As tough as she liked making herself out to be, Babs had to admit that there were quite a few situations that scared her beyond all reason. Being touched on the flank was, of course, the one that just about everypony noticed right off the bat, but dark, constricting places were pretty close up there, too. But there was one that she never thought would terrify her near as much as it did: waking up in a place you weren’t supposed to be with the emblem of your family’s worst enemies covering up your cutie mark, all this occurring while some random unicorn with an aerosol can and a piece of plastic, for some inexplicable reason, is trying to get you to roll over.
Then again, however, this entire situation was never one that had even come to her mind, or anypony’s, for that matter. All she could get herself to remember was that somehow, the Oranges knew she would come there at that exact time, and that she’d fallen asleep right after they’d caught her. She knew that unicorns—and likely the one standing directly in front of her—could cast tranquilizer spells, but even the weird alien unicorns in Starr’s stories didn’t dare use them on fillies.
These were all thoughts that came afterwards, though. For now, Babs’ mind was filled with panic, and the Oranges’ intentions seemed all too obvious to her. There was one reason, and one reason only, why they would want to abduct a filly: to cover up her own existence.
To finish what Mosely had started.
The next time the unicorn mare tried to turn her over, at this point giving up on touching the filly and instead gesturing to the other end of the large bed, Babs rolled the other way towards the edge as fast as she could. Even then, she was already prepping herself to gallop once she dropped off the bed, and from there, she could figure out how to get back home. Nothing they could do to her was good, and for all she knew, this could only be a stopping point. A few days from now, she could end up back in her worst nightmare. But if she could just make it this far, nothing like that would ever have to happen to her again.
Coco will understand. All I have to do is get to her, and she’ll make sure I’ll never have to see them again.
At this point, trying to keep her mother out of this was the last thing on her mind. As long as it kept her out of there, she realized, she would do anything. Babs could just see the crack of light behind the bedroom door, all she would have to do was figure out how to navigate this huge place and she would be golden—
“Somepony’s a jumpy little filly,” a voice chuckled from the other side. While it was probably meant jokingly, there was something about the abrupt sound of it that set Babs off. She kept on her guard, finally kicking the door to the other side.
Standing on the other side was the same older-looking earth pony mare she’d seen on the street before, her yellow coat and orange mane giving off a golden sheen. Babs was about to sneak past her, but apparently the mare anticipated this, picking her up by her tail and placing her back onto the bed.
“You haven’t done anything to spook her, have you?” the mare asked, turning to the unicorn with the spray can.
“Not at all, Midsweet,” the unicorn replied, her body tensing up suddenly. “Just finishing up the cutie mark application process. This one’s just a bit harder since I can’t touch her flank. She almost spilled all the makeup rolling around when I first tried, so I had to figure out some way to apply it.”
The unicorn gestured to the spray can and moved the piece of plastic towards Midsweet. It was a stencil, like the one Babs had seen other foals use for craft projects, of several orange slices molded together to make a jewel. The same shape as the drying paint they were calling her cutie mark now.
Likely, from what little Babs was able to tell from the panic of the situation, the unicorn was some sort of subordinate the Oranges had hired to do their dirty work, especially considering that she lacked an orange cutie mark of her own. While she’d seemed relatively normal when Babs first woke up, she started shaking as soon as Midsweet was around, a feeling that the filly knew all too well from her own experience.
“Where did you even get this filly from?” the younger mare asked Midsweet. “She seems different from most of your usual recruits.”
“She lives with one of the mares who wanted to join,” Midsweet replied, surprisingly not scolding her assistant for asking such a thing. That at least, in Babs’ eyes, put her on a level above Suri, but the way she tried to lie her way out of the situation was too Mosely-like for that to be particularly comforting. “We thought we’d break her in early. Why do you ask?”
Even as she tried to keep her voice to a relatively non-hostile level, there was still the tiniest edge of suspicion in Midsweet’s voice, just enough to question if her level tone was an act.
“Well, I noticed some things about her when I was doing her mark on the left side. Like these.”
Without warning, Babs was turned over onto her other side, which was still emblazoned with her Apple cutie mark. Instinctually, she flipped her tail over it, but one of the figures carefully pulled it away. She didn’t dare try to lift it back on top of her cutie mark and tightened her body into a ball, cowering as these two mares looked at her scars like they were about to operate on her.
“I can’t believe how much they damaged you,” whispered Midsweet, even though Babs was barely able to hear it in her panic. Even if she would have, the way she said ‘damaged’ instead of ‘hurt’ would’ve given her pause. But at that moment, the filly could only focus on one thing in particular.
“I’m not going back,” she breathed frantically. “I’m not going back!”
She could feel her whole body sweating with fear, as if it knew that this was really the end.
“Back?” the unicorn mare asked concernedly. Just before she could do anything, though, Midsweet approached Babs and lifted the filly’s chin up from her chest.
“I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding on your part.” Her voice suddenly became much softer, lilting almost like Coco’s between Babs’ ears. “You are not going back there, my little blossom. You are going to become an Orange, and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure none of those living pieces of filth touch you ever again.”
Turning to the other mare, she continued, “Just leave the whole issue of the scars to me. All you have to do is contact the Manehattan jail right away and check up on our Very Important Prisoner. I’m sure he’ll be able to explain the rest, and besides…I want to tell him about the new replacement as soon as possible. I have a feeling I’ll enjoy his response.”
As much as she would’ve liked to have thought that her worst fears were behind her, Babs couldn’t help but feel even more confused about this turn of events. At least carting her off to another factory would’ve made some iota of sense. It would’ve confirmed her impressions about what sorts of ponies the Oranges were—the worst of hypocrites, who would easily condemn somepony just to save face before going through with it themselves. But what on Equestria could they possibly want from her, when they could have gone straight to Coco just as easily?
And more importantly, why was some random rich mare taking such an interest in her? While confusion was certainly a better feeling to have than outright fear, Babs prepped herself once more to stay on her guard.
Now that the other two had gotten through the hardest task and had finally managed to flip her over, she could feel the paint falling onto her apple cutie mark—for the moment, the last vestige she had of her real family. The dumb orangefying ceremony had at least some perks, though—somehow, the unicorn mare had been able to find makeup that could cover up scars, for one. Babs wasn’t quite sure if they were doing this to make her feel more comfortable with herself, to make it easier to show her off to the other Oranges without getting any awkward questions about her marks, or some combination of the two, but in any case, it was nice not to be able to see them for once.
After fifteen minutes or so of this procedure, the unicorn mare finally loaded her equipment into a saddlebag and was about to canter away.
“I made sure to use the longer-lasting stuff, so you shouldn’t have to reapply for another week,” she said. “After the last scandal with false cutie marks, I made sure to update all my inventory to the waterproof collection. You should be getting a coverup foundation more accurate to her fur color in a couple of days.”
All Babs could really take out of that was that nopony could sneak up on her with a bucket of water and reveal her real cutie mark, and even that wasn’t something she particularly cared about. Other than that, the whole non-issue seemed to make her eyelids droop a little even after she had just slept. Midsweet seemed to share her sentiments, even letting out a few yawns as the other mare spoke.
“Understood,” she replied. “Just be sure to get that letter in as soon as possible.”
The other mare gave a tiny nod before looking to Babs, staring concernedly at the filly for a few moments before exiting the room. Now that there was nothing separating her from the mare she presumed to be her captor, she could almost feel the tension flowing throughout the room as the ceiling fan blew.
She knew that the elderly mare was going to try to go for the sweet angle again—after all, such things did seem to run in the family to that extent. So she figured that the best option she had was to do what she’d seen basically every action hero in Equestria pull off.
“What exactly do you want from me?” Babs asked in a level tone, trying to get the scowl just right. At this point, when the hero was kidnapped, the scowl always meant more than the words. She had to create an impression that not only did she not want to be here, but that she had no intention of willingly participating in whatever huge plans the mare had for her.
Midsweet only chuckled, as if she found the whole act exceedingly adorable. On top of that, she trotted out of the room for a few short moments, as if she expected the filly to be completely unable to escape on her own. By the time she came back with a brush in her mouth, she seemed to have shaken off the entire incident.
“I said it before,” she answered in a deceptively soft voice. “I want you to become an Orange. Why does it have to be anything more complicated than that?”
From her past experiences with ponies like this, Babs had every expectation that the mare would strike a hoof against her at any moment. But instead, she just combed through the knots in Babs’ mane as if she couldn’t do it herself.
“Why do all this, though?” Babs asked again, realizing that playing tough wouldn’t do anything this time. “If you wanted us to join that much, you could’ve just asked, instead of doing this or any of the other creepy things you’ve done.”
“This is what all Oranges have to go through. It might seem strange to you, but it’s as natural as breathing to us. And besides, I wanted to send a clear message to your mother. She has no place in this family.”
Midsweet smiled as she said this, almost as if she knew just how shocked Babs would be by this statement. From the looks of it, she seemed to relish the silence even more, flipping her mane with her hoof as if she was a much younger mare.
“So you never wanted Coco to begin with?”
“You really must stop asking such obvious questions. Even if it is quite endearing, it really doesn’t suit a mare of class.”
After standing for so long, the mare finally took a seat on Babs’ bed. To her surprise, Midsweet was at least able to keep a respectable distance away from her, and as amused as she seemed to be by the situation, she seemed as though she was trying to be a tiny bit understanding. However, the more she talked, the more that impression seemed to fade.
“Just dating an Orange, especially a fallen one, is not automatically enough to guarantee membership into our family,” she spoke. “It’s a common enough misconception that even actual members believe it, though. And it serves as good enough cover to hide the fact that we barely have enough foals to survive into the next generation.”
Seeing the skepticism on Babs’ face, she continued, “That’s not to say that their parents aren’t automatically welcomed, though. Every case but yours, the parent and foal are allowed to stay together, as long as the foal actively takes part in family events. That was the plan of action for yours as well, but complications began to get in the way. Your mother became increasingly resistant, and I soon realized that recruiting her would be a lost cause. I wish you could have come into our family through more legitimate means…but unfortunately, what you’re going through here is what we’d consider to be the messiest way of doing things. We had to get you away from there as soon as possible.”
“Away from where?” questioned Babs, barely realizing that she was doing exactly what Midsweet had warned her against before.
“Why, that mundane life you’re living, of course. You were destined for far greater. Or was that something that was kept from you as well?”
Midsweet dropped the brush at that moment and reclined even more onto the bed, staring at the filly with a sort of amazement she’d never seen before on anypony.
“I’d say my life was pretty good before your family came along. Excuse me for sayin’ it, but I don’t think there’s anythin’ good you’ve done for me in the first place, and I figure this is just gonna be more of the same.”
“That’s why we wanted to give you this life,” Midsweet replied, her tone softening even more. “In my mind, there’s no better way to repay somepony we’ve hurt than to let them into our lives to join us as equals. Isn’t that what your mother thought when she adopted you?”
As soon as she dropped the businesspony routine, Babs almost found her halfway convincing. However, most of her head was still telling her to be skeptical, and seeing as this was one mare that seemed not to punish her for it, she had every right to be.
“Yeah, but she never directly harmed me like you all did.”
“Oh, but your expulsion was far from a unanimous decision,” answered Midsweet, giving off that slight chuckle again. “If Mosely would’ve bothered to inform the rest of us about what he was about to do, we would have rooted him out far sooner. Fact is, as long as his marriage arrangement still applies, an Apple and a Skim make an Orange. And just like your family, we feel that getting rid of a perfectly good foal is the worst sort of waste.”
“But is that really it? All this had to happen because Coco went against you guys and I’m a foal who was born to the right ponies?”
“Of course that’s not it. The even greater reasoning is this: once, there was an Orange born to a non-Orange parent. Back in the day, the child was scorned and expelled from the family as soon as it was born. If you’re not catching onto my hints, that filly happened to be me, and I would absolutely die before any filly got the same treatment. So when I first heard about you, I decided: it would be a shame to let you live with somepony who could never understand you, who could never give you what you really needed.”
At this point, she had her front legs entirely wrapped around Babs’ body, hugging her more rigorously than Coco ever had, almost as if letting go would make the filly disappear for good.
“You honestly expect me to believe this?” Babs muttered, using one of her comparatively small hooves to try to bat Midsweet away. “That I can just turn away from my other family and start here like it’s nothing?”
“I know it’ll be hard, and you won’t believe in the way we think at first. But everypony eventually comes around, and I know you’ll be no different.
“While we were keeping tabs on your family, I saw ponies abandon you so many times. Too busy with their jobs, or scandals, or everyday lives. That pony you call a mother, she always told you she’d have more time with her new job, didn’t she? So where did all that time go?”
Babs wanted to say that those were outliers. That most of those could’ve been all too easily avoided if the Oranges had never stepped into their lives in the first place. But somehow, the words never came, and she wasn’t sure if that was out of fear or something else.
“But with us, you’ll never have to face any of that. You’ll never have to see the most important pony in your life go away. But more than that: with us, you’ll know your worth. You’ve heard you were a bad seed so much, but nopony has ever really told you that was wrong. We can make you see how important you are in a way that that mare never could.”
She was wrong, she was so wrong. Coco had done all those things, even if the Oranges hadn’t been there to see them. But if the Oranges hadn’t seen them, and they were always around, could she have ever really made her feel that way?
Skepticism still clouded her, but temptation was quickly invading. She had to find a way out of here soon before she actually found herself distrusting the one pony she could trust above all.
“You are not a bad seed. You are our family’s greatest hope, and you can do so many great things. Never forget that.”
Midsweet was already preparing for a meeting she had later in the day, but she kept her eye on the filly at all times. Almost as if she knew that she would blow away with the wind if she got the chance.
“You deserve better, my little blossom,” she finally whispered.