//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Scootaloo's Secret // by FightingOreo //------------------------------// Diamond Tiara didn’t wake up the next morning. As she thought about this, her immensely tired and sluggish brain stumbled upon a conclusion anyway. She had never got to sleep. After showering and brushing her teeth, she went over to the phone and started punching in those familiar numbers... 7283 54... oh. She wasn’t friends with Silver Spoon anymore was she? At the realisation that it was the weekend, she went back up to bed, and lay there for another 3 hours. Silver Spoon did wake the next morning, in fact, she awoke with quite a start. “AARRRGGGHHH!” “Where am I?” she screamed, loud enough that on the other side of the orchard, the apples fell before anyone even bucked them. Needless to say, Applejack spent half a day investigating this strange phenomenon. “Ya’ll are in the...the CMC clubhouse”, a yawning Apple Bloom responded. “We’ve got a whole day to do some more crusading!” A far more energetic and excited Sweetie Belle bounced. “But... you’ve already got your cutie mark...” she continued on,thoughtfully. “Does that mean... I can’t be part of your club?” Silver Spoon’s face fell. Apple Bloom gasped. “NONSENSE! That’s no reason to stop you joining our club!” Silver Spoon’s ears perked up, followed by her face lifting, and showing the biggest grin the cutie mark crusaders had ever seen. After careful deliberation, It was revealed that the cutie mark crusaders were not destined to have smiling cutie marks. Somewhere else in town, a small orange filly stared at herself in the mirror. “No...” she spoke aloud to herself. “They’re not that big... are they?” Her large eyes blinked. Did Apple Bloom’s eyes seem that big? As she thought about the difference between her and Apple Bloom’s eyes, her racing and well-rested mind came to a relevant conclusion almost instantly... she was hungry. After skidding to a halt in the kitchen (something quite impressive if you live in a cloud house), she lifted up the box of cereal to her wide-open mouth, before dejectedly putting it down on the bench. With sheer force of will, she retrieved a bowl, and slowly, determinedly poured the cereal into it. As it clattered around the ceramic, a hoof reached out and touched her shoulder, and she stopped. Looking up at her dad, he smiled, and took away the bowl, before passing her the box of cereal. Diamond Tiara wandered the streets of Ponyville. She felt tired, she felt lost without her one companion, and most of all, she felt lonely. Every time she would notice something interesting, she would reach out to alert her friend. When her hoof met nothing but air, the wave of disappointment was crushing. “HEY! Pipsqueak!” she called, in one last desperate attempt. “Yeah?” he responded, wondering why on Equestria Diamond Tiara was talking to him. “Do you want to hang out with me? Just, as friends...” This was it. Did she have other friends? “Umm... sorry! I’ve got plans...” “Doing what?” Diamond Tiara sneered, her cynical side taking over. “Umm... I’m going to... the train... expedition... tomorrow...” As Pipsqueak realised his error, he turned and bolted. Diamond Tiara started after him, then gave up and cried. Scootaloo wandered into the cutie mark crusader clubhouse, being greeted by two angry stares, and one shy filly hiding in the back. “Where the tartarus have ya’ll been, Scoots? We’ve been worried!” Apple Bloom pounced first. “Yeah!” Sweetie Belle squeaked. “I’ve been wondering where-“ Scootaloo gave a small smile, beckoning another pony into the sacred building. Flying Breeze cautiously trotted in, crouching to ensure he didn’t hit his head against the door frame. “Hello.” He spoke, rather quietly. “I’m Scootaloo’s dad.” Apple Bloom looked warily at him, before approaching for a hoof shake. Sweetie Belle took a different approach. “HELLO!” She bounced up and down erratically, and launched herself at Scootaloo’s overwhelmed father. He toppled backwards as a pink and white ball of pain whirled itself towards his face. 3 minutes later, and they were sitting in a circle around the clubhouse, Flying Breeze with a small bandage around his muzzle. With 4 fillies and 1 adult stallion in a room built to fit three fillies, they were beginning to feel quite cramped. They began to feel even more cramped when a panting Pipsqueak rushed into the room. “Pipsqueak?!” the four fillies exclaimed, before Sweetie Belle finished her sentence. “We haven’t seen you since Nightmare Night! We thought Princess Luna had taken you as her apprentice or something!” Pip held back a chuckle, before the panicked expression returned to his face. “It’s Diamond Tiara!” he held a hoof up to Sweetie Belle, right after she had opened her mouth, which led to an awkward 30 seconds of fumbling. “She said something about finding Silver Spoon and being her friend again!” Silver Spoon gasped. “No... No she can’t!” Silver Spoon stopped speaking coherently, at that point, until Scootaloo put her arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay SS! We’re your friends, remember?” Scootaloo coaxed her into relaxing. “It’s just, she was always so mean to everyone, and she forced me to be mean as well! If I didn’t like it, she would be really mean to me and blackmail me into going along with it!” Silver Spoon seemed on the verge of tears as she recounted her tale, and Pipsqueak kept a slightly paranoid watch out the window for their shared tormentor. It was exactly 5 minutes and 52 seconds until Pipsqueak noticed Diamond Tiara walking purposefully up the path, towards the clubhouse, now dangerously overfilled. “SILVER SPOON!” Diamond Tiara shouted, “GET DOWN HERE!”. Silver Spoon gulped, and turned to the rest. “Goodbye...then...sorry about the whole bullying thing...” a tear gently rolled down her cheek, and dropped to the floor, making a small ‘plip’ sound. As the newest honorary crusader left the clubhouse, so did Scootaloo. “HEY!” She called down to Diamond Tiara, “LEAVE MY FRIEND ALONE!” The spoilt pink filly looked up at Scootaloo. “What are you going to do about it, you diseased freak!” “She ain’t a freak, you stuck-up... stuck-up...” Apple Bloom stuttered. “Sweetie Belle, what’s the word I’m looking for?” “ARROGANT SPOILT VERUCA!” Sweetie Belle called down. As Scootaloo gave a small smile, she walked down the ramp to Diamond Tiara. “I’m not diseased. I’m different. If you’re too ignorant to understand that, then I pity you.” Silence fell upon the group, as all were enraptured by Scootaloo’s speech. The brave orange filly with the large eyes began walking toward a trembling Diamond Tiara. “Also, it’s bad enough that you pick on other ponies, but to pick on your OWN FRIENDS?! That’s wrong, Diamond Tiara, and nopony is going to tolerate it anymore.” Scootaloo raised her voice on friends, only to lower it back to a calm, intimidating level on wrong. At this point, Diamond Tiara began walking slowly backwards, only to be matched by Scootaloo, keeping pace while staring directly into her eyes. “Silver Spoon is our friend now, not yours. If you think you can bully her into being your friend again, you’re mistaken. Friends look after each other Diamond Tiara, and the cutie mark crusaders are going to look after our FRIEND!” With this final word, Diamond Tiara turned and fled, while Scootaloo turned to her friends, and a proud smiling father. “Thanks Scootaloo.” Silver Spoon finally spoke. “That was really nice of you.” She blushed, the red complimenting her silver cheeks nicely. “No probs.” Scootaloo grinned, before a worried frown took over her face. “You don’t think I’m wrong do you?” Silver Spoon thought for a moment. “Scootaloo, you’re my friend. And right now, that feels like the rightest thing in the world.” Scootaloo smiled. She beckoned her other friends closer. “So... guys... want to go persuading?” Sweetie Belle’s natural talent with the English language kicked in. “Crusading, Scoots. We go crusading.” 3 metres behind them, Flying Breeze chuckled as he watched the four fillies race off down the path. As he stood there, a tear of happiness fell down his cheek as a thought came into his head. Scootaloo’s secret, was not a secret anymore. The End