//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Uncharted: Applejack's journey // by The-rogue-shadow //------------------------------// Nathan kicked the basement door in, screaming at the still sleeping Sully to wake up, as Applejack and Elena set about packing up all of their gear. He dragged Sully off the cot, the old man’s chin slamming into the concrete floor. “What in the hell is going on Nate,” he yelled, wiping the drool off his cheek. Applejack was shoving all of her clothes in her bag, including the elements of Loyalty and Laughter. “Khrushchev’s men found us, has Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie appeared in a flash of magic. Got shot at. Alligator,” Nathan said breathlessly, surprising Applejack with his ability to sum up their situation in such a compact manner. Sully simply shrugged and proceeded to pack up his gear, curiosity sated for the moment. “So where are we going now?” Applejack asked Elena as she made a mental checklist of her possessions. Elena slung her bag over her shoulder and made her way over to Sully and helped him pack. “The United Kingdom, the ‘impossible stones’ couldn’t be anything other than Stonehenge. The stones in question aren’t from the UK, and no one knows how they got there, since it was before any kind of modern technology, hence ‘impossible,’” she explained, shuddering as she accidentally picked up a pair of boxers before throwing them in Sully’s face. After ten minutes of frenzied packing they sprinted out the front door of the hotel and all but dived into their rental car, opting to leave the stolen jeep behind. Nathan slammed the accelerator to the floor, tearing away from the curb and racing down the street, ignoring the disgruntled looks of the hung-over people gradually awakening on the streets. Barriers had been erected at both ends of the street in an effort to contain the partying. The blue sedan smashed through the wooden barriers, cracking the windscreen as a piece impacted the glass. “God dammit Nate! How do you expect us to get our deposit back,” Sully yelled and the other three all gave him a very puzzled and irritated look. “Seriously, that’s what y’all are worried about?” Applejack shouted in disbelief. “We are getting chased by people who are trying to KILL us!” “Since you’re new here, I’ll give you a break. But this happens to us all the time,” he said sarcastically, pulling a cigar out of his jacket pocket. “Is that true?” Applejack asked, whispering into Elena’s ear. Elena nodded once, smiling sheepishly. Applejack simply replied with a sigh, leaning back against the seat and proceeded to rub the bridge of her nose. “Granny warned me about falling in with the wrong crowd.” “I’ll take that as a compliment,” laughed Nathan, trying to lighten the mood, something Applejack did not appreciate. She was used to danger, to risking her life for the sake of the greater good, but this was something else. But there was something else that was nagging at her, and above all else, it was the fact that she had killed more than one person less than an hour ago. It was the first time she had killed anything, and for whatever reason, she didn’t feel as bad about it as she thought she should. ‘I shouldn’t feel too bad, they were trying to kill me, and they hurt Dash. They deserve it,’ said a dark voice in the back of her mind, a voice that scared her. “I hope they don’t hurt Pinkie, I can’t imagine what they did to Rainbow,” she said to Elena, who gave her a reassuring pat on the arm. “Well the worst they can do is beat them,” she offered unhelpfully. “Yeah, they aren’t ‘equipped’ for anything worse,” Sully piped up, chuckling as he chewed on the unlit cigar. “What do you mean?” Applejack asked, confused. “They’re eunuchs Aj,” Elena explained, smiling as they boys in the front winced. Applejack just shrugged, having no idea what the word meant. Elena blushed as she made a scissoring motion with her fingers and pointed to her lap. A few moments passed before her mind finally clicked over to what she was talking about. “Oh, OH! Really? Why would they do that?” “Because they are insane,” Nathan exclaimed, dodging a particularly slow car in front of them. A wave of calm washed over her, knowing that her friends were a little safer. *** As soon as she was in the air, Applejack fell asleep, every muscle in her body aching from tension. Elena woke her four hours later, a tray of food in front of her. “Are you alright?” she asked, as Applejack started to eat. “I’m just so tired.” “Well I’m not surprised; this sort of job is fairly intensive.” “You call this a job? Why do you do this?” “Well each of us is different. For Nate, it’s about the discovery, about finding something no one else can. Sully is just interested in the money he can make off whatever we find, and me? Well at first I went along with it because I was going to get a television show out of it, but now… It’s just more fun than real life, do you know what I mean?” she told her and Applejack nodded, she knew that she must have had the same spark in her eyes whenever Twilight was galloping toward the farm in a panic. “We are strange people aren’t we?” she laughed and was soon joined by Elena, eliciting strange looks from those around her. “Hey, I’m sorry for dragging all of you into my business.” “Hey, don’t worry about it,” said Elena, waving it off. “We were after the elements anyway, and if we can help you get home, then it’s all the better.” *** With the rest of the flight being uneventful, Applejack had once again fallen asleep, much to her embarrassment when she started to snore, although she didn’t find that out until they had landed. The first thing she noticed when they got off the plane was the temperature difference. New Orleans had been humid and uncomfortable, even inside the temple, but in London, the city they had arrived in, it was cold and misty. The only thing they had in common was the time it took for Applejack’s hair to become completely soaked. The car they had rented was a larger one, an ‘SUV’ as Nathan called it. It was bright red, with green strips along the side, which strangely reminded Applejack of her brother Big Macintosh. Elena had called ahead to a score them a hotel in the town of Amesbury, where the national landmark of Stonehenge was located. From what she could tell, the English countryside was much like the areas surrounding Trottingham and Hoofington, with the deep green rolling hills and the fences made entirely out of stone. Applejack had borrowed a small device off Nathan called an ‘iPhone’ and was using it to learn more about her temporary home. It was hard not to react to the fact that the entire planet apparently shared the characteristics of the Everfree forest. The weather shifted of its own volition, the animals took care of themselves and war had occurred many times in its history. When she came to a section about ponies, Applejack started to get angry at the pictures of humans riding them or having them pull carts. It was like they were slaves to the humans, forced to do their bidding with very little in return. On a whim, she typed the question ‘are ponies sentient?’ into the search engine, and was only met with advertisements for children’s books that featured sentient ponies. With a defeated sigh, she returned the device to Nathan and rested her head against the side window, allowing her mind to wander back to Equestria, and more importantly, why her friends where here and looking for her. ‘Ah know Twi promised to come find me, but how could she have possibly done it without my element of harmony? She seemed sure that we were doing magic only possible with the help of the elements,’ she pondered as her eyes traced the rise and fall of the horizon. The town of Amesbury was one of the must rustic and oddly comforting places Applejack had ever been. Many of the houses had tiled rooves, much like some of the larger ones in Ponyville, or the hospital. The streets were cobblestoned like Canterlots, and there was a farmers market going on in the town’s square. “This place is so much like Ponyville,” she said to the others, all of who gave her a puzzled look. “The town where I live is called Ponyville. I mean, sure, there are a few differences, like the fact that Ponyville is almost completely surrounded on one side by my family’s orchard, of that the library is a massive hollowed out tree.” She could feel their eyes boring into her, but ignored them for the sake of reminiscing. The hotel they found themselves in was more like a bed and breakfast, but with a few strange rules that Applejack didn’t mind at all, even if the others hated them. The main rule was that men and women weren’t allowed to sleep in the same room, regardless of whether they were married or not, meaning that they had to pay for a second room so that Nathan and Sully had a place to sleep. Frustrated and a little disappointed, Nathan told them all to get some sleep, and get ready to head out to Stonehenge the following morning.