Applejack returned in a flurry of spinning and lights. She collapsed directly to the ground surrounded by gore and blood dripping off her armor.

She lay on the ground exhausted and only wished there was a tarp to cover herself with. She was familiar with this feeling, having crawled out of her self-dug grave multiple times before. But there was no tarp.

There never was a tarp when she needed one.

Instead she lay exposed as Fluttershy's ass.

The ass was now detached from her former friend and trapped in a magical matrix projected by the tank that had been Starlight Glimmer.

Applejack stared up through the purplish glow, seeing the cartoonish outline of the meat in from where Fluttershy's soon to explode ass had been detached from her legs. Just like in her Marco Mouse cartoons, the bone was just a pure white circle in the middle of the red muscle surrounded by skin.

That wasn't how bones were supposed to look like, but Applejack didn't even know who she could be arguing against at this point. I mean, she'd seen the bones of the Shim-Shams when they were dismembered by the animals in Fluttershy's cottage, so there was an established precedent and—

Oh sweet Celestia she just hurt all over and could taste their blood in her mouth and her ears were ringing from all the rockets exploding.

Twilight and the tank that Starlight Glimmer had become both completely ignored Applejack at this point. Applejack tried not to take it personal-like. The explosive potential of Fluttershy’s ass probably required careful focus as—

Oh, never mind.

Twilight and the tank that Starlight Glimmer had become unceremoniously flung Fluttershy’s ass into an immense glass jar connected to several wires and devices that made reassuring “bings” at regular intervals.

The ass dropped and smacked the ground inside the jar with a wet slap as Twilight rushed to close it in and activate her fabulous machine.

Applejack turned her eyes upward at the machine that would take the fruits of her stupid efforts. It towered above her and she couldn't help but marvel at the beast as an embryonic larva struck by awe at the giant scion of the superior species that had emerged from her having existed. There were the aforementioned devices that went bing, and there were wires and there were stacks emitting coils of steam and there were turbines spinning and teeth grinding with power that could effortlessly abolish any pony who ended up too close to them. Wheels as inevitable as time and pistons slammed down and up. Teeth of gold smiled between turning cogs.

And at the root of all of this engine, Fluttershy’s ass lay like a dead slab of sad meat, leaking blood and humors from where it had been severed from it's owner. Some of the arteries seemed to be pulsing somehow as the last of the blood drained out into the glass jar where it had been slung. The fur on Fluttershy's ass matted with her blood and instinctive muscle twitches pushed the severed thighs this way and that.

It was horrible, but it was necessary. And it was over.

Applejack wearily dragged herself to her feet and started undoing the latches holding her gore-covered armor to her. At least, at last with the power of Fluttershy’s exploding ass, Equestria would at last be saved!

But nothing happened.

"But, but," Twilight wailed, "the Flutterbutt should have worked.” She punched the side of her wondrous engine and despaired. “Why isn’t there any power?”

The tank that Starlight Glimmer had become starred and lit and glimmered in confusion.

“It was Fluttershy's ass all along that exploded, wasn’t it? Why didn’t it work?”

A siren sounded as the power which had been fueling the spell containing the explosion of Fluttershy’s ass on a beautiful day in Ponyville started to fail. In a matter of minutes from their perspective, and instantly from the perspective of anyone else, it all would come to nothing and the beautiful day in Ponyville would spread everywhere as Fluttershy's ass explosion destroyed the entire world.

Applejack wondered if there might be other, non-ass based power sources that could be used.

"Of course, there are non-ass based power sources in Equestria," Twilight shouted, as much at herself as anypony else, "we are in the fair-fayne land of Equestria where the talking equines do dwell after all, but this machine was built to use an ass-based power source and any aftermarket modifications would void the warrantee and be a violation of patent law punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to one million bits."

The tank that Starlight Glimmer had become starred and lit up and glimmered, but Twilight didn’t respond. Presumably, she was objecting to Twilight’s erratic hyphen placement, but there were more important questions, such as how could Equestria be saved now that Fluttershy’s ass was just an inert slab of flesh laying dripping dead blood across the floor.

Applejack was starting to wonder if the insistence on an ass-based power source was a fetish thing.

“No! It’s just … this is a story about time travel, and time travel stories are supposed to go full circle like that. If Fluttershy’s ass is the problem, then Fluttershy’s ass must also be the solution!”

It was at this moment that Princess Celestia of Equestria appeared out of Twilight’s wondrous machine in a puff of smoke.

"My ass possesses the power you need to save all of ponykind," Princess Celestia of Equestria said as she placed her hoof on Twilight's shoulder.

"But Equestria can't demand that out of you," Twilight protested," it has already taken so much like the love of your sister.” Twilight was oh so badly confused and so are we all. “It can't take the power of your ass in a contained explosion as well! This isn’t fair!”

Applejack thought that none of this had been very fair to Fluttershy, but she thought it very quietly because she still wasn't sure how all this Fluttershy's ass exploding business was supposed to work out.

“It must, or there will be no more Equestria to demand or not demand anything from anyone,” said Princess Celestia of Equestria, and she nobly presented her ass to Twilight.

The tank that Starlight Glimmer starred and lit up (but did not glimmer out of respect) in a way that implied Twilight was the only pony who could make this choice, but she had to make it quick because containment was failing.

Applejack continued saying nothing because there was no reason not to break her streak at this point. She finished detaching her power armor and threw it away from her. It could have helped her once, when she was a farmer, but there was nothing left to grow in the world so far as she knew. Nor anyone to grow it for.

Twilight lifted her nose and gazed at Princess Celestia of Equestria through her nostrils and snorted a sigh of despair.

And in an instant it was done and forgotten just like Fluttershy’s ass that the tank that Starlight Glimmer had become magically chucked out of the glass jar where it slapped on the floor in front of Applejack.

Fresh Flutterblood spattered across Applejack’s face. Some of it may have gotten into her mouth, but at this point it was just one foul taste among many. Applejack stared at the sad unexploding ass of her former friend laying on the floor before her. She'd spent a lot of time staring at this ass and thinking about it. Now it was just sad.

There was no other word for it. It was a Fluttershy's ass that had not exploded, that had not birthed a new world or saved an only world. It was just worn out and dead and done with. Forlorn and ready to be forgotten. It was a sad ass.

Twilight and the tank that Starlight Glimmer had become were busying themselves with loading Princess Celestia of Equestria’s ass into the jar. Without time travel to conveniently separate the ass from her body, the two former unicorns had settled for lifting Princess of Celestia of Equestria up and shoving her ass through the glass hatch leading into the power chamber.

It looked like she was about to shit through a tiny window.

Someone should have laughed. It might be bearable if they did.

No one did. It wasn't.

Princess Celestia of Equestria herself was exercising phenomenal dignity with her eyes shut tight against the imminent explosion of her ass. She probably had shit out a window at some point and exerted this same level of deliberate dignity.

“I’ll just be leaving then,” Applejack said when she was sure no one was listening.

She bit down on Fluttershy’s tail (so gross! I know!) and pulled it out behind her leaving a streak of blood and humors behind her across the pristine floor.

Twilight and the tank that Starlight Glimmer had become were so immersed in inserting Princess Celestia of Equestria into their machine that they didn't notice the mysterious robed figure escorting Applejack out of the building and back out into the place where Ponyville had once been.

For the second time, Applejack stared out across the wasteland. Nothing stood out to her this time.

There was nowhere in particular to go.

She knew that.

There was Nothing but the dead world all before her and the possibility that Princess Celestia of Equestria's exploding ass would guide the world to many beautiful days. Beautiful days that had apparently never had a need for her.

Nor a need for Fluttershy’s non-exploding ass.

That was still there.

Applejack was still dragging that behind her.

There was no reason to keep dragging it along behind her.

She knew that.

The blood was caking up as the exposed meat dragged along the dirt and Applejack decided it was time to give it all a rest.

With her tired hooves, she dug a hole in the grey, shifting dead earth and dead-ass shoved Fluttershy’s equally dead ass into it before pushing the piled earth back over it.

Applejack stood up from her labor and wondered if there was something to say. She’d been Fluttershy’s friend once and might hope to do so again when the time came around again. But now?

Now she was just tired.

The air still hung yellow with free radicals and single rainbow hung in the distance.

When Applejack saw it all, the whole rainbow and all the destruction of the world, in a single glance, some trick of the light forced the yellow to the outside, and turned the area inside the rainbow grey, and the air itself seemed to swim.

It looked just like she was standing inside a giant eyeball, looking out at a world she would never touch. Like one of those squiggly bugs that lived in her eye.

It was a pretty gross thing to think about, being all insignificant and invisible like that.

But what else was left?

Just to keep going for as long as it took.

There was no reason to go on.

And she knew that, but she could do it anyway.

Of course, she had no hope of holding to that promise. She was as honest with herself as with anyone else. Backsliding and failure were part of life, but she could at least make her effort as long as she had legs to carry her.

She could bury it all as she walked across the waste.

Her friends, her family, whatever the fuck had just happened? All the past. Just this future reaching out through the gaps to drag itself forward into existence and now it had come to a rest and fresh claws were reaching out from new futures.

All nothing but corpses to be shoved into their holes and smothered under the warm blanket of the earth. Behind her the purple flames shot upward, newly renewed and they struck down around the black egg of destruction far away where Fluttershy’s cottage had once stood. As the purple flames erupted from the Castle and leapt through the air, Applejack kept her gaze locked on the horizon and walked on.

Like the music of a neighboring party, she ignored it as best she could.

Whether Twilight succeeded or failed, it meant nothing to her now.

She just had to keep walking.

There was no reason to go on.

She knew that.

Applejack kept going anyway.

The horizon wasn’t much of a goal, but it was a start.

And, so, with slow wandering steps through the ashes of Ponyville, Applejack took her solitary way without hope or fear.

The robed figure removed her hood and reached an armored hoof up to her neck. Twilight's helmet collapsed away from her face revealing her purple, velvety face and streaming purple mane which she shook loose.

She looked at her hoof display and watched the replay of the moment that Applejack had seized Fluttershy's ass causing a sudden gap in the world and the explosive destruction of every Shim Sham as they erupted in a burst of paradoxes that collapsed countless possible timelines back into one causing an eruption that could only be explained by the inevitable explosion of Fluttershy’s ass.

It had all gone according to plan.

For now, she alone knew that it was not Fluttershy's ass that had exploded on this beautiful day in Ponyville. No, it was the moment when a pony moving faster than the speed of light had stolen Fluttershy’s ass that had caused all this happen.

Future Twilight was at last satisfied she had done everything required to guarantee her own creation and the creation of the tank that would be her girlfriend. Having saved her world from the other competing worlds struggling to be born, there was nothing left for her but to wait until the time came that she existed.

She leaned against the outer wall of the Castle of Friendship and watched Applejack head off into the wasteland walking toward the spreading rainbow that was the horizon.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

True to her oath, Applejack never looked or took a step back as she walked, tireless and naked as her forebears, and so she never saw the garden blooming where she’d planted Fluttershy’s ass. She hadn't gardened in so long that she missed the feeling but couldn't recognized it.

She didn't see the fury of flowers and weeds erupted as Fluttershy’s ass at last exploded as everypony had known it must. She didn't see the colors fade immediately as only the spiniest, weediest and bitterest plants survived their horrible new home, but it would be enough as they feasted on the lives of their peers dying all around them.

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Twilight watched Applejack walking away. With each step the earth pony took, small plants took root. Ploughing their way up out of the impossibly sandy and parched soil in the dents of her hoof steps.

Lost ants and severed worms began writing back up from beneath the deepest depths where they had hidden in the holes they’d dug for themselves. They drew to the surface and began their happy work kneading the dead back into a sort of life. Like their savior they knew never to take a step back.

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

And, something infinitely large hidden somewhere all alone amidst a fever dream gasped to itself, “I should like try again," and it rolled over where it lay.

Applejack carried on. So did the world behind her.

And, because Fluttershy's ass had exploded, it was a beautiful day in Ponyville as it blossomed yet again with weeds growing from the cracked and dying asphalt under a sky rich and yellow with ozone's unique disease.

Author's Note