Pinkie Pie breathed heavily, having arrived both late and in a hurry after nearly forgetting a certain event in town that afternoon. Worse, it was an event which she had agreed to help provide desserts for.
The garden party that June Bug was putting on in her yard was quaint and low key, but she had requested a week in advance if Sugarcube Corner would help cater. Luckily, everything was now out and prepped and ready for consumption by friendly Ponyville faces.
Pinkie Pie exhaled one last deep breath. She stood stiffly off towards one side of the big open yard, smiling as convincingly as she could and to as many other ponies as she could, all at once—even if they weren't looking her way. Okay, play it cool. You're late, but that's fine.
Pinkie surveyed the area, starting to calm down. It wasn't really her kind of party, but everypony was chatting, sipping drinks and having friendly conversation. That all was nice in and of itself.
She hoped that everypony was enjoying it. The calm atmosphere, the cool breeze, the colors of the garden, it was all pleasant.
Yup, everypony seems like they're having a good time. Nothing to worry about. Her eyes widened a fraction and her left ear flicked twice. But maybe they actually aren't. What if... Maybe, they're actually having an awful time, and they’re hiding it!?
She wouldn't know, she had been late! What was worse, she had that horrible itchy sensation you get after a haircut, reminding her that she totally should have rinsed her mane back at the spa before fleeing. That was totally distracting. Her head was a little sticky from her impromptu cotton candy wig, too.
Pinkie wiped a nervous sweat drop away from her brow, eyeballing the mingling crowd. With some difficulty, she forced herself to calm down. Just cool it, Pinkie ol' girl. Focus on the party. Yeah. Nopony thinks June Bug's party is awful. And this isn't really even a crazy party. Just a calm, relaxing one. Yup. Oh no, is that bad!? Maybe I should have surprised them with something! In a fit of nervousness, she began gnawing on her hoof.
Pinkie made herself stop panicking, again, and thought back to an assertive, but polite request from June Bug that things stay low key. That’s right, it's just a calm little party. And nopony's looking at you funny or treating you different than usual, either. It's all in your head! Not on it. Yeah.
"Love the new look, Pinkie! Very bold," Cheerilee said, and gave a cheerful smile as she trotted past, almost seeming to come from nowhere.
"Thanks!" Pinkie Pie did her best to return the favor, though her own smile was three times the size as was necessary and perhaps looked proportionally as creepy. There, see? A different look is good. It's spontaneous. It's you! Totally you. Her ear to ear smile began to peter out, until she was frowning slightly at a daisy shaped jello mold on the buffet.
Pinkie let out a weak sigh, her left hoof reaching up to pat at the thin air above her head. Sure, ponies did double-takes at her, stared briefly, or asked what had happened, but that didn’t feel like it was what bothered her at all. Then again, she also couldn't put her hoof on what actually was bothering her.
Another pony approached, smiling and heading towards the buffet.
Pinkie happened to look up, and they both happened to make eye contact.
Bon Bon stopped her trot towards the snack table short, two legs still hovering mid-air. "Oh my goodness. Pinkie Pie, is that you?" She blinked dumbly, then threw on a hasty smile. "Oh wow, it is. When I heard Daisy mention this, I had no idea this is what she meant. At first I thought that you were having a... I mean, uhm, hey, it looks good!"
Pinkie managed a grin for her fellow purveyor of sweets. "Thanks, Bon Bon! It— I'll admit, I didn't really plan for it to come out like it did. Ehheh."
Bon Bon gave a reassuring smile. "So it was an accident, then? I guess even Daisy is right about half of the time.”
"Heh heh, yeah..." Pinkie nodded in return, perhaps a bit quickly. "Hey, uhm, are you sure it doesn't look... uhm..." She frowned trying to think of the right word.
Bon Bon raised an eyebrow at Pinkie. "What? Bad? Nah. Not at all. Just real different. Yeah, you look like a whole other pony. But it's good. In fact, I bet you'll enjoy how aerodynamic it makes you zipping around at your parties, right?" She chuckled in an encouraging way.
A whole other pony. Pinkie realized Bon Bon was telling a joke, but a full two seconds late. "Oh! Hahah! Hah, good one!" She bounced a couple times on her hooves. "Heh, you’re right, it does. Hey! I've got a knee slapper I've been saving for the next birthday party I set up. Wanna hear?"
"Well... okay, sure thing." Bon Bon smiled.
"Alright, this one's a doozy!" Pinkie inhaled and opened her muzzle wide to share her joke about where pegasi would migrate if they did, but suddenly her words escaped her. "Ah— Uhm... huh." Wait, what did the pelican say to the Wonderbolt? Or was it a penguin? Oh no. She held up a hoof. "Wait, it'll come to me!"
Bon Bon stood by patiently while Pinkie began to appear more and more nervous.
During which, Pinkie Pie failed to even reach the punchline. And then the seapony… said… Her thoughts strained, and she absently felt herself reach up and brush her mane to the side while remembering her own joke. Remembering a joke! Something she was a natural at. "Okay... I guess I can't remember it. Huh."
Bon Bon raised an eyebrow, but smiled consolingly in return. "It's fine, Pinkie." She patted Pinkie's shoulder with a hoof. "Well, I recognized your desserts from across the party. I'm going to go get some. They're always really good."
"Oh, okay. Thanks again!" Pinkie's eyes followed as Bon Bon nabbed a paper plate and some desserts.
As soon as Bon Bon's back was to her, Pinkie also turned around, both of her hooves smooshing either side of her own face. "Oh my great golly gumdrops— I couldn't even say my joke. Am I losing it? Going crazy!? Is Pinkie Pie really just a mane framed by a cute face rather than a real pony!?"
"Pinkie? Are you okay?"
Pinkie laughed absently in a way that came out as a frantic cackle. "You betcha! I'm okay. Way perfectly totally-alrighty." She looked up too quickly, almost coming snout to snout with Bon Bon. "O-Oh, uh… I was just uh, looking for my yo-yo! Yeah, because I dropped it. Because I got a haircut and I can't keep my yo-yo there... anymore?"
Bon Bon's worried look became startled, then shifted to confusion. "You keep stuff in your mane?" She stared as Pinkie nodded lightning fast in response. "Ah, right. Anyway, I was trying those pink icing cupcakes over there? Those are yours, right?" She jabbed a hoof in the vague direction of Pinkie's provided sweets.
Get a hold of yourself, Pinkie. You're still helping with somepony's party. Pinkie Pie took a couple delicate breathes and calmed down. "Oh, they sure are! My super-spectacular strawberry spring-fling surprise cupcakes! What did you think?" Her grin stretched from fuzzy ear to fuzzy ear, swollen with pride for her latest delicious creations.
Bon Bon rubbed a hoof behind her head slowly. "Yeah, that's the thing. I'm no pastry baker by any means, but... I think maybe you didn't use enough sugar in them? Or maybe forgot it? They taste pretty bland."
Pinkie Pie heard the sound of glass shattering from somewhere, but wasn't sure where exactly.
"Pinkie? Helloooo?" Bon Bon waved a hoof in the air. "Are you in—"
A rush of wind and a sudden suction effect in the air almost threatened to knock Bon Bon and several other party-goers off their hooves.
Bon Bon blinked. "There?" she mumbled. Thin air and a small trail of fire leading into town stared back at her. She sighed. “I swear I’m the only sane pony in this town.”
Already across town and going even faster, Pinkie ran and ran. Trailing behind her was an indiscernible outcry that roughly translated to, “I forgot the sugar!”
Pinkie ran so hard, so fast that she'd barely even registered her sheets and pillows pulled around her after diving headfirst into them from the hallway in Sugarcube corner. "Okay, new solution," she panted. "Stay wrapped in a sheet cocoon until my hair is back. And then I'll be my old self again!"
That Evening
Pinkie Pie continued to look into the mirror of her bedroom, every so often hanging her head to either the left or right, watching as the frazzled, but scarce remnants of her mane slid along with it. Trying to get used to the change hadn't improved her opinion of it, though she had hoped that maybe if she looked long enough, it would at least stop bugging her.
Waiting several months hidden within her bedding for it to grow back wasn't realistically an option at all, certainly.
Pinkie sighed. "It's not a big deal, Pinkie. It isn't! It's simple, if somepony says something mean, which they won't because you're friends with everypony in Ponyville! Then you just say 'Good day, sir!' and turn the other cheek." Her muzzle stuck up in the air to the imaginary pony that wasn't there, until slowly she cracked one eye open at the mirror again.
"Yeah, but I'm not worried about what they think, or about McMeanies..." She thought about her trot through town after her haircut. "Even if everypony did give me an ooky-kooky look at first, they still reacted better to it than I did." She sat back on her haunches with a thump, a hoof idly flipping up the forelock of her mane's remnants. "Maybe I should just find another wig until I'm me again. I mean, my mane hasn't been this short since... ever!"
Pinkie thought hard. If only the Wig and Tassels store had been selling something like my old haircut. She paused, and before long her muzzle scrunched up into a pout. But... even if I did have my mane back or a wig, I wouldn't know why this is bugging me so much!
Pinkie's eyes searched around her reflection in the mirror as she fought to recall a time when her hair wasn't a proud pink poof atop her head, wild enough to rival the mane of any proud lion or fancy hairdo from Canterlot. As far back as she could recall, even before getting her cutie mark when she still lived on the family farm with Ma, Pa, Inkie, Blinkie and Maud, her hair had at least been long. She hung onto the memory of the quiet filly she used to be for just a second, before snapping back to the present.
"I never could have imagined I'd ever be more concerned with my looks than Rarity. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But my hair isn't that big of a deal to me!" She told herself the last bit forcefully, and stamped a hoof. Her reflection looked back in a stern way. "It isn't," she affirmed again, leaning forward.
When she didn't feel convinced, she asked, "Then why do I feel like this?" She could see the doubt on her face just as well as she could feel it. "I guess..." Her hoof tapped the mirror's glass momentarily, as if that might change what was in it. "I guess I don't know." Her expression finally softened.
With another sigh, Pinkie flopped on her side, then rolled over to face away from the mirror. It seemed she had no choice but to confide in one of her most trusted and wisest of friends.
"What do you think, Gummy?" Her head slid over the bare floorboards to soulfully lock her eyes on her little pet alligator. "Am I overreacting over nothing? Ponies’ moods and personalities don't shift with their hairstyle after all. That would be crazy!"
Gummy stared back at Pinkie Pie for several seconds, not moving. One of his eyes blinked slowly, then the other, before he moved up to mere inches from her snout. Then, he jumped forward with a reptilian croak. His toothless jowls snapped shut swiftly on Pinkie's mane; the remains of its tip, that is. He hung there for a moment, then slid off, slowly, unable to stay put with so little mane to hold onto.
Another croak escaped him, maybe of disappointment, and he tried once more, going for Pinkie's tail. Again though, it was too short and too straight for him to have a comfortable grasp.
Gummy paced around Pinkie, trying to find what should be there but wasn't. Finally, he blinked once, then twice, and let out another tiny growl, before turning away.
"By Celestia’s pink footie pajamas! What's happening to me!?" Pinkie began crying on the spot, and threw a foreleg over her eyes in her misery. "You're right, Gummy! You're right! How can others see me the same way when even I can't see me seeing me the same way!?" Her sobbing worsened, and she buried her face in a nearby pillow.
Outside the room in that moment, was Mrs. Cake. She stopped her march up towards the twins’ room, having heard crying once again. Her ear pressed to Pinkie’s door, confirming that it was another false alarm that night, and trotted back downstairs with a sad hum. She had already spoken with Pinkie at length, trying to cheer her up, but the other mare insisted she was perfectly alright each time.
Meanwhile, Gummy idly pushed a rogue balloon around the floor with his head. The room stayed as it was, with a crying pony and an aimlessly meandering alligator, until the balloon being pushed about suddenly bumped into Pinkie's shoulder.
Slowly and still sniffling, Pinkie looked up at Gummy to see the balloon there, spinning slightly until it stopped. She looked at it, and then Gummy, before going back to the balloon, then gasped as a twinkle entered her eye.
She suddenly knew what she had to do.
"Holy Gargonzoli! Gummy, you're a genius!" Pinkie jumped up to her hooves and hugged her pet, suddenly grinning from ear to ear. "Of course that's the best thing I can do! If ponies, including me, don't see me as Pinkie, then all I have to do is be as Pinkie as I can be! That'll show them! And I know I can do it. Yes!" She cheered and whooped, throwing on her saddlebags—with Gummy tucked safely in one satchel, instead of in her mane—and zoomed out of her bedroom.
Downstairs, Mr. and Mrs. Cake turned, smiling pleasantly to say good morning, only to be greeted by a rush of air strong enough to reshape their own manes into straight lines.
"Gotta-go-I'll-be-back-to-use-the-kitchen-a-little-bit-soon-but-I-gotta-go-order-some-stuff-for-a-party-bye!" The front doors to Sugarcube corner swung back and forth in Pinkie's wake, the jingling of the confectionery shop's bell the only sign left that she had even come through.
Mrs. Cake slowly began to smooth down her mane. "Oh dear. I wonder what that's all about?" she said, staring worriedly after Pinkie and the massive dust cloud that had been kicked up outside. "I hope she isn’t too upset still."
Mr. Cake put both hooves on either side of his head to help the spinning of his eyes slow down. "She sounded chipper to me. I'm sure she's just in a hurry." After a moment, he amended by saying, "Hopefully..." He eyed the combat helmet stuffed with a pillow that he kept under the front counter, just in case of emergencies. "I'll go leave the twins with a sitter, just in case."
In the streets and alleyways of Ponyville streaked a pink blur, stopping every so often to zoom into a shop in order to work towards a surplus of party supplies. The blur had so much work to do and only a night to get it all ready!
While in the middle of picking up an industrial sized tub of jello mix, the blur thought to herself, This is going to be the best party, ever!
Two Days Later
The Golden Oak Library
Twilight Sparkle hummed a perky tune as she entered her study, a fascinating looking book tucked under her foreleg and a cup of tea levitating overhead. She had an eager grin plastered on her muzzle as she pranced to her seat. A quill, a roll of parchment and a fresh inkwell promptly floated over from labeled stations beside her desk. With all the materials needed and placed in alphabetical order atop the desk, she giggled like a filly as she settled in for her bi-weekly all day study session.
“Huh, that’s odd.” A pair of pink envelopes, both covered with Pinkie Pie’s bubbly hoofwriting, lay torn open on her desk. “Party invitations? I wonder why Spike hadn’t mentioned these.”
Spike had stepped out that early morning, actually, if under highly suspicious motives. Twilight had listened to his story about going to help Rarity with a chore, but could tell there was something he was hiding. Without wanting to seem like she was overbearing, she let him go ahead with his hidden agenda.
It did mean solitude and focus for her studies, after all.
“Oh well, back to business... and 'Enchantments and Advanced Magical Tampering for the Curious' by Professor Murphy!” Twilight hugged the fancy covered volume lovingly. “How I’ve waited for you so.” Her last encounter with a different book of the same name had ended both catastrophically, and prematurely, but that was a different story altogether. The newly arrived copy, however, promised hours of exciting reading.
“Now… it’s just you, me, some delicious cinnamon tea and the secrets you have in store.” She cooed the words dreamily, eying the raised font of the cover like Rainbow Dash would a Daring Do book on its release date. Quill firm in her magical grip, Twilight dipped it in the ink well as she opened the hardbound cover.
Her eyes lit up even more when she saw the title page, an unheard angelic voice singing in the background. The book itself almost openly spoke out in greeting to her. The quill hovered over her scrolls for notes, poised to pen down the heading to her research. She brought it down oh-so-keenly, only an inch or so from making contact, when a low rumble stopped her thoughts, and the quill, short.
Twilight jolted upright from hunching over her book.
“What the hay was that?” she asked. To her immediate right, she spotted ripples in her tea. They emanated in-sync with the rumbles and dull booms. She thought she heard music now.
A small blot of ink dripped from her idly floating quill, staining her parchment.
Twilight frowned at it momentarily. Normally, it would’ve bothered her that a blotch soiled the introduction of her next paper. But the ripples were getting bigger and the rumbles were getting louder. They quickly grew so intense that her books shook on the shelves and the ink well clattered on the table, pouring errant splotches here and there.
“Hey!” Twilight called out, then snatched her new book away from where a rather large glob had been about to land. “Seriously, what the hay is going on!?”
Capping the well, she rose and ran downstairs, beginning to get a twinge flustered. “Razza-frazza… I swear, the timing of these things is getting worse by the week.” Ponyville was often peaceful, at first glance, but she knew the signs of something crazy happening when she saw them.
Twilight barged out her front door in a huff, intent on seeing what all the commotion was about. Circumstance was most definitely against her that moment, when the commotion turned out to be a party cannon aimed right at her.
“Wah!” Twilight screamed. Her timing was impeccable, as she was just able to conjure a shield strong enough to withstand the point blank blast of confetti.
“What the—" When the smoke cleared, she was able to see clearly what she’d stepped outside into. “What the hay is going on!?” A party cannon was mysteriously and strategically placed at her doorstep, but that was just the beginning.
Twilight goggled wide-eyed at what was usually a quiet, homely country town. By Grabthar's hammer. At least, it was quiet and homely half of the time. But right then, the scene before Twilight could only be described as the most intense, festive state that it had probably ever been in.
The booming suddenly made sense, as three elephants, a hippo, several giraffe, and other animals all marched past, seemingly following a circle around her house.
While in the middle of tooting its lungs out, one of the elephants raised its trunk up to tip its colorful and plumed hat in a gentlemanly gesture.
A mix of surprise and surreal shock played across Twilight’s face, but she managed to wave with a hoof and smile sheepishly in return. "Ehheh, hello?" Immediately after, she thought, Alright, where the hay is Pinkie and what has she done this time? She was already scanning the area dutifully, searching for her all things party obsessed friend. This has her name written all over it... literally.
Banners hung everywhere, strung from nearby buildings all the way to the Golden Oaks library by long wires. They left little doubt at all who was responsible. Most of them seemed to advertise different party events of varying silliness, but at least half their number read: Surprise Ponyville Party Bonanza by Pinkie Pie!
Perhaps it was nothing, but her name was painted in a very eye catching way, and underlined an excessive number of times.
In the vague direction of Town Hall were even more sounds of music and lights. Around the edges of buildings were ponies dancing, ponies watching the parade, and even more ponies just having a good time.
Twilight didn't understand, even more because she could have sworn she didn't recognize some of them. "Is it some kind of holiday? Why a party? And it's not even noon!" Without waiting, she started out into town with the intent of finding Pinkie, leaving behind the small circus and the crowds that had set up shop around her no-longer-peaceful library. "Oh well, I guess it isn’t too weird. Pinkie did go a little nuts for talk like a pirate day… but this is still redicu— Uh oh."
Twilight stumbled to a stop, having entered the wide avenue main street of Ponyville that would eventually take her past Sugarcube corner. She looked around herself at the confetti strewn across the cobblestone. Too late, she then noticed that to either of her flanks were even more party cannons, with ponies all cheering and celebrating beside them. The sounds of a parade thundering up from behind made her ears twitch.
Twilight gasped and reacted on instinct alone, already breaking out into a frantic gallop. “Piiiiiinkieeeee!” she shrieked, all while cannons fired one after the other just behind her, grazing her tail slightly as she evaded them and confetti that threatened to cover her entirely.
Rarity was crouched low beside Applejack's apple cart, twitching in horror. She shrieked, as yet another random pie tin whipped out of the crowd into the air and landed with a splat far too close to her freshly restyled mane. "Applejack, do something! You simply must help me get home where my coiffure can be safe! I just got it re-styled this morniiiing!"
Applejack rolled her eyes as she gave the customer at her stall their change in bits. "Rarity, I told yah once and I'll tell yah again, this big circus troupe that's come through has business a poppin'. Now I can't rightly leave the stall unless Big Mac comes out to take over, and I can't rightly leave to go get Big Mac to take over, neither. So mare up and just make a run for it on your own. Also, if you're gonna loiter, be useful and pass me that sack of apples behind your rump."
Rarity scoffed. "Oh, I should have known you wouldn't care for the sanctity of a lady's dignity." She also absently pushed out the apples requested with a hoof. "And you should say please!" The sounds of music and laughter beating at her laid-back ears seemed to increase by the minute, threatening to drown out her words.
Applejack hefted the apples up onto the cart cheerfully to await the next customer. "Phew, I don't know where all these strangers came from, but I ain't complainin'!”
"You aren’t even listening to me!” Rarity pouted a moment, then huffed. “So, I take it you really aren't going to do anything about all this?" She had to almost shout towards the end as the sounds of one of the parades going past took over briefly. She thought she also heard a sort of shriek, too, but it was hard to tell in all the commotion.
"I already am! I'm makin’ an honest livin’ and enjoying this here shindig. You should join in!" Applejack shrugged, smiling over her cart to potential customers, but most seemed content just dancing to the music that could be heard everywhere.
Rarity scowled up from under the safety of Applejack's cart. "But Pinkie Pie hadn't told us about planning any sort of shindig, and this one is far too rough! There was a clown spraying seltzer everywhere for Celestia’s sake, Applejack! I only just narrowly escaped! And anyway, I'm certain that this has to do with what happened a couple days ago to her mane."
Applejack shook her head and chuckled at Rarity's apparent fear of clowns. "Pony feathers. She's throwing a big ol' surprise party that ain't hurtin' nopony in order to express her emotions and reaffirm that she's still herself, to herself. Even that banner over there says right out that this here is the biggest surprise Ponyville party ever.” She rested an elbow oh her cart and looked underneath toward her cowering friend. “It sounds to me like that filly's just a might bit upset and she's working it out is all, Rarity. At least from what I understand of this whole thing. Where's the harm in that? This’ll blow over in no time. You’ll see."
Rarity stared starkly up at Applejack for a good moment. "You know, darling, you seem to have an uncanny ability to sum up situations that you really shouldn't be able to."
"Well, what can ah say." Wearing a smirk, Applejack glanced down again at her crouching friend. "I know ponies and I know my friends."
Rarity frowned back, then harrumphed. "Well anyway, this party is harming me and my mane," she pleaded on. After the brief bout of despair, and a stern look directed at her from AJ, she went on more seriously. "Applejack, while what you say may have some truth to it—”
Applejack rolled her eyes at this.
“—I'm much more worried that Pinkie might be having a… well, ‘Pinkie Pie’ level of crisis." Terribly nervous of just that, Rarity gingerly tapped her front hooves together.
Applejack hummed, thinking hard on it. Meanwhile, her eyes briefly tracked an entire group of ponies riding by on unicycles and playing instruments at the same time, each wearing strange white and black domed helmets.
"Well, I will admit I'm puzzled as to where all of these friends of hers came from... If I didn't know for a fact she'd set this up all herself, I might think something else was going on." She’d seen Pinkie zipping around town back in the wee hours of the morning, before disappearing and being replaced by the party. Nopony seemed like copies or anything magical, neither. It did look to her like Pinkie had simply convinced a carnival or two to show up out of the blue… which for Pinkie wasn’t unbelievable.
Rarity rolled her eyes and groaned. "I got the chance to question a couple of them before things got too crazy. One of those scruffy carnies claimed that Pinkie had asked them to divert from going to Seaddle from Vanhoover of all things!"
Applejack blinked. "She what? How in Equestria did she manage to do that?" Still, she gave an impressed whistle at the information. "This is definitely her going all out though, that's for sure. And I haven't even seen her yet."
"I'm worried, Applejack. This is my fault," Rarity whined, half because dust kicked up from the crowd was getting to her even under cover, and half because she was legitimately worried over Pinkie Pie.
Applejack scratched her head with a hoof idly while in thought. "Shucks, Rares, if you're that serious we can head over to Sugarcube Corner and see if we can't find her. I'm sure the Cakes won't mind watchin' my cart, neither."
"Thank you, Applejack. I'm sure everything's just as you say, but—" Rarity stopped short, gasping in surprise.
A ragged looking mare, obviously out of breath and knackered, limped up alongside Applejack's cart. She collapsed there, confetti fluttering into the air off her flanks and back.
"Twilight!?" both mares exclaimed.
Twilight looked up weakly as she was helped up by her friends. "Parade..." she breathed out. "Running of the cows… and then... the clowns… so many clowns... couldn't get away..."
Applejack tilted her hat back. "Running of the cows? Huh, so that's where Mootilda and the girls were going this mornin'."
Twilight stared at AJ a moment, sides heaving in breaths, then made a fainting sound and threatened to collapse again—only Rarity's magical grip under her forelegs held her aloft.
"Twilight, you mean to say you were caught up in a stampede?"
Twilight nodded once, looking for all her worth like that was all she had the strength to do.
Rarity didn't know what to think, but Applejack had a question. "Can't you teleport, darlin'?"
Twilight blinked, still panting, then groaned out loud at her oversight.
"Alright, you're fine now. I'm sure it was all just a mistake and everypony got too caught up in the fun to see you." Applejack gave Rarity her 'stern' look again as she spoke.
Rarity shot back an indignant pout over the reminder of everyone else's good time.
"Maybe, I don't know!” Twilight caught her breath, then began explaining. “Too much happened too fast. The whole town is like this. First I stumbled into some street menagerie that involved more party cannons than I've ever seen, but I ducked into a crowd really fast, only to discover it was actually one of Vinyl's mosh pits!” Finally able to rest and think after her escape, Twilight took a look around at the town-wide party that seemed to be in full swing. "Girls, what is going on around here? Today isn't a national holiday or anything. I triple check my calendar every morning!"
Applejack tipped her hat back and looked up at one of the party announcements. "Well, you've seen the banners, right?"
Twilight followed her friend's gaze. "I did. Pinkie Pie obviously put all this on, so I ruled out trouble, but why—"
Rarity jumped in, a little frantic and unable to keep quiet any longer, Applejack staring at her or no. "Twilight, we were just about to go look for her! Maybe this is all just her doing something nice for the town, but I think it's actually the result of something terrible I'd caused the day before yesterday! I'm worried about her."
"Worried about her? What you caused?" Twilight parroted, and quirked an eyebrow.
Rarity nodded her head despondently, wearing a resigned and dramatic expression.
“You haven’t heard yet, Twilight? The rumor about Pinkie’s been gettin’ passed around town more than a wagon full of free cider.” Applejack then looked at Rarity. "And also, it sure didn't sound to me like it were your fault at all, Rarity."
"Sorry, I don’t get out that mu—…” Twilight stopped and decided to re-word her reply. “That is, I didn’t hear the rumor yesterday, or today… nevermind. So what happe—"
Twilight froze as something smacked against her side, making her stutter for just a second. She could see the shocked looks on her friends’ faces, and felt something slimy sliding down her neck and flanks. "I just got hit in the side with custard pies, didn't I?" She sighed.
Rarity shuddered, no doubt thinking 'better her than me' and took cover behind the applecart once again. At the same time Applejack nodded slowly, suppressing a snicker.
"Looks like banana cream, to me." AJ swiped her hoof over Twilight's waist and tasted the desert, her eyes following the roaming pie fight that seemed to have erupted across the street. "Yup, banana cream! I sure know my dessert." She chuckled again, until the stares from her friends got to her. "Alright alright, Rarity, I'll admit this here party is a little bit out of the ordinary. Let's go to Sugarcube Corner and catch Twilight up along the way. And maybe get her a wash tub, too."
Twilight sighed, in the middle of scooping pie out of her mane with both hooves and magic. "I'd like that... and speaking about 'like', the town sure seems to like this party."
The three mares turned to stare openly as a remarkably loud conga line passed by, at the head of which was Mayor Mare herself, dressed in a hula outfit, and accompanied by most of her staff. “Yah-tahtah-tahtah-tah!” they chorused.
The line of ponies whooped and danced, until finally rounding the bend onward into town.
"Ah-huh." Twilight turned away from the strange sight. "So, what did Rarity do exactly? And have you seen Spike today? I think he took off to party without supervision. Also, don't move."
"Spike? Why, no I haven't, and what was that last part—" Rarity began to ask.
A loud noise that sounded like paff filled Market Street, and then a violet blur turned into Twilight, Rarity, Applejack's cart and Applejack, now outside of Sugarcube corner.
Both Applejack's and Rarity's eyes spun in their heads slightly as they regained their balance and orientation. The funny thing about teleportation over a long distance was that if they weren't ready for it, passengers sometimes felt like they'd been put into a tumble dryer on 'high spin' afterward.
"As I was saying." Rarity shakily took in where she'd been re-located to and proceeded to walk in a wavy line towards the bakery doors. "Not yesterday, but the day before that, Pinkie received a manecut at the spa and it was... fumbled a bit. Her hair has been, well, deflated ever since. Though to be honest I couldn’t find her yesterday when I went to check up on her..."
“I see.” Twilight turned towards the little bakery's doors and was happy to discover that the place seemed quiet. Then, what she'd just heard dawned on her. "Wait, her hair was what!?"