E S C A P E

she should ask where are the rest and if any are affected

Twilight's mind is spinning, frantically churning everything she knows (which is little) over and over and craving answers. But even more than that:

"AJ, do you know where our friends are? Spike? Are they okay?"

Applejack pulls back from the hug just far enough that Twilight can see into her eyes. They're dull, and swollen with dark circles, almost as bad as that fateful Applebuck Season long ago.

"Hay, I've been crawling around here in the dark for days tryin' to figure that out myself," Applejack grouses, kicking at a clod of dirt.

Twilight's breath catches. Days? How long had she been out, laying cold as stone in the wreckage of her castle? For that matter, how long has it been since she's hydrated, or-- or anything? Since she apparently left Ponyville to devolve into chaos?

"But-- that--" she squeaks, and coughs, and starts again. She pulls in a soothing breath, and pretends that it doesn't rattle on the exhale. "Applejack, what happened, exactly? Do you know what's causing this?"

But Applejack doesn't answer. Her eyes shrink to pinpricks in a flash, her mouth a tight line, her grubby tail flicking. Her gaze sweeps over Twilight as if seeing her for the first time, as if the alicorn's grown a second head; Applejack grimaces as she flicks between Twilight's gnarled burnt horn-bones, her chest, her wings.

"Oh, Sugarcube," she breathes. Coughs. Reaches instinctively for her hat then swears when her hoof swishes at air. "You... dear Celestia, Twi, are you feeling alright?"

And... well, the honest answer to that is a 'no'. Twilight is in more pain, feeling more exhausted, than she ever has before. But, she reasons as her chest throbs in time with her ragged breath, she doesn't have the luxury of resting, at least not until she can get to the bottom of this. So she waves a hoof at Applejack, mentally wafting at the aura of agony weighing around her, and urges her friend on.

Ask her when this all started

Applejack gulps, her glistening eyes still glued to Twilight's torso. She licks at her cracked lips.

"Okay then. I reckon all this started about a week ago, give or take. Princess Luna came for a visit, saying something about some nightmares we'd all been havin'. After that... things get awful blurry. I couldn't rightly tell you what's going on here in town, other than than it's sure not anything good. Some of them monsters were terrorizing right after the explosion--"

Twilight squeaks, "E-Explosion?"

Applejack nods, ears drooping. "Eeyup. The one thing I can for sure remember from the Princess's visit. We were all up in your castle, and when the explosion happened all of us were thrown between chaos and creation down here. I've been busting my behind, trying to find you girls. But with them things coming out of the woodwork over the past couple o' days... But-- for Celestia's sake, hon, before all that, we've just got to get you someplace safe."

Applejack takes another heavy step forward, clopping a hoof so very softly to Twilight's chest. The pressure, however light, burns like a raging inferno alight inside of her; Twilight grits her teeth with a guttural moan, and grabs at her foreleg in a desperate vice. It occurs to her that, with everything going on and with how dark it's been, she hasn't actually taken stock of her body's physical state. Now, following Applejack's touch with her eyes, in the warm ball of her illumination spell, she can actually get a good look. And...

... oh...

Twilight's stomach drops. Her jaw goes slack. Her pulse spikes, and her forelegs shake.

Her chest is a gristly mess. Black clots matted into layers upon layers of filthy chest fluff; underneath, shining a wet meaty red, is what looks to be an infected fissure torn from her flesh. So deep, oozing watery pus and blood, cracked-open scabs littering the blackened skin. She can feel the pulse of her magical core, her alicorn magic, tingling at the edges of it, but between everything else its so faint. Smothered by the throbbing.

Twilight... doesn't know how she survived this. Whatever, whoever did this... it would have killed a normal pony.

Twilight crashes her eyelids shut. Grinds her teeth, and grips Applejack's hoof even tighter. Long enough that she can gather herself, shove that thought deep inside her. Then she blinks past the pain and keeps going.

Overall, her body is in terrible shape. Skinny, flushed with dehydration, oily and filthy and absolutely slathered in magical secretions. Her hooves are chipped in the front. Her left wing is stiff, littered with broken pinfeathers that plume around her, and her right wing--

Twilight blinks.

There's nothing there.

Twilight collapses. Her legs buckle and send her sprawling into a limp heap into Applejack's chest; the mare scoops her up with a grunt, pressing her close, supporting her whole weight as Twilight crashes. Twilight's left wing goes limp and dead, flops lifelessly to her side with a meaty thump. And on the other side-- she just doesn't understand. Everything is hot. Boiling. She can't breathe.

No. There must be another solution to this. With a thought, Twilight pings her horn with a burning heave, splaying out refracted magenta glitter into the oily abyss. Blinding, almost. The light sears away the stark shadows, tingles against her flesh, and burns in her horn. She ignores the pain, forces more magic into the ravaged twin-bones on her head.

Her wing is gone. Gone! Just-- poof! All that's left is a bloody stump. A few feathers still cling to it.

Twilight laughs. It is not a happy laugh.

Around her, holding her close, Applejack crushes her closer. Gently rubs her hooves up and down Twilight's back.

"Shoot, Sugarcube I-- I thought you'd already realized. It's..."

With a breath, Applejack softly taps at Twilight's scorched horn, until the light dims, as does the pinching pain.

"Listen to me, now, Twilight," she says, and Twilight can't do anything but curl into her and do as she's told, "I can't tell you what in the hoof is going on, but I can tell you that everything is gonna be alright. I'm right here for you, Sugarcube, and that's not going to change. Y'all hear me?"

Twilight sighs. Nods numbly. It's all she can manage.

"Alright. Good. Now, lets get you back to the farm."

But around them, the absolute darkness echoes with the gurgles of nightmarish monstrosities.

Applejack gulps, "Somehow."

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