The Wonder Years
Chapter 2: Cadet Scootaloo Reporting For Duty Part One
Manehattan
45 Bridleway, Apartment #121 aka Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse MK. II
Scootaloo tossed her saddlebags onto the secondhand couch, one of the few pieces of furniture in the run-down, one-bedroom apartment.
Letting out a tired yawn, she flexed and rotated her stiff joints, loosening her tight wings in a flutter. Another day at Speedy Wing Couriers was complete, but left her wings feeling like lead weights.
Much like the rest of her, the young flyer’s wings had grown large to match her body. No longer a little chicken, Scootaloo had sprouted up to become the tallest Crusader. Applebloom had switched to affectionately calling her a ‘giraffe’ on account of how long in the neck she’d gotten.
Throwing aside the soiled grey uniform, Scootaloo couldn’t wait to jump in the shower and rinse off the layers of sweat and grime she’d picked up from flying from one end of the industrial city to the other. Even the lighting bolt crossed tire that made up her cutie mark looked like it had been driven through the mud.
Not the first time it had been soiled. She’d earned, what she termed ‘the most radical cutie mark since Rainbow Dash’s’ during a part time stint at Ponyville’s postal office one summer.
A bad strain of the feather flu had knocked out half the delivery ponies. Everypony else saw it as bad luck. Scootaloo saw it as a challenge. The speedster had hitched a wagon loaded with half the day’s mail to her trusty scooter and burnt a trail clear across town. In a thunderstorm. Every piece delivered to the correct address. All in under an hour.
She’d been fired immediately for misappropriating equipment without consent, but who cared? Cutie mark earned, and it was ever so sweet.
Made sense she’d fall into a similar job in Manehattan. It was a cruddy job in many respects: the hours were long and her bosses were jerks, but as one of the quicker couriers in the company—the fastest in her opinion—she got some of the most lucrative assignments, so the money was great.
Or great for Ponyville, at least. Scootaloo sniffed, looking at the bits of paint peeling off the walls as she walked across the worn carpet. She winced as her hoof touched a stiff dried-on stain, not even wanting to guess what it had been.
It took all three Crusaders working to afford living in Manehattan. She loved the girls, and had fond memories of sleepovers when they were fillies, but three adult mares sharing one princess-size mattress got real old, real fast.
After a long luxurious shower, Scootaloo raided the kitchen. Following a nutritious snack of sliced apples covered in peanut butter, washed down by a protein shake, Scootaloo crashed onto the couch with a loud belch. Her eyes wandered over nothing in particular. She felt like vegetating.
This being a weekday, Sweetie Belle would be back from her shift at the jazz club soon enough and she could hear Applebloom’s snores coming from the bedroom. She was probably exhausted after a full day of classes at the Manehattan School for Architecture, plus a shift at the construction site.
The earth pony’s drive always amazed Scootaloo. She didn’t think she could manage studying and working at the same time. Of the three Crusaders, Apple Bloom turned out to be only one destined for higher education. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had followed their fellow crusader to Manehatten for their own reasons; Sweetie Belle to start her singing career.
If she was honest with herself, Scootaloo had only come along to not be left behind. She felt a little jealous of her friends. They at least pursued real careers, while she was stuck in a dead end job.
With nothing better to do, Scootaloo took to sorting the day’s mail. Electric bill, water bill... To her frustration the water bill had gone up.
Again.
Feathering utilities. What a bunch of robbers. This was the third rate increase this year.
The girls would have to switch to shorter showers if they wanted to stay in budget. Just great. One of the few luxuries Scootaloo actually enjoyed, gone. There was nothing like a nice hot shower to relax tight muscles after a long day. Sweetie, especially, was going to just ‘love’ the news she couldn’t take bubble baths anymore.
Oh well, back to the mail. ‘You may have already won a million bits’, Musicians Monthly for Sweetie, a letter from the Wonderbolts, another bill…
Eyes widening, in her scramble, Scootaloo scattered the other suddenly inconsequential pieces of mail to the four corners of the room. Her hooves shook as she beheld envelope. Stamped with the Wonderbolts’ insignia, in her mind at least, it contained the single most important, life-changing piece of paper she’d ever received.
“Hey, Scoots! What you got there?”
Startled, the young pegasus squeaked in surprise. The letter was thrown into the air to be caught in a green aura. Scootaloo hadn’t even heard Sweetie Belle enter.
“Geez, Sweetie! You scared the horsefeathers outta me,” heaved Scootaloo.
Sweetie Belle giggled. “Sorry, but you were kinda zoned out. What’s got you so distracted? Usually you come home and pass out on the couch.” Scootaloo pointed to the letter by way of answering. The unicorn’s eyes grew large when she got a closer look. “The Wonderbolts?” It came out as a whisper then grew into a cry. “The Wonderbolts, Scoots!” She wrapped her friend in a hug, hopping up and down in joy. “You made it into the Wonderbolts!”
A raised orange hoof halted her celebration. “That’s a ways off, Sweetie. The letter’s just from the academy. I haven’t even opened it yet.”
“Well what are you waiting for?” Sweetie asked in growing impatience. The pegasus rolled her eyes. Sweetie acted like her future hung in the balance.
“Well somepony interrupted me.”
“Open it then.”
Scootaloo held a hoof up for patience. “I want to open it carefully. Savor the moment, you know? I don’t want any rips on the envelope when I get it framed.”
“Hmm… Nah.” Before her friend could react, Sweetie ripped open the envelope with her magic. “Let’s see here.” She kept the angry pegasus at bay with a light repulsion spell while reading aloud.
“Dear Scootaloo: Thank you for your application to Wonderbolt Academy. Blah, blah… the application process is rigorous… Wow, they sure like to draw things out.” She skipped to the important part. “Here we go.” She cleared her throat and continued, “We are happy to inform you that we are prepared to accept you—”
Scootaloo jumped into the air and freaked out, screaming,“Yes! Yes!” pumping her hooves while spinning wildly around the room. She was in! She was bucking in. A lifetime of work paying—
“—as our new waterpony.”
Scootaloo blinked. “Wait, what?” Her mind froze, and lost any remaining control over her wings, sending her crashing to the floor in a confused pile. Peals of laughter burst from Sweetie Belle as she hopped away. “No way it says that! Gimme!”
Holding the letter just out of reach with her magic, A giggling Sweetie Belle led the wannabe Wonderbolt on a merry chase around the living room. Scootaloo growled with every missed pounced, the unicorn weaving the piece paper erratically as she ran. Finally. Sweetie made the mistake of trying to leap over the couch, on which Scootaloo had been heaped only moments before. Her hind leg caught on the backrest, earning her a face-full of cushions.
Not missing the opportunity, Scootaloo dived bombed her prone friend and flipped her over. “Revenge!” she shouted, then commenced the tickle torture, rubbing her feathers up and down the white unicorn’s now vulnerable cutie marks. She gave Sweetie’s music-note-embossed hearts no mercy, the tickling making her victim squeal. “Say uncle.”
“Uncle! Uncle!” Sweetie cried, causing her torturer to roll off. “No fair, using your wings, you featherhead. I almost peed myself,” she panted out, catching her breath as Scootaloo retrieved the discarded letter.
“Well, that’s what you get for messing with the fastest pegasus in Manehattan,” Scootaloo bragged, puffing up her chest.
“Maybe the biggest ego in Manhattan,” said Sweetie Belle, earning a playful punch. “Ow, not so hard.” She rubbed her shoulder with a pout only for Scootaloo to shake her head.
“That wasn’t hard. You need to start working out more,” she said, giving Sweetie’s soft flank a poke. “Got to get some muscles on you like me,” she added, flexing the muscles around her open wings for emphasis.
The petite unicorn turned up her nose and affected a prim and prissy huff which would’ve made her sister proud. “I’m a singer. As such, I need to stay slim, soft, and sexy.” She got up to give a twirl and finished with a sultry wink. Scootaloo giggled as Sweetie Belle spoke, sounding more and more like her prim elder sister. “I’ll leave the muscles to uncouth ruffians such as yourself, if you please. Now fetch me some refreshment, waterpony. I am positively parched.”
“Oh, ha ha.” Scootaloo flapped to the kitchenette, returning with a full glass which became enveloped in Sweetie’s green aura. “Okay, so you had me going for, like, a second,” she admitted as Sweetie sipped.
“Yeah, well, I needed to pay you back for dumping rainbow dye in my shampoo last month.” Sweetie gave her pink and purple toned mane a loving toss. “Nopony messes with my hair and gets away with it.”
“I told you it was an accident. I wanted to try the rainbow look. I just got the bottles mixed up, is all.”
The unicorn raised a well-groomed eyebrow. “And the glue on the toilet?”
“That was me trying to fix the crack in the seat,” Scootaloo admitted sheepishly while scratching the back of her neck. “But I swear, if I’d known we’d end up having to shave your butt, I would have waited for Apple Bloom to fix it.”
“What’s all the ruckus?”
Stopping their argument for a minute, the pair watched Apple Bloom stumble into the living room. Still dressed in her apple-dotted pajamas, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes before letting out a wide-mouthed yawn. “Some of us are tryin’ ta sleep, ya know.”
There would be no more sleep, however; Sweetie emitting a high pitched squeal put paid to the notion of going back to bed.
The others protected their ears, lest they go deaf. They’d seen the amateur singer shatter crystal champagne flutes once, such was her pitch. Needless to say, her elder sister had been less than thrilled by the loss of her very expensive glassware. Words had been exchanged, some of the sort normally found on the back of dumpsters. Words the Crusaders never expected to spew forth from the mouth of a prim and proper lady such as Rarity.
“Lan’ sakes! What’s got Sweetie more excited than jackrabbit on a—”
“Oh nothing,” interrupted Scootaloo, cutting off another Apple family countryism before it got rolling. She buffed a hoof against her chest. “Just got accepted into Wonderbolt Academy. No biggie.”
She was instantly tackled to the ground. The orange pegasus gasped for air as the much stronger earth pony wrapped her hooves around her midsection in a crushing hug. It got worse when Sweetie Belle jumped onto the pony pile.
“Girls, can’t breathe.”
“Oops, sorry there. Sometimes Ah forget mah own strength.”
“Yeah, sorry. Anyway, we just have to celebrate!” Sweetie Belle cheered. “Let’s go to the new wine bar that opened across town.”
“Nah, this ain’t time for yer frou-frou wines and the like.“ Apple Bloom waved her off. “This calls for real drinkin’. Ah got just the thing.” Apple Bloom soon returned from the bedroom with a box of bottles. Scootaloo’s eyes brightened on sight of the label.
“Is this Sweet Apple Acres hard cider?” Sweetie Belle asked, cradling a bottle like it contained the rarest ambrosia.
The earth pony nodded. “Eeyup. Mah sister’s own special recipe. Ah’ve been savin’ it for a special occasion. Ah’d say y’all joinin’ the Wonderbolts sure ‘nuff qualifies.”
“Well, I’m not a Wonderbolt yet,” Scootaloo said with hint of modesty. She used a wing to twist open the cap of the bottle offered to her by Apple Bloom before taking a draft, while Sweetie used magic to open hers, and the earth pony only needed the strength of her bare hoof.
“Phff… Like ya won’t make it. That’s silly talk. Didn’t ya hear? Rainbow Dash is in charge now. No way ya can fail with her there.”
“I wouldn’t count on Dash giving me any special treatment, guys. Remember when she taught me to fly that one summer?”
Just recalling ‘Coach Dash’ made Scootaloo’s wings shudder. During training, Dash had been like a whole other pony. Gone was her supportive honorary sister. In her stead, a loud, foul mouthed monster demanding one more wingup, one more lap around the park, always one more of everything.
“She was brutal. Muscles I didn’t even know I had still get sore just thinking about it.”
“She warned ya ‘fore ya started. She wasn’t gonna let ya quit.”
“I don’t know,” said Sweetie Belle, taking another sip of cider. “Sometimes I thought Rainbow’s training methods were a bit unorthodox. Didn’t she chase you around a track with poo on a stick one time?”
Scootaloo shivered at the memory. “Yeah that was...” she reclined on the couch, “pretty gross. One morning she ordered me to do one hundred jumping jacks under two minutes. If I failed she said she was gonna shave my mane, and if I gave up I’d lose my tail too. I thought she was joking till she showed me the clippers. I never thought I’d ever hate Rainbow Dash.”
“Can’t argue with the results,” said Apple Bloom. “She got ya in the air just like she promised.”
“Yeah, and she treated you to ice cream every Friday.” The unicorn popped open another bottle and lay on her stomach. Scootaloo rolled over to face her friends.
“That was the weird part. It was like...” she searched for the correct word, “...like there were two Rainbows and they didn’t know each other. When we weren’t training, she acted like she wasn’t putting me through Tartarus. Never talked about it. Just did sister stuff.”
“I wouldn’t count out special treatment just yet, guys,” Sweetie chimed in, holding up the letter. “Looks like Dash left a note for you, Scoots.”
Dear Scootaloo
Hey Squirt,Bet you’re super stoked right now. Wish I could have been there, just to see your face when you read the letter. I remember when I got mine. I tried to play it all cool, you know, for the girls and stuff. I got a reputation to maintain.
Between you and me, (and probably Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Hi girls!) I was flipping out. At least you’re getting one week’s notice (I’m crossing my hooves the postal service delivers this on time). Me, I got a whole twenty-four hours. Good thing Cloudsdale is only a short flight from Ponyville.
Anyway, I know you and the girls will want to celebrate so I’ll wrap this up. I can’t wait to see your smooth moves, kid. I’m not going to lie, this is going to be the toughest challenge of your life, but I know you’ve got the right stuff.
You learnt under the wing of the Best Flyer in Equestria, after all.
Can’t wait to see you try to break my academy records.
Can’t wait to watch you break my academy records.Anyway, got other letters to send out so I’ll wrap this up.
Drink a cider for me.
Yours truly,Love
Meh, screw it
Love (Show this to no one on pain of plucking)Captain
Your Honorary Big Sis Rainbow Dash
Putting down the letter, Scootaloo knew that for the next few days sleep would be near impossible. Wonderbolt Academy was going to be the most exciting experience of her life. Ever.