Chapter 1: An Early Start

Today was a great day! The birds were happily chirping and the weather was amazing, your normal morning routine went perfectly, especially when you woke up thanks to a large cup of coffee. You quickly looked over the notes Miss Cheerilee left for you while you happily trotted through town. Your name is Silver Star, and you were a substitute teacher in Ponyville, but seeing as Miss Cheerilee rarely misses work, you normally just do odd jobs around town. The only reason Miss Cheerilee was missing school was because one of her relatives was getting married in Las Pegasus, and she was going to be spending around a month there, using the opportunity so she could take a paid vacation. Thankfully you were a Unicorn, so looking at the notes she left while walking to the school house was fairly easy, until you noticed a little orange filly flying towards you on a scooter.

SMACK!

You weren't able to move out of the way or stop the little filly before she hit you, presumably at full speed. You quickly got to your feet and noticed the thermos of coffee you were planning to bring had been cracked open, but luckily your notes landed far away, so you didn't have to worry about those being ruined. You checked yourself for any injuries, and when you found nothing but a slight bruise you began to look for the one who hit you. You didn't have to look very far as you saw an orange Pegasus being levitated by purple magic a few feet away from you.

"Scootaloo! What have we told you about speeding through town on your scooter?!" you heard a familiar voice yell towards the filly.

"Sorry Twilight, I didn't mean to, but he didn't get out of my way either!"

"I'm so sorry about that sir, she's a little bit reckless when she's on her scooter," you heard Twilight say, "Are you okay, she hit you fairly hard"

"It's fine Twilight, it'll take more than that to hurt me, you should know that" you responded while levitating your notes into your saddle bag.

"Oh, sorry Silver, didn't realize it was you. What are you doing out here this early in the morning?"

"I'm the replacement for Miss Cheerilee while she's out of town, so I was heading towards the school so I could get set up" you responded while turning towards Scootaloo, "and I believe Miss Cheerilee left me a note about you and your friends"

"Oh no..." Scootaloo said, obviously afraid of what Cheerilee had told you.

"Anyways, are you okay Scootaloo, you did hit me fairly hard," you saw her scooter mangled a couple of feet away, "and looks like you won't be using your scooter for a while"

"Aw man! Why did I have to hit you of all ponies?"

"Well, maybe now you'll watch were you're going," Twilight said, "anyways, I have to go help Rarity with something, see you two another time"

She was gone before you could say goodbye, obviously this whole ordeal made her quite a bit late, and from what you remembered from school, she cared about tardiness quite a bit. As you picked up your thermos you saw Scootaloo staring at her scooter, tears in her eyes.

"Don't worry, I'll fix that up for you, since I was in your way after all" you say with a wink.

"Really? Even after I hit you, you'll still fix it?!"

You simply nodded while you fought to fold the mangled scooter in half so you could put it in your bag. After a few minutes of fighting and a few swears said through your teeth, you managed to get it into your bag.

"I should have it fixed by either tomorrow, or the day after, depending on how much work I end up with after today" you say while turning back to Scootaloo, who had been laughing the entire time.

"Thank you so much, I'm really sorry for hitting you!" she said while giving you a quick hug.

"Now then, off to school we go," you say while turning back towards the school, "Don't want to be late do we?"

"Nope!" Scootaloo said as the ran ahead of you, "Race you there!"

"You're on!"

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"You're fast" Scootaloo said between panting fits.

"It helps when you have full grown legs, and not little filly legs like yours" you respond with a chuckle.

"Ya, but you beat me by a lot, and you're not even winded!"

"Comes with practice, maybe one day you'll be faster than me, but now then, inside we go"

You opened the door to the school house with your magic and let Scootaloo go in ahead of you. You pulled the notes out of your bag, set them on the desk, and dropped your saddle bag next to the teacher's desk. It's been a while since you were here, but it looks like not much has changed, other than there being newer books on the shelves. You quickly wrote Mr. Star on the chalkboard, and began to pull out the materials you needed to teach, but you were interrupted when a young school filly got your attention.

"Look, Scootaloo's already gotten in trouble with the teacher!"

"No I didn't!"

"Then why does he have your scooter, huh?"

"Because I, uh..."

"Excuse me, but what does that have to do with you?" you asked the somewhat snobby filly that was arguing with Scootaloo.

"Nothing, it's just funny that the girl with no parents already got in trouble with you, before school even started too!"

"Hey, don't talk about me like that you stupid bi-"

"Enough!"

Your sudden outburst caused every filly and colt to stop where they were and look towards you and the two arguing fillies. You noticed Scootaloo try to shrink away, and the other filly, who was, if Cheerilee's notes were correct, Diamond Tiara, was standing there looking triumphant with a grin on her face.

"Wipe that grin off your face" you ordered, which was obeyed, but she quickly decided to give you puppy dog eyes, obviously trying to make you go easy on her.

"You're staying after class with me for what you said to Scootaloo," you said to her puppy dog eyes, "and Scootaloo, come talk to me outside right now"

"Yes sir" both fillies responded at the same time.

"Now, Diamond Tiara, right?" to which you received a nod, "Go to your desk and sit there quietly, no talking to anyone or you're staying inside for recess as well"

She didn't even try to fight you, and made her way to her desk, obviously Cheerilee was a much nicer teacher than you, as she looked like it had never happened before. After making sure she was going to stay in her seat you headed outside with Scootaloo.

"So, what was that all about, and where did you learn such bad language?" you asked Scootaloo once her schoolmates had gone inside.

"Well, I heard the word from Rainbow Dash one day when she was complaining about something not working," of course she would have heard it from Rainbow, you thought to yourself, "but the other thing is that I don't have any parents"

"Then where do you live?" you asked, now afraid she was living on the streets.

"I jump from place to place, wherever I can get into, or I sleep in a cave not far from Ponyville"

"That's not right, and we'll talk about that later, but why would Diamond Tiara mention that just because I have your scooter?"

"She uses any excuse to bring it up, she likes to torment me and my friends because of who we are, and about how we don't have our cutie marks yet"

As if on cue you heard two young fillies walk up behind you, most likely the friends she had mentioned.

"Everything okay Scootaloo?" you heard one of them say with a slight squeak in her voice.

"Yeah, just talking to Cheerilee's replacement"

"So, you're the one who they got to replace Miss Cheerilee?" you hear the other mystery filly say with a southern accent.

"Yes, and I take it you two are Applebloom and Sweetie Belle?" you said while turning to face the two fillies behind you.

"Yeah, how did you know?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Miss Cheerilee warned me about you three" you said in a monotone voice. Looks like you were going to get to see if Cheerilee's warnings were true or not...