//------------------------------// // The Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything // Story: The Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything // by TwiwnB //------------------------------// Chapter one : Shut up and take my money ! It was a gorgeous day in Ponyville and Pinkie Pie was enjoying it like crazy. Which means, literally crazy in her own way. She actually was talking to the sun, complimenting her, because she was absolutely certain that the sun had to be a she, on her beauty that day. The author won’t waste your time speaking about how this behavior should or shouldn’t be judged as crazy. We will just admit that it was absolutely harmless and that Pinkie Pie was just following her own logic which was also completely harmless. And fun. She got interrupted by the three cutie mark crusaders who crashed into her with their wagon pulled by Scootaloo’s scooter. “Sorry Pinkie Pie…” apologized the three little fillies. “Oh, it’s you!” responded Pinkie Pie, happy to see them as she probably would have been to see anypony or anything for that matter. “What’s happening, what’s the rush? Is something fun going on? Where is it? Can I come?” She saw a lot of strange material that went off the wagon. There were some springs, some wooden planks, two lightbulbs, a dynamo, streamers and some pieces of string, to list just a few of them. “What are you gonna do with all of these?” Began to ask Pinkie Pie, “Oh I know, you’re going to build a robot, so that the robot could bake cupcakes, but the cupcakes wouldn’t be as good as he would have wanted to and so, he would use his robot’s laser eyes to bake pie, because pie is good and… are you baking pie?” The three fillies looked at each other, always amused and surprised by Pinkie Pie's behavior. Scootaloo was about to say that a giant robot would be cool when Applebloom told Pinkie Pie the truth: “No, no pie. We were just bringing back some of the things we have borrowed to build our new float. We just didn’t know what to do with them anyway.” Pinkie Pie’s brain processed the information and computed the best combination from what was heard and then had a “brilliant” idea. “I know what we could do with those.” She began. “We just have to take some of this, and a little of that, a piece of string, some chocolate, don’t forget a balloon or two and tadaaa!” She proudly presented an amalgam of things before the three fillies. “What is it?” asked Sweetie Bell. “Is it alive?” asked Applebloom. “Is it from another universe?” asked Scootaloo. But Pinkie Pie was having fun pressing a button to make one of the lightbulb lit, so they just let her have her fun and left to bring back all the borrowed stuff. “What is that thing?” asked a wandering pony to Pinkie Pie. “That?” She answered. “It needs to have a name? Oh well, then, I’ll call it a Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything.” “Can I see it?” the pony asked. “Of course you can silly!” Pinkie Pie said, happy to share the fun of her invention with another pony. The pony took the object and began to look at it. He definitely didn’t recognize it, which was normal as probably nothing similar had existed before. “What does it do?” asked the pony. “I don’t know.” answered Pinkie Pie. “What is its purpose?” continued the pony. “Well, I’ve got no idea.” proudly told him Pinkie Pie. “Then why did you build it?” said the pony, more and more curious about Pinkie Pie’s invention. “Duh, for fun, of course!” she answered with a big smile. The pony smiled too. Fun, that was finally something he was able to understand. And he liked fun. And fun things. “How much does it cost?” asked the pony. “Why would you want to know that?” asked Pinkie Pie in return, intrigued. “I’ll buy it, just tell me how much I have to give you.” explained the pony. “You want to buy it?” asked Pinkie Pie? “Yes.” said the pony. “But it’s not to sell.” Said Pinkie Pie, stating what was, at least for her, obvious. “Please.” begged the pony, “I have enough to pay, just tell me how much and I’ll give you the money.” Pinkie Pie’s mind tried to connect all the information without coming to an acceptable solution, even if her reasoning ended up three times on cookies and one time on colorful flowers. She just decided to go with the one thing that ruled her whole logic. “Would you be happy it I sold it to you?” she asked genuinely. “Oh yes, just give me a number.” answered the pony. “Fifty!” said Pinkie Pie. “That’s a number.” The pony took fifty bits and gave them to Pinkie Pie, smiled and went off with Pinkie Pie’s invention, pressing all the buttons and obtaining very various results. Pinkie Pie was happy to see him smile and have fun. She thought that it had been a very good thing. She began to wander away, whistling. Chapter two: I want it now ! Pinkie Pie was playing shhhh with Fluttershy when another pony came and asked her about the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything. “I saw my friend with it, and I want one too. Could you sell me one? Oh please say yes, please, please, please…” Pinkie Pie tried to explain that she was playing shhh, which didn’t allow her to answer, but a third pony came and asked for Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything too. And as soon as Pinkie Pie realized she would have to play with Fluttershy later, even more because the yellow pony had already fled to her house, a fourth and a fifth pony had come too and asked for the amazing Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything. “Okay everypony.” said Pinkie Pie, “If that’s what you want, I’ll do my best.” And she built four Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything. We should take under silence the fact she had to break the space time continuity to go and take the parts from the wagon incidents. After all, this isn’t really worth mentioning or explaining. “There.” said Pinkie Pie, “You can all have one.” “Oh thank you.” said the first pony that came. “How much do I owe you?” “Oh, that!” Pinkie Pie suddenly remembered. “Forty-three.” She said. “Forty-three, really?” asked the pony. “Oh, huh, thirty-five?” responded Pinkie Pie. “Wasn’t it fifty bits? My friend bought it for fifty bits.” said the pony, surprised. “You mean I shouldn’t use random numbers? This is hard…” answered Pinkie Pie. “Then fifty it is. Was it fifty? Yes, I believe so, yes, it was definitely fifty.” And the pony gave her fifty bits. And so did the second and third pony that had come. But the fourth and last one said: “I’m sorry, I would want to give you the fifty bits, but I haven’t got that many on me right now.” Pinkie Pie’s brain tried to understand and solve the problem, but he felt he needed more informations. “You want to give me fifty bits, is that right?” asked Pinkie Pie. “Huh, yes.” said the pony, “To buy a Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything.” “But you haven’t got that many bits on you right now. But you still want to give me exactly fifty bits? Is that correct?” continued Pinkie Pie. “Yes. That’s just it.” answered, with a very sad tone, the poor pony. Pinkie Pie’s brain was at maximum power. She had to think of a way to create bits that didn’t exist so that pony could give them to her and be happy. And then, an idea came. “Say, it isn’t important for you to give me fifty bits right now, as long as you give me fifty bits, is that right?” asked Pinkie Pie. “Uh… yes.” answered the pony, who didn’t really know where this was going. “Then it’s simple!” said Pinkie Pie. “You can give me what you have got on you now, and fifty bits later when you’ve got them. That way you’ll have given me bits and you’ll be happy.” She didn’t notice the little mistake she had made in her reasoning, But she didn’t really care, as long as the other pony was happy. And he was beginning to smile. “That’s an excellent idea!” he said, “I have thirty-two bits on me right now, I can give them to you and pay the rest later.” But Pinkie Pie felt something was wrong and immediately corrected the pony. “Wait!” she said. “You cannot give me all the bits you’ve got right now. You’ll need them to buy things like hay and cider and cupcakes.” “Oh, that’s right.” recognized the pony. “Tell you what.” said Pinkie Pie. “You give me ten bits rights now so that you’re happy, and ten bits every month for the next…” and Pinkie Pie tried to count on her seventeen hooves “… seven months and al will be okay, will that make you happy?” The other pony thought it was a great idea and accepted the terms of the contract. He took the last Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything and left, smiling. Chapter three: Don’t blame Pinkie Pie The next day, Pinkie Pie woke up at sugarcubecorner. She had felt exhausted from all what happened the last day and was pretty happy it was all over. Or so she thought, because a lot of noises coming from downstairs draw her attention. There were a lot of ponies there, asking to see Pinkie Pie to buy a Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything from her. The Cakes were trying their best to keep the crowd under control, and understand what was going on by the way when Pinkie Pie came down the stairs. “Here she is!” shouted a pony. “We want our Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything!” said the others. “Where are they?” Pinkie Pie saw all the ponies and understood she couldn’t build that many of her invention alone. She had to find a solution and very fast. She then thought about Applebloom, Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo because they were there when she created the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything. She told all the ponies to wait until the afternoon and convinced them there would be plenty of Superpinkiastrolophilosothingythings to buy and that they would all be happy because that was, after all, her goal. Then, Pinkie Pie went straight down to the cutie mark crusaders. We feel that it’s worth noticing that that event is what prevented the cutie mark crusaders to try and become necromancers as well as it prevented the zombies ponies, at least for that time. Pinkie Pie asked them if they would help her build Superpinkiastrolophilosothingythings to make the other ponies happy because she couldn’t do it alone. The cutie mark crusaders looked at each other and all agreed it could be fun and, who knows, it could get them their cutie mark. And so the four of them used the whole morning building as many Superpinkiastrolophilosothingythings as they could, under the lead of Pinkie Pie with pieces from the scrapyard. Then, they all came back to sugarcubecorner to satisfy all the ponies that were there a few hours sooner. What they didn’t expect was for the whole street and, as it went further, the whole streets to be full of ponies who had come to buy a Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything. Pinkie Pie felt something in her chest that was saying something about something, but hadn’t time to hear it. She was too preoccupied about making all those ponies happy. “I think we will need more…” said Scootaloo. And so, the three fillies began producing more Superpinkiastrolophilosothingythings as Pinkie Pie was selling them. It was hard work, but they hadn’t time to think or complain about it. And after a while, it calmed down a little. In the end, there were only a few ponies left, which led Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo to finally be able to catch their breath. Applebloom, who used to work incredibly hard at the farm, was still pretty full of energy and helped Pinkie Pie to sell the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingythings. After the last pony made its purchase, Pinkie Pie noticed a pony who was looking at a Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything with a very sad face. “What is going on?” asked Pinkie Pie. “I would like to buy one of those, but I’ve got no money. But I really, really want to buy one.” “You don’t have any bits at all?” asked Pinkie Pie. “No.” answered the pony, a little ashamed. Pinkie Pie tried to think hard once again. The problem was a little different than last time. This pony’s problem was that he had no bits. But she had a lot of bits that the other ponies had given her.” “I could give you mines.” said Pinkie Pie. “Really?” said the poor pony. Pinkie Pie was about to give that pony the money she needed when Applebloom came and told Pinkie Pie she couldn’t just give money like that. But Pinkie Pie wanted to give the money, so she had to find a way to give it without giving it, so that the poor pony and Applebloom would be satisfied. And she found a solution. “Okay, here is the thing.” began to say Pinkie Pie. “Be prepared, because it is genius. I’ll give you the fifty bits you want, so you’ll be happy.” She said to the pony. “And next month, you’ll give me the money back, so it will be like I won’t have given it to you at all, but you’ll have got it anyway. Isn’t it genius?” Applebloom and the pony nodded. It was pretty smart. “But wait, there is more.” said Pinkie Pie. “In case you couldn’t give me all the bits back next months, we could say you give me just a little part every month…” And she began counting like last time. “… let’s say five bits every month for the next two years!” The author wants to add really fast that Pinkie Pie wasn’t that bad in calculus. But her errors had two explanations. First, she wasn’t really thinking clearly, having so much to deal with and already too much to think about. Second, she just didn’t think it mattered that much. In the end, those were only numbers and numbers seemed harmless enough. The pony accepted the contract and bought a Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything with Pinkie Pie’s money. And very soon, other ponies came to do the exact same and some ponies even came only to borrow money that they used for other purposes. And as that seemed to make them happy, Pinkie Pie gladly accepted to continue. Chapter four: For what it’s worth A few days passed and Pinkie Pie was beginning to sense that things were going the wrong way. But at the time, she thought it was the fault of some clouds the pegasii had to put there that were blocking the sun. She was wandering in Ponyville when a pony with a purse full of bits as a cutie mark stopped her and told her he wanted to talk. Pinkie Pie gladly accepted, as she loved talking with other ponies. Talking was, indeed, her favorite. The pony was a merchant named Backward Progress. But he preferred to just be named Progress. He had seen how rich Pinkie Pie had become and wanted to sell her some of the things any rich pony has to own. She didn’t understand. So he decided to give her some examples: “I can sell you a huge house with ten swimming pools and its own hay farm.” said the merchant. “It would cost you only one hundred thousand bits.” Pinkie Pie didn’t understand what she would do with such a house and responded that she was quite happy to live in sugarcubecorner. “Well” continued Progress, “I can sell you a big vehicle with twenty stallions to pull it. You wouldn’t have to walk anymore and everypony’s attention would be on you. It would only cost you half a hundred thousand bits” But Pinkie Pie loved to walk and wander around and couldn’t see what she would do with such a vehicle and didn’t like the idea of having stallions serving her. “I can…” searched the merchant pony “I can sell you…” and he noticed how strange Pinkie Pie was behaving, so he tried another approach: “I can sell you a clock that goes backward with a grape distributor and an integrated compass that point to the nearest giant hat shop.” The merchant pony had to catch his breath again after such a statement, but he knew it had been worth it when he saw the interest in Pinkie Pie’s eyes. “It’ll be only one thousand bits.” He said, like he was doing a favor. Pinkie Pie thought about it, and then responded: “Mister Progress, I like the idea of a watch that goes backward with a grape distributor and an integrated compass that point to the nearest giant hat shop, but I’m sorry to have to tell you that it’s not worth a thousand bits. A thousand bits is like five hundreds cherries or two months worth of living. So I have to refuse.” Progress couldn’t believe his ears. “What?” he asked, surprised. “Well, you could see it that way. Money is worth only what it allows you to acquire. So you need a mark to know how valuable something is. The usual mark is the mean between how much you spend to have a roof over your head and what the basic food you eat costs. Then you’ve to take into account how much you love hay, because I love love hay, and then you have to add the captain’s age, and divide the whole by how many hooves you have and that’s how you can have the idea to go out and live your life.” “What?” asked Progress once again, even more confused. “What is what?” asked Pinkie Pie in return. “I’m sorry mister, but you don’t seem to make any sense at all, I can’t understand you. Maybe next time.” And Pinkie Pie left the very confused Progress all by himself, thinking about what just happened and why, this time, he hadn’t been able to sell what he had to offer. After a few minutes, Progress decided that it didn’t really matter and that he would just go sell his things elsewhere. Chapter five: The law is tough, but it’s the law Another few days passed and it was once again a gorgeous day. The sun was most magnificent, shining over Ponyville with the upmost benignancy. But Pinkie Pie hadn’t the heart to speak with him or her that day. In fact, she felt quite sad. Everywhere she turned, ponies seemed sad. Some even seemed to evade her. The three cutie mark crusaders were exhausted from building so many Superpinkiastrolophilosothingythings. A lot of ponies had spent all their money to buy even more of those and a lot of ponies couldn’t repay Pinkie Pie the money that they had borrowed from her. Pinkie Pie wanted to help them and went to see an attorney to see if there was a solution to help the ponies. In reality, Pinkie Pie was just totally lost with what was going on and she felt more secure to ask an attorney because it was, in some way, the representative of the law and, by extension, of Equestria and at its head princess Celestia. But as she knew no attorney, she went to Twilight who, in fact, confirmed having studied the equestrian laws. But when she had heard all what Pinkie Pie told her, she felt very sorry. “I’m sorry Pinkie Pie” Twilight began to say. “But the law is clear. If two ponies make a contract, each pony has to fulfill the obligation he or she has accepted to take when agreeing on the contract. I see the problem, and I see you’re sad, but it’s the law, they have to repay you or suffer the consequences of their actions.” A silence followed that statement. Twilight didn’t know what to say and Pinkie Pie… Well, Pinkie Pie was about to cry. The little pony just couldn’t stand it anymore. She had done her best to fulfill any desire from all the ponies, she wanted them to be happy and have all the fun possible, but she had finally done all the opposite and she felt guilty of having made everypony miserable. Her mind was broken. There was no more solution, no more brilliant idea. Only the cold hard reality that she was the cause of all of what was happening and that she was powerless to solve it. She wanted to cry. So badly. And she did. But during this time, Twilight had been thinking and, suddenly, found a solution, the simplest solution she could think of. Chapter six: We do what we must because we can “Pinkie Pie, I have the solution to your problems.” Twilight said. “You said that it all began when you build the first Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything, right?” Pinkie Pie nodded, wiping her tears. “Well then, it’s easy.” explained Twilight. “The simplest solution and absolutely the most logical in those circumstances is to… use magic and go back in time.” You’ll have to excuse Twilight for using her own logic to solve the matter at hooves. But in a way, it’s hard to say she was wrong. When you’ve got magic to solve your problems, why not use it? It is clear that magic cannot solve any problem whatsoever, but in this case, it seemed possible. And, more importantly, Twilights had waited forever for an opportunity to try that time spell once again. At least a slightly modified version of it to get around the “one use only” rule. Pinkie Pie approved and they both went back in time just after the cutie mark crusaders had left Pinkie Pie playing with the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything. The past Pinkie Pie was surprised to see herself and Twilight come, but the future Pinkie Pie told her that it was very important and that she would have to take the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything away. “The what?” asked the past Pinkie Pie. “The Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything. That’s how I have named that thing. I mean, how you’ve named it. I mean, how you’re going to name it. Oh I don’t know!” answered the future Pinkie Pie. But Twilight intervened because of the time limit of the spell. She used a levitation spell to take the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything from the past Pinkie Pie, grabbed the future Pinkie Pie, all just in time before the spell ceased and they went back into the future. “There, it should be all over.” said Twilight, relieved. Pinkie Pie went to a window and saw the magnificent day and all the happy ponies enjoying it in the shower of light that her sun friend was providing. She felt like coming back from hell straight into paradise. “Oh Twilight, thank you, thank you, thanks you…!” shouted Pinkie Pie. Twilight smiled. The spell had worked and her friend was happy. That was worth all the grateful words that she could hear. She looked at the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything that they brought back. “Happy that I was able to help you Pinkie.” began Twilight. “But what is that thing you built? I’ve never seen anything like that.” “I don’t know.” answered Pinkie Pie. “What is its purpose then?” continued Twilight, very curious. “Oh, I may be able to answer that one.” Said Pinkie Pie. She had actually seen and built so many of the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything that she had finally had an idea what it would be supposed to do. She took it from Twilight, pressed a lot of buttons, made a lot of manipulations and then the machine seemed to go all berserk and finally calm down. Both Pinkie Pie and Twilight then heard a voice coming from the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything: “The answer you seek is forty-two.” “Oh well” said Pinkie Pie, “That was useless". And she broke the Superpinkiastrolophilosothingything to make sure what happened wouldn’t happen again, and then left to go live a happy and joyous life. THE END