A poisoned apple.

"Whoo Wee! Sweet Celestia! That was quite a day out there!" Applejack said with a hearty sigh as she bucked her door open, the experience nowhere near as bad as the tree bucking she did through the day. The summer was fast approaching it's end; While still green the trees were slowly but surely losing their life in the leaves, the apples couldn't get any bigger or redder if you inflated or painted them, and she and her little sister had only felt it a bit, but they definitely felt a chill in the air of the seasonal change. Applejack kicked her boots off too tired even to hit the showers; the smell of tree bark and her own femme muskiness not all that offensive to her, in fact many a stallion out in the fields that day turned their heads; not away from her but to her and her scent, of a mix of hard working farmer girl and the beautiful feminine charmer she is.

She liked to get flirty with the field hooves when they gave her attention; a flip of her golden mane, or a little more sway in her hips and flanks then needed when she trotted, just enough to make them squirm. Even when she did she would always end her playfulness with a teasing quip of "Keep yer eyes on the apples in the trees and bushels fellas, not mah flanks...or your fired." She never MEANT to fire them colts will be colts after all, but she wanted a stallion. Hopefully a few years of hard work and playing hard to get, would give them all enough incentive to be stallions. Not that the attention didn't turn her young self on a bit.

Applejack took a small book from her the drawer in the desk under the window; it was a little apple golden book with one word on the cover, Diary. For all her exterior as a tough as nails; take names and kick plots girl, with a heart of gold if you got past her thick outer shell. Applejack had this side of her that still wanted to feel more like say; her friend Rarity, in touch with her femininity, and even she needed someone to confide her thoughts and feelings to. Looking around the top of her desk she got her jar of ink open, took her quill ready and started writing, she began to feel like a little school filly again.

"Late summer's are always mah favorite time a the year; the crops are just about ready and the real fun of harvesting and getting the food stocks ready for winter right around the corner, Rainbow has asked me for the fiftieth time if it's cider season yet, It's good to be alive sometimes.' She sucked the tip of her pen a bit to get it dipped in the ink and her thoughts together. 'Not everything is dandy bout it though, it seems to keep getting dark sooner and sooner as the days go by." as she wrote this it indeed did seem to suddenly get a bit darker in her room; she turned her head to the clock on her desk.

"Only ten to five? Bit soon to turn control over to Luna isn't it princess?" She asked to only herself as she lit a match to light a beeswax candle, the fizzle and soft glow giving her a decent amount of light; she had gas lights but prefered to save the gas for the winter. She looked around and noticed that even with her candles the room seemed to be getting so dark; the shadows of the darkness outside enveloping all but the very edge of her candles. Normally there would be some moon or starlight out to quell the dark but for some reason there didn't seem to be any. It just seemed to get too dark to read let alone right properly even with her whole box of bees waxes lit.

She didn't see outside her window; over the ground to the whittred and unhealthy trees of the farm. These where the trees that had been set aside as a reserve for those pesky vampire fruit bats. Not that where a problem now that they had their own patch of the farm to themselves; as one perched himself on a branch ready to drain the juice from one of the few they let grow to be nice and healthy too munch on, the bat let out a harsh screech as the branch he was on shook and wobbled before steadying itself to adjust to the added weight of two strangers on the branch with him.

"So tell me again why I had to put on this black outfit Master Keith?"one of the occupants in the branch asked another. They both had a bipedal stance on the branch; and both where clad in jet black garb that just barely blended into the dark of the looming night that surrounded them, the illusion broken only by a symbol patch on roughly where their left shoulders where.

"Naruto I told you, please don't call me "master" I'm your friend remember?" Danny Keith said to the static animation of the manga/anime character.  It had been something of a while since He'd started making them; a colorful collection of the beloved (and in some cases not so beloved) characters and creations he'd known from his old life so long ago. Static animation had endowed them all with the histories and stories the original creators had made for them, as well as the sense of self awareness that made them all the more independent to serve and live alongside the boy who gave them life, some might say that lacked creativity, when all he'd been doing is just copying what he had seen on television and other places, but in his mind it's one thing to be creative and make new and unique ideas, but it's no less creative to take the creations that came before by others and putting them in new and different scenarios with others like (and not so like) them.

The two of them sat on the branches in black outfits; as opposed to the orange one that Naruto's original creator had seen fit to give him. Naruto himself was surrounded by a light green glow, the hallmark to all static animations be they simple motions or fully independent creations. Having been made from an old toy; He had a slight "plasticity" to how he looked and moved, his joints gave slight creaking sounds like those of a fresh out the box plastic ones, that didn't mean the creation was stiff and jerky in it's movements on the tree beside his creator, but rather that the new form took some getting used too.

"I was thinking we need something more "tactical" for what it is we are about to do old friend." he said this as he took one of the heavily dessicated apples from the branch in one hand, and a long, thin but very strong and very sharp needle. "just one final ingredient, and IT will be ready." He said this as he poked the needle past the skin and made the sour acrid smelling juice travel down the syringe into the tube where it merged with an equally foul green substance.  What he had in there was a recipe that few Equestrians knew of; it was a brew cooked up to cause nothing but dismay; cowardice, and fear to whoever it was exposed too.

"What are we doing here exactly Dan?" Naruto asked lowering himself off the branch with the silence of the ninja he'd been created as. Danny gave a soft chuckle at being asked this as the liquid in the syringe began to turn bright orange; the same glowing orange as the coat of its intended target. He only pursed his lips and shushed his companion in nighttime strife. The both of them then made their way over the orchard fence and up to the house; not once taking their eyes off the bedroom window, waiting for AppleJack to go to sleep.

"Damn it; this moonlight always ruins everything." Danny said as they both got bathed in the silver glow of the moon's beaming light. Before it had come out; if one had looked outside to the area around sweet apple acres; they'd have found it difficult to see much because of the darkness. The way it just seemed to swallow up all the light and make the once cheery and vibrant world of ponydom seem a lot less warm and inviting. Instead without light; it seemed foreboding and treacherous; like any number of vile creatures could be lurking about hidden in the shadows, waiting to strike at the unsuspecting equine daring...or foolish enough to dare venture out into the ebony embrace of the dark.

That changed with the light of the moon; as it hovered above far beyond any creature's reach, it cast its own variation of the sunlight on everything, casting all but the deepest shadows away and giving everything back a calming and divine beauty. invariably taking away the psychological connection of night's all-encompassing darkness to the fear of the unknown; all that vulnerability and danger for your survival is gone; wiped away by the light of Luna's moon. Criminals, animals, and all the countless dangers that NORMALLY can be concealed by darkness; mean nothing under the protection of that perfect princess.

"I won't let her stop us." Danny said to his creation as they slowly opened the window on the first floor; before slipping in after the other; Danny reached into a bag he had tied to the belt of his outfit, and when he pulled his hand back, he brought it to his lips and blew a cloud of black dust from his hand. This dust floated in the air a bit before it seemed to block the moonlight from casting its protective glow on the house and even a bit of the farm itself, thus allowing that eerie unsettling of the pure dark to return. "Heh, heh, heh." He chuckled as he slid into the house silently.

Like two master thieves, they made their way through the shadowy halls of the Apple family farm house. Up the stairs without even a shadow cast on the walls, as almost the entire house was cloaked in shadowy darkness. they stood before AppleJack's bedroom door; with an ear to ear smile spreading the the boy's lips they opened it and entered. The door didn't make a single sound as they did.

Applejack herself lay sound asleep in her bed, her mane and tail free from the red bands that she usually wore along with her stetson to keep them in check. In spite of everything; her eyes were closed in a purely relaxed state, and she dreamt soundly with a smile on her muzzle. she gave off tiny snores and happy coos as she slept, indications that the mare was having a very pleasant dream.

Danny silently slipped a black glove onto his hand; it was a most unusual glove, the backs of the fingers had tiny straps and buckles on them, ones that he slipped the plastic tubes of four syringes into and locked into place, each one gave off the faint glow of the oozing orange liquid inside. He then had his "assistant" hand him the four long needle tips; thin as mosquito pinchers, and just as unnoticable to a heavy sleeper. Finally he placed a cloth hat on his head;  a small burlap bag over his head, with two holes cut for his eyes. The resemblance to a certian someone wasn't lost on the boy, but that was all part of the fun." It was like Halloween (he refused to call it by the wretched Equestrian name) had come early.

Somehow he made his fingers snap and the Naruto that had been standing beside him almost instantly shrank back down in size and became silent and immobile, he was a toy yet again. "Sorry old friend, but this is something I prefer to do on my own." he thought in his head as he hovered over the golden mare, as she soundly slept. A devious smile spread across his lips as he made the metal tips clink and scratch against each other. "Where to begin?" He thought as he ran the cold metal tips over her soft warm coat; Applejack shuddered slightly at his touch but didn't wake.

His lips pursed back behind the mask; they began to water a bit as if he was admiring a succulent apple, meant to be savored and eaten with the air of a connoisseur, while Applejack let out soft gasps and shivers as the cold needles ran lower over her body, she parted her lips just a bit as the tips went down past her flanks, right over her telltale cutie marks. "perfect." He said.

"More handsome, keep going." Is what Applejack muttered in her sleep, smiling devilishly. Her words made the nocturnal intruder blush a bit, because in her little dream she was being caressed by some imaginary lover.

"Dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking." he whispered over her as he softly kissed her cutie mark, before plunging a needle each into the three apples that made it up. With a flex of the knuckles; the syringes injected AppleJack with the potent orange fear poison, not meant to kill, but not a very pleasant thing to go through either.  As it coursed through her; a small tangle of  glowing golden strings hovered over her head. Seeing this; The boy smiled under his mask and pulled out a pair of long rusty scissors with a slight angle to their tip, surgical scissors.

He placed the wicked looking instrument between the web of stings that made up the sleeping mare's dream, and cut them. With a single metallic snip, the went limp and fell away; turning a rancid black and the look on AppleJack's face went from content happiness, to pure and simple fear and dismay.

"Sweet dreams." Danny said with an sickly sweet feigned innocence as he slid out the window into the night.