Part 6
The giggling had increased, and Bon-Bon continued to get more and more irritated by it (or so it seemed). She was convinced it was Lyra, hiding and giggling at them as a prank. Granted, that did seem like something Lyra would do, being the good-natured pony she was, but Colgate was unsure. She'd heard Lyra giggle before. She would often giggle after Bon-Bon had gotten a Novocaine injection and Bon-Bon would try to talk. Then again, even Bon-Bon would giggle at that. This of course annoyed Colgate, who often was in the middle of doing something while Bon-Bon and Lyra would start giggling like babies. And the worse part was that it would keep going! Just when one would stop, the other would find the silence hilarious, and would begin giggling uncontrollably, which of course would lead to the other one giggling, and so on and so forth. It was horrible! What should have been only a 20 minute check-up for BOTH of them would turn into almost 30 minutes just for ONE of them! So she had plenty of experience hearing that giggle. This was not the same giggle. Though she had no idea who it belonged to, something about it sounded familiar. But, what was it?
They wondered though another door. Unsurprisingly, this one lead to another hallway. Bon-Bon snorted. “Colgate, do you know where you're going? I'm pretty sure we've already been down this way!”
“I was following you...” Colgate responded.
There was silence. The two of them stared at each other, both in disbelief.
“WHAT?” They both shouted in unison.
“Wait, you're saying that we've been following each other this whole time?!” exclaimed Bon-Bon.
“I...guess so.” she said, looking around. Now that Bon-Bon mentioned it, this hallway did look familiar...
********
Lyra's heart was pounding. She slammed the wall, hoping it would do something. Her panicked eyes darted left and right. The hallway was empty, save suits or armor evenly spread along either side of the walls. She looked back at the wall. “BON-BON! BON-BON! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!? HELLO?” She shouted. No answer. She pressed her ear to the wall (as best as she could mind you). Nothing. She took a few steps back from it. It looked like any other part of the wall. Yet, when she had run past this section, it had flipped around so fast that she almost didn't notice. In fact, she had kept her momentum and had crashed into a suit of armor. She had removed most of the armor when she got up, but decided to keep the helmet. It felt oddly comfortable.
Well, now she was alone. Alone and lost in an ancient castle. A castle, that for all she knew, that could be haunted! Gotta keep a grip! It's not haunted!, or so she tried to say to herself. Clearly, her rising panic was little more then the result of her imagination getting away from her! Though the building fear in her chest and stomach disagreed. And that shadow that bounced away at the end of the hallway didn't help much either.
Wait.
What?
She blinked. Looking again, she suddenly realized that she could see little beyond her new helmet. Lighting up her horn, and raising the visor, she peered down the hallway again, only to see something vanish into the shadows. “Nope! I'm not dealing with this. Not gonna happen!” She said, taking a few steps backwards, her eyes starting to fill with terror.
“But isn't it fun to be scared?” whispered a voice in her ear.
And that was it. Lyra no longer had any interest, or ability for that matter, to control herself. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she belted down the way and rounded the corner. She repeated this process many, many times. Thankfully, the helmet she kept on reduced the blow from when she would run into the odd wall or dead-end during her blind run of panic. In fact, so fast was her flight, that the crashing of metal on stone almost became rhythmic.
*********
Berry stirred. The dream he was having was odd to put it mildly. It was filled with zebra feathers and redundantly rhythmic rock rhyming. They rolled about as they riddled him with their rhymes and rather round figures. He found himself being wrapped around a tree while they rapped about wrapping him alive (with wrapping paper no less!).
The paper had been Red.
Red like a certain stallion...
Berry's eyes shot open and he stood up. Not used to having such a large stature, he lost his balance in a fit of dizziness and stumbled to the side. He tripped, and fell on something lumpy, yet soft. A small surprised squeak and a stifled squeal came from under him as he concluded his trip to the floor. He had landed on something. Something pony shaped he thought. Struggling to get his massive girth under control, he tried to stand. The attempt was shaky at first but this time he got to his hooves without trouble. He looked down to see who the poor pony was he had crushed. Odd. There was nopony there; only a small pink hair...
*********
At this point the giggling was madding. It came from every which direction and only got louder and louder. Even plugging their ears did nothing as the giggling was both in their heads as well as in the air. They had been wandering the hallways and doors nearly at random and finally found themselves at what looked like an old garden or something. It was a small courtyard that was surrounded by crumbling walls that opened to the sky. They could see the stars shining brightly in the sky as they made their way into the garden. Glancing back, they noticed that they entered from seemed like a back way. An old arch stood opposite of them leading out of the garden and onto a pathway that seemed to run along the walls outside of the garden. They presumed that this arch was the main entrance into the garden, or at least it had been in times past. As they made their way though the garden, they head the giggling lessen some.
“Finally!” snapped Bon-Bon. “I was going mad! When I get my hooves on Lyra...” she trailed off dangerously.
Colgate however had other things on her mind. That giggle. She knew it, but she just couldn't place it. The whole time they had spent wandering around it had bugged her. It was light and bubbly, most of the time. Other times, it was a little different. Not wildly so, but enough to notice. Well, she noticed. Colgate doubted that Bon-Bon had. This whole time she had gone on and on about Lyra this and Lyra that. That alone would have been enough to drive any sane pony mad. But add the giggling? The only thing that kept her from snapping and joining with the giggling was her single-track mind. She had to find that brush. As soon as she did, she was sure all of this nonsense would come to an end. She didn't know the exact properties, but she hoped it would not only finally clean Berry's awful breath, but perhaps it would turn him/her back in to a mare! As the mental image of Berry popped up, she felt her cheeks get hot. Bon-Bon stopped for a moment.
“Colgate? Are you alright?” she asked. “Your face is turning red.”
Realizing that Bon-Bon could see this caused her face to burn even hotter. “I...I'm fine! I'm just a little sick from..uhh...Berry's breath! Yeah!” she said.
Well, she attempted to say that, but most of it came out as squeaks. Not only did her voice become all the more adorable when she was mad, the same sort of thing happened whenever she was extremely embarrassed. It also happened when she felt scared, excited, so on and so forth. In fact, the poor mare's voice would reach the squeaky level of decibels whenever she found herself under the effect of any strong emotion. As one could guess, this problem has caused more then one destructive loop of squeaking and squealing to lead to even higher squeaking and squealing. Thankfully, and luckily, Bon-Bon was one of the few ponies who could actually understand her during these times.
You see, when Bon-Bon first got her current job, she had gotten a little too excited. Rather then make candies for customers, she ended up making hundreds, if not thousands of sweets for herself. Needless to say, it was not long after that she became a regular at Colgate's clinic. As a result, Bon-Bon was often subject to these squeaks and squeals as Colgate often lost her temper and yelled at Bon-Bon for not taking better care of her teeth. At first she had no idea what was going on, but eventually she learned how to decipher it.
“That's right! You two slept in the same room! That must have been awful!” Bon-Bon said. She has no idea... Colgate thought. “So, did the two of you find any-WILL YOU STOP GIGGLING?!?” Bon-Bon bellowed as she looked up. You see, as Colgate had begun speaking (and thus squeaking) the giggling had not only gotten louder then before, it basically doubled as well.
There was silence for a moment.
“Did you HEAR the noises she was making!?!” Came a voice from somewhere. It was a high-pitched voice. Colgate knew it! But who did it belong to?! Wait! Wasn't it-
Then all of the giggling turned into laughter.
Hundreds upon hundreds of voices it seemed like were laughing, chortling, and guffawing. Colgate slowly sank to the floor and covered her eyes and ears, trying to block out the horrible barrage of sounds and the world around her. No matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn't seem to block it all out. The laughter got louder. Closer. Clearer. Then finally...
*********
Lyra ran at speeds she had not know she could run. Granted, she was fairly quick for a unicorn. But when one is running blindly with fear through unknown hallways, apparently one's legs can move even faster then they could have ever guessed. It also helped that her now very dented helmet took almost all of the shock when she would ram into a wall. What she didn't know what that during her flight she had passed through the following: One pit of sticky goo, one wall of feathers, two large paint rollers covered in black paint, and finally, one room full of paint brushes ready to go to work. After all was said and done, she looked like one amazing terror of the night. Pity she didn't have a mirror. Odds are, she would have rather liked this outfit. It would have won a costume contest easily! As it was however, she was too focused on not paying attention to where she was running to notice.
***********
“PINKIE PIE!” Shouted Bon-Bon. Colgate's eyes opened. There stood before the two of them was the party pony of Ponyville itself. “CUT IT OUT! Can't you see what you're doing to Colgate?” She snorted as she took a step forward.
Pinkie snorted, and placed a leg over her nose to cover a giggle. “Oh, come on! It's all about having fun right? And who doesn't want to have some fun!? Am I right girls!?” She asked as she bent her head upwards. Suddenly, from holes in the walls above and even from the edges of the roof, hundreds of Pinkie Pies appeared. All of them grinning, all of them staring. A cloud passed in front of the moon, casting the garden in shadow.
Their smiles glowed in the darkness. Hundreds of smiles. All of them beaming and broad. And all of them, directed at Colgate.
“It's all about having fun. And what fun we are going to have tonight!” Said the one before them. She took several steps forward. “It's all about having fun. That is, as long as it's fun for me...”