Re:Harmony

by starcross7

56 - Bloom

It was dark. Ominous clouds glowed green and thundered their crimson lightning against each other. Below, the earth lay asunder. Landmasses were uprooted. Every known tree was burned down and scorched. Polluted pools of oil, blood, and water filled the cornucopia of craters and crevices. Airships and cloudships lay smoldering in blazing fires amongst flattened tanks and other artillery. Bodies of dead ponies, pegasi, earth pony, and even unicorn, littered the landscape.

The trap kept Twilight for too long. The war was lost, but who was the victor? Cautiously Twilight trotted through the wasteland, and she felt the ground below her hooves seem farther from her muzzle. She even felt some added weight on her back. Time, however it passed for her relative to the outside world, disoriented her balance, but she kept plodding along, hopefully to find anypony she could recognize in this wasteland. Hopefully anypony alive.

She found them encircling a large clearing, but it was too late. Rarity’s body was between jagged crystals. She might be impaled. By a burnt tree trunk lay Fluttershy’s body surrounded by dead bunnies and butterflies. Pinkie Pie’s body had lost its lively poof in her mane and tail, and swords and daggers surrounded her. Shattered gems and bullet casings surrounded Spike. Lastly, charred branches and scorched apples surrounded Applejack. Her Stetson hat lay next to her burnt to a crisp. A wheezing cough from her lungs indicated at the very least she was alive and conscious.

Twilight immediately galloped to Applejack, and had just that upon cradling her, the orange pony’s body appeared small and fragile. Weakly, she exposed her sad green eyes back at the unicorn before wheezing out another cough.

“Is that what you wanted?” Applejack asked. “Is this what you really wanted? The power of the Elements to destroy the world? As the Twilight of Destruction?”

“Applejack, I…”

“You’re a monster. You killed everypony. You killed my little sister!”

Her cry was her last, and Applejack fell dead within Twilight’s hooves. The unicorn gushed tears as she shook her dear friend in a dim chance to bring her back to life. Applejack remained dead, and in her sadness, Twilight set her body down and slammed her hooves on the ground.

The earth trembled, and sinkholes devoured her friends’ corpses into a massive pit to leave only portions of their body exposed to the air. The unicorn could not believe her strength. She saw the dark and silver horseshoes cupping her hooves. Then she saw her reflection on the broken glass of a downed fighter jet. She was transformed: her limbs, longer; her muzzle, longer; and her height, taller. On her head sat a platinum crown adorned with the jewels of the Elements of Creation. Six dark purple pegasi wings grew from her back, and they fluttered violently upon her shocked her reaction. She turned around hoping that there was a six-winged alicorn behind her, but there was no pony there.

“This isn’t me,” she muttered, and then she shattered the cockpit window with one blow of her mighty hoof.

“This isn’t me!” she screamed. “This isn’t me!”

---

“Fluttershy, fly me back up!” Applejack cried. “You hear?”

Fluttershy did just the opposite. Unable to hold her friend for long, she accidentally let go and caused Applejack to tumble down the sharp incline of the castle barrier to the castle ground.

“I’m sorry!” cried Fluttershy. “I’m not used to carrying anything larger than a bunny, and you are heavier than a–”

“Never mind!” yelled Applejack. “Fly my back up to the balcony, now!”

“But Twilight said–”

“I ain’t leaving her behind!”

Any plans for going back for Twilight were dashed when a spear narrowly struck Applejack’s face. She quickly activated her Element of Truth and split in perfect halves the next one thrown at her, and third one she shattered in splinters. She could not keep up with the storm of spears of raining down upon her, and decided to escape the stampede of Royal Guards by fleeing with Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy down the corner.

A squadron of angry Royal Guards awaited them and blocked them off. Their phalanx formation created a concave wall of long spears aimed with the top layers floating in the air thanks to the Magic Corps’ levitation spells.

Applejack hunched down and braced herself for a possible skewering, hopefully before she could take down a dozen or so Royal Guards. Instead of the spears launching at them, they started dropping in place one by one. Rapid-fire bullets threw off the Magic Corps concentration, forcing them to put up a barrier to protect their non-magical comrades; not that they really needed them, for some of the bullets bounced off their armor or were simply lodged shallowly on their fur. Fiery explosions rained down upon from the sky, forcing the Royal Guards to scatter and retreat.

Who? Who could be aiding Applejack and her friends? She saw nopony with a machine gun or a mortar cannon. Pinkie Pie denied her chance of finding her saviors when she forced the orange pony on her back. With Fluttershy’s tail gripped between her teeth and her Pinkie Gear’s wheels spinning, Pinkie Pie zip-zoomed through streets of the city towards a building decorated with two griffon statues at each side of the steps. A familiar grayish elderly mare opened the doors for them right on time, and the three speeding mares crashed into a pile of books. It didn’t do much to soften their stop. The three waddled up to their hooves with bruises and scratches, but otherwise they were fine.

There was a faint smell of gunpowder.

“Follow me,” said the elderly and bespectacled mare as she sealed the doors shut. It was her; the one at the small bookstore, and now she seemed to be playing the role of proprietor of the city library. Spryly, she wasted no time leading the three visitors to the basement level below and towards a corner wall. The old mare took a deep breath before striking a part of a wall with a precise and powerful punch that made her guests flinch. The corner wall shook and soon spun on its hidden axle to reveal secret passage.

The old crystal mare led them through a narrow passageway until they reached a small, darkened, and roughly carved hallway with six doors leading to six rooms. They might be deeper down into the passageway, but the old mare did not escort them further or even say what they would be doing. Her stoic stare was enough to keep Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy in their places as she trotted back up to the library.

The smell of gunpowder was stronger, and now Applejack’s nostrils whiffed up oil and other chemicals as well.

“Agatha, are you back?”

The source of the voice popped her head from one of the six doors. Unless she was seeing things in the torchlight, Applejack recognized the two-toned indigo and pink mane of one cream-colored earth pony stripped down to her bare coat. Bon Bon was pleasantly surprised to see her former prisoner as was Applejack surprised to see the former warden. The rebel mare was also surprised to see Professor Lyra Heartstrings emerging from the same door. Painful memories of Applejack’s imprisonment and interrogation brought up from within her mind, but they were immediately dismissed when Lyra happily bumped hooves with Pinkie Pie upon seeing one another.

This would be the first time Applejack saw the Nature’s call decorating Bon Bon and Lyra’s flanks. Nopony would expect a mare with three candies on her flank to be a dutiful warden. For Lyra, it would be a logical stretch for her being that she was a Professor, and from what she heard from Pinkie she was an archeologist. To see these two together here in the Crystal Empire would be suspicious, and Applejack hoped that they were not chasing her and her friends on behalf of Chancellor Posey.

These suspicions became more confusing when a yellow filly squeezed past Bon Bon and stared hard and long at the orange mare. The dimly lit cavern hallway went awkwardly silent. Untold emotions riled up between Applejack and Apple Bloom as the former tried to wrestle over her reasoning why she would be here. The orange pony frowned, and she turned her anger towards Bon Bon.

“Why is she here?” Applejack demanded.

“She was riding with the Unicorn Hunters when we were traveling to the north,” replied Bon Bon.

“They’re using her to bait me?”

“I hired them,” said Apple Bloom.

“Apple Bloom, what in the right mind would you wanna travel all the way to the Crystal Empire?”

“I wanted to know for sure that you are my sister,” said Apple Bloom.

“I am your sister.”

“I wish I could believe you, and I want to believe you, but I want definite proof.”

“Isn’t my word enough?”

“What I want is for you to use your Element of Truth to show me.”

“I can’t. The last time somepony else used it they went insane. I ain’t letting you use it.”

“Applejack, I thought you wanted me to be your little sister. Instead, you’re trying to push me away.”

“Now’s not the time. Lyra, Bon Bon, take Apple Bloom and find a way out of here.”

“Kind of hard to do that at the moment,” said Lyra. “The barrier they put up is very strong, and I don’t have the magic skills to go back out.”

“I ain't going,” said Apple Bloom. “Not until you use your Element on me.”

“Um, it’s not really safe use the Elements lightly,” said Fluttershy as she stepped into the torchlight. “Mine is Empathy, but it has the power to transfer pain and damage between ponies. Pinkie Pie’s gives her super speed, but it makes her bump into things a lot.”

“Chancellor Posey?” gasped Bon Bon.

“Mom?” cried Apple Bloom. “What are you doing here? And you’re naked!”

“She’s not Posey,” said Pinkie Pie. “See these? These are the wings of a shy pegasus.”

“A pegasus?” Bon Bon gasped again, and immediately swooned and fainted in Lyra’s hooves. Apple Bloom, however, remained slack-jawed, and it wasn’t because of the feared reputation of pegasi.

“Was it something I said?” asked Fluttershy.

“Applejack,” said Apple Bloom. “She looks exactly like my mother. What’s going on?”

“It’s just a coincidence,” replied Applejack.

“You’re hiding something, and there is only one way to find out.”

The yellow filly lunged after Applejack, but regrettably the orange mare had to push her sister back to prevent her from activating the Element of Truth. It made her feel more terrible that Apple Bloom scratched herself upon hitting the ground, even if she wasn’t fazed by the pain.

“I’m tellin’ you, you can’t use my Element,” said Applejack.

“I want the truth, Applejack,” said Apple Bloom, “and I want it now!”

The apples-shaped jewel glowed brightly, and the orange mare felt an intense heat pressing upon the fur of her neck. The jewel fired a beam that split in two to pierce into Apple Bloom’s eyes, making her eyes glow in her trance. Applejack struggled to pull off her Element or command it to stop. It resisted her, and when somepony truly desired the truth, there was no stopping it.

Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie tried shaking the filly out of her trance to no avail. The pink pony quaked in her hooves before summoning her Pinkie gear, which she used to skate in light speeds back upstairs for help. Applejack then saw the unusual calmness in Fluttershy’s expression, and the pegasus stood straight back on her hooves.

“Flutters,” said Applejack, “what are you doin’?”

“I’m going to transfer any possible damage from Apple Bloom to myself,” said the pegasus. “I hope this’ll work.”

“Fluttershy, no!”

The Element of Empathy split in two and became butterflies of light. One flattened itself onto Apple Bloom’s flank, and the other onto Fluttershy’s torso. The connection completed instantaneously, and two beams of light pierced Fluttershy’s eyes, making it glow as well.

---

Fluttershy floated in a storm of images spiraling and twisting around her like endless filmstrips. Inadvertently she witnessed the filly’s memories, such as her arrival into the Crystal Empire, and her meeting with Lyra, Bon Bon, and Unicorn Hunters. She tried flying in the Realm of Truth, but with weak wings and nausea, she swam instead.

She found Apple Bloom clutching her head in screaming agony in a tidal wave of memories. Fluttershy swam faster, and even her wings provided enough propellant to latch her hooves onto the filly. The immediate touch calmed Apple Bloom, and she looked up and saw the warm eyes of her rescuer.

“Mama?”

“I’m not your mother, Apple Bloom,” said Fluttershy.

“But this is the way she holds me.”

This made Fluttershy feel awkward. It was one thing for Applejack to accuse her as Posey on first sight, and the pegasus became even more unsure of her origins when Apple Bloom relaxed upon first time touch. Everypony so far mentioned Posey as being a cruel dictator. But who was she really?

“Is this your life flowing before us?” asked Fluttershy as she and the filly tried to focus on the moving images.

“It is,” replied Apple Bloom, “and I hope we’re not dead. Good Gaea, I can’t believe Diamond Tiara lied about the value of that dress at my birthday party.”

“It must be the power of the Element of Truth. Apple Bloom, we should go back.”

“No! We must go deeper!”

The filly was unexpectedly a strong swimmer, and Fluttershy found herself being pulled by her weight instead of the tidal forces of the Realm of Truth. The deeper they dove, the younger Apple Bloom appeared in the storm of images until they approached the beginning…

They were in what appeared to be a bedroom. The green and red window draperies covering cracked glass windows were faded and torn. Some planks on the wood floor were protruding, and regularly scurried from one hole in the way to another. One of the armoire door’s hinges had broken off.

An elderly green mare and a red teenage stallion stood at the bedside of a sickly mare, who cradled an infant foal wrapped inside a bundle of blankets. Neither of them seemed to notice Fluttershy and Apple Bloom’s watching presence, but it seemed that the two were there, and yet they were not. Their lack of presence in this event became more apparent when a freckled orange filly passed through them as if they were ghosts. The orange filly squeezed between the young red stallion and the elderly green mare so that her eyes met with the eyes of the sickly mare in the bed.

“Applejack,” said the mare in the bed. “Have you found your father?”

The orange filly scrunched her lips as tears ran down her eyes. Between them and the shocked expressions on the young stallion and elderly mare, it became apparent of what happened to that missing family member. Yet the mare in the bed remained smiling, albeit sadly. She calmed her daughter’s tears with soft stroke to her cheek, and with a painful effort she moved the small bundle of life over to Applejack’s hooves. The yellow babe cooed softly, and she too attempted to wipe her older sister’s tears. Already the foal’s head was covered with a shawl made from a pink ribbon stitched with the initials “A.B.”.

“Her name is Apple Bloom,” said the mare in the bed. “I’m sure your pa would have liked that name, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, mama,” replied the orange filly.

“My only wish is for her to grow up in a world without lies, without prejudices, and without war. Promise me, Applejack, that Apple Bloom will live in that world.”

“Mom, I…”

Quietly the mare in the bed exhausted her last breath, and her limbs fell limp. The tears from the young red stallion and the elderly green mare poured harder, but they tried to remain silent in their sobbing. Young Applejack held her newly born little sister tighter as she cried even harder.

“Applejack,” said the present-day Apple Bloom as her tears rolled from her eyes. “She really is my sister.”

A sharp pain attacked Fluttershy’s head, and then and there, the scene from the past folded upon itself and became a long endless stream of framed images. Suddenly, the pegasus and the earth filly stood in the very same house, which was now in violent blazes. Fortunately flames and debris passed right through them, but the scene was still too much to bear. Apple Bloom immediately gasped in horror, and she tried to back away until she found her infant self wailing in terror at the corner of the room.

“Miss Posey, you can’t go in there!” shouted a voice.

A yellow earth mare in a scorched fascist military uniform crashed through the blazing door. She did not hesitate to step through burning books, linen, and wood planks to grab the wailing foal with her teeth and then doubling back downstairs to the ground level. Neither Fluttershy nor the present-day Apple Bloom could follow, for the inferno and the house folding upon itself, throwing the two back into the storm of images. These magical filmstrips did not show anything from Apple Bloom’s life, but of a different pony. Yet this pony looked remarkably like Fluttershy. Fluttershy and Apple Bloom were then thrust into an idyllic field of golden yellow where a quaint town rose from the horizon.

Fluttershy’s pain had ceased and her curiosity immediately took over. She looked to Apple Bloom, who shrugged her shoulders. She was just as lost as she was.

Right then and there, they saw a yellow and pink-maned earth filly in a summer blue dress bouncing happily as she followed three butterflies through the fields. The filly followed the shy creatures to a flowerbed filled with tulips of many colors. She absorbed its pleasant fragrance before rolling in the flowerbed, scattering a stream of petals while trying to catch the three butterflies she innocently chased with glee.

Above, the filly saw a wave of rainbow ripping across the sky. A loud explosion painfully smashed upon her eardrums, and she reeled on the ground, rubbing her ears.

Then she smelt smoke. She saw smoke.

The filly rose and saw the town in flames. Pegasi soldiers circled around the ruins like vultures, and when they dove down, a pony would unleash a blood-curdling scream sometime afterwards. As the fires died down, all the remaining pegasi soldiers had already descended to the ground. Then there was silence.

Her friends were there. Her family was still there. The frantic pounding in her heart drove the filly to gallop so hard that her delicate limbs painfully ached with each step. The town gate had collapsed. Wood buildings were blown off their foundation and brick structures had crumbled. All around, the pony bodies of Mustangia littered the streets: stallion, mare, foal, and all. The filly gulped deeply at the prospect of finding her friends dead and perhaps buried, but her hooves carried her to the mansion.

She found it, or what was left it. It was completely leveled, with blood pooling around the piled cluster of security guards and butlers. Mare maidservants lay next to one another brutally stripped of their clothes. They’re all gone, the filly thought, and before she could turn around, a hard hoof slammed her headfirst onto the ground. The pegasi horde hovering around her chuckled as the filly tried desperately to stand back up.

Then saw him, the young, rainbow-maned blue pegasi stallion staring down upon her like she was a thing. He immediately grinned at her desperate situation, and nodded to his subordinates to do what he implied them to do.

They laughed even harder. The rainbow-maned stallion walked away, still smiling.

Comments

[Lelouch Vi Britania]

and it all makes sense now.

[Kapuchu]

So, we "met" Rainbow's father, and I think we found out how Posey got a Pegasus daughter (Don't pretend you don't know who Fluttershy's mother is )

[BronyPonyMan]

i'm seriously hoping we wrap up the crystal empire thing so we can go fuck up rainbows dad.

[psychosis]

AJ, AJ, AJ. For the Element of truth, you sure do lie to yourself alot. You had to have known the rumor Posey was raped by pegusi was true. You must have made the connection!

[Childish Endeavors]

And so it is revealed that Posey wasn't an abandoned pegasus like Flutters, but rather her unwilling mother... who tried to fill the hole in her heart from abandoning Flutters by adopting Apple Bloom and giving her love for Fluttershy to Apple Bloom.