NaPoWriMo 2014: A Compilation of Pony Tales

by Fluttercheer

Day 16: Fillies 'n the Hood

Scootaloo looked on the screen and narrowed her eyes. She had only one life left anymore, and she was not going to waste it. She let the Wonderbolts she controlled flying around the enormous dragon on the top of the skyscraper, preparing her next, and hopefully last, attack.

“Be cool, Scootaloo..... But be in the game, not of the game.”

With one hoof, she aimed for the red button beside the joystick, as the dragon suddenly lashed out, taking out all her Wonderbolts in one swoop. She saw how her Wonderbolts fell down the skyscraper, followed by a “Game Over” message in big, red letters. Scootaloo dropped her head, disappointed.

“Ya were so close to win! Try it again, Scootaloo!”, Apple Bloom begged her to continue.

But Scootaloo walked away from the machine instead. “I can't, I don't have money anymore. I just used up my last bits”, the pegasus filly said mournful. “Do you guys have any bits left?” She looked at them, hope glistening in her eyes.

“No, ahm broke”, Apple Bloom replied sad.

“And me too”, Sweetie Belle added.

“Ah guess that's it for getting our videogame arcade cutie marks then.” Apple Bloom hung her head.

Together, they trotted out of the Ponyville Video Game Arcade, their heads low. Outside of it, they sat down, a little aside from the building.

“How are we going to kill the rest of the afternoon now?”, Scootaloo complained.

“Don't kill the afternoon, girls, cherish it!” A familiar voice sounded aside from them. They followed it and saw Cheerilee. “You should value the time you have together.”

The friends sighed. “How should we value the time if we have nothing to do?”, Sweetie Belle asked her. “It's so boring!”

Cheerilee was going to reply something as the wind blew something into Sweetie Belle's face. She took it down to see what it was. A brand spanking new 20 bits bill was in her hooves. Her face lit up. She closed her eyes and smiled.

“See girls? Life always offers interesting opportunities, you just have to take them!” She gave them a smile, then she continued her way.

“Where did that come from?” Scootaloo looked unbelievingly at the bill in her hooves.

“Maybe Derpy let explode something again?”, Apple Bloom suggested.

“You know what we can do with that”, Scootaloo said mysteriously.

There was something the three Crusaders planned to do a long time ago to get their cutie marks, but so far, they never had enough money for it. This had changed now.

“We're finally going to get our cutie marks in ice cream eating!”, Apple Bloom explained determined.

The fillies grinned broadly at each other and then they chased away to the Ponyville grocery. They stormed through the door and rushed up to the counter. “Hi Fluttershy!”, they said to the pegasus behind it.

“Oh, hello girls!”, she said. “What can I do for you?”

“We want to buy ice cream!”, Sweetie Belle answered happily.

“Sure, just a moment.” Fluttershy turned around to the fridge and pulled out three small cups of ice cream. But Scootaloo stopped her. Fluttershy turned back at her. “What ice cream do you want then?”, she asked surprised.

“We only want the deal real!”, Scootaloo said. “Give us one of the 4 lb buckets!”

Fluttershy's eyes shrunk small and she began to stutter. “T-The 4 lb bucket? B-But a filly has never been eaten so much ice cream before!”

“Just make it happen”, Scootaloo said with a cool expression on her face and put the 20 bits bill on the counter, while leaning herself smooth against it.

“Oh, dear”, Fluttershy answered nervously.

Hesitantly, she turned around again and opened the bigger fridge this time. She lifted out one of the big buckets and placed it strenuously on the table. An intense wheeze left her mouth. She took three spoons out of under the counter and placed them aside from the box. Fluttershy took the twenty bits and gave them their change. “Thank you girls. Come again!”, she said.

Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle lifted the gigantic bucket, that was almost bigger than each of them, from the counter and carried it outside. Fluttershy looked after them, wrinkles appearing on her face. “If you survive”, she added to her last sentence.

The three fillies sat down in front of the shop and positioned the bucket before them. “King Size Oatmeal Ice Cream” said the text that was printed on the bucket. Sweetie Belle hoofed one spoon each to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo and then opened the bucket devoutly. The three Crusaders bent over it and looked into the bucket reverently, their mouths wide open. Then Sweetie Belle stuck her spoon into the cold mass and whipped out a big piece of it. She put the spoon into her mouth and smiled immediately, satisfyingly rubbing her cheeks. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo followed her example. “Wow, that's good ice cream!”, they bursted out together. The fillies were happy. The ice cream was definitely worth the money they paid for it.

Now, all three of them positioned themselves at one side of the bucket, forming a triangle around it. Then they began to chow down the ice cream. Spoon after spoon of the delicious, cold oatmeal ice cream found it's way into their mouths, making them squeal in delight with every bite. After about ten spoons, Apple Bloom put her spoon down and held a hoof against her forehead. “Ouch.....”, she groaned. The brain freeze was already kicking in. But this couldn't stop Apple Bloom. After rubbing her head for some seconds until the pain subsided she continued to shovel the ice cream into her mouth.

A few minutes later, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were befallen from the same fate. They grimaced as the pain began and hold their heads with both hooves. Loud groaning escaped their mouths in short intervals and they were writhing in pain in front of Apple Bloom, who still continued to swallow down as much ice-cream as she could. Sweetie Belle was hit the hardest by the ice cream headache. As Scootaloo's pain had vanished and she was choking the ice cream again already, Sweetie Belle still sat there, rubbing her temples and hoping for it that the pain would disappear soon, before all of the rest of the ice cream was eaten up by her friends. It happened eventually and Sweetie continued, still determined to get her cutie mark, no matter how much pain she had to endure.

After a few additional minutes, half of the bucket was empty now, the fillies gave up and let their spoons stuck in the cold cream. They hold their hurting stomachs and moaned. They could not eat anymore of the cold treat. Worst of all, the headache was back again. They ignored it over the last minutes and so it was stronger this time. Their heads hurt and they all felt dizzy, almost as if they had just drunk a whole barrel of apple cider instead of eaten 2 lb of oatmeal ice cream.

Apple Bloom stared intensely at Scootaloo. Everything was circling around her and three Scootaloos were in front of her suddenly. The brain freeze caused her to have hallucinations. Scootaloo, however, interpreted her look wrong. “What is it?”, she asked. “Can you already see something?” She looked excitedly at her flank, but let her ears drop as it was as blank as ever.

“No, but there are suddenly three of you!”, she answered quickly.

The pain they had to deal with now was not the only effect, somehow, their condition also made them hyperactive. They all felt adventurous suddenly and they knew that their afternoon wouldn't be boring anymore now. Scootaloo jumped up. “Okay, we're young, we're rich and we're full of ice cream! What do we do?”

“Let's go crazy, Bridleway Style!” Sweetie Belle threw her hooves into the air.
The three fillies began to sing and to dance around in the street.

We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders and we live, in a helluva town:
The schoolyard's up and the bakery's down!
The animals go to Fluttershy's pound,
We're the Crusaders!
You are Blank Flanks!
See how we care!
We live in a hell of a..... toooooooooown!

Having finished their singing, the three young fillies went on a crusade through the town like they had never experienced it before.

Their first stop was the Ponyville scooter shop. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were distracting the shop's owner with asking him a lot of questions about scooters, especially very technical ones that needed a lot of explanation, while Scootaloo snatched one of the newest scooter models, carried it outside and tried it out to her heart's content. Next they returned to the gaming arcade.

With the amount of money they had now, they were trying out all of the games this time, while ordering lots of drinks there, and they owed it to their ice cream induced hyperactivity that they could beat all the games at this visit. Going to a theater performance in Ponyville was the next thing they did.

Loaded with lots of popcorn and drinks that contained more sugar than what was good for them they watched the performance, even though they were barely able to comprehend the plot with their from brain freeze damaged mind. As they were chased out of the theater, because Apple Bloom used her straw to shoot spit wads at the actors, they went to a sweet shop and bought a big amount of chewing gum. For half an hour they did nothing else than creating bubbles and letting them pop until they were all completely covered in the chewy mass.

When they walked out of a Rub-On Cutie Mark shop, fake cutie marks adorning their flanks, Berry Punch was behind them suddenly. She was as drunk as she was in most nights, heavy rings under her eyes ruining her appearance and a strong stench of alcohol coming out of her month. Having seen Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle she lifted up the bucket of ice cream, that they were still carrying, from Sweetie Belle's back, hold it to her lips and gulped down a good amount of the leftover ice cream that had become liquid in the meanwhile. “I don't know where you breezies came from, but I like your breezie drink”, she slurred with her alcohol heavy voice while the fillies went down the street in front of her jumpily.

The longer Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were outside this night, the more their hyperactiveness got out of control. They went to more funny places in the town, but under the influence of the massive amounts of ice cream in them, everything around them became more and more a blur; their surroundings reduced to a rapid sequence of shop signs, lights and different ponies, all while they saw the face of Fluttershy in front of them who told them over and over again that it was not a good idea what they were doing.

At the next morning, Apple Bloom woke up in her bed with the most terrible headache she ever had in her entire young life. The ice cream bucket, empty now, was still in her hooves as she slowly crawled out of her blanket. “Ooooh, mah head”, she groaned in pain.

Applejack was at her side. “That's the remorse of an ice cream junkie”, she said teasingly.

“Ah don't remember anything”, Apple Bloom replied weakly.

“Really? Not even this?” Applejack pulled the covers aside.

Apple Bloom jumped up frantically and inched back to the headboard of her bed, pressing her back against the wall.

Berry Punch lied there under the covers. She slowly woke up too now. Holding her hurting head, she opened her eyes and looked at Apple Bloom beside her. Her eyes grew big from shock as she realized that she woke up in the bed of a filly. “Oh, not again!”, she exclaimed.

In the next moment, Apple Bloom rose up from her lying position, screaming out in panic. She panted heavily and needed a few moments to realize that waking up with that unwanted fellow in her bed was just a nightmare; caused by the massive amounts of ice cream in her blood and the painful freeze in her brain. The sun was shining through her window, but not very high up in the sky yet. Apple Bloom guessed that it was early in the morning.

She slowly let herself sink down on her pillow again and pulled her blanket up under her chin. Her head still hurt and she felt ill. And she could not remember anything of what happened after they had stopped to eat ice cream outside of the shop. Although it was not caused by alcohol, Apple Bloom understood now what adult ponies meant when they spoke about a hangover.

Apple Bloom wondered if Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were in the same terrible condition now. Eating this big amount of ice cream was the biggest mistake they ever made. The filly had realized that now.

She swore herself to never eat so much ice cream again and then closed her eyes, getting another snatch of sleep after this eventful and exhaustive night.

Author's Note:

Surpassed my total word count of 60,000 words! :D

But I continue to write! Expect more fic's for my compilation until the month is over!

Comments

[Olden Bronie]

This was an interesting Crusaders story and very typical of the kind of situations they get themselves into! It was fun to see how they would handle an unexpected windfall. Applebloom always tries to be the voice of reason but just as often gets caught up in the excitement of the moment. Their ice cream induced escapades were really amusing, too. Almost sounded like a few of my own wilder nights *cough, cough* ( We won't discuss that...just remember it's only what they can prove) Overall, this was fun with a good lesson. I liked it and thought it was fun.