• Published 27th Jun 2012
  • 47,473 Views, 2,611 Comments

Why am I Pinkie Pie?! - Hoopy McGee



Why the heck did I turn into Pinkie Pie?!

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That's when things got REALLY crazy!

"Get it?" Pinkie Pie asked, grinning at us. Seeing that I was the only one who did, and I was in complete brain-lock due to shock, nopony ended up saying anything. It was about then that Doctor Needles decided it would be a good time to run, screaming, into the depths of the Castle. Trixie had already vanished a lot more quietly, as soon as she'd seen the 'demon' show up. Nopony pulls a fast fade like the G&PT.

Skyggie? She was just staring at the blank wall where her mirror had been, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

"What a waste of a really good setup," Pinkie groused, pulling off her huge rubber gloves.

"Who the heck are you?" Rainbow Dash asked, the first of us to find her voice again.

"Come on, Dashie, don't you know?" Pinkie asked with a chuckle.

"No! You're just some weird creature that busted out of the mirror!"

"Well, if you don't know who I am, I bet she does," she said, pointing at me.

"Hey!" I said, knocked out of my shock by mild annoyance. "If you're going to go pointing at me, Miss Pointy Pointerson, at least use the correct gender pronoun! I'm a 'he', Pinkie Pie!"

"Oh, sorry," Pinkie said, just as all the rest of the Mane 6 shouted "Pinkie Pie?!"

"Yup, that's me!" Pinkie said. "Well, sort of. That's me," she said, pointing at me again, "but I'm me too!"

"Wait, if you're you and me, then who am I?" I asked, confused.

"You're you, of course."

"But you're me too?"

"Yes!"

"Am I also you, then?"

"Don't be silly."

"Pinkie?!" Twilight asked in shock, and the ponies all started to gather around their friend. "How did you get here? Is that really you?"

"That's right, Twilight! Hey, that rhymes! We don't have a lot of time, though. I've got some terrible news!"

The five stunned ponies all looked at each other warily.

"What is it?" Twilight asked.

"Our whole world is in great danger," she said solemnly. "I was so worried I wouldn't make it in time to warn anypony! A powerful, ancient force is trying to invade Equestria. The Dark Queen of the Faeries!"

Many sidelong glances followed this statement.

"Um, Pinkie?" Twilight started, but Pinkie was on a roll.

"She's a legendary evil from the time before Luna's banishment. She has a whole army of faeries, and she plans to invade, and I only know that because she was chatty with me when she was swapping me out with this guy," she said, pointing at me again! Honestly, she goes a whole life without fingers, then she has hands for a week and can't stop pointing at me!

"She also told me that she was going to get me out of the way so that you couldn't use the Elements to stop her, which I thought was kind of stupid... not her plan, but that she told me her plan. What kind of an idiot does that?"

"I know, right?" I said. "She needs a copy of the Evil Overlord list."

"Probably a bad idea," Pinkie said.

"Pinkie?" Twilight tried again.

"She also manufactured some fake diplomatic emergency in the Griffon kingdom to get Celestia out of the way, thinking that she could handle Luna on her own, which I doubt because she's kind of a moron. The Queen, I mean. She's the moron, not Luna."

I nodded in full agreement with that statement.

"Wait, Pinkie," Twilight said, only to be cut off again by Pinkie's verbal steamroller.

"So, what we have to do is get to Canterlot as soon as possible, so we can get the Elements of Harmony, and then get to someplace past the Everfree Forest called Castle Penumbra. Then we'll have to use the power of our friendship to stop her, and then we can have the Princesses swap us back to our own bodies and send him home. What do you think? Great plan, huh?"

"It sure was," I said. "That's why we already did it."

There was a silence that was loaded with possibilities, after which Pinkie said, "I'm sorry, what?"

"We already did it," I repeated. "Well, most of it. We're on the part where we have to see the Princess to swap us back, now."

Pinkie looked at Twilight, who nodded in confirmation.

"Really?" she said, seeming slightly disappointed.

"Yup," Applejack said. "Turned out to be pretty easy."

"Oh. So... no risk of a world in unending war and confusion caused by an invasion of the Faerie?"

"Not right now," Twilight said with a casual shrug. "Maybe some time in the future. Who knows?"

"Oh. But, how did you manage to do it?"

"We used the Elements!" Rainbow Dash said proudly.

"We hit her with a rainbow!" I said, grinning. "I've always wanted to hit something with a rainbow, but you rarely get the opportunity, you know?"

"Wait, wait," Pinkie said, sitting down heavily on the floor. "You were able to banish the queen with only five elements?"

"We had all six. We're still wearing them and everything," Rainbow Dash said, then pointed a hoof at her necklace. "See?"

She took my glasses out of a pocket in the coat, put them on and peered at Dashie.

"Oh yeah," Pinkie said faintly. "Funny I missed that."

Then she looked my way, and her face froze.

"You're wearing my Element!" said Pinkie accusingly.

"You're wearing my pants!" I retorted. "I'd offer a trade, but I'd prefer you keep them on. The coat and fedora are new, though."

"Yeah, I got them from Mal."

"Who?"

"Look, why are you wearing my Element?" Pinkie asked, sounding seriously upset.

"We needed him to help us beat the Queen," Twilight said. "He filled in for you."

"You replaced me?" Pinkie said in a small voice, and I could see her (my!) lower lip trembling.

"Please don't cry, Pinkie!" I said desperately. "Here, have a cookie!"

I held out the massive, lemon-frosted sugar cookie to the depressed human on the floor.

"You... can access the Pinkie Space?" she whispered, eyes wide with shock.

"That's what you call it? I'd been thinking of it as 'Pinkie Pie's Very Special Place'." I thought about that for a second. That was the first time I'd said it out loud. "Oh. I suppose that can be misinterpreted by the dirty-minded, though."

That didn't help, oddly. Pinkie, still sitting on the floor, started crying big old man tears, which made me start tearing up, myself. I mean, this was Pinkie Pie! I'd been stuck in her body for days, now, and she was miserable! I kind of felt responsible, oddly enough.

Still, I didn't have a chance to say anything before Pinkie was tackle-hugged by Fluttershy, who smiled joyfully at her and said, "Nopony, no one, could ever replace you, Pinkie Pie. Never, ever doubt that! But that doesn't mean that we can't make new friends, too!"

"That's right," Rainbow Dash said. "We'll always be best pals!"

"Indeed, darling. I can't imagine life without you!" Rarity added with a gentle smile.

Pinkie sniffled, then wiped her (my) nose on the sleeve of her trench-coat (ick).

"You really mean it?" she asked. "You want me back?"

"Of course we do, sugarcube!" Applejack said.

Rainbow Dash added, "Pinkie, we were all set to go on a massive quest to get this Mirror of Souls thing to switch you two back!"

"A quest that almost certainly would have killed us," Rarity put in.

"And that involved a huge, scary dragon," Fluttershy whispered, terrified at the very thought.

"But it turns out the Princess already has one of her own, so we didn't have to," Twilight said, smiling.

"But we totally would have done, if she didn't have!" Rainbow said, with great grammatical confusion.

Pinkie smiled happily through her tears, then said, "You guys are the best friends ever!"

The ponies all rushed my former body, hugging and babbling excitedly. Pinkie's former look of betrayal faded away instantly, replaced with one of pure joy and, eventually, mild annoyance.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" she asked me.

"Uh... Getting in on some of this hugging action?" I said hopefully. She just frowned, and I disengaged and slunk away.

"Ain't that just like mares, to shut a guy out?" Cinnamon Swirl squeaked, grinning at me, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

I sat back and watched as Pinkie's friends reconnected with her, and I knew why she'd been so upset. Like I mentioned before, I don't usually doubt my friend's convictions, but I know that Pinkie sometimes does. And sitting there, excluded from the group like that, I knew a little bit how she could feel like she'd been replaced or left behind when she found out I used her Element. I was feeling a little bit that way, myself. I checked my mane, just to be sure, but it was still delightfully poofy, so I knew I wasn't too badly off.

"Well, how about I tell you girls how I managed to get here?" Pinkie finally asked, and I perked up. "It all started when-"

"My... mirror..." a slow and deadly-sounding voice rasped behind us.

I turned, terrified. Skyggie stood behind us, hunched over, her face unseen in the shadows that seemed to form around her. I swear to you, those shadows looked like they were alive, flailing around like tentacles. Not only that, but they were shot through with a pulsing red light, as if pure rage were coalesced into a physical manifestation, and then wrapped in shadows. We all got up and backed away from her, because we would have had to have been idiots not to.

And the worst part? Her fists were wrapped tightly around the Broom of Doom.

"I... think we should be going," I said lightly. The others seemed to agree, and there was a mass backing-away towards the hall that led to the door.

"My mirror!" Skyggie shrieked. And, I'm not even kidding, lightning flared outside and thunder roared around inside the room. The scariest part was that my illusion-sensing Pinkie sense was as quiet as a mouse.

"And that's our cue," Pinkie said, grabbing up Cinnamon Swirl like a football and pelting towards the doorway.

"I'm really sorry!" Fluttershy shouted as she ran after her friend.

"It was a lovely mirror, such a shame!" Rarity screamed in panic, half a step behind the pegasus.

"Wait for me, guys! Um, not that I'm scared!" Rainbow Dash said, flying quickly after them.

Twilight glanced at me, then back at the witch, and said, "Um, I'm really very sorry, but-"

"Do you know how expensive that thing was?" Skyggie roared, brandishing the broom at her. That's when Applejack started running, hat pulled down low over her brow.

"Uh... maybe I can get the Princess to pay for a new one?" the unicorn suggested with a weak smile.

"Raaaagh!" Skyggie replied, rushing at her.

Twilight gave me an apologetic smile as her horn lit up. "Run," she suggested, right before she teleported away.

Skyggie slid to a stop, then rotated in place and started advancing on me.

"Um. I think I left a cake in the bath tub. I'd better go get it before it gets soggy. See ya!" I said, and ran off as fast as my little pink hoofsies could carry me. Skyggie, powered by pure rage, managed to stay just a couple of steps behind me, and that's when I got really scared. You remember how fast I said Pinkie was while running? Skyggie was keeping up with me, and maybe even gaining a little!

She took a swing at me, and I could have sworn I heard that broom crackling and humming with eldritch energy as it narrowly missed my hindquarters. The terror that triggered gave me a burst of speed, and I left a pink blur behind me as I shot out of the castle and rapidly caught up with my friends.

Skyggie, shaking her broom over her head and shouting really unrepeatable things after us, stayed on the doorstep to Castle Penumbra, jumping up and down in a psychotic rage. I was, briefly, worried about those left behind, Trixie and Doc Needles, but the one could take care of herself, and the other probably had it coming, whatever 'it' was.

"That... was scary," Pinkie said, putting Cinnamon Swirl down and collapsing on the ground while gasping for breath. Humans weren't designed to run like ponies, and I wasn't in the best of shape to begin with. Still, we were probably a good mile or so away from the crazy kitsune, which would have to do for now.

"Maybe... you can... tell us what happened.... while we walk..." Rarity said, panting for breath. "I would rather like... to get far... far away from this awful place."

"Seconded," Twilight said, fresh as a daisy after her teleport. "It sounds like a good idea to me. Pinkie?"

"You got it, girls," she said. "What happened was-"

"Wait!" I said, and everypony looked at me while I scanned the area.

"Um, what's going on?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"There's something about Equestria," I said. "Every time somepony tries to explain something, something weird happens to interrupt it."

"Not every time," Twilight said.

"Fine, nearly every time," I said. "How many times did I try to tell you guys my back-story before I was finally able to do it without being interrupted?"

Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but then looked thoughtful and shut it again. "Okay, you've got a point. Are we in the clear?"

"Yeah, I don't see anything. Nothing on the ground, nothing in the air. I think we're good to go."

"All right," Pinkie said. "What happened is-"

And then the Diamond Dogs attacked. Just kidding. Here goes! The long-awaited Story of Pinkie Pie!

"What happened is, I had just eaten a cupcake... okay four cupcakes, when I went up to my room to get my pranking supplies. See, Dash had wanted to go pranking that afternoon, and that sounded super fun, so I had to go and get my stuff. The problem is, once I got there, I saw this really weird and creepy face in the mirror."

"Hey!" I said, but Pinkie ignored me.

"She said she was the Queen of the Faeries, and something about using Castle Penumbra as the staging point of an invasion. She said she wanted to get me out of the way, and all that other stuff I told you about before. And then, whoosh! swish! Suddenly I was in another body!

"It didn't take me long to figure out what happened. I mean, sometimes I used to let my mind wander, and I'd see places like that in my imagination, but I guess I never really knew that those were parallel worlds, before. Yes, Twilight, I know what parallel worlds are, please don't interrupt.

"So, I stood there, trying to think. I knew I had to get back to stop the Queen... I still can't believe you guys did that without me! Anyway, I had to get back. And that meant that I needed to figure out where I was and what resources I had."

It was here that I noticed that Pinkie wasn't talking very "Pinkie", but I guess that makes sense. I don't talk very... whatever my name is. Hey, maybe Pinkie knows?

I didn't want to interrupt, though, as she was finally getting to tell us her story. According to what she told us as we walked through the plains towards the Everfree, she found out my address by my driver's license, but couldn't figure out where that actually was.

So, she had Target call a taxi for her, which means that my car has probably been towed and impounded for the last week, since she just left it in the lot. Which didn't upset me, really. After all, can you imagine Pinkie trying to drive?

The part that made me clench my teeth a little is when she gave the driver all the money she found in my wallet. Which, if I remember right, was about a hundred bucks. Not a bad tip for a three-mile taxi ride, but oh well.

She found my apartment, spent some time going through my keychain until she got the right keys...

"Seriously, why do you have two locks that you go through and, like, twenty keys?" she asked me.

"I have a hard time throwing my old keys away," I admitted meekly.

Anyway, she got into my apartment and seriously thought about what to do.

"I sat there for a little while, wracking my brains, when suddenly there was this weird groaning sound," Pinkie said. "And this big blue box just appeared in the middle of the room! A person came out, introduced himself as 'the Doctor', called me an 'Inter-dimensional schizm point of temporal conflux' and told me to come inside. And, wow! That box was way bigger on the inside! Then he said that he'd try to help get me home. I was saved! Or so I thought..."

I just gaped at her. Did... Seriously, did the Doctor, the actual Doctor show up in my apartment? My fanboyism kicked into overdrive and shut down a part of my brain, and the rest of it just crackled and fizzed.

"We ended up going on some adventures, but he ended up leaving me by accident in a spaceport somewhere. And that was where I met Mal and his crew. They offered to let me travel with them on their ship, Serenity, until the Doctor came to find me. They gave me this hat and fedora so I'd fit in a little bit better."

Wait a minute, my brain said. We're in Firefly now? What gives?

"We ended up having some trouble with the Alliance, and I got into an escape pod-"

Serenity had escape pods? I thought, baffled.

"-and I landed in the middle of this really nice looking countryside, with all these people that were about half my size. They kind of looked human, except they had really big feet. Anyway, next thing I knew, I'd gotten caught up in this quest to go destroy this one ring that one of them had-"

Okay, wait a minute.

"Pinkie," I tried. No luck.

"-which we finally did, but then some weird portal opened up and sucked me through. The next thing I knew, I was being chased by the white walkers north of the Wall! Winter had come!"

"Pinkie!" I tried again.

"Anyway, I ended up running until I found this guy named Ned Stark, who really reminded me of this other guy I'd met on Middle-Earth. He introduced me to his cousin, Tony, who took me back to where I'd started, on your home Earth, but then he needed my help fending off an alien invasion."

"Now just you hold on one-"

"So, together we worked on building this giant robot! Then he put on his Iron Man armor, while I piloted the Iron Giant, and we successfully repelled the alien invasion! After that, he helped me build the dimensional key. That was that rod that I was holding when I got here. I was wearing the gloves because of the high probability of it exploding when I used it. And that's how I got here!"

Pinkie stopped, grinning eagerly at us. All the ponies just looked completely baffled, which they honestly should, considering that she'd just run them through a good chunk of Earth popular culture in a few minutes.

"I don't believe you," I told her flatly.

"You... don't?" she asked, looking suddenly nervous.

"No."

"Why not?"

"It just seems odd to me that you ended up in all these different worlds."

"You ended up here!" she pointed out.

"Yes. But isn't it odd that the only places you visited on your inter-dimensional voyage are in my DVD collection?"

Pinkie looked guilty, and I knew I was right.

"You spent the last week sitting in my apartment watching DVDs, didn't you?" I asked her.

She looked away, shuffled uncomfortably, then finally admitted, "Yes."

"Well... why? Why didn't you tell us that?"

"Because I was supposed to be on my way back to save everypony, but I didn't know how!" she replied, upset. Great, now I felt bad. "I didn't want everypony to think that I just... had fun, while everypony else was in trouble!"

I sighed. "Well, I guess I can understand that. I mean, I was pretty familiar with Equestria before I came over, but even I wouldn't know where to go on Earth to figure out how to get here."

"Oh, that reminds me. I found a DVD with me and my friends on it," Pinkie said, a little too casually for comfort. "The Friendship Express?"

I started panicking slightly, and Twilight, who'd been trying to follow along (bless her heart), finally had her frustration cup overflow.

"Okay, what is a 'dee-vee-dee', and how are we on it?"

"It's hard to explain, Twilight. But did you know he has figures of all of us? Tiny little toys, some with hair you can brush, even."

"Uh," I said, trying to break in. For some reason, I'd just broken out into a sweat.

"He really likes you, Twilight," Pinkie continued with a teasing smile. I don't think she'd forgiven me yet for using her Element.

Oh, hey! So that's what tunnel-vision looks like! Awesome, today I learned.

"What?" the unicorn asked.

"Yeah, he has more figures of you than of anypony."

Twilight eyed me suspiciously, and I was torn between hyperventilating and just fainting right then and there. I opted to go for the panicked attempt at distraction, which never works.

"Hey, wait a minute! Pinkie still hasn't told us how she got here!"

"Oh, that's right," Twilight said, turning away from me. "Pinkie?"

Holy Celestia! It worked!

Pinkie winked at me, and I knew we were probably going to end up discussing My Little Pony at some point, but she let me off the hook for the moment.

"Well, like I said. I just sat there in the apartment for a few days, watching those DVDs of yours. Then this idea started to occur to me. Like, there was no magic there, but there was technology. And, maybe I could make technology work like I used to make magic work."

"And how do you make magic work?" Twilight asked, perking up. I imagine that she was hoping for the long-delayed explanation on Pinkie Sense, but she ended up disappointed when I answered instead.

"Like this," I said, reaching behind Twilight's ear and pulling out a cupcake.

"Wha... how? Where did that come from?" Twilight asked.

"Are you forgetting who you're talking to?" I asked, then held out the cupcake. "Want a bite?"

She shook her head, and I ate the thing in one bite. It was a little stale, but still good.

"See, he gets it," Pinkie said. "You just have to expect that things will work, and they do. So, I started building, expecting that whatever it was I built would work to take me home."

"Wow, that's awesome!" I said.

"I had to take apart that big metal box on your desk for parts," she said.

"Big... metal box?" I asked, my blood running cold.

"Yeah, it was black? Connected to something that looked like a smaller version of the mirror-thing I watched the DVD things on?"

"My... computer..." I said, feelin' a little Skyggie, myself.

"You okay?" Pinkie asked, sounding honestly concerned. "That wasn't bad, was it?"

Argh. Though, you know what? Pinkie somehow cannibalized my computer to make a device that transported her from Earth to Equestria. That's pretty awesome. And I can always buy a new-

"And I had to break apart that big DVD mirror-thing, too," Pinkie said.

I felt my left eyelid spasm a little at the news of my nearly-new fifty-two inch flat-screen TV's demise. Pinkie continued on with her explanation.

"I wasn't joking when I said I was worried that the dimensional key might explode when I used it. I didn't want to blow up your body-"

"Thanks," I said, shaking my head to clear it. It's only a TV, after all. it can be replaced.

"-so I went to this place called a 'mall' and bought this thick coat, the heavy gloves, and the gas-mask, just in case things got all explodey. I got the hat because I thought it looked cool."

I glanced at the hat. It sort of did.

"Good choice," I said approvingly.

"Thanks!" she said.

"It does look kind of cool," Rainbow Dash said.

"It really does, doesn't it?" Pinkie said.

"Halt!" the Royal Guard said.

"What?" the rest of us said.

Yeah, I'll be right back. I gotta go deal with this.