• Published 29th Oct 2012
  • 6,050 Views, 335 Comments

And Then, Twilight Was a Marine - totallynotabrony



Exactly what it sounds like

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However, Applejack was a Nuc

When Applejack woke up in the morning, she had a feeling that something was wrong. She wasn’t naked.

The clothing on her body was a bit of a surprise. She rolled over, trying to identify exactly what she was wearing. It looked like a pair of denim pants and some sort of lightweight shirt.

A hammering came from the bedroom door, startling her. A voice called, “Yo, Applejack. You all right?”

“Fine, I s'pose,” she replied to the unfamiliar voice. “Do I know you?”

“No. Just read the letter above your desk and then come to breakfast, okay?” A pair of footsteps walked away from the door. Applejack thought about that. Just one pair of steps, implying bipedal locomotion?

She shook her head, wondering where she’d come up with that term. Deciding to see what this letter was all about, she slipped out of bed and trotted over to the desk.

A piece of paper with typed text on it was taped to the wall. The page was faded a little, as if it had been hanging there for a while. Applejack studied it, her eyebrows slowly climbing as her gaze traveled down the page.

To Applejack,

In the likely event that you are reading this, these are the things you need to know:

The United States government conducted experiments using volunteers from the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the Intelligence Community.

Lieutenant Jackson of the United States Navy was one such volunteer.

He turned into an orange mare.

When Jackson drinks Killian’s, a kind of beer, his personality is replaced by you, Applejack.

Killian’s is Jackson’s favorite kind of beer.

Jackson is roommates with Lieutenant Swartz. They are submarine nuclear officers and the kind of people who enjoy making lists like this.

“Huh,” Applejack muttered aloud.

Something about this seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite figure out why. Maybe this had happened to her before? Or perhaps it was simple déjà vu. She shook her head and turned towards the door.

A creature taller and thinner than Applejack was sitting at the table in the dining room when she entered. He wore glasses, and lifted a hand to give her a little wave of greeting.

“Swartz?” she asked.

He nodded and then gestured to a cup and plate on the table. “Got you coffee and breakfast.”

With a murmur of thanks, Applejack sat down across from him and picked up the cup. The brew was quite good, and she said as much.

“It’s premium Kona,” Swartz replied.

The name didn’t mean anything to Applejack, but the coffee maker sitting on the counter sure looked fancy. She glanced out the window, seeing what appeared to be a sunny day with lots of green vegetation and a beach in the distance. It must be a tropical temperate climate, she realized.

An unusual number of big words had been popping up in her thoughts, to the point that Applejack wondered if something might be wrong with her.

To distract herself, she tried some conversation. “So, nice place you have here.”

Swartz nodded. “We’re two nerdy bachelors splitting the rent while also getting paid for nuclear duty.”

“What’s nuclear?” Applejack asked.

Swartz mused for a moment. “You usually ask that when you show up here. Maybe we should add it to the orientation letter. Nuclear is a term for the splitting or fusion of atoms to release energy and produce useful heat. To the US Navy, that means our submarines can go for a long time underwater without having to burn hydrocarbons for fuel.”

Applejack nodded. “I can see how that would be advantageous.”

“Hmm, it usually takes longer to get the idea across. You're learning."

“S’pose so.”

The two of them sat for a few more minutes and drank coffee. The silence was broken by an electronic ringing noise. Swartz took a small device out of his pocket and looked at it briefly before putting it to his ear. “Hello?”

He listened for a moment. “Yes mom, I’m quite aware what is coming up soon. Happy Fourth of July to you, too.”

The conversation continued for a few moments longer before Swartz put the device away. He glanced up, seeing Applejack’s questioning look. “It’s the Fourth of July, Independence Day for the United States. That’s why we aren’t working our asses off at the sub.”

“So, some kind of vacation?” Applejack asked.

Swartz nodded. “Day one was Jackson getting drunk. This is day two.” He paused. “I don’t have a girlfriend or anything so I have nothing against going out drinking again.”

“Guess you’ll have to show me around,” Applejack said.

“We can always go to K-Bay and freak out the Marines with science,” Swartz proposed. “You should probably have a shower first, though.”

Applejack did notice that her clothing was somewhat rumpled and smelly, presumably from the previous night’s drinking. She obediently returned to the bedroom where she’d woken up and collected a new outfit. The bathroom was nearby and she had a shower.

When redressed in fresh clothes, Applejack stepped out the door with Swartz. She carried Jackson’s ID and money. Swartz told her that he wouldn’t mind.

They traveled in a machine that Swartz operated. Everything about it looked rather expensive, probably due to the “nuc money” he had mentioned, and Applejack decided not to touch anything.

They stopped along the way at a small roadside stand advertising a product called Spam. Swartz explained, “These places are all over Hawaii. Try the Spam musubi. Don’t worry, it’s not real meat.”

That explanation put Applejack on edge, but Swartz seemed honest enough. The dish was filling and salty enough to be pleasant, even if the texture was strange. Paying for it with a simple swipe of a plastic card was also a very novel experience.

After eating, they continued on, passing a sign that read Kāneʻohe Bay. Now Applejack understood why Swartz had shortened the name.

Plenty of people were around, and Swartz parked near a place that was a bar. Some things didn’t change from Equestria to here, and this establishment was clearly made for drinking.

Swartz turned. “Do me a favor? If any cute girls come up to us and say, ‘Oh, what a cute pony!’ play along.”

“Uh, sure.”

The two of them entered the bar. A few people glanced at Applejack, but apparently her appearance was not too out of the ordinary. Strange. Had a lot of people been turned into ponies?

Applejack was pleased to find that they had hard cider here, at least. She ordered and hung out near the bar with Swartz. It was still early and traffic in the door was light. It was looking like a relaxed day. That was until a group of men came in with a purple unicorn.

Applejack’s eyes popped wide open and she trotted across the floor. “Twilight! What are you doing here?”

The other mare was dressed in some sort of flimsy dress and stood upright, turning on two legs to look as Applejack approached. “Who are you?”

Applejack paused, realizing what she had just blundered into. “Uh, sorry. Got you confused with somepony else.”

The unicorn chuckled. “Sailors.”

The group of men echoed the laugh. They were all rather burly and had short haircuts. Applejack noticed a few women making eyes at them.

Backing away, as clearly the purple pony didn’t want to talk to her, Applejack felt rather slighted. Sure it wasn’t actually her friend Twilight, but that didn’t mean there had to be enmity between them.

There she went again with the fancy words. Applejack frowned as she walked back to Swartz. He looked sympathetic. “From what I hear, that’s Lance Corporal Sparks, of the Marines. Quite the ladies’ man before and still fairly active now, just the other way.”

“Not very friendly,” Applejack observed.

“Just basic biology.” Swartz shrugged. “Two of you in the same room lessens the chances of scoring.”

“Guess I should have a few more drinks,” Applejack muttered. “Maybe I’d be able to forget you said that.”

“Just don’t go overboard. Wouldn’t want the local spies to get their hands on you while drunk.”

It sounded like Swartz was joking, but Applejack couldn’t help but ask, “What spies?”

Swartz shrugged. “Chinese?”

Some time passed. Applejack had a few drinks, but didn’t really feel them. Swartz suggested that perhaps it was due to her hearty biology. Still, at some point as the hours grew later, Applejack felt confident enough to do something about how she had been treated earlier.

Swartz saw her staring at where a group of women were flirting with the unicorn’s friends. Somehow, the purple pony had managed to attract a man or two.

“Come on, let’s get some cash,” Applejack suggested.

“What for?” asked Swartz.

“Science. I’d like to study the effects of currency on biological attraction.”

Swartz looked confused, but showed Applejack how to operate the nearby ATM. Both of them walked over to the group of Marines.

Applejack cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but my friend and I are incredibly wealthy.”

Both she and Swartz whipped out wads of cash. Instantly, no one was paying attention to the Marines anymore. Applejack smiled inwardly. The experiment had been a success.

Applejack’s eyes popped open, staring up at the farmhouse ceiling. These dreams she was having were getting out of hoof. More interestingly, they seemed to be tied in with what her friends were reporting.

As a habitual early riser, Applejack was up before the sun. She put on her hat and hurried into town, her mind whirling with possibilities.

Opening the library door quietly, Applejack spotted one of Twilight’s large chalkboards. There were a few notes on it about the mysterious dreams, but it was mostly blank.

Over the next few hours, Applejack covered the board with links, connections, and hypotheses.

There were a few clear connections. It seemed that all people who had been turned into ponies shared a common link of being affiliated with the United States. Their condition of occasionally changing personalities had so far been consistently caused by the beer called Killian’s. Granted, three out of three was not statistically speaking, a truth, but definitely a place to start. Applejack wasn’t going to start running the probability, although she could have.

Standing in front of the board, Applejack frowned. She wasn’t sure of the reason for all this happening, but was definitely concerned about the effects. What if these humans figured out how to make the process work in reverse? There were several other possibilities related to that.

But back to the basic process, it reminded Applejack of astral projection. That couldn’t be the whole answer, but it might be a place to start. Magic such as that was not her expertise as an earth pony, so she moved off into the library to find an appropriate text to educate herself.

Coming back with more books than expected, Applejack set to work on them. It took a while, but an idea began to form in her mind. A particular passage had jumped out. Projections may be caused by an anchor between the projector and projectee. This can be an object, idea, or common trait.

Thinking on that, Applejack went back to her correlation.

When Twilight woke up, she came downstairs to find several of her chalkboards in use. Applejack had pulled them into the center of the room and covered them all in scribbling.

The farmer looked up as Twilight entered. “Twi, get the girls here. I think I’m onto something.”

When the six Elements of Harmony, and Spike, were assembled, Applejack indicated her points in order and laid down her summary of information. “Twilight seems to be a little more amorous than normal. Her Earth counterpart Sparks is known for being lustful.”

Twilight blushed. Applejack continued. “Rarity has been having problems with her language and ladylike habits. Belle, from Earth, was said to be not very polite.”

Rarity started to say something, but quickly covered her mouth.

“That doesn’t sound like much to go on,” Rainbow put in, staring skeptically.

“I know,” Applejack admitted. “I have a few other ideas, but for confirmation all of you need to help me gather more information.”

“Okie dokie loki!” Pinkie cheered. “We’ll be the best information gatherers of all time! I don’t really know where to start with that because we’re here and the humans are in some kind of crazy dream world, but we’ll so totally give it our best shot!”

“Um, yes,” agreed Fluttershy.

Applejack nodded and looked around. “I’d like you all to record your dreams from here on out, every detail. If we can create a database to better correlate our information and back that up with hard numerological evidence, we might just be able to solve this.”

“I’m really impressed, Applejack,” said Spike. “Since when are you so smart?”

“Yeah, egghead, what gives?” added Rainbow.

Applejack scratched her head. “I have no idea. I took an IQ test on the ponynet the other day and it said I was just average.”

Pinkie started in on another one of her rambling monologues. Applejack thought for a moment, wondering if she could develop an equation in order to eliminate the superfluous words. She shook her head. No, Pinkie was probably not mathematically predictable.