Private Pinkie

21:58 -19/09/1007 - Fort Thunder Struck, Hayseed Province

In a way she never would’ve imagined possible, Pinkie had achieved her dream of putting smiles on as many faces as possible.

‘Private Pinkie’. The name was known up and down the country and even beyond. If a soldier heard that she was coming to their base, they'd mark the date as soon as they got the chance as everypony immediately knew that a night of fun was being launched directly towards them out of the barrel of a party cannon. A party of music, dancing, drinks, and friendship. A night where they could forget all the drudgery of military life and be reminded of just how great it was to be alive.

Ponies who didn't know better may have assumed the name was an artificial invention rather than a natural coincidence. The alliteration fit together so well, the rank of Private expressed humility, and the name Pinkie conjured up bubbly childlike cuteness. But no, Pinkie was really her name and Private really was her rank. Technically, she wasn't enlisted personnel anymore, but for the whole course of her two-year service, she kept the rank, refusing promotions time and time again, as she never wished to be viewed as superior to the common soldier.

She’d sometimes write her own songs and play those, sometimes just popular national songs or military anthems. She knew what she preferred. It was much more fun to sing songs that expressed her love of laughter, happiness, and friendship than to sing songs like “The Lunar Army Stands Above All”, but having to sing the militaristic songs was an intrinsic part of her arrangement with the Army. Either way, the audience loved it.

From all the record sales, tours, and merchandise, Pinkie had become fabulously wealthy, having more money than she could ever know what to do with. Even throwing a gigantic self-funded party every single night, each bigger and better than the last would barely dent her bank balance. She thought that the rest of the family might know what to do with it, but the investments they wanted to make to improve the farm only used up a fraction of her wealth. Now the whole Pie family were tremendously rich, owning a thriving string of quarries across Rockshire with some properties in Mixie.

At around ten o'clock, she was up on an open-air stage at the tail end of a four-hour accordion performance fueled purely by the desire to spread joy and six cups of Pinkie Juice (it's like if coffee and cotton candy had a baby). Her audience, made up of soldiers and marines across the Empire, was deep in dancing, drinking, and cheering, a turbulent and ever-moving wash of ponies. One may have expected them to be exhausted from the joint training exercises, but their relentless partying energy suggested otherwise. The smell of alcohol, sugar, and sweat was pervasive, it would’ve been nauseating to anypony who wasn’t absorbed in the moment.

Once the song was over, Pinkie lay her accordion down and allowed herself a moment to absorb the unbreakable cascade of euphoria before her. She needed to speak into the microphone just to hear herself. “Thank you, everypony! I need to take a break, but until then I'll leave you all in the hooves of the one and only DJ-PON3!” she announced, gesturing to the unicorn at the turntable. “Hit it, Scratch!”

More cheers followed, the DJ threw a vinyl onto the turntable, and Pinkie stepped behind the curtain.

Even when she was well away from the concert ground, Pinkie could still hear the audience's electrified cheers and ecstatic screams drowning out the thumping synth beats that the DJ was playing. Parties were great, practically her lifeblood, but Pinkie needed some quiet moments to herself between the mirthful mayhem just to recharge. She was grateful for the fact that she could skip around camp without worrying about being hounded for an autograph or anyone’s attention. Not that she’d mind passing out autographs, but nopony here was clambering for clout due to a culture of mutual respect amongst enlisted soldiers. Passing soldiers and marines threw her a smile and a salute, and she didn’t need anything more than that.

“Oi, Pinkie!” somepony yelled.

Well, occasionally somepony wanted her attention.

Pinkie spun around and saw two grinning pegasus stallions gliding up to her, softly landing on the ground. One wore a form-fitting bodysuit of mostly purple and black, giving off a distinct glossy shine. At a glance, it was indistinguishable from the uniforms of the Shadowbolt stunt fliers, but the sheen from the armour enchantments and the extra gear strapped on made it clear he was from the Shadowbolt Division of the Imperial Lunar Army. His mane, styled back and coloured vibrant yellow and orange, complemented the uniform well as did his piercing azure eyes.

By his side, the other pony was sporting a cocky grin. His pale red coat contrasted against his dulled purple fatigues. The vibrant fiery colours of his spiky, styled back mane grew in brightness and intensity as it got closer to the roots, like he had a mane of fire. A quick glance at the rank insignia on his collar revealed he was a Sergeant in the New Marelander Imperial Marine Corp.

“Private Pinkie!” the marine said in a strong New Marelander accent as he put a wing up to sharp salute. “Hi, name’s Sergeant Flame Fireblast, this cunt is Captain Blaze.”

Blaze saluted much as Flame had, not visibly reacting to Flame's vulgarity. “A pleasure to meet you, Private.”

“Hi!” Pinkie pipped with a bouncy salute of her own. “How ya doin’, ponies?”

“Ohh, positively fantastic, Private,” Blaze grinned, his eyes narrowing. “My friend Flame has something he wants to show you.”

“Ooh, what is it?” Pinkie questioned, turning her curious gaze to Flame.

Flame produced a small black box out of the satchel on his belt, showing it to Pinkie. Upon closer inspection, it was a VHS tape, hoofwritten words on the front reading ‘Smile SD’. “Something I made as a memento. Uses one of your songs, I’ve shown it to my mates and they all love it. Made a ton of copies, but this is the master tape.”

Twinkles flashed in Pinkie’s eyes as curiosity and excitement swelled within her. “Oooo! Yeah, that sounds like fun! Do you have somewhere to play?” she said. Pinkie had been fascinated by these videotape thingies, only recently had they entered mass market availability and had provided her with ample ideas for how to party with them. Imagine having a personalised movie watch party at home! Any movie, any time!

“Barracks here have TVs, follow me,” Flame confirmed. They moved into the nearest barrack, which housed rows of bunk beds and various recreational equipment in the common area. They were the only ponies in the building at the time. On the far end of the barrack, there sat a small television set with a built-in VCR opposite a set of benches. Flame and Blaze exchanged smiles while they walked down with Pinkie giddily skipping in tow.

As Pinkie and Blaze sat down on a bench, Flame moved down to load the tape into the TV, but stopped right as he was ready to push it in. “You don't mind that we used one of your songs, do you?” he asked.

Giggling, Pinkie wiggled a hoof to dismiss his concerns. “Of course not! It's there to make ponies happy, use it however you like!”

“Fuckin' told you she was cool!” Flame laughed, jabbing a hoof forward to punctuate the point. Finally, he loaded the tape into the machine with a soft click and dashed to sit with Pinkie and Blaze. “Alright, you’ll love this, you’ll love it.”

The three ponies watched quietly as the television hummed to life, its screen glowing blue with white lines and other hazy artifacts flickering across the display. The tape’s snow distortion soon faded, giving way to an image of a snow coated forested landscape. Mighty Equestrian tanks rolled down an icy dirt road, the camera itself being mounted on the turret of one such tank, with many pony soldiers either riding on the tanks themselves or trotting behind them. Slowly the soft hisses and crackles of the audio themselves gave way to a lively accordion tune accompanied by Pinkie’s voice. “-y name is Pinkie Pie, and I am here to say,” its slightly distorted voice sang.

“Soooo, what’s the video about, anyway?” Pinkie asked tentatively.

“Ahh, just our time in Olenia, you know, that deer country,” Blaze replied, his eyes glued to the screen as a grin grew on his lips. “About a month or so ago.”

“Yeah, you see, I was the driver on this tank, the one with the camera,” Flame added, also intently watching the screen.

Quickly the mood of the video shifted. The tanks sped up. The soldiers took cover behind the armoured machines. They were sheltering from unseen gunfire. Sparks pinged off of the tanks from the nearby enemy position. The song approached the chorus. The tanks approached their targets.

“‘Cause I love to make you smile, smile, smile!” it sang as white-hot streaks of phosphorus burst from the tanks and into the fortifications. It cut to a shot of deer soldiers desperately retreating from their burning bunkers. They were cut down by machine gun fire. Countless more videos flashed on the screen, one after the other in sync to the beat of the music. Burning trees. Burning vehicles. Burning houses. Burning bodies. The camera zoomed in on what was left of a deer soldier, their face down in the snow and their skin charred black. All the while Pinkie could only stare in horror, her eyes wide and wet and jaw low, listening to her cheerful voice as it sang praises to the slaughter.

“You- you’re-” Pinkie shuddered, her blood running cold. “Y-you burned them alive-”

“Yeah, course we did, it’s fuckin’ freezing up there, perfect excuse to bust out the flamethrowers!” Flame laughed.

“Honestly, we were doing them a service!” Blaze snorted.

The perspective changed to an overhead shot as the second verse began. Thick grey and white mist shifted around the edge of the frame; it was likely filmed from a cloud eighty meters off the ground. Below, under the cover of unicorn-cast shields a platoon of Equestrian infantry advanced upon an Olenian trench. Bullets flew from the trench. The Equestrian soldiers dropped to the ground, spraying the trench with suppressive gunfire. Then the camera flipped around, focusing on a tank racing down the field and towards the trench.

“Look, look! That’s me in there!” Flame excitedly pointed at the tank. As the second chorus drew near, the camera gave a clear view of the side of the mechanical beast and the words that had been painted on, ‘The Barbeque’.

“'Cause I love to make you grin, grin, grin!” fire burst from the tank and engulfed everything in the trench. Deers, their uniforms on fire, scrambled out of the trench with some running away and some dropping their weapons in surrender. The tank’s machine gun executed the lot. A paralyzed deer desperately crawled away from the trench only for the tank to drive over them, squishing them like jelly with a cartoonish squelch sound effect added on top. It cut to another clip, the aftermath of the attack as seen from the ground. Maimed and mangled bodies littered the area, blood and entrails mixing with dirt and grime. Another cut, focused squarely on a single cadaver slumped against the trench wall clutching their rifle. Their fur and flesh had turned black with flickering embers bespeckling them, like coal in a furnace. Crimson-stained bones were visible through peeled and burnt flesh. Melted flesh dripped from the charred skull. Their eyes were gone. Their eyes were gone.

In a lightning-quick motion, Pinkie snatched the remote from the bench and slammed the ‘stop’ button. The image on the screen distorted and froze amidst a sea of static.

Flame’s smile fell from his voice. “Oi, what gives?”

“Yeah! We haven’t even gotten to my part yet!” Blaze complained.

Pinkie was motionless. The remote fell out of her hooves and hit the ground with a clatter. Through shuddering breaths, she finally spoke. “Y-you killed them. You-, you’re celebrating killing other creatures.”

“Of course!” Blaze laughed as he nudged Pinkie’s shoulder. “It’s a war! They’re enemies of our Empress! Don’t you know that creatures die in war?” he said with a hint of condescension in his voice.

“But-” words failed Pinkie. “Th-they were retreating! Some were surrendering!”

The two pegasi exchanged a glance of mutual confusion. “And…?” Blaze shrugged.

Pinkie nearly choked on her next breath. Her lips quivered and eyebrows trembled as she subconsciously put distance between herself and Blaze. She bumped into Flame, making both ponies jerk in opposite directions. Pinkie scooted away, and Flame rubbed his shoulder.

“I take it you don't like it, then?” Flame asked sullenly.

“No!” Pinkie yelled, practically leaping off of the bench. “This isn't what my music is about! It’s about happy things, brightening up ponies’ nights and putting a smile on their face! Not killing or dying!”

Biting his lip, Flame shuffled on the spot. “To be fair…” he said, then snickering, “we did brighten up their night.”

For a moment Blaze was silent. Then a snort which devolved into a full laugh. “Oh Nightmare! Brightened it up! With fire! Hahahaha!”

“Right?” Flame’s frown vanished as he matched Blaze’s laughs, the pair’s laughs feeding back into one another as it got louder and louder. “Brightened it up so much it overexposed the bloody camera!”

Their cruel raptuous cackles were drowned out by the overwhelming ringing in Pinkie's ears. She couldn’t move, like shackles of lead had chained her and weighed her down. She couldn't think, the truth of her circumstances that she tried so desperately to bury was screaming in her face. Of course her music was associated with the Empire’s murderous conquests, her performances were before audiences of those murderous conquerors!

She looked at the TV, the image frozen exactly where it was on the burnt deer’s remains. Past the distortions and artifacts, she gazed into their black, empty eye sockets. In that moment Pinkie could’ve sworn they were staring back, like they were watching her. Judging her. Blaming her.

Visions of who else befell the fate of those deer flooded her mind. More burned bodies, more murdered creatures, their slaughter celebrated with the hurn of Private Pinkie’s accordion and the battle cry of “Encore! Encore!”. Her breathing turned into hyperventilation, her hooves felt sickly wet, her face was drenched in sweat. This was what she performed for. This was what she gave cover for. This was her legacy, the culmination of her efforts.

Creatures murdered, as the murderers laughed.

Leaping to her hooves with tears spilling from her eyes, Pinkie galloped out of the barracks and out of the camp, never looking back.