The Wrong Equestria

By Silvertie

Blame the Pears

“Thanks again, Twi, for givin’ me a hoof with this,” Applejack said, walking alongside the purple unicorn.

“No problem,” Twilight shook her head, easily keeping pace and carrying the three anvils floating above her head. “What do you want so many anvils for, anyway?”

“Aw,” Applejack adjusted her hat. “Spares. For some reason, our anvils keep goin’ walkabout, can’t find the darn thing half the time. Ah’ve had enough.”

Twilight had a brief flash of inspiration and the recollection of an orange projectile in the air that allowed her to guess just where and how that anvil might be going walkabout, but decided to stay silent about it - Applejack might not be so keen with the idea of the Crusaders using it as a counterweight for their homemade catapult.

The two mares were walking away from a farmhouse surrounded by tables covered in miscellaneous items on the outskirts of Ponyville, towards a waiting cart, where Big Macintosh was waiting for them. Twilight stopped next to the cart, and with deceptive ease, placed the anvils carefully on the back. The wooden vehicle creaked, but held the weight of the three anvils easily.

“Thanks again, Twi,” Applejack said. “Ah’d carry them myself, but we’d probably be here all day, what with these anvils bein’ made of meteoric iron and all. Hopefully they won’t go missin’ so easy in future.”

Twilight nodded. “It’s no problem, really. What is this place?”

“This?” Applejack looked around at the farmhouse and the fields and trees beyond. “Ol’ Pear Schnapps’ place. Poor stallion passed away not too long ago, his estate’s gettin’ sold off and the money’s goin’ towards charities and stuff, like he wanted.”

Twilight looked around, as Big Mac steeled himself, and began to pull the anvil-laden cart away. The farm was similar to Sweet Apple Acres, truth be told, only instead of apple trees, they were-

“Pear trees,” Twilight smiled. “Pears. I love pears!”

Applejack’s face was like granite. “Well, they won’t be here for long. They’re probably gonna get dug up, replaced with carrots; Ah think Golden Harvest’s got her eye on this land. Either way, good riddance.”

Twilight looked at Applejack. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothin’ against Pear Schnapps,” Applejack said, “But he’s a darn dirty pear farmer. Ah don’t care for pears, and we’ll just leave it at that.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Applejack was a good pony, but she had some weird proclivities. Like this apparent hatred of pears. She looked back at the tables laden with old bric-a-brac, craning her neck, and Applejack spotted her.

“You know, you can walk over there and start nosin’,” Applejack said. “Ah think Schnapps was somethin’ of a sciency-type, with his brass tanks and distilling and all; he might have left somethin’ of interest to you.”

Twilight laughed. “I doubt it, but it couldn’t hurt to have a look. Do you have anywhere to be?”

Applejack looked back over her shoulder, at Big Mac, who was easily, but slowly, pulling the cart around the corner and down the road, about thirty seconds’ brisk trotting away. “Nah, not for a good time, Ah’d say. Let’s go have a look-see, huh?”

The two friends returned back to the extended yard sale, walking slowly as they looked at what remained of Pear Schnapps’ life in the mortal plane. Mostly whiteware, distilling equipment (which looked to be rapidly moving into the possession of Berry Punch, so forget even trying to get that) and enough glass jars to preserve half an orchard, it seemed.

Schnapps’ pear-product and alcohol-based equipment aside, he’d also left behind a great many books; some fiction, some non-fiction, and a fair few scientific texts. Twilight picked one up, scanning the book cursorily as she flicked through the pages at high speed. She closed the book, and looked at the cover.

“Was Pear Schnapps a unicorn?” She asked.

“Nah,” Applejack shook her head. “Earth pony. Last of quite a long line of ‘em, too, if Ah recall right. Why?”

Twilight tapped the front of the book. “What I want to know is why a pear farmer of all ponies would have a book on experimental thaumodynamics relative to spatial disruption.”

“Smaller words, please, Twi,” Applejack said, digging a hoof in her ear.

“Books on how to poke holes in reality with magic,” Twilight said. “Teleportation theory.”

“Oh,” Applejack nodded. “Why didn’t y’all just say so sooner?”

Twilight put the book down, and moved further down the table. The debris of research lay not far away; mostly broken or useless equipment, although Twilight thought she saw the makings of artificial magic emitters, powered by batteries filled with the magic of unicorns who had nothing better to do than shoot their magic into a cup all day long.

“What in the wide world of Equestria was he doing?” She  mused, poking through the dross. Most of it was junk, only really useful to non-unicorns with an obsessive interest in practical magic, not exactly the most usual hobby for a pony.

“Beats me, Twi,” Applejack said, nosing at what looked like a gold and silver wireframe horn. “Perhaps he was findin’ a way to teleport his dirty pears into baskets or somethin’.”

Twilight gave Applejack a look, and Applejack just pulled a “what do you expect me to do” face. Twilight turned back around, and her eyes fell on a large, ornate, wooden case. Curiosity seized her, and she popped it open with a pulse of magic. Inside, on a bed of velvet, six gems rested in little niches. Rough-cut gems, they were crystals of a roughly double-ended-cone shape, each one distinctly colored to set it apart from the rest. Red, green, blue, yellow, violet, orange. A veritable rainbow.

She noted a scrap of paper resting amongst them, and she fished it out.

1) Place gems in circle, according to colors of rainbow

2) Place pear in middle of circle, to power reaction (possibly get blast shields as well?)

3) Resonate all six gems simultaneously at 16k megathaums

4) ????

“What the hay is that?” Applejack asked. “Instructions? For these gem things?”

Twilight shrugged, and waved to one of the ponies running the sale. “Excuse me?”

A yellow stallion noticed, and in a blink, he was standing next to them. “Hi there! Short Change, how can I help?”

“What’s this?” Twilight asked, indicating the box of gems.

“Ah, that,” Change said, nodding. “Mr. Schnapps’ pet project, I think. His calendar had “use gems” marked on it - those are the gems he was talking about, I presume. It’s just a shame that he was bedridden with delirious dreams, and passed away before he actually got to use them.”

“So, nopony knows what they do?” Applejack asked.

“Nope!” Change grinned. “Could be something wonderful, could be something incredibly boring and broken, who knows?” The salespony turned to Twilight. “What could it be, that you hold in your hoof? Could it be... destiny?”

Twilight blew a raspberry. “Destiny. I don’t really believe in that mumbo-jumbo. Still...” Twilight looked at the gems. “How much?”

~~~~~~~

Twilight stood in the empty field not far from Schapps’ old farmhouse, and nodded in satisfaction. Before her, six gems glittered in the grass, poking up out of the ground, arranged in a perfect circle. Applejack had, unwillingly, placed a pear in what Twilight had judged to be the exact center of the circle.

“Ah don’t know about this, Twi,” Applejack said, wrinkling her nose. “Smells like trouble.”

“Oh, hush,” Twilight said. “You’ve been pulling faces all day. It’s the pears, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Applejack admitted. “So, now all you gotta do is resonate the gems, yeah?”

“Sounds like it,” Twilight looked at the paper again. “Yeah. Beyond that... not even Schnapps knew, it seems.”

“Can you do it?” Applejack asked, mildly concerned. “Sixteen thousand megawhatsits sounds like an awful lot.”

“It is,” Twilight admitted. “But then, talent for magic? Celestia’s personal student?” She pointed at her rump. “If anypony can get these gems going like that by touch alone, I can.”

“Alright,” Applejack said. “Be careful.”

“I will, sheesh,” Twilight smiled. “I’m only pumping gigathaums of power into a magical system that I know nothing about, what’s the worst that could happen?”

A small pony tapped on Applejack’s shoulder, and Applejack spared a manifestation of her own common sense a quick look, the miniature rendition of herself hovering in the air.

“This here’s a bad idea, and you know it,” Applejack’s conscience whispered.

“But... it’s Twi,” Applejack countered. “Ah’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”

“Do you, really?” The mini-AJ crossed her forehooves. “Be honest.”

Applejack winced. It hurt to be chided by what amounted to herself, but that’s why she was the Element of Honesty, she guessed. She looked at Twilight, and saw the truth; a unicorn who wielded incredible magical power, with very little compunction regarding applying it in unknown and possibly dangerous ways. Not exactly survival traits.

“Twi,” she cleared her throat as Twilight’s horn began to glow, the gems humming quietly as they began to vibrate in their earthen cradles. “Ah’m thinkin’ this is a bad idea the more ah think about it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Twilight said, smiling as she finally found the right frequency. “See, look, I got the frequency spot-on!”

The gems had ceased vibrating to the visible eye. Instead, now they glowed with a radiant light, lines of magical light creeping towards the pear in the middle, each line perfectly equidistant. Applejack, from the relative safety of a few metres away from Twilight, watched as they drew closer to the hated pear. She took her hat off, and clutched it to her chest, along with her conscience.

The lines converged, and touched, directly underneath the pear. The pear began to thrum with power, and Applejack saw a future of horrible trouble and dire inconvenience in great proximity to herself.

“Aw, hayseeds,” she said, as the pear exploded in a ball of light. Twilight yelped in surprise, and the light engulfed them both.

If there had been anypony watching, by the time their eyes had adjusted from the bright flash of light, there would have been nothing left to see; just a shallow crater lined with gems, spattered with bits of burned pear. And the smell? What a smell.

It smelled like Adventure.