//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: Ponyville’s New Mayor // Story: From the Ashes // by Keeper of time RD //------------------------------// The pink pony opened her eyes. She brushed her purple and gray mane aside and with bewildered eyes gazed at wooden room around her. Her first thought was to wonder if this was another delusion as she recalled being in a steel cage before the taint clouded her mind too much to trust her eyes. Her second thought was to wonder why her first thought was so clear. Yet it truly felt like she was laying on an old mattress rather than a cement floor. Reaching out she waved her hoof in the air beside her. Her hoof didn’t bump into anything, and the cage wasn’t big enough to do that. At that point, Diamond Tiara wondered if she was dead or if she’d somehow been freed from the taint. Although the fact that her thoughts were no longer wrapped in endless hatred seemed to work with both theories. Diamond Tiara. She lingered on that thought. It had been far too long since she could think clearly enough to remember her own name. Between that and figuring that if she were dead she’d have woken up someplace more comforting than some old, rustic house, she figured somepony must have saved her from the taint poisoning after all. Sitting up, she finally noticed that the door to this bedroom was open. As was the door to the room across the hall, and while the four-post bed with it’s ratty old canopy didn’t do anything to help her figure out where she was, the orange mare with the violet mane tied to it certainly did bring back memories. “Scootaloo? Is that you?” she asked, torpidly getting out of bed and making her way to the room across the hall. With a nod the pegasus answered, “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to wake up.” “Then it really was you,” Tiara muttered. “The taint was clouding my mind, mostly there was only hatred and delusions, but then I remember the angel of justice descending in fire and lightning. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that the angel of justice looked an awful lot like you.” By the time she finished speaking a smile had come to the earth pony’s face. “Well I’m no angel and I had help. But other than that, yeah, us crusaders got you out of there.” “Then it seems I owe you my thanks once more, it’s so good to see an old friend again,” Tiara said. Then she shifted her eyes to the ropes keeping Scootaloo’s legs bound to the nearest bedpost. “But why are you tied to the bed like a um… slave?” Scootaloo casually shrugged. “I think I made Sweetie Belle mad. That and I suspect this was the only thing she could come up with to keep me from ‘getting myself hurt again,’ helping other ponies.” Diamond raised an eyebrow at the pegasus’ oddly mater-of-fact tone. “So… should I untie you?” “I suppose three days was long enough.” The new voice drew Tiara’s attention to the white unicorn standing in the doorway behind her. “Sweetie Belle! You’re not a ghost!” With her greeting, Diamond Tiara bound forward and hugged the unicorn from her past. Returning the hug, Sweetie answered, “No, I’m vary much alive.” “I’m sorry! But after I’d heard the stories from the other traders, of your ghost haunting the quarry road I just assumed you didn’t make it! Oh Celestia it’s good to see you again!” “Good to see you too!” a voice with a country accent said. “Apple Bloom!” Tiara said, looking over Sweetie’s shoulder to the yellow mare who’d appeared in the hallway. “I like the hat,” she added, taking note of the cowboy hat with the ribbon on it. “Thanks! But what happened to your namesake?” Apple Bloom asked, motioning to tiaraless head of Diamond Tiara. “Do I look stupid to you? I left that ‘rob me’ sign back in Seasaddle, safe and sound with dad!” “Makes sense,” Bloom said finally adding a hug of her own to the one Sweetie was giving the pink pony. Between the ponies around her and the sight of apple trees outside the windows she’d finally managed to guess where she was. Pulling her head back form between two of her old friends, Tiara asked, “Is this Ponyville?” “Sure is!” “So when the rumors said somepony had defeated the slavers here, they were talking about you three, weren’t they?” “Most likely.” “Okay, so who’s in charge now?” “Apple Bloom.” “Scootaloo!” The pegasus blinked when she realized hers was the minority opinion. “But Apple Bloom was always the leader of the crusaders,” she voiced her logic. “Not to mention the clubhouse is here on Apple Family land. And you were always the one acting like the leader, calling meetings to order and standing at the podium and stuff. And even now this is your house we’re living in, your farm feeding most everypony in town.” “That may be so, but you’re the hero who freed us from the slavers. Without you Ah’s still be in a cage, Sweetie would still be hiding behind a ghost story, and Diamond Tiara here would be getting sacrificed to a demon! You are the hero of Ponyville, not me, not Sweetie! And if Ah had to wager, if the townsponies had to choose between following me or you, I’d bet they’d choose you!” Bloom responded. Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. In the back of her mind she thought to herself, ‘Didn’t they already choose you when they burned down the hospital?’ Out loud the only thing she said was, “If I’m in charge, why am I the one that’s tied up?” “Because doctor’s orders trump leader’s orders,” Sweetie Answered. “Speaking of that, didn’t you just say three days was long enough?” Sweetie Belle gave a laugh. “I said that in the context that I wouldn’t stop Diamond Tiara from untying you. I’d be perfectly happy to make sure you gave your body a full week to burn those healing potions out of your system.” With a sigh, Scoots laid her head back on her pillow. Although with a practical thought running through her mind she had to give it voice. “Diamond Tiara is right about one thing. We’ve been an unorganized group of survivors too long. We have food, water and power. Ponyville is rapidly becoming a proper town again. We really should have an election to choose a formal mayor.” * * * * * * * “Sorry, but I’m not giving you the easy way out,” Scootaloo said. Everypony in town had gathered into the town hall. And apparently Apple Bloom hadn’t been far off. As soon as she had announced the election, somepony had shouted, “All in favor of electing Scootaloo as mayor say aye!” and the crowd responded with a unanimous ‘aye!’ immediately. “I’m not running for the position,” Scoots clarified. “I’m a problem solver, I go wherever I need to, whenever I need to. A mayor needs to be somepony who won’t just skip town at the drop of a hat. So you’re going to have to find somepony who is actually willing to take the job to be your mayor.” A murmur went through the crowd. And although less unified, the eyes of most ponies went to the other two cutie mark crusaders standing on the stage beside Scootaloo. Then somepony called out, “So who would you vote for?” At first she looked at Apple Bloom as an old memory flashed in her mind, reminding her that she’d once said Bloom could be mayor of Ponyville someday. “Did you want the job?” she asked the farm pony. Apple Bloom only shook her head. “Naw, Ah’m with you on this one. Ah ain’t the administrative type either.” With her friend’s words still echoing in her mind, the Hero of Ponyville turned her eyes to the front row of the crowd, and more precisely to the newest pony in town. “Hey Diamond Tiara, you still any good at organizing ponies?” “Of course I am! I’ve been running a trade caravan for years! Well I was before that catastrophe out by Baltimare anyway.” “So, would you be willing to be mayor?” Tiara froze as it only just then hit her that this was where this line of questioning was going. In the back of her mind her greatest failing played out. Years of being a schoolyard bully and general stuck up brat. That is until the mares on the stage, then fillies, had intervened and set her down a better path. Yet looking around, she found only a few faces who would even remember her crimes, Cheerilee, Rumble, Dinky and the like. There were others she remembered from the old days, but they had been adults back then too, so were unlikely to have noticed her bully phase as a filly. Looking back to the three mares by the mayor’s announcement podium, Diamond Tiara gave her answer. * * * * * * * In a way Scootaloo had regretted answering the question as honestly as she did. Not because she thought there was a better pony for the job than Diamond Tiara, because she didn’t, but because she realized that by making her choice known she’d single-hoofedly chosen the outcome of the election. The fact that the vote had been unanimous was proof that no pony else was actually thinking their choice through, they had just followed the lead of the town hero. They’d even insisted that she be the one to appoint the new mayor. It wasn’t much of a ceremony, but they did manage to find top hat in good shape that they tied a white ribbon to the base of to make it look somewhat mayor-like and Scoots’ put that on Tiara in front of everypony. The first thing Diamond Tiara did as mayor was to appoint town officers. She chose Apple Bloom as vice mayor for anytime she wasn’t available. After confirming that Scootaloo didn’t want the position, she appointed Rumble as the security chief. Given that she’d taken it on herself to look after the waterworks, no pony objected to Dinky being appointed as the utility manager. Sweetie Belle was even appointed as head of the town council. She even chose Cheerilee as the head of the (realistically nonexistent) education department. And reading the will of the ponies of Ponyville she even appointed Scootaloo to the special position of town hero. And so it was Ponyville gained a mayor and a six-pony town council. And once the formalities of it all were over, nothing really changed. Sure, now there were seven ponies at the town meetings instead of four, but for the most part whenever Diamond Tiara asked for the input of the town council, whatever the three cutie mark crusaders agreed on was what ended up being Tiara’s decision on the matter. Just like when the crusaders had unofficially run the town. In a way it wasn’t really that surprising. It had always been clear that it was the cutie mark crusaders who had the trust of the townsponies. So of course the new mayor wanted their council frequently and deferred to their judgment whenever possible when they took a stance on something. The one good thing in Scootaloo’s mind was that now she had somepony she could defer to when she felt that she didn’t have a good answer of her own. The biggest change in town was trade. Ironically enough once the appointments were done, Mayor Diamond Tiara was quick to make Apple Bloom fill in for her while she skipped town to organize a couple of trade routs. Within the span of two weeks she’d set up two caravans. The one to the west was where they sold as many apples and apple leather as they could, usually in exchange for luxury items like sugar or paint. When she came back from Appleloosa it had turned out that not only had she made a trade agreement, but she’d helped them build a glass forge to put all that nearby desert sand to use making what she wanted to trade for, glass. Although having it’s own source of apples, Tiara had arranged to sell a few of Apple Bloom’s healing potions instead, as healing potions were always in demand in the wastelands. And that change was easy to see. Every week the caravans came, trades where made, and color and fresh glass returned. For the first time since she’d returned, the farmhouse at Sweet Apple Acres could be called fully repaired. The townsponies had insisted that the town hall be next to get the glass for the windows, but after that other homes had been getting the luxury of real windows instead of just wooden shutters or curtains covering the window frames. More than the appearance of the buildings, thanks to the caravans, word was spreading much more rapidly that ‘the good guys’ ran Ponyville again. And that meant more ponies like Cheerilee, the prewar residences, returning and doing what they could to rebuild their old lives. The most noticeable to catch Scootaloo’s eye was Mr. Cake and his school-aged twins, Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake. And although no pony asked, between the noticeable absence of Mrs. Cake and the fact that Mr. Cake had brought the twins this far out into the wastelands made it a safe bet that the twins’ mother was no longer among the living. And yet the return of what was left of the Cake family also meant he’d set about restoring one of the more iconic buildings of the market distract, the bakery made to look like a giant gingerbread house, Sugar Cube Corner. Although at the moment it looked nothing like that, but the frame that had been set up was enough to bring back memories of what it had been like when Scootaloo had been a filly. From her perch of the third floor windows of the town hall, such thoughts made Scoots look to the southwest. That part of town looked almost normal now. True there were a lot more empty lots than there had been in the past, but the ruins had been cleaned up and the buildings there were in some state of repair, even if intact windows were still scarce for most of them. In fact the only building still in ruins between the town hall and Sweet Apple Acres was Fluttershy’s cottage, as no pony dared to claim the home of a fallen spirit of harmony so it had been left untouched as sacred ground. Other than Sweetie removing the taint from the place, but as far as the physical mound of rubble once worthy of the title ‘cottage’ no pony had dared touch it. Much like the way no pony had used Applejack’s room out of respect for the fallen spirit of honesty. Even when it had been crowded, AJ’s room had been vacant of anypony other than Apple Bloom. And even she only visited the room, dusted off the pictures or such. And then there was Sugar Cube Corner and Carousel Boutique, two iconic buildings from the old days that were semi repaired at best and still surrounded by the ruins of the three fourths of the town still worthy of the title ‘wastelands.’ Heck, even Cheerilee’s Schoolhouse was a little farther north than what most ponies would currently call ‘safe.’ Conveniently enough and weather he meant to or not, Mr. Cake’s choice to rebuild the old bakery where it stood made Scootaloo’s decision for her. Up to now she’d been torn on the idea of building a defensive wall only around the fourth of town they’d need in the near further, or trying to build a wall around the entire old Ponyville borders despite the likely need to grow the town more in order to have enough ponies to man the larger wall length. If Mr. Cake was going to live in front of the town hall that currently acted as the fortress against the raiders from Canterlot then building the full wall up front was certainly the plan. She and Rumble would just have to make due with trying to hold it with thin numbers until Rumble’s/the town’s security force was big enough to handle it. Speaking of Rumble, just then he flew in front of the window she was looking out of and taped on the glass, then motioned to the ground. Scootaloo raised an eyebrow to the casual gesture. Unless she was mistaken the only thing worthy of note was that a trade caravan had pulled into town, but she didn’t have anything she wanted to trade with at the moment, so what could possibly be worth directing her attention to down below? Regardless of her ponderings, she stood up and headed for the door, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do than go see whatever he wanted her to see down there. At first she found exactly what she expected. Ponies gathered loosely in the main hall with Diamond Tiara and other townsponies bartering with the caravan ponies who’d come into town. Then her eyes wound their way to one of the mercenaries that had clearly come as hired protection. The reason this pony stood out to her was because their armor was like nothing she’d seen before. Being a full body suit with a helmet that protected the entire head, she couldn’t even tell if the pony was a stallion or mare. The core of the suit was some sort of treated, white fabric, but it was clear that metal had been added to the body and parts of the legs at some point to add rigid protection to it. While it wasn’t unheard of for raiders or adventurers alike to make armor out whatever metal they could get their hooves on, this armor was nothing like the hodgepodge of welded scraps that made up all of the non-military armor she’d seen in the wastelands before. The leg plates were uniform, matching the other legs in a way that proved whoever made this was accustom to working with metal, likely well before the war had started. Not to mention they had taken the time to color the metal with white and sky blue that further added to the style of the armor. It had wing sleeves also made of the same odd fabric that separated the armored plates. So at the very least she could tell that the pony in the armor was a pegasus. However, the biggest standout of the suit was the tail sleeve. As far as she knew only beekeeper and hazmat suits had tail sleeves. She’d certainly never seen one on armor before, yet there it was, more of the odd, white fabric completely concealing the pony’s tail. As for the helmet, It was white with some sky blue detailing depicting a lightning bolt on the side. It also had fins that looked like they were to accommodate a pony’s ears in a folded back position. It also had a blue crystal imbedded into the forehead area. And the more she looked at it the more she could have sworn she’d seen such a helmet before, but she couldn’t place it. Finally she spotted the mini-cape on the pony’s back. Light blue and a darker blue shield that had a yellow silhouette of a pony with a cape… the same insignia that could be found on the flag now waving on the town hall’s flagpole. That was when she realized that it wasn’t a mini-cape, it was a full sized cape, full sized for a school-aged colt. And seeing as the crusaders had only made one light blue cape before deciding that honorary crusaders could just ware the same burgundy capes as regular crusaders, she had a really good idea who the stallion in the armor was. By now he’d noticed the orange mare with the violet mane standing on the balcony, overlooking the trading floor. He opened his wings to fly up to the balcony, but she’d beat him to the punch and glided down the ground floor. “Light Seeker.” Pushing the visor of his helmet up, he finally revealed his face. His fur was the same off-white with a tint of blue that was easily mistaken for pure white, as it had been when he was a colt. The lick of his mane that could be seen was still the same shade of sky-blue that Rainbow Dash’s coat had been, too. His greenish hazel eyes locked onto the mare as she landed beside him and said, “Scootaloo. It is so good to see you again!” “You modified the space suit, didn’t you?” “Guilty,” he answered with a smile. “But I think it’s taken a few too many hits to ever be airtight again.” At that, Scootaloo nodded. “I thought it seemed familiar. But what are you doing out here anyway?” “Looking for you actually. I’d heard that the good guys had taken control of Ponyville again. And not only that but that the good guys were called crusaders, I couldn’t help but think to myself, ‘now there’s a term I’ve only heard once before.’ And so I came to see if it really was the friends who helped me earn my cutie mark.” “Okay. You’ve seen that it’s us. So what are you going to do now?” The stallion let his gaze drift to the floor. “Ponyville was always like a second home to me, and after Cloudsdale was destroyed… If this is where you, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom want to rebuild, then this is the only place I can justly call home as well.” For a moment there was silence. In a way Light thought Scootaloo would respond. When she didn’t he added, “On the way in, I noticed your security seemed to be stretched a bit thin. I may have an idea that could help with that.” That finally got the orange mare to raise an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?” “If it’s still standing I can think of something I might have left behind the last time I was at my old workshop.” * * * * * * * In the hills north of Ponyville two pegasi crept through the withered tall grass. As they crested a hill like any other, the stallion held out his hoof and the two laid down, poking their heads up just enough to see what was beyond the hill. In the space that separated this hill from the next, a metal hanger sat. It had a large set of hanger doors in the middle, and a smaller door off to the side of the larger ones. A few feet from the doors was a device about that size of a pony that sat atop a tripod. The device itself was basically a large, metal box with nine curricular holes in one end and a few extra doodads attached to the top of the box. And then there was the half circle of signs, the closest of which being only a few feet from there the duo was crouched, which read, ‘Danger! Experimental defense system, proceed beyond this point and you will be fired on.’ “So, how accurate are the signs?” Scootaloo asked, nodding toward the nearest warning sign. “Depends on if the range finder is still working or not.” Scoots’ eyes shifted to the six small, scorched craters in the field in front of the defense device. Or more precisely to the five pony skeletons located near each of them. Not that the skeletons were even remotely intact, but there was enough to say ‘that used to be a ribcage’ or ‘that’s part of a skull.’ Even if the bones had been scattered by the blasts that dug the craters. “It’s a rocket launcher, isn’t it?” “Of course it is. Fireworks are what I know, and a rocket is basically a firework with an over-packed warhead. Although I’m actually surprised no pony had bothered to over run it,” He answered. Offering a set of binoculars to her, he explained, “It only had nine shots to begin with, and I can only see rocket tips in three of the tubes now. If we can make it miss three more times it won’t be able to fight anyone anymore.” With a raised eyebrow, Scootaloo pointed at the blast marks and skeletons around it and said, “Uh…” “Yes, I can see it’s only missed once out of six shots up till now.” With a shrug he added, “If we’re lucky it won’t fire at us at all. Although I’m not holding out much hope of that.” “Why is that?” “The control system has pictures of us to mark us as friendly, but… as you might guess those pictures are from when we were kids. That, and I’m not sure that our cutie marks alone will be enough for the system to say we’re the same ponies as the ones in it’s files.” Silence fell for a moment. Then the mare of the two asked a simple question. “Can’t we just blow it up?” Light lifted a hoof and opened his mouth but then froze before any words of protest could escape. After a moment longer he shifted his raised hoof to his chin and said, “Actually the important stuff is the control system inside. Losing a few motors would be annoying but those aren’t irreplaceable, plenty of salvage vendors back west willing to sell electric motors.” With one last glance at the dusty skeletons scattered around the craters, Scootaloo said, “Then you’ll have to forgive me if I skip the risky method.” With that she pulled out the puffs of cloud from six of her seven belt pouches and mashed them together to make a cloud a little bigger than her head. Then she stuck her hoof into the cloud and started rubbing it the wrong way, making it turn especially dark gray. As the cloud crackled with electricity Scootaloo stood up, moved the cloud to put it right between herself and the turret and punched it with all the might and focus she could muster. A bolt of lightning as wide as the cloud flashed, striking the rocket turret. As lightning arched through the machine it managed to ignite one of the rockets properly, firing it right before the two remaining rockets blow up in the launcher, completely obliterating it. As the machine had started to aim at her the moment she’d stood up, the rocket was fired in Scootaloo’s direction. She quickly ducked back down just in time for it to strike the warning sign just a few feet away. The resulting blast removed the sign from existence and showered them with the dirt and splinters. Once the smoke had cleared, Scoots peeked her head back out and confirmed the sight of the rocket launcher’s destruction. Once she was satisfied that it was safe to do so, she stood back up and said, “It occurs to me that between the traders and school ponies, we can’t really afford to have friendly fire accidents with defenses like these.” Light Seeker gave a chuckle as he brushed dirt off the top of his head and answered, “Yeah… I’m definitely thinking we should maybe only arm the town versions with tranquilizer darts or something.” With a thoughtful look on her face Scootaloo brought her hoof back to her chin and pondered aloud, “I wonder if Apple Bloom knows any sleeping potion recipes we could use to make tranquilizer darts with?” Regardless, with the threat out of the way, the two made their way down into the hanger to get what they came for and salvage anything else of use they could find. * * * * * * * They had hadn’t even set hoof back in town, and were still in the ruins of the north part of Ponyville, when they noticed three pegasi approaching them from above. Scootaloo’s first instinct was to pull out her last piece of cloud, but she refrained from doing so because she’d also noticed the formation flying and E.U.P. armor of the pegasi in question. A second longer and she didn’t need any help identifying two of the three. A mare with yellow wings and a flaming yellow and orange tail and a stallion with white wings and a dark blue tail could only be Spitfire and Soarin. No doubt leaving the third as a Wonderbolt Scoots didn’t know. But knowing that the pegasi approaching them were Wonderbolts was enough to disarm her combat instincts. Soarin and the mare with the seafoam-green coat landed facing to the side, insuring that the weapons mounted on their armor weren’t pointed and Scootaloo and her friend. As soon as Spitfire landed she removed her helmet and gave a slight nod to orange mare before her. “Scootaloo! I’ve been looking for you!” “Oh?” Scoots asked with a raised eyebrow. “What for?” “Walk with me,” the captain of the Wonderbolts said, trotting off toward the restored part of town. Light Seeker and the other two Wonderbolts took the hint and followed the two mares at a distance, letting them speak among themselves. “So the short version is this,” Spitfire began. “We’re looking for another source of supplies for our forward base. Needless to say, you’re town is the closest community that we know will be friendly to us. I was hoping we could strike a deal. And I’m talking more than just a one-time trade, I’m talking routine supplies.” Scootaloo nodded and said, “In that case you’ll have to talk with Diamond Tiara, she’s the mayor, she handles trade agreements for the town.” “I’d heard as much,” Spitfire said as she gave a nod. “But it’s also plain to see that the town follows you. So I’d rather negotiate with the pony I know.” “I’m sure you would. But I’d probably let you take advantage of me because I’m an adventurer, not a business pony. I’ll tell Diamond Tiara to give you as favorable of a deal as we can without it being a burden to Ponyville, but that’s the most I can do.” “That’s all I’m asking. We don’t want to be a burden to anypony either.”