//------------------------------// // Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie // Story: Fourty-two // by Dusky Flower //------------------------------// Sugarcube Corner looked, well, about as normal as you could expect it to look. It was about 9:30, and Pinkie Pie had done something that would inevitably and irrevocably impact the universe. She baked a cake. Not just any cake, mind you. THE cake. The cake that made MMM look like a sad little piece of vanilla birthday cake. The very same cake that a white pegasus had baked in the universe next door... Pinkie Pie had a look of utmost concentration on her face. Finally, she would fulfill the greatest dream of her life. The one that would usually only happen in her ultra-double-triple-exponential-sugar-filled dreams. She was going to have her cake and eat it too. "Pinkie, that's logically impossible. Of course you can't have your cake and eat it too!" "Pinkamena, you can't have your cake and eat it too. That's a lesson we all must learn." "You think you have a way to have your cake and eat it too? Yeah, right. Pinkie Pie, you are just so random!" "...I don't think it works like that... if that's ok with you..." She would show them. She would show them all! And Pinkie looked straight into the fourth wall, and dove in. "What..." "...just..." "...happened?" Fourty-two purple heads rose shakily from their beds. Something was wrong. The unicorns shook off the weird echoing feeling, as each one reminded themselves that they were the only ones there. Twilight Sparkle blinked. And the world snapped back into focus. ---------- Twilight groggily shook off the last echoes of her dream. How odd... I could have sworn there was somepony else here... She blearily checked her alarm clock, which read exactly 9:32. 9:32! I'm late! I'm never late! Or almost almost never! Why did Pinkie have to spike the fruit punch with coffee? Twilight leapt out of bed and tore a comb through her ragged mane, ignoring the sharp tendrils of pain prickling her nerves. "OhmygoshohmygoshohmygoshI'mlate! I can't be late! If I'm late it throws off my schedule for the entire day and oh no, what if I'm late for bed? Then the entire week might be thrown off!" Her horn sent off frantic bursts of energy as she lifted up clothes and threw them to the side. "It's cold so I should wear a scarf but yesterday Rainbow Dash said something about a drizzle so what if that happens and it rains?" Twilight firmly pressed a rain hat onto her head, and pulled on a scarf and boots. "Okay! Now I'm ready!" The scheduled drizzle had been a massive understatement. Pouring from dark gray clouds was a full-blown storm. Twilight didn't let this hinder her, but bravely, or rather, neurotically, pressed on. The dirt of the road turned to mud. Lightning crackled in the distance, but Twilight Sparkle pressed on. She was LATE. And absolutely NOTHING was going to stop her. The door of Sugarcube Corner swung open. Mrs. Cake turned her head to see who had come in a storm like this. A battered purple unicorn mare tripped in, muddy boots and all. "Why, you poor dear. Caught in weather like this? Let me get you some hot chocolate. No charge." Twilight managed to pull herself up. "No... thanks... late... where's... Pinkie...?" A worried expression crept onto Mrs. Cake's face. "I don't know. I haven't seen her in hours, and there's a strange... not-hole... in the kitchen wall..." Twilight's expression grew puzzled. "A knothole? In the kitchen wall?" Mrs. Cake fidgeted with her apron. "No. A... hole... that isn't." "Isn't a hole?" "...No. Isn't there." Twilight Sparkle flung her hooves up into the air. "AAAAAARGH! HOW IN CELESTIA'S NAME DOES THAT EVEN WORK?" Mrs. Cake blinked at her. "...Sorry. I've had a stressful morning." Awkward silence. Great. "I'll... just try to go find Pinkie now..." Twilight Sparkle entered the kitchen. The kitchen was a mess. Vanilla and flour splattered the walls. Pictures of cakes fluttered around, and a single slice of what had to be the most elaborate cake Twilight had ever seen sat spotless on a tray in the middle of the floor. And only sort of there, just as Mrs. Cake had said, was a not-hole adorning one of the walls in the room. Suddenly, a piece of paper, but a strange one, and echoing one, landed right in front of the purple mare. Twilight bent down. Words on paper burned themselves into her mind. They read: THE FOURTH WALL IS THE FIFTH WALL Somepony's screaming, she thought absently. Oh. It's me. Twilight stared ahead blankly, then fell sideways into the hole. As Mrs. Cake peered into the room (after all, that was the thing to do when somepony was screaming) a faint cry of "Piinnkiieeeeeeee..." echoed through the hallway. Mrs. Cake sighed. "Oh, dear."