End of the Crusades

by TimeBomb0

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Cutie Mark Crusaders
Length: 37436

How the CMC finally get their cutie marks.

It's been ages since the Cutie Mark Crusaders became friends, yet they still have not acquired their cutie marks. As they've been told, self-discovery comes at its own pace. However, when one of the crusaders discovers her special talent first, what does it mean for the trio of friends? Will there even still be a friendship?

A story of how the CMC finally acquire their cutie marks.

Published 2012-06-26 17:44:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-08-05 01:49:43 UTC

Prologue: CMC Opportunists

The filly stood motionless, her legs firmly rooted into the stage. Bright lights shone straight into her wide eyes. She couldn’t see past the spotlights, but knew that behind them stood an audience whose numbers may as well be limitless. Their collective gaze was focused on her and her alone.

Her natural instinct told her to run and get away from all the prying eyes, but she couldn’t. She had to come through with her promise to her friends.

And yet how could they do this to her? If they were such good friends, how could they just leave her when she needed them the most?

She shook these thoughts out of her mind. They couldn’t help her now. She had to do this all by herself, whether she wanted to or not.

Taking a deep breath, the filly crept up to the microphone, thinking of anything but all the other ponies looking right at her. She reached up and gave the mic a quick tap, hearing it come out loud and clear in the speakers. She swallowed, trying to force down more scary thoughts.

Despite the noise of the gulp, she could still hear the last sound that sealed her fate: The faint noise of a record needle lowering onto a spinning vinyl track just behind the curtains, the sound being picked up through the speakers. Soon enough, the sound was followed by the beginnings of a soft piano introduction.

There was only one thing that the filly could do now. Letting her eyes fall shut, she waited for her cue, and began to sing.

**********************************

“Well, that was a bust.”

Scootaloo’s remark was something that her two accompanying friends knew already, but nonetheless rang true. It was the first thing any of them had said since the incident, but it fulfilled its purpose of breaking the silence between them.

“Now that I think of it, I’m not so sure I wanted a Pet Gymnastics Training cutie mark, anyway,” continued Scootaloo as she led the way for her friends, a lone feather sticking out of her ruffled mane.

“I guess not,” said Apple Bloom, dragging her hooves behind her friend. A pair of saddlebags were wrapped around her barrel. “I’m just glad Mr. Pawtail didn’t ban us from the pet store after all the trouble we caused. Not really somethin’ I wanna have to explain to my big sis.”

“I thought for sure he would have liked how happy his pets were to be out of their cages for a little bit,” said Sweetie Belle, carrying bits of sawdust in her tail. “The birds were really happy, too. They were flying all over the place!” She smiled a bit.

“He didn’t like it so much when they flew out the door,” said Scootaloo. She stopped to brush the feather out of her mane.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that’s true.” Sweetie’s smile faltered as the result of their actions dawned on her.

The fillies’ downtrodden faces contrasted with the happiness all around them. The midday sun cast its bright glow over the streets of Ponyville, filling the air with a gentle warmth. It was the perfect weather for everypony to be out and about, taking care of chores, shopping for supplies, enjoying a nice meal at a restaurant, or simply having fun in the company of friends and family. Everyone was happy. Everyone except for the Crusaders

“Maybe we should’ve asked Fluttershy if we could’ve trained her animals instead,” Sweetie spoke up again.

“Maybe,” said Apple Bloom, “but between us bein’ pet gymnastics trainers, petsitters, and veterinarians, I get the feelin’ our cutie marks ain’t gonna have anythin’ to do with animals.”

“If we keep striking out like this, our cutie marks won’t have anything to do with anything,” said Scootaloo, turning her head to look at her flank. Sure enough, it was still as blank as the day she had met her friends and became part of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Seriously, I lost count of all the crusades we’ve been on about a couple of weeks ago.”

“Striking out...” Sweetie became lost in thought for a second. An uplifting idea soon lit up her face. “Hey, maybe we could try being Cutie Mark Crusader Kickball Players!”

“We already tried that, remember? We spent a whole month workin’ up the money to pay for that window we broke,” said Apple Bloom.

“Oh, yeah.” Once more, Sweetie’s face lost its luster. “But we have to keep trying. I mean, there are only so many talents out there. We gotta find it sometime if we keep looking. I’m sure Apple Bloom still has lots of plans for us to get our cutie marks, right?” She turned to her yellow-coated friend with a hopeful smile.

Apple Bloom stopped in her tracks for a moment, her eyes moving away to avoid Sweetie’s gaze, “Um, actually, I’m kinda runnin’ out of ideas for crusades.”

Both Sweetie and Scootaloo came to a sudden stop and turned to look at Apple Bloom with confused looks.

“Huh?” replied Sweetie, “but you always have an idea.”

“I know.” Apple Bloom lowered her head to the ground. “But we’ve been crusadin’ for so long, it’s just hard to keep coming up with stuff we haven’t tried yet. At least, stuff that doesn’t take a lot of money to get off the ground.” She nodded her head over to Scootaloo and added, “The pet gymnastics thing was actually her idea.”

“Yeah, I heard Rainbow Dash did something like that to figure out which pet she wanted to have,” said Scootaloo. Her voice and head rose a little upon mention of the daring mare before dropping back down. “I guess it doesn’t work so well for finding cutie marks, though.”

“We have been on a lot of crusades,” said Sweetie. Now that she started to think of it, she too couldn’t quite think of all the attempts they had made together in order to find themselves and finally earn their cutie marks. Had it really been so long since they met and began their quest? It seemed like only yesterday that they were the Cutie Mark Crusader Pony War Re-enacters, or the Cutie Mark Crusader Glue Makers, or the Cutie Mark Crusader Mud-Ballers.

“You know, I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” said Apple Bloom, bringing Sweetie out of her thoughts, “But we might have to put the crusades on hold for a little bit.”

“What?” Sweetie gasped.

“Are you crazy?” said Scootaloo, also in shock. “We only have a couple months until Winter Set-Up, and you know what that means, right?”

“I know, it’ll get colder,” replied Apple Bloom.

“And the days will get shorter, and our homework pile will get bigger and harder,” continued Scootaloo. She stared right into her friend’s red eyes. “If we don’t cram in as many crusades as we can now, it might be months before we can try to get our cutie marks again!”

“I know, I know.” Apple Bloom took a step back. “I’m only sayin’ it might be a good idea to take a break so we can come up with better ideas for Crusades. An’ not only that, but we have another problem.” She lifted up a hoof and opened one of her saddlebags. A lone moth flew out of the opening. “We’re flat broke.”

“So? We could just come up with an idea that doesn’t need us to spend any money,” said Scootaloo.

“I dunno, my imagination’s been runnin’ on empty for a while now.”

“Don’t sweat it, me and Sweetie could easily think of something,” said Scootaloo, adopting her look of determination.

“Yeah!” said Sweetie. “There must be all kinds of crusades we could still do, like, um…”

The trio stood in silence for a few moments. Sweetie and Scootaloo both moved their heads about, Scootaloo’s eyes drifting upward and hoof resting on her muzzle while Sweetie pawed at the ground.

“I got nothing,” Scootaloo finally said.

“Me neither.” Sweetie sighed. “But couldn’t we just borrow some money from our families to pay for the expensive crusades?”

“I can’t,” replied Apple Bloom, “I get all my allowance from doin’ chores, and Applejack never gives me any more bits than that.”

“Me neither,” said Scootaloo, “I already begged my parents to let me have my allowance for the next two weeks early so I could get the wagon and scooter fixed.”

“I kept tellin’ ya that front wheel was really wobbly,” said Apple Bloom. Her backside twitched as she recalled the sore bottoms she often got from the wagon rides just days before the wheel broke.

“I know, I thought the wagon could take it,” came Scootaloo’s usual retort. "How was I supposed to know that pothole was going to snap the wheel clean off?"

“And I know Rarity’s not gonna let me borrow any money, either,” said Sweetie glumly, ignoring the latest argument between her friends. She had to admit, having to stay with her sister while her parents were away on vacation had its downsides. “So that’s it, huh? No more crusades for a while?” She asked, looking straight down at the ground.

“I hate to say it, but it looks that way,” replied Scootaloo with the same tone, “I mean, it’s not like the answer’s just gonna hit us—ow!”

Not one moment after she had said that, a lone piece of paper smacked clean onto Scootaloo’s face, causing her to snap back and flail a hoof at her head.

“What the hay, what is this thing!?” she said, the voice slightly muffled from the paper. “Get it off!”

“Hold on, I’ll get it for ya!” Apple Bloom sprung into action, fumbling her hooves over Scootaloo’s face in an attempt to remove the dastardly piece.

“Let me help!” said Sweetie as she joined Apple Bloom’s side and threw her hooves into the mix.

A mess of limbs flew about every which way in an effort to either pry the paper off or, in Scootaloo’s case, keep them away to avoid an accidental jab in the face. Shouts of “Hold still!” and “Watch it!” broke out as the trio moved closer to each other to get an easier shot.

“Whoa!”

“Oof!”

Before any of them knew it, Scootaloo lost her balance in the barrage of hooves, falling to her side. Apple Bloom’s hooves kept going without anything to stop them, bringing the rest of her with them. Sweetie came tumbling right after, leaving the crusaders lying in a pile in the middle of the road, groaning from the sudden shock. The paper, finally dislodged, gently swayed in the air before coming to a rest on the ground next to them.

“Oh, hi there, girls!”

A feminine, somewhat motherly voice awoke the crusaders from their daze. The fillies shook their heads and looked up to find a fuchsia-colored mare with curly pink hair and a smile of everlasting patience.

“Miss Cheerilee?” asked Sweetie.

“Good afternoon, girls,” replied Cheerilee, “I trust you’ve been making the most of this wonderful afternoon.”

“Uh… you could say that,” said Apple Bloom.

“Well, I hope you all remember to work on your math homework before school tomorrow. It’s not a good idea to rush through it all right before class.”

Cheerilee’s sentence was met with silence from the school-fillies, their eyes darting about. Cheerilee giggled a little to herself. She supposed she should be a little disappointed in them, but it was still a little fun to catch them red-hoofed.

“Oh, and what’s this?” she said when her vision drifted downwards for a split second. “Looks like you’ve found one of my runaway fliers.”

“Fliers? For what?” asked Sweetie as she finally got back up on her hooves. Her friends followed suit.

“See for yourself.” Cheerilee nodded at the paper at their feet.

All as one, the Crusaders looked down at the flier. Now that the colored side of the paper no longer clung to Scootaloo’s head, they could see what it advertised.

The flier showed a drawing of a silhouetted pony standing behind a microphone on a stage. A musical staff, complete with notes and a clef, came out of the pony’s mouth in a wavey motion. Above and below the picture was the text describing the announcement, which Apple Bloom read aloud for the convenience of her friends:

“Ponyville First Annual ’Sing Your Heart Out’ Singing Contest. Come sing in front of an audience for fun and prizes! Saturday night at the town plaza. Ponies of all ages accepted. Solo and Group acts allowed. Money prize for first place, five bit entry fee per participating pony. See Cheerilee or the town mayor for more information."

“A contest?” asked Scootaloo, “What’s it for?”

“It’s just a little fundraiser the Mayor and I came up with at the last town meeting. All the proceeds go to repaving some of the more worn-out roads around Ponyville.”

“They could really use it,” said Scootaloo, earning an unseen eyeroll from Apple Bloom.

“But what’s the money prize?” asked Sweetie.

“Oh, it’s not too much,” said Cheerilee, “Just fifty bits for whoever comes in first place.”

“Fifty bits!?” shouted Apple Bloom loud enough for the entire block to hear. “Um...” she looked around, her cheeks turning a light shade of red, “I mean, that sure is a lot of money.”

Cheerilee giggled a little in her throat again. “I guess it could get you a few extra things at the market.” She reminded herself that younger ponies have a different appreciation for money than grown-ups.

“Well, I’d better get going so I can finish hanging up all these fliers,” continued Cheerilee, motioning to her saddlebags. She returned her head to the fillies and noticed them concentrating on the paper on the ground still, causing her to smile just a little more. She didn’t know what they were planning, but she knew that they would pursue it with the kind of enthusiasm that only a child could muster. “Tell you what: You can go ahead and keep that one for yourselves, and if you know anypony who might want to give it a try, tell them to come see me sometime before the show, okay?”

“Sure thing, Miss Cheerilee!” said Apple Bloom, giving her teacher an earnest smile.

“Okay, then. Take care, my little ponies!” With that, Cheerilee walked past the three of them as they waved goodbye to her, and began to hum a light tune to herself.

“Bye, Miss Cheerilee!” Sweetie Belle waved the hardest of the three.

“Fifty bits, huh?” muttered Apple Bloom. She concentrated on the flier as soon as Cheerilee was out of her vision. She could feel the beginnings of a smile working its way onto her face. “Maybe the answer really is right in front of us.”

“Yeah, how many crusades could we fund with that much money?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“I dunno, but I’d say at least a good three or four, maybe more if we squeezed every bit.”

“But what are we supposed to do about the entry fee?” said Scootaloo, pointing her hoof at the important line. “We’re flat broke, remember?”

“Yeah, I did say that,” said Apple Bloom, her smile faltering for a second. Just as it did, however, her eyes lit up just as another idea bloomed inside her head.

“Although…” she walked forward a little bit, then quickly turned around to face her friends. “Y’all remember the time we tried bein’ Cutie Mark Crusader Coin Collectors?”

“Yeah, I remember that. I didn’t think we could ever go on another crusade as boring as that one was,” said Scootaloo

“I know it wasn’t one of my best ideas, but I might still have some of the coins we found lyin’ around the clubhouse. There might just be enough t’ pay for the entry fee.”

“And then we all go on and win the show to make the money, right?” said Sweetie Belle.

“Exactly.” Apple Bloom nodded.

“All right, now we’re talking,” said Scootaloo with a grin, “I’m not much for singing, but I’m down if it means I’ll get my cutie mark sooner.”

“Me too,” said a smiling Sweetie.

Apple Bloom picked up the flier with her mouth and dropped it in her open saddlebag. “Then what’re we standin’ around here for? Let’s get to the clubhouse on the double!”

Neither Scootaloo nor Sweetie needed more explanation than that. Turning in the general direction of Sweet Apple Acres, the Crusaders raced off at full gallop in the hopes of bringing them one step closer to their cutie marks.

Chapter 1: CMC Book-Finders

Apple Bloom dug through the pile of various crusade-related objects, giving little care as to what she flung about in her search. Scootaloo merely looked at her friend from a small distance, knowing better than to try and get in the filly’s way when she was in the middle of an important Crusader task. She also knew better than to stand still while so many objects were being haphazardly tossed about.

“Hey, watch it!” Scootaloo jerked her head away from one of Apple Bloom’s airborne hammers at just the right time.

“Sorry,” replied Apple Bloom, not even turning to look at her friend, “but I just know that box o' coins is around here somewhere.”

“I’ve been saying our clubhouse needed some cleaning up,” said Sweetie Belle. Unlike Scootaloo, she was on the other side of the room, sitting on the floor and keeping herself occupied by brushing the sawdust out of her tail. She paused to lift her tail up to her face and examine it, letting it fall back down when she couldn’t see or feel any more pieces of the itchy pet bedding. Sweetie quietly thanked the fact that her sister probably wouldn’t force her to take a second bath today now that she wasn’t in such a “filthy” manner.

“I know, Sweetie. I've been meanin' to build a shelf or somethin' to put all this stuff. Ah, here it is!” Apple Bloom’s eyes lit up as she recognized her goal: a small featureless case poking out from under a pile of other items.

“Just need t’ get it out from under here.” Apple Bloom gave a tug at a handle, but the case didn’t move an inch. “Hey Scootaloo, can ya lend a hoof?” She looked over at her nearby friend.

“I’m on it,” said Scootaloo. Collecting herself, Apple Bloom bit down on the handle. Scootaloo did the same on Apple Bloom’s tail, doubling their pulling pony power.

“’un, too, ’ree, ’ull!”

The combined effort of the two fillies’ strength was more than a match for the box. The jerk sent the case flying, landing just short of Sweetie and making her jump a little. However, with nothing to bear the load, the pile of innumerable crusade relics came toppling down with a mighty Crash! upon the fillies beneath.

“Oh my gosh!” Sweetie bolted up on her hooves and ran up to the edge of the pile, unable to see her friends through the mess. “Are you okay?”

A red bow poked up out of a mix of golf clubs and hang-gliding equipment, with the rest of Apple Bloom following shortly after. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that.”

Scootaloo popped out on the other side of the pile. She shook the dizziness out of her head. “I’m fine too, don’t sweat it. It’s not the worst thing I’ve been buried under.” She took a moment to smack herself in the side of the head a few times, dislodging a crayon that had found itself wedged in her ear. “So did we get the coin box loose?” she asked as she looked about for the telltale case.

“Yup,” replied Apple Bloom while she maneuvered through the sea of junk, “Now I just need to add up all the coins an’ see if we have enough to cover the entry fee.”

“Sounds great,” said Sweetie once her friends made their way out of the pile. With her friends okay, she turned her attention to the sizable mess now taking up over half the floor space of the clubhouse. “I guess I’ll work on cleaning this up while you count up the money.”

As Sweetie walked off to get started on her cleaning duties, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo crouched down to where the small case was and carefully opened it. The box was filled to the brim with coins of all sizes, colors, and shapes. The CMC had spared no effort in gathering as many coins as possible when they undertook this particular crusade.

“Alright, let’s see here,” Apple Bloom said as she started to sift through the veritable treasure chest. “Board game money, bit, carnival token, bit, chocolate coin—”

“I’ll take that!” Before Apple Bloom could react, Scootaloo snatched up the chocolate coin. In the blink of an eye, she unwrapped the outer foil and flicked the treat into her mouth. She closed her eyes and gave the treat a couple chews when her eyes shot open and she stopped in mid-bite, immediately proceeding to spit out the coin.

“Ugh, that was super-stale! I’m gonna be tasting that all day now!” Scootaloo stuck her tongue out.

“What’d ya expect? It’s been there since the last Nightmare Night,” said Apple Bloom. “Now let’s keep searchin’ for good bits. It might help ya forget about the aftertaste.”

Once Scootaloo recovered from the shock of the spoiled sweet, she rejoined her friend in their quest to find legal currency. The conversation between them for the following couple of minutes consisted of them muttering out loud the kind of coin they had between their hooves to let the other know if they had struck tiny paydirt.

“There!” Apple Bloom declared with a smile when they finished going through all the different coins. “Seven bits! More than enough t’ cover the entry fee.”

“Uh, not quite." Scootaloo frowned. “The flier said five bits per pony, remember? That means we can’t all enter with this much money.”

“No, but we don’t need all three of us t’ enter,” said Apple Bloom without missing a beat. “We just need to pick one of us to go on the contest and win the prize.”

“Okay, that could work,” Scootaloo glanced off into space for a second, “but which one of us should enter?”

Apple Bloom put her hoof on her chin and thought for a moment. “Well, it should be whichever one of us is the best singer, so we have the best chance of winnin’ the money.”

“If that’s the case, then we can count me out.” Scootaloo shook her head. “I already know that singing’s not my thing after that talent show.” She cringed a little as her mind flashed back to their disastrous rock ballad, followed by an equally disastrous attempt at a comedy act.

“Hmm, I guess I’m... okay at singin’,” said Apple Bloom while rubbing her chin, “But I don’t think I’m good enough to win any contests.”

“Well, if I’m not going to do it, and you won’t, then that just leaves—”

“We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders…”

Scootaloo’s response trailed off when she heard a soft singing voice coming from the other side of the clubhouse. Both she and Apple Bloom slowly turned to see Sweetie, still happily working at putting away all the various trinkets. In her work, she had begun to hum a tune she had started making up during the Crusader’s early adventures. It was still a work in progress after all this time, as evidenced by her switching from singing the lyrics to just humming the tune when she reached a part she hadn’t quite worked out all the way.

However, it wasn’t the lyrics that caught the attention of Sweetie’s friends, but rather the seemingly effortless way she sang. Though it was a tune she made up, every note smoothly flowed from one to the next, the pitches beautifully complemented by her normally sweet voice.

As they watched, Sweetie’s friends began to smile. They had their answer.

“Sweetie!”

“Huh?” Sweetie snapped her head up, bringing the song to an abrupt end. She turned to find her friends galloping up to her, carrying the same smiles they normally had whenever they had a plan. Due to past experiences, it was enough cause for Sweetie to either feel nervous or excited, or sometimes even both.

“Did you find enough money in the box?” she asked.

“Sure did!” said Apple Bloom, “Just enough for one of us t’ enter the show.”

“That’s great!” replied Sweetie, “I bet you could win it easy for us, Apple Bloom.”

Apple Bloom shook her head. “Oh, I’m not the one enterin’ the contest.”

“Oh, okay,” said Sweetie, her smile fading a little bit then quickly coming back. “I’m sure Scootaloo would do great if she practiced hard enough, too.”

“I’m not entering it, either,” replied Scootaloo.

Sweetie dropped her smile and looked back and forth between her friends. “But if you’re not entering, and neither is Apple Bloom…”

“Isn’t it obvious?” said Scootaloo.

“We want you to enter the contest for us!” said Apple Bloom.

Sweetie’s pupils shrank. Her eyes darted about as she unconsciously took a step away from her friends. “You... want me to sing?”

“If any one of us stands a chance at winnin’ that contest, it’s you,” said Apple Bloom.

“Yeah, you’ve got an awesome singing voice, way better than either of us,” chimed in Scootaloo.

Sweetie took another step back and looked between her friends. She forced herself to crack a smile. “Ha, ha, that’s a good one! You almost had me for a second there!” Sweetie continued to force a chuckle until she saw her friend’s smiles had faded into concerned looks. “You were joking, right? About me entering?”

“We’re serious,” said Scootaloo. “We just heard you singing right now. You’re terrific!”

“Uh, I guess so.” Sweetie took another step back. “But you know, I bet a lot of ponies in town are really gonna work hard to win the prize money. They probably know a whole bunch of things on how to sing and stuff.”

“So?”

“So, maybe we could find another way to raise money for crusades?” Sweetie faked a smile.

Scootaloo glared at her friend. “Oh come on, Sweetie. You wanted to keep going on crusades as much as we do.”

“Hold on, Scootaloo,” interrupted Apple Bloom. “She has a point. The other singers are probably gonna have advantages of their own.”

Scootaloo looked at her friend in shock. “You too? So what are we supposed to do?”

“There’s only one thing we can do,” said Apple Bloom.

Unknown to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, Sweetie let out a sigh and allowed her body to relax a little. She could always count on her friends to understand her plight.

“We’re gonna learn all we can about singin’ to give Sweetie the best shot at winnin’ the prize!”

“What!?” said Sweetie. Her panic returned in a flash, even more so when her outburst attracted the attention of her friends. “Um, I mean how are we going to do that? I-I don’t even know where to start on what to learn about.”

“That’s easy,” said a smiling Apple Bloom. “We’ll head on down to the Ponyville Library an’ see if Twilight Sparkle has any books on singin’ we can check out.” Apple Bloom glanced at the clock on the wall. Only a few hours remained before the sun would set and they would all have to go back to their homes. “In fact, we should probably get goin’ now before she closes up for the day.”

“We can take my scooter and wagon down there,” said Scootaloo.

“Great! Then let’s get the hay down there while we still can,” said Apple Bloom.

“You don’t have to tell me twice!” replied an energetic Scootaloo.

“B-but I…”

Before Sweetie could get another word in, her friends had raced out of the clubhouse. Apple Bloom stopped only to grab and throw on her saddlebags before running out the door. In just a few seconds, Sweetie was left standing by herself. Her friends had taken all the enthusiasm for their idea with them when they ran outside, leaving her with nothing but worry on her mind. Her friends really weren’t going to make her get up on that big stage and sing all by herself, were they?

Sweetie crept up to the doorway, her mind struggling to find a way to get her out of this mess. Maybe her friends had already taken off without her, she quietly hoped. That would give her plenty of time to come up with a good excuse, or at least a good hole to hide in for a week.

“Hey, you comin’ along?”

No such luck. No sooner had she reached the doorway, Sweetie came face to face with the yellow face of Apple Bloom once more.

Sweetie’s eyes darted about again while she took another couple unconscious steps away. “Oh, you know, I just remembered that my sister wanted me to help her… give Opal a bath, yeah! So, um, maybe we could just wait until tomorrow to look for singing tips?”

Sweetie cracked a nervous smile at the end of her excuse, one accompanied by the squeak of a small chew toy. She knew Opal didn’t need and certainly didn’t want a bath tonight, but as long as her friends bought it, then maybe they would put this plan on hold for a little while. Permanently would work, too.

“No time like the present, Sweetie!” came Apple Bloom’s reply, unknowingly dashing her friend’s hopes. “We can just drop ya off after we go to the Library. I’m sure Rarity won’t mind a whole lot.”

“But I—”

Whatever Sweetie’s next excuse was never came to be, as her sentence was cut short when she felt her helmet shoved onto her head.

“Now come on, shake a leg, Sweetie!” said Apple Bloom. Despite her suggestion, Apple Bloom turned around and wrapped her tail around Sweetie’s neck and gave it a tug, uprooting the filly’s hooves from the floor and forcing her along. Sweetie gave a quick yelp, and soon found herself walking down the steps to the clubhouse and into the wagon.

*************************

“A book on how to sing?”

Twilight Sparkle blinked at the mostly cheery faces of the fillies now standing before her in the foyer of the Ponyville Public Library. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo beamed straight at her while Sweetie glanced off to the side with a frown.

“Yeah, yeah,” replied a nodding Scootaloo, “So do you have anything like that here?”

Twilight looked about her library. Books lined every shelf in the hollowed tree, spilling out and forming stacks on many of the desks and tables scattered about, even taking up a few spots of the floor itself.

“Well, most of my books are about academic subjects, but it’s possible I have something like that lying around here.” Twilight turned back to the crusaders with a smile. “So what’s the book for? Going to try earning your cutie marks in singing?”

“Not exactly,” said Apple Bloom, “There’s this singin’ contest comin’ up in a few days an’ we need the prize money so we can go on more crusades.”

“So it’s a money thing? Are you sure you don’t have any other ways to earn a few bits? Have you tried a lemonade stand or something like that?” asked Twilight.

“We already tried being Cutie Mark Crusader Lemonade Tycoons,” said Scootaloo.

“Really? So how did that go?”

“We don’t like to talk about it.” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom shook their heads at the thought. Even Sweetie’s grimace grew a little deeper.

“Oh... Kay.” Twilight raised an eyebrow. She wondered if she should inquire about it, but decided that some things were better left forgotten. “Well, I’ll see if I can find anything to help you girls out. Spike's out running a couple errands for me, so just give me a couple seconds to look through my collection archive.”

“Thanks, Twilight,” said Apple Bloom as the librarian trotted to the other side of the room. Channeling her magic, Twilight lifted up a humongous book and slammed it on a nearby table, creating a small cloud of dust and causing the crusaders to jump from the impact.

“Now, let’s see here,” Twilight said to herself while she magically thumbed through the door-stopper of a book. “Where would a book on singing be? Let’s try the ‘Expressive Talents’ section first.”

With Twilight lost in her search, Scootaloo turned her attention to her friends. “Do you think she’ll find anything?”

“I’m sure she will,” said Apple Bloom, “With all the books she has here, there’s gotta be somethin’ we can use to help out Sweetie.”

“I hope not.” Sweetie muttered under her breath.

Apple Bloom turned to Sweetie. “Huh? Ya say somethin’?”

“Oh! No, not really.” Sweetie shook her head, then immediately put on another squeaky smile. “I just, um, had another idea for a crusade, yeah!”

“A crusade idea?” Apple Bloom perked up, “Well, let’s hear it.”

“Um, yeah, it’s just maybe we could try getting our homework done for tomorrow like Miss Cheerilee asked. We could be the Cutie Mark Crusader, uh, Homework-Doers?” Sweetie stretched her forced smile out as far as it would go.

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “You okay there? You haven’t said a word since we left the clubhouse.”

“Yeah, sure, I’m fine,” Sweetie quickly said, “Why wouldn’t I be okay about learning how not to screw up in front of a big crowd?”

“Ya sure? Ya have been actin’ kinda strange for a while,” asked Apple Bloom.

“Uh, I’m okay, really!” Sweetie took a step back, her eyes once again trying to find anything to look at that wasn’t her friends.

To her dismay, the other fillies stepped forward, both with looks of concern on their faces. She took another step away, but they followed her still. Sweetie could feel the muscles holding her smile up beginning to struggle; it was only a matter of time before they gave out completely. If only something, anything, would offer a nice distraction for her.

“Ugh, what a dump!”

The distraction Sweetie craved came at just the right time. All as one, the Crusaders looked to the door where the young voice expressed her distaste in the library’s interior. Two fillies around the Crusader’s age stood in front of the doorway, one gray and wearing large glasses, the other pink and sporting a very expensive tiara upon her head. Both fillies scowled as they stepped further inside the library, taking in more of the offending décor and all the books scattered about.

“I guess I shouldn’t expect so much out of a ‘public’ library,” said Diamond Tiara, “but who lives here, a pony or a pig?

“I know,” replied Silver Spoon. “I mean, a building made out of an ugly tree? What next, a house built out of mud?”

“I don’t even want to think of the kinds of dirty ponies that would live in a place like that.” Diamond Tiara’s remark came to a sudden stop as she finally noticed her other classmates in the same room. “Oh, it’s you three,” she greeted them with lowered eyes.

“Yeah, an’ what y’all were just sayin’ wasn’t very nice,” responded Apple Bloom, “besides, Snips and Snails made a house outta mud just the other day. It was actually mighty cozy.” Her gaze dropped to the floor for a moment. “At least until it rained and made it fall apart while they were still inside.”

Diamond Tiara scoffed. “Like I care what those losers get up to.”

“If you don’t like this place so much, then what are you doing here, anyway?” asked Scootaloo with an annoyed tone. She could already feel the beginnings of her lunch trying to fight its way out after subjecting herself to hearing her classmate’s vitriol.

“To check out a book, duh!” said Silver Spoon. “Why else would anyone come to a library? To have a slumber party?”

“What kinda book?” Apple Bloom asked with genuine curiosity. She had never suspected the likes of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to read like an “egghead,” as they would no doubt put it.

“Well, if you must know, it’s a book on singing techniques,” explained Diamond Tiara, her muzzle turned upwards. “Silver Spoon and I are planning on entering and winning the singing contest next week, and we want to make sure none of the competition stands a chance at beating our totally amazing singing voices. Right, Silver?”

“It’s true!” responded her friend with a sneer, “Our singing voices are so good, we made a mirror crack with them alone.” Her smirk faded as she looked away from everypony else for a second. “I just wish my parents could appreciate our mirror-cracking skills.”

Sweetie stepped forward, a confused look on her face. “But… why do you want to win the contest? You’re both super-rich already. You don’t need the money prize.”

Diamond Tiara gasped and formed a look of faux-shock. “You think we would enter a contest for such a shallow reason as making money?”

“Yeah, who do you think we are, a couple rich snobs?” said Silver Spoon, also pretending to appear offended.

“Well then, why are ya enterin’?” asked Apple Bloom.

“It’s simple,” started Diamond Tiara, “This contest is the first step in my plan to achieve worldwide recognition for my special talents!”

Diamond Tiara struck a triumphant pose as she finished, her chest puffed out and her mind lost in another smirk of self-satisfaction.

“Don’t you mean ‘our’ special talents?” asked Silver Spoon.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Diamond Tiara broke her pose for a moment, then continued to explain. “As I was saying, the singing contest is just the beginning so I can—”

“Don’t you mean ‘we’?” asked Silver Spoon again.

“Whatever!” Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. “So that we can get our names out to the public at large. Once we win and everypony sees how amazing we are, word will get out and spread to other towns. Soon, we’ll be getting offers to show up and perform in other shows outside of Ponyville. The shows will turn into product endorsements, then photo shoots, movie roles, our own line of perfumes, and magazine articles galore!”

Diamond Tiara let out a dreamy sigh and closed her eyes. When she opened them, they both contained a large star. “I can see it now: Diamond Tiara, Filly Singer Extraordinaire! Everypony falling over themselves in sheer adoration. All of Equestria in the palm of my hooves, all just from winning a small singing contest!”

The Crusaders stood with mouths agape as Diamond finished explaining her plans. Without realizing it, Diamond had wrapped a hoof around Sweetie Belle’s neck, her other hoof pointing straight ahead while her mind was still lost in her fantasy.

“But it’s just a fundraising event for Ponyville,” Sweetie broke the silence. “I don’t think anypony from out of town will be there.”

Diamond popped out of her trance, her starry gaze dropping into a scowl as she broke away from Sweetie. “Oh, what do you know? Come on, Silver Spoon, I think we’ve entertained our ‘friends’ here long enough. Let’s just get our book and get out of here.”

“Sure thing, DT,” replied Silver Spoon as she looked around the room. “But how are we supposed to find a book on singing with all these other books lying around?”

“Here you go: A book on singing!”

A mid-sized paperback book floated within the vision of the five fillies standing around, surrounded by a purple aura of magic. Twilight Sparkle soon followed, a smile of triumph upon her face.

“I finally found it in the ‘Non-Magical Recreation’ section,” she said with pride.

“Uh, thank you?” said Diamond Tiara.

“Wow, DT, I think that librarian read our minds or something,” said Silver Spoon, taking her normal place right at Diamond’s side. She looked up at Twilight and gave an excited grin. “Oh, what am I thinking of right now?”

Twilight blinked twice at the filly with a blank face. “Um, this book is for Apple Bloom and her friends.”

“What? You’re joking!” said Diamond Tiara. “We want that book, too!”

“Sorry, but library books are first-come first-serve, and they were here first.” As she spoke, the hovering book lowered itself to within grabbing range of the Crusaders.

“The Egghead’s Guide to Singing: 101 Tips and Techniques to Become a Singing Superstar.” Scootaloo read the book’s title out loud. The cover itself had a plain design, with large bolded text and a faded musical score in the background.

“Will that work for you? It’s the only book I have on the subject,” asked Twilight. She made a mental note to herself to stock up on more books related to music.

“It’s just what we needed!” said Apple Bloom with a wide smile. “Thank you so much, Twilight!”

“Oh, don’t mention it." Twilight gave a couple chuckles, then quickly added, "Just make sure to bring it back in one piece, okay?"

“Wait, why do you even need a book on singing?” said Diamond Tiara, her eyebrow raised.

“Yeah,” joined in Silver Spoon, “I mean, it’s not like you’re going to be entering the contest, too.”

A moment of silence passed, and then both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon’s eyes opened wide, this time in real shock. “Wait, you’re entering the contest, too?” Diamond asked, pointing a hoof straight at the trio.

“We sure are!” replied Scootaloo, sticking her chest out and lifting her head up.

“Actually, Sweetie’s the one enterin’,” said Apple Bloom, deflating Scootaloo’s pose. “We’re just makin’ sure she’ll sing the best she can, ain’t that right, Sweetie?”

“Oh!” Sweetie perked up. While her friends had been distracted, she had turned to look off the side with the same frown she had when she entered the library. “Um, you know, Diamond Tiara, you can go ahead and take the book if you want—umf!”

Sweetie was unable to continue her offer any further, as she felt Apple Bloom’s large, unwashed hoof jammed into her mouth.

“Wait, what was that?” asked Diamond Tiara.

“Uh, what she means t’ say is, y’all can have the book when we’re done usin’ it,” said Apple Bloom.

“Yeah, and not a moment sooner,” added Scootaloo with a smirk.

“Okay, I guess that’s fair enough.” Silver Spoon started to speak.

“Forget it!” Diamond Tiara interrupted her friend, carrying her trademark scowl. “I don’t need that book, anyway. I have more singing talent in one hoof than you all have in your entire bodies combined.” She emphasized her point by lifting a well-manicured hoof and pointing it at herself.

“But ya don’t use your hoof t’ sing,” said Apple Bloom.

“I, uh, well,” Diamond stammered, her hoof returning to the ground and her eyes looking about. “Ugh, forget it!” She shook her head. “Come on, Silver Spoon, let’s get out of here. We have better things to do than waste our time entertaining the competition.”

With a snort, Diamond Tiara turned and walked out of the library, her nose turned upward and her eyes shut. Silver Spoon quickly followed behind her friend, not wanting to face down three rival fillies and a mystic mind-reading unicorn by herself.

“Well, then,” Twilight spoke up, taking a look at a clock on the wall. “It’s getting a bit late, so I think I’ll close the library for today.”

“Thank ya so much for your help, Twilight!” said Apple Bloom, giving a smile.

“No problem, Apple Bloom.” Twilight turned to smile at the filly, but her smile turned into a look of concern. “Um, Apple Bloom?”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“You think Sweetie would like her mouth back?” Twilight pointed a hoof down at her.

“Huh?” Apple Bloom looked and immediately understood; her hoof was still in Sweetie’s mouth. The poor filly had been tugging desperately at the hoof to get it out.

“Oh, sorry!” Apple Bloom yanked her hoof out of Sweetie’s mouth. Her friend fell down and gasped, breathing in the fresh air she badly needed and spitting out some of the lingering taste of Apple Bloom’s hoof.

“You gonna be okay, Sweetie?” asked Twilight.

“Y-yeah.” replied Sweetie “I just need something.”

“Sure thing. What do you need?”

Sweetie looked up at Twilight and gave a sheepish smile.

“Do you have any mouthwash?”

*************************

The orange rays of the setting sun illuminated Ponyville as the Crusaders stepped out of the library, two-thirds of them in high spirits. Like Twilight, the rest of the town had begun winding down, packing up shops and bidding farewell to friends for the evening.

“You know, sometimes I wonder if Diamond Tiara has a few screws loose or something,” said Scootaloo as she trotted alongside Apple Bloom. “I mean, going from a fundraiser to her own perfume line? Where’d she get that from?”

“I don’t know.” Apple Bloom shook her head. “At least we got what we came lookin’ for.” She looked behind her at the book sticking out of her saddlebag, too large for the bag to properly close but still somewhat secure in its position. It was enough to make her smile.

Scootaloo grinned right along with her friend. “Yeah, Diamond doesn’t stand a chance against Sweetie now that we have this, right, Sweetie?”

Scootaloo looked behind at Sweetie, hoping to see her friend matching her enthusiasm. Her grin dropped into a look of confusion when she saw just the opposite: Sweetie slinking a good distance behind them, looking straight at the ground while she quietly sucked on a breath mint.

“Uh, Sweetie?” asked Scootaloo.

Sweetie came out of her thoughts and looked up at her friend. “Hmm?”

“You okay there? You’re acting weird again.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Sweetie nodded, putting on another fragile smile.

“Ya sure?” Apple Bloom stepped toward her friend. “Ya ain’t comin’ down with somethin’, are ya?”

Sweetie shook her head. “Mmm-mmm.”

“You’re not worried about what Tiara said in there, are you?” said Scootaloo.

Sweetie shook her head once more.

“Well, that’s a relief.” Scootaloo walked up to Sweetie’s side with a smile. “You could out-sing her on that stage easy.”

Sweetie’s pupils shrank to the size of a pea upon mention of the stage. She unconsciously swallowed a little, a move that proved unwise as her saliva took the breath mint with it. She felt the mint burn all the way down her throat, forcing her to cough twice. “Well, I, uh…” she tried to speak, her voice a little strained from her uncleared throat.

“And you’d beat her right in front of the whole town!” continued Scootaloo, “If we’re lucky, it’ll shut her up for a few days.”

“I, uh—”

“An’ not only that, but ya’d look super-cool on the stage with all those ponies watching,” said Apple Bloom as she joined Sweetie’s other side

“I… I…” Sweetie began to shake.

“You know, I’m actually looking forward to watching you sing now,” said Scootaloo, wrapping a hoof around the white filly. “By the time you’re finished, that audience will be speechless!”

“I—”

“You’ll be the talk o’ the town!” said Apple Bloom.

“I can’t do it.”

“You can’t do... wait, what!?”

The smiling faces of Scootaloo and Apple Bloom dropped away in an instant. Scootaloo removed her hoof from her friend and stared with her mouth agape. Apple Bloom mirrored her friend’s expression.

“What do ya mean ya can’t do it?” asked Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle let out a sigh. “I-I can’t sing for the contest.” She stared straight ahead as she spoke, not brave enough to dare looking her friends in the eye.

“But why?” asked Scootaloo, “You’re a great singer.”

“I know, but I just can’t do it. Not in front of the whole town.”

“But ya sang with us in the talent show,” said Apple Bloom. “The whole town was watching then, and we stunk!”

“But that was different,” said Sweetie, “You guys did most of the singing for that show. I was just in charge of the stage. Not only that, but all three of us were on stage. I felt better about it when I knew you two would be there.”

“But we’ll be there at the contest with you,” said Scootaloo.

“But you won’t be on stage with me,” said Sweetie, finally turning her head to face her orange friend. “I’ll be all alone. Everypony there will be looking right at me and hear everything I sing. They’ll know every mistake I make and be staring the whole time! If I mess up, I could never show my face again! I-I can’t take that!”

As she spoke, images of her being in that very scenario flooded Sweetie’s mind. Though it wasn’t real, she could feel the audience’s piercing gaze upon her, some laughing, others booing, every last part of her being scrutinized. She shrank to the ground and buried her head under her hooves, praying that they, or maybe even she, would just go away and leave her be.

When she dared open her eyes again, the audience was gone, and she found herself staring at a pair of yellow hooves.

“Are ya really that worried about singin’ in front of others?” asked Apple Bloom tenderly.

“Y-yeah… I’m sorry.” Sweetie closed her eyes again. She once more felt eyes staring through her, but much worse. These were real eyes, and they were truly disappointed in her…

“But ya don’t have t’ worry with us around.”

“Huh?” Sweetie glanced up and looked right into Apple Bloom’s face. If she was disappointed at all, her smile hid it well.

“We might not be on stage with ya, but ya won’t be alone. We’ll be helpin’ ya every step of the way, right, Scootaloo?”

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo, “We’ll teach you every single tip in that book so by the time the show comes, you’ll be amazing!”

“A-amazing?” asked Sweetie, “So, nopony will laugh at me?”

“Ponyville ponies are too nice t’ laugh at you, Sweetie,” said Apple Bloom.

“And even if they did, I’ll be there to put my hoof right in their stomach.” Scootaloo punched her fore-hooves together.

“Are you really sure?” Sweetie asked.

“Positive,” replied Apple Bloom. "Well, maybe not so much about punchin' ponies in the gut, but we know ya can do it, Sweetie. We have faith in ya.”

“I...” Sweetie looked back and forth between her friends, each looking down and smiling at her. As she stared into their comforting smiles, she felt her worried mind growing more at ease with the idea. Her own friends wouldn’t lie to her, she thought, as least not for something as embarrassing as this. If they were this sure of her ability, then maybe, just maybe…

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Ya will?” Apple Bloom asked.

Sweetie Belle climbed up from the ground and met her friends at eye-level. “If you think I can, then I’ll do my best.”

Scootaloo wrapped her hoof around Sweetie’s neck, making it a little harder for the white filly to breathe. “I knew we could count on you!”

“But I really need you two to be there for me. I need to know as much about singing as I can.”

“Of course we’ll be there, Sweetie,” said Scootaloo, “The prize money is for all of us, so we’ll work our tails off right with you.”

“An’ besides, we could never let ya go on stage without knowin’ what to do,” said Apple Bloom, “We’re yer friends, and friends help each other out, no matter what.”

The barrage of reassurance finally got to Sweetie as her mouth slowly moved from a frown to soft smile. “Thanks, girls.” As she mulled over her friend’s words, Sweetie’s eyes drifted over to the book sticking out of Apple Bloom’s saddle bags. She read the parts of the title she could see, and felt herself growing more confident.

“Maybe,” she thought out loud, “maybe I can do this after all.”

Chapter 2: CMC Contest-Singers

“I can’t do this at all!”

The trio stopped dead in their tracks. The two fillies in front both frowned, with Scootaloo adding an eye roll, before turning around to face Sweetie. Although the night sky had darkened the surroundings, they could still make out their friend’s panicked face.

“But Sweetie, ya can do it. We’ve been over this already,” said Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle fell onto the ground, hoping to never move from her spot. She could feel her heart pounding away in her chest. “But I-I can’t. There’s gonna be so many ponies looking right at me.”

“And you’ll wow them with your amazing singing,” interrupted Scootaloo, “Come on, just think of all the cool crusades we could go on if you win.”

“But what if all the other ponies are super-good? I’d just look so stupid up on the stage!”

“Ya won’t know until ya try,” said Apple Bloom. She turned to the side and flexed her saddlebag, showing the book sticking out of the pocket. “An’ besides, I doubt any of ‘em know about all the tricks in this book.”

Sweetie’s fearful face relaxed just for a moment as she mulled over her friend’s words. Apple Bloom was right: they had the only book on singing in the town library. That had to have given her some advantage over the competition. Not only that, but they had spent nearly all of their free time in the week prior getting her ready for the contest, drilling every technique into her head, selecting the right song from the list of acceptable music given to her by Miss Cheerilee, and practicing each measure over and over again until it was perfect.

And yet, just as soon as she tried to hope again, images of the stage flashed before Sweetie’s eyes, blinding spotlights in her face, dead silence in the air, and all those eyes staring at her.

“I don’t know if I can,” she finally mumbled.

“Oh, yes you can!” grunted an impatient Scootaloo as she circled behind Sweetie. Gathering her strength, she placed her head on Sweetie’s back, eliciting a squeak from the white filly, and pushed into her friend.

To Sweetie’s dismay, and Scootaloo’s relief, her bottom budged, and she soon found herself being pushed along at far too quickly a pace, almost as quickly as the week of training had gone by. She could hear Apple Bloom letting out a sigh before walking alongside the impromptu train.

“Um, girls? Are we sure we can’t just, you know, find another way to make money?” Sweetie asked.

To this, Scootaloo stopped scooting Sweetie along and lifted her head. “Sweetie, we just spent the last week training you for the contest. Do you really want to just throw all that away?”

Sweetie looked down at the ground and started to mumble. “Um, well maybe not, but–”

“Good, then we’re heading to the contest and winning the prize!” At once, Scootaloo dropped her head back down and redoubled her pushing efforts, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes to center her focus.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Sweetie,” said Apple Bloom with a smile. “We’ll be right there with ya as much as we can.”

“But-but I…” Sweetie tried to speak, but soon gave up as she saw her friend’s smile.

As the Crusaders rounded a corner of a building, Sweetie’s jaw dropped. There it was, right in the middle of the town plaza: A large stage, complete with a red curtain and spotlights, towered over the massive crowd, already buzzing in chit-chat, gathered in front of it. To the side of the stage, a white pony with blue mane was putting the finishing touches on a sound system. While no ponies from out of town were in the crowd, to Sweetie’s large eyes, the entire population of Equestria may as well have been attending.

Drawing closer, Scootaloo slowed down her progress to regain her strength. Feeling this, Sweetie sighed and got up on her hooves, pausing to brush the dirt off her legs. If there was no escape for her, she may as well walk to her fate on her own feet. At the very least, she knew her friend would appreciate not having a sore neck in the morning.

Eventually, the trio reached the edge of the crowd at the same time as a tan pony with graying mane walked up to the stage. The crowd’s collective chatter grew silent as they heard the sound of a microphone being tapped and saw who was behind it.

“Well, I see I’m getting better at getting a crowd’s attention, aren’t I?” said the Mayor, adding a couple chuckles. The audience returned her laugh with some of their own. “Anyways, I want to thank all of you for coming to support Ponyville’s First Annual ‘Sing Your Heart Out’ Fundraiser Singing Contest!”

“Before we begin, I’d like to take this time to give a few more thanks to the ponies who made this event possible. First up is the pony who not only came up with the idea, but also advertised it and elected to serve as one of our judges: Miss Cheerilee!”

The crowd erupted into applause. Though the Crusaders could not see through the wave of ponies, their teacher was sitting behind a table close to the stage. Cheerilee gave a small wave back to the crowd, a small pink blush breaking through her fuchsia coat.

“I would also like to thank our second judge for providing the sound equipment needed for the show: Miss Vinyl Scratch!”

Cheerilee nearly received a wayward hoof to the face from the white pony sitting next to her. Unlike her humble actions, Vinyl waved wildly to the audience and sported a wide grin. Their cheers were part of what she lived for. The paychecks didn’t hurt, either.

The crowd died away as soon as the Mayor continued her speech. “And finally, I want to thank all of our contestants for supporting not only this event but the entire town as well. All proceeds collected from the entry fees will go to repairing the roads in and around Ponyville!” The Mayor’s smile dropped a bit. “And refurbishing the town park. And constructing a new playground for the school. And fixing the leaky roof in my office.” By the time the Mayor had finished her list, her smile had dropped into a frown. Remembering where she was, she quickly put her happy face back on.

“Now without further ado, let us get on with the show!” she declared.

Once more, the audience stomped on the ground in agreement.

“At this time, I would like all participating ponies to make their way backstage so that we may get started. In the meantime, I will go over the rules and judging criteria for this contest.”

Sweetie felt a poke to her side and turned her head back to her head.

“Hey, that’s our cue,” whispered Apple Bloom. “Let’s get a move on.”

“Uh, but what if she gives some really important rule?” asked Sweetie as she quickly glanced from Apple Bloom to the stage and back.

“We’re okay there. I still got the rules from Miss Cheerilee in my saddlebags. Now let’s go!”

Without another word, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo darted off and begun weaving their way around the crowd. Sweetie gulped, and then followed her friends with only one truth on her mind.

Before this night was over, she was going on that stage.

*************************

Apple Bloom’s snout peeked out from the corner of the stage as she got a good look at the audience and the judges. The faces she saw ran the gamut from smiles to bored frowns, and even a couple glares. The judges were looking through their papers and talking amongst each other, sharing the occasional shake of the head for what Apple Bloom assumed to be about one of the weaker entries.

Apple Bloom shuddered a little as she recalled the performances thus far. Sure, there were some good performances here and there, but she could tell when the audience wasn’t impressed. The latest performance in particular garnered the worst reaction yet: Apple Bloom never believed the ponies in Ponyville could jeer so loudly. Not that it wasn’t justified, but still.

Having seen all she could from her angle, Apple Bloom withdrew her head and returned to her friends. Sweetie sat back in a fold-up chair with a cup of water in its holder. She still carried the worried grimace she had since the contest began. Not even the shoulder rub Scootaloo was giving her could break her frown.

“So what’s the deal?” asked Scootaloo as Apple Bloom reached them.

“Well, it looks like they’re almost done cleanin’ all the tomatoes off the stage,” replied Apple Bloom. “Ya know, I really don’t understand why the Flim-Flam Brothers bothered comin’ back an enterin’ the contest. They weren’t exactly nice to the townsfolk last time they were here.”

“I dunno, but you gotta admit their piano rag was a real hoof-tapper.” Scootaloo smiled, but soon stopped when she met with a glare from Apple Bloom. “What?”

Apple Bloom shook her head and decided there were more important things to attend to. “Well, I don’t think they’ll be winnin’ the contest, anyway. Even if the judges really liked ‘em, they can’t exactly come back to get their prize.” She lowered her head and met Sweetie’s eyes, offering a kind smile. “How ya doin’ there? Are ya okay?”

“Um, I’m really, really nervous,” replied Sweetie. Her heart still fluttered away in her chest.

“Well, that’s one less ‘really’ than before,” chimed in Scootaloo. “At least we’re getting somewhere now.”

“But I still don’t know if I can do this, or even win the money for you guys,” said Sweetie.

“I wouldn’t sweat it too much,” said Apple Bloom. “I’ve been watchin’ the audience, and I don’t think they’ve been really wowed by anythin’ yet. Ya still got a really good chance at blowin’ the judges away!”

“No kidding. The competition’s been pretty weak.” Scootaloo grinned again. A moment later, she dropped her grin and stopped massaging Sweetie. “Although I thought Lyra and Bonbon had a pretty cool performance.”

Scootaloo lowered her eyes and found Apple Bloom glaring at her again. “What?” she asked. “I had no idea Bonbon could change her voice and sound like a bunch of different ponies.”

Apple Bloom’s glare didn’t fade in the slightest. Scootaloo stared in confusion before it finally dawned on her just who her praise of other contestants wasn’t helping. “Oh, but you could still beat them easy!” she said to Sweetie with a sheepish smile, renewing her massage.

A moment of silence passed before someone spoke up. “Hey, Apple Bloom?” asked Sweetie.

“What is it, Sweetie?” her friend replied without missing a beat. “Ya need somethin’? More water? Need to warm up yer voice some more? Have to use the restroom?”

Sweetie shook her head. “No, I just wanted to know when it’s my turn to sing.”

“Good question. Lemme check.” Apple Bloom stepped over to the saddlebags lying right next to Sweetie’s chair and grabbed the paper sticking out. “Now let’s see here… it looks like there’s only one pony left in front of ya.”

“Really? Who is it?” asked Scootaloo.

“That would be me.”

The Crusaders turned towards the source of the voice they all knew too well. Diamond Tiara trotted up to the fillies with her head held high, while Silver Spoon followed right behind her, also sharing a smug smirk.

“You know, I’m quite surprised at the three of you,” said Diamond when she reached the trio.

“Surprised? Why?” asked Sweetie.

“Yeah, surprised that you three even bothered to show up,” continued Diamond. “Seriously, when I get done singing, everyone else might as well go home. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you if you just ran along now and saved yourself the embarrassment.”

Sweetie opened her mouth to say something, but Scootaloo cut her off. “No way! Sweetie’s been practicing for this all week. She’s gonna mop the floor with the two of you.”

Diamond retorted with a scoff. “As if! As I recall, she’s not the one who has a spot in the Ponyville Elementary Choir. That honor belongs to yours truly.” Diamond lifted a hoof and pointed it at herself.

“Elementary Choir?” asked Sweetie.

“Yeah, and what we do there is far more helpful than what you might have read out of some musty old book. A week of practice? Try the whole school year!”

“Yeah!” whispered Silver Spoon in a hoarse voice. She then coughed once and rubbed her throat, frowning a little in the process.

Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow at the gray filly. “What’s wrong with her?”

Diamond looked behind at her friend. “Oh, right. About that. Unfortunately, Silver here came down with laryngitis yesterday and can barely talk or sing. She’s just here for support.” Diamond turned her nose upwards and smirked. “Not that I still couldn’t win this contest with one hoof tied behind my back.”

Sweetie started to say, “But you don’t use your hooves to—”

“I know what I use my hooves for!” snapped Diamond, stamping her hoof on the ground.

“Excuse me, ladies.”

The standoff came to a halt as a mare in a headset stepped up to the gang of schoolgirls. “The stage is all cleaned off now. We’re ready for you, Miss Tiara,” she said in a nasally voice.

“Perfect. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a contest to win,” said Diamond. With that, she walked off with another poisonous grin and disappeared behind the curtains to the sound of the crowd applauding and the Mayor announcing her name. With no voice of her own, Silver Spoon opted to stick her tongue out at the Crusaders before running to the corner of the stage to watch her friend. The grown mare left to track down the other contestants, leaving the Crusaders by themselves once more.

Apple Bloom shook her head and sighed. “Ya know, Scootaloo, I think ya might be on t’ somethin’ about Diamond havin’ a screw loose.”

“Tell me about it.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “But I’m sure Sweetie will still mop the floor with her, right, Sweetie?” She looked down to her friend with a grin.

“I wanna go home.”

“You-wha!?” Scootaloo’s eyes shot open and Apple Bloom adopted a look of concern.

Sweetie looked down at the floor, her frown growing deeper “She’s right. I don’t stand a chance at winning against her. If I go out there, I’ll make a complete foal of myself, and I’ll never be able to show my face around town again.”

“She was just trying to psyche you out,” said Scootaloo as she leaned over the chair. “Don’t listen to a word she said, Sweetie! We know you can beat her.”

“But she’s in the school choir. She has to be better at singing than me!”

“If she’s so good at singing, then why did she come to the library looking for that book?” Scootaloo pointed to the book lying next to the chair, with Sweetie following her hoof. “I bet there’s loads of stuff in there that she doesn’t know about.”

“B-but what if I mess up?” said Sweetie, eyes filled with worry.

“Sweetie, don’t ya remember what the book told you?” asked Apple Bloom.

Sweetie thought for a moment. “Not to fret over little mistakes and keep going?”

“Not just that,” replied Apple Bloom. Sweetie turned her head to find her friend’s trademark bow poking up from the side of the chair. The rest of Apple Bloom soon rose over the arm, the music book hanging from between her teeth. The book was open almost at the very end, with the words “Lesson 101” written in big, bold print.

Though she already knew what it said, Sweetie Belle read the underlying text aloud. “Above all else, the most important singing tip is to relax and have fun. Singing is an expression of the heart and soul, and nopony should ever feel embarrassed or ashamed of singing from their heart. Believe in yourself, and your singing will always shine through.”

Believe in yourself…

The three words echoed in Sweetie’s mind. She couldn’t put a hoof on it, but somehow, those words made the butterflies fluttering about restlessly in her belly calm down for just a moment.

“But wait.” Unfortunately, that feeling soon gave way to another panicked though. “Diamond Tiara believes in herself a whole bunch, too.”

Apple Bloom put the book on the ground and lifted her head back up. “I think what it’s tryin’ t’ say is not to worry about anypony else and just sing as good as ya can.”

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo, “and besides, I’ll bet Diamond doesn’t have as much faith in herself as we have in you.”

Sweetie glanced up at her orange-coated friend. “You… really believe in me that much?”

“Sure we do, Sweetie.” Apple Bloom lifted a hoof and laid it on Sweetie’s shoulder. “You’re the best singer we know.”

Sweetie felt her shoulder relaxing a little bit at the spot where Apple Bloom’s hoof touched it. Though rough, the warmth of the firm limb spread throughout her body, easing her tense muscles.

“Okay, I just have one more question,” said Sweetie.

“What is it?” asked Apple Bloom. She saw Scootaloo lean in closer, also curious.

Sweetie looked about for a moment before she found her words. “It’s just that… even if I…”

“Even what?” asked Scootaloo.

“Even if I sing my best,” continued Sweetie as she stared right at her friends, “would you be mad at me if I didn’t win the money for us?”

“Of course not!” replied Apple Bloom without missing a beat. “We’re your best friends, Sweetie. We can’t get mad at ya for tryin’ your best!”

Scootaloo nodded her head a couple times and gave a wide smile. “Don’t worry about us. No matter what happens, you’ll always be a Crusader.”

Another warm feeling radiated through Sweetie’s core, but this one didn’t come from her friend’s hoof. Instead, it came from within, starting deep in her chest and spreading all the way to her face. The warming feeling proved too much for her to contain all at once: Sweetie found her frown drifting upwards, going past the neutral line and ending at a little smile.

“Thanks, guys,” she spoke almost inaudibly.

“Excuse me again, ladies.”

The mare with the headset approached the trio once more. She looked at a paper on a clipboard before lowering it to look at the Crusaders. “Which one of you is Sweetie Belle?” she asked.

“Um, I am.” Sweetie slowly raised a hoof.

“Okay, we need you to go ahead and stand over there so you can go on as soon as the current contestant is done singing.” The mare pointed toward the side entrance to the stage. “Just wait there until you hear your name and the crowd applaud, okay?”

“Okay,” said Sweetie, “but can my friends come with me?”

The organizing pony put a hoof up to her chin and looked away for a moment, then shrugged. “As long as they’re quiet and out of sight, I don’t see why not.”

“Really? Thanks!” Apple Bloom beamed at the mare.

“Don’t mention it. Whoa, hey!”

As the pony spoke, she felt her balance thrown off by two filly-sized blurs rushing past her followed by a third trotting behind them. On unsteady ground, she rocked back and forth until her hooves could find stable footing again. The mare turned around and sighed. “The things I do for a paycheck,” she muttered to herself.

Slowing their gallop down as they arrived at the stage, the Crusaders could hear the music for Diamond’s song coming to an end. A moment of silence followed, only to be quickly replaced by the sound of clapping.

Scootaloo snuck a peak onto the stage for her friends. Diamond Tiara stood behind the microphone with her front hooves joined together. She looked back and forth with glee at the audience applauding her song.

“Thank you so much, Ponyville!” shouted Diamond over the speakers. “Your applause means so much to me! You’re all simply too kind! Don’t forget to tell everypony you know about me! Bye now!” With this, Diamond blew a kiss to the audience, then turned around and made her way off the stage. Entering the side opposite from the Crusaders, Diamond was reunited with Silver Spoon, and the two celebrated with a congratulatory “Bump-bump-sugarlump-rump!”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes as the two fillies walked out of sight, giggling to themselves. “Wow, she’s really serious about that whole plan of hers, huh?”

“At least she looks really sure of herself,” said Sweetie.

“They always look really sure of themselves, though,” said Apple Bloom, shaking her head.

As the Crusaders fell silent, so too did the audience. The trio looked around their part of the stage, each carrying an unsure look. Their attention soon turned to a new voice speaking through the sound system.

“And now,” said the Mayor from her microphone at the judges’ seat, “for our next contestant, we have another filly who is currently attending Ponyville Elementary School. Please put your hooves together for Sweetie Belle!”

The crowd obliged the mayor’s request and began applauding.

Sweetie felt her heart skip a beat at the mention of her name. She gulped just loud enough for only herself to hear.

“Ya ready to sing your heart out?” Apple Bloom placed a hoof on Sweetie’s shoulder and smiled.

“Um, well, I—ack!”

Right as Sweetie opened her mouth wide enough, she felt a harsh liquid coat its insides, forcing her to cough.

“Now she’s ready!” said Scootaloo, holding onto a spray bottle.

“Uh, thanks?” said Sweetie once her coughing fit subsided.

“Don’t mention it.” Scootaloo put away the bottle and trotted behind Sweetie. “Now get going, that’s your cue!”

Scootaloo did not even wait for Sweetie to move on her own. Instead, she gathered her strength and gave Sweetie a shove from behind. Not expecting the push, Sweetie stumbled out of the side entrance and onto the stage itself.

There they were: the audience Sweetie Belle had unpleasant dreams about for a whole week now stood before her. Their applause had quieted down since she was forced from behind the stage, save for a few remaining clopping hooves. Regardless of whether they were still applauding or not, the audience all had their eyes for her and her alone.

Sweetie could do nothing but stare back at the many-eyed monster that was the crowd, her own eyes opened wide in fear. She could see plenty of ponies she knew within the mass, from the grown-ups she would often pass in the streets to some of her own classmates. The only ponies she couldn’t see were her own family, but she knew they wouldn’t be here. Rarity had a massive order for several hoof-stitched dresses thrust upon her the other day, and their parents would not be back from their vacation until tomorrow. If she could have sighed at that moment, she would have; at least she could still have a home to go back to if she messed up too much.

Slowly, she forced her quivering limbs up to the microphone and looked over at the judge’s table. Cheerilee and Mayor Mare were at their seats, offering her encouraging smiles. Vinyl Scratch, however, was nowhere to be seen. Sweetie gulped quietly, as she knew that pony’s absence could mean only one thing.

Sure enough, her fears became justified a moment later as she heard the sound of a pre-recorded piano playing a song through the speakers. It wasn’t just any song, either: it was her song, the one she was going to sing in front of all of Ponyville.

Taking what little remaining time she had left, Sweetie shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Okay, how does the first part go, again? she thought to herself. She raced through her mind, looking for the words that would make sure the song didn’t crash and burn right away. Images of reading the sheet music and practicing the song over and over again in the clubhouse flashed in her mind’s eye. Sweetie knew she had to have memories of the song in her somewhere. Her friends had spent far too much time helping her rehearse for her to not know the song front and back.

In fact, her friends had spent nearly all of their free time in the last week making sure she had the best possible chance of winning. Sweetie let herself smile a little bit. She could almost feel herself right back at the clubhouse as Apple Bloom offered her another piece of advice out of the book while Scootaloo tried to play the song on her piano so she could keep up with Sweetie’s progress.

“When I was just a little filly, I asked my mother, what will I be…”

Sweetie gasped on the inside. She hadn’t been thinking of the lyrics in advance; they had come to her as if they were no different from walking or breathing. She wanted to know how that had happened, but they still kept coming, and she couldn’t stop to think about it now. Instead, she continued to let her mind and heart sing the piece her friends had picked out for her.

Her friends had made sure to find her the best song they could find. The piece they chose, straight from Vinyl’s own record store, was a few paces slower than the average song. Aside from the soft piano and occasional woodwind and auxiliary instrument, Sweetie’s part was the star role. The lyrics she sang to the crowd spun a theme of hopefulness, of looking towards the future with a smile, of gazing up at the night sky in quiet tranquility, of the quiet moments that come after the excitement of discovering oneself.

As she sang, Sweetie realized that she wasn’t focusing on the techniques she had read from the book, either. They too came to her at the exact moment they were needed. All that she could focus on was being right back in the clubhouse and seeing her friend’s smiling faces as they encouraged her to keep trying, to do the best she could, and to give this measure one more shot before she had to go home for the day.

Other memories of her spending time with the Crusaders entered Sweetie’s mind. She was no longer at the clubhouse, but outside in a bright, sunny day, as they took the afternoon by storm. One moment, she was helping them row their kayak down the local river, her body shivering from the cold water splashing her. A second later, and she was struggling to pull herself free from Apple Bloom and Scootaloo after their attempt at cooking taffy in Sugarcube Corner produced explosive and sticky results.

As each memory of her misadventures as a Cutie Mark Crusader passed before Sweetie’s eyes, she felt a warm glow spread from deep within her chest. The butterflies in her belly grew quieter with each passing wave.

“…Whatever will be, will be.”

It was over. Before Sweetie knew it, her part in the song had come to an end. The piano continued on without her, its tempo growing slower with each passing note before finally ending on a soft-yet-bright chord. The final notes lingered in the cool night air for several seconds.

Then there was silence. Dead silence. Sweetie kept her eyes shut as much as she possibly could. Try as she might, Sweetie couldn’t remember a thing about the song she had just sung. All she could recall were those memories of past crusades and the warm feelings they stirred inside her. However, those feelings were already giving way to the doubts of before, the rampant butterflies, and the fluttering heart. She was at the mercy of the audience, and not even her best friends could save her if the crowd thought she wasn’t good enough.

Then the audience cheered.

Sweetie peaked one eye open, doubting her ears. Hooves stomped, smiles broke out, and almost everypony in the audience cheered wildly at her. Even the judges offered her genuine, bright smiles and sincere applause.

The thunderous cheering forced Sweetie’s ears back and both of her eyes open. Like a deer caught in a chariot’s lights, Sweetie stared at her newly-gained admirers with her mouth agape. She wanted to shake her head in disbelief, but couldn’t bring her muscles to carry out the action.

As the crowd praised her singing, Sweetie felt the warmth from before growing within her again. Her dropped jaw slowly lifted itself off the floor of the stage while the warming, tingly sensation spread through her body. She felt her heart beating away in her chest again, but for entirely different reasons. Her mouth curled up from a frown into a neutral look, then into a bright smile.

She had done it. Not only had she sung her heart out in front of a big crowd, but they loved her for it. This thought alone sent another warm wave from head to tail, leaving her body feeling tingly all over. Her friends had been right; all she had to do was believe she could do it. Everything else came naturally to her.

Giving an earnest bow and a quick wave, Sweetie Belle turned around and skipped back behind the stage, feeling light as a feather. Rounding the corner, she was met with the wide grins of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

“That crowd’s going nuts!” said Scootaloo. “I even saw Silver Spoon trying to cheer for you. You should’ve seen the look on Diamond’s face!”

“That was amazin’!” said Apple Bloom. “I knew you had it in ya!”

“I know!” said Sweetie. She bounced on her hooves in glee, her body unable to contain all of its excitement. “I had no idea I could sing so well!”

“It’s just like the book said,” said Apple Bloom. “All ya had to do was believe ya could do it.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I can thank you two enough. That was so much fun!” yelled Sweetie. “I’m so excited right now! This is the most fun I’ve had in a really long time! I can’t wait to try this again!”

Scootaloo lifted an eyebrow and a hoof. “Try again? But there’s no way you can lose with the audience cheering like that!”

“I mean I can’t wait to try singing at another concert just for fun,” said Sweetie. “My whole body’s really tingly really now, and it feels great! I really like feeling like this! I just wanna keep going on stages and singing and learning more about how to sing and getting help from you guys and…” Sweetie’s grin dropped. “Um, why are you staring at me like that?”

While she spoke, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo’s smiles had faded into wide-open looks of shock. They had broken eye contact with Sweetie, looking off to just past her head.

“What’s wrong?” Sweetie asked. “You don’t think I’m being silly, are you?”

“S-Sweetie…” Apple Bloom finally spoke up.

“What? What’s with you guys?” Sweetie asked with a voice filled with worry.

Scootaloo lifted up a shaking limb and slowly pointed it at her friend. “Y-your flank…”

“My flank?” Sweetie turned to look. “Oh no, I didn’t have dirt on something on it when I sang, did… I…”

Sweetie’s breath caught in her throat, ending her question with a gasp. Her eyes and mouth opened wider than ever at the sight. It was there. After countless attempts and endless nights of wondering, it was right on her flank, shining in the reflections of the spotlights. It was… it was…

Chapter 3: CMC Party-Planners

“Sweetie?”

“Mmmm...”

“I think she’s comin’ to.”

“Ugh... huh?”

Sweetie’s heavy eyes slowly lifted open to two colorful, blurry shapes. As her eyes focused, the shapes took form of her fellow companions standing beneath the night sky. The high walls of the stage loomed overhead, while something soft laid beneath her.

Sweetie rubbed her eyes and shook her head, allowing her vision to be completely restored to normal. “Apple Bloom? Scootaloo?”

“Good t’ see yer finally awake,” said Apple Bloom with a smile.

“Awake?” Sweetie attempted to sit up and, failing that, reached a hoof into the air. “How long was I out?”

“Too long. We thought you’d never wake up.” Scootaloo came to Sweetie’s aid and helped pull her onto her backside.

“Ya feel okay?” asked Apple Bloom.

“I guess so,” said Sweetie while she rubbed the back of her head. “But wow, I just had a really crazy dream.”

To this, Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “A dream?”

“Yeah, it was weird. I was singing at the contest, and I was really good at it. By the time I got done singing, everypony was cheering like crazy, and then I got my cutie mark out of nowhere!” Sweetie cracked a smile. “I mean, I might be able to do good at the contest, but a cutie mark in singing? How silly is that?”

Her silly subconscious drove Sweetie to giggle, but her laughter and smile trailed off as she looked at her friend’s faces. Rather than joining in on her snickering, they stared at her in the same way they normally did whenever she said something strange.

“What?” asked Sweetie. “You don’t think I’m really weird for dreaming that, do you? I mean, I don’t feel as worried about singing as I was when I came here. I could probably do pretty good if I really tried.”

“Sweetie,” spoke up Apple Bloom, “that wasn’t a dream.”

Now it was Sweetie’s turn to stare at her friends. “Huh?”

“Yeah, that all happened just a little while ago.” Scootaloo nodded.

“But that can’t be right,” said Sweetie. She looked down at her body. “If I really found my special talent, then my cutie mark would be right... ah!”

Just like in her dream, Sweetie’s eyes shot open as they fell upon the very thing she believed to be just a dream. Thanks to a light coming from one of the stage’s spotlights, she could see every part of it.

A bell. A curved, purple bell complemented her white coat at the flank and shone in the spotlight. An eighth note with a slightly different purple tint rang from the bell, the round part of the note still in front while the note rose up and away.

“Ohmigosh, it’s really there!” shouted Sweetie as she remembered to breathe. “I can’t believe it! I finally have my cutie mark!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down!” Scootaloo grabbed Sweetie by the shoulders. “We don’t want you to pass out again.”

“But I finally have my...” Sweetie’s ecstatic grin turned into a confused look. “Wait, pass out?”

“Yeah.” Apple Bloom stepped forward. “Ya don’t remember? You were just lookin’ at yer cutie mark when ya first got it for awhile an’ then ya just fell over. We thought somethin’ was wrong with ya, but that lady with the headset checked ya over and said it just happens t’ some ponies on the stage.”

“You were out for the rest of the show,” added Scootaloo while she set her hooves back on the ground. “We looked after you the whole time. I can’t even remember a thing about any of the contestants that went on after you.” Scootaloo paused with a snicker. “Except for Snips and Snails. Nobody told them it was a singing contest and not a talent show. They tried to do a magic act!”

At this point, Scootaloo’s snicker developed into a full chuckle. Apple Bloom rolled her eyes while Scootaloo continued to laugh for a few more seconds.

While her friend had laughed, Sweetie had thought about her “So I really fainted? Aw man, I’m turning into my sister!”

Sweetie was only able to mope for a moment before she saw and felt a yellow hoof push up on her chin. Her face soon met with Apple Bloom’s smile.

“Hey, cheer up. I betcha lots o’ ponies have done worse than faintin’ when they found their cutie mark.

“Yeah, but it would have been nice if you didn’t pass out,” said Scootaloo. “You should’ve seen the look on Diamond Tiara’s face when you were declared the winner. I hope Featherweight got a good picture of that for the Foal Free Press!”

“Wait, I won, too?” asked Sweetie.

“Sure did.” Apple Bloom turned to her side, showing her saddlebags. A large cloth bag stuck out of the opening, almost too big to fit. “I got it from the mayor an’ held onto it for ya.”

Sweetie stared in awe at her winnings. “Wow, fifty bits...” she muttered. “I’ve never had that much money before.”

Scootaloo looked from Sweetie to the bad of money, then back to Sweetie. “Yeah, just imagine how many crusades that money could fund-ow!”

A quick shot to the shoulder put an end to Scootaloo’s comment. While she rubbed the sore spot, Apple Bloom put her hoof back down and stepped forward. “What she meant t’ say is it’s yer money an’ you can do whatever ya want with it.”

“Keep it.”

Both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo adopted the “Sweetie is talking strange again” look. Scootaloo added a double-take and the words, “Wait, what?”

“We came here to make money so we could go on more crusades, right?” said Sweetie. “I think Apple Bloom should hold onto it. She knows what crusades we’ll be going on.”

“But ya won th’ money all by yourself. You’re th’ one who should say what we would do with it.” said Apple Bloom.

Sweetie shook her head. “But I still would’ve been way too scared to even come to the contest if you two weren’t there to help me. We all earned it together, so it should be put to something we all like to do.”

Apple Bloom opened her mouth to speak, but paused instead. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Wow, thanks a bunch!” Scootaloo beamed. “I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”

“You already did,” said Sweetie, wiggling her sides. “You helped me find my cutie mark. I don’t think I could repay you two with all the money in the world!”

Apple Bloom shook her head. “Ya don’t have t’ worry about that. That’s what bein’ a Cutie Mark Crusader’s all about.”

“Y-yeah...” Sweetie looked down toward her flanks again. Apple Bloom’s words lingered in her mind. She thought back to everything that had happened in the last week: The nonstop lessons, the encouraging words, the nightmares of humiliation, the surprise at her own singing, and the excitement of finally gaining her own cutie mark.

“Wow, I really do have my cutie mark now,” she said, lifting up her head and smiling brightly. “I can’t wait to show my family! Oh wow, I wonder what Rarity will say?”

**********************

“Ugh, it’s hideous!”

Rarity could only scowl at the offending sight before her. It was the first thing she had said to break the silence, but it was something she needed to get off her chest.

“In all of my years of fashion designing, I have never seen anything this deplorable in my life!” she continued to speak. “You should be ashamed of yourself for even bringing this into the boutique.”

Rarity sighed and shook her head. It was hard to be honest sometimes, she had to admit. She had to wonder how Applejack could do this with such ease.

Once her moment of silence passed, she found her voice and spoke again.

“Quite frankly, I’m glad nopony else saw you on the way back home. I mean, pink sequins on gray? What were you thinking, Rarity?”

The offending dress hovered before Rarity, the sequins matching the color of the magical aura surrounding it. Rarity stared at it until her face contorted in disgust. She tossed the dress away, unwilling to look at it any longer. Taking a moment to collect herself, she sighed and turned around. The sight there turned her frown into a little smile.

“Well, at least these all turned out rather nicely,” she said, though no one else was in the room to hear her. She couldn’t quite believe it: an entire line of dresses all designed, stitched, and completed by her own hooves within a weekend, laid out on a set of mannequins.

“I do believe a little extra celebration is in order for tonight,” she thought. “Maybe I could give myself a congratulatory bubble bath, and a nice hooficure while I’m at it. Oh, I’m already enjoying the sound of that. I could also indulge a few more of those lovely chocolates from Cocoacabana, although the devils will no doubt go straight to my flanks. Oh, I could even…”

A deep yawn brought Rarity’s brainstorming to a halt. As the yawn ended, she noticed her eyelids were especially heavy at the moment. She couldn’t deny that her effort to preserve quality and efficiency at the same time had taken its toll on her. She looked at the clock and noticed exactly how many hours – and days – had gone by since she began work on her order.

“Or maybe I could turn in for the night and leave the celebrations until tomorrow,” she concluded.

With a tired sigh, she made her way out of her “Flashy Fashions Finished Fast” room and into her bedroom. In her haste to get her order finished, she had neglected to keep the room as orderly as she had preferred. Materials, tools, and dresses littered the floor, nightstand, and bed, visible even in the lonely light of a single lamp. Opalescence quietly slept in the corner, using one of Rarity’s own designs as her bedding. Were she not so tired, Rarity might have marched right up to her cat and yanked her off the dress, but she had more important priorities to attend to. It wasn’t a dress she liked all that much, anyway.

Instead, she slouched up to her unmade bed and threw herself on top of it, far too exhausted to worry about her normal bedtime routine. She magically pulled the red, velvety covers up to her neck and nestled herself deeper into the bed. Even if she wanted to stop them, Rarity’s eyelids fell shut right away. She could already feel her mind losing itself to the pleasant numbness of sleep, her thoughts focused on the chocolates and how she could work the calories away while she worked on other dresses.

“RARITY, RARITY!”

Rarity’s eyes snapped open, the sweet visions of the chocolates vanishing in an instant. She let out a quiet groan as a set of hooves thundered towards her general direction, reminding her of who else had been staying in her home for the last week. Her beauty sleep would have to wait, if only for a few more minutes.

“What is it, Swee-oof!”

Rarity felt a weight drop hard onto her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. For a brief moment, the thought of putting her younger sister on a diet flashed in her mind. Upon recovering from the shock, she craned her head to find the offending weight. A pair of giddy green eyes and a smile so wide it threatened to fly right off Sweetie’s mouth met her gaze.

“I did it! I finally did it!” shouted Sweetie, her voice so high it almost cracked. “It was so cool! I never thought it would happen, but it really did, and it’s really real! This is the best day of my whole life! I can’t wait to show this to mom and dad and Miss Cheerilee and all my other friends at school and even Silver Spoon and Diamumdeermramrb—“

Sweetie’s excited speech became muffled as Rarity grabbed her face from the sides with both hooves, forcing her lips into an odd shape. Taking the hint, she stopped talking.

“Sweetie, please!” pleaded Rarity. “One thought at a time. Now what in the world did you do?”

“I guh my cyoody muhr!”

“Eh, pardon?” Rarity let go of her sister’s face, fixing the temporary speech impediment.

The filly’s ecstatic grin returned in a flash. She spun around on the spot and jammed the side of her flank in her sister’s face. “I got my cutie mark!” she squealed.

“C-cutie mark?” Rarity leaned back into her pillow and crossed her eyes to get a good look. “Just how in the…”

Her words trailed off, leaving Rarity’s mouth to hang in mid-air in awe. Sweetie was not kidding; her cutie mark shined clear as day in the lamp’s light.

“It’s really real, too!” said Sweetie. “It’s there on both sides and it came out all on its own!”

Rarity shook her head to clear her mind and asked, “But how did you get it?”

“It’s for singing! I had to sing for that contest so my friends and I could go on more crusades, and I was really nervous, but once I started, I just felt this really warm feeling in me, and then the crowd went crazy when I finished, and I never felt so excited in my life!”

Rarity blinked. “Sweetie, slow down. What contest? What crowd?”

“Oh, right.” Sweetie’s bouncing slowed to a stop. “Sorry, I forgot how busy you can get on a deadline.”

“Busy doesn’t even begin to describe it,” muttered Rarity.

And so, Rarity sat with her body half covered in the blanket as Sweetie explained to her the crusade’s plans for the past week and the events at the contest. Rarity gasped when Sweetie reached the part about her fainting, but the younger sister quickly added a “but I’m okay now!” to the end.

“Yeah, it’s so cool, isn’t it?” Sweetie inched her face closer to her sister’s head.

“Cool?” Rarity’s brow furrowed. “No, it’s not ‘cool.’”

“N-not cool?” Sweetie’s grin faded as she looked at her sister with worry.

“No, it’s absolutely, positively, undeniably gorgeous!”

“R-really!?” Sweetie’s smile returned as quickly as Rarity’s did, all traces of worry vanishing in an instant.

“Why of course, Sweetie,” came Rarity’s reply. “Your cutie mark fits you perfectly. I can’t think of a better design or special talent for you, and I bet mom and dad will say the same exact thing when they come home tomorrow. Why, I could already imagine a good dress to go with your new mark.”

Sweetie tried to speak, but with her joy reaching unprecedented levels, she could only muster another excited squeal.

“Speaking of dresses, I do believe we need to start getting plans together for your very own Cuteceñera. That means we’ll need to get in touch with—”

“Did somepony say Cuteceñera!?”

Quick as a flash, a blur of pink popped up between the sisters, bringing a cascade of confetti in her wake. Her sudden appearance caused Sweetie Belle to leap a foot back and Rarity to nearly jump through the canopy of her bed.

“P-Pinkie Pie!?” yelled Rarity. “How did you—”

Unfortunately for Rarity, Pinkie’s head moved in front of Rarity’s. Sweetie’s attention could now only be directed towards the energetic mare.

“First off, allow me to officially congratulate you on discovering your special talent and earning your cutie mark, Sweetie Belle!” said Pinkie.

“Uh, thanks?” said Sweetie with an unsure look.

“Don’t mention it!” replied Pinkie without missing a beat. “Anyways, I know how much you’ve been wanting your very own cutie mark for a long time, and I also know how not-fun it is to have to wait a really long time to get something, but now that you have one, it means you can celebrate and be super-happy about it, and what better way to celebrate a new cutie mark than with a good old-fashioned super-special Cuteceñera party all for you?”

“A Cuteceñera?” Sweetie shook her head. “I don’t know if I want something that big.”

“Of course you do, Sweetie! Everypony, and I mean everypony, has a Cuteceñera when they get their cutie mark. It’s a very important part of their life because it means they found what makes them special, and that’s always worth celebrating!”

Sweetie looked away for a moment, then returned her gaze to the bright, pink face in front of her. “But since it’s a party for me, can I help with the plans, too?”

“Of course you can!” Pinkie rubbed Sweetie’s head. “It’s your special day, after all! Just tell your Auntie Pinkie Pie exactly how you want your party and let her take care of the rest!” She retraced her hoof from Sweetie’s head and offered it to the filly. “So whaddaya say, Sweetie?”

Sweetie looked at the hoof in front of her. A few moments passed with Sweetie lost in thought. As she came back out of her thoughts, a smile returned to her face. She pressed her hoof up against Pinkie’s. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“I knew you’d come around!” said Pinkie Pie as she eagerly shook Sweetie’s hoof. “Now all we have to do is figure out what day we can have your party! I just need to check my party list real quick.”

Pinkie promptly let go of Sweetie’s hoof, leaving Sweetie to shake up and down for a couple seconds before coming to a stop. She reached behind her back and pulled out a piece of parchment. She let one end of the parchment fall to the ground and roll to the door.

“Let’s see here,” said Pinkie, “I have Gummy’s birthday party tomorrow, then the “Pinkie’s birthday party and Gummy’s after-birthday party” combo on the next day, then the party for Pumpkin Cake’s last tooth coming in…”

“Pumpkin Cake?” Rarity perked up. “Um, Pinkie Pie…”

“And then there’s my ‘Thank goodness it’s only two days ‘til Friday’ party,” continued Pinkie, “then my ‘Congratulations on getting your mail‘ party, my ‘Thank goodness it really is Friday’ party, then I’ll be out of town for a few days for another baking contest, then there’s the party for the end of the baking contest…”

Pinkie tossed her list off to the floor and turned her attention back to Sweetie. “So it looks like the soonest we can have your Cuteceñera is about a week from now or so. Will that be okay? I mean, it is quite a while after everypony will see your cutie mark, but nopony can turn down a good party. I know I can’t!”

“Pinkie Pie?” said Rarity in a concerned voice.

“That’s okay with me.” Sweetie smiled.

“Great!” Pinkie beamed at the guarantee of another party. “I’ll make sure to check up on you every now and then so we can make your Cuteceñera the very best it can be!”

“PINKIE PIE!”

Sweetie jerked away in surprise, but Pinkie turned around with a smile. “Yes, Rarity?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be babysitting the Cake Twins this weekend?” said Rarity in a strained tone.

“Yup!” replied Pinkie without a single flinch. “Don’t worry about it. I already tucked ‘em in for the night.”

“But aren’t you worried that you left them by themselves?” said Rarity.

“I got that covered, too. Gummy’s a trained guard gator. Nopony gets past him when he’s on the job!”

“That’s not exactly reassuring,” Rarity mumbled under her breath.

Pinkie stopped and rubbed her chin with a hoof. “Although now that I think of it, I have the strangest feeling that I’ve forgotten something… ah!” In an instant, Pinkie’s smile dropped away. She clasped her hooves on her head in horror. “Ohmigosh! I forgot to give Pound Cake his blankie out of the dryer! He’ll cry all night if he wakes up without it!”

What followed next was a series of actions that neither Rarity nor Sweetie Belle could fully comprehend. A pink blur flew all about them, gesticulating wildly while picking up everything it brought with her. In one breath, Pinkie shouted “Okaywe’llstartplanningthepartyinadayortwocongratulationsonyourcutiemarkSweetiedon’tcallme
I’llcallyougottagobye!” before darting out the door, leaving a trail of dust in her wake. Opalescence bolted up in fright as the pink blur blew past her, then shook her head and promptly went back to bed.

“Well, now,” said Rarity after a few seconds of silence. “I suppose that’s one thing taken care of.”

“I guess so,” replied Sweetie, looking at the open door. An instant later, she turned around to face Rarity with another grin. “Oh wow, I’m gonna have a Cuteceñera! I can’t wait to tell mom and dad when they get hom-mph!”

Rarity sprang into action before Sweetie could continue any further and stuffer her hoof in her sister’s mouth. Feeling her fatigue coming back, Rarity leaned toward Sweetie and looked her in the eye. “Yes, Sweetie, I’m quite sure you’re very happy and have a lot of plans for your new cutie mark, but I don’t think it would hurt if we waited until the morning to discuss them, okay?”

Unable to reply, Sweetie nodded as much as she could with a hoof in her mouth. Rarity gave a tired smile as she retracted her leg.

“Blech!” Sweetie grimaced. “Even your hoof is gross.”

Rarity gasped in shock. “It is not!” she replied with a glare, then quickly brought her hoof up to her face. She grimaced a little as she hid her leg under the covers. “Well in any case, I think it’s for the best that we head to bed now. You have school in the morning, after all.”

Sweetie opened her mouth to argue, but sighed instead. “Okay,” she said in a deflated tone. Her head drooped as she turned to hop off Rarity’s bed.

“Oh, and Sweetie Belle…”

“Yes?” Sweetie’s head turned right back to where it was a moment before. Her sister’s eyelids drooped, but she had somehow found the energy to form another smile.

“I really am proud of you, you know that?” said Rarity. “And I know mom and dad will be, too.”

A warm feeling not unlike the one she had felt on the stage flared up inside Sweetie. The warmth travelled into her limbs, making them wrap tight around her sister’s neck.

“Thanks, sis!” Sweetie hugged her sister with all her might.

Rarity wrapped her hooves around her sibling and returned the gesture. “You’re welcome.”

The sisters embraced for only seconds, but the love they exchanged in that short time could have lasted them a lifetime. Finally, Rarity was the first to break the hug.

“Alright, off to bed with you now,” Rarity said as she retracted her hooves.

“Okay. Goodnight, Rarity!” Sweetie hopped off the bed with a bright face and made her way to her room. She carried a small spring in her step as she walked out of Rarity’s sight.

Rarity let out a sigh. Falling back onto the bed, Rarity turned over and closed her eyes again. Finally, she could get the beauty sleep she so desired, she thought.

At least, she did until a grumble from her stomach informed her of another need she had to take care of. She opened her eyes and frowned, but the frown soon became a smile as she thought of a solution to her problem.

“On second thought, maybe chocolates before bed aren’t such a bad idea after all.”

**********************

A poke to the shoulder stirred Apple Bloom to lift her head from the desk with a groan. Her first sight was of Ms. Cheerilee writing the lessons for today on a chalkboard. Sunlight poured in through the windows, giving the classroom a bright atmosphere.

Pausing for a quick yawn, Apple Bloom turned towards Scootaloo, who – thanks to Cheerilee’s latest seating chart – now sat next to her. Hints of redness were present in Apple Bloom’s eyes, with a line traced underneath each one.

“What’s wrong?” asked Scootaloo. “Have a rough night of sleep or something?”

Apple Bloom rubbed some of the sand out of her eyes. “Yeah, kinda-sorta. I was up most of the night workin’ on stuff.”

“Stuff? Like what?”

“Plans for crusades, of course.” Apple Bloom reached into her saddlebags next to her desk and pulled out an unruly stack of papers. She handed them over to Scootaloo, who then started to thumb through them. The papers were little more than rough crayon doodles of ideas, some littered with half sentences and question marks.

“And I thought you said you were running out of ideas for crusades,” commented Scootaloo while she tried to make sense of the plans.

“I really was,” said Apple Bloom, “but once I got home after the contest, I just started gettin’ all these new ideas. If Applejack hadn’ta come in an’ taken my crayons away, I probably woulda been up all night drawin’ plans.”

“At least we have some ideas on what to do with all that prize money now.” Scootaloo grinned. “I can’t believe I never thought about ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Trapeze Artists’ before. That sounds right up my alley.”

Apple Bloom smiled, but then changed to a confused look as she glanced past Scootaloo. “Hey, speakin’ of prize money, where’s Sweetie Belle?”

“Huh?” Scootaloo looked over to where her friend normally sat. Sure enough, while their other schoolmates had taken their seats around them, Sweetie’s desk remained bare and empty.

“She’s gonna be late fer class if she don’t get here soon. I wonder what’s holdin’ her up?”

Apple Bloom’s response was met with a shrug from Scootaloo. “I dunno, maybe she overslept. I know I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I got my cutie mark right before bed.”

“Sweetie Belle got her cutie mark?”

A filly who sat behind Scootaloo spoke up loud enough for the entire class to hear. The idle chatter of the other ponies died down, and both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom could feel several eyes upon them.

“Uhhh…” was all that Apple Bloom could force out.

“It’s true!” called out Snips from a couple rows away. “Snails and I were at the contest when it happened!”

“Uh, was that supposed to be a surprise?” asked Scootaloo with a sheepish look.

Apple Bloom lightly shook her head. “If it was, then I guess the cat’s outta the bag now.”

“Did she really get it? That’s so cool!” said one filly.

“Yeah, how’d she do it?” Another pony leaned in.

“Was it at that singing contest?”

“What does it look like?”

“What’d she do when she got it?”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other with worried looks as the barrage of questions continued. A silent conversation took place between them. Neither of them were exactly sure of how much information they should divulge and how much they should let Sweetie explain for herself. They both knew they just wanted the questions to stop.

“All right, all right, settle down everyone!”

Luckily for them, Cheerilee’s words soon calmed down the horde of schoolponies. The entire class turned their attention towards their teacher as she stood front and center.

“I’m sure Sweetie Belle will be eager to share her cutie mark with everyone when she comes, but we have a busy day of class, so let’s get started right away.”

A chorus of disappointed sighs rang through the classroom, but Cheerilee’s face remained upbeat. “Now don’t worry, I’m sure a few reading exercises will get us in the learning spirit. Now if you would get out a piece of paper and write down the sentences on the board…”

While most of the class obeyed the teacher and dug for their supplies, Diamond Tiara slouched on her desk with her head resting on her hooves. She huffed aloud, not bothering to listen to her teacher.

“Who cares about her cutie mark?” she said while staring into the ground with a grim face. “It’s probably something ugly and dumb, anyway.”

“Cutie marks are overrated,” replied Silver Spoon from behind her. Her laryngitis was wearing off, though her voice remained fairly raspy.

Diamond Tiara spun around to face her friend. “Tell me about it. Mark my words, no one’s gonna care about her mark or that stupid contest by the end of the day.”

Silver Spoon nodded, but did not have time to say anything more. The door in the front of the school building flew open and smacked into the wall, grabbing the attention of everypony inside.

Sweetie Belle stood in the doorway, gasping to catch her breath. Her limbs ached from running nonstop from the boutique, and what little time she put into combing her mane was already coming undone.

“Sorry… I’m late!” said Sweetie between breaths. “My… sister and I overslept. We both had a… long night, and I forgot… to set my alarm. Please don’t be too mad.”

Once she had gotten enough air in her lungs, Sweetie lifted her head. The entire class, students and teacher alike, stared at her with wide eyes. Their focused gaze reminded Sweetie of the previous night. She shifted nervously on her legs.

“Uh, you’re not all really mad at me, are you?” she asked.

The next thing Sweetie knew, she was back outside, surrounded by her classmates. Some offered her congratulations while others asked a seemingly never-ending series of questions. She caught a flash of the camera in the corner of her eye, no doubt from Featherweight, she assumed. She could also spot her friends on the outside of the circle trying to force themselves to the center.

Despite the chorus of loud voices directed towards her, Sweetie became lost in her mind. Her classmates were cheering at her… no, cheering for her. She could feel the tingly warmth from last night growing within her once more.

“All right, that’s enough, everyone!” yelled Cheerilee from the door. The mob of schoolponies stopped dead in their tracks. Cheerilee maneuvered her way to the crowd and added, “We don’t need to badger Sweetie like this. Let’s all get back inside so she can have a chance to tell us all about her new cutie mark.”

Without another word, the class trotted back into the school, leaving Cheerilee and the Crusaders by themselves. Apple Bloom, Sweetie, and Scootaloo all glanced at each other, then turned to make their way inside.

“Oh, I almost forgot!”

The trio stopped in their tracks and turned around. Cheerilee lowered her stare down to Sweetie and gave her a smile.

“Say Sweetie, I forgot to mention this last night, but I just wanted to let you know that the Ponyville Elementary Choir is having its first meeting after school,” said Cheerilee.

“Really?” Sweetie replied. “That’s cool. I bet the choir will sound great this year. I can’t wait to go see their first show.”

Cheerilee leaned closer to Sweetie. “That’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you. Sweetie Belle, would you like to join the Ponyville Elementary Choir this year?”

Sweetie’s eyes grew wider. She gasped and felt her heart skip a beat. “You… the choir… want me?”

“I think you’d make a great addition.” Cheerilee nodded.

“You really think so?” Sweetie’s voice cracked as she hopped up and down. “Of course I’ll come! I’d love to sing for the choir!”

“That’s wonderful news, Sweetie,” said Cheerilee. She stifled the urge to giggle at Sweetie’s newfound excitement. “I’m going to go inside and get the class back in order now. You can wait out here for a minute to get yourself ready to talk about your cutie mark if you’d like.”

“Okay!” replied the bouncing Sweetie.

As Cheerilee stepped back inside the schoolroom, Sweetie’s hopping spree came to a halt. She turned to face her friends, who stared at her with smiles. Sweetie had a feeling they were genuine smiles too, not the usual smiles Rarity had taught them to hide their lack of interest in something.

“Wow, it’s like everythin’s just goin’ yer way now,” said Apple Bloom.

“No kidding,” said Scootaloo, “and all just from singing really well at a contest, too. Who would’ve thought Diamond Tiara’s plan had any merit after all?”

“I know. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life,” said Sweetie. “I hope you two get your cutie marks real soon. This is crazy!”

Scootaloo nodded. “That’s the plan for today. Once we’re out of school, we’re definitely putting that money to good use.”

At the mention of Scootaloo’s plan, Sweetie looked down at the ground. “Yeah. I wish I could join you two to help you out.”

“Well, why can’t ya?” said Apple Bloom, cocking her head. “I’m sure the choir meetin’ won’t take that long.”

“It’s not just that, though. My parents are coming home from vacation tonight and I want to show them my new cutie mark.” Sweetie let out a sigh. “Sorry, girls.”

“Eh, no worries,” said a shrugging Scootaloo. “I’d probably be busy showing off my cutie mark to everyone else if I had mine, too.”

“Yeah, we know ya mean well.” Apple Bloom nodded.

Sweetie lifted her head back up, having found her smile once more. “Thank you. So does this mean we can still be friends?”

“Why would it mean we can’t be friends?” asked Apple Bloom. “Yer still Sweetie Belle, cutie mark or not.”

Scootaloo did her best to contain a chuckle at her friend’s sincere questions. “We’re best friends forever, Sweetie. Why would a cutie mark ever drive us apart?”

Chapter 4: CMC Friend-Makers

Sweetie Belle fidgeted on her hooves. She shouldn’t be this nervous, she told herself. After all, what was so different? She was in the same room that her classes took place at, with most of the same schoolmates (which unfortunately included Diamond Tiara), and even the same teacher. The only difference was that instead of a few rows of desks, there were now a line of risers in the center of the room.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t just sung her heart out in a public contest the night before, either. If anything, she should be eager to be able to show everyone why she deserved her new cutie mark. She had already told them all about it at the beginning of class. Some of them had even seen her mark-winning performance last night.

Despite her attempts to quiet it, the worrying feeling deep in her stomach, the one that had plagued her all of last week, still persisted.

“You okay, Sweetie?”

“Huh?” Sweetie came out of her trance and looked up to find Cheerilee standing over her with a smile. She felt a light blush coming on. “Oh, I’m okay. Uh, were you saying something?”

Cheerilee resisted the urge to giggle and kept her motherly stare. “No, Sweetie. Just looking out for my students. Are you sure you’re fine?”

The butterflies in Sweetie’s belly flapped a little harder at her teacher’s question, but she found the strength to overpower them.

“Um, well,” Sweetie started, looking from Cheerilee to the risers and back, “I’m a little worried.”

“Worried?”

Sweetie took a breath. “I’ve never been in a choir before. I don’t even know the first thing about singing in a group.”

“Well, it’s okay if you’re a little nervous,” said Cheerilee, “but I just know you’ll have fun here, and I’m sure everyone in the choir will do their best to make you feel welcome. And speaking of everyone…”

Cheerilee turned to the risers and cleared her throat loudly enough for everyone to hear. The fillies and colts stopped their conversations and all climbed onto the risers in what Sweetie assumed to be their normal spots.

“Good afternoon, my little ponies,” said Cheerilee. “Thank you all for signing up for the Ponyville Elementary Choir this year. Singing is a most wonderful talent that can not only brighten the hearts of everypony who listens, but provide a great way for a pony to express her feelings right from the heart. “With your hard work and talented voices, I know we’ll touch the hearts of everyone in Ponyville more than ever before.”

From her position, Sweetie Belle could see Diamond Tiara making a gagging expression as Cheerilee gave her speech. Whether her teacher caught it or not, Sweetie couldn’t tell any difference in the way she spoke.

“With this, I would like to welcome a new member to our choir.” Cheerilee nodded her head at Sweetie, making the entire class look at her. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind everypony of Sweetie Belle finding out about her wonderful singing voice last night.”

Sweetie felt a blush coming on her cheeks and looked away with a shy smile.

“Sweetie told me she would love to join our choir and show Ponyville more of her special talent,” said Cheerilee. Once more, Diamond Tiara made a visible gagging motion that went ignored.

“Oh, can she show us her singing voice?” asked Dinky from the front row.

Sweetie Belle gasped. There were the butterflies in her stomach again.

“Yeah, some of us haven’t heard her sing yet!” said Rumble from the back.

“Hmm… I suppose a demonstration couldn’t hurt. What do you think, Sweetie?” Cheerilee asked as she looked back to Sweetie at her side.

What Cheerilee saw made her look concerned. Sweetie frowned and stared straight ahead, her breathing just a bit louder than normal.

“Are you okay, Sweetie?” asked Cheerilee.

As if coming out of a trance, Sweetie blinked and looked up. “Huh? Oh, I, uh, guess I could sing a little.” She drew a circle in the ground with her hoof.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to demonstrate if you don’t want to,” said Cheerilee.

“Oh, give me a break!” interrupted Diamond Tiara. “She sang just fine at the contest last night. It’s not like she’s forgotten how to sing since then.”

“Diamond!” Cheerilee snapped, her smile turning into a disapproving glare in a flash. Diamond Tiara fell silent. She looked away in shame and annoyance. Not even she could resist a stern voice from a grown-up. “If Sweetie doesn’t want to sing, that’s her choice.”

“I’ll do it.”

Cheerilee’s glare disappeared as quickly as it appeared. “You will?”

Sweetie Belle looked up to her teacher with a nervous smile. “I’ll be fine. I mean, I’m not trying to win a contest for my friends or anything. I’m just singing for a few ponies.” She glanced over to the choir and gulped. “A few ponies that I go to school with and have known for a really long time, and happen to be part of a choir I wanna join.”

Cheerilee looked at Sweetie with concern and sighed. “If you feel like singing for us, then go right ahead. You can stop anytime you’d like.”

Sweetie nodded, never taking her eyes off the choir. There they were, looking right at her with eyes wide in anticipation and one pair in a glare. The butterflies in her belly gave another flap, making it that much harder for the song to come out of her mouth. She looked back and forth between the filles and colts, desperately trying to remember any of the techniques from the book that saved her skin the night before.

“Come on, Sweetie, you can do it!” said Dinky.

“R-right.” Sweetie gave another gulp. Looking at her classmates wasn’t doing her any favors. She needed to make them disappear, and there was only way to do that. Letting out one last sigh, Sweetie shut her eyes and imagined herself to be anywhere than where she actually was.

She was no longer in the classroom. With no effort at all, the first place she went to in her head was outside with her fellow Crusaders. Memories both young and old took the three of them to an endless number of crusades. They were racing downhill in bobsleds during the last Winter one moment, and enjoying a nice picnic in the Summer the next. It didn’t matter what they did in her mind; she was okay with whatever…

“…will be, will be.”

The visions in Sweetie’s head disappeared at once. Had she just sung the entire piece? She tried to remember anything about the last couple minutes, but all that came to her were the memories of crusades past.

The sound of her cheering schoolmates kept her from thinking any further. Sweetie opened her eyes to the smiles, stomps, and cheers of almost everypony in the choir.

“That was wonderful singing, Sweetie. I know you’ll fit perfectly in our choir.” said Cheerilee, still standing at Sweetie’s side. She lifted a hoof and pointed it to a space between two of the choir students. “Here, let’s put you between Archer and Twist for now and see how you do there.”

Obliging their teacher, the students spread themselves apart, allowing space for Sweetie to climb up to her spot.
“T-thanks, everyone.” Sweetie blushed as she climbed up the steps.

Now at her designated spot, Sweetie Belle turned around. She looked at the classroom from her new height. Something felt different, she thought to herself. She couldn’t have been more than a couple feet off the ground, but it was more than enough for the schoolroom to feel a little strange.

“Okay, everypony,” called Cheerilee, who now almost stood at eye-level with Sweetie. “It’s time to get started on our singing. Since we have a new member and it’s been a while since our first meeting, I’ll go ahead and pass out a new set of warm-up songs.”

Cheerilee walked back to her desk and pulled out a stack of songbooks. She turned her backside to the choir as she went to work balancing them on her barrel.

“That was a great job, Thweetie.”

“Huh?” Sweetie perked up and looked over to Twist. No one else could have spoken with a lisp like that. “Oh, thank you.” She smiled.

“Yeah, I don’t think any of us thought you could sing so well,” said Archer.

“Neither did I,” said Sweetie.

“This choir’s gonna thound great now that you’re here,” said Twist. “In fact, this might be the best theason of choir ever!”

Sweetie’s blush could only grow deeper. She thought of how silly it was to still feel embarrassed about her talent to the ponies who would easily accept it.

Sweetie opened her mouth to reply, but Cheerilee’s voice beat her. “Here we are, everypony. Take a songbook and pass it down the row until everyone has one.” The choir smiled and did as they were told.

As they passed the books out, Sweetie’s thoughts drifted to her friends. She could only hope that they were having as much success as she was right now.

**********************************

“Hey, Scootaloo?” said a muffled voice.

“Yes?” replied another muffled voice.

“You wanna know somethin’?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think our cutie marks are gonna have anythin’ to do with trampoline gymnastics.”

With a groan, Scootaloo adjusted her forelegs and pushed her muddy face off the ground. She glanced over to the yellow mess of limbs lying flat on the dirt just a few feet from a bright pink trampoline. “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right.”

Apple Bloom soon parted company with the ground and sat up. She paused to spit out a clump of dirt and grimace at the taste.

“I guess on the bright side, we didn’t actually cause any damage to Pinkie’s trampoline,” said Apple Bloom as she walked to the bright pink bouncing contraption. “Not t’ mention we didn’t spend any bits on this crusade or wreck anythin’ either. I can’t even remember the last time that happened.”

To this, Scootaloo frowned a little more. “That just means we’re not trying hard enough.”

Apple Bloom moved to one of the trampoline’s legs and started taking the contraption down. “Well, we still got plenty of ideas and money left to try. We can’t let ourselves get bummed out just yet.”

Upon mention of the ideas, Scootaloo’s face relaxed a little. “Yeah, but… I guess I thought since Sweetie got her cutie mark out of nowhere, we would get ours really fast, too.”

“Well, that could still happen,” said Apple Bloom while she folded the trampoline. “I mean, I thought I had totally run out o’ ideas just a few days ago, but now I got a whole backpack full of ‘em and plenty of money to pay for most of ‘em.”

Scootaloo sighed; what else could she do when faced with the truth? “Alright, but we really gotta push ourselves for these next crusades. Sweetie didn’t earn her cutie mark by going easy on her practicing, so we can’t do the same either. So what’s next?”

Though her forehooves were holding a portion of the trampoline above her head, Apple Bloom froze in her tracks. “Uh, next?” she said while looking with an arched brow over at her friend.

“Yeah, what’s the plan now? Are we gonna try some base-jumping? Breakdancing? Bookkeeping? No wait, scratch that last one, Twilight won’t let us do anything but check out books anymore.”

Apple Bloom felt like shaking her head, though she couldn’t exactly say why. “I think the best thing t’ do would be t’ call it a day.”

Were someone to stand near Scootaloo, they would have sworn they could feel something intangible deflating next to them. “Seriously?” spoke Scootaloo. “But we still got so much stuff to try.”

“I know we do.” Apple Bloom pushed the trampoline over. “But I’m a mite worn out from all the jumpin’, and it’s gonna be dark soon anyway.”

Scootaloo looked up and noticed the orange and violet sky for the first time. “Darn.” She frowned.

Apple Bloom folded the last of the trampoline and smiled to herself. “There. Now all we need is t’ bring this back to Pinkie. I just hope she ain’t too hard to find today.”

“I’m not!”

Out of the trampoline box popped Pinkie Pie’s grinning head.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both jumped back in surprise. “Pinkie!?” they cried out.

“Well, I’m usually not all that hard to find,” continued Pinkie as she climbed out of the box. “Unless it’s a game of hide and seek. I’m a champ at hide and seek, second only to Fluttershy of course!”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo exchanged looks, a move that went unnoticed by Pinkie. Scootaloo turned to the pink mare and asked “So what are you doing here?”

Pinkie Pie opened her eyes. “Oh, right! I need my trampoline back. Turns out some of the frogs at the swamp have been getting into the main town.”

“But what does your trampoline have t’ do with that?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Why wouldn’t my trampoline have something to do with this?” Pinkie Pie adopted a serious look.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo opened their mouths as if to speak, but were unable to find any words between the two of them.

Pinkie Pie grabbed hold of her trampoline and tossed it into the air. The folded contraption fell perfectly into the box, pulling the lid closed as it went past. “No time to talk. I’ve got some frogs to relocate. Bye girls, see you at the party!”

In a flash, Pinkie was gone, box and all. The only evidence of her being there was the puff of dust kicked up in her wake.

A few seconds of silence passed before the two fillies spoke again. “What was that all about?” asked Scootaloo.

“Knowin’ Pinkie, it could be anythin’,” replied Apple Bloom.

“No kidding.” Scootaloo turned to her friend and lifted a hoof to the side. “And what was that party she was talking about?”

Apple Bloom shrugged. “I don’t know. Pinkie just about has a new party goin’ on every other day. Could just be fer Gummy gettin’ a new tooth or somethin’ like that.”

“If that’s the case, then she might not want to keep Gummy as a pet for much longer.” Scootaloo shuddered as a scary image of a grown Gummy entered her mind. She shook it out of her head. “So same time tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yep.” Apple Bloom smiled. “Gotta make the most o’ what time we have left before Winter Set-Up.”

Scootaloo matched her smile with a grin. “Definitely. Tomorrow, we give it our all. We’re getting our cutie marks before Winter Set-Up no matter what!”

**********************************

“…And that’s what we did after school yesterday.”

Sweetie Belle looked at Scootaloo in quiet admiration. Her head was leaned over on her desk so she could see both of her friends as they recounted the story. Despite the rest of the class chatting all around her, she could hear their every word loud and clear.

“Wow,” said Sweetie, “that sounded like fun. Well, the jumping part did. Are you any sore from all the landings?”

Scootaloo scoffed. “Nah, we’re both fine. I brushed that stuff off easy.”

To this, Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “Really? Not even a little bit?”

“Of course.” Scootaloo lifted her head in pride. “I don’t even know the meaning of the word paAAIEEE!”

Her smug grin instantly changed to a contorted face of pain when Scootaloo felt a poke to her rather sore left leg.

“Doesn’t hurt, huh?” asked a grinning Apple Bloom as she withdrew a hoof.

Scootaloo rubbed her sore limb. “Except for there,” she mumbled.

Sweetie giggled to herself. She could always count on her friends to put a smile on her face.

“Anyway,” spoke Scootaloo once the pain in her limb had subsided, “we’re gonna try some more crusades after school.” Scootaloo pumped a hoof. “We’re not stopping until we’ve both found our special talent!”

“Cutie marks or bust!” added Apple Bloom.

Sweetie giggled again. “Okay, just try not to bust anything. I only gave you fifty bits.”

“We’ll try not to,” said Apple Bloom. “I think our next few crusades shouldn’t cost too much. We’re tryin’ out kite-flyin’ and card-playin’ next. We’d have t’ try to break somethin’ that way.”

At the mention of the crusades, Sweetie Belle’s smile faded. She felt another odd feeling deep within her stomach. It wasn’t the same as the feelings she had before her big night on the stage. Those felt like her heart was going to explode from fright and nervousness.

This time, her belly felt a little hollow, but not because she was hungry. Rarity’s breakfasts eliminated any chance of that being the answer. It was as if there was something missing from her, something she wanted back but knew she couldn’t have.

“I wish I could come along with you for those,” said Sweetie. “They sound like fun.”

“Well, why can’t you?” asked Scootaloo.

“It’s the choir. We’re having our first concert in a few weeks, and we really need to work hard if we’re gonna learn all the songs by then. That means rehearsals are gonna go pretty late.”

“Aw, don’t worry about it, Sweetie. Scootaloo an’ I can handle ourselves,” said Apple Bloom. Were she not separated by another desk and its purple-maned occupant, Apple Bloom would have laid a shoulder over Sweetie in comfort. All she could do from her seat was add “You just worry about doin’ great in the choir, an’ we’ll make sure to come see all yer concerts.”

Sweetie Belle responded with another soft smile. “Thanks, girls. I can’t wait to see you two at our first concert and my cuteceñera.”

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom lifted their eyes in surprise. “You’re gonna have a cuteceñera? Since when?” asked Scootaloo.

“Since Pinkie Pie came to the Boutique and told me I was gonna have one,” said Sweetie with a straight face.

Scootaloo looked baffled. “Pinkie Pie? But how did…” her voice trailed off as the memory of Pinkie’s sudden appearance last night flashed in Scootaloo’s mind. She instead closed with, “Oh, right. She likes to do that.”

“Yeah, sorry I forgot to tell you about it yesterday,” said Sweetie. “I was going to, but the whole class got excited about my cutie mark and then Cheerilee asked if I wanted to join the choir. I had so much stuff to think about, it just slipped my mind.”

“I hear that,” said Scootaloo. “I know I’d have a hard time remembering things if I were in your horseshoes.”

Apple Bloom nodded behind her friend while she dug through her backpack. “So when is yer cuteceñera?” she asked.

“It’s this Sunday evening from five to about eight. It’ll be at my parent’s house. Rarity doesn’t want it at her Boutique, and Pinkie told me the Cakes are re-doing the inside of Sugarcube Corner that weekend.” Sweetie rubbed her head. “At least, I think that’s what I got. Pinkie was talking pretty fast because she had another one of her senses. Something about her needing her trampoline, I think.”

“5 PM. Sunday night. Sweetie’s house,” mumbled Apple Bloom through a pencil as she wrote down the details on the corner of one of her crusade blueprints. “Got it,” she declared after spitting out the pencil. “We’ll be there fer sure.”

“Definitely.” Scootaloo grinned.

“Alright everypony, it’s time for class!”

Proving her namesake once more, Cheerilee’s voice soon brought the entire schoolroom to silence. The young fillies and colts all turned their attention to their teacher, their eyes wide and minds ready for anything.

“If you haven’t heard by now, today marks the first official day of Fall this year. Now can anyone tell me what that means?”

A small number of hooves raised in the air, some of which were adorned with cries of “Oh, pick me!”

“Hmm, let’s see,” said Cheerilee as her eyes scanned the class. “Twist?”

“Doeth it mean the Running of the Leaves will start thoon?” spoke the glasses-wearing filly with braces.

“Yes, it does,” said Cheerilee with a smile, “but it also means something else. Do you know what it is, Pipsqueak?”

“It’s gonna get colder and Luna will make the nights longer, right?” asked Pipsqueak.

“That’s right.” Cheerilee walked over to a chalkboard on wheels. The side visible to the children was completely blank. “However, it also means something important for the class today.”

“Does it mean more homework?” came Snails’ drawl from the back row. His comment caused a look of panic in some of the class, especially his friend Snips.

The corner of Cheerilee’s mouth tried to curl further upwards, but she held it down. “No, Snails… well yes, it does, but it means something more important than that.”

All eyes focused on Cheerilee as she spun the easel around. The chalkboard on the flip side contained an outline of the classroom, with names for each student on the seats and Cheerilee’s desk at the top.

“It’s time for our new seating chart for the quarter!” said Cheerilee.

A chorus of groans and disappointed sighs broke out amongst the class. The moans could be heard loudest in the general area of the Cutie Mark Crusaders and around Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

“Now, now, everypony, I know you’re disappointed, but a new seat is just what we all need for the new season. Think of it as an opportunity to talk to some of your other fellow classmates and make some new friends,” Cheerilee spoke, her expression unwavering. She lifted a hoof and pointed it at the board. “Now then, we’ll start with the row closest to the door. In the first seat, we have…”

While Cheerilee ran down the new seating chart, Scootaloo looked back and forth between her friends with a worried look. “Oh no, a new seating chart? How are we gonna discuss our plans now?”

“Maybe it won’t be too bad,” said Apple Bloom, her expression a hopeful one. “Who knows, we might end up pretty close together fer this season, too.”

**********************************

“…Or we might end up completely separated.”

Apple Bloom’s smile had faded to a depressed frown. She slumped on her hoof as she looked from the back of the class. In the front and left-most seat sat Scootaloo, while Sweetie was moved to the right and middle of the class. Thankfully, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were not close by to any of them, but it did little to comfort her.

Apple Bloom let out a sigh. She tried to comfort herself with the fact that she could always talk to them during lunch and recess in addition to anytime outside class. Still, she knew she was going to miss whiling away the minutes of free time with her friends, and she had a feeling the others would miss it, too. They all may as well have all been on a chain of remote islands hundreds of miles away from each other.

Meanwhile, Scootaloo sat with her head slouched into her hoof. Her frown carried a look of both boredom and disappointment. She was never too keen on sitting in a desk and listening to someone talk about boring stuff all day long (something her “C” average grades reflected). Why learn about unimportant things like the founding of Canterlot when she could be outside doing everything she could to get her cutie mark, after all? But with nopony next to her that she could discuss these things with, Scootaloo was certain the hours she spent in class were going to crawl by slower than Tank on a road covered in glue.

One row back and across the room from her sat Sweetie Belle, though she didn’t feel very sweet at the moment. She carried the same frown as her friends while she stared at the curves and grooves in the wood that made up her desk. The differences between the markings on her new desk and the old one only further drove home the sad truth. The knot in the corner was now off to the center. The cut marks on the edges were gone. Her friends were not to her sides anymore.

And there certainly never used to be a note on her desk before.

Sweetie Belle blinked and shook her head out of her trance. There it was: a folded note with her name on it in someone else’s writing. She quickly looked up and checked her surroundings. Cheerilee had her back turned to the class while she wrote some math problems on the board. The rest of the ponies she saw were either looking at Cheerilee or writing the problems down.

Taking the risk of being caught and scolded, Sweetie grabbed the note and quietly opened it. The mouth-writing was rough, but the message’s content was enough to make Sweetie stare at the message in disbelief.

Sweetee, pleaz sit at are table for lunch to-day. –Truffle

They wanted her to join them at their lunch table? Sweetie knew exactly what table Truffle Shuffle sat at. It had most of the choir members there, like Dinky, Archer, Rumble, Featherweight, and Twist. It wasn’t hard to remember who all sat at that table, either.

In her head, Sweetie could see them now, all laughing at jokes and talking about the cool stuff going on. That’s what they always did when she, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo walked by to their own table to do much of the same thing as them, just on a smaller scale.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo… of course! As much as she considered the idea, Sweetie couldn’t just leave her two best friends like that. She’d have to explain that to Truffle before lunch.

With a sigh, Sweetie, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo all turned their attention back to Cheerilee and waited for the lunch bell’s ringing to unite them once more.

**********************************

“…So we’ll start with the kite-boarding tomorrow, then we’ll give tree-trimming a try.”

“I dunno. I think we should try kite-boardin’ on Thursday and do frisbee-golf tomorrow. That way, we’re not too tired for tree-trimmin’.”

“But if we do that, we’ll have kite-boarding and rocket-building for Thursday, and there’s no way we’ll have enough time for both of those.”

“Then you should both try the first plan,” piped in Sweetie from across the table.

“Maybe if we tried rocket-building and tree-trimming tomorrow, we can do frisbee-golf and kite-boarding on Thursday,” continued Scootaloo, her head still fixed on the mess of plans on the table. “Then if we make any mistakes, we’ll definitely have some trees to trim.”

“But then we’ll be dead tired from all the runnin’ around we’d have to do on Thursday,” said Apple Bloom. She pulls another piece of paper from out of the pile. “Here, maybe we could try a night talent like star-gazin’ tomorrow and leave frisbee-golf fer the weekend.”

“Now there’s a plan. You both can do that,” said Sweetie.

“But we can’t do a night talent together. At least, not on a school night,” said Scootaloo.

“We don’t need to do some talents together,” said Apple Bloom. “That way, we can still try findin’ our cutie marks even when we have to go home for the night.”

“Separate attempts at cutie marks?” Scootaloo glanced to the side and rested her head on hoof. “Yeah, that could work. We could get even more crusades in before Winter if we do that.”

“Oh, there you go,” said a smiling Sweetie. “Sounds like you have everything all worked out, so maybe now we can talk about–”

“Wait a second,” interrupted Scootaloo. “If we’re gonna start doing these separate crusades, we need to figure out what days we should do them, too.”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Yer right. Here, lemme dig them outta my bags and we can go over them, too.”

While Apple Bloom ducked underneath the table to do just that, Sweetie looked off to the side and frowned. “…Something else,” she muttered under her breath.

Such had been their gathering at the lunch table since the crusaders had sat down. It was a nice enough day for the class to enjoy its lunch outside, which meant they could sit together at their favorite table under the shade of an old oak tree.
Tried as she might, Sweetie couldn’t get a word in between Apple Bloom and Scootaloo’s planning. They had even eaten their lunch while they laid out the groundwork for upcoming crusades.

It wasn’t that Sweetie wanted to keep them from working out the best way to earn their cutie marks, far from it. As they had talked about their plans, however, Sweetie could feel an empty feeling growing deep within her again. It made even less sense to feel empty now that she had just had lunch, but as her friends continued to bring up the things they were going to do after class, Sweetie finally realized what the emptiness meant, and it made her feel worse than before.

She didn’t have to go on crusades anymore.

No more crazy shenanigans with her friends. No more spending countless hours coming up with plans to earn her cutie mark. No more cheering each other up after a failed crusade and enjoying milkshakes while they looked forward to tomorrow’s chance of bringing them success. She no longer needed to do any of these things. Her friends were right next to her, but while they spoke of future crusades, Sweetie felt like they were worlds apart.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle!”

Sweetie perked up and looked around her. There were only four tables outside. The voice that called to her definitely didn’t come from her friends. It didn’t come from the table that housed Snips and Snails. It definitely didn’t come from Diamond and Silver’s table. That just left one table, the one table detailed in Sweetie’s note, to be exact.

“Come sit with us, Sweetie.” Dinky waved to her from the far side of the table. “We all wanna talk to you.”

Sweetie looked back and forth between her friends and the table of choir students calling her over. On one hoof, she had a whole new table of ponies wanting to talk to her, maybe even get to know her. Then again, she couldn’t just up and walk away from the fillies that had stuck with her for so many adventures. They were her friends, even if she had the chance to make a new group of friends in the choir, or if her friends were talking about things that no longer pertained to her, or had ignored her suggestions like she wasn’t there…

“Um, girls?” asked Sweetie as he turned around to face them. Their eyes remained glued to the plans in front of them.

“But Friday night’s supposed to be cold, so we can’t do star-gazing. Let’s do photography then,” said Scootaloo.

“We can’t do photography on Friday. We’d have t’ borrow a camera from Featherweight, and he’ll be outta town until Sunday morning,” replied Apple Bloom.

“Hey, listen,” said Sweetie, “Dinky wants to talk to me at her table about a couple things, so I’m gonna head over there, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, go for it.” Scootaloo waved a hoof at Sweetie. “But the problem with photography at night is…”

Sweetie didn’t bother to listen to the rest of the conversation. She gathered up the rest of her lunch in her bag, stood up, and turned around. She looked back one last time at her friends, then walked off to her seat at the choir table.

Author's Note

With thanks to Slashe720, Eights, and The Gentleman Creeper for proofreading.

Chapter 6, Part 1: CMC Party-Goers

“Oh no, I can’t believe I forgot all about that!”

“Forget what? More things?”

“No, the really important thing we never should have forgotten and we did!”

“Spit it out already! What did we forget!?”

“We forgot to grab the blue polka-dotted party caps for all the colts!”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes shrank in sheer horror, her hooves pressed firmly into her cheeks. She frantically looked back and forth in the front room. Streamers, balloons, tables of snacks and foods, and a long banner reading “Happy Cuteceñera, Sweetie!” with a drawing of her cutie mark at the end decorated the normally quaint front room of Sweetie’s house.

“Um, Pinkie Pie,” said Sweetie Belle’s mother, who stood next to her husband, “I don’t think the colts will mind too much if they have to wear pink caps.”

“But what if they do?” Pinkie immediately replied, getting right up to the white mare’s face. “You know how kids can overreact to the littlest things. What happens if one of the boys doesn’t like having to wear pink, but he throws a big fit because we don’t have blue caps for him? There’s no telling what could happen! Sweetie’s super-special Cuteceñera could be ruined!”

Pearl and Magnum glanced away with an unsure look. “Well, I don’t know if-”

“Mister and Missus Belle, we owe it to Sweetie to ensure that her super-duper special Cuteceñera is the best party she’s ever had in her young life,” interrupted Pinkie, giving them a deadly serious look. “You want Sweetie to have the best party ever, right?”

Pearl blinked. “Well, yes, but-”

“Of course you do! What mother wouldn’t? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta make a fast trip to Sugarcube Corner and save this party!”

A puff of Pinkie-shaped smoke replaced the real pony a split second later, with a trail of dust leading all the way out the front door. The trail passed by Sweetie Belle, who felt a strong wind blow her mane to the side a moment afterwards. She glanced around the front porch, knowing all too well of the problems a sprinting Pinkie Pie could lead to.

Once she determined that there were no immediate problems on the outside, Sweetie turned her attention to the other most important thing in the area: her dress.

Rarity never kidded around when she said she had a dress to make. She definitely didn’t kid around when that dress was meant to be worn by her sister at an important milestone of her life. The calm blue colors that mostly made up the gown matched perfectly with her white coat. The dress opened up at the back, allowing Sweetie’s like-new cutie mark to still be visible. The yellow trimmings served only to bring out the beauty of the mark.

A couple once-overs later, and Sweetie decided that the dress was fine. Rarity wouldn’t be killing her just yet. Now she could safely go back to watching out for her party guests.

Pinkie had told her that since it was her special party, she should be the one to greet everypony at the door. That way, nobody would forget whose party it was for. She had wondered how anyone could forget that when Pinkie had put her name in bright, big letters on the invitations. That, and the giant banner above the doorway that read “Sweetie Belle’s Cuteceñera!” Maybe Pinkie’s just thrown a bit too many parties this week, she thought.

“Hey, Sweetie!”

“Huh?” Sweetie looked over to the other side of the road outside her house. She found three of her schoolmates happily trotting up to her: Dinky, Truffle, and Rumble. Balanced on their backs were plastic containers and a few colorful boxes. Truffle had three containers stacked high on his back.

“Hope we’re not late!” said Dinky as she reached the front door.

“Don't worry, you’re right on time. Thanks for coming.” Sweetie smiled.

“Don’t mention it,” said Rumble. “I don’t think any of us could ever turn down a good party.”

“I know I can’t,” said Truffle with a dreamy look in his eye. “I could never pass up a party with Pinkie’s desserts… ow!”

An unseen jab to Truffle’s rear leg snapped him out of his trance. “Oh, and to make a fellow choir member feel welcome, too! And that’s a nice dress!” he quickly replied, nodding his head.

“You… like my dress?” A touch of pink broke through Sweetie’s cheeks.

Dinky nodded and replied with, “It looks really good on you. It must be nice to have a dressmaker for a sister.”

“Well, it comes in handy sometimes.” Sweetie giggled in an effort to hide her sheepishness. “So is anyone else coming from the choir?”

“Everyone is!” said Dinky.

Now Sweetie couldn’t hide the pink anymore. “Everyone?” she asked.

“Well, we don’t know about Diamond Tiara,” said Rumble, lifting a hoof. “She usually doesn’t like to go to parties about ponies other than herself. I think we all know how she can get, anyway.” Rumble finished with a shudder.

Sweetie didn’t say anything, but found herself agreeing. Diamonds and Sweets didn’t always make for the best combination.

“Oh well, that means more food for us,” said Truffle, licking his lips not at all quietly.

“Speaking of food, I hope the food you brought is as good as Pinkie’s.” Rumble turned to Truffle as he spoke.

“Wait, you brought food?” asked Sweetie.

Truffle perked up and held his chin high. “Of course! My mom makes the best popcorn balls you’ll ever eat. It was the best Cuteceñera present I could think of.”

Dinky giggled and said, “Don’t worry, not all of us brought food. I think everypony brought presents we all think you’ll enjoy.”

If Sweetie’s smile could get any smaller, she didn’t know. “Really? Then I can’t wait to open them later,” she replied while looking at the colorful boxes.

“Why wait? Presents are the best part of any party ever!” said Rumble with a grin almost too big for his face.

“Wait, what about having fun with friends?” asked Dinky.

“Oh, right! That’s a, um, close second?” Rumble’s grin became much smaller when he answered.

“Then that makes the food a close third!” said Truffle, also with a big smile. “I sure hope there’s more than enough for everybody.”

“With all the kids coming and bringing food, there’s no way anyone is leaving here without a doggie bag,” said Rumble with a couple laughs.

Were anyone looking closely enough at Truffle, one could distinctly make out a twinkle in his eyes among his wide stare and lethargic grin. However, no one in the vicinity saw this. Rumble and Dinky were looking at Sweetie, and Sweetie was looking back at them.

Sweetie had been thinking of Rumble’s claim. He was certainly right; the entire choir, sans Diamond, was sure to be on its way. Rarity would be there sometime, she just had to finish up another dress for an “urgent client, as it were.” Miss Cheerilee would probably turn up as well, since she didn’t have to worry about getting papers graded for school tomorrow. All that would leave is…

Sweetie’s little smile faded away. She could already feel the beginning of the deep and uncomfortable sensation hitting her belly again. It wasn’t as strong as the last few times it had hit her, but she still never enjoyed it when it arose. Every time it had struck, it still made her feel empty inside, and all just because she thought of those two.

“Um, are you okay?” asked Dinky.

“Oh, I’m fine!” Sweetie quickly put her smile back on. The feeling still persisted, but she couldn’t let her friends down. They had a right to have as much fun at her party as she did.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder about the other two. They hadn’t spoken to each other in a week, sure, but there’s no way they could forget something like this. They were her best friends, after all. In fact, they had to be on their way right now.

At least, she hoped they were.

*************************

“Alright, ready?”

Apple Bloom gulped. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good enough for me! Let’s do this!”

As one, the two fillies pushed the contraption forward. Its wheels lurched and squeaked, despite being on soft dirt. The cool twilight air breezed by them as the device picked up speed. The girls pushed harder, putting all the strength their little bodies could muster into the contraption. In no time at all, the steep drop-off of the hill was fast approaching them. As they reached the height of their strength, the ground finally dropped out from underneath them…

Only for them to immediately smack into it a second later, still attached to the device.

A duet of groans rang through the empty outskirts of town. If anyone had been in the area, the twilight sky would have given them a sight to behold. What the crusaders called a hang-glider was little more than a few pieces of metal, string, and construction paper for wings. It lied in a crumpled mess on and around the girls.

“Ugh, I thought for sure we would have flown that time,” said Scootaloo in a sore voice. She stood up, wincing a little at her pain. Nicks and scratches dotted her body. Her mane stuck to her head under her helmet.

Apple Bloom found herself groaning as she got up, but not just from her sore spots. “Well it didn’t work the first five or six times. To be honest, I wasn’t expectin’ it to work that time, either,” she said with a deflated tone.

“I don’t know how it doesn’t work. We spent all afternoon building it. It almost looks just like the picture in the comic book.” Scootaloo prodded the glider. “Although now that I think of it, I don’t get why a pegasus action hero needs a hang-glider anyway.”

“I guess hang-glidin’ ain’t our special talent, neither,” said Apple Bloom flatly. Somehow, she just couldn’t work up the strength needed to feign disappointment. “Can we go home now?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “We can’t just give up here. There’s gotta be a quick crusade we can do so today’s not another total bust.”

“Scoot, it’s almost dark now.” Apple Bloom pointed to the setting sun. “We’ve been crusadin’ all day. I’m tired, sore all over, and I’m just ready to go home an’ sleep all this off.”

Scootaloo looked from Apple Bloom’s hoof to the sun. Her frown deepened. “Ugh, fine. Let’s just get this hang-glider packed up and go. We’re gonna need all the energy we can get for tomorrow’s crusading, anyway.”

So much for an easy day off school, thought Apple Bloom. Still, she supposed getting Scootaloo to let up on crusading so early in the evening was as good a break she was going to get. If she wasn’t so exhausted, she would have considered having a small party when she got home.

Party…

Something about that word made Apple Bloom stop to think. It was like there was something nagging her in the back of the head, like a distant memory trying to make itself known again.

Party... thought Apple Bloom. Party, party, party. Like a house party? Birthday party? Retirement? Hearts and Hooves Day party? Maybe a Cu-

Apple Bloom gasped. Her face contorted in sheer horror. The answer had hit her harder than Rainbow Dash plowing into her with a sonic rainboom.

“Sweetie Belle’s Cuteceñera!” she shouted.

Caught offguard from the shout, Scootaloo snapped her attention to her friend. “Wait, what about it?”

“It was tonight! We were supposed to go to it and show Sweetie how proud we were of her getting her cutie mark, but we totally forgot and it’s going on right now but we’re not there which means we’re missing it!” Apple Bloom bounced in place on her hooves in panic while her mouth ran like a motor.

“Wait, what? How could we have missed it?” Scootaloo stared in incredulity. “Didn’t you have it written down on one of our blueprints?”

Apple Bloom gasped. Of course she had written it down. It should even be exactly where she had left it.

Apple Bloom immediately bolted over to her saddlebags, which were left close to the bottom of hill where she would remember. She turned the bag over, letting all its blueprints spill onto the ground.

“Come on, where is it?” said Apple Bloom as she dug through the plans. “I know I had it in here somewhere.”

Tried as she might, the blueprint that had the information to Sweetie’s party was nowhere to be found. Apple Bloom’s stress only grew with each turn of a plan she had looked at twice over.

“Why are we even looking for that blueprint anyway? Shouldn’t we be running to make Sweetie’s party?” asked Scootaloo from the hang-glider.

The frantic searching stopped in its tracks. Apple Bloom stared into space, unsure if she could even admit the truth to herself.

“I… I can’t remember anythin’ about the party.”

Scootaloo walked up with a look of disbelief and asked, “Wait do you mean you can’t remember?”

“I don’t know where it is or what we’re supposed to bring or anything!” Apple Bloom suddenly turned around. “My mind’s been so full of crusadin’, I can’t even remember what we talked about in school this week.”

“Neither do I, but that's not something special for me.” Scootaloo shrugged.

“I haven’t even had a chance t’ get a present for Sweetie! I don’t even know what to get her,” said Apple Bloom as she scrambled to get all her plans back in the bags.

Scootaloo glanced at the sun, which couldn’t even be seen above the trees anymore. “I don’t know if any shops are open now. Ponyville hates keeping stuff open on Sunday nights for some reason.”

“Then we gotta get movin’ right now!” Apple Bloom slung the saddlebags over her back. She turned and gave Scootaloo a look far more determined than she had given all week.

Scootaloo nodded and said, “Alright, lead the way.”

Apple Bloom didn’t say anything. She turned her head to the front and bolted up the hill as fast as she could. The soreness in her limbs burned, but her drive to be at her friend’s side came above all else.

Scootaloo started to run after her. Halfway up the hill, she stopped and looked behind her. The hang-glider still lay broken on the ground, yet another in a long line of reminders of failed crusades. Maybe if she had just-

“Come on, get yer rear in gear!”

Apple Bloom’s voice kept Scootaloo from finishing that thought. With a sigh, she returned to running behind her friend in the hopes that there was still a party to go to.

*************************

“Apple Bloom… slow down!” heaved Scootaloo between breaths.

“I can’t… we’re almost there!” came the equally winded response up front.

The two fillies had almost run nonstop since their shocking realization outside town. Their lungs burned, their bodies were slick with sweat, and their legs cried in pain, but they pressed on nonetheless.

Apple Bloom still led the duo in their sprint all over town. Despite how tired she was, she carried a look that was just as determined – and desperate – as ever. Meanwhile, Scootaloo’s face showed nothing but exhaustion and frustration.

“Are you sure… this is the… right place!?” said Scootaloo.

“It has to be! It’s the only one left!” yelled Apple Bloom.

The duo rounded a corner, the cobblestone under their hooves giving way to dirt. The orange and purple of the setting sun was now behind their backs, leaving the deep blue of night in front of them.

Their destination grew closer with each step. A shortcut that Apple Bloom had decided to take was proving to be very beneficial to them.

“Whoaaa-ugh!”

Right up until the steep drop-off of a small vista caught them off-guard.

For a couple minutes, neither pony moved from where they had fallen on the ground. Both girls moaned as their exhaustion caught up to them, but all they could hear were their hearts pounding in their ears. The last few minutes had not been fun for either of them.

Finally, Apple Bloom stood up on weary legs. She dragged herself forward despite her body telling her to lie back down for another hour or so. “Not my best decision ever,” she mumbled to herself.

Behind her, she could hear Scootaloo getting up and walking behind her. “Please tell me Sweetie’s house is a couple feet away now.”

“Gotta be,” replied Apple Bloom. “I know this building next to us. If this shortcut led us right, then Sweetie’s house should be…”

As Apple Bloom rounded the corner, her face defied the odds and found the energy to smile.

“Right there!”

The promised land was in sight. Sweetie’s house was lit up in contrast to the dark buildings around it. The faint sound of music and chatter could be heard even from where the duo stood. A banner reading “Sweetie Belle’s Cuteceñera!” hung above the open front door, where light came out like a welcoming beacon from the cold night.

There was silence between the crusaders. It was the kind of silence that one had when looking at something beautiful, like a newborn baby or an old expertly-crafted building. The only way the sight before them could have looked more inviting is if there were a bright neon sign outside that read “Happiness and fun forever in here!”

Best of all, there were still ponies standing outside.

Kids and grown-ups alike stood on the front lawn facing the house, some carrying containers on their backs. Right in the doorway was the unmistakable white of Sweetie’s coat, obscured only by a calm blue dress. She was talking to the group outside, though Apple Bloom and Scootaloo could not make out what she was saying.

Elation and relief gripped both fillies. The pain in their limbs melted away in the warming light. Victory was theirs. They may not have had a present, but they certainly had themselves.

After a moment of watching and recuperating, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo raised their hooves to take another step forward and show their friend just how much they really cared.

“Alrighty, fillies and gentlecolts, thank you all for coming to Sweetie Belle’s super-duper special party!”

The weary crusaders didn’t take a single step before a tall pink pony appeared from behind Sweetie. They halted in their tracks and listened in on what Pinkie had to say.

“Yup, Sweetie Belle here may have had a whole week to grow into her cutie mark,” said Pinkie as she patted Sweetie, “but that doesn’t mean she still couldn’t have a big fun party to go along with it, and what better way to have a party than with all her best friends!”

Pinkie’s words lifted Apple Bloom and Scootaloo’s smiles higher, and their hooves as they prepared to take another step forward.

“And thanks to all of you, we made sure that Sweetie had the best Cuteceñera ever!”

The step forward never came to be.

Author's Note

Next part to come within a month... hopefully.

Chapter 6, Part 2: CMC Party Poopers

There was silence between the Crusaders. It was nothing like the silence before. Whereas the first silence had lifted their spirits into the clouds, this one had hit them with the strength of an anvil, flattening them lower than they’d ever felt. Their mouths had dropped to the ground.

“M-maybe we’re not too late,” said Apple Bloom, “Maybe the party ain’t totally over yet.”

“But sadly, every party has to come to an end, and Sweetie’s Cuteceñera is no exception.” Unknown to her, Pinkie’s reply was instant and fatal. “So sad to say, it’s time to go home and get in your cozy little beds. Thank you all for coming, and I’ll see you at my next party!”

A bright smile and a wave of Sweetie’s hoof, coupled with a door slam courtesy of Pinkie, sent the kids and their parents on their way home. Some left empty-hooved, others with boxes of food and party treats. Some left east, others to the west. No matter what, they left with the same things in common: a full belly, tired hooves, and a bright smile.

Apple Bloom looked on in disbelief, disappointment, and anything else that began with a "dis". She found herself mentally asking her past self how this could have happened. It was like she was in a bad dream, the very notion of forgetting a party as important to a friend as this being unheard of.

Scootaloo mentally asked herself how as well, but not the same how as her friend. It was as if Sweetie didn’t have a care in the world when she bid those ponies goodbye.

Scootaloo’s body tightened with each second she stared at the house. Her frown deepened into a glare at the cheerful, carefree attitude her cutie-marked friend had carried. Hints of red drifted into her vision. Her heart-rate, already high from the run, continued to gradually climb.

“We missed it.”

“Huh?” Scootaloo snapped out of her tunnel vision. She turned to look to Apple Bloom instead.

“We missed it. Sweetie Belle’s Cuteceñera. She got one finally, an’ we weren’t there to celebrate it with her.” Apple Bloom kept her eyes affixed to the missed party while she spoke. Her lips quivered with each word.

Scootaloo glanced to the side with lowered eyes and a frown. “Doesn’t look like she minded too much,” she muttered.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Apple Bloom, turning to her friend. “We’re her friends, for cryin’ out loud. We should’ve been there, not wastin’ our time with a crusade-”

“That wasn’t a waste of time!” snapped Scootaloo. “It was just… finding out another talent we’re not meant for. We just gotta try harder, that’s all.” She idly kicked the ground with her foreleg.

“How much harder can we try? We’ve been doin’ nothing but crusades all week.” Apple Bloom glanced back towards the house. The door had closed, and Sweetie was nowhere to be seen. The banner had somehow disappeared from view as well. Whatever party had gone on was certainly over by now.

“Yeah, the wrong crusades, but we’ve been going through them faster than ever. Our cutie marks have gotta be just around the corner!”

“I don’t care about any o’ that right now!” said Apple Bloom, looking right into Scootaloo’s eyes. “We missed a party that we shouldn’t have missed an’ we have no excuse for it. Crusadin’s the last thing I wanna talk about.”

The block fell into an uncomfortable silence. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other, each struggling to come up with something to say to break the silence, but neither succeeding.

Finally, Apple Bloom sighed, turned around, and said the only thing that made sense to her.

“I’m going home.”

“What?” Scootaloo stood in shock. “You’re not even gonna go and talk to Sweetie tonight? Let her know that we at least tried to come to her little party?”

“An’ say what? ‘Hi Sweetie, sorry we missed the most important party you’ve ever had in your whole life because we were too busy getting cutie marks for ourselves?’ I just really wanna go home and pretend today didn’t happen.”

Scootaloo looked back and forth between her friend and what used to be a cuteceñera. Feeling the exhaustion in both her mind and body, she sighed. “Fine. Go get some sleep. We’ll regroup and try again tomorrow.”

Apple Bloom was already dragging her hooves away by the time Scootaloo finished. Her tail and bow hung low, almost trailing along the ground. Not even the roughest and most disappointing crusades had left her looking and feeling so down.

Scootaloo didn’t see Apple Bloom leave. Her gaze remained fixed upon the house that she knew she should have been at. Already, she could feel the anger in her bubbling up again.

A part of her wanted nothing more than to march up to that front door, bang on it, and give Sweetie Belle a piece of her mind. Or her hoof, if things really got out of control. Anything to give her a reason to vent whatever she’s feeling. Instead, Scootaloo listened to her exhausted body, scoffed, and turned around. A verbal lashing could wait a day or two. Her muscles needed the rest until then.

“Hope you enjoyed your party,” she muttered on her way home.

*************************

Where had all the time gone?

As Sweetie stood at her front door and looked at the ponies outside, she couldn’t help but ask this question in her head. It seemed like she had only just been here greeting the exact same guests a second ago. There was no way that she could have let them in, had chats with everypony, played games, opened her presents, and had so much fun in so little time.

“Are you sure there’s no more food to take home?”

There was also no way they had gone through all the party food so quickly, either.

“Sorry, Truffle. We ate almost everything there was to eat,” said Sweetie.

“That’s a bummer,” said Truffle with a frown. “I was hoping we all could’ve gotten a little more leftovers.”

“Truffle, you’re leaving with like three boxes worth of food. I don’t think you need to be asking for any more.” chimed in Rumble. It only took a quick look to see that he was right. Truffle’s saddlebags were full to the brim, while a container of even more party foods balanced on his back.

Truffle glanced at his takings and blushed. “Heh heh, maybe you’re right. Anyone want some of my stuff?”

“If I wasn’t on a training diet, I’d be taking those cupcakes off you.” Rumble eyeballed the forbidden sweets as he spoke before finding the willpower to look away.

“So did you have fun?” Dinky said towards Sweetie.

“Of course I did!” Sweetie beamed with a wide smile. “I can’t believe how fast my Cuteceñera went. It’s like it just started. I haven’t had this much fun since the contest.”

“Glad to hear it. Anything for a good friend and choir member.” Dinky’s eyes suddenly lit up. One could have almost seen the idea that had just hit her. “Oh, that reminds me! Don’t forget we have rehearsal tomorrow.”

“But I thought we didn’t have class tomorrow?” asked Sweetie.

Rumble frowned. “We don’t. Miss Cheerilee just wants us to be extra ready for the fall concert. At least it’s only for about an hour in the afternoon.”

“Aw, I thought we were getting better,” said Sweetie.

Rumble shrugged. “Not getting better fast enough, I guess.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“Nope, I think that’s all,” said Dinky. “We had a really good time.”

“No kidding. I think Pinkie might have outdone herself with this party. I can’t wait to tell my brother all about it tomorrow.” Rumble beamed at the thought.

Dinky giggled at Rumble’s enthusiasm. He and his brother were made for each other. “Hee hee, nothing like a party to celebrate the best thing that’s ever happened to our new friend, right Sweetie?”

There it was: the “F” word again. The word that sent Sweetie’s insides aflutter. Her body grew warm all over like someone draped a cozy blanket onto her. She couldn’t and didn’t want to resist the genuine smile growing on her. She had to say something, anything, to show her appreciation for the choir… no, her new friends.

“Th-thank y-”

“Alrighty, fillies and gentlecolts, thank you all for coming to Sweetie Belle’s super-duper special party!”

Sweetie felt Pinkie’s presence for only a split second before the pink pony drowned out her voice. Between Pinkie’s excited chatter and the ponies applauding when prompted, Sweetie doubted if she could get another word in. She decided to be polite and wait for her turn to speak.

*************************

It turned out that Pinkie slammed the door before Sweetie got that turn.

“Sorry, Sweetie,” said Pinkie from behind her, “but we gotta get all this stuff down so you can get ready for bedtime. You can talk to all your friends at school. I bet they can’t wait to hear the story about how your Auntie Pinkie saved the Cuteceñera with her gender-specific party hats!”

With that, Pinkie bounced away from Sweetie and towards the party. She wasn’t kidding; there was quite a mess to clean up before bedtime, despite Pearl and Magnum’s cleaning efforts.

Sweetie Belle giggled to herself. She couldn’t wait to talk about the party with her friends tomorrow. Well, maybe not so much about Pinkie Pie saving the party, but all of the other fun stuff she did. No doubt everyone would like to hear about the fun party she had, even the ponies who were not there like Diamond Tiara, Rarity, and even…

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

In an instant, Sweetie’s giddy insides plummeted straight to the ground. It had been the first time she had even thought of her Crusader friends since the party started. It was also the first time she had made the realization that she never thought would need to be made.

They hadn’t come. They hadn’t brought her presents. They hadn’t played games, eat, party, giggle, laugh, or talk with her. They didn’t even say why.

Sweetie felt something other than the heavy emptiness. She felt her limbs tightening in anger. How could they have missed this party of all parties? How could they have not even given her an excuse why? Did they forget she even exists?

Sweetie shook that thought out of her head. It couldn’t be that bad. Still, something had to be going on for the ponies she had spent most of her school life with to not even come to her party.

That settled it. If her friends weren’t going to tell her why, she was going to have to go to them and find out herself. Come tomorrow, she would march over to the clubhouse and get this sorted out. She was as sure of this as the fire burning in her heart.

*************************

Sweetie Belle shivered.

There were two causes for this. First, it was chilly. The sweltering heat of summer had been losing ground to the coolness of fall with each day. The scarf around Sweetie’s neck helped, but it could only do so much.

The second reason was more immediate and familiar to her. Before her stood the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse. It looked exactly the same as it had just a week ago. Then again, it looked the same as it did over a year ago. Still, Sweetie couldn’t help but feel that it had been just that long since she had been here last. How could so much happen in just one short week?

A part of Sweetie hoped that the crusaders weren’t here, that they were headed off to their next crusade or just relaxing on their day off like everyone else. Maybe then she would have more time to figure out what exactly she wanted to say to them.

Then she heard the sound of something crashing down inside the clubhouse.

“Huh?” Sweetie’s body instinctively jumped back a little bit from the sudden noise. Just what was going on up there?

“Ugh, I thought for sure that wasn’t the load-bearer.”

It was faint, but Sweetie could hear Scootaloo’s voice from within the clubhouse. Listening harder, she also made out the accented mumblings of Apple Bloom, though she couldn’t make out the words. Apple Bloom could sometimes be a little hard to understand at distances… or up close.

Regardless of the conversation, they did prove one thing to Sweetie: the Crusaders were home. She could no longer back down and go back home. She had come all this way, and there was no way she was leaving without at least them knowing that they had missed her party.

Taking one last breath to steady herself, Sweetie gained a determined look and climbed the steps on the ramp. Once she reached the door, she took one more breath and then pushed it open.

Sweetie didn’t know what she was expecting. The clubhouse looked the same inside as it did before. The pile of junk was still swallowing up half the floor. Sweetie’s music stand and Scootaloo’s toy piano had been moved to the side to make room for a pile of blueprints. Scootaloo stood up to her barrel digging through various relics of crusades past while Apple Bloom thumbed through the blueprints.

One thing Sweetie didn’t expect were how worn out the girls looked. Apple Bloom’s mane and tail were ragged, as if she had only used her hoof to brush it. Her eyes were lined with bags while she wore a lazy frown. Though Scootaloo’s back was turned to her, Sweetie could see a couple scratches and bandages on the orange filly’s body. Whatever they had been up to, it was taking their toll.

“What were we lookin’ for again?” asked Apple Bloom wearily. She kept her eyes on the blueprints before her.

“I don’t know,” said Scootaloo, “Something, anything that looks good. Maybe we should give some of these failed crusades a second shot, or even a third shot.”

“What makes ya think they’ll work this time?”

“Because it has to work! We’re already running out of crusade ideas again. We have to have done something wrong, otherwise we’d have our cutie marks by now.” Scootaloo fumbled through more junk, but nothing caught her eye.

“We’ve been gettin’ more stuff wrong than just the crusades,” muttered Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo turned around. “Like what?”

Scootaloo gasped. She had gotten her answer.

Sweetie Belle stood in the open doorway with a deep frown. Scootaloo had come to recognize this frown; it wasn’t the frown she had before she would burst into tears. Rather, it was the frown that came before the frown before the tears.

Hearing the gasp, Apple Bloom looked at Scootaloo, then to where Scootaloo was looking. She too gasped at the sight of her cutie-marked friend.

“Sweetie Belle? What are ya doin’ here?” asked Apple Bloom.

“I came here to find you two. What are you doing here?” replied Sweetie.

Scootaloo clambered out of the pile of junk. “What’s it look like? We’re planning more crusades.”

“You two don’t look so good.” Sweetie stepped into the clubhouse.

“We don’t feel too well, neither,” mumbled Apple Bloom.

“If you’d been working as hard as we have, you wouldn’t be looking great either.” Scootaloo shook her head. She could already feel her body growing tenser. “Wait, why do you care?”

Sweetie looked confused. “What do you mean? I haven’t seen you two all week. I was getting worried about you girls.”

“You didn’t look so worried when we saw you,” Scootaloo said, taking another step forward.

“What? You saw me? When?”

Apple Bloom raised a hoof. “At the p-”

“Yeah, we’ve been watching you,” interrupted Scootaloo. “We’ve seen you hanging out with you new friends, all smiling and laughing like there’s nothing wrong. Like there’s no one else that matters.”

“But that was just for choir stuff,” said Sweetie.

“Sure didn’t look it.” Scootaloo huffed and turned around. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have crusades to plan, right Apple Bloom?”

For a moment, Sweetie Belle was reminded of the times she asked her parents where babies came from but never got a straight answer. She could feel the same frustration in her mind now.

Sweetie took a step forward and said, “What were you two doing last night?”

“We were–” said Apple Bloom.

“What’s it matter to you?” said Scootaloo, keeping her behind turned to Sweetie and Apple Bloom.

“Wha-what?” Sweetie shook her head in disbelief. “How can you say that? Do you even remember what you were supposed to do?”

“Sweetie, this is a clubhouse for planning crusades and other important stuff.” Scootaloo’s head turned sharp behind her, with the rest of her body quickly following. “We’re in the middle of a very important meeting right now. We don’t have time for this.”

“Time for what? Talking to a friend? All I want to know is just where you were. It takes like two seconds to answer a question like that.” Sweetie felt the muscles in her face growing tighter by the second.

“We were–”

“You know what else only takes two seconds? Saying hi to your friends and letting them know you still care.” Another huff escaped Scootaloo’s mouth. “But I guess you’re too good for that now.”

“Why can’t you just give me a straight answer to anything?” Sweetie couldn’t stop her voice from growing louder. “How am I too good for you? You know we’re best friends!”

“Could have fooled us. For all we knew, you were bestest friends with the choir now that nopony can take their eyes off your–”

“WE WERE CRUSADING!”

The clubhouse fell deathly quiet. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both jumped and slowly turned to the source of the outburst. Apple Bloom stood on all four hooves, her eyes shut and pointed in the gap between the crusaders.

“You… what?” muttered Sweetie.

Apple Bloom sighed and looked at Sweetie Belle. The bloodshot in her eyes became clear for all to see.

“We were crusading,” said Apple Bloom, “We didn’t go to your party or talk to you or anythin’ because we were too busy tryin’ to get our own cutie marks.”

The anger on Sweetie’s face was gone. She couldn’t muster up the strength to be mad if she tried. The emptiness in her stomach sapping away her strength saw to that.

“B-but why? You promised you’d be there for me,” asked Sweetie.

Apple Bloom couldn’t bear to look her friend in the eye as she said the truth.

“We forgot.”

“F-Fo…” The word hung tightly on Sweetie Belle’s lips. No amount of effort could pry it loose and send it into the open.

“It just slipped our minds. We went on so many crusades this week, it was all we could think of,” said Apple Bloom, each word taking more effort to speak than the last.

It took Sweetie a moment to process what she had just heard. “H-how?” she asked, “This was my Cuteceñera. My party to celebrate my cutie mark. How could you f… forget my Cuteceñera?”

“The same way you forgot about us,” spoke Scootaloo. “But I guess I’d forget my best friends too if a bunch of schoolkids suddenly started pretending they liked me.”

“SHUT UP!”

Sweetie Belle had gotten her fair share of odd looks in the past. There had been the “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” look. There were a couple “Did you really put mayo on mashed potatoes?” looks. There had even once been a “Whatever you do, don’t touch that fallen beehive!” look.

None of those looks could compare to the faces Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were giving her now. Sweetie could not have cared less.

“Just stop it! Stop saying bad things about my new friends! They’re nothing like that at all!” yelled Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie…” spoke Apple Bloom.

“No! I don’t want to hear any more!” Sweetie stamped her hoof on the ground harder than she ever thought she could. “My choir friends have been nothing but nice to me ever since I joined! They’re always inviting me to fun stuff and sharing their lunch and talking to me like they’ve been my best friends for years!”

“But they haven’t,” said Scootaloo.

“I don’t care! They’ve made me feel so welcome and happy the first day I came to choir practice! They never ignored me to talk about crusades that I don’t have to worry about anymore or stopped talking to me after I got my cutie mark, and they definitely didn’t forget completely about my Cuteceñera just to chase after their own cutie marks like a couple of blank flanks!”

On that day, at that moment, some of the citizens in Ponyville could have sworn that time had stopped.

Nobody said anything in the clubhouse. Nobody made a sound. Nobody even blinked. The fillies all looked at each other with the widest eyes they could muster. The only noise that could be heard was the rustling of the tree branches outside. The same noise that followed after a deafening shot from a Pony War era musket rifle.

A drop of liquid finally broke the silence. It splattered on the ground in front of Sweetie’s hooves, and was followed by another. Despite the quivering jaw line, the tears rolled down her cheek along the same trail.

Sweetie said nothing. She couldn’t say anything. How could she ever say anything after saying… that? Instead, she did the only thing she could do, the only thing that made sense to her.

She turned and ran out the door.

She didn’t care where she ran to. All Sweetie Belle wanted was to run away from the clubhouse, away from Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, away from the trail of tears, and away from the painful emptiness within her.

She couldn’t run far enough.

*************************

Neither Apple Bloom nor Scootaloo could move for what felt like hours, long after they couldn’t hear the sobs anymore. Without saying anything, they had mutually agreed that whatever was happening could only be a very bad dream.
It only took a few more seconds for them to realize that they were very much awake.

“So now what?”

Apple Bloom broke from her trance to look at Scootaloo. Her friend had already gotten up and moved to the pile of junk behind them. She resumed the scowl on her face from before they had been interrupted by their friend, if she could still be called that.

“What do you mean?” asked Apple Bloom.

“We decided to put chariot-racing off until tomorrow, right? So we need to figure out what we’re doing today before it gets too late,” said Scootaloo.

Apple Bloom’s ears were perked straight up, but she still couldn’t believe the words they had picked up. “How can ya even think about crusading right now?”

“Why wouldn’t I think about crusading? Cutie marks or bust, remember?”

“Sweetie Belle hates us!” Apple Bloom shouted as she stomped her hoof. “She thinks we’re the worst friends ever and it’s all your fault!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Scootaloo could see the hoof pointed at her. She scoffed and turned to face her accuser. “How is this all my fault? Sweetie’s the one who got mad and called us blank flanks. She didn’t even bother to listen to us tell her the whole truth.”

“We did tell her the truth! We were too busy crusadin’ and thinkin’ about ourselves instead of being at her party like we should have been.”

“And what about her? She left us for a bunch of ponies who never talked to her before her cutie mark.”

“At least she’s doin’ what she was born to do! She’s actually exploring her special talent. She doesn’t have to worry anymore about runnin’ herself ragged over a cutie mark that may never come.”

Scootaloo could feel her blood coming to a boil. “We only haven’t gotten our cutie marks because we aren’t trying hard enough.”

“Not trying hard enough?” asked a gobsmacked Apple Bloom. “We’re killin’ ourselves! My body’s sore all over, even in places I never knew I had! I always wanted to get my cutie mark doin’ something fun, but not like this!”

“So? We can’t all be lucky enough to have ours just appear out of nowhere. If this is what it takes to get our cutie marks, then so be it!”

Apple Bloom’s glare dropped into shock once more, but then just as quickly returned to anger. She steeled herself for what she about to say.

“Well, if gettin’ our cutie mark means losing our best friends and turnin’ into a complete meanie, then I don’t want to find my cutie mark anymore!”

At that exact moment, if one were to listen hard enough, one could hear the sounds of hearts shattering into pieces.

Scootaloo once more stared at Apple Bloom with her mouth agape. Apple Bloom didn’t blame her; she might as well have just shot her friend with a bow and arrow.

“You… you can’t mean that,” said Scootaloo.

Apple Bloom kept her angry expression. “I mean it with all my heart. I don’t want any more to do with crusaidin’ or cutie marks from now on.”

For just a split second, Apple Bloom could have sworn she saw Scootaloo’s eyes growing moist around the edges. Then Scootaloo blinked, and regained her furious look.

“Fine!” yelled Scootaloo. “I can get my cutie mark all by myself! You can stay a blank flank for the rest of your life as far as I care!”

There were no more words. Before any more could have been said, Scootaloo took after Sweetie and ran out of the clubhouse. She never looked back.

As Scootaloo’s trampling hooves faded away, Apple Bloom’s composure finally gave. It first came out in sniffles, then sobs at her throat became stopped from the weight of everything coming down on her. Before she knew it, she was on the floor, crying over the blueprints that had been in her saddlebags all week. They may as well have been oversized handkerchiefs to her.

The more Apple Bloom cried, the more she saw her former friends in her imagination. She saw them laughing, talking, giggling, and groaning over countless memories that she once held dear to her heart. Each memory now only served as a cold reminder of the one truth she never realized she didn’t want to find.

The crusades were over.

Author's Note

Big thanks to my friend Whirring Gears for helping me work through this chapter.

Chapter 5: CMC Weekend Warriors

“…So we’ll try rollerblading right after school, then we’ll move on to professional hopscotch.”

“I dunno about that.” Apple Bloom shook her head. “That sounds like a lotta work fer one day. Maybe if we just did one an’ left the other for tomorrow.”

“But our weekend’s already full with other crusades.” Scootaloo put down her juice and planted a hoof on the table. “Pushing one crusade back means we gotta reorganize the whole schedule.” As she stared at the pile of plans at her table, Scootaloo rubbed her chin. “Good thing we have Monday off,” she muttered.

“Lucky for us, huh?” replied Apple Bloom in voice that was wearier than she wanted it to be. It was weary enough to make Scootaloo look up from the table and stare at her in concern. Just like on Monday morning, red cracks had formed in the whites of her eyes while a pair of lines ran underneath. Even her normally symmetrical bow was on crooked, like she hadn’t been paying too much attention when she put it on.

“Are you okay? You sound like you had another bad night’s sleep.”

Scootaloo got her answer in the form of a long yawn from Apple Bloom. “I guess you could say that,” replied Apple Bloom as soon as she regained control of her mouth.

“Bummer. Did you at least come up with any more good plans?”

“I wasn’t tryin’.”

To this, Scootaloo stared in confusion. “Wait, you weren’t working on any plans? Then why you’d stay up so late?”

Apple Bloom took a second to think up what she wanted to say. “Well, I tried t’ get some sleep, but that crusade we did last night really did a number on me.”

“You mean the training we did to be decathletes?” Upon finishing her question, Scootaloo rubbed one of her sore hocks. It seemed like her body just couldn’t keep up with her inner drive some days, and yesterday was one of them. “It kinda wore me out too, now that you mention it, but what we did wasn’t even close to what the official Equestria Games athletes do.”

“It was more than enough t’ keep me up most of the night,” said Apple Bloom. “Every time I fell asleep, I’d turn and hurt my muscles an’ just wake up again. I thought I’d never get any rest.”

“Eh, I’m sure we’ll get over it in time for rollerblading. We’re tough fillies, right?” Scootaloo looked at Apple Bloom with a grin.

There was silence for a moment before Apple Bloom found the strength to match her friend’s grin. “Cutie marks or bust.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” said Scootaloo as she gave a friendly punch to Apple Bloom’s shoulder. The sore muscles in Apple Bloom’s arm flared from the hit, causing her to wince from the surprise pain. She gingerly dabbed at the sore spot with her own hoof and quietly groaned.

“Oops, sorry,” said a sheepish Scootaloo. “I’ll bet Sweetie’s glad she didn’t have to try getting a cutie mark for athletics. Isn’t that right, Sweetie?”

No one responded.

“Uh, right, Sweetie?” Scootaloo turned to look at her unicorn friend. Her smile dropped immediately after her brain had finished processing the sight before her.

Sweetie wasn’t there. Not even her lunch bag was there, leaving the opposite side of the table bare.

“Huh? Where’s Sweetie?” Scootaloo asked.

“Ya haven’t noticed?” Apple Bloom’s eyes lowered.

Scootaloo rubbed the back of her head. “I don’t know. Did she get up to go to the bathroom or something?”

“She hasn’t been at our table for the last three days now.”

“She–what?”

Scootaloo looked at Apple Bloom as if expecting her statement to be followed up with “Nah, I’m just jokin’.” Those words never came.

Instead, Apple Bloom pointed a hoof at another table. “She’s been over there with all the choir ponies.”

Scootaloo glanced over to the table and almost couldn’t believe the sight before her. Sure enough, there was Sweetie sitting at the choir table with her food in front of her. She wore a carefree smile while she chatted and giggled with the rest of the ponies sitting there, just like she would have if she were with...

Her friends…

Scootaloo couldn’t explain what was happening, but as she stared at Sweetie speaking so casually with the other ponies, something stirred inside her. Her body grew tense, her teeth gritted together, and she soon found herself giving a glare in Sweetie’s direction that she thought she was only capable of giving to Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon. Her glare only grew deeper with each second she looked at the happy scene.

“Uh, Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo shook her head upon hearing Apple Bloom’s voice. The glare disappeared, but only on the outside. Inside her, the feelings were settling down, but still present.

“Huh, what?” replied Scootaloo.

“Are ya okay? Ya looked like you just ate somethin’ Big Macintosh tried t’ cook.”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine.” Scootaloo looked down at the papers on the table. “Let’s just get back to our plans. So what do we have planned for Tuesday?”

Apple Bloom found her attention divided between the blueprints, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. Even in her sleep-deprived mind, she could feel an idea coming to her. “Hey,” she began, “maybe we could ask Sweetie t’ look over our plans and help us out on a few things?”

“Forget about it.”

Apple Bloom stared confusedly. Scootaloo’s reply came instantly in a no-nonsense tone, as if Apple Bloom had just suggested they try being Diamond Tiara’s personal servants to earn their cutie marks.

“But why not? It’d give us a chance t’ talk to her.”

“How can Sweetie help us out?” Scootaloo looked straight at her friend. Traces of her glare from before still remained in her eyes. “She’s too busy talking and singing with her choir buddies, and even if she wasn’t, she’d be practicing or working on her voice.”

Apple Bloom found herself unable to reply, at least not until Scootaloo moved out of her face and back to hoofing through the plans. “I don’t understand why that doesn’t mean we could just at least talk t’ her after school or somethin’.”

“Sweetie has her own things to worry about, and we have ours.” Scootaloo waved a hoof dismissively. “Once we get our cutie marks, we can all hang out and talk again. Now let’s get back to our plans before lunch is over.”

Just as she had finished talking, the sound of a small bell ringing came through the lunch area loud and clear, the very last noise Scootaloo wanted to hear.

“Lunch is over, everypony! It’s time for class again!” Called out Cheerilee while she rang a bell on a post near the school’s back door.

“Nevermind,” said Scootaloo, not even attempting to disguise the disappointment in her voice. “We’ll talk about this after school. Let’s go get this class over with.” With another groan, she slid Apple Bloom’s blueprints back over to her and gathered up her barely-touched lunch. The next half of class was going to be a long one for her.

Apple Bloom, on the other hand, was too busy looking over at the choir table to notice Scootaloo speaking to her. She watched as Sweetie Belle and the rest of the choir got their things together and trotted off together back to the classroom, smiling and trying to get in as much of their conversation as possible before they had to focus on their lessons.

Apple Bloom’s mind became addled with questions. She wondered if Sweetie was enjoying her new-found popularity. She wondered if the fillies and colts at the choir table genuinely wanted to be her friends.

Most importantly, she wondered just what they were talking about all this time she and Scootaloo had their noses in their plans.

*****

“…And then she says, ‘Toothpaste? I thought it was glue!’”

The table erupted into laughter, and Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but giggle right along with everyone else. It wasn’t even that good of a joke, but it was nice to be able to laugh with others.

“That was a good one, Rumble!” said Dinky as soon as her giggle fit stopped. “Where do you get all your jokes?”

“My brother tells me a lot of them. He’s full of jokes like that,” said Rumble.

“Really? You gotta tell us another!” Archer said just before taking a bite out of her apple.

Rumble rubbed the back of his head. “Uh, actually I’m out of jokes now. Anyone else got any good stories?”

A medley of shaking heads and grumbles gave Rumble his answer.

“Come on, one of you has to know something.” Rumble looked around the table when his eyes fell on the pony sitting across from him. He lifted a hoof and pointed to that pony. “What about you, Sweetie?”

“Huh?” Sweetie perked up. Once her mind finished processing what Rumble was asking of her, she glanced down to her half-eaten lunch. “Well, I don’t really know any good jokes. My sister doesn’t really tell a lot of jokes. Nothing that isn’t about clothes or fashion, anyway.”

“Bummer,” said Rumble.

“Sorry. I bet Apple Bloom and Scootaloo would know all kinds of funny jokes or stories. Maybe I could…”

Sweetie trailed off as she glanced over to her friend’s table with a smile. The smile did not last long, for Sweetie saw Apple Bloom and Scootaloo doing the same thing they had been doing the entire week. They were huddled together over a mess of blueprints, talking and pausing to point at them. Their barely-touched lunches lay to the sides.

Had they even noticed she was gone? As silly as it sounded, Sweetie couldn’t help but wonder. What was she thinking? Of course they had to! They couldn’t be that absorbed into finding their cutie marks… could they?

“Nevermind,” Sweetie said, turning back to the choir with a frown.

Dinky was quick to respond with, “Aw, don’t worry about it. We know it’s hard to come up with stuff on the spot. Good thing Miss Cheerilee lets us read music sheets before we sing at the concert!”

“Hey, there’s another joke!” said Truffle Shuffle, the group’s bass singer. His mouth was full of a double-decker daisy sandwich.

Sweetie gave a complimentary giggle, then looked around the table. “Still, I wish I had more stuff to share with all of you. The only stories I have are about all the crusades I’ve done, but I don’t know if you want to hear all that.”

“Of course we do,” said Archer. “I’ll bet you’ve been on tons of cool adventures that we’d love to hear.”

“Yeah, tell us some!” Rumble said as he leaned in, as did the rest of the table.

“Okay.” Sweetie beamed at the faces all focused on her. She briefly wondered why she was now elated instead of afraid to see the same sets of eyes from her impromptu-audition on Monday focused on her now. “I think I know the perfect story. There was this one time where Scootaloo came up with the idea of getting our cutie marks in…”

Sweetie’s story came to a stop. She couldn’t finish telling it if she tried. The emptiness in her stomach grew within her again. It forced her lungs to close, her vocal cords to stop, her mouth to dry up, and her smile to droop to an open frown.

She could not see the choir in front of her. All she could see was Apple Bloom and Scootaloo as they were about to embark on a crusade from the past. A second passed, and another crusade flashed before her mind, and another, and another. Each memory further deepened the hole in her belly, and no amount of lunch food or candy could fill it.

“Um, Sweetie?”

A wave of Twist’s hoof brought Sweetie back to reality. She shook her head, keeping her frown.

“Actually, I don’t feel like sharing any stories right now.” Sweetie looked down to avoid the disappointing gazes she knew were coming.

Dinky shrugged at the edge of Sweetie’s vision. “It’s okay, you can tell us some other time. Like maybe after today’s rehearsal, even.”

“Yeah, I get the feeling we’re all gonna need something to cheer us up after the rehearsal,” said Rumble. “I don’t know how we’re gonna be good enough to sing in time for the choir.”

“Huh, why?” Sweetie perked up. “I thought we’ve been singing pretty well.”

“You’ve been singing great. I can’t say the same for the rest of us,” said Rumble.

“Rumble!” Dinky glared at the colt.

“Well, he does kind of have a point,” said Archer. “I mean, before Sweetie came along, we were okay at best. It was a miracle if we could make it through a song without falling apart.”

“But isn’t Diamond Tiara a good singer?” asked Sweetie.

Rumble scoffed. “Like that helps. If Miss Cheerilee didn’t get on her, she’d be stopping the songs and yelling at us for every single missed note.”

“Yeah, it’s like she thinks we’re all her backup singers or something,” continued Archer. Her comment earned a few nods and grumbles of approval from the rest of the choir.

As much as Sweetie was reluctant to admit, Rumble and Archer weren’t exactly wrong. Though she couldn’t see Diamond from her spot on the risers, she could certainly hear her grumbling and groaning whenever Cheerilee stopped the choir in the middle of a song. There were times were she could feel Diamond’s eyes boring into her on the occasions where she slipped up. It wasn’t the best thing to think about when rehearsing.

“But that’s why we’re so glad you’re in the choir now, Sweetie!” said Dinky.

“Wait, you are?” Sweetie stared at the choir in surprise. It seemed she’s learned more things at the lunch table than at her desk this week.

Archer responded first with a nod and, “Yeah, with you in the choir, we’re sounding better than we’ve ever been. We’re sure to be a hit at the concert!”

“Well, I don’t know if I’m that good.” Sweetie found it particularly difficult to look at the other ponies again.

“Good? You’re the best thing that’s happened to the choir in months!” said Dinky.

“Really? But I only found my cutie mark for singing this weekend. I haven’t even had my cute-ceñera yet.”

“You mean the party on Sunday?” asked Rumble.

“Yeah, that…” Confusion lit up Sweetie’s face. “Wait, how did you know about it?”

“We’ve been getting invitations in the mail,” said Dinky. “I think everyone in our class knows about it now.”

“Huh? But I didn’t send out any–”

Pinkie.

Sweetie sighed. “Oh, right. Well, I told Pinkie not to go too crazy with the party. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of my cutie mark.”

“That’s weird,” said a curious-looking Rumble. “The invitation said it was gonna be full of games and food and toys. It sounded pretty big to me.”

“Yeah, especially the food stuff. I could almost taste those cupcakes now,” Truffle remarked. He gave a dreamy sigh and had a faraway look in his eyes.

Sweetie stared at Truffle for a moment, then looked back to the rest of the group. “Okay. I guess you all could come if you wanted to.”

“Wanted to? We’ll be there for sure!” exclaimed Dinky.

“I’ll be there. I’m helping make the sweets,” said Twist.

“I’ll help clean up the sweets if no one else wants them,” said Truffle.

“I’ll make sure to get you something cool for your cute-ceñera,” said Rumble.

Archer responded with a nod and, “Yeah, me too. Besides, what’s the point of having a party without friends?”

Friends? The last word of Archer’s question rang in Sweetie’s head. Her stomach didn’t know whether to feel light as a feather or full from her lunch. For the last few days, she had felt like an outsider to the choir, listening to them chat to each other about their own adventures, and only speaking when directly spoken to. Sure, they had been nothing but nice to her, but to actually consider her a friend after only a few days together? Enough of a friend for them to visit her cute-ceñera without her even having to ask them?

Sweetie opened her mouth to say something, but found that words failed her. Even if she could have said anything, she didn’t get the chance to. The sound of a ringing bell hit everyone’s ears, diverting their attention to their teacher.

“Lunch is over, everypony! It’s time for class again,” said Cheerilee over the ringing bell.

“Darn. Guess we’ll talk more after choir practice,” said Rumble.

Without another word, the choir table gathered up its uneaten food and got up, leaving the table completely bare. Some of the choir paired up in groups and started another conversation as they threw their food away and walked back to the classroom.

Sweetie walked by herself, her mind lost in thought. The only thing she paid attention to was Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, who were walking up ahead with blueprints hanging in their teeth. Sweetie wondered if they were any closer to gaining their cutie marks now than they were last week. She wondered if they would meet and talk again if they ever found their cutie marks.

Most of all, she wondered if they had thought of her at all during this break.

*****

Apple Bloom trotted up the steps to the clubhouse, her saddlebags loosely swaying with each step. A mess of blueprints hung out of the cover of the bags, threatening to spill out. The weekend sun warmed her back as it steadily climbed to the middle of the sky. A small breeze, the first of many for the new season, kept her body cool without making her chilly.

That all changed when she stepped inside the clubhouse doorway. The temperature inside the house was hardly any different from the temperature outside. The walls kept the cooling breeze off Apple Bloom’s coat. Still, she couldn’t quite put her hoof on it, but as she looked inside, the room felt… cold to her.

Maybe it was just the fact that the clubhouse had gone unused for a week, she figured. The last time anypony used this room was on Sunday morning, when the crusaders were giving Sweetie one last practice session before the contest. Scootaloo’s toy piano and Sweetie’s music stand were exactly where the trio left them when they headed to the plaza. The pile of junk threatening to overtake the entire room was already collecting a small layer of dust.

Apple Bloom couldn’t help but sigh. The last time the clubhouse went unoccupied for so long was during the last Winter. For some reason, the pegasi weather schedule called for some rough snowstorms that year. The blowing snow and freezing temperatures turned the clubhouse into an icebox, and the crusaders wisely relocated their base of operations to the Apple family house for the time being.

Apple Bloom shook her head. It wasn’t anything to worry about, she told herself. They might not have been here for a while, but at least this time it was because they were busy actually crusading instead of planning. In fact, they had been crusading harder than ever to get their cutie marks these last few days.

Maybe just a little too hard.

“Ugh,” groaned Apple Bloom as the soreness in her legs and back reminded her of every crusade she undertook this week. Last night’s sleep did little to make her aches and pains feel any better. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve sworn they felt worse this morning.

Apple Bloom threw her saddlebags onto the ground to rid herself of the weight. With the weight gone, she soon found the comfort of the carpet on her feet too much to resist. She plopped down on her side and sighed. Who knew that finding a cutie mark would take so much out of her? At least this way, she could get a little rest before–

“Apple Bloom?”

No such luck. No sooner had Apple Bloom closed her eyes that she heard the trotting of hooves up steps and a voice she didn’t want to hear.

“Oh, there you are,” said Scootaloo as she stepped inside the clubhouse, still wearing her scooter helmet. “I thought we were supposed to meet at your house today?”

“Yeah, that was the plan, wasn’t it?” said Apple Bloom. She kept her body on the ground and her back turned to the door.

Scootaloo looked quizzically at Apple Bloom for just a moment when realization struck. “Wait a minute.” Her eyes lowered. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

Apple Bloom gulped. “Ya do?”

Scootaloo carried a frown as she walked up to her friend. “Seriously, you’re just as bad at hiding secrets as your sister.”

“I guess so,” muttered Apple Bloom. She closed her eyes in defeat. “I’m sorry, Scootaloo.”

“Sorry? For what?” asked Scootaloo, looking curious.

Apple Bloom stood back up and replied, “I guess I shoulda told you sooner.”

“Why would you do that? This was a pretty cool surprise.”

It was Apple Bloom’s turn to have a puzzled look on her face. “Er, cool surprise?”

Scootaloo grinned. “Yeah, this is great! Not only are you brainstorming new ideas for crusades, but we can dig through our old stuff and see if we can save some money. Now that’s thinking ahead!”

A blink was all Apple Bloom could respond with at first. “How on earth did ya figure all that out?”

“Easy.” Scootaloo puffed out her chest. “Why else would you come out here with your saddlebag full of blueprints? To try and hide them?”

Apple Bloom’s pupils shrank. Her eyes darted away from Scootaloo as she unconsciously took a step back.

“A-ha-ha, that’s a good one, Scootaloo!” said Apple Bloom through a strained smile. For some reason, she thought of Sweetie Belle for an instant. Her chuckles continued until she realized that Scootaloo wasn’t laughing along with her, but giving her the face they gave when Sweetie said something strange.

“O-kay,” said Scootaloo, “so have you thought of any new crusades already?”

“Crusades?” There was the soreness in Apple Bloom’s body again. She fought the urge to groan in pain and kept her focus on her friend. At this point, Scootaloo was walking past her to admire the pile of junk in the room.

“Yeah, in case our other crusades don’t work out.” Scootaloo eyed a pair of water skis. A part of her wanted to give that crusade another try, but a large crack in one of the skis discouraged her from going through with it.

While Scootaloo looked at the damaged skis, Apple Bloom glanced to her side with a frown. Her eyes fell upon a garden spade and watering can, leftovers from their adventures as Cutie Mark Crusader Prize-Winning Gardeners. As it turned out, the only prize their garden won was a ribbon for participation at the annual Ponyville Farmer’s Market Fair. She could remember all of them being disappointed after all the work they put into their garden, but at least it wasn’t as hard on their bodies as last week was.

Apple Bloom’s face lit up. She had a new idea after all.

“Say, Scootaloo,” she began, “I think I do have a plan for us.”

“You do?” Scootaloo immediately turned around and leaned forward, her ears perked straight up. “Then let’s hear it.”

Apple Bloom looked from side to side, then put on her best grin. “Okay, you know how we’ve been workin’ really, really hard on earnin’ our cutie marks this week?”

“Well yeah, nobody said getting a cutie mark would be easy work.”

“That’s just it.” Apple Bloom found it tougher to keep a smooth face as she spoke. “I was just thinkin’ maybe we’ve been goin’ about this all wrong.”

Scootaloo lifted an eyebrow. “How?”

“Well, instead of pushin’ ourselves all the time with crusades like trampoline jumpin’ and kite-boardin’, maybe we could try doing some… easier stuff?” Apple Bloom’s smile grew so wide that the sound of a squeak toy could be heard in the room.

“Easier stuff?” Scootaloo’s eyes lowered.

Apple Bloom said nothing, instead choosing to stretch her smile as far as it could go.

“Apple Bloom, we’ve been trying easy stuff ever since we started going on crusades together, and none of them have ever worked. Why should we bother now?” said a frowning Scootaloo.

“Ya never know. Our special talent could be anythin’. I mean, none of us ever thought Sweetie would get her cutie mark from singin’, but look at her now.” Despite the cold air, Apple Bloom could feel her forehead growing sweaty under Scootaloo’s piercing gaze.

Scootaloo shook her head and scoffed. “We don’t have time to sit around and hope we get our cutie marks by accident. Winter Set-Up is only a couple months away, and there’s no way we’ll get anything done once all the homework and holidays hit.”

“But I–"

“The only way we’re earning our cutie marks is by grabbing the bull by the horns and pushing ourselves as hard as we can. It’s cutie marks or bust!” Scootaloo punched her forehooves together.

So much for that, thought Apple Bloom. She was reminded of their attempts at earning a cutie mark in diplomacy, and how all their attempts led to was more chores and less allowance. She sighed into the fact of her determined friend. “I guess you’re right there.”

“Great!” In an instant, Scootaloo’s smile returned. “Now come on, let’s get going.”

“Er, goin’ where?”

There was the “What was that, Sweetie?” face again looking right into Apple Bloom’s face. She made a note not to give that face to Sweetie so much the next time they talked.

“You already forgot? Today’s the day we decided to try being Cutie Mark Crusader Jousters!”

“Wait… that was today?” asked Apple Bloom. Truthfully, she knew it was today. How could she forget about an event that promised to give her twice as many sore body parts than all of this week’s other crusades combined? Now if only Scootaloo had forgotten…

“Yeah, and I’m excited.” Scootaloo proved her excitement by hopping into the air and fluttering down with her wings. “I’ve been dying to use those shopping carts ever since we found them in that ditch. I don’t know who would bring those all the way from Canter-Mart, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Talk about a stroke of luck, huh?” said Apple Bloom, her voice containing no excitement of its own.

“You could say that again. Now let’s shake a leg. We need to get moving if we’re gonna get all our crusades in today.”

Before Apple Bloom could make another attempt at persuading Scootaloo otherwise, her friend turned and darted towards the door. To Apple Bloom’s surprise, Scootaloo stopped when she reached the doorway and turned her head towards her friend.

“Hey, Apple Bloom?”

“Yeah?”

“The whole ‘grabbing by the horns’ thing got me thinking. Maybe we could try being Cutie Mark Crusader Matadors someday?”

Apple Bloom carried a flat expression. “Where are we gonna find a bull in Ponyville t’ even try that?”

“Good point.” Scootaloo lowered her head in disappointment, then just as quickly lifted it back up in determination. “We’ll worry about it later. Right now, it’s jousting time!” And just like that, Scootaloo was gone, already racing down the steps to her waiting scooter and wagon.

Apple Bloom stared glumly at the open doorway for a few seconds. Maybe this crusade won’t be that bad, she tried to reason with herself. After all, what was the worst that could happen with two fillies repeatedly charging at each other on shopping carts with bendy play spears?

Just the thought alone was enough to make the aches in Apple Bloom’s body cry out a little more. With a groan, she shook her head and slung the saddlebags around her barrel again. Standing around thinking about a crusade wasn’t gonna get her cutie mark. If it turned out her special talent was jousting, she would just have to grin and bear some extra pain to discover it.

With one last moment to compose herself, Apple Bloom slowly walked out of the clubhouse. Once more, the crusader’s second home was empty, with only one new addition to the many objects within: a single blueprint. A blueprint that had slipped out of Apple Bloom’s saddlebags when she had dropped them on the floor. A blueprint with the details of a certain party for a certain friend hastily scribbled on its corner.

Author's Note

Work on next chapter will begin after my college semester is over (about three weeks from now). Don't wanna give away too much, but I already expect chapter 6 to be the longest one so far. DUN DUN DUUUUUN!

(Also, mega-sorry for the 4-month delay. Had to sneak at least one apology in here. :P )