//------------------------------// // Part One // Story: Applebloom: Re-Animator // by MadHauk //------------------------------// It is hard for me to write this, for I do not wish to stain the memory of my best friend, but the nurse says that putting words to my memories – imagined or otherwise – might help me get over them; and maybe even make the nightmares stop. I have known Applebloom for many years, ever since we both attended Ponyville elementary school. Even though we knew each other long before that, it was only after we formed our own secret society - called the cutie mark crusaders - together with Scootaloo that we became true best friends. The initial goal of our group was, as the name implies, to work together to find our special talents and earn our cutie marks. Although we had many great times and lots of fun, the goal of our club remained uncompleted for several years. It was not until Scootaloo left Ponyville to go on a tour doing acrobatics with Rainbow Dash – Rainbow flying and Scoot on her scooter – that any of us got a cutie mark. This was, of course, a milestone in the history of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and it made Applebloom and me consider if we needed to change our approach. Scootaloo getting her cutie mark without our help made us realize that the three of us did not necessarily – or even probably not – have the same special talents or destinies, and would therefore probably have to split up in order to find them. It was a hard decision, but we had little choice. The Cutie Mark Crusaders was temporarily abolished and its two Ponyville members went each to theirs to discover their talents. Applebloom knew right away where she would go. After the Cutie Pox incident a few years back Applebloom had grown a close connection with Zecora, and we had all agreed that her potion-making-abilities were uncanny; so Applebloom headed for the Everfree forest to be Zecora's apprentice. I myself had a harder time deciding. My first fancy was to go to my sister and learn from her, but I knew from past experiences that craftsmanship was definitely not my thing. After some more consideration I realized there was one pony that I respected and admired above all other: Fluttershy. Fluttershy was not only the sweetest and kindest pony I knew, but her skill at caring for animals of all sorts were legendary. I would be honored beyond word if I could have something like that as a cutie mark. I went to Fluttershy's cottage and explained her my situation and asked her if there were anything I could do to assist her. To my great delight she seemed quite appreciative, and I started in my new 'job' immediately. My work usually consisted of keeping the place tidy – when I'm alone I'm actually capable of tidying up faster then I'm messing – and occasionally looking after the place when Fluttershy is out visiting creatures that live out in the forest, like the bears and the beavers, or when shes traveling with her friends. I found the work to be thoroughly enjoyable, and the animals seemed to like me. Fluttershy was very patient and taught me many tricks on how to keep the animals content and quiet. In time she started trusting me with bigger and bigger tasks and it was not long before I spent most of my time in her cottage. --- My apprenticeship had lasted for at least six months at the date of the big autumn storm. Heavy rain and wind had made several rivers overflow and many trees were toppled. Fluttershy had her hoofs full galloping bravely from place to place trough the downpour to save as many animals as she could. In the meantime it was my job to care for the sick and wounded animals that had sought refuge in her cottage. Not only was this stressful and difficult work, it was also very emotional. It was clear that not all the poor critters would survive the night. In fact, a few had already passed from their injuries and was now respectfully laid down under a tablecloth to be buried the next morning. It must have been several hours past midnight when a knock on the door – barely audible amongst the constant drumming of the rain and howling of the wind – made me let out a sigh of relief. I imagined it would be Fluttershy finally returning, her hoofs to full of critters to use the doorknob. I was quite surprised to find on the doorstep, not the yellow pegasus, but an old friend. It was Applebloom. Surprise gave way quickly for joy. I let her inside and gave her a big, squishy – and very wet – hug. We had both been so busy in our respective endeavors that we had barely seen each other for the last half year. I immediately felt a change over Applebloom. She seemed older, wiser and more confident than before, and when she removed the black coat that had protected her from the rain I saw the reason: a cutie mark! The mark, plainly visible on Applebloom's flanks, depicted a vile of green liquid. The liquid seemed to glow, and the vile was tilted to one side, as if to pour the liquid over something. Applebloom stood silently for a while, clearly enjoying the attention, while I took in the sight of the brand new cutie mark. “So, what d' y'all think?” she finally said, while strutting proudly across the floor of the cottage, as if making sure I got to see her cutie mark from every possible angle. “It's-- it's amazing!” I stuttered, almost speechless. “So it happened then? A cutie mark in potion making?” “Eyup!” Applebloom responded. “And well deserved too, if Ah'm sayin' so myself. Ah actually invented a whole new potion. One that none other never made before me!” “Woah!” I exclaimed, completely stunned and awestruck. “What does it do? Was it difficult? How did you do that?” Applebloom smiled at my excitement and took her time in enjoying the attention, before she took on a mysterious expression and lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “Y'all ready to hear this?” she asked, and I leaned closer, as if she was revealing a dangerous secret. “Mah potion is real special. It's like nothing ever heard of ever. It got powers beyond even the Princesses and the most powerful zebra alchemists.” I don't know if it was her voice or use of words, or maybe the darkness interrupted by occasional powerful flashes of lightning followed by deep rumbling thunder or maybe the combination, but I was now ready to believe about anything she said. Had she said her potion could turn a pony into a toad or a bear or teach a dog or a cat to talk or allow a pony to breathe under water I would have believed her without questions. Nothing prepared me for what followed however, for after a potent pause to feed my curiosity and fill my brain with wild guesses, Applebloom finally revealed her secret. “Mah potion,” she said “can cure death!” At that instant, had I not been so tired, I would probably have asked her to stop joking about such matters and nothing else would have happened. I should have told her that only to suggest such a thing was a mockery of nature and blasphemy towards life itself. As things was however I did not think straight, and that one mistake led to all the horrible incidents that followed, Sweet Celestia have mercy on our souls. I, in my laughable childishness and damned naïveté, pronounced that one Tartarus cursed sentence that is the single spark that ignites any catastrophe just as certain as a bolt of lightning ignites a dry forest in high summer. “Prove it!” Applebloom smiled and reached into one of the pockets on her discarded coat and produced a small vial of glowing green liquid, just like the one depicted on her flank. “Can do,” she said. “Ah'm gonna need a patient.” As a final proof of my naïveté – or perhaps of my innocence – I did not immediately comprehend what Applebloom had just asked for. Had she let me reason my way to it on my own maybe I'd refused her. Oh dear Luna, why didn't I refuse her? She had no business! No pony has any right to meddle with nature that way! But I can't blame her! I'm just as guilty as she is, I enabled her and even helped her all the way; and yet here I am, haunted by terrors and nightmares, and she-- But she would not let me reason. Instead she pointed a hoof to the table where a dozen or so dead animals lay under a white tablecloth. A glow of eager enthusiasm had flared to life in here eyes; a glow I cannot recall without a shudder, but that – at the time – filled me to with a strong and urgent curiosity and even a glimmer of hope. What if it worked? What if Fluttershy could return in the morning, not to a dozen funerals, but to the news that she'll never need to bury another animal ever again! Oh how I cringe at thinking back at my own stupidity! I removed the cloth carefully to let Applebloom choose her patient. She looked over them one at a time making some noises as one after another were dismissed. I did not ask for an explanation, but she must have felt my puzzled glance, for she gave me one anyway. “The potion can bring back life,” she said. “But it can't heal no injuries inflicted neither before nor after death took place. A raccoon that died of a broken back will still be paralyzed – although alive – after given the potion. What we need is a complete, unharmed, but still dead, animal.” I then think I heard, although I wont swear to it, that she muttered under her breath that she 'would've preferred to test it on a pony, but guess that's to much to be-askin''. What I've told myself is that at the time I dismissed it as imagination and thought nothing of it, but the truth – the horrible damnable truth – is that I agreed! I believed in my friend and I wanted the potion to work! The only good thing that can be said about my blind, unthinking innocence is that it did not last much longer. Applebloom finally found a suitable test subject; an old squirrel that died of a cold. She placed the squirrel on another table away from the other cadavers, she lit some more lights to properly see what she was doing and then took the cap off the vial of green potion. I trotted quietly over to the other side of the table, burning with curiosity, but also with a vague creeping sensation of fear. Applebloom held the vial over the dead squirrel, ready to pour, but suddenly she stopped as if something had just occurred to her. “Y'all should prob'ly back off a lill' bit,” she cautioned. “They're not always-- themselves when they're brought back.” That comment did quite the job of turning a lot more of my curiosity into fear, but it was to late to turn back. Applebloom pored a few drops of potion into the squirrel's mouth and in a matter of seconds – that dragged on in complete silence as we both held our breaths – the squirrel started to move. It started with small, seemingly involuntary, twitching in the front legs. Enchanted by the miracle playing in front of my eyes I moved closer without thinking. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; and yet there was no trick. The squirrel had definitely been dead, and now it moved. I stretched out a hoof to poke it and see if it was able to react, but Applebloom swept my hoof away in a violent fit. And not a moment too soon! Before I even realized what was going on the squirrel made a gruesome, guttural hissing sound and flew straight into Applebloom's face. Applebloom did not seem nearly as surprised at this as I would have expected, although the sudden pain when the squirrel sunk its teeth into her nose was enough to make her shake her head until it flew across the room and crash into a wall, making several picture-frames fall to the floor with it. But the squirrel was not done yet. Instantly after hitting the floor it was back on its legs, running around and driving all the healthy animals into a wild panic. I cold do absolutely nothing besides sanding numbed and look in terror as Fluttershy's cottage was rampaged. Applebloom however was alert and active and was currently trying to attract the rabid little monster's attention. “Get over here ya little vermin!” she shouted. “No rat bites mah nose and doesn't pay for it! Try another taste and see what happens!” I was by this time positive that Applebloom had lost it completely, but it would seem her tactic worked. Soon the re-animated squirrel lunged for another assault on her head, but this time she was ready for it. She dodged the attack in the last minute and when the squirrel just missed her and landed hard on the wooden floor she lifted a hoof and stomped down on it hard. The sound of dozens of bones being crushed sent a violent shudder down my spine and made my stomach threaten to give me my dinner in return, but didn't seem to have any affect on Applebloom. Nopony spoke for quite a few moments, and the only movement in the cottage was a few animals that hadn't calmed down yet and Applebloom rubbing blood and fur from underneath her hoof. When the initial shock finally left me the next emotion to take command was fury. “What the HELL was that?” I shouted at Applebloom, who backed away from my fury and looked rather apologetic. “No wait, Ah-- Ah can explain!” “Explain!?” I raged. “You told me you had a cure that could give life and what you give me is a poison that creates a monster, before you smear the corpse of one of Fluttershy's best friends all over the floor her living room! What could you POSSIBLY explain about that?!” To her credit Applebloom cringed quite a bit at how I made it sound, but she did not take the hint and started an explanation in a cautious, humble voice. “Ya see, the corpse wasn't fresh enough. When an animal dies the brain starts to--” “Get out.” I said in an as dangerous and threatening voice as I could manage while still holding back my tears. “But--” “Please.” I said, tears now openly flowing down my cheeks. “I have a lot of cleaning up to do. Please-- Just leave.” Applebloom opened her mouth, but had apparently run out of excuses. She closed her eyes, nodded softly and picked up her coat. As she turned towards the door a faint, barely audible “Ah'm sorry” escaped her lips, but I ignored her. Applebloom left and I spent the rest of the night cleaning the cottage and burying the squirrel. I intended for Fluttershy to never learn anything about what happened, even at the price of having to lie to her when she asked me why I had been crying. Fluttershy took my altered behavior – the crying, nervousness and occasional phasing out – as signs that I was over worked or over stressed, but I refused to take a day off. My work was the only thing able to keep my mind off what happened. It was more than a fortnight until I saw Applebloom again, and that was when the real horrors began.