Mending Bridges
Chapter 12:
Mending Bridges
Dash and the others all returned about an hour later. I was surprised to see them back so soon, but it turned out they’d just been all having dinner together. I should’ve realized that their motivations were harmless and chastised myself for letting my assumptions get away from me again. I’d had enough sense not to do anything rash, but it just hammered home the point that I really did have some trust issues.
Shmangie came and found me later so we could go back to the hotel. An awkward silence hung over us for the first few miles of the drive, but the tension was bearing down on me and I just couldn’t take it anymore. It all came pouring out of me like a flood—how terrible I felt for violating her trust, how stupid it was to withhold information from her, how she had every right to be angry with me, everything. I admitted I had a problem that I didn’t know how to fix, and when I tried to apologize for screwing up so badly… well…
I know I’ve been pretty thorough in my retelling of events. I’ve shared some very personal things in how I’ve dealt with changing back into a pony, and I’d like to think I’ve learned my lesson in regards to keeping secrets. My goal in all this has been to show you why I did the things I did, and while I did make some mistakes, I did try my hardest to learn from them. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I failed, but for better or worse, everything I’ve done has shaped me into who I am today.
But personal matters involving others are a different matter. Shmangie has asked me that I not share the details of what happened for the rest of that evening, as it was a very emotional time for both of us and she doesn’t want me to give a recount of us arguing in such vulnerable states. We aired some dirty laundry, settled some things and ultimately wound up ending it on a good note, but that’s all I’ll say. Sometimes you just gotta sit down and hash things out. It’s rarely an enjoyable experience, but you wind up feeling better afterwards.
***
I woke up the next morning feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest. It was liberating to finally have everything out in the open now, and I was in such a good mood that I sang along with the radio all the way back to the farm. Shmangie seemed more relaxed as well and occasionally hummed along when it was a song she knew.
Unfortunately, our good mood was cut short by an obnoxious country song that reminded us of another problem we needed to be address.
“Ah, crap,” I said. “I forgot about Bloom.”
Shmangie sighed and turned down the volume. “What are we gonna do with her?”
I ran a hoof down my face. “Forgive her, obviously, but not right away. I want something from her first.”
Shmangie nodded. “And not just an apology, either. She could’ve seriously screwed us all over. She wasn’t thinking straight, mind you, but still. Big no-no.”
I leaned back in my seat and looked out the window. I could only see the tops of trees and telephone poles from my angle, but it wasn’t like there was much to see anyways. “I don’t think we should confront her at the same time. That’s just gonna make her feel like we’re ganging up on her. It’ll be easier if we do it separately.”
Shmangie paused for a moment as she passed a slow-moving Buick. “I’ll let you go first, then. I’m still a little sore about it, anyways.”
I hung my head. “I am too, but I don’t want to let this fester any more than it has. The last thing I wanna do is have another screaming match.”
Shmangie shifted in her seat and rubbed her throat. “I think this is the first time we’ve fought since the duct tape incident.”
I bit my lip. “That one was deserved, though. I never should’ve gone up on the water tower.”
Shmangie chuckled. “Definitely not.”
We approached the farm. It still looked inconspicuous from the road, the tall trees hiding the property and everything therein. We went down the driveway and rounded the bend, and soon dozens of wandering ponies came into view. They all stopped to see who’d just arrived, but then quickly resumed their business.
Shmangie parked the van in the usual place in the field west of the barn. I hopped out and took stock of the place to see if anything had changed, but everything was pretty much the same. There were more ponies around than before, but I’d stopped paying attention who was arriving by then. Most newcomers weren’t all that interested in me anyways, although I did get a lot of stares from afar. Today was no different in regards of weird looks, but I forced myself to ignore them and focused on taking stock of the general state of things.
“Gonna go talk to Mikey now?” Shmangie asked as she got out of the van.
I played with a tuft of grass. “Like I said, it’s better to get it out of the way.”
“Suit yourself.” Shmangie pointed over to the homestead. “Jack told me that Mikey’s been working down in the basement for the past few days. You’ll probably find her down there.”
I snorted. “That explains why I haven’t seen her. What about you, though? What are you gonna do today?”
Shmangie stretched her arms. “There’s always something to do around here. I’ll just go ask somepony how I can help.”
I snickered. “Yes... I’m sure there’s somepony around who’ll be happy for an extra hoof.”
Shmangie shrugged. “Hey, when in Rome.”
“What? Rome?” I looked around with a mock frown. “We’re not even in Europe, woman! Get your geography straight.”
“That’s—“ Shmangie began. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re a dork.”
We shared a light laugh. It was a strange feeling between us, like a wound freshly cleaned and now just beginning to heal. We held each other’s gaze for a while, neither of us sure of what to do or say. I didn’t want to fall through the ice again after just managing to scramble out, and I didn’t know if there was more to say between us.
Shmangie kneeled down so she was eye-level with me. She motioned for me to come closer. I gulped and moved so that I was sitting in front of her. My sister’s face was unreadable, like a mask of stone. She put a hand on my shoulder and brushed my mane away so that she could see my eyes.
“Are we good?” she asked.
I took a long, shaky breath. A lump started to form in my throat, but I managed to keep it under control.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Shmangie gently ran her hand down my face. “I love you, Shmage.”
I smiled and hugged her tight. “I love you, too.”
We probably should’ve finished things before coming to the farm. We probably drew even more stares by being so sentimental out it in the open. It didn’t matter to either of us. We needed a band-aid before we could move on, and this was the form it came in.
Shmangie let me go and set me back on the ground. She quickly wiped her eyes and looked away, suddenly very interested in something off on the horizon. She cleared her throat loudly and gave me some parting words before walking away.
“You have people that care about you, Shmage. They’ll help you if you just open up. Pushing them away is only going to hurt you in the long run, and if you keep acting like you want to do everything yourself, then that's exactly what you'll get.”
***
The smell of damp earth was heavy in my nostrils as I walked down into the homestead’s basement. The temperature dropped rapidly as I descended the rickety wooden stairs, the cobwebs lining the unfinished ceiling that bringing back countless memories of playing in other, similar places. One such place had been Apple Bloom’s human house, and with that realization, I suddenly understood why she’d been spending time down here.
Well... that and the whole ‘crippling shame from almost screwing us all over’ thing.
The basement was not what I’d expected. It was enormous, for one, more than twice the square footage of the house and stretching out under the backyard. Barrels, boxes and bags of food were all lined up neatly on tall, wide shelves, turning it into a veritable maze. I felt like I was in a grocery store more than anything else, and I had no idea where Apple Bloom was in such an organized mess. I didn’t want to yell out and scare her half to death, so I stood still for a moment and strained my ears.
I caught a scraping sound to my right, like a heavy box being moved. I quietly followed the noise, stopping every so often to reaffirm that I was going the right way. I then heard the loud crash of a box falling over, followed by a familiar voice muttering out a curse. I stood on my tippy-hooves to look through the bottom shelf on my right and made out a flash of yellow past a few bags of corn.
I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts. There was still some anger there deep down, like a slow, simmering kettle ready to boil over if I turned up the heat. I wouldn’t let that happen. I was not going to guilt trip her. I was not going to yell. We had the bodies of fillies, but the minds of adults. I could overcome the desire to flip out—
“BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!”
I swear I jumped ten feet in the air. I yelled out in alarm and fell flat on my stomach, only to have the sound of choking laughter behind me. I scrambled to my hooves and whirled around to find Pinkie, barely able to stand from laughing so hard.
“Y-you almost hit the ceiling!” she managed in between gasps. “I should call you Grasshopper!”
“Damn it, Pinkie!” I hissed through clenched teeth “Not now! I’m about to—”
“Hello?” Apple Bloom said. She set her box down and started walking over to us. “Pinkie? Is that you?”
Too late. I growled and tried to push Pinkie towards the stairs. “¡Váyase, molestia! ¡Ahora!”
Pinkie was oblivious to my attempts at dismissing her. “Spanish is such a pretty language.”
“Voy a patearte—”
Apple Bloom rounded the corner. Her expression was confused at first, but then she froze upon seeing me.
“Oh.”
I wanted to scream. I slowly turned around to see Apple Bloom staring wide-eyed at me, still as a statue. I laughed awkwardly and put a hoof behind my head.
“Uh... hi.”
Apple Bloom’s ears drooped. She turned and made her way back over to where she’d been.
“Wait!” I ran after her. “We need to talk!”
Apple Bloom didn’t reply, much to my chagrin. I rounded the corner and saw her tail disappear into an aisle a short ways away. It was tempting to just leave her be and let her sulk, but I’d already made up my mind about this.
“That’s weird,” Pinkie said from behind me. “She doesn’t seem very excited to see you. I wonder why that is?”
“Don’t play dumb!” I snapped at her. “You were there. You know what happened!”
“Sure do!” Pinkie chirped. “But I also know she keeps saying how bad she feels about it every time I come down here. I thought she’d jump at the chance to apologize!”
It surprised me that Apple Bloom had been confiding in somepony else, but then I remembered that Pinkie may or may not have been distantly related to her. I supposed Apple Bloom considered that enough of a bond to open up, but then again, considering that this was Pinkie we were talking about, Apple Bloom may have just talked with her because she knew she wouldn’t be judged. It wasn’t my immediate concern either way, though, so I ignored the distraction bait and I trotted after her.
I found Apple Bloom trying to put a box twice her size up onto the second shelf. She was having a hard time of it for obvious reasons, but if the dozens of other boxes neatly stacked all the way down the aisle were any indication, it wasn’t an impossible task.
“Been at this for a while, I see,” I remarked dryly.
Apple Bloom’s only reply was a grunt. She didn’t meet my eyes as she heaved the box up onto the shelf with the others. She then walked down the aisle towards a pile of flour bags.
“You know, you being down here kinda reminds me of the summer you set the clubhouse on fire from one of your potion experiments.” I followed after her at a distance, but made sure I didn’t lose her. “You felt so bad that you avoided all of us for five days, and when we finally tracked you down, we found that you’d picked all the rock out of the east and south fields... by yourself.”
Apple Bloom started lifting up the flour bags and placing them on her back. She got up to four before she turned around and slowly made her way back to where she’d been, ignoring me all the while.
“Oh, or the time you almost hit that deer when we were all in the car,” I continued nonchalantly. “We would’ve hit it if I hadn’t reached over and swerved the wheel for you. We didn’t see you at school for a week after that, and we didn’t know what’d happened to you until your mom called us and said you were in the hospital from heat exhaustion.”
Apple Bloom stopped and started carefully placing the flour bags up on the shelf next to the boxes. Her jaw was clenched as she focused on her work.
“I get why you try to avoid us after you screw up.” I sat down and watched her struggle to lift the bags by herself. “I get why you throw yourself into manual labor, too. But just running from the problem and punishing yourself isn’t the way to solve things. You’re not doing anything but stewing in your own guilt.”
“I almost got Angie killed,” Apple Bloom finally said through gritted teeth. “I almost gave all of us away to Discord. I reckon that warrants some punishment.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But should you be the one to decide what that punishment is?”
Apple Bloom laughed bitterly. “So you wanna decide, then? Is that it?”
I hesitated. Was that what I wanted? If anything, my first instinct was to just go on like nothing had even happened. A part of me wanted to still be mad at her, but now that I was actually in front of her, I was having a hard time of it.
“No,” I said finally. “If anything, I want a neutral party to do that. Somepony we both can trust.”
Apple Bloom yawned and rubbed her left shoulder. “And who might that be?”
“Court is now in session!”
Both of us turned. Sitting on top of the pile of flour bags wearing an old black shirt was Pinkie, looking down at us with a look of utmost seriousness. She’d dunked her mane in the flour to make it white and was holding a carpenter’s hammer in her right hoof.
“Apple Bloom, your fate is now in the hooves the honorable Judge Pinkamena!” She brought the hammer down with a thwap. “You may both be seated!”
We both gulped.
“Dios mio,” I whispered.
“Celestia save us all,” Apple Bloom muttered.
I’m not really sure why I went along with it. Maybe because it was Pinkie. Maybe because it was a quick solution. Or maybe because on some level, we both knew that this was good we were gonna get. Granted, we could’ve gotten someone more level-headed, but Pinkie had been there, so she was as good of a mediator as any.
Apple Bloom and I sat down in the middle of the aisle. Pinkie scrutinized both of us before clearing her throat and speaking in an authoritative tone.
“Apple Bloom, you are accused of going loco in the coco and trying to force Sweetie Belle to restore Applejack’s memories! How do you plead?”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Guilty.”
Pinkie nodded, causing a cloud of flour to fall from her mane. “A plea of insanity is not out of the question, then! Do you remember your actions?”
“I remember my actions just fine,” Apple Bloom said tiredly. “I saw Applejack on the driveway when I wasn’t expectin’ to see her for months yet, if ever at all. I’d been an only child for twenty-five years, and I can’t tell ya how many times there’ve been when I wished I coulda had a sibling to look up to for advice or what not. All the memories of everythin’ Applejack’s ever done for me hit me all like a punch to the gut when I saw her, and I suddenly felt like I wasn’t so alone anymore. I wanted her to tell me she was gonna fix everything and save the day like she always did, but when I realized she wasn’t gonna do any of that… I took matters into my own hooves.”
“Let the record show that the defendant has made a confession,” Pinkie declared. “How does the plaintiff respond?”
I looked away. “What do you want me to say? I understand why she did it, but that doesn’t change that she put us all in danger. She needs to be held accountable for that.”
“So accountify me,” Apple Bloom cut in. “I’ve been avoidin’ ya’ll ‘cause I feel like dirt, but I was also lettin’ ya cool off a bit. How can I make it up to you?”
I shrugged. “Outside of apologizing and not acting like a recluse? No idea. I’m not good at deciding punishments.”
“So ya don’t even know what you want, and here ya are makin’ demands of me.” Apple Bloom made a derisive noise. “That sure makes a lotta sense.”
“Hey, just because I don’t care what you do doesn’t mean I want you to just walk away scott-free,” I said. “I need to know you’re not gonna try anything like this again. You’ve gotta give me something that’ll guarantee that.”
“And what exactly might that be?” Apple Bloom said with flattened ears. “My word apparently ain’t gonna be enough for ya. You want me to shave my mane and make a voodoo doll out of it? Maybe I can sign a contract for ya in my own blood!”
“Sure, why not,” I said icily. “Maybe then I can keep you from marehandling me.”
“Order!” Pinkie struck the bag several times again with her hammer. “Order in the court! There will be no forbidden magics or blood contracts signed under my jurisdiction! Madam LeFlour, strike their last statements from the minutes!”
I noticed that there was a flour bag sitting upright a short ways away from the rest of the pile. An untouched notepad and pen was leaning against it.
“Now then,” Pinkie said to Apple Bloom. “It’s clear that Grasshopper is still very jumpy about whether or not you’ll try to commit a repeat offense. She needs assurance that you’ll have your head on straight from now on. Do you agree?”
Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. “Grasshopper?”
I groaned. “Don’t ask.”
“Answer the question, defendant,” Pinkie said.
Apple Bloom hung her head and sighed. “Sure. S’pose I can’t rightly blame her for that.”
“Then I have just the thing!” Pinkie said brightly. “Apple Bloom, you must make an Über-Pinkie Promise to never-never-ever to do this again. Fair?”
Apple Bloom frowned. “Uber Pinkie Promise?”
“Not ‘Uber’, ‘Über.’” Pinkie enunciated the word the exact same way. “With an umlaut.”
Apple Bloom blinked several times, but shook her head and went with it. “As long as it’s good enough for Sweetie.”
Pinkie turned to me. “Well?”
I sucked on my teeth. That was about as ironclad as I could ask for. Pinkie may or may not have fully understood what it meant, but I knew Apple Bloom did, and that was what really counted.
“That’ll work,” I said with a small grin.
“Great!” Pinkie reached behind her and pulled out a small piece of paper. On it was the word ‘ÜBER’ written in reverse in pink ink. She came over to us and stuck the piece of paper onto Apple Bloom’s hoof.
“All you gotta do is press the paper onto your eyelid at the end of the rhyme,” Pinkie said with a giggle. “Then everypony will know you’ve made an Über-Promise! Well, until the ink washes off, anyway.”
Apple Bloom examined the piece of paper. “Easy enough.” She raised her hoof. “Cross my—”
“Ah, ah, ah!” Pinkie waved her hooves. “I’ve gotta say it with you!”
“Oh, right,” Apple Bloom said. “Whenever you’re ready, then.”
Pinkie cleared her throat, and the two of them spoke at once. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”
Apple Bloom performed the motions, finishing with shutting her right eye and gently sticking the piece of paper to her eyelid. She held it there for a short while before peeling it off.
“How bad does it look?” Apple Bloom asked.
I snickered. The pink letters stuck out plain as day on her pale yellow coat. “I think you might’ve just found a new look.”
“Har, har.” Apple Blood stuck out her tongue. “Maybe I’ll tattoo the other eye so they match.”
I smirked. “You totally should.”
“No problem!” Pinkie produced a second piece of paper. “I brought a spare just in case!”
And without waiting for permission, she slapped the second piece of paper over Apple Bloom’s other eye.
“Gah!” Apple Bloom fell back in surprise.
“Pinkie!” I said in alarm. “What the hay!”
“What?” Pinkie said. “You said you wanted them to match!”
“Ugh!” I shoved her aside and went to Apple Bloom. “Are you all right?”
Apple Bloom peeled the paper off, and sure enough, both sides matched. “She just pressed it on. It don’t hurt none.”
I cast Pinkie a wary glance. “I think we can take it from here, uh... Judge Pinkie. Can you give us a few minutes alone? Maybe you could go see if either of my sisters need help.”
“Okie-dokie-lokie!” Pinkie took off the old shirt and started hopping away, leaving a trail of flour behind her. “ Court’s adjourned! Play nice, you two!”
I waited until I heard the sound of her hoofsteps climbing the stairs before slumping down and rubbing my temples. “Never a dull moment with that one.”
“I’m actually glad she was here,” Apple Bloom said as she got to her hooves. “She’s been comin’ down to be with me every so often these past few days.”
“She mentioned that,” I said. “I’m surprised you were able to put up with it.”
A slow smile crept up on Apple Bloom’s face. “Trust me, she can be a good listener when the mood strikes her right.”
I ran a hoof through my mane before looking around at the shelves. “I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”
Apple Bloom waved her hoof. “Not like it was unjustified. I messed up pretty bad on the driveway.”
I clicked my tongue. “You did, but a lot of ponies would’ve done the same thing in your situation.”
Apple Bloom’s eyes were hollow as they met mine. “You didn’t.”
“Discord threatened me, remember?” I reminded her. “If our roles were reversed, I very well may have tried carrying you over to Rarity in my magic.”
“No, I don’t think you would’ve.” Apple Bloom took a step forward. “You’ve got a stronger will than I do, Sweetie. Stronger heart and stronger mind, too. You’ve even got more ambition than I do, and when you decide you’re gonna do somethin’, you find a way to make it happen.”
I turned away. “You know that’s not true. I’ve screwed up more times than either of us are willing to admit.”
“Depends on what you call a screw up,” Apple Bloom said. “You were doing everything right by human standards, and you’ve always been a good friend to all of us..”
“I ignored what all of you have been trying to tell me since junior year and went down a path that I knew in my heart was wrong.” I looked up at the ceiling, letting my eyes unfocus as I stared at one of the light fixtures. “That doesn’t sound ‘right’ or ‘good’ to me.”
Apple Bloom put her hoof on my shoulder. “You gotta stop bein’ so hard on yourself. You did the best you could with what you knew at the time; no more, no less. Nopony’s gonna look down on you for that.”
I closed my eyes. “You’re not the first pony to say that, yet I still have trouble taking it to heart. Why?”
“Because you’re the same as everypony else,” Apple Bloom said. “Don’t matter what kinda front you put up when you always got a backstage view of yourself.”
I chuckled despite myself. “The high school director always used to say that.”
“Said it a lot in Sociology class, too,” Apple Bloom said. “She reminded me a lot of Miss Cheerilee, now that I think about it.”
I turned back around. “So what, then? Being too strict with my expectations turns me into a neurotic mess, but being too lax will prevent me from ever accomplishing anything. Where do I draw the line?”
“In the middle, ya silly filly.” Apple Bloom gave me a playful nudge. “‘All things in moderation,’ just like Granny always used to say. You have a habit of takin’ things to the extreme, so try takin’ things down a peg or two… or maybe twenty, in your case.”
I laughed in earnest at that. I knew that what she was saying was the truth, and like all problems, it wasn’t easy to admit or face. I’d do my best to tackle it, but time would only tell how well I put it into practice.
“Speaking of being the same as everypony else,” I said with a pointed look. “You don’t need to go into hiding every single time you make a mistake.”
“I don’t!” Apple Bloom defended. “I’m usually real good about ownin’ up to things. It’s only when it involves you gals that I wind up doin’ this.”
“Oh, really?” I smirked and poked her in the chest. “Do we really mean that much to you?”
Apple Bloom’s reply was as quick as it was surprising.
“Ya really do.”
My voice faltered. I suddenly felt myself go red, but quickly looked away so as to hide it. “Well, that’s um… uh, well… s-so uh, I’ve got n-nothing to do today! D’you think I could, uh... help you with… whatever it is you’re doing down here?”
Apple Bloom chuckled. “Sure. You’ll have to take it easy, though, or you’ll wind up wearin’ yourself out within a half hour.”
“Hey, I’ve got my magic!” I gestured to my horn. “I should be able to lift most of the things around here.”
“Yeah, so long as you don’t give yourself a nosebleed.”
“Oh, hush.”
***
The next few days were a blur. Ponies kept coming in droves thanks to Dash’s Rainboom, and we kept scrambling like mad to accommodate all of them. I had no idea how they all kept managing to find the farm. I probably could’ve asked one of them, but I didn’t have a lot of downtime what with everything that went into maintaining all the upkeep. I spent most of my time going back and forth between Apple Bloom, Shmangie and Rarity making sure they had everything they needed to do their various tasks, which was pretty similar to what I used to do at OSC, now that I think about it. It doesn’t really surprise me that I wound up slipping into that role, though. I’m pretty good at making sure the wheels are greased.
I saw little of Babs or Scootaloo in that time. I did catch glimpses of them from time to time, but they were always in the middle of something so I didn’t want to bother them. Babs was usually with either Jack or Mac hard at work at some kind of physical labor. Scootaloo was almost always with Dash. I wasn’t particularly surprised by this, but I did worry that she was overdoing things. Dash didn’t seem to mind, though. Or at least if she did, she was pretty good at hiding it. It’s not like she couldn’t get rid of her, at any rate. If she really wanted to be alone, all she had to do was fly away.
I didn’t know what the future was going to bring. I hadn’t heard anything more about Dash’s supposed plan to deal with the situation, and my attentions were more focused on dealing with my own personal problems, anyways. I was still fully aware that our situation wasn’t sustainable, but it sounded like there were other, more capable individuals working on a solution. My job was basically just to wait and keep things from falling apart in the meantime, and I’d be called for if I was needed.
And I probably would’ve been content to do just that... had I not found out what out what said individuals were going to do.
It was the first time Babs, Apple Bloom and I had had a chance to sit down and catch up. We couldn’t find Scootaloo, so we assumed she was off doing something with Dash.
We were all sitting on the back porch relaxing when Scootaloo suddenly came storming around the side of the house with a bitter scowl and tears in her eyes. Babs, who had just been saying something, stopped mid-sentence.
“Uh-oh.” She pointed at Scootaloo.
Apple Bloom and I turned. I immediately felt my stomach drop. “That’s not good. Hey! Scoots!”
Scootaloo froze. She wiped her eyes in a flash and tried to seem nonchalant as she came over, but did a poor job of it.
“What’s wrong?” Apple Bloom asked.
Scootaloo didn’t look at any of us. “They’re leaving.”
We all exchanged a glance, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, Babs asked the question on all our minds.
“Who is?”
“Dash and the others!” Scootaloo burst out. ”They think they’ve found a portal to Equestria and are going to go check it out!”
We all stared at her like she’d grown a second head. I’m not what was going through the other’s heads at that time, but the sheer shock of that declaration was too much for my mind to process. I just went with the first thing that came to mind.
“Okaaaaay,” I said slowly, “What are they going to do about Discord?”
Scootaloo grit her teeth. “I don’t know. All I know is that they’re going off to put themselves in danger while the rest of us wait by the wayside! They think that we’re nothing but dead weight!”
“Well... we kinda are,” Babs pointed out. “Think about it. What good are we gonna be in a fight?”
“And they might be noticed if more ponies go with ‘em,” Apple Bloom said. “They might be trying for the element of surprise.”
Scootaloo rounded on both of them. “Are you really okay with Jack and Mac going off to face Discord now when you only just got them back?!”
Apple Bloom and Babs didn’t have a reply to that. Their expressions shifted from curiosity to ones of worry.
“And you,” Scootaloo said to me. “You think Discord’s gonna leave Angie be after Rarity stood up to him? You think he won’t come after you and her next? You think he won’t come after all of us?!”
My insides turned into lead. This was their solution? A high-risk gamble against a mad god for our homeland? Winner take all? Were we really in so bad a situation that this was the best option available to us?
“They’re making their move tonight,” Scootaloo said to all three of us. “They’re going to risk their lives to give us back what we’ve lost, and they’re going to try and do it right under our noses. You’re telling me you’re okay with that? With them going through to Equestria alone and facechecking whatever’s on the other side? With hoping everything turns out all right? With sitting back and doing nothing?!”
I knew she was playing to our fears. I knew what she was proposing was a terrible idea in just about every conceivable way. I knew that doing this would likely go against the wishes of our families, and in all likelihood, we wouldn’t be able to make a difference.
And yet that didn’t stop my reply.
“Hay, no.”
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Badass Sweetie mode: engaged.
OBJECTION!
This court needs more objections, your honor!
holy s--- talk about luck!! I JUST picked up this story and caught up not 30 minutes ago.
Suddenly, a wild update appeared. Hooray!
Seems like there's something missing here...
thanks for the update always enjoy a good reading
B**k yeah! That's the spirit!
..you we really...
"I’m not really sure why went along with it" should have a "we" in there.
"but that doesn’t change that she put us all in danger" could have a "the fact" in there. ("change the fact that")
We need another updaaaattte.
Seriously, one of my favorite FSDBF stories.
Good work as normal
Great to see an update; it has been too long.
The main fic aims to finish on its first anniversary, I just hope you don't intend the same for this fic (with the first anniversary being in July for this).
My only criticism is the beginning of the new chapter; it seems a bit fourth wall-ish. I appreciate that you didn't want to write out the entire conversation at the hotel, and perhaps your attempts to write it were what delayed this chapter, but the particular way you avoided it doesn't read well to me. (Others have pointed out minor spelling or grammar errors, but I don't care about that so much.)
You know what you did
Well, they are the CMC, they may not be the heroes but occasionally they help.
4108860 They're not the heroes we want, but the heroes we need.
Also, why don't we have a Mare Do Well smiley? It would work so well in a situation like this.
4108590 molestia means "Nuisance", something I think is a very fitting name. Good thing though she's dead since Pinkie killed her.
Different Pinkie.
Madame LeFlour!
Sorry, you got me good there.
And man, seems that things are starting to tie up now, which reminds me that I still have to catch up with the 5S/4... GAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Looking forward to seeing the latest 5s/4 chapter from the CMC viewpoint!
lost it right there man, at first I thought it said partirte
I think that was too many "was"s
I think you want an "I" there
slightly odd wording there...
Excellent chapter. "Judge Pinkamena" was hilarious. I did not see that coming with Madame LeFlour as the secretary.
Good chapter. Everything was tied up and we got to see everything from the Cutie Mark Crusaders point of view during the whole preparation to travel to the town with the portal.
Also, I agree with 4122325.
That whole scene was just hilarious, so awesome job!
~ Super-Brony12
3930789 I aim to please
4134512 some people believe we mormons are lizard people from Mars, idk why but i think its funny.
Huh, so this is actually being retold to someone? To whom, I wonder, and why?
Got an extra space in there.
I am so terribly amused by the Spanish word "molestia".
Nice job fitting season four references in there. Unfortunately, I have to admit I have zero memory of what happened in the last chapter to get everyone so worked up and angry at each other. D:
Oh good, thank you for reexplaining. :O
Oh my god Pinkie is amazing
amazing
'nother extra space
Good reconciliation scene there.
I do feel like if there's any problem with this story, it's that it's a side-story to something else happening concurrently. Our main characters don't feel so main anymore, everything "exciting" is happening offscreen and they're just dealing with personal issues. Granted, those are interesting and well written, but it kinda makes me feel like I'm missing out on the "real" story. :B I suppose it's just a hazard of what you're doing, really.
WHAT HAPPENED? AND WAS THERE DUCK INVOLVED?