Scootaloo – a young pegasus filly who loves sports, adventure, and all things fun. What she really loves is the Wonderbolts. Ever since her first show when she was only four years old, Scootaloo had dreamed of one day being able to fly alongside her heroes and show off her amazing flying before crowds of ponies. It was for this dream that Scootaloo would work hard day-and-night at improving her body-

“Scootaloo!” Cheerilee shouted from the front of the class, startling the snoozing pegasus out of her slumber and snapping her to attention. “This is the fourth time today! Have you not been staying up late again?”

“Uh… no, ma’am,” Scootaloo said in a drowsy tone, lifting a hoof up to wipe the drool hanging from her mouth. The ponies around her laughed.

“I’ve told you before: a rested mind is a healthy mind,” Cheerilee said, approaching Scootaloo’s desk with a stack of paper on her back. “It is also the key to not earning extra homework that will take up your free time,” she added, placing the papers onto Scootaloo’s desk. “I want these extra questions answered by tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh…” Scootaloo nodded her head, staring down at the papers with a frown on her face. She heard more giggling, which was silenced by Cheerilee as the teacher made her way back towards the front of the class. ‘Darn it.’

It was for her dream that Scootaloo worked so hard day-and-night into improving her body, though it came at the cost of her other schoolwork. Not that she really cared about her grades. Her dream was to a Wonderbolt, after all. What should her grades matter?

Scootaloo yawned and stretched out her forelegs. Looking over to the clock told her that there were still thirty minutes of the lesson remaining. Scootaloo looked around the class, hoping that there was something interesting to distract her. To her left was the white unicorn filly whose name she wasn’t so sure of. Sweet Evil, she thought. She certainly looked the part, if Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were anything to go by. She wasn’t sure if she was their friend or anything, but considering her sister was also one of the hoity-toity ponies, she didn’t really care to find out.

Scootaloo’s gaze shifted to Silver Spoon. This filly and her friend Diamond Tiara were unbearable. Not just because they could get away with anything by putting on cute faces to the teacher, but because they constantly enjoyed flaunting their wealth and good fortune to the rest of the class, both of them just hoping it would make the other foals totally jealous. And it worked on Scootaloo, at the very least.

Sitting beside Silver Spoon was the yellow earth pony Apple Bloom. Scootaloo didn’t know her all that well, other than that she was mischievous. Whilst Scootaloo loved mischief just as much as anypony else, she doubted she would ever become friends with this one. For one, Apple Bloom was just a bit too loud, and for another, she was friends with Twist. Scootaloo was not going to associate herself with the class nerd. It just wouldn’t be good for her street cred.

Scootaloo brought a hoof to her mouth as she yawned once more, closing her eyes and slowly leaning forward… BAM!

The entire class turned to the source of the noise to find a teary-eyed Scootaloo inhaling sharply through her teeth as she held both of her hooves to her forehead and laughter soon broke out.

Scootaloo rubbed the sore spot on her forehead covered by a bandage, cringing at the pain it caused as she quickly pulled her hoof away.

“Were you up late doing push-ups in your room again?” Alula asked from her spot behind Scootaloo as the pegasus foals of the class lined up to take turns using the long-jump area outside of the schoolhouse.

“Not just push-ups,” Scootaloo told her. “I also did sit-ups and squats.”

“You do that every night,” Archer said from her spot in front of Scootaloo, turning around to face the two other fillies. “Why is it that you still can’t fly?”

Scootaloo turned to glare at Archer. “Hey, I’m still growing!” she told her. “My mum said that pegasi who learn to fly slow always become the best fliers!”

“Hey, I’m just saying,” Archer said, holding her hooves up. “I mean, it would be one thing if you were just growing slowly, but you haven’t made any progress at all in a whole year.”

Scootaloo flinched. Despite all the assurance her mother had given her, Scootaloo knew that there was indeed something else going on other than just her body developing slowly. After all, why else would her parents have booked her an appointment with the hospital if there wasn’t any serious problem?

“Hey, it’s your turn,” Alula told Archer. The blue filly quickly turned back and ran forward, jumping off of the springboard and spreading her wings to glide through the air, gaining some lift with a few flaps. After landing, she looked down at her hind legs and pumped a forehoof into the air. “Looks like she beat her old record.”

“Yeah…” Scootaloo ignored the whistle blown by Blossomforth.

“Hey, you’ll do fine,” Alula assured Scootaloo, reaching a hoof to her back giving her a gentle nudge forward. “I’m rootin’ for ya!”

With a smile, Scootaloo nodded, then turned towards the springboard. With an energy-filled battle cry, she bounced off of the board and spread out her wings… “No!” Scootaloo shouted as she glided to the exact same spot that she had always landed at. “No no no NO!” Blossomforth had to approach the filly and calm her down before she would stop stamping her hoof into the sand.

Scootaloo spent the rest of that session sitting out on the sidelines, her head buried in her knees as she questioned furiously in her own mind, ‘Why me?’

The following day was a Saturday. Like most foals her age, Scootaloo was outside and enjoying herself in the warmth of the sun. Her father had been called in by his boss at the weather factory to fill in for a colleague, but thankfully her mother, a young, brown-coated pegasus mare with a yellow mane, was still free to watch Scootaloo show how far she had come with her new scooter.

Her scooter was a present from her aunt on her last birthday. Whilst at first she thought it was ‘dorky’ and ‘uncool’, after giving the thing a try and finding out she could perform a variety of tricks and use her wings to make it move really fast, Scootaloo became much more attached to her scooter, practically taking it with her everywhere that she went.

After stopping to enjoy a light lunch with her mother, Scootaloo’s spirits lowered as she knew that the dreaded hour was approaching. The hour that she would have to make a visit to the second-most unhappy place in the world, the most unhappy of course being Minuette’s Dentistry.

“Do I really have to go?” Scootaloo asked as she stared down at her half-eaten sandwich, wondering if eating her lunch slowly might make her miss her appointment.

“I know you don’t like visiting the Foaliatrician Centre, but you have to go so that Doctor Foal Check can take a look at your wings.”

“I thought you said there wasn’t anything wrong with them.”

“I did,” Scootaloo’s mother said, “But it never hurts to be safe. It might be that you just need some minor wing surgery. Sometimes a pegasus’ wings can be broken in such a way that the pegasus feels nothing, and a simple operation will fix that so that they can fly again.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Scootaloo muttered.

“You’ve had surgery before,” her mother pointed out. “Remember when you had to have your tonsils removed, and you were such a brave girl during the whole thing?”

“I was four,” Scootaloo deadpanned. “I didn’t even know what was going on. I don’t even remember most of it!”

“Well I can promise you that wing surgery is simple and mostly harmless.” Scootaloo’s mother laughed, tough Scootaloo herself found it far less amusing. “Now finish your lunch, quickly.”

“Fiiiine…” Despite her hatred of Doctor Foal Check and her fear of potential surgery, Scootaloo couldn’t deny that she was thankful that whatever was wrong with her wings could be fixed with such a simple treatment. If the operation didn’t exist, it would mean that her dream of joining the Wonderbolts would be over before it could even take off, and that would be truly terrible.

The Foaliatrician Centre was relatively empty that day, or at least when Scootaloo got there it was. The only other ponies in the waiting beside herself and her mother were Dinky Hooves and her mother, both playing with the bead activity table in the corner as Scootaloo assumed they waited for their own appointment.

Five minutes later Dinky and Derpy were called in by Doctor Foal Check, and another ten minutes after that the two came out again. Dinky was smiling as she walked out into the waiting room with a candy lollipop in her hoof, licking it as she followed her mother to the reception desk.

The sight made Scootaloo feel more at ease, at least a little bit. She did enjoy a nice candy treat after her appointment, and if a pony like Dinky could get through an appointment with a smile on her face, then there was no reason why the much-tougher Scootaloo shouldn’t be able to do the same.

“Scootaloo?” Scootaloo’s wings shot out to their sides as the filly froze at her name being called. “Doctor Foal Check will see you now.”

“C’mon, Scoots,” Scootaloo’s mother said as she held her daughter’s hoof and climbed out of her seat.

Scootaloo nodded and followed after her mother into the doctor’s office. There, she found the grey-coated unicorn stallion with the crazy, spiked white hair sitting at his desk, spiral goggles and white lab coat on him as always.

“Scootaloo! My favourite young flyer!”

Scootaloo’s frown was already at maximum in just two seconds. That must have been a record.

“Very funny,” Scootaloo said in a sarcastic tone as she sat on the chair opposite of the doctor, who was laughing loudly at her expense.

“Oh, come now! I hear that you’re having trouble developing your flight, but I also hear that you work hard at it every day. With that kind of determination, it will only be a matter of time before you’re up there with your dad busting clouds.”

“Scootaloo is actually aspiring to join the Wonderbolts,” Scootaloo’s mother said as she sat beside her daughter, patting her on the head and bringing a smile back to her face.

“Well! I suppose I had better get my autograph now while I still have the chance!” The doctor guffawed while Scootaloo’s mother giggled. Scootaloo simple rolled her eyes and sighed. “Anyway, slow wing development is more common than you might think. I’m sure there is nothing to worry about.”

“That’s what I thought,” Scootaloo’s mother said, “But what if one or both of her wings are out of shape?”

“Obviously I will run a quick X-ray to check, but in such a case a simple operation will fix her right up. I just need Scootaloo to stand up and extend her wings for me.”

Scootaloo turned to her mother, who nodded. She stood up and walked into the centre of the room as Foal Check instructed, then extended her wings. “Is this gonna hurt?” Scootaloo asked, trying not to let her worry show in her voice.

“Not at all,” Foal Check told her, putting the filly’s mind at ease. That is, until he pulled out a large, scary-looking machine from behind a curtain and pushed it towards her, placing her wing in the opening of it. “This is an X-ray, Scootaloo. What it does is essentially take a picture of the inside of your wings, so that we can see if your wings are out of shape and if so, where.”

“You won’t feel a thing,” Scootaloo’s mother assured her daughter. “Just two quick pictures. That’s all it is.”

Scootaloo nodded, though she still didn’t feel comfortable with the colossal machine thing standing beside her, especially not when it began to whir loudly. It stopped after a few second, and the doctor moved it to her other wing.

“Okay! All done,” Foal Check announced as he pulled the machine away. With a sigh, Scootaloo moved back to her seat and sat back down as she waited for the news. However, nothing came. Foal Check was silent as he made his way back to his desk and sat down before the two. Something didn’t feel right. Scootaloo looked to her mother with a worried look, and her mother seemed to be just as worried.

“What is it?” Scootaloo’s mother asked.

“… It’s… It’s hard to say.” Foal Check’s voice lacked its usual cheeriness and enthusiasm that Scootaloo was used to hearing. He took in a deep breath and pulled up his goggles, revealing his dark-brown eyes, looking at the two with a seriousness she’d never seen in the doctor before. “I’m… afraid your daughter has grounded-wingitis.”

Scootaloo didn’t like the sound of that. She grabbed her mother’s hoof as she felt it touch her shoulder. “What’s that?” her mother asked.

“It’s a condition where either a pegasus’ wing bone grown improperly, or insufficiently,” the doctor explained. “In Scootaloo’s case… it is the latter. Her wings stopped growing too soon.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened, and the world seemed to crumble around her as Foal Check went in-depth about what exactly her condition was, and what it entailed. She didn’t understand most of it. The majority of the things he said simply went over her head. But there was one thing that stuck with her. One word that she understood perfectly, and that echoed through her mind as the rest of the conversation simply flew by her.

“Untreatable.”

Scootaloo was silent the entire journey home. She was also silent upon her return. Everything that her mother said fell upon deaf ears. Even her offer to make Scootaloo’s favourite dinner, or when she asked if Scootaloo would like to play catch with her father that evening. Scootaloo simply walked up to her room and closed the door without so much as a single word.

As she looked around her room, at all of the Wonderbolts-themed items laying around, from the posters on her wall, to her bedcovers and her nightlight, and to the stack of magazines she had been collecting since she was five years old, something inside of Scootaloo snapped.

“IT’S NOT FAIR!” Scootaloo shouted as she slammed a hoof into the floorboards, biting her lip as she stared at her bed. She ran over to it and removed the covers, throwing them to the side, before grabbing her nightlight and throwing it against the wall. She then made her way towards her magazines and pushed them over, but decided that that wasn’t enough and started to throw them one-by-one into her bin. “WHAT’S THE POINT?! WHY SHOULD I EVEN CARE ANY MORE?!”

“Scootaloo! What’s wrong?!” Scootaloo’s mother called from outside her room. Without waiting for a response, she opened the door and gasped as she saw Scootaloo tearing her posters from her wall, her room a complete mess. “SCOOTALOO!”

Scootaloo grabbed her scooter and prepared to swing into the wall, but she was stopped when a pair of hooves grabbed her from behind. She turned her head to find her mother holding her. “What are you doing?!” Scootaloo’s mother asked her. “Why are you destroying everything like this?!”

“Well what does it matter now?!” Scootaloo shouted as she threw her scooter to the side, pushing forward into her mum’s chest and letting her tears out and she nestled into her fur. “I can’t fly, right?! I’ll never be a Wonderbolt, so what’s the point?!”

“Scootaloo-”

“IT’S NOT FAIR, MUM! WHY ME?! WHY?!”

Scootaloo’s mother said nothing. Instead, she held her daughter close as she finally let out all of the tears and frustration that she had been holding in. “Sweetie,” she said as Scootaloo’s sobbing began to quiet down, “It will be okay. I know that things look bad now, but trust me. It will all be okay.”

“… You sure?” Scootaloo asked. Her mother gently placed a hoof around her head and held her daughter closer.

“I’m sure.”

The following morning, Scootaloo woke up early to find her room still a complete mess from last night’s rampage. Her mind was still a storm of mixed negative emotions, but for the most part her anger was no longer there. She simply stared off into space for a few moments, her expression never changing, and eventually climbed out of her bed and made her way towards her scooter.

She told her parents that she was going to do a few laps around Ponyville. She didn’t know if it would help, but she just wanted something to take her mind off of things. Her mother tried to stop her, but her father agreed that the morning air might do her some good.

She couldn’t feel it doing any good, though. As she rode through the town, picking up speed occasionally and slowing down to a steady roll at other times, nothing that Scootaloo saw was able to help her forget about the diagnosis she had received yesterday.

Eventually, Scootaloo came to a small ravine just outside of town and realised that she must have wandered too far. She turned around to head back, but stopped and turned back to the ravine for a moment. It was only a small gap, and the slope leading down towards it tilted up at the edge, providing a nice natural ramp for gaining some altitude.

“… I’ll show that guy,” Scootaloo said as she turned back to the ravine, kicking her hoof against the ground to build up some speed. “I CAN TOO FLY!”

As Scootaloo drew closer and closer to the ravine, the size of the gap started to feel a lot bigger to her. She began to slow down, but quickly shook off the feeling and continued on her set course. “I can do this,” she said quietly to herself. “I can do this. I can do this. I-” Scootaloo stopped as she neared the ramp. “I CAN’T DO THIS!” she shouted, trying to stomp her hoof into the ground to stop herself. But it was too late; her leg pushing against the ground only served to increase her speed further at this point, and before long she was already up the ramp and in the air. And she wasn’t going to make it. She couldn’t fly, she knew that.

Panicking, Scootaloo did the only thing she could. She flapped her little wings as hard as she could. She pulled up on the handlebar of her scooter and flapped her wings, keeping her eyes shut the entire time and praying for a miracle.

When she felt her scooter make contact with a solid surface, Scootaloo didn’t open her eyes right away. It was when the realisation that she was still alive dawned on her that she dared to crack one eye open.

Just in time to see the tree that she was about to collide with.

CRASH!

Scootaloo groaned and picked herself up off of the floor, holding her head as she tried to keep her balance, the world spinning around her. “Ow… That hurt…”

“Hey!” a voice called out overhead. “You alright down there?!”

Scootaloo looked up into the air to see who was calling her. All that she was a blue blur zooming towards her, and the next second, a blue pegasus mare with a rainbow mane was standing before Scootaloo, reaching out a hoof to hold the filly in place as she examined her.

“You don’t look too banged up,” the pegasus said.

“W-Who are you?” Scootaloo asked.

“The name’s Rainbow Dash,” the pegasus answered with a grin. “You might have heard of me. Kind of a big deal. Future Wonderbolt an’ all that.”

“Oh! I know now! My mum always talks about how much of a show-off you are.”

“… Yeah, well… I saw what you did just now. That jump an’ all.” Scootaloo looked down at the floor with an uneasy look on her face. “That was awesome!” Rainbow Dash said, before leaning down to look Scootaloo in the eyes. “But it was also stupid. What were you thinking?”

“I… I wasn’t,” Scootaloo said. “I was just… I just wanted to fly, so bad,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “I-It’s my dream… It was my dream, to join the Wonderbolts one day.”

“Good dream,” Rainbow Dash said with a grin.

“But it’s no good!” Scootaloo shouted. “I can’t fly! I’ll never fly! Never, never!”

“Whoa, hey! Calm down there. What do you mean you’ll never fly?” After calming down, Scootaloo told Rainbow Dash all about the condition Doctor Foal Check told her about the day before. Or at least, the parts that she understood.

“I’m never gonna be able to fly,” Scootaloo said when she was finished. “I’m useless without my wings. The Wonderbolts are what I’ve been aiming for since I first saw them perform, but now I’ve got no chance…”

“Hey, c’mon now. Don’t be like that.”

“But I’m a failure!” Scootaloo shouted. “What kind of pegasus can’t even fly?!”

“Hey! You’re not a failure just ‘cause you can’t fly!” Scootaloo huffed and turned her head away. “Look, you shouldn’t throw in the towel just because of one setback. I mean, you’re still young! Who knows what good things are gonna come your way?”

“I’m not good at anything though.”

“Really? ‘Cause y’know, that ravine you just jumped over doesn’t look big, but not earth pony or unicorn could get across something like that.”

“It’s only ‘cause of my scooter…”

“Even with your scooter, anypony who can’t fly would usually fall before making it even halfway across that gap. Seriously kid, you got talent.”

“… You think so?”

“I know so! Even if you can’t fly, there are other ways to soar.” Rainbow Dash rose to her hooves and picked up the scooter lying on the floor not far from the two. “Still in one piece. Come on, kid. We should get you back to town.”

Scootaloo grabbed her scooter from Rainbow Dash and nodded. “Um, my name’s Scootaloo…”

“Cool name!” Scootaloo smiled at that. Rainbow Dash turned around and spread her wings. “Climb on. I’ll fly you back across.”

With a nod, Scootaloo climbed onto Rainbow Dash’s back. Rainbow Dash pushed up into the air suddenly, flying faster than either of Scootaloo’s parents, causing the filly to scream as she found herself suddenly shooting through the sky.

Rainbow Dash slowed down, laughing as she looked over her shoulder at the dazed filly, laughing even louder when she saw the state of her mane. “Sorry ‘bout that. Too fast for ya?”

“Too fast?” Scootaloo asked as she composed herself. With a grin, she said, “Too slow!”

Rainbow Dash returned the grin. “In that case, you’d better hold on tight!”

For the next ten minutes, a rainbow trail circled overhead above Ponyville, alongside the sounds of a young filly cheering.

Rainbow Dash decided that she had sufficiently cheered Scootaloo up and slowed down as she descended towards the ground, much to the filly’s disappointment. “Sorry kid, but I got plans with a friend.”

“Um… y-you’re not gonna tell my parents about this, are you?” Scootaloo asked. Rainbow Dash gave her a confused look. “Y’know, about me… jumping that ravine?”

“Oh, that… Tell ya what, kid: don’t do something that dangerous again, and I’ll let it slide.” Scootaloo smiled. “Also, don’t call it quits so easily! You’re not a failure. Keep working on that scooter of yours and you’ll go far!”

Scootaloo gave an enthusiastic nod. “I will! I’ll show ‘em! I’ll soar through the sky even without the ability to fly!”

“That’s the spirit!” Rainbow Dash said as she patted Scootaloo’s head. She then spread out her wings and took off into the sky. “Catch ya later, kid!”

“Goodbye!” Scootaloo called after Rainbow Dash as she flew away towards the apple orchard in the distance. “Thanks for your help!”

After Rainbow Dash had left, Scootaloo kept watch on the rainbow trail that followed her into the distance. She then took a step forward, and almost stumbled over. “Whoa! … Still a little dizzy from that flight…”

Scootaloo noticed something in the air. In the distance, she could see Rainbow Dash looping around daringly before waving to her. “Awesome…” she said as she watched the rainbow pegasus in the distance. She then looked down at her scooter and gave a determined smile. “One day… One day, I’m gonna be as awesome as her!”

Author's Notes:

So probably not the kinda chapter you were expecting after 3 weeks of watiing. Not even a single hint of Trixie and only a slither of Rainbow Dash. But, uh... L-Look, a distraction!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0QinXGWqVk

Also, as for when exactly this chapter takes place, feel free to make your own call on that, but in my mind it takes place roughly a year before the start of the show.