Like... Much Worse
Rainbow Dash came to a skidding halt before her surrogate sister, who stared up in awe at her.
“Hey Squirt,” Rainbow greeted, “sorry I’m late; I think my watch is broken.”
Rainbow Dash held up her hoof, displaying a crudely drawn watch stubbornly showing it to be half six. Scootaloo just ignored this and sped in for a hug.
“That’s okay, I was just worried you weren’t going to show,” Scootaloo gushed.
“And miss meeting my number one fan's parents for the first time? Not on my watch,” Rainbow replied boldly, her eyes briefly flicking down to her hoof again. “Besides, I think it’s illegal or something to be hanging out with you and having you over for sleepovers without telling them.”
“I’m sure they’ll be cool with it,” Scootaloo said, brushing off the notion as the pair began to walk down the street.
“Still,” Rainbow continued, “we’ve been hanging out for years and I haven’t seen head or tail of them. I was starting to think you were an orphan and you lived inside your clubhouse or something.”
The pair laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of such a thing as they ambled up the drive to a small, middle-class house.
“Looks nice,” Rainbow commented, as Scootaloo walked ahead and opened the door for her.
“Yeah, it’s pretty decent,” Scootaloo agreed, “not as cool as your house though. Mum! Dad! I’m home! I brought Rainbow Dash to visit.”
“Oh, come on in,” a female voice called out from upstairs, “please make yourself at home, I’ll be down in two ticks.”
“Come on in girls,” a male voice called from what Rainbow assumed was a living room.
Rainbow confidently strode down the hall behind Scootaloo who was skipping forward excitedly. The filly bounced into the living room, followed quickly by Rainbow who put on her best winning smile.
“Hello there, you must be Miss Dash,” Scootaloo’s father greeted from where he sat on the sofa, Rainbow turned to face him.
“Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to meeting…” Rainbow began, but stopped instantly when her eyes fell upon the stallion in the room as he stood up and walked over to meet her.
He towered over Rainbow, his wings almost filling the room, his long horn scraping against the ceiling. Rainbow’s wide, horrified eyes scanned over his jet black coat and crimson stripes, taking in his purple eyes with dragon slit pupils and his flaming sword cutie mark.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Miss Dash,” the alicorn said, holding out his hoof. “Scootaloo has told us so much about you. My name’s Gary, but my friends call me Night Blaze.”
“W…why do they call you that?” Rainbow asked weakly, trying to suppress the bile rising up her throat.
“Oh, I just thought it was really badass,” Night Blaze explained, Rainbow made a retching noise as her mouth clenched shut and her cheeks blew up.
The sound of hooves on the stairs spared Rainbow from responding. She turned around, sweat breaking out on her forehead, only for all colour to drain from her face when Scootaloo’s mother entered the room.
“Ah, hello there Miss Dash,” the neon yellow bat pony said, staring in Rainbow Dash’s exact direction with her milky white eyes. “Such a pleasure to finally meet you, my name is Batshy.”
Rainbow’s legs wobbled beneath her as she stumbled and collapsed against the wall.
“You’re… you’re…” Rainbow tried to say, her voice quavering.
“Scootaloo’s parents, yes,” Batshy replied, seemingly oblivious to Rainbow’s condition.
“You got here just in time for dinner,” Night Blaze explained. “And while we eat I can tell you the story of how I’m Celestia’s secret half-brother, who saved her from her own version of Nightmare Moon by letting it take me over instead.”
“Oh god…” Rainbow gasped, sliding down the wall, her limbs trembling.
“And I can tell you about how I saved all of Equestria from a changeling invasion and got Trixie to fall in love with me,” Batshy leapt in, “I wasn’t going to have sex with her, but YOLO.”
Rainbow threw up on the floor.
“And afterwards we can go out flying together,” Night Blaze offered, “Scootaloo tells me you can do a sonic rainboom, in which case you should check out my awesome darkness double rainboom.”
“It’s so cool,” Batshy chipped in, “he mastered it on his very first time flying.”
“Yeah, you could totally learn a thing or two from me,” Night Blaze said, levitating a mirror over in front of himself so he could stare lovingly into it.
Rainbow Dash began sobbing quietly, clutching her head in her forehooves and gently rocking backwards and forwards.
“Hey mum, dad,” Scootaloo interrupted, “before dinner, can I show Rainbow Dash my room?”
“Of course dear,” Batshy replied.
Upon hearing this, Rainbow mustered all her remaining strength and sped from the room, dragging herself up the stairs as far away from the living room as she possibly could. Scootaloo buzzed over her head when she reached the landing, and led the way to her bedroom. Once inside, Rainbow closed the door and began looking around desperately.
“So those are my parents,” Scootaloo began happily, “what do you think of…”
“Scootaloo we have to leave right now!” Rainbow commanded, in the most urgent tone she could muster, trying to suppress the tremor in her voice.
“What? Why?” Scootaloo asked confused.
“Scootaloo…” Rainbow began sadly, kneeling down before the filly. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but your parents… are OCs. Really, really bad OCs.”
“What?” Scootaloo repeated, not seeming to see the obvious problem with this.
“But don’t you worry,” Rainbow assured her, standing up and crossing the room to the window. “Because I’m gonna get you away from here, we’ll go straight to town hall and I’ll adopt you.”
“Really?” Scootaloo asked, buzzing with excitement.
Rainbow tried to open the window, but it was locked. Without hesitation she put her hoof though the glass, shattering it and cutting her entire leg at the same time so blood poured out. The sound of hurrying hoofsteps charged up the stairs, and Scootaloo’s parents burst into the room, looking panicked.
“Is everything all right? We heard something breaking,” Batshy said in a worried voice.
“Stay back!” Rainbow shouted, brandishing her bleeding hoof at the pair of them. “I probably have hepatitis and I’m not afraid to use it!”
“Oh my, Rainbow Dash let me heal that for you,” Night Blaze offered. “I can bring back the dead so healing a cut is no problem for me.”
“Quickly Scootaloo, out the window!” Rainbow shouted, before turning on her parents, “I won’t let you infect her innocent young mind with your terrible character designs anymore.”
“What’s wrong with our character designs?” Batshy asked.
“You’re OCs!” Rainbow declared, “Total Gary Stu, self-insert, OCs!”
“Now really,” Night Blaze began in a disgruntled tone, “how exactly does being the secret sibling of a goddess, and having legendary magic capabilities and more skills than the population of Manehattan make me a Gary Stu?”
“Yeah, and I have loads of character flaws,” Batshy countered, “I’m blind… even though I’m also psychic and can see ponies auras, which is far superior to regular sight. And I never got my cutie mark; I’m like, completely unique.”
Rainbow Dash reached up and wiped away the blood that was currently streaming form her eyes.
“There’s nothing for it Scootaloo,” Rainbow said, turning and scooping up the filly in her hooves, “they’ll never stop being terrible, we have to kill ourselves!”
“Wait, what?!” Scootaloo yelled just before Rainbow leapt through the broken window and spiralled to the ground below.
However, as they were only on the second floor, this didn’t kill them. So Rainbow was forced to resort to plan C, which was essentially plan A. She quickly spirited Scootaloo away and had her adopted. She then wrote a letter to Celestia who had Scootaloo’s parents swiftly rounded up and terminated.
Scootaloo was happy in her new home, living permanently with her idol. She didn’t even mind that her parents were dead, because as she came to realise, they were OCs, and nobody likes OCs.