Chapter 11 - "Through Trial's Fire"
Confeatheracy of Dunces
Chapter 11 – “Through Trial’s Fire”
Failing Grade reread the section in Glittering Glory's Guidebook to Gallant and Guileless Grand Greatness in Geomancy and every successive read through just made her mind recoil more and more.
“Celestia on her throne, Club, this is the spell you want us all to use?!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, Grade,” sighed an exasperated Breakfast Club for what felt like the thousandth time. “I tell you once more, this spell is infamously difficult even for ponies who have the magic strength to pull it off, but we can-“
“Have you looked at this?!” Grade shoved the ancient writings of mystical scribbles into Club’s face. “This involves contiguous runic intertwining, you idiot! Who in their fu-“
“Hey!” interjected Tough Love, who was getting a little sick of Grade’s hysterics. “If you’re going to cuss up a storm, at least for my sake be a bit more original than just swears, ok?”
Grade glared at Love, but rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she acquiesced. “But Club, what you’re asking is going to require a level of magic so powerful that it would take the three of us and Princess Luna achieving a higher plane of existence through screwing her entire lunar guard – the stallions and the mares – simultaneously with the three of us as well, and all that tantric energy converted into magic energy with a zero energy loss coefficient, and that would barely be enough to sufficiently leave us able to have magic tomorrow!”
Club merely smirked. “I’m aware of that, just not in less…soiling Princess Luna in sacred ways…but we can easily still do it with the three of us. The loss of magic for a week is a small price to pay to shame Cheerilee out of town.”
Grade was aghast. “You would have us all suffer Corneal Expendive Burnout?!” For unicorns, they could pull out significantly more from their inner magic pool, a remnant of primitive survival instincts, but doing so would make their horn inflamed and sensitive. A state that left them unable to use any magic and generally was described as having the monthly inconvenience only less messy and attached to the forehead instead of under the drapes. It also lasted on average about a week, so it was rare a unicorn ever needed to burn that much magic in one go, rarer still if it wasn’t a life-or-death situation.
Club furrowed her brow. “We’ve gotten this far already, so don’t you dare bug out now!”
“Look, I’m all for putting Cheerilee and her new birdbrain out of business, but this is going to backfire horribly! Even if you’re right and the three of us burning our entire collective magic pools to get wings, we’re going to be extremely irritable and for all we know, that could end up backfiring on us and she gets the win while we’re bickering even more than we are now!”
“High risk, high reward, just like poker,” replied Club with a shrug.
Love, noting the heating tensions, opted to make an alternative suggestion. “Y’know, there might be a better way to go about all this. What if we just pool our normal magic, which should be enough to give just one of us wings.”
“And reduce the odds of winning down to fifty-fifty odds?” Club scowled. “I’m not giving that haridelle a furlong of slack: she’s wormed her way out of anything we’ve thrown at her in the past if given the tiniest opening! We can’t-“
“I didn’t say that,” impishly grinned Love. “I say that the one pony who gets the wings is you, Club, since you clearly have far more personal interest in destroying your all-time nemesis than either Grade or myself and so would get the most out of being the winner of this idiotic race. But she’s going to be off her game thanks to that incident you had staged Saturday night, so during the race it would be ea-“
Club raised a hoof to silence her colleague. “In any other circumstance, I would agree with you on that, Toughie. But one of the risks is that Princess Twilight is going to be around for this and she’ll know if we try to pull a fast one by sabotaging Cheerilee. As much as it pains me, this needs to be cheating-free, with the three of us against the one of her in order to stack the deck as much as possible. And yes, while I would like to be the winner overall, the entire point of this was to humiliate Cheerilee to the point she can’t show her face in this town again, and I care more about that than I do about winning first place!”
Grade sighed in defeat. “Well, when you put it like that, we really don’t have a choice then, do we?” She lit up her horn with a pink aura. Nodding in agreement, Tough Love lit up her bright auburn aura.
Levitating the spellbook in her own light gray aura, Club grinned. “Well, time is fleeting, so better get this party started now, huh?” From the trio’s horns, colorful beams of magic radiated out and met at an equidistant point; the spellbook that now hovered between them. Defying the nature of color mixing, the three sources of magic blended into a metallic blue, which then radiated back out in three streams and rapidly encircled the three unicorns. “Let’s show Cheerilee once and for all she doesn’t have what it takes to do a unicorn’s job!”
“Rainbow!” hollered Scootaloo. “Rainbow!”
Groggily, the spectrum-maned pegasus stirred. “Ungh…two more hours, Mom…”
“RAINBOW!” This time, Scoot had gotten onto Rainbow’s bed and was bouncing up and down.
“Ngh, fine…” Dash forced herself to sit up, lifting a foreleg to shield her eyes from the bright sun coming in through the hotel room window. She didn’t remember asking for a farmer’s wake-up the previous evening…but she didn’t remember what day it was, either.
“Rainbow, we gotta go!” The attachment of an orange filly to her foreleg and subsequently trying to drag her off the bed did little to budge the notoriously sleepyheaded pegasus. “We gotta get back to Ponyville or Mom’s gonna kill us both!”
“B-but Mom’s in Cloudsdale, not…” Dash’s eyes bolted wide open as her head got back into working order. After the Derby, Spitfire had found Rainbow again and explained that while she was in Canterlot at the same time as the Wonderbolts before the latter broke up for a week’s leave break, she wanted to have the Wonderbolts’ official physical therapist give her a look-over to ensure she was going to be ready to be an active reservist again. They’d agreed on a quick check-up for Dash the next day, which gradually turned into a full day of Dash and Scootaloo hanging out with Spitfire’s team when Dash wasn’t being put through her paces or flirting with Soarin’. Naturally she’d gotten teasing flak from everypony – Scoot included – but at the same time it allowed Scoot to feel like she was getting true VIP treatment with the ‘Bolts when Rainbow wasn’t around. By the end of the epic day, Rainbow had been sure her little sister was so over the moon it would require Princess Luna’s help to get her down.
But amidst all the fervor, they’d forgotten they also were supposed to have been back in Ponyville by Sunday evening. It was now Monday morning, and while Rainbow was sure she could patch things up with Scoot’s parents (it hadn’t been like Rainbow had up and left their only filly alone without parental supervision the whole time), she had a feeling Cheerilee would be less than enthused at Rainbow skipping class without prior notification.
“Oh, jeez, forget your mom killing us, Ms. Cheerilee is going to skin us alive!” Unconsciously, Rainbow launched herself into the air and was hovering a foot off the bed. Scoot didn’t mention anything, but was secretly overjoyed at this latest sign of progress, the further implication that things would return to normal very soon.
Or at least that was the thought at first. Rainbow, in a dead panic now, landed without even thinking about it and threw open the hotel door to go get tickets for the first train back to Ponyville, but was stopped by the sight of the newspaper. Instead of being like normal newspapers left in front of hotel room doors, this one had already been opened with an arrow drawn on an inside page, pointing to a specific article. If Rainbow was already addled in the head from what she thought was going to happen, just glancing at this tabloid news sent it into overdrive.
“Flight Race in Ponyville between local feuding teachers?! And Cheerilee didn’t tell me about this!?”
“I hate politics,” groaned Twilight, a freshly-vomited-by-Spike letter hovering near her head in a magenta-hued aura.
“What’s the matter?” asked Cheerilee. After a full day of resting after Big Mac’s big save of her constitution and at the insistence of Silver, Cheerilee had gone to the library first thing Monday morning to try and help the alicorn locate any notes she might have made about the artificial wing spell that Club and her cohorts were almost certainly going to use to get the edge on Cheerilee. “You’re a princess, so while I’m not saying you should abuse your position as a virtual demigoddess that everypony worships to get this dumb race mandate lifted… I’m asking you to abuse your position as a virtual demigoddess that everypony worships to get this dumb race mandate lifted.”
Twilight shook her head. “Unfortunately, in an effort to prevent any nobles from doing the same, the provincial outline of Ponyville’s charter explicitly makes the first priority for questioning all matters involving the actions of the town council be a power invested in the mayor – not applicable in this case since even though the mayor voted against it she was overruled by majority vote – and then it can only be escalated by a member of nobility through sending a letter of request to the council to alter or undo the motion.”
“Okay, and…?”
The purple princess sighed. “This letter – which is far too informal for somepony working in a public office to be writing to me about this matter – is reminding me that the council has twenty-four hours to do a recount vote and either agree or disagree to follow my request as of when I made it. By the time a full day has passed and I’m allowed to exercise my authority…”
“…the race already would have happened.” Cheerilee facehoofed. “Seriously, how did those three convince those idiots on the council that this race was somehow good for the town?”
“Charity,” flatly replied Twilight. “The whole thing is going to be spun as some kind of public awareness support drive, with the raised money being put into the next semester’s budget divisions that is split proportionally between the four schools. It goes without saying that there might be a slight bias in favor of the teachers who place better than the others in terms of where the extra money goes.”
Cheerilee nickered. “Go figure they’re trying to make this something I have to absolutely win, if that’s the case. Ponyville Elementary is in bad need of a restorative overhaul.”
Twilight cocked her head to the side in confusion. “Really? The place always looks pretty sturdy whenever I visit it.”
The teacher shook her head. “Just because it’s one of the oldest buildings in town and one of the few that has never had to be rebuilt – the parasprites gave it a wide berth for whatever reason – doesn’t mean the years have been kind to it. That is after all partly the reason why there are some ponies who want it taken out of service, no point in maintaining an aging structure when the max capacity is only twelve students and one teacher.”
“Cheerilee, Ponyville Elementary isn’t going to be left to rot, don’t put that burden on your back because you think only you can save it.” Twilight then grinned impishly, “Plus, once this is all over, I can look into having the building declared a historical landmark, which will allow for annual grants and other line items to come from the Royal Historical Chancellery.”
“Twilight, you don’t…” began Cheerilee, before letting her brain catch up and really think about what the situation was. Too many times she’d let herself speak ahead of her brain and thus get herself worked up to fits of hysteria. The events of the past weekend were potent reminders of that. “Alright, I see what you are saying, but don’t think I’m not going to push myself to win this anyway.”
“But why?” asked Twilight. “There is nothing you-“
“Stop right there,” interrupted the pseudo-pegasus, raising a hoof. “This isn’t about me; in truth it never fully was about me at all, I just ended up making it seem like that because I’m a naturally over-emotional wreck. This race? Club and her cronies are trying to prove that the solution to Rainbow not learning how to fly wasn’t best solved by turning me back into a pegasus and having to give a crash course both to Rainbow and myself on how to leave the ground. Not when that stupid Glitter Wing spell existed the whole time.
“If they beat me such that they are clearly better flyers, losing my credibility in this town is the least of my concerns. Anypony even remotely associated with me is going to be ostracized by the community – my friendship with may would spell the end of her political career, my students would be looked down upon for having the most incompetent teacher in town, and I’d bet even you would suffer in some degree, Twilight.”
“Me? But how? All I did was give you wings! Well, sort of, at least.”
“That’s just it: Because you were the one who enabled me to be a pegasus again, Discord-required intervention or not, you also pulled off the Glitter Wing spell, so if everything goes to pot, ponies are going to question why you didn’t use the book that has been in this library the whole time instead of making me a pegasus outright. And saying you forgot is not going to be a popular answer.”
Cheerilee took a deep breath. “Yeah, I know I’m doing exactly what I shouldn’t be by outlining in detail everything that’s going to go wrong if I fail, but…but this time, failure isn’t an option. Cheesy as it sounds, those three haridelles have simply gone too far. When they went after me time and time again, the only one who had to deal with their shit was me so I avoided having to bring others into those messes. But whether or not they even realize it, this time they’re going after not just me but ponies I care for simply to ensure whatever trouble they cause will impact me no matter what. And it’s all because I was given a pair of wings.”
Twilight chuckled. “Yeah, trust me, I know exactly what that’s like.”
“What do you mean the train is late?!” shouted an irate Rainbow Dash.
The stationmaster seemed unimpressed. “There was a rockslide on the tracks coming into Canterlot from the northeast on the Saddleseat Pass. It’s prevented the train in question from leaving Fillydelphia Station as the pass is notoriously hard to reach and there isn’t a direct route around it. I apologize, but the fact is I don’t know when the train will be arriving as this disaster has thrown the entire rail network from here to Fillydelphia out of whack, could even be days before that train actually gets here.”
Rainbow’s jaw was only prevented from reaching the ground by virtue of it still being connected to the rest of her skull. “Of course it could be days…well, thanks anyway, I guess.” She turned and trotted over to meet with Scootaloo on the station bench.
“Bad news?” rhetorically asked the filly, having overheard the entire conversation.
“We’re not getting back by train, that’s for sure.” With a huff, Rainbow hopped up onto the bench next to Scoot. “I know Doctor Silver would talk my ears off if I tried to just fly us back since I’m not supposed to be ready for that just yet, but short of a royal chariot hauling all our stuff back, we’re tied to these steamer trunks.”
“Let me guess: my mom?”
“Your trunk is full of bedding material, since somehow your mom refused to believe our hotel room came with cloudbed mattresses. Because it makes perfect sense that a free hotel room given to a Wonderbolt Reservist for a Wonderbolts event wouldn’t accommodate for the fact I’m a pegasus.”
“Maybe she was assuming the second bed in the room wasn’t a cloudbed?” suggested Scoot. “After all, you are Rainbow Dash, your circle of friends are among the most well-known ponies alive in the country. And three of them aren’t winged, so it would be sort of embarrassing if Pinkie, Applejack, or Rarity tried to sleep on a cloudbed and felt only springs since I’m pretty sure clouds work differently for other ponies than for pegasi like us, right?”
Rainbow put a hoof to her chin in deep thought. “That is a good point, Scoot.”
Scootaloo laughed. “Now if only Ms. Cheerilee’s classes were that easy!”
“Yeah, or the question of how we’re going to get back to Ponyville on time.” Suddenly, it dawned on Dash. “Of course!”
“Of course…what?” asked Scoot.
“Just wait here for a moment, ok? We might be able to work this out yet!” Hurriedly, Rainbow dashed off to what looked like an everyday patrol of guardponies.
It was high noon in the town of Ponyville, but nopony was all that interested in having lunch as they usually did on Mondays at that time. Instead, the entire populace of Ponyville was evenly spread across the settlement with their eyes looking up to the sky, waiting for the spectacle to begin.
At the agreed upon starting line, which happened to be Ponyville Elementary, the crowd was no less sparse and only held back by guardponies from the local garrison. Within the clearing were few ponies aside from the racers themselves, but already the two unequal camps were separated by a mutually observed no-pony’s land.
On one side was Breakfast Club, Tough Love, and Failing Grade. Upon their backs were identical pairs of butterfly wings, blocks of reddish-pink, cyan, light green, and orange-gold nestled in thin wing frames of a semi-transparent lilac hue.
On the other was Team Cheerilee. Consisting of the teacher herself and the support crew that was her family, Twilight, May, and somehow the rallied student body of Ponyville Elementary sans the absent Scootaloo. Whatever Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had done to get all their fellow classmates, including their usual archnemesis duo of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, into a cheering mob with a crude-but-endearing banner of support was beyond Cheerilee’s comprehension, but it was touching nonetheless.
However, she was growing ever more concerned as to why Big Mac was absent. True, he hadn’t actually said he was going to be there, for all she knew, Mac was stuck doing farm work to keep his family fed so he couldn’t avoid doing that. All the same, the fact they’d pretty much finally became each other’s true special someponies just the day prior made his absence that much more pronounced.
“He’ll be here, Cheeri,” reassured her father. “He moved heaven and earth for nothing but the assurance of your well being. And you know as well as I do that he’s here in spirit, whatever his story is right now.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she replied, a small blush on her cheeks. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught Club giving her a momentary, nasty glare. All that did was make Cheerilee smile a bit more, as she knew what any of those three unicorn changeling-wannabes were just dying to shout in her face as insults or whatever to get under her skin. But the presence of the schoolfoals meant any such behavior would only make the trio look bad and thus undermine everything they’d wanted through this silly “charity derby” they’d managed to set up.
“Alright, racers to the starting line!” declared Twilight, her station of royalty automatically putting her in charge of starting the competition. “You four already know the course; simple five lap race that starts here and goes to Lakeside Elementary, then from there you will turn and cross over Town Hall to reach Whitetail. Then to Forest Edge Elementary, followed by crossing over Town Hall again to back here to finish the lap. The first of you to complete five circuits and cross the finish line will be the winner.” She then narrowed her eyes at the three butterfly winged unicorns. “And if there is anything that happens during this race that can be attributed to cheating, not that I suspect any of you would stoop that low to win a fundraising event, you will be immediately disqualified. Everypony in agreement?” The four winged ponies nodded in confirmation. “Alright then, on your marks…”
As if choreographed, the four all assumed prone running stances, which immediately proved to be the first warning sign for Cheerilee’s enemies. They hadn’t remembered she had a physical education degree, which evidently required knowing how to prepare for a sprint like a professional athlete. Something they hadn’t thought to do.
“Get set…”
As the things she’d had to memorize to later regurgitate in the hopes Rainbow would learn them all flowed back into her head, Cheerilee remembered to adjust her wings to tuck into her body tightly. Almost immediately she could sense the quizzical looks from her competitors and probably some of the onlookers, but she didn’t break focus.
“GO!” Twilight fired a beam of magic into the air, which after a split second exploded with a loud retort.
At first, it seemed like Cheerilee was at a disadvantage as she was simply running forward while her opponents had instantly taken flight. Then, after a short distance where it looked like she wasn’t going to take off, Cheerilee flared her wings out just enough to catch the updraft she’d made by running forward. Her form effortlessly lifted off the ground, gaining height as she continued to unfurl her wings, reaching full length when she simply glided past the stunned unicorns.
“Teaching the fastest flyer in Equestria works both ways!” she taunted with a grin before finally flapping her wings to maintain her speed and position in the race. Pity Rainbow wasn’t here to see me use one of the tricks I picked up from her, mused the mulberry mare, because then after all this I could have had her explain to everypony what I learned from her.
The sound of the magical retort was heard all over town, especially Sweet Apple Acres.
“Granny, what are ya doin’?” asked Applejack, worry laced in her voice. She found herself in the unusual position of having to speak on Big Mac’s behalf, as even though he usually was a stallion of small words, he tended to totally clam up when he got worked up over something. And right now that “something” was not being there to support Cheerilee because Granny wanted him to have some unspecified object with him.
“Ah’m tryin’ t’ hurry in findin’ the blasted thing!” came back the muffled answer, the elderly Apple half-submerged in the master bedroom’s closet that was inexplicably full of oddball things.
“The race is gonna be over at this rate by the time you find whatever it is you’re tryin’ t’ find!” Applejack couldn’t help but wonder if there was some kind of portal linking Granny Smith’s closet of junk to Pinkie Pie’s scalp, given the kinds of things the hyperactive pony could pull out of her cotton candy hairdo. AJ wished Pinkie was here now, truthfully, since at least then Pinkie could pull out the mystery item without even looking where she stuck her hoof.
“FOUND IT!” declared Granny, stepping back in victory and holding her prize. It was the slightly beat-up megaphone from when Sweet Apple Acres had hosted the Sisterhooves Social events.
“What am Ah supposed t’ do with that?” asked Big Mac.
“Y’ shout in it!” flatly declared Granny as she shoved it into her grandson’s hooves. “And Ah know you’ll thank me later when you know the time t’ use it. Now get goin’, yer special somepony needs ya!”
Big Mac needed no more incentive to take leave of his grandmother’s oddities. If nothing else, he figured, at least the megaphone would make sure Cheerilee heard his voice. He didn’t give anything else Granny had said much more thought.
Two laps later, things were still close, Cheerilee having worked hard to maintain her lead but it had gradually eroded away, the three glitter winged unicorns hot on her tail.
“Give it up!” taunted Tough Love. “The sooner you do, the sooner this will be all over!”
Just ignore her internally noted Cheerilee.
“You shoulda stuck to gardening!” added Failing Grade. “At least you can’t royally screw up sticking things in the dirt!”
Keep ignoring…
“You think winning is going to change anything?” shouted Breakfast Club. “You’ll still be a washed up teacher who nopony will see as anything but the reject left running the most decrepit building in town!”
Cheerilee said nothing but pushed herself even harder as she took the turn above Whitetail Elementary.
“Club, I don’t think it’s working!” said Grade
“Au contraire,” smugly replied Club. “She’s exerting herself too hard now just to beat us. Forget finishing last, she’s spending so much energy in trying to flap her feathers that she might not even make it to the end!”
“It looks like they’ve already started!” called back the pegasus guard. Somehow, by sheer convenience, one of the pegasi at the train station who Rainbow had approached had been the same pegasus who had brought Silver and Dusty from Manehatten to Ponyville. A two-minute conversation later and he’d agreed to let Rainbow abuse her standing with the crown and comendeer his chariot such that he’d take both of them to Ponyville as fast as he could, with his companion handling the luggage.
“That “bang” we heard earlier must have been the starting pistol or something,” hypothesized Rainbow, “but they’re still so far off, it’s hard to tell what’s going on!”
“We’re not going to get there for another fifteen minutes,” the guard replied, “I’m not able to go any faster without risking the chariot becoming unstable.”
“What are we gonna do?” asked Scootaloo, who had a feeling in her gut that somehow, her angry accusations from a few days ago would play a part in hurting Ms. Cheerilee even more.
Rainbow gritted her teeth, looking around, then suddenly down below the chariot. A gleam in her eye signaled to Scootaloo that she had an idea. The spectrum-maned mare then turned to the guard. “Is it safe if Scoot and I jumped off right now?”
“Do what now?” exclaimed the guard out of surprise. “I mean, yes, it’s safe enough at this height, but I thought you were still in therapy because you couldn’t fly?”
Rainbow flashed a signature smirk. “Then I guess my therapy is over.” Without warning, she lunged toward the back of the chariot, wrapping Scoot in her forelegs, then dived straight down off the back of the airborne cart.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” screamed Scoot, unused to the ground approaching her that fast from that angle, but gradually she calmed down when she saw Rainbow’s face. The blue pegasus wore a mask of determination, of assurance, of getting her adrenaline addiction filled after weeks of denial. She flared her wings out fully, whereupon Scoot thought she saw faint white outlines start to close in on the two pegasi.
“Wh-what are you doing?!” wailed Scoot, partly out of fear but also partly out of anticipation. When Rainbow Dash got this fast, things got exponentially more awesome.
“Getting my ‘Most Awesome Pegasus in All of Equestria!’ card back,” grinned Rainbow. Then Dash adjusted her gaze forward to the rapidly approaching ground. Her grin widened slightly as she felt the airflow on her wingtips act in a way that she hadn’t experienced for what felt like eternity but at the same time was as familiar as breathing.
It was time to make all that therapy stuff pay off.
By the end of the third lap, things had changed dramatically. Now trailing, it was all Cheerilee could do to simply keep pace and hope to finish. She could only figure that there was something to those magical wings from the Glitter Wing spell that didn’t burn their user’s stamina, at least not as fast as real wings did. Had that been their plan all along? She worried, trying to put the thoughts of having been beaten before the race even began out of her head. But try as she might to do that while remaining focused on staying airborne, her sensitive self-esteem started to crack under pressure once again. After all, even after proving the dinner incident had done nothing to deter Big Mac’s feelings for her, he remained unaccounted for in every crowd search that she did for him. Rainbow and Scoot were still missing as well even though they were supposed to have been back the previous day, were they too ashamed of knowing she was going to inevitably fail that they couldn’t even come back to town? That maybe in the end, Club had been right and-
No! Cheerilee screamed within her head. She’s been trying to wreck my life all these years, only stepping it up so much because she knows she isn’t as good a teacher as me. She needed to use a book to give her flight abilities, she didn’t do any of the work I had to do, and she isn’t trying to help anypony! Gritting her teeth, Cheerilee pushed even harder and found her workload becoming slightly easier to bear. Shouldn’t be a surprise, she realized, even if I was turned into a pegasus, I’m still innately an earth pony, too, and earth ponies have the most stamina of all three tribes!
Suddenly, a thunderous CRACK tore through the sky, catching everypony’s attention, and as Cheerilee dogged behind her rivals around the last turn to end the lap, what she saw could have brought tears to her eyes if she had the chance to do so. It was a considerable distance away from Ponyville, but the full spectrum radiating out from a single point was unmistakably a Sonic Rainboom, with the rapidly approaching streak of rainbow hues not possibly being anypony other than Rainbow.
Crossing what had to be several kilometers in a time span of seconds, the rainbow streak seemed to be trying to cross paths with Cheerilee, but overshot and couldn’t manage more than an overhead pass. But bizarrely, what should have been Rainbow Dash instead seemed to cry out “I’M SORRY MS CHERILEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-“ in the voice of Scootaloo of all ponies. Maybe Rainbow was holding the filly in her forelegs? It was the only possible way, but that train of thought left Cheerilee’s head relatively quickly upon what she saw next.
There, having somehow gotten his way on top of Town Hall, was an exhausted Big Mac holding a megaphone. “COME ON, SUGARCUBE!” he virtually screamed into the cone, “AH BELIEVE IN YA!”
A tear finally escaping her eye, only to quickly be seized by the rushing air past her face, Cheerilee knew she could finally put all her worries to rest. She’d already succeeded as far as she cared, nothing Club, Love, or Grade did could make anypony think otherwise, but if Cheerilee was sure of anything else, it was that the three ponies in front of her needed a taste of their own medicine.
“What just happened?!” cried out Tough Love to her compatriots. Grade just shrugged, unsure of what to make of the situation.
Club, however, was nearing boiling point. Everything was coming undone at the worst possible moment. She didn’t have time to tell Grade and Love they were idiots for not knowing that a Sonic Rainboom had just occurred – meaning Rainbow Dash was now back at her full flight abilities – but that the inexplicable presence of Big Mac in a place where he didn’t belong with a megaphone meant they’d been wrong about the success of the diner sabotage the whole time as it seemed to have done the opposite by bringing Mac and Cheerilee together. She didn’t even know what all the screaming behind her was about, but given the theme of the other two occurrences, it wasn’t hard to guess they’d not contributed to Cheerilee’s humiliation.
Glancing over her shoulder, the piece of chalk that broke the blackboard’s back was seeing Cheerilee having been reinvigorated and rapidly coming up to take the lead. With half the final lap to go, there was plenty of time for her to pass them and claim victory. Once again, Cheerilee was somehow going to defy what was expected, what was supposed to be mandated by natural law, and prove superior to her unicorn betters.
Club, fully consumed with rage, decided enough was enough and played her secret trump card. Earlier, when she had united her magic with the other two unicorns, she’d actually fudged the spell in the book with an illusion cantrip to seem like it would require more magic than it really needed for three simultaneous castings. But by not telling Grade or Love, they had ended up burning out their magic but Club merely pretended to have suffered the same effects. In reality, she still had enough magic for one strong spell to make Cheerilee “accidently” spiral out of control, and with everything having gone against her plans, it was the only thing she could think of doing.
“Go back to dirt where you belong!” she screeched, firing off a magic blast right at Cheerilee. The speeds involved ensured a direct hit…but to everypony’s shock the obvious didn’t happen. To Club, the spell she thought – correctly – was a slowing spell that should have at least made Cheerilee move at the pace of a snail. However, as was the case with every single unknown factor she’d failed to account for that day, Club’s plans were undone by the fact Cheerilee’s matched set of wings were courtesy of Discord. As a precaution, Discord had opted to weave a little countermagic into the wings he’d given Cheerilee this time but didn’t mention it to either her or Twilight. This secret failsafe was to prevent anything that would inhibit Cheerilee’s use of her wings from affecting her, instead applying the opposite effect.
Thus, Club was at a loss when her slowing spell only ended up making Cheerilee exponentially faster. In fact, right as Cheerilee got right next to Club and the others, she even hit mach speed, the resulting sonic boom propelling her forward at insane speed and leaving a three-tone-pink streak in her wake, a similarly colored radial aura expanding from the point of hitting mach speed. The “Sonic Cheerboom” also momentarily ignited the area around Cheerilee – the same area Club, Love, and Grade were in – from air friction to reach a temperature similar to direct exposure to the sun. Thus, by the time the three unicorns were able to comprehend they’d lost their wings somehow, they found themselves crashing into the roof of Forest Edge Elementary, leaving the barely-in-control Cheerilee to complete the final lap in under ten seconds…and unable to slow down to avoid plowing headfirst into the ground after crossing the finish.
The world slowly started to reform around Cheerilee, who was sure that she hadn’t gotten dangerously drunk again, regardless of what her throbbing head insisted.
“Cheeri? Cheerilee!” exclaimed a voice Cheerilee recognized, but couldn’t put a name or face to just yet. But when she suddenly found herself lifted out of the Cheerilee-sized rut in the ground next to Ponyville Elementary, that question was answered for her. As was her next course of action.
For his part, Big Mac was not expecting Cheerilee to shove her muzzle into deeply kissing his, but he sure wasn’t adverse to it.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” immediately went the entire Ponyville Elementary student body. All except one, that is, as Scootaloo charged forward with worry on her face.
“Ms. Cheerilee!” she exclaimed, though she was too busy looking at the ground while panting heavily. Rainbow was quickly by Scoot, chuckling.
“She’s alright, Scoot,” she said, before leaning in to whisper, “I think it was your apology that helped the most.”
“Actually, I’d say it was that sudden burst of speed from nowhere that did it,” corrected Twilight, who quickly gave an apologetic cringe when met with a patronizing look from Rainbow. “Seriously, where did that come from?”
Cheerilee took that as her cue to disengage muzzles and answer. “I honestly don’t know, all I remember is Breakfast Club suddenly looking behind her and firing some kind of spell at me. Probably trying to make it look like I was cheating somehow, but…” the teacher then giggled. “I’m not Rainbow Dash, am I?”
“Yeah,” grumbled Rainbow under her breath, “because you have a coltfriend now and I don’t.”
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They kinda forgot that the glitter wing spell makes butterfly wings, didn't they? Which don't work the same as feathered wings... Which is kinda important for rehabilitating a flyer...
Still, student and master performing legend level stunts, even if one was magically aided? Pure Awesome.
Club and the Wannabe Society failing epically? Win.
Never trust chaos magic to work as expected. That's rule 1 right there.
So... why do they think that losing a spur-of-the-moment nonsense, promotional race would humiliate Cheers so much that she'd leave town?
I mean, nothing they do to her during the race could match the fiasco they already cooked up during her date, and THAT didn't inspire her to move out of the country.
Really? That's the logic? I don't get it at all. Why would anypony be on her case - much less her friends' cases - because she lost a race?
That Cheerilee teaching a pegasus to fly is bloody stupid seemed abundantly clear from the outset. If someone points out a better alternative after the fact, it's just a little bit melodramatic to think that ponies' careers would go down in flames and Princesses would be jeered at by the masses.
Well, I guess it's a moot point now, though.
5827536
Kinda going off of this kind of logic
Poor Rainbow
5840434
Hey sounds like she was putting the moves on Soarin rather successfully.
THREE CHEERS FOR CHEERILEE'S SONIC CHEERBOOM