When Scootaloo came to, she had no idea where she was or what time it was. Her vision was blurry at first but her body felt fine. She was in some kind of house it seemed. The walls were painted with blue and purple swirls. The doorways had some kind of purple lining and there were pictures of things like ice cream and butterflies on the wall. The very air had a thick sweet smell to it. It would usually make her want to gag but she somehow suppressed it.
“Wow, what is this place?” Scootaloo nearly jumped at the sudden voice and turned around to see Cheerilee behind her. The mare looked at some pink colored countertops. Her body was grey and thin like a ghost or a bad photograph.
Scootaloo yelped and jumped into the air. Her wings, which normally did little more than make her hover, launched her like a rocket into the sky and right through the roof. But she soared through as if it was made of air. That wasn’t a good kind of flight. Scootaloo simply couldn’t control herself after such a shock and flipped around and flew back, phasing through the roof and crashing into the floor. Cheerilee went and tried to help her up but her hoof went through her as if their bodies couldn’t touch.
“Cheerilee….you’re a ghost or something!” Scootaloo cried. She kicked backwards with her hooves until she was able to crawl back to a standing position.
Cheerilee huffed in annoyance. “Uh, you look the same way.”
Scootaloo started running in place like she usually did when frightened. “What is this?!”
“Calm down, Scoots,” Cheerilee said firmly. “Being this upset won’t help us. I don’t know what this place is but we had to have come here for a reason, right?”
Suddenly, the front door was pushed open and a pony came rushing in. She had roller skates on her hooves. She had a blue and purple mane and her coat was a dark yellow. If it wasn’t for a butterfly cutie mark, a lack of wings and that bit of blue in her mane, she and Scootaloo would look like twins.
“Seriously….we didn’t mean to break in or anything!” Scootaloo blurted, holding out her hooves as if to protect herself. But instead, the pony totally ignored her and went to the wall where an assortment of toys hung from the walls. She picked up what looked like a red jump rope made of little hearts.
“This will be great….with these fun things, we’ll have a swell time!” the pony exclaimed happily. Her voice was like a foal’s, even though she looked as old as Cheerilee. But it was hard to tell. As big as she was, she lacked wrinkles and her coat had a certain glow that only the very young usually had.
She started gathering some of the stuff on her wall. Scootaloo went near her. “Uh, hello? Sorry for intruding….hello?” she said. She then waved her hoof in front of her but she didn’t respond.
“I’m pretty sure they can’t sense us,” Cheerilee said.
“I figured.”
The pony hummed to herself while getting her stuff. “Let’s see…I got my jump rope, skateboard, and my scooter of course! I bet Cheerilee will love it!” She turned around and put her helmet on while flashing a brilliant grin. “Let’s scoot!” She hurried out of there, leaving behind the two astonished ponies…or pony spirits as they were.
Scootaloo felt her chest tightening. “What the….did she say ‘Cheerilee’?”
“I heard that too. I wonder what she meant,” Cheerilee said. “And she looks a lot like you.”
“Yeah. What the hay is up with that?” Scootaloo paced around in thought. She had been in that place for only a few minutes and she already distrusted it. “Well, sitting here won’t help. Let’s go follow her.”
Cheerilee agreed and the two of them followed the strange pony around that weird town. Scootaloo of course flew the whole way while Cheerilee navigated the streets. She couldn’t feel the wind or the clouds but it was still better than nothing.
The pony darted about on her rollerblades around rows of colorful houses. Some had turrets and hearts adorned most of them. The lawns were manicured and the streets were made of bright yellow stones. In the distance was a large pink castle with multicolored turrets and a huge blue balloon docked up high. They’ve never seen anything like it before. To Scootaloo, it was as visually intense as a carnival.
Eventually, the pursuit ended at some kind of large park. The pony laid her things down and sat on a bench. Soon, another pony came into view. Her coat and mane were a variety of pinks and purples and she had a pretty flower on her flank.
“Cheerilee! You made it!” the pony exclaimed. That other Cheerilee came and called her Scootaloo and they both laughed.
“This is odd…how can they have both of our names?” Scootaloo wondered.
“Look what I brought…I know we’ll have so much fun with it,” the other Cheerilee said. She put down a bunch of books and a set of markers.
“She has my eyes,” Cheerilee said with discomfort. “That cutie mark though….”
The other Scootaloo looked at her stuff with confusion. The other Cheerilee did the same. “Hey, wait a minute…” the other Scootaloo said.
“….you brought stuff too?” the other Cheerilee finished.
They looked at each other. “Oh oh….”
Both of those ponies looked disappointed at what apparently passed for an impasse between them.
“Oh no, I didn’t know you were going to bring something for us to do,” the other Cheerilee mentioned.
“I didn’t know you were going to do it either,” the other Scootaloo replied.
“Both of these things are something we like to do and we don’t have time to do both…Pinkie Pie is having a party later,” the other Cheerilee said sadly.
The other Scootaloo scratched her head. “We got to put our heads together. I don’t want to just sit around. That would be a bore.”
They sat and seemed to think for several minutes before they both leapt up to their hooves at the same time.
“I have an idea!” they both declared in unison.
The other Cheerilee giggled. “You go first!”
“No, you go!”
The other Cheerilee grinned. “Let’s both do our activities at the same time!”
“That sounds like fun…I’ll take you on a ride around town on my scooter!”
The other Cheerilee picked up a book. “And I’ll read one of my favorite books too!”
“That sounds like a plan!” the other Scootaloo said joyfully.
With the scooter set up, the other Cheerilee sat in it and opened her book. Scootaloo and Cheerilee followed behind as the other Scootaloo used her roller skates to go around town. The other Cheerilee read from a book as they went, which seemed to please them both. By the time their little playtime was over, they were at the doorstep of a pink house. The house had hearts all over and a huge bow at the top of the second floor that had a bulbous shape.
The two ponies got up and laughed.
“That was super fun! I’m glad we both brought something we liked,” the other Cheerilee said.
“I agree…we should do that more often,” the other Scootaloo replied.
Then a pink pony jumped out of the house. Her cutie mark were three balloons.
“Hey, you two! You’re right on time!” she said, smiling.
“We would never miss your party, Pinkie Pie,” the other Scootaloo said.
Pinkie looked at the scooter. “It looks like you two had an absolutely positively fun time together!” They all started laughing.
“I would never miss out on anything when it comes to my sister,” the other Scootaloo said, looking fondly at the other Cheerilee.
Scootaloo had enough. She jumped in the middle, intent on interrogating them. The world she was in was so much like her own but everything was twisted and distorted. Like in a funhouse mirror, nothing made any sense. “What are you guys talking about?!” she shouted. “First you two have our names then there’s Pinkie Pie?” When they didn’t respond but kept talking about a pony named Rainbow Dash making them new dresses, Scootaloo stomped her hooves and yelled some more. She didn’t like those ponies one bit. They were like wax sculptures talking to one another.
Cheerilee thought of going to her and getting her to calm down but before she could, the world started to melt before her eyes. She was too surprised to scream or even gasp. The colors all swirled into one light before fading to black.