Another Apple Sleep Experiment

by Magpiepony

A Final Showdown [Part 4 scene 1]

In the stillness of night, a small pink light formed amongst the apple trees on the fringe of Sweet Apple Acres. Its glow progressively intensified until it had formed itself into a magical dome, and an alicorn emerged from within. Once the teleportation was complete, the light extinguished and the princess found herself alone under the deep cover of darkness.

Twilight Sparkle had many things on her mind that night, and none of them pleasant. She steadied herself with a slow, deliberate breath. If Applejack was going to flee anywhere, it would be here: her homestead. Twilight walked a few paces forward before she could see the farmhouse and accompanying barn in the distance. It had been abandoned for years now, a shadow of its former self. It was difficult to assess details in murkiness, but even without seeing the peeling paint or missing roof shingles, the farm emitted an aura of dread. Once the apple family was gone, no pony, extended relatives or otherwise, was willing to take up its residence. The thought of such horrific deaths occurring within that property’s limits effectively left the house and orchard behind. Now they remained only to serve as a ghost story or legend.

Twilight wondered why her magic had taken her to the fringe of the orchard, rather than the front door of the farmhouse, as she intended. She reasoned it was her frazzled nerves, or the combination of anxiety and grief still coursing through her veins. Starlight Glimmer’s final moments were imprinted on the princess’s mind, carving themselves into her memories. The pain these thoughts emitted had twisted itself into conviction. After all, an irreversible act of violence was the only logical, noble course of action. It was the only option left, as she’d already tried to show mercy all those years ago. In fact, Twilight was no different than her beloved mentor: Princess Celestia. Better, even. Celestia had once banished her sister to the moon, then justified her actions by convincing ponies of Luna’s villainy. She’d even allowed ponykind to celebrate the banishment with an annual summer sun celebration, and that was nothing compared to the creation of Nightmare Night further vilifying her sister. Twilight, at least, had acted with far more care and tact. No pony outside of herself and her friends knew of Applejack’s malignity. She was just another victim that could be honored and mourned. There was no celebration for her defeat, but instead a memorial. Celestia also hadn't had Twilight's foresight, she had to take on Luna's responsibilities herself, while Twilight was able to replace the missing element with a very capable Starlight Glimmer. Being a princess meant making difficult decisions, and until this night, Twilight felt certain that she had done what was right for everypony. She was the Princess of Friendship, and that carried a weight of responsibility. Mercy hadn’t worked, so a more permanent solution was needed. Regardless of her own feelings and emotions, this was the right thing to do.

Twilight took another confident step forward. Her ears swiveled back to the sound of something emerging from within the thicket of trees. Her heartbeats quickened, though not from fear. On the contrary, Twilight was relieved at the prospect of coming face to face with her target. Killing to defend herself from Applejack’s insatiable wrath, would provide Twilight with excellent rationalization for any lingering guilt. The alicorn immediately ignited her horn, though the magic hiccuped from her growing stress. Even a half-strength spell would cause damage though, so Twilight released it without a second thought. True, it was careless not to check if the approaching pony was Applejack, but it was clear from the time of her friend's death that rational thinking was absent from the alicorn that night.

Somepony cried out. The shrill yelp was from shock, and not pain. She must have missed. Twilight summoned her magic again, this time allowing the spell to strengthen first. She grunted with effort as the blast whizzed through the trees. It landed much harder this time, though it missed its target yet again. The spell collided into a tree, its trunk exploding into splintered wood.

“Not this time, AJ!” A voice tinged with anger and desperation cried out. The pony it belonged to, Rainbow Dash, ejected herself from tree cover to tackle the alicorn. Twilight, however, was slightly quicker to react. She caught and held Rainbow captive in levitative magic, before her blow could land. The pair froze and locked gazes with wide, shocked eyes.

“R-Rainbow? What are you doing here?” Twilight stammered.

“Twilight… Oh thank Celestia. I thought you were…” Rainbow trailed off in relief. The pegasus’s desire for vengeance wasn't quite as strong as her friend's, as thoughts of consequences tempered her objective. She exhaled her frenzied panic before gesturing to the magic that detained her above ground. Twilight blinked a couple of times to recover from the initial shock, then set the pegasus down gently.

Both Twilight and Rainbow held the silence to analyze one another. The pair immediately noticed that each of them appeared disheveled and haggard; a stark contrast to the beginning of this horrendous night. Twilight was marred with scrapes, deep bruises, and acid-burned hooves. Starlight’s blood was still encrusted onto her fur, making it difficult to tell a wound from a stain. Her mane and tail were a frizzy, tangled mess, and her eyes were wild with shock. Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, looked notably more distressed than the princess. Her fur was tinted with faint, smudged crimson, as if she had attempted to wipe away the blood that lingered there. Her eyes were far more blood-shot and sunken than Twilight’s, and even in pale light, Twilight could see the tremor in her hooves. Most noticeable of all, however, was the limp wing swaying unnaturally at her side. They silently came to the same conclusion that neither pony looked entirely prepared, or even capable, of the act they had come to commit.

“What happened? Are you alright?” Twilight inquired at last, concerned.

“I’m here… So, let’s just skip the details.” Rainbow responded, her voice listless and resolved.

“I guess I don’t have to ask why you’re here.” Twilight whispered, wishing her friend could have been spared the weight of what act was to come.

“Yeah. We both know where this ends.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash peered into the distance and lingered on the sight of the farmhouse.

“You don’t have to go. You don’t have to do this. There’s no point in both of us dirtying our hooves.” Twilight offered, hoping her friend would grant her this small mercy.

Rainbow Dash swallowed hard. She didn't correct the princess by volunteering the information that her hooves were already dirty. Although it was a trick orchestrated by Applejack, she still carried the guilt as if she had murdered Soarin of her own volition. Rainbow chose to change the subject instead.

“We should have finished this. She should never have left these trees alive. Ponies died because we were too weak to bring ourselves to do what was right! I’m not going to fail again.”

Each word struck Twilight like a series of sharp blades. She conceded. There were no small mercies this night, and there were no happy endings promised with the dawn. In lieu of a response, Twilight merely started walking towards the farmhouse, and the pegasus followed suit. Soon the pair left the relative safety of tree cover, to walk the bare, open field. The eerie similarities of pursuing Applejack now, versus seven years ago, were uncanny. The air was as thick and hot, the trees as shriveled and unkempt, and the dread as daunting and all-consuming.

The silence between the mares exploded into a symphony of metal springs and frightened screams. Sharp, jagged teeth embedded themselves into Rainbow Dash’s left forelimb with a strength that greatly outweighed her own. She’d fallen victim to a bear trap; a contraption she’d only ever heard existed, and never seen in use. Twilight gasped in surprise, whirling around to see the aftermath of blood oozing from new wounds, and the metal monstrosity holding her friend in place. Twilight immediately sprang into action, fortunate that she had read of these traps and knew, to some extent, how to release a victim from its clutches. Still, she would need to stop a pain-wracked Rainbow from thrashing first.

“Hold still! Hold still!” Twilight pleaded, her voice a frantic whisper, knowing that they were exposed, and Applejack could be waiting nearby. She raced to the pegasus’s side and attempted to ignite her horn, but magic didn’t respond. Dumbfounded, she tried it again, to no avail. Try as she might, the glow refused to come. Had her anxiety finally willed out over her magic? Rainbow’s hoof remained unassisted as she fought through grunts and whimpers to free it.

Amidst the searing pain, Dash mentally kicked herself for losing her weaponized shovel. It would have been the perfect tool to wedge the metal jaws apart. If only it had not been lost somewhere in the depths of the orchard. After hours of fruitless searching, the shovel had to be abandoned.

Dash grasped one side of the trap with her free hoof, straining to release its jaws. By the fourth attempt to ignite her magic, Twilight gave up, and chose instead to grasp the trap with her bare hooves to help Rainbow.

“On three. One, two, THREE!” Twilight cried out, forgetting to keep her voice down. The pair exerted themselves beyond their limits until the metal finally gave way. Rainbow wrenched her hoof free. She laid on the ground, clutching her left hoof to her chest, cradling it with her right one. Blood flowed freely from the puncture wounds the trap had left, and the trickles that spilled onto the grass mixed with the stinging tears of pain in her eyes.

A slight breeze rustled the leaves of the trees nearby, and gave way to a low, bemused chuckle. Twilight and Dash immediately, and fearfully, silenced themselves. They whipped their heads around, looking for the source they knew to be AJ.

“That looks mighty painful.” Applejack called out, still unseen by the two intruders.

“Applejack! Show yourself!” Twilight shouted in reply, more conviction in her voice than even she thought herself capable.

“I could, but it won't do ya a lick of good. Think that’s the only booby trap waitin' in the space between you 'n me?"

Twilight couldn't see the taunting villain, but the voice carried from the direction of the barn. A large stretch of land spanned between the anxious duo and Applejack, now correctly identified as a battlefield of unknown dangers. Their minds filled with horrifying ideas of what could be lurking for them there.

Twilight was no fool. She flared out her wings, intent on carrying Dash over the grassy minefield. Strangely, Applejack didn’t protest. Twilight darted into the air, but felt a small resistance to her flight. An impossibly tiny wire had been tripped by the princess, setting off an unseen catapult poised in a farmhouse window. A round glass potion bottle was flung at the alicorn and shattered on impact, soaking the princess’s fur with its contents. An immediate sense of shifted weight reverberated from the point of the potion’s contact to the tips of Twilight’s hooves and wings. With her breath caught in her throat and unable to make a sound, both mares plummeted back to the uneven ground beneath them. Rainbow was thrown out of hoof, and grunted as she involuntarily rolled a distance away. Twilight finally found her breath as pieces fell into place in her mind. She was all too familiar with this overwhelming, crushing feeling. ‘Hypergravity’ she’d called it, a potion that could increase gravity’s grip on any object or creature without affecting its mass. Even so, knowing its effects and experiencing them were two entirely different comprehensions. The slightest movement took three times as much muscle and concentration, and from an already exhausted alicorn, this movement translated into agony. Flight was now impossible for Twilight as her wings would be too weak to carry her weight into the air. She glanced out at the minefield before her with a heightened sense of dread.

“I take it you don’t fancy the earth pony life, Twi?” Applejack bellowed, chuckling in satisfaction.

Twilight groaned from her newfound strain, but forced herself back onto her hooves slowly. She ignored Applejack’s jab, hell-bent on completing her mission. She took a step forward.

“Twilight, NO!” Rainbow called out, seeing a trap poised for the princess to trigger. The ground looked uneven with freshly disturbed soil around a small mound. Twilight turned to look at Rainbow, but her movement progressed anyway. A sickly sensation of falling forward overtook the alicorn as the ground beneath the hoof gave way. The sensation was quick to disperse, however, as her hoof only fell a foot into the ground, and her other hooves could still maintain her balance. She thought, perhaps, she had corrected her mistake soon enough to keep this trap from ensnaring her completely, but a horrendous shock was in store for her. Twilight’s instinct was to pull her hoof free immediately, so she summoned the strength to attempt to do so in one pull. The problem was, Twilight failed to recognize the feeling of sharpened wooden stakes that laced this shallow trap. They had been ingeniously angled downward so that they would embed themselves into their victim only after an upwards motion. Twilight shrieked, wooden splinters implanting themselves into acid-burnt skin, tearing open her flesh and cementing her to the spot. The shock and pain muted Twilight’s better senses, and she was unsure how to liberate her hoof without her magic or sheer brute force. Her anxiety and fatigue had all but sapped her problem-solving capabilities.

Rainbow Dash knew this meant Twilight was effectively out of the pursuit, at least for now. Since being thrown, she lingered close to the ground to better spot the other booby traps in her path. She was almost certain she could avoid them and get to Applejack. Rainbow stood up and carefully tip-toed around the fresh soil mounds while Twilight watched in anticipation and horror.

“Oh, lookie here, Dash has a brain after all! Who’d a thunk it.”

“Shut up you stupid bitch.” Rainbow snarled, crouching close to the ground. Her eyes lingered, trying to spot any more trip wires. Meanwhile, it finally dawned on Twilight that she could dig herself out of her predicament with her free hoof. A frantic, shaky hoof dug into the soil around her ensnared one. Twilight was determined to free herself and assist her friend before Applejack’s traps could claim any more victories.

“Let’s see how smart your mouth is when I buck it clean off your fuckin’ face!” Dash yelled, now more than halfway across the field. She peered up towards the barn to check her progress and froze when she caught sight of AJ's silhouette leaning against the open barn door. A shovel with an uncanny resemblance to the one she had misplaced, was resting nearby. It peeked out of the barn, the only thing visible in the moonlight.

“See, I recall it bein’ the other way around last time. How’s that jaw? Still givin’ you issues?” Applejack asked as she pulled the shovel out of sight and presumably into hoof. Her muscular body was dimly lit in the barn door frame. Rainbow felt as if AJ was towering above her again as that dreaded timber monster, and the panic bubbled to the surface. Dash swallowed that down.

“That all you can come up with? I’ve heard better comebacks from Fluttershy!” Dash screamed defiantly.

Twilight finally pulled her ruined hoof free, and immediately shot her glance towards Rainbow. She was horrified to find Applejack exposed at last, her emaciated body pacing back and forth along the side of the farmhouse like a wolf eagerly anticipating its prey. Dash, on the other hoof, seemed unaware of her awaiting doom as she carefully continued onward.

Somehow, even in this mental haze, Twilight got another idea. She raced back towards the trees and bucked her hind legs into them to shake its fruit loose. She gathered what she could of the fallen apples, and started to throw them on the ground, one at a time. If the apple landed without incident, she would crush it under hoof. If the apple triggered a trap, she could avoid it. She would follow Dash’s lead on remaining close to the ground, as the tripwires above would be too invisible and unpredictable to set off on purpose.

Slowly, the pair of mares made their way towards their target. Twilight and Dash both anticipated Applejack fleeing when they got too close, as she had done in their previous encounters. However, it seemed the ex-farmer was going to stand her ground on what was once her land. Rainbow Dash broke through the booby trap laden land first, and immediately lunged at the mare. Applejack was ready for it, taking a wild swing with her shovel. Dash’s heart pumped with adrenaline as she eyed the sharp weapon in her enemy’s grasp. She avoided the blow, but didn't back down. Rainbow was determined to wrestle that shovel away from her target. Soarin would be avenged, and she was set on repeating the same deadly move on Applejack, in his memory. She lurched at the earth pony again, resuming a hopeless dance of trying, and failing, to land a blow, or ensnare the shovel.

From a short distance away, Twilight heard Rainbow struggling with Applejack, but had her eyes locked firmly on the ground so she could keep advancing. To her dismay, however, the apples she had gathered had all been utilized, and there was still a stretch of land to go. Twilight grimly accepted that she would have to keep to Rainbow’s method for the rest of her journey.

Dash was frantic, making asinine mistakes that a calm and clear-headed pony might not. This gave Applejack the advantage, and she happily struck Rainbow with the shovel at every given opportunity. Dash pushed through the pain of each blow, grateful at least that none had yet drawn blood. To any outside observer, it would be obvious that the pegasus was losing, but Dash wouldn’t quit. Eventually, Applejack started using other objects to assault her former friend. Bales of hay, gardening tools, and even the barn door beat Dash down. Finally, Twilight emerged victorious and blindly charged at the mare when she saw a disoriented Dash clutching her head from the most recent blow. She heard Dash scream out in anger as Applejack rammed directly into the alicorn, head-butting her back into a field of awaiting fatalities. Almost immediately, the alicorn triggered a trap. This time, it was a pit, far larger and more deadly than the first. The ground gave way, the flimsy seal of loose grass and fallen leaves collapsing into the pit along with most of the alicorn. Twilight’s front hooves dug into the dirt along the pit’s edge as she slowly slid back towards her doom. All Twilight could do was hold on, her heavy back hooves dangling over the waiting spikes at the bottom.

“Rainbow! RAINBOW!” Twilight screamed, terrified for her life, though it wouldn’t have been the first time this night. She heard, but couldn't see, more struggle between Dash and AJ. Twilight’s hooves started to slip backwards again, her forelegs shaking uncontrollably. She had almost given up hope on a rescue when she heard the sound of Dash’s final outcry. It initially sounded victorious, and a small hope started to grow in Twilight's chest. That hope quickly extinguished when the outcry was followed by the sound of a body falling to the ground, and then a horrific silence.

Two friends. Two faithful, loyal friends had now perished by this pony's hooves. Two friends too many. Twilight couldn’t, and wouldn’t give up. Now she was ponykind's last hope. A scream of effort that swelled in her chest, roared from her lips as she laboriously pried herself from the edge of the pit. The alicorn slumped on the ground, her heart pounding in her ears as she fought to regain composure and strength. She heard slow, careful hoofsteps approaching and knew this was her chance. If she could make Applejack believe she was too tired to carry on, she would have the element of surprise on her side.

Instead, the hoofsteps stopped a distance away, and Twilight heard a curious sound that she wasn’t expecting. Applejack was blowing into some kind of small tube, and the sound was followed by a small whistle of wind and a sharp pain in Twilight’s neck. She blinked, helplessly watching the details of the world around her slowly blur to faint shapes. She couldn’t be sure, but in her last breaths of consciousness, she thought there was something… off about AJ. She didn’t look right, even in dissolving shapeless form. However, the alicorn succumbed to unconsciousness before she could identify the abnormality.

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