//------------------------------// // Act I, scene viii - "Let's Blow It Up!" // Story: A World Rent Asunder // by NeverEatTheLemonsAlone //------------------------------// So, that's my situation. Slumped against the wall, magic almost entirely drained, pain pounding through my body as three enormous Rime Wolves slowly stalk towards me. Closing my eyes, I wait for it to end. Wait...What's that? Opening my eyes in mild confusion, I know that the wolves hear it too; I can tell by the way their ears perk up. Two of them prowl to the door, and the other keeps his blank blue eyes on me. The sound comes closer, and I frown at the sheer strangeness of it. A sort of boinging, it sounds horrendously out of place here. It reaches just outside the door and stops, the wolves ready to spring. Then what little remains of the door explodes in a massive eruption of fire and stone, blowing a crater into the earth. The shattered shards of wolf are blown away, sailing off into the sky and in every direction. That probably actually killed them, and that takes some doing unless you're packing raw fire. There's a perky whistling as an earth pony bounces into the room, idly tossing a stick or two of some sort of explosive in her hoof. She giggles cheerfully, her flat, pink-gray mane covering nearly half of her face. "Hey, wolfy! You want a present like your friends?" Instinctively knowing that this pony is dangerous, the Rime Wolf begins to back up towards me. I, well, also believe that this pony is dangerous. And probably insane. She locks eyes with me and smiles wide. That expression sends chills running up and down my spine. I think I'd rather take my chances with the wolf. It doesn't look like I have a choice, though, as she removes an odd device from her mane [1]. A collection of gears and what looks like a magical power source, I can't help but wonder what it is. My question is answered just a moment later as she presses a button and a flame flickers to life. Her smile somehow growing even larger, she touches it to the fuse on the stick of explosives and runs at the wolf. She's insane. There's no way she isn't absolutely bucking crazy. When she's only a few feet away and the wolf inhales to breath a shower of icy death, she throws the explosive. The wolf looks puzzled for a few seconds, and as she darts behind the nearest cover, the bomb inside of the wolf's windpipe explodes in a shower of ice. Whistling again, she bounces over to me and smiles. I'm covered in dead ice, terrified beyond reason, a little bit giddy from blood loss, and barely conscious. I try to shift away from her, but the pain in my shoulder is too much. I simply end up falling on the cold stone floor. Her smile drops and it looks like she's asking me something, but all I can hear is my heartbeat, which is steadily slowing down. My mouth moves in a soundless slur and I close my eyes, giving over my mind to oblivion. --- I wake up. That's a surprise in and of itself. The second surprise is that my side is bandaged up, and while the white linen is stained with a good deal of red, it's not constantly bleeding and it's definitely less painful. As my fuzzy eyes get used to being open again, a pink blur moves into my line of sight, a brown line running through it. It says something, and I can't quite understand it. Shaking my head lethargically to clear he cobwebs, my eyes and ears clear. The same insane pony is standing over me, a leather bandolier belt carpeted in various explosive devices wrapped around her torso. I quail slightly. After seeing just one of those in action, I'm hesitant to speak to this mare on the off chance that I offend her. She speaks again, her tone a little bit more insistent now, and this time I can actually understand her. "Didn't you hear me? Come on, silly filly, get up!" It's the kind of thing that should be said in a whimsical tone, and to an extent, it is, but there's something behind her voice. The smile seems forced, and her eyes certainly aren't joyful. Instead, they're glimmering with a mad fire that I've only ever seen in psychopaths. Shaking, I do as she bids, wincing and keeping my injured leg off of the floor. It's not as though I've never stood on three legs before, I suppose. I just have to take a moment to get used to it... "Come on, follow me!" Or not, I grouse as she pronks off through the castle halls, following her with a slow, wincing hobble. As she stops and stares back at me with wide, unblinking eyes, I flash back to the echoes hunting me through the past and shudder, increasing my pace as much as possible. "Hey! Where are we going, anyway?" Her smile drops. Cold sweat instantly breaks out on my forehead as she stares at me as though confused, one of her eyes twitching erratically. Somehow I feel like she'd have no problem blowing me up in a heartbeat. Her smile returns, somehow more chilling than before, and she continues on her path, whistling an old nursery song. Shivering, I begin to move as fast as possible after her. I wouldn't relish having this madpony angry at me. All of a sudden, she stops in front of a solid stone wall. Turning to me, she giggles—damn, her demeanor is creepy—and speaks. "You should stand back. I'm gonna blow this up!" Taking out one of her exploding sticks, she flicks the firestarter out of her mane again. With a blur of motion, the bomb is lit and thrown, and I barely manage to get behind a stone wall before a chunk of stone wall crashes down where I was standing just a moment ago. I cautiously peek out and see her giggling to herself inside of a massive hole in the wall. "Why in Tartarus did you do that?" I gasp, breathing heavily. "Well, no reason. It was fun, silly!" she responds. [2] Sighing quietly, I drag myself after her bouncing gait as she passes through the new 'hallway'. With any luck, she won't make me stay here for too much longer. And if it's wish time, then I wish Celestia actually cared about me more than a tool. Yeah, that'd be nice. --- [1]: ...Yeah, I'm not even going to ask. [2]: And that attitude is the sum of about everything wrong with this evil pink harbinger of destruction. --- By the time we arrive at our, or rather her, destination, I can barely walk. Even without use, my shoulder is painful, and I simply couldn't go fast enough for her with only three legs. My entire front-right limb is suffused with burning agony and it's legitimately almost impossible for me to stand now. So once I enter the still-standing ruined tower and find the crazy mare sitting on her haunches and eating an unidentifiable object, I topple over, falling onto my left side and holding back tears. Somehow the pink pony knows precisely what's wrong, and she's at my side in an instant, patting me down for wounds. Once her hoof impacts my injured shoulder I cry out, definitively alerting her. Peering at it, she sees through the temporary patch of sewn-up skin that I placed over it and clicks her tongue as though in disappointment. Out of her bandolier comes a gleaming silver object, a tiny, razor-sharp blade set into a long handle. With no hesitation or sympathy, she strikes down at me, the blade easily shearing through the skin. Blood comes pouring out of the revealed puncture wound with startling speed, and I cry out in pain. It feels like a burning iron rod just got shoved through my shoulder. "Oh, you silly, silly pony," she laughs, "you should know better than this! How'd you get hurt so badly anyway, hmm?" I don't answer and feel her grip tighten slightly, squeezing the gaping hole in my shoulder. Gasping in pain, I manage to choke out an answer: "...Got skewered on the spear of a Princess' past self..." She whistles, clearly impressed by this in some perverse way. Out of a large pouch at the base of her bandolier, she pulls out a small vial of green liquid and a roll of gauze. Dripping some of the liquid onto my wound, she begins to wrap it in bandages, holding me down with iron hooves as I thrash. The green liquid is probably the worst pain I've ever felt, and I've been wounded a lot more times than one would think. I have the scars to prove it, too. This is different. It's like having your bone shattered, set wrong, and shattered again, over and over and over again. It feels like forever until the pain dies down to bearable levels, but it's probably only a few minutes. Either way, I find to my surprise that once I manage to peel myself off of the floor, my shoulder feels significantly better. I still can't walk properly, but at least I can limp right. Turning, I find that the pony in front of me has changed profoundly. Her mane and tail are far lighter in colour and have fluffed up to the point of looking like bizarre pink clouds. The smile on her face is still there, but somehow seems genuinely cheerful and not utterly crazy. She opens her mouth to say something, but before a sound can escape, there's a pop and her hair seems to deflate, turning back into the familiar pinkish-gray. Before I can stop myself, I groan. Her eyes widen and snap to mine, the gentle smile instantly flashing off of her face. She stalks closer to me, hissing under her breath. "Oh yes, I'll make them pay for keeping us up here, don't worry. Dumping us off, keeping us locked in this open prison, making sure we couldn't come back for them. Unicorns and their magic, stopping us from having our fun. I thought she was different. I thought she was nicer. I don't think she is anymore. We'll show her what kind of fun we have!" [1] As she raises a hoof to strike me, a strangled look washes over her face and her outstretched limb twitches spastically, staying in place, refusing to fall. Taking the opportunity and ignoring the bile in my throat at the display I'm about to put on, I step forwards and embrace her, careful to keep most of the weight on my good limb. "Don't worry," I murmur, "I'm not going to hurt you. I just need some help." What would the Princess think? The thought is amusing to me, but I bury the laughter, since her hoof has dropped and her hair is beginning to quiver. What follows is, even after everything I've done on this ridiculous trip, one of the most surreal things I've ever seen. It's like times moves in reverse; her mane and tail puff up, exploding outwards with a noise like a trumpet. I have no idea where it comes from. A happy smile leaps to her face, and she grabs me in a crushing hug. [2] Suddenly, I realize that she's crying. Even as the smile stays on her face, tears run down her cheeks in thick streams and she sobs. "Thank you! We've been alone here for so long that we thought nopony would ever come to help us!" Even though she wears her heart on her nonexistent sleeves and I usually really dislike ponies like that, I find myself smiling myself as she releases me from the bear hug. "So, what's your name? And...why are you up here?" Her smile slackens off slightly and I'm suddenly terrified that she's going to relapse back into her violent alter ego, but thankfully, she stays relatively sane. "I'm Pinkamena Diane Pie, but you can call me Pinkie!" How creative, I think dryly, did you come up with that one yourself? Anyway, she continues with her story, which is actually pretty dark. Apparently, she was once a member of a small group of travelers that wandered from town to town in the Lunar Sovereignty, pulling together a living off of street performances. She was a magician by trade at that point (an odd choice for an earth pony), which explains why she can pull stuff out of nowhere like I've seen her do with that firestarter device. Anyway, so they were traveling through the pass near the Canterlot Ruins when they were attacked by a ragtag group of looters. Instead of standing and fighting, the group, which was primarily composed of unicorns, tossed her back as a sort of offering as they fled. Her hoof broken on a rock, she couldn't do anything as they took her prisoner. I'd prefer to not repeat the next part, about what they did to her. It's not what you're probably thinking, but it was pretty grim nonetheless. Apparently, while all this happened, she wasn't able to handle it. As evident by the mark on her flank, her place in life was to entertain. She wasn't a combatant, and the thought of hurting another pony sickened her. She couldn't take what was happening anymore, though, and as a result, her mind was suffering just as much as her body was. Finally, no longer able to take the strain of conflicting desires, her mind split, fragmenting into two distinct pieces. One was Pinkie as she had been, bright and exuberant, full of joy and energy. The other wasn't so innocent. Over the next few months, she tore the small, disorganized group of raiders apart from the inside out, deceiving them into thinking that their own numbers were responsible. Finally, they were all dead. That didn't change anything, though. She was unable to descend from the mountain; having tried only a few times, she barely avoided a fatal fall each time. So she was trapped up her, haunting the cold halls of the castle, subsisting off of the raiders' supplies and, when they dwindled, what little could be scavenged from the enormous ruined castle. During this time, she found that the rocks nearby contained huge amounts of a particular mineral that, when heated, exploded quite readily. She'd used it many, many times in the past for fireworks in her performances, so she knew how to collect it safely. With so much time on her hooves, she had no problem finding the optimal way to weaponize it. She was returning from a trip to harvest some of this mineral when she heard the Rime Wolves, which she'd long managed to avoid, hunting. That's when she found me. So now, she has a horrendous vendetta against unicorns. Living in the castle, full of its hallucinations and visions of the past, has left her mind just a few balloons short of a party. Damn. --- [1]: As you can probably imagine, hearing that wasn't the most...comforting thing at the time. [2]: And when I say crushing, I really do mean that. I couldn't even breathe during this.