It had been a great Party. Pinkie's parties always were.
Music, dance, games, food, beverages and crazy party ponies, all swirled together in a delightful chaos Discord himself would have considered a good starting point. In fact, there might have been a certain connection between the consumption of beverages and the rise of average craziness over the evening. Not long ago, cider had been the "wildest" thing Twilight Sparkle had ever tasted in her young life. Pinkie Pie had changed that. Even Berry Punch had to admit Pinkie had a talent for mixing drinks.
By now most ponies had left. It wouldn't be long before dawn. Only the mane six remained in the party hall, which was known on regular workdays as the ground floor of Twilight's library. Her friends had promised to stay overnight so they could help her clean the place up first thing in the morning.
The six fillies were sitting on the floor in a circle, sharing what was left of the Pinkie-punch, as well as a bottle of water in hope to somewhat mitigate the wrath of the hangover that was looming on the horizon. It was said that diamond dogs would consume fish as a remedy, but that option didn't look very attractive to the ponies.
"Waddaya say, girls", Pinkie said, "Who's up for one last party game?"
"I don't know, sugar cube", Applejack said, "you know I like me a competition, but it's awfully late..."
"You mean early."
"I mean early, and the thing is... now what was the thing again... Oh yeah, mah brain. Can't really handle a challenge anymore it can't... It could use some rest that's what it could use."
"AJ's brain chickens out of a challenge, that's a shock", Rainbow Dash produced, "guess we have to pick on someone our own size..."
"Hey now", the workhorse said, "who are you to talk to me like that?"
"Who am I? ...That's a good question, actually..."
The cyan pegasus looked at her own reflection in the punch glass, saw the bright colors of her mane and grinned. "I know WHAT I am. I'm awesome."
"Darling, please don't shake your mane like that. It's making me dizzy", Rarity requested, turning a little green around her nose.
"We're getting off topic!", Pinkie Pie complained.
"Have you ever been ON topic?"
"Just so you know, some of us are more sensitive to the probability fluctuations of our multiverse than others."
"Uh?"
"I wanna play Grossbucket."
"What's that?"
Pinkie gasped."You have never even played Grossbucket! Never fear, aunt Pinkie is here to teach you. Isn't she awesome?"
"I'm the awesome one", Rainbow Dash objected in a surprisingly timid voice, pleading for comfort. The private party in Rainbow's blood had reached the "sentimental" phase.
Rarity petted her on the head. "Sure you are..."
Rainbow was purring like a kitten.
"So", Twilight asked, "what kind of game is it? I'll probably regret that question."
Pinkie Pie put the now empty punch bowl in the centre of their little circle.
"It's very easy. Everypony will add something to the Grossbucket. It has to be somewhat organic, and it has to be equally or - even better - more gross than what the previous pony has contributed. But girls, no excrements please. That sets the bar way too high way too early."
The other mares shuddered even thinking about it, although... wasn't there a short, yet intense glammer of fascination in Rarity's eyes?
"Rarity, you start!", Pinkie said, shoving the bowl in the direction of the white unicorn, grinning from one ear to the other.
Rarity looked quite sceptical for a moment, but then she just shrugged it off. Working in a fancy boutique and aspiring to become a world-fameous fashionista, she was supposed to be neat and ladylike 24/7. She loved that lifestyle, but right now, in these early morning hours, in the midst of her closest friends and with the substances travelling through her bloodstream, she decided it was time to take a break.
"Gee, I wonder what Rarity is going to pick", Applejack was gloating, "A slice of orange, perhaps?"
Rainbow Dash let out something between a hiccup and a giggle.
Rarity merely smiled. She got up and picked up a leftover fruit from one of the tables. It was an orange, alright. She started to peel it, slowly and carefully. Then, without a single warning, she put it into her mouth in one piece, lowered her head into the bowl and slowly squeezed it out again between her teeth. The result wasn't exactly orange juice, nor fruit salad.
The other mares were staring at her in awe. Applejack even clapped a little.
"Alright! Rarit-teeh! Not bad."
Rarity wiped orange residues off her snout and returned to her mysterious smile. "Just be glad I squeezed it with my mouth this time." Whatever that was supposed to mean.
"Ah guess it's mah turn", Applejack said, "and Rarity got me an idea."
"You're not exactly the mare I'd expect to have ideas of her own", Rainbow Dash blurted out. She was rewarded with a friendly punch on the shoulder.
Like Rarity before her, Applejack found her raw ingredient among the pitiful leftovers of the party snacks.
"Behold, sugar cubes", she mumbled as she turned around again, parting her lips so they could look into her maw, "sugar cubes!"
"Really... impressive?", Rarity suggested.
"And what happens when you dissolve sugar cubes inside your mouth?"
"They dissolve inside your mouth?"
"Oh yeah. That's an adequate way to put it."
"I count five sugar cubes", Pinkie pointed out, "Is that an act of symbolic cannibalism, AJ?"
"Take it as a sign of my appreciation for you sweets."
She was holding her head up so that the saliva gathering in her mouth wouldn't start dripping out. Simply closing her mouth didn't occur to her.
"I wish I really was one of those cubes", Rainbow Dash said. She had reached the "horny" phase.
"Maybe after you take a shower."
After a few minutes, the workhorse emptied the content of her mouth into the bowl.
"There. A little sugar for the juice. From AJ with love."
Rainbow Dash considered this to be her mark.
"I think it needs a little spice. And it's getting awfully hot in here, don't you think? Two words: Armpit Icecream. Or are those four words... ?"
Remarkably enough, Rainbow melted the cream without starting to shiver.
"Sugar cube, that's beautiful."
"Wanna lick away what's left?"
"Don't push your luck."
"Who's turn is it?", Pinkie asked, "oh wait, I know... Fluttershy!"
The yellow pegasus had already dozed off, wrapped in a cute little blanket. The other mares d'awwed at this precious sight.
"Well, there's no helping it, we have to wake her up. We can't do this without her", Pinkie said, gently pushing her feathered friend, "Wakey-wakey, Fluttershy!"
Fluttershy blinked into the light, obviously confused about her current wereabouts. She always found a way to break her own records of cuteness.
"...Uh...?"
"We're playing a game, Fluttershy", Pinkie explained to her in the patient and gentle voice of an experienced caregiver, "It's called Grossbucket. You need to come up with something gross and add it to the mix. The last ingredient was icecream melted in Dashie's armpit juice."
"...Oh my... that DOES sound like Rainbow..."
"You know it, sis!", the other pegasus mare said proudly.
Fluttershy got up, a little shaky on her legs, and stared down into the punch bowl. It was probably a good thing she wasn't entirely awake yet.
"...Does it have to be something... big?", she asked.
"Nope!", Pinkie Pie chirped, "Just gross!"
"...Alright, then..."
It looked as if the yellow mare was concentrating very hard. Then she sneezed. It was as loud as it was... fruitful. Even though she hadn't announced it as big, it had turned out to be quite a substantial contribution.
"Gesundheit, mare. Wow. I can still hear that one ringing in my ears. I think you even sprayed something on us..."
Fluttershy was blushing a little. "...I think I might have caught a cold."
"We'll get you some tea."
Twilight, who had been smiling at Fluttershy and helping her back into the blanket, was suddenly distracted by a movement in her peripheral vision. As it was usually the case, it was a sign of Pinkie-activity.
"Pinkie... why are you... stirring that stuff?"
Pinkie didn't bother to look up from her gruesome work. Round and round the punch goblet went. Twilight would have to throw it away later. Also the bowl itself for that matter.
"It's traditional. Also, it's your turn, Twilight."
Well, there it was. Twilight had been thinking as hard as she could in her current state, but she hadn't been able to come up with anything. It was probably the most stupid competition she'd ever been in - okay, maybe not quite the most stupid - but she didn't want to fail so early on. Right now, she wanted to participate in her friends' stupid fun more than anything.
"Let's see... gross... gross..."
"At least as gross as Fluttershy's contribution", Pinkie reminded her.
"...Uhm, good luck, Twilight..."
And suddenly, inspiration struck.
Twilight jumped to her feet. "HA!"
Applejack twitched a little. "Woah... careful there, mare... you're giving me a headache..."
"I can give you a head-lick if you want", Rainbow offered.
"I'll be right back, girls!" Twilight darted upstairs. A little too fast perhaps: she wasn't able to walk straight anymore, let alone run straight. Also, the world started to swirl in front of her eyes and her brain seemed to rotate in the opposite sense. Yet her enthusiasm made up for her lacking sense of balance or direction. That was drunk-pony logic, but Twilight somehow reached her destination, with just a few accidents that would leave bruises along the way. Even now she had the good instinct not to teleport. Magic and cocktails were an explosive mix.
She returned with a little purple archosaur on her back.
"...Why are you waking me in the middle of the night again, Twilight..?", Spike mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
She put him down, and they were all staring at him, grinning. That was bad.
"Uh.... you guys okay?"
"!Spikey-wikey!", Rarity blurted out and yes, she did so with the two exclamation marks.
"Hiiiiii there!"
"How's it goin' little fella?"
"Are you ready to party?"
Spike took a step backwards.
"I thought the party was over...?"
"It's called an after-party! And it looks like you’re our special surprise guest! You get to stay up with the grown-ups."
At this point, Applejack remembered something. Something important.
"Spike... Spike."
The workhorse came closer, until Spike started to feel seriously uncomfortable. Her breath didn't really help either.
She was clearly trying to sound dead serious, as if there was going to be a revelation of grave implications. It would have been more impressive though if her eyeballs had been able to agree on a spot to focus on, instead of doing 'the Derpy'.
"Spike... I need to tell you something. I've been putting this off, like, way too long, oh boy..."
She took his little hands into her front hooves, and he needed all of his strength to repress a desperate call for mommy. The closest thing he had to a mommy right now was just as drunk and dangerous as the rest of them. Story of my life, he thought.
"Spike... that one fateful day of the diamond dog Rarity rescue adventure day... thingy, where you had this fishing rod and you were all daydreamy-like and you almost kissed me by mistake..."
Spike's face turned very hot. He gulped.
"Uuuuh!", Pinkie Pie moaned in anticipation.
"Remember that day, that moment, little Spike... Remember how you almost kissed me?"
"Yeah...?"
"Well, I'm glad you didn't. Now that would have been weiiird."
She let go of his hands. He sighed in relief.
Not a second later, Rarity was shoving her aside.
"Now, Applejack, please. You can't just hog Spikey-Wikey all for yourself like that..."
As Rarity was approaching, sliding over the floor by draging herself on with her front legs, the little dragon was feeling... conflicted.
He was almost glad when his master placed herself between him and the white unicorn.
With a grin as large and stupid as that of the others, Twilight brought her face in front of his, their foreheads almost touching.
"I need your help for something. It'll be fun!"
Spike pulled away before she could drool on his head. He was gentleman enough though to hold out his arms so that she didn't fall down as she lost her balance.
"You guys sure you're okay?"
-"More than okay!Twilight is going to show us a neat trick... and it involves you! Isn't that right, Twilight?"
Spike frowned. "And what would that be?"
Twilight petted him on the head. "Did you notice you're covered with scales...? Anyhow, Your special talents are required."
-
A few moments later, a very spooked and confused little dragon was running back upstairs into the bedroom so he could hide under his blanket.
The giggles of the fillies followed him all the way into his nightmares.
Drunken pony girls were SCARY!
"!Thaaaanks Spikey-Wikey!"
"Congratulation, Twilight. Though technically Spike did all the work, but he is your assistant after all so I guess that counts..."
And so it went on and on. The game even had an unexpected useful side-effect: they were cleaning up the residues of the party by adding them to the mix.
And when Pinkie was finally forced to empty her stomach into the bowl as she was looking inside, her friends knew they had met her expectations.
"That was surprisingly fun", Twilight said. "What happens now?"
Their Grossbucket was truly a sight to behold. Disturbing, smellier, more stomach-turning than anything they had seen before - and that’s saying a lot considering the fillies had already encountered the dark lord Cuckoolhu and his minions several times. Yet somehow one couldn't help but feel proud.
WE made this, Twilight thought. 'We saw what we had made, and behold, it was very gross'...
"Someone will have to drink it", Pinkie said.
The others were staring at her for a second, then they all rushed forward to throw up into the punch bowl. Which, of course, made it worse, and a little vicious cycle began.
"Pinkemina, in all due respect, but I think I speak for all when I say none of us is going to actually..." Rarity couldn't even finish.
The others were nodding, but Pinkie merely shrugged.
"Somepony is going to drink it. That's the thing with Grossbucket. No one wants to, but sooner or later someone will. It's magic, I think."
Applejack was shaking her head. "Now that's nonsense-talk. We'll just throw it away."
"That'd be nice, but we won't be able to do that. Even if there was a conventional method of garbage disposal that could handle something like this."
The others frowned.
"Why's that?"
"Because we love it too much."
They were appalled. Yet deep down in their drunken hearts, the fillies knew it was true.
Rainbow Dash was the first to snap out of it.
"Oh, for crying out loud...!"
"You gonna drink it?"
"What...? NO! But I will take care of this. It's really not that big a deal..."
They sealed the punch bowl so that it wouldn't spill over, and Rainbow flew away with it as the sun was starting to rise. Her flight wasn't eaxctly steady, and she planted the seeds for one or two major meteorological catastrophes along the way, but it would have to do.
-
She wasn't gone for long. Without a word, she walked back into the library with the bowl on her back.
"You couldn't leave it, could you?"
Rainbow was slowly shaking her head.
It was Rarity who cried out what they were all thinking.
"It's our BABY!"
They put the bowl back into its spot. For a while, they were just staring at it. It seemed to be staring back.
“Maybe we can just... you know... keep it. Raise it as our own. It IS our own, after all.”
Twilight was shaking her head.
“Rainbow, the smell is only going to get worse, until it engulfs the entire town. And that’s not all... See that glow?”
“I do!”
“That’s from... well, my contributions. And Rarity’s as well. That thing got unicorn magic in it. It might be dangerous.”
The mares tried to imagine what that abomination would look like going on a rampage.
“How gross do you think he will be when he’s all grown up? Will he be writing fanfiction?”
“He? I believe it’s a ‘she’. We should settle this right now, since we’ll have to give her a name...”
“How did we get into this mess?”, Applejack moaned.
“That’d be my fault”, Pinkie Pie said.
“Oh yeah.”
“You see, girls, I forgot the single most important rule of Grossbucket: Never play Grossbucket.”
“So it is true”, Rarity said, “Someone will really have to ingest it?”
“That’s my understanding of it.”
They were all frozen in place. All but Rainbow Dash.
“I’LL DO IT! I’ll go for it.” She had reached the "ridiculously heroic" phase.
“That’s very brave of you”, Twilight said.
“Yeah Rainbow, take one for the team!”, Applejack added.
The pegasus leaned forward, gathered all of her courage and prepared to dive right into it. But then she made the fatal mistake to open her eyes before breaching the surface.
“Ehm, sugar cube”, Applejack said, “That’s kinda the opposite of what you said you’d do. Also, I didn’t think you had still anything in yah.”
Rainbow gave her friend a sheepish grin. “Buckey and I might have had a little snack on the way back.”
“Buckey...? Wait. You have been FEEDING that thing?”
“Why, yes, he was looking awfully hungry.”
“SHE!”
“Alright, girls”, Twilight Sparkle said, “Looks like there is only one solution to this. Rarity or I will have to hypnotize one of us.”
The young mares were looking at one another.
“But how do we determine the... chosen one?”
Their gazes moved back to the punch bowl.
“First one who’s running out of ideas for things to add?”
“Sounds fine to me.”
-
“Uuuugh...”
Twilight emerged from under a pile of books.
She didn’t remember much. There had been a party, sure... But after that, everything was blank.
Why did the birds have to cry so loudly? If somepony was murdering them... Why didn’t it STOP?
Not far from her, Pinkie Pie was raising her head as well.
“MY BRAINS! The water didn’t do ANYTHING!”
Startled by the sound, Rainbow Dash fell off the chandelier.
Which, in return, made the other ponies twitch.
Fluttershy dragged herself to the closest window and opened it. She was about to get awfully out of character. Her voice was like thunder.
“SHUT UP!”
As painful as that was, it actually calmed the birds down for a while. One of the woodpeckers even fell off his tree.
Also, Applejack fell of the chandelier right onto Rainbow Dash.
Attracted by the ruckus, Spike waddled into the room.
“Morning you guys. Who’s up for some fresh orange juice?”
The very word sent orgasmic spasms through the ponies’ mutilated corpses.
-
They were sitting around the breakfast table, and as miserable as they were, things could have been worse. Spike had even made pancakes.
The little dragon was shaking his head. “I had the weirdest dream last night... Like, Twilight had taken me downstairs and you guys made me do some really strange stuff...”
Twilight thought that this was ringing a bell, but she decided not to investigate any further.
“And I didn’t even have that much punch at the party... Twilight wouldn’t allow it.”
The word ‘punch’ was ringing a bell too.
Rarity sighed. She was already starting to feel better, and her generous side was allowed to return.
“Aren’t you going to have anything, Spike?”
Spike just shrugged.
“No thanks. I already had a big breakfast. I hope you don’t mind I finished the stuff you had put in the punch bowl. It smelled awesome.”
The little dragon returned to the fridge to get more orange juice.
