• Published 6th Jan 2014
  • 24,321 Views, 960 Comments

Rise of Sunbutt the Awesome - BobAlcove



Princess Celestia is the paragon of everything good and pure. And currently not available. Hi my name is Frank, the new guy in charge of this body and I'm here to fulfill all your princess needs. At least until I find something better to do.

  • ...
106
 960
 24,321

Can't get you out of my head...

Endless white.

A seemingly endless and flat plane of white with no shape, color or shadow to disrupt the monotony in the scenery. The only frame of reference for the size of this place was a small pink dot in the middle. The curled up furry ball stirred and unfolded, revealing a snoring Pinkie.

A sudden flash of golden light and Frank stood beside the sleeping Pinkie who frowned at the sudden brightness and scrunched her face. He got closer and sat down beside her, just looking at her sleeping form with an unreadable expression.

Frank slowly put his hooves on Pinkie and shook her softly. “Hey Pinkie...”

Pinkie rolled away, mumbling something about frosting and chocolate rain. Drool left her mouth and spilled over the featureless white floor, soaking Frank’s hooves. He gently picked her up with his magic and sat her down on his back. Pinkie fell off though when she started gnawing on his butt and he involuntary bucked.

She hit the floor with a soft thud and jerked awake. “What!... Where!... Princess Celestia? What are you doing here? Where am I?”

Feeling a bit disoriented, she looked around the empty white plane and then at Frank’s neutral face. Pinkie vaguely remembered what had happened, but had no idea where she was now. Starting to think about possible places, her eyes went wide once she thought about a certain one.

“Did I die? Is this the afterlife? I sure hope not, I mean look at this boring place!”

Frank cringed as he remembered the moment they had arrived at the hospital and the following chaos. The feeling of uncertainty he had in that waiting room like a bucket of ice water in his gut, and he relaxed after the first diagnosis.

“No, Pinkie you’re not dead. You’re just unconscious after the stroke you had.”

Pinkie went pale at the word ‘unconscious’ and ‘stroke’, then she started shaking.

He continued quickly to ease her fear. “Don’t worry Pinkie, Cranky got you fast enough to the hospital and luckily it was just a mini stroke. I have no idea what that means in medical terms, but after some magical treatment you’re gonna be as good as new with no long term effects.”

“Magical Treatment?” intervened Pinkie into Frank’s speech and he eagerly nodded.

“Yep, and only from the best unicorn doctors that money can buy. It’s the least I can do, because after all I’m responsible for this.”

“And it would otherwise haunt me for the rest of my life, which now is practically endless with me being immortal” thought Frank and swallowed hard.

Pinkie frowned and tilted her head. “No, you’re not responsible. Why would you think that silly?”

Frank stared at Pinkie in disbelief. Was she joking right now? Of course he was responsible for this! He seldom took blame for something, mostly because he thought himself innocent most of the time. But now even he couldn’t deny the guilt, so why wasn’t she angry?

“That stroke was a result of stress and you neglecting your health, something you got and did because I made you plan this stupid festival of mine.”

Now Pinkie got angry, but for totally different reasons. “The festival isn’t stupid and I chose to do it because I wanted to. Ponies should stop treating me like I’m stupid or a little child in need of protection. I know what I’m doing!”

That comment caused a raised an eyebrow from Frank and he demonstratively looked around the white plane to make a point, something Pinkie didn’t miss to notice. “You know what I mean! My little moment of weakness is not a reason to cut the festival short.”

“Actually, I’m close to just aborting it entirely,” said Frank and sighed heavily, “this was supposed to be fun, but now i think it isn’t worth the hassle anymore. Time to cut the losses and wipe the slate clean.”

At this statement, Pinkie flipped out completely. Frank had anticipated something like this and he waited for her to use comprehensible words and phrases again. She did so eventually.

“You can’t do that! So many ponies enjoy it and love what I made possible! Please don’t ruin this for me!” cried Pinke as she threw himself to his hooves, clamping down on them.

Frank swallowed hard again before he asked the prepared question in a strained voice. “Pinkie..., tell me why do you like parties so much?”

Pinkie stopped clamping down on his legs and gave him a confused look. “That’s a silly question princess! I like parties because they make ponies happy!”

“And what are you Pinkie?” asked Frank and pointed at her.

She was used to hearing dumb questions, most of them came from her own mouth after all. Hearing a dumb question from the princess though, a pony who was supposed to be wise, baffled Pinkie and she answered with an amused chuckle.

“Another silly question! I’m a pony dummy, uhm… no offense princess.”

Frank put his hoof on her shoulder. “Are you happy right now?”

Pinkie opened her mouth to answer, but closed it again once a thought struck her. It wasn’t a great moment of enlightenment, just a small observation she managed to miss to this point. Yes, her efforts had made everypony happy, and yet she wasn’t able to make one particular pony happy.

And that was herself.

“Not really. Quite the opposite actually, but that’s no reason to make others unhappy too!”

Frank’s face softened. “Tell you what, I’ll keep the festival open and you promise me to take it easy from now on. Be a part of the party instead of the pony alone behind the curtain stressing out about everything.”

She looked away with a pout, but Frank grabbed her on both shoulders and turned her sharply to face him.

“Promise me!”

The fear and desperation in Frank’s eyes, caused Pinkie to stare wordlessly at him. She could feel his hooves on her shoulders shaking and after a while she nodded slowly.

That wasn’t enough for Frank. “A Pinkie Promise, Pinkie! This is important and I know you don’t break those!”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” said Pinkie quietly while doing the motions.

Frank let go of her and slumped back on his haunches. “Thank you…”

Silence ensued again with both of them not speaking to each other. Pinkie didn’t like it when things were quiet and unlively. She needed to say something, anything to break this silence and the pressure which was building in her ears.

“So..., if I’m unconscious right now and this is a dream, why is everything so white and boring?”

“Ok Frank, no time to be grouchy. This is about Pinkie and her having a good time!” thought Frank, before he turned to Pinkie with a large smile and explained the circumstances.

“You see the treatment prevents your mind from dreaming, but I thought that while you're sleeping you can use my dreams for entertainment.”

“I’m inside your head?” asked Pinkie, and for some reason started to sniff the floor.

Frank didn’t know why. “Well kinda, but don’t worry you will get out of here once you wake up.”

That was a relief to Pinkie. The prospect of being in this desolate white place for longer than needed wasn’t appealing to her. Frank saw her fiddle around nervously with her hooves before she looked at him with big eyes and a quivering lip.

“Could you stay with me until I do? I don’t want to be alone right now...”

Franks grin got wider. “I’ll do one better and find something to entertain ourselves. Let’s play a game!”

Another bright flash from his horn and they stood in a long corridor with hundreds of doors on each side. Not one door looked like the other with different shapes, colors and sizes. Frank had planned a little adventure for both of them to make Pinkie happy and for him to distract himself from the guilt he was feeling right now.

“Wow look at this humongous corridor, I can’t even see the end! How did you do that?” asked Pinkie, as she eyed the door closest to her with interest.

Frank shrugged with his shoulders. “Twilight makes it sound like an exact science, but out of my experience most magic is just a little bit more than vague wibble-wobble.”

“Wibble-wobble… I like that word! Almost as much as Kumquat!”

He watched Pinkie hop around him, singing the words kumquat, cherry changa and wibble-wobble in different music styles. Once she finished her opera version with an astounding deep tenor voice, Pinkie stood there out of breath and Frank clapped applause.

“That was nice, but let’s get back to the game. Every door in this corridor represents a random dream and place you’re free to choose to your liking.”

“Oh that sounds like fun! How does it work exactly?” asked Pinke and rubbed a door with her hoof.

Frank got in front of the closest door and opened it. “It’s simple Pinkie, just open the door and you’ll see—”

He got suddenly interrupted when a pink hoof with a knife stabbed just inches away from his head, and Pinkie yelped in surprise.

Frank threw himself against the door and wedged the stabbing hoof in the doorframe which caused it to drop the knife. Pinkie looked down to Frank’s hooves and saw that he desperately pressed one of it against the head of Apple Bloom who tried to get out.

Only problem was that this Apple Bloom had red glowing sockets instead of eyes and a coat as black as the night. The creepy moaning didn’t help either to make her appearance more friendly.

Pinkie shuddered when a familiar voice came through the door crack.

“LEt me oUt, I wAnT tO haVe fuN! Do yoU wAnt to taStE mY RaiNbOw CUpcAkes?”

“Back, back I say!” yelled Frank, kicking and stabbing through the door crack with his horn before he finally was able to close it.

Summoning a few wooden planks with nails and a hammer, he started to bar the door shut. “Ok, maybe not every door. You can decide which door and then you let me open it to check!”

“What the hell was that, and why did the first one sound like me?” asked Pinkie as she picked up the knife from the ground to look at it, “Is that ketchup?”

Frank glanced at Pinkie as she stuck her tongue out to lick it. He instantly let the knife vanish and returned to nailing the door shut. “My nightmares, and for the second part don’t ask you don’t want to know. This should be the only bad door, so decide the next.”

Pinkie looked around and saw a blue door with a moon on it. “Ok then, I want that one! What’s in there?”

He didn’t know himself. Frank made sure beforehand that everything was ponified to not reveal his secret, but that was all he knew about the content of these rooms. He inched closer to the blue door and Pinkie was right behind him, curiously peeking over his shoulder.

In an instant he ripped the door open and jumped back with his horn pointed at it. Nothing came out, so they both entered the dark room. The only light source was a spotlight, illuminating a single empty spot in the otherwise pitch black room.

“This isn’t as scary, but kinda boring. I wish there was more light in here.” said Pinkie and like on command the lights went on, revealing the room in all it’s glory.

And glorious it was indeed.

The room was a carbon copy of Luna’s chambers in Canterlot, but only bigger and with lots more stuff in it. There were pictures of Luna all over the walls, most of them harmless in nature, some more risque and caused Frank to blush.

On the floor were tons of Luna plushies in every size, and Pinkie was hugging one while rolling on the floor. Frank approached the nightstand and saw a picture in a golden frame. He picked it up with his magic to take a closer look and his face turned wistful.

It was a fake wedding picture with him as Celestia in a tuxedo and Luna in a beautiful white wedding dress, rubbing cake in each others faces. It was cheesy as hell but they both looked so happy, smiling at the camera and Frank was now entirely sure what this room was. He sighed and stared at it as hard as possible, trying to burn this picture into his memory.

Until suddenly, he only could see pink in his field of view.

Pinkie had climbed on his head and sat on his face to take a look at the picture he was holding. “Oh what is that? That wedding dress looks so pretty on Luna, but why are you wearing a suit? Only the groom wears… oooohhhh…. I get it!”

Frank placed the picture carefully on the nightstand and left the room with Pinkie levitating behind him.

“Forget what you’ve seen here Pinkie.”

She followed him in silence through the hallway, passing a dozen doors. Frank wondered why Pinkie wasn’t choosing anything, but finally attributed it to her being indecisive. After twenty doors he stopped though and turned around to her.

And there she was right in his face with a grin like cheshire cat. “You like her don’t you?”

“Of course I like her, she’s my sister!” said Frank, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

Pinkie pressed her hoof at his chest and poked him a few times. “Not like that dummy, and you know what I meant.”

He felt like a deer in the spotlight with those big sparkly eyes shining through his very soul and looking for an opening. Frank swallowed hard before he twitched with his right eye and Pinkie emitted a loud, triumphant hoot.

“Aha, knew it! Nothing gets past the Pinkie Sense! Not that I need it, you’re blindingly obvious!”

Frank turned around to lose eye contact and started walking. “Let’s change the subject, Pinkie. We’re here to have fun, aren’t we?”

“Okie dokie lokie!”

They didn’t have any further major incidents with the doors after that. One was a reimagining of ‘Charlie’s Chocolate Factory’, and Pinkie happily took a swim in the chocolate river. Turns out that swimming in molten chocolate is really hard, so Frank had to dive in after Pinkie to get her out.

He also learned that chocolate is really hard to remove once it got into your ears.

Another one was a Fun house with a mirror labyrinth, moving rooms, jump pads and everything else you could imagine to have fun. Pinkie loved it and asked Frank if she could change her wish from the cannon to a house like this. A request he gladly accepted.

They ate something in his favourite diner on earth with a pony version of the old waitress, who was always ridiculously generous with the refill of coffee and Pinkie wolfed down her own weight in pancakes. She didn’t want any of the fried bacon and eggs though, regardless of how often he teased her with it.

Several doors were just ponified versions of his favourite sitcoms and movies on earth and Frank didn’t think it would make it much funnier. He was wrong, things like the Charlie Sheen pony were priceless!

Frank left the last room holding his sides from laughter and suddenly couldn’t see Pinkie anymore who had exited before him. The third door to his left sprung open and Pinkie came out and closed it behind her.

“Hey did you go to have fun without me?”

“Nope, this room was pretty boring and nothing worth mentioning,” said Pinkie and her body suddenly flickered in and out of existence.

Frank’s smile dropped. He almost had forgotten that this wasn’t real.

“Seems like you’re waking up, Pinkie.”

The flickering became more frequent and Pinkie pouted in disappointment. “So soon? I want to look around some more!”

“I’m afraid so. See you on the other side…”

“Bye!” said Pinkie and waved before everything turned dark for a second.

When things became bright again, Pinkie could only see white at first and feared she was in that boring place from the beginning. Slowly but surely her sight cleared and the blurred outlines of the things in the room got more recognizable. She was lying in a hospital bed with a faint beeping sound in the air from a nearby ECG-monitor. A short golden flash and Frank stood besides her bed.

“Hello again, how are you feeling?”

She tried to get up with great effort, but Frank put his hoof on her chest and pushed her down. Pinkie didn’t resist, sinking back into the pillow. “Not as good as I did in the dream, but the headaches are gone at least.”

They both heard commotion outside and looked at the door.

“...So they are finally finished?...”

“... Just felt the magical spike...no not you Spike!...”

“... Let’s get in there!... I don’t want to leave Pinkie alone with ‘her’...”

“Love you too, Applejack…” thought Frank and opened the door with his magic.

Twilight and the rest of her friends all suddenly fell inside the room and dogpiled in front of Pinkie’s bed. A gruff looking unicorn stallion with a cutie mark of a house with a red cross in it, entered right behind them as they tried to get on their hooves again.

“Ah it seems like the patient is finally awake. Greetings Ms. Pie, my name is Doctor House and I’m the pony responsible for your treatment.”

“No freaking way…” thought Frank as he looked at the brown stallion as he walked beside Pinkie’s bed with a noticeable limp.

“You’re a resilient pony Ms. Pie, more than anypony I’ve seen in my career. You’re gonna be fine in no time, but for your sake things will have to change. You’ve been lucky that this resolved itself so smoothly. In the future though you can’t rely on being so lucky again.”

Pinkie got a sad look on her face. “So no more parties and fun?”

“No, nothing that drastic,” said the doctor and looked at Pinkie’s clipboard, “as I said you’re quite literally the most resilient pony I’ve ever met and yet you managed to push it to the limit. We’ve taken some blood and I’ve never seen such high sugar levels without any negative ramifications. I’ve sent a sample to Canterlot for study, might help us to find a cure for diabetes.”

“She’s a borderline superpony!” thought Twilight as she snatched the clipboard from Dr. House’s hoof and looked at the results of the blood test.

The stallion snatched it back from Twilight and bonked her on the head with it. “You’re still vital enough for ten ponies, just don’t do things that would be enough to kill twenty and your fine. I recommend regular check ups though once the treatment is over to be on the safe side.”

Frank noticed that no one else except from Twilight and the doctor had said anything. They all just stared at him with apprehension and in Applejack’s case with disdain. Realizing that they didn’t want him here, he wordlessly went for the door.

“Princess?” said Pinkie, and Frank stopped in the doorway to signalize her that he was listening, “what’s a Frank?”

Frank’s body froze in place and he turned his head slightly to glance at the smiling Pinkie. Where the hell did she get his name? He had an eye on her the whole time and made sure to ponify everything they saw. There wasn’t a single moment when she could have seen something.

Unless…

His eyes went wide. The door she opened and closed herself! How could he have been so stupid to let her look on her own! What had she seen and what did she now know about him?

“I’ll tell you another time,” said Frank and cleared his throat to get the high pitched tone out of it.

“Okie Dokie Lokie!”

The rest of the ponies and the small purple dragon in the room watched their conversation with confused looks. Feeling the heat of their stares on his face, Frank hurried out of the hospital room as fast as possible. Once outside he sat down on a bench in the entrance hall and breathed heavily.

This had been too close for comfort and Frank felt like he dodged a bullet today. All joking aside, Frank didn’t know if he would’ve been able to forgive himself if something had happened to Pinkie. Involuntary or not, he could’ve been responsible for the death of someone.

Time to get his shit together.

The entrance door flew open with Mr. and Mrs. Cake running inside to the reception desk, both of them carrying one of their foals in special saddlebags. A little bit behind came Luna and she instantly noticed Frank on the bench.

The Cake’s only had eyes for the poor reception mare, shouting at her while she frantically searched for the number of Pinkie’s hospital room.

“It’s one-zero-four,” said Frank from his lonely seat, not looking up from the floor.

They stared at Frank and uttered a small thank you before running down the hallways. Luna stayed with Frank and took a close look at him. He had ditched all his royal accessories like the crown and the golden slippers. There were stains on his white coat and his mane looked like an unkempt mess.

“You look tired, Tia.”

A bright flash later which caused Luna to shield her eyes, and Frank sat there in full royal regalia and prismatic flowing mane. The stonily expression on his face remained though, coupled with him being silent as a rock.

Luna thought that her sister maybe needed some peace and quiet to think for herself and she turned around to join the Cake’s down the hall. She stopped dead in her tracks when a question from him hit her out of nowhere.

“Have you ever thought that you’re a bad pony?”

He looked up from the floor and saw that he had made her uneasy with that question. Thinking about her past as Nightmare Moon, that should’ve been obvious to him. “Forget my question, that was a stupid thing to ask you.”

“No, don’t worry about it! Why do you ask me that?” said Luna and stepped closer.

“Yes ,why indeed?” thought Frank and bit his lip hard enough to draw a little blood.

“I didn’t think that I’m a bad pers… pony, but lately everything points in the opposite direction. It was so much fun at beginning, letting myself go for the first time in my life and not to worry about the consequences. The feeling of being absolutely untouchable, regardless of what I was doing.”

Frank buried his face in his hooves and went silent again. Luna got even closer as she heard a dry chuckle, which creeped her out somewhat. Despite him pouring out his heart to Luna, he didn’t really say anything which had compromised his identity. Frank would’ve laughed louder at this feat, if he didn’t feel so shitty at the moment.

“And one near tragedy shatters the invincible me almost to pieces. I’m such a sappy chump.”

Her sister was in bad place right now, Luna could tell this much. She knew out of self-experience what such thoughts could do to somepony and was suddenly motivated to get Tia out of this. She sat down besides him and nuzzled his ear to get his attention.

Frank put the hooves from his face and watched Luna smile at him. “You must be hungry after being in here all night. Want to eat lunch with me?”

Looking at the nearby clock, Frank raised his eyebrow. “Lunch? It’s eight in the morning Luna.”

“So what? Let’s go to that restaurant we were before, I want to try that steak again!” said Luna as she pulled Frank on his right hoof and from the bench.

She would later drag him all the way through Ponyville, refusing to let go of him and Frank couldn’t help but smile a bit all the way.


Back inside Pinkie’s hospital room...



“Don’t you ever dare to scare us like this again, we were so worried about you once the news reached us!”

Mrs. Cake sat there on Pinkie’s bed and almost hugged the filling out of her with Mr. Cake standing just behind. He knew his wife was the more emotional type with the need to express her feelings physically and didn’t want to barge in between them. Mr. Cake shared the notion with his wife that Pinkie was like a daughter to them and had been equally shocked at the news.

“Sadly, we had to hear it from somepony on the street!” said Mrs. Cake and eyed the embarrassed looking Twilight and her friends with an angry glare before it softened again looking around the room, “where’s Cranky? I’ve got to give him a big hug for his heroic deed!”

Twilight cleared her throat to get Mrs. Cake’s attention. “He stayed a while after he brought Pinkie here, but left once the princess and us arrived. Said something about it being too crowded for his taste.”

“That old, loveable grouch…”

Pinkie hugged Mrs. Cake back. “I’m sorry for scaring you and I Pinkie Promise that won't happen again. I’ll back out as party planner for this festival and come back to Sugarcube Corner.”

Suddenly she let go of Mrs. Cake and stared down at her blanket. The next words out of her mouth were a little hoarse. “Given that you still want me as an employee?”

Mrs. Cake almost looked angry and Pinkie feared the worst, but then she got hugged again and this time even tighter. “Don’t ask such a stupid question, of course we do!”

“What about the festival? You’re just gonna abandon it?” asked Rainbow Dash, before she got the mother of all jabs in the ribs from Applejack and a look from the rest that could have turned her into stone.

Pinkie didn’t mind Rainbow Dash’s comment and looked at the ceiling. “I wrote down clear instructions for every single day, that should be enough for the rest of my staff to go on without me.”

She watched Pumpkin Cake and Pound Cake, sitting on her blanket.

“It’s better this way and it opens up time for my new project,” said Pinkie and bopped the twins on the noses, smiling when they made honk noises.

Her friends exchanged worried glances and Twilight stepped forward to address her. “What project are you talking about?”

Somewhere else in Ponyville, Frank felt a cold shiver going down his spine.

“It’s obvious silly, bringing Princess Celestia and Princess Luna together as a couple!”

Author's Note:

The next chapter and earlier as planned (I give up on giving ETA's. They come when they're done :P)

Proofread once again by Asop.