SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Scootaloo (New)

Scootaloo

Having a home outside of town was a bit of a risk when there were grimm around, but when it came to farming, there just wasn’t much for it.

Not to mention that there were never many grimm in Canterlot; this place was just lucky that way, for some reason.

Sweet Apple Acres was not so far from the rest of Canterlot — you could see the town pretty clearly, even at night, and the house was probably the closest thing to the town on the whole property, but even so, it was on the edge.

But what could you do, other than not have a farm at all? And Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna did cover the place on their patrols, so they were pretty much as safe as anyone else in Canterlot.

And that was pretty safe, considering that they didn’t get much trouble here.

Rainbow Dash set The Bus down outside the gate; a white picket fence surrounded the whole property, even the apple orchards stretching away into the distance, only dimly visible in the darkness, and the way through was marked by an archway overgrown with honeysuckle and decorated with big red fake apples — unlike the real ones, they’d never go bad.

As the airship landed, she flipped the switch to open the doors on the right hand side, the side facing Sweet Apple Acres.

“When you fly Rainbow Air, you get door to door service,” she said, looking back out of the cockpit and into the main section of the airship, where Applejack, Rarity, and Winona were waiting.

Winona barked eagerly.

Applejack touched the brim of her hat. “Thank you kindly." She looked from Rainbow Dash to Rarity and then back again. “Either of you want to come inside? You’re welcome to come in and say howdy to Apple Bloom and Granny Smith.”

“Nah, I won’t get in the way of the reunion,” Rainbow said, waving her off with one hand. “You say 'hi' to them for me, okay?”

Applejack smiled. “Will do. Rarity?”

“Likewise, darling,” Rarity said. “We wouldn’t want to step on your moment. Now go on! Shoo! I’m sure they're anxious to see you, so don’t prolong their misery one moment longer!”

Applejack chuckled. “Okay, okay. And we’re still on for campin’ tomorrow night?”

“Wouldn’t miss it, and I bet Scootaloo wouldn’t either,” Rainbow said.

“Then Ah’ll see you both then,” Applejack said.

Rarity reached out and took Applejack by the hands as she planted a pair of kisses on her cheeks. “Until tomorrow.”

Applejack nodded and turned away, leaping down out of the airship with Winona by her side. The dog barked happily.

Rainbow unstrapped herself from the pilot’s seat momentarily and left the cockpit so that she could see out of the door.

Even in the dark of the night, the lights coming from inside the airship illuminated Applejack a little bit as she walked underneath the arch and across the open ground of bare and unplanted earth towards the farmhouse. The lights coming out of the windows seemed almost like signals, like the red and green lights on a carrier to welcome the airships home.

Winona kept on barking, and more lights streamed out of the house as Rainbow guessed that a door was thrown open.

Apple Bloom’s voice carried across the night air. “Is that Winona?”

Winona barked in answer.

“Then that must mean— Applejack!”

“Ah’m right here, sugarcube!” Applejack called out, joy and amusement mingling in her voice.

Apple Bloom whooped with glee. “Hey, Granny, Big Mac, get out here! Applejack’s back!”

Rainbow caught a glimpse of a small form momentarily blocking out the light, and then lost sight of the younger girl.

But she could still hear her shouting. “She’s back, she’s back, Applejack’s back! Mah sister’s home!”

In the space where the lights from the airship and the home alike both faded, it was difficult to see what was going on; Applejack had become lost in the shade between the two, and Apple Bloom as well, their forms indistinct, but nevertheless, it looked a lot like Applejack had grabbed her sister and was twirling her around in the air.

Rainbow smiled. “There are a few things that make this really worthwhile,” she declared. “And this right here is one of them.”

Rarity chuckled softly. “Yes, I imagine it must be quite fulfilling, saving people.”

“Saving people, hunting things—”

“Sounds like the tagline for a TV show,” Rarity murmured.

Rainbow snorted. “Huh. Yeah, maybe. You’re right, it is fulfilling. More than that, it’s the best feeling in the world. When you get to see something like this … there’s no better feeling, not in the whole of Remnant.”

“And this is the second time where Applejack’s confirmed,” Rarity said. “You’ll have to let her even the score sometime.”

“Yeah, right,” Rainbow said. “Like that’ll happen.”

She returned to the cockpit and sat down in the pilot’s seat once more.

She glanced back at Rarity, lingering behind. “Everything okay back there?”

“I’m waiting for my door to door service, darling,” Rarity said dryly.

Rainbow coughed. “Yeah, right. Sorry, I’ll drop you off in Main—”

Rarity laughed. “I’m teasing you, Rainbow, honestly.” She walked into the cockpit, her high heels tapping on the metal floor. She placed a gentle hand on Rainbow’s shoulder and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. “Thank you for bringing me, for bringing us, out here, but I can find my own way back from here.”

“If you’re sure,” Rainbow said.

“Ordinarily, I might take you up on your offer, but this is Canterlot,” Rarity replied. “And we’ve both walked out here and back plenty of times with no trouble at all.”

Rainbow nodded. “Okay then. Tell Sweetie Belle I said 'hello.'”

“And give my love to Scootaloo, won’t you?” Rarity said as she walked away and to the door. “Until tonight, darling!”

“Later,” Rainbow said, waving to her as Rarity got down, disappearing from her view as she exited the airship.

Rainbow gave her a few seconds to step away, then closed the door.

All alone in the airship now, silence reigned, with no sound but the click of the clasp as Rainbow strapped herself in, and what whine of the engines managed to penetrate the interior as Rainbow eased her airship back up into the air once again.

It wasn’t as though she could just leave it sat outside Sweet Apple Acres all weekend, after all.

Fortunately, there was a small skydock at the back of Canterlot Combat School, where airships could land when needed for training and instructional purposes — mostly ‘this is what it’s like to fly in a Skyray, this where to sit, this is where to stand,’ with an occasional side of landing strategy practice and flying instruction for those students who show an aptitude for it — and so, Rainbow guided her own airship over the sleepy town, where the lights gleamed like candles beneath her, until she arrived at the combat school and set The Bus down on the otherwise empty docking bay.

Rainbow leapt down from out of the airship, landing on the tarmac with a soft thud.

The door slid shut behind her, and Rainbow got out her scroll for a moment to lock the airship up.

“Welcome back, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow looked around to see Principal Celestia standing at the edge of the docking bay, dressed in gilded armour that gleamed in the moonlight, a spear held in one hand.

Rainbow came to attention. “Principal Celestia,” she said. “Have you been on patrol, or is this for my benefit?”

Principal Celestia laughed softly. “I’ve just returned from checking the perimeter,” she said. “Believe me, if I was not, you wouldn’t see me dressed like this — or even up so late. Unlike the Vice Principal, I’m not much of a night owl.”

"Me neither," Rainbow replied. "It is okay if I leave my airship here, isn't it? I have a weekend pass, and then I'll be back to Atlas."

"Of course, it's not as if it's being used for much else at the moment," Principal Celestia pointed out. "So how was Beacon?"

Rainbow thought about it for a second. "Sprawling," she said.

Principal Celestia smiled. "Yes, I remember that very well. I suppose a large campus like Beacon is quite different from the tight verticality of Atlas. Still, I hope you enjoyed yourself there."

"It was fine," Rainbow said. "Better than fine, at times, not so much at others. It was school." And a little more than that, at the end. "Met some good people there, so that's something."

"Indeed," agreed Principal Celestia. "And of course you'll be returning for the Vytal Festival in the fall, when the leaves are golden and the air is crisp. You know that Vice Principal Luna and I attended Beacon Academy. Team Cello."

"Can I ask why?" Rainbow asked. "I mean, why you went to Beacon instead of Atlas? You don't have to tell me; I'm just a little curious."

"I'm afraid you may be disappointed by how simple the answer is," Principal Celestia said. "It was because we didn't want to become Specialists in the Atlesian military. Luna and I wished to carve our own path, as huntresses, not soldiers."

"You're not the only one," Rainbow said, remembering her shared classwork with Ruby when they had discussed what it meant to give up your autonomy and subordinate yourself to something larger than yourself. "But what changed? I mean, you did join the military, and you still have rank, so … again, you don't have to answer."

"In this case, I'm afraid I may not," Principal Celestia murmured. "Suffice to say … to each of us falls a task, but the task that eventually falls to us may be quite different than the one we envisage for ourselves when we set out on our journey."

"I hear that," Rainbow muttered. And so does Blake, for that matter.

Principal Celestia stared at her for a moment, her pale magenta eyes seeming strangely knowing. "Something on your mind, Rainbow Dash?"

Rainbow hesitated for a moment. "I … I'm not sure how much I can say," she admitted.

"Then I will not inquire further," Principal Celestia declared. "Just know that, if you do need to talk while you're here, or at any other time, my door is always open and my scroll is always on."

Rainbow smiled. "Thank you, ma'am; I'll remember that."

Principal Celestia was silent for a moment. "You have, as the expression goes, seen the goliath now, haven't you?"

Rainbow nodded. "Yes," she said softly. "Yes, I reckon I have."

"Glory may mean less to you now than it did when you were here," Principal Celestia said softly. "But I promise you that there is still much to fight for, and much to take courage from. Brave heart, Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow clenched her fist and placed it above her heart. "Always, ma'am," she said. "I … I just dropped Applejack off at Sweet Apple Acres, and the way her sister reacted to seeing her again … that's worth fighting for."

"Indeed," Principal Celestia said. "Now, I won't keep you any further. I'm sure that you're anxious to see Scootaloo, and if you don't hurry, you may be too late for her bedtime."

A little laughter escaped from Rainbow's mouth. "Thank you, ma'am," she said, and with that, she began to walk briskly around the outside of the school building, leaving Principal Celestia and her gleaming armour behind as she followed the walls of the tall, square school, passing through the gardens and around to the front, where the Wondercolt Statue sat on its high pedestal, the moonlight falling upon the marble steed as it reared up into the sky.

"Rainbow Dash?" Vice Principal Luna stepped around the statue, emerging into view from behind the plinth. "'Scaped safe from your adventures in Vale, I see."

Rainbow scratched the back of her head. "'Escaped' seems the right word for some of them, ma'am."

Vice Principal Luna smiled. Unlike her sister and principal, she was not armoured; rather, she was dressed in a dark pink short-sleeved sweater, with the collar of a white blouse showing over the top of it, and midnight blue pants. There was a book tucked under her arm, though it was positioned in such a way that Rainbow couldn't see what book or even what type of book it was.

"It is good to see you again, Rainbow Dash," she said. "I won't ask you how Beacon was or anything else, because I'm sure my sister has already asked you that, and I don't want to bore you by making you repeat your answers a second time — or to delay you unnecessarily, for that matter — I simply wished to give you a gift." She walked towards Rainbow, holding out the book that she'd had under her arm. "Consider it a welcome home present."

"That's very kind of you, ma'am, but I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to read it," Rainbow admitted. "I'm still working through the last book someone got me as a gift just before I came back."

"Oh?" Vice Principal Luna asked. "What is the subject?"

"Ares Claudandus and the Faunus Rights Revolution," Rainbow replied.

"Interesting," Vice Principal Luna said. "Nevertheless, I would recommend taking at least a look at this. Please, to humour your old vice principal, at the least."

Rainbow reached out and took the book from Vice Principal Luna's unprotesting hands. It was a hardback, with a dark blue cover, and if she held it up to the moonlight at the right angle, she could see the gold letters on the cover spelling out In Search of the Lady.

Rainbow blinked. "How … how?" she began, when she looked back at Vice Principal Luna.

The Vice Principal's smile was rather coy. "We must have some secrets, mustn't we Rainbow Dash? At least, for the time being. Now off you go, or you'll—"

"Miss bedtime?" Rainbow asked.

Vice Principal Luna chuckled. "I was going to say 'you'll be late for dinner.' Now go."

Rainbow went, tucking the book beneath her arm just as Vice Principal Luna had done before passing it on, and so she left the grounds of the Combat School and headed at a brisk walk through the streets of Canterlot. The town was quiet, as it almost always was — it was a nice place to be, with some real nice people, but no one was going to call it a centre for nightlife in the Kingdom of Atlas. The stores had shut, and while the diner was open it didn't look to be doing a roaring trade. In a place like Canterlot, people had dinner at home, with their families. A little light spilled out from the houses that Rainbow passed along the way, but not much, although more because folks had their curtains drawn than because they were in bed already. Most of the light came from the pale holographic streetlights that were projected along the sides of the road, illuminating Rainbow's way as she went along.

Scootaloo's house was a pretty cottage, or at least it looked like one for all that it was sat in the middle of a town, with a pair of columns holding up the first floor where it jutted out in front of the ground floor, and a tall thatched roof that rose at a sharp angle. It was narrow, with only a single window beside the front door and no room for any others — the first floor also had only the one window in front of it, which was in Scootaloo's room — but very long to compensate. It looked very old-fashioned and traditional — a lot of Canterlot looked quite retro compared to Atlas, and in a good way, the way that had people like Rarity using words like 'charming' and 'bijou,' rather than Mantle where everyone used words like 'unbearable' and 'dump' — but it wasn't, at least not completely. Scootaloo's parents might never be around, but they weren't such deadbeats that they didn't send money back, and some of that money had paid for a state of the art security system controlling the front door. Rainbow didn't need a key, or to disturb anyone by knocking on the door; all she had to do was pull off her glove and press her palm against the green scanner.

The scanner whirred as it scanned her palm print, then the retinal scanner above it flashed once in a sign for Rainbow to bend down a little — quite a bit, actually, as these scanners were at a height for Scootaloo and her friends to use — to let it take a scan of her eyes.

The system satisfied that she was, in fact, Rainbow Dash, the door clicked open.

She stepped inside the hallway, where the floor was chequered in squares of brown and green.

“Who is it?” Ms. Holiday called from inside.

“Rainbow Dash,” Rainbow replied. “I’m sorry I took so long.” In every sense.

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo cried.

“Sit down, Scootaloo; you haven’t finished your dinner yet,” Ms. Holiday said in a tone of mild reproach.

“Aunt Holiday!”

“We’re in the dining room, kid,” Ms. Lofty called out.

Rainbow walked down the hall and into the dining room, where she found Scootaloo and her aunts, just as Ms. Lofty had said she would. They were all sat at the table, with half-cleared plates in front of them that looked to Rainbow like they held, or had held, spaghetti and meatballs — Scootaloo looked to have eaten all of her meatballs already, while Ms. Lofty seemed to be saving them all for last, and Ms. Holiday looked to have taken a balanced approach. A shaker of cheese sat in the middle of the table, flanked by a pair of candles — unnecessary and unlit in view of the light directly above the kitchen table.

“Ms. Lofty, Ms. Holiday,” she said respectfully, nodding to the two aunts before turning her attention to Scootaloo. “Hey, kiddo, how’s it going?”

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo cried. “You’re here!”

“I told you I’d make it eventually,” Rainbow said, only slightly reproachfully. “But I’m sorry it took so long.”

Scootaloo beamed up at her. “How long can you stay?”

“Only over this weekend,” Rainbow admitted. “But after the Vytal Festival is over, I’ll be able to spend the whole break here, and we can do whatever you want.”

“Unless something else comes up,” Scootaloo muttered.

“If I have to beg General Ironwood to give me a break and let someone else handle it, I will,” Rainbow declared. “After all, what’s the point of being part of a big military if you can’t let other people take up the slack from time to time, huh?”

And anyway, Rainbow couldn’t help but think that after everything this year, she was kind of owed a break. Besides which, she really did expect things to quiet down after the Vytal Festival was over. It was like she’d told Sunset: Cinder was done, she’d thrown away her shot, and she’d have to go away for a while and lick her wounds before she came back for another go at … whatever it was she wanted out of all this.

No, once the tournament was over, things were going to get a lot quieter in Remnant for a while.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Ms. Holiday suggested. “You look awkward standing there looking down on us. Grab a chair, there’s plenty of room.”

Ms. Holiday was a slightly short human woman, a little on the plump side, with a round face and scarlet eyes. Her hair was a deeper shade of scarlet, streaked with tangelo, worn long and curly, descending in waves that curled up at the tips down to around her waist, as well as curving around her cheeks too. She wore little blue flower earrings and a turquoise scarf around her neck, as well as a one-piece blue dress with elbow length sleeves. Her voice had a slight twang to it, an accent that Rainbow couldn’t quite place.

“Thanks, Ms. Holiday,” Rainbow said, drawing out the chair next to Scootaloo’s and sitting down beside her. She put her book down on the table next to her. To Scootaloo, she said, “Things have been kind of hectic this year, and it’s kept me away, but it’s over now—”

“Is it?” asked Ms. Lofty.

A bird faunus, with a pair of pale yellow wings sprouting from her back, she was taller than Ms. Holiday — something that was obvious even when the two were sitting down — and leaner too, something that was not disguised by the light purple sweater she was wearing. She looked older, with bags underneath her opal eyes, but that might just have been because she didn’t get enough sleep. Her hair was cyan streaked with blue, and worn short, barely reaching the nape of her neck. Her voice was sharp and had a little bit of gravel in it.

Scootaloo sighed. “Auntie Lofty—”

“We have a right to be worried about you, Scootaloo,” Ms. Lofty replied before Scootaloo could finish.

Rainbow’s eyes flickered between Ms. Lofty and Ms. Holiday. “What’s this about?” she asked quietly.

“It’s about the Vytal Festival,” Ms. Holiday said. “We know that ticket has been paid for and all the arrangements made with your friends and Scootaloo’s friends, and we didn’t have an issue with it—”

“We were happy for her to go,” Ms. Lofty declared.

“But it was bad enough with the White Fang running around in Vale, but then this grimm attack!” Ms. Holiday exclaimed. “Surely you can understand that we’re having second thoughts about letting Scootaloo go to Vale after that.”

“But I’ve been looking forward to this all year!” Scootaloo moaned. “You just don’t want me to have any fun!”

“Relax, Scootaloo; they’re just worried about you,” Rainbow said.

“You agree with them?!” Scootaloo asked, in an outraged tone.

“No,” Rainbow said. “But I get it.” She paused for a moment. “You saw it on the news?” she asked.

Ms. Holiday nodded. “It was on all the channels. Those poor people in Vale.”

“Yeah, poor people for having such a lousy government,” Ms. Lofty said. “It looked terrible, and I’m sure it was terrible, and I don’t even want to imagine what it must have been like to be living there when that happened, but you have to ask some questions about what the Council down in Vale has been doing all this time that something like that could happen, and there was nothing they could do about it when it did.”

“You might be right, Lofty, but I think Rainbow Dash is trying to tell us something,” Ms. Holiday said.

“Just that there are a few things that the news didn’t talk about,” Rainbow said. “The Breach didn’t just come out of nowhere. The earth didn’t shake and then suddenly there was a hole in the ground and the grimm were coming through. It was the end of a plan, by … by the White Fang. It was the culmination of everything they’d been doing, or trying to do, for the whole year. And it didn’t work. Vale is still there, our forces stopped the Breach, and now the White Fang are done. They won’t be able to pull another stunt like that again, or anything else either. All the dust they’ve stolen got used up, and so did…” Rainbow stopped short of saying ‘so did all their men.’ “Plus, reinforcements are on their way from Atlas to Vale, and General Ironwood has been placed in charge of security, so he’ll be able to respond even faster to any more trouble this time. In a way, Vale is probably the safest place in the whole of Remnant right now, other than Atlas itself.”

Rainbow wondered if that might have been laying it on a bit thick, but where else could boast three Atlesian cruiser squadrons and attached supporting units, plus General Ironwood’s direct command?

“And it’s not just a trip to Vale; it’s the Vytal Festival,” Rainbow went on. “Watching it on TV is no substitute for being in the stadium, watching it live, in the crowd, with her friends. This is going to be something that Scootaloo will never forget.”

Ms. Lofty and Ms. Holiday were silent for a moment. They looked at one another.

“Do you really think it’s safe?” Ms. Holiday asked. “I want your honest, solemn word, Rainbow Dash: do you really believe it’s safe?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t want Scootaloo or any of my friends to go anywhere near it,” Rainbow said. “Yes, I think it’s safe.” I think that the strength of Atlas and Cinder’s stupidity have made it safe.

Ms. Lofty sighed. “Then it sounds like you’re in luck, kiddo.”

“You mean I can go after all!” Scootaloo cried. “Thanks, Auntie Lofty, thanks, Aunt Holiday!”

“We never wanted to spoil your fun,” Ms. Holiday said. “But you have to forgive us for being concerned, after everything.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to get to watch you compete live in the Vytal Festival,” Scootaloo squealed in delight.

Rainbow grinned and ruffled her hair with one hand. “I’ll make sure to put on an epic show for you in the first two rounds.”

“The first two rounds?” Scootaloo repeated. “You’re not going to put yourself forward for the one on one?”

“Nah, I don’t need a laurel crown to tell me how awesome I am,” Rainbow said, resting one arm on the back of her chair. “One of my teammates is really eager for this. Like really, really eager. She’s a massive Pyrrha Nikos fangirl and a tournament enthusiast, and it would mean more than pretty much anything in Remnant to go to the one on one rounds and maybe get the chance to fight her idol. And who am I to say no to that, just because I’d kind of like to do it myself?”

Rainbow felt rather proud of herself for managing to concoct a plausible-sounding story like that without even hinting at the fact that she’d been pretty much ordered to put Penny through into the final round.

“Is she any good?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Yeah, she’s going to be great.”

“I bet she won’t be as good as you would have been.”

“Probably not, but that’s a really high bar to clear, right?” Rainbow replied, making Ms. Holiday and Ms. Lofty roll their eyes a bit.

Ms. Lofty nodded to the book that Rainbow had put down on the table. “What’s that, Dash?”

“Oh, this?” Rainbow replied, holding up the book. “This is something that Vice Principal Luna gave me when I saw her just now on my way here. I haven’t looked at it yet, but I think it must be about the Lady of the North.”

“Who?” Scootaloo asked.

Rainbow hesitated. “I almost don’t want to say because I’m probably going to get it wrong, but she’s … a religious thing. Like, the way I understand it is that there’s God, and then there’s the Lady of the North who is like … she’s not a god, but you pray to the Lady instead of to God because God doesn’t listen to anybody except to the Lady. I think. I’ve probably not got that quite right.”

“I’d say that I didn’t take you for religious, Rainbow Dash, except that if you were religious, you’d be able to give a better explanation of what it’s all about,” Ms. Holiday said.

“I don’t really know why Vice Principal Luna gave me this book,” Rainbow admitted. “But one of my teammates is religious, so maybe it’s really for her.” Maybe it has some information that we can use to find out the truth about the Lady, and whether or not what Salem said is wholly true or just partly or just a great big lie.

But then, how would Vice Principal Luna know anything about that?

“Either way, I’ll take a look at it,” she said. “It would be rude not to.”

Scootaloo put the last of her spaghetti into her mouth, chewed for a little while, and swallowed it. “So, Rainbow Dash, do you have any cool stories from Beacon?”

“I’ve got a couple of cool stories,” Rainbow replied, in a faux-casual tone that suggested she was trying to keep it casual while not at all actually keeping it casual. She noticed the way that Ms. Holiday and Ms. Lofty tensed up a bit, but she smiled reassuringly to let them know that she was going to keep it age-appropriate. “Now, there was this one time, when all of the students were doing a practical exercise in the EverfreeForest — that’s the forest that sits right next door to Beacon Academy; it’s full of grimm—”

“Beacon has a forest full of grimm right on their doorstep!” Scootaloo cried. “That is so cool. Does Atlas have one of those?”

“Atlas has a city all around it,” Rainbow reminded her. “So no. If we want to do practical exercises, we have to go out into the tundra, or the Snowbound Forest, or other places, depending on if there’s a need. We don’t have a ready-made training ground right on our doorstep the way that Beacon does.”

“Personally, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing,” Ms. Lofty murmured.

“Anyway,” Rainbow went on, “the terms of the exercise were that students would be paired off in random pairs with people who were not on the same team as them. So Twilight got paired up with some random kid from Haven Academy—”

“Who did you get paired with?” Scootaloo asked.

“I didn’t get paired with anyone; I wasn’t part of the first wave of the exercise, although a lot of my friends were,” Rainbow explained. “Twilight, Flash, Blake, Ruby, Jaune, Sunset—”

“'Sunset'?” Ms. Holiday asked. “Not Sunset Shimmer.”

“She’s mellowed since I knew her at combat school,” Rainbow said. “She’s actually kind of cool.”

“I thought this was going to be a story about how you were cool,” Scootaloo protested.

“I’m going to be really cool really soon, just give me a second,” Rainbow assured her. “So, all of my friends, and a couple of other people, went down into the forest. The professors had set bait to draw grimm to the students for the exercise—”

“That doesn’t sound very safe,” said Ms. Lofty.

“It’s a huntsman academy, Ms. Lofty,” Rainbow pointed out. “But … you might have a point on this one, because … things didn’t go entirely according to plan. We still don’t know exactly what happened, but too much bait had been set maybe, or something, or maybe everything was done properly but we had bad luck, because this whole giant load of grimm showed up, a lot more than were expected to. We’re talking about nevermores filling the sky and beowolves and ursai on the ground, a lot more than the professors thought, a lot more than a small group of students in the forest would be able to handle. Now, they couldn’t just get out of the forest because, even though it is next door to the school, there’s a cliff between the two so the grimm can’t get into Beacon itself; that’s why you need an airship to pick you up, but with so many flying grimm, it was too dangerous for airships.” She grinned. “Unless, of course, you happen to be a super awesome pilot like yours truly.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “You got them out?”

“I got them out,” Rainbow confirmed. “Nobody else would dare to fly into the nest of nevermores, but I stepped up. With my friends in danger, I volunteered to fly The Bus into the forest and pick everyone up and get them out safely.”

“Where was the Atlesian fleet?” Ms. Lofty asked.

“Hamstrung by politics,” Rainbow said. “The Valish Council didn’t want to cause a scene by letting our ships start shooting.”

Ms. Lofty snorted. “I can see how Vale ended up in the state that it’s in.”

“And you did it, right?” Scootaloo asked eagerly. “You got them all out.”

“Of course I got them all out,” Rainbow declared. “I dived straight for the ground with a giant nevermore in hot pursuit. It look like we were going to crash for sure, everyone in the airship — Starlight was my co-pilot, with the rest of Trixie’s team on the guns — was certain that we were going to crash, but I pulled up at just the right moment, and it was the nevermore that crashed headfirst into the ground!”

“So cool!”

“Yeah, it was pretty cool,” Rainbow agreed. It was probably the coolest thing to happen in the entire year, not least because it wasn’t at all tainted by any kind of moral ambiguity: just her, a rescue mission, and a whole lot of grimm between her and the objective. It was as simple as it got, and simplicity always made for cool stories.

“But what about you?” she asked. “What have you been up to while I’ve been away?”

Scootaloo looked away. “Oh. Nothing.”

“Now, I know that isn’t true,” Rainbow said. “Come on, what’s been happening? How’s the scooter?”

“I can jump twice as far as I could before,” Scootaloo said.

“Twice as far, huh? And you say that’s nothing?” Rainbow asked. “Why would you keep that to yourself?”

“It’s just a scooter.”

“You can say that about anything,” Rainbow told her. “The cookies that your Auntie Lofty bakes are just cookies, the weapons I carry are just guns, The Bus is just an airship. But it’s my airship and my guns and your Auntie Lofty’s cookies, and it’s your scooter. It’s yours. It’s part of what makes you special. So don’t let anyone take it away from you, and especially don’t take it away from yourself. You’re Scootaloo, and you can ride a scooter like no one else in the whole of Atlas.”

Scootaloo looked up into Rainbow’s eyes. “Really? Do you mean it?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t,” Rainbow told her.

“So, do you think…?” Scootaloo trailed off.

“What?” Rainbow asked.

“No, it’s stupid.”

“Come on, I want to hear it.”

Scootaloo hesitated for a moment. “Do you think I could use my scooter as my weapon?”

Rainbow’s smile widened. “Well, maybe not your current scooter, considering it doesn’t exactly transform into anything, but a scooter? Sure, I don’t see why not.”

“Really?” Ms. Lofty asked. “I thought you might talk her out of that idea.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Rainbow told her.

“It’s a scooter!” Ms. Lofty declared.

“And there’s a guy in the Academy who plays a trumpet as his weapon,” Rainbow pointed out. “And it doesn’t even turn into a gun. Besides, I’m betting a scooter would hurt if it ran into you hard enough. Now, I admit that I’m not a weapons expert, and we’d really need Twilight to actually make this dream come true, but what about … does anyone have a napkin and a pencil?”

“Would you girls like some pie while you work?” Ms. Holiday asked, getting up and starting to clear away the dishes.

Rainbow looked at her. “Ms. Holiday, you don’t have to—”

“Oh, like I could serve up dessert and leave you sitting there with nothing,” Ms. Holiday said. “It’s Lofty’s cookie dough pie, and there’s whipped cream.”

“Well, when you put it like that, how can I say no?” Rainbow asked. “Thanks Ms. Holiday, and thank you for making it, Ms. Lofty.”

“Scootaloo?”

“Yes please, Aunt Holiday.”

“Here’s a napkin and a pencil,” Aunt Lofty said, pushing both across the dining room table. “But are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a real sheet of paper?”

“Maybe later,” Rainbow said. “But Twilight says that all her best ideas start with a napkin. She told me once that she got the idea for Wings of Harmony from a ketchup stain.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t get it either, but it seems to work for her,” Rainbow said. “Anyway, thanks for both of these. Now, Scootaloo, where do you want to start?”

“An awesome name?”

Rainbow chuckled. “The awesome name comes at the end, once you have the thing that you’re naming,” she said. “The first thing you want to do is decide what it is that you want. Well, we’ve kind of got there already; you want a scooter, right?”

“Right!”

“Okay, a scooter. Let’s start with a pretty basic thing,” Rainbow murmured, as she started to sketch out a standard scooter, not too different from the kind that Scootaloo rode at the moment. “But, let’s put an engine on there.”

“Why?” Scootaloo asked.

“First, because you can go faster that way,” Rainbow said. “Second, you won’t tire yourself from pushing it along. Say you couldn’t get picked up by air, and you had to go a long distance by scooter, you’d want the motor to make it easier. Speaking of which, say we lengthened the board so that your partner can ride on it as well—”

“What if,” Scootaloo said, “we didn’t do that but we had something that I could pull along behind the scooter, like that wagon that I used to use to drag Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle around in?”

“Now that is a cool idea,” Rainbow said. “What if that had wheels, but it also had some gravity dust, so that it could float over rough terrain?”

“What if the scooter did too?”

“Oh, yeah, this is going to be the greatest weapon ever.”

They talked, and they drew, running out of space on the napkin and moved on to regular sheets of paper, and as they talked and drew, they ate delicious cookie dough pie and whipped cream — Ms. Lofty really knew how to bake; she might even be better than Pinkie, for now at least.

They discussed how many different weapons the scooter should be transform into, starting with two — a gun and a close combat weapon — but moving up to three, four, five, before deciding that might be a bit much and going down to three again, but they could make up for it by having the wagon transform into a support weapon! Or more than one even!

When they showed this to Twilight, she was probably going to say it was wildly impractical, and they needed to scale back their ambitions, but for tonight, they were not just designing a super awesome weapon; they were having fun doing it.

And if that wasn’t exactly the most important thing, then it was, at least, a very important thing.

Comments

[Mastermind4892]

Time for some constructive criticism: This is starting to feel a lot like Naruto or another Shonen series. This is both a good and a bad thing.

Pro: Outstanding world building and character depth and development, where every character gets a powerful backstory and story arc. No one goes to waste.

Con: The storyline gets stretched out and there are so many filler episodes. The plot takes extra-long to advance, extra-long before the most riveting elements take place.

[Cody MacArthur Fett]

11243207
Naruto was one of the primary influences on the story when it was first created, and Scipio has said in the past while the original version was being written that he felt disappointed that he never got to achieve that goal of writing a tale with a huge cast of developed characters. Now by your words it seems he has. I'm sure this will bring him no small amount of joy to hear that his mission is finally accomplished.

[Mastermind4892]

I remember as much from a few years ago, even noticed a few quotes and references! Like I said, there is so much that has been accomplished here, while there is also room for improvement. There always is for everyone. The wise one accepts that he knows nothing, only that he is always still learning.

I can't wait for what more there will be to come! Good luck!

[Scipio Smith]

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11243207
I take your point. You're right, and while I'm glad to hear that there are parts of it that are working for you, I'm sorry that there are also parts that are not so much.

In general, I'm not sure exactly what to do about that at this stage; the obvious answer would be to trim subplots/characters, but again at this stage it would seem a little bit weird if the story just suddenly stopped mentioning the Mistralians, or Ciel.

That being said, the story is about to enter a stretch of what you'll hopefully consider... I mean, okay they are filler in that they're not about the fight against Salem, but they're some of the bits in the story that were my favourites before the rewrite or which I'm really looking forward to: in one chapter, so the chapter after this one, we've got the kidnappings in Low Town with Weiss and Blake teaming up, then there are some very meaty chapters for Sunset, then after that the visit to Equestria and after that Jaune and Pyrrha visit Jaune's home which I am really excited to be getting the chance to write. As I say, you could call that filler, but hopefully it's better than average quality filler.

And, to an extent, the reason this was all in V2 and now is because the point at which you can have all of this is running out; once we get to the start of 'Volume 3' I have high hopes that the pacing will speed up quite a bit.

[Mastermind4892]

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I didn't include it in my earlier post, but a part of it is indeed due to how there isn't anything 'new' lately that takes place after Princess Sunset Shimmer gave new hope to Ironwood. This has more to due with the unique situation of a rewrite taking place at the same time. That being said, it's fine if you want to focus your efforts on the rewrite for now. But sometimes I reread some of the latest chapters from Post-Beacon to keep the flow and energy alive in my mind's eye.

As for the part about fillers, that's mainly a similar critique to Naruto. In the case of SAPR, I was mainly referring to the aspect of certain parts of the storyline being stretched out. The character developments are indeed profound, valuable, and insightful, but they can still stretch things out. It just comes with the territory. Ciel reconnecting with her family and looking at Mantle, as well as Penny re-exploring her own roots and interests, are all as integral to their characters as Jaune visiting his family again. In comparison, Rainbow Dash paying a visit to Scootaloo (much as I love her) is closer to the definition of a filler, as it isn't as vital to the overall plot narrative or character development arc as Penny's latest introspections or Jaune visiting his family.

[Lancerguy]

“Maybe later,” Rainbow said. “But Twilight says that all her best ideas start with a napkin. She told me once that she got the idea for Wings of Harmony from a ketchup stain.”

Don't know why I am surprised to see this reference but here we are. Nice use of it.

Also, great to see other characters finally getting a chance to shine. It's been a long time coming Scoots, welcome to the party

[Snowdrifter]

"This new scooter of yours is awesome, Scoots!"
"It can transform into a high-velocity rotary assault cannon too!"
"What?"
"It's also a gun."

[Show Stopper]

You know, chapters like this always reminds me why I love RD as a sister figure more than a mother figure.

[Raul]

“Maybe later,” Rainbow said. “But Twilight says that all her best ideas start with a napkin. She told me once that she got the idea for Wings of Harmony from a ketchup stain.”

OOF!
I always find that tale sad…