//------------------------------//
// Shock and Aftershock 
// Story: Knowledge is crinkly. 
// by Daxn 
//------------------------------//

After ten minutes of walking, and a quick visit to the booth for buy the return tickets, the nine ponies jumped on the train that headed to their home, Ponyville. 

While the four mares took seats not too far from the train's door, the fillies went further.  

“It has been a long day...” Said Applebloom, while she stretched herself upon the train's seat.

“Long, but fun!” Said Sweetie Belle while jumping in one of the empy seats. Scootaloo silently took place near Applebloom.

“Fun for you, Sweetie Belle. It was pretty boring and, honestly... disturbing, thinking that Velvet effectively lost her mind.” Said Applebloom, while slightly wincing at the thought.

“Velvet is just delusional. After all, if she had lost her mind, why she would treat us like that? Would not she have tried to turn us into cupcakes, or rainbows?”

The two friends of the white filly stared at her, their eyes widened.

“What's the matter?”

Applebloom shook her head.

“Nevermind. I was trying to understand the difference between 'insane' and 'delusional.'”

“One is a mental sickness, the other one isn not!” Sweetie Belle stated it as matter of fact.

“But...”

“Trust me. After all, I am a dictonary, no?” Sweetie Belle winked at Scootaloo.

Applebloom shrugged.

“Whatever Sweets. As long you don't talk about it with anypony else, you are free to think whatever you want.”

Sweetie Belle titled her head towards the right, and squinted her eyes.

“Why I can't talk about it?”

Scootaloo facehoofed, while Applebloom frantically moved her fornt hooves, and talked in a nonplussed voice.

“Because...  I mean... don't you really understand?”

Sweetie Belle answered with some confused rage.

“No,  Applebloom, I don't understand!”

The yellow filly kept going with her flailing.

“Because the others... I mean... they may not understand...”

Sweetie Belle stared blankly at Applebloom.

“Oh. Right.”

Applebloom collapsed on her seat, her breath heavy and her muscles twitching for no reason at all. Scootaloo, who was more relaxed and less tired, decided to complete Applebloom's request.

“Now that you do understand, could you please promise us you won't talk about it to anypony?”

Sweetie Belle put her left hoof on her heart, and closing her eyes, said with solemnity. Or, at least, the solemnity that an eight-years old filly could have.

“I swear I won't tell anypony... even if I can't find something wrong with it.”

Conent with what her white firend said, ignoring what Sweetie Blle had said, the orange filly then looked outside the window, while Sweetie Belle drifted into sleep.






Three days passed, since the three fillies and their sisters were briefly captured by Twilight's mother and forced to act like foals, and since Sweetie Belle swore that she wasn't going to say a word about the event to anyone.

Now,  Applebloom was sitting in the classroom, half-listening to one of her classmates reading a small story about a “special day” for a filly and her family: the details were unknown to Applebloom, since, over to not listening, she was also lacking of the textbook that contained said story, meaning that she was pretending to read an invisible book.

Behind Applebloom, Snails, as usual, was sleeping and salivating; on the right from Snails,  a blue colt, his name Archer, was annoying with saliva-covered darts Silver Spoon, which was sitting in the front row. Sweetie Belle was sitting in the second row, and was immersed in the listening. Scootaloo was sleeping on head buried in the book, sitting in the extreme corner of the room. Snip was slowly reading the story.  As for everypony else, they were, apparently, listening to Snip.

While Applebloom was wandering with her mind, she heard a scratch followed by a hoof clap, sign that Cheerlie was going to do something important.

The yellow filly immediately looked at the blackboard, and saw the words “A Special Day!” written on it with red chalk.

“Now, class,” said the amaranth mare “open your exercise books, and write a small story about a field day you had recently.”

The pupils that were paying attention to the leasson did as Cheerlie instructed, extracting from their schoolbags their exercise books and their pencils, and started to write right away. The ones that slept, jolted awake by the clapping hooves, also extracted their exercise books, albeit more chaotically than the rest of the class, and the ones lost in thought asked to the ones that were beside or in front of them  what was going on and what they had to do. 

In other words, everypony at their pace, the entire class was doing its assignment.

Except Snails and Scootaloo. The first was too busy doing the homeworks ahead of time for care about what Cheerlie asked to do; and the second was too tired for awake from her slumber.


Applebloom, recalling the pact Sweetie Belle had made, decided to give her a reminder, and tore off one of the pages of her book, and hastly wrote on said piece of papers “Don't write about the 'velveting,' okay?”

Then Applebloom curled up the piece of paper, and aimed at Sweetie Belle. However, the yellow filly didn't put enought force in her throw, and so hit Truffle Shuffle, which was behind Sweetie Belle, instead. The colt quickly read the note, before throwing it in the nearby garbage bin.

Not willing to risk to get caught by the teacher or, worse, get the note intercepted by Diamond Tiara or one of her minor lackeys, Applebloom gave up on her attempt to remind Sweetie Belle of her promise, and decided to focus on the task on hoof instead. Taking the pencil back in her mouth, Applebloom wrote up the small story requested by Cheerlie: since Applebloom did not wanted to mention anything about she actually did few days ago, she made up a story about Pinkie Pie claiming to be her long-lost cousin, and the long trip for reach an old aunt claiming to keep he knowledge of all the Apple Family: wheter it was beliveable or not was not a concern for Applebloom.

Half an hour of silent writing later, the teacher asked with her usual cheery voice.

“Is anypony done here?”

The yellow filly was halfway throught her narration, but, realizing she had little time to truly finish it anyway, she quickly wrote an abrupt ending. 

Applebloom then spat out the pencil on the desk, and raised her hoof for signal she was done with her work. While she waited for Cheerlie to count the ponies that were done, Applebloom looked around the class for see who was ready at the moment.

Not many, apparently: Diamond Tiara, Snip, Silver Spoon, Archer, Noi, and Sweetie Belle.

When the yellow filly realized that her white friend was done with her story. Applebloom's heart skipped a beat because she feared Sweetie could get pciekd by Cheerlie for read her story, and, since the white unicorn filly was famous for be an absent-minded pony, this could mean that the events happened in the house of Twilight Velvet were going to be mentioned, and, if those things were told to ears not supposed to know, then Applebloom, Scotaloo and Sweetie Belle herself were in for a wordl of ridicule.

For this reason, Applebloom was heavily panting.

“I hope she didn't write what I think she wrote. I really hope isn't. I don't wanna be called 'Bloom-Bloom' ever again, espeically from Diamond, I wan't to receive a pacifier as gift again, I don't want to...”

The yellow filly, realizing that she was panicking, decided to restablish the order in her mind, by deeply inhaling and expiring.

“Calm, Applebloom, calm. You are going to expose your weak point, if you panic. Sweetie Belle has no ill will towards you, and Cheerlie is likely, no, certain, to protect you.”

Once again relaxed, the yellow filly returned to breath normally.

“Also, it's not like that Sweetie Belle would ever offer heself, since her stage fright also covers public re...”

The train of thought of Applebloom was wrecked by Cheerlie's voice.

“Sweetie Belle, would you like to read to us your creation?”

The yellow filly rapidly looked at her white friend, hoping to find her refusing.

But Sweetie Belle nodded.

Applebloom left her  jaw hanging of surprise and disbelief.

Sweetie Belle had accepted to read to everypony in the class something she made. And she was   confident about reading it. And in Sweetie's creation there was surely a detailed report of whathappened in Twilight Velvet's house three days before.

Suddenly, a funeral music played in Applebloom's mind, as Sweetie Belle rearranged he papers in front of her eyes, and started to read, slowly and uncertain, the first words of her manuscript.

The music had a chorus, a disturbingly cheery chous singing a song whose text talked about coming back to the ancient age of life, and the permanent prestige damange Applebloom was going to endure.

The yellow filly tried to shut up the chorus, but to no avail: it got louder and louder instead. Uncapable to turn off the demoralizing chorus in her head, Applebloom dropped her head on the desk, and let the words of both Sweetie Belle and the song fill her mind, no matter how one was  embarassing and the other depressing.

As Applebloom's white friend read, the song decreased its tune, until it was dispelled in the void. 

“Not only that, but strange things also have happened: one of these thigns happened not long after I, my sister, my friends, and my sister's friends got in Velvet's house. I was playing with Scootaloo and Applebloom, when, all of sudden, I pooped and peed myself!”

A snicker came from somewhere in the classroom.

“At least she is mentioning her major accident,” whispered to herself Applebloom “now, let's check if Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are going to live this down or not.”

Then the yellow filly glanced upon her two arch-rivals at opposite points of the class, and what she saw surprised her, because... the two spoiled fillies looked interested. Not amused. Not laughing or snickering. Not interested in a condiscending kind of way, but interested as in “you got my attention and I want to know more.”

“I can't believe it,” thougth Applebloom, while she widened her eyes “they are not making fun of Sweetie Belle or me for once, even if Sweetie Belle has basically served the occasion on a silver plate. What's going on? Were the real Diamond tiara and Silver Spoon kidnapped by changelings?”

The imagine of Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara covered in green slime, and with two of the black equine arthropods taking their form passed in Applebloom's mind, before quickly get it ditched.

“Nah. Maybe they just don't feel in mood.”

As Applebloom terminated that phrase, Sweetie Belle containued her story.

“One of my favourite moments of that day was when my firend Applebloom desperately tried to go to the bathroom, but used herdiaper instead, with some...”

A loud and powerful voice of a pony swearing echoed in Applebloom's mind. While maybe she wasn't going to be insulted for that event, recall what happened there caused Applebloom to turn from yellow to lobster red, while her friend kept reading, and some more snickers came from behind.

Then Sweetie Belle closed off with “It was an insteresting and fun day for my sister and me. So much, that Rarity promised me she will get some supplsied for a next time in the near future, and that she will sew a onesie for me!”

“That was.... quite a day, Sweetie Belle.” Said Cheerlie with bewildement. From the last rows snickers and little laughs of unidentified source came for the last time.

“So, anypony else wants to read?” Said Cheerlie, maybe hoping to move on from the weirdness of Sweetie Belle's narration.

Applebloom, relaxing again sighed, before getting hit by a note from behind. When Applebloom took it nad opened it, she found a crude drawing in it. The crude drawing of Sweetie Belle sitting atop  of a VERY messy diaper, and Applebloom crying a river while also wearing a diaper. 

The drawing was signed “Archer.”

Applebloom looked behind her, and saw the colt smirking.

“Do you like it, Lil' Bloom?” He asked with a provocative voice. 

Applebloom, after giving him an agnry gaze, decided to ignore him, and just go back to listen to the lesson.







A hour and half later, the recess bell rang. Cheerlie closed the book, and invited her pupils to go out in the school yard, and the schoolchildren, with gleeful shrieks gladly complied.

In the yard, two fillies, one a pig pink filly with a tiara on her head and the another a mouse gray with glasses and a naklace, their names respectively Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, were walking side by side, talking between themselves.

“Did you heard Scootaloo's justification for taking a nap in the class?” Said Silver Spoon with a hint of laughter.

“Yeah, 'I stayed awake for the entire night for do me homeworks,' totally beliveable.” Diamond Tiara said, also with some hilarity.

“She never does them! Guess she is too busy angsting over her her chickenhood and her blank flank.”

The two laughed wholeheartly.

Still giggling, Diamond Tiara added.

“And Twist's story! Yeah, just recycle the same thing over and over again. It will work perfectly fine for every assigment!”

Silver Spoon gave a ligth and friendly slap on the ribcage of Diamond Tiara.

“Twist's story was repeated so many times, that even Sweetie Belle remembers it!”

When the laughter died down a bit, Silver Spoon, after sighing, said.

“Oh Celestia, Sweetie Belle's story.”

Diamond Tiara said with a unsure voice.
“Actually, that was a pretty interesting one, I have to admit it. I mean, Sweetie Belle IS basically a little foal, but I didn't thought she would go THAT far!”

“Neither I did. But, as my fahter says, you discover something new every day...” Suddenly, Silver Spoon stopped, a sparkle appearing in her magenta eyes.

The pink friend of the filly with glass asked.

“Silver? Silver? What are you doing?”

The gray filly shook her head and blarted out some gibberish, before coming back to her senses. 

“Nothing, nothing,” said Silver Spoon “just a thought that stroke me, before realizing it's ludricous.”

Diamodn Tiara shrugged.

“Oh well. No problem.” The pink filly put a hoof under her chin. 

“Shall we get to the swings?”

“Yes, that sounds about right.” Said Silver Spoon with insecurity.

Then, while she walked, the gray filly whispered to herself.

“Oh, I want to try that sooo bad. Well played, Sweetie Belle, well played.”