---Following the Redemption Ending---

"Yeah...right there! No...shoot. Aw durnit, whatever. We'll get to it later. Come on ya'll, apple juice is on!"

Applejack got a resounding holler of happiness out of some of the workers who leaped off the roof of the freshly built barn. The workers gathered around the table, happily slurping their drinks as Applejack smiled and said "Ya'll take yer time now, relax!" She looked over towards the rest of Ponyville, at all the new construction going on.

It had been around 28 days since The Siege of Canterlot, and already a good portion of Applejack's field had been replanted, her house having miraculously survived the blaze. She tipped back her stetson and smiled as she watched Applebloom play in the yard with the other crusaders, her friends still planting a few seeds out in the far orchard. She jumped slightly when she heard a voice call out from behind her "Need a hoof?"

She turned and raised an eyebrow as Captain Shadow-Mane stood before her, bandages covering his body, wings, and two of his legs. Applejack chuckled and said "Ah don't think you'll be doing much round' here for awhile. Ah told ya, you can pay yer rent in work AFTER yer all better, got me?"

Shadow nodded and with a weak "Yes..." went back into the house. It was kinda funny how Shadow-Mane had asked if he could stay with the apple family and Nightfire who also asked. The two of them really...really didn't want to be in Canterlot...and they felt like they owed it to Ponyville to assist in the reconstruction since they were the ones who originally burned it down. The rest of Shadow Squad was already hard at work inside the town...leaving Shadow to sit on his flank and heal.

With a final sigh, Applejack turned her head towards her workers and hollered "Alright! Let's get ya'll back to that roof! Durn thing ain't gonna put itself up!" She watched as the workers nodded, heading back towards the barn as Applejack turned and headed back inside her house. She made a beeline for the living room, and walking in on a sight that made her smile. Macintosh was curled up on the couch, Moonlight tucked safely in his hooves. She had her face nuzzled up against her father's, and her expression was calm and peaceful.

"Ah guess..." Applejack whispered to herself as she turned to head back outside and help the rest of the girls with the seeds "Things...do work out in the end after all..." With that, she quickly trotted outside into the fresh, clean, uninfected air...and made her way over to her friends, eager to get her apples back up and growing.

And it was something...that Twilight Sparkle couldn't wait for either. The lavender unicorn watched from a tiny hill far away, watched Applejack give a hearty hello to her friends. She smiled quietly at her own little plan, her plan to fake her own death. The world needed to live without the fear of Ravage...she knew that...but she also knew that so long as the threat of Re-Infection remained true and very real in Equestria...she would be there to silence it. As she told Trixie that day...she would be its keeper.

With a quiet sigh, Twilight summoned her magic, teleporting herself back to Canterlot...the city actually abandoned, and void of all life. It had ended up like the castle in the Everfree Forest...nothing more than a ruin now. A new city was being built in the heartland of Equestria, to the west of Ponyville...a city that would serve as a central beacon of peace and prosperity throughout all of the land.

A lovely plan, Twilight thought, if it all went well. She liked walking those empty halls...empty streets...thinking about her life and how simple it all was all those years ago. "Oh well..." she said with a sigh, teleporting to the castle gardens and walking towards the central fountain. It was here that a statue had been built of Nightmare Moon, commemorating her defeat by the Elements of Harmony. The statue of Discord had also been moved to the fountain, his horrified expression still etched in the stone.

Twilight quietly sat down, pulling a map out of her saddlebags and looking over it carefully, deciding on where to go. "Hmmm...Zebrica...seems nice enough. Maybe I could finally look into that Zebra Cultural thing that I always read about!" She smiled just thinking about it, putting away her map and getting to her hooves. Just before she could summon her magic, however...a voice echoed out across the courtyard.

"If I were you...I would have killed her..."

Twilight whirled her head around, looking in every which direction as she shouted "Hello!? Who's there?"

"Bit of a sad thing I guess...I mean, look what she did to you! Did anypony ever seal HER away when she did something naughty? Nooo...of course not...I told her I'm not as cruel as she thinks..."

"I know that voice..." Twilight gasped, turning her head slowly as she looked across the fountain. She gasped as she noticed tears of blood leaking down one of the statues...a grim...dark...chaotic voice echoing across the air...

"After all....I don't turn ponies into MONSTERS..."