//------------------------------//
// Swimming, Flying, and Then Swimming Again 
// Story: My Little Pony Disney Tales (#2) - Pinkie Pie-nocchio 
// by Blue Paratroopa 
//------------------------------//

	They swam for a long time, but eventually, Pinkie and Spike reached the shore and trekked back to the village in complete silence. Only when they reached Granny Smith’s cottage did Pinkie perk up.
“Spike! We’re here!”
The two of them happily ran to the door and began to bang on it. “Let us in, Granny Smith!” they shouted. “We’re finally back!”
But there was no answer.
Looking in the windows, they found nopony in sight. Nor Opal. Granny Smith and her cat were gone.
“I wonder why she left,” Pinkie said softly as she sat down, tears forming in her eyes.
“Hmm,” pondered Spike, “maybe she couldn’t stand the memory of you, knowing that she’d lost you without getting a chance to really…”
At that moment, Pinkie Pie began to cry uncontrollably.
“Sorry,” Spike apologized, “I was just, y’know, speculating. I should have realized…”
“No,” said Pinkie. “I’m the one who should be sorry. All these messes we’ve been in? It’s my fault! Spike, I should have listened to you before. You’re my real friend, always looking out for me, coming back for me no matter what…I know I’ve lost Granny Smith, but at least I have you. My conscience. My pal.”
Spike didn’t know what to say, so he simply hugged Pinkie. The two of them sat there for a while, before something crashed to the ground next to them.
“Trans-dimensional travel can leave ya a little woozy,” the thing said.
When Pinkie and Spike’s shock wore off, they realized that the thing was actually a glowing, gray Pegasus.
“Derpy’s the name,” said the pony, “here on a mission from the Purple Fairy.”
“Rarity!” cried Spike. “Does she ever talk about me?”
Ignoring Spike, Derpy reached into her mailbag and pulled out a letter. “Here ya go!”
Pinkie snatched the letter and studied it carefully, nodding and occasionally saying “mmm-hmm.”
“What does it say?” asked Spike.
“Well…hard to tell,” Pinkie finally said. “I just remembered, I can’t read.”
Spike sighed and grabbed the letter from her. “It says that Granny Smith and Opal set out looking for us, but they were eaten by Sombra, the biggest sea monster in the world!”
Throwing the letter away, Spike collapsed onto the steps. “This is terrible!” he shouted to the heavens. “Once again, we’re lost in this great, wide world, with only each other for comfort! Now again we must wander, looking high and low for—”
“You again?” called somepony in the distance. “I told you before, SHUT UP!”
“Well,” grumbled Spike, “his appreciation for the dramatics hasn’t improved.”
“We gotta find Granny Smith!” insisted Pinkie. She turned to the Pegasus. “Derpy, will you fly us back to the ocean?”
Spike looked up. “Wait, what?”
Pinkie got on Derpy’s back. “It’s what my conscience would want me to do, wouldn’t you, Spike?
“Yeah,” said Spike, his eyes brightening a bit, “yeah, I would! Let’s go!”
“It’s a good thing you’re a small dragon and you’re made of wood,” Derpy told the two of them. “Otherwise, I might not make it! Here we go!”
Off they flew toward the sea!

Eventually, the trio arrived at a cliff overlooking the ocean. Derpy let them off her back. “Well, here we are, guys! This is as far as I can take you! I’m not much of a swimmer.”
Pinkie Pie-nocchio and Spike waved to Derpy happily as she flew off into the distance.
Once Derpy had departed, Spike looked at the open sea hesitantly.
“So,” he said softly, “we’re really doing this?”
“You bet your sweet bippy!” cried Pinkie.
“What’s a bippy?” asked Spike.
“No idea,” Pinkie replied. She grabbed a rock and began to tie it to herself, which was a bit of an ordeal, as she didn’t have any fingers. Spike quickly helped her.
Once Spike finished tying the rock to her, he cocked his head, confused. “Wait a second, what’s with the rock?”
“Wood floats, remember?” giggled Pinkie. She turned to the water and tried to look serious, but she couldn’t hide how excited she was inside. A real rescue mission! Wait until the Purple Fairy heard about this! Admittedly, this whole thing was Pinkie’s fault, but…
“Let’s go!” cried Pinkie Pie-nocchio. She grabbed her trembling dragon companion and ran toward the cliff’s edge.
“Wait!” squealed Spike.
Pinkie screeched to a halt. “What?” she whined.
“You might be wood,” Spike fretted, “but I’m flesh and bones!”
“Way to rub it in,” Pinkie whined.
“No, I mean, I won’t be able to breathe down there!”
Pinkie looked at Spike, then the ocean. She shrugged and ran toward the sea at full-speed.
“Well,” she called as she jumped in, “I guess I have to do this one myself!”
“What?!” cried Spike.
The dragon dashed to the cliff, but all that was left of Pinkie was a large ripple.

Pinkie Pie-nocchio opened her eyes. She was underwater. Completely submerged. There was nowhere to go but forward—the cliff was too steep to climb back up if she changed her mind. She began to trudge forward. Walking proved to be very difficult. Not only did things move slower underwater, but she had that rock slowing her down.
As Pinkie wandered the ocean, she began to feel lonely. There was nopony to talk to down there. There were fish, yes, but whenever she asked them where she could find Sombra, they swam away in fright. Pinkie couldn’t tell if it was Sombra they were afraid of, or if they were perhaps afraid of her. She was larger than the average fish, after all.
Her eyes lit up when she saw a massive purple serpent swimming in her direction. It had to have been Sombra!
Pinkie jumped up and down, waving her hoofs like mad. “Hey! HEY! Down here! You let my Granny Smith go! Right now! Hey, Sombra!”
The serpent looked down at Pinkie and swam over. Pinkie gulped and buried her head in the sand. She had really rushed into that one!
“What an odd fish,” the serpent said, speaking with a slight British accent and a surprisingly flamboyant tone.
Pinkie stuck her head out. This was Sombra? He seemed too nice.
“You called me Sombra, didn’t you?” asked the serpent. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Miss Fish. My name is Steven.”
“Ohh,” said Pinkie. “Sorry. And, uh, you’re mistaken, too. I’m a puppet!”
“Ah, that explains it,” said Steven, trying to hide his confusion.
Pinkie looked around the ocean. “Wow, your home is so big, Steven! I have a question, though. If you’re not Sombra, then who is? And where is he?”
“I don’t know why you’re looking for that brute,” shuddered Steven. “He’s a very unfriendly fellow.”
“Because he eats all the cute little fishies?” guessed Pinkie.
“Well, that’s called the Food Chain,” Steven admitted. “No, because he’s quite frankly a smug bully! Not very nice at all.”
“Well, he ate somepony very close to me,” said Pinkie. “That wasn’t very nice. Oh, and he ate her cat, too. That wasn’t very nice, either.”
Steven nodded. “I see. Well, I believe he’s over in that direction. North, I believe. I wish you the best of luck.”
Pinkie bid the kind serpent goodbye and continued trudging.

About half an hour later, Pinkie found herself looking at the massive creature known as Sombra, an enormous black whale-like behemoth. He appeared to be growling as he lay on the seafloor…no, wait…he was sleeping.
“So you’re Sombra,” Pinkie whispered to herself. “This is gonna be an interesting rescue…I guess you’d have to be pretty big to swallow a cat, a pony, and a whole boat.”
She paced/swam around the creature, but could find no way inside. His mighty jaw was closed. He snored mostly through his nose. His nostrils were big, but not big enough for the pony puppet to get through. Besides, who would want to go through that way?
Pinkie thought and thought. She would have thought some more, but her planning was interrupted by a small school of fish that happened to be swimming by.
Sombra’s eyes opened. In a flash, he rose off the ocean’s floor and with one mighty gulp, Pinkie Pie-nocchio’s whole world turned upside-down. Down she fell through the dark, warm, murky pit that was Sombra’s throat.
“Well,” she called to an unhappy-looking fish, “I’m in, right? That’s gotta count for something!”