Scootaloo glanced behind her as she began to flex her wings.
She could hear the chatter, the whispers, the heavy hooffalls of those chasing after her. She need to get airborne. Glancing between her wings and the sky above her, she began to flap them. Gaining more speed with her steady gallop, she straightened her wings and caught the air.
“Woo-hoo-hoo!” Scootaloo cried, pumping her wings harder and harder. She continued to gain altitude, and soon, the noises below her died down. Not wanting to risk any sort of backlash to her actions, she continued to fly, reaching for the clouds. Soon enough, she broke the cloud barrier, and she settled herself onto a cloud.
“That was way too close!” Scootaloo cried to herself. “What have you gotten yourself into, Scootaloo?”
“Yeah, Scootaloo, what have you gotten yourself into?” Another accented voice asked her. Scootaloo sighed.
“I dunno, Apple Bloom, I just-” Scootaloo bolted upright from the cloud she was resting on, realizing who was talking. Springing up, she fluttered her wings and turned around to see Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom standing on the cloud she had previously been on.
“Gah!” Scootaloo cried. “How are you doing that!?”
“Just like how you learned to fly, I learned how to teleport and cloud walk!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed happily, before glaring Scootaloo down. “Scootaloo! You need to come with us!”
“Never!” Scootaloo cried. “Not in a million years!” With that, Scootaloo turned tail and fled.
The wind was rushing past her. She needed to go faster! She didn’t want to deal with the Crusaders right now! Even if it meant being stuck to the ground or flying as high as a kite, she needed to run. Run as far away as she could. Rushing to the mountain that was a short ways away from Ponyville, she came to it’s summit and plopped down tiredly.
“Why are you doing this!?” Scootaloo shouted, stretching her wings out as her voice echoed across the valley.
“Because you have a responsibility as a CMC!” Sweetie Bell said beside her. “You can’t escape us for long!”
Scootaloo jumped so high in the air she swore she just became the first pegasus to fly without any prior engagements. “AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” she screamed before she flapped away from their reach. “Seriously, how?!”
“Oh, right.” Apple Bloom facehoofed. “Pinkie Pie also told us that if we believe, we can go anywhere we want!”
“Physics don’t work like that!” Scootaloo pointed out. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Blame Pinkie Pie,” Apple Bloom said. “It’s her logic and it works.”
Scootaloo was left hovering in the air, mouth agape, before she saw the glowing green rope heading straight for her.
“BAKAW!” Scootaloo made a comically chicken sound as her eyes widened. “NOT THE ROPE! AHHH!”
All that was left of Scootaloo in that instant was a faint outline that looked exactly as she was just seconds before. Observing the spot where Scootaloo had made her getaway, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle cast a look at each other.
“This ain’t working,” Apple Bloom said.
“Well, what else do you think we should do?” Sweetie Belle asked. “We’ve tried reasoning with her, chasing after her, undoubtedly scaring her… What should we do?”
The two Crusaders contemplated the answer to the question before a roar echoed within the mountain itself. Shiftily, Apple Bloom glanced at Sweetie Belle. “Didn’t our sisters get rid of that dragon that lived here?” she asked.
Another ground-shaking roar made them stumble a little. Sweetie Belle fearfully braced herself. “Uh, better safe than sorry?”
The two fillies quickly nodded their agreement, and they too disappeared in a puff of wind.
Scootaloo darted between the alleys, her home in her mind’s eye.
“Once I get home, I’ll be safe,” she muttered to herself. “Once I get home, I can lock all the doors and windows and nopony except me and my family will be able to get in and kidnap me and take me to-”
The sound of a kicked can broke her out of her reverie. Scootaloo quickly darted her gaze around, Scanning for any sign of anypony. Filly or colt, mare or stallion alike. As she silently flapped her wings to the next corner, she peeked around it.
There it was. Home. She would be home free! She just needed to cross the street. Glancing both ways to make sure nopony was there (there were ponies, they just didn’t pay any heed to the rambunctious orange Crusader), an orange blur signified her passing.
“Two more houses down,” Scootaloo whispered. “Come on, Scootaloo, you can do it!”
“Scootaloo!” two voices cried in unison from behind her.
“Scootaloo, you can’t run away forever!” Sweetie Belle’s distant voice said as it began to grow louder.
“You have to help us!” Apple Bloom announced.
A sweatdrop appeared on Scootaloo’s temple. Glancing backwards, her pupils shrank to pinpricks. Laughing nervously, Scootaloo smiled. “Hehe, uh, catch me if you can!”
Two houses, she thought. Two more houses! Easy pickins. Easy pickins! With a terrified grimace, she burst down the sidewalk, and straight into the safety of her house. Slamming the door behind her, she hurriedly put each of her six locks into place, and rested against the door, bracing it.
The knocking of hooves caused her to flinch. “Scootaloo, please, open up!”
“Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope!” Scootaloo hummed with a forced smile on her face. “Hmm hm hmm! Can’t hear anything! La la la la!”
“Scootaloo, you don’t know what you’re getting into!”
Misinterpreting the message, Scootaloo laughed maniacally. “No, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle! I will never ever ever go anywhere near an instrument* again! I’m sorry, girls, but not even the Crusaders pact will make me help you get somepony’s music cutie mark!”
“But you don’t know about the-”
“Sorry, can’t hear you, bye!” Scootaloo shouted before happily beginning to trot away from the door.
“Scootaloo, wait!”
But Scootaloo didn’t listen.
“Ack!” Scootaloo sputtered, running into something. “Euggh! What the…”
Turning the lights on in her home, she tiredly faced whatever was in her room before she froze in place.
Musical implements of all kinds and manners were stacked in front of her, precariously teetering from the impact she had just given it. Trumpets and flutes and clarinets and tubas were stacked all the way to the ceiling, and Scootaloo stared at it in shock. The equipment they had gotten for helping had been relocated to her house without her knowledge, and Scootaloo couldn’t take it in.
Beginning to hyperventilate, there was only one thing she could do.
“WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhah…! ah… weh… fwoo…”
The door burst open just in time for Scootaloo’s friends to see Scootaloo begin to sway while her scream of terror died. Watching with worry as they saw her eyes roll back into her head, Scootaloo crumpled to the ground.
For a few moments, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle stared at the unmoving body of Scootaloo and the stuff they had gotten to help Double Treble get her cutie mark.
“Uh…” Sweetie Belle finally said after a while. “Shouldn’t we help Scootaloo?”
“I think we should…” Apple Bloom agreed, and the two continued to look at their unconscious fellow Crusader.
“Well, she kinda did break the Crusader pact that she had written herself,” Sweetie Belle reasoned. “You know, her responsibility as a Crusader to help others?”
Apple Bloom sighed. “It’s something we literally made up a year ago just cause we got our cutie marks. It’s a burden we all carry.”
Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow at Apple Bloom. “Since when did you begin to talk with big words?”
“Since I began hanging out with y’all, that’s when!” Apple Bloom grumbled.
Sweetie Belle hummed to herself about that before the two turned to Scootaloo one more time. Scootaloo still remained unmoving, completely and utterly unresponsive.
“We really need to stop standing around here.”
“Eeyup.”
