Cuprolaminophobia

by LukeTheMercenary

Cuprolaminophobia

"But Daddy, It's not enough!" Diamond Tiara whined at her stressed out father.

"Diamond Tiara, your weekly allowance of 75 bits is more than enough." Filthy Rich said, frowning and resting his head on his desk.

Diamond Tiara and her father had been arguing about this for about thirty minutes. Diamond insisted to her father that her allowance was too small, even though it was larger than most allowance sizes in Ponyville. She was the daughter of a well-known business owner, she wanted more!

"But Daaaaaaddy!!!" Diamond said.

"THAT. IS. ENOUGH!" Spoiled Rich yelled as she stomped into the room, "Diamond Tiara! Stop stressing out your father! He doesn't make good decisions when he can't think clearly...and if he makes bad decisions, our income will drop! Do you want to end up like the PEASANT ponies in this town! With a MUCH LOWER allowance?!"

"No...but-"

"No 'buts'! We are done talking about this! Go to bed!"

Diamond Tiara growled and had a stomping fit before she ran up the stairs to her room, bumping into a servant on the way. She ran into her room and slammed the door behind her, angered that her mother interrupted their conversation.

"Grr...Mom always cutting into my conversations! She never lets me do ANYTHING!" Diamond Tiara fumed as he jumped on her bed.

This wasn't true. In fact...while Spoiled was indeed a snob, she did give Diamond Tiara many privileges. She let her stay up late at night, let Diamond use her special perfume, she even helped Diamond get out of trouble when she was caught bullying the crusaders.

However, Diamond was too focused on the rage boiling in her veins. She grabbed her pillow and viciously began beating it. She kicked, punched, and squeezed it until it looked like a bird exploded in her room...feathers everywhere.

"Whatever," She said, grumbling, "I can just have a servant clean up this mess and fetch me a new pillow."

She then collapsed on her bed in exhaustion, sweat dripping from her forehead. Her little tantrum was immature, but it did make her feel a lot better. She was now able to think more clearly, but it still bugged her that she couldn't get a higher allowance.

"I've GOT to get more money!" Diamond said, "But how?"

She laid there on her bed for a second, pillow feathers all over and around her. Suddenly, she got an idea.

"That's it!" she said as she got up, making the feathers that were on her fly out of her mane, "I'll just take the money out of Daddy's safe!"

Filthy Rich would constantly tell Diamond Tiara to stay out of the safe behind the desk. He never told her why. When she would ask, he would ignore the question. She thought it was his savings due to how protective he was of it, and it was bound to have a decent amount of bits inside.

"I'll just wait for Mom and Dad to go to bed...and then I'll just open the safe!" Diamond grinned, feeling quite clever.

For the next hour, she waited in her bed for her parents to go to bed. When they finally did, it was time to sneak out. She knew that some of her servants had the night shift...mainly for nighttime protection. She lived in a mansion, of course. There was a chance that some thieves would want to rob the place. Little did anypony know that the only thief that would rob the mansion that night would be the owner's daughter.

She got up from her bed, creaked open the door, and walked out. She tiptoed slowly and quietly past the bathroom, a closet, the bathroom with a closet in it, and then she reached her parents' room. A very loud snoring noise came from inside.

"Mom..." She mumbled to herself as she went from tiptoeing to trotting.

Normally, one would say that the stallion snored the most and the loudest. However, Spoiled Rich was the worst of all. Diamond Tiara once thought that a chainsaw-wielding lunatic broke in one night and she rushed into her parents' room...only to realize that it was just her mother in a deep sleep. Nopony needed to tiptoe to sneak past that room with Spoiled snoring like that.

Honestly, Diamond could've marched past blowing a trumpet.

After she got past her parents' room, she finally reached Filthy's office. It was quite a nice room. It bad a big desk with many writing materials, including a typewriter. Various pieces of artwork decorated the walls. The carpet was white, and soft. There were bookshelves that were positioned against the walls, accompanied by filing cabinets likely containing business records.

Diamond wasted no time looking for the safe. She looked behind the desk, and sure enough...there it was. In the dark, it looked like a big black cube. She flicked on the desk's lamp, and that's when she noticed how weird this safe was. It seemed to be custom-made. There was no combination lock, just two wheels. The wheels had words on them, and Diamond decided that the code must have been a specific combination of words. Oh yeah, safes need codes to open. Diamond scratched her head, and decided to take a few guesses.

"Let's try...'Never Again'."

She set the words and jiggled the handle, but it didn't budge.

"Hm...'Help More'."

She set the code again, but the knob still didn't budge.

"Darn it!" She said as she slammed her hoof on her desk.

"Huh? What was that?" A voice said from down the hall.

Diamond had to think fast. She got behind the desk and held her breath.

"Is...is anyone there?" A servant asked as she walked in. She stood there for a moment, until finally walking away, "Heh...I must be hearing things again."

Diamond got out from her hiding spot and tried to figure out the code. Suddenly, she got one last idea.

"Okay. How about...'Never More'?" Diamond whispered to herself.

She pulled the knob, and the safe clicked open. Jackpot! However, the expected pile of bits were nowhere to be found. Dangit! Diamond Tiara groaned, until she saw the shine of something in the middle of the safe's floor. It was a single bit. She didn't even think about it. She took the bit, closed the safe, and returned to her room.

"Oh well. One extra bit is better than none." Diamond said as she got back in bed and looked at the coin.

This was when she noticed the odd details.

On one side of the coin, a picture of Princess Celestia could be seen. On the other side, a picture of Princess Luna could be seen. This was odd, because all bits had no specific design. Maybe it was just a new style, and her father got ahold of a prototype..?

She shrugged it off. Money is money. Diamond Tiara set the bit on her nightstand and went to sleep.

---

She woke up the next morning to her alarm clock. It was annoying. VERY annoying. She picked it up, and beat it against her nightstand with all her sleepy force. When the clock was in pieces, she looked up at it and smirked. However, she noticed something different on her nightstand. Brushing away a bent spring, she noticed a second bit laying next to the first one. They were identical to each other: They had the same design and size. She didn't think much of it. For all she knew, she just picked up two without noticing.

She went to school like normal that day, and the topic was brought up while she was eating lunch with Silver Spoon.

"For some reason, there are two on my nightstand!" Diamond Tiara said with much enthusiasm.

"Amazing!" Silver Spoon responded, "Um...but, are you sure that these are not...like, fake bits or something?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, bits are blank coins. No bits in history have the faces of Princess Celestia or Luna on them."

"For crying out loud, Silver! They were locked in a SAFE! They've got to have some value!"

"Whatever you say."

That night, she went to sleep as usual.

---

She woke up the next day, and immediately noticed that there were four of those different bits on her nightstand.

"Okay, those weren't there yesterday." She said out loud, half asleep.

Suddenly, she saw something that made her rub the sleepiness out of her eyes. Did...that coin just...move its head? She looked at it, and it's head was normal. The engraved head was still looking to the right.

Diamond talked to Silver Spoon about this at school.

"There are FOUR now! I don't know where they're coming from!" Diamond said, taking a sip from her juice box.

"I'm not sure what to say. Should you tell your dad?" Silver asked.

"He would KILL ME if he figures out about me snooping in his safe!"

"Well, maybe just put the coins somewhere else for a while? Like maybe under your bed?"

"I don't know...I've seen icky spiders underneath there..."

"Just give it a try. At least you won't have to deal with them again."

"I guess you're right..."

That night, Diamond Tiara picked up the coins and chucked them under her bed.

She didn't know why this was worrying her so much. They were just coins! There was no reason to be freaked out, right?

...right...?

---

The next week passed, and a new one came. By this time, Diamond had already forgotten about the weird coins.

On the night of the seventh day, Diamond was home alone. Spoiled Rich was still at the spa, and Filthy Rich was still out at a meeting. All her servants were on their day off, and they were likely spending it with family and friends. Diamond decided to count the bits she saved up. She got on her bed and poured the contents of her bit pouch on it. While she was counting, she felt a painful feeling on her foreleg. She looked at her right foreleg and noticed a bit sticking to it. However...she noticed it had a picture of Luna on it.

Her heart felt like it skipped a beat. She knew for a FACT that she threw all those bits under her bed...so how did this one get on her bed...and what was making her right foreleg hurt?! It felt like her skin was getting pinched. She pried the bit off with her teeth, which hurt her skin even more. She put it down, and the Celestia side faced up. What she saw made her blood run cold.

The Celestia face was...chewing! A little blood dripped from her mouth, and her jaw moved up and down until it swallowed. Diamond Tiara shakily looked at her foreleg, and saw a drop of blood trickling from where she was bitten. Before she could react, the bit(?) literally jumped off of her bed and rolled under it. She decided to chase it. She hopped off her bed, got on the floor, and looked underneath.

The second she did, HUNDREDS of the strange bits rolled out from under the bed. They rolled all around her. Some of them latched onto her hooves and began biting her. The pain became unbearable as she struggles to stand on her own hooves. Her legs finally gave in to the pain and she fell into the golden doom. The coins began covering her, piling on her, biting her everywhere. All over her body, she felt small pieces of her skin being nipped at and bitten. She thrashed, kicked, rolled, and screamed. It was no use.

"HELP! DADDY, HELP ME! THEY'RE EATING ME!!!" Diamond screamed helplessly as the golden coins continued to make a meal out of the pink foal.

Somehow, by a miracle...the door swung open. Filthy Rich stood in the doorway.

"OH MY CELESTIA!" Filthy screamed as he grabbed his daughter, still covered in the ravenous coins.

He carried her to the fireplace downstairs, which was lit. He held her close to the fire, and the creatures stopped chewing. Without the mouths holding on to anything, they fell off of Diamond. Filthy Rich wasted no time picking up the fallen coins and chucking them into the fire. Diamond watched in horror as she saw her father grab large amounts of the coins and throwing them into the roaring fireplace. Finally, after ten minutes of Filthy literally burning the money...he returned to the fireplace...panting like he ran a marathon. He collapsed in front of the flames, and then looked at Diamond. She braced herself for the scolding, but was surprised when he hugged her.

"Ow! P-please let go..." Diamond said, her skin still sensitive and slightly bloody from the coin attack.

"I'm sorry, Diamond. I should have just gotten rid of that blasted coin a long time ago." Filthy Rich said, looking at the floor.

"Daddy...I'm sorry for going into your safe..."

"No...it's my fault for keeping what was inside."

"What was it..?"

Filthy Rich sat down on the floor, and looked at Diamond in the eyes.

"When I was a little colt, I loved to collect money. Whenever I saw I bit on the ground, I picked it up. One day, I was taking a walk through a forest...when I discovered a coin with a picture of Princess Celestia and Luna on it sitting on a tree stump. My love for money made me take it with me. Over time, I noticed more in my house. I also noticed that I would bleed in random spots of my body. One night, I woke up in my bed covered in those bits! I felt them all nibbling on me! I did the first thing that came to mind, and threw them in the fireplace. They may have looked like they were made of metal, but they die out in the heat. A few years passed when I discovered a coin that I missed. I discovered it 17 years after the incident, buried in the embers of my fireplace. I did something that I now regret: I took it and began researching it. Those...things...were not coins. They're some kind of creature that disguises itself as a bit. I nicknamed them 'Bites' because of their...ability. When My research was done, I destroyed all the other samples and locked the last one in the safe. I wish I never did that. I'm sorry, Diamond Tiara."

Filthy had tears streaming down his face. Diamond didn't care about the pain all over her now. She wrapped her forelegs around him and hugged him tight.

"I love you, Dad..." Diamond said, crying.

"I love you too, Diamond." Filthy said as he embraced his daughter.

---

Ever since then, the whole experience had mentally scarred Diamond Tiara. She may still brag about being rich, but she still cannot even LOOK at a bit without getting the chills. She hoped that one of these days she would forget the incident, and her life would feel normal again.

It taught her an important lesson: Don't let greed control you. It just may have you run into trouble.

Author's Note:

WOW this took forever to make...but I did it! I hope you all enjoyed!

Comments

[JonathanDP81]

Good story. SCP has so many good jumping off points.

[WannaFlugelHorn]

Moral: Don't let greed control you. Coins are EVIL.

[WannaFlugelHorn]

You get a from 👍 me!