An Encounter With Pinkamena

The sunlight shone through the Cakes shop window as Shadowfang was twitching in his sleep from one of his worst memories, the time he had messed up and let someone almost kill him. He had fallen asleep on the flour sacks after he had laid down ‘just for a minute’. Shadowfang had already spent all morning cleaning up after Pinkie Pie and her huge messy parties. His boss Mr. Cake walked by and gently shook him.

“Shadowfang were out of sugar again, could you grab some? I need to tend to the front.”

Shadowfang opened his bright blue eyes and flashed a smile that could melt a mare’s heart, “Of course, that crazy pony and her parties!” He stood up and stretched his body and let his large bat wings unfurl and reach for the sun.

Mr. Cake smiled and nervously took a step back, he had known Shadow from when he had first appeared in Ponyville, he was the first out of everypony to offer him a job, but the wings had always made him nervous.

Shadowfang quickly pulled the offending appendages back in and flashed his signature smile again, “I'll take care of everything back here, you go deal with the front.”

“There’s no reason to be scared of such a friendly and kind pony, even if he does look a little frightening!” Shadow overheard his boss mumbling to himself as he walked away.

Oh fantastic, he is afraid of me...I still have to gain someponies’ trust I guess..

“Thank you Shadow! I know Pinkie can seem obnoxious but she only means it in good fun.”  Shadow nodded and headed over to the shelves.

He waited until Mr. Cake was completely gone before his smile disappeared and he punched out a bag of flour. “I fucking hate Pinkie, I hate cleaning up after her because she’s too stupid to do it herself. I should make her pay, no pony deserves to be this happy when they make so many ponies miserable.”

He took a deep breath and tried calming down; he didn’t need that attitude here. It could draw much unneeded attention. His pitch-black coat glistened in the sunlight as he scanned the shelves trying to figure out which sugars needed to be restocked. Five different kinds of sugar were missing and he groaned quite loudly. Mr. Cake walked by on his way to get some forgotten flour and chuckled at Shadow groaning, ponies all around Ponyville liked Shadowfang despite not knowing where he came from or anything about his past. He just walked in to Ponyville one day and asked for a large house at the edge of town, paid in full, and stayed inside for a day or two decorating before coming out to greet his new town. Ponies were at first wary that a pitch black pony with bat wings, a jet black horn, teeth that seemed sharp, and a scar over one of his eyes was living in their midst but they watched him shop and talk to others and they eventually came to love his cheerful attitude and would stop by to chat with him whenever they had a chance.  Shadow never cared though, just needed to make sure everyone trusted him enough to walk in their midst.  Shadowfang worked for the Cakes stocking shelves and helping ponies out with their orders. When he first worked there he had tried decorating cakes but he found he did not have the eye for it so he stuck with cleaning and making cakes. Pinkie was there to help him out though but he never really liked her, she was much to cheerful and full of energy for him. Pinkie Pie baked cupcakes for the Cakes but she never cleaned up her mess or restocked what she had used.

“Pinkie Pie and her cupcakes.” he muttered as he opened the basement door to go down and get some more sugar.

He flicked on the light and started walking down the steps; he grabbed the bags of sugar with his magic and began walking back up the steps.

“This is the sixth time I have had to stock these shelves because of stupid pinkie and her stupid cupcakes. Her parties are the worst! I’ll talk to her about this, we can’t keep wasting all the sugar.” Feeling a scary familiar anger start to boil inside him, Shadowfang ran up the stairs and slammed the door thinking of all the ways he had taught himself to calm down.

Busy in thought he walked around the corner right into Pinkie Pie. He shook sugar out of his mane and looked up to see Pinkie hopping around, covered in sugar, looking excitedly at him.

“Shadowfang! You missed another one of my great partayys! Again.” Then her hair went down a little and she looked at him sadly and asked, “Do you not like me? Or my parties? Am I doing something wrong?  You’re the only pony in Ponyville who doesn’t show up.” Shadowfang stood up and dusted himself off; he ignored her and began salvaging what sugar he could.

Pinkie Pie mewled pathetically behind him “Shadow?” Most ponies would have broken down immediately and began apologizing to Pinkie and hugging her saying how sorry they were and that they loved her parties.

Shadowfang however turned around and coldly said “Pinkie I had a ton of work to do and now I have even more because you can't act like a adult and clean up after yourself. Grow up Pinkie and do your fucking job.”

He turned around thinking to himself, Pinkie is a tough girl, she will be back to jumping around and being annoying in no time.

Suddenly Pinkie Pie jerked him around so he was facing her face to face. Shadowfang flared out his wings and started to yell but his eyes grew wide as he stared back into a face he knew too well and had hoped he’d never have to see again. Pinkies hair was flat and dead as if all the fun and playfulness inside of her disappeared and would never come back. Her cheerful smile everyone knew was long gone and in replace was a twisted sick smile that would chill anypony to the bones, but what threw him off were her eyes. Pinkie’s bright eyes were dull and wild looking. It was like all the life and light inside of her had left. Shadow stared back at her not moving, he was very careful with situations like this. He knew all too well what could happen if he wasn’t careful, the scar over his eye reminded him of past mistakes and Shadowfang vowed to not let it happen again.

“Pinkie…” he said in a soothing voice “Pinkie why don’t we take a walk to my house and we can make some cupcakes and have a nice talk.” She turned her head at a unnatural angle and frowned. Shadow cleared his throat and tried again.

“Pinkie we can head to my house and make some of your famous cupcakes! You can use any ingredient you want! I mean ANYTHING that comes to mind.”

She broke into a frightful grin and nodded vigorously and shouted, “Last one there is a rotten corpse! Er I mean egg!”

And she took off out the backdoor and was gone. Shadowfang calmly walked to the front of the store and pulled Mr. Cake aside and began telling him his perfect elaborate lie,

“Pinkie went to visit her relatives in Las Pegasis. I think she mentioned cousins or something? I’m not sure, but hey! Its nice she’s getting out of our hair for a couple days, or was it weeks? Anyway I finished stocking everything so I'm heading home early. If you need anything let me know okay?”

Shadow lied perfectly and made sure to not slip up once, this was a second nature to him.  Besides, who wouldn’t trust Ponyville’s favorite pony?

Mr. Cake nodded and smiled, “Sure Shadow, thanks for the help today!”

Shadow smiled as he walked out the door, “Of course! I'll see you tomorrow.”

Then as the door swung shut he muttered under his breath, “Hopefully.” He walked down the street nodding and smiling at his various pony friends; he put on the perfect smile and had his usual charm. He walked by the shops admiring all their items and wares as if it would be the last time he saw them.  Shadow trotted by a diner and he saw Octavia and Vinyl Scratch who quickly caught his attention and waved him over to their table where they were eating lunch. Shadowfang groaned, he loved these two but they were always inviting him to concerts and then would fight with each other. They even got him to sing with them onstage. It did not go too well for him, he was booed offstage and later he claimed he was to drunk to remember. Octavia was a famous musician who played for the fancier crowd of Equestria while Vinyl Scratch was better known as DJ Pon3y and played her dubstep for everyone around Equestria.

Octavia broke into a smile and said warmly, “Shadow! How are you doing? I haven’t seen you for a day or so! I mi-“

She was cut off as Vinyl shouted through a mouth full of hay fries

“SHADOW!! Where have you been dude? We missed you a lot! Right Tavi?” Octavia looked at her friend with a dirty look and said,

“Absolutely, you should come to our show! Were trying out a joint concert this Friday at the amphitheater! Want to come?”

Vinyl smirked at him and said,

“We will have food and drinks and some special stuff if you're interested?”

She winked at him and made a motion like she was rolling up a joint. Octavia looked horrified and quickly smacked Vinyl’s hooves to stop them from doing such a vulgar gesture. Shadowfang knew he needed to be home now, so to quicken things up he looked down at the excited looking ponies and flashed his grin and purred

“Ladies, you know there is nothing more in the world I would love to do then go to your concert. Of course Ill be there Friday! See you at the amphitheater? “

They both grinned like little fillies and said ecstatically

“Yay thank you Shadow! It means the world to us! You can even come up and sing something with us! Again!”

Shadowfang winced at the memory and said,

“We shall see, later guys!”

He quickly turned around to start walking home, he knew Pinkie would have set up some sort of elaborate trap at his house up for him by now.

“Great” he thought, “now I get to deal with a bloody mess today.”

Shadowfang actually smiled remembering fond memories of his past; he shook his head chuckling and began to quicken his pace in anticipation of arriving home. It seemed like a couple seconds to him but he was standing outside his house, the door was wide open but other then that, it gave no indication anyone had come home. He closed his eyes and smiled, if anyone had been watching him they would have noticed his wings unfurling, his teeth growing sharper, and his horn flashing a black light for a second. When Shadowfang opened his eyes again,  they were a bright red, everypony could have noticed his beautiful blue eyes gone, and everypony would have been a bit scared to see his eyes glowing red, he took a deep breath and smiled, Shadowfang began walking into his house and not an ounce of fear was in him despite knowing what terrors were awaiting for him inside.