//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Victorious // Story: Freedom Of Choice // by Closer-To-The-Sun //------------------------------// The next day, all of the votes were tallied. The day seemed to go on as normal for every creature at the school. That is, except for Ocellus. The changeling seemed to be extremely concerned about what was once a guaranteed victory in the election. However, Smolder’s lackadaisical attitude and extreme campaign promises seemed to inspire the student body. It came as a shock to Ocellus when the results were announced, with Smolder winning. “You? The student body president?” Ocellus asked, “Really?” “That’s the fifth time you said that this morning,” Smolder commented as the two walked the hallway to the mess hall for breakfast. “I’m well aware, and it still feels wrong to say,” she stated, shaking her head in disbelief. Smolder made her way down the hallway with pride in each step she took, “I don’t know why you find it so hard to believe. I’m truly presidential material! And presidential is my middle name!” Ocellus was quick to correct, “No. No, it’s not. It’s actually Pyrite.” She then pulled a piece of paper with some writing on it, “Look, I took the liberty of preparing a letter of resignation for you. This would allow you to step down as student body president, abdicate power to your runner up, myself, and this will allow you to focus your time on what’s important to you….” Ocellus paused for a moment to think of what that would be, “which I guess is burning things?” “That’s the old me, Ocellus,” Smolder replied, “Now, I have become a servant to my fellow students.” “But you didn’t even want to run for class president in the first place!” Ocellus raised her voice slightly. She quickly covered her mouth to keep herself from growing louder. “I’m sorry, but school has spoken, Ocellus.” “This school is full of morons!” Again, Ocellus covered her mouth after raising her voice, “Sorry, that was rude of me, but it’s true!” “And I shall lead these morons as the biggest moron of them all!” Smolder proclaimed with pride as she opened the doors to the mess hall. Inside the mess hall, the rest of the student body was there, eating their first meal of the day. Upon entering the room, Smolder made her way to the nearest table. She stepped up on the seat first and then up onto the table itself, elevating her to the entire mess hall. “My fellow students, it is I, your new class president, Smolder!” Her words were loud and got the attention of the entire room. “No longer must you wonder how your time at the School of Friendship can be better, as I am here to answer that question! First and foremost, our meals here in the cafeteria are whatever you want! Go and get whatever you want!” At her words, a number of students rushed to the food line. They were pushing up against one another, each demanding a different food for breakfast. “Do you have rocky road ice cream?!” “I want pão de queijo!” “Can you make me curry?!” “Can I get fettuccine alfredo?!” “Gravy! Give me lots of gravy!” Smolder continued to address the rest of the students, “Now, our textbooks state that the average body is around two-thirds water. I say that is too much! Behold: the soda fountains!” The dragon motioned to what seemed like a normal water fountain in the cafeteria. However, a student turned it on, finding that a carbonated beverage was coming out from the opening. “Every creature, it’s orange soda!” they claimed as they started drinking from it. More students gathered around the fountain and began clamoring. “It’s like a water fountain, but with soda!” “This is so cool!” “There are different flavors all over the school!” “I heard that the one in the teacher’s lounge has a fountain that dispenses a weird smelling drink! The professors seem to really like it!” Smolder continued to stand proudly on top of the table as she continued to speak, “And that is only the beginning! Nothing is impossible!” The students began chanting Smolder’s name in approval. Ocellus stood off to the side in utter confusion, “How was she able to do all of this so fast?” “She is no longer the dragon we once knew. She has gone mad with power,” Gallus explained as he appeared next to the changeling. His eyes were fixated on the parchment in his talons. “But this is insanity! She seriously can’t get away with doing all of this, right?” Ocellus asked, looking at the griffon. “Actually,” Gallus started, using his talon to point at a line on the parchment, “it says in the school charter that the class president has the authority over a number of different aspects of student life, even construction, policies, lunches, and the suspension of something called ‘habeas corpus’, whatever that is.” Ocellus sighed, “I can only imagine that this is going to end badly for the entire student body….” She then noticed that Gallus was holding the school’s charter, “Wait, why do you still have that?” “I’m still reading it. There’s a lot of stuff going on in here,” Gallus commented, “Did you know that the School of Friendship is not liable if a student is killed and eaten by another student? But only if they are fully eaten, bones and all. Very interesting.” Frustrated with everything around her, Ocellus left the mess hall. --------------------------------- Later that evening, Smolder was in Headmare Starlight’s office. The two of them were chatting about a number of different things, particularly new policies and changes throughout the school. They were interrupted, however, by a singular blue changeling entering through the door. “Headmare Starlight, we have to talk about Smolder as class president!” Ocellus trotted in with a huff. “Yeah, sure, just come on in. No need to knock or anything. Not like there are rules in place about things like that, but yeah, whatever,” Starlight Glimmer said from behind her desk, her voice was both tired and annoyed. “Oh, hey Ocellus. How’s it going?” Smolder greeted her friend as she entered in. “Smolder, what have you done to our school?” The dragon had a bit of a smug attitude, “Please, call me by my presidential name: Supreme and Glorious Student Body President Smolder.” “No, I don’t think I will,” Ocellus replied, unamused. “What exactly are you doing? You’ve been present for only a day and the whole school is in chaos!” “Are you sure you’re just not upset and jealous that you didn’t win?” Smolder gave a sly smirk. With a calm but obviously frustrated demeanor, Ocellus responded, “I am not upset. Not at all.” Headmare Starlight spoke, pointing at the changeling, “Is that why you’re changing colors?” “Is it happening again?” Ocellus lifted her hoof up to look at it, noticing that it was ranging to a number of different colors. It took her a moment to calm herself enough to have her body revert back to it’s normal hue of blue, “Well, that’s not why.” “The school is better now, I don’t see the problem!” Smolder insisted. “Are you kidding me? I just got back from the model Friendship Council room and it’s filled with steam!” Ocellus explained. “Yeah, it’s a sauna now! I got the idea from when I was in a sauna!” “And why does it look like a number of the students are preparing for some sort of fight? I saw students coated in war paint!” Ocellus stressed. Smolder seemed excited that Ocellus asked, “Oh, that’s actually a cool thing I thought of! All of the school clubs will be engaging in a caged death match for funding!” There was a look of absolute horror on Ocellus’ face, “B-But we have plenty of funding for all of the clubs!” “I know, but I already announced that we’re going to do this,” the dragon did sound a bit guilty, “And besides, do you really want me to break their hearts?” “There are students making armor and weapons!” “I think you mean they are crafting armor and weapons.” Smolder corrected, “They’re being creative!” “Smolder, there are students weaponizing bees!” “See? That’s, like science-y stuff! I thought you’d be happy to see that there are a number of great improvements already, like with the debate club!” “I don’t think it was smart to change the rules of the debate club so that all arguments and rebuttals must be done in the form of freestyle rap battles,” Ocellus gritted her teeth in frustration. “Why not? Students might actually go to the debates now!” Smolder smiled. Ocellus raised a hoof up to her face as she sighed, “And the physical education classes have turned into a free-form lucha libre fight! It’s absolute madness!” “That’s the survival of the fittest thing that we learned, right? It’s perfect!” Smolder justified herself, “Yona seems to like it.” “She sent three students to the infirmary!” Ocellus countered angrily. “Okay, first off, those students knew what the risks were when they stepped into that ring,” Smolder stated, “and second, it could have been any creature who hit them all with that chair. The assailant was wearing a mask, like all good luchadors do.” “I….” Ocellus gritted her teeth as she held her tongue for a moment while trying to find the right words, “....is there anything else you want to tell me while you’re at it?” “WellI don’t know exactly what ‘metal shop’ is,” the dragon gave air quotes, “but now it’s on roller skates.” A frustrated groan came from Ocellus as she turned to Starlight, who was seated at her desk. “Headmare Starlight, this whole election business has gotten completely out of control. There must be something you can do.” With an almost bored attitude, the unicorn replied, “The faculty is usually supposed to stay out of the student government, so I’m trying to keep a hooves-off approach to how things are done with the entire school.” “But you used to be in charge of a whole town, right? Weren’t you elected to that position?” Smolder asked. “Let’s….” Starlight’s eyes narrowed as she started to become a little panicky, “Let’s not use me as an example here….” Ocellus turned her attention back to her friend, “Smolder, you can’t just keep promising whatever you want to all the students! It’s anarchy out there!” “No, it’s not, it’s a democracy. That’s how I got voted,” Smolder corrected. “That’s not what I meant!” Ocellus shouted. “Ocellus, I think you’re just mad that I beat you in the election. I’m sure you’ll see that I can make this school even better than it was. I’m sorry everything is going so well for me with all these changes. It just takes a little input from the rest of the students and the drive to do it!,“ Smolder said as she stood up from the chair, “Now if you excuse me, I have to prepare to feed the rice to all of the pigeons. That will show those vile winged-rats whose boss! I’m so happy to know I’m not the only one who doesn’t like them.” Ocellus was horrified as she turned to the Headmare, “That can’t be allowed, right?” “Actually, the charter states the class president is allowed to address pest problems the way they seem logical,” Starlight explained. “My only suggestion was to make sure to not let Fluttershy watch.” Smolder waved to Ocellus and Starlight as she left, “I’ll see you both later! Let me know if we were able to get a hold of the Wonderbolts! An acrobatic performance would be cool, but one of the students said they wanted to see if they could also juggle!” Starlight watched as Smolder left her office. She reached down into her desk and pulled out a flask. She opened it up with her magic and drank a little. She then looked over to the potted plant on her desk, to which Starlight pulled toward her and poured a little into the pot, “I think we both need this, Phyllis.” “Is that from the new water fountain in the teacher’s lounge? I don’t think plants should have soda,” Ocellus said. Starlight looked straight at Ocellus, “It’s not soda and get out.” After the changeling left her office and closed the door behind her, the unicorn sighed, “It’s times like these I remember why I took over that town.” ------------------------- As Smolder was proudly making her way through the school hallways, she was getting praise from her fellow students. A lot of it was praise for a lot of the different things she had changed throughout the school: the cafeteria being able to serve just about any kind of food at any time, the library being filled with all sorts of comics, the computers now being used for various games, and numerous other wild changes. “Great work, class president!” “The library is so cool now that I can read ‘Watchponies’ in school!” “It’s so great that I can have sauerkraut for breakfast and waffles for dinner!” Smolder smiled and waved to all the students, “But of course! I am but a servant to all of my fellow students!” She loved the praise, and it was growing on her. “Yeah, that’s great. Now we want more,” one of the students stated. This caught Smolder off guard, “Huh?” A number of students started surrounding her with more and more demands. “I want a skeeball machine in science class!” “Uhh, sure,” Smolder said, a bit unsure in her answer. “Can we get some dogs that roam the school with giant boomboxes hooked up to them?” another student requested. “What?” Smolder asked as she was being surrounded by more and more students. “We need a pool!” A student cried out. Smolder raised her eyebrow, “But don’t we already have a pool?” “Yeah, but now we need a bigger pool that has a smaller pool inside of it!” they insisted. “With butlers! Trained chicken butlers!” another student quickly added. Yet another student added to that comment, “Ones that don’t try to peck at you if you pick them up!” The students continued to make their demands, creating a chaotic cacophony in the hallway. Smolder was starting to realize just how much she had been promising.