The tiny fingers in the back of Cheerilee's throat strummed her vocal cords, and she opened her mouth, letting free a flock of soundwaves like doves from Jeoffrey's wedding cake. "Good morning class," her voice was sweeter than honey, likely from all the nectar she'd eaten for breakfast, and it marched around her students' ear drums like a swarm of giant, radioactive rubber pants.
"Good morning Miss Cheerilee," her students responded all together, having rehearsed the synchronized greeting many times. They were each seated in a desk, all jam-packed into a tiny classroom. The room used to be sizable enough for the small armada of fillies and cults that visited the class each day, but they had been growing recently. Their flesh bulged, distorted in several places, and threatened to break free from the confines of their tiny exoskeletons at any moment.
"As I'm sure you're all aware, today is a very special day," stated Cheerilee, flapping her lips like a carefree butterfly. "You've all grown out of your exoskeletons, and today we're gonna shed them so you can grow into your new, adult bodies."
The class went into an uproar of excited cheers. They were finally going to become grown-ups, a prospect that excited them. If only they knew or were prepared for the horrors that awaited them in adult life. The horde of adolescent mini horses stood from their desks and galloped out into the playground. Rambunctious and tiny as they were now, in but a few days they'd be contributing members of pony society. They grow up so fast.
Cheerilee was quick to join them, and she called out for their attention, "Who's ready to molt first?" Her question was answered by a flurry of raised frontal-appendages, the owners of which were eager to shed their carapaces to give their soft bodies plenty of room to grow. She picked one at random, pointing to them with a tentacle-like foreleg.
"Squeegy, come up front please." The light-gray cult squeeled with excitement and scurried up to his teacher, eager to be freed from his cage. Pony exoskeletons are legendarily hard to break, which is why they never get seriously injured or anything PG 13 like that. That being the case, Cheerilee couldn't use just any tool for the job. She reached into her secret tail compartment, easily finding just what she was looking for, and she pulled out the jaws of life. It glowed a dull white, having been enchanted with Crusader.
With practiced ease, she drove the frontal spikes of her tool into the colt's shell, managing to gouge a crevasse into its rock-hard surface. Next, the jaws began moving apart, slowly opening the crack wider and pulling the shell apart. After but moments, and with a walnut-esque crunch, the exoskeleton split in two like a crispy potato chip. The chunks of shell fell to the grass, revealing the pink, fleshy form of Squeegy. His exposed flesh was soft and moist, sticky with fresh goo, and would remain that way until his new, adult exoskeleton grew in.
"Yaya," cheered Squeegy, reveling in the joy of finally being freed from his tiny, protein prison.
"Now go wait over there until I've finished, then we'll begin assigning you all to your new roles in life," said Cheerilee, gesturing off to the side with her crispier-than-average leg-tip. "Alright, who's next?"
And so was spent the next hour or so, freeing her students from their shells one at a time until but a single little pony remained. "Alright Scootaloo, you're the last one up," burped Cheerilee, her breath smelling of pork. Sure enough, Scootaloo was the only pony in her class that still had a shell.
"Ugh, okay," she said quietly, slowly walking up to her teacher. She didn't share her classmates' enthusiasm, but she knew this had to be done. Now was the time, while the rest were vulnerable.
With skill and precision that could rival a praying mantis on performance-enhancing drugs, Cheerilee drove the sharp end of her tool into Scootaloo's back, right at the spine, managing to split a massive canyon into the shell. Then, like a hatching egg, the carapace cracked and split open in a dozen places, falling away to reveal Scootaloo. But this was no ordinary-human Scootaloo!
She growled ferociously, revealing her rows of velociraptor teeth that resided in her velociraptor mouth in her velociraptor head connected to her velociraptor neck that was rooted to her velociraptor body. She's a velociraptor. Making a move that was far too fast for the naked eye, she leapt forward, landing atop Cheerilee and pinning her to the ground.
"Wha, what's going on?!" Cheerilee cried as she struggled in the dirt. Normally she'd be able to overpower the fairly week predatory bird-reptile, but it had her pinned tight to the ground using its weight to keep her legs close to her body.
Scootaloo's raptor face twisted into a murderous scowl, and she snickered for a moment before answering. "Foolissssh pony, I havvvvve bamboozzzzled you. I wasss a vvvvelociraptor all along!" Looking into those big, raptor eyes, Cheerilee was surprised to find that they were the very same she'd seen staring back at her so many times in class. She'd never even realized for a second that perhaps Scootaloo wasn't a pony at all. The crafty bastard had played her like a fiddle!
She glared back at the previous-pony that had her overpowered. "But why? What do you plan to do? You can't hold me here forever."
"Ha, ignorant mortal," laughed Scootaloo, revealing that velociraptors are immortal. "You may not be vvvvulnerable, but, thanksss to you, your sssssstudents are." As if summoned by her explanation, dozens of velociraptors began emerging from every conceivable location; crawling from bushes, trash cans, behind the fence, and even out of tiny holes in the ground. "We'vvvve alwaysss been watching, Cheerilee. Alwayssssss."
Before long, the playground was filled with hundreds of velociraptors, each more velociraptor than the last, and they surrounded the ponies, preventing any hope of escape.
"Clever girl," spat Cheerilee, literally ejecting pre cum from her throat sphincter. "What are you planning to do then, eat them?"
The edges of Scootaloo's mouth twisted upwards into the smuggest smile this world has ever seen before she decided to give her equally smug-sounding answer. "That'sss a sssecret. Now then, gotta blassst! Sssee ya later ssshit lord!" She hopped up off her teacher, doing a back flip in midair and landing a few meters away before scurrying off. Just as quickly, the small army of velociraptors swooped in and carried off all the students, and Cheerilee was powerless to help.
They ran into the Everfree forest with them, surely to sacrifice them to their dark Gods, and Cheerilee was super sad because she couldn't do a thing to stop them.
--
"And that's what happened," finished Cheerilee.
The ponies of the school board didn't look convinced.
One of the ponies, an elderly mare, cleared her throat before speaking. "That was quite the story, miss Cheerilee. But do you really expect us to believe that's what happened?"
"Of course, why would I lie about that?"
"Well, it sounds really far-fetched. Not to mention when we found the school house it was burnt down. Investigators found traces of gasoline and matches at the scene, yet you neglected to mention anything about that."
Cheerilee rubbed her neck in embarrassment with one horse-hand, "Oh yeah, the raptors burned down the school too before they left. Forgot to mention that."
"And when we found you your blood-alcohol level was six times the legal limit," the elderly mare continued.
"I was so sad afterwards that I got super drunk," she explained.
Unfortunately, the members of the school board weren't buying any of this. They had a short conversation amongst themselves before an old stallion spoke up. "Cheerilee Sunshinedust, due to the immense amount of evidence against you, and the blatant untruths that flow freely from your mouth like a river of diarrhea despite this being a courtroom, we're forced to find you guilty." He banged a gavel against his big, mahogany desk a few times to make it all official. "We hereby sentence you to one-thousand years in the realm of eternal agony! Guards, get her out of my sight!"
"No, no please, I'm innocent! Please! It was the raptors, I swear! They've always been out to get me!" Cheerilee screamed and thrashed as she was pulled from the room by a pair of burly stallions, but it did little good.
With her gone, the members of the school board began laughing amongst themselves, giving each other knowing smiles. Little did the ponies know, they were all secret velociraptors all along.
