Awesome.

Rainbow Dash was awesome. The dictionary in Twilight Sparkle’s library said so. Scoots knew this because she had put Rainbow Dash’s picture and the text ‘definition of awesome’ over whatever lame definition had been there before (when Twilight wasn’t looking, of course).

Rainbow Dash, being the totally awesome mare that she was, was certain to have reading material just as awesome, doubly so if it was of the ‘only for adults’ or whatever that dictionary friend of hers had called it variety. This was exactly why a certain orange filly with a fuchsia mane was currently headed toward the cerulean mare’s cloud house.

On the ground.

How she was going to get up to Rainbow Dash’s cloud house was a dilemma whose answer currently evaded the spunky filly. She had already concluded that a grappling line would just fall through the cloud structure, that a catapult was more likely to land her in the walls than on the base, and that using the rocket ship from the Cutie Mark Crusader Space Explorers plan was just as likely to rob her of what few feathers she had as it was to get her off the ground.

It was with a heavy sigh that she passed by the entryway to Sugarcube Corner. Head dipped down and brow furrowed in thought, she failed to notice the hay bail sporting a pair of square black glasses, big, bushy eyebrows, and a long nose protruding from the front next to the doorway as she passed.

So deep in thought was Scootaloo that she even missed the green, toothless alligator that was biting the curly pink mane that swayed in the wind sticking out from the top as she plodded by, a small frown teasing her lips.

Well, she didn’t until a deafening “Hey Scootaloo!” erupted from the very cleverly disguised pink party pony known for hiding in hay bales just like the one she whipped around to face, a look of shock now painted on her face.

“So it was you!” practically shouted the pink mare, jumping up in down in excitement. “See, my right ear flopped, then my tail twitched, and then my teeth chattered. And I was all like, ‘Oh wow, there’s a pony who is felling kind of down and she’s coming right this way!’” Pinkie Pie punctuated every few syllables with an exuberant bounce. “And I just knew that I could make that pony turn their frown upside down.”

Scootaloo, pillar of linguistic eloquence and master of speech, responded as only a pony with a pedigree as elite as hers could. “Bwah?”

Pinkie managed to stop bouncing just long enough to let loose a throaty giggle before she began to hop in circles around Scootaloo. “You silly filly. This is the part where you ask me for help. Well, that Princess Celestia runs around asking everypony if they like bananas before she banishes them all to the moon with a giant cannon.”

Scootaloo shook her head in an attempt to clear it of Pinkie’s randomness and focus on what little sense the party pony had made. “Um, Pinkie, how about we go with how you are going to help me. See, I need to get up Dash’s house, but….I can’t fly up myself. I need to, uh, get something from her place. It’s real important, but, um, kind of embarrassing, so I didn’t want to ask her.” By the end, the orange filly was rubbing the back of her head in slight embarrassment while looking off to Pinkie’s side.

“Well why didn’t you just say so silly?” chirped the pink ball of energy. “I’ll just fly you up on my Pinkie-Copter. And I have just the thing if you want to be all Sneaky McSneakerson. Meet me below Dashie’s house in 10 minutes and we’ll get this party started.” With that, Pinkie Pie dashed back toward Sugarcube Corner and vanished inside moments later.

Scootaloo, meanwhile, was left somewhat dumbstruck but not unhappy, having come one step closer to her goal. “Well that was easy,” she mumbled as she began to trot toward her meeting place with Pinkie.

High above Sugarcube Corner and unnoticed by the ponies below, the tip of a rainbow forelock peaked over the edge of a puffy white cloud, a cloud just large enough for a pegasus to comfortably nap on or watch the ponies below in secrecy.

Ten minutes later found Pinkie Pie coming in for a landing on the hill directly below Rainbow Dash’s cloud home. Now this wasn’t a particular strange sight. The form-fitting black cat suit she was wearing and the pair of night vision goggles she had on her head while doing so wasn’t even that strange either. The fact that she was doing so in broad daylight while waving to the ponies she passed on the ground below was a different matter altogether.

Scootaloo just rolled her eyes at the sight. This wasn’t even half as weird as some of the stuff she saw the party pony get up to. She’d long ago given up trying to figure out Pinkie, a course of action that a certain lavender unicorn had only recently embarked upon. “Hey Pinkie Pie,” said Scootaloo while waving as the Pinkie-Copter came in for a landing. “So what’s the plan?”

Pinkie Pie reached her hoof back and reached into….wherever the pink mare did when she was making things appear from nowhere…and proceeded to pull out a filly-sized cat suit before tossing it at Scootaloo’s hooves. “Put that on, and then we can head on up. Rainbow Dash will never see us coming,” said Pinkie, practically bouncing in place on her Pinkie-Copter.”

Scootaloo failed to see how wearing a black catsuit in the blue sky or against the white backdrop of Dash’s cloud house would help keep the two of them hidden. However, she knew enough about spy stories to know that was just what was done. She slipped on the catsuit and hopped up behind Pinkie before the two took off into the clear blue sky toward Rainbow Dash’s cloud home.

As they flew higher, the light breeze rustled the filly’s fuchsia mane. The sun shone brilliantly down upon the rooftops below and the pure water in the steam gleamed in the sunlight. As the two neared the cloud hose, the temperature began slowly dropping and went from a slightly warm afternoon to a somewhat nippy one for those without feathers to keep them warm.

Scootaloo tapped Pinkie on her withers. “Fly me up to the bedroom and I’ll hop inside. You fly around back and wait by the rainbow fountain so Dash doesn’t see you. I’ll meet you there once I get what I need.”

Pinkie gave an enthusiastic nod. “You’ve got it!” she said as she pulled up to the bedroom window and waved to the filly as she skulked inside.

Neither Pinkie Pie nor Scootaloo seemed to notice the solitary cloud in the sky that had been lazily drifting toward the cloud home as they went about their business.

Happy to finally put the lessons she learned from the ill-fated Cutie Mark Crusaders Secret Agents plan into action, Scootaloo began to skulk around the room, periodically ducking under or behind the furniture, all the while focusing on being as silent as possible as she made her way to her prize. Clouds weren’t the noisiest of surfaces. Nor was Rainbow Dash supposed to be at home during the workday at this time. None of this mattered to the would-be secret agent. She needed to be cool in everything she did, not just almost all.

Across the room and next to the bed on the nightstand lay a stack of Daring Do books. The uppermost had what looked like a Wonderbolts bookmark sticking out from about halfway through, the top of a flightsuit-clad mare with a fiery mane soaring through a clear blue sky peeking out from between the pages.

As Scootaloo ducked behind a cloud column, she examined the other furniture, on the vigil for the other books she was sure Rainbow Dash had stashed in her room. She didn’t see anything on top of the bed. The only books she found were the Daring Do books in the stack on the nightstand. Seeing this, the filly came to a brilliant conclusion: the good stuff had to be under the bed. That’s where she always kept her favorite items. Why wouldn’t Rainbow Dash do the same? It’s not like she’d put anything else somewhere where others wouldn’t touch them.

Having reached her decision, Scootaloo dashed in as sneaky a manner as she could over to the bed. Sniggering into her hoof, she leaned over and looked under the bed. Jackpot. Under the bed there were several boxes, a few open and a few with the lids on. Scootaloo began pulling them out and placing them at her side so she could get a better look at the contents.

She was so intent on not being seen or heard by anypony in the house was she that she failed to notice the shadow being cast behind her from the windowsill.

The first box rattled a bit when she moved it out, the sounds of plastic hitting plastic leaking out. Well that’s not it, thought the filly as she moved it to the side. The second box was uncovered and did have a book in it. However, it was just some silly thing that looked like a manual with the two princesses on the cover. What kind of title was Pony Sutra anyway? She tossed that aside and moved onto a much bigger box.

Finally, Finally she found what she was looking for. This one was filled with books with flowery titles that the dictionary was sure to know about. There were titles like Xenophilia and Four of Two, whatever the heck those are supposed to mean. That and the fact that quite of few of these had Wonderbolts on the covers. Oddly enough, most of them seemed to be in the process of taking off their flightsuits for whatever reason. In addition, there was one where what looked like Princess Celestia was looking back and licking her lips for some reason, head dipped with her front knees bent. Whatever. Scootaloo knew that this is what she came for.

Scootaloo was something of a one-track filly. That current track was finding the right books from Rainbow Dash’s stash to bring back for the girls. This is why she hadn’t noticed the shadow from the window as it had crept across the floor. She seemed not to notice the quiet snicker from behind her as the shadow began to creep up her back. The shadow eventually came to rest right on the back of the diminutive filly’s head.

“Boo.”

Normally the energetic filly was as grounded as a chicken, but upon hearing the whispered word by her ear she shot straight up at the cloud ceiling…before smacking right into it and making a filly-sized indent. Well, at least she did before she fell back down and made another one in the floor. The loud puff of Scootaloo’s face hitting the cloud floor was followed by an even louder groan.

Scootaloo couldn’t exactly tell this though, on account of the raucous laugher exploding from Rainbow Dash as she rocked with laugher on the floor behind the dazed filly, drowning out all other noise. “You shoulda seen the look on your face Scoots. It was absolutely priceless.”

Once the stars had cleared from her vision and she had roused herself from her date with the floor, Scootaloo gazed up sheepishly at her idol, a hoof idly rubbing the back of her neck. “Uh, h-hey there Rainbow Dash. Um, nice weather we’re having?”

Rainbow dashed rolled her eyes. “I know. I made it that way, duh.” Rainbow Dash looked down at the boxes that were no longer under her bed. She pointed a forehoof at them as she turned her head back to Scootaloo. “So Scoots,” she said with an overly casual tone for one who just had their house intruded into and her private stash searched.” What do you think you’re doing?”

The ponies of Equestira were good at many things. They also shared a great deal in common. However, there was also something that most ponies shared but were anything but good at: lying with a straight face. Scootaloo was something of a special case.

“I was, uh, searching for changelings.”

There was a faint sound of a hoof smacking a face from the direction of Sweet Apple Acres as the queen of bad poker faces lost her title to the orange-furred filly glancing between Rainbow Dash and the books, her muzzle considerably more scrunched up than a minute ago.

Rainbow Dash managed to suppress her outward reaction to a somewhat muffled groan, saving the facehoof for another time. She walked up, placed a forehoof on Scootaloo’s shoulder, and looked right into her eyes before heaving a sigh. “Look, Scoots. I’ve been watching you from before you meet Pinkie, and it doesn’t take an egghead like Twilight to figure out what you were doing.”

With each passing word, the filly cringed a little harder as her plan came unraveled before her eyes.
“I’m not mad Scoots. But you should have asked if you wanted to borrow something.” Rainbow Dash took the couple steps and crouched down to scan the books in the box. “So which ones?”

No longer able to take it anymore the filly rushed up and hugged the cerulean mare’s legs. “I’m so sorry Rainbow Dash! I just wanted to- wait. What do you just say?” She peered upward and was greeted by a smirk that one just one hair shy of unsettling but well over the line of predatory.

Rainbow turned the filly back to face the box of books and nudged her to lean over and look at the titles with her. “I said, which books did you want to borrow?”

If the filly’s jaw had fallen any faster, another dent in the cloud floor in the shape of her muzzle would have joined the one already there from her earlier visitation. Once she had picked her jaw back up off the ground, Scootaloo looked back into Rainbow Dash’s eyes. “Really? Just like that?”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes again. “Scoots, sooner or later every filly is gonna read one of these. You might as well start with a good one.” If Scootaloo hadn’t been so startled by Rainbow’s reaction she would have noticed just how devious the larger pegasus’s grin had become and the way her eyes sparkled with mischief. “How about I just give you a few of my favorites and we can talk about them after you’ve had a good, long, hard, and passionate read.”

Entranced by the sound of Rainbow Dash’s voice, Scootaloo certainly did not miss how the mare’s voice had grown steadily huskier as each word flowed from her lips, honey practically dripping from the words by the last syllable. Oh yes, these books were going to be awesome.

“That sounds awesome Rainbow Dash!” shouted the now very much excited filly.

“Great to hear, squirt.” Rainbow dash proceeded to pick out three of her favorites and hoof them over to Scootaloo, mischief plain on her face. This ought to be good. I can’t wait to have that chat once she finishes them. “Well, you better get going Scoots. Don’t want to keep Pinkie waiting.”

“Thanks Rainbow Dash!” chirped Scootaloo as she took the books and hurried off to the back of the house so she could rendezvous with her ride. The girls were never going to believe her when she told them how she got her books. As she was heading out back, Scootaloo paused a moment. After today, Awesome wasn’t going to be enough to describe Rainbow Dash anymore. She resolved to sneak into the library and fix a few more definitions after the current crusade had panned out.

In a library not far below a lavender mare gave an involuntary shudder.