Pinkamena Pie's Infallible Cure-All

Pinkamena Pie's Infallible Cure-All

Chapter 2: Up All Night

Chemistry, of course! Pinkie loved chemistry. Other science was fun too, but Pinkie liked chemistry; it was like baking, and baking made her super happy, like, three parties in one day happy! Of course, Pinkie only saved chemistry for her really lonely days, because it was the most confusing and it made her feel less alone than throwing a party without anypony there. After the last time she decided that probably wasn't a good idea. Too bad though, Madame Le Flour was so beautiful and Pinkie really wanted to get to know her better.

That was neither here nor there though, Pinkie decided, and opened the door to the basement of Sugarcube Corner. She surveyed her lab setup. Beakers were strewn haphazardly, caked with chemicals, many of which were technically a violation of Celestia's laws of planar existence, the same laws she established specifically because of Ms. Pie. There were burners and vials and a variety of test tubes of every shape and size. Except for seventeen milliliters, Pinkie went out of her way not to use those. They were too skinny to be that tall, and frankly she didn't understand why anypony used or even made them. Pinkie hated very few things, but those were definitely on the list.

"The first step," Pinkie began, "is cleaning!"

Pinkie's eyes narrowed and she got down to it, scrubbing every piece of glass, ceramic, and wire. She dried of all of her apparatuses—er—apparatusi—apperaten? She dried her things, and selected the glassware for her first project. Well, she really just picked it all up and threw it on the counter to her left, deciding she'd choose as she went.

"Let's see..." She pondered, "Second step is..."

Several minutes passed when suddenly Pinkie sang, "OBSERVATION!"

"So what could I observate?" She stroked her chin with a hoof.

Then it hit her, she could make a candy that never melted away! A big ball of sweetness! Pinkie wasted no time except for a lot. She knew exactly what to do; this project would require a massive amount of both chemistry and baking expertise. And a flugelhorn, but she still had one somewhere.

Pinkie began with the basics, making the candy taste good. She tiptoed into the kitchen upstairs and opened the ingredient cabinet; she chose a mixture mainly comprised of apples and extract of rainbow. To be clear, Pinkie was using an extract of a weather anomaly, not the blood of her friend, although sometimes she considered it. The party pony felt it wasn't a fun enough recipe, so tie it all together and give it exotic flare, she added the leaves of the polyandric saber-fern, which she had been saving for something special. She mixed the flavors and a menagerie of other ingredients in a bowl, making a gooey purple puddle in the bowl.

Now Pinkie was to the second stage: making it last. Pinkie had made candy before with her friend Bon Bon before. They did it a lot actually. Pinkie liked candy. She liked anything sweet, and that's why making this was such a splendifforific idea, she could make exactly what she loved, and she'd only have to do it once! Bon Bon always said that eucalyptus made candies last longer, but Pinkie had no idea where exactly she could find such a plant. Pinkie had some ground pegasus feather though, she figured that the properties of the magical enamel that made the wings capable of resisting the friction of flying would make the candy harder, if not impossible, to dissolve. She mixed it into the purple paste. It fizzled and became a light shade of pink, similar to herself, while also becoming hard, like clay. She poured it out of the bowl and molded it into a large, circular ball.

"Time to bake!" Pinkie threw the into the oven and started to wait.

After one hundred eighty-seven minutes of grueling heat, feverish hunger, and a LOT of sprinkles, her masterpiece was complete!

Well she thought it was complete, technically speaking if it were infinitely enjoyable she wouldn't ever truly be able to tell because she'd never finish it, but after cross examining the tangential matrix of the progression graphs of similar candies Pinkie concluded that it was as close to perfect as anypony could ever need, save for the princesses, but they liked sour candies as Pinkie recalled.

"I shall call it the EverlastingClopstopper!" She mused, pulling a pink,bit-sized lump of sugar glass from the crucible it sat in.

It made sense to her, because any foal who got their hands on one of these wouldn't ever need to clop again!

"Wait I can't do that! Who WOULDN'T want to clop?!?" She dropped the candy, smashing it with a hammer she pulled from—oh why does it matter it's Pinkie?

"But I didn't even get to test it naturally. All I managed were artificial tests. I at least have to smell it!"

Pinkie breathed all of the air out of her lungs, refusing to settle for a small smell of a completely untested product made with highly toxic and hazardous chemicals. She breathed in with all of her might. It smelled great, like blueberries and bananas and Rarity's mane when she's sleeping. She inhaled so powerfully the walls of the basement lab curved inward. She breathed the Clopstopper dust in, forcing a fit of sneezing and coughing and some wonderful feeling Pinkie had never felt before.

Her head was spinning, heart thumping so loudly everything around her shook, and the hammer from nowhere in particular stood and began to change shape; Nightmare Moon towered over her.

"TELL ME MORTAL," she blasted in the royal voice, "WHAT PATHETIC PLOT DO YOU HAVE TO STOP MY SECOND COMING?"

Pinkie was mortified. Not because of Nightmare Moon, anyone who made the mistake of calling Pinkamena Pie mortal often suffered a horrendous and painful end, commonly serving out the remainder of their time on the planet as a batch of delicious cupcakes. What mortified her was the rainbow of colors everything had suddenly taken. Blues were green, reds purple, and Pinkie's own hooves were the color of day-old brownie batter. Also, she had left the oven on, and the Cakes charged her when she used it off hours.

Pinkie ran up the stairs as fast as she could and turned the oven off, crisis averted.

* * *

When she regained consciousness she was lying in a soft, if somewhat small bed, and she couldn't help but notice the presence of a warm body pressed against her back. She reached a hoof back, brushing a wiry mane which coursed with energy, almost like lightning. Pinkie could only think of one pony with a mane like that. Rainbow Dash.