Jealousy
Scootaloo shivered in her sleep, rolling to her side slightly as she tried to get warm. This wasn't right, had she rolled off her bed? She opened her eyes and the sleeping face of Rumble came into view. Her heart started to beat harder as memories returned, and she grinned.
"Rumble, hey, wake up." She said, poking gently at his face. His eyes fluttered open, and he started to smile at her before his eyes went wide, and he jumped up.
"We were supposed to get back earlier!" He yelled, immediately starting to pack up the remains of the picnic.
"Rumble, it's not a big deal."
"What if I get grounded, that wouldn't be good, would it?"
"Well, I guess not." Scoots replied, shrugging before another shiver passed through her body. "It's cold out here."
"Yeah, hold on." Rumble put the basket on his back and grabbed the blanket, quickly tying it around Scoot's torso and pulling the improvised knot tight with his teeth. He stumbled around for a moment as he tried to decide on a direction before taking off and pulling her along, running towards his house.
"Why are you bringing me?"
"Because, I made you something."
"Yeah, but today, right now?"
"Well if I get grounded it could be a few weeks."
"What about school?"
"Fine, three days, but still." He skidded on the cobblestones as he entered the town, quickly arriving at his house and unlocking the door. "Now just be really quiet and stay here." He said as Cloudchaser came to the door behind him. Rumble turned back and yelped, falling onto his flank and pushing himself back a few feet.
"Jeez, one day and you're already sneaking back into the house." Cloudchaser giggled, pulling the foal inside. "You may as well come in, you look like you're cold enough as it is." She said to Scoots, who walked inside as well. Cloudchaser sat down on a couch, staring at the two with slightly limited hostility.
"I don't really care if you stay out late, but at least tell me that you're going to." She said with a slight smile. "Rumble, you didn't do anything, right?"
"Well, we uh-"
"He kissed me!" Scoots exclaimed, bouncing in place.
"Oh Rumble, you seriously managed to get her?"
"I guess."
"And it's only taken what, a year?"
"No, it wasn't that long!" He sighed. "Maybe it was a little close, but still..."
"I guess I probably shouldn't let her stay the night then, if she's your mare friend." Cloudchaser said, biting her lip slightly.
"Yeah, I actually have to go see Fluttershy about why I never checked in tonight." Scoots brought up, turning around to leave, before stopping and briefly kissing Rumble on the lips.
"Well I guess you're not lying." Cloudchaser said. "You two are so cute together."
"Can we be awesome?" Scoots asked.
"Huh?"
"Awesome together? I don't really like the word cute, makes me feel all weak. Bleh." She made a face, and Cloudchaser giggled. "Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow Rumble, crusading as usual."
"Yeah, I'll look forward to it." He replied, blushing heavily.
Scoots took off the blanket and left with a spring in her step, happily running along the cobblestones and through the park again. She picked up her scooter and hopped on, tightening the helmet under her jaw before speeding off. Her mind was abuzz, it was a wonder that she had drifted off earlier, with all this in her head. A stick entered into her vision and she ducked, narrowly avoiding the low clothesline and the resulting painful crash.
This was ridiculous, she needed to stay at least a little concentrated. She could dream and muse to herself all she wanted once she was in bed, or needed to tune out an adult. Yeah, that would account for nighttime and school. Speaking of school, history had become pretty boring once they got past the wars and stuff. It was just boring old peace in Equestria for like, the last four hundred years. And the Changeling invasion and the griffin war weren't taught, they were too new.
Scoots skidded up the path to Fluttershy's house, carefully slowing herself to a stop and disembarking, knocking on the door loudly. Several minutes later, the paranoid face of Fluttershy greeted her, eyes flickering around at the darkness.
"Sorry Scootaloo, Angel was just telling me a scary story." She ushered the foal inside, and Scootaloo sighed when she read the time, ten fifteen. So they hadn't been too late. "So why are you here this late? It's not safe for a filly like you to be out." The mare asked, before she turned and viciously kicked an animal, making it explode all over the wall.
Scoots rubbed her eyes and looked again, seeing that everything was back to normal. Maybe she wasn't getting enough sleep, all that caffeine couldn't be good...
"Are you alright?" Fluttershy asked, a concerned look on her face.
"Yeah... Just a little tired, I guess." Tired enough to make stuff like that happen?
"You want to sleep here? I have a guest room that's always open."
"It wouldn't be a big deal, right?" Scoots asked, starting to feel a little nervous.
"No, not at all. I mean, unless it is for you..." Fluttershy replied, looking down at her hooves.
"That one there?"
"Yeah, the bed's made and everything, so just tell me if you need anything."
"Okay, thanks, I'll make it again in the morning!" She bounded off into the room and flopped onto the bed, pulling the covers into a big blob and climbing inside so that only her head was exposed. Fluttershy let out a muffled giggle at the spectacle, pulling an extra pillow from a chair just inside the door and tossing it over gently.
"Good night, Scootaloo." Fluttershy said, before casting the room into darkness. Scoots stuck a few pillows under her head as she started to warm up, getting to a comfortable temperature as her thoughts shifted elsewhere. Unsurprisingly Rumble came to the forefront of her mind, and yet as soon as he popped up, she realized she didn't have a lot more to think about him.
There was that obscure feeling of pressure in her chest still, and yet after all this, she didn't know exactly how she felt towards him. Sure, she knew she liked him, but she'd never done this before, she was just making stuff up as she went along. But Rumble always seemed to have planned everything, which made her feel a little inadequate.
But if it was for her, should she feel guilty? Besides Dash and Jason, nopony had ever gone out of their way like this for her. Scoots let out a groan of annoyance. Next time she saw him tomorrow, she'd have to thank him, let him know how much of an impact he'd caused for the express purpose of making her feel better.
Scoots finally let herself doze off, a few visions of her parents flickering through her head. She was really starting to miss them, not that she hadn't before, but it was really starting to sink in.
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Scoots got off her scooter and leaned it against the edge of the ramp of the schoolhouse, walking away a step before it started to fall over and she caught it with a hoof. Rumble peeked out of the clubhouse door, smiling when he saw her.
"Hey Rumble." Scootaloo said, putting her arms around the foal as she met him on the ramp.
"Hey Scoots." He replied, giving her a little squeeze. "You got any ideas for today, Saturday and all?"
"I dunno, are the others here yet?"
"No, I don't think so. Not unless I'm totally blind." They went inside and looked around; the treehouse seemed a little quiet and empty without the others.
"So Rumble, I'm sorry I haven't exactly been living up to all the stuff you've been doing for me... So I should at least thank you again, because it made everything better."
"It's not a big deal Scoots, it's not a contest."
"But it doesn't seem fair..."
"I don't care if it isn't. I like doing things for you. And that doesn't mean you have to pay me back." He replied with a smile, as they both became silent.
"So when do your friends get here?"
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"So bored..." Scoots said, tossing a ball against the wall for the millionth time. "How could they possibly be this late?"
"I don't-" Rumble cleared his throat. "I don't know."
"Hey Scoots!" Came Applebloom's voice from outside. "Ya in there?"
She walked to the door with Rumble, peering out at her two friends. "Yeah, why are you two so late?"
They started to ascend the ramp. "Applejack made me do some stuff, and Sweetie had the same thin' going with Rarity. We can't all be Woah!" She slipped off the ramp and fell, before one of her hind legs caught in a light blue aura and she decelerated before hitting the ground.
"Sweetie, did you just do magic?" Scoots asked, looking at her friend wide eyed.
"I did, I did!" She yelled, bouncing up and down on the board.
Crack!
Sweetie hardly had time to scream before she hit the ground with a thump next to Applebloom, who was busy rolling around laughing.
"Way to ruin the moment." Sweetie said, knocking Applebloom's head with a hoof.
"Ah think ya pretty well did that yerself, breakin' the board like that!" She cracked up into a new round of laughter, as Scootaloo frowned down at them.
"How are we going to get up here now?" Scoots asked, waving a hoof around.
"Uh..." Applebloom started, her laughing suddenly not as important as she looked up at Scootaloo. "You could pick us up?"
"I couldn't hold that much weight!" She responded loudly before Rumble tapped her on the shoulder. "But maybe we both could..." They glided down, landing next to the other two and standing around awkwardly.
"Whell..." Applebloom started, staring at the two pegasi.
"I don't know how to do this." Scoots said, as Rumble confirmed the notion with a nod. "We can't really do it, our wings would be too close together."
"Well great, so we need a new board?" Sweetie asked, pulling herself from the ground.
"I guess so." Rumble said slowly, scratching his head. "Anypony here good at carpentry?"
They all shook their heads. "Looks like an easy fix though, two inches thick two and a half feet wide composite with iron nails into plywood supports." Applebloom shrugged. "Couldn't be too hard." The other three stared, before Scoots shook herself out of her stupor.
"Alright, good. We have a game plan then." She said, smacking her hooves together. "Now where can we get something like that?"
"We can get the nails from mah barn, but we don't have any boards that size after we fixed up the barn."
"Okay, see if there's any way you can fix this, and we'll go get the nails." She said, gesturing between herself and Rumble. Sweetie nodded happily, grabbing a pebble and shakily levitating it a few feet off the ground before it fell back down.
"Hey wait, why do you have that cast, Rumble?" Sweetie asked. "Is your leg broken?"
"No, well it was... It's fine now, anyway."
"Alright, if you say so." She replied, going back to her pebble lifting.
Scoots took off first, enjoying the blast of air that came from her wings as she lifted into the sky and over the apple trees, banking for the barn as Rumble caught up. It was a short trip, and they landed quickly and received the nails, as Rumble carefully placed them in his saddlebag before trotting back towards the door. Applejack darted around the side of the door and Rumble yelled out as he jumped backwards in fear and fell onto his back.
"Ah, there ya are." She said, poking him with a hoof. "Ah took the liberty of checkin' up on you foals the other night, and ah saw that you two were sharin' a sleepin' bag. Now, ya snake..." Her expression suddenly brightened, and she started to laugh. "Oh, that was too easy!" Applejack yelled, bracing herself against the door. "Ah saw the soaked sleepin' bag anyway, no biggie. Sides, neither a you's mah kin anyway."
"Yeah, that was hilarious." Rumble said sarcastically, holding a hoof to his chest.
Applejack chuckled. "So what're ya in here for?"
"Nails." Scootaloo answered. "We need to fix the treehouse ramp."
"Ah, just holler if there's somethin' ya need help with." She said, chuckling again as she walked back to a tree she had apparently been bucking.
"God damn, that mare..." Rumble said, slowly getting to his feet.
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"So we need a board, and then we can fix this thing up." Applebloom said from the wagon as they cruised through town. "Hey, stop up here." Scoots pulled over and disembarked, pulling off her helmet and balancing it atop the handlebars. Applebloom started chatting with a pony behind a stall, and he pointed inside a nearby store.
"Ah'll be right back, just stay out here and Ah'll call ya when Ah'm ready." She said, disappearing into the building and leaving the other three outside.
"Well look who it is." Diamond Tiara said as she walked across the street with Silver Spoon.
"I guess that didn't last too long." Scoots whispered to the other Crusaders, who nodded in response.
"So, you losers still don't have your cutie marks, huh? Pity, but I guess they'll never be as awesome as mine or Silver's anyway." She noticed Rumble, and her expression soured. "This one's still with you too, huh?" She smirked. "Just another loser in the club, right?"
"He's not a loser!" Scoots yelled, taking a step forward.
"Oh, you two, huh?" Diamond looked over at Silver, before they broke into verse. "Scootaloo and Rumble, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-" Scoots grabbed Rumble around his neck and pushed his muzzle into her own, before she broke it off and smiled at the two flabbergasted foals. Even Sweetie seemed pretty surprised, and she had at least partially known. Rumble, on the other hand, just looked kinda smug, and she chuckled, nuzzling at his chin. Funny, how she didn't seem to care much about what anypony that'd happened to be looking over thought
"You and..." Diamond paused, looking again. "Him?" Her expression became less surprised, turning slightly angry.
"What, jealous?" Scootaloo asked, smirking.
"No! I wouldn't be jealous of a couple of losers like you!" Diamond took a slightly concerned look at Rumble, who didn't seem to have any regrets or surprise on his face, besides what had been there initially, and she raised her chin and walked off.
Sweetie waited for the pair to get a ways away before she squealed, putting an arm around each of them. "I didn't know you two were dating!"
"Well, as of last night, anyway." Scoots said with a grin, poking Rumble in the ribs.
"Congratulations!" Sweetie replied, hugging them tighter.
"So I got the board, and- what?"
"They're dating!" Sweetie exclaimed, looking over at Applebloom.
"Pfft, like Ah didn't see that comin' a mile away." She responded, smirking. "Now come on, we gotta get this installed!"
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"Applebloom, it's good enough!" Sweetie yelled, watching her friend pound a nail into place.
"Fine, Ah'll finish this later. Now what do you want ta do, crusadin' wise?"
"Well, it's dark out already, so I don't think we have much that we can do." Scoots said, shrugging. "But there's always tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah, Ah guess." She paused. "Hey Scoots, do you by chance know when Jason's comin' back? Ah think Ah can get another hint out of him."
"Uh, I can see if they said anything." She replied, pulling the pad of paper out of her saddlebag and frowning, before her expression worsened still. "Yeah, they're coming back today." She replied, her mouth dry and her eyes already wet. "And Jason's got the nightmare in him!" She yelled, crumpling on the ground in a fit of sobs.
"He's what?" Rumble asked, grabbing the pad of paper. "Oh my god, she's right." He said, the color draining out of his face. He knelt down and propped Scoots up, watching her continue to sob as he wiped off her eyes with a hoof. "Scoots, you can't cry now, we have to get Twilight and her friends together, otherwise what help are we going to do?"
"I don't- It's not fair, Rumble! This always happens to them, everything goes wrong!"
"So then shouldn't we even things out a little, make them go right for a change?" He pulled Scoots to her hooves and she quieted down.
"Fine." She said, wiping her nose. "I'll get Twilight and Pinkie, Rumble gets Fluttershy, Applebloom gets Applejack, and Sweetie, get uh... Rarity, okay! Meet in the town square."
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DAY SAVERS!" They yelled, although the moment was bittersweet as they all took off in seemingly random directions. They had said one to two hours, so she had time. She skipped using her scooter and simply galloped away, avoiding possible injury, she figured.
The fence passed under her hooves as she took flight, honing in on Twilight's library within a few seconds. Scoots landed just outside and started banging on the door as hard as she could, trying to get the mare to the door faster.
After ages the door finally opened to Twilight's worried face, and Scoots found that she was too out of breath to talk. She wiped away a few more tears as an afterthought and simply grabbed the pad of paper from her saddlebag, holding it up for Twilight to see. She gasped as Spike ran over with a scroll, sticking it into Twilight's face hurriedly. She read the other one and nodded; it was probably the same message from a different place.
"We need to get the rest of my friends together." Twilight said, floating over a saddlebag rather quickly.
"We're already going around, it shouldn't be long. Town square, by the way."
"I'll grab the elements, just get Pinkie!"
"Aren't they in Canterlot?"
"No, those are fake, display things is all." She gave Scoots a nudge with her magic and the foal took off, running across town. She was almost to Sugarcube corner when Pinkie came vibrating out the front. Literally vibrating around a half foot off the ground.
"My piiiiinkiiiie seeennnsee!" She yelled, her words becoming slightly jumbled before the shaking suddenly stopped and her normal manner returned. "Scootaloo, I'm so glad you're here, something terrible is-"
"Jason's possessed by the nightmare, we need to free him with the elements!"
"Oh, that makes sense." She paused, staring happily at a rock. "Wait, what?! What do you mean he's possessed?"
"Pretty much what I just said."
"Come on, we need to get going!" Pinkie yelled, throwing Scoots over her back as they suddenly arrived in the square and started the long wait for the rest of the elements.
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"Come on, take me with you!" Scoots yelled, following after Twilight. "I want to see Dash!"
"It's too dangerous, you can't come."
"But please..." She said, starting to tear up.
"Darling, she's just a kid, let her come along." She walked into the Boutique as they passed by, coming back out with a sleeping bag. "We'll just wake her when Dash arrives, and then send her on her way, alright?"
"Fine." Twilight mumbled, pushing her element further onto her head.
"Wow, I wonder what she looks like!" Scoots yelled, trying to at least act positive. It didn't seem to be helping. "Maybe she's like, a total badass now or something!"
"A what?"
"A badass. It's a better way to say awesome, but it's a noun!" Okay, enough of that. She let out a sigh as they left the paved roads, moving into a clearing.
"We'll wait here, alright everypony?" Twilight asked, watching Scoots lay out the sleeping bag. One thing she definitely didn't want to do was worry for another hour if she couldn't help it. She was too young for this kind of stress. The sleeping bag started to warm up as Twilight started a fire, and her mind surprisingly cleared. Well, mostly. All she could think of was how angry she was, at the world, at the Nightmare... And that felt good, one thing in her mind, so simple, so hostile.
Maybe it would do her good.