Freedom Of Choice

by Closer-To-The-Sun

Chapter 2: Point/Counterpoint

The students gathered in the school’s auditorium. The packed room was filled with restless yet bored students who, among other things, didn’t want to be there. In the front right corner of all the seats were Silverstream, Sandbar, Yona, and Gallus. Like the rest of the students, they were there not out of interest, but rather to support both Ocellus and Smolder for the class president debate.

Sandbar leaned back in his seat and mumbled, “I really hope this doesn’t take too long.”

“What is this place?” Silverstream looked all around the room in awe.

“It’s our school’s auditorium,” Sandbar answered, puzzled at his friend’s question, “How do you not know that?

“Our school has an auditorium? Wow!” the hippogriff said in wonderment.

Seated next to Sandbar, Gallus was reading over a familiar looking parchment.

“What Gallus reading?” Yona asked, looking over to her friend.

“The school charter,” he answered without looking up, “Did you know that Sweet Apple Acres has a monopoly written into the charter?”

Yona raised an eyebrow, “How did friend Gallus get school charter again?”

Gallus lowered the parchment for a moment before answering, “Oh, I asked Headmare Starlight to let me read it so I could learn more about the school’s history and- aww, you know full well that I stole it.” He raised it back up and continued to read the fine print. “Huh, it also says students are not allowed to make deals with ‘characters of questionable virtue’. Guess that explains why Cozy Glow got kicked out.”

On the stage in the front of all of the seats, two podiums were positioned before the student body. And just off stage, two creatures were waiting in the wings.

Ocellus smiled at her friend Smolder, “Thanks again for doing this for me."

“Is it too late for me to back out?” the dragon asked.

“Relax, Smolder, it’s going to be okay,” Ocellus trotted up to Smolder and placed a comforting limb on her shoulder, “You actually don’t have to do anything all that much, really. And if you don’t know how to respond to a question, you can just say ‘pass’. Understand?”

“Pass.”

“Yes, like that, but you do that up there,” Ocellus corrected.

Moments later, Headmare Starlight made her way up to the stage. It took her a moment to settle down the entire audience, “Students, please settle down, we are about to start the debate for class president. Now, we have two students who are running for the office.” She motioned for the offstage Ocellus and Smolder to approach the podiums. “We have Ocellus and Smolder competing for your vote.”

There was a little applause from the students. Most of the noise came from Silverstream in the front who, along with furiously clapping, waved and called out to both of her friends. “Hi Ocellus! Hi Smolder!” She then turned around to the students behind her and claimed, “I know them!”

Starlight cleared her throat as she tried to get the attention of the students again, “The office of class president is not an easy one, and it will be up to you, the student body, to vote for the candidate you believe will be best suited for this role. That is how our school's democracy will work. Now, we will have a simple debate with students asking questions that they might have to both of the candidates, as well as pre-written questions provided by the students before the debate. After the debate, all students will be able to vote right outside in the hallway for who they wish to be class president.” Starlight then motioned to Ocellus, “First, we will hear from the candidates about themselves. Ocellus?”

“Thank you, Headmare Starlight Glimmer,” Ocellus thanked the unicorn as she began, “As you may already know, my name is Ocellus and I am running for class president. It is both my hope and my goal to help the students to make their time here at the School of Friendship the best it possibly can be. I might not exactly share all of your beliefs or values, but I promise to make sure that your voice is heard and do what I can to help each and every single student. Thank you.” A small amount of applause followed.

Headmare Starlight nodded as she spoke, “Thank you, Ocellus. Now we will hear from our other candidate, Smolder.”

The dragon stood behind the podium and looked out at the audience staring right back at her. “I’m Smolder,” she started and then stopped. After a few moments of silence and looking around in confusion of why there was silence, she added, “That’s it.” No applause followed.

“Well, that was….short and sweet,” Starlight tried to give Smolder’s statements a positive spin. “Now we will open the floor up to some questions from the audience.”

A student raised their hoof and stood up, “I have a question for both candidates: what is your plan for addressing the amount of homework load that we have in our classes?”

Ocellus was the first to speak, “An excellent question. I believe that while our studies are important, we should be able to address our lessons both in and out of the classroom. While it may seem the homework for our classes is a bit much, it is something we can address with study groups and tutoring. And I hope that we can all work with our professors to address such changes.”

“Well said,” Starlight said before looking toward the dragon, “Smolder?”

“I dunno, I don’t do my homework half the time.”

A bit of murmuring occurred amongst the audience after Smolder finished.

Sandbar raised his hoof and stood up. “I actually have a question for Smolder. What is your plan for-”

“Pass,” the dragon interrupted with a flat and deadpan expression.

Again, the crowd murmured, but it was hard to make out what exactly was their opinion of either candidate. Sandbar sat back down with a smirk. Little did the rest of the crowd know, Smolder asked the earth pony to ask the question for her to respond in such a manner.

Another student stood up and spoke, “I have a question for Cinder.”

Ocellus seemed a bit annoyed, “What the-? Her name is Smolder.” She motioned to Smolder, who seemed to not notice or care about the error.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s Cinder,” the student insisted as they continued, “So Cinder, what will you do about our awful cafeteria food?”

Smolder shrugged, “I dunno, what do you wanna eat?”

A chorus of voices answered: “Chips!” “Sheet cake!” “Gravy!”

“Sure, whatever you want,” the dragon replied lazily.

Headmare Starlight was not thrilled about what she was hearing, “Students, please! We all have questions and such we would like answered, but we must do so in an orderly fashion! And our cafeteria food is not awful!”

A voice called out from the audience, "We beg to differ!"

Ocellus also spoke up with the same opinion as Starlight, “Please, we must have order, every creature! Can you just think of how wild it would be, if we just did whatever we all wanted? That would be like only having sugary soda and candy for every meal!”

“Say, that’s not a bad idea,” Smolder commented with a smirk.

“Not helping, Smolder!” the changeling was growing a bit more frustrated.

A student raised their hoof and spoke, “I have a question for Smolder. What is your plan if the school gets attacked….again?”

Smolder shrugged again, “I dunno. Something maybe?”

The crowd applauded and seemed to like her response.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Ocellus was not pleased at all. While it looked as if Ocellus was contemplating yelling at the dragon, she took a quick calming breath before turning to Smolder, “And what would that ‘something’ be, Smolder?”

“Lava? Maybe we can use lava to solve the problem?”

The crowd seemed to enjoy the answer, even if Ocellus didn’t.

Before Ocellus could rebuttal again, another creature raised their limb and asked a question, “What is your plan for the rodent problem we have at the school?”

Ocellus perked up at the question, as it was something she could easily answer and hopefully bring order back to the chaos, “I actually have a plan that I will set forth the moment I am elected to help relocate the rodents to a new home that will be suitable for each and every-”

“Actually” she was interrupted by the same student, “I was asking Smolder.”

“Me? Uhh….” Smolder thought on the spot for an answer, “Get some cats, I guess?”

Ocellus couldn’t help but smirk at her friend’s stupid answer, “Oh really? And then what will we do with all these cats roaming our halls?”

“Then get some dogs to get rid of them?”

“Ha! And what about when the dogs start taking over?” Ocellus was enjoying poking more and more holes in Smolder’s plans, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Pffftt….I dunno,” Smolder admitted, before adding, “what are dogs afraid of? Sharks?”

“SHARKS?! WHERE?!” Sandbar stood up onto his hooves in a great panic and galloped out of the auditorium while screaming. Every eye in the room was fixed on him as he hurried out, both confused and a bit concerned.

Ocellus cleared her throat and brought the attention back, “Okay, I’ll humor you, Smolder. Just how, pray tell, would these sharks be on land?”

Smolder replied, “Maybe those science geeks can get working on that. Hey, you’re a science geek! If you get working on it, we can have robot shark hall monitors! That sounds pretty cool.” Smolder’s attitude seemed to change from a lack of interest in anything class president related. It almost seemed as if she wanted to try and win.

As Ocellus was about to respond to how idiotic what her friend just said, the crowd erupted to applaud and cheer in approval of such an idea.

“Let’s go to one of the pre-written questions, shall we?” Headmare Starlight interjected as she shuffled through the cards she levitated with her magic. “Let’s see here….ah, here we go. ‘How school going to fix holes in school walls?’” Starlight paused for a moment and reread the card a few times before adding, “T-That’s what the card says.”

“Well, I have written up a comprehensive budget proposal for the school’s fiscal year that outlines what the funds are to be used for. There is an amount of funds that are reserved for repairs to-”

The dragon interrupted loudly, “Did Yona write that?” She pointed at the yak in the front row, “You’re not fooling any creature, Yona! You’re the one making the holes!”

Yona cowered a little as she was being pointed at, “Yona just wanted answer!”

Without looking up from reading the charter, Gallus raised his talon up and patted Yona on her back, “There, there.”

A student stood up and spoke, “What is your plan in case of alien invaders?”

Ocellus couldn't help but smile and laugh quietly to herself as she heard the question, “I highly doubt any of us would have to worry abou-”

“What kind of aliens are we talking about here?” Smolder quickly and seriously interrupted. Her eyes were fixated on the student who asked the question, “Body snatchers? Hunters? Time travelers? Space samurai? I have at least three catalogued plans for each and every possible type of outer worldly visitation. Both friendly and not-so friendly.”

The changeling was dumbfounded and stunned in silence, even more so because the crowd cheered with approval. “Where is all of this coming from?” she asked, looking at her friend.

“They exist, Ocellus, and I am not going to take any chances,” Smolder’s demeanor was dead serious.

Gallus spoke up to his friends on stage, “And it says in the school charter that the class president must have a policy and response plan in the event of visitation of extraterrestrials. I'm starting to wonder who wrote this thing....”

Headmare Starlight looked down at the griffon, “Gallus, did you steal the school charter?”

“You can’t prove anything!”

“You are literally holding the school charter in your talons right now!”

“Bite me!” Gallus yelled back as he continued to read through the document.

As the noise grew in the auditorium, the student body seemed to grow more and more restless. “We don’t want to take math anymore!” a student yelled from the audience

“Okay, done,” Smolder pointed at the student, “No more math.”

“You can’t just get rid of programs like that!” Ocellus objected.

“Why not?” Smolder asked, “every creature really seems to like that idea.” She was right too, as the student body seemed excited about her campaign promises.

Another student spoke up, “I’m tired of the computer lab being filled with nerds! I want to use the computers the way Celestia intended: playing video games, gambling online, and finding hot singles in my area!”

“You want to be able to surf the entirety of the dark web, you got it!” Smolder proclaimed with passion. The crowd cheered with approval again. “And if you elect me as your class president, I will get Sapphire Shores to perform a private concert for our school, replace all the books in our library with super violent comics, and add more stairs that lead to nowhere!”

At the end of Smolder’s statement, Silverstream stood up and shouted happily at the top of her lungs, “Yesss! More stairs!”

The entire crowd was going crazy for Smolder’s big and crazier promises. This was not sitting well with either Ocellus or Headmare Starlight.

“Okay, okay, please settle down, students! That’s enough of the debate itself,” Starlight said, trying to reign in a little control. “We will now hear the final statements from each candidate.”

Ocellus went first, “My fellow students, look at yourselves! You’re going absolutely mad over promises that are pipe dreams at the very least! Look, I can’t promise you anything of the sort that Smolder has, due in large part that what she is offering is insanity and can only create chaos at our wonderful school. But if you vote for me, I assure you I will do everything within my power to let your voices be heard and help make the time you spend here at the School of Friendship to be one of the best times of your lives! Please, vote for me!”

A small smile appeared on Headmare Starlight’s face as she gave a small nod of approval to Ocellus after her speech, “Thank you, Ocellus. Now, Smolder, closing statements?”

Smolder cleared her throat and paused for a moment before making her proclamation: “Vote for me or don’t!”

The entire auditorium of students cheered and gave a standing ovation to Smolder. Clapping of hooves, talons, claws, and other limbs echoed through the room along with the cheering for the dragon candidate.

Both Ocellus and Headmare Starlight gave a frustrated sigh.

The crowd began to chant: “Smolder! Smolder! Smolder!”

A surprised smile appeared on Smolder’s face, “Wow, they actually know my name!”

Comments

[SpikeSmolder fan]

Welp...........................that just happened!!!

But seriously, who in the hay wrote that school charter?

[spoonlol]

10289207
All good

[coolkiller666]

Be honest, did you get the idea for this story from Duncanville?

[Closer-To-The-Sun]

10289461
Haha, you’re not wrong, it did inspire this.

[TigerCat111]

Saw that coming

[Matthais Unidostres]

10289289
Discord, who else?

[Scyphi]

I want to use the computers the way Celestia intended: playing video games, gambling online, and finding hot singles in my area!”

*Some years previous*

Computer Techs: "Princess Celestia, may we have your blessing for our latest creation? We call it the computer!"

Celestia: "Hmm...first I must make sure it is worthy of such a blessing. Now...can you play video games on it?"

Computer Techs: "Uh...yes. I mean that's not it's chief function, but..."

Celestia: "Can you gamble online with it?"

Computer Techs: "Well...I suppose..."

Celestia: "Can you find hot singles in one's local area with it?"

Computer Techs: "...if you really want, sure."

Celestia: *nods* "Then you have my blessing. Go forth and do, computer techs."

10289289
I'm thinking the Mane 6 just got together one night and crowdsourced it amongst themselves and Twilight just ran with it after that, especially since the EEA apparently didn't have any issues with it beyond the whole "teaching friendship to non-ponies" thing.

[spoonlol]

Wow, I now have no hope for these students survival rate. This was really funny, keep it up

[Yoshifan30]

And there you go I knew things will go South really quickly when it comes to election and all those promise that smolder is saying is pretty funny And something tells me ocellus is going to have a bad time 😅

[Yoshifan30]

“SHARKS?! WHERE?!” Sandbar stood up onto his hooves in a great panic and galloped out of the auditorium while screaming. Every eye in the room was fixed on him as he hurried out, both Concerned

Sorry I have to it was too good to be left out and probably that's why hes afraid of sharks lol 😆