The Monster that is Me

by Terrahex

Chapter 2: Killing Pinkie Pie

o----[ Chapter 2: Killing Pinkie Pie ]-----------------------o

Dear Mom,

I stared blankly at the scrawling hoof writing before me. Having survived my first week in Ponyville, I was reasonably sure I was going to be staying here for awhile if I stayed as far away from parties as possible.

That said, a letter to my mother was in order. I promised her that I would write regularly when I left home, but circumstances hadn't been so fortunate. I had hardly been able to stay in one place for more than a few weeks, so I hardly had a chance to write, let alone get many letters in return. The ones I did get were reassuring and encouraging, but I could tell she was worried about me.

How are you doing?

That seemed like a good start. I didn't want her to worry about me any more than she already did, so I couldn't very well tell her about all the trouble that had been finding me.

I'm doing fine. I found a new place to stay. It's pretty safe, and it's in a tree!

That seemed a bit childish, but that was what I'd first noticed when I saw the place. Besides, she was well acquainted with my innate curiosity. She was the pony who had to deal with a curious changeling who had never encountered most of the things in her house, after all.

I live with one pony. She's a bit of a spaz at times, but she's very smart and kind. Believe it or not, but she has a dragon as her assistant. I've seen the way she treats him though, and it's more akin to little brother than assistant, though.

Of course, having an awareness of love helped me come to that conclusion, but I had learned the hard way never to leave any evidence that I was anything but who I said I was, even in a private letter to my mother.

I watch over the library and help reshelve books. Twilight has a lot of studies to do, so usually I'm the one manning the desk during the day. As it turns out, I'm well built to be a librarian. Not many ponies stop by, but to fill up time I have all the books I can read.

"What are you writing?" Spike suddenly materialized beside me. I shrieked, jumping off my stool and landing in a heap on the floor.

"Spike!" I whined. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry." The utterly adorable dragon shrugged. "It's not my fault nopony in this library pays attention."

"I'll take the apology without the sarcasm thank you very much." I rubbed my sore neck, sitting back in front of the desk. "I'm writing a letter to my mother."

"Oh, is that all?" Spike chuckled. "It's kind of refreshing to not be the only one writing letters."

"Oh, do you have dragon friends you write to?" I asked curiously.

"Nah, all the dragons I've met are jerks. Usually it's just letters to princess Celestia."

I grinned, not believing him. "And what do you tell her?"

"Twilight and her friends send in reports, so it depends on who's telling me to write it."

As if summoned by her name, Twilight appeared at the top of the stairs, clad in a purple saddlebag with a checklist floating in front of her. "Okay, I think that's everything." She announced cheerfully. She looked out from her list as she descended. "Good morning, Midnight. You do know that we're closed on Sundays, right?"

"Well..." I flushed a bit. "Maybe."

"Great," Twilight smiled obliviously. "I'm off with Spike to learn a new spell."

"Sounds interesting." I stated. "What's the spell?"

"Apples to oranges." She replied.

"Which I'm sure AJ won't be happy about." Spike added, jumping up to sit on Twilight's back.

"And that's why we're not going to tell her, Spike. You want to come, Midnight?"

"I can use you as a shield when things go wrong." Spike offered.

"No thanks." I declined politely.

"Are you sure?" Twilight asked with concern. "You haven't left the library since Pinkie's party. You weren't that bad."

"I almost threw up." I replied plainly. In fact, the only reason I didn't was probably becuase I never had anything in my stomach worth the trouble. "Forgive me if I don't feel like going showing my face again."

"That could've been avoided if you just told somepony you had Enochlophobia."

"I-I don't...!" I trailed off. "I just don't want to go, okay? Besides, I've got to finish writing a letter to my mom."

"Well, if you change your mind, Spike and I will be getting an apple from Applejack's stand in the market then going to the plaza."

"Yeah, okay." I conceded as they left. For a minute, I just sat there, regretting my decision to let them leave without me but being too stubborn to actually do anything about it. Then I decided I was being stupid and cut my letter short, giving it a quick reread before realizing that I hadn't actually told her where I lived.

P.S. I settled in Ponyville.

With that amendment, I folded it into a letter, added the appropriate regalia, then stepped outside to put it into a mailbox.

"Morning Twilight!" A grey mare suddenly dropped out of the sky sporting a blue cap and a tan satchel spilling over with letters. Her golden eyes trained in on me before she realized something important. "Hey, you're not Twilight!"

No, I wasn't, but I could've made a convincing counter-argument. Wisely, I decided not to. "I'm Midnight. I just moved in."

"What?" She panicked. "What happened to Twilight?"

"Nothing!" I quickly answered. "I just work here now."

"Oh." She sighed with relief. "I was worried for a second there." One of her eyes suddenly took a detour as she reached into her mail bag. She pulled out a stack of six letters, proudly holding them out to me. "Here you are. I think these are Twilight's." She frowned, pulling them back in to examine them again. "Darn eye." She muttered.

"I actually have this letter..."

"Yeah, these definitely say Twilight." She nodded to herself, looking back at me with her misaligned eyes. She opened the mailbox, depositing the letters inside. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got a lot of mail to deliver."

"Wait, I actually-"

With a powerful flap of her wings, she was off, flying to wherever googly-eyed mailmares go.

I growled in frustration. "There, Twilight. That's why I don't socialize." I retrieved Twilight's, replacing them with my own. I spitefully wondered why I had to try so hard at acting normal when mares like her could go around acting so abnormal and nopony bothered to question her.

"Fun! Fun! Fun!"

Speaking of abnormal mares...

"Pinkie Pie," I threw a glance at her as she bounced up to me, "do you mind? I'm not really in the mood today. I swear I don't need another party."

"That's okay! Hey, want to have fun?" She trotted in place, her smile disturbingly wide. My nose was assaulted with the scent of her sugary candy love.

"Er," I grimaced. "That's alright."

"But C'moooooooon!" She whined. "Let's go snowboarding! ooh, or skiing!"

I wasn't going to bother mentioning the season to her. She didn't seem the type to be restricted by seasonal changes. Before I could respond, she caught sight of something beyond me, eyes going wide. She rushed off like a pink bullet, leaving a trail of love coated dust in her wake.

"Nice to see you, too." I muttered under my breath, returning to the library. Pinkie was a pleasant enough pony, and there never was a moment when I thought she had anything but the best intentions, but she was a bit draining to be around for an introverted pony like me.

Opening the library door, I was stopped in my tracks. Pinkie Pie sat in the center of the room, the contents of the bookshelves now emptied onto the floor where they were stood up in a long, swirling line.

"Fun?" She turned innocent blue eyes on me as she continued standing the books up, one by one.

"Pinkie Pie..." I fought to keep my voice under control. Spike and I were, after all, the ones whose job it was to reshelve those. "What are you doing in here?"

"Fun!" She responded happily, setting book after book down on the floor in her long domino line. "Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun." She punctuated the placing of each.

"No, Pinkie, not fun." I set Twilight's mail on the checkout desk so I could grab Pinkie's sugary tail in my mouth. I dragged her, kicking and squirming, toward the door.

"No fun!" She shouted, chucking a book at the line to start the sequence. "Oooooh." She stopped squirming as the line began to topple. I groaned through her pink tail hair. It was going to take forever to reorganize all of those.

I kicked open the door behind me, dragging the prone Pinkie out into the shade of the golden oak. "There." I breathed. "Stay out of the library."

"Ooh, can you drag me next?" Pinkie's voice asked as she rolled around, giggling, on the grassy lawn. I stared in confusion.

"Me! My turn!" I turned around to find Pinkie Pie standing next to me, grinning with all her might.

"What." I looked back at Pinkie rolling around in the grass, now captivated with a ladybug making its way across a fallen leaf. I looked again at Pinkie standing next to me. Pinkie in the grass. Pinkie standing next to me.

"What." I struggled to comprehend this revelation, taking a step back so both of the pink mares were within my line of sight. "Something in this picture doesn't belong." I muttered obviously to myself.

"Want to have fun?"

My immediate gut instinct was that I had to do something about this. One Pinkie was bad enough. Two was worse.

"Fun! Fun! Fun!"

Three... couldn't be comprehended. But what could I do?

"Fun? Fun! Want to have fun? Can we have fun now?"

Four... I could feel a migraine coming on. What was worse, if any more started showing up, I doubted I'd be able to keep a clear head. Despite my wishes to the contrary, Twilight was right about my phobia.

And what could I do to stop them? I was just a sheep in wolf's clothing. I didn't know anything about spontaneous Pinkie clones, but if anypony did know about spontaneous Pinkie clones, it would be...

"Twilight." I looked up, down the dirt path past the Pinkie that was currently hopping circles around me. If anypony knew how to fix this, it would be that purple unicorn that constantly had her nose stuck in a book (not that I was one to talk now that I did the same thing). I galloped past Pinkie, heading for where I remembered the plaza was.

"Ooh, a race!" I heard Pinkie shout behind me. Several duplicates ran up beside me, all vying for first place. Not being particularly fit, they quickly passed me and headed off in all directions, leaving me confused as to what she believed a race to be.

Once I finally reached the cobbled plaza, a quick glance around the abandoned town told me that I was already too late. I should've figured that even the most dedicated of students couldn't ignore a veritable thunderstorm of pink hyperactivity.

"So, did I win?" A Pinkie ran up to me, panting.

"What?" I took a step backward as she totally violated my personal space as Pinkie was wont to do.

"The race, silly!" She giggled. "Silly willy Mid...something." She booped my nose. "Now what should we do? Ooh, I know let's go to Sugarcube Corner and bake, like, a zillion cupcakes and then shove them in my party cannon and shoot them all over Ponyville that would be the most fun ever or we could go and herd up a bunch of frogs and-"

"Pinkie!" I coughed, backing up as her love hit me like a brick wall. My stomach grumbled agitatedly, but I pushed it down like always. "That sounds really fun, but I really need to find Twilight." I turned to step past her, but I immediately found the same Pinkie duplicate in my way.

"Ooh, Twilight could make things even more fun!" Pinkie's eyes went wide as saucers. "We should all play instruments together! You can play the accordion, I'll play the bungalow, and Twilight can play the tuba!" She advanced on me as I retreated. That's when it happened. A tiny wisp of candy flavored love slipped into my mouth and down my throat. A neglected stomach suddenly jump started, roaring in my gut for more food. "No, wait. I don't think that Twilight can play a tuba change of plans Spike can play the tuba, and Twilight can play the elbow! An elbow is an instrument right? Or was it an olbow?"

"S-sounds," I swallowed, not really listening, "F-fun." When was the last time that I had a good, sustaining meal? I couldn't remember. And I'd hardly had a thing to eat since coming to Ponyville. Another bite couldn't hurt right? I needed to stop myself. I took a step back, but Pinkie pushed forward, her face right up in my bubble.

"We could become the world's most famous band! I'm great at writing really catchy songs even though most of the time they're just spur of the moment and its really fun when everypony else joins in and OOOOOOH we should do a musical right now! I'll start... umm... maybe we should go rollerskating instead cause I really don't feel like singing right now it'd probably be best if I saved my voice for band practice anyway."

I couldn't help myself. At first I tried to ration with myself: only one swallow, then no more. I could only feel my hunger swell painfully, begging pitifully. One swallow turned into two and two into three. I cherished the feeling of liquid love rushing sensually down my throat; it was a sensation I'd hardly had the chance to experience since leaving the hive where I had taken it for granted.

All the while Pinkie had continued to babble. I caught the tail end of a sentence as I continued to feed, something about rolling down a hill in a giant snowball, but my mind was going blank as I filled my stomach.

Then warning bells started going off in my head as I leeched off of her. Pinkie began to sway back and forth, hooves not fidgeting so much as they were stumbling. Her tone went from happy and energetic to strained and tired like she was talking just because she felt she should be talking, but, to my mixed feelings of annoyance and awe, she continued to babble on and on. I tried to stop myself, but my body didn't respond.

"This reminds me of this one time," She slurred her speech, "that I went on a roller coaster after eating like... a million churros and cotton candies and hot dogs or maybe... it was the teacups because I remember getting really really really really dizzy and... throwing... up... aaaaaaaall over the place..." She managed to finish before collapsing onto the street.

My eyes went wide, and I finally managed to cut off the stream of love flowing down my throat with a terrible cough rolled through me, forcing me to my knees. My stomach gurgling as I felt bitter love sloshing around inside it. "Pinkie."

Pinkie's vibrant pink coat had faded into an ugly, faded, greyed-out pink, like when my mother mixed the wrong paints together on a canvas. Her mane seemed straighter than I'd ever seen it, Chrysalis, I didn't even know her mane couldn't be curly. It all seemed so wrong. This couldn't possibly be Pinkie, like somepony had taken her Pinkie Pie away and left the body behind. My stomach heaved suddenly as I realized that that somepony was me. It had been such a long time since I'd had something in my stomach worth vomiting, and I didn't like the reunion.

Was she... dead? I doubted I'd be able to live with myself if all those things ponies shouted at me turned out to be true. I tentatively stuck a hoof before her snout, holding my breath for a tense second before... yes.

The sigh of relief was palpable, like I was expending all the tense energy waiting in my muscles through my lungs. Pinkie's breath was strongly tickling the fur on my fetlock. She was alive.

She would regenerate her love eventually, I knew. While changelings couldn't generate love, ponies could do it in spades. She'd no doubt be all right. It'd just take awhile for her to return to normal. Meanwhile...

I looked around, panicking suddenly. I had just drained Pinkie. No, I recalled, a Pinkie clone, of her love in the center of town. If anypony saw me...

I relaxed when I saw that the only thing around appeared to be more Pinkies, and they were hardly interested in me at all, enraptured as they were with vandalizing the town. It appeared that the whole population of town had taken shelter under this barrage of cuddly pink.

That realized, I came to the decision to head back to the library and shut myself in until Twilight or whoever decided to do something about this, not wanting to risk stupidly getting into anymore trouble. I shivered, realizing how close I came to breaking my cover after only a week of staying in Ponyville. And just as I sent my mother that letter.

Maybe I should just stay in the library forever. Bad things always happened whenever I stepped outs-

"WOOO!!!" The drained Pinkie suddenly sprung off the ground, her color magically returning to her body. "That was really fun Midsomething, but next time we should just, like, not do whatever we just did. What did we do anyway? Was it really fun? Oh, what am I saying, I just said it was fun so obviously it really was really fun silly willy Pinkie." She stuck her tongue out, trailing her hoof in a circle next to her ear.

My jaw opened, nose immediately assaulted by a wave of love that wasn't quite as powerful as before. "Pinkie, how did you-"

"Ooh, wasat?" She shot off down the street as if nothing had happened.

My mind realed. How did- She couldn't just-

She was drained of love. Sure, I hadn't seen many ponies drained of love like that, but I knew for a fact that even Pinkie couldn't just spontaneously regenerate love whenever she wanted! That had to be against the law or something.

"Ow." I rubbed my temple with my hoof as I felt a migraine coming on. "Yeah, I'm going home and sleeping for... forever sounds good."

Author's Note:

Achievement get: Remastered

Comments

[Perteks]

Hmm interesting way, i though you gonna make something with real Pinkie Pie like eat half of her loves and she will start that emo part of episode etc

[ScopeEva]

So far? I like.

A little uncertain about this mother figure though. It’s hard to tell given how you worded it but it sounds like the mother was consciously (if not openly) encouraging Midnight to hate herself. The generalised idea that ponies are good and anything that tries to hurt them makes that thing bad seems a little extreme in the black and white sense. Then again this is clearly a caring individual of some description. I’ll admit it has left me mildly conflicted, was that intentional?

Either may, best of luck with this story.

[Terrahex]

2267091

Unintentional, but understandable this early in the story. This will (hopefully) clear up in later chapters. rest assured, hating herself is only a by product of basically being ponyfied by her mother when she spent so long thinking that ponies were only a food source. Add to that the fact that she's only been thinking this way for about a year, accounting for her black and white ways of thinking. This is supposed to be her first time spending a significant amount of time away from her mother since the canterlot wedding, so it's not yet clear to her that some ponies are good and some ponies are bad.

[TheGreatSako]

Oh, it was after the wedding that Midnight was adopted, I got the impression that she was a baby or something when she was adopted. Assuming she was much older than that; old enough to lay siege to Canterlot anyways, it's kind of unsettling that she got so attached to somebody that she considers them a mother despite being full grown.

[Terrahex]

2269442

I didn't say she was full grown. I consider her on the same maturity level of about a teenager. I also think of changelings on par with bees (Except where the queen makes all the babies :P) this means that though she has a real mother, it doesn't really matter who she is. changelings are changelings and no changeling is different from another. It isn't likely she even knows who her real mother is.

[Iamsorry]

Pinkie Pie: physics natural predator

[Vates Despero]

Pinkie can’t just

Yeah... nopony tells Pinkie what she can and can't "Just".