Scootaloo kissed Star Dew on the tip of his muzzle. The little bat-colt yawned in response, drawing a grin to Scootaloo’s face. Being guilt-tripped into helping take care of the adorable foal might have been the best thing to happen to her life next to forming the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but she still had other ponies to keep up with.
“I’ll be back in the morning, Squirt,” she said. Star Dew pouted.
“Aw, but I go be sleep by morning!” Despite how cute his half-broken Equestrian could be, the colt had a point. Unlike most of the foals at the Ponyville Foster House, he would be awake all evening and night.
Scootaloo smacked her forehead. “I mean I’ll be back when you’re really awake, Starry. Maybe we can play a game or two before I gotta crash, huh?”
She ruffled his mane and the ribbons tied into it, ignored his protest, and hopped on her scooter, giving it a push-start with one hind leg to get it moving. With a buzz of her wings, the orange pegasus filly accelerated the toy vehicle to Dashing Speed—a term she had invented herself—and left the Foster House and her favorite colt in the dust.
As awesome as Star Dew, Mom, Dad, Pa, and Pappy were, Scootaloo was looking forward to staying out late with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom in the clubhouse at Sweet Apple Acres. She didn’t want to stay out too late, though. That night was movie night at the Foster House, and the older fillies and colts were going to watch a horror film after the little ones were in their beds and cribs.
As she steered onto Ponyville’s main street, the fastest way to get to the other side of town and out to the clubhouse, Scootaloo’s ears perked towards a rumbling sound in the distance behind her. A thunderstorm must have been coming. Getting caught in the rain was fine, but she sped up further anyway, flipping her scooter like a skateboard to vault over an unattended market stall full of flowers.
There weren’t all that many ponies in the normally-crowded street, now that she really looked. Weird.
A prismatic streak flashed through Scootaloo’s peripheral vision, and she looked up just in time to see the oncoming rainbow shockwave that threw her against the wall of a nearby shop. She bounced off onto the grass by the street, and there was a crash as her scooter flew through an open window and broke something.
"Yeah!" the filly shouted. There was only one pony in Equestria who could pull off the sonic rainboom, the source of the power that had thrown her clean off the street. In the distance, a telltale rainbow contrail raced along a strange-looking cloud front before veering upwards. Rainbow Dash was hard at work, and Scootaloo liked to think the mare could hear her cheers.
Then there was a pink blur. Scootaloo felt her hooves leave the ground, and her whole body moved to the left so quickly it reminded her of the time Rainbow Dash had greeted her with a flying tackle.
“It’s very important that you stay inside!” a familiar voice blurted in her ear as she came to a stop.
“Pinkie Pie?” Scootaloo blinked. Wow, she might have just set a new land speed record. She was inside now, in a large room lit by row upon row of cake candles on shelves and on the flat and solid wheel of a cart in use as a table. Standing over her was Ponyville’s resident pink party pony, Pinkie Pie, and there were a few other fillies and colts lingering in various degrees of confusion nearby. Somepony was crying, and there was a banner pinned to the back wall which had the words ‘Super Special Surprise Survival Party’ written on it with brown, dark grey, purple, and red crayons.
Pinkie didn’t look herself at all. Her wide eyes and shrunk pupils combined with the wind-blown flatness of her mane to produce the picture of a pony who was all wrong.
“Stay inside,” the pink mare repeated. Then, with another blur up the room’s central ladder and a zip out the trapdoor in the ceiling, she was gone.
“Great, you’re here.” And that was Diamond Tiara, Ponyville’s resident pink party pooper. Scootaloo sighed.
“I didn’t even ask to be here!” the little pegasus said. She eyed the ladder, but… something in Pinkie’s tone had been urgent. Maybe she had better wait just long enough to understand what was going on. “What are you doing here?”
Diamond shrugged. “I have no idea. Pinkie knocked my tiara right off, too. Daddy’s going to get her into so much trouble if it gets lost.”
“Yeah, right.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Pinkie’s way more famous than your stupid ‘daddy.’ ”
The other filly had just opened her mouth to reply when the trapdoor opened and shut. The pink blur, transformed back into Pinkie Pie as she stopped, reappeared. Pinkie set the grey foal she was carrying down on a section of the table that wasn’t covered in flaming candles and kissed the tip of his muzzle.
“Now, be a good colt. Auntie Pinkie will be right back with—” Pinkie’s knees twitched, then her tail and ears. She turned back to the ladder and whimpered. “Oh no, no no no, not yet, I wasn’t—”
A cacophony of rumbling, smashing, and metallic screeching noises sounded overhead, drowning out everything. Scootaloo screamed and buried her head under her forelegs, covering her ears. The destruction above went on and on like an angry child-goddess had decided to ‘play’ with Sugarcube Corner, smashing it together with a few of the surrounding buildings. Scootaloo remained hunkered down on the floor, teeth gritted against any further uncool outbursts. It was just a really bad storm, she could do better than this!
The sound was gone as suddenly as it came, leaving the filly’s ears ringing. Other sounds made their way back into her world—colts and fillies crying, and the high wail of a foal. Pinkie’s voice, trying to shush somepony. Scootaloo found her way onto her unsteady hooves and glanced around to find the whole room in disarray. Candles had fallen everywhere. Fortunately, the floor was non-flammable hardened earth and nopony looked burned, but boxes, confetti, party hats, and noisemakers had fallen everywhere. One of the hats was on fire, but nopony else paid it any attention, so neither did Scootaloo.
Pinkie Pie stepped away from her table as the wailing finally stopped, carrying the grey foal on her back, and stacked two boxes under her half-fallen banner. After a moment’s seeming consideration, she stuck the burning party hat on top and produced a marker from her mane, drawing a smiling face on the upper box. Then she mimicked the faux face. Scootaloo was sure she’d seen more sincere and convincing smiles when Silver Spoon had been caught red-hoofed in one of her bullying “games” and given detention and strict supervision for a week.
“Welcome,” Pinkie said. There were tears along the edges of her upbeat tone; she sounded ready for a party or a funeral. A funeral party wasn’t out of the question. “Hoo boy. That is to say, Mister Boxington and I would like to welcome you to our Super Special Surprise Survival Party. Everypony gather around!”
Scootaloo didn’t like where this was going, but she followed. Pinkie was the only adult present, and she had earned more than a little trust. She was joined by the other fillies and colts.
“Wonderful!” said Pinkie. She grabbed a third box and a bag of milk that had been replaced with water off a nearby shelf. “We’re going to have so much fun! There’s food and drink and games! I have a lot of games, but the first one is special because we’ll be playing it during the others, for days and days! Is everypony ready?”
“Yes, Pinkie,” Scootaloo said, in unison with a number of the foals. What was this? Maybe some of the younger ones would be distracted, but all she wanted to do was leave. The storm had been terrible. If something had happened to Sweetie Belle or Apple Bloom or—oh no, she had to go back to the Foster House! What if Mom or Dad or Pa or Pappy was hurt? What if one of the foals at the House was hurt? What if it was Star Dew? That colt was like a little sister to her!
“Sorry. I can’t stay.” The little pegasus turned back to the ladder.
“Wait!” Pinkie screamed. Scootaloo cringed, and the pink mare trotted over, lowering her voice to indoors volume. “You can’t go out there yet. It’s not safe! I promise, when the party is over, I’ll look out there myself and see if it’s safe yet, and when it’s safe everypony can go home.” Pinkie sat back on her haunches and drew her right forehoof across her chest, held it up briefly, then covered her eye with her left forehoof. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! Oooh, I—I don’t feel so good…”
Pinkie trotted back to the center of the ring of foals and gave her greenest and least convincing smile yet. “That brings me to our super-special game: Anti-Magic! The rules are simple: If you use any kind of magic, you lose.” Her eyes grew wide, her smile grew broad, her ears flopped just off-beat from each other, and her voice dropped down a well. “Forever.” Scootaloo shuddered as Pinkie went on. At least the mare’s voice returned to normal right away.
“Otherwise you win some free cupcakes and candies for the rest of your life! That means no casting spells, Dinky, not even levitating things! No flying, and that means you, Zippoorwhill, Featherweight, and Pound Cake!” Her voice changed as she leaned towards Mister Boxington and hid her muzzle behind one leg. “And no earth pony magic, especially not you, Pinkie Pie!” She straightened up and performed a mock-salute, returning to her normal tone. “I’ve got it, Mister Boxington! Nopony uses absolutely no earth pony magic like Pinkie Pie!”
Scootaloo snickered, despite herself. Whatever other party skills the mare possessed, Pinkie was a terrible ventriloquist. Then, she frowned.
“Wait, what about me?” she asked.
“You…” Pinkie hesitated. “Didn’t your family tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Scootaloo held her head a little higher. “I mean, uh, of course! My family tells me everything. Especially Pa and Garland, they’re the best.”
“Well! I bet you know everything you need to know already, then,” Pinkie said, her face twisted around a somewhat genuine, but smug, smile.
Darn it, Scootaloo thought, she knows I don’t know! “Of course,” she answered. A firm nod ought to make her look as certain as she sounded.
“Wha ma bwuffa?”
It was the grey foal riding on Pinkie’s back who had spoken out of turn. His barely-formed words made the mare freeze up for a moment, before she turned her head towards him. She opened her mouth, then shut it, and Scootaloo thought she saw the beginnings of tears in the older pony’s eyes.
“I-I—” Pinkie swallowed loudly.
“Wha ma bwuffa? I wan bwuffa!” The foal burst into tears, and Pinkie followed suit. Scootaloo’s blood chilled, sending shivers through her. From their similarity, the foal was probably the baby brother Rumble had been bragging about, and now she had a bad feeling. Rumble was really cute for not being one of the few colts who ever wore bows and frills...
Another wave of chills hit as her mind strayed to Star Dew. As Pinkie Pie desperately tried to lighten the mood with a round of Pin the Tail on the Pony, Scootaloo retreated to sit, wait, and collect herself at the foot of the ladder. She was a little old for such an uncool game, anyway.
Eventually, Pinkie got everypony distracted with each other and came over. “Scootaloo?” she said. “How come you’re not joining in?”
“Pinkie.” Scootaloo kept her voice down. “How bad is it? I mean, really. That wasn’t an Everfree storm. It came from the wrong direction.” As Pinkie opened her mouth, the filly continued, “Tell me the truth, or I’m going home. You can’t stop me. The other Crusaders are waiting, and Star Dew’s scared of storms.”
“O-okay, since you insist,” Pinkie said. “You have good reasons, and I can’t hold you down forever.” The mare took a deep breath. “Something terrible happened. Anypony outside is… they’re gone. If you go outside now, nopony will ever see you again, and I want to see you again because you’re my best friend’s best friend who’s not me, so please don’t go outside.”
“What.”
“You made me say it straight. You can’t leave yet—it’s too dangerous. I’m sorry.”
As Pinkie returned to the others, Scootaloo stared down at her hooves. The scale was… she simply couldn’t imagine it. Everypony outside, in Ponyville, gone? She had lived in Ponyville all her life, and the idea of missing Roseluck’s attempts to sell her flowers for Rumble, or of Sweetie Belle not being there to say some weird Prench word at least once every Cutie Mark Crusaders meeting, just would not fit. They had always been there. They would always be there. Wouldn’t they?
And Star Dew… little Dew was closer to her then any of her other “siblings”, and between camaraderie and caregiving, he felt somewhere between a kid sister and a daughter. Either way, he was family, even more so than her “parents.” Not that she would admit it, because taking care of foals was not even remotely cool, but he was the best, and if anything happened to him…
“What’s the matter, crybaby?” It was Diamond Tiara again. Scootaloo hastily brushed away a few tears and glared up at her. “Are you sad because Pinkie Pie grounded you from the party?”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. Typical; the pink filly had run out of new put-down material again. “Pinkie didn’t ground me, Tiara-less. Why don’t you go back to your baby games?”
Diamond balked, glaring back for a moment, then broke into a smile. “Huh, you’re actually getting better.” She sat down next to Scootaloo, who forced herself to smile back. “So why are you really sitting alone?”
“I’m just worrying about my friends.” Mentioning Star Dew would be a mistake; Diamond Tiara wasn’t the nicest filly even when you were her friend, and the little bat was sensitive. There was so much to tease him about, and he would never be able to talk back the way Scootaloo could. “The other Crusaders, I mean. I really hope they got inside… Pinkie said it’s bad out there.”
“Trust her to know, I guess,” said Diamond, nodding. “At least the party is a distraction. You don’t have to play any of the stupid games, but let’s get back to the others, okay?”
Scootaloo sighed. The other filly was probably right. “Fine, I guess.”
The games did help a little.