//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Tempest // by TimbukTurnip //------------------------------// Pinkie Pie was walking down a dark corridor. She took a left, a right, another left, then proceeded to walk straight ahead once more. Her brain had no idea where she was, but her legs seemed to be acting on autopilot, as if they had done the journey many times before. This fact only served to make her anxious, but being the happy and cheerful pony that she was, she held an air of optimism, hoping that whatever her destination might be, it would be something good. Something fun or exciting. Perhaps a room full of cake. Her legs took one last left turn then halted, causing her to draw her mind back from all the possible destinations she was thinking of and instead observe the one she had actually arrived at. She found her optimism had been well placed. She found herself standing in the doorway of Sugarcube Corner, its bright light leaking out into the mysterious dark corridor to which the bakery was now apparently connected. The inside of the shop had been completely decorated for a party; balloons, streamers, a table with a bowl of punch on top off to the side of the room, everything necessary for a party. In the middle of it all sat a round table, on top of which was a triple layer chocolate cake with pink icing. Suspended from the ceiling above it was a banner that read ‘Happy Birthday Pinkie Pie’. Her five best friends, all present at the apparent party, quickly noticed her arrival and simultaneously yelled “Surprise!” before trotting over to her to wish her a happy birthday independently. They hadn’t decided to hide; perhaps they believed the fact they were having a party at all was enough of a surprise for their pink party-loving friend. She had forgotten her previous birthday after all. Pinkie didn’t seem to miss a beat however, switching from the apprehension she had felt only a few moments before to a feeling of blissful contentment, with not a single moment of confusion in between, her previous uncontrolled trek through a darkened hallway apparently forgotten. Each of her friends gave her a hug as they said their well wishes, starting with Fluttershy – surprising considering how shy the pegasus was – and ending with Rainbow Dash. She enjoyed Rainbow’s hug the most. She always did. She didn’t know why; perhaps the cyan pegasus simply had a more comfortable hug or a more cuddly body. Not that she would ever tell her that of course – she knew the tough flier would most likely hate being thought of as cuddly. Pinkie actually disliked the fact that she enjoyed one of her friend’s hugs more than the rest; she had the five best friends anypony could possibly hope to have in all of Equestria and she treasured them all equally and dearly. She wasn’t meant to have favourites – she didn’t have favourites. She enjoyed each and every hug they gave her; it didn’t matter who was giving the hug as she loved them all. She just loved Rainbow’s hugs a little bit more. Music began emanating from a record player, blaring out different party songs to accompany the varying games that inevitably began, as well as being background noise to any mingling that occurred. It was everything Pinkie could’ve wanted it to be; all of her friends were enjoying themselves and having fun, her along with them. It was much better than her last birthday – her surprise party back then had also been a lot of fun, but her… episode that day had put a dampener on the start of the celebration; this time, that was not the case. She had learnt her lesson and had not doubted her friends once since. The result was a truly happy start to a surprise party and a birthday in which nothing bad had happened at all. That was subject to change however. An hour or two into the party, in the middle of a game of Pin the Tail on the Pony, a blindfolded Twilight Sparkle slowly approached the picture. As she neared it, everything in the room began vibrating, startling her and causing her to halt her movement. A steadily increasing rumble was heard as the ground began to tremble and shake, making Pinkie’s hooves tingle. As quickly as the disturbance occurred, it disappeared, leaving Twilight to remove her blindfold and join her friends in looking around quizzically and with no small amount of concern. Fear and utter confusion had them gripped in a vice, anchoring them to the spot they each stood upon, afraid that moving even an inch would start the whole disturbance anew. For several moments they all stood there, waiting, none of them saying a word. They didn’t have to wait long. The room was suddenly shrouded in utter darkness, a blackness that pervaded into every possible part of the bakery and blanketed the eyes of the ponies, preventing them from even seeing their own hooves. Pinkie could hear the shriek and screams of panic from her friends, she herself remaining surprisingly quiet but sweating heavily. The sounds of distress were abruptly cut off, drowned out by the sudden noise of howling wind, a large impact and what sounded like many pieces of rubble falling to the floor. This was swiftly followed by a large ripping sound; a sound which seemed to drain the energy completely out of Pinkie, causing her to fall to the floor and her eyelids to fall like lead, her ears no longer comprehending any noise around her and her body quickly going numb as the encompassing darkness encroached into her mind, making it go blank. In the room atop Sugarcube Corner, a pink pony bolted upright in bed, covered in a cold sweat, swaying her head frantically from side to side with her blue eyes as wide as saucers. A dream. That’s all it had been. A crazy, beautiful, frightening dream that varied between being a little bit of heaven and a horrible nightmare; a dream like none she had ever had, but a dream nonetheless. She was okay, her friends were okay and she had nothing to worry about. She could still feel the tingling in her hooves. Verbose Author's Notes: A whole month without an update and the only result is a stupidly short and bad chapter? Yes. When I first sat down to write this chapter, a month ago now, an idea for another fic randomly came into my head. Try as I might, I couldn't get rid of it. So, I wrote it. It took two weeks, due to lack of time, concentration and imagination. I also ended up putting much more effort into it than planned and it came out (in my opinion) much better written than what I have of Tempest so far. That accounts for the majority of the time I spent away from this fic, the rest being due to the fact I'm now busy with schoolwork stuff and.. I've lost some of the motivation I had on this. I still plan on finishing it one day and working on it when I can, but I don't have as much fun writing it as I do my other story. Also, this chapter felt very cheesy. I'm not happy with it at all but I wanted to get something up here after a month of nothing. Theres more I would write but these notes are already a tenth the length of the actual chapter (I can't help but be verbose) so I'll save the rest for another time.