Embracing the Darkness

by BlueAzura

Chapter 9

I know there are things in this world (Earth) that ponies can’t eat. However in Equestria, ponies can eat pretty much anything (except meat of course).

Twilight let out a huge yawn. ‘Oh… I have to remind myself to never mention the Apple family’s history ever again…’ The unicorn let out another huge yawn, before slipping out from under her covers of her bed. She slowly left her bedroom, careful to keep the noise level down in order to not wake her sleeping friends. As she was making her way downstairs, the unicorn’s memory from last night started to resurface.

…

It was already well past midnight and all the ponies in Ponyville were fast asleep. The heavy rainfall had ended and a dense fog took its place. The only remaining sources of light came from the bright moon overhead and a small candle inside a large tree. Twilight stared at the orange pony in front of her in anticipation, her eyes sparkled in excitement. ‘I finally get to know my friend a little bit more!’

Applejack cleared her throat. “Alright, let’s try to make this short and simple…” She cleared her throat for a second time. “I don’t remember everything that my granny told me, but I’ll try to tell it the best I can.” The purple unicorn leaned in slightly. “It all started around eight hundred years ago… with my Great, great, great, great, great, great, great… GREAT Grandpappy, Appleseed.” She drew in a breath. “He started a family and from there, bought a nice piece of land to start a farm.” The apple farmer waved a hoof absentmindedly. “For about forty years he stayed at that farm, nurturing, growing, and apple bucking. Eventually, his family grew too big for the farm and a lot of them moved away to start their own farms. Some of them continued to be apple farmers, but most of them decided to grow other things.” She pressed her hooves together as she counted. “There was the Almond family, Avocado family, Banana family, Cherry family, Orange family, Coconut family, Lemon family, Mango family, Olive family, Pear family, Peach family, Plum family, and… I darn forgot the rest.” The earth pony gave a guilty grin.

Twilight, whose mouth fell open in awe, quickly asked, “Do you mean to say that your however-many-great grandfather started all the tree farms in Equestria?”

Applejack shook her head. “We weren’t the first, but we were the biggest out of all the others.”

The librarian nodded. “Of course, continue…” ‘This is so exciting!’

The orange pony gave a shrug. “Nothing much happened after that, we continued working and growing until the entire family was spread out all over Equestria.” Her face darkened as she said, “But after about two hundred years, there was a… problem.”

Twilight’s eyes widen in curiosity. “W-what happened?”

Applejack sighed. “I don’t really know if this was true or not, but there were reports of attacks happening all over Equestria.” She looked up and eyed her friend carefully. “This was about the time when the word ‘Vampony’ started coming up.”

The unicorn leaned back in surprise. “Was your family involved in this?”

The earth pony gave an amused chuckle. “Our family was the biggest out of all the others… What do you think will happen?” She looked down with a sad expression. “My granny always told me that we lost a lot of family members that day… I guess since you’re real, she was telling the truth…”

The purple mare patted her friend on the shoulder. “Applejack, I’m so sorry…”

The farmer gave a sad smile. “Don’t be, Sugarcube, this wasn’t your fault.”

Twilight gave a knowing look. “I guess this was the time when your family became Vampony hunters, right?”

The earth pony nodded. “Yup… from what I can remember from granny, it was the Apple family that mostly took the responsibility, in hunting down the ones who attacked us. Since then, all the Apples had to go into training to fight.” She gave her unicorn friend a soft smack on the shoulder. “But, that was hundreds of years ago and since then, there weren’t any more attacks. This whole ‘Vampony training’ mostly became a family tradition and we don’t actively look for them anymore.” Applejack gave a warm smile. “So don’t be scared with what I might or might not do to you because chances are... I’m not going to do anything bad, Twilight.”

The librarian smiled. “Thanks for telling me all of this, Applejack. It doesn’t bother me as much anymore and my head feels so much clearer now.” She stood up. “Who knows…? I might be able to build up the courage to tell the others soon too.”

Applejack grinned. “That’s the spirit, Sugarcube! I’m sure everything will turn out just fine…” She held out a hoof. “But, we’re not done here yet, Twi.”

Twilight tilted her head in confusion. “Huh? But, I thought you told me everything I needed to know about your family.”

The orange mare gave a sly grin. “You wanted to know everything about my family… that includes everything that my family has to do in order to raise a farm!”

The purple unicorn paled. ‘What have I gotten myself into?’

…

Twilight let out another great yawn. ‘Short and simple? I didn’t need to know the one hundred steps in order to keep a tree growing straight… or the four hundred ways a tree can grow the wrong apples…’ Another yawn. ‘Although… I now know everything that I need to know in order to start my own apple business…’

Not looking were she was going, Twilight smacked headfirst into a door. Cursing under her breath, she opened the door with her horn and proceeds downstairs into the library’s basement. Upon reaching the last step, the room lit up and a few machine started to buzz to life. Looking around, the unicorn surveyed all of the tubes that ran in different directions, making sure that everything was working properly. Satisfied with what she saw, Twilight proceed to walk towards the end of the room, where a small glass cup stood. When she reached the cup, her horn lit up with magic and twisted a small valve open. Looking above and around her she watched, as different colored liquids ran this way and that. The process took about a minute and the results found it pouring into the waiting glass cup. Twilight stopped the process and lifted the cup in front of her, gazing at the now reddish liquid.

Artificial blood… Twilight mentally thanked all the doctors and scientists for this disaster… or a miracle to her. The truth is artificial blood was considered a colossal failure in the medical field. The whole thing sounded good in theory… create as much blood a doctor can ask for in a safe, easy to transfer, and completely compatible to any patient’s blood type. The ending results didn’t even come close to actual real blood and so the entire project was abandoned. Twilight poured hours upon hours of work, reading up all the medical books in the royal library, in the hopes in finding a substitute for blood... and this was her answer. Pure willpower didn’t cut it anymore and she simply needed something in order to hold off the hunger. After her… unfortunate incident with her apple friend, she immediately converted her basement into a lab of some sort. There, she was finally able to produce this ‘artificial elixir of life energy’, praying for it to work. To her delight, it did and now all she has to do is drink it once every day! The fake blood could never completely displace the hunger out of her mind, but it can suppress just enough for a ‘certain vampony’ from going crazy of hunger.

“Well, down the hatch…” The unicorn lifted the cup to her lips and drank, pulling a face of disgust as she did. The only downside to the artificial blood is the fact that it tastes like the most disgusting thing ever… “Bleh!” Twilight sputtered and attempted to remove the dreadful aftertaste in her mouth without throwing up. ‘Ugh… awful, simply awful!’

“Twilight?”

The unicorn froze, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates as she slowly brought her gaze to the staircase. Standing in the doorway was a wide awake cyan Pegasus, who was staring directly at her. “R-rainbow, what are you doing in here?”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “I was going to ask you the same thing…” She turned her attention at the equipment. “I noticed that you weren’t in your bed and so I came down to check up on you.” She pointed a hoof at the rows of liquids. “What is all of this anyways?”

Twilight was a little crossed at the nosy nature of her friend, but that was the last thing on her mind right now. “Oh? I-it’s just my lab equipment…err… sciency stuff! You wouldn’t understand it, Rainbow.” She gave a nervous grin. ‘Sciency stuff?! That’s the best you can come up with, Twilight?’

The Pegasus frowned. “Sciency stuff huh?”

The unicorn gulped, still grinning. “Uhh…yup!” Her left eye twitched, fearing the worst.

Rainbow continued to watch her friend carefully, before finally shrugging. “Works for me.” She immediately turned and left the room.

“Huh?” Twilight stared, completely dumbfounded at the sight of her retreating friend. ‘That…that actually worked?!’

‘Nope. You can’t fool me, Twilight. I know something’s up, but I just don’t know everything yet.’ The Pegasus’s face scrunched up in concentration as she slipped back into her sleeping bag. ‘Okay, what do I know…? The first thing that’s obvious is that it’s something that she doesn’t want anypony to know. Next, the only pony who seems to know anything about it is AJ because I didn’t see anything like her reaction on the other girls.’ She let out a frustrated grunt. ‘Grr… Just what kind of secret will keep her from telling us and keeping us in the dark?’ Her eyes widen suddenly. ‘What if her training with that big nightmare jerk did something to her? Did… did she really become a spy?’ She felt herself sweat a little. ‘She’s probably here to find all our weaknesses before stabbing us in the back!’ Realizing just how absurd that sounded, she mentally facehoofed. ‘Come on Rainbow… This is Twilight we’re talking about here. She’ll never betray us like that, even if she tried! ... I think...’ She grew still when the same unicorn entered the room. Rainbow watched her friend silently slip back into the covers of her bed with a sigh of relief.

After waiting impatiently for about ten minutes, Rainbow Dash relaxed when she finally saw the steady rise and fall of her sleeping friend. ‘Alright time to check out that weird basement of hers…’

…

After much stumbling around, hoof hitting the coffee table three times, and a steady stream of curses, Rainbow Dash found herself standing in front of the door into the library’s basement. ‘Alright… let’s see what’s going on with this place…’ Opening the door with a hoof, Rainbow quickly ran in before shutting the door behind her. When the Pegasus reached the bottom of the stairs, she leaped back in surprise as the entire room lit up again. Still a bit shaken at the sudden change from dark to light, Rainbow scratched her head with a hoof. ‘Well, she was right about one thing… I don’t understand any of this junk…’ She then noticed a small glass cup, sitting alone at the end of the room. ‘Hello… what are you?’ As she got closer she noticed there was a little bit of reddish liquid still left inside it. ‘Wasn’t she drinking this when I got here?’ She gave the cup a quick sniff only to find it completely odorless. Making sure nopony was watching she lifted the cup with a hoof. ‘If Twilight can drink whatever this stuff is I’m sure it’s safe for me too…’ Rainbow gave a smirk. “Well… bottoms up!”

…

“Bye girls, it was so much fun last night! We should do it again real soon!”

“Goodbye and yes, we must do this again at another time, darling!”

“I had a great time too, Twilight. But, I have to get back home and feed all the animals now.”

“Weeeee! That party was terrific! See you soon, Twilight!”

“Rainbow, I’ve got to ask… Why were you in the restroom for so long, Sugarcube?”

“Yeah! I heard a lot of different sounds and the toilet flushing… Were you having a bathroom party without us, Rainbow~?”

“Guh… I don’t want to talk about it right now…”