The Shadow, the True Self

The Shadow, The True Self
Part 2: Applejack II

Twilight could feel herself falling gently, spiraling down between layers and layers of what looked like round-edged TV screens. Down, down, down she went until she slowed and was deposited on the ground. Her wings flapped this way and that as she scrambled to get up. She still wasn’t used to her huge wingspan yet. Dusting herself off, she peered around.

Well, it certainly looked like Sweet Apple Acres, but the barn was all wrong. It was massive, and jutted oddly in different directions. If a madpony’s crew of builders added one room after another with no real plan or purpose on a house, it would probably resemble this monstrosity. There were oddly-shaped windows, little balconies and other little portals to look through. Should she fly to the top and work her way down? Should she just go in the front double doors? She wasn’t sure. Applejack had gone through the main entrance, that would probably be best.

As she approached, a big neon sign whirred to life. The neon tubes whined and crackled on, flickering before they displayed the disturbing logo text: APPLE FAMILY ROMANCE HOE-DOWN SPECIAL: SEXY STUD STALLIONS EDITION! The alicorn looked up at it, frowning a bit. This was really weird. Shivering in the night time fog, she walked towards the massive red structure and tried to door. It opened easily, and she stuck her head in. It was a mud room. Twilight frowned, folding her wings. The barn didn’t have a mud room. Then again, this wasn’t Applejack’s barn. Stopping a moment, she looked around for whatever cameras had recorded her on the midnight channel. She didn’t see any. Hrm…

Going inside, the purple mare found another door ahead. It led to a hallway, which led to an empty room, which led to another hallway, a curved hallway, then a few more empty rooms. It was like a maze, but there was only one way to go. Odd. All the walls were painted bright red, and the occasional hay bail blocked her path. But, what was so strange was the silence. She could hear herself walking, and not much else. It was enough to make anypony nervous.

Turning a corner, Twilight suddenly found herself in a bar. She jolted to a stop. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the long hall behind her. She squinted a bit, not sure it was real. She nudged a hanging glass with her magic. It felt real enough. But, but that was impossible. Nopony would just build a bar in a barn, strange place or no. It looked like someone had ripped the guts out of a building in Appleoosia, then stuffed it into the strange space, floorboards and all. Twilight nudged the chandelier with her magic, frowning in disbelief. “Easy there, missy, unless you wanna pay fer that.” The bartending mare said from under her Stetson.

“O-oh, sorry.” Twilight said, approaching the bar while she looked around. It was a shady-looking place. There were plenty of patrons, all of them hidden under cowboy hats. Some of them had ropes at their hips, others were hunched over games of poker— it was an animated place. A sorry-looking juke box bumbled through a country music jaunt with a mare leaning against it. It didn’t take Twilight long to notice she couldn’t actually see anypony’s face. What was with all the secrecy?

Tak! The purple mare jumped when a dart flew across the room, hitting a dartboard on the wall. A trio of hat-wearing mares were mumbling to each other, making angry gestures at the board while they played. A polaroid of none other than Cheerilee from Ponyville Elementary was mounted in the middle. Tak! A dart hit the picture square in the forehead, and there was cheering and pointing. Twilight wrinkled her nose a little.

“Care fer a drink, then, missy?” The bartender asked from under the lip of her Stetson. The broad, charming smile and muzzle was all Twilight could make out in the half-shadows all around the room. This place could surely use a firm light or two, but the lack of windows didn’t help. “We got apple cider, hard apple cider, apple juice, and a few other apple-related things around here.” She gestured to a series of taps.

“No thanks.” Twilight said as politely as she could. “S-say, I don’t suppose you saw a pony named Applejack come through here, did you? She’s orange, has a cowboy hat, probably a rope on her?” she tilted her head, leaning her chest on the bar a bit.

“What, you mean like EVERYPONY in here?” chuckled the barkeep in her charming southern twang. Twilight looked around, feeling rather stupid. Everypony in the bar was a mare, was orange, had a stetson on and… and… what? “Like eeeeeverypony in here.” Whispered the barkeeper from under the creepy, dark lip of her hat.

Twilight turned sideways to look around the room. Her pupils shrank a little. Her brow wrinkled up into a worried expression. She could see by the way their heads were tilted and ears perked, all of them were listening. The juke box’s song suddenly ended, and the room was plunged into silence. The trio playing darts in the corner turned slowly to look at her, their heads moving as one. She could see the pinpricks of light in their eyes, but not their faces. It was too dark to see anypony properly. Twilight felt like she was in a spotlight, standing in that shady bar. “Who… who are you ponies?” she asked nervously.

The barkeep started cleaning a mug. “We don’t take kindly to strangers around these parts.” She said a little nastily, turning the rag back and forth in the misty, stained insides of the glass. “We like competition even less, sugarcube. You and yer raggity doll can back off.”

“Sugarcube…” Twilight said vaguely. “Sugarcube?!” Her pupils shrank into dots, and she whirled about to yank the barkeep’s hat off by magic. “Appleja---AAAIEEECK!?” The barpony struck her in the face so hard with the mug it shattered over her muzzle. Twilight went down hard, blood blossoming from her nose. She crumpled into an agonized heap, stray feathers scattering across the floor. “My d’ose!” Twilight cried, clutching at her face. Blood dripped back and forth on the floorboards. “My d’ose!” she steadied herself on the bar, looking up with tears in her eyes. The barkeep was gone. “W’huh?” Twilight snatched the rag from the half-clean mug, pressing it to her poor face. “Where’d she…?” she turned about to scan the room, but everypony else was gone too! “Wh… what…?” The poker players were gone, the juke box mare was gone, even the dart players. It was quiet. Very quiet. Mindful of the glass shards around her, she carefully sidled away from the bar to a table.

Resting at a chair for a minute, she eyed the room warily. This was getting stranger and stranger. Dabbing her muzzle until she was sure she was done bleeding, she was relieved when it became a dull throb of pain. She wasn’t versed in healing magic, but thankfully she’d not been hurt too badly. Dusk Glory, her private guard, was going to have kittens when she got back… Dabbing a bit more at her poor muzzle, she blew a few times to make sure she didn’t have glass up her nose. Deciding it best not to linger, Twilight trekked on.

=-----=-----=-----=-----=

Hallways. Lots of hallways. Stairs. There were plenty of those too. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to anything in this place! Twilight went down a straight hallway so long she could have used it for a perspective drawing. There was no way the barn was so large. But, in this place maybe it didn’t matter. She did crawl inside a television, after all. When she turned a corner she found another door, several more empty rooms, then a long hall with several doors. Cantering along, she was going to choose the furthest door but stopped when she found one was already cracked open. She put her eye to it, wary of what she might find after that strange bar.

It was a long room with a high ceiling. She could hear a small pony sniffling softly. Long rows of benches filled the room, but she could see a tiny pair of ears perked over the lip of them. Walking slowly and carefully, Princess Twilight leaned to see a pair of foals sitting in the seats. One orange, a filly. The other red, a colt. Both were blank-flanked. She was pressed into his chest, bawling softly. He’d wrapped her in his knobby-kneed forelegs. He was crying too, though more quietly. The purple mare looked towards the front of the room. Caskets. Two of them. She backed up a step, unsure about the whole place. The bar had been habitable, at least.

The caskets were dark wood, maybe mahogany. White flowers were placed on both. Twilight was suddenly overcome with a feeling of icy dread. She backed away, clip-clopping step by step. The crying filly was getting louder and louder. She turned her ears back. BOMPH. One of the caskets jarred itself from the inside. Twilight jolted in horror, mouth going agape. The filly wailed louder. The little red colt hushed her, shushed her, kissed her mane and crushed her to himself in a big hug. Tears streamed from her cheeks as black, smoky nothingness began to seep from one of the caskets.

Shaking herself free from her deer-in-lamplights, Twilight grabbed both foals with her magic, carting them through the air to herself. They flailed and shrieked in confusion and panick, and she set them both on her back. Turning and flaring her wings to hold them steady, she bolted for the door. Thundering along the floorboards she flinched when the other casket jolted hard, pouring black smoke into the air. The stench of burning flesh filled the air, nauseating the running alicorn. “Whulk?!” Twilight veered back and forth suddenly, for the colt had grabbed her around the neck with all his might.!

Snarling and snorting hot steam from his nostrils, he shifted his weight and face-planted the Princess straight into the ground. Both foals went tumbling and Twilight shrieked as she went ass-over-teakettle into the hallway. The red colt rushed to the little orange filly, using his broad muzzle to nuzzle her firmly. She whimpered and cried, refusing to move from where she lay bawling. He stood over her instead, taking a stand like a long-legged tent. He wasn’t old enough to have a stallion’s barrel yet, but he threw his chest out and snorted. He scraped a hoof at the ground, growling threateningly. “You ain’t our ma!” he shouted in a squeaky, prepubescent voice. The door SLAMMED itself in Twilight’s face just as the smoke began to fill the room with its black, vaporous aura.

“W-What is this place?” Twilight said, pale as a sheet. The smoke went under the door, stinking of burning flesh. She feverishly tried the doorknob, pulling and them pushing as hard as she could. She tried to force the doorway with her magic, but it wouldn’t yield. Something was holding the portal, even from her. The smoke soon began to cloud the hallway, and she backed up. She didn’t hear the foals coughing inside. Had they gone? Where to? Were they even real? Twilight wasn’t sure.

=-----=-----=-----=-----=

Twilight finally understood that wherever she was didn’t follow logic when she came to an outcropping. It was outside the main structure of the barn… on ground level. She’d gone up so many stairs she couldn’t count them! There was no way she should’ve been on the ground level anymore! Impossible! Groaning in frustration, she could only keep going. Her neck hurt a little where the surprisingly strong colt had mare-handled her into a faceplant. She finally came to a stop when her hooves touched grass. It was some sort of… stall area. Not only that, but there were occupied.

The stalls were wood with steel bars, chest high doors that swung outward left enough room to stick one’s head and shoulders over the lip. Twilight made a brief count, there were at least thirty of them. All of them had a pony inside, it seemed. It was too dark to tell who they were though. Not to be fooled by a hiding Applejack twice, Twilight lit her horn with a simple light spell. Stopping at the first stall, she saw a plain brown stallion with an hourglass on his flank. There was a plaque on the wall above him:

Time Turner: Watch and Clockmaker
Good Smarts, Poor Work Ethic, Not Strong, No Family
Judgement: Nope

He was standing there with a rather blank expression on his face, occasionally tilting his head back to look at the ceiling and drool a little. “Reverse the polarity of the… the neutron flow… yeah… yeah…” he mumbled nonsense to himself, the line of drool touching his chest. His eyes were derped in odd directions, like he was long gone in the head. Twilight opened her mouth to voice her concern, but closed it again. After what she’d seen, she was sure that wasn’t actually Time Turner from Ponyville. He scratched himself in a rude place, making a grunting sound and getting a mouthful of hay from the nearby trough. He was acting like a horse, the poor thing seemed brain dead! Twilight’s brow wrinkled in worry, and she slowly wandered to the next stall.

Snow Flake: Gym Owner and Personal Trainer
Dumb as a Rock, Medium Work Ethic, Very Strong, No Family
Judgement: Nope

The stallion in that stall was white, covered with muscles and had red eyes. Twilight startled when he snuffle-snorted at her. He bobbed his head a few times, a not-so-intelligent look in his face. He dug his teeth into the chest-high door that blocked his exit, but he couldn’t seem to figure out how to get it open. The purple mare watched him for a time. He turned, flicking his tail to get a fly off of himself. Then suddenly his tail mortally offended him, and he started to chase it with a loud roar of fury. Then he hit the wall, stunning himself. Twilight winced, then moved on.

Mr. Cake: Sugarcube Corner Co-Owner
Medium Smarts, Medium Work Ethic, Not Strong, Family
Judgement: Nope (also married)

Twilight frowned, trying to piece it all together. Smarts? Family? Judgement ‘nope’? This was just another puzzle and she wasn’t getting enough pieces to make a picture with yet. Maybe she had puzzle pieces from different puzzles! She had no idea what she was looking at, and she didn’t feel any closer to Applejack. She peered at the plaque over not-Mr. Cake. while the stallion sat on his haunches and chewed on his hoof with a puzzled expression. These were stats, like hoofball cards or something. How smart. How hardworking. How strong. Family or not. Hrmm… she decided to see one more. The alicorn walked slowly, glancing in at a few stallions as she went. She recognized almost all of them from Ponyville. Some of them didn’t have names on their plaques, others had unfinished ‘stats’ on their little signs. Had Applejack made these? Why? These couldn’t be real ponies. She’d seen Mr. Cake at Sugarcube corner not two days ago, she knew she’d not seen him in that stall back there. Twilight decided to stop at a stall that had a golden plaque on it, instead of a silver one.

Big Macintosh: ~~Brother~~ Farmer
Fancy-Mathematics Smart, High Work Ethic, Very Strong, Family
Judgement: Eyuup!

The word ‘brother’ had been hastily scratched out by hoof and a sharp object. So… Big Macintosh was the ideal stallion, then? Twilight could secretly admit to herself that yes, Big Mac was quite the guy and certainly appealing but… brother. Twilight remembered the TV broadcast and shuddered. Leaning, she stuck her head in. Big Mac was not at home. The stall was empty. She did find a saddle, crop, bridle, rope, and other tools at the ready though. The stall had an extra big trough, a water barrel, some hay bales, and a nest of straw to lay in. It looked ready to receive a stallion, but he wasn’t there. Twilight tried not to eye the provocatively red apple sitting in the middle of the stall, out in the open. Bait maybe? She wasn’t sure.

“Eyes on the prize, filly.” A decidedly southern voice drew Twilight’s eye and she quickly dashed down the rows of stalls. “Just gotta rope ‘im in good, show 'im we’re the proper kind’a mare for… hey you! This is private!” A red-eyed Applejack scowled at the alicorn, emerging from the shadows. She was dressed in rodeo struts, a blue-starred hat, and had a lasso across her chest. Loops of rope hung ready in her front-right hoof. “What’re you doin’ in mah barn?!” Her scowl deepened when she saw who it was. “You again! Get off’a mah property!” she shouted. “I thought ah told you t-!”

BZZ-ZAP!

Twilight’s horn smoked a bit, and the smear of ash on the ground smoldered. There were a lot of Applejacks here, she was starting to grasp that. But that certainly wasn’t the right one. Never, in all the years she’d known her farming friend, had she ever… EVER shouted the stereotypical southern phrase of ‘get off’a my property.’ “This is starting to make a little more sense.” Twilight whispered, frowning at the ashes. She turned to look at the strange stalls. “It’s adding up, just a little bit…” the gears in her brain were turning a bit quicker than before. It wasn’t so much that it was a TV world, but an Applejack TV world.

=-----=-----=-----=-----=

The hallways and empty rooms began to fill with family portraits, foal’s artwork and plenty of Apple family memories. Pictures of Big Macintosh plastered the walls, photographs of the household of Apples standing together and beaming. More stairs. More stairs after that, then twisted hallways that doubled back on themselves. Princess Sparkle’s ankles were starting to complain. How long had she been trekking through this mad maze?

Finally, she came to a rather large set of double doors. She groaned a little. Was this it? Was this the heart of all this craziness? Folding her wings tiredly, Twilight pressed the door open with magic and stopped on the threshold. It was some kind of great room. The floor was covered with straw and the high ceiling had beams like the barn it was supposed to be. It made her feel very small, like she was in a church. A bale of hay here, a rusty toolbox there… there was plenty of empty space but it felt like a bigger room than it should have been, as though a space had been made for a big event and there wasn’t enough scenery to fill it. Like a normal room had been… stretched.

“Twilight?” Applejack was standing near the center, looking uncertain. The Princess tensed, waiting for some assault or trickery. The orange mare looked back and forth, her eyes frightened. “Where are we? What is this place? This ain’t mah barn…” she said, looking about. “It’s stretched all funny, lookit that ceiling beam!” she gestured. Sure enough, looking closely enough showed a stretch in the pattern of the wood. It looked like somepony had made the barn’s framing hot, then stretched it like wax or taffy. It looked wrong.

“Applejack, is that really you?” Twilight asked cautiously, lifting a hoof in case the orange mare suddenly sprang on her. “How do I know it’s you?”

“Well jeez, sugarcube, who else would I be?” Applejack frowned, approaching at a canter. Her eyes slid down the Princess’ sides and ribs. “Them wings still look so different on yah, y’know.” She shook her head with a worried smile. “Ah’d say let’s catch up, but this place don’t feel normal. We should prolly skuh-daddle.”

“Ah’d say yer lying. Ah’m Applejack.” Another Applejack had appeared behind them, making both mares whirl. She looked… sharper. More angular. There was aggression in her eyes, and the Stetson on her head was cut into sharper edges. Twilight looked back and forth between the two. Aside from the tiny details, they looked just the same.

“Wh… whut?!” Applejack next to Twilight gaped. “That t’ain’t funny! Who’re you tryin’ to fool?!” she sauntered up to her strange-looking twin. “You a changeling? You a spell from Discord?! T’ain’t funny, quit lookin’ like me!”

“I’m in love with mah brother.” said not-Applejack. Real-Applejack choked on her own spit, falling silent. Her cheeks went red, and her eyes widened in icy startlement. “Big Mac is the best stallion in the world!” she sang, cupping her hooves to her heart. “I’m wanna keep him all fer mahself! He’s mine!”

“Wh-wh-whut y-y-y-you shut up! That ain’t right! That ain’t funny!” Applejack’s face was scarlet. “Don’t listen to him, Twilight!” she jerked her head around, her face on fire. “She’s spinnin’ lies! Big Mac’s my brother, but we ain’t like that!”

“I’m so in love with mah brother Big Mac!” swooned the strange, almost-Applejack. She put her forehoof dramatically to her forehead, wavering back and forth. “I’mma love him, and seduce him, and make sure that we have happy lives together here on the farm!”

“That’s sick! That’s sick and wrong!” Applejack’s face was as red as her native crop. “I-It ain’t like that, we’re just close!”
“No other stallion is good enough, they’re just stupid! They don’t work hard! They ain’t that smart! They won’t protect me like Big Mac does!” moaned the shade suggestively, seeming to quiver at the very thought of her incestuous love affair. “If ah could just catch his eye, ah’d make it worth his while! Every night if he wanted it! He’s the perfect stallion! The stallion fer me!”

Twilight’s magical radars were going off. Something was happening. Something nasty. She’d not felt magic like this since Sombra. She looked around the room. The ceiling seemed to be getting higher. The room seemed to be twisting, twisting bigger. The wood groaned and shuddered as she looked fearfully around. It wasn’t a barn, it was some… some sick thing that was tugging at Applejack’s heart! “A-Applejack…” Twilight tried cautiously, reaching for her friend with concern.

“SH-SHUT UP!” Applejack shouted, shaking with fury and embarrassment. “Don’t lookit me like that! Stop it! Stop lookin’ at me like that! Ah ain’t some incestuous, southern hick!” her whole body was shivering, and she looked ready to take the mare’s head off.

“Of course you are!” The other Applejack smiled proudly. “I’m you, after all! We’re the same!” she gestured back and forth between them. She threw her head back in a bombastic laugh that sent ice through the veins of the other two mares.

“Yer lyin’!” Applejack said, tears rushing up and into her eyes. “Yer nothin’ but lies and hocus pocus tomfoolery!” she rushed up to the fake Applejack, seizing her by the shoulder and lifting a hoof to punch her lights out. “YER NOT ME!”

Crackle.

Spark-Crackle.

Twilight shuddered, like she’d been dropped in ice water. Her magical radars were suddenly overloaded. Something slimy was rushing to the forefront, so powerful it was visible! Not-Applejack’s eyes turned blood red. There were no pupils or irises anymore, just redness. Her fur began to stand on end, and a molten aura of gooey, slick blackness began to emanate from her body. Applejack continued to scream and shout obscenities at her doppleganger, and the blackness rushed back and forth between them. It flowed from the real Applejack into the fake one, like a sickly pollution of miasma and smoke. After a few more moments, Twilight’s friend wavered on the spot. She looked… she looked so tired… ponyfeathers… thump. Applejack splayed out on the ground, passed out. The shadowy-aura’d Applejack smiled cruelly, turning her head slowly towards Twilight Sparkle.

“Wh… what are you?” Twilight whispered, taking a few steps back. She tried to grasp Applejack with her magic and levitate her away, but there was too much dark interference, even for her alicorn powers!

Not-Applejack hunched as though straining, chuckling under her breath and drinking in all the power that flowed in the air around her. It was like dark smoke, boiling and rushing and swirling about her. Her hat flew off and burst into ash while the bindings of her ponytail’d mane snapped in rapid succession. The air around her wriggled like it was super-heated, making Twilight squint. The dark chuckle rose into mad laughter as she threw her head back in joyous, uproarious glee. Her outline grew dark, then her fur grew dark, then even her eyes were blotted out. Twilight felt like she was blind, looking so hard into an abyss of dark magic. The smoke swirled rapidly back and forth, lancing at the air and burying the mare’s figure in a shrouded blackness. Then, it started to grow. It grew, and it grew, and it grew even bigger. It was morphing, shaping, twisting, writhing as it lost all semblance of Applejack’s shape and grew into something more monstrous. Twilight’s eyes widened as she was cast into shadow by it sheer size. She lifted a hoof, leaning back and tilting her head all the way back as it seemed to fill the room with its presence and body. A pair of titanic hooves jutted from the storm, thundering down onto the dirt floor. The ground cracked with its weight. It began to emerge.

Twilight put a hoof to her mouth to contain the scream. It was a massive red stallion. Its maw was filled with rows upon rows of gnashing, curved teeth. Its eyes were red and glowing, darting about like they couldn’t quite focus. Its muscles were huge and disproportioned, quivering and coiling back and forth. The massive, slimy cock hanging down between its legs was without a sheath, dripping from seemingly recent ‘use’. Its tail and mane were frazzled, orange and fiery, moving without a breeze like alicorn hair, or even like fire. The hooves were black, studded with razor-sharp horseshoes and titanic screws holding them on. The black saddle on its back had leading lines that led up to the beast’s eyes. Pressed over the sides of both eyes were line-of-sight patches, attached with silver studs. The alicorn slowly backed away, eyes like saucers, ready to run at the sight of the abomination before her.

Turning, the alicorn made to flee in unholy terror, but then she saw the collar around its neck. A slim, golden chain led down beside it. Not-Applejack stood there, grinning with her flashing red eyes. The chain was wrapped around her… no… no it was a PART of her. The chain sank into the skin of her foreleg and travelled up her arm like a burrowing snake. Blood and puss dripped from the entry wound and all over the floor— sickening! “Ah am the shadow! The TRUE self!” She said, her voice warped into something demonic. Twilight’s scream finally escaped her throat.

End of Part 2