//------------------------------// // Chapter 23 - Applejack, Rarity // Story: A Journey Unthought Of: Revival of Chaos // by Hustlin Tom //------------------------------// Applejack had been sleeping soundly when she had awoken. She hadn’t had a bad dream or heard any loud, sudden sounds that might have done the awakening; she simply was asleep, and then she wasn’t. Fully alert in an instant, she lay in her bed as she did her best to listen to what the sounds of the night held at one-thirty in the morning. Something wasn’t right, and she could feel it in her bones. Glass broke downstairs. Something shattered to the floor. Applejack jumped out of bed and slammed her hat on. Thieves, she internally grumbled, Wha happened to the honest ponies in this here town, huh? Descending down the stairs as quietly as possible, Applejack noticed that there was an eerie green light coming from the kitchen. As she slowly approached the doorway to the kitchen, she peeked her head around the corner. Emerald flames were consuming the room at an alarming rate, pouring out of a broken glass bottle which had been thrown into the house through the window above the sink, and that now lay in the middle of the floor. Horrified, Applejack whirled around and ran back up the stairs to the bedrooms, yelling as she went, “Fire! Fire! The house is on fire!” Slamming the door to Granny Smith’s room open, Applejack ripped the covers off of her. Startled awake, the old mare whirled her head all around, “Wha’s goin’ on? Applejack?” “Granny, lean on me as quick as yah can,” Applejack said as she wrapped her elder’s foreleg around her neck, “The house’s on fire, and we need to get out!” “Hold yer horses one second,” Granny Smith exclaimed as she looked around the room, before quickly picking up the family photo album, “Now we can go.” Making as good of time as they could together, they hubbled back down the hallway to the awaiting stairs and front door. Big Macintosh’s door was already open. Applejack quickly looked into his room and then outside through a nearby window as she helped Granny along, “Big Mac! Where are you?!” “Here, sis,” the large stallion said as he appeared with a still sleeping Apple Bloom on his back from out of her room. “Thank Celestia,” Applejack said as she exhaled sharply, “Let’s go!” “Here,” Big Mac said as he took Granny Smith and gave Applejack her little sister, taking the older mare on his back to carry her to safety faster. “Wazgoinon?” Apple Bloom muttered as she started to become aware of her surroundings. “Whatever you do Apple Bloom, hold on tight!” Applejack yelled as she began to gallop down the stairs. The green flames had already reached the foot of the stairs, and were beginning to climb upward. Big Mac and Granny were nowhere to be seen, so Applejack hoped that meant they had already made it out. “WooOOOAAAH!” Apple Bloom yelled as her sister ran down at the flames, jumping over their reaching tendrils of cold fire. Slamming down on the floor just out of the fire’s reach, Applejack bolted for the door and made it out safely. Seeing Big Mac and Granny Smith some distance away from the homestead, Applejack ran for them with the adrenaline she still had in her system, and nearly bowled them both over when she met them. “Oh mah gosh,” she said through her panting breaths and tears, “Ah’m so happy we’re alright!” Embracing every one of her family members in turn, she turned back to look at the house with the rest of them; it was completely engulfed in the hellish green flames. “Nothin’s lost tha’ was really important,” Granny Smith said solemnly as she looked to her family, “You three, and these memories,” she said as she motioned to the photo album in the crock of her right hoof, “Are the only things in this world Ah could never replace.” “But where’re we going to stay now?” Apple Bloom asked. Big Mac looked at the ground for a moment, before his eyes turned toward the barn. Applejack’s face paled as she realized a new horror, “Where’s Winona?” Suddenly, in the direction of the barn, the Apples could hear the sound of continuous angry barking. Applejack ran after the sound, ignoring Granny’s cries telling her to wait. As she came near the barn, she heard the barking continue. Running around the side, Applejack saw two ponies she didn’t recognize running off into the distance. Winona had been standing guard near the barn, barking after the two strangers. When she saw her owner, Winona ran to her, and began to lick her face. “Winona,” Applejack gasped as she hugged her dog and smiled a little, “Ah was so worried about you.” The moon, which had been hiding behind the many clouds that night, revealed itself, and as Applejack looked up her smile disappeared, as she now saw that the side of the once cherry red barn had been marked with a dark purple crescent moon. Rarity was awoken by the smell of smoke. While it wasn’t unusual to wake to a burning smell in the morning after Sweetie Belle tried to practice her culinary skills for her benefit, she had fairly good reason to believe her sister wasn’t making breakfast around two in the morning. Swiftly leaping out of her bed, Rarity made for her sister’s bedroom as quick as she could. As the two of them were making their way downstairs, they passed through the design and showroom of the Boutique. Fabrics of all sorts of colors were lit up with the orange flames that were consuming the two unicorn’s home from the inside out. Her home, her business, everything that Rarity had worked so hard for during the past few years, it was all being destroyed before her eyes. She stopped and tried to snuff out the flames with her magic. No matter how much she tried to smother the fire, it just kept coming back, burning brighter and brighter with every minute bit of material it could devour. “Rarity, come on!” Sweetie Belle yelled to her sister as she motioned to the front door. “No,” Rarity yelled back, as she turned on the tap in the kitchen with her magic and began to funnel the water into the room with as much concentration as she could muster, “I have to save the Boutique! I can’t let all this be ruined!” She sprayed the water in one direction, then another, but the flames would resurge elsewhere twice as high as before. She began to whimper to herself as she now saw that the flames were spreading too fast for her to put out. Sweetie Belle grabbed ahold of her sister and began to forcibly drag her out of their burning home, “Rarity, come on! This isn’t worth losing you! We have to get out!” The fire had reached the ceiling and had begun to eat away at the rafters. The rafters themselves had begun to creak and groan heavily. Crying to herself as she was lead out of the Boutique by her younger sister, the two of them looked on as the place they had lived for so long when away from their parents began to collapse under its own weight and the effects of the horrid fire. Rarity sobbed heavily as she watched the final minutes of her recent life’s works go up in smoke, while the Carousel Boutique at last completely collapsed into itself, leaving nothing but a now large pile of glowing embers and ash. Even in their devastation, the two unicorns noticed a patch of earth near where they were sitting, which had been scorched down by a second fire, separate from the larger one. The pattern on the ground was in the shape of Princess Celestia’s Cutie Mark. As Rarity stared at the symbol, things began to make a greater amount of sense, and she began to shake in anger. There was only one kind of fire in the world that could burn so vigorously and reduce any building to a pile of ash as quickly as this had. “Phoenix fire,” Rarity seethed. She then turned and ran toward the center of town, while Sweetie Belle did her best to keep up with her half-crazed, distraught, and completely furious sister. In no time at all, the two of them had reached the library. It was nearly morning now, and the first few pale rays of sunlight were groping towards the eastern sky. Rarity had almost made it to the door before two shadows landed in front of her, blocking her path. Startled by the sudden presence of Umbra and Nox, she skittered to a halt a few paces away from them, which left Sweetie Belle some time to catch up with her older and longer legged sister. The two Antrozi guardsponies snarled momentarily at the two of them, and they began to fervidly sniff the air. The two of them shook their wings loose before resting them once again, and they humbly bowed their heads to the two unicorns. “Apologies, Lady Rarity and Miss Belle,” Umbra declared dutifully, “It is not often we see two ponies out so close to the end of the night, and your approach seemed suspicious. What is it you wish to bring to Mistress Sparkle’s attention?” A light appeared in Twilight’s bedroom as she lit a candle, and she opened the nearby balcony doors to step outside to see what had caused her two guards so much alarm. Looking down at the four ponies, she was shocked by her friend’s presence so early in the day, “Rarity? What’s going on?” Twilight punctuated her statement with a yawn, “What are you doing up so early?” Rarity exploded as she began to blurt out her mind, “I would still be in bed, if it wasn’t for the fact that my Boutique has been turned into a pile of ashes! Those wretched Solar Empire ponies took everything away from us with their phoenix fire, and now we have nowhere to go, nothing to eat-” “Wowowowoah,” Twilight tried to slow her friend down, “Somepony burned down the Boutique?!” “Twilight! Ah reaaally need to talk with you!” Applejack called out as she galloped towards the library. Umbra put up his hoof and barked “Stop!” at the approaching earth pony. After he and his brother thought she was safe, they let her pass. Applejack looked to her fashionista friend with growing confusion, “Rarity? What’re you doin’ here?” “The Boutique has been destroyed,” she replied with bitter sadness, “Why're you here?” “Sweet Apple Acres’ been attacked! They’ve burned down the homestead!” Twilight looked back and forth to her two friends in growing confusion, “Who? Who burned it down?” Applejack angrily growled and looked back in the direction of her burnt home, “Those cowards that’re abusing Princess Luna’s name! If I saw one of ‘um now, I’d feel mighty entitled to strangle ‘um for what they’ve done!” Twilight’s levels of confusion skyrocketed. Finally, she looked down to her two guards, “Umbra, Nox, let my friends in. Could you also make us a quick breakfast, please? We’ve got a lot to talk about.” The two guards nodded their understanding. Umbra opened the door for the other three ponies to enter, and Nox made his way to the small kitchen suite to begin making a light breakfast for everypony.