Diamond Tiara looked at the clock that was showing five past noon, and looked once again outside by the door, but saw nopony.
“You know they won’t come.” said Silver Spoon. “I don’t even understand why you would want to use those three blank flanks. There would screw up any plan you make anyway.”
The doorbell interrupted them and soon Matt, their domestic, came to announce three fillies wanted to see her, having supposedly got some appointment that would have been schedule.
A few minutes later, the cutie mark crusaders were introduced in the huge living room, torn apart between their will to not feel impressed, and the fact they were really impressed by Filthy Rich mansion.
“So you came in the end. I may have underestimated you. Maybe you do have some sparkle of intelligence left somewhere.” greeted them Diamond Tiara.
“That’s it, I’m out of here.” said Scootaloo, already turning back.
“You promised you would stay for five minutes.” said Applebloom, glancing at Sweetie Belle who was the real reason they were here, as she had said she would go alone if necessary. They had followed her as they thought it would be very unwise to let anypony alone with some satanic entity like Diamond Tiara.
“You should listen to your friend.” said the latter. “How are you going to achieve anything if you flee as soon as you’re confronted with some truth you happen to dislike?”
Scootaloo hesitated, remembered she was there for Sweetie Belle and finally turned back once again, sat and clenched her teeth, waiting for the moment she could go away.
“You said you had a project you wanted to involve us into. What is it?” asked Sweetie, cutting down the chase.
Diamond Tiara smiled and clapped her two front hooves together, making a part of the wall lift up and reveal a chart, or a poster with a bottle in the middle.
“Water. That’s my project. You are going to sell water.” she told them.
The three fillies looked at each other and felt the same shared need to giggle.
“Water, seriously?” laughingly asked Applebloom, “This has to be the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Okay, she made us laugh. Now let’s go.” summed up Scootaloo.
But Diamond Tiara wasn’t finished:
“In a few weeks, you’ll have earned more than you could have in a few years with those little pitiful schemes of yours. And if everything goes as planned, you may become very famous.”
“All that with water?” sarcastically asked Applebloom. “I’m sure it works that way in that little fantasy of yours, but this is the real world. You do know that there is water all over Equestria, right?”
But the argument didn’t even scratch Diamond Tiara’s determination. She went behind her desk and just said:
“I already created the prototype of the product with a designer team. But I’ve decided to give you the honor being the directors of the company. In name only, as I’ll call all the shots. We don’t want to go bankrupt, now, do we?”
The three fillies were about to reply, but she interrupted them:
“You.” she said, pointing at Scootaloo with her hoof. “You’ll take the sport version of the product and test it with that Rainbow Dash friend of yours and her own competitive friends, saying the idea is yours. You’ll tell them that this water is purer than normal water and helps improve their performance and their overall health.” she then threw some papers at Scootaloo’s hooves and added: “Here are the details of how you are to present the product to them. Take notes about their reactions and then report back here.”
Scootaloo was about to ask a series of questions, but Diamond Tiara didn’t care the least bit and let Silver Spoon explain the details while taking the pegasus away.
“You.” then said Diamond Tiara, pointing at Sweetie Belle with her hoof. “You’ll take the premium version of the product and test it with your big sister and all of her upper society friends, saying the idea is yours. You’ll tell them that the water is clean from all the mud normal water usually go through, and that it comes from the peak of the Canterlot mountain. Point out that true ladies and gentlecolts shouldn’t drink water that came from some plebeian well, but only the highest quality of water provided by true professional. Take notes about their reactions and then report back here.”
Sweetie Belle wasn’t sure she would remember everything, and sort of wondered if it was okay to lie to her big sister about who the idea was coming from, but she received the pack of papers containing the details as Scootaloo had before and got taken away by Silver Spoon who began explaining the details.
Finally, Diamond Tiara turned to Applebloom who asked:
“And what should I be doing. Are you going to try to sell my family some water? Because you might be heading for a disappointment there.”
The idea made Applebloom smile, as she was hoping Diamond Tiara would be disappointed in the end, but the answer didn’t please her much:
“Of course I’m not trying to sell anything to your family. Why would I, it’s not like they could purchase anything anyway.” Diamond Tiara replied, ignoring Applebloom’s angry look, “I’ve got a much more important task for you. I want you to go to our newly crown princess Twilight Sparkle and convince her to take a few bottles of water as a gift from you for her next trip to Canterlot. You’ll ask her to share it with the other princesses, saying you’ve worked very hard to make them happy and that you hope it will please them. Be persuasive, don’t fail your friends and more importantly don’t fail me.”
“That’s it?” asked Applebloom, surprised. “All I’ve got to do is offer a few bottle of waters to Twilight?”
“Yes.” replied Diamond Tiara, with a half smile. “But make sure you offer a lot of bottles, make sure you say they come from you, make sure she knows you made it with all your heart and put a lot of effort into it and finally make sure you offer them just before she departs for Canterlot, which is in about six hours from now.”
“But won’t I be lying?” asked Applebloom. “I didn’t work on those bottles of yours and I don’t really care about them at all, and Applejack says it’s wrong to lie to people and…”
She got interrupted by Diamond Tiara who wasn’t in the mood to hear every little doubts Applebloom may have had.
“Just do as I say, and make it so our princess believes you.” she ordered. “If you really feel bad, you can always tell her the truth when she comes back from her trip, right? Just make a temporary lie. It’s not even really a lie if you plan to say the truth in the end. Do that and your family will be so proud of you they won’t even care if you were to lie at every word you speak.”
She then gave Applebloom the papers with the details and let Silver Spoon take her away to explain all the remaining details. Then, finally alone, she smiled to hide the fact she was relieved to have been able to distract those three fillies from their doubts about winning money by selling water.
She was relieved because she knew they wouldn’t have understood, even if she had explained it for a whole day. And she hadn’t got a day anyway. But, as she was thinking, with a little bit of luck and her big genius, everything would go very smoothly and be a big success.
Alone behind her desk, Diamond Tiara burst out laughing with such an evil tone that some pegasus, maybe even paid by her, felt obligated to trigger some lightning to provide a good background.
The next day, the three fillies came, saw Matt at the door who took them to Diamond Tiara and they made their report.
“Rainbow Dash…” difficultly began Scootaloo, as the words were kind of hurting her as she was saying them, “Rainbow Dash loved it. She asked me if we were going to make more of it and if she could preorder some.” the pegasus then blushed and added: “She said I was great for having had such a good idea and that she was proud of me.”
“Same result by my big sister and her friends.” said Sweetie Belle, who had some hard time believing it. “She told me I had better find more of that water soon, because she now refuses to drink the water we used to drink all the time.” she also added, just to notice it out loud: “It’s crazy.”
Satisfied with those reports, Diamond Tiara turned to Applebloom, who didn’t seem very happy, as she had had to lie and felt she had been cheated.
“Twilight accepted the bottles of water and even thanked me.” Applebloom explained with shame. “She just told me the form of the bottle wasn’t optimal to stock a big amount of water, whatever she meant by that, and said she would be sure to offer some to the other princesses to show what little fillies from Ponyville are able to achieve.”
“Perfect.” said Diamond Tiara, clearly satisfied with those reports, as everything was going following her plan. “My own tests with some of dad’s friends show similar results. To think nopony thought of putting water into bottles!”
“Nopony thought of it because it’s stupid!” replied Scootaloo. “Why would anypony want to have a bottle of water when they are well, and rivers, and even faucets to get free water from?”
“The grown up don’t seem to think it’s stupid.” replied Diamond Tiara, shutting up all opposition with that simple observation.
“So what now?” asked Applebloom. “More lies?”
“Now we sell our product. I’ll use my dad’s network to make sure our bottles of water are sold all over Equestria.” said Diamond Tiara.
“And us?” asked Sweetie Belle. “Are we selling those bottles too?”
Diamond Tiara sighed.
“Of course no!” she almost yelled. “Have you still not learned anything at all? Let the lesser ponies sell the water. You are going to promote it. Or more precisely, your big sisters are going to promote it. I’ll pay you a trip all over Equestria and I’ll give you a list of ponies to contact. You’ll explain them how you came with the idea, your vision of the product and how you always dreamed of bringing quality water to everypony. Be sure to smile and to be convincing. And don’t forget to offer some bottles of water to those ponies.”
The three fillies hesitated, but they couldn’t see anything wrong with going on a paid journey all over Equestria with their big sisters, and so they agreed. They received, once again, detailed instructions about what they had to say to whom, but this time Diamond Tiara left the room with a satisfied smile leaving Silver Spoon who began explaining the details.
But as the latter was caught in trying to explain why Scootaloo couldn’t chose where they would go during the trip, as everything had already been planned, Sweetie Belle saw a certain piece of paper on Diamond Tiara’s desk that caught up her attention.
She made sure she wasn’t seen and took it to look at it. It was the math test Diamond Tiara had failed so badly and that had leaded her to have to talk with Cheerilee. Sweetie Belle began to snigger, when she suddenly realized something was odd with the test. The answers were false, for sure, but there were false in a very weird way. For example, when asked how much four minus three was, Diamond Tiara had answered zero. And then, when asked how much six minus two was, Diamond Tiara had answered three. Or when asked how much twelve minus three was, Diamond Tiara had answered eight. Sweetie Belle’s brain made the necessary connections and the little filly suddenly realized something that she couldn’t understand just yet, but that she felt was going against everything she had believed since the very beginning. Something about Diamond Tiara. Something important.
But she got no time to think about it as Silver Spoon saw she wasn’t listening and took her to explain, once again, how the journey was going to go, and before they all knew it, the three fillies, plus Rainbow Dash and Rarity, were in a train, without much time to realize what was going on, riding to a new town, as the newspaper were announcing some new innovating product in store created by three little geniuses…