//------------------------------//
// Pinkie's Secret! The Ancient Legacy! [April Fool 2016] 
// Story: My Little Pirates: Luffy's Adventures in Equestria 
// by Fullmetal Pony 
//------------------------------//

Twilight stared out at Ponyville. The sun had crested over the low-lying mountains to the east, yet the clock on her wall read half past ten. She sighed and turned her muzzle back down to the paperwork spread out before her.

The door to the library flew open, sending a few decrees and forms flying. A pink blur sped through the stacks and latched onto Twilight.

"Pinkie?" Twilight choked while Pinkie held her firmly. "W-what is it?"

"It's super important!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"Is it the Princessess?" Twilight asked. "Or Luffy? Is he back?"

"No, but I found something super important while I was helping Cadence up in Canterlot!"

Pinkie shoved a hoof into her mane and pulled out a sheet of yellowed paper. A creature with a wide smile filled up the majority of the sheet. Twilight locked onto the creature's straw hat and then read the name inscribed under his picture.

"Oh, so that's what Luffy looks like as a human," Twilight commented. "Neat."

"That's not the important thing though!" Pinkie jabbed at Luffy's name. "This is!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Is there something about his name?"

"Yes!" Pinkie shouted. "He's Monkey D. Luffy! Do you know what that means?"

Twilight glanced down and then back at Pinkie. "Should I?"

Pinkie blinked and then collapsed on a nearby chair. "Oh geez, I got too excited."

"I didn't think that was possible." Twilight got out of her own seat and moved over to Pinkie. "You've got me a little worried though. Why is Luffy's name so important?"

"It's not just his name." Pinkie smiled. "It's mine too!"

"Wait..." Twilight took as step back and her eyes widened. She then shot a hoof out at Pinkie. "Don't tell me you're related! That's impossible! He's not even the same species!"

"I know! I was super shocked too!" Pinkie exclaimed. "But he's the only other D I've met!"

Twilight planted her flanks on the ground and slapped her head. "Pinkie, don't scare me like that. Just because your middle name starts with a D and Luffy's does too, it doesn't make you related."

"But it..." Pinkie clasped her head and shook it. She then leapt out of her seat. "Twilight, I'm going to gather everypony up. We're going on a trip and then my folks and I can explain everything!"

Twilight felt something shift on her back. She turned her head around to see that two full saddlebags rested on her back. She spun back around towards Pinkie, but there was only open air.

Spike wandered in from the kitchen and looked around. "Hey, I thought I heard Pinkie." He then spied the saddlebags. "Are you going out?"

One of Twilight's eyes twitched. "Apparently."


~~~


"Not that I don't mind meeting you family, Pinkie, but this really does feel a bit too impromptu," said Rarity.

Pinkie peeled her face away from the window and smiled at Rarity and the rest of her friends. "I know, but this is really super important. This could really help out Luffy a lot!"

"Couldn't we have just waited for him then?" asked Dash.

"I thought about that, but this is an emergency," Pinkie said with a straight face. "In case something happens to him, we have to make sure we're ready and can move Holder's Boulder as fast as possible!"

"Beg your pardon?" said Applejack.

"Gah," Pinkie groaned. "Please please please just wait a little longer. My family and I can explain everything once we get to the farm."

A little while later, the train came to a stop at a lone station. Its straw roof and stone walls were faded with age. Amidst the dust and rock outcroppings, it shone like a bright beacon.

The girls all stepped off the train while the rest of the passengers remained in their seats. Twilight was looking back at her friends when she bumped into what felt like an unseen pillar. The hit jolted her and sent her into a small daze. When her head cleared, she found Pinkie joining one of her hooves with that of a marble grey Earth Pony.

"Way to make an entrance, Twilight!" Pinkie then turned to the Earth Pony. "Maud, Twilight. Twilight, Maud."

"Nice to meet you," Maud droned. She slipped her leg free of Pinkie's grasp and let it drift back to the ground.

"Uh, nice to meet you too." Twilight retracted her own hoof.
Pinkie then clasped Maud's head and turned it over to the other girls. "These are all my other friends, Maud! Say hi!"

Maud blinked slowly. "Hello."

A cricket chirped nearby.

Rarity stepped forward and extended out a hoof. "A pleasure to meet you, dear."

Maud stared down at Rarity's hoof and then looked up to Pinkie. "We should get going."

"Yeah!" Dash exclaimed. "If this is really the emergency Pinkie says it is, we can't waste time!"

Maud took one step followed by another. Dash's wings sunk as did her lips. She sighed and followed after her as did the rest of the girls.

"Pinkie can over-exaggerate things," Maud stated. She looked at Pinkie and blinked. "No offense. I don't know what Ma and Pa told you as a D, but there's still a lot that has to happen before we can move Holder's Bolder."

"Limestone's not too upset, is she?" Pinkie asked.

"Devastated," Maud said in a flat tone. "But I managed to calm her down. Marble, Ma, and Pa helped too."

"That's good." Pinkie wiped some sweat off her brow.

Down the lone and dusty road, the group came upon the gray farm with its gray silo, its gray windmill, and its spawning fields of gray rocks. Everypony felt the smiles they'd plastered onto their faces slip a little.

"Well, it certainly looks like things are doing well here." Applejack turned to Pinkie and forced her smile to widen. "Right?"

"Oh yeah, things are going great on the farm," said Pinkie. "You should have seen all the garnets Maud harvested!"

"I prefer peridots," Maud stated.

Maud then slinked up to the farmhouse and tapped on the door with three exact knocks. The door opened and a collection of grey-colored mares and a lone yellow-brown stallion came out to the porch. The purple-grey mare whose colors appeared inverted of Maud's glared at all of them.

The stallion placed his hat against his chest and lowered his head. "It is an honor to meet you all. I am Igneous Rock of the Clan Pie. This, my wife, Cloudy Quartz and my daughters, Limestone and Marble. You are already acquainted with my kin of Maud and Pinkamena."

"It's an honor to meet you too." Twilight held out a hoof which Igneous clasped. He gave it a stern shake that wobbled Twilight's entire leg.

"Come." Igneous turned toward the hill that sat beside the house. "We shall explain while we walk."

"Wait!" Limestone shot up and stuck her face up to Twilight's. "Pinkie said there was another D, but these are just her friends she always talks about. They don't have the right!"

"Limestone!" Ingenous stamped a hoof. "Pinkamena has made her decision. It is not our way to go against the D."

Igneous then set off again to the hill. He looked back and the others followed.

Twilight quickened her pace to match Igneous. "So, everypony keeps mentioning this D, is it some sort of family naming convention?"

"Much more than that, child," said Igneous. "The D is an ancient heritage passed down since ancient times. Amongst the Pies, its Will has manifested among individuals throughout the centuries, but Pinkamena is the first in millennia to have met another D."

The group entered into the mouth of the cave. Marble and Cloudy picked up lanterns left near a stalagmite while Twilight and Rarity lit up their horns. Igneous raised his head to the roof of the cave and sighed.

"I feared for many years we had missed out chance," he continued. "In my youth, another D came upon us, but we had no D amongst ourselves until Pinkamena was born."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Why couldn't you have done whatever it was all this D business entails back then?"

"Because I was not an inheritor of the Will," Igneous explained. "Pray, still your questions for a moment and listen. The Pies have always been shepherds of the D's legacy, but it is only once in many generations that an actual D is born to us. Until Pinkamina acquired her cutie mark, we were not even sure the Will was within her."

"But after I threw such a fun party, Pa was super happy and told me all about Holder's Boulder and a bunch of other super secret family stuff!" Pinkie drew close to her father and nuzzled him. He gave her a small pat on the head.

"Yes, and since Pinkamina says you truly are close friends with both her and the other bearer of D, we have deemed it fit to tell you of it as well," said Igneous.

The group then came to a stop in front of a wall that towered up into the darkness of the cave. Igneous detached from the group and stepped over to a collection of boulders beside the wall. His leg disappeared into a gap in the rocks. Holding his leg there, he looked back to the group.

"Before we enter, I must ask that you all solely partake in the vow of solitude to never reveal what you have learned this day. In the wrong hooves, this legacy would bring calamity and destruction upon Equestria and the land beyond the great sea."

"Wait a minute!" Dash jabbed a hoof at Igneous and then glared at Pinkie. "You knew there was land beyond Equestria?"

"It was super secret, Dashie!" Pinkie retorted. "I didn't even tell Luffy! I mean, if I'd known his name, I would have, but that's beside the point. You all need to make the promise!"

"Yes, make haste." Ingenious glanced at the rocks and his leg. "You don't have much time."

"Pardon?" asked Applejack.

"Just make a Pinkie Promise!" Pinke said. "Otherwise the failsafe will activate!"

"W-what?" Fluttershy yelped.

"Pinkie Promise!" The cave rumbled and a loosened rock clattered next to Pinkie. "Now!"

"Cross my heart and hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye!" All the girls belted out and did the motions.

Fluttershy yelped when her hoof refused to detach from her eye from a moment but then gave way with an elastic-like snap.

Igneous sighed and pressed his leg deeper into the rocks.

The entire cave shook and the girls went to their knees.

"But we made the promise!" Twilight yelled.

"Silly," Pinkie giggled. "That's just the door opening!"

When the rumbling stopped, the girls slowly opened their eyes. The wall in front of them had sunk into the earth, revealing a second chamber within the cave. The Pies filed into it and the girls followed.

The chamber arced up high. Like the room before, lanterns and magic couldn't pierce the upper darkness of the cave. Unlike the previous room though, a lone shaft a light shot down into the center of the room. The sliver of sunlight allowed a bed of moss to crop up on the cave's floor and along the base of the great stone that rested under the light.

The stone was massive, at least the size of an ursa minor. It didn't have the glow of a ruby, but it was a much richer red than any other stone or clay. Each of its five exposed sides was covered from top to bottom in some sort of glyphs.

Twilight and the rest of the girls drew close to the stone, but kept a respectful distance. The air around it felt charged with an ancient energy.

"What is this?" Twilight asked.

"We call it Holder's Boulder," Pinkie said. "But now that we're here I can tell you its other name: the Ponyglyph."

"Well, it sure is something." Applejack adjusted her hat and stared at it. "What's all the fancy stuff on it mean?"

"No idea," Pinkie chirped.

All her friend's eyes fell on her.

"But I thought you're some sort of inheritor of this." Twilight looked over to Pinkie's family. "Are you saying none of you can read this?"

"In times long past, we may have," Igneous sighed. "But those ways were lost when the Pies split from our fellow stonemasons to stay and guard this most important of messages. I now feel our time is at hoof. Pinkamina, what say you?"

"Yep!" Pinkie exclaimed. "I bet Luffy will definitely be able to do it. I think he even said something about one of his friends doing something with stones."

"I see." Igneous smiled. "Then it is set, we Pies shall fulfill our duty and grant this Ponyglyph to Monkey D. Luffy once he has learned of the New World’s End."

“Aww.” Pinkie blew a raspberry. “We can’t give it to him now?”

“No,” Igneous commanded. “A D born upon the seas must reach the false end before their true journey can begin. That is how it has been since ancient times.”

“Okay,” Pinkie sighed. Her head then shot up and she displayed a wide smile. “Then when Luffy gets back I’m definitely gonna do everything I can to help him get strong.”

“And, of course, he is welcome to come here and read the Ponyglyph,” said Igneous. “He just cannot take it yet.”

"Wait," said Twilight. Everypony turned to her. "This is all a lot of information, but wouldn't it be easier to just transcribe what's on the stone and give it to Luffy?"

"Of course, child," Igneous replied. “But that would not be fulfilling its purpose. Only when the stones are brought together at the point long ago foretold will their true meaning be revealed.”

"Why don't I try translating it for him then?"

Igneous tightened his jaw. "You may try, child, but the Ponyglyph is a relic far beyond anypony's understanding."

"Just to make life a little easier on Luffy."

Twilight trotted closer to the Ponyglyph. The hairs on her neck stood straight being so close to such an ancient yet undamaged thing. She gulped and lit up her horn. Her breathing quickened while her aura crept over the great stone. At places, her magic stopped and quivered as if held back by some invisible force. Her mane flowed around her and a breeze filled the cave.

Her eyes flared open. They crackled white with energy for a moment before Twilight was lifted off the ground and thrown across the room.

"Twilight!" her friends cried out and raced over to her.

Applejack reached her first and cradled Twilight's head. "C'mon, stick with us, sugarcube!"

Twilight groaned and raised her head. She coughed and looked up. Her eyes flicked in various directions. She shook her head and breathed.

"I can't believe it." Twilight placed a hoof on her head. "I can't even begin to understand half of it, but Pinkie, you were right, with everything that's happened, it's essential that we tell Luffy about this stone."

"See?" Pinkie beamed.

"But what's it say?" Dash leaned closer to Twilight. "Is it some ancient secret? A map to buried treasure? C'mon, tell us!"

Twilight smiled. "There’s still a lot trying to process, but there was one phrase I was able to understand. If I'm right, everything we've know about Equestria—about the world—could be wrong!"

"Tell us!" everypony shouted.

"The secret is..." Twilight leaned closer to her friends.

A snap echoed through the cave.

Discord looked out at you.

"That the author realized what day it was and combined it with a random headcanon he thought up at the last moment," he snickered. "Oh, don't give me that look. You didn't think two chapters in a row was a little odd?"

Discord snapped again and a pair of shades appeared on his face. "Anyway, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my favorite holiday before we get back to the main plot. Oh, I can't wait to finally get revenge on that stupid Straw Hat!"

Discord stroked his beard. "Although, I think the author mentioned something about setting him adrift or something. I heard there was talk of some skeleton too. Or maybe it was a chef."

"Whatever!" Discord shrugged causing the cave and everypony in it to float away. Now Discord was on a beach somewhere with the sand rolling back and forth and lapping at the stationary water. Discord put his hands behind his head while a hammock floated up and leaned on him. "I'm going to enjoy some clouds and rain for bit. April fools!"