It was infuriating.
Ever since she’d wandered off into the forest to go visit Zecora, her family had been on her tail about checking in with them all the time. She could barely get a moment to herself. Worse still, Big Mac had insisted on escorting her to Zecora’s when she did want to visit her zebra friend.
The only time she got away from them was during school, and on Thursdays when she met with Miss Cheerilee.
“Ah’m not a little filly!” Apple Bloom grumbled, as she shifted about in her school seat. “Ah’ve been goin’ t’ Zecora’s alone all this time, an’ they never had a problem before.”
“Well…” Sweetie Belle said, “It is pretty dangerous— remember that lizard-chicken… chicken-lizard?”
“Ah know where t’ walk when goin’ t’ Zecora’s, Ah’m pretty sure she keeps th’ way safe,” Apple Bloom argued. “No pony’d go t’ get a remedy if they’re gonna get bit by some crazy monster on th’ way!”
“Settle down, my little ponies,” Cheerilee called out in a sing-song voice. “Now, as you all know, Mother’s Day is coming up soon… so as a special activity today, we’re going to make Mother’s Day cards. I have construction paper here, and an assortment of materials to make her day a very special Mother’s Day. Everypony can come forward and get started.”
A mixture of groans from the colts and squeals from the fillies erupted from the class. Apple Bloom looked around her, many of her fellow students were already running forward to collect colourful sheets of construction paper, as well as paints, glitters and glues.
She waited until she caught Miss Cheerilee’s attention, then nodded towards the reading cushions. Her teacher nodded back; a silent confirmation that she would not be in trouble for sitting this activity out.
Apple Bloom pulled a book on herbs out of the shelves, and sat down to read. Flipping through the book, she quickly realised the information within was well below what she had been learning with both Zecora and Twilight. She already knew how to identify the different flowers native to the area, and the potion Zecora taught her to work out if a plant was poisonous was way better than ‘exposing a little bit of it to raw skin on your leg’.
That’s jus’ a dumb way t’ get an itchy leg!
Bored with the book, she trotted up to Cheerilee’s desk and asked for a piece of paper. Cheerilee happily obliged, and Apple Bloom trotted back to her spot. Taking a pencil in her mouth, she started drawing small diagrams of the different flowers she had remembered seeing on her last visit to the forest.
Apple Bloom sketched out a circular flower with thin, stranded petals, and a beehive-like center… she still felt a little awkward after Twilight explained the boy bits and the girl bits of the flower.
Coltsfoot— ewww, who would want to drink a colt’s foot? Brewable inta tea, good fer coughing.
“Hey, Apple Bloom.” Apple Bloom looked up to see one of her classmates sit down next to her. She didn’t really know Dinky all that well; she had always seemed like a bit of a strange filly. “Mind if I join you?”
“Uhh, sure,” Apple Bloom responded, before going back to her drawing.
Poison joke. Not good fer anything but pranks— oh, and baritones.
“What are you drawing?” Dinky asked in a whisper.
“Uhh… flowers…” Apple Bloom replied quietly, before looking down. Ah didn’t think they were that bad!
“I can see that,” Dinky giggled. “I was actually wondering why.”
“Oh, ummm, it’s for extra-circular work Ah’m doin’ with Miss Zecora.”
Dinky giggled even more. “It’s extra-curricular!”
“Ah thought that’s what Ah said!” Apple Bloom defended, blushing profusely. “How come yer sittin’ here with me? Doncha got a card t’ work on?”
“I’ve already finished my card,” Dinky answered quietly.
Apple Bloom nodded, before turning back to her drawings. She got as far as Evening Primrose when a loud laugh interrupted her.
“Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, what is so funny?” Miss Cheerilee asked.
“Nothing, Miss Cheerilee,” Diamond Tiara answered in her most sickly-sweet voice.
“Well, then… get back to making your cards, and please don’t interrupt class again.”
Apple Bloom was about to get back to her drawing when Diamond Tiara looked right at her. The pink filly mouthed something about a club to Silver Spoon (Cutie Mark Crusader Lip Readers, yay!) before getting back to her work.
She was certain Diamond Tiara had said something mean about her; it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption. It felt like half of her school time was spent getting bullied or teased by Diamond Tiara. Apple Bloom decided to shake it off; the spoilt rich filly could say what she wanted, Apple Bloom didn’t care. She turned back to Dinky, who shared Apple Bloom’s frown.
Apple Bloom invited Dinky to join her, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo for lunch. Dinky, in turn, asked if Alula and Berry Pinch could join them as well.
Soon, the six fillies were sitting in the shade of one of the trees in the playground, happily chatting as they went about eating their lunch.
“I really hope mom likes the card I made her,” Sweetie Belle sighed. “I wonder if Rarity has some more of those blue gems I can borrow. Mom would like it more if it was really colourful.”
“Eh, the only card my mother cares about is a mint condition Black Lotus card, but that’s like a million bits!” Everypony looked at Scootaloo, who coughed nervously under their questioning gaze.
“My mommy loved my card,” Dinky added.
“But Mother’s day is next week,” Scootaloo responded.
“Mom is going to be out of town next week,” Dinky answered the unspoken question. “So Auntie Carrot helped me make a card for her early.”
“I think my mom is going to like mine,” Alula added. “It’s blue, like the sky, and has lots of paper clouds!”
“I still think you should have added rainbows,” Berry Pinch said. “Rainbows are cool.”
“Yeah!” Scootaloo shouted. “Rainbow is cool!”
“She means rainbows as in the colours, dummy,” Apple Bloom corrected Scootaloo. “Not the pony!”
“Actually, I think she means rainbows as in the light refracted through water,” Dinky corrected. “Rainbow isn’t actually a colour.”
Berry Pinch shook her head. “Dinky, you’re making rainbows a lot less cool.”
Scootaloo mumbled something about how rainbows couldn’t be less cool.
“Apple Bloom, are— are you going to…” Sweetie Belle started. Though the glare Scootaloo had given the unicorn quickly fell from her face, she had failed in hiding it from Apple Bloom.
“Sorry… nevermind…” Sweetie Belle said.
“Naww, Ah’m not, Sweetie Belle.” Apple Bloom shook her head.
“Why not?” Berry Pinch asked.
Apple Bloom noticed Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo wince… along with Dinky, curiously enough. She breathed deeply, trying to keep herself calm. She knew in her heart that Berry Pinch didn’t mean anything by it.
An obnoxious voice rang out, dispelling the awkwardness that had descended upon the group. “Can you believe Miss Cheerilee made us make those dumb cards?”
“I know, Di, I mean, who doesn’t like, buy their mother a card?” Silver Spoon tittered. “We pay ponies so we don’t have to make things like that.”
“Daddy ordered my card from Canterlot,” Diamond Tiara said, “and he got me a nice bottle of perfume to give to mommy, too.”
“My daddy got a me a matching silk scarf to give to my mom.” Silver Spoon giggled. “We’ll look so fashionable!”
“Oh look, the Cutie Mark Goof-saders have gotten a few more members, Silv.”
Apple Bloom groaned. Was it too much to hope that those two would just pass them by?
“What are you hanging around with these blank-flanks for?” Silver Spoon directed her question to Alula, the only filly seated under the tree with her cutie mark.
“She can sit here whether she has her cutie mark or not!” Scootaloo growled.
“The question is… why would she want to?” Diamond Tiara asked. “Why would somepony want to sit with you lame-os?”
“Go away, Diamond,” Berry Pinch grumbled.
“Oh, you know, Silvey… I think I got it!” Diamond Tiara mockingly gasped. “They aren’t with the Cutie Mark Goof-saders, they’re making another lame club.”
“What‽” The six seated fillies glared at the evil pair.
“Oh, you’re probably right, Di!” Silver Spoon tittered. Apple Bloom hated that titter.
“I bet it’s the ‘Mistakes’ club…” Diamond Tiara chuckled darkly.
“What are you—”
“Well, let’s see…” Diamond Tiara rubbed her chin. “There’s the drunken mistake…” she said, pointing her hoof at the scowling Berry Pinch. There’s the retard’s mistake…” she added, pointing at Dinky.
“My mom is not a—”
“Oh, look at me…” Silver Spoon crossed her eyes and staggered about. “I’m so dumb I can’t even fly straight.”
Diamond Tiara giggled as Silver Spoon ‘bumped’ into her. “Watch where you’re going, don’t want to crash into anything important again.”
Dinky sat seething, gritting her teeth and glaring at the pink menace. Berry Pinch scooted closer and put a hoof on the filly’s shoulder.
Apple Bloom had had enough. She stood and stepped towards the filly, closely followed by Alula and Scootaloo. “Okay, DT, you need t’ get lost… now!”
“And here we have the last member of the group,” Diamond Tiara chuckled, pressing her face into Apple Bloom’s. “…The ‘Sister’s’ Mistake… that makes three!”
“W-What did y’ say?” Apple Bloom asked as she stepped back in shock.
“Hey Silvey, what’s worse than being a blank flank?” Diamond Tiara turned to ask her friend.
“I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being a blank flank, Di,” the silver filly giggled.
Diamond Tiara turned back to Apple Bloom, a sneer across her face. “Being an unwanted blank flank.”
Nopony could react fast enough.
Before Alula or Scootaloo could respond, Apple Bloom had pinned Diamond Tiara to the ground. Apple Bloom raised her right hoof, and brought it down hard across the spoilt brat’s face. She barely registered Scootaloo’s scream of stop as she raised her left and brought that down hard as well.
She ignored the two pegasi trying to stop her, to pull her off Diamond Tiara, but Apple Bloom only had eyes for one pony, and she brought her right hoof down on that pony’s face again.
A sickening crunch under her hoof did not stop her.
The gush of red streaming from the pink menace’s muzzle did not stop her.
The screaming around her did not stop her.
The only thing that was finally able to stop her was the sharp feeling of teeth pinched across the back of her neck, just below the base of her mane, as she was lifted bodily off of Diamond Tiara.
DT had it coming.
4428214
I suspect this will be a favorite chapter for a lot of people because of that alone.
4428228 Maybe. But seriously DT what the hell and I just got done reading a story that made me feel bad for you.... stuck up bitch.
Should've aimed for the throat, AB. That would've shut her up good.
Also..
"Eh, the only cards my mother cares about is a mint condition Black Lotus card, but that’s like a million bits!"
I will trade you my mint condition Black Lotus and my Moxen for the filly, Missus Scootaloo.
4428229
Lol, what's funny is I actually like DT and SS as characters. I'd like to think they are a little more complex than just bullies, but I doubt they'll ever show any of that in the show.
I actually have a story in the works surrounding DT and why she is a little bully, but in this story, she is an antagonist.
4428258 So I see.
Applebloom wins...Fatality!
Dunno if I'll get to reading far, since I'm busy but....heck. I've had the exact same story starter sitting in my projects list, so similar to what I can see this. Guess I won't be reinventing the wheel. The early bird catches the work, haha
4428257
First time Scoot's has felt like a million bits!
4428277
Yeah, since starting this story I've found more and more writers who have written pretty much the same story, or at least the concept.
Nothing wrong with that, though, as none of us can really claim originality when the entirety of Fanfic is a derivative of someone else's work
AJ: "Apple Bloom, what were you thinking?! How could you attack another pony like that? Why did you do it?"
Apple Bloom: "Ummm...Happy Mother's Day?"
AJ: "You hospitalized Diamond Tiara for me? Apple Bloom, that is the sweetest thing anypony has ever done for me. Come give me a hug."
*hugs and tears happen*
Cheerilee: "...What just happened?"
yes now i hope DT gets in trouble as well for saying what she said.
well AB your likely grounded for life but you know what?
totaly worth it!
Jontron = AB
Nightshade = DT
4428258 Heh, I took a much more difficult challenge and made DT a character readers could sympathize with. Still, the two of them make such wonderful bullies that I've used them in a princess-level prank with batponies and won't use them with Monster. (Confetti just isn't funny)
Evil is Good.
Little bitch had it coming.
, I have been waiting for Apple Bloom, or Scootaloo, to beat the snot out of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in the show.
I guess this will have to do. Nice update.
4428592 Agreed. I hate DT with a passion. In show, and in fanfics.
Wow. I've seen fics where someone snaps and clobbers DT (well, one I can think of off the top of my head, and as in this one, she suffers a broken snout as a result), but that was just brutal. Though given her remarks, I can't say I blame Apple Bloom. Maybe now DT will learn a lesson about knowing where the line is, and that she'd better avoid crossing it if she values her life.
Until next time...
Anon e Mouse Jr.
Dt, you must meet m5 frend brendan aldrage. Brendian, this is a stuckup littly spoiled rich girll who insults children of young and older parents of the middle and lower class. Care to show her some chicano hospatality? Oh, and she carries abot 20 gold coins around at any given time. The crown has real diamonds in it, and her frend is just as rich. Redy, ese?
Little spoiled brat deserved it.
Also, these lines from an earlier chapter:
Reminded me of this:
Before going in I'm gonna say this is another "Applejack is actually Apple Bloom's mother" story.
Awesome, great chapter.
Punching isn't enough, Apple Bloom! We need to pull out the big guns!
YES!!! Finally Diamond Tiara got what she deserved! Although in the fandom she usually gets what she deserves.
4428875 Ya think?
4428875
Pretty certain you said the exact same thing on the previous story, to which this one is a sequel. So yeah, that would be an accurate guess.
4428558
Well, Georg, if you want a spike in your likes/faves, then being mean to DT is the way to go. I knew a lot of peeps would like this chapter, but wow… People really hate Diamond Tiara.
I like the idea of dinky being smart, also that fight scene was brutal. Well done
4428937 But I *like* taking characters people hate and making them into the hero (i.e. Trixie in Monster, and DT in 'Buys a Sister') It's a little like playing Devil's Advocate, or trying to lift a weight that seems too heavy. It builds up those mental muscles.
4428921 What, a cute little baby sister, perhaps?
4428929
Oh, haha. I thought I recognized your username
Now THAT'S a cool (and the only correct) way to show Diamond Tiare her place!
I can guess what the next chapter will be about (after the talk with Cheerilee)...
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8100996096/h6250AA61/
I know that it was stated that Scootaloo's parents are CCG/TCG gamers to the hardcore, but I do not recall if a specific game was mentioned... Hence, I received the feeling that the 'Black Lotus card' is a Yu-Gi-Oh card. Is that correct or is it just a made up card and game?
I’m not sure I’ve run into a particular passage in fan fiction where the phrase “pump your brakes” was more applicable than right here.
Oh, good job AB, reminds me of when I snapped and got my bullies to stop messing with me. Here's hoping it sticks, and DT learns to finally leave the one who can clearly kick her butt alone.
4429015
That was the one! I was trying to remember which one of yours had DT in, I couldn't remember the name. That was a brilliant little story.
4429069
I actually feel bad, I went back and looked at your previous comment, in the other fic… I remembered someone was overly rude and thought it was you… turns out I was wrong, it was someone else. Oops. Hopefully I didn't come off as too much of a dick in my reply
4429306
They are Witchcraft: the Herding players, which is basically a silly renaming of Magic: the Gathering. I had to phone that joke in a little, I haven't played MtG in years (about 15) so I just searched ebay for magic cards and sorted by highest cost. *lazyauthor*
4429380
I think there was a reason when I started, but I can't remember why. I think I shall correct that.
4429465
Ah, that would have been my second guess. I knew just googling the card title wouldn't have helped, I did assume it was Yu-Gi-Oh, and there happens to be a card of that moniker, but yes! MtG! I really like the game and I now a few people who are crazy good at it.... I... kinda lost my train of thought while writing this... I was gonna say more stuff, but I forgot the vein of them, so I think I'll just shut up now...
This gave me flashbacks to the last time I was picked on by the class bully in sixth grade I gave him a concussion...
Well, DT was probably never going to learn any other way than through percussive maintenance on her skull. I hope AB hasn't done permanent damage, though.
4429465
The MLP comics showed Shining Armor playing "Hocuspocus: The Get-Together" with his friends in high school
4429681
Aww butts! I knew they played Obluiettes and Ogres, but not Hocus Pocus… I knew I should have rechecked those issues
She had it coming, bum bum, she had it coming, bum bum, she only had herself to blame!
If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it, I betcha you would have done the same!
*jazz hands*
...no?
...ok.
*walks off*
4429746
How could you tell me that I was wrong?
4428214
DT always has it coming.
4428273 FLAWLESS VICTORY!
4428302 Faust: "One of my many miracles."
4428671
I don't know. She'll probably find other ways to dig into Apple Bloom.
4430077
TBH, I can't remember if DT appears again in this fic (I wrote it a while back) but bullies rarely do give up that easily. DT likely would just find something new (or a new way) to harrass AB.
4430100
That's what I just said.
4430138
Sorry, was trying to agree with you. Sick today, so brain is not 100%.
Fuck, it isn't even 10% today.
There was supposed to be a "so you're right" in my original post.
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw1484_whywouldyoudothatt.png
Smooth move DT, so how many hooves am I holding up? Probably more than the amount of teeth you have left!
Gotta say I am very impressed at how well paced this story is and you've hit all the stages spot on, each one not lasting too long or too short.
Well done! Faved and liked.