A Pinch of Pinkie

by Pinkiebro

Rating: mature
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Second Person, Comedy, Romance, Pinkie Pie, Profanity, Slice of Life, Human, Anon
Length: 40688

Pinkie Pie and Anon in a romance story full of hijinks and friends along the way? In my fanfiction website? It's more likely than you think.

Fluffy misadventures with a pink party pony and a musical monkey man, nights out with the bros, and probably maybe some lessons about friendship or something or other maybe all included in one package.

Published 2020-01-31 23:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-10-29 11:05:48 UTC

Go-Getter

You awake to the sunlight filtering through the window of your bedroom, it was the crack of dawn but already you could hear the sounds of the birds singing their morning melodies and the general hustle and bustle of all the people in the town square going about their shopping.

Wait. You mean all the ponies. Still hard to kick that inflection even after almost being here for a little over a year now. The way you ended up here was a mystery in and of itself. One minute you are walking home from the gym in the middle of the afternoon, and you suppose you tripped over your own feet because the next minute you found yourself face down in the middle of a fountain. Mass hysteria from you and the townponies alike, ponies calling for you to be turned to stone, and the appearance of what you could only assume was horse Jesus at the time. Luckily the panic passed as soon as it arrived, you actually got on quite well with them all once they deduced that you weren’t going to eat or maim anybody. Pony, fuck. Or is it buck? Wait, they say both don’t they?

Saving yourself from a headache first thing in the morning you untangle yourself from your sheets and stumble across the hall to your bathroom for your morning shower. The hot water beating upon your backside allowed your mind to catch up with your moving body, and a tremble of excitement could not be contained as you thought of what lay outside your humble home. Your life had become something of a dream you never wanted to wake from, only a year’s worth of memories greatly overshadowed the many more behind it that weren’t made here. Celestia put you in the hands--hooves--of her student Twilight with a very fancy sounding assignment that you quickly dumbed down to “babysit the weird monkey,” but you weren’t about to complain if it meant you get to keep your free house in exchange for bi-weekly meetings with Twilight even if it was a bit small. Twilight, her other friends, and just about everyone in Ponyville were leagues above the demeanor of people back home. They were immediately so honest, generous, and just downright friendly that it was honestly jarring when you first arrived here.

But as you sit down to your breakfast you just smile at the thought of it now. You suppose it didn’t seem like a dream, it just seemed too good to be true you suppose. Every day you wake you kind of depend on the sensations of this new world to make sure it really seemed real before starting your day. The sights, the feelings--

“Nonny! I hope you're ready for your super awesome amazing fantastic day working with me today~!”

The sounds. Namely those of the exuberant party pony that was about to--

*crash* *BOOM* *fweeeee*

Enter your house in a loud, confetti filled fashion.

Seeing as you didn’t have magical powers to do intricate magic shit and no wings to help the pegasi, you kind of just anointed yourself with the title of The Hyooman Who Does Odd Jobs and you helped from the ground. You picked up a lot of your handyman skills when you got your house actually due to how run down it became with nopony having lived there in ages, no wonder you got it for free. Pinkie was the biggest influence in getting you to branch out and help anypony you could, due to her connections and supernatural sense of trouble. It also meant that a lot of your time was spent around the pink fireball.

Today though you were just helping her and the Cakes down at Sugarcube Corner with some major waste disposal and cleaning, getting hit with 12 fully catered wedding orders in a row tends to create a mess. Pinkie bounces over to you as you take your last bites of breakfast, baby blue eyes crackling with the energy of a brand new day to tackle.

“Come on come on come on! The sooner we clean up the sooner we get to throw a We Cleaned Up the Mess Super Duper Fast Party!” Pinkie says with her signature toothy grin.

You chuckle to yourself, it never ceases to amaze you how Pinkie has more enthusiasm about you being here than you yourself could manage. Putting the dishes in the sink for later, you stretch one last time before hitting the road with your perky pink pal. You always felt you were a mellow guy at your core, going with the flow and only feeling strongly about the few passions you have in your life. But Pinkie just did something to you that got you all fired up inside, the most mundane tasks turned to adventures to be had or games to be played. She just has that ability to magnify the already positive outlook you have towards this new life of yours. You couldn’t really describe why though. You've probably just gone insane at some point due to all of the Pinkie-wave radiation assaulting your brain. Hey, that could be real for all you knew with all the wacky things about her.

The moment you shut your door you felt yourself being spun around, and Pinkie clamped her hooves on the sides of your face.

“Alright Nonners, you know your mission today right?” She asks, her confection-scented breath sweetening the air you breathe that formed a lump in your esophagus.

“I-I suppose we're just doing some cleanup aren’t we?” You say through squished cheeks.

“We’re not just cleaning up!” She exclaims, “We’re on a mission to destroy the stains and dirties that threaten the very well being of Sugarcube Corner Nonny! This is life or death we’re talking here!” She shakes your head to accentuate her point.

Not wanting to die of a brain hemorrhage, you hook your hands under Pinkie’s hoof pits and hold her away from you before she can do any permanent damage. Wait, what was holding her up so she could reach your face in the first place? Best to not try and sit on that question too long or that would end up leading to the hemorrhage.

She boops your nose with her hoof, “I’m super cereal right now Anon, are you ready to tackle those stains?” She sure sounded super cereal, but her big ol' smile she still had didn’t seem to match.

“I sure am Pinks.” You begin to crack a smile in return, you just couldn't help it.

“To scrub away the aftermath of all those eggies who gave their yolks to become yummy cake?” She raises her voice at you.

“You betcha Pinkie!” You raise your voice back, your smile widens as you respond to the playfulness she exudes.

“I said are you ready to defeat the horrible Mess Menace and preserve the future of tasty treats, cakes, and other assorted confections!?”

“Yeah! Let’s do it!” You exclaim triumphantly, and suddenly you feel a weight on your shoulders.

“THEN LET’S GET MOVING SOLDIER!” She yells from her perch on your back, pointing a hoof towards your destination. As you let your now empty hands fall to your sides you remind yourself to not think anything of it.

You happily stroll through Ponyville, an extra pep in your step thanks to your pink compatriot.

“You got any new tunes for me today Nonny?” Pinkie asks, snaking her head over one of your shoulders.

Despite all the odd jobs you can do in one day, you still had a lot of free time to kill by yourself, so you decided to get back into music as something to kill the time. You mostly stuck to the stringed instruments back home, and to your surprise they had them here as well, you just figured that was something on the list of things you don’t ask about considering nopony has fingers. But hey, you got yourself a six string guitar at home to crank out tunes all the while so that’s another thing you can’t complain about.

“Hmm, how about I save it for the We Cleaned Up the Mess Super Duper Fast Party? Can’t have a party without music you know.”

“Hmm indeed, you make a good point Nonny! That just means we have to get it done super duper extra big scooper fast! Onward mighty steed!”

You pick up the pace and soon end up at Sugarcube Corner, and while the outside may look pristine the moment you step into the lobby you are dumbstruck with the mess. Frosting splattered on every inch of tile, counter, and even the ceiling. The smell of batter seems to permeate the air around you, and the smell was taking a turn for the worse. Egg shells litter the floor like land mines, and you swear you can hear animal noises further back into the store.

“Aww poo, Fluttershy said she got all the raccoons out! Well Nonny, hope you’re ready!”

You were slightly less sure of yourself being ready.

It took several hours, an explosion of a pocket of batter that had formed an egg sack of sorts, a broom fight with a raccoon and a subsequent stern talking to from Fluttershy, and a couple hundred rags later, the Sugarcube Corner was not only ready to get back to business, but it basically sparkled from how clean it was.

The two of you, however, were not. Covered from head to foot/hoof in grime and muck, you agreed to meet up later after another shower. But before you left the Cakes pulled you aside for your payment.

“You and Pinkie did an amazing job helping clean up dear!” beamed Mrs. Cake.

“You betcha, it hasn’t been this spotless since the day it was built I’d say!” Mr. Cake said happily.

You had to give most of the credit to Pinkie, what with her ability to wind up in the most uncanny places you often found her in cupboards, vents, and she’d periodically fall from the ceiling when you least expected it.

However you yourself almost rocketed into the ceiling when the Cakes plopped the sack of bits in your hand. It was at least 100 bits! Even with the confusing economic system of Equestria 100 bits was something that would last you a month!

“Y-you can’t be serious, this is way more than I need!” you stammer out to the beaming couple.

“Well 12 wedding orders in a row did turn out to be very lucrative for us, and we thought you deserved way more than what we offered!” Mr. Cake claps you on the thigh with his hoof full of pride.

You felt really good in that moment, your understanding of how kind and generous these ponies are was about to reach a whole new level of--

“We also wanted to ask something else of you, dear.” Mrs. Cake said warmly.

Too warmly.

Oh. Now you get it.

“It’s nothing too hard, it’s just that Pinkie can’t babysit this week because we need her on deck for another big order, super high class dinner party for the big wigs in Manehattan!” Mr. Cake claps your thigh again, his features falling slightly into desperation territory. Wow, they really must not be able to get anyone else. But, if the money keeps rolling in like this, you’d babysit for the rest of your life if you could.

“Of course I’ll do it! Based on what I saw today you guys have your hands full as it is.” You respond.

“Oh thanks a bunch Anon! You don’t know how much of a load off our shoulders this is! How does Saturday sound?”

It took forever to get all the gunk off your person, you had yolks in places… you didn’t think they would end up and didn’t want to mention. Exiting the bathroom you let out a sigh of relief, and as tired as your scrubbing bones were you had to turn them into strumming bones before the little get together. The thought of a nice nap was tantalizing and the relaxation brought on by a nice hot shower made that little devil stronger as she sought to sink her claws into your brain and command you to your bed.

Thoughts of earlier today however sent a pink jolt of energy through your being and vaporized any sleepiness that was beginning to take over. The best part of that whole ordeal was when you two stood outside Sugarcube Corner, covered in confectioner’s gore and bidding your temporary goodbyes.

“Ugh, I never want to look at an egg again.” You sighed.

“Me neither, if I see those gooey insides again I’m gonna go all barfy.” Pinkie agreed.

“Gonna be hard to do that working forever at a bakery.” You looked down with tired eyes and a soft smile.

“Nuh uh! I’ve been cracking eggs for so long I can do it with my eyes closed! Making goodies for the party later is going to be a piece of cake!” Pinkie sets her hooves on her haunches and puffs her chest out for emphasis.

“Heh, sorry for doubting you, Master Chef.”

“You’re darn tootin! This is gonna be extra special because it’s for you and me Nonny!”

It wasn’t the conversation that made that memory good. It was what followed right after. Pinkie’s signature confident smile, it had a softness to it with those baby blue eyes that pierced your heart, and a fiery smile that was determined to make you happy. Come hell or high water Pinkie would always find a way.

Just the thought of that face made you smile, and a warmth to your heart, and… some other feeling? You always felt especially happy and excited around Pinkie despite your mellow personality, and particularly bummed when you parted ways at the end of an eventful day with her.

Before you could spend more time staring off into space like an invalid, a knock at the door took you from your stupor.

“Anon darling! Open up! I hope you do not intend to keep a lady waiting!”

“Yeah come on dude we’re starving and Pinkie said the party was here!”

Rarity? Dash? Wait, when was this party supposed to be at my house? You think to yourself as you open the door to find the respective mares waiting outside.

“Uhh, hello? What’s up?” You say with a raised eyebrow.

Rarity pauses for a moment, then rolls her eyes and smiles upon realizing the situation, “Don’t worry darling, this is not the first time Pinkie has thrown a party at someone else’s house.”

“Yeah dude, she said that the party’s here so you’re just gonna have to roll with it at this point,” Rainbow says as she slithers inside past you. She starts to rummage in your cupboards until she finds a granola bar and digs in.

“You don’t mind it I bum this off you right?” She looks at you already chewing.

“I mean yeah, whatever, so wait how many people are coming?” You get a little nervous because if it turns into one of Pinkie’s bigger parties you’ll be stuck with the cleanup duty alone, including the passed out drunk equines.

“Just the girls darling don’t worry, it won’t be like Pinkie’s Fallapalooza party that nearly burned down Twilight’s house.” Rarity reassures.

Well, that’s a plus. Your humble abode was cozy (which was the polite thing you said to everypony instead of ‘small’) and… plain for lack of a better word, but it’s better than living in the fountain you showed up in you suppose. It still could do without the swarm of ponies partying their hearts out, so you feel a little more relieved.

“Hoowee! Ah’m beat and ready to eat! Where’s Pinkie at?” Applejack asks, walking in with Twilight and Fluttershy.

“Right heeeeere!” Pinkie sing-songs loudly as she bounds over the trio and sticks the landing with a pirouette, picnic basket in hand. “Let’s get the party started!”

“Hold on just a second!” You say before it gets really overwhelming, “I think I have a better place to set all this up.”

Luckily for you this little abode has one perk that makes up for it’s smaller size.

You live on the outskirts of Ponyville, and from the backyard of your house is the border of the Everfree forest. You never were too afraid of those woods, the ponies were only because they couldn’t defy nature by manipulating it to their whims. It was wild, untamed, and in a way it kind of felt like a slice of your old world, and Zecora was nice enough too when she wasn’t trying to cure you of diseases she thought you had, or trying to give you pony ones to see how things turned out. Okay, that was one time, but you weren’t so sure how much of an ‘accident’ that bottle of Poison Joke juice you almost drank trading places with your glass of water was.

But the best part was how the sunset spilled its orange rays over the treeline and let your backyard bask in its warm cover. The tall grass swayed lazily in the breeze, and the mares were already getting set up on their picnic blanket. Rarity had taken it upon herself to lounge in the hammock you had set up, with one leg hanging off the side and a pair of feathery bedazzled shades adorned on her face.

The girls had themselves all seated in a circle on the picnic blanket, and Pinkie had herself halfway inserted into one side of her basket, tossing out plates of Zap Apple jam sandwiches, fruit salad, and even a big bowl of punch from the other side.

Don’t ask how she managed to fit it all in there.

“Alrighty! The We Cleaned Up the Mess Super Duper Extra Large Scooper Fast Party has officially begun! Eat up girls! And Nonny!” Pinkie cheered with a flourish.

“So how did things go today, you two? No offense but the thought of Pinkie cleaning something is kind of surprising to hear for once,” Twilight chuckled to herself as she bit into a sandwich.

“It went AMAZING! Nonny was a cleaning machine! And when that vicious raccoon had me against the wall and threatened to end our quest for cleanliness, Nonners jumped in and saved the day, my hero!” she jumped to your side and wrapped herself around your neck in a massive bear hug, nuzzling your face as she did so.

Rarity hummed to herself from her dozing position in the hammock, unheard by the others.

“Mr. Cooper was not vicious!” Fluttershy said in her own quiet indignant tone, “He’s on a special diet right now and he just couldn’t help himself around all that cake.”

“Pink, air,” you manage to choke out as she still has her death grip on your neck.

“Oopsie! My bad!” Pinkie says bashfully as she tumbles to your side and begins to chow down on her own meal.

Light conversation ensued between the lot of you, well more like the ponies asking you more questions about your old world. Twilight still in disbelief that your old world didn’t have any magic whatsoever (you suppose you could tell her about Satanic rituals but that doesn’t seem appropriate), Rainbow begging you to describe how humans can fly without wings (she didn’t believe that planes was a real answer because you couldn’t really describe how they worked), and Pinkie rattled off about the birthday surprises she has lined up for other Ponyville residents. She also happily mentioned how you planned to watch the Baby Cakes this weekend for them, and unbeknownst to you she had scooted closer to you and was basically side to side with you.

Rarity briefly “adjusted” her shades, again unnoticed by the rest of the party.

After the conversation had reached a lull and everyone had eaten their fill, Applejack was the first to speak up. “Now this picnic is good an’ all, but Pinkie promised you had a new song to sing at the party and ah’m dying to hear it, so why don’t you get out the old six string already?”

“Wow the news sure does spread fast huh,” you say as you pull your guitar up from your side. Luckily you knew just the song to sing.

“Kinda hard not to hear about it with Pinkie talking it up all the time,” Rainbow remarks.

You could hardly remember the lyrics to most of the tunes from your old home, and that opened the door for you to stretch your ad-libbing muscles and make your own unique spin on things. Plus these ponies have a scary good ability to do the same, even perfectly predicting some of the lyrics before you could say them. Equally spooky is the fact that instrumentals sometimes come out of nowhere when a pony decides to break into song, whole crowds could join in then when it was all over everyone went back to their business like nothing had happened. You mentally added it to the list of things not to question.

You warmed up the strings with some minor tuning and plucking out a light throwaway melody, and with a pause and a lick of your lips you began to play:

What would you do, if I sang out of tune?

Would you stand up, and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears, and I'll sing you a song

I will try not to sing out of key~

After all this time, it’s hard to believe

That you’ve given so much, without a fee

So I will find a way, to be there for you

Just like you have always been there for me~

And as if on cue the girls took their turns adding their own lyrics:

Of course we’ll be there, through thick and thin

You’ve done as much for us, as we’ve done for you

We’ll be there, doesn’t matter where you’ve been

Because that’s what a good friend has to do~

Pinkie in her bravado sat up on her hind legs and sang out her own verse:

And I know my life is that much better

Because you’re a part of it!

And if I didn’t know you all this while

I wouldn’t have as big a smile

And there it was again, that warmness overtaking you like a mug of hot chocolate on a winter morning, and unbeknownst to either of you, you and Pinkie began to gravitate towards one another, and faces almost touching you let out a dual harmony:

I’ll be there for you, when you’re there for me

Whatever it takes to make you happy

With my arms, I’ll hold onto you

You, you, you~

And being your friend is just what I’ll do~

The last few strums had left your fingers and soon after a silence fell upon the group. While you laughed and congratulated each other for a good jam sesh you didn’t realize the pointed stares being made at the two of you were for a different reason. Pinkie blushed a deep pink and nervously laughed as she backed down and shuffled a bit away from you.

Conversation was held again for a while until the last bit of sun was starting to dip below the horizon and the sky was a gradient of the dark blue of night on the east to the hazy orange on the west, most of your friends had bid their farewells to you and had headed home for the night, save for Pinkie and Rarity.

“Today was super duper fun Nonny! I’d say this party was a rousing success!” Pinkie chirped happily with confidence returned as she tossed all the waste in her basket.

“Well, a party’s never a party unless you throw it Pinks, but what’s the deal with it being at my house all of a sudden?”

Your question causes Pinkie to freeze in her tracks for a brief moment before she carries on.

“W-well I do that kind of thing all the time silly billy!” she stammers out to you, “the best kind of party is one that you throw at your own home!” Pinkie seems to have picked up the pace cleaning up, instead of neatly separating the uneaten treats and the garbage she’s just started putting things in her big basket haphazardly.

“Isn’t it your party though, why didn’t we have it at the Corner then?”

Out of the three of you watching this altercation unfold, you are the one who doesn’t realize that this is the moment that Pinkie has been cornered. The other just sits silently, white ears twitching in anticipation about what happens next.

“W-well there’s a… A very good reason indeedy!” Pinkie knowingly says, “nopony would want to have a party in a place they were cleaning all day, you’d just get it dirty again!” Pinkie goes to put a plate of half-eaten cake in the basket, but due to her shaking hoof she fumbles the entry and it splats face down on the blanket. Pinkie tries to salvage it but ends up dropping it again. Your pathetic monkey brain could at least tell that something was wrong at this point.

“Uh, do you need help Pin--”

“Nope!” Pinkie hurriedly says as she simply scrunches the blanket up into a ball and stuffs it into the basket.

“AnywaythepartywassuperduperfunseeyalaterNonnyyyy!” Pinkie says as she saddles her basket and quickly bounces off.

You stood there alone, utterly confused. That was weird, and you were talking about Pinkie of all people. Ponies. Damn it.

“Awfully bold of her to make such a move, simply adorable though I must admit!” a posh voice exclaims from beside you.

Oh yeah, she’s still here.

“Wait, why are you still here Rarity?”

“Are you serious? Well it’s not surprising that intelligence wouldn’t be in her necessary requirements for a stallion.”

You and Rarity had a special relationship. Simply put, she was a bitch to you, and you her. When she invited you to tea when you first arrived in Ponyville your jaded sarcasm cultivated back home and her surprisingly sharp tongue made for a delightful exchange of banter that most other ponies would consider quite the venomous conversation. In fact Twilight thought you two hated each other at first due to your volatile chemistry and tried to have you two work out your differences with many wacky interactive challenges and games until she realized that’s just how you two interact. Ponies are often so genuinely nice to each other that they’re taken aback by how you two could be at the same lunch date, openly insult each other about something insignificant, and then immediately follow it up with a friendly conversation or gossip right after.

Rarity describes your relationship as “being besties.” She wasn’t too far off.

“What do you mean?” You ask her.

“She was all OVER you darling! It was so sickeningly sweet I’ll need to brush twice tonight! And don’t even get me started on that duet! Almost made me weep, which if I did would have ruined my mascara and you would have had to pay for that!” she says aiming an accusatory flourish of her hoof at you.

Well of course she’s all over you, she likes to give hugs and is practically hugging you all the--

Oh.

Your duet did get on the sappy side. And every time you showed up to the Corner for coffee Pinkie was always extra happy to see you, she even sideswiped Ms Cake one time just to be the one to take your order. You thought it was funny at the time, but you never really were one to read between the lines.

But, maybe you didn’t need to in the first place.

Whenever you were working on a new tune Pinkie was always the first you wanted to let know, and seeing her anywhere was always something that made you happy because she always bolted right to you to strike up a conversation. And on the first day you showed up here when it was declared you weren’t a harbinger of doom Pinkie was the first to drop her apprehension of you and belt out the million billion questions she has for every newcomer here. Probably even more for you since you were so alien to everypony.

And you thought back to that smile of hers again, and it all came together.

Rarity must have noticed this, and daintily exiting the hammock she puts a hoof on your side. “Goodness darling you’re lucky to have a friend like me, otherwise your oblivious derriere wouldn’t have ever realized.”

“That’s rich coming from the mare who thought that she was being subtle when she wore that red number with the ass window at Spike’s birthday a couple months ago.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rarity says turning her nose up at you, but the slight tinge of pink on her snout betrayed her.

She was quick to parry your jab with her own wit however, “The fact that you are so quick to slander me shows that you clearly have feelings for her too, no?”

Damn, she went straight for the kill with that one, and the fact that you were at a loss for words only affirmed that.

“I… don’t know,” you say with a furrowed brow, “She definitely makes me feel something… something good for sure.”

“Now I hope you don’t mean what I think you do, Pinkie is nicely shaped but--”

“Oh you know what I mean!” You say quickly turning red in the face, “What I’m trying to say is I don’t know how to figure it out for sure.”

“Oh then I’m doubly glad that you’ve got me darling! Mull it over a bit tonight and we’ll talk it out tomorrow. And by that I mean your relationship with her, not just her derriere.”

You squint your eyes at her as she playfully sticks her tongue out at you as she departs knowing she won this round.

Author's Note

Here's the first chapter, hope you all enjoyed! I plan to write my own songs for this fic so they will of course appear very rarely but good-ly (writing music is freakin hard man). Next chapter is written for the most part but because of the aforementioned thing it's gonna take a minute.

Obligatory Babysitting Episode, Part 1

“Now son it’s just until this evening, so as long as you keep the little buggers company for the day you’ll be set! It’s as simple as taking them to the park and making sure they have lunch and their naps.” Mr Cake tells you as he loads the back of the double stroller with all the necessary baby items for the twins.

It was the early hours of the morning, and the sun was just peeking out over the horizon highlighting your bedhead and sunken eyes. Apparently prep time for the Cakes to make all of this party crap for rich people is going to take all morning so you have to pick up the babies early, as in 5 in the Celestia Christ screaming in agony on the cross AM early.

“Don’t sweat it, Mr Cake, the kids are going to have a blast!” You reassure him, “I’m a regular… shoot I had something for this.”

“Manly Poppins?” Pinkie says coming up from behind you, bright-eyed and literally bushy-tailed.

“Da--Man, that one's actually better,” you say morosely.

“Aww, is Nonny a cranky-wanky pants?” Pinkie says jabbing your side with a hoof. Just one makes you exhale sharply.

“No, I’m good Pinks,” you say. You were determined to be grumpy. But for Pinkie that gave her the green light to begin her assault.

“I don’t knowwwww, sounds like Nonny has a case of the Grumpies! I know what the cure for that is!” Pinkie primes her hooves at either side of you before you realize what’s happening. Getting the drop on someone who’s sleep-deprived and vulnerable, how wicked.

Your sides didn’t stand a chance before being launched into orbit by Pinkie’s assault, and in no short time, she had you cackling and teary-eyed. The twins who were dozing this whole time in the stroller are jolted awake by Auntie Pinkie’s antics and start making all the happy baby noises that babies make. More like the crowd in an arena watching and cheering as the pink lion tore apart the innocent gladiator.

“P-HAH-Pinkie okay okay I get it!” You manage to get out. The mare has brought you to your knees at this point, it’s just gruesome.

Finally, after eons of this torment, Pinkie relents.

“I think I managed to get all of the Grumpies out, whaddya think Baby Cakes?” Pinkie turns to her audience. With bated breath, you watch the two and await their answer. After a moment, they laugh and clap their hooves in response. The judges have chosen to spare you, and so you live another day.

“Well, looks like you’re all set Nonny!” she says as she backs down and makes her way to the foals, “I’ll pick you guys up later, so be good for Uncle Nonny okay?” and she’s met with more delighted babbling as she rubs noses with them.

As she and Mr Cake disappear inside you’re left sitting on your butt face to face(s) with the pegasus boy and unicorn girl, and at that moment you felt a bit trepidatious. Twilight told you that pony babies seemed to be leagues ahead of how advanced you described human babies being, and Pinkie did tell you the story about how her first time babysitting them went… but you can’t be deterred at this point, no going back now. Plus they’re babies, how hard could it be?

You figured that the Cakes and Pinkie weren’t going to take too long to get the job done, so you strolled the kids and yourself to the park, and this early in the morning it was pretty empty save for some ponies out for their morning jog. Or was it trot? It’s too early to care.

You rolled out the blanket you grabbed from the stroller under the shade of a large tree, and since it was so early the babies had dozed off on the way here, and so you deposited them on the blanket where they promptly curled up next to each other. It was pretty damn cute honestly, they looked downright angelic in their peaceful slumber. You chalk Pinkie’s cautionary tale about her first time sitting to her being bombastic like she always is.

Leaning against a tree next to the foals you pop open a book Twilight loaned to you, you made extra sure that it wasn’t one of her fanfictions she wrote up this time. While you agreed to keep it confidential between each other you still find the experience of reading it… burned into your mind. It wasn’t extreme or anything alarmingly degenerate, but it certainly was like a car accident, you couldn’t look away from it.

You felt the weight of your own body pushing you deeper into the earth, and the subtle throbbing of your muscles from yesterday’s workout made you feel that much more depleted. Man, this morning breeze made you feel so relaxed. You had a coffee though, so no doubt you were going to make it through the day. You open the book and start the first chapter, it was a gripping tale about…

“Mr Anon? Hey, Mr Anon! Wakey wakey sleepyhead!”

Your eyes pop open and in front of you is Scootaloo, a scrappy filly you came to know in your time here. Mostly because she and her friends tried their damndest to get you a cutie mark shortly after your arrival. You don’t believe their crusade has ended since then, they have a habit of roping you into their shenanigans.

Wait. UH OH.

Your mind flies into a panicked frenzy upon the realization that you had dozed off and left the babies basically by themselves. You were so screwed, and the last thing you saw before the Cakes hoofed you to death was Pinkie’s disappointed face. How would you ever recover from-- oh. Having crawled into your lap the precious babes had nested together in your crossed legs.

“Whoah, did I spook you Mr Anon?” Scootaloo asks, startled.

You put your face in your hands and breathe out an immense sigh of relief. The sound of it causes the babies to stir, and they let out little yawns as they begin to wake as well.

“No Scoot, I just need to know what offering I need to give to your pony god for saving my ass from a major problem,” you say.

“You mean Celestia? Hate to break it to you Mr Anon but she only moves the sun, she doesn’t really do much else. You’re babysitting the twins though?”

“Yeah I am, wait what time is it?” You ask.

Scootaloo looks at the sky, “From the look of it I’d say… a little past nine?”

“I fell asleep for four hours!?” You exclaim, and the babies leave your lap to stretch their legs.

“You’re not an early riser Mr Anon are you?” Scootaloo says teasingly.

“No, apparently not,” you say as you tussle her mane, “But I do owe you one Scoot, who knows what would have happened if I was asleep any longer.”

“Oh! Oh! Could you get me ice cream? Sweetie Belle said that Mr Scoop made a birthday cake flavor!” Scootaloo says excitedly.

“It’s a deal Scoot, lead the way.”

Mr Scoop was a pretty cool guy, he even had baby cones for the little ones to enjoy, and honestly, they deserved a treat too after your little slip. You and Scootaloo take a seat at a nearby bench with the babies happily lapping at their cones in their stroller.

“So why are you all alone today Scoot? Or are Applebloom and Sweetie Bell trying to get cutie marks in hiding?”

She sighs in response, “Nah, we tried that one already. Sweetie is off on a shopping trip with Rarity in Canterlot and Applebloom is at a family meeting all day. Something about turning their crops around or something.”

You feel for the poor kid, you didn’t have a wealth of friends either back home and when they were all busy you felt bored out of your mind. Video games and pornography didn’t exactly count as quality wastes of time either, and she had access to neither. At least you hoped so.

As you conversed with the filly the babies continued to indulge themselves with ice cream, but alas, disaster strikes in the best of times. As Pound Cake licked his cone, he gets too overzealous and ends up knocking the scoop out and onto the grass below. He couldn’t believe this, nothing more terrible would ever happen in his entire life or anyone else's life than this.

Instead of immediately wailing he turns to his sister and gives her a pleading look to share. Pumpkin Cake has already devoured the entire cone though, sissy never wants to share her food.

“Well, you’re free to hang with me all day if you want, kid. How’s school going?” You say trying to shift her focus onto something else.

“It’s going good I guess, school’s almost out for the summer. They’re throwing a graduation party for everyone and Ms Cheerilee wants us to find chaperones or helpers or whatever.”

“A party huh, I bet Pinkie’s throwing it,” you say.

“Oh yeah, she’s thrown all of them since as long as I can remember. They’re fun and all, but they make such a big deal over it even though we’re still going to be there for like, two more years.”

His lip quivered and frustrated tears filled his eyes, but suddenly he remembered the nice ice cream man. Twisting and turning in his seat he sees Mr Scoop packing his cart and moving on down the road. He had to catch him!

“Ms Cheerilee sure is a busy mare huh. Well why don’t you put me down as one of those ‘whatevers’, I’d be happy to help out.” You just might be formulating an idea.

“Really? That’s awesome! You’ll be like the only adult that isn’t suuuper boring.”

Pound Cake struggles and squirms against the tight embrace of his buckle, but he was not deterred. He’s bested this foe before and he shall do it again! The little pegasus makes short work of that vice, and he putters off in the direction the ice cream man went with his little wings.

“Heh, thanks Scoot. When is it anyway?” You ask.

“In a little over a couple weeks actually. I’ll let Ms Cheerliee know when I see her.”

“Ah dun!” Pumpkin Cake squeaks, munching her last bit of waffle cone.

“Aw, I didn’t know you guys could… talk.” Your eyes almost pop out of their sockets. The universe faked you out the first time, and it struck when you dropped your guard.

“What’s the matt--” Scootaloo stops short, and mirrors the look of abject horror.

“UH OH.” You both say.

“Uh oh!” Pumpkin Cake mimics.

Ugh. You loved the Cakes like family and you loved doing your job, but back to back rushed buffet orders could pop even the most bubbly of ponies. You rested your chin on one of the tables of Sugarcube Corner, pink curls obscuring your vision as your mane droops in front of your face.

“Ha, and they say the young’uns have more energy than us old-timers huh dear?” Mr Cake says.

“Oh hush Carrot,” Mrs Cake says playfully prodding him, “You look absolutely pooped Pinkie!” She says to you. Mrs Cake was like a mom away from your mom, and the scent of mocha in front of your face shows that she’s always on top of making sure you’re in tippity toppity shape.

“Thanks Mrs Cake, I feel like poop right now.” You manage to lift your immensely heavy noggin from the table and take some sips of the hot drink. Mmm, whipped cream, your favorite!

“Well catch your breath dear, everything’s in the oven so we caught ourselves a half hour break!” Mrs Cake says as she sits across from you in the booth, Mr Cake sitting beside her.

“How do you think Nonny is doing with the kids?” you ask the Cakes. Nonny is super duper, but usually the Cakes are pretty picky about choosing a sitter, they pretty much only let you or Fluttershy babysit. Even Flutters was a dicey one to them, on account of the fact they saw the kids cuddling with her bear when they came to pick them up.

“Well, you talked so highly about Anon we knew we were leaving the kids in good hands! He’s helped around here enough to have some trust anyhow, the Corner wouldn’t have gotten it’s new paint job last month without him!” Mr Cake says confidently.

You remembered that day, and how when you went out to bring them lemonade to the boys Nonny had taken his shirt off in the heat of the day. He wasn’t a fuzzy dude like other stallions, so you could see every one of those muscles rippling with every movement. Another Pinkie had to invade that memory to spritz you with a water bottle and jolt you back to the present.

“And when you declared him their Uncle, we just had to believe that this guy was worth his weight, don’tcha know.” Mrs Cake says, cooly.

“Ha, that’s right! ‘Uncle Nonny’ sounded pretty natural coming from you Pinkie, seems like you were pretty sure of it!” Mr Cake adds, not even trying to hold back his giggles.

Ok, if you weren’t blushing already you were definitely a good few shades darker than pink right now. You’d have to change your name now, something like Red-ie Pie or Maroon Pie, which would mean all of your cuff links would be worthless!

“Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Haha I don’t know what you’re talking about, sure I really really like Nonny but I mean come on I don’t know what makes you think that I super duper lovey dovey like Nonny--”

“Pinkie, you know that we know you ramble when you lie.” Mr Cake says.

“What my dear husband is trying to say Pinkie is that Anon is a very nice boy, and we both think if you really like him you should tell him your feelings.” Mrs Cake says warmly.

“Oh? Where was that bravery when we were first going out hun?” Mr Cake turns to her with a playfully raised brow.

“Hah!” Mrs Cake laughs, “I remember a colt so nervous that he was shaking the whole time on our first three dates like a jittery junebug, and I distinctly remember having to be the first one to kiss that colt too!”

“I keep telling you that I kissed you first!” Mr Cake retorts.

“Pretending to drop your popcorn at the drive in just to have an excuse to kiss my cheek doesn’t count, dear.”

Mr Cake lets out a snort, “Anyway, we’re saying that there’s no chance he’ll turn a swell mare like you down,” you were sure they’ll resume this little argument later.

You were definitely a jittery junebug right now, and it wasn’t the coffee. The Cakes had a habit of teasing you just like parents do. But, you trusted them. Better you tell them instead of your real parents anyway, otherwise your actual mom and dad would be hunting down Nonny’s parents and settling a marriage right away. Oh jeez, now you’ve got that on your mind again.

“It’s just… I never had too much luck with stallions and the whole mushy gushy romance stuff,” You say running your hoof around the rim of the mug, “What if I just end up driving him away? What if he decides to skip town because he’s so embarrassed? What if he decides to go back--?”

“Pinkie,” Mrs Cake places a hoof on your shaking one, “Listen to yourself! There’s no way that that’s ever going to happen.”

“Yeah Pinkie, you’re talking to the experts here, we were the Nose Nuzzling Champions of Ponyville two years in a row you know!”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that!” Mrs Cake remembers fondly, “We had to throw in the towel after hour four to Bright Mac and Pear Butter though. They went undefeated for years!”

“Hey, I said we were experts, not the masters. But we’re still pretty darn good at lovin’,” He says rubbing his cheek against hers, “And as an expert, I can tell you you just have to find your element and work with it Pinkie.”

“My element?” You ask, “Like the Harmony one?”

“Kind of?” Mr Cake says, “You’re the best party thrower in Equestria, just use your next party as a way to get in close with Anon, you’re bound to be a lot more confident in your own environment!”

“Oh! The little ones are having their graduation bash soon, I’m sure that Anon will be there lending helping hoov--hands to the party!” Mrs Cake adds.

“That’s perfect! See Pinkie, the pieces are already falling into place for you, you just gotta make them click!” Mr Cake beams.

You feel a lot better hearing their pep talk. You couldn’t deny your feelings for Nonny, and you were determined to throw a party so good that he wouldn’t be able to resist wrapping you in those big strong arms of his! You could see it now, a shirtless Anon riding to the Corner on the back of a giant Gummy.

“Pinkamena,” Noggin Nonny says, “My muse, my beautiful dollop of frosting on the cupcake of my life, ride with me!”

“Oh Nonny!” You say swooning with your flowery dress billowing dramatically in the wind, “I never thought you’d ask! Take me away to the ends of Equestria!”

Nonny pulls you into his arms and Gummy charges off into the sunset, all of the other Pinkies in town screaming with joy and cheering for you two until you disappear into the distance.

Multiple timers ring from within the kitchen as you finish your thought. You’ll definitely be saving that one for later.

“Back to work!” Mr Cake says rising from his seat.

“Let’s do this!” you say with new vigor, you were definitely fired up now!

In a land far from Pinkie or Anon, a shadowy alicorn sits looking out over a parapet, waiting to make her next move.

Author's Note

How it do everybody, here's the new chapter! Obviously from the title it's a two-parter, and the second part is already almost done, so expect that one soon!
The story is getting to a point that I'm really excited to finally start working on, so I hope you all enjoy!

Obligatory Babysitting Episode, Part 2

This was it, your life was over before it could really begin. The Cakes were going to stomp you into ground meat and Pinkie would fry it with her disappointing gaze, making a delicious Failure Burger. A dozing Pumpkin Cake was lightly bouncing in the twin papoose you had draped around your torso as you and Scootaloo sped around the park, desperately searching for her brother. Your only clue was a face down cone on the ground next to the stroller, so the two of you thought that finding Mr Scoop would be the best bet.

“Pound Ca--!” Scootaloo starts to yell, but you quickly cup a hand over her snout. Her nose scrunches at your action.

“The enthusiasm is great Scoot, but if other ponies catch wind that we lost one of the most popular babies in town I’m going to be toast that much sooner.” Scootaloo frowns, but nods in agreement as you let go of her snout.

“Sorry, Mr Anon.” She says sadly, “Wish I could fly so we could find him faster…”

You knew the kid was super self-conscious about not being able to fly like the other fillies her age, and the predicament she’s helping you with wasn’t helping her either.

“Aw Scoot, don’t be like that,” you say as you squat down to her level, “We’ll get this done just as well on the ground. We just have to put our heads together, because if this kid can fly he’s clearly not in the park anymore. Do you know where the ice cream guy goes after he’s done selling?”

“Well, he’s a pretty popular guy, so usually he runs out around this time and has to go restock for the lunch rush,” she says with a hoof on her chin, “Oh! I know where he is!” and she takes off down the road in a sprint.

You start to race after her, but even for a filly she’s still a damn horse, so she was about as fast as an elite running athlete, and let’s just say cardio wasn’t your forte.

“Where are we--huff--going?” you pant as you try to catch up with her. Your fat ass needs to start running more. Scootaloo slows down a bit for your benefit though so your lungs don’t collapse.

“Mr Scoop has a big booth at the carnival where he sells ice cream too, but in the offseason he just uses it to hold all his ice cream for his cart! I’m sure we’ll find him there!” It was your best bet at finding Pound Cake, so with burning lungs, you tried your best to keep pace with the reinvigorated filly.

Mr Scoop, already back at his booth in the shutdown carnival, wheels the cart inside and pulls new tubs of ice cream out of the big freezer inside and rotates his inventory for later in the day. As he does so Pound Cake peeks inside the booth, eyes fixated on the cart that held his prize. He wasn’t going to get a baby cone this time, no. He was going to get the biggest big boy cone he could because the world cheated him out of his first one, he deserved compensation!

Slinking inside, Pound Cake is very nearly seen by Mr Scoop as the stallion finishes up his duties and closes his cart. Luckily for him, he ducks under a sink just before he’s spotted. The stallion gives a weary sigh and takes off his hat and apron, hanging them on a rack on the wall.

“Damn I’m hungry, hopefully the Stables has the fryers on by now, I’m fixing for a big bucking order of hay fries.” To Pound Cake’s surprise, Mr Scoop had quite the potty mouth. Pound watches carefully as he sees Mr Scoop check something with the door, and listens carefully as the hoof steps disappear in the distance.

Now there was nothing but him, and his prize.

In no short time the road took you to a far side of Ponyville where the carnival grounds stood, looming Ferris Wheel and roller coaster in the distance. Pinkie took you here when you first arrived to indulge you in the fun side of Ponyville after you watched the Running of the Leaves, and at the time it was vibrant and filled both adult and foal with energy and good times. Now with the huge cast-iron gate blocking your way and everything shut down until this fall, even during the day it gave you Scooby Doo vibes. This gate wouldn’t be a problem for a baby who could fly though.

“Aw man, now we’ll never get over!” Scootaloo whines.

“Hmm, we might not be able to fly over, but we can climb it like good old fashioned delinquents!” You say, trying to lighten her spirits.

“Uhh Mr Anon, hooves aren’t exactly too good of climbing tools, and I’d definitely break my teeth on that thing.” She had a point. But you had a solution already in mind to that too.

“I’m not thinking about how good you are at flying, or climbing. But how good are you at falling?”

You held Scootaloo in one hand like a tomboyish javelin, and sticking your thumb out you test the direction of the wind. Blowing in the direction you’re throwing, perfect weather elements for stupid, stupid ideas. Or genius ones, depending on how this turns out, she seemed pretty into it when you suggested it.

“Now Scoot, are you sure you’re up for this? We can figure out something else if you aren’t up for the Fastball Special.”

She grins excitedly, “I’m sure Mr Anon! I might not be able to fly yet but I sure can glide!” At least she was having fun with it.

“Alright Scoot, get ready then! Three!”

She straightens out like a needle.

“Two!”

Her little wings extend out as far as they can muster.

“One!”

You chuck her over the fence in a tall arc, and just as she breaches the peak of the sharp fencing and starts to dip, the wind catches under her wings. She smoothly glides downwards on an invisible slope, and like a cute orange paper airplane she skids along the ground. It would have been damn impressive had she not made her front legs stiff and face planted in the dirt. But despite that she jumps up and cheers giddily like a kid on Christmas.

“Woohoo! Let’s do it again, do it again!” she says beaming with a dust covered face.

You grip the bars and start to begin your own ascent, “We got a kid to find first Scoot.”

Her expression falters, “Oh yeah. Can we do it later though?”

“Sure thing kid, I’ll toss you around all day to pay you back for helping out.” You reach the peak of the fencing yourself, large arrowheads threatening to pierce your soft bits. As you think about how you’re going to tackle this obstacle, you feel yourself being pulled away from the fencing. Your body instinctively braces itself for impact and you let out a scared yelp, but nothing happens. Making yourself aware of your surroundings you find yourself floating mid air, enveloped by an orange glow.

You assume all the jostling caused Pumpkin Cake to wake up again, and needless to say you were extremely surprised to see her able to use her magic like this in the first place. What do they feed these kids?

There wasn’t any time to ponder that as you found yourself lifted over the gate by the foal’s magic, you hoped that the tyke was strong enough to carry you all the way to safety. However, the universe works against you once again as the dust that Scootaloo kicked up made its way to Pumpkin’s nostrils, and even though the sneeze would have been cute the literal ass pain it caused you upon impact took up more of your attention.

No time to assess the damage though, and once again you follow Scootaloo down the path. Lo and behold, the Ice Cream Shack stood clean and dust free in the midst of it’s dirty building brethren, but you find the door on the side of the booth swung wide open. The booth itself had a metal shade pulled down on the front blocking your view, but you could definitely hear rummaging sounds coming from within.

“Ok Scoot, here’s the plan,” you say in a whisper, “I’m going to go in and try and corner him, you shut the door if he gets slippery.”

“Got it,” the little filly says determinedly.

The two of you sneak as quietly as possible until you are both on either side of the entrance, giving the nod to Scootaloo you make your way inside. Sure enough Pound Cake had gotten himself into the cart that had been left behind by its owner, and with his upper half exiting the cart was a very adult sized ice cream cone with an extra large scoop of several flavors haphazardly slapped together with baby hooves.

“Brudda!” Pumpkin Cake cheers from the papoose. Shit, you forgot babies weren’t fans of subtlety. Or general silence.

Pound Cake had been caught red handed, and this little foal wasn’t going to be taken alive as you suspected. Clutching the cone in hand he uses his puttering little wings to bolt for the door, but you were not one to be underestimated! You manage to get a hold of one of his hooves just as he tries to pass overhead.

“Gotcha!” You yell triumphantly. Just as you say that however you find yourself being lifted from the ground, and you soon find yourself being swung around the room as the foal flies in circles to desperately escape your hands like you were a stuffed animal tied to a ceiling fan. Pumpkin Cake screams with glee as you fly around the room knocking over various items, and try as you might you feel yourself slipping. With one last swing Pound Cake manages to send you smashing into the metal curtain that covers the main opening of the booth back first, and the impact manages to make the sheet to slightly cave into itself. How fucking strong were these horses if babies can do this?

“Scootaloo, the door!” You wheeze as Pound Cake makes his getaway.

“Got it!” She yells as she kicks the door closed with all her might, but the immobile door sends a shock up her body as the force she hit it with comes back to her. Pound Cake zips out of the booth and flies further down the park to get away from the two of you.

Prying yourself free of the indent, you run outside and see Scootaloo rubbing her sore hooves as Pound Cake gets further and further away.

“Scootaloo, I told you to get the door!”

“I did! But it didn’t move!”

“How could it not--” and as you say that you see the reason as to why it’s stuck, “You didn’t flip up the door stop?” you say incredulously.

“I’m ten, cut me some slack!” She retorts angrily.

“I… there’s no time, come on!” You say as the two of you take off after the foal.

The two of you jump and try your damndest to grab ahold of the foal as he ducks and weaves out of reach at the last second, and while the foal didn’t seem to tire, you two sure were and you were getting desperate.

“Mr Anon, throw me again!” Scootaloo yells as she matches your pace.

“Do you really think now is the time--oh yeah!” You realize as you scoop the filly into your arms and take aim. Your aim was dead on as the filly took to the sky once more, tucking in her wings slightly on the descent to accelerate towards Pound Cake, and while she doesn’t manage to tackle him she nicks him good on the way down. The foal spins out of the air and takes a hard landing on the butt as Scootaloo hits the ground and rolls a distance away, and in a stroke of his luck he manages to perfectly catch the melty cone out of the air before it went splat again. But his luck had just run out, as you find you have him proverbially pinned against the looming Ferris Wheel directly behind him.

Pound Cake frantically looks around for a means of escape, but it seemed hopeless. Scootaloo was already on her feet again and creeping up behind him, and you inched towards him slowly as well.

“Come on Pound, it doesn’t have to end like this. Give it up and I’ll make sure Mommy and Daddy go easy on you.” You warn the child sternly. Pound Cake whimpers in response, and shoots straight up into the air.

“Get him!” You yell, and you both dive towards him at the same time only to face plant into one another as he manages to be missed by the skin of his baby teeth. After the daze wears off you see Pound Cake fly up to one of the higher cars of the Ferris Wheel and disappear inside.

“Alright buster, play time is officially over!” you yell angrily at the wheel, “No more Mr Nice Anon! Hold Pumpkin for me, Scoot!” you say as you drape the papoose over her neck, Pumpkin clapping her hooves in delight of the fun ride she had.

It was a treacherous climb, but being in a rage makes you do crazy things without fear as within minutes you had already scaled the wheel halfway. As you gripped the inner workings of the wheel you managed to quickly climb to the car the child was stowed away in, and the munching sounds you heard from within made you even more steamed as the child was blissfully unaware of your plight.

You pull yourself up enough to the open car to see Pound Cake sitting on the floor of it, absolutely covered head to hoof in ice cream. It would be cute under any other circumstance and probably funny if someone else had to deal with this, but you were in no mood to feel neither thing.

“There you are!” You growl. Pound Cake gasps and scoots to the farthest corner of the car, at the very least he seems to finally be done with flying away.

“Come on kid, I’m just trying to do this for Pinkie, you like Pinkie don’t you? You want to make Pinkie happy? You can do that by being a good boy and making me happy by coming down!” You say with a forced smile. Your sanity was hanging by a thread and this was the last time you were going to try coercing him nicely.

The baby sizes you up for a moment, and turns his nose up at you, “You no Pinkie,” he says tucking back into his ice cream. That tears it!

“Listen kid,” you say hoisting one knee into the car, “You’re coming with me whether you like it or--ah!” You weren’t paying too much attention to the fact that the kid had basically painted the inside of the car with melted ice cream too, so as you tried to use your knee to push the rest of your body inside you slip and fall out of the car, plummeting to your doom.

“MR ANON!” Scootaloo screams in horror.

Pound Cake knew something bad would happen if he didn’t do something! He didn’t think he’d ever think this, but no amount of ice cream is worth this!

Pound zoomed out of the car as fast as he could and made a beeline for you, grabbing ahold of one of your hands he tried to pull you up with all of his might, but the last bout with you left him almost completely drained.

Even in a panicked state knowing you’re probably going to die, you pull the pegasus close to your chest in a tight embrace so he hopefully doesn’t bite it alongside you. The wind whistling in your ears you think of all the moments you held dear to you in this world, the friendships you’ve made, the love you almost had, you were determined to spend your last moment alive thinking of… wait, it’s taking an awful long time to hit the ground.

Opening your eyes you find yourself bathed in an orange glow, and craning your neck from your frozen position you see a happy Pumpkin Cake beaming from her neat trick she just did as Scootaloo hid her eyes.

“You… are officially… my favorite child.” You say to the baby. As you say that she stops the spell she was using to hold you, and you hit the ground ass first.

Ow.

Scootaloo ended up following you back to the Corner after getting the kids re-strapped into their stroller, the two of you looking completely drained of life after the harrowing ordeal.

“Well son, seems you did a bang up job sitting the foals! How was your day my little sweeties?~” Mr Cake says nuzzling their tummies affectionately.

“Well…” you pause, did you really want to go into detail about your day today? The boy ain’t right, that’s for sure, but the fact that he at least tried to save your life and the pleading look he’s giving you now at least give the minimum indication that he was sorry. All over some ice cream too. You decide to call it an impasse, because if the kid is advanced enough to feel regret he’ll know that he owes you one for what you’re about to do.

“We were at the park the entire day pretty much, Scootaloo showed up after a while and we had some ice cream and played games.” You half-lie.

“Ooo! What didja play Nonny?” Pinkie asks, appearing on your back in piggyback fashion.

“Catch.” Scootaloo deadpans.

“Oh well that sounds swell!” Mr Cake says in delight, “Pound Cake didn’t try to slip away at all did he? Ever since he learned to fly he’s been quite the little escape artist!” he chuckles nervously. Pound Cake looked even more nervous than his father.

“He sure tried,” you say tussling his hair (more roughly than you intended), “But other than that he was a good kid. His sister was a super star though,” and you scratch under her chin which makes her coo happily.

“He’s a little rascal alright! But it’s good to hear they were behaving all day, otherwise I wouldn’t think you’d want to babysit them again!”

Aw shit, you were hoping he wouldn’t ask. All of the gold coins in Equestria couldn’t--

“That sounds super duper ooper fun!” Pinkie says elated in your ear, “Maybe next time Nonny and I can babysit together! We could be the best two nannies in Ponyville!” she gasps, “You could even be called Nanny Nonny, Nonny! Ha!”

Even at your most drained, Pinkie manages to get a laugh out of you, a good one too. Scootaloo even laughs a bit at the funny moniker.

Oh, the things you do for love.

“I don’t know, are you guys going to be this good every other time I babysit?” You ask the babies, more pointedly so at Pound Cake. He vigorously nods his head and his sister cheers with delight from her seat.

“Then I guess it’s official!” You say, “Put me on the permanent nanny list.”

“Hooray!” Pinkie says as she swings around your body and wraps you in a tight hug. Her mane in your face assaulted your senses with the scent of vanilla and the feeling of cotton candy brushing your face, and that alone made you feel that much better. You hugged her back much more tightly than you were expecting to, and the feeling of a sharp breath of hers pressing against your embrace could be felt. Maybe it was the fact you almost died that probably makes you pretty clingy to other living things.

“Uh, Mr Anon can we go back to the park now?” Scootaloo asks poking your leg. You and Pinkie let go of the hug after realizing it had reached an awkward span of time, both unaware of how furiously the two of you were blushing because you sheepishly turned away from each other.

You and Scootaloo went back to the park under the pretense of throwing her like a football for a while longer, but the two of you ended up passing out underneath the same tree she found you at at the beginning of the day. You both decided to take a rain check on that play date and headed your separate ways after waking much later.

Pinkie Pie braided Pumpkin Cake’s mane and regaled her with more tales about how awesome her special friend Anon was, as per their almost nightly ritual before bedtime while Pound Cake got into more mischief.

Mr Scoop came back from his lunch break to find his booth ransacked as if a wild animal had gotten loose in it, but the small mountain of bits left behind made him feel a bit better about the damages. He vowed to close the door behind him from now on.

Candles and incense burned softly in royal bedchambers far off in the distance as a princess of the night prepared for her nightly duties uplifting the dreams of her little ponies, and getting to the bottom of one particular non-pony that has been piquing her suspicion for too long.

Author's Note

What's this? A new chapter? This soon? Hell yeah, bro! Enjoy!
Feeling a lot more motivated to write new chapters now that I've gotten through the drag of introductory chapters and can actually get into the meat of things, and you can bet that the next chapter is coming real soon!

Lunar Interlude: Part 1

Even with her entrapment on the moon for a millenia, perusing the dreams of her subjects regularly once more still felt as natural as breathing to her. She did not sleep herself at night, but instead immersed herself into the ether between conscious and unconscious thought as the rest of the world went bedward as the sun fell and the moon rose. The real world fell away and the dream world spread out infinitely before her, and now the work of Princess Luna could commence.

She did not wish to deride her loving friends with her observations of their dreams, but the mind of almost every pony she has dipped into has been… simple, to say the least. They had simple wants, simple feelings, simple pleasures. Little Scootaloo dreamt of speeding through the clouds with comically large wings. Bulk Biceps dreamt of meeting his personal hero: an older, much more muscle bound gargantuan of a stallion with a short spiky mane and tribal tattoos covering the majority of his figure. Maud Pie dreamt of a rock.

Verily, her duties were in no way challenging in the slightest even after coming back from her hiatus. But upon finishing her rounds with her usual subjects and replacing nightmares with more pleasant dreams, it was time to tackle a beast she had never seen the likes of before.

She attempted a direct approach earlier in the day, zapping him with a spell of slumber in order to get a quick surveillance of his mind in order to have a more informed plan of attack. One of the children made to escape the second they noticed he was incapacitated, so she zapped the both of them as well just to be safe. But just connecting him to this network of dreams she had so naturally maneuvered before proved to take hours of effort, she had never felt something so alien such as this before, and so she had to abandon further intrusion until the night fell.

While the ponies and other creatures in Equestria felt simple, small, and manageable, the mind of Anonymous was quite the opposite. If the minds of ponies were to be referred to as lakes, Anon’s mind was a veritable ocean of swirling memories and emotions, some flowing in perfect synchronicity and others clashing violently with one another in explosive fashion. She was not deterred, in fact the challenge almost excited her! Luna would have to pull out all the stops for this one.

Luna was by no means omnipotent in the dreamscape, she could not possess the minds of anyone nor could she alter their memories to suit her needs. But she picked up a trick or two in the war she and her sister waged against the ancient mind flayers ages ago which would eventually lead to the latter’s extinction, which bolstered her arsenal significantly when it came to finding enemy dissidents while they slept. It was extreme, but she was able to delve deeper into the minds of ponies than just their dreams, and observe their memories as they played out in order to obtain information.

It hasn’t been needed since times of war long long ago, but she could not stand by anymore while this human gets so involved in the lives of not just ponies, but the Elements of Harmony. Especially after she and her sister received a missive from Cadence about Anon’s romantic inclinations towards Pinkie Pie, no doubt originating from Twilight. Her sister thought it cute but Luna was on high alert ever since, and she will strike before it is too late. How could such a stranger be so willing, happy even, to help others with even the most mundane of tasks and seem to take such joy from doing so? And now he wants to become deeply involved in the life of one of the Elements, putting them in a vulnerable state?

She strode with purpose into the depths of Anon’s mind, and the world around her shifts once more.

“How’re you liking the carnival so far Nonny?” Pinkie Pie asks you. Thanks to the weather ponies the carnival was jam packed with patrons on this beautiful cloudless day, and Pinkie Pie made it her mission to get you to take a break from helping with everpony’s chores and soak in the peak of Ponyville fun.

Such feelings of joy, and wonderment!

“It’s amazing!” you laugh, “For a little town you guys sure know how to party!”

“Psshhaw,” Pinkie says dismissively, “The carnival’s awesome amazing and all, but you’re talkin’ to the premier party pony here! You haven’t seen anything yet!”

“Well I see some rigged games that want our bits, want to play?”

“I didn’t know you were so ready to lose!” Pinkie says with a playful glare.

“Oh ho Ms Pie, is that a challenge?”

“I dunno, are you…” she pulls a rubber chicken out of her mane and honks it at you, “chicken?”

“Alright, whoever wins best of three games gets eternal bragging rights!” You declare.

“Hmm, eternal bragging rights sounds good, but let’s spice this wager up a bit! How about… the loser has to buy the winner her share of greasy fattening carnival food!”

“Alright that sounds-- hey! How come this hypothetical winner already happens to be a she?” You shoot her a playfully accusing look.

“Well Nonny, I did say you were going to lose! I Pinkie sensed it!” She sticks her tongue out at you as she says this.

Oh this mare was going down!

How can he be acting in this way already? If this memory is correct he has been here hardly a month and it is as if he is like every other pony!

Even when all the proceeds went to Ponyville’s local government, these carnies were vicious, so you had to play to your strengths. The two of you squared off in the bottle pyramid game first. The unicorn running the stand used his magic to align a row of three bottle pyramids, and the two of you were handed three balls each.

“Ladies first,” you say to her with a smirk. You were going to have this first game in the bag.

“Okay hotshot, watch how it’s done!” Pinkie grips the ball in her mouth, and with a glare she flicks it at the first pyramid. The top three topple to the ground, leaving two more rows intact. She tried her hardest, but the next two pyramids were hardly affected. She frowns and puffs her cheeks out at the outcome.

“Oof, poor luck there miss, let’s see if your friend here fares any better!” The carnie says resetting the pins for you.

You take aim and nail the first pyramid with the ball, and just as you thought, the ball was lighter than it should be and the bottom pins were way heavier. A sturdy bottom row remained, but this carnie was not expecting someone with the potent arm strength of their chimpanzee ancestors giving them an edge. You wind up the pitch for the next one, and nailing it as hard as you can you topple the entire second pyramid. The carnie stood a little shocked at what had happened, and even more shocked when you promptly demolished the last pyramid as well.

“Well… looks like you won.” He says, with his former enthusiasm replaced with a tone of confusion and a little anger. Using his magic he floats down a stuffed walrus that was hanging from the front of the booth into your loving arms.

Pinkie suddenly is nose to snout with you, “You don’t think I know a setup when I see one Mr Man?” the bubbly pony was all fired up now. “If we’re going to play this way, I have just the game in mind to play next,” her hot strawberry scented breath pelts your face as she gives you a devilish grin.

“It’s only fair I suppose,” You say pressing your forehead to hers and matching her fire, “Seems like you need the leg up anyhow.”

Pushing herself from you she only laughs heartily as she leads you a bit down the fairgrounds to the balloon darts booth. The carnie at the booth gives you the same smile the last did, thinking you two were just his next victims of wallet-cide.

“Go ahead Mr I Throw So Well, since y’know, you’re so good at throwing so well,” Pinkie says coolly.

One, two, three darts all fail to pop the balloons, the last even bounced off the balloon without even popping it. You furrow your brow at this, maybe the darts just had worn down tips, it gave you an itch to call shenanigans but you didn’t want to look like a sore loser.

“Oh darn Nonny, bad luck!” Pinkie bumps you aside with her rump as she grips not one, but all three darts in her mouth at once. Her eyes become a blur as she gives the balloon board a thorough examination, and just as quickly her eyes become laser focused. In one quick motion she whips her head and sends the darts speeding towards the board. It was almost surreal how the darts split from each other so perfectly in midair, and downright flabbergasting that every dart hit their mark and popped the balloons all at the same moment. Needless to say, she was surprisingly good.

“How did you do that Pinkie?” You ask.

“Ha! Making sure balloons stay blown up is one of a party pony’s primary particular duties!” Her smile is quickly replaced with an ominous stare, “But I can also decide when those balloons go from blown up to blown out.”

Pinkie Pie, now adorned with jumbo sunglasses, had quite the skip in her step as you two wandered the carnival looking for the perfect tie breaking game.

“Listen Pinks, I think we need to make this one actually fair.”

“Whaddya mean?” Pinkie asks innocently, “Seems like you were just bad at that last one.” You swear she’s fluttering those lashes at you under those shades.

“More like you were a little too good. So how about we choose this one at random for fairness sake?”

“If it makes you feel better buddy,” she says. Before you can react she slips under your legs and saddles you on her back.

“What are you wh-wh-whoa!” You can’t manage to get the rest out as Pinkie starts spinning around and around in place, and the world around you becomes a blur on Pinkie’s Tilt-a-Whirl(patent pending). When it seemed she reached her peak speed she came to a hard stop, luckily you were holding on tight otherwise she would have thrown you for miles.

“That-a-way!” She points to a far off booth, eyes rolling in their sockets.

Making your way over to the booth in question you see none other than Applejack leaning over the counter.

“Howdy y’all!” Applejack says perking up a bit upon the sight of some friends.

“Oopsie! Must have gotten my Bestie Sense confuzzled with my Choose-y Sense!” Pinkie says.

“Whaddya mean?” Applejack asks.

“Pinkie Pie and I have a bit of a competition going on right now--”

“Yeah! And I’m kicking his flank at the moment!” Pinkie says cheerily.

“And we’re tied. We decided to break the tie by choosing the next game at random.” You finish.

“Well ah ain’t exactly runnin’ a game booth here y’all, just selling caramel apples. Applebloom was supposed to be here helpin’ me but the second her little friends told her about face paintin’ I lost her the second I turned tail. And I ain’t even selling apples at the moment because Big Mac’s off gettin’ more.”

“Aw shoot, time to go for another spin?” Pinkie asks. Please, no.

“Well hold on just a sec you two!” Applejack cuts in, “Y’all’re actually in luck, ‘cause I’ve been sittin’ on somethin’ that I’ve been wantin’ to try for ages now to drum up some business. And y’all are the perfect for me to give it a spin on!”

“Alright AJ, what’s the game?” You ask.

“I bet it’s some epicly elaborate apple-themed extravaganza!” Pinkie says excitedly.

Eight bags, bean variety.

Two boards, thirty feet apart from each other.

Two holes, each able to decide destiny.

A man and a mare, head to head in a rip-snorting full throttle game of...

“Corn Holin’ is the name of the game!” Applejack says proudly, “A family fun time from the bygone ages, much better than that there ‘skee-bawl’ they got nowadays. Give her a go!”

“Looks like I lucked out Nonny, because you’re going down!” Pinkie says with a competitive glare.

“Pfft, you don’t think I had this back home? Bring it on!” You declare.

An entire hour went by with neither of you making a single shot. Big Mac ended up coming back after fifteen minutes and a dejected Applejack ended up going back to work for the rest of the time. You two were so wrapped up in the game that you didn’t even notice Applejack come back to check on you, with Big Mac, Applebloom, and a cart full of packed up caramel apple supplies in tow.

“Eeyup, guess you were right when you said they sucked at this game.” Big Mac notes, alerting the two of you to their presence. You and Pinkie were drenched in sweat and disheveled from an hour straight of consecutive failures.

“It’s--You… This game is rigged!” You say frustratedly.

“Yeah what he said! I call shenanigans!” Pinkie says pointing an accusing hoof.

Applejack does not look amused. “Big Mac, Applebloom, if ya would.”

Big Mac takes your side and flicks it with no effort, as does Applebloom and they both perfectly sink their shots.

“Ah’m a tiger in case you couldn’t tell!” Applebloom says to Pinkie happily. You and Pinkie looked utterly defeated.

Applejack clears her throat, “I know y’all talked yourselves up nice and well but if you want mah honest opinion, y’all just got really lucky.” Applejack can’t help but laugh at how much this game has taken out of you two, “But yer always welcome to come down to the farm and practice!”

“But I was so clo-ho-hose! I was literally a quarter of a fraction of a decimal of a centimeter away from winning!” Pinkie whined from her seat next to you on a bench. The full moon was starting to reach its peak tonight, and the carnival was still in full swing, probably even more so since they were about to do the fireworks show.

“Well at least we weren’t total losers, we won candy apples!” You try to console Pinkie but she isn’t buying it.

“The candy apples were good and all but it’ll never be as sweet as being Princess of Games!”

“Wait so if I won would I be a Prince or a Princess?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered because you wouldn’t have won!” Pinkie flops on her side dramatically. Although since it’s Pinkie she’s probably being very serious.

Is this really that big of an issue to her? Quality of life must have really improved in my absence.

Luna feels frustrated because she can’t understand the simple woes of these ponies, but Anon feels differently. Anon laughs, and soon he’s laughing hard. Pinkie Pie stops her sulking for a moment and looks at him with confusion, the same thing Luna feels right now.

“What’s so funny? You know it’s not nice to be a sore loser, buster.”

It takes a second for Anon to compose himself. “It’s not that Pinkie, really I mean it. I just had a really fun time with you today, even if we did get really sweaty.”

“Really?” Pinkie asks.

“Oh are you saying you didn’t have fun today Ms I Was Almost Princess of Games?”

“Well I’m not--”

“Ohhh! Didju nawt have fun today buddy?” You say in a dumb cutesy voice pushing the stuffed walrus in her face.

“Ano--haha!--Nonny stop! Okay okay you got me!” You relent the walrus assault, “I had fun with you today too. Sorry for getting worked up about winning so much.”

“It’s ok Pinks, I got a little in the zone too.”

“Call it a draw?”

“You bet. But I think Mr Walrus here would be better off with you.”

“What? You won him though, you should keep him! We both won things so it’s only fair.”

“You lost your glasses though.”

“No I--” She hoofs herself in the face, “Oh shoot, must have lost them during spinny time, they’re either in a bush somewhere or on the moon I bet. But still, you really don’t have to, Nonny.”

“I insist Pinkie, really. It’s gonna sound cheesy but I think I’ll be able to remember this day just fine without it, because I got to cut loose for once with a good friend, and I’m really glad it was you.”

She takes the stuffed animal very gingerly from you, a soft smile on her face as she hugs it close.

“Thanks Nonny, I’m glad I got to spend today with you too.”

Fireworks and leaning against each other serves no purpose in this investigation! Even if my moon-work was stunning as always in this memory, the only thing I have learned so far is that Anonymous’ feelings towards these ponies is genuine at the very least. But WHY, is he some kind of sleeper agent? I must push deeper to know the truth!

And deeper did she push, swirling colors and sounds pass by her form as she goes further and further into the depths of this foreign mind. These colors begin to fade the deeper she goes, and in this sea of gray a new scene begins to take shape.

Something’s not right, however. The gray quickly shifts to static, and a burst of new colors spread around her in this space. Suddenly Luna is standing in the middle of a cozy living room, and a jazzy saxophone tune plays from an unknown source.

“What’s going on? Where am I?” Luna was unnerved, her magic wasn’t working!

“Woah Danny, sounds like you’ve been around too many cleaning chemicals again!” Anon says beside you, and an audience laughs at the joke, again from an unknown source. For some reason this Anon has long black hair, slicked back with copious amounts of gel.

“What are you talking about? Where am I Anonymous!?” Luna shouts at him.

“Uh oh, sounds like Danny’s pretending to do his lost old man bit again huh Jesse?” Pinkie Pie says laying a hoof around Anon’s shoulder. Where did she come from?

“Speaking of pretending, I sure learned my lesson about pretending to be sick so I didn’t have to do that big test…” Luna spins around to see Scootaloo has appeared behind her as well.

“Well Steph why didn’t you just ask for help with studying if you were so sure you were gonna fail?” Pinkie Pie asks her.

The filly looks down sadly and paws at the floor, “You guys were talking about how proud you were about my report card, and I didn’t want to let you down by failing a test right after. I thought I could just fake being sick and it would just go away.”

“This is madness, can no one hear me?” Luna says incredulously looking around the room for a means of escape. Soft piano music begins to play as Anon gets on one knee to the filly.

“Aw Steph, we’d never stop being proud of you just because you bombed one test!”

“Yeah, and asking for help when you need it is the best thing you can do!” Pinkie says, “We’ll always be there to help you out when you need it.”

“You really mean that Uncle Joey?” the filly asks.

“Of course kiddo,” Anon says, giving her a big hug. The audience gives a big “aww” in return for the gesture.

“And Michelle would love to help out too wouldn’t you?” Pinkie turns to a unicorn baby sitting in a love seat.

“You got it dude!” the baby says. The audience gives an especially hearty laugh to this.

Luna was panicked now, even more so when giant yellow words materialised at the far end of the room. Before she can process this a blackness starts to spread from the floor and the ceiling, enveloping everything in sight. The audience hasn’t stopped laughing, if anything they’ve gotten louder. Luna takes flight as Anon and the others are swallowed by it, and the laughter from the audience has become deafeningly loud.

She couldn’t avoid it any longer, the darkness grips her like a sticky tar immobilizing her, she tries to struggle and yell for help but nobody answers her. It inches up her neck, clings to the sides of her face, and just as it consumes her sight--

Luna breaks free from her trance with a huge gasp. She turns frantically around her chambers to take in her surroundings. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and all of her candles were blown out, incense also completely smoked out. This was real, she was fine, and at this realization she lets out a shaky sigh.

What in Tartarus was that human?

Author's Note

So this chapter ended up being a LOT longer than I envisioned, but hey more for you to enjoy!
There's going more of these special mini-plot chapters in between regular ones, and if I nail the execution it's going to turn out very very well!

Boy's Night

*CLANG CLANG CLANG*

“Up and at ‘em, boys!” a cold female voice barks, reverberating off of prison walls serving as an alarm for the morning sun. The light slowly reveals an awkward lump of bodies woven together on the cell’s floor that writhe slightly in response to the booming voice.

...

“Wakey wakey!” the voice repeats, patience already razor thin.

...

“GET UP YOU DRUNKS!” She bellows louder than ever, causing dust to fall from the jail ceiling.

From inside the cell the mass of bodies begins to writhe more fervently on the floor, and untangling from each other are the bodies of Bulk Biceps, Big Macintosh, and Anon. Spike sits upright in the cell’s only bed adjacent to the pile and he appears to be the only one not in complete shambles upon waking, stretching after a good night’s sleep.

“Eey...ugh.” Big Mac groans.

“Thank Celestia I have a rest day today…” Bulk says.

“That cat is going to have a hell to pay when I get a hold of it.” Anon says.

“What cat?” Bulk asks.

“The one that took a shit in my mouth.” Anon says, pinching his eyes.

“Ok ladies let’s get moving! Down the hall to interrogation let’s go let’s go!” The mare barks. The mare in question was Sheriff Sterling Shine, and she was the famous lean mean protector of Ponyville. But seeing as Ponyville and by extension the rest of Equestria have almost no real crimes, the department was quite small, and it consisted of her and two deputies. It didn’t make her any less intimidating though. The silver maned earth pony stood as stiff as a board at all times and her off white coat was groomed pristine and in stark contrast to her navy blue uniform.

Spike, having no hangover because he didn’t drink at all last night, led the group next to Sheriff Shine and opened the door for her in gentlecolt fashion.

“Here you go, Sheriff!” Spike says politely.

Sheriff Shine smiles kindly at the little dragon, “You’re a good boy Spike, but you’re also an accomplice to these assclowns,” She says shifting to a glare, “So I’m gonna have to ask you to join them inside.”

“Yes Sheriff…” Spike says dejectedly.

On one side of the interrogation table sat the boys, and on the other sat Sheriff Shine who sighs deeply at the sight of these half-asleep drunks who appear to be melting into an amorphous pile of body odor and regret.

“Alright boys, I know all of you well enough to know that you all aren’t inclined to cause mayhem, which is why I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and holding off charges. For now. But can you please explain why the Wonderbolts had to be called at 1:30 in the morning last night to put out a huge spreading fire in the Everfree Forest?”

Anon starts, “Well you see--”

“Actually how about we have Spike tell the story? He’s less likely to have forgotten important details.” The Sheriff says cutting him off. Anon doesn’t object and just lies his head in his arms.

“Well Sheriff,” Spike starts, “It was about eight o’clock when I went over to Anon’s house for our monthly guys night…”

Spike sucked in the crisp cool air as the moonlight guided him through Ponyville, summer was coming to a close and fall was just around the corner. But rain, snow, sleet, or shine would not be stopping any of the guys from their monthly Boys Night. Spike didn’t really understand why Anon didn’t like baking and gossiping with the girls during their monthly sleepovers at first, but Anon insisted that Spike join him and the guys to have fun instead. Twilight seemed supportive as it would give him some guy friends besides Snips and Snails to hang out with, but Rarity was extremely distraught about Spike being away and doing “brutish activities” as she put it. She really fought hoof and mane to have him stay, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up as to why. She probably just wanted to keep a steady supply of his famous cookies.

Spike found much more joy playing Ogres and Oubliettes with the guys than he thought he would. He was the Oubliette Orchestrator of course, and he found immense joy partaking in dirty, messy, gory fun that the girls were never a fan of and it was something he wasn’t going to miss for the world. Especially now that their campaign was reaching it’s apex.

Arriving at Anon’s house, Spike could tell the night was already kicking off as a loud drunken argument could be heard with little difficulty from outside.

“I FUCKING SAID FROM THE FUCKING BEGINNING THAT HE WAS FUCKING SMALL!” Anon shouts over Big Mac and Bulk.

“But that’s not a perfect copy!” Bulk retorts.

“He is!! He just got shrunk down after he was perfectly copied!” Anon shouts back.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Bulk says.

“Do ya even know what you’re talking about Anon?” Big Mac asks.

“All I fucking asked was, if you had a tiny clone of Discord would you fuck with him!” Anon is beet red, due to being both drunk and angry, and his jerky movements cause the brimming bottles attached to his drinking hat to spill liquid all over the floor.

“We both said no ‘cause he didn’t do anythin’ the real one did, I don’t know why yer keepin’ this goin’,” Big Mac says, taking another swig.

Anon sputters in disbelief, “That’s just because you--!”

“Hey guys,” Spike says, trying to break it up. Spike knew how emotional Anon gets when he’s drunk, so this could have gone on for a while had he not stepped in.

“Hey! The main man…dragon’s finally here, now we can get this show on the road!” Anon says, immediately forgetting the thing that made him so angry in the first place. Or perhaps he was trying to quickly change the subject so he could get out of the corner he backed himself into.

“You’re darn… damn right it is!” Spike says excitedly. He wasn’t used to having the freedom of swearing openly, making his double life with the guys all the more exciting because he didn’t have to worry about Twilight chastising her like the big sister she was.

“Not tonight bud, apparently Bulk’s got an ‘adventure’ for us to go on tonight and he’s not doing anything else besides that.” Anon says.

Spike raises a confused brow, “What do you mean?”

“Okay okay, I know it sounds fake as Tartarus but trust me it’s out there! And it’s close by too!” Bulk says.

“What is?” Spike asks.

“Here we go again,” Big Mac sighs.

“Ok bro, so about sixteen years ago legendary bodybuilder Wealthy Keys was going to hold a meet in Canterlot, but the train holding all the equipment mysteriously broke down in transit. They loaded wagons with all they could and planned to cut through the Everfree forest to load the gear onto a new train but when the crews came out… they were empty hoofed. They practically ran out of the place, must have not been aware of how dangerous that place can be.” Bulk waves his forelegs for dramatic effect, sloshing ale and coming dangerously close to spilling.

“So we’d be going into a wild dangerous forest to find some old rusty gym equipment?” Spike asks.

“No! Well, you guys might not, I certainly am. But I know there’s also something to make it worth your guys’ while too.” Bulk says.

“Well?” Spike asks.

“There’s a small fortune’s worth of prizes they had with them too, not actual bits but the value alone could get you a roomful of them I bet seeing as they would be antiques. Trophies and medals don’t come cheap, you know, and the history behind them only makes them that much more valuable.”

“Gee, Ah wonder why nopony has risked their flanks gettin’ that junk outta there all this time,” Big Mac says derisively.

“I’m with Mac on this one,” Spike says, “The fact that it’s in the Everfree is reason enough to leave that stuff alone. Why don’t we just do our O&O session like usual to take your mind off it?”

“That’s the thing though, this is a real adventure! We’d be in history books and get a hero’s reward on top of it!”

“Where did you even hear about this anyway?” Anon asks.

“One of my bros I meet up with at comps every year was passing through town and told me about it, he’s a big history buff with this kind of thing so I trust him.”

The rest of the guys all groan in response to his answer.

“So you want to go out into an ultra dangerous forest that we know nothing about just because somepony told you a rumor that there was treasure out there?” Spike asks incredulously.

“Okay okay I know that sounded bad but I double checked! The library has records of it happening and everything! I even know exactly where the treasure is too."

Bulk's reassurance did not inspire any changes of heart from the rest of the group. Bulk only became more emotional upon this reaction.

“What am I gonna have to do to have you guys at least look with me for even a little bit?” Bulk pleads.

“You’re gonna have to really sweeten the pot here, Bulk.” Anon says.

Bulk pauses, he bites his lip nervously as he thinks real hard about what to say next. Whatever he was planning, he was desperate.

“I’ll… buy the drinks every month for Guy’s Night until we’re all dead and buried!” Bulk declares.

Big Mac and Anon look at each other with shocked expressions.

“But Twilight says I’m not allowed to drink.” Spike interjects.

“Anything you want bro, I’ll cater it, Pinkie Promise!” He accentuates his determination by crossing his heart and putting a hoof on his eye.

“Well ah know you’re certainly prepared to lose all your bits on an urban legend,” Big Mac says.

Bulk balks at this, “Even after that you won’t--”

“Now hold on just a second brother, I didn’t say I wasn’t in, because I’m not about to turn down a lifetime of free hooch,” Big Mac cuts him off.

“It’s definitely a crazy idea,” Anon thinks aloud, “But what the hell, I’m in too!”

“Spike? Little bro?” Bulk turns to Spike. Spike feels trepidation to this, and Twilight read him the pamphlet she made about peer pressure several times to prepare him for a situation like this. She even used puppets!

But…

“Ok, but you better cough up a lot of gems if you’re wrong!” Spike concedes.

“YEAH!” Bulk cheers happily.

Since Anon’s house was on the edge of the forest they made quick work of delving into the thick brush, empty packs and saddlebags waiting to be filled with treasure. There were no trails, no roads, just untamed wilderness hiding potential dangers from every direction. Being pleasantly sauced helps the other guys not to care, but Spike was in no such position. He could feel every one of his scales quivering in fright, and even a twig cracking was enough to make him jump.

“C-can’t we just do this in the morning guys? We really should get back to our game anyway, the campaign is at a critical point in the story!” Spike pleads.

“Don’t worry little buddy, all the monsters are too busy hunting each other to bother with small fries like us,” Anon says, rubbing his hand on Spike’s head.

Was that supposed to be reassuring?

"But our campaign is at such a critical juncture!" Spike pleads, "Anon finally collected all of the pieces of the engagement ring he needs to propose to Princess Diane of Trottingham, and Big Mac just cornered the wizard that stole his penis! We can't just leave those things on a cliffhanger."

"Our game will always be there when we get back bro," Bulk reassures.

Anon chuckles, "Bulk just doesn't want to play because his character is in a coma."

"Hey! I made a noble sacrifice so you guys could get away from those kelpies!"

Anon scoffs in response, "You got lucky with that seduction roll."

"Unlike in real life," Big Mac jabs.

"At least I was smart enough to still have my penis after everything was said and done instead of falling for such an obviously bad deal with that wizard," Bulk retorts.

“So where’s this treasure supposed to be?” Spike asks, having to defuse yet another inane argument.

“Allegedly the delivery guys said they were ambushed by some creature in the most dense part of the forest, so it would be where those extra tall trees are,” Bulk says pointing to the distance.

“S-so the d-darkest, s-scariest part?” Spike stammers.

“Well, it was almost two decades ago bro, something bigger probably cleaned out the area by now and moved on to other pastures.” Bulk says casually, tossing aside another empty bottle.

Man, this was certainly a much better lesson about staying away from alcohol than what Twilight has been telling him, because it clearly makes you stupid, Spike thought to himself. Maybe if whatever monster eats his friends before him it’ll get too drunk off their blood alcohol levels and allow him to make a clean getaway. The thought only makes Spike frown though, it would be far too cruel to leave his friends to such a fate. So the young drake soldiers on to what is hopefully not an untimely demise.

However his anxiety started to wane dramatically as the hours dragged on and they were still stumbling through the thick brush, it seemed like they were getting nowhere at all. Granted, when most of your party has half of their attention taken up by frequent liquor sipping breaks, nowhere is the place you’re most sure to end up.

In fact, the anxiety turned into annoyance when you had to take the role of babysitter.

While Spike was clearing a path he heard Anon shushing Bulk as he began to sob.

“Th-that really hurt!” Bulk cries quietly.

“I didn’t mean to hit you with the bottle man, I didn’t see you! Come on, you can hit me back and we’ll be even.” Anon says, trying to calm him down.

“O-okay,” Bulk says with a sniffle. Spike hears a meaty thwack behind him and Anon yelp in pain.

As they dug deeper the boys got into truly academic conversation to pass the time.

“Alright alright, Big Mac,” Anon says, “Cheerilee, or… Nurse Redheart?”

“Hoo-wee,” Big Mac exclaims, “That’s a toughie. Although… Bloomie and her Crusader friends had me shacked up with Cheerilee for a day not too long ago. And lemme tell you h-what, even though we never o-fficially got together I can say from experience that for a teacher her flanks are still as tight as a school-filly’s.” Anon and Bulk laugh saucily at this.

“Alright mah turn, would you roll in the hay with that Gilda girl that was here a while back?” Big Mac asks Anon.

"I don't know," Anon replies, "Usually those girls back home need meds otherwise they get… stalker-y."

“Yeah yeah, but for the hypothetical’s sake let's just say it's a one time thing,” Big Mac prods.

“Hmm,” Anon says scratching his chin, “I heard cats have barbed dicks though, and since I didn’t have griffons back home I wouldn’t want to risk it going both ways.”

“I’d take that action!” Bulk says excitedly.

“Oh please, you just like girls who are mean,” Anon says derisively.

“Heh, yeah, I bet he’d really like havin’ a girl like Gilda with a spiky you-know-what,” Big Mac snickers.

Bulk stammers, “Wha--That’s not true!” Spike himself even gives the first genuine laugh of the night with the other two boys as they poke fun at their muscle-bound buddy.

“Oh ho!” Anon says turning his attention to Spike, “Looks like Spike has something he wants to say about unicorn girls.”

“Yeah, we all know real well about you and Rarity,” Bulk continues, most likely to shift the focus off of him.

Spike goes flush at this, “W-well I like her a lot but--”

“Nuh uhhh,” Big Mac pokes, “Why, you should hear the tidbits AJ tells me about what Rarity’s been sayin’ about’cha, now that’s juicer than a ripe Honeycrisp I tell ya hwhat.”

Spike blushes furiously, “Aw come on-- wait, what’d she say about me?”

“Hold on!” Bulk cuts them off, “Looks like we’re here!”

Finally they seemed to make their way into a clearing, thick untamed grass spanned into a large glade and the gaping maw of a large cave stood ominously just opposite them.

“Well Bulk, is this the place?” Anon asks.

“Yeah bro, I’m sure of it. We just gotta look around now for some loot.” Bulk says.

The boys fan out and begin their search, “Well, it’s kind of hard to see anyth--ouch!” Anon yelps in pain holding his foot.

“Found something,” Anon whimpers.

Bulk hurries over and plucks a small dumbbell from the grass, “Aw, this is just a 10, I can find something better than this.”

Spike finds a rusty medal, the rotten lanyard attatched to it disintegrates at the touch, “How about this?”

“That’s not bad!” Bulk says, “That’ll get you like, 50 bits at least I bet!”

Spike raises a skeptical brow to this, “Really, 50 bits for a rusty copper puck?”

“Oh yeah bro, die-hard fans’ll pay good money for that stuff!”

Big Mac laughs sardonically at this, “You best hope so brother, ‘cause yer gonna need the bits to buy us all those drinks every month.”

Bulk looks upset at this, “There’s good stuff here, you’ll see! And you bros will take me a bit more seriously from now on!”

Anon looks up from where he was digging, “Well, you can’t blame us for not usually taking you seriously dude. You did spend an hour straight a few months ago trying to convince us that mares playing the didgeridoo made them infertile.”

“Everypony told me that was true!” Bulk shouts back.

“You tried to argue with Twilight about it too when we went to her about it dude,” Spike says, “She basically screamed the entire passage from that book about it being a myth at you when you kept pushing it.”

“You guys always keep treating me like I’m stupid!” Bulk whines, lip quivering. Oh boy, looks like they pushed him a little too far. Bulk turned into a huge baby when he drank too much.

“Oh come on, you might be retarded sometimes but that’s why we love you man,” Anon says trying to comfort him.

“Yea, what he said,” Mac confirms.

“Oh yeah? Well I bet there’s a whole load of stuff in there!” Bulk says pointing to the pitch black cave.

“Ha! You might have made us come out this far dude but there’s no way we’re going in there,” Anon says. Mac nods his head in agreement.

Spike comes to his side and lays a comforting hand on his back, “If it makes you feel better I won’t make you buy any gems for me dude, but I think it’s time we called it quits.”

“B-but… I was--” Bulk blubbers. Oh man, he was gonna start crying. Again. Spike makes a mental note to set a strict cutoff time for alcohol on Guy's Night from here on out. And a rule letting them go outside when they're drunk period. Spike sighs heavily, Bulk’s gonna owe him a lot more than just gems if he’s wrong about this.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go look with you. But only for five minutes and then we’re going home!”

“Really?” Bulk beams, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Yes, really. Now let’s get moving you big baby,” Spike says heading into the cave.

“Oh thank you thank you! You’re not going to regret this bro, I promise,” Bulk says trotting happily behind the dragon.

Entering the cavern it seemed that a massive hall stretched deep into the blackness, but oddly enough there seemed to be a speck of light just at the end of it, so the duo elected to follow it. The light grew closer and closer, and as they peek their heads around the corner they see quite a surprising sight.

The large chamber was well lit with torches, and scattered on the floor of the cave were assorted weights, dumbbells, and barbells of varying sizes and colors. But slumbering in the center of this pile was a massive wooden creature.

The beast looked in shape similar to a regular pony, despite the fact that it stood at least fifteen feet tall at the shoulder, and was at least as long as a young whale. It’s skin was wooden and charred black in places, holes eaten through its mighty body as termites came and went over the course of its life. Spike recognized the beast as an Ent, Twilight told him about these things once. They’re sedentary at night because they only eat sunlight, but they are extremely territorial and extremely deadly.

Spike and Bulk stood stock still for a good minute, watching the creature to see if it was awake. Bulk’s attention seemed to be easily diverted however, and Spike had to grab him by the ear to stop him from entering the creature’s space.

“What are you doing?” Spike hissed.

“Look!” Bulk points at a specific pile on the adjacent wall not too far from the creature. Gleaming and glistening having been saved from the harsh elements of nature sat a mound of golden trophies and medals. Spike couldn’t believe his eyes, if Bulk’s right about its value there was a fortune! With that kind of money Spike wouldn’t have to work a day in his life! He could buy the finest gems just for lunch, and he could spoil Rarity as much as possible…

Spike shakes his head to stop himself from trailing off, otherwise he’d forget about the monster too.

“There’s no way we can get anything in there without waking that thing up! I’ll back you up on being right but we’re leaving dude.”

Bulk looks at him pleadingly, “Please, bro! Just one thing, in and out, and we can go!”

Spike grits his teeth. Every scale on his skin screams at him to tell Bulk no, but he also knows thanks to Twilight that Ents aren’t very perceptive, on account that they’re just walking trees. It was a gamble, and he certainly wouldn’t get stinking rich. But he could get enough bits out of this to get Rarity something really nice, and a good meal on the side. Celestia damn it. Spike takes a long, calculating look at the beast, it didn't breathe in the traditional sense so it was hard to tell if it was asleep or not, but given the circumstances there really isn't a lot they could really do to wake it up in the first place.

“Fine, you grab the nearest thing and we’re out of here,” Spike says to him sternly. Before Bulk can sneak in there, Spike grabs him by the ear again.

“But you owe me 100 bits.”

Bulk hesitates from moving forward for a second, but furrows his brow in determination and soldiers on. Bulk tiptoes in as silently as possible, and makes a beeline for the pile of trophies and medals. Typical, but there was nothing Spike could do about it now.

Bulk snags a sizable trophy, and in a moment of excitement he grabs a solid handful of gleaming medals as well and stows them away.

Unfortunately it appeared that greed would claim another victim this night as the sudden removal of items from the bottom of the pile causes a cascade of gold and silver to crash down in a cacophony of noise. Both dragon and pony were frozen in terror as they awaited their fate. The moment after the noise stopped seemed to drag on forever. The anticipation stretched each passing second longer and longer until they thought they had stood there for several minutes.. But as they regained their composure and they realized the next moment passed with no issue, and the next one after that. After a solid several minutes it seemed to be safe to conclude that this tree was sleeping like a rock. The boys decided not to spend what little luck they had left and exited the cave as quickly and quietly as possible.

“Are we really gonna make Bulk pay for all those drinks forever?” Anon asks Mac.

“Nah, we ain’t gonna do him like that.” Mac says.

“Just next month then?”

“Eeyup.”

“Think again, jerkwads!” Bulk declares triumphantly, brandishing the large trophy at the two.

Mac and Anon were at a loss for words, mouths agape that this endeavor had actually turned a profit.

“Well I’ll be,” Big Mac says softly.

“Holy crap, Bulk was right about something for once?” Anon says equally bewildered.

“That’s right!” Bulk says as happy as a kid on Hearth’s Warming, “And since Spike was a real bro who believed in me he gets the cut of the dough!”

“I thought you wanted to grab one of those circus dumbbells for a memento,” Anon says.

Bulk suddenly looks terrified at the thought, “I’ll take the 10 you found, let’s get the buck out of here.”

Back at Anon’s house they’re caught up to speed about what they saw.

“Ah’m mighty surprised y’all didn’t manage to wake the darn thing up,” Big Mac says admiring the trophy that took center stage at Anon’s table.

“I’m just gonna call it a lucky break,” Spike says lounging in a beanbag chair, “That 100 bits is going to get one heck of a gift for Rarity and a diamond for myself the size of her flank.”

“Well I suppose we should celebrate this successful adventure to round off the night, Bulk,” Anon says.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Bulk asks.

“Chug! Chug! Chug!” The boys cheer as Bulk downs an entire trophy-full of hard cider. Spike even felt like joining in the drunken fun and giving a hearty cheer when Bulk slams the empty trophy victoriously on the table.

Just as the night seemed to be at its peak, a tremor struck the entire house. Then another. Soon it seemed like an earthquake was rattling the house, shaking objects off shelves and three tipsy guys on their asses. A deafening roar could be heard from outside the house that further shook the ground beneath their feet, and the boys rushed outside to see the commotion.

The Ent seemed very much awake now, and crashing through the trees it bellows once again in anger as it spots the group who stole their treasure.

“How the hell did it know where we were?!” Anon shouts.

Spike stammers, “I have no--”

Then Spike takes quick notice of the trail of empty beer bottles leading straight from Anon’s house into the woods.

“Oh come on!” Spike says angrily.

As the Ent begins to stomp towards the group, Spike has to think quickly. Anon and Mac are too drunk to be of any help, and Bulk has already started crying, so that cuts him out too. Spike wracked his brain to remember what Twilight told him about these creatures. They’re made of wood, but Twilight said regular fire won’t cut it.

But Spike has something that just might work!

“Anon, give me your drinking hat!” Spike yells as the group scatters around the Ent that’s trying to squish them.

“You want a drink now!?” Anon yells back.

“Just do it!”

Anon takes off the hat and chucks it as far as he can, and it doesn’t even make it halfway to Spike. Big Mac runs up and with his hind legs he bucks it high in the air over the Ent’s back, and Bulk swoops in to intercept it and drop it in Spike’s arms.

Spike takes the mouthpiece and sucks the most he can into his mouth. The taste is terrible, good thing he won’t need to swallow.

With the flammable alcohol Spike manages to breathe a large cloud of green fire all over the creature, and magical dragon fire seems to do the trick as the Ent lights up like, well… dry wood. The creature rears on its hind legs screaming in pain, and in the panic the creature loses its balance and falls backwards into the treeline of the Everfree, causing the fire to spread wildly into the forest.

But strangely enough, the scream from the Ent grows far louder as it burns, and it becomes warbled as it slowly turns into a chorus of shrieking and cries of agony. The beast explodes violently when the sound reaches its apex, the group of boys covering their eyes as chunks of the monster fly in all directions high into the air and far off into the distance.

Ponies from all around Ponyville rush to see the spectacle unfolding, and Sterling Shine in her fuzzy blue pajamas is one of the first on the scene. The boys turn to look at the mare glaring furiously at them, a vein threatening to pop in her forehead.

“What in Equus is going on here?!”

“And that’s pretty much it, Sheriff.” Spike says, ending his story.

The mare stares down at the interrogation table in disbelief, “Well your story is definitely more… more interesting than I anticipated.”

“S-so, are we in trouble?” Spike asks nervously.

The Sheriff deliberates in silence for a moment. Anon was shaken awake sometime during the story and fought to keep his eyes open, and Big Mac who is green in the face grabs a small trash can and cradles it in his hooves in anticipation of vomit. Bulk nurses the glass of water he was given silently, hunching over as if he wanted to somehow shrink away from the tough situation. Spike twiddles his claws and fidgets nervously in his seat as the Sheriff clears her throat.

“You boys caused a whole lot of trouble, that’s for sure. But as much as I hate to say it, I should thank you.”

“Wh-what?” Spike asks, surprised.

“Call it your lucky break, but you actually took care of an issue that would have put Ponyville in far more danger had you not accidentally intervened. We thought the Ents were all but removed from the Everfree years ago, one must have slipped in unnoticed it seems. Of course we don’t have the staff we used to and with a shortage of volunteers actually willing to go into that forest we can’t scout the area like we used to so there wasn’t anything to stop it from moving in.”

Bulk looks at her expectantly, “So does that mean we’re free to go?”

The Sheriff smiles at this, “Oh sure, you boys are free to go.”

Spike and Bulk cheer at this, and Big Mac gives a sickly smile.

“With two weeks of community service of course to pay back the city for cleaning up your mess. And that goes for each of you.”

Anon collapses out of his chair from exhaustion, and Bulk whimpers at the sentencing. Spike could only hold Big Mac’s long hair back as he puked in the trash can.

On the bright side, the spoils still remained in the hands of the victors, and each of the boys had a small mountain of bits cushioned underneath them. While the question of whether it was worth risking their lives was still debated, they certainly weren’t going to complain about this boon even if it meant picking up everypony’s trash for a couple weeks.

Sheriff Shine sits at her desk later in the day tidying up her paperwork for the day, when one of her deputies comes to her desk. She looks up to see his brown coat matted with sweat from galloping here and his features were marred with worry.

“Sheriff, you’re gonna want to come and see this,” He says with panic in his voice.

Just on the outskirts of the Everfree the Sheriff stood over the corpse, deep in contemplation. Her two shaking deputies shared a hushed conversation behind her as she studied the features. The body was burnt to a crisp, any specific features made completely undecipherable. But that wasn’t important as from even a passing glance one could tell exactly what it was. Or, what it used to be.

Sheriff Shine holds up a hoof to quiet her subordinates and bring them to attention.

“What do we do, Sheriff?” One of the deputies asks.

The Sheriff furrows her brow as she continues staring at the body, “First thing is to tell nopony here. Not the Mayor, not Twilight. This is way above their pay grade and it would only cause a panic. I want one of you to take photos of the evidence while the other will prepare a letter of all the information we have on this currently. I will board the next train to Canterlot and take all of it directly to the Princesses. Have I made myself crystal clear?”

“Y-yes ma’am!” The two stallions say with a salute.

Sheriff Shine returns to her office, her fearless attitude currently a facade masking the pit in her stomach as she herself tries not to become fraught with worry over the massive potential this case has. The Sheriff closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, focusing too hard on what might happen will only distract her from what is happening now.
Regardless though, whatever is happening now cannot in any way be good.

Author's Note

Another chapter up for you guys, hope you enjoy!
It's not Pinkie-centric I know, but chapters like these will sparsely be used to do some world-building, and you definitely will be seeing the Sheriff again soon!

Lunar Interlude: Part 2

After a long night of work Luna exits the dreamscape of the last pony on her route, and prepares herself once more to tackle the beast. As the mind of Anonymous stood imposingly before her she deliberated on how to reach her goal of unlocking the truth. Perhaps she pushed too hard last time and his subconscious mind reacted in self-defense, something she was not at all used to with her pony subjects. Granted, she had never needed to do so with anypony else but she just knew from how easy her job was with them that it would be nowhere near as difficult.

Luna could not help but feel some trepidation however, it appears that Anon’s mind is strong enough to negate her magic should she become too aggressive with her actions and it may have been luck that helped her be spit back out into the real world. But she quickly shakes this thought from her mind, the safety of her subjects is paramount to any damage she may incur, and as she steps inside his mind once more she steels herself for what is to come.

Bitter cold whips against your face as you crest the top of the hill, and for how much you try to muff your ears and tuck your mittened hands into your hoodie pockets it still managed to sink into your bones. You were tasked with knocking snow off the roofs of buildings around town before somepony from the Nature team said that Fluttershy needed your help urgently, so you made your way there. Before you stood Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash.

“Are you sure you can’t spare just a few other ponies from the weather team to help out?” The demure Fluttershy asks Rainbow as you enter the conversation.

“Sorry ‘Shy,” Rainbow says, “All this hot air blowing up from the south made a lot more rain clouds this year, and the weather team is just too busy getting it all moved away from Ponyville.”

“Oh…” Fluttershy says disappointed as she paws the snow with her hooves, “Okay, we’ll try our best as is.”

Rainbow takes flight to rejoin her team, “If we get ahead of schedule I’ll send some guys down to help, but we need all hooves on deck right now. I believe in you guys though!”

“What are we doing anyway?” You ask the dejected pegasus.

“Oh, well, like Rainbow said all of these extra clouds this year made a lot more snow than usual, and all the burrowing animals made their homes at the base of these hills. If all that snow melts they’ll all be flooded out of their little holes and end up homeless!”

You frown at this, “Sounds like a pretty important job, and everyo--everypony else is too wrapped up to help?” Your little pun elicits a giggle from Pinkie.

“Everypony just seems to be extra busy this year, and using the rest of the Nature team for this kind of job would cut back on our schedule by a lot,” Fluttershy says refusing to meet either of your eyes, “I’m really sorry I couldn’t get anypony else to help.”

“Aw don’t sweat it Flutters!” Pinkie Pie says, trying to lift her friend’s spirit, “Nonny and I are all you need to get all this nasty snow scooped up! We’re Super Scoopers, aren’t we Nonny?”

“No,” You say bluntly, causing Pinkie to look shocked and Fluttershy to cower slightly.

Putting your fists on your hips you strike a heroic pose, “We’re Super Duper Scoopers!”

Pinkie Pie laughs heartily with delight at your declaration, and Fluttershy seems to immediately become more chipper in mood as she gives a soft laugh as well.

“Well Pinkie, let’s get to work!”

The labor was a lot more demanding than you anticipated to the point where you had to abandon your hoodie to not boil on the inside out. Ponies don’t exactly use shovels like people do either, they used plows; and pushing heavy snow uphill was no walk in the park inside the awkward device. It’s easy for Pinkie to do her side since she’s Earth Pony strong, in fact she gets done so quick that by the time you finish she’s already built several Snow Pinkies, an extra large Snow Gummy, and she was halfway through what you can only assume was a Snow Anon.

Plowing the last pile of snow over the hill you stumble out of the frame and flop backwards into a snow pile, you were so worked up that steam billowed thickly from your body into the brisk afternoon air.

Suddenly, a Pinkie appears blocking the rest of the world from view.

“Tuckered out already, Nonners? I thought you said you were super duper!”

“I’m really trying Pinkie,” You say weakly, “You did the other two while you were waiting for me to be done, right?”

Pinkie looks around and hums to herself, “Oh that’s right, there were two more weren’t there?”

You give a long groan in response to her answer, and she strokes your sweaty head with a hoof to try and make you feel better.

“Cheer up Nonny! You know Pinkie Pie once said that hard work is just a game you gotta get good at! Then it becomes easy peasy Nonny squeezy!” She says emphasizing her point by squishing your cheeks together.

“Aren’t you Pinkie Pie though?”

“Oh! That was another Pinkie Pie who told me that when I jumped in this pool and everytime I did another Pinkie Pie came out and it was a whole big thing that turned into there being too many Pinkie Pies and that was a whole big thing lemme tell ya.”

Woof, a very small part of you feels kind of glad you missed out on that disaster.

“What are you doing Pinkie?” You ask as she continues stroking your head absentmindedly.

“Oh! Uh-- I just figured you were like a doggy or a kitty or a Gummy and that being petted made you feel better!” She says quickly as her cheeks become rosier. Must be cold even for the ponies too, Anon thinks to himself. Doesn’t make too much sense seeing as they’re covered in fur, though.

“D-do you not like it?” She asks nervously.

“No, it’s nice actually,” You say peacefully, “Just not something that’s commonly done where I’m from.”

Pinkie gives a soft sigh of relief to herself at this, and as an idea strikes her she bounds over you and out of sight for just a moment. The next moment your vision is completely obscured by snow as the party pony dumps a load of it over your face.

You quickly sit up from the shock of it, spitting snow out of your mouth, “What the hay Pinkie?”

Her winter muffs have been replaced by a white military-style cap, and the mare’s face beneath it has become a playful glare.

“I am not Pinkie Pie to you mister, I am Commander Pie of the Imperial Granite Empire! Your snow has been encroaching on our territory for too long and the only option left is war! What say you, Emperor Anonymous?”

Your past woes about the rest of the hard labor you had to do seemed to melt away in light of Pinkie’s fictitious declaration of war. Making a game of hard work always seemed like a half-assed thing parents told their kids to do when they needed to clean their rooms, but when Pinkie Pie ropes you into a game of any kind, it means business. A newfound vigor heats up your frozen and tired muscles for battle.

“Emperor?” You scoff, “That’s God Emperor to you Commander Pie! You heretics have spit in the face of our snowy doctrine for too long and must be taken out once and for all!”

Pinkie Pie dances giddily in place at your acceptance of your game, but mushes her face back into an even more menacing stare with her hooves.

“Your blind belief in your snow will not serve you in the coming battle Nonny--I mean Emperor Anonymous! You had best prepare!”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see how far your science--hey! No fair!” You say as you see her already plowing her snow up her side of the hill.

“All’s fair in l-love and war!” Pinkie says cheerfully.

The imposing challenge seemed to quicken your pace, and the two of you each paved your individual hillsides immaculate by yourselves in the time it took the two of you working on the first one. On the other side of the hills the giant piles of snow you two had accumulated had become your ammunition, and it needed to be spent wisely.

As you were in the middle of prepping snowballs, a foreign one slaps against the back of your head. It seems the first blood goes to Pinkie.

“Haha! If you can get hit that easy you don’t stand a chance Nonny!” Pinkie jeers from her hill.

“Cheap shots aren’t going to get you far, Pie!” You yell back. Ducking behind your humble snowy fortification your aim is near impeccable with each throw. Pinkie can only just barely bob and weave millimeters away from your tightly packed snowballs, luckily you played Galaga enough as a kid to know that you had to change tactics.

You take a snowball in each hand and fire the first one off from your bad arm, and just as you anticipated she dodges to the left allowing you to hit her where she was going to be dead on with your good arm. You blink and the Pinkie you hit was… a snow Pinkie? The poor icy mare’s head comes off as a result of your hit, and the real Pinkie pokes her head up from her own shielding with a smug grin.

“Hey I know I hit you!” You shout at her.

“Almost! But my ever-loyal Snow Pinkie sacrificed herself to protect her leader and for that she will be honored in all the history books!”

“Then I’ll just have to kick it up a notch!” You declare.

The exchange only became more heated as the two of you traded blows with one another, Pinkie managed to land a solid hit to your stomach causing snow to fall into your pants. One good throw from you hits her square in the cutie mark causing an explosion of confetti from her mane and a furious blush to adorn her face, the latter of which you don’t manage to catch.

Fluttershy trots to your position with a saddlebag filled with thermoses, “You two did such a good job cleaning away all the snow, I brought you some hot cocoa for--”

“Get down!” You shout as you grab her around the waist and pull her against your chest just as a snowball whizzes through where she was a second ago, and a sharp “EEP!” escapes the pegasus’ startled lips.

Peeking over your wall with Fluttershy still absentmindedly clutched to you you shout, “Firing on civilians now huh? Have you no shame?”

Being too far away from her to notice finer details Pinkie Pie frowns especially hard at you holding the demure yellow pony, and as her face heats up once more steam escapes her ears with a high pitched whistle.

Pinkie shouts back, “Anypony on your territory is officially an enemy! And I won’t stop until you’re both snowponies!”

She sounds actually angry, Anon thinks to himself as he lets Fluttershy go, she’s really getting into this bit.

Suddenly a colossal THUD shakes the area behind you, and turning to see what happened you see a boulder-sized pile of snow made an impact with the earth just a few feet from you. From your position you see Pinkie’s Party Cannon smoking from its barrel seated at the crest of her hill.

“Wh-what’s going on!?” Fluttershy asks in a panic as she cowers under your crouched form as Pinkie gathers snow to reload her cannon with.

“It seems Pinkie kicked it up several notches, think you can help out ‘Shy?” You ask the quivering pegasus.

“Oh, um, I’m not too… good at these kinds of things Anon, but I can see if I can get some help.” She says nervously.

“Go do that Flutters, I’ll give you cover!” And as she quickly trots off to get the cavalry you pelt Pinkie’s position to impede her reloading progress. Unbeknownst to you, your pitches were going much farther than you thought, and your flank-seeking snowballs nail a particular Rainbow pegasus as she’s leading her team to the opposite end of Ponyville where they were working.

Looking down on your skirmish from the skies she yells angrily down at you, “Hey, who did that!? Which one of you wants to be hit with a real snowball?”

“It was Nonny!” Pinkie shouts up at her, “And Fluttershy is coming back with backup soon, I need your help Dashie!”

Regardless of how high up she was, you could see her menacing stare even if she were a mile away with how many daggers were being fired your way.

“Cloud Trotter!” She says beckoning a navy blue pegasus over to her.

“Y-yes ma’am?” He asks nervously.

“Lead the squad over to the South quadrant, I have to… take care of some other business real quick.”

“Yes ma’am!” He says zooming off to round up the other pegasi.

Uh oh. Pinkie was dangerous enough on her own, but now she has the most competitive pony in town on her side. There was no time to be afraid though as another cannon blast goes off and slams into the ground, much closer than the last one. Rainbow Dash already has a pyramid of snowballs prepared on either side of her, and using her powerful wings as snowball pitching machines to fling snowballs at breakneck speed at your position. One snowball breaks clean through your fortifications inches from where you were.

Just as all hope seems lost, unicorn magic molds the snow on your left into a thicker, sturdier formation and a grizzly bear pushes a large mound of snow into a cruder yet much more powerful wall on your right. The cavalry has arrived! Well, if by cavalry you mean Twilight, Fluttershy, the bear, and some other smaller woodland creatures. But hey, any help was more than welcome against these insurmountable odds.

Twilight surveys the area and gives you a puzzled look, “Why are Pinkie and Rainbow Dash trying to flatten you?” and as she asks she magically stops a snowball from Rainbow and returns it to its sender.

“Uhh, Pinkie and I were playing a game, and it kinda got out of hand,” you chuckle nervously.

“Oh my, it’s g-gotten a lot more intense since I left, hasn’t it?” Fluttershy asks.

“It’s a Code-Pink huh?” Twilight asks, “I assume you know what this means Anonymous.”

“Yeah,” you reply, “The Nuclear Option.”

“The what?” Twilight asks.

“Oh, uhh, a really big move that will completely lay waste to them in one move.” You correct yourself. Damn, Twilight’s going to pester you about this later. No time to think about how to turn a horrible war crime into a nice pony-friendly lie though.

As the pressure is on, you wrack your brain as you try to think of a way to take them out in one shot. Pinkie and Rainbow aren’t alternating their rate of fire so they have to reload at the same time, and the gap between hills is parabolic…

You get a sense of nostalgia from the situation weirdly, a faint memory of something from an old television show you watched as a kid. A move that combines the effort of multiple people--or ponies in this case--into one attack that can take out any opponent in one fell swoop…

“I’ve got it!” You say excitedly as the epiphany hits you.

As Twilight and the animals get to work on your finishing move, you fire off rounds as best as you can while Fluttershy daintily feeds you a steady supply of ammo. It’s all you can do to hinder the assault while your comrades focus on their work.

A small crowd of ponies who spotted the show have abandoned their Winter Wrap Up duties and gathered to watch the spectacle unfold. Bits were even starting to change hooves on who would win as the crowd grew, most went in favor of Pinkie’s side due to the unholy assault they were giving to Anon’s side.

A reprieve falls upon the battlefield as Pinkie and Dash both run out of ammo and have to reload, and Anon’s barrier was a crumbling mess on the brink of collapse. The climax was fast approaching, and things looked dire for the human and his friends.

The silence among the crowd was broken with gasps of shock as Anon’s fortifications were blown away from within the structure by Twilight’s magic. Pinkie and Dash look on with jaws agape at the superweapon their foes had produced.

Held above your figure by Twilight’s magic was the most massive snowball anypony had ever seen in their lives. It was too big to be even referred to as a snowball anymore. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough, it was more like a large hunk of a glacier pulled straight from the arctic.

“It’s ready!” You declare triumphantly, holding your arms up to the sky as if you were holding it up yourself. Pinkie and Dash back up trepidatiously at the size of the thing, nothing they could produce would even stand a chance against this monster.

“Take this!” You shout pointing your finger at the enemies you have sentenced to perish.

Twilight groaned from the strain it took on her to hold up the beast, and in the moment she slips up, the ball drops directly on top of you. If it were tightly packed it would have really hurt you most likely, but screaming in fear you barrel down the hill trapped inside the monster you created. The crowd watches on the edge of their seats as the monster rides the arc and breaches the side of Pinkie’s hill at high speed like a whale out of the ocean. A pin could be heard hitting the snow in the moment Pinkie and Dash watched the snow fall on top of them from the sky.

Dash was quick enough to get out of the way, but Pinkie and her cannon were devoured by the monster as you were, the behemoth boulder of snow crashing into the earth and shaking the ground so much that any tree branches holding snow within thirty feet of them were now bare.

The crowd disperses quickly to not be called on to clean up the mess, most bitter that their bits had gone to the lucky few who bet on your victory. But Twilight, Fluttershy, and Dash dig at the mountain of snow to get you two free. They found you two dazed, yet unharmed.

“What is the meaning of this!?” Mayor Mare shouts at you and the others.

You and Pinkie give an embarrassed blush to the fuming mare upon realizing how out of hand your game had gotten. The mayor glares at Fluttershy and Dash, who each quickly become scarce to go back to work.

“All you had to do was clean the snow off the hills,” she growls turning back to the two of you, “Instead you make a spectacle that will surely put us behind this year, and we’ve only been on time once since last year! We can’t even get a streak going until next year now!”

“Sorry Mayor Mare,” the two of you say shamefully.

“Actually Mayor,” Twilight says pulling a checklist from her saddlebag, “According to this we’ve been going 34% faster than last year by my calculations, everypony’s been working so hard that I think this break was well needed.”

“Wh-what?” The Mayor stammers.

“If we go at the same rate next year, we could even make a tradition of it! There are three hills after all, we could have a teamwide snowball fight every year!” Twilight says giddily.

“I--Well--Oh well,” she sighs, “You are the Coordinator after all. I’ll look into this matter later, but you two are still going back to work, understand? Get this snow out of here!”

“Yes, Mayor!” You two say giving a mock salute to her.

Twilight leaves with the Mayor, and she smiles as the two of you shoot a thankful look at her for sticking up for you.

You and Pinkie meet each other’s eyes. Pinkie stares deep into your eyes for a moment, then lets rip the loudest snort you’ve ever heard from her before she devolves into a fit of giggles. You chuckle at this, and then you’re full on laughing with her at the hilarious situation you put yourselves in.

You don’t know what made you do it, but you wrapped your arm around her tightly and pulled her close to you as you shared each other’s mirth. The smell of her strawberry hair, the way she taps her hoof against your chest as she struggles to breath from laughing so hard, it makes your heart skip a beat. This mare was in fact the epitome of fun, and you were glad to share that fun with her today. It seemed anytime you were with her your day became a blast.

Your laughter as you make to get out of the snow makes you stumble into Pinkie’s Party Cannon, and it fires off a volley that to your horror heads straight for poor Fluttershy.

It was as if the sky itself had ripped open.

You weren’t Anon anymore, you were Luna once more. And to Luna’s shock she found herself rooted in place, unable to move, unable to use her magic once more. How did this happen!? She lingered in his mind too long and it’s fighting her once more somehow!

The snowy landscape of Ponyville had been replaced with a fiery, desolate wasteland with lava spitting violently from the earth. In the distance a pillar of pure green energy radiated from the earth, and as the deafening sound of the destruction this light wrought bellowed in her ears Luna spots a figure rising from the center of the column of energy.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAGHHHH!” The beast bellows in pure fury, a hulking abomination of muscle and power that looked… like Flutershy?

Whizzing past either side of her at breakneck speed were two blue streaks of light speeding towards the monster Fluttershy had become, and they were none other than Anon and Rainbow Dash! But their manes were a brilliant spiky blue, and they bore the tattered remains of a gi and armor, respectively.

The two traded titanic blows with the monster, and try as they might she demolished the two at every turn.

Managing to blow the beast backwards some distance they press their backs to one another, and a blinding energy enveloped their forms.

“GALICK--”

“KAMEHAME--”

“HAAAAAAAAA!”

The beam rips across the sky lighting its surroundings as if a small sun had entered the setting, but to Luna’s amazement the monster repels the attack with near ease as it goes to assail the two once more.

The two make a hasty retreat, Luna had no clue how they were to escape with the beast tailing them so closely. Why did Anonymous’ mind show her this battle?

Luna realizes why far too late as Anon and Rainbow blow past her, and in that moment Luna and Anon lock eyes as he gives a smug smile to her.

“Have fun Luna!” He yells as he and Rainbow fly quickly past.

The last thing Luna sees is this Fluttershy rear back her hoof and connect with her face.

“Good morning sis--Oh my! You look terrible!” Celestia says concerned as she rushes to the side of her stumbling and haggard sister.

“It’s nothing sister… I’ve just come down with a terrible migraine.” Luna says dismissively as she slumps her head next to her breakfast.

Despite her horribly aching mind she is lost in thought about her past experiences with Anon’s mind. The first time, she acted too forcefully, and was punished. But this time, she didn’t act at all, and was punished anyway? A sneaking suspicion arises within her that he's been consciously aware of her actions this whole time, and has been toying with her. But that’s impossible! No pony has ever shown awareness of her presence unless she made herself known!

Luna does not bother trying to bring this matter down to a science. The next time she and Anon cross paths, she is getting to the bottom of this, once and for all!

Author's Note

I am actually really surprised I knocked out this chapter in one night! I just hit a really good groove and kept going till 3am I suppose lmao
This is by far the most fun I've had writing a chapter so far, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

Undercover Love

“Ugh, Anonymous dear, do you really have to be plucking away at that damnable violin while we’re eating?” Rarity says annoyed as you play another sour note while you practice.

“Well I have a busy schedule today helping Cheerilee and the others get prepped for the graduation party, and I made a promise to Octavia when I bought it off of her that I would play it every day. It was her first instrument you know.” You say running the bow across the string to produce a quick playful tune.

“But I worked so hard on these horderves! And you’re just letting them go to waste because they’re not covered in grease and that mealy protein powder you shovel into your gullet.” She says derisively.

“Oh please, the only time you ever get your precious hoofsies dirty to make lunch at your place is when you want to hear the especially juicy gossip.” You retort, accentuating your point with an aggressive riff.

“Hah hah, you truly know how to treat a lady who’s slaved over a kitchen counter.” She says turning her nose up to you.

Her act doesn’t hold up long though, gossip is this mare’s weakness. She tries to hold a tone that would portray otherwise however, “Besides, you wouldn’t want to hold your romantic pursuits away from your bestie, would you?” She says fluttering her lashes at you resting her head on her folded hooves.

This gets a good laugh out of you and you elect to put down your instrument, “So if I didn’t have any news about it, would you kick me out?” You joke.

“Oh come now, we are good friends! I wouldn’t think of doing something so uncouth.”

“Well I hate to break it to you, but I actually don’t have much since we last talked about it.”

“What!?” She balks, “How can you have nothing prepared? I mean really, do you think Pinkie deserves something so last second? The party is in two days Anon!”

The accusation actually makes you feel a little guilty. You really did like Pinkie more than you can describe, but everything you came up with just didn’t seem right. A picnic? Too simple, and she beat you to that already. Proposing? Well, baby steps. Hey, it’s not like you showed up here with a troupe of groupies around your waist, cut yourself some slack.

“It’s just… I’m not really a big gesture kind of guy, I just kind of go with the flow. Are you sure it’s really necessary and I can’t figure out a more simple way to get it through to her?”

Rarity holds a hoof to her forehead as if she’s about to faint, “Anonymous, really! The Grand Gesture is the only way to a mare’s heart, I can tell you that for sure! Now I told you that your feelings you described for how you felt about Pinkie were perfect the way they are but you need to channel that into something, Rien n’est petit dans l’amour!”

“Rien huh?”

“It’s Prench for love is no small thing, dear. You must make a grand occasion to sweep the mare off of her hooves, not wait for one to happen!” She says banging a hoof on the dainty table as she’s wrapped up in her passion.

“Do you want her to be disappointed in you?” She asks.

“N-no.”

“Do you want her to be taken from you by the hooves and charisma of a more dashing stallion!?” She says climbing halfway across the table to press foreheads with you.

“No!” You say loudly.

“Then figure something out Anon! You do know Pinkie is going to be the one managing that whole event, right?”

“Well yeah, I knew that for a while now.”

“Well find a way to get in close to her and surprise her at her own party! Nothing can top getting the drop on Pinkie in one of her own parties.”

“W-well that seems like a pretty tall order to fill,” you say.

“That’s why you play to your strengths--not to your literal ones you oaf!” She says irritated as you glance at your biceps.

“I’m sorry! You’re just making me nervous!”

Rarity takes a moment to compose herself and back down into her seat upon realizing her intensity shook you a bit.

She continues in a more gentle fashion, “What I mean by your strengths is that you’re practically glued these instruments of yours. Don’t they have bands of some kind playing there?”

“Well yeah, one. But a band takes this stuff a lot more seriously than I do, I don’t think they’d want me cutting in for some romantic gesture, even if Pinkie deserves that and more.”

“Oh please, ponies will bend over backwards to help you with that kind of thing here! Just come up with a smooth suave ballad just for her and she’ll be in your loving arms in no time!”

“Are you sure?” You ask her.

“Anonymous, I absolutely assure you that this is going to work out in your favor. But if you never make a shot, then the only thing you’ll be missing is your one chance to get her.”

The pep talk is just what you needed to burn away your lingering doubts about this, and you tighten your fists in determination.

“Well Twilight is helping Cheerilee coordinate this year, so that might throw a wrench in things,” You say pensively.

“That is quite the predicament, you would be going up against the Impenetrable Armour of Twilight’s Scheduling. Touched as she was by your feelings for Pinkie Pie, nothing is going to persuade her to make a last-minute change of plans.”

“But if I get Cheerilee on board…”

“Then consider that armour penetrated! And Twilight can be none the wiser!” Rarity cheers.

“And Pinkie-- Uh, won over!”

Rarity laughs saucily at this, “Save your enthusiasm for the performance!”

You smile as you see everything coming together, “Thanks Rarity, you know under all that snark is a really good friend. You should do that more often.”

Rarity rolls her eyes at this and you wrap her in a hug to show your appreciation. She pushes away from you and furrows her brow seriously.

“Now Anon, I do hope you keep this between us until the day of the party. Tell the wrong pony and they’ll spill the proverbial beans wherever they go!”

“That’s awfully ironic coming from you Rara,” You say with a laugh.

“Oh I wouldn’t blab about this for the world! The story is just getting to the best part!”

As you step out the door you turn to her with a smirk, “I think you live a little too vicariously through me Rarity.”

She gives you a friendly smile, “Well darling, when your life is already so perfect you have to make your own fun!”

Even with your perky pudgy pink party pony face pressed powerfully against Rarity’s window, you can’t hear a darn thing! You really wish you took that lip reading class at the learning annex instead of the soap making one. Oh who were you kidding, those bars of vanilla soap sold like hot cakes! The hot cake scented ones did too!

But you’re never going to get anywhere finding out what special surprise to do for Nonny if you can’t get any hints about what he could want! You felt a pang of guilt when you thought about how you’ve procrastinated something like this until the last second, but you haven’t tried to be in the dating game for a good few years. Honestly you were kind of nervous. Really nervous. Tummy butterflies and jelly legs, the whole shebang! And when you get nervous about something, you get distracted a lot more easily than usual. Especially when you found that cool bug, that snowballed into a whole series of events that ate up your entire week!

“Oh shoot! He’s hugging Rarity and he’s leaving! Gotta hide.”

He should be hugging us with those big mamma jammas.
“Oh hush, you. In due time!”

Well you gotta think of something, you’re running out of time.
“Oh I know that, but you’re not helping!”

Well use your noggin! Just do the same thing you always do when you do something nice for a friend!
“I’m trying! But everything I think of doesn’t seem good enough for somepony like him.”

Just KISS.
Your face heats up considerably at this, “Well I WANT to, but I gotta win him over--”

No! Keep. It. Simple. Silly! Take something basic that he likes and BLOW IT UP, Pinkie style! You gotta trust the Cakes on this, you have the pizzazz to blow him away already!

“Oh. Oh! That’s a good idea!” You say triumphantly from your tactical bush position. You just had to break Nonny down into his bare interests and find something to really surprise him with!

Hmm… that’s a tough cookie. Whoever made it shouldn’t have added so much flour. Nonny’s down for everything usually, but what’s his jam? Ooh, you should have some PB&J for lunch. Wait! JAM! Nonny’s favorite thing in the world is music! And there’s bound to be a time slot during the reception for you to blow him away with a music number, just for him!

...

“I’m sorry Pinkie, really I am, but we really can’t fit something like that into the schedule.” Twilight says.

Pinkie’s mane and ears fall flat at the news, “Aw please! Not even at the end?”

“Pinkie, after I ratify a schedule I just can’t amend it, it would destroy the concept of scheduling itself! How could I mar the face of something so immaculately organized?” Twilight hugs her clipboard to herself dearly as if it were her child.

“But Twil--”

“Listen Pinkie, not to be a Gabby Gossip, but I’m absolutely certain any gesture you make for Anon will win him over. That’s pretty much a guarantee!”

“But this is the biggest event we’re going to have for a long while!” You whine, “It’s about the principal! It’s in the moment! It’s. Huge! I know the band and they’d be cool with it! No trouble at all, that’s a Pinkie Promise!”

Twilight shakes her head at you once more, “I’m sorry Pinkie, some love ballad just won’t flow with the theme of ‘school graduation party’. Just because you want it doesn’t mean that other ponies will, either.”

“I--Well!” You start, but suddenly an idea strikes you. Other ponies, huh?

Suddenly your mood becomes more chipper, and your mane bounces back to maximum poof, “Okie dokie lokie! Sorry about all the hassle Twilight, guess I’ll just find another time!” You bounce off excitedly, and Twilight chuckles to herself at what she assumes is just another one of your antics. Silly old Pinkie, you bet she’s thinking.

For being so smart, underestimating you was a very un-smart thing to do.

Cheerilee was not having the best time. Her mane was frazzled, she was on her 6th cup of coffee and counting, and she kept having to run back and forth between various stations to make sure everything goes perfect.

At least, that’s what you could tell just from watching her for the past hour. Climbing down from your ladder after hanging the last of the curtains, you yell to the construction manager that you’re taking a lunch.

Pinkie and the Corner provided most of the food for the crews, man that mare was unbelievable. If it involves making people happy, hell even satisfied like a good lunch can, she’s got everything covered. You saw her several times throughout the day, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to chat it up with her like usual. The pressure just feels to be too much, you don’t want to do something majorly stupid before the big event.

Damn, you’re getting the cart before the horse you want to date. You gotta convince Cheerliee to let you perform first.

You manage to track down the crazy mare as she’s trying to collect the streamers she dropped, and stopping some more from being stolen by the deviant wind. She lets out a shaky breath as she tries to compose herself, so as a kind gesture of support you come up from behind her and present her a muffin.

“You know, all that coffee and no breakfast is bound to make your anxiety run wild,” You say to the teacher.

She puts the runaway streamers back in a bag on the supply table, and runs a hoof through her mane to try and smooth it out, “That obvious, huh?”

“You know if you need help I happen to be a man who’s handy, a handyman even,” You say relenting the treat to her ravenous maw.

Almost scarfing down the paper wrapper it came in, she gives a soft laugh to your offer, “That’s very kind of you as always Anon, but I always get this frazzled around graduation time. The kids start slacking off more on their schoolwork, you know the deal.”

You raise an eyebrow to this, “I’m sure, but since Pinkie’s in charge this year the bar has to be set a lot higher, and a lot more stuff to do.”

Cheerilee grimaces at the thought, “Yes, but--”

“Cheerliee, Cheerliee,” You say raising your hands to quiet her, “If it’s not a no it’s a yes, and I insist you let me be your assistant to take the load of your withers.”

“Anon,” Cheerilee says coyly, “Since when did you start charging ponies for lending those hands of yours to them?”

You find yourself at a loss for words for a moment, no way she’s onto you!

“I have no idea--”

“--What I’m talking about?” Cheerilee finishes for you with a laugh, “I’m sure that this whole con would have worked on anypony else, but I’ve been around kids for years Anon. They’re usually only this nice when they want something.”

Your shoulders slump as she’s quick to catch you sooner than you thought, “Alright alright you got me, but I have good intentions!”

Cheerilee laughs at your lame excuse, then becomes flush, “Oh… Anon I’m flattered but you’re not really my type.”

“Oh, this is awkward.” You say.

“I-it doesn’t have to be! We can still be friends!”

“No that’s-- that’s not the reason Cheerilee, promise. I was just hoping you could squeeze me into the schedule so I could do a… personal performance for Pinkie Pie.”

Cheerilee looks visibly relieved, “Oh phew! But… I don’t know Anon, as romantic as that sounds I don’t think Twilight will let me do something like that. You know how she is.”

“But what Twilight doesn’t know won’t hurt her, and it’ll be all the more surprising for everypony, wouldn’t it?”

“It would, but--”

You wrap an arm around her withers, gesturing in the distance to encourage her to picture what you’re about to say, “But think about it, no more work for the rest of the day, you could have a nice lunch to yourself with no extra noise, and you can indulge yourself with the thing that every teacher wants most.”

“Wh-what’s that?” She asks.

You put your mouth next to her ear and whisper, “You could have a nice. Long. Nap.”

The word makes her shudder visibly, just uttering it alone makes her putty in your arms for a moment.

“Okay, you’ve got a deal,” She says as you let her go, “Are you sure that you can handle everything I’ve got on my plate?”

“Of course!” You say giddily that you pulled it off without a hitch, “Consider it already done.”

“Thanks Anon, I really appreciate it. I won’t tell Twilight, but I’ll speak to the band before the big night. Those stallions are sure to help you out, so be ready at the end of the reception!”

As she walks off with a yawn she leaves you with the checklist of everything that needs to be covered for the graduation party tomorrow. Couldn’t be that hard right? As you unroll the scroll it hits the ground and rolls away a good foot from you.

You take a deep breath to brace yourself, “You’re doing this for Pinkie,” You say to yourself, “That means anything you do for her--”

“--Will be more than worth it!” You declare to yourself as you trot even faster back home to the Corner. You make the mad dash to your bedroom, tossing aside old party supplies and clothes from your closet that had collected in a messy pile to reveal a storage chest buried underneath.

You haven’t needed these old things for a while now, turns out other ponies didn’t think these were as fun as you did. In fact they kinda got scared of them after a while by how accurate they were. But you’re not using these for parties or for scaring anypony. Popping open the chest, you ponder which one you’re going to choose…

Adjusting your rosé mane and making sure those smiling blossoms were still seamlessly stitched to your flank you return to the schoolyard with renewed vigor. You haven’t used these old costumes in a while, and the zipper got painfully caught in your mane several times as you tried to put it on.

Target acquired. Agent Pinkie, what is your mission?
“Slip in, mentally reconfigure the target, and slip out while not blowing cover,” You repeat to yourself.

“Blowing what?” Twilight asks you, surprising you as you weren’t paying attention to how close you were getting to her.

“Oh! Uh, the blowing up the balloons! How are we in the balloon department?”

“We’re doing fine in that department, all accounted for and sorted by yours truly!” Twilight says happily, “Say, how is that band Pinkie got?”

“Oh Pony Jam? They’re a real solid group of stallions, a little pricey but I-- I mean Pinkie has some solid connections with the entertainment industry!”

“Really? How so?” Twilight asks.

“Uhh, Pinkie told me her mom is actually related to one of the members, Stone Trotter.”

Twilight gives a surprised look, “Wow, I never knew that, you and Pinkie are closer than I thought.”

You try to keep your composure under the questioning, “Heh, yeah we hang out all the time! She’s a real hoot.”

“Uh huh…” Twilight says.

Shoot, gotta take the attention away from yourself quickly, “Why do you ask anyway, you don’t seem like somepony too interested in music.”

“Oh nothing, Pinkie was just pestering me earlier about it. She wants to do some silly musical profession of love to Anon. Romantic as it is it just wouldn’t ‘coordinate’ with the rest of the event, y’know?”

You feel yourself getting riled up, but you force the desire to tell your friend to shove her schedule where the sun doesn't shine back deep down to keep character.

“Oh come on Twilight, loosen up! I think it’ll be a fun way to wrap up the party.”

“Oh geez, did Pinkie try to convince you too? All those romance novels you checked out of my library are getting to you.”

“Listen Twilight, knowing my students they’re gonna be really bored and wanting to go home near the end of this thing. It’s a party! Something huge and spectacular like this would be a perfect way to cap off the night! Make it memorable!”

Twilight stops walking and furrows her brow, “Huge huh, that’s exactly what Pinkie said…”

Your gut runs ice cold, “Uh--Well I--”

Twilight laughs to herself, “Pinkie must have been really persuasive to you, good thing I have enough mental fortitude for the both of us.”

Phew. In the clear for now.

“You want to come to lunch with me?” Twilight asks, “I think a good hayburger will take this whole thing off your mind and back on track.”

Looks like Cheerilee isn’t going to get you any further, “Oh I should be good, had a really big breakfast. You have fun though!”

As Twilight walks off you give a frustrated huff, who else is she gonna need to change her mind? You can’t give up now though! Just gotta be somepony who she wouldn’t expect to be supportive...

Adjusting your faux-Stetson hat, you amble over to the Stables as country-ish as you can muster. Knowing Twilight, she’ll be there. Lo and behold, she and Spike were seated at an outdoor table.

“Howdy Twilight!” You say to the two. Twilight waves to you with a full mouth, and Spike pays no mind to you as he has his own small mountain of burgers that he’s inhaling.

Taking a seat with the two, you turn to Twilight, “How’s the prep goin’ fer the hoedown tomorrow?”

Twilight swallows her mouthful and wipes the ketchup from her mouth, “Going pretty well so far! Pinkie’s been kind of a hassle trying to change the schedule for her own endeavors but I quashed that pretty quickly! The rest is going swimmingly.”

“Whaddya mean?” You ask her.

“Oh just some whole thing about wanting to squeeze a love ballad into the show, really silly if you ask me. I would bet good bits that Rarity got her wrapped up in the concept of these grandiose gestures.”

You grit your teeth at her tone, the nerve of this mare!

“Well I reckon it’d be mighty fun, actually,” You retort.

Twilight balks at this, “You too Applejack? Does nopony understand the sanctity of keeping things functional? This isn’t some random party, it’s a school graduation for Celestia’s sake! It’ll stick out like a sore thumb!”

You shrug your shoulders at this, “I dunno, sounds pretty fun if you ask me, keepin’ things unexpected is bound to rile the crowd up.”

Twilight rubs her eyes in frustration, “I seriously cannot be the only pony who thinks this is just being silly.”

“Hey Twilight, mind if I order another 3?” Spike says putting down his plate that he licked clean.

“You’re still hungry? You’ve had 6 already, you used to only be able to eat one!”

“I don’t know, I’ve just been so hungry the past couple days, maybe I’ll finally get a growth spurt.”

“Aww,” You say to that, “Yer growin’ up so fast little guy.”

“I get that dragons live a while longer than most ponies, but I never understood why people still call me a baby. I stopped being a baby years ago.”

“How old are you?” You ask.

“I’m Nineteen.”

Your eyes widen in shock, “Wow, I never would have guessed.”

“You can just have mine,” Twilight says exasperated, “I’m gonna head back and make sure we’re on schedule before sundown. See you around AJ.”

Twilight disappears once again, and you can help but grow a smug grin as you part ways with Spike as well to contemplate your next disguise. She’s about to crack, just need to hammer it home! Being lost in thought again, you bump into somepony.

“Oof, sorry ‘bout that partner!” You say to...

“What-- just what in the gosh darn?” the real Applejack says incredulously.

She leans to the left, and you mirror her. She leans to the right, and you reflect her again. She starts to go left again, but instead fakes you out and shoots forward, startling you.

“Aha! Just who the hay are ya!?” she asks angrily.

You stammer and stutter, at a loss for words. Digging in your saddlebags you yell “Smoke bomb!”

Pink smoke bursts from the ground, blinding Applejack. By the time she regains her sight you’ve disappeared. The country mare spins around looking to and fro for her doppelganger, but after a moment Applejack just shakes her head.

“Musta been mah imagination. Maybe Big Mac was right and I do gotta drink more water,” she says walking off.

Your head bursts from the hole you dug for yourself and you suck in a lungful of fresh air. You gotta end this soon, otherwise something’s really gonna bring everything crashing down. Oh, you had just the pony in mind to bring this to a rousing conclusion!

This disguise was the best one yet! Even had a cooler hat too, you weren’t too into the cowpony stuff. The star-bedazzled cape was pretty neat too. You’ll try not to have too much fun as Trixie.

“Well well, if it isn’t Twilight Sparkle!” You say snidely, and you can tell how effective this will be when you see her ears pin to the sides of her head and see her frown at your entrance.

Twilight takes a deep breath and turns to you, “Hello Trixie, what brings you back to Ponyville?”

“Oh just passing through, gracing this town with my presence once more on my way to Canterlot. On tour if you will,” You say pretending to inspect your hoof for any dirt.

“Oh don’t tell me you’re going to try and cut into my schedule too,” Twilight says angrily, “I’ve had enough trouble with this already! The answer is no!”

You scoff at this, “Me? The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie at some small graduation party for small fillies and colts? I’m a showrunner, not a second act.”

“Listen you--” Twilight starts, but looks surprised at your response, “Oh. I didn’t expect you to be so reasonable.”

“Me? Unreasonable? Hardly,” You say, “I know there’s no point in trying to convince you, everypony is just going to have to deal with how you plan the show to turn out.”

“Well thank you Trixie,” Twilight says before furrowing her brow, “Wait, what do you mean ‘deal with it’ and ‘how it will turn out’?”

“Well like I would expect you to have a show be: boring and prrrrredictable. Although I suppose you would call it ‘functional’ to cope with that.”

Oh man, the look on her face, the way stray hairs sprang out of her mane as you wore down her psyche, it was priceless!

“Well just so you know Trixie, I’m actually scheduling a surprise performance at the end of the show that will knock the horseshoes off of everypony! How’s that for boring and predictable!?”

You almost explode out of your costume from pure joy at the news, but you just manage to contain your excitement and pretend to be impressed with Twilight’s declaration, “Well well! I’ll be sure to stick around for that then if it’s going to be that huge and spectacular! Maybe I rubbed off on you more than I thought if you’ve developed some sense of showmanship.”

Twilight growls in frustration and storms off, and the second you slip out of your costume you literally jump for joy at your success. You really need to work on your spatial awareness, because you crash into somepony once more. Wait, not somepony, someone!

Your face heats up as you find yourself almost touching noses with Nonny as you lie on his chest, “H-hiya Nonny!”

“H-heya Pinkie,” He says back. Realizing that you’re probably giving him the creeps with how close you two were, you’re quick to hop off of him and help him scoop up the various party supplies he was holding.

“You’ve been busy today huh?” You say, trying to strike up conversation.

“Yeah, I’m covering for Cheerilee today since she looked like she was needing a break.”

“You know they should really start calling you a handy-man since you’re always lending those hands of yours to everypony.”

“Right?” He says, his mood lifted. Seeing him smile made the butterflies in your stomach go wild, it just made you feel like you did something extra special.

“Say, you’re going to be at the party right?” You ask him.

“Of course, I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

Oof, get rigid you jelly legs! Don’t embarrass us!

“Well, th-that’s good! You’re gonna enjoy it more than you know!”

Twilight has had a very long, very annoying day. Opening the door to her library home she sees Spike munching on a mountain of candy. Hopefully all those calories are going somewhere productive, she thinks to herself. Using her magic she swipes a chocolate bar from the pile for a comforting snack.

Spike swallows and chuckles as he sees her unkempt self, “Geez, you look like Tartarus. How’d it go?”

“Unfortunately she ended up wearing me down. Knowing her, she would have had more than enough time on her hooves to keep this going for a lot longer than one day.”

“Well that’s Pinkie Pie for ya, you really shouldn’t challenge her stubbornness like that. You didn’t even let her know that you were onto her from the first disguise?”

Twilight shrugs and takes a bite of her chocolate, “Eh, as much as she deserved it for being such a pest, she’s really doing it for a good cause.”

Spike swallows a large lump and turns to her, “Hopefully their hijinks calm down when those two awkward love birds get together.”

Twilight shudders at the thought of their hijinks getting even more intense when they make it official.

Author's Note

Another chapter up for you all, enjoy!
Next up, the conclusion to the Luna Arc!

Lunar Interlude: Interstellar Climax

Your foe stands imposingly before you once more in the dream realm, the dark green hues of Anon’s subconscious swirling in contrast to the soft light colors that mixed around each other in the landscape beyond. Time was of the essence, yet you were frozen in perplexity. Never before had you encountered a mind so enigmatic in your realm, much less one that not only had the ability to disable your magic but was also able to remove you from itself entirely. A shadow of anxiety begins to creep from the corners of your mind as you try to think; he hasn’t tried to harm you in any significant way but that does not mean that he did not have the ability should he actually be conscious when his mind rejects you.

You decide that entering his mind, his territory was no longer a viable option. Not when you risk putting yourself in real danger by not having your magic available to you. You would have to somehow put the ball in your court, but how?

It all seemed so easy before, you thought to yourself as you gazed upon the colorful orbs of creatures enjoying a peaceful slumber. Then again, you never had to try very hard to whisk away any nightmares that plagued them. You willed these fears and anxieties to be erased with a single thought, and it was so. Desperately, you wanted this cycle of happiness to remain the way it was, which is why you must do whatever it takes to ensure their safety.

Upon this realization, a novel idea strikes you. It would require the utmost finesse, and holding everything together would require every bit of magical skill you have acquired in all your years of maintaining this realm. You exerted your will upon the realm, and a pink sphere rose in the distance from the sea of others and floated over to you. Slowly you pushed it and Anon’s spheres together, and like two soap bubbles kissing they snapped together into a larger sphere. For a moment it seemed that the forest green had consumed the other in its entirety, causing intense fear to twist your insides roughly. But then from the murkiness bloomed beautiful cotton candy pink blossoms that spread across the entirety of the surface of the sphere. Truly you found no surprise in Pinkie Pie’s mind meshing so well with Anon’s at this point, but you grinned wildly in delight in the face of your first success.

While fear of your failure was very much present, the rush of excitement burned intensely in your being once more. In the beginning, you felt excited because this experience was new and mysterious, but now it was magnified tenfold as you were pulling out all the stops this time and holding nothing back. You step inside the amalgam for what you hope to be the final time. For what you know will be the final time.

“Well Anon, you’ve officially hit the one-year mark since you’ve shown up to Ponyville!” Twilight says enthusiastically from her seat across from you, “How have you been holding up so far?”

You link your hands behind your head and stare at the ceiling, “Honestly, I’m doing pretty good, couldn’t be happier.”

Twilight looks surprised at this, “Really? No signs of any Chronic Loneliness? Being away from your own kind for so long must have some kind of adverse effects.”

“None that I can think of,” You say nonchalantly, “I’ve got plenty of friends and I get by just fine. Feels like the opposite of lonely to me.”

Twilight hums to herself and magically writes something down at your response.

Looking back up at you she continues her questioning, “How would you describe your closeness to your friends?”

“Are you coming onto me?” You joke.

“Just answer the question Anon.”

“Well, there’s the guys and they’re pretty awesome. Rarity seems to be the only pony with any bite around here so she’s nice to talk to. And Pinkie Pie… she’s really special honestly. Can’t think of a day where I haven’t seen her, I actually found her in my fridge once eating my leftover pudding. Not to say I don’t like it though, I like having her around the most actually.”

“Really?” She says, “Have you developed romantic feelings for Pinkie?”

The bluntness of the question shocks you, “I--Uh… Well. Maybe? I’m not too sure, we’re just so different I decided not to give it much thought.”

“Hmm, you should look into that then,” She says, jotting down more notes.

“You know therapists are supposed to be supportive, Twilight.”

“This isn’t therapy Anon, it’s scientific analysis. Do you need therapy?” She questions.

“Uh, no?”

She quickly scribbles some more on her sheet of paper.

“Wait what did you just write?” You ask.

“Nothing important. Next question: in the time you’ve spent getting acclimated here, have you developed a sexual appetite for anypony?”

Your face heats up considerably at this, “Twilight!”

“It’s all confidential Anon, don’t be a prude. You did read that book I lent you, What’s Down There On a Mare, didn’t you?”

“No!” You say blushing harder. Twilight raises a skeptical eyebrow at you.

You look down at the floor to avoid her gaze, “Maybe...Yeah.”

More scribbling ensues.

“Twilight--”

“Just one more Anon, one more, then I’ll let you go.”

Twilight hesitates for a moment, and puts down her paper before meeting your eyes.

“It’s been quite some time since you’ve arrived here and you’ve never made any mention of it, which is why I won’t push it and just ask you once. Do you want to go back home at all?”

You find yourself at a loss for words for quite some time, and Twilight makes no effort to force an answer out of you. Your stomach turns to ice and you steady your hands by gripping your knees.

“You know Anon if you need time to--”

“Absolutely not.” You say, cutting her off.

The finality of your tone strikes her, “Oh! Well, you seem more sure of yourself than I thought.”

“Yeah.” You say curtly.

A sympathetic look dawns on Twilight’s face, “Oh Anon, I’m sorry if I got carried away and stressed you out. As much as it is research I hope you can trust that I want the best for you. We all do.”

You breathe out a weary sigh, “I know Twilight, sorry for getting heated with you. But I think that’s enough ‘scientific analysis’ for today.”

You bid her farewell with an embrace and on your way out the door Twilight stops you, “Actually Anon, I need one more thing from you.”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“Can I actually get that book back? You’ve had it for a while now.”

Your face heats up once more as you say, “Sure thing, Twilight,” through gritted teeth.

The rest of your morning was absent minded to say the least. Because of that you manage to smash your thumb hammering nails to fix Cranky’s shed, cutting your arm on thorns moving pallets of roses for Daisy, and nearly slipping and falling off of Applejack’s house while replacing the shingles on the roof. Running dirty fingers through your hair and subsequently chastising yourself for doing so, you decide some comfort food is in order.

Poking at your usual heaping order of fries, you continue to mull over your meeting with Twilight earlier. You don’t know why you’re so rattled by a simple question you were asking yourself for months when you first showed up here. All the experiences you’ve had here, all the kind souls you’ve met and formed bonds with, comparing it to the life you left behind just made you feel like you were comparing an authentic Pinkie Pie pastry to a plumber scraping the buildup of your kitchen sink pipes onto a plate and telling you to eat that.

An upside-down Pinkie obscuring your vision startles you out of your malaise and the chipper mare greets you with an enthusiastic “Hiya Nonny!”

Speak of the Pinkie and she shall appear.

“Heya Pinkie,” You say with a smile, both at the fact that Pinkie just makes you smile when you see her in general and the fact that she shows up the second you’re feeling remotely glum.

Slipping over the divider between the two booths and over you she noodles under the table and reappears opposite you, head in hooves squishing her cheeks, “Whatcha up to?”

“Oh nothing,” you say looking absentmindedly at the colorful sea of patrons, “Just wrapped up another day of work and I’m beat.”

“You’re not just beat, you’re beat up!” She says taking your damaged hand in her hooves with a pouty look, “These little guys look like they got trampled in a Buffalo stampede! Too bad you can’t feed these little guys some of AJ’s pie to make ‘em feel better.”

The way she stroked your fingers tenderly causes the sinking pit in your stomach to start bubbling up fiercely, like you were going to puke but in a good way. Watching her frown heavily at the offensive wounds on your hand and arm like they were unwelcome guests she could evict with a dirty look made the inside of your chest feel warm, and inadvertently you squeeze the hoof she was holding your hand up with. The action breaks her from her stupor, and she gingerly let’s go of your hand with a nervous laugh and an accompanying blush.

“Heh, sorry about that Nonny,” she says.

“No problem Pinks, I’m used to it, they are pretty interesting to you guys.”

“They are!” She says excitedly, “They’re like griffon claws, but they aren’t sharp or scaly! And they’re super soft and warm.”

“Well I bet the scales are super useful for when you hit yourself with a hammer, being soft hurts when that happens.”

She gives you a concerned smile, “Rough day huh?”

“I’ve had better days, not gonna lie,” You admit, “But it beats the hell out of what I used to do.”

“What was that?” Pinkie asks.

“Retail, kind of like the department stores in Canterlot had a baby with a grocery store.”

“Aww, a little baby store!” She says, “Did it have a bunch of baby stuff?”

“Yes, a lot of baby stuff Panko,” you chuckle, “But also stuff like gadgets, clothes, and toys. I still get nightmares about Black Friday sometimes.”

“Oh no!” she says concerned, “They made you work in the dark on Fridays?! That’s so mean!”

You smile and shake your head, “No, no not like that. It was basically a corporate holiday. Every kind of gift you could think of went on sale the month before Christmas, and people went crazy over it.”

“Christmas?”

“Oh--Uh, it’s basically Hearth’s Warming.”

She lights up at the name of the holiday, “Oh well that sounds way nicer! How could a holiday about buying gifts for other ponies give you nightmares?”

You suck in a deep breath recalling those memories, “Well let’s just say people got a little too crazy on that day. There were more people than merchandise, and at least a few injuries were guaranteed. An old coworker of mine had his wrist broken once, and I almost got slugged for telling a guy we were out of one kind of toy.”

“Oh…” Pinkie says, going quiet at the answer.

He never really talked about his home, and when he did I never heard anything good. It always made him so sad.

“What was that?” You ask her.

“I didn’t say anything,” She replies, “Unless you count ‘Oh’, then in that case I said ‘Oh’.”

“Oh,” You say, delving into awkward silence. Shoot, you’ve gone and bummed her out, good job idiot. Change the subject before it gets even more awkward.

“Hey did you hear--”

“Actually Nonny, do you wanna get outta here?” She says suddenly, “I think I got something that’s bound to cheer you up!”

“Uh, sure,” You say, abandoning your half-eaten meal with some bits as the mare leads you to your mystery destination. It doesn’t turn out to be a mystery for long as you walk a block and a half to Sugarcube Corner.

“Well I appreciate the offer Pinkie but I’m not really in the mood for a cupcake right now.”

“We’re not here for cupcakes silly!” She says cheerfully, “ It’s better than 72 cupcakes and an eclair, promise!”

Well, you can’t argue with a promise that specific. Lo and behold the interior of the Corner was laden with streamers and balloons of varying colors, cakes and pastries stood proudly fresh on a large table in the center of the room, and confetti littered the floor and kicked into the air as you strode to a booth with her. Well, there was always confetti on the floor, but there was a lot more of it since it was a party of course. What stood out to you most however as she sat across you was the lack of other party members.

“Where’s everybody else?” You ask.

“Oh, around and about, they’ll show up!” She chirps, “Just gives us time to chitty chit-chat!”

You thoughts stall for a moment. If no one is here yet then why didn’t we just talk in the restaurant before coming here? Pinkie gives you the answer before you can ponder further however, her usually perky features falling to a more concerned countenance.

“Are you doing okay Anon? Like, okay okay?”

Oh.

It wasn’t often that you inadvertently let slip the details of your past, but this was certainly the first time anypony had brought it up. You were sure that if it were somepony else you would be better to deflect the question, but Pinkie of all ponies asking you such a question made your stomach churn with anxiety. Like you were suddenly a part of some interrogation where you were trying to hide the fact that you were guilty of being a sad sack.

“I’m fine Pinkie, really,” You assure her, but her worried gaze seemed to only be strengthened by your feeble half-truth.

“Can you put a Pinkie Promise on that?” She asks.

Shit, you think to yourself as the churning in your stomach turns to angry bubbling as you try to keep that particular bottle sealed shut. You couldn’t make a fake promise to her like that, Applejack filled you in very descriptively of the consequences that would hold. But you didn’t think she would blow up at you, you think that she would become depressed that you couldn’t trust her with those feelings. Which seemed far worse in comparison.

“Pinkie I--I just can’t--” You stammer helplessly, at a loss for words.

Pinkie’s expression changes as you become increasingly distraught, to one that is concerned that she took things too far.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Nonny,” She says softly, “I just want you to know that if you ever need somepony to talk to I’ll always be here for ya.”

Your anxiety is quelled as she lets you out of the corner she backed you into, and you give her a grateful “Thanks”, which seems to lift her spirits.

A pregnant pause envelops the two of you as you sit in contemplative science. You feel bad for shutting Pinkie out, but you harden your resolve with the belief that somepony like Pinkie doesn’t deserve to be burdened with information like that. Keeping the heavy load to yourself was better for everypony in the end.

Nonny always wants to help everypony, I just wish I knew why he feels like he shouldn’t let other ponies help him.

“What was that?” You ask her.

“I said that I can relate to what I think you’re feeling more than you think,” She reiterates. Showing her your attentiveness she takes a moment to go over her words before continuing.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and I get homesick all the time. But at the end of the day I know that it isn’t ‘home’ for me, y’know? I left because I wasn’t happy there, there wasn’t anypony else but my family for miles and throwing parties for rocks gets boring after a while!

I hit the rails and looked for where I really belonged. I tried to live in Canterlot for a while, but I got overwhelmed pretty quickly. There were just so many ponies to throw parties for and only one Pinkie to throw em! I was just starting out too, so I hopped on the train again after getting burnt out.

I ended up in Ponyville after running out of money to stay on the rails, and the Cakes were kind enough to give me the spare room in exchange for working here. I figured I would just get enough money for the train and be back on my way to bigger things. It turned out that Ponyville was bigger than any dream I had! All the treats I could bake and eat, and Ponyville was just the right size for getting to know everypony real closely and throwing the best parties I could for them! I can’t think of a day where I’m not happy here and not growing into a better version of myself. I just want to make sure you feel the same Anon.”

The feeling that grew and permeated your being as she finished her story was something you’ve never experienced before. It was like persistent pink weeds had managed to slither through the cracks of the concrete protecting your heart and entwine the organ in it’s loving embrace. Your heart aches in the best of ways as you fully absorb this tenacious mare’s story, your eyes welling with tears and your throat constricting with intense emotion. You move wordlessly and thoughtlessly from your seat, and walking around the table separating the two of you you wrap her in a tight embrace. She doesn’t respond with words, but instead with returning the embrace even more tightly, running one of her forelegs up and down your back in a soothing fashion.

Taking a moment to get your feelings back under control as you hold the embrace you ask, “Hey Pinkie?”

“Y-yeah Nonny?”

“No one else was coming to this party huh,” You say with a wry smile.

She gives a breathy laugh to this, “Nah, this one was just a party of two.”

“What do you mean ‘this one’?” You ask, confused, releasing the embrace enough to still hold her but see her excited grin stretching from ear to ear.

Right on cue the Corner’s door bell jingles as party goers fill in.

“Whoa what kinda party is this?” Rainbow Dash jeers playfully as you two separate from the hug.

“A party with hugs!” Pinkie says bounding over you and tackling Rainbow to the floor in another big hug, much to the pegasus’ dismay. As more ponies fill in you realize it’s all of your friends you’ve made here, and they’re all looking your way.

“Alright everypony, all together now!” Pinkie announces.

“Three! Two! One!”

“TO ANON!” The crowd cheers, and as Pinkie blows a party horn a banner unfurls from the ceiling saying in big green letters: HAPPY ANON-VERSARY!

You wanted to say that you didn’t cry, but you cried like a bitch out of sheer happiness. The party was a blast too, and the hours of sheer bliss sped by in a blur as you partied your heart out with your best friends.

As the party wound down in the final minutes and everypony shuffled out, you found yourself alone with Pinkie Pie once more.

“So Nonny, how’d you like the party?” She asks.

“It was the best. Your parties are always the best, but this was the best of the best. I can’t thank you enough Pinkie.”

“I’m super duper glad about that!” She says happily before her demeanor becomes more shy and she paws the floor, “And… like I said earlier, if you ever need somepony to talk to, I’ll always be here for you.”

You give her a final hug to show your appreciation and before you part you say, “I actually gave it some thought, and I’ll say one thing’s for sure. It sure as hell was an accident, but I managed to find my real home. With everypony else… and you.”

The memory dissipates with a white light, and transitioning from the void Luna finds herself seated at a high school lunch table with Pinkie Pie, Twilight, and Rarity all dressed in bright pink 50s garb. Save for Luna herself, whose clothing was black.

“So what’d you do this summer Pinkie?” Twilight asks.

“Well I spent most of it with Nonny, he’s a really special guy I met,” She replies.

“Special?” Luna scoffs, “Anonymous is nothing of the sort, besides being a special pain in Our flank.”

Luna rises from her seat and begins to stride off, but finds surprise in the fact that she can. Experimenting a bit she attempts a simple light spell, and to her delight a glowing sphere grows and floats away from her horn. She rears in happiness at her success, now Anonymous would stand no chance against her!

At the same moment, a groovy baseline strums in the background out of sight and Luna’s attention is drawn straight to Anon. He was standing proud surrounded by his male compatriots, all dressed in leather jackets and all with slicked back hair. As the ambient music picks up he breaks into song:

“Summer Lovin’ had me a blast!”

Pinkie follows suit with her own verse:

“Summer Lovin’ happened so fast!”

“I met a mare, crazy for me~”

“I met a boy, cute as can be~”

As the two went on about summer days drifting away into summer nights, Luna quickly rushed to Anon with a crazed smile of triumph.

“WE HAVE FINALLY FOUND THOU!” She bellows in the Royal Voice, firing a magical blast off and vaporizing Bulk Biceps.

The music abruptly stops, and Big Mac and Spike scream in terror and run off leaving a shocked Anon by himself.

“Well, this isn’t supposed to happen,” Anon says with mild shock.

“Thou may have foiled Us before, but We will not fail this time,” Luna growls excitedly, “Thou shall give Us the information We require and this can all end without any immense pain.”

Anon stares her down with a scowl, his resolve not shaken, “If you’re talking about poking around where you don’t belong, that’s gonna be a hard no from me. The only thing I agree with is making this the last time this happens.”

Luna can’t help but laugh incredulously at the statement, “Thou would dare challenge Us? Dost thou really think thou can put up any kind of resistance against the Princess who has mastered the realm of dreams?”

Anon’s fists clench with anticipation, “Maybe not, but I can sure as hell try!”

Anon puts two fingers to his forehead, and vanishes from sight.

“THOU SHALL NOT ESCAPE!” Luna shouts, and tearing open a rift in space into a Ponyville bathed in twilight, she dives in to pursue her foe.

You hear Luna’s royal voice echo behind you as you fly through Ponyville to gain some distance. You don’t know how Luna managed to get back in control despite being in your head, but you certainly weren’t going down without a fight. Streaks of azure lighting blitz past you as she gains on you, and just as she starts to get close you dive straight down as you reach your destination.

You find yourself backed against Fluttershy’s cottage, and Luna slams to the earth before you.

“We will only give thou one final warning, this is a fight thou has no hope of winning,” She says, her body visibly trembling.

“Maybe not alone, but I know some ponies who really want to join the fun!” You declare, knocking on Fluttershy’s door. It immediately is blown to splinters as the Legendary Super ‘Shy barrels towards Luna with a roar, blowing the alicorn away with ease. Dream Rainbow exits the house as well, and the two of you take flight to assist.

You and the rest find yourselves congregated in the center of Ponyville now as the battle continues, the Flutterbeast unrelenting in it’s assault as you and Dash fire volleys and beams at Luna. The alicorn proves to be very effective at dodging, and what misses her ends up destroying various Ponyville buildings. Your hands tingle fiercely with each attack to the point of being a numb burn, and the more fiercely you or your allies attacked the more frequently a dull ache washed over your brain. You deliberately ignored it, you weren’t going to keep this up much longer anyway. You aren’t allowed a moment to strategize however as Luna manages to blow you away with a cyan blast of her own, sending you crashing into Rarity’s Boutique.

Your muscles and limbs seize, and a primal panic pounds in your starving heart as the blast had knocked the wind out of you. The moment passes thankfully, and you greedily suck in air to stabilize. Luna didn’t seem to do any real damage to you, despite adorning your dream shirt with a charred hole, and the ongoing battle rattled the building with its muffled thundering.

“Hiya Nonny!” Pinkie Pie says happily.

“Heya… Wait what are you doing here Pinkie?” You ask, surprised.

“The better question is why do you have clothes on mister?” She asks scrutinizingly, “You usually don’t when you’re in my dreams!”

“Your dreams…?” You ask, but then something outside the window catches your attention. Pinkie Pies were running for the hills as wayward blasts destroyed their hiding spots, and while it didn’t make too much sense considering the setting you rationalize that your dreams would always contain Pinkie in some capacity.

“Yeah, it’s getting nuts out there!” Pinkie says joining you, “First I tried hiding in my room, and it blew up! Then I tried hiding in Twilight’s treehouse, and that blew up too! Luna must be messing with my dream in a really weird way, I mean can you imagine if Twilight’s house blew up?!”

“Yeah,” you say dismissively to the dream pony, “But this nosey princess isn’t going to be around for long.” With that you tear away the tattered remains of your shirt.

“Now this is more like it!” Pinkie cheers, “Now c’mere and--hey where are ya going!?” She yells as you rocket from the hole you came into and back into the fray.

She’s a skilled mare alright, you concede, but she can’t hold out forever. Especially when you have more tricks up your sleeve. Snapping your fingers the shadows cast from the moonlit Ponyville structures begin to writhe and rise from the earth it was bound to, canned audience laughter growing in volume as the tendrils grew in tandem.

Waiting for the right moment you exert your will on the laughing shadows, and the tendrils shoot out hungrily and grab hold of the alicorn as she dodges right into their grasp. Your head throbbed in greater pain as she fought to free herself, but you fought through it with the sheer force of will. The tendrils splayed her limbs outward and with her soft belly exposed Rainbow’s back legs sank violently into Luna’s gut, causing her to buckle in pain and spray spit. She isn’t allowed even a second to recover as the Flutterbeast appears from above and spikes her to the ground with both forelegs, the alicorn’s impact with the ground creating a sizable crater.

Luna proved to be more sturdy than you anticipated because while it took some effort, she manages to shakily rise to her hooves. She could barely stand, and the battle damage that she wore visibly pained her. Regardless you restrain her wings and limbs once more with the shadows, and you stand defiantly before her as your two compatriots land on either side of you.

“Give it up Luna!” You shout, “You’re outnumbered.”

Luna’s head hangs, blocking her expression from you. But softly and gradually the alicorn’s laugh begins to rise over the soft laughter of the shadows binding her, and her laugh rises to a cackle as she rears her head to you and displays a maniacal smile with a matching set of wild eyes.

“It appears We have given thou enough experience manipulating dreams to become a formidable opponent,” She says giddily, “But while I may be outnumbered…”

Her crazed eyes were overtaken by a mystical white as she channeled her magic. You feel the power over the laughing shadows begin to rapidly fade, and with it the shadow’s laughter begins to turn into panicked screams and then into abrupt silence as the alicorn’s magic begins to reshape it into a being all her own. You take a step back in trepidation as the shadows grow exponentially, swirling around Luna and engulfing her in it’s darkness and taking the shape of a much larger, featureless unicorn.

“Thou was given the chance to concede, and thou hast decided to throw that chance away. Now thou shalt be subject to the living nightmare known as the Tantabus.”

Your primal instincts screamed danger and for you to run away, but your body was unresponsive in the presence of the divine horror.

“We will do anything to defend Equestria, and while thou thinks they can stand against Us…”

The white pupiless eyes of the Tantabus spark to life as Luna’s royal declaration vibrates the air around you and thunders in your ears:

“THOU ART OUT OF THINE DEPTH.”

Your fight-or-flight kicks in, and as your rational mind erases the notion of fleeing from your options you harden your shaken resolve as best as you can and prepare for the fight of your life.

The Flutterbeast roars in defiance and blasts past you and Dash in an attempt to wrench the Alicorn from her unholy vessel, but your fear can only be magnified when you witness what happens when the monster breaks into the breast of the shadowy creature. She doesn’t even make it close to Luna before being frozen in place. The Flutterbeast writhes and roars in agony as it struggles to escape, but you witness the darkness consuming the creature rapidly from all angles as if it were being dissolved in acid.

You and Dash were flying far away before you could finish watching your ally’s demise be completed. The burning sensation has spread throughout your entire body as you try to maintain stability in flight, and you can only assume that you’re feeling the death throes of a concept you created. You desperately didn’t want to know how painful being caught yourself would be.

Every attempt to fight back in any capacity was immediately quashed by the invincible monster, firing your most powerful attacks at it just for them to turn to a shadowy mist when it comes into contact with the form. The Tantabus retaliates with ease, and the two of you struggle to hold back the steady stream of magic that stems from it’s horn that threatens to obliterate you.

“Can’t you just imagine us stronger or something!?” Dash shouts at you exasperatedly.

“If I could, don’t you think I would!?” You shout back, the pain of trying to hold it back with all of your being ripping through your resolve and your muscles like razor wire.

It proves to be far too much even for the two of you together, and you’re blasted through several abodes and buildings until the two of you smash into the Town Hall on a bed of rubble.

Your torn muscles and tired joints protest at your rising to your feet, you were really starting to hate how real this dream felt. The Tantabus quickly but casually strode towards you and as you watched it approach through the broken frame of your final refuge you wrack your brain for a last ditch effort. Dream Rainbow hasn’t fared too well either, but she manages to get back up as well. Your bruised ribs cry out as a pony leaps out from the shadows and embraces you.

“I found ya Nonny!” Pinkie cheers.

“You sure did Pinkie…” You wheeze.

“You’ve never played hard to get before Nonny,” She runs a hoof lovingly down your bare chest, “So does that mean I win a prize for catching you…?”

Well, this was a weird way for your brain to mock you for dying at the hands of a crazy horse princess before you ever got laid.

“Yeah, if you can stop Luna from tearing him to shreds, and by extension me,” Dash mutters sourly, “Which is a more pressing matter than your horniness, Anon.”

Pinkie frowns in confusion, “Why does Luna want to destroy you so bad anyway? If she doesn’t like my kinky Pinkie dreams she doesn’t have to stick around.”

Ignoring the comment but still blushing slightly nonetheless you turn to Rainbow, “Well, do you have any bright ideas?”

“I’m just the love-child of your memories and an anime reference you used to buck with somepony, doofus,” Rainbow says curtly, “I’m not suddenly going to come up with some new idea to save our flanks.”

The Tantabus has grown even closer now, it’s footsteps starting to make the earth around you tremble and loose debris to fall from the fractured walls.

Well, if pop culture references got you this far, you think to yourself, there’s only one more thing you can think of doing to even come close to matching such strength. Or you’ll make a complete ass of yourself before you die. But hey, at least you’ll have a little more fun.

“Hey Pinkie,” You say to what you believe is a figment of your dreams, “I’ll double your ‘winnings’ if you can buy us some time from Luna.” You accentuate your offer by running your hand across the cheek of the mare who was still clutched to you, which elicits a sigh of bliss from her.

“Okie doke loki!” She says giving you a mock salute, “But I’d better not wake up when we get to the good part this time like I always do!”

Luna and the Tantabus stood only twenty feet away from the remains of the Town Hall, but before the alicorn could advance any further she hears the pink party pony yelling up at her.

“HIYA LUN-Y!”

Luna can only stare down in confused silence for a moment, she wasn’t expecting something like this happening.

“...Hello Pinkie,” Luna answers back awkwardly, her voice echoing loudly from the Tantabus.

“WHATCHA DOIN’?”

“We are… hunting down some Dream Rats,” Luna answers after another moment of thought, “They infest ponies dreams and cause problems.”

“IS THAT WHY EVERYTHING’S ALL EXPLODEY?”

“...Yes.”

“WELL THEN WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BLOW UP MY DREAM NONNY IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR RATS, SILLY?”

“Because they just happen to look like--Oh to Tartarus with this nonsense,” Luna says exasperated. A tendril shoots out from the Tantabus’ breast and scoops up Pinkie within it. Pinkie giggles and snorts as she finds being inside the Tantabus to be quite ticklish, and she’s pushed upwards through the construct’s head and into its horn. With a distinct ‘pop’ sound Pinkie is shot out of the horn and into the distance, giving a cheerful ‘whee!’ as she flies.

As the pink mare flies off Luna continues her march to tear Anon from his hiding place and finish this ordeal when in a brilliant explosion of rainbow light erupts from the Town Hall evaporating the remaining structure. Luna could only suppress a gag as she sees the being before her is a hideous satyr-like creature: a human upper half with cyan legs, a rainbow mane and tail, and a matching muzzle with a smug grin.

You flex your muscles in various poses as you take in how good you feel right now. Like you just had the best energy drink ever combined with your entire body feeling like an orgasm. “This is way better than what I was expecting, I almost feel bad for how outclassed you are now.”

Luna can only feel her blood pressure rising again as you mock her, “And just what hast thou done now?”

“Anon and Rainbow felt bad that it was a 2 on 1 fight, so they became just 1 to make things a little more fair for you.”

“Such arrogance!” She growls, “We shall see how far this desperate confidence gets thou when We--”

She doesn’t even get to finish her sentence. In a fraction of a second you shot forward and landed a decisive fist to her face, blowing the Tantabus wide open in the process. Luna is blown skyward, and as she recoils from the shock she notices that you are lounging on a cloud next to her.

“I’m sorry, were you saying something?”

Luna in her now blind rage just fires at you, but you’re gone before it even reaches you. Laying an arm around the mare’s neck you say, “Ooh, so close. Wanna give it another try?”

Luna screams in fury and fires off another volley only to miss once more. Everywhere you pop up she fires and everywhere she misses, until you appear beneath her and sink a knee into her already tender underside. One, two, three jabs to the face and she’s too stunned to even fly properly, so you take advantage of this. The area was rocked so intensely from how hard you barista bombed her into the earth that the battered and beaten buildings from the previous round collapsed from the shock.

Backflipping out of the cloud of dust and gracefully sticking the landing you hop on your hooves excitedly. The head pain from exerting yourself beforehand had completely vanished as well, so now instead of fighting for your life you’re more preoccupied with how much fun you can get out of this now.

Luna charges at you through the smokescreen and attempts to tackle you, but you simply step aside and let her flop to the ground pathetically.

“Let’s wrap this up Princess, before you get any more embarrassing.”

“We are not the only ones that thou should worry about!” she snarls.

You just barely manage to turn and take a defensive stance as you feel the air suddenly turn blistering, and when the volley finally dissipates you see that the Tantabus has reformed. Hooves turned to talons, horn turned to leathery wings, and the featureless pony head had become the snarling mass of teeth that was the new dragon form of the Tantabus. No doubt the absorption of your ally had caused it to assume a more bestial form when separated from its host.

However you stand undeterred, “Worried? More like getting fired up!”

The dragon rears and spreads its wings wide, the next volley it fires splitting off into dozens of smaller faster beams.

You dance and vogue effortlessly through them as they speed by, ending your performance by doing a handstand and letting the beam pass between your legs.

“Well, you almost managed to graze my… wait what do I have down there now?” You say bending over for a closer inspection.

“DESTROY HIM!” Luna bellows at the Tantabus, and you blow a raspberry at the charging monster through your legs. The beast swipes at you with its claws and gnashes at you with its fangs, and as much as you wanted to be the slippery wet noodle you were with Luna the beast’s feral instincts prove to be more of a challenge than you expected.

The Tantabus snaps its jaws at you and you dash backwards, Luna provides interference though by bucking you from behind allowing the dragon to slash you with its claws. A burning sensation ripples across where the beast had clawed you and before you can wonder if such injuries in a dream would affect you in real life somehow you’re having to weave in between the myriad of energy streams being fired at you from both Luna and the monster.

Luna being far more worn than her creation, grew sloppier with her attacks and her movement grew more sluggish as you played the defensive. In a moment of pause between their attacks you blitz the ground to create a smokescreen. The dragon fires off again without care of what it can see, and lucky for it it hits its mark.

Well, not so lucky for the Tantabus as it turns out. The impact blows the dust away to reveal a thoroughly battered Luna having been grabbed and used as a shield by you.

The beast’s form flickers as Luna starts to finally succumb to her damage, and tossing the alicorn aside you take this last opportunity to deliver the finishing blow.

You materialize a rainbow sphere in your palm and it crunches satisfyingly as you close your hand over it, and bringing your fist up to your mouth you delicately blow the twinkling bits of light away and they sink into the dense blackness of the Tantabus. Massive black tumors quickly grow as the Tantabus loses its form and expands, and a rainbow halo radiates outward as the once terrifying living nightmare explodes into a brilliant stardust. The iridescent flakes fall to the ground like snow as Luna can only look on in utter defeat, somehow still conscious.

“Impossible…” she whispers.

The bliss of literally living the dream you had through ages twelve to nineteen has begun to wane, and you look down on the defeated princess with a grimace.

“Now are you going to leave of your own free will, or do I have to kick you out one more time?”

Luna grits her teeth and looks straight into your eyes with a burning hatred, “Thou may have won this round, but this is just the beginning. Since thou fights so determinedly to hide your secrets from Us, thou art clearly more of a threat to Equestria than We imagined. We will not stop this crusade of justice, and eventually thou will give in, especially since We will assuredly outlive thou as well.”

“Hmph. Hard way it is then.”

Cupping your hands at your side the rainbow dust rises from the earth and swirls into the space between your palms, coming together to form a ball of radiating rainbow energy.

“Let it be known I gave you a chance Lun--!”

Like the flick of a switch the energy instantly disappears, and along with it the appearance of your fused form. You stand stock still for a moment as your body loses all feeling, until the numbness is immediately replaced with feeling like you were dipped in fire.

You fall to your hands and knees as you scream in agony, electricity rippling around your body as you curl into a fetal position. The Princess rises to her hooves and looks down on you with a condescending smirk.

“Well, I suppose We should give you some merit for holding out this long at least.”

“What the hell is--agh!--happening to m-me!?” You cry out.

“Well We can only assume you gained the upper hand because you exerted yourself beyond anything thine mortal soul is capable of,” She says as her smile turns from smug to grim, “It must be quite painful.”

“Wh-what the fuck is your problem!?”

“Our problem, Anonymous, is that thou was never even supposed to be aware of Our little intelligence mission in the first place. It was all supposed to pass quietly and without issue.”

“Well m-maybe I didn’t want--”

“What thou wants is no longer important. Because now thou risks facing non-existence, unless thou partakes of Our pact. We save thine life, and thou simply gives us what We want.”

The railroad spikes drilling into your brain don’t exactly give you the ability to weigh your options, not like you had any left.

“F-fine!”

Luna’s horn glows briefly and it feels like the fire is quickly replaced with the sensation of cool water flowing over your form. It doesn’t make the pain dissipate, but it makes it bearable enough to lift yourself from the ground.

“We gave you enough energy to live and fulfill thine end of the contract, not enough to slip through Our frogs once more. Now proceed.”

You dig your nails into the ground angrily, but with no other options left and no means of escape you weakly stand. Waving your outstretched hand through the air a gray door materializes, and you muster the dirtiest look you can at the alicorn as you open it.

“After you, Princess,” You spit. She walks through without a word, and you follow her in turn.

A few feet away from the entrance the two of you had disappeared into, a mound of earth rises and out pops the pink party pony that was thought to be unceremoniously disposed of.

Author's Note

The Climax of the Lunar Arc has been officially crested! One can only wonder what Anon's most guarded memories hide as the conclusion is just on the horizon.
I hope you all enjoy!

Game Plan With a Side of Anxiety

“I’d say that one is… a can of soda?” You guess as you and your pink companion lay side by side on a hill in the park, on one of Pinkie’s Mandatory Cloud Watching breaks. Her reasoning was that it was to make sure you weren’t overloaded in the day with all the things you had to learn about Ponyville and beyond, and she swears she saw a cloud in the shape of herself, she just wanted you to be there to see it when it came by again.

“Soda doesn’t come in cans silly, it’d be a real bother having to carry an opener around all the time just to get into it!” Pinkie turns to face you.

“Probably because ponies never needed to make special cans for soda on account of the fact they don’t have fingers.”

“You guys must have awesome soda back home then with all of that advanced soda technology.”

“Oh yeah, every color of the rainbow, and more.”

Pinkie snorts at you, “Ok, now I know you’re joshing me, they only have one color of soda and it’s Soda Color.”

You turn to face her, “I’m serious, they have red, green, purple, and even,” you lean in really close to her, “orange.”

Her eyes go wide, “No. Way. You have to show me how to make literally,” she cups your face in her hooves, “literally all of those.”

You chuckle as she lets go of your face, “I’ll do my best Pinks. But honestly,” you turn back to the view of the bright blue sky and it’s gala of clouds, “I’d trade all the soda in the world to stay right here.”

“Well Nonny, I think you’re going to fit in just well here in Ponyville,” Pinkie says as she lies across your chest, “And I’ll be right by your side whenever you need me!”

Pinkie’s smile filled you with a nice warmth, the kind that leaves you gasping for air under the weight of that feeling. Wait, that doesn’t seem right.

You’re squeezed out of your daydream by the immense weight of the barbell you’re pinned under, and behind you was your gym bro and one of the first friends you made here, Bulk Biceps, cheering you on as you struggle.

“COME ON BRO, YOU GOTTA WANT IT!” he bellows.

Red faced and sputtering, you try to knock out this PR, you really do despite your mental lapse, but it just isn’t happening. Seeing that no amount of pushing would be able to get the bar the rest of the way up, Bulk hooks his forelegs around the bar and helps you rerack it. A good gym bro doesn’t want to see his bro embarrass himself like that.

“Thanks man,” you manage to get out in between laboured breaths.

“Come ON bro! You were so hype to hit this PR today and you flubbed it at the last rep!” Bulk comes out from behind the bench to face you and gives you an inquisitive look, “You skipping out on your training behind my back or something?”

“Just like you and your wing training?” you say as you chug from your shaker.

“Low blow bro, I did it yesterday so today’s a rest day.” his expression falters, and he begins to sound a bit more like his usual bashful self. And the usual self that’s a lying bastard about working his wings.

“Did you really?” You lean in closer to him.

He can’t keep eye contact with you anymore, and in classic fashion whenever you pressure him about skipping Wing Day.

“What’s the excuse this time man, get it out and I can spot you in your wing lifts today.”

He relents, and with a sigh he says, “I tried asking out Aloe and she totally bruised me bro.”

Oh man, another one of his hopeless romantic phases has come to an abrupt end. When you first started going to the gym here you struck a fast gym-broship with Bulk after you caught each other ‘mirin your upper body lifts. Ponies, what with all the pulling and other activities mainly relying on their legs take little effort to lift weight you took years to get to, and at maximum effort they far surpassed any world records that were held back home by a wide margin. Bulk saw that you were a kindred spirit that saw the value in underrated lifts like the bench press, and also had a mutual agreement to encourage each other to do the days that you both hated doing, you with Leg Day and Bulk with Wing Day.

Honestly you thought Bulk was going to be one of the Alphas that usually populate the gym, but under all that muscle and angry expressions was just a lonely bro who just wanted a marefriend. Would girlfriend work too? Eh, you don’t care. Your bro’s hurting and that makes you hurt, bro. But tough love is necessary sometimes, since Bulk tends to throw himself into these endeavors without really thinking.

“Bulk I’ve been telling you for weeks that Aloe wasn’t into you, she calls everyone her favorite customer.”

“Yeah… but I thought I was her favorite favorite bro…” he pouts.

“One of these days you’ll find the one, I promise, until then put that energy into building those wings up,” You wrap an arm around him and lead him to the Wings section.

The mention of lifting seems to brighten his spirits a bit, “You’re right bro, gonna find her someday!”

Seeing an opportunity present itself, you lean down to his height and comment, “Maybe if you work hard enough you’ll be able to impress Dash someday.”

Lo and behold Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were the only ones occupying the wing training section at the moment. Dash described wing training as tying a weighted vest to yourself and trying to achieve liftoff with it attached, and the logic behind it being that you would fly much faster with just your bodyweight after you master the heavier weights. You figured it was something like how baseball players use weighted bats to swing harder with regular ones. Rainbow had a vest that was twice her body weight easily, and Fluttershy offered encouraging words from the ground with only a 10 pound vest wrapped around herself.

“You can do it Rainbow! Just a little higher!” Fluttershy cheered in her demure fashion.

Rainbow Dash inched higher and higher off the ground, and just as she reached her target height and cheered to herself, Bulk Biceps whispered back to you:

“You kidding bro? I bet you she’s more into mares than I am.”

You laughed a bit louder than you should have at the comment, and in doing so caused Rainbow to have her concentration broken and she plummeted to the ground. Luckily they already had a soft mat set up underneath them.

Rainbow turns to you two looking furious, “OH YOU ARE SO LUCKY THAT I NAILED IT BEFORE YOU MESSED ME UP!”

“Whoa, whoa Roid Rage we’re all friends here!” You raise your hands up in a calming gesture, while Bulk’s shaky anxiety starts to kick in as he wonders if Rainbow heard his joke or not.

“Yeah, and you goofballs wouldn’t know real training if I did it for you!” the high test mare says still in a post workout huff, “Haven’t seen you here in a minute Bulk, finally going to get some wing training in?” Rainbow asks pointedly. The mare who dozed on clouds all day was a completely different animal in her training mode and Fluttershy could only slowly back behind a weight plate tree and witness the murder waiting to happen.

Rainbow was the gym-buddy of you two occasionally, but whenever she took the lead in training the tomcolt often left you two floundering in your own puddles of sweat gasping for air like dying fish. She was both terrifying but worth all of the mires she was given, and was by all means the Element of Gains in the gym.

Bulk becoming the object of attention was something you had to capitalize on, just to give your bro a healthy dose of loving-bullying as well as get yourself out of hot water.

“Well Bulk ran into some lady trouble again and needs to focus that energy on his gains Dash, think you can help him out?” Bulk looks at you and shakes his head pleadingly at you.

“No dice Bulk, you were supposed to do it yesterday, now you have Dash and I spotting you now.” You say like a parent disappointed in their child.

“That’s right soldier, hop to it!” Rainbow says shedding her vest with it dramatically crashing to the ground, “The DOMs you have tomorrow will be nothing compared to what I’m putting you through today!”

Bulk gives her a mock salute and trundles off to the weight tree to strap himself into a vest. Fluttershy peaks her head out and bashfully hands him the one she was using.

“Run him through warm up ‘Shy, I’ll be over there in a minute,” She says as she grips her shaker under a wing and sits beside you.

While Bulk gets himself all set up, Rainbow Dash takes a pull from her own shaker, and says “He tried smooth talking Aloe didn’t he?”

Thankful that she’s back to her lax self somewhat you say back, “Yeah, poor fella will find his special someon--somepony someday hopefully.”

With a smirk Rainbow side-eyes you, “A little ironic seeing as you’re in the same boat as him now, dude.”

You frown and turn to her, “You don’t mean--”

“Dude, I think the only pony that wasn’t aware of Pinkie being into you was you, Anon. She’s been laying it in kind of thick lately.”

You relent and blow out a heavy sigh, “Yeah, Rarity took it upon herself to be my Love Guru or something.”

Bulk finishes his warmup hovers with the vest, and Dash rises from where she was sitting.

“Well dude not going to lie I think it’ll be pretty helpful. Personally I’d say just go right up and tell her but Rarity’s probably the best at telling hopeless saps like you what exactly to say. Hell, set up an appointment for Bulky too while you’re at it,” Rainbow says as she starts to make her way back to the duo.

As she’s walking away you say to her with a restored frown, “You know you could be honest without being mean.”

Rainbow turns to you with a smile and says, “I’m mean to you ‘cause I love you dude.” Turning to Bulk she shouts, “All right Bulk, strap on the 40 and let’s drill!”

Despite having a white coat Bulk blanches and says, “B-but I hardly set a PR with 30 last time!”

Rainbow isn’t going to be merciful, “Yeah, and you did that without me last time, which means I know you were going easy on yourself! If you really want to build those wings up you do it with real weight!”

The rest of the morning was spent cheering on Bulk with Fluttershy while Dash put Bulk’s muscles through the wringer. You’ll buy his first drink on the next guy’s night out to make him feel better.

The Stables Bar and Grill, one of the veritable hotspots of Ponyville that ponies from all over town frequent multiple days a week for lunch. Not really surprising that even posh and high-standards Rarity would want to go here too, you couldn’t eat there personally seeing as you can’t digest hay but apparently their Double Down Animal Style Hay burger was to die for. You’ve never been here so hopefully you can get some grub here because you were post-workout starving.

Walking into the bustling diner you see the mare off in a corner booth at the other side of the restaurant… talking to someone? With the obscuring crowd moving aside as you make your way to the booth you see that Rarity’s new companion is Twilight Sparkle, whose face is buried in the menu. You dealt with her the most when you first came here on account of her being the “Aspect of Friendship” or some bologna, and the best way you could describe her was “off”. Not a bad kind, but you count yourself lucky there’s usually a third pony around to have a conversation with, otherwise there probably wouldn’t be one. Although if you were the Aspect of Social Interaction yourself you wouldn’t be needing courting advice, so you take a seat next to Twilight with Rarity at the opposite end.

“Oh and the stallion of the hour has decided to arrive in his sweaty glory! How delightful.” Rarity says condescendingly.

“So the whole point of this is to get dating advice from a mare who’s still single?” You retort.

Rarity gasps, “I’ve read enough romance novels and smooth talked enough stallions in my time to have any pick of them I please!”

“And yet you choose to spend that time grooming an almost of age dragon?”

“Huh?” Twilight says looking up from the menu.

“N-not true! The only “grooming” I would give to my Spikey-Wikey is polishing his little scales!” Rarity says.

“She says, desperately.” You finish.

“Anyway…” Rarity gives you a scathing look now that the score is 1:1, “The point of meeting today was to turn your sweaty self into something gentlemanly enough to earn the heart of a dear friend of ours.”

“However,” she continues, “Since Pinkie is surely quite the opposite of gentlemanly, I’m sure we just have to come up with some amazing gesture, you ask her to be your marefriend, bing bang boom, you two are letting me plan the wedding and letting me make all the foal clothes.”

Man, the second you have her in a verbal headlock she always finds a way to do the reversal on you. The talk of marriage and babies, makes you a little woozy.

“H-hold on just a second, how can you be so sure she’s just going to leap at the opportunity to… get into the whole shebang with someone like me?”

Rarity gives a hearty chortle to that, “Are you serious? Anon if you’ve heard half the things she’s said about you since the past few months you’d have a list as long as Twilight’s usual lists! ‘Nonny’s so handsome’ or ‘Nonny so strong’--”

“Or how Anon has a musk that could quote ‘make her able to drown a foal in her crotch.’” Twilight pipes up, putting down her menu.

You and Rarity both stare at her wordlessly.

“Well, she was kind of inebriated when she told me that during our last sleepover, which means I probably should have kept that confidential.” Twilight ponders out loud.

“Well, if anything this just makes my job infinitely easier, and yours by extension.” Rarity turns back to you, who is flush and shaking.

The food definitely helped you calm your nerves, especially since you found yourself pleasantly surprised by a beer-battered fish sandwich on the menu, so naturally you ordered three. Twilight commended you on how much you could put away, despite it not being anywhere near the 7 hayburgers and the extra large tray of fries to go with it. Rarity looked at your sauce-covered faces in a mild disgust as she gingerly ate a salad with a small iced tea.

“Listen Anon, the best thing you can do as of now is to let things happen naturally seeing as Pinkie is so head over heels for you. You are babysitting the Cakes tomorrow right?” Rarity asks.

“Well more like roped in, but--”

“Honestly doesn’t matter, darling. What does matter is that this is a prime opportunity for you to put the moves on, you can’t expect a mare to do all the work for you!”

“Oh! Maybe you can get Rainbow Dash to make it rain that day too!” Twilight says excitedly.

“How would that help?” You ask.

“It’s like, in every romance book I’ve ever read! Holding your true love in the rain and telling them your feelings is the most romantic thing!”

“Do you mean those comic books you’ve been reading?” Rarity asks.

“Actually, they’re called mane-ga, and they’re just as good as any of your novels.”

“I don’t think we need to change the weather at all in order to make things work,” you say to prevent this from becoming a scene, “But am I supposed to say anything specific?”

“Well Anon, how do you feel about her?” Rarity asks.

“I… ever since I came here I’ve literally seen nothing but smiles, happy faces, and overall just an overwhelming kindness that just seems like peo-ponies do around here without even trying. But with Pinkie, she’s always trying her hardest with anyone to make them happy, hell her ‘cutie mark’ literally says that her entire purpose is to do just that. I know I go on about how I want to give back to you guys because of all the things you’ve done for me but with Pinkie it’s not a matter of feeling obligated to give back that happiness, I want to. She has that kind of passion that I can’t help but… feel attracted to.” Geez, way to lay it on thick, Casanova.

Rarity gives a soft smile, “Anon, that was--”

“Beautiful-hul-hul-hul!” Twilight bawls, spewing special sauce on the table.

“Well, it wouldn’t sweep me off my hooves, but I was going to say that as long as what you’re saying is from the heart, it will be perfect when the moment is right.” Rarity finishes.

You give a sigh in reply to that. You should have expected this mamby pamby ‘follow your heart’ crap from your colorful horse friends but honestly, following your heart is basically the sibling to winging it. And you’re pretty good at that.

Right?

Author's Note

Here's another chapter for you guys, I'm trying real hard to make sure things pan out in the long run of this story, I have big things in mind.
Hope you all enjoy!