“Hey, Scootaloo.”
Rainbow Dash’s voice startled Scootaloo out of her... whatever that was. Singing her two... whatever they were, to sleep. There were probably words for all of this stuff, but Scootaloo just didn’t know them. Didn’t need them either, until today. These two didn’t talk, and Archer already knew that singing with the... underneath voice on those long lonely nights, always seemed to calm everypony down and make it easier to sleep. You used words for scary, frustrating, alien things, like homework and crashes and bullies, but this stuff was just self evident.
Or, it used to be self evident. But tonight she was sitting with Dizzie and Bee held against her like she was their mom when she wasn’t, and how could she explain what she meant by that?
Rainbow Dash was behind her going, “Hey, Scootaloo,” when Scootaloo was singing with that weird voice that wasn’t hers, that every one of them shared, and how could she explain that? Scootaloo didn’t even want to turn around or even acknowledge the pegasus, not because Rainbow Dash didn’t deserve to know, or wasn’t totally awesome, but because Scootaloo would have to explain herself. She couldn’t hide any of this anymore, and not being able to hide it made her think about how to explain it, and that just drove home how difficult it was to put the simplest things into words.
“Hey, Scootaloo what’s that weird noise coming out of your throat?” Dash would say. “Hey, Scootaloo why do you leave them outside so long, and not take them in right away?” Dash would say. “Hey Scootaloo I thought you were cool, but you’re too weird to be my sister, because of those two stupid weird freaks who can’t even talk—”
“Hey, Scootaloo,” Dash said, “Twilight is setting up the bed in back, so c’mon, you don’t want to fall asleep out there on the floor.”
Scootaloo turned to look behind her at Rainbow Dash, while the other two shifted restlessly against her. Scootaloo must have looked a sight, if she looked anything like how weary she felt. Rainbow Dash was standing there, trying to look nonchalant about the situation, but her smile was tense and her wings were loose and ready to fly. Next to her was the short blue Archer, with a harried look on her face, mouthing silent apologies at Scootaloo.
Scootaloo stood up from the library floor, pushing at the other two one at a time with both her front hooves murmuring, “Hey get up girls, we need to follow Rainbow Dash.” They roused sluggishly, not because of her words of course, but she said them anyway just in case it made her look more normal.
“Oh uh, I can leave if you... you know, since I kind of ...scared them that one time,” Rainbow Dash said in a guilty tone, raising a hoof to turn away.
“Don’t worry Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said, walking forward towards Rainbow Dash and looking back at the other two. “They don’t really remember stuff yet, either.” Once Scootaloo’s other two saw Scootaloo, they started to trot forward amiably, and sure enough, didn’t display any sign of fear or reservation towards Rainbow Dash. Far the contrary. As soon as they saw past Scootaloo to Rainbow Dash, the two ended up outpacing Scootaloo and flanking Dash, Dizzie on the left and Bee on the right.
Dizzie was looking up at Dash with her unblinking gaze, and Bee was bumping up against Dash trying to stay close to her as possible as they walked. And Scootaloo was about ready to die from embarassment. “Heh, they really like me huh?” Rainbow Dash said a little nervously.
“They like whatever I like,” Scootaloo mumbled, looking away from the impromptu filly parade to try to find some absolutely fascinating titles in the warmly lit bookshelves. “They just don’t know how to be all... cool about it. Sorry, Dash.”
“Hey it’s no problem,” Rainbow Dash, letting a wing rest on Bee’s flank. “I was worried they’d run off when they saw me, after the way I went and charged in like that.” Scootaloo didn’t really feel like trying to explain why they wouldn’t do that. She just kind of wanted to be quiet and stare off dazedly into the distance, or something. She just couldn’t... something...
“What about you, Archer?” Rainbow said turning to her right side, where Archer was walking, “You guys all like the same things?”
“N-no,” came Archer’s soft voice, “I’ve started liking my own things recently. They just um...” She gave a tired yawn.
Rainbow Dash yawned loudly, “I dunno about you guys,” she said, “But I am going to murder that bed I’m gonna sleep so hard tonight. It won’t know what hit it when my butt gets in there. Total bedicide.” Scootaloo laughed at that.
Wait, she laughed! Scootaloo hadn’t even noticed she was feeling better, it happened so fast. Rainbow Dash just said a few magic words, and it calmed Scootaloo’s fears and made her feel inspired, even hopeful. Dash didn’t even have to do anything she just... didn’t reject Scootaloo, and it was the most amazing thing. It was... the most... uh...
Scootaloo stumbled as she entered the guest room. Rubbing her eyes blearily, she looked up and saw the bed all made, with Twilight next to it looking pleased with herself. Oh Celestia, Scootaloo was going to sleep in a bed tonight. It was practically calling to her. She could already imagine every ache and tension draining out of her. She hadn’t had a bed to sleep in since the sleepover with Sweetie last week. And the others hadn’t had a bed in... like... ever.
As Dash flipped up onto the bed from between them, Scootaloo spared a very guilty look at Archer who was looking up at the bed fearfully, clearly shuffling through her disjoint memories trying to figure out how to deal with this. Scootaloo laid a hoof on her shoulder and smiled at her confidently when Archer looked her way. Then she leapt up onto the bed and reached down, taking Archer’s hoof in hers and helping her up.
“Aren’t Dezzie and um...” Dash said searching for their names.
“Bee,” Scootaloo offered.
“Aren’t Dezzie and Bee coming up too?”
The two were standing at the bedside, but weren’t jumping in, or really giving any indication that they even knew it was a bed they were looking at. “Get tucked in,” said Scootaloo, “They’ll figure it out um... in not too long.” Hopefully not too long at least.
It was only a minute or so before Dezzie leapt onto the bed and Bee immediately followed her example. They walked confidently to the head of the bed and slid themselves under the sheets, right on either side of Rainbow Dash, snuggling up to her shamelessly with little smiles on their faces.
“Wow, they um... really like me, Scootaloo,” Rainbow Dash said, giving Scootaloo a somewhat wide eyed and questionable look. Scootaloo couldn’t answer though, because she was too busy having all the blood in her body pumped directly into her face. She just rolled over and closed her eyes, the weariness outpacing everything else. The bed was so soft and warm, and it had sheets!
“...g’night, Scootaloo,” Rainbow Dash said quietly, then on an afterthought, “g’night Archer.”
In the quiet night broken only by Rainbow Dash’s powerful snoring, the four fillies slept like the dead.
Twilight Sparkle would have slept until noon. She typically did so after her late night studying binges, a bad habit she’d picked up from the fate of the world depending on her. She typically, however, didn’t have to deal with four rambunctious but exhausted fillies, eleven if you counted Rainbow Dash. But unaware of this, far away from the guest room, Twilight just lay in her bed in a peaceful dreamless sleep, the soft mattress and covers hugging her body gently as she dozed the morning away.
She would have slept until noon, but a crashing noise awoke her, coming from downstairs. Some pony or rather, some filly was getting into the pots it seemed. Twilight thought about going back to sleep, letting somepony else take care of a problem for once, just pretending she had heard nothing. She took stock in how many ponies or dragons she could count on to take care of a problem. There was another clatter.
Groaning, Twilight swung her hooves out of bed, sliding out from under the covers reluctantly and looking out her window with bloodshot eyes. At least it was morning, and the sun had risen above the horizon. It couldn’t have been later than 20 or 21 though. She looked over at Spike’s basket, but it was curiously empty. The dragon did like to get up before her to prepare a breakfast for the both of them, but even he knew how late she slept and skipping out on some extra nap time was definitely not his style.
The purple unicorn smacked her lips dryly, walking down the stairs with a practiced ease. She looked at the archway into the kitchen area resignedly, figuring as long as she was up she might as well find out what Scootaloo and Archer and... those other two were doing. She picked up the pace a bit when she heard Spike in there too though. He sounded alarmed.
For a moment, Twilight was sure she was still asleep, because her best assistant in the world was wearing a collander on his head, and the way the potholders had fallen across his shoulders sort of looked like barding, not in their effectiveness but in the way he was wielding a spatula like a weapon, swinging the spatula in front of him and shouting, “Back! Get back!”
His attacker was a pair of fillies, one just staring at Spike curiously before moving forward, only to be driven back again, and the other one bouncing around the kitchen like a hyperactive jelly bean. Assuming jelly beans could be hyperactive, that is.
The one skirting around Spike’s spatula radius cautiously was the yellow and red pony who Twilight knew as Bee, but the other filly, Twilight had never seen before in her life. Her wavy shoulder length mane was a lighter orange than her body color, which contrasted sharply with her striking blue eyes. She was currently jumping on the counter trying to pull more pots off their hooks, but quickly tired of that to jump circles around Bee herding her away from Spike, then cheerfully leaving Bee to her dragon quest and kicking a roll of paper towels, chasing after as it unrolled before her like the other two rolls she’d managed to tear out from the cabinet.
When she jumped to her next activity, Twilight lit up her horn, plucking the orange filly out of the air by her tail. “What is going on here?” she demanded. “Don’t you know this section of the library is off limits?” she said to the little filly in her grasp, leaving Spike to deal with...whatever Bee was doing.
“Well?” Twilight demanded. The filly just strained to escape Twilight’s magical grasp, buzzing her little wings furiously trying to pull herself loose.
“Twilight!” the beleagured and frightened Spike shouted, “Keep them away from the food!”
Twilight looked at Spike, noting that what he was defending was their grain pantry, chock full of bread and cereals. She also noted that the refrigerator door was hanging open and completely empty of fresh vegetables, even the beets. She took another look at the filly in her grasp who was just hanging there wiggling her feet like she could run, not saying a single actual word, just protesting in high pitched, distressed noises, with those odd looking... wings on her back.
“Spike, get Scootaloo,” Twilight said urgently.
“Twilight these aren’t fillies!” he shouted alarmedly, “They are some kind of monster! They ate all the food and then—”
“Get. Scootaloo,” Twilight repeated.
“But–” he said pushing back at Bee.
“I’ll deal with these two,” Twilight said tensely, “Just get her, and hurry!”
Spike abandoned his defensive front, and ran out the door, heading immediately for the rear library and guest room. Amusingly as soon as he did, Bee turned and walked away from the pantry, continuing to follow the dragon, showing a complete disinterest in what he was guarding. Twilight snagged her too, pulling both fillies to her and setting them firmly on her back. “Stay there!” she ordered, and to her surprise even the orange one stopped struggling and they both sat there obediently, looking at Twilight with those expressive respectively blue and pale green eyes.
All three of them turned to look at the entryway, when Spike came running back with Scootaloo. He didn’t actually wake her up is the thing, just lifted the curled up pegasus filly over his head and started running, so Scootaloo was still lifting her head and going, “Huh? Wha..?” when Spike ran into the kitchen.
As the disoriented Scootaloo climbed off of Spike, and stood on her own, Twilight levitated the new, darker orange filly off her back, over the top of her head, and then dangled her in front of Scootaloo, saying, “And do you happen to know who this is?”
Scootaloo rubbed her eyes and looked up at the dangling filly, who looked back silently. “Should I?” said Scootaloo in an uncertain tone, “I don’t think I’ve seen her at school. Why is she at the—wait.”
Scootaloo leaned over looking sideways up at Twilight’s hindquarters. Her face fell when she saw Bee, and she slumped to her hindquarters, saying, “Oh no.”
“Scootaloo this is a serious enough matter as-is!” Twilight said admonishingly. “You can’t keep... making... expelling fillies out your mouth hole! We already talked about this. You were going to demonstrate incorporation this morning, not make another one!”
“What are you talking about, Twilight?” Spike said angrily, “Stop yelling at Scootaloo! It’s that thing on your back that’s a filly spitting monster, not Scootaloo!”
“Bee!” Scootaloo shouted, rearing up and putting her hooves on Twilight’s flank, saying angrily to the pony sitting above her, “You weren’t supposed to eat!” Bee looked back at her unconcernedly.
“Please Miss Twilight, she doesn’t understand it’s not safe yet,” Scootaloo said turning to Twilight, flicking her tail in frustration. “Don’t get mad at her it’s my fault!”
There are giant colossi roaming an unending dark plane of rubble, debris, various and sundry. Now and then they mature, the light fails in their massive single eye and they too fall, collapsing to pieces as they descend heavily to the ground. Occasionally a small creature scampering about the ruins manages to rescue their darkened core. They may fight over it jealously ruining it as it shatters to pieces, or one might escape the rabble, descending through a nightmare machine that fills their journey with deadly traps and impassible barriers. But somehow one will make it through and descend to the room of the keystone, with its walls glowing in what might be arcane runes or incredibly complex technical components. If the final guardian can not destroy the creature before it slots the eye into place making, it and the room light up with information and awareness, then a pony will have an inspiration.
Looking from Scootaloo to Bee to the new filly, Twilight paled noticeably as she said, “Scootaloo, how long does it take your... kind to mature enough to give birth to a new filly?”
Scootaloo was having a hard time answering, saying, “But I’m not grown up I’m just a filly. What do you mean mature?”
“I mean mature!” Twilight said, “Sexually potent! Fully capable of childbirth! How old did you have to get before you could make more... you?”
“Well, I mean I don’t remember that part very clearly,” Scootaloo said, rubbing her chin with a hoof, “I think maybe... a few weeks? It took me a long time before I could find enough food.”
“You said Bee was a few days old, though,” Twilight asserted. “Now you’re saying weeks?”
Scootaloo laughed. What? “No no, Miss Twilight a couple of weeks to find food. Bee must have found some today.”
“So how long before she can—!” Twilight exclaimed tightly, pointing at and shaking the orange filly like a leaf.
“I dunno,” Scootaloo answered honestly, “How fast can you feed her?”
The eleven of them, Twilight, Spike, Scootaloo, Bee and the mysterious orange filly left the kitchen immediately, with applied aid of Twilight’s telekinesis if necessary. She dropped Scootaloo and the orange filly out of her magical grasp and turned to the kitchen focusing her magic stores and channelling. A pink barrier popped into existence in front of the door as the entire kitchen was encased in a shield spell. Twilight reached deep into the earth and tied it to the generator crystal she had installed down there, activating it with a noticeable hum. Moments later the already established pink spherical shield (with gravity) encased the entire library.
She then canceled her horn and said as evenly as possible, “Get the others up. Nopony is going anywhere until we figure out how to fix this!”
Scootaloo backed up a step in alarm, and then ran off fast, with her tail tight against her legs.
“Alright Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said irritably, flying in the room ahead of the others who were coming, and throwing her hooves down in front of the unicorn, “I thought we talked about this!”
“More like interrupted my horn than talked!” Twilight said with an acidic glare.
“What the buck is this?” Rainbow accused, pointing one baby blue hoof at the glowing pink barrier that currently encased them in the library. It was easily visible from the ground level windows in the lobby. “Who the buck is that?” she accused, pointing a baby blue hoof at the orange filly, who was up on the table walking in circles around the wooden equibust statue, looking at every inch of it to determine its secrets. Twilight shot a worried look at the new filly, desperately hoping she hadn’t gotten into something else. It had been hard enough to get “blue eyes” there to stop climbing the bookcases. Attempting to shoo her away with the broom just made her afraid of the broom. Scootaloo was minding her, or trying to.
“I know I like Roanance!” Scootaloo yawped, trying to wave the filly off the table to no effect. “Give it a break, already!”
Rainbow Dash’s angry grimace dropped into a wide eyed frown, as she zoomed over to the two orange fillies, looking at the deep blue eyed one with a greater clarity.
“Did you make another filly?” Rainbow asked Scootaloo in a very worried tone.
“I-I didn’t I mean, I’m sorry Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said miserably, bowing her head before the pegasus humbly. Meanwhile blue eyes was already across the room, trying to climb the reading lamp to reach the pull cord. Archer, Dizzie and Bee came in from the back of the library then, accompanied by Spike.
“It’s worse than that, Rainbow,” Twilight warned, stablizing the base of the wobbling lamp with a hefty gravity spell, while she walked up to Dash. “She is only Scootaloo’s progeny!”
“Proge-what?” Scootaloo and Rainbow said in unison. Twilight groaned.
“Offspring. You know, Scootaloo’s children?”
“They’re not my children,” Scootaloo suddenly insisted, “They’re my um... something!”
“I just said she made another filly,” Rainbow Dash said landing and scraping, “How is that not her children?”
“We’re the same,” Scootaloo tried to explain, “We’re like... I’m not a– I’m not a mom!”
“Progeny,” Twilight repeated, “Is a superset of the term children or offspring. Progeny refers to any direct descendent, such as grandchildren or great-grandchildren.”
Scootaloo actually hovered there, buzzing angry and blushing shouting, “I’m not a grandma!!”
“I’m confused,” Rainbow Dash said shaking her head. She didn’t qualify that, but then she didn’t really need to qualify that. The whole situation was just flat out exactly what she said: confused.
Twilight took in a breath, then shouted, “HEY, don’t—!” as she saw the nameless filly out of the corner of her eye started scooping dirt out from her plant pot.
“Scootaloo, please I need to—with Dash...” Twilight said exasperatedly, waving a hoof at the new blue eyed filly urgently. Scootaloo just nodded, and rushed over to the filly, grabbing her hoof and holding her still to brush the dirt off of it.
Twilight turned back to Rainbow Dash, took in another breath and... nothing disastrous happened. Good. “You remember Bee, right?” Twilight said, pointing at the red filly, who was chewing on a book much more sedately than— “Hold on one second,” Twilight snapped, charging over to Bee and yanking the book out of her mouth. “Stop that!” she said.
Bee began to cry.
Twilight whimpered, looking at Bee sitting there bawling abruptly, and looking at the book in her magic all slimy with Bee’s saliva. “11th edition...” she said in an unimpressed tone, then she unhappily floated the book back over to Bee who grabbed it and started sucking on it immediately. She didn’t look happy, but she couldn’t exactly cry with a book in her mouth.
Returning to Rainbow Dash Twilight said, “Rainbow Dash, I—”
“Dizzie ran outside!” Scootaloo shouted, running out the door after her.
Twilight groaned. She just grabbed Rainbow Dash’s head and said, “Ask Spike what happened.” Then Twilight rushed over to blue eyes, trying to stop her from getting into trouble while Scootaloo was busy with Dizzie.
While Twilight went to chase after that rambunctious looking uh, Scootafilly, Rainbow Dash gave the whole scene a puzzled look, then looked down and to her left. The magic purple dragon who seemed just as flabbergasted as she was then looked to his right, and up. The two of them shared a glance.
“So, uh...” Rainbow Dash prompted hesitantly.
Spike jumped right into it, throwing up his arms saying, “That red filly with the yellow mane is a monster! She woke me up snooping around the kitchen this morning, and I thought she was just hungry! When I started taking out the food though, she just ate it like that! She cleaned out the whole freaking refrigerator, and let me tell you she was round, and then her mouth just opens up and this this thing pops out of it and—”
“Oh yeah, they do that,” Rainbow Dash said with an awkward smile. “Didn’t Twilight tell you?”
“No!” Spike shouted outraged, “And then there were two of them! The new one just went crazy making a mess and dropping all the potholders on me, then the first one starts going for the pantry! It was all I could do to fend it off!”
“Alright, so what do we need to do?” Dash asked, taking an active look at the scene. Bee had actually managed to get the book open and was hoofing through its pages with limited success. Scootaloo came in with Dizzie, and Archer also came in behind them. Twilight had that new filly stuck in her magic again while the filly squealed and thrashed around like a newborn. Which she technically was. And Spike was just shrugging his shoulders.
Dash smiled smugly, crouching saying, “Don’t worry Spike, I know exactly what to do.”
She then darted up to Twilight, and started hopping on her hooves going, “Twilight what do we dooo?”
“Get everypony to the center of the lobby,” Twilight instructed. “We need to all calm down and think of a solution to this huge disaster.”
“Huge disaster?”
“Just, help me round them up, O.K.?”
Rainbow Dash managed to capture the attention of the new filly, mostly by literally capturing her in her hooves and holding on. The filly calmed down, but now she wouldn’t stop licking Rainbow. It was embarassing really, the sort of thing a filly doesn’t do with anyone but her mom, and certainly not a complete stranger like Rainbow Dash. Rainbow tolerated it though, because it seemed like the only way to keep that filly’s attention, and she honestly didn’t mind the damp chest fur too much.
Archer and Scootaloo both had an easy time reining in Dizzie and Bee respectively. Spike was going to clean up the library, but Twilight insisted that he hear this, considering what a disaster it was when she had forgotten to tell him last night.
So before anypony could speak, Rainbow raised her hoof. Twilight gave her a look but didn’t call on her, so Rainbow waved it around to make sure Twilight knew about it. “What is it, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight said tiredly.
“I know this is weird, but a disaster?” she asked, “I mean, it’s just a filly. We already got eleven of them!”
“That’s actually a good place for me to start!” Twilight said brightening up and going into... oh boy, lecture mode.
“While I can’t hope to begin to understand Scootaloo’s unique morphology in a single afternoon, one thing has come to my attention that is very serious, and possibly precipitates a disastrous situation. I had thought that despite her age and appearance that Scootaloo was a mature example of her particular kind. It turns out I was correct but still underestimating the gravity of the situation. You see, Scootaloo’s... pony kind let’s say, does not mature in just a few years, and according to Scootaloo not even in a few days, but in just a few seconds I suspect, if Rainbow Dash’s representation of events is accurate. So in other words, every filly in this room is germinal!”
Silence reigned.
“Like... germs?” Scootaloo asked hesitantly.
“Why yes!” Twilight said cheerfully, then at everyone’s flattening ears corrected herself, “Er, yes and no. You see ‘germ’ tend to refers to certain dark magic enchantments that can only piggyback on existing reproductive mechanisms in order to spread, but the origin of the word refers to any unrealized multiplication unit whether parasitic or not, such as a seed or an egg, or an idea.”
Rainbow Dash raised a hoof.
“Yes Rainbow?” Twilight prompted pleasantly.
“Could you please get to the point, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked exasperatedly.
Twilight glared at her, but did say, “My point is, that every filly in this room can produce another filly.”
“Yeah?” Dash said holding up the blue eyed orange filly. “Thus Licky Loo here?” She even got a snicker out of Scootaloo with that name.
“This is serious, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed. “How are you not getting this? Every filly in this room can produce another filly. And those fillies can produce another filly. How many fillies do there have to be before you figure it out!”
Twilight didn’t have to be so mean though, because Rainbow Dash totally already figured it all out. She just sort of pretended to have a growing look of shock and dread as the implications finally started to hit her. Just to make Twilight feel like Rainbow was too dumb to figure it out on her own. All part of the coolness plan, labeled Plan Cool. Yup.
“How old did you say you were, Scootaloo?” Rainbow squeaked, looking down at the filly.
“10 but... I mean, there were me’s before. I just... it’s hard to remember them all that clearly. I think maybe... 3 winters? 13? 20?”
“Biologically she is 21, give or take a few months,” Twilight pointed out. “Though I suspect the same would be said for the newborn filly you hold in your hooves.”
“21, okay,” Dash said calmly and not hyperventilating, “And how often do you uh... this?” she held up the filly before Scootaloo, who blushed and said,
“I try not to, so... um... I mean it’s easy to mess up though because I get hungry, and there’s all of us and stuff, so I guess... a few times a month? Hopefully less?”
Placing Licky on her back, Rainbow Dash started counting with her hooves. She looked up at Twilight and said, “Say uh, do you have an a-abacus? I just you know, just curious.”
Curious herself, Twilight opened a drawer and fumbled through it, pulling out a standard 10 cell abacus, offering it to Rainbow Dash, who started ticking the beads with her nose while shifting her hooves. First the upper right cell, then moving to the upper left, then the lower left, and even the lower right. As might be expected, Rainbow Dash was multiplying by two. She ran out of beads, and stared at the abacus.
Twilight raised a hoof, “Rainbow, do you—”
“How are we still alive?!” she yelled, her head shooting up to stare at Twilight questioningly.
Twilight blinked. Come on, it was a simple question. “Come on, you know?” Rainbow Dash said to Twilight, pointing at Scootaloo, “This?” and then to the filly on her back, “Then this? How are we not completely buried in fillies by now?”
“I... don’t...” Twilight furrowed her brow, “I... don’t know...” She looked at Scootaloo an uncomfortably long time.
“Well?” Twilight asked demandingly.
“Well what?” Scootaloo said in understandable confusion.
“Why aren’t we buried in your progeny?”
The light dawned in Scootaloo’s eyes and she was like, “Ohhh. Remember, I was going to show you this morning?”
Twilight’s mental ‘abacus’ ticked and she blurted, “The remergence, of course!” Then she ran off leaping down the stairs to the basement, leaving the rest of them standing there without another word.
Scootaloo looked at Rainbow Dash in the quiet, asking, “...should we wait?”
“Well if I know Twilight then yeah,” Dash said, “But uh... don’t make any more fillies until she comes back okay?” Scootaloo blushed and nodded acceptingly.
Twilight was thankfully back post-haste, before any fillies could get worked up enough to start ricocheting about the library. She shouted from down the stairs, “Everything is fully prepared! Everypony down into the laboratory!”
So once again they entered the artificially lit depths beneath Twilight’s tree library.
Things looked a little less uninteresting this time around. Instead of just an examination table, Twilight had her fancy scanner machine all set up. Her brain activity monitor was on the other side of the table with its brightly blinking lights, the needle still over its continuously feeding paper reel. There was a wand with a knob on it delivering a pink lit wall of light that swept back and forth across the table.
“Alright, hop up you two!” Twilight addressed the fillies. Archer actually threw Bee up onto the table, though Bee didn’t protest as such, just landing softly up there. Twilight picked up Archer and put her on the table. The two winced as the beam crossed them, the light dancing in their eyes. Twilight started fitting those brightly lit brain caps on both their heads. Clearly she was intending to measure every single inch of this... whatever this is. Scootaloo tried to pull Dizzie up on her own merit, but she just didn’t have the wingpower, so Dash helpfully lifted Dizzie onto the table while Scootaloo took her place beside her.
There was something bothering Rainbow Dash about this whole thing but she couldn’t put her hoof on it. Just a vaguely creeping unsettling feeling. The spooky atmosphere didn’t help much either. Licky on her back didn’t seem to mind. Seemed she’d exhausted herself this morning, and was now pretty konked out back there.
“We’re both going to do it,” Scootaloo said when Twilight looked at her questioningly. “Me and Archer I mean. I’ve been, I mean, Dizzie has been outside too long already, and I was meaning to do it anyway. It’s just a good time right now, so might as well. That way we can get Bee with Archer and Dizzie and me, so two less fillies.”
“I suppose that’s reasonable,” Twilight said agreeably, “Whatever you’re most comfortable with!”
Scootaloo actually smiled at that, saying “Thanks Miss Twilight! I was hoping Dizzie would have a chance to be me soon.”
“Wait,”Rainbow Dash asked fidgeting uncomfortably, “After this are you going to be Dizzie or are you going to be Scootaloo?”
“Oh, I’ll stay me Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo assured her, “Dizzie is the only one who’s going away.”
That was it. That was what was bothering Rainbow Dash. “S-so Dizzie is going to like, die? I mean, you’re going to just... kill her?”
Scootaloo took a long time to answer that. Rainbow’s heart was practically in her throat when the squirt answered, “No, I’m not going to kill her. She’s just going inside. I mean she can come out again later,” Scootaloo looked away and added, “...probably.”
“Please Scootaloo,” Twilight said in a hurt tone, “You’re even confusing me now. You aren’t going to fuse into a combined filly? Or, incorporate Dizzie somehow? Or, what is it that you do even?”
Scootaloo gave Archer, who was hugging Bee tightly, a scared look on Archer’s muzzle. The pink glowing beam of light continued to pass over the four of them repeatedly.
“Twilight, could you stop that... light thing?” Rainbow Dash said, waving her hoof in the wand’s path.
“Well it is a bit unorthodox and there probably won’t be any thaumaturgical transference I suppose, but, I really want to get as complete a measurement of this process as I can,” Twilight said hesitating hoofily, but finally she lit up her horn and zapped the wand, which turned from a scanning beam to just a steady pink glow. “There, that should be better,” Twilight said. “I don’t know why I thought sweep mode would give more accurate readings. These are living fillies not thaumatic crystals.”
“Actually the light isn’t so bad,” Archer piped up, “But could we um... remove this head... thing from Bee? I can’t do it if it’s on her; that would go pretty badly.”
Twilight frowned, but unbuckled Bee’s flashy head cap, asking Archer, “And what about your encephalomometer?” At the blank stare, Twilight gritted her teeth and added, “Your head thing.”
Archer made her head thing rattle shaking her head no, saying “No it should be fine. It’s just Bee that needs to be um... not have things.”
“What about you, Scootaloo?” Twilight said brandishing the encephalothingy with her magic. Scootaloo nodded, saying, “I could wear that too. It records my thoughts, right?”
“Your brain activity, specifically,” Twilight said, “Concrete thoughts take a good deal of decoding and guesswork though. Everypony’s brain is different after all.” She lifted a sheaf of paper showing some skitchy lines in it, holding it before Scootaloo saying, “But this for instance is what it measured from Archer when you climbed on the table, and, Archer look at Scootaloo please.” Twilight waited another moment and held up a similar set of skitch lines, saying, “See how they’re similar? That is Archer’s mental activity when recognizing you, her ‘picture’ of you in her head so to speak.”
“Wow,” Archer said looking at the skitches with wide eyes. “So that’s what I’m thinking?”
“Yeah yeah, okay Twilight you can put it on me,” Scootaloo said, waving a hoof to shush Archer’s curiosity and presenting her ragged purple mop for Twilight. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Twilight looked at Archer sympathetically, but Archer rested her head on Bee’s shoulder and sighed, “She’s right, let’s do this,” she said determinedly.
“I’m still not okay with this,” Rainbow complained as Twilight fastened the enc-head thingy on Scootaloo. “You can’t just make a filly go away like that. It isn’t right. What about her hopes and dreams?”
“We don’t have hopes and dreams,” Archer said, horrifyingly plainly, “Until being out for a while. It’s kind of feels bad actually at first, like you’re not really someone.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until she uh, has them then?” Dash said, her tail flicking with worry.
“But I thought you didn’t want to destroy her hopes and dreams?” Scootaloo protested confusedly. “Why make them if you’re just going to go back in again?”
“I guess you’re right,” Rainbow admitted, shrinking back a little despite herself. “Just... I mean... won’t they be scared?” she said in too little a voice for the coolest pegasus south of Cloudsdale.
Scootaloo laughed.
Like, caught off guard laughing. Actual genuine humor in what Dash said. While Rainbow fretted, and Twilight was on the other side of the room adjusting some knobs and dials, Scootaloo hugged Dizzie to her, who in turn nuzzled Scootaloo affectionately, and Scootaloo laughed.
“Are you kidding?” Scoots said to Rainbow, “It’s the opposite of scared! Sometimes we go in just to feel better, um... I mean if I have a lot of stress and stuff... on my mind, you know.” Scootaloo blushed heavily. It made Dash feel a little bad for pushing the question.
“It’s okay to be scared,” Rainbow Dash said, putting a hoof on Scootaloo’s shoulder, looking at her and Dizzie. Dash swallowed then, and puffed out her powder blue chest, saying, “If it really honestly helps you, then I can’t say I have a problem with it, and...”
“...I’m scared too sometimes,” Dash continued, turning aside since saying that made a blush hit her own face. “It’s I mean... it’s just kind of weird. I’m not used to freaky stuff like... I mean...” every word she said just seemed to crush Scootaloo a little more, no matter how hard she wanted to comfort the filly. “I mean, never mind! I’m totally cool with it, don’t worry,” she said, wondering why she even had to open her fat mouth. “Shutting up now,” she mumbled, closely checking her hooves for scuff marks.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Scootaloo,” Twilight said softly coming up to the table again. The flashy blinking lights seemed to accentuate her features making her look just a bit terrifying. But her tone of voice wasn’t. It was accepting and gentle, not judging the filly or ragging on her decision one way or the other. It would really be easy for the squirt just to say, “Okay I won’t.”
“No, I do,” Scootaloo said. Or that.
“Don’t worry I do this all the time,” Scoots clarified, “It’s not exactly the sort of thing I can skip out on. I either do it now, or ...later, when nopony is watching. You actually sound like you want to watch though, so I’ll ...try to be brave.” Scoots was fighting hard to hold back a quaver in her voice, Rainbow could tell, but... it wouldn’t have been honest with Scootaloo, to deny her desire to put on a brave face. Sometimes the truth isn’t so much what’s said out loud, as expressing what you feel inside.
“I would really appreciate it, Scootaloo,” Twilight said with a hint of eagerness she didn’t even try to hide. “Finding out what makes ponies tick is something I love to do, because it means I might be able to help you in the future, and I’ll have the knowledge needed to make the right decision.”
“Alright then, Archer?” Archer looked at Scootaloo. “You ready?” Scootaloo said. Archer nodded silently, turning to Bee and wuffling her messy yellow curls. Twilight hurried over to the scanner, checking it and adjusting it, attaching it to some sort of a pulsing crystal thing and staying there watching its measurement and display of the insides of those four fillies.
“Let’s do it together,” Scootaloo said, “On three, okay?” Archer nodded again and smiled in almost what looked like relief.
“One, two, three!”
Rainbow Dash woke up screaming from yet another nightmare of what she saw that night.
No, no not really. It was really really weird though, and Dash may have had her empty stomach lurch unsettlingly at the sight, but that wasn’t because she found it indescribably horrifically disturbing, but it was just because she missed breakfast. That’s all. There was a Twishield blocking the door to the kitchen! It was only natural to have some digestive complaintoh Celestia that is bucking... oughh
Fillies are, after all, mostly head, which made what happened especially hard to swallow. The first thing Scootaloo and Archer did was open their mouths ginormously like that one time, and they actually managed to bring them down around Dizzie and Bee’s heads, engulfing them entirely. Then Scoots and Archer’s heads jerked up sharply in a practiced, no a reflexive motion, lifting the other fillies right off their hooves, bodily into the air above them, both their eyes losing focus as they did so.
The fillies didn’t even struggle at all. Dizzie just sunk down into Scootaloo’s maw, her torso descending into the bizarrely distending filly underneath her, and likewise Bee to Archer. Scootaloo’s and Archer’s mouths closed almost simultaneously—the whole thing had happened within a few seconds—leaving only the powder blue and yellow tails limply hanging out of their mouths. Scootaloo looked at Dash immediately after she closed her mouth, in a desperate pleading fashion. Both their bulging throats and bellies started to shrink to their old proportions, the fillies gaining far too little in size for the amount that their guts were contracting.
Rainbow Dash was frantically trying to withhold her urge to throw up, because Scootaloo was looking at her and she couldn’t do that to the the filly... the whatever she was. But when Scootaloo slurped up that tail into her like a mouthful of spaghetti Dash had to cover her mouth as her stomach convulsed and she hurked, the awful taste of bile rising up in her throat. She forced herself to swallow and brought her hoof down, trying to smile at the fillies, the two fillies that were just four a minute ago. It was too late to save face though; Scootaloo’s eyes shone with hurt and turned away from Dash, the filly wrapping a hoof around her own belly as if to compress it down faster.
It wasn’t until after it was all the way done that Scootaloo started to cry though.
Twilight Sparkle actually leapt back in shock when the fillies closed their mouths on the other fillies. Her head was spinning too fast for her to really take in what was happening. These fillies weren’t merging they were consuming. This was impossible. This was ridiculous! This was
Incredibly fascinating.
The musculature changes she observed in her scans were so much more believable to see them in action. The fillies seemed to be destroying the mass somehow as the other fillies digested within them at a visible speed. You could see their features immediately lose definition from within the distended bodies of Scootaloo and Archer, even before their torsoes were ingested. Of course they would be ingested. She had thought they would just merge together by close skin contact, but that wasn’t how they were created. They didn’t reproduce by budding, so why would they deproduce by merging? It made perfect sense in the same way that lightning being trapped inside an electrical wire made perfect sense, which is to say it didn’t make any sense at all, and yet there it was happening in front of her, completely self evident.
She almost forgot to look at the scanner, she was so fascinated with this bizarre ingestion process. By the time she did examine the scanner, there were barely more than two fillies at all. The others had completely lost any bone density or muscle definition, and were already just shapeless masses that diminished inside Scootaloo and Archer’s digestive cavity as if it were vanishing into thin air. The process halted then, before the other fillies were gone entirely, but the two remaining fillies had their normal proportions again, and what remained was nothing more than enough amorphous material to fill their stomachs on the scanner. She noticed also that the fillies had stomachs again, or at least some organ which held the appearance of one. Those and the throat had seemed to mesh together into a single compartment during the process, at least phylogenically.
It was maddeningly frustrating that she didn’t get to see the first crucial moments of their dissolution in the scanner, but well, that’s why she had the recording crystal hooked to its auxiliary line. She looked from the recovering fillies to the scanner, back to the fillies again. Scootaloo seemed to recover more quickly than Archer, though neither seemed inclined to stand up. Twilight’s ear turned toward wretching noises, and she quickly glanced over to see where Rainbow Dash was standing... barely standing. Dash didn’t look so good.
Twilight couldn’t spare a moment for thought on that though, as her attention was fixated on the two fillies who might yet display some unique property characteristic of their feeding cycle. Even as it seemed to be completed there could still be internal physiological reactions found in no other ponykind. And sure enough, Scootaloo began becoming emotional, crying softly and slumping down. It wasn’t exactly a unique reaction, but it was one a pony would not normally display after disintegrating a filly inside her gullet.
It was then that Twilight realized that Scootaloo was crying on the examination table. Twilight’s eyes softened then deepened with worry as she looked from Scootaloo to her notes on “spontaneous emotional expression”. She let her clipboard drop and looked at Scootaloo again, walking a step forward. Why was Scootaloo so upset? And why hadn’t Twilight even noticed?
Before she could say anything to comfort the filly though, Twilight was struck by an observation about herself. About the unassuming looking purple unicorn in the corner. Her observation was that this unicorn had just observed two fillies disintegrating in front of her and hadn’t even batted an eye. That this unicorn had in her ignorance encouraged it, and somehow not found it upsetting. Twilight began to shake as she realized that this unicorn had been so absorbed with the implications and the discoveries she could make that she had forgotten entirely that these were real living fillies involved, and now they were if not dead, certainly no longer alive. A strange unicorn indeed who couldn’t even understand why Scootaloo might be crying.
“Scootaloo, are you—” Dash said hoarsely.
“I’M FINE!” Twilight shouted. She looked at Dash. She couldn’t meet Dash’s eyes. Those soulful expressive eyes that looked right into you, the very color of Twilight’s magic. “I’ll be right back!” Twilight shot out, then galloped up the stairs. She didn’t stop to gasp for breath until she had left the library entirely and collapsed on the grass outside, the merry morning sunlight shining down tinted by the color of her very own meticulously constructed shield spell.
Meanwhile down in the Twicave, Rainbow Dash was feeling seriously apprehensive. As if Scootaloo ever crying at all wasn’t odd enough, as if Twilight’s sudden departure wasn’t odd enough, Rainbow Dash found it really odd how Twilight’s fleeing actually made Scootaloo cry less. Scootaloo watched the fleeing mare, sniffling and rubbing at her nose and quieting down, yet looking even gloomier somehow. Archer seemed sad enough as-is, but Scootaloo, Dash just didn’t know what to think about.
Ignoring her apprehension and nervous hooves Rainbow Dash walked up to the examination table saying, “Hey, Scootaloo. It’s okay to be upset I don’t mind, really. That was... yeah I can’t even... I mean, if you want to talk about how you feel, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
Scootaloo smiled somehow and laughed through her own tears. “I-it’s silly really,” she sniffed, “It’s just that Dizzie, she...” and then Scootaloo got this haunted look on her face looking up at Rainbow. “S-she really did think we were never coming back again,” Scootaloo said choking back a sob as she finished the sentence, just struggling there to retain her composure in front of her idol. That’s who Dash was to Scootaloo, even after all this.
Rainbow Dash didn’t know what to do, so she just went with what she wanted to do. She lifted a foreleg towards Scootaloo invitingly saying, “Hey squirt, uh, if you promise not to eat my head, you kinda look like you could maybe use a hug.”
Scootaloo didn’t even make it standing, just staggered forward and fell onto Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. It quickly grew damp again despite having been out of the rain for an entire half day, just mysterious water appearing from nowhere, no doubt. Dash looked at Archer who just shook her head and stayed put. Then she lay one of her hooves across Scootaloo’s back and just held her softly while the pegasus quietly cried her eyes out. There was only one coherent thing Scootaloo managed to whisper,
“She was so scared...”