Tales of Equestria Girls

Sour Sweet groaned loudly as soon as she opened the library's door. All the computers were taken by fellow students. Again. That was the third time today alone. How was she supposed to make her report without access to internet?

She resisted the urge to groan one more time when the librarian near the door told her to be quieter with a glare. Could she seriously be any more cliché and predictable?

At least the other students of Crystal Prep Academy were using the computers for work. She was certain the tools over at CHS used them to play online video games, check their blogs for updates in the hopes to get likes to convince themselves they weren't utter losers or browse websites that had no business being visited in school.

Sour Sweet didn't hear an older student squee "yeah, level up!" to himself and turned around to leave, only to bump into Dean Cadance.

That was predictable and cliché too.

After hearing her not entirely sincere apology, the dean spoke up. "What were you groaning about?"

Sour Sweet scratched her ear before looking up at Cadance. "I've got a report for the end of the month and I've not been able to access a computer for three days."

Cadance cocked an eyebrow as they started walking away from the library. "Don't you have a computer at home?"

"I do," replied Sour Sweet with a little nod, "but I've been grounded for a month."

Cadance's eyebrows shot up her forehead and she blinked. "That's the first time I've heard you being grounded. What happened?"

Sour Sweet frowned as they turned a corner. "Mom insisted on cooking last week and I refused to eat more than one bite."

The raised eyebrow returned.

"She can't cook to save her life," stated Sour Sweet, resisting the urge to add she was certain she could cook to end lives.

Cadance losing herself in confused blinking was entertaining, at least. Eventually, she took back control of her eyelids and said "I'll try to talk to her about it."

Sour Sweet smiled genuinely for what felt like the first time since the week began. "That'd be nice."

"As for your computer troubles, I'm sure I can convince Twilight to let you use hers. She's so far ahead of schedule I know she can afford the break."

To say that this sentence put a damper on Sour Sweet's enthusiasm was an understatement would be an understatement in itself.

Her eyes lit up and her lips broke into a grin. "Oh, I can't wait to visit out top student's nerd cave!" Her fake excitement vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "I bet she doesn't even need to work to get her good grades," she muttered bitterly in the same breath.

Then she looked back at Cadance and her tongue shriveled in her mouth upon seeing her glare. No wonder Principal Uptight hired her, she could scare the wits out of students almost as well as she did.

After Sour Sweet had swallowed the lump in her throat, Cadance said "I'll have you know Twilight works at least as hard as all the other students in this school."

"Yes ma'am. I'm sorry ma'am," mumbled Sour Sweet miserably.

**********

"'Twilight works at least as hard as all the other students,' huh?"

Cadance laughed sheepishly.

An unexpected sight had welcomed them when Cadance opened the laboratory's door; Twilight Sparkle sprawled over on her back on the floor with a dumb grin, and several empty Coca Cola bottles scattered across the room around her. The two liters variety, Sour Sweet noticed, impressed despite herself.

She looked away from Twilight and her eyes drifted to the screen of the room's computer. It was frozen into an image of two tall white bars on each side and a dot of the same color between them.

She stared on incredulously. Pong? She was seriously playing Pong? Who in the world still played that dinosaur of a game?

"And she doesn't even feel the consequences," Cadance whispered sourly with a tint of longing.

She started when she noticed Sour Sweet tilt her head at her.

Cadance sighed. "She's been binge drinking coke for as long as I've known her." Sour Sweet's eyes widened. "And she's never have had as much of a cavity. Her enamel is in better shape than mine and I don't even do soda."

She shook her head as Twilight let out a drunken giggle.

"She never had issues falling asleep either." She crouched and picked up a bottle. "And these aren't the decaffeinated kind, in case you didn't notice."

Cadance threw the bottle over her shoulder as she watched Sour Sweet look at Twilight's waist with a jealous frown.

"And as you can tell, she doesn't pick up weight from all that drinking either. I don't think she even will get diabetes in spite of her blood probably being more sugar than hemoglobin."

She paused.

"And now I'm feeling bad because I'm actually wishing she had diabetes." Her shoulders sagged. "Freya, I'm the worst dean ever."

Sour Sweet wasn't one to deal with someone feeling down, so instead she opted for a distraction; she gave a very slight kick to Twilight's ribs while muttering "lucky bitch."

Twilight's only reaction was another drunken giggle.

This apparently did the trick, because Cadance's sad mood disappeared. "Normally I'd scold you for insulting a fellow student," she started, and Sour Sweet found herself wishing she had kicked harder since she now understood the dean wasn't watching Twilight, "but you are right. She is a lucky bitch."

Sour Sweet suppressed a squee as she added "make the dean swear" and the ever elusive "make the dean insult her own damn pet" to her impressive list of achievements.