• Published 29th Oct 2012
  • 9,906 Views, 810 Comments

Awakening Pink - Masterweaver



Waking up as Pinkie Pie. Not the usual way things go....

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Q&A

It wasn't as obvious on the highway, given that everybody was going really fast, but once we entered Kansas City it became very clear to me that miss Erishy had more then likely bribed whoever gave her her driver's license. Fortunately we managed to make it to a hotel without incident, a full hour ahead of the Cosplayer Van and the Pinkiemobile. The receptionist was quite pleased to get us a room (Half off! Yay pony celebrityhood!) And we dumped our luggage in there... although I decided to lighten the load Figment was watching an take my iPad backsack off my saddlebags.

Three minutes later we were bored. And, as is wont with teenage girls suffering from boredom, we decided to go to the mall. I know, I know, Pinkie and Fluttershy aren't really teenagers and I'm not really a girl but cliches become cliches for a reason. So it was that we were wandering a public place and pointedly ignoring the stares of everybody...

"Oh. My. Hooves."

...when I spotted something absolutely wonderful.

"Lookit! Looklooklook!" I wrapped my foreleg around Erishy's neck pointing excitedly at my discovery.

She of course decided to ignore me. Apparently she thought I was just being Pinkie which.... admittedly I was a bit, Pinkie was excited too and may have overloaded my whole Not Bowling People Over circuits.

I took a deep breath and tried again, much more rationally. "Okay seriously. I’m a gamer..." Well, I didn't have a console... "Or immersed in gaming culture anyway. So most of my cultural identity has been stripped away. But there is something here I can still do as a pony. Can you please accept my enthusiasm?"

She shook her head and smiled a bit at my enthusiasm, turning to look at my discovery. "Okay, okay, what's up?"

Instantly Pinkie's excited bouncing took back control. "DDR! I didn’t really like it before but now it’s THERE! And I have four legs! And it’s one of those duet set type things! And... well, there are two ladies up there already, want next round?"

She smirked slyly. “Wings allowed?”

I was about to deny her that opportunity when a twisted thought scrambled into my head for attention. "I wanna say 'Hay no' but I have a better idea." With that, I walked into the arcade and gave the two dancing women a formal smile. "Do excuse my interruption, but do either of you have live-stream capable devices?"

"Oh Em Gee it's Pinkie Pie!" The lady on the right fell into hysterics, swooning and collapsing as though she'd been addressed by whatever pop star is most famous right now. I'm more of a 'music' then 'musician' follower.

Her compatriot rolled her eyes, dragging her off the dance pad. "Ignore her, she’d do that even if you weren’t her favorite pony. Yeah, I’ve got it on my phone."

"Oh goody!" I pranced right on up to the now vacant pad. "Shy get up here, I am just about to be brilliant. And evil. But mostly brilliant."

The pegasus had apparently caught onto my scheme and was giving the other pad a bit of a wary look.

"Please? I’m not forcing you to do anything but... well..." I put on a set of pleading watery eyes. "I... don’t want to dance alone."

I didn't. I really didn't. I mean before all this I wouldn't have minded but now... now I could dance with a friend. That was something I hadn't really even considered doing before.

Erishy giggled a bit. "You're supposed to say ‘may I have this dance’ but that will do." She stepped onto the other pad, giving the screen a careful look.

"Right. Livestream on?"

The lady flipped on her phone, tapping a few touchscreen buttons. "I do this all the time for the library. Livestream on."

Oh, she was a librarian, huh? Neat. Time to do this.

I waved at the camera with a big cheesey smile. "Hey there everybrony! Fluttershy and I have decided to hold a little Q&A for all of you peeps that are watching our progress. But just watching ponies answering questions would be boring soooooooo... We’ll be dancing while we’re doing it!" My eyes slid to the pegasus. "Say hi, deary."

"H-Hi!" Erishy gave the camera a faltering grin and waved gently.

"Our lovely assistant, who you can’t see because she’s holding the camera, will be reading off your questions. Our other lovely assistant," I glanced to my right, "who is currently hyperventilating, will be putting quarters in the machine. So! Without further ado..."

The girl got the clue and stuck a coin in the machine. Erishy immediately began scrolling through the songs, finally picking one that had a good rhythm.

"Stamp on the ground, jump jump jump jump, moving all around, tap ta da down..."

Ooo, nonsense dance song! Me likey.

"Question from twentypercentusa," our camera lady read off as we began to hit the arrows. "What’s it like being a pony?"

"It’s like being a pony."

Erishy rolled her eyes at my mathematical answer. "Oh come on now, I’ll take this one." She spun around, still keeping in track with the arrows; had Erica done this before? "It’s weird! like suddenly having six arms or something, but the pony whose body you get helps you out if you let them."

"Oh you just had to mention that bit," I muttered as she whirled back around, "now they’re all going to panic..."

"Featherlover: What do you both think of Gilda?"

I let Pinkie talk in my head, but translated the impression into my own words. "She has a bit of an issue showing her feelings as she feels it would lead to people taking advantage of her. But aside from her urgent need to prove herself superior and remain in control of the situation, I think she’s mostly a nice gal. Issues. But cool."

Erishy chose not to answer. I supposed that made sense given Fluttershy's last interaction with the griffon.

"Anon- How do you feel about getting shot?" The librarian had the decency to look embaressed.

I tried to deflect the awkwardness with a little bit of humor. "Well, the photoshoots are always stressful, right Shy?"

"Yeah..." She'd already missed a few beats. "To be honest, I’m just happy noone got hurt."

"And the internet already knows how I reacted." I sighed. "I’m pretty sure the image is memetic by now."

"Fluttershy are you and Rainbow a couple?"

Oh, that got a laugh out of both of us. "Not in Equestria, not here. Sorry to disappoint." Oh yeah, Erica had DDRd before, her score was rising steadily.

"And to dissuade everypony, Rainbow and I are not a couple either. Nor are Fluttershy and I a couple. Nor is Pinkie romantically interested in anypony. NOR IS THE MOON MADE OF CHEESE!" I picked up the pace, managing to catch up with my competitor.

"What’s going to happen in New York?"

"Hmmm." I pondered the question carefully. "Either we’re going to take care of Discord, or we’re going to take care of--wait, did, was the whole Discord thing public knowledge?" Had I just started a panic? "Frick. Okay, so if you see anything that has a goat’s head and looks like a snakey... amalgam of animals, smile and walk away calmly."

"Or they could google Discord," Erishy suggested with a giggle.

"Yeeeeeeeees they could..."

"Okay, that’s just a shock question..." Our camera lady looked down at her phone, searching for an appropriate question. "Ah! Does Pinkie sense work?"

"Technically," I admitted. "However we are still working on translating the manual to Earth. So... yes."

"Oddly enough, Earth seems to have a lot less stuff randomly fall out of the sky," Erishy commented dryly.

"But hey, Shy here can talk to animals! We really have to get you to talk to a cat or an octopus or something." Of course, Pinkie flung up a funny scene from a Pixar movie. "Oh no no no wait. Fluttershy, can you speak whale?"

She rolled her eyes. "I talk to one horse and you assume I can talk to all animals. Although if we stop by an aquarium I could try it out."

"Octopus AND whale! Two for one! Alley cats too, those have to have some fun thoughts." I tilted my head as my hooves switched round the arrows. "Not dolphins though, they’re psychotic."

"Here is one from Antibrony, says ‘are the ponies trying to take over the world?’"

The pegasus closed here eyes, still keeping up with the beat. "Most of the ponies are scared, and want to keep Discord from taking over this world, so... no? I don’t think so."

"Definitely no," I confirmed. "Waaaaaay too much paperwork. I mean I guess I could take over a small city if it would validate your views," I offered. "Which city though...?"

"Lets take all of Nevada," Erishy suggested with unusual eagerness. "Take about as much effort as a normal city." Apparently the joke was funny to her.

"But Nevada looks like a car door!" I whined. "Can’t we take a cool-shaped area?"

The lady witha phone raised an eyebrow as Erishy pulled ahead again. "MLPhead: I turned into my OC pony, and I can hear her voice in my head. What's happening?"

"Well first off, I set the majority of my OCs 20 years into the future," I explained simply.

"My guess would be... and this is from a theory that Pinkie made, so take it as you will, but I am going to guess your OC wasn’t made by you. It’s a real pony from Equestria who happens to match what you wrote." Erishy nodded to the camera. "Don’t tell your pony they aren’t real, because they are real."

I coughed, remembering some of the intimate things I had written about my own characters. "And certainly don’t mention what you write about them. Actually do... no..." My face turned to the pegasus with worry. "Shy, what’s the proper thing here?"

"The truth is, they will find out eventually anyway. Tell them the truth, that they are real and you happened to have written things that matched up with them by cosmic chance."

"Above all, DO NOT PANIC. Take things calmly and rationally and rationally calmly. Some of you may have turned into non-ponies--we have confirmed Changelings out there--but make sure they do not do anything detrimental to the general public." I glanced up at the DDR screen as it gave us both an A. "And you may want to take advantage of your OC’s skills. I mean I was a horrible dancer before... no actually I was pretty good, just horrible in public. Next question please!"

Since Erishy had picked the last song, I cycled through and picked something at random. It sounded like something akin to Carrameldansen, with fastpaced anime singers.

"Oooh I don’t know this song," Eriishy commented, bouncing on the pad as the speedy beat kicked up.

"Neither do I," I admitted, deciding to rotate around as I hit the arrows as quickly as I could.

"How can a pair of earth ponies have a pegasus and unicorn child?"

"Ooo!" I jumped up in excitement, time to explain my theory to the intertubularnets! "Can I field this one? I mean I know you know better but I wanna see if my guess works."

"I’ll correct you if you're wrong," Erishy replied, more focused on hitting the notes as they came up then trying to stop my schpiel.

"Okay so: Everypony starts out in the womb as a winged unicorn, right? But after a bit of time, their personal magic activates. You know, the same thing that will eventually give them their cutie mark? So if the personal magic says they’re not going to be a pegasus, the wings fold back in to become extra ribs, and if they’re not going to be a unicorn, the horn sort of dissolves into the bloodstream. Of course at this point the fetus’s “Personality’ is determined mostly by environment and genetics, which is why there’s a trend for earth pony families or unicorn families, but the more mixed your heritage the more likely you are to be of a different tribe. I think the choice kinda has something to do with the ennegram system, but I’m not sure." I took a deep breath when I finished my little speech, trying to catch up with the pegasus.

"More of a biology answer than a practical one, but pretty much, Earth ponies are so strong because none of their energy went into growing wings or a horn. The Cakes had mixed kids because their families had been just Earth ponies for so long, there was a buildup of magic, rumors will fly though.” Erishy shrugged, still trouncing me.

"Oh that makes sense, I guess.... but my theory also explains Cadance."

"Here’s a question from... anon. 'Can I give you a hug?'"

"Me? Oh, sure I guess, after I beat Pinkie." Erishy smirked at me.

Well, if I didn't do something I would CLEARLY lose! "Oh come on, don’t leave the audience hanging!" I lunged and pulled her into a hug, twirling around and releasing her onto my pad while I took over hers.

"Eep! Not fair!"

I laughed manically as the pegasus tried to regain her rhythm. "I’m laughter, I’m never fair!"

Our lovely assistant rolled her eyes. "How are you playing DDR with four legs, and does it help?"

I felt such a question could be answered only by demonstration, so I started crabdancing. Which is like crabwalking but with more music.

Erishy gave me an odd look. "Don’t ask me how that right there is possible, but the hard part is not pressing all four buttons at the same time, I can hover so really I have an unfair advantage. Keeping all four legs straight is really tricky."

"xEricFisherX asks: What's it like being an element of harmony?"

"Well, the obvious answer would be that I am forced to be kind," Erishy began. "But it is more than that. I literally can’t think of being unkind, there’s a mental block there. For example, I have been trying not to use my wings because I feel like I could hurt Pinkie’s feelings." She took a moment to demonstrate her point, countering some of my own shenanigans and catching up to me quickly before landing firmly on the pad again.

"As for me..." I flipped back over, dancing while I let Pinkie run our mouth. "Well, Kindness is pretty easily defined. All the elements are... except Laughter. Laughter can be used for the dark purposes more easily than any of the others, I mean, just look at the Joker! And every day, every hour, every minute, I have to watch myself constantly to make sure my sense of humor doesn’t go down that path, knowing that I am one misunderstanding away from turning into.... Pinkamena. I will admit when I heard the news about, um, Fluttershy’s assault, I did consider making cupcakes...." Pinkie shook our head. "It’s actually stressful when I focus on it."

After a moment, she gave the camera a bright grin. "So I don’t focus on it." It is weird to feel your own face grin when you're not controlling it, let me tell you.

"Not sure about this question, but it might as well be asked, does Pinkamena actually have a basement reserved for cutting people up?"

"Not in this world," I quipped, taking back control with a sociopathic smirk.

Erishy shot me a warning look. "Come on now, there's no way Pinkie would resort to that. She’d probably tie someone up in streamers and torture them with bad music."

"Back when I was human I used to eat turkey marrow!"

Are you trying to creep out the internet?

Yes. Yes I am.

"What was it like turning into a Pony?"

"Er what?" That was an interesting question... primarily because I didn't have an answer. "I woke up pink and in PJs. That’s... pretty much it. Now getting out of bed... I have a loft bed. Luckily I had prior experience falling from tall beds."

"I stayed on bed till I figured out how to walk mostly, my secret is I haven't walked down stairs yet, I just hover."

My eyes narrowed as I glanced at the dancing pegasus. "Not sure if scared, or just lazy." The song ended then, the machine granting us both B ranks. Hmm. That was certainly interesting and not engineered by me in any way whatsover. "New song, milady?"

"Hard one." Erishy gave me a suspicious glance as she plucked out a Dash-paced electronic wubstep.

"And here’s an anonymous comment. 'I really like your mane.'"

"Well thank you!" Erishy hovered in the air, her hooves speeding across the notes.

I took the time to examine her method as I danced, trying to predict where I would need to hit from her motions. "I dunno about my mane. I mean it’s a complete mess, AND it doesn’t grow out like human hair. How does Twilight DO that thing with her bangs?"

"Do wingboners really exist?" Our camera lady glanced up with a blush. "Oh, sorry..."

"I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been in a situation where it has been called for." Yep, she was focused on the dancing. Her answer had been curt and brief.

"They do exist. I have seen them. That is all." No need to embarrass Linda.

"How do you plan on stopping Discord?"

"Secret plans, not allowed to talk about them."

"But you can help!" I announced in my best infomercial voice. "Simply make a donation to... whatever charity is helping us get to New York, and..." I turned to Erishy in confusion. "Is there a charity like that?"

"I don’t think there is one. If anyone sends paypal donations to erica2734@gmail.com it will help us get to New York."

"How are you? That... that’s a question."

The pefasus dropped down a bit as she considered the question. "I’m okay I guess. Pinkie?"

"Wondering if 'okay I guess' is supposed to be a reassuring deflection."

She caught the rebuke in my voice and gave me a sad little smile. "I’m kindness, remember? Not honesty, and I don’t want to worry all the nice people who have been helping us."

"Just don’t go Nightmare Whisper. Okay? We all worry about you anyway." I returned her smile with a reassuring one of my own. "Least you could do is give us some way to help you."

She smirked, rising off the ground and becoming a tornado. "Don’t let me win, I’ll feel like I cheated."

"You think the PINKINATOR would throw a GAME?!" Alright Pinkie, you've got the legs, STRUT YOUR STUFF!

"How does Pinkie knows Vinyl...and how does Rarity knows Vinyl? Scratchfan9989."

"Well, I know her through the PARTY NETWORK OF EQUESTRIA!" Pinkie shouted as she sped up to dizzying speeds. "And Rarity knows her... um... I dunno... Maybe they’re related?"

"Rarity met Vinyl during a gem convention," Erishy panted. "Vinyl was making a new type of sound system using mana gems, Rarity helped enchant them."

"I thought Mana was an energy snack." I commented flatly.

"Can Pinkie can outfly Futtershy on her flying machine?"

"Never tried. What do you think?"

Erishy collapsed as the song ended, giving the camera a forlorn smile. "Yup, I’m sure she could. I have no endurance at all, as you can see."

I giggled, walking over and helping her up. "Don’t be a silly filly, you just have Bernoulli Syndrome. If you get going fast enough you can outrace Dashie! The problem, of course, is building up enough speed in the first place."

"Hehe, if you say so Pinkie. Well, I’m done for the night."

I glanced at the clock as she waved at the camera. "It’s.. not even four."

"Yup! I’m tired though, and hungry. Maybe we can find a buffet!" She smiled so wide her dimples squeaked.

"I saw a Soup Or Salad around here," I admitted, before turning to the phone. "Well, goodbye adoring internet fans! This is Pinkie Pie signing off on our inaugural random livestream Q&A. Join us next time, where we may be bungee jumping, playing chess, or perhaps just sipping our drinks."

"Wait, bungee jumping... wha--"

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