Substitute Teacher: Twilight Sparkle's Schoolhouse of Horror

Monday Morning , After a Day of Preparation

The restless schoolfoals filed into the classroom, too busy talking amongst themselves to notice the new presence behind their teacher’s desk.

“Hello everypony!”

The foals’ conversations lapsed for a few moments before carrying on again in full swing.

This agitated Twilight beyond belief. She brought her forehoof down on the desk with a commanding *BANG*!

Thoroughly startled, the class devoted their utmost attention to their teacher’s sit-in.

“Thank you, everypony. My name is Twilight Sparkle, as I’m sure some of you know. I’ll be filling in for your teacher Cheerilee today. You see, she got sick all of a sudden and”-

“Cheerilee’s sick? We should make her a get-well card!” Pipsqueak suggested.

“NO! NO TIME FOR GET-WELL CARDS!” Twilight screeched. She shook her head violently again, mussing her already unkempt mane. “What I mean to say is, we have a very important lesson today that we really need to get through. Now, has anypony ever heard of the word ‘anatomy’ before?”

“You mean, that whole ‘birds and the bees’ thing?” questioned Apple Bloom.

“Hey, I think I’ve heard of that! It’s like, why a colt has that… whatever that thing is called, and fillies have a”—

“Well, yes, that is part of it!” Twilight cut them off in the nick of time, sparing the class a premature sex education explanation, courtesy of Sweetie’s comment. “Anatomy is basically the structure of living things, primarily us ponies. It refers to the parts that make up our bodies.”

“Like hooves?” Pipsqueak proposed.

“And bones?” Scootaloo added.

“And that one thing that colts have? And a filly’s”— Sweetie was stopped short once again

“Yes, yes, like all of those things! Now, I need a volunteer for a little… demonstration I’m going to do.”

Before anypony could raise their hoof, Diamond Tiara decided to chip in her two cents about Twilight’s lesson.
“What a load of garbage! Why are you telling us all this when we’re supposed to be learning about the positive impact of the Rich family industry on Ponyville? Daddy said it was either that, or Barnyard Bargains would buy out the school system! I refuse to put up with this… this impromptu cow patty of a lesson!”

Twilight gave her a menacing look. “What’s your name?”

The posh little filly stuck her nose in the air. “Diamond Tiara. Not like it’s any of your business, anyway!”

“Well, Miss Diamond Tiara, it looks like you’re the first lucky volunteer for my demonstration! Step this way, please.”
Watching as the class bully stepped to the front of the room, many of Tiara’s classmates took it upon themselves to make the most of their tormenter’s embarrassing situation. In no time flat, the majority of the class had burst out in mirthful laughter.

Twilight’s pupils shrank even smaller than before. She clenched her teeth as she tried to suppress the horrible memories trying to resurface in her brain. But they proved too strong for her.

She was sitting in the lonely middle desk of the classroom. Her magic kindergarten classroom.

And all around her, classmates were laughing about her magical deficiency.

Laughing at her.

Cold, unfeeling, merciless laughter.

The memory and reality blurred together, and Twilight blinked. The room was still riddled with the sound of a giggle or snort every here and there.

They’re laughing at me again. By Celestia, they’re doing it AGAIN!

Let’s see how they like it!

“Change of plans, class. We’re all going to go downstairs and watch the demonstration together. That way, everyone will get an A+ for participation today! Yay participation!” She cheered, her left eye twitching. “And besides, everypony knows that when it comes to science, a bigger sample size yields…” she snickered, “more accurate results.”

Twilight magically yanked the basement light chain with an echoing *click!*, and led the students down the spiraling stairwell into the musty depths of the school’s lower cellar.

“Now, here’s your next vocab word of the day: does anypony know what an ‘autopsy’ is?

Nopony did.

Twilight smirked subtly, and continued. “That’s quite allright, you’ll find out about it for yourselves in a minute. But first, we’ll need to introduce our next ‘A’ word, ‘anesthesia.’”

The foals unwittingly followed the mare down the basement steps. But three prudent fillies in particular were becoming increasingly uneasy with Twilight’s odd behavior. Having been around her more than any of their classmates, they knew that this wasn’t the usual, cheerfully quirky side of Twilight they knew.

No, this side was much more sinister. And it scared them.

The substitute teacher guided her students over to a cleaned surgeon’s table, set up in the center of the room. Upon it was an off-color, stained lab coat, which Twilight slipped right in to.

“Diamond Tiara, please hop up on this table here for me,” After several more complaints about Twilight’s teaching, Diamond Tiara sulkily did as she was told. As if on cue, four steel braces zipped out from holes in the tabletop and bound her limbs tightly, and the filly yelped in surprise.

“W-wait… why am I locked in like this? W-w-what are you going to do to me?!” The prissy earth pony tried desperately to thrash free of her metal confines.

“Hush-sh-sh-sh, don’t try and struggle anymore. This won’t hurt you a bit, and it’ll be over before you know it. It’ll all be over…” Twilight looked straight into the filly’s panicked face, her own eyes glazed over and bloodshot from her lack of sleep in preparing for this day. With her lab coat, crazy eyes and wild hair, she looked like some sort of psychopathic scientist.

Reaching under the table, she pulled out a cylindrical object wrapped in gauze. Upon unveiling it, the crowd of students took a nervous step backwards. They were quickly losing trust in their sub, as well, and Twilight’s mystery object took the cake.

It was the biggest plastic syringe they had ever seen, complete with 5-inch needle and state of the art anesthesia compression mechanism .

Without a second thought and with no regard for the other students, Twilight plunged the primed needle into a wincing Diamond Tiara’s torso. There was a resounding gasp from around the room as the filly cried out miserably from the pain of the needle, struggling vainly to free herself. After several seconds of fighting her shackles, however, Diamond Tiara’s movements became more delayed and sluggish. A few moments later, and she slumped limply to the tabletop, out cold.

For her fellow students, that was the last straw.

They’d been growing steadily more wary of the suspicious mare the entire time, and it became increasingly obvious that she was a few bits short of a banknote. The terrified mob of schoolfoals made a frantic break for the basement door, but stopped abruptly as a wall of purple flame surged up in front of it.

“Tsk tsk tsk, you naughty little cheaters. I expected you’d try and sneak a peek at the answer key in the other room, so I came prepared.” Twilight mused through the gas mask suddenly on her face, and her horn shone with malevolent aura as a mechanical clicking filled the basement dungeon. “This is bound to be an experience you’ll all look back on and… laugh at!”

At the word laugh, four giant aerosol cans, emblazoned with Pinkamena D. Pie’s face, rose from each corner of the room. Soon, the dank basement air was filled with the sound of hissing gas.

“My dear friend Pinkamena let me borrow these, specifically to deal with you huffy little foals! We’ll see how much you like laughing after this!” The insane mare quipped, as the students broke into a chorus of unsettling giggling.

But once again, three little fillies had thought ahead of the game, and held their breath just as the laughing gas had been released. Thinking everypony else had succumbed to the gas, they were surprised to find one colt was still perfectly sane.

“It’s a good thing I always keep my trusty bandanna handy!” Pipsqueak’s muffled voice broke through the hissing. He rushed over to the Crusaders, bandanna wrapped around his muzzle like a bandit. “Are you three still alright?”

The fillies nodded. Relieved, Pip drew his tiny wooden sword and turned towards the crazed mare. “C’mon, then! We have a substitute teacher to fight!”

It was then that Twilight noticed that not everypony had been stricken with her first round of anesthesia. She rounded on the quartet, the lenses of her mask flashing maliciously.

“It looks like some little ponies failed to follow directions!” She tittered, pacing around them like a mako shark circling its prey. The sight of her in the terrible gas mask made the foals tremble. “Why not have a little fun with your friends? They sure seem to be enjoying themselves, by the look of things.”

All around the room, their classmates were still cackling uncontrollably, though the gas was quickly proving to be too much for them. As it filled the room, several of the foals’ cackles turned to fits of hacking coughs as the noxious air began to choke them. Diamond Tiara still lay on the autopsy table, her face turning purple from asphyxiation.

“No matter. I have a special exam for you, one I’ve planned just for the occasion!” At that moment, a lever emerged from the ground beside Twilight, and she gave it a tug.

All four foals could feel themselves falling into nothingness for one gut-wrenching moment, before landing in pitch darkness on a cold, smooth surface.

“Wh-where are we?” Asked Apple Bloom shakily, feeling around and finding a wall as equally cold and smooth as the floor.

In response, a fluorescent ceiling light clicked to life. The tormented fillies and colt found themselves in what appeared to be a small mirrored elevator, slowly descending to heaven knows where. A smooth jazz rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” was playing over the stereo system.

“What’s going to happen to us? I wanna go home!” Sweetie Belle sobbed, tears staining her snowy coat as she slumped to the floor.

“I just don’t understand why Miss Twilight’s doing all this to us…” Apple Bloom gazed at her endless reflections in the mirror, her amber eyes full of hurt and betrayed trust. “I mean, I know we hate DT and everything, but not even somepony as nasty as she is deserves… that…” She gazed up at the lights, remembering the syringe and Twilight’s manic expression.

“I agree. Nopony deserves to be tortured like that…” Pipsqueak spoke up. Sniffling, Sweetie Belle nodded her agreement as well. “What do you think, Scootaloo?”

But Scootaloo had not heard Pipsqueak’s question. She was too busy staring in shock at the familiar face forming in one of the endless mirror reflections.

The pony’s usual violet-red fur had an awful gray overtone, and her mane looked almost as unkempt as Twilight’s. Sickly dark rings encircled her exhausted looking eyes.

It was Cheerilee.

“Girls? Girls, can you hear me? I don’t have much time left! You need to come find me, before”—

Cheerilee’s face warped and faded into static, and was quickly replaced by another.

“Your old teach’s not lookin’ too hot, is she? Pity, really… She was always so upbeat. Kind of made me sick after a while. But this is all beside the point.” Twilight’s un-masked grin made them want to vomit.

“New plan, fillies. I’ve dropped your precious teacher somewhere at random in my ‘Twilight Zone’, and if you three can find her before I do, you’ll pass the exam. If I find her first…”

There was a horrible scraping sound of metal on grindstone.

“…then you all flunk.”

A look of puzzlement crossed Scootaloo’s face, replacing her mask of fear. “Wait, us three? What about Pip”—

With a gust of chill air and a stifled yell, the young colt vanished from the elevator.

“Four against one would be hardly fair, don’t you think? Oh, don’t look at me like that. Your little friend will be fine. He’s even smiling right now, as we speak! Now, where was I?”

“Oh, yes! Fill in the correct answer bubbles, make all marks heavy and dark, yadda yadda yadda, all that good jazz. And do try and have some fun while you’re at it!” Twilight shot them a twisted smile.

“On my count: one…” her heart-stopping grin grew bigger.

“Two…” Even bigger still.

“Begin!”

Suddenly, the elevator cab began to shake wildly, as if caught in a hurricane wind. The Cutie Mark Crusaders bashed into one another and ricocheted off the mirror walls, as the derailed lift whirled, tossed, and pinwheeled like mad.

And then, their worlds went utterly void.