The ring of the bell brought sadness to the hearts of the fillies, and indicated the first day of school. As the students entered the small schoolhouse, only one pony was smiling...and that was the teacher. Miss Cheerilee beamed at her pupils, seemingly oblivious to the stench of longing, wishing that Summer wasn't over already.
"Hello class!" She chirped. "I hope you all had a wonderful Summer! Now...I'd like to introduce a newcomer to our class. Mason, if you could please come in?"
Diamond Tiara stopped talking to Silver Spoon as the new colt came inside and walked to the front of the class. He was about her age, maybe a little older, with a pale blue coat and mane. But...everything about him just seemed wrong. Burns covered his face and hooves. And as he opened his mouth to speak, every pony in the room could see that his front teeth were gone. "Um...hello." He said with a lisp not unlike that of a certain filly in the same class, who at this moment had her eyes trained on the gash running up one burned hoof. "I'm Mathon. I rethently moved here with my family from Fillydelphia. And...I hope to make thum friendth!"
Cheerilee stepped forwards. "Thank you, Mason! Now class, does anypony have anything they'd like to ask him?" Every single hoof shot into the air. "Not about his appearance." She said, slightly irritated. All hooves went down. "All right then, Mason, you can go sit down at the empty seat next to Diamond Tiara over there."
As he sat down, she leaned over towards him. "Playing with fire is bad for you." She sneered. "Didn't your Mommy and Daddy tell you that?" As he flashed her a hurt look, she knew. She was going to have some fun with this one.
Mason tried his best to avoid her, but his efforts were fruitless. There aren't really any places to avoid a pony in a one room schoolhouse. She seeked him out, insulted him, and called him names, always with her snotty tone of voice that caused everything she said to hurt ten times more than it originally did.
Others in the class felt sympathy for Mason, but didn't dare try to help. Even the Cutie Mark Crusaders knew that if you stood up to Diamond Tiara when she's 'in the zone' would result in unspeakable things. Many times, Mason tried to tell Miss Cheerilee, but every time, Diamond Tiara would simply put on her sweetest face, and cutely say "Who...me?" And all would be forgotten.
It all sort of fell into rhythm over the schoolyear for the pink filly. Get up, get ready, go to school, meet Silver Spoon, taunt some random filly or colt, then seek out Mason. Laugh at his teeth, stare at his burns, question him about the gash, until school started. Suck up to the teacher and be Equestria's best student in her eyes. Then go home, and wait for it to start all over again.
At the beginning of the year, Mason tried to defend himself. To find witty remarks and sarcasm to fight hers. But several weeks in, he resorted to crying and denying. But near the end of the school year, he stopped trying. He never really spoke, months of name calling and insults obviously taken their toll. He just stared, glassy eyed, at whoever was speaking to him. Or he'd look at his hooves, slowly scanning the burns and the gash in his hoof, comparing it all to what Diamond Tiara has said.
On the last day of school, though, he approached her near the end of class. "Hello, Scarface, here for your insults?" Diamond Tiara asked. "It's the last day, so I'll make it extra special."
"You'll pay." Mason said slowly, his voice gravelly from either crying or underuse.
"What?" the bully asked, surprised by what he had said.
"You'll pay for what you've done to me. And for all the ponieth you have bullied in the patht.
The entire classroom seemed to freeze and watch him stare at her until he turned and left the school right as the final bell rang, commencing Summer vacation for the students.
Of course, at that time they didn't know that this was the last time they'd ever see him...alive, that is. He was found facedown in a small pool alongside the forest. Suicide, the police told his parents. Suicide, his parents told the school. Suicide, the teachers told the students. But the students could've guessed that on their own.
The word of Mason's death hadn't really shocked Diamond Tiara. "Oh well." She said to herself. "It was fun while it lasted." Over the course of several weeks, she thought of him less and less, until she hardly registered he had existed, not to mention died.
♦♦♦
"Sweetums, your father and I are going out to dinner tonight, and we're trusting you to stay home alone." Diamond Tiara's mother said one evening.
"Fine, mom." She said from the sofa. She had stayed home by herself, and things were always pretty uneventful.
"Dear, are you coming?" Filthy Rich called from the door. Our reservation's in twenty minutes!"
"Oh! We'd better go, then!" Mrs. Rich planted a kiss on the filly's forehead before dashing to join her husband. "Behave yourself!" She called before the door slammed behind her.
Diamond Tiara sighed. She had the house all to herself. Snuggling into the couch, she gazed at the crackling fireplace. The cheerful orange flames crackled in the hearth. Suddenly, the room went cold. Yet...the flames were still as big and bright as ever. The pink filly climbed off the couch and approached the fire.
Rather than radiating heat, the fire was giving off a cool breeze. Strange... she thought. Warily, she reached out a hoof and put it into the flames. It felt like one of Mr. Breezy's strongest fans, but that was it. She put the other hoof in as well. And, just because it was so tempting, she leaned forward and stuck her head in.
It felt great. She just sat there for a while, enjoying the breeze, until she noticed that her hooves were now a very vibrant shade of red. As she became aware of the pain, the heat returned full force. She felt as if she was on fire...well, she was, so now she knew how that felt. She didn't like it.
Screaming, she rushed towards the kitchen sink. Wincing in pain every time one of her front hooves hit the ground. Reaching the sink, she turned on the cold water full force and stuck her her hooves and head under. This isn't happening! she thought. This isn't happening! Tell me this isn't happening! Through the rushing water, she heard a laugh. Forgetting her pain, she whipped around, only to see nothing and receive a new wave of pain. She heard the laughter again, coming from the dining room. Burns or no burns, she HAD to know who was in her house.
She turned away from the running water and limped towards the dining room. "C'mon, Diamond. Don't wimp out." She told herself. Several agonizing moments that seemed more like several years later, she reached the door. Upon opening it, the pink filly was expecting to see her parents, or some axe wielding murderer staring at her. But...there was nopony there. She turned to leave, but her hoof grazed something. A stray nail, sticking out of the floorboards. Her father had sworn he'd get it fixed, but it had never happened yet.
If you didn't know, gelatin, made of bones, hooves, hair, and other various cartilage from animals, is made when the aforementioned ingredients are boiled to a jellylike consistency. In regular circumstances, Diamond Tiara's hoof would have just bumped into the nail. Trip her at most. But the fact that she had been heating her hooves for a while combined with the cellular anatomy of Equestria's ponies compared to our own had reduced her hooves to supersensitive jellyhooves. So when her jellyhoof collided with the nail, it passed straight through, leaving a clean gash in its wake.
The filly looked down and saw her hoof. She jumped backwards in shock, and slipped on a puddle that had formed from the running water in the sink. Diamond Tiara fell face first, landed, and heard a crunch as her front teeth caught most of her weight. They were now resting on her tongue.
"I told you you'd pay." A gravelly voice said, as a figure appeared out of thin air. It laughed, the same laugh she'd heard not long ago. It was Mason.
"Wha...?" She croaked, not believing what she was seeing. His ghost was standing over her!
"Now you'll have to suffer as I had." He said as he held a mirror over her. Diamond Tiara's eyes widened. She didn't look like herself anymore. No front teeth, the hoof gash, and the burns. Just like Mason's.
"No!" She gasped, spitting out the teeth.
"Yes." He said. "You earned it. I earned it. I've done my time, too. We all have."
The filly was going to ask another question when the front door opened. Mason disappeared as her parents returned. The mirror crashed to the floor and shattered.
♦♦♦
It was Diamond Tiara's first day at Manehattan Elementary. After the nurses and doctors fixed her, best they could, (They were able to restore her jellyhooves to normal...except for the gash. Not much they could do) she couldn't bear staying in Ponyville.
Her parents understood and they moved to Manehattan just before the start of school.
"Class, this is Diamond Tiara." Mr. Emerald announced. Diamond could feel all the pairs of eyes watching her, dumbfounded. "Please be nice to her. She recently moved here." He pointed to an empty desk near the back. "Miss, you can sit next to Lockpick over there."
She walked silently to her desk, next to a rowdy looking colt who turned to her and whispered "Nice teeth you've got there." He reminded her of someone, but she didn't know who...
Within days, Lockpick was singling her out to taunt her, insult her, and call her names. They hurt.
She swore she'd make him pay.