“Scootaloo!” I screamed as the orange pegasus collapsed onto the wooden floor of the old Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse. It had been largely abandoned since they had gotten their cutie marks, but Scootaloo still slept here from time to time. I didn’t know where else she lived besides being here on occasion.
I'd been here for well over an hour, ever since I received that hastily scrawled letter from Scootaloo, and had passed the time by leafing through some old magazines. That was until Scootaloo threw her bloody body into the clubhouse. I wasn’t sure how she had gotten here without anybody noticing; it may have been dark outside but I had seen some ponies lingering around outside on my trip to this place.
I started to move towards her but her glare froze me in place. I backed up as she stood. She was covered in blood. It was almost as if she had been dumped in the sticky, coppery-smelling liquid. “Oh my gosh. W-what happened to you?” I stammered as I stumbled back. She glanced downward.
“I don’t want you to get any blood on your white fur,” she murmured and looked back up at me. My sky blue eyes met her deep purple ones. “The police will be here any minute. I left a mess, a trail leading here. When Twilight finds her body-”
“Whose body?” I asked. She stared at me as if I were a complete idiot.
“Rainbow Dash’s, duh,” she said before walking around to one of the cushions in the clubhouse. She flopped down on it and began to squeeze the blood out of her mane. It began to soak into the floorboards. It started to smell more like rotting flesh than actual blood. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and backed up into the far wall.
“Please,” I begged. She paused from her squeezing to look up at me. “Please tell me you didn’t actually-”
“Murder her? Yeah I did.” Scootaloo paused to perk up an ear. She squinted then continued. “Listen, you’d better get out of here. I’m sure when Twilight finds the body she’ll call the Royal Guard or something.”
“Why would you actually murder Rainbow Dash?” I asked. “I thought you were joking yesterday!”
“She hurt us. She left us to die!” Scootaloo yelled, slamming her hoof into the floorboards, her anger coming out of the blue. “I wanted justice!”
“This isn’t the way to go about doing it!” I shouted. “What if she’s alive?”
“She’s not. I made sure of that,” Scootaloo said. She went back to squeezing the blood out of her mane, and I gave a small sob. She looked at me. “What? She deserves to pay for her crimes. She was having a great life, finally achieved her dream and finally going on dates with that Wonderbolt… Soarin.” Scootaloo laughed dryly. “I’ll never get to go a on date! Pegasi are more attracted to other pegasi’s wings and I’ve got the smallest wings on the planet! No thanks to her…”
“How are your undersized wings her fault?” I sobbed. In the blink of an eye, she was leaning over me with a glare that could have sent a Manticore running for his mama.
“Don’t you dare call them undersized,” she hissed before stalking back to her cushion and falling into it. “Rainbow Dash did a bit of drinking when she was pregnant with us. She just couldn’t get over dad’s death.”
“She was upset,” I said defensively. Scootaloo glared at me.
“I can’t fly because of her and she knew that!”
“How did you get her to tell you that anyways?” I choked through my tears. Maybe she was lying about the murder thing to mess with me. There was no way she could have found out-
“A little torture.”
“Scootaloo!” I gasped.
“What? A little torture never hurt anybody,” Scootaloo said, clicking her tongue. “You were always so sensitive, Ruby.”
“Just tell me when you became a monster!” I said and started sobbing again. She stood and glared at me.
“I am not a monster.”
“What did Rainbow Dash do to us to deserve death?” I asked as she stomped over to me. “What gives you the right to decide if she should die or not? She did a little drinking, sure, but that doesn’t make her worthy of death!”
“She left us on the streets to die!” She screamed, tears filling her eyes. I shrank back as she leaned over me.
“W-what?” I asked. I was confused.
“She was our mother,” Scootaloo spat, backing away and beginning to pace the floor. “She dumped us off at separate orphanages because we got in the way of her dream. Her dream to become a stupid Wonderbolt! I drove a knife into her side, I made her confess the truth. And the truth was that she gave us away because we got in the way of her dream!”
“N-no.” I shook my head not wanting to believe it. I was told our mother couldn’t take care of me and it made sense.
“You don’t have to believe it. But that’s what she did. And now she’s dead.” Scootaloo smirked. I crumpled onto the floor in shock and horror.
“You’re insane,” I murmured. I looked up at her as she glanced my way. “Mentally unstable. You always said it was your dream to meet our parents. Why would you murder our mom if you wanted that?”
“She abandoned us for her own happiness, Ruby.”
“So?” I said. “Even so doesn’t she deserve forgiveness? You could have talked it out with her instead of… of this.”
“Have you ever wondered who our father was?” Scootaloo asked, ignoring what I said.
“He’s… he’s dead,” I said as flicked my tail in nervousness. She was going somewhere with this and I didn’t know where but I got the feeling it wasn’t good. “So? Don’t tell me you killed him too.”
“No, he died naturally. Did you know his death was thought to be a suicide attempt?”
“What?”
“He was practicing illegal spells when one of them backfired and it killed him,” Scootaloo said as she began to flap her wings in what I thought was an attempt to get off some of the drying, sticky blood coating her feathers. “You know how I know that? Mom was there. She entered his house with the news of being pregnant and he messed up the spell due to shock.”
“Let me guess, you know this because you got it out of her on her last dying breath, right?”
“Yep. All of it. As I tortured her, I got all the info I could ever want and need. She begged me to end her life, you know. Begged. Me,” Scootaloo said with a twisted little grin.
“You’re sick,” I spat. She rolled her eyes.
“No sicker than you. I may be a little unstable mentally, hell, years of bullying might’ve done it, but you… have you seen your cutie mark?” She asked me with a smile. Her teeth were coated in a dark red as if she had dug into the flesh of her victim.
“Of course,” I said, instinctively flicking my rainbow colored tail over it.
“What’s your special talent?” Scootaloo asked innocently.
“None of your business.”
“It probably isn’t anything legal, is it?”
“You assume that just because of the mark. It doesn’t mean what I can do is illegal.”
“But it certainly doesn’t look like a normal cutie mark. I actually can’t tell if those are blood droplets or-”
I hit her with my tail. She stumbled backwards, spit a few rainbow hairs out of her mouth, grinned and licked her red teeth. Then she smacked her lips together dramatically.
“Dad was a tad bit unstable and he was into dark magic but Mom loved him anyways. She said she always loved his bad side,” Scootaloo continued before I could say anything. “And I learned this as I was eating her kidneys.”
“Oh my gosh.” I put a hoof over my mouth.
“Don’t be that way. I didn’t eat her. I’m not a cannibal. But she did die in pain. And she knew exactly who killed her.”
“You’re a monster,” I growled.
“Sure, of course I am. Let’s face the facts: we’re both monsters. You’ve got a cutie mark in illegal and dangerous spells and I am slightly insane. All thanks to dad.”
“More than a little insane,” I mumbled.
“Hm?” She asked.
“At least I can choose to not do anything bad,” I said.
“Yeah, but what you do is useless. Illegal and useless,” Scootaloo taunted.
“You, on the other hoof, are dangerously crazy and you don’t have a choice to be anything else.” I continued as though she had said nothing.
“Was that supposed to be a low blow because it didn’t work.”
I sighed and glanced at the door. Where was the Royal Guard when you needed them? Being stuck in a small room with a murderer was not my idea of a fun time. Why would she come back to tell me all this. Why return to the clubhouse at all? She could run away, get out of town or something. She wanted something out of me, I just knew it. “You better not have mentioned me.” I stalled as she paced the room.
“Oh but I did. I told her that I found you unhappily living in an orphanage and that she would die for leaving you there to suffer,” Scootaloo said and tapped her chin. “I told her I was doing everything I did so you could have a better life knowing your mother was dead rather than knowing what she did.”
She turned around to stare outside. Flashing lights could be seen through the darkness. The Royal Guard or somepony was coming. I held my breath as she looked at me with cold, uncaring, dead eyes. I wondered what she was going to do to me when she let out a breath.
“They’re here. Go. You don’t deserve this. I killed her.”
“What?” I asked in surprise. This was unexpected. Why tell me all this and stay here with me only to get caught? She could have fled. She could have killed me.
Perhaps it was to say goodbye to her only sister?
“GO!” She screamed. I turned, ran and jumped through the opposite window. I fell onto the ledge surrounding the clubhouse below the window while glass rained on top of me. I crouched underneath the ledge just as I heard the door burst open.
“Oh my gosh, she… she’s covered in blood!” I heard a mare shriek from inside.
“This is the little punk who killed Rainbow Dash?” A deep voice asked.
“It could be anyone’s blood sir…”
“There was only one pony murdered tonight. But we’ll get the blood ID’d anyways.”
“You murdered an Element of Harmony, kid. We’re gonna lock you up kid.”
“She got what she deserved and I got my justice.” I heard Scootaloo say.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I wouldn’t listen to her, Locked. She’s the nut who burned Town Hall to the ground.”
“Hey, isn’t she the same runt who also avoided therapeutic treatment last time she was arrested?”
“Same kid.”
“Why would she murder an Element of Harmony? We have peace in all of Equestria thanks to those six.”
“Well, now they’re five, sir, unless Rainbow made it to the hospital in time.”
“I sure hope she did.”
“OW!”
“Locked?”
“She bit me!”
“Lock her up. She’s probably disturbed. They all are nowadays.”
I shut my eyes tightly as I heard them shuffle out before shutting the door with a bang. I stayed crouched on the ledge until I heard them trot away. Then I sat on the ledge and looked over towards Ponyville. I shut my eyes and concentrated. I could see and feel the heartbeats of everypony. But there was one in particular whose heart was not beating. I could hear the shouts and sobs surrounding this pony. So I knew what to do.
My horn began to glow an orange green color and my cutie mark started to glow. The clubhouse began to creak as my magical energy began to pulse through it and outwards towards the outskirts of Ponyville. I took in a large breath….
************************
On the other side of Ponyville, doctors and nurses swarmed around a body. There were wires and tubes attached to it and the connected heart monitor that was flat lining. A doctor started up a defibrillator but before he could use it, the body jerked upward. Every doctor and nurse in the room paused and stared.
Then, Rainbow Dash took a deep breath in.
**************************
And on the other side of Ponyville, I took a deep breath out. The magical pulses ended and I stood.
“Useless spells my flank,” I muttered and teleported.
Author's Note
I planned to make a sequel to this for those who want it. Please leave a comment below and tell me whether or not you liked this. Please leave a like as well. Thank you so much for reading this!
