//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Screwball's Insanity 
// by piefan 
//------------------------------//

	"Hi, Screwball!" said Applejack as she kicked a tree, making apples rain down. She was busy, but she couldn't ignore Screwball.

Screwball smiled. "Hi, Applejack!" she said happily. She walked off, enjoying her happy life. She was so glad she came to this city after that horrible earthquake in her old place! Here, nopony questioned that she was able to mysteriously float without wings. Nopony made fun of her, nopony insulted her, everything was perfect.

But what she didn't know was that her life wasn't as good as she thought.

Screwball was actually in the middle of... nowhere. Where she lived, there was nothing, just rocks and mud. Hardly anything could grow. Not a plant nor a bug was in sight. When Screwball first came, she was disappointed, though eventually she had started imagining ponies, food, plants, and buildings. None of the things she saw were real, not the bookstore, not the farm, nothing. At first, she had imagined only ponies, but over time, she had began to hallucinate more.





Two ponies, one lavender and another orange, walked around pointlessly. Those two ponies were Twilight Sparkle and Applejack - the real ones, not the ponies in Screwball's imagination. In reality, Screwball had never met them in her life.

"Can we stop now? I'm tired. We've been walking for 2 days and nothing!" said Twilight, groaning.

"Fine, we'll stop for a while. But as soon as an hour passes, we're goin'! We're wasting precious time that we can use to find food."

Twilight took an alarm clock from her saddlebag. While escaping from the earthquake, she'd grabbed the first few things she saw - which turned out to be the clock, an old book about magic, and a bag of Spike's potato chips.

Twilight's mind drifted off to Spike. Her precious assistant. The baby dragon. Sadly, he had died in the disaster. He had been really helpful before then. That time when she'd went crazy after realizing that she needed a friendship lesson to send to Princess Celestia. He'd told the Princess, while the others thought that it was no big deal. Some had even laughed.

She suddenly thought of her other friends. Rarity. So beautiful and generous. Pinkie Pie. Cheerful and funny. Rainbow Dash. Brave and loyal.

Twilight looked back at her friend. "Applejack? Do you miss our old friends?"

Applejack stared at Twilight before answering. "Yes."





Screwball sat down on her soft bed, looking out the window. It was night, and everypony had switched on their lights to brighten up their houses. She looked up at the star-speckled sky. The moon was beautiful tonight. 

She loved her life.





"C'mon, Twi. We have to keep goin'!" Applejack pulled on Twilight's foreleg. Applejack herself had taken a little nap while Twilight was taking hers, and was now less bad-tempered, though still anxious.

"Fine, I'm getting up." Twilight stood up, refreshed. She hadn't slept for long, but she wasn't about to complain. She was grateful that she got even a second of sleep.

The two continued trying to find any sign of life other than themselves, but it was hard. Eventually, even Applejack, who was enthusiastic at first, snapped. 

"This is a totally lost cause!" she yelled, kicking a nearby rock - hard - as she cursed under her breath. The rock rolled far away, and the two ponies soon heard a voice.

"Hey! A rock!"

Applejack and Twilight looked at each other in surprise. Was there really another pony that managed to survive? They walked over to the source of the voice. There, was a strange pony. She had a pink coat and a purple and white mane. Screwball looked at Twilight Sparkle and Applejack in the same amount of shock.

"Twilight Sparkle? Applejack? Weren't you supposed to be at Sugarcube Corner?"

"What?" Applejack and Twilight said at the same time, gasping. Sugarcube Corner was still around? Was this mare crazy, or did somepony really rebuild the sweet shop? Also, how did she know their names? Before they could say anything, Screwball interrupted them, looking at something else.

"Hi, Lyra!" she said.

The two ponies looked in the same direction as Screwball. Nopony was there. Yep, that confirmed their suspicions. The mare was crazy.





While Screwball went away to do whatever, Twilight Sparkle turned to Applejack.  

"I think this would be a good place to make our residence," said Twilight.

"But this ain't different from where we've been walkin' around this whole time!"

Twilight gestured towards the pink pony, who was still nearby. "If a pony can survive here, even a mentally challenged one, that should mean that there's fertile soil."

Applejack had not a clue what 'mentally challenged' meant, but she did understand the word 'fertile'.

"Ya mean we can grow plants?" she asked, excited. She had eaten almost nothing for a day. Twilight had insisted that they save her food, and Applejack herself had brought only an apple, a slice of bread that was turning mouldy, and half a jar of zap apple jam. 

"Well, yes."

"Well, then I'm in!" 





Screwball smiled at Lyra Heartstrings. "So, that's how to fix a tap!"

Lyra nodded, not questioning that Screwball had really just hit the pipes repeatedly. 

"Great!" said Screwball. Her stomach rumbled. "By the way, you got any food?"

Lyra nodded, going into her kitchen to get some food. She soon came back with a steaming plate of hay fries and cake, and a cup of soda. She put it on a table and sat down in a nearby chair, while Screwball wolfed down the food.

"Thanks, Lyra!" she said.

"You're welcome!"





Twilight Sparkle and Applejack trudged around in the mud, looking for the pink pony they had seen earlier. They soon spotted her... sitting on the ground and eating mud. Applejack glared at Twilight. "Ya told me there would be food."

Twilight, however, was not listening. "But... how did a mare survive on mud?" she mumbled to herself. Well, it doesn't matter, she thought to herself. I'm going to find out what's up!

~~Hours later~~	

"Okay, ya found out that she's been living in this place for a year, and she ran away because of an earthquake."

"Exactly, Applejack! The earthquake hit Equestria only days ago. If she ran away because of an earthquake, she must have been telling the future!"

"Or she was in some far-away place like Saddle Arabia."

"But she doesn't look like a Saddle Arabian!"

"She could have been on a holiday."

"It wasn't the holiday season!"

"So she wanted to go on a unusual time. What's wrong with that?"

"All the trains were broken at that time."

"Maybe she was in there for a long time!"

"Well-" Twilight paused as she suddenly had a great idea, knowing that Applejack wouldn't be able to argue with it. "There was no earthquake in any other country for the past decade, until three days ago!" 

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Ya know enough about her to write a book, so what are ya gonna do with that information?"

Twilight blinked. She clearly hadn't been expecting that question, doing the research for the sake of boredom. "Uh... She appears to have an ability to tell the future. We can get her to help us using that ability!"

"We've seen her talking to rocks. Ya really think ya can just ask her to help and she'll agree to abandoning all her stuff?"

"Then we can still use therapy!" answered Twilight.

"Fine. But first, we need to find a way to survive. Do whatever ya wanna do. Carry her on yer back if ya want."