"SPOOKY ECHO!!!" (SPOOKY ECHO!!! SPOOKY ECHO!!!))

There is a long, echo-y hallway. Pinkie likes long, echo-y hallways. Especially spooky ones. Very thematic. Her own voice bounces back off the walls like there's a bunch of her, all invisible and crowded into this long, scary hallway together! HA! A whole bunch of Pinkie Pies. Wouldn't that be something! Although, maybe there's such a thing as too many Pinki-SPLAT!!!!!!

With a cartoonish squishing sound, the pink mare falls flat on her face. She had been bouncing happily along like the world's most cheerful animation exercise just moments ago, but for some reason, her hooves have stuck fast to the odd, empty stone plinth that she just landed on. Or, well, all but one of them have.

As she lays, stunned, on the floor, something strange begins to happen to her hooves. The single outstretched forehoof which has escaped the stick-ed-ness of the plinth rests near her head, and begins to glow. Tiny licks of malevolent purple begin to curl over it's surface, creeping back along it's length. And unknown to the bouncy mare, her doom is already inevitable.

Pinkie feels... stiff. She tries to get back up, and is surprised at how... troublesome, even the smallest of movements seems. Sure, she COULD get up and keep bouncing down the hall, but it just seems so labor intensive. Still, something seems... improper... about just lying here with her face on the floor. She is in a queen's castle, after all. She should at least try to be polite.

With an exaggerated groan and a put upon tug, Pinkie manages to yank her squished face up off the floor. To her confusion, her whole body follows suit, leaping up into a ridged, erect posture with a noise like a coiled spring. She tries to blink in confusion, only to find that she... can't. Her eyelids won't close. Her entire face feels frozen, lips stretched out into a semblance of the last grin she will ever wear.

She feels a growing sense of... emptiness? She feels hollow. Purposeless. All the fun and parties and... and... and what? Useless, all of it. Where has any of it gotten her? only standing here, on this plinth, where she belon~WAIT! She shakes her head. Or, tries to. Her stiff neck doesn't want to move like it should, bits of herself scraping and clacking unevenly against one another. She flights through the immense, crushing effort needed to lift a hoof to feel her numb face, only to be left staring at the strange sight before her.

The appendage that she has laboriously lifted up to eye level is no longer a hoof, though it is still hoof shaped. A metal shell, tipped with cruel spurs, sits empty. Her joints crust over and become chain mail and leather. Cheeks and shoulders begin to jut out into hardening points, and her cutiemark flattens into a solid plate over her hips. Or the space where her hips should be. Inside, she feels strange. Like her bones and organs are shriveling up, and leaving nothing behind. Like she's... empty.

The hollow feeling spreads from her hooves, up her legs, and through her torso. Pinkie shudders as it suddenly occurs to her that that emptiness is meant to be... filled. There should be a pony inside it, it just isn't supposed to be her.

Slowly, the raised hoof lowers back down. A magical tendril manifests the haft of a weapon, and the hardening shell of a limb comes to rest around it. Pinkie struggles to look back at her body, but her form is stiff and uncooperative, and her head won't turn. But some small part of her whispers that she... could. She is meant to be worn, to move and flex. She bends in all the right places. And there is enough magic in her that if she reached out, she would be able to move her metallic limbs as she pleased. But... it's just... so, so much effort. If only she had help.. someone to... move her... to wear her... to use her...

Her lips have gone hard, teeth stretching out into a grill-like visor. But, if that's where her wearer is supposed to see out from, then what about her eyes? her face aches, and she gets her answer as her deep, sunken eye sockets begin to darken and shift backwards towards her ears. The crackling wave of magic closes in on the now mostly gray pony's last scraps of flesh, and she struggles to remember why that's a bad thing. If she doesn't do something, it will all be over soon.

She... could run. Try to warn the others. Or... she could stay here. Give in to her fate, and be lost forever. She knows, deep down, that there will be no going back. That if she gives it an inch, it will erase her entirely. But... can she even fight it? Does she have that option? That choice?

Concepts of ponyhood begin to fade, but as they do, the armor that was once Pinkie pie tries moving. It feels a bit of surprise when it is not as hard as anticipated. It shifts, head turning, and all four horseshoes clack on the stone as it shuffles. The transformation of it's face seems to pause, and it's half-helmet head turns to look down the hall. Two glowing red points of light peer out from hollow eye-sockets that have just begin to merge with the opening of the ear guards. And Pinkie rallies enough of herself to remember why she's here.

She came to stop Nightmare Moon. She came... with her friends. But... where are her "friends" now? She's alone here, ponyhood all but lost. Doomed.

She shuffles her iron hooves again, and wonders what it would be like to be worn. To give in, and never move again unless moved by the will of another. A puppet, moved by an internal master.

She slowly straightens back up into her alert posture. Her head turns back to face the front. Pinkie lets go.

Parts of her fizzle away, and she lets them. What was once a ponies head stiffens into a hollow shell, meant to house another.

She is not meant to have an identity, other than that of her wearer. She is an it. It is armor. The eye sockets fully meld with the ear holes, leaving only a perfect metal helmet. It is not meant to have will. The wearer's will is it's will. It feels it's ability to move evaporate. The magical capacity to animate itself still exists, but it is no longer able to act upon it. It is not meant to have thoughts. The wearer will think for it. It is not meant to have____

Two red wisps of light evaporate.

Nightmare Moon huffs, annoyed. The curse she's placed upon the castle is a masterful thing, but it would seem it is a bit prone to... misinterpretation. She meant to try crafting a suit of armor for herself, but the curse has interpreted the command in a much more generic fashion. She stares at the antiquated suit of plate armor, sized for a normal pony. Perhaps asking it to change a victim into something other than stone has confused it. She should probably stick to masonry for the rest of them.

She turns away from the new armor display, and goes in search of the next victim. The other earth pony mare seems to have found her way into the dilapidated kitchens.

She will have to see what she can do about renovating the place.

Slightly different one for this, wanted to try something other than just purely the statues. Part 1: >>3563984 and 2: >>3570595