//------------------------------//
// End 
// Story: Rúmcierr 
// by Matthais Unidostres 
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Applejack was lying on her back when she finally managed to open her eyes. The bright sunlight caused her to squint, but her eyes quickly adjusted to the light and she managed to make out her new surroundings.
She felt soft grass on her back, and slowly breathed in an out as she continued to lay there.
“Finally, Ah get ta catch mah breath,” Applejack said softly as spread herself eagled on the grass.
Applejack stared up at the sky for a bit, then she raised her head a bit to see what was in front of her. Her eyes widened a bit when she beheld a large apple tree loaded with ripe fruit.
“Aww, hay yeah!” Applejack shouted, breaking into a smile of relief and joy. She practically flipped up onto her hooves, and that action made the hunger within her all the more prominent. However, seeing the apple tree in front of her made Applejack gladly welcome the hunger.
Now in high spirits, Applejack let out a chuckle and pranced in place a little bit in her excitement. “Boy, howdy! At last, somethings going right for me.”
Then Applejack felt her right hind hoof hit something. She stopped in mid prance, and she turned around to see the time machine shaking a bit from being hit by her hoof. The antenna on top was starting to build up power and the numbers on it were changing rapidly.
“DANG IT, NO!” Applejack shouted at the machine in both terror and fury, and she swift bite the top of the antenna and then slung the whole device on to the ground, hard. Then she got up on her hind legs and repeatedly shouted at the top of her lungs, “NO MORE!” With every shout, she put everything she had into stomping her forehooves into the device, channeling all her earth pony strength into each blow.
After several hard stomps, Applejack finally stopped seeing red and looked down at the result of her rage. The device now looked like a smashed metal egg, with the screen that showed the numbers shattered into pieces, and a tangle of loose wires and cracked pieces of green plastic partially sheltered by what was left of the metal shell. The antennas on top were bent, and the green light on the underside was no longer glowing.
Applejack stared at the broken time machine for a moment, then she laughed and pranced victoriously around the smashed remains of the device. “YEE-HAW! How do ya like me, now!” Applejack cheered. Then she stopped her prancing in order to focus on the nearby apple tree. She quickly trotted over to it, smiling wildly as she thought of how sweet the fruit would taste after all she’d been through.
Applejack got within bucking distance of the tree, and swiftly turned around and said, “Ah’ll find a way back home one way or ‘nother. But right now, Ah’d say Ah’m happy right where Ah am.”
Then, Applejack gave the tree a good hard buck.
BONG!
The reverberations shot through Applejack’s entire body, from her back hooves to her very teeth. Applejack fell clumsily face flat as the aftershocks shook her to the core. Eventually, the vibrations died down enough for Applejack to slowly raise her head and say, “Wha-?”
Applejack blinked her eyes, and she slowly got up and turned around to take a closer look at the apple tree. She slowly raised her right forehoof and knocked on the tree’s trunk twice. The ringing sound told her that the tree was actually a very accurate and realistic looking metal sculpture.
Applejack frowned and said bitterly, “Well, ain’t that a buck to the head. . . but why in the hay would anypony-?”
Applejack’s voice trailed off when she spotted part of a plaque a quarter of the way around the side of the trunk from where she was standing. Applejack took a few steps around the tree sculpture in order to get a look at the plaque, which read plainly, “Here stood the last apple tree.”
Applejack stared blankly at plaque for a while. Eventually, she dropped down into a sitting position, still staring blankly at the plaque.
“Well, Ah’ll be. . .” Applejack said in a near emotionless voice, “Ah actually did it. Ah actually disproved the old saying, ‘it could always be worse.’ Ah actually reached the point where things honestly and truly couldn’t be worse. ‘Cause right now, there ain’t no possible way that Ah could be worse off-.”
There was a loud zap, and Applejack suddenly could no longer feel her hat on her head. She turned around quickly to see that the bent antenna on top of the broken time machine was sparking, and the machine’s green light was blinking on and off. Then, the remains of the machine emitted a flurry of sparks, and completely collapsed further into smaller bits that sparked a few times before going cold and silent.
Applejack gaped at the machine, and then without warning jumped up onto her hind legs and grabbed onto the metal tree with her fore legs. “WHY!?” she cried out in anguish, and then she began to bang her head repeatedly against the metal trunk.




















Rúmcierr- Applejack Travels through Space and Time
















By Matthais Unidostres





















A flash of light and strange sound coming from behind her caused Applejack to stop banging her head on the metal tree trunk and turn around. A glowing, spherical portal had suddenly appeared, and out of it fell Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, along with Spike who was riding on Twilight’s back while munching on an apple of all things.
“Ah! There you are, Applejack!” Twilight called out in a voice filled with relief.
Spike swallowed his mouthful of apple and said, “Good thing we got you on the first try. Twilight was already going starting to go bonkers, and you’ve only been gone about a day and a half!”
Starlight held up Applejack’s hat with her magic and said, “It certainly was a big break for us when your hat just appeared on top of the Cutie Map.”
“Home,” Applejack said as she still held onto to tree, eyes wide and breathing heavy.
Starlight continued, “Twilight and I took a look at it, and thanks to our mutual experience with time travel spells, we quickly noticed the chrono-based energy clinging to it.”
“Home,” Applejack said again.
Starlight still went on, “Then all we had to do was triangulate your-.”
“Home! Home! Take me home, please!” Applejack shouted as she fell backwards and collapsed flat on her back.
“Starlight!” Twilight shouted in annoyance.
“Sorry, sorry! I know, I was monologuing!” Starlight said in embarrassment, and she quickly levitated the hat back onto to Applejack’s head. “Alright, Applejack. Let’s get you home,” Starlight said with a smile.
Starlight and Twilight powered up their horns, and the portal reopened. The three ponies and the dragon were lifted up into it, and the portal quickly vanished without a trace.
A short time later, a chocolate brown unicorn with black hair and wearing glasses and a white lab coat ran to the scene carrying a handheld device with his magic.
“I know I detected a time bases anomaly back in the lab,” he said to himself, then he looked around the base of the statue and said, “But whatever it was, it’s completely-.”
The unicorn scientist’s jaw dropped, as well as his device, when he spotted something in the grass. It was the core of the apple that Spike had been munching on. Between the yelling of the mares and the wild whooshing of the portal, Spike had lost hold of it and left it behind.
The scientist carefully lifted the apple core up with his magic and studied it closely, his eyes wide in disbelief. “An actual apple core. . . with seeds intact!” he said breathlessly, then he let out a wild cheer and ran back in the direction of his laboratory shouted, “Woo-hoo! Looks like they’re gonna have to tear down that statue!”


The End