Payback is a Switch

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