//------------------------------// // III - Pinkie Pie // Story: Collision Course // by journcy //------------------------------// + + + One month after the death of Rainbow Dash... + + + Pinkie Pie stared up at her ceiling, brushing a bit of her perfectly straight mane out of her eyes. She was stuck in a loop, and she didn’t like it at all. She just didn’t see how to get out of the loop. Her trouble was, she had lost a friend, and that was all she could think about. She knew Rarity, Twilight and Fluttershy were in similar positions. She hadn’t thrown a party in a whole month! She just didn’t see anything to party about. It had been bad when Applejack fell into her coma, but Dashie was gone. Forever. It was the one thing she didn’t want to think about, and it was all she could think about. Dash was gone. Dash was gone. That was the loop Pinkie was stuck in, the loop she has been stuck in for a month. She had talked to her friends, but it hadn’t helped. She had baked all sorts of delicious things, but it hadn’t helped. She had done her best to sing, but it hadn’t helped. The two things she hadn’t done were throw a party... Or smile. That wasn’t to say she was glum all the time. She didn’t just mope around Sugarcube Corner, baking cupcakes and singing half-heartedly to herself. She didn’t not go outside, except when one of her remaining friends came and got her first. She didn’t cry herself to sleep. Oh, wait. Yes she did. + + + Later that day... + + + Pinkie had made her way downstairs for the day, which generally took at least an hour. She’d wake up, sit on her bed, and be sad, until she finally worked up the courage to let the Cakes know she still existed. She had made good time today; she was downstairs after only fifty minutes of listless staring. As she walked over to the counter with none of her old chipper bounce, she let out a sigh. Another day of trying to convince herself to be happy. Another day of trying not to cry in the dough. Pinkie sighed for all she was worth. Today, though she didn’t know it, was actually destined to be far different from the past thirty-odd ones she had spent in her current demeanor. She began to catch on to the oddities in store for her when, from the other room, she caught a glimpse of Twilight Sparkle at the counter. She was talking with Mrs. Cake, who was working the register, but Pinkie couldn’t hear a word over the sound of the blender as she put together an icing for a special-order cake. However, as she was done with her blending, the lack of machinery directly in her face allowed her to hear the close of the conversation going on between Twilight and Mrs. Cake. “...Remember, don’t tell Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie froze, bowl in hoof. What wasn’t she allowed to know about? She moved closer to the main room of the store, looking out, only to see Twilight leaving the store with what looked like a white box on her back. She considered racing after her, but it would probably only scare her off—after all, the meaning of the package was forbidden knowledge. In order to continue her surveillance, Pinkie instead shot back up into her room. She peeked out the window, and watched as Twilight walked off, looking rather suspicious, with what was definitely a white box on her back. Why would Twilight want a cake? Pinkie wondered. + + + Pinkie stalked Twilight through Ponyville, keeping mostly to the rooftops. The perambulating purple pony moved through town towards Carousel Boutique. Upon reaching the door, she knocked. Rarity stuck her head out of the upper half of the door, and, seeing Twilight and the box, levitated the white cube into her dwelling. The door then slammed, and Twilight walked off, occasionally glancing from side to side, as she had been doing the whole time. None of this odd activity cleared up anything for Pinkie Pie. She decided that sticking around the Boutique wouldn’t get her anywhere, so she continued her trailing of Twilight. + + + Hmm... Pinkie pondered suspiciously. It had been around an hour since she had started following Twilight, and so far things had just gotten foggier for her. Twilight had gone back to her library for about fifteen minutes, before exiting the massive tree with a burlap sack slung over her side. She had then walked to the edge of Ponyville, where she had given the sack to Fluttershy. Pinkie had decided to follow the yellow pegasus, as she was clearly the next step of whatever the plan it seemed all of her friends were in on. Fluttershy had gone to Sweet Apple Acres, where she had put the sack in the barn and flown off again. Pinkie remained at the barn, trying to get in—unsuccessfully. It seemed Fluttershy had locked the door somehow. She was just about to leave when Rarity showed up with the white box Twilight had gotten from Sugarcube Corner earlier, which she stored quietly in the barn, as Fluttershy had not ten minutes earlier. Rarity left, and Pinkie followed, with nothing better to do. Rarity merely returned to Carousel Boutique, going inside without a backwards glance. Pinkie then decided to return to her home, and so she sat in the back room, baking once more. Well, they were certainly putting something together, Pinkie said to herself. But what? Pinkie Pie came to a conclusion. Depressed though she was, Pinkie knew the makings of a party. She had sat thinking for a good long time, and she knew what a pony did with a cake a bag full of things and some sneaking around. They set up a surprise party. And she decided she was willing to bet that if she was still following her friends around out there, she would see Twilight levitating a carefully disguised bowl of punch, and Fluttershy carrying baskets that, if the viewer knew the contents, could be seen as picnic baskets full of food. That Rarity would be carrying yet another burlap sack, to complete the party decorations. The decorations... “Inside Applejack's barn,” Pinkie hissed to herself. She suddenly saw what her friends were doing. They were going to throw a party celebrating the tragedies that had occurred, Applejack's coma, Dash's— “No!” She cried. “My friends are just as sad as I am. Right?” ...Right? But the thought had wormed its way into her brain, and she spent the next three hours of monotonous baking contemplating every single way it fit her situation permanently. The secrecy—they knew she wouldn't approve. Throwing the party in the barn—what better way to show off Applejack's absence? Many reasons far more bizarre occurred to Pinkie, driving her towards an inevitable end she didn't want to meet. However, things are inevitable for a reason. At precisely five forty-two in the afternoon, Pinkie Pie finally snapped. She leaped up, and, with a look of cold fury, ran off to the barn of Sweet Apple Acres. Eighteen minutes later, Rarity showed up at Sugarcube Corner looking for the pink mare. However, when she was nowhere to be found, Rarity began to think something was amiss. She met Twilight and Fluttershy outside the barn, and they went inside, little knowing that the pony they were searching for had already forced her way in... + + + The door creaked open. Twilight lit the lamps, and the three friends gazed around at the party they had so painstakingly put together. Even through all their effort, it still fell short of one of Pinkie's usual shindigs—however, they knew that Pinkie was in no state to organize a party. Suddenly, shocking the three mares standing in the middle of the barn, Pinkie leaped down from the rafters of the barn. “Pinkie Pie?” Fluttershy said. “Hello, girls,” Pinkie snarled. “My, Pinkie! Whatever are you doing here? I just went to get you from Sugarcube Corner, but-” “But I wasn't there,” Pinkie said, interrupting Rarity, her tone not dropping its anger. Twilight glanced at Rarity and Fluttershy. Pinkie was acting very strange, and she didn't think it meant anything good. “Are you all right, Pinkie?” Twilight asked. “Oh, yeah, I'm just fine. It's not like my three so-called best friends aren't throwing a party celebrating how my other friends are hurt and gone!” “W-what?!” Twilight sputtered, deeply confused. “No! Pinkie! Don't you remember? This is your b-” “No!” Pinkie screamed at them. “No! You aren’t going to do this! I won’t let you!” She galloped over to the nearest table and bucked it over. Her friends simply gaped at her as she set about violently dismantling their party spread, screaming bloody murder at them the whole time. As Pinkie forcefully collapsed a stray box with a hoof, Twilight snapped out of her daze. “Pinkie! Stop!” “No! You aren’t having this party, Twilight! I won’t let you!” Pinkie screamed back, her voice now hoarse. “But why, darling?” Rarity asked. “Because you can’t do this to them!” Pinkie roared. She had all but finished her hooves-on demolition job. All that remained was a single wooden table. Deep in her fury, she raised her hind legs up over the table, and with one smooth motion and all the force of her rage behind her, brought her hooves down on the poor thing. It really wasn’t the most sturdy table; it was rather shoddy construction, and it was an old thing. Its weaknesses combined with Pinkie’s anger-driven muscle high resulted in the table shattering into splinters and other bits of wood. The shrapnel flew everywhere, some embedding themselves in their creator’s body. The speechless Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy were left unharmed. Pinkie cried out in pain, and, finished her self-bestowed destruction duties, ran from the library. Ran from Ponyville. Ran from her three friends. Her three remaining, shocked, scared, tired friends. “But... Pinkie Pie... It's your birthday...” Twilight whispered. And so the third bearer was lost.