Philomena and Angel were waiting for Twilight Sparkle, and they were clearly agitated. No doubt they had heard some of the commotion inside the cottage. The rabbit was still distraught, maybe even more so, as it seemed apparent that Twilight Sparkle hadn’t been able to come to a solution for the present dilemma. The phoenix looked up at her pensively—maybe being the pet of a princess gave her a better composure in these tense situations. Better than she was faring herself as she wiped tears off her cheeks.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she finally said, clutching her arms against each other and over her stomach, feeling colder and weaker as she made the admission. “I don’t know what’s happening…I couldn’t do anything.”

Angel squealed and tugged at his long ears, as a pony might wring their hair, and Philomena responded by reaching out with one wing to hold gently against his back.

“The only thing I can think of is that we’re just going to have to go to Canterlot,” Twilight Sparkle then said, and she looked at the phoenix directly, “I may not know exactly why you came here, but it’s obvious that something must have transpired with Celestia if she didn’t contact us herself, so our best bet is to meet with her directly. We’re just going to have to gather up as many ponies who are able and…see what the problem is.” She stumbled as the thought occurred to her that she had no idea just what it was they were going to have to do. There had been nothing she could do for Spike or Fluttershy. Who was to say that she would have any solution for the greater problem at hand?

Philomena gave her a hearty chirrup in response. That seemed to get her looking a little cheerier. Angel was still just as forlorn. Twilight Sparkle knelt down before him and tentatively placed a hand to his small body. She would usually expect him to shy away, but instead he leaned into her touch, tried to hold her in place. He was small, but he offered a gentle, comforting warmth. She felt an urge to smile, though she couldn’t quite follow through with it.

“I don’t know that you should stay here,” she murmured as she picked up the rabbit, feeling him tremble in her palm, and then she turned to the phoenix as she fluttered into the air. “Philomena, do you think you can carry Angel back to the castle? There’s nothing more we can do here for now.”

Philomena nodded, and then she hovered over to Angel and delicately gripped him in her claws. The rabbit didn’t seem especially pleased with this—no doubt his prey instincts were telling him to panic—but he remained still as he was taken out of Twilight Sparkle’s grasp. “Stay safe,” she said to them quietly before Philomena turned about and flew away, her red-orange light becoming a star in the night sky. The mare stared, perhaps longer than she should have, letting it burn into her retinas. That was all she would have for now.

Twilight Sparkle turned in the direction of Ponyville; there weren’t enough lights on in the town for her to actually see it clearly in the gloom. Could there be any more ponies affected by this? In a settlement with thousands of inhabitants, it stood to reason that there would be at least one. Probably a lot more than one.

She kept thinking of one pony in particular, one with a puffy pink cotton candy mane.

But then she turned, looked to the southwest. Sweet Apple Acres. Her brain was already crunching numbers, the values that she had burned into her skull in the early days of her time living in Ponyville, on the odd days when she had nothing better to do than study maps to help familiarize herself with the area. Thus, she was able to know instinctively that Sweet Apple Acres was closer to Fluttershy’s cottage than the heart of town was. She could go there and check on the Apple family, and she could be certain that at least one of them would be able to lend her a hand. Applejack and Big McIntosh could always be depended upon, and Apple Bloom had been pulling her weight more and more as she grew up as well. Even Granny Smith probably wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to swat somepony with her cane, even if the princess would still have to ask the elderly mare to stay behind if at all possible. With those reinforcements, she would be better equipped to go into town.

Twilight Sparkle felt sure of this, even if she couldn’t know where that assuredness was coming from, as she took off into flight once more.

Inside the cottage, the twofold voice continued to call out.

“Twilight. Twilight.”

Never wavering in pitch or intonation, growing neither angry nor desperate, always wavering on the cusp of arousal.

Bedsprings creaked and groaned in protest amidst crooning moans.

= = = = =

There weren’t a lot of things about Applejack that could be described as “graceful,” be it her lifestyle or her mannerisms or her wardrobe or her accent. She was a farmer if ever there was one, and farmers couldn’t be afraid to get down and dirty when it came to their work. The one way in which she could be “graceful,” however, was in how she slept and woke up. Punctuality was everything when it came to her schedule, and just about every day of the year had something around the farm that needed doing, and so it was always early to sleep and early to rise. Big McIntosh was much the same, but he usually needed the assistance of caffeine to keep himself awake in that first hour as dawn began to creep across the horizon. Applejack managed to rouse herself entirely through the sheer force of her will and discipline.

This day was no different, and Applejack’s eyes slowly opened and blinked, once, twice, thrice, to drive out the bleariness so that the soft green colors of her bedroom could come into focus. There was only a momentary sluggishness to her movements as she pushed aside the blankets and sat up at the edge of the bed, and she stretched out her back and limbs. She was clenching her whole body, wringing the drowsiness out of herself as one would a wet rag. Her ears flicked, taking in the ambient noises of the night that were filtered into the house, and her tail swished across the top of the mattress.

She and the rest of the family had a big day ahead of them. The axles on one of the wagons needed fixing. The north orchard needed to have its apples collected. The new saplings in the south orchard needed fertilizer, and more watering since apparently the weather teams couldn’t be bothered to bring rain more than once a week. Writing in a complaint might be in order as well, but not before she made sure to fix the hole that she’d noticed in the barn roof. She also had to go check the perimeter to see if there had been any new signs of timberwolf activity. And Apple Bloom had better darn well get her course work done or else there were going to be consequences.

But as Applejack sat at the edge of the bed, she found herself taken by something, and she frowned and her brow creased.

The window by her bed faced toward the east, where the sun rose every day, making it easy for her to be pulled out of her slumber by the coming of the sunrise. This, by extension, made it very easy for her to notice that there was no sunrise. No sun at all, not even a faint rosy glow peeking over the horizon. It was very distinctly still night.

“Huh…that’s funny,” she muttered to herself, except the way she squinted in perplexed suspicion made it clear that it wasn’t the “ha ha” kind of funny. She was certain that she hadn’t underslept; she didn’t feel any groggier than she should be. She stood and walked over to the window and peered outside, to the yard surrounding the farmhouse, the fences and the barns and the stables and the trees beyond, but there was nothing immediately obvious to see, nothing that might have made a noise to disturb her. If it had been something inside the house, there was nothing to be heard now—the old, creaking boards made it quite easy to notice when anypony (namely Apple Bloom) was trying to sneak about in the middle of the night. She was certain that she must have woken up right on time just as she did on every morning that wasn’t preceded by a Pinkie Pie party or a plot to end the world.

All she had to do was check the time on a clock, so she reached out and turned to the side and—

But in that moment, she had forgotten some crucial details from the night before. Her hand sought out the nightstand, anticipating where a clock was resting, not heeding the felt surface that stood in the way. She had put her hat on the nightstand before going to sleep. She had put it over something. An object which was also pushed away, tumbling from the undue force that the movement carried. There was just enough time for Applejack to hiss out the beginning of a swear before it landed at her hooves with a clatter and the distinct splintering of glass, a sound that was definitely liable to wake up other ponies in the house.

“Oh…horseapples,” she muttered glumly to herself, staring for a few seconds at the mess as if hoping that it might undo itself. Moving slowly and more deliberately now, she bent over and picked up her hat, setting it aside on the bed, before she then gingerly reached for the debris, wary of cutting herself on any shards of glass. She managed to avoid any injury, but it was upon inspecting the object that the heavy lump in her throat plummeted into her stomach. The thin wooden frame seemed to be completely intact even if the glass that had kept the front sealed was entirely shattered. Applejack slid out the photograph that had been stored inside and held it up in the moonlight.

There were six ponies shown on the picture. Applejack herself was at the front, so much younger and smaller but no less full of determination, grinning broadly. Granny Smith sat on a chair next to her, her form not quite as withered as it was nowadays, a warm glimmer in her eyes. On the other side there was Big McIntosh, already living up to his name, nearly as tall as an adult stallion when he was just a teenager, and in his hands he was holding a little yellow filly with red hair, Apple Bloom when she was hardly more than a foal, who looked utterly mystified as to what was presently happening. And behind them were her parents, Bright Mac and Pear Butter. Bright Mac was wearing the hat that she now carried, and it seemed as if he couldn’t fully commit to looking at the camera, couldn’t resist looking at the family around him, couldn’t contain his pride and joy. Pear Butter was breathtakingly beautiful, even for as simple as her appearance was, bearing a smile that could warm anypony’s heart. Applejack ceased to be entirely conscious of herself, of the passage of time, of her own movements as she daintily brushed at the photograph with her finger, tracing over the two ponies who were standing over her in the scene.

After some time had passed, she closed her eyes and sighed. She put the plastic square upon the nightstand alongside the empty frame. She looked down at the broken glass, just barely visible in the dim lighting of the bedroom, and she grumbled to herself. That was two more things to add to the list: cleaning up this mess, and then getting a replacement picture frame. The latter might not be something she could do on her own, she was probably going to have to ask Granny Smith where they—

There was a loud thump in the house as something toppled over, followed by a sharp, pained cry.

Applejack was on the move immediately, practically throwing herself over the bed in a leap and landing neatly on her hooves on the other side, wasting no time in transitioning into movement. It didn’t take much to get her adrenaline pumping; she might not have been as fast as Rainbow Dash (not that she would ever admit to as much), but on the farm it was necessary to be aware of as much as possible, and quick reflexes were key to that. Strong musculature pumped and heaved underneath the thin fabric of her pajamas, propelling her at a breakneck pace through the dark halls that might have put her at risk of careening into a wall or over a banister if she weren’t intimately familiar with the layout of this house. It helped that she knew exactly where she was going. It helped that this was, unfortunately, not the first time this had happened.

“Granny!” the mare called out urgently as she threw open a door. The room on the other side was suffused with the sour-sweet smell of medicine. Just about every piece of furniture in the room was decorated with some form of knit covering, and every available flat surface was covered in yet more photographs. The blankets on the bed had been pulled away, fallen over the side, trailing in the wake of its occupant. The shape of a pony laid prone upon the floor, only moving and breathing slowly. “Granny, what’s wrong?!” Applejack was beside her in seconds, reaching to her gently, wanting to comfort her but also to not risk causing any damage by disturbing her. “Are you alright?! Did you break somethin’?!”

She was only met with pained groans and whimpers from the figure tangled up in the blankets. Where the children of the family had grown over the years, Granny Smith had done the opposite, turned shrunken and shriveled. Her small frame was like a leaf compared to Applejack’s toned and sturdy physique. Her will was still fierce, she’d do her damnedest to keep pulling her weight around the farm and she’d never allow anypony to think that her faculties were lacking, but that will was starting to show its cracks. There was nothing to immediately suggest any physical injury, but the way the old mare shivered and huddled inside the blanket evoked the image of illness, of a high fever. The weakness of the body betraying itself from within. Applejack or Big McIntosh or Apple Bloom would shrug that off after a good night’s sleep. An elderly pony like Granny Smith might—

Applejack gripped tightly at the hem of the blankets.

Granny Smith shuddered once more before turning in a manner that seemed more deliberate. Cloudy eyes blearily opened and looked toward Applejack. Her withered face was full of confusion and dismay, a perplexed recognition. “Granny, are you feelin’ well?!” she asked again insistently, urgently.

The old mare replied, “Brighty…issat you?”

Applejack’s jaw clenched shut for several seconds before she could bring herself to respond. “N-no, Granny, it’s…Applejack.”

“Wha—?” Granny Smith squinted at her, ever more confused, and then she glanced around the room again, at the underside of the bed and the ceiling. “But…where’s he? Jus’…jus’ went out for some flowers.”

“Granny, Pa…Pa ain’t here.” But as Applejack spoke, she longed for the comforting feel of that hat resting upon her head, yet she’d left it behind in her bedroom. “Pa and Ma are…they’re not here.”

But Granny Smith shook her head emphatically and she struggled with herself to move, to sit up, her ailing body and present confines fighting against her. “What haybale nonsense you talkin’ ‘bout, Applejack? I know Brighty and Pear. They’d never jus’ leave us.”

Applejack could only stare back, silent and stony. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She didn’t want to acknowledge this conversation or anything that it entailed. She bent down and reached underneath Granny Smith’s prone form, supporting her back and legs, and lifted her. She knew that the old mare didn’t like being treated this way, but she couldn’t stay on the floor and she shouldn’t exert herself any more than necessary either. “Lemme jus’—”

The farmpony faltered, just momentarily, as she lifted her grandmother from the floor, still bundled in the blankets like a foal. She didn’t struggle against her touch, didn’t cry out, didn’t berate her. That hopefully indicated that there indeed hadn’t been any significant internal injuries. It was the weight that took her aback. She knew how much the old pony weighed, how much effort she had to put into a task like this, and she was having to exert a lot more than she should have been. She felt a distinct ease upon her back as she set her upon the bed and the strain was removed. Her brow furrowed.

Though, Applejack had just woken up, and been in more than a little distress herself. It was likely just her frayed nerves getting the better of her. Nothing to worry about. Probably.

“Jus’ rest for now, Granny,” Applejack murmured somberly.

She started to turn away before Granny Smith said, “You’re so strong, Applejack…wish I could…” The rest of the words faded away, or maybe Applejack hadn’t wanted to hear them, pulling herself away.

In the dim moonlight, she hadn’t noticed the faint discoloration of Granny Smith’s mane, the fading silvery hair turned a pale blue.

Nor did she notice the dark of the room leaving inside her shadow.

Applejack had to clasp a hand over her mouth, willing her throat to clench shut to stop herself from crying out. Now she was the one shivering.

She knew that she couldn’t afford to dillydally over matters like this. The schedule needed to be upheld, even if it meant additions and delegations. Somepony was going to need to regularly keep an eye on Granny Smith throughout the day now to make sure she didn’t get in any further trouble. A trip to the hospital might be necessary if anything else did transpire. She didn’t want to think about any matters of that sort, but there was nothing that could be done about it, what must be done was going to be done.

Even after how much it had hurt the last time.

Hands clutched at her head, over her ears, as if to block out some deafening noise that only she could hear, fingers pressing hard into her skull. Her legs staggered forward unconsciously. There was no time to worry about anything of this manner. There was work that needed to be done.

She had to force her eyes open again to look at where she was going. Instead, she found herself standing in front of another framed photograph hanging from a wall. More of the Apple family. Smiling faces staring back at her. Some of those were faces that now only existed in these photos and in her dreams. These fleeting glimpses were all that remained.

How long would it be until that was the case for all of them?

Applejack’s temples were throbbing and her eyes were burning. Something wasn’t right. She walked through these halls every day, seeing all the memorabilia and knick-knacks passed down through their family, and had never felt this much melancholy. It was rising to the surface and boiling over all at once.

“Big…Big…” She tried to call out for her brother, but her voice was catching in her throat.

Something about that word seemed so comforting, though.

Big.

Big trees, yielding a plentiful harvest of apples.

Big houses, plenty of space for a growing family.

Big fields, full of crops ready to be gathered.

Big cows, offering a steady supply of milk.

Big mares, supple flesh full of life.

She blinked.

Big breasts, soft and cushy and swollen.

Big bellies, stretched taut from their cargo.

Big asses, shaking and wobbling with every step.

Big lips, plump mounds pressing in a wet kiss.

Big penises, pushed deep into—

A sound pushed out from Applejack’s mouth. She’d wanted to scream, to howl in the dead of night like an animal, but instead it came out as a long groan, rumbling at the bottom of her lungs. A hand clasped madly at her stomach, pushing into the firm surface, fingers reaching toward her groin. Nothing there now, but just for a moment she had felt it. The pressure buried within her loins.

It had been so wonderful and terrible.

Applejack might have heard the thumps of movement elsewhere within the house. The loudest noises were coming from Granny Smith’s room. Heavy, thudding hoofsteps. But all of that was worlds away.

She was looking at another picture. The ponies were younger. Bright Mac and Pear Butter still had the vitality of youth in their eyes. The former was holding Big McIntosh in his arms, hardly out of his foalhood. There was nopony else in the picture. Well, not exactly. There was a pronounced hump in Pear Butter’s midsection visible through the cloth of the long dress she wore. Applejack wordlessly reached up with her other hand and touched the glass. She could almost feel the fabric and the warm, taut surface underneath. Some part of her must have been confusing the sensation of her own stomach pushing back against her palm. A shadow of her reflection cast in the glass stared back at her, a shock of purple spreading through her mane, eyes darkening.

It was fine.

The family could continue to grow.

= = = = =

If Twilight Sparkle didn’t know any better, she might have been tempted to think that the trees of the orchard might continue on and on forever. In the soft magenta glow cast from her horn, she could only see some fifty feet ahead of herself. The treetops went by one after another, leafy spires reaching toward the sky, clawing at her. She didn’t have the eye for botany that her earth pony friends did, she couldn’t tell the difference from one to the next at a mere glance. She might as well have been passing over an endless sea.

But she knew what the distance was. She knew how fast she was flying, and she knew exactly how to calculate how long the flight would take. It was only a matter of time before the groves parted and the farmstead came into view.

Then it did, and immediately she felt a pang in her chest.

The Apple family home was far from the largest building Twilight Sparkle had seen, having come from the towering spires of Canterlot, and even Ponyville had its share of bulky municipal structures and sprawling wealthy estates. Still, there was something special about the house that made it seem grand in a way that didn’t require marble statues or fluted columns or gilded wallpaper. It was an ancestral place, one that had stood here on the outskirts of town for decades, instilled with the memories of its inhabitants. The first time she saw it, she had been struck by the modest splendor of it, the pride of a farming family. It still felt strange to her, now that she was an alicorn, to look upon it from above and see it like a foal’s toy house, a plaything.

It gave her some distance, a sense of disconnection, to the sight of the damage that had been done. On one side of the big wooden structure, a wall had been torn open, leaving a gaping hole in its exterior. Such an easy show of force, as if it really was just a toy. Debris was strewn outward from the building, over the grass. There were no lights on inside the house, at least none that she could see from this angle.

She nearly forgot to keep flapping her wings multiple times over the span of only a few seconds as she processed all of this.

And then she saw movement. The silhouette of an equine was moving near the opening. Creeping. Suspicious.

Twilight Sparkle didn’t waste any further time. Instead of going into a dive, her horn crackled, and space distorted and lurched around her. A moment later she had alighted upon the dewy grass, and there was a deep gasp of shock from a few paces away.

“T-T-Twilight?!”

She had her magic flaring strong, prepared, but she eased the pressure when she saw the stallion before her. Though from that aerial vantage point it might’ve been hard to identify any particular ponies, up close it would’ve been impossible to mistake Big McIntosh for anypony else. The red pony was almost unparalleled in his stature, over a head taller than most ponies, and his frame almost seemed chiseled out of solid rock, musculature definition visible even through the thin fabric of his clothes. Her brother Shining Armor had on more than one occasion expressed dismay that such a specimen was putting all of his efforts toward farming instead of working in the royal guard somewhere. He wore what looked like pajamas with a jacket over top, the flaps left unzipped over his broad torso.

The face was something nearly foreign for him, however. He was typically an incredibly stoic and easygoing pony, only rarely speaking his mind or showing any measure of stress. Now, he wore an expression of anxious confusion. The source of this distress was easy to imagine.

“Big Mac, what’s going on?” she asked urgently, not waiting any longer than was necessary.

“I…I wish I could tell you myself, Twilight,” he replied, looking from her to the damage, wincing, and then back again. There was a faint quiver in his normally steady voice. “I was jus’ wakin’ up when I heard a commotion downstairs. I came here to look an’…” Another forlorn glance.

Twilight Sparkle looked more closely. It was hard to determine at a glance what the cause might have been other than sheer blunt force. She couldn’t personally identify any kind of lingering magical resonance that would suggest the use of malicious spells. “Do you have any idea what might have done this?”

“Hay if I know! Rovin’ timberwolves, manticores, diamond dogs, chimeras, parasprites, who cares!” That calm composure was increasingly eroding under the pressure of anxiety, but as Big McIntosh looked toward her it was worry that filled him instead of anger. “Look, Twilight, I don’t care ‘bout the wall, I can fix that, I’m worried ‘bout Granny!”

The mare felt herself tighten inwardly, but this time she had already been wound up enough that it was merely a drop in the bucket. She looked again, this time not at the hole in the house but what was visible through the hole. Inside there was a quaint little bedroom decorated with heirlooms and keepsakes of the Apple family. The sense of hominess had been shattered, however, much like the frame of the bed upon which its occupant would sleep, crushed by some enormous weight or force, alongside dents punched into the floorboards and other detritus. It gave the impression of some monster that had emerged from the orchards and forced its way into the building with its sights set specifically upon one pony.

Except there were no signs of a struggle or bloodshed. The debris from the destroyed wall was scattered mostly outward. And there was only one set of prints—again those distinctly of hooves, like the ones outside Fluttershy’s cottage, albeit not as large—leading out and away from the house, none approaching it. The source of this destruction had come from inside the building.

“Big Mac, where are the others?” she then asked.

“Wh-what?” he asked back, dazed.

“The others! Applejack and Apple Bloom!” She saw him flinch reflexively at her response. She hadn’t realized how forcefully she was speaking until the words came out.

“O-oh, uh, I…I went to wake them up when I heard the noise, but Applejack was already out of bed. She’s usually awake before me. I had Apple Bloom go an’ look for her while I investigated.”

“Okay.” Her ear flicked at the air, turning in the direction of the tree line. She thought she heard a rustling noise. “We need to get them and get out of here.”

“What?!” Big McIntosh maneuvered himself in front of her and stepped closer, leveraging his significant advantage in size over her. He stared at her in pained disbelief. “We can’t just leave! There’s…there’s somethin’ nasty out there tryin’ to attack us! It took my grandmother, Twilight!”

“Big Mac.” Twilight Sparkle fixed him with a desperate, plaintive, regretful look as she reached out and took his hand. She could feel the rapid pulse within his wrist. “I’m just as worried about Granny Smith as you are…but there’s nothing we can do for her right now. I need to make sure the rest of you are safe.”

He looked back at her, and it seemed as if his agitation was calmed, but at the same time there was newfound terror dawning upon him. Not so much surprise, though. Big McIntosh might have been known most for his strength, but he was just as much a thoughtful and sometimes even philosophical pony. No doubt he had noticed the discrepancy about the damage as well. “…There’s somethin’ real bad happenin’, ain’t there?” he asked warily.

“I’m afraid so,” she replied morosely. She wasn’t sure that she should say anything about Fluttershy or Spike yet. He would piece together some idea of what must have happened with Granny Smith immediately.

“Alright, fine,” he said, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath. In the magenta-lit gloom, she saw a faint glimmer at the corners of his eyes. “Let’s jus’ get the girls and go.”

The red stallion turned about and led the way to the front of the building, while Twilight Sparkle kept the light from her horn active. He moved at a brisk walking pace, not breaking out into a full run. Urgent, but unwilling to commit to panic.

They rounded the corner and came in through the front door, but it wasn’t quite the tranquil calm of an early morning household that greeted them. They saw light coming from one of the open doorways—the kitchen. This was accompanied by the sizzling sounds and sweet smells that accompanied somepony cooking on a stovetop. An ordinary morning at the Apple household, making breakfast for the family. “Applejack? Apple Bloom?” Big McIntosh called out tentatively, though he was already starting to move in the direction of the activity.

“Big Mac?”

He continued forward, but Twilight Sparkle faltered for one step. That was definitely Applejack’s voice…but at the same time it definitely wasn’t. Just from those two syllables, she could tell that the accent wasn’t quite right. That distinct country twang was still present, but the pitch was higher, with a kind of sighing flourish. It almost seemed like a fusion of Applejack’s way of talking with Rarity’s.

“Applejack, where the hay’ve you been? We’ve got a situation here!” Big McIntosh hollered back as he crossed the living room and made his way to the doorway.

“Big Mac, wait!” Twilight Sparkle hissed at him as she stumbled to catch up.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sugar cube,” Applejack’s voice came singing back to them, “I’ve jus’ been cookin’ up some breakfast for us. Can’t have anypony startin’ the day on an empty stomach.” The tone was far too lighthearted for what was supposed to be a tough, no-nonsense farmpony.

“We’ve got more important things to worry about than—”

He did stop, abruptly, when he came to stand, facing the doorway head-on, and Twilight Sparkle came beside him. At this angle and distance, they couldn’t see much into the room, only the counters and cupboards lining two walls and the back of a chair. And there was a pony. Not Applejack, instead the youngest of the three siblings, Apple Bloom. The young mare almost seemed more like the filly she had been when Twilight Sparkle first met her, huddled up on the floor, pushed into a corner. Her slight frame bundled in pink pajamas seemed so frail as she shuddered and trembled. Her gaze had seemed fixed at a distant point until the approaching hoofsteps prompted her to turn her wild eyes toward the other two ponies.

“Apple Bloom?” Big McIntosh asked, confusion rising above his worry. His protective older brother instinct was taking control. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a—”

The next few moments passed in a strange, dreamlike haze. Twilight Sparkle was aware that she was moving, following the stallion as he entered the kitchen. She felt the firing of synapses directing muscles to pull and flex and carry one hoof in front of the other, but she wasn’t truly controlling it. It was automatic and impulsive. Something was telling her that this was what she was supposed to be doing. She felt that, to some extent, Big McIntosh was going through the same sensations. They had already started on this path, now there was no stopping it.

Even as Apple Bloom, staring with her fearful eyes, shook her head fervently at them, they didn’t have the power to stop.

Twilight Sparkle had more time to react, to watch as Big McIntosh came into the kitchen, turned in the same direction that Apple Bloom had been looking before, and a similar expression overtook his face, eyes widening, jaw dropping open, and still she couldn’t stop.

All she could do was pray in her head.

(please no please no please no please)

The alicorn came into the kitchen and turned to the side and terror dawned on her anew.

There was another pony in the room, standing by the stove, though “pony” might not have been an immediately obvious descriptor for a shape that seemed like a sprawling, swollen mass of orange. She had to stand at an angle in order to reach the stovetop, as there was no way she could have managed to reach past the profound mass of her bosom, pert, heavy globes. Not as large as Fluttershy had been, but still enough that they would have utterly occluded the torso of their owner, were it not for the torso’s own immensity. Her stomach protruded in front of her, hanging past her waist, past her knees, round and taut like a balloon, the navel popped out at its farthest curve. A great mane of puffy hair, blonde with purple highlights, cascaded over her back, nearly blending in with the similar flowing waterfall of her tail were it not for the latter having pale blue highlights instead. Some part of Twilight Sparkle dimly felt that the hairstyle was reminiscent of something, harkening to somepony else.

Despite all of this, the mare didn’t seem to have any difficulty working with the stove, handling a skillet with only the single hand that could reach it. With a flick of the wrist she tossed a pancake into the air, and it turned over once before landing again. “Last one, darlin’s, just a couple moments more,” she announced, and then she looked back at them.

Applejack’s face was fixed in a warm, comforting smile, creasing into her freckled cheeks, that was evident even with the bloated mass of the cherry-red lips that framed her muzzle. Her eyes glittered underneath the canopy of her bangs, dark, lovestruck emeralds.

“We need to leave, now,” Twilight Sparkle wanted to say, but, now that she was actually conscious of her actions, she found herself unable even to speak.

Even having not said anything, it seemed as if that attracted Applejack’s attention and prompted her to look toward her, and her smile turned brighter still. “Oh my stars!” she exclaimed, an expression she surely never would have said before, “Twilight, I didn’t think y’all were gonna come ‘round at this hour!”

The huge mare stepped away from the stove and started to walk closer. She moved with no difficulty, swinging about the bulk of her midsection like it was a wrecking ball. There wasn’t enough space for her between the table and the wall, but the former was easily shunted to the side to make way for her passage. She was coming closer, arms starting to reach out from behind the great wall of breast and belly that eclipsed everything below the shoulders.

Twilight Sparkle could have met this situation with any number of spells in her arsenal. She could have teleported away. She could have conjured a barrier. She could have used telekinesis to hold Applejack in place. She could have fired a concussive blast of energy from her horn, just enough to push away an attacker. She could have vaporized the whole house and left nothing but herself standing in a smoldering crater. Instead, all she found herself doing was slowly backing away, and Big McIntosh was doing the same, stunned into silence, prey affixed by the gaze of a predator. This was the same instinctual reaction that had overtaken Apple Bloom, forcing her into submission.

Suffice to say, this lukewarm attempt at a retreat wasn’t nearly enough to put distance between her and the advancing orange wall. Applejack came in at an angle, much like she had for the stove, and reached for her with strong, unyielding hands, although by the time they found purchase on her shoulders the alicorn was already being smothered in flesh. That rush of sensory input might have been enough to shake her out of her stupor were she not then immediately taken aback again by the touch of the other mare’s body. The side of the orange bosom pressed against her, soft and pliant, yielding, but her belly was far firmer, only a thin, taut layer of skin separating her from whatever was contained within.

And Twilight Sparkle thought she felt something move inside the motherly mare, nudging at her in response to her presence.

That was enough to get her to falter again, leaving her open for Applejack to wrap one arm around her. There was a choked gasp from Big McIntosh as she wedged in between the two of them and grabbed him as well. Her arms were far slenderer in their muscle definition, and yet they had just as much strength, if not more. That was all Twilight Sparkle had the time to contemplate before the red lips descended on her, and she could do nothing but desperately attempt to shrink away. The glossy mounds made contact with her cheek, and then some, spreading over the base of her muzzle, over the edge of her jaw, and part of her eyelid. That was before the actual kiss even began, filling her ear with a wet peel as it felt like she was being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner, and it started to yank painfully on her hair as well.

It was one of the more mortifyingly undignified things that had happened to her in her career of saving Equestria from havoc and destruction, but it hardly took more than a second or two before being disengaged with a pop and an exaggerated “Mwah!” sound. Twilight Sparkle gasped and sputtered as she felt the smear of gloss begin to settle into her fur and sting at her eye. She distantly heard Big McIntosh wincing and grunting as he struggled to free himself before Applejack leaned toward him next, giggling as she did the same to him. Elsewhere, Apple Bloom had broken into quiet sobs while she averted her eyes.

“What’re y’all actin’ so squeamish about?” Applejack asked with an innocuous warmth in her tone, and she momentarily squeezed tighter around them with her grip, and her stomach jostled at them in turn. “Don’t y’all love gettin’ some sugar? Come on, perk up! I’ve been workin’ real hard on this meal, I’m sure it’s gonna be a real treat, an’ we’ve got a guest for our table too!”

“Applejack, what…what’re you…?!” Big McIntosh gasped at her. Even with the smear of lipstick over his face, his panic and terror and fury were readily apparent. For once, it looked like the red stallion had a great deal that he wanted to say, but in this most crucial of moments he lacked the words that he needed to express his confusion.

“Oh, golly, silly me, I can’t go leavin’ the stove unattended!” she then said with a chuckle as she finally let go of the two other ponies, and she shuffled about in a slow arc as she backed away and turned around, legs grinding against each other. “Y’all just go ahead an’ take your seats, ain’t even gonna take another minute!”

“Applejack, stop!” Big McIntosh started after her, striding determinedly across the floor. “What is this?! What happened to—?!”

But then a hand took hold of his and tugged, pulling him away. He looked and saw Twilight Sparkle staring back at him, her face frozen in fear. The stallion, being far more physically capable, stood his ground easily, and he said, “Twilight, we can’t—”

That was as far as the objection got before magic pulled him off of his hooves, and he yelled and shouted as he span helplessly through the air.

The same happened to Apple Bloom, finding herself enveloped in a magenta aura, and she tried to wheel her legs desperately to get traction before levitation took over completely.

Twilight Sparkle only stopped long enough to yank a towel from a rack, wiping off the smear of gloss on her face as best as she could while she ran back out of the kitchen before dropping it haphazardly. She was out of the house with the two other siblings before Applejack seemed to be aware that they were gone. She waited until they were halfway to the trees before letting them stand of their own free will again. Big McIntosh stumbled but managed to keep his balance, Apple Bloom fell to her knees on the dewy grass and fumbled with herself to stand up.

“Okay,” she said amidst gasping for breath, “we’re going to have to head into town and look for anypony else who—”

Strong hands took hold of her and whipped her around. Big McIntosh looked down upon her with all of the tranquility in his expression eroded away completely. She knew this kind of anger. It was in the way Shining Armor looked when he heard that she had been bullied in school. The deeply concerned, boiling anger of an older brother. Only, back then, she had never had to be on the receiving end of that anger. “Twilight Sparkle,” he said, speaking slowly and articulately, gritting his teeth, even as lipstick continued to drip over his cheek and jaw, “what in the everlovin’ buck is goin’ on?!”

“I…” she stammered back, cowed by the even more intense and immediate threat. As well as, just a little, shame. Shame for herself, for being unable to think of anything to say, of any solution. “I don’t…I don’t know—”

“You know! You have to know!” he insisted, shouting right in her face. Even as he vented his rage, angry pulsing veins standing out along his brow, blood pumping violently through the hands and fingers that held her, there were tears in his eyes. “You’re supposed to be the smart one, you have to know something’! What’s happenin’?! What happened to my sister?! What happened to my granny?!”

But his fury couldn’t coax out answers that didn’t exist, and Twilight Sparkle could only whimper in response, shaking her head, ears folded flat, and that wasn’t the kind of reassurance that Big McIntosh needed right now.

While she remained frozen in place, stricken by her inner turmoil, unable even to speak, it was another pony that took the stallion’s attention and prompted him to ease his pressure. Apple Bloom had flung herself around him, clinging steadfastly to his midsection and burying her face against his side. “Big Mac, stop,” she murmured, and it seemed that she was trying desperately to keep her voice steady even though she was crying the hardest out of all of them, trembling, shoulders heaving. “Stop, please…we can’t…we can’t…” Her head lowered and covered her face in red bangs.

Slowly, Big McIntosh’s posture relaxed, as did his grip on Twilight Sparkle, and his ragged breathing evened out. He fixed the alicorn with one more hard look before he gently folded his arms around his sister, holding her to himself, one hand cupping the back of her head while the other caressed her back. Apple Bloom in turn leaned further into him, choking back her sobs. Even after so many years, she was so much smaller than him, they looked more like father and daughter than siblings.

Father…and mother.

Now the mare remembered. Old, fading pictures of the Apple family. A strong, handsome stallion who looked not unlike Big McIntosh did now. And a mare who appeared noticeably different from the usual Apple stock. Soft, delicate features, a puffy orange mane cascading past her shoulders. That was where she had seen Applejack’s hairstyle before.

But the pony in those photographs had never appeared so…gravid.

“I thought we were past this,” Big McIntosh said in a low voice, masking his pain. “I thought we were done with hurtin’. I’m not…” He screwed his eyes shut, but that didn’t stop the tears. “I’m not ready to…to…to lose…” He cut himself short, unable even to think about finishing that thought.

There were several strained seconds of silence in which they only heard the rustling of the trees around them, before Twilight Sparkle spoke again. “I’m…I’m sorry, Big Mac…and Apple Bloom.” She reached forward and cautiously placed her hand upon the young mare’s shoulder as well—she had been gradually settling, and that little added bit of reassurance had her nearly completely still at last. “I don’t know what’s happening…but that’s not going to stop me. I’m going to figure out what this is. I’m going to fix this, I promise. We’re not going to lose anypony.”

Apple Bloom turned to look up at her, and she sniffled, her eyes watery, but she gave the weakest attempt at a smile. Big McIntosh became stern and hardy again, ready to take charge. “So, what’re we gonna do, then?”

Twilight Sparkle bit her lip, wishing that she could have a better answer even for that question. “First we need to head into town and look for more ponies who are…unaffected. I’m going to research as much as I can, and then we’re going to try to go to Canterlot to…to meet with Celestia and Luna.” That was her optimal hope for a best-case scenario. She didn’t speak out loud how much she doubted that the reality would turn out so swimmingly, the strong possibility that Celestia and Luna were already caught up in the problem.

For the moment, though, Big McIntosh didn’t attempt to interrogate her on the details, and he nodded quietly. “What about Apple Bloom? She needs to be somewhere safe.”

Apple Bloom stiffened momentarily, almost certainly tugged by that instinctive young adult desire to insist that she didn’t need to be sheltered like that, but this time she went silent, lacking the strength to do more.

“If…we can’t find anywhere else suitable enough, she can stay at the castle.” She wasn’t sure how safe the palace was at this point. She desperately hoped that nothing had transpired already. “Or the school.”

“That’s gonna have to work for now,” Big McIntosh grunted in reply.

“Alright, we’d better get going before…” She paused to look back, behind the red stallion, to the house they had left behind, but there was no sign of movement from within, no rotund orange mare coming wobbling toward them. There didn’t need to be any further elaboration. They turned and started to run along the dirt road that wound through the orchards toward Ponyville.

They didn’t get very far.

“Mac, that you?”

The three ponies stopped when a voice called to them from the treeline. As with Spike or Fluttershy or Applejack, Twilight Sparkle thought it was familiar, but this time it was different enough that she couldn’t quite assign a name right away. Apple Bloom seemed to be similarly perplexed, but Big McIntosh froze stock still. The glow from her horn had been allowed to dissipate some time ago, leaving them with only the light of the moon and stars as she turned to look in the direction that the noise had come from.

There was a figure standing amidst the trees. That actually wasn’t quite the best description—they appeared to be trying to burst out from the trees, their form extending toward the branches and far broader than several trunks combined. An equine of a form that seemed swollen with musculature to the point of parody, making the red stallion look like a lightweight by comparison. From this silhouette, she could scarcely even discern a head amidst the great sloping humps of chest and shoulders and back. In the muted colors of the gloomy night, she could only dimly identify the light green color of the fur that covered that distorted shape. Skin that bulged and tensed where it should have been shrunken and wrinkled. The musclebound giant was carrying a basket full of what appeared to be apples clutched to their front, underneath the shelf of their bosom, except the basket was actually the bed of a wagon, loose wheels jangling as they took thumping steps forward.

“Where y’all goin’ at this hour?” Granny Smith asked. It was her voice, but it was newer, not cracked by the wear and tear of old age, and deeper. “Doncha know it’s time for breakfast? Gonna get cold if you keep it waitin’ too long.”

Big McIntosh only stared, wide-eyed, dumbfounded. Twilight Sparkle quickly understood—he was old enough to remember hearing this voice, before the elderly mare’s senility started to kick into full force. To him, this was more than just a perverse corruption of a loved one, this was almost like seeing a ghost.

She consciously felt herself starting to freeze up as well while her mind raced, ineffectively searching for a solution. Would this pony-turned-behemoth react adversely to them if they tried to run away? Even with her magic on their side, she had severe doubts about their odds if this meeting were to escalate into a confrontation.

But once again it was another mare who spoke up and broke the silence.

“Sugar,” Apple Bloom blurted out, and all eyes looked toward her. Her expression was flat, devoid of emotion, save maybe for continued alarm. “Applejack needed…more sugar. Gonna go into town for more.”

“Oh, really? Well don’t that beat all.” Granny Smith shrugged her shoulders, and the apples inside the wagon rolled and toppled over each other. “Y’all better hustle up with that, ya know how much AJ loves pourin’ on that sugar.” She then laughed, a low, rumbling, booming noise, as she started to way away into the trees again, leaving the three ponies by themselves.

Twilight Sparkle cautiously placed a hand on either of her two comrades. Big McIntosh flinched, but then his posture relaxed. Apple Bloom had started to shiver again, but she quickly stilled in response to her touch and looked up to her. The alicorn offered a wry smirk. “I’m glad the Element of Honesty didn’t settle on you.”

= = = = =

Rainbow Dash was very much not awake.

For as much as the pegasus made a point of being known for her speed, of getting antsy when she had to wait in one place for more than a minute, of being made of a hundred percent pure high-octane rainbow-powered awesomeness, the one thing she was never in a hurry for was waking up. Twilight Sparkle had tried to explain to her how it was most likely a consequence of how active she was, that she needed to spend a lot of time resting with how much she exerted herself, but every time she got halfway through the explanation she would find that the cyan mare had fallen asleep, snoring exaggeratedly, and she just gave up on it after a while. Where Fluttershy’s sleep schedule was all over the place on account of her erratic caretaking duties, Rainbow Dash’s sleep schedule seemed to consist of her going into hibernation at completely random intervals. The only reason she ever woke up early was if she had spent the majority of the day before unconscious.

She probably wouldn’t have agreed to take part in Twilight Sparkle’s School of Friendship if it weren’t for the fact that courses didn’t have to adhere to the strict morning-to-afternoon schedule that plagued grade school. Sometimes a student would wonder why all of Professor Dash’s classes were in the late afternoon and evening, unaware that she was rarely out of bed before noon. She was still trying to push for a class entirely devoted to the importance of napping. Ironically, the curriculum had yet to be completed because she kept falling asleep while brainstorming for it.

It was also fortunate that, as a pegasus with her very own cloud-house, she could easily relocate her home to be a stone’s throw away from the campus, so she didn’t even have to stress herself when she woke up with five minutes to spare before class.

So, on that morning, Rainbow Dash had the curtains drawn over her windows so that she wouldn’t have any interruptions when dawn came, leaving the bedroom cast largely in shadow. She laid on her bed, tangled up in a mess of cottony blankets, sprawled out with her wiry, toned limbs jutting out in random directions that seemed like they should have been terribly uncomfortable. She probably should have been terribly cold as well with how she had managed to toss the blankets off of herself, and how the shorts and sports bra she was still wearing left very little of her form covered, even more so considering how high up the house was, but she was unusually thick-skinned when it came to the cold. When Rainbow Dash wanted to sleep, there was nothing that could get in her way.

There was only one problem.

The mare winced, subtly, her eyes remaining shut tight.

In dreams, Rainbow Dash was subject to the whims of whatever situation her subconscious conjured up for herself.

Her head tilted languidly from one side to the other and a groan rose up from her throat.

In dreams, Rainbow Dash could only act according to whatever arbitrary limitations had been imposed upon her.

“No…no…” she whispered under her breath, mouth only moving as little as it possibly could to form these syllables. “Not…Crash…”

In dreams, Rainbow Dash couldn’t assert how awesome she was.

“Crash…Crash…Crash…”

The corners of her mouth twitched faintly toward a smile.

“Crash…ass…”

Her hips shifted, and something moved underneath the blankets, rising upward.

Author's Note

Surely Twilight won't go somewhere else and find that more ponies are corrupted?

I remember having a hard time with this chapter because it had been a while since I wrote the previous two chapters and the burnout from finishing Rising Tide kept me held down for a while.

Applejack was one of the transformations that came to me easiest. I knew that her issues were going to be related to her parents in some capacity, so it only seemed natural for her to become pregnant. How this would tie into what her actual damage was, though, was something I only settled on later.

Having Twilight pick up other ponies along the way wasn't something I originally considered when planning this story, which may become increasingly evident the further we go along.

I realized during this that "McIntosh" is spelled without an A.

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