Payback is a Switch

Chapters

Sticks And Stones May Break Our Bones...
Introspective Interjections Part A: Wrath and the Way of the Whip
...But Whips And Chains Excite Us!

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.

Click here for the Dramatic Reading By: TheCaptainSand

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

Introspective Interjections Part A: Wrath and the Way of the Whip

Payback is a Switch

Written By: Your Antagonist

Introspective Interjection of Scootaloo: Wrath and the Way of the Whip

Wh-Crack!

“Agh, darnit! I missed again!” Scootaloo huffed, kicking the grass in irritation.

“Patience, honey... focus… focus…”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes at her mother’s doting. “Ugh, geez, mom, I can—”

“Shh…” Resting a hoof on her daughter’s head, the older mare leaned her head right next to Scootaloo’s so that they were practically cheek to cheek, like a sniper and a spotter. “Just clear your mind and concentrate on the target. Think of the whip as an extension of yourself and remember your form. Do that, and the rest will come naturally. Got it?”

Scootaloo sighed and nodded. Taking the handle of the whip firmly in her teeth, she turned to the makeshift target her mother had set up—an obnoxiously bright pink vase perched on a smooth tree stump— with newfound determination. Heaving out a deep breath, she zeroed in on the pottery piece, simultaneously judging the distance and getting a feel for the pending strike she’d unleash.

In her focused state, she could already hear the bullet-like crack of the whip shatter the hearth-hardened glass into a hundred pieces, see the explosion of pink shards from the resulting sonic boom, relish the sweet sensation of success despite the fact that she hadn’t even moved yet.

Needless to say, the smirk spreading across her daughter’s cheeks didn’t go unnoticed by the beige mare. “Feeling good, honey?”

“Yeah.” Scootaloo replied through a mouthful of whip.

A proud smirk found its way onto the mother’s lips. “Well, what are you waiting for, kid? Let her rip!”

And let it rip Scootaloo did. Like her mother taught her, the filly began rolling her neck in small circles to help the whip build up momentum, and judging from the force behind the whirling whip, this strike was shaping up to be a beautiful, powerful affair. All she had to do now was focus it and make it fly the way she wanted. She’d gotten pretty close with her last attempt, so she was certain that she’d connect this time.

Scootaloo turned her attention away from the path her whip was cutting through the air and directed her undivided attention to the vase on the stump. Whyever it had to be the particular annoyingly-reminiscent-of-a-certain-stuck-up-little-bogwitch shade of pink that it was, she’d never know, but she couldn’t help envisioning the pottery piece sprouting sneering blue eyes and a foul little mouth complete with fangs and a forked tongue. In fact, if she thought about it hard enough, she could could just imagine a certain little harpy’s voice berating her.

‘That’s a cute toy you’ve got there, my little blank flank. You should be careful swinging that around though. You don’t want to hit yourself in those useless little wings by accident.’

In a kneejerk reaction to the projected insult, Scootaloo hurled the whip forth in anger, causing the giant leather cord to shoot forth in a deadly lash. In her upset state she’d given only the most minimal consideration to aiming and as a result wound up connecting with...

Wh-clack!

...nothing but air.

‘Kyahahaha! What was that? It’s already bad enough that you’ve got wings like a kiwi, but you’re telling me that you’ve got their eyesight, too?’

“Ngh…” Scootaloo’s teeth sank even deeper into the whip’s braided handle, filling her mouth with the pungent taste of treated leather.

“Come on, Scootaloo, you were right there. I know you can hit this thing,” the older mare encouraged.

Scootaloo grit her teeth from the frustrations wrought by failure and imaginary insults from an illusory villain but forced herself to nod in compliance with her mother’s words. “Right, here I go.” In seconds, Scootaloo had the whip cutting the air above her head like a propeller blade.

‘Trying again? Why bother? We both already know how this goes: you’re going to try your talentless little heart out, fail miserably and never get your cutie mark, just like every one of your sad, little crusades.’

Whack!

‘Oooh, scary! For a moment there I almost thought you were aiming for me! Why don’t you just give up and accept that you’ll never be good at anything?’

Swack!

‘You’re completely useless.’

Snap!

‘Your friends probably even think so, too.’

Crack!

‘But that’s all right, I like watching you squirm, pretending to be something you’re not because I know that no matter what you do…’

Pop!

‘...or how hard you try...’

‘You’ll never amount to anything, because your ‘special talent’ has always been being a failure. You’re a deadweight who’s only good for dragging her friends down to her level. Why, I bet if it wasn’t for worthless, pathetic little ‘you’ holding them back, Blanky-Belle and Apple Bloom would’ve gotten their cutie marks by now. Face it, without them taking pity on you, you’d be nothing but some weak-willed, weak winged pegasus wannabe who’s so pathetic that she can be punked out by a piece of pottery!’

“Aaaaagh! I can’t take this anymore!” Scootaloo cried and threw the whip to the ground and proceeded to stomp on it until her hooves were sore and she was red in the face. “Darn it! Darn it! Darn it! Darn it!” Her roars grew louder with each slam to the tightly wound leather handle. Had it not been for the sharp, shooting pains in her swelling hooves, Scootaloo might have stomped clean through the weapon.

It was only as Scootaloo heaved and seethed from residual frustration that her mother decided to speak. “Feel any better?”

Scootaloo stayed tense for a moment but ultimately sank to her haunches and turned her head away in embarrassment. “No…” Sighing, she dropped both her shoulders and wings, and finished, “Not really.”

Flashing a loving smile to her downtrodden daughter, the older mare knelt down and wrapped a wing around Scootaloo, drawing her downtrodden daughter close. “You probably feel pretty crummy not being able to hit that vase, huh?”

“Yeah…” Scootaloo said.

“It doesn’t even look like you came close with those last three lashes. You might as well have been aiming for the house.”

A pang of bewilderment hit Scootaloo, uttering a simple “Umm…” in her confusion. Wasn’t her mother supposed to be encouraging to try harder?

“And I’ll bet my collection of ancient Chineighese puzzle boxes that your hooves are probably pretty sore right about now, huh?”

The frown on Scootaloo’s face had deepened into a full on scowl. “Y’know, if you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re doing an awful job so far, mom.”

“I wasn’t trying to cheer you up.”

Scootaloo could feel her cheeks grow hot from frustration. “So you were just making fun of me then? Thanks, mom, that’s really helpful.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you either.”

“Sure didn’t seem that way to me...” Scootaloo muttered. “Okay, so what were you trying to do then?”

“I was trying to show you that getting upset and lashing out over every little failure isn’t going to help you get better at this or magically solve your problems.” Judging from an immediate wince from her daughter, the words had hit their mark. “All that’ll get you is nothing. No results. No progress. Absolutely nothing. Of course, I probably didn’t even need to tell you that, the proof is right in front of you.” The mother drove her point home by gesturing to the as-of-yet-to-be-destroyed pink vase, to which Scootaloo turned away, her cheeks reddening from shame.

“But everytime I miss, it’s like that stupid pot is mocking me! How can I not get mad?”

“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t get mad. Anger is a perfectly normal reaction and a healthy emotion. Everypony can get a little aggressive sometimes, and that’s okay.”

“Ugh!” Scootaloo buried her face in her hooves. “First it’s ‘don’t get mad’, and now it’s ‘okay’ to get mad? I don’t get what you’re saying!”

“Hmmm…I guess it would a bit difficult for a kid to understand...” The black- and gray-maned pegasus wracked her brain for a better way to phrase her sentiments. “Okay, here’s a simpler explanation: get mad, but don’t let yourself get frustrated. Get angry, but don’t lose control of your thoughts. Keep a hot head, but don’t lose your cool. Get aggressive, but stay progressive.” The older pegasus punctuated each sentiment with a light poke to Scootaloo’s forehead, much to the filly’s annoyance. “You’ve got to control yourself, and make your emotions work for you. Do you see what I’m trying to say?”

“I… no, not really. ‘Make it work for me’?” Scootaloo gently swatted her mother’s hoof away mid-poke. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that you’ve got to embrace that anger and channel it in a more constructive way. Whenever you feel yourself starting to slip into a state of mindless rage, just take a deep breath, think about what you need to accomplish and focus on that and only that. You’ll be in total control.”

“Tch, you say that like it’s such an easy thing to do.” Scootaloo brushed her mother’s wing away and stood up. “I mean if I could just do that, don’t you think I would’ve nailed that stupid pot already?” she spat before turning away.

“Look, honey, I know that you probably think that I don’t understand your frustration, but believe me when I say that I know better than anypony just how easy it is to give in to your anger and let it take over. Trust me, I’ve been there more times than I care to count and every time I lost myself, it never ended well. Either somepony—usually me— would wind up getting hurt, or I’d somehow manage to make a bad situation much, much worse.”

“Really? Like how much worse?”

“Surfing down a Cragadile-filled lava-river worse. But you know what? Over time, I learned how to reign in my hotheadedness and keep my emotions in check. And now whether I’m running late for some lecture I was supposed to give or just fighting an ancient dog god over some priceless artifacts in a burning temple, I take a deep breath, focus myself and find a more constructive way to apply my emotions and I usually come out on top.”

Scootaloo nodded. “I guess I kinda get what you’re saying.”

“Even after all that, you only ‘kind of’ get it, huh?”

Scootaloo shrugged. “Heh, sorry.”

“Well, that’s no matter, the best way to learn is by doing, afterall. Come on, why don’t you pick that whip back up and give it another shot? I bet you’ll get it this time.”

Scootaloo looked to the whip at her hooves. With a sigh and a nod, she once again seized the handle with her mouth and faced the wretchedly colored vase that had given her such grief throughout the entire learning process.

“All right, honey, let’s get that whip in the air, and remember to mind your form.”

“Right,” Scootaloo called through her mouth full of whip handle. An instant later, she had the whip swirling and slicing arcs through the air. She had this. All she needed to do was keep her cool and her focus on the vase. A simple task that was about to be made all the harder by a certain voice that was as venomous as it was imaginary.

‘Oooh, what’s this? Back in the saddle are we, my little blank flank? Haven’t you had enough of looking like a total fool?’

Scootaloo could feel her nostrils flare and her jaw clench up in irritation, but rather than allow herself to unleash a rash lash towards the vase, she held her stance firm and continued swinging her whip waiting for the right moment. However, as she’d soon find, Scootaloo’s absolute focus would do little to dissuade the disembodied bully from trying to harass her.

‘Come on now, why don’t you put that big scary whip down and go crawl back under mama bird’s wing so you can cluck and cry like the big chicken we both know you are?”

Scootaloo couldn’t lie to herself, not lashing out at the invasive voice of her imagined tormentor was a chore in and of itself. She wanted nothing more than to break Diamond Tiara’s smug apparition into a hundred tiny shards, but she had to focus.

‘Hey, loser, why don’t you open up those little penguin ears and look at me when I’m talking to you? I’m trying to save you the embarrassment of looking like an even bigger nitwit when you meet up with the other blank flanks and have nothing to show. So just quit now, and avoid the sting of failure while you still can.’

Scootaloo could feel her teeth digging into the handle while the phantom Diamond Tiara’s words continued to stoke her smouldering frustration.

‘Oh, so you’re just going to pretend like you can’t hear me now? Pft, do whatever you want. All it means is that I get to enjoy the satisfaction of watching you failover and over again like the tryhard trash that you are and always will always be. Come on and bring it you talentless turkey! Show your mother how she wasted her time trying to teach a worthless, witless quail how to use a whip. Show her what a deadend your whole life is going to be, you stupid f—”

Scootaloo, jaw-clenched tight enough to crush stone and well-angered after being subjected to a full two minutes worth of solid, self-inflicted beration, was now officially ready to destroy the vase that she’d projected Diamond Tiara’s likeness onto. Keeping the whip steadily in motion, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, allowing her to focus solely on herself and the spectral bully. No tree stumps. No mother. No pottery. Just the darkness, Scootaloo, her anger and her tormentor.

Her projection of Diamond Tiara had yet to cease its seemingly endless barrage of insults, which truthfully only added to the illusion’s authenticity. Scootaloo picked up the speed of her whip swings. In her mind, she could see a flash of concern gradually creeping onto Diamond Tiara’s face while the rotations grew more violent in their intensity. Scootaloo couldn’t help but smile. Between the raw power she held in her mouth, the intimidation and fear she was instilling in the phantom, it became evident that she was in total control of herself and the situation. She’d finally found focus in her anger. She was ready to smash that vase.

Opening her eyes, Scootaloo spotted the vase, took a step forward and instinctively swung the whip out with all her might, watching eagerly as the leather length uncoiled itself like a striking cobra towards the infernal Diamond Tiara-esque vase.

Wh-Crash! Scootaloo watched in a combination of disbelief and amazement as the high-speed crack of the whip made contact with the pink vase, causing it explode in a cloud of pink dust, leaving nothing behind but jagged fragments of what had once been a beyond tacky, ceramic eyesore.

“I… I did it!”

“You sure did, honey!”

Scootaloo groaned as her mother leaned forward and rewarded her with a soft kiss to her forehead. “Darnit, mom! No kissing!” Scootaloo fussed, frantically wiping at her forehead.

“Heh, sorry about that, couldn’t resist.”

“Don’t start getting weird on me, lady.”

“All right, all right, geez.”

“But, uh, I guess that just this once it’s all right. You know, since you went through so much trouble to help. And, uh… thanks, mom.”

“No need to thank me, sweetie. That was all you. All I did was give you a push in the right direction.”

“I can use a whip now! This is so awesome.”

“Not to mention that you’ve got a better handle on that short temper of yours too.”

“Oh… yeah, that’s kinda cool too, I guess… but still, I know how to use a whip! Wait until Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle get a load of this!”

“Huh, you know now that I think about it, I completely forgot to ask: why were you so interested in learning how to use bullwhip in the first place? I mean, you’ve asked for some pretty strange stuff before, but this is a little out there.”

“Oh, uh, sorry mom, but that’s a secret. Official Cutie Mark Crusader business and all that. You know how it is, right?”

Scootaloo found her response met with a raised eyebrow which in turn was followed by a shrug. “Just don’t let me come back home to another petition from mayor suggesting that we ban you from town hall and every town function until you’re old enough to vote, okay?"

“I promise, I promise. Geez, you set one lousy parade float on fire and the whole town never lets you live it down…”

“Now, do you think you’re ready for some more practice, sweetie?”

“Oh, yeah,” Scootaloo flared both her wings and nostrils in a show of blatant confidence, “Bring it on.”

“That’s my girl. Now, see if you can get this one in one shot.” Scootaloo watched as her mother pulled another piece of pottery from a small sack by her side and tossed it into the air. This one an ornate and possibly priceless urn that had the great misfortune of bearing a color palette of gray and baby blue. Not unlike a certain kiss-flank goon of Diamond Tiara’s. Through a mouthful of whip, Scootaloo’s lips pulled into a sadistic grin. She couldn’t have asked for an easier target.

End of Chapter 3 Part A

...But Whips And Chains Excite Us!

Warning/ Disclaimer: The following chapter contains minor depictions of imprisonment and immobilization and is a precursor to even more graphic and/or suggestive chapter(s). If any of the aforementioned offends you, nine out of ten trained monkeys agree that you should stop reading. And yes, the writer is aware that he is going to hell. Giddy even.

Payback Is A Switch

Written By: Your Antagonist

Written For: MagusNeon

Red Pen Heroes: TheWattsMan, Aziraphael, and Cpl. Hooves

Chapter 2: ...But Whips And Chains Excite Us!

It’s not an entirely uncommon occurrence for a child’s curiosity to deliver them upon the doorstep of anything widely regarded as taboo; such an instance is better known as ‘discovery.’ Discovery in and of itself is a perfectly natural part of the learning process and is best supplemented by the wise, guiding words of an experienced adult. However, at this very pivotal moment in the lives of three incredibly impressionable fillies, there were no such figureheads around for miles, thus leaving their fragile curiosity in the hands of cruel, manipulative fate.

For almost a full five minutes, the Cutie Mark Crusaders sat in stunned silence, unable to avert their eyes from the debaucherous debacle before them. Apple Bloom sought to remark on the situation, but upon opening her mouth to speak, she found her tongue—much like the mare on the diagram—bound, prostrated, and unable to form even the most incoherent of slurs. But as was tradition and fate’s design, Scootaloo would be the first to break the stunned silence that had fallen over the three.

“This... looks... awesome!” the pegasus exclaimed, pouring over the page. Her enthusiasm was lost on her fellow Crusaders, who were still recovering from the initial shock they’d been wrought with.

Apple Bloom, prompted by Scootaloo’s misguided giddiness, was the second to voice her opinion on this new development. “Awesome? That ain’t the word I’d use for... well, whatever that is.” Apple Bloom glanced back at the bondage diagram, finding herself drawn towards the intricate rope work on display. “I guess it’s interesting. I mean, I’ve never seen rope all gussied up like that before.” Squinting, she leaned closer to read the caption below the picture. “Japoneighse Sheep-bari style bondage, huh? I’ll have to remember that.”

“Isn’t this cool, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asked her still-silent companion.

Not wanting to be left out of the loop, Sweetie Belle pushed her timidity towards the subject matter aside and followed her friends off the metaphorical bridge, forcing herself to comment on the cringeworthy diagram. “I really like her... chains?” she finished, uncertain and wincing.

“Mmm... I see what you’re getting at,” Apple Bloom said, scratching her chin as she scrutinized the length of chain protruding from a collar around the mare’s neck. “But, I still think the ropework is more impressive.”

Sweetie Belle heaved a silent sigh of relief, but almost yelped as an exceptionally excited pegasus seized her by the shoulders and began shaking her back and forth.

“C’mon Sweetie Belle, flip the page!” Scootaloo urged. “I gotta see more of this ‘dominatrix’ stuff!”

“Yeah, I want to see if there’s any more of them fancy knots,” said Apple Bloom.

“R-right.” With fidgeting hooves, Sweetie Belle swept a few pages aside, wary of what further unsettling sights the book was just itching to reveal. As the last page fell in line, a rather intricate sketch of a stern-faced mare in studded black latex planting her hoof on a colt bound in a rope-fashioned harness presented itself.

“Whoa,” said Scootaloo. “Check out her outfit!”

“The Three ‘F’s of a Femme Fatale,” read Apple Bloom. “Ferocity, Flare, and Finesse...”

Sweetie Belle tuned the earth pony out, her eyes gluing themselves to the new picture and finding herself unable to look away. She chewed nervously on the tip of her hoof, forcing herself to bear with the swarm of butterflies in her belly the sight had kicked into a flurry.

Needless to say this did not go unnoticed by Apple Bloom. “Hey, something wrong, Sweetie Belle?” she asked.

Sweetie Belle opened her mouth to voice her objections, but stopped herself as her eyes came across Scootaloo and the unbridled excitement practically dripping from her features. After everything the pegasus had been through today, she couldn’t bring herself to take the hard-earned smile from Scootaloo’s lips, even if it meant having to tolerate something that made her somewhat uncomfortable. “Nope, everything’s fine,” she lied through a poor imitation of her naturally sunny disposition.

Apple Bloom cocked an eyebrow; she wasn’t convinced in the slightest. She was about to challenge Sweetie Belle’s response with a simple “You sure about that?” when another outburst from Scootaloo stole the intention and the atmosphere from her.

“Hey, guys, check this out! Check this out!” Scootaloo insistently and repeatedly slapped her hoof on a new section of book she’d found while Apple Bloom was preparing to give Sweetie Belle the third degree.

Apple Bloom noted that Sweetie Belle was quick to give her attention to Scootaloo with a patient—if forced—smile. Her line of inquiry with the unicorn wasn’t over just yet, but for the time being the curiosity of Scootaloo’s discovery demanded satiation. “What’d you find this time?”

“Torturous Toys For Bad Girls and Boys,” read Sweetie Belle. “Toys?” she asked tilting her head, confused. The word just didn’t sit right on her tongue given the previous subject matter.

“Yup!” said Scootaloo. “This part is full of all kinds of cool stuff.” Scootaloo pointed to a particularly extensive collection of different types of whips and crops. “There’s even a whole bunch of bullwhips in here like the ones my mom keeps in her trophy room.”

The latter remark struck Apple Bloom as exceptionally odd. “Uh, Scoots?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“What did you say your mom’s job was again?”

“She’s an archeologist.” Scootaloo said, as though the correlation between bullwhips and the study of ancient Equestria was the most obvious thing on the planet. “Why?” she asked with pure-hearted oblivity.

Apple Bloom couldn’t begin to comprehend the innocence behind those words. “...no reason.”

At that moment, Scootaloo’s face lit up like a tree on Hearth’s Warming morning. “Hey, maybe mom’ll let us borrow one of her whips. She might even teach us how to use it too!”

For the second time in a minute, Scootaloo had slammed a monkey-wrench into the gears of Apple Bloom’s thought process. “Wait, I... what would we need a whip for?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Scootaloo grinned a wild, knowing grin.

“Not really,” Apple Bloom admitted. “I was kinda expecting you to fill us in.”

“Yeah, I’m a little lost, too,” said Sweetie Belle.

Scootaloo sighed and shook her head, half out of jest and half out of disappointment that her friends hadn’t pieced the puzzle together already. “I’m saying that we should use this book to try and get our Cutie Marks as dominatrixes!”

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea, Scootaloo?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“Yeah, I mean why not?”

“Well, don’t you think we’re a little bit underprepared for something like this?” Apple Bloom could see Scootaloo’s mouth already preparing to form a counter-argument, and took the incentive to beat her friend to the punch. “I mean, for starters we hardly even know a lick of what this dominatrix stuff is really all about.”

“Yeah, but we could just read a little more—”

“I don’t think we’ve even got the right materials on hoof for something like this,” she said flipping through page after page, of diagrams of devices that continued to grow more and more elaborate in their nature.

“Apple Bloom, will you just—”

“And besides all that, we haven’t even heard what Sweetie Belle thinks of this whole thing.”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Two piercing pairs of eyes turned on the unicorn who, faced with direct peer pressure, fiddled her hooves nervously. “I’m… I’m okay with it.”

Apple Bloom detected another note of insincerity from the unicorn’s tone, and decided to press harder. “You’re sure you’re sure?”

Sweetie Belle glanced uncomfortably at the book, then at Scootaloo. She swallowed and rubbed her foreleg uncomfortably before answering, “Sure, it might be fun, right?”

“Sweetie Belle, I—”

“Apple Bloom, it’s fine,” Sweetie Belle said, unable to fully meet Apple Bloom’s eyes.

“Well that settles it,” Scootaloo interrupted, snatching the book away from Apple Bloom. “We’re doing this,” she said with a note of finality.

“But—” Apple Bloom looked at Sweetie Belle, whose faux smile was fading like sunshine in the twilight hour, becoming more bittersweet by the second. It was that damned expression that assured her no matter how hard she pressed and pried, no matter how many opportunities she gave the unicorn to say “no” and get out, that it would all be wasted on some stubborn stake Sweetie Belle just wouldn’t pull out of the heart of the issue. Apple Bloom sighed, but resisted the urge to shake her head in disappointment.

Despite her concern for Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom still harbored an unhealthy amount of intrigue towards the current crusade. As far as Apple Bloom was concerned, if the unicorn wouldn’t take the out she was offered, she’d made the bed she was going to sleep in. “All right,” said Apple Bloom, “But we’re gonna need to learn a little bit more about this stuff.”

“Two steps ahead of you.” Scootaloo smirked as she flipped the pages back to a section titled ‘Defining the Devilish Delight of the Domination Discipline’.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Apple Bloom. “Start readin’.”

“Me?” asked Scootaloo.

“No, my great Aunt Apple Sauce,” Apple Bloom replied sarcastically.

“No way, I suck at reading! Sweetie Belle should do it.” Scootaloo slid the book over to the unicorn in question.

“M-me? But I already read part of it!” Sweetie Belle argued.

“That was the title of the book, that doesn’t count.”

“But—”

“Oh, for land’s sake, I’ll do it.” Apple Bloom pulled the book towards herself, noting the relief on Sweetie Belle’s face as she did. “Let’s see… this looks like a good place to start as any.” She cleared her throat and began to read, “‘Pain. Pleasure. All things bound to this world by flesh are subject to the wanton impulses rooted into the most carnal natures of their very being. Wanton…’ ain’t those them Chineighese dumplings?”

“I think so,” Scootaloo agreed, the very limited nature of her vocabulary keeping her from discerning the very polar nature of the homophones. “Keep reading.”

“‘It is in this truth that We have discovered thera- thera…’ what’s this word?” Apple Bloom asked Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie Belle glanced at the word and quickly averted her eyes so she wouldn’t have to stare at the tome longer than she had to. “Therapeutic.”

“‘...that we have discovered therapeutic power held within even the basest of these natural drives and concepts. Pain and pleasure, atonement and sin, punishment and…’ uh...” Apple Bloom squinted at the word before ultimately turning it over to Sweetie Belle.

“Contrition,” the unicorn said.

“‘Contrition,’” Apple Bloom continued. “Ugh, this book’s a mouthful…”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes, “Then just read the important parts then,” she said impatiently.

“It’s hard to tell what the important parts are in this dang thing,” Apple Bloom snapped. To her satisfaction, Scootaloo snorted and said nothing. Turning back to the book, she squinted at the page, scanning for anything that wasn’t a mouthful of gibberish. “Release of—hmm… acceptance of—no, that ain’t it either… Wait, I think I found something.”

“Well hurry up and read it then, I’m dying to get started on this!”

“Hold your horses, I’m reading as fast as this cockamamey hoofwriting’ll let me… hmm… ‘...it is the purpose of the dominatrix to bring reprieve from sin and malice by opening the gateway to... re...repen… repentance. We accomplish such a feat through stimulus of the flesh, sub...ju...ga...tion of the subject’s will, and absolute submission absolutely. In the pages within the chapters to follow, We will focus on—’” Apple Bloom sighed as she came across yet another five bit word she was going to have a devil of a time annunciating. “‘—p...p...pontificatin’ upon the thousand-fold techniques, toys, and tortures Our order hath pioneered in order to instill a sense of justice and obedience in the guilty whilst affording them an outlet for their wicked desires.

Signed- Mistress Moon.’”

For a moment none of the three spoke a single word. Perhaps they’d been stunned stiff and soundless by the boldness of the mission statement. Perhaps they were letting the weight of what they were getting into sink in. In all truth however, the reason for their silence wasn’t something as noble as being awestricken by a moral dilemma...

“What the— I didn’t understand half of that!” exclaimed Scootaloo. “How about you, Apple Bloom? Did you get anything out of that?

“Beats me,” said Apple Bloom. “I could hardly pronounce half of them five bit words.”

...they simply had no idea what the passing passages even meant.

“Ugh… darnit,” Scootaloo swatted at the grass in irritation. “We should’ve grabbed a dictionary while we were in there, this stupid book’s useless to us if we can’t understand any of it.”

Sweetie Belle looked upon the downcast expression clouding her friend’s features, then at the book in question. A moment later, teeth met lower lip as she found herself locked in an internal debate regarding whether it would be in her best interest to hold her tongue or use her higher understanding of English to translate for her friends. Unfortunately for her, Scootaloo’s happiness being the priority that it was, won out. “Well, I…” Sweetie Belle swallowed nervously as a pair of hopeful magenta eyes affixed themselves to her. “I might know what it means...”

At that, Scootaloo’s demeanor performed a full one-eighty. “You do?” she asked, quite brashly seizing Sweetie Belle by the shoulders, not even noticing that the unicorn’s cheeks had flushed a light pink.

“I-I mean I have a good idea, anyway.”

“Well, don’t just keep us in suspense,” said Apple Bloom.

“Yeah, c’mon and tell us already!” Scootaloo demanded, literally shaking Sweetie Belle.

“All right, all right.” With a sigh, Sweetie Belle gently pushed Scootaloo back and said, “I think it’s saying that these ‘dominatrixes’ show other ponies the error of their ways through punishment and that this book is a guide teaching the proper way to do that.”

Apple Bloom cocked an eyebrow at the translation. “‘Punishing ponies to show them the error of their ways’? Ain’t that how it usually works in the first place?”

Sweetie Belle slid the book in front of herself and began backtracking through the archaically worded mission statement. “Reading back a bit, it looks like these are special punishments that they only use for really bad ponies… actually they use the word ‘naughty’ and ‘malcontent’ quite a bit.” Sweetie Belle caught an oblivious glance from Scootaloo as though the pegasus were waiting for further elaboration. “A malcontent is like… a really bad troublemaker.”

“Huh,” Apple Bloom scratched her chin, “Sounds like this book was made for ponies just like—”

“—Diamond Tiara.” Scootaloo finished under her breath, the filly’s teeth caught somewhere between grit and a sadistic grin that both pleased and unnerved Sweetie Belle in the same gambit. “I’m starting to like this idea more and more. What else does it say?”

“Well, that’s it for the introduction,” Sweetie Belle said. “We’ll have to read the other chapters to get anything else out of this.”

“Ugh… but that could take forever…” Scootaloo complained.

“What if we just read the chapters that we find really important or interesting, like this one I saw earlier,” Apple Bloom grabbed the book and slapped a chunk of pages to the side, somehow miraculously revealing the chapter she’d been seeking. “Designation and Design of a Delightfully Dubious Dungeon.”

“Dungeons? We’ll get to build our own dungeons?” Scootaloo’s features lit up like a Hearth’s Warming tree, “That’s… so… awesome!” The pegasus was already awash in fantastical recreations of ancient temples and forgotten catacombs from her favorite stories and her mother’s latest exploits. “We should totally get an army of gorgons and giant spiders to just crawl around and lurk and stuff!”

“Yeah, something tells me it ain’t that kinda dungeon,” Apple Bloom interrupted.

“‘Due to the eccentric and often misunderstood nature of the domination discipline,” Sweetie Belle began to read aloud, “it is imperative that practitioners study and refine the art of breaking in relative solitude. An ideal dungeon is private, secluded, located out of sight and earshot of the general populace, and above all: is a secret to everyone.’”

“So… no guard trolls then?” Scootaloo asked sheepishly.

“‘Fraid not, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom replied, flipping to the next page when a few loose papers spilled out of the book and onto the grass. “What’s this?” Apple Bloom asked nopony in particular as she picked up and unfolded one of the pages, revealing sketches of sample dungeons and various props and tools that immediately began to ingrain themselves on the filly’s mind with the intricacy of their design.

“Huh? What’s what?” Scootaloo asked, though she was ultimately ignored by Apple Bloom who was completely transfixed on the diagrams she held in her hooves.

If one were to put their ear up to her forehead, they’d be able to hear the gears of her mind whirring and turning as she began mentally assembling every item from the wicked furniture catalog she held in her hooves. From restraints such as wooden stocks and giant X-shaped crosses to toys and tools as simple as a feather tickler all the way to a mind-bogglingly intricate harness simply labeled “Rapture’s Delight”. Seeing all those mechanical marvels was making the earth pony’s head spin. The designs may have been complex, but they were all far from impossible to build. All she would need was some wood, a few screws...

“Hey! Earth to Apple Bloom, you still with us? Hellllooo?” Scootaloo asked, waving her hoof in front of her zoned-out friend’s face.

“Oh! Uh, sorry about that, kinda got lost in thought for a while there.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” Scootaloo said. “So, mind telling us what was so distracting that you had to ignore us for a full five minutes?”

“Well, we’re actually going through with this whole dominatrix business, right?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s like the only thing we’ve been talking about.”

Apple Bloom beamed a thoughtful, if scheming smile. “In that case, I think I might have a little something that’ll give us a leg up on this whole crusade.”

“You do?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Mmmhm,” the farm-filly replied with a nod, scooping the book onto her back.

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” said Scootaloo taking the rest of the all but forgotten spinal research guides onto her own back, “What is it?”

Apple Bloom’s grin widened even further. “Hmm, I could just tell you, but I’d rather show you instead.”

“What? Come on, Apple Bloom, you know I hate surprises!”

“Well, guess what?” Apple Bloom asked, putting a little trot in her step, “The faster we get there, the faster you can find out.”

“Ngh! Come on, that’s no fair at least gimme a little hint!”

“I think you’re gonna like this, there’s your hint,” she said, punctuating her statement by sticking her tongue out.

“That isn’t what I meant, you—”

As Sweetie Belle watched her friends playfully squabble and trot away, a strong sense of dread began to fill her gut.

“Sweetie Belle?”

There was something about this whole crusade that just didn’t ring right with her, and it stemmed beyond her overall discomfort with the images and themes within that damned book.

“Sweetie Belle!”

Her intuition told her that nothing good would come from pursuing this, and yet as she glanced at Scootaloo who was no longer burdened by anger but rather had returned to her usual, recklessly enthusiastic self, the fluttering of Sweetie Belle’s little filly heart was telling her something completely different.

“Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo shouted.

“Huh?”

“What are you doing just standing there?” The not-particularly-patient-pegasus scolded her. “You know we can’t do this without you, so hurry up already!”

“R-Right, sorry!” the unicorn apologized, hurriedly putting some pep in her step to catch up with her friends. Settling next to Scootaloo, who had gone back to relentlessly pestering Apple Bloom for the tiniest clue about the mystery surprise, Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but smile warmly at the pair’s exchange. With a sigh, she decided to hold her tongue and just bear with the discomfort; for the time being, she could be bothered to put her friends’ happiness before her own feelings.

“Apple Bloom, this is ridiculous,” Scootaloo said, “Can’t I open my eyes yet?”

“We’re almost there, Scoots. Now, just watch your step over this branch,” Apple Bloom cautioned as she moved to steady her sight-deprived friend.

“It’d be a whole lot easier to watch my step if I could see where I was going in the first place,” Scootaloo grumbled.

“Technically, you wouldn’t be able to look at your hooves and where you were headed anyways,” the yellow pony prodded with a smirk.

Scootaloo had to stop herself from facehoofing, which would have turned her tail over hooves in her blindfolded state, while Sweetie Belle worked hard to stifle a giggling fit.

“All right, you two can open your eyes now!”

“Ugh, finally.” Having been forced by Apple Bloom to walk blind for twentyfive minutes, Scootaloo was more than glad to open her eyes, but to say that the pegasus was underwhelmed by the surprise Apple Bloom had been teasing her with for half an hour would have been an understatement.

“So what do y’all think?” Apple Bloom asked smugly, gesturing behind herself to a decrepit wooden barn that had probably once sported a coat of bright-red as evidenced by a few patches of faded paint stubbornly hanging on to the faded, termite eaten wood.

“What do we think of ‘what’ exactly?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yeah, all I see is a rundown old barn,” Sweetie Belle said.

Apple Bloom shook her head. “You see a rundown old barn, I see a dungeon to practice our dominatrixin’ skills.”

“Domination skills.” Sweetie Belle corrected.

“Domination skills, whatever.”

Sweetie Belle trotted up to a dilapidated wall and started scrutinizing it. “I don’t know, Apple Bloom, this thing looks like it could come down any minute.”

“Yeah, it’s a little old—”

“A little old? That’s being waaay too generous, Apple Bloom, I mean...” Scootaloo punctuated her point by tugging at some exceptionally luscious ivy which had laid claim to the majority of the wall

“It’s old, but it’s Apple Family made, so it’s built to last. Why I bet that not even an earthquake could bring this baby down.” Caught up in her boasting, Apple Bloom proudly patted the wall to only to punch a hole clean through the rotted wood. “Uhh…”

Two raised eyebrows from two very skeptical crusaders rose to the occasion of challenging Apple Bloom’s claims.

“‘S-’Sides that, far as what the book said, this place is perfect. We ain’t bothered to harvest the west orchard since the fruitbats came in and infested the trees three years ago. In fact out of the whole family, I’m probably the only one who even remembers that this barn is here.”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo exchanged glances before turning back to Apple Bloom. “And you’re sure that nopony will be able to see or hear us in here? The book said this needed to be done in absolute secrecy.” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Have you seen where we’re at?” Apple Bloom challenged.

Sweetie Belle looked around to take in her surroundings only to find that she indeed had no clue where she was. Aside from the natural cover and concealment provided by the surrounding hills and groves, the barn was located so deep in the heart of the wild, unmaintained foliage that they may as well have been standing in the middle of the Everfree Forest. “Heh, good point.”

“Good enough for me,” Scootaloo said with an approving grin.

“So, we’ve got a dungeon, what’s next?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“I figure we still got a lot to prepare for this, so I suggest that we split the work up between us,” said Apple Bloom.

“Yeah, that makes sense, but who’s going to do what?” Scootaloo asked.

“Well, after looking at these,” Apple Bloom laid the book in front of her and fished out the diagrams she’d been perusing earlier, “I was kinda hoping y’all wouldn’t mind if I took the liberty of making the stuff we’re actually gonna need inside the dungeon itself.”

Scootaloo nodded her approval to Apple Bloom’s proposal. “Yeah, that makes sense since the dungeon’s on your farm after all… oh! And Sweetie Belle, do you think you could whip up some of those wicked costumes from the book? You know, with all the chains and spikes?”

“Huh? You want me to make them? Even after I screwed up the costumes for the talent show and that one failure of a play?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Oh yeah… well, your costumes weren’t that bad,” Scootaloo assured her friend. “Besides, you know what they say, third time’s the charm, right?”

“But…” Sweetie Belle glanced into Scootaloo’s overeager eyes and found that her ability to refuse was slowly slipping away from her. “Umm… I guess I could try do it,” she said weakly.

“All right!” Scootaloo cheered, literally leaping for joy.

“And before I forget, I think y’all are gonna need this more than I am.” Apple Bloom slid Mistress Moon’s guide over to Sweetie Belle who hesitated and grimaced slightly before taking it with her own hooves.

“Right, Of course we will,” Sweetie Belle said dejectedly. “Well, I guess you’ll be wanting the book first so you can study more about this stuff, right, Scootaloo?” She asked hopefully.

Scootaloo waved Sweetie Belle’s suggestion off with a hoof. “Nah, you can keep it for now. I’m just going to have my mom teach me how to use a bullwhip. Besides, it’s not like I can read that stuffy, old thing anyway. It makes more sense if you have it, right?”

“Heh, yeah, I guess you’re right,” Sweetie Belle said, rubbing the back of her head.

“Hmmm… I should have this all done in about a week,” said Apple Bloom. “The costumes shouldn’t take too long either, right, Sweetie Belle?”

“No… I think I can have them done in a few days,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Okay, that settles it then. We’ll meet back up here next Friday and plan our next move from there, got it?”

“Sounds good to me, Scoots,” said Apple Bloom.

“Mmm.” Sweetie Belle nodded her agreement.

“Awesome! By this time next week, we’re gonna be sure to earn our special talents as…”

Scootaloo looked at her fellow crusaders expectantly and as though the girls were three fillies sharing a single thought process, they shouted in tandem, “Cutie Mark Crusader Dominatrixes, yay!” with such force that it startled the fruitbats residing in the surrounding trees from their afternoon naps and to the skies.

“Come on, Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo commanded, abruptly seizing Sweetie Belle by the hoof.

“Eeep!” The marshmallow unicorn squealed as she was suddenly and forcefully pulled off her hooves by a hyper-enthusiastic pegasus.

With an agenda in place and a plan already, it seemed as though nothing would stop the Cutie Mark Crusaders from sinking their overeager fangs into the heart of this new and enigmatic discipline.

“Let’s get back to Ponyville so we can started on this already and—Oh, crud.”

Well, almost nothing would stop them.

Faster than she could figure out what she was going to say next, a certain dilemma made itself quite apparent to Scootaloo. “Uhh… Apple Bloom?”

“Yeah, Scoots?”

“You remember how you made us walk here with our eyes closed?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Mind showing us how to get back?”

End of Chapter 2

Author's Note

So... yeah... it's been a year, huh? Um... sorry about that? I won't give any excuses, some stuff happened along the way. I got into a huge fight with the writer I started this story with, I took a drastic change in my career path and I got swept up writing other stories. This one though has always been in the corner of my mind, poking me in the back of the head while I slept, encouraging me to show some resolve and finish what I started, and that's exactly what I intend to do. That said, I'm seeing this story through to the end, and if you by some stroke of misfortune have decided to either give this story a second chance or are picking it up or the first time and find your charmingly misguided ass intrigued, then I promise not to make you wait a solid year for another update. That said I've got some major writing to make up for, so until next time, deuces.

Loathe,
Your Antagonist