On the road to Justice.

Chapters

Chapter 1: Origins
Chapter 2: Burying the Hatchet
Chapter 3: Solitude
Chapter 4: Temptations
Chapter 5: Heart to Heart
Chapter 6: One Step, One Thousand Miles

Chapter 1: Origins

“Well, look who it is Silver.” Diamond Tiara said as she spotted her three favorite playthings. Silver Spoon turned to face who Diamond Tiara was referring to and smiled when she saw them

Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were once again in the middle of a scheme to earn their cutie marks, the lack of which was a favored topic of ridicule for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

“...Scoots, yall in charge of getting the water hose and the chicken from Fluttershy’s cottage. Sweetie, yall…” Applebloom started.
“Get a samurai sword, I know.” Sweetie Belle finished.

“Remember, it has to be authentic.” Scootaloo warned.
“Oh don’t worry it will be. I… know a guy who knows a guy.”

Their planning was interrupted by a pair of giggles as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon walked up to them.

“Listen to them Silver. Isn’t it pathetic?” Diamond Tiara said, shaking her head. “How many scatterbrained ideas have you three had trying to get your cutie marks? How many of them failed miserably.”

While Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle did their best to ignore them, Applebloom’s eyes narrowed in anger as she walked up to Diamond until their faces were inches apart from each other.

“Well excuse us for wantin’ our cutie marks to be something good. What’s your cutie mark mean again? That yall like wearin’ fancy jewelry?” Applebloom said as a smirk crept across her face.
“Yeah, I can see how you’d be mighty proud of a useless mark like that.”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes widened in rage. “How dare you!” She screamed as she pushed Applebloom to the ground. Scootaloo immediately shoved herself between them as Sweetie helped Applebloom up to her hooves.

“Hey! You have no right to go around pushing ponies like that Diamond!” Scootaloo said.
“She shouldn’t have called her cutie mark useless!” Silver Spoon said, defending her friend.

Scootaloo scoffed. “She started it in the first place. You two are always anta… antaga…”

“Antagonizing us?” Sweetie Belle offered.

“Giving us crap!” Scootaloo finished. “Why don’t the two of you just leave us alone?”
But before Diamond Tiara could respond, Applebloom was on her with a yell.

“See how you like it!” Applebloom said as she pushed Diamond Tiara… a good eight feet away.
All five fillies eyes widened as Diamond cautiously got back up on her hooves.
Applebloom stared at her own hooves in confusion. “Ah… Ah didn’t mean to push that hard.”

Diamond Tiara scoffed. “And you call me a bully.” She turned to leave. “Come on Silver. We shouldn’t have to deal with these barbarians.” Silver Spoon gave another look towards Applebloom, who was still staring at her own hooves, before running towards her friend leaving the Crusaders by themselves.

“I can’t believe the nerve of that farm-pony.” Silver Spoon said. “She’s just jealous of your cutie mark, you know that right?”
Diamond Tiara nodded. “Of course, stupid blank-flank her age would probably make fun of Celestia’s cutie mark. Classic case of inferiority complex.”

“Are we gonna tell anyone she pushed you?” Silver Spoon asked. Diamond Tiara shook her head. “Why bother? Those three crybabies would just turn on the waterworks and make us look like the bad guys… again.”

Diamond Tiara tilted her head back as she rubbed her neck with her hoof. “That and…”
“And?” Silver Spoon said, waiting for her friend to continue.
Diamond Tiara sighed. “And I was the one who let it get physical in the first place.”

Silver Spoon smiled. “You know my dad’s a cop right? I could make a good witness if you wanted to… fudge the story a bit.”

Diamond Tiara laughed. “Silver Spoon! For shame! Manipulating our fair justice system like that.”
The two girls giggled as they continued walking.

“Speaking of which, I should get home.” Diamond Tiara said. “My mom and dad are taking me to Canterlot to see the new movie.”

“Ugh, that movie about the masked pony beating ponies up?” Silver Spoon said is disdain.
“He doesn’t just ‘beat ponies up’!” Diamond Tiara said defensively. “He’s a hero! He fights criminals and law breakers! I figured as a police officer’s daughter, you could get into that.”

Silver Spoon shrugged. “It just seems a little too violent is all.”

Diamond Tiara scoffed. “You and my mother, I swear.”

“Hey Applebloom, you okay?” Scootaloo asked as she noticed how quiet her friend was. Sweetie Belle also looked towards their friend with concern.
“Hmm… yeah girls, I’m fine.” She replied. “It’s jus’... that push I gave Diamond Tiara.”

Scootaloo waved her hoof. “Don’t worry about, she had it coming.”
“Oh believe me, I ain’t debatin’ that.” Applebloom said. “Its jus’ I really didn’t mean to push her that hard.”

Sweetie Belle shrugged her shoulders. “Applebloom, you work on a farm. Of course you’re a lot stronger than most kids our age.”

Applebloom scoffed. “D’yall really think ah don’t know my own strength? Girls, she flew! I don’t care how strong ah am, I’m still jus’ a little filly. And… well…”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle both stopped in their tracks as they gave their full attention to their friend. They could tell that more than just the push was bothering her.

“What is it?” Sweetie asked.

“Aw it’s silly, yall think I was crazy.” Applebloom said dismissively.

Scootaloo scoffed. “Applebloom, did you forget about your plan with the chicken and the water hose?”

“And the samurai sword!” Sweetie Belle reminded her.”

“Exactly. Applebloom, we already know you’re crazy so just spill it.” Scootaloo said.

Applebloom rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Yall are true friends ya know that?” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle merely smiled.
Applebloom sighed and then continued. “Alright well… that push wasn’t the first weird thing to happen to me recently.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “So? What other ‘weird things’ have been happening?”

Applebloom started to blush as she realized how hard it was going to be to explain. “Well… I’ve been… hearin’ things. Things ah’m not really supposed to hear.”

Sweetie Belle tilted her head. “Like… eavesdropping?”

Applebloom’s blush widened as she flustered with her words. “No! Well… yes but not on purpose and not really what ah meant.” Applebloom’s voice started to lower. “Ah meant I’m hearin’ things from… I don’t know… far away ah guess.”

“Like, what, on a radio?” Scootaloo said.

“No. Like on mah ears, and that’s the weird part. Ah’ll hear a conversation a couple a’ ponies are having all the way down the road clear as day! As if ah was standin’ right next to them.” Applebloom explained.
“And just yesterday, I looked into Big Mac’s room and saw him playing with Ms. Smartypants.” Applebloom continued.

Scootaloo shrugged. “Okay, that’s weird for Big Mac…”
“Really weird.” Sweetie Belle interjected.
“...But how is that weird for you?” Scootaloo asked.

“Because I was looking at him through the wall!” Applebloom stated.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle became dead silent at this. “I’m sorry Applebloom but could you repeat that?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Yall heard me. Ah was lookin’ through a wall in mah house, as if it weren’t there.”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle glanced at each other before staring at their farmer friend as if she sprouted an extra head. “Applebloom, your right.” Scootaloo said.

Applebloom raised an eyebrow. “Ah am?”

Scootaloo nodded. “Yes. You are totally crazy.”

“Mom! Dad! I’m home!” Diamond yelled out as she entered her home. Wiping her hoofs of on the welcome mat, she saw her father, Filthy Rich, walk towards her.

“There’s my little sweetheart!” He said, lifting his daughter into a great big hug. Diamond Tiara squealed with laughter as she hugged her father back.

Diamond Tiara’s mother, Pearl Necklace, smiled at the two’s shenanigans as she adjusted her namesake. The two parents were just finishing up getting ready for their family trip to the movies when Diamond Tiara came home.

“I still don’t understand why we have to go all the way to Canterlot when there’s a perfectly good theater right here in Ponyville.” Pearl Necklace said, giving a quick kiss to Diamond Tiara’s head.

Filthy Rich merely laughed. “For my daughter’s favorite movie hero? She deserves nothing but the biggest screen in Canterlot.”

Pearl Necklace scoffed. “Oh goody, I get to watch all that violence in high definition.” But she smiled all the same as she patted down her daughter’s coat, making her more presentable.

Simply content to be with her loving parents, Diamond Tiara smiled as she looked forward to what would no doubt be a wonderful night.

“Okay, are we ready?!” Applebloom said as she put the final touches on the obstacle course.

“Ready!” Scootaloo yelled from atop the hill, readying her scooter.
Scootaloo gave a quick glance down the hill to admire their handy work. When the three brainstormed the idea to form the ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Animal Rescue Service’, they knew they couldn’t just go out and rescue animals willy-nilly without first going through a few ‘training drills’.

Thus the three suspended a (surprisingly easygoing) chicken above a ‘bottomless lake’, which in reality was a small puddle made from a garden hose. The plan was to have Scootaloo race down the hill on her scooter before jumping off a carefully placed ramp and slicing through the rope suspending the ‘poor helpless bird’ with the authentic samurai sword. Scootaloo would then grab the chicken in midair before landing back down on the ground on the other side of the ‘bottomless lake’ with the chicken safe in her hooves.

Needless to say, the three girls had a very askew view as to how an ‘Animal Rescue Service’ worked.

Giving one last look at her setup, Applebloom gave her friend a hoof’s up. “Whenever you’re ready Scoots!”

Scootaloo buzzed her tiny wings in order to give her an extra bit of thrust as she raced down the hillside. As she neared the ramp, she grasped at the handle of her sword.

But as she was launched into the air, a small problem came up. Unfortunately, none of the Crusader’s considered the problems that would come from the length of the sword. Scootaloo’s relatively small foreleg sadly couldn’t get the sword entirely out of its sheath by the time she whizzed past the now thoroughly confused chicken.

With her concentration still focused on her sword, Scootaloo failed to pay attention to the ground coming to meet her. She completely lost her balance on her scooter as she was launched violently of her prized vehicle when it slammed into the ground.

With both sword and scooter on the ground and their previous user sailing through the air to what was sure to be a painful landing, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle watched helplessly from below.

“SCOOTALOO!” Applebloom shrieked. Without a proper plan in mind, Applebloom merely reached out in an attempt to grab Scootaloo before she hit the ground.

And to her surprise, she did.
Scootaloo landed safely in Applebloom’s forelegs as the farmer filly held her up, not realizing how light her pegasus friend felt.
“Whoo! Now that was a close call!” Applebloom said, smiling now that her friend was safe.
“Yeah… thanks for the save.” Scootaloo said as she blushed.
“Aw shoot, twern’t nothin’.” Applebloom said.

“HOLY CELESTIA!” The two heard Sweetie Belle shout.

Applebloom looked down to see Sweetie Belle staring at the two of them with eyes as wide as dinner plates. That’s when it hit her.

She looked down.

Scootaloo began to notice the cause of Sweetie Belle’s outburst herself. Applebloom’s hind hooves were nowhere near the ground. She was completely suspended in the air, a good five feet off the ground.

Sweetie Belle rubbed her eyes but the sight remained the same. “Applebloom… YOU’RE FLYING!”

Applebloom looked down at the ground before turning her head to a just as surprised Scootaloo. “Wha… What’s happenin’ to me?” She said with just a little bit of fear.

Scootaloo’s eyes were just as wide as Sweetie Belle’s as she tried to open her mouth the answer Applebloom’s question. “I… I don’t know.”

“But this so unfair.”

Night was starting to fall as the Crusader’s made their way to Sweet Apple Acres. Applebloom, with a little effort, managed to get both herself and Scootaloo back on the ground after a few minutes.

The three decided to tell Applebloom’s family about this. Surely they would know what to do.
After returning the chicken to Fluttershy’s cottage, the three immediately turned for Applebloom’s home.

“Applejack! Big Mac! Granny Smith! Everypony!” Applebloom yelled out as the three barged into the farmhouse.

Granny Smith, who was enjoying a nap in her favorite rocking chair, woke up with a start as her granddaughter started screaming bloody murder. Applejack and Big Mac galloped down the stairs as they heard the fear in their little sister’s voice. Glad to see she wasn’t in any physical harm, but still clearly able to see she was distraught over something, Applebloom’s family started to surround her as they asked her what was wrong.

What the family received was three fillies yelling over each other, each trying to relay what had happened mere moments ago. Applejack was able to hear certain words be repeated like ‘danger’ and ‘flying’ and ‘chicken’. After a few seconds of the cacophony, Applejack raised a hoof to quiet the three fillies.

“Applebloom, take a deep breath and tell us what happened.” Applejack made shushing gesture to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. “Just Applebloom.”

Applebloom did as her sister said before recounting the events that brought her here in a more even tone. “The girls and I were doing another one of our ideas to get our cutie marks. Something went wrong and Scootaloo went flying through the air.”

Applebloom paused as she tried to find the right words. Granny Smith put a gentle hoof on the filly’s shoulder as she spoke with a soft voice. “It’s okay dearie. Jus’ tell us what happened.”

Applebloom took another deep breath before she continued. “Well, I managed to catch Scootaloo before she hit the ground and hurt herself but…”

The apple family collectively raised an eyebrow, waiting for their youngest member to continue her story.

“But she was still in the air when ah caught her. Which means… Ah was in the air when ah caught her. Guys… Ah was flying!” Applebloom finished.

Applejack scoffed as an annoyed look crept across her face. “Applebloom, that is the most ridiculous thing ah ever heard.”
“Eeyup.” Big Mac agreed as he shook his head.

“Applejack, we swear to you that your sister isn’t lying. We were there! We saw it!” Scootaloo said.

Applejack was starting to get testy now. “Girls, yall ever hear the story of the filly who cried wolf?”

“But ah’m not lying! Why won’t you believe me?” Applebloom said.

“Because Applebloom, it’s impossible.” Applejack stated. “Everypony knows earth ponies, like us, do not fly. Flying is for pegasi. Always has been, always will be.”

“Applejack, hush.” Granny Smith said curtly.

Needless to say, everypony in the room became speechless at this. Granny Smith was always a jovial old pony but the way she spoke was… cold.
The old pony stared right into Applebloom’s eyes. “Applebloom dearie. I need you to say that again. I need you to look me in the eyes and say that again.”

Applebloom gulped as she suddenly felt full of fear. She had never seen this side of her Granny before. But she stood her ground and did as she asked. “Ah… ah flew Granny. Ah swear ah did.”

Granny Smith closed her eyes in contemplation for a few moments before she opened them again. “Dearie. Has anythin’ like this happen before? Anythin’... strange?”

Applejack shifted her gaze between her grandmother and her little sister. “Granny you can’t honestly tell me you believe…”

“I said hush!”

Applejack, needless to say, hushed.

Granny Smith turned her attention back towards Applebloom. “Applebloom, yall answer my question now. Has anything like this happen before? Have you ever done anythin’ that… other ponies can’t do?”

For whatever reason, Applebloom told them everything. How she could hear things from far away. How she could see through solid wall. She even told them what happened with Diamond Tiara today and how she pushed her eight feet through the air.

Applejack was understandably upset her sister resorted to violence but she kept quiet out of fear of her Granny reprimanding once more.

She even told them things she didn’t tell her friends. Namely the dreams.

“Dreams?” Granny inquired. “What kinda dreams?”

Applebloom shifted her hooves. “Ah… Ah sometimes dream ah’m… somewhere else. Somewhere that don’t look nothin’ like Equestria or anythin’ from those geography books. But… but at the same time it feels… familiar. Like… like ah’ve been there before.”

Despite herself, Applejack was starting to become more and more invested in every single word that came out of her sister’s mouth. She long since abandoned the notion that Applebloom was lying. She believed every word she was saying.

But it was still so hard for Applejack to understand.

“What’s this place look like?” She asked her sister.
“Red. Red skies, red earth… a red sun.” Applebloom said. “But at the same time, beautiful. Big glass buildings and trees and plants ah never seen before. Ponies walkin’ around wearin’ the strangest outfits.”

Applebloom’s friends had relegated themselves to the couch as they listened to Applebloom with rapt attention.

“But at the end of mah dreams. Somethin’ always happens.” Applebloom.

“What do you mean ‘somethin’’?” Applejack asked.

“...Ponies start screaming and I can see the sun get bigger and bigger until… until ah wake up.” Applebloom said. “Ah’ve been having that dream off and on for ‘bout a month now.”

Throughout Applebloom exposition, Granny Smith kept unnaturally quiet. After a few seconds passed, she spoke up again. “There’s… There’s somethin’ I have to tell yall. Somethin’ that should have been said a long time ago.”

She looked over to her granddaughter’s friends who were still on the couch. “This should be the kinda thing kept within a family, but ah suppose you two know too much now to be left outta the loop.”

Granny Smith leaned closer to the other two fillies. “But what ah’m about to say does not leave this house. Understood?”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded their heads as everypony in the room gave their full attention to the eldest pony in their company.

“This is back from when your parents, Jonah Gold and Honeycrisp, were still alive. Before little Applebloom here… joined our family.”

Diamond Tiara left the theater with the biggest smile on her face. Once again, her favorite movie hero did not fail to deliver her everything she wanted to see. Gallantry, heroics, good besting evil and the hero riding towards the sunset.

“I have a surprise for you dear.” Filthy Rich said as he put a hoof on Diamond Tiara’s shoulder. “Since it’s late, and you don’t have school tomorrow, Pearl and I decided to have the three of us spend the night in your Uncle Fancy Pants house.”

Diamond Tiara’s smile widened even more, if that was even possible. She loved her Uncle Fancy Pants and her Aunt Fleur de Lis. This day could not get any better.

“What are we waiting for?! Let’s go!” Diamond Tiara said as she grabbed hold of her father’s hoof.
“Diamond! Behave yourself!” Her mother said.
Filthy Rich however gave a hearty laugh. “I guess she’s excited?”
As the family walked through the empty moonlit streets of Canterlot, Filthy Rich spied an alleyway just across from them.

“I think we can take a shortcut through here.” He said, directing his family to follow him.
Pearl Necklace stopped at the entrance as she looked into the dark alley. “I don’t know dear, it doesn’t exactly look friendly.”

Filthy Rich merely shrugged. “Come now dear, we’re in Canterlot. We’re right next to the royal palace. Where could we be safer?”

Pearl Necklace still wasn’t convinced. Diamond Tiara, her confidence bolstered both by her father’s words and the movie they just saw, tried to comfort her mother by pacing her hoof on top of her mother’s. “Don’t worry mom, Dad will take of us. Right Daddy?”

Filthy Rich smiled down at his daughter.

“Oh great.” Pearl Necklace said sarcastically. “Do you see what that movie did to her?” Still she knew she was not going to win this fight so she merely sighed and walked into the alleyway with her husband and child.

The family managed to make it through half of the alleyway before fate decided to rear its ugly head.

Filthy Rich heard a fourth set of hoof steps suddenly add themselves to his family’s. Turning around, he saw that a stallion wearing a long trench coat and cap was following them.

Filthy Rich instinctively pushed his daughter behind his hoof as he turned to address the stranger. “Hello sir, may we help you?”

The stallion gave a cold look to Filthy Rich before his eyes landed on Pearl Necklace’s namesake. “Yeah, you can give me those nice shiny pearls on your lady-friend’s neck.”

Pearl Necklace wrapped her hooves around her husband’s foreleg as Filthy Rich stared stranger down. “I think we’ll hold on to these pearls, thank you very much.”

The stranger scowled. “I wasn’t asking.” he said before pulling a metal object from his trench coat.

Diamond Tiara gasped in fear as she recognized the object in the stranger’s hoof. She had heard of a weapon that was able to instantly kill anypony it was used against. A weapon that only the cruelest of ponies would ever use.

The stranger had a gun in his hoof.

He pointed the gun right at Filthy Rich’s head as Pearl Necklace gripped his foreleg tighter. “Now I’m not gonna say it again. Give. Me. The. Pearls.”

Filthy Rich stared at the stranger with nothing but pure rage. However, one look at his terrified wife and child calmed him and he allowed himself to come to a sensible choice.
“Dear.” He said to his wife. “Give him your pearls.”

Pearl Necklace already had her necklace off in a heartbeat, deciding her family was worth far more that some jewelry.

The stranger snatched the pearls from her hoof, keeping the gun trained at the family at all times.
“Thank you. Course…” He said as he raised the gun. “I can’t let you tell anypony about this.”

And as the night sky filled with the sound of two loud bangs, Diamond Tiara’s entire life crumbled before her eyes.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

Ten years ago…
“Jonah Gold Apple! You get your flank over here right now mister!” Honeycrisp screamed, standing in the middle of her family’s farm.
The orange stallion came bounding towards his wife, brown stetson bobbing up and down on his head. “What ah do?” he asked.

“Don’t ‘What ah do?” me.” Honeycrisp said narrowing her eyes. “Ah told yall to replace the chicken feed in the coop.”

“Aw shoot Honey, ah forgot.” Jonah Gold said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well you better hope ah ‘forget’ to knock yall’s keister into next…” Honeycrisp sentence died in her mouth as her gaze started to rise above her husband’s head.

“Uh… Honey?” Jonah Gold said trying to get his wife’s attention.
“Jonah, turn around now.” Honeycrisp said, refusing to avert her gaze.

Jonah Gold did as she asked just in time to see a bright light shine across the night sky.
“Oh look hun, a shootin’ star!” Jonah Gold said with excitement.
“Jonah…” Honeycrisp said slowly. “Is it me or… Is it gettin’ bigger?”

Jonah Gold squinted his eyes. “Well… now that yall mention it… oh boy…”
Jonah Gold and Honeycrisp watched intently as the ‘shooting star’ did in fact get bigger and bigger. It didn’t take long for the two farmers to realize the ‘shooting star’ was in fact coming straight for their farm.

With a loud ‘boom’, whatever was flying through the sky crashed a good few acres away from Jonah Gold and Honeycrisp. As the two felt the earth itself shake from the impact, they gave one look to each other before immediately running straight towards whatever had impacted their farm.

After a good five minutes, the two found the crash site in the middle of a grove of apple trees. The trees that were unfortunate enough to be caught right in the path of the object were completely destroyed. But the two farmers cared little for that right now as they were much too enthralled with the object itself.

“Great Grandpappy’s ghost!” Jonah Gold said. “It’s a SPACESHIP!”

True enough, the object was metallic and clearly designed and crafted by… something. Something not of this earth.

Honeycrisp took a few tentative steps towards the craft before spying something of interest. “Jonah, you always read them fancy books about space. What’s the part of the ship the alien rides around in?”

Jonah Gold almost didn’t hear the question given how he was still trying to decide if what he was seeing was real or not. “Uh… The uh… The cockpit.”

“Well…” Honeycrisp said. “Ah think ah found the cockpit.”

That snapped Jonah Gold out of his stupor. “What! Honey, get away from that thing! We don’t know what made it or what’s in it or…”

But Jonah Gold’s word’s fell on deaf ears as Honeycrisp placed an experimental hoof on a discolored panel on the shuttle’s hull. With a beep and a hiss, the cockpit opened to reveal the passenger of the shuttle to the farmers.

“Oh my Celestia.” Honeycrisp said. “It’s not an alien… It’s a baby.”

Honeycrisp grabbed the tiny yellow filly from the inside of the cockpit. The filly had a cherry red mane and was wrapped in a bright red blanket. The sudden movement woke the filly from hey slumber as she started to cry.

Honeycrisp immediately attempted to sooth the filly. “Shhh… It’s okay little one. Yall safe now.”

“Little bud, little bud.
You can’t wait till you bloom.
Sprouting up from the mud.
Give it time, you will bloom.
Sow the earth, plant the seed.
You can’t wait till you bloom.
A strong apple you will be.
Give it time, you will bloom.”

As the soft lullaby calmed the filly, Honeycrisp felt the biggest smile creep across her face.

“Honey…” Jonah Gold said. “What are yall thinkin’?”

“Oh Jonah…” Honeycrisp started but she didn’t know what to say.

Jonah Gold knew exactly what was going through his wife’s head, and he’d be lying if he said the thought didn’t cross his mind too. But at the same time…

“Honey… this baby…” Jonah said. “This baby came from space! We have no idea where it came from or why it’s here or…”

“Do you know what ah see Jonah?” Honeycrisp asked her husband. “Ah see a little filly who’s all alone. Look how she’s reaching out to you.”

Jonah Gold, despite himself, risked a look at the little filly. He tried his hardest to see the otherworldly alien that invaded their farm. But all he could see was a tiny baby pony.

“She… She needs a name.” Jonah Gold said.

Honeycrisp smiled warmly at her husband as she held the tiny filly close to her chest.

“How about…”

“Applebloom?” Granny Smith said. “Applebloom, dearie, are you okay?”

But Granny Smith’s words could not reach the filly’s ears. As Granny Smith told everyone her tale, Applebloom became lost in her own world.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo kept switching between looking at each other and looking at their friend, wondering what they could say or do to help her.

Big Mac was as silent as ever, but one could tell by looking at him he had a million things to say.

Applejack, however, was furious.
“All these years.” She said as tears fell down her face. “All these years and you never told us? They never told us?!”

Granny Smith looked down in shame. “Jonah and Honey wanted you and Mac to see her as part of this family. They didn’t want anythin’ to stop you from seeing her as your sister.”

“You lied to us! YOU LIED TO HER!” Applejack screamed as she pointed to the very object of their discussion.

At that moment, Applebloom snapped out of her stupor as hot tears began to cascade down her face. “I… it’s… it’s n-not… true… it’s not…”

Granny Smith looked at her granddaughter in shame. “Applebloom, darlin’ come here.” She said as she reached out a hoof.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” Applebloom shrieked as she backed away from her. She suddenly felt afraid. She wasn’t sure what she felt afraid of. Of her family? Of herself? She didn’t care; she needed to get out of there now.

She ran for the door, faster than she ever ran before. She vaguely heard her friends calling her name but she didn’t care. She had to get away. She had to get away from this horrible, horrible lie.

It had to be a lie.

It had to be a lie.
It had to be some kind of cruel sick joke they were playing on her.
In just a moment, her parents would pop back up and yell ‘Gotcha!”

She would hate them for it of course. She would be angry at them for playing such a mean joke.

But it would be better than this. Diamond Tiara would take anything but this.

She stood over her parent’s motionless bodies, her own body shaking with fear and disgust.
She looked up, she had to look away or else she would go insane looking at her own reflection in the pool of her parent’s blood. But as she looked up, she was reminded of the very monster that did this to her. The monster that took them away.

“Nothing personal, kid.” The monster said, lowering his gun down to Diamond Tiara’s level. “It’s just business.”

Diamond Tiara closed her eyes; the constant stream of tears had effectively blinded her. She waited for the monster to pull the trigger. If nothing else, she’d be back with them soon.
She heard a clicking sound and then she heard the monster cursing. She heard sirens and from inside her eyelids, she saw flashes of red and blue.

Diamond Tiara risked opening her eyes, hoping in vain she would wake up and this horrible nightmare would be over. Her parents were still there.

Still dead.

The monster was gone though. In his place were a couple of ponies dressed in blue uniforms. Diamond Tiara recognized one of them. Rusty Spoon, her friend Silver Spoon’s father.

He looked at her parent’s bodies before speaking to the other officer with him. Diamond Tiara didn’t hear what he said. She didn’t hear anything. All she could hear were those two loud gunshots.

Rusty Spoon turned back towards her. He said something to her, again she couldn’t hear him. He wrapped her up in a smelly, scratchy blanket and tried to pull her away.

Diamond Tiara slapped his hoof away, threw the blanket off and held on to her father with all her might. Rusty Spoon tried his best to be gentle but he was eventually forced to pry the little filly from her dead father.

Crying and wailing as Rusty Spoon carried her to the police cart, Diamond Tiara saw her parent’s bodies one last time before Rusty Spoon shut the door.

Applebloom didn’t know how long she ran. She didn’t know how far she ran. Nothing around her felt familiar so she assumed she ran a good distance away from Ponyville but, at the same time, she didn’t feel the least bit tired.

‘Maybe that also has somethin’ to do with me bein’ an alien.’
Applebloom thought those words and couldn’t help but realize how ridiculous they sounded.

An alien? How in Celestia’s name could she possibly be an alien? Aliens have eyes on stalks and tentacles and carried laser guns.

Applebloom looked just like a pony. Ponies didn’t have eyes on stalks or tentacles or carried laser guns.

Ponies also couldn’t hear things from far away, see through walls or make other ponies go flying through the air with barely a push.

Some ponies could fly but as Applejack so ‘eloquently’ pointed out, earth ponies like her didn’t.

Except she wasn’t an earth pony, was she? She was an alien.

“They should have put me back in that spaceship and fly me back to space.” Applebloom said to nopony in particular. Which is why she was surprised when somepony did answer her.

“Well that would have sucked. Space is boring.” She heard a familiar voice said.

Turning around, Applebloom saw her friend Scootaloo smiling at her.
“Where’s Sweetie Belle?” Applebloom asked.

Scootaloo shrugged. “Out there with your family searching for you. I just happened to find you first.” Without asking for her permission, Scootaloo walked over to her friend and sat down next to her.

“Were supposed to meet back at the barn in about a half-hour so we can give each other a progress report.” Scootaloo smiled at Applebloom. “So you got a half-hour to talk about… whatever you wanna talk about before I drag you back.”

Applebloom turned away from her friends, burying her head into her forelegs. “How do yall know ah’m not gonna eat you?”

“Is this that stupid ‘I’m a chicken’ joke again?” Scootaloo asked as she smirked.

“No… It’s that stupid ‘Ah’m an alien’ joke.” Applebloom said as fresh tears started to form in her eyes. “Because that’s exactly what it is. A joke.”

“Applebloom…”

“No! Ah don’t wanna hear it Scoots!” Applebloom said, jumping up to her hooves.
“Ah don’t wanna hear how ‘this changes nothing’ or that ‘this don’t mean anything’ because it does!”

Scootaloo was quiet for a while before she decided on what to say. “What exactly does it change?”

Applebloom stared at her friend incredulously. “Are yall serious!? Scootaloo, Ah’m an alien! A Celestia-forsaken extra-terrestrial!”

Scootaloo nodded. “Okay, what else does that change?”

Applebloom opened her mouth but found the words dying out before they could be said.

“Exactly. Absolutely nothing. You’re still a pony who has lives and worked on a farm her entire life. You’re still a pony who is utterly obsessed with getting her cutie mark. You’re still the kind and loving sister to two of luckiest older siblings in the world and, most importantly, you’re still my best friend.” Scootaloo said as she got up to own hooves. “And you always will be… unless you eat me.”

Applebloom still cried all throughout Scootaloo’s speech, but the tears were… different now. She was still sad but she didn’t feel quite so… hopeless anymore.

Scootaloo walked up to her and wrapped her forelegs around her neck in a tight hug.
Applebloom did the same.
It was strange. Applebloom knew if she hugged Scootaloo too tightly, she could very easily hurt her. But she somehow knew just how tight she needed to squeeze to keep herself from harming her best friend.

“Can yall take me home? I’m a little lost.”

“Sure.”

“Diamond? Diamond, please.” Rusty Spoon said, trying to get the filly’s attention.

Ever since the officer brought the little filly into the Canterlot Police Station, she became completely unresponsive to the world around her. She did nothing but sit in the chair Rusty Spoon put her in and stare at the floor.

“Diamond, I’m so sorry for what happened to you.” Rusty Spoon said, doing his best to comfort her. “Nopony should ever have to go through what you have. But I need your help. I need you to tell me who did this. What he looked like, if he said his name, anything like that.”

Just as before, Diamond Tiara merely stared at the floor.

Rusty Spoon sighed as he turned to the cop behind the desk. “Any luck reaching my wife?”

The cop nodded. “Yes sir, she says she’s bringing your daughter up here now. They should be here any moment.”

Rusty Spoon grunted in affirmation. He hated exposing his daughter to this side of his job, but if anypony could get through to Diamond Tiara it would be her.

A few minutes passed before Rusty Spoon’s wife, Silver Stone, walked into the building. Silver Spoon followed her mother inside.

The gray filly scanned the main office of the building before her eyes landed on the traumatized filly sitting in a chair in the corner.
“Oh… Diamond…” Silver Spoon said as tears ran down her eyes.
Without another word, Silver Spoon ran towards her friend and wrapped her up in the biggest, tightest hug she could.

“Diamond… I’m so… I’m so sorry!” Silver Spoon said between sobs.
Ten whole minutes passed as Silver Spoon sobbingly held an unresponsive Diamond Tiara.
Finally, with a twitch, Diamond Tiara spoke.

“S-Silver…” Diamond Tiara said, slowly wrapping her own hooves around her friend.
“I’m here Diamond. I’m here.” Silver Spoon said, the tears returning to full force.

“Silver… their gone… their gone…” Diamond Tiara said as tears started to fall from her eyes once more. She was sure she was all out of tears to shed.

It continued like this for about an hour.

“Captain Rusty?” Diamond Tiara called out, still held in Silver Spoon’s vice-like hug. “I’m ready to tell you about… him.”

The moment Applebloom walked through the door, she was surrounded on all sides by her family lifting her up into the biggest group hug she ever had in her life.

“Ah was so worried about you…” Applejack said.

Applebloom merely felt content to be in their embrace.

When the hug finally ended and all tears were wiped away, Applebloom asked to one question she knew she would have to ask upon returning with Scootaloo.

“Granny Smith?” She said, getting her grandmother’s attention. “Ah need to see it.”

Granny Smith cocked an eyebrow at this. “See what darlin’?”

Applebloom sighed but stood firm. “Ah need to see where ah came from. Ah need to see my spaceship.”

“...His eyes were blue. Like a light ice-y blue. He was wearing a wool trench coat and cap.” Diamond Tiara said, giving the sketch artist as much detail as she could. “He had a really round face but gaunt, like he hasn’t eaten in a few days.”

“Mmhmm” The sketch artist mumbled. “Did he look anything like this?” He said, showing the picture to the filly.

Diamond Tiara looked closely at the picture and saw the face of the monster. The horrible, evil monster. The blight on this world that didn’t deserve to exist. Diamond Tiara wanted to grab that picture and rip into a thousand pieces, screaming every single obscenity she ever heard. She wanted to go out there and find the low-life scumbag who ruined her life and beat him to within an inch of his…
“Yes, that’s him.” She said.

The sketch artist handed the picture to Rusty Spoon.

“You say he stole your mother’s pearl necklace?” He asked.

“Yes.” Diamond Tiara said curtly.

“Should be easy to track. He’ll no doubt try to fence it soon, get the heat off himself as fast as possible. Always the first mistake.” He said as he sat down across from Diamond Tiara.

“Well put feelers out on the black market who’ll keep an ear on the ground for your mother’s necklace. Once they find it, we can… press on whoever bought it to point us towards the guy who sold it.” He put a reassuring hoof on Diamond Tiara’s shoulder. “I promise you, kid. We’re gonna get this dirtbag.”

Diamond Tiara gave a sad, tired smile to the officer. “Thank you.”

Rusty Spoon cleared his throat. “Now that just leaves you. Until the reading of your parent’s will, Equestrian law states you are to stay with your next of kin. Do you know who that is?”

Diamond Tiara nodded. “My Uncle Fancy Pants and my Aunt Fleur de Lis. They live here in Canterlot.”
Diamond Tiara eyes drooped ever so slightly. “We were actually on our way to visit them.”

Rusty Spoon nodded. “I’ll give them a call; tell them to come pick you up. It will take a few hours to set everything up so why don’t you get some sleep on that couch over there.” He said, gesturing to an old, uncomfortable looking couch at the end of the room.

With that, he got up a left to call Diamond Tiara’s next of kin, leaving the little filly all by lonesome.

Diamond Tiara walked over to the couch, laid herself down, and closed her eyes.

But she didn’t sleep. She pretended to, if only not to worry Silver Spoon’s father, but she was wide awake.

She didn’t have time to sleep. Not when there was so much to plan.

Applebloom wasn’t entirely sure what she was expecting when Granny Smith brought her downstairs to the basement. She knew she was never allowed down here because ‘it was too dangerous’.

Another lie.

Applebloom tried not to think about that as Granny Smith walked over to an object covered in a large green tarp. As Granny Smith pulled the tarp away, revealing the incredibly high-tech alien device underneath, Applebloom felt… a little underwhelmed.

It was just so… small. She could definitely see herself as baby in the cockpit, but at her current size she would just barely be able to squeeze in by herself.

That did tell Applebloom one thing: This thing was clearly meant to transport her and only her.

“Is there… anythin’ in there?” She asked her grandmother. “Ah mean… whoever put me in there. Did they… put anything else in there?”

Granny Smith shrugged. “A couple of things.” She reached in and pulled out what appeared to be a white crystal.

“Wha’s that?” Applebloom asked.

“Ah have no clue.” Granny Smith said. “Could be your lunch for all ah know.” She said with a small smile.

Applebloom, despite everything, allowed herself a small smile as well. “Is that it?”

Granny Smith shook her head. “There was one other thing.” The old mare reached back into the cockpit and pulled out a bundle of red cloth.

“This here was the blanket your parents found you wrapped up in.”

Applebloom looked at the red cloth in awe. “My… blanket? But then that means… Somepony wrapped me up all nice and snug before sending me away. Somepony, probably my momma, cared enough to keep me warm.”

Granny Smith raised an eyebrow. “Applebloom?”

Applebloom looked down on the floor in sadness. “If somepony… ya know… up there cared about me than why…” She looked back up, meeting her Grandmother’s eyes. “Why would they send me away?”

Granny Smith sighed. “Darlin’, ah wish ah could tell you. Ah wish ah could give you all the yall needed. But ah’m just as much in the dark as you are.”

Applebloom gave a sad sigh, feeling as though she’ll never find out what any of this means.

“However…” Granny Smith started, getting Applebloom’s attention back. “Ah did notice this… Ah guess yall can call it a ‘symbol’ if yall want.”

Granny Smith unfurled the bundle of red cloth before showing the aforementioned symbol to the little filly.

It was at that moment Applebloom saw the image that would define the rest of her life…

“Miss Tiara. Wake up.” Fancy Pants said as he gave Diamond Tiara a gentle shake. Of course, Diamond Tiara was never asleep but she made a show of giving a deep yawn and wiping the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes.

She looked up to see the sad, smiling face of her uncle. “Come now Miss Tiara. It’s time to go.”

Miss Tiara. That was one of the reasons Diamond Tiara loved her uncle. He was always so polite and cordial around her. But simply calling her ‘Miss’ wasn’t going to make everything all right. Nothing would ever be right again.

Still, she played her part. She smiled as she gave her uncle a tight hug then hopped down from the couch. Silver Spoon had already gone back to Ponyville at the behest of her parents, though she outright refused to leave Diamond Tiara’s side until she said it was okay.

She gave a wave goodbye to Rusty Spoon and wished him luck finding the killer. He promised once again that he would avenge her parent’s deaths.

She thanked him.

And with that, she walked out of the Station with her uncle to live under a new roof with new guardians. It was still late at night when they left, meaning that many creatures of the night roamed the near empty streets of Canterlot.

One such creature apparently decided to stretch its wings and fly from its belfry, perching itself on a lamppost right above Diamond Tiara’s head.

Diamond Tiara heard a shrill screech that, earlier tonight, would have probably scared her.

Before she learned what real fear was.

Instead she merely looked up to spot the source of the screeching noise.

It was at that moment Diamond Tiara saw the image that would define the rest of her life…

On the red cloth was a golden hexagonal shield with a red stylized ‘S’ emblazoned upon it.

Perched atop the lamppost was a fanged, leathery-winged, black bat.

Author's Note

And so begins my ponified DC universe. For anyone who's curious, here's a general cast list that is in no way set in stone and is susceptible to change.

Applebloom: Clark Kent/Superman
Sweetie Belle: Jimmy Olsen
Scootaloo: Lois Lane (Yes, there will be a little AppleScoots.)
Diamond Tiara: Bruce Wayne/Batman
Silver Spoon: Barbara Gordon (Don't know how I'm gonna fit Batgirl in there if I even decide to go that route.)
The Apple Family: Sort of a 'Collective' Ma and Pa Kent
Filthy Rich and (O.C.)Pearl Necklace: Thomas and Martha Wayne
(O.C.)Rusty Spoon: Jim Gordon
Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis: Again, kind of a 'Collective' Alfred.

This story will pretty much focus on the Superman or Batman mythos in general. I might get a few other League-ers in there if I can figure something out for them. So far all I have planned aside from the big 2 is Rumble as Green Lantern and a Changeling O.C. as J'onn J'onzz.

As said before: Please, please, please, PLEASE leave a comment.
(Final note: I do not have anything in the way of an editor so if you spy a grammatical error, please let me know so I can fix it. Thanks!)

Chapter 2: Burying the Hatchet

Three days have passed since the fateful night that changed the lives of two little fillies. In Applebloom’s case, her family had attempted to simply go about their lives as normal. They wanted Applebloom to know that no matter what, they were a family and that was that.

As she sat on the couch in her home, fiddling with the white crystal that was placed in her spaceship, the filly smiled as she remembered Applejack practically glued herself to Applebloom the following day saying ‘You’re my sister’ again and again. It was as if Applejack was worried Applebloom might forget that if she didn’t repeat it like a broken record.

‘As if I ever could.’ She thought to herself. Applebloom thought back on these past few days and realized just how at peace she was with the whole thing. True, when she first heard the truth of her origins she was devastated. She felt everything about her life was a lie.

But she simply remembered what her friend Scootaloo said. What has really changed?

She has certain powers now, brought on by her newfound alien heritage, but other than that nothing.

Speaking of her new powers, Applebloom and her family pretty much agreed it would be a good idea to keep them a secret, at least for now.

Still, she was able to convince her family to allow her to train and hone these new powers so that an incident, like what happened with Diamond Tiara, wouldn’t happen again.

She stopped fiddling with the crystal as she realized something. She hadn’t seen Diamond Tiara since that say. She hadn’t seen her around town or in school or anything.

She did see Silver Spoon on occasion, but to see the gray filly without her best friends was a truly strange sight.

Applebloom merely shrugged. It just meant she didn’t have to bother with dealing with Diamond Tiara’s bullying. Applebloom turned her attention back to the crystal in her hooves, all thoughts of her usual tormentor out of her mind.

Although Applebloom was now at peace with what she was, she still felt the need to understand just what exactly she was.

She knew she was an alien now, but what else?

What was her home planet like? What was it called? What were ponies like on that planet? What were her birth parents like?

Why did they send her away?

That question, more than any other, plagued Applebloom’s mind. She loved her family, she truly did and she wouldn’t trade them for any other family in the universe. But the fact of the matter was that she did have another family, somewhere out in the universe.

And Applebloom wanted to know who they were.

Applejack knew about her sister’s desires, she certainly wasn’t keeping them a secret, and Applebloom knew she felt more than a little hurt by this.

“Why do yall even want to know?” She would ask. “They gave you away. We raised you. Doesn’t that show you that we’re your family?”

But Applebloom always knew how to counter. “Wouldn’t you want to know?”

And Applejack would stay quiet after that.

For whatever reason, Applebloom knew that the answer to her questions resided within the crystal found in the cockpit of her spaceship. Whoever put her in that ship put this in there too, and they did it for a reason.

Before Applebloom could contemplate it any further, she heard the door open as her friends, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle walked in.

“Hey Bloom.” Sweetie said. “You ready to train?”

Since Applebloom decided to hone her powers, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had taken it upon themselves to be her personal trainers. And why not? It’s not like there were experts on this sort of thing.

“Sure. Let’s go.” Applebloom said as she placed her crystal in the coffee table in front of her. She hopped off and followed her friends outside.

As luck would have it, the three were able to find a small clearing within the Everfree that would give them the space they needed and keep away any peering eyes.

“Okay.” Scootaloo said as she prepared her mental checklist. “First up: Strength test.”
Applebloom stretched out the kinks in her muscles as Scootaloo continued. “You managed to lift that big boulder over there pretty easily.” She said, gesturing to said boulder. “Now let’s really kick it up. I want you to try and uproot one of these trees.”

Applebloom scoffed. “No problem.” she said as she sauntered over to a random tree.

“Remember! Lift with your legs.” Sweetie Belle warned.

Applebloom wrapped her hooves around the trunk of the tree, planted her hind hooves firmly into the ground, took a deep breath and pulled.

With some effort, the tree was starting to slide out of the earth as its roots began to poke through. With a strained grunt, Applebloom uprooted the tree entirely with a satisfying ‘shunk’ sound.

“Timber!” She yelled as she dropped the tree. A loud crashing sound rang out throughout the forest, scaring away entire flocks of birds that happened to be nesting nearby.

“Nice!” Scootaloo shouted over the crash. “Applebloom, is it just me or are you getting stronger every day?”

Applebloom nodded as she twisted the kinks out of her hooves. “It certainly feels that way. And it’s not just my strength either. My hearings gettin’ better too.”

She pointed towards where the town was. “Right now ah can hear two ponies in town arguing over what kind of sofa to get at the quill and sofa shop.”

Sweetie Belle grimaced a little. “Uh… Applebloom? Don’t you think that’s kind of an invasion of privacy?”

Applebloom winced. “Ah… Ah guess. Ah don’t really know how to ‘turn it off’ though.”

Scootaloo rubbed her chin. “Maybe you just need to get away from the noise a bit.”

Applebloom shrugged. “Kinda hard to do that when I can hear clear into town. Where can I go to ‘get away from the noise’?”

Scootaloo smiled. “Where do you think? Straight up” She said, pointing a hoof to the clouds above them.

Applebloom realized what her friend was implying but awkwardly rubbed her hoof against her foreleg.

“Ah… Ah get you, it’s just… Ah haven’t really done ‘that’ since the first time.” She said.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked at each in confusion. “Why not?” Sweetie asked.

Applebloom shrugged. “Bein’ stronger, seein’ and hearin’ farther. That’s something I can learn to control… more or less. But ah’m an earth pony. Flyin’ without wings, ah don’t know, it just feels… unnatural.”

Scootaloo mulled this over before walking over to Applebloom. “Take me up with you.”

“Wha..?” Said a confused Applebloom.

“You’re an earth pony who can fly.” Scootaloo said. “I’m a pegasus who can’t fly. So if you want to compare notes on what’s ‘unnatural’ at least you get the cool end of the deal.”

Scootaloo placed a hoof on her friends shoulder as she smiled. “So I want you to carry me up there with you. That way, it will be like you’re flying for me. A pegasus in the air is a bit more normal than an earth pony in the air, right?”

Applebloom winced. “Not exactly the same thing, Scoots.”

Scootaloo shrugged. “Eh, semantics.” She said. “Now pick me up and don’t pretend I’m too heavy.”

Applebloom sighed but picked up Scootaloo all the same. The young pegasus yelped a bit at just how effortlessly Applebloom picked her up. With a slight jump, Applebloom started drifting slowly into the air.

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow as she smirked. “Really? Come on, if you’re gonna fly then you gotta fly!”

Applebloom was reluctant but she realized Scootaloo didn’t exactly get many chances to get into the air. Applebloom smiled as she decided to make this memorable for her friend.

“Alright, you asked for it. Hang on!”

Scootaloo wrapped her forelegs tight around Applebloom’s neck as the alien filly willed herself to go faster. That seemed to be the key to how she was able to defy gravity, she simply had to think about it and her body did it.

With a rush of air hitting her face, Scootaloo was forced to close her eyes against the wind as the two fillies flew straight up. Sailing past the canopy of the forest in a second, Applebloom carried Scootaloo as far as she was willing to go before she felt the air grow too cold to risk going further.

If Scootaloo noticed the cold, she didn’t show it as she was much too taken aback by the sight around her.
“Wow.”

Applebloom had lifted her far above the clouds to the point where the two fillies could see the curve of the horizon. Scootaloo looked to her left and saw the very tips of the skyscrapers of Manehattan. She looked to her right and saw the peak of the mountain Canterlot was built into.

“I’ve… I’ve never been this high before!” Scootaloo said, tightening her grip around Applebloom.

“Thought you might like this.” Applebloom said through a wide smile.
Scootaloo returned the smile. “So… Hear anything?”

Applebloom, reminded why they came up here in the first place, shifted her focus to the world around her.

“...Yeah. Clear as day.” She said sadly. “Ah can even hear Sweetie Belle below us wonderin’ when we’re gonna come down.”

“It’s cause you’re focusing on it.” Scootaloo said. “Focus on anything else.”

“Like what?” Applebloom said.

Scootaloo thought for a moment. “Focus on the air above you. Nopony talking up there.”

Applebloom decided it was at least worth a shot. Directing her gaze to the skies above her, she tried to ignore the sound of the ponies below her. She didn’t exactly know how, but it was clear she was capable of ‘directing’ her hearing in some way.

And, as if somepony wiped the noise away, everything became silent.

For Applebloom, it hadn’t been silent for over three days.

“It… It worked!” She yelped.

Scootaloo smiled. “Okay, now for a bit of a test. I want you to try and hear the ponies down there again but I want you to focus on just one pony and only one pony.”

Applebloom tilted her head. “Whatever happened to ‘invasion of privacy’?”

Scootaloo shrugged. “The only way you’re gonna learn how to control these powers is by figuring out exactly what you can do. I’d say ‘focusing on a single sound’ as opposed to ‘hearing every single thing around you’ counts as control.”

Applebloom couldn’t exactly fault the logic in that. Doing as she was told, she allowed the sounds of the town below to enter her ears once more. There was the arguing couple again, apparently shifting their argument to quills now. She heard Pinkie laughing somewhere, not exactly a surprise. She heard a rhythmic ‘thunk-thunk-thunk’ coming from her farm and deduced that Applejack was harvesting their family namesake. She heard…

Crying?

It was faint, far away. Applebloom realized it was from further away than Ponyville. For whatever reason, Applebloom decided to focus on that sound more than any other. If she could find out who was crying, she might be able to help them.

Turning her head to the direction the sobs were coming from, she found herself looking once again and the gilded towers of Canterlot.

“Applebloom?” Scootaloo said, waving a hoof in front of her friend’s face. “You still there?”

“Hmm? Oh! Yeah ah am, ah just…” Applebloom paused. “I’m gonna bring us back down, okay?”

Scootaloo nodded, a worried look on her face.

Applebloom drifted back towards the ground, keeping an ear out for anypony that could witness the spectacle of a flying earth pony. Sweetie Belle was still there waiting for them.

“Well?” She asked. “How was it?”

Scootaloo dropped herself from Applebloom’s forelegs as a huge smile spread across her face.
“It was awesome, you need to see it for yourself! And we also found out a way to block out the noise she keeps hearing.”

Sweetie Belle smiled. “So, all in all, a successful day then?”

Applebloom nodded but her mind still remained on the sobbing she heard. “Hey girls, let’s call it a day for today. There’s something ah need to check out.”

Scootaloo shrugged. “That’s cool with me. What do you need to do though?”

Applebloom pointed to the mountain the city of Canterlot was built into. “While we were up there, Ah heard crying coming from Canterlot. Ah want to check it out, see if ah can help whoever it is.”

Sweetie Belle smiled coyly. “Look at you, three days with superpowers and you’re already playing superhero.”

Applebloom blushed as she rubbed her neck. “Ah come on. If I heard a pony crying right next me, ah’d help them too.”

Applebloom shrugged. “Ah just feel like helping a bit more, now that ah can.”

Scootaloo’s smile widened. “I think it’s great you wanna help ponies Applebloom, but going all the way to Canterlot just to help one crying foal? Kind of out of the way, dontcha think?”

A smirk flashed across Applebloom’s face. “Ah’ll be back soon.”

With that, Applebloom once again lifted herself into the air. But it was not slow like before. This time, she shot straight upwards like a bullet before making a sharp turn towards Canterlot leaving behind the gob smacked faces of her friends.

“Okay...” Scootaloo said “Now she’s just showing off.”

Applebloom made sure to stay high enough where nopony would see her before she spied an alleyway, her enhanced sight informing her that nopony was residing within.

Landing in the alleyway, Applebloom gave a quick look around to make sure nopony would notice the lone filly walking out of an alleyway. She attempted to block out the surrounding noise and focus on the crying she heard earlier.

‘There...’ She thought, picking up the sound. ‘It’s more of a whimper now, but it’s the same filly.”

She broke into a brisk trot to the sound only to stop dead in her tracks when she discovered where the crying originated from. Needless to say, Applebloom now knew why this mystery filly was crying.

Still, Applebloom knew that the kindness of a stranger could help this heavy heart and walked into the Canterlot Cemetery.

Diamond Tiara wasn’t sure how long she was here, staring at these cold stones that bore her parent’s names.

Here lies Filthy Rich and Pearl Necklace. Respected philanthropists, equinitarians, and loving parents.

Loving parents. Just… tacked on the end, as though it were an afterthought. What good were businesses and charities when there’s a little filly crying for her parents and their gone from this world?

Diamond Tiara remembered every single thing about that night. Every minute detail.

The shooter’s ugly gaunt face, the rusted metal of his gun, the blank stares on her parents faces when he… when he…

Diamond Tiara closed her eyes in an attempt to block the image from her mind. She couldn’t see it. Not again.

“Diamond?” a familiar voice said amidst her sobs.

Diamond Tiara’s eyes shot open as she turned to face her visitor. Needless to say, she was shocked to see the same filly she enjoyed to torment just a few days ago.

She didn’t exactly see the point in being antagonistic now. “H-Hey, Applebloom.”

Applebloom took a few tentative steps toward her usual oppressor, taken aback by how… vulnerable she looked. “Ah… Ah heard cryin’.”

Diamond Tiara rubbed her eyes, just realizing that she was indeed crying again. She was sure she ran out of tears hours ago.

“Yeah. My…” Diamond Tiara looked away. “My parents… are dead.”

Applebloom was shocked to hear this. “That… That can’t be right. Ah just saw your daddy talkin’ to my granny a week ago.”

Diamond Tiara grimaced. “It was… recent.”
“...How recent?” Applebloom asked, fearing the answer.
“Three days ago.”

‘Three days?’ Applebloom thought. ‘That’s when ah found out ah was an alien.’
Deciding to leave that as a coincidence, Applebloom turned her attention back towards the grieving filly.

“Diamond. You have to know… I’m sorry.”

Diamond Tiara looked at Applebloom with a confused look on her face but said nothing.

Applebloom took that as a sign to continue. “Ah won’t pretend we were good friends but… Ah wouldn’t wish this on anypony. Nopony deserves this kind of pain.”

Diamond Tiara scoffed. “Like you would know what I’m going through.”

Applebloom took another step towards her. “Actually… Ah do.”
Diamond Tiara looked at Applebloom in confusion.

“Didya ever wonder why Ah’m raised by my sister, brother and granny? What do you think happened to my folks.” Applebloom asked.

As the realization dawned on Diamond Tiara, all she could let out was a simple. “Oh.”

“Losing a loved one, especially a parent… It’s like losing a limb. Isn’t it?” Applebloom asked.

Diamond Tiara nodded. “Like some part of you was torn from your body. Something important. Something you need to live.”

More tears began to fall down Diamond Tiara’s face. “Yeah. I know what that feels like.”

For whatever reason, Diamond Tiara didn’t notice Applebloom walking up to her until she stood right in front of her. She did notice it when Applebloom pulled her into a gentle hug.

Three days ago, Diamond would have pushed Applebloom into the mud, call her a ‘filthy blank-flank’ and tell her to never touch her again.

Today, she hugged Applebloom back.

“Can ah give you some advice?” Applebloom said.
Diamond Tiara shrugged, still holding on to Applebloom.

“Do you have anypony else who cares for you? Loves you?” The farm filly asked.

Diamond Tiara slowly nodded. “Yeah. My aunt and uncle.”

“Love them back. Every single bit of affection and care they give you, you go and do the same for them.” Applebloom pulled away from the hug in order to look Diamond Tiara in the eye.

“I want you to understand. I’m not asking you to replace your parents with your aunt and uncle. I’m asking you to constantly remind yourself that you are loved.” Despite their history, Applebloom gave Diamond Tiara a warm smile. “The hurt won’t go away, not entirely. But the love will make it hurt less.”

Diamond Tiara pulled away from the hug to wipe the last few tears from her eyes. “Thank you.”

With that, she turned to leave. She walked away from Applebloom till she was a few feet away, then turned back. “You and me… We’re good, okay?”

Applebloom nodded and Diamond Tiara turned back to leave.

Author's Note

Once again, I LOVE comments.

Chapter 3: Solitude

In the cold arctic north of the world, a lone figure flew across the frigid pale blue sky.

The figure soared weightlessly across the sky, seemingly defying physics due to the lack of anything keeping her in the air.

After flying for Celestia-knows how long, she found a patch of solid ice to land on. She drifted to the speck of ice surrounded by freezing water before softly landing on four hooves

The figure, clad in layers and layers of white winter gear to keep herself warm, pulled her heated mask off to reveal a yellow red-haired mare underneath.

Applebloom shivered as the sudden cold air hit her face. Every single tiny breath created a cloud of fog.

She looked around with her heightened vision, making sure that nobody, pony or otherwise, was around to witness… whatever it was she was about to do. Satisfied with her apparent solitude, she took to the skies once more before flying into the center of what she believed to be the largest body of water in this frozen wasteland.

Taking a deep breath to steel herself for whatever may happen, Applebloom reached into the depths of her parka before pulling out a shimmering white crystal.

It was time to discover the mysteries of her past.

For the past five years, Applebloom had attempted to unlock the secrets of this crystal, one of two remnants of her former life as a citizen of an entirely different planet. She subjected it to thousands of different stimuli, from barbaric methods like hitting it really hard to acute methods like projecting various light and sound frequencies to it.

Put it was by pure accident that she discovered how to make the crystal perform its intended purpose.

After many failed attempts, Applebloom was at her wits end when she decided to throw caution to the wind and seek outside help. She turned to Ponyville’s resident genius, Twilight Sparkle, for aid. Though she left out a few details on the nature of the crystal.

Eager to help the young mare (and intrigued by the crystal itself), Twilight decided to shave off a tiny sliver of the crystal so she could examine it under a microscope.

Fate intervened when her draconic assistant Spike, carrying a bucket of water for his usual duty of cleaning the library, bumped into Twilight causing her to drop the sliver into bucket.

It was only a second into Twilight lecturing Spike on being more careful before the crystal sliver began to react… violently to the water.

Giving off a series of pulsating lights, Applebloom and Twilight both jumped in shock as the crystal sliver expanded within the water, shards of white pierced the bucket and, in an explosion of water and wood, became a large statue of crystal right in Twilight’s library.

One year has passed since that day, with Applebloom begging Twilight to keep the events of that day a secret.

But now she knew how to, for lack of a better term, activate the crystal.

Water.

But the tiny sliver Twilight took expanded into a large statue roughly a head taller than Twilight herself.

If Applebloom wanted to recreate that effect with the crystal in its entirety, she would need a lot more water.

And a lot of privacy.

Finding a quality location within the frozen wastes of the north, Applebloom flew far and fast to this location.

Which brings us to here and now. Applebloom looked at the crystal in her hooves; she looked at the shimmering blue waters below and dropped the crystal.

With a quiet ‘plop’, the crystal sank deep into the waters.

A moment passed, and then another moment of pure silence save for the wind.

Before Applebloom could wonder what was taking so long, she saw the same pulsating lights she saw in Twilight’s library deep inside the water’s abyss.

The lights grew brighter and brighter within the water as Applebloom saw a crystal structure begin to rise above the water’s surface. The structure grew and grew to enormous proportions, forcing Applebloom to fly away from the ever expanding crystal in order to avoid being consumed by it.

Finally, the pulses started to die off as the crystal slowly started to finish its metamorphosis. The result of Applebloom’s ‘experiment’ now stood before her, an island of white crystal that blended perfectly with the white snow and ice around it.
“Wh-Whoa…” She said in awe. Just like the statue in Twilight’s library, the crystal had expanded into a gargantuan structure. On a whim, she gazed into the mass of crystal, through the walls, to discover a series of chambers resting within. Following the paths connecting each chamber, she found a doorway into the crystal fortress and, with no real plan in mind, stepped inside.

The various chambers she visited were, for the most part, empty. The walls inside the fortress were smooth and round, not jagged like they were outside. But the central chamber deep within the heart of the fortress had something of interest.

A podium made up of several crystals bunched together stood before a flat wall of polished crystal. Applebloom could see her own awestruck face within the mirrored wall as she stepped closer to the podium. With a wary hoof, she touched the center most crystal within the podium.

The crystal gave off a sharp sound, like a bell, before retracting into the podium. A green light began to emanate from the podium as the entire chamber started to glow with the same green light. Applebloom began to panic; she didn’t know what was going on!

But then the light started to fade, and a calm voice spoke out to her.

“Don’t be afraid. You are not in danger.” The voice said.

Applebloom looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. Even with her heightened hearing, the voice seemed to come from all directions at once. “Who’s there? Where are you?” She asked.

Before she could say anymore, the mirrored wall started to shimmer before an image materialized on its surface. The image was of a yellow stallion with an earthy brown mane and beard. The stallion was wearing flowing red robes and a golden circlet around his head. But what Applebloom noticed immediately was that this stallion bore the same symbol on his chest that was on her blanket.

A golden shield with a red ‘S’.

The image started to move, looking down on Applebloom before smiling warmly. “It is good to see you. You look well.”

Applebloom nodded nervously. “Uh… Thanks” She said, unsure of what to make of all this.

The stallions smile fell a little. “I’m sure you have hundreds of questions. What would you like to know first?”

Applebloom blinked before reminding herself that her whole reason for coming here was to find answers. And now, this pony was offering her some. But first, she needed to find out exactly who she was talking to.

“Let’s start with… Who are you?” She asked.

The stallion nodded. “I have been designated with the name ‘Archive’. I am an advanced artificial intelligence programmed with the mandate of preserving information of the planet Krypton, your homeworld, in the hopes that you would one day come to me and I could share with you all I know.”

Applebloom’s eyes lit up. Finally! This is what she waited five years to find!
“Artificial Intelligence? Like a computer?” She asked.

Archive nodded. “Yes, though I was given sentience by my creator who also served as the template for my likeness and personality imprints.”

“Who is your creator?” She asked.

“My creator was Krypton’s leading scientist. Your father, Jor-El.” He said.

Applebloom instinctively took a step back, as his struck. “My… father? You’re my…”

Archive shook his head within the mirror. “No. I’m sorry but I only share my likeness with your father. He and I are not the same individual.”

Applebloom eyes dropped a little. “Oh… Where… Where is my father?”

Archive sighed as he knew this would come up eventually. “It is my deepest regret that I must inform you that your father is dead.”

Applebloom’s eyes widened in shock. “What do you mean? What happened?!” She demanded.

Archive held up a hoof to calm the mare. “Please, maybe it would be best if I just tell you the whole story.”

Many years ago, the planet Krypton was in the midst of its fifth scientific renaissance. Our technology was among the greatest among the stars and we frequently did business with many other species across the cosmos, building and designing new and better devices for such esteemed groups like the New Gods of Genesis and the Guardians of Oa.

But our wisdom came from the age of our planet. And old worlds orbit around old stars. The red sun that Krypton orbited around was dying. But it takes a long time for a sun to die. In that time, we could have evacuated the planet and colonize a new one. But as our wisdom grew, so too did our arrogance. Rather than flee from the sun, we would face it and tame its wrath.

Our scientists worked for many years to reverse what cosmic law had ordained. To renew our sun to its former glory. Had we realized our folly before it was too late, we might have avoided the events that brought you to this world.

Something happened during our experiments, in our attempt to save our world we had only succeeded in dooming it. The naturally slow process of a dying sun was… accelerated by our experiments. Krypton’s sun was going supernova, an explosion that would wipe out the entire solar system including Krypton.

And it was happening much too fast for any of us to do anything. It was too late for a total exodus of the planet, but your father had a plan to preserve Krypton’s legacy.

He hastily crafted a small starship, just big enough to carry a single infant, and sent you away from the doomed planet. As Krypton burned, you made your way to a planet that Jor-El had been previously researching.

A planet called Earth.

Jor-El had discovered this planet by accident, but grew to admire the many races living on its surface. He knew you would be safe among their kind…

“He downloaded my consciousness into a Matrix Crystal and sent me with you. The rest you know.” Archive said. He allowed Applebloom to ruminate on his story.

Applebloom was silent for a little while before tears started to form in her eyes. It was strange, she didn’t know anypony from Krypton… and now she never would. She didn’t know her true father… but she knew he sacrificed everything just to keep her safe.

“Ah… Ah’ve always wanted to know where ah came from. And now that I know…” She said, wiping her eyes.

“It’s enough… just knowing he loved me.” She whispered.

A few minutes passed in silence as Archive allowed Applebloom to come to terms with her planet’s demise.

“There are still so many things ah don’t know. Like… What’s my real name?” She asked.
Archived gave a small smile, happy to give an answer that wouldn’t cause heartache. “Your birthname is Kala-El.”

Applebloom nodded. “Kala-El…” She said, getting a feel for the word in her mouth. “Ah like it.” She said with a smile. “But I think ah’ll stick with Applebloom all the same.”

Archive tilted his head. “Applebloom? Is that the name the natives of this world gave you?”

Applebloom nodded. “Yeah. My… My momma called me that after she found me.”

Archive gave a sad smile. “So you were taken in by good people?”

Applebloom’s smile widened. “The best. My momma and poppa, my Granny Smith, my sister Applejack and my brother Big Mac. I couldn’t ask for a better family.”

Archive nodded. “I’m sure Jor-El would have been happy to see you with such a loving family.”

Applebloom decided to change the subject before the mood became too somber again. “What about my powers? Ah’m stronger than most ponies, ah can fly without wings and my senses are unbelievably good.” She asked. “Is that normal for Kryptonians?”

Archive brought a hoof to his chin. “Hmm, yes and no. Your father believed something like this might have happened.” He continued as it was obvious Applebloom was more than a little confused. “Due to the old age of our red sun, Kryptonians evolved the ability to absorb solar radiation since there was so little of it emanating off our sun.”

Archive shrugged his shoulders. “Your father believed that since earth’s yellow sun is much younger than Krypton’s, it gives off much more solar radiation. Thus your body becomes, shall we say, supercharged due to your natural Kryptonian physiology causing you to absorb the higher amount of solar radiation.”

If anything, Applebloom was more confused. “Ah’m not a scientist like pa, but I guess that makes sense.”

Applebloom ‘hmm’ed as she thought of any other question concerning her past. “What about that symbol on your chest? I saw the same symbol on my blanket.”

Archive looked down in order to notice the symbol Applebloom pointed out. “This is merely a family crest. Specifically the crest for the ‘El’ family.”

Applebloom cocked her head as she gave the symbol another good look. “Why is it shaped like an ‘S’?”

Archive raised an eyebrow. “What’s an ‘S’?”

Time passed as Applebloom became satisfied with the answers she received. She certainly knew a lot more about her past than she ever did these past five years combined.

Only one question still remained.

“So… Now what do ah do?” She asked.

Archive raised an eyebrow. “What do you wish to do?” He asked.

Applebloom thought long and hard. “Ah want to go back home, give my family a big hug and tell them ah love them.”

Archive smiled warmly. “A noble goal, Kala-El… I mean, Applebloom.”

Applebloom shrugged. “It’s okay, you can call me Kala-El if you want. But… what are you gonna do?”

Archive shrugged. “Not much I can do. There is no computing device in Earth advanced enough to hold my consciousness so I will just have to stay here.”

A look of sadness crossed Applebloom’s face. “All by yourself? Ah’ll… Ah’ll come visit you.”

Archive nodded. “If you wish. Your father knew that your abilities would cause some… rifting between you and the ponies of this world. He created this place to be somewhere you could escape to, if only for a few moments. A fortress of solitude of sorts.” He gave a small smile. “Though I would certainly welcome your company as well.”

Applebloom returned the smile. Before she turned to leave, she gave one last parting look to Archive. “Thank you for telling me… everything.”

And with that, Applebloom left her newly inherited fortress and flew back home to Ponyville.

Within an extravagant mansion in Canterlot, a fifteen-year old young mare was hard at work.

Fancy Pants had very recently added a gymnasium to his mansions many chambers, claiming his niece had discovered a passion for exercise.

This was partly true.

When Diamond Tiara decided to tell her aunt and uncle all about her plan in confidence, they of course did everything they could to try and talk her out of it. But it became very clear very fast that the mare’s mind was set in stone on this matter.

With no way to dissuade her, the aristocratic ponies decided to do all they could to keep their niece from killing herself during her crusade.

Diamond Tiara quickly went to work preparing herself, diving into every single book on criminology, law and psychology she could find. Before the… incident, she was never the most studious of ponies.

Vengeance was a great motivator for studying.

But it was not enough to expand her mind. For every advancement to her growing knowledge, Diamond Tiara spent just as much effort honing her body as well.

Hence the fully supplied top-of-the-line gymnasium Fancy Pants bought her for ‘her birthday’.

Seeing the petite and svelte pink mare surrounded by numerous heavy metal weights, leather punching bags and all manner of acrobatics appliances would cause one to be skeptical. But all they would have to see is this same petite pony lifting well over one-hundred and fifty pounds over her head to shut them up.

Fancy Pants stood to the side watching his niece work herself into a puddle of sweat, ready to step in at a moment’s notice if she hurt herself or if she collapsed from exhaustion.

Which has happened far too often as far as Fancy was concerned.

However, Diamond Tiara’s daily routine went off without a hitch. Drying herself off, she gave herself a quick look in the mirror. Her routine was designed to make her as strong as possible without bulking her up so she could keep up appearances as an upper-class heiress.

Fancy Pants walked over to her as he took note of her ragged breathing. “Perhaps it would be best to… restrain ourselves in the future.”

“No.” She said bluntly, though her expression softened as she saw the hurt look on her uncle’s face. “I’m sorry Uncle. I meant there’s no need to go any easier on myself. I have a good routine that works.”

Fancy nodded. “I just… don’t like seeing you hurt yourself.”

Diamond gave a sad smile. “It’s supposed to hurt Uncle, that’s how you know it’s working.” She walked passed him as she took a drink from her water bottle. “Besides, we’ve already been over this with my nutritionist. As long as I eat regularly, which you and Aunt Fleur see to rather obsessively I might add, this routine will not cause any lasting damage to my body.”

Fancy Pants nodded. “I know Miss Tiara. But you know it’s not just the exercise I take issue with.”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes lowered to meet the floor. “I know. I know you and Aunt Fleur want me to move on and forget all this.” She raised her eyes to meet her uncle. “But I can’t. Every time I close my eyes, when I go to sleep I see them screaming for help only I’m too little to do anything.”

Her expression hardened. “But I’m not a little filly anymore. The next time a couple in an alleyway cries out for help, I’ll be able to do it.”

Fancy Pants sighed. “And what about the couple after that and the couple after that? What about the people crying for help in Manehattan while you’re in Stalliongrad answering dozens of cries for help?”

Fancy’s face turned stern as he tried once again to drive his niece away from this insane idea. “You cannot bear the weight of the world on your shoulders Diamond. You’re only one mare.”

Diamond Tiara looked away from her uncle. “I make no delusions that I can help everypony. But I can help much more by doing this than by simply being another aristocrat.”

Fancy Pants sighed. “You have my aid as always Miss Tiara. But you have it under protest.”

Diamond turned to give her uncle a tight hug. “Duly noted.”

In the midst of their hug, Fleur De Lis walked into the gym with a grave expression. “Diamond?”

Diamond Tiara pulled away from her uncle to face her aunt. “What is it Aunt Fleur?”

Fleur De Lis looked aside, wondering how she could tell her niece without it resulting in her doing exactly what Fleur didn’t want her to do. “Captain Spoon called. He wanted me to inform you… that Icey Chill has escaped from prison.”

Diamond’s eyes widened in shock. The water bottle that was in her hoof fell to the ground splashing water across her hooves.

“Icey… Chill…” Diamond repeated. Her parent’s murderer.

Walking passed her aunt, Diamond Tiara turned towards her room with Fancy Pants on her heels.
“Diamond? What are you going to do?” He asked apprehensively.

“No more training.” She said. “No more preparing. My mission starts tonight.”

She turned towards her uncle with fire in her eyes. “And Icey Chill will be the first to fall.”

Chapter 4: Temptations

Fancy stood idly by as Diamond prepared herself. The teenaged mare adorned herself in a padded black jumpsuit and covered her face with a black ski-mask. Wrapping a gray shawl around her waist, she inserted a taser and canister of pepper gas within the shawl.

Fancy wasn’t sure how to feel about his niece’s outright refusal to include a gun within her modest arsenal. On the one hoof, he was glad she would not allow herself to use something so dangerous. But on the other hoof, if Diamond truly did intend to follow through on her insane promise, Fancy knew she would need more than tasers and teargas.

As he watched his niece get ready for her ‘big debut’, his mind went back to that day on the one-year anniversary of his brother’s death.

“Miss Tiara, dinner’s ready.” Fancy said, poking his head into Diamond’s room. His eyes widened upon seeing the mess within.

While most eleven-year olds have messy rooms, the contents of the clutter worried Fancy Pants a great deal.

Diamond Tiara stood cross-legged in the center of the room giving no indication she heard her uncle intrude. Her nose was buried into a book of criminology far above her age’s reading level.

Similar books, bearing titles dealing with things a city guard or judge would be required to know, were scattered around her as was a number of notes and messy sketches in crumpled papers.

Fancy cautiously stepped into the room before hearing a crinkling sound beneath him. He looked down and saw one of his niece’s sketches under his hoof. Picking the sketch up to give it a closer look, Fancy raised an eyebrow of confusion. Scrawled across the paper multiple times was the simplistic image of a pure black bat.

“Diamond?” Fancy said, setting the sketch aside.

Diamond looked up, noticing her uncle for the first time.

“Oh, hello Uncle Fancy.” She said before returning her attention to her book.

Fancy sat beside her niece, adopting a similar cross-legged posture. “Is everything all right?”
Diamond nodded. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Fancy gently took the book out Diamond’s hooves. “Miss Tiara, I’m worried about you. You stay in your room day in and day out. You begged us to homeschool you which means you haven’t been spending any time with foals your own age. You hardly even speak with Silver Spoon anymore.”

Fancy gestured to the mess around him. “I can appreciate a thirst for knowledge, but you’re letting this ‘fascination’ with… justice consume you.”

Diamond looked down, refusing to meet her uncle’s eye. “Is justice not a noble virtue to pursue?”

Fancy stared incredulously at Diamond. “Pursue? Diamond, what is this all about?”

Diamond risked looking up and saw the worried look on her uncle’s face.
She sighed as she stood up. “It’s been one whole year. One year to the day.”

Fancy raised an eyebrow as he wondered what Diamond was referring to. His eyes widened as memories of that horrible night suddenly came rushing back to him. The night he received the call telling him his brother and sister-in-law had been gunned down in an alleyway.

“Diamond…” Fancy said. He slowly reached out and pulled his niece into a gentle hug which Diamond accepted immediately.

“So… that’s what this is about?” He asked. “Finding justice for your parents?”

Diamond nodded slightly.

“But their killer has already been arrested. Captain Spoon found him not even a week after the… incident.” Fancy said. “Justice has already been done Diamond. Can you find no solace in that?”

Diamond pulled away slightly, still in her uncle’s embrace but enough to look him in the eye. “Do you want the honest answer?”

Fancy nodded.

“No. I can’t find solace.” She said. “Because right now, as we’re talking, another criminal somewhere is benefiting from somepony’s suffering. Today or tomorrow, another filly could lose her parents in an alleyway.”

Tears began to form in Diamond Tiara’s eyes but she refused to cry. “How am I supposed to find solace in that?”

Fancy felt a cold chill from his niece’s hard stare. That night broke Diamond and she was hell-bent on rebuilding herself, whatever the cost may be.
“Diamond, what are you saying?”

Diamond Tiara walked over to the sketch Fancy Pants discarded. Looking upon the black symbol scrawled on the paper, she thought back to that night when she saw the bat on the lamppost. It was a common folktale that, before her fall as Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna would use bats as sentries to watch over her subjects when night fell over Equestria.

Diamond knew it was just a story, but when she saw that bat on the lamppost she couldn’t help but feel it was watching over her on the darkest night of her life.

“I’m saying I want to become a sentry.” She answered. “I want criminals everywhere to think twice before they pull a gun on a young couple in an alleyway.”

She turned to face her uncle. “I want them to feel fear.”

Fancy couldn’t help but shudder at the memory. That his eleven-year old niece could give such a hard cold stare frightened him. Diamond Tiara was forced to grow up far before she was ready.

But she made a promise to herself and by Celestia she would keep it. She would become a sentry, a dark vigil to remind criminals that there is no safety in the night.

As she finished preparing her ensemble, she gave a few experimental movements to make sure the padding in her jumpsuit wouldn’t encumber her. She turned to face her uncle, lifting her ski-mask to reveal her face.

Fancy gave Diamond’s equipment a quick appraisal. “May I ask a question, Miss Tiara?”

Diamond nodded.

“When you find Icey Chill, what are you going to do to him?” Fancy asked.

Diamond looked away. It was a fair question and the implications of her strong desire to hunt the murderer down would likely give her uncle even more apprehensive to her crusade.

“He’s a criminal and, like all criminals, should be brought to justice.” Diamond answered. “I’ll find him, apprehend him and turn him over to the police. Simple as that.”

“You realize that’s vigilantism, correct?” Fancy asked. “A crime in its own right.”

Diamond scoffed. “How many times have we had this argument? What’s legally right and what’s morally right are two very different things.”

Diamond felt her uncle’s hoof place itself on her shoulder as Fancy turned her to look him in the eyes. “Miss Tiara, you must be careful with what you consider moral. What you are doing blurs the line of morality far more than what I am comfortable with.”

Diamond raised an eyebrow. “What are you saying Uncle?”

Fancy sighed. “I’m saying that should you let your zealousness for justice get a hold of you, you will confuse justice for vengeance. Should that happen, I fear you will cross a line that can never be taken back.” Fancy stern facade started to break as concern for his niece glanced across his eyes.

“Tell me Miss Tiara. Do you hate Icey Chill?” He asked.

Diamond’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Of course I hate him! Everything I knew was destroyed by him on that night!”

Fancy’s grip on Diamond’s shoulder tightened slightly. “And what will you do if your hatred will not allow you to simply turn him over to the police.”

Diamond’s eyes widened as she realized what her uncle was saying. “You’re afraid I’ll… kill him?”

Fancy looked down in shame. “I despise myself for thinking for one second that you would be capable of such an act. But you have not seen your obsession grow through my eyes.”

Fancy finally removed his hoof. “I will not stop you from leaving this house. But before you go, I must impart one bit of wisdom.”

Diamond nodded, urging her uncle to continue.

“To willingly take another pony’s life is one of the most deplorable actions I can think of. It is why you hate Icey Chill and it is the only reason I am allowing you to go after him. I have absolutely no doubts in your abilities at this point. If you track him down, you will find him.”

Fancy hoped against hope that his words would get through to his niece. Tonight’s events would either shape Diamond Tiara into one of the strongest mares in the world, in body and in spirit, or it will completely destroy her.

It all rested on Diamond heeding her uncle.

“You must take care that as you begin you crusade, you will not become the thing you hate.”

Two hours passed since Diamond left the mansion. With her uncle’s words still fresh in her mind, she prowled into the night and began her hunt.

She started at the police station, eavesdropping on the officers going in and out and listening in for anything pertaining to Icey Chill’s whereabouts.
Here’s what she knew so far: Icey Chill was arrested one year ago for the murder of her parent’s. He surprisingly pleaded guilty as he knew between the testimonies between Diamond and the buyer for her mother’s pearl necklace, there was nothing he could say or do to keep him out of prison.

Then, ten-to-twelve hours ago, a power failure within Canterlot’s prison complex allowed Icey Chill a chance to overpower his guard and make a break for it. The power failure has been written off as simple equipment failure and while Diamond would like to look more into that matter, she was more preoccupied with finding Chill at the moment.

Hey ears perked up as one officer started listening to his radio. She caught the name ‘Icey’ and strained to listen from her vantage point.

“...suspect has been lost. Units 4-0 and 5-0 on route to block off possible exit routes in section 4.”

Diamond nodded in satisfaction. Weeks ago, she visited Silver Spoon’s father in his office to discuss her upcoming inheritance. At least, that’s what she told him in order to get a closer look at the map of Canterlot and the various zones that have been labelled for the police. Section 4 referred to the northern half of the Scorpio district.

If the police had indeed succeeded in cordoning the area before Icey Chill could make his way out of it, he would likely find someplace to hole up and wait for the police to thin out as they would widen their search parameters.

Quickly making her way to the Scorpio district, Diamond was careful to avoid the patrolling officers. It would do her no good for them to misinterpret her masked visage as a criminal trying to hide her identity.

Even though that wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

Climbing up a fire escape in order to reach a better vantage point, Diamond stood on the edge of an apartment complex and scanned the landscape of the city. Next step was to analyze possible hiding spots Icey Chill could be using and determine the most likely.

Her eyes eventually made their way to a warehouse near the edge of the district. If Icey Chill could find a way inside, he would be given both a decent amount of hiding places within the warehouse as well as a good view of the police checkpoint set up down the road.

Seeing little other possible locations, Diamond made up her mind.

She sprinted towards the edge of the building a leapt off to the closest adjacent building. Landing with little difficulty, if little grace, she immediately began bounding towards the next building and then the next.

Creating a pathway to the warehouse from the rooftops of the city, she made her way to the top of the warehouse where her suspicions were confirmed. On the rooftop was an open window with a lock had been cut through.

Using Chill’s own entrance, Diamond landed onto a walkway that surrounded the perimeter of the warehouse making sure to land on all fours to lower the noise.

Scanning the area around her, Diamond made a note of the manager’s office at the far end of the warehouse connecting one end of the walkway to the other. She also made note of the various crates and boxes that had been stacked haphazardly in a number of piles creating a jungle of wooden boxes. Icey Chill could very easily use the cover of those boxes to confuse her should this devolve into a game of cat and mouse.

Then again, so could she.

Making her way to the manager’s office, taking care to stay out of the moonlight shining from the windows, she kept a level eye at the windows adorning the walls of the office.

She could see no movement from within, but it was entirely possible he was merely hiding somewhere where you couldn’t see from outside.

Finally, she was at the door to the office. She placed a tentative hoof on the knob when the door suddenly and violently opened. The impact knocked her off her hooves as Icey Chill shot out of the office and ran past her as fast as he could.

Standing back up, Diamond gave chase to the fleeing criminal. Icey risked a look behind him to confirm that the black-clad pony was indeed chasing him. He started bounding down a flight of stairs to get to ground level when Diamond vaulted over the railing to land right in front of him as his hoof first touched the last step on the stairs.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Diamond said, intentionally making her voice as monotonous and cold as she could. Everything she read on criminal psychology told her they were a superstitious lot. Simple scare tactics such as a detached apathy would go a long way.

If Icey Chill was intimidated, he didn’t show it. His body language told Diamond that he would not be giving up without a fight.

That was just fine by her.

He threw the first punch, a wild haymaker that Diamond easily knocked away. Landing her own straight jab into his exposed abdominal region, Icey felt the wind get knocked out of him as Diamond followed up her punch by gripping Icey his shoulder and waist.

Hoisting him up onto her shoulders, Diamond threw Icey into a nearby box that shattered under his weight. The contents of the box spilled around Icey as he attempted to shake off the impact.

Opening his eyes, he gasped in fear as the pony in black towered above his body. The pony’s cold blue eyes stared into his own as a realization crept into his mind.

Who was this pony?

“Please… Please let me go. I have money! A lot of money! Name your price, it’s yours.” He said.

Diamond’s eyes narrowed in pure contempt. “And whose blood is on that money? Who had to suffer for your satisfaction?” She lifted Icey Chill off the ground and kept him suspended in the air. “I should break every bone in your body…”

Icey’s eyes widened. “Please… Just… Just give me a chance…”

Icey’s plea went unheard as Diamond threw him once more into the hard concrete wall of the warehouse. He tried to get back on his hooves in a vain attempt to run away from the psychotic vigilante but he could see she was already making her way to him for more.

“Wha…” Icey paused to spit out a glob of blood. “What do you want from me?”

“What do I want?” She replied. Her face twisted into one of pure rage that burned Icey Chill’s soul. “What do I want!?”

She grabbed him once more and struck him across the face, blood from his nose smearing across her hoof.

“I want to beat you into nothing but a stain.”

She struck him again.

“I want to make you feel every bit of pain you caused to every pony you’ve ever hurt.”

She struck him again.

“I want… I want…”

Her hoof paused in the air just as she was about to land another blow.
‘You must take care that as you begin your crusade, you will not become the thing you hate.’

Those words echoed in Diamond’s mind as the broken and bloodied face of her parent’s murderer stared at her, whimpering in fear and pain.

She wanted to kill him.

She wanted to kill him so much her hoof was twitching, as though fighting against her to keep beating Icey Chill just as she said she would.

This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t supposed to happen. For whatever reason, Diamond imagined her parents watching their little girl covered in another pony’s blood with cold hunger in her eyes.

She couldn’t possibly imagine any reaction other than abject horror.

She glanced at her still shaking hoof as it dawned on her how much she still wanted to beat him until there was nothing left.

It scared her how much she couldn’t control this urge.

“I want you to answer for your crimes.” She allowed herself one more punch, straight to Icey Chill’s temple. He was knocked unconscious, but still alive.

Diamond started backing away from the still figure of her parent’s murderer. She was surprised at how relieved she felt when she saw his chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm.

As the adrenaline started to subside and her breathing steadied itself, the anger she felt towards Icey was beginning to be replaced by… pain.

What?

She looked down and saw a knife protruding out of her shoulder. At some point during Icey’s beating, he had attempted to fight her off by stabbing her.

And she hadn’t even noticed until now.

Still, now that she did notice it, she couldn’t deny the ungodly amount of pain spreading throughout her foreleg. Gritting her teeth, she tore off a piece of her shawl and grabbed a piece of wood broken off from the box she threw Chill into.

Biting down on the wood, she gripped the handle of the knife and yanked it out as quickly as she could. A spurt of blood erupted from the wound before quickly dying into a steady drizzle. Already growing dizzy from the blood loss, Diamond quickly wrapped the shawl around her leg to stop the blood flow. Steadying herself and shaking off the fatigue, she managed to find a door to the outside that could be opened from within the warehouse. Doing her best to avoid the police, still on the hunt for Icey Chill, she eventually found a payphone no too far from the warehouse.

5 bits later, she dialed the number for the mansion. She breathed a sigh of relief as her aunt’s soft voice answered.

“Hello?” She inquired.
“Aunt Fleur, it’s done.” Diamond said. “Give the police an anonymous tip that they’ll find Icey Chill unconscious in the warehouse on the edge of the Scorpio district.”

“I will Diamond. Does this mean you are coming home now?” She asked, hope in her voice.

“Yes… but… Tell Uncle Fancy to prepare the first aid kit.”

“How many stitches do you think I’ll need?” Diamond asked her uncle as he cleaned her wound.

“A good few.” he replied. He was amazed at the level of control Diamond was exerting to keep herself from convulsing from the pain. “I’m about to make the first insertion. Do you want something to bite down on?”

Diamond nodded weakly as Fancy handed her a leather belt. She placed the belt in her mouth and nodded at her uncle to continue. Fancy carefully used his magic to thread the needle through the tender flesh surrounding the knife wound. Diamond winced with each piercing but stayed perfectly still as the wound was sewn shut.

“There.” He said, biting the thread. He gave the wound another quick cleaning before bandaging it tightly. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that this will dissuade you from ever doing this again?”

Diamond spat out the belt and shook her head. “I never made any delusions I wouldn’t get hurt doing this. I suspect this is the first of many wounds.”

Fancy looked at the newly treated injury with annoyance. “And I suspect that I’ll be the one to treat them, won’t I?”

Diamond looked away in shame. In truth, she resented herself for dragging her aunt and uncle into her crusade but it was preferable to hiding her double life from them and alienating them from her life as a result.

“I’m sorry uncle. I…”
“Did you kill him?”

Diamond was shocked by Fancy’s sudden inquiry. She noticed he had a look of pure seriousness on his face.

“No.” She said. “But I wanted to.”

“I suppose I would as well.” Fancy admitted. “But I’m proud of you.”
He gently scooped her into a hug which Diamond gladly returned. But after only a few moments, she pulled away as Fancy noticed the downtrodden look on her face.

“...I’m not ready for this.” She said.

Fancy raised an eyebrow but waited for Diamond to continue.

“When I hit him, it felt good. When I saw his blood on my hooves, I didn’t care.” She shivered as she glanced at her now clean hooves. “But looking back at it, if I didn’t stop… If I allowed myself to take Icey Chill’s life…”

She looked into her uncle’s eyes with a fear Fancy hadn’t seen in five years. “The worst part? It’s still there. The temptation, the hatred. I still want to find Icey Chill and… and…”

Tears started to form in her eyes. “Uncle, I’m scared.”

Fancy Pants didn’t say a word. He pulled Diamond into yet another hug as she broke down and started to cry in his embrace.

Fancy had to remind himself that she was still a teenager, still so young.

“I… I think I know what I have to do.” She said as her tears started to wane.

“What?” Fancy asked.

She pulled away once more and wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. “I’m still too young, still too naive. I need to learn more, about the world, about myself.”

Diamond carefully stood on her hooves, her foreleg stiff from the knife-wound. “I’ll be inheriting my father’s fortune on my sixteenth birthday and his company on my twenty-first. I know how I’ll spend that money in the five years between.”

She looked at her uncle with a newborn determination, set in her goal. “I’m going to travel the world.”

Chapter 5: Heart to Heart

Scootaloo stared incredulously at the pink slip of paper in her hoof.

She looked up and saw Applebloom’s nervous smile. Sweetie Belle was to the side, eyebrow raised in confusion.

“Seriously?” Scootaloo said after a few moments of silence.

“Well…” Applebloom began. “Ah mean… Okay, she didn’t exactly make our childhoods easy before she moved to Canterlot.”

Sweetie grumbled. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“But she and I hashed it out years ago and she told me we were good.” Applebloom explained.
“Besides girls, don’t ya’ll think it’s a bit silly to carry a grudge after six years?”

Scootaloo huffed. “It’s not like she just teased us now and then. But you’re right, I suppose. It has been a long time since we’ve seen her. She might have mellowed out since then.”

Applebloom nodded. “And her sending us this just proves she wants to bury the hatchet and start fresh with all of us.”

Applebloom could tell Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were still apprehensive, but they eventually decided to trust Applebloom’s judgment.

Scootaloo took one last look at the pink paper in her hooves. On it was a festive design surrounding a formal invitation to Diamond Tiara’s sixteenth birthday party.

The following days passed in a blur as the date of the party neared. Each of the three teenaged fillies doing their best to mentally psych themselves up to wish a happy birthday to the mare who had made their childhood’s utter torment.

Finally, the three found themselves boarding a train to Canterlot to attend Diamond’s party.

From word-of-mouth, the girls had discovered that Diamond Tiara was also using her birthday party as a sort of going away party, as she planned to go on a long trip around the world with her newly inherited fortune.

Sweetie turned to Applebloom as Scootaloo was preparing to get a few moments of sleep in before the party.

“So…” Sweetie began. “Does Diamond… know?”

Applebloom shook her head. “No. As far as she knows, Ah just happened to be in Canterlot when she was visiting her folk’s grave.”

Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “And she didn’t think that was odd?”

Applebloom shrugged. “If she did, she didn’t say nothin’. Honestly, ah think she was just glad to have somepony to talk to.”

Sweetie nodded, apparently satisfied, as the trip to Canterlot continued in silence. Scootaloo was eventually shaken from her slumber by the train docking at the station.

Letting her friend wipe the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes, Applebloom picked up both their presents as the three left the train. From there, it was a simple matter of asking a nearby local where they could find Fancy Pants’ manor.

As a prominent member of Canterlot’s elite class, Fancy Pants’ residence was not hard to find. The three teenagers stood in awe of the ornate and massive complex.

Applebloom was the first to give the oak door a firm knock.

A few seconds passed before a familiar, if older, face welcomed them.

As soon as Diamond Tiara realized who was at her door, a small smile flashed across her face. “You came! I was worried you wouldn’t after… you know.” She said sheepishly.

“Well it would be silly to snuff your invite because of something that happened when we were kids.” Applebloom said, returning the small smile.

“A lot of somethings…” Scootaloo said under her breath before being elbowed by Sweetie.

If Diamond noticed, she pretended not to as she invited the three inside.

“You can go ahead and put the presents on that table over there.” She said. “You three are actually pretty early. Only Silver Spoon and her family are here so far so go ahead and make yourselves at home while I help my uncle prepare.”

Applebloom nodded as Diamond left the three to their own devices. Sweetie Belle was the first to notice the aforementioned gray filly sampling the punch at a nearby snack table.

Deciding to break the ice, and to see where they stood with Diamond Tiara’s oldest friend, the three walked over to Silver Spoon.

Applebloom cleared her throat to Silver’s attention. As Silver turned to the three, her eyebrow raised up in confusion.

“Applebloom? Sweetie Belle? Scootaloo?” She said. “Wow… You actually came.”

She glanced to her side as she nervously pawed the ground. None of the former Crusaders saw fit to break the silence.

“This is awkward.” Silver Spoon finally said.
“Yeah it is.” Scootaloo agreed.

With the silence thankfully broken, Applebloom decided to interject in an attempt to make small talk.

“So uh… Silver Spoon, what have you been doing lately?” Applebloom asked, grabbing a cup of punch for herself.

Wanting to try and be nice for her friend’s sake, Silver Spoon played along. “Well, I’ve recently been getting into electronics. I’m thinking when I go to college; I could work towards a programming major.”

Despite their history, Sweetie couldn’t help but perk her ears at this. “That sounds interesting. You never really struck me as a ‘tech-savvy’ pony.”

Silver blushed slightly. “Well computing technology is getting a lot more advanced. It’s a lucrative business to be getting into.”

Taking a sip of her punch, Silver Spoon allowed herself to relax around her former tormentees. It seemed like they were making an earnest attempt to let bygones be bygones so she supposed she could do the same for them.

‘What about you three? I can see you finally got your cutie-marks.” Silver noted pointing at Scootaloo’s flank.

Indeed, all three of Crusaders had finished their crusade in the year following Applebloom’s discovery of her heritage.

Scootaloo explained her cutie-mark, a blue scooter with flames coming from the rear tire. She received it as the result of teaching a younger colt how to repair his own scooter and, in gratitude; the colt’s mother paid her for her service.

Since then, she’s been working up the money to open a street sports hobby shop.

Sweetie Belle’s mark was a silver bell with a black musical note over it. She explained she received her mark after a wandering talent scout heard her singing to herself. Although she respectfully declined his offer for a performing contract due to her young age, it did open her eyes to the idea of singing professionally.

One cutie-mark later, and her parents are now paying for a singing coach to cultivate Sweetie Belle’s natural skills.

Silver Spoon, all things considered, was very impressed. “I guess that’s what I get for making fun of you when we were kids. You girls get some actually useful cutie-marks and promising career paths. I get a kitchen utensil that doesn’t have anything to do with I want career-wise.”

Scootaloo smirked a little. “Well… It is a very nice kitchen utensil.”
Despite herself, Silver Spoon couldn’t help but chuckle. She continued to converse with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle much more openly now.

None of them had taken any notice when Applebloom quietly excused herself from the conversation before Silver Spoon could enquire about her cutie-mark.

A half-hour passed before the rest of the guests arrived and the party started in earnest. While Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle surprisingly had no problem mingling with Diamond Tiara’s friends, Applebloom mostly kept to herself.

That is until a white dapper unicorn with a blue mane and gentlemanly moustache approached her.

“Miss Applebloom?” He asked. Applebloom gave an affirming nod.

The unicorn bowed cordially. “My name is Fancy Pants, Diamond Tiara’s uncle. I’ve been asked to inform you that Miss Tiara wishes to speak with you privately on the upper floor balcony.”

“Oh.” Applebloom said, slightly taken aback by the sheer formality. “Uh… Okay. Ah’ll go up in a second.”

Fancy Pants gave a polite nod then left to attend to the other guests.

Luckily for Applebloom, the second floor had fewer rooms than the lower. Finding the balcony was simple enough.

Granted, she would have had an easier time if she had simply used her ‘unique’ talents but she made it a point not to look inside other people’s rooms unless it was absolutely necessary.

Opening the doors to the balcony, Applebloom found Diamond Tiara looking out to the Canterlot horizon as Celestia’s sun started its descent. Her ear twitched as she heard the door open and close behind her.

Diamond turned to face Applebloom, a small smile appearing on her face when she realized who it was.

“Ah, you got my message. Thanks for seeing me.” She said.

“No problem.” Applebloom replied. “What did ya’ll need to talk about?”

Diamond Tiara motioned for Applebloom to take a seat in one of the cushions she apparently laid out for the two of them. Applebloom accepted the seat as Diamond sat in her own cushion.

“So how are you and your friends enjoying the party?” Diamond asked.

“Actually, things are going better than ah expected.” Applebloom said. “They’re getting along well enough with Silver Spoon and, aside from a few grumbles from Scootaloo earlier today, nopony really drudged up any of the stuff from when we were kids.”

Applebloom smiled as she assumed a more relaxed position on her seat. “Ah gotta say Diamond, this was a good idea.” She said.

Diamond’s smile widened. “I’m very happy to hear that. The last thing I wanted before I left was to leave behind a lot of bad blood that didn’t need to be there.”

Applebloom’s face scrunched up a little. “Yeah, about that. Ah heard you were planning on travelling the world or something like that? Care to tell me what that’s all about?”

Diamond sighed as her smile dropped a little. She figured this topic would come up. “That’s a bit of a… complicated story.” She got up to her feet and started to pace around. “Let’s see…” She glanced back towards Applebloom before noticing the image on her flank.

Diamond smile returned a little. “I see you got your cutie-mark. Would you mind telling me how you got it?” She asked.

Applebloom tilted her head in confusion but Diamond lifted a hoof before she could say anything.

“I know it seems like I’m changing the subject, but trust me when I say I have a point here.” She reassured Applebloom. “So… Do you wanna share your story?”

Applebloom sighed as she gave her mark a rather expressionless look. “Ah got my mark when my sister, Applejack, decided to give me some bigger jobs around the farm.” She began.
“I was getting older so she started to trust me with the more dangerous work like fixin’ all our broken down machines and what not.”

Applebloom shrugged as she showed her mark more clearly to Diamond Tiara. A red apple with a hammer overlaid on top of it. “Ah always had a knack for fixin’ things that ah sort of became the farm’s official handy-mare.”

Diamond listened intently as she noticed Applebloom’s rather bored tone. After all, this was the same filly who used to obsess everyday about getting her cutie-mark and, now that she had it, she seemed very… underwhelmed by the whole thing.

“Do you enjoy being the farm’s handy-mare?” Diamond asked.

Applebloom looked up in thought. “Ah guess. Fixin’ stuff is fun and it makes me a decent wage.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Ah got a mark and a job. Can’t exactly ask for more than that.”

Diamond glanced downwards as she thought about Applebloom’s story. “Do you mind if I tell you how I got my cutie-mark?” She asked Applebloom.

Applebloom was surprised by the question but motioned for Diamond to continue.

“My mother works… worked as a gem-cutter for a jewelry store. When I was… Oh, I couldn’t have been older than seven but anyway, she brought me into her workshop as a special birthday treat. We worked together to carve five small diamonds before placing them into a small tiara.” She explained.

Applebloom’s eyes widened at this. “So that’s where your old tiara came from?” She looked up at Diamond Tiara’s head only to notice for the first time that is was completely bare of any headdress. “Hey, where is it anyway?” She asked.

Diamond waved her hoof nonchalantly. “I still have it; I just grew out of it.” She said “It’s somewhere in my uncle’s attic. I’m sure I’ll hold onto it for sentimental reasons but to still be wearing it at my age…” She trailed off.

Applebloom rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, Ah guess that would be a little weird.”

Diamond Tiara cleared her throat, trying to get the attention back to her story. “Like I said, I had a point when I started talking about our cutie-marks.” She began. “Applebloom, do you want to know the reason why I bullied you and your friends when we were children?”

That got Applebloom’s attention. She didn’t exactly know where Diamond was going with all this but she nodded her head all the same.

Diamond sighed before continuing. “It’s because I was under the belief that when you get your cutie-mark, you basically have everything in your life set up for you.”

“I made fun of you and your friends for not having cutie-marks because I felt superior to you.” Diamond explained.

Applebloom smirked a little. “This aint exactly putting you in a positive light.”

However, Diamond’s face was dead serious. “I didn’t say I was going to justify my actions, I said I was going to explain them.”

Diamond continued, obtaining Applebloom’s attention more and more. “I was so proud of my cutie-mark that I never stopped to think about what it really meant to me.” She leaned in closer to Applebloom. “Do you know what my cutie-mark means to me?”

Applebloom said nothing but merely gestured for her to continue.

“As far as I’m concerned, my cutie-mark is a reminder of a happy memory I shared with my mother and the symbol of my most prized possession.” She explained. “What it isn’t, in my own opinion, is some arbitrary blueprint for my life. While I have nothing but respect for my mother’s profession, I have never entertained the idea of becoming a gem-cutter myself.”

She looked away from Applebloom and saw that Celestia had finished setting the sun. The final light of dusk was receding as Luna no doubt was being roused from her slumber to raise the moon as they spoke.

“In fact…” Diamond continued. “Once I return from my trip, I plan on taking over my father’s company.”

She looked over towards Applebloom once more with an almost pleading look. “My point is while you should always be proud of your cutie mark; don’t ever let it limit what you are capable of.”

Applebloom was, needless to say, completely shocked at hearing these words come from her former bully. Diamond Tiara had become far more wiser and mature these past six years. Applebloom, try as she might, could not see a single trace of the vapid, vain brat this mare used to be.

Whoever Diamond Tiara was before her parents were killed, that filly died with them.

Diamond took Applebloom’s silence as an invitation to continue. “And you capable of so much. You are an intelligent, creative and caring individual Applebloom. You are capable of being so much more than a simple handy-mare.”

Both girls were snapped from their conversation when a svelte white unicorn poked her head through the balcony door. “Diamond, everypony is waiting for you to open your presents.”

Like a switch had been flipped, the heavy atmosphere lifted as Diamond adopted a jovial attitude once more. “Okay Aunt Fleur, we’ll be right down.”

Fleur de Lis retreated back downstairs to inform the guests that the birthday filly would be down soon. Applebloom and Diamond Tiara got up to follow Fleur downstairs before Diamond held Applebloom back once more.

“Applebloom, when my parents died, you gave me a piece of advice that helped me through a very dark period of my life.” She said. Her serious demeanor returning in an instant. “Will you let me return the favor?”

Applebloom was a little intimidated by how quickly Diamond could switch gears as she did, but nodded all the same.

“So many ponies believe that our cutie-marks are meant to tell us our destiny. But if there is one thing that I have learned, it’s that there is no destiny but what we make for ourselves.” She said before pointing towards Applebloom’s mark. “My advice to you: Think long and hard about what that picture on your butt means to you.”

With that, Diamond returned to being a completely normal teenaged filly before going downstairs to partake in the timeless birthday tradition of opening presents, leaving a completely stunned Applebloom on her balcony.

The party continued and then finally ended with little incidence after that. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle officially accepted Diamond Tiara’s and Silver Spoon’s apology and all five of them agreed to let the past be the past. Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon even exchanged numbers so that the two of them could stay in touch when Silver goes to college.

The three former crusaders said their goodbyes and wished Diamond Tiara a safe trip. On the train ride back to Ponyville, both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were quick to fall asleep after the excitement of the party.

But Applebloom was wide awake as Diamond Tiara’s words rang in her head.

Author's Note

Please leave a comment below.

Chapter 6: One Step, One Thousand Miles

“Kala-El? Is everything alright?” Archive asked, rousing Applebloom from her daydream.

“Huh? Oh, sorry Archive. I’ve just… got my mind on things.” Applebloom said.

Archive sat down within his screen in order to adopt a more friendly posture. He found that making his avatar mimic pony body language made Kala-El much more open with him.
“Bit for your thoughts?” He said.

“Where did you hear that saying?” Applebloom asked.

“You said it in passing during your twelfth visit to the fortress.” He answered.
Applebloom cocked her head. “How... many times have I visited you now?”

“You have visited the fortress 36 times, including today’s visit.”

Applebloom’s eyes widened. “Really?” She knew she wanted to keep her promise to visit Archive, but at the same time she had only discovered the fortress hidden within her crystal just a few months ago. That she had spent so much time in the fortress…

“Applejack must be worried with me flying off all the time.” Applebloom said, a slight look of guilt on her face.

Archive frowned. “I apologize if I am causing any strife or discomfort with your family. This was never my intention.”

Applebloom shook her head. “Not your fault Archive. You never twisted my foreleg to be here, I visit you because I want to.”

Archive nodded but his frown remained. “And while I am appreciative of that, I must ask why you visit me so often if it causes your family to worry? Surely their happiness is worth more than mine?”

Applebloom raised an eyebrow at his words. “Happiness isn’t something you can place a value on, Archive. Nopony deserves happiness any more than anypony else.”

Applebloom looked down. “But you’re right; I probably do spend too much time here. I’m behind a lot with my job. Applejack’s being lenient ‘cause she’s my sister but if I were working anywhere else, I’d be fired.”

Archive nodded. “But that still leaves the question of ‘Why?’”

Applebloom nodded as she tried to come up with an answer to Archive’s question. She thought back to her conversation with Diamond Tiara during her party. Her story about her cutie mark and what it meant.

“Archive, do Kryptonian ponies get cutie marks?” Applebloom asked. Archive knew what she was referring to thanks to describing the meaning of the image on her flank when he inquired during one of her visits.

“No. I suspect your ability to possess a cutie mark is due to Earth’s magic.” Archive adopted an inquisitive face. “In fact, magic was sparse on Krypton. We were aware of its existence, and even made use of it at times, but we were a more technological society on the whole.”

Applebloom’s eyebrow raised in confusion. “But then how do ponies know what they’re supposed to do?”

“I am afraid I do not understand the question.” Archive said. “On Krypton, we simply did what we could to make the best of our abilities.”

Archive started to grow worried. “What has brought upon this line of thought?”

Applebloom looked down towards the chamber’s crystal floor. “Ponies ‘round here… They think having a cutie mark means you have a destiny. They think having a cutie mark gives you a purpose in life.”

Archive nodded. “An admirable philosophy.”

“Is it?” Applebloom asked. “Is my ‘destiny’ just… fixin’ things? Is that all I will ever do with my life?”

Applebloom got up as she started to pace across the crystal floor of the chamber. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my job but… I have all this power. All this potential.”

She looked at Archive with pleading eyes. “I would never say this to my sister’s face… but I think I’m being wasted on that farm.”

Applebloom’s pacing picked up speed as she grew more distraught. “And… And I feel terrible just saying that. I don’t care if I’m an alien or that I’m adopted, I AM an Apple. Farming is in my blood (metaphorically speaking). I should be proud of my job!”

Archive waited patiently for his friend to calm down. He knew so little of this planet or the ideals and philosophies of its natives aside from what Jor-El programmed into him. So he wasn’t sure what he could say to alleviate Applebloom’s concern.

“Have you spoken of these feelings to your family?” He finally decided to ask.

Applebloom scoffed. “And say what? That I think being on that farm is pointless?”
She looked back down at the crystal floor, the reflection of a saddened yellow face stared back at her.

Still, Archive persisted. “It’s obvious you hold your family in high regard. Wouldn’t their opinions on the matter offer valuable insight?”

Applebloom’s ears perked up at this. She had to admit it, Archive made a good point.
“What about you? What’s your opinion in all this?” She asked.

Archive thought for a moment before responding. “You are right in that you have unbridled potential. Your father certainly knew this when he sent you here.”

Applebloom thought in silence for a long time before she got back up to her hooves. “I should go home Archive. My family and I… have a lot to talk about.

Flying at a brisk pace across the quiet waters of the arctic north, Applebloom tried in vain to shake off her nervousness.

“It’ll be fine.” She told herself, pulling her white parka closer to her body. “They’ll understand. They have to understand… I hope they understand.”

Applebloom was about to simply continue flying towards home when a distant sound suddenly hit her ears.

“Was that… an explosion?”

Far off into the distance, far enough so that she could only see it with her heightened vision, there was a large ship trailing the waters.

Its upper deck was engulfed in flames… and Applebloom could hear cries of help from inside.

Without thinking, she immediately flew straight towards the ship at high-speeds. As she neared the burning ship, she used her x-ray vision to see inside. She found the surviving crew members huddled in what looked like a mess hall, cut off from escape by a fallen support beam blocking the exit.

Applebloom quickly dived towards the side of the ship. “Alright, time to see if this works.”

During one of her many visits to Archive, the computer informed her of a potential ability she might have gained from Celestia’s sun. If her father’s research into her biology was correct…

She removed the opaque goggles from her eyes as she started to stare intensely at the hull of the ship. With time and some concentration, Applebloom was shocked but delighted to see a steady stream of heat emanate from her eyes. The heat was mild at first, tempered by the cold winds around her, but it built up little by little.

Finally, the metal hull of the ship was pierced by Applebloom’s gaze. Working fast, her eyes traced a circle and the beam followed suite. Cutting off her heat vision, the circle of metal fell victim to gravity as it collapsed inside the ship’s interior.

Inside, ten very shocked sailors gasped as what appeared to be a flying earth pony enter their ship through a brand new door.

Without a word, Applebloom flew straight towards the sailors as she scooped up six on her back and wrapped her forelegs around four, two in each leg.

With hardly any effort, she hoisted the now terrified sailors up and out the hole to safety before dropping them on a solid mass of ice.

“Are y’all alright?” Applebloom said, mentally cursing herself for letting her southern accent out. She counted herself lucky her parka and goggles covered the majority of her face.

One of the sailor ponies, a red-maned stallion who was visibly still shaken by the whole ordeal, stammered an affirmative “Y-y-yeah.”

Applebloom looked them over, noting that none were badly injured in the fires. “Are there any more sailors trapped in there?” She asked, being careful this time to hide her accent.

“N-no.” The sailor pony said. “We’re a skeleton crew just meant to test out a new engine system.”

Despite the ordeal, the sailor allowed himself a very small smile. “It ah… didn’t work.”

Applebloom smirked. “I guess not. Do you boys know of any port towns around here? Any form of civilization?”

At this point, a different sailor raised his hoof to gain Applebloom’s attention. “There should be a fishing village not too far from here. We should be able to call for a lift back home from there.”

“Say no more.” Applebloom said. “Stay here for a second. I’ll be right back.”

With that, Applebloom willed herself to go higher into the air. From her new vantage point, it was easy enough to spot the fishing village mentioned by the sailor. Taking a quick second to memorize its location, Applebloom lowered herself back down.

The sailors looked up at their savior expectedly as she drifted down to meet them.
“Hold on tight, I’m gonna push you to the village.” She said, placing her hooves on the edge of the slab of ice.

The sailors did as she instructed and sat down in the most stable positions they could so as not to slide off their makeshift lifeboat.

As Applebloom pushed her charges to safety, the ship she had rescued them from began to sink into the icy cold waters. Before it was submerged completely, one could just make out a symbol emblazoned on the fore of the ship in the shape of a stylized ‘L’.

The arctic north neighboring Equestria was home to the nomadic Snow Dog tribes. Unlike their cave dwelling Diamond Dog cousins, Snow Dogs enjoyed civil relations with the ponies of Equestria thanks to trading their various fishing products with a number of Equestrian fine goods and wares.

One young Snow Dog sat on the edge of one of his village’s many piers into the open ocean. A simple fishing rod, little more than a stick with some twine, rested in his paws as the pup attempted to catch himself a snack.

As he sat patiently for a fish to come along and snag itself onto his hook, the pup noticed faint ripples in the water coming from the open ocean ahead of him. Looking up, he saw what appeared to be around a dozen ponies in silly outfits riding on a slab of ice being pushed by another pony who was flying in the air without wings.

The pup stared at the sight for a second longer before rubbing his eyes, shrugging, and returning his attention to his line.

“Ponies…”

Applebloom pushed the ice boat onto shore. The sailor ponies climbed off as they got bearings.

The red-maned sailor turned to Applebloom. “I don’t know who you are, but we would have been dead if you hadn’t come save us.” He offered a hoof to Applebloom. “So, on behalf of all of us, thank you.”

Applebloom shook the sailors hoof. “Are you going to be alright from here?” She asked.

The sailor nodded. “There’s a heli-pad a little ways off. We can call our company for an evac and get ourselves home in a few days.” He gave Applebloom a reassuring smile. “We’ll be fine. You’ve already done plenty for us.”

Applebloom nodded. “Take care.” She said before turning to leave.

As she flew away, a younger sailor turned towards his red-maned crewmate. “Who wasshe? What was she?”

The red-maned sailor watched Applebloom fly into the distance until she was a speck on the horizon. “Nothing short of an angel.” he said.

Time passed before Applebloom landed a good few acres away from her family’s farm. Before she made her way to the house, she gave the large plot of land they owned a sweeping glance. She took in the ordered and organized rows of apple trees that became more sporadic and less uniform in their placement as they got further and further from the barn.

The barn itself was a humble and simple design despite its large size. Applebloom smiled as she remembered Granny Smith telling her how her father, Jonah Gold, made the barn as large as he could to accommodate all the little colts and fillies running around.

Honeycrisp was done after three.

In more ways than one, Applebloom was happy she had lived and worked on this farm all her life. But she still had so much life left to live.

Saving the sailors on that ship woke something up in her. They could have died but instead are alive because of her and her powers. How can she go back to being a simple handymare after that?

With a small sigh, Applebloom walked the rest of the way to the barn. As she stepped through the door, she saw her family crowded around their old-fashioned radio as a news broadcast exposed a familiar story.

“A tragedy was averted earlier today when a cargo ship owned by the Canterlot Royal Navy found itself dead in the water with a fire raging through its decks.”

As the broadcast continued, Granny Smith noticed Applebloom enter the house. “And where have you been missy?” Granny said grabbing Applejack’s and Big Mac’s attention from the radio.

With all eyes on her, Applebloom knew the last thing she should do right now is fib. “Keep listening. You’ll find out.” Applebloom said, trying to force a smile.
Applejack and Big Mac exchanged worried glances before returning their attention to the radio. Granny Smith did the same, but not before flashing a knowing smirk to Applebloom.

“The ship in question was tasked with testing an experimental engine developed by the infamous LexCorp of Maretropolis. In the midst of the ship’s voyage, a failure with the engine caused an explosion leaving the ship in disrepair and its small crew in danger.”

The newscaster’s voice took on a much more positive tone as she continued the story.

“In any other circumstance, this is the part where we would have a touching eulogy for these brave sailors. But the crew of the now defunct ship still live to tell the tale. Mere moments after the ship was lost at sea, the entire crew called for an evacuation in a Snow Dog settlement about half a mile away.”

There was a short buzz of static as the recording was transferred to a different one. The ambient sounds suggested the recording was taken outside.

“I’m here now with the captain of these brave ponies to get their story on their miraculous survival. Captain Sea Strider, how did you and your crew escape the burning ship?

Applebloom recognized the voice on the radio as the red-maned stallion among the sailors.

“I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I didn’t have nine other ponies to confirm it for me. But when that engine died and the fires reached the crew deck, we all surely thought that was the end of it. But instead, a ray of red light pierced the hull of the ship, cutting a hole right through it.”

“A ray of red light?”

“If I knew what it was, I’d tell you. But for now, that’s the best I got. Anyway, after the hole was cut out a pony wearing a thick white parka flew in. The first odd thing I noted about her is that she wasn’t a pegasus.”

“Not a pegasus? But she flew.”

“And not a trace of any sort of wings. I think she was an earth pony cause I couldn’t see a horn either, but even then I’ve never see an earth pony pick up and carry ten full-grown stallions like we were nothing.”

“She just… picked you up? All at the same time?”

“And afterwards, she dropped us onto a slab of ice and pushed us to a nearby Snow Dog village. The rest, you know.”

“So a pony with no wings flew you to safety and, with no magic, carried ten sailors all the way to an out of the way port town?”

“I understand you’re skeptical but I have nine other ponies who will all tell you the exact same thing.”

“Then who, or what, was this mysterious pony?”

“One of my crew asked me that same question. I’ll tell you what I told him: Nothing short of an angel.”

There was another short buzz of static before the audio returned.

“And there you have it Equestria. Whoever this mysterious pony is, we have ten families thanking her right now. I’m Century Scoop signing off.”

Applebloom saw the shocked faces on her siblings fade as realization started to dawn on them. She waited for the other hoof to drop.

“Applebloom…” Applejack started to say. “I’m so proud of you!”

With that, Applejack scooped up her sister in a tight hug. Big Mac gave the teenager a rub on the head while Granny Smith simply smiled.

That… was not the reaction Applebloom was expecting.

She nudged her way out of Applejack’s hug. “Y-y’all ain’t mad?”

Applejack looked confused at her sister’s question. “Mad about what? Applebloom, you’re a hero!” She said, gesturing to the radio.

Applebloom looked down towards the ground. “Not really mad at what I did. Maybe… what I’m going to do.”

The other three Apples exchanged worried glances. “And what are you going to do?” Granny Smith asked.

Time passed as Applebloom confided in her family. She told them of how she felt she was being wasted on the farm. She told them of how she felt the need to use her powers for a noble cause.

In essence, she told them she wanted to leave.
The other three farm ponies were absolutely silent as Applebloom talked, taking in every word.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is…” Applebloom began. “I can’t just sit around and fix farming equipment when I can do so much more.”

Granny Smith was the first to speak. “And… where exactly do you plan to go?”
Applebloom lowered her head in though. A good question, she admitted to herself.

“Maretropolis.” She said. “Most of it’s already set up. Sweetie Belle has a job as a nightclub singer there and she and Scootaloo have been trying to get me to move into their condo.”

Applejack gave Applebloom a stare. It was difficult for Applebloom to determine just what kind of emotion she was expressing. She didn’t look angry or sad but she was still giving her little sister an intense look.

“And what are you gonna do for money?” Applejack said. “Ain't much call for a farmer in a big city like that and ain’t a lotta pay being a superhero.”

“Scootaloo has a job as an intern for a newspaper called the Daily Planet. It’s how she funds her sports shop. She’s promised to get me through the necessary channels for an interview.” Applebloom leaned back a little as she went in for the kill. “In fact, she’s told me in a letter that their currently understaffed and that she’s been making some strong pushes up the ladder. Between the need for more workers and the little bit of pull Scootaloo has, I’m basically guaranteed a job.”

Big Mac, surprisingly, had his own two cents to offer. “Applebloom, we can all tell this is important to you. I think regardless of what we say, y’all gonna do it anyway.” Applebloom looked away as she couldn’t quite bring herself to confirm Big Mac’s statement.

“So let me just say this…” Big Mac continued. “What exactly do y’all think is gonna happen?”

Applebloom cocked her head, obviously confused by the question.

“What I mean is: You go to this city, you put on a costume, and you start calling yourself a superhero. What happens next?”

Applebloom already had her answer. “Whatever I need to do. If I find somepony in trouble, I’ll help them. If I find somepony causing trouble, I’ll stop them.” Applebloom stood up as her resolve strengthened. “I won’t pretend it will actually be that simple, but it’s more than what I’m doing now.”

Applejack stood up herself so she could meet her sister’s eye. As before, her expression was completely unreadable. “So you're basically planning to put Equestria on your shoulders?”

Applebloom shook her head. “No, I’m planning on doing what I can with what I can do. Which, if we’re all being honest, is a heck of a lot.”

Applejack closed her eyes. She sighed before looking her sister in the eyes once more. “Like Big Mac said: Regardless of what we say, you’re going to do this. So let me just say this, if only for your peace of mind.”

Applejack started to slowly walk up to her sister as she continued. “I pride myself on my honesty. If you believe some of the egg-head philosophers up in Canterlot, they would say I’m the living embodiment of honesty.”

Applejack shook her head in annoyance. “I’m not sure I agree with that, but I still consider being truthful to be one of the greater virtues of pony-kind. Which is why, as much as I want to convince you not to go and stay here, I can’t.”

Applebloom looked confused at this statement prompting Applejack to continue. “If I forbade you from leaving the farm to do what you feel you need to do, I would be the worst kind of liar. The kind that lies to herself. I would be a hypocrite.”

Applebloom’s eyes widened as she realized what her sister was saying. “Because you felt the exact same way before.”
Applebloom heard the story years ago. How her sister felt there was more for her life outside the farm, how she left to find a better place.

“But… you came back though.” Applebloom said, not sure why she was arguing against herself. She supposed she just wanted to cover everything that could be said on the matter. “You decided the farm was the best life for you.”

Applejack nodded. “Your right. I had a grand and amazing life set up for me and yet I still chose the farm.” Applejack placed a hoof on Applebloom’s shoulder. “But that was my choice. Ain’t nopony said it had to be yours.”

Applejack took another step as she pulled Applebloom into a tight hug. “And you owe it to yourself to see this through and make that choice as well. You never needed it… but you have my blessing.” She said as tears started to form in her eyes.

Granny Smith and Big Mac added themselves to the hug.
“Mine too.” Granny Smith said.
“Eeyup.” Big Mac added.

Applebloom smiled, her own tears starting to fall, as she scooped up her entire family in a big bear-hug, lifting them off the ground.

A few months passed after that as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo made all the necessary arrangements for their friend. Finally, the day arrived when Applebloom was to leave Sweet Apple Acres for Maretropolis.

She was up bright and early in the morning, double-checking her luggage to make sure she wouldn’t be forgetting anything before she heard a knock on her door.

“Come in.” She said. Her door opened as Applejack walked in, a sad smile on her face.

“Just came up to say goodbye.” She said. “I get the feeling I’m not gonna see you again for a long time.”

“Oh, Applejack” Applebloom said, pulling her sister into a tight hug. “It’s not like y’all never gonna see me again. I’ll visit, I promise.”

She pulled away to give her sister a wide smile. “After all, I’m always just a short flight away.”

Applejack wiped her eyes before she reached behind her. “I also came up here to make sure you took this with you.”

Applebloom cocked her head as her sister pulled out a familiar bundle of red cloth.
“Applejack… Is that…?” Applebloom started to say.

Applejack nodded. “I figured… that this would be a good reminder for why you’re doing this. A… a symbol.”

Applebloom reached for the cloth, unfolding it to reveal the same shield that had ingrained itself to her memory.

The red ‘S’.

After giving similar farewells to her brother and grandmother, Applebloom took to the skies with her luggage trailing behind her in the air.

But instead of heading straight towards Maretropolis, as she told her family, she instead flew as quickly as she could (which was very quickly) to her Fortress of Solitude. She reminded herself that Archive talked about having something to show her before she left.

When she reached the crystal structure, she flew straight into its entrance and straight towards Archive’s chamber.

“Archive? I’m here, what did y’all want to show me?” Applebloom said, facing the mirrored crystal wall.

Archive’s visage appeared on the wall, a warm smile welcoming Applebloom to the fortress.
“Ah, Kala-El. I’m glad you came by.” Archive said.

“I can’t stay long.” Applebloom admitted. “Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are waiting for me. They want to take me for a night out on the town.”

She gave an embarrassed smile. “Scootaloo called it a ‘traditional Maretropolis welcome’.”

Archive smile widened. “Then I’ll be quick. Do you remember when you confided in me your desire to use your Kryptonian abilities to become a sort of ‘costumed hero’?”
Applebloom nodded, remembering the conversation they had after she told her family of the same thing.

Archive gestured to one of the walls of the chamber. “Well… I believe you will like what I am about to show you.” he said as an opening in the wall appeared.

Curious by this new unexplored chamber, Applebloom ventured through the newly created door and gasped when she saw what was inside.

“I do not pretend to be familiar with your customs, but I suppose a ‘costumed hero’ would need some sort of costume.” Archive said.

Applebloom looked the ‘costume’ in question over. It was just… here. Just displayed here in this big empty chamber. As though it was waiting for her.

“Archive…” Applebloom said. “What is this?”

Applebloom could practically hear Archive’s smile widen. “Technically, it’s a simple standard-issue Kryptonian research suit used by your father during his scientific expeditions. But I imagine it will be most helpful for your own ‘expeditions’.”

Applebloom gave the ‘research suit’ a thorough look-over. The majority of the suit was a deep, royal blue with the exception of padded red sections on each of the hooves. The material was sturdy yet comfortable to the touch, like some kind of quality leather armor. Yet even Applebloom could tell the suit was stronger and tougher than any leather in Equestria by a hundred-fold.

But, of course, what truly drew Applebloom’s attention was the familiar crest on the suit’s chest.
“Archive… this… this is…” Applebloom couldn’t say another word. She instead took the suit from its pedestal and began to slip it on.

The knowledge that the suit originally belonged to her father made it surprising to Applebloom concerning how well it fit her. But she later realized that the suit itself was changing to fit her body-shape.

Walking back into Archive’s chamber, she looked herself over in her digital friend’s screen.
While she certainly loved it, she still had to scrunch her face at her reflection. Something… wasn’t quite right. It was if something was missing.

A metaphorical light bulb appeared above her head as she ran to luggage and began to dig through her clothes. Finding the item she was looking for, she ran back towards the mirrored wall.

With a grand and flourishing motion, Applebloom draped the red cloth over her shoulders. It would take time to fully incorporate it into the suit itself, but the sheet of red over her back did wonders to complete the image.

Archive’s smile never left his face as he saw Applebloom trot alongside his screen, showing off her new apparel. “Well? How do you feel?”

Applebloom’s smile widened as the red ‘S’ on her chest glinted in the mirror.

“Super.”

“Super!” Black Granite said, complimenting his students grapple

Diamond Tiara had certainly learned a great deal from her new mentor since she arrived in the minotaur lands just a few short weeks ago.

Upon arrival, she sought out an infamous individual believed by many to be the greatest hand-to-hand fighter among the minotaurs (and that is saying a lot). She eventually found her target, the legendary warrior Black Granite, and asked him to take her on as his student.

While Diamond was no slouch when it came to fighting, she was still a child compared to Granite when she first started her training under him.

But in just a few short weeks, she had managed to master both minotaurian wrestling as well as bipedal boxing.

“Let’s call it good for today.” Granite said, still in his student’s headlock.

Diamond allowed herself a slight smirk. “Worried about your reputation?” She said, tightening her hold.

Granite gave out a hearty laugh… before grabbing Diamond by her head and casually tossing her towards a nearby pillar.

With a loud ‘crack!’, Diamond hit the pillar spine-first before flopping on the hot sand beneath her.

Diamond sputtered sand out of her mouth as she tried getting back up on her hooves. “That… wasn’t very nice.”

Granite merely shrugged. “Consider that another lesson. You’re good kid, probably the best student I’ve had yet.”

Granite’s jovial attitude dropped for a quick second. “But there is no better teacher than experience, and I still have a good thirty years on you.”

Granite’s near permanent smile returned in an instant as he helped Diamond Tiara up to her hooves. “Still though, for a pampered and prissy pretty pink pony, you’re not that bad of a scrapper.”

Diamond, despite the pain in her back, returned her teacher’s smile. “I choose to take that as a compliment.”

Granite gave her a pat on the back that was much more forceful than necessary. “Come on; let me buy you an ice cream. You can either eat it or put it on your back.” He said before giving a boisterous laugh.