Applejack was not a morning pony. She preferred the roaring Manehatten night scene to the delicate social scene that her aunt and uncle navigated. So the sound of her alarm clock squawking like a damned rooster irritated her. She had bought it as a filly and never really gotten around to getting one that she could actually ignore.
“Applejack dear. Applejack please get up sweetie.”
That wasn’t helping. The orange earth pony was splayed haphazardly across her bed, her face buried in her pillow as she reached over and silenced her alarm. She lifted her face off of her pillow enough to be able to speak. “Yeah auntie, Ah know that Ah was out late and…” Her aunt opened the door and let out a dramatic sigh at the state of her charge. Applejack rolled over her orange pajamas clutching her body tighter. “What?”
“Dear, I said that I was bringing over someone to measure you for a dress. You know, for the Gala!” Aunt Orange shouted. She stopped and dramatically inhaled and exhaled three times, Applejack imitating her while her eyes were closed. “I’m sorry but you did agree to attend the Gala this year in exchange for that guitar that you wanted so badly.”
Applejack’s eyes were drawn to the beautiful electric guitar propped neatly up on its stand in the corner, surrounded by dirty laundry, which formed a sort of shrine around it, but not touching it. “Ah know, and Ah’m grateful. Ah…” -her caretaker gave her a deadpanned stare- “I was just out for a little to long last night. I was practicing with Zilch and Angel you know.” One thing that Applejack was taught as a child was to hide her thick Apple accent around company. More specifically rich company.
“Of course dear, and you know that I support you and your art but we had a deal, and miss Rarity is almost here so…” Applejack’s aunt made a ‘hurry-up’ motion with her hands and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Applejack stood up and took off her pajamas, throwing them in the corner. She grabbed a pair of jeans off a stack of them, neatly folded by her bed stand, next to a similarly stacked pile of shirts. She tossed the jeans on the bed and walked over to a small pile of underwear collected in the corner next to her closet. The orange mare grabbed the first pair of panties that she saw and started sifting through the rest for a normal bra. Because it was apparently a given that Manehatten socialites gift mares bras of all colors and fabrics for their birthdays or Hearth’s Warming Eve.
Once she had gotten her new underwear and jeans she started perusing her T-Shirt collection. Eventually she settled on one depicting a winged scarab. She took a quick shower and headed downstairs to find her aunt surrounded by luggage. “That trip is this weekend?” Applejack asked.
“Yes, why did you have any plans?” Aunt Orange asked frantically.
“No, I just didn’t remember is all.” The orange mare quickly replied. Applejack’s uncle came in from the kitchen and placed a plate of pancakes in AJ’s seat.
“Don’t worry dear. Honestly you’d think that we’ve never left her alone before.” Uncle Orange started digging into his own plate, more quickly and sloppily than usual, implying that they were already late. “Though I am sorry that we can’t have one last run before we go.”
“We’ll go for an extra long one when you get back Uncle,” Applejack spat into her hand and offered it to her uncle, who reciprocated, “promise.” While her aunt was supportive of her musical hobby it was her father who was more supportive of her athletic hobby. Applejack loved to run, wind in her mane, nothing in her path, that kind of thing. But she never liked the track team at the high school that her aunt and uncle made her attend. It was like anything in high school, especially in a private upper-class establishment like her alma mater. Controlled, there was no other word that Applejack could use. She didn’t run to win a trophy, she did it to feel unconstrained, and so she took to the one place where no one could stop her, the sky. Or as close as Applejack could get, as she was just an Earth Pony, the rooftops.
“You know you could just pinky promise.” Aunt Orange remarked at the crude gesture shared by her husband and charge.
“Auntie if I did a ‘pinky promise’ my punk cred would be completely dead.” Applejack responded with a little gag noise.
“But see that,” –her aunt made a similar noise- “is what I feel when I see ponies spitting in my kitchen.” Aunt Orange began sifting through various pieces of luggage, checking off a mental checklist. “Also we haven’t left her alone for a whole week. Especially not when we are going to be in Las Pegasus, on the other side of the map.”
“Trust me Sweet-and-Sour, she will be fine, Cerberus itself wouldn’t stand a chance against her.” Uncle Orange snuggled his wife when a knocking at the door interrupted them. “Coming. Oh its you, come right in.” The stallion came back into the kitchen with a white unicorn girl in tow.
“Pleasure to be back Mr. Orange, did your wife get a mane cut since last we saw one another?” The white unicorn dramatically gasped and started playing with Auntie’s hair. The white unicorn was quite beautiful, long curled violet hair, white shirt with purple skirt, her breasts were also bigger than Applejack’s, not that the orange mare noticed.
“Yes indeed, I’m so glad that you like it. By the way this is Applejack, the one that you’re going to be making the dress for.” Auntie motioned to Applejack who was ravenously tearing into her into pancakes. She waved at the new arrival who politely waved back. “Alright well we need to leave as soon as possible, feel free to stay in our room while you’re still making the dress.” With that auntie waved goodbye and left Rarity and Applejack alone.
“All right well let’s get started shall we,” the unicorn chimed. The unicorn pulled out some measuring tape from a small handbag. Rarity wrapped the measuring tape around Applejack’s breasts, then her waist, then her midsection, all somehow while she was still sitting down.
The orange mare jumped from her seat, while the white unicorn tapped her fingers against her chin. “Hell you crazy woman give me a minute. Ah was eating!”
“Is that a Ponyville accent?” Rarity asked. Applejack nodded her head yes, Rarity sharply and dramatically inhaled, “Idea!” The white unicorn grabbed Applejack by the arm and started dragging her towards Auntie’s sewing room. “You must be part of the Apple family right?” AJ nodded, tugging at her arm. Rarity let go of her and started grabbing pieces of fabric and holding them up to AJ, muttering all the while. “Something denim for the dress perhaps, you can pull that off quite well, something more complex and lacy for the top though, but not too much. We want to accentuate your contrasts but in a way that makes you more…” Rarity just kind of waved her arms at Applejack and started searching trough the fabrics.
“Just try to make it sensible, not too…”
“Frou-Frouy?” Rarity finished for her. AJ nodded, “I get that complaint a lot darling, and don’t you worry, I meet the needs of the client first and foremost. Just trust me.” Despite her assurances the white unicorn still grabbed a piece of white lace and held it to Applejack’s shoulders. “By the way, I love your shirt darling.”
“Thanks, it was a gift from mah aunt and uncle for Hearths Warming Eve a few years ago,” Applejack responded. “Ah didn’t take you for the kind of pony that listens to rock though, even something like Journey.”
“Oh I can’t listen to the hard stuff, though I do unfortunately know quite a bit about it, my little sister is going through a phase you know. But I was raised on the songs of my parents youthful days.” Rarity cleared her throat and started singing. “Just a small town mare, living in a lonely world…” Rarity’s beautiful singing voice echoed through the house.
Applejack smiled, Rarity really did have a lovely singing voice, but she wasn’t about to be upstaged. “She took the midnight train, going anywhere.”
“Just a city colt, born and raised in south Detrot…”
“He took the midnight train, going anywhere.”
“You have a lovely singing voice miss Applejack.” Rarity complimented.
“Thank yah kindly, Ah thought that your voice was just as beautiful. I’ve been singing with my buddies for as long as Ah can remember. We even formed a band, largely around that same ‘hard stuff’ that you mentioned earlier.” Applejack smiled and eagerly pushed away a rainbow-colored fabric that Rarity was inspecting. “By the way, how did you notice mah accent?”
“I live in Ponyville darling,” Rarity replied.
Applejack stared, dumbfounded. “You? From Ponyville?”
“Yes darling. If I recall you come from there as well, your aunt said so.”
“Well yeah, Ah have the funny accent here. But you’re like if Canterlot had daughter that took after her mother to the degree of a clone.”
“Well thank you,” Rarity thanked. “It has always been my dream to go there, find my own ‘city boy, born and raised’ and settle down with my business, my prince, and live out the rest of my days in the glorious center of fashion and high-class.” Rarity started collecting some of her favorite fabrics and making a list on a notepad. “I think that I can handle myself from here. I’ll see you later.”
“Alright,” Applejack responded, glad to get out of the house. The fashionista was pretty cool, but that didn’t change the fact that she was talking about making a dress. “Ah’m going to be out with my friends for the rest of the day, Ah’ll see you at dinner then.”
Once Applejack was outside she took a huge gulp of the Manehatten air, the smog tickling her nostrils, putting a smile on her face. She pushed herself against the tide of ponies going the opposite way. Applejack smiled harder as a broken down apartment building became visible. AJ unlocked the front door and began running up the stairs towards the roof.
Zero Sum, though he preferred being called Zilch, was one of AJ’s best friends. His father was a banker involved in a lot of high society, and found his sons rock star affectations annoying. So he did what any sensible father would do, and forced his son out of the house, making him the landlord of a low-rent apartment building with only six tenants. Despite having a suite of his own Zilch preferred to live on the roof, with a bunch of umbrellas for when it rained, only retreating to his suite during the winter. Zilch had always said that no burglar would think to check the roof, but AJ always assumed that it was roof had a working lock, so when Zilch didn’t want to be bothered, read: most of the time, he could forcibly shut himself off from the world.
Applejack made it to the roof entrance, hearing loud music coming from the other side, and knocked loudly. “Sorry,” came a faux-mechanical reply from the other side. “I am currently sleeping, drinking, or masturbating and do not want to be bothered. Please leave a message after…”
“Zilch!” Applejack shouted.
“Alright,” came a sudden reply. Zilch opened the door and let Applejack out onto the roof. Zilch was a slightly pudgy Earth Pony dressed in stained light-brown khaki’s and a Black Mesa logo T-shirt. “Sorry sugarcube, but you know it’s summer ponies come up to me with petitions for central air being installed. Like I can just wave my damn hand and make that happen.”
“Ah get it man.” Applejack sat down in one of the three lawn chairs surrounding Zilch’s TV, which was currently playing the weather. “Mah aunt and uncle brought over some unicorn to make me a dress for the gala. She’s nice though. Apparently even comes from Ponyville.”
“Wait back up,” Zilch said, handing Applejack a cider from his cooler. “You still haven’t found a way out of that?”
“Mah aunt and uncle bought me a guitar for it, a really nice one mind, Ah’m not going to weasel my way out of this. Wouldn’t be right.”
“Still though, harsh. You’ll have to like meet all of these socialites and mingle, meet the princess, all without any alcohol.” Zilch punctuated his last statement by opening his own bottle of cider and taking a big gulp. “I mean seriously, no alcohol, what kind of damn party is that?”
“The kind my aunt and uncle always want me to got to,” Applejack answered plainly.
“Any party you can walk away from is no party worth attending,” Zilch responded, his bottle outstretched for a toast.
“If it’s the gala, Ah agree,” Applejack replied, accepting the toast. They both drank from their bottles of cider as the weather was replaced with a special news bulletin. “What’s going on?”
“No, come on! Dammit!” Zilch responded, desperately clicking the remote.
“You watch the weather all the damn time, this is more important. Besides why do you watch the weather all the time?” Applejack asked.
“The weather lady has great tits,” he responded as he took another sip. He nearly spat all over himself as he tried to backpedal his response. “Not that you don’t either or anything you know. But you’re my friend and that would be terribly awkward. I, in no way, was insinuating that somepony was hotter than you…”
Applejack laughed and lightly punched Zilch in the shoulder, “Ah’m not that self-conscious Zilch.”
“I don’t want to take that chance, you could knock me dead in a single punch,” he responded in mock-terror.
“Then who'll play bass, or buy me cider?”
“Yeah by the way about that,” Zilch began with another swig of cider. “Why didn’t you bring your guitar so that we could jam?”
“Ah’m not bringing Betsy up to a rooftop. Ah don’t have the money to fix her. Unlike a certain somepony, Ah don’t get paid for a job Ah don’t do.” Applejack responded with another swig of cider.
Zilch clutched his chest and grunted, “You wound me sugarcube, you wound me. And I do work, I mean honestly I have to fix air conditioners and kill hornets nests, explain why they don’t pay me enough to soundproof the walls…”
“Oh yes, you are right, you work so hard…” Applejack’s sarcasm was cut off by the sound of police sirens passing by the apartment.
“…Police are chasing the subject who is believed to be heading north on Col St. He is believed to be carrying explosives, and to be armed with a gun. Ponies are advised to stay inside and…” Applejack started tuning the TV back out when she saw a cloaked man on top of the roof a few buildings away. “We are currently being informed that the subject has fortified himself within a building, police choppers are now being sent in to surround the building.”
“He’s already on the damn roof!” Applejack screamed, pointing in the stallion’s direction. The orange mare saw him start running across the roofs heading north.
“Where is he going?” Zilch asked.*
Applejack could only think of one place… “The train station!” With that she started running, jumping off of Zilch’s roof and grasping onto a windowsill on the next building, climbing up onto the roof and running again, ignoring Zilch’s warnings to the contrary.
The orange mare pushed herself forward, rooftop after rooftop. Jumping from one to the other, closing the distance between herself and the mysterious terrorist. They were now a few blocks away from Zilch and only about two blocks from the train station. She was almost there; he jumped for the next building; she could almost reach out and grab him… As Applejack jumped to the next building the stallion turned and threw the backpack at her, hitting her in midair. She started to fall to the alley eight floors below, the wind knocked out of her by the heavy satchel. Midway down, just as she was reaching out for a windowsill to stop her fall, a click could be heard within the bag and there was a blinding flash…
Applejack’s life started to flash before her eyes. Leaving the Apple farm in Ponyville. Meeting up with her aunt and uncle. Learning to act like a “proper lady.” The Canterlot Garden Party when she was fifteen. Meeting Zilch. Getting drunk with Zilch. Waking up to the thumping sounds of Atlas Plug. Wanting to do the same thing the next night. Learning to play guitar. Forming a band with Zilch and Angel. Calling the band Half-Mare, before changing it after realizing that nopony understood it, and instead thought it meant something else. Waking up that morning. Singing with Rarity. Chasing down a terrorist. A flash of light…
Applejack jolted upwards, woken up by the sound of sirens nearby. She patted herself down, trying to confirm that she was still alive. She stopped when her hand phased through her stomach. “What the?” She pulled her hand out quickly, and found that she couldn’t replicate the strange phenomenon. She managed to pull herself to her hooves, before falling down. AJ looked and found that there was a massive cut along her right leg. “Damn!” She started to pull herself towards the street when she saw the mysterious colt appear before her, with a pistol in his hand.
“You just had to survive,” the colt droned. “This was supposed to be simple, now the boss is going to be pissed off…”
“What the hell is going on? Why were you trying to blow up the train station?” Applejack asked loudly.
“I wasn’t trying to ‘blow up’ anything, look around you.” Applejack pulled herself to her hooves again, this time being careful not to put much weight on her injured leg, and using the wall as support. She stopped and realized that he was right. This was the same alley that she was falling into, but the buildings were completely unharmed. “The Node doesn’t destroy anything, but only a select few people were supposed to survive it, and you aren’t one of them.”
“Then why the hell did you throw it at me?”
“Better that it go off a few blocks from the target than it not going off at all… and with that-“ he cocked the gun- “time to say goodnight little mare.” Time seemed to slow as the stallion pulled the trigger and a bullet began to fly at Applejack. The mare closed her eyes and covered her face as an instinct.
But the bullet never reached her. Instead the clinking noise of metal against metal caused Applejack to open her eyes, seeing the violet energy shield that surrounded her head. Her assailant’s eyes widened and AJ leaped for him grabbing the hand with the gun and pulling it up. The colt fired off another two shots, the noise causing him to flinch and fall backwards with AJ on top of him. The mare tried to push herself up using the colt’s chest, only for her hand to phase right through it. The colt’s eyes widened as his veins began to glow an eerie purple, his mouth gaped open as a shrill scream came from it, and in a few short seconds he was dead, his veins now a dark black. AJ stood up and staggered back, noticing briefly that the wound on her leg was healed, before falling unconscious as the police arrived.
Princess Celestia paced back and forth in her throne room, safely away from the hounds of the media, all wanting an opinion on what, only hours later, had already been termed “The Manehatten Massacre.” The use of term “massacre” seemed a bit much, as nopony knew exactly the state that most of the affected ponies were in. After a blast of violet energy a large section of Manehatten had fallen into particularly bad comas, with hampered breathing and burning fevers.
At the request of her top advisors Celestia had ordered a quarantine of the entire city. They had insisted that, since no buildings had been harmed in the explosion, that it was very likely a chemical attack and that all precaution had to be taken to keep whatever this was contained. The weary Princess had agreed, as it seemed the right course of action, but she would need to send in doctors, scientists, and mages to study the disease. One of her head doctors, Tough Love, had requested the job, and was currently waiting with her for the arrival of the lead mage, and the one who would be running the operation.
“I hope that you know what you’re doing Celestia, bringing a kid like her in on something like this,” Tough chided.
“She is hardly a child Dr. Love,” Celestia responded. “Besides, I need as many ponies as I can trust on this immediately. All of those ponies are going to be stuck in that city until you can find out whether or not this disease is contagious or curable.”
“I know Tia, but still everypony that goes in there is going to be in serious danger…”
“And I believe that I can handle that,” called a voice from seemingly nowhere. “Isn’t that right Spike?” Just as the voice asked that the doors burst open to reveal a teenaged dragon in ripped jeans and a sleeveless hoodie.
The purple-scaled dragon smirked as he called out, “I take it that the spell is a success then Twi?”
Out from the shadows behind Celestia’s throne walked a beautiful mare in a long black dress, dotted with diamonds and glitter, evoking the image of a starry night. Twilight Sparkle, the personal protégé of Princess Celestia at age 8, graduated at age 12, head mage of Canterlot by age 15. “Sorry I’m late Celestia, I was testing a new method of long-distance teleportation. I call it ShadowPortation, although Spike thinks that the name is too long. I teleported here from the gate to Canterlot!” The mare squealed excitedly.
“Whatever, still a stupid name,” Spike called out.
Twilight stuck her tongue out at him and gave Celestia a quick hug. “So then, we leave immediately?”
“Yes, Twilight,” Celestia said with a smile. “You must find out the cause of this disease and, if possible, a cure.” Twilight nodded as she, Tough Love, and Spike left to meet up with the others and head to Manehatten. Celestia pulled out a small planner from her pocket, with a date circled in red… three months from now. “Come back soon Twilight, come back soon.”