To throw light on a Diamond

by TwiwnB

Failing badly

The morning came with a brand new sun, and with it another few hours spent in school. Way too long hours for the trio of friends who wanted to finally go out and sell the lemonade they had been doing, and re-doing, and doing once again after they had failed a few times, until they had obtained the perfect beverage they were looking for.
So they waited, and waited, until there were only about thirty minutes left on the clock they were all staring at since the beginning of class. Then, Cheerilee spoke something about giving back the marks of the last math exam. They had forgotten about it, so wrapped up as they had been in their plan for the near future, but they quickly recovered and waited to receive their copy and see how well they had performed.
First Scootaloo got a C, which satisfied her because she hadn’t studied much for that exam and thought it was a show of her talent to have received a pretty good grade for so little effort. Then Sweetie Belle got a B, which she was only upset about, because Applebloom, on her side, got an A and made the two other understand it in a very loud celebration. The three fillies, relieved to have passed the exam, eventually began to laugh and joke about it and would have soon forgotten about the whole thing if Cheerilee hadn’t stopped before Diamond Tiara, sighed and given her her test with only one comment:

“Diamond Tiara, we need to talk about this.”

The filly didn’t respond to the teacher and almost ignored her test, pushing the paper back with her hoof in disdain.
Curious to what might need a talk with Cheerilee, Applebloom, who was near enough, looked above Diamond Tiara’s shoulder and saw the mark. A grin appeared on her face: their arch nemesis had gotten a very big and red F, and, which was even better, zero points at all from the whole test.

She immediately got scolded by Cheerilee as she was bursting out laughing, but honestly couldn’t prevent herself to, as couldn’t her two friends and a part of the class when they understood what was going on. All those who Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had been picking on were having their sweet revenge right there and had the intention to profit from every second they could.
It took a moment for Cheerilee to bring back the calm and she made it clear she wouldn’t tolerate any more bad behavior from any foal or filly. Understanding they had crossed the line, they all stopped and repented, just a little as they still felt Diamond Tiara had gotten what she deserved.
The bell rang eventually, freeing all the fillies and foals present, as well as a worried Cheerilee who reminded Diamond Tiara she should stay for a very serious talk.

Do I have to spell what a great day it was for the cutie mark crusaders? At that very moment, they were opening their lemonade stand, had a fresh memory of Diamond Tiara’s last day’s screw up, had just gotten another sweet laugh to compensate years of abuse and couldn’t but see the future with a very optimistic mind. Not only that, but once their stand got opened, they sold five glass of lemonade in less than thirty minutes.
In other words, everything was going in the best possible way, until, just like a never ending curse, the unbearable condescending tone of Diamond Tiara’s voice got heard:

“Why am I even surprised?” she told the three friends. “I shouldn’t even waste my saliva on you, there is no redemption when you’ve hit rock bottom. You don’t even get to grasp the roots in your fall. I really would like to know: how does it feel to be a bunch of low life losers?”

“Yeah!” immediately replied Scootaloo with a smile, “Tell us how it feels to be a loser.” she said, returning the question. “We are not the one with failure written over our math test.”

“No, that would require for you to have some sort of intellect.” responded Diamond Tiara. “But you are dumb enough to persist in that stupid childish lemonade stand of yours.”

“It’s not stupid!” said Applebloom.

“We are children!” said Sweetie Belle at the exact same time.

They looked at each other, having some difficulty to understand the meaning of their different answers. But Diamond Tiara didn’t let them enough time to think about it. She sighed, came near the stand, looked around and saw the barrel of lemonade as well as the price per glass the three fillies were selling it. She seemed to stare into nowhere for a few seconds and then asked:

“How much for the whole barrel? I offer you forty bits.”

“What?” shouted the three fillies in one harmonious but very surprised entity.

They tried to understand what Diamond Tiara’s plan could be there, but it was just too opaque. So they considered her proposal and it was kind of tempting. Given Diamond Tiara was really going to pay, they could earn the product of a day of work in a few seconds, which was great. And forty bits were way enough for the gifts they wanted to offer their big sisters. Still, it was Diamond Tiara, so they felt like negotiating.

“We want sixty bits!” said Sweetie Belle.

Their nemesis offered forty five, and slowly they all agreed to sell the barrel for fifty bits. Then, to the three fillies’ surprise, Diamond Tiara put the money down on the table.

“So the barrel is mine now, right?” she asked, to make sure the transaction was done.

“I guess so…” replied Applebloom, not sure why the bully was suddenly giving them money.

But her face turned pale when she saw Diamond Tiara come to the barrel and knock it over, pouring its content on the ground.

“Hey! We spent hours preparing that lemonade!” complained Scootaloo, regretting to have sold it as she was realizing she had no right to intervene anymore.

“Yes, and you sold it to me for half its trading value, so you also lost about fifty bits today.” replied Diamond Tiara. “So I can ask you again. How does it feel to be complete losers?”

They didn’t answer. Of course they didn’t care much about how much money they could have earned, as they had earned enough in they own eyes, but they didn’t care about money at all as they were enraging over all their efforts stupidly and unfairly thrown on the ground like that. It felt insulting. It was also hurting a lot.

But as there wasn’t much they could do there, the three fillies just kept watching the lemonade flowing out of the barrel. Suddenly, an unexpected question came from the one guilty for their pain:

“Tell me. Would you like to crawl out of those miserable pathetic childish plans of yours and work on a real project with real perspectives and maybe make a difference for a change?”

They weren’t sure to have heard the words very well, as it wasn’t making much sense to them, but Diamond Tiara repeated herself.

“What do you mean?” asked Sweetie Belle. “You want us to work with you on something?”

“Are you joking?” replied Diamond Tiara. “What pony in its right mind would want to work with you. No: I want you to work for me.”

“Forget it!” told her Applebloom. “There is no way I’m working for someone as dumb and mean like you.”

“Then keep on being pathetic, see if I care.” angrily replied Diamond Tiara. “I offer to make you benefit from my genius and I only offer it once. You’ve got until tomorrow to change your mind. If you do, come to my house at noon and we will discuss real business.”

She looked at each crusader with a grin and added:

“But I guess you prefer to keep on selling some lame lemonade. You could even paint a cutie mark on those blank flanks of yours and be lemonade sellers for the rest of your petty lives. It’s probably the best you could hope to achieve on your own.”

And saying those last words, she hit the empty barrel with her hoof and went away laughing for a reason she was probably the only one to understand, leaving three angry and upset fillies behind her.

“Who does she take herself for?” asked Applebloom, who was regretting not to have straight up punched the little brat when she had a chance. “Does she really believe we would lower ourselves to work for her? No way!”

“Yeah!” confirmed Scootaloo. “We are way better than she is. How can she even hope we would waste our time helping her?”

A silence ensued, as they were waiting for Sweetie Belle to make a third clear confirmation that there was no way they would comply with Diamond Tiara’s offer. But it didn’t come. Both Scootaloo and Applebloom looked at their friend, who had come near the barrel, and stared as if they were saying: “come on, it’s your turn.” But Sweetie Belle still stayed silent.

“Don’t tell me you’re even considering it!” suddenly said, horrified at the thought, Scootaloo. “We are not helping her.”

Sweetie Belle still didn’t answer and just kept on looking at the empty barrel.

“Please Sweet’…” said Applebloom, “You know Diamond Tiara. She is all of the worst sins of ponykind put in one filly. Don’t you remember Gabby Gums? Let’s just forget about it all and go buy those gifts for our big sisters.”

But once again Sweetie Belle just kept on looking at the empty barrel.

And so her two friends understood that they were embarking into an adventure they were almost certain they wouldn’t like, not one bit.