Twilight struggled to get back to her hooves; she noticed that something heavy was weighing her down. Using her only free hoof, the mare wiped her eyes, allowing her to see that the weights on her body was another pony with a brown coat. Twilight’s eyes widened and she began to stutter.
Spike rubbed his eyes and waddled towards Twilight. “Where did she come from?” he asked.
The lavender unicorn looked back and forth between Spike and the mare in rapid succession. “I...I think she came from the book.”
Rainbow frowned in response. “What? That’s totally ridiculous!”
Spike stared at Rainbow with a bemused expression. “Really? You’re going to say that that’s absurd?” He crossed his arms.
The pony opened her mouth several times to come up with a rebuttal, but nothing came. She conceded and looked back to Twilight. “That’s Pandora!” Twilight trembled from a myriad of emotions. “She was supposed to have disappeared over seven hundred and fifty years ago at the Mage’s Tower.”
“What?” Rainbow spoke flatly.
Rainbow and Spike were helping Twilight out of her current predicament when a crying Rarity and furious Applejack came barreling in through the entrance. Rarity’s mane and tail were an assortment of green, prickly plants such as holly, agave, and brambles. Applejack was still coated with makeup, albeit a fresh batch this time.
Rainbow laughed heartily. “What happened to you two?” she cried laughing.
Spike stifled his laughter when he noticed Rarity’s distress.
“You think this is funny, Spike?” Rarity turned away dramatically. “How could you?!”
The little dragon tried to save himself from the ‘affront’. “Uhhh. I wasn’t laughing at you!” His eyes darted around the room. “I was laughing at Applejack!” he blurted.
The cowpony raised an eyebrow. “And ah’m funny, maybe?”
“Uhhh...UHHHH!” Spike clutched his head in stress. “STOP YELLING AT ME!”
Twilight rolled her eyes and approached her friends. “So what happened to you two?” she asked.
“It...It was a HORRIBLE stallion!” Rarity cried. “He had swirly eyes and a hat that’s SO last century in fashion!”
“Y-yeah…” Applejack trailed off apathetically. “And he bubbled me again!” she shouted. She looked to the ground, her anger passing. “Who’s that?” she asked.
“That’s Pand--” Twilight was interrupted by a loud explosion.
“What was that?” everypony yelled together.
The Ponyville spa was oozing soapy foam from all its cracks and crevices. Everypony outside was confused by this strange occurrence, and those that wanted to enter were annoyed.
“Don’t poke it,” a mare told a stallion.
The stallion shrugged and poked the foam regardless. The second a millimeter of his hoof touched the foam, the spa exploded into a cloud of foam, and from the foam came a tidal wave of water. The wave engulfed everypony nearby whilst it started to move forward, letting the giant wooden boat begin its maiden voyage. It had a crotchety old pirate as its captain, replete with an eyepatch, a hook for a hoof, and his loot of soap and spa products on the deck.
“YAR HAR! This here be a rich plunder!” the pirate yelled whilst swinging his cutlass around. He leaned over the rails and looked around. “I wonder if there be more ta loot ‘n pillage?” “What be that in the waters?!” His eye extended outwards like a pole, and two little hooves behind it pushed them out and gave them to the stallion to better see from afar. “Thank ye, newflesh.” A tiny Psycho in his eye saluted the stallion in response. “That be a pone!” he shouted.
The stallion kicked the ship, causing its hull to grow two huge arms and grab the mare out of the water and toss her onto the deck. The soggy and horrified mare was Fluttershy. She was too terrified to fly away from the captain in front of her, and was even more disturbed by him getting up real close to her face and humming.
“Hmmmm...It be too small.” He grabbed Fluttershy by the wings and wound up his foreleg. “Best toss it back in!”
“No!”
Psycho let go of Fluttershy suddenly, landing her in the pile of loot from the spa. “TALKING FISH!” he screamed.
His screams attracted the attention of a mare standing in front of Sugarcube Corner, wearing a pink Admiral’s coat complete with tricorn with golden trims.
“A scurvy pirate who kidnapped fair maiden!” she shouted. She pulled out a cutlass from her mane and pointed it at a surprised Psychopath. “I shan’t abide your pillaging of these waters any longer!”
The colorful stallion laughed heartily. “A fresh-water sea-pony? You don’t know what ye be gettin’ into.” He spread his forelegs wide and stood upon his hind. “These waters be mine, and I’ll do what I please in ME own territory!”
The pink pony swung on a rope of dough dangling from the second floor and landed in front of the colorful stallion; A sword of hard candy in hoof. The two exchanged multiple sword swings, with Psycho finding it funny to spin his cutlass around on his muzzle by using the grip. Pinkie’s next horizontal strike saw the blade phase through the stallion as his form gradually dissipated.
“Ye be talented, but the pirate of Illogic shall not fall this day!” he shouted while he drilled out from the planks beneath the mare.
Pinkie took a block of foam to the lower jaw in the form of an uppercut. Fallen on the floor, the mare found herself now being pelted with a great variety of blocks of soap which only tickled her with every connection.
Psycho stood proudly atop the mare and raised his cutlass into the air. “Victory!” he cheered.
He jumped out of his costume and cartwheeled off the boat and to the doorstep of Twilight’s library. Fluttershy rushed to Pinkie Pie in response and raised her head.
“Are you okay?” she worried. “I hope that didn’t hurt.”
Pinkie laughed in response and smiled at her friend. “Nope! I just had a lot of fun!” She sat up and looked around. “Where did he go?”
“He went to Twilight’s home.”
Black, bipedal figures popped up all around the boat in puffs of smoke. Their arms and legs ended in sharp stubs that they held up in a threatening position towards the ponies. Fluttershy yiped in fear.
Pinkie Pie, on the other hoof, depressed her frow. “Ninjas,” she grumbled.
Three knocks on the library door aggravated an already stressed out Twilight Sparkle.
“AGAIN?!” she roared in fury.
The mare stomped angrily to the door and swung it open, showing a very, very happy Psycho meeting her with a giant smile. The lavender’s unicorn’s left eye started to twitch as all the stress and anger were getting to her.
“That’s him!” Rarity shouted.
“Really?” Applejack stood to her forelegs. “Then ah’m gonna bash his head in ‘n make ‘im fix the farm!”
Spike jumped in front of them with his hands held high. “Let TWilight handle this.” He twisted around. “I hope she can, at least.”
“But--”
Applejack was cut off by Rarity’s glare and backed off. Everyone looked to the stallion when he started to speak, elucidating the source of the mayhem abound in Ponyville.
“What do you think?” he asked joyfully. “Pretty cool, huh?” He waved to Twilight to follow him. “Come on and we’ll have fun!”
Twilight rubbed her nose bridge in annoyance. “Okay. I’ve had it…” she grumbled.
“What?” Psycho wondered innocently.
The mare grabbed him by the shoulders and yelled directly into his face. ”I DON’T LIKE YOU!”
Psycho stood in place, his character unmoving, allowing Twilight to continue.
“I’ve never liked you. No pony does!” She waved to her friends behind her. “You’re horrible. You’re mean. You’re obnoxious, and you AREN’T FUNNY!” she raged further. “All you’re doing is hurting everypony around you.” The mare poked the stallion in his chest. “The only reason I’ve been trying to help you is because the princesses asked me to.”
There was no response from the stallion, and while the library saw no activity, Pinkie’s fight against the ninjas came to an abrupt halt with the ninjas all freezing in place.
"Ouch. That's gotta hurt," Applejack whispered to the white unicorn.
"Yeah. I wouldn't be that harsh to anypony.” Rainbow said. “Even if it’s him.” She shrugged.
The sound of a loud, lowering ‘vroo’ filled the air as though some loud machine had just powered down. The ninjas disintegrated into a gradually elevating chimney of black smoke and scribbles, much to Pinkie’s displeasure. Psycho’s smile slowly faded away into a frown and his colors started to face. Twilight suddenly remembered something the princesses had mentioned about him when she saw the reaction:
”He was always a very sensitive stallion. Whenever he was rejected, be it friendship or romantically, he would fall into a deep depression.”
“Oh no.” She reached out to the stallion. “Psycho, wait!”
It was too late. The stallion held up an orange for a reason that eluded them. He shook violently before spinning around, putting it on his back, and having it explode like a rocket and send him towards the Everfree Forest.
“Oh my.” Rarity looked at Twilight with a despondent expression. “You were quite cruel there, even towards somepony like him.”
Twilight had no time to mull over her regrets as pained, elongated groaning came from the center of the library.
“The tower...the golem...I’m trapped!” the mare mumbled and gently flicked her hooves.
"H-hey! She's waking up!" Spike shouted.
Twilight looked to Rarity, her face serious and determined. “Okay. I’ll think about what to do, but right now,” She pointed to Pandora. “She needs our help. And I don’t believe myself to be in the wrong.”
Pandora’s eyes slowly opened to see a group of ponies and a tiny dragon looking over her. The situation caught her off guard and she jumped away in a panic.
Back in the snowy mountain world of Disirva, the ‘chief’ was busy speaking with representatives of the griffin populace in the neighboring city of Grimana. The discussions were interrupted by a stallion rushing into the small office with a letter in his mouth.
The chief glared at the stallion who shrunk away. “What is it?” he asked.
“It’s a letter from...uh...your ‘workgroup’,” he explained with a meek voice.
The chief’s eyes widened, but he quickly composed himself and took a calm stance. With a smile, he asked the griffins to leave temporarily that he may address the issue.
“I hope that this matter is more important than trade lines and information networks being established between our communities…” Chief looked away.. “Among the most obvious things.”
“I wish the same good mirth to you,” Chief said as he bowed.
The griffins followed the same behavior, and once they were out of the room, the tone became darker.
“Give me that letter,” he ordered the messenger.
“Here you go.”
“Good. Now leave.”
The chief heard the door shut whilst he opened the letter to read six pages of content within. The more he read it, the angrier and more fearful he became. He cursed at the top of his lungs and slammed a hoof on his desk in fury, splitting it into many chunks.
Psycho was moping about in a very swampy section of the Everfree forest. The rancid, damp smell and abundance of bugs didn’t bother stallion at all. He instead preferred to breathe a sigh of sadness while he sat on a large, deformed rock, freeing him of the muddy gunk it sat in. Several plants, akin to vines with a rotting brown-green climbed all over the other stones and trees around the area, with some ending in faintly luminescent bulbs. The cold could freeze a pony to their bones, but the Psychopath did not react at all. He found it to be a nice place to wait and think, what with the tall walls made of dried mud all around.
His presence didn’t go unnoticed though, and a pair of glowing green eyes and long fangs materialized into from behind the stallion.
"Oh, you poor thing. You've gone through a lot today, haven't you?"