Fillies of the Apples
Chapter 4
Nightmare Night
Needless to say, Nightmare Night began in a rather dour mood. Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, all four of them were nowhere to be found in all of Ponyville. After a full day of searching, they had been able to figure that out. All four of them were gone from the entire town. Believe me, they searched every millimeter of the town (It was a small town, so it was easy) and they knew that they hadn't gone out of town. They were able to check for that too. They hadn't left town.
Now Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were rather depressed at ponies close to them disappearing, and Apple Bloom was too. She had been friends with all the ponies that had disappeared. Sweetie Belle was the only one of them crying, and they tried to comfort her (very unsuccessfully). It seemed like there was no link to them in Ponyville. They searched the places where they had lived before they disappeared, and there was hardly anything there to suggest that they had even lived there in the first place. The place had been cleared of all the things that truly left an imprint on the building.
So they had written Princess Celestia, and she had said she was coming to see what had happened to them all, it was that urgent to her.. She said she would be there in about four days. But Apple Bloom was not willing to wait that long. Now, most of the ponies in Ponyville thought that apple Bloom would take a good deal of comfort in the fact that her sister hadn't disappeared with the majority of her friends. But you might just know the important reason she didn't take the comfort in that situation.
She knew that if the four that had disappeared and they hadn't left town, there was only one place they could go, or be taken: Sweet Apple Acres. And she knew that they had been taken. And she could think of a reason why they had been taken there. This reason tied into the fact that Pinkie Pie was the only one of Applejack's friends that hadn't been taken. And the reason worried her. Because she knew it was because Pinkie Pie was an Earth pony like Applejack, while Rarity and Twilight Sparkle were unicorns and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were pegasi. The folder had said that in the town of Gatlin where He Who Walks Behind The Rows had lived before, that thing had demanded those who worshipped it to sacrifice all the pegasi and unicorn to it.
And then she remembered something Granny Smith had told her a week ago that she hadn't even thought about since: Great Uncle Applewood, along with her, had originally lived in the town of Gatlin. Granny Smith and the rest of her family left it behind, while her brother Applewood stayed behind with his wife to continue their family line in Gatlin.
And that just tore it for Apple Bloom. She knew for certain that what she had thought about Applejack was correct. What she had thought about Great Uncle Applewood and Isaac was correct completely. Her whole family had become members of a murderous cult that was going to sacrifice her friends to a demonic entity living in their apple orchard, following a religion that Applewood had brought with him to Ponyville. He Who Walks Behind The Rows had taken Ponyville as the next city that it would make its own. And she didn't care if anypony believed her about it. She was going to do something about it now.
And she stood up and began walking to Sweet Apple Acres. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo realized which direction she was walking in and were able to guess what she was doing in said endeavor. They knew that she believed what she had said yesterday, and what she was going to do about it. Call that a sort of guess that was transmitted through the bond of a really strong yet rather confusing friendship. Oh well, most of them are anyway. But they knew when they looked at her, they knew completely.
And they began to run towards her. They quickly grabbed her and held her back. "Hey!" was all Apple Bloom yelled, knowing they were getting in the way of something very important. They dragged her backwards. They weren't completely convinced about what Apple Bloom had told her before, but they knew she intended to do it without them, which they were not going to let happen. They would go with her if she was really genuinely serious about all this, which she was. But first, they had to drag her back and talk to her before she did it.
So they dragged her back into Carousel Boutique. Although it almost felt ghostly to Sweetie Belle after Rarity disappeared, they stayed there. They looked at Apple Bloom.
"What in tarnation do you think you're doing?" Apple Bloom asked.
"We know where you're going, and we're no going to let you do it alone." Sweetie Belle said.
"We don't entirely believe what you were saying, but we want to help you anyways." Scootaloo said.
Apple Bloom hadn't even considered the possibility of her friends coming with her, but it made sense now that she thought about it. She wasn't worried about them being hurt, because she knew that they could probably handle this together. She sighed. "Okay, then."
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were just a bit surprised at that (They were expecting it to be a lot harder than that to convince her) but they nodded and began to trek out of the boutique for their most dangerous crusade yet.
And as it would happen, almost certainly, if you consider all the danger of the task, it would be the very last they would do. But they wouldn't even die on it. That wasn't going to happen to them today. But there are things that are even worse than that to happen to you, just so you know.
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And that's exactly what they did. They walked up to Apple Bloom's home at Sweet
Apple Acres and opened the door. But what they found inside was another case of an empty house. That is, everypony had left the place. All there was in the house were the plaques hanging from the wall.
"Gee, you weren't kidding about it…" Scootaloo said, looking at all the rules that were set by the plaques. It seemed to her that she had broken nearly every rule on the plaques throughout the house. That was either exhilarating or rather frightening. She wasn't sure which.
And they found nopony. The house was empty and the Apple family that lived her weren't here. Every room on every floor, nopony there. It was calming. Or it might have been ominous. In reality, it wasn't either of them. They just couldn't feel anything on their minds when they thought to the subject of the emptiness of the house. They looked around the rooms, and they saw that if they were here, they would be somewhere outside the house. And the only thing that was outside the house were the plentiful apple orchards. So that's where they were then. They decided that they had to be in the apple orchard.
So they walked out of the house. And almost instantly they were grabbed and knocked out. That was an original plan of kidnapping them. They were dragged off.
And then they woke up. They hadn't been out for very long. They looked around to find they were right in the middle of the apple orchard they were going to. They were in a large clearing in the middle of the orchard.
And they were surrounded by ponies. Earth ponies dressed in archaic clothing that had been out of date for nearly a thousand years. And it was all the Apple family from her home. There was Big Macintosh, Granny Smith, Great Uncle Applewood, Applejack, and there he was, where you would expect him to be in a sort of way. Isaac, leading them all.
It was only 2 hours to night on Nightmare Night, and they had been caught. And who actually knew what was going to happen to them now.
And Isaac raised one of his hooves. All of them sat down on the grass. The Cutie Mark Crusaders all stared in fear as they were forced to sit down as well. Then Isaac began to speak.
"There is the Celestia that sits upon the throne, and then there is the true Celestia, the true God that we must follow. He Who Walks Behind The Rows. It gives us its lessons through me forever and always, and it always reminds us why we must follow them and we must always remind it why we will continue to follow it. We give it sacrifices of those who will not believe and make our crucifixes to ward off the evil in the world. And it tells us what we must do if we fail it. And it tells us that it wants the Earth ponies of this city to be its new followers. And it tells us that the beginning of this city's conversion will begin with the harvest moon tonight. It tells me that the one it wants to begin the conversion is Apple Bloom."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders stared in horror, Apple Bloom most especially. They knew that it only wanted Earth ponies, and Apple Bloom would be turned into these wackos while Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were killed. And none of them wanted any of that. They didn't want it to happen. And Apple Bloom thought quickly. She knew that they weren't getting out of this, but she could make it less horrible for the three of them.
"Ah'll do it." Apple Bloom said.
Isaac seemed incapable of smiling, but he seemed satisfied at this.
"If you don't kill Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, but do it to them too so they'll still be alive." Apple Bloom said frantically.
And Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stared at her in shock. They never had enough time to think over which of the two alternatives was worse than the other.
Isaac thought about this. "Very well." He stated.
There was no more time to think about it after that. They were grabbed and they were forced into similar clothes to what the Apples were all wearing. The fact that they were all incredible stronger than the three made it so they couldn't even attempt to fight. Applejack grabbed them all single handedly and pulled them into the orchard. She led them deep into it and then dropped them. She left them in a daze on the dirt and left them behind.
They sat up. "What was that?" Scootaloo asked angrily.
"I…I didn't want you to die." Apple Bloom said.
"Well what are we going to do?" Scootaloo asked.
"I don't know. But we do have each other." Sweetie Belle said.
And they all huddled together as uninviting sounds emanated behind the trees that surrounded them completely.
They began the pointless endeavor of making their way to their clubhouse.
All the growling sounds around them ceased. It made them vaguely wish they would come back to let them know there was something there.
And then Sweetie Belle dropped to her knees (or whatever they were) and began groaning.
And Scootaloo and Apple Bloom nearly did when they saw it.
Tied to the trees around their clubhouse were Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. It was like it said in the folder. Their eyes had been ripped out and their mouths had been stuffed with apple cores that were rotting.
They fell to ground and began weeping. Apple Bloom was weeping at what her sister had become and what she had done to her friends.
They didn't notice when all the rows of the trees around them closed up. They did notice when some huge green thing with red eyes the size of footballs jumped out at them.
They started to scream. But they did not scream long.
Some time later, a bloated harvest moon appeared in the sky.
Sometime after the cult finished hanging the bodies of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, the cult had another meeting in the clearing. Apple Bloom was among them. Her eyes had turned a more darkened color. He Who Walks Behind The Rows had eaten her soul.
"He Who Walks Behind The Rows is not pleased. He is not pleased that we failed to keep Apple Bloom unaware of its presence before her day of conversion. As such, he demands the sacrifice of our two eldest members before the city is converted."
Applewood and Granny Smith stood up. "I obey the word of Celestia." They said. And they walked into the apple orchard and were swallowed up.
In the days that followed, Ponyville became under the possession of the thing in the orchard. And it stayed that way until like Gatlin, like every other town it had come to, it became a ghost town. And as it all fell to it, the orchard itself seemed to shake in its approval.
It was well pleased.