Hoofraiser

The sun baked at the desert sands of the wayward tent city, so bright it kept everypony hidden behind fabric doors and zippered windows. Desolate, dreary, the place was rumored for pleasure, a traveling mystery straight out of a Daring Doo novel. Inside one dark tent, a pink pony haggled with a stranger.

“What’s your pleasure, little horse?” the creature asked. He looked like an earth pony yet cast a winged shadow. A puzzle-box cutie mark adorned his flank. He smelled of magic.

“Oh, great question!” Pinkie Pie chirped. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, face smooshed between her hooves. “I love parties! All kinds, big, small, birthday, dayday. I threw a party yesterday because it was Wednesday. Baked a cake and everything!”

The merchant cocked an eyebrow. Absently, he spooned a cube of sugar into a steaming cup of tea. “I don’t know if I have what you seek.”

“Oh?” Pinkie Pie frowned. Her mane, extra frizzled from the heat, wiggled about her face. “Are you sure? Because my parties have felt so …” In a fright, she looked around, checking that they were alone. “Boring,” she whispered.

“Boring?”

The pink pony nodded. “No one came to my Wednesday dayday party. I had to eat the entire cake myself.”

The merchant nodded, as if agreeing with someone just outside their line of sight. Pinkie Pie perked up.

“I have what you seek,” the merchant said. He reached under the table. Pinkie expected a boombox or party streamer, but the merchant handed her an ornate, brass cube. Symbols, shapes, and buttons swirled across its six faces.

“Ooooo!” Pinkie shoved it against her face, taking it all in. It looked like a mystery! She hadn’t thrown a mystery party in at least two months. “What do I do?”

“Solve the box, little horse. New pleasures await.”

Pinkie Pie grinned from ear-to-ear. “I’ll take it!”

The merchant nodded. “It was always yours.”

*

Pinkie Pie sat in her secret basement, surrounded by files and leftover cake. She bounced the puzzlebox between her hooves, her tongue sticking from her mouth, her tail thumping against the ground. She could hear a song coming on but wasn’t sure if one fit the mood. She was never very good at puzzles.

“You don’t look like I could sing you open,” she said to it. Then she held it close, and in her best Twilight-Sparkle voice said, “Why now Pinkie, you know you cant sing and solve mysteries at the same time! It’s why your last mystery party was such a bust.”

“But Twilight!” Pinkie pouted.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle!” She waggled the box like a puppet. “I’m very smart.”

Pinkie Pie frowned. “You know box, you don’t have to be so mean. Also Twilight would never say ‘such a bust.’ She’s much too smart for that.”

Before the box could retort, Pinkie gave one of its symbols a tap. Some hidden mechanism clicked into place, and she held it close as the cube twisted in a jagged little dance, turning from box to awkward oval. Little jolts of power shot across the points. It reminded Pinkie of the symbols in Twilight’s spellbooks, the kind she was absolutely, positively, unquestionably not allowed to read.

“Hmm,” Pinkie Pie said. She reached for a file cabinet and pulled out a manila envelope big enough to fit her pet alligator. “And according to Twilight’s file, page 42, subsection C: in the event of me finding an evil artifact with the intent of throwing the best party ever and causing the end of the world, I should put it down now and step away slowly before it goes off. However—”

Pinkie threw the file over her head, where the papers could scatter with her other party things.

“Twilight isn’t here! So take that, cube!”

Pinkie smashed another button on the cube. It twisted again, closing itself into a new shape that she thought was rather fun. The perfect centerpiece for a mystery party. Power surged from the artifact. All the hairs on Pinkie’s head stood on end, and the light in her basement went out.

“Now that’s a mystery!”

Fog descended upon her basement, thick and sulfurous. Wooden wheels turned in the distance. Chains rattled. The sounds came from below, as if some great machine were turning beneath the dirt. Pinkie Pie hopped in place. Now this was a proper mystery party! All it needed was a song. And a cake. She would whip one of those up next. With peanut butter frosting, and maybe a few candles even though it wasn’t anyone’s birthday. They would be mystery candles.

Static hissed; Pinkie Pie was no longer alone. Four bipedal things surrounded her. They wore terrible Nightmare Night costumes, the kind not suitable for small fillies. Applebloom, Sweetie Bell, and Scootaloo would have to sit this one out. One looked sort of like a wart with glasses, if the wart had teeth and needed a dentist. Another also needed a dentist because his lips were pulled tight in a smile that said, “Let’s party!” The third had a hole in her throat, which wasn’t dental work but close enough. The tallest carried a box similar to hers. He glared with black eyes, his face apparently his preferred spot to store sewing supplies. Also not dentistry work, but what did Pinkie Pie know? Every time she went to see Doctor Chomps, he screamed.

“Now those are some amazing costumes!” Pinkie Pie squealed. She clapped her hooves. “I’m also terrified of the dentist.”

The tall one stepped forward. Chains rattled. “The box.” he said, his voice booming like thunder. “You opened it. We came.”

“I sure did,” Pinkie Pie agreed.

“You must come with us,” hole-in-throat whispered.

The two that needed actual dental work grunted in agreement. Pinkie looked at each in turn, gave them all a proper “hmmm….” then burst into laughter.

“You didn’t tell me you told jokes!” She nudged the creature shaped like a wart. “I bet you’re great at stand-up. Make everyone fall down, right? Right?”

The wart creature stepped back. He gurgled another sound, his tongue a little too big for his mouth. Pinkie Pie patted him on the shoulder. She too took comedy very seriously.

“Okay, okay. Before we continue, what are your names?” A professional party thrower got this sorta thing out of the way first, before the games began. “I can make name tags for everyone. I have markers.”

“We have lived past names, creature,” the tall one boomed. “You opened the box. You must come with us.”

“Well I have to call you something.” Pinkie Pie put on a shrewd expression. They would need proper names. Ones fitting their costumes and the mystery party she was clearly throwing. It was all about context! Atmosphere. No songs for this one, nope. Not a single one. Twilight would be proud.

“How about Butter, Smiley, Chords, and Jim?”

Smiley stalked forward. Butter grunted another joke. Chords and Jim looked a little offended, if Pinkie were being honest with herself. She frowned.

“Are those not good names? I can think of better ones. Or!” She weaved around Smiley to eye Jim. “You could just tell me your name! That’s what friends do, you know. Like hey, I’ll go first. Hi, my name is Pinkie Pie!”

“Foolish mortal,” Chords whispered. “This is no game.”

Jim reached for Pinkie Pie. Happy to finally be getting somewhere, she grasped his hand. She shook it. “Nice to meet you! And your name is…?”

All four closed in. It was, if Pinkie was being honest, a little too close, but maybe they needed hugs. Sometimes a party didn’t truly get started until everyone had a proper hug.

“I didn’t realize I’d be teaching you how to party,” Pinkie Pie said to them. “I thought you were supposed to teach me how to party. That’s what the merchant said.”

Jim grasped Pinkie’s hoof. His fingers twisted with a cold, metallic strength. Joyous screams swam behind his eyes. “We will teach you pleasures beyond your understanding.”

“Ooooooooo!”

What was once a normal wall in Pinkie Pie’s basement split apart, revealing a corridor of withered, grey bricks. Gloom hung thick around the portal, a mystery so great Pinkie could just about touch it. She smiled. Disembodied chains appeared on the outskirts of the magic door, each ending in a jagged hook. From somewhere deep inside, a machine churned.

“You know,” Pinkie Pie said. She gave Jim a big smile. He even smiled back, in his own way. “This looks like a great mystery party. But we should get my friends first. I think Twilight would love this!”

*

Chains rushed for Pinkie Pie, first two, then a dozen. She hopped around the first few, then ducked under others. Limbo struck her as a bit old fashioned as far as party games went, but Rarity always said old was new again. Pinkie laughed, and when the four creatures tried to grab her, she dodged out of the way.

“Limbo AND tag? Now that’s old being new!” The pink pony bounced off the walls and zipped up the stairs. “Catch me if you can!”

Smiley met her at the top of the stairs. Tag seemed a little unfair if your opponent could teleport. His teeth chattered like someone frozen solid, and he tried to hug her with strawberry-jam stained arms. Pinkie swerved around him. She was very good at tag.

“No wonder you guys came early,” she said. “You’re freezing already, and it’s not even fall!”

Pinkie led the four creatures on a merry chase around her house. She’d enter a room, and one would be there already, trying to catch her to win the game. She did her best to bake a cake while they played, but all the chains made it rather hard. It wasn’t her best work, at any rate.

“You should frost it,” she told Chords, who was poking at her with a knife. She’d never frost a cake with that.

“Foolish creature, stop this at once!”

“Oh.” Pinkie pulled the knife from Chords and handed her a proper spatula, made of rubber. “Are you allergic? I wanted to do peanut butter frosting, but I can try something else. What would you like?”

“I am a priestess of pain! You will—”

“And I’m an earth pony!”

Jim appeared behind her. He frowned. He frowned a lot, which Pinkie took as a challenge. She would solve this mystery, and this would be the best party ever. All she had to do was figure out the rules.

“Maybe you should sew me a black dress,” she told him. “You know, so I fit the part. Then I can be a priestess of cake!”

The problem with Pinkie Pie is that she could only play a game for so long. Now if Gummy were with them, he’d have no problems playing limbo, tag, and “guess who I am?” for hours on end, but Pinkie Pie wanted another game. Most parties needed a few to keep the tempo going. And speaking of tempo, she was really feeling a song coming on.

“How about we head out to Ponyville, and you can say ‘hi’ to everyone,” she told Jim. “There are lots of friends to meet here.”

“Creature,” Jim sighed. Pinkie frowned. Bored people sighed at parties. She was failing! “Just give us back the box. We will go.”

“But you haven’t had any cake!”

Butter grunted. Pinkie gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. At least someone was having fun.

“Okay, okay,” the pink pony said. “How about this. You come with me to see my friends, and if we can’t solve the mystery together, then you can go. But Twilight is really good at mysteries.”

Chords wheezed. She gripped Pinkie’s spatula so tight it looked like her hands might actually explode. It wasn’t the right way to do it, but Pinkie was glad she was showing interest. She loved teaching ponies how to frost cakes.

“I will introduce you to agony,” she hissed.

“Great!” Pinkie gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. “I love meeting new friends.”

Jim and Chords shared a look. Pinkie dodged a few more chains, another hug from Smiley, and headed for her front door. “Follow me,” she said. She bounded outside.

The four creatures gave chase, and just about every pony in Ponyville screamed at the sight of them. Pinkie joined in. Maybe the real mystery was to just be afraid of the dentist. Chains appeared, and doors opened. Strange sounds filtered through the town, along with fog and hints of electricity. A tune found Pinkie’s ear, and as she hopped towards Twilight’s treehouse, she couldn’t help herself. This mystery party needed a song.

Say hey!
Aah!

Cheer the sound of the clacking chains
From my puzzle box lamenting names (hey!)
It’s Jim, the prince that pokes his own poor face

Hear ol’ Chords hissing out at me
She says, “You! Please stop this idiocy” (hey!)
And heel, the cenobites are my friends today.

And, oh I want to see and shiver from sensation sights
This is the dawning of a new Nightmare Night (Aaah, ah, ah, ah)
Wait. It’s not October yet?

Chew some gum, Smiley, you’re alright
I baked a cake because dentists scare my eyes (hey!)
It’s fine, the frostings on the reddish side

Tell a joke for Butter again? (Again!)
There's a laugh trapped behind your sun glasses (hey!)
Doodad, I love my black-clad mystery

Pinkie reached Twilight’s crystalline treehouse. She danced to the door, gave it a tap, and continued.

Aah!
Smile, more!
The Princess of Ponyville has the floor

Twilight opened the door, her face a mix of terror and fury. Behind her, Rarity fainted.

Pinkie Pie close the door to this magic
Fall away from this horrid bestiary
unhappy hours who tyrannize
our friends today
Run! Run! to the magic map, and
Cast all the spells that make them weep
This is why we don’t sing songs during mysteries, Pinkie!
That didn’t rhyme, Twilight!
Not now (Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah!)
Not now, because we're playing games (Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah!)

Oh I want to see and shiver from sensation sights
This is the dawning of a new Nightmare Night (Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah!)
Oh I want to see and shiver from sensation sights
This is the dawning of a new Nightmare Night (Aah! Aah! Aah! Aah!)
This is our fright on Nightmare Night!

Twilight pulled Pinkie into her home and slammed the door. With a massive spark of magic, she put a bubble around the tree house, locking the four monsters outside.

*

“Pinkie, what in the name of Equestria did you do?” Twilight shouted. Her eyes were bug-wide with fear. She grabbed Pinkie by the shoulders and shook until the pink pony’s teeth rattled.

“Hi, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, giggling. “It’s a mystery!”

With a magic pop, Twilight brought all three ponies to the map of Equestria. Twilight raced around the crystaline room, dodging chairs while the map throbbed with friendship problems in Ponyville. Jim and company were tumor-red. Rarity still lay on the floor in a faint. Sometimes Twilight checked a book; sometimes she rambled nonsense about the end of the world. It was a bad swerve as far as parties go, but the Princess of Friendship could be a little antisocial in these situations. What she needed to do was relax.

“Twi,” Pinkie said, bounding in front of her friend. They collided in a manic crash that sent little stars swirling around Pinkie’s vision.

“You don’t understand,” Twilight almost screamed. She gave Pinkie another shake. “Rainbow Dash is away at Camp Crystal Lake on some unfinished business, and Applejack got accidentally transported to the Middle Ages. We can’t use the elements of harmony to stop these monsters!”

Pinkie Pie made a “calm down” gesture at Twilight, which did not work—in part because Twilight wasn’t looking and because one of the room’s bookshelves slid aside. A corridor appeared, a walkway of old bricks and thick shadows. Stale fog swirled from the portal. A machine turned in the distance.

“Oh!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I know this door! It goes to my basement. We can take it to get the cake.”

In a few short hops, Pinkie was inside. Twilight screamed. Pinkie turned to wave at her, and then she felt a breath on her neck.

“Oooooooooo!” She giggled, spinning around. This smelled like mystery breath if mystery breath needed a dentist. “And who are you?”

All claws and teeth, a new friend lurched along the walls. It had a body mangled in wrong directions, its head wedged in its pelvis, a stinger on its neck. Its face hung onto its skull like an ill-fitting mask, too big around the jaw yet too tight at the eyes. Its skin reminded Pinkie Pie of soggy worms squirming along the ground after a bad storm.

“Another ‘I-need-a-dentist costume,” Pinkie said. She gave the creature a nod. She understood. Too much cake and ice cream did that to a pony.

This new monster pulled its arm back to strike. Pinkie Pie clapped, ready to see the next part of the mystery.

Two things happened in quick succession. Rarity awoke from her faint, screamed “What in Equestria!?” and fainted again, and Twilight fired a blast of green fire at the monster in the doorway. It singed Pinkie’s mane as it hit the creature square, sending it back. Twilight cast another spell, poofing Pinkie from the hallway back into the map room.

“Close it!” Twilight screamed. “Close it, close it, close it!”

“Hey,” Pinkie Pie said. She put on a glower. “Twilight, shooting fireballs is not an appropriate party game. You need to apologize to Mr. Engineer right now.” She tapped a hoof. Pinkie wasn’t one to lecture (that was Twilight’s job), but this was getting out of hoof. “And really Twi, you’re the princess of friendship. How can you just stand there shooting fireballs at strangers? You should know better. What would—”

Smiley, Butter, Chords, and Jim appeared around them. Rarity awoke, screamed, and fainted a third time.

The four costume-clad party goers summoned their rendition of limbo, creating chains from thin air. Twilight magicked a protective bubble around her while Pinkie hopped, skipped, and giggled her away between them. None bothered to find Rarity, who had managed to land herself under the table where the magic of the map kept her safe. Butter and Smiley did their best to tag both ponies. Butter pounded on Twilight’s magic bubble, each attack cracking it further and further like failing glass. Smiley chattered away as he tried to grab Pinkie Pie in a bear-hug.

“Almost!” Pinkie squealed, slipping past him yet again. “I think you’ll get me next time.”

“Stop!” Chords whispered, but no one paid much attention to her.

“The box!” Jim boomed. “Give it back! It is ours!”

Pinkie shook her head. “No! I have to figure out the mystery so this party is a success! I swear I’m not boring, I swear!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted. Butter banged her shield apart. “Pinkie help!”

A chain found Rarity’s mane and snagged into it, pulling the unicorn from safety. She awoke long enough to hear her hair rip before screaming herself into a fourth faint. Pinkie stopped, appalled that her party was going so poorly, and four chains wrapped around her limbs, the hooks just missing her skin. Butter grabbed Twilight before she could slip away.

“Aw,” Pinkie said. She sniffled. It was technically her party and she could cry if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to. This was not how parties were supposed to go! “I guess I lost at tag. It was fun while it lasted.”

“Fool,” Jim scolded. He approached Pinkie Pie, his face a glower of sewing supplies. “We are not playthings but angels of pain, demons of experience. Your soul is—”

An explosion tore Jim apart at the waist. He sizzled with yellow magic before vanishing in a puff of smoke. Pinkie Pie screamed.

“Listen up!” Applejack shouted, limping into the middle of the room. Her hat hung off her head in tatters, and dirt covered much of her face. She waved around a shotgun. “This is my boomstick, ya awful critters. Now get otta Ponyville before I send y’all to Tartarus.”

“Applejack,” Twilight gasped. Butter dropped her to the floor.

Without waiting for Butter to tell one of his patented, amazing jokes, Applejack pointed her gun and fired. The wart-shaped creature disappeared in a puff of electric smoke.

“Butter!” Pinkie sobbed. “You don’t understand, Applejack. He was the funny one!”

Applejack used the butt of her weapon to knock the chains from Rarity’s mane. The orange pony turned to Chords.

“What’s your story, sugarcube?”

Chords unsheathed her extra-sharp, cannot-frost-a-cake-with knife. “I will swallow your soul.”

“Come get some.”

Chords stabbed. Applejack sidestepped, swung her weapon like a club, and sent Chords back. Pinkie tried to get between them, because violence was not a party game, but Applejack already pointed and fired. The blast was loud. Chords glared in such a primal fury as she vanished that Pinkie almost thought she had the wrong read on this situation.

That left Smiley, who Applejack shot without a second thought.

A calm fell upon the room. The strange door with its strange monster closed shut, the fog departed, and the magic map stopped glowing its putrid-red warning. Applejack tossed her shotgun aside.

“You girls okay?”

“Thank you!” Twilight tackled Applejack in a hug. “Thank you so much. How did you get back?”

“Hun, you don’t want to know.” Applejack smiled, returned the hug. “But I’m glad to be home.”

Pinkie slumped to the floor. Her face drooped, her eyes blurred with tears. All this work, all this fun, only to be squashed away. She was a horrible party thrower!

Twilight walked over and put a hoof around her. “It’s okay, Pinkie. Sometimes we make mistakes.”

“I guess.” She sniffed. “They were supposed to show me how to party. With costumes and everything. We even sang a song.”

“I know.” Twilight forced Pinkie to look at her. The Princess of Friendship sighed. “Sometimes insecurity drives us to extremes, like singing songs at mystery parties … or summoning four demons from another dimension. But that doesn’t mean you’re bad at parties, Pinkie. It just means you should think a little harder before you act.”

“You weren’t bored, were you?”

Twilight looked to Applejack. The earth pony let out a guffaw. “Aw shucks, Pinkie. No party of yours is ever boring. This one was terrifying though.”

“You mean it?”

“Yup.” Applejack stepped forward. Her hat fell from her head. “Need a hug?”

“Are you kidding?” Pinkie Pie jumped up, pulled the magic cube from her mane, and started smacking buttons. “If you had that much fun, we’ll have to do round two!”

The cube sparked with magic. Fog filled the room, and machines whirred in the distance. Pinkie grinned.

“They have such sighs to show us!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight and Applejack roared as shadows lurched towards them.