//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 - Close Call // Story: Tale of a Lost Scoots // by RDfan27 //------------------------------// “Where in Equestria have y’all been?!” screamed Applejack. Both fillies winced under the gaze of their two sisters. Only now did Applejack notice that Applebloom had been keeping weight off of her right rear hoof. “And what did you do to your hoof?” While they were talking, the others had gotten up and had already made their way over to them. They were now standing behind them. A mixture of confusion and worry was visible on their faces. “W-we…” Sweetie Belle couldn’t hold it anymore and she burst into tears as the reality of what they may have only narrowly escaped really hit her for the first time. Her sister instinctively wrapped her hooves around her, and pulled her into another hug, which was gratefully returned by the younger sibling as she sobbed uncontrollably into her sister’s shoulder. As Rarity tried in vain to get her sister to calm down, the others turned their attention to Applebloom, who had remained silent throughout the whole ordeal so far. Their attitudes of worry heightened to a state of near-panic from Sweetie Belle’s outburst, they pushed desperately for answers from the other filly. “What did you two do?” asked Applejack sternly. “Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked, the only one so far to seem concerned at the physical state of the filly who was clearly hurt, although her concerned remark got drowned out by the pressing of the others. “Calm down Applebloom, you need to tell us what happened,” Twilight said as she made an attempt to get through to the shaken filly. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were the only two that had yet to say anything, while Rarity was still trying to comfort her sister. The bombardment of questioning from the other three soon mixed into a tangle of incomprehensible words that fell on deaf ears. “QUIET!!” Rainbow Dash’s interruption made everypony in the group jump, and Fluttershy fell to the ground and cowered. The only sound now heard on the beach were Sweetie Belle’s sobs. Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, and then let it out, before stepping up to Applebloom. Applebloom was just staring down at her hooves, not making a sound apart from the steady rise and fall of her breathing. Rainbow Dash approached, and placed a hoof on the filly’s shoulder, causing her to look up and meet Rainbow’s eyes. “We need to go get that hoof looked at. I can already tell that it’s broken just from looking at it.” A simple nod was all that Applebloom gave, but it was enough for Rainbow Dash. She reached out and picked up Applebloom in her forehooves, cradling her like a foal to keep from putting any pressure on the hurt hoof. Applebloom didn’t protest like her sister would’ve expected her to, she simply closed her eyes, and let Rainbow Dash hold her as she drifted off to sleep. The crazy events of the night had finally caught up with her, and she had been unable to fight it any longer. Applejack shot Rainbow Dash a questioning look, before she explained, now talking in almost a whisper. “Twilight, you stay here with Rarity. Fluttershy and Applejack you come with me. I remember seeing a hospital while I was going for a fly over the city earlier. We’re going to take her there and get her some help. We can find out what happened later, right now what matters is that we help her.” Everypony nodded, now understanding Rainbow Dash’s actions. Twilight walked over to Rarity, placing a hoof on Sweetie Belle’s back in an attempt to help to calm down the crying filly. She was no longer sobbing, and now only quiet tears, interrupted by sniffles, came from her. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings, and lifted off into the air, much slower than anyone had ever seen her take off by far. She hovered a few feet off of the ground, so that she could hold the sleeping filly in her arms as they traveled. Fluttershy opted to stay on the ground with Applejack on the way to the hospital. All three of them were silent as they traveled along the empty beach. *** Eventually, they had made their way into the city, and had found the hospital. It didn’t take long with Rainbow Dash’s incredible memory of things while she was flying. They passed very few ponies on their way to the hospital, but the few that they did pass either didn’t even notice them, but the ones that did looked at them wide eyed, and froze in their step until the group had passed. Normally, this would’ve annoyed, or at least confused them, but they were on a mission. They were determined to get to the hospital, and nothing around them mattered at that moment. They entered the lobby of the hospital, and made a beeline for the desk. The pony behind the counter looked up with a smile, which quickly fell as she saw the two pegasus ponies that stood with the earth pony on the other side of her desk. “Ma’am,” she said, looking directly at Applejack, completely missing the sleeping filly held in the hooves of the blue pegasus. “Are these two giving you any trouble?” she said with concern. “What?” Applejack asked, clearly confused as to the reaction. “What are you talking about?” “I mean, what are you doing with these pegasi,” she spat the last word like venom on her tongue. “Excuse me?!” Applejack and Rainbow Dash demanded at the same time in a furious whisper, still taking care not to wake Applebloom. “My sister is hurt, and she needs help.” Applejack said sternly, her patience with the mare already wearing thin after only a few moments of talking to her. The mare looked down, only now taking notice of the hurt filly in the arms of the pegasus. Her face instantly lit up in horror when she saw the hurt filly. “Oh my!” she said, snatching the filly out of Rainbow Dash’s arms before shooting a fiery glare at Rainbow Dash. “What did you do to the poor thing!?” she demanded. “Nevermind, I need to get her back right away!” with that the mare ran off, leaving a fuming Rainbow Dash with two very confused and baffled friends. “What… was… that?” asked Fluttershy. “I… have no idea,” finished Applejack. They walked over to a set of chairs, to sit and wait on news from the nurse. The nurse didn’t come back for a while, and they started to get worried. After a while, the sound of doors opening alerted them to the presence of others in the room. They looked over to the doors leading to the outside, and saw two ponies in blue uniforms, presumably police officers, enter the building and head straight for them. “You two!” he shouted, pointing a hoof at Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. “You’re coming with us!” “What!?” shouted Rainbow Dash as Fluttershy shrinked back into her chair. “What for? We didn’t do anything wrong!” The officer looked disgusted. “I beg to differ! Filly abuse is a very serious crime, not to mention holding this nice pony—” he gestured a hoof to Applejack, sitting still with a look of shock on her face. “—against her will.” He punctuated his statement by stomping his hoof to the ground. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was not okay. No, she was about as far from okay as anypony could be, ever. She wanted to buck this guy into the sun. Granted, she had already been mad before, but nopony accuses her of filly abuse. Nopony. She stood from her chair, nostrils flaring as she breathed heavily through her nose. She was about to blow. Right before she did though, the runaway train that was her thoughts was interrupted and brought to a screeching halt. “Ahem!” Twilight said from the front of the lobby, staring incredulously at the scene in front of her. “What exactly is going on here?” Without even looking back to see who had interrupted, he dismissed her with a wave of a hoof. “Miss, we’re dealing with this criminal. You need to stay over there while we handle this.” Twilight instantly knew that something was up. “Excuse me! Do you know who you’re speaking to! I will not just wait over here, and I would like an explanation as to what is going on here!” The officer let out an annoyed sigh, before turning around and addressing the mare behind him. “Miss, I already told you we—” the officer’s jaw dropped, and he went silent. “No…” he said, now speaking in a tone equivalent to that of a hushed whisper. “It can’t be.” “She… she doesn’t look like one of them,” the second officer said with skeptical curiosity. “Look at what’s on her head though. How do you explain that?” “Okay!” Twilight shouted. She had been known to have exceptional patience, especially when it came to other ponies, but her patience was running thin. “Will somepony PLEASE, explain what is going on here!?” the force of her yell, nearing that of the Royal Canterlot voice, sent both officers tumbling head over hoof into the wall behind them. “Ahh!” the officers shouted as they were thrown. When they came to a rest, they were trembling in fear. Twilight was still filled with rage, and her nostrils flared with every breath as she glared daggers through the trembling officers, her horn glowing with increasing ferocity, as each breath seemed like fuel to the fire of rage burning inside of her. She took one slow, determined step towards the officers, that ended up being way more dramatic than necessary. Before she could get any closer however, she was stopped, a cyan hoof blocking her path to the cause of her rage. Twilight looked down at the hoof that stood in her way, before bringing her gaze up to meet Rainbow’s eyes. Rainbow Dash wore a simple smile, and a calm look of understanding. Rainbow took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Twilight followed suit, and a minute later she was calm. If Rainbow Dash could stay calm in a time like this, then so could Twilight. Twilight brought a forced smile onto her face, before turning to look back at the officers, who hadn’t dared to move a muscle, and were still trembling under her gaze. Twilight closed her eyes, and took one more deep breath in, bringing her hoof to her chest, before letting it out, and moving her hoof back out in front of her in time with the breath. She brought her attention back to the officers. “I do apologize if I got a little… carried away,” she said with as large a smile as she could muster up, which was not very big. “I was just not expecting to walk in here, where my friend’s little sister was coming to receive help, and find you attempting to arrest one of my other friends.” Twilight looked back at her other friends and received an encouraging smile from all of her friends, who had long-since taken refuge behind her, and a nod from Rainbow Dash, encouraging her to continue on. “Me and my friends here were actually on a mission.” The officers’ eyes seemed to widen at this. “My friend Rainbow Dash here has a daughter. A yound daughter too, not very much older than this filly here—” she pointed a hoof back at the red-eyed filly being held in her sister’s arms. “or the filly that they have already brought here earlier. This filly was left without a family and a good home, for longer than any of us ever knew.” The officers had stopped shaking at this point, opting to simply sit on their haunches, backs still pressed up agains the wall, while they listened to the heart-wrenching story. Their eyes had begun to tear up, especially when they had noticed Rainbow Dash, who was cleary the confident one in the group, and was easy to pick out by name as the one they had been confronting earlier. She had lost all of the previous confdence that she had displayed, and was now sitting down, instead of her previous standing position, and had her head hung low, almost touching the floor with her mane. They couldn’t see her eyes, but from the drops of wetness that fell from her face to the floor below, it was clear she was crying. “This mare right here—” she now pointed a hoof at Rainbow Dash, who was now leaning on Fluttershy, who now sat by her side, rubbing her back with a hoof and trying to comfort her. “took that filly off of the streets and gave her a home. Not just a place to live, but a home. She loves that filly with all of her heart, and would do anything for that filly. ANYTHING.” Twilight’s voice had raised in intensity near the end of her speech, and she had to take a calming breath to steady herself once again. “That is what brings us here. We’re not from around here, but let’s just keep this story short and simple. Through magic, her daughter, Scootaloo, somehow ended up here, and we followed her. We completely went through a portal to a land that we knew absolutely nothing about, just to save her daughter. So, excuse me, but I do not like to see my friends being harrassed when they were only attempting to get help for a little filly who broke her leg after going missing for the entire day.” It seemed like the officers had begun to understand, and had been nodding their heads, following along with Twilight’s speech. When she finished though, both officers had a look of fear on their face. They shared a look, before rising to addresss Twilight. “Our sincerest apologies,” the first one began. “Please excuse me but, did you say that the filly you brought here was missing all day, and you found her with a broken leg?” Twilight seemed shocked at this, not sure exactly what to make of the sudden inquiry of the details. “Umm, yeah. More or less. Last we saw her was yesterday afternoon, as we were walking down the beach from where the portal brought us here. When we realized she wasn’t with us, we turned around and began heading back, but with how far we had already gone, we didn’t get very far at all before we had to stop for the night. Then, we all woke up to both fillies making their way down the beach, calling out to us.” “Hold on a second… both? There were two that went missing?” the officer seemed confused, but also slightly skeptical at this. “Yes, Sweetie Belle was with her. You’re not asking her anything right now though. She is unwilling to talk about it, and we will work on that later, but I don’t want to upset her any more right now.” The officers nodded in understanding, before turning back to each other to discuss their theory. “They have never gone after two before,” the first officer whispered. “That’s unlike them.” The second officer seemed to think for a minute, before his face lit up in understanding. “What if they needed to go after two, and they struck the perfect opportunity. Or so they thought.” “What do you mean?” “Think about it. They normally only do one child and have no problems. What if one of them escaped though? We now know it’s possible, thanks to these ponies.” “Hmm… give me a second.” He now raised his voice and began to address the whole group of ponies before him once again. “Excuse me, but you did say that there was another filly that came here before you, correct?” “Umm… yes, why?” Twilight asked suspiciously. “Is there any chance that she could’ve been taking the same path as you into any hours of the night or late evening?” “Well, yeah, I don’t see why not. It all depends on the time she arrived here, and i’m not sure what time it was, because there is a big time difference between our home and here. Why do you ask anyway?” The officer looked back at his partner, who gave him a small nod. He turned around and gave a sigh of resignation, before addressing them once again. “Did I hear that one of you is the girl’s mother?” “That would be me,” Rainbow Dash said in her usually arrogant voice. “What’s the matter officers?” The officer heaved a sigh before continuing. “Ma’am, there is a chance that your daughter was captured by these ponies as well.” Rainbow’s cocky smile fell as soon as she heard this. The officer pushed on. “We believe that she has escaped, due to the fact that those ponies targeted two fillies the next time, meaning that they lost their last target.” Rainbow fell to her haunches as the reality of what the officer was saying sank in. She blankly stared forwards as the officer continued. “While it is good that she escaped, there is also now a good chance that she is hurt. We have no way of knowing how severely, but it all depends on how soon she escaped. I’m sorry ma’am.” Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe her ears. She was a terrible parent. Her daughter’s life could be in danger, and she was here, doing nothing. She should be out there, looking for her. What good would it do though. For all she knows, Scootaloo could be… Rainbow Dash couldn’t continue that train of thought any longer, as she broke down. She felt a comforting hoof on her shoulder, and then the floodgates opened. She threw her arms around Fluttershy’s neck, and sobbed into her chest as she pulled her marefriend close. She was so close to Scootaloo, and now… she may never see her again. Everyone in the room went silent. Rainbow’s breakdowns had become a relatively common occurrence lately, but with the new they had just learned, everyone else was on the verge of tears as well.