Ponyville Rim

The Rift appeared in Ghastly Gorge sometime around its sixty-third millionth birthday, give or take a few centuries. Since most ponies just tilt their heads at that until the math falls out of their ears, I usually say I was one year old when it happened. I dunno what happened to the days when ponies respected time on a geological scale, but I’m guessing I missed them by an eon or two.

I won’t lie. It was super spooky at first—the Rift, silly! I’m talking about the Rift. Yeah, math can get spooky too, especially when it shows up in Papa’s ledgers every April. But the Rift is in a spooky class of its own. Imagine a jagged, glowing scar, stinking of ozone, big enough for two full-grown dragons to pass through side by side (though they said they didn’t make it), and you’ll start to get the idea.

It didn’t take long for some Royal Guards to come out and take a look at it. Once they knew they weren’t going to go blind after touching it or gain weird cravings for eggplant souffle, they decided to send some ponies in to investigate. That’s when things got real scary. To us, they came back out looking perfectly normal only a few seconds later, but they collapsed as if they’d been gone for years—decades, even, which is exactly what they told us had happened. I heard they were given nice pensions and relocated to the countryside, but any foal born without a lemon in their mouth could tell you those ponies could’ve used a regulation A-7 “Welcome Home!” party, too. The Pan Equestrian Defense Corps really should have hired me on sooner than they did, and just because they didn’t exist back then doesn’t give them a good excuse for why they didn’t.

Princess Celestia authorized an order to seal the Rift up, but whatever dome or containment they tried building over it crumbled into it like so much old marzipan within days. They finally settled for posting sentries around it after ponies started using it as their garbage disposal. Turns out the Rift made these really cool light shows depending on what you threw in there, but that came to a halt after some smarty-Marty got curious with jawbreakers, fish sauce, and ten pairs of hosiery.

For the next two years, the Gorge stayed Gorge-y and the Rift stayed Rift-y, and Papa’s ledgers kept filling with math. Most ponies figured nothing would come of the Rift at all, and soon forgot about it like a month-old party favor.

What we forgot afterward was what rifts were in the first place. If you rip a hole in your jacket, the snow’s gonna come through and give you the chilly billies.

Two years passed before Stranger broke through the Rift, and boy was he a tough snowflake.

***

Did you know my mane’s not this curly on its own? I know, I was surprised to learn that, too. I’m really jealous of other ponies who get bed mane, since I get whatever the inverse of it is pretty bad. It flows over my shoulders in floppy ribbons and shines like one of Rarity’s mirrors from the moment I wake up, and it takes fifteen minutes of brushing, blow-drying, and power tools before I can get to that cotton-candy-y appearance everypony loves so much. I don’t mind the occasional stranger taking a taste, but so far I’ve yet to find somepony who enjoys the flavor of hair.

Still, though: pink coat, pinker mane, eyes the color of copper sulfate pentahydrate, and three balloonies on each patootie. Ponies look at me and see happiness, and that’s exactly what I want to give ‘em. I also help out cows, griffons, diamond dogs, minotaurs—any reasonably-sized, non-meaniepants-dragon types around here, really. Extensive personal research has shown they possess the ability to feel joy just like ponies do, and there’s nothing that nudges positive feelings toward the surface more than warm muffins and hot coffee. So I’ll bake up a storm, slip on my dog tags, and go out there every morning with a Sugarcube Corner breakfast cart in tow, trading bit chits for light bites, quick sips, and a little gabble.

Outside, you can see what Ponyville used to be in every street corner and avenue, every fountain without a statue and every bench draped with somepony shifting beneath a bunch of old newspapers. The thatch-roof houses have metal patches, and the bridges with their curlicues and little hearts haven’t seen new paint in almost ten years. Flowers no longer grow just in neat, manicured beds but anywhere they can set down roots, and hawkers sell street food from carts pieced together from scrap and fragments of kaiju bone. Herald was the only one to attack Ponyville, but the scars it left behind after we called in the dragons were large enough to make new roads out of even if they passed through somepony’s home.

I’m walking through what used to be a parlor in a two-story home when I see my first customers of the day. “Morning, Grizelda! Morning, Gilda!” Of all the people to run into first thing in the morning! “That defense of Sydneigh yesterday was textbook crazy!”

Grizelda waves me off. “Thanks, Pinkie. Just doin’ our job, that’s it.”

“Our job, Sis, is takin’ down kaiju.” Gilda, on the other hoof, looks so grumpy that I expect a tiny thunderhead to appear over her head any moment now. “Nags in blue totally stole our KO.”

Grizelda and Gilda are North Eyrie griffon twins—lions in the rear and eagles up front, with purple-tipped feathers and fringes and intense yellow eyes. Even when they’re apart, however, it’s pretty easy to tell them from one another: Grizelda comes to my parties and Gilda finds a corner to sulk in.

“Our job is savin’ the world.” Grizelda’s told her sister that so many times that she forgets to be bored or exasperated, which is a really funny word somepony came up with when you’re at your wit’s end with something. “And there aren’t any pilots out there better for the job than us two. Could I get a seitan scramble, Pinks?”

“Coming right up!” I dive into my cart. There’s nothing that gets my nose tickly like the smell of burned, simulated muscle tissue. “Hey, Gilda, you want one too?”

“I’ll bag something in the Everfree.” Gilda huffs and turns to her sister. “I swear, Griz, you’re gonna wake up a lame little pony princess one of these days, the rate you keep eatin’ their food.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Grizelda laughs, tossing me a chit. “Our food’s horrible.”

I wouldn’t say I dislike anyone in the PEDC, but Gilda is kind of a, well, butt. I hope she doesn’t discover the “Hug Me!” sticker I put on her back for a very long time. She leaves with her sister and doesn’t bother waving back.

No sooner do the griffons turn out of sight do I hear another voice off to the side. “Per-imeter secure, Captain. We are clear to proceed.”

I could pick that nasal tenor out of a choir of slightly less nasal tenors and a cowpony. Soarin and Spitfire emerge from a side street in their flight jackets and approach my cart. Soarin’s this tall, gangly blue pegasus who looks like he could use another hour of sleep but never takes it, and Spitfire’s as radiantly gorgeous as her name implies.

“Wonder how long those songbirds’re gonna harp on our KO.” Spitfire’s chuckle is pleasantly husky and gets me to join in. “Honestly? That monster would’ve seen us diving if they hadn’t distracted it so well.”

I dig into my cart for their usual orders: a pineapple muffin for Spitfire and—what else?—a slice of apple pie for Soarin. He’d take the whole thing were it not for Spitfire looking out for his weight, but a pegasus like him’s going to have a voracious metabolism.

“The four of you really do make a good team!” I tell them. “I heard all of you even hit four sig-nines in the Harbour.”

“What can we say?” Soarin loops a leg over his CO’s withers, who gives him a lopsided grin in return. “I hope there won’t be a next time, of course, but I’m sure your friends’ll get to four the next time they deploy. I’m sure you could get there easy, too!”

The look Spitfire skewers him with is audible. It still isn’t enough to keep my ears from folding just a teeny bit, but I’ll forgive him. The last thing I’d want to do any day is deal with a Spitfire stare.

“Thanks for stopping by,” I tell them, taking their payment.

“It’s a pleasure as always, Pinkie Pie.” Spitfire begins leading Soarin away while he turns his focus on pie paradise. “Be sure to say hi to Rainbow Dash for me!”

And that’s that. Spot, Fido, and Rover tell me they just finished a thirty-hour welding job and are heading back for bones and beds. I come across Big Macintosh on his morning deliveries—Sugarcube Corner is always his first stop, he assures me. And I manage to catch Gustave in the street and let him know that his cantine work’s really helped the mood around here, but he really shouldn’t substitute meat for the seitan.

The only soul I meet and don’t exchange words with doesn’t need mine. She has a dark gray coat and an even darker, straight-cut mane, and you’d never guess from the gentle lid of her eyes and her quiet steps that she’s heading for CENTCOM. We find each other on the street and hug each other, one sister to another, and I let Inkie go on her way.

My supplies are just about out by then, and I turn onto the final street to Sugarcube Corner when I see them for the first time.

One’s a purple unicorn with stripes in her dark blue mane, and the other’s a... huh. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was a dragon. But he doesn’t have wings, and he’s a lot more fun-sized than your average dragon. He’s also a smidge on the chubular side, but I think it makes him look cuddly. That’s not the air he’s giving off right now, though. I don’t know what’s going on with his friend, but he’s talking to her and waving his arms around like a lot.

“Come on, Twilight!” he whines as I draw closer. “You’ve run into how many ponies today and you still won’t ask them for directions?”

“For the last time, Spike, we have maps!” The unicorn called Twilight snaps back. She whips one out of her saddlebag and unfolds it layer by layer. Gee, I’ve met trolls with bedsheets smaller than that. She flattens the map out with a snap like thunder and begins to walk away.

“Um, excuse me?” I call after her. “Do you need help?”

The back of Twilight’s head dips ever so slightly, but she keeps on walking. It takes Spike clamping onto her foreleg to stop her as he points in my direction. “We’ve got company,” he tells her.

I trot a little faster after Twilight. With the Welcome Wagon back at Sugarcube Corner, I already know I’m going to have to go super over the top with this one to make up for the missing cake and confetti. Maybe I could help her with directions after all. When I’m sure she’s not looking, I pop up behind the map and fold it back up for her, a quick task for anypony who’s worked with puff pastry more than twice in their lives.

“Hi there!” I say, beaming as I press the map against her chest. “I’m Pinkie Pie, and it’s really great to meet you! Ponyville can be a bit of a big place for first-timers, but I know everybody here, so we can get you going to your destination in no time!”

Ponies don’t always say “thank you” when I do something nice for them, and that’s fine—they can be Grumpelstiltskins all they want if that’s what makes them happy. This Twilight, though: If they had known about this glare of hers beforehoof, the Royal Engineering Corps could have dug the Canterlot-Ponyville Express tunnel five years ahead of their four-year schedule.

What I’m trying to say here is: wow, she’s mad.

Just as her mouth opens to speak, however, she snaps it shut. Then her pupils contract. Her brow furrows, and she leans in closer as if I had a little muffin left on my muzzle from this morning. Oh, shoot, I do. I flick it off, but she still keeps staring at me as if I was the muffin this whole time.

With a sudden cry—something like “Wraglp!”—her horn flares to life with one magenta aura, and another hauls Spike off his feet and onto her back. The moment his rump touches down, she’s off like a shot between the buildings.

That’s funny. I’m usually the one with the wild exits in the stage directions. Frowning upon this new development in the universe, I look down and see she left her map lying on the road. Into my tail it goes until I can give it back to her later.

I’m sure we will meet again, this Twilight and me. How can I say I know everybody in Ponyville now if I don’t know who those two are? This is my professional pride on the line!

Minutes later, I park the breakfast cart in a shed next to Sugarcube Corner, and it’s not long before I find who I’m looking for inside. Well, I’m still looking for Twilight, but the four mares in the corner booth are waiting for me to join them and it’d be rude of me to turn them down. On most mornings they trade jokes and arguments, but the way they’re hunched together today makes me wonder as I slide into my seat.

“Howdy, Pinkie.” Applejack speaks for the rest of the gang and smiles. As far as leaders go for us, Lil’ Miss Hard Country there’s our touchstone, and I know a good touchstone when I see one. It’s the hat. Definitely the hat.

“How were morning rounds?” Drawing a lock of her gorgeous purple mane over her shoulder, Rarity takes a sip of her cappuccino and dabs her muzzle with a napkin.

“Awful!” I cry.

Utensils clatter on plates. We are far from the only group dining in Sugarcube Corner this morning, but now we’re the only one talking. On cue, Mrs. Cake swings by with a cinnamon bun the size of my head and leaves without a word.

Fluttershy gulps and fiddles with her dog tags. “What happened?”

“Oh, you know, the same old, same old. Mom met Dad, Mom decided his rock farm had a little more corundum than the others, and then things crystallized between them—”

“She means what happened this morning.” Rainbow Dash puts a hoof to her mane, one as colorful as her name would suggest.

“Ohh.” I tell them.

Rainbow smacks the table a little hard, considering it hadn’t done anything to her at all. “I think I ran into her earlier!” she exclaims. “I felt kinda bad for knocking her into the mud, but she totally blew me off when I tried to help her out.”

“I remember her too,” Rarity says. “I was gardening outside the Boutique earlier when she storms past all disheveled. Thank goodness I’m a quick shot with a hose and brush.” She looks up and pretends to blow smoke from the tip of her horn.

“And I saw her on my way into town,” Fluttershy adds. “Well, I more got in her way. She bolted off before I could, which is kind of impressive when I think back on it.”

Applejack taps her chin and makes a thoughtful noise.

“You’ve seen her too, then,” I say. It’s not a question. These are: what are the chances that the five of us, all in different areas of town, saw this same mare within the space of an hour or two? What was she up to? And what does she like eating for breakfast—she’s got to have an appetite after walking around that much.

“Did she mention anythin’ ‘bout a message to y’all?” Seeing a bunch of “no”s on our faces, Applejack continues. “Tried my best to be friendly with her when I saw her chariot land outside the eastern orchards, but she just said somethin’ like needin’ to meet with Marshal Mare.”

“She said nothing of the sort to me,” Rarity says. “Couldn’t she have sent a telegram?”

Fluttershy twirls a lock of her pink mane. “Maybe she just wanted to be sure the Marshal got the message in person?”

“I’m not convinced she knows how we do things out on this farm.” Applejack swirls her cocoa mug as if it contained something more intoxicating. “She can’t just up and expect to meet with the Shatterdome’s ranking officer on the spot ‘less she’s got some kinda royal appointment.”

“What do we do?” Fluttershy asks her.

Applejack’s about to answer her when we hear the bells. Descending tritones roll in from the towers stationed along the edge of Ponyville, and we all have a silent moment of thanks. The all-call’s going out for every PEDC hoof and hand to report to the Shatterdome immediately, which anyone would rather hear over the signal indicating a new breach from the Rift.

“We should probably find her before she gets herself into trouble.” At a glance from Rainbow, we all start clearing out of the booth.

“Wait!” I cry. My cinnamon bun’s gone untouched this whole time. What’s a mare to do in a case like this aside from popping it in her mouth all at once? It settles in my stomach with a nice plop, and a few moments later we’re outside the bakery.

The streets weren’t exactly empty before we left Sugarcube Corner, but they really fill in as the five of us make our way toward the nearest elevator. Buffalo, zebras, even a deer or two find places in the throng, while those with wings zip overhead. Their flapping turns the sky into a strobe light for those of us below. This kind of atmosphere all but begs for someone to start a mosh pit, but even I know when to hold my parties.

“Everyone seems unhappy,” Rarity says, gazing about her. Many of those around us are swapping glances and murmuring to each other, asking if anyone knows what’s going on.

“What’s the big deal?” Rainbow has a super huge frown on her face. “Hephaestus went down only yesterday. What are they calling an assembly for?”

I suddenly remember the promise I made earlier. “Oh, Dash! Spitfire told me to say ‘hi’ earlier. ‘Hi!’”

Rainbow nods, but doesn’t make much of it. I guess she really has something on her mind.

“Y’all don’t think this has anythin’ to do with that Twilight figure, do ya? I mean, it must’ve been at least fifteen minutes between when Pinkie ran into her to right now.”

Applejack brings up a solid point. The diamond dog next to me seems to agree, but I have to duck before he clips me while he turns his head. His underbite is amazing—you could literally eat off of it, or use it as a chair. “Who’s Twilight?” he asks in husky Equestrian.

I launch right into it. “Oh, this mare who’s new to Ponyville because I know everybody here, and I didn’t know her then. We’re kind of looking for her. If you see a lavender unicorn with hot streaks in her blue mane, and she’s walking with this adorable little dragon at her side, she’s probably the one we have to thank for all this.”

“I should find this unicorn?”

“If you can!” I nod until I hear that funny rattling noise nodding tends to make if you do it long enough. “She acts like she wants to be left alone, so make extra sure you give her some company and make her feel welcome if you spot her walking around.”

The diamond dog puts his paws together and bows. “I will, Miss Pinkie.” I duck his jaw of justice once more as he shoulders ahead in the crowd, his head craned above the rest. “Where are you, Twilight? Come now to Tablejaw, yes?”

The others just blink at me, but I know better than to have doubts over a diamond dog’s ability to find anything you ask them for.

The ride into the Shatterdome is loud and shaky, almost as if the cage with us and a hundred others isn’t so much descending as it is breaking its fall against the walls of the shaft. Applejack and Rarity just stand in place and don’t seem to notice, while Rainbow tries her luck hovering above everypony else. I stand next to Fluttershy for support until we crash to a halt some two hundred meters below the earth.

The elevator spills us into a soaring, painted metal hall with buttresses the size of redwood trees braced along the walls. The space echoes with the clomp of hooves and talons on the floor and thousands of conversations cascading off of one another. Moreover, the air is warm and humid like the inside of a croissant, and I spot several ponies taking out hooferchiefs as we all filter toward the assembly hall. The girls and I are soon able to split off from the main rush, though, as the identity spells imprinted on our dog tags let us into a side elevator that’ll take us right onto the stage.

And what a stage it is! It’s large enough to host a game of hoofball and has two sets of heavy double doors a hundred meters in height in the back. Large crimson banners bearing the crossed-wing insignia of the Pan Equestrian Defense Corps hang in pairs on either side of the pony-sized podium at the front. Not a single piece of litter blows across the stage, even as PEDC personnel file in from the very back of the hall, a full quarter mile off.

For a while, it’s just the five of us up there, standing a little ways off from the podium. Spitfire and Soarin join us a little later and take a spot next to Rainbow Dash, and Grizelda and Gilda come stand next to me. Then all the technicians and handlers from CENTCOM arrive, too, and I give Inkie a little wave. She doesn’t enjoy being up on stage much. Neither do I, but only because bursting into song and dance is looked down upon here. Doesn’t stop me from flipping through my mental playlist for that one song both minotaurs and pegasi can sing with equal comfort, though.

I get so caught up rifling through my collection that I almost fail to notice the whole assembly hall go silent. Hoofsteps ring out on the stage to my left that echo off the high ceiling. Approaching the podium is an older mare with a wavy gray mane and a coat as earthy as her tribe, and eyes the color of the ocean gaze out from behind gold-rimmed spectacles. She walks with poise in a jacket so starched that I could have baked it myself. No medals or ribbons adorn her lapel, no bands of rank circle her epaulets. Her only other accessory is her white collar, and the tie she wears that looks like a head of broccoli.

Marshal Mare takes the podium.

“Fillies and gentlecolts.” Her voice possesses a most lovely trill for a mare in administration. “I need not remind you of the heroism our pilots showed yesterday in their defense of Sydneigh.”

A roar erupts from the audience. Gilda is the only one who grits her—say, do griffons even have teeth? She snaps to before I can get a closer look. Meanwhile, Grizelda, Spitfire, and Soarin take a step forward and offer modest, much-deserved bows to everyone in attendance.

“Indeed,” Marshal Mare continues, and the audience settles down. “But we must not forget the hours leading up to the engagement, or any other engagement in the past. Nothing less than consistent training, maintenance, and vigilance gave us the chance to take that monster down one week before the solstice.

“And I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you all to stay in that state of readiness.”

The assembly hall actually cools a little. A swell of murmurs passes through the audience, and I can sense the grimace on Applejack’s face.

Marshal Mare turns impassive. “It seemed we were in the clear before. For the first time in a year, no kaiju emerged from the Rift on the autumnal equinox. The winter solstice was no different. And we wrapped up winter in time for spring this year, and we began to hope.”

Fluttershy shies away by the smallest of margins.

“Hephaestus’ arrival can only mean one thing,” said Marshal Mare, and this time the assembly hall really fell silent. Even she doesn’t like the taste of her next words, but she’s more hesitant to spit them out in front of everybody. “The Summer Sun Celebration must be cancelled.”

I almost tear out of line just as the audience begins voicing protests, but a hoof and a talon cross my chest before I can go anywhere. Grizelda I expected. Rainbow Dash, though? Her eyes are pleading with me, but for what I don’t understand. That ends up not mattering, as my tongue slips away from my brain.

“You’re shutting down the year’s biggest party?”

Hooves fly to my mouth, but mine get there first. Up at the podium, Marshal Mare turns this terrifyingly slow half-circle toward me, and the light bounces off her glasses so I can’t see what’s behind them.

I had to say it. I’m the senior morale officer for the Ponyville Shatterdome. But to call what I just did unwise would be like baking a cake in the sun without a pair of properly-rated oven mitts. It’s possible, but it’s gonna hurt.

“We’ve received reports,” Marshal Mare begins, her voice as thin as a piano wire held against my neck. “The kaiju have learned they’re predictable, and they hoped to catch us off-guard. But we cannot ignore how the most powerful of them emerge during the summer solstice, either.”

“Where are you receiving these reports from?” asks Rarity, who’s just as surprised at speaking out as the rest of us are. I can understand why she did, though—why would Marshal Mare hold back this information from those who could benefit the most from it? If I can ask clients for one days’ notice on any custom cake orders, she could definitely let her pilots know about theirs ahead of time, too.

Really, the only reason she could conceivably neglect to mention cancelling the Summer Sun Celebration was if she only got the news this morning...

“Found her!”

Tablejaw’s triumphant exclamation saws through the air as the eyes of the assembly hall converge on him. Held aloft in his paws is one lavender unicorn, struggling. Her dragon companion hangs from Tablejaw’s jaw, kicking more air than fur.

“What is the meaning of this?” demands Marshal Mare, turning her scary stare on him. She’s totally looking the wrong way, though. If I’m about to face a court-martial, I might as well go there for something fun, so I slink past Grizelda and Rainbow Dash and slide into the podium next to the Marshal.

“Hi, everybody!” I wave out to the audience. I still have it; shouts and cheers of “Pinkie!” race back to me.

“First off, Marshal,” I begin, turning her way, “I’m sorry for interrupting you, but when there’s a newcomer in town then it’s my job to make them feel at home, right?”

Oh, yeah. That look definitely means we’ll be talking later—but she yields the podium. I turn back to my flock. “Everyone? The beautiful mare Tablejaw’s holding against her will is Twilight. She just arrived from Canterlot this morning with a message for the Marshal.”

There’s a moment where everyone goes still. Marshal Mare forgets to stare holes in me, my friends let their jaws hang in the air, and the little guy holding onto Tablejaw’s jaw stops kicking. It’s Twilight, though, who turns her head like an owl to look at me, her eyes as big as any self-respecting night-flying predator’s.

“So, if you have any questions about upcoming kaiju attacks or how she’s enjoying our little corner of Equestria, I’m sure she’d be thrilled to answer them,” I say. “So come on, everybody! How about we welcome Miss Twilight the Ponyville way? Hooray, Twilight!”

I jump up and clap my hooves together like I’ve never clapped before, cheering and whooping, bouncing around—the whole package. It takes me a while to realize that the other noises I’m hearing aren’t coming from other people, but from myself in echoes. Ten thousand pairs of eyes are staring at me as if I’d just turned into Orochi.

It’s Twilight’s reaction I’m most concerned about. I can feel the heat blazing from her face as she turns her mountain driller glare on me for the second time that morning.

She’s mad again. ...Oh! I dip into my tail for a moment and come back out with her map. “Here you go! You dropped this earlier in your attempt to escape me.”

If it was even possible, Twilight’s face turns even redder. Just as I remember she’s probably starving and hasn’t had anything to eat all morning, I notice a storm of magenta magic curling around her horn.

I don’t even have time to duck out of the way.