The early morning sun shone brightly on Ponyville, bathing Twilight Sparkle in its warm rays as she breathed in the tranquil morning air in Ponyville Park, having stepped out for some fresh air and sunlight before cooping herself up in the Golden Oaks library for a day of intense studying and magical practice. She continued to enjoy the peaceful morning, calling out friendly greetings to any fellow townsfolk who turned out to be early risers this morning as well, until her tranquility was shattered on her way back to the library by something suddenly plowing into her.
Or rather, three somethings.
“Oops, sorry Twah’light!” Applebloom apologized, picking herself and the scooter she was riding up off of the ground.
“Yeah, sorry. You okay?” Sweetie Belle asked, doing the same, thankful that she had convinced her friends that wearing helmets during this venture was a wise decision. Beside her, Scootaloo staggered to her feet, shaking off the impact and clearing her head, before standing up her own scooter.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Twilight answered, peeling herself off the ground with a slightly pained groan, checking herself over to make sure there was no real damage done. Satisfied she was in good condition, she turned to the three fillies, all of whom wore sheepish grins. “Just be more careful next time, okay?" Taking stock of the fillies' mode of transportation, her curiosity was piqued. "What do you all have those scooters for, anyway? I thought that was Scootaloo’s thing.”
“Well, it is,” Scootaloo answered. “But had a great idea for using these to try and get our cutie marks!”
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DEMOLITION DERBY!!!” The three fillies chorused enthusiastically.
“Umm, girls, I’m not so sure that’s sa…" Twilight trailed off as she realized she was speaking to an audience of zero. "And, they’re gone,” Twilight said flatly, watching the trio ride off into the distance.
“Those three…” Twilight let out a resigned sigh and resumed her walk back to the library, trying to salvage the peace of the once-more quiet morning.
A couple hours later…
WHAM!
The loud noise sounded as the library shook, knocking a few books off of their shelves and disrupting Twilight's concentration, causing her attempt at practicing dual-casting to go awry. As she let out a yelp of surprise her two spells shot off in opposite directions, one beam ricocheting between three inkwells and knocking them all over before flying straight towards Owlowiscious, who had been woken by the loud noise. He quickly reached one talon behind him and pulled out the small mirror Twilight had given him for emergencies and magical mishaps, using it to reflect the beam into the library floor where it dissipated, leaving nothing more than a small scorch mark. Turning towards Twilight, he let out an irritable hoot before promptly going back to sleep.
Meanwhile, the second beam had taken a much less chaotic path, instead shooting straight into the wooden statue in the middle of the library and turning it into a large banana peel.
“What the hay was that!?” Twilight exclaimed as she took stock of the havoc caused by her spells before running out of the library to see what had crashed into her workplace while grumbling under her breath. "Finally almost got the hang of using Evocation and Transmutation at the same time, and this happens..."
As she exited the front door of the library and looked around, Twilight quickly located the source of the disturbance. Unsurprisingly, the culprits were the same three fillies she had run into (or rather, who had run into her) earlier, currently lying in a jumbled heap amongst the wreckage of three crashed scooters, two of which were lying in numerous pieces while the other one, which Twilight recognized as Scootaloo’s, remained reasonably intact somehow.
“Girls, what is going on here?!” Twilight exclaimed a bit irritably, her usual patience frayed from the level of disruption caused within the library.
"Sorry Twilight,” Scootaloo apologized as the three fillies peeled themselves off the ground yet again, now doubly glad for the presence of their helmets. “See, we figured that for our demolition derby to work out, we needed to build up a bunch of speed before we tried crashing into anything, so we started out at the top of a steep hill, but we got going too fast and lost control, and after zipping through town a bit, we crashed here. Sorry if we caused you any trouble.”
“Hey, do ya think we got our cutie marks, though?” Applebloom asked, perking up.
The three fillies checked their flanks simultaneously, letting out a disappointed chorus of “Aww…” when they found them still blank.
“Well, there’s gotta be something else we can try today, right?” Sweetie Belle said.
“Yeah!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “Maybe we could get some pogo sticks and…”
Twilight tuned out their discussion as she thought to herself about the situation at hand. She had watched the three fillies patiently through many attempts at getting their marks, even helping them try different things in a safe environment, hoping they would finally catch on to the talents that had stared them right in the face several times, such as the time during their preparations for the school talent show earlier that year, but to no avail. Now, faced with the prospect of the three fillies coming up with even more outrageous ideas, causing who-knows-what kinds of chaos around town, Twilight found she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Oh, for the love of… AAA!” She shouted suddenly.
“Huh?” The CMC chorused, confused by Twilight’s sudden outburst.
“AAA!” She repeated. “Aesthetics!” She said, pointing at Applebloom. "Athletics!” She continued, pointing at Scootaloo. "Acapella!” She finished, pointing at Sweetie Belle. "AAA!” She shouted one more time for good measure, storming back to the door, leaving behind three startled and dumbfounded fillies.
As Twilight retreated into her library, the three fillies could just hear her muttering under her breath. "Now I need to figure out how to change my banana peel back into a statue..."