5 years later

by HaloEssence111

Chapter Six: Home Again, Home Again

Chapter Six

That was...disturbing.

Sweetie Belle was trotting down Main Street, contemplating the scene she had just witnessed. What in the name of all things good and pure would possess Granny Smith jump out the window like a lunatic?! thought Sweetie.

Because she is a lunatic, dummy. (1)

Sweetie Belle pondered this as she continued to pad down the dirt road. But when the dirt road turned to glittering, multicolored quartz, she knew that she was at the newly renovated Carousel Boutique.(2) Sweetie strode down the glistening walkway and slipped in through the gem-studded doorway.

"Rarity! ...Hey, Rarity, where are you?"

"WAAAAAAAH!!!!(nom-nom-nom) WAAAAAAAHH..."

Sweetie Belle instinctively peeked into Rarity's bedroom, finding her sister sprawled out over her fainting couch several dozen ice cream cartons littering the carpet.

Sweetie Belle set down her saddlebags and took a seat next Rarity. "Hard day at work?"

"Like you wouldn't believe... (nom-nom-nom...)"

Sweetie Belle sighed and rolled her eyes. "What was it this time?"(3)

Rarity got up and stormed across the room to her dartboard.(4) Silently, she tacked up her Hoity Toity poster, then took a load of darts in her aura. Without warning, she gave a warrior-like scream, then began to fling darts towards the hated critic.

"Rarity! What are you doing?!"

"HOW-DARE-YOU-DESIGNS-NOT-TACKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Rarity's normally snowy white face was now a volcanic shade of red. Her expression was one of pure rage.

"Rarity, stop it! CALM DOWN!!! You're wrecking the room!!!" Rarity had run out of darts and had taken to grabbing whatever was nearest and hurling it at the dartboard.

C'mon, Sweetie Belle, think fast, think fast... thought Sweetie. You've got to find something to make her stop...

Then it hit her.

Magic. Of course! thought Sweetie Belle, her face lighting up in a grin. That day at school, during her Advanced Magic class, Twilight (5) had taught them a simple calming spell that would temporarily remove the target of all stress.(6)

Problem is, thought Sweetie Belle, Rarity's gotta stay still for me to cast the spell.(7)

Another spell came to mind. A paralysis charm might work...

Before Sweetie could change her mind, she reared back, concentrated, and cast.

It worked! Rarity collapsed as though made of stone. Her raging expression revealed that she had almost succeeded in impaling the dartboard with a poker.

Sweetie Belle walked over to where Rarity lay, and pressed the tip of her horn to Rarity's forehead. Sweetie's horn tip flickered, then produced a spark that dissolved itself into Rarity's skull. Sweetie Belle then performed the counter-charm to the paralysis spell, and Rarity seemingly came back to life.

"S-sweetie Belle? W-what did you do to me? One minute I'm furious, but now..."

"Rarity, just forget it."

***

"So Sweetie Belle, darling, tell me about your first day of school."

Rarity was chopping up some onions for soup, with Sweetie Belle next to her, making daisy sandwiches for the both of them. After Sweetie Belle had helped Rarity come to her senses after the dartboard incident, they had both gone into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Sweetie had already told about the Granny Smith scene (which Rarity found very alarming), and now Rarity was growing curious to what else had been going on that day.

"Eh, it was okay. The teachers were jerks, but other than that it was good."

Rarity looked a bit taken aback by this. "Why, Sweetie, whatever do you mean by the teachers were 'jerks'?"

"Some of the teachers were mean, some were super strict, and my dance teacher's name should have been Miss Peppy-Pants. But one of my teachers was really weird."

"How so, darling?"

"Well I have the same teacher for both Homeroom and History, and she seemed fine during first period, but when I got to history they said she'd called in sick so they had the Vice Principal take over."

"Who's the Vice Principal?"

"Spike."

(clatter)"WHAT?!!?"

Sweetie Belle looked at Rarity in surprise. "What's so surprising about that? Spike's good at his job, and Twilight trusts him."

"Yes, I suppose so..." said Rarity, picking up the spoon she had dropped with her magic. "But having my dear little spikey-wikey as the VICE PRINCIPAL of that enormous Academy... oh my, it's just so surprising. By the way, what did Spike do in class?"

"Oh, he just said 'Welcome to History, don't do anything stupid.' I guess that our real teacher will give us a better introduction."

"I'm sure that tomorrow she'll be in much better spirits so that she can do so."

"I guess..."

"Good. Now eat your soup."

"Whatever..."

***

What a day.

Twilight Sparkle sat at her desk, looking out the window from her office, positioned at the north tower of her Academy. Before her lay paperwork, endless piles of intense paperwork. Today had the 3rd first day of school for the relatively new Academy. Only three years before, Princess Celestia had granted her the means to build and run her own school. This had been a dream of Twilight's, ever since she had began to mentor the Cutie Mark Crusaders all those years ago.

Today had been rather unusual, even by first day of school standards. One of the lunch ladies quit after some students had "accidentally" bumped her into the dandelion casserole, so Twilight had to look for a replacement. The janitor was working overtime since somepony had barfed all over another student, causing a seemingly endless cycle of vomit between the two. And to top it all off, one of her teachers had called in sick that day right after lunch.

But it hadn't all been bad. Her speech was a success, after all. And Spike had done a pretty good job with teaching that one class that Miss Inkblot had dropped out of.

Although it did seem a bit odd that she would ask to go home early today of all days. After all, the only other time she'd ever called in sick was when some student had put some poison joke in her tea as a prank and her wings turned into octopus tentacles, spraying ink everywhere.

At least she lived up to her name. Twilight smirked as she remembered the incident.

Oh well, it was probably some sort of fume inhalation from when Prof. Pauldron botched that experiment today. How he managed to get horseradish, orange soda, and mermare scales to produce purple acid that eats through the glass beakers is beyond me.

Oh, well. thought Twilight, finishing with the last bits of paperwork on her desk. It's probably just a coincidence that she chose today to call in sick. She'll probably be back tomorrow.

Twilight got up, took the papers in her magic, and walked towards her office door. Even if today had been a bit unusual, it was still quite successful. Relieved that she could now return home to her library, she left, closing the door behind her.

But from miles away, somepony laughed, thrilled that he had fooled the most brilliant pony in Equestria.

***

(1)- As specified by chapter five.

(2)- Rarity had insisted that plain old cobblestone walkways were "tacky" and that the hot new trend for boutique owners was to redecorate their storefront with something that defined it. With nearly all of Rarity's designs having something to do with jewels, she decided that her store's theme would be "Gemstone Chic."

(3)- This actually wasn't very unusual behavior for Rarity. (as Sweetie Belle has discovered countless times.)

(4)- Yes, Rarity owns something as brutish and unladylike as a dartboard set. (I feel absolutely no remorse for adding this in)

(5)- Twilight got very annoyed during that day's lesson, Vinyl Scratch (the contemporary music teacher) had come in, calling Twilight not Headmistress Sparkle like the other teachers, but instead dubbing her "my homegirl."

(6)- Copied word-for-word from the Advanced Enchantments for the new Sorcerer: Level Ten.

(7)- The reason that Rarity has to stay still for the spell to work is that Sweetie Belle has to find a certain pressure point in her brain that will dull Rarity's anger long enough for her to come to her senses. Earth ponies and Pegasai can perform a similar trick, but it requires finding a very specific point on the upper neck and even then, it is not nearly as effective and doesn't last very long.

Author's Note:

If any of you haven't noticed, I'm pretty much through with exposition at this point and will soon be getting on to the actual story.

Please comment if you would like to suggest anything. Hope you liked this chapter!

P.S. Did you guys like the footnotes at the bottom? I'm trying to experiment and see what works. Comment if you like it!

Comments

[cowbrony93]

I do very much enjoy the footnotes, for further use of footnotes for humor, look at some of RealityCheck's fics. They are consistently in Tvtropes Funny page and if you don't know Tvtropes, sorry

[Blu_Ray]

I like the idea of footnotes, but I think they would work better in a smaller font size. (Just a suggestion.) Overall, I think that was a good idea; it really helps clarify things!