Today, we meet the central conflict in the story, as well as a character I thought of.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, aside from the story and character I introduce this chapter.
...
The house certainly had a foreboding atmosphere; perhaps it was the somewhat-broken look, or maybe the chipped paint, or the paintings that seemed to stare at you as you walked through the dark entry hall. In fact, it was debatable whether the paintings actually DID stare at you, but that's not important.
"Twilight, is Pinkie really this important? Are you sure we can't just leave before something, well, bad happens?" Spike asked nervously, staring back at a particularly creepy piece of art.
"Spike, if something bad is in this house, you know Pinkie's too... eccentric to not get in trouble." Twilight replied, slightly irritated that he would try to leave Pinkie behind, even if Pinkie tended to get in the way. Of everybody. "If you don't want to come, wait outside."
"Good idea! I'll go do that!" He said, and ran off.
Twilight sighed in annoyance.
When they got to the end of the hall, they were found with a door, which Pinkie was listening through.
"Hey, guys! The music's coming through here!" She said, bouncing up and down. "C'mon! Let's go in! Let's go in! Let's go let's go let's go let's go let's-"
She was flattened against the wall when the door swung open. A tall unicorn with a deep black coat and a sharp black horn loomed in the frame, a bright red, spiked mane just visible. His tail was thin and straight, and ended with the shape of a paintbrush tip, while his mane seemed to have jagged music notes patterned on it. His cutie mark, barely visible, was a pair of gears, the same color as his mane and tail.
He wasn't happy.
"Oy, Who's making so much noise?" He yelled, nostrils flared, "I can't think to play my music!"
As all the ponies stepped back, Twilight spoke up.
"Well, uh, sorry, sir, but we were just trying to get our friend out of your house, and she was the one making the most noise out of all of us, and-"
"And where IS your friend, hm?"
"Flattened against your wall."
The unicorn pulled away the door and saw Pinkie, who fell forward onto the floor, but quickly recovered and resumed bouncing like normal near the rest.
"We heard your music and came to make friends!" She explained.
"Well, she did." Rainbow Dash said, pretty much proving how boring she thought this was.
"Friends, hm...?" The unicorn asked. He sounded a bit sad, almost. His mane and tail turned sky blue. The mane lost the spikes and became sort of fluffy, and the notes on it curved as if they were bending forward. The tail drooped, and his overall presence sort of shrunk, so that the group realized he wasn't any bigger than they were. However, he quickly went back to his angry appearance, and said, "Well, let's see who you've brought, hm? Aside from the annoying and hyperactive you, you've brought a nitpick that can't stand with imperfection, a bookworm who doesn't exactly have a wealth of social skills, a hard-head who can't admit when she needs help, and a lazy tomboy that can't handle failure." He said to the group, earning gasps and "Hey!"s from the ponies. Rainbow Dash tried to attack him, but Applejack grabbed her by the tail, even though she desperately wanted to hurt him, too.
"Hey, you didn't insult Fluttershy!" Pinkie pointed out after a short moment to realize it, as if that was more of a problem than being called annoying and hyperactive. The figure looming over them opened his mouth slightly, as if he was going to say something, but he stopped and his pupils shrunk for a second. His mane turned orange and somewhat covered his eyes, and his tail stayed perfectly still. He shook his head and turned angry again.
"That isn't important! What IS important is that you GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"
"Wow," Pinkie responded, unfazed, "You aren't going to make friends like that."
He stuttered for a second, then became sad again and sighed.
"You're right," He said after a long pause, "I won't. Leave me alone."
With that, he walked back into the room, and there was the click of a lock.
After a while of awkward silence, Rainbow Dash said, "Smooth move, Pinkie."
...
"I don't get it," Pinkie said, eating a muffin that somepony left in her mail, "All ponies want to make friends! But he was like, 'aargh, get out of my house!' and wasn't very friendly at all! And when I try to give him friend-making tips, he locks himself in that room!"
"I don't get it, either. It's usually natural personality to want friends, at least here in Ponyville." Twilight responded. She was searching for a book in the library. If there was something not right, finding a book on the topic made her feel better, even if it was improbable that it was a book. But after checking absolutely every shelf, there was no book that could tell her the slightest thing about it. She sat in a chair with a sigh. "Maybe he was just having a bad day. No, if he was having a bad day, he wouldn't be able to play music as well as he was. And you know what's weird? He knew our personality flaws without even knowing us."
After a short while of thinking over that fact, Twilight spoke again.
"You know, it just occurred to me; Maybe he was in that house all this time, and nobody knew. He just stayed in the background, where nobody noticed him."
"Like a shadow!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"Yeah, Pinkie." Twilight said, glancing at the shadows thrown on the wall by the light, "Like a shadow."