The six bearers of the elements of harmony clattered down the stairs, justice on their foreheads, righteous fury in their eyes, and murder in their little pony hearts. Twilight and Rarity lit up their horns to light the way. It was a long, angular stairwell-- long enough that they had time to notice certain oddities about it. "You know, this doesn't look much like a stairwell you'd find in a castle," Rarity noted.

"No, it doesn't," Fluttershy said, surprised. "You'd think they would be made out of stone. These are wood."

"And painted," Applejack noted. "An' there's wallpaper on the walls." The cowpony looked closer, squinting. "Tulips. Same pattern Granny Smith put up in the farmhouse."

"Yes, and--" Twilight stopped to sniff the air. And put her hoof to her nose. "Pheagh. What is that smell?"

Once Twilight mentioned it, the rest of them noticed it as well. There was a round of tentative sniffs and face-pulling. "Oh, man, it smells like the locker room at Flight Camp," Rainbow Dash said. "You never forget that smell, no matter how hard you try..."

Fluttershy was covering her face with her wing. "Um, sort of," she said. "I mean, this is like that.... only... ugh, worse."

"Like-- spoiled food and dirty socks," Twilight added.

"Gangrene and stomach gas," Fluttershy, the group veterinarian, chimed in.

"Pig sty and rancid milk," Applejack contributed.

"With a twist of despair and an aperitif of nihilistic self loathing," Rarity added ominously. The others looked at her. "I stood downwind of an art critic once," she explained.

"Well it works to our advantage," Pinkamena said. "Once we've scented him, he's halfway into the narrative." She waggled a hoof. "It's kinda like when you ran underneath that hydra, remember that Twilight? He tripped over himself trying to get to you. As of now, we're too close for him to touch us anymore."

The stairs finally bottomed out at a shabby wooden door. Pinkamena took the lead, resting one hoof on the warped, cracked-and-repainted panels. "Okay, this is it," she said. "Once we're through this door, and we've clapped eyes on him, he loses all his power. But I gotta warn ya--- it's going to be disgusting. It's gonna be hideous. You may, just may want to arf your cookies. Gimme a hoof, Applejack..." Applejack nodded grimly and took up a bucking position right next to the pink pony.

"And so here-- we--- GO!" With a crash of four back hooves and a splintering of wood, the door shattered inward. The ponies leapt through the doorway and landed four hooves square, ready to fight.

As promised, all of them caught their first sight of their enemy, and gagged.

They were in a large rectangular cinder block room, with a concrete floor and a ceiling of floorboards and struts. Grimy throw rugs made a halfhearted attempt to cover the floor, and piles of garbage, old takeout boxes, and rancid clothing were heaped on the broken-down furniture. The smell was excruciating; it was so strong it hung in the air in greenish wisps.

At the far end of the room stood a workdesk, equally crowded with trash and rubbish. On it was a cluster of odd equipment, some of it resembling the equipment Twilight kept in the library basement for her experiments. It was dominated by a large, futuristic looking keyboard and a glowing screen.

And working away at it was an abomination the likes of which none of them had ever seen. It was seated-- or perhaps it is better to say piled--- before the keyboard. None of them could bear to look at it directly; they were all left with an impression of rolls of pimpled, hair studded flesh, heaving and sweating and reeking. The creature made guttural, flatulent noises and pounded at its alien typewriter with simian-like paws, seemingly angry at the strange lights and blooping, razzing noises the machine was making.

"What--- is it?" Twilight Sparkle said, her voice rasping with horror.

Pinkamena sighed and stared with dull contempt at the flaccid monstrosity before them. "it's a trollfic," she said.

"A what?" seemed to sum up the collective response. "A trollfic," Pinkamena said. " Slang term in the biz for "fanfic troll"....They're this horrible side effect of fandoms. Like body odor or bad breath. They mingle with the fans. Most of them even claim to be fans themselves. Maybe some of them even believe it. But deep down, all they're about is finding something that makes other people happy and CRAPPING all over it." Her lip curled.

"Doesn't it need fresh air? How can it breathe with its head up it's own---?" Rainbow Dash started to ask.

"Oh," Pinkamena snarked. "It thinks it farts daisies and rainbows, so it likes the smell just fine."

"So this is like... a Mary Sue?" Twilight asked. She'd practically been weaned on books; she was the most canny of the six as to what was up.

"They're a thousand times worse than Mary Sues. A Mary Sue actually likes the world they ruin. But these greaseballs...  if it's innocent, they put filth in it. If it's happy, they make it grim and gritty and morbid and suicidal. If it's harmless, they add blood and gore and puke..." Pinkamena seethed with rage. "And if anyone else complains about it, they think that proves how hip and trendy and superior they are for being so avant garde." The sarcasm in her voice could have cut glass.

The Trollfic chortled malevolently. Or perhaps it farted again. It was hard to tell.

Pinkamena lost it. She ran up and kicked the thing hard as she could. The creature let out a muffled wail. Everyone winced. "Ouch," Rainbow Dash muttered, "Right in the Sergeant Sprinkles...."

Pinkamena began kicking the Trollfic with shocking violence. "They're self-loathing little GITS! Who find a world like Equestria! And they don't STOP! Until everything is as VILE! and HATEFUL! and LOATHSOME! As THEY are! on the IN! SIDE! THEMSELVES!" The bruised Trollfic crawled desperately away, moaning and belching, as she paused to gasp for breath and sweep the hair out of her eyes.

"They don't stop... until nobody can look at the honest farmgirl without seeing her porking her brother...." Applejack twitched. "Or see the dressmaker without seeing a child-abusing town bicycle..." Rarity flinched hard. "And till nobody can see the athlete as anything but a lesbian, because every good fan KNOWS that athletes and tomboys are all BUTCH....or see the PRINCESS without imagining her beheading toddlers or molesting her own sister or growing a WEINER..."

Pinkamena made a breathless half laugh. "And boy o boy, ain't NOBODY ever gonna see the happy little pink party pony again.. without wondering who she's got chopped up in the basement... or wondering when she's gonna go SNAP and kill everyone... or even see her--" she choked back a sob. "Or even see her... smile... without thinking that she can't really be that happy, she's gotta be sick in the head, or on pills... she can't ever smile again..." Pinkamena crumpled to the floor, sobbing.

The others didn't quite understand what was going on. They didn't need to; they crowded in around the distressed pony, ignoring the trollfic lying on the floor (Rarity, being the classy lady she was, casually ground her hoof in someplace painful as she stepped over it) and clung to her in a group hug. After a few moments, Pinkamena managed to stop crying and pulled herself together. "That's where I came from," she said. "I'm Pinkie's--- other side, I suppose. Her mirror reflection.

"Trollfics got ahold of Pinkie Pie... She was so happy, naturally they hated what she was, right to the core. They overdid it. She was already peeking through the Fourth Wall all the time..They made her psycho. then they made her a split personality. Then manic depressive, schizoid, delusional, intermittent explosive, demon possessed ...they made her so many different kinds of crazy that she looped all the way back round to sane again. And since she could peek through the fourth wall she knew what had happened. And so she became us. Her and me. Me in the mirror, her in the canon."

"There are other characters... out there in the Between, characters so banged out of shape by bastardized fanfic writings that they can't even fit into their own worlds anymore. I'm one of them. I'm the bitter, broken thing Pinkie  would have been, if she hadn't put all of her sad into the mirror."

Fluttershy embraced her with a wing. "Oh you poor thing..."

Pinkamena actually smiled. "It's not so bad," she said. "Better than being what things like THAT would have made me, anyway." She kicked in the direction of the trollfic. It quivered and tried to hunch further away. "I  got a job that keeps me busy. Working with the others, making sure losers like this don't ruin other people's childhoods....plus, I get to see the world through Pinkie Pie: see the rainbows, taste the cupcakes...She makes the parties-- I  get to make sure nobody ruins them."

"All her parties, huh?" Rainbow Dash said, grinning. "So isn't saving Equestria a little above your pay grade?"

"To Pinkie Pie, Equestria is one big party," Pinkamena said.  

"So is this it? It's over?" Applejack asked.

"Let me guess," Twilight said. "Just one more little denouement before things wrap up, correct?"

"Pretty much," Pinkamena said. "And it should be in about three.... two.... one...."

There was a clatter of hooves from the stairway. Celestia stepped in first, followed by Luna (who seemed rather bleary-eyed and was clutching a water bottle to her aching head). Both of them had a disturbing gleam in their eye. "Well done, my little ponies," Celestia said. "We received word that you'd found the culprit--"

"Pinkie Pie showed up in a mirror," Luna explained. Alicorn metabolisms processed alcohol rapidly; unfortunately this meant that Luna had now gone from total inebriation straight to the hangover. She was consequently speaking in a much, much quieter voice than normal.

"--- and so now Luna and I shall take the "trollfic" into... custody," Celestia finished, her eyes narrowing to slits. The trollfic whimpered and tried to scramble through the back wall.

Twilight could be obtuse at times when it came to the Princess, but this time she could tell which way the wind was blowing. "In that case, your Highness, my friends and I will take our leave, aheh..." She hastily trotted for the door. The rest of the Elements of Harmony followed close behind. Just as they exited, Twilight heard Celestia speaking to the Trollfic,

"Well, it seems I have this lovely huge cannon up in my throne room thanks to you, and it would be such a shame to waste it before it goes poof...

"Tell me. Do you like.... bananas?"

Then commenced the sounds of a savage beating.

As they started up the stairwell, Pinkamena's coat suddenly brightened several shades. Her mane and tail bounced back to their buoyant curly normalcy. "Yay, all done," Pinkie pie said happily. "Oh, right. HEY PRINCESS!" She shouted back down the stairs. "SMASH THE COMPUTER-- YOU KNOW, THE STUFF ON THE DESK! THAT HURTS THEM THE MOST!"  There was a loud smash from below, followed by truly agonized wailing from the trollfic. "Yay! And that takes care of that!" she cheerfully hopped her way up the stairs, singing a merry tune.

The others looked at each other, then back to Pinkie Pie. "Pinkie?" Twilight asked tentatively. "Are you and... Pinkamena... all right?"

"Of course, silly filly," Pinkie said. "And don't worry about Pinkamena. She's right here," she tapped herself on the noggin. "and right here too." Her hoof tapped her heart. "Just watching from the other side--- in case something like Mr Nastypants Poopyhead Trollfic tries to happen again."

"Well, ah don't know about you all, but ah plan on sleeping in tomorrow," Applejack said. "Fer once ah think ah earned it. In spades."

There was a chorus of agreement from the others. "what about you, Rainbow Dash?"

Dash hovered overhead, a sleepy grin on her face. "I dunno," she said. "I think I'd rather go finish my appointment with Hans...."

They were on the train headed for Ponyville when the boom of an enormous cannon echoed over the city. Something tiny, flabby and traveling at high velocity arced up over the city and disappeared into the sky. In the distance they heard Celestia, in royal canterlot voice: "To the mooooooooooooon....."