There are some people on this Earth that one should never, ever cross if they could help it.
Diamond Dazzle Tiara, lone daughter of the business mogul Filthy Rich, is one of them.
In her elementary school, Diamond Tiara is queen. Less than no one, the rest of the student body both loves and respects her. If they don't, she'll make them. She has many tools of persuasion at her disposal, and she's not afraid to use them.
Her father would be so proud of her.
"Bring her in!"
For a split second, the dim room was bathed in light as the door opened, and a figure was shoved into the room. The door closed with a loud and hollow thud, leaving the girl laying in the middle of the floor.
"Come on, wake up now."
A soft voice called out to her, and the girl let out a soft groan as she slowly woke up. Her head throbbed viciously, and she winced in pain. Her world was completely dark--something was covering her eyes--and she had no use of her arms or legs; any attempt to gain any movement was thwarted by what was restraining her. She tried to speak, yet she was silenced as well with what she could only assume was tape covering her mouth. With all her senses shut off with the exception of her hearing, the girl started to panic. She thrashed around on the floor screaming into her gag.
"Shut up!"
She inhaled sharply. She knew that voice, how could she not when she heard it every day? She tried to speak again, but her words were simply a garbled mess. She tried to speak louder, hoping that the louder she was, the clearer she could make the words.
SMACK!
She was immediately silenced. Her cheek stung. She could feel it reddening. Before she could do anything else, she was hit two more times.
SMACK!
SMACK!
The girl whimpered behind her gag. She had no idea where she was, only that she knew who she was with.
"Are you ready to listen now?" All she could do was nod. Maybe if she complied, she would return home. "Good."
The person behind the voice undid the blindfold that covered her eyes. Her eyes widened as she searched the room. She didn't recognize the place it all--surely it was nowhere she had ever been before. It was a small room, with its only furnishings being a desk, a couch, and a couple of shelves. The blinds were closed, and the few lights that were on gave the room a dim glow. And standing before her, filling her vision and demanding her attention, was Diamond Tiara.
Her face was emotionless. She stood, leaning against the desk that was behind her, and said nothing. A thousand questions filled the girl's mind: Where was she? What is her classmate doing? Why was she gagged, tied up, and blindfolded? She glanced up to her classmate with a begging look in her eyes. Diamond Tiara leaned forward and ripped the duct tape from the girl's lips, causing her to flinch from the minor sting.
"There, isn't that better, Ruby?"
Ruby Pinch craned her neck to see her face from her laying position. "What are you doing, Diamond? Why am I here?"
Instead of answering, Diamond Tiara walked out of her vision. Every time Ruby Pinch rolled over to try and keep her in her sights, she moved again, and remained just on the edge of her vision.
"Please! I didn't do anything!"
The footsteps finally stopped. "Didn't you?"
"You don't think I know, do you? That you were the one that called Miss Cheerilee every time I was putting those dumb girls in their place? That you were the one that tried to get the other students to try and report me? That you were the one that tried to get me expelled?"
Her green eyes widened at the accusations. "No! That's not true! I--" She gasped in pain. Diamond Tiara had grabbed a fist full of her short magenta hair and pulled her up so that she was resting on her knees.
"Look, Ruby, I know you're a little slow on the uptake, but I did try to... correct your behavior. When Dinky--smart girl, that one--straight up told you not to mess with me, did you listen? No. So I did a lot of little things. None of your friends talked to you. They threw whatever they could at you every time they had the chance. I even remember when Rumble knocked you on the ground and covered you in bruises. I think he said, 'You brought it upon yourself.' But you were probably too heartbroken that your crush could do such a thing to notice."
Diamond Tiara made frowned and used her free hand to trace an imaginary tear down her cheek.
"But even then, you just didn't get it. So I decided to talk to you directly. So, what do you have to say for yourself?" She unceremoniously dropped Ruby Pinch onto her back. She then perched herself onto the desk, waiting for an answer.
Ruby Pinch managed crane her neck once again to see Diamond Tiara's blank face. Her expression was bored, as if their teacher was teaching an especially long lesson, and she had already checked out mentally. She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat and spoke. "M-Miss Cheerilee, when she finds out..."
"Miss Cheerilee. She's a nice teacher, sure, but far too naive. Far too easy to manipulate. Who is she going to believe: me, or someone who lied to her to get an innocent girl expelled?"
"I didn't lie!"
"Oh? I have around twenty or so other kids that say you did. They also say that you snuck some illegal substances from her Mommy's liquor cabinet to school in her backpack. Hm?"
Diamond Tiara slid of the desk, leaned down, and cupped Ruby Pinch's chin and held her head up. "You know what my family does to liars and trouble makers?"
Behind her, Ruby Pinch could hear a set of foot steps. They were slow, heavy, and deliberate--as if being made by an adult. She felt like her heart would explode out her chest. All this time she thought it had just been her and Diamond Tiara, but now there was an unknown person with them. She avoided her classmate's gaze as sweat rolled down from her forehead.
She froze. Something hard and cold was pressing against the back of her skull. Her entire being was filled with dread when she could place a name to the foreign object.
The unknown person was pressing a gun against her head.
Eyes wide, she looked to Diamond Tiara for some sort of explanation. To her horror, the expressionless face was replaced with a cruel smile. She was enjoying watching Ruby Pinch squirm in horror. It was all just a game for her.
"W-Wait! Diamond Tiara! If you do this, then my mom will--"
"Your mom is Berry Punch, right? Daddy talks about her quite a bit. She's a stupid drunk. I wonder if she'd even notice that her own daughter was gone?"
As the cold steel pressed harder into her skull, Ruby Pinch finally broke down. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried to speak. Every word that came out of her mouth was choked with sobs, hardly recognizable. "Bwt che loves me! She doess!"
"Your mother is a dumb, useless drunk that spends all her free time in the bars. Does she even notice when you do anything? I don't recall her at at the Talent Show. Or at Family Appreciation Day. Or, at anything that has to do with you. Maybe she hates you?" Diamond Tiara let out a cruel giggle. "Maybe she'll just replace you with another kid she'll neglect."
Ruby Pinch struggled to breathe through her sobs. Diamond Tiara was lying. Her mother loved her, she knows it. Sure, sometimes she doesn't pay attention to her, and she's never gone to a school function, but...
"Let's see if there's someone, somewhere out there looking out for you, shall we? Right now--as you probably noticed--my butler Randolph is holding a pistol to your head. There are six chambers, and three bullets in it. Can you tell me what the odds are of the gun going off is?"
She managed to choke out an answer. "Fifty percent..."
Diamond Tiara's voice went an octave higher in fake surprise. "So you do pay attention in class! Correct! There's a fifty percent chance that the gun will go off, and I will be the last thing you ever see. But there's also a fifty percent chance that it won't, and you'll be able to live with your alcoholic, neglectful mother."
"Do you wanna take any bets?"
Ruby Pinch closed her eyes. Diamond Tiara nodded to her butler, and the elderly man squeezed the trigger.
There was a click, and then silence.
The gun didn't go off.
Ruby Pinch shot her eyes open wide in surprise. She was still alive. Her breath came out in ragged gasps. She only had a fifty-percent chance of living. She could have easily died, right then and there, at the feet of Diamond Tiara and her butler. She closed her eyes and thanked every celestial being that the gun didn't fire.
"Huh, what do you know?"
Diamond Tiara's speech had returned to the bored tone she spoke with earlier. She inspected her nails and didn't even bother to look at the shaking, tied-up girl laying on the floor. "I guess something is looking out for you. But that isn't going to last forever. So you know what you can do to get on my good side?"
She didn't wait for Ruby Pinch's reply before she continued. "First off, you stay out of my business. You leave me to my devices, and this little...incident won't happen again. And each time it does happen, the chance that the gun has an empty chamber goes down.
"Second, you don't breathe a word of this to anyone. I have eyes and ears everywhere, Ruby. Even your mother knows what my family is capable of. If I find out that you tell anyone--and I mean anyone--what happened here, I will not hesitate to have you removed. Do you understand?"
Ruby Pinch let out a soft whimper in agreement. She just wanted to go home. She would do anything Diamond Tiara asked of her if it meant she could go back to her relatively normal life.
"Oh, and one more thing, Ruby." Diamond Tiara kicked the helpless girl onto her back and dug her heel into her ribs. "You will treat me like a Queen. When I see you at school Monday, I expect to see you fall in line with the other kids. You will follow me loyally and without question. You can consider that your punishment."
She removed her foot from the girl's side, and moved towards the door. "You know what to do, Randolph."
It was the last thing Ruby Pinch heard that day before she felt something hard hit her head and her world once again went dark.
Author's Note
This was way too much fun to write.
