//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: A Party Cat-Astrophe 
// by Twinkletail 
//------------------------------//

    "Spike! I'm super duper happy that you could make it here today!"

Spike barely paid attention to a word of Pinkie Pie's greeting. The various confectionery delights strewn about the Cakes' place were far too distracting to the hungry little dragon.

"Uh, yeah, no problem," he said, eyeing a stack of particularly scrumptious-looking cookies.

"We have a whoooooole LOT to do today!" Pinkie said excitedly (as if she ever said anything in any other fashion). Not noticing Spike's distraction, she proceeded to grab the plate of cookies and scarf the entire thing down without a moment's thought. Spike's heart sank as he watched the delicious morsels disappear.

"What ARE we doing today?" he asked, shaking off the disappointment. "You never told me, you just said that I had to come help you." Spike liked Pinkie and all, but she always seemed a bit strange to him.

"My good friend Spike!" Pinkie exclaimed, her voice taking on a mock-regal tone. "You are cordially invited to assist me in the biggest, most important task ever to be undertaken!"

"What is it, what is it?" Spike asked, his interest peaking. "Are we going to deliver important materials to Princess Celestia? Ooh, wait, no! Are we heading out to take on a big monster that's threatening Ponyville?" The baby dragon waited with bated breath for the answer.

"No, silly!" Pinkie answered, patting Spike on the head.  "You...are going to help me plan this month's parties! Isn't that sooooooo awesome? Huh huh huh?" If it were at all possible for a dragon to physically deflate, Spike would have done exactly that.

"Oh," he said. He was really hoping for something a bit more exciting than that. "Alright then...so what's happening this month that we need to have a party for?"

"Glad you asked!" Pinkie said, bouncing over to a nearby table. She leaned over and picked a piece of paper up in her mouth, then bounded back to Spike. "I've got it all written down on this paper!" she slurred around the obstructing document.

"Huh, that doesn't seem too bad," Spike mused, looking at the small sheet of paper and figuring that it shouldn't take very long at all.

"Great!" Pinkie shouted. She whipped her head back, then thrust it forward, opening her mouth just enough to release the paper a bit. Spike stared in shock as the paper unfolded, sheets landing at his feet.

"Now, of course there's the All Ponies Day Festival on the first," Pinkie said. "And then the next day is Colgate's birthday, and the day after that is part two of Colgate's birthday because she always likes big parties...ooh, but it's also the anniversary of the day that Cheerilee got her teaching job, so we HAVE to have a party for that!!" The paper kept unfolding, starting to reach Spike's waist level. "And then the next day isn't anything special, so of COURSE we have to have a Nothing Special Party! OOH, and then it WILL be a special day, so we'll have a 'First Time This Day Has Meant Anything Party' to celebrate! Oh, this is so great! And we're only four days into the month! Aren't you excited, Spike?"

"Thrilled," mumbled Spike from under the mountain of paper.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Like this?"

The prissy pony's voice sounded quizzical as she focused her eyes on the pink and white mottled vase across the room from her. A white aura began to radiate around her horn.

"Kind of," said the purple unicorn, inspecting her friend's form carefully. "You have to sort of...oh, it's hard to explain..."

"Darling, just try!" Rarity told her. "We don't have all day, you know."

"Alright, alright..." Twilight answered. "See...you need to focus a bit more energy towards the tip of the horn, rather than the base..."

"So more like this then?" Rarity asked. The magical aura began to glow brighter towards the tip of her horn.

"Right," Twilight responded. "And then just think hard about the vase...usually I scrunch my eyes a bit..." The aura disappeared from Rarity's horn in an instant as she turned to face her friend.

"My dear," Rarity said, "Scrunching one's eyes creates unnecessary wrinkles, and I simply cannot do that to myself." Twilight sighed a heavy sigh.

"Look, do you want to learn this spell or not?" the purple unicorn asked, sounding a bit aggravated. Rarity rolled her eyes, then turned back to the vase. The white aura returned to her horn as she stared at it.

"Ooh, face, forgive me for what I am about to do," Rarity lamented. "I will be sure to treat you to a lovely mud mask after this." Rarity scrunched her eyes, just like Twilight had told her to do. Across the room, the vase began to glow with an aura to match her horn's. The vase rose into the air, then began to shake a bit. Slowly, from the bottom up, the vase began to change composition, its texture becoming more grainy than its previous smooth appearance. As the final bit of vase changed textures, it began to unravel, becoming a long, pink and white mottled thread. Yard by yard, the thread wrapped itself around the empty spool that had been placed on the table next to where the vase had once stood. In moments, the entire thread had been spooled.

"Wha-ha-HAAAA!" Rarity laughed with delight. "This will be just PERFECT for my next dress! Thank you so much, Twilight!" Twilight smiled and nodded.

"Any time, Rarity," she said proudly. "It's the least I could do after you taught me that gem finding spell. We should exchange spells more often!"

"Absolutely!" Rarity agreed. The two unicorns were interrupted by Twilight's front door flying open. Spike dragged his feet as he entered the house. The unicorns could tell that he was clearly exhausted, even though his face was obscured by a large stack of envelopes.

"Spike, welcome home!" Twilight said happily. "How was your day with Pinkie Pie?"

"Ugh," Spike replied, still trudging forward. "Soooo tiring...I feel like I'm about to pass out. I can barely even move."

"I could imagine that an entire day alone with Pinkie Pie would do that," Rarity said. At the sound of Rarity's voice, Spike suddenly perked up.

"R..Rarity!" he stammered. "I didn't know you would be here! I gotta fix my scales..." Spike tried his hardest to use one hand to fix the scales on top of his head. "Whoooooooaa!" he shouted as he lost his balance and fell, the envelopes falling all over him.

"Oh, Spike," Twilight said, as she and Rarity chuckled. "You're too much."

"Bah..." Spike muttered as he crawled his way out from under the envelopes. "It's a good thing I banded these together by recipient!"

"What ARE these for, anyway?" Twilight asked, hunting down the stack with her name on it and floating it over to her as Rarity did the same.

"Party invitations," Spike sighed. "Sooooo many party invitations..."

"Oh, so are we supposed to hand out the stacks with our names on them?" Twilight asked, looking at how big the stack was.

"No," said Spike. "Those are all for you."

"What??" Twilight and Rarity exclaimed simultaneously. The two unicorns started opening envelopes and reading through them. The more envelopes they opened, the more confused they got.

"You are invited to the 'Almost Middle Of The Month But Not Quite There But It's Close Enough' party?" Twilight said incredulously.

"Why in the world do we need a Pocket Lint Appreciation Party?" Rarity asked, looking at the invitation she was reading with a mix of bemusement and annoyance. "Do any of us even wear pockets?"

"Who is Twinkletail?" Twilight asked as she read another invitation.

"I don't know," Spike answered, "But apparently we need to have a party to recognize the day that she told Pinkie not to plan any parties for her." The two unicorns groaned.

"Spike, this is utterly ridiculous," Rarity said.

"I agree," Twilight chimed in. "Now, I like parties just as much as the next pony..."

"Not if the next pony is Pinkie Pie," Spike added.

"...Well...yes," Twilight had to agree. "But you know what I mean. As much as I enjoy parties, this is a bit too much. Why didn't you try to stop her before this got out of hand?"

"I did!" Spike protested. "But you know what they say; a Pinkie Pie in motion tends to stay in motion!"

"Well," Rarity said, setting her envelopes down in a neat stack in front of her. "We'll have to talk some sense into the girl. We shall speak to her at the next party and try to convince her to calm things down a bit."

"That sounds like the only logical idea," Twilight said. "When IS the next party anyway?" Twilight's doorbell suddenly rang.

"That's odd," Twilight said as she trotted towards the door. "I don't remember inviting any company other than Rarity over..." Twilight opened the door to see Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy standing outside.

"Oh, hey girls!" Twilight said cheerily. "What a pleasant surprise! What brings you all here today?"

"PARTY TIME!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she flew into the house.

"P...party time?" Twilight stuttered, looking at the others.

"Pinkie didn't call you?" Fluttershy asked, a small look of concern crossing her face. "Oh dear..."

"I can't say she did," Twilight answered. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Pinkie told us to come by your place," Applejack told her. "She said that we were having a 'Passing Out Party Invitations' party. We just reckoned you knew, since it's at your house 'n all." Twilight didn't have to say a word. Her face said it all.

"Well, you might as well come in since you're already here," Twilight said, closing the door after her friends had entered the house. "I guess it's not so bad as long as it's just us." As if it were responding to her, Twilight's doorbell rang again. She looked at the others, a look of worry crossing her face. The purple unicorn opened the door again to see nearly the entire town of Ponyville standing outside.

"PARTY!!!" the mob of ponies yelled as they began pouring into Twilight's house before she could say a word.

"...You OK, Twi?" Applejack asked after the crowd had finished entering the house. Twilight lay on the ground, having been trampled by the pony mob. She twitched a bit.

"Pinkie...." she muttered angrily.

"Yes, Twilight?" Pinkie responded cheerfully, appearing out of nowhere as she often had the tendency to do.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was hours later, and the party was finally winding down. Pinkie Pie was standing guard at the door, making sure that each pony that left received their stack of invitations. Many ponies were visibly annoyed by the sheer amount of invitations this month, but they didn't let Pinkie know, so as to not hurt her feelings. They simply gave her a smile and a thanks, then waited until they were a few steps away for the grimace to appear on their faces. One by one, the guests left, until it was only Pinkie and her five closest friends remaining.

"So did you girls have a good time?" Pinkie asked. "Twilight, I'm so sorry I didn't call you about the party, but I was so busy calling the others that I totally forgot that I didn't call you first!"

"It's OK, Pinkie," Twilight said, even though it wasn't really all that OK. "But we need to talk to you about something."

"Is it about the party favors?" the pink earth pony asked. "I figured we were already having lots of candy at tomorrow's party, and probably a lot the next two days as well, so we should balance it with something healthy today! That's why I filled the party bags with hay, because hay is healthy and it's yummy too, and..."

"Pinkie, please!" Twilight shouted. "...I'm sorry for yelling, but please, let me speak. We just thought that maybe you've got too many parties planned."

"I don't think that!" Rainbow Dash said, still giddy from the good times they'd just had.

"...Well, OK," Twilight continued. "The REST of us think that this is just too many parties to handle." She paused for a second to gauge Pinkie's reaction. Pinkie still had her usual smile, so Twilight figured she should elaborate a bit more. "We all love parties, and we all know that your parties are the best, but there's a time for parties and a time for a break from parties. And honestly? I don't think we need a party to celebrate the day you found a banana in Applejack's orchard."

"And I was personally hopin' we wouldn't talk about that secret shame ever again," Applejack said, as Fluttershy put a comforting hoof around her shoulder.

"Is any of this getting through to you, Pinkie?" Rarity asked. "Do you understand where we're coming from?" Pinkie didn't respond at first. She seemed deep in thought.

"...I think I get it," Pinkie finally said, much more calmly than anything she'd ever said before. The girls breathed a sigh of relief.

"We'll just change the reason for that party!" Pinkie burst out. "I'm sure I can think of ANOTHER good reason to have a party that day!" Pinkie's five friends' heads collectively dropped.

"Pinkie, it's not..." Applejack started to say, but Pinkie cut her off.

"Oh, I know what you all mean, sillies," Pinkie told them, "But partying is what I do, and I LOOOOOOVE to share it with all of you!  I even wrote a song about it!" Before any of the ponies could stop her, she was bounding around Twilight's home, singing at the top of her lungs.

"Party party every night! Party every day! Party left and party right and each and every way! If you want to party, I'll tell you what I'll do! I'll throw another party and then you can party too!"

"Pinkie..." Twilight tried to interject, to no avail.

"Party party every day, party all the time! We're gonna party so much I'll run out of words to rhyme! Party party all the time, party till the end! We'll say goodbye and then say hi and do it all again! OHHHH....party party every night..."

Pinkie continued to sing as she bounced out of Twilight's house and back towards her own. The other ponies looked at each other, worried.

"...I think we broke her," Fluttershy said.

"So what do we do now?" Rarity asked. The others all looked at Twilight.

"Well," Twilight started, "Maybe once we have three or four more parties in a row, she'll tire herself out and see where we're coming from."

"And if she doesn't?" Fluttershy asked.

"WHEN she doesn't," Applejack corrected her.

"Then I guess we'll just stop going to them," Twilight said. "I don't want to hurt Pinkie's feelings, but I can personally only party so much. If she sees that we're getting exhausted with all the partying and we're not coming to the parties, then maybe she'll understand." The five of them nodded, although Rainbow didn't seem as keen on the idea as the rest.

The next day's party was at Pinkie's place, and was just as rocking as the previous day's, although the attendance seemed to be the tiniest bit lower. This trend continued with the next two parties. Pinkie's five closest friends attended all three of these, but by the end of the third one, Twilight had had enough. She didn't come to the next party. By the party after that, Rarity had dropped out as well. Neither Fluttershy nor Applejack attended the next one. Rainbow tried her best to hang in, having bragged about being able to party just as hard as Pinkie, but by the time the eighth party in a row had finished, she too had run out of steam. Pinkie was a little sad about the others no-showing her parties, but Rainbow's disappearance stung the most. Still, she had plenty of other ponies to party with. By the tenth party in a row, though, she could no longer say that. The few ponies who still attended her parties didn't even stay very long. Before she knew it, she found herself alone in her house, waiting for party guests who were likely never to come.

"Hmmm...." Pinkie sighed. "I can't believe no one came to my Sixth Bottle of Preciously Pink Mane Shampoo Memorial Party..." Pinkie began to feel a strange feeling that she couldn't remember ever feeling before. It was like....she was happy....but the opposite of that. Before she could dwell on this any further, she heard a knock at the door. Elated, she burst from her chair and practically fell over her own hooves on the way to the door. She wondered which pony it was at the door, but once it had opened, she was surprised to find that it wasn't a pony waiting for her. Rather, there was a small, white cat standing in her doorway. Pinkie was very confused. She had only seen one cat before, and she was sure this wasn't Rarity's cat Opal.

"I hear you're having a party tonight," the cat said calmly.

"You heard right!" PInkie said happily, always glad to make new friends.

"Well, I do love to party," the cat said. "Mind if I come in?"

"Of course not!" Pinkie bubbled. "Not too many ponies came tonight, and I've been itching for fun!" The cat smiled and entered the house. Pinkie thought she saw a weird look in the cat's eyes as he entered, but she paid it no mind. She was just happy to have a party guest.

~~~~~~~~~~