Rainbow Dash's Awesomely Radical April Foal's Prank
It was one of the few days of the year that Rainbow Dash ever saw the need to wake up relatively early. There was no need of an alarm today. She was too excited to sleep. She almost wished there was something else to busy herself with, but all the preparations had been completed days ago. Everything was in place, and now it was only a matter of keeping cool and calm enough to convince everypony else.
Year after year April Foals Day had been the same old thing over and over again. She had fun certainly, but had also gained a reputation. They all expected it now, and that took a considerable amount of the fun away. Not all of it, of course, but it was never as cool pranking a pony who knew it was coming. That was the reason for her plan this year.
“Easy Dash. Just keep a straight face. You can do it ... hehehe NO! No laughing. Not even a smirk.” She sat at the edge of her cloud bed as she went through the motions of the techniques she had practiced for weeks now. “Not funny. Think sad thoughts. Think sad thoughts.” This was crucial. They all had to honestly believe that she had given up on practical jokes. It had been tough. She hadn't pulled any pranks for the last three months, and she made sure to drop casual comments every now and again about how she TOTALLY lost interest in that sort of thing. She couldn't help feeling sorry for Pinkie Pie, though. Every time she would mention how she had 'outgrown' practical jokes the pink pony would look just a little less exuberant.
“Don't worry, Pinkie. It's gonna go down just fine.” She muttered to her absent friend. “You'll see. This'll be the best prank ever, and everypony will be talking about it for years. No, decades! Then, after today, we can go back to our usual routine of having HEAPS of fun together.” She just had to make it through a majority of the day pretending to be as serious as she could, then the rest would go like clockwork.
“OK Dash. Everything is ready. Just don't crack up, especially at any of the other jokes that are going to be played today. They ARE going to happen. Be ready for it. They will be hilarious, but not NEARLY as good as yours. So you can't blow it. Chill. Just chill.” She looked out on the clear blue sky ahead with a completely blank stare, then allowed a more natural 'happy face' to show through. It couldn't be ecstatic, but if it was too devoid of emotion then she might be suspected of hiding something. Of course she WAS hiding something (and it was gonna be super cool), but nopony could know until the time was right. Her eyebrows lowered as a slight grin spread across her face. “It's gonna be the BEST PRANK IN THE HISTORY OF EQUESTRIA! MUAHAHAHAHA!” This declaration was punctuated by a lightning flash and a loud peel of thunder.
“Ack! I thought I took care of that.” Dash turned around in surprise to see a midsized bank of dark clouds floating her way. “Oh, noway you're gonna rain on my day!” She dashed off to disperse the offending weather pattern.
*****
After she had taken a bit of time to clear the sky once again, Rainbow Dash decided to do a fly over of Ponyville to see how the day was shaping up. She originally hadn't wanted to encounter any of her friends too early yet, but there was no way that they had missed her aerial acrobatics if they had been outside.
“Stupid raincloud. If you're the reason they start to suspect me I won't ever forgive you.” She grumbled to herself and the varying winds that passed by her. “That's right Dash. Get mad at the moisture in the air. Get mad at it, and don't think silly or happy thoughts. Serious face! Well, ok, not TOO serious, but serious enough.”
She flew around the town a bit until she saw her friends all gathered around in what looked to be a picnic. She suppressed a wide grin as she took in the prospect of all her possible targets in one spot at the same time. She decided it was time to reiterate the 'non-joking Dash'. She banked high then soared around in a wide arc towards the ground.
*****
“She's up there right now. Who knows what she's got planned for today.” Applejack had spotted Rainbow Dash from far off as she was clearing up the last of the mid-morning storm clouds.
Twilight Sparkle looked up from her sandvich. “Aren't you girls all making a big deal out of nothing really? I mean Rainbow Dash always plays pranks. It's nothing new.”
“Oh, no ... you're mistaken Twilight. It's much more intense than her usual pranks.” The look on Fluttershy's face was slightly more severe than her usual expression of concern.
“That's right Twi. This is your first April Foals Day in Ponyville. Her jokes get ramped up somethin' fierce today. Why, I still recall the year she fed dye into the apple trees irrigation systems, and all the leaves turned pink for a month.”
“What?!” Twilight was alarmed at this. “That's not like Dash to poison everypony.”
“Oh no, it didn't do anything bad. Just change the leaves a weirdo color.”
“Or there was the year when she substituted those bolts of water soluble cloth into my inventory. All the garments I made that entire week were tainted with the material. Then she arranged for a 'surprise shower' on April Foals Day. Honestly, if it had been any other day my reputation would have been ruined. Thankfully though, my customers understood that the joke had been played on me too.” Rarity paused to take a sip of her drink. “Still though, I had an atrocious time tracking down the dresses that weren't being worn outside that day. Recalls are just so horribly embarrassing.”
“Wow. I never would have thought she would go that far as to take the chance of ruining anypony's professional reputation just for a joke.”
“Oh, they're not just ANY jokes Twilight! They're massively super duper AWESOME-SAUCE jokes!” Pinkie Pie leaned in closer to Twilight as if she was unsure of whether or not the unicorn could hear her. “They're the best jokes of all time: the April Foals Day jokes! You just gotta go over the top for April Foals Day! You GOTTA!”
“Well, that may be, but acts of vandalism shouldn't be on the list of pranks. I mean, that's not something that everypony can enjoy. It's funny enough if you are an on looker, but I don't think it would be so entertaining to be on the receiving end of something like that.”
“Oh Twilight. That is why you have to make sure that YOU'RE not that pony being pranked, and the best way to do that is by pulling pranks yourself.” Pinkie pointed a hoof towards the desserts. “Like I did just now. See, these cupcake you all have been eating are just LOADED with laxatives. You really didn't notice that I was keeping away from them?” Her broad grin didn't waver in the slightest.
“What?!” Twilight's eyes went wide. All the other ponies sat in shock as Pinkie rolled around on the ground in a giggling fit. “Pinkie, you didn't ...”
“APRIL FOALS! HAHAHA! Of course I didn't. That would be mean, and you wouldn't trust my cupcakes again. I wouldn't want that.” All the other ponies breathed a sigh of relief. Applejack and Twilight chuckled nervously to each other. “But you see my point. You have to take the initiative.”
“So, I need to 'get' her before she gets me?”
“Oh no, not her.” Pinkie gestured up in the sky at the rainbow streak now closing in on them. “She will just pay you back a whole LOT more later on. She usually just picks one pony and sticks with them for the day on April Foals, and it won't be you since this is your first in Ponyville. That's how she works.”
“Oh, ok. So I should just prank other ponies then. Hmm. You know, I didn't really know that today was going to be a big deal. In Canterlot April Foals isn't really given much notice. I would have read up on some pranks if-”
“Hi guys.” Rainbow Dash landed lightly on the ground near the picnic basket. “A bit early out for a picnic isn't it? You wouldn't be ... planning anything, would you?” Her gaze shot to each of her friends in turn.
“What in tarnation are ya talking about, sugarcube? It's nearly noon.”
Rainbow Dash looked at her with a blank stare. “Oh ... I knew that. I was just ... uh ... toying with your minds to see if you would let anything slip.”
“Oh! I can't wait to see what you have in store for THIS year, Dash! Is it gonna be something made of wood? Or metal?! OR CAKE!! OH! No wait, don't tell me, that would spoil it! NO NO! DO tell me, I want in on it! Oh no, but that would ruin the surprise! Ooohhhh, I'm so conflicted!” At this Pinkie sat on the ground holding her head in her hooves and wobbling back and forth slightly.
“Oh Pinkie, don't be silly. I got bored with pranks a long time ago. They just seem so silly now.”
“Um ... Rainbow Dash ... are you in pain?” Fluttershy had moved to her friend's side.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well ... it's just that ... you keep biting your lower lip and ... and you seem like you're about to burst into tears. Oh, I hope everything is alright.” She moved closer to Rainbow Dash. “If you need me to, I can fly back to my house to get my medical kit ... if you want, I mean ... “
“What!? Uh, I mean. No, no, that won't be necessary. Oh look at the time. I'm late for ... something. See ya!” With that the departing pony left a rainbow streak across the sky so quickly that half the leaves in the nearby tree were taken with her.
“Oh, yeah. She's up to somethin'. No reason she would be acting like that unless she was trying to hide it.”
“Yep-a-reeny-roo! I KNEW she was. It must be something BIG since she's been acting this way for a while now, and that means she's been planning it for a while now too! I'm really tempted to just go along with it and pretend that I don't know somethings coming, just to keep things EXTRA fun.”
“Now what 'extra' fun would there be with pretending you don't know, when you do actually know? Seems kinda' pointless to me.” Applejack grumbled in mild annoyance.
“I'll tell you later.” Pinkie smiled at her, and reached over to playfully push the brim of the work-pony's hat further down onto her head.
“I have to admit that I'm curious as to what she would do, but nervous at the same time. Some of those things seem like they would have a lot of potential to cause problems. How do you know when you are taking it too far? Help me out here girls. You all seem to be fairly well experienced with this sort of thing. Can any of you give me some pointers so I don't end up taking a prank too far?” Twilight looked from pony to pony as she made her request.
“Well,” Pinkie paused a moment to think, “you don't ever want to prank a pony who would take it too seriously, so a sense of humor is a must. Also, you don't want to pull any prank that would hit a sore nerve with a particular pony no matter how good of a sense of humor they have.”
“ ... no matter ... how good ...” Twilight muttered to herself as she magically transcribed Pinkie's advice into a notebook.
“Yeah, there are just some ponies that you don't want to bring up certain things with.” Applejack interjected as she picked up a cookie to chomp down on. “Like how you don't ever want to go and tell Rainbow Dash that Gilda was looking for her while carrying a card with a box of chocolates.” Her friends chuckled a bit at the imagery.
“Oh, heh heh, no, she would be rather put off from that, wouldn't she?” Rarity's smile went wide as the next thought came to her. “You know, also wouldn't want to steal volumes five through seven from Twilight's Encyclopedia Equestria set.” They all laughed slightly at this, except for Twilight.
“Hey! That's the 'E' section. Everypony knows that E is the most often used vowel. Just think of all the-”
“Twilight, dear. You're proving my point.” She put a hoof to her friend's shoulder while giving a gentle smile.
“Oh. Heh. Oops.” Twilight smiled sheepishly to herself.
“And you don't ever ever ever in a million bazillion years want to go up to Fluttershy and tell her a whole boat load of scary stories about pony hell right before bed time.” The other ponies laughed a little at this while glancing over towards Fluttershy to make sure she wasn't taking it too hard. Pinkie moved to her side and gave her a sideways hug.
“No ... no, you don't ... “ Fluttershy's expression was a mix of worry and amusement. “Oh, I have one . . . You don't ever want to set up a birthday party for Princess Luna and then don't invite anypony except her.” The ponies all stopped laughing and looked at her with a mixture of shock and concern. “ ... um ... because she would ... be there all alone ... “ Her friends exchanged awkward glances at one another. “Well, I said you shouldn’t ever do it ... “
“Yeah ... yeah, you shouldn't. That would be mean. I mean seriously, Fluttershy.” Pinkie Pie's arm was still around Fluttershy, but her face was as serious as she had ever looked. The yellow pegasus looked towards the ground and tried to hide behind her mane. Pinkie hugged her harder before leaning close to her ear. “April Foals. Hee hee.”
As Pinkie released her grip Fluttershy looked up with surprise and a bright blush spread across her face. The rest of her friends picked up on Pinkie's direction, and they all smiled as best they could. “ ... oh my, this must have taken an awful lot of planning to get me to say just the right thing at the right time.” She smiled back at them.
“Uh, yeah, it sure did, sugarcube.” Applejack chuckled nervously as she inwardly made note to congratulate Pinkie on her quick thinking.
The afternoon went on like this with each of the ponies sharing small pranks with one another while enjoying their day together.
*****
“Oh, look. We're out of pie. I could have sworn that I had another one around here.” Pinkie looked around hastily before addressing her friends again. “Stay right here. I'll go grab another.” She zipped off toward Sugar Cube Corner before any objections could be made.
Pinkie ran through the kitchen while saying hello to Mr. and Mrs. Cake, and darted directly up to her room before they could respond. She opened her closet and dug into the trunk in the back.
“Here we go,” she giggled to herself, “They all think I haven't prepared for this. But they're wrooooooong.” She pulled out a burlap sack and slung it over her shoulder. She was about to leave when she heard a soft low humming sound from the closet.
“What? What's that?” She looked towards the back to see something moving. “A monster? There wasn't one there last night. Hey, you monster, you. Go haunt some other pony's closet.” The movement intensified. Pinkie could see that it wasn't actually anything in the closet that moved, but rather the closet itself that was twisting, shaking, and contorting out of balance with the rest of the room.
“AH! Oh, wow! How did my closet get to be all funky-bunky like that?” She leaned closer to look at the strange twisting storage space that was now beginning to emit light. “Hey, that looks pretty neat. I wonder if th-”
A sudden loud snap of the air and Pinkie was very quickly pulled into the twisting spiral of light. She vanished without a trace, and the vortex closed as silently as it came.
*****
The very first thing Pinkie noticed were the colors. They were so dull and subdued, like they had all been washed out with bleach. Everything was darker too, more awash in shadow, but more than that, it all looked like a strange dream-scape that she may have once remembered but wasn't quite sure.
She was in a room like no other she had been in before, but not because of its contents. Everything in the room had a quality about it that she could not place. If she would have chosen to recall it later, she would have described the sensation as being how she imagined a robot would feel after being granted the ability to feel emotions, except she was experiencing this through the eyes, instead of the heart. There were simply no words to convey the difference that every object in the room took on. By all rights these should have been perfectly normal everyday items, but there was something eerily uncanny about them. The way the many papers attached to the wall moved back and forth as being blown by a breeze she couldn't feel, or the dark wooden desk that sat at the far side of the room and the angle with which it projected outwards. All of it silently screamed at her of something so alien that she could never hope to accurately describe it.
As she walked slowly towards that desk her eyes focused on the chair that had its back towards her. It was not empty. As she moved closer she felt as though she were falling through the room towards that chair, but at any given time she could halt the momentum of that fall. She did not like this, not one little bit.
“I want to go back.” Pinkie broke the defining silence a few feet away from the occupant of the chair. “You brought me here, right? Send me back. I don't like it.” In truth it unnerved her more than she would want to tell anypony later on.
“You'll go back after we've had our talk.” The voice was even and gentle with a matter of fact tone. The chair rotated around, and Pinkie saw something she had never seen before but had always known existed.
“I know you, don't I?” Pinkie's heart skipped a beat as she realized her words were true on a level she could not quite grasp.
“Of course you do. I made you.” The woman stood up and brought up a hand to brush a strand of dark red hair out of her face. “I made you and all your friends and all of the world you know. My face is written in the subconscious mind of every creature in that place.”
“You're not Celestia. She's the only one who could say something like that.”
“No, I'm not Celestia, and she's not what you think she is. In truth, you now hold a power than she will never know. It's because you now stand outside of the fiction that I created. You are in the real world, and simply knowing that gives you a power over that fiction that no other being inside of it could possibly have.”
“Sounds like you've been hitting the poison joke a bit too hard, lady.” Pinkie laughed a little, but it came out sounding more nervous than she would have liked.
The woman pointed to the papers lining the walls of the room. Pinkie's eyes followed and for the first time she noticed that they were drawings of her and all her friends. They were drawings of all the various adventures they had together, and the ponies and other creatures they had met along the way. “Those are only preliminary storyboard sketchings. The final version is all done on computers, but you get the point.”
“Whoa. Stalker city! I mean, I used to have a crush on this one pony when I was little and I would make story-picture books about us, but it was nothing THIS elaborate. That looks just like me. You're good!”
“That would be the sort of reaction you would have, of course. You're mostly for comedy relief. You DO know what I am getting at, though. You understand completely, but your conscious mind isn't allowing you to accept it yet. The reality is there in front of you on those pages and all around you in this room. You and your world were never part of the real world.”
“It seemed pretty real to me.”
“That is because you are trapped in it and made of it. You're not just watching shadows on the cave wall. You are the shadows. Of course it would seem real from your perspective.” She moved to kneel down in front of Pinkie.
“If that were true then that would mean that none of what we all went through ever actually happened. It would mean that nothing we actually felt was ever real. That can't be true though. I have my own thoughts and feelings. I KNOW I am alive, and I am aware of the things around me. How could it be that all of that has never existed?”
“Oh, my dear Pinkie,” She reached out her arm to rest her hand on the pony's shoulder. “You have those thoughts and feelings because the audience projects them onto you. All that you are is either established in my outlines or exists in the heads of the viewers. In some cases it's even more loosely defined. You see, in this incarnation, I'm not even real. This scenario is just a fan based written work that was inspired by the work of fiction that features your character. It's all just an illusion inside of the imagination of the person reading these words. The only reason why the reader even sees me as human is because of the words in the above paragraphs. The truth is that we are both just a jumble of strung together ideas represented by a few typed out words. We don't even get pictorial accompaniment in this version. We exist inside their minds in a very basic form, and they will add all the little details that make the story worth reading. Those details could be anything at all. They could be anything from the emotions you're feeling to the color of my shirt. It hasn't been specifically stated what color my shirt is, so it could really be anything the reader chooses.”
“Don't be silly. That can't be true. Wh-”
“What color is my shirt?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“If this is real then my shirt actually exists separate from this written work, and therefore actually has a color. If this is not real then it won't have a set color outside of what the reader imagines it to be. If this is all a fiction, then we characters who are trapped in it won't have the authority to decide what color it is unless the writer gives it to us, and he's not going to do that. So tell me. What color is my shirt, Pinkie?”
“Your shirt is ... it's color is ... “
“Go ahead. It's right here. What color is it?”
“It's ... it's ... oh no ...“ Pinkie's brow furrowed. The woman leaned over and wrapped her other arm around the pink pony to hold her tightly. Pinkie returned the hug as best she could. “I'm not real ... NONE of it was ever real? All the adventures and the parties and my friends. OH NO! What about them? THEY were all fiction too?!” Pinkie continued to hold the embrace, and her eyes lost focus as she stared over the woman’s shoulder. Her mind spun slightly as she felt tears began to form in her eyes. She sniffed a little and pulled away far enough to look the lady in the face again.
“Why? Why are you telling me all of this? I could have been happy just going about my merry old Pinkie Pie way without any of this effecting me at all.”
“I’m telling you because I have to, Pinkie.”
“Why? Why on Equestria would you possibly need to tell me these things? Is our fake world in danger? Is there a way for us to break out of it and becoming real? Was it on some sick twisted whim? WHY?! Why would you upset the life of somepony so badly? Did I do something bad without knowing it, and this is punishment?”
The woman leaned down and held the pony again in her arms before turning her lips to Pinkie's ear. Then she whispered all of her reasons. She made certain that the little pony understood them completely, along with the all the implications they generated. As she finished her explanation, tears began to freely stream from Pinkie's eyes. She clenched them closed as she buried her head in her creator’s shoulder, and they both held fast in a hug that lasted quite a long time.
*****
Pinkie Pie slowly walked to rejoined her friends on the low grassy hill with the nearby oak tree. When she got there she gently placed the rhubarb pie down on the lumpy cotton blanket and seated herself quietly between Twilight Sparkle and Rarity. She realized that she must not have spent too long a time in that other place. The day had barely wore on since she had left. Or maybe time moved differently there. It didn't matter really. Rainbow Dash had shown up again, and the topic of conversation had, once again, changed to pranks.
“I'm serious guys. I really don't have anything up my sleeve. I'm not even wearing sleeves.”
“Right, Rainbow. The minute we start believing that is the minute we fall right into your trap.” Applejack couldn't help but smile at the blue pony's stubborn persistence.
“I think ... ,” All of her friends turned to look at Pinkie Pie as she almost absent-mindedly interjected her thoughts, “that one of the most cruel pranks that could ever be played, is if a creature that didn't ever exist was allowed to believe that it did. I think that would be the worst thing in the whole world.” Her friends stared at her as she stared blankly up into the sky.
“Sugarcube? Did you drink something out of sorts while you were heating up the pie?”
“No, I just started thinking again about the stuff we were talking about before.”
Rainbow Dash took this opportunity to move to Pinkie's side. “Yeah ... that would be pretty horrible wouldn't it. But that's sad to think about. Let's not talk about sad stuff on such a nice day. Instead, what about the BEST prank? What do you think that would that be?”
“I'm not sure Dash. What do you think it would be?” Pinkie kept her gaze to the sky as she spoke.
“I always thought it would be cool to get the pony you're gonna prank to think that the joke was going to be on some other pony. You could even pretend to let them in on it from the start, making them think that they weren't the target. You build everything up to go a certain way until you're sure they THINK they know what's gonna happen, and THEN you throw the actual prank at them. It'll pull them in a totally different direction, one that they might not have gone towards with if they had known what it was going to be from the start. That way it takes them by surprise, and blows them away with AWESOME!” Dash stood tall, proudly posing for the invisible cheering fans that were chanting her name in her imagination.
“What if you didn't want to blow them away at all? What if you just wanted to have a little laugh with them?” Twilight used her magic to levitate a slice of pie onto her plate.
“Huh?! ... Well, I mean ...” Rainbow Dash turned to answer her. “If you WANTED to do that, then you could be subtle about it, I guess. But what good would that be? I mean, if you went to all that trouble, why not just shout out 'April Foals!' when the time comes? You wouldn't want the prank to go unnoticed. Then it would be for nothing!”
“No, Darling, I don't think it would go unnoticed. I think you underestimate your target, just like you underestimated us, Mrs. I-gave-up-pranks.” Rarity shot her a smug smile.
“Well, heh heh, I guess I sorta did.” Dash looked away with a grin on her face. She then looked back to her friends with a partially worried expression. “But do you think a prank like that would work? I mean, if everything went as planned, then do you think that everypony would have fun with it? Because that's the important part. It's not nearly as cool if they don't have fun along with you.” She glanced towards Pinkie.
Pinkie giggled. “I don't see how they wouldn't.” She turned towards Dash as she stood up, a wide grin spread across her face. "I know I sure did. High hoof, partner." She held her hoof towards Rainbow Dash, who smirked as she bumped her own hoof against it.
The other ponies simply stared at the two of them. “But you know," Pinkie continued, "there is one surefire way to find out what they thought. You finish everything up, and then you ask them.”
With that they all agreed, and they finished up with the rest of their picnic.
