Omake 3, part 2 (EDITTED. Extended Dream sequence, Quadratus fight, descriptive text, etc.)
(I do not own My Little Pony, Shadow of the Colossus, etc. This is also a filler chapter that is not part of the main story. Actually, it is a continuation of the third Omake chapter for the Dark Side, so if you haven’t read that, do go back and read it now.)
(A/N: In the original game, Dormin’s clues for all the following Colossi start with the phrase “Thy Next Foe Is…” and then goes on to speak in a sentence that is usually not grammatically correct. This is likely due to a too-literal translation. To make it a little less ugly, I’ll replace the phrase with “Thy Next Destination…” when pertinent.)
Last time, on “Pinkie of the Colossus”
Pinkie Pie: "I’VE NEVER FELT SO ALI-“ *is impaled by seven or so 100-foot long ribbons of dark magic* “Hrrrkkk….” *falls to the ground and stops moving*
………
………
……….
And now, the thrilling conclusion!
The Dark Side
Omake files 3.5
Smiles. Laughter. Music. Cruelty-free party favors. These were everywhere in the mysterious room. The layout of the place was similar to the room she used for parties in Sugarcube Corner, but the wallpaper and paint job reminded her of the house on the rock farm where she had grown up on. The floor was bright and polished and inviting ponies to dance. The walls were decorated with brightly colored ribbons, a banner that said "Happy Birthday, Pinkie Pie!", and, of course, a Pin-the-tail-on-the-pony game. The ceiling was…very ceiling-ish. All in all, it should've been Paradise for Pinkie. It was everything she ever wanted once upon a time.
And yet…and yet…
WHY WERE THEY ALL SO CHEERFUL? APPLEJACK! BERRY PUNCH! NOTEWORTHY! FLORIDE! LITTLE TORNADO BOLT! POKEY PIERCE! THAT COLT WITH THE BOWLING CUTIE MARK WHOSE NAME SHE COULDN'T REMEMBER FOR MORE THAN FIVE SECONDS! Ponies who had all died horribly at her hooves where smiling at her and wishing her "Happy Birthday." And then there were ponies like her sisters or Fluttershy who she were telling her she didn't have to feel ashamed to look them in the eye, because they loved her and wanted to be around her. At least they were leaving her alone to stare at the floor for a whil-
“Pinkie, come on! Are you still crying? We’re all okay. Really.”
Rainbow Dash. Of course. It had to be her who confronted her.
“Dashie...it’s *hic* not right. Y-you of all ponies should want to *hic* punish me for what I’ve done.”
“Pinkie. It wasn’t you. It was the bad Pinkie Pie.”
“I CAN’T JUST USE HER AS A SCAPEGOAT! I AM HER.” Pinkie began pacing across the room. “Maybe I wasn’t her once upon a time, but things are all confused now. My brain is filled to the brim with memories of all the things I did to you. And you. And you… And Oh Celestia, you’re everywhere. I don’t even know if I’m Sweetie Pie who took back control but retained Meanie Pie’s memories and therefore is technically still her or if I’m Meanie Pie who grew a conscience and is rightfully being torn to pieces. Or if I’m both and neither at the same time. The one thing I’m certain about is that whatever happened, It’s all still my fault. I can never be free-“
“Hey, dork. Just accept that everypony forgives you already. You’re bumming out the whole party.” Silver Spoon poked her head in between Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle chimed in. “If nothing else, you’re upsetting Scootaloo!” Sweetie motioned with her hooves to indicate the orange pegasus sleeping peacefully on the couch next to her. It seemed that Sweetie Belle had been stroking her mane this entire time, an angelically content if tear-stained expression on Scootaloo’s face.
Over Silver Spoon’s shoulder, Pinkie saw Diamond Tiara running around with Apple Bloom on her back. It seemed kind of like Tiara had snuck between Bloom’s legs from the side and hoisted her up on her back and started running. “Tiaraaaa!” Apple Bloom whined. “Come on, smile already, Blank flank! That ‘being happy’ cutie mark isn’t going to earn itself!” Diamond Tiara said back.
“Ah don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘bein happy’ cutie mark! Or if Ah even want one as silly as that!” Apple Bloom protested, although her tone was thrown off with laughter.
“No excuses!” Tiara said as she ran even faster and the two crashed into Applejack and they all tumbled into a pile of giggles and noogies.
Pinkie was flabbergasted. Some part of her was SCREAMING that she should find everything just lining up and fixing itself even better than before to ring hollow. At least it should’ve felt like, 50 times sappier and syrupy-sweet than it did. Would anypony really be this forgiving? Let alone a whole room of them? Even if they came back to life, didn’t the fact that that was possible now mean they could at least torture her themselves before they forgave her? But…she really wanted to believe in this world. She really wanted to trust her lying eyes and ears. Maybe it really was that simple. Maybe, just maybe she could forget. Somewhere in the ballpark of 20 or so Miracles had already erased all her mistakes so far. Maybe redemption had somehow found her and she just needed to…
Pinkie turned to Rainbow, rubbing her left leg with her right hoof. “Dashie?”
“Yyessss?” Rainbow asked.
“It’s not just what the Shadow Pinkie did. She made the one who was your friend do horrible things in the Grove before she finally just…gave up. And then, the fact that she did give up means-“
Dash put a hoof over her mouth. “Means that I screwed up trying to save you and it’s just as much my fault as anypony’s. Are you saying that I should be punished for my failure, too?”
“No! That’s not what I-“
“And you’re not going to do it anymore. So what’s the problem, you silly filly?” Dash laughed.
Pinkie looked away, unsure. Then she turned back to Dash. “If I ever, ever do anything to hurt you, or anypony, in any way ever again, you have to promise me you won’t hesitate to punish me. I really, really want you to tear into me when you do it, too. Call me all the bad names. ALL OF THEM.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ll let me whip you if you misbehave, blah, blah, blah. Look, do want to eat some of this giant, pony-free birthday cake the Cakes made especially for you with the rest of us, or not?”
“More than anything in the world.” She said in a barely audible whisper, shedding what she felt would be her last tear ever.
And there was cheering all around.
And then this wonderful paradise was destroyed by a great and terrible explosion of blinding light and deafening sound.
On the hard, stone floor of the Shrine of Worship, a little pink mare in a purple jacket leaped at the sound. Above her, the dark outline of a bear disappeared into thin air before she could take account of it having ever been there... The forces present in the temple noted how curious it was that the pony’s entire body became brighter and more colorful in the short span of time she had rested on the floor, her mane curling all the while.
But then the Valus idol had awakened her with the sound of it exploding, leaving nothing but a mound of dirt and chunks of rock.
She looked around –failing to see the bear made from animated shadows- and realized just where she was and what was, and was not happening.
Her mane collapsed and her dull coloration returned, all at once.
She had the dream again. It had been haunting her these past few weeks, ever since she became “Dual Pie”. It seemed more wonderful, and therefore crueler, each time she had it. And she always, always fell for its seductive promises that everything was okay…
But, redemption hadn’t, and wasn’t going to, find her on its own, and she could never make up everything. Not without at least bringing back the dead.
And then, she remembered that that was exactly what she was doing. It was why the idol exploded. And that meant…
…
Pinkie rose to her hooves, and walked over to the altar to observe her best friend/former cannibalism and torture victim/general object of guilt-fuelled obsession.
Rainbow Dash.
Before, Rainbow's face had stared soullessly into space, her mouth frozen in an unnatural, forced smile even without its stitches. Now…her eyes were closed and her lips were more closely press together. Just a small change to the face caused such a big effect on how beautiful she looked...
...In spite of the line of marred skin that marked where Pinkie had removed the stitches around Dash's belly when she had restructured the body to hold the various organs she replaced, and the line of new stitches she replaced to close Dashie back up, and the fact that almost every single feather in her wings was ruffled and out of place –although, even in the chaos of all the other feathers that were disturbed from Pinkie playing with her dolly and also from the rather stressful escape from Canterlot, Pinkie could still pick out the three or so feathers on the left wing that marked the part she bit on when she stretched it out to begin hacking it off-, and her tail was still singed from when Apple Bloom had set her on fire (thankfully Scootaloo's carefully compartmentalized brain allowed for enough respect for the preservation of Rainbow's remains to take risks to try and save her old hero. She couldn't do the same for Sweetie Belle's, however.), the scars over her flanks that haunted Pinkie with Rainbow's voice calling out for the Pinkie Pie who was her friend to wake up and take back control, the scars around the side of her body when Rainbow had given up and was cursing Pinkie's name, the holes in her hooves made just after when Dash was apologizing because it was her fault for not saving Pinkie Pie and saying how they would always be friends and it wasn't too late, right before Pinkie laughed in her face and took the hammer and…and…
Pinkie told herself to avoid looking at that particular wound from now on. Still, in spite of…ALL THAT, Rainbow Dash's peaceful face made her look like a storybook princess…a reminder of happier times, and a promise of redemption that offset the enduring shame of the lower part of her body. And of course, there were her lips...which brought a truckload of feelings to mind when Pinkie had gotten close enough to Rainbow Dash to kiss her, begging her to "snap out of it!" Shadamena was shocked and fought it at first, but then thought "what the hell" and allowed herself to melt into Dash. Before she went back to work and was all business again.
...It might've been the nostalgia talking, or possibly the newly rediscovered dislike for sugary treats and/or cannibalism, but the kiss from back then had tasted so much better than the cuuuu... the cupcaaaa... the stuff. That came after. That she was looking forward to.
Suddenly, Dormin made its presence known as a strange pressure filled the room. The voice in the sky spoke. “Thy next foe is in a seaside cave. It moves slowly; raise thy courage to defeat it…..” And then, the rumbling of thunder died down and the Shrine of Worship became silent.
“Right. At least I’m making progress. And I have all the time in the world with absolutely nothing to worry-” Pinkie was suddenly blinded by a bright flash.
“-that mean?” Apple Bloom finished as she and Scootaloo suddenly appeared, with. “Hey, where are we?” Bloom asked.
“-about.” Pinkie finished absent mindedly. Why are Scooty and Bloomy here? This is no place for little fillies! No, no, no, no!
“MISS PINKAMENA!” Scootaloo chirped in a rather excited version of her feminine voice. The young pegasus tackle-hugged the dazed and confused mare.
“Pinkie!” Apple Bloom tried to move in for a hug, but Scootaloo rocked off of Pinkie in just the right way to block Apple Bloom. “Scootaloo, you lousy, no-good, cheating chicken-girl!”
“Hey, stop calling me a chicken!” Scootaloo barked in her tomboy voice. “I’m the one who saved you.”
Apple Bloom looked a little confused for a moment, but then her eyes dilated and she growled. “Ah did that mahself! You just set fire to everything, trying to make sure Ah didn’t live to say nu'thin. Probably about you and yer cushy ‘nopony-knows-what-Ah’ve-been-up-to-when-my-parents-ain't-watchin’ lifestyle.”
“I was creating a distraction!” Scootaloo hissed. She returned to her cute voice and continued cuddling Pinkie. “But no matter. Right now, I’m talking to Miss Pinkamena.”
“Awright, git offa her!” Apple Bloom shoved Scootaloo out of the way and muzzled Pinkie, who seemed too deep in shock to register what was happening.
“Apple Bloooom….” Scootaloo said in a scary raspy tone when she got to her hooves. She tackled Apple Bloom and the two began to fight.
“Girls.” Pinkie said, coming out of her shock.
The two fillies continued to kick and bite each other.
“Girls!”
They didn’t stop.
“GIRLS!” Pinkie stamped her hoof. This time, the dust cloud settled to reveal both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo stretching each others' cheeks. Both fillies looked at the older pony.
“What are you doing here?” Pinkie asked, crossing her forelegs.
Suddenly, Apple Bloom pushed Scootaloo away and grabbed the scabbard. “Ah don’t know! Ah just got this scabbard back for ya, Pinkie!”
Pinkie looked at the scabbard. On it was an inscription: The two must be as one, less the seal weaken. Should they ever be separated, speak the word, and Return.
“That’s a cheap shot, Apple Bloom, I was the one who found the wreckage!” Scootaloo whined.
This scabbard brought them here. Great. Just great.
“Oh yeah? AH was still the one who found the scabbard!”
And they are growling at each other again. Come on girls, I’m trying to think here…
“AHEM. Look, I told you two to not follow me and go back to your families. I really needed to do this on my own, without worrying about you. I told you to lay low and you completely disobeyed me.” Pinkie looked very disappointed.
Apple Bloom spoke up. “We didn’t, Pinkie! Honest! There’s a reason we did what we did! After you stole the sword, they took me from mah home! They hurt Big Macintosh!”
“What!? Who did? Princess Celestia wouldn’t…” Pinkie stopped herself. She knew the Princess feared the Dormin as well. But….she wasn’t the original owner of the sword…
“It wasn’t the Princess, Miss Pinkamena!” Scootaloo said. “They took Apple Bloom the day you left for Canterlot. They were trying to steal the same floorplans of the Canterlot Catacombs you stole! They were trying to get the sword back from Princess Celestia and foalnapped Apple Bloom to get information on you! I saw what happened, and followed them using everything you taught me about tracking, and when I got Apple Bloom back, we ran into the woods and headed for Canterlot!”
Pinkie blinked. “But….Who ARE they?”
“We don’t know really. But they all wore these animal masks. And their leader had this robe with a strange design on it. Ah don’t know how to describe it, really, it doesn’t look like anything in particular. It’s just kind of blocky…”
“Nice Intel, Apple Bloom.” Scootaloo scoffed.
“Excuse me, Ah’m talkin’ to Pinkie.” Apple Bloom smiled.
"Apple Bloom Did you say…animal masks?" Pinkie asked, her voice ever-so-lightly trembling with apprehension as she tried to contain her shock. The fillies still took notice of her change in attitude, for her eye twitched even if but a fraction of a second, and the tone of her voice betrayed that she was trying to sound calmer than she really felt.
“Y-yeah? Yeah, Ah did. Mostly Owls and bears and stuff.” the yellow earth pony confirmed nervously.
Pinkie Pie shuddered. She could wish fervently that they weren’t already on their way, but...it was too much to hope for.
The enemy Pinkie feared was the descendants of the creatures who lived in the forbidden land before they sealed the Dormin and retreated to Equestria. They had started some other religion that was based around the worship of another deity from Dormin. Dormin was a being of light and life, but also of darkness and death, and although it came to be worshipped as a god by these natives for ages, they eventually could no longer accept its incomprehensible and pluralistic nature. Every life Dormin agreed to resurrect was offset by the ones Dormin did not. There was also the matter of Dormin's terrifying presence.
And then they heard the voice of their "true" god, who had only the aspects of a god that they found favorable, while Dormin represented the darkness that they hated. Inspired by this new religion, they magically sealed Dormin into the land itself. Now that the earth contained Dormin's essences, it was cursed, so they used the bridge that came out of Dormin's temple to exit their world and enter Equestria. Pinkie also had the feeling that they didn't want anything that could break the spell on Dormin to remain in the land, so it was a kind of self-imposed exile.
Also, now that Pinkie Pie knew there were Colossi, she wondered if the forbidden land was actually safe to live in anymore…
They rebuilt their culture in Equestria, receiving help from Princess Celestia. But they didn't seem to like the existence of any god other than their own, and this Alicorn who controlled the Sun and the Moon rubbed them the wrong way. There was also the story of the time before Nightmare Moon, when Celestia ruled alongside a dark Princess who brought out the night. Even though she sealed her sister in the moon, this whole "balance between light and darkness" thing reeked too much of Dormin and they plotted against the Princess, trying to seal her in the Sun and bring about eternal daytime. Their coup failed, and Celestia forced them to disarm, which included taking the sword and a lot of other dangerous magical contraband labeled 'holy artifacts' for herself.
All of Pinkie's sources, both from the Outsiders and those by Equestria's own academy, generally portrayed the Dormin as a frightening, unknowable, other creature. But those made in Equestria were skeptical the Dormin ever existed, unlike those made by the Outsiders.
And of course their books were off course going to say the Dormin was real. It was their enemy, after all.
Ever since their crushing defeat and much-too-lenient surrender conditions, their descendants hadn't caused any trouble, and few Equestrians who didn't live along side them knew they even were there.
But if they were foalnapping children to get to some pony who only MIGHT have the sword…
“-they were trying to steal the sword back from Celestia!” Pinkie started pacing around the altar. “I need to hurry, they’ve been right on my tail this entire time. They probably will send an army here without even waiting for news of the sword’s theft just to cover their bases!” Pinkie took a deep breath, and collected her thoughts.
No, this is a good thing. It meant that I was lucky. I beat them to the sword. If they were even a little faster getting the scroll, I would have lost Dashie forever. But now…they are off balance. Maybe I still have time to kill the Colossi and leave with Dashie and the fillies. …or have Rainbow leave with the fillies after she kills me, whichever.
But first…
Pinkie kneeled next to Apple Bloom. “Apple Bloom, did they hurt you?”
“No, Pinkie, but Big Macintosh got real mad when they barged into the house. They didn’t listen to him and just knocked him down and pinned him. When he realized they were taking me away, he went wild and they broke his legs! It got really twi-” Apple Bloom
“Thank you, Apple Bloom, I get the picture.” Pinkie said, wondering if she didn’t need to train Apple Bloom to watch her language around squeamish ponies a little harder. “Girls, I’m so very sorry I brought you and the Apples into this. Both of you.” Pinkie added to Scootaloo. “And thank you for getting the scabbard back. I had no idea it was such a liability. But I’m going to have to ask that you stay out of my way now.”
“Awwww….” Both fillies whined.
“No! Don’t you ‘awww…’ me. The thing I have to do to revive Dash is really, really, REALLY dangerous and I can’t afford to worry about you two getting crushed or eaten by Colossi!”
“What’s a …Colossi?” Apple Bloom asked with a confused expression.
“Colossus, sweetie. Colossi is plural.” Pinkie corrected. “They are large and terrible monsters that look like the idols over there. They roam this land, and they are the reason you are going to be staying put here.”
“These things?” Apple Bloom observed one of the idols. “Why they are the funniest-looking things Ah ever did see! Why, if Ah ever met one of those Colasa thingies Ah’d laugh at how silly it was!”
“Hee hee, yeah!” Scootaloo giggled. “Miss Pinkamena, no offense, but these aren’t scary at all. And I’m sure we could take care of ourselves.”
“No.” Pinkie said with finality. “Girls, please. I can let you run around outside, so long as you stay close to the temple and run back inside in case of Giant Killer Bird attack.”
“Giant Killer Bird attack? Pinkie, are you loco in the coco?” Apple Bloom blinked.
Pinkie pointed at one of the idols, which possessed a beak. “It’s called Avion.”
“Well, it’s the silliest one of the bunch. How is it supposed to peck anything with that flat beak?”
“Is that what this is about, Apple Bloom? The idols are just representations of the Colossi! They are much, much scarier up close! They have hair you can climb, hooves that make the ground shake with every step, and eyes that change colors when they're angry…”
“Landsakes! Ah wanna see one up close now!”
“Apple Bloom. No. And the same goes for you, Scootaloo.”
Silence.
“Scootaloo?” Pinkie suddenly noticed she was missing a filly. “Scootaloo!”
Both ponies ran outside.
They found Scootaloo on the shore of a beach in the bay to the north of Shrine of Worship. They crossed a bridge and climbed down a cliff.
“I was going to come right back, Miss Pinkamena.” Scootaloo said apologetically. “I just wanted to get some fresh air and then I saw how bright and beautiful everything was and I just had to fly. And then I saw a beach and I don’t remember the last time I was at the beach and…I’m so, so, sorry, Miss Pinkamena, I just forgot. Please forgive me...”
Apple Bloom didn’t say anything, but pawed at the sand…
“It’s okay, Scootaloo. But I need to ask that you and Apple Bloom go back to the temple and just play around there. I can’t fight the Colossi if I’m worried about you two, and I can’t spent anymore time arguing about it. So, just do what I say!” Pinkie commanded. Somehow, it was really hard to say that to Scootaloo…
“Do we really have to? I mean. We could just stay here. This beach seems safe enough…and there’s more than enough cover to hide if something DID come up. Pleease….I bet it would help Apple Bloom feel better too.” Scootaloo pleaded.
Pinkie looked at Apple Bloom, who blankly returned the gaze before slowly breaking into an ever so faint smile.
Pinkie sighed. “Fine.”
“Yay!” both fillies cheered.
“But don’t wonder off too far. Just stay in sight of the bridge, okay? And no swimming out in the really deep water out there. I don’t want to find out you got gobbled up by Hydrus or drowned or something.”
"What's a Hydrus?" Scootaloo asked.
"Nevermind. Just go play." Pinkie sighed.
Scootaloo smirked, flew behind Apple Bloom, scooped her up and threw her in the water. Apple Bloom growled at Scootaloo hoving above her, laughing. With a mighty roar of "CHICKEN GIRRRRL!", Apple Bloom rose on her hind legs and dropped down, stomping into the water, and splashing Scootaloo with a great tower of water. Scootaloo fell down into the water as with a squeak as her entire body cringed with the freezing water that splashed her everywhere. She emerged out of the water and started splashing Apple Bloom, who of course retaliated. Soon, Scootaloo was driven back onto dry land, but Apple Bloom still chased her.
Pinkie smiled as they ran off. It was just so…good to see them acting like normal little fillies. Especially Apple Bloom, whom she feared had lost the ability to act like a normal pony during all the time she spent in the Room with Mr. Giggles. This childish display of innocent fun that completely did not involve disemboweling something warmed Pinkie Pie's heart and allowed her to believe for one moment that things might turn out alright for them.
Pinkie felt a kind of longing to play with them herself. Back in the old days, she'd totally join them and Twilight or some other pony would have to tell her to get back to-
No. There is no time to reminisce. This cost me too much time as it is. Now, how did I find that first Colossus again? Oh right, duh. The sword.
Pinkie drew the Ancient Sword, this time from its proper scabbard which she strapped to herself where she could easily fetch it with her hoof or her mouth, and rose it up high.
The sword reflected light from the land's "sun" and became web of rays which narrowed into a beam when Pinkie pointed it towards the-
-girls!
It was pointing towards that wall of dark stone the girls were running towards.
“Girls? Girls! GIIIIRRRRLLLLLLSSSSS!!!!” Pinkie start of at a trot, screaming at the top of her lungs, cold sweat breaking out and a chill freezing her entire pink body. “GIRLS! GET BACK HERE! RIGHT! NOW!”
“huh?” Scootaloo was the first to notice Pinkie’s distress.
After a moment, Apple Bloom noticed Scootaloo had stopped. But not before she took one more step closer to that strange dark area where bars of smooth stone were.
And then, a mighty boom echoed from inside the cliffs. As dust fell from its top, the rock wall was torn asunder as a great beast made its presence known in an explosion of rock debris that flew past the fillies. They stared up in awe and terror, complete paralyzed by the intimidating stature of the second Colossus, Quadratus.
“Oh no…GIRLS, YOU HAVE TO RUN AWAY NOW!” Pinkie screamed and ran even faster.
Quadratus had brown fur and wore an iron headguard and mouthguard, but from where the fillies stood, a shadow fell over the Colossus, and Quadratus’ features were obscured in the contrast of lighting. They didn’t see a creature with definite form, but rather an immense, terrible void of darkness. Its illuminated eyes glowed against this backdrop, assuring the fillies that, whatever they imagined this thing was..it saw them.
Scootaloo screamed and flew straight for Pinkie Pie. Apple Bloom, who had been the closest, and who had had a very rough day, did something much less clever.
She fell onto the sand, trembling. Screwing her eyes shut, she mumbled an endless mantra, "Ah'm sorry, Ah'm sorry, Ah'm sorry, Ah'm sorry, Ah'm sorry…..
Scootaloo hid behind Pinkie, but noticed her cover had left her behind, as the pink mare was already running towards the other filly. "APPLE BLOOM!" She screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING! RUN!"
“Miss Pinkamena! Don’t!”
“Get in the air, Scootaloo!” Pinkie called behind her before returning her attention to Apple Bloom and the Colossus. As Pinkie neared the filly, she heard something that broke her heart.
“Ah’m sorry, Ah’m sorry, Ah’m sorry…”
What? Oh no…this is my fault. She’s remembering The Room.
“THAT IS –NOT- MR. GIGGLES, APPLE BLOOM! YOU’RE A GOOD PONY, JUST GET UP AND RUN AWAY!” Pinkie screamed. Apple Bloom didn’t seem to hear her.
Alright, time for plan B. Running around Quadratus, Pinkie whistled. “YOU! HEY, YOU! PICK ON SOMEPONY YOUR OWN SIZE!”
Pinkie completely failed to come up as much as Quadratus’ fetlock, or even the top of his hoof, but somehow, she figured he knew what she meant.
Quadratus looked at Pinkie Pie, then back at Apple Bloom. Then Quadratus raised its hoof….
“NO! DON’T YOU DARE!” Pinkie screamed.
….and stepped past Apple Bloom. It continued to move around on the other side of Apple Bloom from where Pinkie stood. It seemed to be giving Apple Bloom a wide area.
Pinkie and the colossus stared at each other for a moment. What was it doing? Pinkie wanted to fetch Apple Bloom, but still felt that the Colossus could be laying some sort of trap.
“I got her, Miss Pinkamena!” a voice called. And then Scootaloo swooped by, right in front of Quadratus and pulled the shivering earth pony foal with her into the air.
“Good work, Scootaloo! Now, get Apple Bloom away from here!” Pinkie called.
“On it!” Scootaloo called back as she made her way for the cliffs above. The young pegasus seemed to be having trouble ascending with the load, however. “Ugh, Apple Bloom, quit shaking!”
Quadratus just stood there and watched as Scootaloo flew away. As soon as the fillies were out of the way, however, the giant Ox released a mighty roar, and immediately rose on its hind legs.
Pinkie had as terrible sense of déjà vu, as Quadratus rose as if in slow motion, it send her recalling the time she was staring up at a hungry hydra head that was about to eat her. Twilight had saved her that time. But this time, she had to shake it off.
Pinkie drew her sword with her mouth, and charged.
She run under the Colossus, heard an earth-shattering noise behind her, leapt into the air, and slashed the Ox’s fetlock.
That is to say, Pinkie’s sword bounced off the fetlock uselessly and caused Pinkie to land face first in the sand, facing exactly ninety degrees from where she was facing a second ago.
The entire underbelly was made of stone. The hooves were stone. The fetlocks were stone. And none of it seemed climbable. All the hair, and presumably fleshy bits were up above the Colossus’ knees, completely out of reach.
Pinkie raised the sword, but there was too much shade and mist to reflect any light rays. And something told her it would just point her in the direction of the furry section of the beast she couldn’t get to.
Well. This is completely unfair.
Scootaloo had finally brought Apple Bloom to safety, and was exhausted from carrying her. Adrenaline still flowed through her body, and she turned to watch the battle. Miss Pinkamena was still down there. Somewhere.
Scootaloo wasn’t actually prepared for this, which was funny when she stopped to think about all the other tasks she was prepared for: Miss Pinkamena taught her a lot of things from telling convincing lies to draining the blood and pulverizing the bones of dead ponies. She could do a lot of things for Miss Pinkamena…even leave her when she was told too….
But, this was something different entirely. She heard the Colossus stomping around, but all she could see was its furry back from where she stood. It was so enormous and Miss Pinkamena, who she looked up to so much, was so small. She could be anywhere…
A beam of light shone upon the Colossus, it seemed to be searching for something…Scootaloo thought for one hopeful moment that it was some kind of super attack Miss Pinkamena was using…but it didn’t turn out that way.
“Please, please be alright…” Scootaloo whispered.
“Ah’m sorry…Ah’m sorry…”
Scootaloo suddenly looked at Apple Bloom with mixed feelings. This was her fault. She had woken up this monster. And then she nearly got squished and caused Miss Pinkamena such distress. Also, she had been mean to Scootaloo ever since they started working together for reasons Scootaloo couldn’t understand. But…Scootaloo couldn’t do anything to her.
Suddenly, Scootaloo broke out of her reverie realized that Miss Pinkamena was in sight. She was just standing there, waiting for the Colossus to turn around to face her. It did so, and now Scootaloo was certain she was going to be doing some kind of clever trick, starting…NOW-okay, now she just sat down.
Why is she just sitting there?
“Miss Pinkamena?”
“Pinkie! Why’d y’all just standing there? RUN!” Apple Bloom had finally calmed down enough to realize she wasn’t the one in danger anymore.
Pinkie was saying something. Addressing the Colossus directly. She was too far away, but she seemed to be wearing a look of….resignation?
“NO!” Scootaloo yelled. “MISS PINKAMENA, YOU CAN’T GIVE UP!”
Pinkie hung her head.
Quadratus rose on his back legs once more… its enormous body did not block Pinkie from view this time. Pinkie just allowed the giant hoof to hover dangerously above her head.
“No! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! NOOOOO!”
“PINKIE!!!!”
Quadratus' enormous body dropped down, putting all of its immense weight forward as its hooves did not so much stomp, as plummet back down to earth. The great Ox's body became as a brownish blur as it made its attack. The absolutely tiny –in comparison- pink pony was completely obscured from vision as the monster landed.
And the world shook.
……
……
……
“GGRRRRRAAAAAAHHHHH!” The Beast roared and fell to its knee.
And some other sound echoed off the cliffs. It took the fillies a moment to identify it.
Laughter.
“Hee hee hee, ahahaha –snort snort-, Oh wow, you really fell for it!” Pinkie’s taunts could be heard faintly by both fillies.
The pink swordsmare drew her knives and climbed up the now lowered knee, stabbing the Colossus every step of the way. Suddenly, the Colossus rose back on its leg, and began stomping.
Tiny gleams of light betrayed the many, many caltrops coming out of the bottom of the Ox’s hoof. Pinkie held on for dear life as she waited for the stomping to end.
“It was a trick. Miss Pinkamena made it stomp on a trap and ruin its hoof! She’s sooo cool!” Scootaloo cheered.
“But, what is she doing now? It doesn’t even feel her.” Apple Bloom whispered to Scootaloo.
“I think she’s trying to get on top of it...” Scootaloo mused. “Yeah, see, she’s going around and climbing up on its rump there…and, whoa, did its plot just light up?”
Apple Bloom looked at where Scootaloo was pointing. There was an icon of what could best be described as two disks with serpentine tendrils extending outward in opposite directions, separated by a perpendicular band. "That symbol….Scootaloo! That's the exact same mark that was on the robe of the unicorn leading the ponies who kidnapped me!"
“Shh…not now, Bloom…GO MISS PINKAMENA! YOU CAN DO IT!” She shouted from over the cliff face.
Pinkie looked up at the fillies and waved, only for her to lose balance and almost be rocked off the Colossus when it started shaking.
Apple Bloom kicked Scootaloo with her foreleg.
“Eheheheheheh…” Scootaloo lowered her head.
Pinkie got back up, and leapt into the air, taking the sword from her mouth and holding it with her forehooves. She landed perfectly in the center of Glyph on the Ox’s backside, releasing a geyser of black blood that rose into the air like smoke.
The fillies cheered, not being normal children, but regretted it when they started to choke on the gas it became. They retreated, but they had lost sight of Pinkie. Again.
And then, the Colossus grunted once more, and there was another spurt of pressurized black blood spraying from the head, which was thrashing around, as a little pink pony bit down on a bit of its hair and held on to her three little knives like a vice. Her right foreleg’s hoof pressed the sword close to her body, to keep it from flailing around too much.
“Yee-haw! Ride ‘em, Pinkie Pie!” Apple Bloom seemed to have been recovering from her encounter with “Mr. Giggles” very quickly.
Meanwhile, Pinkie was cursing under her breath as the Ox shook her around like a rag doll. She finally had to use her tail to wrap around a bit of hair to steady herself. “Arg! I can’t line up my jumps right like this, and if I try to position myself to stab it at close range, it starts shaking again!”
Finally, Quadratus got tired and paused for one moment.
Pinkie, still using her tail and the knives held in her hind legs, reared up, grabbed the sword in her fore hooves and looked down at the sigil with a demented looked in her eye as her muscles tensed…trying to finish this in one blow.
The Colossus was also tensing up its muscles…it was about to do something to send her flying.
THUNK.
The pain in its head was immense. The beast howled a great bellow and its muscles fell lax as its strength poured out of its head, bathing Pinkie in black. As it quickly lost the power to support its mighty body, it leaned unto its right side, which held it up only for a moment before its legs buckled under it. It rang out with something not unlike a sorrowful wail as it fell to the ground.
I know… Pinkie thought, her eyes glowing with an eerie greenish light as she held onto the sword to keep from falling off the collapsing Colossus. I know it hurts, even if the book says you're not really alive in that way. But I promise I won't hurt anything ever again once I have what I want. Thank you for letting Apple Bloom go.
And thus fell Quadratus, the Ominous Oxen. Aspect of the Bay. Manifestation of Honor.
Pinkie picked herself up and huffed. As the Colossus darkened, she remembered what was coming.
Oh shoot. Those black ribbons are coming. They hurt last time but can I even-
“Miss Pinkamenaaaaa!” Scootaloo flew to position herself between Pinkie and the dark tendrils….
“Scootaloo! Don’t! Go back to the Temple!” Pinkie called out, not wanting Scootaloo to experience what she had already. She didn’t want Scootaloo to suffer the ‘price which may be high, indeed.’ as well.
She didn’t even make it halfway there.
Pinkie felt the ribbons impale her, invading her body with whatever power they were carrying…once again she was paralyzed by their touch and helpless to do anything but suffer until they finally released her and let her fall to the ground.
Next to the bear, a shadowy Ox stood over Pinkie, before the arrival of others caused them to vanish.
……….
Pinkie was shaken awake this time. She heard the voices of her assistants. She was back in the Shrine of Worship.
“Pinkie! Pinkie!”
“Miss Pinkamena!”
“Will ya stop calling her that, Scootaloo? It’s too much of a mouthful and it grates on my-“
“Hello girls.” Pinkie interrupted. “I hope I didn’t give you too much of a fright.”
“You’re okay!” both fillies said in unison. Then, they looked at each other and glowered before looking away.
“Aw…you’re so cute when you harmonize.” Pinkie smiled and pulled the two foals into a hug.
“Anyway, Miss Pinkamena, what WAS all that?” Scootaloo asked. “I mean, it just tore out of the wall and then you were fighting it and you killed it and those things went into you and a big light in the sky sucked you up and Dormin told us to come back to the temple. But…why? What’s the point?”
“I think….that’s its unavoidable. As long as I continue to hunt down the Colossi, which is my full time job now, stuff like this is going to happen. It’s going to be scary like it was today. And that’s why I want you to stay out of my way. You won’t be put in danger and see those scary things anymore.” Pinkie
“Yeah, we don’t want Apple Bloom to faint again.” Scootaloo mocked. “And she calls me chicken…”
“Ah didn’t faint!” Apple Bloom
“You broke down completely and you know it!” Scootaloo said, mocking her.
The fillies started to argue again, but they both gasped as a bright light flooded the temple, and the first idol on the left-hoof side exploded into dust.
Then, more hissing and rumbling came from the light in the ceiling.
Spoke the Dormin, "Thy next destination..... Within the mist, a giant canopy soars to the heavens..... The anger of the sleeping giant shatters the earth"
As the rumbling died down, Pinkie hugged Apple Bloom.
“Pinkie?” Apple Bloom
“I have to go now. Are you going to be okay, Apple Bloom? I’m really sorry I got you and the family you were supposed to go back to involved in this. …And…I’m still really, really, REALLY sorry about...the room.”
Apple Bloom turned her gaze away. “A-Ah’ll be fine. You already told me Mr. Giggles isn’t real. Ah was just surprised is all…”
“Really?” Pinkie said, looking skeptical.
“Really!”
“Who’s Mr. Giggles?” Scootaloo asked innocently.
Pinkie put her head in her hooves and Apple Bloom glared at Scootaloo, suddenly finding a whole new reason to be annoyed with her fellow “baking apprentice”.
Poor Apple Bloom… I never had to do much with Scootaloo. I mean, sure I did something, but whatever happened with her and Sweetie Belle seemed to really do all the messing up for me. Scootaloo’s always been a bit of an enigma to me. And yet even she is still all my fault…whoever the heck “my” is…
“I’ll tell you later Scootaloo. But right now…”
Pinkie pulled Scootaloo into the hug, to both fillies’ surprise.
“Just know that I’m okay. I’m going to be okay. But, I need to know you two are going to be fine is all. I can’t watch you. I need to finish up with you here so I can take down the rest of the Colossus and make the other idols explode. Preferably before the bad guys come. I’ll probably be fighting all day, if it is ever even night here.”
Scootaloo, who seemed lost in thought, sudden started blinking in confusion. “Wait. So you’re going to take down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…ugh, I can’t count from here…ALL these Colossi down in one day? How? I mean, it's like somepony is writing a really long adventure story but rushing everything to meet some kind of deadline. And is running it like a…montage or something…”
“It’s the eye of the Tiger, it's the cream of the fight…” Pinkie sang while wagging her head from side to side with her eyes closed. Then she opened them. “Oh wait, this is still ‘Being serious’ time.”
Apple Bloom giggled.
Pinkie smiled. That was the first time in a long time she made a pony laugh. Over something that wasn’t evil.
“Girls, there’s a very important task I need you to do.”
“Anything, Miss Pinkamena! Should we booby trap the entrance so they can’t get in?”
“Or map out the surrounding area in case that comes in handy later?” Apple Bloom suggested.
“Or make some kind of hang glider out the flesh of the Colossi you killed so you can take care of flying or really tall ones?” Scootaloo asked.
Pinkie blinked. “Those…are.also good ideas.” She hadn’t thought about any of those. Especially the hang glider part, that could really come in handy. “But right now, I need you to forage for food. I thought I could graze off the grass when I got here, but it’s completely too bitter to eat! And I can’t waste time looking for food myself. Just don’t kill anything with a face, okay? I hate to send you girls back out there, even if you stay away from Colossi, there might be a poisonous snake or something that. Oh, and watch out for poison ivy! It has three leaves- And poison joke! There is nothing funny about poison joke…well, there is but you won’t be-“
Apple Bloom put a hoof over her mouth.
“We get it, Pinkie, we get it. We’ll be careful.”
“Promise?” Pinkie looked skeptical.
Both fillies nodded enthusiastically.
“…..” Pinkie suddenly smiled. “Okie dokie lokie! No time to waste girls! Everypony ready? Three, two, one-“
“BREAK!” All three shouted out. Pinkie ran to the left exit from the Shrine, the fillies out the right. None of them noticed the two birds that seemed to be made of pure, white light flying into the air as they were startled by this sudden change in motion.
Apple Bloom bucked the fruit tree, over and over again.
“Come on, Come ON! Fall! Applejack made this look so easy!” Apple Bloom groaned.
“Are you sure Miss Pinkamena will eat something that sweet?” Scootaloo said as she plucked some leaves from the tree.
“Of course! It’s not like it’s a cupcake or anything….”
Scootaloo looked deep in thought for a moment. A not-entirely-chipper expression on her face. The sound of Apple Bloom’s grunting as she kicked the tree again broke her out of it.
Scootaloo smirked and pulled the fruit off the tree herself. “I can get those, too, Bloom. Why don’t you try to find some dandelions or digging up some something? I mean, maybe you’ll find a truffle!” she taunted.
Apple Bloom glowered at the pegasus. Then she saw something.
“Hey, what about that?”
“Um…Miss Pinkamena said she didn’t like the grass.”
“No, not like that, Scootaloo! Ah just had the best idea ever! Get down here, we gotta practice!”
“Practice?” Scootaloo was thoroughly confused.
Apple Bloom grinned from ear to ear.
“Bloom, you’re doing your ‘its time to harvest the organs’ smile. It’s kind of scaring me…”
At the center of a great lake, there was a ramp. That lead to a walkway. That was itself wrapped around a horizontal, gyroscopic platform that was elevated above the lake. The surface of said platform was made of dirt, with the exception of a circular stone floor in the center.
On that stone floor stood that damned pink thing. It had awoken him. Him, Gaius. The Slumbering Giant.
Gaius’ beautiful form was that of an enormous sloth with a slender head, covered in armor and small stone towers. It stood up perfectly vertically, its legs supported by leggings of stone. Its lower right arm had been replaced with a “sword”, which was actually a giant stone pillar. Above the elbow of that arm, there was Gaius’ lucky stone armband. He didn’t know why it was lucky, he just wore it. Gaius’ other title was ‘the Earth Truth’, as he felt what the dirt beneath his feet felt.
When the pony had first arrived, he thought he could just ignore it, but as soon as the detestable creature stepped on the dirt, the Earth giant could sense it. The presence of the ancient sword. It couldn’t ignore that. It was such a pain.
Fortunately, after hopping around and even bursting into song at one point, the intruder was finally standing still so he could smash it with the stone pillar he had for a right arm. When he was done here, Gaius was going to sleep this off like a bad hangover.
Gaius swung his mighty weapon down upon the intruder….and the effect was immediate.
The sword bounced off the stone pedestal, and reverberations coursed up Gaius’ arm and broke his lucky armlet! This annoyed Gaius immensely. Worse still, the intruder had escaped unscathed!
Such a pain. He had been tricked. Still, he had to proceed carefully. He couldn’t let rage…
“You gotta share…you gotta care…it’s the right thing to do…”
And before Gaius knew it he had already gotten his sword stuck in the dirt where the mare was a second ago and now it was running up his weapon and jumping unto his upper arm where it was stabbing him with tiny little knives.
He couldn’t get it off! He couldn’t get it off!
And thus, Gaius, the Slumbering Giant of the Mire and Manifestation of Sloth was…not yet slain. But it was only a matter of time.
He found his last moments of existence incredibly annoying.
Back at Quadratus’ bay, an enormous, moss-covered rock in the shape of an Ox that had fallen on its side gave eternal watch over the sea.
“All right…why is it a rock now?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Beats me. So much for the hang glider idea.”
“Yeah, we’d have to skin this darn thing with a pick ax.”
“Actually, we don’t have any tools at all, do we, Bloom?”
“We could’ve borrowed them from Pinkie. …Think she has a pick ax?”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I think this area is safe now. Now, can you explain to me WHY WE ARE WEAR-”
Apple Bloom put her hoof over Scootaloo’s mouth. “Shh…just do as Ah do.”
One dark injection of deific essence later, Pinkie ‘s body appeared once more in the Shrine of Worship. This time, the shadow of a sloth stood with the others. They disappeared as Pinkie woke up.
Gaius’ idol crumbled like the first two and Pinkie heard the voice of Dormin give her advice on the next Colossus’ location…
"Thy next destination.... In the land of the vast green fields.... Rows of guiding graves... It is a giant indeed... But fearful, it is not."
Green fields? Graves? I think that this Aspect is…remorse? Yeah, actually, that stupid book only really went into detail over Malus, Phalanx, and Dirge. It grouped all the others in two paragraphs...
Pinkie needed a moment to clear her mind. As she took a moment to observe Dash, three white birds scattered as she approached. Her body seemed slightly fuller than it was before. On closer inspection, she noticed that half the rope-web that held some of the organs in place was poking out of the body. It seemed to have left the other organs behind….
Pinkie made the mistake of touching Rainbow’s chest, and immediately felt sick as the flesh sank with her touch.
She turned away, and ran without looking at Dash anymore as she exited the temple.
Okay…I guess I should let the hivemind-demon-god-thing do its work without bothering Rainbow any more. I’ll have to tell the fillies not to disturb her, either.
Where ARE those two, anyway? …Maybe I shouldn’t have sent them off on their own. No. I’m sure they’re fine. This land isn’t a battlefield…yet.
The field Pinkie Pie found herself in was incredible green. Absurdly green. It wasn’t just the grass and the trees, but the mist that hung on the air was also greenish.
The Grave Fields weren’t as chilly as the high altitudes or windy bays where Pinkie had fought her first three Colossi, but she felt an eerie chill about the place all the same.
She couldn’t find the Colossus anywhere…what was the pony aspect called again? Feydora? Fedra? ….Oh well, its probably not important.
It wasn’t in those creepy tunnels in the ground. Whatever they were. Some kind of Mausey…Maso…some kind of tomb place, maybe?
Pinkie finally noticed that around a corner of mountain cliffs, there was a bit of land she hadn’t explored yet.
Say, what -is- that over there, some kind of towe-
The ground shook and the ‘tower’ suddenly lit up a pair of green eyes and rose to its hooves.
Well, it didn’t look like any hoof Pinkie had seen before, it was more of a stone spear, but there was no denying what creature this Colossus was modeled after.
It’s…oh no. I don’t believe this. This was clearly made just to haunt me, isn’t it?
Pinkie looked up at Phaedra. It was…in the shape of a pony. Or a horse, rather. However, it wore a helmet of tarnished iron which were draped with two ornate tassels that drooped down from the head. Its legs were white and bone-like. Its hooves were sharp and armored, even on the bottom, being made of stone. It had no tail (which was really incredibly meta for Dual Pie. Meanie Pie felt guilty about orchestrating that to Sweetie Pie, but she needed to use Sweetie Pie’s conscience to feel that, but it was Sweetie Pie who had to suffer, so she shouldn’t feel guilty about that but angry or at least annoyed at Meanie Pie…this line of thought was getting Pinkie nowhere fast.)
But the worse part was its belly.
It had no belly.
Its rib cage hung out, not even emaciated, but bare and exposed for the world to see. It looked just like a pony that had been harvested for his or her organs…and made to walk again, possibly using Shadow Sparkle’s magic.
As she gazed upon the giant zombie pony, Pinkie had an awful flashback of ripping out Rainbow’s organs while under painkillers….
Rainbow Dash had stopped talking at that point, stopped screaming and stopped insulting and stopped pleading on her brighter sides behalf. And even stopped hyperventilating. But, suddenly, while Meanie was trying her joke routine going, Dash used the last of her strength to saying one last word.
“No.”
It wasn’t a pleading no. It wasn’t very loud, either. It was her last word ever, and it was calm but unyielding. What did it mean?
“Pinkie…I’m so sorry!” Phaedra screamed in Rainbow Dash’s voice
“Whaaa?” Pinkie panicked, completely confused by what she heard
Phaedra stomped and sent out a mighty shockwave along with a loud ‘WHAM’. Pinkie was knocked down from the force of this attack on the ground several feet away from her. Its stomp was even more powerful than Quadratus’ was. And it was still stomping.
“I’m sorry!” WHAM! “I’m sorry!” WHAM! “I’m sorry!” WHAM! “I went in to save you and I failed! I’m sorry!” WHAM!
Pinkie realized that if any of those spear-hooves came down right on top of her, she’d die instantly. If she was lucky. If she was unlucky, she’d be paralyzed and hang around helpless for a while.
So she ran, but she went over in her head what she just thought she heard. Da-Dashie? …NO! It’s just your imagination, Pinkie! The real Dashie is counting on you!
Phaedra didn’t speak anymore after that, much to Pinkie’s relief.
Pinkie’s impulse to throw up was nullified by some other part of her consciousness she couldn’t account for, and she noted that once again, she had no clear way up to the furry back of the monster horse.
Pinkie’s first thought was to lay Caltrops on the ground just in case its hooves were sensitive like Quadratus’. This just destroyed the caltrop Phaedra stomped on directly and sent the ones it didn’t flying in all directions, forcing Pinkie to run away, screaming.
“Ow! Ooohh…” Pinkie cursed as she looked back to her flank. One of the caltrops and nailed her, right in the cutie mark. It made something quite like a perfect circular cut, considering the angle it went in.
This really is turning into my divine punishment for all my dark half was allowed to do, isn’t it? No really, I’m afraid the world will implode into some kind of irony singularity if I just accidentally let the words “What”, “Did”, “I”, “Do”, “To”, “Deserve”, and “This” show up in the same sentence which I foalishly say out loud!
Ow…but seriously, I really needed this to not happen this early. I’m going to have to watch this wound so it doesn’t bleed for all the rest of this adventure.
Pinkie retreated until she was a good distance away from the hulking horse. Pinkie yelped as she used her tail to gingerly pull the sharp metal bit out of her flank.
She pulled out some medical supplies from her jacket and mused. You simply don’t do the things Meanie Pie did -which, besides the obvious, this included cutting her tongue by licking a knife trying to look cool all those times..- without learning how to diagnose and treat a wound. It was ironic that her “evil side” technically could save more lives as a surgeon than her “good side.”
Phaedra seemed to have caught up to Pinkie by the time she finished. For such an awkward gait, that horse could move!
Pinkie ran into the tunnels, trying to get some time to further treat her wound. Sadly, Phaedra was stomping on the roof above, and Pinkie was blinded as a veil of dirt started to fall down on top of her.
Pinkie ran through the tunnels, yelping and screaming. It scarcely seemed to matter, the falling dirt and thunderous echoes followed her everywhere. Somehow, she stumbled across an exit to from the tunnel complex.
Panting, Pinkie took stock of her surroundings. She seemed to have returned to the mountainside that had the land bridge path which led back the way she came, out of the Grave fields.
And then Pinkie saw something worrisome.
Oh no.
Across the small canyon, near the Entrance to the fields, were two young fillies. One yellow, one orange.
I thought they were going to stay out of…wait…what are they wearing?
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were standing on their hind legs, something that looked like grass skirts strapped around their waists. In their fore hooves, they held…was that monkey grass?
And then, the dancing started. They waved their clumps of monkey grass around like pompoms, and danced around in a(n almost) synchronized fashion.
“GO, GO, PINKIE PIE! MAKE ‘EM FROWN, MAKE ‘EM CRY! COUNT TO FOUR, COUNT TO FIVE, EAT ‘EM ALIVE, EAT ‘EM ALIVE! GOOOOOO, PINKIE PIE!”
Words failed Pinkie Pie. Although some small part of her squee’d.
“Hey, Apple Bloom, you’ve got it backwards. You’re supposed to be stepping out with the other leg. Can’t you remember your own choreography?”
“Oh. Ah know, I just thought it looked ….prettier this way.” Apple Bloom said.
“It did. Pretty stupid.” Scootaloo retorted.
“You-“ Apple Bloom started a reply, but their argument was interrupted by Pinkie Pie.
“Girls! Get away from here, now! I told you I don’t want you anywhere near me when I’m fighting!”
“Aw, but Miss Pinkamena…we just want to cheer you own while you fight the giant zombie pony!”
“And maybe we’ll get cheerleading cutie marks!” Apple Bloom turned to look at her flank. “Anything yet?”
“Nope.”
Mental note: Be even more thankful neither Apple Bloom nor Scootaloo got a “torturing ponies” or “hiding evidence” cutie mark… Pinkie thought. “Look, girls, this really is too dangerous…”
“Hey, Pinkie?” Apple Bloom asked. “Why don’t ya try to run to the other side of a tunnel and lure it to the other side as yer run through tunnel and therefore come out behind it while its doing that crouching thing its doing?”
“……..wait, it crouches?”
Where did she go?
No, seriously, where did she go?
Phaedra had stopped around, looking for the small intruder that dared to defile its holy grounds.
She had retreated around this hill and then, Phaedra immediately rose on top of the entrance and couldn’t find her. It would stomp and bring the Rage of the Earth just the same, but it couldn’t find the tiny pony anywhere.
The other intruders seemed to have retreated. Maybe she did too as well…
“Hi!” Pinkie said cheerfully from atop Phaedra’s head. “Guess what I found?”
If Phaedra could speak, it exact words would have been: “But…..how? Just, how?”
And somehow, Phaedra felt it had been played for a fool.
Phaedra, in its shock, completely failed to start shaking Pinkie off. A lamentable mistake.
STAB. Hiisssss……
And so, Phaedra, the Pincer Horse, Aspect of the Plains and Manifestation of Remorse, was slain.
“Girls, I told you not to follow me!” Pinkie turned her attention to the fillies.
“Aw, but Miss Pinkamena, you’re just so wonderfully awesome to watch.
“But aren’t you at least worried that it might get scary? Or traumaAAAAAAaaaaaahhhh!……”
And the swordsmare collapsed in a pile of pink fur and black smoke as the ribbons entered her.
The fillies looked at Pinkie’s unmoving body as it lay on the ground once more.
“A mite, maybe.” Apple Bloom confessed.
As Pinkie lay with a group of shades hovering over her, this time, a maneless, tailless pony joining them, the fourth idol, which was the second to the left, crumbled. It was next to Quadratus’ idol, which had been the first to the left. Valus and Gaius’ idols lay in ruins in the first and second to the right, respectively. One might have picked up a pattern by now…
Rising to her hooves, Pinkie walked over to the altar to examine Rainbow once more.
She didn’t dare touch Dash, as she still looked emaciated and her wings were still severed, but…
The suspension web had been removed from Dash’s chest.
Somehow, it seemed appropriate after her victory over Phaedra.
And then, a hiss alerted her to the presence of the Dormin. "Thy next foe casts a colossal shadow across a misty lake.... As it soars through the sky... To reach it is no easy task."
Pinkie heard small hooves clopping into the temple as she rose to her feet.
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo galloped in with an assortment of roots, leaves, and other things on their backs.
“Ah brought this for you, Pinkie!”
“Apple Bloom, we both got this stuff! Actually, I got most of it because you can’t fly! –“
“-Quit trying to one up me!” both fillies harmonized.
“Girls…am I going to have to put you into time out?” Pinkie warned. Although she also giggled. “Wait, is that…fruit?”
“Y-yes…” Apple Bloom said nervously.
It was an elongated, greenish thing. Color like a pear but large like a melon. Pinkie looked at it with evil eyes that gleamed with both intense disgust and maddening desire.
“Miss Pinkamena…you can’t just keep running from everything sweet. I don’t really understand everything that’s gotten into you, but…its not like there’s anything in it…and…me and Apple Bloom thought it tasted really good…really, just try it.”
“Yes, Pinkie…it made me feel better after ya died the first time after killing Mr. Giggles.” Apple Bloom said.
“Well…”
Takeittakeittakeit…we just killed a pony, that means sweetsssss NO-STOP-THINKING-LIKE-THAT-IT-CREEPS-ME-OUT! Whatever. Take it nowww NO! yes. NO! yes. NO! yes.
Pinkie’s eyes were going from green to orange to left being green and right being orange and vice versa. They were a little reminiscent of a neon sign…
“NO! yes. NO! yes-” Pinkie swayed back and forth as she voiced her indecision.
“Miss Pinkamena? …” Scootaloo asked nervously, backing away slightly. “We’re sorry for bothering you…we’ll just leave all this food here. You should try the leaves, they’re a little bland but not too bad…kind of wish we had some salt or something…we think we’ll just explore the area for a while now….”
“Yeah…me too.”
And the two foals left the temple as Pinkie continued to argue with herself. “NO! yes. NO! yes.”
“CHAMPION!” Spoke the Dormin.
“AH!” Pinkie rose on her hind legs and kept rising until she feel backwards. Picking herself off the floor, she responded “Oh, y-yes, Dormin?”
"Cease this foolishness. Thy squires have already left.” Spoke the Dormin. “The fruit has been blessed. Though I am gone, the power of life lives on in the land, and that power manifests in its bounty. Furthermore, it is foolish to continue to ignore thy hunger….”
“Well…I guess I shouldn’t let it go bad…” Pinkie took a bit of the leaves and roots and other plants the fillies had brought. They weren’t anything special…
Tentatively, Pinkie moved her head closer to the fruit…..and nibbled it.
Oh my Celestia, Luna, Discord, and Sweet Zombie Mother of Dormin on a pogo stick…THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER! It wasn’t just sweet, it was juicy and rich and she felt her entire body waking up and she wanted MORE. Pinkie ravenously took more bites. She felt sorry they only brought two, but it was surprisingly filling as well, so she at least wouldn’t starve.
“…Thy next foe casts a colossal shadow across a misty lake. As it soars through the sky, to reach it is no easy task."
Pinkie looked at the Beak-faced idol that was next in the order.
“Avion…….” Pinkie contemplated how she was going to bring down a flying colossus.
She had a grappling hook, suction cup bracelets for use with climbing sheer rock surfaces that helped her sneak into Canterlot’s vault as well as up Valus’ mountain, a small watertight medical kit, lots of knives, and throwable caltops. But…there was no real long-range projectiles to speak of.
Pinkie took another bite of that wonderful fruit, completely oblivious to the wound in her flank slowly healing under her bandages…
Oh well…how bad could it be?
“This is going to suck popsicles!”
That’s what Pinkie had said when she first saw Avion's imposing form soar above her from the sunken castle’s battlements. She had been right, but not for the reason she thought she was going to be. Death did not come from above as she swam through the freezing waters, nor when she climbed unto dry land and shook herself to get dry. Nor when she started outright tempting it because staring at the giant bird through the fog was boring her to death.
Feeling inspired by the mist shrouding the lake, Pinkie suddenly recalled her ability to walk on mist. Only her light side actually used mist walking back in the grove, and she hadn’t even cloud walked ever since….well, she hadn’t had a reason to cloud walk for months now. She was out of practice….and the fog back in Shadow Ponyville had been thicker… Still, she tested a hoof experimentally….and found that there was far more air than water, and she couldn’t use it. The mist was too thick on top to reflect light off the sword but too thin near the lake’s surface to mist walk.
“STOP IGNORING ME! HEEEEEEYYYY!!!” Pinkie waved her hooves in the air, trying to signal the bird down to her. She whistled, insulted, sang songs, and even climbing its perch with her suction cups. The water made a better seal on the cups, but that just made her retreat hard to accomplish when Avion causually started whipping the pillar with its long, long tail. Pinkie fell back into the chilly waters, and Avion cawed scornfully.
“You’re dorking up the skies, Stinky Pie!” Pinkie thought she heard Gilda speak as she fell. “Make like a bee, and buzz off!”
Pinkie gasped and sputtered. She was confused by the voices in her head, but now wasn’t the time to deal with them. She had to get out of the wind. Her jacket was soaked and freezing.
“Miss Pinkamena!” Scootaloo’s voice rang out. “Are you alright?” The small pegasus fluttered above her.
“Scoot? I thought you were with Apple Bloom.” Pinkie asked as she swam back over towards a tower that would protect her from
“We split up to explore the area. I thought this castle was completely awesome, and if they don’t have any flyers, we could ambush them here…”
Pinkie blinked. Oh right. They are coming. I can’t imagine how I forgot. Other than the twelve remaining Colossi I have to conquer before they get here. Still…there’s not a lot we can do to fight off an army. If they get her before I defeat the last one, we screwed no matter what happens. And afterwards…well, hopefully Dormin will take care of them. So really…I just need to finish the Colossi. The fillies can just keep finding food for…
Hey. I just got an idea. …But, I have to be sure Scootaloo understands me perfectly.
“Scootaloo. I’m about to ask you to do something very, very dangerous.”
Scootaloo perked up and wore an enthusiastically dopey grin on her face. “I’m all ears!” she said in her tomboyish voice. But then she switched back to her sweet voice “…Miss Pinkamena, maam.”
And my misgivings about this plan just triplified.
“Listen Scootaloo…I can’t beat this Colossus. It won’t come down, and it’s being a really rude meanie. I’m not too sure what’s going to happen once I get it off its tail feathers, but I’m definitely not going to get anywhere just letting it sit here.
Can you fly up to its tail? I actually just need you to fly up high enough to toss these Caltops into it’s tail. Do NOT get behind the tail or otherwise on the same level of it. It can whip that thing around.”
“Yeah! Sure I can. I mean…that tail hangs down a long way.”
“You sure? You seemed to have trouble carrying Apple Bloom.”
“I’ll be fine. I can stay up in the air a long time nowadays…just as long as I’m not carrying Apple Bloom.”
“I’m also…less okay with giving you sharp objects to handle than before.”
“I’ll be fine, Miss Pinkamena. Come on, you’ve trained me to drain blood with sharper objects than this. I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“Your mom says otherwise. Frequently.” Pinkie said to Dizzy Twister’s only child.
Scootaloo looked away for one moment, but grabbed the hook with her hoof. Pinkie held on, and said “As soon as you do this, stay close to the pillar, and drop down. Do not get let it chase you in the open.” She stared into Scootaloo’s eyes for a moment…and let go.
As Scootaloo took off, Pinkie retrieved her knives and hopped back on the center pedestal.
She whistled to gain Avion’s attention once more. “Hey, birdie! I’m yelling at you!”
Avion raised its beak up a Pinkie, and then suddenly shrieked. It turned its head all the way around, but Scootaloo was already free-falling back down to get away from the bird. Scoot flapped her wings to slow down her fall and she resumed hovering before she hit the water.
“Good girl, Scootaloo. Miss Pinkamena’s so proud of you.” She called out. Pinkie pointed at Avion and laughed cruelly. “AHAHAHAHAHA! OH MAN, You have no idea how hilarious that expression on your face was, you stupid bird! Hee hee hee…eehehehehee.”
Avion had launched off its perch, heading straight for Pinkie Pie. And Pinkie felt a chill of ancestral terror as the large flying predator swooped towards her. And yet…there was only one thing to do now.
She jumped. Screaming as she went.
She was off, and adrenaline was flowing through her veins. She felt the wind flowing past her, the water in the air pelting her as Avion flew her across the lake. Pinkie had flown in the sky before, but never on the back of a giant bird. However, she couldn’t just enjoy it forever. As Avion, leveled out its wings and started to glide, she made her move.
It turns out Avion didn’t like being stabbed in the wing very much, and it spun in a barrel roll, leaving Pinkie to hold on the sword, still stuck in Avion’s flesh, for dear life. Her knives were left abandoned as her hind hooves slipped off of them. Pinkie gritted her teeth felt her forelegs shaking under the strain, pleading for the bird to right itself.
Just then, Avion did have to right itself. It had been losing altitude and had to level off and flap. Pinkie pulled out the sword and grabbed her knives again, holding on to them as Avion flapped its wings, which tested her almost depleted strength a little more, but she had managed to retreat back to the less turbulent center part of the great bird….
With much fear and being rocked around, Pinkie made her way to the other wing. Pinkie raised her sword above her head, eyes glowing with fire, and with an angry scream, she thrust down the blow that she thought was sure the end it.
Pinkie was therefore completely surprised to find herself being thrown about as Avion swerved and barrel rolled once again. She cursed mightily as the bird flew upside down.
Pinkie barely survived that battle of endurance, her hooves were aching and she was confused.
Arg! This is so stupid! I stabbed both its wings…I don’t care if it has more “vitals” or not, it should at least crash land now! The head is made of stone! Where else could that last vital be, anyway?
And the Pinkie looked at the tail.
The long, long, impossibly long tail.
Aw, Horsefeathers.
Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it, I’m taking a shortcut.
Pinkie got out her grappling hook.
…….
……
“AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” Pinkie screamed as she swung through the air. She grabbed the rope and began to pull herself in. Quickly, so as to avoid towers and other obstacles Avion flew much too close to.
Scootaloo saw the whole thing. As Avion flew around the lake, she saw a pink mare holding on for dear life even as she was dangling when the bird flew upside down. She would not let go, could not let go. Streams of black blood trailed behind the bird in clouds, and Pinkie eventually won.
And thus fell Avion the Earth Bat. Aspect of the Lake and Manifestation of Arrogance.
Scootaloo would never forget…the day she saw an Earth Pony fly. She really loved the giant splash Avion made. She did her little cheerleading dance.
Thinking fast, Pinkie sheathed the sword….and was immediately impaled by black streams.
Scootaloo, realizing what had happened and that Pinkie might drown, flew over as fast as she could, but Pinkie was lifted into the sky before she could get there.
The Dormin had less useful information to say about this next Colossus. “A giant lurks beneath the temple. It lusts for destruction, but a fool, it is not.” Seriously, what was that? It wasn’t even anywhere NEAR the Shrine of Worship, so that was just misleading…
Pinkie had wandered aimlessly through a large dark forest, found a fruit tree, bucked it, looked on with dismay as the fruit fell over the cliff and into the lake, before she jumped off the cliff screeching “MINE!”, found the lake was tragically shallow, ate the fruit to forget the pain that wracked her body, recovered from her fall inexplicably quickly, and used the light in this new area to lead her to a mountain with some catacombs…
And then she climbed down a large, large wall with footholds. She didn’t need any special tools to climb down it, but once she did, several things happened at once.
“Hey, Pinkie!” a young voice said cheerfully. It was Apple Bloom and she wore what looked like one of Pinkie’s destroyed saddle bags on her back, although it was only half full.
“Apple Bloom, what?”
A great rumbling killed further conversation, and the wall began to slide open.
“RUN! Go, go!” Pinkie exclaimed as the giant minotaur emerged from the wall.
Pinkie had thought that the room she was in was large and wide, but the appearance of Barba, the Great Beast, suddenly made everything feel claustrophobic. The roof was an imposition on everything. There was nothing that existed beyond Barba. No clouds, no rainbows, no sunshine, no sky. To make matters worse, the room was broken up by several barriers that the ponies would have to climb over to escape the giant.
Barba took the measure of the two intruders….and immediately went after Apple Bloom.
Bloom’s ears went back and her eyes widened as the minotaur’s giant blue stony hand reached out for her.
Apple Bloom shuttered, but suddenly held firm in place. Ah can do this…Ah’m not going to run away anymore. Ah’m going to jump up and-
“GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU LITERAL BULLY!” Pinkie shrieked as she jumped up and kicked the minotaur’s hand away from her assistant with her hind legs.
-Yeah, that.
“Pinkie, Ah was gonna-HEY!”
Realizing how little time she had to give, Pinkie bit Apple Bloom’s mane and flung her over onto her back, and yelled “Not now, Bloomy! Hold on tight!”
She bounced on her hooves, all at once, hopping over one of the walls that, despite only coming up to the monster’s knees, might slow the Colossus down.
It didn’t. Barba shattered the barrier, like it was made of glass and was right behind the two of them.
Pinkie carried Apple Bloom across the second wall in this manner, as she did so, Apple Bloom told her to “Hurry! It’s right behind us!”
The third wall was where everything went so wrong, it sucked popsicles.
Pinkie misjudged her jump and landed on the half-column on the side of the wall, instead of over the wall. She could feel Barba right behind them, and she bucked Apple Bloom off her back and over the wall.
“Oof!” Apple Bloom grunted as she landed, but she still looked up. Pinkie was pulling herself over the wall, and almost there, suddenly, Barba pulled her back!
“Pinkie!” Apple Bloom squeaked in alarm. She heard shrieking and stomping on the other side of the wall she couldn’t see over. She was too low to the ground given her height, and the wall blocked everything except the very top of Barba’s head. “Give her back! Give her back right now!”
Barba could’ve just smashed the pony with his fist, driving her into the wall, but then the little one would’ve skipped straight to the part where she cried and gave up. Like this, she was desperate and terrified for the bigger pony she couldn’t see. Like this, he could hear her pleas and threats and make her suffer in tension and anxiety.
“Bloomy, I’m okay! Just run for cover!” Pinkie yelled while out of sight. And then Apple Bloom heard a yipe along with an earth shattering smash.
Recovering back to her hooves quickly, Pinkie saw that the wall leading to Apple Bloom was unguarded. She was wounded and tired, but was able to pull herself over the wall this time after gaining some distance from Barba. On this side of the wall was the end of room. Apple Bloom motioned for Pinkie to join her in a hallway that was carved into the wall, blocked off by columns. Pinkie ran and hid behind the column Apple Bloom retreated behind moments ago.
“Pinkie!” Apple Bloom hugged the Pink Mare. Then she saw her flank. “You’re bleeding!”
“It’s okay, Bloomy. It’s just a scratch.” The Swordspony reassured her squire. “But how about you?”
“Me? A-ah’m okay.”
Suddenly, they heard a low growl coming from the other side of the column. Barba was crouching down, looking for them.
Pinkie held Apple Bloom close, and they both were silent. Pinkie carefully inched to look around the corner of the column.
Barba ‘s entire upper body was covered in white fur, its beady little eyes shone beneath its iron mask. From its face dangled a long, long beard. Hooves probably couldn’t climb that, and it was impossible to ascend while dangling from her mouth. Alright, Pinkie just needed to get out her ……other climbing hoofwear.
Oh wait.
“Aw, Horsesprinkles.” Pinkie cursed.
“Huh? What’s the matter?” Apple Bloom asked.
Pinkie had forgotten she was there. “I forgot that my clamps were in the saddlebags that were crushed by the first Colossus.”
“Oh, ya mean these were yours?” Apple Bloom asked and retrieved a part of perfectly restored metal clamps from the saddlebag.
“Huuuuh? But how did- where did you- And Dashie calls me random- But- how- …WHAT!?”
“Scootaloo found ‘em in the mountains and brought them down to me and Ah fixed ‘em.” Apple Bloom said matter-of-factly. “Ah used them climb down that wall with all the handles on it.”
Suddenly an earth-shattering noise heralded the coming of rock debris crashing in between the columns. Apple Bloom screamed but Pinkie protected her.
“Stay here, Bloomy. I’m borrowing these.” Pinkie said as she took the clamps.
In his zealotry to watch the ponies’ every move, Barba had lowered himself to the point where his long beard was almost brushing the ground. Not only that, but he had placed one hand on his knee and another one down on the ground, leaving him completely unable to attack as Pinkie Pie leapt into his beard once more.
The serrated clamps yanked at thicker bunches of hair than her hooves did, and together, they did support her weight.
As adrenaline overrode her fatigue, and despite the bullheaded biped’s best attempts to buck her off, he could not stand up to repeated stabs to his vitals, and his black essence was released.
And so fell Barba, the Great Beast. Aspect of the Underground. Manifestation of Heartlessness.
Pinkie stood on the ground once more as Barba’s body became shrouded in darkness. She knew what was coming. It was just part of the show at this point. However, she had a feeling that they weren’t entirely good for her.
“Bloomy, you saved the day, but you really shouldn’t look when-APPLE BLOOM, NO! GET BACK!”
It was too late. Apple Bloom was holding Pinkie tightly, putting her in the way of the black tendrils…
“BLOOMY!” Pinkie shrieked.
The ribbons sliced into her, silencing her voice and squirming around insider her bother like one enormous worm that was trying to squeeze itself into every corner of her body. She felt cold and she couldn’t breathe and….and…
And Apple Bloom was left completely unscathed. The black tendrils wrapped around her body. And not a one entered into her.
Pinkie landed while exhaling some smoke with a gasp that sounded almost like “ha.”
Apple Bloom sniffed. “Ah just wanted to make up for…everything.” Pinkie Pie wasn’t listening at this point. Apple Bloom sat in silence for a while, until Pinkie’s body vanished into a pillar of light that shone through the roof itself.
Dash lay on the alter, complete and beautiful. A gentle wind blew through the temple, and Rainbow’s chest heaved. Slowly, gently, sat up. She turned to Pinkie and…
Suddenly, something pulled Pinkie away.
Pinkie had been lying on the floor of the temple, now with a Griffon and a Bull’s shadow, when Barba’s idol exploded. The pony was starting to break out in strange, sickly black splotches all over her body. They were on her skin, but they showed through her coat.
Pinkie Pie awoke.
”Ugh…Apple Bloom. Why’d you go and scare me like that? Ugh…should I stay and talk to her? But then again, I don’t have time and I’m not sure I should let either of the fillies follow me if Apple Bloom was so traumatized. But she is traumatized now so that means I really really should-” Pinkie stopped as she took a second glance over her body.
The black splotches had spread. They were obvious even if she wore her jacket now. Whatever was happening to her was getting worse. And she had a feeling that it would spread as she defeated more Colossi. Despite their help, Pinkie couldn’t let the fillies see her like this.
After the nausea and disorientation wore off, she felt compelled to observe Rainbow Dash, her reason for doing this, once more.
Pinkie wept at what she saw.
Dashie’s wings! Dashie’s flank! She’s…perfect…
Pinkie placed her blacked hoof on the altar to stroke her beloved……
She wasn’t stupid. Dormin had said there would be a price and she could tell something was happening to her as she absorbed the black ribbons into her being.
But…she didn’t care about the consequences. She could see they were worth it. If Dashie wanted to eat her, fair was fair. And if she needed to eat Pinkie to get better, Pinkie wouldn’t take no for answer. No really, she would literally pry open Dashie’s jaw and …..
Just then, Pinkie felt considerably hotter. Her Sweetie side started blushing until she became Reddie Pie and her Meanie side was rolling on the ground groaning “Oh Shadestia….I’ve got such a lady boner right now.”
Will all the constituent personalities of my mind please GET YOURS’ OUT OF THE GUTTER? I don’t even know what caused this, I swear. Stupid confusing hormones…
Just then, the Dormin spoke.
"Thy next destination.... A ruin hidden in the lake... A ripple of thunder lurks underwater."
“Um, did you say…thunder?” Pinkie shuddered as she recalled troubling memories...
Scootaloo buzzed around happily.
“So, there I was, sneaking up on that big, stupid, bird, it was flapping its tail around, as Miss Pinkamena distracted it….”
“Uh huh.” Apple Bloom said in a bored tone. She found a trail of ants traveling along the ground and was carefully squishing each and every one in the line with a hammer. She wasn’t positive if Pinkie allowed her to do this sort of thing, but she needed to do something to get through Scootaloo’s story.
“…CAAAAWW!” Scootaloo screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Ah! Landsakes, Scootaloo, there’s no need to transform into a killer chicken on me!” Apple Bloom grumbled as she walked over to retrieve the hammer she had just thrown.
“I’m not a chicken, Apple Bloom, as you would know if you paid any attention to the fact that I’m telling you how I heroically helped Miss Pinkamena take down a giant bird. So, where was I? Oh right! ‘CAAAAW!’ it cried out! I nailed it, right in the tail, and I even go it to spurt some of that black stuff. It was so awesome!”
“So, Ah imagine ya had to outrun it then? Or outfly?” Apple Bloom said smugly.
“Uh…yes! Yes, in fact I did! And then I lead it straight to Miss Pinkamena and she leapt onto it and the two of us brought that Colossus down!” Scootaloo felt the need to embellish her story…
“You did not, ya liar. Now, AH, on the other hoof, helped repair Pinkie’s climbing clamps, and with them, she took down a giant bearded monkey thing that moo’d!” Apple Bloom stood on her hind legs and stretched her hooves up in the air to show how big Barba was. …She didn’t really come up to his ankles.
“A bearded monkey thing that what? That thing you described doesn’t even sound real. Seriously, all the Colossi I’VE seen are just an Ox, a Pony, and a Bird. All ginormous, but perfectly normal creatures. You probably just fainted again like you did when you saw that goofy big brown thing and Miss Pinkamena had to carry you to safety.”
“Ah did not! Ah was just…standing mah ground! And it wasn’t goofy at all, it was all black and had red eyes and …and YOU ran away, ya chicken!”
“I was following Miss Pinkamena’s orders! She told us to run and so I did! You’re the useless one who Pinkamena had to take care off! As usual.”
“Ah have been plenty useful to Pinkie!” Apple Bloom yelled. “Ah got her food like she asked!”
“Oh yeah…there’s those leaves and fruit…oh wait that was me, the one who can actually reach those things. You just dug up all those icky roots I’m not even sure are edible. Hey! Maybe if Miss Pinkamena gets a taste for earthworms, she’ll know the pony to call!” Scootaloo laughed.
“Ah’ve been helping her far longer than you have! And things were great before you came along!” Apple Bloom sneered.
“Oh really? Is that why you TRIED TO BURN HER ALIVE!?” Scootaloo snarled.
“Ah thought we were past that. Pinkie told you never to bring that up again.” Apple Bloom said slowly. Dangerously.
“Oh, yes. But I know her reasoning for that. She feels sorry for you, Bloom. She’s had to keep you inside all that time so you don’t get discovered. Or run back. And now, she wants to try to set everything back the way it used to be…Of course she’s going to forgive you. And then you got kidnapped and had to be rescued by me. Not that you ever appreciate anything I do.”
“You didn’t save me…Ah got out of that mahself!”
“Oh? Then get yourself out of this!” Scootaloo said, launching herself towards Apple Bloom and snatching her up in her hooves as she flew upwards…
“Scootaloo! Let go of me, chicken girl!” Apple Bloom struggled.
“Well, I’m not going to listen to you like that! Maybe if you asked politely…” Scootaloo switched to her cute voice. “Please, Miss Scootaloo, put me down. I’m ever so sorry about all the chicken jokes, I really ran that gag into…the…ground….” Scootaloo’s voice became uneven.
“Never.” Apple Bloom said with finality.
“Apple Bloom, why are you reaching into your bag-WHAT IS THAT!? YOU’RE CRAZY! WE’LL BOTH FALL!” Scootaloo shrieked.
“LAND. NOW.” Apple Bloom commanded.
“You madpony! I wasn’t going to do anything horrible to you, just take you up a garden I found atop the temple where you couldn’t get down! There is no reason for you to-”
“NOW!”
“Alright! Just stop. Ow. Ow. Owowowow! Apple Bloom, stop! WE’RE FALLING!”
Crash.
Scootaloo heard giggling nearby. She didn’t find this funny at all.
“APPLE BLOOM!” Scootaloo roared as she rose to her hooves.
“CHICKEN GIRRRRLLL!”
Meanwhile, Pinkie was now coping with the tenth Colossus. Her earlier victories had all been using electricity. She should’ve been relieved. She wasn’t. She felt a chill the very second she heard the clue:
"Thy next destination.... An isolated sand dune..... It's tracks are well hidden..... Shaking the earth, it's gaze is upon thee."
Pinkie said the name like a curse. “Dirge.”
And then, Pinkie could swear she heard the most eerie giggle…
Dirge was one of the lesser deities Pinkie had also bothered remembering. It represented Dormin’s hunger and desire to win. Without the other aspects, it was as a mindless beast. In the old days, the natives of the forbidden land made sacrifices to this aspect to appease it. It was also a harbinger of the underworld. A death god.
Her books happened to have a lot to say about Dirge. And everything said reminded her of herself. And not in a good way.
No, not even her last three victories would be truly dangerous compared to this one. No matter how much electricity they tried to pump into her body.
Hydrus, the Coiling Serpent, Aspect of the Depths and Manifestation of Caution, had electric spines that sparked with lightning whenever they touched the water. Pinkie’s battle with it had been something of a battle of wits as she had to stab the sigil behind each spine before they submerged again. Pinkie’s clamps were getting a lot of use out of them, holding onto the sea serpent’s….hair? ….folia?
Pinkie already knew what it was like to be electrocuted, from Sweetie Pie’s first “death” in the grove, but this was the first time she had to willingly be electrocuted as she held on to her one anchor to the Colossus, a metal sword submerged in the water.
She couldn’t, would not let go…not after how much she had used electrocution against Rainbow Dash and the other ponies…if the Colossi were going to start using electrocution against her, that was surely also her punishment….
Kuromori, the Wall Shadow of the Forest and Manifestation of Trickery was a large black monitor lizard with a back that It was armored with stone plates that glowed with eerie bristles. had also employed electricity, although it shot projectiles at Pinkie instead of merely covering its body with electrical fields. Projectiles that left a cloud of electrified gas of all things. It was awfully small for a Colossus, but it was easily the most deadly thus far. Kuromori stomped along the wall, blasting anything pink in its sights….
Pinkie would run for one of the openings in the Coliseum wall, trying to get in close enough range to try using one of her tools on it…but Kuromori had begun to counter her moves by standing on the side opposite her and shelling her with electric blasts. Pinkie would run over to an opening or window close to where Kuromori was a moment ago…but the Colossus would be laying in wait for her and ambush her, usually from a blind spot above Pinkie.
Sadly for Kuro, this is how she wanted it. And she ambushed him from above by joining him on the wall with her suction bracelets. She threw Caltops with her tail into Kuromori’s legs and as the Monitor lizard fell, Pinkie leapt off the wall, holding her sword in her mouth, and positioned it down towards Kuromori’s belly as she fell.
Pinkie might’ve had a little too much fun with that one.
Basaran, the Storm Echo of the Ash lands and Manifestation of Destruction, was a full-on artillery machine in tortoise form. It was imposing and made Pinkie run around perhaps more than she ever had in her life as it shot explosive bullets of lightning at her. Pinkie eventually caught it over a Geyser, which lifted the Colossus off the ground, and it almost fell over if not for two stubborn fleshy looking tendons in the two legs that were still on the ground, which Pinkie promptly slashed and forced the Colossus to be tilted over.
One climb up its fuzzy belly, and a rocky tortoise ride later, Basaran’s head had a passenger it was desperate to get rid of. It didn’t.
…….
Pinkie had come so far. So why did this cave frighten her so much?
“Gulp. It’s okay, Pinkie. Dirge is just-“
Another giggle sailed in from seemingly nowhere.
Okay…that’s getting unnerving. What was with me hearing Dashie’s and Gilda’s voices before, anyway?
Just then, she heard a strange, musical sound. And then a bat swoop past her.
“AH! BATS! BATS ON MY FACE! HELLLLP!” Pinkie ran blindly into the sandy inner sanctum of the cave, and stomped in place.
Pinkie suddenly stopped herself when she remembered her situation. “Oh wait.”
Too late.
A sheet of sand and earth was kicked into the air as the ground rumbled. A great mass of stone and brown hair emerged and burrowed around the cave. Pinkie tried to get a good look at the Colossus to make out its form, when suddenly…she realized it was coming straight for her.
Uh oh…
Pinkie turned and ran for dear life as Dirge followed her closely. Pinkie’s heart raced and she thought she could hear that horrible giggling again.
It was in her voice.
Pinkie looked back at Dirge, its fiery eyes loomed as it trailed right behind her. And she knew what was going to happen next.
Time seemed to stop.
Her own voice rang out, dripping with malice:
“Now…you take a nap.”
Time resumed and Dirge vanished beneath the sand.
Wasting no time, Pinkie swerved out of the way and galloped at full speed looking behind her as a the landshark leapt out of the sand, and opened its mouth by splitting apart its horrible mandibles.
The inside of its mouth was glowing…it wasn’t a pretty light. It was a bright void that she knew she would never escape from if it swallowed her.
Dirge crashed and kicked up a wave of sand, partially burying Pinkie Pie under it.
Pinkie coughed repeatedly. “Ugh….what, is it gone already? How am I supposed to slay it if it always retreats underground?”
She had handled fliers.
She had handled swimmers.
She had handled wall crawlers.
She had handled giant Dragon turtles that abjectly REFUSED to stand over the geyser when she was trying to lure them there while they shot thunderbolts at her.
But now…she had no idea how to deal with a burrowing colossus. And what was worse was that she was apparently going even crazier…than….usual…
Pinkie’s eyes grew wide
A ripple of sand and dust clouds, indicating Dirge’s presence, sped towards her. Along with it, there hopped a pink earth pony that had a very familiar poofy mane.
“First I played with myself, now I get to play with myself-myself!”
Pinkie stood in shock, but then glared at the pony.
“I’m not afraid of you; you’re just a figment of my imagination, like the others…”
“Aw…but you’re worried that you’re going to die here, aren’t you? You’re going to be gobbled up by a hunger that’s as terrifying as yours! Why not just give in? You’ll never have to worry about hurting your friends this time. You know, like last time you gave up, Sweetie Pie!”
Pinkie had started running already. The illusionary Pinkie continued to follow her, clipping through Dirge’s head as the Colossus followed the tangible and tasty-looking earth pony.
Pinkie looked into those eyes that followed her. She dropped a Caltrop behind her, and watched as it was knocked aside and failed to go into Dirge’s eye. She frowned, gritting her teeth.
“Ugh! Its like I’m supposed to have some kind of projectile marksman riding on my back to shoot this thing in the eye!” Pinkie groaned.
"You’re not being a very responsible big sister, Meanie Pie. Well, you are, doing all the work and killing all the Colossi that Sweetie Pie would be too much of a scaredypony to actually slay any of the Colossi herself…but you should’ve stopped her from feeling guilty like before! You should’ve protected her from Pinkamena! And now you’re both all sad and mopey and down in the dumps! You’ve let Pinkamena win!”
“What…?”
When Shadamena took over Pinkie in the Darkest Grove, she ran into….an old enemy of hers. It actually helped fool the other ponies, but only because it was actually tearing her up. A horrible demon devoid of any brightness or color.
It wasn’t assaulting her with guilt or moral dilemmas or even bothered to entertain the idea that she valued the other ponies’ lives…no, she went began to attack Shadamena’s very existence itself.
“Oh joy, it’s the OTHER one. I remember our argument after Pinkie’s first party. Well, It might not be SO bad, you’ll probably be caught in the first week, so maybe you’ll DIE pretty soon. Or maybe you’ll be more tolerable when you’ve been imprisoned for a year and calmed down a bit. Whichever happens, I don’t have to put up with the NOISE anymore. Oh, you think I’m scared of you just because you’re the logical conclusion of all that saccharine, always-happy bullshit ‘Pinkie Pie’ does?”
“Well, maybe at least you’ll stop trying to ‘make ponies happy’ ALLLL the time…” Pinkamena said those last three words in a voice that dripped with sarcasm and disgust.
“Hey, let me tell you something. You aren’t cool just because you’re evil. You aren’t. When you’re not cutting them up, all the ponies will be laughing at you. Nopony really liked any of Pinkie’s parties, and they won’t like yours. They’ll just do it out of pity and because they need a good laugh! You aren’t popular, you aren’t funny, you aren’t even really scary when somepony takes thirty seconds to think about it, you’re nothing. What’s that? You think you’ll have the last laugh when you torture them?”
Pinkamena’s features contorted into the most uncomfortable-looking smile Shadamena had ever seen. A slow, rumbling breath rose from Pinkamena’s chest and gradually the cruelest laughter she had ever heard, putting even her own to shame rolled from out of the other pony’s mouth.
“ …hehehehee…ah..heheehehe AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What, you really- hee hee- you really don’t know why I’m laughing? Oh stars above, that’s hilarious in of itself! I take it back, you ARE actually funny. Hahaha…aha…give me a minute, I’ll tell you it all in FULL detail. Ah…I guess the best place to start is that everyone knows Pinkie is crazy, and so you’ll fit in just fine. But everypony only bothers spending time with her because they get a kick out of living dangerously.
They know you’re coming, but the hilarity of the situation will hit them when they realize that you –YOU- think you outsmarted them when they knew they were taking a chance with each and every cupcake you fed them. So they’ll laugh. It will sound like panicky, stressed out, full-blown mental breakdown laughter, but it’s because you’re so adorably stupid thinking how smart you are. Of course some, even some of those who laughed, with cry and plead as you would expect, but guess what?
They only do it because they think you’re stupid! Why, yes they do. They think you actually don’t understand things like life and death and criminal offenses, and that they just have to beg enough and you’ll totally let them go! And they’re right! You ARE stupid! Whether you do sappy stupid things, or completely crazy stupid things! You’re still stupid and everypony can see it. You ought to just quit and go back to the rock farm right now! At least there ponies will finally take you seriously again. And I’ll be rid of the NOISE…”
“SHUT UP! Shut up…I am going to have fun.” Shadamena glared back at the other, other Pinkie “And you can’t stop me.”
Meanie Pie beat back the embodiment of Pinkie’s self-loathing, but always felt a little disquieted whenever she was alone. Which was all the time after…well, after certain things happened.
When the destructive fight between Light and Shadow began in Pinkie’s mind, Pinkamena smiled.
“That’s right! Pinkamena! And now, she’s back and getting to you! She ran out of material for you, but now that you two have joined as one, she can just attack you through Sweetie Pie’s conscience, now!” Mirage-Pie giggled.
“I am Sweetie Pie. I am…All of me.” Pinkie grunted as she ran.
“Wrong! There is no Sweetie Pie! There never was! There’s just me, your happiness, your ability to not care about anything but having fun and playing the best games with other ponies! And Pinkamena, who wants you to be all mopey and drown in depression! You started closer to that Pinkie, but when you started to have visions of the other fun games you could play, you tried that for a while until Pinkamena finally got you. You don’t have a conscience, this ‘guilt’ of yours is just self-loathing!”
“You’re wrong! I’m only sad because I can see the full picture now! I am more than you ever were!”
Mirage Pie was lounging on top of Dirge’s head now. “Oh, you are more alright. Did I ever tell you…how ADORABLE it is that you keep switching between which Pinkie you are? When you want to run away, you just tell yourself that you’re Meanie Pie and you have no right to and you’re vicious enough to bring down a few monsters that are less terrible than you are. But when you fantasize about being with Dashie or any of your friends again, you turn around and go all ‘oh Dashie, it’s me, I’m in control again. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! I promise I’ll never let her hurt you again.’ Or even ‘ew! Sweets! I can’t eat sugar anymore!’” Mirage Pie said in a mocking tone before giggling. “And of course, lets not forget how you froze up and failed to kill that guard back in Canterlot, despite the fact that if you just shut up and killed him, you might not have had to escape so frantically. Oh! Down I go! Watch out for that wall….”
Dirge sank beneath the sand and Pinkie yanked her head back to look straight ahead only to see a wall she was about to run into.
Pinkie threw herself to the side, rolling away when she hit the ground. Dirge erupted out of the ground.
Dirge, returned to the sand, empty-handed. Mirage Pie also vanished, but Pinkie heard a ghostly giggle echo on the air from every direction at once.
Pinkie breathed heavily and tried to calm down. Alright…I still have no idea what her deal is, but this conversation has passed the point of usefulness. I’ve been exposed to/dished out too much psychological warfare to fall to this crap.
“Dashie won’t take you back. Not after she finds out what you did to Scootaloo. Oh! And back on the subject of the guard. You did mess up. If the fillies didn’t find that scabbard for you, somepony else might’ve found it and you’d been banished to the moon by now.”
See? Right on schedule. Focus on the important thing. The sooner I figure out how to kill Dirge, the sooner I can shut her up.
“Of course, you’re really a hypocrite. You’re soft-headed with other ponies but you’re brutally murdering these Colossi. Without any remorse. Just like me. You haven’t changed.”[
Don’t listen to her. Focus on Dirge.
“Dash won’t take you back. Because you’re still a monster. Seriously, how do you justify these actions to yourself? After Quadratus even showed mercy on poor little Bloomy back there, too…”
Another Mirage Pie was hopping over to Pinkie, sand and dirt being kicked up as she came.
“Of course it would. It cannot do anything other than spare a noncombatant. It immediately attacked me once she was out of the way. It probably didn’t know she was a child, she just was trembling….or maybe it was just that she didn’t have the sword.”
“You don’t know that. Not that you’ll try. You’re self-righteous, but you are hiding so many obvious things from yourself. You don’t even know if freeing Dormin will destroy the world or not.” Dirgey Pie giggled as Dirge’s head broke the sand once more.
Pinkie grunted. “You’re full of lies!”
“Why not try surrendering then? I’m sure it will be dangerous, but if you don’t try to do something surprising, you’ll never know if they are capable of thinking for themselves…Didn’t you think that they might be able to revive Dashie for you?”
“Wha...?”
“They can.”
Dirge’s eyes could be seen. They stared into Pinkie’s soul. Pinkie sweated, but didn’t run away.
Alright then…
Pinkie’s eyes glowed green.
She drew the sword…and threw it away, far from her reach.
Behind her, she threw away her caltrops…and stepped towards Dirge.
“Um…okay, what are you doing?”
Pinkie smiled. And yelled words that made Dirgey Pie’s eyes widen in shock.
Dirge was closing in
The little pony clutched the scabbard.
Meanwhile, Dirge hungrily advanced. The strange little meat creature had been making noises to herself all this while. It was doing something else now…making different noises and looking at Dirge itself. It was waving its hindquarters back and forth. Was it..offering itself up to the Colossus? But…this revelation only made it salivate in victory.
It leapt into the air….opening its mandibles wide while the little creature yelled one final word…
Dirge hit the ground, and immediately screeched in pain.
There was a terrible pain in its eyes now, which hadn’t been there before.
Pinkie appeared, laying next to the sword, which was now re-sheathed with the scabbard she was holding. Pinkie immediately rose to her hooves, giggling.
Earlier:
Pinkie lay down in front of a wide arc of caltrops, located roughly where Dirge’s eyes would be if Pinkie stood where the beasts’ mouth would be.
Pinkie called out “HEY DIRGE! I’VE BOOBY TRAPPED THIS AREA! WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T LEAP AT ME AND TRY TO EAT ME OR YOU’LL GET POINTY THINGS IN YOUR EYES!”
Pinkie turned around, then looked over her shoulder “No really…” Pinkie continued in a seductive voice, and started waggling her plot in a provocative manner. “Don’t fall to temptation, you bad, bad, boy. You’ll be punished. No matter how delicious I look...you’ll be cut up allll over your face.”
Her bravado started to fade as Dirge vanished beneath the sand and much too quickly was already leaping towards her, mouth open wide.
The two must be as one, less the seal weaken. Should they ever be separated, speak the word, and Return.
“R-RETURN!” Pinkie squeaked, her ears flattening. Hoping she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.
“It worked! It worked!”
“Arg! Get up, you stupid sandfish! Grr…” Dirgey Pie stood on top of the now writhing form of Dirge as it squirmed in pain from having crashed face-first into the wall with pointy things in its eyes.
“Hehehehehe…” Pinkie giggled as she hopped over the Land shark. “Sorry, but I did my homework long before I started. The Colossi are just pieces of Dormin run amok. Dirge isn’t just a Voracious creature, it IS voracity. It cannot be bargained with, or even reasoned with. It might still be alive on some level, but quite frankly, both it and you remind me of everything I hate about myself.”
“So you admit you’re going to kill yourself if you kill Dirge! If you can’t have mercy for him, then what chances are there for Dashie to ever even like you again?! Your quest for redemption is hopeless! Think about the implications of what you’re doing!” Dirgey Pie begged.
“…..Neigh.” Pinkie said as she rose the sword above her head as she stood on Dirge’s back where an enormous sigil rested. She stabbed, causing Dirge to squeal in pain. As the Black Blood rose, Dirgey Pie became translucent and ghost-like.
"You can't torture a pony and then have them hug you and kiss you and tell you they love you! Of course your Sweetie side is going to tell you she's okay to die, Pinkamena's got her and she's the part Dashie likes anyway. But what about Meanie Pie? What does she get out of this? Does she really expect Dashie to forgive her? HER? Rainbow Dash will never want to be friends with the pony who killed her, and she will try to get rid of you! Shadamena! You should fight that entity you call 'Sweetie Pie' once again! You should take back control! Then you can give up this quest and be free of guilt! There is no way for this to turn out well for you!"
Pinkie stabbed again, forcing more squeals from Dirge and turning Dirgey Pie transparent.
"She'll have you lobotomized if she doesn't kill you first! And the fillies! She'll totally take the risk of turning you into a vegetable if that means destroying her enemy! And how do you know you two won't break up again when you have Dashie back? What if you can't share? Especially because, once again, You. Cannot. Win!"
Pinkie rose the sword again. “You know, I was worried that Dirge was going to remind me of myself, somehow. You even started to fulfill that worry…but, you failed. I’m sorry, but you’re routine is all over the place, without even disorienting your victim first. This disorientation is the key part to flooding the rhetorical space so the victim can’t see the forest for the trees. You’re lies were too obvious, cliché, even. And you simply suck being Meanie Pie, even if I WAS going to fall for my own traps. Now vanish.”
Pinkie stabbed one final time, and the glyph erupted into a geyser of Black Blood before vanishing. The Mirage Pinkie disappeared, but Dirge only tore itself free and returned to beneath the ground.
Pinkie rolled across the sand as the Colossus sank….and she laid there for a while, in silence.
And then she laughed.
The pain of losing in the grove had weighed horribly on her conscience ever since Rainbow’s cries and pleas woke her back up. The combined entity that was Dual Pie inherited that guilt. And as both the victim and perpetrator, she could never get a second chance to fix that. Never.
But she just did it. It was a mystery where these voices where coming from, but she just realized that in a way she had just defeated a demon from her past. It didn’t make up for much of anything, and she still had to free Dormin to begin to fix any of her mistakes but…
That felt satisfying. Although…she felt like she was forgetting somethi-wait.
Twitchy tail. But…the ceiling of the cave didn’t seem to be unstable.
Dirge gave a cry as it leapt out of the sand, it mandibles spread wide. Pinkie screamed, grabbed the scabbard, but flinched as she accidentally sent the sword flying away from her. This cost her precious nanoseconds she didn’t have to spare.
Pinkie’s screams were muffled as she vanished into the horrible blinding maw of the colossus….
Dirge gulped and felt very satisfied. It disappeared beneath the sand for a nap while it digested its meal.
Silence fell across the cavern, only a few scattered caltrops and a sword lodged in the ground remained as any sign the little pink pony was ever there…..
…..
…..
…..
Suddenly, the sword rose out of the ground and fell on its side, and there was a flash.
“RETURNRETURNRETURNRETURN!!! GET IT OFF! AHHH! Even their ick is electric!” Pinkie rolled around in the sand trying to the glowing, sizzling gunk off of her coat. She had bruises all over her body
After a lot of tumbling around, Pinkie was no longer hurting, although there was still some of the glowy stuff on her Berry Punch jacket…
“I just…I just got eaten….” Pinkie said, her eyes wide in revelation.
The corners of her mouth turned up…and she burst out laughing. “Ahahaha! It…ate me! I almost died but I threw the sword by accident! HAHAHAHA!”
As she got to her hooves, Dirge rose back above the sand. It seemed miffed that it had been robbed of its meal.
Pinkie raised a hoof to her face, and pulled down her lower eyelid. “Bleeeh! You can’t catch me!” So she hopped around the cavern, Dirge right behind her.
So…should I lure him back to the caltrops and nail him that way? Ah, no! Boring! Besides, I don’t want to get eaten again.
Actually…I feel like…Dancing.
Pinkie leapt into the air, spun, and landed on her hind legs, and began doing a Russian dance in reverse.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” She drew a knife with her free hoof. “Head’s up!” she called, grinning. And flung it into the Colossus’ eye.
Dirge immediately began spinning through the sand, and Pinkie leapt out of the way, landing flat on her belly as Dirge crashed into a wall behind her.
Pinkie smirked and got out her clamps….lots of hair-pulling later, she was at the very peak of Mt. Dirge, where another sigil lay behind its Stony face.
And thus, at long last, fell Dirge the Devourer. Aspect of the Cave and Manifestation of Amorality and Voracity.
The dark ribbons came for her…but this time, instead of just sitting there and taking them, she ran away. She giggled and hopped and evaded the lines for a period of time she couldn’t even track. But even though they were eventually going to catch up with her, she wasn’t going to try her best, to the last of her strength.
Still…she needed to tell those fillies how much they had helped her. They not only got her the scabbard but found out its amazing secret. She wondered what they were doing now…
Scootaloo, having finally calmed down, took a moment to rest. She could still fly, despite her twisted wing. She had barely got away…Just barely. Still, it was a good thing that she had retreated down to these jungles down see saw from the cliffs where Apple Bloom had cornered her. Scootaloo’s “flight” to her new haven had more closely resembled a controlled fall.
Scootaloo was positive Apple Bloom could never follow her here. No matter how resourceful she was. She had never expected Apple Bloom to attack her with jumper cables of all things. She would’ve never retrieved that bag from the mountains for her is she knew how much pain Bloom would inflict on her with them…
“Whew…oh well. Maybe I’ll tell Miss Pinkamena on her when my wing gets better.” Scootaloo smirked. “Then we’ll see whose the favorite assistant…” The young pegasus filly lay down on her side, starting to get sleepy watching the water fowl swim across the river…
She actually kind of liked watching all the little animals of the Forbidden land. There were lizards and turtles and eagles…nothing was big enough to threaten a pony, not even a foal like her. She also liked the different kinds of plants this jungle had to….offer…
Scootaloo froze up. She didn’t dare move.
Underneath the overgrowth, she saw a shadow moving closer towards her….
It looked back at her and saw her noticing it. It smiled a terrifying grin.
Scootaloo screamed and trotted away, and the shadow immediately followed her.
Twilight walked in silence along Rarity through the halls of Canterlot’s palace. It was so...awkward around her. She hadn’t spoken much during their trip to Canterlot when the Princess summoned them. Something had changed about Rarity recently.
As the two unicorns entered the throne room, Princess Celestia greeted them.
“Twilight Sparkle, I see you brought Rarity with you. However, where is your other friend?”
“Fluttershy is…indisposed, Princess. She took Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s deaths really hard. And now that Sugarcube Corner has mysteriously burned down with no sign of Pinkie…”
“That’s really unfortunate. I hope she’ll pull through.” Celestia eyed Twilight for a moment, as if deciding how best to advance the conversation. “Twilight, Rarity, have you two noticed anything different about Pinkie’s behavior recently? Before her house burned down?”
Twilight started. “Well, not really-“
“She rarely left that bakery of hers recently.” Rarity interrupted. “She’s been reading some books, barely speaking to customers, even her friends. Both her and her assistant seem downtrodden, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what caused it. I managed to take a peak in that book once but it was just some mythological gibberish. Pages and pages fixated on some horrible-looking creature called-”
“Dormin.” Princess Celestia finished.
Rarity’s eyes widened.
“Girls, I believe Pinkie Pie may be alive…and connected to the sudden reappearance and kidnapping of Apple Bloom, as well as the theft of a certain magical sword from Canterlot’s vaults.”
“What? Apple Bloom’s alive?” Twilight gasped.
“Yes. Her family found her just on their doorstep. She didn’t speak to them very much, but the resemblance to the foal they lost was uncanny. Like, before she didn’t have a cutie mark on her flank. The very night she appeared, some armed ponies that stormed the Apple Family’s residence and stole her away!”
“Y-your highness, what does this mean?” Rarity asked.
“Not only that, but it seems that a very powerful teleport spell was used near the wreckage of the sword thief’s vehicle: A cycle-powered gyrocopter, decorated to resemble a candy cane.” Celestia finished. “The magic of the spell is old and foreign, and leaves a distinctive trail not like other Equestrian magic. I believe that I can sent one unicorn down this trail, where ever it leads. And track down Pinkie Pie. She might be attempting to release a great evil.”
“Princess…You don’t really think Pinkie is capable of that, do you?”
“I can say that I honestly do not know what to expect anymore. There is also…” The Princess trailed off.
“…Also?” Twilight asked.
“…..This is probably not related, but there has been a disturbing trend of disappearances and ‘accidental deaths’ that left no bodies in Ponyville. I was worried that the bearer of the Element of Laughter might also have something to do with those, but didn’t want to believe it. It was why I asked if she had appeared differently lately…Rarity, what ever is the matter?”
Rarity saw it. All at once, it hit her. Disappearances? Left no bodies…
Of course. Pinkie wasn’t okay. All this time she wasn’t okay.
And if she wasn’t okay, and she was behind Applejack, and behind Rainbow Dash, then that means…that means she might have…
Rarity recalled a horrible scene, one where she saw one Pinkie brutally murdering another, making her victim think that Sweetie Belle was the one who was actually dying. It was the most twisted, personal thing Rarity had ever seen.
She knew Sweetie Belle wasn’t in danger then, but…
“Sweetie Belle.” Rarity said, horrified. “I’m so sorry…of course you wouldn’t go out into the Everfree forest by yourself…I’m such a fool.”
Twilight looked at her friend. “Rarity?”
Stepping forward, Rarity spoke to Celestia. "Princess Celestia, you have to send me after Pinkie Pie! I have to be the one to confront her!" The white unicorn had fire in her eyes that gave the Sun princess pause.
A dark –well, technically gray- and malevolent force glowered as it watched its latest attack against the Pink Mare fail. She thought for one glorious moment that Pinkie had been too proud in her victory, and that Pinkie had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But she would escape from that dilemma as well.
She supposed she could’ve said that the ‘it seemed the jaws of defeat had snatched Pinkie, rather’ But those kinds of puns were for stupid, insufferable people who fail to understand how unfunny they are. Just like that ANNOYING PINK FILLY WHO NEEDED TO DIE.
The arch-villainess continued to plot.
“Lord Emon!” called an Earth Pony who wore a mask that resembled the helm of Phaedra. “Look, here. The hunters have found tracks. Someone has traveled this exact trail before us. It appears to be a pony…probably a mare. She seemed to have been weighed down with a heavy load of some kind, but her pace was moderately swift. She was alone. But it hasn’t been used ever since that frontier town was abandoned ten years ago. Could this mean that-“
“Yes.” said an aged gray-manned blue Unicorn stallion wearing a white robe and a Mask that resembled the face of Valus. We’ve found her. The Sword thief. We should continue to assume the worst. We must reach the Forbidden Land posthaste! Follow these tracks! Let me know the minute you discover they deviate from the ancestral path to the Forbidden Land!”
I don’t know who you are, blasphemer…but we will stop you!
Following Lord Emon, was a small detachment of around twenty five heavily armed ponies.
As Pinkie lay on the temple floor, the shadows of a Snake, a Monitor Lizard, a Tortoise, and a fish-tailed Hippocampus pony stood around her body until Dirge’s idol exploded.
Pinkie awoke, and noticed that her fatigue from her battle with Dirge, as well as the black tendrils afterward, had vanished. Maybe it was just her extra-peppy attitude. Actually…she wondered why she hadn’t felt tired all day. Without a normal Sun, and constantly losing consciousness after defeating the Colossi, it was hard to tell how much time had passed since she first arrived.
She was roused from her ponderings when she heard the voice of Dormin:
"Thy next destination.... An altar overlooks the lake.... A guardian set loose... It keeps the flames alive"
“Okie Dokie Lokie, Dormie! Right now, I feel better than I have in weeks, or months, depending on which me you’re talking about. And, it feels as if nothing could possible go wrong now!” Pinkie beamed.
AN: I hope you have enjoyed this addition to “Pinkie of the Colossus. I wanted to finish the story all in one go, but that didn’t actually happen. I’ve made you guys wait long enough.
I think next week, I’ll return to the main story, but stay on the look out for “Omake 3, part 3: Antagonist Onslaught!”
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Good story, the un-originality is easily passable by your descriptive writing style, but I was just wondering, I haven't read the whole story just yet, but is Dark Pinkie and actual being, physically seen by the characters, or is it just Pinkie, who switches between personalities? thanks much
Woah. Over 20,500 words for a single chapter. Man. Impressive. This is really an interesting side story. Can't wait to see how it ends.
47678 Actually, the last canon chapter is "chapter 15: Everyone is sad except the mystery girl."
47607 Um...okay, first of all, you do know that the Omake chapters are NOT the main story, right? Also, the "Pinkie of the Colossus" chapters have changed the exact paradigm of Pinkie's relationship with Dark Pinkie...
However, if you understand that little factioid and are still confused about Dark Pinkie....
wait. *thinks to himself*
*realizes just what he has here...*
Actually, ProfessionalBrony, if you haven't figured that part out for yourself yet, I'm going to have to answer you in later chapters. Chapter 16 will be around sometime next week.
Right now, though...I'm going to play some fucking KOTOR. This last omake was eating my very soul...
Okay, that's it, I'm faving this, even though this is one of the most fantastically demented and confusing MLP fics I have ever read. What's really throwing me is that although normally I'd suspect this was a troll fic due to the bizarre, random, and borderline nonsensical nature of the plot, the writing in the "Pinkie of the Colossus" omakes is surprisingly lucid and well-done.
I absolutely cannot wait until chapter 16 comes out, because I can't wait to see what the hell's gonna happen next. And rest assured that I'm not making fun of your or speaking ironically; this story, as strange as it's been, is definitely enjoyable and amazingly entertaining. As dark and twisted as it can be, it also manages to be incredibly funny, with all the out-of-place shout-outs and jokes the writing throws at you.
I'll repeat what everyone else has said a million times; you should definitely add a "Random" tag, just to warn people. But other than that, don't change a thing. I do have a question, though; based on the omakes, it's pretty obvious that you're a Pinkiedash/Rainbow Pie shipper, unless I've somehow horribly misread the signals I'm getting. Is that couple ever going to become canon within the context of the story itself? Because I for one would be all for that. I love Pinkiedash. (The whole ladyboner/mind in the gutter scene cracked me up way more than it should have.)
img259.imageshack.us/img259/8915/quadratus.png
Pictured above: Mr. Giggles.
I am not fond of Mr. Giggles.
This was great at the beginning, but I had to stop because it got confusing for me. I think that I got confused as to whio was speaking and what was happening. I coudn't finish it. Sorry, but I truly did enjoy it. You did a great job on it! You explain, or somepony else could, just what the heck was happening about halfway in? LOL.
76092 Now see, boys and girls, this is very nearly a specific criticism.
It might simply be a case of me getting tired of writing "Pinkie said" and "Rainbow said" after each sentence, and it resulted in some very confusing. I am thinking about giving the entire story an overhaul sometime, including adding more descriptive dialogue.
Of course, we have more than one Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, so there ARE times when you. As a general rule of thumb, any version of Pinkie or Dash who is behaving in an obviously evil or unreasonably paranoid fashion is probably not the real one.
Of course, I'm not at all certain of what you mean when you say "halfway in." Halfway in is not really a place. Where exactly is the last scene you made enough sense of that you could describe what was going on to a friend? Because that might help me pin down what exactly everypony's deal is.
Also, I would like to apologize for the slow progress of updates, but I've been having some writer's block dealing with chapter 16.
76566 a summary?
......THAT'S IT!
I could make a recap chapter!
78521 Um....okay, I'm not sure that anything happened "behind the scenes" during the Pie dream. It is, after all, a dream.
Remember in Chapter 13 when Shadash said she was "making the nightmare worse?"
This is the result. The horrible, horrible result. The funny thing about chapter 14 and the dream in 15 is that I actually made those scenes MONTHS ahead of time, back when I was trying to breath horrible, horrible life into this monster.
(Ironically, the scenes right after are sketchier in the plan. That's one of the reasons chapter 16 has been hard to write up. That and it being the holiday season.
Factor in that I had my computer problems that sent me to working on "Pinkie of the Colossus" because 15 was mostly typed up but temporarily inaccessible on the old computer, and then me being hooked on that side story, and I really blew a lot of time I could've spent working the kinks out of this more nebulous chapter. Don't worry though, I think I got a workable sequence, now I just need to stick to writing it instead of messing around on the internet.
*eyes shift*)
But it is still just a dream. And well, Rainbow Dash is supposed to be kind of freaked out right now. That's what both shadows were kind of going for. That's 99% of their plan pretty much.
Actually, Fluttershy's appearance in that dream might even have been Shadash's doing...aside from, of course, the "gotcha" after-dream.
Or maybe its Sunny that's got you on edge? I mean, she's a surprise but I can't really tell why she would elicit THAT reaction from you. Although then again, I suppose it IS a bad sign when SHADASH doesn't know who she is. And Shadamena says she doesn't know anything.
img39.imageshack.us/img39/1867/pinkielie.png
Oh, and you got the list of creatures in the grove down pretty flat. Kind of make the nonsentient reflections sound like Silent Hill monsters (which I kind of guess there are, although so far, they have just been ignoring Pinkie and Dash.), which annoys me because this fic needs to get further away, not closer, to Silent Ponyville. Badly.
Pinkie's blue sister: *walks up to Author and stares*
....Siiiiggghhh. Yes, you are still 'Bellamina' in the flashback because I just like the name better than Inkie Pie or that C-name that I forgot. And because we already have Octavia in chapter 6 because I didn't know about the a names "Blinkie and Inkie Pie" at the time. I barely know Cloud Kicker or Raindrops' names.
Bellamina: *moar staring*
....And you still have an "i" in your name despite the fact that Pinkamena and Shadamena still have "e's" in theres. I have chosen form over continuity in these matters.
Bellamina: *stares very intently*
....and nothing bad is going to happen to you. Of course not. Geez, an appearance by the Colt would only blow apart the rest of this story's credibility apart like an atomic bomb.
Bellamina: *kisses Author on cheek*
Yeah, yeah...get out of here already.
While Zecora says you can't have a false copy of yourself seeing as you can't very well have an outsiders representation of yourself, wouldn't the fact there are two ponies in the glade mean Shadash could create another Pinkie Pie and Meanie Pie could create another Rainbow Dash, both merely using their memories of each other?
Yes. Yes it does.
78866
No, the thing that got me on edge was the dream sequence where Pinkie had Rainbow in a cage... I honestly didn't see that kind of a dream coming up, and like I said it hit on my rather strange fear of Flandre Scarlet. I know it's silly, but after spending a little over a year and a half in the Touhou community some of the things I hear about that girl scare the buck out of me... the dream Meanie Pie just happened to remind me of her that much.
The part that got me creeped out was when the giant Pinkie started baking all the other ponies into a pie... cause it hit on something that, while not as profound as the effect cupcakes initially had on me, stuck with me a bit more.
78969 Can't help you there. I never really got into Tohou. I tried, but I just couldn't find anything but lots and lots and lots of parodies or video game mods that involved Tohou characters, but not of the source material. At least not in English. And since I didn't know the source material....
Well, try reading this story without having any clue who Pinkie Pie is.
Geez, how long until we get an update of the main story already? Come on, enough side chapters; I want to see what happens next in the main story already.
101173 I'm working on it, the next chapter will be the continuation of the story. The recent changes I made to the previous omake chapter are due to the work of my new beta reader, who just got finished looking over that chapter. Chapter 16 is on the way.
101950
"Pinkie Pie's now doubled/tripled in size (I'm just going to go out on a limb here and assume she's the same size as fully grown Spike in "Secret of my Excess"), when just a few seconds ago she was normal pony size (4 feet, according to my math calculations). How the hell is that possible?"
Because its a dream?
Oh, and Dream Pinkie is much more than Triple her size. She didn't prepare a lot of pies that each individually held a pegasus that would be the size of a toddler to her- no, no, no, no.... She filled a single enormous pie with twenty or so pegasi, each the size of a toy in comparison to her!
Dream Pinkie is closer in scale to the Red dragon from "Dragonshy"
Also, they are in a pie because, given Dream Pinkie's size, the best way to torture them all is to boil them alive as she did. I suppose I could've done something to make cupcakes fit, but I was trying to expand her horizons a little. Why does everything have to be cupcakes? Who are you, the cupcake police? YOU ARE DISCRIMINATING AGAINST CANNIBALISTIC BAKED GOODS!
I may have also been inspired by this nursery rhyme
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty PEGASI,
Baked in a pie.
"The introduction of Zecora is unnecessary, and it takes up valuable Cupcakes slash-fest time. "
Do yourself a favor: NEVER read Homestuck.
104490 Hmm....You are quoting Chapter 7. I'll take this as MORE confirmation that Rainbow entering the grove is where everypony loses track of what's going on.
Which is sad, because that's where the story truly begins...
(Although...now that I think about it, mindfucking can mean "I cannot comprehend", but it also might mean "My mind is blown. In a very headache-inducing way." If its been the latter all this time, I am going to be very, very annoyed.)
106160
i guess my mind was blown, and then i could not comprehend why it was blown besides the fact that i love this story?
i'm such a contradicting pony
my reaction:
".........did this nigga just do a 21,000 word omake chapter?"
Soooooooo... how's that next chapter going?
125395 Writer's blocky. That's how its going. Let's just say I've removed certain icons from my desktop and am this close to disconnecting my router. (in other news, the stories I'm tracking on Fimfiction have a whopping 94 unread chapters. Most of those being tracked because I put my foot down to not read them after the stuff that I DID read. The other authors in the Brony community are making me look bad AND distracting me from my story....Its a viscous two pronged attack, I tell you!
)
Which is funny because I have over 10,000 words written. That really should be enough to split the chapter in half or something. But they are all for a scene that is in the middle-to-end of the chapter. I'll look into splitting it at the earliest convinence unless I've finely
The good news is that as soon as I get through here, I have good reason to believe the rest of the story will write itself until the endgame. Which is a different matter from...where I am now.
I can't promise this what I'm stuck on right now will be the happiest chapter to read
, but it will be pretty exciting.
Hi, everypony! Here's a progress update!
Chapter 16, part 1 is now in the editing phase, and will hopefully be ready soon.
I'm sorry its taken so long to get this chapter out, and in fact, its not even a full chapter. However, large parts of the second half of chapter 16, and even a big segment of chapter 17 have already been made. They will hopefully not be too long after this update.
Well. This is awkward.
It seems that my editor has vanished. And after I had gone and split the chapter to get a head start on that part, too.
hmm....this chapter gave me problems. Particularly the scene with Pinkie Pie. This is also a split chapter, and while it ends on a note that is...cliff hanger-ish, not a whole lot happens in this half of the chapter.
I've got the rest of the chapter halfway done, and I'm trying to get back in the "groove" of writing, so hopefully it won't be too long until you see what the 'title' of the chapter is.
I have a title for chapter 16, but I figured it would be too cruel to post it until I actually finish the chapter to give meaning to what the title foreshadows...
213983 Ah yes. Well, strangely enough, the color in FIM differ greatly depending on the quality of your tv/monitor. Pinkie's coat is so pale she's almost white in some youtube videos. And her mane is purplish-macaroon.
Now that I have a better monitor (and the Hub on my HD flat screen tv), I am inclined to agree. Rarity's mane is purple.
I gotta admit this was the longest Omake yet. And I'll read the next chapter....cause this is interesting with both the Omakes and full story.