It Runs In The Family

by Onomonopia

Scolded

Scootaloo shot back home after work, kicking herself for forgetting her bag that contained the bat suit in her living room. Seriously, what if a pony had decided to come in just to visit and found the bat suit on accident? All those years of training and all the years of preparing would be washed down the drain, and all because she had forgotten her stupid bag. Fortunately for her, she found the bag in her living room completely untouched, still under the table where she had left it.

"Thank Celestia that Batman wasn't here to see this," she said with a shake of her head as she picked up the bag from under the table and tossed it over her shoulder. She got back on the scooter, flapping her wings as fast as she could as she rocketed towards Rarity's Carousel. While she shot down the street and startled a number of ponies that she zoomed by, she couldn't help but think about what Tiara had said to her back at the gym. Even though she had laughed off the fact that she didn't have a cutie mark, it still bothered her whenever she thought about it, especially when she was alone. Out of the three fillies who made up the CMCC, back when they were fillies, Scootaloo was the only one of them that hadn't gotten her cutie mark yet. Applebloom's was, naturally, an apple while Sweetie Belle turned out to be quite the singer. But despite their success, Scootaloo still hadn't found her special talent. Not that it bothered her all the time, since she had devoted herself to becoming like Batman, but it still bothered her from time to time. What was she doing wrong?

"It doesn't matter any more; all that matters is the mission," she said to herself as she reached the Carousel Boutique's front door, bringing her scooter to a halt in front of the shop. She hopped off the scooter and picked up her bag, opening the door to a familiar sight. She smiled as she saw all of the clothes all over the floor, the fabrics and thread strewn out like spider web all over the windows; and finally there she was, the white mare with the purple mane who was running around like crazy trying to finish up some order on time. Some things never changed.

"Oh why did I have to wait until today to finish up that order?" Rarity asked herself as she rushed back and forth across the room, grabbing and ditching a number of items that she needed in her mad rush.

"Um, hello Rarity," Scootaloo said with a smirk as Rarity came screeching to a stop at the sound of her voice, turning towards Scootaloo with a tired smile on her face.

"Oh, hello there, ScootaaaaHHHHHH!" Rarity shrieked when she saw the state Scootaloo was in, both of her eyes immediately drawn to the nasty black eye that Scootaloo had on her face. "My word, Scootaloo, what happened to your face?" Rarity asked her as she moved closer to Scootaloo's eye, wincing at how painful it looked.

"It's nothing; I've had worse," she said to Rarity with a smile, a smile at which Rarity frowned.

"You got this fighting those criminals again, didn't you?" Rarity asked her, not needing to see Scootaloo's guilty face to know that she was right. "This isn't the first time I've seen you come into my shop with a bruise like that. One time it was a bruised leg, and another it was a busted lip! Why do you do this to yourself?"

"You know the reason for that, Rarity," Scootaloo said as she placed her bag in front of Rarity. Rarity looked down at it with a scowl, already knowing what was inside. She looked up from the bag to the nervous face of Scootaloo, her emotions hidden behind her stare.

"You ripped it again, didn't you?" Scootaloo rubbed the back of her head as Rarity used her magic to open the bag and pull the suit out, shaking her head with a sigh as she found the tear in it. She frowned as she dragged the suit away to her workbench, dropping it off there as she opened a chest that she kept hidden under the stairs. It held the materials needed to repair the suit. "That's the third time this month, Scootaloo. And I wish you would let me put armor on the wings as well. I can't remember how much blood you lost when you came to Twilight's with that arrow in you wing."

"Hey, it didn't do any permanent damage," Scootaloo reminded her, as Rarity pulled out more of the diamonds that she had mixed into Scootaloo's armor, sighing at the excessive damage.

"Are these burn marks? What have you been doing?" Scootaloo said nothing, as Rarity continued to grumble to herself about the danger that Scootaloo constantly was throwing herself into every time she went out. Rarity was a life saver, though, and had been the one to make the suit for Scootaloo, starting from scratch instead of using the armor that the princesses' guards wore. And while she might hate what Scootaloo did as Batmare, she knew that it was important to Scootaloo and so she went along with it. Scootaloo had fallen asleep in one of the waiting room chairs while she waited for Rarity to finish, so she awakened with a start when she realized that Rarity was poking her with her hoof. "I have finished mending your suit," she said as she dropped the bag at Scootaloo's hooves. Scootaloo pulled out the bits for the repair and hoofed them over to Rarity before she bent down to pick up the bag, waving 'bye' to Rarity as she headed for the door, but was stopped by a hoof on her shoulder.

"What's up?" Scoot's asked Rarity, who looked at her while biting her lip.

"Promise me...that you'll be careful. Sweetie Belle has been worried about you lately, saying how you're always tired and you always look like you were beaten," Rarity said, voicing her sister's concerns. "Applebloom has been very concerned about you and your well being too. So stay safe when you're jumping across rooftops or whatever it is you do. Also, you should go to Zecora's and see if you can get your eye healed up. Twilight would have a fit if she saw you like this." Scootaloo nodded and thanked Rarity again for repairing the suit as she hopped onto her scooter and raced away from the shop, heading towards the Everfree Forest.

Within minutes, she was shooting through the dark undergrowth, zipping in between trees with a daredevil's smile on her face while she headed towards Zecora's. Despite the terror that the forest was supposed to house within, it would always have a special place in Scootaloo's heart. This was the forest where, one night, she had been chased by Timberwolves and was nearly killed on the edge of a cliff...only to be saved by someone she saw as a father, Batman. He had come from the darkness of the sky to strike down those who had attacked her, only to vanish again into the forest. She sometimes stopped by that same cliff when she came here. But today she needed to visit Zecora, not reminisce.

"That should be her hut up ahead," she muttered to herself, as the spook hut that was created in the center of a tree appeared through the forest trees. Scootaloo skidded to a stop outside of the hut and placed her bag on her scooter, knocking on the door twice before Zecora opened it in answer.

"Well, Scootaloo, this is a surprise," Zecora said with a smile, happy to see a student of hers again. Then her eyes came to a rest on Scootaloo's injured eye and Zecora shook her head. "And I see that you have done something to your eye. You interrupted me while I was making my brew, but take a seat and I can see what I can do for you." Scootaloo followed her inside of the hut, looking around with fond memories at all the trinkets and voodoo items that Zecora had collected and were strewn all over her hut. She sat down in one of Zecora's chairs as the zebra started rummaging through her potions, looking for the one that helped relieve swollenness. "This potion will take a bit of wildberry and a bit of lime. So how goes your battle against crime?"

"Honestly, it's gotten a lot tougher," Scootaloo said with a sigh as she leaned her arm on the table, resting her head on her hoof. "The criminals are getting smarter, not to mention all these new weapons being sold on the black market. Then there's this whole black magic thing that's been going on. If it weren't for your secret zebra martial arts, I probably would have died a while back. Thanks for all the training, by the way." After the battle of Canterlot, Scootaloo had sought out the greatest martial artist to help train her to become more like Batman. Much to her surprise, she discovered that Zecora was actually a master of her homeland's style of martial arts, which involved pressure point strikes and quick chopping attacks. Her training had been hellish, but had paid off in the long run when it saved her life a few months back.

"It was no problem at all. I'd rather help you to stand high than watch you fall," Zecora said as she poured some of the lime into her cauldron and began to stir, creating a thick blanket of steam covering the hut. "Dark magic is dangerous and can tear apart lives, so you must be extra cautious if you wish to survive. Before you go out crusading tonight, I'd recommend that you stop by Twilight's."

"That was my plan to begin with," Scootaloo agreed as Zecora scooped up some of the stew in a ladle and poured it into a bowl, sliding it across the table to her. Scootaloo chugged down the stew in one drink, closing her eyes as the sour flavor completely overpowered her taste buds. "Wow, are all your stews that sour?"

"Only when it is for mares that have been punched in the eye. Now, unfortunately, I must say good bye," Zecora rhymed as she put on her brown cloak and flipped the hood up. "The Ponyville market is having a two for one sale, and in this battle I must prevail. You are welcome to stay as long as you like, but I'd recommend going to see Twilight." Zecora let out a yell and raced towards Ponyville, leaving Scootaloo to feel bad for any of the ponies that dared to try and buy something she wanted. Scootaloo got to her hooves and walked over to Zecora's mirror, smiling to herself when she saw that her eye had already begun to heal. That would make talking with Twilight less awkward, but it would still be tricky, since her eye still had a yellow ring around it. Twilight had also been the pony who had taught Scootaloo most of her detective skills, including how to find hidden clues by experimenting on blood samples. Tricking her was no easy feat.

"Better go and see her then. I need to figure out about this black magic as soon as possible." Scootaloo placed the bowl on the table and hopped onto her scooter, after leaving a few bits for Zecora's potion. She raced back towards Ponyville, heading for the Golden Oaks library. She had the foresight to bring the information on Sombra's spell book with her so that Twilight could help her analyze it. Two detectives would be useful on a case like this. She stopped outside the library, looking through one of the windows to see the purple alicorn running back and forth with a look of worry on her face.

"Things really don't change, do they?" she said as she walked up to the door and knocked on it, stepping back as the sounds of hooves heading for the door were heard from the other side. Scootaloo braced herself for the scolding as Twilight opened the door with a smile.

"Hi Scootaloo. What are you...?" Her words died when she saw Scootaloo's eye. It only took a second for Twilight to see through the potion that Zecora had given Scootaloo to fix her eye. She narrowed her eyes at the bruise but moved aside to let Scootaloo inside, levitating her bag in after her with one last glare. "So, were you making friends last night or did you run into another street sign again?"

"You're never going to let that go, aren't you?" Scootaloo asked with a sigh, knowing that Twilight was talking about the time she flew face first into a light pole when she was racing Rainbow Dash. Twilight sat down with a frown next to her desk and tossed the bag back to Scootaloo, sitting across from her.

"When I agreed to help train you to become a better detective, I had hopes that you would join Celestia's detective force, or Luna's Dark Knights, and share your skills with the rest if the ponies. I never...no, I hoped that you wouldn't become like Batman. But I should have known better. You've become so much like him, it's scary."

"Come on, we're not that similar, are we?" Scootaloo asked as she reached inside the bag and pulled out all the information that she had on the dark book, hoofing it over to Twilight, who looked down at it with a fear-filled face.

"You have the same look in your eyes as he did," Twilight said as she placed the sheet of paper on her desk, before racing over to a bookshelf, scanning it for a certain book. She pulled the book off with such speed that none of the books next to it were bothered by its being removed from the shelf. She slammed the book onto the desk next to the paper that Scootaloo had given her, flipping through the book until she came across the designs of the ritual pentagram in the book, which matched the ones on the paper. "This is very bad. And you say that this ritual had a filly in the center of it?"

"Yeah and according to the computer, all of the fillies that have been murdered died in a similar manner and in the same design," Scootaloo answered with a frown, knowing it was often bad when Twilight said so. "So how bad is it? Is it another kind of crazy pony trying to destroy a city or-"

"The ritual that you have stumbled across is for a pair of demons of unimaginable power," Twilight said to cut her off, slamming the book closed before running back over to the bookshelf in search of another book. "Over ten thousand years ago, two demons with power that no pony could ever begin to fathom unleashed a great war upon each other. Each of them wanted to rule the land of Equestria by themselves, so they sought to destroy each other. The only reason they were stopped was when an earth pony, Pegasus, and a unicorn teamed with a creature, whose name has been lost to history, to seal the two in the depths of Tarturus. If these ponies are trying to summon the two demons again, then they must be stopped at all costs. I need to write a letter to Celestia to inform her of what's going on." As Twilight pulled out a piece of paper and her pen, Scootaloo grabbed the information again and placed it her bag, throwing the bag over her shoulder as she headed for the door.

"Then I need to go as well. If these ponies are on the loose, I need to prepare to stop them." She placed a hoof on the door, but Twilight stopped her before she could go out.

"Scootaloo...I know that you feel like you need to do this, but dressing like Batman won't bring him back," Twilight said in her most sympathetic voice, ignoring the fact that all Scootaloo did was stare at the door while Twilight continued to talk. "You can do good things without needing to dress up like a bat and fight criminals in the night. Batman wanted you to be happy, not to follow what he did."

"You wouldn't understand, Twilight. You can't," Scootaloo said in a whisper. Twilight sighed and turned away from Scootaloo, knowing that nothing she could say would change her mind.

"You're just as stubborn as him," she whispered to herself. "Well, if you do run across these demons, be careful. While they might not be free, the ponies might be able to summon their minions to our world. And their minions are insanely strong, even by our standards."

"Think I can't take them?"

"I'm saying that Batman gave his life to save you more than any pony else," Twilight said. "Don't go making his sacrifice in vain. I'll go through the library and see if I can find any more information on the twin demons, and how they are summoned. And if you go out tonight, be very careful. Whoever is trying to resurrect the demons will know that you're trying to stop them, and they will try to kill you."

"Then I'll prepare with caution. But if fillies or other ponies are going to be in danger, then I need to be out there." Twilight watched as Scootaloo hopped back onto her scooter and rode away, leaving Twilight alone to look up into the sky as the sun began to set. She saw a number of fruit bats fly off into the darkening sky; the sight of them made her sigh.

"Please watch over her Batman. She needs somepony right now."

Comments

[Rated Ponystar]

I get the feeling Batman will make an appearance in this story again, can't wait for the reactions when he does. I also hope he brings the rest of the family to help like Dick, Tim, Damian, Barbra, Cassandra, and Stephenie.

[Quasar4000]

Is he almost coming back?

[Uzume Tennouboshi]

Damn, a ritual to summon twin demons of unimaginable power? Even their minions would be difficult for most ponies to defeat? *pulls out magical blowfish* Uncle is ready to face forces of darkness!

[Shadowkeeper]

I am loving every chapter of this story, especially how Scootaloo has a nice network of friends to help her out! However, why did you make the decision for Batman to let everyone else think he died? I am pretty sure that all the ponies would understand that he has his own world to protect, so I don't see how letting them believe he is dead is the best option for him. Sure the statue in the graveyard would be pointless, but that is beside the point.

[damnaion]

aawwwww dam nice

[BlazingDragoonLord]

most epic windup to a comeback EVER!!!!!!

[BlazingDragoonLord]

most epic windup to a comeback EVER!!!!!!

3729886 nice uncle impersonation lol

[DeltaOsprey]

3729886 derpicdn.net/img/2013/1/2/199929/full.png
Friendship is...
One more thing!
Magic must defeat magic!

[MLPFanForever]

Awesome!

[Forevergent777]

3729894
I guess it's because all the ponies will become too reliant on him and just sit around hoping he'll do something to save the day. Or something like that.

Maybe the ponies thinking he died a martyr would inspire them to stand up against evil.

[tailz]

The fourth creature is Discord isn't it?

[Cold Spike]

Do we get a pony Commissioner Gordon?

[The1templar]

Hmmmmmm twin demons of unimaginable power that want to kill eachother?... would it happen to be Deumos? img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130904211922/dream-world/images/5/5b/Deumos.png

[Mr-Astounding]

(notices somethings about *this* Scootaloo; shrugs) well, like father, like daughter...