Twitchy eye.
Pinkie stopped mid-stir, the eternal smile dropping from her face. Mrs. Cake noticed her employee’s sudden shift in demeanor. “Pinkie? Is everything okay?”
“Twitchy eye,” the pink pony whispered.
The blue mare’s eyes went wide. “You don’t mean... another one of them?”
“Mrs. Cake, Pinkie sense is never off.”
“Oh Celestia! Pinkie, go! Gather everypony! Go find Twilight.” Pinkie nodded solemnly, and galloped out the door. “Celestia have mercy on us all,” Mrs. Cake muttered.
“Twilight!”
The librarian swiveled her head away from her book and towards the bedroom window. Funny, she could have sworn she had just heard Pinkie calling her name. Suddenly, The hyperactive mare’s countenance, surrounded by a wreath of cotton-candy mane, appeared in the window. “Twilight! Come down quick!” She fell from her view again.
Twilight flung open the window and poked her head out. Two stories below, she saw the pink pony fall on a trampoline, and launch back up. The purple mare withdrew her head in just in time, as the ball of pink came into view once again. “Pinkie! What are you doing?”
“There’s an emergency!” Gravity overcame her momentum, and pulled her back down to earth. Twilight rolled her eyes. Pinkie’s definition of an “emergency” was a far cry from what other ponies considered as such.
The lavender Unicorn waited patiently for her friend to bounce back to the window before replying. “Don’t you have whatever will fix the emergency stashed all around Ponyville?”
Pinkie stopped mid-air, and rubbed her chin with her hoof thoughtfully. “I don’t think so...” She resumed falling. Twilight sighed, better go see what she wants. The sooner she helped out Pinkie, the sooner she could resume studying. She trotted outside, and caught the pink mare in a field of levitation. She lowered Pinkie down, until her hooves met grass.
“What’s the matter? Is somepony hurt? Are parasprites eating the town again?” Twilight looked all around her. From what she could tell, it was a perfectly ordinary day. “Pinkie, if this is another one of your FEMA themed parties—”
“Twilight! There’s an— there’s another OC in town!” Pinkie said, her eyes brimming with anxiety.
“Oh Celestia, another one?“ Twilight muttered with agitation. She paused to scribble something on to her checklist for the day’s activities. This was going to throw off her whole schedule, but that wasn't important right now. ”We gotta find them, and get them out of here as soon as possible. I’ll gather everypony up.”
“Twily?” Her voice was shaky.
“Yeah Pinkie?”
“I don’t wanna throw another party for them...”
Twilight came over and wrapped her foreleg around Pinkie’s neck. “Lets hope that this one won’t want a party. Because he sure as hay won’t be getting one.”
Within a half hour’s time, the citizens of Ponyville were gathered before town hall. Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie stood front and center on the podium. Anxious murmurings could be heard throughout the crowd. They had little idea as to why they were summoned, but knew that unless Pinkie was catering the event, there was trouble afoot. And they could see no confections anywhere.
“Attention, good citizens of Ponyville,” Twilight called, “it has come to our attention that yet another original character has moved into our town.”
The murmuring rose quickly into angry shouting. “Another one of those freaks?”
“Seriously, where the hell are all these amnesiacs coming from?”
“Oh Celestia, I hope it’s not one of those Pegasus-zebra lizard-eyed things.”
“I swear to god, if I see another Alicorn that isn’t royalty...”
“Every Celestia-damned time, some evil guy comes and follows them right to Ponyville!”
“Please! Please, just give me one human that won’t turn into a pony!” Lyra Heartstrings said, raising her hooves and cursing the heavens.
“ATTENTION!” the purple unicorn shouted. “We don’t know what the OC looks like. We’re going to need everypony to search for him, and drive him out of town!” This last point was greeted by a collective Spartan cheer from the crowd. “Now, we don’t know what it looks like, so I made a list of what might tip you off that somepony is an OC.” She magically distributed the flyers, which bore the following list:
1. An Alicorn, or Pegasus with bat wings, butterfly wings, or broken wings.
2. Disgusting color schemes.
3. Doesn’t know anything about day to day life, and the history of Equestria.
4. Claims memory loss.
5. Claims to be like or related to : Applejack, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash.
6. Just moved into town.
7. Noticeably stupid name.
8. An adult blank flank.
9. Orphaned.
10. Always faces to the left.
11. Oddly shaped heads.
12. Strange markings on the coat and face, like white noses or stripes.
13. Tacky or multiple coat colors, eg, contrasting colors, pure black.
“Hey! My coat’s not tacky!” Thunderlane shouted after reading through the list.
“Don’t try to fool yourself,” Flitter said. “The sooner you accept it, the better.” The jilted Pegasus flew away, muttering curses. Flitter and Cloudchaser stared at each other for a moment.
“Well it looks Thunderlane just,” Cloudchaser paused to take off her shades. “stormed off.”
The two sisters hoof bumped. Roid Rage stuck his head above the crowd, and screamed “YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”
“Please, if you see any suspicious ponies, bring them to me and Pinkie. There will be a fifty bit reward,” Twilight said, and with that, the angry mob dispersed to hunt the OC.
“Twilight, we better round up the rest of the girls, to make sure that they’re all safe. Especially Rainbow Dash,” the pink pony said timorously. Twilight nodded. For some unknown reason, OCs were drawn to their little circle of friends. Sometimes they would just hop out of the Everfree forest and land on Fluttershy’s lawn, with an assortment of injuries. Other times they would barge into the library while Twilight was studying, and demand that Pinkie throw them a party.
Of course, Pinkie was, by her nature, obliged to throw any and all newcomers a welcome party. But due to the recent influx of OCs over the last few months, she had been throwing three extra parties a week. Before all the OCs started showing up, she had at most, three parties a month. The poor mare was going bankrupt. Streamers, balloons, and full service catering didn’t come cheap in Ponyville. It was a point of pride that each and every party she threw was top notch. There was no way she would ever allow corners to be cut.
And worse yet, the one and only party pony in town was getting sick of hosting such festivities. Hardly anyone, save Pinkie’s closest friends, attended the parties for the OCs these days. And even then, they did so grudgingly. She always made sure the whole thing was catered for a crowd, and consequently, there were always copious amounts of leftovers. Seven ponies can only eat so much food at one party. If Pinkie was lucky, the OC would take the leftovers to wherever they were staying (which was usually one of her friend’s houses). If she was unlucky, she’d have to take the food, and eat every bit of it, for breakfast lunch and dinner, till it was all gone.
That wasn’t even the worst part. Half the time, The OCs were incredibly amorous. And without fail, their boners and lady-woods were directed straight at Rainbow Dash. Sure, they might throw a suggestive glance at Applejack, or maybe even Twilight, but it was always, always the rainbowed flank they pursued. The blue Pegasus had taken to wearing a t-shirt with the words “Buck off. Not interested.” scrawled in sharpie along the top.
Pinkie examined her own physique as they trotted to Rainbow’s house. Sure, she wasn’t endowed with an athlete’s body like Dash was, and she had the slightest bit of pudge on her belly, but that’s what gave her curves. That had to count for something, didn’t it? She poked her belly, and then her flank. Is that why none of the OCs came onto her? It’s not like she cared what all those freaky ponies thought of her, it’s just a little irksome to have all the attention being shined on your friends, while nopony checks you out.
Okay, maybe it was a lot irksome.
Maybe it was her personality. Her friends always had told her she could be a little much to handle when she got excited. Maybe she was a little intimidating when ponies first met her. The mare groaned, drowning in her own self pity.
Whenever an OC came to a party, for Pinkie, it only meant an ungrateful guest of honor, a lackluster party, being shunted by stallions and mares alike, and eating dried out sheet cake for days to come.
Twilight and Pinkie passed by Rarity’s boutique which bore a shiny new sign, inscribed, “No Plausible Back story, NO SERVICE!” Several ponies were looking out for any OCs, checking in alleyways, newly built apartments, and interrogating one another.
The pink baker watched all this as she went along. She almost bumped into a tan Pegasus in her distracted state. Her eye started twitching more and more as they got to Rainbow’s house. The OC must be around there.
“Well, it looks like Rarity can take care of herself right now,” Twilight mused.
“Yeah, looks like it. Maybe she can help us?” Pinkie said.
“No, we don’t want to risk another one of them insulting her for some odd reason or another.” They nodded in agreement. Rarity seemed to be the target of choice for the less pleasant of the bunch, and the duo didn’t want to put her in the line of fire once more.
Within minutes, they came upon the vaporous fortress. Pinkie could easily make out the waterfalls of Spectra.
“Dashie! You okay?” Pinkie called out. The Pegasus popped her head out of her house.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Thank goodness, we thought that—”
“Could you hang on a minute? I got a guest over right now.”
The Unicorn and Earth Pony exchanged nervous glances. “Dashie! Get down here right now! We need to talk to you right now!”
“Yeesh, Fine. You only have to say ‘right now’ once.” She turned to her house. “Yeah, hang on a sec, it’s just a couple of my friends! I’m sure you’ll love to meet them!”
A bolt of panic shot through Pinkie’s heart. The OC was friendly with Rainbow Dash! That meant the conniving bastard was here to stay. At least a week, if not more. Usually they did something stupid and got kicked out of Ponyville within a few days. but if someone took a liking to them —a rare occurrence, to be honest— their informal visa granted by the goodwill of the town was extended. Dash touched down, and trotted over to her friends. “What’s up guys?”
“Dashie, who’s your guest?” Pinkie asked frantically.
“Blossomforth, she came to have some tea. Why you ask?” Twilight let out a tremendous sigh.
“Have you seen any strange ponies around today?”
“Well, I did see this one stallion bathing a giant tub of jelly...”
“And nothing else strange today? No OCs?” Pinkie ventured.
Rainbow shook her head. “None today, thank Celestia. If I see another flipping Pegasus claiming he can do a Sonic Zoarboom, or whatever the buck OCs are calling Sonic Rainbooms these days, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Pinkie tackled her into a hug. “Dashie! I was so worried you were talking to one, and it was seducing you!”
“Wait what?”
“Twilight! Twilight!” They heard stallion shout. Twilight braced herself for yet another one of the weirdos to tackle her, and expect her to just fall in love with him on the spot. “I found the OCs! There’s two of them this time.”
Twilight saw Pokey Pierce come towards her, and sent a silent thank you to the princesses. “Two of them?” she asked.
“Two of them. Follow me, we got them tied up.” He trotted back the way he came, and Pinkie and Twilight followed. “It was easy to tell when I thought about it enough. One of them was a really small one that was this nasty orange color, and she couldn’t fly with her stubby little wings. I think that one’s an orphan too. The other one was really clueless, and keeps on claiming to be Rarity’s sister.” He paused to look at Twilight. “Will we get twice the pay?”
“That seems fair.”
Flitter and Cloudchaser, who were walking alongside them, snickered to each other. “Well it looks like,” Flitter put on her shades, “the funds have been doubled.”
Roid Rage’s head popped out from a nearby well. “YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Roid Rage, would you please stop doing that?” Twilight snapped. Dejectedly, he flew out of the well, and went back to rendezvous with his own search team.
Pokey Pierce showed the two mares to a wagon, where, sure enough, there was an orange Pegasus filly, and white Unicorn filly, roped together. Lucky was standing guard.
“We’re not OCs though!” the orange filly cried, “We’ve been here our entire lives.”
“Tell it to the judge,” Lucky said, spitting on the ground.
“Pokey?” Twilight said, “That’s actually Rarity’s little sister. She’s Sweetie Belle. And the other one is, uh, Pinkie, what’s her name?”
“Scoota-something-or-other,” the pink pony conjectured.
“Scootaloo!” The orange filly cried.
“Scoota-what?” Pinkie asked.
“Loo!”
“Scoota-who?”
“Scootaloo! My name is Scootaloo! Don’t you remember me?”
“Oh, Scootaloo! Yeah, I remember. Why didn’t you just say so? Yeah, she’s not an OC, just a Rainbow Dash fan.” The baker smiled.
“So that means we don’t get the reward?” Lucky asked.
“No, try again,” Twilight said. Reluctantly, the two stallions untied the fillies.
“Hey Twilight! Twilight!” Pinkie started shouting. “Maybe It's one of the humans turned ponies.”
"That means..."
“Doctor Whooves...”
The pink and lavender duo burst into the Timelord’s shop. The brown earth pony was fiddling with an assortment of timepieces. “Where is he?” Twilight shouted.
“Where is who?” The Doctor said, donning a jeweler’s eye piece. He examined the hourglass carefully. He of course, had no idea what he was doing. Anyone who stopped to think about it would realize his “time shop” was just a clever ruse.
“The OC. We know you’re hiding him somewhere,” Pinkie said.
The Doctor looked up from his work. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We know that you’re a space pirate time guy. You’re always bringing humans here and turning them into ponies!”
“Sorry, haven’t done that in a good two weeks.” He looked at the two furious mares. “Oh... Do you want me to not bring them here?”
“Yes!” They said in unison.
“Oh well, looks like I’ll just bring them to Canterlot next time.” He went back to his work.
“What? No!” Everypony in the shop turned to look at the green Unicorn mare with her face pressed against the window. Twilight facehoofed.
They spent the next four hours searching the town but to no avail. Everypony they came across couldn’t find anypony that was out of the ordinary. They had yet to find a single new pony in town. They stopped by a restaurant to take a snack break.
“I don’t get it,” Twilight said between munches of hay, “you’d think we’d be able to spot something as noticeable as an OC walking around town. So far, none of the girls have seen anypony new. This thing must be avoiding us. Or maybe it doesn’t have such an unusual appearance.” She pulled out a chart. “That’s quite odd, because every OC we’ve met is at least three deviations from the norm.”
“You know, I’ve always secretly suspected that Thunderlane was an OC, even if my pinkie sense never went off.”
“I don’t think he’s an OC. He’s never tried to talk to us, and he’s been in the town before I came here. Pinkie, maybe your senses were just wrong this time.”
The party pony gasped. “How, DARE YOU! My Pinkie sense has never ever ever been wrong! You know what Twilight? OCs never showed up until after you came to town! Maybe you’re bringing them here to destroy Ponyville!”
Twilight slammed her hooves onto the table. “CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION!”
“I know what you are, but what am I?”
“Pinkie, I’ve saved this town dozens of times! Why would I want to destroy the only town where I have friends and a house?”
“A house?”
“Yes Pinkie, a house.”
“That’s it! All we need to do is find out which houses were bought today, and see who’s in them!”
“That only works if they decided to move in, and not just stay in a hotel.”
“It’s better than nothing, Twilight.”
They spent the next half hour searching the residential area of Ponyville. Finally they spotted a moving truck. Derpy was kind enough to point out the pony who had bought it. It was the tan Pegasus Pinkie had bumped into! They approached the Pegasus with gusto. Pinkie’s eye started twitching even more as they approached. There was no doubt.
“Oh, hello there!” he called cheerily. They examined him carefully. He had blue eyes, brown hair, and a milkshake cutie-mark. Pinkie went up to him, and unfolded his wing, examining it carefully. “Um, can I help you miss?”
“I don’t get it Twi, he looks perfectly normal. He doesn’t have bat wings or anything...” She parted his lips with her hooves and examined his mouth. “No fangs either.” Pinkie didn't understand. He seemed almost, average
“Umfff, ith there sumthing wrong?” he said as best as he could while his lips were being man-handled.
“Are you sure this is him? I mean, I’m glad he’s not a freak, but is he one of them? He’s facing to the right. I haven’t seen an OC ever do that.”
Flitter and Cloudchaser, who happened to be passing by, overheard this conversation.
Flitter snickered. “Well it looks like they’re,” she put on a pair of shades, “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” the periwinkle Pegasus gave her sister a hoof bump. Twilight shot them an angry glare.
Cloudchaser ran a hoof casually through her messy hair, then pointed it at Twilight with a click of her tongue. “Stay gold, ponygirl.” The two sisters took to the air, and flew away.
The librarian huffed then turned back to the tan Pegasus. “Maybe he looks normal but has a ridiculous back story.” She turned to address the tan Pegasus. “Sir, we have to ask you a few questions.”
“Um, okay...”
“Are you, or ever were a human?” Twilight asked. The stallion shook his head. She heard a huge gasp from behind her.
“Did somepony say-”
“Go Away Lyra.”
“Awww, come on.” The mint green Unicorn shuffled back to her home.
“Question number two: how long have you been in ponyville?”
“About a day.”
“And where are you from?”
“I just moved from Trottingham. Why do you need to know all this?”
“We’ll be asking the questions here, Mister!” Pinkie shouted. At some point she had donned a bubble pipe and a hunting hat. “Now, what is your name?”
“Snipe. My name is Snipe.” The lavender and pink pony grinned at each other.
“And what’s your backstory? If you remember!”
“Um, I was born in Trottingham, and I came here to open up a milkshake shop.”
“Well, well, well. Looks like we got ourselves an original character on our hooves,” Applejack said, walking up to her friends. She spit on the ground and growled. “We don’ take too kindly to OCs ‘round these parts.” She drew out her rope.
“What?” Snipe yelped.
“Ya’ heard me little feller. Ahm sick of OCs, ya hear? Them and their Japanese character cutie marks! Their always claiming to be part of the apple family, and moochin’ food and shelter off of us, before they up an’ leave town to do Celestia knows what, without so much as a ‘thank ya kindly’. It’s like half of them don’t even know why they came here in the first place! We don’t want your kind here.”
“What did you expect? That you could remain absolutely anonymous forever?” Twilight asked.
“Okay, okay, I’m an OC. But I’m not that bad, look at me! Am I a freak? No! I’m just trying to live out a life here, open a shop, and reflect on the trials and tribulations of starting a small business in an unfamiliar town, and perhaps all the friends I make along my journey! I don’t even know who you ponies are! Can’t you let me alone? I sold everything to just buy a shop.” He glared at Applejack. “Sure, a lot of OCs are incredibly ugly freaks, who just want to get into Twilight’s pants, but some of us are really interesting, and well rounded characters without Mary Sue clichés. I’m no device heretic! Heck, there’s a bunch living in the town already, that nobody even knows are OCs. You know a stallion by the name of Lyric?”
“You mean that feller that RD won’t stop yabbering about?”
“He’s an OC.” All three mares gasped.
“No. He couldn’t be,” Pinkie stammered.
Snipe nodded, and continued. “Sometimes, OCs can be used to explore entirely new concepts, or put a spin on the old. Like Littlepip, and everypony she meets. Could that world exist without a whole host of OCs?”
“Littlewho?” Twilight asked.
“You’re right....” Pinkie said. “Littlepip is an OC, but because the story is about the world the author built, it works!”
“We aren’t all bad. Some of us are just mishandled.” Snipe grinned sheepishly.
“Ah, guess, I never thought of it that way,” Applejack said.
“The bad OCs think they just can graft themselves into Ponyville life. Except that’s what most of them try to do, and that never works.”
“C’mon girls, lets leave this one alone. Welcome to Ponyville, Snipe.”
Cloudchaser appeared once again. “Well it looks like this whole thing was,” she put on glasses, ”a snipe hunt.”
Somewhere in the distance, everypony heard Roid Rage scream “YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!”
All of the sudden, a hideous Pegasus, with blue coat, red zebra stripes, and the freakiest lizard eyes you’ve ever seen, came up to Twilight. He was followed by an entourage of equally hideous OCs. Bringing up the rear was a brown Alicorn, wearing a combat vest.
“Oh god, not you again...” Twilight said, facehoofing.
“But Two Lite, I Love You!” he gurgled. “How come Your not loving may? I cand do The best Sonic Giroboom you seen!”
“For the love of Celestia, if you’re going to use Spellcheck, make sure you’re replacing the right words!” the party pony said.
Twilight growled. “Go away, Gecko—”
“But My nambes Girok—”
“Am ah gonna have to buck your head again?” Applejack said, taking a step forward. “Get out.”
A single tear welled up in the freak’s eye. “All I wanton ted, to do, was Life the dream...” he blubbered, as he flew off into the sunset.
A/N: special shout out to kickass22urmom, for being a bro, and coming up with with Giroko (lizard eyed pony) from "Living The Dream", and consequently, partially inspiring this fic! And to genericlogin1 for editing, catering, and spiritual advising.