My Little Pony Heart of Friendship: Tales of a New Beginning

by ShadowDurza

Crusaders of a Different Mark

The school bell rang out as the fillies and colts noisily entered the Ponyville schoolhouse. However, before Miss Cheerilee entered and took her place, the students muttered in confusion over the numerous empty desks now present in the classroom.

Silver Spoon turned towards her neighbor. “Do you think a bunch of new families moved to town?”

Diamond Tiara frowned and nodded her head. “Hardly! My mom and daddy would have definitely heard something, and they definitely would have told me!”

Twist giggled and turned towards Apple Bloom, excitedly spraying with each utterance. “Do you think they’ll be nice? I’d love to have new taste testers for my cinnamon stick recipes!”

Apple Bloom nonchalantly smiled and nodded. “Either way, new friends are new friends, blank flanks or otherwise! Right fellow crusaders?”

Scootaloo excitedly fluttered her wings. “Mm-hm!”

Sweetie Bell nodded and smirked. “You know it!”

The foals grew quiet as Miss Cheerilee trotted into the classroom. She smiled at the children. “Good morning, class!”

“Good morning, Miss Cheerilee.”

“I have an announcement for you all! As you’ve noticed with the new empty seats, we have a very special wave of new students! The representative diplomat Madam Maxine von Wrinkle has talked it over with both Princess Celestia and our Mayor Mare and had had an excellent idea to strengthen the relationship between us ponies and our new neighbors, the humans! Our school was picked first in an experiment to foster strong friendship across species during formative years, so I’d like to introduce our new students from the Everfree Settlement! The new students should be arriving about…”

The classroom turned their heads towards the door as they heard a knocking from the doors. Miss Cheerilee gestured to the door with her hoof. “Come on in!” Suddenly, Gustoff opened the doors and looked in, then he gestured for someone outside to follow him and a group of human children entered the classroom with with Augustus coming up on the rear. Miss Cheerilee ecstatically clopped her hooves together and faced the class, gesturing at each of the new students. “Okay, now I want each of you to step forward and tell us your names and something about yourselves!”

Initially, the group of new students hesitated. Shyly avoiding eye contact with the rest of the room’s occupants. The child at the front of the line, a boy with pale brown hair and azure eyes, was nudged by a smiling Gustoff. “Go on, no trouble!”

The boy took a deep breath and stepped forward, trying hard to keep eye contact with the colts and fillies. “My name is… Jasper Dumort. I’m a mineral elemental and my family worked as gem cutters and jewelers back at Core Metro. Right now, we’re working with some relatives who’re living in a cave in one of the nearby mountains to build up an inventory to start selling to some stores.”

Next, a girl with dark, smooth hair and dark green eyes whose mouth was covered by her coat’s upturned collar stepped forward. “I’m Ivy Bittersweet. I’m a vine elemental and I used to get in a lot of trouble for swinging and slinging between the skyscrapers in Core Metro’s Financial District while my parents worked as accountants.”

A girl with short feathery blond hair and heterochromia carrying a sketchbook with a brush stuck in a pocket on the spine stepped forward. “I’m Mona Easely. I’m a paint elemental and everything up here is so bright and colorful that I can hardly focus enough to start my next painting!”

A blonde boy with dark brown eyes under a pair of spectacles stepped forward. “I’m Koga Matsutake. I might be a fungus elemental, but to tell you the truth, I actually hate the taste of mushrooms.”

A girl with a black ponytail under an aviator’s cap wearing horn-rimmed glasses stepped forward. “I’m Alisa Herring. I’m a wing elemental, and my family has been part of the Core Metro Central Forces Aerial Division for over three generations!”

A boy with black hair and dark eyes wearing a black face mask stepped forward. “I’m Emil Craven. I’m a soot elemental and I’ve always wanted to see a murder of crows in flight because of all the old poetry my grandma used to read to me.”

A girl with dark skin and greasy dark green hair wearing a shirt with long sleeves stepped forward. “I’m Hortnese Bordeaux. I’m a swamp elemental and I like to collect and press wetland flowers!”

A boy with curly bright blue hair wearing a hooded sweatshirt stepped forward. “I’m Jean Boba. I’m a bubble elemental and my parents opened up a teahouse in the Everfree bazaar with an entirely new kind of drink my uncle invented, but we haven’t come up with a good name yet.”

Miss Cheerilee looked very pleased with how things were going at first. Then started frowning and raised an eyebrow. She focused on and held her hoof up to a paper on her podium. “Hm… Five, six, seven, eight…” She then turned towards Gustoff and Augustus. “Pardon me, but it says here that there’s supposed to be nine students from Everfree. A miss… Bebe?”

Gustoff turned to Augustus, who shrugged. “Well… There was a bit of a situation with her involved, so her caretakers decided to take her themselves.”

Suddenly, there was another knock on the schoolhouse doors. A much louder, rougher knocking. Miss Cheerilee awkwardly cleared her throat. “Um… Come in…?”

Coming crashing in was a very large human with a metal face mask and a chain wrapped around their forearm dragging behind a beach ball-sized spiked ball. Slung over his shoulder was a small squirming human with bright red hair done in a pair of pigtails wearing a long hoodless mantle. Crazy Joe picked up the struggling girl with ease and sat her down on her feet in front of the row of other human children. Once she got her barings, she angrily grunted and pointed her finger at him, her orange eyes narrowed. “Come on, Mister Joe! I don’t want to go to school and I don’t want to make friends with ponies! I want to be an underworlder just like you!”

At this, Joe narrowed his eyes and gestured with his free hand, making a series of impassioned grunts. Everyone else in the room found these mannerisms totally inscrutable. However, Bebe’s eyes grew wide in response to this and she started taking a defensive body language. “Y-y-you don’t get to decide that! I’ll go straight to the boss about this! On paper at least, he’s my legal guardian!”

In response to this, Crazy Joe’s eyes softened and he took a more open body language and series of gestures, grumbling with a more sympathetic tone. At that, Bebe just sighed, crossed her arms, and looked down, pouting. “When you put it like that… okay, I’ll play along… for now…”

Crazy Joe nodded to her and gave an affirmative-toned grunt. Then, he turned towards the other adults and gave them a wave, who awkwardly returned the gesture before he turned around and marched back where he came from. Gustoff turned towards Cheerilee. “I guess we should be going too. Good luck, miss. We’ll be back to pick them up and take them home at the end of the day.”

As Gustoff went out the door, Augustus turned towards the kids. “Now, all of you be good, or we’ll tell your parents!” Augustus turned to follow his partner out the door, leading Bebe to roll her eyes, cross her arms, and huff.

Miss Cheerilee quickly regained her composure and turned back towards the class proper. “I know this is a big change for all of you as the last few months has been a big change for all of Equestria, so I feel that the best way for all of you to ease into it for everyone, human and pony alike, to take an early extended recess to play and talk with each other, right now!”

Both the young ponies and humans reacted excitedly to this announcement and rushed out the door to the playground. However, Bebe stubbornly stood in the place her caretaker left her, her arms still crossed with a sour look on her face. Miss Cheerilee simply grinned and gestured at the door. “Go along, Bebe, have some fun with the others.” Bebe just groaned at this and indignantly followed the group out the way they went.

***

Applebloom wiped the sweat from her brow with her hoof after taking a rest from the games she and a few other ponies had played using the bouncy mushrooms Koga had created using his magic and the many-colored bubbles Jean had created to add some kind of point system to them. She looked around at all the human children and young ponies playing and laughing together.

Still slightly uppity Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon seemed to have preferred to spend their free time with the shy and reserved Jasper, who dazzled them with the many shining rocks he made appear out of nowhere despite him repeatedly telling them that magically created crystals were far less valuable than the real deal. Snips and Snails were playing a game so simple that even they could enjoy it by chasing around Hortense with their eyes closed as she called out after resurfacing from the ground out of the pits of dark, viscous liquid she could create. Mona had already become very popular with pony and human alike as the crowd gathered around her marveled at the puppets and structures that sprang up out of the tablet paper she drew them on.

However, a glow out of the corner of her eye drew her attention to the far end of the playground. She spotted Bebe by herself bending low to grab and rip out some pieces of long, untended grass. Then, she held it up ahead of her face and seemed to look really hard at it. A moment later, the end of the bunch smoked for a second before bursting into flames, getting a gleeful reaction out of her.

Applebloom got a sympathetic expression out of this display and tried to get Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle's attention from the teeter-totter, gesturing at Bebe. The Cutie Mark Crusaders reconvened together and approached Bebe. Applebloom coughed to get her attention. “You… really like fire, don’t you?”

Bebe turned around and narrowed her eyes at them. “Hm? Oh, well… I’ve just always liked to burn things, see? Back in Core Metro, I always thought I’d become an arson expert for the Underworlder gang.” However, she soon turned back around and sighed, shaking her head with a forlorn expression. “But I suppose they won’t need those kinds of services now, huh? That’s life I guess…”

That last statement was just so awkward that Applebloom couldn’t think of a thing to say in response to it. Luckily, Scootaloo tagged in. “You seem to know the underworlders very well. Rainbow Dash told me a lot about them from her trip to Core Metro, what do you have to do with them?”

At this, Bebe got up and turned to face the fillies, then scratched her chin with her finger. “Rainbow Dash… That’s the pegasus that socked Mister Mort right in the head, yeah? I think they’re friends now, but as for your question… I was just an orphan in the Lost District, and the underworlders raised me communally with a few others. The executives taught me a lot of cool stuff; Miss Katrina taught me to pick a bunch of pockets in a crowd at once without anyone noticing! But that’s not going to be much help up here since you ponies don’t have pockets. At least, none that I’m aware of…”

Now this line of speech was too much even for Scootaloo. However, Sweetie Belle decided to chime in without a second (or first) thought. “Well, you don’t have to worry about all that nonsense anymore! None of you guys have to hurt others or be what my big sister sometimes calls ‘parasites to society’ anymore! We’re all more than happy to give out a little pity to some creatures that just need a little more help than others!”

Sweetie Belle opened her eyes after finishing her well-meaning statement just in time to see her friends’ cut it out gestures and suddenly frowned. Realization suddenly dawned on her face and she apprehensively turned back towards Bebe, finding her now standing up facing them, her face slightly red and her hands clutched very tightly.

Bebe took a hard step forward, sending the three young ponies reeling back. “‘Nonsense’? ‘Parasites’? ‘Pity’? Is that all you think about us? I thought creatures that preached so much about friendship would be far from judgemental, but maybe it’s about time I start looking at you all at the surface level!”

Sweetie Belle got up and started backing away on her back hooves, making pleading motions with her front ones. “Please! I’m sorry Bebe, I wasn’t thinking when I said that!”

Bebe flicked her hands outward, a strong tension in her arms. “Oh really? Maybe thinking isn’t exactly some creatures’ strong points, have you thought about that if you can?”

Scootaloo continued to back away, but scrunched up her face and pointed a hoof at their aggressor. “Hey! Just because you’re a fire elemental doesn’t mean you can be so hot-tempered to just whomever?”

At that, Bebe’s whole body started tensing up and her entire face turned bright red, her teeth clenching. “A fire elemental? WHO SAID I WAS A FIRE ELEMENTAL?”

This exclamation was noticed by the other youths. Soon a crowd of pony and human children alike gathered around, not sure what to do themselves but ignorantly cutting off all chances of escape. Applebloom, against her better judgment, gestured to the angered human youth in an open manner. “Uh… that little thing with the grass and what you said kind of made it seem like you do have fire magic…?”

For a moment, Bebe just stood in place breathing hard and fast. Then the tension began to leave her body as her face slowly returned to its normal color and she started taking deeper, longer breaths. Eventually, her look of anger was replaced by one of exhaustion and she abruptly fell on her knees, groaning. “I’m not a fire elemental… I’m a lamp elemental…”

Further ignoring the warning signs she’d seen before, Applebloom turned her head to the side and held a hoof to her ear. “Pardon’?”

In response, Bebe shut her eyes tight and swung her face to the sky. “I said I’m a lousy lamp elemental! I’m kind of like a fire elemental, but my magic is way wimpier! I’ll never be able to do the same things a normal fire elemental can do, and I’ll never be any useful to the underworlders, especially how they are now!”

After that final exclamation, Bebe’s head drooped with another groan, sometimes throwing in a sob or two. The Cutie Mark Crusaders wanted to do something, but the whole ordeal still had them stunned. Thankfully, a pair among the crowd stepped forward and stood on either side of the little lamp elemental.

Alisa extended her other hand. “I’ve been told stories for years about how my forefathers and foremothers would stop criminals in their tracks, always going shwing, thwip, fwoosh with the feathers they’d let fly like arrows! But as for me…” In a puff of brownish vapor, the arm changed shape, dispersing to reveal a wing made up of a leather-like membrane. “...I’m not too sure what I could do with webbed wings like this, especially to help keep the order!”

Ivy held out her upward-turned hand, which suddenly grew dark green and began emitting tendrils of the same color. “I loved the feeling of freedom I got from swinging throughout the skyscrapers, that made me want to be a warrior, and adventurer! But warriors need to be able to fight both with a weapon and their magic. I’m definitely not sure how I’ll be able to fight with this!”

This moment of compassion was enough to shake the Crusaders out of their stupor and approach the trio led by Apple Bloom. “I don’t know how much you know, but a big part about our lives as ponies revolves around our Cutie Marks, something that appears when we discover that one thing that makes us special, the thing we were meant to do, our destiny!”

With a flourish of her mane, Scootaloo chimed in. “But a lot of that’s easier said than done! We spend the first few years of our lives as blank flanks and have to try out a ton of different things and think about a ton of stuff to discover that and make our cutie mark appear! But even after that, it’s not always so simple. It’s easy to misunderstand the meaning behind our cutie marks and what they can let us do or not do, or even to forget what our cutie marks meant in the first place!”

Finally, after considering her words a lot more carefully this time, Sweetie Belle trotted forward with an enthusiastic look. “Thankfully, after a lot of hard work and more mistakes than we care to admit, we got our cutie marks after figuring out how good we are at helping ponies and otherwise with finding and understanding their purpose in life! From what I’ve learned, you humans and your purposes in life are a lot more complicated than most creatures, but if you need any input we’ll be more than happy to help how we can!”

This time, the Crusaders turned to the crowd and gestured in a united formation. “And that goes for everypony and everyone here!” At this, the ponies started applauding with their heavy hoofstomps. After an awkward moment, the humans joined in, clapping their hands.

After a moment, Bebe quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and stood up. “Boss Noxus has been telling me for a long time to try to make friends my own age outside of the underworlders. And that silly little meltdown made me realize just how much easier it is to say exactly how I feel around them. Allright, I suppose the grunts and executives don’t fight or train alone for a reason. But first things first, if we’re going to work together, we need the most important part of our group!”

Ivy arched her eyebrow. “Oh, really? What’s so important that it comes first?”

Now, Bebe started showing her enthusiastic side. “Our name, of course! Since I’m an underworld and you’re a vine elemental, how about the terrestrial three?”

Alisa shook her head. “I’m a wing elemental that can already fly way better than most air tribesmen! There’s nothing ‘terrestrial’ about me! How about the Flying Trio!”

This time, Ivy shook her head. “I wouldn’t exactly call what I do ‘flying’ How about…” She glanced at the Cutie Mark Crusaders for a brief moment. “...Team Crusaders?”

Bebe cocked her head at this. “Seems a little simple, doesn’t it?” Then, she looked right at the filly trio before her. “...and just a little… derivative?”

Ivy extended her hand towards the original Crusaders. “Well, if we’re all going to be working together…”

Alisa wiggled her eyebrows at this. “You know what, I like it! Makes us seem swashbuckling… heroic even!”

Suddenly, the school bell rang out once again as Miss Cherilee went outside and started calling the youths back in. Applebloom rolled her eyes, smiling, and gestured back to the school house. “I suppose the finer points of our new partnership are going to have to wait. It’s time for class!”

The group steadily started moving back towards the building, chatting side by side.