//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: My Little Wendigo: Mutilation is Fun 
// by Gothic_Novel 
//------------------------------//

	Big Macintosh turned slowly, his eyes glistening oceans of white. "...What do you mean, my baby sister?" He blinked dumbly, not believing his ears. "You mean to tell me that... that thing is little Apple Bloom?!" He knocked the gun barrel away, gritting his teeth in infinite rage. "What the buck did you do, Applejack?!" His sister snarled and cracked the barrel of her rifle across his jaw, dropping him to the floor, stunned. "Are you bucking joking? What did Ah do? Yer the one who ran off and left us here! What was Ah supposed ta do, shoot my little sis?! Have you gone soft in the head? Ah did anything Ah had to do. Folks fled this way from Ponyville and Ah knew Ah had to do somethin' about 'em. And Ah had to keep Applebloom fed, since you weren't around to be any help! So Ah did what was best for everypony. Ah boarded up the barn door. Ah led the stragglers up here. And Ah killed 'em. Cut their throats like they was baked apples. And when Ah was done, Ah threw 'em down there for Applebloom." She leveled her rifle at him again. "Unlike you, Ah'm lookin' after what's left of the family. Because you were off in Ponyville tryin' to help ponies who don't even matter anymore!"

Big Macintosh moved to get to his feet, but Applejack pressed closer. "You don't want to do that," she intoned coldly. Big Macintosh leered at her, his defiance of the broken fiend that was once his flesh and blood far outweighing his fear of her. "Why's that?" A queer smile crossed Applejack's lips as a piercing scream resounded from the floor below. Derpy's eyes widened farther than any physician (were there any left) would deem medically possible. "DINKY!" she screamed, racing toward the edge of the balcony. Applejack lashed out at her brother with her hind legs, hitting him squarely in the face and sending him sprawling. She quickly swung the rifle toward Derpy. "Oh no you don't, you freak. Ah'm not lettin' any of you mess this up. Just ya'll wait and see, when this blows over, they'll find a way to cure her, and then Ah'll have done my duty as her sister and saved her life. But to make sure that can happen, Ah need to feed her. And you're not gettin' in the way of that, do you understand me? As a matter of fact, maybe Ah should just tie you up now, throw you down there with her. Save me a heap load of trouble later on."

Applejack shrugged. "Shoot, it'd be better to just kill you now. No pun intended, of course." She raised the rifle to her shoulder and slowly squeezed the trigger.* Fortunately for Derpy, Big Macintosh had broken out of his stupor and decided to tackle her at that very moment, sending the bullet meant for the lovable mailmare through the roof of the barn. He slammed his front hoof into Applejack's face wildly and repeatedly, without inhibition. Whatever had crept into her head, it wasn't his sister that was in control of the orange earth pony's body. There was a loud crack as several of her teeth were snapped and knocked from their niches by the concussive blows. Finally, she managed to get her legs beneath him and kicked upward violently, launching him clear across the loft with the force of her unfiltered loathing. "Yo sub ob a bith!" She snarled, her face an alien landscape of arduous mountains and crimson rivers. She staggered toward her brother, intent on tearing his throat from his neck for what he had done to her. However, she creaked to an unsteady halt as the click of a rifle hammer being cocked echoed from behind her.

Slowly, the battered body and mental wreckage that was once the proud and admirable Applejack succeeded in performing an awkward about-face. What she saw would shock her, even in her current delirium. Standing before her, rifle to her shoulder in a nervous but effective fashion, was Ponyville's long most timid resident. "...Sha?" She lisped, blinking painfully from behind the swollen mask of her beaten face. Fluttershy shook her head, tears cascading down her face and heaving sobs wracking her small form. "Who... w-who are you?" She choked. "WHO THE BUCK ARE YOU?!" The young farm girl was paralyzed with disbelief. Never in her entire life had Fluttershy sworn or raised her voice. Now, not only had she done both of those, but she was threatening one of her closest friends with a dangerous weapon. "Sha... Sha, ith be. Ith Abblejagh." The silence within the barn was so thick it could be cut with a blade. It hung heavily around them like a dense fog for what seemed like hours, but could really only have been mere seconds. "...No." Applejack winced. "...Do?" "No. No, no, no, no!" Fluttershy's eyes were aflame with a hatred nopony in all of Equestria could have imagined her of containing. ""I don't know what the buck you are... But you're not Applejack. YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND!" Hardly taking the time to aim, Fluttershy wrenched back the trigger, and the discharge of the rifle seemed like the destruction of their entire universe from within those dead wooden walls.
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*Don't ask me how she does this with hooves. It's a wonder they can hold anything, so I don't think physics apply.