Part 8
Hugs. So many hugs. Granted, they felt more like death-squeezes, but they were hugs all the same. Hundreds of them. He was stuck in a boiling mass of affection. Legs wrapped around his own fours, his torso, and even his head. One moment he was pinned to the ground from the shear weight of the Pinkies, and another he was lifted off the ground as several dozen tried to hug him from the underside. Up he would go, only to be slammed down once more as more and more Pinkies pile-drived their way through each other to get to him, causing his massive bulk to crush the poor hapless Pinkies under him. He had no idea how long this would last for, nor did he know just how many hugs he could take. While he appreciated love hugs as much as the next pony, this was too much! Too much love!
“HELP!” he shouted at the top of his voice. He had no idea of knowing if his voice could be heard through the endless swirling mass of swirly manes. Though even this was not enough to shield him from the fire that burned in Colgate's eyes.
“BERRY!” Came a shout from behind him. “GIVE ME THE BOTTLE! IT MIGHT HELP!” the voice bellowed. He had no idea who it could have been, but it wasn't Pinkie, and that was good enough for him! Still not entirely sure how to bring the bottle into being, he began kicking wildly, hoping that it would appear somewhere near his hind legs. However, rather then the feeling of hitting a bottle that he had hoped for, all he got was the feeling of his hooves slamming into the faces of many a Pinkie Pie. Well, at least that made some of them disappear, right? Unbeknownst to him however, it had worked like magic. The bottle had appeared behind his left hind-hoof, though it had appeared in the grinning mouth of a suddenly very surprised Pinkie. She had expected to give this big handsome hunk of a horse a huge hug, but instead got a bottle in her mouth, and a hoof to her face. Needless to say, it was not that particular Pinkie's day. The force of the kick had propelled the bottle to the floor, and out of the pile.
Had Berry known this, perhaps he would have relaxed a little. As it was, he was woefully ignorant of that fact, and continued to struggle. That is, he continued until a loud **THUMP** launched he and the entire pile up into the air; which of course promptly came crashing down (flatting a few more hapless Pinkies. Poor Pinkies).
The horde stopped. The endless hugs stopped, and all the Pinkies looked in the same direction. There was silence. Then, another **THUMP**. This time, it caused the whole horde to bounce around the walls like bouncy balls and to ricochet off of everything, and everypony, in the hall. Berry tried to stand, but the pummeling pink ponies pounding his backside kept him pinned as they slammed about.
Then a low rumble began.
It was the Pinkies.
They had begun to laugh.
It started as a low giggle, but quickly rose to loud and reckless laughter. It sounded down the halls and through the very stones themselves. The walls began to crack and break and even the stone floor began to shift and move. Something small fell on Berry's head. Shaking it off, he looked. It was a piece of the ceiling. Looking up, he could see huge cracks beginning to form along it and along the walls. Finally able to stand, for they had stopped bouncing and now were on their backs laughing at the top of their lungs, he turned around and headed for his friends. They needed to get out of-WHAT IN THE NAME OF-
His thought was cut off as he slammed into the giant Lyra-foot. Sending both pony and appendage back from each other. Still, this was no time to be questioning things! Gathering his head, he charged forward again, this time lowering his head so as to scoop the giant foot into his back. No easy thing, for the foot was even bigger then he was. Normally there would not have been enough room on his back for both Berry and Foot-Lyra, but the ceiling above them had split open widely enough to allow for their combined height.
“Hey!” The giant foot objected, “Put me down! I can move just fine thank you!”
“WE GOTTA LEAVE!” Berry shouted back.
“FINE, BUT GRAB COLGATE!” it shouted back.
“WHAT?” Berry shouted back, looking around as he made his way to the exit.
“SHE GOT BLOWN BACK WHEN I STOPMED ON THE GROUND, SHE'S RIGHT THERE, TO YOUR LEFT!” it shouted. Berry almost took the time to wonder where the voice was coming from. Far as he could remember, he hadn't seen a mouth on it. But that was beside the point.
Looking left, he saw her. She was planted into the wall, upside down, eyes spiraling.
You have got to be kidding me, he thought. Something had told him he would need his PPP, but he had dismissed it. Why would he ever need a pole for prying ponies out of a wall? Well, why would he need one when he wasn't in his home? Still, the walls and even the ceiling had begun to collapse so he had no to time to think. Turning, he placed two massive hooves on the pole and gave it a powerful push. Wait, a pole?
With that, Colgate flew out of the wall, and out of the exit, and into a far wall. This time however, her imprint was fairly light. Blinking several times, he looked down at the pole. It was a light green color with white accents. And on one end, sat a shining symbol of a lyre.
“What the...” Berry had begun.
“MOVE IT BOCKHEAD!” the pole shouted at him, making him jump just a little. He quickly recovered however, and grabbed the pole and dashed out of the corridor and into the main hall. There, they were little better.
The walls in the great hall had begun to crumble and fall, and what was left of the roof was beginning to fall as well. The walkways above begun cracking at their seams and at the far end of the hall, broke off the walls and fell to the floor below, and in some spots, the floor gave out and fell into darkness. Looking over to where Colgate hit, the wall's cracks grew even greater from her impact. They spread rapidly, and before he could even finish processing what was happening, they hit the walkway above her. Letting out a shout, he ran over there, only to be beaten by Bon-Bon. Had Berry been thinking about it, he would have been surprised at her speed, but as it was, there were more important things to do. In one smooth motion Bon-Bon picked her up and she and Berry ran for the main exit. A huge chunk of roof fell from above, slamming into the ground in front of them, and causing the floor to collapse as well. They stopped, looking at the sudden chasm before them. Then, all at once, the walls finally gave...
Her mind was in so many fragments that it was impossible for Pinkie to think straight. She had only wanted to see what would have happened if she took a sip. She was never one for drinking, for what fun was a party if you couldn't remember it the next day? And hangovers? Pahhhleeese! Still, seeing what happened to Zecora, this seemed like too good of a chance to miss! She had never meant to drink as much as she had. She had only wanted a sip. After all, she had missed all the commotion, but had heard that Berry and Colgate had run off on an adventure, and that Berry had made a drink that did the craziest stuff! So, after making sure the little ones were situated (for she had been watching them and thus could not investigate the commotion), she snuck off after them. Thankfully, Lyra and Bon-Bon had gone ahead of her, and were really, really bad at being sneaky. So it had been easy enough to stay out of sight and follow them to the castle.
Once there, it was a simple matter of waiting for them to fall asleep. Well, waiting was never Pinkie's strength, so it wasn't very simple at all. But she had managed. Even if she had wondered off from her hiding spot and had found herself in a whole mess of crazy adventures. Everything from that great frog king that was really a shrubbery, to the race of giants that had chosen her to be their Goddess-Queen. It had been one crazy night. Still, they had fallen asleep, save Colgate, who had finally stormed out of the room. And braving the fog, she had made her way over to the bottle. Oddly, she had not actually seen Berry as a colt. Rather, to her eyes, she had looked like a large overgrown clown. This had delighted Pinkie the first time she had seen it, and seeing that clown up and close had only strengthened her resolve to get the bottle.
It had come as a pleasant surprise when it had simply appeared next to her after looking around. But she wasn't about to argue. She picked it up and looked at it. It wasn't anything fancy really. Just a simple bottle, big enough for about 5 or 6 ponies, depending on how much each one drank. It was unmarked save a small scratch in the center of the bottle with the letters 'AB'. She turned it over and over, milling over the idea of drinking it. On the one hoof, she had no idea what it would do to her. On the other hoof, it had turned Berry into a big clown that put her into giggling fits. Then it dawned on her. Both points were actually pluses! As she looked at it, she could almost hear it telling her, begging her to drink it. Had there been another pony in the room (who was awake) they would have indeed heard the spooky and ghostly voices telling her to do just that. They also would have noticed the miasma beginning to whirling about her, and even tiny bits of debris beginning to swirl about her as well. They would have noticed the voices getting louder and the maelstrom becoming fiercer as she opened the bottle. They would have noticed the unnatural yet beckoning light that began to beam from it, illuminating her face and casting terrifying shadows on the roof. Had they looked, they would have seen the legion of smiles that cracked across the faces of those shadows, and had they listened, they would have heard them all laughing and egging her on. As it was however, there was nopony there, and she did not notice a thing. So, lifting it high in the air, and offering a toast to Fun, she chugged the whole thing in one gulp.
Her eyes lit up and the room exploded around her. All at once she felt both infinite in size, and shattered into a thousand pieces. Each piece becoming a whole Pinkie unto itself. And each Pinkie becoming part of a fractured whole.
In short: she had created a hive of herself, with each one being little more than a tiny part of her mind. And since the only thing that was on her mind was fun, that was the only thing those Pinkies could comprehend. So, as a result, the real Pinkie was no longer in control, and thus unable to do anything about what her plethora of pink puff ponies decided to do in the name of having fun...