Play this video while reading for atmosphere...
Twilight Sparkle trotted hastily through the well-worn streets of Ponyville with a book being levitated beside her. It was a cookbook that she had borrowed from Pinkie Pie just a day earlier, but after realizing she didn't have the proper set of ingredients yet, she decided it would be best to return the book until she had them in her posession. She reasoned that Pinkie Pie may have a need for the book, so she immediately left her castle and made her way to Sugarcube Corner.
Upon arrival, she knocked three times on the wooden door with her hoof.
She waited for several seconds without hearing a thing, which was unusual for Pinkie Pie. Heck, half the time she knocked on the door, Pinkie Pie was there to answer before she had finished the second knock.
But this time was different, and nopony answered the door. This struck Twilight as a bit odd, but she shrugged her shoulders and turned around from the door, taking a few steps into the street until she figured it would probably be alright if she just came inside and left the book and a note explaining everything. She went back to the door, knocked again just for good measure, then cautiously opened it. It swung inwards slowly with an ominous creak, coming to a restful stop against the wall.
Twilight eyed the room nervously, for what reason she couldn't tell, but nonetheless she felt a small twinge of fear make its way into her heart, sending a shrill shiver down her mane.
She opened her mouth to speak, coughing lightly to break up her throat. "Is anypony there?"
Her words echoed faintly throughout the room until everything went silent once more.
"...I guess not..." she muttered quietly to herself, and made her way quietly towards a suitable place to return the book so that Pinkie Pie would notice it. She glanced around the room briefly, looking at all of the decorations and colorful furniture, but something intriguing caught her eye.
"That's...odd..." Twilight said, eyeing a picture frame against the wall of the stairwell. It was a picture of everypony together, smiling about something. Probably from a big party awhile back, Twilight reasoned. But what perplexed her about the photo was the lack of Pinkie Pie. Upon closer inspection, it almost seemed like there was a small space where a pony would be in the picture, but it was empty.
She eyed the photo, also noticing that it was just slightly crooked. Now, normally Twilight wouldn't be so obtuse as to go around messing with other pony's decor, but her obsessive compulsive tendencies were in full force at this particular moment.
So, she tilted the picture just a smidge. That was a mistake.
Suddenly, the floor beneath her gave out as a trapdoor, sending her plummeting down a small tube leading deep underground. She knocked her head against it a couple of times in the panic that ensued, until it finally stopped. At first, Twilight thought she had somehow triggered Pinkie Pie's party planning room entrance, but upon reaching the end of the slide, it was abundantly clear that she had most definitely not arrived in there...
The room around her was very dark, lit only by a single red lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling. Pictures of ponies completely covered the walls, each of them bathed in the dim red light of the lamp. There were hundreds of them. All individual photos of every pony in Ponyville, Canterlot and probably lots of other places. Several of them were marked off with a red 'X'. Suddenly, she felt slightly woozy and her vision became darkened for a moment or two until she blacked out.
She awoke moments later, rubbing her temple with a hoof and taking in a better view of the room. Apparently she had taken more of a beating from the slide than she thought.
I shouldn't be here. This isn't right. Wait...is that a...pentagram?
Twilight felt a sense of panic. What was going on? The red lamp shone dimly throughout the room. Below it was the pentagram, drawn crudely on the cold dirty floor in some sort of red paste.
"Oh...my..." Twilight muttered as her heart began to beat rapidly against her chest. An immediate feeling of dread swept over her,
sending waves of frisson down her mane in quick succession. Her eyes widened in pure shock at what was before her, and she could feel
her hair standing on end.
I have to get out of here, she thought to herself.
But her morbid curiosity was raging. This wasn't the normal for Pinkie Pie. Not anypony. Pinkie Pie was into some weird stuff, sure, but not secret pentagrams and eerie, damp basements. Twilight walked cautiously along one of the walls, keeping a safe distance from the pentagram in the center of the room. The photos of the ponies lined the walls, covering every square inch. Most of them, Twilight recognized, but there were plenty others she did not. She even found herself and the other four ponies in her immediate group of friends. Some of them had red 'X's painted across.
She brought her hoof up to one of the photos to take a better look, but it broke loose from the pin holding it up sending it fluttering down towards the center of the room, landing directly in the center of the pentagram.
Twilight turned her head and looked down at it. Dead center. It was a picture of Pinkie Pie, of all ponies. Twilight hesitated for a moment before slowly making her way towards the center of the room, walking over the red pentagram on the floor towards the photo of Pinkie Pie. It was one without a red 'X'. She eyed it for a moment, about to levitate it with her magic, but then she glanced at the five corners of the pentagram, which had begun to glow.
Immediately, she jumped back outside the circle, her eyes widening at what was unfolding before her. The corners shone directly upwards, creating beams of crimson light up towards the low-hanging ceiling. The dusty floors trembled slightly as a swirling breeze floated ominously around the circle, slowly picking up speed and debris.
Twilight stepped backwards against the wall as far as she could, wishing she had never decided to snoop around.
In a flash of blinding light, the swirling stopped and the beams of light faded away in a cloud of smoke and debris. After a couple seconds of letting the dust settle, somepony emerged from the center of the pentagram.
"Hello, Twilight."
"...H-Hello...P-Pinkie Pie..."
Her voice was soft and eerie and her shade of coat was slightly darker. "Why am I here?"
"I...don't...know..."
"Why did you summon me?"
"I didn't--I was just..."
Pinkie Pie's voice became agitated and more sinister. "This wasn't the agreement we came to."
"...agreement? What agreement?"
"You should not be here. You should not have summoned me. Only Pinkie Pie may use my powers. That was the agreement."
"But...wait...you are Pinkie...What agreement?" Twilight repeated.
Suddenly, Twilight heard the sound of the trap doors from above her opening and the faint echo of somepony coming down the slide. Emerging from the other side of the room, Pinkie Pie stood on the other end of the Pentagram.
"You shouldn't be here, Twilight," Pinkie Pie said ominously. The lack of bouncy-ness in her usual tone of voice sent a shrill of terror down her mane.
"I know...I was just returning a book and--"
The darknened Pinkie Pie interrupted her, turning to Pinkie Pie. "You know the agreement we came to."
"...I know..." Pinkie Pie replied softly.
"So you know what must be done?"
"...I do..."
Twilight raised her voice. "Will somepony please tell me what the hay is happening here?"
The dark Pinkie Pie turned around once more, remaining directly in the center of the Pentagram. "Your friend entered an agreement with me. An agreement that has just been terminated. I grant her the ability to summon...copies...of ponies, and in return, she gives me..."
"...my soul..." Pinkie Pie added softly.
Twilight's eyes widened as she processed this for several moments. "WHAT? Why?"
Pinkie Pie's head dropped downwards and she didn't say a single word.
The dark version turned to face Twilight. "Have you ever wondered what makes her so...knowledgeable about everypony?"
"No...well, yeah, but...that's just Pinkie Pie...isn't it?"
"There's more to it than that," she replied with a sinister grin on her face as she walked towards Twilight and put a hoof around her with a terrifying look on her face. "I grant her the ability to summon and talk to anypony about their deepest, most personal details, and in return I gain access to her eternal soul. It's as simple as that."
Twilight fumbled for words, trying to grasp what was going on, and finally came back to her senses. "Okay...barring the fact that this is extremely terrifying, what about me knowing about all of this breaks your agreement?"
"A beast of darkness never reveals himself to anypony but those who he is in agreement with."
"But what about the secret party room?" inquired Twilight. "What about all the file cabinets, the documents, the--"
"All of those things, at least...most of those things, she gained right here, through the use of my powers."
Twilight looked at Pinkie Pie, who was laying flat on the cold, damp floor. "Pinkie...is this true?"
She looked up at her with tears in her eyes. "...it's true..."
"But...why?"
"...I just...wanted everypony to be the happiest they could be..."
"And what a noble and selfless thing that is," said the dark Pinkie Pie.
"No it's not," said Twilight sternly, "it's...it's..."
"I'm sorry, Twilight..." said Pinkie Pie, "...I hope that everypony enjoyed their parties while they lasted...because I wont be around for much longer..."
"Pinkie, NO!"
The darkened Pinkie Pie walked slowly towards Pinkie Pie and placed a hoof on her shoulder. Immediately, her body disintegrated in front of Twilight's eyes and traveled up into the darkened Pinkie Pie as a flurry of colorful dust.
"Heh...heh heh..."
Twilight began sobbing uncontrollably.
"Heh heh heh heh..."
Twilight awoke slowly with a horrible pounding on her temple. Her vision was fuzzy as she slowly blinked to get a better view of where she was. With a look of pure confusion, she realized she was still in the dimly lit room with the red lamp casting its rays across the pictures of ponies on the walls. She got to her hooves and looked at the ground in the middle of the room, but there was no pentagram to be seen.
"What the..."
Suddenly, the sound of something tumbling down the slide echoed from behind her. Pinkie Pie crashed into Twilight's back, sending them both towards the ground.
"Hiya, Twilight!" she exclaimed cheerily. "I see you've found my secret room!"
Twilight rubbed her head again. "I...what? But...you were..."
"I was out getting ingredients for some extra special desserts I was planning on baking!"
"But...there was a pentagram right there..."
"Pentagram? Is that...like...a graham cracker or something? Sounds yummy!"
Twilight didn't respond, her thoughts trying to piece together what was going on.
"You don't look very good, Twilight," said Pinkie Pie.
"I'm just...confused...what is this room?"
"Isn't it obvious?" replied Pinkie Pie. "It's a darkroom! For developing photos! I've got this super secret project going on where I'm going to get a photo of everypony I've ever known and put them all together in one big picture! Doesn't that sound awesome?"
"Yeah..." Twilight said absentmindedly, rubbing her forehead, the pain still throbbing.
"Uh oh, did you hit your head on the way down here?" said Pinkie Pie. "This slide's a bit of a doozy...I've been meaning to fix that...you sure you're going to be alright?"
Twilight smiled nervously, her mind still trying to grasp what happened. "As long as you don't sell your soul to a demon, I'll be just fine."
Pinkie Pie leaned in closer and smiled ominously. "Oh...I already have..."
Twilight reared back in shock, her eyes widening. "What? No! You can't--"
"Just kidding!" Pinkie Pie giggled. "How's that? I've been trying out dark humor recently."
Twilight was shaking uncontrollably on the ground.
"...too much?"
