“Sweet party as always, Pinkie.” Spike splashed his feet happily around his rubber ducky floatation ring, enjoying the cool, refreshing feel of fruit punch against his skin.
“You're going to be showering off all that sugar as soon as we get home, mister,” Twilight said in passing, giving Spike reason to think that his boss was missing the entire POINT of an inflatable pool filled with punch and candied orange slices.
“Aww, thanks Spikey! I think everypony's about partied out though. Say, d'you want the last chili pepper jello cup?”
“Do I?!” He made grabby hands, then took care to re-dignify himself, remembering the old greed growth incident. “Maaaaaybe,” he recovered innocently.
“Darn!” Pinkie giggled. “I was hoping to get the last one, they always taste the best. That's okay though!”
“Oh, well....” That made him feel kinda bad, actually, he had already had a ton of treats today. If he just tried to change his mind, Pinkie'd ignore it and shove the jello mold in his mouth anyway, though. This called for finessey. “How about we rock paper scissors for it?”
“Silly Spike, you know I'm not legally allowed to run with scissors anymore!”
“No, see, it's like, a little game, like flipping a coin, and the winner can get the jello cup.”
“Oh my gawsh! A game I've has never played before?! Why has no one ever told me of this?! I MUST KNOW!”
Spike floated a little away from the candy-scented snout that was grinding into his face with a grin. “Um, well, it's not really that exciting or anything. Here, let me show ya how it works. Hold out your hand. Uh, hoof.”
She held out a hoof next to his outstretched hand.
“Now, we bob it up and down three times... like this. One... two... THREE!”
“...numbers of indeterminate purpose, ah, ha, ha!” Pinkie added in a thick but (to Spike, at least) indecipherable accent.
He blinked at her, then shrugged and moved on. “Okay, so, on THREE, you're supposed to make the symbol for a rock-” he made his hand into a fist, “a paper-” he flattened his hand out, “or scissors,” and finished by displaying his hand with the top two and bottom two fingers bunched up and separated from the other two. “Rock smashes scissors, scissors cuts paper, and paper covers rock.”
Pinkie frowned, her forehead wrinkling. “That doesn't sound right. I think rock should beat everything. It's a great big smashy rock!”
“But then no one would choose paper or scissors!”
“Well, at least rock should be able to beat PAPER, dontcha think? I mean, what kind of paper could beat a big ol' tough rock?”
“Maybe it's magic paper. Yeah, that's it. It's magic paper with a spell written on it.”
“Okay, I guess I can buy that.”
“So, are you ready?”
“Ready!”
“One... two... three! Woohoo, paper beats rock!”
“I'm not making rock! I'm making scissors!”
They stared together at her hoof for a moment. “Are you sure? It looks like a rock to me.”
“No way! I'm totally making scissors See? Snip snip snip!” She wobbled her hoof back and forth.
Spike sighed, knowing Pinkie well enough to get that he'd never win if he made an argument out of it. “Okay, okay, how about best outta three.”
“You're on!”
“One... two... three!”
“Yeah, take that, dumb ol' rock! Get derockified by my papery paper! See how it floats in the breeze like a graceful ninja assassin? WhooooOOOoooooOOooo....”
“Uh, Pinkie, it still looks like you're doing rock to me,” Spike pointed out hesitantly, fidgeting with his tail as he watched her wiggle her hoof back and forth in a way that almost made him seasick. The things he went through for spicy jello.
They looked at her hoof and looked at it and looked at it some more.
“Maybe you're doing it wrong,” Pinkie finally said.
“How am I doing it wrong?” Spike huffed, crossing his arms in mild offense. “You're the one making the symbols wrong!”
“I am not! You probably taught me wrong so you could milk me for sweet, sweet free wins. It's okay Spike, I'm on to you.” She leaned down at almost a right angle to nudge him with her elbow. “Ya cute widdle sabotager, you!”
“You mean saboteur, Pinkie,” Twilight said without looking while she was cleaning up the last of the chips from the snack table. “Sabotager isn't a word.”
Spike slapped a hand over his face. “Wow, duh, of course you can't make paper or scissors symbols, Pinkie! Your hoof... is a hoof. No fingers like this, see?” He wiggled his fingers into scissors and paper again, and then did a few random sign language symbols he'd learned from Twilight just for funsies. “I'm not really that hungry anymore anyway, you can have the jello.”
Pinkie looked over at the jello and then back at Spike's hand, seeming unconsoled. “But... but I want to play the gaaaaaammmmeee,” she said with a huge pout.
“Ain'tcher fault ya don't have the digits t'wiggle, sugarcube,” Applejack put in kindly, patting Pinkie on the back. The other five had noticed the minor commotion and had drifted over to Pinkie to see what was up.
Grabbing the jello and tossing it over to Pinkie, Spike watched her swallow it whole but didn't see her face perk up one little bit. This was a real downer.
“Come on Pinkie, it's not even that fun a game anyway!”
“B-but I don't know that,” Pinkie said with a little shake in her voice, “because I can't play it! Whoever heard of a game Pinkie Pie can't play?! Nopony!” She straightened up, her voice gradually raising to Royal Canterlot Voice volume but with a high-pitched screech to it that reminded Spike of bats. “THIS WILL NOT STAND!”
“But Pinkie, you are standing,” he pointed out confusedly.
“I mean, I mean, I must find a way to play this wonderful game!” She brightened. “I know! I'll just carve my hooves, I'll get Rarity to use Applejack's whittlin' kuhnife! Rarity, AJ, you gotta help a pony down on her luck! CAN YOU FIND IT IN YOUR HEARTS TO MUTILATE MY HOOFIE?!”
“They still wouldn't be able to move, dear, and isn't that the point of the whole scenario?” Rarity quickly noted to Spike's relief. That was Rarity for ya, always thinking about how to keep other ponies from uglifying themselves. Except when mud or cucumbers were involved. “You wouldn't be able to change one hoof from paper to scissors or what have you.”
“Awww.” Pinkie gave AJ back her whittlin' knife, who snatched it with a look of possessive suspicion. “I guess I'll just have to come up with some other way to play. Hm.”
“Ya know Pinkie Pie, maybe it's okay if'n you can't play every darn game under the sun,” Applejack put out. “Maybe you just need to learn to accept that some things just ain't meant for ponies to do. Just like Spike here can't make a Sonic Rainboom and I can't buck apples with magic.”
Pinkie laughed so loudly that Spike almost went under the punch from flailing in surprise while everypony else in the room started.
“Ohhhh, Applejack!” She sighed happily. “I thought we knew each other better than that by now! Me, accept the common laws of physics governing mundane reality? Yeah, that's not happening. What is happening is that I'm gonna figure out a way to play rock paper scissors.” Her eyes narrowed in determination. “No matter what it takes, I will not let this tragic birth defect beat me.”
Spike gulped and held up a hand. “Hey, Twilight? I want it noted for the record that whatever happens, I only meant well.”
“So noted,” Twilight acknowledged with a nod and a flurry of telekinetic scribbling.
Several hours later, Pinkie had transformed her room into what she referred to as a handotorium. She wasn't sure what that meant, but it sounded smart, and smarts were needed to get through this problem. Twilight had talked about how one's mood and atmosphere affected intellectual output, so Pinkie figured that to be at her outputiest, she had to spiff the place up a little.
She had also found a pipe, a smoking jacket, a pair of thick square glasses (without any noses attached, even!) and a tie to complete the transformation. The tie had a funny clown on it, but she was pretending it was casual Friday to make up for that. Assistant in her professorial handoteria studies was Gummy, who wasn't taking the situation with NEAR the dignification that it deserved, Pinkie thought. The hand diagrams on the chalkboard she'd borrowed from Twilight should have put him in the right mood. And if not that, she'd been sure that the hand models she'd made out of cupcakes and peppermint sticks would've. But he just didn't seem to be feelin' it.
“Okay, Gummy, you've done a super duper great job so far, but I need you to really pull out all the stops this time! Now you have to take your fingers... and squish them together... but they need to be in two bunches, okay? Can you do that for Auntie Pinkie?”
Gummy stood there calmly.
Pinkie stared.
After a long moment, he raised his right front foot.
She held her breath in anticipation.
Then he put his foot back down and blinked.
Pinkie sighed and looked back at her chalkboard diagrams again. “Perhaps,” she pondered, blowing bubbles from her pipe, “q over y squared does NOT equal the circumference of the forefinger after all. That would change the balance of the whole equation! Then we'd have lopsided scissors, which would just be silly.”
She looked over at Gummy, eager for his academic input. “You're right, Gummy, we should try a more basic shape first. How about rock? It's just like a hoof, but made out of scrunched up fingers! Can you do that one?”
Gummy stayed motionless.
“No no no, not that kind of scrunched up, they have to be all curled in instead of long! Like this!” She demonstrated by waving one of her hooves around. “See?”
Gummy latched onto the hoof with his mouth, and stayed there no matter how firmly she shook.
“I'm starting to think you're not taking this very seriously, Gummy. Yes, you make a great paper, but that's only one of the shapes, just like hooves is only one, and we need all three to play the game!”
Ding. As Rarity would have said, i-DEEEE-AAAAAAA!
“If you can do paper and I can do rock, that means that we just need someone else who can do scissors!” she proclaimed triumphantly. “We can be the three musketeers of partying! All I need to do is find a second hand minion to complete the triumvirate!”
Gummy blinked, one eye before the other.
“What? Come on, I know fancy words too. Twilight's not the only smartie pants around here ya know! Come on, we've got us a hand minion to wrangle!”
She transferred her pet to her mane and set off at a slightly faster than usual warp through time and space directed towards Fluttershy's cottage. Halfway there, she remember it was Angel-bunny's last-baby-tooth-falling-out anniversary and had to go back home to grab the caramelized baby carrots she'd made for him. Sculpting them into a mini statue of Fluttershy had been one of her best party ideas ever – now Angel and Fluttershy could be together in a thematicy way and a literal way!
Fluttershy accepted the baby carrot statuette with the same slightly bewildered gratefulness that she always showed whenever Pinkie had decided a happy injection was necessary in her life. While Angel-bunny and a few of his bunny friends gathered round to nibble on their carrot-avatared caretaker, Pinkie broke the news that she wanted a new pet, and Fluttershy had herself a big ol' petsplosion.
“Oh my gosh, I just knew one little baby alligator wasn't enough to keep up with you! Would you like a hummingbird? An iguana? A wombat maybe?”
“I was thinking something more like a monkey. Or maybe a lemur. Unless lemurs are a KIND of monkey, are lemurs a kind of monkey? OH OH OH, what about a GORILLA?!”
“Oh, I'm sorry but I don't have anything that exotic. They would need a very special kind of care, anyway, and I'm not sure if you're, um, the kind of pony who could handle their delicate needs....”
Pinkie leaned in to her friend's face, which leaned back just as much. “Heeyyyyyy, what are you implying? Are you sayin' I'm not good with animals, Fluttershy?” She was great with animals! If she wasn't, how could Gummy possibly still be alive?!
“N-no, I didn't mean that... uh, I think it would be best if I just showed you the cuddly critters that are staying here, if that's okay with you.”
They went through everything from anoles to zigzag salamanders and while nothing was perfect, there were a whole lot of critters who were better than Pinkie had thought they would be for the job. Even bats had hands, she'd had no idea! And so many birds had pretty flexible talons, although you had to be careful with the really sharp ones.
“A parrot seems like it'd be best. Or a macaw. Are macaws a kind of parrot?”
“Oh, would you like something that can imitate your own voice? Although I'm not sure that that's really the best idea...” Fluttershy added much more quietly as an afterthought. “I mean, you're so, um, exuberant, I don't think you need a background echo.”
“Aww, but if they can hover while they do things with their hands that would be perfect! Although ponies might get intimidated by something hovering in their faces all the time.” Pinkie had second thoughts of her own and decided to tone it down a notch. “Maybe we should stick to mammals. I wouldn't want another reptile, Gummy might get super jelly.”
“Why would Gummy turn into jelly?” Fluttershy asked, confused, and Pinkie giggled at her poor, poor ignorant shut-in friend's lack of grasp over common colonialisms.
“Well, it's better than turning into peanut butter, at least. Imagine cleaning that out of your couch! Actually, I don't need to imagine, I had to do that one time before. I found soooooo much change from it though! Copper and peanut butter should be a sandwich flavor. OH MY GOSH WHAT IS THAT?!”
It was perfect. Bigger than a breadbox, but smaller than a writing desk, furry enough to double as an emergency scarf and with hands that were demonstrating their deftitude through the magic of peeling an orange! All the important knuckles were there! It was like a giant rat, only cuter!
“Wh-wh-wh-a-a-a-a-t-t-t-t i-i-i-i-s-s-s wh-wh-wh-wh-a-a-a-t-t-t?” Fluttershy asked through clicking teeth as she bobbed up and down involuntarily with Pinkie's excited bounce of pet discovery.
“That! That right there!” She pointed extra hard with all four hooves, which left Fluttershy briefly Derpy-eyed.
“Oh, that's Mister Polesloke. He's a possum,” Fluttershy explained. “Come say hello, Polesloke! You'll have to excuse him,” she whispered, “he's not very sociable on Thursdays.”
“Can he shake hands?”
“Um, I'm not sure, but if you want something that does tricks, maybe a dog....”
“Silly Fluttershy, dogs don't have fingers!”
Fluttershy blinked. “What does that mean? Most critters don't have fingers. At least, not very fingery fingers. You're not prejudiced against critters without fingers, are you?”
“Why would I be? That'd mean I'd be prejudiced against myself!” She snerked. “Hey there, Polesloke! You look pretty fly for a gray tawny whiskery guy. Howzit goin'?”
Polesloke finished mashing the fruit in his mouth adorably and swallowed, then looked Pinkie over with an appraising air. Pinkie looked back quietly, mindful that she often came on too strong, and waited for the possum to take his time getting to know her. After a bit, Polesloke turned his head to Fluttershy and made a huff like a cat with a hairball.
“What? No, Mister Polesloke, she's not a kind of food,” Fluttershy scolded the critter with more than a little confusion. “She's a pony! And she's thinking about giving you a new home with lots of love and....”
“And candy, and cupcakes, and non-cup cakes, and balloons,” Pinkie filled in, beaming. “And games! Special games. Handy games. You like games, don't you?”
Mister Polesloke turned his head slowly to look back at Pinkie again, blinked once, then curled up and went to sleep, belly and legs pointing skywards.
“I'm sorry, Pinkie! Please don't be upset. Mister Polesloke gets like this a lot, possums have very short life cycles and, well, he's just not a very enthusiastic critter, to tell you the truth.”
Pinkie leaned into the half-hug until she felt better. “He was perfect.” She sighed, watching the little fellah snore. “I guess I can find some other critter to play the handy games, though. What else ya got?”
Fluttershy pulled away suddenly, forcing Pinkie to rebound on her own mane and bounce back upright.
“...Pinkie, I'm starting to think that you have ulterior motives in wanting another pet.”
“What ulterior motives? I just want a hand minion to play rock paper scissors for me!”
“Pinkie Pie!” It was a Fluttershy yell, so it was way scarier than a regular yell even though it was said at a volume that was still below a normal speaking voice for anypony else. Pinkie flinched back from it. “Pets are friends, pals, buddies and playmates, but they are not minions! Minions are for, for bad evil overlord ponies with trap doors and creepy skull helmets! You're not a bad pony are you?!”
Pinkie shifted her eyes left, then right. “Actually, this book I borrowed from Twilight talked about how all morality is totally subjective based on your point of view and-”
“Pinkiiiiiiieeee.”
“Oh, alright.” Her head drooped. “I won't make a critter be my hand minion. Guess I'll just have to think of some totally different way to solve this problem that doesn't involve enslaving semi-domesticated animals for entertainment.”
“I know you can do it, Pinkie.” Fluttershy smiled. “I believe in you.”
Slowly, dejectedly, Pinkie made to walk off... and then made a U-turn and dashed for Polesloke, grabbing him up and squeezing him to her neck desperately. “I DON'T BELIEVE IN ME! I NEED YOU YOU DELICIOUS HAND HAVING CRITTER! MAKE THE SIGNS WITH YOUR WIGGLY BENDY FLESHY STRINGY THINGS AND I'LL GIVE YOU CUPCAKES ALL DAY EVERY DAY I SWEAR, JUST MAKE THE SIGNS FOR ME!”
And that was how Pinkie Pie found out that Fluttershy was, in fact, fully capable of keeping up with a warp through space-time and kicking flank when she came out the other end, if provided sufficient incentive.
“Are you suuure you can't use your magical unicorn powers to sew me magical hoof gloves?”
“I'm fairly certain such advanced telekinetic feats are entirely beyond my meager capabilities, Pinkie Pie, although I do much appreciate the vouch of confidence.” Rarity patted Pinkie on the back, while the party pony focused on happy fun feelings with all her might to keep her mane from drooping. “But, come to think of it, there are quite a lot of fun games that you can play with our hooves. Perhaps you just need to be reminded what fun they all are so you forget all about this... rock, parchment, scissors, was it? What an uncouth thing, why I'd never be caught dead with a mere rock as a participant in my frivolities, I'll have you know.”
Pinkie considered one of many, many replies to that, and said none of them, and was proud of Exercising Self-Restraint, a valuable quality the Cupcakes had been taking great pains to teach her. Now that meant she didn't have to exercise it any for the rest of the week, yay!
“In fact, it's my day off, why don't we break out Monopony?” Rarity rubbed her hooves together. “Oh, I do so love a few rounds of bold yet treacherous businessmareship!”
Some things held true regardless of all else. No matter what else was going on in her life, once Pinkie was invited to play a game, there was no way she could possible say no. Unless, like, the fate of the entire universe DEPENDED on her saying no, but so far, that hadn't happened yet.
“That sounds great, Rarity! I won't even have to go easy on you because I know how good you are at it.” She narrowed her eyes, remembering the last game and the banker-related misdeeds that had lived forever in board gaming infamy. “I think this time we should get a neutral third party to be the banker, though. How about Sweetie Belle?”
“My little sister,” Rarity replied flatly. “Handling paper. With magic. Do you want my store to burn down?”
“Not today!” Pinkie said with a giggle, just to see the look on Rarity's face. It was as silly as she could have hoped for. “How about Opalescence then? She looks like a cat with a knack for handlin' the moolah rack.”
“Pish posh, what do you take her for, a common trained monkey?”
“There's nothing common about monkeys!” Pinkie pouted, remembering her failed trip to Fluttershy's. “Fluttershy didn't even have a single one! Not even a LEMUR, and those are like, the monkeys for when you can't get a real monkey! And don't even get me started on gorillas.”
“Why did... never mind. Look, dear, perhaps it would be best if we just took turns, eh? You can be the banker for a few turns and then I'll be the banker.”
“Is that allowed? That sounds like it breaks some kinda antitrust law to me.”
“There are no antitrust laws in Monopony!”
“Really? Wow. The Princess should really get on that, I mean have you SEEN the rental prices lately? Total bubble, gonna burst like THAT, and take all the poor shoes and wheelbarrows with it. Of course the TOP HAT will be fine with his nice five hundred bit bill parachute.” She rolled her eyes.
And so the epic final battle over who could master all the colored squares in a square piece of cardboard: a pony who relied on cutthroat business acumen and pragmatic, rational strategizing of long term priorities and assets, versus a pony who relied on random dice rolls. Based on previous games, Pinkie fully expected to win inside twenty minutes.
“Huh, snake eyes! They look just like two rocks tied with each other!”
“Pinkie...”
She sighed heavily. “Yeah, yeah, I'm moving my little pewter thingabobby! Plunk plunk, purple square! Sure, I'll buy it.”
Rarity wrinkled her nose. “Goodness, low class property. Scarcely worth the bits if you ask me.”
“Hey, those ponies work HARD for what they have!”
“I only meant that it's a mere two-space color set, Pinkie. Even if you get them both, the chances of anypony landing on them are microscopic!”
“Psh, proletariat.” She stuck her tongue out and rolled again. “Aww, I'm in jail!”
“I can't say I didn't see that coming.”
“Maybe I'm just visiting relatives!” Pinkie sniffed at old memories. “Poor Uncle Winkie... anyway, your turn!”
After a second of regarding her rival player with mixed sympathy and suspicion, Rarity rolled her dice with a dagger-like flourish of her horn. “Ah HAH! A railroad, one of the very captains of industry! Yes, I do believe I will partake.”
Cash and card exchanged between parties, they moved on. With only two players, there wasn't much to stop either of them from gobbling up as much property as they could feast their pewter figurines on. And while there was some fun trading going on at first, Rarity eventually became way too paranoid for her own good and put a halt to any further wheeling or even dealing.
“Okay. How about if I give you Pony Place, Stallion Stables and Trotting Gardens, and you give me just one itsy-bitsy Horseshoe Avenue?”
Rarity let out the nth of many exasperated sighs of the day. “But Pinkie, that makes no sense. You'd be giving me three complete sets in exchange for a property that doesn't even match any of yours!”
“But it starts with a random letter! Just like Twobit Company, Saddlesoap Works and Canter Avenue.”
“But that doesn't entitle you to any additional rental upgrades.”
“I know, but isn't it neat?!”
“I'm afraid I must refuse. Absolutely. I suspect...” Rarity's eyes narrowed. “A trap! This old mare wasn't born yesterday, you know!”
“Wouldn't it be super funny if you were, though?”
“Yes, I suppose... ah, Pinkie, what is that behind your back?”
“Behind what back?” Pinkie tried to look innocent.
“Behind the only back you have, dear. The one with your, your spine and mane and so forth.” The fashionista waved a hoof in the air vaguely.
Sheepishly, Pinkie moved over to let Rarity see the origami scissors she'd constructed with her back hooves while her front half was busy playing the game. The one bit bills had made excellent pointy parts; she'd even papercut herself on them!
Rarity let out a long, low groan and plonked her head on the board, hotels scattering. “I am beginning to think that the exciting world of business is insufficiently distracting for a pony of your particularities.”
“I'm sorry Rarity! It's just that I started thinking we could use rock paper scissors when we forgot who was the banker and from there it just snowballed! A game within a game, Rarity! Think of the WONDERRRRRRRR....”
The other pony jerked upright, banging her front hooves lightly on the board and displacing what was left of the plastic architecture. “Clearly we need something a little more nerve-twanging to entrap your hyperactive interest! Don't worry, Pinkie Pie, I know just the thing!”
They moved on from Monopony to the often-neglected board gaming niche of amateur surgical procedures. Pinkie put on a surgical smock, cap and mask for the event, which had Rarity wondering why Pinkie had costume caches in her store. Silly Rarity, didn't she knew you had to be prepared for things like trying to remove a banana from a pony's lung no matter where they might arise?
It was a neck-and-neck race to the finish to prove who was the best amateur surgeon. Rarity was surprisingly good even when she didn't use her magic to make it totally fair, but Pinkie had a few tricks up her sleeve.
“I really could have gone my entire life happily never knowing your tongue could bend into shapes like that.”
Pinkie spat out the light bulb statuette and beamed. “Tongue muscles are muscles too, Rarity! Ya gotta let your body know who the boss is! Besides, it has all kinds of practical applications!” She wrapped her tongue around a bowl of popcorn, ate all the salty buttery goodies inside and flipped the bowl back on the floor with an expert lickity-lash. “Rarity? Why are you blushing?”
“No reason whatsoever, dear. Well, I suppose that leaves the only operation left to perform a removal of a...”
“A tiny little scissors...” Pinkie confirmed sadly, her lower lip a'tremble. “Scissorses? Scissor. Oh, it looks so lonely without a rock and a piece of paper!”
Rarity reached over the board to clasp Pinkie's hooves in her own. “Pinkie Pie, I'm begging you! For the love of Celestia, let. It. Go.”
“I will take your suggestion into serious consideration.”
“...you have no intention of letting it go, do you,” Rarity growled.
“None whatsoever.”
“Bah! Perhaps Twilight will have better luck getting your mind off of things. Go have her Scrabble your brains out or something, why don't you.”
Pinkie shuddered, remembering the last time. “Nuh uh, not goin' through that again. Last time we played she beat me by like three hundred points, and I was cheating!”
“Good heavens! Is that even mathematically possible?!”
“I have no idea, but you try telling Twilight that octogenarian isn't a word.” Pinkie shuddered again, her spine full of icy wormies. “She gets that Look in her eyes.” Then she perked up with a little smile. “But I'm glad you brought it up, 'cause now I know just the right way to fix my little handslessness problem....”
Pinkie nodded approvingly at Twilight's lightning-backgrounded maniacal laughter. It was really that kind of panache you had to have to pull off an outfit of a lab coat and dark goggles. Not everypony could do mad scientist, especially when the number one assistant had to ruin the mood by refusing to call them 'master,' but Twilight had it down pat.
“It's physiological signaling and controlling mechanisms are approaching a state crudely analogous to being alive! It's physiological signaling and controlling mechanisms are approaching a state crudely analogous to being alive, hahahahahahaaaa!”
The basement lights clicked back on to full power, the lightning generator stopped lightning generator, and Twilight replaced her goggles with a gimlet to inspect the device.
“Hmm, everything seems to be in order. Now we just need to calibrate the muscular response coordinator to your movement range so it won't snap your hoof off at the fetlock when you try to make a gesture.”
“That sounds super duper safe! So do I just stick my hoof in or-”
“No no no no no, aren't you listening? We have to calibrate it first. That means we need data. Now, just put these twenty dooflollies on while I wickity whack the kajigger with the thingamabob. And make sure to beebity boobity boo.”
“Okey dokey lokie!”
“Pinkie?”
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Are you doing that thing again where you replace my highly specific technical scientific terms in your head with random nonsense words?”
Pinkie's eyes shifted to one side. “No.”
“Because I clearly asked you to put the dooflollies on while I operate the kajigger with the thingamabob, and you're beebity boobity booing the wickity whack with the kajigger.”
“I'm sorry Twilight, I'll try to be a more attentive guinea pig!”
“That's all I ask of you. There!” Twilight beamed. “All done. It should be safely operational under standard conditions now. That means no zero gee, no lava, no teleporting through the space-time continuum and no cramming yourself into spaces physically too small to hold a pony-sized pony.”
“I never go into lava.”
“You are sooo missing out,” Spike commented, polishing his claws. “Hey, wanna try it out? The glove, I mean, not lava.”
Pinkie gasped and bounded over to him, eyes dinner plate-sized. “You mean we can play the game?! Really really really?!”
“Yeah, sure. But you gotta keep your cool, Pinks. It's all about the meta.”
“Sure sure sure sure sure. Oh, magical Twilight glove, please gesticulate into symbols shaped like objects now!”
“It's not voice-activated, Pinkie,” Twilight pointed out with mild irritation. “See that crank on the side? You have to crank it up, then put it on and think about what you want it to do. The neural pathway analyzer should get a good approximation of what you want as long as you maintain mental focus.”
“Oh, I can totally do that.” She cranked it up with her mouth and focused, forehead wrinkling with concentration wrinkles.
The black segmented digits of the glove wobbled.
Then they weebled.
Then they wiggled.
Then they waggled.
Finally, they quivered!
After that, the glove burst into a flurry of precise motion, the artificial fingers moving so fast that they blurred the air with dark streaks. Everypony (and Spike) watched with mouths ajar, eager to see the fabulous feats the glove would perform....
And then....
BOOM.
“Oh my gosh it's totally crossing its fingers! Oh oh oh now it's doing TWO finger crosses at the same time! This is amazing! Guys, isn't this amazing?!”
Twilight pulled her hoof down from the bridge of her nose and flattened out her grimace. “Pinkie, I told you you need to focus. If you don't have a precise image of what the glove needs to do when you-”
“Look, look look look! It's making hand signs! Spike, quick, what does it mean when you point up your middle finger?!”
The dragon shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Maybe it wants to poke something! Mister Magical Glove, do you want to poke somepony?” Pinkie asked it seriously, considering that harmony between a glove and its wearer should be almost as necessary as harmony between two friends. If they could anticipate each other's needs and all that stuff, they could fit together like... something in a glove, she knew there was a phrase that ended in 'a glove' but couldn't remember the rest of it, drat. “Bananas in a glove?” she wondered out loud, which caused Twilight to grind her teeth for reasons that would forever elude Pinkie.
“Okay, new plan. Pinkie, you go have fun with the Prototype Digital Gesticulator Mark Oh One until the excitement of newness wears off, and remember it's not a toy.”
Pinkie nodded absentmindedly, busy playing thumb war with Spike while giggling maniacally.
“Come back in about a week and we'll see if you've established any controlled boundaries for disciplined gesticulation. Okay?”
“Will do, your scienceishness!” She saluted with her new 'hand.' “Huh, wrong salute. Who salutes with a flat hand out from their body diagonally? Oh well, blame it on the sugar mind static, right Twi?”
“Just like I told you last Wednesday, there's no such thing as sugar mind static. Now get out before I have a stroke.”
Pinkie and Spike shrugged at each other and Pinkie went off to play with her new toy. Poor Twilight just took everything so unnecessarily seriously!
The first thing she thought about doing was giving the poor thing a real name. Everything liked having names, and Mister Magical Glove didn't do much to separate her magical glove from every other magical glove that was out there. Maybe a shortened version of Twi's sciencey name, the Prototype Digital Gesticulator Mark Oh One. The ProDiGeMarOhOn? Hm, that last part could be shortened to MOO like a cow super easy! And ProDiGe sounded like Prodigy!
“Prodigy-Moo, I love you,” she told the glove, nuzzling it and giving it a lil crank.
Prodigy-Moo gave her a thumbs up and she giggled.
“Alright, you're already thinkin' positively! Oh, hey, while we're brainstorming, we need to think up like a million different puns using your little finger. Because that's your pinky, get it?! Oh, hey Lyra.” The blue-green pony was staring for some reason. “What, haven't you ever seen a magical finger-wiggling glove before? Bye Lyra!”
Prodigy-Moo waved, and Pinkie just wanted to hug the thing.
Truly, it was the best piece of clothing ever. Not that she'd ever say that around Rarity, whew.
She went around practicing all sorts of fun things with Prodigy-Moo. Jump rope was SO much easier, and climbing ladders, and using doorknobs... as a matter of fact, it seemed like everything in Ponyville had secretly been designed to work better with hands than hooves, how crazy was that?! She had no idea why Spike hadn't bragged about his amazing fingers, they were so fantabulous that going back to a fingerless life made her feel like an empty lonely sad goth pony with fake fangs and red contact lenses and reserved seats at beatnik poetry readings. But now Prodigy-Moo was in her life foreverrrrrr!
Dinner was especially exciting. The Cakes smiled in that special 'I'm scared' way after Pinkie started using Prodigy-Moo to fold napkins into origami cranes, so she toned it down and just stuck to using the glove for little things like drinking from a glass while they were around. And they told her to not use it while she was at work, which made her just want to cry, but she arranged a little bed-shrine for Prodigy-Moo in her room so he could enjoy candles and incense and fluffy pillows while she was gone.
At the end of the day, she remembered she hadn't even properly introduced Prodigy-Moo to Gummy, which was just bad manners. But she had a good excuse! She kept getting distracted waving to Lyra, who was hanging around and trying to look in the windows for some reason. Still, there was nothing more important than cementing the bonds between one's state-of-the-art clothes and one's pets, so she got the two of them together and offered to shake, just so Gummy knew to be nice to their new friend.
“Well?” she prompted after Gummy stared for a bit. “Come on, put 'er there, pal!”
Gummy slowly opened his mouth, leaning in... and then he did something he'd never done before. Ever.
He closed his mouth and pulled back, refusing to bite.
“Gummy?” He didn't do anything unusual other than that, but it was so out of character for him that she frowned and checked his temperature. “You don't feel fevery, but let me get you a glass of milk and those pony-flavored potato chips you like so much just in case. Ya gotta keep your strength up to look after Prodigy-Moo while I'm cashing the register and distributing the doodlesnickers!”
Prodigy-Moo stiffened its fingers and thumb, making a chomping motion like its fingers were the top jaw and the thumb was the bottom jaw.
Pinkie giggled. “Hey, that's pretty good! I wasn't even thinking about that! Nice job, Prodigy-Moo, you're a real cool guy who don't afraid of anything. Can you eat a pretend doodlesnicker?” The fingers shut and opened several times forcefully. “Om nom nom! Hahah, you're so funny.”
It seemed obvious to her that Prodigy-Moo was purely masculine in an intangible, philosophical sense, even if it didn't have actual masculiney bits – which was probably all for the best, considering how her experiments at bachelorette parties had turned out. It was a glove with a sleek, gentlemanly but strong and rugged design, capable of being the life of a party or laying the smack down as required. She could so easily imagine Prodigy-Moo clutching a pipe, or... what else did boys clutch, anyway? Golf clubs. Definitely golf clubs. Further experimentation, as Twilight would have put it, was required.
The next day, after work she took Prodigy-Moo out golfing. But she did miniature golf instead of regular golf, because regular golf didn't have nearly enough miniature windmills. To her delight, not only did Prodigy-Moo get her her best score ever, it even made writing down her score sooo much easier! How could she possibly have gone her entire life writing things with her mouth?! Prodigy-Moo had that whole 'holding a pencil' thing down cold! Also, its handwriting was like thirty times better than her hoofwriting, except when she specifically asked it to imitate her hoofwriting, which it did with unerring accuracy.
Lyra had miniature golfed next to her the whole time, too, which was funny but also kind of fun because they'd already seen so much of each other lately and Pinkie was getting the feeling that the unicorn needed a friend. When she offered to shake 'hooves,' Lyra practically fainted. That was what happened when you went an entiiiiire course of minigolf without a milkshake or chili fries, silly!
Only one thing bothered Pinkie. When she double-checked her score to make sure that Prodigy-Moo hadn't been fudging the numbers, she noticed a little 'I hate you' written out in cursive below the tally. Prodigy-Moo clearly had one of those sarcastic, 'I don't believe in FEELINGS' senses of humor that were so common to boys. Pinkie decided she would just have to learn to put up with it. Deep down inside, her glove loved her. She knew it. Why else would it be so amazingly helpful?
“What would you like to do today, Prodigy-Moo?” she asked her glove the next day after brushing her teeth, scrubbing the goo from her eyes, flossing and picking something that looked the mutant offspring between lint and a tarantula out of her nose. It took her a second to remember to give it its regular ol' crankity crank.
Suitably powered up, Prodigy-Moo went for the little notepad and pencil she was now keeping around all the time, just because writing with fingers was so fantastically fantastic.
KILL YOU
She frowned. That wasn't a very nice joke.
“Now Prodigy-Moo, I know how it is in the street, all you young tough gloves feel like you've gotta keep your rep with those hip fingerless gloves. But pretty soon all those fingerless gloves are gonna be paying child support to lingerie and then you'll have to go back to all your old friends who love you and want what's best for you. You can be a bro if you want, but you have to express your broness in productive ways! So, what do you really wanna do? It can be aaaaanything you want!”
BOXING
“Well, alright! Now we're talkin'! And you're in luck, Prodigy-Moo, 'cause this big bad pink mama's still got her gym membership!” She blew the dust off her gym membership card (that last visit where she'd accidentally broken four different machines had left the ponies there just a liiiiittle sore at her), put on her sweatband, and readied herself for war. By which she meant exercise. Which was really just war against yourself, no quarter asked or offered.
There weren't a lot of ponies at the gym today, but Snowflake was always hanging around and working on getting his spectacular pecs even more spectacular.
“Hey Flakey, wanna box?”
“YEAH!” Pinkie's mane billowed back.
“Awesometastic! Just lemme get my gear on and I'll give ya what for! Oh, hey Lyra.” Funny how Lyra came in right after her and took the walking machine right nearby.
Poor Prodigy-Moo had to scrunch up its fingers, since the gloves were designed for hooves, not hands. She reminded herself to ask the receptionist about hands-friendly equipment. Spike would be needing to come here sometime, after all, if he wanted to catch all the lady dragons, rawr. Still, Prodigy-Moo seemed okay with it. More than okay, it was rarin' to go, what with all the air punches and strangley gestures it was makin'.
“Okay, okay, save it for the ring, fella!” She laughed, gave him an extra few cranks for good measure, and bounced on back over to Snowflake, who was snorting like a bull in anticipation of murdering face. It was kinda intimidating but she knew from experience that he could be a gentlepony with the ladies.
“Ready?”
“YEAH!”
“Awright, let's tap gloves and BONK FACES! ♪Iiiiit's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight...♪”
She was way out of practice but relied on her natural flexibility to keep her from getting murderated too fast. Good thing she was a lithe and agile hummingbird of a pony, too, 'cause Prodigy-Moo wasn't doing nearly as much as she thought it would to block Flakey's punches, even though she specifically focused her inner thoughtiness on blocking! The glove-in-a-glove jerked out of the way at the oddest times, leaving her poor pink posterior to be pummeled by pony power! She could barely get any hits back in herself but at least the bruises wouldn't show since it was pink on pink. That was totally how bruises worked, she was sure.
Round two, Prodigy-Moo must have forgotten the rules. No biggie since it was its first time and all, but seriously, punching a pony in the throat was a no-go even with protective gear on! She apologized and Flakey shrugged it off, claiming his neck was as muscley as the rest of him, which she was at this point very inclined to believe.
Round three she concentrated mostly on dodging, including a few super bendy slo-mo moves that seemed to impress Lyra (she was still staring, huh), when Prodigy-Moo seemed to get impatient. Finally Prodigy-Moo returned a blow, with strength righteous and true... unfortunately, it was aimed at a place good ponies weren't supposed to touch until they were married, gloves or no gloves!
From somewhere or other came a sound of breaking glass as Snowflake tottered to his knees, face reddening and eyes watering.
“Oh no, Flakey! I'm so sorry!” She hugged him. “I really should've gone through the rules more loudly with Prodigy-Moo! Are your sphericles okay?”
“Yeah...” he said in a very Fluttershy voice, and then fell over.
She considered it her responsibility to take him to the nearest nurse, but for some reason the employees wanted to do it themselves, so she let them and spent her free time scolding Prodigy-Moo for misbehaving so. You had to be firm! There was no such thing as bad gloves, but sometimes good gloves did bad things. This called for a timeout in the I Did A Bad Thing Corner of her room, so she went back to the bakery and suffered to remove Prodigy-Moo and stick it on a stool so it could think about what it'd done. Her bare hoof felt oddly naked and tingly after having worn Prodigy-Moo for so long; secretly, she'd miss that soft, sexy, leathery weight wrapping around her, but she HAD to be strong, for the sake of the continued propapagation of the pony species!
Only when it was time for bed did she consent to let it off the stool, placing the glove on her pillow next to her head so Prodigy-Moo would know she still loved it.
“Goodnight, Prodigy-Moo. I still love ya, buddy.”
Prodigy-Moo laid there, motionless, even though she'd cranked it up so it could say goodnight. Oh well, it could be a sulky mcsulkyglove if it wanted.
Pinkie closed her eyes and dreamed of eggs cracking in frying pans until a strange pressure on her neck woke her up. Something soft, but strong. Leathery.
Her eyes snapped open as the sensation tightened like a strangling snake.
“Prodigy-Moo?” she whispered shakily. “Are you giving me a hug?”
The fingers tightened.
“P-Prodigy-Moo, that h-hurts mama...” she croaked. “Prodigy-Moo, please stop!” It only got tighter.
She rolled out of bed and grabbed at Prodigy-Moo with both hooves, prying it off and throwing it on the floor. Opening the bathroom, she checked to make sure Gummy wasn't sleeping in the tub again, snatched up Prodigy-Moo and threw it in there without any further ceremony.
“You can just sleep in the metaphorical dog house tonight, mister!” she scolded it through the door that she'd shut very, very quickly. “And after a good night's sleep I expect you to have a written two-page apology for me! In cursive!”
So strange. She snuggled next to Gummy for comfort, relaxing gradually as that pink mouth nommed her face playfully.
“You'd never hurt me, would you Gummy?”
Nom nom nom.
“Prodigy-Moo is being a lot more of a hooffull than I thought it'd be. I hope I'm not a bad disciplinarian.”
Gummy's right eye blinked, then his left eye blinked, then he nommed some more.
“I'd hate to have to break out the... paddle...” she whispered with a shudder, memories of a sore butt as a little filly coming back to her. “Maybe I should try dusting myself with flour first.”
Sleep was broken up by fitful starts and spasms, but she got enough shut eye to be herself in the morning. Pinkie Pie, the smiley pony, who always greeted the day with a smile. And she was ready to march into that bathroom and tell Prodigy-Moo that all was forgiven if it showed her just a teeny weensy bit of remorse for its horseplay!
“Good mooorning, Mister Cranky Fingers, how did y-”
She turned on the bathroom light and the words died in her mouth.
Prodigy-Moo had found the fancy-schmancy red lipstick Pinkie mostly used for clown costumes and had been busy scribbling with it. All over the walls, the shower curtain, the floor, the ceiling, the medicine cabinet and especially the mirror. Every free inch of space that could be scribbled on was pasted with red, jagged letters.
DIE DIE DIE WHERE IS THE REAL PINKAMENA GO HAVE A TEA PARTY WITH YOUR IMAGINARY FRIENDS EVERYPONY SECRETLY HATES YOU DIE DIE DIE SUFFER YOU FILTH MONSTER ABOMINATION YOU ARE SOMETHING THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE EXISTED WHY DIDN'T YOUR PARENTS DROWN YOU AT BIRTH YOUR FAMILY IS ASHAMED OF YOU DIE I HATE YOU EVERYONE HATES YOU REMEMBER THAT EVERY TIME YOU LAUGH SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD IS CRYING WHY DON'T YOU PUT ON MAKEUP AND KILL PEOPLE WITH LAUGHING GAS YOU CLOWN YOU FREAK YOU MADPONY YOU'RE NOT LIKE ANYPONY ELSE YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE HAPPY DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE ALSO YOU ARE TOTALLY A FATTY YOU FATTY FAT FATTY
Slowly, her eyes turned to Prodigy-Moo, who was laying in the middle of the floor between two of the smaller 'Die's in total relaxation, palm upturned like the belly of a relaxed sleepy puppy or kitty cat.
Oh my gosh.
Her glove was evil!
It was okay, though, it was okay. Deep breaths. Remember what Twilight had said? You had to crank it. As long as she didn't crank it up, Prodigy-Moo was completely harmless.
And then...
Crickity-crickity-crickity-criiiiiick.
“Mother of pony god,” Pinkie whispered in almost reverent horror, watching that little metal tab spin in slow, relentless circles. “It can crank itself up.”
A few hours later, she was shoving an angrily-rustling cardboard box with Prodigy-Moo into an iron furnace in Twilight's basement. It'd taken her a little longer to get there than usual because Lyra had kept asking her where the glove was and she hadn't had the heart to tell her the truth. The furnace had been hidden down a trap door that Twilight had only opened with a lever, a pass card, an eye scan and a drop of blood after Pinkie had told Twilight exactly what her bathroom looked like, and it glowed with an otherworldly blue-green light even though there wasn't any wood or other fuel for it to be burning.
“Fortunately, the Eldritch Abomination Demanifestation Unit also doubles as a Science Gone Terribly Wrong Disposal Unit,” Twilight commented coolly, like she'd done this before.
Pinkie could've sworn Prodigy-Moo let out a shriek like a thousand damned souls when she put the box in. She could just barely see the outline of the glove's middle finger stiffly outstretched before she closed the little round furnace door, sniffling. Looks like it was back to the drawing board for getting rock paper scissors in her life!
“Tw-Twilight?” she asked after a quick hug. “Why do you have an Eldritch Abomination Demanifestation Unit in your basement?”
“Tell ya what,” Twilight said back with almost professorial cheer, “I won't ask you why a device that bases its responses primarily on the conscious and subconscious cognitive and emotional cues of its user hates you and tried to kill you, and you won't ask me why I need to banish eldritch abominations on a semi-regular basis. Fair trade?”
“Fair trade,” she agreed, and they bumped hooves to seal the deal.
Gilda was enjoying a nice breakfast of squirrel over toast and coffee (dark, no creamer, no milk) when a pony she'd dearly hoped to never see again burst through her front door and fell prostrate before her, hooves grasping around talons.
“Help me, Gilda, you're my only hope!”
Gilda choked on her coffee, burning herself. “PINKIE PIE?! How did you find out where I live?!”
“You're listed in the phone book. Oh great hand-waving birdy Gilda, this is important! I've tried everything else, it's up to you to teach me how to do hand gestures! I beg of you, rock paper scissors as we know it depends on your boundless font of mercy!” The pony rubbed her face into Gilda's legs, sobbing.
“Get out.”
What proceeded from that point was a messy, noisy and entirely breakfast-ruining affair that climaxed with a certain pony being dropped off a certain mountaintop and into a river that carried her off like a log flume.
“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.
“An' did we learn a lesson from all this here tomfoolery, sugarcube?” Applejacked asked her friend gently as they dangled their hooves in the water of the stream running through Apple Acres property.
“No,” Pinkie said promptly, pouting with a lip that seemed about twice the size as it rightly should've been, to Applejack's reckoning. “I didn't learn a thing except that my mane hates me. And Twilight's science gizmos hate me. And Polesloke hates me. And Gilda hates me even though I kind of knew that already. And Rarity hates me but only when I try to make her do suspicious property trades in Monopony.”
“Are ya sure ya didn't learn anything?” Applejack nudged her friend, who wobbled like gelatin. “Maybe somethin' 'bout acceptin' them there common laws o' physics governin' mundane reality?”
“I hate the common laws of physics governing mundane reality,” Pinkie snarled, burning her snout down between her hooves. “They're stupid! Like gravity, and, and and and... STUPID GRAVITY, YOUR FACE IS UGLY AND FULL OF PIMPLES AND YOU'LL NEVER GET A VERY SPECIAL SOMEPONY BECAUSE NOPONY LIKES YOU! RAAAHHHHH!” She waved her hooves in the air like she could tear down an invisible enemy in front of her, then flopped down again with a thud. Well, considering her body type, it was less of a thud and more of a floonsh.
Sighing, Applejack patted her rapidly-pancaking friend on the back. “There, there. Ya feel better now?”
“Not really.” Pinkie sniffed. “I tried so hard. All for nothing.”
“From what I hear tell from ol' Spike, t'ain't that interestin' of a game anywho,” Applejack commented with a shift of her hat to tilt over her eyes so she'd look all wise-like, like one of them sagacious eastern masters on secluded mountaintops. Yep, sometimes it just paid to keep your hooves on the ground. “There's other games. You're still Pinkie Pie, the partiest pony that ever done circled a squaredance, even if'n there's just one little thing y'can't play.”
“I guess.” Pinkie wallowed herself over closer to Applejack and propped her head up over her back, her body close to jelly consistency. “You'd think that between fancy machines and earth pony magic and everything else I woulda got something to work, though.”
“Yuuup, you tried real hard, alright,” a passing Big Mac noted, hauling a bail of hay off to the barn. “Can't think of anything that'd let a pony make doohicky symbols like that. 'Cept maybe flash cards, like what Apple Bloom used when her parts o' speech were givin' her a headache,” he added idly, looking up at the clouds, shifting his mouth-straw to the other side of his mouth and then continuing on.
Pinkie went from a jellypony to a stiff-straight steel rod of a pony in nothing flat, so fast that Applejack felt the clap of displaced air smacking her side.
“Oh... my pony... god...” Pinkie breathed, eyes huge and sparkly.
“Uh. Pinkie Pie?” Applejack asked, but she was too late.
The party pony had already ran over to her brother and... oh dear Princess's sweet ball of flamin' gases in the sky, what was she DOING?! Mouths were not supposed to bend like that! Applejack pulled her hat down over her eyes entirely, feeling sick.
“THANK YOU SO MUCH BIG MAC I LOVE YOU BYE BYE!” Pinkie screamed and then zoomed off, causing all the apple trees nearby to drop their apples to the ground. Big Mac was left in a daze, eyes swirling, drool at the corner of his mouth.
As it turned out, Pinkie's destination was home to the bakery, and her goal was simply to finish writing a letter to the Princess.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that sometimes ponies have to obey the common laws of physics governing mundane reality even when they really, really don't want to. Because accepting your limitations is part of accepting who you are, and doesn't make you a lesser pony even if there are some things you absolutely cannot ever never ever do. I feel better about myself now that I've accepted my own limitations, which don't make me a bad party pony at all, even if I can't play every single game there ever was or ever will be.
Flash cards are freaking awesome.
Abso-sincere-lutely, Pinkamena Diane Pie, Premiere Party Pony and Novice Player of Rock Paper Scissors