Chapter 3: Apples and Oranges

Tangerine woke up in an oddly familiar bed in a familiar room. When she got up and looked around she found out she was inside the old farm house in Sweet Apple Acres. After looking around some more she recognized it as her own room from when she lived on the farm.

"What am I doing here?" Tangerine asked sleepily as she wandered towards the door. She made her way out of the room, being pleasantly surprised that the house hadn't changed in any way since she was here, save for a few pictures of the young filly and a mare that looked oddly like her. She thought for a moment that Big Mac had gotten married to a mare that looked like her because she left at such a young age, but it seemed like a very slim chance. Although she did come to the conclusion that the mare in the photo must have been the mother of that filly that had run up to her.

"Good to see that you've finally gotten out of bed" a gruff voice said from behind Tangerine, making her jump slightly. When she turned around she found Big Mac sitting in a chair, his forelegs crossed in front of him. She watched as he got up, slowly making his way towards her, his toned muscles distracting her completely.

"You're glad to see me are you?" Tangerine said seductively as Mac stopped in front of her, his gaze going right through her.

"Actually no, I'm not" Big Mac said with a hint of agitation in his voice, "You slept in until ten in the morning"

"I only slept in because I was dreaming of you..." Tangerine said as she walked passed Mac towards the kitchen, shaking her flank as she did, trying to catch his attention. He did lose focus for a moment, but quickly snapped back to attention.

"AJ, you can't be sleeping in, we have to harvest the orchards!" Big Mac said angrily, her actions now annoying him. She was acting completely carefree, but if they didn't harvest the apples now they wouldn't keep the farm for very much longer. Tangerine wasn't paying any attention to what he was saying, and instead decided to lean over seductively to give him a nice view of her flank, also giving him an amazing view of her cutie mark.

"AJ, why do you have an orange on your flank?" Big Mac asked, letting Tangerine know that something really was off. Why wouldn't he have known that she had left long ago and became an Orange family member? It was odd and confusing for her, and ended up throwing off her seductive act, but she quickly got back to it

"Oh, it's nothing, would you like to get a closer look?" Tangerine said quietly as she slowly trotted over to him, her flanks swaying in a way that allowed him to see her cutie mark on either side. He lost focus for a moment, but the sound of Applebloom and her friends running up onto the porch.

"I gotta go now AJ, don't make any more trouble" Big Mac said flatly as he walked towards the door, opening it for the fillies to run inside before heading out himself, giving Tangerine one last look before shutting the door.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight was trotting around the library when the door opened, Spike, followed by Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy behind him. She had told Rarity and Fluttershy to go collect the other girls, but Spike had caught sight of Rarity and decided to help, eventually ending up doing all the work for them. Rarity quickly walked up to Twilight with a crazed look in her eyes.

"Please tell me you know how to fix this!" Rarity whined, hanging her forelegs around Twilight's neck.

"I don't know how to fix it, but I do know what really happened" Twilight said, flipping her chalkboard around to reveal an intricate diagram.

"What is that supposed to show us?" Rainbow asked, not being able to make heads or tails of what Twilight had drawn.

"It's showing what had happened to Applejack, or Tangerine as she wants to be called now" Twilight said in a teacher's voice before producing a pointing stick out of nowhere so she could explain her work, "Here you can see me. Now this is where it went wrong, Spike had forgotten to place the apple down, so when I fired the spell, it hit Applejack instead. Because we do know that when she was younger she went to live with her relatives, the Oranges, it can be assumed that had Rainbow not performed the Sonic Rainboom, she wouldn't have come back to Ponyville. This would have meant that she would have become as we see her now, with a high class attitude, coupled with an orange for a cutie mark. The spell literally turned Applejack from an Apple, to an Orange!"

"Ok, I can see why you're excited about this, but is there anyway to turn her back from..." Rainbow said, trailing off as she tried to remember the new name.

"Tangerine" Fluttershy said quietly.

"Thank you" Rainbow said before continuing, "Turn her back from Tangerine, to Applejack?"

"I don't know, but for now we're going to have to live with her" Twilight said sadly, the thought of losing her friend affecting her more than she thought it would, "I'll send a letter off to Celestia tonight, but I'm not sure if even she'll know what to do..." The atmosphere in the library was heavy and depressing, so much so that even Pinkie couldn't find anything to be cheerful about. They had all done so much with Applejack, losing her would be devastating, and now all they could do was hope Celestia would know how to fix it...

"I'm going home..." Rainbow said quietly as she trotted towards the door. Each pony said the same after her, and soon it was just Twilight and Spike in the library with only one thing to do.

"Spike, take a letter" Twilight announced sadly as she looked once more at her diagram, finding it hard to hold back tears as she told Spike what to say to Celestia.