The Cutie Mark Crusaders: The Mighty Hoovengers
The Cutie Mark Crusaders
star as
The Mighty Hoovengers
in
Okie Dokie Loki's Surprise (Party)
"Hey Scootaloo, what'cha reading?" Applebloom asked as she trotted into the clubhouse.
"Only the bestest most awesomest comic ever!"
Applebloom lifted up the left pages to glance at the cover. "The Mighty Hoovengers?" she asked skeptically.
"Yeah! They're Equestria's Mightiest Super Heroes! They dress in wicked costumes and fight dastardly villains and have the greatest sound effects! POW! SNIKT! KABLAM!"
"Uh..."
Scootaloo flipped pages before tossing the open comic on the table before Applebloom. The picture took up the entire page, a montage of brightly costumed ponies, unicorns, and pegasi haphazardly scattered across the image. Scootaloo pointed her hoof at an earth pony in a red, white, and gold outfit with an E on her forehead; a red shield with a gold sun was strapped to his forehoof.
"That's Captain Equestria. He leads the Hoovengers. His body is honed to peak performance in strength, stamina, and agility! His shield is unbreakable and a dangerous weapon when thrown! And to top it all off, he's an amazing tactician! Even more awesome, he's a hero from Equestria's last great war, recently discovered in the cold wastelands of the north where he'd been frozen in ice and perfectly preserved for a millennium!"
"Who's the robo-pony?"
"Oh, that's my favorite! She's not a robot; that's an advanced suit of body armor she designed which has all sorts of awesome gadgets. She calls herself... Iron Mare! She had to build the suit originally because she was terribly wounded in a flying accident. Not only did she lose the use of her wings, she was almost killed when some metal was driven into her chest near her heart, and now the power source of the armor is the only thing that keeps her alive!"
"Uh, Scoots, Ah think reading this has broken something," Applebloom said, pointing her hoof at Scootaloo's head.
"That totally makes sense. And besides, Iron Mare gets all kinds of attention from stallions. Like all the hot model colts and strong palace guards."
"You mean she has more than one special somepony?!"
"Uh..."
The two fillies stood looking at each other in confusion for a moment.
"Anyway," Scootaloo continued, "that's Scarlicorn." She pointed to a unicorn clad in red. "She's actually kind of lame, her magic just causes mildly bad luck. But she's the sister of the pretty awesome Quickstallion." Scootaloo indicated a green-clad pegasus with a white lightning strike on his flanks. "He's even faster than Rainbow Dash!"
"So, uh... what do they do?"
"They bring criminals with all sorts of crazy awesome powers to justice!"
"Hey, maybe we could do that! We could get... crime fighting cutie marks!"
"That would be so stupentacular! I totally get to be Iron Mare!"
Applebloom cocked an eyebrow at Scootaloo. "You don't have a suit of armor."
"A Super Hero needs a codename, otherwise everyone would know who you are!"
"You still don't have a suit of armor."
"I've got a skateboard though. You should choose one of them you want to be!"
"Ah suppose Captain Equestria sounds pretty cool. She's strong, she's fast, she's got to be dangerous in close combat."
"Oh yeah! I mean, she's not the strongest of them, but she knows how to hit where it hurts."
"Hey Applebloom, Scootaloo." Sweetie Belle poked her head through the door.
"We're going to be super heroes and get our crime fighting cutie marks!" the other two fillies said in unison. Sweetie Belle bounced over to the open comic and looked at it curiously.
"Ah'm going to be Captain Equestria!"
"And I'm going to be the incredusome Iron Mare!"
"Who's that?" Sweetie Belle pointed to a white unicorn in armor, holding a hammer aloft with his magic.
"Oh, that's Thor!"
"Wait," Appleboom said, "the rest of them have pony-related names. Thor? Really?"
"He's some Norse god of thunder." Scootaloo shrugged. "Rumor has it there weren't any copyright issues with the name."
"Copy-wha?" said Sweetie Belle.
"I dunno."
"Where's Nors–" the unicorn filly began.
"He's pretty cool," Scootaloo interrupted. "He can fly using his hammer, MeOl'Neigh, which also packs a powerful punch and can call lightning. He speaks kinda like Princess Luna too."
"Mah sister has a hammer we could use!"
"I suppose he looks cool," Sweetie Belle supplied.
"Awesome. Let's go get that hammer and start superheroing."
"Don't we need costumes to hide our true identity?"
"Ooh, I could make costumes!"
"There's no time for that girls, there's crime-fighting cutie marks to be earned!"
"Well, if we do get crime-fighting cutie marks, I'm going to make costumes!"
The three fillies stopped and looked at each other a moment before shouting as loud as they could, "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER CRIME-FIGHTERS, YAY!" With a flurry of hooves, they raced down the ramp from the tree house.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders were crouched in a bush in Ponyville. Scootaloo was vigilant, peering out from the bush, her eyes roving the mostly deserted late afternoon street in front of the library. Applebloom had a garbage can lid she was trying to spin on her hoof without much success. Sweetie Belle absently pounded the ground with a carpenter's hammer, a bored expression on her face. Scootaloo's scooter was hidden behind them.
"I'm bored," Belle toned.
"How do super heroes find villains to fight anyway?" asked Applebloom.
"There's always villains about when super heroes are on the prowl. Any moment now, some dastardly villain will walk past for us to defeat!"
"But we've been at this for hours."
"Wait, you mean to say that because super heroes are looking for trouble, there'll be villains to defeat?"
"Yeah!"
The garbage can lid hit the ground with a metallic sound, unnoticed by Applebloom. The filly screwed her face up, her hands moving in bursts of stop motion and her mouth working soundlessly. Scootaloo glanced back at the sound of the lid, and collapsed laughing at the expression on Applebloom's face. Finally the earth pony filly found words.
"That... that just doesn't make any sense!"
"Hey, the writers at Marevell wouldn't lie to a young filly," Scootaloo returned, regaining control of herself.
"But wouldn't that mean that we'd stop more crime by not being super heroes?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Wait, I think I see somepony sneaking into the library."
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom snapped to attention and peered through the bushes.
"Isn't that just Pinkie Pie?" Sweetie asked.
"A very suspicious looking Pinkie Pie," countered Scootaloo.
Pinkie crept up to the door to the library on tip-toes, a large box clutched in her forehooves. She glanced left and right furtively before slipping into the library.
"Yeah, but it's Pinkie Pie," said Applebloom, "she's always doing something weird."
"Didn't we pass Twilight and Spike earlier outside Ponyville?"
"Good point Thor," Said the young pegasus, "she's sneaking suspiciously into the library while Twilight isn't there. This bears investigating."
Applebloom rolled her eyes. "If you say so."
"Hoovengers Hoofsemble!" yelled Scootaloo, grabbing a rope from the scooter. Sweetie Belle looked in confusion at the scooter – there hadn't been a rope in there before when they'd zoomed into Ponyville.
"They really say that?" Applebloom asked.
"Yeah, isn't it awe-inspiringly awesome?"
"Ah suppose that's one word for it..."
Scootaloo raced over to the library, the other two fillies in tow.
"What are we going to do with the rope, Scootaloo?"
"We're going to get up in the tree and get the drop on her when she comes out!"
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged a glance while Scootaloo roped a low branch.
"Nothing to it. Now I just use my repulsors to get up to those branches for a better view. Come on girls!"
"Repulsors?" Applebloom asked, but Scootaloo had already disappeared up the rope. Shrugging, she climbed after her and carried the garbage can lid up with her. Sweetie Belle followed, and then they pulled the rope up.
"What do you think Pinkie Pie is taking so long doing in there?" Sweetie Belle asked after a few minutes.
"Hatching some dastardly plot, for sure. Don't worry, Equestria's Mightiest Heroes are here to thwart her evil plans!"
The sound of the hinges creaking below them alerted them to the door opening. They fell silent. Pinkie Pie slipped out of the library, bounced forward two steps, and stopped right below them. Suddenly, Pinkie's tail started twitching.
"Twitchy-tail!" gasped Applebloom at the same time Scootaloo said "Now!" right behind Sweetie Belle, causing Sweetie Belle to drop the hammer. The pink pony below them, alerted to a falling object by her tail's twitch, sidestepped it easily. Pinkie looked up.
"Oops," the unicorn filly said.
"Hey girls, what are you doing up there? And why did you have a hammer?"
Scootaloo whispered something into Sweetie Belle's ear. Then the unicorn yelled "Halt villain!"
"Is this a game? You didn't say Celestia says!"
"What were you doing in the library?" Sweetie asked. Scootaloo facehoofed behind her.
"Like Luna talks. Old Equestrian!" the pegasus filly whispered loudly.
"Oh. I mean, what doest thou doingest... um... doest... in yon library?"
Applebloom and Scootaloo looked at each other in confusion, and then shrugged. Pinkie Pie bounced up and down, delighted.
"That was the most amazingest sentence ever!" The pink pony came to a stop then. "Oh, but I can't tell you. It's a secret!"
"An evil secret plot, you mean!" Scootaloo yelled, jumping down with the rope and fluttering her wings to slow her descent. She landed in front of Pinkie Pie. "Okay girls, let's get her!"
Applebloom shrugged again, grabbed the rope, and looked down thoughtfully for a moment. She backed up a couple steps, grabbed her 'shield', and swung out before letting go and sailing over the pink pony. She landed in a skid, surfing on the lid briefly, before flipping off it as it came to a stop and collapsing in a heap.
"That was awesome Captain Equestria! Just need to work on the landing!" Scootaloo cheered. Applebloom gave her a hoofs-up from where she lay on the ground.
"But its only Pinkie Pie," Sweetie Belle said softly to herself before sliding down the rope more carefully than the other two fillies.
"Alright villain, we're taking you down and putting a stop to your secret plot," Scootaloo said.
"Okie dokie lokie," Pinkie replied.
Scootaloo took a deep breath in alarm. "Thor, its your adopted uh... sister. Loki Pie-Smith. Be careful Hoovengers, she's a wilely foe skilled in fell magics and the use of baking paraphernalia!"
"Scootaloo, she always says that," said Sweetie Belle.
"It's Iron Mare while we're super heroing, Thor!"
"Oh, sorry."
"Captain Equestria, your shield!" Scootaloo yelled to Applebloom, who had gotten back to her hooves. Applebloom looked at her curiously. Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "Your shield. Throw your shield."
"Ooo-kay." She sent the shield spinning toward the orange pegasus. It landed on its edge and was rolling past when it wobbled and fell over, partially covering Scootaloo as it leaned against her. The pegasus pushed the garbage can back slightly with a sharp motion. She gave Applebloom a dirty look while peering past its rim, and deliberately pointed at Pinkie Pie.
"Well why didn't you say so?"
Rarity came trotting up at that moment. "Girls! Why are you bothering Pinkie Pie? Sweetie Belle! What are you doing with a hammer? You put that away before somepony gets hurt!"
Sweetie Belle, who had moved to stand over the hammer, perked up at her sister's arrival. "Oh hi sis! We were just..." The young unicorn turned to look at Scootaloo. "Is she a villain too?"
"No, she's some hapless townspony that Loki has enslaved with her magic! Wait, she knows who we are!"
"Of course she knows who we are, we aren't in costume!"
"We can't put the lives of innocents in danger! We need to fall back, Hoovengers, and regroup! But we'll stop your madness yet, Loki!"
"Okie dokie lokie," said the pink pony.
The three fillies grabbed their heroic accoutrements and took off, dodging around corners until out of sight. Rarity raised an eyebrow at Pinkie Pie.
"Do you have any idea what that was about?"
"Nope! But they seemed to enjoy it!" Pinkie smiled as she bounced off towards Sugar Cube Corner.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders crept back to where they'd left the scooter stashed earlier, eyes and ears attentive. Rarity was fortunately nowhere to be seen.
"I think the coast is clear. Now if only we could find Loki."
"Scootaloo, its just Pinkie Pie," Sweetie said from behind her.
"There she is!" exclaimed Applebloom.
"Hop on girls, the Iron Mare rides in style!" The fillies threw themselves aboard as the scooter sped out of bushes in a burst of acceleration.
The pink pony was tip-toeing stealthily along the face of a house when she turned around and saw the scooter, still several houses down. Her body leapt up into the air, tail going verticle, hindlimbs kicked out behind and above her, and mouth agape with a long gasp of surprise. Then, quick as can be, she disappeared around the corner of the house.
They were a full house from the corner Pinkie had dashed down when suddenly the pink pony popped up out of the bushes to their left.
"Pie am bush! Pie ambush!" Pinkie shouted. A cocked hoof, carrying a whipped cream pie, arced over the bush. The pie caught Scootaloo full in the face.
"Can't see!"
"Everypony abandon ship!" yelled Applebloom, jumping free with her shield.
Sweetie Belle leaped off the other side with a squeak, hammer held well away from her. Scootaloo wrestled with the wheel, but unable to see where she was going, wrenched it too far and caused the whole scooter to flip over, depositing her in another bush farther down.
"Throw shield, hoof-to-hoof combat," Applebloom muttered to herself. "Throw shield, hoof-to-hoof combat." She grabbed the garbage can lid with her mouth, and wrenched it about her body in a sudden motion before letting go. It spun smoothly towards Pinkie Pie, but the pie-smith leaped over it without even seeing it as she jumped over the bush. Applebloom followed up with a flying kick high, sailing over the pink pony as Pinkie went low, landing springily. Captain Equestria ended up re-united with her shield, tangled in the bush.
"Wasn't that fun!" exclaimed Pinkie, bouncing.
"We must not be defeated by... tasty... whipped cream," moaned Scootaloo as she licked the delicious pie off her face.
"Thou... mayestest have... err... defeatedest?... mine allies, but, um... my hammer..." Sweetie sputtered, looking at her hooves as she tried to extemporize something that Scootaloo would say sounded appropriate.
"MeOl'Neigh," Scootaloo groaned from her bush.
"Mine hammer, MeOl'Neigh, shall defeatest thou with lightning from the sky!" A dark cloud moved in, rumbling lightly, giving Sweetie confidence. Pinkie's eyes went wide. "Tastest... blast... sigh. Eat lightning!"
A blast of lightning struck the ground, causing Sweetie Belle to jump in shock. A lightly blackened patch marred the earth behind her. Applebloom, who had just managed to extract herself from her bush, met Sweetie's eyes with alarm.
"RUUUUUUN!" yelled Sweetie Belle, "she's taken control of my lightning!"
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle took off towards Scootaloo. They grabbed her as they ran past, and high-hoofed it towards Sweet Apple Acres.
"Hi Rainbow Dash," Pinkie said, looking up at the storm cloud. Rainbow Dash was too busy rolling with laughter on top of the cloud to answer.
Just outside of town the Cutie Mark Crusaders slid on the wet mud from a recent light rain and skidded off the path into a grove of pine trees.
"How in Equestria did we manage to get covered in tree sap and pine needles while trying to be super heroes?" complained Applebloom.
"Girls? Are ya alright?" An orange pony in a stetson trotted up to the stand of pines. "What in tarnation did y'all think you were doin'."
"Hi Applejack," said Sweetie Belle.
"I guess we're not very good super heroes," said Scootaloo, deflated.
"Super heroes? What have you – is that ma hammer?"
"Uh, yeah. We sorta borrowed it," said Applebloom sheepishly.
"Make sure y'all put it back, and get cleaned up. Don't y'all want to be at the library in half an hour?"
The three fillies exchanged glances before nodding mutely.
"Oh my goodness, are they okay?" Fluttershy trotted up to the trees as well.
"Ah think so. Seems they manage to run into a tree at least once a week doin' some fool thang."
"Don't be late girls," Fluttershy admonished them. "And do try to be more careful. Oh, it was so... so... just watching you do that."
"Yes Fluttershy," they said in unison.
Fluttershy and Applejack turned towards Ponyville, but not without a concerned backwards glance.
"So they want us to go to the library, do they? Come on girls, lets get cleaned up. We still have a chance to stop Okie Dokie Loki's evil plan."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders climbed up the rope that was still dangling from a branch of the library, and worked their way around to the balcony on the second floor.
"I really don't feel right about this," whispered Sweetie Belle as she clambered onto the balcony to join her friends. "Sneaking through Twilight's room is an invasion of her privacy."
"More important we save Twilight from Okie Dokie Loki's plot."
"Twilight's coming!" Applebloom exclaimed softly.
"Ok, we need to find Loki and take her out quickly, before she can harm Twilight!"
"It's awful dark down there," said Sweetie Belle, as they crept up to peer through the open doorway that led to the steps.
"Okay Hoovengers, this is going to be close, but we're going to have to jump Loki as soon as she reveals herself. Follow me in." Scootaloo crept to the edge of the step, a look of determination barely visible on her face in the light let in by the balcony door.
The seconds ticked by in darkness as they crouched at the top of the stairs. A door opened audibly below them. Then suddenly the lights were on and a bunch of ponies yelled 'surprise'.
"Hoovengers Hoofsemble!" yelled Scootaloo over the ponies below her, launching herself from the top of the stairs at where Pinkie Pie became visible in the sudden light. Applebloom followed right behind her.
Unlike the rest of the party-goers, Pinkie Pie's shout came out as, "Surpri-eeep!" Two fillies plowed into her in succession, sending all three of them back into the large cake behind the pink pony. Frosting splattered everywhere.
Sweetie Belle stood at the top of the steps peering over the edge at the long distance to the bottom. She sighed audibly before making a dainty jump that got her nowhere near the other crusaders, and caught a faceful of frosting just as she started falling. Somehow she managed to land mostly on her hooves, but the floor was now coated in slick buttercream, and she slid the rest of the way into the gooey pile of ponies where the cake had been.
"Give up Loki, your evil plot is foiled at the heroic hooves of the Hoovengers!" Scootaloo crowed, arising from the mound of frosted pony astride Pinkie. Silent ponies stared at the spectacle in shock.
"Oh my," Fluttershy said softly, somehow finding her voice before anypony else.
Applebloom's head emerged from the cake disaster off to the side. She licked frosting off her face. "This is much better than getting covered in tree sap!"
"Uh.. Applebloom, Scootaloo, this was a surprise party for Twilight here, seeing as it's her birthday. Didn't we tell y'all that last week?"
"Well, they did sort of foil my plot to surprise Twilight with cake!" the frosting covered mound said with a laugh.
"Oh, the cake had me quite surprised, what with it exploding all over." Twilight licked some of the frosting off herself. "Mmm... Still good though."
"Guess we'll be eating pony a la mode," said a stallion somewhere in the back, although from near the epicenter of the cakesplosion it wasn't exactly clear who had spoken. Many of the young mares blushed furiously.
"Pony a la mode?" asked Applebloom.
"Ah'll... ah... tell y'all when you're older."
"Don't be silly." The mound of pony-shaped frosting giggled as it pushed itself up to a sitting position from the floor, sending Scootaloo sliding. "To be a la mode requires ice cream! Mmm... ice cream." A tongue emerged from the frosting and licked off a huge swath of it, revealing a pink coat beneath.
Sweetie Belle poked her head up. "Oops."
Rainbow Dash, fluttering over the gathering, yelled down, "cake is served!" before being overcome with a fit of laughter. The other ponies joined in.
"My mane!" whined Rarity, traumatized and having finally recovered her wits. This only encouraged more laughter.
Most of the cake eaten and the party well underway, Pinkie Pie stepped out into the early evening and closed the door behind her. With one hoof she reached up and pulled her face off like a mask, revealing a white coat with green hair lightly striped with gold. A sinister but feminine chuckle escaped her mouth, rising to a full-fledged evil laugh as she threw her head back.
Alerted by the door opening behind her, she cut her laugh short. Reaching up, she pulled this face off like a mask as well. Another Pinkie Pie face emerged from beneath it.
"Hey Pinkie, never thought it would be you who'd step out of a party for a moment." Twilight walked up next to her. "What are you doing?"
"Oh nothing much," the pink pony replied. "Just breaking the fourth wall."
Twilight arched an eyebrow at her skeptically. "If you say so."
"Sometimes you've just got to laugh." Pinkie smiled. "Ready for some games?" The two ponies trotted back into the library.
Applebloom was sitting at the window. She'd seen the whole thing. She turned to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, who were laughing about something, and hesitated. She shook her head briskly.
"It's just Pinkie being Pinkie," she muttered to herself, and moved to join her friends.
Sweetie Belle glanced at their flanks. "No crime-fighter cutie marks," she said sadly.
"Yeah, but did you see that awesometastic cakesplosion! Maybe we can get Gallagher cutie marks!" Scootaloo jumped up and down. Applebloom grinned.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER FOOD EXPLODERS! YAY!"
Over on the other side of the room, Applejack and Rarity exchanged a glance.
"Please come find me when its safe to show my mane in public again, would you Applejack?"