//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: Always connected 
// by The-rogue-shadow 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow Dash stood enraged against the imposter; an exact duplicate of her wife, in all ways but the dark orange wings that Applejack now had. What was worse, the imposter had attacked her at her own home, an act of war in Rainbow’s book.

“Oh IT…IS…ON,” threatened Rainbow, the imposter was rubbing her neck after the strange attack that had knocked Rainbow onto her back.
“Please Rainbow, it’s me, Applejack, your best friend,” pleaded the imposter, beginning to tear up. “Ah know that this is hard to believe, but ya really are in a coma. Me and Big mac saved you from Gilda. You are in the Ponyville hospital, surrounded by your friends.”
“I’m gunna stop you right there, Gilda? You think Gilda attacked me. Wow she must be pretty determined to have come back from the dead,” said Rainbow mockingly.

“What do you mean dead?” asked the imposter, her eyes had widened and she began to back away from Rainbow.
“See… You really should have done your homework. Gilda died years ago, when she went on a rampage in Ponyville. Pinkie Pie tried to stop her, and paid for it. So… I hunted Gilda down and avenged Pinkie, because that’s what friends do,” Rainbow explained, struggling to keep her eyes dry as she remembered. Applejack walked up to her and draped a wing around her.

“It’s okay sugarcube, we all understand why you did it, and we love you for it,” said Applejack, giving Rainbow a kiss on the cheek. Rainbow cleared her throat, stood up straight and looked at the imposter.
“You now have a choice, either you leave now, and I forget this, or I make you regret coming here today.”

Applejack’s heart had sank, Rainbow refused to believe that she was in a coma and what was worse, was even willing to attack her to protect this dream reality. Applejack remembered what Twilight said;

“Things might be completely different to the real world” Applejack realised just how true this was when Rainbow revealed the news about Pinkie and Gilda.
‘Ah can’t believe it, Rainbow killed Gilda! Is this what she’s really like?’ thought Applejack, almost disgusted at the new Rainbow. But then she saw the look of regret on Rainbow’s face, and her doubts were washed away, this was the same Rainbow, just reacting to new, false memories.

Rainbow gave Applejack a choice; to leave, or get hurt. Applejack decided on coming back when she had a more tangible and solid plan. She ran off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres, thinking to hide in the barn until she could come up with an idea. As she used a shortcut that cut through the orchard, she was suddenly stopped by the Pegi-jack.

“Ah know what you’re doing here, you are tryin to take Rainbow back, but she can’t go back, it’s too dangerous out there. She needs to stay in here where it’s safe,” said Pegi-jack. Applejack looked at her in disbelief. 
“What? You know that this ain’t real? How?” she asked, slyly looking around for a way out.
“You simple minded pony, of course ah know. Ah am Rainbow’s Intelligence, her logic, her lover,” she said, having an obvious dig at Applejack.

“Well then, if you’re so smart, you should know that she is perfectly safe to wake up, the dangers over,” said Applejack, her voice full of venom as the Pegi-jack hovered above her.
“No, it won’t be safe until Gilda is dead, otherwise this could happen again. Ah cant, ah won’t let it happen again,” the Pegi-jack replied angrily, her coat turning a redder shade and her mane began to smoke like it was about to catch alight. “Ah suggest you leave now, before I do something you will regret.”
“Ah’ll regret, look at what you’ve done to Rainbow. She was a broken down half version of herself back there,” shouted Applejack, feeling the same strange sensation in her throat as before. “The memory of Killing Gilda is causing more damage than the attack itself.”

“You just don’t get it do you. Ah love Rainbow! More than you ever could!” said Pegi-jack.  Applejack yelled at the top of her lungs, no words, just noise. The same strange vocal power came out, cutting sections out of the trees on either side, but Pegi-jack didn’t move. Instead, she let out a laugh that cut deep into Applejack’s soul.
“You have no power against me. Ah’m the strongest mental construction in here. You’re not going to win if you continue down this path,” she told her, a look of amused anger on her face. She then flew off, leaving Applejack alone. Applejack sat down and cried; hopelessness washing over her.

‘But ah love Rainbow,’ she thought to herself, and allowed her mind to wander through the memories of her and Rainbow; competing in the running of the leaves, spending time helping each other do work, and the time they told each other how their parents had died, secrets they had never told anypony else.
“No! ah will not give up. Ah’ve got a whole day to try again, and ah’m not going to let some winged polecat take her away from me,” she vowed. Then a voice behind her made her jump.
“Good, I think I can help.”

Rainbow laid down on her cloud bed, depressed over the day’s events. The imposter seemed so sure that she was Applejack, her eyes had seemed more honest that her wife’s had ever been. Applejack walked into the room and lay down next to Rainbow.

“What’s wrong sugarcube?” she asked, nuzzling into Rainbow’s neck.
“Would you ever lie to me?” asked Rainbow, turning to look straight into Applejack’s eyes.
“Are you kiddin, of course not, ah’m the element of honesty don’t forget,” said Applejack.
“Then tell me, was the imposter right? Is this all just a dream; am I really in a coma?” Rainbow asked, staring intently into Applejack’s eyes.
“Of course not ya silly filly,” she told her. “Does this feel like a dream?” With that, she began to kiss Rainbow, who kissed back just as hard. But Rainbow still had this lingering doubt in the back of her mind, a doubt that stopped her from enjoying the feeling of Applejack as much.
‘What if the imposter was right?’ she thought. ‘And this IS all a dream, why don’t I know that it is, and why don’t I remember falling asleep.’ 

But she did remember. Almost every night, Rainbow had been plagued with dreams about Gilda somehow returning and brutally attacking her, but she always woke up before Gilda finished her off. She wanted so hard to believe that her life was perfect, but the truth was, she hadn’t been truly happy for a long time. The guilt that killing Gilda had brought haunted her waking hours and her dreams, so she kept retreating into Applejack’s arms as it got harder to bear. Applejack was the one who had encouraged her to try out for the Wonderbolts, had cheered the hardest when she was accepted and came to every one of her shows, regardless of her duties on the farm. But still something felt wrong, and Rainbow couldn’t shake that feeling.

Rainbow broke off the kiss and told Applejack that she was going for a fly, to try and forget the day’s mess. She stretched her wings and dove off the balcony, letting herself glide for as long as possible before actually beating her wings.  She flew gradually higher and higher, where the air became thinner, and it was more difficult to keep aloft. She landed on one of the light, wispy clouds that form at that height, and started to think as she surveyed Equestria below her.

Applejack sat in the barn eating an apple as she talked to her unlikely ally; Derpy Hooves, the grey mail-mare of Ponyville. Derpy explained that she was actually Rainbow’s courage and loyalty, the very traits that make Rainbow an element of harmony.

“But how can Rainbow’s intelligence be the strongest thing in here then?” asked Applejack, confused and feeling sick, the dream apples tasted nothing like real ones. They tasted more like pears. 

“She just thinks she is because she knows how to manipulate others, there are much stronger constructs in here than her or myself even, Rainbow’s rage for example,” Derpy explained. She talked nothing like her real life counterpart, but looked exactly the same.
“Hey how come y’all didn’t just help me when ah talked to you in Ponyville?” Applejack asked Derpy, who smiled and looked at her with the wisest eyes she had ever seen.
“I needed to know if you were serious about being in love with Rainbow, and from what I saw, that you are willing to risk yourself for her, well... it convinced me,” Derpy replied.

“You could have just asked,” said  Applejack in an annoyed tone.
“And what would you have told me? Yes? Probably, but I would have no way of knowing how serious you were…”
“Serious! Of course ah’m serious, ever since the attack ah’ve been spending all my time at Rainbow’s side, barely sleeping, barely eating. Crying almost non-stop and you dare question my commitment to her. She means the utter world to me and that’s why ah came to get her, rather than leave it to Twilight. AH did, ME.” Applejack began to cry out of emotional exhaustion. “AH just want her back” 

She finally broke down and cried openly, letting all of the emotions that had pent up during her stay in Rainbow’s mind come out in full. Derpy walked over and hugged Applejack, stroking her mane.
“It’s okay Applejack; I don’t doubt your commitment to her anymore and I’m glad you feel that way, because together we WILL get Rainbow back and you can spend the rest of your lives together,” said Derpy, giving her a warm smile as she comforted her.