//------------------------------// // 2.1 // Story: How Hard Could it Be? // by Richardson //------------------------------// 2.1 The dirt roads outside of Ponyville were normally quite peaceful, perfect avenues for self-introspecting walks. For others, the broad paths and properly graded slopes made it easy to transport goods to and fro from the farms that surrounded the still relatively sleepy hamlet. But for a certain trio... "My wings burn with an Awesome Power! It tells me to be the coolest pony ever! Shining Scootaloo AIR SURF!" Miniscule orange wings flapped hard enough to be easily mistaken for a pair of industrial fans as their owner aimed for the center of the road and the perfect launch point there. Newly improved wheels slid frictionlessly around four axels as the new Cutie Cart 2.Awesome speed up even faster for Scootaloo. Roaring up the hill at speeds better reserved for Rainbow Dash, the wagon launched into the air like a cutie mark escaping the crusaders. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle clung to each other in terror as Scootaloo fought to keep the wagon airborn. Even with the seatbelts that they had wrapped around themselves like the bandages of a mummy, the odd sense of being semi-weightless still scared off their non-existent marks off of them. "Scootaloo, stop it! Ah'm gonna be sick!" Applebloom wailed as began to float in her seat as they slowly descended towards the dirt distressingly far below. Scootaloo didn't pay any attention as she gritted her teeth against the ache of buzzing her wings hard enough to make them look like a continuous orange blur. She couldn't let up her focus as she felt her pegasus magic kicking in as it so rarely did. Manic glee slowly stretched her smile into a challenging rictus grin of defiance against gravity as she felt the air currents bending to her will, bouying her from below as she focused, focused.... "Scootaloo! Watch out for that hill!" Sweetie yelped, snapping Scootaloo out of her trance just in time to pull up for the terrain looming before them. The old cutie wagon, that old rickety scooter and cart-trailer would have just folded up on them instead of swinging smoothly like the new one-piece did for Scootaloo as the ground rushed up beneath them. Rubber treaded wheels impacted against dirt road, flexing and bending beneath three fillies. Magically enchanted suspension springs drew from the frantic occupants magic to dampen their motion without hazardous g-forces, dispersing energy as a harmless light show of magic sparks from the sides. Two fillies squealed in terror as the third shouted with insuppressible excitement as the wagon fully set down and sped off under Scootaloo's power. She cheered as she angled the wagon for the next hill and sped up to jump them into the air once more. "This is TOTALLY AWESOME!" "This totally calls for an adult, Scootaloo!" Sweetie retorted. Purple flashed, and a particularly unkempt and wildly disheveled lavender alicorn popped into the airspace above them. "Hiiii, girls!" Twilight's smile was hard-pressed and tight as her pinprick focused eyes fixated on the new wagon and the three fillies within. All three screamed in horror. "Not that kind of adult!" Applebloom yelped as the Cutie Cart crashed back down to the dirt road as the sudden change distracted Scootaloo. Twilight swooped in and landed in the front half of the spacious new semi-enclosed wagon bed with a hard-earned ease. Panting, she tried to calm herself down from the twitchy state she was in. The crusaders in the back edged as way as she forced herself through breathing exercise after breathing exercise in order to forcibly control her emotional state and outward appearance. Wind rolled in around her from Scootaloo's dusty backwash, blowing her mane into a whipping cloud of hair. She opened her eyes again, revealing her pupils slowly returning to a more relaxed state as she clamped down on the endless worries running through her mind. "No, girls. No I am not alright." "We kinda guessed that." Sweetie said as she reached into the underseat compartment beneath Applebloom and handed Twilight an adult-sized unicorn helmet. The tune of courage she hummed to herself as she did seemed to relax everypony once more and let them focus, even as Twilight seemed to weird out again. "So, uh... ya' got yerself a reason fer scaring the apple dumplings out of us again looking like that, Miss Twilight?" "Oh! I found a tutor for the three of you!" Twilight proclaimed unnessecarily grandly. Her wings spread with her statement, letting the wind rush up under them to nearly snatch her out of her seat. Only the seatbelt Applebloom had buckled onto her stopped her, if only just barely. "Oof! Oooow." "Uh, Ah hope that's not the reason yer all..." Applebloom made a wiggy face and wiggled her hooves like her sister trying to be scary. "Wait, are ya not going to have Twilight Time with us no more?" "What!? NO! I just need some more help, that's all." Scootaloo grumbled under her breath as she leaned forward into her handlebars and as Sweet Apple Acres appeared atop a hill in the distance as they climbed the latest slope. "In more ways than one." "What was that?" "Nothing!" "But,,, why do you need help? It's not like we're special or anything. We're just three fillies who are so talentless that we can't even find our dumb cutie marks..." Sweetie's head drooped low as she reminded herself of how her sister was always showing her up without even trying. The crusader's failures were numerous, and their successes could probably be counted on one pony's hooves even counting the Cutie Cart. But she wasn't allowed to wallow in the soft dirge for her future playing inside her heart for long as a purple hoof cupped her chin and lifted her up. Twilight could still feel the adrenaline and wild panic rushing through her, but nearly four years of friendship had taught her exactly what to say as she looked into Sweetie's eyes. "I might be a little crazy right now worrying over Princess Celestia, but that is the craziest thing I have ever heard. You three ARE special, special enough that I decided that I would hurt you three by trying to teach you alone and went to Princess Celestia for help." Twilight's eyes twitched and her mane refrazzled at the thought of her errant mentor. Keep it together, Twilight. Keep it tooo-gether! "And she personally dispatched my old favorite and second-best teacher to help me train the three of you!" Applebloom looked to Twilight. "What has ya worried about the Princess?" "Wait, what!? Princess Celestia knows about ME? I can't even- whooooaaaah!" Scootaloo swerved as she nearly ran them off the road and into a creek. "Pay attention and stay on the road, Scoots? Ah know it's hard but-" "Shut up." Scootaloo grumbled as she clung to the odd body of her new scooter and recentered them on the road. "GIRLS! Do I really need to help you solve a friendship problem?" Twilight nodded happily as the trio shook their heads weakly, ignoring their pale coats and widened eyes. Her reputation could be so inconveniencing sometimes, but it did come in handy. "Now then, as I attempted to say earlier, Princess Celestia and I think that your Cutie Marks haven't appeared because your magic may be very different from other ponies of your races." She finished, letting the trio relax as her information dumped into their heads provided them with the painfully tiny amount of knowledge that she knew of their conditions. "Wait, yer not saying we're weird, are ya?" Applebloom cautiously asked. "What? Oh. No." Twilight hastily corrected as she was given Applebloom's toughest look. "Well, yes. But like Pinkie on one of her best days! Your magic just doesn't seem to follow the rules that everypony else's does!" "What do you mean? I'm not Pinkie!" Scootaloo shot back with indignation as she leaned into the final curve on her scooter. "Uuuum... you are sort of like her, but with minimal resemblance to her crazy?" Twilight vaguely responded as they turned off the road and onto Sweet Apple Acres. Ugh, just thinking about them made her mind unravel at the seams at just how off standard they were, and the teeny tiny amount of research done into the various magical conditions that could exist. "It's really hard to explain what's going on with you three, even to experts. I could try, but I'm afraid I would just confuse you and make your heads hurt. It does for me." Scootaloo rolled her eyes at the evasion as she wove the big new cart through the trees. The red painted and chrome trimmed monster-wagon was big enough to fit six full-sized ponies like apples in a barrel in an emergency and still have room left over for foals if something big and scary was going down. Problem was, being that big had forced them to come up with all sorts of crazy new things to let her control it, but it was still big and heavy. Just her little speed spree from Sweetie Belle's house to the farm had really worn her out, and she nearly clipped several of the trees on the way in. "Right. Whatever, we're here." "So... that can't be what's got ya all... "Applebloom gave her best impression of Twilight's 'Total PANIC' face. Sweetie giggled at her friend's antics, and Twilight grimaced while she zapped her mane with magic just to be sure it wasn't giving away her inner turmoil. "No... no. That news is great! I get to see Sunbeam again, I get to do Science, and also help three wonderful fillies. I get to do, um... princessy.... stuff. Yeah. That's all great news." Twilight quickly ranted as she put herself back in order and wondered mentally why her friends had let her wander in a daze out onto the street. Again. She needed supervision in that state, darnit! "But, I don't think you've heard, but Princess Celestia has given nearly all of her powers and responsibilities to Princess Luna and disappeared and nopony can find her or figure out why she left and I just don't know what to DO!" "She WHAT?" Scootaloo yelped, shortly before yelping for real as the shock of the revelation made her wings buzz far harder than normal. Her hooves, slick with sweat, couldn't hold onto the handlebars or the hindhoof rests and she found herself flying over her handlebars. Her involuntary experiment in ballistic physics came to a short and unsatisfying conclusion as Lady Gravity disputed the results of her test and pulled her down to a crash in front of her scooter. She had no time to roll out of the way before it ran her over with two pairs of thumps, leaving paired tire tracks on her helmet and back as it passed. "Ooooooooooooooooow." "Scootaloo!" Twilight teleported out of the coasting wagon straight to the injured filly's side, only to be shocked by the sight of her climbing back to her hooves as she did. "Are you alright? You just-" "Stupid scooter ran over me, yeah. Yeah, I know. Please tell me it didn't leave tracks." Scootaloo said as she finished picking herself. Turning around didn't help her inspect herself, as she soon came to remember from the way her balance left the district and the fact that she could never quite see around to her flank to see her cutie mark. With a sigh, she took off her helmet as the idea struck her, then moaned as she saw the tracks on it. "Aww, man...." "You just got run over, and you're more concerned about tire tracks on your back?" Twilight all but yelled as her mind tried to figure out what exactly was wrong with Scootaloo. "Yeah. Mrs. Gladly doesn't like it when I do awesome stuff that gets me hurt. She says it sets a bad example for the other foals at the orphanage, and I get sent to bed with a sore butt." Scootaloo wriggled her rump, already feeling the phantom pains of a short spanking. Nothing major, just a show set of smacks for the younger foals. Oh well, at least she knew that she needed something to keep her on her new scooter now. "Besides, you're worrying too much about Princess Celestia. Princess Luna's gotten pretty good at that whole 'Responsible Adult acting Responsibly' thing." "Wha-?" Twilight found herself honestly lost at whatever they were trying to say. "Yeah!" Sweetie squeaked as she hopped off. "She even helped me keep from ruining Rarity's reputation. And stuff." Why did anything good she had done or experience come back to her stupid sister? "And she set Scootaloo up as Rainbow Dash's 'Apprentice of Awesomeness'. Or something." She tossed her helmet into the wagon as she looked over to her winged friend in worry. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out how to clean her friend up so she could have cookies and crumpets. And stuff. Stuff was important. Rubber was hard to get out of fur, though. "Yeah, Ah ain't given her cause to help out like mah two friends here, but Ah know Princess Celestia is responsible and mature-like. She wouldn't hoof over power unless she was sure her sister could take it." Applebloom joined the rest of them on the ground, giving the cart a stink eye as the suspension creaked. Scootaloo's newfangled stuff was starting to get on her nerves sometimes. Trotting over, she slid up alongside Scootaloo and thwacked her on the back hard enough to drop her to her belly. The dust and dark marks puffed clear in a great cloud all around them. Twilight grumbled to herself, looking cross. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." Why did everypony have to be reasonable, instead of helping her to maintain her totally justifiable panic? "Annnnyway, moving on, when are we going to meet this teacher?" Sweetie Belle asked as she stepped over to the barn doors and started to open them. Confetti exploded out from the upper loft of the main Sweet Apple Acres barn above her, scaring her senseless as Pinkie swung out on a platform suspended from the hoist. Granny Smith leaned out of the house door and shook a hoof at Pinkie as she watched the colorful streamers drift everywhere and make a mess. Pinking paid no mind, gesturing with a hoof to the group as a whole. "Right now!"