"Buck!" shouted Twilight, pupils shrinking. Biting her lower lip, she spoke up again. "Slav- Spike, think something!"
"I'm trying!" Spike replied, rubbing his temples in concentration with the face scrunched.
"Spike, is Twi there?!" yelled Applejack, still waiting outside the library. The apple farmer was carrying a cart filled to the top with red and juicy apples, along with three apple pies as 'samples'. She knocked again, but no answer came.
'Probably she is out or somethin', sure because of what she did...' thought Applejack. But her train of thought was quickly dissipated when a little nervous dragon opened the door, allowing her to enter. "Thanks, Spike."
"You're welcome."
Twilight Sparkle's POV:
My mind is still processing what had happened over the past thirty eight hours. It started like a well-earned break from my royal duties, and then it went downhill just because Spik- no, I, messed up a spell. It isn't his fault, I should have examined my surroundings before casting the splicing spell and made sure that Spike was gone for good.
But little Twily can't do that, right? She is just an inmature mare that needs a change of min-
Ugh, it's becoming more hard to fight this. It's like there are two personalities trying to take over my mind, one is mine, the other is an invasor. And is stronger.
I have to fix this before is too late. I have been mistreating Spike since this whole thing started, he is not a slave! He is just my Number One Assistant, but there isn't too much differen-
Aaand there is again, a personality slippage. I have to study and analize the frequency of these changes in my behaviour, it will distract me from the discomfort generated from being under the bed. At least the pattern and results would be something different to study after reading all those book of the history of splicing spells. My brain cells forgive me, I spent the entire morning reading about them.
The only interesting thing there was the weird theory about platypuses and jellyfishes. I mean, I have never thought of that!
Changing my weight to my left side, I watch as my mane grows and changes color, the tips becoming golden like my skin. Like every part of my body, even the feathers in my wings are being colored this way. I wonder how long it will take to the process to finish. I do a quick check on the lower side of my body and yep, all is golden down there.
It's a little depressing. I just want to cry, but for some reason I have been smiling all the time since I hid under the bed.
I sigh, Applejack is down there, in the kitchen, being distracted by my personal sla- I take a notepad near my bed with my magic and write with a quill the approximated time difference between this episode and the previous. Ten minutes, this is getting out of my hoof.
There is this little annoying voice called 'logic' in my mind that is saying that this plan isn't going to work. It have many flaws, first of them all? Applejack isn't stupid, she will know that Spike is hiding something, she will even sense it! Of all the ponies, it has to be the one that can feel when others are lying. And besides...
... she brought pies.
I start to drool, the sweet scent of the baked apples filling my nostrils. My analytic mind says that Applejack isn't there because of the dinner we had accorded, but because there must have happened something that made her come to my house. Probably something in which she picture me as the culprit... there is a high probability that is related to my new-developed chaotic powers.
I come to the conclusion that, if Applejack believes I am the culprit of whatever that happened, she would come here expecting to find me (or not expecting to find me at all, if she thought that I would run away, just so I wouldn't confront her), and in the hypothetic case I was hidden somewhere, the scent of the baked goods would get me out.
Well thought, AJ.
Applejack's POV:
Ah' have to say that, when a day seems normal, is 'cause there is goin' to be trouble.
It first happened the day after Twi's visit. Mah' trees were... well, normal, and mah' apples were doin' apple things, like, just hangin' in there, in their branches, shinin' and bein' red.
But after bucking one orchard, doin' some baking and fillin' a cart with apples and apple pies, the strange stuff happened. Ah' was approaching one of the many orchards in our farm, when the green leaves of our trees became pink cotton! Can yah' believe that? Meh' neither.
And the apples... the apples became cookies with chocolate chips.
Pinkie would love to see that.
It was minutes after that Ah' realized that these were the same trees Twilight had applied her spell into. Unicorns and their witchcraft, Ah' knew Ah' couldn't trust 'em, with their sharp horn-thingies. Ah'm sure it's a weapon.
But Twilight Sparkle is mah' friend, and just because she did somethin' to mah' trees Ah' wasn't goin' to judge her, so I decided to come to her house and ask her how much ol' Pinks paid her to do that prank in me. Ah' mean, trees becoming pink cotton? That is far, far away than just paintin' mah' apples with polka dots.
Do yah' know how much time Ah' spent washin' 'em?!
But back to the matter in hoof.
So, after knocking the door and having a small talk with Spike. Ah' was in Twilight's house, specifically, the kitchen. Mah' cart was in the main room, but the three pies were on the table, ready to be eaten. Emanatin' that sweet apple scent that only our baked goods can emanate. Jus' like I planned. Ah' hope Twilight hadn't run somewhere, because if she was hidden... Ah' would gladly hear her explanation.
Spike was in the other side of the table, lookin' nervously to random places.
"So, Spike, where is Twilight?" I asked, munching a piece of pie. Celestia, it was delicious.
"Uh? Oh, yeah! She isn't here at the moment," he replied. "She went out to buy some supplies."
Ah' could clearly tell that he was lying. Hellooo, Element of Honesty somepony? Ah' continued, wanting the truth.
"Do yah' want to know somethin' that happened in the morning, Spike?"
"Eh... uh, yes?"
"Some of mah' trees became cotton candy," I said, eatin' other piece of apple pie. I watched how his expression changed to one of terror, like a prank had just been uncovered. "The ones who Twilight used her spell in," oh boy, that face, that face.
The last time I saw that expression was in that event with Rainbow and Pinkie and that Celestia-colored cake. Still wonderin' why the three of 'em are smaller now. Ah' will discover that, too.
"Errhhh, have you noticed how hot had been lately?"
"Where is Twilight, Spike? Ah' want mah' trees back to normal!" I yelled. Ah' didn't want to, but Ah' can't tolerate somepony doin' shenanigans and messin' with mah' apples.
A minute after what I said, Ah' feel a tingle sensation in the air (and around mah' pies, that glutton), this is it. Magic is bein' casted, that means... Not in mah' guard, Twi!
Ah' stomp my hooves in the table, hopin' to desconcentrate Twilight and catch her in the act. But in the second I did so, the two apple pies FLEW!
Twilight Sparkle's POV:
Well, that didn't work.
I mean, I don't know what I expected. Well, I did know what to expect, pies floating to my drooling mouth while my sla- oops, mental annotation for the record, distracted Applejack. But this, this wasn't expected. I even planned this, with a checklist and all!
Coming quietly to the main room, just standing a few feet outside the kitchen? Check. My body wrapped in a blanket to hide my features? Check. Unexpected burst of anger from Applejack that made me lose concentration and thus giving wings to two pies? Check.
Wait a moment, that last one wasn't there at all.
I sigh, just like the plan of the morning, this new plan wasn't flawless. I know that Applejack can not only sense when a pony is lying, but she can also sense when magic is being casted.
Some earth ponies, specially ones who don't want to be robbed by unicorns, take classes to learn when magic is being casted by unicorns (well, it isn't that hard to feel, come on, reality is being warped!). It helps them to feel if they're being cheated, like when playing a game of cards or something similar. It helps in fights too, because if the opponent is being unfair, one swift punch in the base of the horn would deactivate his ability to cast spells for an amount of time, depending in the kind of punch.
The more you know...
But now, I have to duck and avoid a flying apple pie that is going straight forward to my face.
Heh... Soarin' would love to see that.
"TWILIGHT!" I heard Applejack shout.
I'm screwed.
As the chaotic scene happened, Spike, still frozen in the other side of the table, received face-first a big, hot and sticky pie in his face, he stumbled and fell off his chair after seeing, for half of a second, the other pie flying towards a wrapped-in-a-blanket Twilight. Unfortunately for him, his head met the floor first, covered with the scattered remains of the apple pie.
The fall, mixed with the warm mass spread all over his face, muffled the scream that followed the sudden apparition of Twilight, who was supposed to be hiding, preferably far away from Applejack.
Taking advantage of the incident, Applejack leaped off her chair, turned around and tackled Twilight, pinning her to the ground. The alicorn, taken by surprise, thrashed and kicked, her attacks going nowhere due to the blanket around her body.
"Stop!" shouted Applejack, her forearms firmly holding Twilight. "Twi', come to yer senses!"
Twilight Sparkle's POV:
What is this place? Did I die? Did Applejack actually kill me?
Oh, there is something, is fog. Good.
Where in Tartarus am I?
Twilight, who was wrapped humorously in the blue blanket like a cocoon, stopped her fight and looked at Applejack in her emerald eyes, her own unfocused and distant. "And where would be the fun in that?" she inquired with a childish voice, one similar to Pinkie Pie's. Then she grinned, a wide and sadistic smile, followed by a cruel laugh.
"Tw-Twi... are yah' ok?" asked Applejack, worried by her friend's change of actitude.
"Ok? I have never feel this good before!" Twilight replied, freeing her golden forearms to push Applejack aside, who fell a few feet away. The farmer gasped in surprise at the sight of not only being pulled away so effortlesly, but at the limbs of her friend. "Like it?" questioned Twilight, standing up and showing her wings.
Applejack analized briefly her friend, trying to take account of all the changes; golden eyes, wings, mane and tail, red cutie mark, ruby incrusted in her chest, near all her body was golden, excepting for the head. Thoughts racing one mile per hour in her head, she managed to get to her hooves, stuttering a question of the many she was thinking of, "W-what h-happen-ed?"
"I became better, that's all," replied Twilight, proudly examining her metallic forehoof.
The confusion in Applejack's face was quickly replaced by anger, her nostrils steaming. There was something really bad going on, it wasn't Twilight, it was inside Twilight. "What are ya' doin' to Twilight?!"
Twilight Sparkle's POV:
I walk through this -seemingly- endless black landscape. The fog maintains itself in the level of my hooves. I have discarded my theories of where I am or what is happening; it can't be the Purgatory, because in that case, there would be a crow to guide me in the afterlife to my celestial trial, nor I am a ghost, cause I would have appeared at my death's place.
Still, there is a nagging sensation in the back of my mind saying that I am forgetting something.
The back of my mind...
My ears perk up out of sudden, catching a sound too low for me to hear clearly.
It all happens to fast that I only catch a glimpse of the scene. The creak of rusted metal, my hooves leaving the floor, the fog being blow away as a big cage falls on the ground, with me inside. My face collides with the bars and I let out a cry of pain.
Is in the moment when I am rubbing my temples that I notice my purple hooves. For split of a second I am happy.
And then I hear a bone-chilling laugh that echoes in the infinite blackness.
"Do you want to see?" a voice said, similar to mine.
"Who are you?" I ask.
My question is rewarded instantly by a pony-like being stepping out of the shadows and into my line of vision. It was like somebody had compressed smoke and color in a mold, but the first tried to escape, making the illusion that the being was disintegrating in the air.
Its glowing pink eyes look at me, freezing me in my spot. It smiles and laughs.
"My, my, my," it says. "How is that you don't know me?"
I hear its horrible laugh again, piercing my eardrums. I try to cover my ears, but the laugh is still here, resonating.
A bright flash of light inundates the blackness and I open my eyes to see a rectangular screen behind the creature, iluminating its entire body. My mouth hang open as I see the gaseous creature in front of me, the dark purple smoke composing its body, the blue fire that forms its mane and tail, the ethereal wings and the glowing horn in the top of its head.
That thing is me.
"Oh, but you hadn't answered my question yet," she says, bringing me out of my stupor. "That is a little rude coming from a princess."
"W-wha-?"
"What, princess, are you doing right now?"
"I don't u-understand..." I said, "I'm here..."
"Are you? I thought you were fighting your friend out there."
I stop breathing for a second. The not-me-that-is-me points to the screen behind her. I look to see the interior of the library, but my vision changes when a orange hoof collides with the screen, sending a sudden wave of pain to my head. When I look again to the screen, I see a furious Applejack a few feet again from me.
I smile and yell, "Applejack, it is me!"
She doesn't hear me. And golden hooves attack her. The other me smiles and tilts her head to the screen.
"Tsk, Applejack, I thought you had learned to not being stubborn."
That... that is my voice.
I put two-and-two in place and comprehend that I am not in control of my body, that... thing that is in front of me is controlling my movements. I look horrified to the screen, my body is in top of Applejack, while my hooves are punching her in the face.
I scream, one of my golden hooves falls in her snout, there is a sickening crunch and I see blood dropping from her nose, cheeks stained with tears.
"NO!" I jump inside the cage, but the bars hold me. "STOP! PLEASE, STOP!!"
I load a powerful spell and charge it to the bars, preparing myself for the impact. But the suction sound produced makes me look to my target; the once-rusted bars are now shining dark purple bars, having the same illusion of disintegration from the other me.
I clench my teeth in anger, but that won't stop me. I tackle the cage with my entire body repeatedly, the screams of Applejack filling my ears.
Blood starts falling from the base of my horn, but I don't care, I need to save Applejack.
I hear her laugh again and when I open my eyes, she is in front of me, fangs showing.
"Nopony can hear you, Twilight," she says. "Why don't you just accept it and embrace me?"
I cringe my nose and look at her hooves, from the borders is falling... ink? I look at her, mildly surprised. A disgusting grin is plastered all over her face.
"No."
The next thing that I see are the shadows under her hooves taking solid form, throwing and holding me firmly in the bars, one of them slowly smothering me. When I see her face again, her expression had changed considerably, the grin of before replaced with a frown.
"Then I will take you by force," she says with a serious tone. "After all, I am you..."
"Don't say it!" I try to shout, but it came out as a muffled scream.
"And you..."
"Don't!"
The shadows starts encapsulating me.
"Are part of..."
"NO!!" I scream.
My horn glow fiercely and the blackness around me dissipates. I see her cowering in fear, her horn glowing with a pink aura, her lips forming words that I don't hear, the sound of a bomb detonating filling my eardrums. Waves of pink like a sonic rainboom expanding in the blackness, erasing from existence all in its path.
I see the bars of the cage disintegrating in small pieces from the explosion, followed by a white void. All the things around me start to disappear in oblivion, vanishing, I can't see her.
The last thing I get to see is a glimpse of the screen; Applejack's bloodied face.
And then,
silence.