The Case of Christian's Cutie Mark

by Chris-Cross13

Cloud Catastrophe And Cliffhangers

“Cloud moving!” Dash yells from above him. Christian and The Crusaders got to the outskirts of town just as Rainbow Dash had flown up to them. She was boastful and happy as always.

“Oh boy.” Christian says fatigued. “This won’t end well.”

“Nonsense! Watch, I’ll be right back!” she quickly flies up into the blue sky behind a layer of white and fluffy clouds. Seconds later, she descends down with a much darker but equally fluffy cloud. Christian tiptoes back a little at the sight of the probable storm cloud. Dash cocks a brow. “Seriously? It’s a cloud.”

“It looks as dark as night, Dash. I’m pretty sure bad things will happen if I touch it.”

“Nothing bad will happen, Christian!” Scootaloo shouts from a distance with the other two walking toward him. “If you can’t move clouds, you’ll just pass through it! No harm, no foul!” Christian continues to hesitate at touching the cloud. After being suffocated and almost eaten, he was definitely taking precautions this time.

“Better idea,” Christian says with a smart alike look on his face. “Just to be safe, let’s use a regular white cloud that doesn’t look dangerous in any way, shape, or form. How about it?” He gives Dash a big pleading smile along with some puppy dog eyes. Even Dash knew she could not turn away a look like that, despite how it was a little creepy. With a sigh, she starts to slowly head back up to the cloud layer.

“Ughhhhh, FINE! I’ll be right back AGAIN!” As she quietly ascends, Christian could hear her mumbling under her breath. “Just a stupid cloud, but nooooo! He has to be careful!” She vanishes among the white once more and again seconds later, she zips down with a smaller, much whiter cloud. Dash peeks out from the other side. “How’s this? Too white? Too Puffy? Need me to fluff it for ya like a pillow, or are you good?” She says sarcastically. Christian can’t help but laugh.

“It’s fine Dash, perfect even!” He says with a smile. Dash smirks and puts the cloud right in front of the darker storm cloud before floating up a bit so Christian can encircle the mass of evaporated water. “Now all I need to do to see if I can work with these things is to touch it?”

“Yup.” Scootaloo says, “If you can’t, your body will go right through it.”

“No tricks?”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Would ya just touch it?! I don’t want to be here all day!” Dash shouts from above. Christian frowns at the comment.

“Remember that thing Twilight said about patience, Dash?”

“Don’t care, I’m getting bored.” She expresses with a long yawn.

“Fine then.” He and proceeds to raise a tan hoof up and slowly move toward the mass of white. In his mind, thoughts of some horrible catastrophe overtake him: Clouds exploding for no reason, a mini tornado forms and swallows him, the cloud suddenly becomes aware and flies down his throat to choke him. Christian pauses. Please, it looks like a harmless white cloud. What could happen? He thinks confidently. With a shrug, he thrusts the hoof forward into the vapor. Everypony blinks at the anti-climactic result, even Christian, who knew it was coming. “Huh, well that was…”

He was going to say ‘pointless’, but a more appropriate word now is ‘shocking’. Thanks to Dash’s placement of the two clouds, the storm cloud managed to connect to the normal white one. This lead to a reaction in the static electricity of the storm cloud to be transferred to the regular white one due to the lack of electricity, and if you have passed third grade you know what happens when a cloud collects enough electricity.

Christian forgot about this minor detail.

In seconds, thousands of volts are launched into his pony body, making him levitate in the air from sheer static as his body goes on display as an organic x-ray. Christian literally could not feel how much pain he was in, but the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Dash were enjoying the little show. They were murmuring “Ohh’s” and “Ahh’s” as his body kept getting hit with lightning. After what felt like an eternity for the tan stallion, which in reality was really only a few seconds, his hoof falls away from the newly formed death trap and he collapses onto the soft grass below him. The ponies peer over his slightly dark and singed body. Christian could faintly hear them over the sound of a bug zapper that was ringing in his ears.

“You think he’s okay?” Applebloom asks aloud. A moan from Christian answers her. Dash rolls her eyes.

“Yea, he’s fine. I’ve seen ponies take more than that!” She says with no sympathy in her voice.

“Are you sure, Dash?” Scootaloo questions, Christian’s eyes flicker open lazily. He could

“Yea, see?” Dash responds. “I knew he would be fine. Heck if he could take the Elements, he can take a tiny lightning bolt.” The Crusaders nod simultaneously.

“Alrighty then!” Sweetie Belle shouts enthusiastically, “Let’s get him to town for his next attempt!” Christian hears these words loud and clear. His brain kicks into overdrive, forcing his muscles to spring up from the ground and his vocal chords to play a very high note:

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” The fillies jump at the surprise boom from the stallion. Dash gets flipped in the air a bit before stabilizing herself.

“What?!” Sweetie Belle asks frantically, “What’s wrong?!”

“No more attempts! No more talents! No more of this cutie mark business! You girls are driving me CRAZY!” He shouts as he stomps around like a colt with a temper tantrum.

“Oh come on Christian,” Applebloom says, disapproving his attitude. “All of these incidents are just some fluke.” Christian felt a blood vessel pop in his brain.

“Fluke? FLUKE?! This has happened THREE TIMES!” He points out angrily. “Just today, I’ve been chomped by a crocodile, choked by a corset, and conducted by a cloud!”

“Wow, nice alliteration!” Sweetie comments with a smile. Christian faces hoofs loudly, these girls were completely missing what he was saying. Were they not concerned by all of the close calls today?

“You’re missing the point! I've almost kicked the bucket three times today!”

“Well, maybe it’s just some bad luck is all!” Applebloom adds. Christian felt an eye twitch, and not in a ‘shock and awe’ way. More of a ‘I’m about to tell a bunch of little girls off’ kind of way.

“Bad luck?” He laughs at the suggestion, “Bad luck?” He repeats psychotically, making the fillies back away a bit from him as it reminded them of Twilight when she went mad. Thankfully, Christian calms down enough to explain himself. “You know, a thought just occurred to me:” He says, “If you girls are soooooo good at talents and the like, how come YOU three don’t have your cutie marks?” The small ponies instantly gain the most annoyed frowns he has ever seen, they were peeved at his word choice.

“The reason for that is because we haven’t found our talents yet,” Sweetie says. “but we are patient and we will keep trying until we succeed.” She ends with a snotty looks on her face, muzzle in the air, completely ignoring the aggressive stallion in front of her. The other two nod agreeing to their friend.

“Yea, unlike YOU who gives up after three attempts!” Scootaloo adds.

“Oh please Scoots,” Christian butts in, “out of everypony you should have found a talent in the sky by now, but you can’t even fly!” Now, Christian hated to extort weaknesses and disabilities, but by this time, his mouth was moving faster than his brain could process what he was going to say. Christian’s expression remained annoyed and angered at the small orange pegasus, but in his mind he was regretting the insult. Scootaloo became motionless and quiet after his sentence. Even Dash and her filly friends were speechless and the word choice. Christian glances at all of them periodically before shrugging of the blank looks and turning to start walking away. “I’m going to Twitlight’s to get fixed up, and then I’m going back to my original task.” He stops and turns his head partially, “Don’t follow me.” He says sternly before he continues limping a bit to Golden Oaks murmuring, “Ow…Ow…Ow…” which got quieter as he left the ponies’ field of vision.

Scootaloo remains motionless, sitting on the grass and not wavering at all. Her eyes were huge with confusion and disbelief and her mouth was partially agape, surprisingly with no drool dripping from her mouth. Dash rubs her head for a few seconds before for comforting her friend.

“Want me to go and chat with him?” She asks calmly. Scootaloo just nods a little. Dash complies and pats Scootaloo on the head in a soft, soothing manner. “Ok.” She starts off toward were Christian sauntered off. “Don’t worry Scoots, I know Christian didn’t mean it. He just needs to cool off for a bit.” Scoots nods again as Dash zips away after the charred pony, Sweetie and Applebloom take her place to comfort their friend.

“Dash is right, Scootaloo.” Applebloom assures.

“Yea, you know how Christian is a ticking time bomb of anger.” Sweetie adds. Scootaloo nods and finally speaks up in a very clear but depressed tone.

“Yea, I get it. I just didn’t expect it from him though.” She says as she gets up onto her hooves. “I mean, he just up and said it, no warning.”

“Too be fair, he did almost get zapped out of his fur.” Sweetie says. Scootaloo nods as she knew he was not the only pony at fault here. She looks at her friends and grows and uneasy smile.

“And choked and almost eaten, we do owe him some sort of an apology. Do you think they make, ‘Sorry you almost got wasted three times’ cards?” She asks jokingly. He friends giggle a bit and nod agreeing with their now happy friend.

“Alright, let’s go trade apologies.” Applebloom dictates as they start walking toward were the other two ponies left to.

“Awwww, leaving so soon?” A mocking voice says behind them. The three fillies look at each other, all of them exchanging glances of nervousness and confusion.

“Yea, why don’t you stick around?” A differently toned but equally annoying second voice asks. The fillies keep the looks frozen on their faces, not daring to turn toward the source of the voices. But Scootaloo feels differently. She turns first and faces the voices, her eyes cross and her mouth curled into an angry frown. She didn’t need more trouble on top of this Christian thing. Turning showed her three pegesi floating above her. To her, they seemed sort of familiar, especially the one in the middle with the dumb-bell as a cutie mark.

“Well, well, looky here; just what we were after, Rainbow Crash’s blank flank sister!” The one in the middle declares. Scootaloo rolls her eyes again.

“Seriously, why does everypony think that?! We are not related!” The middle pegasus shrugs as the other two fillies turn to face the source of Scootaloo’s irritation. They gasp at the three pegesi, making the loud pony on the left holler:

“Aww, and look at her wittle friends! They’re all blank flanks!” The middle one laughs at his friend’s remark.

“Yea, like that stupid stallion from earlier today!” The three fillies quickly figure out that these idiots must be the reason why Christian wanted to find a cutie mark so badly. Scootaloo, while wanting to address who Christian really was, instead decides to point out something else.

“You know, if it took you morons that long to figure out we had no cutie marks, then you need serious help. The only one here who should get a pass is Long Hair on the right there. The two other fillies giggle at the somewhat clever remark. The middle pegasus does not make an emotion toward the strange insult to his friend, instead he nods and instantly, the shady right pegasus bolts forward and grabs Scootaloo without warning.

“SCOOTALOO!” Her friends shriek, helpless as there friend is hoisted into the air. Scootaloo herself starts to freak out, kicking wildly and failing about at the sudden change of events.

“HEY! Put me down you big jerk! Whatta think you’re doing?!” She shouts. The middle stallion pays no attention and instead descends in front of Sweetie and Applebloom, who are getting on the offensive. Applebloom starts demanding orders at the older ponies in front of her.

“Now, hear this bub! Y’all are going to…”

“No, you hear this!” The middle stallion yells back, making the filly’s mouth instantly fold in on itself in silence. “This is what you two are going to do: You are going to tell your little friend Rainbow Crash about how we have her friend here, and that if she ever wants her back, she’ll come to the southwest side of the Everfree Forest,” He forcefully leans into Applebloom’s muzzle, “Got it?” Applebloom nods quickly.

“Why are you telling us this?” Sweetie points out. The stallion starts floating up back to his friends before he replies.

“Because that’s none of your business, blank flank!” He turns toward his friends, “C’mon guys, we need to go.” They both nod toward their assumed leader and fly off toward the forest, Scootaloo’s cries for help now muffled by the hoof of the bulkier stallion. With no indication necessary for each other, the two fillies look at each other with assurance for a split second before dashing off to Golden Oaks as fast as their little hooves can carry them. A single thought echoing through their minds: Determination on getting their friend back.