The Cutie Mark Crusaders and Discord stood in front of the Everfree Forest. The whole lot of them had been teleported to Fluttershy’s garden through Discord’s magic. Angel was standing there, holding a bowl and thumping his foot furiously.
“Oh my, I need to feed Angel…” Fluttershy said, walking off into the cottage.
“Okay, Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Twilight addressed, “you are to do all the work. Discord is here to guide you, that’s all. I mean, he’ll get you out of trouble if he has to in order to keep you safe… right Discord?”
“What? Oh, yes, very much yes, Twilight.” Discord was distracted by his thoughts. He was basking in the chaos of the forest before him. It was like coming home after so long. His true home: the bath of chaos felt so good on his fur and scales, each one calling out to the one lost in the forest so long ago.
“Then let’s get goin’!” Applebloom called. She charged forward into the forest, and Scootaloo followed close behind. Sweetie Belle gave a second look at her sister before charging in behind her two friends.
“Take care of them, Discord,” Applejack said with a growl at the Draconequus. “Or I’m going to do more to you than you ever did to us. You can believe that from the Element of Honesty.”
Discord smiled, “I’ll take care of them. I want that Left fang tamed as much as you do.” He entered the forest behind the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The forest was dark and dank, draining the light from the sky above with a thick canopy. The green leaves filtered light for the first small bit, then they seemed to drain every bit of it trying to pass through to the ground.
The three filly-mares ventured forth, smiling bright as they ventured farther into the Everfree Forest than they had ever before. Their sisters were cautious, yes, and even Rainbow Dash was constantly telling Scoots never to go into the forest without an older mare. She giggled to herself as she realized she was an older mare now.
They had smiles wide as their face plastered to their faces as they wound their way through the forest. It seemed that nothing was out at this time of day, and they were perfectly okay with that. Sweetie Belle quickly grew bored of the mundane events of what was the equivalent of a walk in the park.
“I thought there was going to be more danger when we became ‘Cutie Mark Crusader World Savers,’” she said in a bored monotone.
“Don’t be so disappointed in that, Dearest Sweetie Belle,” Discord rebutted, “enjoy the moments where you can make progress, because they won’t always be there.”
“What do you know about makin’ progress? Ya turned mah brother inta a dog!”
“You mean that impressive show of mundane life? What was his name?”
“Big Macintosh!”
“Well, all you Apples drive me crazy. Every one of you. Why are there so many of you? All with Apple-themed names!”
“It’s an Apple Family Tradition!” Applebloom defended.
“How do you even keep yourselves straight? Apple this, apple that, I though I was everything chaos, but your family!”
“Well, there’s Uncle Apple Strudel, then there’s Babs Seed, then there’s…”
“Stop, stop right there! I don’t need to know all the ponies in your family!” It became evident that even Discord was annoyed by this line of conversation. “I think it’s time you actually did something, instead of such a peaceful walk through the woods!” Discord smiled bright as his tail secretly snapped. The sky completely darkened, and there were glowing red eyes everywhere.
“Oh, Oh!” Applebloom said, “I know this one!” She began to laugh. “You just giggle at the ghosties!”
“I… I don’t think it’s working, Applebloom,” Scootaloo said, pooling with Sweetie Belle at the center of the clearing. Applebloom was still laughing her tail off beside them.
“Come on! Laugh with me! These silly eyes think they can scare me!”
“They all just blinked,” Sweetie Belle mentioned. All in turn, the eyes blinked in a circle around them. The ominous feeling that spread through the Cutie Mark Crusaders wasn’t shared by the draconequus. In fact, they looked all around them as the eyes seemed to draw closer, the only things that they could see. Applebloom had long since stopped laughing and began panicking.
“Well, Let’s see, girls, this could be several things. It could be cute little bunnies…” She hoped for the best as she said it, but when shiny, sharp, white teeth made their appearance out of the sheer darkness, Applebloom shivered and knew she was wrong.
“Perhaps they have such sharp teeth because they eat rocks…” Sweetie Belle offered. She wished with all her heart that she was right.
“Well, when’s the last time you saw Spike’s teeth sharp?” Scootaloo replied.
“I… haven’t?” the unicorn asked, more than answered. She shuddered as she realized that her orange friend was right. If something ate rocks, it tended not to have sharp points on them—as they would break all the time.
“I honestly think they want to eat us, girls,” Applebloom swallowed. She knew that this wasn’t going to bode well for them. They knew nothing about defending themselves against more than a couple of bullies, and even then, they needed help.
“If we could take them on one by one, I think we can take them,” Scootaloo offered.
“Perhaps they’re just big sweeties like the Manticore?” Belle offered. “Scoots, try to use Kindness on them!”
“Yeah! That sounds like a great idea…” Scootaloo responded, “If I wanted to get eaten!”
“Then what do you propose we do, Applebloom? You’re our leader!”
“Honestly, I don’t know!” Applebloom used her sister’s Element.
The eyes bore down on them, drilling into them with their stare. The teeth sometimes disappeared behind something pinkish, which they all took to be their tongues, licking their chops to prepare them for their feast.
The trio were surrounded by the monsters, whatever they were. They would literally not know what hit them. Whatever was surrounding them was evil, they figured on that much, and it scared them to Tartarus and back. They just wanted their sisters. If only the ponies they looked up to were there to show them the way. Princess Twilight had chosen them, though. They were the ones who she, of all ponies, thought could live up to the task of taking down this threat and saving all of Equestria.
“We have to do something, Applebloom,” Scootaloo said, looking to the yellow Earth Pony. If any pony could get through this, it was her. Scoots always knew that she made the right choice in making Applebloom her friend—first because her older sister was best friends and rivals with none other than Rainbow Dash, then because she was the perfect faux sister.
Scoots remembered so many times when she didn’t know where she would sleep for the night, Applebloom would invite her over to stay. If she didn’t have Applebloom, she didn’t know where she would be. Even Sweetie Belle had been drifting apart from her before they met the bow-clad leader of their ‘secret’ order. It had been Applebloom that kept them together.
“Okay, Girls,” Applebloom addressed after what felt like a miniature eternity of silence, “they don’t seem to be movin’ any closer. We should just make a break for it.”
“Are you sure that is a great idea?” Sweetie Belle asked, voice coated in fear and anxiety about the plan.
“Have you come up with a better one?” Applebloom responded.
“Well…” she started, clearly rummaging through her thoughts. “No.”
“Then take my tail.”
When the orange Pegasus and the white unicorn securely attached, she bolted forward with all her strength, barreling through the shiny bright teeth. There was the sound of something shattering as cracks of light shone through, finally revealing themselves in a small clearing in the Everfree. Discord was lying across the rocks in between all the trees, filing his lion claws.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to clear that task,” he said. “I have to say all that freezing will mean you’re quite unprepared to take on King Sombre, if in fact that is who is finding their way to my left fang.” He checked the sky, watching Luna’s stars cross it before conjuring up a group of tents and placing them through the clearing. “Since it’s so late, we should head out in the morning to continue our search for my scale. I would never advise going forth under the guise of night.” He smiled and entered one of the tents, decorated by a checkerboard pattern that was so signature of his take-over of Ponyville.
“Who needs him?” Applebloom asked. “He set those creepy faces on us!”
“But Twilight said that he was here to guide us. I don’t think we’ll find the Scale without him. It could be anywhere in the Everfree,” Sweetie Belle voiced her concern.
“That big meanie Discord thinks that because he’s the spirit of chaos, he can rule us!” Scootaloo responded. They all crossed the clearing to find three paths.
“We don’t have a lot of time, we’ll need to search all three of them at the same time, girls,” Applebloom directed. “Sweetie, you take the left one, Scoots, the right. Ah’ll take the middle.”
“But I want the middle one!” Sweetie retorted.
“I’m in the middle already,” Applebloom defended.
“Well fine.”
“I suppose you can have the right one, I’ll take the left one, and Sweetie can have the middle,” Scootaloo responded. The Cutie Mark Crusaders all nodded and made the corrections on their positions.
“There, everypony happy?” Applebloom asked, a bit peeved. With a vigorous nod from both her best friend, they set off into the Everfree, none of them heard the laughter that followed them. “Now, we should all be back here before daylight.”
Sweetie lit the night with her horn. She kept forgetting she knew all the same spells as Twilight and Rarity. In fact, she kept forgetting everything that Rarity and Twilight knew. She barely recalled any of Cadence’s memories. She trotted through the forest at a moderate pace, trying to the other end as quick as she could. The forest felt so strange to her, and all her magical attunement.
She didn’t want to stay in it.
She heard some rustling ahead, and began panicking. What could it be? There were all sorts of things in this forest that she didn’t want to think about. A lot of things she had seen herself, at least she thought she did, perhaps it was Twilight and Rarity’s memories.
She started to gallop. She didn’t want to meet what was making those noises. They freaked her out and she was trying to keep focus so that the light her horn was casting didn’t go… and there it was. She was plunged into darkness as her horn fell dark. She tripped over a root and landed roughly in some foliage. She got back to her hooves, stopped and lit up the area again.
There, before her, was Applebloom.
“Oh, it’s you,” the bow-clad leader said with a very deadpan expression and a very disappointed tone.
“What do you mean by that, Applebloom?” Sweetie was concerned. How could Applebloom be disappointed in her? What could she have possibly done wrong? They hadn’t even been together for the last few minutes.
“Ah just figured Ah’d actually meet somepony who could actually help me.” Applebloom trotted away from Sweetie. “Go back to your sister, and help her with her Boutique.”
“Applebloom? Are you okay?”
“Ah will be if you leave me alone.” Applebloom started to leave Sweetie’s light sphere.
“Applebloom… what do you mean?”
“Ah don’t wanna be yer friend anymore. What part of that wasn’t clear?”
Sweetie’s magic broke altogether. She was plunged into deep darkness as tears welled up in her eyes. “Applebloom?”
“Yer no longer a Cutie Mark Crusader. Ah don’t wanna see you anymore.”
Sweetie Belle’s legs fell out from beneath her. She didn’t want to carry on any farther if she didn’t have any friends to go back to.
Applebloom trotted merrily on her way. The stars lit her path as she cut through the forest at a mid-gallop. She was now used to her increased size, and she was able to maintain her endurance to that of a normal mare. She would be the first back to camp after finding out where this path led; and she hoped it was to the Scale of Discord.
She was watching the sky every time she stopped to gain her bearings again. Her sister was always telling her that stars were how olden ponies would find their way, and she had learned a few things from Twilight about which stars were which.
“Let’s see, that one must be Star Swirl, The Bearded’s star, because it’s brighter than the rest. That must be north.” She smiled, taking one more glance to the sky when she saw something pass inn front of the moon. “What in the hay was that?”
In front of her, there appeared somepony she hadn’t expected to see: Scootaloo. She had been flying?
“That’s great, Scoots! You learned how to fly!”
“Yeah, no thanks to you. I finally figured out why I couldn’t fly before.”
“Oh? Why is that?” Scootaloo’s tone became offensive, and Applebloom was starting to take it to her heart. How could Scoots be so mean?
“Because I was grounded by an Earth Pony,” Scootaloo said smugly. “Now that I’ve spent some time away from you, I don’t need you anymore. I can spend all my time with Rainbow Dash!” She smiled. “Your stupid little idea for a secret society was a great plan for a pastime, but now that I can fly high with her, I don’t need to be a Cutie Mark Crusader anymore! I’ll have my mark in ten seconds flat, and I won’t need either you or Sweetie Belle.”
“That’s great, Scoots, but I thought you were our friend. Ah thought that was what our adventures were about… three friends all tryin’ to find what made them special…” Applebloom’s eyes began to tear up.
“So long, Applebloom. Have fun on your little quest. I’m heading off to find Rainbow!” And so she did, flying high above the Everfree, disappearing into the night.
“Scoots… how could you just leave like that? Ah… Ah thought we were friends… You… me… Sweetie…” With one heave, she fell on the ground. “Ah… Ah don’t believe this.”
Scootaloo hated the Everfree. Sure, she had gotten over most of the things in her nightmares since Rainbow took her under her wing, but it was more than that here. The dangers were real. She didn’t want to be in here, especially if she was alone. She ran with all her hooves could give her, using her wings to gain some distance in her strides.
Her breath was fading fast; she would need to take a moment to stop and breathe. She slowed to almost a stop, hearing something behind her. She spun on her heels to find herself face to face with none other than Sweetie Belle. Her horn was glowing, and providing a wide aura of light.
“Sweetie, am I glad to see you!”
“Well, I’m not.” The tone in Sweetie’s voice was very different from her usual, cheerful self. This tone, it seemed to reflect almost hatred, and defiance. She seemed to resent that she had run into Scootaloo here. It seemed like it was the bane of her existence to spend time with her.
They had been friends long before they were Cutie Mark Crusaders together. In fact, Scoots couldn’t remember having a friend before Sweetie. All the Pegasi she knew teased her for her inability to fly, and Sweetie was being teased for her inability to even levitate objects, even at her age.
They had banded together, especially after the Blank Flank teasing had dug in. When they found Applebloom, their friendship was cemented. They were nigh inseparable, and Scootaloo would have it no other way.
She gave Sweetie a large smile. “Come on, Sweetie, I know you better than this. You’re always happy to see me or Applebloom.”
“You don’t know the truth, do you? Applebloom hides it well, especially being the younger sister of the Element of Honesty. Both her and I have been meaning to remove you from the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”
“What? You can’t just remove somepony from the Cutie Mark Crusaders! I know because I wrote that rule!” She walked up to Sweetie Belle, and that’s when she saw it. There was a flash in her eyes. “You’re not Sweetie!” She bonked the imposter on the head, and green flame sprouted from the ground, enveloping the pony with an ominous aura, revealing a changeling.
“How clever you are,” the changeling responded. “But it’s too late, we have already drained your friends of their power, and Chrysalis will make it to the Left Fang in a matter of no time.” The changeling took to the sky as Scoots tried to tackle it—the one place that she couldn’t follow. She growled as the changeling escaped.
“Applebloom, Sweetie! I’m coming! Don’t you dare let go!”