Tanking Winona: AppleDash With A Twist
“How?” The villain screamed in rage as he saw the six mares lift into the sky, powered by the Elements they represented. “How do you six always win? It’s not right! No one should be this powerful!”
“Because friendship is magic, doofus,” Rainbow gave a cocky smile. “And that particular magic defeats a certain evil sorcerer who wants to turn an entire town into his personal slaves.”
“Exactly,” Applejack pushed up the brim of her hat so that the villain could see her eyes. “And ah think this is what you deserve after tricking mah family into helping you.” Her words triggered a blast of rainbow light. The sound drowned out the villain's final words from the sheer volume that was produced.
“Curse you! Curse you all! May you be stuck together forever, with everything fatal that entails! Curse you and your magic of friendship!” And as the rainbow consumed the villain, his horn lit up a final time, activating the spell. However, instead of targeting all six of them, the rainbow laser that was Harmony altered it, reducing its effects. Even then, it had a disastrous effect.
It redirected it to the two ponies it reckoned could take the effects the best until the issue could be solved. The two most stubborn and headstrong ponies.
We all know who they are.
The AppleDash Menace
By iAmSiNnEr
Gift to Applejackofalltrades
Applejack opened her eyes blearily, blinking hard to clear away the black spots in her eyes. She shook her head wearily, before looking up. Using the Elements had caused them to black out for a moment when the power flowed through them. She struggled to her hooves, her eyes searching for her friends.
Wait. Why did her back end feel so heavy all of a sudden?
“Quit dragging me up,” Rainbow Dash grumbled from behind her. “I’m entirely capable of standing on my own, thank you very much.” By now, the rest of their friends were regaining their senses, Twilight in particular had recovered first and was looking at what remained of the villain. A unicorn encased in stone, his expression angry and his mouth open mid-shout.
“How are we going to transport him to Canterlot?” Twilight mused out loud, before looking back. “Any ideas, girls-” she paused, her eyes widening as her gaze set onto Applejack.
“What?” Applejack asked, noticing Twilight’s mouth hanging wide open. “What are you looking at, Twi?” She blinked. Why couldn’t she feel her hind hooves?
“Girls, I think we have a problem here,” Twilight’s voice was calm, but her eyes betrayed panic and concern.
“What is it, darling?” Rarity groaned as she lifted herself to her hooves. “Oh, I’m going to have a migraine for days…” she trailed off as her eyes landed on Applejack.
“I can’t feel my hind hooves,” Rainbow grumbled from behind Applejack. “What in the world is happening-?”
Pinkie bounced over from where she had been, wherever that was. “Dashie, you and Applejack should look at each other real quick!” She exclaimed, bouncing all the while. “Then you’ll know what’s going on!”
Applejack shrugged. “Sure.” She turned to look at Rainbow, who she knew was behind her. What she didn’t expect was that as she turned, Rainbow let out a yelp as she twisted her body to look at the pegasus. All she caught a glimpse of was Rainbow’s prismatic mane moving out of her vision as she turned. “What in tarnation?”
“Turn your head only,” Twilight advised. “Not your whole body.”
Applejack followed her instructions, twisting her head. As she did so, she noticed two things.
One, the lower end of her body was connected to Rainbow’s lower end of her body. Two, her tail and cutie mark were gone. “WHAT IN TARNATION-?” Applejack yelled in surprise, immediately attempting to pull away from Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow let loose a string of profanities. “Get us apart!” she yelled. “This is not happening!”
Fluttershy shrugged weakly. “I’m sure Twilight has a way to separate you two?” she offered, although the edges of her mouth were starting to curl upwards, held back only by her desire not to laugh at her friends.
Twilight held back a smile. “I can try a separation spell,” she thought out loud. “Although that’s usually only used for separating chemicals…”
“DO WHAT YOU NEED TO!” Applejack tried even harder to pull away from Rainbow as the pegasus did the same. “GET US APART!”
“MY WINGS ARE GONE!” Rainbow yelped as she pulled even harder. “WHERE ARE THEY?”
Rarity had a barely concealed smile as she approached the two. “You should stop trying to pull yourself apart,” she advised. “If it’s magic, which I strongly suspect that it is, you’d only succeed in tearing yourself apart.” At that, the two mares immediately stopped pulling.
“We should have a party!” Pinkie chirped. “You know, an Applejack-is-now-combined-to-Rainbow-Dash party! Ooh, ooh! We should call them Rainbowjack! No, wait! AppleDash!”
“We are not doing anything of the sort, Pinkie!” Rainbow grimaced. “Twi, how far along is that spell?”
“Soon!” Twilight replied, the light on her horn building. “I just gotta reprogram the matrix from chemicals to skin and bones! Otherwise, I could be just separating the white blood cells from your blood, and that would mean you’d be susceptible to-”
“Skip the egghead talk, Twi, and work faster!” Rainbow complained. “You’re not the one combined with Applejack!”
“Excuse me?” Applejack whipped her head around. “You say that like I’m the last pony you want to do this with.”
“I don’t wanna do this with anypony!” Rainbow answered, twisting to look at her body. “My wings are gone! I can’t fly!”
“Andddd done!” Twilight announced, the light on her horn brighter than ever. “Brace!” Her spell fired at Applejack and Rainbow, and all went white.
“Where do we sleep?” Applejack asked Rainbow as a cart being pulled by two pegasi flew through the air. After the spell had failed, Twilight had Spike send a message to Canterlot for help. Since the two mares couldn’t figure out how to walk properly(or more accurately, see- how to work together and who to be at the front), Twilight’s seneschal, Raven, had sent an air-cart pulled by pegasi Royal Guard to collect them.
“I dunno,” Rainbow shrugged as well as she could. “Twilight will probably put us up at the Canterlot Castle or something. I can’t even fly us up to my cloud home or anything. Ugh, this is the worst.”
“Talk about it,” Applejack grumbled. “I can’t buck apples until Twi figures out how to separate us both. I’ll have to rely on Bloom and ‘Mac until this gets solved. Granny ain’t gonna be happy. I just hope this doesn’t work the way I think it does.”
“Waddaya mean, AJ?”
“I’m just saying, if I eat something, you’re the other end,” Applejack pointed out.
“Wait, what do you mean-” Rainbow frowned as the gears in her head turned. “Wait, you don’t actually- EW! You don’t actually think that would happen-?”
“Only one way to find out,” Applejack muttered grimly. “And I ain’t itching to find out anytime soon.”
“Y-yeah!” Rainbow stammered. “Yeah! I’m totally not hungry anyways! I’m sure we can wait for Twilight to fix this. Yep.”
“...but I might be getting a little thirsty from just now.” Rainbow pawed at the floor of the cart sheepishly.
“Don’t you even think about it, Dash,” Applejack warned.
“Oh come on,” Rainbow muttered. “I just want a little bit of water. My throat’s parched.”
“AND THAT LITTLE BIT OF WATER MIGHT COME OUTTA ME!”
“Alright, girls, I have good news!” Twilight exclaimed, entering the room. “I’ve figured out what’s going on with you two anatomically!”
"Great! That means you can fix us, right Twi?" Rainbow immediately asked.
“Hah! No. No no no. Not even remotely. But I did figure out what happens if you eat or drink." Twilight smiled weakly.
"Ah... well... go on then. Tell us." Applejack looked up.
“Turns out your digestive systems are intertwined so that you're both the exit! If either of you eats something, you'll both... excrete. From your mouth."
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Rainbow muttered.
“Me too!” Twilight grinned.
“I’m starving,” Rainbow complained. “I haven’t eaten in, what, a whole day?”
“Nine hours, Dash, nine hours,” Applejack muttered.
“Ugh,” Rainbow groaned. “I can’t even sleep! I mean, no offense to Twilight, but it’s hard not sleeping on a cloud bed. Especially if there’s somepony else on the other end. It’s just so haaaaaaaard.”
“Would you just stop complaining and just bear with it?” Applejack almost snapped at Rainbow. “It’s hard enough without hearing you complain about it, like, constantly.”
“Fine,” Rainbow grumbled. “So what’re we gonna do while waiting?”
“Now that you mention it, I’m hungry too.”
“...we’re both bucked, aren’t we?”
“So, girls, I’ve been analyzing your problem,” Twilight began. “And apparently you’ve been cursed. Definitely a curse.”
“Is there a way to undo it?” Rainbow asked, grimacing as she shifted on the bed she and Applejack had shared for the past fourteen hours. “I’m really hungry and thirsty.”
“There is a way,” Twilight smiled sheepishly. “But you’re not gonna like it.”
“What is it, Twi?” Applejack asked impatiently. “I’d do anything to just be myself again.”
“You’re going to need to start a relationship and then break up immediately.”
“...”
“...”
“What?” Twilight protested. “That’s what the book said! It’s apparently a curse to break up couples!”
“WE AIN’T A COUPLE!”
“...that’s why I said to start one and then break up,” Twilight deadpanned.
“Oh.”
“So what do we need to do, exactly?” Rainbow shifted uncomfortably.
“I asked around, went to look if anypony else had the same problem,” Twilight cleared her throat. “I ended up getting advice from Discord. He claims he was the one who created the curse, which isn’t surprising at all.”
“...Discord,” Applejack deadpanned. “Should’ve expected that.”
“So what did he say?” Rainbow queried.
“Firstly, you need to say ‘I love you’ then kiss,” Twilight read from her notebook.
“I ain’t doing that.”
“Same.”
“Oh my gosh, you two-” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Do you want to be each other’s rectums for life?”
“...probably not,” Rainbow admitted.
“Then what are you waiting for?” Twilight shrugged. “It’s the only way.”
“We ain’t kissing. Any other way?”
“...have sex.”
“Nope!” Rainbow blushed immediately. “I WOULD MUCH RATHER THE KISS!”
“I CONCUR WITH DASH!”
“So….” Rainbow grimaced. “We have to say ‘I love you’ then kiss first. What after?”
“Afterwards,” Twilight read from the notebook. “Apparently this is the easy part. Shout at each other angrily then say ‘Let’s break up’. Discord says that once you’ve said that and agreed, you’ll be separated.”
“Right,” Applejack nodded hesitantly. “So, what, do we just…y’know?”
“Apparently so,” Twilight agreed gravely.
“Well…” Rainbow shrugged uncomfortably. “No point in waiting. How about you go first, Applejack?”
“I guess,” Applejack muttered. “I…love you,” she forced out, looking tantalized at the statement.
“I…love…you too,” Rainbow Dash grimaced. “Now…” She leaned in hesitantly along with Applejack.
As their lips met, there was suddenly a clicking noise, along with a whump that sounded like several ponies landing on the carpet. Applejack and Rainbow jerked away from the kiss, looking around them in wild panic. What they saw did not make it better.
Discord was there with a camera, along with the rest of their friends, who all had their eyes widened. “Gotcha!” Discord grinned, positively rolling in laughter as he snapped his fingers, separating Rainbow and Applejack.
“Wha-” Rainbow spluttered.
“What in tarnation just-” Applejack was at a loss of words.
“See,” Discord smirked. “I could have just easily snapped you back without the whole kiss. I created the curse, after all. I just wanted to get Rainbow over there back for replacing Fluttershy’s tea with coffee. PRANKED!”
“Wait, what, how-?” Applejack spluttered.
“Flashback time!” Pinkie shouted.
“So you’re saying,” Twilight frowned as she looked at Discord. “You can fix them.”
“Yep,” Discord nodded. “I created the curse, after all. But I have a price.”
“What is it?” Twilight asked warily.
“Just read off this notebook,” Discord tossed a notebook at Twilight. “Follow the script, I want to prank Dash. Applejack is just a bonus.”
As Twilight scanned the notebook, her eyes got progressively larger with every word she read. “...oh.”
“It’s brilliant, is it not?” Discord cackled with mad glee.
“Brilliant is just another word I’m not going to use to describe your plan.”
“And so, pranked!” Discord grinned. “Did you enjoy it?”
Rainbow looked at Applejack, and vice versa. They nodded in tandem, before looking at Pinkie. Pinkie winked back, before tossing two saucepans to them after retrieving them from her mane.
“Wait,” Discord said uncertainly. “What are you doing?”
The two mares lifted the saucepans at the same time, before charging at Discord. Too late, Discord realized what was going to happen.
As the saucepans slammed onto his head, there was a resounding noise as Discord was flattened into a pancake.
“BONK!”
Author's Note
i blame jay
his prompt was
"catdog but appledash"
