//------------------------------// // Pinkie // Story: Cleaning up // by Less_than_good //------------------------------// The next morning a scroll materialised above Captain Blade’s sleeping face and fell, waking him up suddenly and surprising him. He was in an alleyway, suffering from a massive headache. Looking down, he saw he was lying on a sack which said “apples”; looking inside it he saw several split and broken fruit. Looking to one side he saw Whinnyam; looking to the other side he saw changelings. Whinnyam woke up when his Captain stumbled over him in surprise. This was no mean feat for Whinnyam because he was both physically and magically exhausted from last night. “Who disturbs me?” “Explain them!” Blade shouted at his Lieutenant, whose eyes were still half-closed. “They tried to kill us last night; I brought them here, tied them up, and tried to get some information out of them; they told us the changeling army was coming but didn’t know any more than that when I inquired further. Now, let me go back to sleep,” Bridling at the insubordination, he started kicking Whinnyam, gradually adding more power to his legs. “Get up, Lieutenant!” “Yes, Sir” Whinnyam growled; obviously he was still accustomed to the comfortable, lazy life that comes from being a Blueblood. “Looks like we’ve got some orders, mate,” Blade said enthusiastically, cuffing Blueblood around the head with the rolled up parchment; he didn’t want to be stuck in this alleyway all day. “Captain Blade and Lieutenant Blueblood Good news, I have found my sister, the Element of Magic. Due to the chaos you created last night, I cannot associate with you for some time. You may not regroup with the rest of the platoon until further notice. You are to find Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter. She lives in Sugarcube Corner, a large confectionary shop near the centre of town. Nightfall Sparkle” Enclosed was a picture of the pony in question. Whinnyam took all of it in whilst Blade read it again to make sure he had missed nothing; then he turned his head to his subordinate. “Lieutenant” he said, in a tone that betrayed nothing. “Yes sir?” his subordinate answered questioningly. “What say you to apple and papier maché for breakfast?” “Looking forward to it, sir” Whinnyam said sarcastically, but knowing it was necessary to destroy the messages. “Glad to hear it.” Blueblood magically scooped some of the split fruit out of the sack that had served as his Captain’s bed and slapped it into two wooden bowls that he pulled out of his saddlebags, mashing it a bit further. He then took the message they had received and magically tore it up before distributing the paper scraps evenly between the two crude meals, mixing them in with floating spoons. He then floated one over to Blade, who dug in ravenously. “We need to kill those changelings” Blade said casually, as if he was talking about what he needed to buy at the market rather than taking away the lives of sentient beings. Blueblood almost choked; he quickly thought up an excuse as to why he seemed so squeamish. “Don’t they still have the capacity to be useful to us?” Blade quickly retorted with an explanation that seemed to cover every possible point. “You interrogated them last night and got all the information you can out of them, which extends as far as ‘the Changelings are coming, the Changelings are coming’. We have three options,” He continued, chewing on his breakfast as he spoke. “We could leave them, take them or kill them. We cannot leave them because they may have heard valuable information, and if they escape we’re doomed. We cannot take them both as prisoners because there’s only two of us so they can escape easily, and then we’d look suspicious walking round town with one of those things anyway. We have to kill them, and quickly too.” He looked at the bundles of exoskeleton and cloth with a cold, calculating look on his face and they stared back at him in absolute terror. Unable to argue with this line of reasoning, Whinnyam relented. Keeping the same cold look on his face, Blade dextrously removed a knife from his saddlebag and held it in his hoof, and got to work, ignoring the muffled yelps of protest while Whinnyam looked the opposite direction and tried to think of other things. ----------------------------------------------------------- Half an hour later found the guards slowly walking through town, having received directions to Sugarcube Corner from a passerby; Whinnyam still appeared shaken by the events from not so long ago, and visibly hung his head lower as they walked. Blade had all but given up on improving his mood; seeing life being ended before his eyes for the first time must have been very unsettling for him, especially since the changelings had been defenceless. Only when they saw the building, seemingly made of gingerbread, icing and pastry with three candles on the top of the pile, did either of them break the uncomfortable silence. “We’re here” said Blade. Whinnyam stayed silent, his mood still dark as they entered the shop. “SURPRISE!” Both Captain and Lieutenant were startled; Blade jumped back out the shop and Whinnyam was now clinging to the roof beams in shock. A pink pony was hanging in the air beside him. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie, but you can just call me Pinkie, or Pie, or Pinkamena Diane Pie, which is my real name, but I don’t like ponies using it that much, apart from me, much like my party cannon. Oh, oh, oh, do you wanna see that! That would be really, really...” Ignoring her, Whinnyam tried to explain what he was there for. “No, the Princess wants you for...” A look of realisation dawned on her face, and she gasped loudly “Oh my gosh, I just forgot something incredibly important!” The hyperactive two-tone pink blur shot into a cellar at the back of the shop, leaving Whinnyam unable to comprehend what had happened. Blade didn’t dare enter the shop again. Whinnyam let go of the beam and landed on the floor, only just managing to avoid falling over sideways Does that pony even stop to breathe, he thought, before slowly shaking his head; hearing the sounds of rummaging in the cellar, he started towards it, before being surprised at a new voice coming from outside. “You don’t want to go in there, trust me,” the voice came from a unicorn with a white coat and an electric blue mane, styled into... nothing in particular; she wore black, thick-framed glasses with dark purple lenses. She had a pair of joined eighth notes on her flank, implying her talent was musical. “Nopony except Pinkie goes in there, something about Hammerspace or some weird crap like that. She keeps an awful lot of crazy stuff in there.” The over-enthusiastic earth pony came back hauling a large wagon, an oblong affair with two curved doors; the entire thing was very garishly decorated. Suddenly the doors burst open and Pinkie burst into song. “Thanks” was all Blueblood could think to say about the impromptu welcome. Pinkie smiled a smile that seemed to stretch almost twice as wide as her face had been moments before, before dashing back into the basement. “What in Equestria is she doing now?” Whinnyam asked himself impatiently, keen to get out of there quickly but unable to leave without the Element of Laughter. The other unicorn turned back to him and gave the very useful answer of “Don’t ask me” followed by “OH SWEET CELESTIA, GET DOWN!” Pinkie had returned with a short, fat, baby blue cannon on flowery wheels, which she now proceeded to fire multiple times around the shop, distributing confetti, tables, streamers and even a chocolate fountain, complete with marshmallows and chunks of various fruit. Whinnyam, who had not taken shelter in time, found his face covered with the remains of what had been a Victoria sponge. This was not his day. Next: a good old fight with swords and shields and... stuff. Will take constructive criticism