Cutie Mark Lovers

Operation: Love, Yay!

It was a few years later and the teenage Cutie Mark Crusaders still didn’t have their Cutie Marks. The three of them huddled in their secret hideout, trying to figure out this conundrum.

“I jus’ don’ get it!” Apple Bloom complained. “We been at this f’ever now! We should have gotten our darn Cutie Marks by now!”

“I know, right?!” Scootaloo raised a hoof to her face to wipe away her annoyance.

“Maybe it’s because we keep trying too many different things too quickly?” Sweetie Belle pointed out intellectually.

The other two had a figurative light bulb pop above their heads. “That’s it!” They both exclaimed, “We just need to work at one thing for a little while longer!"

“That makes us one step closer but we’re still no where near our goal…,” Sweetie Belle sighed, popping the balloon before it could float.  “Besides, what are we going to do next?”

All three of them had their heads down, they couldn’t think of a new idea to try. They’ve tried so many things they couldn’t even think of something that they DIDN’T do yet. Even if they did decide to repeat something that they had already done, what should it be?

“Break up!” Scootaloo shouted. “I think we should cool our heads for a bit before coming up with any new plans.”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders! Break time!” They all high-hoofed before splitting up.

XOX

“Dag’Nabit!” Apple Bloom kicked a rock in her way as she walked home. What in the world were they going to do to get their Cutie Marks? Her mind felt like it was going to explode. She was never the type to do all of that heavy thinking, she was more like her brother, Big Macintosh, in that way.

She saw a random apple laying on the ground and picked it up. The yellow filly wiped it on her coat before absentmindedly taking a bite out of it. Apple Bloom let out a deep sigh before tossing the half eaten fruit behind her.

“Oy!” A somewhat quiet scream could be heard from behind.

The young farm filly opened her eyes in shock and quickly turned around. “I’m so s’arry—!” She saw a large yellow pegasus laying on her butt with her hooves above her head. It was somepony that she was more than familiar with! “Fluttershy! I’m so s’arry!”

“Eep!” Fluttershy made her trademark sound. “It’s okay, Apple Bloom, I wasn’t watching where I was flying.” She apologized even though she was the victim, typical Fluttershy behavior.

Apple Bloom grabbed one of the older pegasus’s foreleg and pulled her to her feet.

“I’m so s’arry! I should’na have thrown that apple at ya!”

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy smiled and patted Apple Bloom on the ribbon atop her head.

Apple Bloom made a frown when she noticed a visible red bruise on the older pony’s canary yellow forehead. “I wish I could do something to help….”

“It’s fine, I just need to go home and get out my medical kit.”

“Wait!” Apple Bloom smiled, “Why don’ ya just go home with me? My family has a stash of ointments and bandages in the basement!” She could use this as both an apology and a way to make amends with the shy pegasus.

“Oh, okay, then.” Fluttershy couldn’t say no to the wet puppy dog eyes that Apple Bloom was giving her.

XOX

A few hours later, there was a mummified Fluttershy sitting on a red couch. Only her eyes and mane were visible from under all of those wrappings. There was an ‘eep’ as the yellow pegasus felt her muscles become sore from being so frozen stiff.

“I think it needs more tape!” Apple Bloom reasoned to herself. “Are you okay, Fluttershy?” She couldn’t hear Fluttershy’s protest since the mare’s mouth was shut tight but took it as a sign of approval, nonetheless. “I’mma get more tape!”

“Hold up in here!” A familiar and older voice rang out. Applejack came into the room with a look of annoyance. “What’s dat racket, Apple Bloom!” She gasped when she saw Fluttershy come into her view. “What the hay are you doing to that poor pony?!”

Applejack quickly rushed to Fluttershy’s side and started ripping off the bandages, tape,…and tree sap? “I’m so sorry ma’am! The little filly doesn’t know better, ya’mo?” She mumbled the last one as her mouth was chewing out the bandages. “F-Fluttershy?!” Applejack opened her mouth in shock just as the bandages just popped out around the pegasus and dropped to the floor.

“Hi….” Fluttershy looked down, blushed, and crossed her forelegs near her waist for no apparent reason. An ‘eep’ could be heard.

“At first I dun thought dat you kidnapped one of the neighbors, again!” Applejack groaned while wiping her face with a hoof, “But you kidnapped my best bud, Fluttershy?! What was going through your mind?”

“It’s…okay….”

“She was hurt! I could’na jus’ leave her there!”

“I’m fine…really….”

“What you were doin’ there was no better! You were just making things worse!”

“Please…stop fighting!”

“At least I did somethin’!”

“Sisters shouldn’t fight…!”

“Well, I bet that you were the reason she was hurt in the first place!”

“Ugh!” Apple Bloom stopped for a moment and dropped her head.

“I was apple-bucking right! You put her in that condition in the firs’ place! You should feel bad for being like—”

“STOP!” Both earth ponies turned to look at Fluttershy who immediately blushed and looked away from their piercing eyes. “I’m fine, I just needed a bandage…on my forehead.” She gestured weakly to the bruise on her forehead.

Applejack opened her mouth with an ‘o’ and went over to one of the fresh bandages that were still unused. She picked one up and placed it right on Fluttershy’s bruise, “There you go, pardner!”

“T-Thanks,” Fluttershy blushed. She turned to look at Apple Bloom who shied away in embarrassment, “And, thank you, too, Apple Bloom.”

When the pegasus sheepishly left, Applejack turned to chastise her sister. “Apple Bloom!… Have you learned your lesson?”

Apple Bloom was blushing, still staring at the door where Fluttershy had left for 5 minutes. “Wa-Waah?” She drooled as she looked up at her sister with a dull mind. “U-Um! Yeah!” Apple Bloom jumped up in joy when she realized something. “I have a new idea for our Cutie Marks!”

The young filly dashed out the same door that Fluttershy left through.

“That girl!….” Applejack sighed as she tilted her hat over her eyes with no intent on chasing her.

XOX

“I guess we can try sewing again?” Sweetie Belle sighed as she walked down the dirt road to her sister’s house/store. She was about to open the door to Rarity’s boutique until the door slammed opened on her. She flew back and hit the ground. “Ow!” She held her bruised forehead in pain. It was not really that painful but the surprise really knocked her off her hooves.

“Get out of here, Pinkamena Diane Pie!” She heard Rarity roar as she continued looking at the offending pony in her shop so she didn’t see that she threw her little sister into the dirt.

“But you need more colors! And cupcakes! And frosting for more flavor!” A bubbly voice could be heard along with a ‘boing’ sound. Sweetie Belle wasn’t sure whether Pinkie Pie was talking about food or something else entirely. It was more than likely that she wasn’t talking about food.

“I don’t care if the Gates of Tartarus is at my doorstep! Get out of here this instant!” The fashionista commanded.

“Oh, don’t be a silly filly!” Pinkie Pie giggled. Sweetie Belle watched as her sister ran back inside to stop the pink madness, leaving the door wide open.

Curious, Sweetie Belle got back up and entered the shop while wiping some dust off of her coat.

To her (sort of) surprise, there were cupcake batter all over the dresses and a giant blob of…chocolate? floating on the ceiling. Hopefully that dripping concoction was chocolate and not something else of similar texture and color. It couldn’t be, Pinkie Pie wasn’t half monkey, the young unicorn reasoned.

“Argh! I’ll destroy you!” Rarity roared in the background, Sweetie saw her sister run in one of the hallways.

Sweetie Belle smiled at the typical Pinkie Pie Crazies. She went over to one of the ruined dresses and gave it a lick. Raspberry jam, yum!

“Come on! That’s not how you play tag!” Pinkie Pie popped into view, bouncing, just as a vase was thrown overhead passed her.

The pink earth mare jumped really high and ran right through the giant blob in the ceiling, leaving a hole the shape of Pinkie Pie in it. Her cheeks were swollen as she noisily chewed and swallowed while jumping like nothing had happened. “Yom Mn Mmm! Ehe, tasty!”

A chair was lifted by a blue hue just as it was thrown at Pinkie Pie. This one actually made its target but it just went straight through Pinkie Pie as if nothing had happened. The large wooden chair had an impression of Pinkie Pie similar to the blob on the ceiling, which was amazing considering that it was physically impossible for the chair to still stand with a large hole like that in it.

“Are we playing dodge ball now?!” Pinkie Pie squealed in glee as she picked up a random bouncy ball and tossed it at Rarity, still bouncing around the room like a maniac.

Rarity angrily caught the ball with her magic and burst it into flames. “I may be a lady but that doesn’t mean that I won’t rip you to pieces if you don’t stop your shenanigans this instant!”

Sweetie Belle just watched on in amazement at how…trance-like…the chaotic scene seemed to her. Rarity was definitely angry but she just seemed so…in sync with Pinkie Pie. The young unicorn didn’t notice that her sister finally took notice of her presence within the shop.

“Sweetie Belle?!” She heard her sister call her and everything froze. It was almost as if there was somepony caught with their hoof in the cookie jar!

Pinkie Pie stopped bouncing and Rarity stopped being angry.

Rarity blushed heavily and tried to not look at her sister in the eye. “My, I-I cannot believe that you caught me at such an impromptu moment, my dear Sweetie Belle. I was just so caught up in this…madness that I forgot to act like the proper lady I am.” She glared at Pinkie Pie who just stood there smiling.

“This was so much fun, Rarity! We should totally do this again!” Pinkie hopped towards the door but stopped when she saw something. “Oh, silly filly! You got some cupcake on you!” Pinkie got close to Sweetie and licked her cheek of any frosting with a giant wet tongue.

“That is so unsanitary, Pinkie Pie! You really should learn to act more prim and proper, we are not living in a heathen age, darling!”

“Adios, muchachos! Or is that muchachas?” Pinkie Pie waved goodbye and tilted her randomly acquired sombrero over her eyes. She bounced out of the ruined shop with a glee in her hops.

Sweetie Belle raised her hoof to her wet cheeks in stunned amazement. She smacked her lips and noticed that she tasted bubblegum alongside the raspberry. ‘But I didn’t eat any bubblegum-flavored jam…!’

She looked back up at the pretty surrounding with the mix of flavors and colors. Then a cord struck in her mind as she thought of a new idea for her Cutie Mark Crusades!

Sweetie Belle ran towards the open doorway but stopped midway. “Sis, there’s a big blueberry jam on your head!” She called from behind before she disappeared from Rarity’s sight.

“What?” Rarity looked up to see a blue goop fall over between her eyes. “My-My beautiful mane!”

“Tasty!” She heard a voice that she didn’t expect so soon and didn’t want to hear. Rarity found a giant tongue smacked her in the face as it trailed up and down, removing any and all pasty treats off of her person.

“Grr…! I’ll destroy you!”

XOX

“If there’s anypony who knows the best way to get a Cutie Mark, it’s Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo smirked as she buzzed by on her scooter. She remembered that during this time of the day, Rainbow would usually be sleeping lazily on a random cloud but recently the blue pegasus would use this time to visit Twilight Sparkle at her library.

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo slammed the door open without even knocking when she got to the library.

“Oh, hello, Scoots!” Spike waved to her as he continued on with his business, a large stack of library books that were twice his height were wrapped in his claws.

“’Sup, Spike.” Scootaloo said nonchalantly. She looked around to see that the library was vacant of any individuals.

It was strange that nopony actually seemed to borrow any books except for every other week. Most of the time, it’ll just be the librarian who would spend her time reading the books, or at least some of her friends. Very few ponies actually came to borrow a book. More ponies had read the books in the library and even that was a very rare occurrence, in and of itself.

Speak of the devil, when she went further into the library, she saw a purple unicorn laying down, intently reading a rather large book on the floor. Scootaloo noticed a few other books floating around Twilight, held by purple magic.

She buzzed around Twilight before approaching her, face to face. “Heya, Twilight!” She screamed out in a loud shrill voice. This shocked Twilight, making her yelp as she dropped the books that she held with her magic on her own head.

“S-Scootaloo! W-What are you doing here?” She gasped as she tried to catch her breath, ignoring the slight bruise growing on her head.

“Have you seen Rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo smiled, her wings were buzzing like bees as she looked up at Twilight Sparkle with lovesick eyes.

“Oh, I’m sorry, my little pony.” Twilight shook her head. “Dash said that she couldn’t make it today because some of the Weather Ponies were sick and she needed to pick up their jobs.” Twilight felt pity swell up in her stomach as she watched the elation in Scootaloo’s face drop. Hard.

“Awww!”

“But! She said that she’ll be here in a few more hours!” Twilight exclaimed, happy to see Scootaloo cheering back up. “She said that she wouldn‘t miss our reading play date for the world. Rainbow Dash was just upset that she couldn‘t be here on time.”

“Yay!”

“So, just come by in a few hours and you’ll get to talk to Rainbow Dash.” Twilight told the young filly.

“Nah, I’m good!” Scootaloo smirked. “I’ll just read some books with you while we wait for Rainbow Dash to show up!”

“You sure?” Twilight asked with worry. She didn’t want to bore the young girl, many ponies had already told her how plain and boring she was, it was still something that she tried to work on. Poorly.

“Yep!”

“Like, read, read? Like with me?”

“Yep!” Those words struck a cord in her heart. She felt almost as happy as the day that she made five best friends and defeated Nightmare Moon.

The only other pony who seemed to want to read with her was Rainbow Dash and that was only recently after the whole hospital debacle! Even then, it wasn’t like they were reading together, together. Rainbow Dash just sat in the same room reading a separate book, that was all. They weren’t reading aloud to one another or reading the same book together and sharing ideas on it but here was Scootaloo, who seemed to want to do exactly that with her!

XOX

Hours went by as Scootaloo and Twilight shared a tome and read it together. Unsurprisingly, Scootaloo chose a Daring Do book, which was no problem for Twilight since she also enjoyed it, even though this was one that she had already read five times, herself.

Scootaloo had to stop every now and then to ask Twilight to explain what a word meant or how to pronounce it but it was still fun to read with the young orange pegasus. The only other time she read a book aloud with somepony like this was when she was nursing a sick Spike and reading him an encyclopedia to help him go to sleep. That always seemed to make him fall asleep quickly.

“Hello, everypony!!!” Rainbow Dash’s loud voice rang throughout the quiet library. In another part of the library, Spike screamed as an avalanche of books fell on him from the quake but that was not important. A burst of rainbow colors filled the room as Rainbow landed in front of the two fillies.

“Oh, heya Scoots!” Rainbow Dash smiled as she watched Scootaloo and Twilight look up from their book.

“Hiya…Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo stopped reading and hopped up to Rainbow with stars in her eyes.

Twilight inwardly groaned when her reading session was interrupted but smiled and got up to greet Rainbow Dash. “Hi, Rainbow.” She said and nuzzled the blue pegasus.

“Hi…!” Rainbow turned red and had a wide smile that showed all of her teeth.

“Oh, yeah, little Scootaloo here wanted to see you!” Twilight stepped back and looked down at Scootaloo.

“Hiya…Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo repeated with the same star struck eyes.

“Okay, Squirt, watcha need?” Rainbow flexed one of her forelegs like the awesome pony she was.

“I just wanted to ask you about how to get my and the other Crusaders’ Cutie Marks!” Scootaloo squealed, happily. “Any idea, at all, that you can give?”

Before Rainbow could speak, Twilight raised a hoof to cover her mouth and looked at Scootaloo. “Please, Scootaloo these things take time, you’ll find it when you find it.”

Rainbow Dash smirked under Twilight’s hoof and pushed it out of her way. “I have an idea for a Cutie Mark, Squirt!” The blue pegasus looked at Twilight with a mischievous grin, “Why not be a librarian like Ponyville’s own residential egghead? I’m sure Spike needs a helping hoof with how crazy Twilight is!”

“I’m not crazy,” Twilight said pretty defensively. “Besides, you and I both know that her being a librarian is not going to get her, her Cutie Mark!” Twilight turned to look back at Scootaloo but found only dust. “—Ignore her, Scootaloo…?”

“Ooh! Is that the next series for Daring Do!?” Rainbow Dash ignored Twilight Sparkle’s comment and flew over to the book and began reading it.

Twilight sighed as she went to grab another book. She didn’t hear the plea for help from her Number One Assistant as he struggled under the pressure of the Historic Archives of 5,000 Years of Writing Super BigHistory Books all of them written in bold, 20 font, capital letters. History was literally painful for some.

XOX

“Girls, girls!” Sweetie Belle was the first one to enter their secret tree house. A few moments later, Apple Bloom joined in.

“I have an idea for our Crusades!” The yellow earth pony squealed.

“Me too!”

After 10 minutes Scootaloo came buzzing by.

“Girls, you will not believe the idea that came to me!” She smiled as she took off her helmet.

“Us, too, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom smiled from ear to ear.

They all gave each other a knowing look that said that they knew what the other was thinking.

“Okay, on the count to three, we should scream out our ideas together!” Sweetie Belle tossed out.

“Yes!”

“One!” Sweetie started, her lips were quivering.

“T‘ah!” Apple Bloom started chewing her teeth and wagging her tail.

“Three!” Scootaloo made a buzzing noise with her wings.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS—”

“LOVE N’URSES!”

“LOVE PAINTERS!”

“LIBRARIANS!”

“…Yay?” They all looked at each other as a cold silence fell over them.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders: Love Nurses?” Sweetie Belle looked at Apple Bloom in shock.

“Love Painters?!”

“LOVE?! What’s wrong with you two?! That’s so eww!!!” Scootaloo interrupted her two friends.

“Oh, come on Scootaloo! I have this ah’some idea where we try an’ get a certain pony to fall in love with us by being medical nurses!”

“No, we should get the pony to fall in love with us by being colorful painters!” Sweetie Belle countered.

“Girls! This is no time for love! This is serious, we need to get our Cutie Marks!” Scootaloo stuck out her tongue in disgust, shaking her head at her two friends.

“Aww! Come on, Scootaloo!” They both looked at her sadly with watery eyes. “It’ll be like two birds with one stone. Please?!”

They both made sad puppy dog eyes and quivered their lips at her, their eyes were getting bigger every second. If she waited long enough, their entire face would have been covered completely by two big watery orbs.

“Alright, we can be Cutie Mark Crusaders: Love Nurses/Painters/Librarians!” The orange pegasus sighed. She found herself glomped by her two friends as they both screamed ‘Yay!’ and hugged her.

“I’m gonna regret this, aren’t I?” Scootaloo shook her head and groaned.

Chapter End