As the days went by, Butter soon become more and more social. He started to hang out with some more of his peers and played with them more often. Of course, despite his new and numerous friends, he didn't dare abandon his best friends, the crusaders. In fact, he started hanging out with them the most after school to help assist them in getting their cutie marks (and also help them not get in any dangerous situations by turning down the riskier attempts to get a cutie mark). For the first time, Butter wasn't scared of going to school or of any other foals his age. He actually enthusiastic about going and despite the strenuous schoolwork, came to enjoy school and his interaction with the other students.

And just like that, the last day of the school week had come. To Butter, the week just flew by quickly, and he was kind of surprised that it ended as soon as it did. He looked around the classroom to see that the room was full of excited and joyous faces. However, out of the crowd of smiling ponies, he single out one saddened filly with her head on her desk: Diamond Tiara.

Now, normally he would just ignore her and go on with his day like normal, but then he started to recall that she hasn't really been happy ever since that encounter he had with her a few days ago. Ever since he called Diamond out on her bullying and retaliated with his own mean words, she hasn't smiled or shown any emotion other than sadness in front of him. He wanted to make sure she was okay, but then he remembered the exact words she said to him.

"I don't want to talk to you at all. Please go away."

She remembered how serious she was when she told Butter, and he didn't want to take that risk by talking to her and making everything worse. So, he decided to keep his eyes fixated on the teacher and act like he was listening to her speech the entire time.

"Alright, class. Now I know I always give you homework to do over the weekend..." The whole class aww'd in frustration of having to do something as lame as homework. "But...I've decided that since we have a new student and that I know you are all very eager to enjoy your weekend, I guess we can skip homework just for this week." The whole class cheered, excluding Diamond, who still had her head covering with her arms. "Alright, everypony! Class dismissed!" Cheerilee announced, letting their class reign free.

With that, the class disbanded. Everypony either walked out of the room collectively and slowly, while others dashed out in a hurry. Butter decided to do the former, as he was still bugged about Diamond's current state. His attention towards her was interrupted when he heard Scootaloo's voice. "You ready for some crusading, Butterball?"

He quickly turned forward as he noticed the crusaders were standing in front of him, ready to head off to the clubhouse. Scootaloo fastened her helmet and was ready to take off when Butter quickly replied, "Actually, I...need to take care of something before we start doing some crusading."

Scootaloo determined glare dropped as she pressed on, "What sort of something?"

"Something rather personal, if you don't mind," Butter replied.

Scootaloo and the other crusaders suddenly looked as serious as Butter did. They knew him for only a couple days, but they already figured out that Butter was a chill and funny colt. When he was serious though, it was best to leave him alone and not to press on him any further. "Okay, then. We'll be at the clubhouse if you need us." Scootaloo scooted off as the other two fillies followed her, leaving Butter alone to himself at the school with Diamond, who had finally gotten out of her desk and started to leave the school.

Did Silver decide not to tag along with her this time? wondered Butter to himself as he slowly started to gather the courage to go talk to her. After a minute, he decided to walk up beside her and greeted, "Hey, Diamond." He tried to give off a friendly smile, but it just looked awkward.

Diamond quickly shot her head towards the colt and angrily asked, "What do YOU want?"

Butter fumbled with his words in fear that he would say something wrong. "Oh...I...uh...I was just wondering if something was the matter..."

"Hmph." Diamond stuck her nose in the air in a snooty manner. "Everything is perfect."

"Well, i-it doesn't seem that way," Butter argued.

"I assure you that everything is absolutely, truly, one-hundred percent-"

"Diamond, I'm worried about you," Butter interrupted quickly. Diamond shut her mouth in surprise as Butter continued. "Look, ever since our little argument, you haven't just been avoiding me, you've been avoiding everypony else. You never giggle, you never smile, and you never show interest in anything as far as I've seen so far."

"Well," Diamond tried to rebuttal, "I just think that class has gotten more boring than usual, lately."

"So why aren't you and Silver making snide comments like usual?" Butter hoped in his mind that maybe if he continued to ask questions, she'll start spilling out the truth.

"It's...just gotten too hard to think of new material every day."

"And come to think of it, why isn't Silver here with you today?"

"N-No reason!" Diamond was starting to sound more unsure with her answers.

"I think there is a reason and you're avoiding it."

"There isn't!"

"Then Pinkie Promise."

Diamond's heart skipped a beat. "Wh-What?"

"You heard me, Diamond. Pinkie Promise that everything's okay with you," Butter challenged. Diamond shifted her hooves but said nothing. She looked at Butter nervously as she bit her lip. "Go ahead. Do it." Diamond's lip quivered as she still stood silent. And then, she did something Butter never expected Diamond to do.

She started to cry.

Butter flinched a bit and started to look concerned. Oh no...did I say something wrong?

Diamond sniffed and turned her back away. "Th-There...I'm crying now! Is th-that what you wanted?!" she asked with a stutter.

Butter's ears flattened as he hesitantly trotted up to her and laid a hoof around her comfortingly. She flinched a bit and felt as if she didn't want to be touched, but she didn't reject to it. "No. I wanted you to tell me what's wrong," answered Butter.

After a few more moments of sniffling, Diamond looked at Butter. "I-If I tell you, you tell nopony else. Understand?" Butter nodded sincerely as a response as Diamond continued, "And will you finally stop pestering me?"

"Yes, I will," Butter answered.

Diamond sighed and wiped her eyes before adding, "I-It's a long story, so..."

"I have the time to listen to it."

Diamond looked into Butter's eyes, knowing that there was no way around this situation. After she let out a sigh, she finally began, "Well, this whole thing really begins when I first moved here to Ponyville about 2 years ago. Well, I actually was born here...but I moved to Manehattan for a few years because my father was on business, so I stayed there for a bit, and then moved back. Anyway, on the first day of school..." She stopped for a second and gulped, trying to hold back tears. "S-Sorry. On the first day of school, there were a bunch of mean fillies who were, like, three years older than me. First, they started to shoot spitballs at my hair during class. I tried to raise my hoof and tell the teacher, but she thought I was a tattletale and didn't listen."

Butter raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Was she a different teacher than Cheerilee?"

Diamond confirmed with a nod. "Yes. Cheerilee's only been teaching for a year now, so this was before then. Our old teacher was an older pony named Mrs. Persnickety. She was a good teacher, but too strict. Anyway, she ignored my complaints and went onto teaching. When recess began, the ponies from before started to gang up on me. They started making fun of me and called me stupid and ugly and...a blank flank. That's the insult they used the most. A stupid, ordinary, good-for-nothing blank flank."

Butter frowned a bit more as Diamond continued with her story. "I tried to tell my dad that they were bullying me, but he seemed to interested in moving his new business to Ponyville to take notice. So after a few months, I tried to suck it up and take the abuse. While I was there, I also met Silver Spoon. She also was in the same boat as me because she also suffered from being bullied a lot. She had her cutie mark already though from being a spoon-maker, strangely enough, so she didn't get bullied as much as me, but still. We started talking a lot about how we don't deserve to be bullied and well...that kind of helped out self-esteem, I guess." She smiled a bit as she said this, but it soon faded as she continued. "We started to act all snooty and cool like the other bullies in hopes of not getting bullied anymore, and that sort of worked. We weren't called names anymore, so it was a big plus to us.

"The next year came sooner than I'd thought, and it turns out that the bullies got in trouble or something. I don't know what the details were, but they moved to a different city. On the first day, we tried to be nice to everypony and make amends after last year, ya know? Well, the ponies who we bullied didn't want to have anything to do with us, so they ignored us. We tried our hardest to apologize, but nopony listened to us. We were all alone. Just the two of us." Diamond took her eyes away from Butter's and looked towards the ground. "We tried to raise our self-esteem again by doing the same thing last year, bullying others and praising ourselves. That earned me my cutie mark. I don't remember how, but it's most likely from being a selfish, snooty, little brat." She wanted to go on, cursing herself for having such an awful talent, if it even was a talent, but for the sake of not going on a rant, she left it at that.

"So, then why'd you stop bullying everypony after our argument?" Butter asked.

"After you called me ugly and all that, it made me realize something. No matter what one does, they're always going to be criticized by somepony, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. So to not make matters worse, I just ignored everypony and hopefully thought they'd forget about me. Silver tried talking to me about it and tried to build up my self-esteem by calling me 'pretty' and 'gorgeous' and other stupid lies, but it didn't work. After school that day, she came to my house and said how she didn't want to be friends with me anymore. To be honest though, I don't think we were friends to begin with. She probably stuck by side when I was a bully to make sure she didn't suffer like the rest of the ponies did..."

Silence fell upon the two foals until Diamond finally spoke up. "Does that answer all of your questions?"

"Almost all of them. I do have one more."

Diamond sighed. "And what would that be?"

"Do you want to change?"

Diamond tilted her head a bit in confusion. "Like, change being a bully and all?" Butter nodded as Diamond continued, "Y-Yes...I truly do."

"Then what's stopping you?" Butter asked.

Diamond sighed and looked at the tiara stamped on her flank. "My cutie mark. It basically symbolizes how much of a rich jerk I am..."

Butter glanced at her flank for a split second before looking back into Diamond's eyes. "You shouldn't let something on your butt tell you what you're good at. And like you said, you don't know how you got it, so you don't know what it stands for in the first place."

"Well, what do you think it stands for?" Diamond asked.

Butter thought for a moment before answering her question with the cheesiest statement he could come up with. "Maybe you're rich in character or something."

Diamond looked at Butter like she was a bit peeved. Obviously, his effort in complimenting her had failed. "Listen, I told you what was up. Now please leave me alone," Diamond said, trying to be polite.

"Wait, can I say one last thing before I leave?" asked Butter.

Diamond sighed and mumbled to herself. "I'm going to regret this, but fine. Go ahead."

Butter cleared his throat and went on, "I know you don't want to be a bully, Diamond, and you don't have to keep 'acting tough' to get respect. All you need to do is just act yourself."

"I tried that, but the ponies never believed that I was being honest with my apology, so they ignored me," stated Diamond.

"So? Some apologizing takes time. You just need to be honest and truthful, and they'll start to accept who you truly are," Butter said with a slight smile.

Diamond looked down and started to think to herself. "I-I'm not sure about that..."

"Well, you've got one pony convinced already, so it shouldn't be too hard," Butter reassured. Diamond looked back into Butter's eyes and gave him a small, but noticeable smile. Butter got to his hooves and said, "Well, I've gotta go. Don't want to keep the crusaders waiting."

Diamond nodded as Butter turned around and started to trot off. Suddenly, Diamond spoke, "W-Wait! Um..."

Butter turned around and faced her. "Hm?"

"D-Do you wanna maybe...talk sometime? Or hang out or something?"

"Oh...um...sure!"

"O-Okay!" Diamond said with a bigger smile. "I'll let you know when I'm free!"

"Alright! I'll let you know when I'm free, too!" Butter said with a sincere smile. He waved to Diamond and turned back around, heading for the clubhouse.

Diamond watched him leave as she finally said to herself, "Goodbye, friend."

Author's Note

Ahh, I don't really like writing Butter as a counselor. But hey, extra chapter right?

Just a little something attempting to be heartfelt while I write a vulgar and tasteless comedy. Enjoy!

(P.S. I just ended the alliteration gimmick. I'm sorry but at the same time don't feel sorry. At all.)