A.N: Hello and welcome to my lucky number 13th story of fanfiction. This is my first pony story and my first crossover, but do not fret I'm confident that this is a DECENT read.
Anyway I got this all typed up for a dear friend of mine's birthday, he knows who he is.
Happy Birthday Ponyville Ranger/xSquadronx/Squad Unit 19!
Disclaimer all characters belong to their respective owners. The ponies belong to Hasbro and the Sensational Six belong to Disney.
It was another peaceful day in Ponyville, the Pegasi were clearing the clouds for perfect weather; Goofy, a green Pegasus, was literally crashing through the clouds to clear them, to him it was just more fun that way; Donald, a plain blue Pegasus, on the other hand was dismissing his Pegasus duties, preferring to go fishing on his boat than waste his time getting rid of clouds. Rainbow Dash put a stop to such laziness by bouncing on a rain cloud right over his head making him all soaking wet, he grumbled and reluctantly flew off to actually do his duties. The oldens of the Apple family were hard at work harvesting Apples, with the help of Pluto, a dark yellow Earth pony. Rarity was working on designing new styles for saddles with her new secondary assistant, Daisy, a purple Earth pony, and everypony was happily going about their daily business.
None more so than the Cutie Mark Crusaders, the only fillies their age who have yet to find their special talent and in turn their corresponding cutie marks. As per usual since the day they met, they were yet again trying out odd jobs together in order to find a quick way to receive them, and the occasional stopping to politely ask somepony how they got their cutie mark.
Well, it just so happens that they dishearteningly passed by one pony who completely understood their pain. Mickey was his name and adventure was his game, he was a red stallion with simply a black mane and a short black tail, and his cutie mark pictured an open treasure map that was gridded with five squares worth of both the x and y axis', and a black dotted line that started from the top left corner and led to a heart instead of an 'X' that was in the bottom right corner of the map.
"Hey girls, I hear yer lookin' for an easy way to earn yer cutie marks!" Mickey called out to them.
"Yeah, and we've asked everypony we know, except maybe you Mickey," Scootaloo answered with a sigh. Then the three fillies turned around and headed back to his open stall.
"Well, I know yer supposed ta figure it out on yer own, but you ponies are tryin' so hard, there's no way it's healthy. So I might as well spell it out fer ya!" The fillies looked at him quizzically.
"You'd do that for us?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Why sure, after all, I've already got all of ya mostly figured out since its kinda hard ta miss three energetic fillies lookin' for odd jobs ta do in order ta get a cutie mark, so I've got an educated guess on what yer special talents are." He then looked at Sweetie Belle. "Ever wonder why everypony expects ya ta sing Sweetie?" The young filly sighed and shook her head.
"No, they always expect me to but I don't sing to crowds when I'm alone."
"Well, if yer gonna get yer cutie mark, yer gonna have ta someday because that's yer special talent - Singing." then he turned to Apple Bloom. "Now I know being apart of the Apple family is a great pride and ya expect yer cutie mark ta be apple related, but its not really who you want ta be inside is it Bloom?" She shook her head too only she did so shyly, not wanting to admit that she didn't want to harvest apples for the rest of her apple lovin' life. "Well, in any case, I can tell that someday yer gonna be a swell carpenter. Ya fixed that o'l clubhouse o' yers quite nicely, so ya might just end up fixin' up everypony's houses in no time!" Finally he turned to Scootaloo. "Now as for you, yer talent is practically in yer name, ya ride that scooter of yers so well it might as well be yer talent." The filly still looked at him quizzically as if he just spewed out a whole bunch of hooey.
"How is that supposed to help us? All we've heard from everypony is a story about trying to find out who you are and all that namby pamby crud! What's that got to do with our cutie marks anyway?" Scootaloo exploded at him. Mickey however, was undeterred as he expected the adventurous one to be the most thick headed, he had his work cut out for him with her, but at least the other two were a little more open minded when it came to understanding something. Scootaloo started to calm down and was quickly growing scared of Mickey's silent and blank facial expression.
"Alright, let's try a different approach," He said at last in a calm tone as he set himself down in his open stall that was right next door to Minnie's house, (we'll get to her later) as if getting ready to tell a long story. "What exactly have they, as in, anypony, taught ya or told ya about how ta get yer cutie marks?"
"They'll appear when we find our special talents," the three fillies answered in unison.
"And?" he asked, knowing there should be more.
"And it usually involves finding out who ya are as a pony," Apple Bloom answered, having been the one to write down the notes for something as important as that in class. Scootaloo grumbled.
"Is that all?" he asked again. The fillies looked at each other then back to him and nodded rapidly. "Figures, but then again this only applies ta you three since neither of ya got it figured out yet...Ya got ta accept yer talent. It's right there under yer noses but you have ta accept that it's yer talent, otherwise yer cutie marks will never appear."
The three cocked their heads to the side, still confused. Mickey sighed. This could take longer than he thought.
"Take Applejack's cutie mark story for example...event though she wanted ta be a city pony, in the end she accepted herself ta be an apple farmer." The girls cocked their heads to the other side. "Okay, uh, Pinkie Pie! Once she got her family ta smile at her first surprise party, she accepted that she wanted to continue making everypony happy with the parties that she throws." Still blank expressions from the fillies. "Uh, Fluttershy accepted the fact that even though she couldn't fly very well she could still make friends on the ground, animals and non-flying ponies alike, which is very helpful around winter wrap up!" Still nothing. "Alright one more since Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle's cutie marks don't count, theirs just happened ta appear after doing something important in regards ta their talents, so they're exceptions ta what I'm trying ta get at. Anyway, Rarity accepted the fact that though her line of work was in fashion and designing, her special talent was being able ta find gems hidden in the ground." And still not even a hint of realization or enlightenment from the girls, in fact they looked about ready to fall asleep!
"Maybe it'd be easier if you just told us how you got your cutie mark Mickey," Sweetie Belle suggested at last,after yawning. That set out a new burst of excitement amongst the three of them.
"Yeah! I mean we haven't really asked any stallions how they got their cutie marks, and your cutie mark practically has adventure written all over it. But what's with that heart in the corner of the map?" Scootaloo burst with excitement and wonder.
"Alright, alright, I'll tell ya how I got mine and I'll get ta the embarrassing heart business soon enough." The fillies sat down promptly knowing it would be a long story. "Ya see, when I was a young colt I was actually born a Unicorn and I lived in Canterlot, much like Twilight did. Now one thing ya gotta understand about colts is at times we like ta play a little rough and rowdy, and well, I was playing as such when somepony accidentally bucked my horn clean off. And the damage was so bad, it couldn't grow back." He pushed back a little of his mane on his forehead and revealed a chipped lump, the remains of his horn. The three fillies gasped at the sight.
"Did it hurt?" Sweetie Belle asked as cautiously as possible hoping it wasn't a touchy subject.
"Aw, it hurt plenty. Especially since that somepony not only bucked off my horn, but also bucked me in the face and gave me a nasty bruise right here," he replied as he pointed to his left cheek. "I was fine otherwise but my parents were more distressed than I was, since without a horn - I'd never be able ta use magic, which was fine with me seein' as I didn't know how anyway. However, from then on being a young colt in Canterlot got a lot harder fer me. Not only did the other fillies and colts call me a blank flank, but now I was known as a horn loser. On top of that, my parents weren't very supportive either, being typical Canterlot unicorns as they were; they were severely disappointed that their Unicorn son was physically reduced to Earth pony status. Which was apparently looked down upon in Canterlot, but then - its Canterlot where just about everypony is stuck up...except the ponies that work directly under Princess Celestia, they're the nice ones. Now, looking back I reckon my parents were also ridiculed for being the parents of me, the horn loser, which explains why they ignored me and pretended I never existed ever since the incident, so a pony can't entirely blame them but still...I couldn't take it any more so I ran away from home. Never looked back, never went back and because I haven't heard from 'em since, they obviously didn't care about me anyhow." That's when he actually got a good look at the fillies before him. Mickey was so wrapped up in his memories that he wasn't really paying attention to their reactions. Now that he was, they looked like they were on the brink of tears.
"How could anypony do that to their colt? Over something as stupid as a broken horn!" Scootaloo exclaimed, wiping her eyes before anypony noticed that she was almost crying.
"Don't you miss yer family even a little Mickey?" Apple Bloom whimpered in question.
"Well, of course I do sometimes...and I'm even a little curious ta see how everypony's doing, but I've made my decision not ta go back. And besides, I don't have much of a reason ta go back anyways, I love Ponyville too much ta ever leave it." He finished the sentence with a smile to cheer them up, and thankfully it seemed to work.
"So what happened after you ran away?" Sweetie Belle asked after one last sniffle.
"Well, as I ran away from home I decided ta travel around as much of Equestria as I could. I've been ta Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Trottingham, Las Pegasus, Hoofington, Baltimare, Appleloosa, before it really got started ta what it is taday, and even Dodge Junction, that's where I picked up the way I speak. And I treated it all like an adventure, but for some reason even though I acknowledged that adventurin' was my talent, my cutie mark didn't show up!"
"Well that's stupid! When did your cutie mark show up?" Scootaloo piped up impatiently.
"I'm gettin' there, I'm gettin' there, keep yer horseshoes on. Anyway, I eventually found myself in the Everfree Forest on my way ta Ponyville, when all of a sudden I find myself falling down a cliff. Of course I was fine when I reached the bottom since I'm still here talkin' ta ya, it really wasn't that big of a cliff I guess. More like a really big hill since I was still just a small little colt. Anywho, I wasn't completely unharmed, as I did have two broken hooves, one in the front and one in the back. I was just lucky that somepony found me before I could've died, but o'course, that's how I met Minnie." As if on cue the aforementioned pony, a pink unicorn a shade or two darker than Pinkie Pie, also with a black mane and tail that had light pink streaks, and a polka-dotted bow in her mane, appeared with a tray full of cookies floating via the use of her purple auras of magic.
"You called Mickey-! Oh, hi girls! Would any of you like a cookie?"
"Thanks Minnie!" the three fillies cheered as they each took a cookie. Mickey denied the offer and this stunned Minnie for only a second, realizing that he must be in the middle of something.
"Didn't call ya directly Min. I was actually tellin' these girls 'bout the time I got my cutie mark, which kinda falls inta how I met ya I guess," he told her sheepishly.
"Oh! Well, you might as well tell them about how I got my cutie mark! Afterall, I did get mine sometime after you got yours," she suggested sweetly.
"But it's your cutie mark, why don't you tell about it after I'm done with mine?" he suggested sympathetically.
"Alright, continue," she complied, giving in as she settled down next to him and nuzzled into his mane, not caring about the look of disgust from Scootaloo.
Mickey continued his story telling about how Minnie was picking blueberries for her blueberry muffins at the time when she found him and how lucky he was that she was even there at all. She had made sure that he didn't move a muscle until he got proper help from the hospital. Once the pony medics came and got him there and put his hooves into casts of course they asked him all sorts of questions like where he came from, what he was doing in Everfree Forest, and who his parents were. He answered all these questions truthfully except that last one where he was smart enough to lie and say he was an orphan so he wouldn't be forced to go home to Canterlot and be ignored and ridiculed again.
When he was finally allowed out of the hospital the staff insisted that he go to a home of some sort and suggested an orphanage and he would have none of that. Thankfully Minnie had seen the fear in his eyes at that suggestion and convinced her parents to take him in since she found him. Mickey would've declined that offer being wise beyond his years and didn't want to impose on them but he didn't want to end up in an orphanage either since he could easily be either adopted by a family he didn't even know or his own family could find him somehow and force him to come home to Canterlot.
Mickey could never thank Minnie enough for convincing her parents to take him in until they were old enough to go out on their own. His gratitude was to the point that even when his hooves completely healed up for the casts to come off, he couldn't bring himself to leave Ponyville and head off to the next town to prevent him from imposing. He just grew attached at the flank to the pony that had saved him. Of course he did finally leave eventually, and it was after a fight over something that neither of them could remember, she was worried of course, never once believing that he ever would just leave like he had mentioned to her before in secret. However, it was only temporary, as he had come back a few days later. He was cooling himself off with an "Adventure," in the next town over, and when he came back to Ponyville to apologize to Minnie, his cutie mark finally appeared.
"An' ta this day I think of it as a map that leads ta my heart. Who just happens ta be a special somepony ta come home ta," Mickey finished fondly nuzzling Minnie as he said so, and she nuzzled back just as fondly.
"Aww!" Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle cooed in unison, and again Scootaloo just showed a look of disgust. "So how'd ya get yer cutie mark Minnie?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Well, ever since I had convinced my parents to take Mickey in, I used him as my - for the lack of a better term - test subject for any baked goods that I made," Minnie started.
"After a certain point that's best left undiscussed, everythin' she made was absolutely delicious! Yet no matter how many times I told her that, she didn't believe me until I convinced her ta put everythin' she made up fer a bake sale," Mickey chimed in enthusiastically.
"When I finally did, I ended up selling everything I had made, and I acknowledged that maybe everything I baked really was that good, and then my cutie mark showed up," she finished humbly as she tilted her flank just enough so that they could see her cutie mark was a purple cupcake with red hearts for sprinkles.
"Wait! Don't most ponies' cutie marks just appear when they don't even know why?" Scootaloo interrupted with a pretty good point.
"Always gotta be the spoilsport don'tchya Scootaloo?" Mickey sighed with exasperation. "But yer right, it's still different for everypony. They may have ta be acknowledged, and they might not. The best example of it not being acknowledged is probably Twilight Sparkle, she didn't even know exactly what she did to earn her cutie mark."
"Well, thanks for your help anyway Mickey, Minnie," Sweetie Belle piped up.
"Yeah, we'd better get goin', we still gotta figure out our talents and all," Apple Bloom continued.
"Yeah, See ya!" Scootaloo finished as she and the other two trotted away looking for another odd job to do.
"Now remember what I told ya!" Mickey called after them.
"Don't worry! We will! When in doubt, try ta acknowledge what yer talent is if it's something yer good at!" Apple Bloom called back, reciting what she basically learned from the red stallion. Mickey and Minnie sighed in unison as they watched the young trio of fillies trot away.
"Do you think they'll ever figure it out?" Minnie asked as she nuzzled the tip of her horn against the remains of his hidden under his mane.
"They'll have ta. Everypony's cutie mark shows up sometime. Sure they jus' might not take my advice ta heart but that's fer their fates and destinies ta decide. Afterall, these things can take time and patience."
End of chapter 1
