The Rebellion

It had been a week since Scootaloo had been signed as a citizen of Ponyville, and she had already learnt a lot about fitting in with other ponies. Of course she hadn’t really had the chance to try them out, but she knew she could do it when she had the chance.
Scootaloo had often seen a cyan blue mare flying around Ponyville and had immediately become obsessed with her. It wasn’t weird; it wasn’t like she was stalking the pony everywhere she went. She just saw her flying and loved how fast the mare could go when she flew. Scootaloo really wanted to be like that when she was older.
Merryweather hadn’t visited since he had left, but that was to be expected. With him working for Dark Spirit is wasn’t really a great idea for him to be sneaking around all the time. Scootaloo knew full well what Dark Spirit was capable of since she had trained with him since she was first really grown. She had been ordered to salute when she first came out of that tube, and she remembered it like it was only yesterday.
She had of course been the weakest due to her size and had trouble keeping up with Blazingstorm for a couple of those first weeks. But Merryweather always lifted her spirits whenever she had a problem like that and soon she had matched her sister step for step.
But now was a matter of fitting in. It was almost like Nightsky was telling her to forget all the training she had ever endured! He kept telling her to stop her salutes, and to never fight other ponies even if they start fighting with her. But what was the point of never defending yourself if you were fully capable of doing it? Scootaloo still didn’t understand why, but she knew she had to blend in so she did it.
Today was the first day of school for Scootaloo, and it was finally time for her to put her knowledge to the test. She just had to blend in with everypony and hope to make some friends. She didn’t really care about having friends, but Nightsky had said it was always nice to have a friend to help you along.
“Scootaloo, you have to be at school in twenty minutes,” Nightsky called into the room. “I’ll be taking you there on your first day so I can introduce you to your teacher.”
Scootaloo nodded and got up from the bed. Nightsky had given her, her own room for her to sleep in and she still wasn’t quite used to sleeping on something so comfortable. In fact, the first few days of living there she had slept on the floor; she felt too uncomfortable. Somehow Nightsky had managed to get her to try the bed out one night, and so she continued to use it.
“Coming, Night,” she answered.
She took a step towards her desk in front of her bed and picked up her saddlebags. She noticed they barely weighed anything even though there were loads of things inside of it.
Scootaloo had often had to carry many heavy rocks as part of her training when she lived with The Rebellion group. Dark Spirit had said it would help her if she had to carry anything else because it would feel like nothing. Well, he had certainly been right on that.
She headed into the living room where Nightsky was waiting patiently on the sofa. She came to stand in front of him and smiled.
“I’m ready to leave,” she said nervously.
“You really shouldn’t be nervous about school,” he assured her.
“I’m not-” He shushed her.
“Scootaloo, there will be a few foals out there that might be mean, but most of them will probably be really nice to you,” he promised.
Scootaloo nodded and followed Nightsky into the dark streets. Unlike most ponies, Scootaloo found comfort in the shade, and she suspected it was from all the time under the trees. But she did enjoy the open world around her, and wished she had experienced it sooner.
“Right then, it looks like you’re going to school.” Nightsky looked down at her warmly.
The two Pegasi took a small trot towards the school building. Scootaloo still felt very nervous despite Nightsky easing her worries with talk. She decided it was best to just take deep breaths and hopefully it would go away.
They finally reached the building a few minutes later. Scootaloo walked in first to see the class had already settled and put their eyes straight on Scootaloo and Nightsky. She decided to look them in the eyes to show how confident she could be, and did just that. But it looked like it was making the other ponies nervous and she quickly stopped.
“Who is this?” The teacher asked Nightsky who came to stand beside Scootaloo.
“This is Scootaloo.” He walked towards her, “she’s my sister coming to stay in Ponyville with me.”
Her eyes widened, “so this is Scootaloo?” She came to stand in front of the orange Pegasus. “Hello, my name is Miss Cheerilee and I’m going to be your new teacher.”
Scootaloo nodded and looked to see where there were spare seats. She noticed one near the back of the class and started walking towards it. The class still kept their eyes on the new student which made her quite nervous, but she kept her cool as she placed her saddlebag on the ground and sat herself on the chair.
“So class, Scootaloo is new to Ponyville so you should all treat her with as much kindness as possible,” Miss Cheerilee told the class.
Scootaloo was getting slightly annoyed at how nice her voice always sounded. It was like she trying her hardest to sound pleasant and nice, but Scootaloo could see right through it. She wasn’t as well-spoken as she made herself out to be.
Being in The Rebellion made it easy to understand; Scootaloo had often come across many ponies that had just joined making their voice too nice whenever they spoke to Dark Spirit like they were trying to please him. But as soon as they got settled in their voice would change completely, it was something she saw every day.
Nightsky left the classroom and waved a final goodbye to Scootaloo. The class turned back to normal and the teacher began to talk about random things, but Scootaloo didn’t really pay that much attention because she basically knew everything the teacher was talking about.
Being grown meant she had a lot of the information was sent to her brain when she was growing in that tube. She knew everything there was about magic, Maths, English and Science so she really had no need to listen.
Of course Scootaloo was well educated in things like fighting and other martial arts. The only thing she hadn’t mastered yet was the ability to fly, but even growing in a tube couldn’t change when she would fly. Even Blazingstorm hadn’t learnt how to do it as of the last time she was there.
“Scootaloo, are you listening?” A voice entered her thoughts.
Scootaloo looked up to see Miss Cheerilee looking at her with an annoyed expression.
“Sorry, Miss,” Scootaloo answered the teacher, “it’s just that in my old school I was taught a lot of this stuff already…”
Miss Cheerilee raised an eyebrow, “but every school teaches these things at the same time in Equestria. How could you have possibly learnt it already?”
Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “Scratch that,” she laughed nervously; “my mum taught me it early,” she lied.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t listen to that lesson,” Miss Cheerilee said sternly, and then quickly went back to her teaching.
Scootaloo sighed and went back into zoning out.
The lesson ended and break came. Scootaloo went to sit outside and sat by herself at one of the tables. She watched the other ponies go off and play with their friends and immediately noticed something strange.
It seemed like everypony had a different group, and that was certainly strange to Scootaloo. When she was in The Rebellion everypony seemed to be completely different, but they all worked for the same cause so it was fine. But now it looked as though each pony was split up into their own decided groups.
So I just have to find a pony with similar interests to mine? She thought to herself, shouldn’t be too hard.
She picked up her saddlebag and grabbed an apple. She smiled and brought it up to her mouth when she heard a bunch of ponies laughing loudly.
Scootaloo placed the apple back in her bag and started walking forwards to see what all the commotion was. She looked around the corner to see two earth ponies standing over a white unicorn with a pink and purple mane. It looked to Scootaloo like they were laughing at her for whatever reason, but it looked like whatever they were laughing about was hurting the unicorn’s feelings.
Placing the bag on her back she went to go look what they were laughing about.
“Just shut up blank flank,” the pink earth pony snapped. “Do you really expect us to be nice to a pony who doesn’t even know her own special talent?”
The unicorn shook her head sadly, and hung her head low.
“Wow, I thought you were too stupid to understand such complicated rules,” the silver one laughed, causing the pink one to laugh as well.
Scootaloo’s eyes widened at how harsh they were being. She took a step forwards to stand in front of the unicorn and looked defiantly at the two ponies.
“What’s wrong with you?!” She practically screamed. “She hasn’t done anything to you, so why don’t you just go and do whatever it is prissy little ponies like you do?”
“And who are you?” The pink one gave her a disgusted look.
“My name’s Scootaloo, now how about you get the hay out of here?!” She took a step forwards until she was a centimetre away from both ponies.
The pink one pushed Scootaloo backwards, causing her to stagger.
“That’s how you want to play it, then?” She ran forwards and pushed the pony to the floor.
She lifted up her hooves and hit her in the face causing a small bit of blood to trickle from her left cheek.
“Get off me!” She screamed.
Scootaloo moved from on top of her and both the ponies ran off. Scootaloo brought her attention back to the unicorn that was now looking at her happily.
“Thank you so much, Scootaloo!” She wrapped her forelegs around Scootaloo in a hug. “You’re the new filly, right?”
Scootaloo nodded.
“Great, we should be friends!” She exclaimed happily, “I don’t really have any friends,” she admitted.
“Thanks, I don’t really have many friends either,” Scootaloo confessed.
The two took a seat where Scootaloo had previously been sitting earlier and enjoyed their lunches. Scootaloo learnt that the unicorns name was Sweetie Belle and that her sister owned a boutique in Ponyville. They spent the rest of the day together until school had finally ended.
“Hey wait a minute, Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle called after her new friend.
Scootaloo turned around and waited for her friend to speak.
“We should go to Diamond Tiara’s cuteceanera in a few days,” she told Scootaloo, who gave her a raised eyebrow.
Realising Scootaloo’s look Sweetie Belle finally explained why, “I don’t like her, but maybe we could make some more friends there. After all, everypony in town will be there!”
“True on that,” Scootaloo agreed, “yeah, it might be pretty fun!”
Sweetie Belle smiled excitedly.
The two finally left and Scootaloo headed towards Nightsky’s house. She got home happily and told Nightsky exactly what had happened that day, leaving out the part where she had beat up Diamond Tiara.