Hoof Hoof Hoof

by Karkadinn

Rainbow Dash

“Okay, so here's the plan, filly. It's, like, mind over matter! You can't rely on lame tools or magic or gizmos to do this, you've gotta find the strength to do it deep inside yourself!”

“But I tried to make my hooves grow fingers already and it didn't work very well,” Pinkie pointed out with a pout. “Even those special potions from Zecora that turned me into a stallion and then an octopus and then a stallion-octopus abomimanation for five and a half hours couldn't make me grow the only wiggly bits I needed!”

Rainbow Dash made a gagging gesture with her hoof and mouth. “Yeah, didn't really need to relive those memories, thanks. Look, I'm tellin' you you don't need that stuff. Everything you need is already inside you!”

“I don't have fingers inside me! Where would they even fit, anyway? My tummy? But then I'd digest them and they'd be no good!”

The pegasus rubbed her forehead, grimacing. “No, Pinkie, I'm talking about your mane, you doofus.”

Pinkie tried to roll back her eyes in their sockets to look at her own mane. When that didn't work she started flinging her head back and forth really really fast to get a glimpse of her mane before it moved, but she was never quite fast enough.

“I can't see what you're talking about Dashie. My mane can't play rock paper scissors.”

“Sure it can! Okay, maybe not now,” Dash conceded, “but if you work at it, who knows? Look, we all know you can deflate your mane. Nopony else can do that.”

Pinkie shifted her eyes to one side and then the other. “I don't do it on purpose, Dashie.”

“But what if you could? What else can you do that nopony else can do? Think about it, Pinkie!” Despite herself, Pinkie was getting swept up in Dashie's excitement. The shoulder shaking helped. “I mean, what if you can make your mane form fists to punch out criminals and fight crime at night? Wouldn't that be awesome?!”

“It would be easier to use my hooves instead.”

“Augh, Pinkie, you aren't getting what I'm saying! You wanna play rock paper scissors? Fine, make the rock and the paper and the scissors with your mane!”

“Zounds, Rainbow Dash, that's brilliant!”

“Zounds? You just make up words to mess with me sometimes, don't you. Just like Twilight. It's okay, though, I'm gonna train you anyway, filly. We're gonna bust those dumb little rules of physics Twi likes so much into itty-bitty pieces! Now let's hear some girl powa! Roar for me, Pinkie!”

“Roarrrr!”

“What's that? Put your heart into it!”

“ROOOAAARR!”

“Louder! I only see half the ponies in Ponyville looking at us, we need them all looking at us! Do you want to play rock paper scissors or not?!”

Pinkie let out an actual lion's roar, causing Rainbow Dash to cartwheel head-over-hooves into a nearby pie cart.

“Oops. Hey, blueberry goes really well with your coat, Dashie.”

Rainbow Dash grinned awkwardly at the vendor, Steaming Dish, and started licking herself clean.

Pinkie's epic hair-training to achieve ultimate rock paper scissorness began that very day. Such was the combined enthusiasm of Pinkie and Rainbow Dash to make the impossible possible that their impromptu training ring (consisting mostly of fabrics, clothes hanging poles and other things borrowed-without-asking from Rarity) quickly got itself a small crowd of onlookers. Lyra was at the forefront. Pinkie considered it really sweet how much attention Lyra was giving her nowadays considering they'd barely talked to each other a few weeks ago. With the power of friendship beneath her metaphorical wings, she was sure to get those hair-hands in no time flat!

The first step was to restrain Pinkie's hooves. After all, the reflexive need to go to hooves as manual tools, punch-blocking devices, et cetera was one of the first things that had to go. She had to get used to doing everything with her hair. So, everything below her knees was tied together in a big sack; she could still hop to move, but anything else hoof-related was out of the question.

Next came the face mask made out of a frilly Rarity handkerchief, as a reminder not to use her mouth. Except for eating, of course! But even if she wanted a snack, she couldn't take a bite unless her mane handed it to her, Dash said, which sounded very fair to Pinkie. You had to spend carbs to earn carbs!

Then came the wise mentorship speeches.

“Listen up, grasshopper!”

“...but I'm a pony....”

“You're not a pony until I SAY you're a pony, got it?!”

“Yes, masta!”

“What we have here is a failure to control one's center of self. It all starts at your core, baby. I want you to close your eyes and visualize your earth pony grasshopper magic flowing up from your heart all the way through your head to your mane! Can ya FEEL it, sista?!”

She really could! There were little red dotted lines glowing through the silhouette of her bony-wonies and everything! She felt an incredible need to shampoo her mane for some reason.

“I can feel it! I can feel the raw, untapped power! It feels like lice!”

“Uhh... right. Okay, now focus on the little point where your head meets the very root end of each strand of hair in your mane.”

“Got it!”

“There's muscles there, grasshopper. Muscles that can wiggle hair into doing anything you could imagine. How do ya think the Princesses make their hair all wavy all the time, huh? Magic scalp power! I've seen you do it, Pinkie. I know you have it in you to make your mane do whatever you want. But. SOMETHING is in your way.”

What?! What was in her way?! She'd murderate it, she'd demolishize it, she'd tear it to atoms and then tear the atoms into tinier atoms! After everything she'd gone through to be the gamingest pony who'd ever gamed, who DARED to defy her festivitalition?!

“Lemme at 'em, lemme at 'em!” she snarled, whipping her head from side to side in a frenzy as the crowd gasped and a little filly cried for her mommy.

“That something...” Dash said lowly, “...is you.”

Pinkie gasped. “I have to beat up myself?! Truly, this will be my greatest challenge ever! Maybe the emo ponies can help me! ♪Craaawling innnnn my skinnn, these wooouuunds they willl not heeeaallll...♪”

A bucket of icy-cold water was thrown in her face and her eyes snapped open as she spluttered.

“Singing during training is not allowed! That is not cool, Pinkie, now focus! I need you with me one hundred and fifty-seven percent if you wanna do this thing! Are you the master of your body or is your body your master?!”

Pinkie steeled her resolved and nodded. “I'm the master of my body! My body wants to do something I don't want it to do, I just tell it, 'Ah dun care, Ah do wut Ah WAAAANT!' One time I didn't feel like breathing 'cause it was annoying so I stopped for a whole minute and I didn't get brain damage or anything!”

“Um. Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, looking uncertain for the first time during the whole training regimen. “Aaaanyway, close your eyes again. Focus on those scalp muscles. Wiggle 'em for me, Pinkie, wiggle 'em good!”

“I'm a'wigglin'! I'm a'wigglin'!” she called out, working her scalp with all her mighty might.

She felt the power contained in the skin covering her skull. Never before had she tried like this to truly harness it. Oh, sure, it did funny things in the shower sometime, and usually was tangentially involved whenever she raised her eyebrows, but it had never occurred to her to control it as a discreet and potent source of flexible utility. Why, her mane could make practically anything if she wanted it badly enough, couldn't it? She felt pumped from the roar of the crowd and Rainbow Dash's sagacious loudmouthiness, and knew that the only way she could possibly fail would be if she didn't BELIEVE in herself!

ROCK.

PAPER.

SCISSORS!

“Did I do it?! Did I do it?!” she asked Dash desperately once she was sure that her mane was doing SOMETHING interesting. Her head felt all light and breezy, which was a sure sign that either her mane was doing magic or she was suddenly bald. Hopefully not bald. She did not have the skull shape to pull that off.

“Uhhhhhh.”

“Well?! Come on, Dashie, don't hold out on me! What happened?!”

Rainbow Dash held up a mirror, treating Pinkie Pie to the sight of her mane stretching out into slavering snake-headed tentacles that hissed and looked at a nearby mouse interestedly.

“Aww, come on, I wasn't even thinking about snakes,” Pinkie whined dejectedly. “Maybe it works for opposites and snakes are the opposite of rock paper scissors so I just need to think about snakes to get rock paper scissors!” Rainbow Dash held up a bucket of water meaningfully, and Pinkie flinched. “Or not?”

“Pinkie, everypony knows that snakes are the opposite of mongeeses. You need to focus your mental mind!” she shouted, prodding Pinkie's temple with a hoof. “We know your muscles can do it, but can your head? Answer me this, Pinkie: how badly do you want it?”

“Sooooo badly! I'll Pinkie Promise on it, I swear!”

“I believe in you, Pinkie. I believe you have the mane that could move nations and slay dragons!”

“Hey!” a little masculine voice called from somewhere in the audience.

“Sorry, Spike,” Rainbow Dash apologized absentmindedly. “I believe in you. But that's not enough. You've gotta believe in yourself. Yours is the mane clothed in, like, glory and radiance and stuff, but the moment you let yourself down is the moment you're just a regular pony with a regular mane again. Anypony who can twist her head around like a corkscrew or stuff herself into a potted plant should be able to make her stupid hair follicles do whatever she wants them to do, because she's clearly not playing by the same rules as the rest of us, am I right, ponies?!”

“RIGHT!” the crowd roared, cheering.

Pinkie blushed at all the attention, feeling warm and tingly inside.

“Raise your hooves, everypony who's had a conversation interrupted by Pinkie Pie even though she wasn't there like five seconds ago!”

Everypony in the crowd raised their hooves, and Spike raised his hand.

“Raise your hooves, everypony who's tried to see how many sweets Pinkie can eat before exploding and given up after she ate three times her weight in food without even going to the bathroom or puking or anything!”

Hooves and hand remained raised.

“Raise your hooves, everypony who's told somepony else's secret and then been freaked out by having Pinkie yell 'FOREVERRRRR' at them!”

Hooves and hand, still in the air like they just didn't care.

“Raise your hooves, everypony who's woken up to see Pinkie Pie staring at them in their own home for absolutely no reason except to give you a good morning smile!”

Hooves and hand were starting to tremble a little bit from straining up for so long. Pinkie grinned bashfully.

“Raise your hooves, everypony who's woken up for a midnight snack, only to pull open the icebox and have Pinkie Pie hold out the exact thing you wanted to munch on!”

Hooves and hand were flagging, but still up there.

“Raise your hooves, everypony who's tried to calculate how Pinkie gets everything done that she does every day and ended up with a schedule at twenty-seven and a half hours in a twenty-four hour day, not counting sleeping time!”

“Hey!” Twilight yelled out irritably, and Rainbow Dash smirked.

The rest of the crowd put their hooves (and hand) down with groans of relief.

“Okay, that one's prolly just Twilight,” Dash conceded with twinkling eyes, turning back to Pinkie. “Long story short, grasshopper, you are magic. What's one more impossible thing to you, huh? We see you do impossible things every single hour of every single day. Now tell your mane to stop trying to eat that poor mouse before Fluttershy gets into scary grizzly mom mode and have it do something useful, like turn into any one of the three shapes you need to play that stupid game!”

Pinkie concentrated till concentration tears dripped down her eyes, teeth gritted, her body shaking all over with the focusing of all those magical red lines from her blood-pumping organ past her neck, past her head and to the very top of her skull. She felt practically aglow with power, or maybe that was just still the blush from the endless praise of the audience, practically a furnace of follicle-controlling might. She could do this. She could totally do this. She visualized the rock in all its gray bumpy hardness, and the scissors (a kindergartener pair, of course, she didn't want to HURT anypony by running with them), and the paper was the paperiest paper that'd ever not been written on or folded or used for anything except being itself that she had ever seen in her mental mind's eye. That vision clarified and clarified until it was like all three images were under a telescope that let her see infinite details while still magically looking at the whole thing.

And she might not have been able to sing it out loud, but her mind still played a little soundtrack for her. She couldn't help it, it was just THERE.

♪You're the best... aroouuund... nothing's gonna ever keep ya doooooooooown...♪

Fwoosh.

Okay, something had definitely happened right there.

“Rainbow Dash? Did I do it that time? Don't hold out on me, did my mental soundtrack mess it all up again? Is Mister Mouse okay?!”

Rainbow Dash was just staring, her mouth slightly open. Pinkie looked over at the audience, and everypony seemed dazed, staring at her quietly and unblinkingly. Twilight fainted with an audible thump to the ground since nopony was paying enough attention to catch her, and apparently she squished Spike, because Pinkie heard the little dragon say some muffled words he wasn't supposed to know yet.

Wordlessly, Dashie held up the mirror again, and Pinkie beheld a vision of herself with a huge mane that flowed with the... solar... nighttime... partytime winds? Whatever winds they were, they were doing a great job of making her look super regal. Her mane dwarfed the rest of her body with its silky flowingness, and she saw pastel silhouettes of cupcakes and party balloons drifting over the strands diagonally.

“Lolwut,” she said to herself.

Did this make her a Princess now? Could she declare laws, like every Friday being Wear Silly Pants To Work Day? Oh no! Would the other Princesses think she was trying to overthrow them! She didn't want to rebel against Equestria! She just wanted to have fun! Everypony knew that she just wanted to have fun! Wait wait wait, she didn't have the horn or the wingies, maybe that would let her off kilt-wearing pony free. And what did this mean for shampoo days?! WHAT IF SHE NEEDED AN EXTRA TWENTY MINUTES TO DO HER MANE?! Oh, this was gonna mess up her whole schedule again and it was already complicated enough to drive most ponies into gibbering madness from whence there was no return as it was! She'd need to find a second wormhole!

“You fools!” Pip called out from the back of the crowd. “You've messed with the nachur'l orrrdah!”

It took three days, seven types of shampoo, four types of conditioner and one and a half trips to the more-bewildered-than-usual barber Sweep Trimmings to get Pinkie's mane back to normal. Until then, it refused to respond to any of Pinkie's further attempts to command it to do her bidding, even when she said pretty please with a cupcake on top. She also received an official notice from the Mayor to never attempt to do anything, quote unquote 'weird,' with her mane again, on account of the risk to the dignity of the Princesses that could reflect badly on Ponyville's sense of patriotism. Pinkie tried to tell the Mayor that Princess Celestia really had a pretty well-developed funny bone, but for some reason the Mayor didn't believe her.

So training was called off, and Pinkie's last, best hope for finding a way to play rock paper scissors was demolished.

Comments

[FashionablyHospitable]

Looks at snakes. Thinks of the glove's responses.

[Wellwater]

“Lolwut,” she said to herself.

Basically the whole story so far!