Cutie Marked for Death

Chapters

The Only Way
Ten Years After
Babs Seed
Canterlot
The Public Enemy
A Very Long Night

The Only Way

A cold night had fallen over Ponyville, and a kind of hush had gathered over the sleepy little town. It was sleepy, but not sleeping, not tonight, for things of a very different sort were happening. For while the town was silent, that was only because most of the townspeople had found their way to Sweet Apple Acres, to stare and gawk and gossip as they watched the venerable brigade of royal guards (fresh from Canterlot) form a perimeter. The guards were professionals, tried and tested, ready to do or die for Celestia and country. Each one of them understood that they could not break, could not falter, no matter the consequences. Duty came first, and on tonight of all nights, they would need all the courage and devotion to duty they could muster. No one wanted to make a single mistake as they tried to keep the curious populace separate from the place where they were certain : the tree-fort known to some as the clubhouse of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Twilight Sparkle stood just behind the guards and looked squarely at the darkened fort. In front of her, she levitated a megaphone. Just behind her stood Applejack and Rarity, trying hard to comfort each other in this hour of turmoil. Rainbow Dash hovered not too far off, trying to conceal her own concern.

Twilight spoke into the megaphone, “Come on, girls, we can talk this out. We just want your side of the story, that’s all. If you just cooperate, I won’t stop until I’ve gotten you the best deal I can. But you’ve got to talk to me.”

“Oh, how could this happen, Applejack?” Rarity said, almost crying. “We raised them properly, did we not? I always though Sweetie Belle would become such a lady someday!”

“Ah know, Rarity,” Applejack responded, patting her on the back. “Ah know. But it’s like Granny Smith always says. There’s goin’ to be a bad apple in even the best bunch. I just never expected it to be Apple Bloom….”

Twilight tried to not let the emotion get to her. She steeled herself and said, “Now, girls, just come down here without any trouble. We can sort this out. There doesn’t need to be any more bloodshed.”

She paused to whisper to one of the guard captains to prepare the troops to storm the fort if no answer came. This done, she continued.

“We know you three always had some issues with Diamond Tiara. I’m sure you all felt completely justified in what happened. Maybe if it had been any of us getting bullied constantly, we’d have snapped too, eventually. And maybe the death of her father and everyone else in the market, maybe that was just an accident. Come on, girls, let’s just talk it over.”

Inside the fort, a nervous and frightened Sweetie Belle sat by the window, listening to every word Twilight Sparkle spoke. Then she looked to her compatriots, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. Apple Bloom was busy pouring a murky brown liquid throughout the clubhouse while Scootaloo stood on the level above her, desperately trying to kick the lantern out of its hanger.

“Not yet, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom scolded, the fear in her voice mingling with anger. “Ya know what a punch Big Macintosh’s Knockout Cider packs! Ya’ll set the three of us on fire if you knock that thing down too quick!”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Scootaloo said, her voice equally edgy. “If I don’t get this thing knocked down, there won’t be a fire at all!”

“Um, guys,” Sweetie Belle said, “maybe we should just explain everything to Twilight. She’s our friend. She won’t blame us for anything. Besides, she’s a princess now. She could get us out of trouble!”

“Ain’t you been listening to her out there?” Apple Bloom said without looking up from where she was now pouring the liquid. “She thinks we’re guilty! They all do! They think we killed Diamond Tiara and her daddy and all those ponyfolk! An’ since they found Scootaloo’s scooter an’ one of our spare capes at the scene–”

“I told you, someone stole it! I haven’t seen it in a week!” Scootaloo protested, kicking the lantern so hard that it shook the floorboards on which she was standing.

“And I told you that I thought someone had broken into the clubhouse a few days ago!” Sweetie Belle added. “But no one believed me!”

“Ah ain’t blaming either of you,” Apple Bloom said. “But somepony’s clearly tryin’ to frame us. An’ until we can figure out who that is, this is the only way.”

“But–” Sweetie Belle began.

“The only way!” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo said together.

Sweetie Belle looked forlornly out of the window one more time. Then she turned back to her fellow Crusaders and nodded. It was the only way.

“I mean, it’s not like its permanent,” Scootaloo said. “Once we figure out who framed us, we can just pop and everything will go back to normal. It’ll be like nothing ever happened at all.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Sweetie Belle responded, having now been largely persuaded to the other two’s way of thinking. She did one last check on the three small manikins she had stolen from Rarity’s shop. She had been so careful to get them in the right positions in front of the window and had spent so much time getting the Crusader capes to fall just right over their shoulders. It seemed such a sad thing that all of her work would soon be gone….

But it was the only way.

“There. That’ll just about do it!” Apple Bloom said, once she had covered nearly every corner of the clubhouse in highly-flammable cider. “Y’all ready?”

Scootaloo gave the lantern one last good kick. It finally fell from the ceiling and landed on the floor with a mighty crash, causing the “thinking spot” to go up in flames.

“Ready!” Scootaloo said as she and Sweetie Belle rushed to stand by Apple Bloom.

“Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom said. “Ya did finish clearin’ out the emergency exit, didn’t ya?”

“You wait until now to ask me that?” Sweetie Belle said as she watched the bright flames cut off her last glimpse at the outside world.

“Well, did ya or didn’t ya?” Apple Bloom demanded, the thought that she might have just doomed the three of them to a fiery death impressing itself upon her for the first time.

“Yeah, I did!” Sweetie Belle responded, turning her eyes away from the flames. That was becoming increasingly hard to do, as the flames were quickly surrounding them on all sides.

“Then let’s get out of here!” Scootaloo shouted. She kicked the floor directly under them, causing them to fall through it. They spiraled rapidly through a tunnel cut hastily into the tree that supported the clubhouse and came out just above the roots. Without saying anything, all of them made it as far away from the clubhouse as they could.

They were in such a state that none of them heard Twilight Sparkle continue her speech through the megaphone.

“Girls, we’re trying our best out here. But we’ve got all night, so if you just want to talk, we can listen. If you just want to talk, we’ll stay here. Just tell us what happened.”

She looked over to the captain again and covered one end of the megaphone with her hoof. “Move in in five,” she said.

The captain nodded and instructed his troops.

“Wait, Twi!” Applejack said. “Let me talk to ’em! Apple Bloom always listens to me! I’m sure if she just heard my voice, she’d convince the others to give theirselves up!”

Twilight nodded and let Applejack step in front of the megaphone.

“Apple Bloom, sis, I’m still here for ya no matter what!” she said. “Please, don’t keep doin’ this. Whatever happened, you just tell ol’ Applejack and we’re gonna work it out! I promise, sis! I promise!” Tears streamed down from her eyes as Applejack broke down. Rarity rushed forward to comfort her.

From behind them, Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed in on the clubhouse. “Wait, something’s not right,” she said as she noticed something bright flickering in the windows, just behind the three silhouettes.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders found themselves lucky. Once they had gotten to what they had estimated was a safe distance, they had taken a look around and saw that there were no guards in this area of the orchard. Since the clubhouse did not face this way, they had probably seen much need to station somepony here.

Out of harm’s way, the Crusaders calmed down, but they knew they could not stop. The area may be deserted now, but they could not risk someone coming along and catching them. This, the three of them knew well.

So, the three took one last look at their beloved Clubhouse and the town they had called their home their whole lives. And then they turned away. They turned away and, without looking back, kept walking in the opposite direction.

Just then, a terrible noise tore through all of Sweet Apple Acres and the orchard was illuminated by a frenzied orange glow. The Cutie Mark Clubhouse was consumed by fire, becoming nothing more than a great ball of flame.

“They don’t call it Knockout Cider for nothing, do they?” Sweetie Belle observed, suppressing all the painful emotions she was currently feeling.

Apple Bloom did the same as she answered, “That’s why it’s banned in six counties! They say it’s more dangerous than moonshine!”

That was the last thing any of the three said that night.

As Twilight picked herself up from the blast, she immediately looked to Applejack and Rarity, who were holding each other, their eyes locked in horror on the burning tree-fort. Twilight quickly tried to come up with a solution, but before she could even assemble her thoughts into a coherent form, a rainbow streak of light sped past her.

“No, Rainbow Dash, you can’t!” she heard herself say. “The fire’s too strong!”

Rainbow Dash paid no attention. As she rapidly approached the burning structure, she could just see the three figures beside what had once been a window. If only she could reach them, she thought. But just as she was about to grab hold of one, the flame roared and lunged at her. It was as though the blaze was claiming the three as its own, telling Rainbow Dash, “You had your turn. They’re mine now!”

But Rainbow Dash was never the type to be defeated so easily. She sped around the clubhouse, looking for any way to get in. She made several revolutions, gaining more and more frantic speed with each one. But from every opening, the fire launched out at her, forcing her back. Rainbow looked up into the sky, hoping that there was some nearby raincloud she could use to put out the fire. But, alas, it was a clear night. Tears formed in Rainbow Dash’s eyes as she realized that there was nothing she could do.

She had been so close to saving them. So close. She had seen them devoured by the monstrous blaze. And now it was too late. For once in her life, she had failed. She had lost three lives – and one of the ponies that she cared about most. The one time it meant the most, she thought, she had just come up short.

It was enough to break even Rainbow Dash’s sturdy heart.

It was perhaps merciful, then, that the fire chose this moment to let out a second large blast, sending Rainbow Dash rocketing back. As she hit the ground hard, a group of fearless guards rushed out and pulled her to safety. She suffered only minor burns to her wings and hooves, as well as a bout of unconsciousness – though it might not be right to say she “suffered” the last one. Anyone else present would have considered it a blessing to be even temporarily unaware of the tragedy unfolding before them.

“I don’t want anybody else going down there until the firefighters have arrived!” Twilight ordered. It was a tough call, but one she knew had to be made. She figured that anypony could see that there was no way the three foals could have survived a blast like that. All that was left was to clean up what was left.

Beside her, Applejack and Rarity were crying heavily into each other’s shoulders. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had rushed forward to try and comfort them, but both found that they had absolutely no idea of how to do it. Instead, they just stared at each other in shock.

Twilight Sparkle joined them. Applejack looked up at her, the despair in her eyes transforming swiftly into rage. “Ya should have done somethin’, Twilight! Ya should have done somethin’!”

“There was nothing I could do,” Twilight answered simply.

“Then what good are ya’?” Applejack hollered. “What good is bein’ a princess anyway if ya can’t even save ya friends? Can’t even save the people that matter most to ya?”

“Now, now,” Fluttershy said gently, patting Applejack on the shoulder. “It wasn’t Twilight’s fault. Nobody could have done anything more.”

“It’s just not fair!” Applejack screamed as she and Rarity broke out into a new round of tears.

Just then, Twilight Sparkle noticed something making its way through the night sky, carried gently on the small breeze that was making its way through the area. She realized that her friends had noticed it too.

The small thing came down slowly and purposefully right in front of Applejack and Rarity. The hearts of those two nearly stopped upon seeing it and the volume of their tears became ten times greater. Even Twilight found herself unable to hold back any longer and she let a stream flow gently down her face.

What did they see? It was the badge of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, stitched onto the remains of one of those robes which the three had always been wearing. Within a few moments, the fire eating up the robe had spread to the badge itself, and the emblem of the Cutie Mark Crusaders disappeared forever into the flames.

What became of the Cutie Mark Crusaders?Read on.

Ten Years After

Manehatten.

Not the Manehatten they put on the tourist brochures, not the city of massive skyscrapers and chic modernity. No, this was the other Manehatten, the seedier, darker city that they don’t tell you about, because it’s the type of place no tourist would ever want to come within a thousand miles of. But to so many who have fallen through the cracks, to all those who cannot find a place for themselves in Celestia’s great society, this is home.

Somewhere in this other Manehatten, this city not of gleaming spires but of gloomy souls, there is a warehouse. And on one day in particular, that warehouse just happened to be the scene of a rather intense “negotiation.”

Inside, a group of impeccably-dressed individuals had gathered. At first glance, one would be forgiven for believing that this was some high-class shindig. But it was not a high-class shindig, for everyone here had a much darker purpose on their mind. And that purpose involved the young yellow mare with the red hair and pink bow standing on a pile of crates in front of them.

A large black stallion, clearly the leader of the group – and size was apparently his only qualification for the role – shouted, “Alright, ya little punk! Nowhere to go! So just drop the papers and maybe we won’t hurt ya… much!”

Apple Bloom gritted her teeth as she looked at the large host assembled beneath her. She pushed the manila folder close up to her chest with her foreleg and looked around for any means of escape. There was a skylight above her but she knew there was no way for her to get there – the pile of crates was tall, but not that tall. She could make a mad dash for one of the many exits, but she saw that goons were stationed at each, just ready to grab her at the first approach. Anyway she looked at it, Apple Bloom knew she was trapped. There was only one hope left.

“Come on, girls, where are ya?” she said under her breath.

“Hand it over already!” shouted the goon-leader.

“Neva!” Apple Bloom shouted back. “Ya want it, ya gonna have to come up here and take it!”

“Ooh, I hate that accent!” the stallion shouted back. “I’ve had enough of this! Get up there, boys, and get ’er!”

Apple Bloom saw them starting to charge up the crates and she knew she had to do something. Quickly she threw her head down to the pouch being held against her flank. From it, she removed an apple. She jerked her head upward, causing the apple to revolve in a circle around it. And then, apple broke from stem, with stem remaining in Apple Bloom’s mouth and apple going flying.

Naturally, none of the assembled goons paid much attention to this. It was just an apple, after all.

This is the type of thinking which has led to more blunders than the history-books of Equestria would care to admit, by-the-by.

The apple hit the ground and there was a flash of light and a howling noise. All the goons found themselves knocked very far from the crates – though a number of them found nothing but blackness, having landed on their heads. Those who were fortunate or unfortunate enough to still be awake did not have time to recover from this first booming crash. Another soon followed.

For, at this very moment, tearing through one of the far doors came two figures on a powerful, mechanized scooter.

Scootaloo made a sharp right turn and Sweetie Belle threw herself from the scooter, going into a barrel roll. When she had recovered, she levitated the rifle from over her shoulder into a firing position, and then let loose a string of peas (it was a pea-shooter) at a number of thugs who had gotten back to their feet and were ready for a brawl. Soon, most of them had been once more sent to the ground.

Apple Bloom found the crates teetering from the blast. She knew she could not stay upright for much longer, because the whole precarious structure was about to come tumbling down. And what was worse, a couple of goons had recovered from the blast and were now once more coming after her.

But she saw Scootaloo driving up toward her position on the scooter. Taking a mighty leap, Apple Bloom went soaring through the air. Scootaloo managed to just slide the scooter into the right position to catch Apple Bloom as she landed. Having secured her friend, Scootaloo put the scooter to full speed and got out of the area just as the crates came down. The thugs were not so lucky.

“What took ya two so long?” Apple Bloom scolded. “Ah was nearly apple-crumble here!”

“Hey, you think we had it easy?” Scootaloo shot back after recovering from the shouting to her ear. “Me and Sweetie Belle got cut off by a couple of their goons in carriages. We had to race through half the city just to get away from them!”

“They didn’t follow ya here, did they?” Apple Bloom asked.

Scootaloo smiled proudly. “You kidding? I left them to cool off in the river. They should have floated half-way to Fillidelphia by now!”

“Good work!”

“I know.”

As the duo turned another corner, they got a clear view of Sweetie Belle doing her best to fend off a large number of thus. She was a quick shot with the pea-shooter, but even she could not take them all on.

“Sweetie Belle’s in trouble! We gotta get there, fast!” Apple Bloom said.

Scootaloo looked back at her, mischief dancing in the young pegasus’ eyes. “Well, when you put it like that…. Do you mind a little music and lights?”

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Ah, if ya must….”

Scootaloo turned back to the crowd facing Sweetie Belle. Her face turned positively devilish as she pushed the button on the scooter handle. A great screeching issued forth from the scooter as the cannon mounted to the front came to life, launching a crackling firework in the horde’s general direction.

It took the crowd completely by surprise. All had heard the noise before the rocket made contact, but few had the chance to get out of the way. Those who took the brunt of the impact were sent hurling into those who had not, and soon the whole circle had fallen like dominoes onto the ground. This left only Sweetie Belle standing.

As she realized what had just occurred, Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust. “Music and lights,” she said.

“No time for complaining!” Scootaloo called out as she pulled up the scooter at Sweetie Belle’s position. “Get on!”

Sweetie Belle did not need to be told twice. She took her place on the scooter behind Apple Bloom and soon, the three were speeding for the exit.

“Um, girls, I think we forgot something,” Sweetie Belle said, looking behind her.

“What is it?” Apple Bloom responded as she and Scootaloo also looked. There, they saw the great black stallion quickly bearing down on them.

“Somepony care to take care of that?” Scootaloo said as she focused once more on the steering the scooter. Sweetie Belle levitated her pea-shooter and began to aim. She was surprised to see Apple Bloom’s hoof pushing it down.

“Let me,” Apple Bloom said.

Sweetie Belle flashed her an “Are you crazy?” look but Apple Bloom never saw it. She was already hard at work pulling two apples from her saddlebags. With a great circular heave, she sent them both flying. Two explosions rocked the support-beams right beside the entryway Scootaloo was speeding to. She managed to get the scooter through it just before that whole section of the warehouse collapsed. But the stallion was not so lucky. The last sight he saw was Apple Bloom spitting two apple stems out of her mouth.

“How’d ya like mah ak-sent now?” she said.

And then all was black.

Outside the facility, a single scooter sped away into the nearest side-street as the first police arrived on the scene. The cops never saw it or the three mares it was carrying.

“I think ya can slow down a bit,” Apple Bloom said when they had gotten a block or so away.

“I know,” Scootaloo responded. “But I’m having too much fun!”

“Scootaloo!” the other two yelled together.

“Okay, okay!” Scootaloo said as she lowered the speed from ‘high-speed getaway’ level to ‘moderately-fast-but-not-really-that-exciting-in-my-humble-opinion’ level.

“Did you get all the papers?” Sweetie Belle asked Apple Bloom.

“Ah, what?” Apple Bloom answered in confusion. And then it came back to her. “Oh, the papers!”

She looked down to find that, amazingly, she still held the manila folder tightly against her chest.

“Yeah, they should be all here,” she said. “Gee, wouldn’t it have been funny if, after all that, ah’d dropped ’em while throwin’ mah apple-bombs?”

Scootaloo laughed while Sweetie Belle grunted in annoyance.

“One of these days, we’ve got to be more careful or we might end up messing up something really important!” Sweetie Belle protested.

“Yeah, like that’ll ever happen!” Scootaloo said as she sent the scooter back into ‘high-speed getaway mode.’ The other two had not noticed it yet, but Scootaloo had caught sight of a ramp which was just calling her name…

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle let out startled screams as they found themselves and the scooter shooting through the air. It was not so much themselves which they were worried about as the manila folder which had been sent flying from out of Apple Bloom’s grasp. Sweetie Belle just managed to psychically grab onto it before it spilled its contents over the greater Manehatten area.

“Scootaloo!” They both shouted again just as the scooter hit the ground.

“Not apologizing for anything,” Scootaloo said as she reoriented the scooter.

“We don’t have time fer fun an’ games!” Apple Bloom said. “We got an appoin’ment to keep!”

“I know, I know,” Scootaloo responded as she got the scooter back onto its proper course.

“And you’re sure everything’s in here?” said a lilac-colored, white-maned unicorn with a serious expression as she magically leafed through the documents in the folder.

“We’re sure,” Scootaloo said with a self-assured nod.

“We double and triple-checked jus’ to make sure,” Apple Bloom added.

For the first time since they had known her, a real smile began to form on the unicorn’s face. “This has everything I need to bring to light Haycorp’s unethical business dealings. Once we get finished with them in the courts, there’s no way they’ll be able to force us all out of our homes.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Taking on a corporation is a big job, no matter where you do it. And you know what courts are like.”

The unicorn smiled. “Don’t worry about it. If you three can take them on in the streets, I should have no trouble taking them on in the courts. Besides, I think I’m getting a knack for it.”

At this point, the unicorn turned in order to show them her flank, upon which was the cutie mark of a judge’s gavel.

“Hey, don’t look so surprised!” she said with a laugh at the three’s shocked faces. “You guys are the Cutie Mark Crusaders, right? Fighting injustice and helping ponies get their cutie marks – especially those of us who never found our calling when we were kids.”

“Yep, that’s us!” Apple Bloom said, a little bashfully.

“Never stop the journey until everypony gets their cutie mark, that’s our motto,” Scootaloo volunteered, equally bashfully.

“We never met a flank we couldn’t make less blank,” Sweetie Belle added, and then mentally kicked herself for how absurd that line sounded.

Then, as the unicorn looked away, the three quickly turned their heads to look at their own flanks. They tried to mute their sighs of disappointment when it was discovered that all three of their own flanks were still blank.

The three swiftly turned back around, embarrassed smiles trying to cover up what they had just done. But there was no need. The unicorn was still looking away from them. Her eyes were scanning the street and all of the buildings on either side of it. And they were scanning the ponies coming in and out of them – a simple folk, a happy folk, and, until very recently, a folk whose homes and livelihood had been threatened by corporate greed.

“You know, you’ve saved a lot of people with this. A lot of homes that will still be there, a lot of families that won’t have to try and find somewhere new to live. Nope, this neighborhood is going to survive. It’s going to do more than that – It’ll thrive! All these people owe you three a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

“Ah, shucks,” Apple Bloom said, “weren’t nothin’ at all!” She then silently berated herself for letting her down-home country way of talking burst through her hardened veneer.

“No, I mean it, you three are heroes,” the unicorn responded. “Now, how much did you say your fee was? Five-hundred bits?”

The unicorn put down the folder and began rummaging through a burlap bag beside her. The three Crusaders looked at each other, silently congratulating one another for another job well-done. But quickly into Sweetie Belle’s eyes came a look of unease. She moved them toward the large bag and then back to the other two. Apple Bloom grasped immediately what she was trying to say and the two of them then focused their gaze jointly on Scootaloo.

Scootaloo’s own eyes responded with annoyance but they softened quickly as the other two continued to give her encouraging looks. Finally she gave a little nod. At this very moment, the unicorn returned with a smaller bag (though not small in and of itself) levitating in front of her. The distinctive jingle-jangle told them that their payment was within.

Sweetie Belle spoke, “Actually, we’d like you to keep it. This neighborhood needs the money more than we do.”

The unicorn was stunned. “Are you… are you sure?”

The three nodded – Scootaloo with visible hesitation – and Apple Bloom said, “We’re sure, ma’am. We’ll do just fine on what we already got.”

“Please,” Sweetie Belle continued, “just take it and use it to help get this place back on track. Think of it as a parting gift from us.” Mentally, she noted that these last words seemed considerably well-chosen and congratulated herself on having made up for her previous blunder.

The unicorn’s eyes filled with light. She gave the three Crusaders another unprecedented sight; her calm, collected demeanor broke down as emotion flowed through her.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, “thank you for everything!”

Apple Bloom put her forelegs over Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo’s shoulders, and they did the same to her. “Just doing our job!” all three said in unison.

“Just doing our job!” Scootaloo snorted as the three walked into their favorite hangout.

It was one of those places which is often charmingly called a “den of depravity,” and the place was everything you would expect from such an epithet. While it was not run-down per se, the staff did a thorough job of making it look that way, in order to make the usual clientele feel all the more comfortable. Speaking of the usual clientele, they consisted of various types. Most were just looking to have some fun in ways which the law tended to frown upon and punish heavily, and they thus appreciated the dark little place where most things could be done and few things could be seen. But in the shadows, too, lurked much more dangerous figures, the type who could perhaps be counted on for bloodier deeds. At any rate, it was difficult to distinguish one type from the other in this joint, so nopony much interacted with anypony else unless they had business which needed to be settled. After all, somepony might take you down just for having to gall to bring yourself to their attention.

It was the perfect place for the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“This neighborhood needs the money more than we do,” Scootaloo continued, doing her best to mimic Sweetie Belle’s voice. Then she said, “We-a do jus’ fine awn wat we a’ready gawt,” in an overly-pronounced attempt to copy Apple Bloom’s accent.

The other two just ignored her. They had grown too accustomed to this for it to even register anymore.

“How many times do I have to keep saying to you two that we can’t afford to be running a charity?” Scootaloo said. “That was a tough job, and now we’ve got nothing to show for it!”

“I thought nothing was a tough job for you,” Sweetie Belle teased.

“Well, I didn’t mean it was tough for me,” Scootaloo hastily explained. “But I noticed that you and Apple Bloom seemed like you were having a little trouble back there.”

“Oh, really?” Sweetie Belle responded. “Then remind me, who was the one that got herself cornered when she drove her super-scooter into a brick wall? And who had to distract the goons with her singing long enough for said-scooter maniac to escape?”

Scootaloo smiled bashfully. “Well, um…. All I’m saying is that we can’t put up a price and then refuse to collect when it’s all said and done! That’s two jobs in a row we put in all the work and got no profit!”

“You agreed to it at the time!”

“Yeah, I know, but I was practically outvoted.”

Scootaloo felt the need to backtrack after both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom gave her looks. “Don’t get me wrong! It feels great to help out people like that. But we need something to live off of too! Otherwise we’ll become the Cutie Mark Crusaders Panhandlers at this rate!”

Sweetie Belle put her hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “I wonder what a cutie mark for begging for money would look like….”

“Ah, hush, ya two,” Apple Bloom said. “We ain’t gonna be reduced to panhandlin’. We got enough to live off of until our next big job comes along.”

“Okay,” Scootaloo said, “but we have to make some money on our next job, or else we won’t have enough bits left for an ice-cream cone!”

“Relax, Scoots,” Apple Bloom said. “Ah’ve already got our next job lined up. Babs is s’pposed to meet us here to explain it.”

Scootaloo scanned the darkened booths along all three levels. She was well-enough acquainted with the place to be able to see decently despite the low-level of lighting. “Well, I don’t see her anywhere.”

“It’s early. She probably won’t be here for a bit. Ya two go get our table and Ah’ll grab the drinks.” At which point Apple Bloom broke away from the group and approached the barkeep to order three ciders.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle continued walking to their table. It was one right on the other end of the bar, placed within its own little niche in the corner of the first level. It was not easy to see unless you were within the immediate vicinity, but it afforded a clear view of the entrance and the pathway to the bar. It allowed for privacy but also was central enough that you could cause a scene if anything went really wrong. It was, in a tactical sense, the best seat in the house. And currently, it was occupied.

Two young colts sat there. One was drinking one of those infamous large glasses of cider that are shaped like a boot while the other was reading the newspaper and seemingly getting very angry about something or other within. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were able to size them up immediately. They were the types who, despite not actually looking in any way physically intimidating, are intent on acting like they could beat anypony in the house to a pulp. It did not take a trained or experienced eye to see that an act was all it was, and a badly performed one at that. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo sighed and exchanged glances. Their two minds shared a single thought: Best to get this over with before Apple Bloom comes back with the cider.

“Hey, chums, this is our table!” Scootaloo said. “Get out!”

“He, we were here first,” said the one with the newspaper. He did not look up from whatever edifying story had caught his interest now.

“Doesn’t matter,” Scootaloo responded. “This table is ours! We always sit here!”

“Oh, it’s reserved for you?” the one drinking out of the boot responded. “Funny, I don’t think your name’s on it!”

“Actually, it is,” Sweetie Belle volunteered. “See, right down at the edge there, between the bullet holes and the dried blood.”

The colt looked in utter disbelief as Sweetie Belle’s hoof directed his eyes to a small golden plaque, on which was written, “Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

All color seemed to disappear from the colt’s face as he fell back into the booth. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders?”

Even the other colt seemed to lose interest in his paper, which fell to the table and stayed there. “I was just reading about them,” he whispered to his associate. “Paper says they’re vicious criminals. May be best not to tangle with them.”

“Better listen to your friend there,” Scootaloo said. “We are vicious criminals after all. Why, Sweetie Belle here doesn’t consider a day complete until she’s fulfilled her colt-capping quota.”

Both of the colts were now very visibly shaken. But the one who had until so recently been drinking from the boot-glass now pounded his hoof on the table and leapt up. Looking down menacingly at Scootaloo, he said, “I don’t care who you are! We aren’t just getting out of the way because somebody tells us! You’ll have to make us leave, runt!”

Scootaloo shrugged her wings. “Okay.”

When Apple Bloom reached the table with three ciders perched carefully on her back, she was greeted by two colts running in the other direction, one of whom was completely drenched in cider. She then saw Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo standing triumphantly by their table. In her mouth, Scootaloo had the handle of what had apparently used to be a very large drinking glass, the sharp shards of which were still littering the ground.

She spit the handle out and shouted after the colts. “If you want people to think you’re tough, maybe you should skip the souvenir glass next time!”

Apple Bloom carefully navigated her way past the shards on the ground and then placed the three glasses onto the table. “Did y’all have fun?” she asked.

“Not much,” Scootaloo said as she felt into her part of the booth and began riffling through the paper the colt had left. “They weren’t tough enough to be a real challenge.”

“Thankfully,” Sweetie Belle said as she and Apple Bloom took their places. “I think we’ve had enough action for one day.” This prompted a disgruntled pshaw from Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle gave Scootaloo a cutting look, but she did not even notice it. She was too busy looking through the paper. “Hey, listen to this, guys. They got an article on us here.”

“Another one?” Apple Bloom asked in-between sips of cider. “What’s it say now?”

“Eh, same as always,” Scootaloo responded. Then she began to read aloud, “It’s now been ten years since the trio of juvenile delinquents known as the Cutie Mark Crusaders died in a blast of flame. Or, at least, that’s how the official story goes. The three were cornered in their clubhouse after planting the bomb that killed local magnate Filthy Rich, his family, and several passersby, only to blow themselves up at the end of a long standoff with the Royal Guard. But questions have always remained. While these have in the past revolved around Princess Twilight Sparkle’s handling of the crisis, and criticisms that she brought about the tragic outcome by mishandling the standoff and turning it into a siege have continued to dog her to this day, now new questions our being added that make what happened that fateful night all the more puzzling. The last few years have seen a rise in reports that the Cutie Mark Crusaders are still alive, and the stories being told about them seem to ignore their criminal past, making them into modern-day Robin Hooves that defend the downtrodden against injustice.”

“So, the same thing they always say,” Sweetie Belle said. “Is there anything new?”

“Well, this is,” Scootaloo said. “While the stories spreading about the Crusaders make them seem quite heroic, we would like to remind our readers that they are fugitives with a violent criminal past. It may be romantic to think that such types would want to atone for their misdeeds, but anyone with a real acquaintance with the world knows that such things rarely, if ever, happen.”

“What does that even mean?” Sweetie Belle exclaimed in frustration, feeling her head spinning just from Scootaloo’s recitation.

“It means they still think we’re no-good killers,” Scootaloo answered, not hiding the anger in her own voice. “They don’t want to give us a fair shake or anything!”

“Well, we always knew that was gonna be the case,” Apple Bloom suggested.

“Listen to this,” Scootaloo said. “Her Highness Princess Twilight Sparkle could not be reached for comment on these rumors. But a spokespony for the Princess had this to say, ‘Her Highness would like to remind everyone that she was cleared by a tribunal consisting of Princesses Celestia and Luna themselves of any wrongdoing in the Sweet Apple Acres incident and she finds it saddening that there are those who feel the need to keep reviving old accusations for their own ends. As to the rumors of the Crusaders’ survival, she wants it to be known that there is absolutely no chance that they escaped alive.”

“Ah, poor Twilight,” Apple Bloom said. “She didn’t do anything wrong, and yet she’s getting all the blame!”

“Just like us,” Sweetie Belle observed.

“Yeah, just like us,” Scootaloo said, her voice suddenly becoming distant. After a few moments of staring at the news story again, she added, “Do you girls ever miss it?”

“What, the newspaper?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Scootaloo shook her head. “No, do you miss… you know…. Life before… before everything?”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at one another. Neither of them quite knew what to say. It was not something which they had ever talked about before.

“Well, I guess so….’ Sweetie Belle said limpidly.

“Yeah, not much. Ah just miss mah family, mostly,” Apple Bloom said, her eyes looking down to her hooves. “Ah don’t miss much else, but ah miss Applejack and Big Macintosh and Granny Smith and even Winona. Ah miss livin’ on the farm and helping with the harvest. Ah miss the big family get-togethers and the reunions. Ah miss all that….”

“So not really much at all, huh?” Scootaloo said.

But Apple Bloom’s example had apparently given Sweetie Belle a better grasp on her own thoughts. She now spoke up. “I miss my family too! I miss my mom and my dad… and I even miss Rarity, even if she could be such a pain at times….”

Sweetie Belle looked downcast at the thought. Apple Bloom put her hoof on her shoulder. “Families sure can be trouble sometimes. But it’s funny how strange you feel without ’em.”

Sweetie Belle nodded at these sage words and then turned to Scootaloo. “What about you, Scootaloo? Do you miss life back then?”

Scootaloo shrugged her wings and let out a little laugh. “Me, miss life back in Ponyville? What do I have to miss? Especially when we’ve got so much fun and adventure right here!” But immediately after she said it, Scootaloo dropped her eyes to the paper and her face turned into a frown. She quickly tried to control it, since she did not want the other two to see, but it only half worked.

Apple Bloom noticed this but thought it might not be the best time to bring it up. Scootaloo could get overly-sensitive if pressed on subjects she did not want to talk about, and this was clearly something she did not want to talk about, despite her being the first to ask the question. Besides, thinking of a long-gone past would do nopony any good right now. So she grabbed the newspaper and pulled it over by her. “This is exactly what I wanted to talk to you girls about, though.”

“It is?” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo said in surprise.

“Eeyup,” Apple Bloom said. “All these articles appearing lately. It’s bringin’ on too much heat.”

“Ah, don’t worry,” Scootaloo answered. “It’s not like any of these newspapers think we’re actually still alive! They just think it’s all rumors and gossip.”

“Don’t matter,” Apple Bloom responded. “The more they talk about us, the harder it’s gonna be for us to keep a low, er–” She waved her hoof in the air, signaling that she was looking for the right word.

“Profile,” Scootaloo volunteered.

“That’s right, a low profile,” Apple Bloom said. “So I think we gotta clear out, at least temporarily. Manehatten’s getting too hot. Let’s go someplace else until it cools down.”

“I don’t know, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle said. “It seems like we have trouble staying out of the news no matter where we go.”

“That may be, but it’ll be better if its spread out a bit. Then people won’t think nothin’ of it.”

Scootaloo flapped her wings in discontent. “Where are we going to go? We can’t go back to Fillydelphia, not after what happened last time.”

Apple Bloom smiled as she looked up from the paper. “Don’t you worry about that. Babs is supposed to have a good gig lined up that’s pretty far from here. And I do believe I see her coming in now.”

What "gig" did Babs have for the Crusaders?Read on.

Babs Seed

Babs Seed made her way quickly to the table and sat down next to Apple Bloom, who passed her a glass of cider. Babs took a gulp of cider, paused to blow her bangs out of her eyes, and then began to speak.

“Ya know,” Babs said as she looked around the room, “you guys should really consider getting a new hangout. The… uh… clientele they got here don’t exactly make a pony feel comfortable.”

“What, are you scared of it something?” Scootaloo mocked.

“Nah, I ain’t scared,” Babs said, “but I don’t know that it’s the best place to be conductin’ business when you three are supposed to be champions of justice an’ all. These ain’t the type of ponies to be rubbin’ hooves with if you want to be seen as heroes.”

But as this piece of honest advice failed to make an impression on the other three, so Babs added, “Besides, I hear the cops are gonna raid this place any day now. You don’t want to be caught in the middle of that, now do ya?”

“Point taken,” Apple Bloom said, “and we were actually thinking the same thing.”

“You were?” Babs asked, surprised that one of her ideas was being taken seriously for once.

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom continued. “We’re gettin’ too much attention round here. We thought we’d head out for someplace else until things get calm again. That’s why Ah asked before if ya could get us a gig outside-a Manehatten.”

“And do I ever got one for you three!” Babs said enthusiastically, though there was a slight hint of something in her voice that suggested another emotion. Concern, perhaps.

“Someplace far away?” Sweetie Belle asked, getting excited.

“And good paying, too?” Scootaloo added, getting even more excited.

Babs nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Both.” And then a sly grin crossed her face. “But speaking of payment, you got my cut for me?”

Apple Bloom shrugged and sighed. “Sorry, Babs, but we didn’t get paid this time.”

“We told her she could keep the money,” Sweetie Belle added.

Babs looked like she was having trouble even processing the idea. After taking a moment during which she appeared to mentally digest it, she finally spoke. “Are you three bigger bozos that I took you for? That’s the second time in a row you’ve done this!”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!” Scootaloo protested. “I wanted to keep the money. It was Sweetie Belle’s bright idea to give it away!”

“Oh, so generosity’s a bad thing now?” Sweetie Belle replied defensively, sounding slightly hurt.

“It is when ya got a business to run,” Babs said.

“But our business is helpin’ folks, Babs,” Apple Bloom said, jumping in to defend Sweetie Belle.

“Yeah? I’d like to see you help ponies when yer all beggin’ for money on a street-corner,” Babs responded.

“That’s what I said!” Scootaloo interjected.

“Babs, let’s not argue about this,” Apple Bloom responded. “What’s done is done, and there’s no use worryin’ ’bout it now, as Granny Smith used to say. Just tell us about the job ya got for us.”

Babs suddenly became uneasy. “I wish I’d known about our cash bein’ so tight before I got this one worked out. It’s good pay, but–”

“How much ‘good’ pay?” Scootaloo asked.

Babs hesitated. “Four-thousand bits,” she said at last.

Babs could not help squirming and grimacing as she saw the looks on her compatriot’s faces. The three’s eyes had grown huge and Babs could swear that she could see a large pile of golden bits already reflecting in them. The three ponies’ mouths had all dropped and now they were licking their lips. They were hooked, and now Babs knew she had made the wrong choice in bringing them this job.

“But, I don’t think it’ll be right for us,” Babs said. “I probably should have just told her to get lost.” She then turned away from the others and drank an overly long swig of cider.

Apple Bloom put her hoof on Babs' shoulder. “Is there something wrong, cousin?” she asked.

“Who cares if there’s something wrong?” Scootaloo said. “Four-thousand bits would keep us in business for a long time!”

“With that kind of money, we could do anything we wanted!” Sweetie Belle added. “Who cares what the job is! We’ll do anything for that price!”

“Ay, it’s Fillydelphia all over again,” Babs muttered to herself.

Apple Bloom realized her friends were not making Babs any more comfortable, so she decided to take a softer approach. “Why don’t you just tell us what the job is, then we can decide for ourselves what to do?”

Babs looked back to Apple Bloom and they shared a smile. Babs was still uncomfortable, but she settled down somewhat due to her cousin’s encouragement. Finally, she spoke.

“Okay, but first things first. Ya gotta know where the job’s at, don’t ya?”

All three nodded their heads and voiced their agreement.

“That’s the tricky part. I guess I wasn’t thinkin’ when I talked to the client or somethin’, Guess the money kinda made me a little screwy in the head too.”

“And what is the place?” Scootaloo said, with subdued annoyance.

“You got a real bad habit of interrupting, you know that?” Babs snapped.

“Never bothered you before,” Scootaloo shot back.

“Neva was this big a pain before!” Babs responded.

“Please, please, no fighting!” Apple Bloom said. “Ya two just calm down. Babs, continue with what you had to say.”

Babs once more had to collect herself before she could answer. Scootaloo began to say something but was quieted down by the twin glares of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Finally, her courage up, Babs spoke. “Well, the thing is… the place is Ponyville.”

“Ponyville?” the three shouted, loud enough to cause the people at the surrounding tables to pause whatever dark dealings they were working on in order to look at them.

Sweetie Belle chuckled nervously. “Nothing to see here,” she said. “Go back to what you were doing, everypony.”

There was silence at the table while the four Crusaders waited for the various suspicious characters to lose interest in them and return to their own conversations. When this had finally happened, Sweetie Belle said in a voice at once quiet and full of anger, “Ponyville? Are you crazy? We can’t go back to Ponyville!”

“We said we’d never go back, not until we proved our innocence,” Scootaloo added.

“And that’s exactly what we’re goin’ to do, not go back,” Apple Bloom said. “Sorry, Babs, but Ah think we should pass.”

Babs, far from being sorry, looked relieved. “Smart thinking, cos. You three don’t need to go back there. Especially when everyone still thinks you’re guilty and all.” Then, suddenly, a darkness clouded Babs’ face, as though the words she had just said had reminded her of something.

Neither Sweetie Belle nor Scootaloo caught this sudden change in her, but Apple Bloom did. Babs was her cousin, after all, and cousins often sense things in each other which no one else can. “What’s wrong, Babs?” she asked.

“I was just thinkin’” Babs said. “That’s just the thing… ya see, she said… she said that she knew how you three could prove your innocence and all. She said if you took her gig, she could help you.”

Apple Bloom looked to her two friends, who stared back at her. None of them could find words to say, but none of them needed too. Each one knew that the other two were thinking the same thing – how sweet it would be to finally prove themselves innocent, to finally be vindicated before the world.

Thus, when Apple Bloom spoke, she knew she was speaking for all three of them. “We’ll take the job.”

“You sure?” Babs asked.

The three nodded. “Just tell us what we need to know,” Apple Bloom said.

Babs nodded in turn. “Well, the client is a mare by the name of Willow Tree. I’ll get you a picture before you leave. She’s blue, sorta, and has a dark mane, kinda greenish. She’s from Canterlot, actually, but she says that some rough types from Ponyville are causin’ her trouble an’ she needs someone to take care of them.”

“A few troublemakers should be easy for us to deal with,” Scootaloo said, “but I don’t get how that’s going to help us clear our name.”

“I don’t know, neither,” Babs responded. “Willow Tree’s been actin’ mysterious when I tried to talk to her. What I told you is all she told me. Says that she’s only tell the rest of it to the three of ya in person.”

Sweetie Belle spoke up cautiously. “Not to sound paranoid, but that almost sounds like a trap to me.”

“Sweetie’s right,” Scootaloo said. “That does sound like a trap.”

“It’s fishy, I know,” Babs responded. “Maybe we should forget about the whole thing. I’m sure, if they need to deal with some thugs, they can get the royal guard to do it. We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders; we ain’t Rent-a-Mob!”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo nodded approvingly. Only Apple Bloom showed no response.

“So, I guess I’ll be tellin’ her to take her job and shove it you know where,” Babs said, once more clearly relieved.

“No!” Apple Bloom suddenly exclaimed, looking to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo for support. “Girls, this is a chance to clear our names! It may be our last chance! We can’t just pass that up!”

“But what if it’s a trap?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“That don’t matter much. Even if it is, if we don’t take the job, we’ll never know if it was a real chance to prove our innocence or if it wasn’t. We can’t just walk away from an opportunity like that!”

“There’s no way that attitude could possibly get us into trouble,” Scootaloo said sarcastically.

The tone of Apple Bloom’s voice became more desperate as she realized she was losing the other two. “Ah know it’s dangerous. But when has that ever stopped us before? We’re tough enough, right? Whatever we get ourselves into, we get ourselves out. If we got out of Fillydelphia, we can get out of anywhere.”

“That’s right!” Scootaloo said. “No one beats the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”

Sweetie Belle still looked undecided. “Are you guys really sure? I still don’t like it.”

“None of us do, but we have to take that chance,” Apple Bloom said. “Besides, think of the money.”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo exchanged glances.

“4,000 bits is a lot of money….” Sweetie Belle said dreamily.

Scootaloo added, “It would make up for not getting paid the past two times. Hey, we would never need to be paid again!”

“Maybe you’re right,” Sweetie Belle said, snapping herself back to reality. “But, we gotta be careful. I’ve still got a bad feeling about this.”

“As long as we stick together, we’ll be okay,” Scootaloo said confidently. “Always have been, always will be.”

Apple Bloom nodded happily. “A’right, it’s settled. “Let’s get back to the hideout and get everythin’ ready. We’ll head out tomorrow.”

Babs sighed. “There’s no convincing you three when you’ve got your minds set on somethin’ is there?”

The other three considered for a moment, and then shook their heads no.

Babs could not help but smile despite herself. She figured she would never get used to how quickly the three could come to a firm decision. “A’right, then I guess I’ll come with ya. You might need someone else to watch yer backs.”

“No, Babs, it’s fine,” Apple Bloom said. “Not that we couldn’t use your help, but you’re not a fugitive like we are. If it is a trap, and someone’s tryin’ to catch us, you’d have too much to lose. You’ve got a life. We don’t have families or responsibilities anymore, so we got nothin’ to lose.”

It did not take much to make Babs angry sometimes. And this was one of those times. Apple Bloom realized that too late as Babs exclaimed, “You and me are family, Apple Bloom! Ya think I’m just gonna let my cousin walk into a trap without doin’ anything to stop it?”

“No, Ah didn’t mean it like that! I just meant, you’re needed here! You’ve got a family and a business that you can’t afford to lose.”

“I’m still not gonna let you get yourself killed….”

Sweetie Belle decided it was her turn to repay Apple Bloom for earlier and come to her defense. “Babs, if you want to help us out, we need you here. You can do all the investigating that we can’t. Find out all you can about Willow Tree and see if your connections can dig anything up. You know, detective stuff. You’ll be able to do that a lot better from Manehatten.”

Babs considered this for a moment. When she spoke, she was calmer. “I guess you’ve got a point. I still don’t like it….”

“Come on,” Scootaloo said, “what’s the worst that can happen?” She smiled bashfully as the other three gave her knowing looks. “I just meant that we’ll be able to take care of ourselves,” she said, trying to recover. “We won’t do anything rash.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Babs said.

“Don’t worry,” Apple Bloom said. “If it’ll make you feel better, Ah’ll promise that we’ll get outta town at the first sign of a trap. How’s that sound?”

Babs thought about it. She still felt uneasy, but she did not want to doubt her cousin’s sincerity in making a promise. “Okay, I guess,” she said at last. “You three can go. I’ll see what I can find out around here. But first thing I turn up sayin’ somethin’ ain’t right with this Willow Tree character, I’m on the first train to Canterlot.”

“We wouldn’t expect anything less of ya, Babs,” Apple Bloom said. She then gave Sweetie Belle a look of thanks.

Scootaloo gulped down the last of her cider. “Then what are we waiting for? We’ve got a lot to get ready. Let’s go! The Cutie Mark Crusaders, defenders of the weak and innocent, heroes of the roads and back-alleys, are on the job!”

She threw her hoof into the air. It was met by three others.

The other three added their voices to Scootaloo’s, “Cutie Mark Crusaders forever!” And then, after a few moments of silence, this was followed by a collective “Yay!”

What did this new client have in store for our heroes?Read on.

Canterlot

Canterlot.

It was market-day in Equestria’s capital, as even the most unknowing visitor could tell from the large number of brightly-colored carts from which all manner of fruits, vegetables, trinkets, and the occasional precious items dangled. Vendors jostled with each other to place their carts in the best spaces along the best streets of the city, jealously guarding whatever bit of turf they could grasp from the never-ending influx of newer and seemingly brighter carts. Indeed, there was no need for the pegasi to provide a rainbow over the city that day, as the brilliant-hued tarps filled the sunlit sky with all the color it could require. Indeed, if you were visiting the city on this day, you would swear that the city streets were not paved in grey stone as in other cities, but were blue and green and purple and red and gold. For wherever you would look, those are the colors that you would see.

And the ponies themselves were equally colorful, to match their carts. Now, of course, the population of Canterlot was very colorful already, but on market days they all came out wearing fine clothes that made their natural colors seem all the more vibrant. The vendors at each of the carts in particular tried to outdo each other in the number and variety of colors that they wore, as every one of them hoped to bedazzle the citizens away from the competition. Among the citizens themselves, a festive atmosphere prevailed. They reveled in the bright colors and rushed this way and that, trying to see everything that was for sale. It seemed impossible to move much of the time, as there were ponies everywhere one would seek to go. Some other industrious types – actors, musicians, and acrobats – had found spaces in which to entertain curious passersby (for the right amount of bits, of course). So too were the purveyors of cider ready to take advantage of thirsty throats, and somehow it seemed that they had gotten fine spots on every corner despite the widespread competition. In short, everything that a pony could want or need in Equestria could be found somewhere within the happy chaos of the crowd.

This was the scene which greeted three weary travelers as they sped through the city gates. Weary they were indeed, but this was not a time for weariness. It was a time, they sensed, for action.

Scootaloo brought her scooter to a screeching halt right in the middle of the street. But Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle did not even wait for it to stop. Both jumped from the scooter and spun off in opposite directions, hitting the ground and throwing themselves into barrel rolls. As she got into a position halfway between crouching and kneeling, Sweetie Belle slung her shooter around from her back and used her magic to aim it and the nearest target. Apple Bloom, for her part, had grabbed two apple-bombs from her saddle bags. They dangled by the stems from her mouth, and only needed a good toss to cause some major property damage.

“Alright, don’t try to make any suspicious moves,” Sweetie Belle called out to the ponies locked in her sights.

Apple Bloom tried to say something but found it hard to speak with the stems still in her mouth. This was a recurring problem for her, and one that she had never found a way around.

“Yeah, you’ll be sorry if you try anything remotely threatening,” Scootaloo said, putting her hoof upon the scooter’s “fire” button, her mounted cannon already facing several other ponies.

Apple Bloom repeated her exclamation, more urgently this time, but she still could not get coherent words out.

“Trust us,” Sweetie Belle said as the shooter flew up to her shoulder and began to zero in, “we won’t think twice about using these.”

“So don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Scootaloo added.

Controlling her frustration, Apple Bloom lowered her head and gently laid down the apple-bombs. Now she could speak, “Um, guys, Ah don’t think that’s exactly called for.”

These words gave Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo pause. They looked to each other, and then back to their respective targets.

Sweetie Belle smiled in embarrassment as she realized that she was aiming her pea-shooter right in the sweet, young, green-beret crowned faces of the local filly scouts. They all stood motionless and wide-eyed, wondering no doubt what it was about their current offering of cookies that could have inspired such hostility.

Scootaloo chuckled nervously as she looked to her own target, a stall where a very dapper stallion was helping a few others try on dinner jackets. They were all now clinging to their velvet jackets as though these were suits of armor that would somehow save them. They shivered even more than the filly-scouts did, but that is no wonder. Filly-scouts are trained for handling disagreeable situations, after all, and twits are not.

Sweetie Belle quickly lowered her gun. “Sorry,” she said.

“I-I gu-guess this means you… don’t want to b-buy any cook-cookies, then?” said one brave filly-scout, perhaps hoping to finally earn a ‘face down a crazed gun-pony’ merit badge.

“Maybe another time,” Sweetie Belle answered. “But no hard feelings. I used to be a filly-scout, you know.”

Somehow, this seemed to provide absolutely no comfort to the foal who had so recently had the barrel of a rifle staring her down.

Scootaloo, for her part, only managed a small, “Sorry,” to the dandies she had just frightened.

Apple Bloom looked around. It seemed as though the whole crowd had stopped whatever they were doing to stare at the three newcomers. If the Crusaders had ever had a chance to keep their cover from being blown, Apple Bloom knew that it had just gone straight out the window.

This called for quick thinking and – though she might not have the natural brainpower of a Twilight Sparkle – Apple Bloom could think as quickly as anyone when the situation called for it.

She threw her forelegs around Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and pulled them near her. Then she threw out her forelegs again and shouted, “Ta-da!”

Her fellow Crusaders quickly got the drift and also threw out their forelegs with a big “Ta-da!”

That did the trick. After a moment of incomprehension, the crowd began to nod and mutter approvingly and some of them even began to bang their hooves on the ground. Another moment more and all the denizens of Canterlot had gone back to what they had been doing before the Crusaders arrived.

“That was close,” Sweetie Belle said. “Thanks, Apple Bloom.”

Scootaloo began to fold up her scooter. “And I was sure they’d have the royal guards out in force when we got here. Some trap this turned out to be!”

“We don’t know that the trap ain’t out there yet,” Apple Bloom said. “So we gotta still be careful.”

“But maybe not ‘point guns at the first people we see’ kind of careful, huh?” Scootaloo observed. She slung a large sack over her back along with the scooter. “I guess we won’t get to try these out right away, then.”

“More guns probably ain’t the best idea,” Apple Bloom observed. “Instead, let’s just play it cool and look for Willow Tree. Got the picture, Sweetie Belle?”

In response, a small photo flew in front of Apple Bloom’s face, a photo of an Earth pony with a bright blue body and dark green mane, as well as eyes the color of gold. Overall, she presented a nice enough portrait, if not for the hint of a scowl across her features.

“Okay, y’all keep a look-out for any pony lookin’ like this,” Apple Bloom said.

Sweetie Belle nodded as she moved the picture back into her saddle-bag and then began to scan the crowd. “Will do. We’ll keep a look out for her. We won’t stop looking until we’ve found – Fried apples!”

“Fried apples?” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo said together.

“Fried apples on sticks!” Sweetie Belle pointed her hoof to one cart where the unicorn vendor was frying apples, cutting them up, and making them into shish-kabobs.

“Hey, guys, you think it would be alright if we picked up a few?” Sweetie Belle asked. “We’ve barely had anything to eat in days!”

Apple Bloom just stared at her. “Seriously?”

“Come on, Apple Bloom, she’s right,” Scootaloo said. “We’re all starving. We’d be able to search better once we had full stomachs.”

Apple Bloom considered this logic for a moment. “Well, y’all know it won’t be nearly as good as mah family makes, right?”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo nodded impatiently, the looks on their faces suggesting that they were both thinking, Who cares?

“Ah guess it’s okay,” Apple Bloom said at last. “But just get some for yerselves. Ah don’t eat any apples but what mah family grows.”

“That’s why you haven’t actually eaten an apple in ten years,” Scootaloo remarked as she and Sweetie Belle rushed over to the apple-cart.

With a sigh, Apple Bloom followed.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo hungrily looked over the various treats on offer, while the vendor watched them carefully, every so often turning nervous glances toward the offensive weaponry each was carrying over their shoulders. Neither noticed. Apple Bloom soon joined in the surveying of the apple-products. Even she had to admit, despite her inherent sense of Apple Family superiority in all things apple-related, that the various apple-treats on display looked awfully appetizing. She knew that this was the hunger speaking, but she could not help feeling a twinge of guilt over it.

Suddenly, a voice behind them said, “The apples looking good today?”

“Sure do,” Sweetie Belle said without looking away from a fritter that had caught her attention.

“Hmm, must be nice to have the time to really look them over. Not busy at all?”

“What business of it is yours?” Scootaloo responded, also without looking. She flapped her wings in a waving motion, telling the intruder to get lost.

“If ya don’t mind, we’re just trying to have a look here,” Apple Bloom added.

“Oh, I understand. I just thought it was funny that the Cutie Mark Crusaders would have nothing better to do than go shopping for lunch at a time like this.”

The Crusaders immediately spun around on their hooves. The blood in each Crusader ran cold. It was as though they had just been dropped into a bath of ice-water, for each felt too frozen to speak or act. They could not even look to each other to see what the others were doing.

And then, their eyes rested on the one who had done the speaking. It was a blue Earth pony. She was wearing a small drab cloak over her head, but underneath, her dark green mane and golden eyes were still visible, as was the little scowl beneath them. Even with the cloak, it was also quite apparent that she did not have a cutie mark. This must be Willow Tree.

A loud “Shhhhhh!” – which probably attracted more attention from passersby that Willow Tree’s original words – was the first thing to come out of the Crusaders when the realized that they had not fallen into a trap.

Willow Tree shook her head. “For being national fugitives, you three sure seem pretty unconcerned about who sees you and where.”

“How’d ya know it was us?” Apple Bloom asked.

Willow Tree tapped her hoof against the rifle on Sweetie Belle’s back. “Call it a hunch.”

“Yeah, we’re not usually this careless with the weapons,” Scootaloo said, opening up her wings to try and hide the scooter and sack of artillery from view.

“Doubt it,” Willow Tree responded.

“Hey, we thought it was a trap!”

“Oh, so you three don’t trust me, eh? When I’m the client who is in serious trouble, so serious that she has to hire three mercenaries who the papers describe as ruthless murderers, you don’t trust me!”

“We didn’t mean it like that at all, ma’am,” Apple Bloom said swiftly. “It’s just, like you said, we’re national fugitives. We gotta be careful coming some place like Canterlot.”

Willow Tree just shook her head disapprovingly. Apple Bloom glanced at her compatriots, who gave her a knowing look back. It was one of those moments where the three could agree on something without saying a word about it. And what they agreed was that this pony seemed familiar. It was not in how she looked, not even in what she said, but somehow she seemed familiar. None of them could place it, since they had never known a pony like this before, but there was just something in the way she carried herself – her movements seemed rather cautious and sometimes distracted – that gave them all the sense that they had met someone like her somewhere before.

“Are we ready to talk business or do you desperately need to eat something?” Willow Tree snapped.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Sweetie Belle said as she turned back to the apple-cart, only to discover that both vendor and cart had decided to make a getaway while the three heavily-armed youths had been distracted.

“We’re ready, ma’am,” Apple Bloom said. She then put her hoof out to where a broken-hearted Sweetie Belle was staring at the spot where the apple-cart had once been. When waving the hoof in front of Sweetie Belle’s face produced no reaction, she put it on her shoulder and gently shook Sweetie Belle back to reality.

Willow Tree could barely even wait for this small diversion.

“Okay, then, follow me. We’ll walk and talk.” The tone of Willow Tree’s voice told the Crusaders that this was not a suggestion, but a command. And none of them felt much like disobeying.

“So, ma’am, what do ya need us for?” Apple Bloom asked as the Crusaders followed Willow Tree as the mare dashed and zigzagged through the crowded streets. “Ya didn’t give us a whole lot of information when ya hired us.”

Willow Tree now stopped at one of the stalls. She did not answer. Her whole concentration seemed to have been arrested by a particularly large watermelon. After staring at it for what seemed like several minutes, she took her hoof and prodded it repeatedly.

“Um, ma’am?” Apple Bloom asked, trying to get her attention.

If Willow Tree heard Apple Bloom, she showed no indication of it. Instead, the blue mare turned toward the vendor and said, “This watermelon isn’t organically-grown! You’ve been using magic on it, haven’t you?”

The vendor, a large, burly unicorn, came over and said, “What’da ya mean? That watermelon is 110% organic! No magic got anywhere near it!”

“Mmm-hmm,” Willow responded, “then how do you explain the size? Watermelons do not grow this large by themselves.”

“That just proves how good my all-organic process is!” said the vendor. “I put so much love and care into growing ’em that they naturally come out bigger!”

“That would make sense, if it weren’t the size of a wagon-wheel!” Willow Tree responded, raising her voice just enough to convey her displeasure.

“Now look here!” snapped the vendor as the watermelon rose above his head. “See this? This is all natur-…. Uh-oh….”

The watermelon shook and shattered, covering the vendor and his various fruits in pink juice. Willow Tree smiled.

“See, too much magic. It’s been fed too much magic. Just that single touch of magic now was enough to overload and break it. Should have thought about that before using your horn to lift it up, shouldn’t you?”

Her point proven, she turned and walked away, her head held high in triumph.

“You sure know a lot about magic… or watermelons… or something,” Sweetie Belle said.

“I’m a merchant. I have to know about all the tricks the vendors try to pull before I buy anything, or else it could lose me a week’s worth of bits,” Willow Tree explained matter-of-factly.

“Be that as it may, ma’am,” Apple Bloom said, “we really should be discussing the gig ya need us for.”

“Aren’t we impatient?” Willow Tree muttered.

“Yeah, we kinda are,” Scootaloo said, “seeing as how royal guards could swarm this place any minute.”

Willow Tree laughed a mean, mirthless laugh. “If you knew what you were doing, they would never be able to get a single glimpse of you in this crowd.”

“Somebody’s got an attitude problem,” Scootaloo remarked quietly to her fellow Crusaders. Sweetie Belle could not help but laugh. Apple Bloom was tempted as well, but stopped when she saw the look on Willow Tree’s face. The ever-present scowl had deepened considerably and the golden eyes seemed to burn as they focused on Scootaloo.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Apple Bloom quickly said. “She gets antsy after long trips sometimes.”

“You want to get down to business so badly?” Willow said. “Then follow me. And no more smart remarks! I know the perfect place for doing deals.”

Within a few minutes, the Crusaders were sitting at a table hastily set up beside one of the many cider carts in the city. Across from them sat Willow Tree, but she was not having cider. Instead, coffee was her pleasure, and she made a point of carefully sipping a coffee – her hooves having clear difficulty keeping hold of the fine porcelain cup. The vendors were working to get cider and coffee out to customers at an amazing pace, but the three Crusaders had suddenly found themselves without appetites. nearby, a rugged stallion on a mat played a sweet melody with a lute.

The three kept exchanging nervous glances. The place was pleasant enough, and the soft, trailing music provided by a limber colt sitting on a nearby mat could easily lure any of them off to a peaceful slumber. Still, they could not relax; each of them recognized the danger that sitting so clearly in the open posed. But what could they do? They had no other way of getting Willow Tree to discuss the job. She was the client, she held all the cards. And the blue mare was clearly enjoying making them wait, deliberately taking in long sips so that they could not possibly get a conversation going.

Finally, she put the empty cup down and began to dig through her saddle-bag. With alarming speed, she threw a folder to the Crusaders – or at them, actually.

“Everything you need is in there,” she said.

Sweetie Belle’s horn levitated the folder and its documents before them, but the three could not tell what they were supposed to be looking at. There was just too much there; it was all a jumble.

“Maybe it would help, ma’am, if ya explained what it is ya want us to do,” Apple Bloom said, trying very hard to remain polite and respectful.

“I thought it would be all perfectly obvious, but I guess I should not make assumptions around simple minds,” Willow Tree responded as she clapped her hooves together a few times.

Both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle’s faces contorted into angry scowls. “Just a little longer, girls,” Apple Bloom whispered to them. “Remember the four-thousand bits.”

Meanwhile, Willow Tree began her explanation, “As you know, I’m a merchant by trade, and a rather successful one if I do say so myself – though, of course, I hate to brag about it. Canterlot’s my home, but one of my most profitable trading hubs has always been Ponyville. That is, until recently.”

“What happened?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“See that picture there, of the Earth pony?”

Sweetie Belle lifted it up for the others to see. “You mean, the one with the dull orange coat and the brown mane?”

“That’s what happened.”

“Who is he?”

“Big-Shot Bigsby.” The words practically dripped off of Willow Tree’s tongue. “I thought that you would recognize him.”

“No,” Apple Bloom said. “Can’t say that Ah do.”

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “Me neither.”

But then, suddenly, Scootaloo’s wings began to flutter. She clapped her hooves together, making the other two jump. “Biggy Bigsby!” she said. “You girls remember Biggy Bigsby, don’t you?”

Both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shook their heads.

“Sure you do. His family moved to Ponyville a short time before… before we left…. Remember?”

The other two just stared at Scootaloo like she was insane.

“Miss Cherilee had him do a presentation introducing himself to the class.”

“We must’a been absent that day,” Apple Bloom said.

“That was probably the day Rarity and Applejack got into a fight because Applejack spilled cider on Rarity’s new dress,” Sweetie Belle observed. “Remember, Apple Bloom? We spent the whole day trying to keep them from killing each other.”

“Don’t remind me,” Apple Bloom said.

“I can’t believe I’m the only one who remembers Biggy Bigsby,” Scootaloo said. “I mean, he was alright. Never hung out with the rest of us or anything, always just did his own thing. But he was cool. What’s he done? Did he steal some of your watermelons? Or did he unscrew the wheels of one of your carts?”

“He’s a deranged psychopathic killer,” Willow Tree answered.

“A what?” Scootaloo said, her wings flapping out behind her and nearly knocking the table over. “I thought he was just shy!”

“Calm down, Scoots,” Apple Bloom said. “That was ten years ago. Lots a’ things change in ten years.”

“He’s also probably the one who blew up Diamond Tiara and framed you three for it,” Willow Tree said, introducing this bit of information as casually as though she was talking about the fine Canterlot weather.

“I guess some things don’t change in ten years,” Sweetie Belle observed.

“So, Biggy Bigsby was the one who framed us,” Scootaloo said, the shock giving way to a relish for revenge. “So, you want us to go down there and teach the punk a lesson?”

Willow Tree grinned. “Precisely.”

“Hold on a second,” Sweetie Belle said. “Maybe I’m missing something, but what does our being framed by this Big-Shot pony have to do with you?”

Willow huffed in frustration. “I think I made it pretty obvious. Big-Shot has taken over the town of Ponyville and now he demands protection-money from everyone who wants to do business down there. Trade’s a tricky game at even the best of times, and losing money to that hoodlum could ruin me during a downturn.”

“But if he’s such a bad deal, why didn’t you just get the royal guards or the police to take care of him? Why hire us?” Scootaloo asked.

Willow clapped her hooves together again. Her tone of voice was like that of a school-teacher (not Cherilee, but a much harsher school-teacher) explaining an easy problem to a particularly dull student. “Because, here in Equestria, we have something called a justice system. The police can’t just arrest whoever they want. They need proof. But Big-Shot’s too smart to leave any just lying around. He covers his tracks. Even though everypony knows what he’s really up to, the law can’t touch him. But you three can.”

Scootaloo nodded. “Okay, so you want us to take him out. Sounds easy enough, right, girls?”

“No!” Willow shouted as she reared up quickly, causing the three Crusaders to nearly fall out of their chairs. As they steadied themselves, they could not help but stare at them in surprise.

Willow gave an embarrassed little smile – her first smile at all toward them – and then quickly sat back down. “I mean, what I want is for you three to get the evidence necessary to arrest him and put him on trial. I understand that that sort of thing is your specialty.”

“It is, sorta, but why do ya care?” Apple Bloom responded. “Why’d ya care what we do to him, so long as he’s gone?”

Willow lifted her head up proudly. “Because I am an honest, upstanding merchant and a fine citizen of this great nation! My business would be ruined if it got out that I ordered a hit on anyone, even someone as odious as Big-Shot Bigsby.”

“Plus, you could go to jail,” Scootaloo remarked, as though that was a minor problem only.

Ah guess that all makes sense,” Apple Bloom said after she had spent some time considering the idea.

“Besides,” Willow Tree said, “you three wouldn’t want to kill Bigbsy, would you?”

“Why not?” Scootaloo demanded.

“Because, if you kill him, you’ll have no way of proving your innocence, will you? He’s more useful to you alive than dead.”

“That’s true,” Scootaloo answered. “Alright, we’ll take the job!”

“Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shouted together.

“Well, we are going to take it, aren’t we?” Scootaloo replied. “You said it yourself, Apple Bloom. We can’t pass up this opportunity to prove our innocence.”

Apple Bloom sighed. “I guess yer right. We’ll take the job.”

Sweetie Belle said nothing, but the look in her eyes showed that she knew it was useless to argue.

Willow Tree got up. “Good. There’s also some information about how to contact me in that folder. When you get something, let me know and I’ll take it from there. But, of course, don’t let anybody even get the slightest suspicion that you three work for me. Got it?”

“We got it, ma’am,” Apple Bloom said.

Willow Tree began to trot away. “Just get me the evidence we need and you’ll get your money. Then the whole thing will be behind us all for good.”

“And we’ll get ya yer cutie mark,” Apple Bloom said.

“What?” Willow said, looking back blankly at the Crusaders over her shoulder.

“Yer cutie mark,” Apple Bloom said, feeling a little humiliated by the fact that she even had to bring it up. “When a client doesn’t have a cutie mark, it’s our duty to help them get theirs.”

“It comes packaged in with our other services,” Sweetie Belle added.

“Oh, yes,” Willow Tree said without much enthusiasm. “My cutie mark…. Yes…. Sometimes I even forget I don’t have one! But really, don’t worry about it. Just get Big-Shot Bigsby. That’s all I care about.”

“And I thought a merchant like you would appreciate the value of a two-for-one deal!” Scootaloo said sharply, all too happy to repay Willow for the many caustic digs she had made the three endure. “Maybe your lack of cutie mark is telling you that you’re not meant to be a merchant!”

“Quite,” Willow Tree said, unamused. “Just do the job I’m paying you for. Don’t get distracted by anything else.”

A moment later and she had disappeared into the crowd.

The three Crusaders just stared into the distance, none of them knowing quite what to say. Finally, Sweetie Belle spoke, “I still say there’s something weird going on here.”

“I’ll say there’s something weird going on,” Scootaloo responded, turning her attention fully to Sweetie Belle. “Like, since when were you a filly scout?”

“Just over the summer once,” Sweetie Belle answered. “Rarity made me join because she liked the uniforms. She wanted to get the contract for designing the new ones.”

Scootaloo still was having trouble processing the information. “How come you never told us?”

Sweetie Belle turned away from the other two. “It did not end well. I try to forget that it ever happened, mostly.”

“Oh, so just like me and Fillydelphia!” Scootaloo responded.

“We all try to forget Fillydelphia,” Sweetie Belle said quietly.

“Okay, c’mon, enough chit-chat,” Apple Bloom said, cutting through the reminiscences.

The other two did not need to ask what she meant. All three rose at once to their hooves.

Apple Bloom looked from Sweetie Belle to Scootaloo and said, “Girls, we’ve got work to do.”

Would this new mission truly be as simple as it first seemed?Read on.

The Public Enemy

“When I first came to this dump of a town, I swore that it wouldn’t be the end of me! No, I said I’d make it straight to the top! Straight to the top!” The Earth pony shook his hoof in the air for emphasis. He was not very tall for a stallion, being roughly the size of an average mare – if not slightly shorter. But this orange-colored individual still looked rather impressive, as he clearly had some muscular bulk to him. He was not what most mares would consider handsome, but there was a certain charisma and attractiveness to how he carried himself. But his eyes, his eyes had that peculiar gleam in them that could only be madness.

This colt, with a golden arrow pointing upward for his cutie mark, was Big-Shot Bigsby.

He continued, “And I did, didn’t I? Against all the odds, against everybody who said I couldn’t do it, I did it! I ended up on top, and they ended up six feet under!”

In front of him were two unicorns, each trying to look enraptured by the same spiel they had heard countless times before. Neither of them dared to look anywhere near as bored and uninterested as they felt. Both remembered what had happened the last time someone had started day-dreaming during one of Big-Shot’s speeches.

They had, after all, been the ones who dug that poor shmuck’s grave.

“When Ma and Pops first dragged me to this Celestia-forsaken town, I thought it would be kaput for the family’s chances of ever building an organization of our own. I mean, Baltimare was where the action really was in those days, but Pops insisted we had to try and branch out. He said there were already too many wise-guys in Baltimare and that we needed someplace to claim for ourselves. But I didn’t see how we were going to do it in a place like Ponyville.”

One of the two, a handsome unicorn with a blond mane and an off-white coat, nodded. “Yeah, we know, Biggy. But then your dad saw what a killing Filthy Rich was making and he decided to take over.”

The colt smiled, expecting perhaps to be rewarded for his ability to remember the intricacies of Big-Shot’s rise to power. However, the only thing he was rewarded with was a blow to the mouth from Big Shot’s fist.

“Who’s telling this story, Hot Shot, you or me?” Big Shot yelled.

“You, of course, boss,” said Hot Shot as he wiped his own hoof against his mouth, checking for blood.

“And another thing, nobody calls me Biggy ’cept my friends!”

“But boss,” said the other unicorn, this one a sharp indigo color. “You don’t have any friends!”

He soon received the same treatment as his partner.

“I don’t need friends. I just need people who do what I tell ’em when I tell ’em!” The boss responded. “I thought you two were that type of people, Double Shot. But if you and Hot Shot ain’t, I can help you get acquainted with a new friend right here!”

Big Shot picked a hand-gun up from the table in between them. Though it was rather clumsy in his hooves – there was a reason why most of Equestria’s shooting homicides were unicorn-related and most of its accidental shootings Earth pony-related – he managed to steady it and point it straight at Double Shot’s chest.

The lug got the point. He also nearly got a hoof-full of lead, as Big-Shot fired the gun at one of his legs. Not to seriously cause injury, but just to be funny.

“Any other smart comments?” Big-Shot asked as he returned the pistol to the table. The two offending colts quickly shook their heads.

“Good! Now, where was I? Oh, yes. You see, Pops wanted to move into the local racket, but he couldn’t. That goon Filthy Rich wouldn’t sell a single property, no matter how much money Pops tried to offer him. Always said he already made more money than whatever we could give. Now, being the young, innocent, impressionable kid like I was, that all seemed unfair to me somehow. So, obviously, it was time to even things up a little.”

Big-Shot smiled with glee as he remembered it all. “And do you know what the best part of it was?” He did not wait for either of the unicorns to answer. “The best part of it was finally shutting up that brat daughter of his! Ooh, how she had that coming!”

Big-Shot allowed himself a moment of laughter at the memory.

“You always were a good boy like that,” said a voice from behind him.

If there was one thing that could make Big-Shot’s eyes light up with even more joy, it was the owner of this voice. He turned his head to see the frail-looking figure of his mother, an old nag with a yellow coat and a nail-file for a cutie mark, approaching him.

“I know, Ma,” he said. “I did you real proud then, didn’t I?”

Ma Bigsby smiled. “Indeed, you did. I just wish the same could be said for your father.”

Big-Shot nodded and then turned back to the colts, ready to explain this and not caring that they needed no explanation. “You see, boys, Pops didn’t like what I went and did to Filthy Rich and his brat and all the other people. You see, he was an old-fashioned type of guy, my Pops, and he insisted on doing business the old-fashioned way. He said that when you whack a guy, you gotta be civilized about it. He said blowing up a whole town-block is just not how things are done.”

Big-Shot picked up the gun again and smiled wickedly. “Now, I was steamed, you can be sure. Here, I went through all that work for the old colt’s benefit and here he didn’t appreciate it at all. But I was ‘civilized’ about it, and soon Pops didn’t complain anymore!”

He turned back to his mother. “You been to see Pops lately?”

Ma shook her head. “Nope. They built a road over him soon after we dropped him off, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Big-Shot said. “A shame, that. But it stopped people asking questions. Now, you probably wonder why I told you all this.”

Double-Shot nodded nervously while Hot-Shot just remained silent.

Big-Shot took up his pistol once more and began to wave it menacingly at his hencecolts. “I told you this because I wanted you to remember that I’m the toughest stallion this side’a Canterlot and I don’t take screw-ups from anybody! Now, this job we got going on, this one’s more important than anything we’ve done before. So if anybody lets me down, they’ll be getting comfy in the ground. Got it?”

The two could only nod their heads in fearful understanding.

“But, boss,” Hot-Shot said as he got up his nerve. “You haven’t even told us what the job’s about yet!”

Big-Shot waved to the back of the room. There stood another colt, standing by himself. He now approached. A tall, but rather lean stallion, he was all brown in color and his face seemed soft from carrying the burden of many years. Still, there was enough roughness in his eyes to tell you that this was not the sort of pony you would ever want to encounter if you could in any way avoid it. He came over and, without speaking, threw a large envelope onto the table.

“Go ahead, open it,” Big-Shot commanded his followers.

Hot-Shot lifted the envelope into the air, opened it, and pulled out a package from inside. It was a small, clear package, filled as fully as possible with a white powder.

Double-Shot tilted his head in confusion. “You going to bake a cake or something, boss?”

Big-Shot smiled wickedly. “Yeah, something like that. After all, we got ourselves a Baker lined up that’ll pay good money if we can get more of this into Ponyville.”

“Oh, so you are baking a cake,” Double-Shot responded. Hot-Shot took the opportunity to scoot a little further away from him.

And then the inevitable came. Double-Shot found himself reeling from a sharp blow courtesy of the barrel of Big-Shot’s gun.

“Look here, you,” Big-Shot said. “This ain’t about bakin’ cakes! This is the real stuff right here, and there’s plenty more where this came from. If we play our cards right here, this stuff’ll make us the most powerful outfit in Equestria!”

Hot-Shot helped Double-Shot up as the brown stallion returned the bag to the envelope. Big-Shot continued, “Now, Gadabout here’s going to be bringing the first full shipment of the stuff into Ponyville tonight. I want you guys to pick it up and bring it to the warehouse out behind the club, got it?”

Both Double-Shot and Hot-Shot nodded quickly. Neither of them wanted to give the slightest reason to be knocked about again. Unfortunately for them, neither had noticed that Gadabout had already made his exit.

“Well, what are you two waiting for, then?” Big-Shot shouted. “Get going!”

The sound of his pistol firing toward the ceiling was all the prompting the two goons needed. They were soon out of there with a speed that would have put the Wonderbolts to shame.

Big-Shot next turned toward his mother once they were alone. She smiled at her son so proudly that it would have been touching if this had been a normal family. “I always said you’d make it to the top of the world someday, Biggy,” she said.

He smiled as he put his foreleg around her. “That’s right, and I will, too, ma. Top of the world!”

Just outside of Ponyville is a certain motel, a motel which you will not hear about in any official materials, a motel which takes in anybody and asks few questions. What this motel lacks in cleanliness and service it makes up for in privacy. This is the one place you can go in Ponyville when you want no one to know you are in town. And if you happened to be at the western end of this motel at mid-afternoon of this particular day, you would be witness to the threatening sight of a rifle poking out of one of the windows, perfectly positioned to gun you or anyone else down at a moment’s notice.

If you had been able to work up the courage – or were simply foolish enough – to keep staring back the rifle, you would have seen that it was fidgeting and shaking somewhat. This was because directly on the other end of that rifle was Sweetie Belle, diligently trying to keep it clean.

The young white unicorn was quite preoccupied with wiped down every inch of her instrument, but that did not stop her from looking through the rifle’s scope every few seconds to see if there was anybody she urgently needed to shoot. Every time she looked however, she just saw the same deserted parking lot. And that seemed like all that was ever going to be out there.

On the opposite side of the room, Scootaloo was leaning against the wall, flapping her wings slowly in boredom.

“You sure that the file said there’s something going down here today?” Scootaloo said, having now asked the question for the tenth time.

Apple Bloom, who was sitting at the small coffee-table and playing a card game with herself, answered. “Like Ah told ya before, Scoots, this is where Willow’s papers said Bigsby’s gang was gonna be.”

“How did she even know that, anyway?” Scootaloo asked.

“Informants, Ah guess,” Apple Bloom answered. “Merchants are sneaky like that. ’s why Applejack always used to say never trust ’em.”

“Good advice,” Scootaloo said. “I’m beginning to think this whole thing was a practical joke by Willow Tree. Dangle a chance to clear our names in front of us and then leave us sitting around in the boondocks like buffoons. She’s probably laughing at what suckers we all are.”

Scootaloo once more looked at Sweetie Belle, who was scrubbing the rifle harder than ever. “Do you two need to be alone?” she said.

Sweetie Belle’s green eyes darted upward. “Oh, like you’re any better with that scooter of yours? You even talk to the thing.”

“Don’t refer to her as ‘the thing’!” Scootaloo snapped defensively. Then she slapped her hoof to her face as she realized what had just come out of her mouth. “I still say it’s weird how much you clean that thing. Don’t you think so, AB?”

Apple Bloom did not look up from her cards. “Seein’ as how Ah’m the only one who’s not in a committed relationship with a piece of offensive weaponry, Ah’m gonna stay outta this one.”

“Oh, yeah?” Scootaloo said, approaching her. “What about that bow of yours?”

Apple Bloom now finally looked up at her, the golden eyes communicating everything before she even spoke. “Seriously? Ya sayin’ mah bow’s an offensive weapon?”

“Well….”

“Mah bow’s capable of killin’ somepony, that’s what yer sayin’?”

“Well, maybe in the right hooves….”

“That’s just plain ridiculous, Scoots! That’s got to be the most-ridiculous thing that’s ever come out of yer mouth!”

“What about the time she said we should try for a griffon-hunting cutie mark,” Sweetie Belle volunteered as she once more focused on cleaning the rifle.

Apple Bloom nodded and dutifully corrected herself. “That’s got to be the second most-ridiculous thing that’s ever come out of yer mouth, Scootaloo!”

Scootaloo’s eyes now darted around the room. The tide of the conversation was clearly against her and she needed something to turn the focus away before she managed to embarrass herself anymore. Finally, her eyes came to rest on Apple Bloom’s cards.

“AB, since when can you play solitaire?” she said.

“Ah can’t,” Apple Bloom responded, her attention returning to the game. “This is a one-player version of ‘Go Fish.’”

“And how’s it going?”

“Somehow, Ah’m losin’.”

Scootaloo suddenly felt the need to get out of the room very, very fast. Just to get out, clear her head, smell the country air that she had practically forgotten, and just avoid getting into any more weird conversations.

“Hey, I’m starving!” she said. “How ’bout I go get us a pizza?”

“Scoots, we don’t have time to eat!” Apple Bloom said, throwing down the cards she was holding. She did not usually lose her temper like this, but her teammates’ constant return to the theme of eating was finally getting to her.

“Sounds like somebody’s grumpy from having skipped lunch,” Scootaloo said.

“It does sound like that,” Sweetie Belle offered.

Scootaloo silently sighed in relief. She had hoped the mention of food would be enough to bring Sweetie Belle back to her side. It looked like it worked.

“Ah’m not grumpy!” Apple Bloom said grumpily. “We got a job to do! We can’t be rushin’ off to eat when a fight could break out any minute!”

“Because the action out there’s just getting so intense,” Scootaloo said, waving her wing toward the still-empty parking-lot outside.

“Come on, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle said, putting her rifle aside for a moment. “We aren’t going to be much good in a fight if we don’t eat something.”

“Ah know,” Apple Bloom said. “But it’s just–”

“Great, so pizza it is!” Scootaloo said, not about to let Apple Bloom raise another objection. “I think there’s a pizza-place just down the street. I’ll run out and get it and you and Sweetie can hold the fort until I get back! What do you say?”

Scootaloo realized that this was probably the only time in her life that she would be thankful that boredom had led her to flip through a phonebook for fun. She knew exactly where she would go, and she also knew Apple Bloom would be warmer to the idea if it meant only one of them had to leave their posts.

“Ah… guess it’s okay,” Apple Bloom said at last.

“Great!” Scootaloo exclaimed as she headed for the door. “So, the usual? Extra hay and daffodils?”

Sweetie Belle voiced her agreement but Apple Bloom only said, “Be careful out there. And don’t let anyone see who y’are. And, no matter what, hurry back.”

Scootaloo grabbed her scooter, threw a dark jacket over her wings, and gave a confident nod to Apple Bloom. A moment later, she was gone.

It was already after nightfall by the time Scootaloo got back to the motel. And what was worse, she was returning with no pizza. She had made it to the pizza parlor alright, and there was no trouble on the way back, but the place itself was another story. Scootaloo had the privilege of being served by what must have been Equestria’s most incompetent batch of would-be dough-twirlers. After they had gotten her order wrong several times only to decide that they did not have the proper ingredients when they finally got it right, Scootaloo had stormed out of the place and made her way back to the motel.

Now she was frustrated, hungry, and more than a little tired. All Scootaloo wished she could do was fall into bed and sleep until morning. She did not even notice much her jacket slipped off of her and into the darkness. As she approached the western span, she saw that no lights were on in the whole section. This did not surprise her – Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were smarter than to leave the Bigsby gang with any tell-tale signs of their presence – but it did serve to make Scootaloo even sleepier than she already was.

She had to stop her scooter in the parking-lot as she had nearly fallen asleep while driving. But then she saw something which immediately woke her up. At first, it just seemed like a flicker in the darkness, and Scootaloo thought her sleepy mind was playing tricks on her. But then, as it moved again, she realized that she was seeing another figure in the darkness. And this figure was moving quickly toward the Crusaders’ room!

Scootaloo immediately punched her scooter to life and sped down the parking lot. With a sharp turn, she pulled the scooter around just in time to block the figure before it could reach the room.

“Alright, stop right there!” Scootaloo ordered. “Any false moves and I’m blasting your face open! So you better stay there and tell me who – Pinkie Pie?”

Sure enough, as the light of the rising moon improved Scootaloo’s vision, she had been able to make out the form of a familiar pink pony standing in front of her.

“What? I’m not Pinkie Pie,” Pinkie Pie said quickly. “What would make you think I’m Pinkie Pie?”

“How about the three balloons on your flank,” Scootaloo said, pointing her hoof toward the telltale yellow and blue cutie-mark on Pinkie’s rear.

Pinkie quickly covered the cutie mark with her hoof. Scootaloo simply tilted her head and body to look at the mark on the other flank. This one Pinkie used her other hoof to cover, so that now she was bent over with only her back legs for support. Scootaloo could not imagine a more uncomfortable stance, and yet Pinkie showed no signs of discomfort at all.

“There, now you can’t see them. Now you don’t have any proof at all that I’m Pinkie Pie.”

Scootaloo just stared at her. “Yeah, whatever. Look, Pinkie Pie, what are you–”

“Why do you keep saying that? Why do you keep saying ‘Pinkie Pie’?” Pinkie Pie said, turning her head frantically in order to look all around her. “I don’t see any Pinkie Pies around here! Do you see any Pinkie Pies around here?”

Scootaloo’s eyes narrowed as she pointed her hoof toward Pinkie. “Yeah, I see a Pinkie Pie right in front of me.”

“Not for long, you don’t!”

Before Scootaloo could even process that response, Pinkie Pie became a pink blur that tore down the side of the motel at a speed which – as much as it pained Scootaloo to admit it – would have given Rainbow Dash a good run for her money..

“Oh, no, you don’t, Pinkie….” Scootaloo said. Gritting her teeth, she launched the scooter in pursuit. Pinkie Pie may have been a friend once, but that did not give her the right to snoop around Crusader business without an explanation. And Scootaloo intended to have that explanation, no matter how far and fast she had to go to get it.

But when she turned the corner, she was in for a shock. Despite the fact that Pinkie had only gone down it a second before she herself did, Scootaloo now found that there was absolutely no one there. Scootaloo’s eyes darted all around, but she could not find even a hint of pink in the dark blue night.

With a sigh, Scootaloo resolved herself to the hard fact that it was pointless to keep searching the darkness. She turned her scooter around and began to head back toward the room. Her mind raced over what had just happened. Scootaloo could not figure it out. Why had Pinkie Pie been there? Where had she come from? Where had she gone to? Why would she even be at a motel like this? And why did it seem like she was snooping around?

Scootaloo, like so many before her who had tried to understand the enigma that is Pinkie Pie, found that she did not have the answers. She was ready to just chalk it all up to Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie when she saw the other Crusaders waiting for her outside of their room. Both were armed – Sweetie Belle with her rifle and Apple Bloom with her apple-bombs – and neither looked too pleased with their comrade.

“Scootaloo, what was all that noise?” Apple Bloom said.

“And where’s our pizza?” Sweetie Belle added.

“We thought something had happened to you, and then we heard all the commotion,” Apple Bloom said, a hint of concern creeping into her voice. “What all went on that you scared us like that?”

Scootaloo thought it was a good question. It was certainly one she would have liked the answer to, herself. “Look, I was just coming back when who should I see sneaking around our room… but Pinkie Pie?”

“Pinkie Pie?” the two other Crusaders said together.

“Yeah, Pinkie Pie! But when I confronted her about it, she said she wasn’t Pinkie Pie and then she ran off and I chased after her but then she just vanished into nowhere or something and I was just coming back when you two came out.”

As Scootaloo finished, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shared knowing looks.

“Scoots,” Sweetie Belle said, reaching a hoof out. “It’s been a long day and we haven’t had much food or sleep in a while. Sure it’s just not getting to you?”

Scootaloo flapped her wings indignantly. “Are you saying I imagined the whole thing?”

“Imagine’s kinda a big word, Scoots,” Apple Bloom said. “We’re just sayin’ ya might have got confused a little, is all.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing! When have either of you two known me to get ‘confused’ about something like that?”

Sweetie Belle began to open her mouth, but Scootaloo threw up a hoof to stop her. “And don’t you dare say Fillydelphia!”

“Shhhhh!” Apple Bloom said suddenly. “Girls, listen!”

All three Crusaders stood silently and listened. They heard voices. Voices coming from the side of the building, just beyond their room.

“So, you got all the goods?”

“Yeah, everything’s here. Now just get it to the boss and we’ll be through.”

Apple Bloom silently nodded her head, signaling the other two to follow her. As they walked, Sweetie Belle put her rifle into position, while Scootaloo, rolling the scooter beside her, made sure that it would be ready to fire if need be.

The three cautiously peeked their heads around the building, and there saw three colts. Two of them, an indigo unicorn and a brown Earth pony, were hitched up to wide wooden wagons, while the third, a white unicorn, was moving large crates from the brown pony’s wagon to that of the indigo one.

“You really sure this is the whole shipment?” the white unicorn said.

“It’s fifteen crates,” the Earth pony responded gruffly.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” the white unicorn snapped. “Fifteen crates! Fifteen crates! Well, why not sixteen or twenty crates?”

“You accusing me of holding out on you?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Hot-Shot, Hot-Shot, it’s okay!” the indigo unicorn said, trying to get between the other two and, due to still having a wagon attached to his back, not getting very far. “If it’s alright with the boss, it should be alright with you too!”

“Alright with the boss!” the white unicorn said. “I don’t think the boss even knows what’s alright anymore!”

“Shhhhhhh!” both of the other two colts said immediately.

“Hey, that’s just how you guys treat me!” Scootaloo whispered.

“Shhhhhhh!” both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle answered.

“You don’t want the boss hearing you saying stuff like that, do you?” the indigo unicorn said to his partner.

“The boss ain’t here, so who cares?” responded the white one.

“You guys think these are Biggy’s gang?” Sweetie Belle whispered.

“Whatever they are, they’re nothing good,” Scootaloo responded.

“Ya girls think we should take ’em out?” Apple Bloom asked.

Scootaloo beamed and readied her scooter. “Let’s do it!”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Okay. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Hot-Shot had nearly finished loading the crates onto Double-Shot’s wagon. He only had one more left to place and then he could get them to the warehouse and call it a night. He was glad for that – being a glorified errand-boy was not really his style. But he had to bear with it, just long enough to get the job done. The job still came first, after all.

This was what was going through Hot-Shot’s mind at the moment he heard the first explosion. By the time an apple connected with Gadabout’s wagon and sparked the second, those thoughts were gone completely. The last crate floating in the air crashed to the ground as Hot-Shot spun around to face his attackers, his full focus now on getting the gun out of the holster hidden under his jacket.

He got it out swiftly. But, just as swiftly, he lost the opportunity to use it when he found himself right in the path of a speeding electric scooter. Hot-Shot quickly dodged out of the way and, with the gun floating beside him, fired several shots at the orange Pegasus on the scooter. He had to admit that it had not been his best shooting, as he had no time to recover and really had just been firing shots randomly. But it seemed to do the trick. The Pegasus went down.

“Scootaloo!” called a voice from nearby. Hot-Shot knew immediately that he should take out whoever said this.

But it was not Hot-Shot’s night. Before he had the chance, he felt something hit him hard in the face. It was something small, but it had the force of a boxer’s fist. With his concentration broken and his gun falling to the ground, Hot-Shot found himself knocked back against the wagon, nearly upsetting some of the crates.

He watched in a daze as a female unicorn, whiter than he, ran past with a rifle floating beside her. Some part of his brain processed the fact that he was just hit by an exceptionally fast pea and it was a relief to know that it had not been a real bullet. But that did nothing to clear up Hot-Shot’s stupor.

Luckily, downing the Pegasus had apparently bought him some time, because saw another pony – a yellow one this time, with a ridiculously large pink bow – run past without so much as looking at him. It was all the time he needed to recover. Not 100% percent, by any means, but enough to function as more than fodder for any further food-based weaponry.

Hot-Shot looked beside him, toward the front of the cart. There he saw Double-Shot, feverishly trying to get free of his harness so that he could take part in the fighting. And he had his idea. Quickly, Hot-Shot lifted up his gun and jumped up onto the bed of the wagon.

“Quit fooling around!” he shouted at Double-Shot. “Get us out of here!”

“But what about Gadabout?”

“Leave him! It’s too late now! They got him already! If we stay around here, they’ll get us too!”

Hot-Shot had no idea if this was true. He had not seen Gadabout since the second explosion had rocked the Earth pony’s wagon. And given his woozy state, Hot-Shot felt like he was in no condition to try and search him out under potentially heavy pea-fire. But Hot-Shot already had the crates, so his job was done. Priority number one was getting out of there with the crates intact.

Actually, priority number one was not being shot again, but getting out with the crates was a very close second.

As Double-Shot took off toward the road, Hot-Shot faced back around and got his first full view of the results of the ambush. Or he would have, if Gadabout’s overturned wagon was not blocking everything from sight. Still, Hot-Shot knew his adversaries were there, somewhere. So the overturned wagon became his target as he fired repeatedly, wildly, at every inch and corner of it.

The pea-shooting rifle peeked over the edge of the wagon and seemed to be aiming for him. Hot-Shot continued firing in its direction, hoping to teach its owner a lesson. And, maybe it was lesson learned, for – much to Hot-Shot’s great surprise – the rifle ducked back under the wagon without firing a single shot.

Hot-Shot collapsed against the crates in relief as the wagon sped off into the safety of the night.

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle yelled in alarm as she saw her friend and her friend’s scooter go tumbling to the ground. She barely had time to notice that the off-white unicorn who had caused that was now seeking to do something similar to her.

But she needed little time to respond.

“I’ll make you pay for that,” she said under her breath as her pea-shooter fired away, its projectile finding its mark right on the side of the unicorn’s face.

Sweetie Belle prepared to let loose another shot when she felt a gentle hoof on her shoulder.

“Let’s go check on Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said. Her voice was attempting to be calm and reassuring, but it was not difficult for Sweetie Belle to tell that Apple Bloom was just as worried about their friend as she was.

Sweetie Belle needed no further prompting. The white hoodlum completely forgotten, she rushed toward the wagon that had just been upset by Apple Bloom’s apple bomb. Scootaloo had just been making the turn around it when she had gone down.

Sweetie Belle found Scootaloo sprawled out on the ground.

“Scootaloo!” she called again. The rifle dropped to the ground beside her as she wrapped her hooves around her friend.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Scootaloo said, trying to get up. “I’m okay.”

Sweetie Belle quickly helped her into a sitting position, by which time Apple Bloom had caught up with them. She quickly crouched beside her comrades.

“But we saw you… you were hit!” Sweetie Belle said. “We saw you go down!”

“It was nothing,” Scootaloo said. “The bullet just grazed my wing is all. See?”

Scootaloo stretched out her wing a little, just enough to show where the tips of a few feathers had been blasted off.

“But, then why’d ya fall down like ya were dead or somethin’?” Apple Bloom asked.

Scootaloo shook her head and scrunched her mouth. “Bullet came by just as I was making a super-sharp turn. Caused me to lose my balance and go spinning out of control. Pretty soon I was thrown off the scooter completely.”

In a flash, her anger revived. “I can’t wait to make the cheap-shooting chump pay for that!”

As if on cue, the sound of gunfire began anew. The Crusaders were pelted with fragments of wood as several new holes opened up in the wagon bed. The three huddled close together, hoping to avoid the bullets that were furiously bursting through the wood.

The sudden chaos had been enough to make Sweetie Belle forget the rifle lying beside her. But she quickly remembered and even more quickly floated it into position atop the overturned wagon. She was ready to fire, even if getting a clear view of her target would be next to impossible in these conditions.

But, as it was, Apple Bloom dared to look out of one of the bullet-holes in the wagon. She could see little, but she saw enough to know that the other wagon was not sticking around. It was making as quick an escape as it could manage. And Apple Bloom knew that, in their current state, the Crusaders were not prepared to stop it.

She put her hoof once more on her partner’s shoulder.

“Sweets,” she said. “They’re leaving. Let ’em go.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes seemed to be asking Apple Bloom if she had gone completely crazy, but a few more shots at the wagon were enough to get the idea to sink in. Sweetie Belle pulled the rifle down and huddled with the other two until the gunshots stopped.

It seemed like a full minute before any of them dared to speak. Scootaloo was the first to do so. “I don’t believe it. The bad guys got away! I nearly got my wings clipped for nothing!”

“Not for nothing,” Apple Bloom said as she looked over the wagon. Without waiting to explain, she walked cautiously out from behind the wagon. Scootaloo did not need an invitation to follow. The last to leave, Sweetie Belle, sighed and situated her rifle on her back, and then went after them.

The three Crusaders stood around the remains of the crate that had fallen at the start of the shootout. The force of the drop had been enough to shatter it. Now, it was merely several broken planks of wood and a very, very, large pile of a suspicious-looking white powder.

“Is that….” Sweetie Belle began.

Apple Bloom knelt down and scooped up a little of the white powder with her hoof. Then, as she stood up, she brought the hoof to her mouth and licked it.

“Yep,” she said. “Pure cane sugar.”

“I thought that stuff was outlawed,” Sweetie Belle remarked quietly.

“So that’s what they’re into,” Scootaloo said. “They’re smuggling illegal sugar!”

“An’ quite a lot of it by the looks of all them crates on that other wagon,” Apple Bloom said. “This is bad. Y’all know the effect sugar has on ponies. Too much of the pure stuff an’ they’ll all be just like Pinkie Pie.”

“You don’t need to tell Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle said with a sly smile. “Since she’s the expert on Pinkie Pie.”

Scootaloo just growled in response.

Apple Bloom continued to look at the sugar thoughtfully. “We need to take care a’this right quick before they get it out on the streets.”

“And how are we going to do that since we don’t even know where they’re taking it?” Scootaloo asked. “And for that matter, where’d my scooter disappear to?”

It was then that the sound of groaning became audible from a little ways away. Apple Bloom stuck her muzzle in one of her saddle-bags, reaching for an emergency apple-bomb, while Sweetie Belle began to move her pea-shooter once more into firing position. Scootaloo could do nothing but look at the other two in frustration, since she did not have her scooter on hoof to fight with.

It was not shaping up to be Scootaloo’s night.

But, as the groaning intensified, the Crusaders realized it was not the sound of an enemy ready for a fight. Rather, it was the sound of an enemy beaten – though whether the enemy himself knew he was beaten was a different question. Relaxing their guard, they rushed over to the other side of the overturned wagon, from whence the sounds were emanating. Scootaloo was the first to comment on the scene that awaited them.

“My scooter!” she said in joy.

Indeed, there was Scootaloo’s scooter. And under Scootaloo’s scooter was the brown Earth pony from the sugar deal, lying flat out on his stomach.

“Okay, I’m lost,” Sweetie Belle said. “What just happened here?”

“Well, uh, I didn’t have time to turn the scooter’s engine off before I was thrown from it,” Scootaloo admitted, her hoof scratching the back of her head and her eyes darting away from her friends’ gazes.

“An’ Ah’m guessin’ that our friend here just managed to get out of his harness an’ was tryin’ to get to safer ground,” Apple Bloom said. “That’s when the scooter came by an’ clobbered him.”

Scootaloo grabbed up the scooter and gave it a tight hug. “It’s okay, baby. Momma’s here now.”

She stopped when she saw the look that Apple Bloom was giving her.

“Um, guys….” Sweetie Belle said. “He’s got a gun….”

Indeed, there was a gun lying not too far from where the brown pony lay. He now began to crawl toward it. He was badly hurt and could not move fast, but that did not stop him from trying to reach it. He pushed himself toward it with all the might he could muster. Soon, it was within his hoof’s reach.

And then, a yellow hoof kicked the gun far away. The brown Earth pony turned onto his back to face the yellow Earth pony looking down at him.

“Well, girls, it looks like we got ourselves a lead,” Apple Bloom remarked with a smirk.

The brown pony steadied himself as best he could under the circumstances. “I’m… I’m not going to talk. You won’t make me, no matter what you try.”

“Oh, yeah? We’ll see about that,” Scootaloo said as she approached him.

Then, suddenly, she found a white foreleg blocking her path. As Scootaloo halted, Sweetie Belle drew back her leg and then began to crack her hooves.

“Leave him to me,” Sweetie Belle said.

What did Sweetie Belle have in mind?Read on.

A Very Long Night

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo stood together just outside the motel room. They exchanged looks frequently and, every so often, one of them would steal a glance through the window. Scootaloo did so and then turned her head away in disgust.

“You know I’m just as tough on bad guys as the next pony, AB,” Scootaloo said, “but there are some things that even I can’t stomach.”

Just then, the noise of a loud bang emanated from inside the room.

“No, no, please just stop it!” shouted their hostage from inside.

“Are you going to tell us where your friends got to?” Sweetie Belle’s voice asked. A few moments later, not getting a response, she said, “Okay then….”

And then there was another loud bang.

Scootaloo stole another glance into the room and then shook her head. “It’s just not right! There are some things which you should just never do, even to criminals.”

Another bang.

Apple Bloom stood there, trying to be stoic about the whole thing, but anypony could see from the look on her face that it was affecting her as much as Scootaloo. “I don’t like it either,” she said. “Ya know it makes me uncomfortable too, just havin’ to stand here an’ let it happen, but we got no other choice. There ain’t any other way of getting the information we need out of this crook.”

“I know, I know,” Scootaloo said. “But that doesn’t make me feel any better about it!”

“Just try an’ ignore it,” Apple Bloom advised.

At which point, there was another loud bang.

“Because that is so easy, huh?” Scootaloo said.

“Well, it can’t go on for much longer. Sweetie’s been at it for fifteen minutes. Most ponies would have already cracked by now.”

“Yeah, this guy’s tough, I’ll give him that. I don’t even know if I could have held out this long.”

A long series of increasingly louder bangs came from out of the room.

“Stop it, stop it!” screamed the bad guy. “I can’t take much more of this!”

“Sounds like our cue,” Apple Bloom said. Scootaloo nodded and together they burst into the room.

There, they found Sweetie Belle sitting innocently at the table, right where they had left her. She was staring up at the captured crook, a mournful, pleading, puppy-dog look in her large eyes. “Oh please, oh please,” she said, “won’t you help us out by telling us where all that other sugar went to?”

Gadabout turned away swiftly and punched the wall with his hoof, leaving a large hole to accompany the several other large holes he had punched into the other three walls. “I told you to stop doing that! Why won’t you stop?”

“Pleeeeaaassseee?” Sweetie Belle said, giving her voice a childish ring and opening her eyes a little wider.

Gadabout punched the wall again, but when he looked back to Sweetie Belle, he said, “Okay, fine. Just stop… just stop looking at me!”

Sweetie Belle smiled. Suddenly, the puppy-dog look was gone like that. She got up from the table and joined her fellow Crusaders.

“Yep, after all these years, I still got it,” she said.

“You’re sick,” Scootaloo told her as Apple Bloom took the now empty-seat at the table.

“Okay, get talkin’,” Apple Bloom said as Gadabout slunk down into the seat opposite her.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of rough types,” Gadabout said, “cops, bounty hunters, mob bosses, little punks who think they’re big-time, you name it. But I ain’t never met anyone could break me like that. You kids are either real good or real demented. That’s often the same thing in this business.”

“I meant, get talkin’ about the sugar,” Apple Bloom said. She nodded toward Sweetie Belle. “Or else.”

Gadabout looked up to catch Sweetie Belle once more giving him the puppy-dog look. He shivered and turned away. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Where’s it goin’?”

“Big-Shot has a warehouse, out on the other side of town, out by Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Sweet Apple Acres!” the three Crusaders said in shock.

“What’s he doin’ out there?” Apple Bloom said, growing defensive. “He’d better not have done anything to the place!”

Gadabout chuckled. “Big-Shot may talk tough, but even he’s not dumb enough to try to do something illegal on government property.”

“Government property?” Apple Bloom practically yelled. “Whaddaya mean, government property?”

“Hey, I thought you wanted to talk about sugar, not the property market,” Gadabout responded. “Or are you three mercenary real-estate agents?”

“Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle said quickly as Apple Bloom seemed about ready to explode.

“Keep it cool, AB,” Scootaloo said. “Just find out what we need to know.”

Apple Bloom nodded. She took a deep breath and continued. “Okay, so all the sugar’s out this warehouse. So what, he’s gonna start sellin’ it in Ponyville?”

Gadabout laughed again.

“What is it, buddy, ya think I’m funny or somethin’?”

Scootaloo quickly pulled Apple Bloom out of the chair and started to lead her to the door. “I think somepony needs some time to cool off. Sweetie Belle, take over.”

“No!” Gadabout shouted – or pleaded, actually. “No, don’t leave me here with her! I won’t make any more wisecracks or laugh no more! Just don’t leave me!”

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked to each other, smiles forming on their faces. Scootaloo let go and Apple Bloom sat back down.

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble, kid,” Gadabout said. “It’s just that, you’re thinking way too small. See, Big-Shot’s gonna have enough sugar now to corner the market all the way down to Las Pegasus. And sugar’s only just the start. When he’s got that, he’ll branch out into other things until he owns all the crime this side of Canterlot.”

“So that’s what it’s about,” Scootaloo said. “Biggy wants to create his own criminal empire.”

“Oh, looks like one of you’s got a brain,” Gatabout responded.

Scootaloo shoved Sweetie Belle in his face. Cue puppy-dog look.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” he screamed as he threw his hooves over his eyes. “It just slipped out, I swear!”

“So, sugar’s just the start. Makes sense,” Apple Bloom said as Scootaloo withdrew Sweetie Belle. “Since the government outlawed it, I hear some ponies’ll do whatever it takes to get their hooves on it. And then he’s gonna use that to make himself into some regional kingpin or somethin’.”

“Regional? Try national!” Gadabout answered. “Big-Shot’s got big plans, alright. Once he’s got a syndicate on all crime in the southwest, then he’ll move into Canterlot itself and once he’s the big crime boss there, he’ll have enough authority to take over all organized crime in Equestria!”

“But… aren’t there already big crime bosses in places like Baltimare and Manehatten?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Not when Big-Shot gets through with them,” Gadabout answered.

“But they won’t give up their territory. Not without a fight.”

“And that’s what Big-Shot intends to give ’em. He’ll give ’em a choice, see. Either join him or get locked in the biggest gang war Equestria’s ever seen!”

“He can’t do that!” Scootaloo said. “Think of all the people that would kill!”

“Oh, not like Big-Shot’d care,” Gadabout said. “He’d just as soon drop a dozen people as eat breakfast.”

As the three Crusaders exchanged worried glances, each silently trying to come to terms with what they were hearing, Gadabout seemed to grow thoughtful and pensive. When he spoke again, he had a faraway look in his eye, like he did not even remember where he was or who he was talking to.

“This ain’t the way it used to be,” he said. “This used to be a civilized business. Oh, sure, you’d drop a guy here or there, because he was trying to muscle in on your turf or he didn’t want to pay protection money or he was fooling around with your mare. But that was just business. It wasn’t anything personal. People get out of line and they got to be taken care of, you know what I mean? As long as nopony stepped out of line, nopony got shot. Everypony knew it and that’s why business went so smoothly so much of the time.

“But this Big-Shot guy, he don’t play it like the old bosses did. He’ll shoot you ’cause he doesn’t like the look of your cutie mark and he’s not afraid of stepping out of line. He don’t follow the rules and he don’t care about running the business right or making a profit. He just wants to be on top, even if it means that every other pony in Equestria is dead. I don’t think he’ll stop till this whole world’s burned down.”

“Then why do you follow him?” Scootaloo asked. “Why not just put a bullet in his back or something?’

“You clearly don’t know Big-Shot, kid.”

“Not for a long time.”

“He’s had four mugs turn on him and try to do away with him. All four bigger, badder stallions than me. And all four ended up in holes out in the countryside. Now, Big-Shot may just shoot you for fun when you got your back turned, but cross him, and he definitely will put you in a grave somewhere.”

The three Crusaders looked silently at Gadabout. He looked back at them. Suddenly, the hint of a smile was once more visible in his features. “Who are you three kids anyway? Who do you work for?”

“That ain’t none of your business,” Apple Bloom snapped back. “We’re askin’ the questions here.”

Gadabout raised his hoofs. “Alright, alright. I was just asking because I was wondering if you kids had any idea what you’ve just gotten yourselves into. Since Big-Shot’ll kill me if he ever finds out what I told you, just imagine what he’ll do to you three if you keep trying to disrupt his plans.”

After a very long moment of silence, Apple Bloom said. “Ya say Big-Shot’ll kill you? Ah guess that’s a chance you’ll just have to take. Get out!”

Gadabout just sat there, unsure what to make of this.

“Ah said get out!” Apple Bloom yelled. “Get out or Ah’ll turn Sweetie loose on ya again!”

Gadabout did not need to be told twice. He galloped out of there as swiftly as possible, determined not to give Sweetie Belle a chance to look at him again.

Scootaloo made an attempt to stop him, but even she was not fast enough for the determined crook. He was out the door before she could even reach it. Scootaloo watched him disappear into the night for a moment and then turned on her fellows.

“Apple Bloom! Why’d you let him go?” she said.

Apple Bloom looked up at her, the anger in those golden eyes making even Scootaloo take a step back. “What ya ’spect me to do? Ya want to shoot him instead? Ya want to kill him in cold blood? We ain’t never done that, Scootaloo. We’ve done a lot of things, but we ain’t never done that.”

“No, I wasn’t going to shoot him,” Scootaloo said. “But we shouldn’t have just let him go like that. Now he’s going to tell Big-Shot about us and then Big-Shot’s going to come down here and shoot this place all up and us in it!”

“Not if we hit him first,” Sweetie Belle said, quietly.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked to her and then to each other. Gone was their anger. Now they merely faced each other with determination and resolve.

“It has to be tonight,” Apple Bloom said. “We can’t afford to wait till tomorrow.”

“Agreed,” Scootaloo said, “but we can’t just go barging in there with a pea-shooter and a couple of apples. This is serious. We’re gonna need the big guns for this one.”

While Sweetie Belle cradled her pea-shooter defensively, as though to protect it from the insult, Apple Bloom just sighed.

“Alright, Scootaloo,” she said. “Break out the heavy weaponry.”

A gleeful grin grew on Scootaloo’s face, the product of her preparations now paying off. As she approached the large bag sitting in the corner, she responded, “With pleasure.”

It was late, certainly very late. Double-Shot yawned. Even in his profession, he was not used to being out so late. Especially not for what was supposed to be a routine operation.

Beside him, Hot-Shot paced frantically. “Okay,” he said, “we got to get our story straight. Got to figure out what we’re telling the boss.”

“Just tell him the truth,” Double-Shot answered.

He was met by Hot-Shot’s glare, a glare that basically said, you’ve got to be kidding me.

Double-Shot shrugged. “Well, there ain’t nothin’ to hide, is there? I mean, they got Gadabout and there wasn’t nothin’ you could do to save ’em, right? It’s not like we just sped out of there without checking on him or somethin’.”

Hot-Shot stood there for a moment, as though stunned, before swiftly shaking his head. “No, no, of course not. There weren’t nothing we could have done, nothing we could have done, and that’s our story. You got that, that’s our story.”

“Our story? But I thought it was the truth?”

Hot-Shot stopped pacing now, but even though he was standing still, he was not quite motionless. Visible shivers went up and down his body. “Eh,” he said, “the truth never counted for much in this business.”

Double-Shot looked at Hot-Shot disapprovingly.

“What?” Hot-Shot said. “Have you ever heard of an honest crook? Not on my life, you haven’t. I mean, just take the boss, for instance.”

Suddenly, the shivers managed to migrate from Hot-Shot to Double-Shot. “We shouldn’t be talking about the boss like this,” Double-Shot said, his voice barely above a whisper, as though he thought Big-Shot could somehow hear.

But Hot-Shot’s confidence was growing with every word. “You think the boss is something else, that he’s something special? You actually believe that story of his he’s peddling, about rising up from nothing to be a major player? Eh, he’s just like the rest of ’em. I’ve worked for enough major players by now to know they’re all the same. They talk tough until they get cornered than they go to pieces. Big-Shot ain’t any different.”

“P-please, Hot-Shot, don’t say things like that,” Double-Shot pleaded. “The boss may hear. Let’s just get back to stacking the crates and get this job over with.”

Double-Shot quickly began removing the last of the crates from his unhooked wagon and stacking them with the others that were already placed in this little corner of the warehouse. But Hot-Shot did not move.

“Ah, leave ’em,” he said. “We got all night and they ain’t goin’ anywhere. Besides, who’s gonna tell the boss anything? You gonna rat me out?”

“No, Hot-Shot, of course not….”

“Yeah, and I ain’t about to go digging my own grave neither. So the boss ain’t ever gonna find out. The boss, he’s nothing but hot air!”

“You didn’t act like that today when we were with him.”

Hot-Shot sneered and stood up a little taller, and then proceeded to rub one of his hooves over his chest, as though wiping the insult right off of him. “Yeah, but that’s just ’cause I got to play the game if I want to get anywhere. That’s the difference between you and me. You really think the boss is something else. I just play the game.”

“Yeah, you play the game,” Double-Shot answered as he finished moving the last crate into place. “And what’s it ever going to get you?”

Hot-Shot now not only brushed his chest, but pounded it. “What’ll it get me? It’ll get me to the top. See, Big-Shot’s doin’ all this work cornering the crime business in these parts. But he’s not gonna be around forever. He’s gonna go down, just like they all go down. And when that happens, I just gotta step outta the shadows and into his place. He can get what’s coming to him and I can get rich and successful.”

“Without doing any of the work yourself?”

“See, that’s why I’m gonna get to the top and you ain’t. I got the brains to know how to use other people to my advantage and you don’t.”

“Yeah, some brains,” Double-Shot said. “You’ve got an answer for everything.”

“That’s right,” Hot-Shot answered proudly. “I know it all. That’s why ain’t nothing ever going to surprise me!”

The next thing, after the pleasing sound of his own voice, that Hot-Shot heard was a loud explosion. He turned just in time to see the large warehouse door falling to pieces in a wave of flame. And from that wave of flame burst three familiar figures on a very familiar motorized scooter.

“Hey, Hot-Shot, it looks like those three punks again!” Double-Shot said, his voice coming from behind the large stack of crates.

Hot-Shot lunged for his gun and just managed to miss a furious round of bullets.

“They’re a persistent bunch if they are,” he responded as he fired off a few rounds at the speeding blur.

The speeding blur became three non-speeding blurs as the assailants discarded their scooter and took cover under the other side of the crates. Hot-Shot quickly tried to reach Double-Shot’s position but found another stream of bullets blocking his path.

“Hey, Hot-Shot, didn’t we drop one of these goons back at the motel?” Double-Shot asked as he narrowly managed to duck out of the way of more bullets.

“I don’t know, maybe they heal quick or something. Not really a good time to be wondering about it,” Hot-Shot answered as he tried to scramble for shelter.

However, before he could find anything, everything went white. A nearby explosion had blinded and deafened him. He felt several bullets rip through him and fell to the ground. Then all was blackness.

When Hot-Shot recovered consciousness, he found himself slung across Double-Shot’s back as the big goon headed for the nearest exit, trading gun-fire with the enemy all the while. Somehow, Double-Shot managed to extricate the both of them from the building and together they soon disappeared into the haze that hailed the coming dawn.

Inside the warehouse, three figures finally halted their fire.

“Do you think we finally got one of them this time?” Sweetie Belle said as she lowered her rifle – now an assault rifle rather than a pea-shooter – and rose from behind a crate.

“Looks like one of them took a pretty bad hit,” answered Scootaloo, who was busy readjusting the two machine guns she had attached to her wings. “He might even be dead.”

“Who do you think was the one that took him out?” Sweetie Belle asked quietly.

“Well, judging from the overall state the place is in,” Apple Bloom said, surveying the warehouse – which now seemed to contain more holes than solid matter, “Ah’d say we all had a hoof in it most like.”

Apple Bloom set down her revolver to put away a grenade or two.

Sweetie Belle’s eyes now glanced around. “Huh, you think anypony’ll notice all the damage?”

“Yeah, Sweetie, something gives me a feeling they will,” Scootaloo answered. “But it’s not our problem. It isn’t like we own the place or anything.”

“They could sue us, I suppose,” Sweetie Belle responded, “but then they’d have to catch us first.”

“Let ’em try,” Scootaloo said. “Let ’em just try, eh Apple Bloom? Apple Bloom?”

Scootaloo looked to see that Apple Bloom was already pacing around the pile of crates, placing grenades here and there at intervals more-or-less randomly determined.

“We ain’t got much time,” Apple Bloom said. “It’s almost mornin’. We gotta get this done and get outta here before those ponies have a chance to tell their boss what we’re up to. Ah’m plantin’ the bombs. Sweetie, you take a little sugar to give to Willow Tree back in Canterlot.”

“Will do,” Sweetie Belle responded as she took an envelope from her saddle-bag.

“It seems a shame to blow up all this sugar,” Scootaloo said as the other two got busy with their work. “Selling that could set us up for life.”

“In more ways than one, Scoots,” Apple Bloom answered. “But don’t think about it. Crime doesn’t suit you.”

“You’re right about that,” Scootaloo said. “I cut a much too heroic figure for a criminal.”

“Okay, that should be enough,” Apple Bloom said. “You done, Sweetie?”

Sweetie Belle nodded, but her attention had shifted once more to the sorry state the Crusaders’ antics had left the warehouse in.

“Do you girls ever think we might accomplish more if we used another plan besides barging in and shooting everything?”

“Don’t talk crazy, Sweets,” Scootaloo answered.

“What would make you say that?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Just a thought,” Sweetie Belle said. “It seemed like something to bring up, since we did pretty much cover one whole side of this place with bullet-holes and all.”

“Actually, I think I see one area of the wall that’s still relatively intact,” Scootaloo said. Then, her eyes lit up. “Say, Sweets, if you want to do something useful while AB’s finishing up with those bombs, how about leaving a little ‘calling card’ for the bad guys?”

“I don’t have any cards,” Sweetie Belle said. “We never carry around cards.”

Scootaloo shook her head. “No, I mean, how about you shoot up that wall?”

“Why didn’t you just say that?” Sweetie Belle asked. “And why would I want to do that?”

Scootaloo spread out her hooves to the wall. “I can see it now! The villains walk in and what do they see?”

“Total destruction?”

“No! Well, yes, but no. They see, written on the wall completely in bullet-holes, the giant words ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’!”

Sweetie Belle looked at the wall and tilted her head. “So, basically… you want to tell the psychotic bad guy and his heavily-armed lackeys exactly who we are.”

Scootaloo shrugged her wings. “Well, it’s not like they won’t know what we look like and where we’re staying after tonight.”

Sweetie Belle hesitated. “I still don’t know, but all right… I guess….”

At this moment, Apple Bloom finished her preparations.

“Okay, girls, stand back,” she said.

Sweetie fired the shots into the fall and then the three quickly backed away to a safe distance and Apple Bloom prepared a final grenade to destroy the rest.

“Wait!” Scootaloo screamed, a surprisingly panicked scream.

“How am Ah supposed to wait?” Apple Bloom yelled out, starting to panic herself. “I already pulled the pin out of this one!”

A frenzied movement of orange blew past her, toward the blast zone. Apple Bloom could barely make out Scootaloo’s voice saying, “I left my scooter over there!”

“Apple Bloom, that thing’s about to explode!” Sweetie Belle said.

“I know, but I can’t blow up Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom responded.

“You can’t blow us up either!” Sweetie Belle said as she started putting distance between herself and Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom could feel the sweat beginning to drip down her forehead as she looked back and forth between the grenade in her hoof and the pile of sugar. Soon, she felt it falling into her eyes, making everything blurry. She thought to herself that it should go off any second. It should have already gone off, or so the rational part of her mind told her.

And then, the sound of a motor and another burst of orange. A thought, one of those funny random thoughts that occur at the direst of moments, popped into Apple Bloom’s mind, telling her that since everything was a blur now, Scootaloo was lucky that her body color stood out so well. Apple Bloom knew she could not wait any longer. She threw the grenade.

She did not even have time to run away. The grenade exploded in mid-air, just far enough away from Apple Bloom to set off the other grenades but still too close for her to avoid the incoming blast on her own. But just as the flames were about to engulf her, she felt herself being tugged away. An instant later, she found herself standing on the back of Scootaloo’s scooter.

Apple Bloom wiped the sweat out of her eyes just as Sweetie Belle jumped onto the scooter behind them. Scootaloo increased the speed and soon the three had burst through the nearest exit, as flames shot out of the warehouse behind them.

Apple Bloom sighed in relief as she saw the morning sun rising over the nearby foothills. Then she smacked Scootaloo in the back of the head.

“What was that for?” Scootaloo yelled.

“Ya nearly got us killed in there!” Apple Bloom said. “All three of us nearly got blown up because of you!”

“Okay, sorry!” Scootaloo responded. “But it’s not like neither of you have never done anything that nearly got the three of us killed.”

“It wouldn’t be a Cutie Mark Crusader adventure if it didn’t nearly end with all three of us dead,” Sweetie Belle said.

Scootaloo now adjusted the speed to a more comfortable level. As she did so, Apple Bloom turned to see a familiar sight. She let out a loud gasp.

Sweet Apple Acres. They were driving by Sweet Apple Acres. Apple Bloom now remembered that Gadabout had said it was down this way. But she had not been prepared to see it again, especially not in this state. Not with the barbed-wire fence surrounding it or with the grey walls that seemed to have spread up everywhere between the barn and the various orchards. Apple Bloom once more felt water coming into her eyes. A couple of tears fell down her cheeks.

“Home,” she said quietly.

“We don’t have time to worry about that,” Scootaloo said without taking her eyes off the road. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

Apple Bloom shook herself out of her sad mood. “Right, a’course. Thanks for remindin’ me, Scoots!”

“Any time,” Scootaloo said. Just then, she herself happened to glance over at Apple Bloom’s former home.

Scootaloo’s eyes immediately zeroed in on the silhouette of the barn that still dominated the view of the farm. Then they widened as she noticed that, atop the barn, there stood a familiar figure. A familiar pink mare with a uncontrolled mane was just standing on the roof, with cold eyes watching the Crusaders go by.

Scootaloo quickly brought the scooter to a dead stop, nearly sending all three of its passengers flying.

“Scoots, what in tarnation did ya do that fer?” Apple Bloom snapped.

“Look, up there. Up on the roof of the barn!” Scootaloo said, pointing her hoof.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle’s eyes followed Scootaloo’s hoof.

“See, I told you that I saw Pinkie Pie! There she is!” Scootaloo said, thrilled to be vindicated.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked to each other and smiled.

“Somepony’s getting obsessed,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Ah, we might have to see if Nurse Redheart is still in town,” Apple Bloom added. “Say we got a friend hallucinatin’ things.”

“What?” Scootaloo snapped.

Then she looked to the roof of the barn again. There was no one there.

Scootaloo’s jaw dropped, but she quickly shut it. Stepping off the scooter, she began to approach the fence. She was determined to find out what was going on and she thought that surely even Pinkie Pie could not get out of Sweet Apple Acres so quickly.

“Scootaloo, ya said it yerself. We don’t have time to take a look round here,” Apple Bloom said.

“I don’t think it’s gonna take Big-Shot too long to get down here when he hears what we’ve done,” Sweetie Belle said. “I’m not ready for another fight yet.”

Reluctantly, Scootaloo turned back. She got back on the scooter and brought it roaring to life. Soon, the three were moving down the road once more.

As they were moving, something occurred to Scootaloo, something she deemed very important.

“So, Sweetie, did you take my advice?” she said. “Did you leave our signature for them to find?”

“Well, sorta,” came Sweetie Belle’s nervous response.

“Sorta?” both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom asked together.

“Well, I was trying to write ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’ but I ran out of bullets,” Sweetie Belle confessed.

“You ran out of bullets?” Scootaloo said. “How can you run out of bullets?”

“I’ve been shooting at anything that moves for the past thirty minutes. What do you think?” Sweetie Belle responded.

“Then what in Equestria did you write?” Scootaloo asked.

Hot-Shot, his arm covered in a makeshift cast, and Double-Shot looked up at the wall, where – as though they were at the infamous banquet – countless bullet-holes spelled out giant letters before them.

“Cutie Mark Crusa,” Hot-Shot read. “What in Equestria is a ‘Cutie Mark Crusa’?”

“Maybe it’s a secret code or something,” Double-Shot said. “It could be in a foreign language. Or maybe it’s a cypher of some sort.”

Hot-Shot tilted his head. “A cypher, huh? Then how do you decode it?”

Double-Shot also tilted his head. The two silently tried to piece together the puzzle.

“I really am the only smart guy in the whole town, ain’t I?” said a voice behind them.

Both immediately jumped. They scooted away from the message as Big-Shot Bigsby approached it.

“So, it looks like they did a real number on the place,” Big-Shot said as he looked up at the words. “That’s gonna set us back. The Baker won’t be happy if I have to reschedule our meeting. But they got guts, I’ll tell you that. Coming directly after one of my storehouses and all.”

“But who were they?” Double-Shot said. “Who but us has that type of firepower around these parts?”

“They aren’t from these parts,” Big-Shot said. “Well, they were, but they ain’t been around for a long time.”

“Then who are they?” Gadabout asked, coming up beside the other three.

Big-Shot smiled. “Boys, it looks like some old friends of mine are back in town.”

What would Big-Shot do now?Read on.