About kidnapping and riling up a town.
Two miles South Apple Acres. Late night.
Among the rock formations beyond the town of Ponyville, two small figures could be seen in the moonlight. Apple Bloom was looking at the sketchy map with a small flashlight in her forehead.
"Well, we are here now, but we can´t see anything that looks like a camp", Apple Bloom said. "Help me will ya?"
Sweetie Belle dragged her tired legs and stopped. "Did we cross the small creek?" she asked in the middle of a yawn.
"Yep." Apple Bloom confirmed.
"Did we turn left on the oak tree with those yellow ribbons tied on it?"
"Yeah."
"And we found a dangerous slope we have no idea how to climb when we get back."
The scratches on Apple Bloom's knee ached; "Yeah”
“We walked across a road with some weird yellow bricks too", continued Sweetie Belle.
"And we got ourselves into a creepy cavern." Apple Bloom quickly remarked.
"Which we navigated going north, east, north, east, north, north, west, and north to find the exit."
"Yes, right after you cried when that bat nest startled you", pointed out Apple Bloom, giggling.
Sweetie Belle shivered after remembering those bats. "And after the exit, an open field as far as the eye can see…”, she sighed.
“And that’s where we are right now.” Apple Bloom finished.
Walking after a few minutes Sweetie Belle spoke again "Aren't we walking in circles around here?"
"I don’t think so; you remember where did we come from, right?"
"I could if there wasn't this mist all around here!"
They walked long enough that they suddenly found themselves surrounded with a thick mist. They panicked. "Ooooh this ain't good. This ain't good at all!" Apple Bloom said sweating.
"What does the map say?"
"It just says don't let the mist to confuse you heck, I can't even see anything confusing with this mist!"
"We might as well keep heading north as the map eeeeeeeeeek! - " Sweetie Belle walked straight to a cliff.
"Sweetie Belle!" Apple Bloom halted. Then she quickly tiptoed to the cliff to see where it ended. From the deep a crying voice relieved her.
"Oh, I just want to go home!" The unicorn filly managed to grab a root that grew outside the land formation. It was a fairly big drop if she let go.
"Hang in there! I'll pull you here!" Apple Bloom reached for her and pulled her to safety. She did her best to pull, and Sweetie Belle used her magic to pull herself upward too. "Whoa, it was a big cliff." She finally said when they took a peek down below.
“This is getting so on my nerves! This better be cutie mark worthy!” Sweetie Belle said after catching her breath.
“Ah think there’s more to it than our cutie marks, Sweetie. It’s Scootaloo we are talking about.”
Sweetie Belle panted again. She reconsidered her words. ”Yeah, I know. The spur of the moment, I guess”. Then she look towards the mist, it looked as if some kind of lights were moving from inside.
They lied down in the grass for a couple of minutes, when she pointed out: "Are those fireflies?"
Apple Bloom looked at her hoof, and then looked at the direction she was pointing. "...they look too big for fireflies."
They came near to the cliff and observed. As the night was deepening, more and more lights could be seen from the mist.
"Should we jump off the cliff?" Sweetie Belle asked, as a manner of a joke. Certainly they would find a way to surround the cliff and…
"Well, ah got Applejack's rope..." Apple Bloom answered quietly when she looked at Sweetie Belle's expression going paler and paler.
-
Rickshaw and his goons were following the trail closely until they stopped. They hid behind a huge boulder and kept observing.
"The hell are they up to now?" Rickshaw said.
"They look pretty confused. Maybe they don't know what they are doing, after all." Root Beer whispered.
"Wait, they look like they are tying a rope on that tree. Guess they will rappel on that cliff." Rickshaw interrupted.
"We'll follow once they are down, then." Stainmudd observed as they disappeared on the misty cliff.
-
Pegasi Shelter Camp. Night.
Some pegasi were guarding the borders of the mist with torches. It was nearly midnight and there was plenty of activity in the camp.
And there was Scootaloo, looking from outside her family's tent. She couldn’t be used to her new life as a refugee, especially when she wasn’t sure who were they fleeing from.
“Hey Scoots, will you get a nap or what?” Rainbow Dash landed in front of her. “All little fillies and colts must be up early for school tomorrow.”
“That’s not my school”, she dryly answered. She simply got dragged by her parents when she was getting ready for Ponyville Schoolhouse two weeks ago and found herself attending another with almost nopony she’s ever seen before.
“It is while you are here.” Rainbow Dash firmly stated. “Hey, I know how you feel, but trust me when I tell you it’s only for a little while. Your mom and dad are with you, ok? ”
“Yeah.” She curled back into position. “I just don’t understand what we are waiting for.”
“Ok, it’s true that we may look a little too suspicious, but we really haven’t had much of a choice…also-”
Scootaloo interrupted “I’m also wondering why my friends aren’t here with me.”
“Well they have a big mouth for starters.” The filly stared at Rainbow Dash with disbelief. Damn! She thought, thinking aloud. “…and really, we can’t have this shelter simply discovered, you got me?”
“So, let me see if I understand: I am here, on my own, boring myself to death in a place that nopony outside from us should find, attending a so-called school with ponies I have never met, all of this as long as whatever thing that of course I can’t know because I’m a filly sorts out.”
Her rant made Rainbow Dash step backwards until she felt a wall on her flank.
“Am I right?”
“Y…yeah…pretty much…” She sweated a bit. Why the hell did she came to see her, anyway? “But… but you are with your parents, right?”
“Oh for crying out loud…” Scootaloo rolled her eyes and turned back to her tent. “Seriously, Rainbow Dash, you are cool and all but you are not helping here…”
“Hey kid, don’t think you are the only one with a rough time with all of this!”
“Well I seem to be the only one with no information. It’s sad, cuz when my parents kept silent on anything, I could always trust in you….”
Rainbow Dash looked away. Damn those secrets she had to keep.
“Now it looks like I can’t count on you either.” Scootaloo entered her tent and turned her back.
“Look…sorry. I wish I can tell everypony all what I know. But as I told you…you are not alone. I miss my friends too. ”
And with that she left. “Try and get some sleep. Angry or not, you must carry on.”
Scootaloo spitted. You miss your friends? At least you know why!
Her tent was deep inside the camp, but she could always walk to the edges. She had to be sneaky, tough. At least there she could think clearly.
The camp was almost like a big fair. There were the vast majority of pegasi jumping from tent to tent buying or simply taking the variety of food and water that arrived in huge quantities. Apples from Sweet Apple Acres were mandatory and the big loads arrived daily. For being two weeks, things got prepared very thoroughly.
Why aren’t my friends here? she thought.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were the only ones she could share this odd moment with. Maybe investigate it as another crusade. But now precisely because of their curious nature, they had to be separated and with no information.
What were they doing?
Are they worried about her?
Did they wonder about her whereabouts as she was?
Maybe they decided to keep going crusading without her?
Or maybe, just maybe, knowing them the way she did, they couldn’t just stay still and investigating the matter somehow those two found a way to sneak into the misty camp, climbing down a rope, covered head to toe in bristles and dirt, and clumsily falling the last inch right into the ground before her?
What?
Scootaloo didn’t even react.
“Ow, I told you it was too short!” Sweetie Belle stood up and Apple Bloom gasped for air, for she landed on her flank right on her face.
“And you said I was fat!”
“Apple Bloom! Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo finally said. “How did you found me?”
“Scoots!” Sweetie Belle squeaked and ran towards her. Apple Bloom followed.
“We were looking for ya for a whole lot, girl.”
I have the best of friends she thought. So they really care about me. Her joy almost overtook her. She shook her head. She needed to look cool.
“Are you ok?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Yeah, just…hay fever.”
“So…why are you here?” Apple Bloom started.
“Trust me, I really want to know that myself. Just suddenly, out of the blue on my way to class my parents dragged me here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they told me not to worry, that everything was alright, and that this stuff was only for a while. Maybe they wanted me to believe that this was some sort of boot camp.”
“Ugh, parents love to say all that. I bet you only got more stressed.” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes.
“Hell I did.”
Apple Bloom commented. “Well let me tell ya, the day you left a lot of pamphlets were dropped all over Ponyville during class. When we returned home nopony would let us read them. Applejack was even playing dumb when I asked her.”
“Typical, why the hell do they act like that?”
“Beats me. But ah managed to find one. And Sweetie Belle and I analyzed it.”
They handed the pamphlet over to Scootaloo. She remembered the format pretty well. But she never got able to finally read it until now.
“This is a load of crap. It’s not true in the least.”
“We know that. But why lying?”
“Girls, we got ourselves a big mystery we have to solve.” Scootaloo declared.
“Yeah, we just needed our third member here.” Sweetie Belle patted her shoulder.
“Time for another crusade” Apple Bloom happily whispered.
-
“For now we all need to keep low. They can’t see you sneaking here or else…” Scootaloo guided them within the camp.
“We know, but if they do catch us, our families will be looking for us like crazy. Damn if you do, damn if you don’t kinda thing” Apple Bloom whispered. Scootaloo processed that order of events and shook her head.
“Geez girls, you really have guts to have come and find me here. You have any idea how to get back?”
“We um… didn’t have time to plan that part.” Sweetie Belle nervously admitted.
“You two are already in trouble! I don’t think you’ll make it ‘till morning back to Ponyville and you have to pull a very good explanation!”
“We’ll chew on that later! For now we can’t do much but to keep going until we find out what’s going on.” Apple Bloom urged, and then she stopped. She forgot one small detail.
“Where are we going again?”
“To Rainbow Dash’s tent.” Scootaloo answered. “Whatever is going on, she knows enough to be terrible at hiding it. And here we are.” They were in front of a middle-sized white tent.
Not sure exactly what to look for inside the coolest mare’s tent they sneaked in. Rainbow Dash was in her comfy bed, snoring pleasantly. Where to start? Drawers? That board over there? Maybe that shelf besides her bed?
Scootaloo hinted the fillies behind them to split. Stealthily they navigated the tent.
Apple Bloom looked at the board with some documents pinned on it. Some looked like invoices that declared large quantities of food with a huge total in bits. Funny thing, there were several bank documents that showed a lot of data. She didn’t understand much of it, but they all had something in common: it had the signature and seal of Cloudsdale CO.
Sweetie Belle carefully looked inside the drawer. There was nothing much to see, just personal hygiene stuff. Then her hoof touched a small book. It looked like a journal.
Scootaloo moved book after book of her Daring Do collection in the shelf to see anything interesting. Seriously, Rainbow Dash had no sense of organization whatsoever. Then she found a loose sheet from inside the book. Was it a separator? She opened the book and looked at the sheet. It looked like a map of the camp.
Sweetie Belle slowly read with the little visibility the moon could offer:
…Fluttershy. She is finally with us now. She had to pull a convincing story with Applejack to take care of her animal shelter, tough. She still believes that this is temporary. I will hate to brake it for her when she finds out the truth.
The Company is still sending us enough bits to pay for our needs but I don’t think it will last for long. They are getting poor.
It’s great to have Fluttershy here…but I really wish to have all of my friends with me now. This feeling grows stronger once you know that you are only buying time before all of Eq…
“Oh the hell you didn’t…”
The three jumped and turned to see Rainbow Dash awake, staring right at them, steam coming out of her nostrils. “WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. IN. MY. TENT!?”
“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle squeaked at Scootaloo when she sprinted out of the tent, terrified at Rainbow Dash’s rage.
They were about to run towards her when Rainbow Dash tackled and brought them both to the ground.
“I’m gonna get her, but you two stay inside. You’ve caused enough trouble by showing up here!” she snarled at them, and quickly flied out of her tent. She knew Scootaloo wouldn’t make it far with her obvious flight problems.
“Now what do we do? What do we do?” Sweetie Belle panicked.
“The hell we are stayin’ here. Let’s move!”
They exited the tent and looked to the sides to check if the coast was clear. It wasn’t. Scootaloo emerged from behind the tent there with a mischievous smirk on her face.
“We gotta go. I’ll see you out of the mist.”
-
“Well, we have a bunch of food buying, a lot of money from Cloudsdale Factory and Rainbow Dash feeling nostalgic. That doesn’t say much. ” Said Apple Bloom, again in a matter of fact manner.
“Seems like we are not that good at investigating at all. All we got were more questions and a pissed off Rainbow Dash looking for us!”, continued Sweetie Belle while running to the mist.
“Hey, at least you found me!” said Scootaloo, stopping to contemplate the mist that marked the boundary between the open wilderness and the pegasi camp. They finally got there.
However…
“Oh damn right they have!” a gruff voice was heard from behind a tree. Next thing they knew they got surrounded by three earth pony stallions.
“Good gracious Apple Bloom, sweetheart. Does Applejack know you’re outdoors this late?” Rickshaw talked first.
“…Rickshaw?” Apple Bloom sweated cold. How the hay did they follow?
“Shucks girl, just call me uncle! Anyway, we were looking for your little friend too, you know! We are so happy to find ‘er thanks to y’all.” He nodded at Root Beer and Stainmudd who quickly threw a lasso at her. She yelped when she fell in the ground.
“Scootaloo! Let her go!” Apple Bloom cried.
“Now hush, hush. We’ll do no harm to her! We just want her to answer a couple of easy questions, how about that?” Rickshaw mockingly looked at Scootaloo like a bargainer.
“Tell you what: you two can tell whoever wants this girl back where we are. They should come alone, and willing to answer our questions to have’er back.” Stainmudd tied her body to immobilize her wings while Root Beer tied her neck like a leash to pull her.
Root Beer felt terrible. He tried to ask her if the rope was too tight for her, but she was being kidnapped for goodness sake! He just looked at her shocked, tearful eyes and turned away, ashamed.
“Better be yer mommy or daddy, girl. Then you’ll see how much they care ‘bout ya…it must really suck to be you if they prefer to keep this crazy game over you!” Rickshaw chuckled as he pulled Scootaloo to walk along.
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom just stayed there, shocked, not knowing what to do for her friend as she was dragged away, screaming and resisting the leash.
“Feeling unloved by ma’ and pa’ will be the least of yer worries, tough!” Rickshaw continued. “Because if they don’t come in an hour to the first cave you find up north…” He stared at the two fillies, clearly giving instructions. “…they’ll pick up one of her wings instead.”
Root Beer’s ear perked and looked at Rickshaw in disbelief.
“One half hour later, you’ll pick up the other one.”
Even Stainmudd looked uneasy.
“Make us wait two hours… and y’all pick up a corpse. Understand?”
Scootaloo looked pale and glanced at her friends with urgency.
“But I don’t think that will be necessary, ‘cuz this filly is smart and knows what’s good for her and she’ll answer right away, right?” Rickshaw looked at Scootaloo with a creepy smile and with that they abandoned the mist.
“Make sure to give Ma’ Smith my love, will ya?” Rickshaw screamed once out of sight.
It took a few seconds that seemed like an eternity for Apple Bloom to process all of what just occurred. A few moments ago they were chatting, frustrated as usual but happily once again as three friends, the next one Scootaloo got kidnapped by the worst earth-kissers she had the displeasure of knowing. And the leader was no one but her father’s older brother: the crazy one, the black sheep, the disgrace of the whole Apple Family. And he just took her best friend in such a…criminal manner, for the lack of a better word. As tears finally ran through her eyes she could only imagine what they could do to her…and she was sure it was her fault.
“Rickshaw you sack of shit!” cursed Apple Bloom at top of her lungs. Then she collapsed and cried. Sweetie Belle cried too once she finally recovered from her shock, but she reacted more quickly.
“Apple Bloom, we can’t stay here. We must go back to the camp and find Rainbow Dash!”, she quickly said.
“This is my damn fault. My damn FAULT!”, sobbed Apple Bloom as she got dragged to stand up.
-
Sweet Apple Acres. Few hours before sunrise.
Applejack suddenly woke up. It was that sense of dread she felt when something was definitely wrong with anypony she cared about. She peeked at the window and saw that everything looked in order. She sighed deeply. Maybe it was the hot weather. Night time offered little relief these days.
Those animals Fluttershy left her to take care of for two weeks got on her nerves very quickly and she only had to feed them and clean their occasional mess. Minimal time compared to the whole seasons Fluttershy spent with them.
It was a very tiring week. Almost all of Sweet Apple Acres harvest got bought by a mysterious customer. They even brought their own trucks and carts to pick the loads of apples. There was nothing wrong or odd with that until they offered to pay for the next year’s harvest in advance. We don’t know even if there will be a harvest next year.
She considered going to Apple Bloom’s bedroom. Then she shook her head. “Ah would if there wasn’t any visitor with her. Just breaking into her room, disturbing their sleep to check her out would be rude…” she scolded herself.
Then again, she was with Sweetie Belle. Anything could happen with them together.
Applejack smiled, got off her bed and calmly trotted her way to her little sister’s bedroom. What was the worst that could happen, after all?
-
Pegasi shelter camp. About the same time
“You have to be kidding me! ...agh!” Rainbow Dash was running across her tent in circles, tossing some of the books, and flipping tables. She was THAT mad.
“Rainbow Dash, please calm down!”
“You could just have stayed calmly in Ponyville. But NO, you REALLY had to come HERE! And YOU allowed yourselves to be followed! And those who followed you happen to be the VERY SAME EARTH-KISSERS that we are running away from! DAMN IT!” she flipped another table as Apple Bloom stood by and waited for her to stop her rants to plan something to get Scootaloo back. Sweetie Belle was bawling her eyes out, tough.
“And now they have Scootaloo. Damn it they are good. They finally got some leverage on us.” She calmed down and spitted.
“What do we do now?” Apple Bloom risked asking. Dash stared angrily at her.
“Nopony in this camp must know about this. The last thing we need is to panic them. Her parents must be looking for her right now…and they will start looking for her here.”
She stood up. “If they don’t see us they’ll assume we are together, sigh in relief and leave. They trust me that much already.” Rainbow Dash sarcastically chuckled out of spite for herself. She after all failed to protect her.
“So…”
“No chance in hell I will let those bastards hurt Scootaloo.”
Sweetie Belle sniffled and turned. Rainbow Dash approached the exit.
“They know about this place. They know where is located and probably Scootaloo will tell them all she knows out of panic. I can only imagine how much information they could get if she knew what the average refugee knows already!” she rubbed her eyes to shake out the thought.
“Wha-what are we gonna do then?” Apple Bloom stuttered.
“I am going to bring her back. I will take care of those bastards and I will keep you here. Just like them you know too much about this camp and no way I'll let you walk freely out.”
“No. We are going back home.” Apple Bloom resisted.
“No you are not.” Rainbow Dash answered back.
“We came here to look for Scootaloo. We have nothing to do with your sneaky business!” she retorted.
“Really? Then what the hay were you doing sneaking into my tent and reading my diary?”
“…um…we…that’s a good question.” Apple Bloom sweated.
“It was another cutie mark quest isn’t it?”
Apple Bloom stayed quiet. Sweetie Belle started crying again.
“Even if you just wanted to cool off your curiosity, if those earth-kissers find you they will make you sing! And you live with them! You are staying and that’s final!”
Apple Bloom was in no mood of taking any of that. “Applejack and Rarity will look all over the world for us. You can’t keep us here without making yourselves look even more suspicious!” Apple Bloom challenged. Rainbow Dash grunted and snarled at Apple Bloom. She wasn’t afraid. “And those earth-kissers will use that for their advantage!”
That was it. Rainbow Dash lost it. “Curse your ability to make things complicated.” Rainbow Dash pointed her hoof right at their faces. “If you three ever get a cutie mark it will be for always SCREWING THINGS UP!” And she stormed out of her tent to the direction they provided.
She was angry. She really felt that they deserved all the hurtful things she yelled at them but hell, their little childish game endangered the whole mission she was entrusted with. There were lives in the line.
“I swear I’ll kill those bastards or die trying!”
-
Outside the camp, somewhere in the wilderness.
Whap!
Whap!
“Yo Rickshaw, don’t ya think you got a little carried away with this? Can’t we just leave this filly and wait for one of them pegasi to come here?” Root Beer offered as Rickshaw was interrogating Scootaloo, frightening her with the whipping of his rope on the floor after each question.
“The hell you mean with “I don’t know”, you brat?”
“I swear, I told you all I know! I only got dragged out of my house by my parents and I ended up in the camp!” Scootaloo pleadingly responded.
“A camp, alright. We saw that ourselves from afar. Tell me, how many pegasi are there?”
“I…I have no idea” Whap! “Ah! Many…too many! A few hundreds, I know very few of them!”
Rickshaw turned to Root Beer.
“We can’t take any chances Root Beer. Only like this we can have some answers.”
“Rickshaw, it’s already a crime to kidnap this filly, but what you are doing here is torture!”
“Damn it Root Beer man up!” Rickshaw screamed at his face “I have heard nothing from you but second-guesses and complaints! You should be as pissed off as me or even more! Somewhere in that camp are your wife and kids…and”
“Please don’t bring that up”
“Hey, if your wife left you because you screwed up it’s her choice, but taking away your kids was something lowly, and you know it! Serves you right for marrying a pegasus. ”
Root Beer looked at the floor.
“Don’t you want to see your kids, too?”
“I…yeah. More than anything.” Root Beer finally said. “But not at the expense of the torment of somepony else’s baby!”
“Psh, come on…I’m just asking and she’s answering, nothing should go wrong as long as she cooperates!” Rickshaw dismissed his concern, turned and went back to Scootaloo.
“Oi Rickshaw, ah thought you gave your word that we wouldn’t do harm to them fillies” Stainmudd said after seeing Root Beer urging him to say anything.
“Good gracious, you too?”
“Ah was just sayin’ since you…well you threatened to clip her li’l wings off.” he sweated a little as he said that. Rickshaw got lost in thought.
“Well, we DO need to show them that we are not fooling around, Stainmudd.”
“What? Rickshaw, we are crossing the line here!” Root Beer said.
“Boss, ah think that qualifies as harming”
“As far as I can see a pegasus can survive without wings.” Rickshaw smirked as he turned to look Scootaloo as her coat turned pale, and her eyes opened wide with sheer terror.
“Stainmudd, talk some sense to him please!” Root Beer urged. Rickshaw turned his head to them and gave an annoyed look.
“You two shut up. Whoever comes here still has half an hour. Let’s not jump to conclusions and let’s hope that they are smart enough to come within that time, alright?”
The other two stallions looked at each other breathing heavily.
“Now, I am curious about something, luv.” Rickshaw came near Scootaloo and pulled a chair. “How the hay do you manage to survive if you can’t harvest anything for yourselves?”
“There is always food and water in the camp.” Scootaloo managed to respond. She was terrified.
Rickshaw blinked. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Seriously? YOU have enough food and water while everypony else is dealing with a drought?”
“I just know what I saw, I swear.”
“Well of course you do, you’re a kid after all, but at least you know what kind of food is inside that camp of yours!” He said grabbing the rope again.
“Plenty of grain and vegetables, fruits and other stuff”, Scootaloo said, begging for that traumatizing experience to end. Each time he opened the mouth was to insult, threaten or asking something she maybe didn’t knew how to answer. And God help her if she couldn’t answer.
Rickshaw stood up infuriated and looked at his two goons.
“They are eating our food. Those feathered sons of bitches are eating our FOOD! Do you see now why I act the way I do? We are in the middle of a drought THEY make and now they are eating our food while OUR children are starving!”
Root Beer feared that Rickshaw would lose his mind and take his anger with the poor filly. “We can always ask the one who will come why this is happening.”
“Hell it’s already clear to me that they are up to no good. Why is now irrelevant! I could gut this pest out for all I care! But that won’t do.”
Once he heard that Root Beer trotted to Scootaloo, to check her bindings as an excuse. There was always the possibility of Rickshaw losing it, and he knew he shouldn’t let him do anything to her.
“Please help me…” he heard her whispering to him.
“Unless somepony older comes here we can’t use her as an example.” Rickshaw admitted.
A rustling was heard outside the cave. That perked everypony up. Stainmudd was the first to react and headed to the entrance.
“Alright whoever you are, if you came for the girl you better show yourself.” Stainmudd yelled.
“Shhh…don’t rile him up, Stainmudd.” Rickshaw whispered. “You better use your head.”
“What’s going on?” Root Beer asked.
“I’ll tell you what is going on: whoever’s out there is going for a dramatic entrance. Catch us off-guard.”
“What’s the plan, then?”
“We need to flush him out. And I know exactly how. Go get the girl.”
Root Beer sighed in relief. The girl was about to go free. “Yeah.”
As he approached her he could hear Scootaloo whispering panicked at him. “Help me…please help me!”
“It’ll be over soon, kid. There’s somepony out there who cares ‘bout cha.” He tried to reassure her before Rickshaw could hear him. He was relieved that Scootaloo’s torment was to end, or so he thought.
Once he dragged her to the cave’s entrance, Rickshaw handed him a pair of heavy kitchen shears.
“All right, if you like surprises we’ll give you one!” Rickshaw shouted in the open. “If you don’t show your face in ten seconds maybe her screaming will talk some sense into you!” Root Beer opened his eyes wide. What the hell was he up to?
“Clip one of her wings at my signal.” Rickshaw whispered to him.
“What the hell? We don’t know if anypony is out there!” He protested.
“Five seconds!”
“You know what? Fuck this. I’m no damn criminal.” Root Beer tossed the scissors away. Rickshaw slapped him across the face.
“You goddamn pussy!” Rickshaw growled at him, then picked the scissors up. “If you don’t have the balls to do what’s necessary for our race, then I’ll do it!” He leaned to pick up the scissors. He never got able to.
“You really think that it takes BALLS to kick your racist asses?”
Rainbow Dash rapidly dived her way into the cave and crashed into Rickshaw. She dragged him to the deepest. Stainmudd was too slow to react and approached her back. Bad call. She bucked him with all her might and he hit the floor clumsily.
“Run for it, Scoots!” She yelled at Scootaloo. “Go to my tent and STAY there!”
Not that Scootaloo needed to be told twice. She attempted to run, but a piece of rope was still tied to a heavy cart. Root Beer, recovering from the slap courtesy of his boss untied the rope. “Get the hell out.”
“The kid’s getting away!” Stainmudd stood back up and tried to pursue.
“Stainmudd chill the fuck down, son!” Rickshaw yelled at him as he was standing up and sweeping the dust off his coat. “Let her go.” Stainmudd looked over his shoulder to see his boss and he pointed with his gaze at the entrance of the cave. “Look out there.”
Rainbow Dash was hovering from the outside looking at the trio from the air. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was just staring menacingly at them.
“Howdy there, cupcake”, Rickshaw started. “Ain’t you gonna scream and fly back to your camp?”
“You saw the camp.” It wasn’t a question.
“Damn right, we did. And all of Ponyville will know about it.”
“Can’t let you do that. You won’t leave this cave alive.”
Rickshaw laughed. “Oh my, ain’t you a ballsy one! So you want to kill us, right?”
“You had the nerve to kidnap and torment a little one who has nothing to do with this. I’ll make you pay.”
“Oh, but we both are kidnappers. I don’t think you’ll let go those two fillies anytime soon, right? They saw your camp too!”
“They are stupid, I give you that. But we’ll never do with them what you did with Scootaloo, you bastards.”
Rickshaw assumed a defensive stance.
“Damn you are right for once. And you’ll better have a good plan to take us three down, cuz you’ll regret it if we lay hooves on you! And if you run away all of Ponyville and true sons of Equestria will be all over you! I swear on Celestia we will!”
“Sorry, miss?” Root Beer interrupted. That broke their respective bravado. He sheepishly continued, in an awkward manner. “Um, just sayin’. You have nothing to worry about me, I quit.”
“You have no choice but to stick with us”. Rickshaw growled at him. “She’ll kill you too if she has the chance, dumbass!”
Perfect distraction: Rainbow was looking which one to take first. Sadly the first option was Root Beer.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you fall first, being the pussy you are.”
Last thing Root Beer knew he found himself tackled to the ground by Rainbow Dash.
“And the only one who will.” Rickshaw assured.
“Up we go!” she pulled him and flied away.
Root Beer panicked and held to dear life on Rainbow’s body. She was going to let him go after flying forty meters. Deadly fall. “Damn it, have mercy! I just wanted to see my boys again!” Root Beer cried at her.
“And you kidnapped a filly to be able to, right?” Rainbow shouted back.
“I know I was a dumbass for joining that prick of Rickshaw, but I swear I didn’t let him do harm to her!” He answered. Rainbow reconsidered and dropped him ten meters. At least he’ll broke some bones.
“She dropped Root Beer, boss.” Stainmudd said, back in the ground.
“Serves him right for being a coward. Now, on my signal you retreat to the cave. I’ll be the bait.”
In the air, Rainbow Dash was scanning the terrain. That bastard couldn’t be far from the cave. Then she saw him. Each one of them was heavy enough, but she decided that Rickshaw would be the one she’ll drop from the highest. She dived to snatch him up but something was off. It didn’t matter. She’ll be too fast for them. She was always too fast for anypony.
“Kick!” He yelled when he ducked her attack. Rainbow’s speed didn’t stop her to enter the cave and was received by a strong kick in the face by Stainmudd. Before she could stand up Rickshaw tackled her and pinned her to the ground.
“We got ourselves another mule!” He yelled happily. Stainmudd tied her wings tightly.
“Seriously, what the hell where you thinking?” Rickshaw mocked in her ear. “To take on three stallions? One pegasus mare?”
“Got her all tied as a present, boss.”
“Let’s go to Ponyville. It’ll be sunrise soon and everypony must see this wench and hear what she’ll have to say.”
-
Ponyville. Very Early morning.
“Rarity! Rarity, open up please! It’s an emergency!”
Applejack almost bucked Carrousel Boutique’s door open.
“I’m coming! Seriously what’s the hurry?” Rarity yelled from her bedroom. She went downstairs and opening the door saw Applejack horrendously un-kept. She wasn’t the most fashionable of mares after all, but the look of her simply bordered on fashion murder.Her mane was a mess, not even her hat could conceal that. She looked as if she didn’t sleep all night and her eyes were all red and slightly puffy.
“My goodness, darling! What’s wrong with you?”
“Sugarcube, grab whatever you have and come look for our sisters.”
Those words found a long way in her brain’s understanding. “Wait, what?”
“I woke up in the middle of the night to check for the girls. They weren’t in mah sister’s bedroom.”
Rarity stuttered in shock. “But…but…Sweetie Belle?”
“Rarity, they are both missing! They haven’t appeared in all night!”
Sweetie Belle, missing? How could that be possible? Rarity even felt dizzy at the thought. “Where have you been looking?” she managed to say.
“Mah brother and I combed all of Sweet Apple Acres, went to their clubhouse, to Scootaloo’s abandoned house, but we were just about to go to Everfree now. Since it’s Everfree we need to be more than just us.”
Rarity didn’t even took off her nightgown, she closed the door and followed Applejack. “And any clues?”
“Well, ah saw some funny board with our pictures in their clubhouse, and a bunch of posters with Scootaloo’s picture across the streets.”
“Could it be that they went to look for her?”
“Ah suspect the very same thing, but looking where?”
As they were approaching the city hall, a lot of ponyfolk where seen gathering in the main street; strange sight for that time of the day. Shouts were heard among the murmuring of the mass.
“Make way! Dead mare walking! Dead mare walking! Make way, folks!”
Rarity ignored the mob and continued but stopped after some steps. She turned and saw Applejack dumbfounded looking at the crowd behind her.
“Applejack? What are you looking at that crowd? Let’s go and find our sisters!”
“I’ll be damned, Rarity. It’s Rainbow Dash.”
“What?”
-
Stainmudd and Rickshaw pulled Rainbow Dash to a platform. The murmuring intensified.
“Citizens of Ponyville! Good mornin’ to y’all.” Rickshaw addressed and the crowd got quiet to listen. “Today we have gathered you here to bear witness of this important event.” He cleared his throat and continued. “We rejoice in announcing that finally we caught one pegasus! And not just any pegasus, but the one and only Rainbow Dash of Cloudsdale!”
The crowd resumed their murmuring and some discreet gasps were heard.
“Say hi, sweetheart. You see by the look of sheer shock in their faces that they missed you.” Stainmudd taunted.
“Too bad nopony of you will be able to claim the bounty on this wench’s capture! Oh well, we didn’t have the bits to pay ya anyway” He chuckled.
-
“What the hay? Why is she tied up like that? Is Uncle Rick losing a few marbles?” Applejack questioned.
“Wench? How rude!” Rarity exclaimed. “How is this ruffian your uncle, Applejack?”
“Y’see, he is the kind of member we never talk ‘bout, you get me?”
-
“Don’t be fooled by the vulnerable appearances, my brothers and sisters! She is part of a big scheme to hurt our pure earth community!”
“…here we go....” one stallion said loudly among the crowd, making some of them giggle.
Rickshaw looked at him and pointed with his hoof. “Oh, laugh all you want! But first let me tell you what we saw with our own eyes! Two miles south of Sweet Apple Acres a lot of you saw or heard about a mysterious fog that covered a wide area, didn’t ya?”
The crowd (or most of them) agreed with a nod.
“Well you can be all sure that we’ve been decieved! The fog is caused by them! And inside the fog there is this huge, massive complex of tents where these pests live off by our hard work and the future of our children!”
The crowd was dumbfounded and others began to wonder, not quite understanding much.
“Oh yes citizens of Ponyville, believe it! While we are facing the worst droughts in our history, with our children and elderly starving, they are in their camps, eating away our resources and neglecting their duty as weather control!”
“Eating away? We’ve been paying you!” Rainbow Dash responded. Rickshaw slapped her with the back of his hoof. That riled the crowd with unease, some protesting, others throwing stuff at the platform. Hitting a mare at all, let alone in public was something that couldn’t be accepted.
“Do we look like we eat bits, you bitch?” Rickshaw angrily yelled at her. Then he turned at the crowd. “You’ve heard it from her very own mouth, people!”
-
Applejack suddenly remembered the loads and loads of apples her family harvested. So it was them who bought them! She was more shocked at the slap that her uncle placed on her friend, tough. And oh she wouldn’t let that slip away.
“Hey, Rick you like to hit mares? Untie her right at this instant!” Applejack bumped her way across the crowd towards the platform with Rarity closely following.
“She doesn’t deserve to be treated this way, mister! Untie her or else we’ll hand your flank to the true authorities here!” Rarity demanded.
“My, oh my, perfect timing, sweetheart!” Rickshaw grinned. “Ah was ‘bout to get to the best part.”
Rainbow Dash looked at the ground. As much as she was glad to see her friends back after so long she regretted it had to be like this.
“Hey luv, isn’t it true that my little niece and her little unicorn friend also managed to venture into that camp and got caught?”
Silence.
Applejack opened her eyes wide and looked for Rainbow Dash’s gaze.
“Rainbow, what is he sayin’?”
“AJ, Rarity, your sisters are fine. Don’t mind this prick.”
“Where is my sister, Rainbow Dash?” Rarity asked.
“Sorry, I can’t tell you that.” She coldly answered.
“Rainbow! If y’all do this secret stuff you must have some good reasons, but don’t drag innocent fillies into this!” Applejack pleaded.
“They dragged themselves into this, AJ.”
The crowd whispered among themselves. Rickshaw smiled. Applejack didn’t know what to say or do, neither didn’t Rarity. They never minded too much Rainbow’s silence, but now it was their families in the line.
“But trust me…”
“How do you expect us to trust you if you are hiding their whereabouts from us?”, Applejack cried out.
"How can we be sure they’ll be safe with you, when we don’t know what are you up to, Rainbow Dash?” Rarity sounded desperate too.
Their pleas didn’t faze her. “…trust me when I tell you that we won’t do harm to them as they would if they catch any of us.” Rainbow continued.
“People, now you see it! They lie, slack, eat and kidnap!” Rickshaw interrupted.
“Them being in Cloudsdale to clean their mess? Lies! Droughts that devastate our harvests? Slack! Buying the very few of our food leaving us with only coins for breakfast? Eat! This poor ladies’ family caught and held against their will in their camp! Kidnap! Four charges here and she already pleaded guilty for all of them!”
Rickshaw ran out of air, breathing again continued, now addressing her directly and loudly for the crowd to hear. “Now, you still have a chance to get out of this alive. Be thankful that we are merciful enough: in front of all of Ponyville, confess! Why are pegasi doing all this disturbing conspiracy?”
Silence.
“We let the doors of this town open for all of you and you betray us. Tell us why.”
Silence.
“You abandoned this community, this drought intensifies and now you try to starve us to death. We want an answer!”
By then a part of the crowd started chanting “Speak! Speak! Speak!”.
And Rainbow remained silent.
Rickshaw was losing his patience. “Damn it girl, can’t you see that your neck is in the line?”
Then somepony appeared in the picture.
“No neck is in the line, Mr. Rickshaw!” The Mayor stood on the platform. “What you are suggesting is a lynching, and it’s a crime! Holding somepony against her will without a warrant is also a crime, so I ask you to dissolve this meeting and leave this young mare be!”
Rickshaw didn’t get intimidated by that. In fact he got some confidence. “I’ll tell you what a crime is. Condoning the foul acts of a race that has little respect for this town and its laws! A crime is to threaten me with jail for denouncing it to the people and saying the truth! A crime is to let her walk freely when a pair of fillies is missing and she is the primary suspect!” He pointed a hoof at her “Don’t forget who elected you, mayor! We the people!”. He turned to the crowd and yelled “We the People!” The crowd cheered and chanted that phrase.
“This is a weak government after all. She should resign!” Some said.
“Step out of office, Mayor!” others shouted.
Never before Rickshaw felt this ecstasy…to be taken seriously by a huge mass of ponyfolk. To direct a massive force of ponies and to inject into them his passion, hatred, ideals and make crowd to obey. He felt invincible. His eyes reflected pure madness and his smirk was almost too disturbing.
The Mayor and her guards did very little to stop a portion of the crowd to surround them and keep them at bay.
“He is losing it, Rarity!” Applejack said. “We must do something or he will hang her!”
“Are you really going to let her be killed by that insane stallion?” Rarity screamed to whoever might hear.
“Hush, of course he won’t kill her.” A mare in front of her said.
“Yeah, he is just bluffing to scare her and make her talk.” A young stallion added.
“Ah can’t believe you!” Applejack faced her. “You know her as much as I do. You used to do business with her, for pete’s sake”
“Applejack, this may be the only chance for us to know what is happening. Might as well take it!”
“At what cost?” Rarity said. The mare dismissed her shaking her hoof and turning back.
“Let’s just…wait until she says anything. The camp thing is disturbing enough, so I think it’s fair to say she owes us that much.”
-
Pegasi Shelter. Around the same time.
Wonderbolt leader Spitfire came to Rainbow Dash’s tent as quickly as she knew. She found Scootaloo with her parents along with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.
“I hope you are happy to have pulled this stunt, risking the lives of us who are living here, girls.” She coldly said to them.
“We already had enough scolding from Rainbow Dash and we are still waiting the scolding from our respective families, thank you very much.” Apple Bloom responded annoyed, still hurt on Rainbow Dash’s words from few hours ago.
“You’ll have to wait for their scolding enough for you to long for it.” Spitfire stated. “You might as well have killed us all; we won’t make that mistake again.”
“There has to be something we can do for her!” Scootaloo said.
“And expose ourselves to even more animosity from the locals? No way. Now you three will have to bear with her death in your consciences for a while.”
“Death?” The word brought a shiver on Apple Bloom’s back.
“Since our cover got compromised, we have nothing else to do but leave to another spot. If the locals decide to come and look here, they will only find a bunch of empty tents. And you will come with us.” She said.
“But Rainbow Dash? Why? There has to be something! Anything!” Scootaloo sobbed as her father reassured her. “She saved me from that cave! Why can’t we do the same?”
“Girl, we are LUCKY that it’s Rainbow Dash the one who got caught. Her sense of honor and loyalty is good enough that she’ll rather DIE before compromising our situation any more than it is.”
“She can’t die!” “You need her!” “I need her!” Scootaloo screamed at her with all of her might. She tried to let go of her parent’s grip to go after Spitfire, who turned her back and walked away.
“All right, gather the skyfolk and their families, and pack your stuff. We are leaving!”
Suddenly, from the sky a small aircraft made a loud noise and landed before them. A young donkey with a white coat and round glasses made an appearance and descended the aircraft. Mayor Blue Halo followed.
“That won’t be necessary.” He said. “Today we go public. No turning back.”
-
Twilight Sparkle was with Spike and their chariot as she was returning from yet another meeting in the Crystal Empire. Things were the same, tough. Canterlot kept silent about the drought issue, and she just gave up on bringing it up. Her visit was more personal, tough.
The Royal Couple wasn’t in the best of shapes. She could tell even if their ceremonial activities and posing for the press showed them as the ultimate example of a happy marriage. What she wasn’t sure about is what was wrong. They appeared with the best of smiles and their displays of affection showed care and love, but there was something off with them. Specially with Cadance. It was a look in her eyes, sadness, perhaps? Guilt? Disgust?
She preferred to ignore that and focus in the present. The principal issue was of course the weather and the sudden disappearing of most of the pegasi population around all of Equestria. She promised to herself she would get deep in the issue.
“Geez I could use some glass of water now” Spike complained.
“Hold on, Spike. We are almost there.”
“What are we going to do once we get in the library?”
“Well, if I stick to the list I did during the trip, it’s re-shelving day, replace the sheets, hanging out with our friends aaaaand… writing this week’s Friendship Report to the Princess.”
“But you have to attend the Canterlot meeting tomorrow! You can’t handle all the pressure after coming here and moving again!”
“Ah, don’t worry Spike. I can handle it pretty well! Besides, I promised them I would be available.”
“Aren’t you considering…you know, moving back to Canterlot?”
“Not a chance Spike. I might be a Princess now, but I still got a lot to learn. Unless the Princess tells me so, I will remain here. I must be here for my friends, after all.”
“You could skip the Friendship Report in exchange of a little sleep. You know that the Princess rarely responds to them now. There’s no way to know if she actually reads the- ow!”
Spike received a hoof over his head. “What was that for?”
“It’s the last time you suggest such a thing Spike. I know the Princess must be busy but she READS what I send her because she CARES.”
“All right, all right!” Spike waved his hands, defeated. “But you must skip at least one of the activities for you to rest. You know you can’t last for long if you keep on like this.”
After some thought, Twilight answered. “Fine. Let’s skip re-shelving day.”
“I’m not saying that I am also tired as hell and need desperately a brake too, you know.” Spike hinted.
“Oh, right. It’s ok, I never suggested that you were, Spike. You are always so reliable.” She brightly answered.
Spike sighed. She really was bad at taking any hints.
“Don’t lose sight of your belongings, Highness. We are crossing in a bank of mist below.” One of guards pulling the chariot said.
“This is odd.”
From the mist she saw on the distance emerging a small dirigible moving full speed towards Ponyville.
“What is that? Are aircraft allowed to navigate this area?” She asked.
“We are the only ones confirmed to enter Ponyville aerial space. That thing is breaking the law. Should we ask for pursuit?”
“Well, it’s heading to Ponyville.” She answered. “We’ll see what it is once we get there.”
-
Back to Ponyville.
Rickshaw wasn’t about to end. “So you still refuse to talk, am I right girl?”
“Kiss my flank, moron.”
“Your race is a race of weaklings. You can feel proud of the loyalty you have towards them, but they have no problem with leaving you alone, here in my hooves and about to die. ”
She spat on him.
“Alrightie then. Stainmudd! Tie yerself into that rope! Then jump off the platform when I tell ya!” The rope was knotted into her neck. And it was tensed up in a fence over the platform.
The crowd started slowly to realize what was going on. Applejack panicked.
“Somepony do something!”
“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity screamed.
“It’s all right guys. It’s necessary, you’ll thank me later!” Rainbow Dash shouted at them.
“Screw this, I’m going to get her off myself.” Applejack resolved and walked towards there. She got held by some in the crowd.
“What the hay Applejack, stay down!” One said.
“Let me go or you’ll be sorry!”
“We’ve been waiting years for this! You won’t free her when we know she won’t be back!”
“Let. Me. Go.”
“No. You won’t ruin this moment.”
“I said let GO!” AJ punched into his snout. Once free she proceeded quickly but got overpowered by others from the crowd.
“Rarity! Help her!”
Rarity was already dragged out of the crowd, some were bruised themselves.
“Somepony help! They are going to kill her!”
“I told you, they are going to scare her to talk!” another mare said.
“Are you blind or just damn stupid?! That stallion up there is insane! He’ll kill her! LET THE BUCK GO!”
“Hold her off!” The crowd said; the noisiest ones, actually. The vast majority stayed still, eager to see the outcome, but too neutral to decide anything.
“Consider this a message for all pegasi in that camp!” Rickshaw declared. “We are not fooling around! You can hide, you can run away, but eventually justice will reach you, and treat you just like this wretch over here!”
Rickshaw was about to signal Stainmudd but at the end of the crowd he saw what it looked like a royal chariot landing behind. A winged purple mare jumped out of it.
Worst timing ever. But he knew he couldn’t hold back now even with a Canterlot princess witnessing the execution!
“What is this madness?” Twilight Sparkle shouted at them. The crowd didn’t flinch.
Thank goodness, it was that new weird princess nopony took seriously in Ponyville.
“Consider this a message for Canterlot too! The people wants answers! We demand answers! PONYVILLE DEMANDS ANSWERS!” Rickshaw shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Damn it Rainbow Dash, have mercy on yourself and say something, please!” Applejack cried out for her.
Twilight Sparkle had no time to react. The events were just too overwhelming for her. Was there some sort of kangaroo trial?
Rarity crawled out to go to her. “Twilight, for goodness sake, help her!”
“But who?”
“It’s Rainbow Dash!”
Twilight froze for a second. There was no time to lose. She had to save her.
Use a teleport spell!
Blast the rope!
Why is she there?
Why did she took so long?
Teleport now!
Is the crowd encouraging this?
Focus on the rope and shoot!
Where the hay is the Mayor!
Distance is about fifteen meters…
What will the Princess say about this?
What was the teleportation spell, again?
“Rainbow Dash! NO!” Rarity squealed as she saw Stainmudd reluctantly jumping the platform and the rope tensed up.
Applejack opened her eyes wide, tears flowing freely, too shocked to shout. Some of the crowd finally realized the killing intent of Richshaw too late.
The rope snapped on its own.
Stainmudd was sent flying a few meters away, crashing into a cart.
Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and only saw a very surprised Rickshaw.
Twilight blinked. She didn’t charge a spell at all.
“Over there!” Spike pointed out.
In the middle of the street there was a massive shadow, which materialized into a bull. A donkey was standing in his right side. Both walked towards the crowd.
“And you are not alone, citizens of Ponyville.” The bull said.
END OF PART I
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I cannot relate to this story at all.
Its structuring is very... helter-skelter. I can't get any context for anything, the setting and tone of the world are very erratic, though it is now abundantly clear that this is alt-universe, as there is no racism between the pony types any longer.
It needs serious work to properly set up the events such that it begins to make some sense. As it is, everything simply happens to fill in the details of the plot and it ends up as severely forced.
3029679
oh... well it's incomplete for a reason.
don't worry, it will make sense in the next part. thanks for the feedback.
3030260 It's not the incompleteness of the story, more the incompleteness of the WORLD itself.
This is NOT Equestria. Not the one we know, and thus what world it is must therefore be established. The characters must be properly reintroduced, their stories retold as they have developed in a world utterly unlike that of the television show.
It's a mistake many writers make with fanfiction: they dramatically alter the PRESENT-DAY world in their story, but forget that such enormous shifts in tone and mood must reflect BACKWARD as well. Cause and effect. The happy world of the ponies in the show would not suddenly snap into this brutal, racist land.
The world must then be remade from scratch, it's entirety recast in this new form.
3030291
each story has a pace. patience.
don't jump to conclusions. what you read, assuming you read from ch 1 is merely the introduction of a problem, a problem that altered the equestria you know in a short period of time. a problem that puts to test the image of equestria, it's residents and main chars that are known, you follow?
but again, the real problem is yet to be revealed. it's incomplete.
3030434 The problem is not the issue. The problem is the SOCIETY.
The entire mood and mindset of the ponies has been utterly altered. I have seen how different communities react to disasters. Only those who are weak and selfish from the start react in a callous manner. Those who have a powerful sense of community bond together, helping each other. Such was the case in many towns devastated by the Japanese tsunami. The ponies of Ponyville also are such a community, even stronger because they are creatures that truly do not know wickedness.
Thus, this CANNOT be the Equestria we know, because their actions reflect beings that developed in an entirely different set of circumstances.
Also, the secrecy of the Pegasi makes little sense and will make little sense for anything other than some sort of attempt to dominate the other races. If it is for any other reason, it becomes a self-defeating occlusion of facts. And yet, the drought is killing them as well... which I find rather hard to believe given that CLOUDS ARE MADE OF WATER AND THEY LIVE ON THEM. Their cloud-based cities would have collapsed long ago if this drought is so severe, and one would hardly suspect them of treason against the other races when they have lost their own homes. This, by the way, makes the notion of this being some sort of subversion by the pegasi all the more absurd.
If it is a natural or magical disaster, why hide it? That simply makes no logical sense, especially when there are many unicorns who could aid in uncovering the cause and finding a solution.
Pride only carries one so far. And certainly not their entire race would be so stupid as to risk all their lives on empty pride. We've already seen Rainbow Dash be ready to give up her dream to protect her friends. She already knows the danger of putting pride in her homeland over the loyalty to her friends (from Discord's mental game... speaking of whom, where is he if this is still canon Equestria?), she would never keep a secret from them if it involved their well-being.
Secrecy only makes sense to those plotting something which will spark open rebellion (and again, Dash would have no part in it were this the case). For any other reason, you must idiot ball your characters severely so that none of them realize this obvious fact. And hence it becomes mere contrivance.
There is also the matter of the rest of the world. Is ALL of the planet under this drought? Including the Everfree Forest? If not, then why can they not bring water OR ICE FROM THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE with their copious magic? If yes, then clearly the pegasi could not be responsible because they do not have total control of the world's weather, as is evidenced in several episodes.
This does not even bring up the other lands and their races: zebra, minotaur, dragons, griffons, Saddle Arabians. If this drought was worldwide, surely they too would be attempting to identify the cause.
You see, the idea has not taken into account all the facts of their world, to ensure that there is no other obvious solution to their problems. It would be better suited to a totally reimagined Equestria of a much more sordid past, abandoning the utopic nature of the show and aiming closer to the racial tensions of the 50's Southern USA. Set in that tone, with a new recent back history supporting the scarcely suppressed hatred, this would make much more sense.
3035257
Again, don't jump to conclusions when it's still incomplete.
Thank you tough, you gave me a wide variety of things to consider in order to make it more believable. Some of them slipt my mind of course, but I ommitted others because the universe is already set. The other races' take on the drought problem is up to your imagination, but they won't alter this particular story anyway.
OK, so Ponyville and ponies in general are good, caring and overall with a strong sense of community. That's the challenge. To digest the idea that as sentient beings are subject to snap during moments of distress. To realize that they can also do things for the worst. That's what this story is saying anyway.
Throw in a world-shattering test in a universe where things always had a happy solution and people who were never into a moment of real distress and they will SNAP. They will consider options that were damnable in previous, peaceful times.
Seriously, when was the last time they faced as a WHOLE (not only the main chars) a moment of crisis that supossedly was triggered by someone close to them?
Discord? He was evil to begin with in their minds, assuming they all kew about his history.
Nightmare moon? The even have a tradition that makes her look scary until very recently...
Sombra? Whe the hell is that guy?
Paraspites? The ocassional stampedes?
They know who to blame. They need someone to blame when nothing seems to make sense. They got that conclusion because they know who is in charge with the weather in their community. Most of them didn't want to have an opinion or got neutral, minding their buisness until things got more out of hand.
Obviously, the most resentful ones who somewhere somehow had a grudge with their race took that to their advantage for their own reasons. Racism is not general feeling of the town, it never was until the most noisy one offered an alternative to the crisis. And even then they didn't think that it would potentially kill somebody.
Things weren't any easier fo pegasi either. Thay kept things secret during the early stages of the dought out of pride because they thought they could handle it (which company accepts that they are unfit for their task before exhausting all of their options first?), by when they found out that the drought was indeed deadly it was too late for them to tell the general population. Suspicions were already there. So they took the poor choice to leave and suvive on their own. They preferred to do that rather than cause mass panic. Of course that only made them even more suspicious.
basicaly it is a game of bad-timed circunstances, I guess. I already explained in my notes, it's english practice. I'm no writer, I'm no english speaker. I am no story teller either.
BUT. I'm willing to make it better. I'm not ditching your comments, I am replying explaining what I am trying to say here because I believe that making assumptions before even the problem is finally revealed is a bit silly. Then again, comments like yours that fully analizes and concludes that something doesn't match are more than welcome.
....could it be that you are that proofreader I was hoping to appear?
3035289
Thank you for taking the time to analyze it and to comment. But bear with me: things will be cleared up eventually.
3035704
I was just going to give a fave and wait for your next update (whenever it happens), but now I feel the need to defend your story.
I love your social dynamics: how a nice, almost-perfect society just collapses once, in a time of crisis, the government lets go of the reigns, the populous is left in the dark and there is a visible minority that can be made to take the blame. Half of these problems in your story could have been prevented by something as simple as Princess Celestia acknowledging the problems and quoting the actions that are being taken, or by Cloudsdale Co emitting a regular newsletter that is not a piece of propaganda. As it is, the situation is coming to a head, and Celestia's rule could topple. Just like the French Revolution, or the ascension of the Nazi party to power. Or how in present day Mexico, the country desperately needs an energy reform (the state-owned oil company is almost bankrupt, and partisan power-plays have been blocking every minor reform for the last 15 years), yet there is this Hugo Chavez wannabe that is ruffling the population by utterly denying the need for the energy reform and thus mobilizing the people into vocally opposing the bill.
And man: you don't need a proofreader for the content of your story. Better learn to proof-read your own typos and auto-correction errors, that there are plenty.
3035257
You may be forgetting something very relevant: this is MLP: G4. Unlike previous generations, ponies aren't brain-addled lollipops. Ponyville alone has a recent history of racism: Zecora. The pony nation then has a history of racial-based classism that any serious student of sociology would then be able to translate out from the children's rating and into something resembling European or Japanese feudalism, with semi-enslaved serfs being ruled by a soldier class, that then upholds the power of some divine-descendant nobility. And then you have that, despite equality, the canon has us with ponies living under some degrees of racial segregation, up to Cloudsdale and other cloud cities enjoying absolute racial segregation.
And before you refute the last part: remember that Fluttershy had never even touched the ground before she fell off flight camp. For all we know, there could be plenty of pegasai whose only relation with the surface world is "I don't care where my fruit comes from, and when I shit, my shit falls down". Such easy isolation could breed plenty of isolationism and xenophobia within pegasai-only communities, which would result in plenty of pagasai having no respect for surface dwellers, which would then breed reciprocal contempt from this same surface dwellers.
And we cannot forget that the ponies' peacefulness is only surface deep. If it wasn't, then there would be no school ground bullying, no elaborate courtesy (because, after all, contemporary courtesy evolved from powerplaying between courtiers inside the old monarchical courts of Europe), the Element of Generosity wouldn't be an expert at conning, and marketplaces wouldn't be so cut-throat.
And then I'm not even mentioning Nightmare Moon, or Sombra.
3035704 The problem is that the ponies in this story begin acting stupidly right off the bat and never seem to entertain any logical thought whatsoever.
All the pegasi are in on this conspiracy? That's just ridiculous. It's a simple fact that no conspiracy can remain long-hidden when too many people are involved.
Just look at the NSA, for instance. As high-security as it is, as deep a background screening as is gone through, someone (Snowden) got the information and released it because he felt it was the right thing to do.
In every single brutal regime on Earth, there are always those who slip out, who quietly rebel, who infiltrate to gather information. Given that the pegasi aren't dragging ponies out of their houses for hiding Jews and shooting them in he streets (and recall that the resistance STILL kept working in Germany, despite all that), the notion that these novice pegasi could keep a massive secret for even a few days is breaking plausibility.
There is simply no way for the pegasus leaders to cover all the bases. They have no precedent to go on, thus their information security is going to be filled with holes.
3106202 Wrong. So very very wrong.
The ponies were not 'racist' against Zecora. They were scared of her. Just as they were scared of a bunny stampede. Just as they were scared of Luna.
Just as they get frightened by everything, pretty much.
The settler ponies in Apploosa were closer to racist against the buffalo, but even than it was less based on race and more on the dispute over the land. Once the solution was found, the antagonism ceased. Again, that is quite atypical of true racism, in which the hatred does not simply vanish.
There was no deep-rooted hatred behind either of these incidences, without which racism cannot exist.
You forget how easily Zecora was accepted after that.
You are also reading far too much into Cloudsdale, making assumptions that have no factual basis. Isolation doesn't automatically equal racism either. The pegasi prefer to live in clouds simply because it feels natural to them. But quite a few also live on the ground.
The ponies do not have a perfect society, and always there are individuals who display flaws. But ascribing a wholy different social ill upon the ponies as a whole for the actions of a few (who do not themselves display said trait regardless) is patently illogical.
It is the same as saying that because someone enjoys vodka a little too much, they must also be a heroin addict, as must everyone in their family.
If there is any species that has demonstrated clear-cut derision of another race it would be... the dragons. They truly do seem to view ponies as inferior to them, at least as teenagers. We have only two other examples: Spike, raised by ponies and thus inapplicable as a proper sample; and the red dragon, who may have been under the influence of The Stare, and thus emotionally vulnerable to Fluttershy's influence.
3109271
I don't know, but you may have heard at some point about something called "The Manhattan Project".
Besides, you definitely don't need to be the military or even the government in order to know how to keep secrets. That's simply called "industrial secrecy" and "need-to-know basis". And you don't need to go to things like the crazy levels of secrecy around the exact composition of the pre-sweetened Coca Cola concentrate (the company data states that there are only two persons alive at any moment that know the entire formula and process, and rumours go that the costs around its industrial process are about 1/3 for the actual formula, 1/3 for an occluding chemical that doesn't allow the formula to be precisely analysed through spectrography, and 1/3 for an elaborate smokescreen that gets flushed down the drain): I once tried to make a company making Spanish style hand fans, with elaborate surrealistic designs on their wings. In the process I created a formula for a chemical accelerator that makes a cheap one-hour/hot-set dye into a good five-minute/cold-set one. The most important parts are that my accelerator was just a fraction of the cost of commercially available accelerators, and that it didn't give any clues that could help my workers to identify its composition. And during the time that my company operated, I never let anybody learn the formula, doing the reaction in my own kitchen and coming to work with the ready-to-use accelerator. Heck, to date that formula still exist only inside my head.
However, I'm digressing. Cloudsdale Co is stated to have been a monopolistic company before being bought by the government. For a company to become a monopoly, it has to crush the competition, and for that, it would need serious market advantages. And for it to maintain its market advantages, it would need to know of secrecy, industrial counter-espionage and need-to-know (not to mention whatever intellectual property laws rule in Equestria).
Second, you are right: it was wrong for me to say that the Zecora affair was racism. Properly said, it was xenophobia. However, you are forgetting something else: the show is a 22-minute show aimed at little girls. Scenes are edited for time as well as for content (famously: time-cuts warped the scene that sparked the whole Derpy affair), musical numbers are inserted rather than cold reality (like the Cutie Mark Song in "Magical Mystery Cure", or the "Babs Seed" song in "Bad Seed") and comic relief is added whenever a situation turns too serious (like on "Bad Seed", when Sweety starts crying like Bugs Bunny after the bullies steal their clubhouse: if she had cried realistically, that scene would have gone above the show's rating). All that we really saw on the show was that the Elements were forced to confront their prejudices against Zecora, and that they had to then pretty much force the town to open their businesses to her. For all we know, it may have taken weeks if not months before Zecora was fully accepted. If the Elements hadn't walked through the blue flowers, then the Zecora situation could have continued until Twilight exploded.
And the issue with the bunny stampede:
A) It was only a short time since the town had narrowly escaped being trampled by a cow stampede. Ponies' nerves would be on edge at the word.
B) Trust the flower sisters to go into a panic for any issue under the sun. That's why they are comic relief characters.
Remember issue with the 20 bit cherry for the cherry salad for Angel Bunny? If cutthroat practices weren't commonplace in the pony market system, then the witnesses to that issue would have raised hell and the arsehole would have been run out of the market plaza.
And if you think I'm reading too much into the easy isolation of Cloudsdale, then you don't really know how voluntary isolation affects communities. Try to check a few serious sociological studies on the Quechua (the modern-day Incas), the Amish, certain fanatic-filled settlements in Israel, or modern-day Mayans.
Well, my lunch break is over. Please digest what I just wrote.
2851316
By the way, was there a significant reference to Jaime Maussan, that crazy Mexican conspiracy theorists?
3110239 I have no idea what you're talking about (scrunchy, lying face)
3110212 And you're making ponies identical to humans. In which case, it's no longer the show. I could point out that in the 'real' world, the Elements would never find Bearers as no one is close enough to the ideals in anything.
Perhaps I should mention that Celestia would have had to execute her sister for war crimes in the 'real' world, because in the 'real' world, Nightmare Moon would have slaughtered innocents in her rebellion.
Or even if the Elements chose for Celestia, certainly she would not have sent 6 totally unprepared mares to face her insane sister who would almost assuredly have killed them the instant she realized they were going after the sole artifacts that could stop her.
And let us not even begin to discuss the horrors of Discord in a 'real' setting.
The point is, when you darken the world to human-level, ALL of it must fall. All the history, all the canon. None of it can remain the same when the entire tone and mood have so fundamentally been altered.
The Manhatten Project was not at all a perfectly well-kept secret. The Soviets had quite a few spies in there who gathered a tremendous amount of information for their government. The Soviet's first nuclear device was based almost entirely off data stolen from the US.
And a massive catastrophe does not guarantee a collapse of civility. I would like to point to the 2011 Japanese tsunami.
Much of the reaction has to do with the society BEFOREHAND. If the societal values strongly favor honesty, generosity, kindness, kinship, and any number of other positive traits, then that society is far more likely to react less destructively to crisis.
The stronger the social contract is held within each member of society, the harder it is to break. The few who refuse to partake will not sway over the majority who hold fast to their deeply-instilled values.
The things you point out about human isolated cultures are the result of flawed and/or biased beliefs which foster the reactions. It also neglects those cultures who are isolated by geography, rather than choice, and who are quite open to visitors.
And even among people like the Amish, there is hardly uniformity in response to outside presences.
If this story wished to portray the ponies as a species that would stoop so easily to the worst of our level, then it must better establish that this world is harsher and crueler in its past. It can bear no resemblance to the television canon, for I can only think of a handful of ponies from the show who, under the worst circumstances, would think of murder.
The changelings, however... absolutely would kill. The dragons, without a doubt. The teen dragons were quite clearly planning to slaughter Spike and his 'namby-pamby' pony friends.
I certainly wouldn't put it past the Diamond Dogs to work or beat their captives to death, given that they had the equipment on hand for slave labor.
It's hard to say with griffons, since we only have seen two. Gilda was just a jerk and Gustav was a snooty but good-natured patisseire. However, we can assume that since no ponies were even remotely alarmed by the presence of either of them, the griffon race is not viewed as hostile to ponies. The donkeys seem to be more or less integrated into pony society. Minotaurs are impossible to judge from the single example, who was simply a parody of self-help gurus.
3111156
Now that just sounds emo. Go out there, get a life, and you'll meet plenty of human adults who would be as good on a given element as any of our imperfect Mane 6. On my part, I'm sure that I would be able to find a new set of Bearers just by walking into a meeting of volunteer firefighters and paramedics.
A) Celestia, as an absolute ruler, issued a pardon on the spot.
B) The show's depiction of Nightmare's rebellion simply states that Luna transformed into Nightmare, who then refused to make way for the sun, and then her sister had to banish her. For all we know, the 'rebellion' could have been over inside an hour, with no more combatants than the two princesses slugging it out.
About Discord:
A) Discord was like a historically-accurate depiction of Loki, the prankster god of the Norse pantheon: chaotic-neutral, and always getting on everybody's nerves. He wasn't imprisoned for being evil, but because he was crazy.
B) Something that has been discussed extensively around the forums here is that Discord pretty much just offered every facility toward being captured. Personally, I think that he had made a bet with Celestia about the Elements not being able to overcome his mind trick, then either had to own up or couldn't believe that they had done it.
The Manhattan project was perfectly well kept toward its primary objective: dropping two nukes on Japan and bluffing that more were coming. The Japanese never knew that the US was bluffing, and as they didn't know a thing about the project, they didn't even suspect that the US only had enough enriched uranium for a third bomb.
The Japanese tsunami is actually a pretty poor example, considering that the government never stopped coordinating the disaster relief efforts, and had learned since the Kobe earthquake and immediately accepted every offer of international assistance. Heck, even the Mexican Army sent relief workers. Better try an example were the government suffered a complete collapse, like the Haitian earthquake. If you want a Japanese example, consider the Kobe earthquake: most deaths from that earthquake can be traced to bribery received by building code inspectors, and to governmental pride that was putting more effort on covering up the disaster than on actually performing disaster relief efforts.
Let me quote Christopher Columbus, regarding the taino tribes he found in La Hispañola (today Dominican Republic and Haiti):
Well, the so-peaceful Taino people didn't take well to 'slave' as a new lifestyle, and apparently fought so fiercely that the Spaniards had to exterminate them completely and then had to repopulate the island with African slaves.
You don't say!
Okay, now seriously: are you going to fault the Mayans and the Quechua for defending their freedom and way of life against the Spaniards, then the self-serving, Spanish-descendant governments?
Yeah: regardless of their rather uniform posture of xenophobia, half of the hotels in Cancun and the Mayan Riviera are owned by Mayans. They will accept your money with open arms, but better think again before moving in and competing for their children's jobs.
Man, whatever is your day job, don't quit.
3112627 >>>Something that has been discussed extensively around the forums here is that Discord pretty much just offered every facility toward being captured. Personally, I think that he had made a bet with Celestia about the Elements not being able to overcome his mind trick, then either had to own up or couldn't believe that they had done it.>>>
And that is what we call 'fanon'. There is no proof, nor even the suggestion of it being true.
>>>The Japanese never knew that the US was bluffing, and as they didn't know a thing about the project, they didn't even suspect that the US only had enough enriched uranium for a third bomb. >>>
That would be because Japan and the US were utterly cut off from each other. All Japanese-Americans were put into internment camps after the Dec. 7, 1941 attack. They could not know how much enrinched uranium and plutonium the US created in the ensuing time period. They likely knew of the project on a basic level, but not nearly enough to ascertain its scope.
The Nazis certainly knew about it, and were attempting to build a bomb themselves, but again they didn't know how far along the US effort was. And their own attempts were sabotaged.
3114874
A) Discord could have thrown the Elements to the four winds, destroyed them or otherwise kept them on his own power, but he rather put them on Twilight's lap (through a misleading riddle, though). His only chip was playing mind games so the Bearers wouldn't be able to coordinate.
B) Discord went as far as to literally paint a target on his own chest for the first time the Bearers tried to hit him. The second time they came for him, he put the token resistance of pulling at their necklaces for a few seconds to then sit down on his throne and wait until they shot at him. In fact, if you analyse the scene, you'll notice that he was literally sitting down when they finally hit him.
And the Nazi didn't really know, but had almost-certain suspicion, considering that the very physicist who had proposed the atom bomb had then fled to the States. If they had known, then the Japanese would have known as well. Besides, the Nazi actually sucked at espionage: most modern historians agree that even before D-day, there wasn't a single uncompromised Nazi spy in the British Isles.
Man, you are just too easy.
3116847 Ahem, then we could say that EVERY MLP villain basically gave up.
NMM's 'resistance' was a joke. She stood there while Twi & Co. monologued about the Elements instead of just, I dunno, blasting them.
Chrysalis didn't even bother imprisoning Cadence again, nor the Mane 6, once they were caught. And she so very conveniently looked out the window while Cadence was repowering Shining's spell. Not to mention her declaration that Cadence's attempt to use her love to power Shining's spell was ridiculous... despite the rather obvious fact that Chrysalis herself just used love to defeat Celestia... a really really powerful alicorn...
The only reason Discord made it look easy was... *drumroll*... THE SCRIPT. The villains are made to fail because time doesn't allow for a more legitimate setup for their defeat. You see that in adventure cartoons all the time. It's hardly proof of the villain just giving up or making it easy.
3119597
See? You have finally made me work on an answer!
The one who tends to take a dive is Celestia, not the enemies. I'll explain within these explanations.
NMM's involvement wasn't just on the final confrontation, but started from her show of power inside city hall, then from the moment that the (future) Bearers entered the forest. Besides, for a great and terrible evil queen, she seemed extremely reluctant to cause any harm:
A) The landslide: That was her most lethal attack against the Bearers, and it was just tossing them from a ledge and into an incline (...that ended in an abyss). Considering that the Bearers had among them two pegasai and at least one visibly fit Earth pony, I bet that NMM was counting on all of them to remain safe, but to get so shaken up that they would lose their nerve and head back.
B) The manticore: While a manticore may be a grievously dangerous creature, it would not give chase with a multi-inch thorn stuck in its paw. And not even by wing, as manticores, like migratory birds before migrating, might be the kind of animals that need a running start to take off.
C) Stephen Magnet: poke the sleeping drake so the river becomes a mayor obstacle.
D) The angry trees: The same landslide, but now using nothing but some weak illusions.
E) The Shadowbolts: some more illusions, plus psychology. Her weakest attempt so far.
All of this, plus the weak final confrontation, adds up to a nice, four-part hypothesis:
1) Whatever she did in order to first escape the Moon and then dethrone Celestia had left her as weak as a kitten. She spent the very last shred of her power on breaking the Elements, then was standing on nothing but adrenaline and practised posturing.
2) Luna, and then NMM, knew her Sun Tzu and knew that when you are at your weakest is that you need to appear your strongest, so to not invite attack. Perhaps, after breaking the Elements, she was just hopping for the mares to finally take a hint and leave her alone, so she could faint in peace.
3) Even through everything, Luna's rebellion was little else than a neglected child that acts up in demand of attention, or a neglected teen that tries to do every little thing that her parents don't want her to do. The sole fact that the rebellion happened makes me think that she lacked the emotional maturity to see beyond a quick fix.
4) Celestia was never truly defeated, but she took a dive so her "Faithful Student" could restore the Elements, cleanse her sister and kick-start her own ascension. She must have had a reserve plan that would have been activated from the very moment that Twilight's expedition had been defeated.
The fight with Chrysalis wasn't a test concerning Twilight, but one concerning Cadance. For all we know, the city shield came up as soon as Celestia knew that her niece had been replaced, then she put both her niece and the fake under watch, and was waiting until her niece would bother to try and find an exit rather than keep acting like some damsel in distress and sit on her rump until someone would come to her rescue. I honestly think that Celestia would have waited patiently, and wouldn't have lifted a finger until the bug queen forced her hand (like started abducting ponies or activated her invasion plan). Her plans would have included to make another dive as soon as Cadance showed up, so to force Cadance to solve the situation. And all of these would have been so to make sure that Cadance was ready to rule her Crystal city as soon as it emerged from its hibernation.
Discord's escape would have then been carefully planned between Discord and her. I don't buy the 'accidental release' for a second.
And King Sombra: she had already defeated him once, and was so confident in her ability to do it again that she intentionally sent her student with a flawed plan, just to test whether her student would place a greater value on not disappointing the princess rather than on defeating the enemy.
Well, I'm off to bed. Thanks!
I understand it's suppose to be an unfortunate turns of events, but I don't buy at all how Rainbow Dash gets taken down. What explanation is given for Rainbow's attack missing? That Rickshaw ducked? Did RD really not anticipate Rick trying to avoid her attack?
Even if she did miss him, why would she fly into the cave? How far away from the cave entrance was he positioned? If he was standing in front of the mouth, wouldn't she dive at an angle to make sure she wouldn't fly into the cave? Besides it being an obvious place for her to get ambushed by the third stallion she knows about, a cave would be a terrible place to turn around while flying.