“Just bowl it already, AB! You’ve been lining up that shot for, like, an hour!” Scootaloo fell back into her seat, letting out an annoyed sigh. She waved her hoof at Apple Bloom, who was busy whispering to the bowling ball on the ground, looking over at Sweetie Belle. “I told you we shouldn’t have brought her. She’s so slow.”
Sweetie Belle scribbled something down on the paper in front of her, then turned to Scootaloo. “Look, the way I see it, this is just a good chance to take a break and relax a bit.” She kicked her hooves up and placed them on the table that was between her and Scootaloo. “I mean, after the whole ‘Scootaloo clone’ fiasco, things got a little crazy, what with banishing her to the Everfree Forest and all that. It’s nice to just throw some balls at junk every so often.”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “I guess you’re right. Although—” she chuckled “—it almost sounds like you’re setting up some kinda… whaddaya call it? Foreshadowing! That’s it. Sounds like you’re, like, foreshadowing this clone coming back at some point.”
“Look, if I could predict the future, I wouldn’t be wasting my talents on boring stuff like that,” said Sweetie Belle, giving Scootaloo an eyebrow raise that could’ve rivaled Applejack.
Scootaloo grinned. “That would be pretty dumb, huh? So what do your powers tell you about Apple Bloom? She gonna bowl anytime soon?”
Bringing her hooves up to her forehead, Sweetie Belle massaged her temples. “I’m getting something,” she said, rubbing them harder. “It looks like… like she’s going to bowl… now!”
A loud crashing sound resounded in the bowling alley, and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked up excitedly. But, unfortunately for them, Apple Bloom was still hunched over, rubbing her ball and whispering into its holes. However, in the lane next to them, a bearded stallion was high-fiving his friends over the strike he’d just scored. Scootaloo frowned.
“Man, why can’t we have awesome friends like that?” she asked, pointing at the group next to them.
“Who says you can’t?” asked Sweetie, her eyebrow raised. “Go talk to them if they’re so awesome.” Sweetie Belle turned to Apple Bloom, cupping her hooves around her mouth. “I believe in you, Apple Bloom. Let’s see that strike!”
Without looking up, Apple Bloom waved her hoof, saying, “Hush! I’m concentratin’ here. I gotta make sure the ball knows I want a strike before I kick it.”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, and Scootaloo, meanwhile, made her way over the stallions gathered around the ball return next to her. As she came up behind the one wearing amber sunglasses, she cleared her throat. All three turned around and looked at her with mixed looks of confusion and amusement. Scootaloo held out her hoof. “Hey, I’m Scootaloo. Sup?”
The stallions looked at each other, then laughed. One of them, wearing a loose-fitting shirt and with a wavy mane, eventually stuck out his hoof and rustled Scootaloo’s mane, ignoring her hoof in the process. “Sup, little pony. They call me Bowlski. L. Bowlski, but you can just call me… the Dude.”
“All right, dude,” said Scootaloo, pushing his hoof away, “what’s your deal? How are you so good at bowling?”
The Dude got a far off look in his eye, and when he eventually returned to Equestria, he said, “That’s, like, your opinion, man.”
Scootaloo pursed her lips. “But you just got a strike.”
“That’s, like, your opinion, man.”
Scootaloo pursed her lips even more. “I’m not a man.”
“That’s, like, your opinion, man.”
Scootaloo’s lips pursed so far that they actually unpursed and just returned to normal, then she narrowed her eyes. “Are you stupid or something?”
“That’s, like—”
Scootaloo held up her hoof. “Yeah, no, I got that part. Sheesh,” she mumbled under her breath. “Even Apple Bloom isn’t this dumb.” Letting out a sigh, Scootaloo said, “Welp, now I remember why I only have two friends. I’m going back now. See you later, dude.”
“Whatever you say, little orange bowling ball,” said the Dude as Scootaloo started to walk away. “Whoa, wait, I gotta bowl again, man. Where’re you going?”
Before Scootaloo could even so much as utter a “Huh?”, the Dude had scooped her up and was carrying her over to his lane. He dropped her on the polished floor, and before she had time to utter a second “Huh?”, he turned around and kicked her down the lane and into the waiting pins. The last thing Scootaloo saw before her world turned black was the whiteness of the pins that were about to be embedded in her face.
“Dude,” said the stallion next to the Dude, the one without a beard, “you just bowled that filly into the pins.”
The Dude blinked a few times. “What?”
“That wasn’t a bowling ball, dude,” said the stallion with the sunglasses. “That was a filly.”
The Dude blinked a few more times. “What?”
“I think you just killed her, dude,” said the beardless stallion.
“Oh, man… I’m really high right now.”
Sweetie Belle, who had been listening in on their conversation from the lane one over to the left, shook her head, muttering to herself, “This is why you stick with the same boring friends, Scootaloo. Everytime you try to meet someone new, they always end up using you like a bowling ball.”