The day was getting late as Celestia finally began her rounds of setting the sun, the last rays of light casting long fingered shadows upon the open land. The last vestiges of daylight combined together to create an illusion of a fireball blazing across the sky, illuminating everything it touched, in this case the main highway that ran throughout Equestria.
Usually there was quite a bit of traffic upon the highway even at such late hours, but today it was deserted. Not a single pony or wagon in sight, that is until…
“Aaaaaaannnnnnddddddd off I go to places unknown, far away from what was my home, but if i go with a hop and skip, I’m sure I can get there quick…”
The sound of joyous singing carried across the beaten path as a bright pink colored pony with much frolic pranced her way along, hopping and skipping as she she sung her hearts content for the whole world to hear.
Pinkie pie was in a glorious mood today, happy to be finally on her way to make a new life in the wide world. Light on her feet, she skipped along not seemingly having a care in the world.
Like most ponies she wore no clothes, the only thing she carried was her sunny smile and a small pair of saddle bags. The first one was full of personal belongings, while the other contained the small pile of bits she had been saving her entire life.
It had been almost liberating for her to sell her personal rock collection to her fellow sisters, in an effort to get a few more bits. She had never really found such hobbies interesting, but did them out of respect for her families traditions and to fit in with their expectations.
She could still remember the look on her sisters faces as she revealed her collection of quartz, pyrite, geodes, and jade fragments to them. It was only beaten i surprise by the look that followed soon after, when she told them she was willing to sell them. They had thought she had gone truly nuts, but she had done it anyway. Now she had a bit more to add to her life savings, not a lot but a sure start for a young pony naive to the demands of the vast world.
Her minuscule fiances and belongings aside, nothing could put a damper on her spirits for, for the first time she was able to see the great expanse of the outside world.
Now she was far from the confines of the dull and grey lifestyle of growing up on a rock farm. She planned to use this new found freedom to it’s best ability, for she wanted to see the world, and eventually find her own place somewhere in it.
Even if it meant she had to find a new life away from the kindhearted but simple lifestyle of her parents and her trio of polar opposite sisters. Whether it be cool and humorous Maude, shy and timid Marble, or ambitious yet quick tempered Limestone.
None of them had the same drive that Pinkie did, and while she loved them all dearly, they were fully content to eek out their modest existence around rocks.
However, ever since she had first seen that rainbow beam shooting through the sky as a young filly pushing boulders, she had planned a more exciting future for herself. As she hopped down the road she continued to sing, ignoring the shrinking light of day and the lack of company.
“Weeelllll here I come be it night or day, and nothing is gonna stand in my way, I have good faith that things will turn out all right, and I'll find somewhere where they’ll hold me tight. So I’ll search and search no matter what, to fulfill the destiny tattooed on my butt!”
She continued on like this for a ways, glancing at her flank every now and then to admire her cutie-mark in the silver moonlight. The cutie-mark of colored balloons was Pinkie’s pride and joy, the physical embodiment of her passion, and what set her primarily apart from the rest of her family. Her future and her destiny all displayed in one mark on her flank. Her sisters had never seemed to notice or care about theirs, but hers had always fascinated her.
She could still remember the desires, the dying of hay to turn it into confetti, using stocking as makeshift balloons, cutting up curtains for streamers, and clearing out the pantry to bake cakes and pies. Pinkie loved it all, she adored the idea of bringing joy and laughter to others.
The pie family however, had not been that impressed by her desire to throw parties and bring laughter and general physical expressions of joy. Turning her eyes back to the road, Pinkie pie stopped singing, trying to come up with new lyrics for her song, and failing miserably.
Sometimes she wished she could have the kind of mind that could not only figure out great song lyrics but also comprehend deeper meanings behind most of the thoughts going through her head…might save her a lot of time and bits in the future.
As she moved on her way it was now well past sunset and Luna's moon now shown down upon her, the lunar rays of the full moon taking over for their sister sun in illuminating the road.Despite her cheerful disposition the pink pony was starting to feel the chill of the night air. Her keen eyes began scanning the road ahead looking for somewhere she could comfortably bed down for the night.
Luckily she did not have far to go before the outline of a set of structures began to loom in her sight. As she got closer the blurry shape began to become more into focus until the signs of a collection of huts besides a large building stood before her. The huts were small wooden shacks, not too run down and looked big enough to house one or two ponies. They were painted an ugly brown and had silver numbered horse shoes across the front doors.
While the huts barley stood out on the open road, the building itself was very imposing, looking more and more like some sort of community hall as she grew closer. Two stories tall, painted bright green, with a platform porch and several red painted pillars connecting the upper and lower half of the building. Hanging from a pole above the front porch lay a wooden sign with gold embodied letters across it reading, the Guzzling Mare. Pinkie hopped her way past the huts and up the steps of the porch till she stood in front of the swinging bar doors, the sound of a grand piano playing, singing and partying goings on resounding inside. With a confident determination and bright smile, Pinkie pushed her way through the bar doors and entered the Inn.
“Wuh? Huh?”
Pinkie woke up groggily, her eyes desperately trying to open but a crushing feeling of sleep kept them at half lid. Her entire body felt weak and tired which for her was relatively unheard of.
“Oh boy, that must have been one heck of a party,” she thought out loud.
She tried to wipe her eyes only to find that she could not move at all. Looking down at herself Pinkie gave a meep of surprise to see she was lying face up on a metal gurney, the gurney itself standing upright in the middle of the room. Two sets of heavy straps lay across her body, one across her hind legs and the other across her forelegs and chest, holding her fast to the metal frame. A third thinner strap was wrapped around her head keeping her from extending her neck or turning her head too far.
Standing in both of the corners she was facing stood two large flood light lamps which were burning bright. So much so that the light nearly blinded her, making her either squint or try to keep them shut instead. As she lay there tired and restrained she began to try and piece together exactly how she ended up trussed up like a packaged birthday cake. The last thing she remembered doing, was leaping through the doors of the Guzzling Mare, only to immediately black out, the smell of soft lilacs with a hint of minty freshness clear in her nose.
As consciousness slowly returned to her, she became more aware of her surroundings. Despite the lamps in her face, she could still see enough to realize she was still definitely inside the Inn. However, unlike most Inns she had heard of, the entire room was empty of anything one would expect to find in an inn. No chairs or tables, no piano, or more importantly guests. Instead there was just chrome colored flooring which was a high contrast to the inns wooden exterior. The lights were too bright for her to make out what else occupied the room with her, but she did notice the jukebox beside the front doors, the sounds of a piano and goings on of a bustling inn, ringing from inside it.
“Ah awake i see,” came a cold ghoulish voice from beyond her sight, the presence of someone else in the room washing over Pinkie like a cold gust of air.
The clopping of hooves across linoleum filled her ears until a shadowy form walked up beside her. The figure just far enough out of her peripherals that she could not make them out, but not far enough that she could not pinpoint their presence.
A grey colored hoof with silver metal bracelets touched her forehead, the cold metal meting her warm flesh delivered a mixed feeling of hot and cold to her forehead. She shivered at the touch, giving a loud whimper so different from her usual sunny cheer. That bright excited energy that she had become known for, began to cloud at the touch of this dark unknown pony. She was greatly unnerved by the creepy voice and the fact she apparently had been drugged and tied up for Celestia only knows what.
“shhhhh…shhhh there, there my dear…” came the voice in response to her loud whimper.
The hoof wiped her forehead, taking off the sheen of sweat that had developed from a combination of her worry and the heat from the lamps.
“You must have quite a few questions?”
Pinkie didn’t answer him right away, trying instead to actually figure out what she could possibly say to have this obvious-psycho-pony let her go. The unknown pony seemed to grow impatient with her silence and brought himself more fully into view, blocking the light from one of the lamps as he stood in front of it.
She was right when she thought he sounded like a ghoul, as the unicorn before her was unattractively thin, and lanky, not enough for him to be confused with the living dead (or living impaired she could never remember which) but not far off.
His entire demeanor could be summed up as hampered dull grey, from his gravel stained fur to his mane and tail colored a sparkling silver. It was visually unpleasant at how his body matched the chrome flooring perfectly. The tip of his horn had been coated with a metal tip, while the rest of the bone was pure white. His stature also appeared to follow a lax motif as he didn’t even bother to try and hold himself up straight, practically slouching even while standing.
He was wearing some sort of see through lab coat and a black harness about his chest. She managed to make out under the see through lab coat his cutie-mark. While the stallion before her looked like something out of the Weird Sister's Limits magazine, his cutie-mark was more fit of a nightmare, displaying a horrifying needle on a parchment banner with a lightning bolt across. The harness had this strange cutie-mark embroidered upon the front of it as well. Both his front hooves also sported a pair of silver metallic bracelets, which extending upwards, coiling around his legs like metal gloves.
The only thing that set him apart from being a living embodiment of the floor was his eyes. The two orbs that seemed so trained at catching her own, making her cringe while also drawing her attention to the seemingly permanent sneer on his face. Unlike the rest of his dull and bland appearance, he sported a pair of bright red eyes. Fiery rubies that stared at her from muddy grey eye sockets…dark bags buried under his eyes, as if he hadn’t had any sleep in days.
“My name is Doctor Von Goul, I am one of Equestria's greatest scientists, and you my dear…are my newest test subject,” his voice was chilly and smooth, all contrasted by his eyes, which were burning bright.
Pinkie gulped before she found the strength to reply, “S-Subject f-for w-what?”
His unpleasant sneer curled into an even more unpleasant smile, making her grimace as she feared his answer.
Doctor Von Goul walked around her a bit more until he was fully in front of her. His eyes were now definitely unavoidable has he seemed to try and stare deep into her soul. “Let’s just say i have been needing a special subject for this most important test…and you my dear are it.”
He lifted both hooves up on either side of her strapped down head, and began to push the gurney (which it seemed had wheels) backwards. They moved past another set of doors at the back of the room and began passing through a a short corridor before arriving in some sort of back room. “I have been tracking your energy signature for months now,” he continued. “I even had to spend a fortune to rent out this blasted roach infested shack for a week. Just to make sure I could get you alone.”
Pinkie didn’t exactly understand what he was talking about. “My energy what now?”
Von Goul had little patience for the young mare’s ignorance, “Energy signature!” he snarled. “All ponies be they alicorn, unicorn, pegasus, or earth based, have unique magical energy signatures. Their own brand of life magic.”
He continued passing around her, pacing like her father used to in his study when the rain seasons came and washed out the best rocks. He was lecturing her like one might lecture a student and not a test subject for experimental methods.
“Life magic is what connects us all to Equestria itself, whereas alicorns and unicorns can physically access it through their horns, and pegasus use it to power their gift of flight, earth ponies are notorious for storing it up inside themselves. Most go through their entire lives without realizing the reservoir of power inside them.”
“And you…help them activate this power?” Pinkie asked with some hesitation, not taking her eyes of that dangerous metal tipped horn waving about her face.
“Heh heh heh, in a manner of speaking,” grinned the pale unicorn, his sneer having evolved now to show some teeth.
Pinkie did not like the sound of that at all, and she liked the look on his face even less.
“Now i have how should i say, analyzed my fair share of earth ponies, but none of them ever showed the kind of energy signature you give off.”
He started to examine her with his horn, poking her softly albeit gratuitously.
“What is your name girl?” he asked irritably. “For record purposes,” he quickly added.
She debated whether or not to reply but then decided not cooperating wasn’t going to get her any more answers…or any less tied up at at this creeps mercy.
“The names Pinkie Pie, of the Pie family,” she said with mirthful pride.
“Pinkie…Pie…? Really?” He replied in disbelief. “I mean it sounds like they really must have mined their imagination for that one huh?”
“Yep, that’s my parents for ya, geniuses at naming things,” she smiled as she saw the look of surprise lingering on his ghastly face. “Pinkie Pie is the name and don’t wear it out Ghoully”
“It’s Von Goul, not Ghoully…that's what my mother used to called me and I absolutely, HATED IT!” he bellowed at her, poking his horn now at her chest and neck.
“Hey watch the horn, watch the horn there stabbie,” cried Pinkie indignantly.
“Oh shut up, you’re safe. I’m merely scanning your energy signature with my horn.”
“You’re scanning me?”
“That’s what i said brat,” he growled, his horn starting to glow bright orange as he began to pass it across her body. “I’ve imbued my horn with a spell of my own design to help me sense, track, and analyze magical life energy, and the signatures it leaves in ponies.”
“And what you’re saying is that, my signature is bigger, brighter, and more awesome then anyone else?”
Von Goul smirked at that, “Oh yes indeed,” he said. “So unique and powerful that for the last few months, not a day has gone by without the throbbing of my horn giving me a massive splitting headache and constant migraines.”
“Oops, sorry about that…” Pinkie added sheepishly.
“Not all my dear,” he replied coldly.
At this point his horn’s orange hue began to flash yellow and green, “ah there we are, for you see, i have waited a long time to find such a powerful signature such as this, all life magic is virile, but yours, just has something about it…more pep, more…something, and that is intriguing.”
She raised an eyebrow at that, her fear being replaced slowly by disgust. She was now just hoping the weirdo was going to behave himself.
“You see my dear Pinkie Pie, I have been studying Equestrian energy signatures for years now, as well as the properties and applications of unicorn magic. Despite all my numerous findings and extensive research, however, I have yet to truly scrape the surface, hence the need to test out one of my greatest findings ever…the effects of the Fourth Pool.”
Pinkie didn’t know what to make of that, but her interest had been piqued and so why not roll with it?
“Fourth what?” she asked innocently.
The Doctor snapped his attention away from his horn and back onto her, giving her one of his signature cold stares. “The Fourth Pool…one of eight magical Pools scattered all over Equestria. Each has it’s own unique set of magical properties and serve as the last wells, you might say, of ancient Equestrian magic?” The bony grey stallion began to pace back and forth before Pinkie, his excitement over their topic of discussion beginning to grow.
“This particular pool that I have found is the fourth of that line.”
“The Fourth Pool?” stated Pinkie quizzically, “That sounds really dumb, I mean why not call it something that sounds better…like the Fourth Wall?”
The Doctor stamped his hoof, his eyes blazing and his horn glowing bright orange in rage.
“No, no no no, it’s not called the Fourth Wall,” he screeched. "It is called the Fourth Pool. it is literally a pool of liquid magic!”
Pinkie just rolled her eyes as she lamented, “If you say so Doc.”
The Doctor smiled at that confusing Pinkie’s brush off as acceptance. Dropping the magical build up around his horn, he stood down his aggressive stance and calmed the inferno that had previously engulfed his corneas.
“The only problem is, all previous test subjects were unable to touch let alone bathe in the water without…disastrous results.”
At that pinkie popped her head up, great alarm written across her face, “w-what k-kind of results?”
Von Goul began with little pause or restraint to list off the numerous afflictions and side effects, in great detail, each one more horrifying and scarring then the last.
“…That one took a great deal of drain cleaner to get out of all the cracks, and required the use of several wet mops…and don’t get me started on how much I had to pay for proper waste disposal drains, but I think I saved quite a bit for when…”
“Enough! Oh sweet Celestia ENOUGH I CAN’T HEAR ANY MORE OF THIS!” Cried Pinkie struggling like a mad mare against her bonds.
This alarmed Von Goul who frantically rushed to her side and tried to apply his weight to help hold her down. Being a near stick figure with the muscle tone of a twig however, was proving to be beyond it’s share of difficulty.
“Calm down calm down Dammit! I know now what was wrong before…their energy signatures were not strong enough to meld with the magical energy of the pool. Their bodies could not handle the strain, or the power. However, you with your unique and…vibrant signature should be more than enough to survive…maybe…perhaps…fifty fifty chance at least.”
Pinkie scoffed at the idea, “Why for the love of sweet apple pie would I agree to that chance?”
The Doctor laughed, “Hahahahahaahaha, because first off, you have no say in the matter, and secondly because the Fourth Pool is rumored to contain the ability to give the one who bathes in it, the power to see beyond all thought, time, and space…” He shifted closer to her making sure her entire focus was on what he was promising. “Abilities to sense the future, to see beyond sight, to understand all that the universe holds dear…well that or it’ll just drive you into complete insanity, but that is what these tests are for.”
“So you think I could get the power to see beyond all reality?” she inquired genuinely interested herself.
“Yes,…or turn you completely mad…I just want to be up front with that total possibility,” he replied.
“You pinkie promise?” she demanded now, her eyes glaring cake cutters at the skeletal pony before her.
“What?”
“Pinkie promise, it means you cross your heart and hope never to lie, or else.”
“Yeah I’m not doing that, like I said this is non-negotiable you’re going to test it no matter what. I just give the powers option cause it usually involves less struggling.”
Pinkie had to think for a minute before shrugging her shoulders as much as she could, “Eh fair enough.”
“Before you are ready to meet the Fourth Pool testing phase however, i must see exactly what your limits are and taste your magical energy when it’s ripest.”
Pinkie couldn’t help but draw a blank at that, at least several of those words would get you shot in the Pie neighborhood.
“When you say taste, you mean in terms of quantifiable testing and qualitative research right?” She asked with a glimmer of hope in her voice and facial features, big eyes wide and bulging like a puppy dog.
“No,” he replied, his eyes glowing and his smile wide.
“Uh Oh”