Chapters There's A Second Pink Eldritch Horror In Town
The Pink Has Been Doubled
Author's Note
Just a bunch of word vomit I wanted to spew to keep my creativity up.
Also don't worry, I'll stop using Adam and start calling her Diane in the next chapter.
The Pink Has Been Doubled
RING RING RING
The sound of an alarm clock cut through any pleasant dreams Adam might have had. His hand clumsily slammed on to the alarm clock, and it fell on to the wooden floor below with a loud thud. At last the damn thing was quiet.
He groaned into his pillow but abruptly went silent.
'My voice sounds different. Why? Am I sick again?' He sighed. 'Just my luck. I get sick on a Saturday of all days. Let me guess, I get all better just in time for work on Monday.' His brows furrowed as he thought.
He turned his head so he'd be comfortable again and to not suffocate himself in his pillow.
He groaned again as he could feel the sunlight peeking through past the blinds, hitting him right in the eyes. He grumbled something underneath his breath and rolled over in bed, so his back faced the accursed burning star.
He tried to just fall back asleep but he suddenly felt something. It was a sensation that no one should experience when they live alone and are trying to sleep.
He could feel someone breathing right next to him. In fact this certain someone was right in front of him, in his bed.
He opened his eyes the moment he felt the third exhale. The fear in his eyes was replaced by confusion when he spotted a very vibrant pink pony staring at him, their muzzles nearly touching from the proximity.
"Hia! Who are you?" The pink pony spoke, a bright smile appearing on her muzzle.
"Holy shit!" Adam practically jumped out of bed, his hooves flying in every which direction before he landed on the wooden floor.
Wait, hooves? Hooves? What the hell happened to his arms? Scratch that what happened to him?
"I don't think there's anything holy about that." Adam looked up from inspecting his new body, the sight of a pink pony sitting in his- scratch that, a bed, greeted his eyes. The room he found himself in was definitely not his bedroom, but it was oddly familiar. It's as if he'd seen this place somewhere before.
The figurative puzzle pieces connected in his mind when he looked up at the smiling pink pony in front of him.
"No way." A voice not his own spoke, in fact it sounded just like the party planner in front of him.
"P-Pinkie Pie?" A small tone of fear was mixed in with shock as he tried to come to grips with what was happening in front of him.
"Yepperooni! And who are you? You look just like me, just with a less poofy mane!" She jumped out of her bed and came uncomfortably close to Adams face again.
"Diane." He reflexively responded, as soon as he did his brow furrowed. "I meant Diane."
'What the hell? Why can't I say Adam?' He practically screamed in his mind.
"Oooh that's my name too! Well, it's actually Pinkiamina Diane Pie and not just Diane but still, this is so awesome!" The pink pony hopped around Adam with a wide smile.
"You can just call me Pinkie Pie though." Her movement suddenly stopped mid air and a record scratch sound came from somewhere.
"How did you know my name?" Pinkies face formed into an uncharacteristic look of suspicion.
"Ehhh... Lucky guess?" He wasn't going to state that he knew her from a television show, It'd just make him look more insane.
Pinkies eyes narrowed as she slowly closed the distance between them. Her head came ever so closer to his face. He leaned backwards until he fell on his back but that didn't stop Pinkie, as she simply stood atop him and brought her face closer to his, eyes still narrowed. A giant droplet of sweat slowly rolled across Adam's forehead.
Pinkie still continued to slowly advance until her nose met his. Then she blinked.
"You're good." She then stepped off him and continued hopping around him.
"Was that a staring contest?" Adam picked himself up from the ground.
"Yep, you're really really good. I think you might even beat gummy!"
Adam simply sighed. "I wish I had some booze right about now."
Suddenly he felt a intense shiver run down his spine and he had the urge to dig something out of his mane.
Without hesitation he stuck his hoof into his straight-ish hair and he pulled out a brown bottle with a skull and crossbones pictured on the label. "You're kidding me." He was at a loss for words, how had this comically cartoonish bottle ended up in his hair?
He shrugged and decided to not question it. Then he opened the bottle and took a swig. "Yep that's alcohol." He simply stated.
"Oooh what kind?" Pinkie's head appeared over his shoulder, her eyes locked onto the brown bottle.
"Beer." He simply answered.
Pinkies face scrunched up a bit. "Blegh I don't touch beer even with a five meter pole. It tastes yucky."
He shrugged again and took another swig. As he lowered his bottle his attention was fixated on his new body.
The fur that now covered his body wasn't as vibrant as Pinkie's, and the new mane he now had wasn't as poofy as hers.
Adam slowly looked down at his rump to check his cutie mark. His eyes slightly widened as he saw the familiar three balloons resting there.
"Oh we have the same cutie marks too!" Pinkie exclaimed, while she poked at the three balloons with a hoof.
"Hey, don't touch my ass." Adam's surprisingly flexible tail slapped Pinkies hoof away.
"I was just testing that it wasn't a sticker." She shrugged.
Then Pinkie let out a sudden ghasp, as if she just realised something. "I need to introduce you to all my friends! Oh they'll love you!"
"I don't think-" Adam couldn't even finish what he was about to say before he was scooped up by pinkie and she practically carried him out of Sugarcube Corner.
'Well shit. I hope this is either before the wedding or after the changeling reformation. I really don't want to be hunted down for being a body stealer.' Adam thought as he was still being carried by one hoof as if he was a plate of food. It was surprising how much strength Pinkie had, it took quite a lot of strength to carry a pony her own size on one hoof.
'It's pretty weird that I'm not freaking out or anything. I mean usually if someone would experience something like this then they'd probably be a hyperventilating mess right now.' Adam shrugged at his own thoughts. 'I guess I just don't care. Didn't really have anything worth losing back at Earth. Gonna miss my dick though. And I'm way too pink.' He then took another swig of beer.
Many ponies simply stared in confusion when Pinkie Pie ran past them, holding what looked like a slightly sad looking Pinkie Pie who in turn was holding onto a bottle of alcohol.
The trip didn't take long as Pinkie stopped right in front of a giant tree castle made out of crystal.
He was then carefully deposited onto the dirt path in front of the door, as Pinkie walked up to the castle and knocked on the door.
Adam took a single look at the castle and then took a long and gulp of beer. Sighing as he lowered the bottle.
"This better be after the reformation, otherwise I'm royally fucked. Pun intended." He spoke to himself in the middle of taking long gulps of alcohol.
The castle door was opened by a purple alicorn, a small vial of something was floating right behind her.
"Hi Twi!" Pinkie waved at her friend. "Look what I found." She turned to face adam who had his head tipped back in yet another long drink.
"Pinkie what-" Twilight's eyes widened slightly at the sight of another Pinkie drinking what looked like to be alcohol on her doorstep.
Her gaze quickly shot between Adam and Pinkie. "Is she a changeling?"
Pinkie answered with a shrug. "I thought you might be able to do your thingamajig on her. Though I've never seen a changeling drink that much alcohol. Actually I've never seen a changeling drink alcohol." Pinkie tapped her chin in thought.
Shaking her head Twilight lit up her horn and a soft pink aura surrounded Adam. Just as quickly as it appeared it was gone.
"What? But how could that be?" Twilight's horn glowed once more, but this time Pinkie was the one who was surrounded by the pink aura.
"Hey, that tickles!" She giggled. The pink aura vanshied just as fast as it did the first time.
"That doesn't make any sense! You're her!" She pointed at Pinkie and then to Adam. "And she is you!" She did it again but this time in reverse.
"Wait, what if..." Her horn glowed once more and the pink aura surrounded Adam yet again.
Twilight's eye twitched. "You're not a mirror clone either."
"You're both exactly the same. There's not a single thing different about you! How is that even possible?" A strand of hair suddenly shot out of her evenly combed hair with an audible ping sound.
Adam felt a intense feeling of relief, at least he didn't have to try an convince everyone that he wasn't a changeling.
Then he chuckled as a thought came to his mind. "Hey Pinkie, you know what that means right?"
A massive grin slowly grew on her face at the realisation.
"I HAVE A NEW TWIN SISTER!" She jumped in the air before somehow turning her momentum in a different way, while still in the air and practically flying at Adam.
Pinkie then landed on him and gave him the biggest hug he had ever gotten. It was probably the only hug he'd had in years. A single tear formed itself at the corner of his eye until he wiped it away with the back of his hoof.
"This calls for a party!" Oh Pinkie Pie, never change.
There's A Second Pink Eldritch Horror In Town
A Deluge of World Ending Proportions
Author's Note
Huzzah! More shitposting!
I'll use Diane instead of Adam and address Diane by her new gender from this chapter onward. I hope y'all enjoy the chapter!
A Deluge of World Ending Proportions
Getting used to the addition of two new legs was somewhat difficult. Diane hadn't fallen over but she did clumsily stumble quite often on their short trip back into town. Pinkie didn't seem to notice due to hopping ahead of them with her eyes closed, but Twilight had thrown a few confused looks her way.
"Oh! This will be so super-duper fun!" Pinkie squeed in excitement, she started hopping around her new twin sister, each hop was accompanied by a cartoonish spring like sound. "We can do so many things together! I just can't wait! Oh, and I can't wait to show you to the rest of my family! Our family!" She then scooped Diane up in a big hug. Diane chuckled at her new sister's antics. She seemed to be a bit more hyper since the discovery of a new addition to the Pie family.
"I still cannot believe you're real." Twilight was walking behind the two pink ponies. Her hair was a lot more frazzled than twenty minutes ago, and her left eye kept twitching ever so often. Twilight blinked and suddenly Diane appeared next to her, wrapping one of her hooves around her back. It was as if she had teleported behind her, but that couldn't be possible, she wasn't a unicorn.
"Relax darling." Diane gave her best impression of Rarity that she could. "Everything is going to be fine. It's not like an exact copy of Pinkie Pie appeared in town." She then patted her back and joined Pinkie ahead of her. Another audible ping noise came from yet another strand of hair that unaligned itself.
"So, where to now? Back to Sugarcube Corner?" Diane turned to address Pinkie. "Yepperooni! Just need a few supplies before we can start." Pinkie gave a wide smile. As they walked through Ponyville many ponies turned their heads over towards the two Pinkie's walking side to side. Many of them giving confused looks at them. However none approached. The small group walked back to Sugarcube Corner where the local bakers resided. Diane could spot Mrs Cake manning the counter. Or would it be ponying?
Her eyes spotted Diane. "There you are Pinkie, I thought it was your turn-" The words died in her throat when Pinkie walked into the shop. "I'm sorry Mrs Cake but I had something really really important to do." Mrs Cake's eyes widened at the two Pinkies standing in her shop. "I want you to meet my new twin sister, Diane!" Pinkie pulled her sister into a big hug and pushed her towards the now confused baker.
"W-What? How?" The baker was entirely surprised by Diane until a look of fear flashed on her face. Her gaze slowly turned to the purple princess who walked through the front door. "Princess? Are they?" Mrs Cake pointed a shaky hoof at the two pink ponies.
"No. They aren't changelings." Twilights brow furrowed at Mrs Cake when her doubt was turned her way. "And neither am I." The alicorns horn glowed and exactly fifteen muffins behind the glass display counter turned into various forms of vegetables, and with a flash all of them turned back to normal. "A changeling wouldn't waste the high amounts of magic to transmutate a pastry into a vegetable, not to mention doing so for fifteen pastries at the same time. Now that I think about it, I don't think it would even be possible for them." While Twilight pondered this new question, Mrs Cake placed a hoof on her chest and let out a sigh of relief.
Diane whistled. "Damn, you're good. Could you teach me some of those tricks?" She jabbed Twilights side with a hoof. Twilight simply gave her a deadpan stare, her expression was all that was needed to get the message across. "Come on Sparkle Butt, lighten up a bit. We're all friends here. No need to be so sour." Diane offered a friendly smile her way.
"Yeah! We couldn't have the princess of friendship being a party pooper on her new friend's welcome party!" Pinkie joined in by appearing behind the purple princess. It took a second before Twilight registered what she heard. "What? Sparkle Butt?"
"Eeyup." Diane simply answered as a small smirk spread on her lips. "So, do you all need something?" The sound of Mrs Cake's voice butted into the "tease Twilight timeTM".
Pinkie suddenly appeared behind Mrs Cake, the look of non-surprise on her face told that she was all too used to Pinkies antics already. "I'm going to be throwing a welcome to Ponyville party for Diane! There's going to be cake, cupcakes, mud cake and all kinds of different cakes! I just need time to prepare!" After announcing her grand plan for today she was gone in a flash, the only way to know that she ran off, instead of the freaky teleporting that she often does, was the sound of the door opening and the already fading hoof-steps coming from outside.
Suddenly Diane appeared behind Mrs Cake, the sight of somepony other than Pinkie suddenly appearing behind her slightly startled her. Even though Diane looked nearly identical to her new sister she somehow got a surprised reaction out of Mrs Cake. "So uhh, where do ya'll keep your booze? I think we might need it. For the party and stuff." Diane seemed to be inspecting her hoof casually, as if she didn't just brake the laws of physics like her sister does daily.
Mrs Cake gave a slightly confused look her way. "We don't have any alcohol here, but there is a store not too far-" She didn't even get to finish her sentence before Diane rushed out of the bakery just like Pinkie. The only thing that accompanied the pink blur trail that left was Diane's quick. "Thank you!"
Twilight's eyes followed the pink trail and her eyes narrowed. "I'm definitely going to get to the bottom of this."
Diane was happily trotting towards the store until she stopped in her tracks. She realised that she didn't wait for Mrs Cake to finish telling her where the shop exactly was. So she had just run off for no reason. "Well shit." Diane face hoofed but slightly miscalculated the swing and hit herself on the muzzle, she recoiled slightly from the pain and gently rubbed her muzzle. "Who knew hooves hurt?" Then her eyes narrowed in thought. "Wait, do I even need to buy booze? Can't I just make it appear out of my freaky pocket dimension hair?" Diane reached a hoof into her mane, half of her foreleg disappeared into the pink hair. After a little bit of rummaging around something caught her hoof, she then proceeded to pull it out.
"The hell is this?" What she was holding in her hoof was a small triangle necklace, she looked at it a bit closer and saw that the triangle had multiple horizontal lines on it which made it look like a pyramid. "Eh, I might or might not, need that later." Her hoof disappeared into her non-poofy hair once more as she placed the item back into her freakish pocket dimension.
"I wonder what else is in there." Diane took a quick look around herself and noted that she was in the middle of the Ponyville marketplace, perhaps not the best place to go around sticking your hoof into what basically was your wallet, and presenting whatever you pulled out to everypony. So she picked the obvious choice and decided to go to a more secluded area to check inventory.
"Mom, what is Pinkie doing?" A small filly asked her mother. They both saw Diane suddenly and very awkwardly stop as if she hit an invisible wall, pull something out of her mane, smack herself in the face, and she then turned around while whistling a tune. It was all very inconspicuous.
Diane whistled a tune while she trotted, it was from a metal song she had heard a few weeks ago that had become stuck in her head. Looking around she noted that quite a few ponies were looking her way. Her eyes slightly narrowed at why they would all be suddenly looking at her but then another thing caught her attention. The sound of an electric guitar being played echoed out in the surrounding area but Diane couldn't spot the guitar itself.
"Oh no." Diane's eyes widened in realization. "Please don't be a what I think it is."
As the guitar continued playing and the drums joined in, she realized what song it was going to be. The lyrics of the song almost threatened to be let out from her mouth, she was about to let out the biggest metal growl ever known to ponykind, but her own pink hoof stopped that as she forcefully stuck it in her mouth, the taste of dirt clung to her tongue and she spat the offending material out of her mouth. Near instantly both of the instruments fell silent, and the small crowd that had formed behind her started grumbling something that she couldn't quite catch while dispersing.
Diane wiped her forehead and sighed in relief. The rest of her trip of finding a quiet place to sit, was passed in silence. She didn't want to start another impromptu song number about the horrors of Earth's political climate. Diane shivered merely at the thought. After about ten minutes of walking she stopped at the outskirts of town, spotting a nice tree, she sat underneath it's shade and began taking inventory.
After a few more minutes, a wide variety of items laid in the dirt in front of her, some more questionable than others. "Let's see, I have a hockey mask that awfully resembles one that a fictional serial killer wore, a bottle of vodka, Jack Daniels, Jägermeister, a bottle of Applejack, a few unlabeled bottles of some dark liquid, an actual sword, the triangle necklace and about thirty bits. Wait, some of this stuff is straight from my apartment, or at least the alcohol and the mask are. Those were the bottles I was saving for Valentines day, and the mask was from the previous Halloween. Still, it doesn't explain the sword and the necklace." Diane looked over her items once more and frowned. "Oh, and I'm flat fucking broke, at least that's not anything new. Great, just absolutely peachy. I guess I could ask Pinkie if I could crash at her place. Or would I need to ask the Cakes for that?" She sighed and decided that she'd look for a place to crash at a later time, she had other plans for now.
With one quick motion of her forelegs all of the items in front of her disappeared into her mane, she wasn't sure how she was able to do that so quickly but she didn't question it. "The alcohol won't last forever though. I've got to make sure that it never comes to that, I don't think I can live without it." Diane stood up once more and headed back into town. The next location she was headed towards was the liquor store, or at least any store that sold any form of alcohol. She wouldn't buy anything, but it was always good to know where the closest shop selling alcohol was. As she entered the town once more she noted that many ponies were looking at her weirdly again. Diane trained her ears to try and hear any of the hushed whispers from the nearest ponies, and she was able to catch something.
"- might be having a bad day. Look at her mane, isn't it supposed to be poofy?" When the brown earth pony stallion saw that Diane was looking at him he abruptly went silent and gave her a nervous smile. The grey pegasus mare next to him did the same. This had given Diane an idea. She turned and started rigidly walking in their direction, when they both realised this, their bodies slightly stiffened and Diane flashed them a slightly crazed smile. She spoke in an emotionless voice, all the while enjoying the slightly on edge expressions of the two ponies. "Hello, do either of you know the closest shop that sells alcohol? I need to know where it is."
The brown earth pony cleared his throat and nervously answered. "It's right over there." He pointed his hoof past Diane to a building behind her. As Diane turned around a slight wave of embarrassment flooded over her, she wasn't exactly sure how she missed the store that had a giant sign above the entrance, which had an image of a bottle with a single letter X on the label. Diane then turned back to face the two ponies but saw that they were both running away from her. "What's their deal? I didn't even get the the fun part yet." Diane shrugged, she guessed that pranking ponies in this way might be a little too scary for them, for some mysterious reason. Her gaze then turned towards the liquor store, she might as well check out the store for anything worth buying in the future.
The store itself wasn't anything too out of the ordinary, it looked like one of those medieval taverns from the outside, but looked a bit too modern on the inside. There was many shelves full of alcohol all laid out on display.
Diane happily trotted towards the nearest shelf and began inspecting what they had in stock. The shelf mostly had weak alcohol products that didn't interest her so she went to a different shelf and inspected them instead. Her brow furrowed as she saw the alcohol percent of the nearest beverage. "Two point five percent? What kind of weak shit is this?" She muttered underneath her breath. She then quickly spun around and inspected every other shelf in the store, naming the highest alcoholic percent's of each shelf. "Two percent, five percent, five point two percent. What is this? What kind of shop am I in?" She started looking through each and every bottle, looking for anything above a ten percent but she didn't find anything. Eventually she gave up on searching through the shelves, she decided to ask the employee about this.
A pink hoof slammed on to the wooden counter, surprising the purple mare behind it. Diane's eyes quickly glanced at the mare's cutie mark, an image of grapes and a single strawberry rested on her flank. "Where's all the good stuff?" Diane leaned over the counter and narrowed her eyes.
"Pinkie? Never thought I'd see you here." Berry Punch offered her a pleasant smile. "I've got some good's still in stock. If you're interested." She then pulled out a dark bottle from behind the counter and showed it to her. Diane's eyes narrowed at the label. "Twelve percent? Don't you have anything higher?" Berry Punch's eyes widened in surprise. "Do you not know that alcohol over fifteen percent is banned?" This threw Diane for a loop. 'Banned? What?' Her thoughts echoed in her mind as she simply stared at Berry Punch for a few seconds before she turned around and left the store with a emotionless expression. Her face slowly turned into that of worry as she sat down outside the store. 'Alcohol over fifteen percent is banned? Curse you Celestia! I'd have to drink a hundred bottles of that weak stuff to even feel anything. Then again I could always create my own stuff, that would be pretty illegal though. I wonder what the punishment is for making your own moonshine.' Diane then shuddered as a memory surfaced in her mind. 'At least my first attempt won't end as badly as a certain idiot on the internet.' She would never look at chocolate milk and eggnog the same way again.
Diane shook her head to get rid of the image in her mind, she then turned towards the way she remembered Sugarcube Corner being, and she walked back. As the sight of the huge gingerbread house came into sight she wondered how long had she been outside, it couldn't have been more than half an hour. As she stepped inside the bakery the first thing she noticed was that it was completely pitch black. Before she could even say a word the lights were flicked on and a chorus of ponies yelled. "SURPRISE!"
Pinkie emerged from the crowd and made her way towards her. Diane noted that many of the ponies didn't seem to be phased at the exact copy of Pinkie Pie standing at the doorway, Diane chalked it up to Twilight already informing them of said magical anomaly before panic would spread.
"I thought it would take a little longer for you to get all of your supplies Pinkie, how did you do all this so fast?" Diane's eyebrow rose in a questioning manner, then again she should have expected something like this.
"I just went to get all my emergency party supplies from my hidden stash and told everypony on the way that there was going to be a party!" Pinkie skipped next to Diane and wrapped her foreleg around her back. She then inhaled deeply before shouting at the crowd. "Alright everypony! Let's get this party started!"
Before Diane could say a word she was dragged through the crowd of ponies into a makeshift dancefloor. "Hit the music!" Pinkie pointed at the white unicorn with a spiky blue hair that was standing behind a DJ booth. Accompanying the nod from the white unicorn, an electronic beat started playing from the surrounding sound systems.
Soon the big crowd of ponies dispersed, picking either the snack tables or the dance floor to mingle with the other guests. Diane however didn't have the time to pay any attention to them, she was currently in a fierce dancing competition with her sister, she wasn't sure how she was able to keep up with Pinkie, when she had only been a pony for about an hour and a half, nor was she ever a good dancer before her weird transformation. But these facts didn't seem to even pop up in Diane's head, as she simply tried to copy what Pinkie was doing.
Off to the side of the main party, a small group of ponies watched the two pink blurs dance in vivid ardour. Amongst them sat a befuddled alicorn princess, if she was being honest, she wasn't entirely sure if Diane really was Pinkies "new" sister, but the dance moves that she was currently pulling off with her sister spoke volumes to her credibility.
"I can't believe it, you really were telling the truth Twi." The magenta eyes of a cyan mare with rainbow coloured hair, followed the two pink ponies as they both danced in tandem with eachother, as if they had been rehearsing for this one moment for years.
An orange coloured earth pony with a blonde mane smugly stepped next to Rainbow Dash. "Ah'll take those twenty bits now Dash." The grumbling of Rainbow Dash was drowned out by the sound of somepony else in their group speaking up.
"Are you sure she isn't a changeling? I'm not doubting you Twilight, but this seems a little hard to believe." The voice dripped with lady-like elegance. "I could accept her being a mirror clone or even a changeling, but this?" The white mare shook her head, making her extremely well maintained curly hair slightly bounce side to side. "It seems... a bit much." Her blue eyes tracked Diane who was suddenly thrown into the air and caught by Pinkie once she came down.
"I'm sure. I did cast a complete scan spell on her, and it said that she is an exact true copy of Pinkie, it's as if she had cloned herself in her sleep, or somehow gone through mitosis. It doesn't make sense." Twilight's eyes didn't leave Diane, the purple pools tracked her every movement, looking for anything out of place. Eventually she sighed in defeat and rubbed her eyes. "It should be impossible, she should be impossible."
Rarity placed her foreleg around Twilight and pulled her into a side hug. "Relax darling, overthinking it will do you no good. I suggest letting it be for now. We have a party to enjoy after all, not to mention we haven't even officially met her yet."
"If she's anything like Pinkie then we have nothing to worry about." The quiet voice of a certain yellow pegasus joined into the conversation.
"You're both right." Twilight nodded her head in acknowledgement. "I think they might be done now, I see them walking our way." She pointed at the two pink ponies heading their way, one hopping towards them and the other simply walking.
"-much fun! Oh, there they are!" Pinkies voice broke through the electronic music and she waved at her five friends. The two merging groups greeted each other with hello's and some with hugs.
Pinkie then wrapped one of her forelegs around Diane's back, and pointed at each of her friends with the other. "Let me introduce you to my friends! That's Applejack, her family owns Sweet Apple Acres." She pointed at the orange stetson wearing mare. She tipped her hat at her. "Rarity, she owns carousel boutique and she can make really, really good clothes." The elegant white marshmallow gave a polite nod. "Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in Equestria." The multi-coloured hair was blown away from her eyes and she responded with a "Sup?" Then Pinkie pointed at the last member Diane hadn't met yet, who hid half of her face behind her pink hair. "And lastly Fluttershy! She's kind of shy but she'll warm up to you!" She then appeared behind her and pushed the shy mare towards Diane, the butter pegasus could only utter a near silent "Hello." Pinkie then turned around, facing Diane and pointed at her. "Girls, meet my new sister Diane, Isn't she just the best?"
"Haven't you only known her for an hour?" Twilight butted in. "Yeah! Imagine how great she is when we get to know her even more!" Pinkie replied with her usual excitement, Twilight simply face-hoofed, Diane noted that she didn't hit herself in the muzzle, it could be that Twilight has had years of practise at face-hoofing.
"Ooh! This is a great song! Come on, lets go dance some more!" Pinkie pulled Diane back to the dance floor before she could interact more with the rest of the mane six. This was how most of the party went, Diane was dragged to all kinds of different party games and dances by Pinkie. It only seemed to stop after about two hours, when a part of the party guests had to leave, and Pinkie had went to say bye to everypony leaving. The ponies who left were mostly all the foals and their parents. Seeing the last of the younger guests leave Diane had an idea, she could properly bring in some influence from Earth to this party. In other words, the very last bottles of alcohol from Earth.
"Should I really spend the last of my alcohol on this?" Diane pondered while she held a bottle of Jägermeister in one hoof, eventually after the very long deliberation of ten seconds, she shrugged and approached the mane six, minus Pinkie who was somehow back on the dance floor. The group was near the snack tables, eating a few baked goods. "Hey girls, how about we kick this party up a little? I hope you none of you have anything planned for tomorrow." She pushed the bottle towards them, it slid on the table until it clinked with the punch bowl.
And the rest of the night was an incomprehensible blur that none of them would remember. Some parts for good and some for bad reasons.
There's A Second Pink Eldritch Horror In Town
Unexpected Actions Of The Past
The darkness that shrouded Diane was slowly illuminated by the appearance of stars slowly appearing through the fog. Their light painted colour onto the once completely black canvas which she found herself in.
Then came the colours in the distance, the sun and a great sight of a planet. As the shadow of the planet moved, Diane could see lights lit up on the darker side. It was a planet she was familiar with, after all just a mere day ago she was still living on its surface. Something about the planet made her feel like she would never see it again.
Her thoughts were broken when something behind her spoke. It was something that she'd never heard before, it sounded like a cacophony of sound but somehow she grasped the emotion behind the garbled words.
It sounded like sympathy.
It was a pleasant morning in Ponyville. The sun slowly rose over the horizon as many of the residents of the quaint town rose from their beds and started getting ready for the day.
One of said the ponies was a pink earth pony, her blue eyes slowly blinked open as the sunlight directly glared at her eyes. As she woke up she realised that she wasn't in her bed, instead she was currently resting inside a trashcan. Her eyes bolted open and a scowl appeared on her face.
"Beryl." She growled. "When I get my hands on you, you'll wish you were never born. Who in their right mind leaves their friend in a trash can? TWICE?!" She waved her forelegs in anger. Wait forelegs?
"Oh." The pink pony calmed down in an instant as the realisation of her current situation dawned upon her. "It wasn't a dream? This is real?" She wasn't entirely sure why she was so surprised, maybe the fact of actually waking up as a pastel-coloured pony finally broke an invisible wall, that she had unknowingly set up for herself. If she was being completely honest with herself, she had spent the whole day before doing stuff that she normally wouldn't have done. She had felt detached from her current reality on so many levels, and now she was left to pick up the remaining pieces of whatever had happened yesterday. It all felt like a dream that was slowly turning out to be real.
She slowly got out of the metal trashcan, falling over in the process and grumbling muffled curses into the dirt. In the middle of this deadly battle an ungodly headache made itself known to her, she could do nothing more than rub her temples in frustration. As she finally freed herself of yesterday's trash she took a deep breath in, a smell of garbage assaulted her nose, something that she wasn't entirely unfamiliar with.
'Now this really brings me back, waking up in a filthy trashcan after my dear old friends mistook me for dead.' Diane let out a chuckle which quickly died in her throat as her thoughts continued to race. A sorrowful smile slowly spread on her new face. 'At least I don't have to worry about all the problems that come with living on Earth. Microplastics, skyrocketing prices, increasing political tensions that could unfurl into yet another world war and the fact that I'd still have to go to work as if the world wasn't actively decaying all around me. I'd gladly take two additional legs and the loss of my dick to be here. It's better this way.' Despite her words, a single tear rolled down her cheek as her mind replayed some of the best moments she had with the friends she had left behind. Images of faces, places and events played back in her mind as she gazed at the blue skies above.
'I guess the songs were right, you never realise what you have until you lose it.' The tear dropped into the dirt underneath her new hooves.
"Uhm, Diane? Is everything okay? If you don't mind me asking." A familiar quiet voice broke Diane out of her own self-induced sorrow. "Are you crying?"
"What? No. Of course not, it's just raining." Diane wiped her tears away and turned to face her sudden conversation partner. The overly kind, aquamarine eyes of Fluttershy held a look of worry before she glanced at the skies above.
"It's not raining though." The statement held a hint of confusion. Fluttershy cocked her head to the side like a puppy, it was absolutely adorable. If Diane still had hands she would have been petting the shy pony for hours.
"Never mind, what time is it?" Diane went to look at her trusty cheap watch on her left forearm until the sight of a pink hoof broke through her automatic impulse. Curiously she noticed that she was wearing clothing now, a black tuxedo one would see at a wedding. All kinds of grime and trash now clung to it, making it look a little more brownish rather than its previous pristine black.
"It's around one o'clock. Have you been sleeping in that trashcan?" Fluttershy hid her nose behind a hoof to try and block out the smell that was wafting from her new friend.
Diane could do nothing but chuckle awkwardly, as she tried to separate the biggest parts of trash from her expensive suit. "So it would seem."
Diane threw a banana peel back into the trashcan. "So, what are you up to?" She tried to steer the conversation away from her current situation.
"I was going to borrow a few books from Twilight, and bring back these old ones I borrowed." The sight of her saddlebags filled with books hinted at her credibility.
"Wait, how are you not hungover?" Diane tried to find any recollection of the day before but everything came out blank.
"I didn't drink anything yesterday, I had to take Mr Cuddles to the vet, he had an appointment in the morning."
"Who's Mr Cuddles?" Diane's eyebrow rose slightly.
"Oh, he's the cutest little tarantula. He hurt one of his legs earlier yesterday. I was very lucky to get an early appointment today." Fluttershy spoke of the tarantula with great joy, somehow not noticing the sudden lack of interest from Diane. Fluttershy's eyes looked down the stained article of clothing that Diane wore. "Why are you wearing a tuxedo?"
"I don't know." Diane shrugged. "Why don't we go find out? How about I accompany you to Twilight's castle and we'll see if she remembers what happened yesterday."
"Wait, you don't remember what happened yesterday?" Fluttershy was about to walk towards Twilight's castle but froze mid-step, her head slightly tilted in confusion.
"Oh, pfft. Of course I do! It's just a saying." Diane waved her foreleg in front of her in a dismissive manner. "How about we head towards Twilight's place?" She pointed in the direction where the overgrown gem tree's top could be seen over many buildings.
Fluttershy shot a confused look at Diane but didn't question it any further.
There was definitely something very wrong today. It may be the headache from hell or just the masses of staring ponies that followed her every move. Diane could have sworn that she saw a few of them even bowing down for some reason. "Is it just me or are some of those ponies way more weird than before?" Diane whispered to Fluttershy, who in turn took a quick glance at the ponies who were keeping their distance from the two.
"Hmm, I wouldn't say weird." She took a quick glance at herself and then at Diane. "I don't mean this in a bad way but I can see why they are giving us a wide berth." She leaned in closer to Diane's ear. "You kind of... Well, you smell." Fluttershy took a step away from her, an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry, I don't mean to offend."
Diane simply cocked an eyebrow at her antics. "Come on, I'll see if I could take a shower at Twilight's place."
It didn't take long for the two friends to get to the overgrown flashy gem tree. Diane knocked on the door and after a few seconds of waiting it opened. "Oh wow! What is that smell?" A young dragon stood at the opened door, one claw practically in his nose, trying to block out the smell.
"Yeah, yeah. It's just a slight side effect of taking a nap in a public trashcan." Diane waved her hoof in a dismissive manner. "Hey, where's Twilight? I kind of have something I need to talk to her about."
"Seriously? Don't you remember where you left her?" A slight hint of annoyance made itself known on the purple dragons face.
Diane and Fluttershy exchanged a look. "Left her? What do you mean?"
Spike took a step back and narrowed his eyes. "Do you remember anything from yesterday?"
Diane rubbed the back of her head. "Uhh, no?" A question which led to a look being thrown her way by a certain butter pegasus.
Spike sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "She's in the library. I haven't even walked in there today, but I know that it's a disaster. A disaster that I'm not cleaning up." He let both of the ponies pass by him and he walked off, most likely to find himself some kind of gem-infused food for the rough day that was yet to come.
Diane's eyebrow rose at him but she decided to ignore it. With Fluttershy's help the two got to the library quite fast, however neither of them could have been prepared for what they saw.
The neat and orderly library was a mess of streamers, confetti, dresses and sleeping mares. Diane noticed that the party seemed to have peculiar theme. As her eyes gazed over the room she noticed the large amount of chairs facing a wall, where some sort of arch stood. It looked like it was recently made, from sticks and tape, it was mostly covered by some kind of white cloth.
"What happened here?" Diane turned her attention over towards the small group of mares, all lying in uncomfortable-looking positions on different surfaces, all still fast asleep.
"I'm not sure, I left the party when you and the rest of the girls were still in Sugarcube corner." Fluttershy stopped next to Rainbow Dash, who was splayed out on a wooden table. She clutched Diane's bottle of Applejack in her hooves, the bottle seemed to be half empty and there seemed to be quite a bit of slobber on the bottle. Seeing this, Diane quickly and stealthily grabbed the bottle out of Rainbow's hooves and she stuck it in her mane. She then whistled a small tune as she distanced herself from the rainbow-haired mare.
"Oh dear, I really hope you all didn't drink too much." Fluttershy's eyes landed on Twilight and the pure white dress she was wearing. Her face turned to one of shock as she realised what dress it was. Her eyes quickly turned to the only other occupant of the room who was wearing clothing. "Diane?"
"Yes?" Noticing the shocked voice of her friend, Diane averted her eyes from a piece of paper that she could've sworn was a marriage certificate that lay next to Rarity, who was lying on a pile of clothes, and she turned her attention to Fluttershy. She pointed at Twilight and the dress she wore, then to her. A cold chill ran down Diane's spine at the thought of what might have happened the night before. "Oh no."
"Could you keep your voice down darling?" The dressmaker mumbled through her hangover. "I'm afraid I don't feel well." She tossed and turned as she tried to make herself comfortable in the pile of clothes.
Diane leaned a bit closer to Rarity. "I know this isn't a great time, but do you remember anything from yesterday? Perhaps something like a wedding?" The word 'wedding' came out strained.
Rarity groaned before rolling to her side and opening one eye to look at her. "I'm not sure, but I do remember making clothes fit for you and Twilight, but the rest of the night is a blur." She couldn't keep her eye open for long and she retreated back into the pile of clothes to shield herself from the offending light. "I'm sorry darling but I need more sleep." Rarity's voice was muffled by the shield of her own making.
Diane carefully picked up the wedding certificate from the floor and her eyes landed on the two names written on it. "I'm never drinking again." She groaned and a loud smack echoed out in the otherwise quiet room as she face-hooved.
"Is that what I think it is?" Fluttershy quietly asked as she gently landed next to Diane.
"Looks like I'm royalty now." Diane showed the paper to Fluttershy, who gasped in surprise.
"Really?"
"It seems pretty official to me." Diane rubbed her forehead with the back of her hoof. "What do I do now? Do I get divorced with Twilight or do I need to start doing some royal stuff?" A strained smile slowly spread on her face.
Fluttershy placed a hoof on Diane's back in a comforting manner. "I think Twilight might know what to do." Fluttershy glanced at the purple princess whose head was resting in an empty punch bowl. "But I think she might need to sleep for a little while longer." As she averted her sight away from Twilight she took in the whole trashed wedding. Many empty bottles lay scattered amongst the layers of confetti and wedding decorations long since fallen. "I think we could start with cleaning up this mess. It might also help your situation with Twilight." She offered Diane a gentle smile as she flew up to bring down some of the white cloth from the ceiling.
"Yeah, I think that might be a good idea." Diane mumbled as she got to work.
It took an hour to finally clean the library, take a shower and move all of Diane's new friends to comfortable beds, but it was finally done. Diane also had taken all the leftover bottles and stuck them back into her mane, in hindsight Celestia might have been right, it really was a bad idea to give these ponies that much alcohol. Fluttershy had left to bring the trash bags outside into the trash containers, while Diane had stayed behind to see that the library truly was cleaned.
Diane inspected her and Fluttershy's hoofwork, the library was absolutely spotless. "Hey, I could use these floors as a mirror." Diane could see her face looking back at her from every crystal surface, the crystals made her head look quite different. In some reflections she had a small head, in others it was huge, there even was one where she had an entire universe inside of her eyes.
All the reflections turned in tandem with Diane as she heard a door open and a certain purple pony walked into the library. "Morning Twi."
Twilight grumbled something underneath her breath and rubbed the side of her head. "Morning Pinkie."
"I'm Diane, how could you mix us up like that? We look nothing alike." She sat down, crossed her forelegs and turned her head away from her, a frown forming on her face.
Twilight was a bit taken aback by her new friends sudden reaction. "Ah- I'm sorry, It's just-"
"I'm just fucking with you Twi." Diane interrupted Twilight, who in turn seemed surprised at the language coming out from Diane's mouth. She offered Twilight a strained smile as she rubbed the back of her head. "Hey, uh. How much do you remember from yesterday?"
"We had your welcome to Ponyville party and we had a few drinks then we all went to sleep. I think, is there something else I'm missing?" Twilight tapped her chin with her hoof.
Diane sighed. "I'm not gonna sugarcoat it." She then offered the marriage certificate to Twilight.
Her face went from confusion to surprise and then finally to shock in a matter of milliseconds as she read through the piece of paper. "We what!? How? What? I should remember something this important! What happened yesterday!?"
Diane spotted the incoming twilighting session that her new "wife" was about to have, so she decided to do something about it. A pink hoof gently touched Twilight's side. "Breathe deep Twi. In and out." She took a deep breath and motioned Twilight to follow her lead. When she did they both started doing breathing exercises to calm her down. "Do you feel any better?"
"I do, but I still want to know how this happened." It seemed that a twilighting incident was dodged but her inquisitiveness would have to be faced head-on.
"I am not sure, I can't really remember anything after the party, and while Fluttershy didn't drink, she had left the party early. So we are out of luck." Diane gently tapped her hoof to her chin in thought. "Maybe the rest of the girls might remember something?"
Twilight sighed. "I guess that's the best starting point we'll have."
And like some sort of divine intervention Rainbow Dash walked through the doors, grumbling something that sounded like. "Never drinking again."
"Morning Rainbow." Diane greeted, Rainbow answered with a simple grunt.
Twilight quickly made her way next to Rainbow, an inquisitive look in her eyes. "Rainbow, this is important! What do you remember about yesterday?"
"Wuh? Huh? Twilight what do you mean?" Rainbow wiped the corner of her eyes with the back of her hoof.
"It's important!"
Rainbow rubbed the side of her head. "Uh, I remember us all having Diane's party at sugarcube corner, then she brought out a few bottles of alcohol and, uhm." A deep red blush formed on Rainbow's cheeks. "The rest I don't remember."
"Your blush tells us otherwise." Diane pointed out.
Rainbow quickly took a quick glance at the doors leading out of the castle. "I just remembered something I have to do, gotta go bye!" Rainbow spoke at a speed rivaling Pinkie's fast sentences. The moment she finished her sentence she was already out the door, her telltale blur following close behind.
"I'll bet my entire livelihood that Rainbow and Applejack kissed yesterday." Diane chuckled.
Twilight seemed to choke on her spit as she heard Diane. "What?" Was all she could ask in the midst of all the coughing.
"Don't worry, my entire livelihood is just thirty bits, it's not that much." Then just as quickly as her smile appeared, it vanished. "Damn, I need a job."
The conversation topic was broken when the doors to the library were opened up again, this time both Pinkie and Applejack walked in. Both parties exchanged their good mornings before delving into the matter at hand, or hoof.
"Before Twi makes your hangover brains explode from questions, I gotta ask. How did both of you know we'd be here?"
"Spike was waiting near the guest bedrooms, he told us that you needed to see us!" Pinkie hopped next to Diane and gave her a big hug. "Good morning LSTNC!" Pinkies cheek pushed against Diane's, they looked pretty cute doing so.
"LSTNC?" Twilight asked, a questioning look on her face.
"Little Sister Totally Not Clone of course!" Pinkie stated happily.
"Little sister?" Diane broke away from the hug and inspected her "big" sister.
"Of course! If you appeared just yesterday then-" Pinkie gasped. "You're one day old! Oh, I have to throw you a happy twenty-four hours party!"
"Wait ah minute, If you're a day old, then how did you have all that alcohol?" Applejack seemed to join into the conversation. "And ah'm pretty sure somepony who is a day old shouldn't be drinking."
"Come on now AJ, we all know I can't physically be a one year old, that's impossible." Somehow Diane disappeared and reappeared behind Applejack, a pink hoof wrapped around her side in some sort of hug. "Just think how dumb that would look, a foal drinking alcohol from a bottle twice their size." She hid a chuckle behind a hoof. "Besides, while I might be a one day old in theory, I still have a few decades of-" Diane did air quotes with both her hooves. "-memories in this noggin of mine. And It's not like the alcohol will affect me as if I actually was one day old." She then turned her attention to her sister. "I do like your idea, but I'll have to decline, sorry sis."
"Aww, well I'll throw you the biggest one-year birthday party when the time comes! I Pinkie promise!" Pinkie then followed the motions of her ancient promise to the t.
"I'll hold you to it Pinks, but I do have to correct you, I'm twenty-three years old."
Pinkie's eyes narrowed. "What's your birthday?"
"May third." Diane simply answered.
"What time?" Pinkie's face slowly inched closer towards Diane's, they were so close that if she leaned even a centimeter forward, they'd be touching noses. Despite Pinkie's antics, Diane didn't back down.
"Ten fifty, in the morning." Diane's eyes narrowed.
And just like that, Pinkie broke their intense staring contest by catching Diane off guard and giving her a big hug. "I'm one minute older! You're still my little sis!" Pinkie's hug was strong as steel.
"Breath! Let me breathe Pinks." Diane wheezed.
"Oops, sorry." Pinkie let go of her sister and let her finally breathe.
"That makes no sense." Twilight decided to butt into the wholesome conversation. "How can-" Twilight's question was interrupted by Diane.
"Come on Twi, what's the fun in making sense. Just forget my weird existence for now and lets get to the actually important reason we are here."
"Oh! I wanna guess! Is it a surprise?" Pinkie hopped around the small group, a wide smile on her face.
"You could certainly say that." Diane chuckled.
"Does it have something to do with you and Twilight?" Pinkie appeared behind both Diane and Twilight, she then pulled them both close to each other.
Diane's voice lowered in tone. "You're good."
Pinkie tapped her chin with a hoof, seemingly in deep thought until she gave a small smirk at her sister. "Did you both get married in a drunken stupor?"
"Ah don't know Pinkie, usually you're really good at guessing stuff but ah think that's a bit of a stretch." Applejack adjusted her stetson that had been drooping a bit to the side.
"Ding ding ding! We have a winner! How did you know?" Diane impersonated a gameshow host as she pulled her sister into a sideways hug, all the while enjoying the shocked look on Applejack's face.
"Twilight is still holding on to the marriage certificate. I just saw it when I was hopping around you two."
"So, you're both married now?" Confusion evident in Applejacks voice. "Uh, congratulations?"
"Oh! We have to throw an unexpected wedding party now!" It seemed that Pinkie was excited at the news.
Diane chuckled. "As much as I appreciate the enthusiasm, I don't think we'll stay married for long."
"What?" Both Applejack and Pinkie recoiled as if she had just cussed them out.
"Like is said, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I really don't think this would work. We've only known each other for a day and were already married. I'm pretty sure that relationships usually don't progress that fast. I say we should probably call it off for now, right Twilight?" Diane turned her attention to Twilight who seemed to be rubbing her leg in a nervous manner.
"About that." Twilight's eyes seemed to have a hard time looking at Diane. "We kind of, can't."
"What? Why not?"
"You see, there's this ancient law that states that if an alicorn such as myself, marries a non-alicorn, they have to be together until either of the pair passes on. There's a lot of reasons why it exists but originally It was made to quell the feelings of unrest when the three pony tribes united under a new rule, that of alicorns." Twilight easily dipped into nerd mode.
Diane sighed and rubbed her temples. "Look, Twi. Could we have this conversation a bit later? I think we should get into the other problem at ha- hoof, we should figure out what truly happened yesterday, so that there wouldn't be any other surprises that come and bite our backsides."
And just like that, it was as if the entire world hated what Diane just said, as the doors to the library opened once more. This time Spike, Rarity and Fluttershy walked in, however two way bigger ponies accompanied them, they towered over the little ponies that they followed.
One was an alicorn with a pure white coat and a multi-coloured mane. The second alicorn was slightly shorter than the white mare, her coat was a deep blue and her mane resembled that of a night sky. Both their manes moved in an illusory wind.
"Celestia? Luna? What are you doing here?" Twilight made a mad dash to greet both of the princess' with a nervous smile.
Celestia chuckled. "Don't you remember? You asked us both to visit today. You mentioned something about an unexplained magical anomaly that needed our attention."
"This is going to be great." Diane spoke underneath her breath, it took every last drop of restraint to not face-hoof again.
Author's Note
Here's a very quick 4 am drawing of Diane's wonderful morning.
Here's a link to the image if it ever stops working.
What didn't help was that I had trouble thinking if this chapter was good enough to publish, but thanks to a few people giving their opinions about this chapter, it's now released. Thanks to FruitiPebbei , Negativity enjoyer and 0thefool for proof reading this chapter.
(Also don't ask why the fur on that picture is so saturated. I have no idea how I didn't spot it before and I am too lazy to correct it.)
There's A Second Pink Eldritch Horror In Town
The purple book horse chuckled a bit, her smile widening a little. "W-weren't you supposed to come later in the day?"
"I was able to finish most of my royal duties earlier than expected, so we decided to come early. I hope that isn't a problem." Celestia's gaze was lifted from Twilight and it landed onto the small group behind her. Her eyes slightly narrowed at the sight of two Pinkie Pie's standing right next to one another. "Is this the magical anomaly you were talking about?" She nodded towards Diane who was waving at both princess'.
"Is she dangerous?" Luna narrowed her eyes.
"No!" Twilight cleared her throat. "No, she isn't. She's been with us since yesterday. I have no idea why she suddenly appeared or why she looks like Pinkie Pie but she definitely isn't a threat."
Both princess' gaze lingered on the grayer version of the element of laughter. "Well that is indeed a relief." Luna seemed to visibly relax.
"I highly doubt little old me could be a threat to somepony as powerful as an alicorn. You could turn me into stone in an instant." Diane somehow had appeared behind the two sisters, they recoiled slightly from the sudden invasion of personal space. "That is not an invitation for you to do so." Diane quickly added.
"I hope not, being stone would be so boooring." Pinkie appeared from somewhere behind Celestia.
"Just imagine, not being able to do anything." Diane leaned forward, so that she was face to face with Pinkie. "Forever."
"Hmm, now that you mention it, It does sound pretty bad. That reminds me of a certain someone." Pinkie rubbed her chin with a hoof.
Both alicorn sisters watched the two pink ponies talk about being turned to stone. "I thought this would be a bit more... dangerous?" Luna whispered to Celestia from behind a hoof.
"Though I guess Maud might like it? Maybe?" Pinkie was still rubbing her chin in thought before she realised something. "Hey! I haven't told you about our sisters yet!" She basically tackled Diane to the floor. "There's so much to tell. I'll start at the beginning. I was born on a Tuesday-"
The sisters watched the scene play out. "So she isn't a changeling, a mirror pool clone or somepony using advanced illusion magic?" Celestia turned her attention back to the group.
"If she was, Twilight would have known the second she saw her." Rarity said, her attention fixated on the two pink ponies.
Both alicorn sisters exchanged a look before Luna spoke up. "Pray tell, who is it then?"
"Name's Diane, but you two lovely ladies can call me whatever you want." Diane's head popped out from behind purple smart, a seductive smile on her lips, and a wiggle on her brow. Rarity's face turned from confusion to horror.
For many centuries, ponies have been debating on if a pony could blush so hard that their fur would turn red. For a millennium, it seemed to be an impossible task. However, Twilight Sparkle seemed to prove to everypony present that it was, indeed, entirely possible. Her entire face seemed to turn a deep shade of red. Diane could have sworn that she saw wisps of smoke slowly emanating from her head.
The room was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
"Did she just-?" Rarity whispered to Fluttershy, who in turn responded with a near silent. "Eep."
"Eyyup." Applejack hid her face behind her Stetson.
Princess Luna stepped forward, wings flared at her sides. "You are the first pony to attempt to court me in a millennium. I do say, that takes courage. Though are you sure you can handle a Princess?"
"She can be quite the hoofful at times." Celestia responded to Lunas glare with a simple warm smile.
"Hmm, there's already one Princess under my wing, the more the merrier I say!" Diane pulled Twilight into a sideways hug.
"Diane!" Twilight protested, a blush remained on her face.
"Diane, you do realise that these are the princesses, you can't just be so, so casual with them." Rarity shook Diane, which in turn made her inadvertently shook Twilight.
Luna glanced at her sister. "Ah, I see young Twilight has already been courted, it was just a matter of time." She leaned towards her sister and she whispered in her ear. "It seems that you will be taking over the next meeting with the delegates."
"It seems so." Celestia whispered behind her hoof, louder she said. "Do tell Twilight, when did the two of you start this relationship?"
Twilight averted her gaze from them, and answered with a nervous smile and a chuckle. "Well-"
An energetic voice interrupted Twilight. "We had a huge party yesterday, we drank a lot of alcohol and we did lots of things! Diane danced on top of a table, Rarity made a tuxedo and a dress, Applejack and Rainbow had a drinking contest." Pinkie pointed at each pony as she mentioned their names. She breathed in deep before she continued with her incredibly fast speech. "ALSO TWILIGHT AND DIANE MARRIED!" She finished her speech with a wide smile. Confetti cannons exploded from two corners of the room, pelting the ponies with hundreds of pieces of paper.
"Oh yeah, by the way Rarity." An apologetic smile spread on Diane's face. "I kind of, sorta... might have... eh, who am I kidding. I slept in a public trashcan with the tuxedo on. Sorry about that."
"YOU WHAT?" Rarity's voice cracked in the middle of her scream. She dashed right in front of Diane at speeds that would have impressed Rainbow Dash. "Where is it?" Rarity leaned forward, both of their noses touched.
"Uh, in the laundry room." Diane averted her eyes from the white unicorn who had invaded her personal space.
"SPIKE! I need stain remover or a white cloth and cold water, stat!" Rarity quickly ran out of the room, with Spike in tow.
"Um, I better go help her." Fluttershy softly took flight and joined the two friends. The rest of the group watched as Rarity, Spike and Fluttershy exited.
"Marriage without courting? I haven't seen anything like this in a long time. I hope whatever event that transpired between you two, was very gratifying." Luna remarked drily.
"You have no idea." Diane simply responded.
"A shame we weren't invited to the wedding." Luna glanced at her sister. "It would have been a welcome change from all the appointments we had yesterday."
Panic came over Twiligth's face. "I'm so sorry. I would have invited you if it wasn't so sudden. I don't think anypony even attended the wedding. Or at least I don't remember if anypony did."
Celestia chuckled "No need to fret Twilight. It seems that you and your friends had quite the night. I don't fault you for not inviting us. Though I do have to say that you've gotten yourself into quite the situation."
"I don't- How do I fix this?" Twilight fidgeted with her wings.
"Sometimes the best solutions are the ones you least expect. Perhaps you should ask your friends? Or maybe even Diane?" Celestia turned her attention towards Diane.
"Two words." Her eyes narrowed. "Giant party."
Pinkie hopped next to Diane. "You read my mind. Are you a psychic?" Diane responded with a simple shrug.
"Well, that is quite the idea. It could even be crazy enough to work." Celestia smiled.
"I guess it might. But I think I've had enough parties for today." Twilight rubbed her temples in stress.
Seeing this, Celestia thought it would be a good idea to change the subject into something that Twilight enjoyed talking about in earnest. "Now Twilight, could you tell me more about Diane? And the magic behind her appearance." As Celestia pulled Twilight back to the original reason the royals were here, Diane had made her way towards Pinkie.
She pulled Pinkie to the side and waved Applejack over. "So, do either of you remember anything from last night? I'll start first, the last memory I remember is both you-" Diane pointed a hoof at Applejack. "-and Rainbow Dash were having a drinking contest, and you won."
A smug smile overcame the farm mare. "Of course ah won, Rainbow might come first at many things, but she's always the first one under the table."
"Nice one." Diane bumped her hoof. "But everything after that really is a blur. Can either of you remember what happened?"
A thoughtful look came across both earth ponies. The silence at this corner of the room didn't last long as Pinkie seemed to remember something. "I remember! We baked a few cupcakes with gummy last night! I just can't remember if we finished baking them." Pinkie thoughtfully tapped her chin. "Uh oh." Pinkies eyes shrunk to pinpricks. "I gotta go check one thing, bye!" She ran out of the room in a flash.
"I hope Sugarcube Corner hasn't burnt down." Diane joked.
"Ah hope not. Ah better go check on Pinkie and Sugarcube Corner. If everything's fine over there then ah'll just head back to the farm." Applejack tipped her hat. "Also ahm sorry to say that ah don't really remember much about last night. Maybe somepony else might have seen our antics yesterday." Applejack paused. "Though ah do hope nopony did. If we were that drunk, then we all probably looked very silly." She waved goodbye as she opened the door out of the library.
Diane waved back and made her way towards the three alicorns.
"-It seems that she's a near perfect copy of Pinkie, just with a different personality. I have no explanations of her existence, something like her should be impossible." As Twilight was talking, Diane near silently creeped behind Twilight. Both royal sisters saw her, but they seemed to not bother telling Twilight.
"It's rude to talk about somepony behind their back you know." Diane made her presence known right behind the purple princess.
Twilight recoiled before realising who spoke. She took a deep breath in to calm her nerves. "Isn't that what your doing? In a literal sense at least?"
"Yep." Diane simply replied.
Now that Diane was back within earshot of Twilight and the princess', Twilight teleported a quill and a notebook from somewhere. "Diane, can you remember anything from before you woke up next to Pinkie?" It seemed Twilight wanted to keep this conversation going in the boring direction. Something that Diane seemed to not care much about.
"Hmm, lets see." She thoughtfully tapped her chin with a hoof. "I was fighting against a wave of zombies, but tragically I was bitten by one of them. After a battle that lasted for hours, I finally fell to my many wounds and as I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, it was somehow diverted. Then I woke up next to Pinkie." Diane held a dramatic pose, with one hoof touching her forehead, looking up towards the sky.
"Real answers please." Twilight emotionlessly replied, tapping a quill on to a notebook.
Diane paused, would it be a good idea to tell them that she was basically an alien from another planet? Or even another universe? She shouldn't really have any problems telling these peaceful ponies about that fact. She was sure that they wouldn't actually do anything bad to her if she told them the truth. It wasn't like they'd instantly tie her down and dissect her the moment she told them the truth. Would they? No, they wouldn't. Now that her mind was set on revealing her identity she spoke up. The words spilled from her lips, but they felt weird, distorted, perhaps even wrong. "I don't know."
A sinking feeling took over her stomach, she felt sick by simply thinking about revealing her identity. But why? This was what she wanted, right? Her body felt stiff, as if it was not responding to her own confusion, she wanted to question why her words didn't come out correctly. She wanted to touch her throat, but she simply couldn't move. From the outside, she looked completely calm. As soon as the wave of panic entered her mind, it left as if it was never there. A serene calmness washed over her.
She blinked and let out a long breath she didn't even know she was holding. 'What was that? I don't think anypony here did that. I would have seen their horns glow. There's definitely something going on here.' Diane didn't have long to think, before the Princess of the night spoke up.
"Hmm, this does seem quite peculiar. But fret not, if anypony here can figure out your unique situation, it would be Twilight Sparkle. She has helped us many a time before." Luna gave Twilight a polite nod.
"Well I think I'll be in close contact with her for quite awhile now that were married." Diane patted Twilight's head. At the same time she kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary in her surroundings. She had started feeling like something was watching her.
"I'm glad you mentioned that, I am curious about what you both will do next. Perhaps a romantic honeymoon?" Celestia had a small smile on her lips, one which also could have been mistaken as a smirk.
"Do tell, it does seem interesting." Luna joined in.
"Eh, well.... you see, I don't actually know. We didn't really plan that far. Or at all." Twilight shared an anxious glance with Diane, she responded to her with a nod. "Truth is, we already had talks about divorce."
Celestia's eyebrow rose in a questioning manner. "You both want to be divorced so soon?"
"That sounds like a very unique one night-" Luna was interrupted by a giant white wing blocking her vision from the two conversation partners.
Diane ignored what Luna said. "Eh, maybe. I wouldn't mind getting to know Twilight a bit better. But In the end, it's her decision." She shrugged.
Twilight glanced at Diane. "I don't think us being married is the wisest decision, we have only known each other for a day."
"Well, you two would have all the time in the world to get to know each other, but if divorce is what you both want. I am quite sure that can be arranged. How many ponies know about this?" Luna lowered her sisters wing with a hoof.
"Hmm, AJ, Dash, Rarity, Spike, Fluttershy and my sister." Diane inspected her hoof, where she spotted a speck of dirt. "And the entirety of Ponyville."
"What?" Twilight's head snapped to her wife. "How? There was no big wedding, at least to my knowledge. How could the entirety of Ponyville know about this?"
"Well, you see. There was a wedding, a big one. It was right here, in the library. Me and Flutters just cleaned it all up before you woke up. I might not remember it either, but it seems that quite a lot of ponies attended, or at least heard about it. Practically half the town bowed down to me when I walked through the streets with a banana smear on my face."
"A banana smear?"
"It's a long story." She waved off the concern of the blue princess. "So can you help us? Or will that certain alicorn marriage law prevent you from helping us?" Diane pulled Twilight into a side hug.
It took a few seconds to recall the law that Diane mentioned. "Hmm, yes. I could simply rewrite a part of the law. Something like, if both parties in the marriage are under the influence, the law will not apply? Or perhaps that a confirmation with both ponies is needed after they have sobered up? Though some nobles might object to altering ancient laws, but it's for a good cause."
"Are you saying you'd actually rewrite it? I thought all laws were permanent!" Twilight rubbed her temples.
"They are, until they're not." Celestia winked.
"Well she is a Princess. She can do anything she wants. From helping somepony important to her, to world domination, she can do it all." Diane spread her hooves above her head and opened them in an arc.
"World domination? You think I'd do something like that?"
"No, I don't think it's your style." She shrugged. "Staying on the topic of silly laws. What's up with the ban on strong alcoholic drinks? I find it quite random." Diane steered the conversation back on to its original track.
"Yes sister, I'd like to know the reason behind that as well. I spent a thousand years craving a good strong Equestrian Moonlight ale, and you banned them in my absence." Luna's eyes narrowed as she gave her sister a glare.
Celestia giggled, light and regal. "Well it is quite the tale. A tale that is reserved for another day."
"Aww, come on. You can't just say that, you got my hopes up for nothing. Could you please give us even a crumb of information?" Diane pleaded.
Celestia looked at Diane's puppy dog eyes and resisted a roll of her eyes. "Alright, I guess I could spare a few crumbs. There was one night nearly four centuries ago, where I had the brilliant idea to visit a bar. I hadn't been to one in a long time. Not since we went together,-" Celestia hugged her sister with her giant wing. "-and this was my first time going alone. I might have overestimated my tolerance and I ended up drinking a bit too much." She barely supressed a giggle. "Oh, the scandal that erupted from that. It was all anypony could talk about for weeks. Well, until a different scandal occupied my little ponies minds. I won't go into details, but safe to say that I never did drink after that incident. I do admit that the law is a very heavy hooved response to a very minor problem. Honestly, I forgot that I made up that law, and now that you did bring it to my attention, it does seem a bit silly. I think I might have to correct that old mistake."
Twilight's jaw hang open, she had a lot of trouble picturing Celestia in a bar. Diane however wore a big smile. "I never did trust a pony who didn't have an embarrassing drunk story. You and I could become very good friends."
Luna chuckled. "You should have seen when we went out drinking all those moons ago. We were the sisters that brought energy to every bar from here to Yakyakistan."
"A- But.... What?" Twilight was absolutely speechless. Diane closed her jaw, it might have otherwise fallen to the floor.
"It's natural to have a bit of fun every now and then. Why wouldn't the Princess' do the same?" All Diane got as a response was incoherent mumblings from the purple princess.
"I think we might have to leave the two lovebirds alone for now, don't you think sister?" Luna spared one last glance at the two.
"No need to worry Twilight, I will send a letter when the law is dealt with." She gave Twilight a polite wave and both Princess' vanished in a flash of light.
A calm silence settled into the room. One which was broken not long thereafter by a slow increase of Twilight's breathing.
"Twilight? You okay?" Diane spotted what seemed to be Twilight's increasing nerves as she continued to take deeper and deeper breaths.
"NO! I am not! I know a lot of stuff happens around here, but this is ridiculous! All this is just way too much! You appeared out of thin air!" She pointed a hoof at Diane. "We went way out of control yesterday! And now there's all of this! Not to mention that I can't remember last night! What if we did something bad? What if I accidentally yelled at somepony?" She gasped. "What if I... broke a law?" Twilight sat down from exhaustion, a sad frown on her face.
Noticing that Twilight took all of these things quite hard, Diane did something she hadn't done in a long time. She took a deep breath and gave Twilight an apologetic smile. "Hey, I get it. It's not every day a mysterious lookalike shows up, you accidentally get married, and then have to deal with royal expectations, all in less than twenty four hours. But I want you to know, I’m here for you, Twilight. Sure, I joke around a lot, especially with, uh, certain princesses." Diane winked, "I just find that comedy is a good way to deal with hard times."
Twilight sighed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you. You're right, all this is just very sudden. I guess its just taken its toll on me." Her ears drooped down, she looked absolutely miserable.
Diane embraced Twilight in a sudden hug, Twilight squeaked in surprise but slowly accepted it as Diane muttered softly.
Twilight couldn’t help but crack a small smile at that. "I guess a little laughter wouldn’t hurt right now…"
"How about we do something relaxing then? I think we've both had enough stress to last for at least a few months." Diane tapped her hoof to her chin in thought, before she glanced at Twilight. "Could you recommend any good books to me?"
Twilight's eyes practically beamed. "You have no idea how long I've waited for somepony to ask that." And then the world disappeared in a flash of a teleportation spell.
Author's Note
Many thanks to the incredible 0thefool for making this chapter 20% cooler. (More like 200%) There were a few other volunteers to proofread this chapter, but I ended up accidentally rewriting the chapter a few times too many, and forgot to send it to them.
