//------------------------------// // Excitement (3.1) // Story: How Hard Could it Be? // by Richardson //------------------------------// Excitement 3.1 Let it not be said that Sweetie Belle had no will, that she had no great patience, or that she had a small gavel—since her telekinesis had begun to come to her, she had gleefully wielded one the size of her head. With great and enthusiastic banging of the mighty Cutie Hammer against the black marble block on top of the podium in the Crusader’s headquarters brought the meeting to order much as in the same way that apple bucking brought down the apples from the trees—concussively. Each great slam shook the old building, knocking leaves from the tree it was built in and bits and pieces of the trio’s history from their collected shelves as Sweetie Belle hammered for their attention. “Will you two quit it!? Order! Order!” Sweetie Belle’s loud cries were betrayed by the tiny squeaks with each word as she stared down from atop the box of Saddle Arabian bath oils Rarity didn’t know she was missing. Her two friends paused in the middle of their relatively tame fight upon the loose-fitted hardwood floors; Applebloom still sitting on the crazy posters Scootaloo had brought for them to approve of. Said filly of the farm glared at Scootaloo from across the rug. A bounce shook her bow as the golden-yellow filly huffed in irritation. “We are not gonna be Cutie Mark Crusader Air Crews, Scootaloo. Mah tush ain’t helping you with your fool-hard plans.” “Why not? We’ve never been able to fly before!” “GIRLS!” Hammering her gavel once more with impatience, Sweetie Belle retook command of their meeting. Her normally curly mane shook loose with each pounding of her gavel, leaving her looking much like her Pegasus friend. “Girls! This meeting isn’t about cutie marks! It’s more important than any cutie mark we could ever get!” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Sweetie Belle, I know you feel bad about your flare last week. I mean, yeah it was kind of scary and I didn’t know unicorns could do that. But you’re okay, we’re okay, and everypony is okay, especially if we don’t do that again.” Scootaloo rambled absentmindedly, and more than a little nervously as she considered the events of just a few days prior. “Ain’t what she’s talking about, Scootaloo.” Two jerks of confusion pulled Scootaloo’s head back around to focus on Applebloom. “What?” Rumbles filled the old treehouse as Sweetie’s ever-so-carefully managed magic rolled the chalkboard out from behind the bookshelf on their back wall. Scrawled crudely upon the dusty yellow-coated green surface was a comparison image of Sunbeam and Celestia drawn next to one another with an equation sign between them. Sweetie Belle whipped a thin wooden rod out from within the podium and tapped each drawing in turn; holding it there as she let Scootaloo take it in. Beyond the cozy wooden walls of the headquarters; outside of the re-calked time and time again boards and out amongst the trees of the orchard, a chill unseasonable wind chillily blew through the branches loudly as the late summer sun dimmed almost imperceptibly as the slightest touch of the light brushed against the cave-pony-like drawing. A head tilt followed the board on Scootaloo’s part—the sound of her mental gears grinding and catching as she tried to figure out her friend was nearly audible. “Oh-kay. She still thinks Sunbeam is Princess Celestia. Applebloom, you mind helping me take her back to the hospital to make sure she’s alright? “She ain’t the only one, Scoots.” “Not you, too!” Scootaloo whined before her face had a little chat with her forehooves. Hammering her gavel upon the slab once more, Sweetie Belle smashed order back into the meeting. Idly, she wondered if maybe she was getting a little too fond of the sound the big thing made. Little filly ears were covered hastily as the force of the unicorn filly’s blows rent the air asunder with the thunder of her displeasure; Applebloom and Scootaloo staggered back as the sound shook them harder than ever and painfully tore at their hearing. Scootaloo vanished into the entirely excessive depths of the Cutie Mark Crusader Beanbag Makers Beanbag Chair. Applebloom flopped onto her back and rolled across the room into the neatly stacked shelf lined with pillows and blankets for emergency sleepover situations and initiations. Once she recovered from her friend’s enthusiasm and the miniature land-slide of over-packed supplies, Applebloom popped her head free of the blankets. “I’m being serious, Scootaloo!” Desperately, an orange hoof burst free of the all-consuming bean-bag; Scootaloo flailing loudly within as she was lost to the endless depths of one of the greatest of the crusader’s eternal follies. With an exasperated and exaggerated huff, Sweetie grabbed the hoof in her magic and pulled her free with a single tug. Applebloom joined Sweetie Belle after hiding her gavel while the white filly fussily used a feather duster all over Scootaloo to clean the little beans off of her. “I’m being serious, Scootaloo.” Sweetie Belle repeated dejectedly to her friend as she attacked the purple mane again. An ache still hurt in her over the disbelief of her friend. Scooting back from the excessive cleaning, Scootaloo tried to reason with Sweetie. Her tail flicked with obvious irritation as she ducked and weaved around the feathery attacks as she scooted backwards towards a window. “Sweetie, you heard Twilight, didn’t you?” “Ah’d say that little incident pretty well shows that Twilight doesn’t quite know everything, does she, Scoots?” Applebloom retorted before taking the feather duster from Sweetie. “What? What’s that supposed to mean?” Applebloom cleared her throat and continued on. “Well, she didn’t even know Sweetie here could do that—thing she did. At least not ‘til it happened. And who’s to say that the princess doesn’t have a way that Twilight’s books don’t cover to hide herself? She might have lied, after all.” Applebloom pointed out roughly before she grabbed a sheet of construction paper. Thoughts crossed her mind, and she wasn’t about to ignore them. Scootaloo frowned, scrunching her nose. “Why would she lie, if she is Celestia?” “Why would she quit to start with?” Sweetie pondered in response. “Hay if I know.” “Duh.” Sweetie said as she pointed at her horn while popped a sparkle from it. Scootaloo blinked, wordlessly flapping her mouth as she tried again and again to come up with a counterargument. “So, you think-“ “Eeyup. Ah saw it too, while Ah was flapping in Sweetie’s—uh-, “ Applebloom searched for words to describe the maddening experience. Nothing on the farm had prepared her to describe getting flown like a kite by a magical accident. Waving a hoof, the white filly dismissed her friend’s search for words. “Don’t worry about it, Applebloom. It’s like trying to describe the flavor of purple or something. I’ve got nothing either.” Applebloom shrugged at the statement, and leaned back against the debris of the pillow-fall behind her. There was something else bucking at her mind as she laid there, trying to remind her of a critical detail. “Say, doesn’t that plaid-ness—stuff work off of yer mane colors contrasted with what your magic color would be?” Sweetie Belle shivered uncomfortably. “Yeah. Discord shot Rarity yesterday when she tried to make him wear a tuxedo, and she turned all blue and purple. And now she’s all weird-eyed, giggling, and she keeps talking about how ‘kilts’ could be fashionable.” Making a fair impression of her sister’s current state, Sweetie’s face also looked rather concerningly like Twilight’s face when she had made a friendship problem. “Then she started saying that she should embrace the madness, and I had to make a run for it.” Scootaloo slowly nodded, wondering if she should get Twilight to check on her friends. Weight descended in her mind, bogging her head down until she stared at the floor as an uncomfortable fact grew within the confines beneath her mane. Sunbeam wasn’t so plaid anymore. Supposedly, she had somehow convinced Discord to fix her colors, save for her mane and tail. Colors that tumbled neatly into their proper places in her mind. “Green, purple, blue, and yellow. Like Princess Celestia’s mane and tail.” “Eeyup.” Scootaloo’s head whipped back up hard enough to make her neck hurt. “Okay. I’m a little more convinced. How do we prove it?” “Prove… it?” Sweetie asked from where she had wandered over by the window. “It could just be Discord messing with us. You know, ‘Spreading Chaos without hurting anyone’ and all that.” Blinking with disbelieving surprise across the room, the two others met their counterpart’s gaze. Doubt wriggled in, snaking in amongst their thought processes to taunt their reasoning with a niggle of paranoia. Could it all be a prank? It was his magic that made the darts. Making somepony look like somepony else harmlessly could be within his power. Convincing them to go around bugging somepony while utterly convinced she was the princess would be a prank like no other. Or, was he tricking her? Scootaloo raised an eyebrow as her doubts tapped her friends. “Yeah, I thought so. How can we tell?” Scootaloo asked as she trotted over to join Sweetie Belle at the window. “That varmint can’t bug one pony forever. Ya know he gets bored so fast that it gives Dash whiplash.” Applebloom quipped before writing down several notes onto her evidence poster. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo turned from the window just in time; a cold wind with frosted gummy leaves roared through the gap, faintly scented with the aroma of polka dots. “All in favor of not calling Discord a ‘varmint’ say aye.” “Aye.” “Aye!” Hopping over Sweetie, Scootaloo bounded over to the podium to pull open the massive rulebook of the crusaders, opening it to the latest page and hastily scribbling the warning into the blank paper in as large a print as she could manage. “Right, so—we’ve got to watch her. Except we’re not, you know, quiet.” Scootaloo deliberated aloud to her fellow crusaders. None of them even wanted to consider the rickety old wagon. They had fixed it again with a little bit of sorcery on Applebloom’s part, but between the squeakiness of the axles and the unstable repairs it would never hold up to the abuse needed. Spitting out her writing instrument, Applebloom reminded them of yet another salient fact. “She can fly, too.” “I can fly, too!” “Need more practice, and Ah think Ah’ll pass on riding something yer towing, Scoots.” “Do not!” Sweetie’s lime green magic pulled the pair apart, then encased their muzzles shakily. She winced; her horn ached from using so much magic as it still wasn’t healed from the burns it had inflicted on itself. “Scootaloo, the last time you tried you launched yourself up thirty yards, then you fell into the farm’s pond.” Scootaloo worked her mouth from side to side after Sweetie freed her. “Oh. Yeah.” “Mmm-hm-mm!” Sweetie clammed up instantly as she realized she was humming, clapping her hooves over her mouth in a panic. With a flop backwards from the sudden movement right beside her, Scootaloo looked up from on her back at her white friend. “What was that all about?” Sweetie Belle whispered as she slid her hooves apart by just the tiniest fraction. “If I sing or hum, I might start exploding again.” “Oh.” Scootaloo’s eyes opened before realization struck. Scuttling backwards, she nearly buried herself in the Cutie Mark Crusader Bean Bag as she realized what Sweetie really meant. “Oh!” “Ooh. Ah, hay. Now Ah really want to know. Doesn’t matter if she’s Celestia or not, anypony who makes Sweetie scared of singing’s got a lot to answer for.” Applebloom declared, stomping angrily. She picked up her poster with a nip of her teeth and marched over to the cork board beside the chalk boards. With a piston of her hoof stamping against a tack, she pounded her evidence poster next to it. “So, how do we prove it?” Sweetie hesitantly took her hooves from her mouth once she was sure she wasn’t about to break into song. “Well, we do have stuff like her plaiding. And the horn in the storm.” “Got that. Might be Discord, need more.” “She looks a little different now.” Scootaloo added. “She used to be built more like your brother, and had a round nose, now she’s gotten thinner and taller, and she’s got a funky square nose.” “We said that earlier.” “Oh, wait!” “What?” As if revealing some great universal truth, Scootaloo held her hooves in the air before herself. “I just remember that when we gave her an eye patch for the dart hit she took in her eye, it got hooked on something over her forehead that wasn’t there!” With a gesture that probably was unintentionally suggestive, Scootaloo waved her hooves over her forehead as if showing off something not there. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom slowly turned around to look wide-eyed at Scootaloo and her revelation. “Why didn’t you say that earlier!?” They both shouted as one. “Um, oops?” Planting her hoof on her face gave Applebloom no relief for the headache that wanted to grow up into a nice strong apple tree in her brain; grinding it there as Scootaloo’s occasional scatterbrain drove her mad helped, however. Sighing once she was done, Applebloom slowly picked up her pencil and added in the latest detail “So, that’s it, then?” Her friends nodded after wracking their brains for more details. “That’s it. Ain’t enough yet. All this stuff might be Discord shenanigans. So, how do we get more?” “Well, we’ve gotta fly to keep up with her!” Scootaloo said before buzzing upwards into an unsteady hover over the beanbag. Applebloom marked down flying on a separate sheet. Sweetie pondered for a few seconds. “We can’t let her hear us!” That one time she had ruined their attempt at hooking up Cheerilee and Big Macintosh came to mind. She did have a bit of a mouth when she was frustrated—and it was armed to her teeth with squeakiness. “Quiet-like. Got it. Wait, we need to figure out how to save evidence!” Applebloom shouted as she added to the board. She thumped her head against the cork of the board as she tried to come up with something to help them. Looking around the room yielded nothing; nor did any memories despite the wiggle of a thought bothering her. “Um, I dunno. Scootaloo, you have something?” Sweetie sheepishly admitted to her friends; turning to Scootaloo last. Tapping her chin as she wobbled in place. “What about your albums?” “What?” Sweetie squeaked curiously. Her eyes crossed until they pointed at the tip of her nose as she thought of what Scootaloo might have been talking about. The disk of a record finally slipped out fortuitously at that moment, rolling across the room from the entertainment shelf to inspire her. “Oh! Of course! They use something to actually record records! We need to find out what it is!” “Right, got it!” Applebloom added to the list of needed items, and wondered how exactly they were going to find a way to make a flying quiet, probably invisible thing that could record things. It wasn’t exactly up their normal alley. “Boy, this is gonna be a tough one, girls. Anypony have an idea of how to keep ‘Sunbeam’ from-“ Hooves touched down upon the porch of the clubhouse; heavy and hearty in sound as their owner settled into the narrow space between the wall and rail with nervous dancing. “Scootaloo?” Sunbeam called in to them from outside. Cheerful words had quite the opposite effect as the trio jumped into a royal panic in what was most certainly not controlled hysteria. Sweetie Belle rolled the chalk board back behind the bookshelf too quickly, slamming it home; Applebloom nipped the posters from the wall to stash them behind the podium; and Scootaloo ran to the curtain at the doorway to intercept the object of their espionage. “Yes, ma’am?” Sunbeam poked her head through the edge of the curtain; taking a good look at the trio. Her lips pursed in confusion as the fillies sweated in nervousness and shot far too fake-looking smiles. “Oh, goodness! What seems to be happening here? You’re almost late for your lesson, Scootaloo.” “Cutie marks!” Scootaloo yelped nervously. Sunbeam’s eyebrow climbed like the blade of a guillotine. “Right—are you ready for your flying lesson with Rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo swallowed in mixed nervousness and excitement. Wait; Rainbow Dash? “Squee!”