Catastrophic Charm

It was dusk, and Applejack was alone, with Apple Bloom still at the Sugarcube Corner and Granny Smith taking a bath.

She was expectantly waiting for her brother at the front porch, done with her work a while ago. She sat at the rocking chair her grand mother usually occupied, looking at the road leading to town, repeatedly attempting to call her older brother on the phone. And despite her stubborn efforts, there was no response from him at all.

It was irking the freckled blond to no end, as she had received orders for apple crates earlier, only to tell the callers that they couldn't do deliveries today due to... unexpected developments. While disappointed, they expressed interest calling some other time, but the woman wasn't so sure how long she could keep them willing to buy.

"Gosh darnit, Mac." She muttered under her breath, checking her watch. "Where are you when I need you?"

Though she wasn't too concerned with the lost chances of getting some monetary inflow for the farm, they needed the money to manage the entire apple farm. Her brother's absence was giving her - and the rest of the family too - plenty of trouble like the time he got injured before that day before an applebucking season.

He better give her a good explanation of why he left earlier today. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine how well she'll react to whatever he was going to say for his excuse. It was so unlike her brother, leaving without a word, but if the seasons could change, then so can people. Applejack, by this time, firmly believed that he seeing someone.

But the question was, who was he seeing? Or worse yet, how many women was he seeing?

Evidence was piling up. Deep and careful thinking, as well as half-buried memories from last week's various events, pointed fingers to many women, and rather than rushing in blindly and accusing said women of sleeping with her older brother instantly, she narrowed the numbers down. So far, three names were still in her head:

Cheerilee, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy.

Big Macintosh having a relationship with Cheerilee was understandable; the two of them knew each other since kindergarten and even graduated together. Him with Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, was still likely, but their personalities clashed with each other. And the blond tried her hardest not to dwell on her supposed BDSM fetish.

She only got her brother's word about that. And so far, she hadn't had the guts to ask her best friend about it.

Then with Fluttershy. She knew they had a loving relationship that lasted a year. What caused its abrupt breakdown was still a mystery to her - and the man acted as if he never knew her intimately, but if asked, he would simply shrug and say they just drifted apart. Even she was surprised when she heard about it.

The blond felt that there was more than he let on about the relationship. A man like Macintosh and a woman like Fluttershy wouldn't just 'drift apart'. Something horrible must have happened between the two of them. It was troubling to think. It took them a year to hook up. They only took a day to then break up. Did they had a fight?

It was one thing to respect one's desire to leave personal matters alone. It was another to snoop around in them. She wanted to find out what the reason was, but common sense said that it wasn't worth it. And besides, she knew her brother well enough to guess that if his buttons were pressed beyond their limit, the result would be scary.

Applejack sighed in frustration, ridding her mind of unneeded thoughts, then turned to glare at the road.

"When I get my hands on you, you will regret acting unlike yourself..." She muttered to herself.

A rising trail of dust clouds in the distance caught her attention. Before she knew it, she was on her feet, ready to release a string of anger-fueled ranting at her brother as soon as he walked up to her. Something wasn't right, however. He was driving up to the front porch instead of the truck's usual parking spot right next to the barn.

To her surprise and annoyance, the car he was driving wasn't a truck.

She blinked. "What in tarnation?"

Big Macintosh obviously was not the kind of person to waste their hard-earned income on another car, so it had to be someone else driving up to her. Upon recognizing what kind of vehicle it was, she froze. It was a police car, belonging to a local officer by the name of Johnny Law, a tall toned man with black hair and blue eyes.

And an officer coming to the house could only mean... Oh no.

The sympathetic look she saw on the man's face as his window lowered did not help ease her fears.

[>!<]

Big Macintosh awoke in a pitch-black room.

He was wet all over, his worn jeans felt like they were torn at the most random of places, his dirty work shirt was unbuttoned, and his legs felt like they had been hit by weights. He groaned and tried to get his hand to clutch his face. But he couldn't. He realized afterwards that he was tied to an old metal chair, whose frame was half rusted.

Panic kicked in. Being tied up meant bad news.

The blond still had enough strength in his arms to attempt breaking the chains binding him, but decided that it wasn't the right time. He could barely move his legs, and if he did, then they hurt. Added with the fact that he just regained his consciousness, his body - more importantly his legs - still needed to recover from the aftershock of the accident.

Plus, he knew where he was. Of course he would know. This wasn't the first time he was tied up down here.

The air smelled of familiar animals and fruits. He was in a certain ex girlfriend's basement.

"Shit."

He would have chosen a more colourful word to express his horror, but his mind focused on escaping.

The door to the basement suddenly opened. White light rushed in, revealing a figure entering through the frame before it was shut. The basement returned to darkness. There was a click, and the light bulb above him turned on, temporarily blinding Mac. Eyes hurting, he swore once more. A giggle came from the new presence.

"Good evening, Macintosh." An all too familiar voice greeted him as his sight returned.

He looked up despite himself.

A petite woman dressed in a buttoned cream-coloured gown was descending the stairs, the wood beneath her feet creaking. Dust fell down from their steps in small layers, having not been used until recently. Her long pink hair was combed and clipped neatly, and her oddly glowing aquamarine eyes were focused on the man sitting in the middle of the room.

She began humming a tune he was familiar with. It was from a local folk song, one that the man knew by heart. It was his favourite tune, but her humming it did not make him feel at ease - only more willing to escape. Her lips rose to show him a warm, genuine smile. Why she did so however, the man did not want to think about it.

Finally reaching the bottom of the stairs, she walked towards him... with another gleaming, jagged knife in hand.

"Fluttershy." The blond venomously spat as she approached, still humming.

"Still hate me as usual, I see?" The pinkette asked, before giggling then resuming her humming.

"Let me go!" Macintosh roared, his deep-seated anger for his ex-girlfriend surging.

The woman fell silent, but her captive could see that she was fighting back an urge to hurt him.

"I'd rather keep you down here." She said darkly. "I love you, Big Macintosh. I always did, even after you left me."

Despite her light weight, his legs began to hurt when she started to straddle him. Her free hand was caressing his face, whilst her knife hand was dangerously close to his jugular vein. Mac was repulsed by her touch - although it was smooth and gentle - with good reason: even though she looked sane, she was still mentally unstable.

"But I wonder if you love me back. Do you? Of course you don't. You love Cheerilee." She murmured.

He paled. "H-How did you..."

She knew about what happened. Somehow, she knew. Cheerilee's life was on the line. Knowing Fluttershy, she would kill her and his child, and there would be nearly nothing he could to stop her in his injured state. He had to buy time, but how could he tell her about his crazy ex soon coming to get her? He had no options.

The pinkette leaned her face closer to his own, breaking his sentence. She smelled nice, as she probably took a bath before going down to see him, while he smelled faintly of smoke, dirt, and blood. Her caressing hand moved to exploring his chest, cheeks blushing and lust flaring up - but she still kept that disturbing, warm smile.

"I followed and watched you." She whispered in his ear. "I hate to admit it. You did her harder than you did me."

She followed up in her action by kissing him in the neck, just right above where she placed her knife. Both a chill and a sensation of pleasure ran down his spine - and though he was determined to not to be seduced by her, it was hard to concentrate while a knife was ready to slit his throat only at a moment's notice.

"Leave her out of this. She has no clue about us!" He whispered back fearfully, ignoring the pleasure he felt.

She narrowed her eyes and dropped the smile. "Oh, so you care about her more than you cared for me?"

He unintentionally gulped, earning his neck pricks from the knife's sharp edges. "I..."

She put a finger on his lips, smirking as she saw the look on his face. "Don't answer. I know you do."

She swooped down to kiss him - not on his neck like before, but on his lips. The action was as gentle as her earlier touching, but smoother, and though he was unwilling, he was getting aroused by this. Long, agonizing minutes later, Fluttershy finally broke the kiss. She was satisfied with what she had felt and done... for the moment.

"You can do whatever you want to me, but leave her alone. Please. Just leave her alone." He begged breathlessly.

"I'll... think about it." She said smugly, toying with him. "In the meantime, why don't we talk about ourselves?"

Big Macintosh reluctantly nodded in response; he was going to have the damned 'talk' with her. He had nothing in mind to say to her to dissuade her from whatever she was going to do after it, and she made a point of reminding him about what previously happened in the basement with a casual twirl of her knife occasionally.

"First things first... Why did you leave me, Mac?" Her voice was lowered, but he could see her turn serious.

A flashback of Fluttershy screaming madly as he restrained her from hurting a pizza delivery girl who was inadvertently flirting with him replayed in his mind. Then came another flashback in which he was pulled away to an alley, to his shock, by three pretty women who each asked for his number... only for them to be attacked by the pinkette.

The man sighed, remembering all too well the reason why, wishing he forgot what it was.

"I left you for your own good, Fluttershy. You became obsessed with me." His voice was barely a whisper.

"But isn't that a good thing?!" She snapped. "I was keeping you faithful to me, because you were mine!"

"You also alienated one of my friends. You hurt Wind Whistler for just talking to me." He said solemnly.

"She had it coming. I know you wanted to cheat on me, and you wanted to do it with her!" She defended.

"That's a lie. I never wanted to cheat on you back then." He countered calmly.

"Oh yeah?! Then what about that time I caught you on top of her, huh?!" She shrieked.

Great. The mention of that incident caught him slightly off-guard.

"I... tripped. It was just an accident." It didn't sound convincing, but as far as he cared... better him dead than Wind.

"Like there was anything for you to trip on the floor! You wanted to screw her there and then!" She snarled.

Fluttershy cupped his chin and pulled his face closer to hers - so close that they felt their breaths. The look on her face suddenly relaxed to show depression and - if Mac wasn't hallucinating - regret. Tears were forming in her eyes, and the grip on her knife was weakening. The man, seeing this, looked away. He had forgotten that she was still a human being, like him.

He was the reason for her sorrow and her anguish. If he only kept her in check, she wouldn't have turned out like this...

"Your affections are so fickle, Mac." She whispered sadly, tears flowing slowly. "I thought you loved me."

"You were the only man that gave me all what I ever wanted: love, companionship, and happiness. I felt so lonely and depressed each day that eventually I... wanted to kill myself. But you found me in time, and stopped me from dying. And that same night, when you said you loved me, I thought you meant it. I believed you... and look at what's happened to me!"

The pinkette gestured to herself with an almost maniacal swing of her knife, sobbing all the while.

"I didn't want anyone to take you away from me, because I didn't want to be alone and depressed! Sure, the animals keep me company and they love me, but it's not the same! That's why I acted that way to every woman I saw you with! How could you leave me, Mac, after all the things I've done to keep you?! How could you throw me away like that?!"

Big Macintosh was too guilty to say anything remotely comforting to her. He looked down at his feet in shame. She continued.

"You're the cruellest person I've ever met! Why did you show me your love if you planned to make my life worse by breaking up with me?! You could've just left me to die that night! You shouldn't have admitted your feelings to me! I never felt so hurt after you left me crying and screaming your name at my door, watching you walk away, begging you to come back..."

But then her wrath returned. Her shedded tears more or less enhanced the creepiness of her following words.

"And now... I've learned what I could from all my mistakes. The only thing I have to do is to make you love me again. I don't care about what it'll take to make you mine forever: If I have to kill my only friends, then I will. If I have to kill the Princesses, then I will. If I have to kill you, then I will. I will go that far to keep you to myself Mac, and no-one will stop me."

Despite the room basking in white light, the eerie glow of her aquamarine eyes became prominent.

"As for that bitch Cheerilee, I'm going to punish her for defiling you. I'm going to make sure that her death will be slow!"

Without warning, she embedded her knife deep into the chained man's right knee.

He screamed into a world of pain. The way she stabbed it ensured that not also did her action make his right leg near useless, but also ensured that if he tried to escape, he would have a harder time on his hands. To make things worse, she left it stuck deep in his flesh. The jagged knife's sharp and pointy edges were enjoying their fill of his blood, as was the tip of the hilt.

"Don't worry, Mac..." She murmured in a loving tone. "When I'm done with her, I'll keep you company for the rest of my life."

The blond's vision was dimming. As he watched Fluttershy leaving his prison with a petrol canister, he cried for his true love.

"Cheerilee... I'm so sorry..."

[>!<]

The moon was rising in the sky, but for the people left at the Sugarcube Corner, nobody seemed to care about what time it was. There were no customers remaining; the bakery was closed. Inside, three young girls and their 'teacher' were eating the last of their baked goods - an exquisite apple cake that was really hard to make.

The atmosphere in the room was a cheery one as they filled their stomachs with the sugary goodness of the rapidly depleting cake. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle were poking fun at each other, while Pinkie Pie was content to listen to their laughter as she washed the used kitchen utensils, having already finished her share.

That was the case until someone banged on the door. The laughter stopped and everyone stared at it, wondering who would want to go to the bakery at this time of the night. The only adult went to it, drying her hands with a towel. Though the door had a peep hole, it was hard to see who was behind it because of the darkness.

"Sorry, but we're closed!" Pinkie called out to the person as she opened the door, wanting to see who it was.

To her surprise, it was Lyra Heartstrings. She looked distressed and was sweating.

"Pinkie! People need your help!" She breathed. Apparently it seemed that she had run a great distance. "There's a fire!"

"What?! Where?!" She asked as surprise turned to concern. The children around the table glanced at each other at the news.

"Someone set fire to the apartment block three houses down from where I live! Firefighters are already on the scene, but they can't get to the people in the deeper parts of the building! That's where you come in! You have to do your impossible thing and get as many people as you can from out of there, before it's too late!"

Barely finishing her sentence, the cyan-haired women fainted due to her exhaustion afterwards. Pinkie caught her.

"Girls! Listen up! Take care of Ms. Heartstrings while I save those people!" She ordered as she gently put Lyra to the floor.

Before they could respond, Pinkie ran to the nearest drawer, opened and then jumped into it, then closed it from the inside. The young ones were left in awe at the impossibility of the action made possible. Scootaloo bravely went forwards from her spot at the table to see if she still in there... She only saw shining utensils when she opened it.

"Did... Did I just see...?" The purple-haired girl asked herself in disbelief, but even she couldn't finish what she wanted to say.

Sweetie Belle shrugged it off as she gathered their cooking mittens to pile up as a makeshift pillow for the unconscious woman. Scootaloo just stood at where she was, still in denial about what just happened, while Apple Bloom quietly forced herself to help in anyway she could with whatever knowledge of first aid she learned from her older siblings.

As the reality of the situation dug in, Apple Bloom couldn't help but think that her earlier feelings were proven true.

"I hope they're okay." She whispered, not realizing that the apartment burning that night was occupied by her teacher.