Chapters

... when Fluttershy's ass exploded
... but there’s Nowhere left to go
... and there's Nothing left to say
... leaving ashes in her Wake.

... when Fluttershy's ass exploded
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It was a beautiful day in Ponyville

... when Fluttershy's ass exploded

It was a beautiful day in Ponyville when Fluttershy's ass exploded. It continued being a beautiful day in Ponyville, but beautiful in other ways than usual as the skies lit up all around with a rainbow of creatively destructive colors that erupted violently in all directions from Fluttershy's hungrily exploding ass.

Rainbow Dash would be the first to notice that Fluttershy's ass had finally exploded because she had an instinctive ability to be jealous. If the hairs on the back of her neck had not already stood up in indignation, they would have lifted in response to the growing electric charge as the rainbow-colored shockwave rushed at her.

"Hey, that's my thing," were her last words as the crushing rainbow rush released by Fluttershy's exploding ass released Rainbow Dash into her separate smithereens. She was killed and died instantly, so no one would ever know if Dash meant that her thing was rainbow shockwaves or if she meant that her thing was being pointlessly destructive.

Or maybe she thought her thing was having an exploding ass?

No one would ever know the answer to that question, because as soon as The Dashed Dash had finally finished saying her final piece, the shockwave ripped through her and reduced her instantly to ash before accelerating those ashes until they broke up into free subatomic particles killing her and causing her to die instantly.

This happened so fast it happened twice and happened so close to the explosion’s center that it happened three times, and it kept happening forever.

Or maybe she would have been thinking that her thing was accelerating herself to terrible speeds and she resented that Fluttershy had, with one terrific explosion of her ass, done more than The Dashed Dash had done in a lifetime to propel her? No one can ever know, because Dash has been dead and dashed to specks of dust by Fluttershy's exploding ass for some time now.

And it will keep happening forever thanks to Fluttershy’s exploding ass as the wave bearing Rainbow Dash oscillates back and forth through time creating an opening that will be taken advantage of later.

Rarity, whose thing was definitely not having an exploding ass as such behavior was entirely undignified, felt a disturbance ripple through her forcibly. A terrible wrenching in her nethermost nethers, as if an entire wardrobe—much of it unworn—had been obliterated, and she knew at once it was Fluttershy's closet that had suffered so.

She also knew why it must have happened: it was a beautiful day in Ponyville, and so Fluttershy's ass had at last exploded.

Well that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Rarity trembled as those words mounted the walls of her mind palace. She would never see her mother again. The story that existed between them had been over since the last time they'd spoken.

This apocalypse was all that was left for her. This next few seconds in this little space of her boutique. One last sketch, and then out with the lights forever. It wasn't fair. And she'd never again ...

She smothered her tears in their crib like a strangely loving mother. There was no time for despair as she set her Plan B into motion and began ripping dresses from the ununderstanding poniquins in her display window and throwing them into a pile in the center of the boutique.

Sassy Saddles, who was in Ponyville where it was a beautiful day as Fluttershy's ass exploded, said "Asses and Agitation, Rarity, why are you gathering all of your property into a single pile?"

"There's no time to explain, we," Rarity choked, and fought back her impulse to wail. Instead, she dumped the contents of the discount hat bin on top of some of her best work and spared a single glance back toward the direction of Fluttershy’s cottage where a horrible glow was now visible. "We just, I need everything piled here! Now!"

With Sassy's help Rarity was able to complete her fashion pile. There it was. None of it was her best work, that was behind her, but it had been good. It could have been worth something.

Not anymore. With a flick of her horn, Rarity ignited the pile and watched it burn away in flash of dazzling colors, leaving only ash and free radicals which dramatically increased Rarity and Sassy’s risk of cancer.

Not that it mattered much.

"Shockwaves and shocking sins, Rarity!" Sassy Saddles exclaimed, and Rarity wondered why her assistant kept referring to her by name even when they were the only two ponies in the room while Sassy continued, "those commodities could have been exchanged for currency which could have been used to purchase more capital for the production of more commodities!"

"No, darling," Rarity replied, and Sassy wondered why Rarity always called her 'darling' when Rarity probably knew that her name was Sassy Saddles while Rarity continued, "there is no exchange value left to be sought in this world. We're all," she choked as tears stung the corners of her eyes, "I had to destroy ... it was, it was the only way, I ..."

Rarity at last surrendered and leapt upon a couch, releasing all of her rage and sorrow at the colossal unfairness of it all, "I had to keep my works from being destroyed by Fluttershy's exploding ass!"

Sassy Saddles would have admirably compared Rarity to a kulak and received a well-deserved uppercut for the insult, but at that moment the shockwave from Fluttershy's exploding ass tore the damned doors off the Carousel Boutique. The unicorns within screamed and leapt into each other's hooves, burying their snoots in each other's floof and shivering in terror for a full second as the roof followed shortly partitioning into pieces section by section as each mounted layer was ripped away, then the walls and everything in them was ripped away. At last they were killed and died instantly after an eternity of terror.

Rumors (which will be started by this very sentence) that Rarity may have wet herself as this happened are all vile slanders and libels and not to be believed. She would never do such a thing! Never! A curse on the previous sentence for even suggesting such a thing!

Pinkie Pie felt Fluttershy's ass explode as a twitch in her own ass that rushed down her hooves and then back up again like a cartoon anvil bouncing up through the throat of an unfortunate coyote upon impact with the ground. That was the usual feeling she had when someone's kitchen was destroyed and they'd need a couple days cooked meals brought to them, but this time she knew it wasn't just the kitchen. It was everything, and it had been destroyed because it was a beautiful day in Ponyville and Fluttershy's ass had exploded.

Pinkie rushed up to her room above Sugar Cube Corner where she'd stored her own Plan B.

Gripping a lever with her mouth (so gross! I know!), she unleashed a flock of balloons which expanded with the speed of an exploding Fluttershy’s ass and erupted out the several hatchways on the roof. In an instant, they hit the end of their tethers and began to strain as they struggled to pull the building beneath them out of its foundations.

The whole structure groaned in birth pangs which mirrored the death pangs of the world dying in the shadow of Fluttershy’s exploding ass.

Seeing that was done, Pinkie Pie autodefenestrated through her closed bedroom window in fine Bohemian style shattering the glass around her in bloody spectacle.

With a mighty squish she hit the ground and sprained several of her internal-most organs.

After several moments passed, she lurch-staggered to her feet from the bloody pavement and shook broken glass from her sides as she realized her terrible mistake! She'd done it wrong!

Meanwhilst in the distance the shockwave was expanding and ripping apart the edges of Ponyville—which was experiencing a beautiful day because Fluttershy's ass had exploded—and blasting all matter before it into a rainbow of delightful photons for all to see on this beautiful day in Ponyville.

Pinkie held a hoof over her nose as if preparing for a dive and jumped backwards, up through the shattered second story window of her home. Cheerfully she opened the now broken and useless window and autodemurumstrated through the wall next to the window, leaving a Pinkie Pie shaped hole in the wood as she crashed back down to the ground below and lay now surrounded by splinters.

The shockwave was at this point just a few blocks away from Sugar Cube Corner. Time was running out like a bad customer with saddlebags full of sugar and complimentary crackers, determined not to pay their bill as they bolted (a synonym for ran, the past tense of run, run being the word one uses when describing sand running through an hour glass as time passes away from the pony who contemplates the hour glass, wasting their time while a customer they should have been watching runs) out the exit.

Pinkie Pie lurch-staggered to her hooves and looked up at the hole punched in the above mentioned wall—which definitely was mentioned above in the text you can go back up there and check for it if you want—and she realized she'd done it again. She, again holding her hoof over her nose, leapt again backwards up and passed again through the conveniently Pinkie Pie hole in the wall into her bedroom.

Once happily returned there, she slip-gripped her hooves under the edge of the wooden wall and with a grunt tore it free of the baseboards.

The walls of Pinkie’s room clitterously clattered and penisously clacked upward as it rolled back into itself disappeared just as a broken garage door won't do. This exercise left the roof of Pinkie’s room hovering impossibly in the air beneath the balloons still straining to tear Sugar Cube Corner free.

Satisfied, Pinkie ran downstairs, past the bewildered and terrified Cakes who had been standing at the base of the stairs looking up, through the bakery which hadn't been doing anything, leapt up on a table between two shocked teenagers who will go unnamed and never be mentioned again, and autodefenestrated again through the big display window at the front of the store and landed out on the street surrounded by broken glass and splinters for the third time this day. She was also surrounded by bewildered and terrified cakes (sweet cakes that she might have eaten, not the pony Cakes that she lived with, even though they were also very sweet (the Cakes were sweet in the way of being kind and not in the way that Pinkie would want to eat them)) she had propelled through the window with her, which was a first for today.

She stood again, shaking blood and frosting and shattered glass off her and realized she'd made the same mistake for the third time today!

At this point, she also realized that the shockwave from Fluttershy's exploding ass was just a few meter maids away.

The meter maids, for their part, carried out their jobs without fear or remorse as all upholders of the state must and were holding their stupid place at regular intervals along the street as a measure of distance.

Even while each one in sequence screamed in terror and pain as she was devoured by the force of Fluttershy’s hungrily exploding ass, they refused to move.

Pinkie, at last, realized it was about time she quit assing about and wasting time. Instead, she pulled a shovel from her mane and quickly set about digging into the foundations around Sugar Cube Corner.

With the balloons tugging from above, it was only seconds' of work to weaken the foundations of the building and set Sugar Cube Corner flying. Seeing the building rising to the open sky, Pinkie held a hoof over her nose as if preparing for a dive and leapt backwards through the broken display window for the last time in her life.

"You did it! You've saved us" Carrot Cake shouted as the building lifted into the air.

"Oh no, nothing could do that. The explosion of Fluttershy's ass is inescapable. I’ve just always wanted to do something really fucking stupid like try to launch this whole fucking place into the sky, but I used to be worried about the consequences.” Pinkie opened the broken display window by lifting the glass out of its frame and flipping the shattered pane out and down to the ground where it exploded. “Now I don't have worry because we're all going to fucking die! Also, I can say fuck now because I’m about to die! It feels fucking great!"

Then a nail driven just ahead of the explosion from Fluttershy's exploding ass shredded one of the balloons bearing the bakery and sent the whole structure careening into the edge of the explosion.

“Isn’t this all so fucking wonderful and fun,” squealed Pinkie Pie as everything that was solid dissolved into the air, and she and everypony in Sugar Cube Corner was killed and died instantly.

Applejack’s family were in their farmhouse, and, like the occupants of a farmhouse filmed in black and white being scraped from the earth by an enormous shockwave from an exploding ass, they were scraped from the earth by the enormous shockwave of Fluttershy’s exploding ass.

Applejack, however, was not with them.

Happily for herself and for nopony else in her family, Applejack was in a deep, deep hole with nopony else in her family when the shockwaves of Fluttershy's exploding ass passed overhead.

And so she was not killed. And since she was not killed, she did not die instantly. Instead she was left alive at the bottom of her self-carved gutter while everypony else in her family was obliterated from the earth.

Instead, she stared in confusion at the rainbow as it ripped by overhead.

An instant later, she was slammed snoot first into the dirt by pressure wave of the world seeking any exit from the force of Fluttershy's exploding ass.

Stones crashed into the back of her head rattling her brain. Dirt was forced into mane as the surface of the earth was forced down over her.

She was smothered in hot darkness.

But she survived.

Survival meant Applejack was the first to experience the vacuum left in the wake of Fluttershy's exploding ass.

The instant after the crushing pressure forced Applejack’s poor snoot down into the bottom of her hole the air was ripped back out past her.

First, the earth above her was stripped straight up. Then, the dirt beneath her was ripped right up and sprayed into her poor face.

She closed her eyes tight against this new assault.

Her ears popped violently.

She worked her jaw furiously trying to equalize the pressure in her head. This only allowed dirt into her mouth.

Then the ground was gone as she was yanked skyward toward the sky. Panicking, she reached out her hooves to grip the edges of her hole.

And her mouth was still filling with dirt.

The terrible suction of the void left in the wake of Fluttershy’s ass seemed to carry on forever. Applejack's hooves carved twin ruts in the earth as she was pulled inch by inch upward. She was swallowing the dirt now.

Then the silence.

Gravity reasserted its bill against Applejack.

She fell back down the hole and her snoot was booped quite violently by bottom of her hole.

It hurt her poor, little nosey quite a lot to land on it like that.

The shock also made her quite stupid. So stupid that she was thinking about her snoot and poor, little nosey.

More earth fell to cover her again and she lay there face down in her grave for a long, long time.

... but there’s Nowhere left to go
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It was a beautiful day in Ponyville

... but there’s Nowhere left to go

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.

... and there's Nothing left to say
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It was a beautiful day in Ponyville

... and there's Nothing left to say

Applejack arrived, still travelling faster than the speed of light, in Fluttershy's cottage in a spinning halo of globes of light.

Outside it was not quite yet a beautiful day in Ponyville, and inside Fluttershy's ass was still yet to explode although based on its buttery yellow curviness Applejack just knew it was an ass mere seconds from detonation.

Applejack started to say something to Fluttershy, most likely to apologize for stealing her ass. She stopped. She realized the world around her was frozen.

Experimentally, Applejack reached out a hoof and touched a dust mote hanging in the air. Her suit whistled as it compensated against the recoil against her hoof as Applejack accelerated the speck to light speed. The speck ignited into flame as air resistance it heated it to thousands of degrees. The slowing speck hung in the air like a tiny meteor.

This was the light speed thing.

It was weird and new, and she didn't like it.

Fluttershy probably couldn't even see her.

Applejack stared for what was to her a long time, wondering if there were any way to say or do anything to make this feel right. This was the last time she would ever see Fluttershy, and she was just here to steal her ass and leave. That was about as far from neighborly as a pony could get without stealing another pony's ass.

Applejack was here to steal Fluttershy's ass, though.

So there was nothing more far from neighborly.

Applejack was filled with a quiet despair but knew of no way to escape it. This was apparently her destiny. Just as an apple tree must apple and a Fluttershy's ass must explode, so must an Applejack travel through time to steal her friend's ass.

Abruptly, a biped stepped through a flurry of spinning lights into this existence.

This was also weird and new, and Applejack didn't like it. Why was her situation insistently getting more ridiculous every few minutes as if she were merely the puppet of a storyteller who only knew how to keep turning the stakes up because they couldn't think of any other move?

Applejack and the biped stared at each other for almost as long as Applejack had stared at Fluttershy.

"I, Shim Sham," said the biped, "am here to claim Fluttershy's soon to explode ass in the name of the Most Enlightened Shim Sham She-llective She-ciety."

Applejack shook her head, but inside she felt grateful. It was weird to travel through time to steal her friend's ass, but if she was preventing some alien from stealing Fluttershy's ass by taking the ass preemptively, well, that was well within her wheelhouse.

It was almost neighborly, really!

She was really doing Fluttershy a favor by stealing her ass now, if Applejack thought about it. And she did! Think about it, I mean.

She thought about it a lot.

While she’s been thinking about it, the biped has been reaching out toward Fluttershy's butter hind ready to steal it away forever!

Applejack was having none of that and bucked that ass thieving Shim Sham straight in her armored chest. The servos in Applejack's hind legs fired in conjunction with her extending legs lending them the power of a freight train while the hydraulics around her forelegs effortlessly distributed the immense recoil beside her body, stretching out the moment of impulse and transferred that power into Fluttershy’s floor.

Applejack's body was saved, but Fluttershy's floor was ruined completely. Applejack found herself hoof deep in detonating timbers. The friction against her suit caused the wood to ignite into lazily rolling flames that twined around her legs like brilliant blue, blossoming flowers. She heard the coolant system in her suit whine as it compensated releasing gouts of steam around her that slowed and stretched out and hung in the air as a little fire and steam garden around her.

She hadn't done any gardening in a while and it actually felt good.

The Shim Sham had flown back and hit the wall of Fluttershy’s cottage. Applejack and the biped were already moving at light speed because that’s how time travel works apparently (well, that and the spinning and the lights), so she hit the wall with more force than had had ever been known in Equestria until Fluttershy’s ass would explode a second later.

Applejack knew that, somehow, Rainbow Dash could sense the destruction and be jealous of it.

The wall erupted into flames and splinters that instantly slowed into colorful balls and curlicues as the explosion slowed around it. The fiery calligraphy entwining Shim Sham was both larger and more exquisitely detailed than the steam and fire garden swirling around Applejack's legs.

It would make a lesser mare paroxysmal with jealousy.

Yeah, Rainbow Dash was definitely somewhere saying being pointlessly destructive was her thing.

But Applejack wasn't Rainbow Dash; she wasn’t a lesser mare. She was a work mare.

So, she pulled her legs out of their holes, shook off her flower crown of slowing flames, and got to work.

She sprinted straight at the Shim Sham. Each godfuck kick of Applejack's legs sent a fresh miniature mushroom cloud up behind her obliterating the floor. The flames flared up and framed her as she rushed to deliver another blow.

The Shim Sham wasn’t done for, and she fired a volley of rockets through the fiery calligraphy before her at Applejack.

The impact of the rockets made the fact that they were rockets superfluous. As Applejack was thrown backwards the explosions themselves were merely colorful puffs that gradually spread out between Applejack and the Shim Sham like milk poured into a hot coffee.

Applejack jabbed her hoof down, attempting to grasp the floor and stop her flight.

That was a mistake.

Even gently touching the ground still carried power that could not be measured sensibly in any units known to ponydom. Applejack hadn't been gentle, and the resulting explosion sent Applejack straight upward like a startled insect bouncing off the glass walls of its prison. In this analogy, the insect is trapped in a jar, unlike Applejack who was trapped in Fluttershy’s cottage.

Also, unlike the insect which could peacefully bounce off the walls of its prison, Applejack hitting the ceiling, caused it to flex upward like jiggly wooden pudding and then bounce back like a trampoline as it exploded sending splinters of flaming wood everywhere. That blast propelled Applejack directly back down into the ground creating a crater like the hole she’d been in at the start of the story.

Time travel makes things go full circle like that.

It really sucks.

You should avoid it whenever possible.

For the second time, Applejack dragged herself outside of a hole to confront a scene of devastation, and just like the last time, she was the one who caused it.

Time travel. Don't do it if you can avoid it, kids.

Wherever the splinters from the explosions encountered the furried residents of Fluttershy’s residence, they were turning the poor critters inside out and erupted them into rapidly slowing, sizzling organ meats. Their intestines writhed and popped in the heat and devoured their way through the floorboards and their spines leapt out of their throats like little spears.

Overhead, the ceiling was still flexing and jiggling from the impact, erupting into flaming balls in some places where orbs of accelerated fire rolled across the wood devouring it and driving it to flex and bed more. The fire had been forced into orbs that crawled across the wood, slowly devouring it. Everything pulsed and vibrated to a Gnarl-Gnarthian rhythm, like the pulsing veins in the eyes of a drunk.

Up and down and in the future the world was steadily ending and monsters were being born from that future. Clawed arms reached out and dragged the Shim Shams attached to them into being.

"I am here to claim this Fluttershy’s ass in the name of the Most Enlightened Shim Sham She-llective She-ciety, which was created in the edge of the shockwave from when Fluttershy's ass exploded," cried one of them as it reared up into existence only for Applejack to buck it straight back into the hole it had emerged from.

Fluttershy had started to observe that there was something happening around her at a speed she couldn't observe. An earnest “Eep” was starting to come out of her, and it wouldn't finish until her ass had been stolen. In the interim, she would realize that her entire house had been destroyed around her before her ass would get the chance to explode it with the power of her ass.

Another Shim Sham leapt at Applejack firing more rockets. Only to crash into yet another Shim Sham and spin firing her explosives at random.

The rockets struck the ground near Mr. Bear and once more, the shrapnel and splinters struck a critter, and once more his skin erupted off of him as one would expect, but somehow his immense bulk absorbed the shock as he accelerated with a vast jiggling of smoking fat.

Now skinless and bleeding and enraged and jiggling like that pudding that Applejack was constantly thinking about, Mr. Bear spun around suddenly aware of what had killed so many animal friends and destroyed his cottage home. He roared a mighty roar and pounced upon a Shim Sham biting straight through her leg.

Bone popped like ripe balloon and spewed blood and marrow upon the floor at a speed which dug straight down through the ground in fine Chineighse Syndrome-style.

Shim Sham screamed as the bear worryingly worried her body, and she unthinkingly shot a grappling hook at angle where it blew straight through Fluttershy’s wardrobe reducing all the clothes in it to a fine ash with an explosive clap that shoved several mice into a faster than light biting frenzy at anything around them.

Somehow, Applejack knew that Rarity felt that one in her nethers. The wardrobe, of course, not the mice. The one with a special connection to mice was Fluttershy of the soon to be exploding ass that Applejack had to steal.

At this point, another biped stepped into existence through a spinning halo of lights. She wore no helmet, revealing a scarred yellow face framed by red and yellow hair. Applejack had a feeling that her crash had done some brain damage. Perhaps this had cost her her color perception.

"Relic of the past, your resistance is futile. The victory of the Most Enlightened Shim-Sham She-ocial She-vilization is inevtiable."

Applejack saw no reason to argue with this statement, and so she didn't.

At least not verbally.

Instead, she sprinted forward, low beneath a hail of rocket fire from the new Shim Sham—which obliterated a hapless business of ferrets—and leapt up headbutting the Shim Sham into Fluttershy’s kitchen where she crashed into the sink. The water in the pipes instantly vaporized and cooked the Shim Sham in her suit like a lobster in the shell. Butter that Fluttershy had been keeping near the sink melted and dribbled along the Shim Sham’s fresh, juicy flesh and several cockroaches that Fluttershy had been keeping under her sink crawled out tying bibs around their necks, eager for a nice dinner for once.

The kitchen was a total loss. Pinkie would notice that somehow. She had a special Pinkie sense for each of her friends losing their kitchen.

"Because we were travelling at the speed of light,” said another Shim Sham, crawling out of the hole Applejack had blasted in the floor earlier, “we experienced time at a much slower rate than you outside of our universe. This enabled us to undergo millions of years of years of evolution and progress and our civilization far exceeds yours and we will, soon, exceed anything that your civilization could ever be. By this right, we demand Fluttershy’s ass!"

Applejack was pretty sure this wasn't how physics was supposed to work and that it may even be inconsistent with the way physics was presented so far in this story, but she wasn't sure how to express such an opinion verbally, so rather than use her words her words she leapt upon the biped and pummeled it through the ground.

Shim Sham gasped for breath as Applejack slammed her breast plate inward, crushing her lungs. Applejack kept slamming, pushing the exoskeleton inward until Shim Sham’s intestines popped out of her open like toy snakes from a can.

This violence didn't seem like much of an explosion, yet the Shim Sham seemed to agree with it. Or, at least, she died and quit arguing on behalf of her existence.

Mr. Bear, still completely naked and bleeding from his blackened, burnt skin, finally shook the Shim Sham loose from her leg and her body went flying like a rocket, leaving a trail of blood which rapidly cooled and slowed in the air like a crimson fairy bridge. The newly loosed corpse flew over Applejack and the new Shim Sham and struck another Shim Sham and blasted them both through a wall which exploded outward, leaving a space in which another Shim Sham appeared in a flurry of spinning and lights.

She said, "We are traveling throughout every universe to build a pile, a powerful battery which will permit our advanced society to last forever and build glories that your collapsing world could never even begin to understand. But to complete this pile, we need every possible Fluttershy's ass."

This part Applejack was also pretty sure wasn't how things work, and this time she expressed her opinion by firing a grappling hook past the newest Shim Sham’s head.

Shim Sham turned, watching the hook pass by her before she turned back and smile only to meet a buck from Applejack's pneumatically enhanced legs. As the Shim Sham was sent flying, Applejack engaged the breaks on the hook, causing it to abruptly lose speed.

The breaking action released a shockwave that blasted that Shim Sham and several others toward Applejack who kicked them each one at a time and sent them flying through the still exploding wall out into space where they vanished as twinkling lights in the distance.

But there was no time to enjoy her victory, because more Shim Shams were pouring in through the cracks in reality illuminated by flashing and spinning lights.

Applejack and Mr. Bear, as quadrupeds, found a natural alliance pouncing on everyShim that appeared and destroying them, but they were losing ground quickly against the growing infestation. This reality, their reality unfortunately, was proving to be a lost cause.

Two Shim-Shams leapt into the world and turned to each other.

One said: “You’re a Shim-Sham?”

The other replied: “Yes!”

And the first replied, establishing the rhythm of this bit: “So am I! Which frequency does your reality vibrate on?”

“100 exahertz!”

“So does mine! Which dimensions does your home dimension vibrate along?”

“Third, fifth, sixth, and eleventh.”

“So does mine! Which color shift does your home dimension exist on?”

“Red.” And the two bipeds were coated in red as a Shim Sham's torso went flying by pouring out her entire life.

“So does mine! Are your amino acids left-handed or right-handed?”

“Left-handed!”

“Abomination! You will not replace us!” Screamed the Shim and she clapped her power-assisted hands together on either side of the other Shim’s head causing it to explode in a fountain of gore and fragments that shredded a nearby flock of birds.

Most of the birds were instantly obliterated but some of them were accelerated safely to light speed. They were fried like Sanders' birds but still madding like a crowd, and swept throughout the room pecking and biting and tearing at everyShim.

So much for honor among featherless bipeds.

And the Shim-Shams kept pouring into the meat grinder, leaping over slowly expanding fireballs, stepping around shattered walls, and raining from the skies of slow flame above while more and more skinless dying animals joined the melee. They were like over eager meat filling a sausage skin past the point of eruption, and by coincidence, the roaches, now fat and arrogant from their first bougie meal, had located a meat grinder and were trying to cram several Shim-Shams into the the peeled off skin of a single one. It wasn't going well for them.

That's when it occurred to Applejack that the roaches had never been sped up. They apparently just lived at this speed.

A Shim-Sham staggered past Applejack screaming in agony as a pair of skinless, mostly cooked guinea fowl pecked out her eyes. Another toppled backwards across a slowly expanding ball of flame and was instantly steamed inside her carapace like the previous Shim Sham who had been steamed inside her carapace like a lobster. That seemed to be happening a lot and there was probably a pony that felt that somewhere and resented it.

Old Bay was flying like the bullets that were also flying in the emergingly violent vore-violence orgy. Blood poured like a river and ran through the holes in the floor, dragging animals and Shim Shams equally to some horrible demise. There was a wide variety of hot sauces. Fresh game of every type and cooked to every preference of doneness.

It all smelled so delicious.

Applejack was worried because she wasn’t worried anymore. She was salivating like a dog as if this shame could outlive her. This situation was hazardous; this was becoming Normal for her.

She turned back to Fluttershy's ass, which was still almost in the position it had been when she had first appeared.

As Applejack approached the almost exploded ass, a new Shim Sham appeared and kicked Applejack out of the way and into the last unexploded wall which erupted as all the others had, at last shredding the final critters. It was all ruins now. There was nothing left here to be found or said or done to make anything better.

Even poor Fluttershy's hooves were on fire. Her ass was about to blow. It was at a breaking point. Applejack felt the pain in her head that told her she was learning something.

A Shim Sham then reeled away as a swarm of skinless rats roiled up from the blood river and began devouring her soft meats. Where droplets of blood were flung loose from the Shim and the mice, they slowed rapidly, floating in the air in strange, stretched out patterns.

At this moment another biped appeared and impaled one of the earlier bipeds through her torso.

"She told you we were the Shim Sham She-lective didn't she?" The Last Shimmer asked as she booted her way through a bloodwave riding business of skinless ferrets.

She opened the mask of her suit revealing the same face Applejack had seen time and time again, except this time much scrawnier and adorned with an enormous beard.

"I am from the future of the Shim Sham She-lective She-ciety, and I am here to say that the Fluttershy's ass revolution has been a disaster for the Shim Sham race. With the power and infinite life of the Fluttershy's Ass Pull--"

"Ass pile!" shouted a Shim Sham as she jumped at the previous arrival with a vibrating blade attached to her wrist.

The attacked Shimmer didn't even try to evade the attack, not that evasions had done anyShim any good in this complete clusterfuck.

The blade tore straight through her body and made a hole big enough of for Applejack to hide in. Blood furiously pulsed out joining the tide furiously burning and scouring holes straight through the floor and earth beneath her.

"Ha," laughed the dying Shim-Sham, "what you didn't know was that I am all of you from the future. By killing me, you have also killed yourselves."

EveryShim stopped in confusion in terror.

Applejack was pretty sure that wasn't how things worked, but she took advantage of the confusion to slam the tracker on Fluttershy's ass and hit the recall button finally bringing this pointless bloodbath to an end with a massive explosion that obliterated all of Ponyville on a beautiful day in Ponyville when Fluttershy’s ass exploded.

It was a price to pay, and it was paid. Was it worth isn’t a question worth thinking about so Applejack never did.

Author's Note

... leaving ashes in her Wake.
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It was a beautiful day in Ponyville

... leaving ashes in her Wake.

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.