1 - Sell Them for A Hundred
Chapter One
Sell Them for A Hundred
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS TAKEN TWIN TRACKERS! YAY!”
Suspended in the air for a moment, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Dinky Doo clapped their hooves together to punctuate their cheer. The quartet landed and leapt into Scootaloo’s wagon, laughing and whooping amongst themselves.
Scootaloo aimed her scooter straight for the train station and took off as fast as her wings could buzz. Mid-jolt, Sweetie Belle caught Dinky around the middle before the littlest filly tumbled out the back.
“You’ll get used to that,” Sweetie said, plopping Dinky between herself and Apple Bloom.
Dinky giggled. “Thanks,” she said with an embarrassed smile.
“There’s an art to bein’ a crusader,” Apple Bloom said proudly, watching thatch roof houses zip past them on both sides. “You’ll catch on quick enough, I reckon.”
“I hope so.” Dinky grew serious and nodded for emphasis. “I’ll do my very best, I promise.”
“Awww!” Sweetie hugged her from the side. “I’m sure your best will be the best of all of us!”
“Only time will tell, which we don’t have a whole lot of!” Scootaloo shouted over her shoulder. “Let’s get to the train station and hurry to Manehattan.”
Dinky’s face instantly paled. “Wait… right now?”
“Well, yeah!” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Rainbow and them left hours ago. What if they’re lost? Or they got captured by the foalnappers? Or worst! What if they already found the Cake’s twins?”
Apple Bloom’s brow lowered. “Uhhh, wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
Scootaloo snorted. “Well, yeah, of course, but… y’know, then our trip would be for nothing. If we leave right now and help them out, we’ll get an adventure and nobody will be mad at us!” She smiled at Dinky. “Isn’t that what you want?”
Dinky gulped. “I guess so…”
“Great!” Scootaloo swerved around a corner, carrying the four of them closer to the station at a drift.
When they reached the ticket window, there was no one behind the glass. Sweetie Belle squinted at a nearby schedule and read out loud: “‘Express Train to Manehattan, seven thirty five’.”
Scootaloo found a clock on the wall of the station. “That’s in thirty minutes! Perfect!”
“‘Tickets are twenty six bits per passenger’,” Sweetie Belle continued.
“Twenty six!?” Scootaloo’s eyes darted from pony to little pony in her wagon. “Dang it! That’s, like… sixty, er… something…”
“It’s a hund’rd and four bits fer all of us,” said Apple Bloom.
“A hundred and four!?” Scootaloo groaned and slid her hooves over her face. “Isn’t there some kind of child discount? Jeez!”
“Where are we gonna get that kinda money in thirty minutes?” asked Apple Bloom with a defeated stare.
Sweetie Belle tapped one hoof into the other repeatedly, mouthing something silently. Suddenly she beamed and nodded. “Yep, she’s right. It’s a hundred and four.”
“I know how to count, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom droned. “We gotta lotta trees that need countin’.”
“I was just double checking,” Sweetie muttered.
“Shut up, shut up!” Scootaloo shut her eyes and plugged her ears. “There’s gotta be ― Do any of you have a savings account?”
“I got a few bits back home under my mattress,” said Apple Bloom, shrugging.
“I have a cute little piggy bank!” said Sweetie Belle. She frowned. “But it’s empty.”
Dinky shook her head. “Sorry.”
Scootaloo sighed heavily and slapped her hoof against one of her scooter handles. “Okay, uh… well, we can’t ask Rarity or Applejack because they’ll wanna know what it’s for… and I don’t wanna push my luck with my parents because I’m gonna ask for something awesome next Hearth’s Warming Eve… so I guess we could―”
“We ain’t gonna steal a hundred bits, Scootaloo.”
Scootaloo’s violet eyes widened. “Whaaat? Heh, wh-what made you think I was gonna say we should steal it? Pssshh!”
“You get a creepy little smile every time you suggest stealin’ somethin’.” Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes. “Freaks me out.”
Scootaloo pursed her lips. “Yeah, well, whatever. I wasn’t thinking that.” She cleared her throat and stared downward at nothing.
Sweetie Belle gasped and raised a hoof. “Ooo! Oo, I know! I know!” She grinned and said, “Why don’t we go to the field where Rarity gets all of her gems? I’m sure Spike would help us find a few, and we wouldn’t need very many to sell them for a hundred bits!”
Scootaloo glanced at the clock again. “Yeah… yeah, that’s it! That’s exactly what we’ll do.” She kicked off with a hind hoof and launched them away from the train station before anyone could say another word. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom caught Dinky together just before she bounced out of the wagon.
Dinky giggled. “Sorry,” she said again, ever smiling.
{-DD-}
“Is that you, Twilight?” Spike opened the library door. “You’re back sooner than I thought.”
“Actually it’s us, Spike,” said Apple Bloom as soon as they could see each other. “Where’s Twilight gone off to?”
“Oh, hi girls. She went to Sugarcube Corner. I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
Sweetie Belle smiled. “Actually-again, we’re here to see you!”
“Me?” Spike blinked. “Well, that’s neat. What do you need?”
Scootaloo jumped forward and clasped her hooves around Spike’s squishable face. “We need you to dig up some gems for us so we can sell them for a hundred bits!”
Spike’s eyes bulged. “Whoot?” He grabbed Scootaloo’s hooves and pushed her away. “What do you guys need a hundred bits for?”
“Crusadin’ costs.” Apple Bloom nodded succinctly.
Spike cocked an eyebrow.
“And, uh… repairs,” said Scootaloo.
Spike nodded. “Ahh, okay, that makes sense.” He sighed. “Is Rarity coming along?”
“No!” Scootaloo waved her forelegs around wildly. “We don’t want anypony else to know. We just need you to find us some gems.”
“But… but I don’t know how to find the gems,” said Spike. “Rarity does that part. I just dig them up because she doesn’t like to get dirty.”
Scootaloo groaned and slumped forward.
“How does she find the gems?”
Spike peeked over the trio and smiled. “Oh, hi, Dinky! I didn’t see you there. Uh… I don’t know, Rarity just uses her horn and, like… locates them.” He tilted forward, pointing an imaginary horn at the ground.
“Can you do that, Sweetie Belle?” asked Dinky. “Can you find gems?”
Sweetie crossed her eyes to look up at her own horn. “I don’t know! I’ve never tried!”
“Come on, girls, there’s a first time for everything!” Scootaloo swung her makeshift vehicle around and gestured for the others to join her. “Come on, hurry, hurry! The train leaves in twenty minutes!”
“Train?” A cloud of dust from Scootaloo’s acceleration blew into Spike’s face, making him cough and double over. By the time it all settled and Spike stood up straight, the Crusaders and Dinky were gone.
“What train?”
{-DD-}
“I… urgh... I ― can’t ― find ―”
“Hurry, Sweetie, hurry!” Scootaloo said, bouncing on her scooter with her hooves stuck to the handles like some kind of open air jack-in-the-box. “We’re running out of time! We don’t even have ten minutes left!”
Sweetie squinted, strained, and puffed. Sweat dripped down her forehead by the time her horn stopped glowing green. She slumped and shook her head. “It’s no use. That’s not my special talent.”
“So we came all the way out here for nothing!?” Scootaloo clenched her teeth and screaming inside her own mouth. “Okay, okay, okay, what do we do? What do we do?”
“We could just start diggin’?” Apple Bloom suggested half-heartedly. “We might get lucky.”
“When have we ever been lucky?” Scootaloo groaned. Nevertheless, she was the first to shove her hooves into the dirt beneath them and toss aside as much ground as she could grab. “Ugh… no wonder Rarity brings Spike. This is like trying to dig a hole with a wooden bat.”
“I’ll try to help…” Sweetie panted, re-igniting her horn. Clumps of dirt shot up from Scootaloo’s shallow hole and smacked her in the face.
Sweetie yelped. “Whoops! Sorry…”
Scootaloo dropped her face into the hole and sighed. “I guess that’s that, then. No rescuing foals for us.”
Dinky’s ears perked upward. She took a few trots away from the ground, staring at the hills and sparse trees all around them.
“What is it, Dinky?” Sweetie Belle asked, eyeing the little filly.
“Do you hear that?” Dinky whispered.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were quiet, pointing their raised ears in the same direction. After a few seconds, a distant whimpering reached their party.
“What is that?” asked Scootaloo, lifting her dirt-caked face from the ground.
“It sounds like… a dog…” Dinky said.
Sweetie Belle gasped. “Oh, no! It sounds hurt! Poor little puppy…”
Apple Bloom winced. “What if it’s Winona? She might be hurt!”
“Winona’s not the only dog in Equestria, you know,” Scootaloo said, shaking the dirt off her face.
“You sure?” asked Apple Bloom, squinting in her direction.
“Maybe it’s in trouble!” Sweetie Belle eeped. “Or its owner is in trouble and it’s calling for help!”
“All right, fine, come on.” Scootaloo tapped the lip of the wagon. “Get back in and we’ll check it out. If we can’t save a couple of babies, maybe we can at least save a dog tonight.”
“Yay!”
The Crusaders climbed in. The scooter didn’t move as quickly over the land’s loose dirt, but as they rode along farther and farther from Ponyville, the dog’s high-pitched whimpers grew louder by the second.
“We must be close!” said Sweetie Belle. “Oh, Dinky, you’re such a good hearer!”
Dinky smiled. “Thank you! My mommy said it’s important to listen.”
“Which would be easier for me if you’d all stop talking,” said Scootaloo. “Where’d it go?”
Her wings stopped buzzing and they rolled to a stop.
“Do you hear anything?” Scootaloo asked.
Apple Bloom shook her head. “It stopped.”
“Poor doggy…” Sweetie Belle gulped. “Do you think we’re too late?”
“What, like, you think it died?” Scootaloo grimaced. “Eugh. Maybe we should turn around. I don’t really want to see a dead dog today.”
“Nnnngggh!” Sweetie Belle pattered her front hooves on the red metal below them. “We have to find it! It needs us! I can just feel it!”
“I don’t know, Sweetie…” Dinky said, glancing over her shoulder. “I think Scootaloo’s right. Maybe we should go back.”
Sweetie stared at her with wide eyes.
Scootaloo moped. “So this was all for nothing. Figures.” She tilted to spin their vehicle around. “I swear, one of these days we’re gonna get lucky and something’s actually gonna go ―”
All four fillies yelped or gasped as Scootaloo slammed on the breaks. Just up the hill, directly in front of them, was a hulking, dark blue dog with sickly, pale spots all over his body. He was curled in on himself, shivering with a pair of massive paws covering his head.
“That’s a big dog,” Apple Bloom whispered in a choked voice.
“It looks so scared!” Sweetie Belle wrung her hooves together.
“It looks so scary!” Scootaloo adjusted her helmet. “Come on, girls, let’s get out of here.”
The dog began to whine again. Its sound struck a melancholy chord deep within the fillies, especially Sweetie Belle. Without waiting for consultation, she barreled out of the side of the wagon and trotted up the hill.
“Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo veritably hissed.
Apple Bloom’s eyes sparkled with sympathy. “Oh, come on, Scoots. It’s no Winona, but it’s clearly in pain! We oughtta help it!”
Despite Scootaloo’s wordless disapproval, Apple Bloom bounced after Sweetie Belle and approached the blue dog.
“Gosh darn it!” Scootaloo glanced behind her. “Stay in the wagon, Dinky, I’m gonna go make sure they don’t ― buh!?”
Dinky was gone. Scootaloo spun around, spotting her in between Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle on their trek up to the quaking blue dog.
“Gosh. Freaking. Darn it.” Scootaloo sighed heavily, tossed her helmet into the wagon, and followed her friends on quiet hooves. “Why do I get the feeling this is not the type of adventure I was hoping for today?”
Sweetie reached the big dog first. “Hey there, boy,” she said softly, leaning to one side in an effort to see the dog’s face beneath his oversized paws. “Are you all right? Where’s your owner?”
“Where’s your leash, that’s what I wanna know,” Scootaloo grumbled as she approached from the back. “They probably don’t even make leashes big enough.”
Apple Bloom smacked Scootaloo’s shoulder. “Don’t say that! Dogs have feelin’s, too, y’know.”
“Pssh.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Sure they do.”
“Are you lost, doggie?” Dinky asked, taking another step closer to the trembling animal.
Sweetie stayed right at her side. “We can help you get home if you ―”
The dog lifted one paw from the side of his face, revealing a long, malevolent smile around an impossible numerous set of sharp, poorly angled teeth.
“Aahh!” Dinky screamed, stumbling backward.
The dog lurched forward, grabbing Sweetie Belle in one paw and Dinky in the other. “Aaaahhh… yooneekorns!” He licked his lips and then held the filled close to his chest with a long, satisfied sigh. “I know menny customers, yes! Mehhhnny customers, willing to pay big jools for yooneekorn parts.” He held a screaming Sweetie Belle closer to his massive eyeball, staring closely at her horn. “Esspeshaly theeeese parts! Hoo hoo hoo hoo, ha ha ha!”
“Hey!” Apple Bloom bravely charged forward, spun around, and bucked the bipedal dog in his exposed kneecap. “Put them down!”
The dog didn’t even flinch. He held the unicorns above his head and bent down, grinning wickedly in Apple Bloom’s face. She could smell his breath, like warm blood and standing water, oozing through the gaps in his many jagged teeth.
“Ooooo! Moooaaar little poneeez!” He cackled, his lower eyelids tensing in delight. “It’s Bactum’s lucky daeeee! Hee hee hee, hoo hoo!” In a surprisingly swift motion, the dog lunged at Apple Bloom and caught her pink bow in his jaws.
“Noooo!” Sweetie Belle struggled in the massive dog’s grasp, struggling with her magic to loosen his grip. “Don’t eat her!”
With only another creepy laugh as a response, the dog swiveled and ran on his hind legs through fields of dirt. Scootaloo watched with her jaw hanging open at his speedy retreat. Her trance was only broken when three high pitched voices joined together in a unison shout that blew her mane back.
“SCOOTALOOOOO!”
“Oh! Right!” She shook her head vigorously and detached her scooter from the wagon. Revving her wings a few times, Scootaloo slapped her helmet back on and grinned at the dust cloud behind the fleeing dog. “Guess I’m rescuing ponies after all!”
She kicked off with a hind hoof and sped after her abducted friends.
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Man, I've missed your writing something fierce. This is gonna be great.
It would have to be those three jerks. Also, good to see you back at the stand.
==The speed of this fic is already leaving the pace *I* attempted in the dust. I wish I had your tenacity for brevity.
>>“Twenty six!?” Scootaloo’s eyes darted from pony to little pony in her wagon. “Dang it! That’s, like… sixty, er… something…”
Ohhhhhhh lulz. While I never really digged your Scootaloo, you do make comedy gold out of her.
>>“I have a cute little piggy bank!” said Sweetie Belle. She frowned. “But it’s empty.”
It's 2017 and you still know how to make adoracute work.
==Oh look, an excuse to go into diamond dog territory. That works.
==Scootaloo's tunring out to be pretty neurotic. Just sayin'.
>>“When have we ever been lucky?” Scootaloo groaned.
Hah. Thanks for reminding us that kids--while sometimes cute--are most entirely stupid.
>>“Nnnngggh!” Sweetie Belle pattered her front hooves on the red metal below them.
Is it just my imagination or are the CMCers making more muzzle sounds than in your original work?
>>“Stay in the wagon, Dinky, I’m gonna go make sure they don’t ? buh!?”
See what I mean?
==Also, Scootaloo "cusses" like 2012 Ponky. F'naaaaa.
==I dig the evil dog's speech patterns.
Seriously, the Equestrian economy makes no sense.
Scootaloo: Big Damn Hero.
After so many years, it's finally here!
This begins quite differently from Skirts's unfinished Daughter Doo. At least I can't remember the Diamond Dog from there. I'm curious if you're still using the plot points from that one.
Edit: turns out I misremembered, Skirts did have them get captured by a diamond dog. I'm glad the plot is mostly the same :)
Nice one, my kind of humor.