//------------------------------//
// How did we not see this coming? 
// Story: Cheerilee Cooks Crystal 
// by CarrotRox 
//------------------------------//

	Cheerilee stared at the paper in front of her, staring dumbstruck at the words printed on the page. She couldn’t believe it. Not because she couldn’t understand it, not because it was stupid, she just couldn’t believe it. After all these years, it had finally come to a head. She thought it was already done with, but apparently not. No, this had apparently been known about since this first started, allowed to fester, then sent to her to completely ruin her day, probably by some snobbish noble who wanted to make some bits as an investment of sorts.
She quivered at her desk in anger. It had been YEARS since she had taught those foals, but they were well known for a reason. Ah yes, the infamous Cutie Mark Crusaders, that trio of troublesome children who made it their civic duty to pair destiny with immense property damage. And now, all the trouble they caused had built up, exponentially, to a bill that finally arrived on her doorstep.
Here is the general layout: The CMC had had some rather expensive fees required to fix the damage that they had inadvertently caused. Somepony in Ponyville told some rich noble in Canterlot about them, and they apparently hatched a plan. Anonymously “donate” the money needed to fix the damages, with small print saying that it would be repaid, with a bit more. Nopony paid it mind because that was a massive wad of bits out of their minds that they might have to pay out-of-pocket. Now, a few years later, after a 500% interest a year, after five years, that number now a lot bigger than it was before. The noble in question made the decision to make her the one to pay it, because she was the one “responsible” for teaching the fillies what they knew, and therefore her lack of teaching them how to act, caused all the carnage.
The total cost of fixing everything that they had done before was around 30,000 bits. That’s thirty, followed by THREE zeros. Those fillies never went halfway with everything. Now, at 200% of that, every year, for about 5 years, apparently she now owed said noble 960,000 bits, give or take 4,000. That’s nearly a MILLION bits. Where the HAY was she going to get that many bits. Oh, and there’s a due date set to be in about three years, but these with only 50% interest. Once she saw that, that’s when her head hit the desk as she fainted. Fun.

She awoke a few hours later, slopped about on the floor. Murmuring something about a crazy dream, she wobbly got to her feet, obviously not feeling well, then she spotted the paper on her desk. It looked like it was gloating about the fact that it was real and that she was the one who was suddenly one million bits in debt. That was enough to buy 30 Canterlot Castles. And she was somehow going to get that money, and pay it, or be forced into bankruptcy, lose her job, home, students, everything she holds dear. To have all of that suddenly threatened unless you can do the impossible, that hurts a pony in the mind and heart.
She slumped against the wall, crying about all of this that is happening, wondering just what she is going to do about the situation presented to her, and trying to come up with a solution. Everything came to mind, from having her students run a (very) successful lemonade stand, to selling her body for absurd amounts of bits in hopes that she could raise enough that way. She was not pleased that that thought wormed its way into her head, but she was somewhat relieved by the fact that she wouldn’t be able to do it, and wouldn’t have to do it, followed by the cold chill of fear when she realized she was burning through ideas, and might be resigned to her fate.
Then, the idea sprang to her head, so somewhat clear that she couldn’t believe she didn’t think of it, but also so shameful to the fact that she’d be doing what she told her students to never get involved in: Drugs. She sat down for a bit in her home, thinking through the idea as clearly as she could, looking for some flaw in it that would force her to move to some other idea.
First, she would have to make the drugs, but she wasn’t really the cleanest of ponies in college. She was one of the wild ones, and it’s that sort of memory of herself that made her do her best to keep her students from doing such things. But, it was due to those activities that she knew how to make most drugs known to ponykind. She could make Dandelion, she could make Ruby, she could make Stirrup, Tartarus, she could even make crystal, which sells for extremely high prices if she didn’t accidentally kill herself in making it.
The making of it was is entirely dangerous, and one misstep in any part of the process would make a building as big as the school house nothing more than a crater where a schoolhouse used to be, but it was made almost entirely out of household items, and wouldn’t look suspicious at all buying it. Sure, buying it constantly from a single place would certainly be suspicious, but if she spread out a bit, she could certainly get enough to make all of the crystal that she’d need to sell, and then some, and then some more. 
Then would be selling it. She might have to contact old friends and the like to get it sold and distributed, but she probably would have that covered. At least she wasn’t going to be an idiot about it and just roam the streets of Canterlot, shouting at the op of her lungs: “I HAVE CRYSTAL FOR ANYPONY LOOKING TO BUY!!!” Yeah, that would definitely go well. The guards would definitely think she was selling things like shards from the Crystal Empire.
Which was believable when the drug was first introduced into the world. The Crystal Empire was still going strong, and the drug had an keen likeness to the crystal of said empire. But that was literally thousands of years ago. Now, everypony knows about the drug, and what it looks like, and what to look out for.
Now, last but most certainly not least, she would have to find a way to explain away the rather suspicious production of nearly a million bits, without doing anything extraordinary in the eyes of the law. That was an entirely new hornets’ nest to poke, but she would poke at it some other time. She (somewhat hesitantly) had a plan of action, and now all she had to do was put it into gear.
She sighed to herself and began writing letters to all the people she knew were probably still in the drug industry, and asked for a refresher in how to make crystal and asking if they’d be willing to sell it.
It was going to be a long few years.