Right, so this is the story of that one time me and the girls got absolutely clobbered. Well, I say one time, we’ve been clobbered plenty⁠—trees, pets, carrot farmers, fences, unfortunate teachers, hedges, buildings (destructible and non), each other, unreasonably angry carrot farmers; you name it, we’ve either run into it, over it, or through it. But, uh, this time was particularly bad. And less of a physical clobbering, you know? More just, well. Life. Just, beating us round the head a lot. Metaphorically. And physically too, I guess. It also happened about eight minutes ago, so I might need to book it soon. [hr] See we were all chillin’ (cos that’s a thing we do, we’re cool ponies and we chill) in the square trying to think of something to do. Normally we’d be trying to “pick up a new hobby or skill” (Sweetie says that’s how we should say it cos it might make ponies less angry with us; I dunno about that but whatever) but AB’s sis threw us out of our super-secret-clubhouse and then off her farm after her granny broke her jaw in an incident that definitely wasn’t anything to do with us— Eh? Oh right, yeah. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. They’re my best friends. Don’t tell them I said that, they’ll get all sappy and gross, [i]ugh[/i]. Sweetie Belle’s kinda a dork—she’s always shrieking about her mane or her fur or her teeth or something, and she gets all weird about things like mud and bugs. But she’s dead clever and that one time she broke Silver Spoon’s nose so she’s cool. Her sister’s a [i]total[/i] buzzkill though; going on and [i]on[/i] about ‘rare fabrics’ and ‘damage inshurens’ and ‘terror pee bills’. Not sure what pee has to do with ducks but whatever. Applebloom’s kinda a square—she’s always going on about being ‘careful’ and ‘not hitting Silver Spoon in her stupid fat face’ and ‘responsibility’. But she’s good in a scrap once you drag her into it, and she’s great at getting us outta some of the, er, tighter corners we’ve been in, so she’s cool. [i]Her[/i] sister’s terrifying. Oh sure, everyone always says that Applejack’s so ‘polite’ and ‘honest’ and ‘hard-working’, but [i]they’ve[/i] never been chased by her after they accidentally flooded her room. That mare is a [i]demon[/i]. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Chillin’. See we’re not allowed on school grounds outside of school hours anymore ever since Featherweight got that retraining order—er, restaurant order? Summin’ like that—so that was a no go, and with the club house out we couldn’t really go to our usual hangouts. So there we were. AB was just kinda kickin’ her hooves at the dirt, Sweetie was counting the ants cos’ she’s kinda weird like that, and I was bored. Outta. My. [i]Mind[/i]. “Let’s do something.” The other two turned to me, all chill like, cos’ we were, as previously mentioned, chillin’. “Wha’d’ya mean ‘do something’, Scoots?” Apple Bloom didn’t seem too invested, she just did that one-eyebrow-raised thing she does that makes her look like her sister (AKA terrifying) and kept kicking her hooves. Sweetie didn’t answer, she just sort of swivelled her head around all owl-like to blink at me. She’s… really kind of weird sometimes. Anyway: “I dunno. Play a game? Push Featherweight in the creek again? Beat up Diamond Tiara?” I paused, considering. “Actually, that last one sounds pretty fun right now.” Sweetie frowned. It made her look a bit like a very large, multicoloured moth. “Rarity said we shouldn’t do that anymore. She said it was a ‘delicut poe litter cull sit you asian’.” Yeah no, I dunno what that’s supposed to be either. AB apparently did though, cos’ she just snorted and said, “Yeah, cos’ her dad’s Filthy Rich. Literally.” She stretched a little, then bounced to her hooves and gave the two of us a grin. I knew that grin. That grin meant the [i]fun[/i] kind of trouble. “But just cos’ we can’t beat her up, doesn’t mean we can’t do a harmless little prank... Right girls?” Heh. She may be a stick in the mud most of the time, but sometimes? AB has the [i]best[/i] ideas. [hr] The room was… well, not dead silent. But almost. See, I’m a tough filly. I can take my knocks, and I can heckin’ well dish ‘em out too. And this girl we’re talking to, she’s not exactly tough, you know? Small, pretty scrawny, could probably lay her out with one hoof. But despite all that, she scares me. It’s the eyes I think. Last time I saw eyes like that, they were on a changeling at that Royal Wedding disaster. All cold and distant. Like you’re food. So we sat there, the four of us, and the room was dead quiet. The only thing that interrupted it was her mother’s snoring. “So,” said Ruby Pinch quietly, leaning back in her chair. Behind her, Berry kind of snuffled, then did a half-turn-half-flop-on-her-front and resumed snoring. Ruby ignored her. “You want some wine.” “Y-yeah,” AB sorta stuttered a bit, but she rallied pretty well. There’s a reason she’s kind of the leader (DON’T tell her I said that). “Not to drink or anything! That’d be immoral. Just gonna prank Diamond Tiara. It’ll stain, see?” Ruby‘s about half AB’s size, but I swear she somehow made a raised eyebrow feel like a prison shank at the back of the neck. If there’s one pony I want to piss off less than Applejack, it’s her. “And if this is traced back to me? I can hardly be expected to take the fall for your… endeavour.” She didn’t do anything else either, just looked at us. Buuuuut this is getting boring, and honestly I don’t really wanna think about it too much, gives me the creeps. Long story short, AB did some quick talking, we all promised to say the wine came from one of Pinkie’s secret stashes or something on pain of hopefully-not-actual death, and then we got the heck outta dodge. Urgh. Those [i]eyes[/i]. I’m tellin’ ya lady, that is one scary—anyway. We had the wine, now we just needed to find Diamond. As it turned out—not too hard! [hr] “Alright, target’s in position.” I think it was supposed to be a harsh whisper, like those spies in movies and stuff, but honestly Sweetie just sounded kinda constipated. But, whatever—it got the job done. See, we were all squeezed behind this crate in a small alley off of the main market square—one of those places people store fish in, or hire a hooker, whatever that is. Babs never really explained… whatever. Point is, we’re all sitting in this alley, waiting patiently for juuuust the right moment. Turns out Diamond Tiara was in the market, BUYING stuff. What a loser. Now, Sweetie’s on lookout over the crate—her mane blended in with the fish best—and the moment she gives the OK? That’s when I break out the magic, heheh. Well okay, not literally, but hey! Bet you didn’t know ol’ Scoots was a dab hoof at ventriloquism! Pitch my voice up a little, throw it over there, and all of a sudden Silver Spoon’s asking her to come see the cool thing she found. Now I gotta admit, Diamond Tiara’s not a total idiot—she seemed at least a little suspicious. Didn’t stop her from coming down the alley though, and the moment she was out of view—sploosh! Apple Bloom was just waiting in the wings with the barrel of wine we got from Pinch, and her aim’s pretty dang good. And then.... See, this is where the story should have ended. We prank the rich nag, point and laugh, then go home job done, ya know? Except. Ol’ Pinchy made a mistake—well, one of her mooks did. Hoo boy, don’t think I’ve ever seen her as pissed as when she told me that. So to our surprise, instead of being stained a lovely red, Diamond’s coat is as transparent as the liquid we threw on her—not that we have much time to think about it, cos’ the moment the liquid splashes into her face she [i]shrieks[/i]. Turns out straight ethanol kinda stings. Again—this is where the story should end. But our luck’s never been the best, and I’m pretty sure it picked today to take a break. See, as Diamond’s yelling and complaining, she stumbles back into this stack of boxes. The whole thing collapses on top of her, and the metal crowbar someone left on top of it falls to the ground, sparking slightly off the cobblestone. That’s when Diamond Tiara caught fire. Well, I say [i]she[/i] caught fire—the whole pile of boxes did too. Turns out fish is kinda flammable, who knew? Anyway, Diamond is now yelling even [i]louder[/i], although I can’t really blame her, and me and the girls are panicking. Just a little, mind. We may not like the stuck-up little hussy, but we didn’t want to set her on fire! That’s, like, at [i]least[/i] a week's worth of grounding. Nobody wants that. “Oh sweet horseapples!” Apple Bloom shouted, and then just kinda flailed at her—I think she was going for stamping out the fire, but didn’t want to touch her and get burned? I dunno. Then she tried just sorta flinging dirt at her from her hooves, but that didn’t really do much either. Sweetie Belle was just staring (it was kinda creepy to be honest, all blank and wide-eyed) but me? Well. In my defence, I was panicking. And my first thought was that we had to throw something big on her, to smother the fire ya know? And well, Sweetie had been sitting on my shoulders for a while now to see over the crate and she’s kinda big and heavy, and… Yeah. I threw Sweetie at her. And, to be fair to me, it worked! No more fire. At least on DT, but the boxes were just kinda smouldering. Smelt awful, but no danger there. Anyway, problem solved! Sweetie Belle was [i]not[/i] happy with me though, and boy did she let me know. I was trying to tune out all her moaning about ‘burns’ and ‘missing teeth’ when Apple Bloom said the phrase that doomed us. “Uh, girls? She’s not moving.” The two of us froze, and slowly turned to look at AB slowly poking at what was undoubtedly the corpse of Diamond Tiara. [hr] Alright, so it wasn’t a corpse. How was I supposed to know that?! I got a D in Biology last term! It was a reasonable assam shin! Assumptis? Whatever, you know what I mean. Point is, we all thought Diamond Tiara was dead. Now, we didn’t mean to kill her, but like heck I’m going to jail for her! So after a bit of arguing, we all agreed that the best thing to do would be to get rid of the body. How you ask? Well… [hr] “I still think this is a bad idea.” Now this? This is what I meant when I called AB a square. “It’s pretty simple,” I told her again, “we go grab some curtains or somethin’ from Sweetie’s place, since her sister’s in Manehatten, we go back to, uh, the alley, bundle up… you know, and throw it in the river! Boom, problem solved, no one will know, no prison for us. And, bonus, no more Diamond Tiara!” “Scootaloo!” Urgh. Such a square. “My leg hurts.” Aaaand there’s the dork. I swear, Sweetie just would not shut up about her burns. I mean, it wasn’t [i]that[/i] bad—a couple of the patches still had skin! “Whatever, we’re here! Unless you can think of a better plan before we’re done, let’s just do this alright? Sweetie Belle, the door?” Apple Bloom groaned a little, but she didn’t say anything else as we followed Sweetie inside. She was still grumbling about her leg, but whatever. We’re pretty familiar with the place now, after all this time as friends, so we quickly made our way to the back where Rarity kept all her fabric. Unfortunately, she now triple locks that room—something about ‘inshurens premee ums’—so we had to wait a little while AB poked around with a lock pick. I looked at Sweetie. “So uh, why’d your sister go to Manehatten?” She kinda gave me the stinkeye, but she still answered begrudgingly: “Something about ‘a queue patient’s ill terror pee’. Dunno what it’s supposed to be, but she thought it’d help with… something.” Then she glared at her hooves and muttered: “Maybe I could use some for these burns…” Now see, I’m a pretty patient gal. Ask anyone—I’m basically a Saint. But Sweetie [i]would not shut up about her stupid burns[/i]. It was getting so annoying! And we were standing next to this table with a pill bottle, and well… All the pills at [i]my[/i] house are painkillers. So I figured that if she took one of those, she’d be fine! So I just kinda grabbed it, unscrewed the cap, and yelled “Burn this!”. Then I shoved the whole thing in her mouth. Yeah, I know. Weak quip game. Sue me! But yeah, I figured that’d help, you know? How the heck was I supposed to know what ‘ketamine’ was? Anyway, Sweetie went real quiet after that. At the time I figured it was the painkillers kicking in, but in retrospect… Urgh. We’ll get to [i]that[/i]. Apple Bloom finally got the locks open, and just took me for my word when I said I’d just given Sweetie some painkillers. Might have saved us a whole lotta trouble if she hadn’t, but whatever. We got in. Now Rarity’s stash was pretty huge, but we had to be careful. Couldn’t take anything too fancy, ya know? So we took this maroon velvet stuff that looked kinda ugly, and eventually just pulled off some of the curtains too. They were green anyway, who the heck likes green? We did ask Sweetie what she thought, but she just kind of mumbled at us and stared at the floor. Yeah.... Anyway, with a bit of our hard-earned sewing skills (Cutie Mark Crusaders Costume Designers didn’t go so well. Still think banning us from the theater was overkill, but whatever) we stitched together Diamond’s impromptu body bag. Wasn’t exactly art, but it didn’t need to be—it was only DT after all. Mission complete, we headed straight back to the alley. [hr] It really shouldn’t have been funny, but as we all just kinda stared at Diamond’s body I couldn’t help but snicker a bit. Of course, Captain [i]Square[/i] just [i]had[/i] to glare at me for that. “Scootaloo!” “What? Look at her!” A simple gesture was all it took—AB’s face contorted for a moment, before she let out this huge guffaw. Then of course she got all red and embarrassed, but hey—if you’d seen Diamond Tiara’s vaguely crispy form stuck headfirst into a big flower pot, you’d laugh too. Don’t you deny it! Anyway, after Apple Bloom recovered (and we got Sweetie Belle to stop staring at the wall and help, [i]really[/i] should have paid more attention to her) we wrapped up Diamond pretty easily—she looked like what would happen if a crazy cat lady made a mummy at home. So not too far off I guess? Whatever. Point it, we’d got her wrapped up and ready to go, when we ran into the next problem. “Girls,” I said slowly, “how do we get her through the marketplace? I mean, somepony’s gonna wonder what we’re doing, and then we’re busted.” Apple Bloom, instead of having any [i]useful[/i] feedback, just groaned. “I knew this was a bad idea.” Sweetie Belle just gurgled a little. I swear, these two sometimes. No respect. “Alright, not to worry—I’ve got a plan! This did not get the sighs of relief it so clearly deserved, but because I’m a good friend I ignored that and started dragging the Diamond-bag the other direction—deeper into the alley. See, the alley we were in runs parallel (thanks Ms. Cheerilee’s math class!) to the river that runs through Ponyville, with the marketplace opening out onto a little dock that all the old stallions go fishing off of. Problem with that route was the currently running and very busy market. The other way, however, led to a residential area that didn’t open out onto the river for at least a mile—at least, it didn’t [i]directly[/i] open out onto the river. And that is where my cunning plan came into play. “You can’t be serious.” “Come on, AB,” I wheedled (pride has its place, and that place is whenever you’re not trying to get a stubborn friend to do something). “We just gotta be quick and quiet, it’ll be easy! She, like the square she is, just scowled. “We are not breaking into some random pony’s house!” I threw up my hooves. “Well, do ya [i]want[/i] to go to jail? Cos I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any other ideas!” She didn’t have anything to say about [i]that[/i]. Sweetie Belle might’ve, but she was kinda dribbling a little. Again, a bit of a warning sign in hindsight, but everyone knows that’s twenty twenty, and normal vision can be juuust terrible. I mean, mine’s fine but, you know. ...That metaphor got away from me. But, whatever. We dragged the body-bag outta the alley on the other side (after checking to make sure no one could see us, of course) and book it straight for the nearest house on the river-facing side. Now, we don’t recognise it, but we can’t see anyone through the windows, pretty much the whole town is at the market, and quite frankly if we’re caught in the open breaking and entering will be the least of our worries. So, we head round the side, and sure enough—a kitchen door! Best of all, it’s got exactly what I was hoping for: a catflap. “Alright—AB? You scout ahead.” “Eh?” “Through the catflap, you dolt! Make sure there’s no one who’ll catch us!” “What!? Why me? Why not you, or Sweetie Belle?” “I gotta keep watch! Everyone knows pegasi have the best vision.” Actually, I just hated how confined spaces felt on my feathers. It’s [i]really[/i] weird. “And uh, I think the painkillers are hitting Sweetie kinda hard right now.” We both turned to look at her—she was leaning against the wall of the house face first, and giggling softly into the brickwork. Man—I really dropped the ball there huh? Eh. Whatever. Anyway, AB starts to (reluctantly) crawl through the catflap and—well. She may have had an okaaay reason to not want to do it. Being an earth pony, she’s well, the largest of us. Aaaaaaand she got stuck. Right in the middle. Yeaaaaaah. Not a good look. Problem is, once she realises this she starts to panic see? I think it was the worry of being caught with a dead body or something. Or maybe she just doesn’t like being stuck. But she starts thrashing and jumping around, and well. Earth ponies are strong. Like, [i]really[/i]—bah, what am I saying, you already know that! Heh, silly me. Point is, she broke the door. Specifically, the bottom half of the door snapped off and just kinda… followed her. Like a big square collar, only around her stomach. That’s when [i]I[/i] started to panic. A broken catflap is one thing, but nopony is gonna miss a broken door! So I hiss at Sweetie Belle to follow me, and charge in after AB, dragging the bag behind me. We get through the kitchen and the hallway into the living room—there’s a big glass door into the back garden, and I can see the river at the bottom, but AB’s stopped. Now uh, this is another part of the story where I may have slightly messed up. Just a little. A teeeensy bit. Thing is, I was pretty focused on the, you know, [i]dead body[/i] in our possession. So I didn’t realise how badly this was affecting AB until, well. I think it’ll be pretty clear. Basically, whoever owned this place had a cat. And as she charged through the house in a panic, AB’s new wooden frame clipped said cat right in the head. Turns out cat brains kinda look like cat food. Weird, huh? I… didn’t really get why she was upset. I mean, it’s just a cat right? It’s kinda sad that it’s dead, but there are other cats, and we [i]did[/i] just kill a pony. I guess she cares more about cats than Diamond Tiara? ...Is it bad that I kinda get that? Anyway: I’m hissing at her to move, trying to shove her towards the door, when our luck once again proves that it’s decided to go on a three month vacation. There’s a slight creaking from the hallway, and that’s all the warning we get before a familiar mare opens the door and walks in. “Mr. Mittens? Are you…” We all freeze. I’m staring at the mare, AB and the mare are staring at the cat, and Sweetie Belle is staring at her nose. “M-Mr. Mittens?” It’s a low, horrified whisper, and normally I’d feel for her, I really would. But at that moment I was more worried about ourselves. Remember when I mentioned unreasonably angry carrot farmers earlier? Yeah. Carrot Top doesn’t have the best history with us. So I wasn’t exactly surprised when she immediately began screaming for the guard. I was a bit more surprised when Sweetie Belle jumped her. [h] See, at that point, I’d sorta frozen. I mean, can you blame me? I was sure we were busted. But then Sweetie Belle just starts [i]screaming[/i], I mean a proper warcry, all primal rage and that. She charges Carrot Top, who’s gone all prey animal, and just straight up stabs her in the leg with her horn. She told me once that unicorn horns are pretty sensitive, so I thought that might hurt or something, but I’m pretty sure those screams were pure anger. Carrot Top’s screams, on the other hand, were mostly just pain and fear. “Get off her, Sweetie!” “Calm down!” After a couple of yanks, we managed to get her off. Carrot Top had stopped screaming at this point and transitioned to whimpers and then just sorta opening and closing her mouth with wide eyes, like some weird fish. I was pretty concerned by this, not gonna lie, so I let AB handle Sweetie Belle. In retrospect, maybe a mistake—I dunno if she was really in a state to handle that, you know? But, whatever—what were we talking about? Oh yeah, Carrot Top. She was sort of shivering a bit, and she’d gone all foetal too. Didn’t really know what to do, and we still had a dead body to get rid of, so I just gave her the first bit of advice that came into my head: “Uh, maybe try to terror pee a bit? Seems to work for Rarity, so uh… yeah. Bye!” And then we heckin’ legged it. But there was one more trial ahead of us. We were halfway down the garden path, when all of a sudden, a shadow passed overhead. We stopped, looked up—and the awesomest mare in Ponyville landed in front of us. Heh, sorry. Was tryna make the story more dramatic, ya know? But yeah, Rainbow Dash saw us and came down to say hi. She’s pretty cool—I had this phase where I thought she was the [i]coolest[/i], but I’m over that now—but she’s kinda… weird around me? “Heeeeeeeey Scoots! How’s my number one fan doing!” “Uhhhhh,” I shuffled the bag behind me a little so it wouldn’t be so obvious, “Good! Yeah, we’re good. I’m good. And so are they.” I dunno. She’s not creepy, just… a little awkward I guess. “Sooooo whatcha up to? Anything exciting? Crusading for cutie marks, playing some tag?” “Eheh, no no, not today. Just… chillin’.” “Oh! Oh, that’s uh, cool. Yeah, cool.” Yeah. I don’t get it either. “Well uh, I’d better get back to work! Just, uh, remember you can talk to me about anything Scoots, yeah? I’m, uh, always here for ya.” I swear I nearly pooped myself when she said that. I thought she was on to us for sure! But nope. “Even, uh boys. Or girls, haha! I don’t judge.” I just sorta blinked at her. I was just so relieved she hadn’t caught on, you know? She did this weird shuffle, then coughed. “Alright! Going now. Back to work. Up there. Since that’s where work is. Bye!” Then she just flies off, muttering something about ‘sisterly bonding’. Didn’t know she had a sister, but whatever. Weird mare. So, the final hurdle passed, we make it to the bottom of the garden. Apple Bloom still seems sort of… far away inside, which is mildly concerning, and Sweetie Belle’s grin wouldn’t look outta place in a horror movie and she’s got blood on her horn, but we’ve made it. ...How the hell did Rainbow not clock us? Well, whatever. I get Sweetie to grab one end of the bag since AB looks so out of it, and we walk right up to the riverbank to throw it in. That, of course, was when Diamond Tiara woke up. I guess the ketamine made Sweetie’s balance a bit wonky, because as soon as Diamond started thrashing she tipped forward and went straight into the drink. Diamond is… yelling, I think it was? Was hard to tell through the curtain, but she somehow gets her legs free through some of the seams and goes tearing back away from us, before running headfirst into a lawn flamingo. Carrot Top seems to like those things, her garden’s practically lousy with ‘em! Anyway, she’s out of the picture for now, and also apparently not dead which is a relief I guess, but I’m more worried about Sweetie Belle. The river’s pretty fast flowing here, she’s already being swept downstream, and in her current state I think she’s more likely to start stabbing the riverbed than trying to swim. Thankfully, I’ve got a ready made boat there with me. [hr] “I shouldn’t have left my house today.” To be honest, I can barely hear Apple Bloom’s moans over the river—it’s actually kinda impressive she was loud enough to hear. But I’m a little more focused on steering our impromptu raft towards Sweetie Belle, who appears to be laughing at something as she tumbles downstream. She’s definitely not putting enough effort into swimming, or breathing in general, so I start paddling faster at the sides of the door. “Come on AB, start kicking!” In retrospect I really should have been more concerned at how dead the look she gave me was. “This is all just a bad dream.” Still, I’m pretty sure she started kicking. It was kinda hard to tell though—the boat hid her bottom half from view pretty effectively, which made sense, given she was still stuck halfway through it. I mean, it’s not like Carrot Top was going to use it anytime soon, right? Nothing wrong with taking the door. Anyway, it takes a couple of tries, but eventually I’m able to fish Sweetie out of the water. She’s hanging all limp, which would have worried me, but she’s giggling non-stop too, which honestly worried me in a totally different way but whatever. Problem solved! So we paddle to bank and I push her off, and then drag our boat plus Apple Bloom out onto the shore. We just sorta lay there for a while. AB was muttering to herself, Sweetie Belle was throwing up enough water to fill an aquarium, and I was just trying to catch my breath! Course, the story doesn’t end there. If it did, I wouldn’t be here talking to you, now would I? Now for the next part, our luck actually did change a little, because of all the people to find us, it was the absolute best—Ms. Cheerilee. She’s just the [i]greatest[/i]. Seriously! I worried our teacher might not be cool, you know? Might be a [i]narc[/i]. But she’s totally got our backs. Whenever we need to get stuff from the teachers lounge for our pranks in school, she’s always drinking outta that flask she keeps in her desk, and then when people ask later she says she was marking tests! And she’s always talking to the principal about getting us ‘drummed out’ when she thinks the students can’t hear. I dunno about you, but having someone play the drums for us when we leave school sounds pretty awesome to me. What a legend. Anyway, she comes up and says: “What have you done this time!” Time to play along. “Who, us? Nothing Ms. Cheerilee! Just went for a swim.” Normally AB and Sweetie would back me up here but… yeah. “Why is Apple Bloom stuck in a catflap?” “We, uh, were trying to get our Cutie Marks in cat herding. Didn’t work out.” She places a hoof to her face, obviously carefully considering our excuse. “Why does that make sense.” Heheh. Cheerilee approved—a foolproof plan! Now, time for an exit. Knowing her, she’ll be the absolute sis she is and cover us. “Allllrighty Ms. Cheerilee, it’s been great catching up, but we should be going!” She frowned, which was a bit weird, but it all made sense a second later. “Hang on, I need to ask you about Dia—” [b][u]YOU.[/u][/b] I don’t know how she did it, but Ms. Cheerilee somehow achieved something we’ve never been able to do—predicted the supreme wrath of Applejack. And given the smear of what looked suspiciously like cat brains on her hoof as she came bellowing round the corner like some angry god, I wasn’t exactly keen on seeing its terrifying power up close and personal today. Honestly, I’d have taken the jail time any day of the week. “RUN!” We scarpered. I spared a thought and a prayer for Ms. Cheerilee, who only had time to say something about ‘overtime pay’ before being bowled over by a force of nature in a cowboy hat, but I knew she’d have our backs, as she always did. Heh. Rainbow Dash wishes she was that cool. Anyway, we’re running, Applejack is roaring, and I’m just trying to think of how to get out of here alive when Sweetie Belle turns to me, slasher grin still firmly on her face, and says: “I’m gonna stab the mayor.” And well, you know. I was a bit, uh, concerned by that. “Sweetie Belle, what the fuck.” She gave out this really, honestly [i]demented[/i] laugh—it’s what made me actually ask your daughter what the heck ketamine is later—and said: “If I stab her, and kill her,” I swear her grin grew wider, [i]somehow[/i], “then I win. I’ll be the mayor. And then I can have all the milkshakes I ever want.” That’s when she ran off, vaguely in the direction of the mayor’s office. Still not sure what’s happened there. We might need a new mayor. But, whatever. Anyway, I’m still tryna process this, ya know? And then Apple Bloom just starts sobbing. Like, properly hysterical sobs, whole body shaking, the works. “Apple Bloom?!” “MR. MITTENS WHY!?” She veers left, speeds up, and hurls herself straight back into the river. Something about the way she lands sends the door-raft spinning, and she’s just wailing and flailing her hooves about everywhere. With only her upper half sticking out she looked kinda like one of those wacky inflatable tube minotaurs. It was weirdly mesmerising. So at this point, I’m now alone, being chased by what may as well be Nightmare Moon herself, and getting out of breath. So I turned to the one pony I knew might, just might, be able to save me. The only pink-ish mare that could wield such fearsome power. [hr] [right][i]Scootaloo licked her dry lips, leaning her head back against her forehooves as her hindlegs kicked up to rest on the table. “And that,” she said to the snoring mare next to her, “is why I’m in your house Ms. Punch.” She shifted slightly, getting comfortable. “And why I owe your daughter a kidney.” She frowned, glancing up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Not sure why she wants one bean so bad but, well,” she shrugs and closes her eyes. “Whatever.”[/i][/right] [center][b]fin[/b][/center]