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// 2. The Filly 
// Story: The Pegasearch 
// by The Dashie 
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	I knew it was Scootaloo because nopony in Equestria had her shade of orange in their coat, but at the same time, I thought it wasn’t Scootaloo. It seemed impossible for the pony before me to be Scootaloo. First off, she was as tall as any of the Mane 6, maybe even taller, even though she was just a child, and for the second and probably the most obvious reason, she was an alicorn, which is a pony that has both a horn and wings. In Equestria, you were either had a horn or wings, never both unless you were the sisters Celestia and Luna, which were of course only two ponies in all of Equestria. Now that Scootaloo joined the classification of ‘Alicorn’ the whole ‘only royalty can be alicorns’ thing was destroyed, since Scootaloo wasn’t royalty, but that wasn’t what I cared about at the moment; I cared more about Scootaloo herself. I was both glad and scared to see her. It felt like I was in a dream, and that Scootaloo being an alicorn was the dream’s main reason for being a dream.
“Hey everypony, long time no see.” said Scootaloo. Everyone was still too shocked for words. I knew they weren’t shocked because of Scootaloo being here, but that she was an alicorn. What amazed me was that she had a very unusual cutie mark. I looked like a drop of water that was rainbow hued, but I felt more interested in learning more about why Scootaloo had gone missing.
I shattered the silence by saying,” Scootaloo, what happened to you? You go off and vanish from everypony, you give everypony a worry to where Princess Celestia has to send me a letter telling me she wants me to come back so that you might come out of hiding, and when you finally do come out, you’ve not only established having a cutie mark, but you’ve mysteriously grown a horn, which is most literally impossible. You have a lot of explaining to do.” She started to tear up and making little sobbing noises, then she just let it all out. She just sobbed and just buried her head in her hooves and just sat there.
After a few minutes, she said through some of her sobbing,” You..guys ..don’t know how much.. I ..loved.. you. I was just.. so.. alone.. and I..didnt know what I should..do.” I came over and started rubbing her back very slowly, trying to calm her down and get her to be able to speak in a way that we could understand her.
“It’s ok now Scootaloo; me and Rainbow Dash are here now and if you would like, me and Rainbow Dash can stay here for a couple of weeks. Does that sound good?”
She just nodded and said, “Em-hm”. She may have been taller and bigger than the Mane 6 but on the inside, she was just a filly who needed to have some good love and kindness shown towards her. 
I succeeded in calming her down, which only took about 10 minutes, after which I said to Scootaloo, “Scootaloo, I will do whatever I can do in my power to help you, but you need to reveal to everyone what had happened. You need to tell them the whole and absolute truth about what happened while you were hiding. I will try my best to lessen the punishment that might be given to you, but if you tell the truth, and if what you told us is the truth, then I’m sure everypony will forgive you for the trouble you’ve caused.” 	
“Ok, Dash I’ll be sure to…” She never got to finish that sentence because before she did, a familiar sinister laughter permeated the air. A laughter that I had done everything in my power to erase from existence. The laugh was a chill down my spine. “Oh no. He’s found me. I told him I was going to start a new life and stop all the things he wanted me to do, but it seems like he has other plans.”
“Scootaloo, what’s happening?” Rainbow Dash asked Scootaloo. “What do you mean by ‘the things’ and who is ‘he’?” Well, I knew who ‘he’ was so I answered in the most serious voice I could.

“Discord. It’s Discord isn’t it Scootaloo?”

She nodded and everypony gasped and Twilight said, “But that’s impossible. We saw you destroy him with your Rainbow Flare. He was shattered to bits and pieces. How is he back?” I knew why.
“Remember how, right after I destroyed his statue, the shards began to form that spear shaped object, and how we heard Discord’s voice said, ‘If I must fall, then you’re coming with me!’? Well, I think that Discord, though is unable to hold a physical form because I destroyed it, is still able to hold a metaphysical form. In other words, he is able to retain a spiritual state in Equestria. The only thing that I find puzzling is when I used it on the pegasi from the Rainbow Factory, the evil side of them melted away. Why wouldn’t Discord then be utterly annihilated since he is nothing but evil?”
The voice of Discord answered me. “Well,little Dash, it seems you have most of the pieces, except you need every piece of the puzzle in order to put it all together. Little Scootaloo here must have forgotten to tell you a few details about why she had gone missing. Care to explain the truth, Loo-loo? I’m sure your friends will want to know the truth. I mean, why should you hide it from them? They shouldn’t care if they truly are your friends.” I was very, very confused, but if I knew anything about Discord, it was that if he was accusing someone of something, it was more or less true. He would sometimes dement the truth, but the fact remained that he still was telling the truth, which in this case was that Scootaloo was keeping some secrets.
“Scootaloo, what is Discord talking about? What haven’t you been telling us?” She went from looking shocked to looking like the most serious pony that ever existed. No emotion showed on her face as she told us the events of the recent past.
“Well, it’s a very simple story. After you guys left, I went back to the Cutie Mark Crusaders tree house so that I could start to accept what had happened, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. It was just too much for me to take. You had shown me the greatest kindness, even though you didn’t have to, but in the end, you became my second idol. I wanted to be able to be like you because you were a lot like Rainbow Dash, but you also had kindness and honesty and pretty much a great amount of every one of the other ponies here and the element of harmony they represent. I wanted to be able to be like that: Not focused mainly on one element, but a collection of all of them. When we were escaping, it was your planning, not mine, who saved not only me, but Rainbow Dash from being imprisoned in that damned factory forever. I felt like you andme would be very good friends, but when truth came out when you said you would stay here for Rainbow Dash’s sake instead of just for all of us, it tore me a little. You and I had been cellmates for well over a month and we even had some bonding time, remember? We spent day by day planning how we would escape, and how we would go to Princess Celestia and warn her of Discord’s plans and actions. We even talked a lot about how we could be very good friends if you decided to stay here. Remember saying to my face, ‘Well, I could stay here so that you and me can talk about a lot of things. It would be fun.’ What happened to that promise?” She didn’t give me time to respond and kept on going. “Well obviously seeing our idol in a romantic light got rid of that little thought. As soon as you sent me off to go get everyone in Ponyville ready, I knew that you had changed your mind about the whole ‘staying for the sake of talking to me’ thing. I went and did what you asked, but I just waited to see how things would go down. When I saw both you and every other pegasus, including Rainbow Dash, go off to fight, I felt lonely all over again; like I had only reentered that cell in the Rainbow Factory. It was when you had brought Discord back to Ponyville that I saw you again. When you destroyed him, I felt like the evil in my life was gone, but then Discord came in tried to kill you. I saw how you just stood there and let Rainbow Dash take the hit for you. I heard her scream of pain. I knew that she was gone, so I just started flying away. I came back when I heard and saw something big come out of Ponyville. I heard you scream, ‘I won’t let her go.’ You paused then resumed you sentence by saying, ‘Because I won’t have to!’ I was confused and mildly worried about you. I thought you had finally snapped. You were starting to become brighter and higher and at one point in time you even closed your eyes. I didn’t know why you would, but when you opened them again, they were white and they stared right at Rainbow Dash. You opened your arms to reveal your inner body and what looked like Rainbow Dash’s spirit came out of it. Then you fainted and Rainbow Dash gave a short moan and started crawling towards you, so as to lovingly embrace you. I saw that the place that Discord had hit her with that spear of his bodily shards was all patched up and healed; not even blood stained the spot. When she reached you, she crawled into your arms and passed out with a smile on her face. I left after that because I felt there was not going to be enough love in either of your hearts to spend quality time with me without wanting the other to tag along. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but I flew away from Ponyville and into the Everfree Forest so that I might have somewhere to think.”
“It wasn’t for about a few days or so that I visited the hospital that you and Rainbow Dash were sleeping at before the others showed up. You looked so peaceful. I knew that you would be out for not much longer so I thought I would give you a hug. I did and I felt like this was like me saying goodbye for a while because I needed to have some good quality thinking time. I wanted to hug you for a longer period of time but then I heard the others come towards the room and I flew out the window of your room. I waited for them to leave, but from what I heard, you woke up and were rushing off to Rainbow Dash’s room, so I just waited outside your window waiting for you to return. After awhile I saw Rarity and one of your friends head out towards Ponyville, then I saw Twilight Sparkle and another one of your friends leave, and then pair by pair, pony and person left for Ponyville. I didn’t know what was going on but then I saw you and Rainbow Dash heading towards Ponyville. I was then intrigued so I followed right behind you and when we got close to Ponyville; I went over to where my fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders were. Applebloom looked at me and said, ‘Where have you been, Scootaloo? Me and Sweetie Belle were getting worried you had left the Crusaders.’ I was about to tell her what had happened, but then everypony was going towards the main square, and I saw Princess Celestia herself, along with you and Twilight Sparkle using magic, and Rainbow Dash was floating in midair. Rainbow Dash had said, ‘Then make me beautiful.’ I didn’t know what she meant, but then every unicorn in Ponyville, even Sweetie Belle, had their horns lit and I guess tried to help in ‘making Rainbow Dash beautiful’. It wasn’t until Rainbow Dash started glowing that I knew something serious was happening because I saw her hooves turn into things that looked like your hands and these things on the end of her legs that I guess were like your feet. Her face came in and rounded out and she started to have a nose that was small. When she had finally finished transforming, she just laid there. Everypony was putting clothes on her and when they finished, you came up to her and said something I couldn’t quite hear and then kissed her. I slipped away from everyone and left after that display of love. I knew that Princess Celestia had the power to send you home, so why wouldn’t you have gone home? I went straight away from Ponyville and I thought of going to the Everfree Forest again, but then a voice came into my head. ‘Poor Scootaloo. Now the ones you love are abandoning you to be here alone with no one to look up to.Well, I can help you feel better. I can’t talk to you here, but there is a place where we can talk.’ I asked the voice, ‘Where can I speak to you?’ ‘In the Rainbow Factory, my dear. You can talk to me in the Rainbow Factory’ I didn’t want to go back to the place that I had nightmares about, but I felt that if I was going to get help, I needed to deal with my fears instead of avoiding them.”
“I went to the Rainbow Factory expecting an angel or something holy but I found only the spirit of Discord waiting for me. I knew he couldn’t hurt me and that I couldn’t hurt him so I didn’t run. ‘Discord, what did you do with the angel? I was supposed to meet one here so that it can help me with my problems.’ He looked amused but didn’t laugh. Instead he just said in the voice I heard, ‘Oh you mean this angel?’ He went back to his original voice and continued by saying, ‘Yes little Scootaloo; I am the one who summoned you here, and don’t worry. It’s just you and me here. I know of the pain in your heart. I know of your loss of people to look up to, namely Dash and Rainbow Dash. I can help you ease your pain,but it will hurt at first and it will be horrid to you in every manner. Your body might not accept it at first, but it will get used to it. Oh little Scootaloo, I know that you might think of me as a monster, but really, when Dash took Rainbow Dash away from you, was he really any different? He didn’t even tell you about his plans, or for that matter, even look for you when all the dust had cleared. Hewent straight for the girl he rescued instead of the girl who saved his life in the first place. Had it not been for you, my dear, I’m afraid, Dash would still be here, and these old gears would still be grinding, but no. You decided to go along with his plans, even though you were scared to. Now I don’t hate you for doing that. If I were you, I would want to escape a virtual hell if I got the chance. In fact, I am impressed that you did so. Dash may have led you through it, but you did it nearly flawlessly. Do you know why I didn’t want to hurt you? I saw a lot of me in you, Scootaloo: Daring, different, not willing to go by society’s standards. You and I are so similar it’s almost frightening. I mean, yes, I have done things that were quite monstrous in nature, but put everything aside, and we are almost the same. The only difference I see is that you are a pony and I’m a draconequus. If I mean to say something, it is that I want to help you feel better and I have a way to do that.’ I was very conflicted. On one hand I had my basic knowledge that Discord was not to be trusted and that believing anything he said foolish, but on the other hand, Discord had opened up wholeheartedly, which is something I believe nopony would expect from the ‘big, bad, god of chaos’. It was touching to know that somepony, even if it was Discord, felt like they had something in common with me. I felt like he was acting more like a parent towards me than anypony had ever done before. At the time, I felt like I could accept him as my father. ‘Discord, I want to be happy, and if you can do that for me, I would be the happiest filly in Equestria. You’ve been more of a father to me than anypony. I am happy to say that I would like to stay here with you.’ If ghosts can cry, he seemed to. I knew that we couldn’t hug, but just the nod of thanks was sufficient.”
“It was then I started my ‘training’ for being happier. As Discord had said, it was hard at first. He had me do something I thought sounded repulsive at first, but when he explained it, I went ahead and did it: I drank spectra. I’ll admit I hated it at first, but after a week or two, I didn’t taste so bad.”
I had to interrupt her and say,” Scootaloo, that is the emotional essence of not only thousands of ponies, but, as I’m sure you’ll remember, myself. That’s like drinking their blood. How could you even think of doing such a thing?” 
She put on an angry face and stared me down and said, “Will you let me finish my tale or shall I just leave this place? Yes? Then stay quiet.”
“As I was saying, as the weeks went by, I began to find that the Factory had become a home to me. I would play in the lobby with Discord, swing on some of the lines that came down, and as the weeks progressed, I found that I was growing at a very fast rate. I was also starting to grow a horn, which, when I saw it, asked Discord why it was there. He simply smiled and chuckled a little bit and he told me, ‘Oh my sweet dear. This horn is coming from the spectra, as is your accelerated growth. You see the spectra is giving you the different symbols of difference for both pegasi and unicorns. You already had wings, so that part only increased your bodily growth, but the unicorn part started to form the horn now atop your head. I truly am proud of your endurance through this matter my little Loo-loo.’ Loo-loo. That was and still is his nickname for me. I called him Discordad because he was a father figure for me. It wasn’t until about an hour before you got here that I was going through my usual spectra drink, when I started hearing screaming in my head. I asked Discord what was happening. He responded by saying it was nothing and that he wanted me to try something new: bathing in the spectra. Now when it touched my lips, it felt like acid, so I was certain that bathing in it would be like soaking in lava. I told him that I didn’t want that type of thing anymore. He looked a little annoyed and said, ‘But I am the one who made you happy these past few months. It was through me that you were able to be happy, grow both a horn and in size, and look at your flank. It was through me that you have received your cutie mark.’ I looked and sure enough there was a little drop, but it was rainbow-hued. ‘You have only put upon me a curse and a burden. I will leave you here to rot.’ He cried after me as I left, ‘You won’t be free of me yet, girl. Just know that you aren’t free of me yet.’ I didn’t care what he was saying; I was getting out of there. It was harder now that I was bigger than I used to be, but I still managed with my new magical abilities. I had become an alicorn, which is a pegasus/unicorn hybrid. I was different in the fact that I was a hybrid. Only royal mares were usually the ones who were alicorns, and I wasn’t royalty. I felt like if I were to be seen by Princess Celestia, she would be appalled at how I had become like her. I heard that you guys had come back to Equestria and that you were heading to Sugar Cube Corner, so, without trying to be seen, I waited till you guys headed towards Sugar Cube Corner, and when you were all inside, I knew there would be a party, so I had to wait for a few minutes, but when I saw the light in Pinkie Pie’s room, I knew I should probably head in. When I opened the door, I saw Mrs. Cake there, getting ready for her late night shift, and when she saw me, she didn’t recognize me at first, but when she did, she said, ‘Oh my goodness is that you, Scootaloo? Where have you been, how have you gotten so big, and where did that horn come from?’ I told her, ‘Mrs. Cake, I need to talk to the people in Pinkie Pie’s room, but please don’t call the royal guard. Not yet, please.’ ‘Ok, dearie.’ After that, I went upstairs, knocked on the door, and you know the rest.”
After Scootaloo finished her story, I knew that I had all the pieces now, but I couldn’t put them all together. Why in the world would she drink spectra, which is basically the emotional blood of a pony? Why would she stay with Discord if she had a feeling that he was bad? She explained these in detail and both had the same answer: he said that he could make her happy, but still. Why would she do these things? “Scootaloo, I understand where you’re coming from and I know how you must have felt at the time, but the things you’ve done…”
“You know my pain? Really, Dash? You know the pain of losing someone who you looked up to because another person you looked up to took her away? That’s happened to you?”
I stumbled in saying, “Well, no but the point is…”
“Point? There is no point! You took my idol, my inspiration from me without even asking if I would be ok. You didn’t have to go back. You could have stayed here. Even if you didn’t spend time with me, at least having you around would suffice, but no. That thought didn’t even slip your mind.”	
I was getting mad. “Scootaloo, you are being so selfish. You don’t think I pained to have to leave everypony. I wanted to stay, but I went back because of my family.” I knew I had made a huge mistake by bringing up family.
“Your family? You went back for your family? Tell me something Dash. If you had magical powers, and still do, why not then just teleport your mom and dad here then? It wouldn’t kill you to start a family here. I mean you had Rainbow Dash, you could have had a home, or you could ask Big Macintosh to help you build one. You could have started one right here. I could have been the child and we just have lived here together, but you just had to have it your way, and go to your world so that you could have what you wanted. You could have forgotten your old life on earth and have just stayed here. I see that you and I must have different perspectives.”	
Twilight spoke up. “Scootaloo, I know you’re mad at Dash, and I know that it is hard for you to forgive him for what he did to you, but it’s time to grow in maturity and forgive and forget.” Right as she finished, Celestia’s royal guard burst in and Princess Celestia herself came in. Both the princess and the royal guards looked at her in a mix of both awe and fright.
Princess Celestia, still stunned said, “Scootaloo, what’s happened to you? How is it that you’ve become an alicorn? Oh my dearest Scootaloo, all that matters is that you are safe.” 
When she came close in order to give Scootaloo a meaningful hug, Discord disturbed his silence by saying, “Celestia, we all know that’s a lie.”
“Discord, is that you? How are you alive? Show yourself!”
Scootaloo looked mad and yelled, “Don’t yell at my father!” That took everyone in the room by surprise, even Celestia and the royal guard. I was so distracted by all the thoughts running through my head that I had noticed that both Fluttershy and Malisty were cuddling each other and shivering like nothing else. I felt like doing the same, but I knew that I should remain strong. Celestia looked confused when I brought myself back to the conversation. 
“Your father? Whatever do you mean Scootaloo? Surely you can’t think that Discord is your fa…”
“As a matter of fact I do, Princess. He been more of a parent to me than anypony in Equestria has. He showed me kindness when I was sad; he helped me become the big and strong alicorn I am now. What Dash said about me being selfish was right. I didn’t think of all he’s done for me. I haven’t considered that he gave me a home, that he had given me what I wanted to be happy: a parent.”
Rainbow Dash looked mad at Scootaloo and said, “Scootaloo, you’ve gone off the deep end this time. You expect me to believe that through all the things you’ve done that you are of great innocence? I have done many things for you and tried my best to be a good role model for you. Discord has done nothing but corrupt your mind and turn you into a different, less kind pony.”
“Who are you to call anyone out on what he has done? According to you, I’m just a waste of wings! Do you really not remember the end of my flight test? How I tried to talk to you and you only told me that I was just a waste of wings? That I had wasted all the hard work you had put into me? You mean those little sessions where you would ask me to do exactly as you do when you were doing extreme tricks and almost impossible things? Do you know how hard it was to look at myself in the mirror every morning knowing that by not mirroring your tricks, I was failing you? Do you not know the agony I felt because I wasn’t able to be like you? I looked in the mirror every morning of every day we practiced and I hated myself. You tried to show kindness when I failed and told me I would make it on my next try, and when I didn’t you told me to never stop trying. I still remember how you would give me these long pep talks about how this test would show to the judges of the test how well I would contribute to the society and reputation of Cloudsdale. I would get pumped up and at day’s end, I would go back to hating myself, unless I was actually able to perform a trick of yours. Then I would go home feeling good until I failed the next day. You could have tried leveling with me with some of your less extreme tricks, but no. I had to practice your tricks and your stunts. My opinion wasn’t part of the equation. I even practiced after we went our own ways. I practiced even to the point of making myself sick of flying those drills. It was agonizing and painful.Only now do I realize that it was for nothing, and I plan to have justice, but first,” she smiled and said to Discord, “Dad, can I have some friends over? It would be really cool if they could see what we’ve done with the place. Besides, there’s a lot more I want to be able to talk about.”She turned toward us and looked at us like she was getting ready to pounce.
Discord laughed and said, “That’s alright with me, just make sure you all play nice.” Her horn light up in a black hue and like her horn everything went black. I could still see and think, but it was darkness around me. I was about to call out for my friends but I couldn’t do it for some reason. I was too scared to. I just couldn’t form the words, or to a lesser extent, say the words I wanted to say. The next thing I knew is my head gets hit really hard, and before my mind goes blank, I hear Rainbow Dash scream in terror and the dark laughter of Discord filling my thoughts with darkness as I fell into a very deep sleep and started to dream dark dreams about my old imprisonment days in the Rainbow Factory.