If there was one thing Dad understood more than anything, it was the value of a hard day's work.

For as long as she could remember, Pinkamena Diane Pie had been working on her family's rock farm, having been brought up to do so since she was out of babyhood. Every day from sunrise to sunset, she and every other member of her family had to farm rocks, whether it be mining for them, using them for the food they eat, or having to move them to another part of the field. Pinkamena never really understood the importance of the last task, but since it came from her Dad, she knew best not to question it.

Other ponies may have found it weird, but her family did indeed eat rocks as part of their diet. When Marble asked why they did when normal food would have sufficed, Mom said that rocks had minerals inside them, which, according to her, was much more beneficial for the workload they had to do. It was a good thing that Dad wasn't around when Marble asked the question. He tended to get rough when his daughters asked too many questions.

Pinkamena, as well as her sisters and parents, were never familiar with the concept of "happiness", even though they had heard of the concept from passersby and the occasional visitors. The work they had to do was relentlessly tedious, dull, and boring, and even when they weren't working, the farm they lived in was so dull and uninteresting that it didn't really matter. Maud seemed to be the only one who didn't mind, but then again, her face was so stoic and unfeeling that it was difficult to tell how she was feeling at any given moment.

One particularly dreary day was going about as normal as usual. Pinkamena was tasked with moving rocks to the other side of the field while her sisters and mother were out mining for more. Lost in her yearning for a more exciting life, even sighing to herself due to sheer boredom, she was shocked when an explosion occurred in the far distance. The sky then filled with a culmination of all the beautiful colors that the filly could think of, a shockwave of all kinds of hues going across the sky and over the rock farm. The force of this wave nearly knocked Pinkamena over and even affected her hair; what was once straight, limp and nearly covering one eye was now a poofy, curly cavalcade on her head. She didn't have time to think about that, however, because the result of the shockwave made itself apparent in the clear blue sky: a gorgeous rainbow.

Throughout her entire life, the filly never thought she would get the chance to see such a thing; she had heard of rainbows only in the few books she had read, and even then, the descriptions were more vague than anything else, set on being as poetic as possible. But seeing one for the first time made her figure out why. The beauty of this phenomenon was impossible to specifically describe to the point where doing so pretty much demands flowery words consistent with most poetry. The colors, the contrast between each of them, putting them together in spite of that...

It was enough to make Pinkamena smile for the first time.

Seemingly against her will, her face split into a wide smile, pure joy and glee spreading across her face. She could feel her heart beating very fast due to the sheer excitement of the experience, her breath caught itself in her throat as she took in the sight, and overall, she was at a total loss of words.

The rainbow disappeared after half a minute, the image burned into Pinkamena's brain where it would stay forever. Looking around to see if her family had witnessed the event as well, she was disappointed that they were gone. They were most likely now in the distant cave off the borders of the farm, mining for whatever rare rocks they could find. There was no way they could have seen it from there. But that didn't stop the filly from wanting to share her new feelings with her family. She didn't find it in herself to run up to them to do so; there was no way she could describe such...happiness properly.

The next best thing? Throw a surprise party for them.

--

It had been quite a few hours since she had begun preparing everything, but at the break of dawn, she finally had it all ready. In the farm's silo, she had set up quite the extravagant party set-up, not that she was one to brag. Pinkamena was just about to go out and get her family when she heard Mommy's voice come from outside.

"Pinkamena Diane Pie! Is that you?" the voice called out. Pinkamena, smiling as big as possible, sprinted to the door and saw her Mommy, Daddy and sisters all making their way to the silo.

"Mom! I need you and Dad and the sisters to come in! Quick!" she shouted, quickly going back inside to wait for their entrance. Once the door opened and all of them came inside, the filly turned the light on and allowed them all to see her hard work. "Surprise! You like it? It's called...a party!"

The shock that everypony felt was evident on all their faces. Daddy's mouth hung open, his pipe falling to the ground. Mommy's eyes were as wide as the filly had ever seen them be. Marble and Limestone had both happening at once. Even Maud's eyelids were brought up a bit, a rarity for a pony as stoic as her. In what felt like no time at all to them, the little pink filly had decorated the inside of the silo with tables with party covers, paper plates and cups, a pitcher of punch, streamers that hung from the ceiling, and balloons of various colors tied to each chair.

Pinkamena noticed that her mother was looking fearfully at Dad, which brought a worrying sensation across her body. Mom often hoped that Dad wouldn't have his rough moments, but it became more apparent that this was going to happen again. Dad's face slowly adopted more of an angry expression, until with nothing more than a grunt escaping him, he began tearing all the party decorations down.

"Stupid...ungrateful...disrespectful..." he grumbled, visibly upset at the very prospect of such an abomination as a party coming to his house. As he tore everything down, Pinkamena was cowering away, her ears down and fear growing in her heart the more dilapidated the place became. Finally, he turned around and glared down at her with white-hot fury in his eyes. "Why did you put all this up?" he growled.

"I...I-I just wanted to-"

"Where did you get all these decorations?"

"I, uh..."

"Did you have to spend our money to get them?!"

"W-Well..."

With that, he nearly roared, and he smacked her cheek with his tough hoof. The filly let out a short scream, and reaching up to her cheek, felt a bruise starting to form where Dad had struck her. Tears starting to fall from her eyes, Pinkamena looked up at her domineering father, who was now breathing heavily to calm himself down.

"W-...Why...?" the filly squeaked out.

Without a change of expression, Dad brought his face as close to hers as possible, the stale smell of rock soup coming from his lips. "Let me explain something to you, little filly. I have enough trouble to deal with trying to keep our farm running without wasting our money on frivolous things like this. We barely make enough to pay the bills, much less for food. I'm just stopping a problem before it even starts. If you do this again, we could go bankrupt and our family will be ruined."

Pinkamena could feel her heart breaking with every word he spoke. Ruin the family? And it would be all her fault? She didn't want to think about such a thing, let alone have it actually happen. Her poofy hair reduced back to being straight and limp at that moment, the happiness she felt earlier seeming as far away as it could possibly be. Without another word, Dad went back outside and headed back to the farm. As the filly watched her father leave, she saw her mother hugging each of her sisters at once and silently sobbing.

Pinkamena's father got rough, and it was all her fault.

It was then that she first heard the voice.

Kill him.

--

As the day went on, work went on as if nothing had ever happened, every member of the family trying to repress what occurred that morning, but it was simply impossible, just like every other time Igneous Rock had gotten rough. Cloudy Quartz valued all the times that she could comfort her daughters in the face of such malice, and she took it upon herself to fix up Pinkamena as best she could, making the bruise as invisible as possible, though even her best efforts did little to accomplish anything. That's how it had always been, and until tonight, that's how it would always be.

Once night fell upon the land, the landscape was hit with a hard thunderstorm, rain pouring down and thunder booming in their ears and making the place at least a little bit more miserable than usual. Cloudy Quartz, in her own bed in her own room, tried her best to go to sleep despite all the noise, but it proved to be impossible.

It wasn't too long into the night when she heard Igneous make a strangled scream past the thunder crack.

She had heard him scream before whenever he got rough, but it was always with anger, never with such...terror and pain. Cloudy got up to her hooves to investigate what was going on. If she were honest with herself, she couldn't care less for what happened to her husband. But if an intruder made their way into the house, then it would be her duty to protect her daughters in a desperate time.

She ran to Igneous' bedroom, where the scream came from, and she herself felt more terrified than she had ever been in her entire life.

Standing above Igneous' body was Pinkamena, her silhouette apparent against the moonlight pouring in through the window. Due to the rain, the scene was given an eerie wave, as if it were a ghostly apparition that was about to fade. But it was too real to be such a thing.

Pinkamena had killed her father.

She stood above him with a knife in her hoof, the instrument of death dripping with blood, and Igneous' throat slit cleanly across. A pool of blood was spreading out across the floor, his eyes open with cold dread, no longer any life in them. The filly that committed the deed looked around at her mother, her pupils dilated and an innocent smile on her face.

"P-Pinkamena...what have you done...?" Cloudy whimpered, falling to her haunches with her legs shaking.

"The voice told me to kill him, Mom." the filly replied, as casually as if one were discussing the weather. "He's dead now. The pain can finally stop..."

--

"...and so, we had to send her to the nearest psychiatrist we could find. I knew it would be a good amount of money, but I didn't care. We needed to get her as much help as possible. She was eventually diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, and she had to be kicked out because of how dangerous she was. Not even the best medications could help her."

Twilight and Spike were left aghast at the story they had just heard. Of all the things they had expected, this was the furthest from their mind. Pinkie, willing...to murder? It seemed like a stretch, but with all the evidence piling up...it certainly started to seem plausible, no matter how much they didn't want to believe it.

"So...she's murdering ponies and other creatures now?" Twilight asked.

"Considering what you hath told me, it certainly sounds like it." Cloudy replied, looking down in sadness.

"Well...Igneous deserved it...right?" Spike questioned.

Cloudy opened her mouth as if to refute this claim, but stopped herself, sighing. "I...I guess so...but still...I didn't think one of my own daughters would resort to something like that." With that, she fell silent, sipping her drink and clearly not wanting to discuss it anymore. Twilight noticed this and stood back up to her hooves.

"Well...thank you for the information. Don't worry. We'll try our best to help her. Come on, Spike. Let's go." Twilight said, and when she turned to the dragon, he was holding his arms up for her to carry him, his face showing genuine terror. Twilight forgot that he wasn't the type for scary stories, real or fictional. He was just a baby dragon, after all. Twilight levitated him onto her back, his claws digging into her back, and began heading out the door.

"Ms. Sparkle?"

Twilight turned her head to peer at Cloudy Quartz, who was holding her head up slightly.

"...Be careful." Cloudy said.

Though a little taken aback at first, Twilight nodded her head and headed out the door.

Author's Note

Back from the dead! I've been procrastinating this for way too long. My goal at the moment is to get a few chapters out for the month of October to celebrate Halloween. I can't guarantee, but that's what my main throughline is right now. Let me know what you think in the comments and what I can do to improve!