The Elements of Disharmony

"I...I don't know about this..."

"Trust me...it will all be worth it in the end..."

Pinkie was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, conflicted over what she was about to do. The voice in her head had reasoned that the best way to start her new life would be by delivering some long overdue retribution. It would only be a taste of what was to come, the voice explained. Whether that was good or bad, Pinkie didn't know...and wasn't really sure she wanted to know.

"But...but what if Twilight sees me? What if all my friends see me? What if they report me to somepony important?! What if I get sent to Tartarus?! What if-"

At that moment, the front door knocked, signalling the arrival of her "guest". Pinkie gulped nervously and headed toward the door.

"Do everything like you did before, and you won't have to worry about all that..."

Though still unsure, Pinkie thought that at this point, it was best to just take the voice's word for it. Taking a deep breath, she put on a smile and opened the door.

"Welcome back! Glad you could make it!" Pinkie greeted with a delighted tone.

"Yeah, yeah, lame-o. Let's just get this over with."

Gilda was standing at the doorway, looking disgruntled over having to travel all the way from Griffonstone just to see what her old foe wanted. A few months back, Gilda had visited Ponyville so she could catch up on old times with Rainbow Dash, who she had met at flight school. But seeing how Pinkie had tried to butt in and muck up all of that, Gilda had tried her hardest to make sure that nopony would interfere with her visit, sabotaging Pinkie's innocent attempts to hang out with them. In the process, Gilda also stole apples, pranked Granny Smith with her tail and making her think there was a snake slithering around, and made Fluttershy cry by roaring at the pegasus at the top of her lungs. Thankfully, due to a misunderstanding involving a celebration party and a series of pranks that Gilda happened to set off all of, Gilda was revealed to be a complete jerk and Rainbow chased her off, upset that she ignored Pinkie all this time. Even Twilight, who was concerned that Pinkie was just jealous, apologized to the party pony for jumping to conclusions.

And now this jerkish griffon was standing on Pinkie's doorstep once again.

"Well, what are you waiting for, silly? Come on in!" Pinkie exclaimed, moving aside to let Gilda inside.

Walking inside, Gilda looked around the inside of Sugarcube Corner, the memories of the party flooding back to her one-by-one, resulting in anger and resentment building up inside. "Now, dweeb, what was it that you-" Gilda said, taking another look at Pinkie and stopping herself. "Uh...did you do something to your hair?"

"What do you mean?" Pinkie asked, but upon instinctively reaching up to her mane to feel it, she realized what Gilda meant. Her hair was still straight rather than poofy. Though her smile faltered a little, she gained it back and giggled innocently. "Oh, silly me! I guess I forgot to fix my mane up this morning. Don't worry, I'll get it done in a jiffy!" Then, out of seemingly nowhere, Pinkie pulled her party cannon out and, without explanation, put her head inside the barrel and fired. The roof received some holes as a result of part of the blast going past her head, but when she pulled out, her hair was just as poofy as it was before Gummy's after-birthday party.

Gilda witnessed all of this with a bewildered expression, thinking about how odd this pony was. "Uh...okay..." she responded, deciding to file this event under "weird, lame ponies doing weird, lame pony things". "Let's get one thing straight; the only reason I'm even agreeing to...whatever this is in the first place is so I can see how much it fails. It'll be a good laugh. So let's just do it so I can get to work."

Pinkie tried just barely to maintain her smile amidst all this negativity.

"Good idea, grumpy-pants! I just wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings between us, so...I made you a cupcake!" Pinkie said, pulling out a plate with a cupcake on it from out of her mane. Gilda looked at it and narrowed her eyes, scoffing.

"That's it? That's all you wanted me here for?" Gilda asked, chuckling a little at how measly this "super-duper important" thing really was. "Wow, you're even lamer than I thought."

"Oh, it's not just a cupcake. It's the most extra-special uber-delicious cupcake I've ever baked! And not to toot my own horn, but...that's really saying something." Pinkie replied, smiling a little smugly at her own bit of self-aggrandizing.

Gilda looked at the confection for a few more seconds, then groaned. "All right, fine. I'll try it. I'm sure it'll taste terrible, though." She picked it up between her talons and tossed the entire cupcake into her mouth, chewing on it and gulping it all down at once.

"So...what do you think?" Pinkie asked, acting as though nothing was going to go wrong.

"Well...it wasn't bad, I'll give you that. But I don't see what's so...so..." Suddenly, Gilda felt a little dizzy, and her senses started seeming to fade away. Her vision slowly became more blurred, any sounds she picked up sounded more and more muffled, and she found it difficult to keep her balance. "What...what did you...put in...?" Before she could finish her sentence, she lost consciousness and collapsed onto the floor.

At that moment, Pinkie's smile went away and her jovial expression was quickly replaced by fear. "Oh, no...what have I done? I...I gave her too much! I killed her!" she shouted, sinking to the floor in shock and exasperation.

"Oh, hush. You didn't kill her. She's just knocked out. Look, see? She's still breathing." the voice reasoned. Calming down a bit and looking closer, the voice proved to be correct. Gilda's body was moving rhythmically up and down with her breathing.

"Well...okay, she's still alive now, but...but what about what we're going to do to her? She's gonna die, anyway!" Pinkie told the voice.

"Of course she will. But don't you think she deserves some harm? After what she did to you just for the sheer crime of wanting to hang out with a friend, don't you think some punishment is necessary?"

"Well...Rainbow did tell her off..."

The voice gave a little snicker. "And you think that was enough? Look at how she treated you just today! In my opinion, she hasn't been punished enough. Trust me, this is for the best..."

Pinkie Pie was at possibly the biggest crossroads she had experienced in quite a long time. On the one hand, she reasoned in her head, dealing with Gilda would make her feel bad afterwards, because she would never intentionally harm anypony, unless they were entirely evil and tried to take over or destroy all of Equestria. On the other hand, it would also feel like justice was finally being properly served, like Gilda would finally be getting what she really deserved after treating her and her friends as badly as she did. On top of that, Pinkie would feel a sense of power that she hadn't felt since she was a filly. She would feel like she was the true judge of the matter, that she reached the verdict herself, and dealt the recompense of her own volition.

Pinkie had to admit, the latter was definitely more enticing.

Dragging the unconscious griffon to the basement, Pinkie sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Of course I do. I'm your conscience, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember. And consciences are always right...right?" Pinkie asked.

"Right." her conscience replied. "Now, it's been too long. Let me take over again."

Though reluctant, Pinkie relented and let her other side take control. Once again, her mane went flat and fell down the sides of her face, and her expression now had a smile, not one of traditional joy and delight, but one of cunning and a sense of justice.

"Ah...much better. Now let's get down to business..."

--

When she opened her eyes, Gilda thought she had entered some kind of nightmare. It took a few seconds for her vision to clear, but when it did...it still felt like she couldn't see anything. She was surrounded in darkness, and for the first time in a long while, she felt fear creep into her mind; uncertainty filling her thoughts as she wondered what in Equestria could be going on.

She tried to move, but found herself unable to do so. All her limbs as well as her wings were being held down by very tight restraints. Whoever was doing this definitely had some experience when it came to kidnapping and containing other creatures.

With nothing else that she really could do, Gilda resorted to the one thing she could: Scream for someone to help.

"H-Hello?! Is anyone here?!" Gilda cried out, though she tried to maintain her cool tone of voice and failed at it considerably. "I-If this is supposed to be some kind of joke, it's not funny!"

"Well, you've never been one to laugh at my jokes, anyway." a high-pitched voice said in the darkness.

"What? Who...who said that?" Gilda asked, looking around for the source of the voice. At that moment, a small light came on overhead, a simple lightbulb dangling on a string. It wasn't enough to completely light up the room, but from what it did show, Gilda could see somewhere in the distance a table full of medical supplies and sharp instruments. Her breathing and heart rate increased when she saw these, and then seemed to stop entirely when she heard hoofsteps coming towards her. The figure came into the light to reveal who it was.

"Y-You?!" Gilda expressed in surprise, gazing at the pink pony, whose mane was straight once again. There was also something about the smile she had on her face that made it extra unsettling; something...devious. "Uh...l-look, if this is all to get back at me for calling you a dweeb and a lame-o, then you win. Now please let me out of here!"

Pinkie didn't move from her position. In fact, she let out a little chuckle at the griffon's expense.

"Are...are you making fun of me?! Look, I-I'm sorry, all right? Now get me off this thing before I pulverize you!"

"Oh, it's much too late for apologies, Gilda. This has been long overdue for you..." Pinkie said menacingly, pulling out a scalpel from behind her back. The griffon looked at it with wide eyes.

"Uh...w-what are you going to do with that?" Gilda fearfully asked, sweat beads going down her face, her anxiety increasing with every passing moment.

Pinkie chuckled again. "What's the matter? I thought you were supposed to be all big and tough. Yet you're terrified of this little sharp thing? You must be more talk than I thought you were."

At that moment, Pinkie reached to her side to pull a lever that was just outside the circle of light made by the bulb. The table that Gilda was strapped to suddenly stretched her out onto her back, making her look up into the hanging light bulb. Pinkie's face came into view as the mare looked down at the struggling, terrified griffon. The sight of her foe being so helpless caused her to smirk.

"Now...I wonder what griffon meat tastes like..."

Before Gilda could properly process what she meant by that, Pinkie began making her first cut.

--

After Gilda's life was taken, Discord's statue cracked a little...