It was a beautiful day in Ponyville

Applejack’s head rose at the bottom of the grave her body had dug. She coughed and shook ash from her eyebrows and spat phlegm and cursed like an enraged ferret.

She kept cursing for a longtime just like a ferret would. As long as she was cursing she couldn't hear insalubrious susurrus of the wind passing in the world above her hole.

The wind whisper-sang to her anyway. She was the bug at the bottom of the jug that a skeletal horse was blowing over as part of a skeletal jug band, which was a strange and unlikely place to be.

The fall had definitely made her stupid if she was thinking like this.

There might still be time to do something about it.

There probably wasn't though. The pulverized earth of the surface world covered her like a comforter warmed over a fire. She dragged herself back up to her hooves and dislodged more earth. It mounted and crawled and fell off along her hide and poofed in clouds down around her.

Even this little effort left her gasping for breath in the thin air left behind after Fluttershy’s ass exploded.

It was like being at the bottom of a hole on top of a mountain within a couple kilometers of forest fire, which was a strange and unlikely place to be.

Applejack looked up through the hole above her to see the air turned all ale-pale piss-yellow as the sunlight was dispersed by free radicals.

She continued to choke and cough and struggle to breathe, and the effort of her lungs almost distracted her from the reality of what was up there waiting for her where the wind insalubriously susurrused something almost like her name.

She'd been made really stupid to be thinking like this.

Everything must have been destroyed by the explosion of Fluttershy’s ass. Applejack knew it could only be the inevitable explosion of Fluttershy’s ass which had done all this. Ever since the day she'd made the choice to be born on Sweet Apple Acres, less than a mile from where Fluttershy's ass would be when it exploded, she'd known this was coming. Felt it in her bones.

But these thoughtful distractions weren't working. She knew that. She also knew there was nothing up there to see, no friends left to meet, no world left to find, no others left to encounter herself through. Nothing in a vast Nowhere populated by Nopony.

Applejack sat back down on her ash comforter and stared up. She stared through the air. She stared at it. She tried to stare around it but found nowhere else to look. The lip at the top of the hole seemed lower than before, so she had a head-start at climbing up. That would be convenient for her when she climbed up.

If she climbed up.

If she wanted to climb up.

If she could climb up.

She was still wheezing.

There was nothing up there.

She knew that.

There was barely anything down here. Just her in her hole.

Through the haze the explosion of Fluttershy’s ass left in its wake only enough light came through to see. Not even enough light to cast a shadow. Not enough light to warm her.

There was nothing left up there.

She knew that.

Applejack stood and tried to smell through the ozone and undifferentiated smoke. Her nostrils struggled in vain to find anything. She couldn’t even find the pleasantly homey smell of death coming for everyone on the scarce air.

There was no reason to go up there.

She knew that.

Applejack reared up before the wall of the hole and punched a forehoof into it. A few pebbles fell and bounced on the ground. She punched the wall again. More pebbles fell. She kept slugging until she’d dug out a hoof hold and started on another and pulled herself up on those little ledges.

And with her little legs she began to climb.

She continued climbing for a long time. Kicking and punching each new hoof hold into the earth.

There was nopony left waiting for her up there.

She knew that.

Applejack lifted Kicks McGee and kicked into the wall. Each impact of a hoof levered the rest of her body outward and nearly sent her careening backwards into the void. Nearly, but not quite. She held on. She kept moving. She kicked again and again and secured another hoofhold and began reaching up again.

There was no reason to go on.

She knew that.

Applejack kicked into the earth again. This time the impact caused the hoofhold under Bucky McGillycuddy to give way in a sprawl of falling rocks. She stared down into the void.

There it lay.

The bottom of her grave hung hungry and waiting to devour her whole should she fall.

At last she remembered to panic. She looked up to where the tips of her hooves were sliding out of the earth. Kicks McGee swung back into the hole that had given out under her and furiously began kicking further. Dirt fell from around her forehooves as they slid out and the void hungered beneath her. Each kick drove her further out, wearing the dirt away.

The earth was hard here. It wouldn’t give. The world’s stupid inertness was finally going to kill her just like it had killed everyone else.

There was no reason for any of this.

She knew that.

She chose to live anyway.

McGee finally gripped. McGillycuddy slammed through the soil. She felt the momentary sureness of four hooves gripping the ground and surged upward faster than she'd ever moved, but scrabbling to the hole's edge, she found no purchase on the surface. Each time her hooves came down on the lip of the hole, she just pulled fresh ash and pulverized soil down into her face.

Her eyes watered as they filled with detritus.

The hole politely reminded her that this was almost her last chance.

She knew that.

She kept clawing away, digging a trench that she could slither up like a terrified serpent.

And, at last, she exited her self-dug grave laughing like a maniac and lay on the surface gripping the at last achieved level ground with her spread out limbs. She struggled to hug the whole devastated earth. It was more for her benefit than its, but she imagined felt the effort being appreciated.

And the ash fell upon her like snow.

Applejack rolled over and looked up at the sky.

Ash continued to fall now scattering across her face giving her fresh freckles. The air itself was just a yellow haze as the sun faintly fought through the wake of the explosion of Fluttershy’s ass.

A band of purple lightning arced above her, and all around on the edges of the sky she could see the rainbow shockwaves created by Fluttershy’s exploding ass.

That was new.

Applejack wondered what Rainbow Dash would think about that if she were alive to see it.

She’d probably think it was her thing. Both the destruction and the rainbows.

Her breathing had steadied a bit as she lay there, but even just lying here she was barely able to breath.

She dragged herself to her hooves and shook herself off, throwing more dirt away from her coat and mane. All this did was make more room for the ash that kept falling.

She turned around in a full circle to see the total devastation Fluttershy’s ass had wrought. The purple band she’d seen before connected the only two interruptions in an otherwise perfectly flat desert. The ground was all smooth, blasted sand spreading away around from where her hole still gaped quiet and stupid.

In one direction, she could see the Castle of Friendship, still standing defiant out of the newly flattened ground and surrounded by flashes of purple lighting that flashed upward. In the other direction, back toward where this had all begun, an immense black sphere stood in the place of Fluttershy’s cottage. The purple lightning flashed down around it, seeming to cage it.

Everything else was just dust and ash, and so between the two choices Applejack started walking across the wasteland toward the Castle of Friendship.

Only afterward would she realize there was a third choice: she still could have returned to her hole and pulled the earth down over her like a comfy blanket, but this thought didn’t occur to until it was much too late and so there is no benefit in dwelling on it so we must not do so.

Applejack coughed and spat. On the ground, her mucus was grey and striped through with black bands of inhaled filth.

Even breathing the tainted dead air was exhausting.

Even walking across the shifting sands was exhausting.

The air continued to hang yellow but had at some point begun throbbing with a Gnarl-Gnarthian rhythm that seemed to come from everywhere. If she turned her head the vibration was always still there just coming from the veins in her eyes. Just like the rainbows hanging in the distance, framing the devastation like a promise that was issued by someone knowing they’d never have to deliver on it.

The thin air did nothing to soothe her lungs or abate her headache.

And each step twisted in the thin sand beneath her.

It was such a thin world now.

Sometimes she fell knee deep in the dying earth and had to dig herself back out of the thin sand that twisted and spun around her hooves. The world was desperate to devour her like Goya's dog, but she kept pushing through in the eerily chilled, yellow tinged air. Still like Goya's dog, chasing those bird.

Twilight had showed her that painting once.

Applejack hadn't like it. It was an act of violence, just like the world in the wake of the explosion of Fluttershy's ass.

It sucked. And it kept sucking for a long, long, long time, like trudging through a gigantic chocolate pudding cup.

No matter how far she walked, the Castle of Friendship never seemed to grow any closer, and the vast dark sphere behind her never seemed to grow farther away. There was only this, plodding in place through the desert, drying out, dying.

At some point, she’d realized her hat was gone. Probably torn off by the vacuum when she was scrabbling to survive in her grave.

Yet another casualty of Fluttershy’s exploding ass.

Yet another she hadn't been strong enough to hold on to.

Applejack's head hung down and her hair fell around it like straw framing her world. There was nothing left of her world but this blonde hallway to the dirt.

And always onward.

Then, a whistle pierced the beating in her head.

She jerked up and saw the crystal walls of the castle. A hatch cracked open, and an armored figure emerged into Applejack’s hellscape home. The figure stood for a while in the infinite emptiness, allowing the cloak that concealed most of its bulk to billow in a very cool manner.

Then, it gestured that she should come inside.

Applejack walked past the figure and through the hatch, somehow conscious that she shouldn’t turn and make eye contact or look to closely at the lavender plate that armored it.

Immediately after she entered, she felt the hatch crash shut behind her. Then she heard the vents turning on. Her ears popped and she collapsed as her body was forcibly readjusted to a pressure of one atmosphere. Her lungs, at least, sang in joy at the influx of oxygen.

When the inner door opened, Applejack pulled herself up and entered the tower.

Once, the sun had illuminated this place during the day as the light refracted through the walls. Now, what of the sun was able to struggle through the wake of the explosion of Fluttershy's ass wasn't up to refracting anywhere. Now, there was only a castle filled with shadows.

Only then did Applejack realize the armored figure hadn't followed her. She was alone inside the darkened, and apparently pressurized, Castle of Friendship.

Applejack coughed, as an experiment.

The noise didn’t echo. This place, what it had become, could simply absorbed her.

She shook her head and carried onward forward through the twisting passages all alike until she met the armored figure again for the first time since it had been armored.

The armored figure was a pony wearing purple and white power armor that stood beside the former Table of Harmony in a large round room. Overhead hung a chandelier made from the most surviving roots of any tree in Ponyville.

The tree roots were pretty dead, though, but at least they were intact.

The armored head turned in Applejack’s direction. Gigantic insectoid eyes regarded her in silence.

An armored hoof pressed the equally armored neck and out popped the face of Twilight which was unsurprising given the castle Applejack was in.

She looked Applejack over and muttered something about time dilation before shouting back to something else that loomed in the shadows.

With a grinding, skull-crushing noise the thing emerged as an eight-legged purple tank and starred and lit up and then glimmered.

Applejack always figured that having turned herself into an eight-legged tank was the sort of thing that Starlight Glimmer would have ended up doing sooner or later so she didn't comment on it.

"It has been over a hundred years since anyone arrived here," Twilight explained explanatorily.

Applejack was fairly sure that it hadn't been over a hundred years since she'd been here, but she kept silent on the issue because she wasn't as good with numbers as Twilight was.

The tank turned to Twilight and glimmered and starred and lit up in a language that apparently the alicorn could understand, as Twilight was nodding thoughtfully.

"It may not have been as long for you," Twilight said, "the spell we used to ward off the effects of the shockwave and temporarily slow the development of the blackhole from where Fluttershy's ass exploded on a beautiful day in Ponyville requires us to accelerate the tower to the speed of light, which accelerated time for us in relation to you."

Applejack had a feeling that this wasn't how time or velocity worked, but Twilight was the one who was good at magic and physics, so Applejack said nothing.

Twilight cocked her head and said, "it doesn't make sense though, how you were able to see or enter the castle if you weren't already accelerated into our timeframe."

Applejack would have mentioned the figure in the airlock, but it occurred to her that to mention such a thing might be rude, so she didn't.

The tank lit up and starred and glimmered, and Twilight nodded.

"Yes, yes, of course," Twilight said, "never look a gifted Pferd in the data entry orifice." Twilight turned back to Applejack. "We've been able to slow down the spread of the blast from Fluttershy's ass explosion and to slow the development of the black hole from where Fluttershy's ass was pre-explosion, but we're running out of energy. Neither I, nor the tank that Starlight Glimmer has become can leave here to seek a new energy source, but you can."

Applejack wasn't sure why she was the only one who could do this, but it seemed like the sort of thing Twilight would understand and she wouldn't, so Applejack said nothing and merely nodded.

Twilight shot a hologram from her horn and it displayed Fluttershy's ass mere seconds before explosion. Somehow, looking at it, one could tell that this was an ass mere moments from explosion. It was just that sort of ass. It was Fluttershy's ass which was about to explode during a beautiful day in Ponyville.

"This, Twilight said," said Twilight and then giggled at her slip up before returning to pretending to know what she was doing. Adopting what was probably her best impression of a pony who hadn't gone completely stir-crazy, Twilight went on, "this is Fluttershy's ass mere seconds before explosion. Somehow, looking at it, one can tell that this is an ass mere moments from explosion. It is just the sort of ass that contains limitless energy and potential. Me and Starlight—"

There were stars and lights and glimmering from the tank as it corrected Twilight's grammar, and Applejack nodded in agreement.

"Starlight and I, then. We've developed a time machine that can send you back to exactly this instant so you can seize Fluttershy's ass at the moment of detonation and bring it back here. By tapping into the limitless energy and potential of Fluttershy's exploding ass, we could ensure that the containment fields last forever. This would also maintain the rainbows arcing overhead, so we could enjoy an eternity of nice days in Ponyville because Fluttershy's ass was eternally exploding in a contained way."

Starlight Glimmer the tank starred and lit and glimmered.

Twilight turned to it and snapped: "Fine! Fine! Yes, nice is not a usefully descriptive word in most cases and in most cases I should have said it was a beautiful day in Ponyville when Fluttershy's ass exploded, but we're talking about Fluttershy's ass here. It could hardly not be 'nice' if she's involved." Twilight was silent for a second before sliding in a sarcastic "eep" of contempt.

Applejack couldn't not agree, so she didn't by remaining silent in assent. Instead, she looked around for an exit. Not because her friend had apparently gone insane, and she just wanted to leave and be done with it.

No, our Applejack wouldn’t do that at all! She was just eager to get on with her apparent task.

"Before you go, we have to put you in a suit." Twilight rushed a quick spell, and armor encased Applejack. The armor included assistance servos that would make Applejack stronger than she could ever be otherwise, and the earth pony noted that this sort of technology would have been useful for her while she farmed.

"Of course, this sort of technology would be helpful for farming and any number of other applications," conceded Twilight as she read her friend's mind, "but it is more fun to keep it a secret for ourselves as a secret order of unicorns."

Applejack thought about the arthritis in her knees and the recurring pain in the small of her back and Granny's broken hip.

"I am responsible for all of that in my own way, of course," Twilight nodded, "all the miseries of the world are my part, but I just wanted to keep some things to be fun games for myself. That's the tradition."

Applejack continued saying nothing.

"Okay, okay! You're right. Everyone who has ever imagined it was their role to keep a particular secret technology for themselves has always proved to be the worst possible creatures for having any kind of technology or power. This applies in every possible circumstance, including the ones that might exist in a hypothetical world of bacon-haired bipeds, but that's beside the point here. The point is that you must travel back in time and put this beacon," Twilight produced a beacon and hoofed it over to Applejack, "on Fluttershy's ass and bring it back to us."

Applejack continued saying nothing.

"Anyway, get ready for a trip!" Twilight smiled as she smacked her friend back through a flurry of spinning lights (all good time travel involves spinning and lights) into the past at a speed faster than light.