Identity Crisis

by The Engineer Pony

Chapter 4: Deception

A firm kick dislodged another clump of apples, dropping them on a predictable path to the baskets waiting below. A second kick brought the stragglers tumbling down, leaving the tree empty and the baskets overflowing with fruit. Applejack sprinted over to the next tree, spinning around as she approached it to transfer the momentum of her gallop into a powerful buck. Another couple kicks brought down the rest of the apples in that tree, and Applejack was ready to move on. Without so much as a quick pause to rest, Applejack charged toward a third tree.

The orchards of Appleloosa teemed with members of the Apple family. On Applejack’s right, Apple Fritter hauled off a full bucket, while Apple Honey set down an empty basket to replace it. To her left, Red Gala shook Apple Strudel awake from an unscheduled nap he had been taking. Several Apple relatives trailed in Applejack’s wake to collect the spoils of her furious efforts. And ahead, Braeburn stood on a hill in the center of the orchard, overseeing the massive harvest being carried out by his relatives.

“Whooeee!” he called enthusiastically. “Good work, everypony! Golden Delicious, go help Apple Cobbler harvest those trees to the south. Apple Strudel, get back to work, or I’ll have to come over there and knock some sense into you.” As his attention wandered over the different groups of ponies laboring throughout the orchard, his gaze fell on Applejack. He chuckled heartily. “Applejack, you need to take a break! At the rate you’re goin’, there won’t be any work left for the rest of us.”

Applejack finished harvesting the tree she was at before turning to stare up at her cousin. “Well,” she shouted back, “somepony’s gotta pick up the slack, what with you not doin’ anythin’.”

Braeburn bowed his head in a sarcastically exaggerated nod. “O’ course, cousin. That’s why I called for y’all to help, so I wouldn’t have to lift a hoof.”

That brought a grin to Applejack’s face. “Mighty clever of you,” she said. “And here I thought you just couldn’t wait ‘till the next reunion to see everyone.”

“Well, that too.” With a laugh and a wave, Braeburn turned away, yelling instructions to some ponies on the other side of the orchard. Applejack dipped her head and immediately returned to her labor.

It felt good to be working alongside family members. When Braeburn had sent news to all the Apple clan of the large crop expected in Appleloosa that year, Applejack had known she would want to be there. She had quickly arranged to take the next available train to from Ponyville, leaving Sweet Apple Acres in the capable hooves of her brother. Big Mac had briefly objected to her leaving town again, seeing as she had been the one who had gone to Manehattan the previous year to help the Oranges move into a new home. But Applejack had brushed aside his monosyllabic protests, arguing that she was better acquainted with Braeburn's hometown. So she had said good-bye to her family, left a note telling Twilight she was leaving, and set out for Appleloosa alone.

And Applejack did not regret it for a second. The close bonds with her family members, the comfort of being with like-minded ponies, the satisfaction of toiling together day after day—these were things Applejack relished. While working on her own farm was great, there was something special about getting together with family to help somepony out. It brought a sense of camaraderie and purpose that she had not felt for a while. In fact, Applejack could not remember the last time she had felt this content.

Applejack looked around. She had finished clearing this section of the orchard. The last of the buckets were being carried off, and ponies shouted congratulations to one another at the successful completion of the task.

Not her, though. To Applejack, the job was not done until the last apple lay stored away. Still, that marker was only a couple of days away, if the family continued to work at their current pace. Not wanting to waste a moment, Applejack hurried away to find more trees that required harvesting.

The cheerful prattle of her extended family faded as Applejack headed toward the outskirts of the orchard. She thought she had seen a few trees along the edge that had been missed during yesterday’s harvest. Checking her speed, Applejack surveyed the orchard until she spotted the keen red gleam of apples still waiting to be plucked. She walked toward the fruit-laden trees, eager to get started.

In her haste, Applejack somehow missed seeing a pony standing right in front of her. She slammed right into the other pony, sending them both to the earth in a rough tumble.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Guess I wasn’t watchin’ where I was—”

Applejack abruptly broke off. She blinked, expecting the strange sight to disappear. When it did not, she was left to gape at the pony lying on the ground across from her.

It was her.

Applejack stared into the same green eyes she saw every time she looked in the mirror. The same freckles dotted her face, and the same orange coat bore a cutie mark of three apples. Even the hat atop her head looked identical, tilted back at the exact angle that Applejack always wore it at.

Applejack warily rose to her hooves. The pony opposite her did likewise. Applejack tilted her head in confusion, and the other pony mirrored her. She raised her right hoof, and the doppelgänger raised its left. Applejack tackled the other pony in a flying leap, and the pony fell to the ground, pinned beneath her strong hooves.

“Everypony!” Applejack yelled. “Come quick!”

The pony wriggled beneath Applejack’s hooves. She responded by pressing down harder. After a moment of squirming, the other pony went still, choosing only to glare at Applejack with hatred. Applejack had never seen such an expression on her face before, and she hoped never to see such a revolting sight again.

“What happened, Applejack?” Braeburn galloped up behind Applejack, panting. Then he let out a surprised whinny when he saw the pair of Applejacks before him. Other members of the Apple family raced up behind him, gasping in turn as they beheld the spectacle.

“What the hay is goin' on?” came a voice from the gathering crowd. “Since when did Applejack have a twin sister?”

Braeburn rolled his eyes and stepped forward. “Applejack?” he asked.

Applejack shifted her weight to keep the other pony down as she answered, “I think this here’s a changeling. I found ‘em standin’ around when I came over here to buck some more apples.”

“A changeling, huh?” said Braeburn. He turned to address one of the ponies in the nearby crowd. “Apple Munchies, head into town and find the sheriff. Tell him we’ve caught a changling out here in the orchard.” A pony scampered off in the direction of Appleloosa.

“Now wait just another minute!” exclaimed the pony trapped beneath Applejack’s hooves. “Y’all’ve got this all wrong! She’s the one who’s the changeling.”

Braeburn froze. Only his eyes moved as he glanced between the two images of Applejack. The crowd of Apple family members murmured various statements of incredulity, uncertainty, and hostility. One pony muttered something about the possibility that both Applejacks were changelings, causing the surrounding Apples to glare at him in exasperation.

For her part, Applejack fought a rising surge of anger. She channeled some of her frustration into pressing down on the trapped changeling even harder. The rest she ejected in an aggravated outcry. “What?”

The shout seemed to shake Braeburn out of his indecisive paralysis. He took a few steps forward to stand beside Applejack. He reached out with one hoof to gently push Applejack off of the changeling lying on the ground. Then Braeburn reached down to help the doppelgänger to its hooves. The changeling immediately grabbed Braeburn’s hoof and sprang up confidently.

Braeburn looked between the two Applejacks standing before him. “Alright, we best figure out what’s goin’ on. One of you's changeling, and we need to find out which.”

Applejack shot at a glance at her duplicate. The changeling stood relaxed and assured, with no trace of worry at the possibility of being discovered. Applejack wondered how it could be so much at ease when surrounded by angry Apples who were determined to find out the truth.

“What did you have in mind, Braeburn?” Applejack asked.

Braeburn stood in thoughtful silence for a few moments. Then he whirled around and pointed a hoof at a nearby pony with a pale yellow coat and two-tone purple mane. “Who’s that?”

“Lavender Fritter!” came the immediate response.

Applejack stared at the changeling in shock. The changeling had spoken without hesitation, beating her to the punch while she was still processing Braeburn’s odd request. How did a changeling know the name of a member of the Apple family?

Applejack cleared her throat. “Uh, Lavender Fritter,” she mumbled resentfully.

“Hm.” Braeburn frowned as he considered this curious result. He turned back to group of assorted family members. Braeburn pointed to a pink mare with a green mane. “What about her?”

“Red Gala!” Applejack blurted out.

“Red Gala!” shouted the changeling, half a beat behind her.

Applejack grinned triumphantly. Perhaps she could win this contest and convince her family of her identity after all.

“And him?” Braeburn indicated a stallion who bore a cutie mark of three yellow apples on an amber coat.

“Golden Delicious!” declared both Applejacks simultaneously. Applejack idly considered the possibility that the changeling was merely guessing names based off of ponies’ cutie marks. Well, she would have to do better.

Braeburn continued the impromptu trivia quiz for a few more rounds. Neither Applejack nor the imposter missed a single question, and their answers came so close together it was usually impossible to tell who had spoken first. Eventually, Braeburn shook his head dejectedly and gave up.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “No changeling should know our family that well.”

The changeling turned to face Applejack with a suspicious look. “Unless the changeling knew it would be a dead giveaway for Applejack to not remember her own family.”

“Just what are you sayin’?” growled Applejack.

“I’m sayin’ you learned a bit of Apple genealogy so you could replace me,” accused the changeling.

“And since when did I start usin’ fancy words like ‘genealogy’?” Applejack exclaimed.

“You just did!” shouted the imposter.

Applejack and her doppelgänger moved closer until they were muzzle to muzzle. Their hooves stomped aggressively, and their eyes flashed with stubborn ire. The hats atop their heads bumped against each other as the ponies leaned toward one another.

“Alright there!” broke in Braeburn. He pushed between Applejack and the imposter and shoved the mirrored ponies apart. “Y’all are both actin’ like cousin Applejack would, I’ll give you that. But let’s tone it back a bit before things get out of hoof.”

“Gladly,” Applejack said through clenched teeth. “I know I’m the real Applejack. I don’t need to get all worked up by a changeling.”

The changeling opened its mouth to protest, but Braeburn spoke up first. “There must be a better way to find out who’s the real Applejack.” He turned to address the crowd. “What do y’all think?”

A chorus of suggestions erupted from the Apple clan. Somepony suggested an apple-bucking competition. Another piped up that an x-ray would reveal the true Apple. Somepony else called for a vote. One claimed that it did not matter which one was real, since they both acted exactly the way Applejack would. That pony was immediately shushed by his fellows.

“Well,” Applejack mused, disregarding the suggestions of her family members, “it seems both of us know all about the Apple family tree. But a changeling wouldn’t know everythin’ about us, right? At some point or another, they’d have to get somethin’ wrong.”

Braeburn gazed at Applejack quizzically. “So what exactly are you suggestin’?”

A wide smile came onto Applejack’s face as certainty banished her worry. “Y’all should test each of us on less familiar parts of Apple history. Stuff that only we Apples would know.” She hummed to herself for a moment, wandering through past memories as she sought one that could prove her identity. “I’ll start. Y’all remember the time I over-planned the family reunion and kept everypony too busy to make any memories?” She looked at the crowd expectantly.

An uncomfortable silence stretched across the passing seconds as nopony spoke. “I remember that,” Apple Fritter eventually piped up.

“Exactly!” Applejack agreed enthusiastically. Perhaps she would be able to convince the others that she was the real Applejack. “I set up a fritter assembly line, made the seven-legged race way to long, and put out sewin’ machines to finish the quilt. Then the hayride managed to get the barn destroyed by—” Applejack broke off and turned to her duplicate. “What was it, again?” she asked casually.

For a brief instant, Applejack thought she saw panic flash across the changeling’s eyes. But the doppelgänger quickly collected itself, and it calmly replied, “Well, let’s see...the cart was goin’ too fast and crashed into it, if I recall correctly.”

“And?” Applejack inquired forcefully. “What made the cart go out of control?”

This time, the changeling did appear visibly distressed. The changeling’s eyes shifted off to the side, similar to the way Applejack’s always did whenever she tried to tell a lie. “A cow stampede?”

“Nope,” said Applejack, savoring the sweetness of catching the changeling in a lie, “it was a whole flock of fruit bats.” Behind her, a couple of Apples reflexively nodded in agreement.

The imposter swallowed nervously. Then, realizing that its charade was over, the changeling reared up to gallop away. Before it could, though, three separate lassos had snared it and pulled it to the ground. Braeburn and Golden Delicious immediately leapt to grab the hooves of the struggling changeling.

“Alright now, what’s goin’ on here?” came a distant cry. Applejack looked up. Galloping toward the scene came Sheriff Silverstar, his bandana flapping in the wind as he ran. He ground to a halt when he reached the group and saw the thrashing pony held on the ground. “Why’ve y’all tied up Applejack?”

“It’s a changeling, Sheriff,” Applejack asserted. Silverstar gave a small start as he noticed her standing next to him. “We caught the thing tryin’ to impersonate me.”

“Well, I’ll be!” said Silverstar. His surprised expression froze as a thought occurred to him. “Y’all are certain this one’s the changeling, and not Applejack, right?”

Braeburn chuckled. “Yep. We just figured it out, Sheriff. The changeling’s all yours.”

As Silverstar and several of the Apples prepared to transport the changeling into town, Braeburn walked over to Applejack. “Mighty clever of you, figurin’ out how to prove you ain’t a changeling,” he said in a low voice.

“Thanks, but it was nothin’,” Applejack replied. “You were on the right track askin’ everypony’s name, but I guess the changeling expected that. I just got to thinkin’ that no imposter could learn everythin’ about us Apples. When you go deep enough, the lie breaks down.”

Braeburn nodded. “So it did. But if we weren’t directly askin’ it questions, we may never’ve found out.”

“I know.” Applejack stared absently across the orchard as she pondered. What if she had not run into her doppelgänger so quickly? What if it had replaced her without the Apple family noticing? Could they have told the difference? Or would the disguise have fooled them, when not subjected to intense scrutiny?

The question worried her. If the changelings were getting better at impersonating folk, ponies could be replaced without anyone else noticing. Had the changelings already started doing so? Were there more changelings in Equestria besides this one?

“I best be goin’,” Applejack muttered, more to herself than to Braeburn. “Twilight’ll want to hear about this.”

“Yep,” agreed Braeburn. “We appreciate your help with the harvest, but it looks like you need to go off and save Equestria again.”

“Sure do.” Applejack adjusted her hat slightly to make sure it would not fly off when she galloped away. “We’ve got a whole bunch of liars to catch.”

Comments

[Sunset_Shimmer83]

Yay Aj is okay. Still hope Rainbows alright