The One and Only Chapter
Third Person
“Yee-haw! Another part of the orchard done!” cried Applejack joyfully.
Big Mac sighed and wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Eeyup.” he replied.
He was pulling a heavy cart filled with basket after basket of apples, freshly harvested from their famous orchard, Sweet Apple Acres.
His younger sister, Applejack, who had impressive strength, was bucking the trees, to make the apples fall into baskets.
They just finished harvesting all the apples in the west part of the orchard.
Applejack and Big Mac’s grandmother, Granny Smith, came trotting over.
“Sorry to trouble y’all, but have you seen Apple Bloom today?” she asked.
Applejack shrugged and replied, “Nope, but I know that she and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were having a sleepover right here yesterday night. Maybe she went off with them somewhere.”
Granny Smith said, “That filly is always getting into trouble something or other!”
Big Mac couldn’t agree more. The times she had been a nuisance…
“Anyway, gotta go back to the farm and check inventory. We have to plant some more trees in the eastern part of the orchard.” said Applejack.
She and Big Mac trotted towards the barn right next to their house.
Big Mac put down the cart at the entrance of the barn, and he and Applejack went in.
“Hmm...seems like there’s not enough seeds for the planting. Well, we’ll have to postpone it until tomorrow. You know what to do, right, Big Mac?” asked Applejack while counting seeds in a corner of the barn.
Big Mac replied, “Eeyup.”
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Later at night, Big Mac set off into Ponyville fo the special mission that his sister had entrusted him with. A dark mission.
The Apple Family were famous for growing the freshest apples in all of Equestria, but they had a dark secret. A secret that could cost you your life if you knew about it.
Big Mac’s hoofsteps sounded oddly loud in the streets, he was the only one out in this time of night.
He silently approached a quaint little cottage.
He climbed up the walls and stopped when he was in front of a window.
A ray of moonlight shone through the slightly open window, illuminating a sleeping mare, not knowing of the danger that lurked before her.
Big Mac opened the window further, and crawled into the house.
He picked up the sleeping mare, put her on his back, and took off into the night, the mare still sleeping soundly on his back.
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Minuette woke up in a sweat. She just had a nightmare of how the innocent ponies of Equestria were drained of blood, to make freshly colored apples and sold in markets.
She looked around, and gasped.
“This isn’t my bedroom! Where am I?” she asked.
Minuette tried to get up, but she was bound to a table, scalpels, knives, and other deadly weapons lay beside her.
A voice rang out from the other end of the room, “Woken, haven’t you?”
She turned, and saw the honest, dependable Applejack by the door.
“Applejack! Why am I here?” she asked.
Applejack replied, “My brother brought you here. I need your help with something.”
“Then, could you untie me?” said Minuette.
“I was the one who tied you here, so why should I?” retorted Applejack.
Minuette was close to tears.
“W...Why?” she stuttered.
Applejack said coldly, “I believe you knew everything in your dream just now.”
“How?” said Minuette.
“You were sleeptalking.” replied Applejack bluntly.
Minuette asked desperately, “What do you want with me? Please don’t kill me!”
“That was what I’m planning to do.”
Applejack took up a sharp knife, the blade gleaming silver, reflecting the moonlight that was shining through the window in the barn.
She sat down behind a rock, and started polishing the knife.
“Yes, us Apples kill ponies for our business. But why? My Granny told me, when she was a filly, she built Sweet Apple Acres, and the barn which we are in now, to extend our apple business to Ponyville. One day, she found the rainbow colored Zap apples growing in the Everfree forest, with a parchment on the tree, saying: Here are the methods to grow more Zap apples. Granny Smith brought some apples and the parchment back to Sweet Apple Acres.” said Applejack casually, scraping the knife on the rock.
Minuette was enraptured by the story.
“Then?” she asked.
Applejack continued, “She and her father read the parchment. It told them that the best apples were grown from seeds dipped in blood. The Zap apples were made with the blood from a rainbow-haired pony, it said. One of Rainbow Dash’s ancestors. Unbeknownst to her, we were killing off her relatives one by one, to produce more and more Zap apples for the market demand. I won’t kill her, but she never knows why her parents died.”
Minuette made a face of disgust and said, “How could you kill your best friend’s parents!”
Applejack stood back up with the knife in hoof.
“You already know too much. You want me to make it slow, or quick?” she asked, running a hoof along the sharp blade of the knife.
Minuette cried, “Please don’t! I swear I won’t tell anypony about this if you let me go!”
Applejack ignored her pleas, and made a deep cut on Minuette as she shrieked in agony.
Blood gushed out of the wound, and Applejack picked up a bucket and placed it under Minuette, the blood flowing into the bucket.
Applejack said, “I’m gonna try out your blood with a seed. Please wait.”
She went out of the room and Minuette was left alone.
‘This psycho! I must stop her!’ she thought.
She struggled against the rope binding her as hard as she could, but it came to no avail.
Minutes later, Applejack came back.
“I used some faster growth compost and got the results. The apples made with your blood taste like honey and there is a tint of blue to the color, but it isn’t noticeable.” she commented.
Minuette sobbed openly now.
“Please...let me go. Won’t tell. I swear.” she said between sobs.
Applejack laughed, “Why? I need you.”
She took up the knife gain and stabbed it into her thigh.
Minuette had no energy to scream, the pain in her body and soul was unbearable.
More blood gushed out, and Applejack had to fetch another bucket.
“Minuette, you want me to end it slow, or fast? Your choice. You’re going to die anyway, so why do it later in life?” said Applejack.
Through heaving sobs, Minuette lifted her head up and gazed at Applejack and asked softly, “Can I say my last words first?”
“Sure, but make it quick. I need more blood.” replied Applejack.
Minuette said, “Applejack, I never told you this, but I’m a lesbian and I have a crush on you since twenty years ago, when we were little fillies, you remember? I love you, Applejack. Do you?”
“Yes, so I’m giving you something you could take to heaven.” said Applejack, and she leaned in and kissed Minuette hard on the lips.
Whilst they were kissing, Applejack’s hoof reached for the bloodstained knife and stabbed, right into Minuette’s heart.
A minute later, Applejack pulled away, just in time to hear Minuette say, “I love you.”
And she was gone. Gone.
Her expression was happy, peaceful at last.
Applejack created holes in her body, and all of her blood flowed out and into the buckets.
She sighed contently and said to herself, “Minuette, thanks for your sacrifice. To honor you, I’ll sell the apples made of your blood with a name: Min apples. Like it?”
The blood flowed, steadily, and finally ran out.
Applejack picked up the buckets and some seeds, dipped them in the blood, and planted them just outside the barn.
She wrote on a wooden board: Min apples.
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The next day, on the Ponyville Press, everypony was buzzing about one thing: Minuette’s disappearance.
Last seen at 9:00 pm, Minuette was in her cottage, but disappeared somehow in the night. This morning, when her friend Lemon Hearts came to find her to eat breakfast, she found an empty bed with a stain of blood. Experts assumed she had been murdered and the body taken away. They are also trying their best to find a unicorn mare by the name of Twinkleshine, who disappeared almost a week ago, three fillies Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, who were last seen in Sweet Apple Acres and Spike, a dragon, and Twilight Sparkle’s personal assistant. Wanted notices are posted in Ponyville at the moment, if anypony had seen the disappeared ponies and dragon, please inform Mayor Mare about this.
Applejack put down her copy of the Ponyville Press and said to herself, “I’ll call a meeting of the Elements soon…”