“Cousin Babs got her cutie mark,” Applejack explained to the others as they stood around in the recently redecorated back room of the pub. “They’re having her cute-ceañera party in Manehattan.”
“I could do with a trip to Manehattan,” Rarity said.
“A weekend trip could be nice,” Twilight agreed.
“Looks like we’re going to Manehattan this weekend,” said Rainbow.
“We are?” Guinness asked.
“Well, you aren’t. Somepony has to watch Skyla.”
“We could always take her with us,” Guinness pointed out.
Rainbow rolled her eyes and executed a long sigh. “Uuuuuugh, okay.”
“Traveling on a train with a baby?” Pinkie said. “No thanks.”
“Come on, she isn’t that bad,” Rainbow explained. “She just says ‘yay’ sometimes. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen her cry.”
Guinness nodded along with her. Skyla could be a handful, but at least she wasn’t constantly bawling.
They made plans. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were also invited. Squibles got the nod to run the pub while they were gone.
“Who’s going to feed Doug and Ike?” Guinness asked.
Owning an orthrus was mo’ heads, mo’ responsibility. Rainbow still wished she hadn’t picked up the two-headed dog at the trading meet. Guinness, however, didn’t mind.
The train ride to Manehattan took hours. Skyla was quiet, but the CMC were not.
“Didn’t this train used to be faster?” Rainbow groaned, looking out the window at the scenery slowly passing by.
“I thought they used to have jet engines and stuff?” Guinness asked.
“They used to. Nopony knew how to fix ‘em,” Applejack replied.
Guinness looked like he wanted to ask a question, but didn’t.
The girls talked over a few of their recent adventures, especially discussing at length the one where a perhaps-Communist town was actually found out to be something else.
Guinness listened with rapt attention. He looked like he wanted to ask a question, and this time did. “So were they a cult or something?”
“I suppose that would be a reasonable description,” Twilight acknowledged.
“I mean, wow,” said Guinness. “I didn't realize that the magic of friendship involved toppling the leader of a cult of communist equines. As you were telling that story, I almost thought they were gonna go full Jonestown. And you never, never, go full Jonestown.”
“Sounds like something Trixie would say,” Applejack commented. “She hates cultists.”
“We know, we all read Daring’s book about it,” Twilight reminded her.
“Isn’t Daring working on something new?” Rarity said.
“I think the title is You Gave Birth to the Antichrist, Rainbow Dash,” said Fluttershy.
“She kind of did,” Guinness agreed.
Rainbow swatted his shoulder. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”
“There’s so much stuff we agreed not to talk about,” Applejack said. “Pretty soon we’re gonna start running out of things to talk about.”
Fortunately, they arrived in Manehattan and made their way to Babs' party. Leaving the train station, they passed a message board. It was fortunate that none of them noticed. Many of the postings were written with poor grammar. Some were racist or otherwise inflammatory. One read, "Valiant did nothing wrong."
Babs greeted them at the door when the group made it to her family's apartment. "Hey everypony! Come in!"
The CMC swarmed her, gasping and chattering like little machine guns as they fawned over her cutie mark, a pair of scissors. Also slightly belatedly, her stylish new haircut.
"Wow, it looks like you found out that you're really good with manes!" Sweetie exclaimed.
"But if you spend all your time cuttin' hair, who's gonna run the Manehattan branch of the CMC?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Well, not Babs," observed Scootaloo. "She can't be a Cutie Mark Crusader if she's already got her cutie mark."
"Oh, wow. I guess you're right," Apple Bloom allowed.
"I'm glad Babs is happy," Sweetie said, "but I sure wouldn't want to be up to my flank in mane hair all day. Can you imagine getting stuck with a cutie mark you didn't like?"
Apple Bloom frowned. "No...or at least I hadn't..."
"Drama incomin'," muttered Applejack to the other girls.
Babs went off with Sweetie and Scootaloo to get some food. Apple Bloom was still looking distressed. "I guess I just spent so much time worryin' about how to get a cutie mark, I never even thought about what would happen after. There's just so many things I never considered."
"I'm sure there are," Applejack tried to comfort her, "but you don't need to— "
"What if I finally get my cutie mark and I don't like it?" Apple Bloom interupted. "What if I get my cutie mark and nopony likes me?"
"Well, that's just ridicu—" Applejack tried to say.
"What if the Crusaders break up because we no longer have anything in common?" Apple Bloom wondered.
Applejack paused, and then glanced at the others. They all shared a quick nod and Applejack turned back. "AB, we're going to help you get your cutie mark!"
It was nearly midnight by the time the CMC finally calmed down from the news. The party had come to an end but they were still bundles of hyperactive energy that practically resulted in ADHDHD, the high-definition cousin of ADHD.
Babs' parents had found bedding for everyone to stay the night, despite the small size of the apartment. Regardless of the oncoming late night, the Crusaders were still awake. The older girls hadn't yet figured out exactly what they were going to do for cutie marks, but that didn't keep the fillies from freaking out about it.
They went up to the roof to enjoy the night air, having been ordered to stop disturbing the neighbors. The city lights dimmed the stars a little, but fortunately Manehattan was a pony city and therefore not all that industrialized and smog-producing. Valiant clearly hadn't worked on it hard enough.
The three fillies took a moment to contemplate their existence and comments from earlier in the day. Apple Bloom said, "We've all worked really hard to get cutie marks. We've done so much stuff. But...what if we all get cutie marks and they turn out to be something bad?"
"I couldn't even imagine." Sweetie shuddered.
"No kidding," added Scootaloo. "A bad cutie mark would be...well, bad."
"Why should you have to keep it, then?" asked a mysterious voice.
The three of them looked around to see an equally mysterious figure in the shadows. They spotted a silhouette with a pair of glowing red eyes and an equally illuminated crimson smile. All three of them remembered very well what Valiant had taught them about bad guys. Good guys might sometimes wear black, but they usually didn't have dark miasmas or suddenly appear with a too-good-to-be-true offers.
"Who're you?" Apple Bloom asked.
"I can make unwanted cutie marks disappear," the figure replied.
"Well, first we have to get some," Scootaloo said.
The figure sounded delighted. "It so happens that I can help with that, too."
"Crusader huddle," called Sweetie Belle. The three fillies put their heads together.
"Doesn't seem legit," Scootaloo began.
"Yeah, free cutie marks?" said Apple Bloom. "Heck, after all the work we put in, I'd be ashamed to admit to anypony that we worked so hard, didn't get cutie marks, and then just found somepony givin' 'em out for free."
"Plus, the obvious weird and creepy stuff whoever that is has going on," said Sweetie, throwing a glance at their mysterious visitor.
Suddenly, the red-glowing face of the shadow looked up in alarm and jumped away just before a blast of blue magic smacked into the roof right where it had been standing. Princess Luna dropped down onto the roof, looking cross. "Begone, foul creature!"
"Wow, thanks!" said Scootaloo.
"Yeah, whoever that was seemed kind of shady," Apple Bloom said, pun not intended because she was a country hick and was also like eight years old or something with an elementary school education that she hadn't paid attention to half of.
"I didn't even know we were asleep and dreaming," said Sweetie.
"Dreaming?" said Luna.
"What's going on up here?" Twilight called. She led the others up onto the roof. They all looked grumpy as if pulled from sleep. “What kind of commotion – oh, hello Princess.”
Luna nodded. “I was just passing by.”
Rainbow yawned. “That’s nice. Did it have to be in the middle of the night?”
“It’s comments like that that probably caused her to become Nightmare Moon,” Applejack muttered.
Luna looked uncomfortable and changed the subject. “I saw some nefarious character here earlier.”
“It’s Manehattan,” said Rarity. “That’s to be expected.”
“Wait a second,” said Twilight. “Exactly how nefarious are we talking?”
“A shadowy figure with red-glowing features,” Luna replied.
“Oh, okay, the usual.”
“Who was it?” Applejack asked.
“If I knew that, I would have identified them,” Luna said.
“Could it have been Valiant?” asked Pinkie. “He liked to be all dark and mysterious when the mood suited him.”
“At the same time, I believe he also referred to that as ‘emo’ and avoided it when he could,” Rarity replied.
“I am not sure he would have appeared in disguise at all,” Luna allowed. “He does not seem to be around much lately.”
“Except we’ve gotten some messages and things from him, wherever he is,” Twilight said. “He’s around, but we haven’t had any direct contact with him.”
“I am reminded of what he told me once,” said Luna. Her voice lowered into a vague mimic of Valiant. “‘Princess, for the right price, I'll be a goddamned ghost.’”
They were all silent for a moment. Finally, Fluttershy asked, “But who would pay him?”
That only led to more silence. Valiant seemed to have all the money he needed. Besides, as an alicorn with a moonbase, what else could he want? Certainly nothing money could buy. They also couldn’t see him working for anypony but himself.
“Well, that’s about enough annoyance for one night,” Twilight said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going back to bed.” The rest of the girls followed her back downstairs.
Luna thought about warning the CMC to stay safe, but decided that it wasn’t worth the breath. These fillies had been through the Canterlot invasion, multiple robots, and several other schemes of Valiant. They would be fine. She bid them goodnight and flew away.
The trip back to Canterlot Castle gave Luna some time to think. The mysterious figure offering to remove cutie marks was disturbing, but didn’t seem particularly dangerous. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. She decided to check in with Celestia when she got back.
The castle was dark, with only lights for the night servants. Luna entered her office window, but paused as she was folding her wings. Something was not quite right.
She moved towards the light switch, but something crunched under her hoof. Luna paused, engaging thermal vision. Broken shards of glass littered her office.
Now that she was on guard, she also noticed that some papers from her desk had been scattered. An ornamental vase that she was quite fond of had been smashed.
Flipping on the lights to see everything in full color, Luna took a closer look at the glass. It was the remaining shards of a tequila bottle.
Luna tapped a small box on her desk. It had a hole in it and had been enchanted to carry her voice to another box just like it. “Duty officer, please send me a capable guard for a special mission.”
“At once, Princess,” came the reply.
In just a few moments, the door opened and a batpony stepped in, wearing the traditional Night Guard armor. She saluted. “First Lieutenant Dandy Sprite, Princess.”
She looked like most any other Night Guard, with the slit pupils and the fangs and the batwings, and it took Luna a moment to recognize her. “Thank you for coming.”
“Yes Princess.” The guard looked around at the mess. “Did something happen here?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Luna said. “Now, I have a special mission for you. I need you to go to Ponyville to keep watch over the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.”
“Is something going on?” Dandy Sprite asked.
“Perhaps,” Luna said. She could have mobilized other assets, such as Cheerilee, but for the simple task of reporting on what was going on around those mares in Ponyville, it was easier and a better use of resources to just send a guard to observe. If Valiant – or anypony/thing else – did something, Luna wanted to know immediately.
“You can count on me, Princess!” Dandy Sprite quipped. “I’ll make sure to keep tabs on all of them all the time, no matter what!”
Luna nodded. “Good luck.”