' I think, scratching my head.
*I may not know them, but could I really live with the fact that I let a phycho kill an entire family, even though I have the power to help them?*
‘But I don’t even know how to use my powers.’ I think, not feeling confident. ‘I doubt I’d win in a fight against that spider lady.’
*Maybe I don’t have to fight her, maybe I just need to get the family out*
That made me pause. I did manage to phase out of the cocoon, maybe I could do the same with them.
I think for a moment, trying to think of where the lady could have gone, until I remembered the dream. When that lady reappeared, Applebloom and I where in a giant forest. That might be a good place to start. So without any better ideas, I headed for the closest forest I remember Applebloom telling me about, the Everfree Forest.
With previous timeline Twilight and Spike
It hadn't taken Twilight long to figure out what point in time they had been sent. Twilight had remembered reading in the Newspaper in the previous timeline that today was the day that the Apples of Ponyville had died, save for a single child.
'I'll never forget the day I arrived in Ponyville.' Twilight thinks to herself, remembering that fateful day.
Flashback
Twilight's POV
'I can't believe the Princess just dismissed my warning! Yeah I know using what is widely considered just an old mare's tale as a bases for my warning was kind of a stretch, but the signs were all there!' I grumbled in my head.
"That's weird, you'd think a town about to hold a celebration would be a lot more cheerful…" I heard Spike say. I look to see what he's talking about, and he's right, this place had a depressing air about it.
"We should ask around, maybe we can fix whatever's making them upset." I suggest, I was here to make sure everything ran smoothly for the celebration after all. We finally land, the guards immediately leaving the moment I thanked them. 'Guess they don't wanna stick around such a gloomy place.' We looked around a bit, before spotting a darkish pink pony with a straight dark pink mane and tail. She has balloons for a cutie mark. I walked to her with the intention to start a conversation with her.
"Hello there, my name is Twilight Sparkle, I was sent down here by the Princess to oversee the preparations for the celebration." I introduced myself. "Could you please tell me why everypony is so down?"
"A meanie pants came and took their smiles away, and nothing I do can bring them back." She says, a frown on her face. I raised a brow, then looked at Spike, who just shrugged.
"Ok…" I say, a little confused. "Could you go into detail about the 'meanie pants' and how they 'took their smiles away'?"
“I don’t really know what happened, the only ponies who survived whatever happened are a little filly, and some strange creature named Danny the filly vouched for.” The mare says with a shrug. “The filly keeps saying that it was some kinda spider ghost that did it.”
“Well ponies her age do have a tendency to make up stories to cope with something that bad.” I say, nodding. “Do you know where this Danny lives?”
“When the filly was taken in by one of her family members, she insisted that he come along, since he was the only one who believed her ghost story.” She says.
“Well thanks anyway.” I say in defeat. We said our goodbyes, and parted way. Then Spike and I preceded to check all the places on the list, though we had to ask who was handling food now. It was still being handled by the Apples, just not the Apples from Ponyville. Since I knew they’d have some information about the filly and creature, I decided to go there first.
“So this is Sweet Apple Acres?” I asked the mare who lead us here. She had a green coat and eyes, a black mane and and tail (which was tied with red string), and had a brown cowgirl hat. Her cutie mark was three red apples. And it might’ve been just my imagination, but it almost looked like she was glowing with an otherworldly light, it also sounded like there was a slight echo in her voice.
“Yep.” The mare confirms. “Say, could ya do me a little, but important, favor?”
“What?” I asked. She then took off her hat, put what looked like a note on it, then gave it to me. “Could you hand this to one of the ponies down there? I’d really appreciate it.”
“Uh, sure, I don’t see why not.” I say with a confused look.
“Thank ya kindly.” She says. I looked at the hat in confusion, then looked back at her, only to see she had vanished.
“Did you see where she went?” I asked Spike.
“No.” He answered. A little disturbed, we continued on.
Golden Oaks Library after Summer Sun Celebration-still previous timeline
“Are you a spy!?” Rainbow had asked, anger clear in her voice. “I’m giving you one chance to confess, because after losing one of my friends to some unknown creature, I am not in the mood to play games with a potential traitor!”
“Rainbow Dash! That’s enough!” I heard a familiar voice yell, much to my relief, because it looked like the pegasus might’ve actually hit me. We looked to the source, and see that strange mare again.
“You kinda look like AJ, save for most of your colors.” The pegasus notes. "And why the hey are you stopping me?"
"Because, I know ya friend wouldn't want to take you anger out on this filly. And I know your friend would want you to help this filly stop that madmare from hurting ponies." The green mare said with a disappointed look. It seems what she said and her expression got through to Rainbow Dash, because she suddenly gained an ashamed look.
"You're…you're right, Applejack would've probably been the first to volunteer to help…" Rainbow Dash says somberly, then gained a determined look, and turned to me. "Well it decided then, I'm gonna help you stop that Alicorn and save the princess!"
"You won't be doing it alone, darling." Rarity says, the rest giving their agreement.
"So what's the plan?" The green mare asked, looking at me. "I know you ran in here for a reason." Feeling a little inspired myself, I told them my plan, and we set out to find the Elements of Harmony.
After we had found the Elements, and defeated Nightmare Moon, we learned who that green mare was. She was Applejack as a ghost, the Elements turning her colors back to how they were when she was alive, though she kept the otherworldly glow and echo. She wasn't a halfa like Danny or Vlad, she was a halfa in the opposite way. Instead of being alive with the powers of ghosts like those two, she was a ghost who could suppress her ghost aspects and appear like the living. Of course she had trouble controlling this. As it turns out, earth pony magic and ecto-energy clash in the beginning, a lot. They also supercharge each other, a lot. She could handle the farm work practically by herself, but had tended to destroy what she was trying to fix or harvest.
Of course, this wasn’t without problems. First we hand to deal with Celestia (who despite being an understanding pony, was a firm believer in the natural order. And if it wasn’t for the fact that the Elements did that to AJ, she would’ve done an exorcism then and there, instead of testing AJ). Then we had to deal with creatures (not just ponies, but all sorts of creatures) who’re either strongly against AJ’s existence, or wanted to replicate what happened to AJ (flat out ignoring the special circumstances for her “resurrection” and the potential consequences). Finally, and somehow the worst, we had to deal with Applebloom. I’m not sure how she managed it, but Applebloom managed to be a bigger threat to AJ then all the previous threats.
With Celestia, we could appeal to her sense of reason. With the ponies for or against AJ’s existence, sure they had numbers, but we had the experience to fend them off, plus it wasn’t hard to outmaneuver their strategies (when they actually had strategies at least). But Applebloom? Not only was it impossible to appeal to her sense of reason, but she had much more experience with ghosts then anyone we knew save for the princesses, and she was better equipped. She had apparently ran away from the relatives who took her in (though we never learned why), and had devoted her life to becoming the best (in our case, worst) ghost hunter in the world. And what made it even worse, AJ couldn’t bring herself to fight her, on account of Applebloom having justified reasons not to believe AJ was actually her sister. I don’t know what happened between them in their last meeting, due to Starlight showing up, and forcing us (Spike, Danny, Vlad and I) to force her attention on us while everyone else escaped, so I don’t know what happened after that. Though I guess it doesn’t really matter, since the old timeline was ripped to shreds.
“Hey Twi, look, it’s Danny.” Spike (who was flying beside me) says, pointing to what appears to be this timeline’s Danny. “Why’s he heading towards the everfree forest? Shouldn’t he be waiting at the Apple’s house with Applebloom?”
“I guess our Danny decided to change what happened, if the green glow appearing every now and then is any indication.” I say with a small frown. “Well if that’s what he wants to do, I don’t see any reason not to lend a hoof.” As I say this, I fly down to him, making sure to far enough for him to not notice us.