Author's Note

Spoilers...the CMC marks...it's official now.

Welcome back.

The train into Ponyville, how long had it been since she had last rode it when she graduated? A year ago? Was that all? Scootaloo thought as she sat up in her seat. Her year old still fresh cutie mark of a lightning bolt shield on her flanks. A whole year since that day in the school yard; two years since the graduation with the others, two years since the CMC disbanded. What need would their be for it when you're life's calling is found? She stayed in touch with her classmates of course, but there was so much still left unsaid, something she never realized after the excitement wore off. What did her mark mean? a shield and a lightning bolt...didn't Prince Shinning Armor have a similar mark on the sides of his flanks sides? Did her mark mean she was destined to be some "Great figurehead" in Canterlot? Well the royal guard would be damned if a mere filly just out her blank flank years was allowed among their ranks, ironic given the ratio of males to females in Equestrian society.

She adjusted the black bomber jacket with slits for her strong wings in the back, it felt...different, to say the least. Most of the other ponies her age where starting to take to wearing clothes for more than just special occasions, before ponies would only wear ellegant gowns and hoof wrought metal shoes for events or parties, and in the Wonderbolts case air shows, but most ponies before roughly a year ago would have been content to just, prance around with just the coats on thier backs. Now being dressed was all the time, was all the rage, That meant more emphasis on less..."Extravagance" when it came to fashion. Her best friend's sister Rarity would not approve, the way the colts and fillies began trading in hoof stitched gowns and jackets, for these new clothes called..."Jeans." Not to mention the tiny tops that rode up barrels, like the purple one she had on under her black bomber. and the shoes on her back hooves, not even made of a fine precious metal the way the elite and royals shoes where. 'When she saw first saw them in the windows' She read in her friends letter in her seat, 'I thought she was going to have a brain aneurysm! She called these new "sneakers," "no better than wrapping potato sacks around our hooves!" My sis eh scoots?'

The train pulled in and she got out her seat to step onto the platform; all around her, the same batch after batch of freshly CM'ed youngsters had their older siblings and relatives to see them. This was her old town, she had come home, why did she feel so...isolated? Scootaloo looked from face to face, but not one of them looked familiar. Not one seemed to remind her of her days as a wide eyed little blank flank, but she wasn't all that different right? Oh sure her wings had grown in and her flanks had filled out nicely, not to mention her slender legs well suited for the flyer she was growing into. She was at an awkward halfway point of the little filly and the grown girl her sister had been and still more or less was.

"This must be how Twilight felt when she started towering over her friends." She said adjusting herself with anxiety. Okay that wasn't exactly had it worked, even now the "Princess" Twilight was no different than that first day she had seen her at that summer sun festival a lifetime ago, maybe a little longer in the neckline and slightly taller than her friends but she was still the same old twilight that had been turned to stone by that cockatrice in the forest that night right? 'Right,' she again thought to herself. 'Get it together Scootaloo, if she's no different because of little growing, then you're not that different.' Scootaloo smiled and trotted with a sway of her flanks almost wishing her jean shorts weren't covering up her cutie mark, all that time trying to earn the damn thing, and she wasn't even showing it off properly.

Over the crowd of ponies talking and greeting each other, Scootaloo finally heard a familiar voice calling out to her. "Hey Scoots! Ya made it!" A Manehattan accented filly called over the crowds. Scootaloo turned her head to see the pinkish red mane of Babs Seed waving a hoof at her. Beside her was Sweetie Belle, Applebloom, and...

"Spike?" She asked as she made her way over to the group of her friends at a lunch table by the station restaurant. She took note of the not so baby dragon anymore. Spike was now as tall as a full grown stallion; he had a pair of wings no bigger than a pony's on his back. His claws had come in nicely, not exactly the sharp talons that could tear a pony to ribbons, but they where definitely noticeable. That was the only part of him that was noticeable either, like his pony company, Spike had slipped into a pair of tight hide hugging black shorts and a sleeveless muscle shirt that definitely showed off how strong his powerful dragon muscles had become. Scootaloo also couldn't help but notice for a brief second, she found herself drawn to a bulge in Spike's shorts, She licked her lips when she saw the bulge was all the way down to his inner thigh.

"Um Scootaloo? What are you?" Spike said his scales turning red as he huddled in his seat snapping scootaloo back to reality.

"Huh? Oh nothing, It's just so great to see you guys is all!" She said blushing herself as she took turns hugging each of the old CMC in turn, She almost lost it when it was her turn to give Spike a hug, 'that dragon really should have chosen looser clothes,' she thought feeling his spear poke her as she hugged him. She did her best to conceal her curiosity and interest as she took a seat and ordered her food.

"What'll it be miss?" The stallion behind the counter asked.

"A daisy chain and lay...I MEAN daisy, grain, and hay on rye please." She said getting a raised brow from the cook as her friends save for a confused looking Spike only giggled. 'whoa there girl, calm down.' She again thought as everyone resumed eating. I have got to get a hold of myself. I see how grown my friends, especially Spike have grown and all the sudden I'm making sex puns out my ears.

"So Spike," she asked as her sandwich was placed in front of her. "I see you're...like that time you became a greedy giant only not...you know...mean and big." As she took a bite.

"You noticed?" He asked his voice with slightly more growl to it, and yet still a little squeaky. "Twilight and the dragons finally got negotiations together and they shared elder knowledge with her, but it was this old tan dragon with a broken lower snout horn that talked to me on this snowy mountain. He told me how to control my growth so that it's not motivated by a sense of greed, but a sense of purpose...Yeah its a lot off that "wise old master" Ying-yang mubo jumbo and I almost don't believe it myself, but it's allowed me to not be a baby anymore...without turning into...you know." He said scratching behind his head with a claw. Making everyone there break out into bouts of laughter.

"So...how have you all been?" Scootaloo asked taking a sip of a smoothie she ordered.

"Eh Ya know how it is in the city, I get old mares that can't accept their grayer than mules."

"Because they are mules cous." Applebloom said interrupting her cousin.

"Or I get...dumb...chicks that can't decide on what the oblivion they want me ta do with their bird's nests they call manes." It was clear Babs was using all she could to avoid saying a few more choice colorful words in that last sentence.

"Things at Sweet Apple Acres is fine an dandy, not much is different cept...well..." She said blushing and hiding behind her apple family hat. In spite of having earned her apple family hat, Apple bloom still wore her big red bow from her blank flank days, the effect gave her a edge of filly like cuteness...and innocence.

"What is it?" Scootaloo asked feeling her curiosity peak.

"Ohhh nothing." Sweetie Belle said her voice still just as soft and girlish as her days as a blank.

"Come one don't tease, what's the big whup?" She asked Applebloom in annoyance.

"Say please." She replied giggling like a school filly.

"Please." Scootaloo said growing impatient/

"Pretty Please?" Applebloom replied back lowering her hat.

"Applebloom aren't we a little old for this? Oblivion Isn't this joke older than we are?" She said folding her fore-hooves over her chest.

"Alright, alright, I'll tell y'all, killjoy." She said before sipping her own drink and sighing contently. "Mah big brother Mac asked Ms. Cheerilee to marry him! And yes before you say anything it was for real this time, not a relapse of that poison." She said blushing hard.

"Really?" Scootaloo said her wings popping open in excitement, which she promptly folded back closed.

"Yep, and she said yes as soon as he got on his knees, they're getting hitched next heart's and hooves day...ironic given their history with that day, but that's not...okay it is but it's not the original reason I wrote to everypony to come back to ponyvile." She said as she watched Scootaloo blush as the memories of that Hearts and hooves day came flooding back. "Ya see, a few days before Big Mac proposed, I was thinking of how it's been a year since we graduated from cutie mark school right?"

"Yeah," Scootaloo said with renewed intrigue.

"Sure seems like it was a lifetime ago when it was only a year." Sweetie said.

"And we had a lot of good memories in that one room school right?"

"Uh uh," was the general reply.

"So I was thinking, we may not know what the future holds, the CMC may be gone, but our friendship lives on right?" Applebloom happily said channeling her old CMC perkiness. While most of her friends agreed. "So after Mac proposed, I asked Ms. Cheerilee if I could...borrow her school house in a few days...while everypony get's their flanks back to town, for a little...reunion this saturday night the 10th of October."

"The day we got our marks." Sweetie said lifting her white skirt aside to admire her mark. "Applebloom thought we should all get together for one last night together...sure it may not BE the last, but just as we never knew what our marks would be when we got them, we don't know what the future will bring now that we have them."

"Hey wait!" Spike said in awe, "I get the idea, but...why did you guys invite me? I'm not a pony; I wasn't a Cutie Mark Crusader, and I wasn't a school foal." Spike said giving his head scales (which where slightly pointer now) a few strokes with a comb.

"I know...Spiky wikey," Sweetie Belle said channeling Rarity's old pet name for him and irritating him a bit, "but you still where a big part of our foal school days spike, and you where like the "Forth Crusader", like how you're also the "Seventh Pony" among my sister's friends. SO don't you wanna join all those carefree grads now that you're a big dragon yourself?" She asked him.

"Uhh sure, I guess." Spike said again rubbing behind his head again not sure what to think of the situation.

"Good Sweetie Belle said," her voice suddenly getting a bit...seductive and mischievous. "Because with the R.S.V.P's we've been getting, this is gonna be one reunion nopony will be forgetting anytime soon." She said a devious and sneaky little grin spreading ear to ear, evoking the oh so deviousness of her rivals turned best friends Diamond and Silver.