All seemed well in Ponyville the day of the incident. As always, that afternoon, Celestia's sun shone brightly, and the cheerful little birds sang their sweet little songs as they flew through the air. Everypony was outside doing their normal daily routines and errands, not a care in the world. But little did they know that the events of that entire week leading up to today would leave an almost unhealable scar between friends and family.
Over by the outskirts of Sweet Apple Acres, in a small, treehouse belonging to three young fillies, an earth pony, a unicorn, and a Pegasus, one would find said ponies having a small meeting to discuss the day’s events. Their faces painted with concern and outright sadness and loneliness, just as if certain events of that day left a heavy impact on them.
To Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, this was indeed, the worst day of their lives, if they had ever had any. It had only seemed about that week that they had joined the school newspaper, "The Foal Free Press", in hopes of seeing if they could get their cutie marks in journalism. Their first successful story was about two idiot colts that had gotten their gum stuck to their flanks. Of course, everypony in their class loved it. It eventually got into the hooves of some of the adult ponies, who found that they also enjoyed the stories as well. This newfound success gave the Crusaders the idea to write stories about everypony they knew under the persona of "Gabby Gums". However this newfound fame, soon took a turn for the worse when ponies started getting hurt by the stories and few lies that were being spread around by the newspaper. The three fillies realized by then that they were going too far, and decided to quit before things got worse, but their school bully, and editor in-chief, Diamond Tiara would have none of it, not caring one bit about "feelings". She even went as far to blackmail the trio with embarrassing pictures of themselves if they didn't find a new story soon. Things had gotten so bad, that their close friends and family outright shunned them, or even verbally or physically abused them without even giving them a chance to explain themselves. And everypony else just shunned them, all without a single second thought.
At that very moment, as the Cutie Mark Crusaders sat around in their clubhouse, thinking back to the events that ocurred that day. Looking so sad that if one were to look closely, it'd almost look like they had tears in their eyes.
"We've ruined all of our friendships and we still don't have our cutie marks!" Sweetie Belle moaned, glumly.
"This is t' worst day ever!" Apple Bloom sulked.
"Oh yeah?" Scootaloo asked, "Wait 'till tomorrow, our most embarrassing moments are about to be published for everypony to laugh at!"
"So, now what do we do?"
"I don't know, but we're not leaving this clubhouse until we think of something!" Sweetie Belle replied.
After a few minutes, the trio's pondering was interrupted by the sound of ripping paper. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle turned around to find Scootaloo, tearing down one of her Rainbow Dash Fan Club posters, in a mixture of sadness and disgust.
"Scoots? What are ya doing?" Apple Bloom was quite shocked at her friend's sudden change of behavior.
"It's not fair, you know?" The orange pegasus pouted bitterly. "I know we joined the school newspaper to see if we could get our cutie marks and all, but we also wrote those stories because ponies wanted us to!"
Her friends could tell that the Foal Free Press wasn't the only thing bothering the young filly. What Scootaloo was mostly upset about was that the fact that Rainbow Dash, the one pony that she truly looked up to, and wanted to be so close to, had heartlessly shunned her and the others over a story about Rainbow Dash getting a hooficure at the spa. Being the slightly egotistical, and brash pony that Dash was, she was furious and took it out on the three fillies by taking a raincloud and pouring rainwater all over them. Scootaloo, out of the three, was the most heartbroken that her one idol had selfishly mistreated her over something that frivolous, especially considering the fact that Rainbow Dash said herself that she wouldn't mind having a story about her being written in the paper.
"Scootaloo, I know you're still upset about how Rainbow Dash treated you, but wrecking everything you spent so much of your life making and collecting won't do any good." said Sweetie Belle, trying to calm her friend down.
"Even if we wrote an embarrassing story about her, that still doesn't give her the right to treat us like criminals! I still don't like it."
"None of us do," replied the unicorn. "But they're right about one thing though, 'Gabby Gums' was our fault to begin with before Diamond Tiara forced us to keep making more despite ponies not liking them as much as they used to. And after how we snooped around in everypony's lives, told lies about them, and exposed their secrets, I doubt they could forgive us for what we've done at this time."
"It ain't all our fault though," added Apple Bloom. "We wanted ta stop writing 'fore things got any more bad, but Diamond jus’ had ta go an' threaten to humiliate us!"
"We have to tell somepony what's really going on..." Sweetie Belle said.
"What good would that do?" Scootaloo shook her head. "Nopony's going to listen to us! They'll think we're just making up excuses and despise us even more!"
"Well, what else is there that we can do?"
As Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle continued to wonder what they should do next, Apple Bloom thought back to the moment before, when they approached her siblings to try and find a new story and to possibly reason with them. Unfortunately however, both Big Macintosh and Applejack were too angry to even listen to them, Applejack, responding to them only with "Eeyup" and Eenope" responses which was usually her older brother's shtick. And Big Mac was so angry that he actually verbally expressed it, which was something he rarely ever did, his exact words being:
"You should be ashamed of yourself, humilatin' yer sister an' me like that! We don't wanna talk ta any y'all right now, so take yer little gossip column an' yer embarrassing photographs an' just GO AWAY!"
Her brother's last two words continued to buzz inside Apple Bloom's head as if it were an angry parasprite. Finally, the earth pony took a huge breath and turned to her friends, a newfound idea on her mind.
"Maybe we will just go away..."
The other two crusaders turned to face their friend and gasped.
"Apple Bloom? What are you saying?" asked Sweetie Belle.
"Let's face it, girls. Everypony hates us ‘nuff already, that we can't even go ta anypony we know fer help! They probably don't even want us around anymore. So maybe mah brother's right, there ain't no use in stick'n around where we ain't wanted."
"So that means, we'll run away forever?"
"And the Cutie Mark Crusaders of Ponyville will be no more?" added Scootaloo.
"If that's t' price we'll pay," Apple Bloom lowered her head in sadness. "Then so be it..."
The other Crusaders stared at one another for a moment before nodding in agreement as tears began streaming down their faces. The trio huddled together for a group hug, as they tried to hold back even more from falling. Leaving Ponyville, the one place full of ponies that they loved very much, wasn't a very good decision. But after what happened over the course of the week, it seemed as though enough damage had been done and that it was all over for their time there.
"Then we'll go grab our things and hide out until near sunset and then, we're out of here." Sweetie Belle sniffed.
The three fillies wiped the tears from their eyes and shook their hooves in agreement.
Applejack was fortunately, away visiting friends and Big Mac was delivering their goods to the farmer's market. Granny Smith, on the other hand, was fast asleep in her rocking chair, so it was a little bit of a challenge for Apple Bloom to sneak upstairs to her room and pack her things without waking her grandmother up with the creaky wood floor of the family house. Apple Bloom grabbed some of her favorite things, including one of her favorite bows, a blanket that she had once slept with as a foal, and a few of her books. She then moved over and was about to pack a picture of her and her family including her now long gone parents, standing in front of the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres. Apple Bloom hesitated for a moment at the thought of bringing along something that reminded her of how her siblings selfishly turned her away, but decided that it would be best to save one good memory of her family and stuffed the picture in her bag. After grabbing a few snacks from the kitchen and filling a few water bottles with water and apple cider, she quietly snuck out the back door and headed back to the clubhouse.
As for Sweetie Belle, her older sister Rarity, was away gathering materials for a new dress design. Upon returning to the Carousel Boutique, the young unicorn proceeded to pack up her things, first the essentials, such as a blanket, a toothbrush, and a canteen, and topping it off with a few books, and some snacks for the journey. Finally, just before heading out, she stopped, there was one more thing she remembered, and she most simply couldn't leave it behind. Using her slowly developing magic, Sweetie Belle levitated a small unicorn filly doll off the shelf of the guest bedroom. The doll was pink, locks of blue with purple highlights atop its head, and on its flank, a cutie mark shaped like a moon with stars scattered all around it. Sweetie Belle looked at her doll and smiled.
"Come on, 'Little Sweetie'," she said to her favorite toy, sadly. "We have to go."
She hugged the doll tightly and then, using her magic, yanked on the small pull string located on the doll's side. "Mama..." came the artificial sounding filly voice from within the doll, as the string slowly retracted back to its starting position, ready to activate the mechanism allowing it to talk again whenever its owner wished. Sweetie Belle placed the toy inside her bag and began heading back to the clubhouse.
And finally after arriving home, Scootaloo went straight to her room to start packing to leave, bringing along her favorite comic books and a Wonderbolt action figure, and some snacks as well. She then laid down on her bed to rest a little bit, and that was when something caught her eye.
It was a photograph of her and Rainbow Dash that was taken only a few months ago, when Rainbow Dash appeared at Sugarcube Corner to give speech to the fan club Scootaloo had started. Taking one look at the picture, Scootaloo thought of her former idol.
The one who outright turned her away when she came to her with a new idea for a story and for help...
The hypocrite who practically asked for a story about herself in the first place...
The one who spitefully caused a downpour to upset all over her and her friends, assuming that they’d just humiliate her again...
The dirty, arrogant, self centered, good for nothing, selfish, sorry excuse for a...
With that thought in mind, Scootaloo felt her blood boil drew a huge X in front of the face of the picture and threw it against the wall with an angry scream, where it cracked into pieces upon impact. For moment, Scootaloo stared in disbelief at the now broken picture, surprised that she actually did what she just did. Returning to her bed, She thought back to when the Crusaders met with Rainbow Dash and ended up getting drenched. She remembered that Rainbow hadn’t poured rainwater on them until she herself asked for another story. Reminiscing on this, split Scootaloo’s anger into half, as she realized that she shouldn’t have asked Rainbow Dash for such a thing while she was still furious.
Now Scootaloo wasn’t sure how she was feeling, on one hoof she was mostly angry at how Rainbow Dash had treated her and her friends, and she was also angry at herself for making stupid decisions. But on the other hoof, she was sad; sad that Rainbow Dash, the very pony she idolized and wanted to be like her big sister, hated her.
With one more sigh mixed in with a quiet sob, she then moved toward the other items of memorabilia of Rainbow Dash, angrily ripped them from the wall and off her dresser and closed them away into a large box which she then pushed into the far back of a closet. Scootaloo then grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a message to her parents and her two aunts, before grabbing her scooter and heading back to the clubhouse.
By the time the sun began to set over Ponyville, The Cutie Mark Crusaders had already left a few miles from town, and were near the train station looking on from the outskirts of the town they had once called home.
"Take one good look, girls." sighed Apple Bloom, with a tone of even more despondency in her voice. "Fer we can never go back now..."
"Goodbye Ponyville..." whispered Sweetie Belle, trying not to cry even more.
"We'll miss you," Scootaloo added, "But we're not sure you'll miss us..."
Making their way towards the train station, they paid their bits to the ticket master, and headed aboard the train, having finally left the family and friends they ever knew, and on their way to where? Well, the rest of their side of the story is for another time, for now...