Chapter 2: What Else is New?

Once they were far away from Applebloom and her group of ponies Twilight began to really think about what was going on. Thinking back to Appleboom's supposed age, as well as all of the questions she had asked Applejack, Twilight had a fairly good idea of what was going on, but she couldn't be %100 certain of it.

"Applejack, come on, cheer up" Rainbow said, finding it painful to watch as one of her best friends tried to hide her pain from everypony, which only made it worse. If the state Applejack was in was any sign of how traumatic it had been to find out everything she did, then things were going to get a lot worse before they got a tiny bit better. When Twilight trotted over to see if Applejack was okay she was met by a hoof to her neck, holding her up on her hind legs.

"Why did you take us here?!" Applejack asked, tears flowing down her face, "Why did we come here?!"

"I don't know, something went wrong with the spell!" Twilight said quickly, feeling Applejack's hold on her getting tighter and tighter. No pony could even come close to sympathizing with Applejack. Just that morning she had been playing with Winona, throwing her old ball around the farm without a care in the world, and now, she was gone, complete with a grave and everything. It was like someone had just taken her own sister from her, right there in front of her, without remorse. Right now, all Applejack wanted to do was hurt Twilight for sending them all into the future, and she wanted to go home, where she could play with Winona again.

"Get back here Ellie!" somepony shouted from nearby, causing everypony to jump in surprise. They had all been so focused on Applejack's outburst of emotion that they had forgotten where they were. A minute later a small dog with brown coat came bounding through the bushes, stopping when he saw Applejack. Without anypony saying anything the dog sat down, it's tail wagging happily as if it was waiting for Applejack to do something. When it saw the tear stains on Applejack's face it hopping up, happily licking them off in the hopes that it would bring a smile to Applejack's face.

"Finally, there y-" the pony who had been running after the dog froze, staring at Applejack in surprise, "Mom?" There was a stunned silence as everypony realized what her calling Applejack that meant. This young mare, around thirteen or fourteen, was one of Applejack's children...

"Mom? Aunties?" the mare asked, beginning to get worried about what was going on. For her, seeing the six of them, and Spike, together was strange, and for them to be acting the way they were was even stranger. Twilight came up with a plan to find out her name without missing a beat, coughing to bring attention to herself.

"Um, excuse me..." Twilight said, leading on that she didn't know the mare's name. Thankfully she picked up on that, finding it to be normal for some reason.

"Oh, sorry Auntie Twi, I'm Pink Pearl, the oldest of the triplets" the mare said with a bow of her head. which made everypony look at each other worriedly. Was the Twilight of the future some hunchback that no pony ever saw, or was she being kept so busy that she wouldn't get to see her best friend's children? While they all thought about it two more ponies jumped out the bush, with dogs by their sides.

"Old by what, three seconds?" the mare said, accidentally placing herself as Pink Lady, the other mare.

"Hey, I thought I was oldest!" the colt said in a whiny voice, making his sister's laugh, meaning that he was Apple Cider. The triplets continued to laugh together as their dogs walked over to Applejack, joining in Ellie's efforts to make her smile. They happened to notice this and stopped laughing long enough to bring it up.

"Everything okay mom?" Apple Cider asked worriedly, not liking it when any mare, especially his mother, was feeling down. Applejack was about to tell them that she wasn't their mom, or at least, not yet, but Twilight stopped her by pulling her aside.

"Applejack, don't let anypony know that we're from the past, it might cause problems for us" Twilight whispered, making Applejack look at her in confusion. She understood that it might be bad if their future counterparts found out, but hiding it from the kids that she was going to have, she didn't know if she had it in her to do that. Twilight noticed and looked over at the triplets, thinking of a way to ask the question that Applejack had in her head for her.

"Are these Winona's pups?" Twilight asked as she knelled down to pet one of them, who happily jumped up to lick her face.

"Eeyup" Pink Lady said, the Apple Family's trademark yes having been passed on, "The one you're petting is Christopher, or Chris for short, and the other three are Ellie, Ashley, and Sherlock" Twilight looked back to see Applejack on her back as she tried to hold the three "attackers" at bay, the dogs each trying to give her face a good licking so that she'd cheer up. After some more fighting Applejack gave up defending and went on the offensive, rolling to her hooves and quickly chasing the three pups around the group, getting some surprised giggles from the girls.

"I've never seen mom do that before!" Pink Lady said in between a giggle, quickly being over taken by a laughing fit as Applejack turned around and jumped over the dogs, the three of them obviously confused as they looked around frantically until one of them, Sherlock probably, found her standing behind Apple Cider.

"Come get me!" Applejack shouted, and at that the dogs charged at her and Apple Cider.

"No, no, no!" Apple Cider said quickly as the dogs ran up to him and knocked him to the ground, trampling over him with reckless abandon. Everypony laughed hysterically when one of the dogs came back and gave him a slobbery lick on the forehead.

"Always the joker, aren't you Ashley!" Apple Cider shouted as he got up, and angry look on his face that only made the girls laugh harder. When everypony eventually calmed down Applejack stopped, silently ordering the dogs to freeze with the wave of a hoof. She was pretty impressed, Winona's pups were as obedient as she had always been, and who ever trained them must have been really good with animals.

"So what brings you three out here?" Applejack asked, trying to pretend like she actually was their mother.

"Talking them for a walk" Pink Pearl answered, "Gala would be walking Ashley but she's busy with homework today"

"We were also thinking of going off the farm to practice our flying techniques" Pink Lady said, bringing attention to her and Pearl's wings for the first time, "Dad said that he was going to teach us when we were older, but his work around the farm has taken up most of his time this year, so we're teaching ourselves" Applejack smiled at her two daughters, extremely happy to see that they were being self reliant and taking it upon themselves to practice something they wanted to do. She didn't quite know if that was something that Soarin had taught them, or if it was something they had just learned themselves, but she was proud of it. Apple Cider was about to ask who the strange, rainbow maned Pegasus was, seeing as he had lots of time to look around while they were talking about flying, but somepony came through the bush behind him and...

"BOO!"

"AH!" Cider screamed as he jumped forwards, spinning around in the air so that he would land facing his assailant. When he looked behind where he had been standing he saw a cyan pony with a rainbow mane, the only difference between her and Rainbow being their cutie marks and that one had wings while the other didn't.

"Auntie Dash!" Cider whined, making them all laugh.

"You always did scream like a little filly" the mare laughed, her voice sounding almost identical to Rainbow's, except the fact that it was a slight bit lower. She seemed to notice Rainbow, but passed it off as nothing, thinking it was some illusion or coincidence, so she went on with why she was there in the first place.

"You guys should come home, lunch is almost ready" she said, looking at the triplets with a smile.

"But we were just about to go flying!" Pink Lady whined, getting a laugh from the mare.

"Ok, well then you guys can miss out on the sunflower salad that your mother just made" she said before turning around and making her way back into the bush, the triplets all looking at each other with wide eyes. Without saying anything they ran off after the mare, obviously really wanting to get some of the sunflower salad.

"So..." Pinkie said, looking at Rainbow suspiciously, "Was that you?"

"I... think so..." Rainbow said slowly, obviously very freaked out by what had just happened, "Twilight, this isn't going to cause any- Twi?" Everypony quickly turned to look at Twilight, who was on the ground stroking her tail, mumbling something about paradoxes and the world imploding.

"I think she's broken" Spike said, poking Twilight in the face with one of his claws. She twitched slightly and started to come back to reality, her face turning bright red when she realized what she had done. After she fixed her mane Twilight returned to normal, still blushing from the embarrassment.

"So..." Twilight trailed off, "Should we get off the farm now, before we run into anypony else?"

"That sounds like a good idea" Applejack said, nodding in agreement. After some more nods from everypony else they headed towards the border of the farm, seeing the wide expanse of Ponyville just ahead of them. It looked almost identical to the Ponyville they knew and loved, other than the fact that they saw a new neighborhood on the outskirts of town. From where they were standing they could see the familiar outline of Sugar Cube Corner, in the exact same place it had been for them, fifteen years ago.

"Do you think the Cakes still run it?" Rarity asked, making everypony think. Would the Cakes still be there, even after fifteen years, or would they have passed it on to somepony else so they could go work somewhere else, in a new bakery?

"It couldn't hurt to go and check right?" Pinkie said, her stomach growling to give her an idea, "We might even get a nice snack out of it!" The girls laughed while Spike nodded in agreement, his own stomach growling now that the mention of a snack was in his mind. A few more growls from the girl's stomachs made them decide to go down to the bakery, hoping that them being together wouldn't cause any problems. As they got close to the bakery they heard the door slam open, followed by some excited hoof steps.

"MOM!"

"Oh no..." the group groaned, knowing what that word had in store for them. Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Sh#tstorm at 3 Estimated time remaining: 41 Minutes