A full week had passed, meaning the time for thoughts and planning were over. It was time for action. To take a step that could either ruin Rainbow Dash...or ruin Scootaloo. Either way, Rainbow Dash had to do something. And her hair definitely wasn't getting any better from thinking about it. Nor from the pulling.
She sighed and sat up, looking around the room before getting out of bed. She couldn't sleep. And she had to figure out this decision. A big decision. Which she just made.
Sighing, Rainbow Dash looked up around her room. It was still dark, being only one in the morning, the moon's light brightening up the room through her window. She knew she was watching. She could feel those eyes watching her every move, her every step. Wherever she looked, she was too.
"I'm not doing it," she said bravely. "I'm not doing either of them. Blackmail me all you want, HIT me...all you want, but I'm not doing it, Zolan."
She waited a few moments before a rush of air came from behind her. Rainbow Dash quickly turned around to see the red themed Equestrian giving her a glare. "So......you've made a choice that I didn't give you," she said coldly. "You know......I could just as easily take you AND Scootaloo off the map with a single touch. Is that what you prefer?"
Rainbow didn't answer, too busy staring the woman down with a glare of her own. Eventually, Zolan sighed. "Very well then. You will be affected by all three consequences I have told you. You lose your girlfriend You lose your friends. You lose Scootaloo And my favorite surprise of all....you will lose your parents. Starting now." She snapped her fingers, creating a red wave originating from the house and spread out all over the city, hitting Rainbow Dash with a yelp and sending her flying back into the wall. She hit her head, knocking her out cold. "Try to live with yourself.....Rainbow Crash. And this will not be a dream. Everything that happens next....is real."
A few hours later, after the unfortunate forceful sleep agent, the Equestria girl woke up with a groan and opened her eyes, looking around. Zolan was nowhere to be found. That's good....right? No wait...what did she say before she left? This will not be a dream? What did she mean by that?
Shrugging it off, Rainbow stood up and stretched, happy with her decision that she just made. Sort of. She didn't know that lady very well. So she could either be bluffing...or she could be deadly serious. Either way the decision has been made. And she had to stay hopeful that her surrogate sister would be alright. As a matter of fact, she needed to go visit her this morning. See how everything was going in there. Hopefully she was okay.
She walked out of her room and towards the bathroom to wash up before three knocks sounded off at the door, banging loudly. She stopped and looked towards the stairs before some loud voices yelled out, "Police! Open up now!"
"Crap! We gotta get out of here!" Her father yelled. "We can't let them get us!"
"What about—"
"Leave her, we're gone!"
"Hey, what's going on?!" Rainbow yelled while running to her parents room. She walked briskly through the doorway just in time to see her parents crawling out through the window. What in....?! "Where are you going?!"
"Shut up and stay here!" Bow Hothoof yelled, before he and his wife soared through the bushes, out of sight.
"We're coming in!" Rainbow gasped and turned around to run to her room, right when something banged into the door, cracking it open. She rushed into her room and looked out the window at her parents who were on their hands on knees on the other side of the hedge. The police had arrested them. What was going on?!
A crash downstairs brought her back to reality before a lot of footsteps broke into the house, as well as a voice barking out commands. "Check every room in the house for anyone else!" A round of footsteps came up the stairs before someone came through her bedroom door.
"Hold up your hands!" The police man screamed, prompting her to do just that before he came in and grabbed her by the arm, putting her on the ground by the front and placing his knee on her back. "I have one in here!"
"Take them into custody, we're having them questioned!" Someone yelled from downstairs.
"WHAT?! What's going on?!" Rainbow yelled in fear before the officer put her arms behind her back.
"You have the right to remain silent—"
"What the heck?!"
"Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." The officer pulled out some handcuffs and slapped them on her wrists before getting off her back and lifting her up. "You have the right to an attorney—"
"I don't have money for an attorney but I'm definitely getting one!"
"If you cannot afford an attorney one will be provided for you." He led her out of the room, and down the hallway, making their way down the stairs. "Do you understand these rights I have just read to you?"
"Yeah!" They led her out the house and into the view of the neighborhood where the neighbors were outside watching what was going on. This did not look good.
"With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?"
"Yeah? Why am I being arrested, I've never done an illegal thing in my life!"
"You will know when you arrive at the station." One of the officers opened the car door before he placed her inside and situated her in a seatbelt. One finished, they closed the door and drove her away, along with another police car in front of and behind her. Leading her towards an area that could change her life forever.
***
"Okay, Twilight, we're here. Now what's going on?" Rarity asked as she and the others quickly rushed into Twilight's house. "Why are we here?"
"Did you find Zolan?" Princess Twilight asked hopefully.
"No," Twilight said, tearing up slightly. "No, we didn't. But Rainbow Dash's been arrested." They all looked to her in shock before EQG Applejack decided to ask her.
"What are you talking about?"
"They rushed into her house, put her in handcuffs, and sent her to the police station along with her parents! They're saying her parents were the birth parents to Scootaloo and that she knew about it, but never told anyone!"
"WHAT?! That's ridiculous!" Rarity said.
"Rainbow would never do something like that," Fluttershy denied. "She would never intentionally hurt Scootaloo!"
"That's what I said! We have to go down to the station and get this handled! We're her friends, we have to make sure she's not guilty!"
"Then let's go!" Princess Twilight yelled before Twilight caught her hand.
"You guys can't, they'll think something's up! There's two of each of us! Plus we're already wanted by them because we were spotted with Amaryllis and Anemone!"
"How about this?" Princess Celestia said, catching their attention. "We'll use our invisibility spells to go in and find out what she knows. That will help us. Luna, do you have the orb?"
"Right in this saddlebag." She motioned towards the purse she held on her shoulder. "This is a great means of transportation for items here."
"I like the plan, let's go! Everyone else from Equestria, stay here!" Princess Twilight ordered before she and the Princesses all ran out the door and towards the city. Leaving the others to discuss what was happening. This was not good at all.
***
Rainbow Dash, once again, sat in front of a detective behind a stainless steel table. But this time, she was in chains. Chains and handcuffs. The clock on the wall ticked the minutes away, creating a very tense atmosphere in the interrogation room. Causing Rainbow to be more jumpy than she was already. The detective was looking through a folder that contained all her personal information. School records, legal records, hospital records, state identification. All of it.
"Ms. Dash," he said, breaking the silence. "I'm going to ask you one question. Do you have a sister?"
"No."
"Hmm." He nodded his head not looking up from the folder before he sighed. "I don't take kindly to liars, kid. You do have a sister and right now, she's in the hospital because you knew about a child that was abandoned and didn't tell anyone about it."
"What are you talking about?!"
"Your sister was Amaryllis!" He yelled, standing up, before retreating back down. "Also known as Scootaloo who is in the hospital due to food poisoning and attempted suicide. Your parents are her parents who abandoned her shortly after five years. Literally threw her in the bushes to live on her own for ten years. Now she's in the hospital for mental disabilities."
"SCOOTALOO'S MY SISTER?!!" Rainbow yelled, not quite believing what she was hearing. "Are you absolutely sure?! I know we're close, but I never thought she'd be my sister! My actual sister!"
"You wanna see the birth certificate? Actually, no. You ain't seeing anything for not reporting this act."
Rainbow was aghast. "What? I helped take her to the hospital after we found out!"
"Which was supposedly," he opened up the folder and pulled out some more documents. "Almost two weeks ago. That checks out. But we found out about the child abandonment from her. Not from you. Or anyone else for that matter. But you did know and we have proof of that. Thanks to an anonymous tip, we were allowed to check everything that had your name on it. Including a diary that was in your locker at Canterlot High School."
If Rainbow could stand up, she would. What was he taking about? "What?! I don't own a diary, why would I have a diary?!"
"So little girls like you, in your teenage years, can talk about your hopes and dreams throughout your life." He reached down and picked up a large plastic bag, holding a book of some sort. He put on some rubber gloves sitting nearby then opened it up, pulling out the book. "There was an entry in here clearly dating back to 2011, June 14th. Five years after Scootaloo was abandoned. She was eleven at the time. I'll read it out loud for you."
He cleared his throat before reading the passage. "'Dear diary. Today is June 14th, 2011. For the last few weeks, I've been following Scootaloo after school, like I informed you yesterday. Apparently, she's living behind Applejack's farm. Doesn't she have any parents? That can't be safe at all.
"'This time I followed her through the woods to confirm my suspicions and it was true. There's like this cave thing built into a wall of a dried riverbed in those woods where I saw her bag, scooter, and a blanket. Not to mention her homework and crusader's uniform. She's actually living on her own! But for how long? How long has this been going on?!
"'That doesn't matter right now. What does is if I should tell someone. Should I talk to her about it? This is really dangerous. I have to sleep on this because this is SO not awesome.' That was the first entry. Then there was a second. The next day."
"'Dear Diary. I finally made a decision. I can't tell anyone about this. At all. Scootaloo trusts me not to go snooping through her business. If she finds out I know about this, she'll go off the handle and bury herself in the ground. I'm in between a rock and a hard place and I'd rather not touch that rock. But I promise that if it gets worse, I'll take her to the hospital.'"
The detective closed the notebook and slammed it down beside him. "I don't have a flippin' diary!" Rainbow denied angrily.
"This is your handwriting!" He grabbed the book and opened it to a random page, showing it to her. "We matched it with your schoolwork, this is your handwriting! Even the numbers are the same! Kid do you know how big this whole situation is? A child that was five has grown up without a family, went digging through trash cans for food, bitten by dogs, ants, birds, predators in general, assaulted by random people, raped twice, and tried to end it all by jumping off the roof of a thirty story tall building all because her parents, YOUR parents if they even deserve that title, wanted something better than children.
"She was out there for ten years, TEN FREAKING YEARS, going through that torture. And you knew all about it when she was eleven. She was raped at the age of twelve, and again at the age of fifteen. You could've stopped it, kid. But now, you could be possibly going to prison for ten years for failing to report child abandonment, which is a third degree felony here. But considering the severity of this case, you could be getting fifteen."
"But I didn't know!" Rainbow cried. "I swear I didn't know! I don't own a diary, th-that's not mine, I swear!"
"Your handwriting says something entirely different kid. Take her away."
The monitors in the room stepped forward and unlocked her from the table before grabbing her by the arms.
"That's not my diary! You have to believe me! That's not my diary, I swear!" She protested, being led out the room. "I just found out about Scootaloo, none of that is true! You have to believe me! You have to...." The door to the interrogation room shut, leaving the detective to sigh and pack up.
"Wish I could kid," he muttered. "Wish I could."