In the not-so-grim present of Button Mashes childhood there was only sleep.
Button Mash was sprawled out on his bed, covers on the floor and the Gamecolt he had pestered his parents into buying yesterday lay screen down on the edge of his brown chest. His chest’s erratic heaving having pushed it off during the night.
The sun was shining it’s rays through the blinds covering the window, no clouds were in the sky, and summer break was just around the corner.
“Button Mash! Breakfast is ready!” A cry came from his mother downstairs. Slowly the words registered with Button Mash and he began to try dragging himself off the bed. However, halfway through the attempt he once again fell asleep on the soft surface of his bed.
10 minutes later
“Button Mash, hurry up downstairs and eat or you’re going to be late for school!” His father shouted, shaking him awake, this time for good.
“Wuh,what time is it?” Button blinked and covered his face from the sunrays with his foreleg. He turned his head around trying to check the clock in his room he forgot he didn’t have, instead coming up on the clean shaven face of his father.
“It’s Seven fortyfive, I had to come wake you up since you weren’t….”
As soon as Button Mash got the time he tuned out the rest of the sentence . He stood still for a second, before he promptly dashed downstairs, almost knocking his father over when he exited the room.
“Son, aren’t you forgetting something?”
Button stopped and ran right back into his room. He rushed over to his table and grabbed his helicopter hat, putting it on with a quick “Thanks dad!”.
Before he could run out of the room again his father stopped him with his blue hoof.
“I meant your bag.” Button’s father, Cream, deadpanned.
“Sorry.”Button facehoofed, accidentally putting too much force behind it and leaving a slight mark on his cheek. Quickly recovering from the pain Button sprinted off to his table and picked up the bag from it’s place on his spare seat.
This time Button Mash wasn’t stopped by his father and ran downstairs.
“Good morning, Mas...” Before his mother could say anything more Button ran past her, grabbed his packed lunch on the table and ran out of the house.
His mother ran up to the door in pursuit of her son, “Button mash, what about your breakfast?!” She shouted at the fading figure of Button.
Button Mash screamed, although now being far away enough from his house that his mother didn’t hear him anymore. School started in fifteen minutes and if he was late then this would be the fifth time in a row where he came late for class. Button Mash didn’t know what would happen but he imagined it involved the moon and the elements of harmony.
Meanwhile
“...And one for Applebloom and one for Scotaloo too!” Rarity finished, and carefully packed three pieces of cake into Sweetie Belle’s neatly organized school bag.
“Thanks, sis!” Sweetie belle thanked Rarity and they both exchanged a hug with each other before Sweetie exited the boutique.
Once outside Sweetie Belle wiped the sweat away from her forehead, and looked up. Not a single cloud was in the sky and the temperature made Sweetie feel like she was being cooked.
“Wonder what made the Pegasi up in Cloudsdale schedule this temperature?” Sweetie Belle asked herself. Ponyville hadn’t had any temperature cold enough to warrant the warmth as far as Sweetie Belle remembered. However she trusted the Weather team enough to not pay the strange heat any mind.
Sweetie wiped the sweat away again and started trotting at a brisk pace through the market place, strangely empty today, and towards the schoolhouse. In an attempt to take her mind of the temperature she thought about the week up to now.
Scotaloo’s schedule had recently been filled up by flight-training with Rainbow dash after she finally learned to fly, this meant that meeting with the Cmc were changed from being held everyday to twice a week. While Sweetie wished they could Crusade each day like they did before, she also wished for Scotaloo to ace the Flying exam, and Scotaloo had a lot to catch up on.
Suddenly she got shaken out of her thoughts by a loud scream in the distance. She turned her head around and saw a small screaming brown figure run straight for her. Sweetie stood still, eyes wide open, thinking it was a rabid dog or monster. But as the figure blazed by her she could make out that it was a pony.
She followed it with her eyes. She saw that while she was lost in thought she had almost arrived at her school. And in the center of the schoolyard the figure tripped on something and fell down.
Sweetie Belle ran over to it, ignoring the other foals in the courtyard. Finally, she saw who it was.
“Mash! Is everything alright?” There on the ground lay Button Mash, books strewn out on the ground from his bag. She hurried over to him and extended a hoof.
“Thank...” Button Mash said and lifted his head to see who helped him. When he saw that it was Sweetie Belle he immediately threw the hoof away and stood up, shaking the dust off of him.
“Oh, hi Sweetie Belle, nice seeing you, what are you doing here?” He stuttered.
“I’m going to school, same as you,” She said.
“Oh, of course I mean, why would I even ask that?” He laughed and looked for a way out of the conversation, scratching the back of his neck. “Well, it was nice chatting with you but I gotta get my books and, and,-” he thought of what to say. “-and look your friends are here,” He said. He took the opportunity and quickly picked up his books and afterwards dashed over to the other side of the school’s courtyard. Jumping behind the tree planted there.
Sweetie Belle didn’t know how to respond to the strange event but saw that her friends were indeed coming to her just like Mash had said. She also noticed that many of the other foals were looking at her and whispered. But once they saw Sweetie belle notice them they turned away, with the exception of Diamond Tiara and Silver spoon who simply continued whispering.
Applebloom and Scotaloo approached her. Applebloom was wearing sunglasses and a strawhat and Scotaloo was carrying a bag full of water bottles with her, taking a drink every other second.
“Hi, girls!” Sweetie Belle said, walking over to meet her friends.
"Hi Sweetie belle! Did you hear, Scotaloo got five days off from training," Applebloom said, giddy in excitement.
"Does this mean...?!" Sweetie belle didn't get to finish her sentence before Applebloom answered.
"Yes, a whole week of non stop crusading!"
"Allright!" Sweetie shouted, unable to contain herself. "Wait, why didn't Scotaloo tell me this?" a gulp and the sound of a bottle being opened was the answer Sweetie got from Scotaloo.
Button Mash lay in the shadow of the tree for six more minutes, once the fright of coming late to school had wore off he noticed the intense heat. Button Mash felt infinitely better under the tree than out in the sunrays even though the heat was only a few degrees colder in the shadows.
He heard something out of his ear but didn’t respond to it with anything other than a quick grunt and rolling over to his stomach.
After ten more minutes Button awakened from the stupor and realized where he was supposed to be. He jumped to his feet and realized that there were no other foals in the schoolyard and saw that the clock showed ten minutes over eight.
“Oh hay!” Button Mash screamed, grabbing his schoolbag as fast as he could he dashed towards the schoolhouse.
x
After Cheerlie had spent some time to chew out Button Mash for coming late the quickly rising heat had caused everyone, including Cheerlie to pay almost no attention to class.
After Cheerlie had finished slowly explaining basic algebra to the class, often going off on unrelated topics or simply forgetting what she was about to say, she sat down on her chair and folded the softcover math book into a fan, completely forgetting to give the class any tasks to do. The class after a few minutes also resorted to suing the nearest book they could find as a fan.
After that the class was quickly flooded by the smell of sweat. But almost nopony noticed it and those who did would rather stay on their desks rather than stand up and open a window. It was also at this time that Scotaloo's supply of water bottles had run out, leaving her in the same state as everypony else.
Sweetie Belle's face was on her desk, the book she had used as a fan on the floor beside her, it having fallen down a few minutes ago when her magic had failed her. She had tried to pick it up but the heat had and sweat had glued her to her seat.
“Girls, girls, I think I’m going to fa-faint.” Sweetie Belle slurred out but nopony noticed her. The time up until now had been bad, but right now Sweetie Belle felt like she would hit her sister if it meant it would get colder.
“I’m serio-aaaa!” Sweetie jumped and screamed, her head being suddenly invaded by an excruciating headache. She stumbled around the classroom on her back legs and clutched her head in her hooves. While Sweetie couldn’t hear it, Button was in a similar predicament on the other end of the classroom.
Their screams were high enough to shake Cheerlie out of her stupor. Coming back to reality and shoving her Magenta mane aside she jumped out of her chair to help the kids when she saw the state the two were in.
Cheerlie wasn’t fast enough, before she could come and try to help, the two foals had collided with each other. The shock from the collision and the Brain-splitting headache were too much for them. Accompanied by Cheerlie’s rushing hoofsteps they lost consciousness. The last thing they saw before darkness overtook them was an explosion of colors and shapes.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading the first chapter of "The Dent In The Shield". I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn't, please comment why. I strive to improve my writing and a comment telling me to:"Go do something useful like take an overdose." is not helping.
This chapter was edited by user Shadowghostalex
