Pinkie Pie and her five best friends were having lunch together at a pleasant outdoor cafe that they favored. Just then, Pinkie’s stomach rumbled, which drew stares from the others because stomachs rumbling during lunch are somewhat confusing, and then it faded away, leaving a belly-shaped divot in Pinkie Pie. This, as you might imagine, continued to draw stares.
The divot filled in a moment later as her stomach returned, and all eyes shifted to Pinkie’s face.
“Pinkie,” began Twilight, with some trepidation, “what just happened?”
Pinkie finished chewing and swallowing her bite of food. “It means it’s time.”
Eyes blinked and heads tilted all around the table. Fluttershy lifted a questioning hoof. “What time is it when your tummy disappears?”
Pinkie slugged back her glass of water and thumped it down onto the table. She threw a grin around at her friends. “It means it’s time for time.”
Applejack got out, “Wha—?” but by the second syllable of the word, Pinkie was already running off toward Sugarcube Corner.
The others threw money onto the table and took off after her. Catching up, Twilight said, “What does that even mean, Pinkie?”
“It means I’ve begun to fade out due to timeline instability, which means I need to use my time machine to make sure I continue to exist! Simple, see?”
Twilight spluttered, unable to form coherent words for a moment. “That makes even less sense than it did before! Time machines are a theoretical impossibility! And what do you mean, ‘make sure you continue to exist’?”
The group of them stormed through the front door of Sugarcube Corner and down to the basement, where a candy-striped chair stood in one corner.
Pinkie walked around it briefly, inspecting the connections on the various wires and leads coming from it. “Time machines are a theoretical impossibility, but the opposite of that is a practical possibility, and so I just flipped the signs on all the math and here we are—time machine!”
Twilight began spluttering again, building up a proper head of outrage at that premeditated abuse of mathematics. Pinkie’s nose disappeared, then returned a moment later. “Sorry, Twilight, but I really gotta go. Time’s a-wasting. Ha! Time travel joke there.”
Pinkie donned her saddlebags and tossed a towel, a trash bag, and a potion bottle labeled Formula 63 into the bags. She flung herself into the candy-striped chair and yanked the lever with an excited grin. The rest of the ponies covered their eyes against the bright flash the chair created. “See you girls sooooooooooooooon . . .” Pinkie called, her voice sounding like it was echoing from a great distance away.
Five ponies stood in the now-chairless basement. They exchanged glances.
“What the f—” Dash got out, before another bright flash filled the basement.
The chair was back, smoking slightly. In fact, it was smoking about as much as the pony seated in it. Pinkie Pie ashed her cigarette with a very satisfied smile.
Twilight grabbed her by the shoulders. “What just happened, Pinkie? I need answers!”
Pinkie took a long drag on her cigarette, puffed it toward the ceiling, and said, “Not much. Just had to go back and impregnate my grandmother. Fate of the multiverse kind of thing, you know how it is.” She tossed the empty bottle of Formula 63 into a trash can.
Twilight boggled at her. “But that— but how— what?”
Fluttershy blinked slowly, then raised a hoof. “Um, Pinkie Pie? Doesn’t that make you your own grandfather?”
Pinkie nodded. “It sure does.”
Author’s note: The original version is part of Thirty Minute Ponies’ Prompt #77, “All in the Family.” The prompt was “Two of the Mane Six have just learned that they’re related.” Obviously, I stretched the prompt to its breaking point by having Pinkie be both of the “two” the prompt called for. I regret nothing.