"No!" Sunset stomped a hoof on the ground in defiance.
"No? Y'all owe me." Applejack countered.
"Yes I did," Sunset replied matter-of-factly. "and now I've eaten four-hundred-fifty-two different apple-related recipes. I even stuck my hooves together for ten minutes with apple glue! I refuse to be the test subject for any more of your products!"
"But I got 72 more recipes to try!" Applejack complained.
"Who are you, George Washington Carver?" Sunset asked incredulously.
"Who now?" Applejack cocked her head to the side confusedly, looking up from the apple hoof sanitizer she was currently brewing.
Sunset sighed and slumped down defeatedly. "Nevermind." She folded her hooves over her head and groaned into the dirt. She felt a gentle hoof tap her shoulder, and when she looked up, she was greeted by Applejack smiling kindly down at her.
"I'll tell you what: I was s'posed ta go help Fluttershy out at her cottage this afternoon, but I got caught up in all this. Y'all go help 'er out, an' we're even. Deal?"
Sunset nodded and rose to her hooves. "Alright. I suppose anything sounds better than apples right now, but I don't exactly know my way around here."
Applejack pointed her ladel at Sunset warningly. "Hey. Ain't nothin' better than apples. Imma' make an anthropomorphic apple one day, and y'all are gonna' be amazed." She paused and reverted back to her previous calm demeanor. "Wynona'll show ya' where ta' go."
She whistled and Wynona ran from her nap in the shade of an apple tree to Applejack's side, her tail wagging happily as she panted. Applejack ruffled the fur on the top of her head before ordering, "Wynona, take Sunset here ta Fluttershy's cottage." Wynona barked, looked at Sunset and started walking off.
Sunset looked between Wynona and Apllejack before saying, "Erm...bye," and running off to catch Wynona. Applejack just shook her head and chuckled. She looked down to see her "hoof sanitizer" burning in the pot.
"Shoot!"
As Sunset walked through Ponyville, led by an eerily familiar dog, she took the time to take the sight in. The village was quaint and of earth pony achitecture. She still couldn't wrap her head around why anyone would place a castle here. It threw the ambience off. As much as Sunset loved the castle itself, she thought it an eyesore to the town in general.
In the center of town there was a small fountain and a a much more sensible, if not large, choice for a head building. It was obvious that this was town hall. The marketplace was bustling, and as she looked, Sunset realized she recognized quite a few of the ponies there.
Big Mac could be seen selling apples off a cart. Vinyl Scratch and Octavia Philharmonica were walking together, saddle bags full of groceries. She even recognized Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom laying in a heap on the dirt, though she did not recognize the disgruntled cabbage merchant whose cart they'd just crashed into.
As Wynona led her, they reached the outskirts of the town, marked by a small bridge over a creek. On the other side, the road continued alongside a dark forest to the right, and on the left in the distance, she could make out a rather large cottage. She suspected this was where Fluttershy lived in this world, and her suspicions were confirmed as they neared.
Fluttershy was in her garden, desperately shooing away parasprites from her garden. Only a couple yards away now, Wynona barked to get her attention. She looked up with a smile, but it dropped as her eyes landed on Sunset. She let out a sudden squeak of surprise and took to hiding in an empty barrel in close proximity to her garden.
Sunset sighed. "Dear Celestia, why was I ever mean to this mare? She's helpless!"
As Sunset approached the barrel, the nigh inaudible sound of whimpering from the lips of the frail pegasus reached her ears. Her bored and exasperated expression, for whatever reason, melted away, only to be replaced by one of miserable compassion. Her eyes watered as she scooped the pegasus out of her hiding spot into a gentle embrace. "Shhhh! I'm not going to hurt you," she whispered. "Everything is alright." All this time, Sunset had assumed she was the weilder of devil magic. This mare could turn the stone heart of a dragon!
Fluttershy gently pried herself from the grasp of the tan unicorn, meticulous in her resolve to refrain from eye contact. "S-Sunset Shimmer, r-r-right?" she stammered.
Sunset, seemingly free from Fluttershy's spell, boredly brushed a hoof on her coat as if to polish it. "That's the handle," she answered.
Fluttershy nodded slowly. "A-and you're here to help, c-correct?"
Sunset looked up at the pegasus with brow raised. "Are you implying something?" Fluttershy made a terrified squeal and shook her head no. "Good, because I am. I owe AJ for saving my hide from Rarity's boutique." The pair shared a shudder and silence fell upon them, save for the buzzing and chomping of parasprites. "So... The plan for these things is?"
Fluttershy shrugged. "Oh, w-well... Nothing I've done so far works, and Pinkie's run off doing... Celestia knows what! D-do you have any ideas yourself?"
The unicorn tapped a hoof to her chin in thought as she answered. "Well," she started, "I have read up on parasprites before, and I think I've got just the thing..." She closed her eyes and set about concentrating on the irritating noise in her head. As her horn began to glow, the noise became reality, and the parasprites all stopped their defiling of Fluttershy's garden. A rambunctious polka song was playing from Sunset's horn, and as she led them to the Everfree Forest, the parasprites followed.
Fluttershy tagged along to see that the parasprites were properly disposed of. As the music lifted off her horn, Sunset began casting it further and further into the Everfree, but she was stopped by a gentle hoof on her shoulder.
"Not there," insisted Fluttershy, "Zecora lives there. Try down that path." She pointed to a much darker section of the forest, and Sunset complied.
"The chemistry teacher lives in there, huh?" Sunset asked rhetorically.
"The what?"
"Nevermind that." With that, Sunset released the spell and slumped to the ground. Her breaths fell in short, choppy pants. Her eyelids were heavy. Most of all, her horn ached. "That spell is exhausting!" she complained. "I think... a trip home is in order..."
Fluttershy piped up quickly. "Oh, Sunset Shimmer, you are in no condition." She helped the unicorn to her hooves. "If you insist on going, then I insist on going with you." Sunset wasn't going to argue with her sudden, worried assertiveness, so she shrugged and that was that.
The trip to the castle was a short one, as had been the trip to the cottage, and there were less ponies about town in the late evening. In fact, the pair didn't see a single soul on the way to their destination. This was in no way suspicious to Sunset, as the sun was setting in the horizon already. As they neared the door, Fluttershy flew to get there first and open it gently. It was at that moment that a pair of pink hooves grabbed Sunset from the darkness and dragged her in. She, of course, screamed as she was hurled into the air and the lights turned on. She fell into the open hooves of what seemed to be the entire town.
"SURPRISE!!"