//------------------------------// // Act III - In Which Everything Falls Apart // Story: Pinkie the Unicorn - A Tale in Four Acts // by theworstwriter //------------------------------// The indignant stamp of a hoof that could tolerate no more oppression rung throughout the chamber. “Sorry, but your reign ends now,” Pinkie shouted. Celestia gaped at the intruder and marveled at how easily she’d dispatched her guards. “What are you—” “No more games!” Pinkie snarled. “You know exactly what I want.” A cloud of smoke swirled together and formed a bound scroll. It landed softly at Celestia’s feet. She blinked at it before returning her gaze to the pony before her. “Pinkie Pie, this is no laughing matter. I have all the confidence in the world that you’d do your best for my little ponies, but you’re not experienced enough to lead them all.” “I don’t want to lead,” Pinkie spat. She glared back at the Princess with determination in her eyes. Smiling serenely, Celestia stepped forward. “I know you don’t. But if I’m gone, who would take my place?” “You don’t have to be gone. We can settle this peacefully. Just please, give me what I want.” A thunderous crack split the air as Pinkie Pie’s body shattered a pillar. Celestia was frowning. “I thought I’d made it perfectly clear that the only way was over my dead body.” Pinkie coughed in the dust of her impact and stood on shaking limbs. “I don’t... want to hurt you,” she managed between labored breaths. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Celestia replied. Ethereal sparks danced on the edge of her pink horn as Pinkie leaned forward and grinned. “Let’s party.” Twilight alternated between calm, measured pacing and completely undignified flail-galloping about the library—both completely useless—in anticipation of a reply to her letter that she wouldn’t get. The sound of Spike’s fingers drumming against the table steadily marked the seconds ticking by as Twilight switched back and forth faster and faster with each passing minute. “I just don’t get it!” she blurted. “The Princess and I established a whole system for prioritizing our correspondence, and this one was marked higher than any letter I’ve ever sent!” Spike lifted his head a few inches above the wooden surface and droned, “Even more important than the letters apologizing for other letters being late?” Twilight stopped in place. “Yes! Much more important than those! Those are only a category epsilon-six. Even the...” she trailed off into a furious blush before vigorously shaking it off to regain a sense of composure. “The very personal letters that she always responds to immediately are only tau-four. This one was marked psi-nine! Psi-nine, Spike! It’s been eighty two seconds and she should’ve replied within ten. Something’s wrong, I just know it.” “Or maybe she’s just taking a shower,” he muttered, plopping his head back down with a sigh. “Seriously, Twilight, get some therapy. You’re so paranoid it’s making me tired just listening to you.” “It’s taken more than nine times as long as it should have for her to write back to me!” she snapped. Spike yawned. “Yeah. And it’s still been less than two minutes.” He hopped off the stool and dragged his feet toward the stairs. “I’m gonna take a nap. You should think about taking a walk to clear your head.” “Already walking.” Shaking his head and suppressing another yawn, Spike began to climb up to the second floor. “Outside, Twilight,” he called back down, “part of the point is getting some fresh air.” She walked into the door and groaned at the dull pain of hitting her face against a solid surface. She peered at the door closely. “You open... somehow,” she mumbled as her eyes scanned the surface of it. “Aha!” she cried upon spying the knob. With a loud snap, her hoof broke the metal free from the door and it swung open freely. A breeze blew in and Twilight’s eye twitched imperceptibly in the wind. She trotted outside and set off down the road. Six hours later, Twilight found herself in a seedy back alley of a city she couldn’t identify. “Huh. Must’ve gotten lost in my own thoughts and lost track of time. And space. Did I just say that or did I think it?” “You said it.” “Who said that?” “You did.” “No, not who said what I said, who said what you said!” “I did.” Twilight growled and turned to find the source of the voice. She saw a stallion, sitting down, looking over a map. “Are you done here?” he asked. “I... don’t know. Where am I?” He rolled his eyes and pointed down at the map. “Whinniepeg?” Twilight shook her head. “I walked to Whinniepeg? And it’s still light out? That’s impossible.” The stallion rolled up the map and chuckled. “Lady, you gotta come back down to Equestria. You pay any attention to your surroundings at all? The sun hasn’t moved all day. Chaos in the streets,” he said, gesturing toward the alley’s entrance where a few ponies could be seen galloping by. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I just finished planning my lootin’ route.” He rolled up the map and tossed it into a large sack, then slung the empty bag over his shoulder. His gaze traveled up and down Twilight once. “Good luck out there,” he offered with a smirk before waltzing away to commit incredibly grand larceny. “Why wouldn’t the sun have moved? It’s not like Celestia is busy fighting off...” Twilight’s eyes doubled in size. “Oh no. No no no,” she sputtered as she scrambled into the streets. “I need... I need to get... to go... not here. I need to be not here,” she panted. “I need to go to Canterlot right now.” A small fire that smelled surprisingly delicious burned nearby, the scent causing Twilight to skid to a halt. “Bakery?” She tilted her head to the side. “Bakery!” she barked. One of her eyes went slightly askew. “Plan. Plans are good! Plan to locate and de-horn Pinkie. Plan can’t be half-baked. No no no.” A flash of light and a maniacal cackle were the only heralds of Twilight’s sudden appearance in the castle courtyard. The moment she materialized, she snapped her head in the direction of the throne room and took a disturbingly deep breath in through her nose. “Not there.” She sniffed again. “Also not there. Missing royalty. Paralyzed celestial cycle. Crisis, yes,” she babbled, nodding her head rapidly. “Desperate times, desperate measures, you know how the saying goes.” With a swift, cracking jolt of her neck, Twilight pointed her eyes up to the top of the tallest tower of the castle. A bolt of lightning shot out of the sky just behind the tower. A frightening peal of laughter emanated from a lone window high above her. “First things first,” she mumbled as she pulled a glowing pastry from a box. Inspecting it closely and seeming satisfied with both its glowiness and its flakiness, she carefully lowered it back into the cardboard vessel and closed the lid, patting it gently. “She would never suspect you!” Twilight chirped with a crooked, toothy grin. Twilight’s legs blurred as she ran faster than she’d ever run before across the courtyard, into the castle, and up a nigh-endless spiral staircase, ever so slowly revolving upward toward her goal. Her body protested with each hoofbeat, letting her know in no uncertain terms that this was unacceptable. She didn’t listen and pressed onward, leaving a trail of sweaty air and madness in her wake. Up and up and up she climbed, but the tower refused to end. “Spatial warping,” she huffed, “is cheating. This tower,” she panted, “isn’t this tall.” “You okay, Twilight?” “Gah!” Twilight slid to a stop and fell on her face. “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” She rubbed her head as she righted herself. “Spike? What are you doing here?” He shrugged. “I figured you’d show up to check on the Princess. But, uh, I guess you’re not. What are you doing?” “Pinkie’s at the top of this tower!” she shouted. “And I’m trying to get to her so I can put an end to this!” Spike frowned heavily. “O...kay then. I’m gonna go see if I can track down some medical staff,” he said before turning and waddling away. Twilight took a moment to examine her surroundings. She was not on a staircase. Tugging at her mane and groaning, she cast her gaze about looking for the stairs. “I have to stop her before I go completely nuts.” One eye blinked slowly, then the other. “Obviously my temporary reduction in mental stability is a side-effect of her misuse of magic.” A giddy shout echoed throughout the castle halls, “YOU-REEK-A!” With a heavy slump, Twilight buried her head in her hooves and closed her eyes. “I’ll never make it. She’s probably discovered some kind of anti-life equation she’s mistaken for a recipe and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.” A set of footsteps and a set of hoofsteps, one right after the other, rapidly approached. “Here she is. I dunno what’s wrong with her, but you gotta do something. I’m worried about her.” A gentle hoof landed on Twilight’s shoulder. “Twilight Sparkle? Could you please come with me?” She peeled her hooves away and glanced at Spike. “She has to be stopped.” “Twilight, come on. Please. Snap out of it. Wake up.” Her gaze hardened as much as her resolve. “You’re right,” she said firmly as she stood up. “I can’t give up. I have to fight.” Spike stepped forward. “Twilight?” She held her head high. “She just got magic. I’ve been studying it for years. I’m smarter than her. More powerful than her. So what if hers is twice as big as mine? She’s just an earth pony with a horn, and to save Celestia... to save Equestria, I’ll do what I must to thwart her mad plans.” “You see?” Spike tugged on the doctor’s leg. “It’s like she’s totally somewhere else!” Turning to face him and grinning more crookedly than she realized, Twilight let out a chuckle. “I am somewhere else. I’m wherever Pinkie is!” she shouted, and with another flash of light, she disappeared. “There you are, Twilight! Moondancer’s having a little get together in—” Pinkie shook her head. “Whoa. Way off. Um... right!” She cleared her throat. “There you are, Twilight! I was wondering when you’d show up. I sorta accidentally made a mess of things, and I was gonna fix it but I couldn’t figure something out.” “Pinkie, I’m here to put a stop to—” “Is the moon made out of cheese?” “I... what?” With a giggle in every bounce, Pinkie hopped over to Twilight and pulled her into a hug. “I missed you, too. But I really, really need to know if the moon is cheese or not.” Twilight pushed Pinkie off. “No. It’s not. And I have to stop you now.” She frowned at that. “Aww... that’s adorable. You think you can stop me! Hold on just one itty bitty second; I’ll be right back.” Pinkie unfurled her wings and rose into the air. Glowing majestically, she closed her eyes and channeled an enormous stream of energy out into the sky. The sun set and the moon rose. She landed daintily on her hooves and smiled. “Okay. I guess I’m ready for our climactic battle, but I’m pretty sure this was supposed to be a comedy.” Twilight stammered out half-sentence after half-sentence, never collecting the mental fortitude to finish contemplating the uncontemplatable. “How did you... I can’t believe... why do you have...” Her whole body shook with violent twitches as she failed to come to terms with the situation before her. “That’s more like it! Babbling incoherently is totally hilarious. Still, though, we do need to settle this somehow. I just didn’t think a fight would’ve been a good fit. We couldn’t even show ‘em any blood or dismemberment or anything because this has an ‘E’ rating!” “Pinkie, I need you to stop being completely inscrutable for five freaking minutes so I can figure out just how badly you’ve managed to damage reality before I break your horn off—” “Hello? Are you asleep or something? I thought we just agreed not to fight!” “No. There are no agreements and there are no rules because you’ve thrown away any logic that could potentially glue ideas together! Everything is ruined forever unless I take away your magic, restore the princesses, and stitch the world back together the way it’s supposed to be.” Pinkie bounced in place and giggled. “You’re really bad at staying in character.” Twilight’s body went completely still. Her left eye twitched just a little. And she snapped.