Sticks And Stones May Break Our Bones...
Warning/ Disclaimer: The following story contains graphic depictions of ANIMATED EQUINE MINORS performing and engaging in acts of bondage-dominance sado-masochism (BDSM) with other ANIMATED EQUINE MINORS. That means underage cartoon horses. If this offends you, feel free to post your gripes in my online complaint box.
Payback Is A Switch
Written By: Your Antagonist and Isseus
Written For: MagusNeon
Edited and Revised by: TheWattsMan, Aziraphael, and Cpl. Hooves
Chapter 1: Sticks and Stones May Break Our Bones …
Two exceptionally browbeaten Cutie Mark Crusaders sulked through the afternoon hustle and bustle of the Ponyville Marketplace. Unsurprisingly, a good amount of the cart vendors peddling toys and sweets found themselves avoiding the pair like they had contracted the Cutie-pox, and for good reason. As indicated by their grit teeth and beet-red faces, each of the fillies grew arguably more agitated than the other with each passing second. One would be hard-pressed to tell who was the more sullen of the two as the uniform scowls they wore were so malicious that they could intimidate an ursa major into an early hibernation. But after the tongue-lashing they’d received only moments ago, who could blame them for their frustration?
“Agh!” Scootaloo bellowed angrily, effortlessly discouraging the advance of an approaching lollipop sales-mare. “I’ve had it up to here with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon! I swear, don’t they have anything better to do than pick on us? It’s always the same old stupid put-downs, day in and day out with them. I hate it!”
“I know exactly how you feel, Scootaloo.” Sweetie Belle sighed, reaching out to give the wound-up pegasus a pat on the withers.
“No you don’t,” Scootaloo spat, shrugging off the gesture. Sweetie Belle opened her mouth to inject some sympathetic protest into the situation, but quickly shut it as Scootaloo brought the real cause of her anger into the open. “You and Apple Bloom have it so much easier just getting called blank-flanks. It’s not like they can call you a ‘four legged turkey’ or a ‘mule with wings’ just because you’re the only pegasus in class who can’t fly yet.” The downcast filly punted a small rock to relieve her frustration, but the now-airborne pebble could only take so much of her stress with it.
“Scootaloo…” Sweetie Belle reached out to her friend, but withdrew her hoof just as Scootaloo stomped the ground with a sudden ferocity.
“Those… those jerks! Why can’t they just bother somepony else for a change? Why is it always us, huh? What did we ever do to them?” She looked to her unicorn counterpart for some reassuring words, but all Sweetie Belle had to offer was an expression rich in sympathetic concern. Seeing how worried her friend was, Scootaloo cast off her anger with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry Sweetie: I shouldn’t have gone off like that.”
Sweetie Belle wrapped her forelegs around Scootaloo, drawing her into a tight embrace. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, they get to me sometimes, too.”
“I… I just wish there was some way we could give them a taste of their own medicine, make them understand how much it hurts.”
“So do I,” Sweetie Belle sighed, “but you know what they say: what goes around, comes around.”
“Yeah, well, whatever’s coming to those two could get here a little faster if you ask me…” Scootaloo gave Sweetie Belle an appreciative nuzzle before pulling away from the hug. “I don’t want to think about this anymore; let’s just get to the library already. I’m sure Apple Bloom’s already waiting for us.”
“Or she’s right there.” Sweetie Belle pointed just ahead of the pair to a fast-approaching yellow blur.
“Hey, y’all!” cheered the ever optimistic, southern twang of the group’s token country-girl, galloping excitedly to meet her friends. Yet for all her enthusiasm, her greeting was returned with two barely intelligible grunts. “What’s up with you two? Did somethin’ happen?”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo snorted. “Two bratty, little, stuck-up ‘somethin’s’ happened.”
“Oh horseapples,” said Apple Bloom. She could already tell by the looks on her fellow Crusaders’ faces that she‘d had the good fortune to miss a particularly nasty encounter with their usual tormentors. “What’d them two say this time?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Scootaloo grumbled, scuffing a hoof along the dirt.
Apple Bloom turned to Sweetie Belle hoping for some for explanation, but the Crusader only gave a timid shake of her head, implying that it would be best to just drop the subject. “Alright, you ain’t got to say anything if you don’t want to, Scoots,” she said.
“Thanks, Apple Bloom.” Scootaloo gave a weak smile in appreciation.
“So, we gonna start heading to the library or what?” Apple Bloom asked in the hopes of changing the atmosphere surrounding the three.
“Yup! We were actually just on our way to meet you there,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Which reminds me, what are we going to do there in the first place?” asked Scootaloo.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Apple Bloom said as she started trotting off. “See, I was helping AJ and Big Mac harvest the southern orchard the other day, and the whole time Big Mac kept complaining about his back hurting a whole lot. He kept saying something about going to see a chiropractor and AJ kept telling him he needed to see some kind of ackey-puncturist something or the other. And that’s when it hit me: we could get our Cutie Marks in ackey-puncture and chiropracting!”
“I think the word you’re looking for is chiropractory,” Sweeetie Belle offered.
“That’s what I said, ain’t it? Chiropracting!”
“Fixing backs?” Scootaloo asked skeptically. “Why would we want that as our special talent?”
“Well, think about it. Everypony has back problems, especially when they get old like Granny Smith or Big Mac—”
“I don’t think your brother’s that old.”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes at the statement. “The point is, if we became chiropractingers—”
“Chiropractors,” Sweetie Belle corrected.
“—not only would we get our Cutie Marks, we could become famous doctors and since we’d be working together, we’d be the biggest back-problem-fixer clinic in all of Ponyville, maybe even Equestria!”
“Whoa, that sounds like a great idea Apple Bloom!” said Sweetie Belle. “But do you even know the first thing about fixing somepony’s back?”
“Shoot, have you seen how well I fixed up our clubhouse? The way I figure it, fixin’ a broken spine couldn’t be any harder than fixin’ a rundown shed. Probably just some differences in the tools I gotta use; smaller hammer, smaller nails, smaller saw…”
“I think there might be a little more to it than that,” said Sweetie Belle.
“And that’s exactly why we’re going to do some research! C’mon y’all, we’re already here!” Apple Bloom bounced giddily through the front doors.
“All right, but I don’t want to spend the whole day looking up backs.” Scootaloo said, walking in after her, Sweetie Belle close behind.
“So, what should we look for first?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Hmmm…” Apple Bloom scratched her chin in thought. “Well, I was thinking we could start with some books about hardware and anatomy.”
“In that case, I’ll check in the ‘S’ section for ‘spines,’” said Sweetie Belle.
“I guess I could look in the ‘B’ section for ‘backs,’” said Scootaloo.
“And I’ll start looking in the ‘L’ section for ‘losers,’” called a gratingly familiar voice from behind the three. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle sighed, while Scootaloo clenched her jaw out of an anger that had only passed moments ago. A voice that obnoxious and an insult that blatant could have only come from Ponyville’s resident high-bred hellspawn: Diamond Tiara.
“Kya-ha-ha! Good one, Diamond,” cackled the not-quite-as but still fairly irking voice of Silver Spoon.
“I mean seriously, they’re going to look up backs? Who does that?”
“We do,” Scootaloo growled. “Got a problem with it?”
“C’mon, Scoots.” Apple Bloom placed a hoof on the pegasus’ flank in an attempt to move her out of the immediate area.
“Yeah,” ushered Sweetie Belle. “Let’s just ignore them and start—”
Silver Spoon was quick to dart in front of the the three, cutting Sweetie Belle off mid-sentence. “I bet it’s for one of their lame-o ‘Cutie Mark Crusades’,” she said quite snidely, her words piercing right through whatever slim strand of reason that was holding Scootaloo’s hot-headed temperament back.
“And what if it is?” the peeved pegasus pushed her friends aside, stepping right up in Silver Spoon’s face.
Silver Spoon hadn’t been expecting such a sudden and aggressive display from Scootaloo, and lost her nerve almost instantly when faced with the brunt of the pegasus’ wrath. “W-well, I-I mean the three of you are just—”
“Just what, huh?” Scootaloo challenged. The gray filly, still fumbling for her composure, was on the verge of breaking down. Fortunately for her, the other antagonizing element in the room decided to remind everypony of her own abhorrent presence.
“When will you three just accept that you’re just wasting your time with all these silly little ‘quests’ of yours?” Diamond Tiara,shook her head, effectively redirecting Scootaloo’s anger away from the shaken Silver Spoon towards herself.
“What’d you say?” the pegasus growled.
“Scootaloo, c’mon,” Sweetie Belle insisted, placing a hoof on her fellow Crusader’s shoulder, but Scootaloo remained adamant on not backing down.
“No,” The furious filly jerked away from Sweetie Belle’s grip, her gaze locked on Diamond Tiara’s smug face. “I want to hear her say it again.”
“Hm?” Diamond Tiara glanced at Scootaloo, her face a mask of faux-oblivity. “Say what again?” she asked innocently.
“Scoots,” said Apple Bloom. “Let’s just ignore them and go somewhere else, we can always come back later—”
“I’m not letting this go.” Scootaloo intensified her glare at Diamond Tiara. “Say it again.” she demanded, to which she was met with a scoff.
“Why are you so mad? All I was saying was that the three of you are wasting your time trying to find a special talent, because it’s so obvious that the three of you are just going to be talentless blank-flanks for the rest of your lives. That’s all.”
Scootaloo’s eye twitched. Within everypony, there exists a line. A line that Scootaloo knew the pampered pink prat was ready to cross at a moment’s notice and did so on a daily basis, but this time, she did more than cross the line; she damn near pole-vaulted it. Scootaloo ground her teeth together and took off galloping at Diamond Tiara faster than Sweetie Belle or Apple Bloom could react. Head buzzing and vision tunneled, she was dead-set on making Diamond Tiara pay for every inch of that remark, plus interest. She would have, too, had she not slammed face-first into the long, lavender legs of the resident librarian who barely noticed the impact, as her nose was burrowed in a particularly good encyclopedia about Minotaurian Martial Law.
“Hm?” The unicorn glanced up from her book to see a scarlet-faced Scootaloo aggressively rubbing her sore head. “Oh, hey there Scootaloo, I didn’t see you come in. Is there anything I can help you with?”
The angered pegasus opened her mouth to speak, but the voice that poured forth was not her own. “Hi, Twilight!” Sweetie Belle interjected swiftly, stuffing her hoof into Scootaloo’s mouth before the pegasus could say anything absolutely rash. She didn’t know what it took to get kicked out of the library, but she was almost certain that fighting was one of the fast-tracks to a lifetime ban.
“Hello to you too, Sweetie Belle. Do you and your little friends over there need some help finding anything?” Twilight gestured to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon who were preoccupied pointing and snickering at their blank-flanked counterparts.
“Uh…” Sweetie Belle glanced between Diamond Tiara’s sickeningly smug grin and Scootaloo’s livid scowl. “Nope! Not them, just us! …and not them!” She scooped Scootaloo into a smothering embrace, Apple Bloom joining them with a swiftness, sandwiching Scootaloo between her fellow Crusaders.
“Just you?” Twilight rose an eyebrow and shifted her gaze to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. “But what about—”
“Just us!” Sweetie Belle insisted.
Twilight gave the pair of excluded fillies a final glance and shrugged. “Well, alright then. What are you three looking for exactly?”
“A smug little brat’s teeth all over the floor…” Scootaloo grumbled.
“What was that, Scootaloo?” asked Twilight
“She said that she was wondering if you had any books about backs,” Apple Bloom quickly covered. “Y’know, spines and such.”
The librarian's eyes lit up at the request. “As luck would have it, we have several in our Equestrian anatomy section. In fact, just last night, I reorganized that entire wing of the library so every volume of each corresponding organ outlines the skeletal and physiological structure of the Equine body like a giant literary anatomical model!” The unicorn giddily ushered the three Crusaders down the aisles of the library. “Oh, you’re just going to love it!”
“Uh, right, sure we will…” Apple Bloom said in a reassuringly doubtful tone, proving once and for all how truly out of touch Twilight was with the rest of society. She cast a cautionary glance back at Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon only to find that the pair had disappeared. She had a sinking feeling that this wasn’t the last she and her fellow Crusaders would see of the troublesome twosome, but for now, there were more pressing matters at hoof; calming a hot-headed pegasus and reference materials for starters. Fortunately, it seemed that Sweetie Belle had the first issue under control, offering soothing words, compliant nods and affectionate nuzzles to a stern-jawed Scootaloo every so often.
“Here we are, my little ponies: the anatomy wing!” Twilight announced, chest puffed out and chin held high as though she were presenting the fossil of some exotic beast that predated the goddesses by several lifetimes. Her sense of accomplishment, however, would find itself met with a most untimely end as Apple Bloom—like any other normal library patron—paid no heed to the marvel of compulsive organization before herself; all she could see were several rows of books. “You know, I’m really surprised at the three of you developing such a sudden interest in anatomy. If I might make a few suggestions to get you started, I’ve found that the Perusably Practical Pony Physiology series and Multiple Maps of Muscles and Major Motor Morphology of Magical Mammals are great—”
“Twilight?” Apple Bloom asked, slightly trepid about interrupting the mania-seized mare.
“Yes, Apple Bloom?”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but could you just show us where the books about spines are?”
“Right,” Twilight said sheepishly. Encasing her horn with an aura of shimmering purple magic she enveloped a row of some seven or eight books and began to tug the volumes back. However a sharp crack swiftly followed by banging and screaming, broke the unicorn’s focus, and with it, her telekinetic hold on the books. “Oh no, that sounded like Spike,” she groaned. “I’ll just get these down for you and—” Another crash rang through the library and like its predecessor it was quickly followed by a wince-inducing howl.
“Don’t worry about it, Twi’; I think we can get the books down ourselves. Besides, it sounds like Spike needs you more than we do.”
“Alright, the stepladder’s right there,” Twilight gestured to one of the mobile staircases she kept around for Spike and the regular earth pony patrons. “Please be careful going up and down, it’s pretty well-worn,” she said, galloping off to attend to her potentially injured assistant.
Apple Bloom heaved a sigh of relief the moment Twilight was out of earshot. The farm filly had a feeling that if she’d listened to the librarian’s ranting for a moment longer, her head would have exploded. Apple Bloom noted the position of the books before giving her undivided attention to Scootaloo. The beet-red coloring in her face had dropped several shades, and though her jaw had relaxed from its walnut obliterating death-clench, it was clear from the grimace on her puffed-out cheeks that she wouldn’t be smiling anytime soon.
“So, did Twilight show you where the books are?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Eeyup,” Apple Bloom said in a perfect emulation of her older brother. She pointed to the tiptop of the shelf at the tomes in question, each pulled back a quarter of an inch while the rest remained flush against the shelf. “I was gonna grab that stepladder to get them down.”
“I don’t know, Apple Bloom; they’re awfully high up.” Sweetie Belle squinted at the titles. “Maybe we should just wait for Twilight to get them down for us.”
Apple Bloom gave the position of the books a second look and could have sworn that she heard a falcon screech. She hadn’t taken the time to appreciate just how high up the books really were. “Y’know what? Maybe waiting on Twilight isn’t such a bad idea, that ladder don’t look too stable,” she said skittishly. In truth, as an earthbound pony, she had an inherent fear of heights that she unknowingly shared with her fluffy-maned counterpart. However, lest she be forgotten, there was one more of their trio who, unlike the first two, was lacking in the altophobia department, and instead harbored an affinity towards high places.
“I’ll get them down,” Scootaloo said bluntly as she pulled the ladder along its tracks.
“You sure about that, Scoots?” asked Apple Bloom, once again shuddering at the very thought of being so far off the ground.
“Well, the sooner we get these books, the sooner we can start crusading, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“So I’ll get them down,” she concluded, swinging the ladder into place.
Apple Bloom sighed but offered no further arguments as Scootaloo began ascending at an incredible pace; she figured it was best not to frustrate her friend any further. The short trek to the top might have been just what Scootaloo needed to cool off. Though as one might suspect, cruel, cruel fate had a more vindictive plan for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and once again sicced its two most pestilent emissaries upon the three.
“Why, hello there, Apple Bloom!” cheered the last voice either of the fillies expected to or wanted to hear.
“Oh, no…” Sweetie Belle mumbled under her breath. She’d assumed that the pair had left to dunk small foals into boiling cauldrons with massive spoons or whatever it was the little beelzebubs did when nopony could see them.
“Silvy and I have been looking all over for you ever since you left with Ms. Sparkle earlier.” Diamond Tiara gave a fake sniffle, feigning hurt. “I thought we were friends; why would you exclude us like that?”
“Cause we ain’t friends…” Apple Bloom grumbled, avoiding eye contact.
“So, did you find your silly little books yet?” Silver Spoon snarkily snorted at Sweetie Belle, who turned her gaze to the ground, hoping it would somehow lessen the sting of the incoming beratement; it wouldn’t. “What were you looking up again… spines?”
“Oh my gosh, Silver Spoon, you have such an amazing memory!” exclaimed Diamond Tiara.
“I try,” Silver Spoon said, as she smugly pressed her glasses up on her nose.
“But you know, it’s kind of funny now that I think about it,” Diamond Tiara remarked, stalking around Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.
“What’s funny, Diamond?” Silver Spoon began circling around the two defenseless crusaders as well, effectively rendering Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle as little more than sheep awaiting a slow, agonizing demise betwixt a pair of ruthless lionesses.
“These three looking up books about backbones they probably don’t even have!” Diamond Tiara cackled.
“We do too have backbones!” Sweetie Belle thoughtlessly blurted out, realizing only too late that she had just cracked open a fresh bottle of one-sided verbal beatdown; Apple Bloom could only shake her head in silent remorse.
“Is that so?” Diamond Tiara challenged.
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle cried.
“Then what about earlier, hm? When you chickened out and ran crying to Ms. Sparkle?”
“Well, that was… I mean—”
“I think I know, Diamond…” Silver Spoon interrupted.
Diamond Tiara curled an eyebrow and her lips mischievously at her better half. “What are you thinking, Silvy?”
“Well, only a chicken chickens out, right?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Do I have to spell everything out for you, Diamond?” Silver Spoon sighed playfully.
“Well it’s not for my benefit,” Diamond Tiara stressed, tilting her head towards Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
Returning a gesture for a gesture, Silver Spoon rolled her eyes before narrowing them into devilish little slits. “What I’m saying is that these Cutie Mark Crusaders aren’t Crusaders at all!”
“They aren’t?” Diamond Tiara gasped. “Then what are they?”
“They’re…”
“Chickens!” The two cackled in unison.
Neither Apple Bloom nor Sweetie Belle dared to open their mouths a second time, lest they throw fuel on an already blazing fire. For the time, it was all they could do to glare at their tormentors, while the she-devils readied their beration batteries to shell the Crusader’s self-esteem with verbal artillery. But as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle braced for the assault, an exceptionally heavy book fell from the heavens and landed with a powerful thud. It should go without saying that this singular blunder followed by a belated “Look out below!”, effectively redirected Diamond Tiara’s attention upwards to Scootaloo who was busy swatting at a book that was just out of her reach.
“Hey, Silvy, do you see what I see?” Diamond Tiara announced in an obnoxiously loud manner.
“You mean that dodo bird on the step ladder?” asked Silver Spoon. “She looks more like a stool pigeon to me.”
“Like, why are you even up there looking for books in the first place? It’s not like kiwis can read or anything.”
“A kiwi isn’t even a bird, it’s a fruit!” Scootaloo shouted from her perch.
Apple Bloom rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably as she remorsefully prepared to defend Diamond Tiara’s insult with taxonomical fact. “Actually, Scoots, kiwis are birds,” she called up.
“What?”
“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle said. “They’re small, round, brown and—”
“Flightless!” Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon once again shouted in unison.
“Why don’t the two of you just shut up and leave me alone!” Scootaloo shouted down.
“Sheesh, there’s no need to get so Emu-tional,” said Silver Spoon.
“Careful, Silvy, don’t want to ruffle those flightless feathers. You might make this whole thing super Auk-ward,” Diamond Tiara chipped in.
“Oh Diamond, that’s so fowl!”
“I said: shut up!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, are we rocking the little blank-flanked birdy’s cage too hard?” Diamond Tiara sneered.
Right there at the top of that ladder, something in Scootaloo's brain snapped, causing her to effectively lose her temper for the third time in two hours. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” In her rage, Scootaloo slammed her hooves into the bookshelf which in turn caused several of the books to bounce and shift towards the edge. But Scootaloo, with her vision reddening and tunneling from anger, paid the teetering volumes no heed until it was too late.
The impressive strength of her strikes had moved every one of the tomes to a precarious distance and it was just Scootaloo’s bad luck that an encylopedia the size of her own body had leapt from its perch in an attempt to make acquaintance with her face. Time seeming to slow down as the book fell nearer and nearer, Scootaloo reacted with an urgency that was only just swift enough, as she leapt from the step-ladder hooves outstretched and flailing. In her frenzy she managed to catch the edge of one of the shelves.
“Scootaloo, are you alright?” a concerned Sweetie Belle shouted up.
“Yeah, just, y’know… hanging in there,” she said flatly.
“Hang on, Scoots,” said Apple Bloom. “We’ll get you down somehow!”
“No worries, Apple Bloom, I got this.” Just as the pegasus prepared to go through the motions of swinging herself back to a more reassuring foothold, the shelving she’d been hanging onto gave a sudden jerk.
“Scootaloo! You’ve got to let go!” Sweetie Belle shouted from below.
“Let go? Are you crazy? I’ll fall!”
“We’ll catch you! Just let go!” The unicorn urged.
“No way!”
“Scootaloo, this ain’t the time for that, just let go!” Apple Bloom barked.
“I can get down just fine on my own!” With stubborn determination clouding her better judgement, Scootaloo grasped higher at the ledging, but only succeeded in instigating another violent jerk that sank her even lower than the first. The cliff-hung filly clawed desperately at the shelf to regain leverage, but found her efforts to be in vain as the books on the shelf slid forward, threatening to crush her if she didn’t act fast.
“Let go!” Apple Bloom shouted again.
Scootaloo, while hesitant, didn’t have to be told twice to choose life over death by dictionary. With shut eyes and a knot in her gut, she pushed away from the bookshelf and plummeted screaming. Yet, despite all the flailing and melodrama, her plummet met its swift and untimely end at the union of Sweetie Belle’s and Apple Bloom’s incredibly soft forelegs.
“See, I told you we’d catch you.” Sweetie Belle nuzzled the shaken Scootaloo.
Scootaloo blushed at the show of affection. “Y-yeah… you can stop now, Sweetie Belle.”
Sweetie Belle did not stop.
But, unlike her friends, Apple Bloom would not—or rather could not— be taken in by the platonic atmosphere as her attention was fixed to a pending problem several meters high. “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” was all she managed to sputter as the shelf Scootaloo had been hanging onto collapsed, releasing a payload of books that would crush the crusaders under an avalanche of knowledge. Acting quickly, Apple Bloom shoved Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo out of harm’s way with enough time leftover to cover her head with her hooves before the books hit. If the books had hit that is.
Seconds passed and there was still no impact, only silence and stillness. Confused, the cowering filly looked up to find the books had stopped mid-fall, each one encased by a shimmering wall of violet light. Apple Bloom had no time to appreciate or speculate on the sight as two pairs of hooves seized her by the shoulders and whipped her from underneath the books, into the embrace of her fellow Crusaders.
“It’s alright, Apple Bloom. We’ve got you,” said Sweetie Belle, helping the earth pony to a stand.
“Are you girls alright?” called an exceptionally concerned Twilight Sparkle.
“Yeah, thanks to you, Twilight,” said Apple Bloom. “If you hadn’t been there, I would’ve been crushed for sure.”
Twilight heaved a sigh of relief. The worst had been avoided and the fillies looked to be unharmed. She looked around the devastation, and felt a slight tingle in her chest from her wounded professional pride, but it only went to fuel the frustrated anger swelling within her.
“What in Equestria were you three doing? I turn my back for a minute and you’ve managed to bring down an entire bookshelf! You could have seriously hurt yourselves, or worse!” She didn’t even notice her voice growing in volume.
Apple Bloom stepped forward in the hopes of pleading the case of her and her fellow Crusaders. “We didn’t mean to—”
Twilight held up a hoof, effectively silencing Apple Bloom mid-sentence. “You are three very lucky fillies. If your friends hadn’t come to get me when they did, I’d have to explain to your families why you had to be taken to the hospital. I know you’re young and full of energy, but this library is not a playground.” She had to pause to catch a breath, and Apple Bloom was quick to take the lull in the librarian’s tirade to ask the ten-bit question:
“Our friends?”
“Yes, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon…” Twilight motioned behind herself with to the fillies of the hour, both of whom sauntered forth bearing masks of worry on their faces and angelic halos above their heads. “…came to get me when they noticed you three were climbing the bookshelves, of all things.”
“But they—” Scootaloo tried, but to no avail. Her objections were overruled by the court of Twilight.
“You should be thankful you have such good and caring friends.” She stopped to look at the devastation littering the floor, a single tear rolling out of her eye in mourning for her late literary anatomy model. “I spent all last night organizing these shelves, and now they’re… they’re just…” Twilight shook her head. “I’m very disappointed in you three. I understand how badly you want your Cutie Marks, believe me I do, but you need to learn moderation.”
“We’re sorry,” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom said in tandem, leaving Scootaloo.
“I’m sure you are.” Twilight levitated a nearby encyclopedia for inspection and grimaced as a stream of pages pages liberated themselves from the book, scattering across the floor. As far as she was concerned, it may as well have been blood that was leaking from the book instead of paper. “Look,” she dropped the book to the ground with a sigh. “I know you aren’t bad ponies, but even good ponies do bad things, and they need to be punished for it to learn not to do it in the future.”
“P-punished?” Sweetie Belle asked with a quiver in her voice.
“I’m afraid so, Sweetie Belle.”
“But that’s so bogus!” Scootaloo blurted out against her better judgement. She whipped an accusing hoof in Diamond Tiara’s general direction. “It was their faul—”
A cream yellow hoof shot forward and shushed the understandably indignant pegasus. Much as she’d have liked to stand and argue the innocence of herself and her friends, Apple Bloom knew a lost cause when she saw one, and given the library’s present state of affairs they may as well have been stranded smack-dab in the heart of the EverFree Forest. Swallowing her pride, Apple Bloom stepped forward, prepared to save face by tarnishing her integrity for a wrong she did not commit. “It was our fault.” The solemnly spoken confession spread like ashes on her tongue, but she persevered and washed it down with a dose of modest dishonesty. “We’ll take whatever punishment you give us, Twilight. We… we deserve it.”
Flabbergasted, Scootaloo snorted and turned away from Apple Bloom in disgust, unable to wrap her mind around the fact that her friend had gone out on the matter without so much as whimper.
Behind Twilight’s legs, two bratty little mouths curled up, revealing nasty smiles fit for a certain spirit of chaos. Diamond Tiara and her accomplice were almost beside themselves from trying not to openly giggle at the plight of their scapegoats as their ward prepared to administer her admonishment.
“Two weeks,” Twilight said sternly. “Starting this moment the three of you are banned for two weeks. I was going to tell your sisters about what you’d done—” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom winced at the thought of the chewing out they’d receive from their older siblings, while Scootaloo broke her Silver Spoon-centered sneer to entertain the notion of Rainbow Dash high-hoofing her out of appreciation for the collateral damage. “—but, since you’ve shown so much integrity and maturity, I’ll just let you off with a ban that starts immediately. I’m sorry girls, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Relieved at the shorter sentencing, repulsed by the circumstances, and above all reluctantly the Crusaders swallowed their collective pride and welcomed their defeat with open forelegs. Apple Bloom nudged Scootaloo’s rump with her head to get the grumbling, orange filly moving. Sweetie Belle took a few steps forward, but stopped in front of Twilight Sparkle.
“Twilight?” she said.
“Hm?” The disciplinarian rose an eyebrow.
“I know you’re punishing us, but I was wondering… I mean…” Sweetie Belle fiddled with her hooves as she shyly peeked out from underneath her mane “ …could we maybe take one book with us? Pretty please? It’s why we came in the first place, and it’d really help a lot with our crusading.”
“Well, I—” Twilight shut her mouth as quickly as she opened it. The sincerity in Sweetie Belle’s voice caught her off-guard and immediately slammed her with a conflict of interest. On one hoof she was intent on punishing the Crusaders so that they might see the error of their ways, but on the other, it just wasn’t in her nature to deny others the privilege of betterment through literature. “I suppose it’s alright. I’ve never been able to resist a book, and what kind of a librarian would I be if I said no?”
“You mean it?”
Twilight indiscriminately levitated three good-sized tomes from the pile at her hooves and onto the requestor’s back. “Sure I do,” she said, telekinetically extracting a pair of checkout cards from the three books.
Sweetie Belle’s eyes lit up at the gesture, while her knees buckled from the weight. However, before she could express her gratitude, Twilight shooed her after her friends.
“What took you so long to catch up?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Twilight gave me some anatomy books so we could catch up on that research we missed out on.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah, great…” Scootaloo said sardonically. “Can we just go already? I want to put as much distance between us and—”
“Ahem,” Twilight coughed, garnering the attention of the Crusaders. “Girls, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Huh?”
“Shouldn’t you thank your friends for all their help?” Twilight gestured to a particularly smug faced Silver Spoon and an even smugger Diamond Tiara.
“You can’t be—” Scootaloo started before Apple Bloom silenced her with a well-aimed shin kick. The three crestfallen Crusaders stood in a line in front of the two bullies. None of them could bring themselves to be the first one to speak.
“Well?” Twilight said, her voice tinged with insistence.
“T-t--t …” Sweetie Belle started, but stuttered to a stop.
Apple Bloom took a step forward. “Thank you, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon for… for… helping and stuff.”
“Yeah… thanks” Scootaloo said, almost biting her tongue.
Silver Spoon was beaming at them with the ill-gained arrogance of a knightess in shining armor, while Diamond Tiara leaned forward and said, “I’m just so happy you didn’t get hurt. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t dash to your rescue? Just remember not to do it again.” The pink filly fluttered her eyelashes for maximum pestilence.
“Off you go then,” Twilight said while shooing the Crusaders towards the door. She turned to talk to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. “I have a few cookies and cupcakes left over from earlier. I think my two little lifesavers deserve a little something for their heroics, don’t you?”
The collective stomachs of the egressing Cutie Mark Crusaders turned over simultaneously, but they kept their course, even as their tormentors proceeded to ham up their victory.
“Oh, I don’t know Ms. Sparkle, we’d hate to impose,” said Diamond Tiara.
Apple Bloom dry heaved at the pseudo sincerity.
“And Ms. Cheerilee always says that helping others is its own reward,” said Silver Spoon.
Sweetie Belle, unable to believe that an intelligent pony like Twilight Sparkle couldn’t see past the siren’s plastic smiles, glanced back in time to see her rubbing Silver Spoon’s ‘modest’ little mane affectionately. Sweetie Belle shook her head out of disappointment.
“Nonsense, you two deserve it,” said Twilight.
“Well, if you insist, Ms. Sparkle,” said Diamond Tiara.
The ill-gotten praise flitted through Scootaloo’s ears like the soothing sound of fireworks thrown into a box of epileptic kittens. Fuming, she grumbled under her breath about the various things she felt her ‘saviors’ truly deserved; a judo flip to the bottom of a deep, dry well came to mind. Still, she somehow managed to keep her tongue sheathed and her temper in check until the three were well out of earshot and on their way to hopefully greener pastures.
It wasn’t long before the girls found their way to a nearby park and took residence beneath the shade of an aged oak tree. Sweetie Belle bucked the weighty books from her back and collapsed to the grass at her hooves with a relieved sigh, where she was promptly joined by Apple Bloom. The pair sought to savor their reprieve while it lasted, for there was still the lingering issue of their temperamentally challenged comrade who to their amazement had managed to remain placid up until now. Though between Scootaloo’s hyperventilation, aimless pacing, and the uncontrolled twitching in her left eye it became apparent that they were only a spit’s distance from witnessing a complete meltdown.
“Ngh!” she finally grunted through gnashed teeth. “Those… stupid… little… agh!” Scootaloo lashed out at the oak tree with an incredibly raw double-leg buck, the impact of which left an impressively deep imprint of her hooves on the bark. “I’m so mad I don’t even know what to call those little witches right now!”
“Hey, come on Scootaloo, it wasn’t that bad,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Yeah, it could have been worse. I’d say we got off pretty lucky with just two weeks,” said Apple Bloom. Sweetie Belle nodded lazily in agreement.
Scootaloo wasn’t so easily swayed. “Wasn’t that bad? Could have been worse? That was as bad as it gets! In fact, I’m willing to bet it’s only going to get worse from here!”
“Look, Scoots,” Apple Bloom stood up. “What happened, happened. We should be grateful that Twilight just let us off with a two week—“
“It’s not about the punishment!” Scootaloo stomped a hoof in righteous indignation. “It’s about the fact that they just walked all over us and that we— no, that you two just let them!”
The accusation hit its mark and struck deeply. Feeling a sense of guilt spreading from the wound, Apple Bloom averted her gaze to the ground. “We didn’t have any choice…”
“Yes, you did! We had a chance to prove our innocence, but you just took the easy way out! You always take the easy way out! Why don’t you stand and fight for a change?”
“And do what, Scoots? Huh? What was I gonna say? They played Twilight and made us look guilty. Everything was against us, and we had no proof, so, what was I gonna say?”
“You could have said something! Anything else! Anything else would have been better than just accepting a punishment for something that wasn’t even our fault!”
Apple Bloom shook her head out of frustration. “Why don’t you get it? They set us up, and there was nothing we could do about it!”
“There wasn’t nothing, you—“
“Scootaloo, just stop it!” cracked the prepubescent voice of Sweetie Belle who had heard enough of the bickering to know that it wasn’t going anywhere positive anytime soon. “Just let it go, it’s done already. Like Apple Bloom said: ‘what happened, happened’.”
Scootaloo opened her mouth to protest, her belligerence ready to make an enemy out of the unicorn as well but the words caught in her throat as Sweetie Belle took her friend’s hooves with her own. “It’s time to move on,” she said, her voice soothing as chamomile tea.
Scootaloo nervously met Sweetie Belle’s soft, welcoming features and felt her hostility melt away. “I… I’m sorry,” she shakily apologized.
Sweetie Belle rewarded the pegasus with a warm nuzzle. “I forgive you, but I’m not the one you need to apologize to.” Sweetie Belle tilted her head in Apple Bloom’s direction, it didn’t take long for Scootaloo to catch her meaning.
“Apple Bloom, I—“
Apple Bloom waved the apology away as though it were no more than a dust cloud. “No need, Scoots. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Yeah, it’s just… they…”
Apple Bloom was quick to pat her troubled friend’s back in a reassuring manner. “C’mon, let’s forget about them for now, we got some crusading to do.”
Scootaloo returned the sentiment with a weak but determined smile. “Right,” she said. Freeing her hooves from Sweetie Belle’s grasp, she strode over to the very finite puddle of resources at their disposal and began sifting through the books, seeking out the one that seemed the easiest to read.
“Hmm… Simply Spectacular Spinal Surgeries looks pretty good but it also looks pretty long… Apple Bloom can have this one.” She tossed the book behind herself in favor of inspecting a slimmer tome. “Let’s see, this one’s called A Virtually Vehement Volume of Verily Various Vertabrae Version VII— ugh, so many big words,” Scootaloo paused to rub her temples before concluding, “That’s right up Sweetie Belle’s alley.”
Eager to begin their Crusade as quickly as possible Scootaloo scooped the final book from its resting place. She wasn’t even half a glance into her assessment of the tome’s readability when she found herself confronted with a glaring issue. “Huh, that’s weird.” She turned the book over with a scrutinizing eye and even checked its spine, but there was nary a trace of print indicating the book’s identity. “There’s no title on this thing.”
“What do you mean ‘no title’?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Exactly what I said,” Scootaloo passed the book off to Sweetie Belle. “It’s just blank.”
“Maybe the title’s on the inside cover.” Sweetie Belle sought to open the book, but found that it held fast, refusing to part even a crack. “Hey, what’s with this book? It won’t open!”
Apple Bloom rose an eyebrow. “The book won’t open?”
“Pfft, let me see that.” Scootaloo snatched the book out of Sweetie Belle’s hooves and put the unicorn’s account to the test. “Huh. It’s really stuck.”
“I told you.” Sweetie Belle pouted.
“Whatever—ngh—I can—guh—open it!” The book remained adamant “Sweetie Belle, take this side—” Scootaloo waited for Sweetie Belle to grasp the opposite cover of the book. “—and pull!” The two tugged and pulled at their respective halves of the cover, yet it refused to budge. In a show of desperation, both fillies threw all of their body weight into a single, powerful tug. Some would argue too powerful. The two soon found themselves flung backwards into the dirt by their own strength, while the book merely dropped to the ground, not one page out of place.
Apple Bloom, intrigued by the obstinate nature of the book, picked it up to begin her own inspection of it. The earlier, futile show of force earlier had her convinced that brutality wouldn’t serve her well, but there had to be a means to opening this book. A quick pass over the fore-edge brought a rather interesting detail about the book’s adamancy to her attention. “Hey, I found something.”
“What’d you find?” asked Sweetie Belle
“A lock.” the farm filly said flatly. “Like y’all’d have if you took a minute to look at the dang thing.”
“Well, that’s no good,” said Scootaloo. “We don’t have a key.”
“We could… hmmm…” Sweetie Belle paused scratch her chin in thought. “ …make a key out of soap?”
“Nah, that’d take too long, let’s just tear the lock off!”
“Mmm … I got a better idea.” Apple Bloom bit into Sweetie Belle’s mane and fished out a simple, yet pivotal bobby pin, causing a swirled curl to deflate.
“Hey!” Sweetie Belle protested but her gripes fell on deaf ears: Apple Bloom had already set to work. Jamming the pin into the archaic old lock produced a grating sound that was like music to her ears. Twisting and prodding, she could feel muted pops and clicks signifying that she was making swift progress. Then at long last she felt a strong tension in the pin and jerked it as hard she could, breaking the pin in addition to the lock. “Easy as apple pie.” She dropped the book to the ground, kicking the sealed cover over.
“Whoa, where’d you learn to pick locks like that?”
“Big Mac likes to lock up the tool shed, I like to get in.” Apple Bloom shrugged.
“Looks like I was right,” said Sweetie Belle whose nose was presently buried in the former chore of a book’s well-worn parchment pages.
“About what?”
“The title being on the inside.”
“Oh yeah?” said Scootaloo. “What’s this pain-in-the-flank called then?”
“Give me a second, it’s hoof-written.” Squinting, Sweetie Belle leaned forward and read slowly, “Mistress Moon's Primer of Provocations and Punishment Play for Particularly Perverse Prats and Peons: A Guide For Budding Dominators and Dominatrixes?”
“What the hay kind of a title is that?” asked Apple Bloom. “I mean I know what punishment is but what the hay is ‘punishment play’? And for that matter what’s a ‘Dominatrix’?”
“I don’t know, but it already sounds more awesome than those dusty old anatomy books!” exclaimed an enthusiastic Scootaloo. “C’mon, Sweetie Belle, what are you waiting for? Open it and find out what it’s about already!”
Admittedly the title alone had unnerved the unicorn, but considering how much time they’d spent cracking it open, it’d have been a waste to just keep it shut. “R-right.” With a cautious hoof, Sweetie Belle swept several blank pages aside, eventually settling on what she recognized as the index page, which interestingly enough was also hoof-written. “This looks like a good place to start.”
“Lemme see.” Scootaloo laid down next to Sweetie Belle and began perusing the table of contents. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the eye-pleasing if older cursive script that had been woven into the oddest assortment of words she’d ever seen, most of which she’d never even heard of. “‘Corporal Punishment?’ Probably royal guard stuff… ‘Caning and Candle Wax’?”
“‘Water sports’,” read Apple Bloom. “That’s like water polo and rowing right?”
“I think so,” Sweetie Belle replied.
“Weird… what does water polo have to do with punishment?”
Sweetie Belle thought about it for a moment then shrugged. “Beats me. Hmm… Audacious Apparel, Covetous Costumes and Aggrandizing Appearances? I think that section’s right up my alley! What else is there? ‘Humiliation and hog-tying’?”
“Humiliation? Like I haven’t learned enough about that already from Diamond Tiara,” grumbled Scootaloo.
“I feel you Scoots,” said Apple Bloom. “Still, My rope tying skills could use a touch up. AJ’s been too busy with the spring harvest to teach me anything new.”
“Oh, then you might like this section called ‘bondage, bindings, and breaking’,” Sweetie Belle suggested.
“That does sound mighty interesting… what page is it on?”
Sweetie Belle put a hoof down on the index. “Let’s see it’s on page… ‘LX’? What kind of page number is that?”
“I think those are called ‘Romane Numerals’ or something, really old numbering system.”
“How old do you think this book is?”
“It’s gotta be ancient, I’d say—”
“Who cares about how the pages are numbered? Let’s just open this thing.” Scootaloo recklessly slapped a solid half of the pages to the side, unaware that she was opening not only a new chapter in the book, but in the collective lives of the Cutie Mark Crusaders as well.
As the pages settled, a stunned silence fell over the trio as they took in the plethora of dubious diagrams and grotesque graphics before themselves.
“Oh my…” Sweetie Belle murmured, shyly raising a hoof to her mouth.
“That ain’t water-polo.” Apple Bloom said in disbelief.
Scootaloo, in contrast to her friends, uttered nary a word. The wicked grin spreading across her lips said everything her tongue needn't. One thing was for sure though: this was going to be indefinitely more fun than chiropractory.
End of chapter 1