//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Run Like Tartarus // Story: Feeling Pinkie Mean // by RainbowBob //------------------------------// “What type of infernal contraption is this?” Sombra asked. Pinkie giggled. “It’s a cone, silly. You use it to eat ice cream with.” Sombra furrowed his brows and squinted at the strange device he was holding. Its name made sense now, since it was indeed in a cone shape, with a round scoop of chocolate ice cream fitted in its open end. “Yes, but why can’t I use a bowl and spoon instead?” Sombra delicately licked the surface of his sugary treat, hesitant to dive right into it after his last experience gorging himself. “Wouldn’t that serve a more useful function than just licking it?” Pinkie Pie didn’t share his worrying sentiments about going slow, already taking large bites from her strawberry flavored ice cream, which just so happened to match her pink coat perfectly. “Well, ice cream cones are made to be eaten on the go. Plus, you get to eat the cone as well!” Sombra’s mouth opened in stunned silence before he inspected the cone more closely, taking a few sniffs of it as well. “This is edible? What futuristic technology makes this even possible?” “Waffles!” Pinkie said, already biting down on her cone. Throwing the half-remains of it in her mouth, she swallowed it in one smooth gulp. Finally, she finished by cleaning her face off with the outrageously large tongue she sported. “See, it’s easy!” “How peculiar…” Sombra licked the edge of his cone, noting a sweetness meeting his tastebuds. Closing his eyes, he bit off a small piece and chewed it in his mouth. Opening his eyes wide while smacking his lips, he said, “Amazing. Simply spectacular! They never had eatable dishware back in my time.” Pinkie raised an eyebrow, then cheerfully asked, “Oh, what did they have then?” Sombra waved his hoof dismissively. “Oh, the usual. Utensils were carved from stone and napkins made from soggy leaves.” Pinkie tilted her head. “Wait, they really had all that stuff in the castle? I thought you were a king? Didn’t you have fine china and golden spoons?” Sombra blinked, avoiding eye contact with Pinkie as his glance shifted furtively. “Uh… yeah, yeah, exactly. I only ate using the finest and most sophisticated silverware made by the most skilled pony artisans. Only the dirty, knave peasants ate with the dining equipment I mentioned before.” Before Pinkie could press further, the ice cream salestallion coughed. “Um, folks, not to break up this interesting conversation, but I have a line you’re holding up.” He gestured towards the small crowd of disgruntled ponies tapping their hooves on the ground, their collective patience to purchase some of the stand’s delectable ice cream drawing thin. “So, if you lovebirds can move it along, that’d be great.” “Lovebirds?” Sombra repeated the strange term, wondering what birds had to do with anything. “What type of future slang is that?” he asked Pinkie. “Does this fool mean us insult? He can insult you, but I won’t accept such a disgrace upon my person! Pinkie smiled sheepishly and pushed Sombra out of the way of the line, a few mares behind her snickering at Sombra’s comment. “Oh, nothing, Sombry. We better get a move on if I’m gonna give you the proper Pinkie Pie Ponyville Guided Tour!” Sombra held onto his snack in both hooves, still being pushed on by his rump. “But I haven’t finished my ice cream,” he replied hastily. “Then I can help you!” In a flash, Pinkie sneaked over his shoulder and took a large chunk out of the ice cream with a quick bite. “Mmmm.” Too late, Sombra pushed her off with his elbow while staring at his diminished treat with horror. “You ate it! You got your disgusting retched peasant lips all over my ice cream! Do you have no sense within your scullion-addled mind?” “Sombry, relax, I can always buy you more,” Pinkie said, smiling that impeccably wide grin of hers. Sombra’s eyes flashed a bitter green as he scooted away from her, holding his ice cream close like a newborn foal. “I don’t care! A king simply doesn’t share his food with anyone! You’re lucky if I feed you the scraps from my plate.” Pinkie tilted her head a little. “But I thought we just went over that you’re using a cone.” “That’s not the—oh, why bother?” Sombra grumbled and focused his attention back on his ice cream cone. On one hoof, the longer he took to eat, the longer he could put off the numb-skulled tour of the peasant village Pinkie was so eager to give. On the other hoof, Pinkie was a risk to his ice cream and it was beginning to melt, which simply wouldn’t do. With a shrug, he shoved the cone into his maw, managing to break the open end of the cone outward so that chocolate ice cream covered his muzzle and cheeks. “Oh, blast it to the ninth circle of Tartarus!” Sombra yelled, the chocolate continuing to drip from his lips. It had already trickled down the surface of his chest plate, splattering his once polished to a shine armor a muddy brown. Pinkie stopped, and frowned at the sight. “Oooh, you made a pretty impressive mess there. Don’t worry though! It’s just ice cream, and that’s easy-peasy to get out of clothes!” “But not armor, you dimwitted harpy!” Sombra hissed. He desperately tried to wipe away the chocolate stains with his hooves, only realizing too late that his gauntlets were now also getting coated in the chocolatey substance. Groaning louder, he wiped harder, with his only success being covering himself in more chocolate and becoming even stickier. “Drat this ice cream bane! How can something be so wondrous yet be such a malignant curse on my existence?” Pinkie grabbed ahold of his velvet cape and began to quickly wipe off the brown gunk from his chest plate. “Oh! Hold still, Sombry, let me help. It’s my fault to begin with.” Sombra clenched his teeth and stifled a shout from escaping his jaws. He shoved Pinkie aside and withdrew his cape from her hooves. “Are you really such a rot-brained nincompoop that you dare use my cape as a cleaning rag? This fabric alone costs more than your shallow, worthless life and that of all your friends put together!” Pinkie crossed her hooves and scowled. “Well sorry, Mister Grumpypants. I was only trying to help. There’s no need to get your royal britches in a bunch! We have washing machines in the future. Removing stains is simpler than counting to three. One. Two. Three! That easy!” “I don’t care if its as simple as you are! This is my cape, my armor, and more importantly, my belongings! The only ones I have in this cumbersome time period!” Sombra finished, glaring at her with hot daggers for eyes. “Don’t expect me to share many sympathies with you when it comes to touching the last remaining objects I own!” Pinkie studied him, staying quiet and facing down his glare. “Wait a second. How did you get the cape and armor anyhow? I mean, didn’t you blow up into a million pieces?” Pinkie made a spewing sound and waved her forelegs about while spinning around, before falling back to her haunches. “How’d your stuff survive all of that?” Sombra froze for a second, then hurriedly wiped away some of the chocolate on his face. “It, well… it didn’t. I made it once I was reborn from the abysmal plane of nonexistence after my magic kicked in to reincarnate my body from my scattered remains. With it, my armor and cape were remade as well.” “Whoa, does that mean you created clothing out of magic?” Pinkie asked. She grabbed ahold of Sombra’s cape again, against his protests, and rubbed it against her face. “But it feels so real! Oooh, I bet Rarity would get a kick outta this! She can make an entire line of dresses from magic now! And you can make me a giant party hat, too!” Sombra sneered and recoiled back. “I most certainly will not!” Pinkie’s ears drooped and she pouted, still holding Sombra’s cape close to herself. “Aww, why not? Is it because you don’t like dresses, or party hats? If not, we can always make ponchos, or even bowties! Maybe even a—” Sombra covered her mouth with a hoof, and began rubbing the bridge of his muzzle with closed eyes. “Okay, first off, even if I could make more clothing using my magic, I have too much sense to use it for your crass idea about making dresses or whatever ponchos are.” He opened his eyes, the pupils shimmering in a crimson, fiery field of magic before diminishing to a dull light. “Secondly, my magical prowess may be beyond what you simpletons can possibly comprehend, but regenerating my body has taken its toll. As of the moment, I couldn’t even light a candle, much less produce fabric with it.” “Awww, but when will you?” Pinkie asked, already breaching Sombra’s required comfort zone. Backing up a few steps, Sombra murmured, “In due time. Soon enough, my dark magic shall return to my body, and then, and only then, will my vengeance go into full swing! I shall enslave you addle-brained Equestrians like the dogs you are, and then your entire nation shall fall beneath my might!” He laughed then, cruelly and with malicious glee, attracting the attention of a few townsponies who turned odd glances at the cackling, strangely dressed stallion and the pink mare beside him. Pinkie smiled obliviously at him during the ominous laughter, to the point when he finally stopped she continued staring with a blank, yet cheerful expression. Arching a brow, Sombra waved a hoof before her eyes, getting no reaction at all. “Hmph, just when I thought you couldn’t get any stranger…” Sombra slumped his shoulders, donning a droopy frown on his face.  This quickly changed when Pinkie shoved her hoof against his cheek, turning his neck around at a one-hundred and eighty degree angle. She pointed his face up towards the clouds overhead. “Sombry, look, it’s Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie grinned, watching her friend soar in the distance. Meanwhile, Sombra cried out in agony. “My neck! I think you snapped my neck!” “No, silly, Rainbow Dash isn’t your neck.” Pinkie pressed both of her hooves on either side of Sombra’s face, forcing him to look up higher towards a distant, rainbow colored streak. “Let’s see if I can get her to come down here!” Between winces, Sombra replied. “How about let’s see you not get her down here? That sounds like a much better idea to me.” Pinkie, of course, paid Sombra’s comment no mind, and instead hopped in place and waved her hooves like a madmare. “Rainbow Dash! Dashie, Dashie, over here! I have a special surprise for you!” Sombra wiped a hoof over his face and groaned. “Oh for the love of the gods, do you listen to nothing that I ever say? Are you truly brain dead or do you merely ignore every word I utter? And please don’t tell me that surprise is me.” Pinkie, still waving one hoof back and forth, slowly turned around, wearing a coy grin. “Okay, I won’t!” she jeered. Sombra’s eyes widened in an infuriated way, just as they were interrupted. The rainbow streak stopped to hover in the air in short order, and a tomboyish voice called down below, “Pinkie?” it called out. “This isn’t another surprise that ends up with a pie in my face, does it?” Pinkie looked to Sombra and asked, “Psst, Sombry, you got any pies on you?” Sombra stared at Pinkie with a deadpan expression, not responding. Pinkie blinked once, then shouted back up to Rainbow Dash, “Just a new friend I made that I want to get to know!" Rainbow Dash zipped through the air, taking her sweet time performing a few spins and loopty-loops before reaching the ground. Pinkie awed and ooed the entire time, while Sombra tapped his hoof impatiently on the ground. Finally, Rainbow Dash landed with expert precision right before them both, kicking up a cloud of dust that swept over Sombra and Pinkie. “Wow, Dashie, that was amazing!” Pinkie cheered, bouncing around in a circle around Rainbow Dash while she smirked confidently. Dusting a hoof against her chest, Dash said, “Ah, nothing to it. Anyways, who’s this new friend of yours? I thought by now you’ve become buddies with everypony in Equestria.” “But he’s not from Equestria,” Pinkie replied, tugging Sombra out of the dust cloud Rainbow Dash created. “Dashie, this is Sombry! Sombry, this is Dashie!” Sombra coughed repeatedly, hastily waving away the dust from clogging his lungs. Staring at Rainbow Dash, he huffed out a sigh and sidestepped away from Pinkie Pie. “First off, no, I’m not this chatter-mouthed mare’s friend. Secondly, we’re already acquainted more than I’d like. Thirdly, my name isn’t Sombry, it’s—” “Sombra!” Dash cut in. She instantly took a defensive stance, eyes narrowed and back bent as she flared out her wings. “Pinkie, how can this maniac possibly be a friend? Did you forget how he tried to kill all of us?” “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you meddling mares and your stupid dragon!” Sombra cursed under his breath. “What’d he say?” Rainbow Dash asked, gritting her teeth. “Oh, nothing,” Pinkie quickly quipped in, overcompensating her smile as she put herself between the two ponies. Still, they went on trading hard glares with one another. “And he is my friend, Dashie. He has been ever since Twilight gave me the job of reforming him.” Dash covered her face with a hoof and groaned. “Pinkie, just because Twilight is making you reform him, doesn’t mean he’s your friend. He’s a psychopath who tried to take over the world by spreading darkness across the land! Last time I checked, that doesn’t make for good friend material.” Pinkie tilted her head, and one of her ears lowered, while the other stayed upright. “What about Discord?” she asked plainly. “He used to be a god-like meany-head who used his magic to turn Ponyville into the chaos capital of Equestria! But then he got reformed by Fluttershy, and now he’s… um…” Pinkie scratched the back of her neck and shrugged. “Well, he’s a lot better off than he was before.” Sombra raised a hoof and shook his head. “Wait a minute… Discord was here? The Discord? The Discord that plunged the entire world in a thousand years of chaos and strife? That Discord?” “Well, duh, who else?” Rainbow Dash asked. “And he got reformed… by that yellow pegasus mare? That one scared of her own shadow?” “That’s the one!” Pinkie cheered. She leaned over to Dash and cupped her hoof against her face to whisper, “Is it just me, or does Sombry slow? Maybe he has short term memory loss?” Sombra gulped, his left eye twitching uncontrollably for a few seconds. If that mare could tame a wild spirit of legend such as Discord, then… “Oh dear gods, I nearly bit her!” Sombra shouted, panic overtaking his expression instantly. Discord was the worse of the worse and possibly the most dangerous creature to ever live! If that sheepish mare with no backbone could possibly control such a deadly foe, there was no telling what she could do. “Yeah, and you still haven’t apologized about that, creep,” Rainbow Dash said. Sombra tossed a couple more panicked looks about, before shaking his head. Regaining his posture, he coughed rapidly in his hoof and took up a prideful stance. “Like I would apologize to a peasant such as her. That is below me.” “Hey, Sombry, you promised you wouldn’t insult my friends,” Pinkie reminded him, somewhat singing the words. Sombra scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Peasant is both an appropriate social class definition or insult. Take of it what you will.” Rainbow Dash grabbed ahold of Pinkie’s shoulder and drew her back from Sombra’s presence. “Pinkie, you can’t be serious about helping this guy, are you? He’s completely evil! Not to mention, out of his mind and power hungry!” “Aww, give him a chance, Dashie,” Pinkie pleaded with her. “He can be really sweet sometimes.” Dash stared at Pinkie for a full three seconds, then looked at Sombra, then back to Pinkie. “He is?” Pinkie held a hoof to her chin. “Um… well, I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure it’s there!” Rainbow Dash scowled at Sombra over Pinkie’s shoulder, who in turn smirked deviously and waved. “Pinkie, I don’t trust that creep half as far as I could throw him.” Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “Well, that wouldn’t be really far, Dashie, since he’s really heavy. That armor of his isn’t helping, and I think he needs to work out more. For the past couple of days, all he’s been eating is sweets and junk food! You can’t do that and just sit around.” “That’s not what I—oh, never mind.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Listen, Pinkie, I just think it’s a really bad idea to try and help out this guy. He’s a lost cause.” “Finally, something we agree on,” Sombra chimed in. Rainbow Dash nodded, her turn to flash him a devious smirk. “The best thing to do with him is lock him away in a dungeon and then throw away the key.” Sombra’s smirk disappeared in an instant. “The day I rot in a cell is the day you get an ounce of intelligence in that empty noggin of yours!” “No way, Dashie, that’s not gonna happen!” Pinkie threw a foreleg over Sombra’s shoulder to hold him in a one-armed hug, which for once in his life, Sombra didn’t particularly mind. “Twilight entrusted me with the important job of reforming Sombry, and I promised to do it! It may take weeks, months, or even years, but at the end of it, Sombry will become a reformed and functioning member of society, or my name isn’t Pinkamena Diane Pie!” “I can’t… breathe… again!” Sombra coughed out, Pinkie’s strength cutting off his air flow to his lungs. It had taken a second, but he once again minded Pinkie touching him, and quite a bit. Dash exhaled tiredly. “Pinkie, you do know you only have until the next Summer Sun Celebration to reform Sombra, right?” Both mares ignored Sombra’s oxygen deprived protests. Pinkie gasped, her eyes widening in shock. She also released Sombra, who fell to the ground, taking in grateful gulps of air. “Wait, seriously? But that’s only in a couple of months!” Rainbow Dash nodded simply. “Yeah, and it’s also when Celestia will visit Ponyville and decide whether Sombra has become reformed or not. Didn’t Twilight mention this to you?” “No! She didn’t!” Pinkie threw out both her forelegs towards Dash. “Why would Twilight not tell me about that? Oh my gosh, we’ve barely made any progress! I need to think...” She scratched her head and stuck out her tongue, deep in thought. Dash shrugged. “It could be the reason she didn’t mention Sombra to you in the first place,” she replied. “You… do tend to freak out and over react about this type of news.” “Freak out? I’m not freaking out! I just need more time is all!” Pinkie rubbed her hooves together and began knocking on the side of her head, desperately trying to get an idea or three. “Let’s see, with a deadline that close we’ll have to skip out on your camping trip to the Everfree Forest. We might need to move our appointment at the Spa to another date, and then reorganize our scheduling to those art lessons at the rec center later this week. Ooh, but what about our volunteer work at the senior center? This changes everything!” Pinkie gritted her teeth and drew down her cheeks with both hooves, casting frantic glances to and fro. “Now wait! I didn’t agree to a single one of those activities!” Sombra shouted with a hoof raised in the air. The choked-out ex-king was still laying on his back, and staring up at the two mares discussing his fate as if he wasn’t even present. Pinkie went on. “Well, now with this type of news, we’ll have to do those activities twice as fast!” With that, she lifted Sombra off the ground by grabbing ahold of his metal neck plating. Their noses touched as she eyeballed him closely. “Quick, there’s no time to waste! We need to get this tour done by two o’clock!” Rainbow Dash snickered beside the duo, not even bothering to hide it. “Wow, looks like you’re gonna have a fun time on your hooves now, Dumb-bra!” She laughed, taunting Sombra’s rage past the boiling point. Sombra snarled. Throwing Pinkie off of himself, and creating a squawk from her as a result, he stormed over and got right into Rainbow’s face. He sneered down at her. “What an insult! You’re quite the clever one, aren’t you?” His height put him at quite an advantage, but Rainbow Dash didn’t back off. “Thanks for noticing,” Dash replied, pushing her forehead forcefully against his. Sombra growled back. “If I had my powers, you and the rest of this town would be nothing more than a scorch mark on the dirt.” “Oh, but you can’t do that, can you? All you can do is make big threats with nothing to back them up.” Sombra’s eyes narrowed further. “Why you little—” “Guys,” Pinkie said, her worry turning to anxiety at the sight of Sombra and Rainbow Dash’s anger practically bouncing off one another. “Hey, guys, maybe we should—” “I got an idea, Dunce-bra, why don’t you try and make me your slave?” Rainbow Dash asked, laughing in his face. “Oh wait, I forgot, you can’t do anything without your magic!” “You don’t know when to shut up, just like every other mare in this town! If I so wanted to, all of Equestria and even your friends would be slaves to my will, you—” “GUYS!” Pinkie shouted at the top of her lungs. “You impertinent, fool-born, weedy, idiotic excuse for a miscreant!” Sombra spat at Dash’s face, his last word leaving the area in a tense silence. After a few seconds of growling at one another more, both ponies stopped. Something felt wrong suddenly to both of them, and that something was just in the peripheral vision. They slowly broke up and looked over at Pinkie Pie. The mare stood perfectly still, not moving a muscle, a rare sight of complete lack of movement from her. Shifting glances between Rainbow Dash and then to Pinkie a few times, Sombra finally rolled his eyes and sighed. “Oh great, what is it now?” At that moment, Pinkie’s tail flickered, then her right foreleg shuddered, following her hair shaking in place. After a couple of more random body movements that Pinkie remained unresponsive to, Sombra began to back up slowly. “Uhm?” he muttered, confused. The movements became more and more rapid, and Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as she covered her mouth. “Oh no…” She recognized what was happening. “‘Oh no’ what?” Sombra asked, casting another glance to the still twitching Pinkie. “You didn’t break a Pinkie Pie Promise, did you?” Dash asked him. Rainbow floated over the ground and grabbed his cape, bringing him in closer. “Did you?” “You mean that pribbling promise with the cupcake in the eyes nonsense?” Sombra frowned, remember exactly how nauseated he’d felt after making the thing. “I only did it so she would take me out of the library! I never actually meant it.” Rainbow Dash looked to Pinkie one last time, then without waiting took off at a breakneck speeds up high in the air. She shouted to Sombra before she disappeared over the horizon, “You might wanna run right about now! Was nice knowing you! Not really!” Sombra hacked out another cough as dust flew into his throat. Shrugging, he turned to Pinkie and said, “Wow, I think there’s actually a mare more moronic than even you, Pink—” Sombra barely had time to step out of the way as a pink streak of light blurred passed right where he once stood. His cape and dirt were sucked into the streak’s wake, while Sombra himself was nearly flung off his hooves. Barely catching hold of himself to stand up right, he faced towards the anomaly. “What in the… what was that?” The sound of bricks falling made his ears twitch. Where there was once a brick wall to a house, was now replaced with a mare-shaped hole in the wall. Pinkie climbed out of the hole, her frizzy, poofy mane even wilder than usual, while fire literally burned in her eyes. “Sombra, you broke a Pinkie Pie Promise!” she bellowed, the very air vibrating from the power of her voice. Pinkie continued, steam shooting out of her nostrils and ears. “Now, you must pay!” Sombra quickly attested the situation. Apparently, breaking a Pinkie Pie Promise promised a swift end to the promise-breaker. Seeing how she had just broken an entire brick wall by running into it, and came out without a scratch afterward, told Sombra all about the threat he was dealing with. So, he came up with the decisive defensive action to counteract a situation such as this. Not retreating, oh no. That was beneath such a thing for a king to do. Advancing in another direction, however, seemed just up his alley. “AHHH!” Sombra screamed, running down the streets of Ponyville with a pink fury like none other hot on his hooves.