Chapter One: Unhappy Campers
The early June heat beat down on the three sweaty fillies trudging through the humid midday summer air. Celestia’s sun was anything but merciful as Lady Summer was making herself right at home a couple weeks prior to her official arrival on the solstice. The Weather Patrol in Ponyville couldn’t do much in alleviating the woes of the overheated townsponies since clouds were reserved for rain and the temperature of the sun was out of their hooves. All a pony could do was stay hydrated and occasionally take a dip in the lake outside of Ponyville.
But for Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle, the heat was not the cause of their sulking. Only a month before, the fillies learned that their respective caretakers had enrolled them into a two-month-long summer camp that splits its campers into two different teams who compete in a series of challenges throughout the eight weeks. It was located by a rather large lake in the southwestern corner of the White-Tailed Woods and was called Camp Scorched Earth, apparently themed around the natural elements of earth and fire.
So instead of a summer of cutie-mark crusades, the summer was going to be filled with nothing but whatever went on at the camp.
And nothing good could come from it.
The three fillies walked to the train station in town. They had already said their farewells to their family (and Pinkie Pie) before leaving. Transportation directly to the camp would be provided, with the train station in Ponyville as a rendezvous point of sorts. The camp was quite popular across Equestria and welcomed colts and fillies from Manehattan, Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Cloudsdale, and everywhere else. The foals from the cities would simply take the train to Ponyville (at the expense of the parents, of course) and board one of the wagons to the camp that were provided on the first day. The girls had witnessed the convoy of campers coming and going in years past, but now they had the misfortune of experiencing it first-hoof.
The three fillies, with Apple Bloom in between Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, plopped down to the side of the loading platform at the station. They were early, so early that no other foals or even the adults to escort them had arrived yet.
Apple Bloom slid off her saddlebags. They were new and therefore uncomfortable, chaffing her sides, back, and belly.
“Ah don’t about y’all, but Ah think this is gonna be the first summer Ah’m gonna hate,” she commented. Applejack had insisted that she and Big Macintosh could handle the summertime chores and that Apple Bloom should enjoy herself. But Apple Bloom felt that anything but fun was going to happen.
“Agreed,” Scootaloo groaned. She was convinced that her mother did this was just to a get a foal-free summer.
“Oh, come on, at least it’ll be all four of us together,” Sweetie Belle said earnestly, though like the others, she hated the idea of summer camp. “It’s not like the four of us would be separated from one another.”
Scootaloo giggled. “Oh, yeah, where is your little lovercolt, the missing member of this band of misfits?”
Sweetie Belle blushed at the word ‘lovercolt.’ “Button said he would meet us here.” She scanned the platform and saw the brown-coated colt just arriving at the platform. “There he is!” Sweetie Belle excitedly pointed in the direction of Button Mash, who had his own set of saddlebags. He had stopped just at the entrance of the platform, and he was glancing around before his eyes finally caught Sweetie Belle vigorously waving a hoof at him. She didn’t do much in relieving his sorrow, but he trotted over and took a seat beside her.
Button Mash sighed heavily and monotonously said, “Hey, girls.”
“Hey, Button,” they all greeted simultaneously.
Button Mash sighed again. “Sweetie Belle?”
“Yeah, Button?”
“Don’t get mad at me, but I really hate your sister.”
A slight smirk appeared on Sweetie Belle’s muzzle. “Don’t worry; I do, too.”
“I just can’t believe she actually convinced my mother to do this,” Button stated with his eyes shut.
“Yeah, we know. You told us when we first found out we were going on this stupid trip,” Scootaloo said flatly.
“Why do ya think yer mom’s sendin’ ya, Button? Apple Bloom asked. The three fillies had already discussed their theories as to why they were being sent; and while each believed they had been signed up for the camp for individual reasons, the Cutie Mark Crusaders felt they were being sent there collectively in order to prevent them from burning down a café…again.
“Mom said I need to spend more time outdoors and less time playing video games. So, she’s sending me so I wouldn’t get to play any games this summer.”
Scootaloo feigned a wincing expression and sarcastically said, “Ouch, that’s harsh.”
Button Mash flashed a sly smile in her direction, not catching her sarcasm. “Not really. Before I left, I snuck my Joy Boy, some extra batteries, and a few games into my bag.” He shook his bags, and Scootaloo rolled her eyes.
“Aww, isn’t he clever?” Sweetie Belle commented before planting a peck on Button’s cheek. The colt blushed as Scootaloo’s gag reflex told the other three how she felt.
“Blech! Must you two do that in public?” Scootaloo asked. The other two fillies glared at her while Button just looked at Scootaloo blankly.
“I told you, Scootaloo has intimacy issues,” Button stated to the other two.
“I DON’T HAVE THOSE ISSUES!”
“Scoots, what’re ya gonna do when ya meet a colt that ya really like and he tries to hug ya or kiss ya in public?” Apple Bloom asked, still fixing her look of daggers onto Scootaloo.
Scootaloo shook her head. “That’ll never happen,” she stated firmly.
“What if it was a filly?” Button Mash added.
“WHAT?!” the three fillies to his right exclaimed and looked at him, with a scowl and narrowed eyes from Scootaloo, a cocked eyebrow from Apple Bloom, and a chastising expression from Sweetie Belle.
“What? It happens!” Button said defensively.
“If ANYPONY tries to kiss me, I will buck them in the face,” Scootaloo stated, staring straight at Button, who sheepishly looked down at the ground.
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, sighed, and looked over to Sweetie Belle. “Yer turn.”
Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Eh, let her be that way. Besides, I heard Fluttershy tell Rarity once that Rainbow Dash used to act like Scootaloo until she got her first coltfriend.” She then smugly smiled at Scootaloo, who narrowed her eyes in return. “And they ended being like Button and I,” she finished in a singsong tone.
“You take that back!” Scootaloo demanded with an accusing hoof pointed in Sweetie Belle’s direction. “Rainbow Dash does NOT do sappy things like you two!”
Sweetie Belle turned around to face the front, breaking eye contact with Scootaloo, and shrugged. “I can’t. It’s the truth.”
A low growl came from Scootaloo. She gritted her teeth and started grinding them together in anger and frustration. Sweetie Belle just giggled a little to herself for getting a rise out of Scootaloo. Apple Bloom prepared herself for being the one to keep Scootaloo from thrashing out at Sweetie Belle, and Button Mash muttered to himself something about never being able to understand fillies.
“I hope we’re not interrupting anything,” said a voice from the right of the four. The three fillies and one colt turned their heads to see Rumble, accompanied by a much smaller and younger Dinky Hooves on his left, and realized that they had completely missed the two approaching them. Both of them also had their own saddlebags, though Dinky’s was a little bit bigger than they should be. Their coats were shiny from sweating in the sun. Dinky stayed close to Rumble and kept a bashful gaze toward the ground.
“Oh, hey Rumble,” Sweetie Belle greeted, “Hey, Dinky.” The others followed with the same greetings, although the heat beat most of them down to a collective groan. Dinky offered a small wave in reply while Rumble nodded.
“Are ya’ll goin’ to that camp, too?” Apple Bloom asked in a sympathetic tone.
Rumble and Dinky shared a cheerless nod.
“Oh, good,” Scootaloo said, spotting the lack of enthusiasm between them, “So it’s not just us who hates this.”
Rumble led Dinky over beside Scootaloo, and they sat down with Rumble sitting in between Dinky and Scootaloo. Dinky stayed close to Rumble, mostly making eye contact with the ground.
“So,” Scootaloo began, rolling her eyes and head upward from left to right before finally setting both in the direction of the new members the club of misery, “what did you two do to receive this sentence?”
Rumble shrugged. “Thunderlane said he thought it would be good for me to get out of the house this summer.”
“That’s what my parents said!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, waving a hoof to draw attention to herself. She put her hoof down and looked to Dinky. “What about you, Dinky?”
Dinky shuffled her front hooves against the wood of the platform and darted her vision away from anypony. The Crusaders and Button Mash watched as Rumble gently put a hoof on her and whispered something to her. Dinky silently sighed to herself.
“Mom said I need to learn how to make friends and stop being so shy,” she said in an adorable voice, certainly a trait inherited from her mother. It was high-pitched and small, sounding somewhat like a loud whisper.
“And I promised Ms. Derpy that I would look after her,” Rumble added, showing a small smile to Dinky, who quickly looked back down to the floorboards.
The group fell silent for a few minutes, having lost everything to say to one another, until Scootaloo sighed heavily from the heat and asked, “What time is it?” The clock tower in town was obscured from their view by the wall against which they were lying.
“I’ll get up and check,” Rumble said as he got up onto all fours and walked to the entrance. He looked out onto the street briefly and then up to the clock tower before trotting back to the group. “It’s about one, and I think some of the camp counselors are here because there are some ponies in vests setting up a table out front.”
“The letter did say that checking-in would start at one,” Button pointed out.
“Yay,” Scootaloo unenthusiastically cheered, “it seems our misery is that much closer.”
“We get it, Scoots,” Apple Bloom said, slightly agitated, “Ya hate this. We all do, so could ya stop with the whinin’? It’s way too hot for it.”
Scootaloo sighed in frustration. “Fine, sorry,” she unwillingly apologized before mumbling, “I was just saying what everypony was thinking….”
A loud whistle pierced through the air as a train neared the station from the north. The ear-bleeding sound of the train braking caused Dinky to cover her ears with her hooves, and the train screeched to a halt at the station. It hissed, steam pouring out from underneath as ponies disembarked and boarded the train.
The six noticed that most of the passengers were fillies and colts, some accompanied by parents. All of the foals had their own pair of saddlebags, and some had sullen expressions on their faces. A vast majority of the parents had very stylish manes and wore expensive-looking jewelry with pearls and gold. The foals were definitely less posh in their appearance, but the signs of life in the city were still there. The small group of ponies that wasn’t as lavish-looking as the others was exclusively made up of Pegasi. There weren’t many Pegasi, only two foals accompanied by their parents. They all walked as a group past the station platform and out into the street.
“Well, it seems our fellow prison mates…er, campers are here,” Scootaloo stated, correcting herself when Apple Bloom gave a displeased look in her direction.
“I wonder what city they’re coming from?” Sweetie Belle thought aloud.
“Cloudsdale, with a stop-over in Canterlot,” Button Mash answered, his head and eyes following the group. The other five quickly looked to Button Mash with surprise written on each of their faces. Button Mash returned it with a furrowed brow. “What?”
“How do you know?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Know what?”
“Where the train came from!” Sweetie Belle yelled.
“Oh, just observation,” Button answered simply at first. “See, the fancy ponies are way too, well, fancy to be from Manehattan or Baltimare. Also, note how most of them are Unicorns. And the not-so-fancy ponies are all Pegasi, meaning Cloudsdale.”
“Where the heck did you learn how to observe like that?” Scootaloo asked, still fixing her amazed gaze onto Button Mash.
Button shrugged. “I guess years of finding secrets and solving puzzles in video games helped.”
“Do y’all think we should follow them?” Apple Bloom asked, trying to get away from the distracting conversation.
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Rumble replied. “Might as well get it over with now.”
After a collective sigh, the group got up to their hooves and followed behind the others out into the street. In the street were two lines of foals leading up to a desk that was set up between two sets of three wagons. Behind the desk were two Unicorns, an orange mare in a green vest and a pale cerulean stallion in an orange vest; and in between them on the table, a couple of small boxes of index cards. The parents said their good-byes to their foals before leaving and heading back to the train station.
There were ten ponies between the two lines when the six joined in, three in each line. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were in front of the others, with Scootaloo whistling a quiet, flat tune; behind them, Sweetie Belle used her magic to straighten Button’s hat, which had started falling off toward his back; and at the rear, Dinky kept staring at the ground beside Rumble. The six settled in for standing there for a long time, but the lines moved quickly to their surprise. In only a few minutes, Scootaloo found herself at the front of the left line and approaching the orange mare in the green vest.
“Hello, dear,” the mare greeted with a smile that was in the vein of one of those forced smiles that advertising models used. “What’s your name and city, sweetie?”
“Scootaloo, Ponyville,” Scootaloo replied drearily.
“Oh, how convenient for you!” the mare commented as she searched through the box of index cards marked ‘N-Z’ with her hooves. “You didn’t have to ride the train here.”
“Yeah, I’m real lucky,” Scootaloo mumbled to herself bitterly. The heat and her situation were just too much for her to deal with the mare’s peppiness, and her stomach churned at the thought that this was probably how all of the camp counselors acted.
“Here you go!” the mare said merrily as she used her magic to float a small white index card in front of Scootaloo. Scootaloo took it into her mouth, with her wings unable to reach up and grab it. “That will tell which camp you’re going to and what cabin you’ll be staying in. When either I or Blue Flare here…” the mare pointed to the stallion next to her, who was digging through the ‘A-M’ box for Button’s card, “…call for your camp, you’ll just be loaded onto the wagons and sent on your way!”
Scootaloo struggled to think of something to say that wasn’t snide, but the only thing she could think of was, “Yeah, sure, thanks.” She trotted off toward Apple Bloom, who had already gotten her card and was sitting down, studying it.
Scootaloo sat down across from Apple Bloom. “Hey, Apple Bloom, what camp are you assigned to?”
The pale yellow filly looked at her card in uncertainty and pressed the card hard against the tip of her muzzle, scrunching up her nose. “Camp…Gay-ee-ah?”
Scootaloo gave her a confused look and leaned forward to look at the card. “Oh, Camp Gaia. Geez, they are really set on the whole mythology thing. I’m in Camp Hephaestus.”
Button walked up to the group as Apple Bloom said, “Well then, how the hay do you pronounce that then?” She pointed to a name just under the name of her camp and beside the word ‘Cabin’ and showed it to Scootaloo.
“That’s Cronus,” Scootaloo explained. “He’s a Titan pony, father of Zeus.”
“How the hay do ya know that?” Apple Bloom asked with a raised brow.
“You know that paper Miss Cheerilee made me do so I wouldn’t flunk?” Scootaloo questioned. Apple Bloom nodded. “Well, I did it on some old pony mythology, like pre-Celestia stuff. It was surprisingly interesting, if disturbing.”
Apple Bloom turned to Button, who had sat beside her. “What about you, Button? What’s yer camp?”
“Camp Hephaestus, but I don’t like the cabin name.”
“Why? What is it?” Scootaloo asked.
“Ares.” Button explained simply.
“Okay, so what’s the problem?”
“Ares isn’t the god of war anymore! He was killed by a follower of his who opened Pandora’s Box, ultimately replacing him!” Button Mash explained loudly.
Scootaloo narrowed an eye in his direction, but she decided against saying anything. This kind of behavior was pretty much par for the course for Button. Then something hit her, and she looked down at the card in her hooves. “Wait, I have the same cabin as you. Are these cabins coed?”
Button shrugged, “I guess so.”
Sweetie Belle trotted up to the group starting to form and sat next to Button. “Hey, Button, what camp are you?”
“Camp Hephaestus,” Button answered proudly.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Me too, in case you’re wondering.”
Sweetie Belle’s eyes widened as she double-checked Button’s statement by glancing over at his card and then double-checked her own card. “Uh-oh,” she muttered.
“What?”
Sweetie Belle swallowed the lump in her throat. “Button, we’re on separate teams,” she frailly said, holding up the card with her magic for Button to look at it. At the top of the card was her name, typed with a magic-powered typewriter, and in the same lettering below it, the card read, ‘Camp Gaia, Cronus Cabin.’
Button’s expression became sullen. “Aww, shoot. That really sucks.”
“Button!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, grabbing the colt by the cheeks of his face and squeezing them, which made the colt jump. “We’re not on the same team!” she cried, shaking Button’s head vigorously.
“Help! Domestic abuse! Domestic abuse!” Button shouted.
Sweetie Belle released the colt’s face and continued her impromptu freak-out, placing her hooves against her own cheeks. “Button, what are we gonna do! The only reason why I was only semi-okay with going on this trip was that I got to be with you and Apple Bloom and Scootaloo! But now, it’s only me and Apple Bloom! And what’s worse you and I are on opposing sides!” she cried, dragging her hooves down her cheeks.
Sweetie Belle continued on and on in her rant while Scootaloo leaned in close to Button Mash. “Button, you sure have rubbed off onto her.”
“I’m not sure if this is even my fault,” Button countered, “I’m thinking this is more of her sister than me. It’s only me if she starts crying and screaming my name.”
At that moment, Sweetie Belle zipped over to Button and enveloped him into a neck-breaking embrace, sobbing into his coat. “Button,” she sobbed, “don’t you forget about me!”
“Sweetie Belle,” Button coughed, “we’ll only be apart for two months, and we’ll see each other during the challenges. I think we’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?! You’ll probably forget all about me and find somepony much younger!”
“Sweetie Belle, if I was going to date anypony much younger than you, I’d have to date Pumpkin Cake!”
Rumble, who had already gotten his card, had approached the group with Dinky during the beginning of Sweetie Belle’s panicking. He leaned toward Scootaloo, “What the hay is going on?”
“The lovebirds were put on different teams, and Sweetie Belle’s freaking out about it.”
Rumble scrunched his mouth to the side of his face. “Do you think being a drama queen is a requirement in her family?”
Scootaloo grinned. “I often think it’s a gene.” She looked to Rumble. “So, what camp are you in?”
“Dinky and I are both in Camp Hephaestus.”
“So aren’t Button and me,” Scootaloo stated. “What’s your cabin’s name?”
Rumble glanced down at his card. “Dinky and I share a cabin called Aphrodite. Did you know the cabins are apparently coed?”
Scootaloo nodded, “Yeah, Button and I share one called Ares.”
Rumble put on a thoughtful smile. “Huh, I guess everything worked out pretty well.”
“Well, except for those two,” Scootaloo pointed out, motioning to Sweetie Belle and Button Mash. Sweetie Belle was trying to think of a way to disguise Button Mash as Apple Bloom and Apple Bloom as Button Mash, while Button continuously pointed out the obvious problem of gender and Apple Bloom continuously pounded her hoof against her forehead in agony.
Just then, Scootaloo felt a wing brush against her back as a Pegasus colt she had never met before walked up beside her to her right. He was about an inch taller than she was, had an off-white coat that was just as sweaty as everypony else, and a short, cherry red mane and tail. Strapped around his back was his own pair of saddlebags that were vermilion with shiny platinum diamond-shaped buckles.
“Did I hear right?” the colt asked, his voice a little bit deeper than it should be for his age, “You’re a part of Camp Hephaestus and were assigned to the Ares cabin?”
Scootaloo narrowed her eyes at the colt, “Yeah, and I gotta thank you for eavesdropping. I’m now properly creeped out.”
The colt recoiled from Scootaloo’s tone. “Sorry, it’s just that not a whole lot of Pegasi go to Camp Scorched Earth; and I was glad that me and my sister aren’t the only Pegasi at camp this year.”
Rumble leaned out from behind Scootaloo. “Yeah, how come there isn’t a lot of Pegasi here?”
“The camp has a no-flying policy, which in turn usually discourages Pegasus parents from signing their foals up.” The colt shook his head with a small wave of his hoof in Scootaloo’s direction. “Another reason why I approached you was because I’m also assigned to the Ares cabin of Camp Hephaestus.”
Scootaloo’s expression softened at her cabin-mate. “Oh, well, my name’s Scootaloo.”
“My name’s Diamond Ace, son of Cerulean Ace of the famous Ace Brothers.” Diamond Ace stepped aside and revealed a young Pegasus filly behind her. She was about Dinky’s size and age, with a turquoise coat and a pale lavender mane; the latter was tied up with a hair band and hung down beside her neck. She had her own set of saddlebags, which matched her mane in color. “This is my sister, Crystal Wind.”
The filly offered a tiny nod as her greetings, but she didn’t say anything.
“The Ace Brothers? As in, the Ace Brothers from the Wonderbolts?”
Diamond smirked and nodded.
Scootaloo scoffed, “Pffth, yeah rig—”
At that moment, within the blink of Scootaloo’s eye, the Pegasus that was the object of her doubt rocketed from his spot on the ground, leaving only a small cloud of disturbed dust, at a speed Scootaloo had only ever seen Rainbow Dash achieve. He flew up to a group of clouds that were in the sky; and in a white and red blur, Diamond Ace began shaping the clouds to his will. In two mere seconds, the sky was adorned with a Pegasus-crafted cloud sign that read ‘Suck it, Scoot’ in fancy cloud-calligraphy.
“Sorry about your name,” he called down from the ‘t’ of the Scootaloo’s partial name. “I didn’t have enough cloud for the rest of it.” Diamond Ace glanced to the side and turned back to Scootaloo. “Your name does have ‘a-l-o-o’ at the end, right?”
Scootaloo, with her jaw hanging loosely from her mouth, shook her head up and down. Rumble was behind her, stifling a laugh. Sweetie Belle had stopped her freak-out, and she and Button both were looking blankly up at the message in the sky. In fact, nearly everypony in the immediate vicinity was staring up at the message. There were a few giggles and sounds of amazement, and Scootaloo glanced down at the ground as Diamond Ace landed in front of her.
“Sorry I did that,” he apologized. “But it was obvious that you weren’t going to believe me.” He looked up at the message, which was starting to fade away and break apart. “It’s nothing as good as I’ve seen my dad write, but still pretty good,” he commented.
Apple Bloom rushed up to Scootaloo, taking Scootaloo’s attention away from the colt, and led her away toward where the camp counselors were.
“Scoots, Ah think there’s somethin’ ya should see.”
Scootaloo shook her hoof back and forth. “I’m done seeing things for today.”
“Ah don’t know. This ya might actually wanna see,” Apple Bloom insisted, pointing with her hoof.
Scootaloo’s eyes followed Apple Bloom’s hoof. Another train had stopped in the station, and more foals were in line to get their camp and cabin assignments. But they weren’t the ones to whom Apple Bloom was pointing. At the very end of the right line was a silver-grey filly with a braided mane. Scootaloo’s eyes narrowed.
“Silver Spoon? Don’t tell me she and Diamond are also going to this camp!”
“Ah think it’s just her, ‘cause Ah don’t see Diamond anywhere,” Apple Bloom stated.
“Great!” Scootaloo sighed, “Looks like this trip just got fifty percent worse.”
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t share a cabin with any of us.”
* * *
The next hour and a half was surprisingly fleeting. Sweetie Belle finally got herself together and insisted that Button shouldn’t freak out like that ever again. Scootaloo hesitantly talked to Diamond Ace, but she quickly found him to be quite tolerable. He had a decent taste in both music and Wonderbolts, aside from him seeing that his father and uncle were the best to have ever been. Both Rumble and Diamond Ace urged Crystal Wind and Dinky to talk a little bit. They did, and Crystal Wind even went as far as to show Dinky some of her artwork. Scootaloo, Rumble, Dinky, and Button Mash, who was called to meet his and Scootaloo’s cabin-mate, were all amazed at the talent the little filly had as a sketch artist. There were sketches of Pegasi in Cloudsdale, where she and her brother were from (Button Mash smiled half-conceitedly upon the conformation that he was right), a couple she saw on a date during a trip to Canterlot a few months ago, and even a few animals she had seen. None of them saw Silver Spoon since Apple Bloom pointed her out to Scootaloo, but it wasn’t surprising with increasing number of ponies hanging around and waiting for the wagons.
At 3:15, it was time. The orange mare in the green vest that was hoofing out cards called for Camp Gaia members to start loading up on their wagon. Scootaloo and Button Mash said their good-byes to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle (although, Sweetie Belle’s farewell to Button was a little more embellished and mushy than the rest); and they were sent on their way. A few minutes after the wagons to Camp Gaia left, the cerulean stallion in the orange vest gathered the remaining foals into the leftover wagons to head for Camp Hephaestus. Diamond Ace helped his sister (who still had yet to learn to fly properly) up onto a wagon. They were followed by Rumble doing the same for Dinky, Scootaloo getting on without any help, and Button Mash after acquiring some assistance from Scootaloo.
The wagons were off, heading to the west and passing by Sweet Apple Acres. Not even thirty minutes were gone since Button last saw Sweetie Belle.
“Scootaloo?” Button said to the filly beside him, sitting along the back of their wagon.
Scootaloo, who was talking with Diamond Ace, turned and faced him. “Yeah?”
“I already miss her,” Button stated solemnly, “and I think this is going to be the longest two-months ever.”