RoMS' Extravaganza

by RoMS

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 2

There’s never enough sweets. Be you a foal, a grown-up, a grouchy donkey or even a playful chaos god, I’m always timely to light up a party. I'll tussle and bustle and waffle around to shower everypony — and that means you! — with sugary treats. With me, It snows candy. I always deliver, that’s a pinkie promise.

But I’m just a silly pony and there can be tummy aches.

“I don’t feel so good, Discord.”

One last candy wrap tumbles over its bazillion empty siblings, piled smack-dab in the middle of Fluttershy’s living room. There was a tiny table somewhere under. At some point.

I go slumping heavily into the pile, and the many wrappers flutter back on top of me. Buried the way I want at my funerals. So satisfying.

Anyhow! The last wrapper may have been empty, but the candy it held sure doesn’t play along in my belly. Being a big meany to the end, it throws a roaring party in my stomach. A rollercoaster. A pirates’ ride!

Candies aren’t supposed to do that, you know, especially not to me. Unless...

“A doozy!” I cry. Oh, what a schemy, nasty little twitchy-twitch, catching me off-guard like that. You don’t have a taste but you sure have a gut feeling.

I carve my head out of the candy graveyard and eye Discord and his elongated smirk. I’m about to tall-tale about the storm soon to bear o’er Ponyville! And I’m gonna need a tricorne for that. A quick glance around; not a pirate’s hat to find... Too bad Fluttershy never kept the pirate outfit I gifted her for Nightmare Night.

“A twitchy-twitch is a’coming!” I blast, waving my shaky legs at Discord and the glimpse of an invisible white whale peeping behind his scrunched-up face. White whales are good at hide-and-seek, just, trust me on that. “Ye damned!”

I spring out of the pile, tip-hoof my way to Discord’s snaky side, and wrap my leg around his stringy neck. His eyebrows don’t even have time to furrow back.

He definitely smells like peppermint. His fur and feathers stick against my mane and coat with candy gore. He squeaks a bit, lifts a claw, but I stick an icky candy wrap in his muzzle — no time for his sailings-of-fancy!

I look away and finally blink.

Fluttershy’s place sure is one confiseur’s mess. Discord made sugar snow indoors! He so got to teach me that trick... Icing coats the walls, sofas, and carpets — Angel could claim Rarity’s hide-and-seek record right here and now. Rarity’s a real winner, you know, always distracting me with her “I’m not playing” tricks. She can disappear for days!

You know, melted sugar is its own kind of glue; I’m kinda stuck to Discord now. He garbles a sneeze — not a laugh, not a question, not even a snarky, millefeuille-y kind of a joke. His face is a gurgled grimace instead while he wears my breathtaking leg-lock like a necklace.

Uh, oh–

“Oh, puny Pie!” Discord says once out of my hoof-y reach. “I think you had too much sugar.”

“Me! Oh, no-no-no! Not possible, Disco.” I shake my head hard, dusting off my sugar coat. As my belly growls, I curl back onto my withers. “Ooooh, it hurts real bad.”

“Are you two alright?” Fluttershy asks from the kitchen where a tea kettle whistles. By the smell, it’s Earl Gray.

“Just Pinkie, being Pinkie,” Discord replies, a paw tucked behind his back. My tail twitches and I glare at him. He grins. I squinch hard, and he laughs back. “It’s gonna start raining chocolate again, Fluttershy.”

“I can see you crossing your fingers, Discord,” Fluttershy warns sternly a wall over.

“Oh, shoo…”

Nausea. A shudder and a jiggling and a flutter brawl inside me. The room swims and wobbles. That doozy sure is a heck-a-weird teeter totter.

“It’s not a normal twitchy-twitch, Discord.” I huff, suckling air and staring without much aim at the sugary landscape around me.

The wallpaper is dancing the Zumba while I’m splayed in the sugar-snow! I don’t have a song to sing along, though. I don’t even think Zumba’s got lyrics anyway. Futtershy’s cottage got a crack in its retaining wall and somepony recently cleaned spilled tea not far from my nostrils. Angel must have had a tantrum again.

While I’m out of business, Discord springs airborne in a flap of paws, laughter, and wings.

“Oh no!” He whines and contorts and wriths with a grin like a snake in a tangle. “What’s it going to be this time? Flying bugbears? Angry geese ogling the streets? Oh, I know, world-ending foals!”

In a clap of paw and claws, a spyglass stumbles from behind his tail and somersaults to sit on his eye. Yeah, right!? With manic glee and many cackles, he starts surveying the living room.

“Let’s find Twilight," he exclaims. "I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear I have a shipment of pianos on the fritz.”

“Discord,” Fluttershy calls, her tone snapping alongside a clatter of plates. “What did we say about wishing harm on our friends, or anypony for that matter?”

“Oh, Fluttershy,” Discord replies, all pouty and sad. A snap of a claw and the pirate’s lens splatters into a hovering brown blotch. His tail whip-cracks and the blotch, now a centipede-legged stool, glides to the ground with him sitting atop. “They’re just pianos. Not anvils. And you pastel ponies are quite resilient. What’s a prank or two, or three, if it’s in good faith and with Pinkie here to bear witness.”

Mr. Bear peeps through the cottage’s window and licks the sugar-coated wall.

“She’s... green,” Fluttershy says, her head peeking through the kitchen door. “Oh, my.”

Fluttershy rushes to my side, sharing my above-space with Discord’s floating eyes. She gives him, or rather them, a look.

“What?” Discord complains from his stool, staring back with two big black holes instead of eyeballs. “That way, she’ll only give me the stinky eyes if she starts puking.”

Fluttershy doesn’t answer. After a while, Discord clears his throat and flies over to retrieve two floating golf balls.

“And I know of those doozies,” Discord continues, grumbling as he pushes two eggs in his sockets. “Twilight gave me the bird’s eye view.”

“Is it a shaky tail?” Fluttershy asks, a hoof covering her head.

“It’s. A. Belly ache!” I blurt then inhale. “Not a funny one but an angry one. Like something real bad’s going to happen.”

Fluttershy turns to Discord and stated, legs crossed against her chest. “Do you have something to tell me? Like, something you’ve been planning?”

He raises an eyebrow, and so does she. He holds his empty paw out, and her leg-crossing tightens. Finally, Discord’s lips puckers to the side to hug his lonely canine. Fluttershy squints.

And my right hind-leg wobbles along with my belly.

“It’s not Discord!” I call out before she could utter a word. “And I’m not sugar rushing. I never get poisoned!”

“What is it, then?” Fluttershy asks, a scaredy-shaky trill in her voice.

Discord cracks his shoulder, a wide, toothy smile on his cheeks. “Let’s just take a quick peek, shall we?”

Leaving no time for Fluttershy and I to protest, Discord’s cloven hoof snaps its digits, and the cottage turns inside out.

“Tadaaa!” he says, arms pridefully spread wide.

We’re scrambled atop one of Ponyville’s many hills. The sun's high and alone in the bluest of skies. Not a cloud at all to see. Rainbow Dash's workprint.

The greens and browns of the leaves and trunks of many trees, and the purple and yellow and white of a myriad flowers welcome us three.

To the horizon, Canterlot’s hazy shape catches the sunlight.

“You see,” Discord ahahs me, a paw stretched towards Ponyville. “Everything’s where it should be.”

“Ahem!”

A field of green grass. A toppled basket full of fruits lying atop a plaid cover. Fluttershy, awkwardly sitting on a crumpled bouquet of red roses. And behind her, two hugging mares staring at us with eyes wide like saucers.

The interrupting mare pushes her scruffy silvery mane aside. Pissed off has got a face I’d not have expected on Mayor Mare.

“Are we crashing a garden party?” I trill.

“Hello, Mayor Mare. Hello, Cheerilee,” Fluttershy whispers, lifting herself with a meep. She brushes a strand of mane over her face. “I’m sorry for, uhm, the roses.”

The two surprised mares share unsure smiles and part their tight embrace. While Cheerilee snickers under her breath, Mayor Mare stretches with the dignity and full height allowed by her sitting position — she’s a mayor after all and got to play the role. She rubs the red blush off her cheeks, and coughs in her hoof.

“Don’t worry about them, my little ponies,” Mayor Mare dispels, motioning at the flowers. “I’m more worried about…” Her attention lingers over the sugar matting my coat but soon enough her eyes drift to Discord, now sitting on a branch of the nearest tree. A wide grin splits his lips apart, “you.”

I want to cheer up, say something, but I just crawl back into a ball, hooves pressing against my belly.

“Pinkie’s got a painful doozy,” Discord says, puffing his chest. I can see him making air quotes with his paw and claws from the corner of my eyes. “And since I’m for once not responsible for it, we’re just out here to prove her wrong.” He chuckles. “And, to be honest, if there is a doozy going on, you two fair lovebirds might be it.”

“Th–There’s no shame in enjoying a routinely beautiful summer Sunday,” Mayor Mare stutters, shirking her hoof at him before she steps in front of Cheerilee.

Her drooping glasses wrestle her from her pose and she quickly pushes them up her blushing and pointed muzzle. As Cheerilee guffaws behind, she quickly lowers her head to me.

“Are you okay, Pinkie?”

“Oh, yes, the dull routine of two stray doves,” Discord peeps, pulling a bag of popcorn. “Anyhow, Pinkie’s been moaning about a wild happenstance that will cast this picturesque town in disarray. So typical. If we can’t prove her wrong, well, we can at least watch.”

I crack a sheepish smile at Mayor Mare and struggle back to my knees. A hoof on my chest, I look down at Ponyville.

The smell of baked bread carried by the wind fills my nostrils. I’d be hungry if my belly wasn’t so painfully filled.

Maybe Discord’s right. Maybe I’m just poisoned. Oh, no, am I… aging? Will I have hair as white as Mayor Mare’s!? Having her motherly smile wouldn’t be that bad, right?

I shake the thought away. All I can see is a normal day for a normal town, except for Twilight’s castle of course. It’s big and garishly exquisite, at least that’s what Rarity says. To me, it’s just real big and shiny. If only I could convince Twilight to have more parties in there — crystals make wonderful disco-balls.

Something still isn’t right.

“You see, nothing’s going to happen,” Discord says matter-of-factly, flicking a popcorn at my face.

Oh no, he said the cursed words!

My tail twitches, dances, and... rumbles? I snap around to Discord and his raised eyebrow, and return him my own flavour of a faceful because, when Fluttershy, Mayor Mare, and Cheerilee see my sorry face-y twisties too...

We all duck.

Noon turns into midnight; darkness hugs the horizon black! Silence robs my ears. My eyes! A sucker punch of air to the chest blast me backward, like I’m falling from my hot-air balloon, or when you’re slowly falling asleep… But then! You jolt awake, aware and angsty! Twilight told me it happens when your brain thinks it’s going to ‘go to the other side.’ I think my brain just wants to party some more.

Sounds and colours? gone! I’m blind. I’d be okay if I was playing Pin the Tail. But I’m not… I’m just scared and I smell copper. Does rust even have an odor?

The world rushes back to my senses like a kaleidoscope whirlwind.

Noise, unlike any party I’ve thrown. A great thundering like my head’s stuck in my trusty drum kit.

My ears ring, my head hurts, my teeth stick, and my doozy’s gone for good. At last!

I open my eyes and settle first on Canterlot in the far-far. It’s still there, at least.

No villain to deal with today. I guess.

The doozy may be gone, but it left me with a sudden, very cold hole in my chest.

That’s when I get a glimpse at Ponyville.

I shouldn’t have.

“It– It’s gone,” Cheerilee mutters as she steadies herself back up.

Fluttershy gasps. Mayor Mare doesn't say a peep.

“Well, that’s new,” Discord points out, dropping his surprisingly intact popcorn.

“The castle!” Mayor heaves at last.

There isn't one anymore; something else stands in its place. And I don’t like it.

“W– what is that?” Fluttershy chokes up.

I’ve never seen a licorice jawbreaker this gigantic before.

Dark, round, and smooth like that lava rock Maude likes a lot — obsidian I think it’s called. On a second take, I really doubt it’s obsidian, or licorice. To be honest, it’s not–

“Not something I’d bet you to lick,” Discord whispers in my ear. I’d not heard him flutter away from his tree branch and, now crouched next to me, his feathers shiver along his spine. Even his scales stand on their end.

A massive sphere has gobbled the castle whole.

Its black so deep it’s like peering into a bottomless pit leaves a knot in my throat. It's got no details or curves at all. A creepy smoothness. Light doesn’t even reflect off of it!

“N– no,” I reply.

I can see the air fuzzing off its edge like the wobbling from the hot Manehattan asphalt on a summer day. But that ball…

It’s just hungry and cold.

Oh, Twilight, what did you do?

My guts crawl once more but it’s not a doozy this time… just a terrible warning. My belly’s telling me we will never laugh about this ordeal once it’s over. If there ever will be an end to it.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy bursts, taking off in a hurry towards the edge of town.

An icy vice closes on my ribs; air leaves my lungs. My knees give out from under me. Cold sweat drips off my brow. My tail and mane shudder like they never did before.

“Pinkie, are you okay?” Cheerilee remarks, rushing to my side to prop me up.

“Danger,” I gargle, unable to shout after Fluttershy.

Mayor Mare is studying the thing from a distance, her frown pressing against the edge of her cracked glasses.

Neither she, Cheerilee or I can fly or teleport. My guts wrench furthermore and I stumble to the ground, bringing Cheerilee down with me.

That’s when I meet Discord’s anxious eyes. As I bear my rare serious face, he’s not grinning anymore.

“Stop Fluttershy,” I breathe.