It’ll work this time. Not like the last time … or the first time, or all the times in between.
Staring at the newest addition to the Canterlot Royal Gardens, as she had done countless times before, Pinkie attempts to convince herself that the flask held by her mane contained a concoction that would see her plan through. She had thought of little else over recent time.
Taking a deep breath, Pinkie leaps to the top of the stone statue and balances herself. She unstops the flask and pours its contents over the statue; she quickly leaps off the statue, turns, and waits for a reaction … any reaction …
Smoke begins to form as searing sounds emanate from the statue. Hope builds in Pinkie’s heart as the sizzling sound intensifies and the smoke thickens. A loud *POP* sends Pinkie reeling back, forcing her to shut her eyes. She cautiously opens them and sees three powerful foes slowly pick themselves up from the ground.
Tirek groans, still feeling stiff from his time in captivity. He blinks his eyes as he inspects his surroundings. “What’s going on? Where are we?”
“Never mind that,” Chrysalis adds as she bends her neck from side to side. “Where are the Princesses and that fool Discord?”
“Where are anypony?” Cozy Glow asks. “Where are anycreature?”
The sound of a single pony’s irrational laughter causes all three to turn in the direction of Pinkie Pie, now delusional with delight.
“IT WORKED! IT WORKED! I KNEW I COULD DO IT IF I WORKED REALLY HARD AND NOW IT WORKED! I FREED THE TERRIBLE TRIO!!!”
The threesome turn to each other, none of them able to comprehend the scene unfolding in front of them. Soon after, recognition comes to one of them:
“Now I remember you,” Tirek starts. “You’re that cymbal-banging crazy pony who drove me to insanity in Tartarus!”
“Weren’t you the Professor of Laughter Studies at Twilight’s school?” Cozy Glow asks.
Chrysalis grunts a loud *hrumph*. “You were the most annoying of the Elements of Harmony, you and your ideas for a Canterlot Wedding fit for a foal! Now tell us where Twilight Sparkle and the other Princesses are!”
“Oh, they’re gone.” Pinkie cheerfully responds, causing more confusion among the others.
“Gone?,” Tirek asks. “You mean, Princesses Celestia and Luna are …”
“Gone.”
“And Twilight and the rest of the Elements of Harmony?” Chrysalis adds.
“Gone, too.”
“What about Starlight Glimmer or Trixie?” Cozy Glow adds.
“Gone three and gone four.”
“This is preposterous!” Tirek exclaims. “You mean to tell us that everypony in Equestria just disappeared?”
“Every pony, dragon, changeling, griffin, hippogriff, yak, pet, and any other creature you can think of … but Boulder and Twiggy are still around. Say, you think I should check in on them? It has been a while!”
“Wait a minute,” Chrysalis says, “what do you mean by ‘a while’? How much time has passed since we last met?”
Pinkie ponders the question. “Well let’s see … it was a week after you were all turned to stone when all my friends and the rest of civilization disappeared, then thirty more days before I called out to the world through a chain of megaphones, then thirty more days or so until Sans Smirk came by, then another … oh, I don’t know, two or three days of nonstop trotting to Canterlot? … then another couple of hours before Sans disappeared, and then whatever time it took for me to create a potion to free you from your stone selves.”
For a minute, silence pervades. Then Cozy Glow speaks up: “Wait … you freed us from petrification? You’re not a Princess; you’re not even a unicorn.”
“Well duh, but Twilight explained how I might be able to perform magical spells before she disappeared, but her idea ended up past its expiration date, so then I thought of another idea but I needed to figure out how to undo that stone spell so I pored over every tome in the Royal Canterlot Archives to find something I thought I could use—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Chrysalis interrupts. “You went searching for a way to free us.”
“Uh huh, and it wasn’t easy; I must have spent weeks searching for the right scroll or potion instruction, but it’s really hard to say since the sun and moon no longer set …”
The trio look up at the sky, each surprised to see that, indeed, then sun and moon were both high in the sky; Pinkie continues her story as they look:
“… but I was determined, more than I ever had been before. If I got hungry, I munched on some grass just outside the building, and if I got thirsty, the fountains were still operating, and if I got tired, I just put my head down and went to sleep for a bit before waking up and pushing on. And I finally found instructions for just such a potion, and I thought it would be just like following a recipe for a cake, but first I had to find a bunch of ingredients which meant raiding the laboratories in Canterlot which I had to find first, but I did find them and was able to get everything I needed …”
“Where do you think she’s going with this?” Cozy Glow asks the others.
“I don’t know, but I’m oddly mesmerized,” Tirek responds. Chrysalis grunts and walks several yards away.
“… so I finally had a potion, and I came here to try it out on you, but nothing happened. But that’s OK, I’ll just try again, which I did, even thought that try didn’t work either. And neither did Try Number 3 or Try Number 4, or for that matter, Numbers 5, 6, 7, and a bunch of other ones, I kinda lost track once I got to 20 or so, but today, oooh today, I finally got it right, and HERE YOU ARE!!!”
“Wonderful!” Tirek sarcastically announces. “Now tell us why in Tartarus you bothered freeing us, knowing full well who we are?”
“She probably just wanted a new friend,” Chrysalis snidely remarks. “As if I would forget all that’s happened to me, all because of you and your do-gooder friends, if you think for one second that I would just forgive you for that—”
Pinkie bursts into laughter again, irritating Chrysalis while confusing the others.
“What’s so funny?” Cozy Glow asks.
“You got it all backwards, that’s what’s funny. You think you need to forgive me!”
The comments stuns Chrysalis into silence. Tirek speaks: “Exactly what are you getting at?”
Pinkie clears her throat and assumes a serious tone: “As the only remaining creature in Equestria, I now represent all ponykind … really, all creaturekind. And as the representative for all creaturekind, I, Pinkie Pie, hereby forgive Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow of any and all wrongdoings.”