Around one year ago
*click*
The sound of the of CMC’s clubhouse door opening alerted its two occupants to the entrance, “Did you get it?” Applebloom asked excitedly as she watched Sweetie close the door behind her wearing her saddle bags.
The other occupant Scootaloo had just put up a CMC banner and was currently on some stacked boxes. Sweetie glanced at the window briefly before rifling through her saddlebags, “yeah. It’s right here,” she said revealing it to her friends and fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders.
“Awesome, this is going to be great,” Scootaloo replied as she got down from the stacked boxes now that the banner was up, “now help me clear this stuff before she gets here,” she requested. They quickly put them in a cluttered corner and cleared the ground of any remaining debris.
“So, who’s gonna do the ceremony?” Applebloom asked, as she moved a hoof to her chin in thought, “Scootaloo wrote it. So I think you should probably do it since you, uh, wrote it,” Applebloom suggested. She sadly knew there had to be something off with whatever was written, since it was written by Scootaloo. She had edited some stories Scootaloo wrote while they tried for their reporters cutie marks.
“Uhh, I’d actually rather be the one banging the bongos. How about you do it?” Scootaloo replied.
“I’ll do it!” Sweetie said raising her hoof excitedly, before Applebloom could even respond.
“Well, that settles that,” Applebloom said relieved, “she should be here any minute now, and we still have a little more to do, so let’s get to it!” she urged.
They made any last minute preparations and dawned on their capes.
*Knock Knock*
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The CMC
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“Babs!” Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie yelled in unison as they dog piled the orangish brown earth pony filly with green eyes in a hug, her shiny red mane poking out of the pile. Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack watched them in amusement. The CMC first met Babs last year when she came to Ponyville to get away from the relentless teasing of some of her classmates for not having a cutie mark. She ended up doing to them what those ponies did to her so she wouldn’t be the target of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. In the end, she became the leader of the Manehattan branch for the CMC, and one of their good friends.
“Hah Hah,” Babs laughed thick in a bronx accent, “Hey, its been a while,” she said as she hugged them back.
“How’ve you been?” Applebloom asked, as they separated.
“Well now that youse guys are here and we’re no longer grounded,” she said referring to the members she recruited, “things are going great,” Babs said proudly, then blew her bangs out of the way, they seem to constantly slightly cover her right eye.
“Speaking of the CMC members you recruited. When will we get to meet them?” Scootaloo asked curious.
Babs smiled, and gestured them all inside the apartment building. They followed her up some stairs and into a hallway and finally a door. She got out a key and unlocked it, “My parents are at work right now and my sister went on a date, so we had the apartment to ourselves,”
“We?” Sweetie asked as they walked in. The apartment was bigger than Coco’s but far smaller than the Oranges. The furniture was sparse but it looked nice. Had some family photos hanging on the wall, and two display cases, holding various knick knacks.
“Yeah. me, Emollient Undertone, and Volt Fiber,” Babs explained as she closed the door behind them.
“Ugh, are your folks okay with that?” Applejack asked, “Leaving y’all alone like this, Ah mean,” she clarified.
“Yeah, they trust me enough to not let total strangers in, or to wreck the place, ” Babs answered, “I’ll go get my friends, one second,” She said as she quickly ran past them and into a different room whose door was closed, two fillies could be seen on the ground around a board game but the door closed too fast for everypony accept Applebloom to get more details.
The door busted open and a dark grey unicorn filly with two toned spikey lightning blue and straight golden yellow hair met them. Her eyes were light orange, “you must be Applebloom!” she exclaimed. She struck out her hoof for a shake, which Applebloom obliged.
“Yep, that’s me,” Applebloom said as they shaked, “and you must be Volt Fiber?” Applebloom had gotten a description of the newest members when she learned about them a little under a year ago.
“Uh huh,” Volt smiled broadly. She went and shaked Scootaloo’s and and Sweeties hooves as well. “So I finally get t-to” she stuttered briefly as her eyes finally fell on Twilight, “meet a Princess!” she squealed, as she squished her face with both her forehooves.
Twilight rolled her eyes and smiled at the cute act before her, “Hello. Volt, was it?” she nodded excitedly. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” She offered her hoof for a shake. “You can call me Twilight.”
Volt grinned almost manically and giggled like the school filly she was and shook hooves with Twilight. Soon after that the door opened again and this time Babs held the door open for another filly, a light pink pegasus with a long flowing peach mane, light yellow eyes, and a gentle smile. “Sorry bout the wait, we hads to clean up a board game we were playing before youse showed up,” Babs said, as she swiftly yet gently kicked the shy filly out into the living room. Babs got up shoulder to shoulder and wrapped a hoof around the filly, “no doubt Volt,” gaining the excited fillies attention away from the Princess, “already introduced herself?”
“You know it!” Volt agreed energetically, her hair bouncing slightly with her motion.
Babs smiled, “well this here is Emollient Undertone she’s really shy around new ponies at first but she’ll get over it soon enough. Now we got an awesome day planned for youse guys, so let's get this show on the road!” She said as she headed towards the door. Everypony began to follow.
“WAIT!” Sweetie yelled, stopping everypony in their tracks, “before we go I want to do something.” She dug through her saddlebags and produced a official CMC cape and threw it at Volt and then did the same with Emollient, “We’re not at the clubhouse so we can’t do the official Cutie Mark Crusader ceremony, sorry,” Sweetie apologized seemingly embarrassed by that fact as they tried on their new capes, “but here’s your overdue official Cutie Mark Crusaders capes!”
“That makes you official Cutie Mark Crusaders!” Applebloom happily exclaimed.
“Wow! Thanks,” Volt said enthusiastically, while Emollient smiled and slightly nodded.
A thought came to Applebloom, “not that you weren’t before you got them…” she said almost questioningly as she looked down, “just you know becau-”
“Anyways!” Scootaloo interrupted slash saved Applebloom from her line of thought, “only use those for official meetings,” Scootaloo warned nicely, “we’ve learned not to bring them on crusades after a couple unfortunate incidents.” They were glad Sweeties sister was really good with cloth, otherwise their capes would look like they'd been through a war.
“Okay!” Volt said as she looked herself in a mirror that she happened to be next to.
“Alright youse guys, we need to get going. Here give me the capes. youse can take them home when today's over, but for now time is wasting,” Babs urged.
“You’re right. I don’t want a bad spot,” Volt said, she quickly took off her cape and Emollient’s and gave them to Babs who quickly rushed in her room and swiftly came back out. She then lead them back out the hallway, waited till they were all out and locked the door before leading the way with Volt and Emollient on either side of her.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
They were quickly outside and headed down the sidewalk, “So what do you got planned for us today?” Twilight asked.
“Yeah, cause I got a totally awesome idea, if you don’t got anything for us to do. Well outside of what you got planned in the evening,” Rainbow said.
“Why? What’s she got planned in the evening?” Applebloom asked.
Rainbow chuckled nervously, “did I say she had plans in the evening? I meant that um,” Rainbow looked to Twilight and Applejack pleadingly.
“What she means, is that we got plans for this evening. If Babs ran out of things for us to do,” Twilight said calmly.
“Yeah that,” Rainbow said.
Babs smiled at the attempt to recuperate from Rainbows mistake but noticed Scootaloo and Applebloom were suspicious, “Uh, actually we plan on going to the Martial Arts Festival today. Manehattan host it every five years for one whole week. Ponies, griffons, minotaurs, donkeys and so on from across the known world come here to show off their skills and win a huge amount of bits. Youse are really lucky to have chosen to go on vacation when this festival was happening, the food is amazing.” Babs explained as they continued to walk past giant towering buildings.
Eventually the style of buildings changed and the streets were completely crowded with ponies. Oriental decorations were above the street lights and strewn between buildings. A wonderful smell of street restaurants filled the air.
They were lead to a large building in width and length that was more like a very large warehouse. Several ring stands presented themselves inside so ponies could sit and watch one of the several sparring matches at their leisure. Babs, Volt, and Emollient seemed to know exactly where they were going as she lead them through the rows of stands and crowd traffic.
They finally came to a stand, entered, and found seats near the middle row. In front of them was a rather large hard matted ring, with plenty of space. In the center of the raised ring was an lean old donkey with a wrinkled face in an all black karate uniform with a red belt. A sparing referee Zebra in an all white karate uniform stood on one of the sides, his attention was on a minotaur outside the ring. The hulking minotaur in his prime browsed racks of various wooden weapons. He wore a white karate outfit that sported a black belt. The minotaur finally settled on two large axes, that would’ve been an two handed weapon for the donkey. He confidently and impressively jumped up to the fighting stage, axes in each hand. He glared at the donkey demeaningly and snorted out his nose at the donkey seemingly confident in his victory. The donkeys expression hadn’t changed, he didn’t even acknowledge the minotaurs aggressive gestures. They all walked towards the center of the rather big ring and the referee requested them to bow and they did. The referee brought his hoof up then swiftly chopped it down and backed off.
The minotaur wasted no time in going on the attack. He swung an axe down towards his opponent, who easily sidestepped the attack and backed up. He swiftly swung the axe in his other hand and the donkey dodged in the same manner again. He kept up the attack until the donkey had no space left to retreat on the ring and was cornered with no place to run. He took advantage of this fact and widened his arms as if he was going to hug someone, both axes in hand. Then he bent a little so his next attack was low enough to force the donkey to jump out of the ring. The donkey did jump but instead of out the ring; he leaped towards and above the minotaur in an incredible display of agility. He hit, well more like pushed the minotaur, as he passed by in the air, and with the minotaurs position and footing he couldn’t stop himself from stumbling out the raised ring with a rough landing. The referee gave the donkey a point.
“Woah,” was all Applebloom could say in amazement all her worries forgotten in a brief moment of awe. She saw everything, like it was happening in slow motion. She thought for sure the minotaur had the advantage since he was huge, had weapons, and was much younger. She became fully enthralled and needed to watch more.
“I know. This guy is amazing, I haven't seen him lose yet. This is the best ring in here until-” Babs said, until she was interrupted by the minotaur as he loudly pounded both his fist against the ground once. He grabbed his axes, got up, and joined the referee and donkey in the ring, anger written on his face. The referee had them bow again and started the next round.
The minotaur again was quick to begin his attack and the donkey seemed to have lost the speed and impressive coordination he displayed in the first round. The minotaur seemed to notice this soon enough and increased his onslaught, putting more speed and force into his attacks. Applebloom watched every motion and movement. She saw a slight smirk on the donkey for the briefest of moments, before he stumbled with his last dodge. The minotaur took advantage of this and swung both axes down upon him in what would have been a winning blow. If the donkey hadn’t suddenly used the force that made him stumble to spin out of the wooden axes path to barely dodge them. The axes shattered as they hit the ground, much to the minotaurs confusion. In the next instant the donkey grabbed the minotaurs closest muscled arm with both his hooves and used the force still in play from the two pronged attack to flip and then slam the minotaur onto the hard matted ground. That earned the donkey the win of the match. The minotaur released an audible sigh, got up and bowed in respect to the donkey who returned the bow. Then the minotaur left in shame.
Applebloom soaked every little detail in, like she was the one fighting the minotaur, “He’s amazin,” she confirmed to Babs.
“Yous haven’t seen anything yet,” Babs said, “wait till the finale tournament, you’ll get to see some real sparring matches there, or so I’ve been told.” The donkey walked off the stage. The referee began to clear the ring of debris from the wooden axes.
“Isn’t that a little dangerous?” Sweetie asked. “Somepony could get really hurt.” She was glad the donkey somehow dodged every attack from that hulking minotaur. He swung those huge wooden axes around like candy canes.
“You’d think so,” Babs nodded in agreement. “But all those wooden weapons were enchanted with some spell or another that makes it okay,” she explained.
“Was it a modified version Leotards slip spell?” Twilight asked clearly interested.
“It was the umm,” Babs blew her bangs out of her right eyes view in frustration. “I forgot, sorry,” she answered back. She didn’t really pay attention too much when she learned about it.
“That’s alright, not everypony is interested in magic,” Twilight consolidated. “Oh!” she perked up, “maybe it was-”
“Yeah, Yeah,” Rainbow interrupted, “figure it out later.” She pointed towards the arena, “It looks like another match is about to start.” Volt found it off pointing that the rainbow haired pony interrupted a princess. She then realised that in their rush to leave for the festival she never learned who the other young adult ponies were.
This time it was a pegasus with a wooden sword. Soon after another opponent joined the stage, and the fight began. The pegasus immediately took flight, “isn’t that cheating?” Scootaloo asked in confusion.
“Actually it isn’t, this is an anything goes type sparring match,” Rainbow answered, leaving most of them to look at her oddly, “what? This stuff is as awesome as Daring Doo.” They shrugged and continued to watch a couple more fights, impressed with the range of skills displayed. In between rounds they talked about their impressions on those who just fought. They also got some some proper introductions for Rainbow and Applejack.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Babs wanted to show her Ponyville friends and cousin more of the Martial Arts Festival, so she asked if she could show them around. Twilight, Applejack and even Rainbow were reluctant but made them Pinkie Promise to stay out of trouble. They were quick to take the offer, and Babs lead them away.
“You know, youse guys could join a sparring match if youse wanted to,” Babs suggested, as they walked through the crowd.
“Ah don’t know about that. Karate isn’t my special talent…” Applebloom said, almost shooting down the idea, “but it does look kind of fun,” she finished leaving it open as a possibility.
“and I really don’t like fighting,” Sweetie declined.
“That sounds awesome,” Scootaloo squealed, she’s been getting lessons from Rainbow Dash ever since she recovered. Scootaloo was very busy last week, but it had been one of the best weeks of her young life.
“Heh, yeah but youse would probably lose a bunch, even the fillies and colts I’ve seen fight here were all really good,” Babs egged.
“What? No way, if I really wanted to I could win even against that old donkey, though admi-” Scootaloo eyes widened as she was just about to reveal the secret, “I mean my sis~” she trailed, before she acted like she had a frog in her throat. “Uhum, I mean Rainbow Dash could beat that old donkey no problem, she’s just that awesome.”
“Umm,” Babs blew her bangs out of her eyes vision. She knew of Scootaloo's fanaticism of Rainbow Dash from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon of all ponies and knew it was pointless to try and disagree, “okay, well let's go see the competition.” She lead them down some aisles and the crowd became much more diverse with age. It trended more towards the younger crowd around their age.
They found a stage and sat down. They watched a couple matches before a contendent the Manehattan branch of the CMC knew walked on the mat, “oh no! What’s she doing here?” Volt asked in distress, her citrine eyes locked on to a yellow earth pony with a blond mane. She wore a white karate outfit with a black belt.
“Well, she does have a black belt for a cutie mark,” Emollient stated, while pointing a light pink hoof at the black belt design on the fillies uniform were her cutie mark would be.
“What? She doesn’t seem so bad,” Sweetie said naively and then waved at the filly who was now staring directly at them with a smug smirk.
Emollient was quick to force Sweeties hoof down, “she’s evil incarnate, don’t draw her attention,” she whispered harshly, her wings twitching slightly.
“Why? She can’t be that bad,” Scootaloo stated in the bliss of ignorance.
“Youse remember last year when I bullied youse all?” Babs asked. She sure did, it’s something she regrets to this day. They all nodded, “well she’s the reason I ever had to visit in the first place,” and the Ponyville CMC members frowned at the filly on stage before them, “and she’s the example I used to bully youse,” Babs said in shame, drawing their attention away from the filly, “and trust me when I say she’s a lot worse.”
“Oh,” all three ponyville CMC members said loudly, “O~oh” they said in understanding. They’ve never came across a worse bully than Babs. They didn’t know how somepony could be worse than that, but they trusted Babs. Scootaloo had once compared it to her time at the orphanage, and she’s never had somepony quite as bad as Babs. She thought about it a little bit, and figured out it was because Babs did effectively temporarily kick her out of the place she was living in. She just realised how awkward it was going to be when she told Babs about her living situation at the time, maybe she'll just leave that part out.
A colt joined the arena. They bowed and the referee started the round. The filly attacked first and the colt dodged but the filly was quick to force the colt to block. The colts guard was quick to go down as she used full force in her attacks, and he retreated with what little space he had. She slowed her attacks and offered him a chance to attack, which he took, she blocked the attacks like a brick wall charging forth, like she was attacking the swings coming her way. The colt was getting visibly worn out while the filly looked like she could continue for another five rounds without breaking a sweat. His attacks became sloppy and the blocks at times would swing his limb in the other direction, but since the filly never attacked no points were made and the match was still on. Finally, the filly blocked a swing with such force that the colts side was exposed, the filly did an impressive roundhouse kick to his shoulder and he fell down to the ground. The referee called the round won for the filly, and the colt rubbed his shoulder. He shakily got up and ready for the next round.
The next round the filly repeated the process but this time she seemed much more ruthless in her attacks and blocks. Again the colts same side got exposed and everypony could see she was about to hit it for all her worth, luckily the referee interfered and blocked the attack before it could land, even then his hoof block got hit into the colt with his precarious positioning and the force of the attack. He saved the colt from what would have been a very nasty attack. Regardless of this the referee gave the win to the filly. They bowed to each other and then the filly looked directly at the CMC Manehattan branch and Sweetie again, with a smug smirk before walking out of the arena and then out of view from the stages. Applebloom didn’t like that filly, she’d healed Bon Bon who not too long ago had a nasty shoulder bruise, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. They remained seated though. Scootaloo still wanted to see what kind of competition she’d have if she chose to actually try out sparing.
Scootaloo and Volt chatted a lot about the sparring matches and disagreed about some points but had fun doing so. Sweetie and Emollient hit it off well and talked about various things. Babs and Applebloom would usually interject in either conversation making it an overall nice bonding experience for all CMC members.
Soon enough, after a couple more matches it was getting time that they all met up with their charges and ate. They made their way to the entrance of the of large warehouse like building, sifting through the crowds and finally exiting the building, into the festive streets. The smell of delicious food hit them and taunted them. “I gots the best place for us to eat whe-” Babs started to say, but got interupted.
“Well, well, well if it isn’t cutie markless failures,” said an unfamiliar sweet voice with nasty undertones from somewhere behind them, to the Ponyville CMC members at least. The Manehattan CMC members knew that voice all too well.
They turned to see the yellow filly from before but now with two other fillies by her side giggling, both unicorns marching towards them, “let me handle this, youse guys stay out of it. I mean it,” Babs said almost harshly, before blowing her bangs looking serious. The unicorns stopped giggling as they got closer, one had light teal coat, with copper eyes, light green mane, and what could best be described as an arcane laser for a cutie mark. The other one had a dark red coat, with emerald eyes, dark brown mane, and what could best be described as three arcane bolts in a triangle formation as a cutie mark. “What do youse want Shodan?” Babs spat as they stopped their approach.
“Good one Bads,” Shodan insulted. “Like I’d ever want anything from a worthless blank flank like you,” She continued, and Babs grit her teeth but unconsciously covered her flank with her tail, while the two fillies giggled again like Shodan was the funniest pony alive. “What’s this?” She gestured to the Ponyville CMC. “You brought more worthless ponies into your worthless club?”
Applebloom began to speak out but Babs swiftly covered her mouth, “They’re no pony you need to worry about. Now leave us alone,” she replied and began walking away, the rest soon followed.
“I guess they are no ponies. After all anything that’d follow a coward waste of a body blank flank like you, would have to be a no pony,” she taunted and the two side unicorns giggled, as they continued to walk away, “Isn’t that right, Glitter Filly!?” Bab’s froze momentarily, as a memory washed over her.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A little over one year ago
“Hey, could you hold this for me for a moment?” asked the new kid who just transferred today, while holding out a box. She was a yellow earth pony with a blonde mane and a black belt cutie mark. Shoedan or something was her name. She really wasn’t paying much attention to her introduction earlier today.
“Sure thing, I’m Babs by the way,” Babs replied as she took a rather large container full of glitter for their art projects.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever…” the new kid looked at her oddly.
“What?” Babs asked.
“you’re holding it all wrong, put it above your head,” the new kid said.
“Why?” Babs asked, but did so anyways.
“Oh, you’ll see,” as the filly then quickly moved to her side and taped something over where her cutie mark would be.
“Hey, what’re you doing,” Babs asked trying to see what she just did, but couldn’t while holding the box of glitter over her head.
“Oh nothing, just trust me for a moment,” the filly said as she proceeded move around and taped something to her other flank where her cutie mark would be.
The filly finally came around a smirked at Babs, face to face. “So, what’s the point of all this?” Babs questioned.
Without words she punched the edge of box and it flipped in the air and sprayed glitter all over Babs. It happened too fast for her to hope to get out of the way as glitter consumed her and fell to the floor. All she had time to do was close her eyes. She shaked off the excess glitter all over her no doubt now shiny and colorful coat, mane and tail, and opened her eyes to the new kid smiling wildly at her, “why’d youse go and do that? Now we’ll both get in trouble when the teacher gets back.”
The filly didn’t answer but merely walked to her side and ripped off the things she taped earlier. Babs watched unsure of what the filly was up to, and didn’t know how to respond. She then noticed that it was eerily quiet. She quickly discovered that all eyes in the classroom where on her and the new kid, “Hey! Look everypony!” the new kid announced, “the Glitter Filly still has a blank flank. What a loser. BLANK FLANK!” the class erupted into laughter, and name calling.
It only got worse from there.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sweetie watched as a single tear escaped one of Babs eyes, she never thought she’d see Babs cry. She wondered what kind of torture that monster put Babs through to turn Babs into a bully herself. That was the last straw for her, she was sick of bullies beating up on her and her friends and she wouldn’t let things stand, “That’s a lot of talk coming from a-a,” Sweetie stuttered thinking up a comeback, “rotten filly like you!” She insulted, stopping her friends in their tracks to look at her. Leaving Scootaloo and Applebloom confused at her outburst. Shodan smirked smugly she re-approached them, her lackeys not far behind.
“What are you doing Sweetie,” Volt whispered in concern, as Shodan and entourage neared them, “we promised to stay out of trouble!” she silently exclaimed.
“Aww, isn’t that cute,” Shodan mocked and interrupted suddenly, “the chubby princess wants to stand up for her worthless companions,” she said as she closed in on Sweetie menacingly.
Sweetie felt intimidated by her approach and struck with her words. Living with her fashion designer sister while her parents were out on business or vacation has made her very subconscious about that kind of thing, “I-I’m not fat.”
“You know denial isn’t a great virtue for a princess,” Shodan mocked, “Well it’s a good thing you’re a chubby princess. I think it suits you just fine…” she smirked, while her two lackeys looked at her questioningly, “it’s funny. That denial actually does fit you…” they looked at her blankly now, “I guess you were simply too big to wear any true virtues of a princess,” their eyes dilated in understanding and they nodded, “Fatty.” They broke out into laughter.
Babs and her friends backed off, trying to stay true to their Pinkie Promise. Applebloom and Scootaloo looked on in concern for Sweetie as she took the insults.
“Why, I bet you still host tea parties with a bunch of dolls. Like a foal,” Shodan teased. Sweetie felt that as it had been almost two weeks ago that she actually played with her dolls, maybe not in the same way described but she felt it all the same. She lowered her head in shame, “Hah, looky here it’s written all over her face. She still host tea parties. What a worthless foal,” she mocked and the side unicorns laughed and even added their own two bits. Sweetie lowered her head in defeat, “hey fatty?” Shodan asked suddenly and almost apologetically. Sweetie raised her head questioningly, “So you admit to being an obscene, obese, ugly filly…” she felt stupid for falling for that trap, “let's not even factor in the fact you’re a worthless blank flank,” Shodan stated smugly, and her two lackeys laughed. Shodan then went on to mimic how she imagined Sweetie would play with dolls in the most humiliating way possible, all the while throwing insults her way. The fillies beside her continued their laughter making it all the more emotionally crippling for Sweetie, whose tears ran freely.
“Leave her alone! Ah won’t let you bully my friend anymore!” Applebloom yelled as she stepped up in front of Sweetie protectively, while the Manehattan CMC branch observed in shame. That left Scootaloo to the side and slightly behind the war of words. She knew how these things went but she didn’t know how to defuse the situation until what happened next.
“Well, if it isn’t worthless bumpkin blank flank foal number two,” she paused and visible glanced above Appleblooms head, “What?” She smirked sinisterly, “Your parents too poor to buy you a clean bowtie?” and the fillies on both sides of her laughed and stated how ugly it was, while Babs, and Scootaloo shuttered. It even snapped Sweetie out of her grieving, “they probably didn’t think you were worth the money, time, and effort to get you a new one. In fact, I bet they wish you were never born,” she finished smugly.
Appleblooms eyes widened in shock, no pony had ever said anything like that to her before, “t-take that back,” she stuttered still stunned, as emotions flooded her. She treasures that bowtie.
“Aww, I know the truth hurts but that’s the harsh reality of worthless blank flanks like you,” Shodan mocked ignoring Appleblooms request.
“L-like me!?” Applebloom asked, still floored with mixed emotions.
“Tha’s rioght. Liike y’all,” Shodan said in a country accent, while acting it out before going back to normal, “You sound like a hick farm pony whose only purpose is growing me my food, but you don’t even have your cutiemark so you’re even more worthless than most trash farmers, I’m sure your parents feel the same way,” she insulted.
Scootaloo wanted to slug her for that, but intended to keep her Pinkie Promise. She instead watched a frown and burning anger arise in Appleblooms eye as she soundlessly snarled. Scootaloo knew this kind of anger, it was something she felt for a while once before. The kind of anger that she would have acted on years ago, if she hadn’t ran away, and the kind she did act on when Sweetie got struck down. She had to stop this whole thing before it escalated even more, “y-you better shut up,” Applebloom seethed, “befo-”
“Before what?” Shodan interrupted, and even approached Applebloom face to face, “Why I bet your parents had you,” this was getting out control, Scootaloo knew she had to do something to stop this and fast, “by...” After she heard that last word she knew where this was going, having lived in an orphanage it was a common but effective insult. She wasn’t about to allow that sentence to finish, and let Applebloom break their Pinkie Promise. She raised a forehoof, “Acci-” and brought it down hard.
*CRACK*
A loud crackling boom echo’d from behind Applebloom and Sweetie, it made everypony in the immediate area instinctively lower their ears. It sounded like somepony took a sledgehammer and slammed it against the pavement as hard as possible, “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Scootaloo yelled, as she approached the argueing fillies. Each step loud like the last and leaving a filly hoof sized indent that sent cracks in the pavement. Shodan watched her rapid approach with caution, until she was side by side with Applebloom, “You’re going turn around and walk away, or I will beat you into a bloody pulp,” she said in a low deadly serious voice. Just to prove her point Scootaloo shot both hooves into the sidewalk and tore out a large chunk of concrete. Then she proceeded to loudly crumble it between her hooves, which quickly revealed her menacing and smug smile. She had no intention of getting in an actual fight. She knew the power of intimidation after having lived in Ponyville for two years with one pony ‘neighbor’ too scared to question her home situation. Now that she thought about it she actually felt pretty bad about it, but now wasn’t the time for that. She maintained her angry yet confident demeanor.
Shodan had never seen such a display of strength before it boggled her how the pegasus filly before her could be so strong, the chunk she ripped out must have been at least fifty pounds but she held and broke it like it was nothing. Shodan felt fear, not to mention way too much attention from the surrounding ponies for her liking, “O-oh yeah? Well, I was done with you worthless blank flanks anyways,” she said haughtily, “Come on, let's get away from these worthless losers,” she said as they made a swift retreat.
Everypony else remained with eyes on Scootaloo followed by an audible click and subsequent flash of some ponies camera. “Nothing to see here folks. Just some fillies enjoying the festival!” Scootaloo said loud enough for them all to hear, and fortunately none of them were the guard, so they all went about their business, likely to avoid whatever legal shenanigans part of a broken sidewalk could cause to an eyewitness.
“Woah, I’ve never seen somepony make her back off like that before,” Volt said in astonishment, as she watched them disappear into the crowd, “how’d you get so strong?” the dark grey filly asked, but was ignored.
Babs was quick to come to Appleblooms side and wrapped her in a hug, “ignore her, she’s a despicable pony,” she detached from the hug, “but wh-why is your bow tie stained like that?” she asked cautiously.
“A-Ah’ll tell you all about it later, let’s…” Applebloom paused, “let’s just forget this ever happened for now,” she said angrily.
Scootaloo reformed the sidewalk like she hadn’t just wrecked it to tartarus much to the Manehattan CMC’s utter confusion and awe, “How’re you doing that?” Volt asked.
Scootaloo snickered, “you haven't seen anything yet, but that’s a secret for later,” she winked at the dark grey filly who frowned unamused, but then grinned almost evilly. Volt let-on that they had something special planned for later today. The original CMC members asked what they had planned but the Manehattan branch didn’t give any clues on what they had planned, only that they’d find out after their late lunch. Rainbow, Twilight, and Applejack finally showed up, and Babs lead them to their favorite food street vendor.
The street vender had a long line, but Babs insisted it was worth the wait. All around where other food vendors with varying sizes of lines. Tables littered the large sidewalks, even encroaching on to the streets. That hardly mattered since it was currently a cart free zone and ponies almost filled the streets. While waiting Applebloom questioned how Babs knew so much about the Martial Arts Festival when she was supposed to be grounded for the last week. Turns out Babs parents, and her friends parents all agreed that having them miss out on the festival for something that wasn’t entirely their fault wouldn’t be right, since it happens once every five years. They all brought them to the festival and even gave them the freedom to explore it themselves, even though they were still technically grounded.
Finally, it was their turn to order, the menu however was full of words that they had no clue what they meant. Babs ended up ordering for most of them, as there was a long line behind them. Twilight and Rainbow Dash however, both knew what they wanted. They got their food and found some empty tables.
The CMC branches tried to goad the other into revealing the others secret as they ate. Neither budged. Once they got done eating and Babs lead them to the surprise. Only possible thanks in part to Sweetie Belle's attempt to get everypony to stay at Coco's. Babs was excited for this, she really hoped it turned out as good as she wanted it to.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
They walked for a while. Passed several blocks until they were somewhat close to where the Oranges lived. They passed large vintage brick buildings as opposed to giant shiny metal and glass ones. Up ahead Coco Pommel was outside pacing back and forth impatiently. Babs was quick to pick up the pace and ran to her, “Sorry for the wait Miss Coco,” Babs said as they reached her.
Coco smiled, “Oh, there you are. You all had me so worried.”
“Coco? What’re you doing here?” Sweetie asked, “you know Babs?”
Coco looked giddy with happiness, “Sweetie, you once wrote, directed, and acted in a play before right?”
Sweetie frowned, “Don’t remind me. It was ho~rrible.” She wondered how Coco knew that. Her only conclusion was that Rarity told her, “did my sister tell you about it?”
“No. It was actually Twilight,” Coco responded, while Sweetie looked confused at Twilight who gave an abashed smile, “and she actually gave me the script for the play and I-”
“She did WHAT!?” Sweetie squeaked. She put so much effort into that play and it totally bombed. The only saving grace in it was her sister's dresses, as sad as she is to admit it. It wasn’t even her idea, she got it from a board game, “Twilight. Why would you do that?” She asked with an almost hurt expression directed to Twilight.
Twilight closed hers eyes and breathed in before opening them, “Sweetie, let me explain. I think you know your story wasn’t the best story ever made, but-”
“More like, the worst thing I’ve ever made!” Sweetie yelled in dismay.
“That’s debatable,” Scootaloo commented, and Sweetie sent her a glare, “What? It’s true,” Scootaloo defended.
“But!” Twilight cut in, “I’ve read the script, and you built a world Sweetie. Though the play itself was boring, uninspired, and I imagine it was as hard to listen to because the dialogue certainly wasn’t pleasant to read, because you had the characters describe their actions verbally almost constantly in an outdated speech, that only Luna might appreciate the attempt at and-” Sweetie blushed at that, and now wondered if Luna actually saw the play, “-my point is beneath all of that. I saw the potential for a great story, so today we’ll give you a chance to make that story great. With help from professionals.”
“Well, thank you for the thought Twilight?” Applebloom questioned.
“Oh no, no, don’t thank me.” Twilight shaked her head. “This wasn’t my idea,” she stated.
“But you just said-” Applebloom said, but got interupted.
Twilight smiled awkwardly but it was who Coco interrupted, “Actually, this was their idea,” she pointed to the Manehattan CMC members, “Twilight, basically made it happen. If I’m honest.”
“What?” Sweetie squeaked.
“SURPRISE!” the Manehattan branch yelled in unison.
“I-I don’t know how I feel about this,” Sweetie said.
Babs got to Sweeties side and brought a hoof around her shoulders, “Aww, come on Sweetie, youse got a theater full of ponies willing to help you make your story good. Besides this is a good chance to get our cutie marks…”
“...but I’ve already tried to get my cutie mark for directing, acting, and script writing,” Sweetie rebutted.
“Maybe youse tried too many things and your true talent didn’t have time to shine?” Babs reasoned.
“... I guess, can that really happen?” Sweetie asked with genuine interest.
“Sure,” Babs answered, then blew her bangs out of her view, “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t hurt to try,” she suggested.
“Babs is right. It doesn’t hurt to at least try,” Applebloom said as she gestured all the CMC members to come around her, “besides Ah think it’s amazing she got us a whole theater to ourselves with actually theater ponies to help us out, we usually try things on our own. Maybe all we needed was a little help?” she grinned, “So what do you say?” she put her hoof in the middle of the close nit group circle, in a literal sense, “Cutie mark crusader theater ponies?” they all one by one joined her in putting a hoof in the middle.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS THEATER PONIES!!!” they all yelled in unison almost deafening the four mares who watched as they raised their hoofs to the air in joy and unison.
“Gah, Ah’ll never get use to that,” Applejack complained as she rubbed her ears, while Rainbow smiled, no doubt at her sister's enthusiasm.
After a short moment, Coco got the cue as the fillies looked to her eagerly, “Right… If you’ll follow me,” she lead them inside past the lobby and into a large theatre. The place was huge and it looked modernised in all the right ways.
“Woah, this place is bigger than I remember it being, and it looks different,” commented Rainbow as she walked in. The stage was huge and the curtains were currently closed leaving only a little lip of the stage open for an announcer to introduce a show.
“They just got done with the expansion and renovations yesterday,” Coco explained, as they walked past rows of comfortable looking chairs towards the stage, “it’s why I couldn’t join you all yesterday, a lot of freak accidents with clothing happened…” she excused, “anyways, ever since word got out that Twilight got a private viewing here business has picked up significantly, or so I’ve been told,” Coco blushed as Twilight sighed in almost disappointment, “what I-I mean is all the extra business meant that they could finally afford the renovations,” Coco said in defensive shyness as they walked to a backstage entrance.
“And they agreed to let this whole thing happen so they could say I’ve visited here twice,” Twilight sighed, “I get it, everypony wants to meet a Princess,” she said almost bitterly.
Volt felt a little hurt with that comment because she did fanfilly over Twilight. Now she felt a little stupid and ashamed. Scootaloo noticed Volts downcast look and put a hoof around her shoulder, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Volt lied, as something very much was wrong. She wondered what could possible make Princess Twilight say something that in such a way. She would’ve thought Twilight would’ve been happy and positive twenty-four seven, because she’s a Princess.
Scootaloo knew something had her down, she suspected it had something to do with what Twilight just said and how she said it, but she couldn’t be sure. “If you’re sure…” she trailed off, but Volt didn’t respond to the opening, “right…” she trailed off again and detached from Volt, “so you guys got us a whole theatre with professionals to help us get our cutie marks? That’s a pretty awesome of you guys.”
“It was Emollients idea and I was the one who got Babs to write the letter that ultimately set things into motion to make this happen so yeah.” She smiled, “We are pretty awesome,” Volt said feeling a little better, with Scootaloo's encouragement. “So that only leaves whatever your secret surprise is gonna be,” she edged.
Scootaloo grinned at that, “well, we may have some demonstrations for you, this is a theatre after all.”
The backstage was full of ponies most likely there to meet the Princess. It was a large and spacious. They could see fitting/makeup rooms in the center with hints at large mirrors adorned with oversized light bulbs. Far on the other side was boxes and racks of clothes. Besides them them was tons of various props. Twilight, Coco, and Babs went up to the group of ponies. They chatted briefly with the owner before returning to the group, minus Coco who split off with other ponies, “Come with me Applebloom, wes got some stuff to do,” Babs said excitedly and lead her to the group Coco formed.
Twilight motioned to stop them but rolled her eyes and let them go. She spoke up, “Okay, Scootaloo and Volt you will be in charge of the lights, props, and the choreography with help from them over there,” Twilight pointed to a group of theater ponies, “and Sweetie and Emollient well be in charge of the story, and directing with them over there,” she pointed to a different group of ponies.
“What’re Babs and Applebloom going to be doing?” Scootaloo asked, curiously.
“I’m glad you asked,” Twilight replied, “they’ll be working on the background, makeup, and picking out customs. Something,” Twilight chuckled briefly, “sorry, but they can’t start until Sweetie and Emollient come up with the first scene to work off of. So let’s get started!” Twilight encouraged by gesturing to the group of ponies Sweetie and Emollient were assigned to.
They walked off towards the group leaving the rest behind. Applejack patted Rainbows shoulder, “Welp that’s our que to get on outta here. We can’t be a good audience if we see everythin’ before it arrives on stage,” she stated and they began to walk away. Twilight followed Sweetie and Emollient much to Volts displeasure. Even though the dark grey filly was off put with the Princesses earlier attitude, she still wanted to hang out with a Princess.
-------------------
Sweetie
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Sweetie was having a great vacation so far. She only wished her sister and parents could be here. That’s not to say Twilight and Coco haven’t been great, though she wasn’t looking forward to returning back to that run down suburb anytime soon. It made her uneasy.
She couldn’t help it, but when she saw Babs cry like that. It brought back unpleasant times. It reminded her of waking in a hospital bed and seeing her two best friends crying for the first time in her life. It also brought back everything she learned about Scootaloo soon after that. Finally, it reminded her of what Diamond Tiara does to her whenever their paths cross. She doesn’t care if she cries like a baby, but seeing one of her friends cry, she just couldn’t take it. She snapped and tried to bully the bullies. It didn’t work out at all the way she wanted it to. She was actually a little scared of Scootaloo when she made that threat; but she knew better than anypony how persuasive Scootaloo can be if she wants to be, also she’s never seen Scootaloo in a fight once. At any rate, she’s glad they were able to get their vacation back on track. She was a little skeptical with Babs idea, mainly because it involved her failure of a play, but had to agree with Applebloom. This was an amazing opportunity. So here she was.
Sweetie nervously walked up to the group with an even more nervous Emollient almost glued to her side. It consisted of one stallion and one mare. They finally got close enough, both pairs looked at each other awkwardly. The mare put out a hoof, “I’m Slim Notes, and one of you must be Sweetie?”
Sweetie observed the teal mare briefly before she stepped forward, “That’s me.” They shook hooves.
The stallion introduced himself, which only left Emollient, “I-I” she said quietly while slightly blushing.
Sweetie remembered Babs introduction of Emollient. She had gotten to know Emollient while they were at the Martial Arts Festival. She learned that Emollient's a huge fan of detective style books and enjoys arts and crafts. It became obvious, even to her, that Emollient was nervous around new ponies. That in mind, she realised Emollient needed help with an introduction, “That’s Emollient she’s very shy.” Emollient looked away at that. Her blush increased. “So, where do we start?”
“I’m glad you asked,” came Twilight's voice from behind. Slim and the stallion both bowed before their Princess who sighed verbally, “rise.” Sweetie and Emollient turned to face her, “That’s not necessary, I’m on vacation,” Twilight said, looking just behind the two fillies. She brought her attention to Sweetie and to a lesser extent Emollient, “Sweetie, I hope you don’t mind but we’re going to make some major changes to your story. We want it to still be yours so I want you to take our suggestions seriously, and remember we’re only trying to help.”
“Umm, Okay,” Sweetie said, unsure of why Twilight repeated this stuff.
Sweetie learned, rather quickly, that even if she could admit her story was bad; that it was hard to let go of some of the aspects that made it bad. She struggled with the idea that the characters didn’t have to announce their actions constantly. They could just act and the audience would see it. She knew it was a problem, but then she’d have to find something else for the characters to say. At the time she made it, she didn’t know what that would’ve been. She really didn’t like that they wanted to make their speech more modern. The book she read on plays said that’s how they’re supposed to talk, and she spent so much time trying to get it right. Twilight eventually got her to begrudgingly accept their help. She concluded that it could only get better from her original work.
It wasn’t all bad though. They made a suggestion that she actually liked, a lot. They suggested that they act out some of the stories told by the characters in some sort of flashback sequence and made the character telling it as a sort of announcer. Sweetie couldn’t do that with just her and her friends so she didn’t even think about it at the time. She was also a fan of Emollients suggestion to add a little humor into a flashback by using a slight disagreement in the telling of events between the characters.
They finally got done with the first scene, which was mostly dialogue changes. Twilight offered to take the first scene down to the other groups so they could start practising and get prepared for it.
-------------------
Scootaloo
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Scoolaloo has been having a great family vacation so far. Well, besides that little incident with Shodan, not that Rainbow knew anything about it. Today she conversed with Volt mostly, while they were at the Martial Arts Festival. She really liked how outdoorsy and smart Volt was. Volt wasn’t smart in a know it all way kind of way, but a practical way. Volt adored the Wonderbolts, though she asked way too many questions about Twilight, early on at least. They had fun picking sides in the many sparring matches they witnessed earlier. Scootaloo was glad they got teamed up for the crusade.
Scootaloo looked around the stage. High above her was a catwalk and several powerful lights that can be used to shine a spotlight on those below. Twilight had given her and Volt their first scene, it had no props they could use and they couldn’t start the physical aspect of acting until Applebloom and Babs got done choosing customs and putting makeup on the actors. That left Scootaloo and Volt with only one option and that was working on the lighting.
She asked the theatres mechanic technician to lead the way so they could figure out how best to make it appear as a nice sunny day. She lead them up a twisting flight of stairs and they found themselves on the catwalk. On either side at the bottom was rows of lights. In the center of the catwalk was a panel of switches and knobs no doubt for all the lights. Volt had a great idea on how to make it look sunny. A brief check at the first scene and they knew to rearrange six strong lights to the left corner of the stage from the audience's perspective. With help from the technician unicorn they got done just as three actors came on stage for practise. They tested out there improvised sun and tried to keep most of the overbearing light on stage, which wasn’t hard since the red curtains were still closed giving them an accurate show of how much light was going to bleed into the audience. A black wall on the other side also helped a little. Its only purpose so the audience can’t see all the work that happens backstage.
The dresses they wore were similar to the ones Scootaloo and her friends wore in the original play. Volt mentioned that the makeup they had on almost made them look like creepy dolls. Scootaloo laughed at that and commented they were one step away from being clowns. They went to work with placement of the characters and the rehearsing of lines.
Things were going smoothly and Scootaloo liked the new dialogue Sweetie, Emollient and their team of professionals came up with. Far better than the originals. She had a hard time with those lines.
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Applebloom
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Appleblooms little chat with Shodan had left her furious. She was having a nice mostly carefree vacation until that bully showed up. She’s glad Scootaloo stepped in when she did. She didn’t want to think about what might’ve happened if her friend didn’t. She knows Shodan knew nothing about her or the fact her parents were gone, but it still made her livid all the same. She had no reason to believe her parents would’ve ever regretted having her, but hearing they might’ve still hurt. She’d been recalling more moments with them lately, ever since she discovered the harshness of reality. It was strange. She recollected significantly more from her foal hood than she ever thought possible. She knew it had something to do with her newly gained abilities. She was unable to recall any of those memories before that point, and boy did she ever try. She wanted to tell Applejack about it. That she actually remembered them, even before she got these abilities. She felt guilty about lying to her sister in the first place, and it just got worse the more that came back to her. She misses them so much.
She’s frightened about the future. She use to believe it’d always be okay in the end. That nothing could go wrong. It’s why she followed Zecora. It’s why she delivered Applejack’s pies. It’s why she had no problem when Applejack and her friends rushed off to go against beings that threatened the entire world, but now she couldn’t bare the thought of something like that happening again. All it would take is one mistake and she’d lose her sister forever. That thought terrified her, because she was no longer shrouded in the false belief that it couldn’t happen.
She was actually pretty surprised and excited about what Babs and her friends did. It took her mind off all that worry, and gave her something to do. They recently got a new scene from Twilight, and were currently browsing through a selection of armor customs. They were in several boxes next to racks of dresses and various other outfits on the backstages left side. In the middle of the backstage was five fitting/makeup rooms that they used earlier. Coco was helping them pick out the outfits, and providing them with valuable historical knowledge, on each outfit. It was a little too quiet for her liking. “Ah’m glad they already had a castle background,” She said, as she browsed through a box of fake armor.
“Yeah,” Babs agreed. “That, would’ve been lotsa work,” she said, as she looked within a box in approval.
“Oh! That’d be a perfect match for Captain Jolly Rancher,” Coco said, after noticing the piece Babs was staring at, evidently.
Coco took it out of the box which gave Applebloom a good view of it, “it does look awesome,” she agreed. Coco put it in a pile of approved outfits. She didn’t want things to go back into silence, “You know,” she started, “the original play didn’t even have a battle sequence in it. It was just us sitting at a table and talking for most of it.” She still doesn’t know how she ever thought it was going to be a good play.
“Really?” Babs asked, sounding genuinely interested.
“Yeah…” Applebloom spotted an interesting armor piece and got it out. She examined it but continued, “Sweetie... She was just really into it.” She looked to Babs who was looking at the odd armor piece she had and she smiled sheepishly, “Ah’d be lying, if Ah said me and Scoots didn’t get wrapped up in her enthusiasm for it. Ah actually thought it was good at the time. She was really excited about it.”
Babs looked at her blankly for a second, “Huh, I know what youse mean. Volt, Emo, and I have been through a lot since they joined the CMC.”
“That reminds me, how did you recruit them?” Applebloom asked. She hasn’t really tried to recruit anypony for the CMC, well, besides Babs, and nopony really seemed too keen on becoming Diamonds targets.
Babs cracked an embarrassed smile, “Well. I made a large poster.” Her smile fell, “I Propped it up in my school's entrance early and asked every blank flank that passed by if they’d join.”
“So that’s how you met the-” Applebloom said.
“Let me stop youse there, “ Babs interrupted. “All that did was almost get me in trouble with the principal. Nopony would even dignify my attempts to recruit them with a response. It was brutally embarrassing. Anyways, later that day, during lunch, I was approached by Volt and… two jerks. Apparently, they wanted to pretend that they were interested in joining, and I fell for it. Hook line and sinker, I was just that desperate. So, I thought things were going great. I told them all about the Cutiemark Crusaders and what we stand for, and they seemed really into it. I thought I was about to recruit three new members, I thought things were finally working out for me, for once. That was when they turned on me. Volt for her part was originally in on it. She thought they were just going to politely decline, instead they went out of their way to make fun of me. Volt subtle tried to get them to stop and leave me alone but they wouldn’t; in the end, Volt defended me. She told me that I could recruit her, so I did.”
Applebloom never realized city schools could be so ruthless. She’s glad she only had Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to deal with, especially after her run in with Shodan. “Then how’d you meet Emollient?” She asked.
“Well that was the next week, youse see we basically became the laughing stock of the entire school when our attempt at street performer cutiemarks was a-” Babs said.
“Oh! You mean, the time you knocked down the flagpole right?” Applebloom interrupted. She remembered that letter, though she hadn’t heard from her again until she showed up during the family reunion, now that she thought about it. She forgot all about it when she heard that Babs recruited yet another member. She looked up to Babs who was clearly unamused, “Sorry,” she apologised.
Babs sighed, “Yes, that’s the one. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, so we were the entire schools laughing stock by then, and we couldn’t find any pony to sit next to at lunch for the life of us, not that we wanted to. they kept repeating the ‘joke’ the teachers told about the principal’s ‘missing carriage.’ I still don’t get it. She wasn’t missing her carriage. Well, I guess it was missing for a couple days while it got repaired, because it did get crushed by the flagpole but still…” Applebloom wondered how Babs didn’t get expelled for that; then again, she herself once poisoned her own teacher with a love potion. “Do you know what makes it so funny Miss Coco?” Babs asked after some silence, Coco cringed and shrugged. “Umm, anyways one day we noticed Emollient sitting in a corner by herself at lunch, and then the next day. So we decide to see what her deal was. It was difficult to get two words out of her, let alone her name. We decided we’d sit next to her during lunch since she didn’t make fun of us, and she seemed nice. After a couple days, she asked if she could join the Crusaders. She said she wanted to join when she read the poster I made, but was too shy to ask. So we let her join.”
“That was a, umm, pleasant story Babs, but maybe we should also pick out customs while we talk.” Coco suggested. They agreed and went back work picking customs a little more explicitly. Coco helped them out when they had a disagreement on two similar sets of armor one red and one blue.
The makeup ponies weren’t as helpful as Coco and let them do what they felt was right, only helping out when asked. Applebloom was okay with that, since they got to talk more. Babs told her about the time they tried for their waitresses cutiemarks, and how it ended with Emollient getting a free meal and Volt getting kicked out. Apparently, Emollient criticised their presentation on some dishes and proposed better ones. She was too shy to actually serve the food so she made sure it went to the right tables and was made to order. Volt on the other hoof, accidentally dropped some dishes once while serving food, and again while she cleaned the dishes. Babs said she had some communication problems and got tipped poorly as a result. Applebloom told a crusading story of her own, but the makeup suffered. In stead of battle battered and tired; the actors looked like moody clowns that hadn’t gotten a good night's sleep.
Before Applebloom knew it, it was time to choose a background. She checked the script to see what kind of background was needed. The scene was set in a forest. After some searching with Babs and gaining no results they decided to ask about it. “Hey,” Babs addressed the unattentive adult members of her group, “youse guys got a forest background somewhere around here?” Applebloom was beside her.
“Umm,” one adult raised a hoof to his chin and rubbed it. “No,” he said flatly, “sorry. Looks like we have a background to make!” He said happily. “Follow me,” He gestured them to follow, “this’ll take time to get right but the theatre could use a forest background.” They began to follow.
Applebloom liked the idea of making a forest background. She wondered what it’d look like as ideas ran through her head, a jungle, a pine forest, rainforest? She stopped suddenly as a brilliant idea struck her. “Wait!” she yelled, stopping Babs and the stallion in their place. “What if we did better than make a mere background?” she loved this idea, she’d get to really impress her cousin. She wondered how she was going to show off her new powers for a while, and this seemed like the perfect way to do so. She was super excited about it.
“What’re youse talking about Applebloom?” Babs asked confused.
Applebloom cracked a huge smile, “What if we brought the forest here instead?” She couldn’t wait to see her face, it’ll be priceless.
“What?” Babs asked, “like, take trees from a forest and bring them here?” Applebloom nodded in confirmation.
“Filly,” the stallion said, drawing Appleblooms attention away from Babs, “Umm, Applebloom right?” She nodded. “Listen. Sorry to break it to you kid, but we don’t have that kind of time. we barely got enough to do it as a regular background, and we don’t have enough prop trees for it if that’s what you were thinking.” the stallion explained.
Applebloom knew it very well that it was possible, they just didn’t know it yet. She smirked, “Let's make a deal,” she proposed, and the stallion shrugged. “You sounded pretty rude just now,” she stated, and raised her hoof to stop him from responding. “Let me finish. You give me some advice and then one minute, no thirty seconds. If Ah can’t get a forest on stage in that time then Ah’ll apologize for wasting your time. But, if I can do it then you apologise to me.”
“Applebloom…” she looked to Babs who was visible concerned, “why are youse even doing this? There’s no way youse can get a forest in here, in that amount of time,” Babs explained. Applebloom merely smiled at her confidently.
She was going to figuratively blow their minds and get an apology to boot. “Do we have a deal?” she asked the stallion seriously.
“Well, you do seem set on it. So, I guess so. Deal.” the stallion agreed. “What do you need my expert opinion on?”
She giggled with glee at Babs who possessed an utterly confused riddled face. “Okay, so when I get a forest in here where should I put the trees and how many?”
“Heh, adorable,” the stallion mocked playfully. He then went on to describe how and where he would arrange trees to make a proper forest background with actual trees. They had to stop the choreography of the fight that’d been taking place on stage.
Applebloom actually recognized some of the moves they were practising as some that she’d seen just earlier that day. She was impressed with what little of Scootaloo and Volts mock fight she’d saw so far. After double checking the places he pointed out, she pulled out some appleseeds from her mane. She had significantly more and a larger variety of seeds in her saddlebags, but she doesn’t have that with her right now. She needed to buy something to keep the seeds in, that wasn’t as burdensome as her saddlebags. Maybe a pouch like Zecora had. It’d be simpler then concealing some seeds in her mane. But that could wait. She honestly doesn’t know what she was thinking when she put them in her mane, near her bowtie to keep them in place. Pinkie Pie. With that mind boggling thought she moved on. “So. Babs remember when we said we had secrets?” she asked, while preparing herself.
“Yeah?” Babs answered perplexed.
Applebloom merely confidently smiled at her, and focused on what she was going to do next. She looked to the stallion, “You all might want to back off to the curtains,” she suggested, but Scootaloo took control and made it happen. She glanced around and was pleased to see no pony in her way, “you can start the timer now.” In one swift motion, she threw the seeds at the locations he indicated almost not having enough. She cleared her mind, closed her eyes, and waited. She listened the clicking and clanking of the seeds as they bounced against the polished hardwood stage. She heard them clearly, almost as if they were right next to her ears. It seemed so slow, when it was mere seconds.The seeds stopped moving. She opened her eyes and was pleased to see they all ended up where they should of. She reared up on her back legs and brought her forelegs down, willing the idle seeds to grow with all her might.
-------------------
Volt
-------------------
Volt had only heard Babs speak highly of the Ponyville CMC members, and after having met them; she’d have to agree that they lived up to that. Especially since they were on vacation with a Princess. A Princess of Equestria, to be exact. She didn’t know what to make of Princess Twilight. She was conflicted. On one hoof, she was a Princess and she’s always wanted to meet a Princess. On the other, she didn’t behave like she imagined a Princess would. Instead of in charge and generous she seemed meek at times and cynical at others. She ignored that however; she was waiting for a moment she could have with Princess Twilight alone.
She was glad to finally receive her very own official CMC cape. She thought they looked awesome, like they were heros. She understood why she couldn’t bring it on crusades, having been a part of a couple disasters herself, but she still felt like showing it off. Then again she imagined how Shodan would’ve mocked them for it. She was impressed, when the Ponyville members stood up against Shodan for them. She wished she could be that brave. Then again, they probably didn’t know what they were getting into. She just hoped Shodan didn’t ramp up her bullying because of it. In any event, Applebloom interrupted their choreography for some impossible bet. Well, at least she was pretty sure it was impossible, but after seeing Scootaloo tear apart a sidewalk and somehow mend it back, she kept her mind open. Even though she couldn’t think of anyway Applebloom could do that besides teleportation.
Volt was a little confused when Scootaloo had her and everypony else on stage move to the curtains, or why she seemed very excited. The only answer she got out of her was to just watch. So she did. She watched Applebloom throw something and then rear up and pound down. Then she watched as chaos broke loose.
Large trees sprouted out from nowhere, or at least that’s how it seemed to Volt. The roots upended the floor boards snapping and twisting them in a horrifically loud manner. Her ears instinctively went down, but she continued watching. One of the trees collided with the makeshift sun, which was still on, and sent two of the less secure light fixtures to the ground. Luckily, no pony was beneath them at the time; the metal loudly banged while the lightbulbs within shattered. Unluckily, a small portion of the wiring broke free, and what remained of the makeshift sun swung down like a wrecking ball on a short tether into the bottom of the catwalk. Glass shards fell, and lightning shot out from the damaged light bulbs as they swung back and forth wildly on their short leash. A tree branch got struck by a stray bolt and promptly caught fire. She watched as the fire slowly began to consume the tree that popped up from nowhere. Lightning continued to shoot out from Frankenneighs version of a disco ball. Scootaloo shook her entire body, snapping her out of her daze, shock, and awe, “Hey, hey, Volt. Come on!” she yelled, “We have to stop that fire before it gets worse.”
“Ah didn’t know that would happen!” Applebloom shouted uselessly as she stared at the destruction she just caused.
“But how?” Volt asked nopony in particular. She thought of how to stop the fire, while looking up at it. Lightning discharged from the makeshift sun again, and set another nearby tree a blaze. With that, she knew what she had to do; unfortunately, she had no clue where the circuit breaker was and the adults already fled. “Scootaloo, I know how to stop the fire, but I’ll need you to get a cloud or something,” she said, as a plan came to her.
Scootaloo looked at her blankly for a second, “oh yeah, duh!” she exclaimed, while she smacked her head like she just realized something. “I can totally do better than that,” she said.
Volt didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded positive, “good,” she said. She looked towards the stairs that led up to the controls for the lights. All she had to do was get to the control panel and turn off the power to them. That would stop the bolts of lightning from causing more fires, “but first I need to-” she began, but noticed Scootaloo was gone. After a quick scan, she found her hovering near the first fire. She glanced up at the light fixtures and was glad to see them a decent distance away from Scootaloo, it still made her uneasy, but she felt Scootaloo was mostly safe.
“Check this out!” Scootaloo yelled with a wicked grin. Volt watched as Scootaloo breathed in deeply and then blew out. A powerful gust of wind somehow came from her mouth. The flames went in a frenzy and engulfed two nearby trees. It only made things significantly worse, “Whoops, my bad!” She yelled, hoof behind her head, as she slowly flapped closer to the ground.
Volt ignored whatever Scootaloo just did and booked it for the stairs. She had to turn off the power before things got worse. She knew that this was an electrical fire and the best way to stop it was to turn off the power before dealing with the fire, or at least that’s what she’d always been told, and read about. As she climbed up the twisting stairs she could see more trees starting to catch fire, she had to hurry. She knew it’d be hot, but hadn’t realized just how hot it’d be until she made it on top the catwalk. Smoke billowed out from one particular tree, whose leaves were just beginning to burn, blocking and obscuring her view of the light terminal. Heat distorted her surroundings, but she was too panicked to notice. She was already sweating and she hadn’t even ran for the terminal yet. Her heart raced as she psyched herself up to make a run for it. Everything told her it was a bad idea, but she already made it this far.
She breathed in deeply, then galloped to the console as flames licked at her hooves. She closed her eyes as she passed through the billowing smoke. She tripped and threw her forelegs in front of herself. She barely stopped herself from face planting on the catwalk, exhaling as she did so. She gritted her teeth, the metal burned her skin as it bypassed what meager protection her fur provided. Swiftly, she got back on her hooves and made her way to the console. Sweat obscured her vision as she located the off switch, and promptly flicked it off. Heat assaulted her eyes as she checked to make sure the lights actually turned off, alarmingly they remained on. She feared that would happen. The smoke made it hard to think, all she knew was that she had to stop the flow of electricity and get back down to the stage floor. There was only one option she had left. She opened the panels underside and exposed all the wires to all the switches, with a convenient wire cutter on display.
She lit her horn, because the catwalk was too hot to stand on for even a short length of time, and using her hooves required that. She was never really any good at magic, and the spell she needed now, required a calm state of mind, which she was nowhere close to being in. She had to try anyways, with all her concentration she reached out towards the wire cutter, and was excited to see a light orange glow surround it and lift in the air. She barely heard somepony yell below her, and the aurora around the wire cutter flickered and dimmed. She ignored the yell, and resumed her concentration. She looked at the many wires before her; unfortunately, they were all the same size but not the same color. She read about this before, and subsequently knew what wire she needed to cut. The problem was, that she couldn’t remember what color she needed to cut. It’d been awhile since she’d read that book. She closed her eyes, and thought. Her mind felt so heavy, maybe if she thought about it a little longer. What had she been thinking about? A searing pain intruded on her senses and she snapped open her eyes, everything coming back to her instantly, fully alert. She snipped a wire and booked it for the stairs, confident in her choice. In that moment, She failed to notice as a bright white light flashed from her flanks. Her lungs burned, as she ran. She coughed, hacked, and felt disoriented as she went down those twisting stairs. She almost fell a couple times. Once down she felt exhausted and needed rest. A purple light filled her vision before she blacked out.
-------------------
Emollient
-------------------
Emollient had gotten a little more use to the ponies she was tasked to work with. She really liked Sweetie and she thought Princess Twilight was very nice, well most the time. It was obvious to her that Twilight didn’t like being treated differently from other ponies. They worked on a new scene but were interrupted with a loud commotion that originated from the stage. No pony yelled, and nothing happened after a little bit; so they ignored it. That was until Applebloom yelled from the stage and appeared by its entrance, “TWILIGHT! HELP!”
Twilight sprung to action, “What happened?” the princess asked as she rushed towards Applebloom. Emollient saw dancing lights on the wall behind Applebloom, and faintly heard the crackle wood. She concluded a fire somehow started.
“Fire!” Applebloom yelled a little more subdued now that Twilight was closer, confirming Emollients deductions. “Scootaloo tried to put it out, but that only made it worse! She said you knew how to put it out!” Emollient was conflicted on whether or not she wanted to check it out.
Twilight reached the corner and gasped, while lighting up her horn. Emollient felt a strong urge to sate her curiosity, so she approached cautiously. She watched as the alicorns concentration increased tenfold and her horn glowed brightly. She disregarded the Princess and peeked around the wall. She saw several trees covered in circular pinkish purple shields all in segments. It was ill-lighted, but the aurora emitted from the shields and dying flames within allowed her a good view of the havoc wreaked. The fire slowly died away, but Twilight kept her shields up for a while longer. Warm smoke slowly arose when the shields finally fell, it darkened the stage, making it hard to see anything outside of the few gaps from the curtains.
Twilight told everypony to get to the backstage, including Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Everypony listened to her, and soon there was a huge crowd of ponies backstage again. Emollient immediately noticed Volt wasn’t in the crowd but when she tried to say something it just didn’t work. There were too many ponies and it made her too nervous. Twilight spoke up before she could, “Alright, anypony care to explain to me why there’s burnt trees on-”
“MY STAGE!? WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BEAUTIFUL STAGE!?” yelled undoubtedly the owner of the theatre. “PRINCESS TWILIGHT!” Emollient eyes went down in fear, he sounded angry.
“Oh joy,” Twilight said, sounding anything but happy, “Applebloom I’m pretty sure you played a big role in this, so you and Applejack should come with me. Before the owner gets a heart attack or something,” Applebloom followed behind like a wounded dog while Applejack walked beside Applebloom protectively. Babs eventually went after them.
The group dispersed a little leaving Emollient with Sweetie, Rainbow, and Scootaloo. She was worried, “have any of you seen Volt?” She finally managed to ask now that she was with more familiar ponies even if she met them all just today. Scootaloo and Sweetie were crusaders, and that meant something to her.
“Yeah, she-” Scootaloo began but then cut herself off. “Umm,” she squinted and her face scrunched up, “I lost track of her when I told Applebloom to get Twilight...”
“Oh,” Emollient said with a frown, “I hope she’s alright.” She was really concerned, that was a huge fire and she hadn’t seen Volt yet. She’d read enough detective books to know that a fire like that was a big enough distraction for a foal napping, though she couldn’t think of any monetary gains a pony could make by doing so, well besides from Princess Twilight. As far as she knew no pony had a personal grudge against her friend and she didn’t see that happening in the short time they’ve been apart. She mulled over even more likely scenarios.
“Hey,” Scootaloo said, patting her withers and taking her out of mind, “you know what. Me and Rainbow here-”
“Rainbow and I,” interrupted Sweetie, earning a glare and smile from Scootaloo. Emollient couldn’t tell if Scootaloo was happy or annoyed with her interruption it seemed like both.
“Whatever,” Scootaloo dismissed, “we’ll go look for Volt. How’s that sound?”
“That sounds nice,” Emollient agreed. She hoped that they found her soon, she couldn’t help but worry. She kept thinking about it. Every thought worse than the last. She didn’t even notice them leave to go find her friend, so lost in thought she had been.
“Hey,” Sweetie said softly, gaining her attention, “I’m sure she’s okay…” Emollient felt somewhat comforted by that. The white unicorn filly she’s hung out with all day suddenly hopped in place in an excited manner, “Let's find something to do while we wait!” Sweetie beamed at her. She actually thought that sounded pretty good about now.
“Alright, but what?” Emollient agreed. She didn’t much like the idea of standing around doing nothing for who knows how long. She began to wonder why she herself hadn’t thought to look around for Volt, but Sweetie interrupted that train of thought.
“Oh!” Sweetie exclaimed. “I know!” she squeaked, “My sister has always been really good with makeup. We should try that.” Sweetie lead her, well more like whisked her, to the actors. Their makeup was all kinds of messed up. She then somehow talked one of them into letting them try out their skills. Intentional or not, it did help her forget about her worries.
-------------------
Babs
-------------------
Babs was excited about today. It’d been great so far, with the exceptions of Shodan and the disaster on stage that likely just canceled their crusading for the day. She was glad to see that her best friends got along with her ponyville friends. She worried they wouldn’t, even though she had no reason to think so. She didn’t know how the stage got ruined. All she knew was a bunch of huge trees popped out of nowhere, caught fire, and it’d somehow been Appleblooms fault. She decided to follow after her cousins when they went to talk to the owner.
The curtains opened at some point since she’d last been on stage, which allowed light to shine from the auditorium. She listened in on the conversation, as she slid beside a downcast Applebloom. It disheartened her, when she heard how much it was likely going to cost them. Applebloom freaked out about it. Her cousin objected and argued that it was an accident and she didn’t know the roots would do that, but oddly enough her other cousin Applejack seemed okay with it. She didn’t know how Applejack could be so calm, that was a lot of bits they owed. They discussed payment terms, which ended with Applejack somehow paying it in full sometime this week. She didn’t know what Applejack was thinking, but that seemed like an impossible task to her. The theatre owner excused himself and retired for the day, so he could cool down his temper. “Applebloom!” Scootaloo yelled with urgency clear in her voice. She found Scootaloo kneeled down on the other side of the stage, next to some twisting stairs. Everypony made way to Scootaloo. She noticed figure lying beside her orange friend, but she was too far away and it was too dark to see any details.
“Volt?” Babs asked, as soon as she recognized the unicorn filly next to Scootaloo. Applebloom lept into action and asked what happened while placing a hoof on her wheezing form. “Is she going to be okay?” Babs asked, concerned about how nasally her friends breathing was. Scootaloo stared at her flank with a wild smile. Before she investigated whatever Scootaloo was looking at, Volt made some nasty coughs. “Volt are youse alright? What happened?” She asked in eager concern.
*cough* “Ahem, ugh.” Volt groaned, “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, blinking her eyes. “I feel great actually,” she said, getting up. She squinted looking down at the ground as if there was something there, “odd,” she commented.
“Why were you passed out here?” Twilight asked, concern written on her face.
Volt beamed at Twilight, before she brought a hoof behind her head in shame or embarrassment, Babs couldn’t tell. “Oh um, I turned off the power to the lights, because it was an electrical fire,” she smiled faintly, “by the time I got on the catwalk it was already hot and smoky and…” She sighed, “well, it wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done now that I think about it. I blacked out apparently. I hardly remember getting down those stairs,” she said, gesturing to the stairs in question.
Scootaloo got beside an even more downtrodden Applebloom and threw a hoof across her shoulder, “cheer up Applebloom. This wasn’t all your fault, I know you saw me make the fire twice as worse…” She looked to Babs apologetically, “ which was an accident! Anyways, I think it’s time we stop being secretive and just tell them, don’t you?” Applebloom merely nodded pitifully, looking miles away. “Twilight come with us please. We might need your help explaining things.”
“So, you’re finally going to tell them?” Twilight asked, and Scootaloo nodded. Babs knew what they were talking about. Given the things she’d seen and the fact Princess Twilight was apparently in on it, well she looked forward to finally hearing their secret.
Babs idly wondered how Applejack could pay that much on such short notice, as they all followed Scootaloo backstage. Just as the got backstage Rainbow Dash rejoined the group and commented she was glad they found Volt; after that, they heard a squeal of delight from one of the makeup booths. Sweetie ran out of one of the booths and fell on her chin in the process. Babs almost laughed at that, only encouraged by Scootaloo's small snickers. Sweetie got up quickly though and spotted them instantly. She ran towards them and then hopped around them happily yelling, “she did it,” over and over again. Emollient exited the booth and approached them with a large smile.
“Who did what?” Twilight asked. Babs was curious herself.
“Emollient got her Cutiemark!” Sweetie squealed. Babs felt great. They finally got a cutiemark after about one year of being crusaders. She wondered what it was and what it was for. She could hardly wait. Though, apparently she wasn’t the only one.
Twilight was gone in a flash and pop, and reappeared right next to Emollient in another flash and pop. “YES!” Twilight exclaimed in what could only be delight. Babs watched as she picked up her light pink pegasus friend with her hooves and waved her around like a trophy. “Yes! Yes, Yes, Yes!”
“Woah there Princess, Ah think you need to cool yer jets.” Applejack stated, while Rainbow laughed at Twilights excitable behavior.
Twilight froze in place still holding Emollient high between her hooves. Her smile slowly faded, as it was replaced with embarrassment before she gently put the pegasus down, “Sorry,” she apologised.
“So what’s it for?” Babs asked her friend who was proudly showing off her cutiemark, hardly fazed by Twilight odd behavior. It was a slightly lighter pink blotch on both sides of her flank, it was actually almost hard to see, but it was definitely there.
She seemed too happy to let all the ponies staring at her affect her, “I think it’s for my ability to notice things that other ponies would usually miss, or that I’m good with makeup, since I technically got it while applying makeup…” she finished looking down in deep thought, eyes scrunched up. Babs was a little confused by this, shouldn’t she know what her cutiemark meant?
“Well!” Scootaloo yelled, drawing everypony's attention away from the awkward silence, “She’s not the only one who got her cutie mark today!” she exclaimed, then brought a hoof around Volt. Volt for her part looked excited.
“You got your cutiemark to?” The dark grey unicorn filly asked, as Scootaloo detached.
“I wish, but no. You did!” Scootaloo beamed. Volt was quick check her claims, but Babs could already see it. It was a broken clear light bulb with a brass screw thread contact and a giant lightning bolt bursting out of the top of the bulb.
“She got her cutiemark to?” Applebloom asked, apparently no longer lost in her mind. “That’s Amazing! How’d you get it?” Though Babs could tell something about her cousins smile and voice seemed awfully forced.
Volt froze, smiles and all, before her face scrunched up and she looked back at her cutiemark, “Umm… let me show you!” she chuckled unsurely, and suddenly and ran back to the stage.
“Does this mean they’re no longer crusaders?” Sweetie asked. Applebloom and Scootaloo didn’t seem to know. Scootaloo said she’d check the rules when they got back from vacation. They followed after Volt. Babs lingered behind briefly as the lack of an answer weighed heavy on her heart. Her mind raced with what it could mean. She caught up to them and listened to Volt explain when she was pretty sure she got her cutiemark.
Babs was thrilled for her friends but Sweeties question haunted her. Did this mean they were done crusading? What happens to a CMC member when they get their cutiemark? It didn’t help that while she thought about it, the conversation somehow turned into finding ponies for them to apprenticeship under. Everything was moving so fast. If they found ponies who would take up their apprenticeship, then they wouldn’t have time to crusade. If they didn’t have time to crusade then would she be on her own again? Would they leave her for ponies who already had cutiemarks? Volt had done it once before. She needed to get away, she’d seen what happened to ponies who get their cutiemarks. They lose touch with their markless friends or sometimes even turn on them. She felt like that was going to happen to her. She congratulated them both, then excused herself from the celebrating and chatter. She felt so detached.
She walked silently out of the backstage, then up a elevated ramp of the auditorium, “Babs!” Scootaloo said suddenly behind her.
Babs drew her attention to Scootaloo, “Oh, hey Scootaloo,” she said in a rather uninterested tone and kept walking.
“What’s wrong?” Scootaloo asked getting beside her.
Babs thought about how she wanted to answer that, “well, now what am I supposed to do?” she said bitterly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scootaloo questioned back. Babs thought about it more, but kept walking. “Come on, tell me what’s bothering you. We just had our first successful crusade!” she exclaimed happily. Babs paused and looked at her questioningly. “Umm, well…” Scootaloo squinted her eyes, “besides the whole. Recking the stage, and setting it on fire thing, that is.”
Babs continued walking, “Sweetie asked the question herself, does that mean they’re no longer Cutiemark Crusaders? Even youse didn’t seem to have an answer to that,” she paused briefly waiting for a reply, when none came she went on, “they don’t need to crusade anymore because they have their cutiemarks,” she took a calming breath. In all honesty, she didn’t know why she felt so strongly about this. She was sure she was over-reacting, but she couldn’t help it though. Anytime she thought about the future now it was empty. Devoid of her best friends and all the little adventures they’ve gotten into over the last year. They will have moved on to bigger and greater things and left her behind. “So why would they still be Cutiemark Crusaders?” She ran as tears threatened to run down her face, but Scootaloo clamped down on her tail before she got out of reach. She stopped, not because of any pain or force, though there was little. She just lacked the will to care enough to fight free. She was a little surprised when she was brought into a hug. She was on the verge of bursting into tears and that wasn’t helping, but she held strong.
“Babs,” Scootaloo said softly, “I know what you’re afraid of,” she tightened her hug, “you think they’re gonna move on and forget about you…”
Babs breathed in, “Yeah… How did you-”
“Because I had the same fears,” Scootaloo interrupted, “I’ve only known Volt and Emollient for one day and that doesn’t sound like something they’d do, to me. Do you really think they’d do that to you?”
Babs choked a sob, and rubbed her eyes, “n-no,” she answered. That didn’t sound like them at all. They’d been through enough for her to know they wouldn’t do that to her, but a possibility did come to her, “N-not unless I turned into a bully.”
“Do you remember the day you joined the Cutiemark Crusaders?” Scootaloo asked. She stopped the hug but kept a foreleg across her withers like they were hoofball teammates.
She was almost caught off guard with that question. She remembered that day well. She was a huge bully to them all week. Just so she could avoid being called blank flank herself. She hated every moment of it, but she was too cowardly to stop. They did something she’d never forget. They invited her into their group. After all the horrible things she’d done to them. They found it in themselves to forgive her. It was a very fond memory to say the least, “I remember it like a was yesterday.”
“D-do,” Scootaloo stuttered, “you recall the first word I used to describe the bound we share, as Cutiemark Crusaders?” She asked, and then breathed in as if she was calming herself down.
Babs looked to her friend, “Umm, gal pals?” Scootaloo shook her head, “amigos?” Scootaloo smiled at that, but shook no. There was so many different words she used describe their bond, “possum buddies?” Scootaloo’s eyes scrunched up but nodded no, again. She blew her bangs out of her vision in frustration, then it came to her, “Sisters. I know it was sisters.”
Scootaloo cracked a small nervous smile, “an-and do you know why I u-used that particular word, before al-all the rest?”
“No,” Babs simply answered. She was beginning to get worried about Scootaloo's stuttering and how nervous her friend looked.
Scootaloo breathed in deeply, eyes closed, and released much of that breath. She opened her eyes and stared directly at Babs, “I’m an orphan,” she replied in a matter of fact way.
Babs eyes shot open and she stared at Scootaloo, “What?”
“I’m an orphan,” Scootaloo repeated.
Through all the things that could’ve come to Babs mind, a serious conversation with her parents came to the front of her thoughts. One that she had before she left for Sweet Apple Acres last year. Her parents told her not to bring up Applebloom's, Applejack's, and Big Mac’s parents while there since they were dead. She asked some questions about that, and ended up learning Ponyville didn’t have an orphanage, or at least that as far as her parents knew Ponyville didn’t have a orphanage. “I didn’t know Ponyville had an orphanage.” Babs stated, as if she just learned something new.
“It doesn’t,” Scootaloo corrected.
Babs froze, “Then where in Ponyville do youse live?”
Scootaloo smiled at that, “with the one and only Rainbow Dash! She’s my big sister now,” she boasted proudly. “But... before that, I lived in the Cutiemark Crusader clubhouse. It wasn’t all bad, I had Pinkie Pie to help me out,” Babs knew Pinkie Pie, somepony like that was hard to forget. Scootaloo sighed, “and before that, I lived in an abandoned house, and before that, I lived in an orphanage. I don’t really feel like talking about that right now.”
“Umm okay,” Babs replied, she was glad some ponies were watching out for Scootaloo now. Then it hit her, “Wait a minute, when did youse move in with Rainbow Dash?”
“Like a week or two ago,” Scootaloo answered with a smile, but then froze when she looked up to Babs.
Babs felt shocked and down right awful. She kicked Scootaloo out of the clubhouse. She had no doubt Scootaloo was living there when she did, even if it didn’t last during the night Diamond and Silver were talking about sleeping over in the clubhouse just to ‘rub it in their faces.’ She managed to talk them out of it, but that’s about all she could do. What she did was horrible. Regret hit her hard, “I’m sorry,” she apologised, as she brought Scootaloo into a tight hug.
Scootaloo patted her back, ”It’s okay, really,” Scootaloo said, struggling to get out of the bear grip hug but ultimately giving up, “and before you ask yes. Applebloom, Sweetie, and of course Rainbow know about my situation,” Babs detached from the hug, “but Applejack and Twilight don’t, and I want to be the one to tell them. So please-”
“Alright, I won’t tell them,” Babs interrupted. “So, youse consider us sisters?”
“Well…” Scootaloo rubbed the back of her head a forehoof, “more like second sisters? It’s just, Rainbow and I are now a family. So extended family? At the time, I just really wanted a family and I thought I’d make the Cutiemark Crusaders be that family. You know what I mean?”
Babs didn’t know what she meant but at least thought she understood it. She could only imagine. “...I’m okay with that,” She finally managed to say. “So does this mean Volt and Emollient are still crusaders?”
“Yes,” Scootaloo answered, “once a Cutiemark Crusader, always a Cutiemark Crusader,” she stated. “Now! I’m sure they’re wondering where we ran off to, so let's get back there.”
They turned around and began walking back, “Thanks,” Babs said honestly.
“We’ve never really talked about it, Sweetie, Applebloom, and I that is. But I knew we were likely not going to get our cutiemarks on the same crusade, which is why I wrote in our rules in a way that a membership is permanent and that members…” Scootaloo went on to explain the guidelines she made for the Cutiemark Crusaders. Babs felt sure that full disclosure of what it meant to agree to become a Crusader should probable given before anypony joined from now on. It was nothing too taxing or outrageous, but she still felt that way nonetheless.
Things went better than Babs hoped when they met back up with the celebrating ponies. Volt and Emollient pledged to help her get her own cutiemark without any suggestions from Scootaloo or requests from herself. She felt silly for thinking they’d abandon her just because they got their cutiemarks, and proud to be one of their friends. Applebloom seemed off to her. She believed it had everything to do with how much Applejack owed the theatre. Their welcome at the theatre ended, so they all went out and had dinner. Babs and her friends finally learned what happened that gave Applebloom the ability to instantly grow trees. Applebloom seemed unusually quiet to her, but the day grew short and their plates were empty, so they said their goodbyes. She couldn’t wait to see them again, especially since it’ll be during the finale tournament, but that’s days away.
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Bored out of her mind with nothing to do, Mirror stared out at the dimly green lit cave ceiling above her. It was far out of her reach as she laid on a comfortable hammock unique to changelings. She’d finished school for the day and already completed her homework on food. She wanted to learn about outside already, even if the few looks she got when she visited the cave entrance seemed even more boring than the cave itself, well besides whatever provided the bright light outside. It had lingered in her eyes whenever she looked back inside the cave, obscuring her view with weird translucent blobs. She heard a tapping noise as she thought, right outside her little domain, down the passage that lead to a large cave network. She’d never heard anything like it before, it sounded hard yet hollow at the same time.
Fear crept up as it slowly continued to get closer, as far as she knew her parents were supposed to be busy today making preparations for a potentially dangerous scouting mission and then heading out. She wondered where her foaling sitter was. The noise stopped right outside her room and she tried to hide in her hammock best she could. Someling disguised as a young pegasus stallion flew in and spotted her almost immediately. “There you are,” he said in an unfamiliar angry voice, causing her to nestle into to her hammock even more. Yet, for some strange reason she wanted to run to that young pegasus and give her a hug. Wait her?
Someling disguised as an old unicorn mare hobbled in holding onto some long object that wasn’t a stalactite, yet she got a strong feeling she knew exactly what it was, as it made that weird noise each time it hit the ground, “Welp, I think that’s enough,” said the old mare, who promptly had a burst of green energy burn away the old mare transformation and revealed her father. Something wasn’t right, but she felt overjoyed to see him.
She squeaked in joy and yelled, “Daddy,” whilest she galloped to give him a hug. She thought for sure she wouldn’t get to see him till after the mission in a week or so, having said her goodbyes earlier that morning. Wait what? Something was off but she couldn’t put her hoof on it.
“You’re no fun,” said the familiar voice of her mother, as she lost her own disguise now on the ground, “awe, you’re both so cute. Come over here and give me a hug,” she pouted.
“Mamma!” she yelled and galloped to her mother's awaiting hug, “I thought you left, for your scoo-scout scoting mission.” Wait, why was she struggling with this word. Something was wrong, even as she felt the warm embrace of her mother. Then why did she feel chilly?
“Things got messy with supplies, so we couldn’t leave till now. We wanted to say goodbye to you one last time before we left,” her mother explained.
“and make sure you were doing your homework,” her father said jokingly.
“Daddy!” she complained. She felt confused, everything seemed just fine and familiar so what made her dread something. “All we learn about this last week is food. I ate it every day, what the big deal? I want to learn about outside.” Why did she sound so stupid? What’s going on?
“Outside you say?” Her father bemused. He raised the wooden cane he was carrying, “do you know what this is?” he asked.
“No,” she said, wait what? That wasn’t right, she knew what it was, before she could correct herself her father spoke up.
“This is a wooden cane, and do you know what wood is?” she said no again, for some reason. Something wasn't right “Wood comes from trees, which are living things that can grow to be larger than this entire room though they’re usually pretty thin much like this cane if it were much bigger. They sprout branches that reach for the sky that then grow thousands of green leaves. A forest is made up of many trees, and several animals and monsters claim it as their home,” he suddenly turned into a black and white striped pony with a weird mane, “Zebras have been known to live in trees and this is what they look like.”
“Forest can actually be very beautiful.” Her mother added.
“Really? Can you take me to see them one day?” she asked, feeling a pang of despair soon after. This was all wrong. Something pecked at her head and suddenly she couldn’t see anything.
*CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP*
Mirror groaned and sniffled. She smelt a very faint hint of anger, which smelled like burnt toast at the moment. She felt clean crisp air filter through her lungs. The pecking started again, and she lazily and blindly swiped at it with a forehoof only for it to come back with avengeance. She threw her forelegs in front of her and backed away opening her eyes to the sight of her forelegs, only to accidentally slip and fall hitting several things on her way down. Every sudden stop woke her up even more, until she finally hit the relatively soft bottom.
She felt bruised and battered. She groaned as she slowly got on shaky legs and looked around. She was surrounded by things. She wondered where she was, as she yawned. Then it came back to her. She was in a gloomy forest thanks to the morning light. She blinked a couple times as the ‘dream’ she was rudely woken up from came to mind. She hated how changelings relived their memories as ‘dreams.’ That was a nice moment with her parents and a promise they’d never be able to keep. Just another reason to hate ponies. They were defending themselves, she reminded herself. She wasn’t here for revenge, her race was starving and she needed to help the love collection effort.
She was glad to be rid of the hot unforgiving badlands. She had a little less food than she wanted, but felt confident that her flight to the forest was far better than being diamond prairie dog chow. She had been running low on water, and the water from those broken barrels in the abandoned town was stale; compared to the fresh river water she came across after some trekking in the forest. Trees, bushes, vines, and occasional flowers she’d only seen in books presented themselves to her and she was fascinated. She had heard so many new noises that she had a hard time going to sleep. Crickets, chirps, howls, and growls had kept her on edge; but the gentle rustling of leaves in a light breeze helped lawl her to sleep. She wasn’t a fan of her rude awakening and subsequent tumble mere moments ago. She glared above her looking for the thing that assaulted her, but only saw branches.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes clear and checked her saddlebags, glad to see they kept closed and secure during her fall. She looked for the sun that shined against a side of the canopy. She double checked her compass then cautiously continued her trek to her destination, not sure how much farther it was. She heard so many strange sounds, and they all sounded like they were bickering and arguing at one another. She suspected the faint hint of anger she smelled had something to with it. It was the only emotion she could smell, that wasn’t in her saddlebags, but it was far away or getting old she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell how far away it was or how old it was, but she could smell that it only got stronger in the direction that she was headed. She didn’t like anger because it tasted horrible. She’s glad she only had to taste it once during class. What she was doing was more important than her petty preferences so she moved forward. It’s all she could do, it’s all she had left.