Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds

by Bunnybooze79

Chapter 2

The trio just pulled up next to Sugarcube Corner as two unpleasantly familiar ponies left the building.

“My, my, seems like the blank flank express has arrived at Sugarcube Corner.” Diamond Tiara sniggered and turned to Silver Spoon at her side. “I say express, but how fast can it be when it is powered by a chicken!?” They laughed at their cruel little joke.

“Don’t ya call her a chicken!” Apple Bloom said while jumping out of the trailer.

“Oh? Well I can’t call her an ostrich, she is far too small to be one.”

“Perhaps she is a dodo?”

“Haha! Nice one Silver Spoon.”

The unpleasant duo laughed a while longer and moved away from the angry Apple Bloom and the equally annoyed Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo tried her best to ignore the insults and just pretended to not hear them. Deep down however they stung her as they always did.
Without a second glance she made her way into the building followed by her best friends. As luck would have it they found themselves alone in Sugarcube Corner. The morning rush had passed and no customers were here for the time being. It wouldn’t last long before the afternoon customers would appear. Mrs. Cake looked up as the young fillies came through the door and gave them a warm smile.
“Hello there, my dears.”

“Hello Mrs. Cake!” the trio greeted in unison.

“And what can I do for you today?”

“We need to refill our snack bowl! So we would like to buy six muffins and six cupcakes please.” Sweetie Belle chimed with a small crack in her voice.

“That’s a large order. Take your time selecting the muffins you would like to have. Cupcakes have run out I am afraid, but Pinkie is already making some new ones as we speak. If it is ok you could wait until they are finished.”

The thought of having freshly baked Pinkie Pie cupcakes brought a smile to the crusaders faces.
After a small glance at the muffin selection they placed their order and paid with the bits they brought with them. While they would wait for the cupcakes they decided to eat a muffin each here in the shop. As soon as they sat down a familiar voice suddenly spoke up right next to them that made them jump a ponys height in their chairs.

“Hi!” How Pinkie Pie managed to appear next to them without any of them noticing was as always a mystery. “I heard you are waiting for my super yummy delicious cupcakes! Now’s the time for any special requeeeheests!” she sang while bouncing from hoof to hoof.

The three ponies had to first regain their composure before thinking about the offer. Pinkie Pie kept on smiling at them while bouncing.

“Can Ah have vanilla ones with chocolate sprinkles?”

“Ooooh. Good choice! I’ll even make the sprinkles extra sprinkly!”

“I’ll have the same I think, but with a pink strawberry frosting.”

“Supie Dupie! Reminds me of the time I once fell into a whole tub of chocolate sprinkles by accident. Well I say by accident….” Pinkie shook her head to focus back to the task before her. “And what about your cupcakes Scootaloo?”

“I… uhm… I’ll have two lemon frosted ones with pistachio pieces, please.”

“Niiice! I have a pistachio costume upstairs in case anypony ever wants to have a nutty party. Although pistachios are actually more like a pea, but throwing a pea party just kinda sounds weird. Don’t you girls worry, your order is in capable hooves!”

Normally something said like that from Pinkie Pie would have caused uneasy looks. However when it came to anything related to parties including the food, you could bet that she would do her best and she had yet to disappoint. They watched her bounce back into the kitchen area and each took a bite of muffin while they waited. The door opened again and a pegasus stallion smiled at them briefly before casually walking over to Mrs. Cake at the counter. There he held idle chit chat for a brief moment and looked around for something to appeal to his appetites.

“Come back here you!” The voice of Mr. Cake came from upstairs and seemed a little frustrated. Everypony turned to the sound of the commotion. Pound Cake the young pegasus son of the cakes came flying down the stairs, closely followed by Mr. Cake himself. The baby evaded every futile attempt of his father to catch him by flying higher. He began circling above the counter giggling happily.

“Oh dear. What happened?”

“I just changed his diaper and had my back turned for half a second!”

Mr. Cake jumped and tried to snatch his son out of the air. With a thud he landed back on the ground, looking up at the still giggling baby.

“Where did we put the butterfly net?”

Before Mrs. Cake had the chance to answer, the Pegasus in front of them flew up to the infant catching him before he had the chance to escape and handed him to Mr. Cake.
“Thanks, Thunderlane.”

“No problem, really. I was just the same as a baby my parents often told me.”

Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were laughing at the little show that had unfolded before them. Scootaloo however was not laughing. Had they looked over they would have seen their friend looking crestfallen at the flying prowess of the young pegasus infant. She glanced at her own wings for a second, suddenly feeling a surge of anger wash over her. The anger subsided as quickly as it came and was replaced with a deep sadness.

“Useless.” She mumbled to herself unheard by her friends.

She pushed her half-finished muffin away, nothing would pass the lump in her throat that had suddenly appeared.

“Scootaloo? You ok?”

“Fine.” Scootaloo couldn’t bring herself to look at Sweetie Belle.

“Ya sure? Somethin’ wrong with yer muffin?”

“I’m fine.” Scootaloo snapped. She took a deep breath. “Sorry. I just need a breath of fresh air.”
Trying to keep up a fake smile Scootaloo stood up from the table they were sitting at.

“What about our order?” Sweetie Belle asked while also slowly standing up.

“You two stay here and pick it up. We meet up later again.”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at each other with a worried expression.

“Uhm, if you really don’t want us to come with you….” The little unicorn left the sentence hanging.

“No, I’m ok. I am just outside for a moment.”

With those words the orange pegasus left her friends sitting at the table. She saw the concerned look in their eyes, but didn’t feel like talking to them right now. They wouldn’t understand what she felt like so suddenly. What it felt like to see every other Pegasus being able to fly, even those as young as the son of the Cakes. And he was just an infant.

_________________________________________________________________________________

As soon as she was out of the building she unhooked the trailer, jumped on her scooter and sped off, but she didn’t get very far as her vision began to blur from the tears in her eyes. Barely able to contain her sobs and drive straight at the same time, she jumped off her scooter at ran down a nearby alleyway. It was out of view from any ponies in the town square and deserted. A fairly large discarded box was waiting to be picked up by the trash collectors. Scootaloo peered inside and found it to be empty. With heavy sobs she sat inside and let her tears flow.
“Why?” she asked aloud. “Why am I so useless?”

A voice in her head answered her.
"Perhaps because you don’t push yourself enough.”
That was something similar that Rainbow Dash had told to her a while back. Her idol was talking again about how she would be a Wonderbolt one day. The reason for that being that she pushed herself again and again to get better. The thought of Rainbow Dash calmed the distraught filly somewhat.

Just earlier she had praised her for an awesome stunt. Even though it was only something she had done with her scooter. Scootaloo thought about how she should push herself to flying. Her eyes wondered over the items in the alleyway simply for the sake of doing something at all. The box she was hiding in must have been the packaging from a refrigerator she realized. The dumpster next to the box seemed to be rather empty, the trash must have been picked up in the last couple of days. Scootaloos eyes wandered up towards the sky. She caught a glimpse of a small flock of birds and let out a frustrated sigh at the sight. Wait…. Birds!
She tried to remember something that Cheerilee said in class. Or was it Fluttershy who said that?
Baby birds aren’t taught how to fly. They just get more or less kicked out from the nest and manage to fly on instinct alone. It seemed cruel to her at the time and she began to doubt if that was actually true. Still… there was something about that idea. Perhaps she would just have to activate her instincts to fly somehow, if that was even possible to do. Weren’t instincts something you did without really realizing you were doing them?

Scootaloo sat in the box for a while longer, her tears having dried up some time ago. The noise from ponies going about their business picked up again and she was right in assuming that it already was late afternoon.
Her friends must have left Sugarcube Corner long ago already. For a brief moment she thought about telling them her idea, but remembered the angry look on Applejacks face. No… this was something she would do on her own as not to get her friends into trouble.

The plan she had come up with was simple. While flying through the air earlier that day during her stunt she could almost feel how her wings wanted to do that on their own, without the aid of her scooter. The best idea in her mind was to combine the jump with her scooter and the bird drop school of flying. Gain enough height via a ramp and at the top of the jump let go of her vehicle and let her wings take over.
Carefully she walked back to where she had left her scooter. It had rolled on a bit after she had jumped off and was now half buried in a bush. With a grunt she pulled it out and headed back to the town square trying her best not to be seen by anypony.

Luck was on her side for once. Most ponies had left the town square and were now enjoying the late afternoon by visiting the parks or taking a stroll through the countryside. Most of the stalls were empty now as well, either because the vendors had run out of goods to sell or because it was getting late and they themselves wanted to enjoy the late sun in a more relaxing manner.

Scootaloo looked over to where Applejack had her stand. It seemed as if she had sold all of her apples for the day, the earth pony herself however was nowhere to be seen. She had moved the cart with the makeshift ramp closer to her stall, Scootaloo noticed. With a determined look on her face she put her plan into action. Thanks to the new location of her target she now had a much better accelerating area. The long smooth road leading up to the ramp would give her much more speed than before. A different matter was the landing zone. An empty stall was more or less blocking her way. With a shake of her head, the young pegasus cleared that thought out of her mind. The landing zone did not matter, because she did not intend to land and rather fly through the skies. Her wings buzzed with excitement as she prepared herself for the task before her.

“This chicken will fly!”

The words were barely out of her mouth before she shot forward, her wings buzzing as fast as she could manage. Without the added weight of the trailer and her two friends her speed was increased by a large factor. No more than an orange blur with a streak of purple. She was close now and forced her wings to move even faster. In the corner of her eye she saw Applejack walking around the corner of a building. Twilight Sparkle was walking next to her engaged in conversation with her friend. The speeding filly put them out of her mind, she didn’t feel like having another conversation about how dangerous her stunts were. With maximum speed she hit the ramp.

Time slowed down for Scootaloo. The feeling of escaping gravity, the wind in her mane and the air rushing through her feathers was pure delight. At the highest point of her jump she let go of her scooter and stretched her wings out as far as possible. She felt their resistance against the air. Applejacks stall was far behind her now and just ahead was the empty stall from some other vendor. A smile crept onto her face.

This is awesome! With her height and speed it really felt like flying. Then a familiar tug from below, as gravity tried to pull her back to ground.
Not this time!
She let her wings take over and flapped them wildly, for a brief second it really did seem to work, but too futile were her attempts at defying gravity. Unimpressed with her performance the unseen force pulled her back towards the ground. Scootaloo pumped her wings as fast as she could, but soon realized the attempt was in vain. She didn’t manage to pass the empty stall. As a matter of fact it seemed as if she would…

“Uh oh.”

Comments

[ThyPrincessOfTheNight]

Oh no! I hope Scootaloo doesn't get too badly hurt. Come on RD give her some attention! I look forward to your next chapter.

[Raven]

I like it! This thing needs more upvotes.

[Fluttershyisacutegal]

save scootsy rainbow!

[Fluttershyisacutegal]

2786853
agreed