From a Painful Past to Solace in Ponyville

Crimson didn’t go to bed, instead he opted for meditation. He meditated for a couple hours then went back to the training room to fix a few tweaks with one of the dummies. The main function of this dummy is to find counters to his elemental attacks. He has been trying to perfect his elemental combat for the past couple years but hasn’t been able to get the test dummy to do what he wants countering wise.

After doing some maintenance on the dummy, he went for a walk outside the bunker. He walked over to the tallest tree he could find and flew on top of it, so he could watch the sunrise. Watching the sunrise was one of his favorite things to do. The beauty in the colors of the sky while it transitions from night to day was always a beautiful scene to watch. He took moments like this to just reflect how things were going for him and try to figure out what is next for him.

Thinking about the past few days he started to give a genuine smile for the first time in his life. Until a few days ago, he never interacted with others. He has never ventured into Ponyville. Scoots was the only pony who knew he was even alive. According to the census in Manehatten, he was deceased. As far as he knew, he had no family anywhere. Being on his own for so many years has made him way more mature than any colt or filly his age. Sometimes he hopes he has some extended family living somewhere, but at the same time he doesn’t want to be forced away from his home he has spent years building.

His smile didn’t waver as he started to think about Scootaloo and how much it meant to him to have somepony to talk to. He has kept so much bottled up inside over the years and finally being able to tell somepony about his past finally took the weight off his shoulders he was carrying. He made a friend for the first time in his life without even realizing it. A part of him felt content with things.

He was abruptly brought out of his thoughts by hearing his name being called out from below. “Crimson where are you?” Scoots yelled out. He didn’t realize so much time had passed since he flew on top of the tree. “Up here Scoot” She looked up at the tree and saw him somehow perfectly balanced on the top branch. “What are you doing up there? I woke up and got worried when I didn’t see you for breakfast.” Scoots says with a frown. “Aww Scooty” he said softly while gently hoping off the tree and gave her a hug, “I’m sorry for worrying you. I was watching the sunrise and doing some thinking. Watching the sunrise is one of my favorite things to do.” He didn’t notice the huge blush on Scootaloo’s face from being called Scooty.

“Well, I got to go to school so I will see you this evening. Bye Moony!” she said as she turned and ran to Ponyville hoping the blush she had would go away before she caught up with her friends.

Crimson blushed when she said Moony. He didn’t know how he felt about being called Moony, but he just let it go for now. A thought crossed his mind making him wonder if Scootaloo would like to learn to fight, but he was going to wait a bit before he felt she was ready for that. He decided to go for a walk since he was already outside, and it was a beautiful morning. He has been wanting to explore the area around the bunker for a while, so he went a little bit deeper into Everfree. Hopping from tree to tree instead of walking some of the paths felt more fun to him. It gave him practice on keeping his balance when landing and he treated each jump like he was evading strikes in combat.

Crimson found a clearing in the forest and stopped to rest a bit. He has been so busy with training and building Scootaloo’s room that he has been giving no time to himself to relax. He picked a spot in the clearing that was next to a small pond and rested against a tree. A small fox that was watching him with high intrigue slowly walked over to him and nudged his leg to get his attention. He looked down and smiled, “Hey little guy.” Giving the fox a gentle pat on the head. The fox trotted into his lap and curled up snuggling into him. He decided to spend a while relaxing with the fox in the clearing cause he didn’t have the heart to make it get off him.

About an hour later he started to get hungry, so he softly nuzzled the fox to wake it up. “I need to go home and eat little buddy. Can you move please?” The fox nodded and got out of his lap. Crimson stretched his body with some very satisfying pops and started to walk home. He didn’t know what he was going to eat, but a couple of things came to mind. While he was trying to decide on what his breakfast is going the fox trotted beside him. The little fox didn’t want to be alone and followed him.

When they got to the bunker Crimson went to the kitchen to start making himself breakfast. He ended up deciding to make a couple of daisy sandwiches and eggs. While he was making the eggs he noticed the fox had followed him home and curled up on the couch. After he finished making his breakfast, he went to the fridge to get some berries and pears he could give to the fox. Once he was done feeding the little fox and eating breakfast, Crimson went to put the finishing touches on Scootaloo’s new room. In Scoots room he made her a bed that was similar to his topped with a purple blanket and pillows. A desk in the corner of the room for her to do schoolwork on. He built a nice sturdy oak desk and a matching chair with a red cushion for her to sit on. Once her room was ready, he went to the main den of the bunker to check on the fox.

While Crimson was finishing up Scootaloo’s room, the fox moved from the couch to curl up in a corner of room and sleep. Crimson smiled at the fox sleep and went to make a spot in his room for the fox to sleep comfortably. He decided he was gonna build a spruce frame to hold a medium sized cushion for the fox to sleep on. Once he finished making it, he put it at the foot of his bed then went to the training room. Today he is going to focus on intense hand to hand combat and for a challenge he is going to go against 3 of his dummies that have different fighting styles. The first dummy is programed to use quick strikes, the second is programed for powerful kicks and strikes, the third one is programed to switch up the fighting style every 5 minutes. In this combat session Crimson wants to refine is counter attacking and refrain from using any elemental magic.

When the session began the quick striking dummy wasted no time in attacking. Crimson blocked the first 4 punches and, on the 5th punch he caught the fist, kneed the dummy’s head, and threw the dummy into the wall. The second dummy tried a roundhouse kick and a straight haymaker. Crimson ducked under the kick and sidestepped the haymaker to land a powerful spinning elbow to the side of the head.

Meanwhile Scootaloo just arrived home from school and noticed the sleeping fox in the corner. She was wondering why a fox was in the bunker then decided to find Crimson. Since it’s the main spot she usually finds him, she went to his training room. As she got to the door of the room, she heard him yell out,” Be careful Scoots! I don’t want you to get injured. I built a viewing box for you to your left when you wanna watch me train.” She found the small room he was talking about and sat down in the chair to watch him finish his session. Crimson was finishing his training session by doing intense close combat while dodging projectiles. After hitting the final blow to the dummy he was sparing with, he switched focus to catching all projectiles. There were 7 daggers flying at him, all coming at different heights and speeds. He did a corkscrew backflip to catch the first 4 daggers and threw them at randomly placed target to free up his hands. The last 3 daggers were coming from all directions, so he ducked and caught 2 of the 3 by the handle. The thirdone he miscalculated the speed of and caught it by the blade.

Once the session ended Scootaloo ran over to him, “Are you okay?!” she said, heavily concerned because the cut looked bad and deep. “I’m good. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last time. Honestly, I’ve cut myself so much while training that my hand is numb to the pain. I just clean and dress the wound and move on. When things like this happen, it tells me that my weapons are sharp and I only have to clean them. That was the end of my training session anyways. I have something to show you.” With a small smile he led Scootaloo to her new room. “I finished your room while you were at school Scoots. If you need something built just ask me and I will add it to my list of projects. I know you probably saw the little fox in the living room. The little guy followed me home this morning. I’m gonna get dinner started for us.” For dinner tonight he made onion soup and daisy sandwiches. After dinner Scootaloo went to her new room to work on some homework. Crimson was pretty drained from the day, so he went to his room to sleep. The fox followed him to his room, hopped onto his bed and curled into a ball and slept.