We Are Legion

I know everyone says that no matter how bad it is someone else has it worse, but lately I’ve been starting to wonder about that. See there ain’t an infinite number of people, which means if someone has it worse than someone else, then ya got folks worse off than that person, well…

Eventually, you gotta get to the bottom of the barrel.

“Why are we even here?” Scootaloo asks as she scrapes a series of curling ‘S’s into the wooden table the three of us are sitting at with a sharp bit of rock.

Despite the freezing temperatures and literal snow on the seats, we’re outside. All of us are wearing hoodies and jackets. I’ve got my old denim jacket over my grey hoodie, while Scootaloo has her grey denim vest over her black one, while Sweetie’s just got her thick, slightly-too-big hoodie that’s deep black and practically swallows her whole.

We're outside largely because there ain't nowhere else for us to be. None of us are welcome in the cafeteria, and it’s been that way since the tail end of our freshman year.

Because no one sits anywhere near Anon-A-Miss.

“Because if we ain’t here then we gotta be at home?” I say as I pick at my lunch.

A whole fucking school year and no one has forgotten what we did, not the students and definitely not our families. The harassment ain’t even really cooled down. We’re still the least popular girls on campus and it showed.

It showed in me and Scootaloo as we drew further and further away from everyone else but our little group here at the table, but it showed most heavily—and worst—in Sweetie Belle. She was always the nicest of us, and she took what happened at the end of it all the hardest. Before everything happened she used to wear bright colors and always be smiling. Now she rarely shows any expression, wears almost all black, and I know for a fact she ain't been taking care of herself.

“Anyone want my burger?” Sweetie asks tonelessly. “I’m… I’m not hungry.”

Scootaloo and I both share a worried look.

“I uh, I dunno if I’d call that a burger,” Scootaloo jokes weakly. “Pretty sure that’s not any kind of real meat, right ‘Bloom?”

I prod the spongy patty and grimace. “Yeah, ain’t exactly farm-fed beef.”

“So it’s not your brother?” Scootaloo asks.

“Y’all don’t even go there.” I swat Scootaloo’s shoulder.

Sweetie Belle smiles at our antics, but it’s a weak little thing. She has it the worst of us for a lot of reasons. Her family treats her like a pariah, and the school treats all three of us like human garbage, but between the three of us, Sweetie has always been the nicest.

The most sensitive.

We both try and cheer her up when we can, but it usually falls flat. The tiny smile I get out of her today is the best I’ve seen all week.

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch meaning we have ten minutes to get to class, but none of us move.

We have gym next, and that’s pretty much hell. It gives all the students an excuse to mess with us and gives the teachers an excuse to turn a blind eye. Unless it gets really bad, they just let the students fuck with us and it always ends with Sweetie Belle in tears at least.

“Skipping?” Scootaloo says more than asks.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Ah ain’t got it in me today, y’know?”

“We’ll just get in trouble again,” Sweetie says quietly.

Scootaloo and I both shrug in unison, and Sweetie doesn’t put up any more of an argument than that. We all silently agree to take the detention from playing hooky rather than deal with whatever new abuse the kids in gym have come up with.

“Need anythin’ from yer lockers?” I ask.

“Nah.” Scootaloo waves a hand and grimaces. “Someone stuck dog shit in mine, so I cleared it out.”

“Mine’s got graffiti on it again,” Sweetie says softly. “I’ll pass.”

Before any of the other students can come to bother us, we gather up our backpacks and move quickly around the back of the school. There’s a small area behind the gym that no one ever goes to, especially not when it’s raining, mostly because it smells like trash.

As we head around the corner, I sidle up to Sweetie Belle, throw an arm over her, and pull her close and she tucks herself against me.

Christmas this year had been a cold, stony affair. Applejack still couldn’t look me in the eye, and while Big Mac tries his best, he ain’t the most comforting type. Tie all that up with the fact that Granny passed a couple of months back, and that came along with getting harassed by a couple of conjobs before they finally split town, I’d say the only good thing that’s happened in the whole year and change since our big fuckup was Applejack finally getting laid.

Twilight is nice enough, as city folk go. She’s a little weird, but I guess that’s just city folk in general.

“How’s things at home?” I ask, looking over at Scootaloo.

“Same old,” she says with a shrug. “Mom’s still in denial and Dad acts like I’m the antichrist… you?”

“Mostly AJ ignores me now,” I say quietly, but my chest hitches as we reach the trash pile and take our usual seats, with Sweetie Belle practically in my lap.

There’s been something on my mind lately, a really awful thought, but it’s been there all the same, and I hadn’t even brought it up to the girls. I’d hoped it would go away, but it never did. As the days and weeks pass it just gets heavier and heavier.

“Am… Am Ah a monster, Scoots?” I ask.

“Huh?” Scootaloo looks over at me, her hooded face painted with genuine confusion. “Because of Anon-A-Miss? I told you, just ‘cause it was your idea doesn’t mean we didn’t go right along with it, okay? If you’re a—”

“Not that,” I say, shaking my head. “I…”

The confession seizes in my throat, but as it does Sweetie Belle puts a hand on my cheek and turns my face away from Scootaloo so I’m looking just at her. Her pretty green eyes are framed by dark mascara to cover up her lack of sleep, and her soft curly hair pokes out from around her own hood.

“What is it?” She asks. “You can tell us.”

I put a hand over Sweetie Belle’s and close my eyes.

“Ah’m… glad Granny passed,” I say bitterly, and on the tail end of my words I start to sob. “Ah… Ah couldn’t take it… the way she looked at me after it all came out! Lookin’ at me like she didn’t know me! Like Ah was a monster! That w-was worse than anything!”

Saying the words is like vomiting poison. Granny was more like my mom than my grandmother. I don’t even remember Pear Butter’s face as anything but a picture because she died not long after I was born. Granny raised me, took care of me, taught me, and then, in the end, she couldn’t even look at me.

“Shit,” Scootaloo says quietly. “That… fuck, I’m sorry Bloom we didn’t know.”

I shake my head.

“Ain’t any’a y’all’s fault,” I say as Sweetie wraps her arms around me and holds me tight while resting her head on my shoulder. “Ah’m the one who earned them looks.”

Scootaloo opens her mouth to say something, probably to tell me I’m wrong, even though I ain’t, but she doesn’t get it out.

A snowball cracks hard into the back of her head, and Sweetie Belle screams as Scootaloo staggers and faceplants into the snow. I’m up in an instant, dumping Sweetie Belle out of my lap as she scrambles to Scootaloo’s side and drops down beside her. I put both fists up, ready for the next throw as three pug-ugly teens approach from the far corner with nasty smiles on their faces.

The Diamond Dogs.

They were jerks before Anon-A-Miss. The whole mess just gave them an excuse to beat someone up that no one would complain about.

Fido pitches a snowball at me and I knock it out of the air, ignoring the sting from my knuckles as I swipe the rock at its center. Rover and Spot throw their own snowballs and at first I think they aren’t even trying to aim at me.

A split-second later, I realise I’m right.

I knock the one snowball away with my arm, but I can’t do the same to the other, both of which were aimed at Sweetie Belle, so I do the next best thing. I put myself between her and the snowballs and take it to the chest.

The impact puts me back two steps and knocks the wind out of me. I try to rally, but three more snowballs crack into my chest, shoulder and across my temple sending stars across my vision and putting me onto my back.

Their jeering laughter fills my ears followed closely by Sweetie Belle’s sharp cry as a rock-filled snowball hits her.

I’m back on my feet at the sound of Sweetie’s pained cry, and I’m seeing nothing but red as I barrel down at all three of the teenage boys. I’m not sure but I think I’m screaming as I ram into Rover, and I half-expect to just stop on the guy because he’s twice my size and better than twice my weight.

Instead, he crumples around me with a wordless grunt of agony, and I swear I feel something give in his chest as I hit him. Then I’m up and swinging wildly. One fist connects with the side of Spot’s face, putting him on the ground like a sack of apples. Fido’s meaty fist slugs across the side of my face a second later sending me staggering, and he tries to follow up, cocking his arm back as he steps over Spot but I recover to fast, duck low, and lunge forward with a feral scream as I bury my head in his gut, knocking the wind from him in a painful wheeze as I bear him down to the ground on top of his friend, straddle him and start punching.

Over and over, one hit, then two, then three, then I lose count as I grab him by his collar and drive my fist into his face again and again.

“BLOOM!”

Someone grabs me by the back of my hoodie and drags me off of Fido, and I whirl on them, fist raised as I snarl at—

“Snap out of it and let’s go!” Scootaloo yells, grabbing me by the shoulders and dragging me away from the school as she does. “We can’t stay here! So if you’re gonna hit me then hit me and let’s fucking move!”

Ice water sluices through me as I realise what I’d almost done. I don’t have time to say anything though as Scootaloo gives my hoodie another yank and then turns to start running away from the school grounds towards the QuikStop mart where we park our bikes so the other kids won’t mess with them.

“C’mon!” Sweetie’s softer voice splits through my shock as she takes my hand and tugs and finally I start moving.

We sprint through the rear fields of the school, each keeping pace with the other. I don’t know why but we never really run out of energy or wind. I’ve always been pretty athletic, and the same is true for Scootaloo, but Sweetie’s PhysEd scores have always been abysmal.

That changed after we got out of the Trials.

There’s something different about us now… something wrong with us, I think. Things are bad when we’re together, but at least we’re together. That all changes when we all go home, though. Something we started calling ‘The Greys’, because it really is like the world gets this grey filter over it. Sounds get dull. Feelings get dull. Food tastes like nothing at all and everything just fades into a dull roar of nothingness. At first I thought it was just me, but it didn’t take long for us to realise it was happening to all three of us.

So we do our best to stay together. At least when we’re together, there’s still color.

“You went fucking feral again, Bloom!” Scootaloo says angrily as we hit the edge of the school grounds, jump the ditch surrounding it, and land on the pavement.

“Ah’m sorry!” I say. “Ah couldn’t stop!”

“Yeah, we know,” Scootaloo says. “But every time they take a swing at Sweetie you just fucking lose it!”

“And you don’t?!” I snap.

“I get pissed, but we’re all getting our asses kicked here, okay?” Scootaloo replies.

“I’m f-fine, you don’t have to worry about me so much,” Sweetie says quietly from my side as she wraps both of her arms around one of mine.

She isn’t even out of breath.

“Y’all can say that, but Ah’m still gonna,” I say.

Scootaloo just shakes her head and smiles back at the two of us, and I do my best to return the expression. Even if there’s no one else in the world to take care of us, we’ll always have each other.

“So…” I start, glancing over my shoulder at the school before looking back at Scootaloo, “Ormond?”

“Pretty much our only option,” Scootaloo says with a laugh.

“A’right,” I say. “Let’s haul ass.”