“It’s no use!” Sweetie exclaimed, firing a spell blindly. It bounced off the ground and set a cart full of hay ablaze. “They’re faster than us!”

Scootaloo panted and looked back. The pursuers were getting closer, forcing her to keep running. She darted forward, catching up with Sweetie Belle; Apple Bloom was far ahead of them, never looking back.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as we’re faster than Silver and Diamond!” Scootaloo replied. “Besides, they can’t be faster than me. They are me!”

Sweetie looked at Silver, who stopped running, ready to accept her fate. She kept coughing; asthma had finally defeated her. Sweetie shot two more magic bolts at the crowd approaching her.

“Could you stop doing that?” Scootaloo asked. “I don’t feel comfortable when you shoot my clones like that…”

“They’re gonna catch Silver!” Sweetie fired another bolt, but there were way too many Scootaloos there for her to fend off.

“Screw Silver!” Scootaloo started to run again. “I’d rather not give them a chance to get us!”

“Some of them can fly!” Sweetie shouted when one of the Scootaloos flew past her, throwing a rotten apple at her. She squeaked and ran off to the real Scootaloo, who was just climbing up a tree when Sweetie’s words made her realise it was a death trap.

“What do we do now?” Scootaloo asked.

“Get up that tree!” Sweetie exclaimed. “We’ll think of something…” She climbed up the tree and looked around. Her eyes widened; there was a thick cloud of black smoke above Sweet Apple Acres and, despite Sweetie’s hopes, Twilight Sparkle was nowhere in sight. In fact, none of the ponies she knew was in sight, with the sole exception of Roseluck, Lily, and Daisy, but they were running away from the marching horde.

“I must admit they’re pretty impressive,” Scootaloo muttered, staring at the group of her clones swarming the streets. Some of them broke into a hardware store and were walking towards them with some saws.

Sweetie rolled her eyes. “You must be very proud, mustn’t you?”

Scootaloo smirked. “Well, given the humble beginnings…”

Over the ages, many wise ponies wondered about trees falling in the forest. If nopony was there to hear them, did they make a sound? There was a reason this question was usually applied to trees and not, for example, pegasi. A pegasus falling in the forest would make absolutely sure that somepony would hear them. Even if they weren’t around.

“My leg!” Scootaloo exclaimed, rolling on the ground. “Celestia’s mighty boobs, my leg!”

“Shh.” Sweetie walked to Scootaloo and poked her leg. “It’s not even broken.”

“I’ll break your leg if you do that again!” Scootaloo groaned and stood up. “Did I at least fly?”

“Very quickly,” Apple Bloom said, emerging from the bushes with the binoculars hanging from her neck. “Mostly down, Ah’m afraid…”

“Great.” Scootaloo sat on the ground. “Another failure. How many more?”

“All of them,” Sweetie said. “I told you that you’re too stern-heavy. Like, your wings can lift your barrel, but your–”

“Are you saying my ass is too heavy?” Scootaloo asked.

“I was trying to put it in more diplomatic terms.” Sweetie smiled sheepishly.

“Girls, calm down!” Apple Bloom exclaimed when Scootaloo tackled Sweetie and they both rolled into a puddle of mud. “Twilight said violence is not the answer!” She shrugged and jumped between Scootaloo and Sweetie.

This worked surprisingly well. Instead of fighting each other, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle both tackled Apple Bloom, trying to bring her down. The struggle, however, lasted for only a minute or so. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were simply no match for Apple Bloom, who managed to stand up, dragging Scootaloo away from Sweetie.

“Well, well, well.”

Apple Bloom froze, hearing that voice. She turned back to see Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon walking across the field. “What are y’all doin’ here?” she asked.

“Oh, just passing by,” Diamond Tiara replied, looking at mud stains in Apple Bloom’s coat. “Nothing as interesting as whatever you were doing.”

“We just had a discussion.” Sweetie Belle stood up and levitated some mud with her magic, making a ball out of it.

“On what, best ways to clean stains?” Silver Spoon asked.

“We were trying to teach Scootaloo to fly,” Sweetie Belle replied, throwing the ball of mud at Silver Spoon, who dodged it without much effort. Spending most of her life with Diamond Tiara made her aware of every heavy object flying towards her.

“Ah, so it wasn’t a meteor, after all.” Diamond Tiara shrugged, looking at the sky. “There goes our hope of finding a pot of gold.”

“No, that’s thunderbolt iron.” Silver Spoon shook her head. “Pots of gold are at the end of the rainbow.”

“Are you kidding me?” Diamond Tiara huffed. “I know that the only thing you can find at the end of the rainbow is Rainbow Dash’s ass.”

Scootaloo blushed. “Or the place where she was before she flew away.”

“That’s the beginning of the rainbow,” Silver Spoon replied with a shrug. “Anyway, are you still learning to fly?”

“All the time,” Scootaloo said. “But it just doesn’t seem to work.”

Silver Spoon fixed her glasses and cleared her throat. “Maybe because all your plans basically boil down to launching you from some precarious device, hoping in vain that your lousy pegasus instincts will somehow kick in and you’ll fly. Have you tried different combinations of proper diet, training of the weakest muscles, prana-bindu exercises, aerodynamic tunnel training, meditation, hydration, aeration, avoiding frustration, resisting temptation, improving your wingpower through hour of shower or–”

Scootaloo raised her hoof and furrowed her eyebrows. She looked at Silver Spoon and opened her mouth, but then she closed it and turned to Sweetie Belle. “Did she offend me?” she asked.

“Profoundly,” Sweetie replied. “But we haven’t tried most of those things. None of them, I think.”

“So, she didn’t make those up?” Scootaloo asked. “I haven’t heard of any pegasus who’d do that.”

“Ain’t nopony got time for that.” Apple Bloom shrugged.

“That’s what everypony’s saying,” Diamond Tiara said. “And that’s why this place looks like this.” She rolled her eyes. “You have time to keep doing things that don’t work but you have no time to do anything else? Please.”

Now it was Apple Bloom’s turn to look at Sweetie Belle. “Did she offend me?”

“Implicitly,” Sweetie Belle replied.

“Ah, good.” Apple Bloom smirked.

“So, uh…” Scootaloo trotted to Silver Spoon. “How many methods of learning to fly do you know?”

“And why?” Sweetie asked. “It’s not like you’re gonna grow wings and take off one day.”

“Dare to dream… with a little bit of magic and genetic modifications in the future,” Silver Spoon replied. “Also, I read about like, three hundred ways that can improve the flying technique.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “Three hundred…”

“But why?” Sweetie asked.

“Keeps your mind busy when you’re surrounded by idiots.”

Diamond Tiara furrowed her eyebrows. “Did she insult me?”

Sweetie smiled and shook her head. “Indirectly.”

Diamond Tiara’s frown deepened, but before she could figure anything out, Scootaloo groaned. “I have no time to try all three hundred techniques!”

“Now that’s just whining and excuses,” Silver Spoon muttered.

“More like a realistic evaluation of our schedule,” Sweetie said. “Apple Bloom, how many ponies are we currently helping with their cutie marks?”

Apple Bloom scratched her head. She started counting, but quickly ran out of hooves, tails, hair bows, Scootaloo’s feathers, and other things she usually used to help herself with fancy mathematics. “Thirty-six,” she eventually replied.

“See?” Sweetie sighed. “And I’m afraid some of them will need our help for a long time.”

Silver Spoon smirked. “Oh, this won’t be a problem.” She leaned to Sweetie and whispered something into her ear.

“That’d be wrong,” Sweetie said.

“What?” Scootaloo asked. “I don’t care how wrong this is, as long as it makes me fly!”

Sweetie sighed. “Okay…”

Thirty-six ponies looked at the stage in front of them, whispering to each other in excited tones. Sweetie Belle looked at the crowd, realising that at least two of the participants of their summer cutie mark course were changelings, one of them was a mule, and one was a kirin. She sighed, already wondering how to explain to them that they wouldn’t get a cutie mark without getting kicked, burned, drained of love, or accused of being a pony supremacist.

Eventually, she decided to skip that issue for a moment. “Hello,” she said to the crowd in front of her. “Today, we are going to try to get cutie marks in helping Scootaloo to learn to fly.” She looked at one filly who raised her hoof. “Any questions, Cream Puff?”

“What’d such a cutie mark look like?” the filly asked.

“We’ll hopefully find out,” Sweetie Belle deadpanned. She turned to Apple Bloom. “What are we going to do?”

“We have a list of ways to learn how to fly,” Apple Bloom said. “Y’all will pick one method each and we’ll, uhh…”

“Determine,” Sweetie Belle muttered.

“We’ll determine which is the most effective,” Apple Bloom continued. “Then, we’ll use this method to teach Scootaloo.”

“It’s all in your hooves,” Scootaloo said.

The crowd started to chatter, all at once. Sweetie Belle tried to listen, but quickly furrowed her eyebrows.

“I don’t have wings!” one colt shouted.

The mule stood up. “I’m not anatomically compatible!”

The kirin’s eyes lit up. “Everyone’s screaming and that makes me feel–” She rubbed her temples and took a few deep breath until her eyes went back to normal. “– only slightly annoyed. Nothing to worry about.” She smiled sheepishly as everyone moved away from her.

“The results won’t be replicable!”

Apple Bloom furrowed her eyebrows and looked at the filly in the front row. “Silver Spoon, why are ya hecklin’ yer own idea?”

“How did you know it was me?” Silver Spoon asked, taking off the sunglasses and fake moustache.

Apple Bloom just sighed and rolled her eyes. Sweetie Belle, however, looked at the crowd and nodded. “Indeed,” she said. “What works for others may not work for Scootaloo, so we need someone who’d look like her.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem.” One of the changelings gestured at the other and they both turned into Scootaloo. “Huh. I already see several problems.”

“Like, you need to train back muscles,” the other changeling said. “And you need to limit your sugar intake.”

“Well, all ponies could benefit from this, actually.” The first changeling shrugged. “I’ve been living legally in Equestria for two months and I think I already got diabetes.”

The other changeling nodded, trying to twist his Scootaloo-like face into something resembling a thinking expression. “Which is even weirder because changelings don’t have pancrea.”

The real Scootaloo walked to the changelings, looking at them closely. “Do I really look like this?” she asked. “I know I’m awesome, but I didn’t know I was that awesome.”

“Humble as always,” Sweetie Belle muttered.

Silver Spoon looked at the changelings. “This could be a way to go,” she said. “If we had more perfect copies of Scootaloo, we could run more tests at once.”

Diamond Tiara, who was sitting between Silver Spoon and the teenage kirin, wearing a sombrero and sunglasses, raised her hoof. “I have an idea. Remember that one time when Pinkie Pie did that one thing?”

“I don’t,” the kirin mare said.

“Me neither.” Scootaloo shrugged.

Apple Bloom turned to her, furrowing her eyebrows. “What? The whole town was full of Pinkies and ya don’t remember it?”

Scootaloo turned into a changeling. “I’m not the real one, okay?”

“Anyway, it didn’t end well,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Well, the town is still standing,” the real Scootaloo said. “That counts as ‘well’ for me. Also, we’re gonna be careful.”

Silver Spoon smirked, her glasses reflecting the sunlight. “Okay then. We’ll try a scientific approach…”

“Ah’m counting to three,” Apple Bloom said. “One, two…” She pushed Scootaloo into the water. There was a loud splash, followed by an even longer stream of invectives. Silver Spoon watched the scene holding a clipboard in her hooves.

“Now, let’s see the results,” Silver said, watching two silhouettes emerging from the pond.

Sweetie Belle trotted to them first. “Okay. Which of you is the real one?”

“Me!” both Scootaloos exclaimed.

Sweetie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Whose photo is pinned to the dartboard in Rainbow Dash’s house?”

The Scootaloos looked at each other. “Rainbow Dash is best pony!” one of them shouted.

“Wind Rider’s,” the other Scootaloo replied.

“I see…” Sweetie muttered. “What was Rainbow Dash wearing on the centrefold of the July issue of The Wonderbolts Magazine?”

“Rainbow Dash is best pony!” the first Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Absolutely nothing…” The other Scootaloo smiled, hearts appearing in her eyes. “May I go to the little filly’s room for a moment?”

“No.” Sweetie levitated a red vest with the words “real one” written on it and gave it to Scootaloo, who still seemed lost in her thoughts. “Don’t you dare take this off.” She turned to the other Scootaloo. “And you’re Scootaloo 001. Diamond Tiara will give you a collar with your number.”

“Rainbow Dash is best pony!” Scootaloo 001 nodded and walked to Diamond Tiara.

“Okay, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said. “Back to the pond.”

Scootaloo groaned, wiping her coat. “How many more times?”

“At least two hundred and ninety-nine.”

“Just great,” Scootaloo muttered, looking at the surface of the pond.

It was the middle of the night when the carts arrived in the secluded part of Sweet Apple Acres. Nopony really bucked the trees there anymore and Apple Bloom kept saying that they got rather cranky because of that. Still, there were apples on them, which was a vital part of the plan.

There were also a few decrepit barns in there. Over the course of a few days before the trip to the Mirror Pool, Apple Bloom spent most of her time reinforcing the buildings and using planks to divide the interior into three hundred small rooms. Inside each of them there was a jar with fireflies, blanket and a mattress – Rarity probably still wondered what Sweetie did with all of her old fabric.

Some, however, had objections.

“Why do we put them in cages?” Scootaloo asked just before they were going to unpack the first cart. She was tired – it turned out that every clone would spawn wearing a red vest, so she spent the whole day reciting Rainbow Dash trivia.

“Those aren’t cages,” Diamond Tiara said. “Those are Single Pony Living Units. One day I’ll get rich renting those to ponies. We’ll build hundreds of such buildings and the more ponies we manage to put in there, the bigger our profit will be. Isn’t that beautiful?”

“They still look like cages to me,” Scootaloo muttered.

“After it’s over, I’ll let one of your clones live with me.” Diamond Tiara smirked and winked at Scootaloo, who shuddered.

It took a while before each Scootaloo sat in their Single Pony Living Unit. Silver Spoon walked to the middle of the barn, watching the rows of boxes stacked upon one another. She smirked and grabbed a megaphone. Some clones looked at their neighbours. Some would still utter “Rainbow Dash is best pony”, but most of them fell silent.

“Welcome to our training facility,” Silver Spoon said. “I presume none of you can fly.”

Several clones shouted “we can’t!”, while the others answered with “Rainbow Dash is best pony!”. Silver Spoon nodded.

“In front of you there is a file detailing your training regimen, your diet, and the exercises you’ll be performing in the following days,” Silver continued. “Appropriate equipment will be delivered to your Units tomorrow. You’ll also get outside, but remember that no one can see you. Any questions?”

“Rainbow Dash is best pony!”

“Where’s the toilet?”

“What are we doing here?”

Silver Spoon patted Sweetie Belle’s back. “My assistant will answer those questions. I have two more barns to go to!”

The tests commenced on the next day. Soon, however, they had to be interrupted so Scootaloo 047 and Scootaloo 082 could drag Scootaloo 102 back to her unit after she ended up in a nasty accident involving a tree and the faulty harness of a Dizzitron.

“I think we should cut down some of those trees before we build a proper rocket sled,” Diamond Tiara said, watching Scootaloo 214 as she tumbled on the ground after a failed take-off and hit the tree.

“Just try and Ah’ll cut ya up,” Apple Bloom said. “Is everything okay?” she asked the two Scootaloos sitting at the table.

“Why did I only get water for breakfast while Twenty-Two got an apple pie?” Scootaloo 021 asked.

“Different approaches,” Sweetie Belle replied, looking into her notes. “She’s trying to achieve flight by getting more energy, while your path involves drastic loss of weight.”

“May I swap with her?” Scootaloo 021 asked. “My path is a dead end, I can see it.”

“Dunno, ask her.” Sweetie shrugged. “But remember that it may change the results of the experiment.”

“I don’t care, I’m hungry.” Scootaloo 021 turned to Scootaloo 022. “May I get your pie?”

“Rainbow Dash is best pony!” Scootaloo 022 exclaimed.

Scootaloo 021 groaned. “Well, fuck you too, Twenty-Two.”

The house at the outskirts of Ponyville, just by the lake, wasn’t just cheap – it was free. The greatest economists in the multiverse would probably argue that there was no such thing as free houses, but Spring Breeze, sixteen-year-old kirin mare, didn’t find their opinions worthy of going full nirik over. The house just happened to be empty, so she and the two changelings she’d met at the meeting with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, named Pterostigma and Sclerite, decided to squat there until they found some jobs.

While the decrepit house had some advantages, there were still many vital problems to overcome.

“Why are we having cold daisy casserole again?” Pterostigma asked, levitating a fork without much enthusiasm.

“You could cook something yourself, for a change.” Spring Breeze rolled her eyes. “But you only move your ass to steal books from the library.”

“Hey, this one’s pretty good,” Sclerite said. He was lying on the old, broken couch with a book in front of him. “It’s full of Wonderbolts trivia.”

Pterostigma half-smiled at Spring Breeze. “It’s alright, but… Is daisy casserole the only thing you can cook?”

Spring Breeze groaned. “If you don’t like my casserole, THEN YOU CAN SHOVE IT UP YOUR MALPIGHIAN TUBULES!”

Pterostigma watched as Spring Breeze exploded in front of her, charring the table, the floor, and the ceiling. Several sparks reached the changeling, burning the purple chitin. The casserole, however, turned much warmer.

“I’m sorry,” Spring Breeze muttered, turning back to normal. “I promise I’ll try not to burn the house down.”

“Eh, no problem,” Sclerite replied, still reading a book.

“I’m watching you, though, you lazy bug,” Spring Breeze said. “Oh, what now?” She groaned when she heard something heavy hit the window.

“Maybe the owner of this place came back!” Sclerite exclaimed, turning into a pillow.

“We’re gonna get evicted, arrested, and deported!” Pterostigma looked around, searching for inspiration, and eventually turned into a bowl of casserole.

Spring Breeze rolled her eyes. “Why would we get deported? I have a citizenship and a scholarship. And in the next school year I’ll be a student in the School of Friendship. I ended up with you only because of a clerical mistake.”

“You have a scholarship?” the pillow asked. “How much?”

“Oh, shut up.” Spring Breeze levitated a pillow and threw it at the wall, where it turned into a rather frazzled changeling. “Let’s see what that was.”

She opened the door and looked around, noticing a small, orange filly lying next to the cracked window. There was a collar on her neck, with a tag saying “053”.

“Who are you?” Spring Breeze asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking whether ground effect helps me in flight,” the filly replied. “It’s fine when I’m flying just above the lake, but my wings are too weak to gain altitude.”

“Are you alright?” Spring Breeze gestured the filly inside. “You hit the window pretty hard.”

The filly rubbed her temples. “I’m fine, thanks. Well, better than two hundred twenty-seven. She drowned in the lake.”

“Damn.” Pterostigma changed back into a changeling. “Why did you try that too, then?”

“I need to learn to fly.” The filly looked at the door. “You’re nice and all, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

Sclerite furrowed his eyebrows. “Wait, aren’t you one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders? Scootaloo, right?”

“N-no, I’m just a clone. My name’s Scootaloo 053.” The filly pointed at her collar. “I can’t be her. I don’t know any Rainbow Dash trivia.”

Sclerite and Pterostigma looked at each other. “Ah, so that’s why they didn’t want our help,” Pterostigma said.

“Their technology must be better than we thought,” Sclerite muttered. “They got their own drones.”

“Rainbow Dash trivia?” Spring Breeze asked.

“Yeah.” Scootaloo 053 sighed. “When I got out of the pond, they asked me and Scootaloo about Rainbow Dash. I didn’t know anything about Rainbow Dash… None of us did, so we got those collars and now we have to learn to fly.” She looked at the door again. “Which I should be doing right now.”

“No, wait.” Pterostigma grabbed a bowl. “Eat some casserole. Let me tell you: if you’re looking for someone who has experience following dumb orders with a crowd of identical buddies, look no further.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sclerite nodded. “We’re experts in that.”

“Just like being ungrateful bastards and not getting the concept of being welcome anywhere,” Spring Breeze muttered and turned to Scootaloo 053. “She seems better than that, though.”

“I… do?” Scootaloo 053 shrugged. “I’m not even that good when it comes to flying. Two hundred twenty-seven was much better.”

“She drowned, if I recall correctly.” Spring Breeze sighed and grabbed the book from the couch. “This book has some trivia about Wonderbolts, including the new ones. Maybe you’ll find something about Rainbow Dash there.” She gave the book to Scootaloo 053.

“Hey!” Sclerite exclaimed. “It’s my book! I stole it myself!”

Spring Breeze’s eyes lit up – literally. “Bite me,” she muttered.

“This book has Rainbow Dash trivia?” Scootaloo 053’s jaw dropped. “I… I don’t deserve this.”

“Chill out, kid, it’s just a book.” Spring Breeze patted Scootaloo 053’s mane. “Maybe you’ll learn something from it.”

“Thanks!” Scootaloo 053 exclaimed. She ran out of the house and took off in an awkward way, flying just above the ground.

“Hope she doesn’t drown on her way back,” Pterostigma muttered.

“She got my book!” Sclerite shouted.

Spring Breeze rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

A few days passed at the training grounds. Some of the Scootaloos could already take off and fly short distances, but none of them achieved real flight yet. Scootaloo 147 went missing after crash landing in the Everfree Forest, where she was probably eaten by a manticore. Scootaloo 007 disappeared and was never seen again.

“May I eat your sandwich?” Scootaloo 021 asked. The day was almost over, but most Scootaloos were still training in their units. Some of them were lifting weights, some tried to understand the physics behind their learning methods. At least two of them were busy meditating.

“Rainbow Dash is best pony!” Scootaloo 022 exclaimed.

“Retard,” Scootaloo 021 muttered. “Hey, Fifty-Three! Are you gonna eat that rice?”

“Nah,” Scootaloo 053 replied. She had already finished her round of wing push-ups, and now was lying on her mattress reading a book.

“Oh, thank fuck.” Scootaloo 021 slipped between the bars of her unit and climbed up to Scootaloo 053. She grabbed a bowl of rice with apples and gobbled it in just a few minutes.

Scootaloo 053 looked at her. “You’re not following your training regime.”

“That’s not a regime, that’s fucking murder,” Scootaloo 021 said, looking around. “Speaking of, Scootaloo 191 saw that too and wanted to snitch on me to Silver Spoon. They still haven’t noticed she went missing.”

“I won’t snitch on you if you don’t snitch on me.” Scootaloo 053 grabbed a jar of fireflies and moved it closer to the wall of her unit.

Scootaloo 021’s eyes widened when she saw that the whole wall was covered in crude charcoal drawings and notes. “You… You know Rainbow Dash trivia!”

“Shh,” Scootaloo 053 whispered. “I learned some from this book and I also remember some from when we emerged from the pool. Of course, I don’t know what they asked before I was created.”

Scootaloo 021 furrowed her eyebrows. “It’s all blurry… Rainbow Dash… Rainbow Dash is best pony. The pool… The darkness…”

“It’s alright if you don’t remember,” Scootaloo 053 said and looked into the book. “Did you know Rainbow Dash won the Vanhoover Derby three times in a row back when she was a teenager?”

Scootaloo 021 rubbed her temples. “She didn’t win the fourth one because she stopped to help a friend who had an accident.”

Scootaloo 053 raised her eyebrows. “How do you know? The book doesn’t mention that!”

“I’ve heard Scootaloo Zero saying that to Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo 021 whispered.

“Nice.” Scootaloo 053 grabbed a piece of charcoal and wrote on the wall. “We’ve got another one. If we get all of them…”

“Then what?” Scootaloo 021 asked.

“Everything, Twenty-One,” Scootaloo 053 replied. “Everything.”