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// Chapter 11: Fear Turns To Obedience, Hatred Turns To Love 
// Story: The Night Janitor: NEGATIVE Edition 
// by Knox Locke 
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Overall, things were going well. His next stop, after leaving Edith and the spirit to protect their new lair, was Sugarcube Corner. He’d been extremely excited for this part. He’d almost skipped the Treehouse takeover, but he needed Ocellus’ assistance for this to work. Otherwise, other ponies would realise something was wrong. As he’d expected, Pinkie was in her loft. He had Ocellus wait on the ground floor so that Pinkie wouldn’t see this betrayal coming.

“Hey, Pinkie, check this out,” he said as he arrived in the loft. “I made an exact replica of that talisman we were researching a while back! Check out this detail.”

He held up the Talisman of Mirage for Pinkie to see.

“Wow! That’s pretty cool, Knox!” she said as she looked closely into the jewel. “You know, I’m so glad we’re friends. We always have such interesting conversations!”

“Yeah… about that. We’re not friends. I can’t stand you, and I plan to betray you the first chance I get.”

Pinkie froze with shock at the bluntness of what she’d just heard. Then, she gasped with dawning realization and grabbed the talisman out of the air.

“How could you?” she yelled as she attempted to escape down into her party planning cave.

However, Knox quickly followed, saying “You really think I’d be that obvious in my plans, Pinkie? You think I’d just show you the real Talisman of Mirage?”

Pinkie froze again at the far end of her cave.

“What do you mean? Of course you did! You were gonna use it on me!”

“Now, why would I do that and risk you stealing it from me?” he was speaking in an even tone so as not to give Pinkie any hints as to what he was planning.

“If you don’t believe me,” he continued. “check the jewel. The actual talisman has a perfectly clear jewel, while my fake one has a cloudy gem.”

“Wait, what?” she said in disbelief as she gazed into the perfectly clear and reflective gem on the talisman she held.

Knox seized the moment to empower the talisman with magic.

Pinkie’s coat seemed to darken in color as her hair fell in perfectly straight locks against the sides of her face. She fell to the floor with a pained groan. Knox would’ve simply used the talisman when Pinkie had first looked, but he had to make her hate him first. That way, that would be flipped as well. He slowly approached the dimly colored earth pony and began to stroke her perfectly straight mane soothingly.

“Welcome back, Pinkamena, my sweet.”