Chapter 1 - The Last Crusader
Scootaloo was totally seeing, but at the same time, not believing it at all. What?! she thought to herself. How in Equestria did they get their cutie marks before me? Without wasting another second, she raced down the rest of the path, slowing down just in time to come to a halt in front of her two friends.
"Oh, hi Scoot," Apple Bloom said. "Guess what? Sweetie Belle and I just-"
"I know," Scootaloo replied softly. "I saw, but, how? How did you get them?"
"Well," Sweetie Belle started. "Apple Bloom was helping her brother and sister gather apples from the trees, when she hit the tree, and all the apples fell from it." She pointed to the Apple Bloom's cutie mark with the image of an apple blossom. "I got mine when I was in the shower this morning. I was singing a song I really liked when it just appeared," she showed her own cutie mark; the two separated eighth notes notes on her flank.
Scootaloo stared in bewilderment. "What are we going to do now?" she asked her friends. "We can't all go crusading for our cutie marks if some of us already have them."
"Sweetie Belle and I have talked about that to," Apple Bloom replied. "We wont be a part of the Cutie Mark Crusaders anymore."
"WHAT?! That can't be true! We're all friends! We do everything together! Why are you going to leave me?"
"We're not going to leave you," Sweetie Belle told her. "We just wont be a part of the club anymore. You can do all the crusading you want, and we can still hang out when we all have free time."
"But it wont be the same..." her voice trailed off for a second. "We wont be able to go on adventures together as long as we all aren't in the club."
"Don't worry about it, Scoot," Apple Bloom told her. "We can still be fri-"
"No!" Scootaloo shouted. "We can't! We were only friends because we didn't have our cutie marks! Now that you two have yours, we can't be friends!"
"Scootaloo, that's not true..."
"Yes it is! If you two want to be friends, go ahead! Leave me alone from now on!"
Scootaloo didn't bother staying to hear them object. She hopped onto her scooter and rode away as fast as she could.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle stayed behind and watched their friend leave on her scooter, leaving a trail of dust behind her.
"We did this, Sweetie Belle," Apple Bloom said. "We shouldn't have told her we were leaving the club."
"But Apple Bloom," Sweetie Belle started, "if we didn't leave, we would just ruin the entire time for Scootaloo. If we already have our cutie marks, we wouldn't have any fun with her if she was the only one crusading."
"I know, but we still shouldn't have told her so soon. We should have stayed in the club until she was ready to hear that from us."
"No, Apple Bloom. Staying in the club meant doing completely pointless things for her enjoyment. We had to leave. Its a part of the Cutie Mark Crusader's Rulebook. 'Section 5; Subsection 7: When a crusader gets their cutie mark, they are then no more a part of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.' That was one of the biggest rules we had when we started the club."
"Couldn't we change the rules?"
"No. Only a crusader has the power to change the rules. That was the last rule of the rulebook."
"That means that..."
"Yes, Apple Bloom. Only Scootaloo can change the rules now."
"That's not what I was going to ask. I was going to ask if we were able to join the club again."
"No. We cant do that either. Section 7; Subsection 3 says that you are only to be permitted as a crusader once."
"That settles it then."
"Really?"
"Yes. Scootaloo was right."
"About what?"
"You are a dictionary."
Upon reaching her house, Scootaloo sat at the doorstep, crying. She cried until she couldn't cry anymore. Even then, she still felt like crying. Walking inside, she once again greeted the air. Instead of being cold like earlier that morning, it was stale. Not the slightest bit of life seemed to occupy the air inside her home.
Yet, she still greeted it. It was home. Away from those two who pretended to be her friends. Away from the club.
Away from everypony.
It was true. She was an orphan. Her parents had left her when she was only 5 years old. They just left her in the house she stayed at. Whenever somepony asked where her parents were, she always told a slightly different story. She normally said her mom was at the market, while her dad was on a business trip.
She missed them. She wanted to have a true family. A family that would treat her like their child.
That could never happen. Anypony with half a mind would never adopt her. She was selfish, rude, loud, unsatisfactory, and had a scooter as her most prized possession. Why would anypony want to adopt her?
Before earlier that day, the club was the closest thing she had to a family. They all enjoyed the things she did, played together, and even went through the worst together. Now, there was nothing left. No friends, no family, nothing.
Just a sad, orange pegasus with a purple mane. With nothing left in the world to live for, Scootaloo climbed into her bed. She didn't care that it was nearly 11 o'clock AM. All she cared about was the fact that she was alone now.
She thought about the club as she tried to go to sleep. She was the only crusader left. Apple Bloom's cousin in Manehattan, Babs, used to be a crusader. She wrote to Apple Bloom last week to say that she got her cutie mark in bully-prevention. She also wrote that all members in the Manehattan branch of the club had also gotten their cutie marks.
This officially made Scootaloo...
...The Last Crusader.