The crippling secret

by Jonny Bench

First published

Scootaloo has a secret, and it's one she's had for most of her life

when scootaloo was eight years old, she had a huge accident that changed her life forever. Her freinds heard about it, but they never heard the full extent of the damage. Scootaloo has lived her life without telling anyone about what happened, until an unfortunate event revealed her secret for all to see.

I might take out the idea of an OC here, let me know in the comments if you think it is a good idea or not.
I found this picture on the web the other day and was inspired by it

Prologue

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Late one day, a young girl was riding her scooter home from her friend sweetie bell’s house, thinking about how awesome her life is. She had fun at her freind’s, she has no home work, and she finally pulled off a really hard trick that she had been practicing for months. It was her best day ever, nothing could ruin it! She’s crossing the street in front of her house, when all of a sudden, a loud screech is heard followed by a *CRUNCH* and a scream of pain like no other. In her hurry to get back home, she hadn’t noticed a car going much faster than it should have been, and the car hit her as it went by. The driver quickly stopped and turned around to try and see if he could get help for the kid he hit, as the people who heard the scream open their doors to see what happened. Suddenly everyone started shouting at once

“This is terrible!”

“Somebody call an ambulance!”

“I just don’t know what went wrong.”

But everyone was silenced by the shout of a woman standing in front of her home
“My baby! Scootaloo, I’m coming!”

The woman was Scootaloo’s mother, Graceful Charity, or grace for short. By the time she got down to where scootaloo was though, an ambulance was already there, and the paramedics were getting a stretcher ready to transport the young girl.

“Mom, am I going to be okay?” The girl asked her mother

“Yes dear, everything will be alright. I’ll be with you soon, I promise.” The woman calmly said to her daughter as she left in the ambulance. Then grace walked over to her car and was about to get in it to drive to the hospital to be with her daughter before she heard the voice of a man speak to her

“Ma’m, I am so sorry about hitting your kid. I was going too fast and didn’t see her coming. I will cover the medical bills for you, it’s the least I can do after what I did. Here’s my number, please call me when the bill comes.”

As he hands her a business card and then walks back to his car, gets in it, and drives away. Grace stands there stunned at the fact that the man had decided to come back and try to help. She shakes off the feeling and hops into the car, and starts driving towards the nearest hospital, hoping she can get there to see her daughter. After an hour of looking around, and countless hospital visits, she finally finds where her daughter is located. When she walks in, she immediately notices one of the paramedics from the ambulance and walks over to talk to her.

“Hello, but I believe that my daughter is here, and I wish to go see her.”

“What is the name of the person, and how do you know him/her”
“Her name is Scootaloo and as I said before, she is my daughter. She was hit by a car earlier this evening.”

The paramedic looks at grace in shock and says
“She is currently being operated on, but I can call in the Doctor who diagnosed what needed to be done. Of course you two would be talking in private though.”

“That would be lovely miss..”
“Red Cross, ma’m”
“Thank you Red Cross, you have no idea how stressful this ordeal has been.”
“No problem ma’m. Could Dr.fracture please report to the front desk, Dr.Fracture to the front desk!”
Minutes later, the doctor has arrived and taken grace down to an empty patient's room, before starting to talk with Grace

“Hello, allow me to introduce myself, I am Dr.Fracture.”

“Graceful Charity, but please call me Grace.”

“Alright then Grace, I have some good news and some terrible news. I’ll start with some of the good news first, your daughter is alive and will be relatively fine. Any higher up, and she might have lost an organ or two.”

“What do you mean by relatively fine?”

“The terrible news is that both of her knee caps, as well as part of the bones surrounding them, were shattered, and her legs are being amputated to prevent any further damage.”

“but that means she’ll never walk again! She’ll be heartbroken.”

“Well, here’s the rest of the good news, the hospital will give you a pair of prosthetic legs she can use, rehab to help her get used to them and we’ll give you a replacement set every six months. She may, however, start to suffer from depression so, she needs to feel loved more than she ever has.”

“Thank you Doctor. When will she get out of surgery though, I want to see her.”

“She should actually be getting wrapped up right about now. We’ll give her this room, and wheel her in within a couple of minutes okay.”

“That would be wonderful. I can’t thank you or your staff enough.”

“Don’t worry about it Grace, it’s our job to do our best to help others when they’re sick or hurt.”
The doctor says as he walks out of the room to make the proper arrangements. Within a couple minutes, scootaloo is wheeled into the room on her bed, still asleep from the painkillers and sleeping gas used on her during the operation.
Grace walks up to her unconscious daughter’s body and holds her hand while saying
“We’re going to get through, this together!” While tears start to appear in her eyes as the severity of the situation finally hits her. Grace pulls up a chair and sits down next to her daughter, letting her tears fall freely, and cries. She cries for ten minutes until she can cry no more, due to the stress the day has put on her catches up to her and she falls asleep.

Scootaloo spent two weeks in rehab, and learned how to use her new legs with ease. On the day that scootaloo was released from the hospital, she picked out a pair of purple, knee high socks to hide her disability from the world, not wanting anyone to know about what happened. The man who hit her payed for her entire stay at the hospital and for future prosthetic’s and in return Grace didn’t take him to court, knowing that he learned his lesson.

Chapter 1

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“Scootaloo, you need to get up, it’s almost time for school!”
“Coming mom!”
Scootaloo shouted back to her mom as she finished putting on her legs. It’s been six years since the accident, and scootaloo has mastered using her legs to get around in. After she had figured out how to walk in them, she started running and eventually got to the point where she was riding her scooter. At that point she was back to her old self, and continued on with her life as if the accident never happened, except that she never told anyone about it if they didn’t need to know such as her classmates. Not even her best friend Sweetie Bell knows, and they do everything together. The only people that know other than her mother, are her doctors, and teachers. Now going into high school, she’s attempting to keep her disability a secret, but it gets to be increasingly difficult to do so. Scootaloo walks downstairs just as her mom is about to check on her again.

“Sweetie, are you sure you don’t want to tell anyone about what happened? I’m sure that if you opened up to someone about it, you’d feel much bett..”
“No mom, if I tell someone it’ll make it worse. People will start pitying me since I have a disability, and I don’t want that!”
She shouts back at her mom before walking into the kitchen to make some breakfast, ending the conversation at that. Grace sighs and follows her into the kitchen to make her lunch so that she can get going to school and not be late. She packs a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple some celery, and a brownie into a brown paper bag. Scootaloo finishes eating her breakfast, then runs into the bathroom to brush her teeth, uses the toilet washes her hands, and rushes back out to grab her backpack and lunch. After she has everything she needs, Scootaloo puts on a helmet and gets on her favorite scooter before zipping off to school.

When scootaloo gets to school, she makes sure her socks cover her prosthetic legs, puts her scooter on the bike rack, and walks up to the front steps. When she is about to walk into school, she runs into sweetie bell and they chat about their summer, while trying to find their homeroom as well as their lockers. After a few minutes of searching, they bump into Sweetie bell’s sister rarity who is talking with her friend Applejack and her sister Applebloom. They ask for help finding their homeroom and lockers, and are shown around the school by the two older students, while getting to know their classmate, Applebloom. After figuring out where they need to go, they head off to meet their homeroom class, and ask Applebloom to come along so they can talk
“So Applebloom, what homeroom are you in?” Sweetie bell asks

“Ah’m in room 121, what about you girls?” Replies Applebloom

“We’re in room 121 too! This is great, we can hang out during homeroom.” Says Scootaloo
“Yeah, and since Rarity knows her sister, maybe we can hang out more outside of class.” Sweetie Bell chimes in.
“Ya’h right, I don’t know why Applejack never mentioned Rarity had a sister. If I’d known sooner, than ah’d definitely have hung out with you two sooner.”
“You said it, let's hang out during Activity Period. Now let's hurry, we don’t want to be late on our first day!” Scootaloo says, wrapping up the conversation as they start to walk faster to their homeroom. They manage to get through the door to their homeroom just as the bell rings, and they sit down in three seats, right next to each other. Their homeroom teacher, Ms.Cheerilee, starts to call roll, while also getting her students to arrange themselves in alphabetical order. Once everyone has their assigned seats, announcements are read over the P.A. And after that, everyone starts to talk to one another until the bell for the first period rings.

“I wonder what classes I have first. Whatever they are, they can’t be that bad.” Scootaloo says to herself as she pulls out her schedule and looks at her classes, while walking towards what she believes to be her first class.
1 ½ hours later
“That was horrible, I have to start every day like that!” Scootaloo says as she finds her friends “why do I have to have English and Algebra as my first two classes of the day!”
“That can’t be nearly as bad as having to do Global history and Spanish back to back. I nearly fell asleep during both classes!” Sweetie bell replies to Scootaloo

“That’s not nearly as bad as having to have music class, followed by theology. My throat's sore from having to sing in both classes!” Applebloom says to both of her new friends.
“Good thing that it gets easier in the afternoon. I can’t wait for gym class!” Scootaloo says with excitement
“What period do you have it?” Asks sweetie bell
“Next, when do you have it?” Scootaloo replies
“I’ve got it next too. It’s great that we have a class together!” Sweetie bell excalims
“Hey, ah’ve got it next too, that's a great coincidence.” Applebloom says
“Maybe today won’t be so bad after all” Scootaloo says
“Hey, ah got an idea, how about we have a sleepover at my place tonight! Ya know, to “celebrate” going back to school” Applebloom says
“That’s a great idea! I’ll just need to ask Rarity if it’s okay if I can go. What about you Scootaloo?” Sweetie bell replies
“Sure i’m in, let me know what time to be there, and I’ll ask my mom.” Scootaloo says.
“Awesome, ah can’t wait! Hey, why don’t we go ask Rarity and applejack now. They should be free.” Applebloom suggests. Both Scootaloo and Sweetie bell nod their heads in agreement, before rushing off to find the two seniors

Chapter 2

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“Hey applejack, over here!”
The orange farm girl hears while she’s talking to her friends over by the track field. She turns around to see her sister and Sweetie Bell walking towards her, while Scootaloo is walking casually. This confuses her, since she heard that Scootaloo was the most energetic person around from Rarity. She pushes that idea aside as she greets the newcomers with
“Hey Applebloom, how’s your first day going?”

“It’s great Applejack, I can’t wait for gym class though. Also, I wanted to ask if ah could have Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo over for a back to school slumber party.”

AppleJack thinks about her sister’s question for a minute before turning to her friend Rarity and saying “Ah don’t know. It’s alright with me, but Sweetie bell’s going to have to ask rarity for permission first.”

Rarity turns around and says “did you say something darling, I thought I heard you call my name.”

“Applebloom wanted to know if Sweetie Bell would be able to attend a sleepover that she’s having.”

“Of course she can, I’m very happy to hear that she’s getting along with Applebloom, and a sleepover would be the perfect way to help them get to know each other.”

“Yes!” Both Applebloom and Sweetie call out with an enthusiastic look on their faces
“Now you just have to ask your mom Scootaloo.”

“I just texted her,” Scootaloo replied, “and she said that I can go. I’ll just need to pick up a few things from home first.”

“Great! How about you come by Sweet Apple acres around 5:00, or is that too early?” Asks Applebloom

“Five’s good, for me. Here’s my number, text me the directions after school okay.” Scootaloo replies.

“Got it. Also, sis why are you hangin out over, here. You don’t run track? Also, who are they?” Applebloom asks her sister

“This is Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and I’m here, cause they wanted me to try and get back together with Rainbow Dash.” Applejack replies as person with blue skin, goes racing around the track, her rainbow colored hair flying back due to how fast she's running.

Scootaloo sees this, and is almost swept off her feet.
“She looks so cool!” Scootaloo says “I want to be just like her!”
The rainbow haired girl starts to come to a stop as she sees her friends, fluttershy and Pinkie Pie,sitting in the bleachers next to a girl with purple hair and skin, three freshmen, and the two people she liked the least.

“What are you doing here.” Rainbow says in the direction of both Applejack and Rarity, with a look of annoyance on her face.

“Ah, wanted to apologize for what happened back then, ah shouldn’t ave done it, and ah shouldn’t ave waited this long to say sorry. Could you forgive me?” Applejack says, taking Rainbow by surprise.

Her surprise is quickly replaced by joy as she says
“I’ve been waiting to see if you’d finally say it. Of course I forgive you AJ,now how about a little race?” Rainbow asks as a look of determination appears on Applejacks face
“You’re on Rainbow!” She replies

They both line up on the starting line, and pinkie pie walks up to the line, while pulling a checkered flag from her hair. All of the other people present are making bets on who’s going to win, and Scootaloo is brimming with joy, knowing that she’s going to see one of the most awesome things to have taken place at her school.

Rainbow looks at all of her friends, and then at the freshmen who are watching. She knows who Applebloom and Sweetie bell are, but then notices the last person. She thinks she's seen her before, but can’t remember where.he attention snaps back to the race she’s about to participate in, and Pinkie says

“3.2.1. GO!”

At the moment when pinkie said go, both racers took off, bolting down the track. Rainbow pulls ahead, but then Applejack catches up. Then Applejack pulls ahead while rainbow catches up, going back and forth throughout the whole race. It seems like they are evenly matched until it comes down to the final stretch. Rainbow puts on a burst of speed, overtaking her friend, and pulls ahead, crossing the finish line just before Applejack.

“Was there ever a doubt that i’d win?” Rainbow says, before taking a drink of water.

“Ah figured you’d win, but ah had you on the ropes.” Applejack says in reply.

“Sure you did AJ, sure you did.” Rainbow says suddenly rarity shouts

“Oh my goodness, if we don’t hurry, we’ll be late for our next class!”

“Rarity, the bell hasn’t rung yet.”

“It doesn’t matter if the bell has or hasn’t rung yet Rainbow, our class is on the other side of the school. If we wait any longer, then we won’t make it in time.”
Rarity says, before she and her friends bolt off to their next class, leaving Scootaloo and her friends in their dust

“We should probably get going, if we want to get our stuff from our lockers.” Sweetie Bell says before they start to walk off. When they are about halfway to the school, Scootaloo says
“Rainbow dash was so cool back there, I want to be just like her when I get older!”

While both Sweetie Bell and Applebloom just roll their eyes at their friends idea. Scootaloo picks up her pace and, Applebloom & Sweetie Bell follow suit, rushing to their lockers and heading off towards the locker room after grabbing their gym clothes, blissfully unaware of the torture they were about to endure.

Chapter 3

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"All right maggots, today we're going to start out with the basic fundamentals of gym class! Now, who can tell me what they may be."
Coach Iron Will shouts out to his latest batch of freshmen. A short one who has brown spots with white skin meekly replies

"Girls vs Boys, sir?"

That is correct son, Boys Vs Girls is one of the three core ideas of gym class!"

"Ooh, ooh, Coach Will I know!"
A girl with greyish, purple skin says, catching the coaches attention.

"What is it Miss Doo?"

"Having fun!"

"That is correct, now who can tell me what the last basic part of gym class is?"

All of the people present stop, and start to think about what the last point is. While most of them are still deep in thought, a boy with dark brown skin, and a rust colored mane caustiously raises his hand. Iron Will notices this and calls on him

"Button Mash, can you tell me what the last point of the system is?"

Button swallows hard, knowing he may regret his decision in more ways than one, and says
"Is it... Dodgeball, sir?"
"That is correct! You have guessed not just the last point of gym class, but also the game you all will be playing today. It will be regulation rules, boys vs girls, dodgeball. You two, pick which side you want to start on."
Iron Will says, while pointing at a boy with grey skin and black hair, as well as a bubblegum pink girl who has two tone white and lavender hair, and eyes that look like swirls.

"Tell you what, I'll let you choose first. Yeah know cause you're a girl, and obviously you're all gonna lose."
The boy says to the girl. The girl grins evilly for a second, before politely saying

"Thank you Rumble, we'll take this side of the gym, while the boys get the other side."

"Alright then, best of luck to you, you're going to need it!"
Rumble says to the girl before leading his team around the edge of the gym to the starting line. Iron Will throws some balls out around the gym, some landing close to the middle line, some landing close to the starting lines. While he is throwing the balls, he starts to also shout out rules

"When I count to three then you'll run out and grab the balls. When you grab a ball at the start of the game, you must return to your starting line before throwing the ball. Failing to do so, results in you being out. If you catch a ball, then the person who threw it is out, and one of your teammates is back in. If you block a ball with another ball, you are not out. If a ball hits you, but someone catches it before it hits the ground, you are not out. If a ball hits your teammate, and then hits you, both of you are out. Finally, friendly fire is disabled. If there are no questions, then you all may begin!"

All of the kids in the room rush to grab the balls, except for one lone boy, who stayed at the line, sensing something was off. Suddenly, all of the boys start to slip and slide about, while the girls look on in confusion. Then the girl who had picked sides speaks up.

"Oops, looks like Janitor Discord put too much wax on one side of the gym earlier."

"Screwball, that's a lie and you know it! You asked him to make it unfair for you."

"Hey, just because I'm his daughter, doesn't mean that I ask him to help me cheat. He did this all by himself."

Screwball and Rumble begin to argue back and forth at each other, coach Iron Will being completly oblivious to what's going on. Soon screwball and the other girls decide to peg all of the guys, and after a few seconds, only one boy is left standing. Screwball grins with glee, seeing how she is about to win the game for her team, and throws a ball straight at the boy. Everyone holds their breath as the ball nears the boy, waiting in anticipation to see whether or not he'll dodge. At the last second, though, the boy hits the ball straight up into the air, before jumping up and catching it, catching everyone off guard. Then, he hurls the ball straight back at Screwball, who hasn't even been able to process what happened. Then, it hits her, and rolls back to the side the boy is on. Screwball is fuming as she walks off to the sidelines. Then all of the girls pick up a ball, and prepare to throw, as the boy grabs the ball that had rolled back to him, and prepares to move. All of the girls throw their balls at once, each one missing their mark as the boy either dodges or deflects the balls, sometimes hitting one of the girls with the ricochet. After a while, all the balls end up on the boys side, and he walks around picking up each one of them, before walking to the middle of his side of the court. Then the boy smirks and says

"Target confirmed"

In a robotic voice, before unleashing ball after ball upon the girls, until there is only one left, standing on the court, holding a ball she had used to protect herself. Then the girl runs towards the center court as best as she possibly can, and throws her ball with pinpoint accuracy, while the boy does the same, while taking interest in the way she runs. Each ball hits its mark, eliminating both players at the same time. Then Iron Will walks out onto the court and says

"Great game out there, the best one I've seen all day! Sadly that'll have to be it for today kids, now go get changed and head off to your next class early. You all have earned it. Also, screwball, could you stay behind for a moment. I need to have a word with you."

Everyone heads off to the locker rooms to change, while the girls flock the orange skinned, and purple haired kid who eliminated the last person. The boy on the other hand, is busy helping his classmates up, while watching the girl walk out the door, or more specifically, the way her feet don't bend at the joint when she moves.

"I don't know what's up with her, but I'm definitely going to find out."
He says to himself as he walks to the men's locker room to get ready for his next class.

Chapter 4 (unedited)

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“Scootaloo, that was an awesome game!”
“Did you see the way she dodged everything he threw at her!”
“I can’t believe how good of a throw that was Scootaloo, could you teach me how to do it?”
Scootaloo was bombarded with questions like this and the epic tale of the dodgeball game from period three quickly found its way to everyone in the school. Scootaloo was happy that so many people wanted to talk to her, but she could tell that each one of them would turn her away if she let them find out about her secret. From the way that the boy she faced in dodgeball was constantly looking at her legs, she could tell that he at least suspected something was up. Whenever she caught him staring though, he acted as though he was looking for something he dropped, or that he was trying to talk to someone else in the hallway.

Thankfully, the rest of the day passed by with relatively nothing exciting happening, and before she knew it, the final bell had rung for everyone to pack up and go home. She decided to hang back in the classroom to talk to her new spanish teacher, Dr. Sombrero, about what they were going to be doing over the course of the year, while waiting for the crowd in the halls to die down a bit. After talking with him for several minutes, the halls were finally empty. She quickly thanked her teacher for the help, before rushing out of the room to pack up and talk to her mom. She quickly walked to her locker, and grabbed all of the books she would need to do the small amount of homework she had accumulated over the course of the day. When she shut the door though, she was surprised and startled by who she saw standing there.

“Hello Scootaloo, I was hoping to ask you something before you left.” the young man said to her. Scootaloo is so surprised that she drops her backpack, which is swiftly caught by the boy before it hits the floor. Scootaloo clears her face of all emotion, before grinning cockily and says
“Let me guess, you want to know how I wiped the floor with you during gym class” sarcastically.
“Actually that is partly what I wanted to ask you.” he replies, leaving Scootaloo completely flabbergasted and partly worried about what he may say next
“The thing is, I noticed that you seem to shuffle more than you seem to walk.”
Scootaloo’s face turns from a look of worry to a look of fear, expecting what will come next.
“It’s just that... there isn’t an easy way to say this is there. Alright, here it goes. After everything I noticed today, I believe that you were that kid who was in that accident six years ago.”
For a split second, Scootaloo’s expression shifts from fear to curiosity, before moving into a look of caution.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, it’s complicated.”
“You’re going to have to explain how you know this. My mom made sure none of this went public, not even the fact that I was the one who got hit then. Also whatever she couldn’t cover up, the guy who hit me did.”

“Yeah, well the thing is that, I was the guy that he hired to do the cover up.”
“Wat?”
“Yeah, thing is that I have had quite a few jobs in the past, but until recently I haven’t been attending school regularly, but we’re getting off track now. The point is that the fact that your leg joints don’t bend the way they should, that you rarely run at a rapid pace, and the fact that I did the cover up back when you got injured and nothing else of that kind of magnitude has happened in years, all add up to the conclusion that you have two prosthetic legs that run from your knees downwards.”

At the revelation that someone knew her secret, Scootaloo did the only thing she thought to be sensible. She started to cry, and then hit the boy over and over again. However, the boy did not lay a finger on Scootaloo, and let her frustration at her current situation vent. Scootaloo continued to hit him for several minutes, until she could hit him no more, and her tears had run out. She slumped to the ground in exhaustion, but still visibly upset about what happened in the last few minutes. Then she notices the boy standing there, with a warm smile on his face, and his right arm extended.

“Here, let me help you up” he says as she takes his hand. She is suddenly jerked up, and wobbles around for a second, before regaining her balance on her faux legs.
“I won’t tell anyone about your secret, it’s not mine to share. However, I can try to help you learn to let others in on your disability, if you want.” the boy says as he scribbles something down on a piece of paper.

“Here’s my number. Call me if you want to hang out sometime, or if you just want to talk.” he says as he starts to walk away. Scootaloo looks at the number, but then realizes that she doesn’t even know his name. When she looks up to try and looks around for the boy though, he’s gone.