A familiarly shaped wisp of magic smoke flew away from a run-down building surrounded by royal guards, but it was blue instead of pink this time.
In addition to the wrongness that my Finger Food Sense was telling me out, I also had a horrible sense about what would happen to me. That sense grew stronger when I faced towards the building surrounded by royal guards. It wasn’t hard to guess what that horrible fate would be.
From inside the building, I heard a mare yelling loudly enough for me to hear, “Do you like bananas!”
A chorus of stallions roar, “No!”
A royal guard ordered, “You should stay away from this building, citizen. Princess Flurry Heart is interrogating the clones of Shining Armor to find the real one, and she’s sending the clones back to the Mirror Pool.“
I frown.
I’m obviously not a citizen, but I have fake ID if I need it.
How do those stallions even remember hating bananas? Did somepony cast a spell that transferred memories? And what if the real Shining Armor makes a mistake and gets sent to the Mirror Pool? Princess Flurry Heart’s plan seems pretty reckless.
My Finger Food Senses tell me that if I go into that building, then something horrible will almost definitely happen to me.
I should just leave, now. But my Finger Food Senses also tell me that if I leave without helping those ponies, then this wrongness won’t go away, and I think it somehow means that nocreature would ever have fun again, after roughly a decade.
What would the real Pinkie Pie do? She’s a hero of Equestria, and one of the Element Bearers!
I chortle.
Hah!. If her friends weren’t around to help her, that mare would probably try to throw a party, or make friends!
Huh.
Celestia damn it; she really would. I’m running out of time to stop this. I need better ideas, or I’m doomed. There’s no way it would work, especially for an evil knockoff clone such as myself.
“The earth ponies are revolting!”, I heard Princess Flurry Heart yelling from inside the building.
I looked around and didn’t see any other earth ponies, just pegasus and unicorn guardsponies.
That’s rude! I smelled myself to check. Oh. Wow! She’s right! I’m all sweaty, my hooves are shaking, and my heart is beating super quickly! That’s the first time this has ever happened!
I don’t know what I should do about this Finger Food Sense of wrongness, but I need to calm down, and stop that alicorn first.
There’s not much time left. I’ll wing it.
Determined, I wipe off my tears with my right forehoof, then stick it in my mouth, use my copy of Pinkie’s powers to inexplicably puff out my mane into a curly hairstyle resembling hers, and the dull greyish pink dye I was using disappears. Then, I take off my cloak and showed the guards my left hip’s cutie mark.
One guard said, “Don’t joke around. I’m busy guarding this building.”
“No, look at my cutie mark.”
The guard ponders out loud, “Balloons? Also, that’s a weird freckle. It might be cancer.”
No, that’s from when I tried to tattoo over my cutie mark a decade ago, and chickened out because I was squeamish!
I glare at him, and yell, “It isn’t cancer!”
How do these guards not recognize me? I look exactly like Pinkie, who helped save Equestria multiple times, all those years ago!
I pretend to be enthusiastic, and smile and lie, “I’m Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter! When I was on my way to a costume party, my Pinkie Sense acted up.“
Pulling out my Non-Canon Party Cannon from a pocket dimension, point it away from the guards, and set it off, scattering confetti and streamers around me. That looked convincing enough.
“Oh. Now I remember. You threw my wedding party!”, one pegasus with a white coat said, and sheepishly continued, “I forgot to thank you for that.”
I guess I’ll pretend to recognize him.
“No Problemo!”
I take out five pies from my mane, and urgently plead, “I need you to deliver this pie to them!”
He sternly refused, “They ordered us to stay outside no matter what. Also, I think that the Princess locked the door a few minutes ago.” He frowned, stating his reasons for refusing. ”Prince Shining Armor and Princess Flurry Heart fire anypony who disobeys orders on the spot, even if they had a good reason for doing it. I can’t afford to lose my job; I need the bits to pay for food and rent, and I can’t afford to lose my health insurance. The Princesses or the Elements of Harmony are the only exceptions to that rule.”
“That sounds terrible!”
He remarked dryly, “I can’t complain.”
The other royal guards also refused to help for similar reasons, despite my attempts at manipulation, pleading, and bribing them with desserts or making pitifully sad faces. I don’t see anypony nearby who can help.
What would Pinkie Pie do here?
Trying to hype myself up, I softly lie and proclaim, “Even if this is a dark forest where everyone hides, shoots first, and asks questions later like that professor said, I’m Pinkie Pie! I’ll light up the entire forest with a huge party, with spotlights, glowsticks, and pie, and make friends with everycreature!“
Continuing with resolve, I declare that “I’m going to get into that building, and save Equestria with a party! My Pinkie Sense tells me that something super horrible will happen if I don’t! That’s a Pinkie Promise! Stick a cupcake in my eye, cross my heart and hope to die! I mean fly! Just keep guarding the building, and stay outside.”
“Got it. We were already doing that.”
My Finger Food Sense tells me that I’m probably doomed if I go in that building. But, I’ll do everything I can to hold on to even a one in a thousand chance of escaping, becoming immortal, stopping Twilight from sending me to the Mirror Pool, and then partying for hundreds of thousands of years with all the friends I’ll make! That’ll probably be more fun than whatever wrongness my Finger Food Sense is warning me about. I can put two and two and two together! I have the B minus from first year algebra to prove it!
Don’t run or panic now. Just keep moving your hooves forward, smile, and hope that it’ll be alright.
I trot towards the door, pretend to smile, then attempt to turn the doorknob with my right foreleg.