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