Ten Years Later

by MrAlbum321

2: Blank Flanks, Silent Ponyville

Chapter 2: The Blank Flanks in Silent Ponyville

Scootaloo ran away a year ago.

It wasn't her fault. She had tried her hardest; but she just wasn't good enough. She did everything she could to find the one thing that would make her special, the one thing that would cause her to stand out from the rest. She worked her hind legs off searching for her special talent, the one that would grace her flanks through her cutie mark. But she never found it, and she never got her mark.

And that caused a disaster.

It was Sweetie Belle's homecoming concert. Scootaloo was helping out behind the stage, when she noticed a rope pull taut at the last song. It wasn't a problem, Scootaloo had told herself. There are always tight ropes backstage at a concert. Comes with show business.

Then the rope snapped.

Scootaloo grabbed it without a second thought. She held on for dear life, her body threatening to split in two. She looked around, but no one else was around. She bit her lip and prayed that she could hold it. Beyond the curtain, Scootaloo heard the cheers as Sweetie Belle finished her last song.

Then Scootaloo's body betrayed her. Her sweat made holding on impossible. Something in Scootaloo's back popped, and the rope began to slide. Scootaloo thought she screamed, both in pain and in panic.

But it was all in vain. The rope slipped.

On the stage, the entire set fell in on itself.

It was a wonder that nobody died. The back-up singers, the band, and the dancers managed to escape with a broken bone or two. Except Sweetie Belle.

Scootaloo doesn't remember Sweetie Belle being put in the ambulance. She barely remembered a doctor telling her to go home to rest and recover.

And that's when Scootaloo ran.

It wasn't her fault that she had failed. "It wasn't your fault," Applebloom told her the day Scootaloo went to the hospital to see Sweetie Belle hooked up to seven different machines, all moving with that cold, unnatural precision of the mechanical. "Accidents happen. You did your best."

Scootaloo didn't bother to say anything. She couldn't. She couldn't even cry. Something just... locked her up inside. She turned away.

"Where are you going?" Applebloom had asked. "Are you gonna run away again?! What'd Sweetie Belle say if she saw you doing that? Again?" Applebloom had said. Scootaloo did not even bother to respond.

So Scootaloo left, to find her specialty. So no one else would ever get hurt by her incompetence, she told herself and her parents. They didn't like it, but they couldn't stop her even if they wanted to. Applebloom came to say goodbye... but there was only silence between them.

Outside of ponyville, Scootaloo encountered a traveling caravan of various misfits that welcomed her with open arms. She didn't fit among the ponies with missing legs, mouths, horns and worse, but their cheer was infectious. So she stayed with them... for a while. She tried her hand at everything, even a little whirling Dervish-like jig. She found she was quite good at it... but the cutie mark still went unseen.

So she left... again. She even left behind a stallion who was fond of her... although the feeling wasn't as mutual. A year of further wandering and fumbling around, and Scootaloo despaired of ever finding that special 'something'. The depression of not finding her specialty, and the failure in her past, found her in a ditch somewhere halfway across Equestria with no money, no job, and no life.

Then someone came up to her. Someone she had never thought she would ever see again.

"Scootaloo?"

Scootaloo jumped up and out of the ditch. "Ditzy!" she exclaimed. She hugged Ditzy Doo, a fellow Pegasus from Ponyville. "How have you been?! It's so good to see you! What's-"

"Muffin?"

Scootaloo sighed. She reached for her backpack and brought out a pastry that she had been saving. Ditzy gulped it down in one bite.

"Got a letter for ya," Ditzy said. Ditzy reached into her mailbag and pulled out a crumpled-up letter from the bottom of the bag. Ditzy turned around and took off, crashing into a cloud which caused lightning to singe some pony's nose.

Same old Derpy, Scootaloo thought. Something's definitely not right in her head.

Scootaloo sighed, and looked at the letter. She almost swallowed her tongue when she saw who it was from.

Sweetie Belle?! But… she, she was in that… that….

Scootaloo quickly thought of something else to stop the familiar guilt from paralyzing her. She quickly opened the letter and read its contents.

Scootaloo,
I miss you. You've been away for so long. Ponyville just hasn't been the same without you. Don't you still believe in the Cutie Mark Crusaders? Have you forgotten how hard we all have worked to find what made us special? I know that you haven't found yours yet.
But that's something else entirely. Look, I can't say this any blunter more blunt Argh, Ok, look, just… come back to Ponyville. I need your help. Come to the old clubhouse and hear me out, that's all I ask of you.
Please. Help me.
Sweetie Belle

Scootaloo felt… something. It was the first time she had… felt. Ever since that night. The letter felt like a siren call from all the way across Equestria. Scootaloo's hooves trembled, not with guilt, but with a newfound purpose she had not felt since… that night... more than a year ago....

"Alright," Scootaloo said, "I'll come back. For you, Sweetie Belle."

Scootaloo took her scooter from her backpack and took off down the road.

It took her several days before she came to the valley pass that led to Ponyville. She found something strange when she arrived. She walked up to it, and put her hoof on it. She was surprised that it felt as solid as the ground under her other hooves.

It was a solid wall of what looked like fog. "Well, that's new," Scootaloo muttered. She took a readying breath, and kicked the wall with her hind legs.

A lightning bolt coursed through her and threw her back several feet. Scootaloo tottered back up, straightening her vision.

Okay, that didn't work, Scootaloo thought. Plan B.

Scootaloo put her scooter into her backpack. She used her Pegasus wings to fly into the air. She found that the wall of fog stretched for what seemed like miles above the ground. Scootaloo reached as high as she could fly, and stopped flapping her wings.

Scootaloo plummeted down towards the ground. She held her breath, and took a small shovel out of her backpack. She held the shovel in front of her, and spun herself around and around, with the shovel as the center of the spin radius.

Scootaloo picked up more and more speed. When she felt like she was fast enough, she angled herself at the wall of fog. The shovel hit the wall, and carved out a hole in the fog. Scootaloo rocketed through the hole to the other side.

Oh hell, Scootaloo thought. I forgot about the landing.

Scootaloo plowed through several trees and bounced off a rock before she came to a stop. The shovel had been thrown away from her in the crash. When she tried to get up, her back threatened to give out on her.

Argh, that back's been giving me trouble ever… ever since….

Scootaloo's thoughts were interrupted by a young pony that stood over her. She looked exactly like Sweetie Belle… when Sweetie Belle was five years old.

"Who're you?" the young pony asked Scootaloo.

Scootaloo tried to get up, but her back refused to let her. She flopped back down. "I… I'm Scootaloo," Scootaloo answered.

"Scoot'loo, huh?" the young filly said.

"Sorta," Scootaloo said. "You're missing an 'a' there."

"Well, so're you!" the pony said. She pranced off a little ways.

"Wait!" Scootaloo shouted. "Can you get help?"

"There ain't no help comin'," the young girl said. "They're comin'. And they'll have lotsa fun with you."

A cold feeling came to Scootaloo's gut. She forced herself back onto her feet, and managed to walk over to where the little filly had waited. The two of them walked together down a path.

"S-so," Scootaloo said through clenched teeth and clipped breath, "what's g-g-going on?"

"Nuthin'," the little girl said. "Jus' the end of tha world."

That cold feeling came back to Scootaloo's gut. "What's - what's happening in Ponyville?"

The young girl quickly veered away from their current path and ran into the forest. Scootaloo marshaled her reserves of energy and charged after her. The filly squeezed under branches and leapt across gaps, Scootaloo pushing through the pain in her back to keep up. There was a time or two when Scootaloo almost blacked out, but she forced herself to follow.

The young pony stopped at the edge of a ridge line. Scootaloo collapsed by her.

"Look, you gotta see this," the young filly said. She crawled under Scootaloo and propped her up so she could see the valley.

Scootaloo couldn't believe what she saw.

Ponyville was empty.

There was no one going back and forth among Mane Street. There was no sound from the houses that would indicate life. There was nobody in the surrounding countryside. Heck, there wasn't even Rainbow Dash helping with the weather.

"Wha… wha' happened?"

"They happ'ned," the young pony said. "We'll find a way ta stop them."

Scootaloo slid off the young pony's back and blacked out.

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When Scootaloo woke up again, she was in the cranny of a tree's branches. Her back felt… better, but sore. She got up, and stretched. She looked around, but she did not see the young pony that must have brought her here.

"Good. You're 'wake."

The pony in question dropped down from higher up the tree. She had a couple apples, and offered one to Scootaloo. Scootaloo scarfed it down in a couple bites.

"Sheezus, didn't ya ever get food?" the young pony asked.

Scootaloo shook her head. "Don't need much," Scootaloo said. "Just need enough to keep my body going."

"Can't be he'lthy," the young pony said. She took a bite of her apple.

"What's your name?" Scootaloo asked.

The young pony went rigid in mid-bite. A great sadness seemed to come over her eyes.

"I… I'm Ruby…." the young pony whispered.

Scootaloo put a hoof on Ruby's shoulder. "Hey… you okay?" Scootaloo asked. "I won't ask any more questions if it makes you upset."

Ruby shook her head. "No… it's… I…."

Ruby knocked Scootaloo's hoof away. "I'm already dead, y'know," Ruby said in a deadpan voice.

"Oh really?" Scootaloo said. "'Cause you look like flesh and blood to me, and healthy at that."

"Look, I can't really 'splain it myself, but Ruby's only usin' this body 'cause she needs it," Ruby said in her original vocal tone. "When we stop them, Ruby'll go away."

Oh great, she's got a split personality, Scootaloo thought. That's all I need.

It was unavoidable, Ruby thought. I had no choice.

Scootaloo, shocked, backed away. I, I heard that!

Yes, Ruby thought, you heard it because I let you hear it.

Scootaloo's heart raced. What are you?!

"I'm lettin' Ruby stay wit' me," the young pony said. "Me real name's Butterscotch, but Ruby needs me. And you."

Scootaloo backed away a little more. "And… and how does Ruby need me?" Scootaloo asked.

"She needs ya to get us into tha town," Butterscotch said. "They keep stoppin' us, but you can get us thru."

"And… who are they?"

Butterscotch sighed. "Ruby, do ya wanna tell 'er yerself?"

Butterscotch went rigid, and then she sighed, her whole frame slumping onto the tree branch. Some mist emerged from Butterscotch's mouth and nose. It coalesced into a wispy form.

The form was of another young pony, also five years old. But the eyes… the eyes were as old as time itself in Scootaloo's mind; blank, endless, but full of experienced emotion. Scootaloo noticed that the form had the cutie mark of a magnifying glass.

I am from a village in the middle of the Ever-Free Forest, the form thought. I am the spirit of Ruby. And I come from a village of blank flanks.

I… I see…. Scootaloo thought. So how come you don't have a blank flank?

The village murdered me, thinking that I had the cutie pox, Ruby thought. It had just recovered from an outbreak, and everyone's nerves were on edge. My older sister tried to hide me, but they found me.

Ruby turned toward Ponyville. My village has paid for their rash actions by being turned into monsters, Ruby continued. However, they did not repent. And thus they remain, dead, but unable to move on.

So how come you never moved on? Scootaloo asked.

Ruby's form sighed. I… I can't leave them. I have to find a way to lift their curse, and either help them move on or help them find a way to live a normal life.

And that is where Ponyville comes in, Ruby thought. This is my village's last desperate attempt to… do something. But they have gone too far. I cannot talk to them, they cannot hear me anymore… but you can.

Ruby's form turned its pleading eyes to Scootaloo.

Scootaloo… you're my only hope. You must stop them before they conduct the ritual tonight, or else all ponies, unicorns and pegasi will suffer.

Ruby's form retreated back into Butterscotch. Butterscotch shivered, and got back up.

"Well… now ya know," Butterscotch said.

Scootaloo shivered. Oh hell, she thought. I can't do this. I'm not good at anything.

You must try, Ruby thought. For all our sakes.

Scootaloo sighed, and put her face in her hooves. Butterscotch and Ruby said and thought nothing.

Scootaloo got up. She opened up her backpack and emptied its contents onto the tree branch.

"Get in," Scootaloo said to Butterscotch.

Butterscotch fit snugly into the backpack. Scootaloo cinched her backpack as tight as she could make it, and put it on. "Hold on tight," Scootaloo said. Scootaloo picked up her scooter and took off to Ponyville.