//------------------------------//
// Empty 
// Story: Apple Pie 
// by GauntletsofRai 
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Black, cold emptiness. Nothing in sight anywhere, just blackness and cold and nothingness. It was so black, that Pinkie Pie tried to wave a hoof in front of her face, and couldn't see a thing. Of course, this presented another problem. Pinkie couldn't feel her hooves anymore. In fact, she was not even sure if she had actually had hooves at any point in time, or if that was just something she had made up during her time here in the black and empty nothingness. To go even further, the notion of time began to send her head spinning, as she had no idea where her time in this emptiness began or if it would end at any time soon. Had she just always been here? Was there anything else besides her in here? Was her name really Pinkie Pie? Did she just make that up too?      

Such questions raced through Pinkie's arguably-existent mind as she floated through the emptiness. Well, it wasn't really like floating, since she couldn't feel anything around her like the cool liquid presence of water or the sensational touch of wind and air, both things which she could have made up at any point to describe the feeling.        

At any rate, and all existential questions aside, Pinkie decided that she could not have just made up all these things in her mind, and that she was going to search for them in this vast emptiness. This presented another problem. Namely, she had no idea if she was moving in any direction. She couldn't even see her own body, another likely fantasy she had concocted. 

So instead, she imagined herself flipping over through the emptiness, like a rotating... thing. And what she saw was quite promising. When tilting her awareness at a certain angle, she could see a thick pink cloud of wispy gaseous material glowing brightly in stark contrast to the blackness around her.   

This was excellent! Now, she had full confirmation that she did indeed have a body! It might not be exactly what she imagined, but it was something! She imagined racing forward through the darkness, the cloud of pink smoke that was her body billowing as though in the act of moving at a great speed. While she shot through the empty space as fast as she could go, she thought about the situation she was in. She did indeed have a body. That was good. It was also good to know that she actually was pink, another fact she had thought was just her imagination.   

As she raced through yet more emptiness, her memories began to return to her. So far, she had a pink body and her name was Pinkie Pie. She had indeed felt all those things, such as water and air, and the grass beneath her hooves, of which she had none right now. This was not a problem, as she was determined to figure this situation out no matter what. The 'no matter whats' being far and few between now that she was in the black emptiness, which was a stark contrast to the world of blues and greens and beautiful shapes that she remembered.     

And so Pinkie thought as her memory pieced itself together as she traveled through the blackness. At some point, after remembering that she was indeed a pony, she had fashioned her formless extremedies into legs and hooves, along with a tail and a head set with two glowing blue points of light. After what seemed like hours according to the reference guide of time from her memories, she saw a tiny speck of light appear in the distance. Seeing no other objects to target, she poured all of her speed into racing towards that light, which glowed a bright orange in the distance. Her memories were still somewhat returning, but in the recesses of her mind, she just knew that that cool shade of orange was very very familiar.  

The closer she got, the more she could hear a faint voice calling out in the distance. At first, she couldn't make out what it was saying, but as she got closer, the voice, and a very familiar voice at that, seemed to be calling out her name! She could hear it, just barely, as she approached the orange light with ever increasing speed. "Pinkie! Pinkie Pie! Pinkie, are ya' there? Pinkie, where are ya'?! It's me, Applejack!"  

Applejack? *gasp* Applejack! Recognition flooded Pinkie's mind as she raced forward as fast as possible in her gaseous form. Memories of the years spent with friends flooded her mind, one after the other, as the name evoked her memory to fill itself even faster. Eventually, she caught up with the light, which was an orange cloud, roughly pony shaped much like hers. "Applejack!" Her cloud-body collided with the orange cloud body of her newly remembered friend, the specks of green light set in the orange form dimming down to pinpoints in surprise. They collided together soundlessly, their gas forms never mixing, as they careened through the endless nothingness in a euphoric embrace. "AJ! It's you! its really really you! Oh, thank goodness, I thought I was gonna go crazy in all this blackness!"   

Applejack flailed her legs around as they floated carelessly through the void, thoroughly startled by Pinkie's sudden embrace. Once she had gotten up to speed, Applejack returned the embrace, feeling none of it in her current state, but thankful for it nonetheless. After a few increasingly awkward minutes (or however long it was, it's really hard to tell time in this place) of silent hugging, Applejack nervously cleared her throat to get Pinkie's attention. After a few more minutes of even more awkward silence, she cleared her throat again, louder this time, and quite impressively so, seeing as how she didn't have an actual throat to clear. After even more silent hugging from Pinkie, Applejack pushed her away impatiently. "Alright, that's about enough o' that! Where exactly are we, Pinkie?"   

Pinkie floated away slowly, her gaseous forelegs crossed sullenly in front of her. "How should I know? I just re-remembered who I was like, two hours ago! Or, however long it was..."       

"Yeah, I'm still sorta pickin' up the pieces myself." She tapped her hoof against her practically non-existent face. "There's somthin' mighty important I'm forgettin' here... You got anything yet, Pinkie?"   

Pinkie set her brow and shook her head thoughtfully. After a few minutes, Pinkie spoke up to break the awkward silence. "Hey AJ... Have you ever thought that we could be like... more than friends?"   

Applejack tilted her head in a rather suspicious manner while replying in measured tones. "What do ya' mean, Pinkie?" 

She waved a hoof around in front of her in an explanatory manner. "You know, like... marefriends. Like Lyra and Bon Bon."           

Applejack began to sputter in complete and total befuddlement. If she had been in possession of her physical cheeks, they would almost assuredly be blushing furiously right now. "Wha- who- thats- P-Pinkie! What the hay! Are you pulling my leg or somthin'?!"   

Pinkie threw up her gaseous pink hooves in a placating gesture as she recoiled from Applejack's staunch opposition. "No, its just... well... I've never seen you around any other stallions, and I just thought, maybe, you know, you're not into stallions maybe?" After yet more befuddled sputtering, Pinkie continued. "No wait! I mean, I care about you AJ, and I just want you to be happy, and you're always spending so much time around the farm that I thought you might not have any time to find a special somepony, and I thought, 'hey, why not me?', cuz we're the only two earth ponies in our group of friends, and maybe we would go good together!" Pinkie was now thrown into a fit of tearless sobbing as she laid her heart out before Applejack like a spread of decorative cheese crackers at a party. "I just want you to feel loved!"     

Applejack immediately retracted her harsh attitude as Pinkie's syrupy sentimentality was poured sloppily over her now fragile heartstrings. She floated closer to Pinkie Pie with outstretched hooves. "Oh Pinkie, that's awful sweet of ya' sugarcube... but my barn door just don't swing that way. But it's okay, really! You know I always put the farm before my personal problems, and if that means I don't find that right stallion, then that's okay with me! I'm just glad to know ya' really care about me."    

Applejack and Pinkie Pie shared a warm and strictly platonic embrace that neither of them could feel, on account of their current gaseous forms, although it was still touching nonetheless.   

For some reason, the strictly platonic hug that they shared began to jump-start Pinkie's memory and flood her brain with images of the immediate past, including the reason that they were imprisoned in the endless darkness. She gasped in a lung-full of non-existent air as the memory hit her square in the temporal nose. She reared back with her hooves outstretched to the relatively-positioned sky and bellowed with an ear-shattering bellow. "DISCOOOOOOOOOOORD!!! 

Suddenly, hundreds of motes of light appeared out of nowhere, seemingly at Pinkie's summons, and began to converge in upon themselves until they formed a swirling point of condensed light. With an explosive flash, the light expanded into a flat surface, its edges beginning to swirl slowly like the waters of a whirlpool. Different colors swiftly separated themselves until the two gaseous ponies were staring into two asymmetrical eyes set into an elongated grey face. A voice echoed outwards to them as if from the other end of a long tunnel. "What? What could you possibly want?! I can't even hear myself think with all the racket you're making!"       

Applejack gasped in sudden (if not somewhat delayed) realization. "Discord! I knew I was missin' somthin' important! You get us outa here right this second before I hang you upside down like a piñata!"   

Discord huffed and rolled his eyes derisively. "Oh please, what are you going to do to me from inside this little prison of yours?" As if by his command, the entire space that they occupied started to shake uncontrollably, like they were two flies in a glass jar. He sighed as the two ponies slowly regained their bearings. "Anyways, I'd really appreciate it if you two would keep it down in here. Your friends are becoming real nuisances, disrupting my chaos with their incessant whining and escape attempts. I swear, it's almost like they don't enjoy all of this constant chaos I'm creating! Do you know how hard it is to get every house in Ponyville to explode in a completely unique way?"     

Both of the ponies gasped in shocked horror. Pinkie Pie was about to say something, but she spotted a little speck of purple just beyond Discord's massive head. She stuck out a hoof to her side and motioned for Applejack to remain quiet. After a questioning glare, Pinkie motioned with her head to the side of Discord's head. Applejack's eyes expanded with understanding and gave a quick nod. "Well, I was just going to tell you guys to keep it down, so I'll be going. Have fun swimming around in nothingness forever!"   

As soon as Discord moved his head, Pinkie interjected frantically. "Wait! Um... how many ways did you explode all the houses in Ponyville?" After a long and questioning look from Discord, Pinkie started to sweat profusely. Or she would have, if she was in possession of her actual body, but you get the point already.   

Without warning, his face lit up in total glee. "Ah, a true entropy appreciator like myself, I see! You were always my favorite of the group! You know, I haven't talked to anybody about chaos in... well, ever! Oh, where do I begin? Okay, there was this one house, garish pink paint with little yellow flowers on it, honestly I was doing them a mercy, because let me tell you, it was just ghastly. Anyways, I started with an implosion on the north-most corner, then..."   

Pinkie plastered on her biggest fake smile and nodded enthusiastically as Discord prattled on about the horrible ways he had destroyed all those poor ponies' houses as if it were no more than recounting a game of hoofball. She pretended to be interested, wincing inwardly at the increasingly violent ways Discord had destroyed the houses of Ponyville. Slowly but surely, Twilight crept up behind him with her horn sheathed in a lavender glow. Pinkie tried her best to watch without giving herself away as Twilight steadied herself and closed her eyes in concentration while she began casting whatever spell she had concocted.   

Halfway through an account of that little pale green two-story place that had met its demise by way of colorful acid paint, Discord immediately stopped his home-icidal commentary and stood as still as the statue he had once occupied, his furry grey ears twitching to the side. He contorted his face in rage until his eyes were no more than two flaming specks within a field of bloodshot yellow.        

Pinkie winced at his terrible gaze as he turned around just in time for Twilight to hit him squarely in the face with a bolt of frozen air. He cursed loudly as he swiftly broke off the column of thick icicles that had formed on his face. As he lifted the column of ice pointed towards Twilight, a blur of sky blue collided solidly with the back of his head, breaking his goat horn with an audible snap and eliciting an even louder string of unbearable cursing.    

Suddenly, the world around the two ponies began to rumble and jar them violently as the screen of light switched from the scene of the battle to a picture of the Ponyville sky that had been cluttered with all too familiar cotton candy clouds, including a few new green and purple clouds that they could only guess were right now in possession of much fouler substances than chocolate milk. As soon as the undersides of both Rarity and Fluttershy could be seen bounding over the screen, a bright orange and red explosion lit up the field of view and it flickered and dispersed into nothingness.            

The two friends sat there in horrified silence, glancing back and forth from each other to the space where the screen of light used to be. After some audible choking sounds, Applejack found her now unsteady voice. "W-what was that? The explosion right there at the end, you saw it, right Pinkie?" Instead of replying, Pinkie simply stared at her hooves while muttering to herself. "Pinkie? You think they're alright? Pinkie?" She floated over to Pinkie until she was close enough to here what she was muttering to herself.    

She looked up at Applejack, her bubbling gaseous mane beginning to dissipate and hang downwards like a low fog. "Did you see how angry he was? All he wanted was to talk to someone who understands him! It's not like he has anyone to talk to while closed up in his stone prison!"  

Applejack scoffed and put her hooves on Pinkie's shoulders. "Oh, c'mon now, sugarcube. This is Discord we're talking about! You know, the evil lord of destruction who just walked up as calm as ya' please and destroyed everyone's houses? Probably including yours? Ain't no reason to go feelin' sorry about that old beast!"      

Pinkie looked up at her, obviously conflicted. "I know but... didn't you see that one little moment of betray on his face, right before he went super angry? That was so horrible! What if someone came up and started talking to you about, *psh* I dunno, apples or something, and then you're super happy that you've just made a new friend, but then you find out they were just stalling you so their other friend can whack you upside the head with a shovel while you're not looking?!"  

Applejack made an indignant little noise while rolling the two points of light that served as her eyes. "Oh, be fair Pinkie! You know as good as I do, that old rat would do the same 'n worse if we gave him the chance!"     

"But doesn't that make us as bad as him?"   

Applejack reared back from Pinkie, clutching her pseudo-stomach where Pinkie's logic had left a large and painful looking theoretical horseshoe-shaped bruise. She never thought that at any time in her life would Pinkie make so wise an observation, which only exacerbated her recoil at the cold hard and merciless truth that she had just released straight into Applejack's gut. She even went so far as to vocalize her feelings. "P-Pinkie... you just said somethin' awful wise! I didn't know you were so philosophical!"             

Pinkie pulled away from her sullenly and faced the other direction. "Of course you wouldn't. Why would the happy little party pony be able to understand deep ethical quandaries? She might hurt herself if she tried to actually think!" 

Ouch. That cut deep. Applejack held her hoof over her mouth as little lights started to flicker on inside her head as she started to make connections. What she had just seen was not the Pinkie she knew. What she had just seen was the Pinkie hidden deep under a layer of confetti and balloons. What she had just seen was herself...       

Applejack had dealt all her life with self esteem issues concerning her intelligence. Oh look, it's the dumb farm pony, I bet she can't even count to ten. I need some advice, who should I go to? Applejack? But she's just a dumb farm pony, what would she know? Oh, hi Applejack. What were we talking about? Oh, nothing you would understand. It had taken some considerable work to get over those feelings of inadequacy, and she had to go into it completely alone. And here was this poor mare, all alone in the boat that Applejack had occupied not so long ago.    

Applejack couldn't help but conjure up images of all those times she had disregarded anything that came out of Pinkie's mouth. Because nothing she ever said could have ever been anything more than irrelevant nonsense. All those times she had looked at her and seen nothing more than a ditsy airhead party fanatic. All those times, she realized, she had been looking at a mirror image of herself, and had treated that mirror image with the same haughty contempt that had broken her spirit so long ago.   

If Applejack had been in possession of her stomach, she would have been throwing up right now. After all those years, she had slowly turned into a hypocrite without even knowing. Now when she looked at Pinkie, she saw that same head hung down low. She saw the same look of defeat and worthlessness. And for the second time in her life, when she looked at Pinkie Pie...  

She saw herself looking back at her.             

Applejack approached the hunched pink frame and embraced it, her non-existant tears coming forth unbidden. She hugged as tight as she could while awkward sobs escaped from her heaving gaseous diaphragm. "Pinkie, I'm so so so so sorry! I've been hurtin' you the same way that I was hurt, and I didn't even have the heart to see it before my own eyes! I know just what you're goin' through, and I wouldn't wish that on anypony in the whole world! If I was you, I wouldn't ever forgive me!"           

Pinkie turned around, her eye-flames swollen in emotional approximation to their physical counterparts, as she returned the emotional hug. The two strictly platonic friends shared this emotional hug for quite some time until their purely metaphorical tears were all dried up. They both disentangled themselves and patted each other on the backs. "I gotta' admit, that cry felt mighty nice. *sniff* I can't remember the last time a cried that good."        

"I know! I can't believe that worked!"       

Applejack eyed Pinkie Pie warily. "Can't... believe... what... worked?"   

Pinkie Pie clamped her hooves over her mouth to suppress the laughter that was building up inside of her. She let her breath out in a triumphant exclamation. "I finally got you to express your emotions through crying! NEW WORLD RECORD!!!" 

Applejack's eye-flames began to twitch as her mind spiraled into a corkscrew of disbelief. So it was really true. Pinkie was smarter than she looked. "So what, all that self-loathin' was just a ploy to get me TO CRY?!"   

Pinkie was visibly trying to hold back a well of laughter bubbling inside of her. "Come on, Applejack, I thought you knew me better than that! I'm the Element of Laughter for Pete's sake! I have a responsibility to spread laughter and joy, not philosophy and ethical quandaries!"         

Applejack struggled to hold back the temptation to kick Pinkie's face in, even if it would technically have been a fruitless effort anyways. "Besides, you did say it felt good, right? I was kinda doing you a favor!"   

Applejack sighed and hung her shoulders in defeat. "Whatever. You ain't ever seein' my cry again though, so don't get too used to it!" Pinkie's geyser of laughter had finally burst forth and was now echoing through the darkness around them and somehow lessening the darkness to a shade of very dark purple. As she continued to laugh, however, Applejack noted that the darkness was indeed lightening and turning to an oscillating deep lavender.   

Pinkie stopped her intense giggling in order to witness the change in scenery herself. They both floated there, stock still, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, the space around them began to vibrate violently as their gaseous forms began to unravel themselves from their rough pony shape. Without warning, their pink and orange flames began to shoot forward at an alarming speed towards a point of light in the distance, stretching their smoky essence into two thin lines as they rocketed forward with screams from Applejack and excited whooping from Pinkie Pie.   

Finally, they both reached the end of the tunnel and collided solidly with the bright purple light, feeling all their senses return normally to them as they were flung unceremoniously back into their bodies. Applejack, in particular, had only a second to look around her and see a forlorn potpourri of different animal parts lying broken and bloody on the ground before passing out into yet more total darkness.   


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