A Tale of the Pinkie Pied Piper and the Pastel Pestilence

by Pacific Penguin

The Arrival

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

This is Gaius Felix, head of the guard here in Fillydelphia. I’m well acquainted with your position as one of Celestia’s top students, and occasional bearer of the element of magic. Your fame precedes you. But onto the purpose of this letter.

Has your friend Pinkie Pie told you the story of how she saved our town from parasprites awhile back? It turned out, the infestation was a bit more than even Princess Celestia could handle… so she suggested we call Pinkie Pie in. It’s quite a yarn I have to spin for you. We’re ever so thankful to have someone of Pinkie Pie’s expertise around! Parasprites aren’t something that any old pony knows how to deal with… Even the best zoologists, even the most experienced hunters, heck, even the most experienced spellcasters (no offense to you) in Equestria do not know how to deal with the things.

Anyway, I’m sure this account will help you on the parasprite research the Princess informed me you were doing. I’ll be sure to add details here and there about parasprites, some of which I’ve learned from Pinkie, and some from other sources, so you’ll have a lot of good information all in one place.
So, my account begins with Pinkie Pie’s arrival in our fair city, of course…

A single train worked its way to the city of filial love. It approached, crossing over many small hills that scattered the landscape. The tree cover quickly spread thin nearer to the city. Smoke gently escaped the smaller-than-usual train, and quickly dissipated into the sky, since the train was moving at such a breakneck pace.

The train crossed a river bridge within the city limits, and began its final approach to the train station. The sound of the locomotive slowly ground down to nothing, and it slowly wheeled to a halt, with a short screech. Its doors opened slowly. A single pony walked out, paused halfway out the doors, and sneezed. Quite suddenly, a few pieces of cheerfully colored paper popped out and floated down to the ground.

The positively pink pony quickly gathered her great deal of baggage and hauled it via cart to the train station proper. There stood a white stallion in blue guard armor with yellow filigree.

“Greetings, Miss Pie. I’m glad you could make it here so quickly. My name is Gaius Felix, but please just call me Guy. I’m the head of the guard here in Fillydelphia, and the one who requested the Princess summon you here once it was apparent she couldn’t assist us. And before I forget to mention, I have access to quite a few resources if we need them, although in the state the city is in, they may be hit or miss.”

Pinkie responded quickly, “Guy? Your name is really Guy? So it’s like one of the few times I can walk up to a random guy and be like ‘Hey Guy!’. Heehee… pleased to meet you, my summoner!”

She then shook his hoof vigorously. Salutations concluded, he began to help her with her things.

“Is all of this really necessary…? It just looks like a bunch of… well, random stuff.” he asked.

“Oh – yes, parasprites, very tricky things. Rest assured, I know what I’m doing though - I actually took a class on parasprite-spritology, and I have an uncanny Pinkie sense! Now, if you could help me strap on these instruments, we could start getting somewhere with these parasprite meanies!”

“Already? Heh, well, okay, you should know better than me.”

So Guy obliged, somewhat curiously. He first helped fasten the tuba to her, since it was the heaviest. It didn’t take long for them to open up the rest of the various instrument cases and transform Pinkie into a one-pony band.

As they finished, the train began to depart from the station.

…You have quite an expert friend there! Sometimes, her methods are a little... unorthodox, but she gets the job done very effectively. Although, I’m still not entirely sure where one would even find a class on parasprites… maybe you can look that up for us. Just in case this kind of thing ever happens again.

There are a few things I’ve heard about how parasprites reproduce, though. They may seem like just another ordinary insect, but the way they reproduce and sustain themselves using a seemingly impossible little amount of matter, is apparently magic related. There’s some bit of magic that allows them to use whatever energy they get from their food for both sustenance and reproduction. So, they’re effectively able to get twice as much energy from food than normally possible. That’s quite a bit of work for some very harmless looking creatures.

What’s worse, though, is how they also process their foods frighteningly quickly. It seems to be almost instantaneous, really. Pinkie and I actually witnessed how blazing fast they can digest for ourselves…

The locomotive started to build up steam, beginning a steady chug-a-chug. It wasn’t destined to make it far, though. As the train left the station, the cars began to shift back and forth slightly. The walls of the middle car especially, began to rattle and shake. A chewing sound, not unlike that of a lumbermill saw, could be heard from within. Then, quite suddenly, it simply collapsed in on itself.

Even before the debris fully settled on the car, Pinkie and Guy had turned and stared, held rapt by the scene. It couldn’t be the parasprites already…

As if answering the unspoken question, they began to appear out of the rubble of the car. Blue, yellow, red, pink, green… a whole assortment of them appeared, some still eating the wooden sides of the train car. The pony running the train looked out the window to see what had happened, a horribly shocked look crossing his face. He immediately tried increasing the speed of the train, but it was too late.

The parasprites finished off the poor train car, and, in the blink of an eye, spread to the rest of the train. A new generation of parasprites immediately arose from the collapsed train car, and they began their lives hungry. Some parasprites made it to the head of the train, feeding on whatever they could digest on the metal locomotive. The train faltered, the smoke stopped, and the mechanism driving the wheels forward snapped off. A few parasprites had tried to digest some rusted screws, which eroded them to the point of disintegration. The train promptly began to screech as it decelerated.

It slowed quite quickly. The train driver pony jumped out, trying to save what little was left of his uniform and hat. He began galloping back towards the station.

Pinkie and Guy watched the scene with growing concern.

“What, they’re smart enough to have snuck onto the train while it stopped? I don’t think I’ve seen that one before… Well, Pinkie, it looks like you’ll be starting even earlier than I thought…”

“Okie dokie lokie, better get playing then… Oh, oh, wait, where should I send them? Where’s your nearest magical—Everfree-foresty place nearby? ”

“Oh, erm, that’d have to be Ridley Creek.”

And thus Pinkie began an all-too-familiar march and tune to the magical forest.

The sounds of her combined accordion, tuba, harmonica, banjo, tambourines, and cymbals drifted to the parasprites still munching on the train where it had unceremoniously stopped. They reacted quickly, turning to the sound, and beginning to bob up and down in the air towards the source of the sound.

Pinkie seemed to be enjoying herself, as Guy noted. She was marching towards the parasprites, eyes happily closed, hooves moving, front right forward and back left forward, then front left forward and back right forward, almost at the same time, in tempo with the music. The parasprites descended low enough to the ground to land, and began cheerfully bouncing with the beat after Pinkie, who was marching away.

Unfortunately, the procession was to be short lived. With the most terrible twang, one of the strings on the banjo snapped, leaving Pinkie and the sprites looking somewhat confused. Some of the parasprites had even stopped mid hop, and began to hover in place.

“Oh dear… I knew I should have replaced these before I left Ponyville… now if you’ll just keep following me…” She said with pleading smile. Pinkie attempted to continue her concert, resuming her march and play. The parasprites looked on a little dumbstruck…

…then proceeded to swarm around the hapless pink pony and eat at her instruments. There were at least thirty of the colorful creatures. Pinkie shrieked and tried to swat them off, shake them off the instruments, but it was too late. The damage had been done. One sprite finished with a burp, and with that the creatures happily looked for their next big snack, slowly dispersing.

Pinkie’s instruments lay in shambles. Her accordion had bite marks scattered all over it, and it seemed a miracle the whole thing even supported itself anymore. She dabbed at it cautiously. This caused the skeleton of an instrument to cave in on itself and fall to the ground. She looked at her tambourines, or to be more exact, looked through the frame of what were her tambourines. She shook one carefully, its metal jingles rustling softly. It somehow held together, as the frame had been apparently ignored. She still had her harmonica as well. Sort of. She held up the grey piece of metal, and saw that the blow pieces had been eaten away. Upon inspection, the tuba seemed perfectly intact, thankfully. The banjo, however, was not. It now consisted of a few sorry curled strings, and a flimsy frame, which crumpled away at her touch. She simply dropped the sorry thing.