Eff For Effort

"Ah can't wait to get mah results back!" Apple Bloom proclaimed excitedly.

"What results?" asked Scootaloo.

"For mah Spelling test!"

Scootaloo scratched her head. "Who cares? That's not important."

"Not important?!" Apple Bloom asked, incredulously. "How is it not important? How would you like it if ya scored really bad on a test?"

"Well, I wouldn't really care."

"Oh, you don't know anything," said Apple Bloom, turning around to face Sweetie Belle. "What about you, Sweetie Belle?"

"We all know everypony can spell already. What difference does it make?"

"Ah can't believe you guys! How can ya just betray me like this?"

"Let it go, Apple Bloom!" Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo shouted in unison.

"Hmph," Apple Bloom hmphed. "Fine. Just don't come complainin' to me when ya get zero on the test!"

"We won't."

* * *

Cheerilee stood in front of her class with a big smile, looking forward to teaching her beautiful students. "I'll be correcting the rest of the Spelling tests today. So far, you've all done really well, though! Great job!" she cheered. The class responded with a chorus of 'mehs'.

"Oh boy, it's almost done! Ah'm so excited!" Apple Bloom was shaking in her seat, waiting in ecstatic anticipation.

"Scootaloo! I've just finished your test! 90%, well done!"

"Alright, cool," said Scootaloo, as she retrieved the test paper from Cheerilee. Written on it in red ink was a large '18/20' in a circle.

"Looks like mine's next. I bet it's 95%, this time," Sweetie Belle bet.

"Well Ah'm gonna get a perfect score! Get ready to read it an' weep!" teased Apple Bloom.

"We don't care, Apple Bloom," her friends said in unison.

"..." replied Apple Bloom. "There's no need to be rude about it."

"Sweetie Belle! 95%! Excellent work!"

"Alright! I told you!"

"Oh, shut up, Sweetie Belle. Ya won't be so proud when Ah get 100%!"

"I keep telling you, I don't care about your score." Sweetie Belle picked up her test paper and returned to her seat, appreciating the '19/20' written on it.

"Ah'm the last one! Only one more minute to wait!" Apple Bloom gushed.

"Good luck."

* * *

Five minutes later, Apple Bloom noticed that Miss Cheerilee hadn't said anything. "What's goin' on? Ah haven't heard any results yet!" noted Apple Bloom, worriedly. She looked to the front of the room and saw why it was taking so long.

"MISS CHEERILEE!" the three fillies screamed. At the front of the classroom, their teacher was limp, leaning back in her seat, her head lolling around behind her. Every student in the room rushed to the front of the room, crowding their teacher. The fillies managed to push through the dense crowd and tried to help her to get up.

Apple Bloom shoved her hooves into Cheerilee's side. Cheerilee simply ragdolled to the floor, emitting approximately 1.5 cups of foam from her mouth. "Miss Cheerilee! Why are you doing this?!"

Cheerilee made some coughing and choking noises, then some more foam came out of her mouth.

"Oh no! This is terrible! What happened?!" Sweetie Belle panicked, doing some sort of n-tuple take on her surroundings. Or maybe it was a k-tuple take!

"We have to call the hospital!" suggested Scootaloo.

"Right," said Sweetie Belle, pulling a small cell phone from her pocket. "Calling Ponyville Hospital."

A receptionist picked up the phone at the hospital. "This is Ponyville Hospital. How may I help you?"

"WE NEED AN AMBERLAMPS!" Sweetie Belle yelled.

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Where are you?"

"At the school! Please come quickly! Miss Cheerilee's sick!"

"An ambulance is on its way now."

Sweetie Belle turned around and shouted to the classroom, "An amberlamps is coming!"

"Good work, Sweetie Belle," said Scootaloo. "Somepony help me turn Miss Cheerilee upside down so all this foam can fall out!"

Immediately, the class sprang into action. They climbed onto each other's shoulders and flanks, forming a giant, five-fingered hand.

"Fantastic!" cheered Scootaloo. "Now, grab Miss Cheerilee's back legs and pull them up!"

Class Hand manipulated its way over to Cheerilee, doing exactly as Scootaloo had ordered. The five fingers closed around Cheerilee's back legs, dragging her up into the air with her head hanging below. Foam continued to fall from her mouth.

"Alright! Good work, Class Hand!"

"Happy to help!" Class Hand replied.

Outside, sirens could be heard. The ambulance had finally arrived after a gruelling twenty-five and a half seconds of waiting.

"Finally!" shouted Sweetie Belle.

Two paramedics burst in through the door of the school building, shouting things. "We're the amberlamps staff! Where is the patient?"

The three fillies and Class Hand cleared a path to the teacher, who was now lying on the floor.

"Answer the question, please! Where is the patient?"

"You moron!" shouted Sweetie Belle. "She's right here! That's why we cleared a path for you!"

"Very well." The paramedics immediately translocated to Cheerilee's position and examined her with their various technological devices. "It appears to me as though she is dead. There is no pulse and no brain activity. We must discern the cause of this turn of events."

"She's... DEAD?!" cried the class.

"Yes, and it appears she was writing a test report for one of you. Apple Bloom."

"Me?"

"Question 1: the correct answer was 'cat'. You wrote 'chat'."

"Aww. No 100% for me."

"Nope. Question 2: the correct answer was 'ball'. You wrote 'bhale'. Wow. You're terrible at this."

"Hey, shut up!" protested Apple Bloom, as she tried to take the sheet.

"Question 3: the correct answer... wow. This is..." The paramedics continued to read through the page. After a few moments, they both began foaming at the mouth, before collapsing to the ground and spasming for a few seconds.

"NO! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?! Somepony get Twilight Sparkle NOW! Maybe she knows how to stop this magic!"

* * *

Five minutes later, Twilight Sparkle arrived in a flash of purple magic and galloped over to the test sheet. "Whose test is this?"

"Mine," answered Apple Bloom.

"Let's see here..." Twilight had her horn prepared for any kind of magic attacks. She finally reached the bottom of the page, then foam started flying out of her muzzle like nobody's business. "FFLLBLLLBLBLAARARGHGAHGFHFHAFHBFBAHGBHGBBBHB!!!"

When Twilight's body stopped moving, two regal figures instantly appeared.

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna!" shouted all the little fillies and colts.

"Who has done this unrighteous deed?" they demanded in unison.

"Um... me..." responded Apple Bloom.

"Exactly what have you done, subject?"

"Ah... spelled badly..."

"You spelled... badly?"

"Yeah... look at the sheet there..."

"Hmm..." they said, looking over the test sheet. "FFUAARRGHGHHLBLGBLGLBLLGBLBBFBFSSHSHSHHHHH!!!" they concluded, flopping to the ground as corpses.

"Hey, Apple Bloom! What the hay did you write on there anyway?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Yeah, I wanna know," replied Scootaloo.

"So do we!" said the class.

They all moved over the the piece of paper to see what was such a big deal. They saw the first few answers, laughed a bit, saw the answers around the halfway point, formed expressions of pity on their faces, then read the last answer.

Foam exploded into the room from the mouths of every student except Apple Bloom, surrounding the test sheet. Apple Bloom walked over to the sheet for a final examination:

Question 1: chat       X

Question 2: bhale       X

Question 3: khnsee    XX

Question 4: P9sla$%  X    Wrong; you can't spell with numbers and symbols like that!

Question 5: o=|||8d9  XXXXXXXXX WTF?!

...

This proceeded on for 19 questions, with the resultant marks becoming consecutively more erratic, until finally, the last question's answer bewildered Apple Bloom.

"Ah don't remember writin' this!" She looked over the answer sheet. The correct answer was 'horseshoe'.

Her answer was a glowing red pentagram which, when she looked directly at it, seemed to make everything else around it turn the deepest black imaginable, stained with clouds of violet.

"Hrrhh..." Her stomach started hurting. "HRRMM..."

After a few seconds of pain, dark black horns protruded from her head, beginning to blast black flames everywhere. Her coat had turned pure black. Apple Bloom ran out the exit of the building, making her way to random buildings, crushing, burning, obliterating and killing everything inside them.

Everypony died, everywhere.

The End.