Chapter 1

My Dear Ms Faust,

Hello again! I am sure you are incredibly busy, but I thought that it would be the decent thing to do to tell you how wonderfully the episodes "The Return of Harmony", parts one and two, were written and produced! I will admit that I had been looking forward to a return of Pinkamina, but alas, that was destined not to be and did not detract from the story at all! I would also love to sing your praises over the casting of the great John De Lancie; I'm sure you of all people know of his previous work as the wonderfully whimsical prankster Q, from Star Trek.

As far as the progress of converting my son, Peter, into bronydom is going... He has started trying his hardest to avoid being near me when I have the television on. I did however run a series of tests on our resident Bos taurus, Gene, and she reacted very positively to the episode "Applebuck Season"; her brain function heightening during the scenes in which Applejack helps to herd the stampeding cattle.

Unfortunately, time appears to once again have made a fool of me, and it would appear that everypony (oh my, did you see that?) will be showing up for a long day at work again soon. I hope that you are well, and I promise to make sure I email you when the next episode is shown to further buff your ego!

My Kindest and warmest regards,

"Root-beer Float"

Walter chewed happily at the red-rope liquorice held between his teeth, slowly moving the mouse cursor over to the button marked "Send Note" on DeviantArt. Part of him hoped that the moment it arrived in her inbox, a cheerful little chime would come from the computer of the user named Fyre-flye, and she would eagerly read the latest letter from her biggest fan!

It had been several months since Walter was first introduced to the pony fandom, and so far he had fully accepted it, and had spent a lot of time and effort to try and re-style the mane of his favourite pink earth pony, trying to follow a guide he had found on the internet. Unfortunately, Walter's equipment had been significantly more powerful than the domestic appliances the guides had suggested, and multiple times he had melted the poor plastic toy. As attempt number sixteen cooled on the bench, making a very peculiar smell, Walter looked next to it at his other experiment, a conical flask of clear fluid set on a magnetic stirrer. The contents of the conical flask were something of Walter's speciality, Lysergic acid diethylamide.

In honesty, Walter was beginning to find LSD a little boring; he still had the hallucinogenic effects, but they were beginning to become dull and uninteresting to his mind. He had attributed this to the number of times he had partaken of the drug recently, such as when he had to rescue Olivia and Peter from within Olivia's mind. Feeling warm molten goo around his fingers as he tapped on the bench, Walter had an idea, and scooped a small amount of the still somewhat malleable electric-pink plastic toy onto a spatula. Over the years, the work benches of his laboratory had been host to all sorts of wonderful narcotics, some of which he now longer knew how to make, and so he added as much of the toy as he could scoop up to the mixture.

"Good morning, Walter... have you been up all night again?" Agent Farnsworth asked, yawning and placing a stack of bound paper on the bench and then hanging her coat up on the wall next to Gene's pen.

"Hmm?" the scientist replied, watching as the plastic started to become strangely soluble, mixing in with the acid and turning it pink, "Oh, good morning Astral! No, no, I slept on the couch in my office, by any chance did you read through those stories I gave you last night?"

Astrid glanced at the stack of paper.

"Yeah, I did. I don't think many of those stories would be appropriate to read to Ella, I don't think she even knows who 'Doctor Whoof' or 'Derpy Hooves' are... and that one about the cupcakes? Walter, I didn't sleep last night because of that story."

Walters eyes widened as he recognised what she was talking about,

"I... That wasn't supposed to be in there! I asked on Ponychan for a few nice stories to tell a child, but I didn't read through them first! Curse you, Anonpony! You will rue the day you link me to Cupcakes!" he yelled, shaking a fist at an invisible enemy through the computer. Astrid dashed over and laid her hand on his shoulder, gently rubbing the white lab coat Walter was wearing.

"I'm sure he didn't mean to, it must have just been a mistake, there's no need to get upset Walter,"

Walter huffed and turned back to the flask, seeing that the mixture had dissolved, the fluid now a strangely pleasant transparent pink.

“What’s that?” Astrid asked, looking over Walter’s shoulder,

“It’s a new blend of LSD that I’m calling Pinkie Pie.” he responded, sucking up a small amount of the drug in a pipette and dropping it on his tongue before the woman next to him could voice her concerns.

“WALT...” Astrid starts, before trailing into a sigh, “What did you blend it with?”

“Pinkie Pie... and some other things that have seeped into the bench over the years, I can’t wait to see what kind of buzz it’ll give me!”

“Didn’t we talk about you randomly mixing things you find on the worktop? And really, Walter, ponies again? Don’t you think you’re a little old for that?” Peter asked. Walter noticed that his ‘son’ had been incredibly stealthy recently, and hadn’t even heard the deep voiced man enter the room.

Suddenly, Olivia strode through the double doors to the lab, putting her cell phone back into her pocket.

“Broyles just called, we’re headed to Manhattan - somebody has been... I’m not even sure what they said, but they’ve got two victims already, both died of shock. Let’s move.”

“I’m feeling a little unwell, would it be alright if myself and Agent Farnsworth stayed here?” Walter asked, swaying a little and holding onto the bench to stay upright. Peter sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head, and then followed Olivia out of the double doors of the laboratory.

As the drug began to take hold, Walter felt incredibly strange. Feeling odder and odder, the man sat down on the old comfortable sofa in his office, raising an ice pack to his forehead. Feeling his vision blur, Rootbeer Float held his hoof out in front of him and waved it, watching things begin to slip back into focus.

“Oh my...”