//------------------------------// // Chapter 12 — The Weapons // Story: Dictators Of Ponyville // by Dragon-In-Black //------------------------------// Kludgetown, Badlands, 11 months. Scootaloo woke up early in the morning and headed over to the kitchen where she began to prepare the coffee. Ever since she had woken up early and planned things out, she had realised that she was very tired most of the time so she needed a boost of energy. That’s when she had come across the coffee. It had begun with that she had come in to work one morning looking groggy and moody. Her boss gave her a mug of coffee and told her it would help. It did. It helped so well that she had an entire cabinet with bags of coffee so she wouldn’t run out in the long term. While she waited for her coffee to prepare, she walked to her room and locked the door and immediately started updating her journal while scrolling through other papers that she had written and papers from other creatures who gave ideas for investments that could make their future rule rich. Most of it she agreed with but still took it with a pinch of salt. One of the things she certainly would do was harvest as much food as possible. She would sadly have to burn at least one-quarter of the apple family farm in Ponyville to ensure that there were other fruits and vegetables for the other ponies who liked things other than apples. Albeit, the apples from Sweet Apple Acres would be something Scootaloo would heavily invest in. Another thing she agreed wholeheartedly was the military. A military that would protect the Democratics Creatures Republic Of Ponyville. She would need loyal soldiers that would be willing to sacrifice everything for their kingdom that would make them feel proud. Now, with a military there needed to be weapons that they could use. Scootaloo had no idea if the royal guards were there or not but she had to make adjustments to ensure that she easily could make the guards fall to their hooves, begging for mercy. She would grant them their mercy. She wasn’t cruel, she was a realist. When she began writing the second paragraph of the sentence, there was a knock on the door. She pushed the chair back and walked to the door while checking through the keyhole. She may live with her best friends, but she couldn’t take any chances since she was in the Badlands. To her relief and no surprise, it was Sweetie Belle. “Good morning, Sweetie Belle.” Scootaloo greeted with a genuine smile causing the white-coated pony to brighten. “Morning Scoots, I just came to tell you, your coffee’s ready!” She exclaimed with positive energy causing Scootaloo to almost jump from the loudness. It had been almost a year since she last saw this type of energy from the filly. “Sweetie, tone it down why do you have so much energy?” The orange-coated pony seemed to whine. The filly smiled. “Well, I got an offer to travel to Manehattan for a photoshoot! The pay would be more than anything I have earned and the mare in question has worked with the likes of Fleur De Lis! But there’s a problem...” The filly got a gloomy aura around her. “It’s because it's in Manehattan.” It was a statement. “Right. Because of that, I’m torn. On one hoof, I would rather not pass up such an opportunity, but on the other hoof, I could be caught in Equestria and there would be a big chance that I would be sent back to Ponyville.” Scootaloo couldn’t blame the filly for feeling hesitant. The pegasus would be lying if she said that she had never thought about going back to Ponyville and apologise to every pony for what she had done. But the more she thought about it, the angrier she got because all memories she had was negative of the quiet town. Or rather, most of them were positive, but because of the incident, she was starting to doubt what the ponies of the town had told her time and time again. All the positive aspects in them just vanished when they found out who Gabby Gums were, so the pegasus was on the stage where she needed to single out who hated and who didn’t hate her and her friends. “I say you should do it. As you said; this is a one-time opportunity. Who knows when you’ll get another one? Besides, you enjoy the fame right?” Sweetie Belle blushed and rolled her hoof in small circles. “Well, I cannot deny that...” “Then do it!” Scootaloo motivated, as she walked passed her and headed to the kitchen where she poured her cup of coffee with no small amount of glee. Her friend walked back to her room to presumably accept the offer of her photoshoot. Scootaloo walked back to her room, coffee in hoof and closed the door and locked it once again. This time, she placed the mug on her desk and walked towards the bed and as quietly as she could, she moved the bed to the side Despite the fact the bed looked heavy, it was pretty easy to move. The floor that the bed previously stood on revealed a trap door. The trap door didn’t look impressive or anything, it was like any other hidden trap door from any book you could read about or hear from a friend. There was a chain that was made from polished gold that served as a handle that had small flowers carved into it. Scootaloo had never studied what flowers were on it. There was a lock on the handle that went through another hole that was on the side of the floor so it wouldn’t be opened by any burglars that might come and snoop around. Scootaloo walked over to one of the bookshelves she had and pulled forth a golden key which she used to unlock the lock with ease. There was a ‘click’ and she opened the trap door only to reveal a jaw-dropping site. It revealed chests and chests of weapons lining the walls. The trap door had led to a bunker-like area with weapons everywhere along with thousands of bits in different chests. Scootaloo made her way down and couldn’t help but grin at the weapons. This is what she had spent and forged with the bits that she had earned from her job over the last year and she felt proud about it. This was no easy achievement. She had spent blood, sweat and tears pilling all of this up. The bits came from the leftover she had but didn’t need them for anything other than a future salary for her soldiers. She made her way towards a desk that was about thirty steps away from her and saw a small photo frame of herself and Rainbow Dash after a fun day out together in Ponyville. Her face turned blank. She turned around aggressively and didn’t look back as she climbed up the ladder and locked the trap door and hid the key. Taking a sip of coffee, she felt her tiredness sweep away along with her worries. However, she couldn’t help but think about the opportunity that her friend had gotten. Manehattan. That was a city that she had not heard of In a long time. The last time she heard anything about it was that there had been some sort of attack from an unknown creature. This was months ago. Scootaloo shrugged. But what she hadn’t realised was that this would be one of the biggest mistakes she would ever make.