Teach Me, Miss Cheerilee!

by Little Jackie Papercut

Rating: everyone
Tags: Random, Rumble, Thunderlane, Cheerilee, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Comedy
Length: 4112

An unexpected visitor ruins Cheerilee's evening.

Cheerilee is relaxing at home when she receives a visit from a colt from her class. Reluctantly, she agrees to help him be just like the pony he admires most.

This is going to take a long time.

The events of this story take place in the universe of Watching Us Watching Them, and are meant to facilitate your understanding of that universe, and not to advance the plot in any way. Thank you for understanding.

This is inspired by the BlazBlue games and their "Teach Me, Miss Litchi" bonus stories. There will be references, but it is not connected to the BlazBlue universe in any way.

Published 2015-02-06 11:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-08-14 07:43:59 UTC

Rumble 1

It was a gloomy Saturday in Ponyville. The weather team had arranged a big storm for the afternoon, and were cautioning ponies to be well indoors before then, so Cheerilee had nowhere to go and nothing to do.

She liked these days. As long as she finished grading papers in the morning, she had a perfect excuse to curl up by the fire and not move for the rest of the day. There would be no school business, no visitors, no noisy scenes in the square. She flipped open the novel she had been reading in her precious spare time, took a sip of tea and a bite of a wholesome wheat bun, and sighed happily as she relaxed for what felt like the first time in ages.

Somepony knocked on her door. As she stood to answer, Cheerilee thought about how nice it would be if she could ever finish this book. "Who's there?" she called out.

"It's me, Rumble!" a small voice outside answered. "My brother sent me!"

As a teacher, it's my duty to help any foal who comes to me in any way I can, the maroon mare thought, halfway through barricading the door. "Just a minute," she said as she began to disassemble her work.

Soon, the door swung open and a gray pegasus colt with a greasy mane stepped inside. Rumble was the brother of the hotheaded weatherpony who happened to patrol Cheerilee's neighborhood. She briefly wondered why Thunderlane would send his little brother to see her about anything when he himself would be just overhead.

"Did he say what he wanted?" she asked. "And… what's that on your chest?"

Rumble looked down as if noticing for the first time that there was a piece of paper pinned to his chest. "It feels like pain," he replied, carefully removing the pin. "I think it's a note for you." He held the paper up to her. Curious, Cheerilee took it and began reading.

Hey, coach, this kid is just too stupid. I need to get rid of him for the afternoon so I can actually do my job. Can you give him some extra lessons? Maybe you can teach him weather or something, I don't know. Just make him less of an idiot.

Cheerilee sighed. This wasn't even the right end of town. The coach lived closer to the Cloudsdale air lane. How had Rumble misidentified his destination so badly?

"Teach him weather?" she mused idly. "Maybe it's Thunderlane who needs extra lessons…"

"You're going to teach me weather?" Rumble repeated. "Yeah! I'm gonna be a weatherpony!"

"What?" Cheerilee blinked. "No, no, Rumble, I can't—I mean I really can not do that, you should go to—"

"Weatherpony, weatherpony! I'm gonna be a weatherpony! Just like my big bro… uh… ny!"

Rumble's chanting was suddenly drowned out by a crack of thunder. The teacher's hoof slowly caressed her forehead. That was the signal to stay indoors. She was stuck here with a colt who had no idea he wasn't supposed to be here.

"I'll be the best weatherpony ever, just you watch! I'll make a tornado right now!"

It would be wrong to throw a foal out into the storm. Cheerilee reflected on this as she slowly lowered him to the ground and shut the door.

"Now listen, Rumble, I don't think that's a good idea," she explained calmly. "You're nowhere near being ready for that kind of performance." And the last thing she needed was a hyperactive pegasus flying around and slamming into everything she owned.

"Oh, right, basics first! I should start with rainmaking!"

"No, that's not—you shouldn't be making any kind of weather yet," she informed him. "You'd be a danger to yourself and others. You need to know what you're doing first."

He nodded slowly.

"I can't actually teach you how to make weather anyway, since I'm not a pegasus, but even before that, what you really need is some basic education. You can't do anything with the weather until you know a little bit about it."

He nodded slowly.

"I recommend studying your science and history after school every day. Once you understand the needs of the ponies around you and how weather systems work, your coach will probably be glad to take you under her wing and train you to be a great weatherpony."

He nodded slowly.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

He thought for a moment. "You mean you'll teach me science so I can do lightning like my brother?"

The teacher frowned. She wasn't quite sure when she had volunteered for that particular duty. In fact, she would very much prefer to avoid it. "I only said that you would need to learn those things," she clarified.

"Right! And it's so nice of you to do it! What are you going to teach me first?"

Cheerilee had the sinking feeling she wouldn't be able to escape from this. "Alright," she breathed wearily. "I just made some wheat buns, so come sit down and we'll talk about it."

Rumble followed her excitedly. As soon as they sat down, he popped a bun into his mouth, chewing happily. Meanwhile, Cheerilee began attempting to sort out a lesson plan in her mind.

"I guess for tonight, we'll just do a basic overview of the most general mechanics of pegasus magic," she decided. "You can do most of it by instinct alone, but it'll help immensely if you know how it works." She cleared her throat. "For starters, you have flight."

"What?" Rumble's eyes widened at that statement. "Flight is magic? But I thought we just used our wings like birds!"

"Oh, no," Cheerilee clarified, "birds are able to fly because they have hollow bones that make them lighter, but a skeleton like that couldn't support a pegasus. Even if it could, it would make even minor injuries life-threatening. Instead, a pegasus's wings act kind of like magnets. Every time you flap your wings, the magic in them reacts with atmospheric magic to pull you up."

The colt whistled in amazement. "Okay, so how do—"

"Please, one thing at a time." Cheerilee gestured to the rain that now beat at the window. "As a pegasus uses their wings, small amounts of magic escape, which can affect weather patterns. That's why, when there hasn't been a storm recently, it's not just the volume of rain that increases. In order to use up the excess magic, the wind blows harder and lightning strikes more often. And that's why we absolutely have to stay indoors on days like today."

Rumble blinked, then raised a hoof. "So then how do they know how big a storm has to be?"

Thinking about it, the mare shrugged. "I can't say I know firsthoof, but apparently they have very strict procedures. They have to test samples of clouds from all over town."

He scratched his head. "Wow, that sounds a lot more complicated than I expected!"

"Yes, well, that's why the lead weatherpony has to work so hard to keep everything organized." Cheerilee nodded. "It's not easy, but it's necessary. Without rain, all the plants would dry up, and without lightning, all the clouds would just kind of explode. Your brother complains about how strict management is sometimes, but he understands how important it is, and I think he knows implicitly that it's worth all the hassle."

Rumble stared out the window in awe for a few minutes, seeming to even forget about the bun in his mouth.

Relieved, the teacher stood up and trotted over to her bookshelf, selecting an appropriate book on the subject and opening it up. "So that's the basic principle of how flight and weather interact. But there's more to it than that. Magic isn't just concentrated in one spot, it's spread through your entire body, and pegasus magic creates a selective barrier when you touch a cloud that allows you to interface with it." She found the page she was looking for and set it down in front of Rumble, showing him a diagram of the layer of magic between pegasus and cloud to help him understand what that meant.

"Um..." He looked at it a bit, tilting his head, then shrugged. It seemed this was a little too complicated for him.

Cheerilee rubbed her chin for a moment. "It's like a magical cushion," she offered. "Without it, the cloud is just water and dust, but once it's wrapped up in that magic, it's like a big fluffy pillow. And that same magic can flow between you and the cloud, which is how weatherponies tell the cloud when to release rain or lightning."

Rumble's mouth formed a little "o", and Cheerilee guessed that he must have understood that at least a little. She patted him on the head. "Do you get it now? That's more or less how pegasus magic works."

"I think so," he said. "So now that I know how my magic works, I can command the weather through total inner mastery, right?"

Cheerilee shook her head. "That was only lesson one, Rumble. There's still a lot more you need to learn. But we'll have to get to that another day, after I've had time to prepare a lesson plan." She held up the teakettle. "Would you like some tea while we wait?" she asked.

The evening passed mercifully uneventfully. Rumble didn't try to make any tornadoes, and whether it was because he took what the teacher said about not being ready to heart, because he was processing the lesson, or because he was placated by wheat buns, she counted it as a victory. When the storm finally cleared up, Cheerilee escorted him home.

On the way back, she considered her lesson plan. There was work to do.

Rumble 2

The afternoon sun filtered through the window, warming Cheerilee's classroom gently. On days like this, even the most taxing work associated with her job seemed a pleasure to do. She sighed with relief as she finished the last of the papers and put them away. She was certain she had the best class in Ponyville. At least, by most measures. The class average was a little low. But she knew why that was, and didn't consider it a poor reflection on her otherwise excellent students.

The gray pegasus colt sat at his desk, watching her intently. It was sort of creeping her out.

He had shown up early for his lesson, and Cheerilee wasn't sure whether that was because he was so eager or because he had forgotten what time it was. Nevertheless, she had told him to take a seat until she was ready. The trouble was that she wouldn't ever be ready and she knew it. Nothing could prepare you for a student like Rumble.

"So, should we begin?" she suggested weakly.

Rumble gave an energetic nod. "So what are we learning today?" he asked. "Is it about electrostatic superconductive cloud barriers?"

"Rumble, that's not a thing," the teacher reminded him. "No, I thought we'd alternate a bit. We'll cover history today and save the science lesson for next time."

He gave a stiff salute. At least he didn't knock anything over. Cheerilee cleared her throat as she opened up her notes.

"Alright, now, the modern, centralized weather service began with the foundation of—"

The door abruptly swung open. Rumble's head swiveled to look as an orange pegasus filly strutted inside, looking back at her unicorn and earth pony companions.

"I know we left it in here somewhere," she was saying. "I'll find the materials. Dinky, can you find the notes? And Silver Spoon, just… do whatever you normally do, I guess."

The gray earth pony rolled her eyes. "Sure, okay. I'll just stand in the back and imitate you two, then."

"Yeah, like that." The pegasus turned to examine the room. "Now where were the…" She trailed off as she noticed the two occupants.

Cheerilee pointed at the fillies, confused. "Wait a minute, aren't you three—"

"Just three fillies from your class, ma'am!" the mauve unicorn cut in.

"Well, yes, but I could have sworn you were also—"

"Don't spoil it!" Silver Spoon suddenly cried out, silencing everyone in the room for a moment.

After taking a long glance around, Dinky spoke up again. "Are we interrupting something?"

"Oh, absolutely," Cheerilee agreed gratefully. "Rumble wants to be a weatherpony, so he's here for extra lessons."

"Really?" Dinky held up a hoof, confused. "Why doesn't Thunderlane teach him? He's got to be more qualified, being an actual weatherpony and all. And a pegasus."

"That's a very good question," Cheerilee answered.

"Well, anyway." Spoon shrugged. "We're just looking for our group project. Are you going to be okay? I mean, it's Rumble. No offense," she added to the colt.

He looked at his hooves.

"Actually," said Cheerilee, "now that you're here, I could use a little help."

"No kidding," Spoon remarked.

Cheerilee thought for a moment. "You'll get extra credit."

"I'm in," the earth filly declared.

Scootaloo and Dinky shared an uncomfortable glance. This was probably not going to end well and they both knew it.

"Me too," Dinky said unenthusiastically.

"Yeah, yeah," Scootaloo agreed.

"Great, then." The teacher beckoned the orange filly closer. "Scootaloo, you're up first. We were just talking about the creation of centralized weather systems."

"Right, those." Scootaloo shrugged. "Okay, here goes. The system actually hasn't changed much for hundreds of years. All the major weather processes are routed through the Wonderbolts Academy in Cloudsdale, and have been since it was founded. But you know all about that, right?" She tilted her head hopefully. This colt couldn't possibly be stupid enough to require elaboration.

"Um..."

Not for the first time, Scootaloo realized that they had all very seriously overestimated Rumble.

"Okay then," she half-hissed, "the Wonderbolts Academy was founded in the year 17 CE, as part of the Decree of Historical Preservation. The staff was entirely made up of former Royal Guards, to preserve their valuable experiences. It's a military academy, but since it's all pegasi, they also ended up with all the most talented weather ponies. A few years later, they had officially established a department to regulate and monitor weather activity across Equestria. That's also why another word for a modern weather team is 'brigade'."

Rumble raised a hoof. "So what's the Decree of Historical Preservation?"

"Oh, let me take this one," Dinky requested, stepping in front of Scootaloo, much to the pegasus's relief. "You see, it all started in Prehistory."

"Prehwat?"

"Everything more than about a thousand years ago is considered the Age of Equestrian Prehistory," the unicorn explained. "See, back then, somepony, or some group, apparently got the idea to keep all our most valuable historical information in one giant archive. But, well, that was before Discord came along. He basically destroyed the library for fun. Then the Dark Years happened, and we don't even know what was lost then. And back then, making copies of documents wasn't really considered important, so between Discord and whatever came after him, we barely know anything about the written history or sciences of Equestria up to that point.

"So Princess Celestia issued the Decree of Historical Preservation. The idea was basically a widespread and ongoing effort to prevent anything like that from happening again. Part of it appointed historians, clerks and other workers to document pretty much everything even a little important, with copies circulated throughout Equestria. But it also included a lot of provisions for education. All the paper on the Material Plane wouldn't do any good without somepony to teach it. Right, Miss Cheerilee?" Dinky smiled up at the teacher.

"Exactly," Cheerilee responded. "And it was under that initiative that the Wonderbolts Academy was built."

"So what about other schools?" the colt asked.

Dinky grinned. "Believe it or not, Canterlot itself was built because of the Decree. The entire city is actually considered school grounds. That was pretty common back then. If you name a city in Equestria that's over eight hundred years old, the whole thing was probably built due to the Decree of Historical Preservation. The university at Manehattan ended up being so big, they had to build four more cities to support it."

Rumble nodded, his mouth hanging open.

Everypony stared for a moment.

"Rumble? Did you understand all that?" Cheerilee asked.

Silence.

The teacher looked to the three fillies. "I'm sure he got the idea. But we've gotten a little off-track." She shifted her notes around. "So, can any of you think of a way Canterlot and Manehattan tie into weather?"

"Location matters," Scootaloo suggested. "It can't rain much in Canterlot, or the whole city would wash down the mountain. Manehattan, on the other hand, is surrounded by water, and it's close to the Court of Winter. It takes a full weather brigade to keep the water cycle going."

"Very good!" Cheerilee nodded. "You see, Rumble, awareness of your environment is one of the most basic requirements for good weather management. Now, last question. What kind of weather does Ponyville need?"

Dinky and Scootaloo both started to answer, but hesitated, looking to each other with a shrug.

"Ponyville is an agricultural town surrounded by hills," Silver Spoon observed. "Also, because of the Everfree Forest, the ambient magic concentration is unusually high. Rain is usually light to prevent flooding, but with frequent lightning strikes in hotspots. The heaviest parts of the downpour are concentrated around reservoirs maintained by earth ponies so that the water can be used for irrigation. The seasonal rotation is also more extreme than other temperate areas. In the winter, all the water must be frozen in order to conserve it for the spring planting. Farmland should receive only the necessary weather management to prevent disasters. Sugarcube Corner pays a special fee to ensure the rain doesn't fall directly on it, as that would cause the roof to dissolve."

The other fillies stared at her.

"What?" She shrugged. "I pay attention when my mom talks about city planning."

Cheerilee cleared her throat. "Thank you, that was very informative. Rumble, do you have any more questions?"

The colt thought about it, wings flapping absently. "I guess I wanna know how Silver Spoon gets her mane so shiny."

"I think that's enough," Spoon declared, backing away.

"And I'm not seeing any of our materials in here. I must have left them somewhere else," Scootaloo added. "We really should get going. Can we call this lesson over?"

Checking the clock, Cheerilee nodded. "Yes, that's enough for today. I'm looking forward to seeing what you girls come up with."

The fillies all breathed a sigh of relief as they filed out of the room. "I must have left them at Sweetie Belle's," the pegasus mused, her voice fading away as they walked quickly down the hall.

The earth filly replied, "Or maybe you forgot them when Apple Bloom was—" And then they were out of earshot.

Cheerilee looked to Rumble now. "I hope you've got a better idea of what kind of job the weather is. Have you been taking notes?"

"Yes, ma'am!" He held up a sheet of paper. There were notes on it, alright. Upon inspection, Cheerilee found she had no idea what they said. They were completely illegible. She winced. She was going to have to review this with him later.

"Okay, good enough for now," she told him. "You should ask Thunderlane to go over it with you at home, I'm sure he'd be happy to help."

"Yeah! And then i'll be a perfect weatherpony!" Rumble hopped out of his seat and zipped out the door.

Cheerilee opened her desk drawer to check that Scootaloo's project materials were still there. She'd have to return these to the fillies later.

For the moment, she just let out a sigh of relief before making some notes of her own. There was work to do. There would always be work to do.

Thunder 1

Cheerilee checked the clock again. In just a few minutes, Rumble would show up for his lesson. As promised, she had prepared a lesson for today on the properties of electricity, mostly designed to impress upon him the importance of proper safety practices when working on a thunderstorm.

Actually teaching him those practices would be more difficult, and she was still considering how she might approach the task. All in all, she only knew about pegasus magic and weatherworking because she had researched the subject in the past, specifically because she knew it would help her pegasus students. Not being a pegasus herself meant she had no practical knowledge of technique, and no way to teach it even if she did.

She supposed she would get another instructor involved when it came time. For now, though, she simply went about tidying her desk. The empty room shared the moment with her, listening to the ticking of the clock.

The knock came, somewhat louder than she was expecting. It wasn't usual for Rumble to be quite so impatient. Cheerilee cleared her throat. "Come in," she called.

The door swung open, but instead of the gray colt, in walked a black stallion with an electric blue mane. He had a rather solid build for a pegasus, owing no doubt to the frequency with which he was assigned to oversee the toughest storms, but his present stance, seemingly uncertain and questioning, made him look a bit more frail.

"Thunderlane?" Cheerilee quirked an eyebrow at him. "What brings you here?"

"I, uh, heard there was kind of a mix-up with my brother," he replied, a hoof rubbing the back of his neck.

She nodded, resisting the urge to giggle at the embarassment written on the stallion's face.

"Yeah, so I just wanted to apologize for that. And pay you for your time." He reached into a bit pouch he was wearing around his neck.

"It's not necessary," the teacher assured him. "I mean, I appreciate the thought, but Rumble needed the extra lessons, so giving them to him was just my duty. It's not like he's—"

She was cut off as the pegasus set his hoof down on her desk. It lingered there for a moment, seemingly because Thunderlane was a bit distracted by something. Cheerilee glanced around, but couldn't figure out what it might be. Before she could ask, however, the hoof lifted again, and Cheerilee's eyes widened.

"Uh, Thunderlane," she remarked, pointing, "I think you got something mixed up. That's a platinum bit. I'm not even sure why you're carrying it around. You don't get paid in platinum. I don't get paid in platinum. That coin could buy a pony dinner every night for three months."

Thunderlane seemed to start at that statement. Blushing, he retrieved the coin and returned it to its pouch. "Oh, uh, oops," he said. "Thought it was a silver. Let me just..." He looked through the pouch, slowly frowning. "I guess I didn't bring any silver bits."

Cheerilee shook her head. "Oh, well. Like I was saying, it's my job, and I love teaching. You don't have to pay me extra to do my job."

"But it's kinda my fault you got stuck doing it," he insisted. "Tell you what. Maybe I can take you out to dinner to make up for it?"

Now she was beginning to understand the whole situation a bit better.

"Dinner, you say?" she asked. "I wonder. Is this how it went when you took Clockwork out?"

Thunderlane backed up a step, looking shocked. "What? Clockwork was—"

"And Flitter, Lotus, and Blossomforth, I suppose. I take it you were actually planning to ask a certain other mare out today, had Rumble gotten the address right."

The pegasus was silent, giving no answer other than the twitching of his eye.

With a sigh, the teacher stood up. "You know somepony would have figured it out sooner or later. And I take it you won't be trying the same method again, because trust me, it won't work if you do. So, where are we going to go?"

Finally, he wrenched himself back to reality. "What, seriously? After all that, you're gonna accept?"

The mare shrugged. "I do like the idea of dinner on you, Platinum Bit." She poked the coins to emphasize the statement. "Besides, maybe now that you know I'm onto you, you'll be better company."

The weatherpony winced at the new name, but nodded. "Alright, I think I can manage not to be a slimeball," he agreed. "And, hey, I might as well go all out, since I've got that much more to apologize for. Chez Snooty?"

Cheerilee smirked. "Now you're speaking my language."