Author's Notes:

Hello all,

I'd like to apologize for the huge wait for this chapter. This was the first one that was written by one of the other guys (instead of me) and it took a lot longer as such. But, it turned out wonderful in our opinions and I hope you'll agree after reading it

Also, 13 and 14 are done, but still need to go thru a final edit, so it shouldn't be quite as long as it was between 11 & 12. Enjoy!

Of all the places Scotch wanted to be, College Counselling certainly wasn’t one of them. She could be studying and catching up on some of her overbearing workload, but a little feeling inside of her kept telling her that visiting the counselor was the right thing to do. Either way, visiting the counselor would be a nice little break away from the torment of Arcane Electronics and her overly obnoxious peers.

Scotch was having a hard time coming to terms with what she did three days ago. That little incident with Berry had left her feeling guilty, while also making her nethers ache in both pleasure and pain whenever she thought about it.The feeling of guilt was a feeling Scotch herself was unfamiliar with. Never had she done something she hasn’t regretted, but never before had she felt this way even when she went through with the most disgusting of plans. But why was she feeling all this guilt right now? That was the question that needed answering, and she believed the only pony that could help with this would be the college counselor.

Well, maybe she would get her answers if the counselor would just hurry up already! Scotch had been sitting in the back corner of the waiting room alone for the past twenty minutes. Chairs were aligned in rows all facing in the direction of the receptionist, much to Scotch’s fancy. The receptionist was a really cute hot pink colored mare with a strawberry colored mane with a cutie mark that looked like a flower petal. These features weren’t the main focus of Scotch’s vision. The main focus was of course the mare's absolutely perfect ass that she constantly wiggled in her general direction while she was bending down to sort through paperwork. The view from where she sat was absolutely perfect and it kept Scotch from dozing off.

Scotch gave herself a slap in the face with her hoof reminding herself that this constant lust for other ponies wasn’t helping her. She chose to stare at more sensible things around the room, which of course meant the more boring objects. The shade of the walls piqued her interest, then it was a potted plant, and then it was the wicker basket the plant was being kept in. Thoughts came into her mind about how good the basket would look in her house. Maybe she could put it on the outside and fill it with beautiful flowers she could steal from Ember’s garden and…

Scotch gave herself another slap in the face. “Not. Helping,” she muttered to herself.

“Is everything ok?” the receptionist chirped from behind her desk. Scotch’s consistent self-beatings had managed to grab her attention. She considered this a plus to her already dreary day.

“Yeah, sure! Everything is fine and dandy! Just hyping myself up for my session is all!” Scotch responded with a heavy amount of sarcasm, her Trottingham accent strong as ever.

“Oh! That’s great! Glad to know you’re doing fine at least,” the receptionist replied in a rather cheery tone.

‘Not the smartest tool in the shed it seems. Hell, Ponyville ponies in general seem to struggle with my sarcasm,’ Scotch thought to herself, this clearly not being the first time her sarcastic comments failed.

With that short exchange with ‘pinkie flanks,’ Scotch was back to sitting quietly staring at random objects around the room. She really had no idea what was taking the counselor so long. Was she sorting books or something? What could be more important than tending to her patients? Did they get somepony who’s special talent is tardiness? So many questions that Scotch would never get answers to since they were taking forever. Seeing as how Scotch had registered every object in the room and the counselor was still running late, she decided to close her eyes for a short while. If she fell asleep, it wasn’t her fault.

Suddenly, there was a crash through the door as a lavender colored pegasus flew through hastily, waking Scotch up from her ten seconds of slumber. The pegasus had a dark blue mane with a purple and pink colored streak running through it, and a cutie mark of a large pink star surrounded by five smaller white stars. She also had a large protrusion sticking out from the top of her head… Wait a second… This pegasus looked a bit like…

“Twilight Sparkle!” the receptionist cheered in joy. “So glad you could make it on time!”

‘On time?’ Scotch thought to herself.

“Well, I do run a tight schedule. I only just received word that Miss Garden was off sick, and luckily I had an opening on my already busy Princess schedule so I had Spike add this appointment last minute and then quickly flew over here as fast as I could.”

‘As fast as she could?’ Scotch thought to herself.

“So, is it a friendship problem or…” Twilight turned around slowly meeting Scotch’s gaze. “Aha! Hello. I’m Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. I will be your counselor for today.”

Scotch continued to stare at Twilight. She wasn’t super fond of the Princess after what she did to the Great and Powerful Trixie two years ago. Ruining her career like that put a dampener on Scotch’s spirits and she never once forgave Twilight for doing so. Fortunately, Trixie came back and was now even more Great and Powerful than she ever was before. She will someday beat Twilight in a magic duel, and Scotch was determined to be there when it happened, cheering Trixie on every step of the way.

“Hellloooooo! Is anypony there?” Twilight called out.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Just thinking about… stuff… My name is Scotch,” Scotch replied lamely.

“Hmm…” Twilight pulled out a clipboard and pen from… somewhere with her magic, and began jotting down notes. “Inability to stay focused on one particular subject. Does that sound right to you?”

“Don’t ask me. Even I don’t know what I’m thinking or doing sometimes… No control in this pony!” Scotch answered, images flashing back to the ‘sweet’ night with Berry. Scotch cringed at the thought of it and crossed her hind legs. The peculiar position she was sat in allowed her to do so.

“Hmm…” Twilight jotted down a few more notes. “So! I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’re here because you have a friendship problem! Friendship problems are my specialty, y’know. They don’t call me the Princess of Friendship for nothing. Ha ha ha…” Twilight gave a rather large and creepy grin and leaned in close to Scotch, her eyes wide.

“...yeah, I guess you could say it’s a friendship problem,” Scotch lied, wanting to get the creepy alicorn out of her face.

“Wonderful! Don’t worry Scotch. I’ll have your friendship problem solved in a jiffy. Follow me to my, well, I mean Miss Garden’s office. We can talk about it over a cup of tea!” the giddy alicorn replied.

“Tea? Tea tastes like cow shit. No thanks Sparkle. You can keep your tea…” Scotch said with a disgusted expression on her face.

Twilight reeled back at the freely flung colorful curse word and hesitated a moment before speaking again. “Well, you’re clearly from Trottingham so I assumed… Anyway! It doesn’t matter. Follow me please.”

Scotch’s backside had gone completely numb while sitting down in the same chair in the same odd position for the past 30 minutes. Struggling to pick herself up, Twilight looked at her with a concerned expression etched across her face as she considered helping the mare. Scotch however successfully managed to pick herself up and slowly limped her way on over to Twilight who was standing next to a set of double doors that lead to a short hall lined with offices on either side.

That was the last time Scotch will ever be sitting in that position ever again. More time wasted!

“So tell me Scotch, why are you such a, as you put it, ‘bitch’?” Twilight asked, forcing out the last word. The counselling session was already well underway, but not much progress had been made. Twilight seemed to be holding off on asking the important non-friendship problem questions. She wasn’t exactly cut out for this counseling business.

“That question is a bit on the nose, isn't it? Well, I'm not gonna lie, I am a total bitch. Ha, guess this makes your job easier then. How many ponies do you get that just flat out admit that about themselves? Ha ha.... ah, fuck... I shouldn’t be making light of this. My reasons are... complicated to say the least and so filled with delusion that you'd possibly declare me insane and lock me up. It might even be for the best, y'know...” Scotch replied with a hint of sadness in her voice. It was clear that what she was doing to other ponies and her attitude towards them was getting to her.

Little sweat drops appeared on Twilight’s forehead. More curse words freely flung at her by Scotch really did make the mare extremely uneasy. Scotch didn’t care though, and continued using them as she saw fit. It was a good stress reliever.

“Well, since I was very young, I've always had this... feeling of sorts that somepony or something out there is out to get me. Some... higher power has just been toying with my life nonstop to make me the most miserable pony alive. My best guess at who's behind all this would be Discord, but he's been reformed for quite a while now... at least I think so. Is that true, Sparkle?” Scotch asked

“Don’t worry Scotch. We have Discord under control. Princess Celestia did decide to invite Discord to the Grand Galloping Gala, and it turned out… rather interesting,” Twilight said, obviously unsure if she should even talk about the Gala in detail. But that wasn’t her job at the moment.

“Well, it has to be somepony... or something else!” Scotch concluded, pretty sure of herself.

“Why do you think this, Scotch?” Twilight asked, with a genuine curious expression.

“Well, when you've been me for 22 years, you come to notice things. All of my goals I have set in life have been snatched away from me due to bad things happening that make it harder and harder for me to mentally function. Now, I push ponies away, because all they’ve ended up doing in the past was distract me from the things I see as important, either by something awful happening to them, forcing me to care, or by just being general distractions with their idiocy. What do I find important? Well, my education... Eugh... education... I'll get to that in a bit.”

“Although I'm a stone cold bitch on the outside, I do genuinely care for a lot of ponies. Not ponies here in Ponyville though, but back up in Trottingham. No offense, of course,” Scotch said quickly trying to save herself. She may not respect the Princess, but she didn’t want to get banished to the friendship dungeon or whatever cringe-worthy thing Twilight used.

“None taken,” Twilight replied with a little smile. Scotch returned it, which was the first non-evil genuine smile she gave a pony in quite some time. “Who is it you care for exactly?”

“My family for one. My mum wants me to do well in my education and go on to be a better and smarter pony. Work a better job and do what she could never do. I want to make my mum proud, and in her eyes I've always been her little sweetie. By Celestia, if she could see the state I was in right now, she would disown me. Feuding with my neighbour? Forgetting to buy groceries? Rutting a pony to get at somepony else? What the fuck is wrong with me?” Scotch said, forgetting that she hadn’t brought up the pony rutting with Twilight yet.

Twilight reacted in a very appropriate manner, by flinching, quickly covering her mouth with a hoof and saying, “You did WHAT?!” Scotch glared at Twilight urging her to forget about what she just heard and move onto the next question. “Ahem, right! Well, that’s certainly something,” Twilight said while pointlessly flicking through her notes with her magic. “So, um… Why are you going through with your education when you quite obviously hate it so much?”

“Well, like I said, I want to make my mum proud. At the end of the day, I'm putting myself through hell to make her proud of me. I'm not going through education for myself, I'm doing it all for her. In reality, I've always wanted to be a stage magician.” Scotch replied. Twilight perked up with the mention of stage magician.

“Stage magician? I know a stage magician. I could…”

Before Twilight could finish, Scotch cut her off. “I know it sounds pointless due to the abundance of magic found throughout Equestria, but stage magic is different. Stage magic takes very basic spells that any unicorn can learn, and through careful trickery and illusions, it can turn these spells into something amazing that only alicorns can legitimately replicate using their real magic! I read the Great and Powerful Trixie's autobiography on all of this kind of stuff, and she knows what she's talking about. The mare is a living legend and I love her in so many different ways... The things I'd do to her if I got the chance... Ahem... Sorry, what were we talking about?”

Twilight appeared to be in another cold sweat. The slight mention of someone wanting to do things to Trixie sent some shivers down her spine. It was too creepy and she wasn’t entirely comfortable hearing all of this. But she had to. It was her job as the stand-in counselor. “Ahem, well we were talking about stage magic. But, I want to know, why didn’t you follow up on all of this? You’re obviously very passionate about it,” Twilight asked with another small smile.

“Well, yet again, it all routes back to my mum. Mum, despite being very supportive of me, never saw the point in stage magic. When I was young, she caught me trying to replicate some of the Great and Powerful Horsedini's tricks while watching some very old tapes I stole from school. Horsedini is Trixie's grandfather by the way... Just a little... Trixie... Trivia... The more the better! Ha ha... ahem…” Scotch finished lamely, her eyes darting around the room. Twilight just continued listening curiously. The little trivia detour didn’t bother her in the slightest. “Anyway, from what I can remember, she didn't approve of the stuff I was doing, calling it pointless and saying that there is no career and no future in it for me. She then went on a long rant about what would happen if I fail my studies, and then went on to saying she wants me to make her proud. So, since then I decided not to follow my true dreams... and follow my mums dreams... Huh, now that I say it like that, it feels like I've been fucked over... Agh, shit! Here we go again! The eventual realization that something out there wants to make me suffer. Can't follow my true dreams because of my mum, and I can't achieve my mums true dreams due to my own decreasing sanity and inability to do work! Fuck my life!”

Twilight, yet again reeled back at the freely flung curse words. Her mouth was agape and she was completely speechless. This time, Scotch noticed, “Sorry, that outburst wasn't necessary. I mean, I love my mum but, now I'm starting to feel like she fucked me over... Agh... I don't know... Sorry, and sorry about the swearing... Any more questions?”

Twilight shook herself, trying to fling out the swear words she’s been hearing for the past half hour out of her head. Scotch just looked at her waiting for the next question. “Ah, yes. It’s fine. No need to apologize at all. You uh… brought up a neighbor earlier when you mentioned the… pony rutting… Care to tell me a bit about her?” Twilight asked, again forcing out the last couple of words she was uncomfortable saying. What was wrong with this mare? Does she live in a kids show where they aren’t allowed to say swears or something?

“You want to know about my neighbour?” Scotch asked angrily. Twilight nodded. “What, that featherbrained wanker? Ember?” Scotch asked again, fury building in her voice. Twilight nodded again but quickly, obviously not wanting to be on the end of Scotch’s wrath, but she had no choice in the matter. “I'd rather not talk about that bitch! All she does is go on about how successful she is! She lives in this big fucking house, somehow manages to dig holes wherever I fucking go, and constantly pretends she has nothing to do with it. Bitch, it's obvious you're behind all this shit! I can tell you are from a mile off. I swear to Celestia, if I fall in another hole, I am going to walk to her house, rip that bitch's beak straight off of her ugly pigeon face, and shove it where the sun doesn't shine!”

Twilight, feeling faint, tried her hardest to stay stable. She flicked through her notes again pointlessly looking for something to take her mind off of the absolute nuclear swearing spree Scotch just went on. She didn’t even need to ask anything before Scotch continued in a much more calmer tone.

“...Oh, who am I kidding... I'm jealous of Ember… Ember has... everything, and I have nothing. Ember is set in life; she owns this company and she has all these great friends. Meanwhile I'm struggling at College chasing somepony else's dream, while living on my own in a tiny house I can't be bothered to clean properly. I don't hate the chick, she just makes me extremely angry. Ever since I threw out a burning tire and almost burned her whole garden to the ground; which was an accident mind you, I was trying to aim for the dustbin outside, it's gotten worse and worse!” Scotch continued. Twilight had now gotten over the swearing spree and was now listening intently. “And now I’m scared the next time I see her, she’s going to rip my face clean off!

“To be honest, I just want it all to stop, but I can't stop fighting back. I feel the need to defend myself, hold my ground, and maybe one day she'll give up trying to mess with me and leave me alone. But that's not going to happen... Ever since I had sex with Berry, everything feels like it's going to go to complete shit. Despite what I say, I've never done anything to her on purpose that I haven't regretted. But this? Having sex with Berry? This was despicable even for me... I could have done something a lot less extreme, such as stealing her Charcoal plush and holding it hostage until she bought me a Trixie one. Those things cost almost 1000 bits down in Baltimare! It's insane! Anyway... If Celestia shines on me, one day all this shit will get put behind us... and we might even become friends? Hmpf... maybe... Although solitude is more my thing, I would like to at least give friends another shot,” Scotch finished. The slight mention of friends perked Twilight up and she stood to attention, ready to do a friendship speech. Before she could say anything however, Scotch waved a hoof urging her to sit down. “Sorry, Sparkle, but the only pony who will be able to make friends with her is me… If I ever feel like trying to.”

There was a short silence. Scotch had gone over absolutely everything she could think of at the moment. Scotch hated it when there was a lull in the conversation, so she quickly thought of something random to talk about. “I have something a little embarrassing I'd like to admit. Nothing leaves this room, right?”

Twilight shook her head, “Of course not. Wouldn’t be a counseling session if I just went out and blabbed all of your problems to my friends now, would it”

“I hope you’re telling the truth,” Scotch said, unsure if Twilight was or not. She inhaled a gulp of air and then said as quickly as she possibly could, “ I kind of have a shrine to Trixie down in my basement... It's filled with posters, autobiographies from various points in her life, a couple of dirty magazines when she starred as guest model in PlayPony magazine, a couple of plot photos I managed to sneakily take while watching her shows, and my prized possession! A signed 24 inch poster I got when she was doing her show here in Ponyville two years ago.” Scotch stopped for a second, and then glared at Twilight. Twilight gave a little uneasy shrug, secretly knowing what Scotch was hinting at. Neither of them said anything about the ‘career ruining’ however.

“Anyway, Trixie has always been a star in my eyes, and a huge inspiration if I ever do decide to say 'fuck you mum' and go and practice stage magic,” Scotch finished with a short exhale.

“That wasn’t super embarrassing. We all have some sort of secret in our lives, and it’s fun to tell them to friends. I had a shrine to Celestia when I was a lot younger. Hee hee! It was fun collecting. I unfortunately had to stop when she took me in as her student. My mom still has it all boxed up back in Canterlot,” Twilight reminisced, unaware that Scotch had just drifted off into another short rant.

“What do you mean that wasn't embarrassing? Well, more taboo then. To my knowledge, ponies here don't like Trixie that much. Remember when she came and enslaved everypony with some sort of dark magic last year? Well, that's the source of it I'm guessing. I must admit, that wasn't Trixie's finest moment, but since then she seems to have gotten herself back on track. Hell, in her latest autobiography, she completely drops the Great and Powerful act, and just writes as herself, and talks about her life in general which she never really did. In previous autobiographies, all she talked about was her recent successes, which were fun to read about, but in this it was all about her life. That must have took some courage considering how people view her these days. Fortunately, the mare is back, and I have some more plot photo's to add to my collection. Ha ha ha! Ohhh, for a mare as miserable as me, if there is one thing that makes me happy it’s a good play around with Trixie!”

And with that last little line, Twilight had had enough. She simply slumped over in the chair she was sat in and slowly passed out. She didn’t need that much detail about Scotch’s daily life.

“I guess this means I can go now?” Scotch asked, standing up and getting ready to walk out of the door.

“Uh-huh…” Twilight said faintly, hardly aware at what the question even was.

“Good. I need to get back to work. I’ve had enough of my time wasted today.” Scotch began walking towards the door. She suddenly turned around to Twilight. “Also, just so you know, we aren’t friends, Sparkle, and we never will be. You tell anypony about my Trixie shrine and I will personally find you, and kick your arse!”

“Uh-huh…” Twilight said again faintly, hardly aware that she had just been threatened.

“Good… Anyway… Thanks for the help… I don’t feel any different, but it was good to get some things out in the open,” Scotch said thankfully. “Anyway, seeyah Sparkle!”

And with that, Scotch closed the door and began making her way towards the exit of the college counseling reception. Her next lesson was starting soon, but sweet Celestia, she really needed to piss! The lesson can wait.

The College toilets were a magical place indeed. A place where anypony could go and release themselves in many a different way. Usually, the most common sounds you would hear would be the odd pony relieving themselves, or maybe even the odd two ponies rutting one another in one of the stalls. These sounds never really occurred when Scotch was there, but there was one sound that happened very often when she was.

“AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!” Scotch bellowed in an absolute fit of rage as she bucked open one of the cubicle doors, not even caring if there was another pony on the other side. This seemed to happen often, because each stall door had two dents in them. Some fresh, some not so fresh.

The counseling session had worked and Scotch got what she wanted, but she couldn’t understand all of this intense rage she was feeling all of a sudden. Did Twilight put a spell on her so she could create a friendship problem? Plenty of questions ran through Scotch’s mind as to why she was feeling these emotions, and all of them making little to no sense.

Scotch marched her way over to the isle of sinks and slammed her forehooves down hard on the ground causing the nearby trash can to rattle. She turned on each of the taps with her magic and let them run while she grabbed the large wall-long mirror in her magic.

“Oh that is just great, Scotch! You went and told all of your problems to a mare you barely know, and a mare who has a record of not being able to keep secrets. Who the hell let Sparkle be the stand-in counselor? That’s like getting Trixie to be a stand-in attorney or something!” Scotch yelled, her grip on the mirror getting tighter.

“And in addition to that, I just realized that I still have work due in for Professor Archimedes today. I was supposed to do it in my free period, but stupid me and stupid Tardylight Sparkle wasted my time! This counseling fuckery has done more harm than help!” Scotch roared again slamming a hoof down once more.

“I am so sick and tired of abso-fucking-lutely everything going wrong in my life! I can’t do this due to falling in a fucking hole! I can’t do that due to me deciding I need counselling after banging a pony! I have to put up with obnoxious morons on a daily basis in class that do nothing but shout their poor jokes every five fucking seconds!” Scotch yelled again, her grip on the mirror getting ever tighter. Cracks were beginning to appear.

The sinks were now beginning to overflow with water, indicating that Scotch might have been raging for a bit too long. Scotch however didn’t care. Instead, she shoved her head into one of the sinks for a few seconds; her magical grip on the mirror faltering slightly. She pulled her head out and sprayed water everywhere; her rather intricate mane was somehow still perfectly intact.

Scotch resumed her full focus on taking out this mirror. She began putting even more pressure on the mirror, making it crack even more. “Everything has gone to complete shit! I can’t focus on anything anymore. I can’t do work, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think, and I definitely can’t apologize to Blue. Ember will see me and she will kick my arse no doubt…” Scotch said in a calmer tone… This didn't last for long though.

“If I wasn’t such a fucking moron, I wouldn’t be in this fucking position! Fuck you Scotch!” she yelled, slamming a hoof on the ground, her grip on the mirror getting even tighter.

“Fuck you!” Tighter…

“FUCK YOU!” Tighter…

“FU-”

“Scotch! Sweet Celestia girl, shut up! I can hear you from the other side of the campus,” said a familiar voice. A voice Scotch only ever heard when she was the only one worth speaking to.

Scotch’s focus on the mirror dropped, leaving it extremely cracked, and Scotch exhausted. She whirled around to look at the source of the voice.

“Oh… Hi, Vanilla…” Scotch said, now in a much calmer tone.

Vanilla was the only pony at College that even considered talking to Scotch, but that really only happened whenever there was no one else for her to talk to. She was a unicorn mare with a mane matching the color of yummy chocolate, and a coat matching the color of her name. Her cutie mark was a bar of chocolate with a bite taken out of it. She also had really cute freckles which Scotch took a fancy to. Vanilla wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but she was really sweet. But some of the things she did in class made it worth making a documentary out of her. ‘The Most Derpy Unicorn Ever.’

“What’s all the shouting about? Chipped a hoof?” Vanilla asked naively while turning off each of the sink taps with her piercing blue magic.

“Vanilla, if you know me, the only part of my body I care about is my mane. It’s better than every single one of the rat's nests I’ve seen in class,” Scotch bragged rudely, running her hoof quickly through said mane.

“So… what? Did you get your mane wet? Is that why you’re shouting?” Vanilla asked again.

“Well, yeah I did get my mane wet... But that isn’t what I’m shouting about,” Scotch replied, looking at the various puddles that were dotted around her now.

“Did you drop a bar of chocolate in the toilet?” Vanilla asked covering her mouth with a hoof. The thought of anything happening to her precious chocolate making her shiver.

“No,” Scotch replied bluntly. “Look, can I ju-”

“Wait! Did you crack the mirror?!” Vanilla asked, now noticing the state of the mirror, cutting Scotch off.

“Yes, I cracked the mirror. Now, can I-”

“Scotch, you know cracking a mirror is punishable by bad luck! Seven years bad luck in fact. I’ve heard stories that when you break a mirror, Discord comes out of the next mirror you see and curses you. If you break that mirror, he’ll come out of the next one but this time he’ll curse you with fourteen years bad luck! It’s a lose lose situation, Scotch!” Vanilla said, her voice filled with fear and a touch of naivety.

Scotch simply shook her head. “Look, I appreciate you telling me this. It really works wonders for what I’m currently going through. Besides, Discord already cursed me when I was born. I’ve known the guy personally for 22 years even though he was locked in stone. Hell, I might even marry him someday!” Scotch replied sarcastically.

“You don’t want to marry Discord, Scotch! He will make fill your life with bad luck and chaos. I’ll help you break every mirror you find. We both have magic, we can smash them all quickly if we work fast enough. I’ll lead the charge,” Vanilla said. It looked liked her hyperactive sugar rush was kicking in for the day. Mirror smashing seems like it could create a lot of good material for the hypothetical documentary Scotch was thinking about.

“Yeah, yeah… Ok then you crazy mare. You go smash all the mirrors in College, and I’ll go to class,” Scotch said getting ready to leave the restroom, already exhausted with Vanilla’s antics.

“Wait, class? Professor Archimedes class? Sweet Celestia, we’re going to miss it! I’ll walk with you and we can talk abou-”

“No!” Scotch interrupted. Before Vanilla could even figure out what Scotch had just told her, she had already bolted out of the restroom towards class, leaving her to ponder over which mirror she could smash first after class had finished.

Another day, another group of crazy peers to deal with.

Scotch’s attitude towards other ponies made it very apparent that she wasn’t somepony that fully embraced Twilight’s definition of the “magic of friendship.” Her consistent method of pushing other ponies away to avoid potential connections and potential heartbreak made it so that those ponies intentionally ignored her because she wasn’t worth their time. This was very apparent when it came to her peers she had to work with at College.

As much as Scotch would like to ignore her peers in return, it was not always possible unfortunately. Her class had a knack for getting really loud, really obnoxious, and really annoying really quickly. The consistent shouting and screaming of repetitive jokes and general goof-offs made it next to impossible for Scotch to even get a slither of work done in class if she chose to do so.

The class was typically the most annoying when they were being taught by Professor Archimedes, who so happened to be the one giving the lesson today unfortunately. The professor from Germaneigh typically waited for everypony to take their seats next to their work stations, briefly give the lesson, and then he would lose himself rambling on about any random non-college related project he was doing at the time. He wouldn’t respond to questions, tell the class to quiet down, or even trot around the room helping anypony struggling with their workload; which of course was one of the reasons Scotch loathed him. You would occasionally hear him say something to himself about his project, or he would scream something followed by a maniacal laugh, but that was all you’d ever hear from him.

Professor Archimedes was a weird one indeed. Not much was known about the Germaneic professor besides a handful of rumors Scotch had reluctantly overheard from some of her peers. Some say he used to be a doctor up in Canterlot who successfully managed to harness the power of healing magic to enchant a weapon that supposedly healed ponies much faster than any other kind of healing spell. Unfortunately, when he decided to test it on a sleeping patient, it dissolved her skeleton, and he was kicked out of Canterlot with his medical licence revoked, never to be heard from again…

...Until of course he resurfaced as a teacher of Arcane Electronics, which rendered the whole rumor complete bullshit. How in Equestria does somepony go from ‘healing’ patients to somepony that teaches a fairly new form of magic? And why the hell would the College hire a ‘quack’ doctor? It just made no sense. Even his cutie mark resembled what seemed to be electronics. It featured a baby blue lightning bolt inside a light blue circle. Odd considering how new arcane electronics is. Doubtful that he got his cutie mark only a few years ago.

“Excuse me, Frau Scotch? Vould you mind entering ze classroom? Ve are all vaiting very patiently for you.” The familiar heavily accented tones snapped Scotch out of her daydream. The ponies in her thoughts really did have a tendency to show up whenever she pictured them.

Scotch looked the white unicorn professor dead in the eyes. Professor Archimedes corrected his glasses with a hoof and looked back, obviously waiting for a response. “Sorry Archie, I was just thinking about that project you’re working on instead of helping me catch up on my work. What will happen when you complete this project? Will it create a super-massive black hole and swallow the whole of Equestria, or will it grant you the power to actually fuckin’ help me?” Scotch asked making it very apparent that her patience with the professor was wearing thin.

“Now now Scotch, you must realize zat I am a pony who has a very important role to play. A role zat vould endanger ze entire college if I do not persist in vhat I am doing,” the Professor replied, tightening his light blue tie with his magic. Important role, he said? This prompted an eyebrow raise from Scotch.

“Important role? So are you saying that this important role is more important than doing your job and helping ponies actually do their work so they can survive in the future?” Scotch asked again, taking a step closer, her voice rising. The commotion managed to gather the attention of some of Scotch’s peers who just looked at them with goofy grins. They were about to see Scotch blow her top, which is something that always got a good laugh.

“Scotch, if I did not complete zis project, zen you all vould have no future at all. And by no future I mean... YOU VOULD BE DEAD!” the Professor answered, quickly shouting the last four words for some odd reason. It’s something he tended to do a little too often. The shout aroused more attention from the class. A double showing of anger! This must be fun. “Anyvay, I promise you zat vonce zis project is done, I vill help you with all ze work zat needs to be done. I promise.” Did Scotch actually detect honesty in his expression? She was unsure.

“Yeah, well you’d better. Because if you don’t and I fail this entire course, I’ll do something with your little mechanical projects. It involves something called ‘ihren arsch’,” Scotch said in her typical threatening manner. She wanted to do well so badly, but yet again things kept holding her back. The incompetence of this certain professor was one of them.

“You’d better vatch your tongue, Fräulein, otherwise I von’t be helping you. And please… DO NOT CALL ME ARCHIE! Ich heiße Professor Archimedes, Die Dritte! Now, get to class!” the Professor demanded, pointing at the door with a hoof.

“Ja, ja, sure… Vhatever you say monsieur. Danke, danke…” Scotch said, putting on a joke overly exaggerated accent while trotting towards the open door to the class at a steady pace. Her peers were snickering with one another, but not because Scotch had just said something she found quite humorous, and she could tell. She had seen this snickering all too often.

The classroom wasn’t a big lecture hall or anything of the caliber. In fact, the room was decently small and only fit to accommodate around eighteen students. Work stations lined up against the left wall and the right wall, with more workstations in a row in the center of the classroom. The professor’s desk and workstation was located directly at the front of the class where said professor would be easy to reach if anypony needed any help. Of course, that wasn’t possible when it came to Professor Archimedes.

Scotch’s usual spot was located in one of the far back corners, which is where she had hoped to get some peace and quiet to focus on her work. But due to the small accommodation of the classroom, Scotch was always sat next to one of the many clowns that inhabited her life like a parasite. While trotting over to her spot, a paper airplane somepony threw almost touched down in her mane. Instead, the airplane stopped inches from Scotch, caught in her burning orange magic. She crumpled the airplane into a little ball and tossed it back in the general direction from whence it came, causing several more snickers from her ‘audience.’

Pulling out a chair with her magic, she slumped down into it and sat in that awkward upright position. It may be uncomfortable, but damn did it look fancy! Scotch was such a regular at this workstation that she actually took the time to personalize it by etching little doodles into the wooden table tops using the sharp edge of one of her quills. Doodles included little etchings of Trixie’s cutie mark, a fairly crude drawing of the perimeter of Ember’s house, a little demonic looking flower with the words “kill or be killed” etched in a little speech bubble above, and Scotch’s very own phone number in case any hot mares wanted to give her a call. It was mostly just nopony though.

She slipped off her saddlebags, dumped them on her work station, and began rummaging through the various items she regularly needed. One of those items included an old generation portable music player with earphones with various song tracks featured on it ranging from DJ PON3 to Countess Coloratura. If she remembered to charge it up the previous night, then she could at least manage an hour of peace from her peers while she listened to the sweet sounds of music.

To Scotch’s good fortune, the music player was charged and she breathed a sigh of relief. Continuing to go through her saddlebags, she brought out her notepad, quill and ink, laptop, and a guide book the college gave her about Arcane Electronics, and turned the page to the one she had bookmarked. Currently in class, they were researching all about Artificial Intelligence which was one of the easier subjects for her to grasp. All of her previous assignments were the ones dragging her down; however this was a breath of fresh air. Dare she say she found it fun? Now if the class would behave themselves, maybe she could get through the lesson without bucking somepony in the face.

Completely ignoring the Professor’s briefing, Scotch turned on her laptop and put on her earphones. She was met with the beats of a more chilled out DJ PON3 song. It was a collaboration mix between Octavia Philharmonica and DJ PON3 herself. Rumor has it that Octavia’s part in the song wasn’t even agreed upon, causing a rather large argument. But rumors are rumors, and if this did truly happen, they would have just had hot sex afterwards. Despite the controversy, Scotch enjoyed this song and nopony could stop her from liking it. The relaxing beats made her completely forget about the rest of her class who were currently in the midst of aerial warfare. Sad, considering most of these ponies were in their 20’s.

Scotch began to drift off before she even got the chance to open up the internet and find a good site to research from. She thought about the various ponies that inhabited her class, much to her aggravation. She didn’t want to think about them. However, quite a few amusing things did tend to happen, but it was mostly on rare occasion.

She thought back to Vanilla, who, being the ditsy mare she was, thought it was a clever idea to try and download chocolate off of the internet. Although the sky was the limit when it came to Equestrian magic, downloading chocolate off of the internet was a bit far fetched. This moment brought plenty of joy to the rest of the class, and even managed to get Scotch to smile a little. Vanilla was still taunted about that very moment on occasion, and her response to these taunts was typically a facehoof, stuttering, and her odd laughter that sounded like she was out of breath.

The music in Scotch’s ears changed to a new song. This time it was Countess Coloratura with a rather melancholy song about an argument. This reminded Scotch of two stallions in her class that regularly argued with one another. The topics would range from stupid arguments about the pronunciation of certain words, to which princess was the best princess, to more sensitive subjects such as the coal reserves in the Zebra lands and how Equestria should start mining them. Occasionally the class would erupt into a massive debate with one side against the other. Scotch however would stay out of it like a smart pony.

Scotch’s eyes started to become heavy, the fit of anger earlier in the day and the soothing music causing her to become tired. She crossed her hooves on the top of her workstation and slumped her head on them, shutting her eyes. Her day dreaming progressed into more vivid dreams as she fell asleep.

“COME HERE YOU RED MOTHER FUCKER! I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!” boomed a voice coming from somewhere in the darkness. Scotch found herself in a completely dark space where absolutely nothing was visible. She waved her hooves in front of her face, but couldn’t see anything at all.

“I’M GOING TO MAKE RED PONY STEW TONIGHT!” boomed the voice yet again, circling around her making it impossible for her to sense where it was coming from. Scotch backed up slightly until her rump pressed up against what felt like a wall. She turned around and found herself inside The Watering Hole. Her rump had pressed up against the bar where she found two ponies giving each other a good rutting. The scene was fresh inside Scotch’s memory, and it made her cringe while she stared at it. Jeez, was she really that messy though?

Turning to her right, she saw Blue with her face pressed up against the glass window staring into the bar with gritted teeth and tears in her eyes; a face like thunder! A look of pure evil! She let out a scream of pure anger that completely shattered The Watering Hole like glass causing Scotch to fall into the dark abyss below.

With a thud, Scotch found herself on the floor of what seemed like a basement; the concrete floor hurting Scotch’s back despite it being a dream. The basement was entirely empty, except for one small light source in the far corner that illuminated a little blue pony curled up in the fetal position rocking back and forth. Scotch took a step forward towards the pony, but reeled back when she caught a quick glimpse of a shadowy feathery figure flying quickly past her. Scotch spun around to see where the shadowy figure went, but it was completely out of sight.

Continuing towards the little blue bundle, Scotch’s heart began to race and she felt the room grow cold. This was a bad idea. Approaching this figure was a bad idea. Scotch had played enough creepy games to know where this was going. Don’t approach the crying pony because crying ponies lead to jumpscares. As much as she didn’t want to, Scotch continued trotting forward carefully, listening out for any signs of the feathery figure again. Instead, she heard whispers. Whispers that were coming from the blue pony.

Whispers of revenge. Whispers of murder. Whispers of kidnapping. Whispers of rape. All of these whispers were entering Scotch’s head all at once giving her a splitting headache. Scotch fell to the floor clutching her head with both of her forehooves. The whispers got louder and louder and began to become intermixed with sobbing. Scotch wanted to scream and call for help, but she had no mouth. Clenching her eyes shut she decided to wait out the whispers. They might pass.

Fortunately, they did, but they were replaced with one new whisper. A whisper Scotch had heard before when she was very young. A nursery rhyme.

“Hush now… Quiet now…”

“It’s time… to lay your… sleepy head…”

The singing voice was low and was intermixed with sobs. Scotch could pinpoint the voice this time. It was coming from in front of her. Scotch dared to open her eyes and was met with what she expected. The Crying Pony…

The Singer…

Blue…

Scotch crawled herself as fast as she could away from Blue. The blue pony was standing upright on her hind hooves brandishing a knife in her green magic. A manic grin was etched across her face as she began to move closer.

“Hush now…”

Blue’s mouth didn’t even move when she said those words causing Scotch to back up even further and gain even more chills.

“Quiet now…”

Blue raised the knife. Scotch backed up even further but was stopped when her back pressed up against the basement wall. She shielded herself with her hooves and began throwing porcelain pots at Blue that had magically materialized next to her. Unfortunately the pots just disintegrated as they got close to Blue.

Blue ambled forward more and more and Scotch was running out of her infinite number of pots. Blue was getting too close for comfort now; her knife gleaming from the one light source in the room. Scotch was about to throw her last pot, but couldn’t. It was too heavy, yet it was the size of a Breezie. It was like all the strength inside of Scotch had suddenly disappeared.

Before Scotch could realize what was going on with the pots, Blue was right on top of her, grinning manically in her face. Scotch tried to let out another scream, but without a mouth, how could she? Blue raised the knife even higher with her magic; her horn beginning to spark with green energy.

“It’s time… to… go to bed…”

Blue sang the last line much louder than the others while she quickly plunged the knife into Scotch. Scotch let out a scream of pain and terror now that her mouth had suddenly returned.

However the knife never pierced Scotch. In fact, it had dissolved into ashes as soon as it touched her. Along with the knife, so had Blue. Scotch was breathing extremely heavily and her heart was pounding so hard she felt like she was going to throw it up. She quickly got up in a panic and brushed off Blue’s ashes.

The room had suddenly changed again. This time Scotch found herself in a long hallway lit by dim torches. Looking around, Scotch couldn’t see anypony following her. Without even thinking, Scotch headed down the hallway in one direction.

It didn’t take long until she was met by the same booming voice she heard earlier.

“HOW DARE YOU HURT BLUE YOU RED MOTHER FUCKER! YOU’D BETTER RUN BITCH BECAUSE I’M REALLY FUCKING HUNGRY!” the voice boomed again from all around her.

Scotch had had enough and wanted this nightmare to end. She listened to the voice and began running down the hallway. It felt like she had been running for hours, yet she had only been running for a few minutes. A dead end came out of nowhere practically flying towards her at mach 10 speed hitting Scotch in the face, causing her to stagger backwards. After a short backpedal she managed to get her bearings for only a few seconds before tumbling down and flopping straight on her front with her legs splayed out like a starfish.

Despite the impending doom that she knew was just around the corner and could appear at any second, Scotch just laid there, completely unable to move. Try as she might, her forelegs and back legs were stuck to the ground making her efforts useless; the already dimly lit hallway and her darkening vision from her head trauma making it next to impossible to see what exactly was holding her down.

She continued to struggle in her trap, barely being able to tug her legs a few centimeters from the ground before they slammed down on the dirt floor again and again. What exactly was holding Scotch down? Magic? Ropes? Was it some kind of nightmare logic that made absolutely no sense? Why wasn’t she able to escape from this? She could escape from absolutely anything with little magic tricks and some muscle; her special talent making stuff like that a cinch. Maybe special talents didn’t transfer over into the dream world?

Who would have thought it was possible to lose your train of thought in a nightmare. Only Scotch, a mare of varying degrees of mental instability was capable of doing this. Very impressive, but not useful. She found out how ‘not useful’ her train-wreck of thought was when she failed to notice the fiery colored griffon standing right in front of her, staring her down.

The hallway she was in had faded away to reveal a new location; a location she knew all too well simply from the various times she had scouted the place looking for ways to cause a little trouble and get unneeded revenge. Ember’s lounge. The house's owner of course was standing over her with a glare that she only gave to the finest of cheese sticks.

“You have… absolutely no idea… how long I’ve wanted to get you… in this position,” Ember panted, obviously out of breath from all the chasing. Weird considering she was hardly giving chase to begin with.

‘So… Is this a wet dream now? Make up your damn mind, brain…’ Scotch thought to herself.

“Ohhhhh! This is just perfect. No Scotch, this isn’t a wet dream. Although I suppose you’d like that wouldn’t you? Filthy red slut…” Ember threatened, suddenly gaining the ability to read minds. On the word slut, Ember slammed her front claws down on the ground centimeters from Scotch’s face, making Scotch let out an ‘eep’ in terror.

“No… You’re here right now because I want to slap some tape on your slit and tear you into cocky little Trottingham pony pieces for what you did to Blue… Poor girl DOES NOT need your bullshit, and neither do I,” Ember threatened yet again, dragging her unnaturally sharp talons across the floor leaving wide scratch marks. Scotch was still completely unable to move and was forced to watch the threatening tower of a griffon parade her weapons of mass destruction around in front of her.

“Chopping you into pony pieces will make it so much easier to make you into a pony stew,” Ember said with an unnatural savage tone in her voice.

Out of nowhere yet again, the location changed to what looked like a more derelict version of Ember’s lounge. Her furniture was in tatters, messed up with what looked like blood stains and claw marks. Scotch, for reasons only dreams would understand, was now standing up on all four of her legs again. Ember had backed away to a quiet corner of the room and sat in an old tattered lounge chair.

But something was extremely off about Ember this time. Instead of being her usual flame colored self, she was now as dark as charcoal. Her claws were tapping on the side of the chair, puncturing little holes in it with her even more unnaturally sharp talons, and grinning an evil grin. Along with her new charcoal look, she also sported a deep dry red color, mostly found on the tip of her beak and talons.

If Scotch found Ember frightening and threatening before, then it’s safe to say that Scotch was petrified of this new Ember. She really didn’t like that grin of hers, or the darkness of her feathers, or the red tinted talons and beak that was quite obviously blood. On a whim, Scotch magically threw a pot at where Ember was sitting, only for her to fly up into her ceiling…

...which wasn’t a ceiling. Instead the ceiling was replaced by an endless dark void, giving Ember a lot of space to fly around while dodging the various number of pots Scotch had somehow stumbled across yet again. Seeing that her efforts were completely futile, Scotch made a break for the door leading to the outside world. She dived over the tattered lounge chair just narrowly avoiding Ember who was now taking dive bombs to try and decapitate her or pick her up and carry her to whatever stew she had boiling.

Scotch galloped on over to the door leading outside, only to find that it was locked. Typical. Maybe now that she was free of her ground imprisonment she could use her special tricks to get this lock open. She tried her best to focus on the lock's mechanism, which was hard to do when you had to avoid dive bombing griffons with talons that could cut through pony bone like it was air. The thought alone of Scotch being torn to shreds in one swoop made her lose focus on the lock mechanism and she was now back to a petrified state.

Ember had recovered from her last dive and was now readying herself for a new one. She glared at Scotch once more and gave another evil grin letting out a bone chilling hiss. Ember was part lion after all, but this hiss sounded like something you’d hear from a snake, or a vampire fruit bat. Except in this case it would be a vampire blood bat. Again, Scotch’s wandering mind led to her downfall.

She didn’t notice that Ember was already halfway towards her and closing the gap quickly with the insane speed of her dive. Scotch couldn’t move again. Her body was frozen due to petrification. All she could really do was sit and watch as Ember closed the gap.

Was this really worth it? Was all of this pain and fear worth ruining Blue’s life for? No, and Scotch realized this in those short seconds. All Scotch wanted was some peace and quiet. All she wanted was for Ember to feel beaten and broken so she would leave her alone. Not this. This nightmare was a living pony hell for Scotch. She couldn’t apologize to Ember, because what if all this happened? Dying was the last thing Scotch wanted. Could she run away? Far away! That would work.

Ember was now almost on top of Scotch, and closing fast. Closing her eyes, Scotch curled up into a fetal position in front of the door and began to scream. The last glimpse before she closed her eyes was Ember’s now raised talons gleaming threateningly, ready to tear this miserable little pony to shreds.

Blood-chilling screams weren’t typically the normal noise heard when it came to college lessons. One would have assumed that Archimedes had now chosen to experiment healing magic on the students and had failed miserably after yet another ponies skeleton got dissolved in a puff of blue magic after hearing that scream with no context. But no, the scream came from Scotch. The one pony who’s very traumatic nightmare had caused her to fall backwards off her chair screaming like she’d just been stabbed by Princess Celestia’s horn.

When screaming like this after a nightmare, one enters a quiet state where only the screaming pony is aware of themselves. They aren’t aware of the physical damage they just caused to their property or property of others while they rolled around on the floor bucking constantly. They aren’t aware of the various eyes glaring down at them in both shock, amusement and even fear in some cases. It was a state where anypony could let it all out without them worrying about what other ponies around them were thinking. Or maybe this was just a defense mechanism unique to Scotch. Who knew?

After almost ten seconds of rolling around screaming, Archimedes had decided to step himself up and restrain Scotch using his magic to do so. Wrapping her in a veil of telekinesis and suspending her off the ground so she couldn’t do any more damage with her flailing hind legs, Archimedes approached her and did something rather unorthodox for a college professor.

He punched her in the face… Lightly of course. It was just a wake-up slap more or less, but it felt like a hell of a lot more than that to Scotch.

It did manage to regain Scotch from her fit of screaming though. She stopped suddenly, slowly opening her eyes that she didn’t even realize she had closed. Looking around the room from her new floaty position, she saw way too many eyes glaring at her. More eyes than she was comfortable with. She could have sworn she even saw a few looking at her with consideration, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that all of these eyes were looking at her, and she was beginning to feel a great amount of unease.

Scotch had also not realized but while she was suspended in midair, Archimedes was giving her an absolute howling lecture. Her sense of hearing had all but diminished during her screaming state and had still yet to recover. Fortunately for her sanity (which had already diminished greatly at this point), she didn’t hear the rather sadistic amount of snickering coming from three stallions behind her getting a good view of her ‘you know what.’

“...and vhat must a put aside my highly important project for? A screaming mare, whom thought it vas a gut idea to fall asleep in class anyvay. I’m not surprised zis happened…” Scotch’s sense of hearing was beginning to come back so she could now begin catch bits and pieces of the lecture. It was not good… Not good at all.

“...was ist los, Frauline? Cat got your tongue? Answer me, dammit! I’m not standing here for ze good of meine health. WAS. IS. LOS!?” Archimedes was pissed. This was the first time anything really managed to distract him from his very important project. For all we know we could only have two minutes before we all exploded. Celestia knows what kind of crap he’s making.

Scotch really needed to get out of this rather unflattering position. The snickers from behind her were now coming to her attention, and she knew exactly what the snickering was about. Quickly regaining her senses, she moved her tail to cover what the perving stallions were getting a good view of, causing them to let out a sigh of disappointment.

Now… How does a pony escape from a magical grip from another? The answer: Overload said ponies horn with your own magic causing a brief magical surge, leading said pony to lose their ability to do magic for a brief moment. Simple, really. All Scotch had to do was find the correct magic frequency, and boom! She’d be free and her captor wouldn’t be harmed in the process. The Great and Powerful Horsedini knew his stuff, and Scotch found this particular method useful for other sticky situations she so happened to be in.

However, Scotch really didn’t care about safety measures anymore. She was stuck in an unflattering position, had filthy stallions staring at her private area, had way too many eyes glaring at her from around the room, and she had just screamed the place down meaning others could be coming to see what’s up very soon. With an orange spark, Scotch struck Archimedes’ horn with a cancellation spell, putting full power into it trying to make sure she caused the thing to split open from the top down.

You didn’t necessarily need the correct frequency, you just needed to overload the horn with enough magic so it stopped working, however this was a lot more dangerous. It was kind of like a method used in Arcane Electronics, more specifically by ponies called ‘hackers.’ They called it ‘DDOSing.’ This is when a hacker overloads an arcane server with enough magical data packets that it begins to slow down and eventually stop working. Of course, an act like this was illegal in Equestrian eyes, and it managed to grant these hackers a good prison sentence of up to four years depending on what got DDOSed. New magic and all? It’s scary...

Whatever Scotch was doing, it was certainly working as predicted. She strained every last bit of cancellation magic into Archimedes’ horn, thus causing the magical field surrounding Scotch to flicker. Suddenly, there was a pop, and Archimedes fell back in a cry of pain while Scotch fell onto the ground belly first, her horn smoking. Upon closer inspection, Archimedes hadn’t sustained any life changing damage, but his horn was flickering blue sparks.

Scotch picked herself up and dusted herself off, including wiping the new found soot off of her horn. Looking around the room she noticed all eyes were still on her. Crap… One thing may have been sorted, but she still had her audience to deal with.

Suddenly, everypony began to stomp their hooves on the ground. It sounded like… an applause? A real applause? Wow! All Scotch had to do was take on a teacher and suddenly gain the respect of everypony. Ponies were nodding their heads in approval as the stomping got even louder. Scotch could get used to a life like this… A life of thunderous applause…

However, this felt wrong. Something about all of this felt off. Nopony should be able to win over a crowd of delinquent immature ‘wankers’ just by putting others through physical pain. It was wrong, and yet somehow this is how one earned respect! No… This applause was undeserved, and Scotch hated it.

“Stop it…” Scotch muttered, looking downwards at the professor who was now touching his horn with a hoof, and received shots of pain every time.

The applause continued.

“Stop it!” Scotch said raising her voice. The sound of the applause filling the room drowning out anything she might want to say.

The applause got louder.

“Shut the fuck up, please!” Scotch shouted, her mind beginning to swirl. The noise from her peers yet again getting to her.

The applause grew even louder, but Scotch noticed a few ponies give her a weird look. They knew what was about to happen.

“ALRIGHT YOU FUCKING CUNTS! STOP YOUR FUCKING STOMPING, AND SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE I TELEKINETICALLY DROP YOU INTO THE FUCKING FLOOR! Fucking twats…” Scotch had yet again lost her cool, but instead of being an environment where she was on her own, she was in an environment where she could verbally let loose on a few ponies.

The applause immediately stopped, save for a few pervy stallions that decided to continue as a joke.

Scotch whirled on the three and unloaded a raging torrent she had been keeping cooped up inside her for way too long. “Alright fuck boys, you got a good look at my cunt, didn’t you, huh? Fucking liked it and all, huh? Disgusting fucking inbreds.“ Scotch jabbed each one of them with a hoof. She knew who the three were. They were brothers, all members of the Apple Family. No wonder they smelt like pig shit and rotten apples. Typical smell of the Apple Family.

“I’m surprised at you three, you know? Being a member of the Apple Family and all. You sure you want to be staring at my cunt all day, when you can quite easily do more with your sister’s, mother's, grandmother’s, aunt’s, great aunt’s and cousin AJ’s cunt back home, right? Ohhh sorry… By do more, I mean have already done more! No wonder there’s so fucking many of you deformed inbred freaks!” Scotch verbally lashed at the three brothers, causing a collective gasp to echo throughout the room.

One of the brothers, the oldest named Sour Apple, stepped forward. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Now listen here Missy. Ya’ll insulting mah family name like that? That’s worth a good ol’ ass kickin’ if ah ever saw one. We ain’t inbred, are we fellas?” Sour turned to his two brothers who all gave rather nervous shakes of their head. Hmm… Maybe Scotch did have some merits to her insults.

“Oh, give over you turd colored prick!” Scotch yelled, now insulting the color of the stallions coat. It did look like a turd. No argument there. “Ya’ll this and ya’ll that. I’m sorry, but I find your way of speaking laughable. You’re too laughable to even be considered threatening!”

“You filthy Trottingham whore!” one of the younger brothers, Toffee, stepped forward readying to buck Scotch right in the face. Quickly, Scotch grabbed the brother with her telekinesis and shoved him back into his seat before he even got a kick off. Suddenly, Scotch felt a little twinge of pain in her soot-covered horn. The use of the magic disabling spell must have taken it’s toll, which was understandable. The spell demanded a lot from the caster, and it didn’t help that this was her first time casting it.

This was really starting to get out of hand, for both Scotch physically and mentally, and the rest of the class. The classroom was starting to become a mess, she had lost what little cred she had left with the Apple family, and now she could feel a migraine coming on from her over-dependency on magic. But she mustn't back down. She mustn't let them think she’s weak. She shrugged off the pain from the migraine, mare'd up, and continued doing what she did best.

“Unicorn Master Race, baby! Can’t get a horn like this if you’ve been inbreeding since the dawn of time now, can you?” Scotch taunted, getting in the brothers face. “I’m done with you scum…”

Scotch turned away and headed towards the door exiting the classroom, and was greeted with a gaggle of ponies staring in, looking to see what the crazy mare was up to. More audience members? Scotch didn’t have time for this.

Approaching the door, the ponies shuffled slightly but didn’t move. They were attempting to keep Scotch contained until somepony of authority showed up to settle things. She didn’t have time for that. She thought about grabbing the two closest ponies blocking the door with her telekinesis, but remembering the pain she felt before, she hesitated on the thought. She may be able to push through the migraine with a smile and a bitchy attitude, but how long would that last?

“Get out of my way!” Scotch ordered as she barged her way through the crowd, leaving the ponies watching her in awe. She may be a mad mare with attitude, but she had talent. Leaving a classroom in a complete mess was something Scotch had never intended to ever do, but she had no choice. They were in her way, and she refused to back down. She was done. Finished. There was no way she could return to college after the shit she pulled today. Nopony would ever come near her ever again.

Storming towards the college exit, she was impressed that nopony was following her to apprehend her. She was surprised, but deep down she knew that she deserved any punishment that would be given to her. Were they scared? No… Not possible. No pony in Equestrian history would ever pull a stunt like this. Equestria is a lovely place filled with friendship and flowers and rainbows and…

...and Scotch needed to leave. There was nothing left for her anymore. She could never return to college, she could never apologize to Ember, and she could never return home to Trottingham a failure. She was stuck, but she could come up with a plan. Of course she could! The Great and Powerful Scotch always had a plan!

But first, she needed a drink… A hot drink… Scotch wondered if Cuppa Joe was still open, and if so, if Sunny was still working.

As Scotch’s grandfather used to say, “Planning on a coffee-free mind is a plan to fail.” Coffee is a perfect drink for planning the most ambitious and ridiculous of plans. The caffeine boost, helping one stay awake through the early hours of the morning. The smell of the coffee, clearing one's senses and giving one a much clearer vision on what they wanted. It was the perfect drink for the brain!

Or, you know, tea could work too. Scotch couldn’t really tell the difference between either drink anyway. Especially when she was using either to recover from frequent hangovers. They all tasted the same.

But a hangover wasn’t the thing she needed to nurture right now. She needed a plan. A plan to escape Ponyville. A plan to escape Ember and Blue and avoid ever apologizing to either of them. Her special talent was escaping things, so escaping problems was no different. It should be an absolute cakewalk.

After about an hour or so of fast-paced trotting through Ponyville, Scotch finally arrived at Cuppa Joe’s and was met with that sweet smell of coffee as soon as she opened the doors. She took a big whiff of the air and almost immediately, her senses were lifted. She could think clearly now the rain from her mind had gone. Even the pain in her horn was beginning to subside.

Scotch began walking towards the counter at a rather slow pace, almost the speed of a crawl. She needed to think, and she needed to come up with her plan as fast as she possibly could. For all she knew, Ember, and even more likely, Blue, could walk through those doors any second now and she’d be red pony chunks on the ground. And it would be Sunny’s job to clean them up! Poor stallion…

A vision flashed in Scotch’s mind showing Ember flying Scotch, tied up tightly with a rope, high up over Ponyville, and the next moment later she was being dropped to the ground screaming. The vision made her cringe with fear. Her imagination was vivid enough, and the coffee smell certainly wasn’t helping all of these dark thoughts. Scotch was more eager now than ever to get out of Ponyville. What if these visions became a reality? They most likely will, knowing Ember’s track record for low shit tolerance.

Scotch’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a trio of school fillies who had just received a cupcake from Sunny, who was grinning warmly from behind the counter. The school fillies didn’t notice the frazzled red unicorn mare due to them being so busy singing some made up song, and because Scotch was lost completely in her own thoughts, she didn’t notice them either. This concluded in an almighty splat of cupcake icing all down Scotch’s front.

It really wasn’t Scotch’s day…

“Oh for the love of Celestia, will you brats watch where you’re going?!” Scotch shouted, waving her hoof at them like an old grandmother telling some kids to get off her lawn. The fillies had stopped their singing and were now looking up at the pissed off mare with wide, trembling eyes.

“We’re so sorry miss… We… we didn’t mean to do it…” said the trembling fillies in unison.

“You didn’t mean to? Well maybe if you open your eyes for more than a second, you would see whatever is a few feet in front of you, huh?” Scotch shouted again, whipping the cupcake icing off of her front and viciously throwing it onto the ground with a slop. “I swear, if I catch you three interrupting my thinking bubble again, I’ll bake you all into cupcakes. Little Filly Cupcakes! It would be a hit with those Diamond Dogs, don’t you think?”

“No! Please miss, I’m sorry! Don’t bake us all into cupcakes. It was Peachy Pie’s fault! Bake her instead!” urged one of the fillies, who was the exact color of the sun. If Celestia had a child, could this be her?

“What?! Sunny Daze, how could you? I’m your best friend! And besides, I think you would go better in a cupcake,” Peachy Pie told her ‘friend,’ sticking her tongue out, disgusted she even suggested the idea. These fillies didn’t seem so phased by the idea of being turned into cupcakes anymore.

“A Diamond what?” the other filly asked naively, who was a blonde-maned grey unicorn. She looked a little bit like the ditsy pegasus mailmare. She also just stared blankly at Scotch, completely unresponsive to her threats.

“Please Miss, bake Peachy Pie! She’ll make delicious peach cupcakes… Obviously…” said Sunny Daze, who was now practically begging for her friend to be the one to get eaten… What was wrong with these kids?

“Alright! That’s enough. Fillies, ignore what she said. Here, I have another cupcake for you all,” in came Sunny, still obnoxiously grinning at the fillies and offering each of them a new cupcake.

“Yaaaaay! Thank you Mr. Sunny! See Sunny Daze? Why can’t you be nice like Mr. Sunny? You both share the exact same first name,” Peachy Pie said with a mouthful of cupcake.

“Well excuuuuuuuse me, but I don’t like being turned into a cupcake, Peachy,” Sunny Daze reasoned, sticking her tongue out at both Peachy and Scotch. “Anyway, I am a good filly! Mommy always said so!” Sunny Daze began to beam. Selling out your best friend. How saintly…

“Girls, please… Don’t start arguing in here. Aren’t you supposed to be heading home?” Sunny reminded the trio.

“Oh, right… Sorry Mr. Sunny! Come on girls,” Peachy said and began trotting out of the store followed closely by Sunny. Shortly after leaving, they began arguing again about cupcakes. Fillies are always so loud. You can hear them when they’re so far away.

Scotch looked down and noticed that the little grey unicorn filly was still staring up at her with a puzzled look on her face. Scotch sighed, “What is it? Do I have something in my mane?”

The little filly continued staring with the same puzzled expression. Scotch leaned in close and stared back. Did the little filly want a staring contest or something? Seeing as how unresponsive she is, they might be there all night.

Suddenly, a shrill and loud noise came from behind Scotch, breaking her concentration, “DINKY! WE’RE LEAVING!” Scotch turned on a dime, ready to pound the noise-maker into dust, but was grabbed hold of by Sunny before she got the chance. The little grey unicorn, Dinky, had now darted out of the store.

Sunny spun Scotch around and looked her in the eyes. There was anger in those eyes. Anger was something you didn’t really see much from Sunny. Something was quite obviously bothering him. “Scotch, will you take a breather for just a second? What the hell is wrong with you? I know you’re usually irritable, but this? Threatening kids? That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Sunny asked, trying really hard not to raise his voice above a few decibels.

Scotch chuckled, “Trust me Sunny… Threatening kids isn’t the worst thing I’ve done today. How about insulting the inbred? Is that too much?”

Sunny facehoofed, “Scotch… You really need to get a grip. Insulting ponies isn’t going to get you anywhere. It’s only going to make things worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if those fillies told their parents. What will you do if three very angry mothers came banging on your door, or worse yet, came bothering me?”

“Well, I won’t be around to see these angry parents. Thank Celestia for that,” Scotch breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed was angry parents on top of angry blue unicorns, angry griffons, angry professors and angry Apple’s.

“What is that supposed to mean, you won’t be around?” Sunny asked, now looking slightly more concerned.

“Nothing! Nothing at all. Now, be a dear and get me the regular old coffee I like. Please? I need mad pony thinking time,” Scotch said and began walking towards the stools in front of the counter. Sitting on her regular stool, she took out her quill, ink, and notepad from her saddle bags and began jotting down notes for her escape plan…

...which is what she would have done if she hadn’t left her saddle bags at college after her little ‘moment.’ Shit… Looks like it was time to improvise.

Looking around the store, Scotch could see a wide variety of items to use for planning. First things first, she needed something to write on. Napkins will do! Finding the closest napkin dispenser, she pulled out five or ten napkins all at once with her magic and scattered them on the counter in front of her. There was another slight twinge of pain in her horn, but Scotch paid it no mind. She smiled down at the napkins, knowing that she had just done a smart thing. Sunny, who had now just began brewing the coffee, took notice of what Scotch was doing. He just looked on in concern, hoping she didn’t do anything too stupid or dangerous.

Ok, next item. Scotch needed something to write with. A quill and ink won’t do, and nopony in the store at the moment looked like they had one on them. Shit, this is going to be tough. Looking around the store a bit more, Scotch noticed a rather fancy looking pony wearing a gorgeous hat with what looked like peacock feathers. Convenient timing, Miss Fancy Pants! Despite the minor pain, Scotch managed to pluck the feather from Fancy Ponies hat using her telekinesis. The feather wobbled precariously in the air; Scotch’s telekinesis weakening as she floated it over to where she sat, but she persisted.

Ok, so that’s two items down. One to go… Scotch just needed the ink. How in Equestria would Scotch get ink in a place like this? Looks like this is a job for the legendary coffee brain drink!

“Ahem, Sunny? Could you hurry? I’m awfully parched over here,” Scotch said, fluttering her eyelashes trying to charm the buck, much to her displeasure. Stallions really weren’t her thing.

Sunny chuckled, “Well, if you’re parched, then why do you want coffee then? Wouldn’t a glass of water do you just fine?”

Ouch. Talk about caught in the act. “What? Parched? Did I say parched? No no no, I meant I’m not parched. Not parched in the slightest. I’d like to be parched though. Yep…” Scotch tried to recover lamely.

Sunny simply sighed, “It’ll be done when it’s done, Scotch. Just relax. You really do seem more frazzled than ever.”

All Scotch really could do at this moment was sit and chill. She really just couldn’t think of any good ink substitutes. Scotch began mentally kicking herself for leaving her bags behind at college. If she would have restrained herself, she might be already well on her way to planning her escape…

The door behind Scotch opened and in came four more ponies, all of which carried saddle bags of their own. Maybe Scotch could ask one of them for some ink…

...Or maybe not. As Scotch turned around, she instantly recognized the four. It was the three Apple brothers, tailing behind a rather pissed off looking Vanilla. Scotch quickly turned back around and began nervously rearranging the napkins in no particular order. She thought she had escaped the college…

The three Apple brothers took a seat not so far away from Scotch in one of the booths and just stared on over to where Scotch was sat. Vanilla trotted up to Scotch and sat to her left. Scotch didn’t even respond to Vanilla’s presence, and instead continued rearranging the napkins. Vanilla let out a gentle ‘ahem’ trying to get Scotch’s attention. It didn’t work. Vanilla raised up her hoof preparing to gently punt Scotch around the back of her head. Scotch saw this out of the corner of her eye and quickly flinched, turning towards Vanilla in a flash, visions of Blue punching Scotch repeatedly with her forehooves flashing through her mind. She raised up her own hoof to shove Vanilla’s away, and quickly gave Vanilla a nervous shooty look. The Apple brothers snickered in response to this. Vanilla however just looked Scotch deeply in the eyes.

After a few long seconds, Vanilla perked up and broke the silence. “This all happened because you broke that mirror, y’know…” Poor naive, naive Vanilla…

Scotch grunted in response to this. Breaking mirrors didn’t cause bad luck, and if it did then Scotch already had the bad luck inside of her. “Oh you would think that, wouldn’t you? How naive can your little mind be?” Scotch asked, jabbing Vanilla with a hoof.

Vanilla simply shrugged, “Hey girl, I’m only speaking the truth here. It’s all a massive conspiracy! You break the mirror, and suddenly everything goes to shit. This isn’t some coincidence, this really is some Discord bullshit!”

Sunny leaned over from where he was still brewing Scotch’s coffee. It was nearly done it seemed. “Hey, you’re uh… Really not helping with this conspiracy crap. So can you please give her a rest? She’s had a tough time as of recently,” Sunny requested, noticing Scotch’s shooty look.

Vanilla shrugged again, “Hey man, I’m only trying to help a chick out. That’s what friends are for, right?” Vanilla nudged Scotch, giving her a wink.

“We are not friends, and we never will be. Please Vanilla, I’m trying to plan something really important right now. So unless you have a bottle of ink to give me, piss off. The shit flowing out of your mouth is really starting to put me off from wanting this coffee,” Scotch threatened, jabbing Vanilla with a hoof at the end of every sentence.

“Ouch, alright girl. Take it easy…” Vanilla said with a pout. She turned towards the three Apple brothers, who were sat down trying to stifle their laughter. “Hey, uh… What should I do guys? She’s really killing my vibe.”

Sour Apple, who had now donned a rather fetching looking black desperado hat since Scotch last saw him, looked back at Vanilla, and then back to Scotch, and then back to Vanilla again. A smile crept across his muzzle. “Y’know what ah would do? Ah would tell her t’ get her shit together, y’know?”

“Oooooh! Ok, I got this guys. Don’t worry. She’ll be a changed mare when I’m done with her,” Vanilla said excitedly. She might be getting a new friend today. Vanilla began turning back to Scotch. Locking her own eyes with Scotch’s, who was shooting the same look, she inhaled, and spoke.

“Y’know what Scotch, you really have to get your shit together! Get it all together, and put it in a saddle bag, all of your shit, so it’s together... And if you gotta take it somewhere, take it somewhere, y’know? Take it to the shit store and sell it. Or… Put it in a shit museum. I don’t care what you do! You just gotta get it together. Get your shit together!”

Whatever the hell Vanilla just verbally spat out managed to cause a collective stare from every single patron around the cafe. All eyes were trained on her, and all eyes were looking at her in a state of bewilderment. Vanilla simply just sat there, grinning, thinking she had said something that could rival Princess Twilight’s friendship lectures. It was quite obvious this wasn’t the case when Sunny facehoofed, and following suit, so did Scotch, breaking her gaze away from Vanilla’s now obnoxious grin.

The the Apple brothers were now trying their absolute hardest not to erupt in a fit of laughter, all of them applauding Vanilla’s lecture with stifled grins and tears in their eyes. Getting out of her chair and turning to her ‘audience,’ Vanilla took a bow expecting to be showered in sweet smelling roses. Of course, knowing the collective response of the entire cafe, this never happened.

Whatever these four were doing, Sunny wasn’t having any of it. Getting out from behind the counter, he trotted towards Vanilla who was still bowing to her imaginary audience and gave her a tap on the back. She stopped instantly, realizing that she might be doing something stupid. She turned, and was greeted by a rather tired looking Sunny wearing an expression that simply said ‘what are you doing?’ Vanilla let out a nervous giggle and turned her head slowly towards her band of ‘inbred misfits’, as Scotch would call them. They were getting ready to bolt.

Sunny may have not been the most intimidating Earth pony, but being in a position of authority made one a lot more scary. “Alright, I want you, and the three stooges over there out. If all you’re doing is making noise and harassing my customers, then I really don’t want you around anymore,” Sunny ordered sternly.

Vanilla quickly searched for a response in her head, “What? Harassing? I wasn’t harassing, I wa-”

“Ah ah ah, no. I don’t care about any of your excuses. Whatever you were trying to do obviously wasn’t an attempt to help liven up the mood,” Sunny said, looking over to the exit briefly and noticing the Apple’s bolting out, ditching Vanilla. “Ah, look. Your colt friends just dumped you. So are you going to chase after them screaming ‘why did you leave me,’ or are you just going to continue standing around?”

Vanilla took a few steps backwards. There was a moment of silence, where Vanilla darted her eyes left and right looking around the cafe nervously. It was a perfect time for her to leave without saying a single word more. It’s what Sunny wanted, and it was what Scotch wanted. “Agh, to hell with it… If Scotch wants to just brood and rearrange napkins, then what do I care? Her bad luck isn’t my problem anymore,” Vanilla said, reflexively twitching, expecting Scotch to hurl a cup at her out of rage. She was surprised when nothing even came her way. No cups, no curse words, nothing. Scotch just sat there in complete silence.

It was time to leave Scotch be. She wasn’t even responding anymore. Vanilla turned towards the exit with her tail literally between her legs and trotted out. Sunny turned back around once he knew Vanilla had left the premises and began making his way back behind the counter. Scotch then caught his attention. All she was doing was sitting there, unresponsive, completely straight-faced. Scotch’s coffee had finished brewing, so grabbing a cup, he poured the coffee, added Scotch’s favorite amount of milk and sugar, and passed it to her. Scotch simply let out a shrug.

“What’s the matter, Scotch? Was it those four? Don’t let them get to you,” Sunny said with a smile as he came around the counter and sat beside her. No customers were arriving, so a little time off was well justified.

“I can’t drink this, Sunny…” Scotch muttered, pointing a hoof towards her horn. “When I try magic, it feels like my skull is going to split wide open. I can’t take doing any more magic. I could hardly lift a peacock feather! I fucked up big time earlier today… Hell, I’ve been fucking up big time my entire life.”

Sunny gave another warm smile, “Hey, let’s not think about these fuck-ups. You have hooves, y’know.”

“Thanks, but I don’t have that amazing Earth pony dexterity that you guys magically have. I’ll have to pass on this one. I wasn’t thinking straight at all… I just wanted to plan my Ponyville escape,” Scotch said, staring down at her coffee.

Sunny gave Scotch a look of curiosity and asked, “Ponyville escape? That’s a bit extreme don’t you think?”

“Not extreme when you have an angry little blue Unicorn, an angry griffon that could rip me into pony pieces, an angry Germane professor, and of course the three or four stooges breathing down my neck…” Scotch nervously blurted out, quick flashes of Ember’s sharpened talons flashing through her mind yet again.

An angry little blue Unicorn, and an angry griffon… Sunny instantly knew whom Scotch was talking about. “Scotch, I don’t know what you did, but whatever you did do, you need to apologize to both Blue and Ember. This can’t continue. I mean, all of this is making you look sick for ponies sake!” Sunny urged. He didn’t like seeing his friends fight.

“No, but you see, that’s the thing though! I can’t apologize. I won’t even be able to get a single word out after what I did to Blue… It’s all such a colossal fuck up,” Scotch loudly said, slamming her hoof down on the counter in frustration. The noise gathered a few looks from some ponies around the cafe.

“Whatever you did, it can’t be so bad that you’re willing to leave everything behind. Tell me what happened. And quietly, please,” Sunny now said, willing to help Scotch in any way he could, giving her another warm smile.

Scotch made herself comfortable. What she was about to say would likely cause a wide variety of reactions from Sunny. Maybe most of them bad, but what could she do? Could Scotch fuck up any more? Possibly not… The counselling earlier really didn’t help too much, but maybe talking to a friend might help.

About five minutes had passed since Scotch had finished telling Sunny her general life story relating to the past few days. Every little disgusting detail was gone over, giving Sunny a lot to digest. He sure did take his time digesting it however. For the past five minutes, all he did was sit there in silence, thinking about what to say. Every now and then he would open his mouth taking a short inhale like he was ready to finally say something, but then close it abruptly, shaking his head.

Scotch had simply slumped her head down onto the counter, staring deeply at the coffee mug placed in front of her. She wanted a drink, but her magic didn’t allow any safe use of telekinesis. So instead, she kept staring at it, wondering if she could try picking it up with her hooves. It couldn’t be that hard to do, but she decided against trying. Her streak for fucking things up wasn’t over just yet.

“So, uh… How was the… y’know… sex with Berry?” Sunny asked with an uneasy tone in his voice, morbid curiosity getting the better of him. Scotch raised her head up from the counter, and gave him a deadpan stare. “It’s just… I’ve been thinking about plucking some berries, y’know,” Sunny said with a slight smirk.

“What. The actual. Fuck,” Scotch said, smirking back at Sunny. “Tell me you’re not serious?”

Sunny let out a little chuckle, “No, no, I’m not serious. I just find it kinda amusing is all.” Despite the sensitive situation, it was sort of funny to think back on. The stupidity of it especially tickled Sunny’s funny bone. “But seriously though, Scotch. What the actual fuck was going through your mind? That’s what had me curious.”

Scotch sighed, thinking about how stupid her thought process was that night. “I don’t know Sunny. I don’t know if I was drunk, or if I lost control of myself. My brain has a mind of it’s own sometimes, funnily enough. To be honest, all I really wanted was to use Blue as a way of getting back at Ember.”

“And what did Ember do to deserve your unyielding revenge?” Sunny asked, briefly checking around him looking to see if any customers had arrived. By some miracle, none had. It really was a slow day.

“Honestly, I really don’t know. Jealousy maybe, but it eventually just turned into the two of us flinging our own shit at one another for no reason besides petty revenge. But you know me Sunny, I can’t back down if somepony wants to start shit. Stubborn Pony has to hold her ground!” Scotch proudly proclaimed.

“So, why exactly are you wanting to run if you have to hold your ground?” Sunny asked, the hard questions were coming thick and fast.

“This is different though! Don’t you see? This is a matter of life and death! If I don’t get out of Ponyville, Ember is going to rip me to pieces, with Blue helping her!” Scotch replied nervously, pointing towards the cafe’s exit like that was the exit to Ponyville.

“But do you know that for sure? You do realize that Ember is possibly the most civil griffon I’ve met, right? I’m sure she’ll talk it out with you,” Sunny attempted to reassure.

“Have you not seen those talons? Why wouldn’t she want to use them on a little pest like me?” Scotch frantically responded, the thought of the talons getting to her more and more. “All I want to do is live! Achieve me dreams! Fuck all this Arcane Electronic bullshit. Stage performing is where it’s at these days.”

Scotch winced slightly, the pain from her horn shooting down into her skull the moment she even mentioned magic. Sunny caught wind of this. “With a horn injury like that? Scotch, I’m sorry but the way I see things… Well, let’s just say you’re kinda stuck.”

“Stuck huh? Really? Pfft, I’m never stuck. I can escape from everything. Planned, or completely improvised, it doesn’t matter. I escape, and that’s all you need to know!” Scotch proudly said, still speaking in a more frantic tone.

“Scotch…” Sunny said, trying to get her attention.

“I bet I can come up with a sound escape plan right now…” Scotch said, beginning to grin.

“...Scotch…”

“Ok, so you know the hot air balloon Sparkle used to use before she got those wings, right? Well, it’s never guarded, meaning anypony can pinch it. So, all I need to do is take that and…” Scotch began grinning more, shaking slightly.

“...Scotch!”

“...and wait for the Wonderbolts to come chasing after me. Then, when they get close enough, I grab some of the spare rope, if they have some in the balloon, and capture some of the fastest Wonderbolts by lassoing them and tying them to the balloon. So then…” Scotch said shaking even more from excitement.

“Scotch!”

“...So then… I fly my new Wonderbolt-powered hot air balloon all the way down to Trottingham. Put on an airshow for the masses with my new flying capabilities, crash the balloon into Number 10 Drawning Street to end the show because fuck the Trottingham Mayor and his taxes, rake in all the bits from the passers-by, use said bits to buy The Great and Powerful Trixie’s love, buy a house, retire early, and then me and Trixie can make sweet love every night! Perfect plan! What do you think?” Scotch said grinning wildly, her mane becoming frazzled from all of the excited shaking she was doing.

“Scotch… That is the most convoluted thing I’ve heard since your story about how you had sex with Berry, and then the events leading up to you telling me. You’re really good at telling convoluted stories, but this plan sucks.” Sunny said, facehoofing after fully digesting the whole plan.

“Oh… Way to be a Debbie Downer, ay mate…?” Scotch said, slightly realizing that the plan might have been a bit shit.

“Scotch, I want you to look me in the eyes right now. Ok?” Sunny urged, giving a gentle smile. Scotch turned slightly, looking Sunny directly in the eyes. It was kinda creepy with the now out of place mane, but it was what he asked for. “Listen, I want to tell you a story. You mentioned Trixie in you little rant… You’re obviously more than just a fan.”

Scotch perked up excitedly at the mention of Trixie, “Are you kidding?! I fucking love her and I’d love fucking her.”

“Shhh, I’m kind of a fan too but... I’m not as obsessed. But listen, what you plan on doing… Running away from everything… It goes without saying, but running away won’t help you. Your best bet is to just face your fears. I know, I know… It sounds cliche, but it’s true. Fate will find a way to catch up with you eventually. It always does. Karmic retribution and all that,” Sunny explained, smiling slightly at how cliche he sounded. It amused him somewhat.

“Hmpf, I don’t believe in fate… A load of superstitious bollocks,” Scotch pouted, folding her forelegs.

“Hey, I’m trying to make a point here, ok? You know Trixie used to have your mentality right? She used to believe running away from things did nothing but benefit her in the long run. She always proclaimed how Great and Powerful she was before vanishing away in a poof of smoke, only to leave behind a bunch of slightly annoyed individuals. Well, she couldn’t really do that when she was captured and forced to perform a show by the Diamond Dogs,” Sunny said, getting slightly excited at the fact that he was getting to tell this story.

Scotch doubted the truth of this story. “The Diamond Dogs? You’re making this shit up.”

Sunny held up his forehooves and exclaimed, “No, it’s true. Heard it straight from the horse's mouth herself.”

“You… met… T-T-Trixie and you didn’t tell me?!” Scotch said, raising her voice, getting some looks from around the cafe.

“Hey, I didn’t even know you liked her. Besides, it was a while ago and she looked pretty messed up. She was covered in dirt, grime, drool… It wasn’t a pretty sight. But anyway, she came into the cafe asking for a latte to go, I asked her what happened, and funnily enough she told me,” Sunny explained, smiling. It was a fun story, and telling it to a Trixie fan was sure to get some great reactions.

“And… What exactly happened?” Scotch asked, now a lot more curious.

“Well, much like you right now, she was stuck. She couldn’t run because it wouldn't benefit her, and she was scared that the thing she wanted to run from was going to kill her. History likes to repeat itself, except in your case I doubt you’re in any danger. Trixie however was in terrible danger, and she’s lucky to even be alive. As I said, the Diamond Dogs wanted her to put on a show, or she would be forced to dig up gems for them for eternity. Failing the gem digging, she would be put on a spit, roasted, and eaten…” Sunny said with an ominous tone in his voice.

“Fuck me with Celestia’s solar flares!” Scotch exclaimed. Sunny chuckled at her little outburst. This is the reaction he expected.

“Exactly… It wasn’t pretty. However, even without any convincing from any outside sources, she faced her fears and put on her show. She even said it was her best show yet. Shame no one got to see it,” Sunny said remorsefully. He would have loved to see the show, and no doubt Scotch would have too.

“Fucking Diamond Dogs…” Scotch muttered under her breath.

“But you see what I’m getting at, right? Trixie has faced her fears, survived, and came out on top and she didn’t run. She did the thing that terrified her the most. Let you idol inspire you to do what you fear the most! Please,” Sunny begged. He didn’t want to see Scotch in such a frazzled state anymore.

“Damn, this story really does put things into perspective doesn’t it? Fuck… I’m such an idiot…” Scotch said, banging her head on the counter.

“No Scotch, you aren’t an idiot. You are a smart pony with a lot of intelligence, potential, and you have one of the most crazily imaginative minds that I’ve ever seen. Despite how bonkers that plan of yours was, it was imaginative. You’re my friend, Scotch, and I’m here to support you no matter what. If you need more help at all, don’t be afraid to come and ask,” Sunny reassured, giving a beaming smile.

“Thanks but… I’m really not good at apologizing…” Scotch muttered quietly.

“Well, I can help if you-”

“NO!” Scotch shouted, gathering a few looks from around the cafe yet again. She noticed, and decided to continue a lot quieter, “no… Please… Don’t force this. I’m still not sure if I should take the risk.”

“Ok… I won’t help you apologize. I won’t force any of this to happen if you don’t want it to. But please, at least give it a go,” Sunny said reluctantly. Some ponies are just really stubborn it seems.

“I’ll think about it… Heh, but I’ll say one thing though…” Scotch began to say, starting to smile a little bit.

“What’s that?” Sunny asked.

“Why would I ever want to leave Ponyville now that I know I have a cool friend backing me up?” Scotch asked rhetorically, looking back at Sunny with a big smile.

“Heh heh, well, what else can I do? I can’t just leave you alone forever. I don’t know what you would do on your own.” Sunny said, smiling back.

Scotch leaned off of her stool giving the Earth pony stallion a hug. Stallions may not be good for fucking, but they sure were good for hugging.

“Thank you…” Scotch whispered, tearing up slightly.

“Don’t mention it,” Sunny said proudly. He’d earned himself a hug today and he was happy to have gotten one.

The hug went on for slightly longer than it should have, but that didn’t matter. Hugs were nice, and it was a great way of showing appreciation to somepony you care about. It was a good stress reliever too, which Scotch needed since she hadn’t hugged somepony in forever.

“Oh crap, my shifts over!” Sunny realized after looking at the clock, breaking the hug, “I don’t know who the hell will be filling in. Possibly Apricot or somepony else… Not that sure.”

“So… Are you just gonna go home or…” Scotch asked, unsure if he wanted to go home or...

“How does your place sound?” Sunny said with a slight smile.

“Y’know… Oddly I was hoping you would say that. It’s a date then!” Scotch cheerfully said, getting her wish!

“Ha ha, brilliant,” Sunny chuckled. The two ponies got off of their stools and began making their way towards the cafe exit. They talked about what they could do together. Scotch suggested she show him her massive Trixie collection; they were both fans after all. Sunny’s eyes lit up at the thought of seeing said collection, and the pair began hurrying swiftly towards the cafe exit.

Of all the shit that happened today, this was a highlight. A blossoming friendship! Something Scotch really, really needed.