Pinkies

Inside the deli was a confused mass of pink. There had to be at least a few dozen Pinkie Pies milling about. Some looked identical to the iconic mare, others with subtle differences. Four of them came back into the eating area proper, dragging the bodies of four other Pinkie Pies who had just had a close intimate encounter with the wall. They stood up groggily then stared with astonishment at the sheer amount.

“How has this diner not exploded yet??” John cheered jumping about 3 feet into the air with his hands on his cheeks. “I know!” said another Pinkie Pie they didn't know. “There's enough pink to drown the Taj Mahal!” “Can a building be drowned?” another one said. “Just because” said a fourth. Fifth? “Just because,” said yet another Pinkie in a Brooklyn accent, “we got changed into some hyper pink horse pig thing doesn't mean we're going to wreck the place.” As a matter of fact two Pinkies were not even excited but openly sobbing on each other's shoulder about losing their manhood no homo. Most just seemed to be milling or staring at each other uncomfortably. Every now and then someone would slip and fall over on uncertain legs and cheap linoleum tiles.

Elias was torn between running away and just dying, and was leaning towards the just dying part. Turning into Pinkie Pie had been bad enough, now she was surrounded! She backed up until her rump pressed up against the inner wall of the diner about the same time she noticed another Pinkie Pie huddled against the wall, this one with a straight mane. “Are you OK?” Elias asked softly. The other turned to look at her with scared eyes but didn't answer. After a few uncomfortable moments she put a hoof behind her ear. Elias didn't know sign language but oh. “Are you OK?” she asked again loudly. It didn't come out as more loudly though. Really she was just too scared of her own voice to talk above a whisper. It was no longer that soothing baritone, and while it remained very soothing, she didn't feel comfortable about having Fluttershy coming out of her mouth.

The other pony mouthed w-h-a-t putting the other forehoof behind her other ear, but Elias couldn't hear her, if she was audible. It was so terrible. Here they were in a situation where nopony talked much above a conversational level and she couldn't even make herself heard at point blank range. Summoning up her courage Elias yelled, “Are you OK??”

The delicatessan died to silence as Elias's voice rang out like a bell loud enough to make the windows shiver. Oh no, now everyone was looking at her. “Um... sorry...” she squeaked, shrinking down as far as her hooves would go. Which was pretty far considering she was smaller than most of the other Pinkies, but wasn't nearly far enough at all. Her savior turned to be the straight maned Pinkie she had been addressing this whole time, who stood up and shoved her butt in the way of the other Pinkies. “Yes I'm OK, thanks for asking,” she said in the sweetest voice. It was enough to make Elias feel like a sandpapery sailor, that voice, not whispery but just so very perfectly round and gentle. “I'm a little horse though,” the other Pinkie added as an afterthought.

“Oh that's—” Elias started right at the moment that every Pinkie in the room erupted into laughter. It was like a tactical nuke of funny. The nation of Funnia had all their funny in funny silos and the head funny man pushed the funny button covering the world in a cloud of funny. Seriously you don't crack a joke to a room full of silent Pinkie Pies and expect to have yourself heard for at least 20 minutes thereafter, quiet voice or no. Elias covered her ears, but the other Pinkie touched her hoof to the one on her right ear and she cracked an eye open. Besides that straight maned Pinkie Pie the others had totally stopped paying attention to her, either trying to outdo the joke to each other or bouncing around with an alarming amount of energy or getting distracted by the former two groups. She couldn't hear what the straight maned Pinkie was saying, but she had a smile on her face and helped Elias to her feet.

This new Pinkie Elias saw was a unicorn like Dan, but with her straight and slightly dimmer than bright hair the horn was very apparent. She tilted her head towards the glass door exiting the diner to the outside, and started walking there looking back at Elias. Relievedly Elias went to follow her.

John was too busy trying to summon Pinkiespace™ for the other Pinkies, to notice Elias and whatsername slip outside. Dan seemed to be arguing with several other Pinkie Pies about just what it meant to be Pinkie Pie and how they didn't know anything until they had seen the show. Both of them managed to notice however when a bright glowing dot of light started to expand in the air above the diner. Everypinkie noticed when it glowed brighter than the sun and expanded like a parting curtain revealing the outline of a very familiar Alicorn. No it wasn't Pinkie Pie.

“My Little Ponies,” the floating figure said as the glow began to dim, “There is no need to be afr—Why are you all Pinkie Pie?!”

Twilight Sparkle was hovering above the sea of Pinkies though her jaw seemed to be trying to drill its way beneath the sea of Pinkies. Astonishment was one thing that mare could pull off better than anyone. Of the Pinkies, Dan was the only one who cursed her fate for this being post-season-3 Twilight, since Elias was outside, Dawn had no idea what was going on, and John leapt up screaming “She'll explode you with her horn lasers! Run!”

Chaos cowered in the corner where Elias used to be. It wasn't even going to try to make sense of what was happened right then. But for the sake of completeness, 23 Pinkie Pies started screaming and either running for the door smashing through the windows diving behind the counter or under tables, or just travelling in confused circles (screaming).

“Please! There's no need to be afraid!” Twilight Sparkle yelled out to the bunches of Pinkies who were fleeing. She flapped over to the counter and alighted on it shouting, “Everypony listen to me! This is important!” stomping a princessly hoof in frustration. The answer she got (besides screaming) was a cold cut. A mortadella. That is to say, a hunk of large sausage made from cold dead pig flesh. It smashed into her hair and in pushing up the hair knocked her tiara right off. She stopped in shock, turning around slowly. There were four Pinkie Pies there hefting a large variety of lunch meats, unsliced. A capicola whizzed by her ear.

“What” she managed to say before the volley started in earnest. Twilight charged her horn up but it was too late for that. It was far too late for that. Knocked off the counter by a whole plucked skinned chicken and they were on her. The nightmares would haunt that little pony for many a fortnight afterwards, and all Luna could do was stand there perplexed at the throbbing walls of meat that closed in on Twilight. The corned beef was the worst. So much corned beef. It had been sliced beforehand, but did that matter? No it did not matter. Twilight felt corned beef dripping down her wings all over her tail and into unmentionable places (such as the small of her back (ha, see I mentioned it (off da chainnn))). There was literally nothing left of Twilight beneath the pile of minced ungulates. Her meatness was absolute.

At last the Pinkies ran out of things to throw down on top of the purple princess pony. “Did we get her?” one Pinkie asked the others. With a violet flash the pile of meat exploded outwards bowling over all four Pinkies, who probably shouldn't have been standing on two legs on the counter at the time. A furious Twilight Sparkle appeared looking ready to make good on the accusations of Pinkiecide, and no court would convict her. Stepping back to angle her horn up towards the counter, preparing to leap on it for battle advantage, Twilight stepped down hard on her princess tiara.

“PIIINKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

Leaping up onto the counter was a furious Twilight Sparkle her wings unfurled horn crackling with power the bent tiara vaguely placed on her head and a swarm of floating cold cuts levitating behind her. Someone took this opportunity to jump onto a tub of mustard, the vile fluid spraying out towards the purple unicorn. Only her magic shield saved her eyes from experiencing unfathomable agony and she immediately hurled one of the bolognis through the air, striking whoever it was that created the arc of deadly mustard with a squeak. There was mustard all over her shield now though and she had to drop it allowing the mustard to splat harmlessly on the ground, which was just about when she noticed the stream of bright red ketchup heading straight for her face.

The sickly sweet paste was getting in her nostrils, distracting her from raising the shield again. She managed it though just as a jar's worth of pickles and brine smacked into it. Using magic to wipe away the ketchup from her face like a windshield wiper, Twilight pressed her advantage charging into the back room full of arcane and inscrutable sandwich making devices. There were no Pinkie Pie back here, at least none that could be seen. Twilight was sweating heavily by now, the strain of keeping so many spells going at once getting to her. She didn't let it show on her face though instead grinning pleasantly and spitting out through clenched teeth “Come out come out wherever you are~”

A squeak of fear alerted her to what appeared to be an insulated chamber even deeper into this sandwich complex. Behind it her see-through spell detected a pony quivering back in there. She dropped her shield so she could fiddle with the latch to this chamber, pulling it open with a hiss of cold air. “Ah HA!” she shouted accusingly. Pinkie had put a rolling shelf in between her and Twilight though and the moment the door opened the pink pony shoved the shelf over. Twilight caught the heavy metal row of shelves with her magic but as she did its contents continued to fall downward hurling straight for her!

Twilight was wincing, trying to maneuver around the rain of frozen meats chicken sausages and other sundry that might need chilling to stay fresh. The sausages kept beaning her in the face though, distracting her from holding up the shelf and bit by bit it toppled over until it pressed her and the various meats to the floor. Squeezing through between two of the shelves, Twilight managed to pop out from under there, hooves clattering on the shelf's metal frame as she stared intensely down at Pinkie... at the Pinkie. “Where are the others?!” she demanded to the whimpering pink pony curled up in a defensive curl. Pinkie stuck a hoof out pointing up and to the right of Twilight, not saying anything. Twilight looked back and only then did she notice that one of the cold cuts she had been levitating was actually a Pinkie, who grinned at her sheepishly and waved.

That was when the manager burst through the back door, closely followed by the kitchen workers. He stopped short at the sight of a floor littered with meat and condiments, shelves pushed out of the way or toppled over, the meat slicer not even cleaned properly and a big purple butt sticking out of the refrigerator. “What's going on here?” he demanded, not believing for a minute that the workers actually saw a swarm of pink ponies and not the large opening on top of a bong.

Twilight let the cold cuts drop to the ground and the one Pinkie she did have captured immediately bounded over the counter out of the diner. “Oh hello sirs,” she stated turning around, but the shelf she was standing on was too precarious so she ended up with her feet falling into it, straddling a shelf and looking up to the incredulous humans sheepishly. “There's a perfectly good explanation for this,” she stated unconvincingly, quickly realizing that this situation was getting out of control.

In his shock the manager had grabbed a ladle and was brandishing it defensively. “What... what... explain then!” he said trying to wrap his brain around what was going on.

“Well um...” Twilight kept smiling not at all awkwardly, thinking furiously. Then she pointed her hoof over his shoulder and shouted “Oh no, a manticore!” Her horn glowed and she winked out of existence right on the spot. Moments later she winked back in outside the store alongside one of its walls. She backed up against it gasping for breath. The sound of a car alarm echoed from the distance.

“This might not be as easy as you thought, Twilight” she said to herself abashedly.