Chapter 1
It is Wednesday and to Pinkie Pie this means it’s another day to have fun. How does she have fun, you ask? Well, anything can be fun. Jumping, exploring, imagining, drawing, or staring at the sky. Being with friends is very fun but Pinkie didn’t have any plans with anyone today until Twilight’s study session tonight so she came up with a fun game she can play by herself.
“I love to explore, but I’ve been almost everywhere already. Hmmmm. I know! I can make a treasure map and then follow it to the treasure!” said Pinkie to herself. It didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t know where a treasure is, nor that she didn’t have a good image of the area in her head. She just drew a map using a quill and some parchment. She put many loops to make sure that it was a long fun adventure, and a big ‘X’ to mark the spot.
With the preparations complete she took her map and left on a journey. “I just got to remember to be home for twilights study group tonight”, Pinkie said to herself making a mental note. She didn’t really like studying but she did like bringing over cupcakes, and she usually hid a comic book in her text book so Twilight still thought she was studying. She chuckled to herself thinking of fooling Twilight.
Following the map she drew, Pinkie was led first to town. While bouncing around town, she saw Rainbow Dash flying around the sky. She shouted up, “HEY RAINBOW DASH!” Rainbow Dash waved as she flew by fast.
“Don’t forget the study session”, she shouted back, pointing at her hoof like she was wearing a watch. Pinkie drew a picture of the town on her map and a small stick figure Rainbow Dash to mark seeing her there. With that Pinkie nodded and bounced along her path. The town seemed to be in it’s usual buzz of people buying goods, meeting others, and running shops. Pinkie liked seeing everyone entertained and had an extra-large smile while she continued her journey.
Next, her path led her to Sweet Apple Acres. Refusing to deviate from the path on the map, she ran into many trees, each time a few apples would fall. This created some noise as Pinkie let out a happy sounding “Ouch” each time she bumped a tree. She also took an apple or two since she hadn’t eaten since she left. Seeing Pinkie running around in the field, Apple Jack galloped out to her. “Howdy Pinkie Pie, what can I do ya for?” she asked.
“HI AJ, I’m following this treasure map to a treasure. I’m not sure what the treasure is or if there even is a treasure, but I made the map and now I’m following it. It has me going right through your orchard!” Pinkie said quickly and confusingly.
“Well, is that right? I’ll be a wrangler’s uncle. You darn tootin' a flip-flop scoot-a-ma-loo?” Pinkie didn’t really understand Apple Jack’s fancy words but she figured it had to do with Twilight’s study session.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there in time. You just show up too and bring some delicious apples,” said Pinkie Pie in a half-guess reply. With this, she zoomed off without hearing any more. Once out of Sweet Apple Acres she drew it on her map along with a stick figure AJ. Pinkie felt relaxed and wanting to rest while in the apple orchards, but she also wanted to find her treasure so she continued with enthusiasm.
Most of the way through the map she ran right into Fluttershy’s door. Hearing something running into her door over and over, Fluttershy opened it up, startled to find Pinkie Pie bounding into it over and over. “Oh my … What are you doing here Pinkie Pie?” she asked with concern.
Pinkie Pie bounced into her house and answered, “I got a treasure map and it led me straight here.” Flutteryshy looked confused and concerned as Pinkie explored the house.
“I don’t remember having a treasure here. Are you sure you aren’t mistaken?”
Pinkie Pie giggled. “No silly, the treasure isn’t here, but the path to the treasure is!” With that she bounded around Fluttershy’s home. Fluttershy watched with a pained look on her face as Pinkie jumped on furniture in a reckless way. She quickly grabbed her pet bunny from out of harm’s way.
“Oh no … Shouldn’t you …. Watch out for ….. Don’t knock over ……” Fluttershy stammered. All she could do was watch as Pinkie turned over tables, messed up sheets, and knocked over decorations. After making a few round trips Pinkie headed for the door. Fluttershy was busy picking up things that got moved out of place by Pinkie Pie.
“Don’t forget about Twilights study session”, Pinkie told Fluttershy before Fluttershy could say it first. Marking the spot and the pony on the map she looked at it carefully then started bouncing to the X. She could see on the map she was most of the way to the end and determined to make it before the study session.
A few more minutes away, she started noticing the forest getting darker, more threatening. She was determined to find this treasure though. “No scary tree is going to keep me from my treasure!” she said to herself, but hoping the scary trees would hear. Eventually, the trees were so thick, it was dark as night. Looking at the map, Pinkie could see there were only a few more steps left in her treasure hunt. She gathered the courage to march forward to the spot. The biggest, scariest looking tree in the forest stood at the X on her map. Pinkie wasn’t sure where this treasure was supposed to be but it did have a large “mouth” that she didn’t really want to check in.
“I wish I brought a flash light”, she muttered as she walked up to the mouth. The tree hasn’t moved or shown any life, but she still eyed it as like was going to eat her. She looked around again and didn’t see any signs of life, so she felt secure enough to check.
“What treasure do I even want? OOOOOOOO, I know. An invisible suit would be grea…. oops”, she said as she tripped into the tree’s “mouth”. She seemed to have taken a bit of a fall but felt no pain. She felt a cloth and put it on. It fit her perfectly. When she was done, she came out of her trance and shook her head.
“Wow, what happened?” It was too dark to see, so she left the tree and the forest. As she got further away the light penetrated the thick forest more and more. Eventually she remembered, “Hey, my treasure!” She looked at her hoof and saw her hoof. It didn’t seem different at all. She felt the suit on her though. “Hmmmm”, she wondered. She could see a nearby pond and walked up to see her reflection. There was no reflection. She was invisible.
“Yaaay! Yaaaay! Yessssssss!”, Pinkie exclaimed as she bounced happily. “I’m gonna have so much fun, and everyone is going to be surprised. I know, I’ll wear it to the study session. But first, I will have a little fun in town. I still have a bit of time untll the meeting.” With this, she bounced merrily home in a more direct route. The trip home seemed fast and like a blur in Pinkie’s memory but before she knew it, she was back in town.
Looking around for inspiration, she had an idea for her first prank. She saw Snips and Snails walking down the street having a conversation about Trixie. “You know I’m the biggest fan of the Great and Powerful Trixie! I got her some apples to eat last time she was in town”, said Snips. “No way! I’m the biggest fan of the great and Powerful Trixie! I polished her hooves last time she was here and she was very thankful”, said Snails.
“Did she really thank you?” asked Snips sounding a little jealous. “Well … no. But she smiled and laughed maniacally”, replied Snails, a little disappointed to admit.
Suddenly out of nowhere they saw a rock start to float. “Wha? What is this?” asked Snails. They kept watching the stone as it hit the ground and scratched the letters “T R I X I E” in the dirt. Snips and Snails gasped and turned towards each other.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie has summoned us! We must go home to our hidden shrine of Trixie and await more orders!” With that they dashed off for home while Pinkie Pie rolled over on her back laughing.
“Well it looks like they can’t hear me when I have this on either”, she said to herself. She had been trying to shout commands to them but they didn’t hear her. She would have liked to do an impression of Trixie and get them to bring her a cake or something. Having had enough practice she walked to Twilight's house so that she could arrive when everyone else does.
Once she arrived she looked in the window to see who was there. Everypony seemed to have arrived before her and were standing around talking among themselves. There was a book out but not much studying seemed to have been going on yet. Pinkie walked in the back door so no one would notice. Her first idea for a prank was to move the date on Twilight’s calendar. Twilight would notice this right away of course and that would be funny to watch. Twilight is very finicky about being orderly. When she looked at the calendar though, it seemed to be off by a week already. She decided to leave it since it was already off and snuck into the living room where everypony was.
After sneaking behind everypony she decided to really start by knocking something over. There was a loose book on a table so she started to slide it. It seemed rather heavy and she had to really shove it with two hooves to get it off the table. It hit the ground with a `thunk` and every pony turned around to look at it.
“What was that?” Twilight said walking over. “Did I leave that book too close to the edge of the table?” She wondered to herself. “That’s strange”, said Spike. “Nothing usually falls out of place since you are so tidy.” Using her magic she put it back on the table and gave it a second glare before walking back to the group. Pinkie giggled to herself. Nopony could sense her at all.
Next she went to where Spike was sitting. He was only a ways above the ground on a footstool. She gave him a little shove but again, had trouble pushing him. “Did Spike gain a bunch of weight recently?” She wondered. Pinkie wasn’t sure about how fast dragons can gain weight but guessed that was the case. She really couldn’t get him to budge so she backed up a few steps and got a galloping start. She leapt and pushed him off the footstool. Spike, with a startle, softly plopped onto the ground. He looked around confused.
“Whoaaa. What was that? Did somepony just nudge me?” Rarity trotted over to Spike and set him back on the stool with magic.
“Awww, did poor little Spikey-Wikey just slip of his chair?” Hearing Rarity’s concern put Spike in a different state of mind.
“Oh, yeah. I guess maybe I slipped. Hehe”, he said trying to sound cool. He quickly forgot anything happened and stared at Rarity as the ponies went back to discussing the book they were all looking at.
“Remember the time I made that gorgeous dress out of candy for her? She made it look great. Well really it made her look great. It was a great dress…” Rarity said while looking at the book.
Pinkie was rolling around laughing with tears in her eyes. This was great. No one even seemed to notice that she was late for the study session. “Wait”, she thought. How come nopony noticed that I’m not here, and why is nopony studying? Pinkie jumped up on Dash’s back to get a better look at what was going on. To Pinkie’s surprise Rainbow Dash was able to support her weight like she wasn’t even there. Pinkie was also surprised at her own sense of balance. Maybe Dash was just a strong pony and can support her. She decided to move over to Fluttershy and jumped up to her back and again was able to stand without causing a problem. Fluttershy is certainly not strong and she knew something was wrong here. They didn’t even flinch with her on their backs.
“And that time we played pranks together with Gilda. Man she kept following us around on a balloon. She can be pretty resourceful. If she had wings she would probably be a great flier.” Dash said sadly.
Flustered, Pinkie was determined to be noticed. She went over to the blackboard and picked up the chalk. She slowly was able to start writing a message. It took a lot of effort so she decided to just write her own name, and half way through writing she noticed that everypony was watching. Not only were they watching but they all had the most surprised look on their faces.
“This isn’t possible”, Twilight said simply. “Who is doing this? What is doing this?”, She asked.
Pinkie Pie shouted “I’m doing it Twilight! Me!” She tried to take off her invisibility suit but she couldn’t figure it out. She couldn’t see it, she guessed it was invisible too.
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash bolted for the door, but they were quickly followed by all the ponies screaming. Apple Jack had to run back in and grab Twilight as she was too interested in the phenomenon to know when to be scared. Pinkie laughed to herself in an accomplished way as she walked over to the book everyone was looking at. She gasped as she saw it was a book of pictures. Pictures of Pinkie. Why would they be looking at this?
She had an idea and ran out the door to check it. She galloped to the outskirts of town and searched. It only took a few moments to find but there it was. In the cemetery there was a hedge stone with the name “Pinkie Pie” and today’s date on it. No not today’s date. She remembered the calendar in Twilight's house. A week had past. She looked carefully and suddenly she could see through the ground. There wasn’t a hole but somehow she could see her body. Her body was smiling with its eyes closed. She knew now that she died that day in the woods. She wasn’t wearing an invisibility cloak, she was a ghost. She couldn’t rest yet because she needed to go to the study session and she needed to have a last laugh. Well she had her last laugh, and giggled once more as she accepted it. With this she fell into her body and disappeared, content.