The sun stood still over Canterlot. This in and of itself was a bad sign, since it meant Princess Celestia was too preoccupied to keep the sun in its course. Though today, Princess Celestia had good reason to be distracted. Discord had broken out of his stony prison once again, due to a series of arguments between Twilight Sparkle and her friends which had culminated in them going their separate ways for a short time. Discord had done one thing that would cause Celestia and Luna and basically everypony in Equestria headaches for months: he had shattered the barriers between stories for the sake of a laugh. With the barriers gone, Discord's power could easily reach any part of any world, though only in Equestria was his power able to have lasting effect.
Twilight Sparkle and her friends had been reunited offscreen due to the efforts of a trio of pink-haired females, only one of whom was Pinkie Pie, and they were now busy trying to recapture Discord. As a result, it was up to the Princesses to start repairing the damaged worlds. This began with the nigh-impossible task of rounding up all those who had crossed over, and herding them back into their proper stories. To that end, all the Princesses and various other major characters of the stories were invited to a Princess Summit in Canterlot in order to organize the recovery process. Of course, the sheer number of characters had packed the originally assigned audience chamber full of humans and humanoids, and thus the summit would be held out in the open air of Canterlot's largest park. Such strange, claustrophobic, and ultimately acrophobic creatures these humans were.
Among the various characters at the summit were a large continuum of princesses all from the same story, though only Fine and Rein from the Mysterious Star had been invited in the first place. Another Princess who had been invited was Erika of the Kingdom of Magic, along with Himeko Nonohara, her alternate from Earth. A quintet of animal-eared girls were sitting around on a picnic spread, sharing food with girls in short skirts, leotards, and tiaras. Eleven police boxes stood around waiting for their attendant doctors to stop arguing with a man who called himself a doctor, while a horde of rabbit creatures stood with bated breath. A shy, generously endowed woman stood cowering behind a shorter stoic woman while a hyperactive woman pushed around two males. There were just too many to keep track of.
A herd of cows running on their hind legs stampeded past Princess Celestia, who just sighed in despair. Princess Luna was engrossed with talking to a similarly colored cat. Princess Cadence was arguing with Queen Chrysalus over whether or not she should even be there. Shining Armor was quite embarrassed, having been asked to be a steed for a short, boyish human with a bizarre silver chain shirt and a glowing blue sword. A whale was lying on the grass while a pink kitten rested peacefully. A woman with hair-antennae growing in place of her bangs was talking happily with a boy who had hair the same color as Twilight Sparkle's soft, velvety coat.
Princess Celestia sighed wistfully at the thought of her faithful student and friend, and called things to order. It was going to be a long summit.
“I thank you all for coming on such short notice.” Princess Celestia began. “As you are no doubt aware, the barriers and boundaries between our worlds have been destroyed by Discord. As we speak, he is being hunted by the bearers of the Elements of Harmony.” A bowl of petunias fell on Celestia's head, and the whale from before looked around as though expecting another whale to appear. Celestia chose to ignore it. “With the disruption causing chaos among all of our worlds, things cannot continue the way they were meant to be. If it were not for the free passage between the worlds and stories from which we have all come, I would not need your help in gathering your people and returning them to where they belong. But with how things stand now, repairing the boundaries and borders would not be the best thing. There are many of my ponies scattered across the stories, just as there are many of your friends and acquaintances – and maybe even enemies – who have become just as scattered.”
She stood back and waited. A large, golden lion took the floor, as it were. “What Celestia has said is true.” The lion yawned. “Should we repair the damage and simply seal ourselves back up the way before, it would still leave things in tatters. Simply being mingled together like this would weaken whatever imprisonment Discord is given, and we here are largely in harmony.” He looked pointedly at Queen Chrysalus. “We all just want what is best for those that we care about, is that not correct?”
The lion backed down from the speaking area, and Queen Chrysalus took the speaking floor. “I may hold no love for the ruler and ponies of Equestria, but my changelings cannot feed while they are disrupted by this chaos that Discord has created.”
A flock of pigs flew by lazily. Princess Luna flew up and spoke in her most royal voice, just as had been rehearsed. “Indeed, we will all work towards restoring the worlds. We ask that you be careful as you search for your lost ones. Our sister has asked us to ask you all to help and assist each other as best you can, and our niece will be assisting with helping those lost in Equestria to their homes.”
Princess Cadence flew next to Princess Luna. “All of Equestria, save for a small few, will devote their efforts and talents to making sure that everypony and everyperson gets home safely. No being should be divided from their loved ones, which is why I have asked to be the one in charge of seeing everybeing home safely. To that end, I ask that you bring all your lost ones through Equestria so that we can put out the word once a missing person or pony has been found.”
This drew a rousing cheer from the crowd. A black crow flew next to Princess Luna, who gasped and flew down next to Celestia. The crow introduced himself to the princesses as Kantarou, and delivered his message.
“Indeed? This may cause unforseen problems. Please inform your king that we will take good care of his daughter, and that we will keep open eyes for this missing child. It would be very disastrous if she found Twilight Sparkle, particularly since I know Twilight would immediately notice such an enchantment and would immediately strive to remove it.”
The cleanup went by fairly quickly. Every person and pony at the summit at the very least introduced themselves and the story from which they came. Even creatures such as King Broaste were interested in repairing the worlds, though for admittedly more selfish reasons. It eventually degenerated into a party similar to, but not entirely unlike, the Grand Galloping Gala... if the Gala had been frequently interrupted by impossibilities such as devils making snow angels or thousands of fried eggs falling out of the sky.
Princess Celestia sighed. "Why did I ever agree to take part in one of those stories? They always give me a headache when I try to make sense of the nonsense."
Pinkie Pie wasn't sure what had just happened. One moment she was in her loft in Sugarcube Corner, the next she was in some sort of schoolhouse filled with cattle and chickens. Even for her own unusual abilities, this was out of left field. It was almost like Discord all over again, only there wasn't any cotton candy clouds or chocolate milk rain. She looked around. The chalkboard was covered in characters she had only seen in those funny comic books that Twilight had imported from Neighpon. She groaned. At least there were plenty of cows to make friends with!
At least, that was what she had thought until she saw the chickens talking to the cows in a language she didn't understand. She opened her mouth to speak, but never got in a word edgewise when a hyperactive human with pink hair ran into the room and grabbed one of the cows before running out. Something about Yakky So Bah's pan. Pinkie bounced after them in her usual manner. "I must be dreaming. I have to be dreaming, because if this was real life there wouldn't be a human me dragging around a cow while I watched. I think I'll go play with myself before I wake up from this dream. It sure smells like all those animals are really here, though. It must be one of those dreams Twilight calls a super dream. A super duper hyper Pinkie dream." She hadn't noticed that she was talking out loud. Neither had she noticed that many of the cows were gawking at her as though they had just noticed an english-speaking vividly pink horse in their midst.
As per usual, Fujinomiya Chitose (owner of New Inakano Middle School and president of said school's student council) was fussing over the budget while her goldfish Gyopi watched. They heard some sort of explosion off in the distance, which would normally give any school owner at least reason to pause and be concerned. However, it was Tuesday, which was when her beloved Aoi (not that she would ever openly admit to him being the one boy she desired) was in charge of cooking the Yakisoba Pan (essentially sandwiches of fried noodles, though any true connoisseur of the dish - say, for instance, Aoi - would argue that such a description is overly simplified) for the after-school activities. She paused for a moment when she realized that she was frequently thinking with parenthetical appendages (and was even more surprised at her having become aware of this fact), then turned to the door which had just been knocked.
"{Um, Miss President}" the mild-mannered boy with black hair interrupted. "{Apparently there's a small pink horse wandering the halls speaking English.}"
Chitose frowned. "{I wasn't aware that any of our horses could speak English. For that matter, I've never heard any of our horses speaking Japanese, either. For that matter, since when do we have a pink horse? Shuu, Has Wapiko been playing with the food dyes again?}"
He smiled nervously. "{Well, no she hasn't. From what I gathered, the horse just materialized in the middle of the Health class that all of our cows and oxen were attending.}"
Chitose sighed. "{Did Aoi blow up the kitchens again, or was that something involving the pink horse?}"
The boy of mild manners shook his head. "{That probably was Aoi, since it came from the kitchen. The horse has been bouncing around speaking in English. Something about sparkling twilight and apples from Jack. I can't see how that would result in a kitchen centered explosion.}"
The kitchens were in disarray already, and Aoi was working on his own. He had made plenty of Yakisoba Pan, but had devolved into experimenting with baked goods. Again. He knew it drove Chitose nuts when the resulting explosion rendered food inedible, but he was allowed to do it for whatever reason.
He heard a strange sproinging sound from outside the kitchen, and left some liquid simmering in a saucepan to open the door. He found... a pink horse that was bouncing up and down.
"I thought I smelled a kitchen. I'm Pinkie Pie, do you have any food like cake or cupcakes or pancakes or corncakes or popcorn?"
Aoi just stood there, dumbfounded. "{Um, who are you and why are you pink? Is this another one of Wapiko's pranks?}"
Pinkie Pie looked up at the story and read the translation before answering. "I just said my name is Pinkie Pie! I'm pink because if I wasn't pink I wouldn't be a Pinkie Pie, I'd be some other color pie. And then I wouldn't be me! And I don't know who Wapiko is, though I'd probably help her with a prank if she asked me to. As long as it doesn't hurt anypony."
Aoi just looked at her like she was crazy. "{You can't be one of our horses, none of them could ever speak that fast.}" Aoi shrugged and turned around. "{I've got baking to do.}"
Pinkie took a moment to think about what the translation meant. "You've got horses? I'm just a pony~! Wait, can't you read what I'm saying like how I can read what you're saying?"
Aoi just ignored her and went back to his saucepan, which was now smoking. Pinkie Pie took one of the fried noodle sandwiches and ate it. "Hey, these are pretty good! What are these? Are you Yakky So Bah?"
"{H-hey! Don't eat those yet, those are for everybody!}" Aoi shouted at her. The saucepan chose this moment to explode loudly. "{Agh, not my super secret hot sauce!}"
At that moment, the pink-haired girl from before, who was still dragging the cow, entered the kitchen. "{Aoi-chan, haiii! We're ready for some Yakisoba Pan! Hi Pink Horse!}"
Pinkie Pie frowned as she read the translation. "I'm not a horse, I'm a pony! My name's Pinkie Pie, what's your name?"
The girl looked skyward for a moment, then smiled and extended a hand. "{I'm Wapiko, this is Bad Ox, that's Aoi. Nice to meetcha, Pinkie Pie!}"
Aoi just looked at Wapiko. "{You can understand her?}"
Wapiko nodded. "{Of course! All I have to do is look at the story to know what she's saying! I know how to read English, after all!}"
Aoi just facepalmed. "{It's just Wapiko being Wapiko.}"