Chapter 26
Applejack wasn’t sure when she had lost sight of the Crusaders. Not that the girls wandering off was that big of a surprise to the farmer. She had plenty of experience trying to wrangle the trio when she was forced numerous times to supervise whatever new activity they were trying out to find their “thing”. But then, that had been before the Anon-A-Miss incident. Since the events of December, the girls had curbed most of their previously raucous activities and had taken their punishments, working hard to try and earn back everyone’s trust. They knew the purpose of the party they were getting supplies for and who they hoped would be there. The trio shirking their responsibilities now just didn’t make sense. That is until Applejack spotted them down a side hall, and saw who else was with them.
“Twilight?!” The word fell from her lips and stopped there. There were so many things Applejack had wanted to tell the princess if she ever got the chance to see her again, things that she had dwelled on for the past three months, but now with Twilight actually standing in front of her, she drew a blank, leaving her staring at the other girl in slack-jawed disbelief.
“I-I need to go,” the girl in question stammered and took the moment of distraction as her chance to try and push past Apple Bloom. Fearing to have another friend walk away and never be seen again, the farm girl quickly reached for Twilight’s shoulder causing her to stop. As she turned back, Applejack saw a look on Twilight’s face that Applejack didn’t think she had ever seen on the other girl even when staring down a massive winged she-demon but was now directing at Applejack. Twilight Sparkle was scared of her. Seeming to sense his friend’s nervousness, a another familiar, and furry, head popped out of Twilight’s bag leveling a menacing growl at the farmgirl.
Removing her hand from Twilight’s shoulder, Applejack held it up placatingly saying, “Please just wait. Ah know ya probably don’t want ta talk ta us. Ah’m sure Sunset let ya know everythin’ that happened back in December.” The other girl nodded, still looking uncomfortable, but she didn’t turn and leave, which the farmer decided to take as a good sign.
“What we did...there’s no excuse for it, but Ah think there is an explanation that ya’ deserve ta hear.”
Twilight looked down at the puppy in her backpack and with an encouraging nod from him met the farmer’s eyes. “I'm listening.”
Applejack put down her pile of boxes and removed the Stetson from atop her head which she then proceeded to wring the brim of nervously as she began. “After the Fall Formal, we promised ta look after Sunset Shimmer and teach her about friendship. We looked out for her when people came looking for payback for all the things she’d done as a bully. She joined our lunch table and we hung out with her after school. After the Battle of the Bands, she even became a member of the Rainbooms.”
The farmer hung her head and sighed, before continuing in a more morose tone. “We did our best, but Ah think deep we all still remembered who Sunset had been and what she had done. When she broke us up the first time, she did it with a fake yearbook interview. She got close to us, got us to spill our secrets, and then used them to turn us against each other. When Anon-A-Miss happened, at first Ah tried ta ignore it. My secret was just a stupid nickname, but then with the photos from Sunset’s phone that no one could have known about that got published the day after Sunset took them...it was hard not to suspect her and deep down, Ah think part of me never really let go of what Sunset had done ta us. Anon-A-Miss just seemed ta prove what Ah had feared.”
“Why?” Violet eyes narrowed behind thick black frames, while her stance still indicated that she was contemplating making a break for it at any moment. “Why would she have thrown away everything she worked so hard for?”
“Ah dunno,” Applejack said, shaking her blonde head sadly, “but Ah was never good at piecing out her plans when she was behind things. If Ah had been, maybe Ah wouldn’t have lost over a year’s worth of friendship with Rainbow Dash and could have stopped our group from falling apart back then.”
Twilight seemed to give the puppy a look which he responded to with an all too human-looking shrug before both went back to giving the farmer a critical stare.
“Ah know we messed up...we messed up really bad, me especially. Ah-Ah called her my family, Twilight. Ah don’t know about the Apples where you’re from but ‘round here that’s somethin’ that we take mighty seriously. When Ah thought that she had gotten close to us just for another one o’ her schemes, spreading our secrets...it hurt so much thinking how easily she could just throw that connection away.
“Then when Ah found out it was my own kin who had started the account, Ah’m not proud to admit that in those first moments, Ah was ready ta blow up at Bloom here and never speak ta her again.” The farmer’s anger showed as she growled out the words causing the redhead behind her to shrink in on herself a bit. Applejack reigned in her anger though and continued, a note of sadness in her voice. “But, Ah’ve lost too many family members, and Ah had just lost one that day ta mah own pigheadedness and anger. Ah couldn’t bear the thought of losing another, so Ah did what Ah shoulda done for Sunset, and we talked. Ah can’t say all is forgiven, but we’ve been workin’ it out.”
The older girl looked back at her little sister. It was clear from the nervous smiles that the two were not as close as they might have been, but Twilight could tell they still loved each other and if what Applejack was saying was true, hopefully, their relationship would be all the stronger in the end. While she was happy for them, a part of her remembered the sad and hurt little unicorn that was napping in her lab right now and wished that she had been given the same opportunity these girls had gotten.
The thought of Sunset reminded her of what had brought her to the mall today in the first place. The magical siphon she had been upgrading was still clutched in her right hand wrapped around the backpack she was hugging. Chancing a glance away from the penitent blonde, Twilight saw the device was already starting to blink as it picked up the traces of magic nearby.
Oh no, no, no, she thought, her eyes darting to the hall fearing who might see what she knew was about to happen. Not here...not now! But whatever magic Applejack possessed seemed not to grant the farmer telepathy so as she continued unaware of Twilight's growing worry. A faint aura of orange light began to form around her. Just as the teen scientist had witnessed with the other girls, the glow solidified and formed pony ears that poked up from the farmer’s uncovered head as well as caused her ponytail to lengthen into a braid. The genius girl was at a loss for what to do, not that her legs seemed to want to respond to her mental direction at this time anyway, so she was forced to hope that the first test of the new modifications to the siphon would withstand their first field test as Applejack continued.
“Ah know Ah’m supposed ta be the element of Honesty, but Ah feel like all Ah’ve done since the Fall Formal is lie. Ah said Ah’d help teach Sunset about friendship, said that Ah’d look out for her.
Ah said she was mah family.” Pain laced the girl's words but she looked Twilight in the eyes, owning up to her mistakes, and unaware of the magic being pulled from her into the device clutched in the scientist's hand.
“Rainbow Dash thinks you’re takin’ our magic back because of what we’ve done, and Ah can't rightly say Ah blame ya if that's the case. After everything ya did for us during the Fall Formal, getting our friendships back together and unitin' the whole school, then comin’ back ta help us again during the Battle of the Bands, you deserve friends who follow through on their promises and don’t let ya down, with the one thing ya asked us ta do for ya.”
Twilight had been keeping one eye on the power levels the device was showing, happy that the siphon seemed to be functioning as it did before sans the random tears in space, but the farm girl's statement pulled her from her world of data fully back to Applejack. “I helped fix your friendships?” the bespectacled girl asked in a near whisper as pieces began to come together in her head. Sunset had talked about her worry for her friend several times. The one who had stopped the former bully and then stood by her on numerous occasions. Thinking back now though, Twilight realized she had never mentioned this friend by name, only referring to her as her friend or the princess. Finding out about another dimension, there had always been the thought that it might be an alternate dimension. Twilight was more than familiar with the concept both scientifically and through her reading of science fiction. She knew that there was a Celestia in both worlds, but with one a ruler of the country and the other a high school principal, Twilight hadn’t dwelled too much on the possible implications, but now?
Oblivious to the internal debate she had caused in Twilight, Applejack plowed on as the truth that needed to be said her aura grew brighter causing the device in the scientist’s hand to begin pulling in the aura that surrounded the farmer at a increased rate. “And Sunset...she deserves a real chance ta be happy and have friends, but Ah know why she doesn’t want it ta come from us, not after we let ya both down so badly. But we hurt you too, ignorin' what ya showed us about friendship and not doin' tha one thing ya asked us ta do after everything ya've done for us. Can ya ever forgive us, Princess Twilight?”
Pupils shrunk to nothing despite the magnification of the thick lenses. “Princess Twilight?!” the Crystal Prep student gasped. "You mean the magical pony princess, the one who brought together a whole school in a few days, battled ancient magical evils as lead singer for a pop group, and wields massive amounts of mystical friendship power is Equestria’s version of me?! “
It was then that Applejack took a closer look at the girl in front of her. With her sight no longer clouded by guilt and desperation, a number of differences stood out. The glasses and hairstyle were different from the other times the pony princess had come to help them deal with magical miscreants, but that could be in the hopes of avoiding detection by CHS students. The CPA uniform too would make sense if Rainbow Dash’s theory of her looking for alternate candidates to be Element bearers as the rival school required it. But there were other more subtle differences in this girl that the farmer had missed in her relief at seeing someone she had been so overjoyed to run into. For instance, this Twilight possessed none of Princess Twilight’s self-confidence. She was hunched in on herself more from fear than a lack of familiarity with bipedal movement.
“Why didn’t Sunset tell…” the girl before her asked, a note of hurt coloring her confusion.
“You’re not her are ya,” Applejack asked, disappointment clear in her voice as the magical aura that surrounded her noticibly dimmed.
“I-I have to go,” said the glasses-wearing Twilight, snapping shut the magic siphon which had finished with its work, and turned to run for the exit.
“Wait,” Applejack called moving to try and reach out for her again only to find herself falling forward, the loss of her magic leaving her feeling drained as the others had described. Luckily she was saved from injury by the quick hands of her sister and Scootaloo who managed to grab onto her shoulders. Applejack shook her head to try and clear the drained feeling she had. No one would ever think of the rough and ready farm girl as weak, but right now she was pretty sure a stiff breeze would bring her down like a pine at Christmas.
“Ya alright, Applejack?” Apple Bloom asked worriedly, picking up her sister’s hat which had been dropped in the near fall.
“You want me to go after her?” asked Scootaloo who was already turning to do just that.
“Ah’m fine,” said the teen replacing the Stetson on her head. “Just let her go, Scootaloo, ain’t no point now.”
“What do you mean there’s no point?” asked Sweetie Belle. “You just said that wasn’t the real Twilight Sparkle, so Rainbow Dash was wrong.”
“She’s real,” corrected Applejack, “Just not the one Ah was hopin’ for is all. And Rainbow was right about one thing.”
“What’s that, sis?”
Emerald eyes looked down at the girl she had practically been a mom to and smiled, “Princess Twilight might not be back, but given what she said and how much she knew about everything, I bet my bottom dollar that Sunset...our Sunset is back and working with that Twilight.” Applejack remembered the look of sadness and pain in the human Twilight’s eyes when she’d learned about her pony doppelganger, and Applejack felt a spike or worry. “Ah just hope they’ll be alright.” Bending down the older Apple reclaimed her packages. “Come on now girls, the plan still stands and we still have some stops to make so let’s get to it.”
***
Twilight ran. Something she found she had done more in the past week than she had in all the rest of her time at Crystal Prep. She ran all the way through the mall and out the door to where the bus stop was. She probably would have missed it if Spike hadn’t barked to get her attention. Collapsing onto the bench, the teen found that all of her burned; her legs, her lungs, and for some reason her eyes.
“Twilight?” Spike asked tentatively as he poked his head out of the bag.
Thoughts roiled in the genius girl’s brain. Princess Twilight?! The friend that Sunset was so worried about, the one that had saved Sunset when she had been at her darkest point and stood by her when her other friends had abandoned her. Sunset’s one, true friend was her counterpart. But then did that mean…
Before her mind could finish the thought, she was snapped back to reality by the sensation of a cold nose being pressed into her neck. Looking down she met the worried eyes of her number one assistant.
“Are you alright, Twilight,” he asked worriedly.
“I don’t know,” the teen said, hugging her puppy who returned the sentiment with a wet lick to her cheek. “I need answers, and there’s only one person...pony...that can give them to me.” Spotting the bus approaching she stood and tucked her friend back into his hiding place along with the pendant she had still been clutching in her hand. “Come on, Spike. It’s time we got the truth...all of it.”
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I guess it does make sense that AJ would figure that Sunset is back even if Princess Twilight isn't, given what SciTwi figured out about her counterpart. Otherwise, if SciTwi kept quiet about that knowledge, the Rainbooms might've come up with the possibility that Sunset's counterpart goes to CPA as well.
4 down, 1 to go. Better safeguard that Laughter magic, Pinkie, 'cause team SciSet is comin'.
Well that cat is out of the bag. Time to let another one free. Nice chapter and glad to see an update of any sort.
real life take priority. but glad happy ending
This was an emotional chapter. AJ really needed to vent even if it wasn't the person she wanted to. Wonder what the rest of the team will think, or how Sci-twi will ask for answears?
Just glad this story continous.
Glad to know everything is okay with your family, and things are going scalating now Applejack is aware Twilight Sparkle is not Princess Twilight Sparkle; hope she doesn't snap at Sunset.
Love this! It's everything I was hoping would come out of their confrontation!
Take your time mate. Quality is always better than quantity, and we'll always be happy to wait for you to work out whatever difficulties you're sorting through irl.
I mean, Sunset's reasons for not telling her about the princess didn't come from a malicious place. Learning she has an interdimensional counterpart that's royalty would probably do a number on Twilight, like it is now.
Still, Twi's encounter with AJ is going to have repercussions. For everyone involved.
honestly AJ still comes across hypocritical.
uhoh sunsets in for an earful
Well a thing least applejack knows what's going on now with sunsets situation
10826930
Eh, sorta. All she knows is Sunset is here, she's working with SciTwi, and they're stealing magic. Who knows if the Mane 5 will figure out that Sunset is stuck here, and is using their magic to get back to Equestria.
10827544
fair enough
10826499
plus part of her isn't sure how to feel about princess twilight considering she said you can trust them and then they leave her crying in a hallway over a cheap frame job that turned out to be their sisters and she almost got killed by angry students who she barely escape from and the princess wants her to go back to that without knowing if she would be safe there.
I'm trying to imagine the level of Squee Pinkie and Fluttershy will let loose when they see pint sized Sunset.
10415795
And it was pretty obvious that he was being used to encourage his sister to join the games whether she wanted to or not. He never actually asked about her thoughts and feelings on anything.