One morning Apple Bloom wakes up to find Winona lying on top of her, holding the pony's ear gently but firmly in her teeth, and making a crumpled up mess of the sheets.
Once she gets downstairs Applejack and Big Mac explain the reason: the dog is in heat, and is practicing looking after Apple Bloom as if she were a puppy. She's done it before, though Apple Bloom didn't notice at the time because it wasn't happening to her, and it'll wear off in a few weeks.
Apple Bloom heads out to spend the day with her friends. Big Mac told her to take a bath first, rather insistently, but she knows that she took one last night and has no need for a new one, and besides he's going to be out in the fields all day and will never know that she skipped it.
The fact that Ponyville's dogs suddenly start taking a very keen interest in her does nothing to make her rethink this decision.
When she meets up with her friends, dodging a growing pack of very enthusiastic adult male dogs everywhere she goes, the other Crusaders have a theory: Apple Bloom must be just about to get a dog training cutie mark, and the dogs need to be near her for it to happen. Embracing this theory as obviously and self-evidently correct, they set out to get everything they need to train dogs, like a sled, and harnesses, a cliff, and a flaming ring. Or, if the cliff is not such a good idea, a gorge.
As the day continues, and the cutie mark remains just outside their reach, they eventually give up on the idea and start wondering how they're going to get the dogs to go back to their homes.
Meanwhile down in Ponyville the day is no worse than normal, as far as they care to consider. Certainly the cloud of toxic gas isn't in any way the Crusaders' fault. Nothing ever is.
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Tropes found in this story include:
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Behold the wonder that is Apple Bloom's listening-to-adults attention span:"Repeat after me," Big Mac said.
"Ah don't understand why y'want me t' —"
"Repeat after me, Apple Bloom. No argument. No backtalk. Say my words and only my words, so I know you understand them."
"All right..."
"When Winona is in heat —"
"When Winona is in heat —"
"— and sleeps on top of me —"
"— an' sleeps on top of me —"
"— I will smell like her —"
"— Ah will — really?"
"And just about every male dog in town will follow me, hoping I'll eventually lead them back to her."
"An' just about every stupid barking boy 'round here will chase mah hooves all day 'cause they think Ah'm gonna get 'em a date with Winona."
"So when my big brother tells me to take a bath, I will take a bath."
"You ain't got no big brother."
"Apple Bloom."
"Fine... when y'tell me t' take a bath, Ah'll take a bath. Even when Ah just had one the night before."
"Thank you," Big Mac said. - Cats Are Mean: Ultimately, when they realize they can't get the dogs to leave Apple Bloom alone, Sweetie decides to acquire the biggest gun she can: Opal, stuffed hastily into a bag for safety of transport.Opal emerged.
That was the short form. The one which stuck in Apple Bloom's dreams for years to come was 'a spitting, hissing, fur-fluffed, ears-back, claws-out spiraling unstoppable mass of purest fury and destruction emerged to wreak vengeance on everypony who had confined her'. And then some. - Comically Missing the Point: It may be only a matter of time before they decide there's a mark for it:Scootaloo: "Get what? That you wind up with a mark because you do perfectly ordinary things you're already good at and love doing, instead of trying cool stuff which nopony's ever done before?" A long pause. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"
- Confusing Multiple Negatives: Apple Bloom gets this one off concerning any need anypony might feel to teach her a lesson or punish her in any way: "It's not like Ah ain't never done nothin'..."The quadruple negative wrapped itself around her in a protective barrier, keeping reality out.
- The Dreaded: The Cutie Mark Crusaders are this for most of Ponyville's population, even though there is clearly absolutely no reason for it.
- Never My Fault: All three Crusaders. Even when they do acknowledge that any tiny portion of recent chaos might have had something to do with them, they still feel that the adults don't have their priorities in order. What's a little stampede and minor biohazard cloud compared to the infinite gain of a mark?
- Poor Communication Kills: Lampshaded at the story's ending; the whole reason that this latest disaster occurred was that Big Mac hadn't explicitly told Apple Bloom that letting an in-heat Winona rub against her would lead to Apple Bloom smelling like a bitch in heat herself. Instead, he just told her to have a bath and assumed Apple Bloom would figure out the reasons for it on her own, or at least he trusted her to obey him without question. This is why he tries to get Apple Bloom to Repeat After Me... which doesn't work out so well, given Apple Bloom's ability to get distracted. Although at least it's implied that she won't make this particular mistake again..
- Primal Fear: For at least two crusaders, the sight of raw meat inspires visceral loathing.
- Properly Paranoid: With regard to the Crusaders, all of Ponyville. Which is why they can't tell anypony what they're up to: ponies would just object for absolutely no good reason.
- Repeat After Me: Big Mac tries to get Apple Bloom to perform this with him towards the end of the story. She does it about as well as she does everything else under adult instruction: not at all.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After a couple of years of failed Crusaders, the activities of the trio aren't seen as cute or naive, but willfully ignorant and inherently dangerous. Many residences and farms have security spells up, there are multiple businesses which refuse to have anything to do with them, and it's mentioned in another story that some of the ponies who've moved into the settled zone since the Crusade started decided to deal with it by moving right back out again — the last of which has reached the point of producing a shrine to the fillies in the local moving supplies store. In general, the CMC can just about match Discord on bad reputation, and theirs is still dropping.
- Technicolor Science: Flankington's workshop. "Just don't knock over anything that's bubbling. Or glowing. Or smoking. Or... whatever that one's doing."
