The first day of school was... interesting. Unfortunately, Cheerilee had remembered every moment of being turned into a flower but when Dinky had explained that the Elements of harmony had made Eribia good again, even with Discord's magic, the maroon mare managed to find the will to forgive the Majin of her transgression as long as she promised never to do it again.
It was a weird promise too, something about hoping to fly and jamming cupcakes in her eyes, it didn't sound like a good promise to have. Sadly, the most interesting part of the class had happened when the maroon mare had introduced her to her classmates and a barrage of questions.
"Why are your nails black?"
"Why do you have that M on your belt?"
"Why are you pink?" Everyone turned to see Pinkie Pie sitting awkwardly at one of the desks with her hand raised just like the other eager foals, though she gave out a sheepish smile when they had noticed her.
"Um..." Eribia started as she looked at Pinkie. "...For the same reason you are pink I would assume..." She said with a shrug. "I was born that way... or at least began my existence that way." She turned to a slightly pudgy blue unicorn with an orange mane. "Yes?"
He brought his hand down and gave her an intense look. "Snips..." He introduced with a small smile before going back to the intense look. "What kind of creature are you?" He asked. "You don't quite look like an earth pony."
"Well... to explain..." She began. "For about the hundredth time..." she added mentally. "I am a being known as a Majin, I'm naturally good at using magic and I'm really strong..."
"How strong?" Snips challenged.
"I bench-press mountains." Eribia deadpanned.
A pink earth pony filly scoffed. "There's no way you could do that..."
Without missing a beat Eribia retorted. "Just because you can't do it doesn't mean there's no one who can."
"Oh please, everypony knows about the balances each species and magic form have." The pink earth pony replied. "Miss Cheerilee taught us that lesson last week." At Eribia's disbelieving brow she let out an exaggerated sigh. "Earth ponies have better strength and physique, Pegusai are lighter, can fly and are able to manipulate elemental magic and Unicorns are stronger in magic without being anywhere near as strong as an earth pony."
"Well, hate to break it to ya... but I'm a living exception to those rules." Eribia replied.
"Alright class, lets get ready for today's lesson..." Cheerilee announced. "Good work Diamon Tiara, it makes me proud to see that my lesson last week stuck with all of you."
The earth pony beamed at the praise as Eribia looked for a seat. Due to her new father's obsession with ties she had shaped a layer of clothes over her torso in the shape of a student blouse to go along with her baggy pants. With a small sigh she slightly adjusted the tie as she looked for an open seat. It only took a few moments for her to notice an empty one near a very familiar-looking trio of fillies... though for the life of her she couldn't place where she had seen them. She shrugged and decided it wasn't an important detail anyway, otherwise she would remember. The light yellow earth pony filly smiled as she turned to Eribia. "Name's Applebloom, it's nice ta meet ya." She introduced with a quietly-excited voice before she pointed to an off-white unicorn. "That there's Sweetie Belle, she's Rarity's sister..." Then her hand moved to indicate a slightly-waving orange filly. "And she's Scootaloo."
Eribia nodded to each one. "It's good to meet you..."
"So..." Scootaloo started. "What's your cutie mark?"
"My whatnow?" Eribia asked with a raised brow.
The three of them gave silent gasps before Sweetie Belle drew Eribia's attention to Cheerilee's uncovered posterior, which caused Eribia to wonder why so many ponies in town had shirts but no pants for several seconds before the unicorn filly began to explain about Cutie Marks... which turned into an entire half day listening to the three of them talk about how they're questing to find their marks so that they're not the only blank flanks in class anymore. Eribia partially zoned out on the explanation once the orange pegasus began to go on and on about how her personal hero Rainbow Dash had been the one to help five other ponies get their cutie marks.
"Eribia, if you would be so kind as to demonstrate to the rest of the class how to solve this math problem since you feel that you have no need to pay attention to the lesson..." Cheerilee prompted, rousing the Majin from her half-zoned mindset to look at the problem on the board.
3 * X + 5 = 35
"X equals Ten..." Eribia replied in just a few seconds. "I learned that in middle school... put something using the Pythagorean theorem on the board and I might have to take a minute to calculate it." Eribia explained before looking to the rest of the shocked class. "What? That theorem is complex, especially when you start adding decimals and have to solve for one of the shorter sides of a triangle." At their continued disbelief Eribia shrugged. "I got a B plus in college level math... over a thousand years ago, but I still remember most of it."
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Much of the rest of the class had gone the same way until Cheerilee announced Lunchtime and recess, letting the fillies and colts out to the playground as she looked over the possible lessons that she could use to test just what the extent of Eribia's education was. For her part though, said Majin was leaning up against the sole tree in the playground with her arms crossed in front of her chest as she watched the other students playing. She let out a small breath as she looked up to the branches of the tree and let her mind wander as she reached into a small dimensional pocket to pull out one of the still-warm muffins Derpy gave to her when she had been causing chaos in ponyville... blueberry if she placed the scent right.
The Majin was halfway through the muffin when the pale-pink earth pony whose name she hadn't bothered to remember began to walk over. "Well, if it isn't the newest daughter of Ponyville's clumsiest mare. Do you have a lame cutie mark like her and Dinky?" She sneered as a small group of students began to gather in a rough circle.
Eribia let out a small shrug. "Nope... don't have one..." She replied amiably before she took another bite of muffin. The eyes of three particular fillies lit up when they heard that statement.
"So you're another lame blank flank too!" Diamond Tiara laughed, not noticing the sudden look of unease that her grey-coated sidekick was getting.
The Majin gave a small hum. "I guess you could say that... just another lame person that only breaks boulders with ease, can fly and perform magic that would make Twilight's brain leak out her ears before she could comprehend it." she agreed.
"You can't fly." Tiara said, getting a few curious murmurs to go through the crowd as a few noticed the Majin's expression go from a neutral line to a small smirk.
Eribia looked over to Dinky with a smile. "I'm going to head over to the house real quick to see if Derpy happens to have any muffins ready, any flavor you want me to pick up for you while I'm there?"
As most of the attention turned to her the light purple filly squeaked. "J-just... a chocolate chip if mom has it..."
"No problem, I was hoping she'd have those as well." Eribia replied before she lifted off the ground and created a small backdraft that knocked most of the class, Diamond Tiara included, to their flanks as she took off at a speed that almost had Scootaloo call heresy for. Exactly five minutes later a pink portal appeared in the schoolyard at the base of the tree and the Majin stepped out with a paper bag. "Thanks Derpy, I'm having a great day so far... See you later..."
"Tell my little muffin I said hi!"
"Of course." Eribia replied with a smile before the portal closed. She turned to Dinky and reached into the paper bag so she could pass a chocolate chip muffin to her. "yo-... Mom has a really uncanny sense for when muffins are needed Dinky. I'm surprised she didn't have a Muffin instead of bubbles as her cutie mark."
Dinky giggled a little as she took the muffin. "Yeah... I tell her that all the time. She told me it's just because she likes to have fun and really knows how to look on the bright side of life... just like a bubble." Both of them left a stunned class in the playground as they went inside to finish their lunch, shattering the minds of the young could only be done so much in one day of course, no matter how entertaining it could be.
@}~}~~~ ~~~{~{@
Cheerilee had been pleasantly surprised at how quiet the rest of the class had been once the bell rang for the end of the schoolday, for once Diamond Tiara hadn't antagonized anypony after lunch and the class at least seemed to have been paying attention to the lessons she had given. "Eribia... can I have you come up to my desk before you leave...?"
"Uh... sure..." Eribia replied as she hefted the shoulderbag that Turner had insisted in buying for her. "What's up?" She asked as she stood in front of the Maroon mare.
Cheerilee placed a stapled packet of papers on the desk, "This... is a special kind of test, you don't have to complete any parts that you don't know... but it will help me come up with a lesson plan for you while you are here, please fill it out and bring it back to me when you've filled in everything that you can."
"Okay... I'll definitely get it back to you soon then..." Eribia replied uneasily as she took the packet. "...I hate... school..." she thought darkly as she wished that the packet in her bag would just spontaneously combust while the teacher was looking so she had an excuse not to show just how much of a difference there was between her and the class. She also let out another sigh when she realized the wish wouldn't come true.
Dinky smiled as the two of them met back up outside of the school. "So... what did Cheerilee want?"
Eribia let out a small sigh as she noticed that Dinky was trying to subtly lead her to Sugarcube corner. "She just wanted to give me a test that would see what stuff she does need to teach me. I can only assume that most of this packet is going to be filled out before I turn it in." Their walk had descended to a mostly-pleasant silence for quite a while before they finally arrived at Sugarcube corner. "By the way Dinky... why are we here?"
"A lot of the girls come by this place to hang out after school... and since you seemed to hit it off with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and don't have a cutie mark of your own, you'd want to join their club so that you have more ponies you're friends with than just me."
Eribia smiled a little as she walked up to the door to Sugarcube corner. "Thanks for thinking of me Dinky... I'm happy to have you as a friend." She said just before she opened the door and stared down the barrel of a cannon. "...oh sh-..." She was interrupted as a deafening boom and a solid, yet quite pliable mass of batter slammed into her chest and splattered her entire torso in cake.
"oops... I put batter in the cannon again... sorry..." Pinkie giggled as Eribia blinked some of the batter out of her eyes.