Raiders of the Cutie Mark

by DJLowrider

Spreading Her Wings

All the running around that the girls had been doing that day was starting to take its toll on them. Fortunately, the refreshments Scootaloo had brought earlier were hitting the spot as they continued to study Zecora's book. Once again, however, they found themselves at a loss for finding anything that looked like a clue as to the whereabouts of the next – and in this case the last – piece of the key.

"This is gettin' frustratin'," Apple Bloom said as she sipped some apple juice. "I've been back an' forth through this whole book and I ain't seen anythin' that looks like it even refers to the last piece 'o the key or where it might be."

"Maybe we're just missing something really obvious," Sweetie Belle said as she pulled the book back over to her. "Or it could be another one of those page folding puzzles."

"Sweetie, give it a rest," Bloom told her as she closed the book on her. "Maybe we just need a lil' break to sharpen the saw a bit."

"But we're not cutting wood," Sweetie said in confusion.

"It's an expression, Sweetie," Bloom said with a frustrated sigh. "Just cool your jets fer a spell, okay?"

As Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle tried to relax, Scootaloo took a moment to look at the book. She didn't bother flipping through its pages, though. Her friends had already been through it enough as it was. Instead, she just looked at the book's cover and back. It was fairly plain with a pale yellow cover. As she looked it over, her eyes were drawn to something on the back of the book. There were two letters in the upper left corner that read "RO". She then noticed two letters on the book's spine that read "YG". Finally, there were two letters in the upper right corner of the book's front cover that read "BV".

"R – O – Y – G – B – V," Scootaloo repeated to herself, feeling like she knew those letters from somewhere. She slowly looked towards the sky as she thought. It came to her as she happened to see a couple of Pegasus ponies fly overhead.

"I think I've got it!" she exclaimed.

"Is it contagious?" Sweetie Belle asked with a smirk on her face.

"No, seriously guys!" Scootaloo told them, hopping up and down in front of them. "Check out these letters on the cover of the book."

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at the letters, but then looked back at Scootaloo blankly. Clearly they weren't getting it.

"Guys, c'mon!" Scootaloo said insistently. "ROYGBV? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet?"

"How're a buncha colors s'posed to be a clue?" Apple Bloom asked.

"They're the colors of a rainbow, duh!" Scootaloo told her. "The last key fragment's gotta be somewhere in or around Rainbow Dash's cloud home!"

"Oh great," Sweetie Belle said disappointedly. "Guess that brings this adventure to an end then."

"Why's that?" Scootaloo asked.

"How exactly are we s'posed to get up into Rainbow Dash's home, Scoot?" Apple Bloom asked her, her voice also laced with disappointment. "We can't fly, an' we sure can't walk on clouds either."

Scootaloo cocked an eyebrow at the two as she spread her wings. "Um, hello? Pegasus pony standing right in front of you both."

"Come on, Scoot, we know you can't fly," Sweetie Belle told her. "At least not yet."

"Guys, I totally can fly," Scootaloo said insistently. "I fly all the time. Watch."

Scootaloo's wings flapped so fast they practically buzzed as they lifted her a few inches off of the ground. She smirked at her friends who, regardless of what they were seeing, were still unconvinced.

"Hoverin' a few inches off the ground ain't flyin', Scoot," Apple Bloom told her. Scootaloo grunted as she let herself drop back to the ground.

"Look, the point is I can fly to a degree," she told them. "And it'll be enough to get me into Rainbow Dash's cloud home. I've done it before."

"That's all well and good, but is it such a good idea to just barge into somepony's home like that?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Especially when you don't even know if they'll be there or not?"

"It's what…one thirty now roughly?" Scootaloo asked. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom nodded to her. "Then yeah, she'll totally be there. She naps every day after lunch for at least an hour."

"How do you know that?" Apple Bloom asked. Just as she prepared to explain, Bloom put her hoof over Scootaloo's mouth to silence her. "On second thought, I don't think I wanna know how you know that."

"We're wasting time, girls!" Scootaloo announced as she hopped onto her scooter after detaching it from the wagon. "Let's get a move on!"

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom traded looks and shrugged at each other as they took off running after Scootaloo. After all, they'd both had a turn leading the way to the previous locations. It was only right that Scootaloo got the opportunity now.

Scootaloo put some distance between her and her friends, but not so much that she'd lose them. The truth of the matter was that this was one of those times when she felt incredibly jealous of both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. They were great friends and she knew they never meant her ill, but they both had something she never would: a family.

She'd been left in the care of Ponyville's orphanage only days after being born. She had no idea who either of her parents was or why she'd been left. She was old enough now that those who ran the orphanage told her she could try to find out about her parents, but she held absolutely no interest in doing that. When asked why, her reasoning was simple: they didn't want her when she was born, so why should she want them now that she was older? Besides, she'd found someone she considered family already anyway.

Scootaloo had looked up to Rainbow Dash ever since she'd heard the rumor that as a filly Dash had performed the most legendary flying stunt known to all Pegasus ponies: the sonic rainboom. It had inspired her to believe that if a stunt that was thought to be impossible could actually be done, then anything could be done. She dedicated herself to learning whatever tricks and stunts of her own that she could. She tried her best to emulate Rainbow Dash's own tricks, though she had to modify most of them since her wings weren't strong enough yet for full flight. Any time she happened to catch Rainbow Dash flying through the sky, she dropped whatever she was doing just to watch her fly and maybe study her moves a bit more. Truth be told, though, it didn't matter if she was just doing her job or if she was actually practicing her tricks; to Scootaloo any time she got to see her flying was as good as going to see The Wonderbolts, if not better.

Scootaloo had only actually begun making Rainbow Dash's acquaintance after befriending both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, since their sisters were close friends of Dash's. In the short time she'd actually spent with her idol, Scootaloo had come to understand that Rainbow Dash wasn't anything like what she'd imagined her to be. She was far cooler than that. Scootaloo didn't know if Dash was just taking pity on her since she was an orphan, but the rainbow-maned mare never let an opportunity pass to give her some form of encouragement. In return, Scootaloo had resolved to do anything Dash asked her to do. No task was beneath her if it meant pleasing the pony that, for all intents and purposes, was the closest thing to a big sister she would ever have.

Recently, Rainbow Dash had made a small modification to her cloud home. She had added a series of staggered clouds that circled her home and led up to it from the ground. Each cloud had been set within Scootaloo's reach for flying, though as time had passed Dash had adjusted the cloud steps to be further and further apart as Scootaloo's wings grew stronger. The Pegasus filly still had a long way to go before she'd be able to just fly up to Dash's front door, but for now at least she had a way to get there. Most importantly, as far as their present endeavor was concerned, she had a way to go search for the final key fragment.

Scootaloo parked her scooter by the first cloud step and turned to face Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, who joined her moments later.

"You guys just chill out here, but don't get too comfy," Scootaloo told them as she took her hat off and hung it on the handlebars of her scooter. "Once I come back with that piece of the key, it'll be time for the real deal."

"Don't you wanna take your hat with you?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Scootaloo shook her head at the unicorn filly. "The wind gets pretty strong up there. It'd just blow off and I'd lose it for sure."

"We'll keep it safe for ya, Scoot," Apple Bloom told her. "Good luck!"

Scootaloo nodded to the two and began her ascent of the cloud stairs, finding it quite easy to make her way up them that day. She reached Dash's cloud home a few minutes later and began wandering around, looking for her idol.

"Maybe she's still napping," Scootaloo said to herself. "I'll just take a look around and try not to disturb her."

"I'm right here, kid," Scootaloo heard Rainbow Dash speak from right above her. Dash was leaning off of a cloud several feet overhead, grinning down at the orange Pegasus filly. "I was wondering when you'd be stopping by."

"How'd you know I'd be coming here?" Scootaloo asked as she watched Dash drift down to her level.

"You're kidding, right?" Dash asked. "You and your friends are anything but subtle about anything you do. I spotted you earlier in the day running to Rarity's and Applejack's homes while I was flying around Ponyville. I figured eventually you guys would come visiting me too for whatever adventure you're on this time."

"You're not annoyed, are you?" Scootaloo asked worriedly. Dash scoffed a bit and tousled the filly's mane a bit with her forehoof.

"Not hardly," Dash assured her. "Hey, I know you wanna probably finish your business here quickly and get back to your friends, but wasn't there something the other day you said you wanted to show me?"

"Huh?" was all Scootaloo could think to respond at first. It took her a moment to switch gears from the day's adventure to her last conversation with Rainbow Dash, but once she did she instantly remembered what Dash was referring to. "Oh, it's nothing," she said in embarrassment. "Just a, uh…well…it's something I came up with recently. It's kind of a routine of sorts, I guess, and I wanted your expert opinion on it."

"You came up with a routine?" Dash asked, genuinely surprised. "You're still grounded though, right?"

"Yeah, it's not a flying routine," Scootaloo admitted as she tried to avoid eye contact with her idol. "It's more of a…" she mumbled the last couple of words.

"I didn't catch that," Dash told her, leaning closer.

Scootaloo sighed and swallowed her pride, knowing Dash wouldn't leave her alone until she fessed up. "It's a dance routine," she said.

"Dance, huh?" Dash said as she sat back on her haunches. "I'm not sure how much advice I'll be able to give, but sure. I'll watch ya."

"O-okay," Scootaloo said, suddenly nervous. "I'll just do a little bit of it, then. You know, so I don't waste your time too much. Plus I've gotta get back to Bloom and Sweetie at some point."

"Whenever you're ready, kid. You need some tunes to work with?"

"I've kinda got a specific song in mind for this, so I'd rather just do it without music for now. I doubt you've got the song anyway."

"Suit yourself."

Scootaloo took a few paces away from where Rainbow Dash sat and closed her eyes to try and focus her thoughts on the music as she remembered it and the moves she'd come up with to go with it. She tapped her right back hoof in time to give herself a beat to work with. After counting out eight beats, she began her dance. She spun around and began moving with quick, deliberate actions using her hind legs for motion while she gestured with her forehooves in various poses and directions. She added partial and full spins as she explored a large area around her in motions so smooth and seemingly effortless it gave the illusion that she was crisscrossing the cloud while hardly moving much at all.

The dance itself was an impressive show, but what made it a real spectacle was the effect it was having on the cloud beneath her feet. Every time she turned it created a spike in the cloud as if it were whipped cream being beaten. Every time one of her hooves stomped with any real force on the cloud it gave a small rumble of thunder. And as she finished the partial routine with a rapid spin, it threatened to create a small tornado around her. She finished the spin and dropped to her knees, bending over backwards to look up at the sky.

Scootaloo let herself catch her breath for a moment and then got back onto her feet. She walked back over towards Rainbow Dash, hoping for her to say anything at all about her performance. What she encountered was an utterly dumbstruck rainbow-maned Pegasus pony whose lower jaw had gone slack.

"It'd be better with the music," Scootaloo told her. She assumed Dash's silence meant she hadn't liked it. "At least then you could just ignore the dancing and-"

"That…was…AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash yelled at the top of her lungs, finally coming to her senses. "How the hay did you make the clouds do all that?"

"I, uh…don't know," Scootaloo said honestly. "I don't get to dance on clouds. I had no idea my moves would mess things up so bad. I can clean it up if you-"

"Whoa hold it right there!" Dash told her as she jumped up to her feet. "What're you talking about? Kid- er, I mean, Scootaloo, your dancing is fantastic. It not only looks cool, you can make clouds do stuff that even some seasoned weather ponies have a hard time doing."

Scootaloo studied the clouds beneath her intently as she avoided eye contact with Dash. "You don't have to say all this just to be nice, Rainbow Dash."

"Man, I really don't get you Scoot," Dash said as she shook her head at the filly. "You're usually bursting with energy and confidence, but you do something really amazing and you do a complete one-eighty in attitude. And for the record, I don't give out empty praise."

Scootaloo felt Rainbow Dash put one forehoof under her chin and lift her head until she was looking her idol in the eyes.

"You've got a gift here, Scootaloo," Dash told her. "You should be embracing it, not trying to hide it or act like it's something bad or wrong."

"I…I just don't know…" Scootaloo said skeptically. Her mind was still full of doubts about her dancing. "But…thanks, Rainbow Dash. I'm glad you liked it."

"Any time you wanna practice on a cloud you just come on by, okay?" Dash told her. "Whether I'm here or not. Though I sure wouldn't mind seeing more of that."

"Maybe another time. I actually came here looking for something, but I'm not sure how to describe it to you…"

"It's a little piece of bronze that looks like a slice of pie, isn't it?" Dash asked. Her knowledge of the key fragment caused Scootaloo no small amount of confusion.

"How'd you know that?" Scootaloo asked.

"Like I said, I saw you and your friends running all over the place earlier. Sweetie Belle had something like that in her mouth when you guys came out of Rarity's earlier, and I remembered I'd found something like it around my house a while back."

"You did?" Scootaloo asked excitedly.

"Yup. Been using it as a plate for nachos, though. Hope you don't mind."

"Mmm, nachos…" both of them said in unison. After a shared laugh, Rainbow Dash headed to her kitchen briefly and returned with the key fragment in her mouth. She flipped it into the air and caught it on one of her outstretched wings, offering it to Scootaloo.

"All yours, kid," Dash told her. "Mind if I ask what it is, though? I'm just curious."

"Uh…it's complicated," Scootaloo said, fibbing as best she could as she took the fragment and tucked it under one of her wings. "Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom understand it way better than me. I'm just along to keep them out of trouble."

"Well maybe I'll ask them later. You'd better get going."

"I will. Thank you so much, Rainbow Dash."

"Hey, it's no big. I've got other plates I can use for nachos."

"I, uh…I wasn't talking about that. I meant…thanks for what you said."

"Oh. You're welcome…Scootaloo. You're a good kid. Don't let anyone ever make you think otherwise for any reason, okay?'

Scootaloo nodded and began hopping down the cloud staircase back to her friends below. Rainbow Dash watched her descend for some time and then, once the three fillies were well on their way, she flew off in the opposite direction, meeting both Applejack and Rarity at a designated rendezvous spot just on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest.

"'Bout time ya showed up," Applejack said as Dash landed nearby.

"Hey, I had to treat this seriously," Dash told her. "Besides, you shoulda seen Scootaloo in action. She's got moves that I wanna figure out now!"

"Whatever moves she had would pale in comparison to the song Sweetie Belle sang for me," Rarity told her, sighing as she recalled the song. "She knows just how to tug at a pony's heartstrings."

"All 'o that don't hold a candle to Apple Bloom's smarts," Applejack said proudly. "She's gonna be a certified genius someday, I can tell y'all that."

"If you're all done boasting about your respective targets' skills," a voice said from the shadows of the forest, "can we please get on with your reports?"

"Shoot, didn't know y'all were there already," Applejack said, turning in the direction of the voice.

"I'm nothing if not prompt," the voice replied. "I've already been to check with Pinkie Pie again, and she is proceeding as planned. Is everything else in order?"

Rarity nodded. "The girls have all three key fragments now. I suspect they'll be headed for the temple tout suite."

"Then the rest is out of our hooves until they complete the trials," the voice said.

"You sure this is gonna work?" Dash asked. "I mean, we all did our best to encourage the Crusaders, but you know how they are. They might try something unexpected."

"There is always a chance for failure," the voice said. "You girls have done your best to make sure they're on the proper path. The rest is up to them. If they fail then that's that. It would be a shame for all of our hard work to be for nothing, but then perhaps there would be a lesson in that for us all."

"And if they succeed?" Applejack asked.

"If they succeed…" the voice said, pausing to chuckle briefly. "Well, let's just say we're in for one wild night."

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Next Chapter Preview: With the key fragments gathered, all that remains is for the girls to enter the temple and face their trials. What awaits them inside? And who is the mysterious pony who's coordinated this entire crusade?

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Author's Note: This story is going to have two separate endings and epilogues. I'll be posting one story and its epilogue in their entirety first and then the other. It'll be up to you, the reader, to decide which one you prefer. I thought this would be a more fun and interesting way to approach this story's conclusion than simply giving it a cut-and-dry ending. Enjoy!

Comments

[BlankFlankBrony]

I thought something was up. The intriguing thing will be to see who's the mastermind of this. The most likely choices, from my view, would be Twilight Sparkle or Cheerilee... but I could still be surprised.

[Shader]

I figured something was up when Rarity just happened to have the key fragment, AJ's and Dash's just cinches the deal.

[CoastalSarv]

I'll repeat myself: just like there is no way an ancient order of templars would have a clue that there would be a place called "Carousel Boutique" in present day Ponyville, there is no way they could have predicted that their weather mare would have a rainbow mane. OK, yeah, secret society in a fantasy world with usable magic, so prediction could be possible, sure. But it still feels very unlikely, story-wise, that the Dan Brown-esque clues are not planted by someone who knows the fillies. This just convinces me.

[animeyasha66]

THIS IS AMAZING!!

[Banksyt]

i'm still reeling at the fact that applebloom being as smart as she is hasn't figured this out yet...

For some strange reason, I want to say the mastermind is Fluttershy, simply because it's what I'd least expect. Nothing to do but keep reading I guess. I loved the story so far, and I can't wait to finnish it!

[DoctorAnatomy]

I FUCKING NEW IT, GOD DAMNIT.

~The Doctor

[Cinnamon Cake]

8935 but it was in zocoras book, so it wasn't from the actual ponys, just zacoras clues

[NotAnElk]

8935 The clues they're looking at aren't the ones made by the Colts Templars, they're Zecora's notes.