"Thank you all so much for coming! It means so much to Gummy," Pinkie announced to her "real" friends.

To say that Pinkie Pie, party extraordinaire, used to be happy would be a massive understatement. For most of her life, one would very rarely come across her and not see a huge smile on her face. Even when it seemed as if there was no reason to be so happy, the party pony always somehow found it in herself to grin.

It could reasonably be argued that her former friends were the biggest reason for her supposedly eternal elation. Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack were the best friends anypony could have ever asked for. When she wasn't throwing a party for one of them for whatever reason she could come up with(whether it be their birthday or the first time they ever ate one of her special cupcakes), she was simply jovial to be in their company. She would support them whenever they felt down and vice versa, and Pinkie Pie really couldn't have asked for a better group of friends.

...That is, until they ditched her.

After celebrating her pet alligator Gummy's birthday with her friends, Pinkie got the idea to throw an "after-birthday party". For whatever reason that she couldn't put a hoof on, her friends all seemed to be avoiding her, coming up with any excuse they could to make it seem like they were too busy, such as Twilight having to "hit the books"(though Pinkie didn't understand why hitting books would be that productive) or Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy having to babysit a bear that plays volleyball and collects seashells(or was it "collects volleyballs and plays with seashells"?).

Even at her most direct, the most explanation that Pinkie could get as to what was going on was that they were doing construction in the barn at Sweet Apple Acres. With nowhere else to turn, she interrogated Spike, Twilight's baby dragon and #1 assistant, for answers, using gems, his favorite snack, as a bribe.

"W-What do you wanna hear? Tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it!" Spike had cried.

"Tell me that my friends are all lying to me and avoiding me because they don't like my parties and they don't want to be my FRIENDS ANYMORE!" Pinkie shouted at the top of her lungs, causing her to breathe heavily from the anger building inside her and the effort it was taking to get answers.

"Your friends are all lying to you and avoiding you 'cause they don't like your parties and they don't want to be your friends anymore!" Spike answered.

So with Pinkie's suspicions confirmed, her mood, and as a result, her appearance, changed drastically. If somepony were to see her at this point, they would see a sort of...misinterpretation of what Pinkie Pie should be. Her coat took on a notably duller shade, the smile that used to be near-permanently plastered on her face would more often than not be absent, and her mane went from poofy and bouncy to straight and flat, the hair going down the side of her face.

But what did Pinkie care? Her so-called "friends" had ditched her! If they didn't want to attend her parties anymore, so be it. She would throw Gummy's after-birthday party anyway, with some other friends who would actually care what she had to say and who would appreciate the effort she puts into her parties.

"Could I have some more punch?" said a bucket of turnips.

"Well, of course you can have some more punch, Mr. Turnip." Pinkie replied, giving Mr. Turnip a glass of punch.

TWANG!

Even as Pinkie interacted with her true friends, she could feel pieces of herself getting yanked out bit by bit. The pony she used to be was becoming more and more of a memory with every second.

"This is one great pahty! You've really outdone yourself!" a pile of rocks exclaimed.

"Why, thank you, Rocky." Pinkie said a little haughtily.

"I'm having a delightful time as well." a clump of lint stated.

"I'm so glad, Sir Lintsalot," the party pony answered.

TWANG!

See? Pinkie thought to herself. These guys actually care about me. Why did I even bother with those ponies? I had actual friends all along!

"I'm just glad none of them ponies showed up." Rocky said.

...Though it doesn't do better to talk about them.

"Oh, they're not so bad..." the pink pony replied, right before her pupils started moving away from each other in a reverse cross-eye.

"Not so bad? Puh-lease! They're a buncha losers!" Rocky insulted.

Pinkie's eyes went wide, shocked that Rocky would use such a word to describe ponies, much less those she used to call her friends. He was always so kind and loving. Sure, he was brash and bold sometimes, but he would never resort to insults.

Then again...he might not be wrong... Pinkie thought.

"...Oh, c'mon now. 'Losers' might be a little strong, don't you think?"

Sir Lintsalot practically scoffed at that. "After the way they treated you? I say 'losers' isn't strong enough."

"Well, it was pretty rude..." Pinkie remembered, looking down at her hooves.

"Pretty rude? It was downright deespicable!" Madame le Flour, a sack of flour, shouted in her heavily accented voice. She may be fancy, but she wasn't afraid to get down to the meat of things when time called for it.

"It was, wasn't it?" Pinkie said angrily, her resent for her former friends growing more and more with every word her real friends spoke.

"If I were you, I wouldn't speak to them ever again." Mr. Turnip surmised, his ever-wise side coming out like it always did.

The more Pinkie thought about it, the more she found them right, and so she came to her decision.

"You know what? I'm not gonna speak to them ever again. And I'm not gonna invite them to another party as long as I live! They don't deserve to be invited to my parties."

TWANG!

"Not after the way they've been acting..."

Every attendant at the party cheered her on, praising her for coming to the conclusion she did. Pinkie herself, on the other hoof, felt a strange mixture of emotions for her decision: happiness that she wouldn't try to have anything to do with those traitors anymore, anger that they would act in such a way towards her, and, oddly enough...sadness. Sadness that her friendship with the rest had to end the way it did.

After such a long time of having met what she considered the best ponies she had ever met in her life, Pinkie Pie never considered that they would turn on her, not least as suddenly as they seemed to have done. They could have at the very least talked to her about it, and they would have come to a compromise together. But instead, they resorted to avoiding her and excluding her in everything they did. If they were so willing to do that, then what reason could she have to trust them, let alone invite them to her parties? In this regard, she was glad to have found proper replacements.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

--

Pinkie Pie is going to love this surprise! Rainbow Dash mused as she flew towards Sugarcube Corner.

Rainbow had been tasked with bringing Pinkie over to Sweet Apple Acres for her special surprise birthday party. It was the least they could do for such a wonderful pony, especially one that always put together such exciting parties and brought a smile to their face every chance she got. It might be a crude set-up for what they could get, but it was sure to make Pinkie happy regardless.

Though Rainbow(and the others, she was sure) did notice something...odd about the party pony. Okay, "odd" might be an understatement. They were only trying to hold a surprise for her, so they had to be secretive about it, of course. But as a result, Pinkie seemed more vitriolic, vexed, and suspicious than she normally would be.

Well...maybe it's just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie. Rainbow contemplated. After all, she's said and done a lot weirder. I still remember when she used musical instruments to get rid of a swarm of parasprites...and it worked!

The pegasus landed on the balcony on the second floor of Sugarcube Corner and knocked on the door.

--

"Who could that be?" Pinkie asked, perplexed.

Who and for what reason would somepony have to see me now?

The door opened, revealing Rainbow Dash, which caused Pinkie's face to turn into a scowl.

Ugh, what is SHE doing here? Finally come to apologize? This had better be a darn good one...

--

"Hey, there, Pinkie Pie." Rainbow Dash greeted. "Sorry I was in such a rush earlier. Had some place to be and couldn't slow down and say, 'Hello.' You know how it goes."

"I know how it goes, all right." Pinkie grumbled through clenched teeth.

Before Rainbow could say anything more, it hit her just what a strange image she was looking at. She noticed Pinkie's change in appearance, with the duller coat and flat mane. If that was all that was odd about this, she could have just written this off as "Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie". For all she knew, the party extraordinaire might have just decided to go for a different look today.

No. What was really strange about what she was looking at was literally everything else.

All the chairs around the table were taken up by not ponies, but a weird collection of objects. A bucket of turnips, a pile of rocks, a clump of lint, and a bag of flour surrounded the table, making up the party guests.

Okay, this is crazy even for Pinkie Pie...

"...Yeah...so, why don't you come with me over to Sweet Apple Acres?"

"No thanks. I'm spending time with my real friends. Isn't that right, Madame le Flour?"

At first, Rainbow expected that Pinkie would stay silent after this, expecting the bag of flour to actually respond. But what she did instead was arguably more disturbing: She wrapped her forearm around the bag and changed her voice to a more accented one.

"Oui! Zat is correct, madame!" Pinkie said, voicing the bag of flour with a crazed look in her eyes.

Rainbow narrowed her eyes a bit, feeling uneasy. She's seen her friend do silly stuff before, obviously, but this was the first time the pony seemed...unhinged. At least, more so than usual.

"Uh...Pinkie Pie?" she asked, unsure of whether the pony she was talking to was even Pinkie Pie at all. In what seemed an attempt to ignore her, Pinkie merely grabbed a plate with a slice of cake and offered it to the lint, which she then gave a deeper voice thanking her for the food.

Run. Run far away. Rainbow's inner conscience told her.

I can't do that! She's my friend...I think...

"Aaallrighty. What do you say we get on out of Creepytown and head over to Applejack's-"

But before she could properly finish her sentence, Pinkie pushed the bucket of turnips closer to her. "She's not going anywhere," Pinkie voiced for the bucket in a gruff voice.

"I most certainly am not. I'm having a wonderful time right here." Pinkie huffed.

Rainbow went around the bucket in an attempt to convince her, but she was now stopped by the pile of rocks. "You heard the lady! She ain't goin' nowheres, chump!"

At that point, all common sense seem to have left Rainbow Dash, and she responded to the rocks. "Who you calling a chump, chump?!" With a little touch by her nose, the pile of rocks fell apart.

...Did I seriously just try to intimidate rocks? she thought to herself. I think all the weirdness is starting to get to me...

"That's it, party's over. Come on, Pinkie Pie!" she ordered, flying over the guests and landing behind the pink mare.

"No!" Pinkie whined.

"Pinkie Pie, let's go!"

"I said 'No'!"

Now the pegasus began trying to push Pinkie towards the door.

"Ugh...what is wrong with you?! Why are you acting so weird?!" Rainbow questioned.

"I'm not acting weird! You are!" Pinkie countered.

Rainbow kept pushing, but it seemed that Pinkie wasn't moving an inch. Even through all the anger, confusion, and exhaustion she was going through at the moment, she was surprised at how strong Pinkie seemed to be. After all, Rainbow Dash was the athletic one! If anything, Rainbow should have gotten her to the stairs by now.

"You...have to...come with...me!" she grunted.

"No...I...don't!" Pinkie shouted, lifting her back hooves and kicking, sending Rainbow Dash flying into the table, destroying it.

Looking back, Pinkie could see that Rainbow Dash was trying to recover from the blow, as well as the fact that there was a bit of blood coming out of her nose. She didn't care at the moment. Rainbow was trying to take her away from her happy life, and Pinkie couldn't let that happen. Rainbow put a hoof up to her nose, looking at the blood on it, and glared at Pinkie.

"Okay, fine! You don't want to come, don't! See if I care!" she said, sprinting out of the room and flying back towards Sweet Apple Acres, leaving Pinkie huffing in anger.

Rainbow Dash simply couldn't believe it. Not only did her friend seem to change in attitude in the span of less than a day, but also kicked her and drew blood from it. She wouldn't expect any of this to come from Pinkie Pie of all ponies.

She's just a jerk! She seemed much happier staying with those...those...things! If she doesn't want to do anything with me or the rest of us, then she can just go die in a fire for all I care!

Don't you think that's a little much? You don't know what she's going through. It could be something else entirely...

Rainbow Dash wanted to give Pinkie the benefit of the doubt. She wanted to think that whatever was going through Pinkie's mind at the moment had nothing to do with her. She wanted to potentially make it up to her somehow, figure out what was wrong with her and how she could fix it.

But now, she was too caught up in her resentment and anger to care.

She reached Sweet Apple Acres and opened the barn door, greeted by a shout of multiple voices shouting "SURPRIIIIISE!" Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack were all standing in a line, ready to welcome Pinkie to her surprise party. But when they saw that only Rainbow was present, their smiles shrunk down into looks of befuddlement.

"Uh...where's Pinkie? Isn't she coming?" Twilight asked.

"No! She's not coming." Rainbow grumbled. "She was too busy hanging out with her 'real friends'." She put her hooves up in the air and made quotation-mark gestures as she said the last two words.

"Rainbow, you're supposed to bring her here no matter how busy she is!" Twilight stated.

"I concur." Rarity agreed. "This is her birthday party, after all! And..." Rarity then noticed something about Rainbow's face. "Um...why is there blood coming out of your nose?"

"Because she kicked me!" Rainbow shouted. "She was too stubborn to go, so I tried to push her out. But she kicked me into the table and did this to me!"

All the others adopted looks of shock. Pinkie? Pinkie kicked Rainbow? Although Pinkie liked to say she loved all her friends equally, they always got the sense that she liked Rainbow the most. Not that they minded that much, seeing as how she was kind to all of them regardless. But the idea of her committing directed violence against any of them, let alone Rainbow, was ludicrous.

"Well...maybe she didn't mean it?" Fluttershy suggested.

"Of course she did." Rainbow said. "She didn't seem to regret it."

Applejack put a hoof to her chin in thought. "Maybe she's just...not in the mood? Ah mean, maybe she just needs time to herself to sort out whatever she's got going on. Maybe having us around would just make it worse?"

"Maybe..." Twilight said. "I just hope that she's all right."

Rainbow sniffed, wiping her nose with a hoof, cleaning it of blood.

--

Pinkie watched Rainbow fly out of Sugarcube Corner with her eyes glaring, breathing heavily in frustration. But after a few seconds, her expression softened to one of anguish.

"Oh, no...what have I done...?" Pinkie mumbled to herself. It helped her to actually voice her concerns, whether somepony was around to hear it or not. "Did that...really call for a kick?"

Of course it did.

Pinkie's eyes went wide. This wasn't her inner thoughts or her conscience. It was the voice...it was back...

""N-No, it didn't! Rainbow Dash was my friend! I didn't have to kick her like that!" Pinkie shouted, trying to make the voice go away.

Friend? You're really calling her a friend after what she did to you? What they all did to you?

Pinkie groaned and rubbed her head with her hooves, trying to push the voice back, make it not so loud. "Ugh...no...I'm not going to listen to you. I got rid of you a long time ago. Maybe a treat will make you go away again." She started heading towards the stairs, making her way to the bakery to bake something for herself.

You liked it, didn't you?

The mare stopped in her tracks. Even though the voice didn't have a physical form, obviously, she could still feel as if it smiled.

I knew it. The pony that wronged you. The pony that avoided you, rejected you, made you feel like complete and utter garbage. Didn't it feel so satisfying to give her the kick she deserved?

Pinkie thought about how it felt when she kicked Dash and saw the blood coming out of her nose. Seeing such a terrible pony get the punishment she needed...she hadn't felt that way since she was a filly...

"Well...I guess it did feel kind of nice..."

The voice giggled deviously. You see? You've been so nice for so long, you've forgotten how it feels to deliver justice and release all that pent-up fury. And now that you've been reminded of it...would you like to do it again?

After considering it for a minute, Pinkie had to admit that the idea was enticing. She had spent almost her entire life making everypony else happy. Why shouldn't she indulge herself a little?

"...Yeah...Yeah, I would."

Wonderful. Now get out the equipment.

Seemingly following the voice's orders without thinking, she went to her closet and got out the secret box she kept in the far corner, where nopony but her could find it. Once she used the key taped on the inside of the closet door to open it, she found that the box still had the scalpel, the butcher knife, the hacksaw, and several needles and liquids of various purposes.

We've got work to do...

Author's Note

Words can't express how excited I am to finally be doing this story. I've always had an adoration for the darker sides of the MLP: FiM characters, and I wanted to pay tribute to them in the best way I could. I played around with doing analyses of the different ones I came across, but then this idea came to me: A fanfic that's both a unique story and a loving send-up to those darker characters. I've had to rethink and retool this story countless times just to make sure that all the characters, details, and themes were just right. Rest assured, I've got all the story and details planned out, and I'm intent on making it to the end. To my everlasting shame, an older version involved a self-insert.

...You can understand why I scrapped that idea.

Some of you might be wondering why I decided to have the first chapter be uploaded on Halloween. Well, admittedly, the story will be a slow burn to get to the really intense stuff. But let's just say...there's a reason that I chose this day to start this fanfiction.

Happy Halloween! :D