Choose-Your-Own Origin Story
Varying Degrees of Confused and Annoyed
"Oh, gummy's not an animal," said Pinkie.
Twilight blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Here's your first one. I'll let you in on the secret. Gummy is a god."
Twilight didn't know what to say to that.
"Long ago, gummy ruled over all swamps, with his swamp powers. One day, the god of the land and the god of the sea both decided to kick him out, but it only made him more powerful. He gave up his powers and escaped to another dimension, biding his time for ten trillion years. Only recently did he attempt to reclaim his domain. But coming back to our world after such an absence took a toll. His mind went, and he reverted to the soul of an alligator.
"But he won't be trapped forever. As he lives, he learns and grows. Once he remembers his origins, he will challenge the gods who betrayed him so long ago, without a care for the destruction that will be left in his wake. All that matters is revenge. We are nothing to him."
Pinkie leaned back, a smug grin on her face. Her friends, sitting around her in a circle, looked varying degrees of confused and annoyed.
"I don't think you understand how this game works," said Applejack.
"Yeah," said Rainbow, "It's supposed to be hard for us to guess which ones are true. If the lies are so obvious, then there's no point!"
"I thought you played this game before," said Rarity.
"Nope! This one is my first time!"
"Really?" asked Twilight. "You've never played two lies and a truth before?"
"Not once. I've only ever played two truths and a lie."
"That's… they're basically the same thing," said Twilight.
"Mathematically, they're two completely different games, Twilight," said Pinkie.
"But it's basically the--"
"Don't get her started again," Applejack interrupted Twilight. "Just keep going, Pinkie."
Pinkie nodded, sagely.
"Okay, here's the real truth about Gummy. He's my brother.
"Long ago, when I was a filly, my brother Gumdrop and I were playing on the rock farm. He tossed a rock off our property, and went to go pick it up, even though our parents told him never to leave our farm. It's dangerous!
"Sure enough, the first step he took out of the farm, an evil genie showed up and offered him three wishes. First, he wished for more wishes. The genie was so mad that Gumdrop tried to pull the oldest trick in the book that he blasted him into an alligator. The genie vanished in a puff of smoke, never to be seen again.
"Well, I took poor Gumdrop home and told my parents what happened. We couldn't figure out what to do, so we decided to just keep him around in the hopes that one day we'd know someone whose magic was strong enough to turn him back to normal. Gumdrop had the intelligence of an animal, which meant we had to treat him like one, poor thing. No one ever guesses that he once was a pony like you or me.
"As time passed it became clear that he wasn't aging, which was pretty weird. I guess that must be because of the genie magic, but I've never looked into it."
"Oh, come on!" said Rainbow. "We've already won, now! The third story you tell is the truth, no matter what. I'm putting in my guess now. What a load of…"
"This one seems pretty far-fetched," said Twilight. "If it's true, then how come you've never asked me to try and turn Gumdrop back into a pony?"
"I guess I just forgot. It's not easy to remember everything, Twilight."
"You literally remember everypony in Ponyville!" said Rainbow.
"Well, Gumdrop isn't a pony anymore, is he?" said Pinkie.
Fluttershy's eyes lit up. "Did you hate your brother, Pinkie?"
"I don't have it in me to hate anypony."
Fluttershy looked disappointed.
"So, here's the third and final story about why gummy has been a baby alligator for years. This one's a real doozy!
"A mysterious pony wandered into Ponyville one day. I trotted up and said hi. Her name was Dewdrop Buttons, and we became friends right away! I showed her the town, and she showed me her collection of artifacts from lost civilizations.
"She was an archeologist, you see, so she had a lot of this stuff just lying around. She gave me this necklace with an alligator on it and told me that it would turn into a real alligator at my time of need. So I put it on and walked outside, right into a hole! I broke my leg pretty bad, and probably wouldn't have made it out if my necklace hadn't turned into Gummy.
"He was a full grown alligator, then, and lovingly carried me out of the hole in his mouth. I went back to see Dewdrop Buttons to thank her for the necklace and she told me that the alligator would be my friend for life. So I took him home and he died. Very sad, I know. He left a note telling me that he swallowed a sprinkle left in my mane, which, as we all know, is poisonous to alligators. He wrote, 'Pinkie, look after my son, Gummy the Second, because one day he'll grow up and live in my old necklace. He can only move in once he's fully grown, so you'll need to care for him until them. Please remove all the photos of alligators in speedos from my necklace before you let him move it. It would be super awkward for him to find those. Thank you.'
"Well, I sure felt bad that my sprinkle killed him after he saved my life, so I raised that alligator's magical son as my own. Turns out, magical alligators age a lot slower than normal ones, and that's why Gummy is still a baby. I think he might be royalty, but that's a whole other story."
"Pinkie," asked Applejack, "You know why this game is called two lies and a truth, right?"
"Because two stories are lies, and one is the truth."
"Exactly! Wait… you can't be serious."
"I'm always serious," said Pinkie.
