Scootaloo marched down Badlands' streets, which had many ruined houses and apartments thanks to the Storm King. It angered her that a buffoon like him would destroy his subject's home just to stop an uprising.
The orange-coated filly just did what was best for her subjects. After what the Storm King did, it only proved that Scootaloo was correct. The Storm King is unfit to rule and Scootaloo was the best-suited ruler in the entire Badlands.
This isn’t surprising because she is the greatest ruler to have ever lived on the planet.
The filly chuckled as she made her way down a path that had destroyed rocks and debris coating the sidewalks and multiple hurt creatures that made her heart ache for them. If she could, she would have helped them but she had a job to do and that required her expertise in ruling.
So onwards she trotted until she reached a form of a clearing where there were multiple creatures that she hadn’t seen for the last few hours. Her dragons, ponies, changelings, and yaks and the Storm Guard who had defected over to them when he realised that Scootaloo was the destined ruler of the planet.
That is what Scootaloo believed at least.
The clearing was between big apartments that had holes in them and looked dangerous if it were during the night. But the place was a great place to hide from the Storm soldiers who used their violence to make sure the subjects stayed loyal to the tyrannical, arrogant King.
Every creature was there, her soldiers, lieutenant, captain and fellow dictator.
When Scootaloo saw Applebloom, she galloped to her friend and hugged her for dear life, relief to know that her friend was okay and the returned hug from the farm filly made Scootaloo smile and allow a few tears escape from her eyes.
“Scoots! Oh, thank Celestia yar okay!” Applebloom sniffled into her friend's shoulder, relief overcoming her body and the tense shoulder escaping her.
“I’m okay, Appleboom, I was more worried about you, are you alright?” The pegasus filly asked with worry coating her words drawing a smile from the youngest Apple sibling.
“I’m fine, Scoots, but a few soldiers were injured and I did my best to take care of em’, but they need real medical attention,” Applebloom explained and showed a dragon who couldn’t move his arm who was being supported by an earth pony who asked if he was alright.
“I’ll be fine, thanks for asking,” the dragon smiled a weak smile, drawing a concerned look from the other Crusaders Democratics Party members.
“Don’t worry Applebloom, we will invade a place that has pretty good medicine and doctors.” Scootaloo smiled a genuine smile that made the others look at the filly in shock.
What the feather?! Supreme leader, don’t you see what the buffoon of a King did to us?!” One member shouted making the others start to voice their agreement.
“The King completely obliterated us!”
“We don’t stand a chance against the King!”
“I refuse to try to invade again!”
“ENOUGH!”
You could hear a pin drop. Every creature, including Scootaloo, turned to look at Applebloom who had a look of fury in her eyes. The soldiers wanted to speak against her, but the glare she gave them made them shiver.
It was as if they were staring at death in the face.
“If you all allow supreme leader Scootaloo to speak then you will find out why we are invading another place, so listen!” Applebloom glared at all of them except Scootaloo, Capper and Spike.
The orange-coated filly whistled to herself quietly despite every creature hearing. Scootaloo wouldn’t question why Applebloom’s voice sounded ancient and demonic.
“Thank you, Applebloom,” Scootaloo nodded to her friend and turned to face all of the other party members. “Look, I know and understand that you all are afraid. You faced defeat which is never desirable. You want revenge, power and freedom. I can give it to you. I never lied about that. However, It seems like we weren’t strong enough to defeat Storm King from his tyrannical arrogance. But that doesn’t matter. We will win one day, but I have a proposal. There is a town called Ponyville, I’m not sure how much my captain has informed but that is where Applebloom and I come from along with dictator Sweetie Belle who has been captured by the terrorists known as Solar Guards.
“That is why I propose that we invade Ponyville; we will save dictator Sweetie Belle and end the terror organisation known as Solar Guards. We will be seen as the heroes of Equestria and we will gain followers in large numbers. With those numbers, we will have a chance at defeating Storm King and after we do, we will be the most powerful country in the entire planet. So powerful that the Alicorn princesses will bow down before us.
“I won’t force any creature to help invade Ponyville, but do know that if you chose to stay that you will have to face Storm King’s punishment because we will not return to save you until we have enough power to do so.” Scootaloo finished while looking at them all and saw their shocked and frozen gazes.
Many of them didn’t expect the supreme leader to be so… blunt. Of course, they understood why the greatest ruler of all time told them this; she couldn’t fight against Storm King and needed more soldiers so she decided to go to Equestria.
“What?! You expect me to follow you to Equestria after the stunt you pulled?! I thought you were powerful!” A pony suddenly shouted which caused the others to stare in shock.
Scootaloo hid her amusement.
“Of course I’m powerful, I’m the greatest ruler the planet has ever seen, I was born to rule the planet. In fact, I believe I’m the next Alicorn!” Scootaloo said with a joking tone. But her eyes showed that she probably believed her own lies.
“Pony feathers!” One of them shouted and threw away the symbol Scootaloo created and walked away, showing that he didn’t believe her for one second.
“Oi, old fool!” Scootaloo shouted for him and he surprisingly stopped. “Now that you’re no longer a member, and because of what you said about me earlier, you are now an enemy to the state,”
“What state?!” He angrily asked and turned to face the regime he once was part of. The other party members looked at him in anger for treating their supreme leader with such disrespect.
“The state you were once part of. When I become ruler I’ll give you a choice. A, either join me once again and all is forgiven, or B, deny and I’ll throw you in prison.” Scootaloo smirked when she saw the pony roll his eyes.
“Silly-filly, you will never be able to rule anything and if you do succeed It’ll last one week. But If you somehow miraculously manage to rule Badlands and Equestria, then I’ll become your captain and do whatever it is that you want, even betray my family,” he added the last part because he knew that Scootaloo would never succeed in her coup.
If only he knew…
“Okay then, see you around,” Scootaloo smirked as he walked away. “I didn’t realise I would have a second captain in the future,”
The members of the party laughed at her joke, clutching his stomach and Spike even fell to the ground wheezing as if it was the funniest joke he’d heard.
“Anyways, are you ready to march all the way to Ponyville or shall we grab vehicles around here and drive there with style?” Scootaloo asked and saw multiple creatures raise their hooves, and claws in the air as if they were inside a classroom.
“Yes?”
“Supreme leader, I think we should grab water-powered cars. The cars drive on water as you suspect, and could get us there quickly. We could also circle around the town, trapping them and forcing them to the middle of town where they would be forced to bow down to the state.”
Scootaloo and Applebloom had a conversation with their eyes. After a few moments, they slowly turned to their soldiers and nodded together in unison.
“Find the cars and we will invade Ponyville today!” Scootaloo and Applebloom chorused.
“Yes, supreme leaders!” The soldiers shouted before dispersing trying to find the vehicles.
Scootaloo and Applebloom turned to face one another and hugged each other again. There was nothing to say. The apartment's quiet nature made it eerie, especially with the debris and trashcans turned over and trash littering the streets of the glorious kingdom that Storm King ruined.
The hug had a lot of emotions that they couldn’t convey with words. They both missed Sweetie Belle. They missed her so much, the light of their Crusade was gone because of one mistake and Scootaloo would make sure that it never happens again.
“Soon, we will see… Sweetie Belle,” Applebloom hiccuped when she was about to say her lost friends’ name. Her eyes were getting red from an overflow of tears she refused to drop.
“Yeah… you think she’ll be happy to see us?” Scootaloo asked with a curious voice.
Applebloom pulled away and wiped away a tear that managed to escape. “Yeah, why wouldn’t she be?”
Scootaloo sighed. “Because I feel like she blames me for allowing her to go to the photoshoot which got her arrested and sent into one of the most dangerous places in Equestria; Ponyville.”
Applebloom looked confused, what was her friend talking about?
“Scoots… why would she ever blame you? She knows it’s not your fault and she knows that the Solar Guard terror group are the ones to blame.” Applebloom hoped that Scootaloo didn’t blame herself.
“I don’t know, I guess I’ve blamed myself all this time because when she got kidnapped by the terrorists I sat back and did nothing but think of schemes as to how to invade Equestria but that was it; they were schemes, they weren’t something that I was going to do in the long run, it was something that would have worked short term but then the main six, would have committed war crimes against us,” Scootaloo kicked a small stone which landed near the debris.
Applebloom’s face resembled a question mark. Since when has the main six committed war crimes?
“Scoots, the main six has never committed war crimes against any creature, what are you talking about?” Applebloom was getting a little worried for Scootaloo.
Scootaloo spoke as if it was something that was common knowledge. As if it was the truth. But it wasn’t. The main six has never committed any war crimes yet her pegasus friends said they did.
Scootaloo’s eyes flared in anger and glared at Applebloom.
“Of course they have! They murdered Nightmare Moon in cold blood! She was an innocent mare who was misunderstood! Then we have us who were humiliated and ridiculed by ‘adults’ who are in fact children who don’t know what they do half the feathering time!” Scootaloo ranted her face filled with anger and her teeth clenched so hard Applebloom was afraid that they’d break any second.
When the filly realised who she had been shouting at, she apologised and hugged her again.
“Sorry, Bloom, I guess the anger of what they did to us still lingers,” the filly spoke and buried her face in the farm filly’s shoulder.
“It’s okay Scoots, I’m not mad.” She said soothingly, trying to calm her friend's sobbing.
Before Scootaloo could answer, there was a honking noise and the sounds of engines firing. When they turned to where their soldiers had disappeared, they saw multiple vehicles made from wood and metal that had rust that made them look old and the wheels belonged to a manual cart that the ponies during the Grand Galloping Gala usually have.
One of the cars stopped in front of the dictators of Ponyville and the doors opened which revealed their captain and lieutenant.
“Come on in, supreme leaders!” Spike said with excitement in his voice.
With genuine smiles, Scootaloo and Applebloom took their seats inside the car, facing their counterparts and put on their seatbelts.
The other soldiers were in the other cars and had looks of determination on them. The car the two dictators were in fired off and started driving, the other cars following suit.
“ALL HAIL THE CRUSADERS!!!”