Rainbow Dash had ended up helping Twilight with her reorganization of the library, since she couldn't get Applejack to help with a heavy lifting job. This absolutely vexed the cyan mare, the level of organization her friend did was obsessive. As the sun was going down she looked up at the clock in her friends study, 6:05. Her Jackie would show up soon she was sure of it.
Seven o'clock came and still no AJ. At this point Dash began to worry just a little bit, but she held off the best she could helping the lavender mare move a table. She would keep her feelings inside for the time being, she had to trust that her marefriend would make it home alright. Her friend had seen her worry try as Rainbow might to hide it, and set her end of the table down.
"Dash what's on your mind?" Twilight inquired gently.
"I dunno. Applejack should have been here by now, she always sticks to her time frame." the cyan mare said setting her end of the table down. "I guess it just worries me that she isn't here yet, and I really hope she's okay."
Her lavender friend smiled, "Oh that's all? Don't worry Dash I'm sure Applejack is just fine!"
Just then a heavy knocking came at the front door of the library, too heavy to be the blonde farmer. Twilight looked at her with confusion, and the rainbow maned mare simply shrugged. As the lavender mare moved to open the door in through it came Big Macintosh, carrying an unconscious Pinkie Pie in his arms.
"Pinkie!" Twilight exclaimed rushing over in panic.
"Step back Twilight!" Big Mac ordered. "She needs somewhere ta lie down now."
"O-Of course, lets get her up here in my bedroom." she said leading Big Mac upstairs quickly.
Rainbow was frozen in place though. She had looked Pinkie up and down, and the key thing she noticed was that the party mare's clothes were not her own. They looked like something Gilda wore when she came to visit months earlier. The pink mare had also shown signs of physical abuse with cuts, scratches, bruises, and what looked to be talon marks littering her body.
"I-It can't be...Gilda?" she uttered almost breathlessly in shock. "What's she been doing with Pinkie?"
"Rainbow what are you doing, get up here now!" Twilight yelled from upstairs.
She shook her head and cleared her head before jogging upstairs to the librarian's bedroom. As she walked into the doorway she laid eyes on her pink friend panting lightly, her mind flickering just under the surface. Something seemed off to Dash about the overall aura about Pinkie Pie though, it seemed cracked.
She looked to see Big Mac twitching impatiently, he never did things like that. This behavior coming from the stallion had the blue mare intensely worried. It was almost like he knew something, but wasn't telling them a word of it. It also seemed like he was, angry? No, that wasn't possible, this was Big Macintosh the kindest and gentlest stallion around. What had him so off skelter with his normal behavior?
"Hey Mac what's going on, where'd you find Pinkie?" Dash asked with a barely controlled composure.
"Dash Ah wish Ah could say, but Pinkie is prolly the better pony ta talk to 'bout what's really going on." the red stallion said with strain apparent in his voice, he was really holding back. "As much as Ah'd like to."
"Th-Then buckin' wake her up already!" Dash found herself shouting.
"Rainbow, what's come over you? This is your friend laying here covered in wounds, and you're demanding to wake her up?" Twilight said incredulously as she rounded on the cyan mare.
"I just." she paused a moment putting a hand on her chest. "You can say what you want Twilight, but I'm worried about Jackie. If Big Mac is here then I have a really bad feeling this involves her!"
They stared into one another's eyes for a moment, and she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the ginger stallion nodded. It was in this moment Pinkie stirred back into the waking world. A strange light flickering across her eyes for but a second before disappearing again.
"Big Mac are we at Twilight's place yet?" she said drearily.
"Eeyup. Yer in her bed in fact." the big stallion replied.
Pinkie shot straight up and immediately locked eyes with Rainbow, "D-Dash?"
She walked past Twilight to stand at Pinkie's side, "Yeah Pink's what is it?"
"I failed you and Applejack!" the pink mare shouted as tears flooded from her eyes.
She felt her heartbeat quicken but held her tone, "Calm down Pink's and tell me what's going on."
The pink party mare took in a breath and began, "Dash for the past week I've been Gilda's prisoner. She has been torturing me to try to get information out of me as to how your life was, and more about Applejack." she shivered with the memories. "And in the process of such, she decided the best way to work with me was to break me apart mentally. I can't tell you how she did it but she succeeded in fracturing my mind. It was so bad I almost didn't want to come back to you girls."
Twilight came over and sat on the bed beside their friend, "Well you're here and everything is gonna be alright now Pinkie Pie."
The rainbow maned mare felt her heart sink at these revelations about her old friend. She hadn't gotten over her feelings for Dash and had descended into madness. This posed so many potential problems for her and AJ, but despite this new information she felt sick in the deep pits of her stomach. She felt Pinkie hadn't broken the worst news yet.
"No that's just it Twilight!" she shouted all of a sudden breaking into the cyan mare's thoughts. "Dash, Gilda has gone insane with her love for you! She will hurt or kill anyone that gets in the way of her having you! She would rather everyone dead so long as she can have you!"
She didn't want to accept the truth of what she knew in her heart was coming next, "Pinkie. Where is Applejack?"
"Even with Big Mac's effort to free me from Gilda's house, and all our heart behind our run for the town center, and--" the mare began rambling from anxiety.
"PINKIE!" Rainbow shouted grabbing her friend by the shoulders. "Where is Applejack?"
The pink mare flinched and began crying again as she loudly sobbed out, "She took her before we could get to her!"
Her hands fell limply away from Pinkie's shoulders as fear quickly set into Dash's magenta eyes. Gilda had taken her marefriend prisoner, and had full intent to hurt the orange farmer. With this in mind fury began to slowly and coldly inch its way into her mind. Just because that gryphon had lost everything important to her due to her selfishness was no reason that she should come along and take the most important thing to Rainbow away.
She loved the blonde farmer with all her being, and she would be dammed if she did nothing to stop this madness. The rainbow maned mare would even go to the death to try to save her marefriend from Gilda, the psychotic gryphon.
"Pinkie, you said Gilda kept you at a house?" she stated coldly.
"Y-Yes, on the outskirts of--ungh, not now!" Pinkie cut off flinching and moving herself away from her friends in a bizarre manner.
"Pinkie, not yet, y'all have ta give Rainbow the last bit o' yer infermation!" Big Mac called to her.
"I-I know Mac. Dash, it's that abandoned creepy looking house that no pony would buy months ago. That's where she kept me and cut me up like this."
"Alright then. I have some business to attend to." the blue mare said turning toward the doorway to leave.
"Wait!" the pink mare shouted. "There is a seperate building from the main house, it's--ack. It's hidden along the edge of the treeline behind the house. It's made of stone masonry."
She turned back and nodded to Pinkie, "Got it Pink's, thank you. I'm sorry that you had to get caught up in this. Twi, stay here and take care of her. She needs it more than you know right now." turning back toward the door she headed out. "Now it's time I closed this chapter of my past for good."
______________________________________________________________________________________
Applejack's eyes fluttered open finally after what felt like hours of sleep, but in reality was probably much less than that. As her eyes became adjusted to the environment around her she could tell she was in a dimly lit stone encased room. This all felt too familiar to her, and to test that theory she attempted to move. The farmer found her wrists bound in iron chains above her head, a detail that wasn't in her dreams.
Moments after her movements sharp pains began shooting up through her nervous system to her brain. Delayed reactions were possibly due to whatever Gilda had drugged her with. She looked down to see many shallow scratches and cuts all over her body, most likely from when the gryphoness used her talons to rip Applejack's clothes from her body. Yet she still wore her red lace bra and black silken panties. The farmer was perplexed by this odd sentiment.
She knew what was happening, and was waiting for Gilda to show her dirty hide. She did not appear, and so the blonde farmer began to struggle to free herself from bondage. It was no use these chains weren't going to break, and it was then she heard claws scraping across the stone floor from another room.
"Awake already are we Jackie?" the gryphoness said sadistically as she stopped in the doorway.
She didn't even bother replying to the creature before her.
Gilda approached AJ, "Aw, not speaking to me now? That's gonna make this much more difficult you see."
The gryphon struck a hard punch into the orange farmer's stomach, causing the mare to double over in pain.
"I still need to have that little talk with you." the avian monster said in a eloquent tone.
"An' what could y'all possibly achieve by talkin' ta me?" she spit the words out like venom standing upright again.
"Now Jackie you should do well..." Gilda cocked her hand back and then brought it forward again backhanding the mare hard. "...to mind your tone of voice!"
She was surprised at just how strong the gryphon actually was, but none-the-less she looked back in defiance of the monster in front of her. The avian stood there wearing a white shirt with a black leather jacket, and tight black denim jeans. The blonde farmer couldn't help but notice the sickening smile Gilda had perched upon her face.
"Well now that you understand your actions will have consequences," the gryphon brought a talon up to her face and drug it hard down the side of AJ's cheek drawing blood. "let us begin."
The gryphoness took a step away and began pacing, and following her motions back and forth Applejack began to make out the objects around her. A lit and heated forge used for quick heating of metals, and many differing metal blades and rods already cooled were leaned up on the wall next to the forge. There were also two simple tables near the forge area, one containing more metal works, and the other a simple empty table. Was she going to use all those different metal tools to torture her? the sheer thought of that sent chills up her spine.
"So then Jackie, you are aware Dash has a prior obligation to me in the relationship we've had since our academy days correct?" the gryphon queried.
"No she never once mentioned being with y'all in that way ever. Prolly cuz she dun even think of you two like that!" the country mare replied simply.
"Oh really now?" Gilda quickly stepped in towards her. "She did once upon a time. I can still remember exploring every inch of her cyan body, and then-some!"
"As if Ah could believe that!" shot back defensively.
"You might be the first mare she has ever been with, but I was her absolute first." the gryphon said with unmasked delight. "Pity she didn't trust you enough to tell you about it."
AJ couldn't stand the vile she gryphon taunting her like this, it angered her greatly. In one quick motion the farmer gathered her saliva together and spit directly into Gilda's face. The gryphon covered her face with her hand then wiped it away. When she looked back at the blonde farmer the look was purely psychotic.
"Oh what, so you think you're better than me do you, you stupid country bumpkin?" she walked over and grabbed one of the rods and stuck it into the white hot coals of the forge.
After a few long moments the gryphon turned around and approached Applejack. It was as the farmer had feared, in Gilda's claws was a white hot branding iron.
"So think you're so much better than me, well why don't you and your cutie marked flank choke on this!" she yelled as she drove the iron into Applejack's cutie mark on her hip.
The pain was excruciating and impossible to bear without screaming in agony. Her cutie mark was being singed away, and a part of who she was would die along with it. After only about ten seconds Gilda pulled the hot metal away from her now scarred flank. She began to laugh maniacally as she inspected the results of the branding.
"Ah yes much better! Now I have another question for you, and this one is quite serious. So please don't mess it up." Gilda said in a authoritative tone.
"Go ahead ya demented creature!" was all the farmer could manage eyes still tearing and pain still shooting through her body.
"Well then, I would ask that you submit to my wishes and leave Rainbow Dash. In return you can walk out of here quite intact." the gryphoness paused. "As you can tell that branding was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what I can do to you."
AJ's head fell darkly and she mumbled something that none but she could hear.
"I'm sorry what was that Jackie?" Gilda said with a sick smile of assumed triumph.
The blonde farmer looked up with a fire in her eyes, "Ah said, go ta hell you loathsome coward!"
The gryphon frowned, "Now, now Jackie, I'd reconsider that choice."
"Stop callin' me that, only Dash can use that name on me!" the orange mare yelled lashing forward with her fury. "Ah will not reconsider nuthin', the blood in this here heart runs fer Dashie alone. Y'all can never take that from--guh!"
Her sentence was cut short by a furiously crushing punch at the right side of her chest. The farmer knew Gilda had just broken one of her ribs as she began violently hacking and coughing. Just as quick, the monster swung again and broke a rib on her left side sending an immense level of pain through her body. With the next cough she could taste iron on her tongue, she was coughing up blood already.
"Last chance you dirty tramp, give up Dash or suffer worse." the gryphon snarled.
"Ah'd rather suffer an eternity of torture from y'all than give up my love. Do yer worst!" Applejack challenged.
"Fine! I'll Make you regret every one of those words!" Gilda roared furiously.
The gryphon extended all of her talons, and slashed at her face brutally. AJ turned away at the last second and Gilda only managed to catch her left side, but it bled profusely. She could do nothing to protect herself from the assault that was coming against her body with her legs and arms bound. The gryphoness continued to used her talons to score deep cuts and gashes where she could on Applejack's exposed body.
All of a sudden she was in the orange farmer's face, "You can never have my Dashie. I won't allow it! Even if I have to kill you to make sure you stay away from her!"
This was it and the blonde farmer knew it, she would willingly die for her honest love. The gryphoness strode over to the stockpile of metal items, grabbed a long sharpened rod, and then walked threateningly back towards Applejack. No matter what happened here tonight the orange mare would always love the rainbow maned pegasus she gave her heart to.
"Say goodbye to everything you've ever known you disgusting peasant!" Gilda roared as she rushed forward with her weapon held at the ready.
It was at that moment that fate decided to intervene. The front door was blown open with an amazing amount of force from an athletic mare with wings. Now standing in the opening of the stone building was a cyan mare with a rainbow mane the farmer knew all too well, it was her Rainbow Dash.
She screamed out in anger, "GILDA, WHAT IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO MY JACKIE?"