Stallions of the Apocalypse

by BronyWolfGuy

Chapter 6 - Note: "Read through it ALL"

“Ya okay Sugarcube?”.

Applejack was leading Fluttershy through the maze, she had no idea what has already transpired to her friends. Applejack was looking back at Fluttershy, who was dragging slowly eyeing ever detail of the bushes.

“Ya know, tha bushes can’t hurt ya”.
“Y-yes . . . But in bushes lurk”.

She took a loud gulp. And darted her eyes to both sides of her shrubbery walls.

“M-monsters can jump out”.
“Naw naw Sugarcube, come saddle next tah me we’ll get through this”.

Fluttershy darts towards Applejack before tripping over a rock, projetiling her into the ground next to Applejack. Applejack gave out a sigh and helped her up.

“T-thank you”.
“That’s okay Sugarcube, just be careful”.

They get to making tracks again. Applejack came up with a light bulb idea to keep Fluttershy from getting scared and slowing down again.

“How about we talk? Ya know, to keep ya distracted Sugarcube”.
“O-okay . . . I . . . Would like to ask something”.
“Hit it darling!”.

Applejack had massed some enthusiasm into it, to keep Fluttershy entertained, she seemed willing to talk and she didn’t want to lose that.

“You . . . Always call other ponies Sugarcube”.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. If it’s okay . . . W-why . . . Do you do that?”

She stopped, putting her hoof to her chin thinking. Fluttershy paused and watched, waiting for a answer.

“Ya know Sugarcube”.

She continued walking with a big smile on her face.

“I don’t rightly know”.

Fluttershy pursued beside her.

“I guess it’s like your brother’s eeyup”.
“Guess it is Sugarcube”.

They continued walking, giggling to each other. While unaware Death was watching them from the bushes.

“So. You thought it be best in numbers, smarter than the other ponies”.

The ground started to rumble, forcing Fluttershy back into her scared, timid nature and drop to the floor cowering. Applejack had continued ahead before realising that Fluttershy had dropped to the floor. She turned around with a stern look.

“Come on Sugarcube what’s gotten over ya now?”.

Then she picked up how much the ground was rumbling. It started to pick up and feel like a earthquake, with the dirt breaking up into cracks.

“F-Fluttershy!”.
Fluttershy looked up to Applejack with a jolt in response to the yelling. Another wall of green had burst out, and separated them.

“Run Sugarcube run!”.

Fluttershy’s face was overcome with fear as she scrabbled to get up and run in the opposite direction to Applejack’s cries.

“It’s n-no good! I’m trapped! There’s a-another one!”.
“Fly Sugarcube!”
“I-I can’t the walls are closing in!”.
“Don’t worry darling I’ma comin!”.

Applejack ran to the bush walls and started to break away twigs to get through.

“A-applejack! T-they squeezing me!”.
“Hold on Fluttershy! Push against them!”.
“I-I can’t!”

Applejack kept breaking through the wall as fast as she could, the twigs were stabbing at her face and cutting her mouth as she broke through them.

“A-Applejack I-I can’t!”.

Applejack drew back in shock when a huge scream had emerged from Fluttershy’s prison, it was the loudest she ever heard Fluttershy scream. Not any monster could have made her scream like that.

“S-sugarcube?”

There was no noise from the wall.

“F-Fluttershy?”

The wall did not reply.

“P-please answer me?”

From the broken wall some eyes appeared staring at Applejack. Applejack let lose tears of happiness to see Fluttershy live and well.

“Y-ya had me scared thar Sugarcube. Come on let‘s get you out of there”.

She goes into to free Fluttershy from the bramble again.

“Ya must be really have been scared, not talking an all”.

Fluttershy rubbed again Applejack’s head. Applejack looked towards the pair of eyes looking at her.
“S-Suga”.

Death had emerged at her, grabbing a kiss on her again before she had time to jump back. That was the second one, as she realised.

“Y-ya!”.
“Mmm? Your sandglass is running out of time”.
“W-what about Fluttershy?”.
“That one in the bushes? You know that already”.

She charged him into the ground and hung over him.

“S-she didn’t deserve that! She was at kindest pony ya’d ever meet, she didn’t nothin fa no pony but kind deeds, she looked aftah all the animals, she was too good to die!”.
“Too good? You ponies all think that your somehow exempt from dying. You all are so foolish, like children thinking that little pet budgie is just sleeping while your dear mother buys you a new one without you knowing”.
“We ain’t children!”.
“Aren’t. And yes you are, your snivelling over your friend, and losing control over your emotions, even though, you know that death will come to everyone eventually”.
“Yah but not ta tha young! She still had ha whole life ahead of ha”.
“Death doesn’t choose a age”.
“Yah YA do! Yar choosing who dies! It’s all ya! Ya can’t hide in ya fancy words to hide from takin tha guilt!”.

Applejack felt herself lift up as Death’s hollowing smile had been lost and his eyes and horn was glowing with that black and red mist that happened when he lifted his brother up in the same fashion. He got to his legs, and Applejack could feel her neck tighten and tighten. He was cutting off the airway, she gagged and gasped as she struggled for air. She could feel a cold come over her as the color left her face.

“I am death, death has no guilt, no pity and has only the purpose to end”.

Applejack tried holding on, she could feel her own life slip away as he was putting a end to her, as he said, his face was emotionless, not with pity, or mercy, but neither with joy, or sadistic glee. Her eyes began to fight against her as they started to close and lose sight of the world. She struggled and struggled, until finally, she was broken free.

She fell to the ground with a thud and laid there, trying to recuperate and give life back to her lungs. Death’s magic was still in effect and the element of honesty dangled above her. She was oblivious to this as she was still gagging and filling her lungs again with air. This was a pained experience, her airway was weakened through the magic’s force and the sudden flow of air like a escaping river dragged across, sending stinging and pain throughout her throat.

“Thank you, this will make a fine finishing touch to my collection”.

He wore the element around his neck as Applejack looked at him, feeling too weak to do anything, and knowing fully well that even if she tried, she wouldn’t beat him, and would most likely, end up like Fluttershy, and unbeknownst to her, Zecora as well.

“B-but ya still need Fluttershy’s element”.
“I have it already”.

From the shrubbery walls that is now Fluttershy’s crypt the element of kindness emerges. Death did the same and held his head up high and with pride as he now wore two elements of harmony.

“You see your futility”.

Applejack did not reply. She slumped her head down into the dirt as Death continued his speech.

“Every pony will feel what you are feeling, your friend Pinkie… Fluttershy…Your no pony special, no pony is. Death will take all”.

Applejack lifted her head to Death. He was surprised to her stubborn ability to continue, but unimpressed.

“Is tha so? Well … Mr Death”.

Death tilted his head, Applejack had suddenly regained to bravado, even near dead.

“What?”
“Well, if ya say Death will take all. Will ya take yaself and ya brothers?”.

Death, drew back to such a complex question, paused but moments, his neutral expression returned after his moment of bearing some emotion, that of worry.

“If I must, I must”.
“Well, when will tha be?”.
“… When it does”.
“Ya say na pony is special, tha must include you”.

Death stood still, he had never faced such a complex puzzle of his own existence, if he would follow what his destiny had laid out, when would destiny choose him to destroy himself and his brothers?

Death quickly dispersed such ideas, replaced with rage and angry.

“I AM NOT A PONY, I AM DEATH!!”.

His magic clasped her throat again, and made her squirm in the dirt as it tightened and never acted so cruel to a victim. He then , taking his fill of squeezing the life out of her, flung her into the labyrinth wall, her gasp let out a cough of blood as he dropped her into another weakened state.

He disappears into the walls, now with the final elements of his plan. Applejack blacks out, watching him walks away before her eyes close. She awakes again to a owl hoot. She’s been out long enough for the night to drift into the witching hour of midnight. She mustered up onto her hooves and looked around dazed. She looked saw the square of labyrinth walls and quickly remembered. Fluttershy’s body was still stuck in there.

She quickly bolted her way to Fluttershy’s side and started to work again to remove the bramble, the piercing and scratching was nothing compared to what Death put her through. Through force and time she had made her way through, poking her head in, she sees Fluttershy’s body, still and motionless. Tears began to fill her eyes.

“Darling … You poor thing”.

She dives into the walls next to Fluttershy’s body and looks over it.

“Poor poor thing”.

She cannot stop herself from crying now, as she laid beside her, gems of tears fall to the dirt and get consumed. Applejack rubs her head against Fluttershy’s, which is stone cold and tough. Before throwing her head into her hooves and letting go with her emotions.

“I-I couldn’t save you”.

As she cried, she felt a warm feel nudge her side.

“Death. Leave ma alone. Or you back at finish me?”.
“Applejack?”.

Applejack turned around, Fluttershy was looming over her, confused why she was crying and why she thought she was Death. Applejack stared trying to render if this was just her mind playing tricks on her and making her see ghosts, or if Fluttershy actually just spoke to her.

“Applejack, why are you staring at me?… I-is there something behind me?”.

She quickly turned around, and she went into her conscious self again. Looking around the bushes and drops covering her eyes up. Applejack got up and stood over her, her tears were still falling, and dropped on Fluttershy’s nose, making her squeak and look up.

“Ya…ya okay”.
“Oh…yeah…I guess I might have…fainted”.
“I thaught ya were dead”.

Fluttershy stands up and wipes the tears from Applejack’s eyes.

“Don’t worry now, I’m okay”.
“But…how come …Death…didn’t kill ya?”.

Fluttershy just looked, lost in that question.

“…Lets just get outta this ditch and find the others Sugarcube”.

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