Dashie had once told her that Ponyville was hungry for justice, and maybe that was right – she didn’t really know, since she wasn’t a town and she didn’t really know what towns ate, but if she were a town she was pretty sure she’d want cupcakes except it’d have to be a whole lot of cupcakes because cupcakes were really small and towns were really big even when they were only little towns like Ponyville except baking a lot of cupcake would take a long time so maybe baking one really really big cupcake would be better and it’d be fun too because everybody loved cupcakes and bigger was better and that meant everybody would really really really love a giant cupcake, especially her because she’d be the one eating it.
But she was kind of getting off topic. The point was, apparently Ponyville was hungry for justice. And since she was Mare Do Well now, that meant she kinda was justice, at least according to those comic books Scootaloo’d started drawing and those were really neat! But she had to admit, the idea of being justice in a town that wanted to eat her made her just a teensy bit nervous. Sometimes, as she stalked through the alleys and over the rooftops looking for super sneaky bad ponies doing dastardly deeds, she worried about what would happen if Ponyville got really hungry. Not that she didn’t trust the town – she totally did – but she trusted herself too, and she knew that sometimes when she got really hungry she’d eat a snack a whole bunch of snacks without really thinking about it, and that was okay because she ate candy, but the town ate justice and right now that was her.
She knew that was silly, of course – towns didn’t eat ponies, no matter how big they were. Twilight had told her so, back at the start of the year, and she’d spent weeks making Tw- helping Twilight to research it just to be sure. So she knew it couldn’t happen. But that didn’t stop it being really scary sometimes - and on those nights, she was always glad when she was teamed up with Dashie. Although she wasn’t so sure it really counted as teaming up when Dashie didn’t know she was there. She kind of thought that felt a little bit more like stalking, but Twilight had said that they had to do it because Dashie would never have accepted their help and didn’t even think they knew she was Mare Do Well and Pinkie would have felt really super bad if they’d ruined Dashie’s game but they had to keep her safe and that meant this was the only way!
She was starting to get a little worried though – she’d lost track of Dashie a little while back when she might possibly have ducked into Sugarcube Corner for a slice of cake and an impromptu musical number, and she was having a little bit of trouble finding her again. Not that it really mattered – Dashie was much better at the whole taking care of herself thing than she was, and Ponyville wasn’t really all that dangerous any -
The sound of Rainbow Dash screaming cut through the air, and Pinkie felt her heart stop for just an instant. Then she was moving, barreling towards the sound as fast as she could move, hoping beyond hope she could make it in time. She had to. Nothing could happen to Dashie. Nothing was allowed to happen to Dashie. She had to get there – she had to stop it she had to help.
She rounded the final corner at top speed, and found herself face to face with her worst nightmare – Dash was slouched against the wall, mask half torn and grinning that really scary grin she got when she was super duper angry. At her hooves lay a really big earth pony, and between her legs lay a bat. As Pinkie drew closer, so did the other two mean looking ponies advancing on Rainbow Dash – and as they did, Dashie started to laugh.
Without even thinking about it, Pinkie slammed at top speed into one of the two buttface’s trying to hurt her friend before spinning and jumping on the other one with a growl that she wasn’t really sure she liked coming out of her mouth. As she moved, she heard Dash’s laughter cut short. And for the first time in a really long time, she was relieved that somepony wasn’t laughing.