Twilight lifted her head up a little as she heard a knock at her door. Her eyes darted over to the clock which was blinking E:17. Wait, no. The LED was broken, again, and a tap on the side… didn’t work. “Spike, the clock is busted again!”
A bark came from behind her as she tossed it behind her back and got out of her chair. She was in her little hidey hole of a laboratory, or so she liked to call it, in her house. In another moment the clock came back at her. Of course, she had trained Spike well enough that it would go right back to where it was supposed to-
Crack.
She flinched at the sound before she bent over and picked up the small, electronic clock. Plus side: She could see it was 8:18 now. Downside? There was a nice big crack on the glass. “Alright, Spike, we need to work on your aim. This is the third time this month and I don’t think Mr. Glock is going to survive many more hits like that.”
She set Mr. Glow Clock back on the desk where it sat for when she was too tired to make sense of a mechanical clock, before another knock on her home’s door reminded her of why she had gotten up. It was admittedly weird to do so. Before recently she’d have had no reason to expect that it was for her. No one really ever came over to see her except for official business and she’d get warnings about those. Now that she had friends though… Well, while she disliked the stop in her studies she could feel a giddiness growing in her chest as she moved for the front door.
Her mom was there already when she got to the door, making small talk with Pinkie and… “Applejack, where is your hat? And why are you wearing suspenders?”
Applejack, who was wearing blue jeans, a white shirt with a few buttons at the top unbuttoned so one could see part of the white shirt underneath, and was distinctly missing her hat. Meanwhile, she looked at Pinkie who was wearing the stetson. In fact, she was weird too in that she wore a dress that was one piece. No skirt and shirt combo but instead a nice, short, frilly blue dress. It made Twilight think about cotton candy more than she already did with her bouncy friend. However, Applejack’s voice snapped her out of it as the farm girl asked, with a noticeably thicker drawl, “So ya’ saying that I should have mah hat?”
Twilight nodded before Applejack apologized to her mom as she took ahold of the door and then slammed it shut. The two Twilights looked at each other as they heard terse, whispered words on the other side of the door. Some of it was fine like Applejack asking why she listened to Pinkie, something everyone of the girls asked themselves on a weekly basis. Other bits like talking about ‘their Applejack’ made Twilight Velvet purse her lips. “Mom, you should probably head upstairs. This is all part of that weird stuff I talk about when I go on trips with Sunset.”
Velvet sighed as she turned away, whispering to herself, “I always expected that girl to cast magic on you, but it was always supposed to be a lot simpler than actual magic.”
Twilight frowned for a moment as she mulled her mother’s words over before the door opened again and Applejack had now seemingly won back her hat while Pinkie giggled in a bush. The farm girl than glanced back at her friend, then Twilight, and then gripped her arm. “Sorry. It’s been a… rough afternoon. I’m a little on edge.”
Twilight shrugged as Spike came to see the new people and began sniffing Applejack thoroughly. After all, she smelled like another dog friend, but not quite. She also smelled like horse, like Sunset, but the puppy had gotten used to weird things like that at this point. “I kind of assume that the world is ending to bring someone from Equestria here. I’m just surprised Sunset or Twilight aren’t with you.” Her eyes then grew wide and she grabbed Applejack by the collar. “Has something happened to my bacon princess?”
“Baco- what?” Applejack shook her head as she gently took the other girl’s hands off of hers, marveling for a moment just how soft the human’s skin was before she focused back on the task at hand. “No, they’re fine. In fact, Equestria is… mostly fine.”
“Yep!” Pinkie grabbed Twilight by the shoulders, having suddenly just appeared behind the girl as she yelled. She then pressed her cheek to Twilight’s as her eyes darted from side to side. “We’re on a mega, monstrous, u-u-ultra secret mission!”
Both of the other girls winced at just how loud Pinkie got before Applejack shook her head. “Pinkie, you’re not supposed to be so loud while trying to be secretive.”
“Oh, come on, no one who would care is around, right? After all, one of Twilight’s friends would have to be spying on us in order to possibly catch onto our plan.”
To which Sunset, who was in camouflage given to her by Rarity for… reasons, would have reacted to had she not still been hyperventilating in a bush from ‘bacon princess’.
Twilight waved her hands in front of their faces to get their attention back onto her before wilting a little at the sudden looks. She really needed to work on that. “Okay, look, I’m really happy to meet you… Should I call you Ejack? PinkE?”
Applejack’s eyes widened at the words before grabbing Twilight’s lips and hissing, “Never call me that again. Just, you know, call me Applejack. If we meet up with our counters we’ll deal with it then, okay Scitwi?”
Twilight tilted her head as Applejack let go before asking, “Is that what you all call me on the other side?”
Pinkie giggled a little as she bounced to be beside Applejack. “I personally think it’s wrong since our Twilight is super into science stuff too but what can you do?”
Twilight opened her mouth to comment on the nature of nicknames before shutting it firmly. After all, her own friends hadn’t even given her a nickname, let alone one that was so cute. Besides, there were more important things to talk about. “Okay, but maybe we should focus on what’s wrong?”
Applejack bit into her lip as she took off her hat and hid her face behind it, her eyes even darting away before she let out a sigh. “Well, uh, we’re in need of some of your special power because, well, a bit of the harvest underperformed and I’m worried about that and…”
“See,” Pinkie said as she stood up, a fist between them all as she looked into the middle distance and her eyes went slightly glossy, “This isn’t about the fate of Equestria or Earth. No, it’s about something more important. Something more unique. It’s about our Apple Family Pride!”
Applejack whimpered slightly from behind her stetson before she whispered, “I know how stupid it is, but if we told our Twilight there’d be royal reports, news, interviews, stuff that comes with royalty. I really… Really just should face the music though, shouldn’t I?”
Twilight blinked a few times before giggling a little. “Are you kidding me? I once almost destroyed two dimensions for the sake of ‘Crystal Prep Pride’ so if there’s anyone who can get it, it’s me. What do you need me to do?”
Applejack let out a sigh of relief as she put her hat back on and glanced at the setting sun. “Well, first things first, we gotta get back and get to planting. I’m hoping to have at least a small field done by the morning. Think you’re willing to help with that?”
“You mean I get to come back to Equestria and be physically strong again? You betcha!” Twilight clapped her hands together eagerly before reaching down and dancing a little with Spike. “This time I even get to use it! Can you imagine the perspective possibilities of something like this? The learning possibilities? The strain of long endured stress rather than trying to lift more than twenty pounds?”
Both Pinkie and Applejack just kind of stared as Twilight managed four uninterrupted spins gracefully in one spot before she hopped back towards her lab, claiming she needed gloves as she went. Applejack leaned towards Pinkie and whispered, “So, uh, I don’t know what concerns me more: Her being excited to work, or…”
“The dancing. Totally the dancing. Since when can Twilight bust a move?”
They were left to ponder this as Twilight continued to spew excitement all the way to the mirror, box stepping her way the entire time, much to the horror of everyone else involved.
======+++++======
“Wow, so this is your orchard? I’ve never been to one in my side of the portal so I don’t know how different it is, but- Is that a treehouse? Can we go play in it? Please!”
Applejack sighed with a small smile as she looked back. Pinkie was already at the top of the house with a canon and claiming that she’s gonna need to see their papers if they want access to ‘fort friendship’. Honestly, since Twilight had gotten through the portal she’d been almost unable to keep her mouth shut, despite the fact that they were now in dangerous territory. After all, if anyone stopped and questioned the glasses clad pony, they were in trouble. Luckily, Twilight had also known where to scratch Spike’s head in order to get him sleeping in about three seconds so they’d gotten out of the castle pretty easily.
Now they were at home sweet… She took in a long, deep breath before saying, “Maybe another day. We only have so much time and I’d like to get as much done as possible. Okay?”
Twilight blushed a little at the reminder before she awkwardly galloped up to Applejack. “Sorry. Um, uh, I don’t know too much about farming though so I’m sorry if I’m not going to be able to put my skills to use too well. Of course, I’m willing to work as hard as I can to make up for it!” She then tried to mimic Rosie the Riveter by pumping a fist into the air and swinging her other arm across her chest. With hooves… Well, she achieved it for about half a second before she face planted straight into the soft ground.
Applejack let out a small laugh as Pinkie bounced back over, her tail wagging as she clapped her hooves together. “I’m just happy you’re excited. I mean, I was afraid you’d even call my poofy tail boring after how incredible your side of the portal is!”
Twilight opened her mouth in shock before saying back, “Are you kidding me? On my side we don’t have magic that allows one to find another’s house simply by instinct or trees that are… Okay, well, we have trees three times our size, but people don’t kick them to get the fruit down!”
Applejack smirked for a moment as she swung herself around and kicked the barn doors open with her hind legs. “Sounds like to me they need to spend more days on their legs then rather than their hindquarters.”
“Eeyup.”
They all froze for a moment as they saw the big, red stallion standing there. He looked… tired though. Like… more tired than even Pinkie had seen him, let alone what Twilight was used to for her Big Mac. His head was bowed, his eyes almost shut, and he just pushed the bags of seeds that he had in front of him. They were labeled as flowers, carrots, and wheat, all of which Applejack pushed further towards the door as she came over to her brother. With a hoof wrapped around his neck she whispered to him, “Thanks. Now, you get to bed,” before she looked back at the mares. “Are you two ready to get to work?”
Twilight tilted her head before asking, “Shouldn’t he be helping us? I mean, he is a lot stronger than me.”
Applejack and Big Mac shared a glance at each other before the stallion opened his mouth. The start of an E came out before he went silent from Applejack’s hoof on his chest. “He’s done enough today and should get some rest before he puts more on his shoulders. Besides,” she said as she tapped on one of the bags, “He took care of things while we were gone.”
Twilight shrugged at that. She didn’t know enough about everything that was going on, though she planned to learn, and it might have been a cultural thing too. What mattered right now was helping out. “Give me a plow and I’ll get to work!”
To which Applejack and Pinkie just laughed. No, the farm work was divided with Pinkie on seeds, Applejack on the plow, and Twilight… Well, they needed confirmation on something. Horrible, horrible confirmation as Twilight began translating ballet moves to her pony form to slap dirt back into place over the seeds as she followed after Pinkie. This went on hour, after hour, after hour…
Twilight fell on her face on the side of the hill that overlooked the small field they had worked on from when the sun came down to now the sun coming back up. A soft groan left her lips as she said, “I have never been so tired in my life.”
Applejack patted her on the back as she said, “Well, luckily we just need a bit of that unicorn magic to make this stuff grow fast and then I’ll treat yah to some old fashion Apple Family remedies for that.”
“I think I could use that. Oh, or a pie! Can I get a pie? That would pick me right back up!”
Applejack rolled her eyes at the request as Twilight giggled a little on the ground. She then looked at the field with captivated interest as she too waited on the unicorn magic to do its work. After all, she saw a little bit of it during her last trip to Ponyville but now? Now she would get a chance to more properly study it. Any second now and it would start.
Any second now…
…
“Huh, what’s taking it so long?” Twilight finally looked up to see the other two looking down at her and Applejack even smacked herself with a groan.
“Sugarcube… you’re a unicorn. We were expecting you to be able to do this.”
Twilight tilted her head for a moment before tapping on the horn on her head. It was a solid reminder that she was indeed far more magical than in her own world, but it presented its own issue. “Uh, you realize I have absolutely no idea how to use this, right?”
Applejack let out another groan before Pinkie spoke up. “Don’t worry! The you from here makes it look super easy. She just gives some thought to what she wants to happen and then Bam! It happens! Well, I mean, kind of. She doesn’t always get it quite right. I’m still trying to find Frorange and pet him.”
Applejack looked over at Pinkie, trying to explain that it wasn’t that simple but also not having an accurate defense against the thesis. After all, they almost never saw Twilight need material components, incantations, or anything like that outside of magic that twisted the very fate of the universe around. Not that any of that helped them since none of the three knew anything about magic.
Or, well, concrete about it. Twilight had studied it for far longer than she would usually admit and now tapped her chin at thought about the information. From what she could gather you needed to have A: intelligence, B: a desire for an outcome, C: knowledge on the subject in some way, and D: a target, at least kind of. Well, she at least theoretically had all of those. She even knew how things grew starting at the molecular level from all of those wonderful documentaries she’d watched. Oh, that and a hot cup of coffee sounded amazing…
No, Twilight, focus! You could do this! First there were the molecules and atoms that made up the universe. They made up the building blocks for the cells of living things that would hold the potential for more, such as in a seed. With time, energy, and other necessities, they would begin to show that potential and grow. This did normally take time, but if you created an accelerant to make them think time had passed and to also act as the material they needed to survive, such a problem would be nothing. You could even disperse such a thing with something like a crop duster. Field after field after field could be given the small amount of accelerant they needed…
“Twilight, wake up!”
Twilight’s eyes snapped open as her focus suddenly broke. Her eyes were pure white though and her horn suddenly flared to life as it took in all that Twilight had been considering for the spell, just before an explosion of purple and white energy left the small mare and spread across the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres. The field they wanted to grow worked wonders as they grew from vines, roots, and stalks to full bloom in seconds. Applejack also watched though as her trees got slammed with waves of magic and each one caused another apple to form until the nearby ones were overburdened by a sudden, new haul of apples.
The most… surprising though was the barn. Made from the wood of dead apple trees it now… had three growing out of the top of it. Just… sitting there with small saprolings that had leaves already blooming, their roots having even repaired a hole or two in the roof. It was different, but Applejack by no means thought bad as she considered how she would possibly collect the apples from those trees when they grew bigger.
However, she was snapped out of such pleasant fantasies by Pinkie poking the still body of their now passed out friend. Both of the still conscious mares bit into their lip as they looked at her. She had already been tired after all… “Well, I mean, we have to at least try to wake her up, right?”
Pinkie nodded, before making the sound of a full on car accident in her ear. Sirens, skids, crashes, and ponies screaming for their lives. “Ma, the door won’t open! Why won’t it open! Help! Anyone!”
Applejack smacked Pinkie on the top of her head as she yelled, “Are you trying to give her a nightmare or something! Also, what’s a car?”
“If you had paid more attention in her world you’d get it.”
“You spent two hours there and most of it was spent trying to interpret where your Pinkie Sense was taking us!”
“I don’t need to pay attention to my body in order to listen to it.”
Applejack opened her mouth before slapping her hoof over her face. There was no point in arguing with her. No, instead she was going to try her own method as she tried to think of what would possibly wake her up. She was similar to Twilight after all so, “Alright, so, uh, one train left Canterlot going seventy miles an hour. A train leaves Ponyville heading the other way going forty five miles an hour. If they’re sixteen hundred miles apart, when do they-”
“Oh, yeah, give me another question. Mmmm.”
Both of the mares looked at each other from the moan before Pinkie screamed, “If you don’t answer now you won’t get to meet Neighstein!”
“No! I just need another minute!” Twilight was on her feet, heart hammering in her chest as she looked around herself. “Where am I?”
“Equestria, and you just did maaaagic.”
Pinkiee even spread her hooves out over her head and created a rainbow with her words before Twilight looked over to the field and her jaw dropped. “I did that! I mean, how? What? I have magic?”
Applejack patted the distraught mare on the back as she let out a soft sigh. “Yep. And you just helped save the Apple farm this year. How are you feeling?”
Twilight smiled as her chest swelled and she took in a deep breath. She could smell the flowers, fresh wood, the apples… And then her face turned sour. “I think I smell something that’s rotting.”
Pinkie turned her head a little as Applejack paled at the comment before the pink mare started sniffing the air herself. “Wheat to turn into flowers, flowers to turn into food, and food that should have been thrown out- What is that smell?”
Applejack glanced away before sighing and bowing her head. “Well, I guess I woulda had to tell y’all sometime. I don’t like keeping secrets after all, and… Well, let’s go down there.”
She led the way to the small field they had been planting on just fifteen minutes ago. It was alive with plants now and they looked as healthy as they could ever be. However, the smell told a different story as now that they were closer the rot seemed to be much, much worse. It didn’t appear to be on any of the things they had planted today though.
A fact that made it not all too surprising to Twilight when Applejack pawed at a part of the ground the plow ‘coincidentally’ missed and brought up a what looked like a large egg that when cracked open was green with some sort of disease. Pinkie almost threw up from the smell before gasping out, “Why is there an ostrich egg here?”
Applejack rolled her eyes before she said, “It’s not an ostrich egg, it’s a potato. Big Mac had planted them at the start of spring so he felt responsible when ninety percent of them ended up like, well, this. I guess some of their roots and what not were still in the ground when Twilight cast her spell.”
Twilight stepped closer, forcing herself not to gag either as a British voice started reciting historical facts to her. With each that came it confirmed her suspicion more and more. “Applejack, the one I know is the most honest person in the whole world. I knew that if you wanted to do something secret, it had to be real bad. Your brother only confirmed that more. I want to know one more thing though: Do you know about any other farms that are having this problem?”
Pinkie laughed a little before stating, “She’s a part of the Apple family. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen for the-”
“Everyone else reported at least some of this happening. Do you…” Applejack swallowed hard as she looked Twilight dead in the eyes. “Do you know about this?”
Twilight nodded before taking the other mare’s hoof into her own, ignoring the slime of the potato while she did so. “Yes, but I’m only going to tell you if you tell your Twilight about this. After all, when this hit my world it… wasn’t pretty, and while extra effort can get you a little further they all needed the government to help them. Ours acted pretty slowly though, so if you can get the information your princess is going to need easier than her, I would do it. You can’t just force yourself to fix this, please.”
Applejack looked at the potato and then back at her friends. Both of them were still standing, sure, but she could see how close they were to collapsing too. In fact, she was amazed Twilight could even think, let alone as well as she was. No, she had pushed all of this farther than she ever should have. “Sorry for not telling you two earlier. I just... “
Both Pinkie and Twilight responded this time in tandem as they said, “Protect the Apple Family name?” Before then Twilight stepped forward and placed a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. “You’ll do a lot more for that name by owning up to this and trying to make things better. I know that happened for me when I let Crystal Prep Pride go and instead just tried to make everyone happy, just like you have the chance to.”
Applejack smiled back before nodding. “Alright, Twilight, I think we can do that. We’ll even go now so we don’t waste anytime!”
Twilight raised a hoof, opened her mouth, and then fell right over, snoring as soon as she hit the ground. Applejack blushed a bit at the sight before mumbling, “Well, maybe a quick nap, and then we can get to work.”
