Masquerade

by McPoodle

Rating: everyone
Tags: Random, Adventure, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, DJ P0N-3, Human
Length: 13852

Twilight Sparkle and Vinyl Scratch get more than they bargained for in Pinkie Pie's dreamworld

After Vinyl Scratch helps Twilight to escape from the deadly dreams the Elements of Harmony have all been trapped in, they decide to head back to save the others, and to start with the dream world of Pinkie Pie, since she surely would be the best guide to get them through the dreams of anypony.

In retrospect, two ponies treading alone into the mind of the pony with Pinkamena in her head might have been a less than wise decision...

Sequel to "The Perfect Little Village of Ponyville" (which the above description just spoiled utterly if you haven't read it yet). Additional tags may be added after the story spoils them.

Published 2012-10-22 21:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-10-25 03:15:19 UTC

Part One: The Eschatology of Pink

Thought Experiments 2:

Masquerade

Part One: The Eschatology of Pink

There are three normal breeds of pony in Equestria: earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns (alicorns are a special case, which will be covered in Chapter 5). All of them possess magic, but they express that magic in different ways that are precisely defined. Earth pony magic interacts with their bodies and their environment, making them stronger and more dexterous than the other breeds and having a long-term positive effect on the growth and well-being of the plants and animals in their vicinity. A pegasus’ magic allows it to manipulate the weather and to fly. Unicorn magic is the most-varied, as it can be used to generate energy fields, otherwise manipulate the environment, or change appearances. These are the only forms of magic these three breeds possess—there are no exceptions.

—from The Equestrian Handbook, 2nd Edition, by M.J.P., Chapter 1
(describing things as they were in the Year 7000, 14 years before the return of Nightmare Moon)

Twilight Sparkle and Vinyl Scratch were trapped. The trap had been fashioned by the sworn enemy of the ponies of Equestria, the Dragon Emperor Vasilyevich. This trap took the form of a spell, a spell that had been thought impossible before now: the Dream Trap Chain.

A Dream Trap Chain puts a group of victims to sleep and magically links their dreams together. Anything that happens to those victims in those dreams affects them in real life as well.

Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had all become puppets in Twilight Sparkle’s dream. Twilight Sparkle, mesmerized into thinking that this was just an ordinary dream, used it to fulfill her war-gaming fantasies, and in this way nearly killed them all.

They were saved only by the purest of chances, the fact that the seventh pony pulled into the dream trap chain was the blind pony Vinyl Scratch. On being inserted into Twilight’s dream, Vinyl was suddenly made into a seeing pony, and this shock broke the magical strings that compelled her to follow Dreamer Twilight’s will. Vinyl discovered the truth, and woke up Twilight before her dream reached its fatal conclusion.

But this escape was not without consequences: Pinkie Pie had nearly been blinded by a cut above her eye, and Twilight had been badly bruised on her hind legs. Relatively minor injuries, but a reminder of the peril they were facing.

Twilight and Vinyl were now free of the dreams that threatened them and their friends, but they were not free of the spell. This left them stuck in a sort of limbo. They were safe, but five ponies were still trapped in five dreams, still at the mercy of the spell’s corruption and their own unconscious whims.

Only one choice lay open to them: plunging back into the world of dreams, in hopes of saving the others like Vinyl had saved Twilight.

“I’m suddenly having second thoughts,” Vinyl said to Twilight.

The two ponies were standing in a tiny little room in the royal palace of Princesses Celestia and Luna in Canterlot.

But of course they were not really there. This was some sort of dream construct, a place for their two minds to meet when not in the world of a dreamer.

“About starting with Pinkie’s dream?” asked Twilight.

“Yes,” replied Vinyl. “Pinkie operates in mysterious ways. Even asking the wrong questions about her has nasty consequences.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked with a suspicious tone.

“I’m talking about that time you investigated the Pinkie Sense, and the universe decided to get back at you.”

Twilight laughed loudly. A little too loudly. “Oh that?” she asked. “Don’t be ridiculous. You must have heard Rarity’s version of the story—she tends to ponify everything, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she invoked ‘The Will of the Universe’ or something equally silly every time my investigations were interrupted by falling objects.”

“I just know that there’s more going on with her than I thought there was,” Vinyl stated. “What about that other side of her, the side I saw in your dream?” She put a hoof to her head to think better. “I don’t remember much of the details,” she said, “but she seemed very different than Pinkie. I remember that she insisted on going by the name of Pinkamena Diane Pie.”

“Err...you remembered that, huh?” Twilight nervously ground one hoof into the flagstone she was standing on, and then winced as this caused the pain in her flank to flare up.

“Look, if you have any insight, I’d appreciate it,” Vinyl said. “Especially considering we’re going to be diving into a reality she has complete control over. And there’s no way of knowing if we might be separated in there.”

“Oh that reminds me,” said Twilight. “We need some way to recognize each other in the dream. We might end up looking like anypony in there.”

“Um, what do you suggest?” asked Vinyl with trepidation. The possibility that she might not even be physically herself in Pinkie Pie’s dream had not even occurred to her.

“If you see somepony you think might be me, ask her about the weather. Ask as if you didn’t already know what it was going to be. If the pony you ask doesn’t treat you like you’re crazy, it’s got to be me! I got that from a Daring Do novel.”

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind. Now, what can you tell me about Pinkie Pie? What are her deepest, darkest secrets?”

“I...uh, I really can’t tell you anything.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m afraid so,” Twilight said, nodding sadly. “I was in one of her dreams a year ago...”

“...How did you manage that?” Vinyl asked suddenly. “I thought dream magic was nearly impossible. Well...at least back then I did. Recent experiences have proved me wrong.”

“Princess Luna was involved,” Twilight said evasively.

Vinyl Scratch groaned. She had heard rumors that the Princess of the Night had the power to enter dreams at will, but Vinyl had been rather stubbornly insisting that these rumors were wrong, that surely one of the two sovereigns of the pony nation wouldn’t stoop to such an intrusive act, even if her vast magic made her capable of it. “And from that you...?”

“Pinkie Pie Promise!” Twilight blurted out.

“Of course,” Vinyl sighed.

Are you really surprised? asked the mental voice of DJ Pon-3.

Vinyl Scratch’s reservations about others poking around her head stemmed from the fact that she wasn’t quite alone in there. She had a handful of voices roaming around in her mind, stemming from events in her past that she never wanted to think about again. The leader of the head-voices was her performance alter-ego, DJ Pon-3, and it was thanks to her strength that the others were kept in check.

If circumstances ever forced Twilight Sparkle to poke around in Vinyl’s mind, there was no doubt that she would have forced a similar confession of silence out of the Princess’ student. Not that Pinkie’s anywhere near as messed up as me, Vinyl thought to herself.

“But we really have to save Pinkie Pie first,” Twilight insisted. “She knows dreams like it’s nopony’s business, and with her help we ought to be able to get through all of the other ponies’ dreams.”

“I know, I know,” Vinyl said, resigned. “I just wish I had some more insight into how she ticks. Like...her favorite song!”

It was through a song that Vinyl had been transported into Twilight Sparkle’s dream, a song from a very unique set of compact discs. The two mares concluded that, since the particular song used was Twilight’s favorite, they could use a similar method to control which pony’s dreams they entered next.

Vinyl used her unicorn magic to open the saddlebag containing the CDs, and Twilight dug through them for a few minutes, before finally emerging with the one she was looking for.

“The Waltz from Masquerade,” she finally announced. “This is the only piece of classical music she listens to regularly, but I’m sure this is Pinkie’s favorite song.”

“Masquerade by Kravitz?” Vinyl Scratch asked, suddenly alarmed.

Twilight checked the back of the CD. The words were written in the lost language of the Ancients, but she had eventually managed to decipher that language, and now could read the words on the CD with little difficulty. “Well, it actually says by Khachaturian,” she said after a moment. “But Spike has a record with Kravitz’ version on it, and the two are identical.”

“Kravitz the dragon?” Vinyl asked, hoping desperately that this would be some other Kravitz that she never heard of.

“Yes, it’s Kravitz the dragon. Spike doesn’t collect much pony music. You’re an expert on dragon music, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So let’s play the song and see if you recognize it.”

Twilight walked over to one wall of the tiny cell they were in and addressed her words to a blue-colored stone embedded in the rock. “Cecil, could you memorize and play Track 4?” She used her magic to remove the shiny CD from the case and to hold it in mid-air with the reflective side facing the stone.

“Hmm...” said a voice emanating from the rock. A field of magic emerged from it and took the disc from Twilight before focusing into a tight beam. The CD was spun in the air, faster and faster, until Cecil was finally able to read the track...and play it.

Vinyl groaned loudly upon hearing the first notes of the song. “Yup, that’s it,” she said sadly.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked as her eyes closed and she started swaying lightly to the song. “It doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Well, maybe we’re lucky,” said Vinyl. “Maybe Pinkie Pie doesn’t know the context of the song.”

Twilight’s eyes popped open. “What context?”

“This was the song used to overthrow Emperor Reznicek.”

“Emperor Reznicek?” asked Twilight. “The first dragon emperor? From 6500 years ago?” Each question saw her becoming more and more excited. Dragon history was an area of knowledge she was woefully lacking in, and thanks to the constant questions of Spike, she was more than aware of that lack. There were certain areas she knew of in great detail, such as the times that dragons and ponies had come into conflict over the centuries. But the doings of dragons among their own kind were almost totally unknown to her.

“The same,” answered Vinyl, her head down. “Kravitz was his court composer.”

“I know that Reznicek came out of nowhere to unite the dragon tribes,” Twilight recalled, “a feat until then thought to be impossible. He invaded Equestria with an enormous army, telling the dragons that we ponies were immensely rich, and promising a near-unlimited supply of plunder to those who followed him over the border. He was defeated by Princess Luna’s army after a fierce battle of wills that ended with the revelation to the dragon troops that Equestria was far poorer than Draconia when it came to mineral wealth. Emperor Reznicek retreated to his realms with his tail between his legs. I kinda assumed that his followers deposed him right then and there.”

The waltz that Cecil had been playing had reached its conclusion in the middle of Twilight’s explanation. Vinyl sighed. “Keep playing the song in a loop, Cecil,” she instructed. Turning to Twilight as the music resumed, she said, “No, he wasn’t deposed right away. He managed to retain control over the oldest and most-respected of the dragon clans, the Greens, leaving him hundreds of followers. Over the decades that followed, he became more and more insane, until finally Kravitz was convinced to turn against him. The composer decided to time the uprising to start when his master was at his most vulnerable, watching a performance of Kravitz’ own play Masquerade. The specific moment of the strike would be the last note of the waltz, the very waltz you are hearing right now, that was to be played during the titular masquerade ball in the play. Now, with that explanation over with, the way to get into Pinkie Pie’s dream is this: we dance to this song; dance until we’re not even thinking straight anymore. Then Cecil can teleport us back into the dreams.”

“Alright,” Twilight said, “but if this is a dragon waltz, it’s only fair that we dance in the dragon fashion.” With that, she reared up on her hind legs and held out her forelegs.

Being blind, Vinyl didn’t see this, but she heard enough to figure it out. “Did you just...? Fine.” With a much less graceful effort, she managed to match Twilight’s pose, and grabbed her around the waist. “But I lead.”

And so they danced. Nowhere near as gracefully as a pair of dragons, but at least they kept the beat of what was a fairly brisk waltz.

“Nothing’s happening,” said Twilight after a few minutes.

“Stop thinking,” said Vinyl. “It’ll only work if your mind is completely blank.”

“Oh,” said Twilight.

They danced some more.

“I was wondering,” she said a few seconds later.

“You’re thinking again.”

“Oh, sorry.”

More minutes passed.

Vinyl sighed. “What is it, Twilight?”

“Oh, well, I wondered if that was it.”

“What was it?”

“If the fact that the song was used to trigger a coup was the only reason the song creeped you out. Because personally, I wouldn’t let something like that stand between me and a good song. I mean, that song was composed before Kravitz even decided to overthrow the Emperor, right? So it was meant to be a good song, right?”

“Are you even listening to it?” Vinyl asked incredulously. “This is no sane song.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s a sinister song in a sinister play.”

“What’s it about?”

“Aarrrggghh!” Vinyl groaned. “Look, if I give you a synopsis, will you stop thinking?”

“Yes!” Twilight proclaimed confidently.

“Fine!” Vinyl exclaimed, her words beginning to speed up to match the tempo of the waltz. “Masquerade was a work of propaganda, designed to spread the lie about how Reznicek came to power. It was a blockbuster of a play, with eye-popping special effects. It wasn’t performed very often, because it ended with the playhouse burning down around the audience—remember that dragons are fireproof, so they just loved stuff like that.” She suddenly giggled for no apparent reason. Twilight looked with uncertainty into Vinyl’s sunglasses, wishing she could tell for sure why a rictus was growing on the DJ pony’s face.

“In the play,” Vinyl continued gleefully, “the dragons of the court are all hopelessly corrupt, and betray each other at every opportunity! Hee-hee! Prince Arbenin falls in love with a mysterious woman and learns that she is to appear at a masquerade ball. He expresses his feelings to those he believes to be his friends, but they instead scheme to make the two of them hate each other!”

The madness in Vinyl’s expression had now started to creep into her words, as she had allowed the feelings of the song to take her over. “At the masquerade,” she proclaimed in time with the looping song, “every dragon wears a mask. Masks of rage. Masks of fear. They wear the masks to hide, but the masks reveal what they really are. The nobles dance on a floor of glass, and below them, miles and miles below, the common dragons toil and sweat in the diamond mines. Can you hear them? Can you hear the cries of betrayal from the dragons that toil below the masquerade? Above them the nobles laugh, supported by glass, supported by lies! And sitting in the chandelier as far above them as they are above the commoners is the Prince of Lies, Reznicek the Jester! Renicek the Judge! Oh how he laughs at the fools below him! Reznicek, who had held the dragons in the Celestial balance, and found them wanting! Reznicek! Reznicek! Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie, who will now destroy the ponies with their own LIES, Pinkie Pie who sets the fire that will consume the ballroom, and thanks to her forbidden magic, sets fire to the flesh of the invulnerable nobles! Can you hear the fire, Twilight? Can you smell the flesh of the nobles as they burn! ‘Burn, nobles, burn!’ cackles the Emperor, as the playhouse itself bursts into flames and HE becomes the victim of his very own spell! Die, Tyrant, die, in the flames of your own creation, consumed by your lies!!”

Twilight Sparkle’s pupils had shrunk into pinpricks.

“And that is Pinkie Pie’s favorite song,” Vinyl concluded, suddenly back to normal. Judging the time was right, Vinyl effortlessly shut down her conscious mind, allowing the groove of the song to once again take her over.

Having waited for this moment, Cecil cast his teleportation spell at the mindless ponies, and they disappeared.

“Is it wrong that she turns me on so much?!” he proclaimed to nopony.

Part Two: The Biggest Clown Hammer of All Time

Masquerade

Part Two: The Biggest Clown Hammer of All Time

You might think, with everything about Princess Celestia revealed in this Handbook, that you feel yourself capable of challenging her. Don’t do it. It is a very, very, very bad idea, and not just because of the unimaginable chaos that would result from a random pony overthrowing the Monarch of Equestria and Mistress of the Sun. I shouldn’t even have to issue this warning, and I certainly didn’t for the first edition of this book, but then five different readers over the years did decide to challenge Princess Celestia armed only with the first edition. All five of those challengers failed.

Do you want to know why? Because Princess Celestia cheats.

—from The Equestrian Handbook, 2nd Edition, by M.J.P., Chapter 5

STORYTIME!

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there lived a pony named Celestia! But she was not just any pony. No, she was the princess, and she could live forever, well...not forever, just a really, really long time and, lucky for her, she lived in Equestria, so she didn’t have to deal with crazy humans in duster coats wielding big honkin’ swords and saying “There can only be one!” in fake Scottish accents.

Sigh...

Now today, Tia should have been worried, because she didn’t know where her sister was. That sister, Princess Luna, was out in a battlefield somewhere up north, fighting the dragons that were fighting for the Dragon Emperor, but recently she had disappeared! Tia would have loved to send Twilight Sparkle and her friends to find her sister, but they were busy saving the world, because today was Tuesday, and that’s what the Elements of Harmony did on Tuesdays when they were bored.

So anyway, Tia was walking down a corridor, looking really confused, like she didn’t even know where she was—like she wasn’t even used to seeing! I can tell you where she was, though: she had just left the Elements in this tiny room with her friend Cecil. He’s a rock.

Racing up to join her was a stallion with a limp. This was Professor Stein. Steiny was this really old slate-gray unicorn that the Princess was sort of sweet on.

Pinkie...

What? It’s true! There’s no way he would have lived to be two hundred if she didn’t have some reason to keep him around.

Tia looked at Steiny with that same cow-eyed look. “And you are...?” she prompted...in, um...Her voice sounds weird.

Steiny had to concentrate really hard, but finally he remembered. “I’m Professor Stein.” He sounded weird, too.

Pinkie, what’s going on?

How should I know? I’m just the narrator.

Narrator? Does that mean that They are here again? Why didn’t you tell me? I look awful! Just give me a second while I try to do something with my mane and—

Chill out, Pinkamena! This isn’t an episode, it’s a story! Nopony can see you.

Really?

Yes. Unless some fan animator goes insane and decides to adapt this into a cartoon. In which case, Mr. Animator, I have a list of suggested voice actresses for you to use!

Pinkie, you’re so random! Also, who would voice me?

Same voice actress. It’s a standard convention.

Huh. I don’t sound anything like you. So, what did we miss during our current distraction?

Hmm? Oh, they were talking about the weather, but now it looks like Steiny’s mad at Tia for some reason.

“You get out of the Princess’ head right now, Vinyl Scratch!” exclaimed the Professor.

“I don’t think I can get out even if I tried, Twilight,” said Tia. Or rather, Vinyl Scratch in Tia’s head.

What? Oh, it’s going to be one of those kinds of stories, huh? The kind where even the narrator doesn’t know what’s going on and the brains of the readers starts dribbling out of their ears?

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

How did Vinyl Scratch get in Princess Celestia’s head, anyway?

I dunno. Maybe Vinyl Scratch was a puppeteer who got hired to be a file clerk in a creepy building with an extra half-floor, and in a corner of this half-floor she found a crawlspace that led her into Princess Celestia’s head, only she gets kicked out after a half-hour and dumped into a ditch under the New Jonzey Turnpike.

Pinkie?

Yes, Pinkamena?

There’s maybe three people, if you’re lucky, reading this right now who have any idea what you’re talking about.

But all three of them are laughing their tails off right now. As Fluttershy would say, “I rock! Woo-hoo!”

“Is the Princess all right in there?” asked Steiny (Twilight).

Yeah, I hope you readers like parentheses, because I’m gonna be using a lot of them.

Tia (Vinyl) squinted one eye as she concentrated. “Yeah, I think she’s just asleep. Looks like I have the complete run of the place while I’m in here though. She’s got a remarkable filing system for her memories.”

“I would think so,” said Steiny (Twilight) with uncertainty. “So how much do you know as Princess Celestia?”

Tia (Vinyl) shook her head in wonder. “I know everything, Twilight. How the Sun works. How Ponyville was founded. What happened to Winnychester. The recipe for the perfect pumpkin bread. Where the Griffon’s Goblet is resting. I now know everything, and everything makes sense! Finally, everything makes sense!”

...

Pinkie, what are you doing?

Gimme a second, I’m copying down that pumpkin bread recipe. And...got it!

Pinkie, I thought you promised never to go into ponies’ heads without their permission anymore!

It was just a peek, and I made extra sure not to look at anything else! Now let’s get back to the story.

Steiny (Twilight) nervously ground his (her) hoof into the flagstone. “So, about Celestia and me...?”

Tia (Vinyl) smiled. “Twilight, you really have to learn some perspective. Now, what’s it like to be a stallion?”

Steiny (Twilight) sat down, then winced at his (her) sore flank. “Weird. Very, very weird. But we need to focus. We need to find Pinkie Pie.”

Oh, you’re looking for me, Twilight? I’m right here! Here I am! Here I am!

Pinkie?

Yes, Pinkamena?

Is this the sort of story where the characters can talk back to the narrator?

No, it’s the sort of story that makes your brains leak out of your ears. Weren’t you the one who figured that out?

[Sigh.] Then she’s not going to be able to see you. And you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full.

Oh. Right. But this pumpkin bread is so good!

“The Princess’ memories tell me that she just left us in Cecil’s room,” said the alicorn (unicorn). “That means that Pinkie’s not going to be easy to find.”

“Oh,” said the unicorn (unicorn). “Well, maybe she’s in somepony else’s head, just like we are.”

Nope-eroony!

“Well in that case, maybe we should follow through on whatever the Princess and Professor were doing before we wound up in their heads. Celestia was walking back to the throne room in hopes of hearing updates on Luna’s location.”

“That’s Princess Celestia and Luna!” insisted Steiny (Twilight). “And Professor Stein was here to give you...a whole lot of bad news.”

Tia (Vinyl) sat down on her haunches, which for an alicorn looks really, really funny. “What bad news?” she asked nervously.

“The dragon armies have crossed the northern border into Equestria overnight. They’ve taken everything north of Manehattan.”

“That fast?” asked Tia (Vinyl) incredulously.

“We don’t have any troops up there, remember? Just Princess Luna’s expeditionary force. The Princesses sent every pony that volunteered for the military to the southern border, to decrease the chances that the Emperor will over-ride them into marching against us.”

“Wait, so why would the Princesses leave us defenseless like that?”

“Because they did not expect the Emperor to break the rules of magical warfare!” Steiny (Twilight) replied in anger. “As long as the monarchs of two magical nations at war are still standing, then all fighting is supposed to be reserved to a magical duel between the two of them. Troops are only allowed in the unlikely case that both combatants destroy each other simultaneously with their magic. But it gets worse—we got a ransom note for Princess Luna.”

“The Emperor has captured my...er, Princess Celestia’s sister?!” exclaimed Tia (Vinyl).

Steiny (Twilight) handed over the ransom note. It was one of your standard-issue ransom notes. Lots of mustache-twirling, and a couple of “mwa-ha-ha!”s, and even stooping so low as to include an “...in me power!”. As if it wasn’t completely obvious by now that the Dragon Emperor was wing-dingy! Looney-tooney! And Oofty McGoofty. He also claimed to have the Princess bound in chains of adamantine.

“But that’s ridiculous!” Tia (Vinyl) protested. “Princess Celestia personally insured that there were no traces of adamantine anywhere in the world five hundred years ago.”

The terms the victorious Emperor was asking for were nothing less than unconditional surrender.

“And it’s not like even that would get her back,” Tia (Vinyl) said sadly. “The Emperor has said that he planned to use Luna in an occult ceremony to make the dragons immortal. He’s probably preparing to do that right now, regardless of how we respond.” She put her forehooves up to her head. “What would Celestia do?!” she asked herself.

“We don’t have the Elements of Harmony,” said Steiny (Twilight), “the invasion means the amount of hostile territory to cross before we reach Castle By the Sea has doubled, and we have no idea if any ponies other than Princess Celestia can even go there without being taken over! It’s hopeless!”

“If we knew where Luna was, then I could teleport there, grab her, and teleport back.” Tia (Vinyl) closed her eyes and concentrated. “She’s alive. I can detect that, but I can’t get a fix on her position because of her adamantine bonds, which by the way is one of the reasons why Celestia got rid of all of the stuff when she had the chance. She’s has got to have some kind of last-ditch plan stowed away in her memories for situations like this...”

[Gasp!] Room 78! Room 78! Say it’s Room 78!

“Room 78,” said Tia (Vinyl).

Yay!

“Room 78?” asked Steiny (Twilight). “Professor Stein’s memories are telling me that this is a really dangerous idea, but he also thinks that we have no other choice, and that it will probably work.”

Pinkie, what’s Room 78?

Room 78 happens to be the only room in the whole palace that I’ve never been in. I’ve heard, though, that when Equestria is in so much trouble that nopony can figure out what to do, then Princess Celestia goes in there for a few minutes, and comes out with all the answers.

“Cancel all my appointments for the day,” Tia (Vinyl) said grimly, “and meet me there.”

~ ~ ~

Hmm...how to describe Room 78?

I can’t, not really. Even as the all-knowing narrator, I still can’t see what’s going on in there. I can hear the ponies talking, and I get a few impressions, but I don’t really know for sure.

So I’ll just make it up!

Room 78 was a looong room, but really narrow, so like fifty ponylengths long by five ponylengths wide. It was also three—no four stories tall. It had a ceiling and a floor, but only three walls. Not because it was triangular, but because the left wall and the right wall were the same wall. You could only look at one of them at a time, and when you were looking at one, then the other one was gone, and when you looked at the other, it was the one!

I’m getting a headache.

Room 78’s most prominent feature was a clown hammer—the biggest clown hammer of all time! It was mounted on a hinge at the far end of the room and was currently balanced on its handle. There was this great big red circle at the other end of the room to show where the squeaky end of the hammer would fall when it eventually did fall. Room 78 was in the part of the palace that’s inside the Mountains of Tranquility. It had to be in that part, because if it wasn’t, when that gigantic hammer fell, it would cause Room 78 to break off of the castle—that’s how hard it fell. The spot where the hammer would fall was bedrock, and cracked deeply from multiple impacts. There was a nice comfy couch right in the middle of that red circle. I think it was from the Rarity Collection.

Pinkie...

Yes?

There is no way that Princess Celestia uses a clown hammer to save Equestria.

I told you I don’t know exactly what that is in Room 78! It’s just something that does what a clown hammer does.

I know I’m going to regret this, but...what does a clown hammer do?

It bonks ponies on the head. Duh. And if you want to bonk an alicorn, it has to be an extra, extra, extra-large hammer! That’s logic!

I give up. Three-story tall clown hammer it is!

Once the two ponies had gone into the room and locked it about a bazillion times, they went to a locker. There, Tia (Vinyl) took out this pack of magical matches and did this alicorn thing where her hoof went misty and absorbed it. After that, Steiny (Twilight) took out this really strong rope and tied Tia (Vinyl)’s wings against her body. Then the alicorn (unicorn) put her horn into this hole in the wall, and it came out covered in cork. This isn’t the stuff they put in champagne bottles, but this other stuff that blocks magic and has the same name. Tia (Vinyl) was now completely helpless.

Pinkie, I want you to promise me right now that this isn’t going to get...weird.

Did you see a Romance tag on this fic? I didn’t think so.

“Alright, let’s get this over with before I change my mind,” said the princess (DJ), walking to the center of the blast area.

Suddenly there was a bright burst of light, and a yellow- and red-colored baby dragon appeared in the room. This was Waking Terror, one of the Princess’ advisors. She’s got this big long backstory, but you don’t really have to know it, so I won’t waste your time.

“What is going on here?” she demanded. “And you better not say it’s anything...weird!”

Tia (Vinyl) sighed. “Get out right now,” she warned. “Else you learn of a truth so awful that you will surely go mad!”

That’s it, I’m out of here.

Wait, come back, Pinkamena! She’s bluffing, I’m sure of it!

“That’s supposed to be my line,” said Miss Terror (about the “truth so awful” line, not the “I’m bluffing” line). “Out with it.”

“Are you sure you can say it out loud?” Steiny (Twilight) asked nervously. “They might be listening.”

“‘They’?” asked Miss Terror.

Um, is this the same ‘They’ that’s reading this story right now?

“It’s all right,” said Tia (Vinyl). “No outside power can spy on us when we are in here.”

Ha! Shows what they know.

“There are higher powers at work in Equestria,” explained Tia (Vinyl), drawing on Celestia’s memories. “Powers that don’t even know that they are powers. At their whim, Equestria is manipulated. Pieces are moved as if life were a chessboard, and They care as little when Their actions cause empires to rise or topple as a chess player might when she wins or loses a game. With this device, I can momentarily swap bodies with one of these chess players, and so discover what is truly going on in the world.”

[Gasp!!!!!] I knew it! The rumors are true!

Rumors? What rumors? I never heard of anything like this. And this is a different ‘They’ than the reader They, right?

Yup! It’s like The Cat in the Hat—there’s Them-1 (the readers) and Them-2 (the power-y thingees)...and then there’s Them-3, but those are giant ants, and they’re not important right now.

So Them-3 is...?

Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Story.

Alright, you know that warning that this story would cause my brains to leak out of my ears? I think it’s happening to me right now.

Don’t be silly, Pinkamena, your brains can’t leak of your ears, because you’re in my brain right now.

No, you’re in my brain, remember? Now about this rumor...?

Well, it was only whispered on nights when They-2 didn’t think we were around to listen. Tales of those who messed with Celestia, and how she drove them mad. I thought They-2 were making them up. But now it looks like it’s true. You don’t mess with Celestia, because Celestia cheats.

Wait, does that mean you know who They-2 are? What else are you holding back from me?

Change places!

What?!

Change places, change places!

Oof! Ow, why is it every time that...Ugh! Pinkie, this side of our brain is filthy! And weren’t you supposed to unpack these boxes?

I’ll get to it next Spring Cleaning.

You say that every year, and it never happens! Now wait a minute...didn’t I just ask you something?

Maybe...

Argh, and now I can’t remember it!

Too bad...let’s get back to the story.

Miss Terror was nearly as amazed as I was at Princess Celestia’s revelation about her own version of “change places”. “When was the last time you did this?” she asked.

“About seventy-five years ago,” she replied. “Professor Stein helped me with that one. I’ve done it five times in total over the past thousand years.”

“Only five times?” asked Miss Terror.

“They have the power to utterly destroy Equestria if they wish, so They can’t ever be allowed to figure out what I’m up to. It’s hard enough acting as if I didn’t know what They are doing when I’m not in this room.”

“So how do you know when to do it?” asked Miss Terror. “How do you know when this mysterious ‘They’ are active?”

“When life gets interesting,” said the Princess (DJ). “When lives can be easily summarized in the form of epic stories. When ponies start spontaneously bursting into song. There is a downside to doing this,” she continued, suddenly getting sad. “It happened the first time, when I wasn’t careful. The game ended, and the excitement went away. For three generations of ponies, there was peace and tranquility.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Steiny (Twilight).

“The greatest heroes of a thousand years ago suddenly became normal ponies,” said Tia (Vinyl). “Their powers, their larger-than-life personalities, disappeared overnight. They became like every other pony.”

“What are you saying?” the unicorn (who’s also a unicorn) demanded.

“Yeah, what do you mean?” chimed in Miss Terror.

“They don’t just influence the forces of evil, Twi...error,” Tia (Vinyl) said, saving herself from a verbal slip-up at the last second. “They’ve been messing with the lives of the current Elements of Harmony as well. You didn’t think that the incredible coincidences in their lives was all my doing now, did you?”

“Well...yes, as a matter of fact,” replied Steiny (Twilight).

Tia (Vinyl) shook her head. “No, it was Them. I didn’t mind, because it appeared that They were willing to let the forces of good triumph, and...well, because of something they gave me that I might never have had otherwise...”

Aww, is she talking about Tia getting to know Twilight? That’s so sweet!

“But now they have gone too far,” said Tia (Vinyl), lying down on the couch located in the center of the red circle of squeak. “The Elements are in mortal danger, my recently-restored sister has been stolen from me using illegal methods, and bound by illegal materials, and my little ponies are at war, a war that could permanently alter their character in ways I am not prepared to countenance. No, this ends here. I’m bringing back Luna, and together, we are ending this war once and for all!”

Woo, you go Princess! You know, that Vinyl Scratch is a good actress; if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was the real Princess Celestia giving that speech!

“How can I help?” asked Miss Terror.

“I’m going to be gone for fifteen, thirty minutes at the most,” explained the alicorn (unicorn). “During that time, one of Them will be in this body. You must understand, it will just be a filly. She won’t have any idea what’s going on. Like I said, They don’t know that Equestria is real. She’s going to think that she’s dreaming or hallucinating. Do everything you can to encourage this. We cannot have her realize the power she has over us. That’s why my wings are bound and my horn is corked. The last thing we need is a panicky filly in this body with access to all of my powers.”

Alright, this is going to happen really quickly. Pinkamena, I need you to stay here and take over as narrator. Tell the readers everything that happens in Room 78.

Where are you going?

I’m going to follow Tia (Vinyl) to wherever she ends up. Although I have a pretty good guess where it’s going to be.

But why can’t I go with you?

Because I can’t have the readers following me. There are some things even they (They-1, not They-2—stay with me, people!) aren’t allowed to know.

Where are you going, anyway?

...Change places!

Again? Oof...argh...Pinkie, what have you done with this place? You were only here for five minutes, and already this hemisphere is like a pigsty! Now I’m going to have to vacuum up all of your crumbs.

Oops.

“Alright, so what do I do?” asked Steiny (Twilight).

“Press the button,” replied Tia (Vinyl).

“Which one?”

“The one that looks like it’ll end the world if you press it.”

“The red, candy-like button?”

“That’s the one.”

*BEEP!*

*Whiiiiirrrrrrr.....*

WHAM!

Part Three: Room 78

Masquerade

Part Three: Room 78

Um, Pinkamena here. But of course you already know that.

(Stupid! So stupid!)

So I don’t really know if anypony is actually reading this, or if Pinkie Pie’s playing an elaborate joke at my expense.

(As all of my so-called friends so often love to do...)

I’m also not quite sure what you look like. Pinkie Pie showed you to me twice, and you had a completely different appearance the second time.

I’m going to assume you’re the ones with the hands, because frankly, the ones with the tentacles creep me out.

So here we are, in Room 78. Princess Celestia is lying in the remains of what was once a quite nice couch. The mechanism of the...device is slowly resetting itself.

(I refuse to call it by the ridiculous name Pinkie Pie gave it. There is no way that it is a clown hammer!)

Waking Terror and Professor Stein walked into the circle from opposite sides, and knelt down to be on each side of the alicorn, who almost immediately began to wake up.

“Wha...what happened?” she said, her eyes still shut. This isn’t some cheap horror movie, so she was obviously speaking in Princess Celestia’s voice, but at the same time the diction was different. It was like she was doing an impression. Of a very intelligent, newly-cutied filly, perhaps?

(And yes, Pinkie has shown me cheap horror movies. That mare has no self-restraint when it comes to satisfying her whims to experience anything and everything, as well as no apparent long-term memory to be traumatized by any of them. But let me tell you this: I remember all of the idiotic things she has done, and the emotional scars cut to the bone.)

We appear to have here a problem with names. Pinkie Pie resolved this with copious use of parentheses, but now we have an element of the unknown, namely who is currently possessing Princess Celestia’s body.

For the immediate future, let us adopt the following contradictory standard: When I say “Princess Celestia”, I mean the being who looks like Princess Celestia but in fact is the new mystery character, while when I say “Twilight Sparkle” I am referring to the being with the mind of Twilight Sparkle but the physical appearance of Professor Stein. Remember that at this moment nobody in Equestria knows that Stein is actually Twilight.

“It’s OK,” Twilight said soothingly to the Princess, as she ran a hoof through her mane.

“Ow, my head...” Celestia said, trying to reach the back of her head with one hoof.

Twilight gently reached forward and grabbed the moving leg near the fetlock and brought it forward. This was in hopes of delaying the inevitable realization for a few seconds longer. Twilight made a conscious effort not to use her magic as she did this.

“You appear to have...blacked out?” said Miss Terror, watching the scene between the alicorn and unicorn with some trepidation. She was desperately trying to think of things to say that did not reveal the true situation, things that somepony finding a member of their own, possibly non-pony species, overwhelmed by hallucinations of imaginary creatures, would say.

Twilight nodded in approval at Miss Terror’s words. “Yes, and we are here to help you.”

“Hmm...thank you,” said Celestia in a relaxed voice. Her eyes fluttered open, but appeared to be out of focus, as her eyelids began lazily winking out of sync of each other.

Miss Terror, wanting to delay the moment when those eyes came into focus as long as possible, waved a claw out of the sight of the alicorn, causing the wall Celestia was looking at to glow an uncomfortably bright white.

“Aaaa...” Celestia groaned in annoyance. She tried to cover one eye with a hoof, and only succeeded in bonking her face rather hard.

Twilight winced.

Celestia tried to focus on the appendage right in front of her. When she found that it was too close (and her eyes were still not completely functional), she lowered it, and focused instead on Twilight.

Twilight grinned nervously.

“Aaahh!” Celestia exclaimed, pointing at her with a hoof. “You’re a pony!”

“I am?” asked Twilight. Technically, she wasn’t lying yet.

Yet.

Celestia swiveled her head, and pointed excitedly at Miss Terror with her other forehoof. “And you’re a dragon!”

“Really!” exclaimed Miss Terror with a raised eyebrow. “Is that what you see me as?”

This wasn’t quite as much of an equivocation as Twilight’s reaction, because Miss Terror was in fact not a dragon. She just looked like one. In reality, she was a Nightmare, a spirit sent by the Supreme Will to corrupt Princess Celestia as her sister eventually succeeded in corrupting Princess Luna. But in this case the elder alicorn had the sad example of her younger sister’s corruption to warn her of what was going to happen, and she succeeded in befriending the Nightmare instead. Now Miss Terror fought willingly beside the Princess and against the Supreme Will or, as he is known today, the Dragon Emperor.

Wait, Pinkie said I didn’t need to tell you any of this. I’ve completely lost you now, haven’t I?

I’m the worst narrator ever. [Sigh.]

“Yes!” Celestia proclaimed triumphantly, rising unsteadily to her hooves. “I tricked the Princess into trading places with me! You’re Waking Terror, and you’re...Celestia’s boyfriend. I forget the name.”

“That went well,” commented Twilight with every smidgen of sarcasm available to her. “Give me a second to think of another plan.”

“How’s this for a plan?” said Miss Terror with a glint in her eye, as she walked over to the wall with the red button. “I press this button, and turn both of you into jelly!”

Um...ew.

“What?!” demanded Twilight. Both Celestia and Twilight tried to move, but found themselves immobilized by Miss Terror’s magic.

“That body can’t take two strikes in quick succession,” explained the dragon. “It will be destroyed, and this interloper will die.”

“And what about Celestia?!”

Miss Terror rolled her eyes. “Twilight, surely you know by now that alicorns can reconstitute their bodies at will.”

“How did...?” Twilight began to demand at the use of her true name, but quickly changed tactics. “Why?”

“Why?” the baby dragon asked incredulously, trying to reach up towards a button that was mounted too high on the wall for her. “Don’t you realize what this being is responsible for? As a main character, she wrote your backstory! Every time you were teased, every time your parents told you you were worthless, every tear to run down your cheeks at an uncaring world—they were all her fault!”

Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it? All my misery is this jerk’s fault!

“And look at you now!” Miss Terror continued. “Trapped inside the body of a lunatic—that’s her doing as well!”

Yeah!

What a deespicable development!

And not just us! Think of Fluttershy and her traumas! And Twilight—she’s the most messed-up pony of any of us!

Squishin’s too good for her!

What a total rotter!

The red button moved down the wall to make it easier for Miss Terror to push it.

Pushit!Pushit!

“Well, this went south quickly,” Twilight remarked to nopony in particular. She then took in a big breath and let it out quickly. “First thing’s first. Waking Terror, I was just wondering: how does it feel to be under the control of the Supreme Will once more?”

Miss Terror’s eyes went wide, and then she screamed and began banging on her head with her balled-up claws. “Get out! Get out, get out, get out!”

One hand shot out towards the button, out of Miss Terror’s conscious control.

She responded by teleporting to the other end of the room. (Teleportation was a sort of specialty of hers.)

The part of her controlled by the current owner of the title of “Supreme Will” teleported her back to the button.

She began popping from one part of the room to another in rapid succession, screaming in defiance the entire time.

Twilight then directed a pair of doe eyes at the ceiling. She forgot that she was currently in the body of a stallion, so this ploy failed utterly.

“Pinkamena, that’s you in charge, isn’t it?” she asked sweetly.

OK, I suppose even as a stallion, that’s kinda cute.

(In the background, Celestia could be heard crying out, “Pinkamena’s in charge when Celestia’s away? We’re all doomed! Doomed, I tell you! Dooooooooomed!”)

“I’m your friend, aren’t I?” Twilight continued. “When you introduced yourself to me, I didn’t run away, and I didn’t demand you bring Pinkie Pie back. I wanted to know you for your own sake. I wanted to be friends with you and her.”

Well, that is true.

Whose side are you on, anyway?

Oh hush, Mr. Turnip. Twilight’s the only one who got both of us presents on our birthday. That cube of calcite was the nicest thing that anypony’s ever given me.

Well alright, that Twilight broad can live. But the jerk’s got to be jellified!

Twilight, discovering that her paralysis was gone, stood up, but refused to leave Celestia’s side. “Now I suppose you have some cause to be mad at this poor misguided individual...”

“I’ll change!” pleaded Celestia. “I’ll completely turn around the campaign. Everypony will be happy all of the time!”

You’ll do WHAT?

Twilight blanched, and waved two hooves in warning. “Not a good idea! Not a good idea!”

“Oh...right,” said Celestia. “Well I’ll definitely do what I can to make things better. I couldn’t possibly treat you all the way I was, now that I know that you’re real. What do you think?”

“Aha! Control is mine!” proclaimed the mind-controlled Miss Terror. She swatted triumphantly at the red candy-like button...

Only to discover that I had turned it into a literal candy button. It cracked into pieces and fell to the ground.

In shock at this development, the Dragon Emperor’s mind was easily shoved aside by Miss Terror, but not for long, causing the mental battle to start anew.

“GET OUT AND STAY OUT!!!” And, saying this, Miss Terror blew a big ball of white hot fire into her claws, and plunged her whole head right into it, keeping her sensitive eyes open.

She screamed in the utmost agony for ten seconds, and then with a “BING!” the fireball went out, and Miss Terror sighed in relief. “Much better,” she proclaimed to herself.

Yes, mind-cleansing fireballs operate exactly like microwave ovens. I bet you didn’t know that.

While this was going on, a piece of lined paper suddenly materialized in front of Twilight.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Celestia exclaimed. Discovering that she could now move, she turned to confront the unicorn.

Twilight looked over the page carefully to confirm that it did indeed reveal where Princess Luna was being held hostage. “Considering that this is the entire reason why you got into this near-death experience in the first place...” she began.

“Yeah, alright, you can have it,” the alicorn grumbled.

“Great!” exclaimed Twilight, walking over to join Miss Terror. “Vinyl and the real Princess Celestia should be back here any second now, so that leaves only one thing to take care of. Pinkamena, haven’t you wondered why this particular adventure has been so very strange?”

Well, yeah, the thought had occurred to me.

“How do you know how long to wait for the voice we can’t hear to respond?” Miss Terror whispered to Twilight.

“I dunno. I’m kinda playing this by ear.” She then looked back up at the ceiling. “Well, I’ve got an explanation, if you’re willing to entertain it.”

Sure, why not.

“You’re dreaming. Both you, and Pinkie Pie, are dreaming. I mean, answer me this: do you remember what you were doing before Vinyl and I met? Cecil had just blind-teleported us to meet with the Dragon Emperor. Where did you end up?”

That’s a good question.

“Of course!” exclaimed Celestia. “This isn’t real—it’s all a dream! Stupid conscience, trying to make me feel guilty for giving Pinkie Pie an interesting backstory!”

The red candy button suddenly put itself back together again and turned back into a real button.

Twilight executed an epic face-hoof.

Luckily for the jerk, the universe has an impeccable sense of timing, because at that moment there was a huge flash of light, and Vinyl Scratch took over Princess Celestia’s body, putting the jerk back in her jerk body back on Jerkworld. Standing beside her was...

Pinkie Pie?

“Yup, in the flesh!”

What are you doing down there?

“You’re never going to believe this, but we’re in the middle of a dream! And not just any dream, but a nasty Dragon Emperor–sponsored dream. And nopony ever wants to buy his products!”

[Sigh.] Whatever. Just get this over with.

“My pleasure! I will bring this tale to its conclusion by uttering the two magic words...

THE END

There, all done! Now there’s no reason to wonder where Vinyl and I went to!

Um, I didn’t think that last sentence out loud, did I?

Part Four: Second Edition

Masquerade

Part Four: Second Edition

Are you sure you really want to know what happened to Vinyl? Because you are going to regret it.

You really, really, really sure?

Really?

OK. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’ll, um, I’ll try to keep my comments out of this.

~ ~ ~

I'll stop the world and melt with you.
You've seen the difference and
It's getting better all the time.
There's nothing you and I won't do.
I'll stop the world and melt with you.

The song was sung by a confident mare, backed by a New Wave band. No, wait, not a mare, thought Vinyl Scratch. One of the tricks she had picked up to help cover up for her blindness was an ability to identify species and even breed by the timbre of somepony’s voice. This wasn’t a pony singing. It wasn’t a griffon, a dragon (with their uniquely resonating singing voices), a cow, or a Nightmare. She had heard this type of voice in only one setting in her life: coming out of the speakers when a pony played an Ancient CD.

She hoped to Celestia that this was just a pony playing an Ancient CD.

As Vinyl Scratch regained consciousness, it felt like her whole body had been forced through a pasta machine. She was sore all over, but especially on the back of her head. Her muzzle felt numb, while her hooves felt like they were on fire, or something that provided just as much insane sensory feedback as fire, but without the pain.

“Are you alright?” asked the voice of a young filly to her left.

It was the voice of an Ancient.

Horseapples, thought Vinyl.

She decided to keep her eyes closed while she decided what to do.

Do I still have the Princess’ memories? she asked herself.

The answer to that question was “yes”. They revealed that the Ancients were in control of the whole of Equestria without having a clue that this control was anything other than a game.

What else did you expect?

She risked opening one eye.

She was in a rectangular room. The ceiling was covered with plaster. The walls, too, but the ceiling was her primary focus, as it appeared that she was on her back.

Gingerly, she raised a hoof to her face. Only it wasn’t a hoof, it was a hand. The hand of an Ancient.

Of course, she told herself. I’m a DJ, impersonating a princess, impersonating an Ancient. Sure, I can keep track of that.

She was surrounded by Ancients that towered over her and gazed upon her. Their faces were so alien to her that she could not tell what emotions they were expressing (plus there was the whole “I’ve only been able to see for less than a day now” business). But if she didn’t act fast, any goodwill they might have for the Ancient she was pretending to be could swiftly turn to vengeance at the spy in their midst.

She found a certain script in Celestia’s well-filed memories, a way of establishing that obviously she wasn’t a pony sneaking around in an Ancient’s body.

“Ow,” ran the first line of this script, so Vinyl said it.

I am totally not making this up.

This was followed by a stage direction: [Sit upright, rubbing whatever part of your anatomy you landed on.] In Vinyl’s case, this appeared to be the back of her head. So she did so. She had to restrain herself from crying out at the discovery of how very different it felt to put a hand through a mane compared to a hoof.

It turned out that Ancients, unlike ponies not named Lyra, had an automatic setting for sitting upright. Once she reached that position, she didn’t even have to think about it anymore.

“I’m OK, I’m OK,” said Vinyl, reciting the next line in the script. This caused the figures around her to back away slightly.

Now the final part, which was apparently the most important, was a pair of spoken lines, neither of which really made much sense.

“Let’s take a break,” said Vinyl. “Oh, and could some...body get me a Dr Pepper?”

The script had put a big red circle around that crucial word “somebody”, with the note, “Don’t say ‘pony’. EVER!”

A few seconds passed, seeming eternities when Vinyl was certain that she would crack under the pressure and reveal all. This was accompanied by a vision of spending the rest of her life stuck in the body of an Ancient in an insane asylum, trying in vain to convince anybody that would listen that she was a pony. There were dozens of other inmates in this fantasy asylum, and each of them thought they were a different pony. They would have knife fights on Sunday evenings to determine who got to be “best pony” for the following week. Fluttershy always won. She fought dirty.

“Yeah, alright Elle,” one of the Ancients said, in a voice suspiciously similar to Applejack’s Manehattan accent. “Don’t get up too fast.”

Now that the Ancients’ stares of doom were no longer boring into her head, Vinyl could finally take in her surroundings. She was sitting in an overturned chair. In front of the chair was a table, and on that table was a cardboard stand of some sort and some books.

Vinyl crawled off of the chair and rose to her knees. She stared at the toppled chair, trying to right it with her magic, but of course she had no magic as an Ancient. She then fell back on using her hands to pick up the chair, and was surprised at how easy this was to her.

Vinyl’s head was still reeling, so she took a moment to listen as a new song began playing from whatever mysterious source the other one had come from:

Been running so long
I've nearly lost all track of time.
In every direction,
I couldn't see the warning signs.
I must be losin' it,
'Cause my mind plays tricks on me.
It looked so easy,
But you know, looks sometimes deceive.

Been running so fast,
Right from the starting line.
No more connections,
I don't need any more advice.
One hoof's just reaching out
And one's just hangin' on.
It seems my weaknesses
Just keep going strong.

She may not have heard all the words the quartet of male voices were singing correctly.

Looking around, Vinyl could see an Ancient rummaging around in a refrigerator, confirming that she was in a dining room adjacent to a kitchen. Partially separating the two rooms from each other was a waist-high cabinet, with a trio of barstools on the dining room side. Sitting in one of them was an Ancient foal colt, dark-skinned and with a dark mane. He was wearing an orange shirt and blue jeans.

“Aw, this game is lame!” he exclaimed. “The PH’s been doing nothing but playing NPC’s all day! When do you gals even get to do anything?”

“Chill out, squirt,” said a cutie-age filly with a short jet black mane and copper skin. She was wearing a pale blue t-shirt, and in a corner of the shirt was a dark blue emblem with the words “Blue Angels” written upon it in the Ancient alphabet.

“Don’t call me squirt!” the colt protested. “And this game is lame! You ought to be playing Call of Cthulhu. That game’s awesome!”

Head over hooves,
Where should I go?
Can't stop myself,
Out of control.
Head over hooves,
No time to think.
It's like the whole world's
Out of sync.

~ ~ ~

The Ancients were bipeds. If Vinyl Scratch could sit like them, she ought to be able to stand like them. Bracing herself on the upright chair, she slowly raised herself up, and immediately felt herself start to fall. She quickly repositioned herself and fell into the chair in a sitting posture.

She carefully searched her mind. Unlike with Celestia, she was unable to discover any memories of the Ancient whose body she now inhabited. All she had was the name she had been called: Elle. Vinyl brushed a strand of red mane out of her eyes in frustration, and then noticed how natural this motion came to her. She suspected that she at least had some sort of muscle memory of how to operate this body, much like how she automatically knew how to see when in a seeing pony’s dream.

Been running so long,
When what I need is to unwind.
The voice of reason
Is one I left so far behind.
I waited so long,
So long to play this part.
And just remembered
That I'd forgotten about my heart.

Head over hooves,
Where should I go? ...

~ ~ ~

“Eh, Call of Cthulhu is overrated,” said a voice from the other side of the cardboard screen. Vinyl raised her head to see another cutie-aged filly, sitting in a chair on one side of the dining room. Her skin was nearly white, and her mane was a wavy strawberry blonde, with a streak dyed a brilliant pink used to try to cover up the tourniquet that was secured around her head. She was intently studying a large hardcover book and marking it up with a yellow highlighter marker. On her white t-shirt was a hand-painted reproduction of the packaging for a mass-produced pastry product known as a “Pop Tart”.

“‘That is not dead which can eternal lie,’” quoted the colt, “‘and with strange aeons even death may die.’ Doesn’t that just give you the shivers?”

The sitting filly put down the book, revealing its name to be Rulebook for Toon: The Cartoon Roleplaying Game. “Howie was a bright gal,” she said with a frown, “but she really never got the fact that gods don’t sleep that way.”

“‘Howie’,” said the incredulous filly who had been using the refrigerator a moment earlier. She placed a clear glass filled with a black bubbling concoction on the table right in front of Vinyl, but her eyes were on the blonde. “Diana, are you saying that you knew H. P. Lovecraft?”

“Well, I, err...that would make me how old?” fumbled the filly named Diana, before making up her mind. “No, of course not, Sarah! That would be silly. It’s just a general impression, you know?”

Sarah sat down wearily. “Oh, I know, Diana. I know far too well.” Sarah rather strongly resembled an older female version of “the squirt.” She wore a pale lavender blouse. Sarah picked up a newspaper and started idly flipping through it. Vinyl managed to catch the headline: President Davis and First Man Ronald Leave for International Summit.

Vinyl looked down warily at the odd substance this Sarah Ancient had presented to her—apparently the mysterious “Dr Pepper”. Maybe it was a cure for headaches. On the other hand, maybe it was hotter than Pinkie’s hot sauce. For a moment, she didn’t even know how to drink it—it was in a glass too narrow to pick up with her lips, and it lacked a straw. She gave a worried look at her new hands, deducing that they were probably required for this operation. Carefully, she brought the two appendages up to either side of the glass, squeezed them together, and lifted. The glass wobbled up towards her mouth and she was finally able to get a sip before she got it back down, miraculously without spilling a drop. It didn’t taste too bad, as a matter of fact.

The title of Diana’s book got Vinyl interested in the pile of books next to her. The title of the top book was Ponies & Dragons 2nd Edition: Pony Handler’s Guide, by Mary Jo Powell. The cover illustration was very familiar: it depicted Nightmare Moon at the Ponyville Town Hall, cackling about how the night would last forever.

Vinyl Scratch nervously pushed that book aside, taking another sip of the Dr Pepper without thinking about it. The next book down was identical to one that was available to the Ancients on the other side of the screen: Ponies & Dragons 2nd Edition: Player’s Handbook, by Mary Jo and Gary G. Powell. The cover of this book showed a unicorn royal guard and a pegasus royal guard working together to fight off an ambush by a pack of Diamond Dogs.

The third and fourth books were both The Equestrian Handbook, also by Mary Jo Powell. One of them was 1st Edition, and the other was 2nd Edition. The 1st Edition book was illustrated with a somewhat pink Princess Celestia staring down an adolescent dragon as a band of pony warriors from the Dark Ages looked on in awe. The second edition showed a more familiar Princess Celestia performing the Raising of the Sun ceremony in Canterlot before a crowd of astonished ponies.

Vinyl turned both books over to compare their advertising blurbs. Here was the text of the 1st Edition:

An era of peace and harmony comes to an end as the Princess of the Night is corrupted by the forces of Nightmare! The Realm of Equestria is rent by civil war, as Nightmare Moon recruits her army of conquest! The war is long and hard-fought, but eventually the forces of Good prevail, and the Nightmare is banished forevermore...

...leaving Equestria in tatters. The Princess of the Day, overcome with grief over what her sister has become, has abandoned the ponies to their fate. Crime and lawlessness cover the land. Monsters have risen up to terrorize the population. It is a time of fear. It is a time of desperation. It is a time...for Heroes.

~ ~ ~

The memories of Celestia had quite a few corrections to that description of the Dark Ages, especially the accusation of abandonment. But in far too many respects, it was essentially correct. In fact it was rather the ponies who turned away from Celestia rather than the reverse. They refused her help, refused anything from her other than the regular cycle of day and night, summer and winter, and set out to rule themselves, with disastrous results for the first few decades. Eventually, the ponies returned to Celestia, and she came once again to be their princess. But before that time, it was indeed an age of heroines.

Vinyl turned to the 2nd Edition blurb, set a thousand years later:

Forgotten for a millennium, Nightmare Moon has returned to a peaceful Equestria, hungry for vengeance!

~ ~ ~

The copywriter’s appetite for hyperbole was apparently still intact. The text that followed quickly got past the defeat of Nightmare Moon, and essentially described the setting of Equestria as it was before the Second Great War.

The date of the 1st Edition book was 1974, in whatever dating system the Ancients used, while the 2nd Edition was dated 1984. Ten years, thought Vinyl, to cover a thousand years of Equestrian history. What will my world be like in the Year 2000?

Vinyl idly paged through tables of combat probabilities and professions, and past cold descriptions of life-or-death scenarios, a shopping list for sadism on a global scale. So this is it, then? Vinyl thought to herself. I guess those nuts in the asylum were right: somepony is jerking us around like puppets on a string.

She took a quick mental survey of the Ancients sitting around the table. The identifications were made even more obvious by the hand-painted pony figurines placed in front of each of them:

Twilight Sparkle’s puppeteer, Sarah, was playing with a small electronic device. Vinyl thought it was some kind of game, considering how much enjoyment she got out of it, but I know better: it was a TI-30 scientific calculator. Sarah also controlled Spike (the expected figurine replaced by a dragon drawn on a cardboard square held up by a stand, because dragons were not supposed to be an acceptable character race), which did a lot to explain why the poor dragon always had such a rough time of it.

The filly in the blue shirt (controlling Rainbow Dash) and the filly who had called her “Elle” (controlling Applejack and wearing a checkered orange shirt) were engaged in an argument in hushed voices, with much use of poking each other in the shoulder with their fingers. Possibly a slightly-less rude gesture than the equivalent move with hooves, considering how tiny fingertips were, thought Vinyl. In a little cardboard box next to the second filly was a box containing the rest of the Apple clan, all jumbled together.

Fluttershy’s puppeteer shared two traits with Fluttershy herself: freakishly large eyes, and the ability to turn invisible when you’re not staring right at her. As a result, it was nearly impossible to discern any other descriptive traits from her.

Rarity’s pale-skinned handler, her blouse all frilly and her dark hair perfectly arranged, was busy studying a magazine. Not, as Vinyl expected, a fashion magazine, but Billboard, a periodical devoted to the business of music.

That’s when Vinyl Scratch saw it. Like Sarah, Rarity’s puppeteer played an additional character, and I’m not talking about Sweetie Belle. Standing side-by-side next to the Rarity figurine was a little pewter representation...of Vinyl Scratch.

That was the moment when Vinyl nearly flipped the table. This was taking things too far, way too far. It was just sick how much this explained. Vinyl had always known Rarity like a sister, despite the fact that they hadn’t been introduced until the first day of school. No matter how much Rarity had tried to hide some of her more humiliating secrets, Vinyl had already known. She knew...because that prim and proper Ancient over there sucked at the most-basic rule of role-playing: Keep your Nightmare-cursed characters separate from each other in your mind! Vinyl felt like her brains had liquefied and were draining out of her earholes. Her only possible defense was to pretend she hadn’t seen what she had just seen and force her gaze to move on. She most certainly didn’t notice when Diana produced an Octavia figure and started playing “kissy-face” with the pewter DJ.

And that brings us to Diana, Pinkie Pie’s puppeteer. Unlike the others, her pewter figurine was absolutely accurate, probably because she cast it herself. She was eating from a bag of popcorn, popping each kernel into the air with a flick of a thumb and expertly catching it in her mouth. Wait, Vinyl wondered, when did she get the popcorn?

That was all of them, the entire cast of puppeteers, except for the Ancient she was occupying. But Elle was the greatest puppeteer of all, because as the rulebooks before Vinyl made clear, she was responsible for playing everypony else in Equestria, Even the Princess is one of her puppets, Vinyl Scratch thought in despair. Why bother to do anything with your life if that’s true?

She heard the mental voice of DJ Pon-3 laughing in derision at her.

Getting the joke, she rolled her eyes. It could be as bad as all that, she decided, or...I could come to my senses and realize that this is a Pinkie Pie dream. After all, she and the others knew enough about the Ancients from that mysterious visit of theirs for her to imagine this whole scenario. Now I just need to talk to...

“Gah!” Vinyl exclaimed, on seeing the Ancient named Diana peering at her curiously over the cardboard screen.

Diana said nothing, merely tapping a finger on a piece of paper that was next to Vinyl. At the top of the page, in wild hoofwriting, was the phrase “Plan #8: Kidnap Luna! This has to work!!!”

“Enjoying the trip so far...Vinyl?” Diana asked quietly with a smirk. She produced a large glass ashtray from seemingly nowhere and placed it next to the page.

For the moment, Vinyl failed to notice how she had been addressed and only noticed Diana’s actions. With a quick flick of her left hand, Vinyl caused the pack of magical matches to materialize. She swiftly crumpled up the page, put it in the ashtray, and then lit it with one of the matches. The paper was converted into green smoke, which was then sucked through a pinhole-sized spot in the air into nothingness.

“Why are you helping?” Vinyl said in a near-whisper.

“Are you kidding?!” Diana replied in a wide grin. “I live for stuff like this. Making the Lords of Creation face-hoof at your antics is the best game ever!”

“Diana, you are so random!” exclaimed Blue Shirt.

Vinyl noticed the use of the word “hoof” instead of hand. And that’s when she recalled the name Diana had addressed her as. Diana knew that she was Vinyl Scratch.

That made no sense.

It was possible for Diana to think she was Princess Celestia, if this Elle character had confided in her about her mad scheme to hack her way into the alicorn’s mind, but seeing through that to Vinyl was completely impossible. It would require a level of cheating beyond even Princess Celestia. And Vinyl knew only one pony who cheated more than Princess Celestia...

It was time to begin her sales pitch.

Vinyl stood up. Everypony else was staring at them, so she saw no need to maintain the charade.

She gestured around at the very ordinary room they were in. “Not exactly up to your standards, is it, Pinkie?” she asked nonchalantly.

What’s that supposed to mean? “You’re taking this rather well,” I replied.

“So monochromatic,” Vinyl replied. “Where’s the melting ponies? Where’s the pencil with your head for an eraser? The giant bucket of oatmeal that everypony fails to notice? All of this makes way too much sense.”

What? “I don’t get it,” I said nervously, hoping desperately that she wasn’t implying what I think she was implying.

“You’re dreaming, Pinkie.”

She was implying what I thought she was implying! I slumped down to the ground, utterly defeated. “You’re not supposed to be able to figure it out!” I cried out in protest. “I’m just supposed to be a normal pony! But now you know, and I suppose you want to set me up as your Judge. Never again! I’d sooner leave this uni—” I stopped when I realized that Vinyl had been talking the whole time.

“—help Twilight to get us through the other dreams,” she said, “where...what are you talking about?”

Oh. Oh! Cecil’s spell! Dragon Emperor death trap. That dream.

Sure, I can wake up from that dream. No problem! I just need a big enough clown hammer, and I just happen to know where one is!

Epilogue, Credits and Acknowledgements

Masquerade

Epilogue

Three ponies popped into existence in Cecil’s room. Twilight Sparkle and Vinyl Scratch appeared to be their normal selves, but Pinkie Pie was completely silent, with her head bowed. It looked like she was awaiting judgment.

“Well, that was, um...interesting,” commented Twilight.

“Aw, horsefeathers!” exclaimed Vinyl Scratch. “I can’t remember any of the jaw-dropping secrets I picked up from the Princess’ memories!”

“Wait, you don’t remember everything that happened?” Pinkie asked hopefully.

“You made your dream too complicated, Pinkie,” Vinyl exclaimed. “I don’t even really...remember what happened after the ‘wham’.”

Pinkie Pie smiled really, really wide. “There was a melted pony, and a pencil with my face for an eraser, and a non sequitur bucket of oatmeal, and then you convinced me to wake up, and that’s all there was!”

“Oatmeal?” asked Vinyl and Twilight in unison. “Are you crazy?!”

Somehow, it felt like about a hundred other ponies said that line at the exact same moment.

Credits and Acknowledgements

Alright, boys and girls, this is going to be a long one:

Thanks once again to my editor, Burraku_Pansa.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is copyright Hasbro, with extra credit given to L. Faust for the specifics of the series. The characters of Vinyl Scratch (aka DJ Pon-3), Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie/Pinkamena Diane Pie, Princess Celestia and Luna, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Sweetie Belle, Octavia, the locations of Equestria, Canterlot, Manehattan and Ponyville, and the concepts of the Nightmare, the Elements of Harmony and Daring Do are taken from that source, with any distortions of interpretation being entirely my fault. Winnychester is a fan creation. The characters of Cecil, Professor Stein, Waking Terror, Dragon Emperors Reznicek and Vasilyevich (and The Supreme Will) and the dragon composer Kravitz are my creations, as is Castle By the Sea and the role-playing game Ponies & Dragons (hmm...well, my version of it, anyway) and The Equestrian Handbook, and also the concept of the Dream Trap Chain (for what it’s worth).

There is a reference in this story to the episode “Feeling Pinkie Keen”, written by Dave Polsky (“The time you investigated the Pinkie Sense, and the universe decided to get back at you.”) The timeless quote “Oatmeal, are you crazy?” is from “The Ticket Masters”, written by Amy Keating Rogers and Lauren Faust.

The waltz in Part One is indeed from Masquerade, composed by Aram Khachaturian (the play was written by Mikhail Lermontov). The actual play’s plot is not that far off from what I’ve described, at least as far as back-stabbing goes, and the doomed main character is indeed named Prince Arbenin. The version that Khachaturian scored was a blatant propaganda piece designed to justify the Russian Revolution by showing all aristocrats as hopelessly corrupt. When I was younger, I liked to imagine scenes to go with my favorite pieces of Classical music, and my scenario for the Waltz was essentially what I put in this story, just with Rasputin instead of Jester Reznicek.

“There can only be one!” — Highlander (link to a slightly over-the-top scene from the 1986 movie).

“Maybe Vinyl Scratch was a puppeteer ... under the New Jonzey Turnpike.” — Being John Malkovich (“It’s my head!”)

“How the Sun works” — I’ll let They Might Be Giants handle this one.

“How Ponyville was founded” — Yeah, I’m linkin’ to the “Family Appreciation Day” episode.

“What happened to Winnychester” — Winnychester is one fan name given to the old capital of the Royal Ponyville Sisters (today known as the Everfree Forest).

“The recipe for the perfect pumpkin bread.” — Not to be biased, but my sister’s recipe rocks.

“Where the Griffon’s Goblet is resting” — Refers to the title of the second Daring Do book.

“In me power!” — There was a time when mustache-twirling villains actually said this—see?

“...wing-dingy! Looney-tooney! And Oofty McGoofty.” — Quote from the 1937 Warner Bros. cartoon “Daffy Duck and Egghead”, directed by Tex Avery (the quote’s 6:47 into the cartoon).

“Adamantine” — A nice fancy word for unbreakable. I’m specifically going with the Dungeons & Dragons definition of the term, where it refers to a rare metal said to come from meteorites that is proof against magic.

“Room 78” — No significance whatsoever. (I knew somebody was going to ask.)

“Clown hammer” — Sometimes a clown hammer is just a clown hammer.

“That’s logic!” — Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

“Cork” — The name is mine, but the magic-blocking substance is the invention of Sagebrush, in his fanfic “In Her Majesty’s Royal Service”.

The Cat in the Hat — 1957 book by Dr. Seuss.

“Them-3, but those are giant ants” — Them! was a 1954 movie directed by Gordon Douglas.

“Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Story” — joke ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones).

“Change places!” — Alice in Wonderland (1865, Lewis Carroll) (yeah, and Futurama...)

“The red, candy-like button” — “Space Madness” episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991, directed by John Kricfalusi)—I hear it erases history.

“Stupid! So stupid!” — Not sure if I was the only one thinking “Wheel of Fish” here...

“Doomed I tell you!” — This series has all of the best lines.

“I Melt with You” (1982 song by Modern English; note that it’s a male group in our world, so here’s a version by Nouvelle Vague)

Dr Pepper — They sort of make themselves, so no copyright notice is necessary.

“Head Over Heels” (1984 song by The Go-Go’s, a female group; here’s a cover by Robert Chestnut). I always loved this song growing up. Reading the lyrics now, they just perfectly fit my characterizations of Pinkie/Pinkamena, plus the scenario Vinyl’s in.

“I’m totally not making this up.” — I’m pretty sure Dave Barry has exclusive ownership of this phrase.

“The PH’s been doing nothing but playing NPC’s all day!” — “PH” is “Pony Handler” (aka “Dungeon Master”) and “NPC” is a term for non-player character, i.e. everybody the PH controls in the game.

Blue Angels — The U.S. Navy’s flight demonstration squadron.

Call of Cthulhu — Role-playing game published by Chaosium (1981), based on the stories of Howard Philip Lovecraft (especially “The Call of Cthulhu”, 1926). The quote “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die” is from that story. “Howie” is the female version of “Howard”.

Pop-Tarts: Product of the Kellogg Company.

Toon: The Cartoon Roleplaying Game — Role-playing game published by Steve Jackson Games, 1984.

“President Davis and First Man Ronald” — That would be Nancy Davis (president of some other United States, 1980 - 1987) and her husband Ronald, bachelor name Reagan.

Ponies & Dragons — Dungeons & Dragons, the archetypical role-playing game, published by TSR in 1974 in its original form, with a 2nd edition in 1981. The significance of 1984 is that it is the year when the original My Little Pony series came out.

Mary Jo Powell, the “M.J.P.” who’s been writing Equestrian Handbook entries for five stories now — Wife of Gary Powell, bachelor name Gygax. On top of all of the Satanic nonsense that has been said about this game, there were also rumors that Gygax and Arneson concocted Dungeons & Dragons under the influence of some extremely-strong mind-altering drugs, powerful enough for them to pick up thoughts of a parallel world. There are whispered stories of why Dungeon Masters must never, never make the dragon goddess Tiamat into an NPC in your sessions, that she’d possess your body and wreak unspeakable damage to your new stereo system.

(That right there is the best, most brilliant Friendship Is Magic emoticon ever created. Yup, I pity the poor foals that have to grow up in a world where the link to that image ever gets broken...)

“The Second Great War” — My name for the conflict started in my fanfic “[Redacted]”.

“TI-30 Scientific Calculator” — A popular product of Texas Instruments from 1976 to 1983.

Billboard — A magazine put out by Prometheus Global Media.

“Melting Ponies” — “Persistence of Memory”, a painting by Salvador Dali (1931).

“Pencil with your head for an eraser” — Disturbing image from Eraserhead by David Lynch (1977).

And that’s all she wrote.