//------------------------------//
// Chapter 27 
// Story: Bad Future Crusaders 
// by TonicPlotter 
//------------------------------//

        Many Years Ago
        Ponyville, Equestria
        
        Scootaloo sniffled loudly as she strained to peer through misty eyes at the battered face that stared back at her from the bathroom mirror. The sight of the dried blood around her nose, dark and flaking like a fine layer of rust, and the bits of gravel that had embedded into her muzzle and cheeks were egging her on to cry. She sniffled again and could taste and smell her bloody nose, and dabbed at her face to fight the urge to bawl like a little foal.
        Don’t cry… I won’t cry…
        She scooped some water in the soles of her hooves and splashed it in her face. The cold clear water hit her numb muzzle and made it burn as if the water was acid. She told herself again and again it wasn’t as bad as it looked. It had been her latest attempt to fly. Apple Bloom had told her about her attempt to get a cutie mark for hang-gliding; all she had to do was get running and leap from a high place, and the glider’s wings would do the work. It seemed like a good plan at the time: anything an old glider could do her two young healthy wings should have been able to do better. It wasn’t even that high of a ledge. It was just a mere ten feet into a bed of gravel which, as she hoped, would make for a softer landing just in case. She tried her best but only managed to fly for all of three seconds before gravity did its thing and pulled her face-first into the ground. Hard.
        Even after rinsing and gargling she couldn’t get the taste of blood from her mouth, but she had at least been able to clean her face up. There was little she could do about her eye; from how puffy it looked she’d probably have a black eye but at least—
        “Scootaloo!!!”
        Mom?!
        Just as she leaped down from the stool in front of the sink her mother galloped into the bathroom and dropped down in front of her. “Scooter!” she said as she obsessively studied the little filly’s face, “Oh… what in Celestia’s name happened?!”
        Scootaloo looked away. She knew if she made eye contact she’d start crying. “I… I fell. Just an accident, that’s all…”
        “Accident my left hoof!” said her mom in a scolding tone. “Let me guess! You were out gadding about with that shabby daredevil Rainbow Dash, weren’t you?! I swear when I get my hooves on her—”
        “No, Mom!” said Scootaloo forcibly, “I was practicing flying and I sort of crashed.”
        “Scootaloo,” said her mom as she put a hoof to the filly’s chin and forced her to make eye contact, “Scooter, honey. Look at me. Do you realize how lucky you are? You didn’t even bust your muzzle. What if you’d hurt yourself worse? What if I didn’t slip home from work because I forgot my briefcase?”
        “Mooooooom…” whined Scootaloo.
        “Don’t take that tone with your mother, Scooter,” she said, her scolding tone returning, “I’ve told you again and again. You don’t have to impress Rainbow Dash, or those fillies at school, or anypony. Stop pushing yourself so hard. You’ll fly when you’re good and ready.”
        “You don’t get it, Mom!” said Scootaloo as she broke down into tears, “You’re an earth pony! You don’t know what it’s like! It—”
        She went silent as her mother threw her hooves around her and hugged her tightly. “Honey… shh…” she said softly, “You’re right, I don’t. I just want what’s best for you; I can’t bear to see you all beat up like this…”
        “Mom…”
        Her mother held Scootaloo’s hoof to her chest, letting the young filly feel her heartbeat. “Just be who you are, Scooter. You’ll find the way, I promise.”
        “Mom…?” said Scootaloo as she let herself melt into her mother’s embrace and nuzzled her face into the warm chest, “You’re going to be home this evening, right?”
        “…I’m sorry, honey. I have to work late again tonight.”
        “…Okay… Mom…”

        Present Day

        For a moment Scootaloo had no clue where she was or what was going on. The midday sun was beating down on her face that ached from some unknown cause. The cool breeze blowing through her mane and the sun above felt good despite the throbbing she felt in her teeth from her face’s mystery injury and the stiffness in her neck. It was almost like a normal morning for her: the familiar feeling of that haze from waking up where she couldn’t remember where she had fallen asleep the night before and felt as if she were dreaming about new scents and sights. There was never pain or stiffness like this and there was a strange scent in the air, the kind of musty smell found on somepony else’s used clothes.
        There’s nothing, NOTHING you can do to—
        She snapped out of her morning stupor and the memory of her argument with Apple Bloom hit her hard. She remembered pleading with her friend and she remembered taking a sucker punch to the face, and then nothing. Nothing now but a dream she couldn’t remember, silence, and that foreign smell. Slowly she sat up, easing her head up slowly to keep the stiff pain at bay, and found an old dark jacket had been laid over her while she was unconscious.
        “There’s a trick to train jumping,” said the cold gravelly tone of a stranger.
        She flinched and fought to sit up, being held down both by her stiff joints and the jacket that tangled around her as she flailed. Sitting a few feet away from her was an older stallion she had never seen before. He was a pegasus as gray as a tombstone, with a fiery orange mane. His cutie mark matched what was on his head, a moth that had been caught ablaze, which combined with his threatening voice and the prominent scar on his cheek to lend him an air of danger. Scootaloo readied herself; he had clearly been here for some time and could have caused her harm when she was out if he wanted to, but she wasn’t ready to take chances.
        “You have to cross your legs over your chest,” he continued, “protect your body and roll with the momentum. You’re lucky you didn’t snap your neck, kiddo.”
        “I wasn’t train jumping!” protested Scootaloo, “My… friend hit me. Knocked me out.”
        His bright blue eyes turned to her, glaring menacingly, but in a way that somehow didn’t threaten her. All she could see in the bags beneath this old stallion’s cold eyes was weariness. It was the gaze of a tired old pony who looked as though he had forgotten how to smile. “I don’t know if you want my advice,” he said in his low voice, “but get better friends.”
        Scootaloo frowned at him for a moment, unsure of what to make of this stallion. She noticed her bandana, the old Cutie Mark Crusader cape, on the ground near the stallion’s hooves and twitched as she patted at her uncovered bad eye.
        He walked over and laid a hoof against her forehead. “Relax,” he said, “I wasn’t robbing you or anything; just checking for injuries.” He chuckled mirthlessly and patted her shoulder, “Thought you were dead for sure, but you’ll be alright. You’ll have a heck of a shiner, though. At least it’s the bad one.”
        She let him ease her into a sitting position and nodded. “I’ve had them before,” she said as she rested a hoof over her eye and reached for the cape, “No big deal.”
        The old pegasus beat her to it and wrapped the bandana around her eye. “I mean what I said,” he scolded as he tied the knot, “Whether or not you want to hear it. Hang around with some better company. No offense, but you look like you’ve been through enough without hanging around with ‘friends’ like that.”
        “But she’s—” she said and stuttered. She tried to stand too quickly and weaved uneasily, and the old stallion leaned into her and threw a wing around her body to keep her from collapsing.
        “Easy, now,” he said, “Look, there’s a hospital in a nearby town. I can take you if you want. But don’t try and go anywhere for at least a few minutes. You’ve been out for a while.”
        He stared her down until she nodded, and he released her from his wing so she could sit once more. “She’s all I have left,” said Scootaloo sadly, “and she’s my best friend. At least… she was.”
        The gray stallion sat beside her and stared off, his eyes following the train tracks and off into the distance. In a moment he glanced back to her and gave a curt nod for her to continue.
        “When we were fillies, we were the best of friend. Her, me, and one other. We did everything together. We were inseparable. But…”
        “But…?”
        “But we lived in Ponyville.”
        The stallion’s ears twitched and his head hung as the implication set in. “…I’m sorry.”
        “I thought they were dead,” she continued, “All of them were. But just a couple of days ago she came back. Except… except she’s different now. I know it’s been a while, but… but it’s like she’s an entirely different creature now. And what she did… right in front of me… I know it was to protect me… but still… she…”
        “Be wary of that one,” interrupted the stallion as he looked at her, his old weathered features locked in a cold, serious grimace, “Time has a nasty habit of changing ponies.”
        “But…”
        “I understand,” he interjected, “And that’s what ponies always say, isn’t it? ‘Never turn your back on your friends’ or whatever. And it’s a nice sentiment.” He trailed off as his head hung once more with a saddened sigh, “That loyalty is like a rope around your waist, tying you to your friend. Sure it can keep you from falling, but it can drag you down too. Sometimes you end up tied to one who’s nothing but bad news.” He sighed again, his gravely tone suddenly weak. “I’ve been there.”
        For an instant Scootaloo thought he was about to start crying. Without looking he gestured at the pocket of his jacket and she fished around in it to find an old set of dog tags. They had belonged to a pony named ‘Honeysuckle’ who apparently had O-type blood and the cutie mark of a kind of plant hopper. When her eye found the engraving ‘R.E.A.F.’ on the back she almost threw them as hard as she could; did this mean this old pony here, the one who had helped her, was one of those bomb-dropping lunatics as well?
        “They were my partner’s,” said the stallion with a sad chuckle that broke out into a heartbreaking laugh. “He never wore them; he hated his name and the higher-ups wouldn’t put his nickname on the tag. He was a runaway; hardly a teen living on the street when we found him in Los Pegasus, and he didn’t have the brains or self-control to find a proper job or home. Could he ever fly, though. Not straight, he jittered, but he could turn on a bit at full speed and do maneuvers that could have put him in a circus.”
        Scootaloo handed the tags to the stallion and he draped them around his neck. “But he was just a kid,” he continued, “Violent and screwed up, a broken home I think, he never talked about it, but still just a kid. Deep down, though, there was a good heart in that stallion. He didn’t do a good job at all of showing it, but he cared. About us, about the unit, heck we caught him with a mouse in his flight suit once because he found it cold in the snow. I think…” he interrupted himself to swallow loudly, “I think if he hadn’t latched onto us he might have straightened himself out and been a decent pony. Instead we took him and dragged him around with us, and now… now he’s dead. Because of us.”
        It hit Scootaloo like a bolt of lightning when she finally understood what he was saying. She didn’t care who or what he was anymore. The air force were murderers and psychopaths as far as she was concerned, but she couldn’t see that in this one anymore. All she could see was a regretful old gray pony that had her pity, because she knew this pain of his. It was a silent dreadful wisp of guilt that followed you everywhere like a shadow: the pain he felt for letting this ‘Honeysuckle’ down was the same she felt for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.
        If I could have flown. If I hadn’t slowed them down. If they hadn’t had to protect me. Maybe… just maybe… they would still be alive.
        Never before in her life did she miss them as much as she did right now, or her mother, or any of her friends she had lost. Without even thinking she leaned against then old pegasus and laid her hoof over his chest. She could feel his heartbeat, slow and deep, and for a moment she felt at peace as if she had found a kindred spirit. Her common sense only gave her a moment of this tranquility before it reminded her she was getting far too close to this stranger, and one that might be dangerous.
        She flinched away but he hadn’t said or done anything. The entire time he had given her no resistance, and instead had studied her curiously with his cold expression that seemed to have been cast in iron. However, right before he spoke and for just a split second, Scootaloo could have sworn she caught a glimpse of a smile. “My ex used to do that,” he said in his usual gruff tone. He looked up at the sky to search for a memory long past, “and would always say something like ‘be who you are and you’ll find the way’. Huh. If only.”
        Scootaloo nodded sadly and stared straight ahead, feeling the gentle breeze in her face. Then, as she let his words tumble through her mind over and over again, she felt as if her heart had stopped mid-beat. She spun to look at the old stallion, turning so fast she almost lost her balance, to find him still staring off into the sky like what he had said held no importance at all. “What did—”
        “Captain! Sir!!!”
        The old stallion sprung to his hooves to face a duo of pegasus who landed before them. The first one was a blue stallion who gasped for air as if he were seriously out of breath and practically collapsed as he landed, and the other a yellow mare who landed cautiously and managed a gentle nod to Scootaloo. Her eye was swollen shut and the entire side of her face looked puffy and discolored beneath her coat of fur.
        "Mission accomplished, sir," gasped the blue stallion, "Target neutralized... sir."
        "Good," said the apparent captain in a suddenly authoritative tone. "Where is the Lieutenant?"
        “G-gone, sir,” slurred the mare through her injured mouth, “She left without us, likely in pursuit of the other target. Sir.”
        The captain growled and muttered quietly, “Figures. Heading?”
        “East, sir.”
        “Then lead the way. We move. Now!” hollered the captain as the trio took to the air.
        “Wait!!!” screamed Scootaloo, practically begging him to stay and answer her question.
        He hovered in mid-air as the duo went ahead. “Right, the jacket,” he said as he faced her. “Keep it. Doesn’t look it, but it’s warm and dry.”
        With that he flew away like a shot to catch up with his allies, flying too fast to hear Scootaloo’s plea to stay. She was alone once more, left with a nagging thought she couldn’t shake. “No way,” she told herself quietly, “The world’s not that small. There’s no way.”
        She rubbed at her forehead to drive the thought away and straightened her bandana; she had never had somepony else tie it for her and it felt uncomfortable the way the old stallion had done it. With it back to normal she let his jacket slip off and tried it on. It was old and threadbare in a spot or two, and just a touch too big for her, but it was a nice jacket. She decided she could put it to good use; she negotiated her bad wing through the side flaps and rolled the sleeves to make it fit better. She sat quietly, deciding what to do now. She had nowhere to go and no destination in mind, but for the first time in a long time that was a problem. There was only one place she wanted to be right now, and she knew it was the only place she could never go back to.
        “Apple Bloom…” she murmured sadly, “Please, come back. I… don’t want to be alone anymore…”
        “You’re not.”
        Scootaloo jumped and spun in mid-air, dropping into a ready stance the second she hit the ground. She did not like being snuck up on. Behind her stood a scarecrow; at least it could have passed for one the way it was leaning against a tree as if it had been propped there. At first there was no movement; just a mess of old cloth draped over what could have been some sticks lashed together to make a gangly frame. Then, it slowly eased itself away from the tree. The thing shuffled forward, moving in such a way Scootaloo couldn’t help but imagine there being a giant scorpion beneath the rags.
        “You!!!” growled Scootaloo as she realized exactly who this thing was. “You sent Apple Bloom after me! To kill me!!!”
        The thing chuckled seductively. “You do realize you only found her because of me, don’t you? You should be grateful; a ‘thank you’ would do.” It, she by the sounds of it, stopped and seemed to put a hoof to her chin beneath her disguise. “I only wanted to talk. With you bound with rope and gagged so you would listen. It’s not my fault your friend is… so… eager…”
        The young pegasus growled loudly as the thing giggled and mocked her, but held herself back for only one reason. “I’m not in ropes but you have me, so talk. Tell me why you want me so badly.”
        The cloaked mare threw its head back and cackled, standing much taller than Scootaloo could have ever imagined her to be, before crumpling back into her hunched and almost frail posture. “You have something I want,” she said in the delicious tone a mare would use to charm a stallion, “except… you no longer have it I hear.”
        “Such as…?” said Scootaloo, her thoughts already taking her back to their meeting with Snails on the train. It sounded like Apple Bloom was right; the only thing worth chasing her for would be Rainbow Dash’s element of loyalty, though why anypony would think she of all ponies had it was up in the air.
        The thing in the cloak moved past Scootaloo, her almost scuttle of a walk enforcing the belief that she only wore the rags to hide a black chitinous body armed with fearsome pincers and a segmented tail. “Believe it or not, we have something in common you and I,” she said in her silky tone, “We’re both wanderers. Weakened. Crippled. Shadows of what we could have been or once were.” She reached the opposite side of the train tracks and went silent for a moment as a train’s whistle blew in the distance. “And, admittedly, I have learned a valuable lesson as of late. The best assistance, the best service, comes from a pony who hopes to gain something precious in return.”
        “What could you possibly hope to give me?!”
        “What if I told you…” said the scorpion mare, with a sickening tone to her voice that made Scootaloo imagine she was licking her lips behind that cloak, “that Fluttershy was still alive?”
        “She’s not,” said Scootaloo darkly, “She died a long time ago,”
        “Did she?” giggled the cloaked scorpion, “Just like dear little Apple Bloom? For a pony whose homeless… you really need to get out more.”
        Scootaloo couldn’t breathe for a moment. She wanted to tell this thing exactly where she could put her offer or just give her the beating of her life for it. She just couldn’t, though, not if there was even a million to one chance that Fluttershy was alive.
        “It’s your choice,” said the thing in a smug liquid tone, “You’re only of use to me if you’re a willing little helper, and I’m sure my little piggy will find what I seek eventually anyways. But, the sooner the better. Give it some thought…” and her voice was drowned out by the train’s loud whistle blaring again as it clattered closer and closer. The thing hollered to be heard over it, “Meet me where Rainbow Dash died!!!”
        With another blare of the train’s whistle a blurred wall of metal and wood shot between Scootaloo and the scorpion mare as the train roared between them. Her hair and her new jacket blew and whipped about violently as the boxcars passed mere feet in front of her. It finally passed and the scorpion mare had vanished; the only thing left was the drone of the train’s clattering wheels as they followed their tracks further and further away.