My Little Operator

Diamond Dancer groaned. School. How she loathed it. She huffed a sad sigh. Nearly three months have gone by since Mister Grey Vulcan had left the Griffin in charge. Was he even allowed to do that? The Griffin was a. . . Griffin when it came to teaching. He expected everypony to understand his lectures and write all the notes within the given time. At least while Mister Grey Vulcan was here, he would explain everything and give plenty of time for notes. Was she starting to miss that old stallion? Sure, he walked with her and Sparkler to the bus and paid for them every now and again. Sure, he brought tasty lunch to class for everypony every day, which was a thousand times better than the cafeteria food. Sure, he made her do hundreds of laps, but she was finding it easier to do them. She groaned and slammed her head onto her forehooves on the desk. Celestia's. Bright. Solar. Ass. She did miss him.

Skippy Sparkles watched her friend groan for the third time straight since class started. Her concern grew.

"Are you feeling okay, DD?" Skippy Sparkles leaned over her desk and rested her chin on her friend's shoulder. She stared at her with concerned eyes, "Whenever I eat too much candy sometimes I get a big tummy ache and sound like you do. Did you eat too much candy?"

"I'm all right, Sparkler," Diamond Dancer sighed. Sparkler's confiding perked her up. "You never give me any candy," she confronted the bubbly filly.

The pink filly's amethyst gems lit up. "We are not talking about me, silly! What's bothering you?"

The silver pegasus slumped in her chair, "Nothing."

"Is it because you miss Mister Grey Vulcan? Because I do," Skippy shared with sad, big eyes and lowered ears.

"Please," DD scoffed and waved dismissively, "that's just because you want to marry him."

"And you asked him to adopt you," Skippy smirked smugly.

DD's blushed. "N-No IShut up!"

Skippy nuzzled her friend lovingly, "You know he will."

DD pouted. "He said he couldn't as long as he was my teacher."

"So you have to wait two more years, it'll be worth it."

"What do you mean?" DD cranked her neck around with a confused expression.

"Well, we graduate in two years. He'll no longer be out teacher. Duh, silly!" Skippy smiled.

DD's face lit up with understanding. Small pops outside grabbed her attention, along with the screams. "Who would be popping firecrackers this time of year?"

Skippy Sparkles shrugged.

Maximus heard the noise outside and decided to investigate. He set his book down and crossed the classroom to reach the window that faced the front entrance. His eyes grew wide at the sight: many white vans were parked wildly outside, ponies in white hazmat suits had automatic rifles and were gunning down cops and innocents.

"Children!" He raised his voice in alarm, "Duck under your desks now!" He ran to his desk while the students looked at each other in confusion. He picked up the phone and frowned when the phone was dead. He reached into a drawer to retrieve his Mfruit phone and set it down when the "no signal" white text greeted him.

"Children," he spoke again, and the students fell silent, "stay here. I am going to go and see what the disturbance is. Nopony leaves this room or looks outside."

When the Griffin left, curiosity pulled all the children to the window. They gasped in horror at the scene below. Ponies and cops were on the ground and were laying in a pool of their blood. Ponies in white plastic suits had guns and were shooting cops who took cover behind their squad cars, and more of the white ponies were bringing large devices into the school. Without warning, the white vans outside exploded, sending flames into the sky and raining shrapnel in the streets. Yellow clouds of smoke billowed from the fires and floated in the air. They watched as the yellow gas engulfed the police officers and saw the blue dressed ponies combust, their clothes and fur spontaneously igniting. Their screams sent shivers down the foal's spines.

Hyacinth Bloom stepped away from the window with her breath short and eyes wide, "Is that what will happen to us?!"

Pops, which Diamond Dancer finally registered as gunshots, erupted from down the hall. The children all huddled in the far corner of the room and held each other tightly. Maximus crashed through the door which made the children scream when he landed five feet away from them. A white pony entered the room and loomed over the fallen Griffin. The pony leveled a shotgun at the terrified ex-Legionnaire and pulled the trigger. Some of the children recoiled from the sound, the ones up front turned away when they got showered with Griffin gray matter and blood. The pony's bright blue glowing eyes fell over the foals, and they stopped their sniveling. The pony pulled out one of the silver canisters from its black utility belt and tossed it at the group of foals.

Brave Heart sprung from the middle of the group and kicked the canister in mid-air back to the pony. The pony reeled back when the canister collided with its head. Brave Heart had lunged at the dazed pony before he got kicked down by a second pony in a white, plastic suit. The second pony crushed Brave Heart's chest under its hoof and quickly obliterated the foal's head with a shotgun blast.

A third white pony entered the room. The dual red cylinders on its back and the sprayer in its hooves resembled a flamethrower like the one Mister Grey Vulcan showed them the previous show and tell. That happy memory quickly faded from Diamond Dancer's mind as the pony lowered the nozzle at them. Yellow powder shot out of the nozzle.

Skippy Sparkles cried in agony when the powder touched her pink fur and started to burn her. Her curly purple mane caught fire, but she could not feel it biting her as her senses were already on fire from the pain all over her body. Within seconds, her eyes were cooked, her lungs scorched, and her screams deadalong with the other foals that shared her same fate.

The pony breathed slowly through its gas mask. Its glowing eyes remained on the cooking children corpses. It released a second burst of gas over the bodies mercilessly.