It was recess by the time the rest of the Crusaders could get together, Apple Bloom was the first to speak, “Hey Scoots, my sister said that I’m invited to a private get together with her and a few others for a party for you. What’s that all about? And has anyone else noticed that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon haven’t looked at each other all day and look more sadder than a dog without a bone?”
“Me and Rarity have the same invitation, What’s the special occasion Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle added.
“I don’t know if I should say anything right now. Let’s just have some fun and try getting our cutie marks. As for those two… it’s a nice change, but I still don’t know if I should feel bad or not.”
“You know that no matter what we’ll always be your friends and Crusaders stick together forever no matter what? Right?” Apple Bloom asked, placing a hoof on Scootaloo’s shoulder comfortingly.
“That’s right. Together forever.” Sweetie said placing her hoof on Scootaloo’s other shoulder.
“Thanks girls. I promise you I’ll tell you everything soon. I just hope you’re all still my friends afterwards,” She replied in a near whisper, before adding in a louder tone, “Anyways enough of this touchy feely stuff. Let’s talk about cutie marks!”
“Alright, so what do we do in these Crusader thingies anyways?” Mango Dash asked.
“Aye! I’ve been wondering about that too.” Pip piped in.
“Well, we come up with ideas that sound awesome and try them to get our cutie marks. After all if we do as much stuff as possible we should eventually get our cutie marks.” Sweetie Belle said, “Even when we don’t get them, it’s still fun.”
“Sounds like a blast.” Pip said with a squeak of excitement, to which the others, jumping ecstatically, were in agreement.
“Okay ponies! I got the perfect idea.” Scootaloo said, leaning to the group with a wide grin growing on her face.
“Now Scootaloo, this isn’t like your idea of being firework technicians and almost blowing part of Cloudsdale up is it?” Apple Bloom asked while raising eyebrow.
“One time! One time! And nopony lets you live it down,” Scootaloo said throwing her forelegs up to the air in exasperation, “But to answer your question no. I got something even better planned.”
Mango Dash held a hoof up in the air, getting the attention of the other Crusaders, “Wait… you mean the one who almost caused the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation to catch on fire?”
“It wasn’t that bad, and Rarity paid off the damages.” Sweetie Belle replied.
“What about their mayor’s fear of loud noises?”
“Well the point is nopony got injured and we apologized.”
Shrugging, Scootaloo got things back on track, “Okay, ignoring accidental, slight damage to property, and some ponies overreacting to an awesome firework display for free. I was thinking of doubling up. We can try pony catapult and hang gliding. It’d be so awesome.”
“While that sounds fun, how do you land a hang glider?” Dinky asked.
“Easy, you simply aim it at a tree. It’ll help you land,” Apple Bloom stated, “Well at least how we’ve managed to land. The last few times we’ve tried it.”
Sweetie gave Scootaloo a quick hug, “Good idea Scootaloo. Now we just need to get some stuff to build everything. We can try getting our Cutie Marks in engineering again.”
Scootaloo gave Sweetie Belle a playful punch in the foreleg, “Good thinking Sweets. That’s three attempts at once.”
Hitting their hooves together the Crusaders yelled in unison, “Cutie Mark Crusader Catapult Hang Gliders! Yay!”
While Scootaloo and the Crusaders were at school, Raindrops was doing her side job over with the Weather Team. They had a partly cloudy day scheduled with a shifting cloud schedule that would move a series of clouds throughout Ponyville from eight in the morning till around three in the afternoon. She was paired with Cloud Kicker today and the timing couldn’t be better.
“Hey Cloud Kicker, about the date.” Raindrops said shifting on the cloud a little bit.
“Yes?”
“I can’t go today, I have a pony I’m looking after. But if it’s alright, how about this coming Wednesday? I got a foalsitter to look after her from six to ten. If that’s alright with you?” Raindrops asked nervously.
“Perfect!” Cloud Kicker’s voice went up several octaves, noticing that she coughed and in a regular pitch said, “That sounds fine. So how’ve you been?”
“Actually pretty good. This filly I’m looking after is really one of a kind, in a good way. That and with Ditzy better, she finally get out of quarantine and can see her fillies,” Raindrops said with a smile, “What about you? We haven’t talked in so long, I kind of miss our Girl’s Nights out.”
“Well things were going well with me and Berry Punch for a while, but we broke up, it was a mutual thing. She met this other mare, Carrot Top, and they hit it off. So that’s good I guess. Alula is visiting again from Canterlot and I’ve been showing her the sites. I’m just lucky that her accidental shifts don’t gather than much attention here. Especially after we had to take her out of Celestia’s school when ponies were noticing that she never aged. That was a mess to explain.
But enough about me. How’s life been going for you since you’ve moved to Ponyville?”
“It’s been amazing. Thank you so much for talking me into moving here.”
“Anything for a friend.” Cloud Kicker said while scratching the back of her head with her left foreleg.
“Oh! And is this a date, date? Or an as friends date?” Raindrops asked.
“Date, date.” Cloud Kicker said in a way that was more of a question than a statement which totally flew over Raindrops head.
“That sounds like it’ll be fun. So you’ll pick me up at six?”
“At six.”
They settled into a comfortable silence as the flew side by side. Each reminiscing about a past shared, and imagining the fun that was coming in their upcoming date. Especially excited was Raindrops who had never had time for romance with her work, and the fact that nopony ever asked her out before meant that if she wanted to make the best first impression and get some good advice she’d need to drop by Rarity’s Boutique.. With the dress that she made Ditzy Doo a few months back for her date with Holly Dash, Raindrops knew that if she wanted to make a good first impression it was going to be through Rarity.
~Later that day~
Five fillies and one colt sat before their catapults. Each of the Crusaders got into their respective hang gliders and tried to get their ropes properly positioned to get them airborne. Pip looked nervously at the contraption that Apple Bloom helped him construct, “Oi! Apple Bloom, are you sure this is safe?”
“Of course. We did this plenty of times. The first time for our cutie marks, now we just do this every now and then for the fun of it. But now that I know that you can get multiple cutie marks, I gotta collect them all. Now what y’all are going to want to do is sit with the gliders facing forward, pull on your ropes and hang on to y’alls gliders for dear life.”
“I don’t know,” Pip whispered to himself, but Apple Bloom picked up on it.
“Trust me, I’d never let anypony do something if it was too dangerous. That plus if you get in trouble I’ll be right there to help you. Alright?” She said with a smile.
“Well okay. I trust you.” Pip said with a much weaker smile.
“Alright everypony! Let’s get this party started!” Scoots yelled at the top of her lungs giving her rope a pull followed shortly by the others.
Click, Click, Click, THWOOMP!
Six foals were launched from their respective catapults, shooting the living missiles skywards. Their screams of elation flowed to echoing laughter heard through the park drew more than a few pairs of eyes as they reached the apex of their climb. Pip and Dinky, being new to being above ground, flew in a haphazard and shaky matter as they finally looked down and tried overcompensating to keep still.
Mango flapped her wings moving herself in between them, “Hey short stuff! Don’t try overthinking it. Just point the tip where you want to go and enjoy the ride.”
The rest of the ride was relaxing with a great deal of fun, as the those who had more experience helped the other Crusaders with their first time as they flew in a lazy path around the park. Eventually Pipsqueak spoke up, “Oi! I don’t want to crash into a tree. I’m going to just drop into the lake … I think.” He said, looking at the lake a ways off and how far down it was.
“Sounds like fun, and I doubt that there is tree sap in a lake. Come on girls lets dive!” Scootaloo yelled as they got close enough for them to dive. Soon each of them were speeding to the center of the lake, screaming and laughing as the plummeted. When they hit, the resulting splash caused a colossal, explosive fountain of water to spray and soak those who stood to watch the show, a miniature rainbow forming in the falling water over the lake and surrounding area.
As the Crusaders got out of the lake they were met with a loud cheer from the impromptu audience that their earlier shouts had attracted. Looking at the each other's flank they noticed they were still bare, there collected disappointment let loose as they simultaneously let out a depressed, “Awwwwww!” before bowing to the cheering crowd. Whether it was from not causing collateral damage or from the sheer awesomeness of their little stunt they didn’t know.
“Hey Crusaders, gather round. I’ll get us dry lickety split.” Mango said, when they gathered in front of her she stood on her hind legs. With a hop and a rapid flapping of her right wing did a spinning jump kick. The wind was powerful enough to pull the water off her friends and draw it to her stomach, and with a quick reversal kicked the watery orb back into the lake, “Hurricane Kick Blow Dry! I love that move.” She said with pride.
“Well that was fun, but at least we can take off Pony Catapults, Hang Gliding, Engineering, and Water Diving off the list.” Sweetie said sadly.
“But at least it was fun.” Pip chirped.
“Yeah, it didn’t matter that it was a bust, I still enjoyed having fun with everypony.” Dinky said as she strode over to Mango, “Me and Mango have a bit longer before our moms need us back home.”
“Alright then, let’s get some icecream real quick.” Sweetie said.
After they all packed themselves into the cart, Scootaloo drove them to the local ice cream bar. The buzzing of Scootaloo’s wings acted like a horn, warning to other ponies as she blasted through the street, arriving in almost no time to the establishment.
“Well everypony, what should we try for our next cutie marks?” Apple Bloom asked over a bowl of Pistachio Mango ice cream with fudge ripples.
“I think we should get it in potion making, or making muffins?” Dinky suggested.
“Sure! We can do both of them, first we can make potions, and then use the potions for the special ingredients in the muffins! Nothing can go wrong, all we need to do is make sure we don’t use anything dangerous!” Apple Bloom cheerfully replied.
“But aren’t we banned from Zecora’s hut when she’s not around since that time we accidentally made a potion that summoned giant mutant caterpillars into her home?” Scoots asked, memories of the pony sized, many mouthed creatures causing her to shudder. Looking at her friends stares, “Hey, if Dashie can summon elder gods and alter reality from her cooking, what do you think her student is going to do when brewing potions?” She asked rhetorically.
“Well if we get our own stuff we won’t have to worry about that.” Apple Bloom replied with a grin.
Hitting the hooves together the Cutie Mark Crusaders let loose a window shaking yell, “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER MAGICAL MUFFIN MAKERS YAY!”