Author's Notes:

For those who'd made it past part one, congratulations for getting hooked onto the story and thanks for returning to it; since Day Two was too big to end on its own without a proper conclusion as was Night Two, Day Four will be split into fragments but will be updated on the same day anyway nonetheless so as to keep y'all wishing for more.

As such, this chapter will still be devoid of sudden fire and flames from long ago and take place at daytime as usual albeit without the action: a difficult task to accomplish in the lost time spent writing on my own, it was an arduous struggle to have it expressed quickly; besides, this one is going to be longer than the other days before it but will be finished nonetheless.

For those still wondering what the next part will be bringing, think back to the quote from before and understand it well; after all, this is nonetheless a Mature fanfic, dealing with heavy subject matter unsuitable for those under eighteen, easily offended, and/or quickly nauseated.

The sounds of cicadas resonated in the rather dark woods, giving off a shrill, yet brief synchronized harmony all around the way with trees and darkness standing out in contrast to the skies and light as a pair of equines trekked about in the aforementioned area away from civilization in a direction so careful to avoid attracting excessive attention.

“D’ah, there’s got to be something we can eat around here…!” an irate Rainbow muttered as she snapped some twigs along the way.

Pinkie followed after the cyan pegasus, marching in tow while taking in a good look around the premises: a dense foliage of green and brown with some occasional fungus around the roots and a hive at a branch or two; soon, the former ask the latter, “what about those mushrooms; do you think we could eat them?”

“I don’t know about doing this, Pinkie; how can we be sure that they’re not gonna kill us…?” Rainbow replied with a stutter while keeping a watchful eye anyways, “besides, some of them could give these bees an excuse to sting us in the flank hole…”

“Hey, that’s not a nice thing to say…!” the pink pony quickly chided the cyan pegasus without warning in a voice soft enough to maintain the silence.

Lowering the eyebrows, Rainbow huffed at Pinkie, “takes one to know one but that’s beside the point here: we can’t just go back empty–hoofed now, not since we had just left…”

“You had me at ‘empty–hoofed’ here; our hooves are not where our hands are…” the pink pony had giggled softly, “didn’t you’ve already known that, silly…?”

“Do you want to help or not?” the cyan pegasus growled while looking at her friend dead in the eyes at once.

Shrinking back a bit, Pinkie paused silently as Rainbow gave off an intense glare before answering slowly, “I’ll stay quiet for now…”

“Any minute now, there’s a good chance that these bastards could be heading out to look for us; in the meantime, we gotta work fast and find something to keep our strength…” the cyan pegasus spoke as they found a crack of light appearing within their line of sight already, “it’s imperative that we stay hidden as well, in case they’re nearby; do you understand me…?”

“Yes, siree Bob…!” the pink pony chirped, holding up both of her bound hands in a rather malformed salute.

Shaking her head, Rainbow looked away from Pinkie and said, “let’s just stay focused to the task already: aside from the guards, there’s also the fact that some wild animals could be lurking around and devour us if we’re not careful; come to think of it, even I wish that the old Fluttershy was here…”

When the two ponies found themselves standing underneath a slender branch, they found something above hanging from above: instead of an apiary, it was a large apple with a coat reminiscent of the cyan pegasus’ mane and tail. The sheer sight of such a strange fruit no less had quickly brought nothing more but a single tear out from one of the pink pony’s true blue eyes as she watched it dangle from there very slowly. Both of them now had their heads turned upward towards the object in question as they remained stationary and just barely edging towards one another.

Piercing their own ears all at once, the sounds of heavy trampling now came within the distance, freezing Pinkie in place save for a whimper, “Rainbow, what’s going on; are we in trouble…?”

“It must be one of the patrollers; damn them all…!” the eponymous listener answered at once, “if we ain’t careful, they’ll give us some; stay down…!”

Rainbow started to take a sneak peak at the source of such noise and what had been found barely surprised her: a large cart was exited by a pair of unicorn stallions in some heavy armor before being quickly pulled off following a crackling sound within seconds; even though she was completely concealed by the forestry, it was safe to bet that whoever pulled it was far too different from them already.

“I can’t believe that we have to go searching for these stupid cunts first thing in the morning…!” one of the stallions, a green coated one groaned at once.

The cyan pegasus hid herself away from the two as the other unicorn, a brown coated one replied, “well, what did you expect would happen; even if they hadn’t ran away from their masters, we still have to be on the lookout for those heretics anyway.”

“If that’s the case, then why the flaming ostrich fuck would they even try; don’t they even know it’s pointless to resist the king?!” the first one spoke back to the other, “I wish that they would all just die already…!”

“Easy now, maybe we’ll have some time to focus on that but right now it’s going to be on the recovery operations instead: these slaves aren’t going to be hard to find at the rate we’d be going; if we are lucky, then we might be able to call it in early and see the show so what do you say?” the second stallion stated simply put.

A brief pause filled the air as golden silence was suddenly killed by the green unicorn’s answer, “in any case, let’s start with the left patch; with my longsword for the vines and blow darts for the sluts, there’s no way I’m gonna miss out on Appleskank’s routine…!”

“That’s the spirit; maybe tomorrow night, I’ll let you take one of my whores for a good fuck…” the brown colleague chuckled, “she may not be one of them, but I bet she’ll do…”

“Let’s hope we find one today; I can’t wait any longer for some pussy…!” more laughter ensued before fading away in due time; afterwards, Rainbow peeked out from there again to find them out of her sight yet still on her mind.

For a while, it would seem that the taboo noise no longer reverberated against the forestry that the two mares had concealed themselves in; however, it wasn’t the case as some soft squeaks took its place and from a nearby source: none other than Pinkie herself, it had translated into, “Dashie… do you… think that they… were talking about Applejack…?”

“I wouldn’t be too worried about that, Pinkie; after all, she can handle it…” the cyan pegasus had quickly answered the pink pony calmly, “these two got this under control…”

“How do you even know about that; what if their façade just falls through like we all do…?” Pinkie sniffled as she started to stand up straight on her hooves.

Rainbow looked at her friend in the eyes as they remained still before starting to respond again, “I highly doubt it: Big Mac may be a lot of things but I don’t recall him being like these stags here since that day; still, I rather not think about it anyway…”

“What if Applejack loses it in the process and gets a purple collar like I had; what if we never get her back when that happens?!” the pink pony started to cry softly but surely, “I don’t want to lose a friend any more than we have to these invaders in such a way, I just can’t…! The day she came to play with me, I'd warned her about what would happen if goes along to perfect; I can’t bear the thought of our friend broken to pieces! I’ll never even look at Applejack the same way as we did before ever again as long as they’re even around us, being tossed aside like figurines from an antique shop; sometimes, I think that I'd RATHER D–––”

“PINKIE… shut up; you’re going to get us fucked over if you keep at it!” the cyan pegasus snarled, suddenly placing a hand over the tearstained muzzle.

Pinkie started to muffle quietly past Rainbow’s fingers, “I’m sorry, Rainbow; it’s just that I'm worried about what would happen to Applejack because of me when I'd snapped: killing, snarling, and pleasuring all these people…”

“I understand but she’s far out of our reach for now anyway; besides, we got to focus on the big picture here: these guys aren’t gonna rest if they spot us soon enough…” the eponymous listener sighed before removing her grip onto her friends muzzle, “we’ll just have to hide in a cave after we get the food; now, tell me this: how high can you jump…?”

“Why; where are you going with this…?” the pink pony had asked, all wide eyed at once.

The cyan pegasus had pointed her fingers upward towards the apple and answered quickly, “that’s why: there’s a funny looking apple hanging directly right above us; I could get one of them but I’m still dealing with the shit that these unicorns had done to me the night before…”

“Hey, now I remember what it is: this isn’t a funny looking apple, silly; it’s a Zap Apple and it’s right on time for harvesting no less…!” Pinkie laughed as she soon followed her line of eyesight onto the fruit where Rainbow had guided, “she must have been talking about it about a year ago; hah, even they reminded me of her…”

“Just stop with the nostalgia and start helping me gather them anyway; we don’t have time for it!” the cyan pegasus growled as the pink pony remained quiet again.

Pinkie started to take in a rather long deep breath before exhaling and backed away from Rainbow by a few inches at once. Next, the pink pony bent her knees, lowering herself to the cyan pegasus’ waistline while closing eyelids over the former’s pupils. With only little warning thereof, Pinkie soon shot upward and outstretched her pair of hands towards the object that hung from a branch.

Both equines watched as the apple was now within their grasp; quickly presenting it to cyan pegasus, the pink pony chirped, “here you go: one fresh Zap Apple ready to be eaten…!”

“Alright then, there’s a likely chance that more of them could be around so search the rest of the place just in case but be careful: we mustn’t attract their attention along the way, let alone get ourselves into a trap…” Rainbow calmly replied, taking the colorful fruit off of Pinkie’s hands gently, “I may have not eaten this at all in my life but at least I bet that it’ll be better than nothing but kibbles and bits…”

“Okey–dokie–lokie…!” the pink pony squealed as she began to take the lead, this time moving about in place of the cyan pegasus.

Rainbow sighed as she and Pinkie started to comb the area for more of the edible object that they'd come across at first glance no less, wary of the dangers lurking around the two painted by close range buzzing and long distance wailing as the sheer rays of sunlight provided from up above their current station barely made it clear enough to see all throughout the way. Nonetheless, the rather rough and ragged terrain beneath their own hooves didn't dissuade their search for the colorful apples that had just begun already as the pink pony hummed a simplistic tune in a silent voice with words indistinguishable for either her friend following alongside or the flora and fauna dwelling about to transmit; aside from the company that they were keeping with themselves, the dank and dire air of loneliness was lurking around and about the equines’ minds and bodies for reasons both good and ill altogether. The cyan pegasus suddenly spotted another branch holding the same of kind of a strange fruit, this time with a quantity that was twofold compared to the first find; this had made her exclaim, “Pinkie, look up there: these must be more of the Zapples!”

“Really; there are more of them as well…?” the eponymous scavenger cheered on with little warning, “wowie… I can’t believe that our luck is starting to get better every step of the way…!”

“The randomness of my friend’s dark and twisted mind: one mystery that I will never be able to solve as long as I live…” Rainbow silently muttered as Pinkie jumped up to catch the hanging objects already, rolling the magenta irises over and shrugged about like an atlas while watching the latter pull them down from there and dropped the two of them into the former’s possession as the former took awareness of the sight and texture of the colorfully strange fruit in question.

Although onto a slow start, it'd remained imperative to speed up the search in order to remain undetected: the pink pony found a quartet of these objects right nearby the cyan pegasus’ side within notice, making former twitter about only quickly, “oh my goodness, it’s like that there is no end in sight for finding these Zap Apples here…!”

“I got this one, Pinkie; at least I don’t have to jump up for this batch…” Rainbow replied as she found the aforementioned apples hanging nearby at eye level, picking them off the slender wood at once, “I can’t believe that that these things are easy to find at once; I wonder what’s causing them to pop up of all days…”

“I would say last night’s storm but that would be too easy to point out; besides, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into them apples…!” Pinkie answered while only standing about before quickly turning away to face the nearby edge of the woods they were in.

The cyan pegasus silently scoffed before following the otherwise absentminded pink pony while carrying the colorfully strange fruit as the former muttered, “I hope wherever she’s going there’d be more of them coming our way at once; I don’t know how much more I can carry before we’re finished…”

“Hey, Rainbow, you’re not going to believe this: I had just found eight of them right––– OOF!!” Pinkie shouted before being interrupted by a crescendo of rustling thuds; this made the eponymous listener pick up the pace as the former then groaned softly, “owie…”

“You alright there; are you hurt…?” Rainbow asked as she started to inspect her fallen friend carefully so as to avoid dropping the objects gathered earlier; however, the latter didn’t responded as the former crouched nearby. Despite not possessing any signs of damage sustained, the recovery effort was not even taking place as Pinkie had remained still even though Rainbow started to nudged about fervently in an attempt to get the former’s attention at once; unbeknownst to the latter, the former’s true blue eyes widened while staring off into the distance in an otherwise comfortably numbed state of affairs. One thing that Rainbow did take notice was that Pinkie’s mane and tail had become flat slowly, a stark contrast to the inflated texture they'd possessed earlier before; nevertheless, it didn’t stop the cyan pegasus from trying to get a response from the pink pony nearby by any means necessary.

After the tenth tugging of the flopping left ear, only a single solitary word had made it out of the chapped lips; although unclear, it could be easily heard at once already in a faint tone no less: “mom…”