How did we not see this coming?
Author's Note
My first time writing a story, or at least, writing a story of my own choosing.
I don't plan on going too in-depth, just enough for a beginning, and end, and an idea of what happened in the interim, but I'll leave that up for interpretation
Enjoy and I appreciate constructive criticism. Be polite about it and we'll get along fine.
How did we not see this coming?
Cheerilee stared at the paper in front of her, staring dumbstruck at the words printed on the page. She couldn’t believe it. Not because she couldn’t understand it, not because it was stupid, she just couldn’t believe it. After all these years, it had finally come to a head. She thought it was already done with, but apparently not. No, this had apparently been known about since this first started, allowed to fester, then sent to her to completely ruin her day, probably by some snobbish noble who wanted to make some bits as an investment of sorts.
She quivered at her desk in anger. It had been YEARS since she had taught those foals, but they were well known for a reason. Ah yes, the infamous Cutie Mark Crusaders, that trio of troublesome children who made it their civic duty to pair destiny with immense property damage. And now, all the trouble they caused had built up, exponentially, to a bill that finally arrived on her doorstep.
Here is the general layout: The CMC had had some rather expensive fees required to fix the damage that they had inadvertently caused. Somepony in Ponyville told some rich noble in Canterlot about them, and they apparently hatched a plan. Anonymously “donate” the money needed to fix the damages, with small print saying that it would be repaid, with a bit more. Nopony paid it mind because that was a massive wad of bits out of their minds that they might have to pay out-of-pocket. Now, a few years later, after a 500% interest a year, after five years, that number now a lot bigger than it was before. The noble in question made the decision to make her the one to pay it, because she was the one “responsible” for teaching the fillies what they knew, and therefore her lack of teaching them how to act, caused all the carnage.
The total cost of fixing everything that they had done before was around 30,000 bits. That’s thirty, followed by THREE zeros. Those fillies never went halfway with everything. Now, at 200% of that, every year, for about 5 years, apparently she now owed said noble 960,000 bits, give or take 4,000. That’s nearly a MILLION bits. Where the HAY was she going to get that many bits. Oh, and there’s a due date set to be in about three years, but these with only 50% interest. Once she saw that, that’s when her head hit the desk as she fainted. Fun.
She awoke a few hours later, slopped about on the floor. Murmuring something about a crazy dream, she wobbly got to her feet, obviously not feeling well, then she spotted the paper on her desk. It looked like it was gloating about the fact that it was real and that she was the one who was suddenly one million bits in debt. That was enough to buy 30 Canterlot Castles. And she was somehow going to get that money, and pay it, or be forced into bankruptcy, lose her job, home, students, everything she holds dear. To have all of that suddenly threatened unless you can do the impossible, that hurts a pony in the mind and heart.
She slumped against the wall, crying about all of this that is happening, wondering just what she is going to do about the situation presented to her, and trying to come up with a solution. Everything came to mind, from having her students run a (very) successful lemonade stand, to selling her body for absurd amounts of bits in hopes that she could raise enough that way. She was not pleased that that thought wormed its way into her head, but she was somewhat relieved by the fact that she wouldn’t be able to do it, and wouldn’t have to do it, followed by the cold chill of fear when she realized she was burning through ideas, and might be resigned to her fate.
Then, the idea sprang to her head, so somewhat clear that she couldn’t believe she didn’t think of it, but also so shameful to the fact that she’d be doing what she told her students to never get involved in: Drugs. She sat down for a bit in her home, thinking through the idea as clearly as she could, looking for some flaw in it that would force her to move to some other idea.
First, she would have to make the drugs, but she wasn’t really the cleanest of ponies in college. She was one of the wild ones, and it’s that sort of memory of herself that made her do her best to keep her students from doing such things. But, it was due to those activities that she knew how to make most drugs known to ponykind. She could make Dandelion, she could make Ruby, she could make Stirrup, Tartarus, she could even make crystal, which sells for extremely high prices if she didn’t accidentally kill herself in making it.
The making of it was is entirely dangerous, and one misstep in any part of the process would make a building as big as the school house nothing more than a crater where a schoolhouse used to be, but it was made almost entirely out of household items, and wouldn’t look suspicious at all buying it. Sure, buying it constantly from a single place would certainly be suspicious, but if she spread out a bit, she could certainly get enough to make all of the crystal that she’d need to sell, and then some, and then some more.
Then would be selling it. She might have to contact old friends and the like to get it sold and distributed, but she probably would have that covered. At least she wasn’t going to be an idiot about it and just roam the streets of Canterlot, shouting at the op of her lungs: “I HAVE CRYSTAL FOR ANYPONY LOOKING TO BUY!!!” Yeah, that would definitely go well. The guards would definitely think she was selling things like shards from the Crystal Empire.
Which was believable when the drug was first introduced into the world. The Crystal Empire was still going strong, and the drug had an keen likeness to the crystal of said empire. But that was literally thousands of years ago. Now, everypony knows about the drug, and what it looks like, and what to look out for.
Now, last but most certainly not least, she would have to find a way to explain away the rather suspicious production of nearly a million bits, without doing anything extraordinary in the eyes of the law. That was an entirely new hornets’ nest to poke, but she would poke at it some other time. She (somewhat hesitantly) had a plan of action, and now all she had to do was put it into gear.
She sighed to herself and began writing letters to all the people she knew were probably still in the drug industry, and asked for a refresher in how to make crystal and asking if they’d be willing to sell it.
It was going to be a long few years.
It was nearing the end of the third year, and after nearly three years of hard work, she was finally, FINALLY done, with almost accidentally killing herself with an explosion daily. Cooking crystal was hard work, and she did rather well (in her opinion, as well as her customers), and she was thrilled to leave it all behind, so she could go back to full-time being a teacher.
Her old friend’s had pulled through for her, giving her a nice refresh on exactly what she was doing, and they were thrilled enough that she was back in the business, even if it was only temporarily. They were happy to help distribute and help her out, for a fee of course. They got a total of a quarter of the profit, she got another quarter, and the rest of it was going into either A: Making more, or B: The fund to pay back that large looming debt. By the time it was finished, that debt had wracked up to over two million bits, which she succeeded in procuring.
Not only had she managed to get all those bits, she was a millionaire herself now, with quite a few bits to her name. Even with all the wealth, she just wanted to do what she was doing before: Teach foals how to be productive ponies, and make them able to survive in the world. Nothing really compared to the feeling she got when a foal she spent years raising proved to have grown into a strong mare or stallion, with intelligence to match.
But before she could go and do that, she had a dept to pay. She grabbed the wrinkled and stained paper that had been delivered via mail about three years ago, to get the return address. She wanted to hoof over all those bits personally, just to show off to the pony involved that she had, in fact, completed the impossible, and raised enough bits to cover the costs of repairing the damage the Crusaders had caused.
She looked at the paper, and got the address of the noble who was the cause of her having to do all of this in the first place. She slipped the paper into her saddlebags and trotted out the door, making sure to ask her neighbor, Roseluck, if she could water her garden if she was gone for more than a day. She made her way to the train station, and got herself one ticket to Canterlot. The next train was going to be leaving in about an hour, so she had some time to kick back and relax, content with the fact that she had done the impossible.
It had started as a nightmare, her friends had agreed to help her, and were happy that she was back, but they were suspicious that she had gone soft to their ways. She spent hours agonizing over the recipe of crystal as to not mess anything up at all. She ended up ordering supplies to make all of what she needed from every store on this side of Equestria. It was hard making sure that most of it wouldn’t be traced to her. One pony ordering cough medicine from every store within 100 kilometers would have raised more than a few eyebrows, especially if it was from within such a small time period.
Either way, it was a long, dreadful process that took most of the time she had to do it, but she did it, and that was, in itself, worth it to her. Now, she would be able to do the thing she loved, and nothing would stand in the way between her and that schoolhouse. She dozed off for a bit, only to be tapped awake by the ticket-booth pony, alerting her that her train was about to leave. She thanked the stallion and boarded the train, her ticket easily accessible for the conductor who came through to check if everypony had a ticket.
After he made his rounds, she got settled in for the hour-trip. She leaned her head on the window, staring blankly at the scenery of Ponyville, as the train began to accelerate forward. Lost in thought the entire time, entirely pleased with herself, and yet a rock in the pit of her stomach started to take shape, causing her to worry. What if someone found out? What if someone knew? What if that noble knew what she had been up to to scrape together the bits to give him?
She shook her head, she had taken every precaution she could. Unless the noble was expecting her to take the route of drugs, which he shouldn’t have in the first place, because she was a school teacher, then everything would be okay. He wouldn’t even know what to look for.
Her mind began to race in such a way for the rest of the hour, as Canterlot, and the end of this problem, seemed to take a forever to get to, looming ever so closer, and yet just as far away. Would she get home fine, would she be caught, would she even just decide to stay for a day to get over the face that all of the ordeal was finally over with? Only time would tell.
Canterlot was as beautiful as ever, she noted as she stepped off the train. Sure, she had been here a bit after this entire problem made itself known, but she only came back that one time. It seemed as though time stood still in this place. It still passed, but everything had the same shiny appeal with no show of wear since the last time she was here. Maybe it’s because of unicorns and their magic, or maybe Celestia and Luna blessed the city itself to never get worn away by time. Either way, the affect was astounding.
She stood probably near this same exactly place about three years ago, but she didn’t have time to think about that now, she had a bank to go visit, a huge load of bits to withdraw, a walk, and some gloating planned out. She walked forward into the mob of ponies going about their business on this Tuesday morning. She still had a week to turn in the debt, but she was going in early to deal with any complications that would rise.
The bank visit went about as well as could be expected. She walked up to the teller, a smile on her face, showed some identification, and accessed the savings account, and asked to withdraw two million bits, you know the usual. As soon as the teller picked his jaw off the floor, he excused himself and scrambled into the back. Whelp, now she accidentally caused a scene. Every pony in the room was looking at her, confused as to why the poor colt made a hasty exit into the back.
A few minutes later, it was revealed that he went out to get the owner of the bank, one Mr. Secure Safe. Take a random guess as to what his cutie mark might be.
“And you would be the pony who would like to withdraw two million bits?” He asked rather loudly, probably on purpose, to Cheerilee. For her credit, her smile didn’t falter at all.
“Yup.” Short and simple, was her way of reply. He probably wanted some sort of clarification as to why she would want two million bits, but you can’t always get what you want. It’s worth noting at this point that every pony in the room was staring at her, jaws going up and down trying to form words, but doing nothing altogether.
“Okay.” He decided to just roll with it. “Since you’re asking for such a large withdraw, we’ll want a hoof-print and a magic-field test to insure you are Ms. Cheerilee.”
“That is not a problem, I would be more surprised if you just gave me the money without doing any sort of test.” That said, the tests went smoothly. Her hoof would be blackened for about a day, until she could get into a shower, and she would be feeling the tingles of the detectors as they took samples of her magical aura for a few days, but the end result is a huge sack of bits, fit rather precariously on her back, carried with nary a problem due to her pure-bred earth pony physiology.
It would be of note to say that this bag, filled to the brim with gold coins, was at least 3 times her size. Most earth ponies would balk at exactly how heavy that would be, and would rather just let a unicorn carry it. Not Cheerilee, though. She had worked out for the past month to be able to lift such a heavy bag off the ground, and carry it around without a care in the world. It would make it so much more satisfying to “accidentally” spill the bits all over that noble’s floor. She probably wouldn’t do it, but it was definitely entertaining to think about.
Once that was over with, she pulled out a map, and found her destination. It was a mere 15 minute walk, even with the bag. And so she began her trek through Canterlot.
She was stared at the entire way to the noble’s manor, and it didn’t lessen the farther out of the usual hustle and bustle of Canterlot. Sure, there were less ponies starting, but those who were there, started with greater intensity, and she could practically feel the eyes on her, then her back, then the sack, then her again, and so on. She could make out ponies staring out through windows of other houses, but she didn’t pay them mind. She didn’t pay any of them any mind, she was so happy to finally have the fruits of her labor on her back, on its way to its destination, where it would no longer be her problem.
She walked up to door of destination, and knocked three times, hard enough to dent the door. This is quite the feat, considering that she didn’t bother to put down the bag of gold to do this. Inside, she wasn’t only gloating on how she had done the impossible, it was that she was strong enough to carry a large sack of gold, and dent a door at the same time. She was feeling immensely pleased with herself when a butler opened the door.
“Good day Miss, how may I help you today?” The butler, an older tan stallion with a stunning silver flowing mane asked.
“I have a delivery and a message for Mr. High Stake, if he is available.” Cheerilee pleasantly said, a warm smile on her face, and, if you paid any real attention, and fire in her eye.
“That would be fine. His schedule has been cleared for the next week or so, so he isn’t up to much. Come on in and take that load off, I can’t imagine that it’s too comfortable to hold.” With this, he opened the door wide enough for Cheerilee to walk on through, and once inside, the butler closed the door and turned. “I will go tell the master of your presence. Wait here and he’ll be out shortly.”
He left the room, the clopping of his hooves slightly echoing in the expansiveness of the manor, as he went to fetch Mr. Stake. Cheerilee dropped the bag onto the floor, causing the floor to shake and the walls to shudder slightly. She climbed onto a nearby couch, and sat there for a few minutes, as she waiting for the noble who basically played her to walk in.
Now, she wasn’t really angry at him for what he did, not only because she’s nice, but because if it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t of learned a bunch of things around herself. That, and it’s good to try to be what you want your students to be, and one of the main things she impresses upon her pupils, is to forgive and let go of wrongs, in hopes that ponies will accept it and do right.
Then, in walked High Stake, a smirk on his face and a monocle on his left eye. He was wearing some ridiculous hat, and was attempting to show it off in pride. Or at least, he was, until he saw the bag that had left an indentation on the floor where Cheerilee had so casually dropped the thing. She noticed his staring at it, and turned to see that it had, in fact, left an indent about an eighth of a hoof deep around it. She idly wondered if the road she had walked had cracks in it from all the weight she had put on it. She mentally shrugged and put it aside for now, she could investigate that when she left.
What Cheerilee didn’t know, was how threatening she seemed to High Stake. The stallion had woken up about an hour ago, and was reading the paper and eating a bagel when the Butler practically ran into the room. Blubbering about a mare carrying a LOT of gold on her back, as if it was nothing, and wanted to deliver it directly to him with a message.
Now, this caught High Stake’s attention, because his butler is one of the most experienced butlers that he could find, and had really good composure. What Cheerilee didn’t know, was so casually dropping the bag while he was walking away, just as he looked back, he saw it hit the ground, saw it indent, and felt it from over 30 feet away. To him, that was strength that rivaled even the Princesses, and that was an extreme cause of concern.
Not only with this information, but the fact that she seemed to be so casually reclining on a couch, as if she didn’t just carry thousands of pounds of gold to his doorstep, but had floated it here like any unicorn. It was obvious that wasn’t the case by the lack of a horn on her head. This isn’t even the mention the fact that he, personally, charged the same mare with a pretty steep bill a few years back, and here she was, with said money, scaring his butler, and indenting his floor. He nearly pissed himself as he walked into the room.
However, he didn’t lose his composure, so kudos to him. “Ah, Cheerilee, I’ve been expecting you.” Considering how scared he was, it’s a monument to his own composure that his voice didn’t quiver in the slightest.
“Well, I’d hope you were, considering you’re the one who decided to drop a million bit bill on me, and the due date for it is in a week. “ Cheerilee recalled. “As a teacher, I hate it when my students don’t hit their deadlines, and I do my best to be a great role model for them.” She continued.
Stake’s mind, working a mile a minute, had no idea what to reply to that, until it hit him. This was a risky gamble, but it might work, and his name is High Stake for a reason. Thinking carefully for a few seconds, he chose his words wisely. “Cheerilee, I must ask, how did you manage to even acquire this many bits in but three years time? I do hope that you didn’t stoop to *ahem,* sub-par methods to obtain it.”
Cheerilee, for her credit, already had an answer for this. In her mind on the way to the train station, this sort of situation must have played in her head but a thousand times, giving her ideas as to what to reply. Due to this, she had a reply ready on the go. “Oh, everything was perfectly par for the course.” Not a lie, though not what he was referring to. “I helped a few friends in high places, and they paid me back a bit.” Still not a lie though, and her definition of a high place was most definitely different than that of the one he was thinking of. “ Cheerilee sat up on the couch. “Now, I know you probably did this investment because someone gave you the idea of it, which is what I choose to believe, and that this situation won’t happen again. Will it?” Her tone brokered no argument.
While her tone was harsh, mentally, she was flipping out like Pinkie found out that sugar had QUITE the effect on her. She managed to deflect the line of questioning away from how exactly she managed to scrape up millions of bits. She wasn’t really excited While he was processing what she had said, he had a number of questions, but instead of asking any of them, he decided that this meeting should be cut short. He easily recognized a lost cause when he saw one, and didn’t really want to agitate a pony with the strength of a well-practiced unicorn.
Cheerilee left the manor feeling considerably lighter, and not just from the weight of gold no longer settled on her back. She did it! She best the unbeatable odds that was raising enough money in 3 years to pay off a lather rage debt.
Cheerilee looked forward into the future with a smile on her face. While it may have been a long 3 years, it’s going to be a great rest of her life.
Author's Note
And so, that is my first story. I hope you enjoyed it, and do leave any feedback for it. I want to know just how I did for my first story.
I can still barely believe that my first story is about a pony cooking meth. Where did my life go so right?
