> Samurai Applejack
>  by A. Tuesday
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Adjustment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Drifting. Motion, but there was no rhyme or reason to it.
Applejack had lost all her memories, and as she floated aimlessly through a colorless void, they all began to come back to her. It felt like what she would’ve called a “rebirth” of sorts, if memories were displayed from a movie projector. The colorlessness of the... nothing she wafted through would rapidly change, and she’d be surrounded by her life in a flash. 
It was all coming back to her – everything.
Her first day at school. Her short foray into the cosmopolitan world. The return. The birth of her younger sister. A family reunion where a mysterious lavender unicorn showed up. The defeat of Nightmare Moon. Attempting to harvest the whole orchard by herself. Losing herself to Discord’s chaos. Proving that hard work beats all short cuts.
Everything was coming back from a strenuous flash of amnesia. But, why? Why lose everything?
Applejack felt as if she were floating along on a gust of air. She curled up her forelegs and watched her life pass before her. Had she died? 
The memories began to get more recent, she could feel it. A wedding that was crashed. Adventure into the frozen north. A shadow.
No, not a shadow – a being.
Sombra.
His laugh was amplified throughout the void as the image of his shadowy self filled the farmpony’s world. The demonic presence made Applejack’s heart race twice as fast, but she felt an inability to turn away from his green, glowing eyes. They pored into her very soul. She began to wonder if her soul was exactly where she was. No other place provided as much explanation.
The evil former King of the Crystal Empire’s laugh subsided, the eyes ever-unwavering into that of Applejack’s darker emerald ones. His voice boomed throughout the nothingness.
“Young Applejack – what did you think you were going to accomplish?”
The pony in question was still curled up in the fetal position, drifting through the nothingness of King Sombra’s shadowy form. The last memory, the most recent one – the reasoning behind her amnesia and why she was here – was still locked up. The King was holding it back. He spoke again.
“It matters little to me now. What matters now is how great the rewards of success were; something that, unfortunately, you shall never experience, little pony.”
The green eyes squinted, glaring into those of his captive. 
“Instead, you shall relive your failure.”
Like fog rolling over a meadow, the final memory lazily wafted onto Sombra’s image. The sky was orange, delivering the rest of the fear that the shadowy form slowly consuming the entirety of the city didn’t already deliver. Applejack looked away from her friends and to a yelling voice above her head. A purple figure flew through the sky, attempting to reach a crystalline heart that fell just beyond his reach.
From the opposite end, the smoky figure of King Sombra raced upwards to meet it, teeth flashing as he licked his fangs, eager to obtain the source of his incoming defeat. 
Applejack felt her heart beating in her chest rapidly, sweat beading on her brow. It was almost clearly defined that Sombra would reach the heart before Spike did – or worse, the both of them.
Suddenly, an idea etched itself in her mind. It was a nutty idea, one that would’ve made all of her friends laugh on the spot if it were any other occasion, but this wasn’t just any random instance in her time. Twilight Sparkle was nowhere to be found, so somepony had to think of something.
Time seemed to slow down as AJ looked towards Shining Armor and his wife, Princess Cadence. They both held their breath in fear, but that’s not what Applejack was looking at. She examined Cadence’s form – sleek, slender, and definitely aerodynamic enough to be thrown. At least, AJ hoped so. If the Princess had enough energy to be launched like Applejack intended her to be, she just might be able to beat Sombra to the heart. 
Applejack visualized the scenario in her head. It would work. And that was the honest truth.
She had no sooner called out “Shinin’!” when a great force of energy propelled itself outwards from the confrontation behind Applejack. She wheeled around to see Sombra, shifting from just a smoky figure to an actual, material unicorn, shadows filling his body and becoming him. Just before the tyrant became fully materialized, Applejack felt the slightest yank from beneath her hooves.
Looking down, she noticed that there was no shadow beneath her whatsoever.
A gasp came out from her throat as she saw a pony-shaped shadow, complete with tied tail and Stetson hat, being sucked into the form that was King Sombra. The silhouette melded into his armor and the world stopped.
Spike became immobile in his descent, the Crystal Heart remaining still in the air. Sound stopped traveling and there was absolute silence, something unlike anything Applejack had ever experienced before.
King Sombra closed his glowing eyes firmly where he floated, standing atop his shadow platform. He reopened them and stared directly at Applejack.
“Foolish pony,” he stated coldly. “Are you not aware that your shadows contain not only your form, but your mind?”
Sombra’s horn glowed and Applejack found herself engulfed in a fluorescently green and purple field of levitation. Unable to reach the ground, she squirmed as Sombra brought her closer to his face.
“I am the Master of Shadows,” he continued. “They flock to me when my presence is known, when I am powerful enough.”
A weird bubbling, the same color as Sombra’s magic, formed in the middle of thin air. It began to spread apart, revealing the colorlessness that the current Applejack had been experiencing only moments before.
Sombra spoke again, but the memory Applejack’s eyes remained fixated on the portal. “Your essence is honest, young Applejack – but, it is weak. I am too powerful to be stopped. Your thoughts were delivered without haste.”
The portal opened up to maximum capacity, still bubbling but stopping as a large circle, big enough for a pony to fit through, with room to spare.
“And, this time, they won’t be coming to fruition.”
Almost like she was kicked, Applejack was flung through the portal, into the nothingness; everything became nothing. Her entire body stopped functioning as she entered the void, for only a moment; however, it was enough to effectively wipe all her memories.
Now, as the memory dissipated into the image of Sombra’s eyes once more, Applejack realized just where she was: traveling. In nothingness.
In finding her memories, the pony found her voice as well. Fighting back the deafening thumping of her heart and shallow breathing, she said to Sombra, “W-where am I? W-what have you done with me?”
Sombra’s eyes glared into the pony’s soul once more before they disappeared altogether, being replaced by another bubbly, pony-sized circle. Applejack’s form began drifting towards it, seeing the tiled floor that awaited her on the other side, as the King’s final phrase echoed throughout the void.
“The question you should be asking, young one, is when are you?”
Laughter – deep, dark, evil laughter – ensued as Applejack coasted through the portal and felt the effects of gravity hurl her to the ground.


*	*	*


The smell of smoke hit the air as Applejack came to, coupled with an awful ringing in her ears and pain coursing throughout the entire front of her body. She licked her lips and tasted blood.
Opening her eyes slightly, she found herself to be lying on the tiled floor that she had looked into the portal at. Just within her eyesight, large bars created a large window to the side of the room she was in, where gray smoke drifted up between a reddish-range sky and gray dirigibles, which were drifting through the smoke as Applejack had just drifted through nothingness.
Over to the right of this, a large, black, crystalline centerpiece took up the room. It was arching inwards, and seemed hollow, as if the crystals were concealing something from the rest of the world. As it were, Applejack saw a small silhouette shift around from within, but her vision was still to bleary to make out anything.
“Uhhh…” Applejack groaned, feeling the dull throb of pain wash over her midsection. “W-where…”
“Who is that?”
Applejack’s ears shot up. There was somepony else here.
As her vision gradually got better, the farmpony noticed that the voice was definitely here, but not with her; it was coming from within the crystal structure.
Wanting to get a closer look, Applejack planted a shaky hoof on the ground, using it to push herself up. The soft clop of hooves against tile was heard from within the enclosure, approaching the orange pony just outside. Just as AJ stood, standing straight up, the noise stopped and changed into a gasp.
Applejack looked towards the enclosure. All that she could see was a long, withered mane, purple in hue; a faded version of the color made up her coat that surrounded a lavender eye full of curiosity. A sense of familiarity struck AJ.
The pony from within the crystals stammered out shakily, “A-A-Applejack? Is… is that you?”
The voice was something Applejack didn’t believe. She knew whose voice it was – even if it did sound a bit older – but, there was no way it could be the pony she thought it was.
As if to confirm her suspicions, the pony clarified, “A-Applejack… it’s me, Twilight.”
This couldn’t be Twilight. Applejack’s bookworm friend wouldn’t be locked up in some crystal cage, let alone be much older than Applejack. But here the pony was, a taller version of one of her best friends.
The farmpony couldn’t help but say, “Twi… Twilight? Why are ya so-“
“Applejack…” the older Twilight interrupted, “W-Where did you come from? And, you’re so… young.”
“Twilight…” Applejack replied nervously. “Whattaya talkin’ about? You’re the one who’s… old.”
The one eye that Applejack could see rolled. “Well, three hundred and two years will do that to you. The bigger question is, where did you even come from? And why are you so-“
“Three hundred and two years?!”  Applejack backed up, wide-eyed. No, it couldn’t have been that long. “I-I was only gone for… for…”
When she tried to think of how long she had been in the void, she found herself unable to give a good timeframe. It seemed like forever, but it also seemed like ten seconds. It had been impossible.
“Why is this a shock to you?” Twilight asked. “I figured you’d be more shocked that I’m still alive, something I barely understand. Though, a pony doesn’t simply skim over three hundred-“ 
Applejack barely noticed how Twilight stopped dead in her statement. She was too busy contemplating the fact that it had been three hundred and two years she had been in Sombra’s portal. There was no way it had been that long.
“Applejack?”
“Huh?” AJ asked loudly, meeting Twilight’s – three hundred and two years older Twilight’s – worried gaze from within the confines of the crystal structure. 
The unicorn said, “You said you were gone. Applejack… where did you go?”
The farmpony tried to regain the ability to speak fluently again. She took a heavy swallow of air, and said, “Well, we were in the Crystal Empire… an’ Sombra’d just come back… and he was gonna grab the Crystal Heart… he threw me in some sorta… portal, I guess…”
Twilight’s one visible eye went wide. Applejack could faintly hear her mutter the word “portal” beneath her breath.
Muffled voices began to speak from far beneath the floor they stood on. The voices seemed a bit frantic, and the stomping of hooves and metallic noises accompanied them.
Twilight shook her head from within the dark crystal enclosure and stated, “This explains everything.”
“What?” Applejack looked up to her friend from between cowering hooves. “What, what happened?”
“Sombra…” Twilight looked away from Applejack through the crystalline opening, the memory of the event seeming to bring back painful memories. “You just came from our attempt at saving the empire?”
Not sure where her friend was going with this, Applejack nodded.
“Applejack, the portal you went through… he must’ve thought that you were the only one who could stop him. He sent you into the future. He sent you here.”
AJ lowered her eyebrows in confusion, lifting a hoof up as if she was about to speak, but couldn’t find the word. “I’m confused, Twi’. Why would he send me inta the future?”
Twilight began to pace from within her prison. “So that you wouldn’t be there to stop him in the past. You obviously had some way to defeat him that he detected. I just wasn’t aware that that kind of magic was that powerful…”
The farmpony thought back to her idea. The one she knew would’ve worked. It would have worked, after all.
“B-but, wait!” Applejack stammered out, “How do I get back? Does somepony need ta make a portal?”
Twilight took a sharp inhale of breath, and began to pace around her imprisonment once more. “I’m… I’m not sure. My mind isn’t what it used to be all those years ago. I’d suppose you’d need to know Sombra’s dark magic, something I haven’t been able to do in a long time. In fact, not since all of you were still here-“
“Still here?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow. She took a step forward, cocking her head slightly to the side. “What do you mean, still here? Where are the others?”
The farmpony felt stupid as the words came out of her mouth; she already knew the answer. She didn’t know how Twilight was alive, but a regular pony rarely lived past eighty, let alone three hundred and two.
To reassure her that this was true, sad, lavender eyes looked into emerald ones. “I’m sorry,” Twilight apologized, “But I haven’t seen them since the day you were whisked away. I’ve been locked in the crystal prison for the past three hundred and some years; I should’ve died two hundred years ago like the rest of them probably did. I’m beginning to think this prison has some sort of immortality spell on it.”
The older pony gazed at her friend’s crest-fallen face. AJ saw the news coming, but she didn’t know how to handle it. Five minutes ago, it seemed, her friends were still alive, laughing, talking, being together…
“You’re probably the last Element left, Applejack. Celestia knows I can’t do anything as of late.” The former student let out a small chuckle at that. 
And then, she froze.
Applejack shifted her depressed gaze from the floor to Twilight’s calculating face. Her forehead seemed to clench together like it always did when she was thinking. At least there was one familiar trait not left behind.
“Hold on…” the prisoner was saying to herself, “…yes, yes! I think – I think it’ll work! Applejack!”
AJ approached the crystalline cell. “What? What is it, Twi’?”
“You need to get the hell out of here!”


*	*	*


The noise downstairs increased as Applejack looked to her older friend in shock. “What? But, I jus’ got here an’ – an’ I barely know what’s going on…”
“Applejack, focus.” Twilight’s eyes returned to their normal size and stared directly into AJ’s. “Just know that things… things aren’t the same anymore. Sombra’s security is going to be coming for you. They can hear you. You need to leave.”
“B-but… but how…?”
“Get out through this opening on the side of the palace, and head straight for Equestria. Find the Princesses. They can explain everything that's happened; my knowledge is only so limited. Plus, Celestia was the only other one I know of who could perform Sombra’s type of magic. She can get you home. You can get back home! You can make sure all of this doesn’t happen! But, you need to leave! And, now!”
The frantic nature beneath them was growing in volume. Applejack shakily took some hoofsteps forwards, meeting the edge of the tower and getting a full view of the outside world. She wished she hadn’t.
A dystopian city stretched out before her, going onwards and outwards far beyond the limits of how big Applejack thought the Crystal Empire was, and something inside told her she was looking at what used to be that very same thing. The road structure, all pointing outwards from this one spot – the very spot Applejack stood now, the palace – indicated to the farmpony that this was indeed the same place she had just been over three centuries ago. It was different, however.
The Empire was twice as huge, maybe even more. The circle was no longer perfect at the edges, and the houses weren’t pristine and cleanly made. They were rectangular and dilapidate, throwing up black, choking smoke into the air, touching the edge of about three blimps that hovered around aimlessly. Upon a closer look, Applejack saw that the movement she noticed on the ground were ponies. Crystal ponies.
Chained crystal ponies. Moving in unison.
Slaves.
The slaves that Sombra used to have. The ones he did have.
All the way down there.
“Twilight…” Applejack gulped, “How am I supposed ta escape? There’s… there’s no way down…”
“There has to be!” Twilight yelled, “I know Sombra has pony-powered electricity running into this palace, even up here. Isn’t there an electrical wire somewhere?”
Applejack scanned around, and then saw it – it was just beyond the outside ledge of this room at the top of the tower, descending downwards onto a small metal post in the larger interior of the city. It would provide route for escape, but…
“Twilight…” the farmpony said, “That wire isn’t very thick… and ain’t I gonna be burnt toast in two seconds?”
The metallic noises from downstairs moved to the side, and became less muffled. The odd buzzing and whirring became clearer, but it was still beneath them. It appeared it wouldn’t be that way for much longer, though.
Twilight looked towards Applejack, frantically shouting, “You’re going to have to take the wire! Hopefully it’s covered with insulation so you don’t become burnt toast, but, either way, it’s the only way out! Quick, before the Pegasystems get up here and find you!”
Applejack didn’t even question what a “Pegasystem” was. She looked back to Twilight at the enclosure, who was now at a spot where you could make out her whole face. She resembled Celestia in build, except with a much more hardened and tired face, full of sadness. A glimmer of hope was shining in her eyes, but it was quickly fading away.
“Twilight,” Applejack said again, “I… I don’t think I can…”
“Oh!” The interjection from Twilight was not what AJ had expected. “Don’t go just yet!”
Twilight closed her eyes, gritting her teeth. Her horn glowed faintly, but gradually grew more intense. A slight ringing as magical powers were in use filled the top of the tower. 
Suddenly, right in front of Applejack’s eyes, streams of bright color poured themselves from Twilight’s horn and into a small pool just in front of the farmpony. As she watched, the more streams that were put into it, the more definite shape the blob became. Before long, it had extended into a long shaft of sorts, becoming thicker in width at only one point towards an end before thinning out again.
In an instant, the final stream left Twilight’s horn and melded into the blob. The entire creation flashed, a bright ball of light that Applejack actually had to shield her eyes from. When they fell upon the form again, the widened in fascination. A long sword had been crafted from Twilight’s magic, almost longer than Applejack’s body. She could see her own orange reflection in the metallic end.
The sword grew a sheath from the handling end, where it also grew a strap before floating itself over to Applejack and attaching itself to her torso. It fit snugly; the pony could hardly feel the weapon at her side.
After taking a last look at the sword, Applejack resumed eye contact with her friend, who seemed to age another three hundred years in two seconds. Her eyes became even more tired, wrinkles forming just beneath her orbits. Her purple mane faded into a near-gray, even the red streak fading to a shadow of its former self.
"This sword,” Twilight explained, “is made from what may very well be the last shards of pure love and magic in this whole world: my own. It should keep you more than safe from anything, once you know how to wield it properly. Pray to Celestia you won’t have to use it too frequently. Now, go!”
“I ain’t much fer swordfightin’, Twi’…” Applejack replied.
“You will be, Applejack. Give it time. You need time for adjustment. But, you won’t have any unless you go right now! The Pegasystems will be here any moment!”
Applejack realized it wouldn’t be worth it to tell Twilight she couldn’t go down the thin, thin wire another time; the whatever-they-were moved farther up the tower by the moment, and they would most certainly be up there to take Applejack away at any given moment. She also couldn’t find it in her heart to go against the wishes of her friend, who might be the last one of her friends still alive.
The farmpony took a tentative step outside the bars of the tower and stepped onto the thin ledge. She only looked down for a second before forcing herself to look at something else, but that alone was enough to make her heart stop. Swallowing her fear. Applejack carefully walked towards where the wire met the palace. 
When an orange hoof met the thick wire leading from the tower down to the Empire below, Applejack took a final look towards her friend. Twilight’s sad eyes looked back.
“Go!” her friend commanded.
“But,” Applejack lingered, “What about you? Ya been locked up here fer how long?  I can’t just leave ya here.”
“I’ll be fine,” Twilight hastily re-affirmed, “And, so will you. And that’s the honest truth.” A smile formed on her lips as she said it.
Applejack took a glance down to the city below. She put a hoof on the wire, and looked back one more time to her friend. 
“I’ll come back fer ya, Twilight. I promise.”
Twilight didn’t say a word. She looked sadly at her leaving friend. “Go, Applejack. Run to Equestria.”
Applejack swallowed nervously – then, changing her look from that of nervousness to that of determination, pulled down the brim of her Stetson and faced forwards.
Just as the buzzing and grinding and noises of the incoming threat came through the room, AJ took a deep breath and sprinted down the wire.



> Blazing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Every nerve in her body was telling her to look down, but she couldn’t. She fought waves of panic and closed her eyes the entire time.
The silhouette of a Stetson-wearing pony ran across a thin wire, set across the backdrop of a red sky, seemingly crossing it as if she were a squirrel. Every hoof was completely in front of the other, completely in sync with Applejack’s heavy breathing.
The pony running across this wire had no sense of balance at this point; she actually refused to let herself do anything but move and breathe. Not until the point where she could touch all four hooves on the ground did she let up for a minute. If she thought, she’d realize what she was doing. Then, she’d fall.
Breathe in, breathe out. Never mind the fact that who-knows-what was behind her looking for an easy capture. Never mind the fact that the wire she now ran across was thinner than her own hoof. Never mind the fact that it was somehow three hundred years in the future. Never mind the fact that her friend was still alive. And imprisoned. Never mind that there was nothing you could do to – 
The wire jounced beneath Applejack, and the pony flew out apprehensively, throwing her hooves out in front of her to break what was probably going to be a long fall down. She braced herself for impact.
And then, a moment later, hit stone.
AJ remained sprawled out on the rooftop of the building for only a moment longer before opening her eyes and realizing that she had successfully gotten across, somehow. She rolled over on her backside, leaning on her forelegs for support, and saw the high tower of the Crystal Palace eclipsing the setting sun, a black wire that had just served as Applejack’s footpath leading up to it.
The high tower.
Where friend Twilight Sparkle remained imprisoned.
Applejack felt a tightness in her chest, and she put a hoof on her tangerine fur in a futile attempt to slow her deep breathing. Why was Twilight up there, in a crystal prison? And, why hadn’t Applejack been the good friend and stayed with her?
Twilight wanted her to leave.
AJ moaned in sadness. She’d forgotten the exact reason why she had left somewhere in her blind sprint down the wire. It was for the best, right?
As Applejack righted herself up, standing up on all four hooves and brushing herself off with her tail, feeling the weight of the magic sword on her side, she couldn’t help but feel that there was some other reason that she had left her friend…
Like a cue was given, pegasus-shaped silhouettes flew out of the window of the highest room of the place, hovering in one spot collectively outside the windows. They seemed sort of jerky in their motions, not like a pegasus should be flying. At least, not in Applejack’s time. The orange pony squinted at the figures, which seemed to be talking amongst themselves.
As she did, one of them turned to face her. The pegasus-thing stared down at Applejack.
With glowing, red eyes.
That wasn’t a pegasus.
“What the…?”
Applejack barely had time to question what in Celestia’s name that was when its friends turned around with the same red eyes. Just hovering there, menacingly.
“Quick, before the Pegasystems get up here and find you!”
Horseapples.
They darted towards Applejack as she turned and sprinted in the other direction, thanking her lucky stars that she was a decent athlete as the city opened up before her.


*	*	*


Two minutes into the chase, the buzzing was getting louder, and Applejack began to realize she was going to have to start getting crafty with her escape.
So far, she had been running in a straight line, dodging and weaving the chimneys and satellites that adorned every rooftop, the reason for their presence there being something Applejack couldn’t fathom. Practice had gotten her stamina up high and she was decent at jumping across the heights of the smaller buildings on this one particularly lengthy block; it was soon coming to an end, however, and the flying robots hadn’t any obstacles at all.
The edge of the uneven buildings was beginning to come up, and the gap looked like something Applejack wouldn’t be able to make, nor did the wire surpassing them be able to hold anything but a pigeon.
It was time to take the plunge into the impoverished streets.
Taking a large gulp as the sound behind her seemed to morph into an actual presence, she pumped her apple-bucking legs into the concrete and vaulted off the building into the market below.
Few ponies noticed the jump at first, until the farmpony crashed into a wooden food cart, and, subsequently, the vendor running it. A resounding “oomph”, followed by the sound of rolling cabbages, and splintering wood, stopped surrounding ponies in the marketplace for a moment.
Realizing she couldn’t miss a beat, Applejack used the poor vendor as a spring bad and pushed off of him, a low grunt coming forth from the tan stallion as she sprinted off.
“My bad, stranger!” Applejack called out to him, glancing back only for a second as the metallic Pegasystems closed in behind her.
The faded crystal ponies of the market place stepped aside, letting the strange pony with a Stetson rush past them, a herd of Pegasystems in chase. While Applejack had no clue what the things behind her were, the townsfolk had a pretty clear idea. Their shouts were heard mixed in with the general chaos amid Applejack’s pursuit.
“Are those Pegasystems?”
“What are they doing out there?”
“Why are they chasing her?”
“Goodness, we have a criminal afoot!”
“Say, isn’t that the Second Spirit?”
Applejack had gotten the gist that Pegasystems were some sort of law enforcement, but as she bobbed and weaved through the crowds of ponies everywhere, the last phrase stuck out in her mind. Second Spirit? Who were they referring to?
Her thoughts drifted to her breathing, which was getting shallower by the second. Despite legs made for working, they couldn’t hold forever. She was going to need to get rid of a few of them.
Up ahead, still weaving through the throngs of ponies, AJ looked around for a small building she could duck into. None seemed striking to her, though; absolutely all of them where either residential or some generic place where the Pegasystems could still get to her. At this rate, it was going to be easier to pick a random building and hope for the best.
“Ah, hell,” Applejack said to herself, “Legs, don’t fail me now.”
The orange figure cut across the crowd, causing many-a basket and items to fall on the concrete ground, and into a small shop, the sign outside advertising a Laundromat. The door swung out behind her, right as the Pegasystems barreled into the shop. Glass fragments flew over tiles as if they were wet.
Applejack, beginning to panic, ignored the searing pain in her flanks and bolted right through the other door, using her head to bang the door open. It, like the glass entrance, was also an easy-swing door; this one, however, led to a small enclosure. All around her, AJ saw nothing but the ugly backsides of slummy apartments; boarded-up windows and black fire escapes galore.
She danced around nervously for a moment before the sound of screaming patrons and the whirring of her pursuers brought her back to the real world. Pick one and go.
Thinking on her hooves, Applejack leapt for a specific black ladder that ran up the length of the building, the banging of a swing door notifying her that she did so just in time. Metallic buzzing filled the space beneath her as AJ increased her climbing rate.
The pony almost made it to the top when cold iron grasped her hoof. A gasp was uttered from the escapee’s throat. Applejack whipped around, clinging to the ladder for dear life as she saw a Pegasystem up close for the first time.
They certainly looked like pegasi, except for the fact that they were very box-like in terms of appendages and overall body structure. A small, carved mane rested on their head, and, where graceful wings should be, barely visible rotors spun at unimaginable speeds, keeping them hovering in the air. 
And a metallic claw, shaped like a C, grasped Applejack’s hoof tightly, preventing her from going anywhere it didn’t want her to. She tried to move her leg, but it remained rigid in the robot’s grasp. 
The other two Pegasystems moved up slowly from the ground. The laserbeam eye of the first Pegasystem thinned, sensing a strenuous pursuit’s close was within its reach. 
Applejack had other plans. Taking in a deep breath and tensing up her foreleg muscles, she gripped the iron ladder fiercely, and, bringing her rear leg off one of the rungs, bucked her captor in its head.
Its entire face caved in with an electronic shriek, the grip on Applejack’s forelegs disappearing as it sparked and whirred erratically, falling out the air on to one of its comrades.
With just a small smirk for compensation, Applejack brought her legs back to the ladder and finished climbing the rest of the ladder, back onto the rooftops where she was only moments ago. She allowed herself one minute pause – just one – and then took off like a bullet across the rooftops of the Crystal Empire again.


*	*	*


A loudspeaker began to blare, its wail becoming higher and higher in pitch until the climax, where it gradually began to get lower once more. All ponies within the market-place stopped and stared. The Emergency Alert system didn’t go off often.
Applejack, of course, wouldn’t know this – the only thing she knew was that her leg was beginning to hurt. She needed to stop. Stop running across rooftops, stop blazing across the entire empire, just stop. And, not like a “tell herself to stop and then keep running anyway” – a legitimate stop.
The edge of the block was coming closer to her, as she saw dozens of ponies fixated on tall lamp-posts that lined the pavements, watching the loudspeakers that the poles were adorned with blare out the alarm. The tangerine pony could only guess that it was probably her causing such a fracas.
Pain resonated throughout her left foreleg, a small dinging accompanying it and rushing right past her. Applejack gritted her teeth, forcing back the urge to make some unearthly sound. She had stumbled over a satellite in her sprint across the rooftops, which was coming to a fast close.
Going forwards only led to a small townhouse across a crowded street. To her right was a taller building she wouldn’t be able to scale rapidly enough, and to her left was more of the crowded street. AJ wouldn’t be able to leap to any of the tops of the higher buildings. The only safe route out seemed the street, and the farmpony could not run anymore. She briefly thought about turning herself in.
Then, as Applejack kept running forwards, a streak of sunlight glinted off something in front of her – a window pane. Applejack thought to the glass shards in her back, right about the time when she ran out of rooftop.
A couple market-place ponies looked upwards when they saw the small movement. Anypony that did would’ve noticed a pony-shaped silhouette bounding from the rooftops, hooves stretched out, bracing for impact. Two robotic figures were also shadowed against the red sky, in perfect chase with the escapee. Their mouths might’ve opened in awe at the sight, which seemed to pass by in slow motion.
The shattering of glass was barely audible above the din of the alarm, as Applejack crashed through the residential window along with another Pegasystem. The second, however, overshot it a bit – driving itself right into the brickwork above the window. 
One of those poor ponies who was looking at the spectacle above might’ve been hit with iron and steel debris, electrified from loose circuiting, an anvil of electrocution to anypony in its awful shadow.


*	*	*


The rolled-up body of Applejack slid across the polished wooden floor and glass shards, culminating in a crash against a wooden end table. Picture frames and small trinkets fell with various crashes beside AJ’s shaken form, as she uncurled herself from the very same crash. No, flying through windows was not the greatest idea.
She reached out for her Stetson, which she wasn’t able to locate due to extremely bleary eyes. AJ righted herself in the sunlit room, brushing a hoof to push her mane out of her face. When she brought it back down, there were red streaks on it.
There was barely time for a sigh when a large, electrical crash became audible, and the slow-moving silhouette of a Pegasystem entered the room. Its glowing red eyes thinned out, having finally cornered its target. Once and for all.
Applejack stood up shakily, legs bending every which way. Her breath was coming to her in gasps, the wind having been knocked out of her. Blonde hair was matted against a bruised, glass-filled forehead. She didn’t have the energy to fight this thing, and the Pegasystem sensed that. It slowly hovered forwards, arms reaching out in front of it. The claws on the automation clicked, ready for its prey.
An odd weight made itself known to the tangerine pony. She took a glance down to her side and noticed a long, dark form, nestled neatly at her side through use of some belt she had completely forgotten had existed. The sword. The one Twilight had given her.
“It should keep you more than safe from anything, once you know how to wield it properly.”
Applejack knew that she had no conception of the capabilities of the sword at her side, nor did she know the first thing about wielding it, but...
The farmpony planted her hooves out in front of her, keeping them rigid. She was going to be captured anyway – it was worth a shot, wasn’t it?
The unsettling buzzing of the Pegasystem neared. Applejack could almost feel the metal upon her hide. Now or never.
In one quick instant, the pony turned and bit into the hilt of the sword, and, as gracefully as she could, pulled it out of its protective sheath and drew it forwards.
“Gracefully” was a bit of an overstatement.
Applejack pulled the sword out so fast that she quickly lost control of it, the weight of the sword finally becoming apparent as she swung it out in front of her. She opened her mouth in surprise, the glistening blade swinging in a circular motion, just like the rotors on the backs of Pegasystems.
Just like the rotor on the back of the very same Pegasystem that Applejack’s sword sliced right through, in the midst of  its flight of chaos.
The bottom half of the robot fell off cleanly, falling to the wooden floor with a clatter. 
The top half of the Pegasystem remained motionless, in air, for a few moments. A few more, and the red eye went completely dark. Then the whole thing came down, rotors still spinning, onto the floor. It spun around awkwardly like a misshapen top for half a minute or so before coming to a full stop. 
The whole time, Applejack stood there, wide-eyed, only just regaining her breath and hearing ringing in her ears from the sword’s contact with the mechanism. The weapon in question was against the door frame that led out into a dining room – only a couple hoofsteps away from two residents of the apartment, who had the same gawk-eyed look that Applejack wore.


*	*	*


For a minute, there was only the loud, obnoxious ringing of the emergency sirens, blaring throughout the whole empire. 
AJ didn’t even register the fact that there were two other ponies there until one of them, a small filly who hadn’t even a cutie mark yet, approached her with a worn hat between her teeth. “You dropped your hat.”
Applejack shrieked a moment, the sound of the child frightening her as she reared up slightly, only to see that it was just a small filly who seemed just as scared. The filly’s father stood in the doorway, very confused and also surprised. The farmpony looked to him, and then down to the little girl, who still held her Stetson hat between her teeth. Slowly, Applejack reached out with a hoof and took it from her, placing it back on her head.
“Uh, thank ya kindly, little missy,” she said awkwardly, “Sorry ‘bout yer… yer, uh…”
Not bothering to accept the apology or offer a correction on what exactly Applejack was sorry about, the filly asked, with fascinated eyes, “Are you the Second Spirit?”
AJ raised an eyebrow at her. Hadn’t she heard some citizen outside say the same thing, when she was running across the town square? “Pardon?”
“Come on, Seashell,” her father beckoned, “Let’s not bother her with weird questions.”
The cerulean filly, Seashell, trotted over to her father, standing behind her with a curious look on her face. Neither they nor Applejack knew how to break the silence, which was fast becoming uncomfortable.
AJ decided that it’d be best to leave now, and not bother these poor folk anymore than they needed to be. She spied her sword close to them, and walked very, very slowly over to retrieve it. 
“Sorry about yer house,” she offered weakly, picking up the sword between her teeth, “I didn’ ‘ean ‘er iss ta ha-enn.” Sliding the weapon into its sheath on her side, “but, if ya don’t mind, I’ll just be outta yer mane now and be on my way. I’m on a bit of a trek, I reckon.”
There were no other words spoken. Realizing this, Applejack tipped her hat toward the two ponies; she turned and began to walk towards the open window, seeing it as the only way out.
“Where are you headed, stranger?”
The question was innocent enough, and she could’ve just as easily ignored it, but Applejack, being the nice-mannered farmpony she was, turned to face the asker, Seashell’s father, and replied casually, “Equestria. I mean ta find the Princesses.”
As Applejack noticed, there seemed to be something… wrong with her answer. The father raised both his eyebrows in disbelief, and Seashell actually took a dramatic breath in, rather comically. Excited, the filly turned to her father. “She is! She is the Second Spirit! I told you, Dad! I told you!”
The father put a hoof on his daughter, telling her to be quiet. He cast a worried look at Applejack. “Do you need a place to rest, stranger? Been out in the sun too long or something? I can get you some water, if that’s what you need.”
Applejack pursed her lips and shook her head. Her heart rate increased, her body flushing with warmth – something had definitely been wrong with her answer. “No, I – I don’t think so. I really only jus’ got here. Is there a problem with traveling to Equestria, mister?”
The father’s brown mane bounced in the darkened dining room as he chuckled. “Well, I’d imagine there’d be a problem, considering Equestria hasn’t been around for almost two hundred and fifty years.”

> Chronicle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	He steadied the vinyl in his hands, placing it carefully on the centerpiece. A press of the button later, and it spun smoothly and silently until the stallion moved the needle into one of its grooves. Sweet swing music began to pour out of the speakers.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he apologized to the stranger in his home. “My dad used to listen to it before me, and his father before him – it’s a hereditary thing to like this music, I guess.”
Applejack shook her head, feeling a bit uneasy but curious as she lounged on the couch. This was not her first choice, not by a long shot; but, Seashell and her father, who had since identified himself as Sand Dollar, had insisted she stay and rest. Excitedly, Seashell had pulled the glass out of AJ’s hide (“Do I get to be like, co-Spirit or something? Since I’m helping you out?”), and Sandy had offered the farmpony some water, which she gratefully accepted.
“No, swing music’s fine,” she replied, “I was always more fer country tunes, but swing’s all nice and dandy. Reminds me of when I lived in Manehattan.”
Sandy raised his eyebrows in the dim living room. “Manehattan? They have… morals there?”
In return, Applejack shot him a look of questioning. “Well, they ain’t the nicest of folks, I’d reckon… but, from my understandin’, it’s been some three hundred years.”
“Three hundred years?” The host stood up from where he was seated. “Three hundred years since what?”
“Since I came here, I guess.” Applejack found the answer simple enough to comprehend. Unfortunately, Sandy did not feel the same way.
“What?”
AJ sighed, realizing she was going to have to tell this pony that was kind enough to take her in about the whole ordeal. She left out details, but laid out the scenario that she and her friends were to stop Sombra and, apparently, failed because Applejack had gotten sent into the future. It was a lot to swallow; the concept was actually still lodged in AJ’s throat. She wasn’t sure what to make of it all.
When she had finished, her host had sat down and merely looked at her in silence, eyes as wide as dinner plates. Silence lingered between them as it sank in.
Applejack noticed Sandy staring directly into her own emerald eyes for a moment, before traveling down the length of her lounging body and onto her flank. He only looked there a moment – not enough to cause Applejack to say anything about “gazin’ in the wrong direction” – but, when he looked towards the floor afterwards, not meeting anything’s gaze, his breath was shaky.
“Is that…” he stammered, trying to force out the sentence, “Are those three apples as your cutie mark?”
AJ smiled at him. “Yes, sir! Jus’ like everypony else in the Apple Family, I’m destined for the trade.”
Sandy blinked. “You’re… you’re kidding me.”
The stallion once again stood up, this time walking across the carpeted floor to another darkened part of the room. AJ briefly heard a muttering of “gimme a sec” before he disappeared into the next area.
The farmpony took this time to look at her surroundings. There were only a few candles lit, no proper lighting in place. While there was some decent furniture in the room, there was only a fireplace and some picture frames that hung around for decoration. All of the photos were either of Seashell and her father or of a large structure or landscape, undoubtedly “jewels” of the Crystal Empire. Applejack found the minimalist quality of the room almost eerie.
A shriek of joy turned Applejack’s attention to the other room, followed by a harsh “Shh!” Seashell’s voice could be heard.
“I told you so, Dad! We have her in our house!”
“Quiet, will you?” her father replied, “And hand me the book.”


*	*	*


Swing music, a song about the joy that working hard can give a pony, clashed with the sound of the dusted tome falling onto the table. The father pushed open the cover with a hoof and sifted through it’s old pages, coming upon an illustration of the Crystal Palace in its glory days and stopping.
“’The Crystal Faire’” he read aloud, “’Was a festival held every year, where crystal ponies would join together in merrymaking and all-around good times, in order to strengthen their love and unity to power up the Crystal Heart, which powered up the Empire’s natural defenses and spread good vibrations to its southern neighbor of Equestria.
“’The Faire was halted during King Sombra’s First Reign, where crystal ponies were put to slave labor expanding his Empire. After years of torment, Sombra was taken off of the throne by two eventual leaders of Equestria, Princesses Luna and Celestia, in hopes that love would once again be restored to the Empire and its surrounding neighbors. Before Sombra could be imprisoned in the ice, he used dark, shadowy magic to allow the Empire to disappear.’”
“Yeah, yeah,” Applejack interrupted, giving a wave of her hoof. “I know all this stuff, we were told it the other day. Where’s the stuff about Sombra’s return?”
Sandy skimmed through the page, hoofing down the various paragraphs and lines until he came to a specific point, which he tapped with a beige hoof.
“’After 1000 years,’” Sandy continued, “’at the end of the Millennial Magic Cycle, the Crystal Empire re-appeared in the North, and Sombra along with it. This time, the then-ruler of Equestria enlisted the help of six ponies known as the Harmonic Spirits – ultra-powerful ponies who were the embodiments of the six Elements of Harmony, compared to the physical objects they were before. They had protected Equestria and more from various doomsday legends, such as the return of Luna after her imprisonment and the Queen of the Changelings attempt at seizing Equestria for herself.
“’Their attempt to stop Sombra was hindered, however, with the apparent disappearance of both the First and Second Spirits, presumably by Sombra’s shadowy magic. Without them in play, Sombra was able to retrieve the Crystal Heart that the crystal ponies so often used, and began his Second Reign, which is still carried onwards to the present day.’”
Sandy looked up from the book, but kept his hoof on one of the smaller pictures. “The image of the Spirits in this book – one of them, the Second, is identical to you. Are you… are you her?”
Applejack wasn’t sure what to say. She’d never been called a “Spirit” before – that title was reserved for the creatures that had control over the very way of life, like the Princesses or Discord. She was just an earth pony who worked on her family’s farm.
“Well,” AJ said, not quite sure how to begin, “I… I am an Element of Harmony, if that’s what yet gettin’ at. Honesty.”
“So…” Sandy seemed to be in genuine disbelief. “You’re… you’re actually a Spirit.”
“Now, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“No, but, really – you are a Spirit. You’re the thing of legends.” He leaned in a bit closer, emphasizing his point. “There are paintings about the six of you in the recreational museums. Foals – my own Seashell – learns about you in school. There are sonnets and ballads and books – all of them outlawed, but still there – about the six of you. There are some about you specifically. You… you’re a Spirit!”
Applejack was getting annoyed at all the blubbering. “Really, I’m not. I’m treated normal at home – why can’t y’all treat me like they do?”
“Why don’t they revere you at home?” Sandy asked, curiously. “You six are basically gods, you know. In our eyes, you’re nothing short of it. Like I’ve said, you six embody the perfect qualities of what makes this land flourish – you’re so beyond-“
“Look, Mr. Dollar,” Applejack interjected, beginning to blush and refusing to take all of the gushing over her, “This is all fine an’ dandy, an’ I sorta get it, but like I said, I’m itchin’ to get ta Equestria. So, if y’all could just help me back, that’d be mighty respectable.”
“But the thing is,” Sandy replied, standing up and pacing back and forth across the living room, “You can’t go back. There’s nothing to go back to.”
“And?” AJ placed a hoof on her lounging hip. “Whattaya mean by that? A whole country doesn’t just disappear. Well, ‘cept fer yers.”
Sand Dollar returned to the book, flipping viciously through the many pages, intent on finding one thing he knew would be in there. Dust rose into the air where he slammed his hoof down. “’Shortly after Sombra’s return, fear and darkness were traits spread throughout the neighboring lands. Without the Spirits full power or guidance, the ponies of Equestria began to riot, and the nation was on the brink of civil war. 
“’Fifty years after King Sombra’s Second Reign had begun, the Princesses handed over the throne to a Council of ponies, and exiled themselves before they became insane; Luna, banishing herself once again to the moon, and Celestia seeking refuge somewhere else – her location is unknown.
“’The Council did not last very long at all – riots only escalated, and the Council was burned to the ground in the historic Canterlot Riots of 54 AMC, or 54 years After Magical Cycle, the only thing having been accomplished was the renaming of Equestria to the Ponies’ Republic of Canterlot. It has been said that the nation has had various leaders step in and out, but for the most part, the PRC remains in an anarchist state.’”
The father’s eyes met his guests’ – they were more frightened than they had been since she first arrived.
“I’m sorry, O Second Spirit,” Sand Dollar said, “But there is no Equestria to return to.”


*	*	*


Nighttime fell over the Empire. The alarms had ceased, and so had the peaceful music, but spotlights still went off occasionally outside, searching for a particular somepony that laid on the couch of a home that wasn’t hers lethargically. Applejack gazed at the ceiling, depressed and unsure of what to do.
A dimly lit candle beheld Seashell’s face, who sat with amusement just being next to somepony she had studied in her classes. Every now and then, she’d ask questions about life as a Spirit, but the answers never returned her enthusiasm.
“What does a Spirit do all day?”
“Buck apples,” Applejack would reply, “But, not anymore I guess.”
“Is being a Spirit a lot of work?”
“Depends. Doesn’t seem to be any point ta it anymore, though.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“I go to see mah friends. If any of ‘em were left.”
“Are you always this depressing?”
Applejack looked at the young filly with disinterest. “Not usually.”
Seashell slumped on the ground. She had figured that a Spirit would be wild, bouncy, and full of excitement and adventure, like all of the ones in her textbook were. But, this one just sat there and moaned about how much her life sucked. The filly understood that she was the Spirit of Honesty, but still…
The foal looked up at the Spirit, who appeared to be on the verge of sleep. “So… what’re you gonna do, then?”
Applejack sighed. “I don’t know. If I can’t find the Princesses, there’s no point in really doin’ anything – they’re my way back home. Otherwise, there’s not too much I can do. I don’t belong here.”
Seashell looked down to the floor. “You could always turn yourself in,” she offered, hoping to evoke a more enthusiastic reaction from AJ, “Then you could work in the quarry with Dad. Or maybe the orchard. You said you buck apples? Well, you could do it for 12 hours a day.”
Applejack raised on eyebrow. “Ain’t that a bit much?”
“Naw, that’s normal ‘round here for us crystals. Once you get your cutie mark, boom – it’s off to the Selection you go, where you work until you die.”
The filly sighed. “My daddy’s back has been hurtin’ him real bad. I’m afraid he’s not gonna last too much longer out there. I don’t have my mark yet, and my momma… well, I don’t rightly know where my momma is. But, I don’t wanna have to live on the street. Or worse… the pens.”
Applejack listened in silence to Seashell telling the chronicle of how life was for a crystal pony. It was bad. The pony hadn’t had a real idea of what slavery was involved with before, but now she could see it wasn’t pretty in the slightest. She wanted more than ever to get back home and stop this atrocity from happening. AJ also wanted to give Sombra a piece of her mind.
She was so busy thinking this that she didn’t notice Seashell had asked another question until the filly tapped her on the shoulder.
“Huh?” Applejack asked, “What is it?”
“I asked where you got the sword from.”
“Oh.” The farmpony glanced over at the sword, which was nestled in its sheath, leaning against the stone way. As long as she lived in this world, the pony had no desire to part with the weapon – it was the last thing her friend had given her.
“My friend gave it to me,” Applejack answered after a pause, “She was here when I got sent inta this time period, still imprisoned in the top o’ that Crystal Palace like she had been three hundred years ago. The sword is crafted outta her very love, she says.”
“Ooh…” Seashell gazed in awe at the sword. “Who’s your friend?”
“Twilight. The, uh… First Spirit, is what I guess y’all would call her.”
Seashell looked out the window at the nighttime sky, over in the direction the Crystal Palace was. “The First Spirit? You mean, she’s alive, too?”
Applejack nodded.
“But, how?”
“She said somethin’ about the prison havin’ some sorta magical charm on it. I don’t really know, I reckon. All I know is that there warn’t anythin’ I coulda done for her ‘cept done what she asked – find the Princesses.”
The filly continued to look out the window. “And?”
“An’ what?”
“Are ya gonna do it?”
Applejack stared at the small filly, who hadn’t even bothered to turn around yet. Her words struck the farmpony deeply.
Had she failed already? Had she failed to do the one thing her last friend, her only hope at getting home, had asked of her? In the course of less than a day, too? While it was no doubt impossible to locate and speak with the Princesses at a time like this, Applejack felt like had given up as soon as the very notion of the idea was laid out on the table.
“How can I?” she responded to Seashell. “Equestria don’t exist any more, Luna’s on the moon an’ Celestia’s missing in action.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t find her,” Seashell replied. “And it’s not like the old Equestria is completely gone. I’m sure the towns and buildings and records are still there. All it would take is a visit to the PRC.”
Applejack remained silent, contemplating more. Finding a Princess across what could potentially be the whole world? And, finding… she didn’t even know what she would look for in the PRC. What was the point?
Seashell found one for her. The filly turned around and looked AJ dead in the eyes.
“It sounds like you cared about your friend. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do wrong by her and not try to help her. Even if its just doing what she asked.”
Silence lingered between the two of them. Seashell said only one more thing.
“You are the Second Spirit, after all.”
Applejack closed her eyes. She inhaled, thinking of all the good times she and her friends had. All of the help they gave her, with the farm and her other expenditures, all of the times they had worked together to save Equestria or one another. It was a true and great friendship, one so powerful it apparently no longer existed. One so powerful it was revered as godlike. One so powerful it had saved the world – and could save it again.
Applejack exhaled. Who was she to let down her friends?
“Alright,” Applejack finally said, “I may be this Second Spirit, but I ain’t exactly the Spirit of Creativity. With the whole town lookin’ through every nook and cranny for me, how am I supposed to get outta town?”
A spotlight whizzed by the house, just grazing it and moving on, as a smile formed itself on the cerulean filly’s lips. 
“I think I may have an idea.”

> Disguise
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The incidents of the day before had come and gone. Many ponies wondered just what the commotion had been in the marketplace; it was not often that Pegasystems were brought out to apprehend a suspect. Nor did a suspect usually cause such a huge stir in the general area. Royal Guards, that were the actual authorities when it came to the street, not so much the metallic demons, told everypony that it was a demonstration of power. Most believed them. Those that didn’t were too frightened and too busy laboring to say otherwise.
One such pony was Sand Dollar, who left the ramshackle apartment he and his daughter stayed in to start his usual Weekend Labors. Two observers from a smoky alleyway watched as the stallion trotted off his rickety wooden steps, breathed a sigh of reluctance, and walked onwards down the street. The cart would be around to pick him up shortly, the one observer assured the other.
“What happens then?”
The shorter of the two shadows answered in a small, girly voice. “Simple. He’s loaded up with all the other slaves to go work for the day. Not as much today as on weekdays, though – it’s the weekend, and our King is very lenient.”
The other shadow somehow doubted their leader’s niceness, and would’ve raised an eyebrow at their shorter companion if it had been possible to see it. Instead, the observer shook its head, clearing their mind of the oddball statement. “Never min’ that. This cloak’s startin’ ta get itchy and I wanna take it off.”
“Don’t!” the other pony nearly yelled, putting her hoofs on her companion. “You absolutely cannot be seen. No doubt the kingdom’s on high alert for you, even if the Pegasystems have been put away. You need to stay highly under wraps.”
The cloaked one sighed. “Okay, then. But, can we at least hurry this up? Hey, what’s the whole plan, anyways?”
The smaller pony took a breath in. “Bear with me here, will ya? You’re already outside, after all.”
“What else am I gonna do, sugarcube?”
“Point taken.” The small filly waved a hoof around as she spoke, visualizing the whole scenario. 
“I’m going to walk directly in front of you, and we’re going to take the backroads all the way to the Freight Depot. Going through the market would definitely be quicker, but Dad tells me the security’s probably extremely heavy, so we don’t need any of that. You’re going to walk slowly and very awkwardly behind me, as if you have a limp. Keep your head down, and let me be your guide. Don’t bump into any guards, and don’t say a word. That accent of yours will be a dead giveaway.
“If we meet any guards, let me do all the talking. I’m going to tell them that you’re my deaf-mute grandmother who’s going to the offices to receive her hay tokens, and I’m taking you so that you know where you’re going. If I tap you with my back hoof, cough. This way, it’ll make you look like you’re sick.”
“Wait, wait, hold on a second,” the second pony said, “Ya actually think this is gonna work?”
“Well, what else do we have?” she answered. “It’s only a matter of time before they start searching homes. And, if what you say is true, Sombra definitely knows you’re here. Now, just let me finish the plan, alright?”
The second pony sighed and nodded, listening intently. The smaller filly continued.
“Once we get past guards and the streets, we’re going to the Ration Offices. Or at least, it’ll look like we are. There’s a small gap between the Offices and the Freight Depot – when I say ‘go’, you’re going to run right into the freight car complex. Find the red one with all of the hay in it. Hide. And quick, too – I’m going to give you the signal right before the train leaves. 
“Don’t worry about goodbyes or anything – I mean, if you were worried about them at all. Being a Second Spirit, you guys must be pretty busy saving the world – three hundred years ago, anyway – so, if you don’t have time for the little ponies, I get it. Just don’t look back when you get to the train – I won’t be upset over the lack of a goodbye, alright? Even if you are a Second Spirit and all-“
Without warning, the second shadow wrapped a hoof around the smaller one, pulling her in tight and nuzzling her. The filly was unable to speak. Her stomach was doing flips and turns the caliber of a world-class acrobat. Was this really happening?
With one hoof still on her shoulder, the taller shadow smiled. In a sentimental tone, the mare offered, “Goodbye, Seashell. And, thank you.”
The grin on Seashell’s face, if the other could see it, was impossible to put away. “No problem. Now, let’s get on outta here.”


*	*	*


Every breath that came out was a shaky one. Applejack’s nerves were on edge beneath the thick disguise, her every step nearly trembling. It hadn’t helped that the pain from having the glass shards pulled out of her still lingered.
Over the course of the night, the mare had really thought about what she was doing. It wasn’t so much for her as it was for all of her friends, all of her ponyfolk back home, all those centuries ago. If she could find the Princesses, she could fix everything. That meant not getting captured here. That meant not doing it how you would’ve liked to That meant not blowing everything and letting everypony down. As if she hadn’t already.
The farmpony let out the minutest of sighs. She was still having trouble grasping the whole scenario, let alone why she of all ponies, would be hurled into the future. She wasn’t magically powerful such as Twilight. Applejack didn’t have the sheer speed of Rainbow Dash (though she didn’t like to admit it), or the random magic that was Pinkie Pie. Why a working earth pony such as herself?
She was intently pondering this to the point of which she became completely unaware of her surroundings, including the stop in motion that had occurred. The tangerine pony bumped into Seashell.
Applejack’s vocal chords moved to say “Ooh, sorry,” but she forced them down with insane force and speed. She had almost forgotten she was a deaf-mute grandmother. And here she had just been telling herself that she wasn’t to blow her cover.
Seashell seemed to notice the guttural sound being made, and spoke a bit loudly. “Hello, Mr. Guardspony! What can I do for you this fine morn-“
“Who’s under the cloak?”
Applejack could only see the bottom of Seashell’s hooves and cobblestone; looking up anymore might risk her being seen by a guard or another pony. She had a feeling if she could’ve seen the guards face, it would’ve been as grim and scratchy as his voice.
“Why,” Seashell continued, “It’s my grandmother. She’s – “
“Can’t ya talk for yerself, ya old bat?”
AJ bit her lip. She had half a mind to slap the guard at this point for being so obnoxious. The imprisonment wouldn’t be worth it, though – well, maybe for a minute it would be.
“She’s deaf and dumb, sir,” Seashell explained, “Lost it in a mining accident.”
“Minin’ accident?” the guard inquired harshly, “How the hell do ya lose both yer hearin’ and yer talkin’?”
“She…” The filly paused for a bit, causing Applejack’s heart to momentarily stop. She didn’t have a cover story.
This was bad.
“Well?” The guard asked, “Answer the question, filly! Don’t stan’ there stupidly, ya half-wit.”
The nerve…
“She…she was born dumb, I think,” Seashell continued, unfazed by the comment, “I don’t know for sure, it’s just what my dad told me. Dynamite explosion blew her hearing out.”
There was a sustained silence. Applejack could just barely feel the eyes of the Royal Guards upon her cloak, inspecting her once more. He seemed to be contemplating something.
“Where’re you twos headed?” he finally spat out, crudely.
“The Ration Offices. She’s made her daily stub, but she obviously can’t make the trip alone anymore.”
The guard ho-hummed to himself. “Alright, whatever. Be on your way then. Shouldn’t have been wasting my time talking to buncha simpletons like you when there’s a real probem afoot. Apparently some – well, never mind, you mules don’t ‘ave the comprehension for somethin’ like that. Go.”
“Thank you, sir,” Seashell replied, “Come on, Grandma.”
Applejack followed with a slow march behind Seashell. The tangerine pony resolved to remain rock-steady in her disguise for the rest of the trip. No longer for her friends or for herself, but for Seashell.
If this was the type of world little fillies grew up in, then Applejack could fix it. She needed to fix it.
If she made it that far, anyway.


*	*	*


“The Offices! Almost there, Grandma!”
Applejack snuck a look from beneath the brim of her cloak, just so that she could see at Seashell’s eye lever. Just in front of them, amidst the fog, were two buildings – one looked to be an old barnhouse that was refurnished with steel plating, and the other had the feel of an Appleloosan General Store, though such places no longer existed.
In between two of these places, there was a small pathway of dead grass that seemed to lead into a train yard. Cabooses and rail cars were scattered all amongst the field, only two of which seemingly on a rail. 
The better part of an hour had been spent getting here, and now it was finally time. Time to leave this Empire and get started on getting home. Now, Applejack really did have the desire to thank Seashell another time and give her and her father a final goodbye hug.
Judging by she saw so far, though, she noticed there’d be no time for that – once Seashell gave her the signal, AJ would be dashing towards wherever the red caboose was. That train was going to be heading out of living hell, and Applejack intended to be on it – she’d have to nix a final heartfelt goodbye. A tinge of sadness appeared in her chest.
At the same time the small depression appeared, she felt an odd throb from her side – just one. From the sheathed sword that still remained strapped to her flank. Something else she couldn’t do right now was check it – Applejack was fairly certain pulling out a magical weapon in a public place was suspicious anywhere, let alone in the Crystal Empire. That pulse was definitely something, though – not quite normal, but it felt like it was natural.
Seashell stopped walked, her blue hoofs stomping gently on the cobblestone. Applejack awkwardly stepped in place right behind her, waiting for the signal. The orange mare saw blue hoofs turn to the side, just so that they were out of the way if a pony wanted to make a 100-meter sprint right then and there.
“We’re here, Grandma,” Seashell said softly. Applejack tense her muscles, getting ready for the sprint. She closed her eyes, fighting back the touch of sadness that had already affected her heart.
I’m going to fix this for you. For everypony.
“You can…” the filly began, holding out the sentence so that the signal was nice and clear. “… go.”
As soon as the syllable left her mouth, Applejack tore like the wind. Within less than a second, her hooves had already left cobblestone behind in favor for hard, matted dead grass. The cloak whipped past her head, coming off the top of her mane and falling to the clump of fabric that marked where her Stetson was on her back. The wind in her mane was a welcome gift.
Time to find that caboose.
The tangerine pony zipped past the two buildings, heading straight for the heart of the train depot. A whistle sounded off in the distance, perking AJ’s ears up to their sound. Emerald eyes spotted a long line of freight cars past all the tossed and rusted ones that lied lethargically in the grassy field. Smoke began to billow from the engine. Her train. Her ticket out of here.
She adjusted her sprinting, taking and releasing cold air as she ran in a dead sprint to the red caboose at the end. A large stack of hay was inside, just as Seashell had promised. At this point, AJ could hear nothing but the roar of the wind past her ears; she almost worried that somepony would call out to her and she’d never know.
She grinned to herself as she ran past another old rail car.  
They still couldn’t catch me.
Using her apple-bucking legs, Applejack pushed off the ground and vaulted onto the surface of the caboose, diving into the hay. Alfalfa became her mattress as the sheer force of the jump ripped the cloak off of her back. It would’ve taken the hat with it if AJ hadn’t already bitten into it, aiming to keep her most prized possession.
When she opened her eyes from the jump, she saw nothing but hay in front of her. The steam whistle blew again from the front, and she heard the familiar metal clanking and grinding that’s associated with a train. The ground beneath her began to move.
She was out.
She was getting out of here.
With a delighted grin, Applejack perked her head up slightly in the hay, ignoring Seashell’s wish of “hide”, and placed the Stetson on her head. Knowing full well that nopony would be looking in the caboose, she took a final gander at the place she once tried to save with her friends, three hundred and two years ago.
Instead, she took a look at Twilight, who sprinted along side the train.


*	*	*


Applejack’s eyes bugged out of her sockets, her jaw dropping open completely. This couldn’t be happening.
But, there she was, Twilight Sparkle, in the flesh – same as she was when Applejack had seen her in the crystal prison. Her jog was slowly turning into a sprint as the train began to chug faster and faster out of the Crystal Empire, keeping up with the caboose. 
With shaky breath, she turned her head towards the caboose and shouted, “Applejack, jump out!”
Meanwhile, AJ was still trying to process the fact that her friend was right there. Not in the crystalline prison, not in the high tower; right there. “Twilight? What’re you –“
“Never mind that!” Twilight yelled, pumping harder and harder with her legs. “I need you to jump out of the train! I only just got away from Sombra and I can – I can send you back! Quick, before he finds me!”
Applejack waved a hoof towards Twilight. “Come jump onto the caboose! We’ll do it once we’re out of the Empire!”
“I can’t jump at this speed!” she cried out, “And there’s no way I can teleport and have enough magical energy left to send you back in time. You need to jump out right now or you may never get home!”
Applejack merely stared at her friend, who was slowly falling behind the train. They had since passed the main part of the Crystal Empire and were now heading into the countryside. They would almost be out of Sombra’s domain soon. Surely, Twilight could wait until then.
But, what if she couldn’t? What if Applejack legitimately needed to jump out now or she’d miss her chance? The Princesses may actually be gone; Applejack knew in the back of her mind this was a very true thing. But, Twilight was right here, telling her that she had a way home. She could get home.
“Applejack! Now!”
The farmpony took a deep breath, and, throwing hesitation out the window, jumped off of the caboose. Alfalfa soared into the sky as the pony curled up into a ball, tucking-and-rolling onto the grass to break her fall.
“Oomph!” Applejack said, as she hit the ground. Not nearly as painful as the last time she had jumped a gap, but she was still learning how to do it. It didn’t exactly come naturally.
She stood up on all four hooves and watched the train go off into the distance. The lengthy sequence continued chugging along the rail tracks, slowly becoming little more than a bit-sized dot on the horizon and disappearing behind a hill, completely gone from Sombra’s area of control.
Applejack turned to her friend, smiling. “Twilight, ya don’t know how glad I am ta see ya. Quick, let’s send me back before he finds us all!”
The tall, lavender pony smiled at Applejack – but, it wasn’t the warm, friendly one AJ had expected. It seemed cold, sinister. As if to prove further, Twilight’s eyes glowed a fluorescent green before a deep voice grumbled:
“Foolish pony. Three centuries and you still think you can outwit the King of Shadows.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow, reeling back a bit as her heart started beating faster. “Uh, Twilight? What’re ya…”
With a final bright glow of her eyes, Twilight disappeared. The wind rolled by and Applejack’s friend turned out to be nothing more than shadowy dust, carried away by a summer breeze as it lost coloration and warmth. In its place, about a dozen Pegasystems flew at unimaginable speeds towards Applejacks’ location.
In response, the orange pony just stood there, dumbfounded; unable to process what had just happened. She remained still even when the dozen robots encircled her, demanding that she drop her weapon. She remained still even when they grabbed her by her limbs and began to fly her away. She remained still even as the Crystal Palace came into view once more, their destination quite obvious.
It wasn’t until she was just floating there, in the arms of metallic pegasus replacements, staring face-to-face with the King himself in the throne room that it hit her; the cold, truth, far colder than anything the Frozen North could even think to come up with.
Sombra had captured her again.
“Indeed I have,” his booming voice trembled, lips turned up in an almost reptilian smile, “And this time, Applejack, I have plans to make sure you’ll never escape.”
	
> Entropy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Consciousness began to grind on her mind like the rust on her metal shackles. Tangerine eyes fluttered open to a dirtied, metal floor, cold and unfamiliar. A voice, somewhere miles away, spoke in a warped, distorted voice:
“Filllllliess annnnnd gentllllecollllltssss…get readyyyyyy…forrr the Mane Event… ”
A noise similar to applause broke out in return, but Applejack couldn’t really tell. All she knew was that something was watching her, and something was restraining her as well. 
Fogginess began to dissipate from her vision, the farmpony instead moving her attention to a dull throbbing in her thigh. She racked her mind for the answer for it as she attempted to move her forelegs and found they were bound to the wall. Further investigation showed that they were actually metal shackles.
“Nowww presenting…your Highnessss…King Sombraaaaa!”
More applause. The clapping outside seemed to morph with the sound of a train whistle in AJ’s mind, slowly churning her only ride out of here while she jumped from the caboose. Only to be captured again. The only other way out of here had been a hallucination.
But, after that? She had been dragged into the throne room, threatened by Sombra, and then… well, then what?
The pony perked her head up. She was in a small room with tiled floor, iron bars that seemed to be made out of dirt, grime, and rust as much as metal, blocking the only exit out. Beyond that, two Pegasystems stared directly into the cage, their piercing red eyes glaring at Applejack’s figure on the wall. The cell seemed to be one of many in a long corridor; she presumed the sound was coming from one of its ends.
In her own personal cell, it was absolutely atrocious. Blood, dust, dirt, and various debris littered the floor, the finishing touch being a small pile of bones in the corner, beneath a holes for tightly-packed screws. The farmpony’s eyes went wide at the sight. 
How’d I – where am I?
Her breathing began to come out in shallow gasps as a new voice, instantly recognizable, boomed from the outside – the warping had since subsided:
“Denizens of the Crystal Empire! Tonight, I bring you something rather… unusual…”
Sombra.
Before she could properly comprehend this, a loud metal clicking pulled her from thinking anything else. Emerald eyes found the iron gate to the cell being pulled open by a Pegasystem, who casually pulled it all the way back as the other remained idle. After this action was completed, both hovered into the room menacingly. Each, in perfect synchronization, moved their forceps to the shackles, simultaneously releasing them and grabbing Applejack by the hoof.
Silently, with Applejack not sure how to react, they led her out of the cell and into the hallway. Sombra’s speaking continued outside.
“…Your usual skirmish of two volunteers has been… changed, slightly…”
Skirmish? What skirmish?
Applejack’s idle body hovered over the tiles as she turned a corner in the corridor, turning into another long hallway with cells on either side. The noise from outside was louder here, and light was coming in from the opposite end. She had an uneasy feeling that she was going to be a larger part of the skirmish than she desired.
AJ thought to her sword, which, somehow, was still at her side. Initially, she questioned the fact that she had been jailed without its removal, but then she just frowned internally at the prospect that it wouldn’t help her in battle at all, really; there would’ve been no point in removing it, and they must’ve known that. The farmpony had still little to no skill with the blade, and if she didn’t have that, well – there was no hope for her, now was there?
Why did Twilight give it to her? Why didn’t Twilight just let her die or get captured? Why, oh why, did her friend think she would stand a fighting chance against what seemed like the whole world?
I miss Twilight.
The hallucination that Applejack had jumped to off of the train had seemed so real, so lifelike… and, it was just the dust. Enchanted dust, most likely, from Sombra, who was now beginning to appear as though he had much more magical prowess than he did three centuries ago. Time flies when you’re drifting through nothingness.
“…a personal acquaintance of mine…”
That last statement almost cemented the fact that Applejack was going to take part in something she really didn’t want to. Not that she knew what it was, of course, but she was about to find out; the two robots had just turned the corner with their prisoner, and now faced the exit.
Through the metal gating of the entrance, Applejack could see that it was an arena of some sort. A large, circular space of sand was laid out in front of her, with walls surrounding its entirety that hid from sight the bottom of the audience, which had quieted down since Sombra’s last statement. 
Arena fighting. The sword would either have no use whatsoever or be her greatest asset. AJ hoped the latter.
“And now, your competitors for tonight’s SOMBRAIC SKIRMISH!!”
The crowd went nuts. Applejack remained idle, choosing to accept her fate, whatever it may be. She had a good run. The Pegasystems didn’t move.
“In this corner, we’ve got the meanest, most determined farmer that could ever have existed in all this world! Or, rather, that did exist. But, she’s here tonight! The Stetson-wearing love-and-caring Blast from the Past, Applejack!!!”
Once again, applause rained down, thunder without rain in an unforgiving desert. The metal gate slid with a snap open as Applejack was forcibly shoved out. The noise level became near-deafening as her face met the sand. She propped herself up on her forelegs, shaking her face and her mane. As she stood up, a similar sound and a tuft of sand blew in her face: somepony had tossed her Stetson to her.
The tangerine pony looked in awe around her. It seemed like the entire Crystal Empire was here, cheering for a death that wasn’t their own, knowing all too well theirs would come soon enough. The movements in the stands, hundreds upon thousands of ponies all screaming for fighting, made her sick to her stomach.
“And, in this corner…”
Applejack looked directly across from her, where a black tunnel stood. A metal gate was placed in front of it, just like there had been on hers. Something unsettling was caught in her throat. Her stomach did cartwheels. Whatever she was about to face was behind there.
“…The likeness of the ancient Princesses herself! Master of magic and ingenuity that hasn’t left the same square ten feet in three hundred years! The Lavender Catastrophe, the Horn to cause Mourn…”
The gate, slightly too early, was pulled open; a tall, slender unicorn flew out into the sound weakly. Her coat was that of a soft lavender, and her mane was of a deeper violet.
“…Twilight Sparkle!”
Applejack could no longer drop her draw. She merely stared.
“Begin!”


*	*	*


The two ponies met each other in the middle of the arena, walking slowly up to one another. AJ looked for any sign that this was a hallucination, some shimmer of dust or magic, but there appeared to be none. She looked as old and withered as always. This had gone from very scary to complete entropy.
“Twilight?” Applejack asked, below the obnoxious crowd, “… is that you, this time? For real?”
Twilight nodded sadly. “Yes.”
AJ looked down to the ground, her dirty Stetson letting a small stream of forgotten sand flow from its brim. “I… do they want us ta do this? Ta fight each other?”
Once again, the sad nod returned. In response, a shaking of the head.
“No! I can’t! I-I won’t! I can’t fight mah own friend!”
Twilight’s eyes glistened from her tall, lanky body. “I know, Applejack. I would never do anything to hurt you, either. You were supposed to leave the Empire and fix this.”
“Sombra,” Applejack said, dejectedly and guilty, “I… I fell for his trickery. I’m a fool, I know. But, he – you looked so real!”
“Don’t worry over it too much, Applejack,” Twilight Sparkle assured, “Anypony would stumble over him. He is much more powerful now than he used to be.”
A small chanting had begun in the surrounding audience, missed in with booing. As it became progressively louder and spread throughout the entire coliseum, one word was made out, repeated over and over again: “Fight! Fight! Fight!...”
Applejack looked outwards towards the jeering crowd from the very center of the arena, standing calmly with her best friend. “Are they really ‘specting us to fight?”
“I… I’m afraid so,” Twilight said, lowering her head. 
“You will fight,” Sombra’s voice yelled out, from nowhere Applejack cared to look, “Or, I end the both of you right here. Whoever lives is granted another day to live within the Empire. The alternative, is, of course, the Automatonic Horde.”
The audience seemed delighted with the idea, and the earlier chanting was replaced by words and phrases nopony with any sense of sanity could make out. Twilight’s eyes went wide. Applejack took notice.
“What?” the farmpony innocently asked, “What’s wrong? Why are they cheerin’ louder? What’s the… horde-thingy?”
“I’ve been dragged to all of these fights in the last three centuries,” Twilight recounted, living a flashback, “Forced to watch innocent ponies kill each other for no reason at all. If they choose not to move, the Horde comes out. Dozens upon hundreds of corrupted Pegasystems… they don’t end…” The memory seemed to be absolutely terrible; Applejack could read fear on her friend’s eyes.
The tall unicorn shook her head, snapping back into reality. “Unsheathe your sword, you’re going to kill me.”
“What?” Applejack demanded, taking a step back, “And why in the hay would I do that?”
“It’s your only option,” Twilight replied, “If you ever want a second chance out. And, this isn’t about you anymore. It’s about me. It’s about the rest of them. It’s about making sure the rest of the world progresses as it should, not like… this.”
She picked her head up, delivering a very sobering statement: “In order for this to occur, and for us to avoid a fate worse than eternal entrapment within Tartarus, you have to take my life.”
Applejack shook her head. “No. I won’t do it. And, that’s final.”
Twilight sighed, hanging her head in defeat. The crowd only got successively louder, calling out both “Horde!” and “Fight!” in various sections of the arena.
Applejack leaned in towards her friend, who had remained motionless. “Twilight, I’m sorry, but… I just can’t do it.”
She backed up as Twilight raised her head, revealing her height as twice that of Applejack’s. Her horn glowed with fierce intensity as her eyes glowed a sickly green, black smoke ringing out from the edges.
“Very well, dear friend,” she said icily, “If you refuse to end me, then I must end you.”


*	*	*



Applejack felt the ground beneath her tremble for a moment, and as she looked down, small pebbles were rumbling as small cracks formed. Cold sweat broke out on her back as she darted to the side, just as a huge, obsidian spire stabbed upwards through the ground, stabbing skyward.
The pony landed on her back over to the side, her Stetson falling off of her blonde mane. She had no initiative to pick it up. “Twilight!” she called, “What’re ya doing?”
“Trying to get this to end,” she said loudly, “And if the only way for you to see that is for me to kill you, then so be it.”
Another rock spire, this one much more rugged than the last, came out of the arena wall, barely missing Applejack’s hide. Coolness radiated off of the rock. “But, if ya kill me, you’ll never get out!”
Twilight only grunted, telling Applejack that she should stop waiting for an answer and just start running.
As soon as she began to move forwards, smaller spires, with intent to kill, poked up from the ground at rapid pace, forming the end points of Twilight’s deadly radii. Applejack would’ve found it irritating that she’s been doing nothing but running the last day, but she felt that the need to concentrate on living was much more important.
The crowd was going beyond wild. Stomping of hooves was getting louder by the minute, the cheering for either victor almost exceeding the former’s volume. It was an awful, dark form of entertainment, added onto the slaves’ already miserable lives; Applejack found the entire situation gruesome. They, however, loved it.
As the tangerine pony neared Twilight’s entrance to the stadium, the rock spires caught up to her, catching on her side and lifting her back hooves up into the air. Twilight, using highly accurate magic, moved the rock spires at such a rate that Applejack was involuntarily using them as stairs. Upwards and upwards, until she had reached a height equal to the brim of the tenth row of seats.
Then, all towers fell out from under her.
The wind was knocked out of her in an instant, a rib cracking within Applejack’s chest as she hit the ground from twenty feet up. She fought back a tear as a dull throbbing began in her head and pain radiated from her thorax. The noise was going to split open her head.
“You know, I shouldn’t be surprised,” Twilight said, from her position at center stage, “Expecting a weak earth pony like you to actually get out of this hellhole? Please.”
The insults weren’t doing anything good to Applejack’s morale, but the orange pony knew what Twilight was trying to do. The unicorn was attempting to rile up AJ enough that she’d come at her full swing with her magical sword.
“I ain’t fallin’ for yer tricks, Twi’!” Applejack screamed out, stupidly. Her reply was a terrifying glare of fluorescent green and not enough reaction time as two huge rock formation dug their ways out of the ground, grasping Applejack’s backhooves with long, spindly fingers.
“Ooh…” the very cheerful announcer called out, “Twilight’s reallyrocking  the arena today…”
“What trick?” Twilight cocked back, as the blood rushed up to the head of Applejack, who know hung upside down between two enchanted structures in the middle of the arena. “We both know it’s true. I don’t know why I needed to come see you all those years in Ponyville. You’re just a dumb country-pony who wouldn’t know courage if it hit her in the face!”
Twilight, you’re really going a bit too far…
Applejack suddenly called into mind that, if it wasn’t for her courage, Twilight almost surely would’ve fallen to her death off of a rock wall on the first night they met. Courage was what Apple Family members were known for. Applejack felt the urge to say this, but she thought better of it this time.
The rocks squeezed her backhooves for just a moment, seeming to do something akin to a pulse. Electrical currents, as AJ could see, ran down the length of them and into the ground. Lightning bolts arched from an area around Twilight, who appeared to Applejack as a pseudo-goddess at this point.
“Oh, are you thinking of your family back home?” her friend mocked, “All those inbred relatives that you’ll never, ever see again?”
Applejack’s heart stopped. “What did you say?”
Once again, the pony went into freefall as the rocks let her go to the ground below, this time, thankfully, from not quite as high as height. She hit the ground with more pain, but this time, she didn’t flinch as she got up. AJ spit to the side, blood mixed with saliva finding a spot on the sandy floor. Twilight smiled from her position, crossing one leg over the other.
“Yup.” She flashed Applejack a wide smile. “All your inbred relatives that you won’t see. Ever. Again.”
“Don’t you use that word, Twilight,” Applejack snarled, taking a tentative step forwards. “How dare you even call my family that.”
“Is there a problem? Is somepony getting a bit upset?” Twilight was almost prancing around the center of the arena, but slowly getting closer to Applejack as she did. “And all over the fact that the secret’s out that you and your brother have been sharing the same bed as well as the room?”
“Take that back, Twilight,” Applejack replied. Twilight had her right where she wanted her, and AJ knew it. But all her eyes could see was red. She tried to push the emotions back, but she couldn’t. She had heard it too much at home; all the rumors, all the jokes, all the awful stories. It was the one thing she truly despised in this world. “Take. It. Back.”
Twilight took long, exaggerated strides towards her friends. “I wonder how many cousins you have that aren’t deformed? I mean, there were a lot at the Reunion, but are there others you aren’t revealing.
Applejack felt more magic being created behind her, as if Twilight was bringing up rocks behind her once more, but the farmpony kept her ground. If she had to die, fine. She’ll accept her fate. With dignity, though.
“We have none,” she spat. “Watch yer tongue, Missy.”
“Best part is, you won’t have to worry about all of ‘em ever again.” Twilight said happily, as the sound in the coliseum seemed to die down for a couple moments. The whole world became mute as Twilight shot her jeers. “You have good practice with that, though.”
The magic that had been made behind AJ made itself apparent as a large rock wall forced Applejack across the arena, pushing the reluctant pony until she was an inch away from Twilight’s face. The wall remained there as Twilight lowered her head, glaring into Applejack’s eyes not with green eyes of darkness, but with her usual, purple ones. They screamed hope, victory, and hate, all at the same time.
Applejack’s breath was shaky. Her sword began to pulse once more from within its sheathe. Twilight Sparkle leaned in close, and, with victory in her grasp, spoke in just above a whisper:
“How are those parents of yours, by the way, Applejack?”
Applejack grit her teeth. “NO!”
Somepony, on the other side of the planet, called out “Wait!” – the one phrase that was discernable among the muted crowd in the background. All Applejack could hear was her heartbeat.
In a quick instant, Applejack reached to the side, pulled the sword out of its case, and, in the same motion, kept swinging all the way to the other side, bringing the blade through Twilight’s throat.
“I demand this battle be halted, as the subjects involved are not of the Crystal Empire’s jurisdiction!”
The voice seemed familiar, but Applejack couldn’t take her eyes off of the sight in front of her. The applause sounded like it had tried to roar in support, but this other voice was overpowering it. AJ only listened; her eyes never moved from her friend.
“You?” Sombra’s voice called from the side of the arena, from some imperial viewing platform the farmpony hadn’t seen before. “You were encased in stone.”
“Used to be, Sombra, dear,” the voice crooned, “And I demand that these two prisoners return to their rightful region at this instant.”
“Two?” Sombra called. “There is only one subject.”
Applejack watched as Twilight’s headless, lanky body crumpled, bending at the knees and falling to the ground with a sickening lurch.
“And you may take her away; I am finished with her.”
Applejack dropped the magical sword from her mouth, where it fell in silence as a magical presence made itself known to her on her left side. A talon reached out to her.
“Dearest Honest Applejack, I am delighted to tell you that, as presiding ruler of the New Principality of Chaos, you are free to return home to the place that was once your home.”
The Element of Honesty tore her eyes away from her friend’s carcass and looked to the talon. A familiar figure was its owner. 
“Time to come home, Applejack,” Discord invited coolly.

> Felicity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The train clacked along the rail, jumping every couple of revolutions as if making sure the ponies inside were still alive and warm. It might as well have; the locomotive had since left the Crystal Empire, in all its’ dead grass and musty drought, and into the tundra that was the Frozen North. Frost collected on the windows, fogging the vision of anypony who wanted to get a better look at the snow collecting outside.
She sat on the chair, motionless. No depression or sadness went through her mind now. That would come later. She knew it would. There was only one emotion that was running through Applejack’s veins at the moment, and it was anger.
She exhaled a short, hate-filled breath into the car, and it materialized in front of her. One of the windows was cracked open, letting in a draft.
“Is that it, then?”
Applejack chose not to answer the question. Never before in her life, not even once she found that he had tricked her into thinking her friends were all against her, had she hated the draconequus sitting opposite her in the small train car.
“You’re just not going to speak to me? Not after I saved your life?”
The tangerine pony glared up at Discord from under her brow, emerald eyes piercing into his hide of many species. “There’s another life ya didn’t save.”
He waved a paw dismissedly at AJ. “You cannot possibly blame her death on me. I wasn’t the one who drew her sword.”
Applejack’s nostrils flared. “You were there the whole time. You coulda said somethin’ earlier, but ya didn’t. Ya let this happen.”
Discord returned AJ’s earlier glare. “I witnessed the extent it was getting to. You didn’t hear my calling, Applejack.”
“Ya never did. Not ‘til after I’d killed her.”
“Oh, didn’t I?”
Regrettably, a memory surfaced in Applejack’s mind: one of hearing a voice louder than the others, a cautionary one. But, it was a memory of rage, rage the made Applejack deaf to the words of prevention.
The pony bit her lip as the train sped on, clacking against the metal of the track. “It don’t matter,” she said back, though it was more for herself than the other creature, “Ya coulda stopped the whole thing earlier on, too. She didn’ have ta die. You coulda saved the both of us.”
She was looking Discord dead in the face at the point. Discord raised an eyebrow; then, slowly, painfully, shook his head.
“You tell yourself that, Applejack. And remember that you didn’t kill yourself and let Twilight live. You could’ve saved her as easy as that, but no, blame the one who saved you. I will never understand why ponies are saved and then torment their saviors so.”
Applejack opened her mouth to say something, but found it dry. No vocal chord stretched, no response seemed suitable in her mind. The words from her savior fell into her heart and sat there. 
And remember that you didn’t kill yourself and let Twilight live.
AJ tried to tell herself that there was something wrong with this statement, some reason why she should’ve kept herself alive. Was it because it would’ve upset Twilight? Probably as much as Applejack was feeling right now about her dead friend. Even so, that wasn’t it. That didn’t justify it.
He was… right.
“However, this is the exact reason that I am glad you’re alive.”
Applejack picked her mourning head up and looked, curiously, into the draconequus’s eyes. She didn’t understand.
He pointed a claw at her. “You are tough. Killing yourself would’ve been the easy way out. But, you didn’t. Not even when Twilight began assaulting you, both physically and verbally. Resilient. And, unlike Twilight, you possess no magical ability that might become strong enough to usurp me. You are an admirable young mare.”
Applejack looked back down to the wooden floor, blinking a bit to try and comprehend this. The snow continued to batter the train from outside.
“But… why?” Applejack questioned, “Why am I worth savin’?”
Discord stared into the pony’s eyes. “Well, I know you personally, don’t I? That makes us friends. And friends look out for each other, even when it’s been three centuries without so much as a postcard. Thanks, for that, by the way,” he added, jokingly. 
The pony continued to look questioningly at her savior as he continued, “There’s a faded line between chaos and tyranny, Applejack. Tyranny can be chaotic, but true chaos does not involve tyranny. You are going to a place that’s chaotic, not tyrannical. A better place. A place you can handle yourself in without the watchful eye of the shadow pony himself. That’s why I chose to save you.”
He added, with a smirk, “Plus, I happened to be there already for various reasons. Isn’t coincidence wonderful?”
Applejack couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something the draconequus was hiding from her. It didn’t make sense for Discord, who had previously turned her mind and her homeland into atrocities which only rivaled the modern-day Crystal Empire, to save her out of the blue. And, because he was there? What are the odds? And why?
She had the urge to ask all of these, but the question that left her mouth was:
“What are ya doing out of yer stone prison?”
Discord laughed in the pony’s face, who only became more confused as the train rolled on down the tracks.
“An interesting question,” he observed. “But, I suppose an answer is in order. It seems like you’re pretty lost.”
A snap of his talons, and a sly grin, and the train car disappeared.


*	*	*


The world spread out before her, grass and trees sprouting out of the ground that seeped into a void like spilled water. Along with it came the buildings; dilapidated, falling down, destroyed and burning. Shouts of pain and anger resounded with magical bursts and the metallic clanking of swords.
Applejack was standing in tall, unkempt grass the brushed against her legs every time a gust of wind came along. Debris rustled past her in the wind as her vision slowly came to her, de-fogging from the sudden change.
A voice from thin air whispered within her ear: “It was best to show you, than to tell you. Tell me, when is this?”
It was Discord; he had immersed Applejack in a vision of the past. Among the din, a banner flew lazily across the overcast sky, soaking wet with freezing raindrops that went right through Applejack’s coat. The banner came to rest atop a statue in the center of a field of monuments, draping over every appendage and revealing to Applejack large, crumpled, red letters.
“’ALL CITIES FOR FELICITY’” Applejack read aloud. She turned around from the monument garden to look at the city itself.
The whole thing was in shambles. A massive rock wall dominated the far side of it, as if the city was part of a large mountain; its foreground consisted of fire, destruction, and silhouettes of ponies doing all sorts of things from burglary to brawling to arson.
A cracking noise made Applejack whip around in the smoke that filled the air. From a distance, the large spire of a castle in ruins cracked halfway up, tipping the pillar off its side and off the castle completely, coming detached from the castle and the city and falling onto the plains below. The castle had some words inscribed upon it that were now faded and crumbled, rendered indecipherable.
“The Canterlot Riots,” Applejack said aloud.
“Very good,” the otherworldly voice of Discord responded, “No princesses left to govern their subjects. Overcome with sadness and nearing insanity as troubles associated with the Magical Cycle arose, they passed power down to the Council. The Elements, no use. Without all Six, they were virtually powerless to stop the threats. The problems. The monsters. The darkness and fear and anger and hate. None of it.
“Especially since Twilight, Element of Magic, was nowhere to be found, no prowess or special authority could’ve been used effectively. Twilight was a pupil of the princess; the rest were not. They all left, going their separate ways before things got too heated. The Council tried. But, twelve of the Princess’ royal staff did not equal two Princesses. The problems escalated. 
“And so, this occurs. An entire capital in shambles. The Riots. What you’re looking at is the end; seven months’ culmination into the end of an era. Kicked back up into excitement by the Council’s attempt to solve everything… again.”
“Seven months?” Applejack wheeled around, taking in the sight of what she saw. This was seven months’ doing? Ponies had been doing this for more than half a year?
What happens to this world without guidance?
“You see what happens to this world without guidance?” Discord echoed, reading her thoughts. “As long as ponies have figure that’s even somewhat powerful and intimidating stepping before them, they can live through anything. The Council was neither of these things.”
“Did…” Applejack asked, trailing off. Then, getting her voice back, “D-did it ever get better?”
As if to answer her question, loud panting and the sprinting of many hooves resounded in her ears. The pony turned around to see three shadowy silhouettes racing across the monument garden, but with no real intent to do anything. They were simply there to cause damage.
The trio stopped in front of the statue that the wind had draped a banner over. One of them grabbed the cloth with their mouths and yanked it off the structure. 
“’Felicity’, my flank,” one of them spat in a gruff voice, “It’s too late for that.”
The statue was now illuminated before all of them by Luna’s moon: it showed a creature with the head of a pony and the body of all sorts of other animals, showing surprise on its face and holding its arms out in mercy, as if the fate that had cast him into stone was of some dastardly, unspeakable horror.
“Well, looky here,” another of the figures said, “It’s one of the Council’s prized idols.”
“Actually, boss,” the third said, “That looks Princess-Era to me.”
“All the better,” the other said.
With effort, the three ponies all turned around, and began bucking the statue at the legs repeatedly, cracks forming in the legs and traveling their way up the rest of the figure like small rivers. Applejack watched in amazement as pink light began to filter in through the cracks.
As they kicked more, one of the shards of the statue fell loose, revealing a long shaft of pink light.
The magical explosion that ensued blinded Applejack.


*	*	*


“I was free the same way I always was,” Discord said, “Three ponies fighting, arguing, or doing anything they can to create a lack of harmony. That city was full of it; I just needed the right push.”
They were back in the train car. Applejack held her head with a hoof, reeling from the vision. The windows had changed their view from fierce and snowy to lusciously green.
“So,” Discord said, “I re-instilled myself as the rightful leader of that place. Organized chaos, I like to call it. Everypony tries to get along and do their own sort of thing with a different kind of chaos; mine. Anarchy is an interesting thing when handled the right way.”
Applejack looked to her savior. “So… you’re the leader of Equestria, now?”
“Equestria, no,” he corrected, “The New Principality of Chaos, yes.”
The pony’s gaze shifted back down to the wooden floor again. “A lot has changed,” she murmured.
“Indeed it has,” Discord replied. “And you can find that out yourself once we get to the NPC, once you decide what you’re going to do.”
Their gaze met once more, a suspicious look once more finding itself growing on AJ’s face. “Huh?”
Discord shrugged. “I have no use for you in Old Canterlot or the Palace. As far as I’m concerned, you are free to do whatever you would like, Applejack. Live your life! The world is grand! Chaos is grand! Think of how much better you’ll be, away from Sombra and his… Sombra-ness.”
A hiss sounded from the car. Steam poured from the train as Applejack looked out the window and noticed where they were.
“Ponyville,” she said, barely audible.
“Yes,” Discord re-affirmed. “Ponyville.”
The two of them walked off of the train, Applejack’s ruddy Stetson on her head and her magical sword where it always was, sheathed by her side. She squinted into the sunlight at the world around her.
The ground around her wasn’t faded green like she remembered, but a checkered array of darkened grass. The buildings in front of her ranged from her time, all wooden, and old-fashioned in model, to newer ones; these stood out from the rest in their cube-like shape. Tinted reflective glass covered the outside of them, giving the buildings a bluish hue. Applejack wondered why they were designed that way.
Farther, into the heart of the city, large, flashing neon signs advertised products of all sort, while a large radio tower seemed to dominate the skyline. Odd, pony-powered flying machines hovered around some of the taller buildings, very rectangular in their formation. The noise of machinery, business, and general hubbub flowed out of the town, a constant stream of the new world that Applejack had yet to be accustomed to.
Among the new features of the town included its inhabitants – there weren’t just ponies here anymore. Griffons, dragons, some escaped crystal ponies, mules and deer and antelope and all sorts of ungulates, and other, masked ponies with respirators around their mouths, walked among what she was used to. The difference was shocking to Applejack, but everypony else ignored it as if there was nothing wrong. 
“It may be called ‘Ponyville’,” Discord said, a paw and claw on his hip, hovering in mid-air, “But, it’s not just ponies here anymore. You certainly have a lot of catching up to do.”
Applejack couldn’t think of anything to say. The world before her was certainly different. Very different. Almost too much for her to handle.
“And, you may start wherever you want,” Discord continued, “So long as its within the NPC.”
AJ squeaked out an “Ooh!” as pressure encircled her right forehoof, not enough to cause pain but enough to be fairly noticeable. She looked down, raising her hoof to see a small band, about an inch wide, encircle the hoof and match its color, giving off a faint glowing aura that would be the only clue to its existence besides its physical presence on Applejack.
“What the hay is this?” she demanded, shaking her hoof and watching as the object did not budge, whatsoever.
“It’s a magical cuff,” Discord explained, “It prevents you from crossing the border of the NPC. Magically fries you from the inside out. If you begin to step over, you’ll feel a slight shock. Get too far away, and you’re fried pony.”
AJ shot Discord a disbelieving glance. “What reason would I have fer leaving Equestria? I don’t even know what everythin’ is yet!”
“The NPC,” Discord corrected, “And, you don’t – not really. I just don’t need you snooping into places where you aren’t needed… not to mention, if Sombra attempts to take you back, you’ll be dead before he can use you.”
She looked at the band on her hoof. “What kinda sick game is this?”
Discord shrugged. “You call it ‘sick’. I call it ‘precautionary’. And this is where I take my leave.”
He held out a claw to Applejack, raising his head up high. “Good day to you, Honest Applejack. Our paths will most likely cross again. Until then, good luck in this new world of yours.”
Warily, and uncomfortably, Applejack stuck out her own banded hoof, and shook with Discord. With a snap of his talons and a white flash, the draconequus had disappeared.
Applejack stood there, facing the train that had taken her here as it sped off into the distance. Discord’s last message had left a bad taste in her mouth.
You call it "sick". I call it "precautionary".
“He’s hidin’ somethin’, all right,” Applejack muttered to herself. “I don’t know what, but I intend to find out.”
The pony turned from the train and faced her old home – now in a futuristic, very random and hectic state. She noticed, from afar, that some buildings seemed to twist and turn as if they were alive, similar to what they did when Discord had Ponyville under his chaotic fist over three centuries ago. 
One of these buildings was a short, shout structure, like a cupcake with a thick spire jutting out from its center upwards towards the heavens – it looked like it had been recently refurbished, and obviously painted over and used for different things, but its façade stuck out in Applejack’s mind. It was a building she knew. A structure she had once entered. 
The Carousel Boutique.
“Rarity,” she muttered.
All at once, the weight of the day finally crashed upon Applejack.
The pony laid down on the wooden floor of the train station and buried her face in her hooves. The tears started just as the rain did.