//------------------------------// // Parasites // Story: A Witch in Broad Daylight // by Epsilon-Delta //------------------------------// “Dash had me go get all the classified information for her a little while ago. She also gave me this cool piano desk.” Derpy hit five notes on the piano and a small compartment on the side of the instrument opened. From this, Derpy took one of five yellow folders with ‘Classified’ stamped on them in red ink. Sweetie watched carefully, hoping to get a glimpse of the other four’s content, but Derpy found the right one without opening the others. Derpy slid a piece of paper out of the correct folder. “Is this the pony you saw?” Derpy turned it towards Sweetie Belle. To her surprise, the paper showed pictures of two fillies, labeled subject one and subject two. The first was a supremely bored unicorn with spikey blue hair that Sweetie had never seen before. Number two was an annoyed Scootaloo, photographed in the middle of an eye roll. The caption listed Scootaloo’s full name as ‘Scootaloo Allgood’. “Yeah!” Sweetie Belle pointed to Scootaloo. “That’s her on the right! So you know what she is?” “Well, at least it wasn’t the other one.” Derpy put that sheet away and took another out of the folder. “I guess I should give you the backstory. See, ten years ago, somepony punctured a hole in reality, creating the largest recorded portal to the outer realm.” Derpy showed them another picture. Sweetie Belle didn’t know a lot about interdimensional portals, but even she could tell the one in the photo was stood far larger than normal. This portal rose over a row of houses like a gaping maw ready to consume the village. “Wowzers!” Pinkie took the picture for herself. “I’ve never seen one this half this size before! Who made it?” “Nopony knows.” Derpy came in closer to whisper. “But it was probably a witch, right? Cause who else would it be?” Pinkie looked over the paper carefully, less eager to accept that conclusion. “We don’t have pictures of this next part, but things started coming out of the portal.” Sweetie Belle heard of ponies going into the outer realm, but never about anything coming out. Was that even possible? She shuddered at the thought. Even Pinkie Pie, with her decades of experience, grew quiet. She lowered the paper and leaned in to carefully listen to Derpy. “And the thing that came through the portal,” Derpy’s voice lowered. She leaned into it now, like she was telling a scary story. “Was an alicorn!” Sweetie Belle gasped, more from reflex than anything else. When she gave it more thought, she realized she wasn’t sure if she should be afraid of that. Alicorns weren’t necessarily evil creatures. The only one she remotely knew of was friends with Apple Bloom. Alicorns were the ones who wrote all the laws of physics and brought order to the world long ago. Of course, that meant they could rewrite reality. Exactly what Scootaloo was doing! They distorted reality and so did Scootaloo! Everything started to click What if Scootaloo was secretly an alicorn? But that couldn’t possibly be true. Could it? “Huh!” As she thought, Pinkie leaned back in the piano chair so far Sweetie Belle assumed her psychic powers held her up. “Alicorn magic can remake reality. That almost makes sense.” Pinkie snapped forward, the piano desk landing in a more possible position. “But are you sure?” Pinkie asked. “The only alicorn around’s The Darklord and he’s got the ‘sealed away forever’ thing going on. Alicorns can just grab stars and fling them around like streamers! They could erase the speed of light. I think somepony would have noticed if something like that happened.” “Okay, okay.” Derpy turned up her hooves immediately, admitting her exaggeration. “According to Starlight’s report, the portal was big enough for a ‘tiny fraction’ of the alicorn’s ‘true being’ to get through. I don’t know what that actually means, but when I was reading this, I pretended it meant that alicorn stuck her tongue through the portal. And like, Starlight had this epic battle with a giant tongue-god!” “And Starlight beat it?” Sweetie Belle asked. “She defeated an alicorn?” “Just it’s tongue or whatever! And I don’t see a giant alicorn tongue flailing around, do you?” Derpy shrugged. “But yeah, thankfully Starlight was there to save the day. The report says she shoved it back in and closed the portal. It would have been a literal world-changing event if she hadn’t stopped it.” That took Sweetie Belle by surprise. She didn’t know much about politics, other than the disdain and mistrust the adults in her life had for Starlight Glimmer. Yet if Starlight saved the world even one time, was she really that bad? “And who wrote this report?” Pinkie asked. “Starlight,” Derpy admitted. Pinkie made a loud ‘hm’ as she narrowed her eyes in an exaggerated thinking pose. Pinkie did just raise a good point, on the other hoof. “I still don’t get what this has to do with Scootaloo,” said Sweetie Belle. “Right, well it wasn’t the only thing that came out.” Derpy pointed to the folder, still in Pinkie’s possession. “Turn to page six. A swarm of brain-eating monsters came out too! They, uh, ate brains.” Pinkie flipped to the right page. “Bleh!” Pinkie cringed and stuck her tongue out in disgust at whatever horrors she saw. Sweetie Belle tried to crane her neck around Pinkie and get a look at these parasites, but Pinkie quickly pulled it away. “Heh! You don’t need to see this one, kiddo!” Pinkie smiled brightly and put the paper away. “Trust me.” That only made it worse! “Those monsters from the outer realm could distort reality too,” Derpy went on. “If they ate your entire brain, you just vanished from existence. The government didn’t even have to cover this up. The whole village got erased. Only two ponies survived. For some unknown reason, the parasites didn’t kill them. They just ate a small part of their brains and went to sleep. “President Flash Flood wanted to ‘put them down’, but Starlight convinced him to spare the two,” Derpy went on to finish the story. “Lilymoon should still be in Area 5X, but Scootaloo got privatized and the Allgood Corporation took custody of her. Allgood developed Cronenboricil, those pills you mentioned. They keep the parasite in a coma.” “So that’s why she can distort reality?” Sweetie Belle asked. “She has an outer realm parasite eating her brain?” “Technically it stopped and is just sitting there now,” said Derpy. “But yeah! Her reality distortion field effects an area 10 miles wide. They can both use it, but the parasite is usually asleep. So we gotta be very careful! If Scootaloo gets too injured, angry, or scared, the parasite can still wake up and take control of her body to try and protect the two of them. That means destroying everything nearby, just so we’re clear.” So that explained why Scootaloo’s fear of getting hit. Sweetie Belle made the right decision not to punch her, it seemed. She wondered how bad the parasite taking control could get. Scootaloo wasn’t aiming to hurt anypony, but with the ability to distort reality itself, you could do just about anything! Now Scootaloo seemed more like a bomb waiting to go off. “Oh! But that also means Scootaloo can’t attack us without losing control!” Derpy pointed out. “So there’s that.” Pinkie held out every paper in the folder at once, levitating them in a half-circle around her. She looked at each one in turn with narrow eyes, making sure Derpy didn’t leave anything important out. “The weird thing to me is that nopony told us,” said Derpy. “If Scootaloo escaped, the Allgood Group is supposed to alert every rank S pony immediately. I’m Dash’s lieutenant, so I should have gotten notified already.” “They don’t want to get caught messing up!” Sweetie Belle answered straight away. “I know because I do the same thing all the time.” “Huh?” Derpy blinked, then shook her head like a camera just flashed her. “But that’s what a child would do! They wouldn’t trust such an important job to somepony that irresponsible, would they?” Derpy looked towards Pinkie just to be on the safe side. “Oh, the system’s totally corrupt.” Pinkie laughed as she stuffed the papers back into the folder. “Of course they’d be that irresponsible!” “What? But—! But—!” “But there is a plus side.” Pinkie put her forehooves on Derpy’s back. “The system is completely corrupt, meaning I’ll probably get away with whatever whacky, illegal thing I’m about to do. Hurray for corruption!” “Whoa, whoa! What? Breaking the law?” Derpy stomped a hoof down. “You can’t break the law. That’s illegal!” “Ha! You! I bet you had a pretty good life growing up, huh?” Pinkie pressed her muzzle against Derpy’s side before stepping away. “What does that have to do with anything?” Derpy took a step after her. “Look, instead of breaking the law, we gotta contact the Allgood Group! And then HQ! That’s the protocol.” “Nope! If they don’t call us, we don’t gotta call them,” said Pinkie. “Totally their fault. I’ve chimed this changa before, so I know how it works. Trust me.” “Okay. Well, you can be as passive-aggressive as you want, but they’re the ones with the Scootaloo Containment Unit or ‘SCU.’” Derpy grabbed one of the pages out of the folder. “See? Do I need to explain why a Scootaloo Containment Unit would be useful in this situation?” “Nah, I got a better plan.” Pinkie used her psychic powers to swat that paper away. “Sweetie Belle, you said she ran away from Allgood, right?” “Huh?” Sweetie nodded. “Yeah! I think that’s what happened now.” “Well I’ve dealt with plenty of runaway kiddos before,” said Pinkie. “We gotta treat her like a scared filly who ran away from home, not a monster.” “Are you sure?” Derpy asked. “That could backfire.” “I’m sure as sunshine!” Pinkie winked. “Just gotta find a way to talk to her without getting sucked into the Scootaloo Zone. If only there was some way to speak with somepony from far away.” “You mean like a phone?” Derpy asked. “We have phones. You can use them to call the government.” “Oh, I can’t call Rarity’s house without somepony noticing.” Pinkie dismissed the suggestion. “Should I know who Rarity is?” “I have an idea!” Sweetie Belle jumped to get their attention. “We could use the internet! I can run a cable straight through the portal to Rarity’s analytical engine.” “The what?” Derpy asked. “Oh, hey! That’s a great idea!” Pinkie pulled Sweetie over. “Then we can talk face to face.” “Rarity showed me enough that I can set it up,” said Sweetie Belle. “But I need a little while.” “Great! You do that, I’ll practice my speech. Break!” Sweetie soon sped off in the other direction. “Okay.” Derpy sat down on the floor. “Guess I’ll just wait here till somepony tells me what’s going on.” Scootaloo followed Dash back to Twilight’s tree, where they’d planned to train today. Rarity and Apple Bloom came along too, were currently standing around Twilight’s bubbling cauldron as Dash tended to Scootaloo. “I said I’m fine,” Scootaloo complained as Dash checked her muzzle one last time. Dash nodded, but knew her nosebleed wasn’t the issue in question here. Maybe in a better world, Scootaloo wouldn’t have any problem at how perceptive Dash was when it came to Scootaloo being upset. In the distorted reality, that is in the way things should have been, Dash knew Scootaloo so well that she immediately noticed when Scootaloo had a problem. Thankfully, she wasn’t smothering like those psychoanalysts Snap hired. Yet, she never just ignored it, either. “Are you worried about Sweetie Belle?” Dash guessed. “Yeah,” Scootaloo took the convenient lie. “This doesn’t mean you’re not friends with her anymore,” Dash assured her. “Me and Derpy used to rough house all the time! Dad always used to say you’re not a real pegasus until you’ve broken your first bone.” It wasn’t an uncommon attitude among pegasi. Some families even gave you a party when you broke your first bone. While pegasus bones broke easier, they also healed faster. Unless you completely shattered the legbone, you’d only need to be off it for a couple of days. “Not even broken,” Dash concluded her probe. “Guess we don’t need Twi to fix it. You were bleeding pretty bad, though. I’m surprised.” “Does this mean I’m not a real pegasus yet?” Scootaloo joked. “Eh. I wouldn’t care about what Dad thinks,” Dash didn’t mention her father with any reverence. “You’ve been to the hospital way more than any other pegasus I’ve known, so even if you care about that stuff, you’ve got the rest of us beat!” Scootaloo’s ears perked up at the mention of something they possibly had in common. “Do you–?” Scootaloo began. “Do you not like Dad?” “Eh.” Dash rubbed the back of her head and looked to some far-off place. “Dad was never around even when he was there. I think you and I got the short end of the stick when it comes to parents.” Scootaloo nodded, agreeing without hesitation. She knew exactly what Dash meant. They had so much in common! “But things are finally looking up for us, yeah?” Dash nuzzled her sister’s hair. “We got each other so we don’t need our parents.” “Uh. Yeah.” Scootaloo tried to smile. Maybe things would be going well for her. She might be able to get more of her medicine. That was her whole goal, after all. She wasn’t happy about it at all, though! She had it too good these past few days. The thought of leaving it all behind, even if it was with unlimited Cronenboricil, made her sad. Why couldn’t Rainbow Dash be just a little mean to her? It was making things hard. Now was the time she needed to press on as quickly as possible. She might not be welcome here much longer. Who knew how long she really had before Sweetie Belle found some way to ruin everything? “So we’re doing potion stuff?” Dash turned back to Twilight. “Again?” “I’ll be showing Rarity and Apple Bloom a few things. You need to work on hyper-casting,” said Twilight. “There’s an enormous amount of spells you won’t be able to use until you can master that.” Scootaloo knew a little bit about witch stuff now. That was when you made your whole body glow like it was a unicorn’s horn. Allegedly, even a pegasus could use unicorn magic to an extent if you knew how to do that on a smaller scale. Twilight threw Dash one of those pendants she made the others train with. This too, Scootaloo gleaned some information about. It contained ‘mind fibers’. Those temporarily gave you abilities that could be learned permanently if you repeated the skill enough times. That was how Dash learned her favorite ability, the one that turned you into 20 crows. “Try not to wipe yourself out in a few seconds this time,” said Twilight. “Your goal is to use as little magic as possible. You’re not nearly strong enough to cast a truly massive spell yet, so it’s pointless to try. This is more an attempt to use different types of magic.” “Are you sure?” Dash stretched her wings. “Cause I feel like blowing myself out in seconds is a great workout! Pushing yourself past your limit is how you get stronger and with this thing, I can do that in the blink of an eye.” “Normally it is, yes,” said Twilight. “But now isn’t a good time for that. Our attack on Minuette is only two days away. You don’t want to be exhausted for that.” “Right, right. I won’t push myself today.” She looked at Scootaloo one last time. “You coming with me?” “I think I’ll stay in here, thanks.” Dash nodded and went outside to train. That left her, Apple Bloom, and Rarity alone with Twilight and her cauldron. If she was getting more medicine, she’d get it from that pot. Scootaloo couldn’t just make Twilight declare that she was now going to make more Cronenboricil, then blindly fork them over. She had to find something to change that would lead to Twilight creating more medicine. Sadly, it wasn’t as easy as pulling a ‘in this reality, I already convinced you to do what I wanted’. That one only worked if Scootaloo already had the ability to convince somepony to do something. Having spent her whole life with this power, Scootaloo could feel out how probable her attempts at persuasion would be. This one felt incredibly difficult. She knew there had to be some shocking ingredient inside them that Twilight would notice long before she set out to brew up some more. That’d explain why she couldn’t simply will more into existence, either. If it was unlikely she could find the ingredients for whatever she wanted to create, it was harder to force it to exist. Her best bet? Get Twilight to tell her what that strange ingredient was then snap reality back before Twilight could react. She just needed to hope she was fast enough. Also, she needed to think of a way to get that to happen in the first place. Rarity was the one practicing swiping through the cauldron’s right now. If a pony pawed her hoof in one direction, the cauldron would vanish and a new one would appear, filled with something else. It took the unicorn a few attempts, but she eventually got to the one Twilight wanted. “As I promised, I’ll be showing you how to analyze with the cauldron.” Twilight placed her hoof on the lip of her cauldron. “Both of you have basic proficiency at using its ability to channel information directly into your mind. Once you know how to use this to monitor the conditions of any reaction taking place inside, analyzing the contents of an unknown material is as simple as dissolving it. Thankfully, azoth can dissolve most matter.” Scootaloo didn’t even set that one up! She’d seriously just gotten lucky for once. This was it! Her best possible shot! “Hey!” Scootaloo stepped off her perch and took out one of her pills. “Why don’t you use it on my medicine?” “That’s a good idea!” Twilight smiled at the suggestion. “I don’t know what’s in those myself, so it will be a good opportunity to show the process. If I’ve seen whatever chemicals are in it before, you’ll immediately know its stored name. If not, you can still get a feel for its nature. Can you hand it to Apple Bloom?” “Yeah, sure!” Scootaloo gave the other filly her pill. Scootaloo watched with bated breath as Twilight showed the other two exactly what to do. Scootaloo herself didn’t pay much attention. She needed to be ready. There had to be something on the eight inside of those and Twilight might act as soon as she saw that. Thankfully, the other two’s attention was on Twilight. None of them saw her sweat. Apple Bloom climbed up a step stool and placed a hoof on the cauldron. The contents, seemingly of their own accord, changed to a liquid so clear Scootaloo could hardly be sure it was there at all. Apple Bloom closed her eyes and dropped the specimen into this liquid. This was the moment of truth. The tablet quickly dissolved into a blue cloud as Apple Bloom watched it with a furrowed brow. Her eyes widened and her frown deepened as the mixture turned black and began to swirl around rapidly. Afraid of whatever the cauldron revealed to her, Apple Bloom tried to pull away only to find her hoof magnetically stuck to the cauldron. “Are you alright?” Rarity asked her, then turned to Twilight. “Twilight, should we be concerned about this?” Twilight became completely still the moment the mixture turned black. She stood with her eyes closed in contemplation of what she’d just seen. Or perhaps she was casting some mysterious spell. Did she figure something out? Scootaloo hoped she didn’t figure something out! If Twilight herself came after Scootaloo, she wasn’t sure anything could save her! Before Rarity could probe her any further, Apple Bloom finally broke free of the cauldron. The earth pony stumbled back and into the pile of books, knocking them all over. “Are you alright?” Rarity ran to help her up. When Apple Bloom nodded, Rarity turned back to Twilight. “Twilight, what was that?” Twilight kept silent. She wasn’t going to say! If Scootaloo didn’t hear what her medicine contained, all of this would be a complete waste. She needed to think of something before Twilight completed whatever she had planned. “Apple Bloom.” Scootaloo snuck up to the other filly while Rarity tried to snap Twilight out of her little trance. “You had your hoof on the cauldron. You know what it means, don’t you?” Apple Bloom would tell her! “Sort of?” Apple Bloom rubbed her head. “Oh, that’s right! I gotta write it down so I don’t forget it all.” Apple Bloom grabbed her notebook and scribbled down the details. Scootaloo craned her neck around the other filly, but Apple Bloom’s handwriting was simply too terrible to read. Earth ponies always had the worst hoofwriting! Scootaloo hoped thinking that didn’t make her racist. She began to write increasingly slowly until her pencil stopped in the middle of a letter and she stared at her page in deep concern. Putting it to paper made it all click with her. “Wait. Broken spacetime?” Apple Bloom turned her head to Scootaloo who still hung off of her to the side. “Say, Scootaloo? Why does your heart medication have paradox materials inside it?” “It’s a really bad heart condition?” Scootaloo smiled wide and chuckled awkwardly. She jumped off Apple Bloom and took a few steps back. Both Apple Bloom and Rarity were looking at her now. It didn’t matter! That stuff was called ‘broken spacetime’. That might be all she needed. “Scootaloo, if something is wrong you know you can tell us, yes?” Rarity asked. “I don’t know what secret you and Rainbow Dash have been keeping from us, but it can’t possibly be that bad compared to what we normally do." She’d been in this reality long enough! Scootaloo slightly altered the distortion field so that they’d thrown something else into the cauldron instead! The scene snapped as the world caught up. Now all three of them stood in front of the cauldron, looking in. The liquid glowed yellow now, which notably didn’t worry Apple Bloom at all, and Twilight explained what this meant to the others. Scootaloo had no time to pay attention to this. The question now was whether she could make more of this medicine with her new knowledge. She took a step back and pulled her hoof to try and make a copy of a pill. It felt different this time. One of the limitations of Scootaloo’s powers was that the less plausible a change she wanted to make was, the harder it would be to enact. She could, when she went to distort reality, feel out the plausibility of any change. Cronenboricil felt easy to make now! She swiped her hoof and a blue pill appeared in it. Shaking with excitement, Scootaloo needed to steady herself to put it between her teeth. She felt the tingle! It was totally working! Though she still wasn’t sure if she’d be able to easily do it outside of this place, where its creation was less plausible. Thankfully, it wasn’t the cauldron that she felt a tug from when she’d created the pill. Instead, it seemed connected to something behind her. Scootaloo scanned the shelf of reagents behind her and quickly zeroed in on the source. She found a jar filled with a blue powder– the exact same color as her medicine. “Hey, Twilight!” Scootaloo interrupted her. “What’s in this jar?” “Oh, that’s temporally displaced powdered carborundum.” Twilight didn’t even glance back at her. “Uh.” Scootaloo knew what ‘powdered’ meant. “Does that have anything to do with broken spacetime?” Twilight turned to face Scootaloo now, raising her brow in concern. “It’s a type of that, yes,” said Twilight. “Is everything okay? Hold on. Are you–” Before Twilight could finish the thought, Scootaloo moved everything back a few seconds again. Twilight was no longer suspicious. Scootaloo was safe. Easy! This was it! She just needed to steal that jar and she’d be able to create as much medicine as she wanted. Creating medicine wouldn't actually deplete the contents of the jar, so she'd be able to make more indefinitely. Scootaloo shoved it into her saddlebag. Just to be on the safe side, she grabbed a few more things from Twilight’s shelves and nabbed them all. Then she made one more tiny alteration to reality. “You wanted me to bring all this to Rainbow Dash, right?” Scootaloo backed out of the room. “Hehe! I’ll be right back!” She closed the door behind her, emerging just outside the castle itself. Twilight wasn’t chasing after her. She was home free! Scootaloo let out a sigh of relief, then took out the bottle of blue powder. She really should feel elated about solving this problem, but all she felt was a sinking feeling. Scootaloo herself never felt bad about stealing stuff up till now. Why was she suddenly feeling bad about this? It was true Twilight and Rainbow Dash had been so nice to her these past few days. She couldn’t help but feel like this was a betrayal even though she hadn’t even known them for a week. But she reminded herself that she shouldn’t feel bad about this! Snap wouldn’t feel bad about it! He always called betrayal ‘an important strategic tool’. Knowing when to stab a pony in the back was just part of being a good leader! Scootaloo was just doing what she needed to do. This was how you made it in the real world. So why should she feel bad? They were only being nice to her since they thought she was Dash’s sister, she decided. If they knew what she really was, they’d lock her up or worse. They wouldn’t care about her at all if it weren’t for the reality distortion. So it was okay to steal from them. “Yeah.” Scootaloo nodded to herself. Though despite conjuring that thought to make herself feel better, remembering Dash didn’t really care about her only made Scootaloo feel worse. She had to get out of here before she did something stupid. Scootaloo rushed back inside the castle. No more thinking till she was far away from here! She had to get back into the room with the portal, down in the basement. Once she got back to Ponytown, she’d think about where to go next. The portal room was on the second floor, she remembered. Scootaloo hurried straight there, thankful she didn’t run into anypony. She threw the door open and paused briefly. The room looked different now. The blue circle in the center of the room hadn’t changed and the portal lay open before her. Through the floor and the clarity of the portal, Scootaloo could already see her exit, Dash’s basement, on the other end. But now several additional items stood in the room. Namely, those cabinet-sized machines from Rarity’s room now lined the walls. A few other devices littered the room as well, though Scootaloo didn’t recognize any of these. Most worryingly, Sweetie Belle, her archnemesis, stood waiting for her right in front of the portal. A thick cable ran from her to the portal and into Dash’s home. Before Scootaloo could do anything, Sweetie Belle spoke. “Scootaloo! Hold on!” Sweetie Belle opened her forelegs. “I’m not letting you leave until you watch an important message!” Scootaloo glanced back at the door. She could easily make the portal be set up in another room. Having it be in the middle of the hallway would take a bit too much effort, as that wasn’t something Twilight would have reasonably done. Fighting was dangerous for Scootaloo. “I swear I was just about to leave!” Scootaloo promised. “Let me through and everything here goes back to normal.” “If you still want to leave after seeing this, I’ll let you,” said Sweetie Belle. There was no way to know if this robot would keep her promise. Sweetie Belle looked at Scootaloo’s overflowing bags and the bottle of glowing blue dust around her neck. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything. Meanwhile, Scootaloo scraped her hoof against the ground. Curiosity got the better of her. Maybe she could at least see what Sweetie Belle wanted to show her. “Okay, but this better not take long.” Scootaloo sat down. “I’m only giving you two minutes.” A projector on top of the machines turned on, filling the far side of the room with a color image. Scootaloo thought the color projector Allgood gave her was fancy, but this one’s colors were far more vivid. It also didn’t have any film spinning through it, making her wonder how it even worked. Of course, the only thing she’d been allowed to watch her whole life was movies meant for babies. If Sweetie Belle seriously tried to show her something like that, Scootaloo would run out right there. The movie began to play and she saw an image of… Pinkie Pie? Scootaloo looked at it in disbelief. Did Pinkie record a message for her? The projector made it so Pinkie Pie stood at the same height she would have in real life, a little taller than Scootaloo herself. Pinkie Pie stood in the living room of Dash’s house– the place Scootaloo had lived in for the past four days. Scootaloo had no idea if Pinkie would still think she was Dash’s sister. She’d never seen if her reality distortion field bled through portals. She’d find out if it did in a second. “Oh, hey!” Pinkie, in the movie, waved at Scootaloo. “I can see you! Can you see me?” “I see it on both sides,” Sweetie Belle answered. “This is live. The Pinkie in the movie can see you.” “Huh?” Scootaloo tested the claim. She lowered her right ear and reached her left hoof over to tap its tip. Pinkie responded without even being challenged. “Oh! I do see it!” Pinkie pointed straight at her. “You’re poking your right ear with your left hoof, yeah?” She took a step back in surprise. Just then, Scootaloo realized a camera pointing at her from above one of the large machines. She’d never seen anything like this before. Phones were bad enough, but if such technology existed on the edge, Scootaloo would be in trouble someday. “You’re Scootaloo, right?” Pinkie asked. It didn’t sound like Pinkie remembered her. Scootaloo scrambled to think of what to do in this situation. “Yeah! Well my sister Rainbow Dash wanted me to–” “Oh, I’m not affected by your powers right now,” said Pinkie. “But no need to explain anything. I already figured out what you really are.” “You did?” Scootaloo’s ears fell flat against her head. She backed up towards the door. This was the worst possible scenario. If they knew Scootaloo’s secret, they wouldn’t stop until they locked her up again. She needed to think of something. “Yeah! You’re a filly who ran away from home!” Pinkie jumped up to the camera so that her bright smile filled the entire wall. Scootaloo stumbled in surprise and fell onto her haunches. At least Pinkie didn’t call her a monster, as she’d expected. “She told you, right?” Scootaloo looked over at Sweetie Belle, then pointed at herself. “What I can do?” “Oh yeah, sure.” Pinkie blew that little hook in her main away from her eye. “You got a reality distorting thing in your brain, and you escaped from some corporate lab.” She said all that so casually! “That’s not what I’m worried about,” said Pinkie. “It isn’t?!” “If a scared little runaway filly shows up in my house, helping her out is gonna be the first thing I do.” “I’m not a little kid. I’m almost a teenager and then I’ll almost be a mare!” Scootaloo object, only to realize how silly she sounded. “Okay, I guess maybe I am.” “Can you tell me why you ran away? Did something scary happen?” Pinkie, at the urging of Sweetie Belle on the other side, took a few steps back to become less gigantic. “Was somepony being mean to you?” “That’s not important.” “Sure it is! I gotta know what’s wrong if I’m gonna help you.” “Help me go back inside my cage?” Scootaloo asked. “You just want to lock me away so you don’t have to deal with me! Cause that’s the ‘responsible’ thing to do or whatever!” “You don’t gotta worry about anything like that. There’s no way I’d let you go back there if those ponies are hurting you,” Pinkie Promised. Hurting her? That was the problem. Oh, how Scootaloo wished they were abusing her over there. It wasn’t like they were electrocuting her or throwing her in vats of acid to see what would happen. Those tests they did on her were boring, but far from torture. The most terrible horror story Scootaloo could offer Pinkie was that one time they made her lie down in a metal tube for three hours until she fell asleep. Her prison was nicer than most pony’s homes. They let her go outside to her ‘playground’ every day. She ate expensive food. Her problems just weren’t good enough. Whenever Scootaloo told somepony how unbearably boring her life was, how she felt like her ‘father’ exploited her for profit, how she had no hope for having a life at all, nopony cared. They just thought dismissed such concerns as childish and stupid. Even Starlight, who’d give her some small concession every now and then, was quick to remind Scootaloo how selfish her desires were. Other ponies had it worse than Scootaloo. Her complaints were always dismissed, and she got sent back to the cage ‘for her own good’. Scootaloo deeply wished that Snap had punched her in the face just once so she could be worthy of sympathy. Pinkie watched Scootaloo struggle with the question, sympathetic for now, no doubt imagining Scootaloo being dissected alive by Allgood. “Oh, hey! Just between you and me, Allgood is already in a lot of trouble,” Pinkie leaned in to whisper it to Scootaloo. “They didn’t tell the authorities you got out, so I bet they’ll lose custody of you just for that!” Her ears perked up as that fact created the tiniest shred of hope. The thought of Snap getting in trouble for something seemed too good to be true. “So come on. Don’t you wanna tell your best friend Pinkie Pie what’s wrong?” Pinkie asked. “Nothing’s wrong.” “Then why’d you run away?” “I just don’t like it there.” “How come?” “Why do you even care?” Scootaloo asked. “Don’t you have a million stocks in Allgood or something? If you get them in trouble, you’ll lose money. I know how this thing works.” “You don’t gotta worry about that! All my money is in Curse Tech stocks, palladium, and war bonds. Even if palladium and Curse Tech go to zero, I’m still set for life. Whatever happens to Allgood doesn’t affect me.” “But what about the fact that I–” Scootaloo looked over at Sweetie Belle, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of being right. “Aren’t you angry I brainwashed you? I was living with you guys for four days, eating your gift baskets.” “Do you know how many times I’ve been brainwashed?” Pinkie laughed. “You didn’t even make me eat a gross bug or anything. I think. Did you make me eat bugs?” “No. I can’t directly control ponies like that.” “Then it’s fine! You were scared and desperate. Just promise not to do it again and we’re bestos! Come on, you know you wanna be friends with Pinkie Pie, right?” Secretly? Yes. Scootaloo did want to be friends with Pinkie Pie. Staying there for four days was a mistake. She knew it was a stupid idea even at the time. She’d just liked it at Dash’s house so much she couldn’t help herself. Now she’d gotten attached. Some part of her saw Pinkie as a friend even if she knew it wasn’t true. Snap always warned to ‘never let yourself get attached’ to anypony. That’s why he never even used anypony else’s name, just calling them all by their job titles instead. If you let yourself get attached, you made stupid, emotional decisions. “If you stayed with me for four days, then you know you can tell your Granny Pie anything, right?” Pinkie winked at her. “I’m free all day. You can rant at me for hours and hours if you want.” “I dunno!” Scootaloo shuffled her forehooves in place, kneading the stone floor. “It’s just boring.” Pinkie didn’t immediately dismiss the concern, at least. For now, she nodded along. Scootaloo knew she’d needed something better than that, though. One complaint already bubbled at the surface of her mind. “They treat me like I’m some bug they’re studying,” said Scootaloo. “Snap won’t even call me by my name. He always calls me ‘subject 2’, even when he’s talking to me! A-and he’s supposed to be my… my legal guardian.” “Oh, wow.” Pinkie turned her brows up in sympathy. “Your own dad won’t even say your name? No wonder you didn’t like it there.” “Snap isn’t my dad!” Scootaloo corrected her. “I guess legally he’s my father. But I don’t have any real parents.” “It sounds like he’s supposed to be your dad, but he’s not doing a good job,” said Pinkie. “Is there anypony where you live who’s nice to you?” “He hires tons of ponies to ‘deal’ with me. But the only kind ones got scared and ran away,” Scootaloo admitted. “The only ones who are left are ponies who care more about money than anything else. I know because I’ve used my powers on them to see!” Pinkie nodded along as Scootaloo ranted. “Nopony else says my name cause Snap does it and he’s the boss,” she kept going, encouraged by Pinkie’s lack of objection. “I mean, he’s like that with everyone. He calls his employees by their job. His secretary is just ‘Secretary’. Snap says you gotta earn the right to be called by your name.” “Being surrounded by ponies like that sounds horrible.” Pinkie shook her head. “You know, I bet I would have run away from that place too!” “You would?” Scootaloo blinked and looked up at Pinkie in amazement. Nopony had ever taken her side like this. She felt her eyes begin to tear up. If she wasn’t getting angry, it wasn’t dangerous. Still, she knew Snap would scold her for being this emotional at all. And he’d be right. “Sure! Who would want to stick around in a place where they don’t even call you by your name?” Pinkie asked. “Don’t you know how dangerous I am?” Scootaloo asked. “Aren’t you scared I might lose control and hurt you?” “You were okay for a few days by yourself,” said Pinkie. “Sure we gotta think of some way to keep you safe, but I’m not gonna ‘lock you up’ or send you back to Allgood, okay? Hey! I’ll tell you what. If you stop distorting reality, we can have hot cocoa and talk about what to do next, okay? I’ll listen to everything you have to say.” Pinkie couldn’t give Scootaloo what she truly wanted, for the last few days to have been real. “Can you stop distorting reality for me?” Pinkie asked. “Just for a few minutes. I’ll come over and we can have cocoa and talk about what we should do with you. I won’t make you go back to Allgood like I promised.” Scootaloo shifted her forehooves uncomfortably. She deeply wished she could be friends with Pinkie for real. If she had a shot at that, shouldn’t she take it? Only the chance that this may be a trap made her hesitate. That and one other thing. “Do you think Rainbow Dash will be mad at me?” Scootaloo asked. “No way!” Pinkie laughed. “Even if she is, I’ll explain things to her, okay?” She looked over at Sweetie Belle who smiled wide with those eyes. They gave her a moment to make her agonizing decision. It felt like the two of them asked her to dive off a cliff. As much as she wanted to believe Pinkie, there was no way Scootaloo wouldn’t get in any trouble. The smart thing to do would be to lure Pinkie in, use her powers on the psychic and run! But… looking up at her smiling face, Scootaloo decided maybe she could give her a small chance first. Okay! She’d let Pinkie come over here, then distort reality again if things went south. If there was any evidence they had an SCU or if they started yelling at her, Scootaloo would book it. Scootaloo nodded slightly, bracing herself for any attack that was about to come. Then she ended her reality distortion. “I think it’s gone,” said Sweetie Belle. Nothing appeared to happen at first. But before she could get her hopes up, Twilight teleported into the room next to her! “Don’t be scared.” Twilight took a step towards her, horn glowing. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s clear you have no idea–” Scootaloo panicked before Twilight’s words registered. She deleted the ground below her, creating a hole in the floor to drop through. Like that, she went down two stories and landed somewhere dark. Adrenaline made the pain of her landing unnoticed. It wasn’t until she took a step forward that she noticed the problem. She hurt her leg in the fall! She could feel it waking up now! Scootaloo hissed in pain as she tried to stand on her injured ankle. Reality was distorting beyond her control. Objects in the room disappeared one by one until nothing remained. She looked up at the ceiling and decided that bridge was burned. She was already on thin ice. That had to have pushed things over the edge! What had she even been thinking? She should have just used her powers on Pinkie to begin with. It was the safer plan. Twilight teleported to her side a second time, not wasting even a single second. “I’m telling you I’m not here to hurt you!” Twilight held out a silver chain with a white feather at the end of it. “I have no idea who you are, but you clearly have a problem and I can help.” “No!” Scootaloo closed her eyes tight and snapped reality back to where she was Dash’s sister. Twilight, too, went back to wherever she’d been. “Will you people stop being nice to me?!” Scootaloo opened her eyes to find herself alone again. It wouldn’t last long. Sweetie Belle would find her soon. She needed to run. Looking around the room, she found there was no longer an exit. All the doors and windows in this room were deleted. This is what it did! When Scootaloo got scared like this it threw up barriers all around her, inadvertently trapping her as well. Scootaloo tried to create a door to the outside, but her powers wouldn’t cooperate when she got like this. “I don’t need you to protect me!” Scootaloo growled at that monster. “I’m the smart one. Just let me stay in control.” But it wasn’t going to listen to her. Losing control always made her nervous which just led to less control. She needed to calm herself. She’d already overdosed on her medicine during her confrontation with Sweetie Belle. Any more and Scootaloo might pass out. Then what would happen? “Fine! We’ll do your thing!” Deletion. That was the one thing it always wanted to do. No matter how bad things got, Scootaloo could always manage that much. She deleted a large hole in the wall and the path to freedom revealed itself. Now she just needed to book it into the forest. She ran awkwardly on three legs towards the edge of the castle grounds. Things were getting worse! Why couldn’t Scootaloo had just been Rainbow Dash’s sister for real? Apparently, her life could have been so easy and good if she just had that one wish granted. Scootaloo charged past Twilight’s tree, hoping nopony noticed the grass vanishing all around her as she hobbled along. She got a good distance away before remembering why she’d wanted to use the portal to escape in the first place. A massive barrier surrounded the castle. From far away, it was invisible, but as she got closer, the part just before her became opaque and white. She needed to delete a hole in it if she wanted to leave. Already she could feel this wasn’t a normal magical shield. Even for her, tearing a hole in this thing would take a significant amount of effort. Scootaloo allowed the parasite to go wild. She focused all of her efforts on making part of the barrier vanish. Everything nearby disappeared from her attempt. The trees, the grass, even the ground below her feet all disappeared. It became clod and dark around her as the hole in reality continued to eat and grow. Soon Scootaloo was standing in a black void. Yet it still wasn’t enough! She could feel blood running down her nose. That was one of the real limits to her powers. If she lost too much blood and passed out that would be it. It wouldn’t come to that! Scootaloo was getting close. “Scootaloo!” She froze. That was the last voice she wanted to hear. Not Twilight, but Rainbow Dash. She turned around to see Dash running up from behind. “Scootaloo! Get out of there!” Dash called out to her. “Rainbow Dash, no!” Scootaloo struggled to get her powers under control. The void continued to creep out farther and farther. “Don’t come any closer! You’re the only one I don’t want to hurt!” To her credit, Dash did grind to a halt rather than jumping straight into the blackness. “Do you know what’s happening?” Dash asked. “It doesn’t matter! Just leave!” Scootaloo yelled at her. “It’s too dangerous.” Dash ignored her urging and tried casting the murder spell. She sent nearly all of her crows into the darkness, only for all of them to get destroyed. The last crow fluttered back from the advancing blackness and reverted to a pony. “What the crow is this stuff?” Dash looked down at it with frustration. “You have to leave!” Scootaloo called after her. “Just go away! It’s too late for me. It’s too dangerous.” “No! I’ll never leave you behind!” Dash boldly took a step forward. “Listen, I know you were too young to remember when Mom left us. But I swore I’d never abandon somepony else like that. I’m staying with you no matter how bad it gets.” “Rainbow Dash.” Scootaloo’s eyes watered. “So if you know what’s going on, tell me. If not– I’ll get Twilight or something, but you’re crazy if you think I’m leaving you behind.” So many times she’d made herself Snap’s daughter. Even that wasn’t enough for him. Even then he only ever thought about using her to get more money and power, just in slightly different ways. Yet Dash wasn’t going to stop trying to ‘rescue’ her as long as she thought Scootaloo was her sister. She couldn’t take it! She couldn’t put someone who’d come after her like this in danger. Once more, Scootaloo used her failing grasp on her powers to set things back. She reverted reality and was no longer Dash’s sister. Now Dash would run away. The pegasus blinked in confusion. Apparently, she would have come out here either way. Though it looked like Scootaloo hadn’t set things right properly. They didn’t usually notice a change. “Okay, how did I get here?” Dash took in the void that was slowly spreading towards her. “Did I eat the wrong brownies again?” It only took her a second to notice Scootaloo. Without hesitation, Dash tried to fly forward to rescue Scootaloo. Dash tried the murder spell once again, forgetting she’d already done that. Once more, it had no effect but to show Dash that the darkness destroyed everything inside it. “Kid! Can you get out of there?!” Dash called to her as she looked around, considering her options. Scootaloo stood still. “Look, I’m going to help you, okay? Just give me a second.” “You don’t even know who I am!” Scootaloo objected. “I’m trespassing, aren’t I?!” “What does that have to do with anything?” Scootaloo stared up at her, dumbfounded. Even as a total stranger, Dash was willing to risk her life for Scootaloo. “You don’t understand!” Scootaloo objected. “I’m the one doing this.” “Can you stop?” “No! I’m losing control! You have to get away before then! I don’t want you to get hurt! Please!” “Okay, well I have no idea what’s going on, either. But I have a friend who can probably help.” Dash looked back towards Twilight’s tree. “Rainbow Dash!” Twilight teleported next to her on cue. “There you are! How many times do I have to tell you I’m trying to prevent something like this from happening? I don’t want to hurt you.” They kept refusing to do anything but try to help her. And Scootaloo just kept putting them in danger. “Do you know anything about this?” Dash asked. “She’s surrounded by a break in reality,” said Twilight. “Anything that blackness touches will be deleted from existence.” “What?!” Dash jumped back from it. “That’s… pretty horrifying, Twilight.” “It’s not as big a deal as it sounds.” Twilight shook her head. “Being deleted from existence isn’t as bad as being killed.” “It’s not?” “Well if you die you’re dead, but if you don’t exist you’re neither living or dead. Much easier to fix.” “Yeah, okay!” Dash stopped her explanation. “So please tell me there’s something you can do about this!” “I’ve been trying to help her.” Twilight shot a look at Scootaloo. “But it’s difficult when she’s surrounded by this.” The barrier behind her opened up at last. Scootaloo looked out into the forest, towards freedom. Surrounded by this all-consuming void she’d be able to get away now! She just had to set herself back to being Dash’s sister and run. She looked down at her bag to find that the broken spacetime and her medicine were the only things left. She’d never been able to erase them before. Dammit! Snap wouldn’t hesitate to run away right now! He’d do the smart thing and escape. But Scootaloo just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t steal something from Rainbow Dash. She couldn’t put Rainbow Dash in any kind of danger. Not after all this. “Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo turned her back on the hole in the barrier. “I’m giving up, okay?” “No! It’s not too late!” Dash reached into the barrier only to find the leg she stuck in begin to vanish. “Not like that!” Scootaloo shook her head. Shaking, she took out a hoof full of pills, maybe six or seven. “I’m surrendering to you. Just ask Sweetie Belle. Everything she says is true, okay?” Without another word, Scootaloo swallowed all the pills at once. This wasn’t the first time she overdosed like this, knew it would knock her out for hours. The pills took effect instantly. Her entire body tingled, then shook until she fell over. It was so dark and numb around her that she couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed as she lay on the ground. She wasn’t even sure if she was awake anymore. Scootaloo ruffled her wings as she began to awaken. She rested somewhere soft and warm enough that it made her not want to get up. Something other than the blanket filled her with comfort. An aura of safety surrounded her. The parasite in her brain slept deeper than any other time she could remember. All her problems seemed so far away. She heard Rainbow Dash and the rest talking nearby. They were all in the same room. Deciding to pretend to be asleep and listen in, she snuggled her head deeper into her pillow. “How long have you been a witch?!” Derpy demanded Twilight answer. “Since before you were born,” said Twilight. “If you combine all of your ages together it’s been longer than that.” “And have you been working for Twilight since before I was born too?” Derpy asked. “Yeah, I wish.” The eye-roll was all but audible in Dash’s voice. “You think I would have been living in a studio apartment for six years if I knew this was an option?” “Exactly!” Twilight’s voice seeped with pride. “Rainbow Dash loves being my minion.” “So what?” Derpy stomped her hoof. “We all just go work for Twilight forever? Is that your plan?!” “Even if you hate witches more than anything in the world, helping Twilight is still the way to go. We’re going to get rid of all the other witches.” “I guess that’s logical,” Derpy reluctantly conceded. “I mean, it’s the best long-term witch reduction strategy.” Derpy hummed in frustration. “Come on, you’ve known me since preschool. And you’ve known ‘Silverstorm’ for a solid week. Plus you got Pinkie vouching for her on top of that. You trust us, right?” “Maybe,” said Derpy. “But how do you know this isn’t all part of her plan? She could have been planning everything down to the last feather for hundreds of years!” “This was my plan. I’m the one who went looking for her. Remember? Twilight would have just sat around her house forever without me.” “Oh, yeah. That does change things.” Derpy scraped her hoof against the stone floor a few times, considering her position. “Alright! I said I’d trust you and I meant it. I’ll stay loyal to you, Rainbow Dash.” “Right on!” Dash cheered for her. “But if you suddenly turn evil–! Well, realistically I won’t be able to stop you, but I will be mad!” They weren’t talking about Scootaloo at all! None of this was important to her. Scootaloo had to get up and face them eventually. Sadly, there was no graceful way to do this. Deciding to just get it over with, Scootaloo sprang up from under the covers and leaned against the arm of the couch. “Oh, hey Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo put on a smile, only to realize she said that too soon before she’d even found Dash herself. She glanced left to find Dash on the far opposite side of the room. Trying to salvage it, she pointed at Dash and grinned. “What’s up?” Scootaloo wasn’t coming off as cool at all! “Are you feeling okay?” Twilight approached her. She put her hoof on top of Scootaloo’s head as if to feel for a fever. The witch looked down at Scootaloo’s chest, bringing the filly’s attention down there as well. Something hung from her neck on a chain. She briefly assumed they must have done something to restrain her, but if that was their intention, they picked a bizarre method. The chains around her neck were slender, forming more of a necklace than a binding, and at the end of it, like a charm, hung a single feather. That feather shone a white purer than anything Scootaloo had ever seen or imagined possible. It was as if it was made of whiteness itself. About the size of an adult pegasus’ feather, it covered a good portion of her chest. She knew now that the calm aura she felt radiated out from this feather. It soothed the parasite in her brain. The parasite wasn’t even asleep, exactly. Scootaloo knew what a real coma felt like, as she’d taken ten of those pills at once to knock it out stone cold. Instead, that anger and aggression that constantly radiated from it felt shielded from her. “You’re talking about the parasite?” Scootaloo asked. “I think it’s calmed down. What is this thing?” Scootaloo waved the feather. “I assume I shouldn’t take it off?” Scootaloo was met with a nod from Twilight. “You don’t know what it is?” Twilight cocked her eyebrow. “One of them must have noticed. Maybe they just never told you.” “Told me what?” “This is an alicorn’s feather.” Twilight held the white feather in her hoof, then tapped Scootaloo’s head. “And so is this. You have another alicorn feather lodged in your brain. Based on the story I heard, a number of them must have fallen when that portal opened.” “A feather?” Scootaloo couldn’t accept that. “No, I’ve seen the pictures of that thing a million times and it doesn’t look anything like a feather.” “Yeah.” Pinkie nodded. “That has to be the grossest and most tentacly feather ever.” “Originally it was a feather,” Twilight clarified. “Alicorn feathers can become any number of things. If you recall, the first pegasi were all born from the same. In one sense you are one of these feathers. So you shouldn’t be so surprised. In fact, the one I gave you fell at the same time as the one that became Golden Feather.” Scootaloo looked down at her gift with renewed amazement. Was this object really some ancient relative of hers? She turned next to Rainbow Dash, a thought bringing a smile to her face. If everything about Golden Feather was true, then technically the two of them were related. “So this thing could turn into a pony?” Dash lowered her head to inspect Scootaloo’s charm. “Unlikely,” Twilight briefly dismissed the idea before her eyes popped open with inspiration. “Actually, wait. Hypothetically, if you inserted it into your—” “Okay, okay!” Dash stopped her right there. “Twi, there are kids here!” “Right. Sorry.” Twilight blushed, then cleared her throat to quickly change the subject. “I suppose it’s too old, regardless. This feather is truly ancient and most of its magic is gone.” “But it still has enough left to protect me?” Scootaloo hoped “Sort of. It’s not the magic that protects you,” said Twilight. “There aren’t many left, but the knowledge of these feathers has been passed down to me. Feathers forcefully ripped from an alicorn, as I presume the one in your skull was, radiate destruction and chaos. They inevitably twist themselves into horrific monstrosities, like those that fill the outer realm.” Scootaloo nodded. That sounded like the one she had. “The one I gave you is different,” said Twilight. “It radiates order and protection. It’ll largely cancel out the effects of the other one. You won’t be as powerful when wearing it, but you’ll have more control. Needless to say, you should never take it off.” “So does this thing magically fix all of my problems?” Scootaloo couldn’t possibly believe that much was true. “As long as I’m wearing it?” “Not completely,” said Twilight. “It can still awaken, so you’ll still need help. Also, there’s the problem that you have dangerous alicorn magic in the first place. Given that you surrendered, I’ll assume you learned a lesson about not stealing things today.” “And not brainwashing ponies,” Sweetie Belle added. “And!” Pinkie jumped up on Twilight’s back. “That there’s plenty of ponies you can trust to help you.” Scootaloo looked at each of them before sighing in defeat. “Uh.” Scootaloo blushed with embarrassment and looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry. I won’t run this time.” She stood up on the couch to try and plead her case. “It’s just– Snap never worries about who he hurts! I thought if nopony cared about me, it’d be okay for me to not care about anypony.” Scootaloo put her hoof on the gift Twilight gave her. “So I stole a bunch of stuff and used my powers to manipulate ponies. I decided I’d do whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted and never feel bad about it.” Scootaloo scraped her blankets with a hoof. “Only I did feel bad about it.” She shook her head. “You were being too nice to me! I couldn’t use my powers against you. So sorry.” She looked up at Rainbow Dash, desperate for her approval. Rainbow Dash frowned slightly at her as Scootaloo made her plea, filling her with a dread that she was about to get scolded. For the first time, Scootaloo felt like she deserved to be yelled at. “Why do you act like that last part is the thing to be ashamed of?” Dash asked, more calmly than Scootaloo expected. “Huh?” Scootaloo didn’t have an answer. She simply felt like she was supposed to be ashamed of it. “And if you hate this Snap guy so much, why are you trying to be like him?” Dash asked her. “I–” Scootaloo looked down at the floor. She’d never thought of it like that, so she didn’t have a response. This whole time she really had been trying to imitate Snap, to behave like the worst person she knew. It didn’t make a lot of sense when somepony said it out loud. “I guess,” Scootaloo struggled to put her feelings in context, “Snap always gets what he wants. I thought manipulating other ponies was the only thing that worked in real life. Anything else was just in stupid comic books. Everypony always called my comic books stupid.” Almost everypony, that is. All of them but the ones paid to pretend to care about her and Rainbow Dash. “Don’t worry! That’s just how kids are.” Pinkie jumped up on the couch next to Scootaloo and caressed her back reassuringly. “They imitate the adults in their life. So I think it’s a good thing you ran away. If you stayed there till you were an adult, you might have turned into a sociopath too.” “Turned into a what?” Scootaloo asked. “A sociopath,” Pinkie repeated. “That’s a pony who can hurt others and never feel bad about it.” Maybe Pinkie was on to something. Being a sociopath sounding good to Scootaloo right now. A sociopath could have gotten away with so much more. “Pinkie’s right,” Dash agreed. “You seem like you have a good heart, but you’ve been surrounded by bad influences. Letting somepony with alicorn magic grow up thinking they don’t need to care what happens to anypony else is outright dangerous.” “I’m sorry.” Scootaloo lowered her head in defeat. “Hey, don’t look so sad.” Dash tried to reassure her with a smile. “You should be proud you did the right thing despite being surrounded by bad role models your whole life. I just meant they were doing a bad job raising you.” She needed a better role model? She already had somepony in mind, of course. Scootaloo held her breath and looked up at Rainbow Dash. Her body froze at the thought of confessing her admiration. She closed her eyes and forced herself to say it anyway. “I don’t want to be like Snap anymore,” Scootaloo declared. “I want to be like you, Rainbow Dash!” “Eh?” Dash took a step back in surprise. Scootaloo’s ears dropped. She had to remind herself that Rainbow Dash didn’t see her as a sister anymore. She had to start from zero. “You were really nice to me when you thought I was your sister,” Scootaloo explained. “You go out and fight against the problems of the world no one else is willing to deal with. And you always try to make friends with your enemies. You’re just like a comic book hero! If someone like you can exist, then I want to be like you when I grow up!” Dash was too flattered to even maintain eye contact. She blushed heavily and looked to the side, laughing nervously and tussling the back of her mane. “Uh– so can I join your evil organization?” Scootaloo looked up at Dash who frowned at the idea. She moved forward to desperately plead her case. “I have alicorn magic! I can help you take over the world! Think about it.” “Hehe! Whoa. Hold on a sec. No.” Dash shot down the idea. “I know you’ve got literal god-like powers, but I’m not sending a kid into battle. That’d be a war crime and I don’t want to go there just yet.” Crestfallen, her ears and wings drooped. Maybe it was true she didn’t deserve to stay here after everything she did. “Oh. So does this mean I don’t have to go back to Allgood?” Scootaloo winced a little, bracing for the impact of any bad news rather than daring to hope. “No way you’re going back with Allgood,” Pinkie promised her. “Snap won’t be allowed to take you back if we tell them he tried to cover this up.” “Then I guess I’d be sent back to Area 5X?” The thought of it wasn’t enough to make Scootaloo smile. In the end, she got what she wanted, but it didn’t feel like a happy ending. “At least I’d get to hang out with Lilymoon again.” She looked around the room and nopony else appeared satisfied with that plan, either. Every one of them frowned. “Hey, hey!” Dash stomped a hoof to get Scootaloo’s attention. “I never said we were just gonna toss you out, just that I wasn’t going to make you fight. Even if we do have to send you back to Area 5X, I bet I’ll have enough clout to help you out before long. Heck, if they let me babysit Trixie, maybe they’ll trust me with you too. I’m not sure we even should send you there in the first place. What do you guys think?” “I believe letting her go back would be a horrid idea,” said Rarity. “Trixie is a hardened criminal, so we have some hope she’ll stay quiet. But a small child that knows all of our secrets? Why I could hardly sleep at night knowing such a thing was in Starlight’s possession.” The urge to blurt out that she couldn’t keep a secret to save her life tempted Scootaloo. “I say it’s a bad idea to let her leave too,” said Twilight. “They’ve been too irresponsible with her and clearly don’t know what they’re doing. We shouldn’t let her go back until I at least have the chance to show them how to properly take care of this. In fact, getting the other one out should be added to the to-do list, in my opinion.” Scootaloo didn’t dare to hope just yet, but she struggled to contain her smile at this point. She looked at each of the ponies in turn, none of them raising a serious concern with her staying here. “I don’t mean to be that pony.” Derpy ruffled her wings. “But if we keep Scootaloo here, isn’t that kidnapping?” Pinkie laughed at the idea. “I learned this one back in the summer of 1311. If they can’t prove it, then legally speaking, it never happened.” Pinkie winked. “There’s no way they can prove Scootaloo’s been here the whole time. Not against my lawyer.” “How can you be this flippant about the law?!” Derpy asked. “The law is silly!” Pinkie draped herself over Derpy. “Legal and good are two different things. I learned to always do the right thing first and worry about how to convince a judge that it’s technically legal later.” Derpy furrowed her brow, trying to come up with some objection. “I guess I can’t say kidnapping her is wrong,” Derpy relented with a groaning sigh before snapping her attention to Dash. “You know, if I’m going to be keeping all this stuff a secret, I demand a pay raise!” “I already pay you 200,000 bits a year,” Dash complained. “And that’s mostly so you won’t be tempted by bribes.” Derpy puffed her cheeks out and glared at Dash, refusing to utter another word. “Alright!” Dash folded in second. “Yeesh. Once this is over, I’ll make sure you’re set for life. Okay?” Derpy smiled, satisfied with the promise. “So you’ll really kidnap me?” Scootaloo flicked her tail, opened her wings, and looked up at Rainbow Dash with all the excitement of a filly before a pile of birthday presents. “For real?” “Eh.” Dash gave one last look at her friends to make sure nopony objected. Finding none, she turned back to Scootaloo with a wink. “Yeah. Looks like it.” “Oh, thank you so much!” Scootaloo jumped off the couch and tackled Dash with a hug. “This is the nicest thing anypony has ever done for me!” Scootaloo dried her tears against Rainbow Dash’s chest. Even though she hardly knew Scootaloo anymore, Dash held her close and let the younger pegasus sob into her for a moment. For the first time since she got out, she felt safe. “But you gotta promise not to use your powers on us like that again,” Dash said. “Sweetie Belle will know if you do.” Scootaloo nodded eagerly. “And if there’s any problem you’re gonna come to us, okay?” Dash asked. “And you gotta do everything Twilight tells you to.” She nodded even harder. An absolute determination to earn Dash’s respect filled her. “And might I add,” said Rarity, “that if you’re going to be staying in my home, I think it’s appropriate you apologize to my sister as well.” Now for the hardest part. She had to admit defeat to the pony who’d been the antagonist of her life these past couple of hours. Sweetie Belle was standing proud, borderline smug, as she waited for Scootaloo to apologize. “I’m sorry for, uh–” Scootaloo knew she was in the wrong, but the name of the crime she committed escaped her at the moment. If she thought about it, Sweetie Belle was the only one she didn’t brainwash. “For defying you? And getting you in trouble.” “Oh, it’s okay.” Sweetie Belle giggled and jokingly tousled Scootaloo’s mane. “Just never defy me again and we’ll be best friends.” She could only hope it’d be that easy.