“Pppffffhahahahahehahahahahahaqueequeequeequeequeeeeeeee!”
Little known fact about Rainbow Dash: when she honestly laughs really hard, she sounds kind of like a rubber duck. Audible squeaks come pipping out of her mouth. Such sounds were a sign to Pinkie Pie of complete and utter success.
The party pony, sporting a ridiculous looking pair of mustache glasses, continued her totally inaccurate imitation of the traditional griffon dance. She had caught Rainbow Dash in a laughter loop: the more she repeated the original action, the harder Rainbow laughed. The pegasus fell backwards onto the ground, kicking up with her hooves, squeaking uncontrollably. After an entire minute, the laughter finally stopped and she got back to her feet, catching her breath.
"Wewww, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. If you keep making me laugh like that, I might laugh myself to death one of these days." she said.
The sound of thunder roared behind them for a second, making Rainbow Dash turn around. A male pegasus stood on the edge of a cloud, tapping his hoof and giving the two mares a vicious stare.
"Uh, it looks like I've got some cloud smashing to do. See you later, Pinkie." Rainbow Dash said as she flew off toward the cloud-standing pegasus.
Pinkie stood where she was, a look of complete horror flooding her entire face.
"A pony can die...from laughing?" she said.
"So, what makes you three so interested in everfree wildlife all of the sudden?" Twilight said as Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Bell looked up at her enthusiastically.
"We're gonna get our cutie marks as creature catchers!" they all said at once.
“Creature catchers? I see. What kind of creatures do you plan on catching?” Twilight said.
“We heard about this new one at school that looks amazin. It’s got these neat lookin’ spines all over it’s back.” Applebloom said.
“Yeah, and when it’s in danger, it shoots the spines out of it’s mouth. I think it’s called a…uh...”
“A spinecrawl.” Sweetie Belle said, finishing Scootaloo’s sentence for her.
“Isn’t that a little dangerous, girls? I’ve heard that spinecrawl needles are poisonous.” Twilight said.
“Nah, mah sister says they jist knock you out for a little while.” Applebloom said.
"Found it!" Spike said, holding a very heavy book between his claws, "’Creatures of the Vast Everfree by Arvis Marchpony.’ It was bundled up against a bunch of oth—"
“Finally!” Sweetie Bell said, quickly grabbing the book from his hands and just as quickly leaving the library with Applebloom and Scootaloo. Spike sighed as he started walking up the stairs to his room.
“Thank you for getting us that really hard to find, really heavy book, Spike, we're really grateful.'" he said, doing a very poor imitation the trio.
He faded into the obscurity of the upper floors as Twilight resumed reading her book, giggling a little.
Moments later, the library door burst open to reveal an exhausted pink pony with a chaotically frazzled mane and bent mustache glasses. She immediately galloped up to the now slightly disturbed Twilight Sparkle.
“Twilight, I have a very important question to ask you! It could mean the life and death of ponies as we know it!” Pinkie said.
She took in a deep breath.
“IReallyReallyNeedToKnowIfIt’sPossibleForAPonyToDieByLaughing.” she bellowed out.
It took Twilight a few seconds to process the sentence, after which she raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.
“Why do you need t—”
“BecauseIfPniesCnDieByLghingThatMnsThatICnKillPnsByMkngThmLaughWhichWouldMakeMeAMassMurderer!” Pinkie said in one long breath.
“...what?” Twilight said.
“A MASS MURDERER!” Pinkie said.
“Mass Murderer? What are you talking ab—”
“JustTellMeIfPoniesCanDieByLaughing!” Pinkie screamed, heaving heavy breaths like a dog.
There was long a moment of silence before Twilight spoke.
“...oookaay?...so...you want to know if a pony can die by laughing?”
Pinkie feverishly nodded.
Twilight blankly gazed into space as she put a hoof on her chin.
“Hmm. I think I remember reading about something like that a few weeks ago. Spike! Do you remember where I put that book on Equestrian records!?”
“Which one!” Spike said from the upper floor.
“Um...the hardcover one that has a little picture the front!” Twilight said.
“Every book looks like that!”
The cutie mark crusaders eagerly trotted down a path in the Everfree forest, Applebloom and Scootaloo pulling a red wagon with a crudely constructed wooden cage in it, Sweetie Bell looking through a giant book on Everfree creatures.
“So what’s it say? What’s it say?” Scootaloo said, flapping her miniscule wings in anticipation.
“The spinecrawl is a medium-sized reptile of the squamata family that is most widely known for the sleep inducing spines it shoots out of it’s mouth.” Sweetie Bell said.
“Ugh, we already know what it is? We wanna know how to catch it!” Scootaloo said.
“Okay, um...” Sweetie Bell quickly scanned the pages of the book, “...the spinecrawl is greatly disturbed by high pitched squeaking noises.”
Scootaloo giggled a little. “I guess it’s a good thing we have you then, Sweetie Bell.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sweetie Bell said.
“Yah know, ‘cause o’ the way your voice squeaks and cracks whenever ya get upset?” Applebloom said as she joined in Scootaloo’s giggling.
“WHAT!” Sweetie Bell said in her trademark cracky voice, “My voice does NOT squeak!”
Which made both of them burst into laughter. Sweetie Bell threw down the creature book in a fit of rage.
“Stop it, guys! My voice doesn’t SQUEAK!”
Scootaloo and Applebloom continued to laugh. The more Sweetie Bell tried to argue her case, the more squeaky her voice became. She screamed an incredibly high pitched scream that rang loudly through the Everfree forest, disturbing several of its creatures.
“MY VOICE! DOES NOT! SQU—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
A needle rushed past Sweetie Bell’s ear and slammed into a tree behind her. The three fillies stared at the needle in the tree, then they tentatively looked toward the bush the needle had come from. An angry looking spinecrawl slowly emerged from the foliage, its spines active and ready for a fight. The crusaders smiled in whispery glee as they prepared their cage.
Pinkie, still wearing a pair of mustache glasses, nervously swayed back and forth, biting at the tips of her hooves as Twilight looked through the copy of “Bizarre Pony Deaths” Spike had given to them. The tension was un-freaking-bearable.
“According to this book, there are only three cases of death caused directly by laughter in the entire written history of Equestria. The first one happened when a laughter spell was cast but never undone; Ferdinand Trotsworthy laughed for five straight minutes before eventually dying from oxygen loss. The second is suspected to be caused by old age rather than laughter because the pony who died, Emily Gallopeon, was over a hundred years old at the time. And the third, hmmmm.”
“What? What?” Pinkie gulped.
“The third happened in Canterlot, twenty-seven years ago. Romana Horsefetch had, reportedly, found a joke so funny that she laughed at it for twenty minutes before falling to the ground and dying abruptly. That doesn’t seem like—”
“So, does that mean it’s possible?” Pinkie said.
“Yes,” Twilight said, closing the book, “but it’s very unlikely. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” She smiled and gave a wink.
“...yeah, I guess so.” Pinkie said, not meaning it in the slightest.
“Well, I’m glad I could be of service to you, Pinkie.” Twilight said.
Pinkie awkwardly trotted away from the library, her eyes refusing to focus on any one thing for too long. Twilight had said death by laughter was very unlikely, but did Twilight know how funny Pinkie could be sometimes? Did Twilight even consider that Pinkie might be the funniest pony in Equestria? No, she didn’t, so she might’ve been wrong about Pinkie having nothing to worry about. She might’ve made a huge mistake in her calculations.
Pinkie’s nervous movements made her mustache glasses slide down her snout a bit.
“Kgh...gheheeheeheeheehee!”
The sudden sound of a giggling stallion startled Pinkie. She turned around and saw that the stallion was giggling at her.
“Umm...” she said, her lips curling into an unnatural smile, “...w-what’s so funny?”
“Your face!” the stallion said, pointing a hoof at her glasses. He slapped his knee and burst into full on laughter.
Her face? There was nothing wrong with her face. Her face was perfectly normal just like everypony else’s. It couldn’t be her face he was laughing at; that would make no sense. He had to be laughing for some other reason. Some darker reason. Something like...a condition.
Pinkie gasped. What if she had caught some sort of disease that made ponies automatically laugh at her, some sort of chronic giggle syndrome?
The stallion’s laughter grew rapidly. It sounded unnatural, strange, dangerous.
But it was okay, it wasn’t like he was gonna to die or anything. Death by laughter was very very rare.
“Hahahahahhaaaa.”
It hardly ever happened.
“HAHAHEEHEEHEEE!”
A pony would have to laugh an awful lot to die by it.
“HEEHEEHOHOHOHOHO!”
The stallion fell over onto his back as he continued to laugh.
“HOHAHEEHEEHEE!”
He wasn’t stopping.
“HEEHAHOHOHO!”
HE WASN’T STOPPING!
Pinkie bolted away, hoping beyond hope that the laughing stallion was just some crazy pony.
But, as she feared, her ‘condition’ persisted. Every single pony she ran into started laughing hysterically for no reason, shouting crazy things that made no sense at all like “Those glasses!” or “Nice Mustache!” Pinkie quickly realized that the only way to avoid making ponies laugh at her was to leave town. She dashed away from Ponyville, heading straight towards the Everfree Forest, where she was sure she wouldn’t—
“Ahhggg!” Rainbow Dash grunted as Pinkie slammed into her, making them both tumble into a pile of leaves.
“What’n’the hay was that?” Rainbow struggled to her feet. “Who—”
The eyes of a desperate a pink pony staring at her through mustache glasses cut her words short.
“Heh heh heh, Pinkie Pie? Why are you still wearing—”
But Pinkie shoved a hoof into Rainbow’s mouth, silencing her.
“Dashie,” she said desperately, “I’m afraid your life is in danger.”
“...why?” Rainbow said, growing serious.
“Cause you might,” Pinkie gulped, “laugh yourself to death.”
Rainbow Dash snorted a little.
“Dashie, I’m serious! You could actually die!” Pinkie said.
“That’s what you’re all worried about? Pinkie, I’m not gonna...heheheh...die by laughing.” Rainbow said, starting to giggle.
“But you COULD die by laughing! You’ve got to stop, or you will!”
Rainbow giggled some more.
”STOP LAUGHING! RIGHT NOW!” Pinkie screamed. Her mustache glasses were inches from Rainbow’s face, which made Rainbow notice that the mustache twitched and vibrated at every word Pinkie yelled.
“Phmfff...mfffp...mmpaahahahahahahahahahahaha!”
“WHATAREYOUDOING!? STOPIT DON’TDOIT! STOPIT!” Pinkie said. Her utterances sounded more like random animal sounds than phrases, a fact that made Rainbow laugh even harder. Extremely high pitched, “queequee” squeaks forced their way out of her mouth as she fell over onto her back, kicking her legs like a crazy pony.
“NOOOOO!” Pinkie screamed. She tried everything she could think of from vigorously shaking Rainbow with two hooves to violently slapping her in the face, but no matter what she did, Rainbow wouldn’t stop laughing. Anything Pinkie tried doing to prevent the laughter only made it worse. The pegasus was going to die. It was going to happen any second.
But it never did. Rainbow Dash squeaked like crazy and kicked her legs tons and tons of times, but she never ended up kicking the bucket. She rolled around on the floor squeaking and laughing for three whole minutes before finally settling down.
“You...you’re not dead.” Pinkie said as Rainbow got to her feet.
“Of course I’m not dead,” Rainbow said, “I’m not gonna die by laughing. That’s ridiculous.”
She gave Pinkie a little nudge in the shoulder and smiled.
It took a moment or two of staring at her definitely-still-alive friend for Pinkie to realize that she may have misjudged her situation a teeny tiny bit. It took a few moments more for her to realize that she may have misjudged it a lot. A whole lot.
Pinkie smiled. Rainbow Dash was right. Pinkie was being ridiculous, absolutely positively ridiculous. More ridiculous than a bunny with wings. More ridiculous than a pile of oatmeal eating a bale of hay. She began to giggle.
Rainbow joined in the giggling, giving her friend another nudge in the shoulder. Pretty soon, they were both laughing merrily, Pinkie’s fear shrinking away into nothing. Their laughter grew until Rainbow’s laughs became another series of high pitched squeaks.
“Haahaahaqueequeeeuqeeeee, I can’t believe you really thought I was gonna d—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
Rainbow Dash let out a whimper and thumped on the ground like a dummy. A sleep-inducing needle was stuck in her ass.
Pinkie stared at the limp body in front of her for five agonizingly long seconds.
“OMIGOD, I killed Rainbow Dash! AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh! AHHHhhhhhhughh!” Pinkie screamed as she tripped over herself trying to back away from the body. She rustled to her hooves and galloped away, screaming “I’m a murderer!” every few seconds.
A spinecrawl burst out of the undergrowth, pissed beyond all recognition by the high pitch of Pinkie’s vocal chords. It ran after her like a crazed old war veteran, preparing to shoot more of its needles.
“I can’t believe you let him get away!” Scootaloo said, bursting out of the bushes at full gallop.
“Me!? It was Sweetie Bell’s stupid squeaky voice!” Applebloom said.
“No it WASN’T!” Sweetie Bell squeaked. Several needles were tangled in her hair.
Without thinking at all, Pinkie galloped straight back into Ponyville, mustache glasses meandering all around her face. Every three seconds or so, she screamed, and every scream that came out of her mouth sounded slightly different.
“Wow, a street performer.” a random pony said.
A huge circle of ponies formed around Pinkie, all of them laughing and applauding at her. She desperately ran around the edge of the circle, attempting to address each of them at once.
“YOU GUYS HAVE TO STOP LAUGHING! IF YOU LAUGH TOO MUCH YOU’LL—”
ffffffffffFFMP! ffffffffffFFMP! ffffffffffFFMP! ffffffffffFFMP! ffffffffffFFMP!
Each airborne needle narrowly missed Pinkie and hit one of the laughing ponies. By the time she had finished her sentence, ponies were thumping onto the ground like body bags. Pinkie’s eyes grew red vanes.
“OMIGOD! I’M A MASS MURDERER! I’M A MASS MURDERER!” she screamed as she bolted from her fallen compatriots.
The spinecrawl furiously followed, getting more and more agitated by the combination of Pinkie’s high pitched voice and the amount of needles it was wasting trying to silence it.
Twilight Sparkle magically closed the library door, ready for some fresh air and sunshine, but the sound of galloping hooves made her turn around. It was Pinkie Pie.
“Pinkie, why are you still wearing that silly—”
“DON’TLAUGH!” Pinkie said as she covered Twilight’s mouth with a hoof.
Twilight snickered a bit into Pinkie’s hoof, making Pinkie’s head jerk backward in fear.
“No, no, you can’t lau—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
A needle whizzed past Pinkie’s face and hit the side of Twilight’s neck.
"Heeeee." Twilight said through gleeful teeth as she fell to the ground like a dead piece of meat.
Pinkie’s left eye twitched violently, but before she could begin to contemplate what had just happened, she heard the sound of gentle hoofsteps behind her. She turned around to see Fluttershy trotting down the road, carrying a big bag of fruit and vegetables.
Pinkie lept into the air to get her friend’s attention.
“Fluttershy, whatever you do, dont lau—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
A needle whizzed beneath Pinkie’s airborne body and landed dead center in Fluttershy’s left thy. The yellow pegasus let out a squeak and fell to the ground, pieces of fruit rolling out of her basket like little balls of death.
“Sweet Celestia,” Pinkie said, “they don’t even need to laugh for me to kill them anymore!”
She immediately began crying loudly.
Which got the attention of Rarity, who was magically levitating a brand new dress to one of her clients.
“Pinkie? Whatever is the matter?” she said.
“Rarity, you can’t—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
Rarity’s body thumped onto the earth as she dropped her shiny new dress into the mud, completely ruining it.
“Spike, you have to—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
“Carrot Top, don’t—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
“Dr. Whooves—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
“Lyra—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
“Bon—”
ffffffffffFFMP!
ffffffffffFFMP!
ffffffffffFFMP!
ffffffffffFFMP!
“Oh, Applejack, I totally forgot about y—!”
ffffffffffFFMP!
The spinecrawl, having completely run out of needles and having completely failed at its mission, scampered back to the Everfree Forest, leaving every single pony in Ponyville knocked out. Only one glasses-wearing mare remained. Her pink mane was straight and her distraught face was streaming with endless, comically large tears. Everypony was dead because of her. She was a full blown murderer now. She’d have to leave Equestria forever and become a lone wanderer. She would have to come up with a new name, a new identity, a new...huh?
Pinkie’s ears perked up at the sound of trotting hooves. She turned around to see the cutie mark crusaders, alive and well.
“Darn it, we missed him!” Scootaloo said as she slammed her hoof into the ground.
“I wonder who’s fault that is.” Applebloom said.
They both looked accusingly at Sweetie Bell.
“Don’t. Say. A word.” she quietly squeaked, eyes fuming with hatred.
“You’re alive!” Pinkie said, a smile of endless joy jumping onto her face. She ran up to the little fillies and gave them a group hug, squeezing their bodies tightly together…
...which made the the needles in Sweetie Bell’s hair slowly pierce each of the crusaders.
They fell to the ground, one after the other, like little sacks of wheat.
Pinkie stood there for a good long moment, contemplating what had just happened. After a minute or so, her left eye twitched and her lips curled into the most unnatural smile imaginable.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I used to think that jumping to conclusions was always the super duper best thing a pony could ever do when she was scared out of her wits, but then I found out that I HAVE A DISEASE THAT FORCES PONIES TO LAUGH AT ME UNTIL THEY DIE, AND I’VE ALREADY KILLED EVERYPONY IN PONYVILLE, SO YOU TOTALLY HAVE TO LOCK ME UP IN SUPER TIGHTLY SEALED JAIL BEFORE I KILL ANYPONY ELSE!
Your faithful subject,
Pinkie Pie
An amused smile appeared on Celestia’s lips as she placed the hastily-scribbled letter onto a table. She turned to the panicked pink pony who had spent the last three hours galloping to Canterlot to deliver the letter.
“My dearest Pinkie Pie,” she said, giving her subject the warmest look in the universe, “It seems to me that your ‘laughter disease’ is much less dangerous than you imagine it to be.”
“B-but everypony I’ve run into today has started laughing at me for no reason.” Pinkie said, tears appearing on her face.
“No reason, are you sure?” Celestia said, magically plucking the pair of mustache glasses from Pinkie’s head.
Pinkie’s eyes gawked.
“I...I was wearing those?”
“All day long.” Celestia said.
Pinkie stared at the hovering glasses in disbelief. Celestia smiled warmly.
“The damage you’ve done in Ponyville may also be much less dangerous than you imagine it to be.”
“What do you mean?” Pinkie said.
Celestia closed her eyes, making her horn glow. An image of Ponyville appeared before them. All of the supposedly dead ponies were now slowly waking up and getting to their feet. Pinkie stared at the image, eyes ablaze in sudden comprehension.
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.” Pinkie said.
“As you can see,” Celestia said calmly, “your little laughter problem is as innocent as a—”
“My disease turns ponies into zombies!?”
Celestia’s face contorted like a corkscrew.
“Kch...PHff...Tcshh…”
“Princess Celestia, what’s wrong? Are you choking!?” Pinkie said.
“Khg...KheeeeeheeheeheeheeheehahahaHAHAHAAAAA!”
Celestia fell to the floor, legs kicking, wings beating, tears streaming out of her eyes.
“HOOOOOOOOOHooHooHooHOOOOOOOOOOHooHooHooHooHooHOOOOOOOOOO!”
Little known fact about Princess Celestia: when she honestly laughs really hard, she sounds kind of like an owl.
THE END
