PinkieCon

Pinkie Con

“There! That should do it!”

Twilight Sparkle let out a content sigh as she used her magic to slide the last book in place. After working overtime the last few weeks to make sure the library was neat and tidy for her vacation, she felt relieved to see the fruits of her labor finally pay off. With a gentle yet energetic trot, she exited the Library that she called home, locking the door and turning the sign in the window from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’. With a perky smile adorned on her muzzle, she adjusted her saddlebags again and turned towards the small, plucky purple dragon that she lovingly called her #1 assistant.

“Well Spike, I think that does it. Are you ready to meet the girls at Fluttershy’s cottage?”

Spike nodded eagerly.

“Of course I’m ready to meet Rari- I mean the girls!”

Twilight chuckled and shook her head at the blush the swept across the young dragon’s face. As they leisurely strolled down the familiar path, they made small talk about some of the various things Twilight had currently been researching in her magic studies. She had been learning a lot about advanced teleportation spells and she felt like she may test one of them out when they get back from their annual vacation. As Fluttershy’s cottage timidly peeked over the crest of the small hill they trekked over, Spike’s face scrunched up in thought. Being ever so curious, Twilight trotted ahead a little to get a better view of her assistant’s face.

“Hey, Spike. What’s wrong?” she inquired with a pleasant mixture of curiosity and concern.

“I was just wondering why Pinkie Pie wanted us to meet up in front of Fluttershy’s before we set out for our vacation. I mean, I know that she’s Pinkie Pie and that she was in charge of choosing the destination this time, but wouldn’t it make more sense too, I don’t know, wait in front of a train station?”

“Well, I guess she must have had a good reason for it. Maybe she's planning on inviting Zecora as well?”

“I don’t know, Twi’….”

The purple unicorn smiled fondly and rubbed the top of the young dragon’s head.

“It’ll be all right. I mean, she does throw all of the parties in Ponyville, is the bearer of the Element of Laughter, and did somehow managed to get her picture in the latest version of the Equestrian dictionary right next to the word fun! I’m sure this vacation will be a blast!” Twilight said as enthusiastically as possible, trying to drown out the symphony of alarm bells going off inside of her head in response to the impending doom her statement just wrought. Not buying it for a second, Spike rolled his eyes before he spotted and ran towards his first crush, Rarity.

“Hey Rarity!” he yelled, waving as he joined the group. Besides Spike and the two unicorns, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy were all there with their saddlebags ready.

“Oh hi there, my little Spikey-wikey! Are you ready to go on our vacation?”

“As long as you’re there, I-“ Spike caught himself mid-swoon and straightened his slouched posture in an attempt to look cool and mature. “I mean, yeah, sure.”

Fluttershy put a hoof in front of her mouth to hide the small smile that had formed in response the adorable scene. Applejack made no effort to hide the Pinkie Pie sized grin she was sporting, although she did make sure not to let any stray giggles reach her friends’ ears, though. Rainbow Dash just made a gagging motion and stomped her hoof impatiently.

“Uggh! Save the sappy stuff for later. Just what is taking Pinkie Pie so long?”

“Well I had to make sure that our reservations were all in order, silly!”

With the sudden appearance of the pink mare, the bold and brash pegasus leapt high into the air before being caught by Applejack, who promptly fell over since she had to use both of her forelegs to grab hold of her rainbow-maned friend.

“GEEZ! Don’t startle me like that, Pinks!" gasped the speedy flier. "I almost had a heart attack or something!”

The hyperactive earth pony giggled at her friend’s reaction.

“Ok, but I suggest you better get used to it,” she practically sang in the familiar ‘I know something you don’t’ tone of voice. “Where we’re going, a lot of ponies like to do that kind of thing!”

"Oh my!" squeaked Fluttershy, who shrank up into a ball at the thought. Pinkie rolled her eyes and patted her timid friend on the back.

"Don't worry, silly filly! Even if they do like to do that sort of thing, they will too busy having fun to accidentally scare everypony! The whole place is like one huge gigantic party!"

“So what are we waiting for? Let’s get a move on!” whooped Applejack after picking herself up and dusting herself off.

“Okie Dokie Loki! Follow me, everypony!”

With that, Pinkie Pie then turned around and began to bounce off in the direction of the Everfree forest. When she noticed a distinct lack of hoofsteps behind her, she stopped in mid-bounce and turned towards her apprehensive friends.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to get the destination on time?”

“Ummmm… Pinkie….. we do want to go to… wherever it is that we’re going to…. But…..” murmured Fluttershy, mustering every effort to try to explain her behavior to the earth pony without coming across as rude or impolite.

“You’re totally heading towards the Everfree Forest!” blurted out Spike, coming across as completely rude, impolite and making poor Fluttershy hide behind Twilight with a startled yelp.

Pinkie Pie broke out the ‘Have I ever steered you wrong?’ face as she said confidently, “Oh, don’t worry. We’re only going in there for a moment. Once we are in the right spot, we’ll be at the destination in no time! Trust me!”

Twilight, still looking a little nervous, looked to the rest of the group for support before looking back towards the eccentric mare.

“All right, so long as we won’t run into a hydra or a manticore, we'll trust you.”

“Of course we won’t!” Pinkie cheerfully responded. “They were banned from the place years ago after that incident with the oatmeal!”

The rest of the group exchanged glances with mixed amounts of horror and confusion as they followed the bouncing pony into the foreboding woods.

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After venturing into the Everfree forest a good distance, Pinkie Pie stopped in what seemed like an appropriate clearing. As her friends came in behind her, she decided to do some vocal exercises in preparation for the trip. While she warmed up her voice with some basic phrases like”I used to be an adventurer, but I took an arrow to the knee.”, “Big lipped Alligator moment.”, and “U Mad?”, her friends just sat there, not having the faintest idea what exactly is going on. Finally, Applejack interrupted Pinkie’s seemingly bizarre ritual.

“Um, sugarcube? Just what in ‘tarnation are we doing out here and how does it relate to our vacation?”

The bubbly mare giggled and gave her cowpony friend a friendly smile.

“I’m going to show you. Just watch.”

With that, Pinkie Pie cleared her throat and pulled out a Spartan helmet. Standing up on her hind legs, the bewilderment of her friends grew and became even more apparent than it was before as the decidedly random pony began her speech.

“So you foalish readers want a good story? You’ll find plenty on the other side of the 4th wall. You think you can just waltz right onto our land with your fancy authors and writers and expect us to lie down and take it while you manipulate the very world around us for your own selfish gain? Well no more! This isn’t Kingdom Hearts, nor is it Naruto. This isn’t Epic Battle Fantasy or even Metroid: The Other M! You wanna know what this universe is?”

She then took a step back and leapt at the fourth wall with a double kick.

“THIS! IS! MY LITTLE PONY!”

As she yelled out, her kick connected with the fourth wall, causing ethereal light to pour out of the numerous cracks created by the blow. To her friends, it looked like she kicked thin air and broke it. They only had just enough time to widen their eyes though, as the fragmented barrier of all realities gave way to a yellowish, swirling vortex that proceeded to drag them in its nonexistent maw. For a few terror filled minutes that lasted for eternity, the group of 7 slid and tumbled through the colorful abyss, screaming out with all of the might their breathless lungs could muster. After the contradictory experience ended, they all found themselves on cold cement. Pinkie Pie, who was used to this method of travel, simply bounced up and down impatiently as she waited for her friends to gather themselves up, cheerfully chattering nonsense as she did so.

“We on behalf of Pinkamina Diane Pie Travel Services would like to thank you for traveling with us today. We hope you enjoyed your first foray into trans-dimensional travel and hope you will travel with us again sometime soon. If you seem to be experiencing any sensations such as nausea, headaches, missing body parts, controlling two bodies located in two adjacent planes in reality at once, or just general insanity, please consult your nearest Time Lord for assistance. Thank you and have a nice day!”

“Okay, Pinkie, what just happened, how are we still in one piece, and why did you do that?” Spike said as he staggered around, trying to keep his balance after got to his feet.

“Oh, that’s simple! I broke the fourth wall and dragged us all to an alternate reality, I took a course in safe 4th wall travel so I could keep us all in one piece on several dimensions as we passed through the trans-dimensional void, and THIS is why I did that!”

With a flourish, she waved her hoof towards a gigantic skyscraper. It was wide enough that you couldn’t really see where it ended and the next building began and the height seemed to five times as great as it spiraled upwards, vaguely resembling a giant drill due to its shape. It was adorned with numerous posters all over its annoyingly pink exterior, but what struck the others dumb, however, wasn’t the building’s size, but what was on the posters next to a picture of their bizarre friend: WELCOME TO THE 9027th ANNUAL PINKIE CON!

“Wha……?” was all Twilight could manage as she took in the sight, her mind trying furiously to puzzle out why exactly Pinkie’s face was on a poster in another universe. This was impressive, considering that the rest of her friends were still trying to figure out what Pinkie Pie meant by the phrase ‘4th wall’.

“Surprise! It’s an entire convention run by, devoted to, and filled with a whole bunch of variations of me, the Party Pony of Ponyville! It’s going to be a blast!” the pink mare practically screamed as she bounced circles around her friends. Twilight put her hoof out in front of Pinkie to stop her.

“Wait a second, how is that even possible? Your Pinkie Sense is one thing, but this is ridiculous!”

“I can’t exactly explain right now, but you’ll find out at the opening ceremony!”

“O-o-opening Ceremony?” stammered poor little Fluttershy as she cowered behind Spike.

At that moment, a panel of light popped out of Pinkie Pie’s hair. Poor Fluttershy and Rarity, who were not expecting something like this, both fainted from the sheer, overwhelming incomprehension caused by the day’s events. On the light panel was a pony that looked similar to Pinkie Pie, except that she was wearing a funny little hat that humans would expect on a flight attendant’s head if said flight attendants wore hats. The Pinkie Pie wearing a hat then began to speak in a very cheerful tone that only the ever baffling mare herself could pull off.

“HEY EVERYPONY! I know that many of you, as usual, are super duper excited and curious about exploring the city around you since this is your first time traveling to another universe (At least willingly), but unless you want to miss out on this multi-universal, trans-dimensional party, I suggest you get your flanks down to the ground floor of the ‘mane’ building for the opening ceremony, complete with a speech from the Pinkie Pie who is the closest Pinkie Pie to being cannon to date! After the speech and jester show, registration confirmation will begin and everypony will be allowed to go to their hotel rooms to unpack and prepare themselves for the rest of the 4 days of festivities! This has been an announcement from the PinkieCon organization committee.”

“Well,” the group’s Pinkie began. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”

With no other choice, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Spike gently woke up their unconscious friends and followed the earth pony into the building. As they made their way inside, they wove their way through the throngs of ponies on the street, noticing with increasing apprehension the similarities they had to not only ponies they knew back home, but to their pink friend that was leading them on this bizarre adventure. Eventually, they finally made it through the grand double doors of the convention and entered a place so insane, so crazy that the residents of Wonderland would be amazed at how similar it was to their home.

The inside was designed do that they could see all for miles above them, with each floor overhead looking like a series of islands and balconies strung together by magically upheld bridges and stairs. Every inch of the place was covered in merchandise stands, game booths, and other memorabilia that all centered around the hyperactive pony. What little space on the floor that didn’t have a booth or stand on it was swathed with ponies, most of them either naturally or artificially pink, as well as a few non-pony creatures like humans, dragons, friendly cousins to Eldritch abominations, and even a draconequis or two. While the decorations were not all pink, the yellow and blue color scheme of the rest of the décor still managed to remind everyone exactly who the convention was based on.

Twilight stared in wonder at it all; the things that the various creatures carried that looked like nothing she had ever witnessed before, looking either like twisted pieces of metal that defied reality with their natural abilities or complex arcane magic infused in the device that had yet to be woven back home. Even if none of what had happened so far had made sense, the sheer freshness and uniqueness of the wondrous spells and scientific marvels of the convention more than made up for it in the purple unicorn’s mind. At some point, after traveling a great distance into the main lobby, the group approached a grand stage. Pinkie Pie chose at this point to turn towards her friends.

“Okie Dokie Loki! I’ll be back in a little bit after I make a speech or two. When the ceremony is over, just come up on stage and we’ll get registered and go to our hotel!” And without another word, she was off. The group took this time to talk about what they had seen and what they were thinking, save Twilight. Her wanderlust and insatiable curiosity had overtaken the mauve unicorn and she was eager to go and see some of the Pinkie Pie duplicates and find out in pony why and how they looked so similar. Over to her left, an entire group of aforementioned look-alikes were gathered and conversing about some odd topic. Making sure not to get lost and confuse some of her friends’ doppelgangers with the real deals, Twilight Sparkle trotted over to the Pinkie group.

“Um, hello there,” she said to the collection of pink ponies once she had woven her way through the crowd. The Pinkie with her back turned towards the purple unicorn swirled around, revealing to Twilight’s surprise that she had a unicorn horn and a similar mane style to Celestia's star pupil.

“Oh, hello! I’m Pinkamina Diane Pie, but my friends find that name too cumbersome for some reason and call me Pinkie Pie,” said the Pinkie Pie unicorn in a very cordial manner. Twilight stared for a moment, not comprehending the sight in front of her. Another one of the Pinkies spoke up, her voice dripping with a brash and overconfident attitude.

“What? Never seen a Pinkie Pie Unicorn before?” she said, deciding to flourish her wings at that moment. “How about a Pinkie Pie Pegasus?”

One of the Pinkie’s, chastised the pegasus with her graceful, yet bright voice.

“Really now, you should know better!” the graceful Pinkie turned towards Twilight. “I’m so sorry about my friend here. You must be new to the PinkieCon, right?”

The purple unicorn nodded her head and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out when she noticed the Pie’s mane style and cutie mark. They were both exactly like Rarity’s, save for the color of her mane. She opened and closed her mouth a few times when she heard a timid voice squeak to her right. Twilight swiveled her head towards the tiny voice to see a shy looking Pinkie Pegasus pawing the ground nervously.

“Are you ok? We’re sorry if we made you feel uncomfortable….”

Deep in the recesses of Twilight’s mind, she was fully freaking out at the freakish amalgamation of Pinkie Pie and the rest of her friends. Eventually, a bright, southern voice and a not so bright yet still southern voice reached her ears.

“And you’re saying that contraption can tell the difference between me and any other, well, me?” said Applejack as she and the rest of Twilight’s friends walked over with a pink earth pony with the same hair, hat, and cutie mark.

“Eeyup! I don’t understand quite how it works myself. You’ll have to ask the Pinkie Pie that looks that unicorn friend of yours to learn how it works,” said the Applejack Pinkie, holding an odd looking rectangle of plastic and glass that had a little radar sticking out of it.

“Twilight!” exclaimed Spike as he ran up to her.

“Girls!” Twilight exclaimed, running to the only thing in the entire madhouse that held comfortable familiarity and sense.

“Oh darling, why did you run off like that? There are so many ponies in here and they all look so similar it would be easy to get lost and never find each other in this mess without that little locator thing that Pinkie pie has.”

“Everyone shh!” shushed the overconfident pegasus Pinkie. “The ceremony is starting!”

The entire crowd quieted down as the lights in the convention dimmed. A lone Pinkie pie trotted onto the stage in a jester’s costume complete with bell, whistles, and every color they could find.

“LADIES, GENTLMEN, AND CREATURES OF ALL GENDER AFFILIATIONS!” yelled the jester with the Royal Canterlot voice. “WELCOME TO THE 9027th ANNUAL PINKIECON! BEFORE WE BEGIN THE SHOW, I’D LIKE TO GIVE A WARM WELCOME TO OUR SPECIAL GUEST, THE MOST CANNON PINKIE PIE TO DATE!”

Thunderous applause echoed as the mane 6’s Pinkie Pie took the stage at that moment. Eventually, the noise died down and Pinkie Pie’s voice finally could be heard.

“Thank you! Thank you! I am honored to be this year’s host for this wonderful Pinkie Pie convention! I am so glad so many of you could make it! For those of you who are new to the con, I will explain what exactly is going on. First, picture a jar of dirt. Imagine each little grain of dirt as a possibility that your universe could have been, but isn’t. While I’m told that this is not anything like what actually goes on, this is as about as close as we’re gonna get. In short, all of you are from different universes! Just imagine all the super-exciting things, like unicorn and Pegasus versions of yourself! Think of all of the choices you have made that you could have taken, but didn’t! All of those yous exist somewhere, and for the next few days, we’re gonna celebrate the one branch I’m a part of! Isn’t that great!?”

Twilight’s mind then just shattered right then and there. Her head slowly surveyed the room as Pinkie droned on about rock farms and how they caused the convention in the first place. The unicorn noticed, for the first time, all of the similarities and differences she had been ignoring. From details as insignificant as hairstyle to those as obvious as species, she noticed every last Pinkie Pie that could have been and currently are. Her mind went into hyper drive as she imagined their worlds and the ponies in them and their histories and rules and all of the stars and the galaxies with stars and planets of their own in an infinite sea of universes on the endless cosmic shore of reality.

About 15 minutes after the end of the once in a lifetime opening ceremony, the two groups realized that Twilight was on the ground rocking slowly back and forth spouting gibberish about being incredibly insignificant and frogs. The Twilight Pinkie sighed and facehoofed at the scene as the purple unicorn’s friends tried to snap her out of it.

“It’s the same thing every year. Some plucky Twilight or Twilight-like Pinkie Pie thinks too hard about the concept of the multi-verse and goes crazy from the overload,” she sighed as a few strands popped out of place on her non-Pinkie counterpart’s hair. She then turned to Spike for and asked, “Spike! Do you the emergency mental breakdown checklist?”

“Umm, no, but I do have a scroll with me and a quill!”

“That’ll do.”

Swiftly, the pink unicorn grabbed her own jar of ink, quickly wrote down something, and waved it front of Twilight’s face.

“That’s enough now, you can move on to the next item of the Mental Breakdown Checklist.”

The crazed Twilight Sparkle slowly turned towards the checklist. After she read it for a moment she began to stand up rather shakily with the help of her friends.

“Y-y-you have my checklist for th-this?”

Her pink counterpart nodded. “And now you can move on to the next object. See? After you become a blubbering mass, you take a few deep breaths and clear your mind. Can you do that?”

“I-I-I’m n-not sure, but if it’s on the checklist, I’ll give it a try.”

A few deep breaths and checklist steps later, the purple unicorn was back to normal. After the two groups registered and began to head towards their hotel rooms, Fluttershy turned to Spike and timidly asked, “Twilight has an emergency mental breakdown checklist?”

Spike nodded.

“Yeah. She normally tells me to bring it, but since it was a vacation she decided to throw caution to the wind. I guess she didn’t count on Pinkie Pie being, well, Pinkie Pie.”

The timid pegasus simply nodded and turned her attention back to the Pinkie Pie Pinkie as she described all of the awesome things she had planned for the next few days.

“This’ll be great! I totally have everything planned out! First, we’ll go to all of the party panels so that we can get all of the cool tips on how to make our parties totally 20% cooler, then, we’ll go and play a couple of tabletop RPGs because who doesn’t love roleplaying? Next, we’ll go to the friendship building exercises so we can do even more fun stuff together, and finally we’ll split up for an hour or two so we can all go see something we want to see before the big party! And that’s just day one! We’ll have so much fun together, and nothing can stop us!”

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“….except for maybe every single one of the events we planned on going to either being cancelled or already filled,” stated Rainbow Dash the next day when they all picked up their own PinkieCon radars/PDAs at the front desk and read the ‘Updates’ section after being given a crash course on how to use them. Pinkie Pie frowned at this.

“Stupid authors and their power over the plot,” she grumbled under her breath. She shook her head vigorously and cheered up a little. “Oh well, I guess we’ll have to find something else to do together.”

“Actually Pinks,” Rainbow Dash said with a bit of awkward dread in her voice. “I kinda want to check out some of these Wonderbolt panels by myself, if you don’t mind. Even if half of them are made up of, well, different yous.”

“I also noticed that there were some fabulous dress displays as well and I wanted to examine some of those on my own, since none of you would be as interested,” Rarity tried to say as apologetically as possible. Pinkie rolled her eyes and cut off Applejack as she was about to say her piece.

“Alright, I see where this is going. I guess we’ll have to just split up even though that might be out of character for some ponies,” she half growled as she glared at a specific spot.

“Umm…. Pinkie?” Fluttershy spoke. “Who are you glaring at?”

“The completely obvious self insert right over there on the balcony above us.”

At this point I closed my laptop and made a break for it as security, who doesn’t like the use of author tier power at the convention, gave chase. I made sure I hacked into the security feed before I left, though, so I could continue writing where I left off after this sentence based on the footage.

At any rate, after witnessing the bizarre chase scene, Pinkie Pie cheerfully began speaking again, satisfied that the meddling author was chased off.

“Well, I guess we’ll get back together at the party before we head to our hotel rooms. I’m going to go see what those Pinkies that we met last night are up to. See ya later alligators!”

And with that she whirled around and bounced off in some random direction.

“Well gang,” Twilight said. “I guess we had better get going before we miss our panels and other PinkieCon events.”

They all nodded in agreement and set off in different directions, experiencing their own unique and bizarre experience during their 2nd day at the PinkieCon.

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Rainbow Dash, eager to see the Wonderbolts, flew off at crazy speeds towards one of the top floors where aerial stunt team held all of their panels. As soon as she reached the right floor, she started speaking to herself in excitement.

“Oh my gosh, this is going to be so great! First, I’ll go in and take down notes to see how they got to be Wonderbolts in their own worlds, then I’ll find a way to show off my moves to see how they like them, then they can give me pointers on how to make my skills even more awesome, and finally, if I’m lucky, I might just-“

She stopped in mid-sentence as she surveyed the scene in front of her. Her eyes widened in terror as her jaw fell. Before her, queuing up for what very well could have been miles, were lines filled with Pinkie Pie pegasi, Pinkie Pie Alicorns, and even other versions of herself, and all of them were waiting for the Wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash wildly shook her head, determined not to be intimidated by her old cider nemesis as it reared its ugly head in the last place she had ever suspected it would turn up. “Very well!” the rainbow maned pegasi declared. “If I have to wait in line, then fine! It’s not like I don’t have all day! I’m sure I’ll see the Wonderbolts before the party!”

Having restored her confidence, she picked the line closest to her and joined it. For hours she waited, her hair standing on edge in nervous excitement as the line would move forward occasionally as time went by. Every hoofstep took her closer and closer to the front of the line and, she feverishly hoped, closer to her destiny. As the steady march of time continued ever onward, her hope began to wear out. It was getting late and several of the panels around her had started and ended in the time it had taken her to move 10 feet. The heat from the large number of ponies was starting to get to her and the stench of sweat and candy mixed together in the air to bombard the fanfilly’s poor, ultra-sensitive nose. After many long hours of suffering though, the door was in sight! A few minutes later, she made it to the front of the line. She was finally there! As she savored the moment, she glanced at a sign on the door. In that instant, all of her hopes and dreams shattered. On the door wasn’t a sign about the Wonderbolts, but a sign that mentioned something entirely different: Mare’s Restroom (Pegasi).

In absolute horror, her hindquarters plopped down onto the floor and her jaw flopped open for the second time that day. Sensing that Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to go in, the line moved around her as her brain processed what had happened. She had waited in line into the absolute worst conditions possibly that didn’t involve actual torture for hours, missed all of the Wonderbolt panels, and it was all for a chance to use the restroom. Without another word, Rainbow Dash got up and slowly plodded towards the elevators with a blank look on her face. As she trudged, a funny looking Rainbow Dash without wings and a Rainbow maned Pinkie pegasus both looked at her and shook their heads.

“Looks like another one accidently got in the bathroom line instead of the Wonderbolts line,” said the Pinkie.

“That poor darling. It looks like us Rainbow Dashes just don’t have any luck with lines.” Agreed the Generation 3 Rainbow Dash.

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Meanwhile, Rarity trotted gracefully towards one of the elevators so she could head up to the 12th floor where the fashion shows were. While she wasn’t particularly interested in the pony designs, seeing as how she is confident enough in her own abilities to find inspiration elsewhere, she was intrigued by the fashion of the other species that attended the convention, especially the outfits that the odd, monkey-like bipedal creatures wore. Once she reached the elevators, she glanced about at which floors they reached and which ones they currently were on, hoping to catch a lucky break. When she noticed one of the elevators heading down, she trotted over and politely waited beside the door.

After a few moments, the elevator door opened and a rather large…. thing crawled out of it. While the act of merely describing this monstrosity would cause the fan of the goriest blockbusters to puke with disgust, it wasn’t malicious in the slightest. Unless, of course, you broke a Pinkie Pie Promise, which would force the aforementioned servant of Pinkthullu to have to get serious and then do unspeakable things to your soul. Needless to say, Rarity was repulsed beyond belief as it slithered out like a snake and she quickly scoped out another elevator so she didn’t get any of the ethereal ooze that covered the entire inside of that particular elevator on her precious white fur. Within minutes, another door opened and she dashed over to it only to have a bunch of earth pony Rainbow Dashes beat her to it. The floor destination number then read out that it was heading to the 192nd floor and she wrote that off as a lost cause as well. A few more attempts were made before she simply gave up trying to get in an elevator and decided to take the stairs.

As she wove her way up the crowds on the stairwells, she began to regret her decision on foregoing an elevator. On her way up she continued to collide with one sweaty pony after another sweaty pony. Every few steps practically forced her to use specialty makeup and cleansing agents to remove the rank and foul pit and rump stains that had marred her fur with foul disgusting sweat and other bodily debris. The higher she got, the more things kept going from bad to worse as more of the bipedal creatures began to crowd the stairwells, spilling drinks or dropping ice cream on poor Rarity’s mane. After each spill of soda or plop of chimicherrychonga ice cream, she practically wept as she had to use her finest towelettes and hairbrushes to cleans the nasty messes from her hair. At some point, she gave up trying to clean herself after every single mess and she broke out into a full gallop while going up the stairs whenever the opening presented itself hoping to minimize the mess by minimizing the time near the messy crowds. This haste, however, resulted in more and more things staining her mane and fur as she and the Pinkies around her kept colliding from the frantic pacing of the beauty obsessed unicorn until she finally reached the 12th floor. She gasped in between breaths as she noticed that the fashion shows were still open.

“Thank-huff- goodness! I still have-puff-time to -huff- fix myself up while –puff- I am up here.”

She pulled a mirror out of her now ruined saddlebags and began immediately to do damage control. With luck, she decided, she could reuse some of her towelettes if she wiped it off against thelid of that nearby garbage can. Still, she absolutely had to do something about that pizza sticking out of her tail....

Rarity was so wrapped up in her vanity that she didn’t pay attention to her surroundings. With her mirror in front of her eyes and her thoughts not focused on the sounds around her, she was completely caught off guard when a cross-eyed Pinkie pegasus yelled “Watch out!” She only had enough time to move her mirror and see the Pinkie’s face before the inevitable collision. Thrown off balance by the force of the impact, the two of them tumbled backwards back onto the stairs. They twisted, spun, and rolled down flight after flight of stairs, collecting even more dirt and grime than what Rarity had accumulated beforehoof. A few tiny pinkie pies had even managed to get tangled in her hair and complain to her about the lack of seat belts this ride had before a convenient bump against the railings jostled them off. Eventually, she and the cross eyed Pinkie made it back to the ground floor, where they rolled right into the slime covered elevator that the abomination had crawled out of 3-4 paragraphs ago. As they laid there in the elevator, the Pinkie chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her head with her hoof.

“Oops, my bad.”

Rarity, convinced that her life was ruined now that this catastrophe had occurred, just sobbed.

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Poor little Fluttershy was the only one in the group who actually didn’t want to split up. Just being in a convention that was so noisy and crowded made the cream colored pegasus feel shyer than ever. Nervously, she made her way across the throng of ponies until she found a nice, secluded spot away from all of the other ponies. She let out a deep sigh and sat down on the floor. Taking a moment to relish the relative quiet, she simply sat there and closed her eyes, allowing the stress from the past two days just melt off of her shoulder.

After a few moments, she heard an odd noise. Still a little jittery, she squeaked and leapt into a nearby potted plant. As the noise got louder and louder, she continued to shiver and shake at the unnaturalness of it. When it sounded like whatever was coming her way was about to run into her hiding spot, the noise ceased. Fluttershy blinked after a moment of this as she heard a new sound. She didn’t know any words that could describe what it sounded like, but the new noise had felt a little sad to the empathetic little pony. Making sure not to give herself away, she peered out of her hiding spot. While she didn’t know it, the creature that Fluttershy looked upon was the same creature that Rarity had seen come out of the elevator. As the Pegasus pony gazed upon the creature, the thing continued to, for the lack of a better word, sob, unaware of the tiny mortal’s presence.

Fluttershy was left with a dilemma. Either she could try to talk to the intimidating and gross monster looking thing and risk it being hungry or she could try to sneak away and leave a giant, misunderstood creature to be sad all day. As it heaved another sob, the Bearer of Kindness decided to live up to her underused title. She quietly crawled out of the potted plant and walked bit closer to the almost eldritch abomination. Summoning up all the courage she could, she quietly cleared her throat. When the monstrosity stopped sobbing and made no move to eat the innocent pony, Fluttershy spoke at a volume that only insects could hear. Thankfully, the monster was part bug and was able to hear her gentle voice.

“Umm, excuse me. I was just minding my own business when I honestly couldn’t help but overhear you sounding so sad. I’m sorry and I know eavesdropping isn’t very nice, but I was just so close by my ears picked up your, ummm, sobbing, if that’s what it is. I don’t know if I should ask this, but maybe, if you wanted to, you could tell me what’s wrong? That is, if you don’t mind.”

The servant of the party loving Pinkthullu gazed at Fluttershy a moment before, with great effort on its part, it began to speak in the standard tongue that many universes coincidentally shared.

“I, lsdkufbheviue the 14th, am a little sad. But why is not important, or, at least, may cease to be important, if thou may answer in return one of my questions: Why doest thou care?”

“Oh, well, you were sad, I guess, and I felt bad about the idea of leaving you here alone without at least trying to see what was wrong and, if I could, help you,” murmured Fluttershy, pouring every innocent and sincere emotion that she could muster into her voice. The immortal and semi-invincible being paused for a moment at the young mortal’s words. Since its heart was not black like a true eldritch abomination’s, it was touched by the display of empathy and said as much when it spoke again. It then began its long and sordid tale about the troubles of being a species so closely related to a race of hideous false gods. By the time it was over, Fluttershy gained a new friend and the servant of Pinkthullu learned that it had a strange allergic reaction to empathetic tears that caused it to turn into a Pinkie octopus. When it was time for Fluttershy to leave for the party, the abomination gave her an ancient text with an octopus tentacle. Where it got it from is the same mystery that plagues anyone who wonders where cartoon characters get their props and only the creature itself knew the answer.

“The spell may be a bit long in length, but if though wishes to visit or see me, all thou hast to do is recite the incantation from cover to cover. It will matter not whether you command magic, for the spell works in all worlds for all creatures bearing a soul. Just make sure the place is private and the day is not a Friday when I am summoned, or else my promise to my master will be broken and many terrible things may befall us both.”

Fluttershy took the sinister looking summoning tome and slid it into her saddlebags. “Okay, lsdkufbheviue the 14th. I understand. I hope to see you again!”

As she waved goodbye and left, the creature mused for a moment.

‘Interesting. Very few beings in the universe can pronounce a name like that. I wonder….'

The creature then did the closest thing it could do to a chuckle, amused at the implications of the pegasus’s actions. ‘Perhaps I’ll have to visit her of my own accord someday.’

And with that, the beast slithered away, ready to resume the convention’s activities.

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For Applejack, things had been going rather well in spite of the crowds and the oddness of the creatures around her. Being a work pony, she didn’t mind the sweat or the heat of the crowds nor did she mind the legwork she had to do to get to the panel she planned to attend. As she trotted along, though, a Ferris wheel, which was part of the carnival themed floor, abruptly came loose from its stand and rolled down the stairwell. While most of the other ponies noticed the giant metal deathtrap rolling towards them and fled, Applejack was too busy trying to read the map on her PDA to notice she was walking right into its path. Moments before the giant hulking ride crushed the oblivious pony, one of the panicking ponies knocked over a display of bowling balls, scattering them all over the place. One of the larger ones rolled into the path of the Ferris wheel and raised the metallic mass slightly to one side. The metal monstrosity slowly tipped over, thankfully harming nopony or other creature in the process. At the exact moment of the loud and thunderous crash, Applejack, who had forgotten how to work the PDA, accidently opened a music file filled with heavy metal, coincidentally covering up the cacophony that the carnival contraption caused. Quickly turning it off, Applejack sighed and decided to ask for directions.

Walking up to an information booth, she started to speak with the Pinkie running the stand when another, odd looking Pinkie Pie with a straight mane approached her, balancing a tray of cupcakes on her head.

“Hello there Applejack!” she said with a great big cheery grin that was borderline creepy. Not expecting some random Pinkie Pie to walk up to her, despite the randomness of recent events, the orange Earth Pony did her best to respond.

“Well, uuh, howdy! What can I help you with?”

“Oh nothing! I just wanted to give you a cupcake, that’s all.”

Applejack eyed the Pinkie suspiciously. Something seemed off about this particular Pinkie, but since the farmpony didn’t read horror stories on a regular basis, she just filed the oddness under standard Pinkie Pie behavior and took a cupcake. The information booth Pinkie, however, knew exactly what kind of Pinkie this one was and pressed a security button underneath her desk.

“Well thank you very much!” responded the friendly farm mare in the mean time.

Applejack brought the cupcake to her mouth a tad slowly, intending on savoring every bite of the tasty confectionary treat. However, fortune smiled on the unassuming pony when, out of nowhere, a cross eyed and slime covered Pinkie flew by at high speeds, veering completely out of control and knocking the cupcakes off of the sinister Pinkie’s head and out of Applejack’s hoof.

“Uh-oh! Here, let me help you pick it those up!” offered the oblivious orange mare, who bent over to pick up the treats. Seeing her opportunity, the information booth threw a rock past the bearer of Honesty’s head and nailed the evil Pinkie right between the eyes before yanking out her syringe full of pony tranquilizer and nailing the evil Pinkie in the same spot. The security arrived out of seemingly nowhere an instant later and swiftly scooped up the unconscious mare, leaving as quickly as they came. Applejack looked up once she had finished gathering the cupcakes, scrunching her eyebrows together in confusion as she realized the absence of the odd looking double of her friend.

“Huh? Where did she go?”

“Oh she left in quite a hurry!” the information booth Pinkie quickly lied, not wanting to tell the morbid truth behind THAT particular Pinkie. “She had some sort of panel to go to and she didn’t want to be late.”

“Oh my stars! I’M going to be late! Quick, where's the panel for earth pony magic that is supposed to be going on in a few minutes?"

The information booth Pinkie calmly pointed to a door about a yard or two away. Applejack blushed with embarresment.

"Hehe, whoops! Thanks for letting me know! Oh, when you see that Pinkie again, please give her the cupcakes and tell her I will have to try them some other time! I’ve got to go!”

Without waiting a moment more for a response, the orange pony ran off to get to the panel, not noticing that the information booth Pinkie had thrown away the cupcakes as discreetly as possible. In her mad dash to get to her panel, she knocked over a lit candle, which fell of the counter it was on and rolled over to a fireworks display. Predictably, the fireworks started going off when the candle lit them, causing them to fly and careen everywhere. One of them exploded near a rope that a couple of Pinkies were using to lift a particularly heavy piano up onto a higher floor, catching it and the piano on fire, ultimately causing the flaming musical instrument to plummet towards the space in front of the room that Applejack’s panel was being held. Ignorantly, she raced towards the door, which was being closed at that moment to deny any late ponies who wanted to see the panel. She pressed on, trying to outrace the closing door and, unknowingly, the flaming piano. Tension grew in the crowd as some of the genre savvy bystanders munched on their popcorn, watching the action in front of them unfold. In a last ditch effort to get in the door, the cowpony leapt over a vendor who happened to be walking by at that moment. Time, sensing the need for drama, crawled to a halt as Applejack soared through the air over the vendor and underneath the piano. For a moment, it looked as if she wasn’t going to make it. Fate, playing favorites, decided this wouldn’t do and allowed the lucky mare to fly in the doorway, which slammed just shut just as the piano crashed into the floor outside. As she picked herself up and brushed off some dust from her hat, she heard some cheering seep in from outside of the room.

“Huh,” she said. “Must be some kind of magic act going on outside or something.” She then sat down in a fold up chair and participated in an interesting Q&A about the mysterious properties of earth pony magic.

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Amid a random throng of convention goers, Spike was enjoying himself and having a good time in general when a random Pinkie Pie came out of nowhere and started shoving him for no apparent reason.

“What the- hey! What gives!?”

“The author doesn’t have enough time to write your segment due to how long it took AJ’s scene to play out, so he needs you out of the picture so he can wrap the story up! Now move it, lizard boy!”

“Hey! I’m not a lizard, I’m a dragon! And who is this author anyway!?”

As he was pushed out of the security camera’s range, he cried out one last time.

“Why does everyone ignore meee!!!????”

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After the group reunited and partied for about an hour, the group made their way back to the hotel and flopped down on whatever couch and chair space was available. Well, everypony except for Rarity, who bolted straight for the shower she so desperately desired, leaving a trail of filth behind in her wake. Not needing to ask her what had happened, Pinkie Pie spoke out in her literally trademarked bubbly manner.

“So, how did things go today? Did you all have lots of super-duper awesome fun?”

Spike huffed in annoyance at this, crossing his arms as he ranted angrily for a minute or two.

“Well, I would have had some fun if it wasn’t for that random Pinkie Pie coming out of nowhere and shoving me into that closet. By the time somepony found me, all of the good stuff had ended and I was stuck watching some panel about a show called ‘My Little Bronies: References are Funny’. It was rather weird and I didn’t understand a single thing that they were talking about.”

“Well at least you got to go to a panel!” spat Rainbow Dash bitterly before abruptly burying her head into a pillow and weeping uncontrollably. She managed to get out a few words about those ‘stupid lines’ in between sobs, but she didn’t actually say much else. Pinkie Pie, understanding her pain, patted the rainbow maned pegasus on the back.

“Ooookayyyy,” said Twilight, interrupting the awkward situation. “Well, I didn’t go to any panels myself, but I did meet all sorts of fascinating Pinkie Pies and got to hear some of their stories. Once you get past the whole infinite scope of reality thing, alternate universes are actually pretty cool. I still don't know how a universe where magic is replace by a cheese danish even manages to function, but that's the multiverse for ya.”

“Wow, Twi,” replied Applejack. “Sounds like you had an exciting time. Except for seeing an interesting panel on Earth Pony magic and meeting a strange looking Pinkie Pie, nothing at all exciting happened to me.”

“I also spent my time talking to a new friend,” chimed Fluttershy, feeling a bit chatty tonight.

“Oh wow. What kind of pony did you meet?” inquired Twilight, turning her attention towards her normally timid friend.

“Well, it wasn’t a pony, exactly, although it did turn into a Pinkie Pie like octopus towards the end of our conversation.”

“Oooh! A shapeshifter!” Pinkie said with eager enthusiasm. “What was it like?”

“It was….” the cream colored pegasus paused for a moment and put her hoof to her mouth in thought, with the rest of her friends leaning in towards her as they waited to hear what she had to say.

“….nice.” Fluttershy concluded after much thought, causing the others to facehoof/palm at the predictability of the response.

“Oh well, maybe we’ll meet it tomorrow while we go to all sorts of group activities! This time, I planned a backup plan just in case so that we-“

A huge yawn came from Pinkie’s mouth at that moment, derailing the momentum that she was building in a single instant. Rainbow Dash laughed a little at this.

“Wow, Pinks, you must have had some day to make you tired!” yawned the pegasus, stretching her limbs out as she did so. One by one, all of them yawned and got up from their spots in the living room. Even Rarity, who had finally finished removing the last of the extra-planar goo from her mane, yawned as she came out of the shower.

"Yeah! All of those Pinkies we met were-yawn- super duper fun like you guys! I was exhausted after all of the stuff we checked out. Too bad the author is too lazy to add it into the story."

“I guess we all better hit the hay now if we want to wake up at a decent time tomorrow,” stated Applejack as she yawned, hoping to not have deal with whatever weird author nonsense Pinkie was yammering about. “Good night everypony!”

One by one, they all went to their respective bedrooms until the only two left in the main living area were Spike and Twilight. As Spike shuffled towards his bedroom, the purple unicorn called out to him.

“Hey Spike? Do you have any parchment left? I want to write something down really quick.”

Without another word the young dragon passed the quill and parchment to Celestia’s star pupil and went to bed. With a flourish of her magic, Twilight began to write.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned two very important and valuable lessons. The first one is that sometimes you may come across something that is hard to understand at first, either because it doesn’t make any sense or that it may be too large and terrifying to you to want to understand it. However, once you are able to figure it out, you can see the whole world, maybe even the whole universe in a brand new light. This can be for better or for worse, but I think only under rare circumstances would you actually regret it.

The other lesson I learned today is that if you have the choice and decide to let Pinkie Pie choose where you go on vacation, be 100% sure to be prepared for everything you can think of and then some. Just when you think that the bizarre things that happen with her can’t get any weirder, she’ll prove you wrong in 10 seconds flat. That doesn’t mean it won’t be fantastic, but you have to be absolutely sure you can recover from whatever she throws at you, because I guarantee that your body and mind WON’T be ready for it.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

P.S.: Does dragon fire work even if the recipient of the message is in another universe? I may need to know in case of an emergency.

Sincerely,

Twilight

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