Chapter 27 - The 2nd Element
A little black and green ball rumbled quietly in a corner where it nestled underneath several empty boxes. At its last final shake, the ball popped opened to pour out a stream of sparkling green energy. That green stream soon coalesced into a form of a pony or two.
The hyper-dimensional tunnel trip threw Sunny off balance, but it was not enough for her to lose stable footing. She wasn't used to dragon teleportation. She wasn't used to teleportation in general, but her worries primarily concentrated on the incapacitated Twilight Sparkle whom she carried on her back. Upon her arrival, a strong force pulled her muzzle towards the long catacomb hallway, which meant that the Element of Truth was nearby. Half of Twilight's soul remained trapped within the Element. While distance was no longer a problem, the unicorn remained helpless so as long as Element of Truth remained apart from its true bearer. Yet the Stetson that rested on the behind the unicorn's head behind her horn might have given Twilight an ounce of necessary energy to stay alive.
"Do it again! Do it again!"
Above Sunny and Twilight, a wall-mounted television monitor broadcasted a public execution. Here on screen, a pink pony sat wired to an electric chair bleeding from her eyes, nose, and mouth, yet she laughed, giggled, and snorted as if oblivious to her serious predicament.
"Halt, intruder!"
Spotted! Sunny immediately dashed away not for her own life, but for the lives of Twilight and Applejack as a pair of Clone Soldiers gave chase through the towering catacomb dungeon that was the Secret Prison. She nearly crashed into another pair of Clones who heard the alert from their comrades, but gracefully she leapt over them and landed safely.
However, the Clones' numbers increased, and they quickly trapped her and Twilight in the middle of the crossways of the Secret Prison. Yet they did not shoot, and Sunny sensed why. President-Advisers Teddy and Ace emerged from the mob of soldiers from opposite ends. One kept an unamused stare upon the intruders, while the other grinned and winked at the white pony in the middle.
"Hey, you're that maid at Winter Tulip's birthday party," said Ace. "Hiya sweetflank."
Sunny realized that she still had had her maid outfit on, albeit torn and stitched haphazardly near her hind legs.
"Get your head out of the clouds, Romeo," said Teddy. "She's one of the intruders who infiltrated the Palace of the Earth, and she brought that unicorn with her."
"That mare on her back? Ugh. I never knew they were so ugly. Soldiers, see if you can capture the white one without a scratch on her coat. Oh, and make sure that ugly unicorn is extinct as she should be."
Sunny growled. Pretty Twilight should never be called ugly, and Sunny had in mind to buck the playpony in ten times in the face and then some. The Earth-Alicorn gently lowered her partner to the ground and gave her a reassuring lick on her cheek.
Sunny rammed head-first into the mob of Clone Soldiers in front of her, and then somersaulted backwards to deal a domino-inducing kick to the group in the rear. After bouncing off one unconscious Soldier, Sunny leapt back and forth from left to right taking down the remaining Clones with sweeping spinning kicks and powerful punches. She did this without having any one bullet, stray or directed, strike Twilight Sparkle.
Now the only enemy ponies left standing were Teddy and Ace, and the former her lunged in with a thrust of his electrified gauntlet. He was no mindless soldier; Teddy was an accomplished boxer who was able to stand on his hind legs longer than many stallions, but even with machine-like jabs, he drove himself back instead of the other way around.
"A little help here!" he cried. A blow to his stomach from Sunny's hoof floored him, and shortly after Ace charged in with a somersaulting kick. Sunny parried him with own kick before he could land a blow to Twilight. The playpony was no pushover either, and the hoof he clashed with Sunny's cratered the ground upon impact.
"You're quite strong for a pretty girl," he grinned. "Wanna become my personal bodyguard?"
However, Sunny was stronger. Twisting herself into a rapid spin, she sent Ace tumbling across piles of unconscious Clone Soldiers until he crashed into a wall. She knew that act would leave her open to Teddy's surprise attack, for she mentally readied herself to receive the full shock from his electrified gauntlets.
Instead, a blast of magenta magic energy sent him flying towards the wall where Ace crashed into. Sunny turned around to see Twilight on her hooves for a brief moment before collapsing.
"You got to watch your back, Sunny," heaved Twilight.
Even in her poor state, the unicorn had managed to muster enough fight in her to save her friends, even if the help was not needed. Still, Sunny appreciated her companion's concern, and then thanked her with another lick on her cheek.
They heard a scream, and not too far from the fight was a green scientist mare in a white lab coat shaking in both awe and in terror.
"A u-unicorn," gasped Lyra. "You're a unicorn! I thought they were extinct!"
Sunny sensed no threat emanating from her, and neither did Twilight. However, Sunny appropriated from the scientist's lanyard a crucial keycard with her teeth before putting the purple unicorn on her back again. As expected, the green scientist did not fight back, but her eyes remained glued on Sunny and Twilight as the two galloped towards the double-doors leading into the laboratory complex.
"Do it again! Do it again!"
Sunny nearly dropped the keycard when she heard that pink pony on the television once more. She could hear muffled off-screen shouts of a burly mare yelling at a frightened executioner who stood off from the corner. The Earth-Alicorn did not watch any further as she entered the labs, passing through a quadrant of long tables holding dozens of ancient artifacts, some of which she recognized as being useful, dangerous, nostalgic, or a combination of the three. Still, there was no time to pick one out. More guards galloped from behind, and she hauled Twilight with keycard in her mouth into a new and smaller hallway past the labs.
They entered what was known as the Element Holding Chamber #1. The chamber itself was small with black obsidian walls and a single spotlight shining down upon a glass-encased pedestal surrounded by metal bars. Sunny threw out one timely punch that broke the glass and metal to retrieve Applejack's golden necklace that sat inside, and then she and her companion escaped before the room sealed itself shut. One millisecond short, she and Twilight would have been trapped, possibly gassed to death. Their initial objective was over, or so it seemed.
Sunny's muzzle gravitated towards a set of larger doors across from the holding chamber. After giving the Element of Truth to Twilight, she carried her into Element Holding Chamber #2, and the two beheld a long room illuminated by a dull blue glow. Before them was a large innocuous block of stone that had fallen partially through the floor at one of its corners. In its center was a symbol that to ordinary pony scholars assumed represented the ancient letter known as "omega". Sunny knew that that character represented a pony's mark.
“I’m begging you, please don't let her see this. Please, oh please, don't let see this. I don’t want her to see me die!”
Those were the same cries of the pink pony coming through the one-way mirror that lined up the left side of the wall, and these cries filled themselves with sadness and desperation. Suddenly, the blue light from the block of stone pulsated faster and faster as it rumbled, and it began cracking on all sides.
"Sunny, why are we here?" Twilight asked. "We have to go and find Applejack."
The Earth-Alicorn spat out the pony scientist's keycard. "Second... Element… Here..."
"Huh? Sunny, did you..."
The block unleashed its brightest blue glow and shattered into dust. It shot up a square column of light to the heavens that obliterated everything in its path. When the light finally died down, Sunny trotted over to the blackened square spot on the floor where the stone block once stood, and she looked up to see a long shaft ascending towards the ground level. There was no going back, but she and Twilight had to go up.
Quickly, Sunny boarded the doors by unbolting the metal chair in the room. Seconds rapidly became precious. The Clones in the hall banged on the doors and the viewing windows. Sunny tore her maid outfit further and used it as harness to wrap Twilight's body to hers. There was no more time to check if the unicorn was tight and secure. The doors behind them exploded, and immediately Sunny leapt to the carved shaft. Hooves grasped grooves, and she leapt higher and higher in her long wall-jump to the surface.
Applejack would gladly suffer a crushed windpipe to spare not just Pinkamena her death, but the painful anguish of watching the happiest and most optimistic pony die in the most horrific way. As electricity riddled her body, the pink pony could not laugh, and she could not smile. Pinkamena writhed and screamed in painful agony, continuing to beg Quake to spare Applejack from watching her own death. Alas, the burly mare gleefully kept her muscular foreleg pressed upon the orange pony’s neck.
"AJ," cried Pinkamena. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
Suddenly, a blue pillar of light surrounded the area around the electric chair, and the area it marked caused the ground to both give way and explode. The flash of blue light temporarily blinded everypony except for Pinkamena. The electricity had momentarily been cut off, and miraculously all her restraints had disintegrated. Before her floated a golden necklace centered with a blue, balloon-shaped jewel.
"Thy call hath been heeded," it spoke. "Thou art the emotion who seeks to bring joy and laughter to all those trapped in the abyss of despair. Receive thy power, bearer of the Element of Pleasure, and go forth to raise the spirits of the downtrodden of this world."
The necklace zoomed in and wrapped itself around Pinkamena's neck. Its blue aura enveloped her entire body, which floated briefly to allow her coat and prison uniform to be purified of all her wounds and blood. All of its blue light returned to its source in the blue jewel, and Pinkamena Diane Pie was back on her hooves as a new mare happily smiling upon her rebirth. Her straight mane and tail and been electrified and inflated itself to become once more curls and puffs.
"Awright!" Pinkamena cried. "Pinkamena Diane Pie ponyvolves to--Pinkie Pie!"
"What manner of witchcraft is this?" Quake asked. "Soldiers, kill her! Kill her now!"
The six Clone Soldiers in the room unleashed their bullets from the assault rifles. Initially Pinkie Pie defied being riddled with holes by dodging bullets left and right like an animated cartoon character, but then more Soldiers poured in with guns blazing. Her golden necklace suddenly divided themselves into four streams of blue energy that wrapped around each of her hooves to form colorfully sleek inline skates. Even without the magical skates, the pink pony was already fast. Now she became a blur that streaked through the Clone Soldiers, knocking away all their guns and then knocking them out by knocking their heads into one another. One pile of defeated Clones later, Pinkie stopped still to flash her eyes at the hooded and meek-voiced executioner, who decided to back away and run out of the chamber instead of challenging the Pink Wonder.
Yet there was still one more threat in the room. In her panic, Quake drew her pistol and pointed at Applejack's head, and made menacing gestures and faces to get Pinkie's attention.
"Stay back!" she cried. "Or I'll shoot!"
"Quakey, I'm right here."
Behind her, there was Pinkie Pie--a second one. She turned back around and saw the first Pinkie Pie that she thought was the real one. Then at the corner at the eye, she saw a third. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. Then a sixth. Etc.
"Impossible," Quake said. "You're an earth pony. You can't be capable of such magic."
"Well, duh," said one of the Pinkie Pies. "It may look like I'm using magic, but what I'm really doing is moving so fast and slowing down so fast that it looks like there's a lot of me. If I wanted to, I might be able to create more. I call it the Pinkie-Image technique. Isn't it awesome!"
"It's not! Cease this at once or your friend is dead!"
Applejack took advantage of Quake's panic and her loose grip on her pistol to slide out of the way and then buck the burly mare into the wall. The Lieutenant Warden Quake now lay in the corner defeated, dazed, and laughing maniacally with a tooth missing from her mouth.
"Tee-hee! You got Quakey to smile!" cried Pinkie as her after-images coalesced into a single pink pony.
From the recently created hole, Sunny had leapt out with Twilight on her back. The eyes of the purple unicorn and the orange earth pony locked on with another, and smiles of overwhelming joy appeared on their faces. The Element of Truth energized and glowed orange, and it flew back to wrap itself around the neck of its original owner. Twilight too was surrounded by the orange glow, and she floated off of Sunny to land back onto her hooves.
Almost immediately, Twilight and Applejack hugged one another.
"I never been so happy to see you!" wept Applejack. "Sugarcube!"
"I missed you calling me that," wept Twilight. “I kept your hat safe.”
Twilight telekinetically gave the Stetson a quick dust before levitating it back onto Applejack. The orange pony twirled her head to make sure it was perfect on her head, and after that her eyes locked back onto Twilight's. She slow drew closer to her until Pinkie Pie burst in between them while bursting into silly waterfall tears.
“This reunion is so beautiful!” Pinkie Pie comedically wept before she instantly regained composure. “AJ, is she your special ’Sugarcube’ you keep murmuring about in your sleep? Ohmygosh, we gotta throw a BFF reunion party!”
“Now’s not the time, Pink,” said a blushing Applejack.
“Who's this pony?” asked Twilight.
“I’m Pinkie Pie,” replied the pony in question. “Party prisoner extraordinaire, and I'm the Bearer of the Element of Pleasure!
"She’s another Bearer, just like you Applejack?”
"Indeed," said Sunny. "The Elements of Creation will choose its wielder during times of crisis. I knew it when I saw Miss Pinkie Pie on the television screen."
"Did Sunny just talk?” asked Applejack. She had to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things.
"Your Element of Truth only gave me the Gift of Awakening, Applejack. Pinkie's Element of Pleasure gave me the Gift of Speech."
"I don't understand much of that, but that means you'll be able to locate the rest of the Elements. You know where the third one is?"
"Not exactly, but your Element and Pinkie's will lead us to it."
"Then what are we waitin' for? We gotta bust out before reinforcements arrive. With Teddy and Ace still bein' here, they ain't gonna go easy on us."
"Wait, we?" asked Pinkie Pie.
"That's right. You're comin' with us."
"No, no. I can't leave. There are still a lot of sad ponies imprisoned here, and it is my destiny to bring smiles to every one of them."
"Pinks, you're the Bearer of the Element of Pleasure. You have to come."
"But I can't! I just can't!"
They did not realize soon that the door to the execution room had been left wide open by, in all irony, the meek executioner who had fled. Outside, the sounds of aggressive neighs and gunfire were as clear as day. The Clone Soldiers who had guarded the hallway just outside had been felled, and Big Mac and Gummy jumped to flee from whoever was barreling down the hall. Twilight and the other mares heard only the galloping hooves of two other ponies; possibly prisoners, guards, or soldiers.
Instead, a blue earth mare with a white mane huffed to keep up with a particularly angry purple earth mare careening towards them. The latter then spat out the baseball she carried in her mouth into her front hooves. In mid-stride she rose up to her hind legs and pitched a mean fastball straight towards Pinkie Pie.
"Pinkie, you stupid idiot!" she yelled.
The ball struck the pink target right between her eyes, knocking her out in the most comedic manner possible, thus causing her eyes to spin around in its sockets like cowbell-studded wheels going in opposite directions. Quirky and Lucy finally made it inside the mess of an execution room, and the purple earth pony grabbed Pinkie Pie by her neck collar right before the pink pony recovered.
"Whaddya mean you can't leave?" cried Quirky. "Are you dense? Are you that stupid? You're the goddamn Pinkie Pie!"
"Wait, how have y'all heard our conversation?" Applejack asked.
"The cameras are still rolling," pointed Lucy. “And by the way, your guard friends are going to need help defending the barricade unless you decide to escape now.”
“Did you hear that?” cried Quirky. "You have to go!"
“But the prisoners...” said Pinkie.
“Pinkie, you of all ponies have been given a chance of a lifetime, and whatever this Element of Creation thing is, it’s big, and you gotta seize this chance not just for yourself, but for everypony locked up in here. Can't you see? We’re not happy unless you’re out there causing trouble for the Government, and why should you limit yourself to bringing smiles to this hellhole? I swear, if you get arrested and end up here again, I am going to bucking kill you. You are too good for this place!”
Quirky released the pink pony so that she could turn around to avoid anypony seeing her restrained tears. Pinkie read Lucy’s cool expression accurately after a moment of heartfelt deliberation. Rock Prison was her home and her birthplace, but she knew right then and there that there came a time when all ponies would have to strike out to the world to find their destiny. She had a lot of happy memories here, like the parties in the cafeteria, the parties in the mines, and the once in a blue moon communal baseball game. However, the faces on her new friends assured her that she would certainly make more if she came with them.
“Everypony, I need to make a speech before I leave,” said Pinkie.
“Keep it short, Pinks,” said Applejack. “I hear more Clones a comin’. Twi, let's make sure she don't get interrupted by guards or glitches."
"You got it," said Twilight. "Sunny, go help the others at the barricade. I'll manage the video console over there."
"I'll help with that too," said Lucy.
As commanded, Sunny immediately ran off to assist Grape, Clover, and the Flower Guard in defending the barricade towards the Execution Chambers, and she was accompanied by a frazzled Big Mac. The remaining ponies in the room tied up Quake and unconscious Clone Soldiers for good measure, and they proceeded to set up the video cameras per Twilight’s direction. Applejack did her best to fix her mane and tail, but she gave up when she found out that they would not stand to be straightened or styled.
It was almost time. The grenade explosions and gunfire were getting louder outside. Twilight attended to the control board, while prisonmates Applejack, Lucy, and Quirky stood by anxiously waiting. The record and broadcast buttons were hit. Cameras rolled, and Pinkie Pie stood in the center with a heartfelt smile and a baby alligator clamping off her ear.
“Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie,” she began. “Some of you may know me as Pinkamena Diane Pie or El Pinko, but as you can tell, I am alive. What I am going to say may sadden you, but please be happy when I tell you that I found new friends to go on an exciting adventure to save the world. I promise, that I won't return until I become KING OF THE PIRATES!”
A variety of reactions appeared on everypony’s faces. Quirky facehoofed, while Twilight cracked a slight smile at such an absurd statement, if not a non-sequitur. Applejack, on the other hoof, looked outside where gunfire rang out from down the halls, and she gestured Pinkie Pie to either act serious or end her speech as fast as she could.
Seriously,” the pink pony resumed, “I will miss every one of you, and I know you will miss me. And before I go...”
Towards the nearest camera, Pinkie Pie pulled down her pants to expose her flank. Visible to all were three balloons: two blue, one yellow.
“This is my mark; my call; my destiny; my sign. Remember it, because the magical bus known as Pinkie Pie won't stop until she makes the whole world smile! Now everypony, do what Pinkie says:
"On your mark...
"Get set...
"PRISON RIOT!”