Catalyst Side story: Scootaloo (pt1)

>Scootaloo was not a fan of waiting.  If she could have delayed procrastination of accomplishment, she would have.  In learning the score, however, patience was the only virtue.
>It left her at the deployment area.  Armaments abound, she was surrounded by technology she feared and scorned.  The kind of things she worked against.
>at least she was showered.  Comfortable.  She took along extra clothing, however similar it was to her average garb, during her ventures.  The shrike's storage space provided her with a home away from home.
>She fiddled with the magneto reactive tread swappers on the donuts.  She diagnosed problems that weren't really there in fuel cell.  She tried every little thing to distract herself, but she found herself far too efficient in her care.  She had, after all, done everything hundreds, if not thousands of times before.
>The storage space was the home, of course.  But the entire shrike itself was like the pet she'd never had.  Attended to the degree of being pampered, it never ceased to be outright beautiful in her eyes.  Not after a thorough going over.
>Old bird-mom had left scars, though.  Not that Scootaloo had seen worse; far from it, in fact, with some of the jobs and mistakes she regrettably made escaping them.  Since the gouges along the finish had been simple and shallow, it had been easy.
>She'd taken her time on them, regardless.  Filling the wounds with replacement fluid, letting it harden.  Polishing it over with the hoof-sized, padded disc device.  She'd felt she needed to, in order to stay around.
>She'd felt she'd needed an excuse.
>God, how stupid was this? They were her friends.  Mostly.
>She may not have ever directly liked Gilda, but that didn't mean the violent bitch hadn't been such, more than once, for Scootaloo's sake.  She had to respect her, and eventually, found the inaction and repression of the older creature's natural sense rather endearing.
>And there she was, doing the only thing Gilda had ever really tried to dissuade her from.
>Making excuses.  Lying, however indirect it was.  As she ran her hoof, yet again, over the light-distorted gash in her shrike, she was finally done.
>She sighed.
>”What do you think, Ebony?” she asked.
>the garage was still.  The shrike held an entire maintenance bay in the garage.  APC's, glistening and unused, filled the rectangular pads on which they'd been seated.  Demure by comparison, but with far more self-proclaimed personality, she stood beneath the bay floodlight that isolated her vehicle in the dark.
>There was silence.  A timid flurry of weak thoughts brushed past her conscious mind.
>”I mean, they're gonna find out, right? They won't be pissed, right?” she asked.
>She strolled around the shrike.  The gorgeous, powerful sheen followed the surface, the white halogen refracting from within the now repaired clawmarks.  She paused at the saddlebags, then took to nosing about within them.
>Another pocket inside, she linked to the 'clear ping'- the unacknowledged pocket that followed the rules of her treads, and unfolded on her login commands.  Inside was the miniscule square, a universal PNP holoprojector.
>”I mean, Twilight hasn't exactly been forthcoming.  If anyp0ny deserves this, it's her.”
>She shuffled it into her mouth.  She hid it under her tongue, the barbell she'd gotten clinging neatly on it's opposite side to hold it still.  She rolled her jaw, making sure it wouldn't move too far when she had to speak.
>Another perfected lie.  Sleight of hoof.
>”As long as mom's not mad, I think we'll be fine.” she said.
>She inhaled deeply, leaning back.  She nosed about again in the case, closing the clear ping, and nudging at something else.  She nipped at it with her teeth, tugging it out.
>She fell back onto her flank.  The thick cloth of the black rider's suit hadn't even picked up any dirt, this time around.  Even during the... altercation, with the creature.
>Overhearing the name of who it had been, she'd been reluctant so far.  She could not let that give her pause.  Information was like a bad fruit; you had to get it quick, and keep it on ice for it to remain fresh.
>She still didn't believe it.  But she'd already relayed it to her unpaying employer.
>Favors.  God, they sucked when they turned out like this.
>She gripped the cap of the new object with her teeth.  She spun the base, and the attached wire kept it hanging loosely on the side.  The sharp odor lit up her nostrils, and tickled her throat with an disproving nausea.
>”Yeah.  Mom doesn't even know her.  We'll be fine.”
>That name.  Hearing it uttered again, when she'd done so much already.  So much contrary to what hearing her being alive actually meant.  Everything suiting that name brought her back to those weeping filly years; the tough ones, where Gilda and her hadn't really known what the hell they were doing.  The rippling thought she hadn't exactly been easy to raise, on top of the fact neither were actually very motherly.
>Heck, it had been like she'd had two dads instead.  She laughed at that thought.
>It was hard to drink.  She pressed her lips to the flask, and upturned a generous mouthful.  In her position, she had to keep it in her mouth for a time while she set the container back in place.  It tasted awful.  It burnt.
>She resealed the flask and replaced it in her saddlebag.  She sat there a time, until she started to feel that humble stirring of her head.  She closed the saddlebag.
>Her employer was waiting.  Fearing.  A pony she'd known for so long now, and whom had always been an aunt in name and practice.
>She was being honest with this, wasn't she?  She asked Ebony.  She still didn't say anything.  She never did.
>It was always enough.
>Even if she was not being honest, she was being the one thing Rainbow and Gilda had raised her to be.
>Loyal.
>She had to at least respect that much about herself, even if nop0ny else would.
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