Always connected- Chapter 9

Rainbow Dark lay on the ground, the surprising strength of the orange pony had caught her off guard, and now she was hurting because of it. She looked up to see the pony’s accomplice, a grey Pegasus entirely clad in silver armour, come hurtling out of Rainbow Dark’s cloud mansion and crash in front of the orange pony. Following her was Rainbow Dark’s wife, Applejack, her mane and tail ablaze.

‘Oh you two are going to get it now,’ she thought, smiling to herself. She looked down at the orange pony, who suddenly vanished and reappeared in the air next to Applejack. The orange pony punched Applejack, who fell to the ground, followed by an enormous bolt of lightning that seemed to come from the orange pony’s hoof. The light was blinding and Rainbow Dark had to turn away to protect her eyes and when she looked back, the orange pony was on the ground, one of her front hooves was blackened from the heat of the lightning. Rainbow Dark stood, ready to charge at the orange pony, who looked at her and then ran in the direction of Applejack. Rainbow Dark began to follow but was stopped by the grey Pegasus.

“Hi there, I need a word with you,” she said and made a grab for Rainbow Dark. Rainbow dodged the grab and hit the grey Pegasus.

“Fine! If that’s what you want, so be it!” she told Rainbow Dark and began throwing punches herself. A complex martial arts pattern that Rainbow Dark was barely fast enough to dodge or block, a few of the punches hit her and she was surprised at the intensity of the pain she was feeling. The grey Pegasus ended the pattern with a swipe from her bladed wings and Rainbow Dark managed to get her hooves up to block her face, but even then, the blades cut deep into her forearm, making her cry out in pain. Rainbow threw one last desperate punch at the grey Pegasus, which got contact just under the chin and sent her reeling.

“What do you want?!” Rainbow Dark yelled, bleeding profusely from the wounds in her arms. The grey pony checked her bleeding lip and told Rainbow Dark;
“I want you to remember who you are Rainbow.”
“And who is that?” Rainbow Dark asked mockingly, the grey Pegasus smiled a half smile and said;

“Not this.” She charged at Rainbow Dark and knocked her onto her back. The grey Pegasus sat on top of her, pulled one of the armour plates off her hoof and placed it on Rainbow Dark’s forehead.
“Loyalty,” she breathed. Rainbow Dark began to feel sick at the energy started to course through her body, some of her memories started to come back, flashes, nothing coherent. On the outside, her eyes slowly faded from blood red back to the natural magenta, but her coat stayed dark blue.
“Oh no, I’m not enough,” she heard the Pegasus say. “She needs Applejack.”

***

Applejack was suddenly right next to the Pegi-jack, hanging in mid-air; the Pegi-jack’s astonished look was taken away from her by Applejack.

Hate. Applejack punched Pegi-jack, feeling electricity course through her limbs. Pegi-jack’s head snapped back and she started to fall, a tiny spark of electricity clung to her face, which grew and grew as the Pegi-jack fell, becoming a massive bolt of lightning.

Applejack’s hoof glowed red from the heat, but there was no pain. The Pegi-jack hit the ground and bounced slightly. Gravity began to take hold of Applejack, fear of falling allowing her to teleport back to the ground. Derpy was there waiting, watching the awesome display of power.

“Impressive,” she said, smiling. “But like I was saying, that construct is actually Rainbow’s deceit, her ability to lie to herself or to others. Which is where you come in, the element of honesty is probably a bit more geared up to fight deceit than I am. So what we have to do now is switch opponents.”

Applejack nodded and looked at Rainbow before charging at Pegi-jack. The Pegi-jack stood; half of her face had been scorched off by the bolt of lightning. Muscle and bone showed on the right side of her face. Blood wasn’t flowing due to the heat of the lightning cauterizing the blood vessels.

“Wow! You are one mess of ugly,” Applejack said, laughing at Pegi-jack. The Pegi-jack rose up into the air above Applejack.

“Why don’t you see what ah’m tryin to do!” it screamed and came rushing at Applejack. She couldn’t think of a memory in time to dodge the attack and was carried high up into the air. Pegi-jack punching her in the stomach, so as to not give her time to concentrate. They flew higher and higher, to where the air became thin and it was hard to breathe.
“That’s the great thing about being a Pegasus, we have spent so much time in the air over the centuries, that we evolved to a point where we don’t need much oxygen to survive,” said Pegi-jack, gloating over Applejack as she started to turn blue. Applejack struggled, throwing random punches as her vision went black. The struggling stopped; Applejack’s arms went limp at her sides. The Pegi-jack smiled and let go of Applejack’s lifeless form.

***

Derpy watched as Applejack fell, an idea quickly forming in her mind. She grabbed Rainbow Dark, a contorted mix of her good and evil selves and forced her to look at the free falling Applejack.

“That’s Applejack Rainbow, save her,” she whispered into Rainbow Dark’s ear. Rainbow stood, and with an enormous gust of air, she blasted upwards, hooves stretched outwards, reaching for Applejack and when she was a mere twenty meters off the ground, Rainbow caught her and slowly descended to the ground. Rainbow laid Applejack down, she was completely motionless. Tears formed in the corners of Rainbow’s eyes and small cracks appeared all over her body. She pushed on Applejack’s chest, trying desperately to get her heart beating as Derpy flew over, but to no avail. The cracks started to get larger as she remembered her friend and with a cry of anguish, she gave up.

Crying openly now, she bent down and gave Applejack a kiss on the lips. But something was different; this was nothing like kissing the other Applejack. Rainbow kissed harder, before breaking it off and whispering into Applejack’s ear;

“Applejack, it’s me, Rainbow, please wake up, please don’t leave me alone, I love you.” A single tear fell from her face into Applejack’s mouth and a few seconds later, Applejack sat up straight, taking a huge, deep breath. Rainbow’s eyes went wide and her face went from a look of utter shock to one of complete joy, she embraced Applejack and was ecstatic to feel the embrace being returned.

“Ah love you too…Sugarcube,” Applejack said, still breathless but her voice was full of love and joy. A pain shot into Rainbow’s chest and she released Applejack before letting out a cry of pain. The cracks that had appeared on her body now began to break off. Scales of dark blue fell off her as though a porcelain cup was breaking and with one final scream, the remaining pieces were blasted off by some unknown light that came from within Rainbow. She panted heavily, before looking at Applejack, who smiled. They kissed again, but this time, it was as though they became one pony, like nothing else mattered in the whole world.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” screamed a voice from above them. Rainbow and Applejack broke off the kiss once again and looked at Pegi-jack. “How did you steal her from me?” Rainbow stood and stared angrily at Pegi-jack.
“Oh it was easy,” said Rainbow. “There’s one thing you didn’t think of when you impersonated Applejack.”
“And what pray tell was that?” asked Pegi-jack,
“You don’t taste like apples,” said Rainbow, giving her an arrogant smirk.
“Arrgh,! Well it doesn’t matter, there is no way that you can get out of here alive. Ah am going to crush you into dust with my bare hooves, and then burn the dust,” Pegi-jack ranted. Rainbow sighed, before turning and tearing one of the blades off Derpy’s wings. She hurled it at Pegi-jack, the blade embedding itself in her throat.

“You talk too much,” said Rainbow. Applejack turned to Derpy as Pegi-jack fell to the ground, choking on her own blood.
“That seemed too easy,” Applejack said and Derpy laughed.
“It seems like it now, but there was no way either of us could do that. It had to be Rainbow. This is her mind; ultimately, SHE had to make the decision to stand up to Pegi-jack.”

“And I DID make it, that’s what’s important,” said Rainbow, helping Applejack up.
“Wait, then how come ah had to fight Pegi-jack while you tangled with Rainbow?” asked Applejack angrily.
“Applejack, I had to give Rainbow something to fight FOR, otherwise it wouldn’t have worked,” Derpy explained. “Now, don’t you think you should be getting back to the real world?” Rainbow and Applejack both nodded. They stood together and Derpy walked over and put her hooves on their foreheads.

***

“And don’t worry, when you wake up, all this will be is a bad dream.” There was a flash of light and Applejack felt herself separating from Rainbow’s mind and once again, just as the pain became too much, it stopped. Applejack opened her eyes and looked over at Rainbow, whose eyes snapped open and she sat upright.

Applejack jumped out of bed and landed on Rainbow’s, who smiled with a light that Applejack had never seen. It was then that they shared their first REAL kiss.

‘Apples,’ thought Rainbow.