//------------------------------// // The Idea // Story: Scooter Tracks in My Life // by Pyrus Nightwrite //------------------------------// AH: hey everypony. chapter update. this one took me longer than i thought it would. i had to brainstorm for about three days there, and normally it takes me about two hours to get the plot line of the chapter. the fact that i'm still behind in my classes and i now have 2+ hours sucked away for driver's ED doesn't help much. i'm not sure about this chapter, but i guess i should just release it. AAAnyhoof, enough of my talking. read my chapter. “Come on! It’ll be fun!” “No! I am NOT getting myself killed!” “Please?” “The answer’s NO, Scootaloo. You’re lucky to even get me up here!” “Come on, it’s not that far…” “Are you kidding me!? I want down, now.” “No. it won’t kill you. I’m still here right? I’ve done this before.” “Then why didn’t Sweetie Bell and Applebloom want to come?” “…They’re just chicken” “Then I guess I’m a chicken too. Let me down!” “No.” Pyrus tasted the salty sweat running down his face. Looking down had been a bad idea. He stood on the edge of a tree, with visions racing through his mind of falling and the sudden stop at the end of said fall. He wore straps, which held him prisoner to a rope tied ‘firmly’ to the tree, and stood trembling on a wooden platform. “I am not going zip lining, and that is final!” “Okay, fine… I guess we can go down now then…” “Thank you.” A wide, mischievous grin spread across the face of the brown-orange Pegasus next to Pyrus. “Well then, let’s GO!” On the word “GO” Scootaloo launched herself off the platform, speeding down the rope. “Oh Horseapp-“ The straps yanked Pyrus off the platform, which also yanked the word out of Pyrus’s mouth. Yelling at the top of his lungs was no longer an option; the air had been stolen from his lungs. Oh Celestia oh Luna oh man I’m gonna die! The though spun through his head, repeating it’s message like a broken record, while somewhere else, his short life sped through his head, slowing down to a flashback to that afternoon. Where did I go so wrong!? In answer, his mind played back where he had gone so wrong. ____________________ “Hi Pyrus! Wanna come crusading with us?” “What? Crusading?” “Yeah, crusading!” “uhh… crusading…?” “Oh” Scootaloo facehoofed her own mistake. “How could I not tell you about my two best friends? This is Applebloom” “Pleasure to meetcha” Applebloom took a step forward and shook Pyrus’s hoof violently. “n-n-nice t-to m-meet you t-too…” Pyrus managed to stutter out. “And this is Sweetie Bell.” “Umm… hi there.” Sweetie stared anywhere but Pyrus’s eyes and shrunk a little, hiding her face with her mane. “Girls, this is Pyrus. He’s the-” “The colt you’ve been tellin us about, yeah. You’ve only been talkin bout him the whole entire day.” Applebloom’s eyes rolled, earning herself a glare from Scootaloo. “AAAAAnyway, we’re…” All three of them chimed in, and performed an impressively loud “the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” Pyrus rubbed a hoof on his brutalized ear. Oh, I get it now. “I get it. You three want me to go with you?” The trio nodded vigorously, grinning ear to ear. “To help you find you cutie marks?” Nodding again. “… Aahh, whatever. I’m game. What are we gonna do?” Applebloom thought for a moment “Well… it seems like we should go re-try some of them things we did wrong. Ya’know, those things that ended with us covered in tree sap? I mean, we did them wrong, so how do we know our cutie marks aren't in them. We just gotta do them right.” Sweetie bell piped in, still looking anywhere but at Pyrus. “Are you sure, Applebloom? I don’t think so, I mean, we did end up in tree sap .” “Well I’m liking this idea... What about you, Pyrus?” Scootaloo looked curiously at Pyrus. “It’s your marks, not mine. You girls decide, I guess I’m just here for the ride…” “Then it’s decided. We re-try what we did wrong.” Applebloom said, building in volume. “I really don’t think we should…” Scootaloo ignored Sweetie. “And I know just where we can start!” Sweetie Bell looked sideways to Scootaloo. “uhh, Scootaloo? I don’t like that face you have on… you always make it when you have a really, [i/]really bad idea.” “I don’t know that you’re talking about Sweetie. I have the best idea I’ve had since the cannon.” “I knew you had a bad idea.” ____________________ Well, now I know what Sweetie was talking about. “bad idea” doesn’t even begin to describe. Pyrus had to use every nerve he had not to panic any more than he had already. As he went falling faster and faster, he silently swore he’d never fall asleep in class again, if he were to survive the zip line. Scootaloo called back to Pyrus, voice raised high in excitement “isn’t this the best EVER!?” “Scootaloo, I don’t know why I ever let you talk me into this!” Pyrus felt the wind whipping through his mane soften. Thank Celestia we’re slowing down! “Uh oh” “’Uh oh’? Why do I get the feeling it’s bad that we’re slowing down?” “Because it is.” In front of him, Scootaloo stopped suddenly, causing Pyrus to slam into her, hard. Now dangling from the rope, Pyrus took stock of his surroundings, careful not to look down. Deciding it was better to look up than to look down and make himself the next victim of a heart attack, he glanced upwards. The clips that Pyrus and Scootaloo had used to zip line glowed with an orange light, and Pyrus could swear he smelled smoke. “Not again…” Pyrus’s ears perked up. “wadda ya mean not again?” As if waiting for its cue, the rope snapped, burned through. “Oh…” Pyrus dropped like a stone, while Scootaloo franticly flapped her adolescent wings uselessly, and together they tumbled toward the ground below. Pyrus’s life flashed through his mind again, at a doubled pace. The ground rushed up to meet them, and the pine tree that jutted up from the ground sped faster. Crashing through the branches, Pyrus bumped and broke his way through the pine tree. First there was a painful thump on his right shoulder, and then blooming pain exploded through his left flank. Squeezing his eyes shut tight against the unpleasant sensation, Pyrus gave in to fate. If nothing else, the tree is breaking my fall. I really hope that’s all its breaking… A branch caught his hind leg, flipping him upside down. Pyrus opened his eyed at the sudden vertigo he experienced from flipping over, and then immediately regretted the choice. As a subsequent limb of wood rushed forward to meet him, he shut them again. Colors exploded across the back of his eyelids, and a ringing filled his skull. That’s okay; I didn’t need my head anyway… The colors faded away, slipping into the black background, and stealing his consciousness away with them.