Applejack Is An Interdimensional Alien

“Well, here we are!” Happy Hoof proclaimed as he and AJ entered into what looked to be a storage area. Large metal shelves lined the walls everywhere, each filled to the brim with boxes and boxes of… stuff. She didn’t know what their contents were, but they were stacked quite high, each of the shelves reaching the ceiling, a ceiling that went up to what she had to guess was twenty or thirty feet. There were also boxes lying on the ground on pallets, each of these stacked high as well, some filled with what she could tell was food, others containing things like pillows and hammers and lights and chemicals from what the boxes read. There were about fifteen pallets stacked high throughout the room, and yet even despite all the metal shelves and pallets of boxes, the room still seemed empty, like it could hold ten times the amount of stuff currently contained within it. It was impressive how large it was, and she could see why somepony would set up shop here in the face of the disaster that was described to her.

“Did y’all collect all this stuff on yer own?” the mare had to ask as she walked around a bit, examining it all.

“Nope,” Happy Hoof answered. “It was all here when my friends and I got here. Apparently, nopony- nobody- thought to come here before it all went to hell, which I guess is a good thing. And if nopony is here, there’s probably nopony at the Walmart in Colby, either, which isn’t that far, only like a day’s walk, if that. So we’ll have stuff for, like, years if need be. I mean, assuming there’s no tornadoes or nuclear explosions or any more weird stuff happening to us.”

“Hmmm… okay… so y’all have all these tools and all this food for… what? What’s the plan?”

“Oh, well…” the stallion rubbed a hoof behind his head. “There isn’t a plan. We were just going to… rebuild, you know? Start over as ponies the best we could. Err, that’s what we were going to do, but now that you’re here, you can help us! Like I said, you have cutie mark magic inside of you, so you should be able to cast whatever spell you want and grab Twilight Sparkle and fix all of this!”

“Ya said that before, Ah think, and Ah don’t know if ya know this, but Earth ponies can’t do magic like unicorns.”

“Well, of course you can’t, you don’t have a horn,” he agreed, “but that’s why you’re not going to do it like a unicorn. You just need the right tools, and we have all the right tools right here! It’ll be a breeze for you!”

“Ah… Ah don’t know…” Applejack responded, a bit nervous. ‘Ah don’t know if Ah’m comfortable with an Earth pony doin’ magic. It just don’t seem right ta me.”

“Well, that’s still very racist, but despite that, think of how much help you could be to us! You could be doing something real right now that could really help us!”

“Well… like Ah said, I’m pretty sure Twi will be comin’ here soon. That pony is one smart cookie. She’ll know somethin’ is wrong and be right here in no time.”

“But what if she’s not here in no time?” he asked. “What if it takes her, say, another week before she comes here and fixes it? That’s another week that things get worse for us, another week that we have to sit here and forget who we are or go crazy because of the magic! Don’t you want to help us now?”

“Ah- Ah do,” she told him sincerely. “Ah really do. Ah’m just not sure if… what if somethin’ goes wrong? Ya said ya got that spell from that… creature. How do ya know that’s not exactly what he wants us ta do?”

“Well I- I can’t be sure, but…” He paused for a moment, considering to himself Applejack's words before continuing with more conviction, “But I’m almost certain that this is a good idea. I wouldn’t be for it if I didn’t believe it was a good idea. I mean, you’re an Element of Harmony! There’s so much magic inside of you at your disposal that we can use, and it’s… it’s something we can put to good use! Just trust me, please when I say this is a good idea, because the only alternative is sitting here and waiting for something else to happen or somepony to come to us, and I’ve already been doing that for weeks as a pony, and years since he first showed up. I want to try something.”

The mare sighed to herself. What would Twilight do, or any of her other friends? She imagined that each and every one of them would do what they could to help this pony out despite any fears they might have had. But she wasn’t them. She was just a simple farm pony. If there was hard work to be had, like building a shelter or cutting down trees, she wouldn’t hesitate to help. But magic? She had no experience in that, other than the bare bones of what she’d learned in school and from Twilight. It wasn’t something she expected to be sought out for help in.

Still though, this pony was asking for her help, almost begging for her to help him out. She couldn’t just turn him down, could she? That wasn’t what she was about. Even if it wasn’t something she was an expert in, she knew she had to buck up and do what she could. After all, the stallion was right. What else could she do besides wait for Twilight and try her best to help with whatever these ponies needed?

“Okay,” she started carefully, “Ah’ll try my best, but don’t go expectin’ me to be some sort of expert, or gettin’ yer hopes up that Ah’ll be able ta do much. But Ah’ll try my best.”

“Perfect!” he smiled happily. “Let me get everything set up.”

She watched him trot off to grab materials, setting candles down in seemingly random places before grabbing chalk to draw out stuff on the ground. She thought she saw Twilight and a couple of other ponies do something similar before, which she took as a good sign, and stared at him as he meticulously went through, making sure everything was perfectly straight and exactly how he wanted it. She wasn’t sure if there was something she should have been doing right then, but he didn’t ask for her help, so she simply stood watching, waiting for him to call her for something.

“Almost done,” he said with a piece of chalk in his mouth as he continued to draw. “Can you light those candles for me? There’s a lighter on the ground somewhere. Just turn the wheel really fast while holding down the button. It might take you a few tries to get it though because of these dumb hooves.”

She ignored his comment about hooves being dumb as she did what she was told, quickly figuring out how to work the lighter and lighting all of the candles, being careful not to hurt herself. It only took a minute or two, and by the time she was finished, Happy Hoof was announcing that he was finished, too.

“Alright,” he said cheerily. “Now all you need to do is stand in the large circle I drew and- actually, wait, we are going to need a bit of your saliva.”

“Saliva?”

“Yeah, that way the spell knows it’s you that’s casting it. I mean, we could use blood, but I’m assuming you’re not going to want to be cut, so… I have a tray of dry paint you’ll use to draw what you have to. That should be good enough for the spell to know it’s following your commands.”

She followed his instructions as he brought out a tray of simple paint, using her spit to wet the red color before dabbing a bit of her hoof and mimicking the hoof strokes he demonstrated for her, drawing them out on the ground. It ended up being another circle with what looked to be a five-pointed star, a pentagram she thought she heard Twilight call it before, with a hook on the top and bottom of it in the shape of an r and j respectively and a line through the middle of each letter.

“Okay, before you do the last part, I just want to let you know that… that I’m trusting you to not abandon us… if this works anyway. I really hope you don’t go back to Equestria and then forget about us…”

“Ah promise Ah won’t abandon you,” Applejack told him. “And Ah’m not one to go breakin’ promises. Ah mean, you already know Ah’m the Element of Honesty, so y’all know Ah ain’t one ta lie.”

“Pinkie promise on it?” he asked, not quite ready to fully believe her yet.

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she assured him, getting a smile back in response.

“Thank you,” he said genuinely. “All you should have to do now is draw a horizontal line straight through the center of the pentagram, cutting it in half. Then, the spell should work right away.”

“Okay, is there anything else Ah should know before Ah… do this?”

“Ummmmm… it should create the same symbol on the other end, so if you can’t remember what to do, just show Twilight Sparkle. She should be able to figure out how to get all six of you back here to help us.”

“Okay, Ah guess if there’s nothing else…” she trailed off as she slowly started to work her red paint covered hoof across the symbol, moving carefully as though trying not to disturb whatever magic was going to make the spell work. She didn’t feel anything happening, and it made her anticipation start to build as she was almost to the edge of the circle she drew. She took a breath as the paint finally made contact with the other edge of the symbol, cutting it in half, and when it did, she felt much of her energy suddenly drain and heard a loud pop as the spell she cast did its work.