The solve-it-all machine

“Alright.” Pinkie Pie told the three fillies. “I need to go grab something. While I’m gone, you decide what cutie mark you want.”

“For real?” the fillies asked back.

“Sure for real.” Pinkie replied with a huge smile. “All you’ve got to do is choose the cutie mark you want to have, and paint it on your flank. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“It doesn’t make any sense…” noticed Sweetie Belle. “You can’t make a cutie mark appear just by painting it.”

“Oh but I can!” assured her Pinkie Pie. “You’ll see. I’ve got the powder that solves everything!”

And having said those words, she disappeared through the chimney, fell off the tree and escaped hopping away in a joyous fashion to hide how worried she was feeling about her decision.

All alone, the cutie mark crusaders looked at each other.

“What do you think?” asked Scootaloo. “She has finally become completely insane or what?”

Applebloom didn’t respond but went to a corner of the clubhouse where they would stock their paint and brushes. Sweetie Belle quickly followed her.

Scootaloo sighed, looked at her hooves and realized she shouldn’t worry if Pinkie Pie was crazy or not. There was a chance that everything would be fine in the end and it was worth risking it. All she had to do was to think of the coolest cutie mark ever.

The most awesome, coolest, extraordinary cutie mark Equestria would ever know…

When Pinkie Pie had come back, she saw that Applebloom had painted an apple on her flank. Sweetie Belle had carefully painted three diamonds on hers, three blue diamond shaped, well... diamonds. As for Scootaloo, she had, of course, painted a tyrannosaurus in front of an erupting volcano all surrounded by a huge explosion. And each of the fillies was smiling.

The sighed pleased Pinkie so much that she didn’t resist hugging them.

“So, who do we sell our souls to?” asked Scootaloo, who had come to that conclusion after having remembered some of the ghost stories Rainbow Dash had told her.

“No need for that yet.” Pinkie replied. “All you need is this!”

And she showed them a bag full that she opened and which content she immediately poured onto them, surrounding them of a million sparkles as the magical dust was affecting them. Soon though, every particle of the dust had disappeared, leaving the three fillies in the same state as before, with their badly drawn and ridiculous fake cutie mark on their flanks.

Watching the result, they all sighed and, deep down, almost felt sort of betrayed.

But Pinkie Pie seemed highly satisfied with the outcome and assured the fillies they should go out and show their new cutie marks to everypony.

“But we don’t have any cutie marks.” tried to reason Applebloom.

“Sure you have them now.” Pinkie replied.

“No we don’t.” carefully but directly explained Sweetie Belle, in her own child way.

Understanding the fillies were still reluctant to believe her, Pinkie Pie grabbed them and, before they could say “what is happening?”, had dragged them to the center of Ponyville, in front of the town hall, in the middle of all the ponies, foals and fillies that could now see them and their fake drawing.

Instinctively, the fillies tried to hide their faces, but to their surprise, they heard:

“Scootaloo? Applebloom? Sweetie Belle? You’ve gotten your cutie marks?”

They looked and saw Twist, looking at them with wonder. Near her was Pipsqueak, who also gasped in excitement:

“Wow girls! How did you do that? Everypony said it was impossible.”

As more fillies and foals were coming as the word was spreading that the cutie mark crusaders had, against all odds, gotten their cutie marks, the three fillies began to accept that whatever Pinkie Pie had done had worked.

The best part was when Diamond Tiara, incapable of believing it, came to see with her own.

“I’m sure they cheated once again!” the little bully said. “It’s probably fake. It must be fake.”

She went close, looked at the bad drawing on the fillies’ flanks and backed away a bit, as she was realizing those were true cutie marks.

“So, what do you say? Have we cheated once again?” Applebloom asked with half a grin, and half a very genuine look and tone, as she was considering Diamond Tiara as the final possible test.

But Diamond never replied. She ran away in tears, as what she had said was impossible had actually happened and as, deep down, she was feeling, against her own will and every single principle she had, that those cutie marks were not only genuine, but way cooler that her own.

As for Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, they immediately decided to throw a huge party, probably the best cutie mark celebration ever to have been ever, which was exactly Pinkie Pie’s wish anyway.

The only one who stayed skeptical was Twilight, who still had to admit she had been wrong, even if all she had said was that she couldn’t find any proof that dismissed the book’s theory, at least up to those three fillies’ sudden cutie mark apparition. Nonetheless, she decided, would it only be to gather more data for future research, to ask the three fillies how the cutie marks had appeared.

It took some time and a lot of convincing, but they finally told the alicorn that it was all thanks to Pinkie Pie. So Twilight went to Pinkie, who was discussing with her four other friends.

“The girls say you are the reason they suddenly got their cutie marks.” Twilight explained. “Could you please tell me how it happened so that I might document it?”

“Of course!” Pinkie replied with her usual smile. “I just used my grand aunt magical dust from the solve-it-all machine.”

“The what from what now?” asked Rainbow Dash, who was already lost, as were, to her defense, all of the others.

“The solve-it-all machine.” Pinkie Pie explained once again as if the name was enough of an explanation. “That’s the thing that produces the magical dust that magically solves problems, don’t you know?” she added, almost frustrated by her friends’ ignorance.

Of course, the concept of a machine producing a magical problem solving dust was completely new to everypony except Pinkie Pie. But the others’ curiosity had been awoken and they now all wanted to know more about that machine and dust and whatever that was all about that was able to make cutie marks appear so easily.

“Very cool cutie marks!” corrected Pinkie Pie. “No problemo.” she added. “I can show you the machine. I can show you all my grand aunt’s machines! It’s going to be fun.”

They agreed to all come and meet the next day in front of Sugarcubecorner from where Pinkie would guide them to the place where they could unveil the mystery of the mighty solve-it-all machine.

And also trigger a catastrophic but all too natural chain of event.

A shiver went through Pinkie Pie’s spine, as her Pinkie sense was trying to warn her. But having never experienced that one before, she just didn’t acknowledged it.