CHAPTER 2

Cheerilee was still surprised by the events that had happened in the Everfree Forest when she arrived back in Ponyville. Daring Do herself ; out of all things that could've happened today, she had to discover that Daring Do was real. She sat back on a park bench to catch her breath. When she took her saddlebag off of her back, she realized that it was surprisingly heavy. Then she realized that it still contained whatever Daring Do had asked her to bring to the forest.

‘I should… probably bring it back to her. I think she was talking about saving the world.’ she thought.

Before Cheerilee could do anything though, she was interrupted by the voice of Trixie, who was galloping toward her.

“Hey, you, the teacher ! Don't you know the contest starts in 20 minutes ?” Trixie said as she stopped next to the bench.

“I don't really care. I think I might drop out,” Cheerilee answered. “Plus, I have something else to do…”

“Well, too bad. Trixie was hoping she could see what you had planned for the contest. An earth pony doing magic isn't something you see everyday.” Trixie smirked. “And I was hoping to have a good laugh seeing you fail miserably.”

That last taunt got to Cheerilee. She pondered, but then figured that ‘saving the world’ could wait until her pride was repaired.

“Alright then, I'll make you eat those words.”

****

The contest had begun. The contestants were waiting in a room behind the stage as, one by one, they climbed on the stage and presented their magic tricks to the 4 judges. Said judges weren’t easily impressed by what they were seeing, but some contestants were talented enough to catch their attention all the way through. Eventually, it was Cheerilee's turn to go. She had to leave her saddlebag on a chair backstage, due to how unwieldy it was with whatever was inside. Trixie was tauntingly chuckling at her as she went, but she tried to ignore it.

Cheerilee was standing on the stage, with a chalkboard behind her. The four judges looked at her while exchanging some whispers to each other. Cheerilee cleared her throat.

“Hello class ! Today, we are going to learn French !”

The judges were confused. They tried to make sense of what was happening while Cheerilee wrote ‘LEÇON DE FRANÇAIS’ on the board.

“Let's start simple, shall we ?” Cheerilee turned back to face the judges, then pointed a hoof at one of them. “You, the green one. Can you present yourself to the class ?”

“Um… My name is Emerald Flower. I'm the host of this magic contest.”

“Good.” Cheerilee clapped her forehooves together. “Now say it in French.”

Emerald Flower didn’t know what to respond.

“Come on, it's easy.” Cheerilee wrote down what Emerald Flower had said on the chalkboard. “First, do you know how to say ‘my’ ?”

Emerald shook her head.

“In French, ‘my’ translates to either ‘mon’, ‘ma’, or ‘mes’, depending on whether the noun they modify is masculine, feminine, or plural. In the case of ‘name’, which translates to ‘nom’, it is masculine.”

Emerald nodded. “So, ‘my name’ translates to ‘mon nom’.”

“Exactly ! Now we need to translate the verb ‘to be’, or ‘être’ in French.”

****

“Mon nom est Emerald Flower. Je suis l'animatrice de ce concours de magie.”

The three other judges applauded her. Cheerilee smiled. “Now you know how to speak French. I am done here.”

“Merci, Mademoiselle Cheerilee !” the four judges said at once.

“Au revoir, mes petits poneys !”

Cheerilee took her chalkboard with her as she went back to the backstage area. Trixie, who had been watching, stood still, in shock.

“What was that !?”

“I gave a French lesson to the judges.” Then, realization suddenly hit Cheerilee. “Aaaand I just found out I was working on what is supposed to be my day off. Damn it !”

Cheerilee went back to the seat where she had left her saddlebag, only to find that it wasn’t there.

“Um, Trixie…”

“Please ! It's ‘the GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie’.”

“Right… Say, do you happen to know who stole my saddlebag ?”

“Well I believe it was you…” Trixie got startled at what she just said. She looked visibly embarrassed. “I mean, it was somepony who looked exactly like you, but with an eyepatch. I thought it was part of the magic trick, so I didn’t say anything, but now I'm remembering that an earth pony couldn’t really duplicate themself, and she was really sneaky like she didn't want to be seen, so… yeah, it was probably an imposter.”

Cheerilee didn’t know what to say, so she simply stood there, looking at Trixie for a while, with a blank expression on her face. Once she finally made sense of what Trixie had just said, she asked : “Where did this imposter go ?”

****

The two arrived at Sweet Apple Acres. Cheerilee didn’t seem convinced by Trixie's certainty.

“How do you know that the imposter went here, again ?” Cheerilee asked.

“I don't ! But it doesn't hurt to search.” Trixie said candidly.

Cheerilee face-hoofed at how wrong Trixie's logic was, but decided to go along anyway due to having no other solution to find her saddlebag. The two entered the apple farm and went to the Apple family's house. Trixie knocked, and Big Macintosh answered the door.

“Hi, Big Mac…” Cheerilee said, embarrassed, trying not to think about the ‘love poison’ incident that they went through that one time.

Big Macintosh simply waved blankly while avoiding eye contact.

Trixie realized that neither Big Mac nor Cheerilee would speak any more words to each other, so she spoke herself. “Hello, Big Mac ! Say, did you happen to witness a pony who looks just like Cheerilee today, but older, with an eyepatch, and without that ridiculous dress… ?”

Cheerilee shot daggers at Trixie with her eyes… metaphorically.

“I mean, without a dress. Yours is fabulous, Cheer.”

Big Mac was expressionless. He stared at nothing into the distance for a bit, then he simply answered “…Eeyup.”

“Okay. Where is she ?”

“She's stealin’ some apples over there.” Big Mac pointed toward one of the farm's acres of apple trees, a few yards away.

Trixie looked at him in confusion. “You don't seem bothered by it.”

“One pony can't steal more than just a few apples. Ah think Ah'll be fine.”

Trixie and Cheerilee thanked Big Macintosh and went toward where the imposter presumably was busy stealing apples. There, they found a perfect copy of Cheerilee, but with an eyepatch and without the dress she had bought today. She was eating a whole basket of apples on the ground next to a tree. Next to her was Cheerilee's stolen saddlebag.

“Hey, you !” Trixie shouted.

The Cheerilee copy paused her eating and turned around to see who interrupted her.

“It's cliché for a teacher to eat apples, you walking stereotype !”

Cheerilee hit Trixie on the shoulder to make her shut up. She then said to her imposter, “I believe you have something that is mine.”

The Cheerilee copy stood up, wiped the stains of apple juice off of her face, and said in a perfect imitation of Cheerilee's voice, “It's not stealing if it's already mine.” She chuckled. “Oh, but where are my manners ? I forgot to present myself. I go by ‘Professor C’, but my actual name is… Cheerilee.

“I'm you from the future.”

Trixie looked at Professor C, then back at Cheerilee. “Your ‘future you’ has a better fashion sense.”

“She's naked !” Cheerilee replied to Trixie.

“Trixie still has a point.” Trixie said calmly.

“You're not one to talk. You have a cape too !”

“While yes, capes are cool, I think your dress is a bit overkill. And let's be real, her eyepatch is really badass.”

Cheerilee tried to think of a counter argument, but ended up simply nodding at that last statement. “You distract her while I get the bag back ?”

“Okay.”

Trixie tossed a smoke bomb at Professor C to stun her, then jumped on her to pin her to the ground. Meanwhile, Cheerilee rushed to the saddlebag and picked it up. She then ran away with it, heading toward the Everfree Forest.

“Oh no, you won't,” Professor C said as the smoke cleared, pushing Trixie off of herself with relative ease. She then stomped Trixie on the nose to stun her back, giving herself enough time to start running after her past self. She then fell to the ground in the middle of her rush due to something suddenly pulling on her tail. She turned her head around to see that it was Trixie who was holding her with her magic.

“Where do you think you're going ?” Trixie said, rubbing her nose.

“Because you think you can stop me ?” Professor C replied, scowling at the magician.

“And you think that teaching French to Trixie will prevent her from stopping you ?”

Professor C was out of words for a moment. “You mean… OH, the magic contest ! That's what you're talking about,” she finally said. “But you realize that this is a fight and not a show, right ?”

“Well, duh ! Obviously.” Trixie rolled her eyes.

“And you realize that I'm from the future, right ?”

It was now Trixie who was out of words. She simply stared at Professor C, waiting for her to finish her statement.

“That means I have laser beams.”

Then, it finally clicked in Trixie's head. “Oh.” She looked worried as it clicked again. “OH NO.”

Suddenly, Professor C's hind legs mechanically turned into futuristic looking cannons that shot devastating lasers toward Trixie, forcing the latter to lose her magical grip from Professor C's tail in order to dodge the lasers. The apple tree behind Trixie wasn’t fast enough to avoid being burnt to death by those beams.

As Trixie was laying in the dirt floor after successfully having saved her life from the laser beams, Professor C immediately took this opportunity to stand up and continue chasing after her past self, into the Everfree Forest.

****

Cheerilee was galloping as fast as she could in that forest.

Then she stopped, realizing that she was lost.

‘I mean, there’s a reason why I'll never organize a school trip in these woods.’

After she spent a few seconds catching her breath, Cheerilee's attention was caught by some strange music coming from afar. As the source of the sound drew closer, it became apparent that it was hard rock music. Cheerilee looked toward where she thought the sound was coming from.

Between the trees, in the distance, she saw Professor C, rapidly flying toward her with what looked like rockets instead of her hind legs. She was using her forelegs to play electric guitar, violently, hence the hard rock sound. On her face was an exaggerated scowl.

Cheerilee leaned her head forward and squinted, trying to comprehend what she was looking at. “Why is she— ?”

Professor C finally got up to Cheerilee, hitting her at supersonic speed with a swing of her guitar. Cheerilee was thrown into the air and landed multiple dozen yards away into the forest, dropping her bag on the ground next to Professor C.

Author's Note

This plot is really dumb, and that's why I'm writing it.