Scootaloo flew in through the window of the upper floor room that had become their new clubhouse. All her fellow CMC were there, apart from Sweetie. Instead, her older sister was there. Rarity and Little Star glared at each other. Little Star stood on the table to get the height to look Rarity in the eyes.
She looked between the two before glancing back at Applebloom. "How long have they been at it?”
Applebloom rolled her eyes and looked up from the blueprints she was working on. "Since Star teleported here with her."
“I'm not wearing that.” Rarity almost shrieked.
“Yes, you, are.”
“It… it does not fit…”
“I tripled checked your size, it fits perfectly.” Little Star brandished the pointed hat as if it were a weapon.
Rarity stomped her hoof. “No, I won't be caught dead in that outfit.”
“Unless you have something better to protect you, you might end up dead. Mummy gave me a mission to keep all the ponies here safe. Your Mummy's friend, so that's twice the reason why.”
Rarity’s annoyed expression softened.
“And then there is the fact that your Sweetie Belle's sister so that's triple the reason.”
That was when Rarity’s resolve cracked. Scootaloo had gotten very good at spotting that moment with older ponies. It meant it was time to save any arguments or tricks you had left for another time.
Rarity sighed. "Can anything be done about how it looks?" She asked, a hint of hope creeping into her defeated tone.
“You don't like the colour?”
“This particular look may suit you and Trixie… but I don't want it to seem like I'm a copycat.”
Little Star stilled and then tilted her head almost like a bird. "You want to have it look like what you're wearing now?”
“I spent hours getting this ensemble just right.”
“You promise, if it looks the same, you will wear it?”
“If it fits the same, I do.”
There was a flash of light, and Rarity stood there in only her white coat. Her armour, weapons, and even her hair bands had been flashed away by Star’s magic.
“It's considered rude to undress a lady without asking.”
“She all ready gone,” Applebloom said without even looking up.
Rarity huffed. "Somepony needs to teach that young lady some proper manners. "
Something about that made Scootaloo's teeth grind together. With a single beat of her Twilight-gifted wings, she was hovering at eye level with the annoying mare. "She is doing everything she can to keep you alive, and your complaining?!"
A painful yank pulled her back to ground level. "Whoah there, Scoots," Applebloom said, distorted through a mouthful of tail.
Scootaloo glared back at her friend.
Rarity sighed again. “I'm grateful for the thought and effort, but it would have been nice to have been asked, not just teleported away and stripped bare.”
“Well, you were about to rush off into danger,” Sweetie Belle said, trotting in proudly wearing her own adventuring gear and vibrant red crusader cloak.
Seeing that cloak stirred a sense of pride in Scootaloo’s chest. All of them with it brought a sense of unity that their varied equipment never could.
“Just doing my part to help those poor displaced ponies.” Rarity said.
“Sis, then let us do what we can to help.”
Scootaloo hovered, spyglass held unused in hoof. She narrowed her eyes and focused hard. The distant world simply leapt closer.
Is this how Rainbow Dash sees all the time? She thought as the amazement and gratitude for Twilight's gift stirred once more in her heart.
In the distance brought near, Rarity sat next to Blueblood on the front wagon. She never expected Sweetie Belles's sister to look so cool. The whole lot of them out there looked amazing in their armour and weapons. They would never be awesome like the CMC and Rainbow Dash, but nopony could. At least they were still impressive. They looked like they could kick monster flank any day of the week.
A flash of darkness moved in the distance. Twisted things slowly crawled out of the ground and took position behind a small rise. The CMC might not have done much ambushing in their time crusading, but they had done enough sneaking around that Scootaloo could tell the monsters were up to no good, and not the fun kind of no good either.
“Star, you were right,” Scootaloo called back over her wing.
Behind her, atop a cloud, the rest of the girls and that new colt waited. There, their most recent construction waited, loaded and ready.
“Range?” Applebloom called out.
Range? She had no idea, a long way? She never had to eyeball such a distance. “Err about…”
“Just point at it,” Star said, and so Scootaloo did.
Little Star scribbled some numbers. Before she took charge. "Up six-point-four degrees more and right ten-point-seven." She then looked at Sweetie. "Can you hold the featherweight spell for a minute?"
Applebloom immediately adjusted the wheels and leavers re-targeting the weapon.
Sweetie screwed her face up and then nodded. “Yep, CMC Big Sister Savers.”
The two unicorns' horns glowed and they nodded to each other.
“Fire,” Scootaloo bellowed and Applebloom bucked the restraint.
All the tension in the arms of the big crossbow like thing released at once with a loud Thwak.
The stone ball bigger than her head zoomed off into the distance, trailing sparks of magenta and green. “Awesome!” Scootaloo said as her eyes effortless tracked it on its unnatural arc. Well, lack of arc in this case, it simply continued on in a perfectly straight line.
“Just ten more seconds, Sweetie,” Meteor Crash’s colt voice said in yet another reminder of the group's new addition.
“Nine, eight, seven,” Little Star counted down as Sweetie Belle started to shake with the effort.
“Save your sister. You can do it, I know you can.” Crash said.
“Six, five, four, three, two, one, now.” Little Star finished. Her own horn flared brighter as Sweetie's winked out as she half fell against Crash’s side.
“Hey throw us that telescope if ya ain't gonna use it,” Applebloom said.
Scootaloo focused all her attention up ahead. The rock now started to fall naturally, its path curved down as it gained speed. With a flick of her hoof, the metal tube spun through the air.
She held her breath for the moment of truth came and nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing, a few small bits of soil and grass scattered up into the air. “Is that…” The pulse of darkness that rippled out stole the rest of what she was going to say.
Everything anywhere near the rock flew upwards into the air, no not flew they were falling upwards. A flash of light and a cloud of smoke burst from the muzzle of Pinkie’s Party Cannon. As if they moved in slow motion, Scootaloo's eyes picked out and tracked the shards of metal and jagged rocks that raced to meet the Blighted caught by Star’s upwards falling magic.
She knew they were monsters and knew they needed to be defeated, but her stomach lurched and it was only how cool she was that her breakfast did not make an attempt to escape. She looked away.
It had been one thing in the moment of battling the Hydra in the Everfree, her heart pounding in her chest with each breath having a very real chance of being her last. The adrenaline had sung in her veins like lighting and she had become the storm.
Now, like this, it was great that they could help ponies. It was awesome that they were saving Rarity and the others, but nothing could make seeing sharp objects as they tore into living creatures pleasant to watch.
“Hey,” Crash’s voice from beside her startled her.
Scootaloo was ten lengths higher in the air before she figured out what she was doing. “I meant to do that.” She said, taking a heroic pose.
“Sure, sure…” He flew closer, his voice turning softer. “Are you going to be alright?”
“Why wouldn't I be?”
“I know how good pegasus eyes can be,”
“So?”
“If you need to talk… If we can't help you, Princess Luna can.”
There was something in the colt’s draconic eyes, a keen edge of very personal remembered pain. Something passed between them. She felt it, even if she had no idea what it was or what it really meant.
“Nah, I'm good… but thanks.” Scootaloo smiled and offered her hoof.
His concerned look shifted to a smirk as their hooves clacked together. “Shall we keep being the heroes?”
“You know it.”