Applejack worked on a farm. Anypony who knew her for more than a minute could have drawn that conclusion. Whether it was the cowpony hat, the country drawl, or the Cutie Mark, it was fairly obvious. This would of course explain why, in her circle of friends, she was the first to wake up and get out of bed.

As she was usually the first one up, she was also the pony who usually made breakfast for the rest.

Applejack left her bedroom and made her way to the kitchen near the bedrooms.

The kitchen was surprisingly rustic with a simple stove, fridge, and countertop. Cupboards lined one side of the room and hung overtop the appliances. Sunlight lit up the kitchen and bathed it in a golden glow. It was also, surprisingly, devoid of chefs. This was most in part to Twilight who had insisted that between Spike, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, there was no need for personal chefs during their stay.

So as Applejack entered the kitchen, she decided that she would make apple pancakes for everypony. One could make a joke about how Applejack could only make apple based food, but the pancakes were too good to be making such distasteful comments. Apple pancakes of course require ingredients that are refrigerated, so Applejack opened the fridge door to grab the necessities.

She was then assaulted by a cream pie to the face and an explosion of confetti.

Applejack blinked underneath her cream pie facial. “Buh wuh, what in tarnation?”

Applejack heard the faint sound of giggles nearby. Applejack drew her eyebrows together, or the best she could covered in cream pie and yelled, “PINKIE! RAINBOW!”

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Shortly after Applejack, Fluttershy awoke. Fluttershy worked as an animal caretaker/veterinarian, and was used to waking up early to feed various early risers that she kept in her cottage. If she was too be honest, despite being up early, Fluttershy had had the best sleep inside the castle then she had in a while, mostly thanks to not having to wake up and feed the nocturnals in her care.

Fluttershy stretched and got of bed, sighing contentedly all the while. She had this feeling that this morning was going to be wonderful and she would start it off great with a nice, long brushing of her mane.

She opened the door to be greeted by a grinning Wolverine.

Fluttershy slammed the door and screamed, or as loud as she could.

Laughter reverberated in the room as the Wolverine pushed open the door, which had not been slammed close as this was Fluttershy, and chased after her.

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Rarity was startled awake. She tore off her sleeping mask and looked around trying to find the source of the scream she thought she had heard. She caught the sound of thumping coming from the wall behind her. This confused Rarity as she knew that the room beyond belonged to Fluttershy, and Fluttershy wasn’t known for being loud.

Rarity shook her head and decided that it was probably nothing. Knowing that she couldn’t go back to sleep after waking up, Rarity got out of bed and trotted over to her en suite bathroom.

Inside was a small, but cozy bathroom with a toilet, vanity and large tub with a shower head above the taps.

She immediately turned the taps and pulled the tab in the faucet to start a shower. She got into the tub and enjoyed the steady warmth that seeped into her from the hot water. She grabbed her personal shampoo bottle, not noticing that it was, in fact, not her shampoo bottle or even shampoo. She lathered her mane with the not shampoo, washed it out, and wrapped a towel around herself before stepping out of the tub.

After stepping out of the shower and ensuring the water was turned off, Rarity levitated a nearby hairbrush and began to groom her luxurious mane.

As she came in front of the mirror, she noticed something was off. It took her a few seconds, but she realized what was wrong.

Her mane. It was Pink.

Riotous laughter followed the ear splitting scream.

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This coincidentally, woke up both Spike and Twilight from their sleep. Both looked bewildered as they looked around their room. Finding nothing, they turned to each other and shrugged.

Spike yawned loudly and asked, “Hey Twilight, can I just head over to the kitchen and start on breakfast?”

Twilight waved a hoof absently, “Yeah, go ahead Spike.”

Spike nodded and hopped out of his basket. As he opened the door to leave their shared bedroom, he was drenched in a waterfall of ice cold water.

Both residents blinked. Twilight hid her laugh behind her right hoof. “It seems you’re all washed up, Spike.”

Spike started shivering but still managed to add the right amount of snark to, “yeah, yeah, hardy har har, what a laugh.”

“Well, I’ll go grab a towel from the bathroom, so I can dry you off.”

As Twilight opened the door to the ensuite bathroom, she was also drenched in much the same way as Spike. Twilight started shivering.

Spike started laughing along with another.

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Needless to say when the the group finally arrived and sat down to eat less than stellar apple pancakes, nopony was happy.

Applejack looked around at her group of friends. Twilight was dripping water onto her pancakes and her mane was drooped around her. Rarity was smiling unnervingly with a pink mane for some reason, and attacking her pancakes with a fork and knife rather vehemently. Fluttershy was all too calm as she ate her pancakes and fed pieces to a Wolverine that was wagging its tail happily at being fed the tiny morsels.

Deciding that she wasn’t ready to ask Rarity and Fluttershy who were acting far too calm, she instead turned to Twilight. “So, why are ya dripping all over the place, Twi?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes and glared at her pancakes seemingly willing them to burst into flames. “Somepony dumped water on Spike and I, and for some reason there were no towels anywhere in the vicinity. I had Spike go and fetch some towels from elsewhere.”

Applejack nodded and then turned to Rarity. “Why is your mane pink?”

Rarity’s smile grew strained, “whatever do you mean, darling? My mane is purple.”

“No, it’s pink.”

“Purple.”

“Rarity, Ah might not be some fancy dress maker, but Ah can tell your mane is-”

Rarity stabbed her knife into the table. “PURPLE. My mane is purple, and it will always be purple, and it has never not been PURPLE.”

Everypony stopped what they were doing for a moment to stare at Rarity.

“Well, uh, yeah. Ya know, you’re right it’s definitely purple. Must ‘ave been the light.”

Rarity nodded, “Well, of course, darling. No harm done.”

Applejack reminded herself never to mess with Rarity’s hair and then turned to Fluttershy, why is there a Wolverine at the table?”

“He was in my bathroom.”

Rarity and Twilight stopped to stare at Fluttershy with Applejack. Fluttershy looked slightly flustered at the attention.

Rarity spoke next, “Fluttershy, darling? Why was there a Wolverine in your bathroom.”

“Well, um, I don’t really know. He was really hungry, though, so after calming him down, I brought him down here so he could eat something.”

“The Wolverine-” Twilight began.

“Barney.” Fluttershy interrupted.

“Ya named the Wolverine?”

“No, he named himself.”

“And he chose ‘Barney’?”

“Yes.”

“That’s one of the dumbest things Ah’ve ever heard.”

Fluttershy hid behind her mane.

Twilight sighed. “Well, regardless, how does a Wolverine just appear in somepony’s bathroom?”

“Well, Ah don’t know how, but Ah’m sure it was Pinkie and Rainbow.”

Rarity sighed. “Well, pranks are something those two are rather fond of.”

“Considering they haven’t shown up for breakfast yet, I think we can safely assume that’s the case and that this isn’t over.” Twilight said.

Right on a cue a single-tiered cake seemingly fell from nowhere and landed directly in the centre of the table. It was coated in pink frosting, and had several candles arranged around it in a circle. There was a letter on top of the cake.

Twilight grabbed the message from the cake in her magic and flicked the stray icing off. She opened the message and read aloud: “‘Meet us in the dungeons.’”

The cake promptly exploded.

Everypony was covered in pink icing and cake batter. Barney proceeded to first lick all the cake off of his face and then Fluttershy’s. Nopony was amused.

At that time Spike arrived carrying several towels and surveyed the damage. He groaned, “How come I always miss out on the fun.”

“Ah’m going to kill’em.”

“I agree, darling.”

“Well, um, only if we don’t kill them too badly.”

Twilight just narrowed her eyes.

Still dripping with cake, all four mares plus one Wolverine got up and started heading towards the dungeons, while grabbing a towel from Spike’s hands.

Spike waited a moment and yelled, “Hey, wait up!”

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In the Castle, the dungeons were, if ever, rarely used especially in the current era of peace that Equestria was known for. Princess Celestia believed in diplomacy and friendship over prisoners and torture. There was a time long ago when such things were necessary, but no longer.

The entrance to the dungeons were never guarded and thus easy for the group to enter. The entrance was difficult to spot if somepony didn’t know exactly where it was as nothing distinguished it from the other wooden doors in the corridor.

Thankfully, Twilight knew her way around and with no hesitation opened the simple wooden door and started down the staircase to the dungeons with her friends.

The stairway was made of simple stone and lined with magically lit torches that turned on as the group passed them. No sound penetrated the walls and an eery and angry silence filled the stairway as the group proceeded onwards.

First, Fluttershy became unnerved by the dimly lit area followed shortly by Spike, Barney, whom Fluttershy brought along so he wouldn’t be lonely, and then Rarity.

“Is this really such a good idea?” Fluttershy inquired.

Applejack and Twilight, still caught up in their anger from earlier, replied in unison, “Yes.”

“Oh, um, okay.”

After a few more flights of stairs the group arrived at the landing and were surprised at what awaited them.

It was not the unused cells that lined the dimly lit corridor, nor was it the eerie silence that permitted the area and would chill any lesser pony. It wasn’t even the smell of dust, mold, and rats that promised at least two nights of continuous scrubbing to rid themselves of the smell.

No, what surprised the ponies was the blinking neon sign overtop the door on the far side saying in bold lettering: “Welcome to Ponies and Drakes!”

“What in tarnation is that?”

“Um, can we just go back now?”

“Well, this is certainly unexpected.”

“I’m really confused.”

Barney howled in agreement to Spike.

Twilight for the second time that morning had nothing to say.

“Hey guys, welcome to the fun for today!”

The ponies were startled as a red mist exploded from the ground in front of them to reveal a faded purple Pegasus with a red mane. .

“What in tarnation?!”, Applejack exclaimed, “Who are you?”

The Pegasus laughed as a red cloud came up from behind his back and started swirling around his head. “Glad you asked! I’m Defiance, or rather Topsy-Turvy, and I will be your literal dungeon keeper for today.”

“I’m sorry, darling, but did you say ‘dungeon keeper’?”

“Yep and you’ll be the adventuring party for today’s Ponies and Drakes.”

“‘Ponies and Drakes’?” Applejack said.

“Yeah, I saw Spike reading about it the other day and thought it would be fun.”

Everypony turned to Spike who shrugged helplessly. “In my defense, it was played on table not in actual dungeons.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but, um, where are Pinkie and Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy inquired.

“Oh, we’re fine.” The stallion replied.

Twilight clued in, “Wait a second. Did you two fuse?!”

In response the stallion grinned, while the cloud overhead bounced happily.

“Are kidding me?!” Twilight yelled. “I told you not too because we don’t know what these fusions can do, and you went and fused anyways?!”

The stallion or rather Topsy-Turvy laughed, “Of course! Fusion is awesome and we feel great. We even got to pull those pranks this morning as we got this place set up.”

While Twilight fumed, Fluttershy asked, “But why?”

“Well, the fusion was just because it looked awesome and we wanted to do it, buuuut…” - Topsy grinned widely “After what happened yesterday and finding out what I can do (or is it we? Or I? Is you possible? Nah, let’s go with I) , I decided that we could all use some fun.”

“And the pranks?” Applejack inquired.

Topsy-Turvy grinned mischievously and shrugged, “Because why not?”

Applejack scowled and started to say something before Rarity butted in, “Now I can certainly appreciate some entertainment just as much as the next pony, but must we go through some huge” -Rarity gestured at the door- “whatever this is? Surely we could just go to the spa or something? I’d settle for Scrabble at this point.”

Topsy-Turvy shook his head. “Nope.”

Rarity sighed. “Well, what happens if we don’t play?”

Topsy-Turvy stopped smiling and the cloud above his head started turning a darker shade of red. “I won’t un-fuse. Ever.”

“But you can’t just not be Pinkie and Rainbow Dash. That’s ridiculous!” Spike exclaimed.

Topsy-Turvy glared and the small sparks started coming off of the red cloud. “Well I, and I also mean we, really like being Topsy-Turvy and you guys need to have fun, so whether you want to or not, you will play.”

“Now, wait a minute fella, you can’t just stay this way forever just because we won’t do your stupid-”

“IT’S NOT STUPID!” Topsy-Turvy yelled as he cut Applejack off.

The group was startled by his outburst and lightning that crackled around the red cloud over top his head.

Topsy Turvy continued. “Look, all you have to do is take the weapons found in the room right after this door and make your way to the end of the dungeon where you’ll find me.”

“It’ll be fun, promise!” Topsy-Turvy pleaded as the cloud above his head started raining.

The group looked at each other warily, but nodded their heads in acknowledgement.

Immediately the cloud and the Pegasus's mood lightened up. “Okay, now like I said you’ll find a bunch of weapons in the next room. Make your way through the obstacles and meet me in the final room. Have fun.”

Topsy-Turvy brushed one of his wings along the floor and created a hole startling the other ponies. Topsy grabbed his cloud thing and jumped in, disappearing.

The group looked nervously at each other before Applejack said, “Well, I reckon we might as well go in.”

The group braced themselves then opened the doors towards the mayhem that awaited them. When all six of them, Wolverine included, walked through the door, it closed behind them with a resounding thud.
.

Author's Notes:

Hey guys!

So I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I feel I should explain what this is about.

The first thing is that I don't want to do a "fusion of the chapter" story because that would kind of be boring. Secondly, I want to slow down the pacing a little as I find it's going a touch too fast right now. I also want to spend some time developing Topsy-Turvy's personality and giving more insight into the Mane 6 and what they're going through in the story right now.

Also if you feel Bouquet wasn't really developed it's fine, she'll show up later and be much more developed as a character.

So I thinks that's all. Again, hope you enjoyed it and I'll be starting chapter 4 and then the interlude chapter, which will conclude the first part of this story.

Have a good morning/night ~!