It was the crack o'dawn at the beauteous farm otherwise know as 'Sweet Apple Acres', and Apple Bloom had awoken with a distinct craving in her ramshackle bedroom.
Was it ciggies? Nope, they're very bad for your lungs, fillies and gentlecolts. Plus, that tragic forest fire caused by a stray cancer stick a few decades back destroyed half the Everfree and cremated the local Timberwolf population into heaps of ashes resulted in them being outlawed permanently. Never mind, at least it gave a huge boost to Flim & Flam's share of the black market! Couldn't have happened to a nicer pair of budding young entrepreneurs.
What about drugs? No, man. That groovy chick otherwise known as Tree Hugger is the babe to hit up if you wanna get higher than the clouds. But being a responsible hippy, there's no way she'd distribute some of her choice produce to somepony as young as Apple Bloom. It'll blow her tiny mind, dude. Radical. Tubular. And so on, and so forth. 'Sides, she's still to mosey on back to Ponyville from the Sock Puppet Dimension after Discord caught her blinking at Fluttershy. Bogus.
No, this undefined longing was for something much more satisfying and hoof lickin' good. She hadn't quite figured out what it was just yet, but as she made her way down to the breakfast table, a few strong hints began to make themselves apparent to her ailing brain.
First, her forehooves moved of their own accord to flap rapidly at her sides, resembling a pair of domestic fowl wings. This was a most awkward behavioural tic, and required her to descend the stairs by hopping on her two hind legs for once instead of all fours.
You may think this is easy, but wait 'til you die a tragic yet glorious death and get reincarnated as a dozy donkey. Then see how simple it is then as a hapless quadruped, Mr Smart Guy/Gal!
The second sign occurred at the meal table itself, once seated with the rest of her family and given her dried Apple Flakes cereal. Instead of eating the delicious, nutritious breakfast utilising the normal method with a spoon, she began pecking at it with her muzzle like it was some kind of seed. Bok bok!
Obviously perturbed at this strange new standard of indoor dining from her lil sis (but unable to afford the humungous psychiatric bills due to it being a pretty lean year) Applejack decided to distract everypony from Apple Bloom's impending mental breakdown by striking up genial, bland conversation. "S-So um, what are y'all doin' today then? I've got some trees to kick so the apples will fall down. It'll be buckin' marvelous, aye tell you what!"
"I'm a gonna propose to Sugar Belle, then I'm a gonna tell Miss Cheerilee and Marble Pie the good news! It's gonna be swell!" Big Mac couldn't wait for his closest friends (apart from the Ogres And Oubliettes crew) to find out about his upcoming nuptials. They might even throw him a party! Or give him a cake! Super.
"Aye plan to chase those kids off the sidewalk with their darn tootin' hoofboards or whatever ya's call 'em, then I'm off to get me metal hip swivelled a lickle to the right for me pilates class with the Gold Horseshoe ladies. Finally, I'll doze in me armchair till I'm called for supper. It's an action-packed day for me, hot-diggety!" Granny Smith was spouting her usual incoherent geriatric ramblings, but it was okay. Nopony was paying any attention to her anyways.
Apple Bloom was no doubt about to regale the others about how she was making the most of her precious fillyhood years, but then a most odd thing happened. Instead of providing a long list of what she and the other crusaders would be up to whilst helping the local community and beyond, her spoken dialogue largely consisted of "SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWKETTY SQUAWK SQUAWK!! COCK A DOODLE DOOOO!!"
The other equine diners there looked at her in astonishment, apart from good ol' venerable Granny Smith who carried on slurping down her liquidised fruit slop through a straw unhindered. "That's nice, dear. Now, where's me colostomy bag at?"
Turning as red as a ruby apple, the blushing filly attempted to make amends with her next statement, only for the situation to be made even worse. If that were actually possible. "I feel like chicken tonite, like chicken tonite!!"
There was even an accompanying dance move to go along with this particular vow, but Apple Bloom was in no mind for her family to see her strut her funky stuff. Instead she boogied on straight out the front door, with Big Mac and Applejack's widened eyes following her entire journey.
"Dontcha think we should uh, maybe call somepony? Like the hospital? Or an exorcist?" Big Mac asked his middle sibling, in a mildly concerned half-whisper. "You pin her down, I'll sit on her 'til help arrives."
"Are you jokin'?" Applejack responded to her big bruv using an incredulous voice. "Don't jinx it! Compared to her crusadin' days, this is among the sanest things she's ever done! Nice to see her gettin' back to normal, at least. Pass the apple chunks, would ya?"
"I love the young people!" Granny Smith chimed in at this particular interlude, prompting the other two to affectionately say "Oh, Granny!" whilst the sound of canned laughter and raucous clapping could be heard in the background.
Why, I do not know. Apologies. Anyway, next scene.
...............................................
In other news, Apple Bloom was finding it increasingly difficult to deter her disturbing delirium. Along with doing a bizarre jig for the entirety of her journey to Ponyville Elementary, she simply could not erase the unspecified hankering from the back of her mind.
All the way, the other ponies were either giggling, staring or hurriedly leading their children away from her jiving form, but frankly she didn't care to give a hoot. For this was an itch that had to be scratched, and for any that didn't understand... darn them to tarnation.
Eventually, she met up with her fellow filly friends to frolic freely forthwith. Or, something. Basically, Apple and her crew were going to bunk off lessons to swear and chew gum behind the bike shed (naughty!) and if anypony dared challenge them, their ready-made excuse was that they were on official Crusading business.
Which was apparently, you know, a 'thing'. They'd even had the laminated business cards printed out, as an added cover!
"What's gotten into you today, Apple Bloom?" Sweetie Belle enquired of her fidgety acquaintance, as she stumbled up to meet and greet them."It's like you've got ants in your pants. Well, that's if you were actually wearing any!"
Scootaloo rolled her eyes at the horned gagmeister's lamentable attempt at humour, and was assuredly about to comment on how her unicorn chum should retire her book of terrible jokes. Or better yet, bury it in a far-off locale where it could never be used for evil purposes again.
But even as the orange pegusus's lips moved to express something which approached that specific viewpoint, that's not what Apple Bloom heard or saw at all.
Instead, in front of her amazed eyes, Scootaloo underwent quite the dramatic transformation. Her neck sprouted a wattle. Her mouth became a beak. Her wing plumage covered her entire body. There's dramatic makeovers, and then there's this.
Finally, in one bird-like motion, the transmogrified pegasus's head spun about to face the speechless Apple Bloom's gaze, and uttered one simple command on a never-ending loop. "EAT ME! EAT ME! EAT ME! EEAATT MMMMEE!!"
Well, far be it for the trainee farmer to disregard such an enticing offer. All paltry (or poultry) concerns about 'cannibalism' or 'indigestion' faded quickly from her mind as soon as she spotted that scrumptious orange roast rump, so she did what any half-crazed vegetarian would do under the circumstance...
She took a big, juicy bite out of it.
"Ow!" Scootaloo winced in pain as Apple Bloom's gnashers pierced her prominent posterior. "That kind of hurt!"
"W-What the...?" Apple Bloom by now had snapped out of her hallucinogenic state, both at Scoot's shrill scream of agony and the fact that the pegasus's horse butt flesh was not actually very edifying to the tastebuds at all. "Oh Celestia, I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me!"
"Maybe not, but I know what's going to 'come over' your head! My scooter!!" Scootaloo reacted angrily to Apple Bloom's unrequested hiney chomp, even though years of soft apple-related products had weakened the ribboned filly's teeth to cause little more than a slight nip.
"Wait! It's not fair!" Sweetie Belle yelped, who'd been watching all this nonsense unfold with growing jealousy. "How come you never tried to bite me, Apple Bloom? I'm at least as close to you as Scootaloo! It's always me that's last! And I'm sick of it!"
Scoots paused mid-swing from clonking a flinching Apple Bloom with her prized vehicle, and together the two of them glanced at each whilst exclaiming "Huh?!"
"It's true!" Sweetie Belle grinned at the dumbstruck duo, thinking that she had some adult wisdom to impart to her less mature pals. "Rarity does it all the time with her Special Someponies after they've made funny noises upstairs. They're called 'hickeys' I think, and I always see them on her neck. Not on her botty though, which must mean that you really like the pony involved. If you cared about me at all Apple Bloom, you'd do the same thing to my behind right now! Or, you and me are through forever!"
The farm filly in question turned to shrug nonchalantly at Scootaloo, before baring her molars to go for Round 2, this time with Sweetie's sweet can in sight.
In the meantime, Scootaloo had obviously had a change of heart about this newfound ritual of friendship, and she announced with vigour. "Hey, me next! I wanna bite someone's bum too!" as we close the curtain on this whole sordid affair.
Yes, they are all completely nuts. And, that includes the author, too. WIBBLE!
Author's Note
Why are you still reading? That's it. Now go and click on a more sane story, to unbleach your brain. Good luck! 
