Men and Monsters: Syndication.

Pinkamena hadn’t been running for long, maybe ten minutes or so. She hadn’t just been going in some random direction, but she didn’t really know where she was going either. The Whispers vanished after they talked to her, and then she felt this...urge to go a certain way, it was hard to explain. It was like there was a GPS in her brain telling her where to go, and if she tried to stray from the path, pressure began to build up inside her head until it was a brain aneurysm. It was evidently The Whispers that were doing this, and they were remaining surprisingly quiet as she moved, nothing more than negligible whispering, even quieter than usual.

She at first thought they were leading her back to her house, but then they had her take different turns and now she wasn’t sure where she was going, she didn’t know the city that well yet. She got far enough to where she didn’t hear the sirens anymore, though few people who were on the street around her were talking about what happened. She was currently walking down the street, not feeling a need to run as she wasn’t in any particular rush for whatever they were going to do to her. She had taken her mask off and put her hood up again, the mask got stuffy if worn for too long and right now she didn’t want anyone to bother her.

She didn’t know what time it was and didn’t want to bother checking, but she noticed it was getting dark rather quickly. The sun was setting and the street lights were turning on, more and more people were walking on the sidewalk as she imagined they were returning home or just going to work. She was getting a bit annoyed bumping into that many people, but there was still enough room for her to move around.

While she was moving through the crowd, everything seemed to just...freeze, frozen in time like someone took a picture. Everyone she could see stopped in place, completely unmoving and were in the middle of whatever they were doing. Even the passing cars had ceased, like someone pressed pause on a movie. There was no noise either, all the sounds of the cars driving and people talking halted, not even the distant sound of ringing in her ears Pinkamena had gotten used to due to her tinnitus.

She was unable to move any part of her body except for her eyes, not even able to open her mouth to speak. She couldn’t feel anything either, not even her heart seemed to be beating. For the second time that day, The Whispers were silent. She could not hear their whispering, even her mind was void of any noise, she heard absolutely nothing.

The sound of silence was...deafening, and filled her with a heavy sense of dread and unease.

Then she heard some distant sound, though she didn’t recognize what it was at first, all she could tell was that it was in the direction she was facing. As it quickly came closer, she discerned it as humming, she was just unfamiliar with the tune being hummed. They sounded feminine and childlike, she almost thought it was Alice for a moment. But their voice had a different pitch about it, and there was a sort of...undertone to it, something sinister and malicious in their voice, it was hard to explain.

Soon the source of the humming came into the view, but she could only just barely see them. A small figure was jumping on the heads of people on the sidewalk, going from one to the other like they were playing a game of hopscotch. The people they were stepping on didn’t react at all, though their bodies still moved as they were pushed down.

They had a very small body, resembling that of a child’s. They had to be at least 5’0, or somewhere around that. It was hard for her to see them since they were far and small, but she was able to make out some details about them. They were wearing what looked like a combination of a cape and a robe, as dark as the night and almost comically too large for them. It only covered the back of their body and their head with a hood that was currently up, seeming to glide through the wind as they nimbly bounced from person to person.

The rest of their body was covered in bandages, completely wrapped around every part of them and thick enough to where nothing discernable could be seen, not even their skin color, Pinkamena wondered whether they were like that because they were injured or some sort of disguise.

Their humming stopped as soon as they landed in front of her, their hands extended to their sides as they landed on one leg with their other extended behind them almost gracefully. They then raised their head to look at Pinkamena, putting both of their legs on the ground and leaving their hands to their sides.

“Hello there, pink one. Hmmm, you are much more...intense than I thought you’d be. Haven’t seen you since before everything after all, but I really wish you’d lighten up, that was a part of you I really liked.”

There were two holes in their face where their eyes would be, but there was nothing there. Just black holes where their eyes would be, nothing but darkness behind them. She could also see their mouth move through the mask, but she didn’t see any holes or anything other than the ones for their eyes, Pinkamena couldn’t help but wonder how they were breathing.

There was also something about their voice that was off putting, it just somehow made Pinkamena feel even more dreadful than before. It was distinctly feminine and had a strong accent that she couldn’t quite place, some mixture of european, southern, and a bit indian. It sounded fake, but that might have been because she’d never heard anything like it. They also didn’t seem to have any strange slange or let their accent make them any harder to understand, if it was fake, they were doing a fantastic job at making it seem real.

*It’s almost impossible to tell, so I’m just going to assume this person is a girl and go with that. That doesn’t really help explain their weird appearance or why all of time just seemed to stop when they showed up, I think I’m just so in shock right now I don’t even know the proper way to react.*

“Oh? What’s this? Black hair already? They’re moving awfully fast, guess he’s got them really scared.” She said in a sickeningly sweet voice, standing on the tip of her toes to reach Pinkamena, bringing both her hands up to Pinkamena’s head. “And take off that hood, you’re an adult now, not a teenage girl discovering herself.” She mumbled as she tossed back their hood, grabbing two different black strains of hair in between their fingers.

Being touched by them felt very very wrong, like doing something you know was bad on a fundamental level. Pinkamena could feel the hood being knocked back and her hair moving upward, but she couldn’t feel what was moving it. It wasn’t like wind was blowing around and that’s what was causing it, despite seeing her hands, there simply was no feeling. It was like a ghost was touching her, and it was very frightening.

“Not to say it looks bad, actually kind of like it. If it’s done right, it could actually blend pretty nicely, though couldn’t look nearly as good as black and gold. Then again, I guess you aren’t the one in control of that, huh?”

Their voice suddenly had a colder tone to it, that superficial kindness before being overwritten by their malicious undertone. She had a glint of red behind the black holes where her eyes would be, but it was hard to tell what that was. They didn’t seem to be looking at her, but past her, like her eyes and mind were somewhere else.

“Oh well, no point in talking about things you don’t have control over. I’m sure things will work out just fine!” They said as they let go of her hair, lightly slapping the side of her face as she lowered herself, her voice taking a delicate tone again.

She turned around, their back facing Pinkamena as she walked up to a person. She grabbed their hand and brought it up to their face, putting their pointer finger as far up their nose as she could. She let out a childish giggle, finding what she did to be rather funny.

Pinkamena tried to speak, feeling she could open her mouth slightly if she tried hard enough. Her mouth shook as she tried to speak, just to say anything or make any kind of noise. Then their head snapped towards Pinkamena, as she felt some kind of force push the words she was trying to say back down her throat, her mouth being slammed shut in the process.

“No, no, no! No talking unless it's from me. You’ll ask questions about who I am, how I know what I know, and I won’t be able to tell you, blah blah blah. Done it again and again hundreds of times, I’ve gotten real bored of it. So I’ve decided I’m just going to say what I want to say, and leave like I want to. Probably should have done it earlier, but people never fail to disappoint I suppose.”

She turned her attention back to the frozen people, doing similar types of things to them as she mumbled to herself. “What should I do this time? Talk in only rhymes? Nah, Zecora’s schtick, plus that takes more effort than it's worth.” She said as she walked up to another man, guiding his hands to the body of a nearby woman. She put both of his hands on the woman’s breast, pushing down on them and making them clench around them.

“Speak in allegories? No, Aesop ruined that for me.” She mumbled to herself as she turned to another man, taking little less than a minute to take off his shirt and pants. And just as quickly put them back on, but reversed. Soon the man was wearing his pants as a shirt, and his shirt as pants, and all without them moving.

“Then...vague prophecies that can be interpreted in a lot of ways? Sure, can never go wrong with that.” She said in a peppy tone as she turned back to Pinkamena, walking up to her with her eye holes locked onto Pinkamena’s gaze.

“Now for the hard part, how to start? How about…” Her eyes looked Pinkamena up and down, like she was searching for something. Then she stopped on her chest, seeming to be focusing on something. “The necklace, of course, what better?” She said as she brought her hand up to Pinkamena’s chest, somehow knowing exactly where the necklace was even though it wasn’t visible, and grabbed it by the pendant in her right hand.

She stared at the pendant for a moment, before tilting her head up to Pinkamena, something about their gaze seemed more intense than before. She still couldn’t see the majority of their eye, but her pupil was now visible. It was dark white, almost the color of bone. There was a strange look in their eyes, their pupils were in a constant state of switching between dilating and constricting, like they were unable to focus. But their leer still seemed to pierce straight into her, like she was concentrating on her.

“This will be your marker, your bridge, your anchor. It will be here for the turning point of your life, and whether or not it stays there will depend on what you decide, and who you choose to become. After that, your life will be like a tree; There will be many, many branches. Some of them stop abruptly, most reach the top in the end, no matter how different some of the branches. Your journey, while having many twist and turns, will come to the same end.”

Her voice had become blank, hollow and void of any emotion or tone. Their eyes stared into Pinkamena’s, constricting and dilating, but never blinking or even moving. She let go of the pendant, standing on the tips of her toes again and bringing her hands up to Pinkamena’s face, cupping her cheeks in them. Though Pinkamena couldn’t feel their actual hands, she could feel heat coming off their hands. It was like someone had put two electric heaters straight to the sides of her face, searing pain and heat threatening to melt the skin off of her. But she didn’t feel anything actually burning, nor did she smell flesh melting, though she wasn’t sure if she even could smell at the moment. Whatever they were doing, it was attacking her nervous system directly and wasn’t inflicting actual damage, which just made her wonder why she was doing it.

“You will lose many things and it’ll feel like you’ll never stop losing, but you will also become many things. The hero. The villain. The monster. The arbiter. The lost. The good. The bad. The ugly. You will be many, but you will stay one until you cannot anymore. You will break as you have been broken before, until you look into the mirror and can not recognize who is looking back anymore. Each time you push something else pushes back, just when you believe you have won, you do not realize what you had to sacrifice to get there. Each opponent you face will be worse than the previous one, but you will persevere. You, Pinkamena Diane Pie, will have to throw away a piece of yourself to save someone, but will lose someone else along the way, and parts of yourself you will never get back. What will you become in the end? The savior? The host? Laughter? Everything you do from now on will decide that, but until then, I will watch and be your guide. May the odds be against all your enemies.”

The heat coming from her hands seemed to intensify every second, to the point where Pinkamena had to focus on her words to try to ignore the immaculate pain. She would have screamed if she could, but she wasn’t even allowed that luxury. When she was done talking, she lowered her body again, removing her hands from Pinkamena’s face and to her sides again. As soon as there was no longer contact, the heat just vanished, like it hadn’t even been there before. The pain was gone and even felt cold where it was, she began to question whether it had even been real or her imagination.

“I’d say that’s a lot to think about, but you won’t really remember those words exactly, or any of this conversation. You’ll forget everything that happened here, you always do.” She said the last part barely louder than a mumble, her voice taking on a bit of a sorrowful tone as she glanced away, her pupils fading away leaving only the empty eyeholes again.

*What’s that supposed to mean? Have we...met before?*

Pinkamena felt a mixture of confusion as she looked at them, trying to think if she recognized their voice or their behavior. She couldn’t. Maybe if they weren’t wrapped in those bandages she could tell, but considering she couldn’t even move her fingers, that didn’t seem likely.

“Oh well, no point dwelling on it.” She said as she looked back up to Pinkamena, her lively tone returning like it hadn’t left. “Now you’re probably asking yourself why I’d bother talking with you at all if I knew you wouldn’t remember anything we talked about, I know you are because almost everyone I bring that up to ask about it. And no, you wouldn’t remember this conversation if I decide to have another one with you at a later point in time, doesn’t work like that. Maybe I’ll explain it to you later, depends on how things go. Right now, all I’ll tell you is that something is left behind. After years of experience with this, I’ve learned the message I was trying to send, or the suggestion, stays in your mind.”

As she said that, she hopped off the ground, poking the center of Pinkamena’s forehead. Falling back to the ground with a chortle, Pinkamena could barely see the corners of their mouth turned up as they smiled. “If I give someone a suggestion to do something, it stays after I’ve left, and they usually have a way of convincing themselves they were the ones who came up with the idea. And if I say just the right words in just the right way, I’m basically ordering them to do it, and they do it. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t done this in stuff like politics or something for my entertainment, a girl who doesn’t exist gets bored after all. But also the ideas I suggest have a way of hovering around, and the message I’m trying to get across snuggles it’s way into your subconscious, and things that get into your subconscious have a habit of not leaving and surfacing when you least expect them too. A Freudian Slip is a thing for a reason, you know?”

She said as she walked past her, her footsteps seeming to echo like they were in cave. “I’ve said what I wanted to say though, at least for now. Though considering what’s going to happen soon, might’ve been pointless. Guess we’ll see, huh? See ya later, Pinks. Hopefully.”

There was a loud snapping sound as Pinkamena guessed she snapped her fingers, the noise seemed to echo even louder than her footsteps. As soon as the sound reached her ears, she began being able to feel her body again. Time was still stopped around her, but she felt more..comfortable with it. She decided to take this as an opportunity to try to talk, though she wasn’t sure whether they would let her speak or not.

“What’s...your name?” Pinkamena said in a strained voice, it was a struggle to say even that much.

She didn’t hear her footsteps anymore, so she assumed she stopped wherever she was behind her, she wasn’t able to move much more than her mouth at this point. “My name? Were you not listening? You won’t be able to remember it, but strangely, you’ve never asked me my name before. Hm, alright, I’ll give you my name, and pointless at it might be.”

Pinkamena tried to turn her head to the right, so she could at least see them. She managed to turn it enough to where she could see them out of the corner of her eyes, seeing that they had turned around to face her again with their finger on their chin thoughtfully.

“What name shall I choose this time around? Can’t reuse anything, gives away too much and plus its not fun. Oh, I know!” She said as she turned around, bowing down to Pinkamena with both her arms behind her back.

“My name is Gypsy, and I will be your guide!”

“I’ll...try to remember your name. I’ve always been good with names.” Pinkamena mumbled, finding it was getting easier by the second to move.

“Heh, don’t bother.” Gypsy said with a disheartened tone, raising her head up and turning around. “You can’t, no one can.”

That was the last thing Gypsy said before she walked into the crowd, Pinkamena tried to watch her, but she soon disappeared and hid among the people. The second she lost sight of her, time seemed to start again. Pinkamena turned her head as she heard the sound of a woman screaming, seeing that some pervert had tried to cop a feel and she had slapped him. She was threatening to call the police and he was apologizing saying he swears he didn’t do it, ending with her trying to get away from him. Another guy was obviously picking his nose, Pinkamena made a disgusted face and he seemed to notice, he made an equally disgusted face and pulled his finger out his nose and wiped it on his suit. Another was fell over on the ground, wearing his pants as a shirt and his shirt as pants, she wondered how she hadn’t noticed that earlier.

She looked around and saw all the other people going on with their business, many not even paying attention to what just transpired in front of her. She noticed that somewhere along her stroll, her hood had come off. She found that a bit strange since it had never done that before, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

*Stop lollygagging.*

That was the first time she had ever heard The Whispers talk in her head directly, and hopefully the only time. When they talked, it felt like two hands had wrapped themselves tightly around her brain, putting more pressure on it with each letter.

“Ok...just, please stop.” She mumbled to herself as she winced in pain.

They stopped as she let out a relieved sigh, feeling that same directive in her mind to go a certain direction. She started walking again, trying to shuffle through the crowd to get to wherever they wanted her to go.

But she couldn’t help but feel like she was forgetting something, something really important.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“What...is this place?”

It took her another half hour to reach where The Whispers wanted her to go, that nagging feeling she had in the back of her mind that she was forgetting something having left somewhere along the way.

Pinkamena ended up being led to a forest on the outskirts of the city, a part she hadn’t ever been to before. She was standing at the edge, where there was a view of the ocean. The sight alone was very pleasing to the eye, but combined with the night sky filled with stars made it downright beautiful. She hadn’t seen scenery quite like this before.

What was a bit more perplexing was that someone decided to build a shed out here, and from the looks of it, it had been out here for a few years at least. It wasn’t very big, maybe about the size of Igneouss’ office. It was made out of wood that had faded over time, almost looking dark blue. There were also signs that this was made by one person, some of the nails weren’t hammered in all the way and the placements of some of the wooden planks were off and this was evidently not built by someone who had a lot of experience in construction, but it was done well enough to stay up.

It was in the shape of a large rectangle, even the roof of the building was completely flat. The only entrance she could see was a simple screen door, some of the white paint had started rotting away. There were no windows or anything else that she could see, and there was no light coming through the screen door, so it didn’t seem anyone was here at the moment. It didn’t seem like anyone had been here for a long time either, she noticed that grass had started to grow on parts of the shed as nature slowly overtook it.

“A shed that Igneous built about a week or so before he became leader, did the entire thing himself in about a day, impressive for someone who’s never made something before.”

Alice appeared standing beside Pinkamena, her arms crossed as she looked at the cabin. She had an angry scowl on her face, though she wasn’t looking at Pinkamena so it was hard to tell what at, but it seemed like a mixture of things.

“Igneous needed to be alone sometimes, particularly when something goes wrong or somebody dies or something. He could get away with it before when he was less important and there weren’t that many eyes on him, but afterwards he needed somewhere where they couldn’t find him, so he made one. The first time he disappeared to here The Council got really upset since he always did so without a single word, especially Starlight since she thought he trusted her and told her everything. But after the third time he did it, they stopped worrying and always knew he’d be back eventually. Sometimes he’d come here for just two or three days, when that one guy ‘died’, he was here for a month or so. It was incredibly boring, but it gave us time to think at least.”

Alice began to walk towards the cabin, the grass around where she was stepping didn’t react at all to her, which was disturbing to see. She didn’t look back at Pinkamena, but she got the feeling she wanted her to follow.

“What would he do here?” Pinkamena asked as she walked forward, catching up to Alice and trying to keep pace with her.

“Depended on his mood and why he came here at all. If it was just to get away, usually catching up on some reading or tv. If he came here because he was distressed or angry however, he’d...vent in his own way. He would sometimes spend days in the woods, completely consumed by his animal side as he ripped into anything he’d come across. It had never been anything other than animals, but the way he shredded them apart was so...feral! Sometimes it seemed like he left here worse than when he came.”

Despite their words, there was no tone to their voice. No anger or disappointment, it was completely blank, not even anything about their body language gave away hints to how they were feeling.

It was somehow more terrifying than if they had been openly angry, because Alice seemed completely relaxed, and that scared Pinkamena more than almost any other way they could be acting.

“Then...why did you bring me here? Are you letting me know about this place so I can come here to be alone if I feel like it?” Pinkamena asked, though somehow she felt she wouldn’t like the answer.

“Well, you can if you like. Nobody knows this place even exists, no one alive anyway. You’d have to clean it up a bit since Igneous hasn’t been here for half a year or so, and even when he was here he never bothered to fix anything up or even really clean it. If you decide to come out to be alone every now and again, we won’t try to stop you. No, the reason we brought you out here,”

Alice stopped in front of the screen door, turning her head slightly to the right. She didn’t show anything except for just a bit of her left eye, looking at Pinkamena out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes were half closed as she glared at her, recognizing the sadistic look she was giving.

“Is so that no one will hear your screams. Trust me, you don’t want anything to interrupt what’s about to happen in here.” Alice said in a hushed tone, before walking through the screen door, disappearing once she got to the other side.

Pinkamena tried to not let what they said bothered her, knowing that The Whispers purposely worded things to mess with her, she understood that much about them so far. But usually there was a playful undertone to whatever they were saying, with the exception of when they were threatening or warning them about something. Otherwise they didn’t typically take things seriously, considering they were basically omnipotent, invincible, and immortal, why would they?

But when they said that, there was absolutely no hint they were joking at all, nothing but direct solemnity. That was what scared Pinkamena the most, she would have just walked away if she thought Alice would let her.

Pinkamena gulped nervously and walked forward, trying to ignore the anxiety building inside of her and opening the screen door. It squeaked noisily as it opened and shut, needing to be oiled and cleaned like the rest of the place.

As soon as she walked inside, a pungent odor entered her nostrils and was strong enough to sting her eyes. She recoiled as she shut her eyes, putting her hand on the nearest wall she searched for a wall light. She wasn’t even sure if there was one, but luckily there was and she found it. She flicked it on and opened her eyes, trying to ignore the stinging in her eyes as the room got illuminated. There was a lightbulb connected to the roof, it flickered on and off for a moment before staying on.

She didn’t have time to examine the room, she needed to get rid of the source of that smell first. She followed the smell to a minifridge that had been left open on the right side of the room, the stench coming from various foods and drinks that were well past their expiration date.
She didn’t want to push Alice’s patience anymore than she already had, so she didn’t have time to just reach inside and pull out everything. She wrapped her arms around the fridge and picked it up, unplugging it and leaving it open while she walked towards the screen door. She kicked it open and placed the minifridge on the ground, having it face the woods and leaving the door open to try to air out the place.

The smell still stinged her eyes a bit, but was quickly becoming tolerable. She turned around and took another look at the inside of the shed, actually able to see it properly now. Like the outside suggested, the inside was also very small, all of it being one room. The right side was more or less the kitchen area, though the only thing left was a small, see through cabinet that held the plates, cups, and eating utensils. There wasn’t a sink, so she assumed he just used to wash them in the ocean.

The opposite side of the room there was a small window, not glass or anything, it was basically just a large square carved into the wood. It showed the ocean behind the shed, the light from the outside shining onto a brown leather chair in front of the window. It looked old and beat up, but still seemed sturdy enough to sit on and last a few more years or so. There was a bookshelf to the left of the chair, though it only had six or so books on it. And there was a small tv a few feet in front of the chair, but it looked very old and she wasn’t even sure if it had color.

The only things on the left side of the room was a mattress on the ground, no sheet or bed frame, only a pillow. There was also a pile of various clothes, but it was hard to tell if they were clean or dirty. There were no carpets or anything either, just the hardwood floor that had started rotting in some places. There were also no bathroom facilities, so she assumed he just did stuff like that outside and cleaned himself in the ocean if he needed to.

She wasn’t sure where the electricity was coming from either since she didn’t hear a generator and she was pretty sure there weren't any power lines out here, but she decided not to question it.

“Yeah, when Igneous was out here he was usually very negligent to the place. He didn’t change often and got by on the bare essentials, he was excessively lazy. Usually he was very organized and meticulous, but when he came here, he just turned into an absolute slob. I hope if you decide to stay here every now and again, you at least clean it and have better living standards than him. Assuming you survive this, anyway.”

Alice said as she appeared beside Pinkamena like a ghost, a look of disgust on her face as she looked around the inside of the shed. She scoffed as she began to walk forward, getting behind the chair and looking at Pinkamena. She draped her arms over the chair as she leaned on it, pointing to it as she gestured for Pinkamena to come towards her.

“Sit in this chair, then we can get started.” Alice said with a chilled tone, her face completely expressionless as her desolate eyes stared at her.

Pinkamena took one step forward hesitantly, clenching her fist to stop herself from shaking. “I’m...not going to do anything else until you tell me what we’re here for. I get that you guys are pissed at me for taking the Imperium when you didn’t want me to, and I get now why. The Imperium stops you guys, turns you off, even if for a bit. You’re control freaks and you don’t like that, fine. Even so, you can’t kill me and you know it. So why bring me here?”

Pinkamena was taking a risk by saying what she did, it wouldn’t have surprised her if they had just decided to give her a particularly excruciating brain aneurysm just for talking. Instead, they closed their eyes for a moment. Pursing her lips for a moment with an almost bored expression on her face, before opening them again as her face relaxed.

“What you’ve been asking for: Giving you access to all our memories. That’s all I’m going to say until you sit in this chair!”

Her mouth moved, but the last few words she said seemed to go directly into Pinkamena’s mind. Her voice turning into dozens of other disembodied voices yelling at her at once, putting stronger pressure on her than before. She immediately fell to her knees, clutching her head with her hands as she grit her teeth. It was the same feeling in her mind as on the way here, that they were directing her to go somewhere.

Except this time she knew exactly where the location was.

As soon as the pressure stopped, she slowly got to her feet. She walked forward and sat down in the chair, resting her arms on the sides. She flinched when she felt Alice put her hands on her shoulders, though she reacted more out of seeing them than actually feeling them since her hands weren’t actually there and had no real presence.

“You...said earlier that I’d be screaming. Was that a joke-”

Her question was interrupted by Alice’s cruel chuckling, sending chills down her spine as it seemed to echo throughout the room. “Of course I was serious, what, did you think the process was completely painless? That we could just snap our fingers and you’d be given access to all of our memories? Of course not silly! It’ll be the most agonizing experience in your life, if you survive it anyway.” She said maliciously, lowering her mouth down to Pinkamena’s head so she can speak directly into her ear.

“Die? B-but I thought you needed me alive?” Pinkamena stuttered out, her heart sinking as she felt Alice’s hands slowly move up to her neck, all the heat from her body quickly vanishing and being left with the cold sweat of fear.

“Discord won’t tell anyone this, but not everyone survives the process, very little do in fact. Do you know how many people in the past have been a successful host? Four, as in four who have survived the melding process. But we still gain the memories of everyone we’re put into, even the ones who don’t survive the melding process, so it’s all the same to us in the end. There’s a reason we’re only used in emergencies after all, he knows better than anyone the risk that we come with.”

Pinkamena shivered as she felt the chilling sensation spread up to her face, the only way she had of telling that Alice’s hands were moving at all. She tried to speak, but some mixture of fear and whatever they were doing to her was preventing her from getting the words out of her mouth.

“However, we’ve never been a host to someone in a situation so...desperate as this. The melding process is unavoidable, without doing it, we will eventually fade away. But if you die in the process, someone on The Council, or even worse, your remaining sister will take over. I can give you an almost one hundred percent guarantee none of them can survive it, and then The Syndicate will very quickly plunge into chaos. So, in the scenario you don’t survive, we’re going to do something new. In theory, we should be able to take over your body. Mimicking your personality would be easy, but we haven’t been in actual control of a body in so long that managing everything would be a bit of trouble. But we won’t know until we try, right?”

Alice said in a playful tone as her hands reached the top of Pinkamena’s head, the cold beginning to drill into her temples.

She wasn’t sure what scared her more; what she was about to go through, or what would happen after. The idea of The Whispers controlling her body and pretending to be her was disgusting, but the idea of merging with them wasn’t exactly an attractive alternative. She would be getting answers to all her questions, but at what cost?

She felt the cold at both her temples get more intense, her body shivering as she tried to prepare herself. Then, it abruptly stopped. She guessed Alice removed her hands, heat began slowly returning to her head.

“I have a proposition for you.”

Pinkamena stayed silent for a few moments, expecting her to say something else. When she didn’t Pinkmena could only assume it was because they were waiting for her to respond.

“I’m listening.” Pinkamena said quietly, noticing the sudden shift in tone from Alice.

“No matter what you may think of us, we don’t want you to die anymore than you do. We can’t stop the melding process at all like we said before, but we can...reduce the intensity of it, so to speak. We can make it to where you will only gain selective knowledge, or, their experiences rather than their memories. For example, we gave you just the knowledge of guns when you woke up, that’s how you were able to recognize guns just by seeing them and such. It was to see if we could do so without needing to give you his memories, and it seemed we could.

Now that we know this, we can give you all of their knowledge and experience without the memories. Things like guns, lockpicking, even stuff from some of their hobbies. If we give you just this, the process will be shorter, and there will be a bit less risk. There will also be no issue of you having problems figuring out who’s memories are yours and what memories belong to them, something all the previous hosts had to the very end. However, if we do this, there’s no going back. You will never be able to access their memories, we can not go through the melding process again like that, it will kill you.”

“...So I won’t have access to Igneouss’ memories? He knew who TSK was, and I’m sure plenty of other things you don’t want me knowing.”

Alice only smirked in response, resting on her hands as she looked down a Pinkamena. “There are many things you aren’t ready to learn quite yet. Besides, it’s much more fun to figure it out for yourself, don’t you think?”

Pinkamena remained silent for a few moments, hiding her face behind her long hair. Her entire body remained stiff, almost like she was afraid to move or say anything.

“If I agree to this, will it lower the risk of me dying at all?”

Alice took a bit to respond, in order to build suspense, no doubt.

“It won’t make it less painful, only shorter. But since there will be less information you need to absorb, yes, you are less likely to die.”

Pinkamena hesitantly nodded her head, signalling to Alice that she agreed. Alice brought her hands back up to Pinkamena’s temples, the same cold sensation digging into her mind again. It was not a slow process this time, she almost immediately felt the heat in her entire body vanish. She felt fear encompass her entire body, completely paraylzed and unable to move.

“Just a warning; You may experience some irreversible physical changes or abnormalities after this, it varies depending on genetics, so no way to know what’ll happen. Anyway, good luck!”

That was the last thing Pinkamena heard before she felt the cold sensation enter her mind directly, like Alice’s fingers were entering her brain directly. Numbing not only her entire body, but her mind itself, turning off all her emotions and thoughts for a moment, leaving her blank.

She felt nothing for a minute or so, unable to form a thought or feel anything. Then, like someone throwing a match onto a campfire, she noticed something spark inside the center of her brain. It was similar to the feeling of eating something hot, a warmness that felt like it would fade away. Instead, it got hotter by the second, as if raw coal was being thrown in a fire. It spread throughout the rest of her body, until all of her senses were enveloped by it.

It had burned so fiercely that it felt like her entire body was melting from the inside, her brain felt like it had been left in a microwave and slowly turning into some kind of thick liquid. Her organs were burning so strongly she had almost expected to be coughing up smoke, her arms and legs felt like the veins were replaced with boiling water instead of blood.

She clutched her hands as tightly as she could, feeling that her nails had already extended to claws and dug deep enough to hit bone. She slammed her teeth together so fast and hard that she could feel some of her teeth chip, steam coming out of her mouth as her body tried to repair itself. But the pain from those weren’t even enough to be a distraction from what was happening inside of her body, which only seemed to get worse by the second.

She hadn’t even felt her body move or remember trying to move it, it was like she blinked and she was off the chair and coming face to face with the floor. Her claws now digging deep into the wood, her head pulling back and then slamming into the floor, hoping it would knock her unconscious or something,

It never did.

It was hard for her to pay attention to anything other than the pain, but she could hear screaming. It sounded distant, she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It was loud enough to where it could be coming from anywhere, inside or outside the shed. It sounded somewhat familiar, like she’d heard it before. It was also distinctly femine, though it was so shrill and loud it was hard to tell. The owner of the voice must have been being tortured or something, as they were in clear agony.

She felt stupid when she realized whose voice it was, it was her own screaming.

The screaming stopped for a moment, being replaced by the sound of retching. Pinkamena’s vision had gone pure white from the pain, unable to even see or feel anything but the mind-breaking pain racking through her body. She could feel a warm, thick liquid running down her face, likely blood from slamming her head against the ground over and over again. She could also feel her mouth was wet and sticky, but she couldn’t tell why.

Suddenly, the pain throughout her body stopped. Her body felt normal again, no pain or soreness in her body left at all. Her senses were quickly coming back to her, but strangely, she didn’t feel any pain. Instead, she felt a bit euphoric, like the feeling of relief after a muscle cramp throughout her entire body.

As her vision came back into focus, noticing that she was still against ground, she saw some kind of black liquid. There was a puddle of it right under her, it was a bit thick and was similar to blood. It smelt somewhat like blood, but somehow it was...off. Like it was contaminated or there was something wrong with it, it was hard to explain.

She saw some of the black liquid drip from her head, entering the puddle. She brought her fingers up to her forehead where she had been banging it against the floor, pulling it forward and looking at it. It was covered in the same black substance, she could feel it on her mouth too, was that what she had thrown up earlier?

“Is...that my blood? Why is it black?” Pinkamena whispered, her voice hoarse from the screaming she had done.

*That’s...new, interesting. Anyway, you’re halfway done! Your brain and body have now been successfully molded to the proper shape it needs to be, now comes for the hard part.*

“The hard-”

She suddenly felt something....invade her body and mind, like an entity was forcing itself into her mind. It wasn’t painful exactly, but the word...uncomfortable didn’t seem to fit either. It didn’t seem very bad at first, like some foreign substance entering through her ear or something. But it only seemed to get worse every second, every single part of her body getting invaded. More than just her orifices, it was like something was seeping into every inch of her body. Her skin, muscles, bones, even her organs were being seized.

She was losing sensations in her body and mind, but not the same as before. She could still feel them, but they didn’t feel like hers anymore. Her entire body was in some state of limbo, a mixture of numbness, heat, cold, pressure coming from every angle inside and outside of her body. Any time she tried to move anything, some kind of shock was sent through her body and directly into her brain, causing her to scream as the sharp pain stabbed her brain.

This entity was forcing itself into her body and mind, she could feel it fusing itself with her against her will as she tried to fight it. She could feel her mind going blank as the very essence of who she was was being conquered, she tried to think back on her memories, attempting to focus on some semblance of who she was. As she tried, new memories forced themselves into her mind, placing themselves within her own. The memories weren’t hers, but they fit in her mind like puzzle pieces, like they were meant to be there.

It made it harder to tell what memories were hers and what memories were there’s, only made worse as more kept being inserted.

“My name...is Pinkamena Diane Pie.” She mumbled to herself as she tried to stand up, yelping in pain as she tried to push through it.

*I’d say I’m impressed you can move during this part of the process, but you’re so obscenely stubborn that I doubt there’s anything you can do that would surprise me at this point. Oh well, move as you like, won’t make the process any more difficult. *

Pinkamena got to her feet, trying to walk outside of the shed. Every step felt like she was rolling on a bed of hot needles, sharp enough to dig deep into her body. But she had to move and get out of the shed, she needed to move.

“I...am Regino-no! Pinkamena!” She said to herself in an unsure tone, like she was trying to convince herself of what she was saying.

Every step she took seemed to be more agonizing than the last one, her body felt less like hers with it. More and more memories from other people were getting forced onto her, she couldn’t discern what was hers or not anymore.

“My name is...Clarence, no, yes! Wendy? No, no, no! What is my name? Pinkie? Samantha? I can’t remember anymore!” Pinkamena shouted as she pushed the door open, a mixture of fear and confusion on her face as her eyes darted back and forth, like dozens of different answers were in front of her to one question.

*There’s the identity issues, only gets worse long term. One of the host actually tried to deal with it by switching through some of the memories and becoming the person for a bit, that was...fun.*

Pinamena looked to her right, looking to her right at the ocean. She needed to see her reflection, she couldn’t remember what face was hers anymore. If she could just see her face, she could remember who she is.

*Wouldn’t recommend doing that, can’t really stop ya though.*

Pinkamena got on her hands and knees, lowering her head to the surface of the ocean water. It was still very dark outside, but her vision was good enough to where she could just barely see her reflection. At first she could see her face, her blue eyes and straight pink hair easily recognizable. But as soon as her eyes focused and she saw it, it seemed to...change. It began to shift into the face of a man. She recognized it as the face of one of the memories of the previous host, it was a strange feeling seeing a face that she felt that she’d worn before.

Just as soon as she realized what that face was, it changed again. This time to a different female face, another face she’s worn before. It changed again as more memories were added, each face matching the memories being added. She had to pull away from it, unable to see her face changing like that again and again, it was just making everything worse.

*Alright, that’s the last of the memories. Now, to pull out the ‘people’ part and keep in the
‘Knowledge’ part.*

The feeling of something forcing itself into her entire body and mind was now being accompanied with a different feeling, like something was being forcibly taken from her. Things inside of her that were important to her, that made up who she was. As each thing was stolen, she felt this gaping hole where it once was, missing it like it was something she absolutely needed to have.

Pinkamena fell against the cold dirt ground, the pain in her body seeming negligible compared to the emptiness she felt as memories were taken away. Entire lives she remembered living vanished, only the imprints of them being left over, reminding her that they were there.

Hot tears ran down her face as her mouth opened, but instead of crying, she laughed. She laughed because it reminded her of her the most, but also because she was sad. She had lost so much and taken so much and she was tired of it, tired of everything.

So she laughed like she’d always done, like she’d always do, like she always knew how to do. It filled the forest as tears streamed down her face, losing more and more of herself as more was forced upon her.

She was Laughter, and she was broken.