For being a superpony, I sure had to do a lot of planning in the morning. I heard von Cooties step from her room and head downstairs—but still I waited. When Mom yelled for the third time I knew it was the perfect time. Grabbing my bag and tossing it on my back, I trotted out of my room and down the stairs. "I am running late, Mom! Can't slow down!" I turned for the door, completely ignoring everything.
"Shining Armor!" Mom sounded angry, but she wasn't anywhere near her maximum level yet. I reached the door, only to find it glowing with Mom's glowy magic. "You will come here right now young stallion."
As I turned, I noticed the window wasn't open; Mom was learning. "What, Mom? I am going to be really late!" I trotted over to her and looked up. The storm-cloud of an upset frown swung completely to a warm smile. This was so much worse than angry-Mom ever could be, for one I couldn't possibly defy her.
"You are going to walk Cadance to school with you, Shining, and you need to straighten your mane." I felt Mom's magic start working at my mane and realized I was completely trapped. "And don't worry about being late, I talked to the school already."
"Oh, so we can wait until after lunch? Awesome!" My comic books waited for me, were practically singing my name from my room. I got two steps before Mom's grip on my mane tightened.
"I don't want to be a fuss Mrs. Velvet. I know where the school is, and I don't want to make Shining late." The wave of cootie-stench was almost overwhelming as Cadance walked up beside Mom. Her left wing held two packed lunches, and clearly both were mine.
"See? No fuss!" I used my own magic to grab for both bags, trying to get them away from the Queen of Cooties. Our eyes locked and I realized I had a tougher opponent than I initially thought; maybe she wasn't a queen after all, Empress of Extremely-Bad-Smells. "My lunch?" I gave a gentle tug on both packages again.
"Here you are." Cadance was using mind-games: she only passed me half of my lunch.
"There," Mom gave one last tug on my mane, "all done. Now be nice and show Cadance around, dear." All I could do, it seemed, was huff a reply and stomp outside.
"Bye Mrs. Velvet!" Cadance was wasting time. Of course I was going to show her how to get to school… if she could keep up. I glanced back—from the end of the street—and saw Cadance chasing after me with her wings flicking furiously. "Wait up!"
Dashing around the corner, I was out of sight (and thankfully smell) of her. With the school in sight I charged at a gallop—SuperStallion flew! The wind blew past my face, and I saw other foals heading in to first class. As I reached the door and the end of the line of foals both, I stopped and panted.
"Hey, Shining." The voice of my best buddy got my full attention. "Hey, who is that?" I saw Flash just inside and, puffing out my chest like the hero I was, clopped my way up to him.
Watching where he pointed, I saw Her. "We gotta run. She has crazy cootie powers. If you are close enough to smell her you will be done-for!" Shock registered on his face a moment before it turned hard. You can always trust a good friend to know when it was time to take everything absolutely seriously as I thought the words, Flash grabbed me and pulled me further inside.
"Then we have to warn everypony!" Flash looked left, then right. "All the colts will be safe until at least tomorrow, none of them are stupid enough to approach a cootie-infested-filly." I nodded along with his reasoning.
"So we have to warn the other fillies." I lifted a hoof up to stroke the tiny bit of white fuzz of my chin—it's what Dad did when he had to think. "I've got it! We tell them she is so stinky all the foals at her last school had to leave, and the teachers too, and if anypony gets too close they will start to smell too and have to leave school!"
Flash was staring at me in shock. For a moment I wondered if the Ultimate Empress of Cooties was behind me, but then he opened his mouth. "That is the best plan I have ever heard. It can't fail!"
"But there is a problem with it." Admitting there was a problem with my master plan was disheartening, but essential to working around the problem. Flash stared at me with a look of shock and curiosity. "One of us needs to talk to fillies." I lifted my hoof and set it on Flash's shoulder. "I couldn't ask you to do it, Flash."
"I volunteer!" Flash stood straight as a die, his little wings raised in the air. "Sir! I need to do this. For Equestria!" I watched him charge past me without a word, if I said something it might break his nerve.
Somepony began ringing the bell for first class, and so I queued up to head in with the others. Flash trotted up to me, looking proud as punch. "How did it go?"
"I spoke to Cheerilee." Flash's cheek had a suspicious amount of blush in it. I sniffed him and almost coughed—he stank of filly. You brave soldier. You will be remembered my thought was focused on my best friend, and how that could have been me. "She said she would warn all the other fillies to keep away from her."
Opening my mouth to reply, I found it too late to talk to my friend; class was starting. Once everypony had their seats, I noticed that Cadance was nowhere to be seen. In my special school book—the one reserved for drawing in when a teacher wasn't looking at me—I began to draw stinky pink fillies with flies and stuff zooming around them, and bonus stink lines.
"Class," Miss Apple addressed the whole class, "we have a new student joining us today." She gestured to the door. Sure enough, it opened to reveal Cadance wearing a big smile. "Please make Mi Amore Cadenza welcome."
Mi Amore Stinky Plot I wrote the words under the drawing I made and grinned. As I watched, a glorious thing happened: Cadance walked up to an empty desk and sat down, while the sound of desks being scraped on the floor echoed through the room as other foals tried to keep their distance.
Too distracted to pay attention to a mere maths class, I focused on my drawings, and by the time class was over I had quite the collection of stinky fillies in my book. And a worn-out pink pencil. A good thing, pink is totally a filly color, best it be gone forever I thought as I looked at the nub.
"Hey Shining, class is over!" Flash bopped me in the side of the head once, so I turned to face him and lowered my horn. "Whoa, calm down!"
Calm was my surface. I was SuperStallion in disguise as I walked slowly from class. As we got outside with our lunches, I carefully set mine down and launched myself at Flash. "SuperStallion never fights where there could be co-lingual damage!" Flash was good at fighting too, though, and gave as good as he got.
Soon we were both puffing hard; a truce had been called. "SuperStallion, shall we team up?" Flash pointed out into the playground, right at the perilous pink pegasus. "A foe greater than any we have faced threatens Equestria!" This was why Flash was literally the second best colt ever: he got what really mattered.
"Of course!" Floating both our lunches over, I opened mine and gave Flash his. "It looks like your warning worked, Colt Wonder, everypony is keeping their distance." I bit into the candied apple Mom had packed, the sweet treat melting in my mouth.
"Hi Flash." The tone was all wrong. My ears twitched at the slight lisp of a mouth filled with metalwork. I turned my head to trace the path to where my ears were pointing, only to see Cheerilee. The apple I was eating turned sour, clouds filled the sky and it began to rain. Well, maybe just the first bit. "I told all the other fillies, but are you sure she really stunk out a whole school?"
Flash had taken a direct hit to his colty-smell for me, I had to back him up. "Of course! Didn't you hear about it? Some town," I waved my candy-apple off into the vast distance, "oh, of course you wouldn't have, not now. She was so stinky…" I had both Flash and Cheerilee hanging on my every word, perfect. "… they abandoned the town. Even the timber wolves ran away." I lowered my head, considering the topic well-closed.
A combined gasp from Flash and Cheerilee was my signal to sink the nail in the coffin, but when I looked up I saw them both hugged together in their fear. My mind raced to deal with the level of cootie-infestation my friend was suffering from. Don't show fear I thought, as I lowered my apple back into my bag. Inhaling slowly, I used my magic to aim the hose at them just before turning on the tap.
"Shining Armor!" At Miss Apple's yell I let go of hose and tap; my horn snuffing out to hide what I had done. She was yelling, of course, because Cheerilee and Flash were yelling. "Turn that hose o—" Oops, the hose was whipping around and now Miss Apple was just as soaked as Flash. I looked around, found my lunch-bag and tried to make a run for it.
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
"Why did you spray Flash Sentry and Cheerilee with the hose?" Principal Tutor gave me the same sigh as Dad did when he found me doing something that had a long and complicated series of reasons as to why it had to happen. "Well?" Oh no, I waited too long to reply. At least this time there was a simple answer.
"Cooties." I nodded. It explained everything. But when the Principal raised one eyebrow—and held it there impressively—I felt my iron resolve start to squish like jello. "Cheerilee was covering Flash with cooties. I saved his life." I puffed out my chest proudly.
"And then Miss Crab Apple had these… cooties… too?" I sighed in relief at the Principal's words—she understood.
I nodded. "All fillies have them, and I heard Mom say last week that she knew Miss Apple in school when she was a filly. At least now we know she doesn't have them anymore."
"Young Stallion, I can promise you that every filly, and ex-filly, is given a complete and thorough de-cootying before being allowed into a classroom." The Principal's words surprised me, I looked on in growing awe as she continued. "Twice. And I can promise that no pony on these school grounds has cooties anymore."
"You… are… the… BEST!" I jumped up onto her desk and held my hoof high for a bump, and of course I got one. "Thanks Principal Tutor!"
The Principal's hoof rubbed my mane. "Now go back to class, and be sure to apologize to Miss Apple for soaking her without reason. I promise you she is cootie-free." I snapped a sharp salute—that I had been totally practicing with one of the Royal Guards that patrols down our street—and turned for a high-speed desk dismount.
Class was the same (this was geography), so I was back at my desk after a mumbled "Sorry" to the teacher. Opening my book, I looked up attentively, and noticed Cadance was still dealing with an "exclusion zone." My magic picked up a pencil and I began to draw again. I was about to add the stink-lines and flies, when something hit me She doesn't have cooties anymore, the Principal cleaned them off!
The nub of my pink pencil soon turned into not even a nub. A nubette? A nubling? Diet nub? I launched it at the trash basket up front when Miss Apple had her back turned. "Flash?" I leaned over to my soggy best friend. "Can I borrow a pink pencil?"
Flash stared at me with daggers in his eyes. There was a tense moment when I thought a war was about to start, but then at the last moment he used a little wing to pluck one from his case. "Here." It was just about the most disappointing gift I had ever gotten—I could have done with another fight.
"Thanks." I tuned class out completely, everything faded into background scratching in my mind while I worked. A bit more fluffy here. A more rounded curve to her jaw. I looked briefly at Cadance, trying to judge how feathery her wings were.
I almost didn't notice the bell ring, and Flash got up and left without me. I sat alone, finishing my drawing. I was completely focused until I heard the sob. SuperStallion was on duty right away, and although it sounded like a filly I would not turn down a distress call. Then I saw the source of the sob: Cadance.
My heart beat faster, she hadn't even seen I was here, she thought she was alone. SuperStallion couldn't stand a pony crying, however. Getting up and grabbing my bag, I walked over to her. "W-W-What's wrong?"
"Nopony likes me. They all run away when I try to make friends, even the other fillies!" A slight tingling built in my heart at the explanation. I tried to follow as she broke into full tears now. "I thought it would be different here, I didn't think anypony would hate me just because of how I look."
I wasn't SuperStallion anymore. I stepped closer, closer than the desks that had been pulled away from hers. "I… I am sorry." I felt terrible. It was obvious what had happened, I had made a pony cry. I stepped closer still. "I didn't mean to—"
Fear filled me. If I was a pegasus, my wings would be standing on end. Cadance was wrapped around my neck hugging me. "I just don't know why they all ran away?!"
"It was my fault." Mom had always told me that when you really mess up, only the truth can save you. "I told Flash to tell them all that you were stinky." Her sobbing stopped at least, but when Cadance jerked her head back from me I could still see tears in her eyes. More was needed. "I am sorry I did that, you don't…"
"What?" I never knew one word from a filly could demand so much. I looked into her eyes.
"You don't deserve that. I get a little carried away sometimes." I was done for. I couldn't close my mouth now that her eyes bored into me. I had to keep talking, had to fix what I had done. "I will confess tomorrow, I'll tell them it was all a fib…" I saw a slight smile pull at her lips, and then it all sunk home for me: a filly was hugging me, smiling, and staring into my eyes. "Oh b…"
I ran. I bolted. I galloped for all I was worth and didn't look back.