You Are Discordially Invited To A New Equestria

Discord watched with amusement as the six little ponies ran desperately through the hedge maze looking for any way out, any sign of their respective Elements of Harmony, or one another. Well, all except the poor, little terrified yellow Fluttershy who was yelling for help. “Come on everyone, our elements must be in here somewhere, let's meet in the center and see if we can figure things out,” Twilight yelled to her friends who all shouted back in agreement.

After using his magic to remove the horns from the unicorns and the wings from the pegasi, Discord decided that it was probably Applejack who could be his biggest threat. Not that her rope skills and physical strength weren't beyond his ability to handle but still, for his plans the farm filly was probably the funnest place to start and as she continued running through the twists and turns, out of nowhere a big, bright red apple landed on her head.

Taking a moment to rub her head and look up she noticed no apple trees or anything that it could have fallen from. Above her was nothing more than the same ominous clouds that had been spraying the weird, white salty stuff that they had encountered back in Ponyville. Looking down at the apple that struck her she was amazed as she noticed it was growing. Within seconds it was larger than her head and began rolling. “What in the hay,” she asked herself before shrugging her shoulders and reluctantly following. It was suspicious, but at the same time she couldn't resist the possibility that it would lead her to her missing element and it wasn't as if she had any other leads at the moment to follow. Chasing after the supernaturally rolling apple, Applejack eventually found herself in an open clearing. As she approached the apple, two others rolled in from other directions and joined the one that AJ had been chasing. She was no longer staring at one apple but three red apples, all as large as her own body. Slowly they rose up into the air and started floating, coming together in midair, making a perfect scale model of her cutie mark and emitted a bright orange flash that left the pony feeling a bit dizzy.

The apples began floating in a slow circle and began speaking. Each taking turns in a slow, cryptic chant. “Applejack.”

“The bringer of truth...”

“Knows all lies...”

“are simply uncouth...”

“Ask us a question...”

“Find out what's real...”

“Find out the future...”

“That is our deal.”

AJ wasn't sure what was going on but apples had never steered her wrong before and her thoughts and vision were both rather cloudy. Perhaps this was something caused by her element of harmony and would help her figure out a way to fix things. Besides, she figured there couldn't be much harm in just asking a question and she had to know if these things could tell her how this adventure would wind up, “With this Discord fella and all the crazy stuff that's been goin' on, I just need to know how all this stuff will wind up. So I uh, guess my question is what will happen when this Discord stuff is all wrapped up?”

With a quick smirk the apples slowly drifted towards one another and began to merge, a vision appearing in the center where they came together. As she watched, she saw her and her friends standing in front of Sweet Apple Acres, all looking upset. “I never thought you were such a liar Applejack,” Twilight said as she walked away.

Rainbow Dash groaned, “If the element of honesty can't tell us the truth what good are you,” she asked before flying away.

“So disappointing,” Fluttershy added before leaving.

“Come on Rarity, let's leave this mare to her lies.” Pinkie Pie said as she hopped away while Rarity haughtily flipped her head and sauntered after her. Finally Applejack was left lying all alone, crying and deserted by her friends because she had somehow let them down by not being truthful.

Applejack continued watching horrified as the merged, desperately hoping that there was more. Needing to find out that somehow they all got back together but the vision only faded and the apples began to spin faster and faster, becoming a kaleidoscope of color that was reflected in AJ's eyes, “No, I can't let that happen. I just can't!”

“It is also a lie...”

“to deny your desire.”

“Give total truth a try...”

“Give in to your fire.”

“Stop asking why.”

“Stop holding back.”

“Be open about all...”

“Our dear Applejack.”

As the apples swirled, Applejack found herself feeling incredibly dizzy and confused but no matter how bad it made her feel, she couldn't look away or notice anything other than what the strange beings were saying. This of course also meant that she failed to notice Discord flying well above them smiling with incredibly messy hair and a goatee reminiscent of Tim Burton as he sat in a director's chair. Discord made a swirling motion in pace with the spinning apples and with a final flourish pulled a clapper board out of his chair. As he clapped it shut it sent out a strong noise and below him at the same time, his merged apple trio popped into nothingness and left Applejack standing alone as Twilight rounded corner and sighed in victory at finally finding one of her friends.

“Applejack, I am SO glad to see you. I thought I heard someone, what was going on?”

Applejack meanwhile finally was brought to full awareness as she heard her friend and for some reason found herself looking at her friend in a whole new way, “I don't really know, I saw some apples so I thought they could lead to my element. Chased 'em down and they started talkin'. Frankly not sure what any of it was about. Truth be told I can't remember much of what they said.”

Twilight listened, “Hmm, I wonder if it could have been some kind of trick. At this point I don't think I'd put anything past Discord.” She stood there for a moment, quietly thinking and trying to analyze the situation but after a couple seconds her concentration was broken as a pair of orange lips pressed themselves against Twilight's neck and her vision was suddenly obscured by long, blond hair.

“Applejack?! What are you doing?!” Twilight quickly jumped away and looked at her friend with a mix of surprise, confusion, and anger.

Despite being rebuffed and feeling a little hurt, Applejack couldn't help but smile, “I'm sorry sugar cube, but I never realized how sexy you were before. You've got such an adorable, cute nerdy thing goin' on and I couldn't help myself. Just holding back, pretending I didn't have these feelings would have just been too dishonest.”

Twilight listened and felt bad that she had to rebuff her friend so coldly but at the moment she didn't feel as if there was any time to deal with AJ's sudden advances. She shook her head a little and with an attempt at an understanding look in her eyes she addressed her friend, “Look AJ, we can talk about this once we've taken care of Discord alright? I don't mean to be unkind but I didn't even know you were into mares and...”

“...neither did I.” Any hurt Applejack may have felt was gone now as she continued staring at Twilight with a rather sultry look in her eyes, “But I was just watchin' ya concentrate and you looked so cute and for some reason I felt a lot of what was holdin' me back just vanish. You looked so gorgeous and temptin' I needed to try.” Applejack kept staring at Twilight and licked her upper lip real quick and continued in the most sultry voice she could manage, “I still do actually, why don't you let me taste some of your sweetness Sugarcube?” Applejack quickly lunged forward and pressed her lips to Twilightt's for a moment and wrapper her hooves tightly around the back of Twilight's head to hold her in place. After a moment of surprise there was a part of the situation that shocked even Twilight herself. There was a moment where she was very tempted to just open her mouth and join in. She actually wanted to let Applejack do what she wanted and see how much AJ would let her get away with. Unfortunately however duty called and she reluctantly pushed AJ off.

“I felt that Twi, you were gettin' into it. I ain't willin' to lie to you about my needs, I don't want you lyin' to me. Let's take some time and get to know each other even better than we do now.” Applejack was no longer kissing Twilight but her lips hadn't been pushed that far away. Applejack brought her right hoof up to Twilight's chin and the two just stared into the others eyes but Twilight knew she couldn't let herself give in.

“Look AJ, there may be something going on between us and maybe you feel that way about me, I don't know. Now is not the time to deal with it however and once we find the others, once we find the Elements of Harmony, and take care of Discord I'll be more than happy to sit down and have an honest, friendly discussion on the issue. I just feel like now is the wrong time.”

Applejack smiled, “If that's how ya feel. Once all this is taken care of though, I will hold you to that conversation though.” AJ started heading down a random path and as Twilight followed and since it felt like a lie to hide her feelings, AJ lifted her tail to give her friend a good look at the waiting, winking, wetness beneath.