Applejack found only two other good apples on her entire farm but that was all she needed: one for Twilight, and one for herself. She took some rope too, though she'd have to be careful not to turn it into vampire bat rope. That stuff was useless. As prepared as she could get, Applejack took a deep breath with her lungs and stretched out her lungs, er, wings. Er... yeah. She'd walk as far as she could, first—which turned out to be not very far at all.
The swampland extended all the way up to the edge of her property now, and she'd rather not be tickled again by skeletal hooves. Applejack shuddered and took to the air. She tried leapfrogging from one tree to another, but the black, leafless plants were too brittle for her weight. She kept breaking limbs, and had a hard time finding safe spots to rest and catch her breath. This wasn't going to work.
Applejack looked up at the clouds. Well, if pegasus could walk on them, she could too, right? The tree started creaking under her weight. Applejack took a deep breath and launched herself into the air. The clouds were higher than they looked, and Applejack was nearly blue when she got up there. Spots formed in her eyes and darkness encroached on her peripheral vision. This had better work. She couldn't hold her breath any longer; she gasped for air. Her wings seized up, and she flopped on a cloud. Thankfully, it held her.
Applejack panted. That flight had taken too much out of her. Her mission? Forgotten. Her wings? Useless. All that mattered in the here-and-now was just laying there and breathing.
Eventually, she recovered, but the trip left her throat feeling parched and dry. All she had with her to drink were the anti-bat apples, and those would be suicide to consume here. She had no idea how to work the clouds for water. Speaking of which—“wha-woah!”
She made the mistake of trying to stand up and promptly fell over. The cloud moved beneath her. It wasn't at all like solid ground. She trembled and tried standing again. It—wait, the cloud wasn't really moving. She wasn't really standing on it either. She was standing on her own sort-of pegasus magic—and that was shaky at best. It was like trying to walk on a boat in rough seas after having lived your whole life on stationary ground.
Applejack hadn't expected walking on a cloud to be more difficult than flying, but it was. She'd been walking her whole life and only had lungs, er, wings for a few hours. It made no sense that she'd instantly taken to flight (even accounting for the breathing problem) aside from the fact that it was plot-convenient.
Well, enough sitting idle—she had a Twilight to take down. Er...
The sky was dark and starry in all directions. She was standing on the grayness. Where, exactly, was she supposed to go? Hmm, well, if she kept going forward, that should get her closer. She'd been facing the right direction when she flew up here and didn't think she'd gotten turned around. She'd risk the danger of getting lost for the ease of travel. No tricks of Twilight would get in her way up here!
Hopping from cloud to cloud with hardly the need to open her ribcag—er, spread her wings was actually kind of fun once she'd stopped tripping and falling on her face every time she moved (thankfully clouds were soft). What she saw next nearly caused her heart to stop with dread. A pretty rainbow stretched between two clouds.
“Ah can't believe it! Ah must have gotten turned around and gone the wrong direction! This rainbow has to mean Ah'm getting close to Cloudsdale. It can't be a trick of Twilight's; everything else she's done has been gloomy.” Applejack turned around and went the wrong direction thanks to that trick of Twilight's.
An hour later, she was standing in front of a sign that very clearly read, ‘Welcome to Cloudsdale.’ Applejack bashed a hoof in her face. “Dagnabit!”
Well, at least she had a chance to get some water. All that flying had left her very thirsty. The pegasus locals gave her very strange looks. Some even went so far as to pull up their 'welcome' mats and hide their foals. Needless to say, she did not feel very welcome. If it was needless to say, then why waste a sentence saying it? Crap, now that's two sentences down the drain-er, three. New paragraph!
Applejack rubbed her head. Drinking the water made her feel all weird again. It was like something was trying to take hold but rejected what she'd put in her mouth. She'd best get this business over with before she went crazy.
Applejack had thought that the trip back to Ponyville would be hard due to having only a vague direction to go on, but a powerful arc of magic rippled across the cloudscape and tore a trough in its wake. She shuddered at the implications. Magic that strong could make it all the way to Canterlot and everything on the ground would be... transformed. She followed the trail of destruction back to its source. Even before she got there she could see flashes of magical reverse-lightning forking way up into the sky. Well, 'forking' was a generous way of describing it. It didn't have the decency to properly fork. It was more like 'sporking.' It was weird.
Applejack paused to catch her breath once she got close. She could see Twibat now through the hole in the clouds. Twibat fluttered around near the top of her huge tree-like spire blasting it with concentrated bursts of magic. Each time she did so, it would grow and some kind of misshapen discolored fruit would appear. She'd bite it, spit it out, and try again.
Huh. If she was that hungry for fruit, then getting her to bite the anti-bat apple would be easy. Applejack tied one to a rope and lowered it down next to Twibat. As soon as she spotted it, she hissed and recoiled as if it were a holy symbol and flew off to the other side of the spire. Oh, right. Twilight hates apples.
Applejack pulled the fruit up and wrote the word 'peach' on the side. When Twibat came around again, Applejack lowered the 'disguised' fruit in front of her. She—took the bait! Yes!
Twibat screeched as the batness began to be sucked out of her, but she spat the fruit out before the transformation was complete. The partially blackened apple tumbled out of sight.
“Wha-what happened? Eep!” Twilight clung to a twisted branch and trembled. Only half of her had reverted to her normal unicorn form: her right half. She was split clean down the middle.
“Twilight, ya fool, why did ya have to spit it out so soon? Uh, here, eat this. It'll finish yer transformation and ya can return to normal” Applejack dug out her other apple and offered it.
“Applejack, what happened to you? How are you a bat? And—ugh, I'm not going to eat that! Eww.” Twi-sorta-bat pinched her nose. “Thad's disgusding.”
“Come on, Twilight. Be reasonable. Look at all the chaos ya caused when ya were a full-bat. Ya don't want to revert back into that. As for me, Ah'm a bat because I used Fluttershy's fangs.” Applejack stretched out her limb with the apple.
“Wait—I did this!?” Twilight didn't seem perturbed by the twisted landscape. She found it... alluring? “And I'm still half-bat? That's even better than full-bat. I have one wing! Oh, the glory! Oh, the power! I'm never going to give this up!”
“Wha? But yer crippled like that. Ya can't fly and wouldn't it just get in the way?”
“Pah! Shows what you know.” Twilight spread her one wing out and gave it a few good flaps. She... didn't go anywhere. “The final boss in just about every JRPG game has one wing. It's like... a genre thing. With this wing of mine I'm just about unstoppable!” She tried flapping it again and nearly lost her balance.
“Twilight, y'all sure yer not insane?” Applejack took a breath and dropped down next to Twilight to hold her steady in case she tried that again and fell off.
“BOSS BATTLE!” Twilight's horn flared and the twisted spire of trees vanished, as did the clouds, and the bats, and everything else. The two of them were transported to seemingly empty space with only stars in the distance to accompany them.
“Aaah! Where did everything go?” Applejack jerked her head around.
“I already said it's a genre thing. Sheesh, pay attention. And you touched me so we have to battle. Dem's da rules.” Twilight charged up her horn. “Bolt 3.”
A massive lightning bolt arced nearby. Applejack jumped away. “Twilight, stop! Ah can't fight ya like this.”
“Well too bad, you should have thought about that before trying to solo a boss fight. Gravity Well.” Twilight's next spell was very flashy, but didn't actually do anything that Applejack could notice. Well, it did make her feel heavy for a bit. “Darn, that was supposed to take half your hit points. I forgot it doesn't work on small targets.”
“Stop treating this like some kind of game. Lasso Rope!” Applejack called out her attack, treating this like some kind of game.
“Rope Burn.” Twilight countered.
“Augh!” Applejack's rope wrapped around her legs and started rubbing against her fur in opposite directions. Applejack bit it, and her rope turned into a vampire rope and flew away.
“What the heck?” Twilight's next spell faded from her horn as she watched the rope fly away.
Applejack rubbed at her ruffled coat and shrugged. “Dunno. It just happens. Ah have no idea why.” While Twilight was apparently calm, Applejack walked up and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Twilight, Ah know ya can be a decent pony if ya try. This isn't worth fighting over. Just take the cure—please.”
Twilight pushed Applejack away with her front hooves. “Your attack did no damage. What are you—level one?”
Applejack skidded away and came to rest on her side. She made the mistake of looking down when trying to stand up again. The starry space below her showed no apparent ground to stand on. “Aaah! This place is freaky.” She held her breath and flapped her wings to right herself before settling down again. “And what's this about numbering levels?”
“Hmm, I think I'll guard this turn. Not that I really need to. Force Bubble.” A magenta shield appeared around her. “And are you seriously that clueless? Didn't you do the tutorial?”
“Tutori-whatsit? Twilight, stop talking about this like it's a game. A lot of ponies live in this town and call it home and ya really need to come to yer senses and fix things so we can all get on with our lives.” Applejack sighed.
Twilight let her bubble expire. “What a waste of a shield. You didn't even try to attack. I don't give a rat's nest about other ponies. How about a status attack? Bad Breath.” Twilight blew in Applejack's general direction (who just wrinkled her nose).
“Uh, Twilight? Now yer being silly.” Applejack once again walked up and shook her by her shoulders. If ya can't think of others, think of yerself. Yer still a bit crazy. This will fix ya for real.”
Once again, Twilight pushed her off. “No damage. Sheesh. Did you not do any fighting before you came here? And I'm perfectly sane! I'd be crazy to give up this kind of power. Check this out: Bat Bonanza!” A bunch of bats appeared and fluttered around in confusion. “Yeah, okay. I was totally expecting something else to happen.”
“No, of course I didn't fight anything. Ah'm not that kind of pony. And ya see? Yer spell was a flop. The power to be insane is worth giving up, don't ya think?”
“You fought nothing? Really? What about that swamp down below? Wasn't that teeming with monsters? You could have gotten a lot of experience down there.” Twilight was still preoccupied watching the bats and didn't launch another attack.
“What? Ah just flew over the swamp. Ah'd rather not submit myself to the 'experience' of being tickled by skeletal limbs. Ah don't think that kind of experience would prepare me for, well, anything, really.”
“Oh, so you used a wall hack and now you're complaining about being under-leveled for a boss fight? Cheaters like you get what they deserve. Face it, you can't win against a spellcaster of my magnitude. I'm done with kiddy spells. Force Crush.” A telekinetic bubble wrapped around Applejack and started getting smaller.
“Ah'm not a cheater!” Applejack tapped on her prison, then bucked it as hard as she could while she still had room. It shattered.
“Aah.” Twilight winced in response to that forceful dispel.
“Twilight, Ah don't want to fight ya–” Applejack snorted and charged Twilight. “–but if Ah must–”
Twilight swatted Applejack square in the face with her one wing. “Oh that's rich. So you think you can actually fight back now? Those other spells were just cantrips. Wait until you see my unique boss moves!”
Twilight's horn flared brilliantly and the starry cosmos itself bent to her will. She cackled wildly as a swarm of meteors circled around her. The began to spin faster and–
“Stellar Approach Asteroid De-belting!” Applejack shouted as she buzzed past Twilight. The spell fizzled as Twilight spun out of control and the asteroids were lost back into outer space.
“What? But how?—Ow!” Twilight winced in pain when Applejack kicked her horn.
“Ha, and Ah bet ya didn't think that stellar dieting tip would actually be useful!” Applejack squeezed Twilight's mouth open to reveal her fang. “Eat. Your. Apple!”
“You can't make me!” Twilight's telekinetic glow enveloped Applejack and forced her off. Applejack screamed in protest. “I should have just done this in the first place. You're doomed, Applejack. I can just hold you in the air and finish you off in whatever way I please. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Applejack struggled, but couldn't escape her magic. Twilight was right. Applejack was doomed.