Prompt: Diamond is the victim of a misunderstanding.
“So who’s on first?”
“That’s right,” Silver Spoon said.
“… Who’s on first?!”
“That’s right!” Silver Spoon repeated.
Diamond Tiara put her fingers between her eyes and pressed down for a few seconds. “… Okay, okay, forget first. Who’s on second?”
“No Who’s on first, What’s on second.”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m-”
“He’s on third.”
Diamond Tiara raised her hands ready to strangle the troll that was once her friend when suddenly, a distraction saved the glasses-wearing girl who never knew of the danger she was in.
“Guys guys!” Zippoorwhill shouted as she rushed onto the baseball field, her puppy companion in one arm and her iPad in her free hand. “Big new guys! Big news!”
“What is it? We’re trying to practice out here!” Diamond Tiara said.
“… You two are trying out for baseball?” Zippoorwhill inquired, head tilted to the side as the sheer thought of the two richest, most refined girls in school actively participating in sports caused her brain to smoke.
“Of course not!” Diamond Tiara replied. “We’re trying out for cheerleading! It’s just somepony won’t tell me the team members’ names!” she added, glaring to Silver Spoon.
“I told you! Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third-”
“If you don’t know then just tell me to begin with!” Diamond Tiara sighed and turned to Zippoorwhill. “Anyway, what’s this ‘big news’? It had better not be another video of a cat playing a keyboard.”
Zippoorwhill blinked and then turned to her iPad before quickly hiding it behind her back with a sheepish grin on her face. “O-Okay, but there’s other news, too! Not quite as big but also not very small so I guess somewhere middle-y kinda.”
“Which is?”
“The Canterlot Mercenary Club-”
“Ugh.”
“-just nominated you two for the ice bucket challenge!”
“… That stupid thing I’ve been hearing about where people dump buckets of icey water on their heads?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Yupyup!”
“No thanks. I prefer to keep my hair dry, thank you very much.”
“You gotta do it, though!” Zippoorwhill shouted. “If you don’t then everyone’ll know about it and they’ll call you cowards!”
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon exchanged nervous glances. “T-They will?” Silver Spoon asked Zippoorwhill.
“Uh-huh! And they’ll call you lazy, too! And they’ll say you don’t care about charity! And they’ll say that you lost to Apple Bloom and her friends!”
Diamond Tiara’s eye twitched. “Oh they will, will they?” Furrowing her brow, Diamond turned to Silver Spoon and said, “Get two buckets of icy water on the double! I’ll get Daddy’s camera! We’ll show those loser ‘Mercenaries’ who the real cowards are around here.”
“… Who?” Zippoorwhill asked.
“Them!” Diamond Tiara shouted.
Zippoorwhill scratched her head. “But how does that make them cowards?”
“… Hey look, a shiny thing in the distance.”
“DISTRACTIOOOOOON!” Zippoorwhill cried as she turned around and charged down the baseball field, back towards the school building.
With a sigh, Silver Spoon said, “My parents aren’t going to like this…”
“Too bad! We can’t let those losers defeat us!” Diamond Tiara declared with a determined glare directed towards the three girls sitting on a bench in the distance with their phones out.
As Sweetie Belle was texting Apple Bloom, a shiver ran down her spine. “… I think Diamond Tiara got our challenge.”
Apple Bloom nodded as she sent her text to Scootaloo. “Yeah, ah felt it too.”
Scootaloo waved a hand dismissively as she retweeted Sweetie Belle’s last tweet. “Bah. It’s probably just the cold water kicking in. Maybe we should go somewhere warmer. Or ask the nurse to write us a note to get out of class.”
“Oh hey, look at this. Diamond Tiara just tweeted that she’s going to one-up us in the ice bucket challenge,” Sweetie Belle said, replying with a picture of a moustached man holding up his hands and a caption reading: ‘Watch out guys, we got a badass over here!’.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Diamond Tiara shouted before turning to the three girls who had nominated her for the stupid challenge. “And losers.”
“Yo,” Scootaloo replied.
“Gather around and bear witness as on this day, Silver Spoon and I will perform the ultimate feat of charity the world has ever seen!”
“You gonna sell all those expensive dresses and donate all the money at once?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Of course not!” Diamond Tiara shouted. “Even better! By partaking in the ice bucket challenge, people everywhere will finally be aware of this terrible… whatever it is we’re raising awareness of and will donate all their money in our stead!”
“Don’t you only have three followers on YouTube?” Sweetie Belle asked. “And I’m one of them.”
“I’m another,” Pipsqueak said.
Silver Spoon timidly rose her hand behind a disgruntled Diamond Tiara. “Silence! I’m getting my hair wet for you peons, no be grateful and watch!”
“To be fair, that is generous for her,” Apple Bloom whispered to her friends.
“Zippoorwhill, are you recording?” Diamond Tiara asked. She looked over to find the airheaded girl giggling to herself as she used her camera to record her puppy chasing a squirrel in circles. “… Alula, you’re up!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Alula cheered as she accessed the camera function on her phone and pointed it to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. “Okay, ready!”
“I nominate Featherweight, Cheerilee and… Sunset Shimmer!” Diamond Tiara snapped her fingers and Silver Spoon picked up the huge tub that was set before her.
“Wow, that’s big,” Apple Bloom admired. “How’d we not see that ‘til now anyway?”
“Uh, are you sure about this?” Silver Spoon asked in a worried, unsure tone as she looked into the tub.
“Yes, now just get it over with already,” Diamond Tiara said as she positioned herself in front of a small stepladder.
“But-”
“I said dump that icy water on me already!”
“Oaky! Okay!” Silver Spoon climbed up the stepladder and held the tub over Diamond Tiara’s head. Her friend closed her eyes as Silver Spoon tipped the tub upside-down, allowing the block of solid ice to fall on Diamond Tiara’s head, knocking the girl to the ground.
All was silent for several seconds.
“W-Was that supposed to happen?” Silver Spoon asked.
“W-What the… What did you do?!” Apple Bloom screamed frantically.
“I-I did what she said! I dumped a tub of icy water on her!”
“ICY AS IN COLD, NOT FROZEN SOLID!”
“… Oh.” Silver Spoon flustered and stepped backwards off of the ladder. “Y-Yeah, that makes more sense…”
“Someone call an ambulance!” Sweetie Belle shouted.
“Ah don’t have a phone!” Apple Bloom cried.
“You’re holding one right now!” Sweetie Belle retorted, pointing to the iPhone in Apple Bloom’s hand.
“… THIS THING’S A PHONE, TOO?!” Apple Bloom punched three buttons on her phone and called the emergency services. “Hey, we need an ambulance over at Canterlot High School, fast! … Y-Yeah, it is an ice bucket challenge accident… Okay, we’ll wait. Bye.”
Diamond Tiara groaned as she stirred. Everything hurt. The harsh sunlight greeted her as she opened her eyes and it took a while before she could properly make out where she was. It looked like the school nurse’s office, only much bigger.
“Where am I?” she asked as she sat up, wincing at the pain running through her head. “Owwww… What happened?”
“You were knocked out,” a voice said, startling the young girl. Diamond Tiara turned to find a woman in a white lab coat approaching her. “Remember? You were doing the ice bucket challenge and there was an accident.”
“Ohhhh… My head is killing me.”
“It’ll do that. For now, just take it easy.” The woman cleared her throat and sat down beside Diamond Tiara on the bed. “My name is Aay Anee. I’m a doctor. There’s something that I need to tell you that might make you pass out from the shock, so I need you to brace yourself.”
“Where’s Silver Spoon?” Diamond Tiara asked, looking around the room that she was in. “And Daddy?”
The doctor bit her lip and said, “That’s just it. They’re… not here.” After taking a deep breath, Aay added, “You were frozen in time, Diamond Tiara. You’re in the future now.”
“… Whaaaaaaaaat?!”
“Deep breath, Diamond. Deep breaths!”
Diamond Tiara took deep, heavy breaths until she had calmed down. “H-How can I be in the future?!”
“Remember, you were hit by solid ice,” Aay said.
“That’s not how it works!”
“Now now. Working yourself up over it won’t help any. I’m terribly sorry, but you are presently one hundred years in the future from when you attempted the ice bucket challenge.”
“T-This can’t be… I think I need a drink.”
“Here, have some future water,” the doctor said, offering a glass of water to the girl.
Diamond Tiara cocked an eyebrow before taking the glass and sipping the water, and then chugging the entire thing.
“Do you need to eat? I’ve brought some future bread with me.”
“Do you just put ‘future’ before everything now?”
“Of course not! That would just be silly,” Aay said. “Now try to eat and I’ll give take you down to City Hall to meet the mayor in my future car.”
Aay offered Diamond Tiara some bread which the young girl accepted and nibbled at slowly. ‘Daddy… Silver Spoon…’ A small teardrop rolled down Diamond Tiara’s face.
“How do you like future Canterlot?” the doctor asked. “Here we have the future bakery, and there is the future post office.”
“And over there is the future DMV?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Nah, that’s just the DMV still. They never advanced.”
“… So what exactly is different about this world compared to where I came from?” Diamond Tiara asked. “I mean, the cars float, but that’s about it.”
“There’s plenty different. First of all, the sky gets darker much earlier. It’s only noon right now you know?”
Diamond Tiara looked up to the night sky with her eyes wide open in shock. “R-Really?”
“And of course there’s the problem we’re having with the raptorsharks.”
“Raptorsarks,” Diamond Tiara deadpanned.
“But it’s okay so long as you avoid the long seaweed. Oh, that’s another thing: over seventy percent of future Earth is underwater.”
Diamond Tiara was about to argue how dumb that was before the car that she was in was plunged underwater. All around her there were people swimming and driving and fish swimming about.
“We’re almost there,” Aay said. The mayor’s office is just after we resurface.”
Not too long after that the car surfaced again and stopped outside of a large, onion-shaped white building. “Is this it?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Yup. Let’s go in. The mayor has been expecting you.”
The two walked in and were greeted by a woman in a green suit. She led the two down a long hallway where they eventually came across a room guarded by double doors. They entered and walked inside, where they found a large, green creature sitting behind a desk.
“I-Is that-”
“Oh, right. Our leader in this time is Shrek,” Aay said. “He’s also supreme overlord of our world and essentially God.”
“Aye, what’s this we got here then?” Shrek asked in what may or may not have been a Scottish dialect. “Is this the wee child I’ve been hearin’ about?”
“Yes Lord Shrek. She comes from another time and is lost and confused.”
“Put her to work doan in the mines,” Shrek said. “We’ve got enough problems with overcrowding as it is.”
“What?!” Diamond Tiara shouted. “You can’t make me work down in some filthy mines! I’m Diamond Dazzle Tiara, daughter of Filthy Rich and idol of Canterlot High School!”
“Oh ye think ye’re big do ye?” Shrek asked, his Scottish dialect probably getting further and further off the mark as this story went on. “Well lemme tell yoo something: ye’re nothin’ in this world! Ya father is dead, ya family’s no more, and ya aven’t got a dime to yer name.”
“I have one hundred thousand dollars in my wallet as we speak.”
“Dollars are worthless in this time, Missy! We use credits here!”
“Dollars will do fine,” Diamond insisted.
“No, they won’t! And if ya even think of makin’ another Star Wars reference I’ll squeeze the jelly from yer eyes! Now get out of my swamp!”
“Let’s go, Diamond Tiara,” Aay said as she grabbed Diamond’s shoulder and dragged the girl away.
No amount of screaming or kicking helped, but that certainly didn’t stop Diamond from trying. “NO! GET OFF OF ME! LET ME GO, LET ME GO! DADDY, HELP! DADDYYYYYYY!” Tears fell down Diamond Tiara’s eyes as she grabbed onto the door handle as she was leaving the room, fighting with all her strength to not be dragged away. “NO, I DON’T WANT TO GO! DADDY, SILVER SPOON, HELP ME!” Diamond Tiara lost her grip and the last thing she saw as the doors close on her was Shrek waving goodbye with a sadistic smile on his face. “NOOOOOO!”
“NO, STOP!” Diamond Tiara screamed as she bolted upright, panting and sweating. “W-What?” she asked as she looked around. Once again, she was in a much larger version of the school nurse’s office, only this time it was a lot brighter and… was that a Nintendo in the corner?
“Diamond!” Filthy Rich shouted as she ran into the room. He ran to Diamond Tiara’s side immediately and held his daughter. “Are you okay?! I heard you screaming and came as soon as I could!”
“D-Daddy?” Diamond Tiara asked, her voice filled with shock and confusion. “Y-You’re alive?”
“Of course I am,” Filthy Rich said. He moved his head back, showing that tears had been running down his face. “It’s you I’ve been worried about all this time. You’ve been out for two whole days!”
“Two days… What happened?”
“It was… an accident at school,” Filthy Rich said, his eyes shifting to his left for a moment.
Diamond Tiara looked to her right to find a number of cards on her bedside. She looked through them one-by-one. They were all from her classmates and her family. Silver Spoon, Zippoorwhill, Alula, her mother and father, her grandparents, her teacher… even the Mercenaries had wrote out a collective card between them. Silver Spoon’s card in particular stood out.
“It says she’s sorry,” Diamond Tiara muttered. “That it’s… her fault?”
“I-It was an accident,” Filthy Rich stuttered. “Please, don’t be mad at her. She stayed by your side for the entire day yesterday and only went home after she fell asleep and her parents collected her.”
“… I don’t get what’s going on, but I’d never be mad at Silver Spoon,” Diamond Tiara said. “I’m just glad I’m not stuck in some dystopian, underwater future where everything is prefixed with ‘future’ and I’m forced to work down in the mines.”
Filthy Rich laughed, though he wasn’t sure why. “Me too, honey. Me too,” he said holding his daughter again and she hugged him back. “Don’t worry. It’s all ogre now.”
Diamond Tiara nodded… and then her eyes widened.
Meanwhile!
“C’mon, Sunny! Look happier!” Pinkie Pie pleaded as she pointed her camera to Sunset Shimmer, who simply frowned back with her right middle finger pointed towards the lens.
“Anyone you wanna nominate before you get soaked?” Rainbow Dash asked with a grin as she held the bucket of water over Sunset Shimmer’s head.
“… Celestia,” she said. “Three times.”
“… Ah don’t think y’can-” Applejack began.
“Three. Times.” Sunset repeated, flames burning in her eyes. And then she was soaked.