Everyone has that one thing that they hate more than anything else. I’m not talking about a person, an idea, or even an event—not everyone hates others, some don’t care about ideas, and others have had dreadfully boring lives without any events of note whatsoever.
Yet, despite the varied experiences everyone has, there’s still that one thing. The moment the one thing is brought to their mind, they react. Some burst into tears, while others tremble in fear, while still others enter a state of tranquil fury that will instill fear in all who see them.
There is also the boring response, that of mad rampaging rage.
My button is pressed when certain people correct my grammar.
For others, the button is much simpler. A simple sound could send certain people into a frothing rage.
~~~
Twang.
Hater’s hand stopped just short of grasping the blue, flaming palm of the not-King. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” the thing asked, visibly confused.
“The-”
Twang.
Hater whipped his head to the side, threatening to dislocate his jaw. Pinkie was still pinned to the wall… but, in her tail, she held a simple banjo.
Yes, look at me. Pinkie strummed the banjo by flicking it across her bottom hoof.
“Banjo…” Hater breathed.
The not-King’s left eye twitched. “Focus, Hater, she’s of no consequence! It’s just a—”
“BANJO!!” Hater screeched with a fury that would make demons cower. Moving so fast it was like he teleported, he punched a fist into the wall, creating a hole right next to the banjo. Spreading both of his hands apart, each one sent out a bolt of electricity. The first utterly decimated the banjo and the second sent Pinkie flying into a large stack of pizzas.
Pinkie, now free of the not-King’s grasp, let out a slightly creepy giggle. She pulled another banjo out of her mane and started playing a ditty.
The not-King held out a hand, scowl twisting so deep that it had to be painful. “Enough!” Pinkie was held in place, the banjo strumming stopping.
This did nothing to stop Hater from punching again, destroying the banjo and knocking Pinkie out of the telekinetic grasp. Pinkie took the opportunity to jump out the window—and, of course, pull out another banjo.
“The noise… the noise!” Hater tore at his horns and rammed his head into a wall, making it crumble to dust. “Make it stop!”
“I can make it stop!” The thing offered, extending a flaming hand. “Just shake a—” Hater jumped out the window in pursuit of Pinkie, leaving the not-King behind. “...Idiot.”
“Hi!” Pinkie Pie said, smashing the banjo into the not-King’s head, knocking him to the ground. “Bye!” She jumped out another window, getting out of his reach.
“You want to play games with me, shooting star!?” he hissed, standing back to his height. “Cute as always. But you should kn—”
Hater jumped back in and shot the not-King with a bolt of lightning, singing his waxy hair. The skeleton charged over him, stepping on the Waxman’s back at least two times before jumping toward the window Pinkie had left through moments before.
“Hmm, this is real easy!” Pinkie observed, bouncing over Hater’s head and landing behind the not-King—with yet another banjo. “Hey Hatey! I’m over here!”
“I will turn your eyeballs into a smoothie!” Hater called, shooting several dozen bolts of electricity. The not-King bothered to deflect them this time, but it put a strain on his magic.
“You idiot! Don’t you see she—”
Hater punched the not-King in the mouth, jumping over him to get to Pinkie. She continued strumming, humming a chipper tune, encouraging his attacks to get more and more violent. With a giggle, she jumped under a table. He punched through it, cracking the floor beneath—only to discover that she was on his back, strumming in his ear. He swiveled his skull and bit down on her, but it was a cotton candy decoy of Pinkie with no banjo at all.
He spat out the delectable candy. “Why are there more of you!? Why!?”
“I dunno!” Pinkie said, tripping Hater by appearing under his legs. “But if I’d known the way to win was to just be myself, I would have done this a looooong time ago!” She handed him a comically oversized bomb with a bow on top. “I got a little carried away trying to be Ambassador Pie!”
The bomb exploded, showering Hater in confetti. “Go back! Go back to being the Ambassador!” His voice cracked with an uncharacteristic desperation. “Please!”
“Nope!” Pinkie declared, slapping a party blower and hat on him. “This isn’t just what I need, it’s what you need! Turn that skeletal frown upside down and laugh!”
Hater attempted to speak but only a party blower noise came out. Furious, his electricity reduced the hat and blower to ashes. Dropping to all fours he pounced at Pinkie like a cat.
He hit one of the pizzas that had been decorated to look like her. A pie hit him in the head, and two banjos fell from the ceiling, landing on the ground to both of his sides.
Crackling with sparks of barely restrained power, he pushed his fists into the wall and removed a chunk of it twice as large as himself. He whirled around and smashed it directly on top of Pinkie, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
All fell silent.
“Finally…” Hater said. “Finally…”
“Oh, that means I can talk again!” Pinkie said, revealing herself to be standing on top of Hater.
“WHAT!?”
“I j—” Hater grabbed her by the neck and threw her to the ground. She bounced as though she were made of rubber, coming to a stop just outside the window.
She took a moment to adjust her crown. Somehow, it was still on her head.
She could tell this infuriated Hater almost as much as the banjo.
Hater charged.
Pinkie met him with her hooves, entering a tango with him.
“No! No! Hater does not DANCE!”
“All right!” She let go of him.
He fell out the window. That said, it was the first floor’s window, so there wasn't much damage done—just more lost dignity. He jumped up, entire body swirling with green power. “I will wipe this city off the face of the planet! AAAAAAAAA!”
He charged.
Pinkie pulled out a trampoline.
He went flying all the way across the Candy Capital until he created a Hater-shaped depression in the interior of the city wall.
“...Did you just launch Hater across the city?” Marceline asked, appearing beside her with the axe-bass poised to attack.
“Yep! And Marcie, were you going to chop off his head?”
“Uh… yeah?”
“Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that’d be? A head hopping around without a body?”
Marceline processed this for a few seconds before pulling her hair back and chuckling. “No, Pinkie, I don’t.”
“Think about cutting off heads next time.” Pinkie insisted. “Anyway, you have the bomb?”
“I’ve got one big bang left,” Marceline said, holding up a firework. “We just need to get down there.”
“And I know he’s n—” Pinkie glanced around the trashed hall. There was no sign of the not-King whatsoever. Her smile vanished instantly. “Ponyfeathers. He took advantage of us.”
“The pyramids are glowing too.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Agh, whatever’s going on down there…” She spread her legs and stooped to the ground. “Get on, we’re going to run. I’m faster.”
Marceline shrugged, getting on. “You sure you—”
Pinkie took off like a racecar, becoming a streak of pink barely visible as she moved through the halls of the castle. She stopped dramatically at the entrance to the dungeons to check on Marceline. “Good?”
“Wh… Pinkie what are you?”
“That’s a very good question, a—” a blade of darkness cut across her mind. Flaming eyes were staring at her. Her stomach did a flip-flop and her tail twisted itself into a knot. Laughter. “—oh no.”
“Oh no what?”
“It’s… it’s not our problem. This is our problem.” She shook some confetti out of her tail. “You know the dungeon. Point and I go.”
Marceline pointed, and Pinkie took off like a racecar again. The monsters in the dungeon barely registered her presence as she sped past them, soon arriving at the trapdoor in the ground. She jumped down, taking a battle stance with Marceline at her side.
She saw, for the first time, what Marceline had seen. The cavern with the crystalline structure in the floor, the ancient drawing on the wall, and the safe. Except, the safe was open, and there was something tied to the altar, imprisoned within a golden-yellow bubble.
It was a penguin.
“...What?” Pinkie cocked her head. “I… a penguin? What? That’s the key component of this evil ritual? I…” She let out a deep laugh, throwing her head back. “Okay! So that’s how people feel around me! A penguin!” She clapped her hooves. “I have no idea what it means but I love it!”
“That’s not a normal penguin.” Marceline strode toward the altar, holding out a shaky hand. “That’s Gunter.”
“Gunter?”
“The sealed form… of Orgalorg.” She turned to face Pinkie with uncertain eyes. “The entity from before the dawn of time that tried to absorb the power of the Catalyst Comet.”
“...Oh.” Pinkie blinked. “That makes more sense.”
Marceline pulled out the firework, laying it at the base of the altar.
Pinkie bit her lip.
“Pinkie, the penguin may look innocent, but it’s an ancient evil.” She pulled out a match. “I’m not sure why we let it wander around.”
“Probably because you know you wouldn’t be able to destroy him.”
Marceline transformed into a monstrous bat-creature three times her normal size, brandishing her fangs at the not-King that had just teleported to the crystal platform. He looked… terrible. His waxy hair was half-melted, numerous scrapes, bruises, and charred sections lined his body, and half he was favoring one of his legs. None of this kept his eyes from glowing or his mouth from twisting into an evil grin.
Marceline pulled a claw back.
“Marcie, no!” Pinkie called. “Orgalorg may be a primal evil, but… the King is still in there!”
“No no no! Strike me, vampire queen!” The not-King held his arms out. “It’s the only way to be sure!”
Marceline scowled. “No…” she returned to her normal size. “No, we don’t have to take you out. We can just blow up your ritual.”
The thing’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes twitched. “Fine. Be annoyingly practical and boring.” He snapped his fingers.
Marceline let out a batty shriek, holding her head as if a rail spike had been run through it, dropping the match in the process. Pinkie felt nothing—but she noticed that the gem in her crown had started glowing. “Hmm. You’re trying to attack my mind!”
“I forgot her crown did that,” the thing hissed. “No matter.” He lifted a hand, pushing her into the wall. “I can hold you like this. There’s no idiotic skeleton to save you this time.”
“He’s just confused,” Pinkie managed. “I’m sure, given time, he could be a grea—”
“I don’t care about your ongoing mission to befriend every enemy you ever face!” the thing interrupted, throwing an arm wide in rage. It had to hurt to move like that, injured as his body was, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
“W-well, you could tell me who you are! I c-could start there…”
“I am Bill Cipher.” Bill levitated the firework Pinkie had thought she lit without his knowledge. She watched in horror as he extinguished the fuse. “And you are going to watch as I drain the power of my arrogant, weakened colleague here.”
“W-why?”
“Why? Why? I’ve been trapped in the dreaming world, kept from all worlds, for millennia!” For a moment, the yellow of his eyes flashed red. “I have an opportunity to free myself. In fact, you should want to help me! You wanted to help Hater, after all…”
Pinkie managed a nervous laugh. “W-well, I do want to help you, but… you’re dangerous. A lot more than he is.” Her smile vanished. “I won’t let you hurt my friends.”
“Then try to stop me, shooting star. Use one of your inexplicable abilities to escape my grasp. Light an explosion to ruin the ritual. Press my button and push me to a rage. Oh wait! You can’t!” Bill threw his head back so hard Pinkie could hear parts of his spine popping. “You’re just a jester! You don’t have real power, not when it matters!”
“I have my friends.”
“And both of them are a little occupied at the moment, as I’m sure you’ve felt. Did you feel him?” Pinkie couldn’t stop herself from twitching. “Good. Gooood. I want you to know how hopeless this is. Welcome to the real game of life, shooting star! What’s friendship going to do now!?”