Applejack at the Edge of the World

by MagicS

End of the World V

“It doesn’t matter if there are two of you, you can’t stop me from creating my new world,” Blast Miner said to them from atop his pillar.

“I hardly know what you’re even talking about but I still know you’re wrong,” Daylight frowned at him.

“Yep,” Applejack nodded. “There aint no way we’re letting you do this. Why don’t you just stop and give up so we don’t have to turn this into a fight? I’m giving you one more chance.”

Blast Miner smirked before an amused chuckle burst from his lips. “Oh don’t make me laugh! You think I’d give up on my goal so easily?”

“Nope, but I was hoping for it,” Applejack sighed. She felt every strain, every ache, in her body and knew this wasn’t going to be fun or easy. But no matter what they had to prevail here. Hopefully Daylight Gleam would be able to support her just like the last time the two of them were together. Applejack took a deep breath and stomped her hoof on the ground, sending a tremor through it and towards Blast Miner’s pillar, cracking and shattering the surface of the ground on the way.

“Tch,” Blast Miner clicked his tongue and broke off the top part of the pillar with his magic, levitating it and using it as a platform to fly himself back up to the top of the rock face while Applejack’s tremor broke apart the rest of the pillar.

“I see you’ve still got that crazy power of your own,” Daylight Gleam raised an eyebrow at Applejack’s use of Hoof of the Earth.

“Yep. Now you see that giant metal heart up on top there?” Applejack said to her.

“Yeah,” Daylight nodded.

“Gotta destroy that or at least defeat Blast Miner first. But be careful, you’ve already seen a little bit but he can pretty much freely control all the rock and earth that makes up this cavern,” Applejack said.

“Fantastic,” Daylight frowned as she looked around. “We’re really fighting in his territory then. Guess we need to get up to that gigantic heart quickly… that’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d say.”

“We’ll use the scaffolding and crane since he can just move the stairs he made earlier, let’s go!” Applejack said and ran for some of the scaffolding and crane that led up the rock face with Daylight right behind her.

As they ran up it, Blast Miner landed on top of the rock face and stood on its ledge, watching them. “Don’t think you can get up here that easily! I won’t let you bring any harm to my heart!” His horn glowed and he pulled spikes down from the stalactites in the cavern’s ceiling. Though he would’ve liked to have manipulated the rock face itself and knock the scaffolding down, he had already done too much to the cavern. He didn’t want to potentially damage the mine shaft or anything else.

Applejack realized that—after having so much first hoof experience fighting Karza and seeing what Blast Miner was capable of—she knew he would just crush or bury them if he actually could. That gave her a little hope that she and Daylight could actually win this. The spikes though were still plenty dangerous enough and Blast Miner sent them careening into the scaffolding and towards Applejack and Daylight. They tore chunks out of the wood and threatened to collapse the whole thing while Applejack kicked away ones that came close to her and Daylight blasted a couple to pieces with her magic. They were only about halfway up the scaffold when it started to sway while more spikes were brought down on them.

There were other platforms and stairs constructed on the walls of the cavern though, ones that still led up further to where they needed to go. As the scaffolding they were on started to sway towards the wall Applejack grabbed Daylight.

“Hold on!” She yelled and jumped with the unicorn while the scaffolding collapsed, taking the crane down with it. The two of them tumbled onto one of the platforms built into the cavern wall while the heavy crane falling caused a minor earthquake to shake the entire cavern. Blast Miner momentarily stumbled back and that gave Applejack and Daylight enough time to recover. There were plenty of other platforms, construction work, rocks, and scaffolding equipment for them to make it up the rest of the way to the top of the rock face now, but it could be a dangerous trip.

“Thanks for the help,” Daylight said to her.

“Don’t thank me just yet, we’ve still got to get up there,” Applejack said.

“And that won’t be happening!” Blast Miner shouted as he stood back up at the ledge. His horn glowed as he prepared to attack them once more.

“We’re still in a bit of trouble...” Applejack grumbled.

“Leave it to me, I’ve got an idea,” Daylight smirked and lit up her horn as well.

In an instant there was a bright flash, bright enough where Applejack and Blast Miner both had to squeeze their eyes shut. When Applejack opened her eyes she saw something rather surprising—there were a dozen copies or her and Daylight Gleam running up and down the side of the cavern. Illusions, mirages, they had to be, but they all looked totally real and were probably even tougher for Blast Miner to discern from where he was. It was a big distraction, he wouldn’t be able to tell which of them were the real ones and what path they were taking.

“Come on!” Daylight said and grabbed Applejack’s hoof, leading her further up the rock face while the copies went all over.

“Pesky!” Blast Miner rubbed his eyes to get the spots out and started throwing spikes at all the different Applejacks and Daylights.

Whenever one of the mirages was hit it shimmered and disappeared but most of them just kept running and climbing all over. The real Applejack and Daylight Gleam meanwhile took a slightly less direct route up the various platforms and scaffolding to make it up the rock face. A few times they had to jump away from spikes or avoid a shower of rocks as the spikes impacted into the walls of the cavern, but Blast Miner was so furious he hardly seemed to care enough to find the real ones. A few illusory ponies landed on top of the rock face and were immediately dispelled by spikes but that gave Applejack and Daylight the opportunity to land safely right behind them.

Blast Miner felt the thud on the ground when they landed and knew they were the real ones. He frowned and moved between them and the heart swaying beneath its tower. All around the rest of the cavern the rest of the illusions vanished.

“And what exactly do you think you’ve accomplished?” Blast Miner asked them.

“A lot,” Applejack glared right back at him. She then glanced over at Daylight and raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you could do something like that by the way.”

“Been improving my light magic a lot since we last met,” Daylight grinned.

“Simple illusions won’t help you up here. You can’t beat me with little tricks of the light,” Blast Miner dismissively waved a hoof.

“Shows what you know,” Daylight said and lit her horn up. In another flash of light she vanished.

Applejack blinked in surprise—remembering Daylight’s camouflage spell but how flawed it still was. But now the unicorn had just flat out gone invisible. Applejack could hear her as she ran across the top of the rock face to try and take Blast Miner by surprise, running at an angle instead of just directly at him. However, he didn’t seem to be taken off-guard. Or unable to figure out where she actually was.

Blast Miner’s horn glowed and part of the ground popped up, Daylight Gleam tripping over it instantly and sliding across the ground to the back wall of the cavern with a pained grunt, her invisibility falling at the same time.

“Daylight!” Applejack yelled.

“Idiot,” Blast Miner scoffed. “So what if you’re invisible? I can hear your hoofsteps and feel the vibrations keenly when you’re running on the same ground that I’m standing on.” His horn stayed alight as he caused several other small pillars of rock to shoot up from the ground around Daylight’s prone form, trapping her in place. She tried to struggle her way out but she just didn’t have the strength to break free of the rocks.

Applejack had strength to spare though. Before Blast Miner could do anything more, Applejack sent a tremor through the ground towards Daylight and shattered the rocks holding her down. She then slammed her hoof down and sent a second tremor towards the giant tin heart—aiming to send the tremor up through the tower’s wooden legs and into the heart to break it directly. However that plan was thwarted when Blast Miner’s horn pulsed with powerful magic and her second tremor was stopped cold in the ground in front of him.

“As if I would let anything get to my heart. I can still easily stop something like that with my telekinesis as long as its close to me,” Blast Miner said, narrowing his eyes at Applejack.

She bit her lip. With him between me and the heart I’ll never be able to get a tremor into it… do we really have to take him down first?

“Ugh...” Daylight groaned as she stood up, wiping herself off and warily keeping her eyes on Blast Miner.

Applejack also kept her eyes on the stallion as she walked over to her friend. “You okay?”

“For a given meaning of the word,” Daylight grumbled.

“You both should just give up and let me grind you into dust to christen the heart,” Blast Miner said. “There’s absolutely nothing you can do to beat me here.”

His horn flashed and several more spikes came down from the ceiling towards the two of them while the ground under their hooves warped and started to bounce like rubber. He was carefully only warping a small part of the ground directly where they were standing—keeping the rest of the level they were on steady. With how bad their hoofing was now, along with their injuries, they had almost no chance of avoiding the spikes he was raining down on them.

But Applejack had an idea—even if he was an extremely powerful unicorn he couldn’t focus on so many things at once. And the gigantic tin heart was by far the most important thing to him right now. She did her best to stay on her hooves and ignored trying to stop the shifting ground or run away from the spikes for the moment. All she needed was a split second and maybe the help of Daylight.

Applejack sent another tremor out towards the tin heart, knowing her would cancel it out. But that was really all she needed or wanted, Blast Miner frowned and stopped the tremor cold but since he had to momentarily focus all his magic on it the ground returned to normal.

“Shield!” Applejack shouted as the spikes were just a second from impaling them.

Daylight—now steady and focused—lit her horn up and created a dome of magic over their heads that the spikes crashed into. She was sweating a little bit after she turned it off and had to catch her breath. “My magic isn’t exactly suited for that kind of thing, I’ve got maybe one more shield in me so I’d like to avoid it if possible.”

“Hmph, let’s see you two deal with this then,” Blast Miner said as he returned to trying to destroy them.

The ground started to shake and Applejack kept throwing out sensory tremors to try and predict what he was going to do. A moment later she had to reach over and grab Daylight, pulling her in to her body right as a sharp spike of rock came up from the ground right where the unicorn had just been standing. It would’ve gone right through her midsection. That was hardly the end to it either as more spikes came up directly below the two of them that Applejack was barely able to dodge away from while keeping Daylight safe as well.

Applejack clicked her tongue and grabbed the unicorn, tossing her onto her back. “Hold on!”

“O-Okay!” Daylight nervously shouted and wrapped her hooves around Applejack’s neck.

Like that, Applejack had a much easier time of dodging the spikes on her own. Even as they came up directly beneath her, or behind her or right in front of her face, she could dance between them and not let any of them hit. For now at least, it was still tiring her out. She knew that she couldn’t do this forever especially with the condition she was already in. And Blast Miner certainly had more tricks up his sleeve, who knows when he’d suddenly turn the ground to water or drop a boulder on her. She needed to act before he did.

“What do we do?” Daylight asked, understanding how bad the situation was.

“I’ve got a plan,” Applejack confidently replied and whispered in the unicorn’s ear.

When several more spikes came up at the two of them, Applejack momentarily backed up and away from the dangerous ground. She gave herself a small moment of opportunity and exhaled before slamming both her front hooves into the ground and shooting an explosive tremor into them with enough force to blow apart most of the rocky ground around her and Daylight. She destroyed most of what Blast Miner had to safely work with while creating a huge cloud of dust and debris that momentarily obscured them from his sight.

He only glared at the cloud and kept his eyes open, waiting for whatever they might be trying to do next.

Suddenly Applejack came running out of it right towards him while Daylight Gleam ran out of it at an angle to his right, trying to make a long route around him to the heart behind him.

“Pointless,” Blast Miner said and used his magic to flip the ground under Daylight’s hooves without barely even looking at her. The unicorn was tossed off her hooves and crashed roughly to the ground, sliding out of view. “She’s no threat—and you won’t distract me.” He turned his full attention to the charging Applejack. She wasn’t using her power yet even though she had gotten closer, Blast Miner figured she was going to try and take him out in one close-range attack.

He had absolutely no intention of letting her fully close the distance.

Small parts of the ground between him and Applejack detached like mud being pulled up from the ground. The rock, acting practically like a liquid thanks to his magic, turned into four separate pieces that wrapped around Applejack’s hooves before re-solidifying. The mare was stopped instantly as he held her in place but Blast Miner knew that wasn’t enough to keep her down with the strange vibration power she possessed. He instantly spread his magical aura from the rocks and all over her body to hold her directly and then lifted her up from the ground so she couldn’t send anymore of those tremors through it either. And now she was still caught even if she did break the rocks around her hooves.

“There, it’s over. You—much like the rest of the world very soon—are finished. I commend you, Applejack, but you couldn’t be a good enough hero to stop me,” Blast Miner smirked.

Applejack panted, struggling in his magical grasp, before glaring at him. “You’re a little bit mistaken.” She said in a voice that was distinctly not Applejack’s.

Blast Miner’s eyes widened as her form shimmered—revealing Daylight Gleam in his grasp.

“Y-You-?!” Blast Miner began to shout.

“I wonder.”

His breath caught in his throat as he instead turned around and saw a twin of the white unicorn standing behind him, right in front of the heart and the tower holding it up. As he watched, her form shimmered and changed as well until he saw Applejack, the real Applejack, standing there instead. She was looking at the tin heart with a hard expression in her eyes before she turned to face him.

“You might be one of the strongest unicorns I’ve ever met. What you can do with that magic of yours is insane. But you’re still just a unicorn just like I’m still just an earth pony. You’re normal. So you might be right that you can stop my power with your own magic—but then all that means is I need to be even stronger to overpower your magic instead. I need to be stronger than I ever have in my entire life to defeat you,” Applejack took a deep breath and lifted up her front left leg, tensing her muscles and getting ready to slam her hoof into the tin heart. “So here’s everything I have.”

“Don’t you dare!” Blast Miner yelled and threw Daylight to the side, running towards the heart to defend it.

Applejack exhaled and slammed almost her entire leg into the heart, unleashing the most powerful Hoof of the Earth tremor into it that she had ever created. Right at the same moment, Blast Miner reached the heart as well and pressed the tip of his horn onto it—pouring all the magic he had into it to defeat her tremor. He had to cancel out her vibration and keep the heart safe.

Both of them strained incredibly hard, Applejack feeling her leg shaking and nearly breaking itself while Blast Miner felt a scalding migraine going through his head. The tin heart was shaking and vibrating too—a horrific screeching sound like tearing metal was filling up the cavern. Cracks spread into the wooden tower holding the heart and even into the rock of the cavern. Applejack winced as she felt something in her leg snap but despite the pain she kept pushing more power out, making the vibrations stronger and stronger.

Blast Miner shouted as his horn flashed with more magic and he grit his teeth hard enough to crack a tooth.

“Nghhh!” Applejack roared and forced the very last ounce of strength she had—the extra strength and tremors from her beating heart—through her leg and into the tin heart. She both heard and felt something else in her leg break but it didn’t matter. Cracks appeared in the metal, reaching all the way around the heart and up towards Blast Miner’s horn.

“EEEYYYYAAAAAGHHHHHAAAAHHHHH!” Blast Miner yelled as a fissure went down the very tip of his horn all the way to the base and the sharp appendage exploded. Bits of horn flying all over as Blast Miner’s eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed.

Applejack also fell over onto her back, pale, sweating, unable to feel her leg. She was quickly pulled back up and looked over by Daylight Gleam, who had been freed once Blast Miner’s horn broke. But the both of them had no chance to talk or make sure Applejack was actually okay—as the great tin heart was still cracking and shaking with enough force to cause the entire rest of the cavern to quake. Their eyes widened and their jaws dropped as the shaking and vibrations reached a fever pitch and the gigantic tin heart exploded into hundreds of pieces, taking the tower with it and sending huge cracks through the rock face, up the caverns walls, and everywhere else. The edge of the rock face fell away, with the unconscious Blast Miner and the remnants of the tower going with it, already being buried in rubble.

The two mares then looked up to see the ceiling of the cavern start to crumble and fall down towards them. The entire mine, the entire mountain, was falling to pieces.

---

“Boy howdy, that sure was a miraculous escape,” Applejack said to Daylight as the two of them stood back on the road outside the mountain and looked at the remnants of it and the destroyed mine and buildings right outside it. There was still a cloud of dust hanging over it all.

“I know, I really didn’t think we would make it for a moment there,” Daylight nodded—the injured Applejack partially draped over her back.

Applejack sighed deeply and grinned awkwardly to Daylight. “Sorry about this but do you think you can help me walk to the nearest hospital?”

Daylight grinned back to her. “I’ll manage.”

Author's Note:

A few chapters to go.

Comments

[RoboRed]

Daylight's had a lot of time and a lot of trials to improve on her magic since the last time the two met. I figured she'd have a lot more tricks to help take on Blast Miner.

That guy sure made that fight interesting, though. And he went spectacularly.

[redmar]

The illusion trick they used to get past Blast Miner was a great idea. It's pretty clear that Blast Miner didn't survive the collapse.