//------------------------------// // Farmer's Market - Part 1 // Story: Harmony // by Aquaman //------------------------------// When I wake up, the sheets around me are damp, and the light filtering in through the window is a deep murky green.  For a moment, I’m disoriented, my heart thudding painfully as I try to make sense of where I am, and then my last few waking hours come rushing back and my panic gives way to exhaustion.  I’m not waking up to the cries of seagulls, that faded green paint on the walls wasn’t chosen by the hotel management, and that sure as salt isn’t Haywaii outside.  I’m in Applejack’s hideaway, a tightly sealed complex buried deep within an impossible underwater city called Harmony, and the nightmare I just woke up from wasn’t a dream, but a memory: of our flight, of our crash, of sinking below inky black waves and screaming for air that’s far beyond my reach. I kick off the covers and roll onto my side, grimacing as the mattress peels off my back.  The bedroom isn’t cold, but my skin stays clammy no matter how many times I tell myself that the nightmare is over.  Because it isn’t over, is it?  I’m still trapped down here, where nothing is as it seems and everything wants me dead, and I still don’t know anything about what it is or why I’m here.  Applejack already promised to answer any questions that popped into our heads, but once we got inside her compound and the immediate threat of a violent and horrifying death lessened a bit, the fatigue I’d been ignoring for hours hit me like an anvil.  I hardly even made it into bed before everything went black.  And now it’s been Celestia knew how long, and I feel even more exhausted than before. I roll onto my back again and let out a groan.  I have no energy, no idea what’s going on, no part of me that wasn’t either sore or soaked with sweat, and I can’t even muster up the will to feel scared about it anymore.  The only emotion I have rattling around in my chest now is a dull, smoldering anger, and it’s anypony’s guess where exactly I would find its source. “You should try counting.” Apparently, I don’t have the strength to jump a foot in the air either, although the voice that pipes up next to the bed hardly sounds threatening.  Actually, it sounds like it came from a little filly, and as I turn my head and look down, I see that it belongs to one. “That’s what Mommy does when she’s mad,” she continues, her grassy green mane braided over her shoulder and her big blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on me.  “She takes a big breath and blows it out real hard, and scrunches up her face like this—”  The filly puffs out her cheeks and puts on an exaggerated scowl, and a grin splits my face before I can swallow it back.  “—and then she counts a whole bunch until she’s happy again.” “And that works?” I ask. “Mostly,” she replies with a shrug.  We stare at each other for a few seconds, and then the filly trots over to the corner of the room, where a beat-up old scooter sits propped up against the wall next to a weathered brown suitcase.  She pops the latches on the suitcase and pulls out a well-worn stuffed cow, and once she plops down on the floor with it balanced tenderly between her forelegs, I can see that the rest of the case is filled to the brim with toys, cardboard books, and more stuffed animals.   “You’re not from here, are you?” she says after stroking the cow’s ears for a minute or two, her eyes never leaving her doll but her question clearly directed at me. I hold back from being completely honest at first, but come to my senses after a moment’s thought.  Paranoia might be a fair creed to live by in this city, but there’s hardly any risk in telling a six-year-old filly something it seems she already knows.  “What gave it away?” I reply. “Your eyes are too big,” she says.  “And you . . . ” In the middle of her thought, the filly bites her tongue and squeezes her doll against her chest, her cheeks flushing the same color as her mane.  “I what?” I ask her. “You talked in your sleep some,” she mumbles through the mop of black yarn atop the cow’s limp head.   “‘M sorry.  I didn’t mean to listen, but . . . ” The filly’s eyes dart back down into her lap, and a couple strange details that flew right over my head before suddenly snap together in a way that makes perfect sense.  No wonder this filly seems a bit out of her element.  I’ve been passed out for hours in her own bedroom. “It’s fine,” I tell her with a sheepish look of my own.  “Thanks for letting me use your bed.” The filly perks up her ears, and her smile is so genuine that it’s almost hard to comprehend it coexisting with the rest of this city.  When’s this place going to rear its ugly head again? I wonder. “You’re welcome,” she chirps.  “Who’s Garnet?” Ah.  Right about now.  “You said his name a lot,” the filly explains.  “You sounded mad.  You should try counting.” “He’s my brother,” I eventually tell her. “Why are you mad at him?” “It’s a long story.” The filly’s gaze flicks up and down my front, and for a moment I get the strangest feeling that she knows I’m hiding something from her, and that she knows I don’t want to talk about it.  “I get mad at my sister sometimes too,” she says.  She lifts her forelegs up and down, and the cow dances in her lap.  “But we always forgive each other.  It’s no fun being mad at somepony who loves you.” The conversation dies quickly after that, and thankfully I never end up having to revive it.  “Cider?” a familiar voice calls from outside the door.  “Where’d ya run off to?” “We’re in here!” the filly calls out.  I hear hoofsteps coming down the hall, and then the door retreats up into the ceiling to reveal the mare that led Link and me to safety.  She gives me a friendly nod, and then the filly a reproachful glare. “Apple Cider, what’re you doin’ in here?” she says.  “I told ya not to bother our guest!” “No, no, she’s fine,” I say quickly, rolling onto my side in a feeble attempt to look presentable.  “I was already awake when she came in.” “If you say so,” the older mare answers cheerfully enough, although she still has one dubious eye on Apple Cider.  “How’d the R an’ R treat ya?” “Super,” I mumble.  “Which one of you beat me over the head with a two-by-four, again?” The mare grins, and the laugh that bubbles out of her throat sounds more like a little foal’s giggle.  “Yeah, I reckoned you’d still feel a bit hazy right about now,” she says.  “But if you’re hungry, we got all the pancakes ya can eat hot off the iron in the kitchen.  They’re Applejack’s own recipe, and she makes ‘em better than anypony in Equestria.  Think your friend Link’s already gone through half a dozen.” And just like that, the good times grind to a halt  How am I supposed to deal with Link right now?  How am I even supposed to look him in the eye after what happened?  And how am I supposed to decide whether I should even be the one who’s so out of sorts about it? Neither of the other girls comments on the tone my cheeks have taken on, but the look they share once they see it can’t possibly bode well.  “Come on down any time you feel up to it,” the mare says as she ushers Apple Cider out of the room.  “We’ll be sure to save ya a plate.” The door slides closed behind them and latches with a gentle click, and I’m left to stew in my own thoughts.  On the one hoof, going downstairs meaning facing Link, not to mention the reality of my situation, not to mention the inevitable talk with Applejack when she’ll go over in great detail how far up the creek I am.  On the other hoof, going downstairs means I get pancakes, and after not getting any food in it for almost a full day, my stomach’s roaring loud enough to wake the dead. I waste twenty seconds or so wallowing in indecision again, and then I heave my legs off the bed and drag myself to the door.  Those better be some good freaking pancakes. I follow the heady scent of buttermilk through a oddly wide hallway lined with what look like abandoned shops until I end up in a large, windowless kitchen that looks built for a much larger crowd than the four ponies occupying its only table now.  Apple Cider looks up and waves as soon as she sees me, but Link’s eyes only dart up for a moment before turning back down his plate, as if he’s hoping I won’t notice him there.  Before I can figure out what the hay to make of that, Applejack pops out from behind the counter and shoots me a grin, her big brown hat still perched on her head even as fresh pancakes sizzle on the griddle by her side. “Well, top’a the mornin’ to ya, sugarcube,” she calls out.  “Come on in and help yourself.  That plate right there should still be warm.” I nod my head slowly and make my way towards the heavily laden plate Applejack just motioned to, right across the table from Link.  Apple Cider is sitting to Link’s left and thoroughly engrossed in licking the syrup off her hooves, and as I sit down next to the mare I escaped the plaza with, Applejack trots away from the stove and takes her place at the head of the table, her metal leg clanking against the tile floor as she navigates her way to her seat. “How’d you sleep?” she asks once she’s settled down. “Okay,” I mumble.  Talking with Applejack over the radio was easy.  Now that we’re all face-to-face for the first time, though, my tongue’s old habit of gluing itself to the roof of my mouth whenever anypony looks me in the eye returns in force. To her credit, though, Applejack doesn’t let it faze her in the slightest. “Good to hear,” she says.  “I suppose you’ve already met Apple Bloom?”  Applejack nods at the mare next to me, who gives me a sticky nudge on the shoulder as she works on swallowing a baseball-sized wad of pancake.  She then turns her gaze over to the little filly to her right.  “And this little apple seed here is Apple Cider.” “Pleased t’meet ya,” Apple Cider chirps.  I put on a smile until she’s looking at her plate again, but my gut is still roiling, and it’s not just from hunger anymore. Applejack seems to take my silence as hesitation to speak up and commandeers the conversation accordingly.  “There’ll be plenty’a time for talkin’ once our bellies are full,” she says.  “In the meantime, how d’ya like your cakes?  We’ve got chocolate chips and peanut butter, and if you ain’t much for fancy eatin’, there’s a dish’a plain ol’ butter over in the icebox.”  Applejack looks down the table, and a frown passes over her face.  “There should be some maple syrup floatin’ around here too,” she says half to herself, “but I don’t know where it ran off to.  Last time I saw it, it was right about . . .” “Here.” I turn away from Applejack and see a dark brown bottle sitting in front of my plate, the hoof of the unicorn who pushed it over to me still resting against its far side.  Link’s gaze drops down towards his lap the instant I get close to catching it with my own, but the look in his eyes is unmistakable even from the brief glimpse I got of it.  He may be trying to pretend otherwise, but Link can’t bring himself to speak to me either, and quite frankly it’s not hard to imagine why.  The mental image of his crowbar connecting with that earth mare’s head is a stain in my memory that no amount of apologizing is ever going to bleach out, and whether the emotion I see flashing through his eyes is guilt or embarrassment or just a potent sense of how awkward this all is, it still isn’t something I’m all that worried about interpreting at the moment. “Thanks,” I murmur, and Link gives a slight nod before leaning back from the table and, a few fidgets later, stands up and mutters something about finding the bathroom before walking out of the kitchen through a side door.  By the time I’m done watching him leave, everybody else is concentrated on their food, but I know they must’ve been watching the whole exchange.  My face flushes with heat, and I hunch over and start shoveling pancakes into my mouth before they start watching that too.  Soon enough, though, the motions I’m going through have a little more feeling put into them.  The pancakes are amazing, each one thick and fluffy with bits of candied apples mixed right into the batter as well as smeared all over the top.  Even though my tablemates had a head start on me, my plate is clean a good two minutes before any of theirs. “Told ya they were good,” Apple Bloom says with a smirk as our mutual food coma begins to settle in.  A smile plays across Applejack’s face as well when she sees my half-lidded eyes.  Once I’ve finished digesting enough to focus on her, she glances up at something behind me before clearing her throat and starting to speak. “S’pose I don’t have to guess what you’re hungry for now,” she says.  Her smile this time has a wry tinge to it, and her eyes a playful glint.  Once I nod, she looks behind me again.  “Or you, for that matter.” I turn around just in time to see Link sit back down at the table.  He nods at Applejack, and doesn’t seem to notice I’m staring at him.  “Well, I reckon I could talk your ears off ‘bout durn near anything down here, but I’m guessin’ neither’a you are hankerin’ for a grand tour,” Applejack goes on.  “So if you want to talk for five minutes or fifty, it don’t make a lick’a difference to me.  Ask me any question, and I’ll tell you no lie.  That sound all right to you?” No, not really.  I was kind of counting on the grand tour thing, honestly.  I try to think of a question, any question, but so many are piling up in my head that my whole brain feels like it’s going numb.  For a moment, I look for Link to cover for me, but once again the thought of having to depend on him to bail me out is somehow enough to spur me to action.  I guess he is good to have around for some things. “Who built this place?” I ask Applejack, whose first reaction is to nod quickly and let her shoulders slack a bit.  Despite what she just said, it’s not hard to tell she’s relieved that I started out with such a simple question. “Technically speakin’, you’ve already met her,” she says.  “Miss Onyx Aloysius Ryder: scientist, physicist, and magical scholar extraordinaire, and mother to the most ornery little brainchild this world’s ever known. “She made all this by herself?” “Well . . . not entirely.”  Applejack grins again.  “I might have to break that promise I made about talkin’ your ears off.” “It’s fine,” I tell her, and I really mean it.  Maybe it’s just the pancakes talking, but without anything shooting at me or chasing me with monkey wrenches, the hypnotizing sense of curiosity I felt when I first saw this place is starting to come back.  And as long as indulging in it involves a lot of Applejack talking and me just listening, that suits me just fine. “You ever heard’a somethin’ called the Canterlot Occulumental Board?” Applejack begins.  “Don’t worry about it,” she reassures us once Link and I both shake our heads.  “I hadn’t either when I was your age.  They’re a group’a unicorns up in Canterlot who keep track of all the arcane knowledge in Equestria.  Basically, the best and brightest magical minds anypony’s got anywhere.  Now, the average pony whittling away their days in Manehatten or Trottingham wouldn’t give two bits about these folks, but for anyone who fancied themselves an inventor or a magician, they were the next best thing to Celestia herself.  So about . . . fifteen years ago now, I reckon, a scrappy little unicorn nobody’d ever heard of went before the Board with somethin’ he called ‘Magic Synthesis’.  He told ‘em he’d figured out a way to collect magic into somethin’ physical, a liquid supply of energy that anypony could use whenever they wanted.  Problem was, though, all those ponies on the Board got kinda stuffy sittin’ cooped up in the city all hours of the day, so sometimes they didn’t take too kindly to ponies comin’ up to them with wild an’ crazy ideas like that.” ’’Specially if those ideas didn’t mesh with the way they already saw the world,” Apple Bloom added as Applejack nodded her agreement.  “The way I heard it, he never even got to finish his speech before they had him out on his butt bouncin’ down the front steps.” “What happened to him?” I ask as Apple Cider giggles into her hooves and mimics Apple Bloom’s comment under her breath.  Applejack shrugs, but with the way her shoulders never quite come all the way back down from it, I get the feeling she knows a lot more about the subject then she’s letting on.   “Ryder found him drunk half to death in a back alley and drug him off to wherever she was livin’ then, and don’t ask me if I know where she came from ‘cause I doubt there’s anyone alive who does.  Anyway, she sobered him up, kept him fed and watered a couple days till he’d warmed up to her a bit, and then laid it on him: her city under the waves, an underwater fortress of freedom and opportunity, the whole nine yards.  And he bought it like cheap cider.” Finally, Link speaks up.  “What was his name?”   For the next minute or so, Applejack mouths words to herself that no one else can hear, and I’m increasingly sure she isn’t going to reply.  “Foxtail Meadow,” she finally says, her voice quiet and aimed somewhere beyond what any of us can see.  “He was . . . a genius, one of the smartest ponies I’ve ever known.  He grew up in Dream Valley, spent his whole life there cuttin’ wheat and dreamin’ up things nopony in his family could begin to understand.  Ryder was the mind and the body of this city, but Foxtail . . . he was the soul, the fire burnin’ inside that kept it steamin’ along against every odd imaginable.  In the early days, he got ponies from every corner of Equestria down here: scientists, artists, doctors, musicians.  All of them at the top’a their field, and all of ‘em spirited out right from underneath Canterlot’s nose.  Even now, I doubt there’s more than ten ponies back on the mainland who’ve even heard of him, let alone of the city he lived in.  And his voice . . . when he spoke, it was like the seas all stopped flowin’ just to hear the words he sent soakin’ into ‘em.  He could tell a story that’d make ya laugh, cry, chomp at the bit and scream for somepony’s head on a stick, and then when it was all said and done he’d still just be a little colt from way out yonder, a sixth-generation farmer who fell through pure dumb luck into the life he’d always dreamed of, and only wanted to keep from lettin’ it fade away.” Applejack blows out a sigh and gives me a glance as if she sees the next question coming from a mile away.  Judging by the way her eyebrows shoot up a moment later, though, I don’t think the one I end up asking was the one she had in mind.  “Were you one of those ponies?  The scientists and artists and all?” “Hardly,” she replies with a snort.  “That’d be Twilight Sparkle you’re thinking of, and if there’s one pony who ever lived who could go hoof-to-hoof with Foxtail in the brains department, it was her.” “Yeah, I remember her.”  One of Applejack’s eyebrows drops back down to give me a curious look.  “There was an audiotape inside the bathysphere,” I explain.  “I guess it recorded you guys coming down here.” “Is that so?” Applejack says with a small chuckle.  “Well, in any case, I suppose you already know how this part’a the story ends.  Twilight went to the Board with proof that Foxtail was right and got the same reception, and she’d hardly even gotten back home ‘fore Ryder had a letter sealed and sent invitin’ her down to show off what she’d done.” “What do you mean, what she’d done?” Link cuts in.  “Wasn’t Foxtail down here before that?  Didn’t he already know all that stuff?” “Well, that’s just the thing: he did know it all, but only in theory.  Twilight was the only one to ever put it to the test and got somethin’ usable out of it.  In all the years he spent down here before she popped into the picture, Foxtail never figured out how to get it to work on his own.” “Never really figured it out after that either,” Apple Bloom mutters with a roll of her eyes. “And he and Ryder had another problem too,” Applejack continues.  “With enough blood, sweat, bits, and pure skill with magic, they’d managed to build enough of Harmony to go ahead and call it a city, but they had no way of keeping it alive.  The plan was that Foxtail would figure out how to turn his theory into an energy source they could use to power the city and all the technomagical inventions gettin’ slapped together inside it, but the more time passed, the more the whole thing started frayin’ around the edges.  They probably didn’t have more than a month left in ‘em when we set out with Twilight.” “‘We’?” I ask. “Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity and her little sister Sweetie Belle, and me an’ Apple Bloom here,” Applejack says, drumming her hoof gently on the table with each name.  “We were all friends beforehand, all from the same town, figured we’d ride out with Twilight for moral support.  Rarity and I even brought our little sisters when they asked to tag along.  We thought they might like to get out and see the sights too.  We thought, ‘What’s the harm in takin’ ‘em out on a trip with us for once?’” Applejack looks down and studies the table, and Apple Bloom pulls her lips tight across her teeth and rests her forehoof on her big sister’s shoulder.  “That was ten years ago.” Link lets out a heavy sigh and curses under his breath, and the forehoof that I’ve unconsciously slid over my mouth is the only thing keeping me from doing the same.  Here I am, tearing my hair out over the thought of spending one more night in this place, when the mare who let one of her only allies sacrifice his life to save ours has been stuck down here here for an entire decade.  These mares have been living at the bottom of the ocean for almost half the time I’ve been alive, and I had the gall to think I was the victim here.  Shame forces my eyes closed and my hoof to stay clapped over my lips, but even still my curiosity is nearly bubbling over underneath it all. “What happened?” I whisper.  “When did everything go wrong?” Applejack’s eyes flick up from the table and settle on me with the weight of every minute she’s whiled away in this underwater prison.  She blinks twice and seems to mull something over for a bit, and then she turns to Apple Bloom while sending a pointed glance back in the opposite direction.  Apple Bloom looks the same way for a moment before nodding, the message received as if she and her sister share one contiguous mind. “You know somethin’, sugar plum,” she says to Apple Cider, who for our entire conversation had been patiently playing with her hooves and humming a perky little tune to herself.  “I think you still owe me a game’a Stairs n’ Slides.  I swear you cheated last time!” “Nuh-uh!” Apple Cider argues through a powerful voice crack.  “And I’m not a plum, I’m an Apple!” “You sure ‘bout that?  ‘Cause from here, you look more a pumpkin eater,” Apple Bloom says, an impish smile growing on her face  as she reaches across the table and pokes the younger filly in the cheek.  “Cheater, cheater.” “Stop it!” Apple Cider squeals, though she’s giggling like mad the whole time. “So what d’ya say, pardner?” Apple Bloom says, her voice dropping into a comically thick drawl.  “Ya wanna put yer bits where yer gums’re bumpin’?” “You’re on!” Cider shouts, hopping down from the table and galloping back towards her room.  Apple Bloom jumps up and follows her at about the same pace, but not before giving Applejack another nod and me a quick wink on the side.  Once Link and I are the only other ponies left in the room, Applejack puts both her forehooves together beneath her chin and eyes us with a weary look that’s still hard enough to cut through steel.  There’s no happy smile brightening up her expression now. “The one thing you have to understand is that nopony, and I mean nopony, meant for any’a this to happen,” she says in a tone so low it almost qualifies as a whisper.  “We all made mistakes, we all tested waters we should’ve known better than to swim in, but no matter what you hear or what you think after I tell you this, there’s no one pony to blame.  This is all our burden to bear.” Applejack pauses, waiting for one of us to protest.  Though I hate to admit it, I gain a tiny bit of respect back for Link when he’s just as silent as I am.  “Once Twilight showed Foxtail how to make his formula work, everything changed overnight,” Applejack says.  “Power grids were built, pipes were run all up and down every building in the city.  They probably had the whole infrastructure planned out before they so much as laid a cornerstone for the first one.  Even today, every light switch, every automatic door, every camera and video screen . . . all of it runs off that same magical energy.  There’s a network goin’ through darn near every square inch of this city, and once they got the generators set up under Central Control, nobody hardly even thought about it anymore.  We just took everything for granted, just kept sucking at that bottle we knew was never gonna run dry.  For about two and a half years, it was like livin’ in heaven.” “But you guys were stuck down here,” I can’t help but interrupt, and only because my flesh is still crawling over the point I just made.  “What’d you do down here?” Applejack makes a sweeping gesture towards the space around here.  “You’re lookin’ at it, kiddo,” she replies with a lopsided grin.  “You can stick me any place in this world or under it, but if there’s apples to be bucked wherever I end up, then I can make do with that just fine.” Just for fun, I actually visualize the line being drawn between the two dots floating around in my brain.  “That was your apple orchard we ran through,” I say, though by the time I get the whole thought out, it already seems painfully obvious.  Where else would a mare named Applejack work? “My pride and joy,” Applejack confirms.  “We more or less grew the whole thing ourselves.  ‘Fore we got here, all they had to work the fields were a couple miners who only requested a job reassignment ‘cause they thought they’d get free cider outta the deal.  Once we got rid’a them and dug the place out from where they’d run it into the ground, it was almost like working the farm back in Ponyville.  You even get used to all that artificial sunlight after a while.” Applejack’s grin after that last comment is about as wooden as the table she’s leaned against, but I see no reason not to let it pass on by.  “What about everyone else?” “They all found ways to keep themselves occupied.  Rarity was simple.  She hardly got three steps outta the bathysphere before she had half the ponies in the city beggin’ her to make ‘em somethin’ to wear other than jumpsuits and overalls.  Fluttershy didn’t take much longer.  She was nervous at first, but the instant she found Arcadia an’ took a gander at the forest Ryder’d made to keep our air supply fresh, it was love at first sight.  I figured Rainbow Dash would take it the worst, what with how much she loved flyin’, but it was only a couple weeks or so ‘fore she found a whole group of pegasi to roost with.  And Pinkie . . . ” Applejack heaves a sigh, chuckling to herself as she gazes up at the ceiling.  “Landsake, I don’t think she shut her mouth once the whole first month we were here.  Everything amazed her, everything was a new adventure for her . . . heck, I reckon she was friends with more ponies than we ever knew were here in the first place.  That was Pinkie Pie for ya, always happy, always bouncin’ around with a smile on her face and that squeaky little laugh . . . ” Once again, Link and I know better than to speak.  I wrap my hooves around my shoulders to keep out the chill that’s suddenly descended upon the room, and keep my eyes locked on Applejack.  She never takes her away from the ceiling. “They called it MOON,” she says.  “The stuff Twilight and Foxtail made.  Guess they thought that blue glow it had looked like the night sky or somethin’.  You know, I never did ask her why they called it that.  Had plenty’a opportunities, but just . . . never thought it was important.  Figured as long as it was working, and she was happy working on it, what was the harm in just lettin’ things run their course?”  She chuckles again, this time with a voice empty of emotion.  “Shoulda known better.  Shoulda known better.” Now she looks back down at me.  “You remember what I told you about those wings made’a gossamer and morning dew?”  I nod, and she continues, picking up a sugar cube from a dish in front of her and balancing it between her forehooves.  “There’s a spell I saw once that gives unicorns and earth ponies wings like that, and that’s a whole ‘nother story there, lemme tell you.  But there’s somethin’ I saw that day that I ain’t never gonna forget: those wings were just about the prettiest things I’d ever seen, but the instant you flew too close to the sun . . . ” Applejack pushes her hooves together, and the sugar cube crumbles into dust.  “We had everything we could ever want down here.  It may not have been home and we may not have any other choice, but for what it was this place really was somethin’ special once.  But Foxtail and Twilight were too smart for that, too determined to push themselves to the limit to be happy with what they’d already done.  So they kept experimentin’, kept playin’ around with the MOON formula to see what else they could create.  Kept tellin’ everybody there was a way to make it more powerful, that there was secrets of magical power that nopony in the history of Equestria could have ever dreamed of unlocking before.  And, Celestia save us all, we believed ‘em. “It was October, I think, ‘bout seven years ago when they finally did it.  Some say Foxtail did it himself, most others figure he and Twilight worked it out together, but one way or another they’d cut so deep into the essence of magical power that they’d found a way to drain it right from the source.  And when they finally worked it down to somethin’ they could contain, it glowed like the everlastin’ fire’a Hades, so a’course they called it SUN.” “What did it do?” I ask. “Mercy, what didn’t it do?  It was magic in its rawest form.  Not channeled through a horn or brewed up in one’a Ryder’s labs, just honest-to-goodness pure magical energy.  It was exactly what Foxtail had said all along he could find, and you better believe he couldn’t wait to spread the news once he finally sniffed it out.  It was ten times as powerful as MOON, cost next to nothing to make, and he and Twilight were the only ponies alive who knew how to produce it.  The banks couldn’t begin to hold all the money pourin’ into his company.  Even renamed the whole thing in honor’a that.” Applejack turns away, but not quickly enough to hide the muscles clenching in her jaw.  “Ya probably saw it on the way in.  Pyrus Industries: Ignis Aurum Probat.”  She falls silent, her eyelids just barely pressed together.  “Fire tests gold.” With a small grunt of exertion, Applejack pushes back from the table and gets to her hooves.  I almost get up too, but settle back down once I realize that she isn’t leaving the room.  “The reason MOON was so popular was because they wasn’t a single thing dangerous about it,” she tells us as she paces.  “It was clean magic, the same kind any unicorn can use just condensed into a physical form.  SUN was different.  There was no filter, nothin’ to dilute it down and keep it under control, and so it was that much more powerful.  Oh, at first it was like a dream come true: the stuff didn’t just make you stronger, it made you invincible.  Your legs moved faster, cuts and bruises would heal up ‘fore ya hardly even felt the pain . . . even your thoughts were quicker.  Unicorns’ve always been able to make little changes in their own bodies and others, but now anypony could do it.  Everypony did do it.” “But there was a catch,” I murmur. “But there were side effects,” Applejack clarifies.  “SUN was powerful, but it was also unstable.  There’s a reason nopony ever managed ta find this stuff before, and that’s because magic has to have a conduit.  It has to have somethin’ that dumbs it down and makes it safe for a normal pony to use.  Take that away, and all you’ve got is a bottle full of natural-born chaos, and when pure chaos get ahold of you like that, it ain’t likely to ever let go.  Ponies got addicted, keep scavengin’ and scramblin’ for every drop’a SUN they could find, and the more they got, the more their bodies became deformed, and the more their minds began to come undone.  Six months after the first vial hit the market, the city had already started to come apart.  A year after that, it was nothin’ but ashes.” “Didn’t anypony try to stop it?” I sputter.  “Couldn’t somepony have done something?” “Oh, they did somethin’, all right,” Applejack growls, sitting back down hard with a huff to match.  “They went to war.  Once Harmony was all but run into the ground, Ryder worked up an army of those security bots and marched right through Pyrus’s front door.  Torn the place to shreds, killed Foxtail, and made off with all the SUN she could carry.  Celestia knows what she did with it.  And that was only the tip’a the iceberg, ‘cause it wasn’t even a month before Daybreak popped up and made Onyx Ryder look like a flower mare.” “We saw him too,” Link interjects.  “He sent a bunch of . . .” “Splicers.  That’s what they’re called.  Ponies so addicted and so damaged that they’ll do anything to anypony for even the thought of gettin’ some SUN outta the bargain.  That’s how they fight now: Ryder has her machines, and Daybreak calls up the splicers and promises ‘em whatever they can imagine so long as they come runnin’ when he calls.  I don’t even know what he wants with you two.  He used to be the revolutionary type, pinnn’ Foxtail up as a martyr and gabbin’ away about how the commonfolk needed to take back what they always owned, but nowadays he hardly does a thing ‘cept get under Ryder’s skin every now and then.  In any case, he’s just as dangerous as she is, ‘specially with all those plasmids he keeps feedin’ those monsters . . .” “What’s a plasmid?” A strange echo trails behind each word of the question, and my heart seems to freeze over as I wonder whether one of those little foals with the glowing eyes and the needle somehow got in here.  Once Applejack whips her head around towards the seat next to Link, though, where a little grassy-haired filly is waiting expectantly for an answer, my confusion clears up pretty quickly. “What in . . . what are you doin’ in here?” Applejack says, sounding a little bit angry but mostly just baffled.  Apple Cider opens her mouth as if to reply, only to be cut off by Apple Bloom practically sprinting back into the kitchen from a different door.  The panic radiating out of her eyes sticks around until Apple Cider gives her a shy wave from across the room, at which point it morphs into the same look of confusion occupying her older sister’s face. “She slipped away from me,” she says breathlessly as she sits down hard by my side.  “She went around the corner to her room, and by the time I got back there she’d just vanished.  Wouldn’t answer when I called her or nothin’.” “What were you thinkin’, runnin’ away from Apple Bloom like that?” Applejack scolds.  “You see how scared she is?” “I wanted to hear about all the stuff that happened,” Apple Cider answers with an innocent shrug, climbing up into her seat and setting her hooves on the table exactly like Applejack.  “What’s a plasmid?” Applejack’s mouth drops open like she’s about to retort, but in the end she shuts it again without a word and blows out a sigh through her nose.  The weary, resigned expression she’s wearing looks like one she’s quite familiar with. “Plasmids,” she tells the group, “are serums of SUN that dig into the part of a pony’s body that can access magic, and rigs it up to give you control over a new type of magic.  In other words, they give active magical powers to ponies who otherwise wouldn’t have any.  Just about the only good thing that ever came outta Pyrus.  And even that’s debatable.” “What do you mean, ‘active magical powers’?” I ask. “That’s what Twilight called ‘em.  Earth ponies like us have passive magic that tells us where to plant crops and gives us a bit’a extra strength an’ durability.  With the right plasmid, though, we could do anything a unicorn could do.  Start a fire without any wood, shoot lightnin’ from the tips of our hooves . . .” “Lift things without touchin’ ‘em,” Apple Bloom adds out of the corner of her mouth.  I look at her, then at Applejack, then back at her without either of them ever looking me in the eye, and then the implication of what she just said finally hits home. “You’re kidding me.” Applejack pulls her lips tight across her teeth. “You guys are kidding, right?” “Told you we’d have to prove it,” Apple Bloom mutters. “You’re honestly telling me that you guys can move things with your minds?” “You can’t?” Apple Cider asks.  She sounds genuinely confused, and that just makes me even angrier.  My head is throbbing fit to burst with all the unbelievable things Applejack just shoved inside it, and for whatever reason this is the one that it just refuses to accept. “So what, if I just pick something up and toss it up in the air,” I argue, grabbing a fork between my hooves and tossing it towards the ceiling as hard as I can, “then one of you earth ponies can catch it with your minds before it even hits the grou-” I make the mistake of stopping to listen for the clink of the fork against the table before I finish my sentence, and when I make the second mistake of turning my head to watch it fall, I nearly bite my tongue in half.  Because the fork never does hit the table.  It never falls at all.  It just stops in midair about a foot away from my nose, surrounded by a shimmering colorless haze and pointed right at the tip of Link’s dormant horn.  Between that and the look on his face, I can’t even tell myself that he’s somehow in on the trick.  All I can do is watch in dumb silence as the fork drops down towards Link’s plate, spears a soggy bite of leftover pancake on its tines, and lifts it across the table into the waiting mouth of Apple Bloom, who twitches her eyebrows up at me before glancing over at Applejack. “I think she’s taking it well,” she says through her food as the fork comes to rest on her own plate.  After a pause of maybe five minutes at the most, I push my jaw back up and bite my tongue again until I remember what we were talking about before. “How is that possible?” I ask in a small voice. “Your guess is as good as mine,” Applejack replies through a loud but still friendly laugh.  “I can’t make heads or tails of how they’re made myself, let alone tell y’all anything on the matter.  Far as how they work goes, though, it’s all got to do with your genetic structure.  Apparently, we’ve all got the capacity to handle active magic like that locked up somewhere in our heads, it’s just that unicorns are the only ones with the right equipment to use it.  So what plasmids do is go up inside that place and rewire it a bit, mutate just enough of your genes so you can use that one new kind of magic.  It ain’t as easy as it sounds, a’course, and splicin’ up with too many of ‘em can still get you just as bad as a SUN hypo or two, but they sure as sugar make buckin’ apples a darn sight easier.” “Among other things,” Apple Bloom adds.  I know she’s leading me towards asking what she means even without the bubbly tinge of excitement in her voice, but by now I’m way past the point where I have the brainpower left to weigh any alternatives. “Things like . . . ” “I can hotwire turrets without even getting’ near ‘em,” she says proudly, her forehoof glowing blue as a luminescent ball of what looks like wet paint materializes in her sole.  “It only lasts for a minute or two, but for anything or anypony I tag with this, that’s all I ever need.” I turn to Applejack, who rolls her eyes at Apple Bloom’s antics but still follows her lead anyway.  “If I get close enough, I can trick a Big Daddy into followin’ me around for a spell,” she says.  “Don’t have much use for it nowadays, but back when the war was in full swing, it got me outta more tight spots than I care to remember.” “And you?” I ask Apple Cider, half just for the hay of it and half because my benumbed brain can’t help but wonder if she’s the one who can shoot lightning out of her hooves. “I can shoot milk out of my nose!” she shouts.  Turns out, I was closer than I thought.  “Wanna see?” Thankfully, Apple Bloom heads her off before she can find a straw.  “I think Ruby’s had enough earth-shattering revelations today, sweetpea,” she gently replies.  I press my lips together and nod, but even that’s almost too much of an effort to stand.  If my brain were any more cooked right now, I could stick a skewer in my ear and serve it to a diamond dog for lunch. “I reckon that’s enough answers to keep y’all satisfied?” Applejack teases.  Her remark is pointed more at Link than me, even though he doesn’t seem nearly as dumbstruck right now.  Oh, to have a stubby little hunk of bone sticking out of my head that made telekinesis seem like a perfectly normal skill for a pony of my race to have.  Must be nice. “Think I’m good, yeah,” he says slowly. “I’m sorry I asked in the first place,” I moan a moment after.  It isn’t even my headache that’s killing me now; now that Applejack’s all done redefining my conception of reality, that honor has been returned to the fact that I’m still stuck in this psychotic place, and that my odds of ever seeing dry land again just went from slim to none. And to top it off, now all Applejack wants to do is act like my mother.  “Ruby?” she says softly.  “Sugarcube, you all ri-” “No, I’m not all right!” I shout through my forehooves, too overwhelmed by all the different emotions bouncing around in my head to keep my cool any longer.  When I look up a moment later and see the look in Applejack’s eyes, I get to add ‘guilt’ to the list as well.  “I’m sorry for yelling, I just . . . I thought knowing what was going on would help, but now there’s just more I don’t know and more I don’t want to know, and none of that even matters because I’m still trapped down here no matter what!” “Ruby, we’ll gonna be fine,” Link starts to tell me, but one emotion in particular boils over in time for me to cut him off too. “No, just . . . shut up, Link!” I bark.  “The last thing I need is you treating me like a foal again!” “When the hell did I-” “Sugarcube, calm down,” Applejack says firmly.  Link makes like he’s going to ignore her, but bites his tongue at the last second and settles for a pointed look in my direction.  “That goes for both’a y’all,” she says.  I think she’s talking to me now.  “The last thing you really need is to be treatin’ anypony here like enemies.  We’re all in this together.” She pauses just long enough to compose herself, and in that split second I get the feeling that she’s been building up to what she’s about to say this whole time.  “And if what I think I know about how you got down here is true, then we might just all get out of here together too.”