Supermare or how Scootaloo did her math homework

by TwiwnB

The resurgence of Supermare

Author's Note:

"There is no greater challenge than to learn everything you knew all over again."
Quote from an unknown teacher who had lost his lesson notes.

“I was in a pool!” almost shouted in panic the masked mare. “What was a pool doing in your room, what happened!?!” she asked Scootaloo as if the filly would have been able to explain something that crazy.

“We have a pool?” asked back Scootaloo with both incredulity and some excitement as she would have liked to have a pool in her room.

Supermare looked around, saw no pool, nothing at all but the eyes of the little filly in front of her and the quiet of the night. She took a long, good breath, simmered down, snorted, which projected water all around, and then sat.

“Alright.” she said, mostly to make sure she was still sane. “The important thing right now is you, I’ll figure out what happened later.” she told Scootaloo as she was more determined than ever to give the filly all the help that was required.

Scootaloo smiled in gratitude. There was something in that mare’s dedication that was making her wanting to believe in her. The more the filly was looking at her, the more she was convinced she would be able to help her.

“Well, let’s begin, shall we?” the mare said.

She never got a chance to. A bright flashed lit the whole room, blinding Scootaloo for a few seconds, and when the filly opened her eyes again, Supermare was gone and in her place was standing Twilight with the wildest mane ever, big shadows under her crazy eyes and a cup of coffee lifted into the air by her magic.

“Here you are!” almost shouted the alicorn. “You wouldn’t believe how many teleportation I had to do in order to find you.”

Twelve. The princess of friendship hadn’t counted, of course, but she had teleported twelve times, counting one trip to the mayor’s bedroom who thought Equestria was under attack, one trip that woke up Zecora who just went back to sleep and one trip to Vynil Scratch’s house where she had accidentally turned on the music and woken up the entire area.

“Applebloom came to my castle and told me you wanted to learn about mathematics!” Twilight explained with a tone that was making her sound like she was living in another dimension. “I came to help as soon as I heard the news.”

For some unknown reason, Scootaloo’s instinct told her not to put too much hope into the princess, as something seemed to indicate Twilight wasn’t feeling very well. Another part of Scootaloo’s mind, however, said that nopony better than the smart Twilight could help explain how those mathematic thingies could work. So, taking the opportunity that was offered to her, Scootaloo said:

“It’s true… I’ve got some difficulties to make additions.”

It was like a lightning had touched the alicorn. She took Scootaloo by the hand, put her on a chair and then made a board appear through her magic.

“Okay. The first thing to know when it comes to addition in mathematics is in which base you are calculating.” Twilight quickly explained. “because even if the thinking structure is exactly the same whatever base we use, the result can vary greatly between each base.”

Scootaloo was only wondering if Twilight was explaining baseball and why she would do so.

“You see, we usually use a base ten, which is why the numbers ten, hundred, thousand etcetera have such a great importance in the casual way to view mathematics.” the princess said. “However!” she added in a sudden burst, “It is a great mistake to think those are the only one we use. We actually count with a base sixty when it comes to seconds and minutes, and in a base twenty four when it comes to hours. I must add that the base sixty also comes from a base twelve which we still struggle to explain as we only have two front hooves.”

Scootaloo was wondering what time it was and if she shouldn’t be sleeping already.

“Now, if we are to add up thirty and thirty together, in a base ten, we would obtain sixty, because those are two times three and three of the second level of aggregation units, which makes six times the second aggregation units, the second aggregation unit being ten, which makes six times ten and therefore sixty.”

Scootaloo was thinking this was all pure genius. Not that she could understand one tiny bit of it, but it sounded very smart at least.

“Now in base twelve, thirty plus thirty would make five times the second level of aggregation units. As we have no name for such a unit, we could call it a dozen and therefore thirty plus thirty would make five dozen, a fizen if you want to make the same contraction as sixty is for six times ten.”

Now Scootaloo was bored. And somewhat scared, as she was beginning to realize Twilight wasn’t to stop. Even more, the alicorn was drinking sip after sip of coffee and her cup seemed to never empty itself as the flow of words from the princess’s mouth was increasing by the second.

“Now, you’ll ask, what if we were to count with a base one? Well, it’s very simple you see, we would have to create a new level of aggregation unit for each new number we add up.”

It was becoming very scary for the poor filly who began to seek a way out of that predicament.

“But what if we were to count with a base zero point five now? Well, that’s a very good question that I haven’t really thought about… but we can do it together!” Twilight almost exploded in the insurance she had that Scootaloo and her would be working all night to solve that particular problem.

“Actually, Twilight, I don’t need help with my homework like Applebloom told you…” tried to say Scootaloo.

The alicorn stopped, considered the new data that she had to compute, and came to the conclusion that she must have had misheard what type of help she was supposed to give, but that she was supposed to help with something nonetheless.

“So… what is it you need my help with then?” she asked Scootaloo with the same tone of passion and madness. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!” she added, expected something really challenging.

“Well…” began Scootaloo, having no idea what to say at that point. “I need you to…”

She was stuck. She looked around, saw no way out, so she made a quick prayer to find an idea to make Twilight go away solve any problem she might want to invent for herself. And then she remembered a pony she had heard while walking in the streets of Ponyville who was complaining about the plumbing.

“I need you to go help with the plumbing.” she said.

“The plumbing?” suspiciously asked Twilight, due to the big gap there was from homework to plumbing.

“Huh… yeah! Sure. There is something stuck in one of the pipe, I think. Something like that.” Scootaloo said with her best smile, hoping it would work.

And it worked. Twilight decided that it she wouldn’t close her eyes until she would have found what was clogging the pipes, drank her cup of coffee that magically filled itself, then left Scootaloo’s room to go to the basement and study the plumbing of the house.