-Chapter XLII- Cutie Marks the Spot
-Ponyville, Equestria
-March 31st, 2012
-11:32 A.M.
-The Cutie Mark Crusaders/Main Six
"What are they doing?"
"Hush!" demanded Applebloom to Scootaloo as the two hid in the bushes that grew just outside the train station, watching Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and the others as they loaded a large cage and a smaller one on top of it onto the train car before climbing aboard after it. "What are they doin'?"
"I just asked that!" Scootaloo as Applebloom watched the older mares loading their mysterious cargo, completely unaware of the two fillies' presence.
"Hush!" Applebloom repeated.
"What about me?" Sweetie Bell asked as she popped between the two girls from behind the light foliage.
"What about you?" Scootaloo asked quietly.
"The narrator didn't mention me," she explained simply.
"Huh?" Applebloom and Scootaloo asked simultaneously, turning to the white unicorn filly.
"Well," Sweetie Bell's curled pink and purple mane bounced as she spoke in a hushed voice before pausing, "nevermind."
Scootaloo let out a short burst of laughter, "you sound like Pinkie Pie!" she said with a humourous tone that was impossible to mistake. The orange pegasus' purple mane flew about as she shook her head at her friend's silliness that could only be met by the pink mare herself.
The soft-yellow earth pony edged her way closer to the hedge's leafy cover, trying to listen to what it was the six mares were discussing, but she was still too far away to understand what it was that they were saying, and could only hear mumbling between them that she couldn't understand. She grunted angrily, "come on, girls!" she said quickly, "let's see if we get in closer."
"I'm pretty sure if we get any closer to them they'll see us," Scootaloo retorted as she exchanged smiles with Sweetie Bell.
"Not if we're extra quick!" Applebloom exclaimed before being immediately stopped by her friends.
"Hush!" they both said with a hoof to their lips.
"And extra quiet," Scootaloo added in a hushed voice as Sweetie Bell rolled her eyes.
"I'll see if I can teleport, just like Twilight always does!" Sweetie Bell suggested before her small horn began to glow green with magic. A few green sparks began to shoot out before the colour dissipated and fizzled away. "Or...maybe not."
"Come on," Applebloom said as she pulled a black material over her head, just as the other two fillies did. Once their entire bodies were covered, they began to sneak away from their hiding place and out into the light of the mid-noon hour. Though their black outfits stood out against the brightly-lit cobble walkway, the six mares seemed not to notice.
"So," began Scootaloo, "why are we following Rainbow Dash?"
Applebloom answered once they were in the shade of the train depot's roof, "because," she said in a whisper, "if we want to get our ninja cutie marks, we need to follow them."
"But why our sisters?" Sweetie Bell asked.
Applebloom shrugged, "because, they seem like they're doing something really important."
"And secretive!" Scootaloo added.
"Exactly!"
"All right...so...how are we going to follow them now?" Sweetie Bell asked bluntly.
"Yes- wait, what?" Applebloom stuttered as Sweetie Bell simply pointed a hoof in the direction of the train as it blew a loud whistle. With a column of steam and a short screech, if began moving from the station. "No!" Applebloom exclaimed as she started after the moving train, abandoning her cover.
"Wait up!" Sweetie Bell called out after her, followed by Scootaloo, who desperately tried to fly forward after them, unable to catch wind under her wings.
"So, Dashie, can you please tell me now why you knocked Nick out?" Twilight demanded as Rainbow Dash looked down at the tan earth pony, unconscious at the floor of his metallic cage.
"Like I said, you'll see," Dash replied without any emotion in her voice.
"Rainbow, somethin' tells me you ain't exactly sure of what it is yer' doin' yerself," Applejack debated.
"I do, I promise," she assured them all.
Rarity sighed, "please tell me you are one-hundred positive of what you're doing."
"I'm positive! Have I ever lied to you guys before?"
"What are you even accusing him of?" Twilight ventured.
"Twilight, I'll tell you when he wakes up!" Rainbow Dash repeated.
"Um...Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy spoke up, pointing out the window as she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders scrambling after the train for whatever reason, dressed entirely in black.
"Fluttershy, can't it wait?"
Fluttershy immediately backed away from the group, "sorry..." she said softly.
"Rainbow Dash, don't be mean to Fluttershy! This isn't your normal happy, confident self..." Pinkie said uneasily.
"Sorry, Fluttershy, but this is just kinda important," Dash said sternly, turning back to their prisoner.
"What's wrong with Nick? He seems like a nice pony," Spike commented with a confused tone, "And Stealth," he added, "...even if he doesn't talk."
"Guys, I know what I'm doing!" Dash demanded, beginning to become angrier with each question. She flew into the air and hovered there, crossing her hooves.
"Come on!" Applebloom called after the train as it sped away from them, leaving them behind with only a cloud of dust as evidence of its presence there not a moment before. After running a few moments afterword, Applebloom began to slow her pace, and lost sight of the brightly-coloured train as it turned around the bend and behind the trees of the small forests that surrounded the train tracks. She let out a long sigh before turning around to meet with Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo, but was caught off-guard when she saw Scootaloo speeding towards her on her scooter, with Sweetie Bell riding in their bright-red wagon, tied to the back wheels of the scooter.
"Need a ride?" Scootaloo offered with a smile as she held out a hoof without stopping. Applebloom could just barely wrap her own hoof around her friend's before she sped passed where she was just standing, and quickly making their way towards the train again. "Now this is more like it!" Scootaloo called out over the whistling of the wind in their ears.
"Where were you hiding this thing?" Sweetie Bell asked with a bright smile, calling over to Scootaloo, who could hardly hear Sweetie Bell from her scooter.
"It was in the bushes! You guys really need to be more observant!" she replied quickly over her shoulder.
"Observant?" Sweetie Bell retorted, "since when do you use words like 'observant'?" she said with a smile.
But Scootaloo ignored her witty remark, and only concentrated on the tracks speeding beneath then, the wooden planks merging into one as the speed they passed by them began to quicken. The wind ruffled her fur and mane, and the adrenaline pumped through her veins, making her only wish to go faster. "All right!" she called out loudly.
She continued to follow the iron rails until there was a flash of pink in the distance. "There it is!" Scootaloo heard Sweetie Bell call out.
Scootaloo mischievously smiled under her helmet, and the desire of speed rose again in her chest. She slowly pulled back a bit on the scooter, and, just as they began to slow down, Applebloom called out, "uh, why are we slowin' down?"
Scootaloo leaned forward again on the scooter abruptly, pushing it forward faster still, and soon enough the scooter was even faster than the train. Out of the corner of her eye Scootaloo say a fallen tree out of the forests, and, better yet, a plank of wood that was laid out across it. "Hold on!" Scootaloo called over her shoulder again as she turned away from the train tracks, causing the scooter to bounce a distance, and the wagon to bounce even more. Just as they were about to miss it, Scootaloo turned quickly and flew over the plank, using it as a ramp. Excitement overtook her as they stayed in the air, their height increasing with every passing heartbeat.
Fluttershy jumped as a loud crash came from on top of the train car they were all seated in. She squealed in fear silently to herself as Rainbow Dash and Twilight exchanged angry glances. Applejack had taken Twilight's side and Pinkie remained...Pinkie. Rarity, however, seemed neutral between the two groups, just as Fluttershy did. She swallowed hard as her friends began to bicker amongst themselves still, and the mysterious earth pony still trapped in his cage was the centre of the discussion.
"Um, girls?" Fluttershy asked in a hushed voice, lost among the increasingly loud voices of the others.
"So he asked for Princess Celestia, so what?" Twilight argued, "ponies want to talk to her all the time!"
"But how could he not know where she was? Especially since he said he was from Canterlot!" Rainbow Dash retorted bitterly. It was clear that she thought she was doing the right thing, but the others...
"Maybe he was simply born in Canterlot! Maybe that's what he meant!" Twilight countered.
"I still say he's a spy!"
"A spy?!" Rarity asked with an offended tone. "Why, he's a spy?"
"No!" Twilight defended.
"Yes!" Dash debated again, her voice beginning to become increasingly irritated as it grew louder.
"How do ya know?" Applejack questioned.
"Because the evidence is-" Dash began.
"There is no evidence! You're just being paranoid!" Twilight interrupted.
"I'm being paranoid?" Dash asked with stressed offense, "look who's talking! You're Miss Paranoid!"
"Then why are you the one freaking out about a new face around Ponyville?"
"Because, I know a-"
"No!" they all stopped at once when they heard a voice call out in defiant anger. They turned at once to the cage that contained Nick, now sitting up in a fearful daze.
They landed with a heavy thud against the hard surface of the roof of the train car the three saw Twilight and friends board before the train departed from the station. Scootaloo screeched to a halt just before falling in between the car the wagon was and the one in front of it. "Phew!" the pegasus said with an odd satisfaction.
"That...was..." Applebloom stammered, unable to speak with the bewilderment that had taken over her mind.
"Awesome!" Sweetie Bell exclaimed. "We should do that again," she said with a bright smile, returned by Scootaloo. Applebloom, however, looked at her in confusion with wide eyes.
"Sure, let's all go with that," Applebloom said uneasily as she stepped out of the red wagon, now well-covered with a thin layer of dust and dirt from the ride. She shook herself and stumbled towards Scootaloo, who set her scooter onto its side before meeting up with her. Sweetie Bell excitedly trotted over to meet them.
"Good work, Scootaloo!" Sweetie Bell exclaimed with bright eyes.
"All right, now we just need to find a way to infiltrate," Applebloom said with a hushed voice again, pressing her body low to the roof of the bright-pink train car, the few strands of red hair that stuck out from under her black outfit from her mane blowing in the wind.
"We could just bust in through the door," Sweetie Bell suggested.
"We don't have any rope," replied Scootaloo.
The three stopped and simultaneously looked over to where the scooter was still and the wagon upside down to keep it from falling. "You girls thinking what I'm thinking?" Applebloom asked with a mischievous smile.
"Oh, yeah!" Scootaloo said, copying Applebloom's smile, and looked over to where her gaze lied.
"I think I do..." Sweetie Bell added as the two fillies started towards the scooter and wagon, but a loud voice took them aback.
"He'll kill Princess Celestia!" they heard.
Sweetie Bell began to shake with the very thought, "wh-what?"
Suddenly the idea of breaking into the train dissipated from their minds. "Who was that they were keeping prisoner?"
Fear suddenly gripped them all and after a minute or two of them all staring into their own abysmal thoughts, Sweetie Bell shook her head from thoughts of their beloved Princess being killed. "C-come on," she stammered, stuck between reality and thoughts. "They'll need backup...right?"
The three nodded in agreement and began their plan. They undid Applebloom's sturdy knot on the wagon, taking them a minute or two to figure it out, and tied it to the other side of the car where there was a rail just above below the window.
"I..." he trailed away, Twilight looked over to where Rainbow Dash stood triumphantly, "I'm Equestrian," Nick said simply. But even Twilight could hear the sense of uncertainty in his voice.
"Sure you are," Rainbow Dash said doubtfully.
"I am." Nick resentfully stated again persistently.
"You are coloured strangely. Like an American horse would be."
Finally anger towards Rainbow Dash's judgment based on his appearance overtook her thoughts, "Dashie, just because he's brown and tan doesn't mean he's American, and besides, even if he were-"
"Were you there, Twilight, when the last American horse was here? He was a complete moron. He could hardly talk, and what he did say was that he let a...a human ride him!" Rainbow Dash interfered again. "If not American, then Hylian, or Alagaesian, or Nordic or something."
Twilight noticed Nick's ears perk up, but before anypony could notice, Applejack spoke up again, "he's got a cutie mark, Rainbow."
"Which is a sword!" she demanded curtly, "it can't get any clearer than that, Aj. Why would he want to know where Princess Celestia is, if he lives in Canterlot. He's obviously not got the Equestrian spirit, and..."
"And what?" Nick dared, "I'm just as much an Equestrian pony as all of you, ask anybody else!"
Twilight noticed Dash's expression automatically change. Twilight had noticed it, but had Dash too? She slowly walked to the cage where Nick was, and looked over him before saying just loud enough that the others could hear, "anypony."
"Ready?" Applebloom asked. The group nodded with determination. "One...two..." she was just about to call it when the train suddenly stopped, throwing the trio forward to the front of the train car.
"Oof!" Scootaloo puffed out when Sweetie Bell fell on top of her, and again when Applebloom fell on them both.
Applebloom stood slowly, holding her head with her hoof. "We're here?"
There was a brief moment when all was silent, and they all looked at each other without a word. Applebloom's ears perked up when they heard a crack, soft and nearly silent out in the distance. They all looked at each other just before it sounded again. And that was all the three remembered before everything went black.
It wasn't until hours later when Applebloom awoke again. She looked about in a daze, thinking it was only her state of confusion that made the land around her appear black and white. She blinked a few times before wiping the sleep from her eyes with her hooves. To her surprise, the world around her lacked colour. Panic took her over before she hurried to where Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell had fallen. "Guys, guys!" she said, just hardly able to speak their names without her breath catching. "W-wake up!"
Scootaloo was the first to wake up, and when she realized too that the world around them was bleak, she shot up, with Sweetie Bell soon to wake up too. The three began to press against each other as they studied the distorted Canterlot. They looked to the cloud-covered skies, covering the sun with their thick cover. In fact...it almost seemed as though the sun wasn't there at all. Snow began to fall as they looked to the castle where Princess Celestia was, only to see two figures in the distance being taken by a large balloon, it seemed.
The three looked at each other, bewilderment and fear in their eyes, and silence clung desperately in the air as they all thought the same thing: What had that pony done?