"Hmmm. I'm running out of my secret ingredient again." She tapped a hoof to her chin. "Looks like I hafta draw another one. Now, where did I put that... oh, THERE it is!" The pony bounced over to a large glass fishbowl, filled with slips of paper.
"Wonder who's next." She stuffed her hoof in, fished around for a second, then drew a slip. "Ahhh, number 525. Let's see here..." She turned to a small notebook.
"Uhhh... Ooo, it's HER!" She turned to a shape on her dresser. "Looks like you get to be with your best friend again soon!"
The skull simply stared blankly back, its tiara set at a jaunty angle.
The grey filly grumped as she walked. "i don't see why I have to go help stupid Pinky Pie," she muttered. But her parents had insisted, claiming that the partiholic pony HAD to have Silver Spoon's help and no one else. "I wish Diamond Tiara were here. At least then I'd have someone to laugh with if it gets too boring."
She thought of her pink friend longingly. Diamond had been sent to a high society boarding school ages ago, but she hadn't written back since. Silver worried that Diamond had forgotten about her, or worse, decided she wasn't good enough to hang out with the heir to Filty Rich's marketing empire.
Silver Spoon blinked herself back to the present as Sugar Cube Corner came into view. As she grew near, the door flew open and Pinkie herself bounced out, excited as ever.
"Yay, yay, yay! You're here, you're here, you're here!" The pink pony gushed like a waterfall.
"Uh, yeah, I'm here," Silver felt oddly nervous suddenly. "Um, what did you want my help for, miss Pinkie?"
Pinkie giggled. "Oh, you don't have to call me miss! And I need your help for something very important." She suddenly went shifty-eyed.
The grey filly swallowed nervously. "And what's that?"
Pinkie slipped close to the filly. "I need you to help me..." She straightened up, bright and cheerful as ever. "Make CUPCAKES!"
Silver Spoon blinked. "Cupcakes? That's all? I thought it would be something really dangerous." She laughed shakily.
"Nope, just cupcakes. Now come inside and we'll get started!" Pinkie turned and 'boinged' her way inside, Silver following more sedately.
"Hey, where are Mr. and Mrs. Cake?" The filly glanced around.
"Oh, they took the kids out for the day." Pinkie smiled, carrying a cupcake with blue frosting and rainbow sprinkles. "Here, this is for you!"
"I thought we were making cupcakes, not eating them..." Silver blinked at the confection. It looked delicious.
"Oh, we will make them, but first I want you to try this. It's from my last batch. A recipe Rainbow Dash helped me with." Pinkie's smile stretched wider.
"Okay, then..." Silver took a big bite. The cupcake was sweet and light, with a sharp kick she couldn't place. She finished it quickly.
"Thanks, Pinkie, that was great. "Now what?" Silver blinked, feeling slightly dizzy.
The older pony smiled ever wider. "Now you get to take a little nap."
A faint and groggy "W-wha...?" was all Silver Spoon could manage before she crumpled to the floor.
Silver Spoon groaned. Her whole body was board stiff, and her legs were stretched far too wide. She cracked her eyes open and blinked, but the room stayed blurry. It took her a second to realize her glasses were gone. "Ugh... P-Pinkie? Where are are my glasses? I can't see very well..."
A pink blob stepped directly in front of her and something dropped onto her nose. Pinkie came into focus. "Wow, Diamond Tiara wasn't kidding when she said you were blind as a bat!" The party pony smiled, then stepped aside to reveal the room. "Do you like my decorations?'
"What do you-" Her eyes widened in horror as the room came into view. "Wha-What is all this?" Silver asked, her voice quaking in terror.
Blood. Gore. Stomachs and other organs filled with helium and tied with long blood vessels, making them into macabre party balloons. Intestines, tied together and hung like streamers around the room. In the corner, a banner made from hides; it read, "LIFE'S A PARTY!"
"P-P-Pinkie?" Silver's heart began to race with adrenalin. "I th-thought we were just making c-cupcakes!"
"Oh, dont worry, we are." Pinkie flashed her classic grin. "You get to help me with the most important ingredient!"
"O-oh? Wh-what's that?" Silver tried to move, but was held tight. She looked around and saw she was strapped to a steel table, set so she was upright." Why am I tied down?" Her voice grew more frantic." W-wouldnt I be more h-helpful if I wasn't tied down?"
"Of course not, silly!" Pinkie laughed. "I can't get my secret ingredient if you're running around!"
"What do you mean?" Silver Spoon's voice shrilled. "Wh-what's the secret ingredient?"
"You are." Pinkie grinned again, before suddenly frowning. "Oh, horsefeathers. I knew I forgot something. Don't go away!" Pinkie trotted off, laughing at her own joke.
Silver Spoon was alone with her terror. Suddenly she noticed another form in the room. After a moment she realized who it was.
"Rainbow Dash! Oh, thank Celestia, I'm saved! Quick, untie me and lets get moving!" But the pegasus didn't move. "Rainbow? Please, help me!" Still, nothing.
There were sounds from the staircase again. Pinkie poked her head round the corner. "Ooo, talking to Dashie? She won't answer, you know. She's been real quiet since she had her turn." Pinkie juggled the object in her hooves and turned on a desk lamp near Dash.
Silver Spoon screamed. It was Rainbow Dash, alright, but she was obviously dead. She'd been stitched together. Glass eyes stared blankly. Where her cutie mark should have been, darker fur rested, with a roughly painted version of the rainbow bolt. The worst, though, was that Dash's mouth was stretched into a horrifying smile.
Pinkie set the object on a nearby table. "Now I just gotta get my tools. Why don't you say hi?" She trotted across the room. Silver looked at the table. and let out a sobbing scream.
It was Diamond Tiara. Or, at least, her head. Her pink hide clung to her skull. Her eyes were sewn shut. and her mouth was stretched into that same terrible smile.
"How? her parents- they sent her to boarding school!" The filly's eyes were blurring again, this time from her tears. She sobbed in sheer terror. She now knew why Pinkie had asked for her help.
"It was easy, really." Pinkie tugged a covered table over to where the frightened pony trembled. "All I did was send a letter to the school pretending to be Mrs. Rich, and said I changed my mind about sending her."
Silver noticed Pinkie's attire now: a cape of multi-colored pegasus wings; a necklace made of severed unicorn horns; and a dress made from patches of hide sewn together. Each patch bore a real cutie mark. She could see her dearest friend's mark, just above where Pinkie's would be.
"Then I wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Rich as Diamond Tiara, claiming how happy she was, and how much work she had." She picked up the skull and started mimicking Diamond's voice. "'Oh, mom and dad, I'm having so much fun! I'm gonna be SOOO busy, I won't be writing much!' Her parents ate it up."
Pinkie set the skull back down and studied the frightened filly. "You know," pinkie tapped her chin with her hoof, "I always thought your hair was absolutely gorgeous."
Silver blinked at the sudden change of subject. "M-my hair?"
"Uh-huh. Seems a shame to make it so yucky with blood and stuff." Pinkie tapped her chin again. "I think I'll keep it for myself." She trotted across the room and dug through a large trunk for a moment before unearthing an electric hair trimmer.
"First, let's get your hair all together!" She gather Silver's mane up in a tight ponytail, then shaved it off in one quick motion. Silver whimpered as the mare did the same with the filly's tail.
"There!" Pinkie held up the bundles of silver hair. "maybe i can make a pretty wig with them," she said cheerfully as she gently set the hair into the chest, along with the trimmer.
Pinkie returned and yanked the sheet off the second table. It was covered in gleaming metal tools: scalpels, knives, saws, even gardening shears. "Now," Pinkie said, "the real fun begins!"
Pinkie chose a scalpel from the table, and crouched by the now crying filly. "First thing's first," she said with a wink, "I gotta add yours to my collection." Before Silver could ask what she meant, the scalpel was pressed against her thigh, just above her cutie mark.
Slowly, the mad mare cut a circle around the pretty spoon mark, as its owner shrieked in anguish. "Ya know," Pinkie said cheerfully, "I always wondered what your cutie mark meant. I mean, what kind of special talent could a spoon be?" She reached to the table behind her for a long, curved skinning blade, and eased it under the skin of the filly mark, slowly peeling it away.
Silver Spoon let out a muffled sob as Pinkie moved to her other flank. A vague idea of keeping Pinkie busy spurred her to speak. "I-I m-m-make sp-spoons," she stuttered. "P-pretty ones, r-re-really f-fancy."
Pinkie blinked as she pulled the second mark off. "Huh. I guess that would make sense." She set the knives down, and grabbed a large needle.
The filly swallowed thickly. "W-what's that for?" She was trembling from shock now. The trauma and blood loss were quickly having an effect.
"This?" Pinkie waved the needle. "This is just a little something to get rid of some of the pain." She stabbed the needle into Silver Spoon's spine, halfway down her back. "Once it kicks in, you won't feel a thing from the chest down. That way, you wont hurt as much while I'm harvesting."
"What do you mean, 'harvesting?'" The filly noted her body slowly going numb, as Pinkie once again raised the scalpel.
"Well, duh. I gotta get your guts out somehow, right?" Pinkie cranked the table until Silver was on her back. As the drug completely took hold, the mare began to cut open the filly's abdomen.
"I'm actually impressed,"Pinkie commented thoughtfully. "You didn't need any adrenalin shots. Diamond needed one. Heck, Dashie needed two!" She started pulling the intestines out, hoof over hoof, like a rope. "Not that it's a bad thing you didn't need it. Those needles are hard to get. It takes, like, three of my special cupcakes just to get Nurse Redheart groggy!"
Pinkie snipped the large and small intestines apart, then tied the colon into a bow. She lifted it above her own head. "Look, I'm a present!"
Silver moaned in pain and fear. She watched as Pinkie removed all her organs, one by one, often stopping to make some sick joke or pun.
"I'm amazed you have the stomach for this." "Aww, I'm just kidney around!" And finally, "This sure took a lung time, didn't it?"
With that, Silver couldn't breathe. The last thing she saw was Pinkie tugging on her quivering heart, saying "Wow, with your attitude, I always figured your heart would be black."
Silver Spoon's vision and hearing faded then. But as darkness flooded her mind, she could swear she heard someone calling to her, echoing in her slowing heart.
Bump... bump...
Sugar... lump...
Then, it stopped beating.
Pinkie happily pulled the last batch of cupcakes from the oven. She set them to cool on the racks, and id one pastry from her fist batch.
"I should probably test one! Can't have them yucky!" Snagging the cupcake, she popped it her mouth and chewed.
With a horrified look, she quickly spat the cupcake out. "Oh, yuck!" she squealed. She glared at the offending pastry, then grabbed it up, scooping every one of her new cupcakes up with it.
"I should have known using a spoiled brat like her would only make rotten cupcakes," she grumbled with a scowl. "Nopony would ever buy these things!" Then an idea struck her. "Nopony in Equestia would want one of these. But a certain dragon might..." Dumping the pile of cupcakes into a massive basket, she bounced off towards the library.