Prickle sniffled softly in the darkness of the alley, laying beside her outfit that she had peeled herself free of. The thought that she had... hurt... maybe worse...
She sat up, shivering. What if it had been so much worse than hurting. What if...
A whimpering noise came from her without her even knowing she was making it before it had already come out.
"Prickle?" An older female stepped into view, her outline visible against the light of the street. "Did something happen?" It was her mother, approaching at a slow pace. "Prickle, come here." She sounded concerned.
Prickle lashed out a hoof, knocking her discarded outfit away in a pile of trash that made quite the racket. "I-I'm here." She stood up, quivering.
Junebug smiled as she closed the distance. "My poor filly, what happened? Was somepony mean to you about... that?"
Prickle winced visibly. "N-n..." She stopped. How could she explain what had really happened? "Yes..."
"It's alright." Junebug put a leg over her daughter and pulled her close, squeezing. "It's alright..."
Prickle felt the comfort of her mother, but it seemed... empty. Did she deserve that comfort if she'd hurt that pony? She really was every bit the horror that Diamond Tiara had drilled into her that she was. She gave a little cry that mixed with a cough and pushed Junebug away.
The act sent Junebug crashing against the far wall, Prickle far from a controlled state of mind. Prickle watched with mounting horror as Junebug slid to the ground, dazed. "I..." She couldn't stay. She fled. She didn't even dare jump. She just ran and ran.
She found herself in a new safe place with fresh things to cry about, which is exactly what she set herself to doing.
"Prickle?"
Prickle didn't hear who it was, and didn't care. "Stay away!" she shouted in a mixture of terror and anger. "Stay away..."
Scootaloo emerged into sight around the corner. "Huh? Everything alright, Prickle? Where's your suit?"
Prickle looked down at herself, teeth clenching. "I don't... I don't need it anymore."
Scootaloo wasn't the swiftest pony in the city when it came to emotions, but even she could see Prickle was a mess. "What's wrong?"
"What's right?!" Prickle bounced to her trembling hooves. "I-- hurt a filly, and my mom, and I'm terrible."
Scootaloo perked an ear. "Hurt? The way I hear it, you saved her from a burning building! If you weren't there, she would be..." She rolled a hoof. "You know, a lot worse than a little hurt. You saved Silver Spoon."
Prickle blinked, sinking to her haunches in shock. "It was Silver Spoon?"
"Yeah? Weren't you there?" Scootaloo came closer. "She's alright, thanks to you."
Prickle gave a distressed laugh. "After all those years... I save her." She looked up at Scootaloo. "She's safe?"
"Uh huh." Scootaloo smiled. "You did it. You really did it, as a hero."
Prickle glanced left and right. "Where... are the others?"
Scootaloo pointed out of the alley. "Looking for you, I bet. Let's go find them."
Prickle lifted a hoof. "N-not so fast. I..." She licked her lips. "I have to find my mom."
"Huh? What for?" Scootaloo sat on her haunches, wings fluttering a moment. "Coming out about the whole super hero thing?"
Prickle winced drastically. "No! I... hurt her. I was a stupid mean monster and shoved her!"
Scootaloo blinked at it. "You were clumsy, but not mean." She smiled and stood back up. "Let's find your mom and apologize. I bet she'll be glad to see you."
"Have you?"
"Huh, have I what?" Scootaloo peered at her new friend with obvious confusion.
"Have you ever hurt your mom, even on accident?"
Scootaloo grinned a lopsided grin. "This one time, I was so sure I could fly if I just started higher... so I climbed up on the roof and ran for the edge and jumped! Wind whistling in my ears, I realized pretty quick I had messed up. My dad caught me, said I came in like a little pony rocket. He had to go to the doctor... I was so sorry! But... he's still my dad. He forgave me, and I promised to not do that again." She left out the many other things she had done with the CMC after that. "That's what family is for."
Prickle winced in time with the impact in the story, but a little smile began to emerge after that. "Let's... go say sorry. I didn't mean to hurt her."
"Of course not! I mean, even Diamond Tiara would never hurt her mom on purpose. C'mon!" She waved to the exit of the alley and they got to walking towards Prickle's house.
On the way, they ran into the other crusaders. Sweetie rushed up beside Prickle. "So what's it like t'be a super hero?!"
Scootaloo thrust out a hoof. "Ix-nay on the uperhero-say."
Sweetie blinked dumbly. "What?"
Prickle shook her head as she walked. "We can... talk about that later. I have to talk to my mother first."
The group quieted as they arrived at Prickle's little comfy house.
Prickle clopped on the door lightly, as timid as Fluttershy might. "Mom?"
The door swung open quickly, revealing Junebug. "Prickle! I thought you... Are you alright?!"
Prickle took half a step back. "You're not mad?"
Junebug reached for Prickle and slowly brought her closer. "You need to be more careful, my little hedgehog, but no, I'm not mad at you. You'll never stop being my daughter."
The hug became a mutual thing, even if Prickle had to be careful about her side of the hug. Junebug gently raised Prickle's chin. "Now who are these little fillies you've brought home?" It seemed unlikely that she, or any pony in Ponyville, didn't know the CMC, but she was being polite.
Apple Bloom waved. "Hey there! M'name's Apple Bloom. This here's Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo." Each pony dipped their head as they were called. "Mighty fine t'meet ya."
Junebug nodded in kind. "The pleasure's mine. It's good to see Prickle's gotten some new friends. Come inside, I'll make some sandwiches for everyone." She turned and headed inside, and soon all were seated at the table.
Sweetie looked around curiously a moment before her eyes fixated on something. "Hey..."
Junebug looked up at the noise and followed Sweetie's eyes. "I had... planned to ask about this later." She pulled Prickle's outfit clear of the cupboard it had been hastily stuffed into. "Is there something you want to tell me about, Prickle Berry?"
Prickle locked right up. "It's not what you think!"
Junebug sniffed at it lightly. "Why does it smell like it was on fire?"
Scootaloo thrust up a hoof. "I can answer that! If it's alright?"
Junebug raised a brow.
"She saved Silver Spoon!" gushed Scootaloo.
Junebug paled. "S-saved?" She sniffed again. "From a fire?!" She spun on Prickle. "My little hedgehog! You... you could... Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?!" There were tears building in her eyes. "I don't even know what I'd do... Prickle..."
Prickle hopped down from her chair. "No."
Junebug blinked at the bluntness. "No what?"
Prickle thrust a hoof out the door. "I had to! If... If... I didn't... Silver Spoon would be dead! Dead!" Her voice had turned into a scream as she got towards the end. "I saved her..."
Junebug's mouth worked silently as she tried to find a good response for that specifically. "Some other pony could have--"
"No!" Prickle hopped forward. "They were trying, but by the time they got there..." She looked up at Junebug with wide eyes. "If... I can do something good... shouldn't I?"
The CMC were silent, watching the two debate and not daring to slide in a word edgewise.
Junebug took a slow breath before she laid down on her belly. "Prickle, come here." Prickle did so, defiant, but not so much as to ignore that order. Junebug pulled her closer and half-curled around her. "My precious little Prickle... I just don't want you to be hurt. I love you."
Prickle gave a little smile. "I love you too, mom, but you... you told me. Ponies that can... do good things... should." She nuzzled into her mother's chest, getting tears into the fur. "I'll be careful..."
Junebug suddenly gave the CMC an intense look. "You'll be careful." Her words were in reply to Prickle, but she was looking directly at the other fillies.
Apple Bloom swallowed audibly. "W-we'll try our best, honest!"
Sweetie Belle bobbed her head. "It was my sister's idea to make that suit fire resistant."
Junebug winced. "I'm... glad she thought of that." The horror of imagining her beloved filly in a raging inferno was still terrible. "Prickle." Prickle looked up at her. "I want you to think about this, long and hard. Make sure it's... what you really want to do." She slid up to her hooves and got back to making their snacks. "If it's what you... really want to do, then I will support you, as your mother. Just don't forget how sad I'll be if you get hurt, so please... be careful."
Sandwiches were soon served, filled with delicious flowers that were eagerly chomped up by the crusaders. Prickle ate sedately at first before her body reminded her how much work it had done and insisted with a loud rumble that she get to feeding it. She blushed a little and picked up her pace, abating the hunger that all that labor had produced.
"Now go on and play with your friends," insisted Junebug. "And think about what I asked you to."
"Yes mom..." Prickle stepped outside with the others and the door closed gently behind them.
Sweetie Belle tilted her head. "That could have been worse."
Apple Bloom nodded in agreement. "Ya have permission t'be a super hero now!"
Scootaloo thrust a hoof into the air. "Now you can tell us what happened?! C'mon, please? I've been waiting all day!" She bounced up and down in place. "What was it like?"
Prickle cracked a little smile at Scootaloo's energy. "Well, so I arrived at the town hall." The more she went into the story, the more their eyes were sparkling with awe, the good kind. She felt better with every sentence and began even adding little embellishments that got gasps and cries of joy out of the crusaders. By the end, she was doing a crazy daredevil run through a maze of fire before she escaped just in the nick of time with the limp Silver Spoon. "And that's how I saved the day."
All three of them thunderously stomped their hooves on the ground. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom cheered aloud at the exploit.
Poor Prickle, I bet this is one of the reasons that she voted against Diamond Tiara. She has three friends who enjoy her company and don't see her strength as freakish.
What is this?
She told her mom?
That's not how superheroes work. You're supposed to keep it a secret forever unless you can't, and let the isolation and stress of the pressure and constant lies to your friends and family get to you, and prove you never trusted them in the first place, leading to horrible consequences when they inevitably accidently intersect with your superhero life.
This sensibility crud is right out.
J/K I like this sort of thing.
7932753 I have to agree. I think it would have been better if she didn't told her mom but maybe way later in the series or near the end that would been ok.
Kid Age Mutant Fighting Ponies!
7932753
7932774 She didn't 'tell' Junebug. Junebug just wasn't a moron. All the pieces were provided for her to assemble.
7932810
I know...
I guess it reminds me of The Flash that way. He never told anyone his secret identity, but his friends and family all found out anyway and him having that support network is good for the show.
I did always hope Barry would tell someone voluntarily, though.
Very nice to see our heroine get some confidence. Of course, Mare-Do-Well notwithstanding, disaster doesn't strike Ponyville that often. What's she going to do during her off-hours?
Is that an ending? It feels like it could be an ending.
*checks*
Still incomplete, yay!
7932824 Superheroes are disaster magnets. Whenever she puts on the costume, bad things will happen.
7932916
True... But this is Ponyville... If something hasn't exploded or attacked this week, the town must be abandoned.
Things havent got so bad yet with Monster attacks, that Pinkie has Backed Bad shoulder cannon stored around town for Cannon emergancies.
Then again, Pickles strong enough to carry and fire Big Bertha.
maybe worse. - maybe worse...
what really had happened - what had really happened
if she hurt that pony - if she'd hurt that pony
Ex-nay - Ix-nay
stuffed in - stuffed into
making those snacks - making their snacks
embelleshments - embellishments
All three of they - All three of them
I hadn't expected Junebug to take it so well, but now that Prickle has her mother's blessing maybe she'll be a little more open to adventures.
7933860 Typos herded away from the family moment. Does a family that saves the day together grow stronger together?
7934038
Only so long as Junebug doesn't get Uncle Owen'd.
Reposted because I keep forgetting to post from within the chapter and not the story comment section.
7929812
It does, yet it makes me concerned for how you approach writing about Equestria.
This is not the colorful, cheery, "Nothing goes ever wrong" world. The ponies that live there may have colorful coats, but those colors don't define them and neither do they define their world. They know malice there. They know hatred and ill intentions. They know darkness and the inevitabilities and fatalities that fate brings with it sometimes.
Equestrian society is a much more tolerant and open-minded one than human society, which gives reason to think that certain bad things, or crimes, happen to a lesser extent there than they do on Earth, but nonetheless, ponies know all these things that I mentioned.
With their society being founded in a very dark past, that is still looming over them and could come down on them with fatal consequences if they should fail to maintain the peace between them (Keyword: Windigos), with dozens of enemies Equestria has that try to conquer or to destroy it in regular patterns and with evil magic roaming free and causing havoc (as seen in "Inspiration Manifestation", for example), ponies living in Equestria face a lot of dark things during their lives. Even to an extent where they have developed a certain familiarity to these dark circumstances of their lives and the every day danger surrounding them:
Bon Bon: What was that?
Lyra: There’s some monster attacking Ponyville or something.
Bon Bon: What is it this time? A creature from the Everfree Forest?
Lyra: Uh, I think it’s some sort of… bugbear.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16-OjL99Uz8q2PmTrTM7z1BlVRvnlGVm7i_2WIrd7_x4/edit
It's this aspect of Equestria's society that I see a bit dismissed in your writing. In short, I think you run into danger of OOU (= Out Of Universe) writing. And upon reading the latest chapter, I see these worries confirmed:
Scootaloo is avoiding to say the word "dead" here. And while somepony dying isn't a pleasant thought, it just does not fit that she is actively avoiding to use this word, with the quite dark and gruesome, dangerous world she lives in. Even here on Earth, a much less dangerous place, people are using this word very often in their daily lives and don't hesitate to do so.
Here you finally used it, which is a good thing, yet it comes across as overly dramatic, with Lily still showing a clear hesitation to use the word and treating it like it's very uncommon in their society to mention death.
Which feels alien to them and their world, to read about them avoiding to talk about death so much. With being surrounded by danger and the constant threat of doom, it is to expect that they talk about death rather often and that it's anything but a taboo topic.
That is the only major thing I have to criticize about your story (well, that, and some OOC depiction of Scootaloo at one point, but I come to that later). I don't know what else you have planned and what kind of tragedies might happen over the course of the story, but this is something you should fix in future chapters to portray their society accurately.
7934621 Citation required. Name one pony who died, the reason they died, and how the ponies shrugged it off as normal.
7932810 Your right, I guess it doesn't matter much now.
7934747
Well, that's not the kind of answer I expected..... I was not talking about on-screen events.
Just because we have not seen a certain event happening on-screen does not mean it did not happen. And what happens off-screen is something that can be figured out by close observation of the things that are actually seen on the screen and putting together the various clues.
The ponies of Ponyville live nearby a literal cursed forest full of demonic creatures, and they even did so for hundreds of years completely unprotected from it, and one of Equestria's enemies, Chrysalis, is known as icecold murderer.
Something which became clear both through the show, where she has at one occasion been heard talking about killing in an implied way and on another, in the Season 6 Finale, seen attempting murder twice, as well as in the official comics, where it even went so far that she was outright seen killing a few ponies.
Not to mention the moment where she killed a cat in front of Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, seen right in the first comic arc, as well as openly threatened them with murder as well.
With that background, some lost lives here and there are to expect in Equestria and definitely happened, if not in Ponyville, then somewhere else.
Death is by far nothing unfamiliar for ponies living in this world and therefore certainly no taboo topic.
That's a thought many bronies don't like to have, you are not exactly the only one I have seen who imagines Equestria as a perfect place where nothing bad ever happens, but when writing fanfiction, it is important to stay in tact with the world you write about, so I was pointing out that flaw I found here.
7935069 I'm afraid I'm quite leery of accepting the comics as proof of much anything. Whenever the comics and the show have brushed up against each other, the show has proven the comics wrong. Exception, O&O exists.
7935077
The comics are as canon as the show are and I could bring up plenty of evidence for that, however, I'm not here to clarify about the continuity status of the official comics. The show itself has, letting aside the general aspects of their world seen there that I mentioned, plenty of concrete evidence already:
More evidence comes from the case of Season 2, where in one episode, a pony quite obviously being sick with cancer (or a similar, deathly disease with the same symptoms) was seen, followed by a funeral just one episode later:
https://www.derpibooru.org/851080?q=Read+it+and+Weep%2C+screencap
https://www.derpibooru.org/1302563?q=Hearts+and+Hooves+Day%2C+screencap%2C+funeral
[Insert "Coincidence? I think not!"- type comment here.]
Granted, it could be a coincidence, but it nonetheless shows that ponies are familiar with death. This also as answer on your request to show you a pony that died.
Also, I have not said that ponies shrug off death as something normal. At least, not any more than humans do.
But due to the many dangers of their world, they probably are more familiar with experiencing deaths, which does not cause them to suffer less if they lose a loved one to some monster, but requires talking about it, both for the purpose of coping with the loss, as well as to stay aware that they must be careful in their world to not be met with the same fate.
It is very unlikely that, under all these circumstances, the ponies of Equestria would treat talking about death as such a taboo, so it feels unfitting to see them even actively avoiding to use the word at all here.
7935134
Oh? I genuinely am interested in the canon of the comics. I don't want to clog the comments section, so just PM me.
From what I heard, though, is that the comics are "soft" canon, meaning that the show is canon to the comics, but not the other way around, as the writers of the comics don't have access to the plans of the main show. (And there are some inconsistencies as a result.)
But that's just what I've heard, and I am genuinely interested in your evidence.
Rarity decided to make the suit capable of withstanding the insanity that the CMC usually cause which means it's probably tree sap resistant too.
Daaaaaw. My heart. It hurts so much.........