07:08 AM
“WHHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” cheered Pinkie all the way down the long slide, eventually finding herself thumping to a halt at the bottom in a … well, she had no idea. She couldn’t see anything.
It was just like during the slide. After Number Twenty-Six told her to pronk into that little group of trees, lift up that fake branch, and jump into the hole it was covering, she had spent the majority of the rollercoaster-like slide ride in near blackness.
“Wow, Twenty-Six, you were right about that slide, that was a super fun shortcut to wherever this is! But are you sure it was okay to leave Lyra up there? Number Twelve said it looked like she really wanted to talk to us, or maybe just me. Or both. And she tried really hard to keep up without us noticing, just seems mean not to invite her down the slide.”
In the total darkness it didn’t matter but Pinkie looked up at her forehead. “What’s that? It’s a secret? Which part? The slide or this place? Because the slide was awesome! All those ups and downs and loop-de-loops and—Where are we again? I can’t see a thing. There’s a what? Aardvark noodles? Which way?”
Pinkie stood and began blindly following the voices around the … wherever place she was in.
“Two steps forward! Right turn! One step back! Wait. One step forward? So, now it’s two. What? Okay, left turn and two steps forward. That was my other left! OW! Oh! You meant that other left! Okay, reverse! One and a half steps back, the other, other left, then two steps forward and now tongue flick?”
And then there was light.
In the room.
“It’s more like a cave I think. … Oh! Thirty-Two, you’re right. Due to the speleothems growing from the ceiling, it is more of a cavern than a cave! That’s smart of you. Maud would be impressed. I should introduce you to her if I can ever find a way to get you out of my head so you can talk to each other.”
Finally taking a good look around the cavern, Pinkie noticed filing cabinets, streamers, balloons, disco-balls, wrapped presents, cakes, party hats, lollipops, gumdrops, party poppers, muffins, cupcakes, plates, ribbons, paper whistles, cotton candy, wrapping paper, empty gift boxes, confetti, candy canes, and all sorts of other party planning stuff.
“It’s pony Pinkie Pie’s party planning cave-a-palooza! I mean pony Pinkie Pie’s party planning cavern-a-palooza!”
Pinkie immediately took care of priority number one.
“Mmm, that’s a good cupcake. Now for priority number two! What’s in those cabinets?”
Turning to the nearest and opening a random drawer, by playing Eeny, meeny, miny, moe on it, then pulling with her tongue, revealed a long series of file folders labeled with the names of various people. In the folders were details of all the kinds of things each person liked and disliked for the purpose of planning the parties for them.
“This is just like my super-duper party planning Pinkie Drive back home, but old-school!” She glanced at her forehead. “I know it’s called a thumb drive, but I’m Pinkie Pie so I painted it pink to make it a pink thumb drive and just call it my Pinkie Drive for short. I keep it safe in my party planning closet with all my supplies!”
Pinkie gasped. “Pony Trixie was right! I have all the supplies I need now for my Hi-My-Name-is-Pinkie-Pie-and-I’m-New-in-Town-Even-Though-I-Probably-Look-Just-Like-Someone-Else-You-Know-Who-is-Also-Named-Pinkie-Pie-But-I-Want-to-be-Your-Friend-Too-Party! But now that I have all this info, I need to read up on the pony versions of my friends to make sure they don’t happen to dislike different things that their humane versions like. It’d be awful if I set up a whole corner for Twi-Twi only to find out she’s scared of ladybug-shaped pancakes instead of firefly-shaped quesadillas or something silly like that.”
Pinkie did a quick spin, counting all the filing cabinets, and took a deep breath, her eyes bugging out slightly. “I. Must. Read. Everything!"
She stopped and giggled. "Wow, I wonder how many times the Twilights have said that.”
She then opened the first folder and began to read. “Just call me Pinkie Party-Egghead Pie!”
*** *** ***
09:15 AM
“Heh, heh, heh! Bwahahaha!” Pinkie laughed darkly, her face in shadow from the overhang of her mane and the folder she held below her muzzle. “And now I know just as much about the ponies, dragons, donkeys, cows, griffins, yaks, changelings, seaponies-slash-hippogriffs, and other assorted creatures in and around this town as my pony person does! Mouhahahaaaa!”
Suddenly the smirk on her face turned to a bright smile as light seemed to filter in on her face from no discernible source. “Or at least I know everything I need to throw them all the best Hi-My-Name-is-Pinkie-Pie-and-I’m-New-in-Town-Even-Though-I-Probably-Look-Just-Like-Someone-Else-You-Know-Who-is-Also-Named-Pinkie-Pie-But-I-Want-to-be-Your-Friend-Too-Party ever!”
A glance and an annoyed glare was shot up to her forehead. “No thanks to all of you up there! You know how hard it is to read with thirty-six, five halves, and three quarters of you voices all mumbling and stuff in your heads?” A slight pause. “Yeah, that’s what I thought! Do any of you even have heads? You’re all getting loud again too. Pipe down!”
Pinkie returned to the folder in her hooves. “Oh, hey. How am I holding this thing in my hooves? I don’t have fingers.” At this, the folder simply dropped to the floor.
After a shrug, Pinkie slapped her head onto the floor and stood back up, the folder sticking to her mane. She then nodded quickly to the opened cabinet drawer to flip the folder inside, perfectly adhering to its established alphabetical order. “That’s better.”
With a determined smile of epic proportions, Pinkie turned to face the party cavern’s main slide and began marching forward. “It’s time, fellas and gals. Time to …,” she stopped. “Um, time to find out where this big slide leads to I guess. Gotta get back to town and pick a location for the party, and make sure ponies will show up, and make sure one of those ponies is Twi.”
The march turned into a few pronks, the last of which placed Pinkie on the end of the slide where she waited patiently.
For five seconds.
“Has it really been five seconds already? So how do I start this thing?”
Looking for buttons revealed none so Pinkie tested a hunch. “Mush!” she shouted to the voices and she began to rise up the slide.
“Wait! Take me back down, voices!”
Pinkie dropped back to the floor of the cavern, after flipping backward off the end of the slide, marched to the light switch, and flicked it off. “Forgot to turn off the light.”
With the cavern very cavernous in the darkness, Pinkie marched back to the slide, stubbing a hoof in the process.
“Ouch! This place could really use some motion sensitive lighting.”
Resuming her march got her back onto the slide. Making a request to the voices to send her back up restarted her ascent.
“Thanks again, Nineteen!”
The slide took her up through a trapdoor, that thankfully opened for her, and into a very colorful bedroom.
“Hey, whose bedroom is this? Uh, oh, am I breaking and entering again? … What’s that, voices? … Oohhh! This is Pony Pinkie’s bedroom? It’s so perfectly Pinkie! And so perfectly Pie! I love it! I guess this is my house! Whew! No new lawsuits.”
Pinkie gasped upon seeing a small, green lizard standing next to what might be the recently pressed button controlling the trap door that let Pinkie into the room. “What is that? Is that …? Are you …? Gummy?!”
The lizard blinked its left eye.
“Oh, Gummy! It is you!.”
Pinkie rushed over, scooped the lizard into her forelegs, did a sideways barrel-roll, tossing Gummy high into the air, landed supine on pony Pinkie’s bed, and caught Gummy on his way back down.
Completely unfazed, Gummy blinked his right eye. And then his left.
“You’re alive! I mean, like, for real!”
Giggling, Pinkie attempted to tickle Gummy under his chin only for Gummy to trap her hoof between his toothless gums.
“Hehehehehe! That tickles, Gummy. Say, what’s it like being alive compared to being a stuffed animal?”
Gummy blinked his left eye. Then his right. And then both together.
“Hmmm. Figuring you out is going to be like the voices, huh? Wait! Are you one of the voices?! That would explain so much! For the past hour or so, while I was in my private party planning cavern, I’ve been hungry for raw muskrat and deer and I don’t think those are cupcake flavors. And now I really want to lick Rainbow Dash’s wings for some reason.”
Gummy blinked his right eye. And then his left.
“What do you mean, ‘old joke'?”
Gummy blinked his right eye twice. And then his left.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Gummy blinked his left eye twice. And then his right.
“You’re right, Gummy! There’s not enough time! I have a party to pop! I have supplies, personal knowledge of the ponies and other creatures in town, now I need to scout a location, and I still need to finish inviting every pony in town, especially Twi since she’s the reason we all came here!”
Gummy didn’t blink.
Pinkie hugged her pony’s lizard tightly. “You’re such a smart alligator, and so selfless! I promise you’ll be invited too! Oh!. And make sure you invite every pony you see!”
Giving Gummy a little toss into the air, Pinkie rolled off the bed and marched down the stairs before Gummy bounced onto the mattress.
Gummy blinked his right eye. And then licked his left twice.
Down one flight of stairs, Pinkie found herself in a hallway and continued down another flight to find herself in a—
“Totally the most amazing, wonderful, delicious-smelling, fantastic, delightful, spectacular, yum-a-rific bakery I’ve ever seen!”
“Why, thank you, Pinkie,” said a kind voice.
“Oh, you’re welcome, newest voice that sounds very familiar and oddly coherent compared to the other new voices in my head today.”
“Pinkie?” asked the voice. “Over here, dear.”
“Wow, new voice! You made it out of my head! That’s great! I can start inviting you to parties and introducing you to my friends!”
“Pinkie? Please just turn around.”
“Sure thing, Number Forty-One,” Pinkie said while turning around.
“I’m actually—"the voice cleared its throat—"still thirty-nine, dear. Don’t you remember? You do plan my birthday parties.”
Finally locating the source of the voice, Pinkie exclaimed, “Mrs. Cake! It’s you! How did you get to be one of my voices?”
“Um. ‘Voices’, dear?
“I got a bunch of new ones now! They’ve been talking to me all day!”
“They’ve been talking to you … in your head?”
“Yup! Loud and unclear! Sometimes very loud.”
Mrs. Cake looked around a bit uneasily. “Are you …? You know what? Never mind. I’ve learned not to ask that question.”
“What question?”
“Oh, nothing, dear. Though, I am surprised to see you. You told me you’d be in Canterlot for at least a week. Baked up quite a storm the other night before you left so we’d have extra stock while we’d be short a quad of hooves.”
“I’m in Canterlot right now?”
"Well," Mrs. Cake pointed a hoof at Pinkie. “Apparently not? I can see you right there.”
Pinkie let her smile fade slightly. “But I can't see me. That means I can’t meet pony me today.”
Not missing a beat, Mrs. Cake kept right on through that, “If you say so, dear.”
“Oh, by the way; I’m Pinkie Pie!”
That one gave her pause. Mrs.’s Cake’s eyes flicked side to side then back to Pinkie. “Uh, yes? I know. We’ve known you for years. You’re our tenant and employee.”
“No, no, you’re thinking of pony me. She’s apparently in Canterlot, because you told me that, which is too bad because I really wanted to meet her. I’m a different Pinkie Pie. I just came to town today and I want to invite every pony in town to my Hi-My-Name-is-Pinkie-Pie-and-I’m-New-in-Town-Even-Though-I-Probably-Look-Just-Like-Someone-Else-You-Know-Who-is-Also-Named-Pinkie-Pie-But-I-Want-to-be-Your-Friend-Too-Party!”
Mrs. Cake stared back at Pinkie. She blinked twice. “Okay. Just let me know where, when, and what to bring.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Cake! I’ll let you know as soon as I do! I have more ponies to invite and I need to pick a location!”
Back in stride, Mrs. Cake rolled on through, “If you’re inviting the whole town, it would be best to have it at Twilight’s palace, the marketplace, or Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Oohh! Thanks for the insight! How about the marketplace but near Twi’s palace? Like right out front.”
“What time?” Mrs. Cake walked to a counter and pulled over a notepad and pencil.
“Oh, dear. I should have asked Trixie when her show was. I promised to not do them at the same time. And I have to do it soon because I need to get back to my world and help a friend who kinda grew bat wings again. But I also haven’t invited many ponies yet because I’ve been learning where everything is and how to walk and make sense of all these new voices. I really don’t know when to set the party.”
“Don’t worry, dear. Trixie's party is in the evening and I can make advertisements to say the party be will outside the palace when the bell-tower rings. Ponies can hear it around the whole town.”
“Will that work?” Pinkie bounced on her hooves.
“We’ve done that before. That is, with … ‘pony Pinkie’? Turnout will be lower, at least early on, but at this way everypony will know there'll be an event.”
“Perfect! I’ll go and invite more ponies! You’re the best in both worlds, Mrs. Cake!”
Pinkie rushed up to her pony counterpart’s friend, landlady, and employer and gave her a big hug which the older mare returned.
“Take it easy out there, Pinkie. Try not to get too hyper today.”
“Who, me?” Pinkie laughed her way out the door.
In the silence the followed Pinkie’s departure, Mrs. Cake took a slow, deep breath.
She looked around at the roughly thirteen customers who had been perusing her shop’s wares before Pinkie’s appearance. They were all looking back at her and at each other. She walked to the service bell on the counter and rung it three times loud and clear.
A moment later Mr. Cake appeared. “What is it, Cupcake?”
“Carrot, Pinkie’s off her meds.”
Several ponies, fearing the worst, ducked under nearby tables.
*** *** ***
09:30 AM
Outside, Pinkie dashed into the street and took in her surroundings.
The marketplace.
One building looked like a gingerbread house with a giant cupcake on top and she salivated, thinking how delicious it—
“Oh wait, that’s the building I just came out of! Silly me. It’s not delicious at all. Wood, paint, plaster, and straw bricks aren’t edible after all. I’ve tested them plenty of times.”
So she looked around further. Vegetable stands, florists, restaurants, a bank, a—
“Is that?! …” Pinkie pronked over to a shop with a wonderfully sensible sign and a large pile of sofas outside. It appeared an earth pony male with pale amber fur, dark hair, and a dapper blue dress shirt was cleaning up and arranging the sofas onto a cart, except for one with a hole in the back. She quickly moved right up to him with wide, starry eyes.
“Ooooh, a shop just for quills and sofas? That’s a great idea! It’s like a shop for setting up your own comfy writing desks! Get a nice sofa and quills and ink and parchment, and you got yourself a nice, little, cozy place to relax back on and take notes, or write a letter, or do your homework! Oh, wait. Scratch that last one, homework is rarely ever relaxing no matter where you do it. He he, unless your name happens to be Twilight or Sunset. Am I right? Although, having a nice, little, cozy place to relax back on can still improve the whole homework experience at least a little for the rest of us. I almost always do my homework while on my giant, inflatable doughnuts or my giant, inflatable cookie chair or my giant, inflatable balloon mattress—my sisters usually sit on rocks, especially Maud—. How’d you ever come up with such a great combination shop? Did you have, like, a long lost twin brother raised in some far off country by a quill farmer who grew up and traveled the world selling only the best quills door-to-door while you grew up the son of a simple sofa salespony here in town who just happened, during a rare vacation abroad when a freak storm blew your airship off course to crash land on an island that didn’t have any people OR desserts on it because it was a deserted island rather than a desserted island, find your brother there because he was on another airship that also crash-landed there a week earlier and you noticed he looked just like you when you tried to sell him a comfy sofa that survived the crash at the same time he tried to sell you a set of writing quills to write S.O.S. letters to put in bottles to throw into the ocean with to try and get rescued, and then you actually got rescued a month later when a regular watership crash-landed on that very same island and you all got together to create a new, giant ship from the salvageable pieces of the three ships that crashed and you finally got back home and invited your twin brother to join you in your sofa shop to make it a quills and sofa shop?!”
“Pinkie,” said the owner of the shop, “I’m the one who told you that story.”
“Really? So that’s why it sounded familiar!”
“Always did wonder why my cutie mark was a sofa and a quill." The shop owner scratched his chin. "Always thought it meant I should work with feather-filled sofas until I found I had a twin with the same mark.”
“Hey! How are Little Buddy and the Skipper too?”
The shop owner smiled. “Oh, they still send us letters from time to time. They’re doing quite well with their resort on that island. They have a nice ship repair service now too since so many of them keep crashing there. Good business being so close to the Bermuda Horseshoe.”
“So, if you’ve told me that story before, but we’ve never actually met, are you one of my voices?”
“One of your—Pinkie, we’ve known each other for years.”
“Actually, you’re thinking of pony Pinkie. I’m a different Pinkie Pie. I just came to town today and I want to invite every pony in town to my Hi-My-Name-is-Pinkie-Pie-and-I’m-New-in-Town-Even-Though-I-Probably-Look-Just-Like-Someone-Else-You-Know-Who-is-Also-Named-Pinkie-Pie-But-I-Want-to-be-Your-Friend-Too-Party!”
The shop owner looked back at Pinkie.
For more than a few seconds.
“… Right,” he finally said, plainly.
“Yup,” Pinkie agreed.
“And there’s just two of you this time? No more?”
“Well, Sunset and the Twilights said, in theory, there’s an infinite number of worlds that could have other Pinkies on them, but—“
A sudden breeze stopped pinkie and she looked around the empty marketplace. “Hey, where’d everybody go?”
*** *** ***
10:00 AM
“And then I looked around and no one was there! Isn’t that so strange?”
“YEAH!”
“Yeah!” Pinkie agreed with the large, exuberant, white stallion. "I mean, seriously. And it happened three times around town! Ponies just—poof—gone.” She looked around at her audience back in the park. Bulk Biceps was beside her where he had been pushing a cart, Cloudchaser and Amethyst Star foalsat Dinky; further away, Caramel and his date were on a picnic blanket and some parents watched their foals play in the playground.
Cloudchaser leaned in toward Amethyst and whispered in her ear. “Pinkie seems off today.”
“Pinkie always seems off,” whispered back Amethyst, “especially when she’s on.”
“I just want to invite everybody to my,” Pinkie took a breath, “Hi-My-Name-is-Pinkie-Pie-and-I’m-New-in-Town-Even-Though-I-Probably-Look-Just-Like-Someone-Else-You-Know-Who-is-Also-Named-Pinkie-Pie-But-I-Want-to-be-Your-Friend-Too-Party! Why is this so hard?”
Cloudchaser and Amethyst shot each other raised eyebrows. “Should we be worried?” asked Cloudchaser.
“It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. She’s just a little extra ‘Pinkie’ today is all.”
“YEAH!” agreed Bulk with full volume after catching the whispered conversation.
“I just don’t get it,” Pinkie continued unawares. “I mean, was it something I said? I’ve just been telling ponies how I’m not the Pinkie they already know, but a different Pinkie from an alien world and I just want to make friends here.”
“Sounds like she’s being more than just a little extra Pinkie,” whispered Cloudchaser.
“Okay, it is a little odd for her,” Amethyst conceded.
“YEAH!” Bulk added.
“So far, the longest conversations I’ve had in this world have been with the voices in my head.”
“The what now?” startled Amethyst, catching a glance from Cloudchaser.
“YEAH?” Bulk asked with a slight warble to his roar.
“The voices!” Pinkie explained bonking a hoof against her head. “I got almost fifty in there now. And I’m still getting new ones.”
“In your head?” asked Cloudchaser.
“Y-YEAH?” Bulk distressed.
“Yeah!” agreed Pinkie. “They’re really hard to understand but some of them have been helping out and telling me things about this world and what to do.”
“You have voices in your head telling you what to do?” Amethyst’s tail flicked with worry.
“Uh, YEAH?” Bulk squirmed.
“YEAH!” answered Pinkie. “Not a new thing really. I’ve always had the one, I just have at least fifty more now. And they can get pretty loud. Hurts my brain sometimes.” She bonked the side of her head with a hoof a few more times.
“Oh! That’s uh,” began Cloudchaser.
“Unfortunate?” added Amethyst.
“YEAH!” Bulk concurred.
“So, uh,” Cloudchaser glanced to Amethyst while standing up.
“Yeah! Uh, yes,” Amethyst picked up, also standing. “Maybe you should get some aspirin or something. Heat week’s coming up soon; don’t want to have a headache on top of that!”
The two mares turned and ushered their charge toward the playground. “Good luck with your party,” called back Cloudchaser.
“YEAH!” Bulk helped.
“But you’ll come, right?” Pinkie asked.
“Oh, oh sure. We’ll try, might have some, uh … laundry to do first though,” Cloudchaser squeaked.
“YEAH!” Bulk waved the three goodbye.
“Okay!” Pinkie cheered over the whole park. “But make sure you invite other ponies too. Oh, and Twi! We need to talk her up and take her out on top of inviting her to party down!”
“YEAH!” Bulk added again.
“You can say things other than ‘YEAH’ right, Bulky?” asked Pinkie.
“YEAH!” Bulk answered truthfully and it was a moment before he thought to prove it. “Uh, you want a massage or some cinnamon nuts?”
“YEAH! Gimme your nuts!” cheered Pinkie.
Halfway across the park, once distant enough from Pinkie, and still making way toward the playground, Cloudchaser and Amethyst continued their whispered commentary.
“You still think that’s just Pinkie being a little extra Pinkie?” asked Cloudchaser.
“You think we should call somepony?” Replied Amethyst.
“Well, it is Pinkie. She has all sorts of varying levels of weirdness from week to week.”
“Yes, but she’s never been dangerous.”
“No, never.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine.”
“Though,” Cloudchaser put a hoof to her chin while still walking on the other three. “The flower trio were screaming about changelings earlier.”
“What?! But we’re friends with changelings now. They weren’t in those hazmat suits were they?”
“They were.”
“Great,” sighed Amethyst. “Full panic mode.”
“Yeah, totally overreacting.”
“Exactly!”
“It’s just Pinkie!”
“Being Pinkie!”
“Nothing to worry about.”
The two mares chuckled, finally reaching the edge of the playground only to hear Pinkie’s voice behind them.
“HEY, AMETHYST!” Pinkie shouted across the whole park. “CAN I LICK YOUR HORN?! OH! AND DINKY’S TOO? I GOTTA KNOW WHAT THEY TASTE LIKE!”
The three ponies stopped, as well as most of the parents around the park. Dinky looked up at her horn, and then at her two foalsitters. “Why would she want to do that?”
A magenta glow appeared around Amethyst’s horn and lifted Dinky onto Cloudchaser’s back. “Take Dinky home. I’ll go to the donut shop and get the sheriff,” rushed Amethyst.
“Hold on, Dinky!” Cloudchaser called, taking flight.
Once the three were gone, a confused Pinkie Pie turned to Bulk Biceps. “Huh. Any idea what’s gotten into them?”
“YEA—! Uh ….” Bulk halted his reply and considered his answer.
He didn’t get very far, however, before an explosion of sound and rainbow light spread out over the whole town in a thick ring.
“THIS IS AWESOME!” cried a bluish blur that might may have been a pegasus pony of some kind, though it was moving much too fast to tell.
“Oh, hi-Rainbow-Dash!-Bye-Rainbow-Dash!” cheered Pinkie as the blur passed overhead. "Oh, wait! You want some nuts?!"