"…and then I laid there, at the bottom of the crater, every bone in my body broken, my wings gone, and half of my blood drained. That's when Fluttershy walked over and spit on me. How's that?"
Diamond Tiara and whatever her friend's name is, no one likes her, so whatever, looked upon Scootaloo in utter horror.
"But…" she said. "Your wings…"
"They grew back."
"And your bones?"
"They got better."
"And your blood?"
"It came back."
Stunned silence.
"Okay, okay! We admit it! You're better than us! Just don't eat our souls!" Diamond Tiara yelled, running away.
"Scootaloo would never do that!" Apple Bloom said. "Sweetie Belle, on the other hand…"
"How many times do I have to tell you guys!" Sweetie Belle yelled. "I am not possessed by a demon or a robot!"
Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes. "That's just the sort of thing a robot would say."
Sweetie Belle facehoofed.
"Well, that was fun!" Scootaloo said. "Extremely painful, but totally worth it!"
"Scootaloo, pardon my French, but…" Sweetie Belle inhaled. "HOW THE BUCK DID YOU SURVIVE THAT!?"
Scootaloo cocked her head. "What do you mean?"
"We could see the explosion from miles away and you just 'got better'!?" Sweetie Belle yelled. "I don't think so!"
"Oh yeah?" Scootaloo said. "Then what do you think happened?"
Sweetie Belle couldn't answer that one.
"Let's go, Apple Bloom," Scootaloo said, leaving Sweetie Belle behind to reel. They walked through town a bit, trying to ignore all the mares making out.
"Seriously, though, how did you survive that?" Apple Bloom said. "You must have had some trick."
"What?"
"Like you swapped yourself out with a stunt double last-second, or had Twilight put a protection spell around you or something," Apple Bloom continued. "Otherwise there's no way you could have survived that."
Scootaloo hadn't even thought of doing those things. "You mean… Sweetie Belle was right? It isn't normal to survive that?"
Apple Bloom looked at her like she was insane. "No, no it isn't." She tried to think of a way to justify it. "But you exaggerated that story a bit, didn't you? You know, to bug Diamond Tiara and what's-her-name?"
"I wish."
"Well, maybe you're just remembering it exaggerated. Because Fluttershy was so scary."
Scootaloo tried to think of way to convince Apple Bloom she was telling the truth. She looked around and saw some guy walking around with a meat cleaver. Because that is totally normal. So she walked up to him and asked a completely normal question.
"Hey, can I borrow that?"
He balked, obviously. "Excuse me?"
"I need to show a friend something."
He continued to stare at her. Time for Plan B.
"What, can your puny earth pony brain not understand me?"
The guy looked up at his very obvious unicorn horn. "What did you just call me?"
"Why don't you just go back to your farm or something so you can kick stuff? Because that's all you're good for."
"GRAAAH!"
Long story short, Scootaloo got pony shanked. With a meat cleaver. So basically, decapitated.
"SCOOTALOO!" Apple Bloom screamed as she watched Scootaloo's head fly through the air, too shocked to cry. She looked up at the meat cleaver guy. "How could you!? She was just a child!"
"I… uh…"
"No, just wait a bit."
Apple Bloom looked around. "Who said that!?"
"Me."
Apple Bloom looked down at Scootaloo's head.
"Hi," Scootaloo's disembodied head said.
Apple Bloom was lost for words.
Scootaloo's body scooted over and reattached itself to her head. "See, that wasn't so bad, wasn't it?"
The square was completely abandoned, the death and reanimation of a small child being a sufficient turn off for most the couples. Except for Lyra and Bon-Bon. They were shameless as ever.
Apple Bloom found some words.
"That… is definitely not normal."
"What? Seriously? Dammit," Scootaloo said.
"How long you been able to do that?"
"My whole life?"
"How?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe you should find out?"
Scootaloo thought about it. There was one pony she was sure could answer all of her questions.
– – – –
Scootaloo tested the door. Unlocked. Clearly having not learned anything from the Fluttershy incident, she barged in.
"Twilight?"
Twilight quickly hid a bunch of pieces of paper and pretended she wasn't plotting insurrection. "Yes?"
Scootaloo scratched her head. "I have some questions I need to ask you."
Twilight grinned. Finally! Her genius, respected! "Sure! Anything! Ask away!"
"Well, I've been having these feelings…"
Twilight paused, wishing this wasn't going where she thought it was.
"They've always been there, I think," Scootaloo said, "but the more I talk to other ponies, the more I'm convinced they aren't natural." She started to tense up. "What's happening to me, Twilight!?"
Twilight sighed. It was. Why her? Why did everyone always send the kids to her to get "the talk"? Did people think she had a good sex life or something? Because she didn't! How much did they think a single librarian got, anyways!? The best she could hope for was Celestia severely invading her personal space, which just didn't cut it. Twilight had sworn that the next time this happened, she would start trolling, and whether it was Scootaloo or not, she was going to go through with it.
"Oh, really?" Twilight said, feigning interest. She started to pull the copy of the Pony Sutra Luna had given her. "What kind of… feelings?"
"Like, well…"
"It's too embarrassing to talk about, that's fine," Twilight said. She held the book above her head. "I've got a nice visual guide right here!"
"No, no, it's not embarrassing." Scootaloo thought about it. "I don't think it's embarrassing, at least."
Twilight said the book down on the table. "You don't need to play tough with me, Scootaloo." She opened the book to a page she had specifically dogeared for the occasion.
"No, really!" Scootaloo cleared her throat. "Like, here's one! Is it supposed to hurt when a knife slashes you through the neck?"
"Now, as you can see here—" Twilight stopped, not sure if she heard Scootaloo correctly. "What."
Scootaloo looked irritated. "I said, is it supposed to hurt when a knife slashes you through the neck?"
She thought so. Twilight wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. She decided on an awkward stare accompanied by, "It's supposed to kill you."
"Well, that didn't happen, obviously."
What? Wait, what? How? Why? When? How was Scootaloo even—
"It's true, isn't it?" Scootaloo said, beginning to cry. "I'm not normal, am I?"
Twilight couldn't lie, but… "Are you sure it was a knife?"
"Pretty sure."
"And by knife we mean, you know, sharp thing with a handle…" Twilight tried to gesture a knife.
"It was a meat cleaver. A pretty good one, too. Clean cut, straight through. None of those hanging tendons."
"And when it cut you, you felt—?"
"A light tickling. It almost felt… good."
Huh.
After Pinkie Pie, Twilight was a bit jaded towards these things.
"So, you're immortal," Twilight said. "And possibly a masochist."
"What?"
"It means you can't die."
Scootaloo thought about it.
"Nah, that can't be it," she said.
"What? Why?"
"Come on! Everybody knows that the only immortals are the princesses!" Scootaloo said. "What, are you going to tell me I'm actually a princess in disguise?"
Twilight thought about it.
"You know, you're right," Twilight said. "You've probably just been hanging out around Sweetie Belle too much. I mean, everybody knows she's a demon or something."
"Yeah, that's probably it," Scootaloo said. She looked at the table. "Hey, what's that book you were waving around?" she asked, sneaking a peek.
"No, wait, don't—!"
– – – –
Scootaloo left the house with a massive headache, her fillyhood destroyed slightly more than the first time she was decapitated.
So, a perfect time for Pinkie Pie to show up.
"Hey! What's eating you?" Pinkie Pie grated, bouncing up.
"I've got the worst headache…"
"Well I can fix that!" Pinkie Pie said, and phased inside Scootaloo.
"No, really, it's—"
If she wasn't immortal, the pain alone would have killed her. Her vision blacked out. She began to see things.
Time didn't flow normally anymore. She wasn't sure if what was happening took seconds, minutes, or centuries.
In front of her laid the secrets of the universe. She could see life, death, and everything in between. Everything, in some sick way, connected together. She could see all of Equestria tumbling like a pile of dominoes. It happened over and over again. She tried to reach out, and find out why, and she could feel herself getting closer and closer to something, something extremely important—
Then everything whited out. She was in a void, completely empty aside from a cryptic design. Five spheres, all interconnected in a web of lines. One was empty, and another was rapidly dismantling itself, tearing parts of the web apart. Somehow, it felt wrong, and scared her beyond recognition. She screamed out, and reached at it, but…
With a snap, she found herself back in reality, her vision filled by Pinkie Pie's face.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't know!" Pinkie Pie said. "Don't worry, it's all over now, it's all over…"
Scootaloo had many questions, but there was one she wanted to get out of the way first. "You didn't know… what?"
"You're immortal."
Scootaloo believed her.