//------------------------------//
// 5 - Foalnapping 
// Story: Cutie Mark Crusader Superheroes 
// by infernape612 
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	Scootaloo spent the rest of the afternoon partying with her father, accepting congratulations from the local townsponies, and tinkering with the new inventing kit her father had immediately bought her. At one point, she was enjoying some donuts from the fridge when she heard yet another knock on the door. Scootaloo opened it. "Oh, hi, Miss Cheerilee."

"Hello, Scootaloo. I heard about your cutie mark - congratulations!"

"Thanks!"

"Is your father home? I need to talk with him." Scootaloo promptly got Biggs.

"Hi, Cheerilee. Whatever it is, for 24 hours she didn't do it."

Cheerilee smiled and shook her head. "Actually, this is about you. We were going to have a guest speaker come to class tomorrow, but an urgent family matter came up at the last minute and he couldn't show up. I know this is last minute, but could you come in his stead? You could teach the foals all about the royal guard!"

Biggs thought for a moment. "...Uh, sure. I'll do it. I'll have to get permission from the princess since I'm kinda on probation at the moment..."

Cheerilee smiled. "Twilight Sparkle has already cleared you. She said that while you speak, Wedge will take over your position on Rainbow Dash's pet project, whatever that is. I'll see you at 10:00 sharp, then! Have a nice day, and congratulations again, Scootaloo!" She left, and Biggs shut the door. Scootaloo returned to tinkering.



That night, Scootaloo met Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle at their clubhouse at Sweet Apple Acres. She made sure to bring the three grappling hooks she had made, as well as a new toy she had cranked out at home. "These headsets are voice changers. We put them on, and whenever we talk it'll distort our voices so nopony can recognize us!" She put the device on. "Like this!" Her voice had been altered to a far deeper pitch, one that made Scootaloo suppress an urge to demand to know where the numbers station was. Scootaloo passed them and the grappling hooks to her friends.

Sweetie Belle turned to Apple Bloom. "This thing is great and all, but.. how is gonna hide Apple Bloom's accent?"

Apple Bloom thought for a moment. "Well... if ah focus hard enough, I can sort of speak without it... So what's in the box, Sweetie Belle?" Sweetie Belle had indeed brought a small box with her. She opened it.

"I borrowed this makeup kit from my sister. I figured we'd be recognized by our coat colors, so we can dye them to avoid getting caught by the bad guys. Besides, Mare Do Well is always dark purple."

Apple Bloom helped herself to the dye. "Just so long as this stuff washes off."

"It does - trust me from experience." The three geared up, and Apple Bloom let then borrow some of her winter scarves to wrap around their faces, completing the ensemble. With that accomplished, the three superheroes dashed off to Ponyville to look for more trouble.



The three stood on the roof of a local house, surveying the town. Apple Bloom mused, "Ah've always wanted to see what it looks like on top of a roof. This is so cool!"

Sweetie Belle frowned. Hearing the same distorted voice from all three of them was still pretty creepy, and yet at the same time completely awesome. She scanned the streets of Ponyville before finally noticing something strange. "Hey, look at that..." A group of five tough-looking ponies stepped out of a building, clearly trying not to be seen. Three of them packed themselves into a nearby carriage, and the other two began to drive it away from town. "That's strange.. what are those ponies doing out this late?"

Scootaloo cracked, "What are we doing out this late?"

Apple Bloom couldn't resist laughing. "Sweetie Belle's right, though - somethin' don't feel right. I think we should follow them and make sure they ain't - they're not up to no good." It was hard work suppressing her accent, but at least she was trying. The three used their grappling hooks to begin traversing the rooftops in pursuit of the strange ponies.

The carriage took a very roundabout route, and some of its passengers would occasionally stick their heads out to make sure they weren't being followed (obviously unsuccessfully). The three fillies' unease about the situation continued to grow. The group eventually stopped at a large mansion on the outskirts of town. Scootaloo recognized the home. "This is Silver Spoon's place, isn't it?"

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle nodded and watched as the group got out of the carriage. They approached the front gates and stopped. One member of their party, a unicorn mare from the looks of it, asked, "This the place, Roughneck?"

Another group member, an earth pony stallion, nodded. "Yep. This is it. We're getting paid a boatload to kidnap the brat of the rich bastard who lives here. You all know the plan. I don't want any buckups." The three fillies observing the scene from afar looked at each other in horror.

"They're gonna kidnap Silver Spoon?!" The unicorn mare bad guy lit her horn, and a faint shimmer could be seen surrounding the mansion. Apple Bloom had heard that rich ponies used advanced security magic to keep their homes safe. She figured that the bad guys had disarmed it somehow. Once the shimmer vanished, another unicorn in their party, a stallion by the looks of him, vanished. A commotion could be heard in one of the mansion's rooms. Finally, the unicorn reappeared. Caught in a telekinetic grip was a screaming Silver Spoon. Her pink sleep mask was askew, and she was vainly struggling against her captors. The group began to pile into the carriage again, roughly tossing Silver Spoon into the passenger's seat before beginning to speed off.

Apple Bloom finally got her senses together. "We gotta do something!" Thinking remarkably fast, she tried to shoot her grappling hook at one of the carriage's wheels, but missed. Taking their cues, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo followed suit. Scootaloo missed as well, but Sweetie Belle had recently begun magic lessons with Twilight Sparkle. She had developed fledgling telekinesis abilities, and although she was generally unable to pick up objects with her magic, she was still able to use it to guide her hook to its target. The hook buried itself in the front left wheel of the carriage. The three fillies grabbed the line and pulled with all of their might. With a satisfying *CRACK!*, the wheel was completely dislodged. The carriage promptly crashed into a tree, and Silver Spoon was sent flying out. She scrambled to her hooves and began running as fast as she could to town, screaming her head off as she went. The five dazed and battered bad guys stumbled out of the carriage and saw the fillies.

The stallion named Roughneck screamed, "GET THOSE BRATS!" At the same time, two furious earth ponies who could only have been Silver Spoon's parents came barreling out of the mansion doors, followed by a group of servants and guards.

Silver Spoon's father screamed, "GUARDS! GET THEM!"

Apple Bloom was the final pony to scream dramatically. "RUN!!!" The three fillies fled for their lives, cutting through a park and coming to a rest near a bridge over a small creek. "Are... are we safe?"

Scootaloo nodded. "I think so." That sentence, of course, was the cue for the bad guys' unicorn stallion to teleport in and smash Scootaloo from behind. He then blasted Apple Bloom with a bolt of magic and rounded on Sweetie Belle. Everything seemed to slow down for her. She began noticing details of the environment she would have glanced over on any other day.

Telekinetically throw dirt in face to blind bad guy. Throw boulder into side, injuring him. Buck over edge. Bad guy beaten up. Capacity to attack friends... Three moves later, the unicorn was sent flying into the creek under the bridge. ...neutralized. Whoa, that was awesome! Sweetie Belle rushed over to her friends and helped them to their hooves. They looked dazed and slightly beaten up, but they were for the most part OK. The fillies fled back to their clubhouse.



"Didja see that?! Sweetie Belle was all like 'WHOOSH' and 'BLAM' and she beat the snot outta that bad guy!" The three fillies began to get out of their costumes. "Man, now Silver Spoon owes us big time. We should totally troll her over this!"

Scootaloo laughed at the thought, but shook her head. "That's not very heroic. Besides, we can't let anypony else know about our... secret... identity..." She stopped and began staring at Sweetie Belle. Apple Bloom saw her, turned her gaze to Sweetie Belle, and noticed it as well.

"Ebbeh..." "Ah don't believe it..." Sweetie Belle followed their gazes to her rear. Sitting there, where a dreaded patch of blank fur had sat before, was a picture of a boxing glove. Sweetie Belle poked it tentatively. Not a paper cutout or something. Then she rubbed it. Not a marker stain.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo snapped out of their stupor, ran over to their best friend, picked her up, and began whooping and cheering. "YOU DID IT!!! YOU DID IT!!!! IT WOOOOOOOOOOOOORKED!!!" It was a cutie mark. After a solid minute of cheering, they finally put her down. Sweetie Belle realized a problem.

"How are we gonna explain this to my sister?" Apple Bloom and Scootaloo thought for a moment, and then it hit them.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER BOXERS!!! And then we lucked out and it worked." Sweetie Belle nodded. Scootaloo then noticed an interesting fact.

"I just realized... we all reacted the exact same way every time we got a cutie mark. Isn't that weird?" The three fillies laughed and nodded.