A new life

Scootaloo struggled to breathe as she was now getting sprayed in the face by giant gas-spewing plants. She coughed and waved her forehoof in the air in an attempt to blow away the mist that was choking her. All of a sudden-

"Halt! Who goes there?" Zecora said in a surprisingly masculine voice as she walked towards the struggling Scootaloo.

"It's me, Zecora!" said the suffering filly as she waved her hoof in the air to swipe away the mist, while sputtering and gasping for air.

"Young Scootaloo, why are you here? In these parts of the forest, there is much to fear." Zecora said excitedly as she pushed away her plants. "Remember the time the forest ran wild as a boar, when your friends went to stop it right at the core?

"I think so, yeah," Replied Scootaloo forgetting about her condition for a moment.

"Once it returned to its usual state, I kept a few seeds, they make a great gate.”

Scootaloo was confused. “But why would you need these to protect your home? By now the creatures here should be used to you, right?”

“Used to me, yes, they just may be. But there is more here than even my eyes can see. My home is still prone to attacks from beasts most foul, so these plants help keep out the dangers that prowl." Zecora kept talking, not yet noticing Scootaloo's transformation.

"Oh, well you should probably have more consideration of other ponies that might wanna come visit you, Zecora."

"Although as nice it is to see you here, I have many brews I must finish without you near." Zecora went through many different ideas in her mind to make Scootaloo leave, because she started to notice that Scootaloo was undergoing some sort of transformation.

"Fine..." Scootaloo replied with a tone of sadness, sitting down and hanging her head.

"You best be on your way Scootaloo, for there are many monsters you could bump into. I suggest you seek help from one of your friends. Quickly now, this place is not friendly once the day ends.” Zecora continued, biting her bottom lip and pushing Scootaloo away from her house.

Scootaloo walked out of the Everfree forest, no longer caring whether anypony saw her or not. She sulked along, not knowing what to do when she saw a small hole in the ground next to a fountain statue. She stared at the statue for a moment before flying up to the hole and peeking inside. There was mostly nothing but darkness and a gemstone or two, as well as a few bits.

Scootaloo usually wouldn't be very interested in this, but she decided to crawl into the hole to sulk alone. She curled up into a ball, very much like a cat would, and then nodded off into a deep sleep.

A few hours later, in the middle of the night, Scootaloo awoke. She was still in the hole. Letting out a long yawn, she muttered to herself, "Wow, I must have slept all day." She used her new claws to help herself out of the hole and looked around.

She saw nopony. Only Spike a few feet away, sitting on a bench not too far from the fountain itself. He appeared to be crying. She flew quietly next to him and sat down, not caring whether he saw her or not since he was a good secret keeper and also a dragon.

"Spike," Scootaloo said, worried. She saw that he was staring at a black piece of onyx. Spike’s eyes swirled green and red. He saw terrible things when he looked into this piece of onyx. His friends were all changing in very bad ways and screaming at Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash was mutilating herself, Rarity was shredding her designs, Applejack was crushing her best apples into bits, Twilight burned her books, Fluttershy was harming the animals she was supposed to be taking care of, Twilight kicked Spike out, and in the midst of all this, Pinkie was sitting and crying, watching her friends do all of those terrible things.

Scootaloo looked at the gem, confused. All she saw when she looked at it was a tasty snack. She shook Spike’s shoulder and he snapped out of his trance. "Oh, hi Scootaloo,” he said, “I saw this laying in my room and I wondered what it was. It looks like a piece of the black crystal that grew when King Sombra came back to take over the Crystal Empire. I came here to look it over. I just looked at it and I was all of a sudden standing around with my friends and Twilight. Pinkie Pie was just walking up to us, and the things my friends were doing to themselves and the things they cared about was awful. There was blood all over the place, and Twilight... She didn't want me anymore. So I came over here and sat down and started crying." Spike’s tears dried up as he realized that his vision reminded him of that door in the bottom of the Crystal Palace, the one that made Twilight see her worst fears.

"Ouch man, that sounds scary. Wanna hear my story?" Scootaloo asked, eagerly wanting to change the subject and let somepony know what’s been bothering her.

"Sure" Spike shrugged, not thinking anything could be worse than what he had seen.

"Well, yesterday I woke up and I looked like a demon, with the horns, fangs, and even a snake tongue. I had to put on all of this fake stuff so that nopony would notice. Then today I woke up and I had a dragon tail, dragon wings, and now scales. I had to throw bullies out of the clubhouse with my new fangs, too. I tried visiting Zecora to see what she could do or tell me about what’s happening, but she had stuff to do and told me to go away. Tomorrow is my birthday and all I’ve done since then was sleep in a hole in the ground." Scootaloo said. She felt as it a weight had been lifted from her chest.

"Wow. That sounds intense," Spike said, giving a half smile, "I'm sure you'll make an awesome dragon." He wasn’t fazed at all by the fact that Scootaloo was changing into a dragon.

Scootaloo stared at Spike for a moment, wondering how he could take this so lightly, but then shrugged it off because he obviously had his own bad experience to deal with. She just said, "Well, I'm going to crawl back up into my hole now. See ya." She trotted back to her hole leading underneath the fountain statue and crawled back in, this time eating a ruby. It tasted like a cherry, but sweeter. After savoring every bite of the tasty gemstone, she slowly drifted off to sleep.