And that's when I finally made my way back to Ponyville, Apple Blossom! Or rather, what little was left of it after the goblin armies had picked it clean. But there was something far worse a' watin for me there besides the stallion who betrayed me. Something far, far worse... and it was something inside of me...
If the rest of Equestria was a terrible wasteland, Ponyville was the hollowed-out husk of a once-beautiful community. Everywhere Green Apple looked, the cracked stone foundations of houses and buildings littered the landscape. Partially standing walls, roofless homes, and dead trees all dotted the miserable countryside, small and painful reminders that there had once been a town here. The mare closed her eyes and trotted on, focusing on finding her target.
But the landscape of Ponyville, now stripped bare of all the structures that stood the last time she lived here, brought back all the haunting memories of a time long past. Opening her eyes, green saw phantom buildings rise from the ground... Sugarcube Corners, the golden Oaks Library, the Carousel boutique. Places she thought she'd never see again, familiar sights from some dusty corner of her mind. Then the phantom ponies came, trotting by and going about their business as if all those centuries hadn't passed.
"Hiya, Applejack! How's it going?"
"Howdy do, Applejack! How's things on the farm?"
"Hey A.j.! Gonna have a good harvest of cider this year?"
The mares and stallions greeted her as she walked passed, talking to her as if they knew her. But all of their faces were so... blurry, their voices so muffled and indistinct. She did remember them, of course. This one was... Cheeri-something, she thought? And wasn't that striped one Zeco-something or another? Time had slowly caused her memories of her most distant past to fade, and it became harder and harder to reconstruct her first life in her minds eye.
But the five mares who appeared before her now, she knew their names and faces by heart. Oh, it might have been the images and memorials and places dedicated to them all over Equestria that helped her not to forget her very first friends, but it did give her a small sense of comfort that she still remembered them.
"Hey, Applejack! How'd ya like ta go over to Sugarcube corners for a slice of cake? That's be really neato, huh?"
"Applejack, darling... you really need to stop on this whole revenge thing, it's so not your style!"
"Don't let the others distract ya, A.J.! That guy stabbed you in the back, so you get in there and kick his flank!"
"Applejack, please! This isn't you! Killing that stallion won't make you feel any better!" A purple unicorn pleaded, actually stepping in front of the old mare. "This kind of revenge is against everything we stood for as harmony bearers!"
"Outta my way, princess of Friendship!" The earth mare growled, simply walking through the phantom conjured by her mind. "I don't care about nothin' other than makin him pay!"
"Oh, Applejack... I feel so sorry for you!" A timid voice whispered from above her, where she knew the specter of a yellow Pegasus hovered. "The old you would be so sad to see the pony you've become."
"My name is Green Apple, and I don't need some blasted half faded memories telling me what to do!" The mare turned and yelled in anger, causing all of the memories to vanish. "I'm gonna snap that ornery little rattlesnake's neck, and there's not a durn thing y'all can do tah stop me!"
Even though she ignored their pleas, it still surprised Green Apple that she couldn't quite remember the sounds of their voices any more, and they were just as muddled as the other ponies she thought she knew. Even Twilight kept shifting back and forth between a unicorn and an alicorn... she couldn't even remember if her dear friend had become such a creature, or not.
It wasn't long before the mare caught up with an encampment of flesh and blood ponies- ones not of her imagination- at the edge of the everfree forest. Her eyes scanned the group carefully, searching for one particular target, before she quickly spotted a very familiar earth pony stallion trotting out of one of the tents nearby.
"Okay guys, I'll start looking for debris to scavenge in the homes along the north ridge!" He called out to a few of the stallions sitting around the fine. "Y'all just stay here, and make sure no goblins steal our stuff or anythin'!"
"Chocolate..." She hissed, before galloping straight towards the stallion. Turning his head, as he barely had time to react to the mad mare barreling down upon him.
"Green, is that you?" His eyes went wide, as he threw his front hooves up defensively. "Wait, wait let me-"
*POW!* She plowed straight into the unprepared stallion, knocking him backwards off of his hooves. She was on top of him in and instant, trampling the helpless stallion into the ground with angry snorts and kicks that could pound rocks down into diamond.
"YOU-SON-OF-A-RATTLESNAKE!" Green Apple wailed, pounding her hooves into his face again and again, punctuating each hit with a word. "HOW-DARE-YOU-SELL-ME-TO-BE-A-SLAVE!"
"Ungh-Ack-ugh-ARGRAAAHHHHH!" The stallion wailed, as blow after blow sent broken teeth and blood flying in every direction. The mare only saw red, as she struck his face repeatedly in her vengeful anger. Finally, another mare came running out of one of the tents, rushing over to stop Green's brutal attack.
"Applejack, please stop!" The rainbow-maned pony pleaded, pulling her off of the other pony. "Stop it, or you'll kill him!"
"Pinwheel? Is that you?!" Green yelled in disbelief. "But he betrayed you! He betrayed me! He doesn't deserve to live!"
"Yes, he was a total ass, but even he doesn't deserve this!" Pinwheel pleaded "If you do this, you'll be no better than he was!"
Green looked down, and saw the broken and bloody mess of a pony that had been her ex-coltfriend. She stared down at this bruised and swollen mess that lay unconscious after her viscous assault, and after several minutes, let out a weary sigh.
"Fine." Green replied, stepping away from the bloodied and brutalized mess she had left barely alive on the ground. "He wasn't worth my time, anyway."
...
As she went off to sit by herself, Green Apple stared at the ground, no wanting to do anything or talk to anypony. She felt... empty inside, as if nothing mattered anymore, and there was nothing left worth caring about. It was out here on a spot that, unbeknownst to Green, had once been the very location of the farm she had grown up on, that three new phantoms appeared to the sorrowful mare.
"AW comeon naow, sis! This ain't know way fer an Apple ta act!" A little filly with a red bow in her mane declared, appearing to A.J.'s left. "So ya'll got knocked down? Well, y'all just gotta get up again, isn't that right, Big Mac?"
"Eeeeyeup!" A large red stallion agreed, appearing to her right. "It ain't never been like y'all ta just give up like thait!"
"The youn uns er raight, Applejack!" An elderly green mare declared, putting a spectral hoof on her face, that the mare couldn't even feel. "If y'all cain't find a a way forward... well, meybbe then it's time ta find a a new way."
Applejack didn't remember who exactly these shades were, though some part of her understood they had once been ponies very important to her. Their words gave her comfort, and a tiny little sense of hope the mare had not felt in ages, began to grow inside of Green once more. Perhaps the elderly green pony was right... perhaps it was time to find a 'new way'.
Getting back up on her hooves, Green Apple turned and trotted back towards the encampment where Chocolate and Pinwheel were. And for the first time in many years, she did so with a small smile on her weary and haggard face.