One day, a nice little colt was working on a school project with his friends, and in the middle of it, he obtained his cutie mark!

“I did it! I got my cutie mark!”, he exclaimed.

He rushed to show everypony the new mark on his flank.

“Wow that’s great, dude!”, one of his friends told him.

“Yeah!”, another friend agreed.

The young pony went home feeling proud and accomplished at what he’d done, and his family also congratulated him.

“I’m so proud of you!”, his mother told him.

“We all are.”, his father added.

His brother and sister congratulated him, and he went to bed with a renewed feeling of pride and confidence.

The next day, however, his personality took a turn for the worse.

“Hey, I heard you got your cutie mark yesterday.”, a classmate who was sick that day reminded him.

“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Might even be better than yours for all I know.”, the colt boasted.

“Woah, hold it. I just wanted to congratulate you.”, the classmate stated.

“Yeah? Well, I was congratulated plenty yesterday, but one more compliment wouldn’t hurt at all. Especially since I know for a fact it’s better than yours”.

The classmate stopped talking to the colt and thought to himself “Well, if he’s just gonna be a jerk about it, then I just won’t talk to him”.

In the hallway, the colt showed off his cutie mark with pride, boasting about it to everypony that noticed. He had an audience, and drank in the moment as much as he could.

“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Especially since I got it just yesterday. Some ponies wish they could have a cutie mark as great as mine”.

It was like this for the next week or so: The colt would show off his cutie mark, smugly rub it in the faces of any blank flank or pony that he didn’t consider a friend, and brag about it every chance he got. When his cute-ceanera came along, it was even worse. He turned down anypony that didn’t have a cutie mark, and made sure to constantly remind any blank flank of what he had over them.

“Sorry, only ponies with cutie marks are allowed to attend. Come back when you have a cutie mark like I do.”, the colt rudely reminded a cutie mark-less pony that had come to hang out with her friends.

“Gee, ever since he’s gotten his cutie mark, he’s turned into such a jerk!”, one filly told her friend.

“I know! It’s like he doesn’t even care about anypony besides himself anymore!”, the friend agreed.

“What’s going on?”, a unicorn filly with a purple and pink mane and tail, green eyes, white coat, and a shield cutie mark with purple, pink, and red mixed in with a musical note in the middle said.

“A colt in our class recently got his cutie mark, and now he’s acting like a huge jerk!”, the other filly told the unicorn.

“Mmm, sounds like a job for the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”, the unicorn filly said excitedly.

“Who?”, the other filly asked.

“Me and my friends. It’s kind of a long story.”, the unicorn answered sheepishly.

“What’s your name?”, the other filly asked.

“Sweetie Belle”, the unicorn filly answered.

Sweetie Belle made her way to her two friends. One of which had a red mane and tail, yellow coat, red and brown eyes, a pink bow in her mane, and an identical cutie mark to Sweetie’s, with an apple in the middle in place of a music note. Her name was Apple Bloom. The other had a purple mane and tail, an orange coat, violet eyes, and an identical cutie mark to Belle’s and Bloom’s, with a wing in place of an apple and music note. Her name was Scootaloo.

“Hey Crusaders, we have a cutie mark problem on our hooves!”, Sweetie Belle alerted her two friends.

“Really?”, Apple Bloom asked excitedly.

“What is it?”, Scootaloo asked in the same tone.

“It’s not a pony who’s trying to get their cutie mark, it’s a pony who’s turned into a huge jerk because of his cutie mark!”.

“This feels familiar. Didn’t we deal with something like this with Diamond Tiara?”, Scootaloo asked.

“I’m pretty sure she was a brat before she got her cutie mark, Scootaloo.”, Apple Bloom reminded her pegasus friend.

“Oh, right.”, Scootaloo corrected herself.

“Well, do you know where he is?”, Apple Bloom asked.

“Yeah. A friend of his said he’s at his cute-ceanera.”, Sweetie Belle answered.

“Well then, let’s go Crusaders!”, Scootaloo commanded.

The three fillies trotted to the colt’s cute-ceanera, and saw him arrogantly flaunting his cutie mark in front of all the ponies at the party.

“Wow, he sure is proud of his cutie mark.”, Apple Bloom commented.

“You said it.”, Scootaloo added.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go talk to him.”, Sweetie Belle told the other Crusaders.

The trio trotted up to the recently-marked pony, and got his attention.

“Excuse me, can we talk to you?”, Sweetie kindly asked the colt.

“What do you three want?”, the colt asked rudely.

“We just want to talk to you about your cutie mark.”, Sweetie told the colt.

“Yeah? What do you want to know about it, aside from the fact that it’s totally better than yours?”, the colt condescendingly asked. “In fact, it seems like your cutie marks are exactly the same! Ha! Really? You girls really got the short end of the stick, considering that you all got the same cutie mark. Must mean that you three aren’t as special as you might’ve thought.”

Scootaloo nearly reached her breaking point at hearing the colt so arrogantly and snidely disrespect their cutie marks. The Crusaders had always taken pride in their similar cutie marks and weren’t about to hear any mockery of their uniqueness.

“HEY! We worked really hard to get these cutie marks, and we’re proud of them! Do you know how many ponies we’ve helped earn their cutie marks? Everypony we’ve helped has been grateful and thanked us, and we’re not gonna hear any colt disrespect them.”

“Alright, Scootaloo. Calm yourself a bit.”, Apple Bloom tried to cool down her occasionally prideful friend.

“What we really wanted to talk to you about was how you’ve been acting recently. A friend of yours told us.”, Sweetie Belle informed the colt.

“That squealer. Why does she even care, anyway? It’s my life. I’ll live however I want to and act however I want to.”, the colt callously talked about his friend.

“Wow, he needs a bigger attitude adjustment than I thought.”, Apple Bloom whispered to Scootaloo.

“No kidding!”, Scootaloo whispered back.

“Come with us. We’ll help you.”, Sweetie Belle requested the colt.

“Fine.”, the colt responded.

Begrudgingly, the colt followed the three fillies to their clubhouse. When they got there, they immediately got to work.

“Welcome to the Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse. Let’s help you improve your attitude, and maybe you’ll make some new friends while being able to keep your old ones. We have a lot of work to do, so let’s get started!”, Sweetie Belle welcomed the colt with a tone of preparedness. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were ready to help in any way they could, and couldn’t wait.

It may take a while to fix this colt’s attitude problem, but it’s nothing the Cutie Mark Crusaders can’t handle.

Author's Note

This is meant to be a short, slice-of-life story. I couldn’t think of creative names, so I just decided not to name them. This story isn’t meant to last long, anyway. I just wanted to write a short story.