Empire of Pink

Chapters

Pink-allel Lives
Thinking Pink
Pink is Power
Storm of Pink
Painting the Town Pink

Pink-allel Lives

It was already shaping up to be a normal day for Pinkie Pie, and she was in her normal mood. As she walked through the streets of Ponyville she could not hold back the way she was feeling. It was how she always felt at this time of day – or, in truth, any time of day. Pinkie Pie was depressed, you see.

She just walked along, silently, lost in her own permeating despair. She saw the other ponies walk by her, giving her a smile and a wave.

“Great party last night, Pinkie!” they all seemed to say. “I’m surprised you’re up so early after that one.”

She wished they would all just drop dead. Then maybe they would be quiet and leave her alone.

Pinkie Pie never considered herself much of a people pony. In fact, she did not even know why she still hung around this Celestia-forsaken town. Probably because she had no idea of where she would go otherwise. The whole of Equestria just seemed like a black hole to her.

“Heya, Pinkie!” came a voice from high above her. “Great party last night!”

Pinkie sighed as she looked into the sky and that multi-colored flying freak, Rainbow Dash, came into view. Luckily, Pinkie did not have to look at her too long, as the pegasus soon charged headlong into the nearest cloud.

“We’ll have to meet up later when my shift’s done!” Rainbow Dash called behind her just before disappearing into the white fluff. “Be careful until then. Even you can’t be one-hundred percent after that crazy party!”

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. But she knew she was relatively lucky. Rainbow Dash did have a job to do clearing away the pre-dawn clouds – and given that it had been thirty minutes since dawn, must be running very late. So she had no time to bother Pinkie any further.

It was a relief. Pinkie tried to avoid that sort as often as possible, or really anyone who thought that they knew her. And that was quite a difficult thing to do, when you are a pony who has a reputation for being close, personal friends with every single individual between here and Canterlot.

None of them really knew her, after all, so they were simply not her problem.

But now, Pinkie Pie had found a quiet little alleyway to walk down, where there was no one to bother her. What was she doing, anyway? She did not know. Just killing time, she supposed. Just drifting because there was nothing else to do. That was all her life was, and she hated it.

Pinkie reflected how much she hated it. How much she hated this town. How much she hated all the ponies who came up to her, expecting her to say or do something funny at their command, like she was good for nothing more than putting on shows for them. Oh yes, she hated them all, and if she saw one more pony trying to bother her, she thought she would lose control.

Just then, a mint-green pony appeared from around the bend. Lyra Heartstrings.

“Hey, Pinkie! Awesome party last– Yaaaahh!”

Lyra immediately held her hooves to her nose, watching the dark red blood flood over her green coat. Within an instant, she had crumpled into the ground and began to whimper in pain.

Pinkie looked at her hoof to make sure that no blood had landed there and them walked away, a smile forming on her face. First a smile, and then a chuckle. Pinkie Pie was the element of laughter, after all, and she was glad that she finally had something to laugh at.

Maybe this won’t be such a bad day after all! she thought as she continued walking.

But this notion was soon to be proved wrong, as Pinkie came out of the alley and saw her walking along the opposite way. The one mare that Pinkie Pie absolutely detested above all of the rest.

If hate could kill mares, Twilight Sparkle, how mine would kill you!

Just look at her, Pinkie thought. Walking around with those wings of hers tucked into her sides, her nose buried in some book or other floating in front of her. Acting like she’s just another regular pony, like she’s completely oblivious to the role and position she holds, like she’s capable of forgetting it even for a second.

But Pinkie knew better. She knew that only someone who was absolutely certain of their superiority could act like they did not even remember it. Oh, how Twilight must be doing it on purpose, just to rub in the fact that she is now royalty, just to make everyone remember it.

How hard it had been to tolerate hearing that Twilight had been made one of the rulers of Equestria! But how even harder to see Twilight walking around Ponyville, pretending to be normal, all the while everypony knowing that she was not.

“Pinkie!”

Oh, great. Looks like Twilight had noticed her. No, don’t come over, don’t come over!

She came over.

“Great party last night, Pinkie,” Twilight said with a smile. “How long did it go on for?”

“If you were there, you should already know,” Pinkie responded, not bothering to hide her contempt.

“Must have been some wild night,” Twilight said. “You don’t even remember that I had to call it quits at ten! After all, big day of work today! I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing out here so early.”

No.

Pinkie just stared blandly at Twilight, knowing the arrogant clod would tell her anyway.

“Remember I said I was getting a copy of that rare book of Starswirl the Bearded’s lost spells they found in the Crystal Empire library? Well, I knew it was coming today and I just couldn’t wait to get down to the post-office and pick it up!”

Twilight clapped her hooves together in excitement. Pinkie just watched her, though her vision was soon taken up by the large book that flew into her face.

“Pretty great, huh?” Twilight said enthusiastically. “I was looking through it, and it’s got spells for practically anything you can imagine!”

“Does it have spells for getting rid of swine?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Why do you ask?”

Pinkie pushed the book out of her face. “You’ll probably want to skip those. They’d be too dangerous for you.”

Twilight just stared blankly at Pinkie for a moment, her large, dumb grin now seeming out of place compared to the rest of her face. But then, joy of joys, she perked up again.

“Oh, Pinkie!” Twilight said with a contented laugh.

There it was. That same “Oh, Pinkie!” The phrase ponies used they had no clue what she was saying and just assumed it was Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie. Pinkie hated that phrase! And all the assumptions behind it!

Pinkie felt herself beginning to grit her teeth at the dumb pony chuckling in front of her. But Twilight never saw it. She had once more dug into her book and now – thank Celestia for small miracles – was turning to leave.

“I don’t mean to sound rude,” Twilight said, not looking from the book, “but I’m going to have a lot of work to do today and I really can’t afford to be disturbed by anything.”

“Then don’t look in the mirror,” Pinkie responded.

Twilight did not even seem to register this. “Not that I don’t love having you around, but I really need to just be left alone today. Do you think you can do that for me, Pinkie, just this once?”

“It’ll be easy,” Pinkie said, not lying.

“Thanks, Pinkie, I really appreciate it,” Twilight said as she walked away.

“Don’t mention it,” Pinkie responded, adding the word “Swine,” under her breath.

But as Twilight was just disappearing around another turn in the road, Pinkie Pie noticed something on the ground. It was a book. At first, Pinkie did nothing but glance at it dismissively. One of Twilight’s boring old musty library books could never do much to fascinate her.

But then Pinkie noticed something. This was no library book. It may have been done up to look like one as much as possible, but its owner had never been quite able to get that right. No, this looked like it was a journal, or a diary.

Twilight’s diary.

Pinkie Pie swooped it up. A malicious grin spread across her face as she began to page through it. Maybe, she thought, this was just what she needed to bring Twilight Sparkle to her haunches. A few juicy secrets, a little blackmail, and that was all it would take.

Maybe this day was looking up after all.

The noontide sun lazily made its way through the windows and into the small, sparse room located on the upper floor of Sugarcube Corner. There, it came to alight on the form of a pink pony sprawled out on her stomach across the bed, a tiny alligator standing motionless beside her. She was snoring heavily and gave no indication that she would awaken any time soon.

But appearances can be deceiving, for a moment later, she became a pink blur blasting upward from the bed. Pinkie Pie seemed to hover there for a moment before coming back down onto the bed with enough force that it was a wonder that the bed did not break. The baby alligator, meanwhile, continued to remain motionless and apparently indifferent as it was thrown violently up and down by all this.

Pinkie’s blue eyes immediately looked to the window outside, focusing on the position of the sun.

“Noon already?” she said in alarm. “Gummy, do you know what this means?”

Gummy’s indifference continued.

“Yes, I know I overslept, but do you know what else it means?”

Gummy’s indifference still continued.

“No, Gummy, we don’t have time for that,” Pinkie responded. “Don’t you remember? I promised Mr. and Mrs. Cake that I’d do the baking for today!”

Pinkie now for the first time looked to her pet alligator, who did not bother looking back.

Pinkie let out an irritated sigh. “Yes, I know I should have ended the party much earlier. You don’t have to take that tone with me! But how was I supposed to realize it was already 3 a.m.? Well, yeah, the clock, but it got busted by the hammer during the dance-contest, remember?”

Gummy blinked.

Pinkie growled. “Fine, whatever. There’s just no talking to you when you’re in a mood like this. I’ve got to get to work. I just hope Mr. and Mrs. Cake didn’t have to do all the baking themselves!”

In a flash – a pink flash – she was gone, and Gummy remained as motionless as before.

Mr. Cake was just coming out of the kitchen with the last of that day's baked goods and Mrs. Cake was manning the register when the pink blur surged past them. It left them both stunned for a moment and nearly caused Mr. Cake to drop all of the goodies he was holding.

It was only the constant cries of “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” from the pink blur that brought them back to reality. Well, that and the violent swinging of the kitchen door which once more caused Mr. Cake to nearly drop the day’s assortment.

Mrs. Cake sighed. “You talk to her. I’ll go get the fire extinguisher.”

Mr. Cake placed the tray down on the nearest safe surface and ventured over toward the kitchen. He stood outside the door.

“Pinkie?” he said.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Cake!” came her frantic voice from inside the kitchen. The voice had seemed to move from one end of the kitchen to the other several times in the amount of time it took to say that one short sentence.

“Pinkie, it’s alright,” Mr. Cake said with as much false calm as he could muster.

“I know I let you down!” said her voice once more, almost from all points of the room at once. “I said I was going to be more responsible from now on and I let you down! But I’ll make up for it! I’m going to get all the baking done super-duper-fast so that you and Mrs. Cake can just worry about the store!”

Mr. Cake grit his teeth. Any time Pinkie announced the intention to do something “super-duper-fast” in the kitchen, he knew it could only lead to trouble.

“It’s okay, Pinkie,” he said. “We already did all the baking for today. You can take it easy.”

Mr. Cake felt a strong sense of relief when the kitchen door swung open to reveal Pinkie Pie standing there – away from any of cookware. But the look in her eyes soon made that relief flee as quickly as it had come.

“Take it easy? Take it easy?” Pinkie practically shouted. “But you and Mrs. Cake were counting on me! I was supposed to be the one to do the baking today!”

“I know, but–” Mr. Cake was about to say something generous and fatherly about how he and Mrs. Cake were quite happy to pick up the slack when Pinkie was not up to it, but he never got the chance.

“But nothing!” Pinkie continued. “I let you both down so badly! I have to make it up to you! I know, I’ll do all the baking that I was supposed to so that we’ll have double the yummy treats on hand!”

“Pinkie, that’s really not necessary,” Mr. Cake said as Pinkie disappeared back into the kitchen. “Especially after that party you had last night. I think that would have taken quite a bit out of any pony.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that too, Mr. Cake! I didn’t mean to keep you up all night or anything!”

Mr. Cake yawned. “Oh, it wasn’t…. it wasn’t…. all night.” True, it had just been until three in the morning.

“I’ll make that up to you too! I’m going to make these treats extra super scrumptious and that’ll make everything better!”

Oh dear, Mr. Cake thought.

He pushed open the door to the kitchen just in time to see Pinkie Pie stuff an overloaded and overflowing baking tray into the oven. With a few speedy turns and clicks, Pinkie brought the oven roaring to life.

“Pinkie, what are you doing?” Mr. Cake said, rushing over to the oven. But when he reached it, he could tell he was already too late. The oven had now begun to shake and scream uncontrollably.

“I’m just taking a few shortcuts to save some time,” Pinkie said casually, as though she did not even notice the alarm in Mr. Cake’s voice.

Mr. Cake barely had the attention left to process Pinkie’s innocent explanation of why she had just reduced something that should have taken hours into the span of five minutes. He was too busy focusing on the oven, which was shaking and sparking more and more with each passing second.

Finally, it seemed as though the thing was about to explode. Mr. Cake braced for the worst.

And nothing happened.

Mr. Cake let out a sigh of relief. The new fail-safe mechanism that the Cakes had gotten installed the last time Pinkie destroyed their oven seemed to be working. It had cost a hoof and a leg, but if it Pinkie-proofed the kitchen, Mr. Cake had to admit that it was worth it.

“I’ve got the extinguisher!” Mrs. Cake called as she appeared beyond the kitchen doorway.

“No need for it this time, honey,” Mr. Cake said. “Everything’s completely okay–”

And then the oven exploded.

When Mr. Cake again became cognizant of what was going on, he discovered himself covered in candy-coating, batter, and extinguisher foam. As Mrs. Cake completed foaming down the kitchen, he finished his sentence with a dejected “here.”

Pinkie Pie now began to lick the sweets and foam from the sides of her face and her hooves. “Oopsy. Sorry about that… for the fifth time… this month…. But hey, it wasn’t all bad! How often do you get to be covered in ooey-gooey goodness?”

Her tongue reached up and wiped away a smudge of fudge from the tip of her nose. “And I was right – this is extra super scrumptious! You guys think we should make foam a permanent ingredient?”

Mr. and Mrs. Cake exchanged glances. Mrs. Cake was about to say something but Mr. Cake beat her to it.

“Yes, Pinkie,” he said, in as calm and measured a voice as he could still manage. “You were right. And now that you’ve finished making it, you’ve made up for everything. Now you can go out and do something with your friends.”

Pinkie tilted her head. “You sure? ’Cause I could always help out with something else around the store! Or I could watch the babies for you while you two work!”

“No, Pinkie,” Mr. Cake said, his voice straining. “Go out and do something with your friends.”

“What Mr. Cake is trying to say is that we don’t have anything else we need you to do right now,” Mrs. Cake chimed in. “Since you did such an… er… good job catching up, you can have the rest of the day off as a reward.”

Pinkie considered. “Okie dokie lokie!” she said at last, and hopped past the Cakes and out of Sugar Cube Corner.

Mr. and Mrs. Cake gave themselves sighs of relief when they were sure she was gone. These were, however, quickly interrupted when Pinkie put her head back through the doorway and said, “You really positi-lutely sure you don’t need anything else?”

“No, dear, that’s fine,” Mrs. Cake said, her own voice now straining.

“Okay, see you later!” Pinkie said as she once more disappeared from view.

After a moment, Mrs. Cake asked, “You think she’s gone now?”

“Lock the front door just to be sure,” Mr. Cake responded.

Mrs. Cake shrugged. “Okay, but not like it’s ever stopped her before.”

Pinkie Pie could not tell the Cakes this, but she was actually relieved to have been allowed to take the day off. She needed it, and not just because of the after-effects of last night’s party. No, something else was bothering her. And it was the reason that she had so badly messed up in the kitchen.

Well, one of the reasons. In hindsight, even Pinkie Pie had to admit that shoving as much into the oven as quickly as she could had not been the best idea. But there was something else which had knocked her off her game and kept her from paying the proper amount of attention.

When she first began to mix the different ingredients together, Pinkie had noticed something strange in the mixing pan. There seemed to be an image in there, a reflection, but it was not her reflection. It looked to be a male pony, older that her by far, and a dark blue in color. In fact, it looked just like someone she once knew….

And then, when she had been throwing everything together and throwing it into the oven, she thought she had heard a voice, a voice other than those of herself and Mr. Cake. It was a familiar voice, comforting and yet strong. But, given all the noise and confusion, Pinkie had been barely able to make out what it was saying.

All that she could hear was what sounded like, “Pinkamena, you must beware….”

Before Pinkie could try to piece it all together in her mind, she was distracted by the blast of multi-color light that came flying into view.

“Pinkie Pie, I am so sorry!” Rainbow Dash said as she hovered around in the air.

“Now you’re starting to sound like me,” Pinkie Pie said. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I know I said we were going to hang out today….”

“We were? When did we decide that?”

Rainbow Dash did not answer. Rather, she studied Pinkie’s face, expecting perhaps the stealthily-formed smile, the shining eye, that would tell Dash that the joke was on her. But it never came. Pinkie just continued to stare at her, waiting for a response which both knew was taking far too long to come.

Dash finally answered, “Still haven’t recovered from that party last night, huh? Well, anyway, it turns out that some newbie on the job over in Cloudsdale accidentally sent a massive cold front toward Ponyville and they need all available pegasi to turn it back. So… that’s probably gonna take up the rest of the day. I hope you’re not disappointed.”

Pinkie Pie suddenly brightened up, now being able to darkly figure what Dash was going on about. “No, of course I’m not disappointed. But when did we agree to hang out?”

“Um, this morning?”

Pinkie Pie’s smile widened. She laughed. “Come on, silly, I was sound asleep this morning!”

“But I saw you and we talked.”

“Nope! I was still bouncing around in dreamland until noon!”

Rainbow Dash just stared at Pinkie for what felt like a very long time. Finally, she said with a smile, “Oh, Pinkie….”

Thus having settled things to her level of satisfaction, Rainbow Dash gave a cursory farewell and sped off into the clear sky above, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. As Pinkie watched her go, the pink mare could not help but reflect that her friends could be exceptionally strange sometimes.

Pinkie continued along her path in her usual way, saying hello to every single pony she met. The occasion was as cheerful as ever until Pinkie heard something – crying.

She looked around to see Lyra Heartstrings and Bon-Bon sitting nearby. Lyra was holding onto her nose with both hooves while Bon-Bon seemed to be trying to comfort her. Pinkie did not need to see anymore. She was ready to jump into action. After all, Pinkie Pie could not possibly let one of her friends continue to suffer and hurt when she had it in her power to turn that pain into laughter and happiness.

“Lyra, why the sad sounds? What’s gotten you so down?”” she said as she approached, her voice taking on that characteristic sing-song tone. “Don’t you know playing happy music is the purpose of a lyre? Come on, play your music, and lift your heart higher!”

But Pinkie’s well-meaning little ditty just seemed to make Lyra cry even more. Now that she was there, Pinkie could get a better look at Lyra’s nose, which was completely wrapped in a white bandage. She also got a better look at Bon-Bon’s face and the rage it contained.

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie felt like she was in over-her-head. And not in the good way she usually felt in-over-her-head. No, she could tell that this was bad.

“What, you think that’s funny?” Bon-Bon practically screamed at her. “Showing your face here, after what you did, and making jokes about it? Don’t you have any decency at all?”

Pinkie’s mouth formed into a very rare frown. Her tone became like that of a child whose parent scolds it for something it cannot comprehend. “I… What did I do wrong?”

“You broke her nose, you monster!” Bon-Bon shouted, loud enough for everyone else on the street (and the next two streets over) to hear it.

Pinkie Pie reared back. How could she be accused of doing something so terrible to a friend of hers? She would never do that, she knew.

But then, the cold sense of realization fell upon her. She began to calm down.

“Was it the party last night?” Pinkie Pie asked. “I mean, by the end there, most of us were pretty much out of it, so I guess maybe something might have happened accidentally….”

Pinkie Pie was trying to explain herself the best she could and adapt to the new situation of being called a monster. But what she said just seemed to make Lyra cry even more and Bon-Bon look even angrier.

Pinkie Pie had not known that Bon-Bon could look that angry. She had not known that any pony could look that angry.

“You know well what you did, and on purpose!” Bon-Bon shouted. “You know that this morning you punched Lyra here right in the face and broke her nose! Now, I admit that party last night was pretty awesome, but that gives you no excuse for what you did!”

Pinkie shook her head in unbelief. The full horror of what she was being accused of gripped her for the first time.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” she said, her voice spitting the no’s out with a rapid speed matched only by the shaking of her head from side to side.

When she had finally finished uttering her long string of no’s, Pinkie said, “I couldn’t have done that! I was asleep until noon today!”

Bon-Bon just sneered. “You’re really sick, you know that? Come on, Lyra, we’re getting out of here before she gets violent again.”

Bon-Bon mustered the still-sobbing Lyra to her hooves and dragged her away. As they disappeared from view, Bon-Bon called over her shoulder to Pinkie. “I always knew there was something wrong with you!”

Something very odd was going on, Pinkie realized. Very odd indeed. And there was only one pony that could help Pinkie Pie make sense of it.

Twilight Sparkle.

Would Twilight be able to make some sense of these strange proceedings?Read on.

Thinking Pink

“Twilight, you have to help me!” Pinkie proclaimed as she ran through the front door of the library, avoiding a collision with Spike by a hair.

She was greeted only by a loud and annoyed shout of “Pinkie Pie!”

Pinkie stopped in her tracks to look at Twilight, what was staring back at her from her writing desk, the lavender alicorn not seeming to be happy to see her in the least.

“Oh, no,” Pinkie said. “Don’t tell me I broke your nose too!”

“What? What are you talking about?” Twilight said, annoyance clear in her voice.

Pinkie now spied what was likely to be the true cause of Twilight’s frustration. On Twilight’s desk was a piece of parchment half-filled with Twilight’s distinctive writing. The other half was marked with a long blue-black streak that stretched to the end of the sheet where Twilight’s quill stood at attention.

Pinkie smiled as best she could in this rare moment of embarrassment.

Twilight sighed as the parchment lifted up in front of her and began to crumple into a small ball. As she left the writing desk, the ball flew over her shoulder to where Spike was waiting with a trash bin. Twilight never noticed that the ball bounced off of his head instead of landing in the bin.

As Twilight approached, Pinkie saw her friend close her eyes and take a deep breath. When Twilight opened her eyes, her face had assumed a look of at least partial calm and understanding.

“Pinkie, didn’t I tell you that I would be busy working all day?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know, did you?” Pinkie responded.

Twilight raised her eyebrows. “When we met in the street earlier today? Remember, I said I had a lot of work to do because I had just gotten that copy of Starswirl the Bearded’s lost spells?”

Pinkie brightened up. “Oh, it finally came? Congratulations!”

Blank stares, like the one currently on Twilight’s face, seemed to be the only type of reaction Pinkie was getting today.

“Pinkie, I already told you that this morning,” Twilight said. “Just what went on at that party last night?”

“I have no idea,” Pinkie said cheerfully. “After about midnight, it all becomes something of a blur.”

“Must have been something crazy even by your standards,” Twilight answered as she moved back to her writing desk. “You’ve been acting even weirder than usual today. But if you don’t mind, I really do need to get back to work–”

“Whatcha working on?” Pinkie asked before Twilight could even finish the sentence.

Twilight straightened out a new piece of parchment, dipped her quill in ink, and began writing again. “I’m trying to put together a new comprehensive edition of all Starswirl the Bearded’s spells and writings, with commentary on each, of course.”

Pinkie came up and looked over her shoulder. “But I thought that Professor Devil Spit just came out with a new comprehensive edition.”

“He did,” Twilight answered, her tone becoming sharper. “And that’s exactly why I’m working on mine. Someone’s got to save Starswirl’s memory from that piece of unscholarly, sensationalistic tripe. It doesn’t even deserve to be called a “comprehensive edition”! I mean, I don’t know about you, but I quite prefer to take my spellbooks without any completely baseless and unproven assertions that Starswirl’s love-spells – of which he only wrote five, may I remind you – were inspired by an illicit love-affair with Clover the Clever, thank you very much!”

Twilight paused. Both she and Pinkie looked at the parchment, where another blue-black streak had made its way diagonally from top to bottom. Twilight growled as the parchment crumpled up before her and flew over her shoulder. Pinkie quickly grabbed the trash bin and managed to catch the crumpled-up ball just as it was about to make contact with Spike’s head again.

Twilight once more closed her eyes and issued a deep breath. When she had calmed down, she turned back to Pinkie. “How did you even know about Professor Devil Spit’s book?”

Pinkie chuckled. “Because, silly, you haven’t stopped complaining about it for the past two months or so!”

Another blank stare from Twilight. “Wait, you remember that, but you can’t even remember what we talked about this morning?”

The smile suddenly disappeared from Pinkie’s face. She began to pace around the room. “That’s just the thing! I don’t remember doing that this morning. I don’t remember saying to Rainbow Dash that we would hang later. And I certainly don’t remember punching Lyra in the face and breaking her nose!”

“You punched Lyra in the face!” Twilight said in alarm. “Pinkie, why would you ever do such a thing?”

“I don’t know!” Pinkie responded. “I mean, if you and Lyra and Dashie all saw me and talked to me, then I must have been there and done that stuff. But I don’t even remember any of it! And why would I punch Lyra in the face? She’s my friend!”

Twilight’s posture suddenly changed. Pinkie could tell she was trying to adopt a more comforting demeanor, but Pinkie could easily sense that, underneath, Twilight had actually stiffened up.

“Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said, “I say this as a friend, but I think it’s time we talked about something called ‘moderation.’”

“Moderation, what do you mean?”

“Well, we all know how fun your parties are, but sometimes they can get a little… shall we say, out of hoof? And well, I’ve heard that there’s more than just punch going around at some of those.”

“Wait, are you saying….”

“I’m afraid so. Pinkie, you have to cut back on all the sugar you take in at those things.”

Pinkie pulled back. Of all the horrifying things she heard today, this one literally took the cake.

“But… but… my parties wouldn’t be the same without all my scrum-diddly-umptious treats!”

“Pinkie, I’m not saying to cut away from them entirely,” Twilight said. “But just have a few to help yourself relax, and then cut yourself off. Don’t go too overboard to where you can’t control yourself anymore. Then we won’t have any more of you breaking Lyra’s nose and not remembering it afterward.”

“But….”

“No buts, Pinkie. Sugar, it’s a killer if you let it be.”

Pinkie shook her head furiously. “But that’s the thing! It’s not just that I can’t remember punching Lyra. It’s that I don’t even know how it could have happened!”

Twilight tilted her head. “Pinkie, what do you mean?”

Pinkie seemed about to burst with the need to make her friend understand. “I couldn’t have been there! I was in bed until noon!”

Pinkie suddenly paused and let out a giant gasp. “Unless… you don’t suppose I was sleep-walking, do you? Or sleep-punching? Twilight, is that what happens to me? I go to sleep and I become a violent hooligan who stalks the nighttime streets of Ponyville looking for innocent pony-noses to break? Is that who I am?”

Twilight could barely keep her eyes on Pinkie with how fast the pink pony was pacing around the room. If someone had just come into the library at this moment, they would have thought Pinkie was either in a race with herself or chasing her own tail around the room at a breakneck pace. Or both at the same time.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Pinkie,” she said calmly.

Pinkie did not stop. “I can’t believe it – I am a monster! Bon-Bon was right about me!”

“Pinkie.”

“I should be locked up. For my own good, and the good of every pony. Who knows how many noses I’ve already ruined? I could be a wanted criminal – responsible for countless broken noses in every corner of Equestria!”

“Pinkie.”

“Twilight, you have to send a letter to Princess Celestia, telling her that I should be immediately rounded up and put in some deep, dark, scary dungeon where I’ll never be able to harm any pony ever again! Oh, they do let you have sweets in prison, right Twilight? You’ll make sure I still get a cookie or a piece of cake every so often, won’t you? You’ll do that for me, right?”

“Pinkie!”

Pinkie finally stopped pacing and stared at Twilight. Twilight started to smile a little. She felt she had finally gotten through to her friend.

And then Pinkie was on the ground, her forelegs wrapped around Twilight’s own. Her eyes looked up into Twilight’s pleadingly, with a mixture of fear and panic.

“Please, Twilight,” Pinkie said. “I know a Princess can’t be seen to have anything to do with an internationally-known criminal mastermind like me, but can’t you just arrange for the guards to sneak me a brownie every so often? Or maybe some delicious doughnuts? I’ll even take low-sugar! Just don’t let cut me off completely! I don’t think I could survive that deep dark pit of despair without something to brighten my day!”

Twilight put her hoof on Pinkie’s forehead and forcefully pushed the pink pony off of her.

“Calm down, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “Nobody’s going to any dark dungeons anywhere.”

Pinkie sat up and looked confused. “I’m… I’m not?”

Twilight smiled. “Celestia, no. Most of Canterlot’s criminal detention facilities are actually rather nice. A bit too much coddling of prisoners if you ask me, but still.”

Pinkie collapsed to the floor. “Well, as long as I’m off the streets, I guess.”

Twilight put her hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “Relax, Pinkie. It was just a joke. You’re not going to any prison or dungeon or jail or anything like that. Let’s just calm down and think about this rationally.”

Pinkie picked herself back up. “Okay, I guess you’re right. But I don’t want to be a danger to anypony, either.”

Twilight shook her head gently. “The Pinkie Pie I know isn’t a danger to anypony. And the Pinkie Pie I saw today definitely was not sleepwalking.”

“She wasn’t?”

“No, not at all. I mean, she was a lot quieter and not quite as bubbly as you always are, but she was definitely alert. We even talked.”

“We talked? About breaking noses, I presume!”

“No, no, nothing like that. I just told you all about how I had just gotten in the new book of Starswirl’s spells and showed it to you. You asked me if there were any spells for getting rid of swine.”

“That’s a silly thing to ask about,” Pinkie said. “Why would I ask about that?”

“You seemed pretty alert when you said it, especially when you said I should avoid spells like that because they might… hurt… me….”

A look of confusion came over Twilight’s face, followed by a look of anger. Anger directed at Pinkie Pie. “Hey, you were calling me a pig, weren’t you?”

Pinkie’s eyes grew wide in pain and sorrow. “I am a monster!”

She then turned her head away and held her hook to her chin. “And a really dumb one at that. I mean, who insults a Princess of Equestria with a direct line to Princess Celestia right to her face? I deserve to be locked in a dungeon for that alone!”

Twilight forced herself to be calm. “No, no, you’re not. I’m sorry, Pinkie. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. It’s not your fault.”

Pinkie smiled. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have called you a pig. Or broken Lyra’s nose.”

“She’s not going to let that go, is she?” said Spike from one of the other rooms.

Twilight shook her head, more to gain a grip on it (she felt it spinning) then to make a statement. “Pinkie, don’t apologize. I know you would never call me a pig or hurt anypony.”

Spike’s laugh came from the kitchen.

“Intentionally,” Twilight corrected herself, eyes staring daggers toward the direction of her unseen assistant’s voice. “You would never hurt any pony intentionally. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know you can’t be responsible for this. Just take a deep breath and relax.”

Pinkie seemed to calm down again. She once more sat down and looked to Twilight.

Twilight smiled reassuringly. “Okay, better?”

Pinkie nodded.

Twilight turned around and began to walk back toward her writing desk. “Now, I do have some ideas about where to start. I’ve been making some notes about the effects of bilocation in my diary lately, and I think they might prove….”

Pinkie saw Twilight freeze, becoming as still as a statue. But Pinkie could also see that the hair on Twilight’s mane seemed to be standing on edge. Something not-good was up. Something very not-good indeed.

“Twilight?” she asked. “Is anything wrong?”

“My diary….” Twilight said. “What happened to my diary?”

Pinkie Pie sat in a small corner of the café, a chocolate shake on one side of her and Twilight’s diary on the other. It was hard to say which she devoured more greedily.

“Hey, Pinkie Pie, great party last night,” somepony said as they walked past.

“Drop dead,” Pinkie responded.

She returned to combing the diary for Twilight’s deepest, darkest, juiciest secrets. She avidly turned page after page after page. But finally, as she neared the end of the book, she looked up in disgust.

“There’s nothing juicy or scandalous in here at all!” she said, banging her hoof against the book. “Give me sensitive state secrets, give me feelings of resentment, give me deeply-hidden and completely inappropriate romantic longings, give me anything! Anything but this!”

She flipped swiftly through the pages. “There’s nothing in here but lists of books! That’s what she keeps in here? Not her most salacious secrets, just records of every single book she’s read since coming to Ponyville? What’s wrong with her?”

Indeed, the only things of interest which Pinkie could find were the occasional letters that Twilight had pinned in from a certain Professor Devil Spit of the Rational University of Canterlot, followed invariably by several pages of Twilight’s handwritten replies. And, other than the copious number of profanities Twilight had written and then crossed out, there was nothing that would much contradict the image of herself she presented to the world.

Pinkie Pie concluded that there was nothing which she could use here against Twilight. Not because Twilight was a saint, but just because Twilight was boring.

Pinkie sighed and drowned her sorrows in her milkshake. She continued to flip through the diary at a slow, uneventful pace. That is, until her eyes alighted upon one particular entry:

“Filled up the entrance to the mirror pool with a giant rock today. No way anybody’s getting through there for a long time. Upon inspecting the area, I found another, smaller, entrance to the mirror pool underneath that old oak tree that looks like an upside-down griffin, but I don’t think Pinkie or anyone else knows about that. I might sneak down there to do some tests on the mirror pool in my free time. As long as only I know about it, what can go wrong?”

Pinkie’s eyes lit up like fireworks. This was her answer.

What was Pinkie planning?Read on.

Pink is Power

“Ah don’t know why it was so important that we all had to come help ya find yer diary,” Applejack said as she and Rarity dug through various books on the bookshelves in Twilight’s library.

“You know, darling, that you probably just misplaced it somewhere,” Rarity added. “You can be a little… shall we say, forgetful, at times?”

Twilight shook her head as she magically pulled several books out of one shelf and then put them back in perfect alphabetical order. “It’s not about the diary. It’s about the fact that there’s something strange going on here and I need the notes in my diary to figure it out!”

“A’right,” Applejack said, not showing much faith in this explanation, “we’ll keep looking.”

As she continued checking all of the shelves, drawers, and what amounted to furniture in her general area, Applejack came upon Pinkie Pie sitting, dejected, upon a stool.

“Ya know, we might be able to get this done a touch more quickly if you lent a hoof, sugarcube,” Applejack said to her.

Pinkie Pie shook her head a little. “I would, but I don’t want to end up breaking your nose. Sorry.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “That’s just ridiculous! Why would ya break mah nose?”

“Well, it is rather large for a lady,” Rarity said from somewhere behind her.

Applejack turned on her. “Are ya sayin’ mah nose ain’t ladylike? Ya sayin’ it’s too big or somethin’?”

Rarity just continued searching, not looking at Applejack. “All I’m saying is that there is no shame in a little cosmetic surgery.”

Applejack began to approach Rarity menacingly. “Ah’ll show you a little cos–”

“Girls! Girls! This is not the time!” Twilight interjected. “We’ve got bigger things than Applejack’s nose to worry about!”

Now Applejack turned on her. “So, ya also think mah nose is big, do ya, Twi?”

Twilight shook her head. “What I meant to say was there are more serious problems to deal with than arguing about your nose. Better, AJ?”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “For now.”

“What in Tartarus is going on in here?” came a voice from above them.

All the ground-bound mares except Pinkie looked up to see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy hovering directly above them.

“Dash, how’d you and Fluttershy get into the library?” Twilight asked.

“You left the way to the observatory deck unlocked again,” Dash answered. “But the more important question is what could be so important that you had the word out all over Ponyville that me and Fluttershy had to get down here right away as soon as we got back?”

“Oh, it’s only something of the gravest significance!” Rarity said. “Twilight has lost her diary!"

Rainbow Dash could not help but laugh. “Really, Twilight, that’s your big emergency? You lost your diary?”

“If that diary falls into the wrong hooves,” Rarity said, “all of Twilight’s deepest, darkest secrets could be revealed!”

“Oh, you mean like the fact that she only ever read twelve of the thirteen volumes of A Short History of Classical Equestria?” Dash said.

“Hey, I was going to read the thirteenth volume, but then with being made a Princess and all, I just kinda….” Twilight’s eyes grew wide. “Dash, how could you know that unless you…. You read my diary!”

Dash gave a light-hearted shrug. “Oh, come on. It’s not like there was anything interesting in there anyway!”

“Rainbow Dash, I can’t believe you would invade one of our dearest friend’s personal spaces like that! It’s uncouth!” Rarity protested.

“Oh, and who was the one who asked me to let them have it after I was done, hmm?”

“That was only to return it, I swear!”

“Yeah, I’m sure. That’s why it took you a week to drop it off at the library. You’re just lucky Twilight was in Canterlot all that week.”

Twilight shook her head. “My own friends, reading my diary. Now you two know all the very, very personal things I wrote in there.”

Twilight stopped speaking as she noticed that Applejack was trying to suppress a chuckle. “You too, AJ?” she said.

Applejack quickly got a hold of herself and smiled apologetically. “Ah’m sorry, sugarcube, but ya do have a tendency to leave yer diary in random places. Ya gotta ’spect that some ponies are gonna take a look.”

“I don’t believe this!” Twilight reared up her head and fixed her gaze on the one pony she was sure she could trust. “Fluttershy, at least you’ve read my diary, right?”

Fluttershy did not answer. Instead, she just gave Twilight a small, bashful smile.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “You did.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to,” Fluttershy said apologetically. “It was just that you left it open on my table and I didn’t see it until you were already gone and I just meant to glace at it…. Oh, please don’t be mad at me, I only read half of it….”

“So every pony’s read my diary! Just great!” Twilight said, turning her eyes across the room toward the pink pony on the stool. “I guess you’ve read my diary too, eh, Pinkie?”

Pinkie did not even seem to be listening. She seemed more lost in her own mind than anything. “No, but I guess I could take a look at it later, if you want.”

“I can get it out to you when Twilight isn’t looking,” Spike said, coming up from cleaning the basement.

“Spike!” Twilight scolded.

Spike shrugged. “Hey, like it or not, it’s the most checked-out book from this place. Though you got me if I know why. The thing is seriously boring.”

Twilight slapped her hoof against her head. “Okay, fine, whatever. It doesn’t matter that all my friends are lowlifes who would read my diary behind my back. What matters is that we find it so that I can figure out what’s going on with Pinkie!”

“Is that all?” Rainbow Dash said. “Why don’t you just ask her? How you doing, Pinkie?”

Pinkie did not look up as she answered, “I’m a super-terrible friend-insulting, nose-breaking meanie, but other than that, I’m fine I guess. Thanks for asking.”

Dash shrugged and faced Twilight once more. “See. It’s just the usual Pinkie being Pinkie.”

“But that’s the thing, Dash,” Twilight said. “Pinkie is not being Pinkie. It’s like somepony else is. It’s like there’s two of her wandering around Ponyville or something.”

Dash was incredulous. “Two of her? Two of her? How can there be two of her? What, did she clone herself again?”

“No, I haven’t been anywhere near the mirror pool since you guys fixed everything,” Pinkie said, taking Dash’s question more seriously than Dash intended.

Twilight once more began sorting through books. “And if she didn’t go anywhere near the mirror pool, it can’t be another clone.”

“Unless a’course one escaped when we were roundin’ ’em up,” Applejack said. “But that’s impossible, what with my round-up skills and all.”

“And there’s no way any of them could have gotten away from the fastest pony in Equestria,” Rainbow Dash said proudly.

Twilight nodded as she looked inside of a large book to see if she had left her diary there. “That’s right. I think we can pretty much cross the clone theory off of the list. Agreed?”

Everyone except Pinkie nodded and laughed at such a silly idea. That is, until a voice from outside interrupted them.

“Twilight Sparkle! Come out here this instant! I’ve got something to say to you!”

It was enough to make a pony’s blood run cold. That voice was unmistakable as the voice of Pinkie Pie. Yet all of the ponies could see Pinkie Pie, right there, sitting amongst them.

The last remaining doubts were wiped from the ponies’ minds. Something very bad was definitely going on here.

The six rushed out of the library and into the street, where a large crowd of townsfolk were already gathering. And there, in the middle of the road, framed against the purple of the quickly darkening sky, stood Pinkie Pie. Her foreleg was wrapped around a large, pink megaphone, on which was painted her distinctive three-balloon cutie mark.

Twilight looked from her Pinkie to this other Pinkie, then back to hers, then back to the other. She sighed. “I’m really starting to hate clones.”

“Believe me, I don’t particularly like you either,” the other Pinkie said, her voice blasting through her megaphone.

Well, she had good hearing, Twilight had to give her that.

“Okay, so you’re a clone,” Twilight said. “I must have missed you when I sent the others back to where they belong.”

“That’s a nice way to say it,” the other Pinkie’s voice came booming back. “That’s a nice way to say that you murdered all of my fellow Pinkie Pies in cold blood!”

“I didn’t murder anyone,” Twilight responded. “I just sent the clones away. There is, after all, only one Pinkie Pie.”

“Wrong!” This was loud enough that it hurt the ears of pretty much everypony in the vicinity. “After what you did, there were two Pinkie Pies!”

Twilight eyed this new Pinkie. She could not help herself, she was genuinely curious about the clone. “And how is it that you didn’t get sent back with the others?”

The other Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Because I’m not a complete buffoon, silly! When I saw you rounding up Pinkies left and right, I made sure to hide until you were gone. Then I snuck up to the town hall and watched you....” Here, she seemed to almost break into tears. “You murdering swine, you killed them all!”

“Murdering swine? Murdering swine?” Twilight said, her facing contorting with anger.

“No, sugarcube,” Applejack said, putting her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Don’t let ’er get to you. Just blast ’er back to where she come from before she can cause any more trouble.”

Twilight nodded. Her horn began to glow as she aimed it for the rogue Pinkie. The rogue Pinkie merely smiled in response.

“Ah-ah-ah,” she said as she reached for something behind her back. With a swift motion, she held up her other foreleg to reveal a book. “Shoot me and your beloved diary goes away forever!”

Twilight’s eyes widened, but the glow around her horn disappeared. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she was calmer. “Okay then, let’s just talk.”

“Yes, let’s,” rogue Pinkie’s voice boomed.

“But first, since we can clearly hear each other fine, why don’t you get rid of that silly megaphone.”

The rogue Pinkie looked at the megaphone for a moment, shrugged, and threw it over her shoulder. “Fair enough.”

“That’s a good start. Now, what is it you want?”

“What do I want? What do I want? I had to watch my sisters brutally murdered by you and your hippy-dippy friends. What do you think I want? I want justice! I want payback! I want chocolate! But mostly justice and payback, against you, against your friends, and against every other mindless pony in this accursed town!”

“Oh, what do you want us to do, eat so many sweets we get sick and throw up?” Rainbow Dash mocked.

Rogue Pinkie ignored him. “What I want is for this town to acknowledge its rightful and true ruler: Pinkie Pie, and for all the ponies to surrender their liberty as payment for the wrongs they’ve done to any and all Pinkie Pies in the past!”

“Well, that’s quite a jump, isn’t it?” Twilight said. “From wanting vengeance against me to wanting to be ruler of Ponyville?”

“And you’d know something about jumps, wouldn’t you? Going from humble librarian to Princess of the land just like that, hmm?”

“She does have a point,” Rarity whispered to Twilight.

Rogue Pinkie continued. “So, I’m giving you all twenty-four hours to accept my proposition, or–”

“Or what?” Rainbow Dash said, still getting quite a hoot out of all this.

“Or I’ll take it over by force….” rogue Pinkie answered.

Dash could barely contain her laughter any more. “Force? You’re going to take Ponyville by force? You and what army?”

Rogue Pinkie smiled proudly. At that very moment, a rumbling began to shake the town of Ponyville. The buildings seemed to tremble with fear as the noise drew closer and intensified Ponies began to run for cover left and right, fearing that the sounds and the shaking could mean only an earthquake or a stampede. But those who were brave enough to remain, including our six ponies, saw something which terrified them even more.

Where once had been a single Pinkie Pie, there was now a veritable ocean of pink, bursting down this little road like the waves of a flood. As the pink-tinged mass came closer and closer, they could make out the figures of frizzy-haired ponies bobbing and bouncing anywhere they could – and several places they never should have been able to go. The street was now resounding with cries of “Fun? Fun! Fun? Fun!”, uttered in almost a call-and-response manner.

The mere sight of them all – more than there had ever been the first time Pinkie had cloned herself – made the mouths of Twilight and her friends gape open. Even knowing that they were facing a clone had not prepared any of them for something like this.

With the seemingly-endless horde of clones gathering around her, the rogue Pinkie stood there, her forelegs crossed and her mouth curved into a wicked smile.

“Me and this army,” she said.

How would Twilight and her friends respond?Read on.

Storm of Pink

“Twenty-four hours,” the rogue Pinkie responded. “I’m giving you twenty-four hours and then there will be no mercy for any of you! Well, except for me… er… you.”

The double pointing her hoof across the way to the original Pinkie, who backed away.

“Me, why?” the original Pinkie said.

“Because, you’re one of us,” answered the clone Pinkie. “All Pinkie Pies are sisters, and you’re the original edition, so you’d be the most honored of us all.”

Pinkie Pie blinked and stared blankly at her double.

The rogue Pinkie smiled and extended a hoof, though the original Pinkie was too far to grab it. “So, what do you say?”

Pinkie Pie began to walk forward, away from her friends and toward the clones. She moved slowly, her face still largely vacant. This was a strange occurrence that even Pinkie Pie’s mind was having trouble coming to terms with. Such things do happen on very rare occasions.

“Pinkie Pie, what are you doing?” Rainbow Dash said.

“I’m trying to take over the town,” rogue Pinkie said. “Where’ve you been for the last few minutes?”

“Not you, the other Pinkie!” Dash said.

“Fun?” some random Pinkie from among the clones said.

Dash slapped her hoof against her face. “No, the original Pinkie!”

Now Pinkie Pie stopped. She looked back at her friends.

“No, Pinkie, don’t do it!” Applejack called out.

Pinkie then looked to her copy.

“It’s only right for Pinkies to stick together,” the other Pinkie said. “It’s also more fun.”

Pinkie began to rub her chin. “Intriguing. I like fun.”

The other Pinkie nodded. “Yes, and you know we’re tons more fun than your so-called ‘friends.’ ”

“That’s true,” Pinkie responded thoughtfully. “There isn’t anyone who can do fun like Pinkie Pie. Especially when there are so many of me.”

“Pinkie, what are you saying?” Dash said in alarm.

“Fun!” a random clone called out.

“Not you!” Rainbow Dash yelled back.

Pinkie eyed her double with interest. “Okay, you’re starting to convince me. But I just have one question.”

“And what’s that?”

It was the rogue Pinkie’s turn to stare blankly at her twin. Her eyes began to dart back and forth, as though she was going through a mental catalog of some sort. Finally, the rogue Pinkie pounded her hoof against the ground. “I knew I forgot something.”

The sound of “Cake?” “Cake!” “Cake?” “Cake!” reverberated throughout the pink horde.

“Yes, we’ll all get cake!” the rogue Pinkie said in frustration. “As soon as we get done here.”

“What about balloons?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Balloons! We love balloons!” shouted all of the clones together, causing all of the buildings in Ponyville to rumble at their foundations.

The rogue Pinkie Pie uncovered her ears. Her eyes narrowed. “Balloons? I haven’t had any time to get balloons! Do you know how much work it was just to get a giant army of ponies from the Everfree Forest into Ponyville without any of them wandering off? Especially when they’re all copies of us?”

Pinkie Pie just shook her head. “No cake and no balloons. You’d never make it as a party planner. And you call yourself my clone.”

“What does any of this have to do with anything?” the rogue Pinkie said.

“Wow, I thought I was the one pony I’d never hear say that about me,” Pinkie answered. “But what I meant was, a true party planner has to be ready to party anywhere, anytime, without even a moment’s notice. If you want to be Pinkie Pie, you have to know this sort of stuff.”

“I’m not trying to plan a party here!” the rogue Pinkie said. “I’m beginning to get really annoyed with you. Which is weird, because it means that I’m actually getting annoyed with myself.”

Pinkie Pie shook her head. “It happens. But, if you aren’t a party planner, then I guess you don’t even have a party cannon.”

“No.”

“Too bad, because I do!”

Swiftly, the cannon appeared from behind Pinkie Pie’s back. The rogue Pinkie did not even have time to process it before a large wrapped package came flying into her chest and launched her backward into the sea of clones.

“Guys, get out of here,” Pinkie called back to her five friends. “I’ll hold them off!”

The rogue Pinkie picked herself up. She sneered.

“Okay, fine, so be it. You want to side with those foals, then fine!” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re no longer a Pinkie Pie. I excomm-Pink-icate you. You’re un-Pied. ”

Then she looked to her fellow clones. “Girls,” she said, “let’s have fun!”

And, just like that, the wave of clones burst forward and the sky practically turned pink from all the leaping Pinkies. The original Pinkie Pie quickly began firing her party-cannon in response.

“I said get out of here!” Pinkie called over her shoulder.

“You can’t fight them alone!” Twilight said as she rushed up beside her.

Twilight’s horn began to glow. Soon, Pinkie Pies were disappearing left and right, zapped by Twilight’s magic. For a moment, Twilight even began to believe that this all might be easy.

Then she realized that, even though she must have taken out twenty clones by now, the army did not seem to have gotten any smaller. Indeed, when one was zapped, ten more clones just seemed to bounce out in her place.

“There’s just too many of them!” Rainbow Dash said, flying past. “We’re never gonna stop this many!”

“Rainbow’s right, y’all!” Applejack said. “Even Twilight can only blast so many at a time.”

“Girls, get back to the library!” Twilight said. “Me and Pinkie will cover the rest of you!”

Just as she said that, Twilight noticed something at the edge of her vision, something only slightly too far above her to be clearly visible. She looked up to see a bounding Pinkie Pie clone about to land right on top of her. Twilight tried to shoot a beam, but the clone was already too close. Fire at the clone now, and she might take Twilight and the original Pinkie with it.

“Hey, that lighty-up horn looks fun!” said the clone. “What’s it–”

Just then, the clone fell away, having made contact with a blue hoof. Rainbow Dash came into view.

“Nice plan, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, “but we all have to get out of here quick. Those clones aren’t slowing down.”

With Rainbow, Pinkie, and Twilight bringing up the rear, the six made it back into the library. Twilight slammed the door closed just as a Pinkie clone was about to jump through. A loud thump immediately followed.

Spike walked out of the kitchen. “Hey guys, what’s going on out – Aaaah!”

Spike pointed to one of the upper windows, were four grinning Pinkies were peering in. Soon Pinkies had appeared at all the other windows as well. The whole library began to rock as clones jumped up and down from every branch and the ever-repeating refrains of “Fun?” “Fun!” echoed through the wooden walls.

“What are we gonna do, Twi?” Applejack said. “I don’t think this place is gonna still be standing for long at this rate!”

“Leave it to me,” Twilight said. Her horn began to glow again and the tree was covered in a dark pink light. It pushed its way outward, sending Pinkies flying back in all directions, until the wave of light stopped a few feet away from the tree.

“What’s that? Is that a bubble?” one of the Pinkies outside said.

“Oooh, I love bubbles!” another responded.

“There, that should keep them out for a little while,” Twilight said. “Basic grade force-field. Works every time.”

Everyone began to relax. A smile came to Twilight’s face. But it soon disappeared as she threw her hoof up to her forehead and squirmed in pain.

“Twilight!” was the common cry of everyone else in the room.

Twilight shook her head and picked herself up. “It’s fine, I’m fine. It’s just–”

Loud bouncing noises came from high above.

“Whee, this is fun! I love jumping on random things!” said the distant, lofty voice of a Pinkie Pie. “Come on up, guys! It’s so soft and bouncy!”

Soon, the pounding had intensified several-fold. A look of severe pain filled Twilight’s face.

She did her best to stabilize under it. “If they keep doing that,” she said, “eventually it’ll give me such a headache that I won’t be able to hold up the barrier any longer.”

“Well, how do we stop ’em before that happens?” Applejack asked as she and the others rushed to help Twilight steady herself.

Twilight pushed past the proffered hooves and moved toward the nearest bookshelf. “By figuring out how to get rid of them,” she answered. "It'll be harder without the notes in my diary, but I'm sure I can find something."

Books began to float, hover, and spin around Twilight’s head. They opened, the pages turned, and then they closed. They then went back into the shelf and several more came flying out. Between this and the headache, it took Twilight a while to realize that Fluttershy was also floating above her head.

“Now, isn’t ‘getting rid’ them a bit harsh?” Fluttershy said in that way of hers where each word seemed to apologize for having been spoken. “I mean, I know there are certainly a lot of them, but they’re all still Pinkie Pie, and Pinkie Pie wouldn’t hurt anyone. Are they really putting Ponyville in that much danger just by trying to have a little fun?”

“Well, there goes town hall up in flames,” Spike said as he looked out of the window.

Fluttershy smiled in embarrassment. “Oh, then forget I said anything.”

At this point, Rainbow Dash flew up beside her. “Fluttershy, they are not Pinkie Pie!” she said. “There’s only one Pinkie Pie, and she’s here with us. I don’t care if they look and act like Pinkie Pie. They aren’t. You heard what that one said. They want to take over the town and they’re willing to go through us to do it. They’re out to get rid of us, so I say we just have to get rid of them first!”

“Fluttershy, Rainbow,” Rarity said. “I don’t think those clones – at least most of them, at any rate – really want to harm us. But they are certainly a very big threat.”

Both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash looked confused. “Just whose side are you on here?” Dash said.

Rarity shook her head. “Girls, we’re not choosing sides here. We’ve got much bigger problems than that. I’m just saying that you both are right, to an extent. I agree with Fluttershy in that those clones still have Pinkie Pie’s basic personality and are not looking to hurt anyone. They do seem to be only concerned with having more fun. But we all know that even with one Pinkie Pie, fun can sometimes get frightfully out of hand.”

Turning to Pinkie, she added, “No offense, darling.”

Pinkie smiled. “None taken.”

“Rarity’s right,” Applejack said. “An’ as soon as Twi finds a spell powerful enough, they’ll be all taken care of.”

“I’d find it a lot faster if all of you would start helping me look,” Twilight said without stopping her search.

From the tone of her voice, they could tell she was serious. Quickly, they rushed to her call. No one was quite sure what they were looking for, but they all knew that they had to put the utmost effort into finding it. It was quite a sight to see Rainbow Dash flying around the top of the bookshelves, pulling out books, skimming through them briefly, and then throwing them toward the ground. She was lucky that, just this once, Twilight had a larger crisis to deal with than the wanton destruction of her meticulous filing system.

At one point, one of the books Dash tossed down landed on Applejack’s head, leading to a string of colorful expressions from Applejack and further remarks from Rarity about unladylike attitudes.

Applejack was about to say a few even more colorful things when it occurred to her that getting into more than one argument with Rarity a day was just not worth the aggravation. So, swallowing her pride (and it took much swallowing to get it to go down), Applejack put down the book she was currently flipping through and walked over to the window to cool off.

There, she found that there was one other pony who was not busy searching for some unknown and unknowable magic solution. Pinkie Pie was, instead, starring absently out the window.

“What’s up, sugarcube?” Applejack said. “Why aren’t you searching through the books with the others?”

“What? Huh?” Pinkie Pie turned and seemed surprised at Applejack’s appearance by her side. “Oh, I wouldn’t even know what to look for.”

“Hasn’t stopped the rest of us,” Applejack said.

Pinkie Pie sighed. “I was just sitting here, thinking that this is all my fault. If I never would have used that mirror pool, this could never have happened.”

“Now, sugarcube, you know beating yourself up over it ain’t gonna do anypony a lick of good. Besides, I reckon that we all contributed a little to the current mess. If the rest of us had done a better job rounding those clones up in the first place, one wouldn’t have gotten away.”

But Pinkie Pie did not seem to be listening. Rather, she was looking at the window. Not through the window at the world outside, but into one of the reflective beams running along the window panes.

“When you said I shouldn’t beat myself up over it,” Pinkie said, “I thought I saw… in the reflection…. I thought I saw….”

“Saw what?” Applejack asked.

Pinkie Pie shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. But you’re right! I should be looking through those books! After all, I feel like it’s my responsibility to fix this somehow.”

“Pinkie, Ah said that you can’t go taking the responsibility on yourself alone,” Applejack said.

“Pinkie might be right.”

Applejack looked over to one of the bookcases, where Twilight was excitedly reading through a large, rather old tome.

“I think I might have found something that Pinkie, and the of us, can do to get rid of those clones,” Twilight said with a smile. “But you’re all going to have to do exactly as I say. Understand?”

What was Twilight planning?Read on.

Painting the Town Pink

By the time Twilight looked up from her book, Pinkie was already standing above her, having rushed over so fast that it had sent Fluttershy (whose interest had been captured by a nearby book on ladybugs) into a tailspin. The poor Pegasus only avoided a full-on collision with the bookcase when Rainbow Dash swooped in and grabbed hold of her.

But Pinkie did not notice. She was too busy staring at Twilight, her old beaming smile having finally returned to her face.

“What is it you need me to do? I’ll do anything!” Pinkie said.

“Well, Pinkie, what I need you to do is–”

“Do you need me to infiltrate their top-secret base, under cover of nightfall, disguised as a Pinkie Pie?”

Twilight shook her head. “First, they don’t have a top-secret base. And they’re basically you, so….”

Pinkie put her hoof to her chin. “But if they are me and don’t have a top-secret base, that means I don’t have a top secret base. Why don’t I have a top-secret base?”

“You should totally have a top-secret base,” Rainbow Dash chimed in. “I was reading that the Wonderbolts have a top-secret base under Canterlot. So if we had a top-secret base, we’d be just like the Wonderbolts!”

“Nah, I think that’s just a rumor,” Pinkie said.

“No, it ain’t!” Rainbow said. “I heard it from Lightning Dust who heard it from–”

Twilight let out a piercing scream. Dash and Pinkie fell silent and looked at her.

“Sorry,” Twilight said. “Another clone just did a cannonball onto the force-field.”

Dash and Pinkie, satisfied with the explanation, opened their mouths to continue the argument.

“Do you two think we could finish this oh-so-fascinating discussion at another time?” Rarity said. “I was just looking out the window and it does not appear that the clones are going to wait until you two finish it.”

“Thanks, Rarity,” Twilight said. “Now, Pinkie, what I need you to do is very simple.”

“Oh, I can do very simple,” Pinkie said, her focus jumping back to Twilight. “I mean, I don’t like to do it that much because it’s usually so boring, but–”

Twilight, her head aching, was in no mood to go through this again. So she did the rare (and under most circumstances, arguably impossible) thing of talking over Pinkie. “Pinkie, I just need you to go back to Sugarcube Corner. And when you get there, I need you to pick out an item of clothing. You do have something to wear, right?”

“Of course, I do! I know, I could wear–”

“Good. I need you to go home and find it. Find something. Anything, but preferably something that you wear around your neck, like a scarf or a necklace or something.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie said. “Though I don’t think I have many necklaces. If I still had the Element of Laughter, this would be so much easier!”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Twilight said.

Rarity stepped forward. “Now, Twilight, I never thought I’d hear myself saying these words, but I really don’t see what use fashion is at a time like this.”

As Applejack and Rainbow Dash exchanged smirks behind Rarity’s back, Twilight said, “It’s not about fashion. I just need something of Pinkie’s, something that she wears, in order for this spell to work.”

“Okay, Twilight, I’ll be back in a jiffy!” Pinkie said.

Pinkie began hopping joyfully toward the door, her mood raised by the sudden appearance of such a simple solution. However, as she reached for the doorknob, she heard Twilight yell out, “Rainbow Dash, stop her!”

In a rainbow-colored instant, Pinkie was whisked away from the door and found herself hovering in the air, with a pair of blue forelegs holding onto her.

“What did you do that for?” she asked as Rainbow Dash lowered her back to the ground.

“If you go out that door by yourself, we’ll never be able to tell you apart from the rest of the Pinkies,” Twilight said. “Remember what happened last time?”

Pinkie nodded. “Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right. So how do I get to Sugarcube Corner, then?”

“Somebody’s going to have to go with you,” Twilight said, casting a glance at all the other members of her friendship circle.

“I’d love to do it, Twi,” Applejack said. “But, by the looks of things, those clones are heading straight for Sweet Apple Acres, and I’ve gotta get down there and make sure they don’t make a mess of the place.”

“And Carousel Boutique is practically defenseless against them, too!” Rarity said. “I simply must get back there and make sure they haven’t done it too much harm.”

“Would somepony mind going with me to my cottage?” Fluttershy said. “I have to make sure the Pinkies aren’t scaring the animals. They’re very sensitive, you know.”

“I thought you said the clones weren’t scary,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh, no, I never said that,” Fluttershy said. “I just said that they aren’t trying to be!”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and turned back to Twilight. “I’ll go with Pinkie. I can fly her in and out without much trouble. She’ll have a better chance of avoiding the clones if I do it.”

“Thanks, Rainbow,” Twilight said. She recognized that this was one time when Rainbow Dash was not just saying things to show off. Her estimate had, in its gruff and simple way, a tactical precision which Twilight knew comes only from years of experience. And flying was the one area in which Twilight knew she could absolutely trust Dash’s judgment.

Rainbow Dash was absolutely serious as she saluted Twilight and nodded. In a flash, she had grabbed hold of Pinkie and darted through the observatory window, leaving a large rainbow streak running up through the middle of the tree.

Meanwhile, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy continued to look anxiously outside the window. Twilight allowed herself a moment to grit her teeth before they turned back.

“Go on, girls,” she said, “do what you need to do. But be back here as soon as you can.”

“You sure, Twi?” Applejack asked. “It won’t mess up anything?”

“The force-field will be fine. You guys can pass through it from this side without any trouble. And there’s nothing else you can do here.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

As Applejack began to leave, Rarity stayed behind. “But how do we get back in? Won’t we be blocked out, too?”

“As long as I know you’re coming, I can allow you to pass through while keeping the clones out,” Twilight said. “Don’t worry about it. If there’s one thing I can handle, it’s magic.”

Twilight was in too much pain to hear the little, “That’s what I’m worried about, darling,” that Rarity uttered as she followed Applejack outside.

Fluttershy hovered behind them and watched the two walk out of the bubble.

“Won’t anypony help me with my cottage?” she said, much too quietly for either of them to hear. “Oh, okay then. I guess not.”

With these last works, Fluttershy looked to Twilight, as though she had asked the question directly of the alicorn. But Twilight, her eyes closed and her teeth gritting in pain, clearly had too much to deal with already.

Determination replaced fear on Fluttershy’s face. Though there were few things she currently relished the thought of less than taking on an army of Pinkie Pies by herself, Fluttershy knew that she could not leave her animal friends alone to face them, either. This thought giving her a measure of strength, Fluttershy herself flew through the bubble and into the oncoming night.

Twilight opened her eyes once Fluttershy was gone. Seeing none of the other mares, she called out, “Spike, I need you to take a couple of letters.”

Spike grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill, but seemed hesitant to put the two together. “I know writing letters is sorta your thing, Twilight, but do you really think it’s the best time right now?”

Twilight did not even seem to hear him. “The first letter should be to Mayor Mare. The second one will be to Princess Celestia.”

“Princess Celestia! You’re not going to tell her about this, are you? Aren’t you afraid it’ll look bad, especially since you’re a princess now?”

Twilight sighed. “I know, Spike, but I have no choice. This thing is now completely out of our hooves.”

Apple Bloom leaned back on her haunches, trying to think of any way to escape the boredom she currently found herself in. But, with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looking at her so expectantly, she knew she had to come through. With one last look over the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ Clubhouse – a last desperate plea for some form of escape – she sighed and said, “Okay, round four-hundred fifty-six, go.”

As Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo set about furiously jolting their right hooves up and down, Apple Bloom almost jumped when a voice next to her said, “What’s going on?”

Apple Bloom was stunned to see Pinkie Pie’s head sticking up through the entryway on the floor of the clubhouse. But it at least broke up the boredom, so Apple Bloom rolled with it.

“We’re trying to earn ‘rock-paper-scissors’ cutie marks” she said.

“How’s it going?” Pinkie asked.

Apple Bloom looked over to where Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both triumphantly produced a hoof.

“Not so good,” Apple Bloom said.

As Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both looked down in bafflement, the little referee called out, “Both of you used rock. It’s a draw for the four-hundred fifty-sixth time in a row.”

To Pinkie, she continued. “Turns out it’s not so easy to play ‘rock-paper-scissors’ with hooves.”

“Oooh, it still looks like a lot of fun!” Pinkie said. “Can I play?”

“Sure, I guess,” Apple Bloom responded, though for the life of her, she could not figure out why even Pinkie would want to try this game.

Pinkie squealed as her head disappeared through the entryway. Not thinking much of it, Apple Bloom said, “Round four-hundred fifty-seven, go.”

As Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle resumed the frantic three-fold movement of their forelegs, the Crusaders heard Pinkie call from outside, “I choose rock!”

The whole clubhouse shook and teetered as a giant boulder tore through the wooden planks of the wall. Apple Bloom just barely managed to push the other two out of the way as the rock came hurdling toward them. The boulder crashed into the other wall, shaking the clubhouse loose and sending the Crusaders whirling. With a loud crash, the clubhouse broke into pieces on the ground.

As the three, dazed, injured, and covered in debris, crawled into the open air, they were greeted with the sight of Pinkie Pie, tilting her head innocently. “So, did I win?”

Then the Crusaders noticed a large number of other Pinkies behind the first one, all of them closing in fast. The pain and stupor forgotten, the Crusaders began to back away. The horde of Pinkies surrounded them, coming closer and closer. The Crusaders backed up, stepping over the debris, until their tails touched the tree.

“Wha-what’s going on?” Sweetie Belle said.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s good,” Scootaloo said.

“But, but, they’re all Pinkie!” Sweetie Belle said.

“Another reason to think it’s not good,” Apple Bloom said.

But the Pinkies kept coming, closing out any hope of escape, practically smothering the three fillies. The Crusaders huddled together, trembling.

And then, roughly about five Pinkies went soaring over their heads. A second later, and another five were sent flying. And then, a voice. Much to the Crusaders’ relief, this was not another Pinkie.

“Y’all get your hooves off my sister and her friends, y’hear?”

There was Applejack, bucking Pinkies left and right as she forced her way closer and closer. She kicked away the whole semi-circle surrounding the fillies in one blow and then, without stopping, scooped the Crusaders up and onto her back.

“Come on, young’uns,” she said. “We have to get out of here quick before they recover.”

“What’s going on, sis?” Apple Bloom asked.

“No time to explain,” Applejack answered. “We just gotta get to Big Mac and Granny Smith and make sure they’re alright!”

Applejack dashed through the fields with the three on her back, keeping as far ahead of the Pinkies as she could. She dared not look back, knowing that no good would come from focusing on the pink swarm behind her. She had to face ahead and get to the house and barn before they did. That was all she would let herself think about.

The Crusaders, on the other hand, were a different story.

“That was awesome!” Scootaloo said with a excited flap of her little wings. “AB, your sis was almost as cool as Rainbow Dash back there. Almost.”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle said, “your sister is awesome! I wish my sister was this cool! Could you see Rarity doing anything like this?”

Rarity let out a deep sigh of relief as the silhouette of Carousel Boutique came into view. Her eyes lit up as she got closer and closer. The boutique was still standing, all in one piece, and still in good condition. As Rarity came to a stop beneath her home, she silently thanked Celestia that the Pinkies had seemed to have bypassed it completely.

And then a mannequin came flying out of one of the second story windows. Rarity barely had enough time to dodge out of the way before it came crashing onto the street.

She looked up in a kind of daze, almost unable to believe what had just happened. But she knew it had to be faced. Steeling herself, Rarity made a careful once-over of the outside of her home.

She noticed that the doorway to the boutique was wide open and the door had somehow ended up on the opposite side of the street. Several windows were smashed and a couple of the carousel-horses had been knocked to pieces. Rarity’s blood was running cold. All her worst fears were coming true.

Knowing this still did not prepare her for the herd of Pinkies that came bouncing out of the boutique. Rarity’s jaw dropped as she saw that the first one had a large purple cloak wrapped around her waist. The next one’s head and back were covered by a large, lacy dress, while all the others were covered in all sorts of clothing, though rarely in the way that any of them were supposed to be worn.

“My… my fall line….” Rarity muttered. “You….”

Her voice leapt to frenzy. “You monsters ruined it!”

Rarity felt herself headed toward a mental meltdown. It was only the sensation of something sharp flying past her head that brought her back to reality. She immediately ducked and just avoided being skewered by several more.

She recognized instinctively these small, blue objects flying above her head and into all the windows on the block.

“Those are the rare gems I ordered from Manehatten for my fall line!” she said. “Do you know the fortune those cost me?”

The Pinkie currently bouncing the box of rare gems on her head clearly did not know. Nor did she care. She just laughed and laughed as gems went flying around her. Before Rarity’s eyes, the box was emptied and all the gems smashed against street and building.

Rarity’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, it… is… on!”

The Pinkie with the box suddenly became aware that a large white streak was heading in her direction. She quit her laughing, but before she could do more, she felt a sharp pain in her head and fell to the ground.

As she picked herself up, the Pinkie clone discovered that the box she had so recently been bouncing on her head was now tightly stuck around her neck and a purple-maned unicorn was standing over her, seething with rage.

So she picked herself up, started giggling, and bounced on her merry way.

Rarity watched her go, along with the rest of the Pinkies, and the rest of her fall line. She knew she could not do more. Seeing the clone on the ground had made her realize that taking out her anger on them would not bring her back her fall line. Any further violence would just be pointless and, worse yet, unladylike.

So she let them go and turned her eyes back to Carousel Boutique, which now appeared to have been completely gutted by the pink cyclone.

Rarity sighed in sadness and approached. Maybe there was still something salvageable inside, she thought. Maybe looking would keep her mind off all of the things the less ladylike part of her nature now wanted to do to the Pinkie clone that had started this whole mess.

Fluttershy fluttered toward her cottage, being careful to avoid as many clones as she could on the way there.

“Pardon me,” she said as she ducked under a Pinkie bursting out of a second-floor window.

“Excuse me,” she said as she floated over another group of Pinkies carrying away the bell from the Ponyville school.

All in all, she managed to make it to her cottage without much trouble. Fluttershy smiled to see the dilapidated old place. She was almost quite literally home-free.

But her smile fell from her face as the cottage came more clearly into view. Fluttershy’s eyes filled with panic as she looked around. The chicken coop was completely demolished, most of the fence had been overturned, and her home looked more on the verge of collapse than usual. What was worst, though, was that Fluttershy could see no trace of all the animals that usually scampered freely over her home and grounds.

She flew to the cottage window and looked inside, noticing immediately that there was no more glass within the window frame, save for some jagged pieces here and there. Beyond them, inside her house, Fluttershy saw Pinkies everywhere, bouncing up and down from every available surface and throwing her cottage into the most turmoil it had seen since Discord’s last visit.

“Oh, could you please not do that to my cupboards?” Fluttershy asked. “I just picked those flowers yesterday. If you would put them down, I’d be ever so grateful. Oh, no, please leave that basket alone. It’s a birthday gift for Discord.”

The large number of loud clangs and bangs that immediately followed demonstrated that none of the Pinkies were listening to Fluttershy.

With a heavy heart, she resigned herself to the fact that her cottage was likely on the precipice of destruction and turned her attention back to the yard. Fluttershy’s first priority was still finding her animal friends, after all.

Fluttershy did a thorough sweep of her property but could not find a single non-pink creature anywhere. Not even a caterpillar on the grass or a fly in the air remained. Fluttershy felt her heart sinking even more. She hovered slowly, her mind plagued by fear and concern for all the animals that seemed to have simply vanished.

But then, from the corner of her eye, Fluttershy saw something. In the distance, at the edge of the Everfree, something was coming. A great cloud of dust and dirt was being kicked up and coming closer and closer to her. Fluttershy did not have time to get away. Certain that it was another group of Pinkies, Fluttershy threw herself to the ground, shutting her eyes tight and burying her head underneath her wings. And she waited.

And waited. And nothing seemed to happen.

Slowly, a green eye opened and looked out from behind the feathers of a wing. What Fluttershy saw caused her heart to soar. Surrounding her on every side were the many animals she took care of. Fluttershy quickly picked herself up and flashed a warm and welcoming smile to every single one.

But her smile quickly faded when she saw that each of the animals, big and small, was trembling uncontrollably.

“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “What happened to you all?”

A badger stepped forward and began to make the grunts and noises which a badger typically makes. Fluttershy listened patiently to its long story.

“I see,” she said once it had finished. “You were all here minding your own business when the mean pink ponies arrived and started scaring you. So you all went to hide at Town Hall. But why would you go there?”

A sound of frustration escaped from all of the animals capable of making sounds and the badger hurriedly began squeaking some more.

“Oh, you went to the Everfree Forest,” Fluttershy said, an embarrassed smile forming on her face. “Sorry, my badger is a little rusty.”

Fluttershy looked over them to the dark and dismal forest beyond. “I see,” she said. “The forest was probably the safest place for you, despite all the dangers. But why didn’t you stay there?”

A terrible sound of trembling was heard coming from the Everfree. Fluttershy saw a pack of Timberwolves running out of it and into the distance at top speed, pursued by a pack of joyful, leaping Pinkie Pies.

“Oh,” Fluttershy said.

Then she spied another dust cloud forming out of the Everfree. This time, due to its almost reddish hue, there could be no doubt that a swarm of Pinkies was inside. The animals all shrieked and cowered in fear. They all darted behind Fluttershy as though this dainty Pegasus was a brick wall capable of keeping the clones at bay.

Fluttershy, truth be told, did not notice this, except maybe on a basic, subconscious level. As her wings lifted her upward, her only concern was the coming storm and the necessity of keeping it from her animal friends. Nothing else mattered, nothing else occurred to her, not even the fact that she was willfully facing down the sea of pink on her own.

And, as it usually did at times like these, something happened. The Pinkies, previously so rambunctious and uncontrollable, stopped dead in their tracks. Before them was Fluttershy, and Fluttershy was using the Stare.

“Stop!” Fluttershy said, though the Pinkies had all stopped by this point. “Leave my animal friends alone, you hear me?”

The Pinkies just gazed into her eyes, completely unsure. A couple of them winced.

“Fun?” one asked innocently.

“No!” Fluttershy answered. “You, take all of your friends and leave me, my animals, and my property in peace!”

The rest of the Pinkies had come out of the cottage to see what was going on and found themselves also victims of Fluttershy’s glare. They all began to back away.

“Get going!” Fluttershy ordered.

The Pinkies fled en masse. As they bounced as quickly as they could away from the general vicinity around Fluttershy, cries went up of “Not fun! Not fun! Not fun!”

A moment later, and Fluttershy calmed down. She looked around, now finding her animals cowering more from fear of her than from the Pinkies.

“Oops,” she said. “It looks like I overdid it again.”

After an afternoon of work, Sugarcube Corner was beginning to look tidy and clean again. Mr. Cake stepped out of the kitchen and leaned with a mixture of relief and exhaustion on the mop between his hooves. As much as he enjoyed Pinkie’s presence in the shop, and as good of a worker as she usually was, he had to admit that it was nice to have some time without her, a time when a more relaxed mood and slow-going atmosphere pervaded the shop. Mr. Cake’s tired eyes closed as he enjoyed the simple pleasure of peace and quiet.

And then, cutting through the calm, came the delirious noise of “Fun? Fun! Fun? Fun!”

Mr. Cake’s eyes opened wearily. He saw Pinkie Pie at the window, jumping upside down and peering into the shop with a look of glee. Mr. Cake just stood there and watched her for a moment. He wanted to get in a little bit more calm before he let the pink hurricane back inside.

Then again, he could always just leave the door locked….

Mr. Cake shook the thought from his mind. That would just be mean. Besides, he knew from past experience that it would not take her long to find some other way into the shop, and he did not want to try and wrap his mind around whatever trick she would use to get inside this time.

He began to approach the door. But then he stopped and stared. At the window, where there had been one Pinkie Pie, there were now two. A moment later, another joined them, and then another, and another until a whole crowd of Pinkies stood outside the window.

“Honey, can you come here….” Mr. Cake said nervously.

Mrs. Cake came out of the kitchen and looked at the Pinkies staring at the window.

With the voice of sad, worldly wisdom, she said, “It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie,” and returned to the kitchen.

“But what do I do?” Mr. Cake said.

“Just leave her outside until she calms down and stops being multiple ponies,” his wife answered from the kitchen.

“Wait, Pinkie Pie can calm down?” Mr. Cake said, making sure Mrs. Cake did not hear.

What neither of the Cakes knew was that Pinkie Pie, the real Pinkie Pie, was already inside. Upstairs in her room, she and Rainbow Dash stood together, separated only by the shattered pane of a window.

“Sorry about your window,” Rainbow Dash said, “but it was the quickest way to get in without facing the clones.”

Pinkie reassured her with a smile. “It’s alright. It’s not the first time that it’s happened. You should have seen when I was first testing out my party-cannon. I took out this whole wall! If you’d have seen the looks on Mr. and Mrs. Cake’s faces–”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dash said, “but can we save the stories for later? Let’s just get what we came for and get back to Twilight before the clones burn down the whole town.”

“Alrighty!” Pinkie bounded toward her bed and, crouching down, began to feel under it with a hoof.

“Pinkie, if you’re looking for a scarf or something, why not look in – oh, I don’t know – the closet?” Dash asked with a circular turn of her eyes.

“Because, silly, I don’t use my closet for clothes. I have to have some place to put my party-cannon, don’t I?”

“It’s just that, most ponies use their closet for clothes instead of leaving them just lying around.”

“Do you?”

Dash hesitated. “Point taken,” she said.

Pinkie picked herself up off the floor, having found nothing under the bed except some streamers, an old whistle, and parts from an old board game. Undeterred, she began ruffling through the drawers of her nightstand, throwing all sorts of party favors over her shoulder as she did so.

“Thanks, Dashie,” she said.

Dash was surprised. With Pinkie busily engaged, Dash had let her mind wander.

“For… for what?” she said at last.

“Well, I know AJ and Rarity and Fluttershy had to hurry home to make sure I wasn’t causing any problems there. But you came to help me instead of going back to your home. Thank you for that.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Dash said as she leaned against the now-empty window-frame. “My home’s in the sky, remember? Since your clones are all Earth ponies, there ain’t no way they’re getting up there!”

“I guess that makes sense,” Pinkie said as Dash looked out the window.

Had she been looking up, she would have seen Rainbow Dash’s jaw drop. Visible through the window was Dash’s own home, high up in the sky but quickly losing altitude as large flames burst out from every corner of it. Dash, with her sharp vision, could just make out about thirty pink forms jumping rapidly up and down all over.

“I guess it was pretty silly of me to think that you’d have anything to worry about,” Pinkie said as she approached.

Then she saw Dash’s face. She looked out of the window and saw what was happening. “Oops, my bad,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth,” Dash said.

“Looks like I’m making a real mess of your home. Sure you don’t need to take care of it?”

Dash looked from the falling, burning cloud to Pinkie and back again. “You know what, I really should. It’ll just take me a sec.”

Dash rose into the air and readied herself to zoom through the window at top speed. “You might want to stand back.”

“Wait!”

Dash lowered to the ground as she noticed the concern in Pinkie’s face. “What?”

“If you go and leave me alone, and you come back and the clones are already here, how will you know if I’m the real Pinkie?”

Dash put her hoof to her chin and thought about it. As much as she hated being slowed down by this, she knew Pinkie was right. She knew she had to figure out an answer and fast.

Rainbow Dash did not like to admit it to herself as her eyes darted around the room, but this was one time she would not have minded being a brain-box like Twilight. Twilight always seemed to come up with ideas for these sorts of situations. Dash wished she knew how the alicorn came up with them all.

But Rainbow got an idea of her own as she looked to Pinkie’s bed, barely visible under the large pile of random junk Pinkie had thrown on top of it. But it was not the bed itself that gave Rainbow her idea. Rather, it was the small alligator attempting to scale the summit of that junk-heap mountain which sparked her thought.

Rainbow Dash flew to the bed, scooped up Gummy and landed back in front of Pinkie. She drove the baby alligator into Pinkie’s mane, knowing that Gummy would need no further prompting to latch onto it with his surprisingly powerful, albeit toothless, jaws.

“There,” she said in triumph. “Just keep Gummy in your mane the whole time I’m gone,” Dash said. “That way, as long as Gummy’s still there, I’ll know it’s the real you.”

“Smart thinking, Dashie!” Pinkie said.

Dash smiled proudly. “Well, what else did you expect?”

The triumph was short-lived, as Dash’s eyes soon wandered nervously back to her burning home.

“Go,” Pinkie said. “I’ll be fine.”

Dash nodded her thanks and, without a word, took off, leaving a bright rainbow trail shining in the room. Once she was gone, a thought occurred to Pinkie. Strange as it may have been, as silly as she thought her friend was for suggesting it, maybe Dash was on to something with that whole ‘look in the closet’ business.

Pinkie chuckled to herself as she approached it. Maybe her friends weren’t always as crazy as she thought.

So Pinkie threw open the closet doors and laid her eyes on the large green stallion standing within.

“Hello, Pinkamena,” he said calmly.

“Hi there!” Pinkie responded.

She now tried to look past this figure, whose white mane and the goat-like beard hangring from his chin indicated that he was of some great age. He had aged somewhat well, however – not exactly handsome in his years but without the wizened look that often comes as ponies grow old.

Pinkie, however, found his presence made searching for things rather difficult, especially as she had to keep trying to see past the long robes (somewhere between red, brown, and orange in color) that he wore. Finally, she realized that she could find nothing in this way.

So she closed the closet and turned to look somewhere else.

But there, once more, was the green pony, standing in her way.

“Pinkamena….” He said, in the way a parent uses when chastising a child.

Pinkie smiled instinctively, but she was not really all that pleased with the pony’s presence. She knew she had to get around him if she was ever going to get anywhere in her searching.

“Sorry, but I don’t really have time to talk right now. I’m looking for something and it’s kinda hard because I don’t even really know what I’m looking for! Which isn’t actually that unusual for me, come to think of it, and usually I don’t care, but this time I really really need to find it so that I can get back to my friends and fix this whole mess.”

During her little lecture, Pinkie Pie had jumped onto the stallion’s head, then onto his back, then had jumped off of him and was now somersaulting through the air.

Pinkie paused in the middle of the somersault, hanging upside down in mid-air, to explain further. “So, if you don’t mind, could you please come back when–oomfph!”

The colt had tapped his hoof against the ground and Pinkie had come crashing down.

He shook his head. “You haven’t changed much, I see.”

Pinkie lifted herself up.

“You’re practically the same as when you were a filly,” he said. “Same cheery demeanor, same difficulty focusing, same inability to use a comb.”

Pinkie grabbed a cloth to wipe off the dust with the tip of her mane. “Who needs a comb when you can do this?”

The green colt was unimpressed. “Quite,” he said.

Then he added, “You do realize you have an alligator in your hair, right?”

“Oh, Gummy? Of course I realize that, silly!”

The colt locked his red eyes with Gummy’s purple ones. Gummy blinked.

“He’s looking at me,” the colt said. “I don’t like it.”

Pinkie patted Gummy. “It just means he likes you! Trust me, if he didn’t have his mouth full, he’d be talking your ear off by now!”

The stallion shook his head. “Be that as it may, Pinkamena, we don’t have time for pleasantries. Time is very short.”

“Well, duh,” Pinkie said. “That’s why I’m trying to find a scarf or necklace or something so super-duper quickly!”

“No, Pinkamena, listen to me!” the colt said.

Pinkie shook her head and faced him. “Okay, fine, what is it?”

Just then, there was a whoosh. Pinkie’s hair blew wildly around her as the light of a rainbow danced around the room.

“Who are you talking to?” said Rainbow Dash behind Pinkie.

Pinkie turned to see the Pegasus hovering there, holding a collection of objects big enough to rival the one currently burying Pinkie’s bed.

“Oh, I was just talking to the colt who came out of my closet,” Pinkie said, waving her hoof over her shoulder.

“Riiiighhhhttttt….” Dash said as she looked at the empty room behind Pinkie. She then gave Pinkie one of those looks, the physical equivalent of an “Oh, Pinkie….”

Pinkie looked behind her to see that the colt was gone. She smiled. “Oopsy. Never mind.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Did you find that piece of clothing Twilight wants?”

“Not yet, still looking!” Pinkie answered. “But how did things go with you?”

“I think I was able to save everything important. I’ve got my full collection of Daring Do novels, my signed poster of the Wonderbolts, and my first-place trophy from the Junior Cloudsdale Flyers competition.”

“What about Tank?” Pinkie asked.

Rainbow stared at her blankly from behind her first-edition copy of Daring Do and the Crystal Scepter. “Tank?”

“You know, your pet turtle?”

Rainbow Dash dropped everything to the ground. “Tank!” she screamed as she charged back out the window.

Pinkie watched her go and then turned back to her work. But once again, that green colt was standing in her way.

“Irresponsible girl,” he remarked.

“She’s not so bad once you get to know her,” Pinkie said.

“I was talking about you,” he replied.

“Me!” Pinkie said, her hair bouncing up and down as her eyes filled with anger.

“Yes, you,” he said. “I had hoped that you would have advanced much further by now. But you’re still the same as ever.”

“I don’t have time for this! If I wanted a lecture, I’d have stuck around Twilight!” Pinkie paused. “Oh, please don’t tell her I said that! It makes me sound like a really meany McGrumpy-pants.”

“Your mind doesn’t stay on a single topic for a moment, does it?” he said as Pinkie’s body began to twitch.

“Well, how can it?” Pinkie said, readying her party cannon. A clone Pinkie bounced into view from the window and Pinkie fired a present into her. “There’s too many crazy things going on for me to stay focused.”

“That was rather cruel,” the colt remarked as he watched the clone Pinkie fall from view.

He walked over and picked up Rainbow Dash’s trophy, a large golden affair with the little figure of a speeding Pegasus on top. “But you never focus for too long, do you?”

“Maybe I just can’t,” Pinkie responded. The smile on her face now was the rarest of things – a fake smile which she did not really mean.

“You can’t, or you don’t want to?” the colt asked. As he handled the Pegasus, it came off in his hand. He shrugged and dropped both Pegasus and trophy to the ground.

“Maybe there’s just something you’re afraid to focus on.”

Pinkie Pie turned away. She now tried to ignore the presence of the green stallion, going so far as to dig through her now-empty nightstand again. Anything to keep her mind off of his presence.

“You can’t ignore me,” he said, now suddenly standing atop her nightstand.

Pinkie felt like she had had enough. She was getting angry, a kind of angry she only felt when someone had broken a Pinkie Pie Promise. The colt had not done that – as far as Pinkie knew, anyway – but he had managed to do something even rarer and just as bad. He had managed to get on Pinkie Pie’s nerves.

Was this how other ponies felt when they said things like “Oh, Pinkie….” to her?

Before Pinkie could say or do more, there was another whoosh and more rainbow light. Rainbow Dash landed on the ground, clutching Tank tightly under her foreleg.

“Whoo,” she said, wiped sweat off her brow. “Got Tank out just in time. I think I managed to keep my home from falling on anypony, too. Can’t make any promises for the Pinkies, though.”

“If they’re me, and I think they are, they’ll survive,” Pinkie said. She looked up to see that the green colt had once more vanished.

Rainbow Dash let go of Tank, who himself fluttered around the room aimlessly. She began to collect up the rest of her belongings. She gasped.

“My… my trophy,” she said, clutching the trophy in the folds of one foreleg and the small Pegasus in the other. “Pinkie… did you… did you break it?”

Pinkie looked at Rainbow Dash. She looked into Dash’s eyes, and could see the tears already beginning to form, though she knew Dash would not let her see them come down. She thought about what to do, what to say. She knew the truth, but she wondered if telling Rainbow Dash the truth would be the best thing. She already knew Dash would have trouble believing her, and she felt that this time, she might be on the receiving end of something stronger than an “Oh, Pinkie….”

“It must have… gotten broke while I was looking for my things,” Pinkie said. “Dashie, I’m so sorry.”

Dash closed her eyes and turned away. “It’s alright,” she said, her voice cracking. “Just a dumb trophy….”

Pinkie approached Dash and offered a hoof of support, but Dash just pulled away. The mood was getting tense. Pinkie was almost grateful when a loud bang from downstairs interrupted it.

“Hey, Dashie, why don’t you go see what that was while I finish up here,” she said.

Dash nodded silently. Anything to get out of the room. Soon she was out and down the stairs, forgetting what was behind her and focus entirely on what was ahead.

Rainbow Dash saw what she expected to see, but still found it somewhat unnerving to see another Pinkie Pie down there, playing with Pumpkin and Pound Cake like the real one always did.

By the looks of her, this Pinkie, with black soot obscuring parts of her pink form, had gotten in through the chimney. The remnants of streamers along her back and shoulders suggested a previous encounter with the party-cannon. Dash saw all this, but she did not care. She only cared about getting rid of the imposter.

Pumpkin and Pound giggled happily as Pinkie hid her face behind her hooves and then revealed it, again hid her face behind her hooves and then revealed it. She was so busy doing this that she did not see the blue hoof until it was too late.

Dash’s punch sent Pinkie flying into the nearest wall. Dash stood there, once more triumphant, as she watched Pinkie collapse into a heap on the ground. Dash smiled. Surely, she must have looked particularly awesome at that moment. She looked to her audience, expecting the usual amazement.

Instead, she saw the Cake twins looking up at her, their young, innocent eyes filled with disbelief and pain. Soon, dreadful sobbing burst out from both of them.

Dash now fully comprehended her mistake. The foals, not knowing about the clones, could only have thought that Dash had randomly assaulted their own Pinkie. No wonder they were looking up at her with the closest thing a foal knows to the pain of betrayal.

“Come on, kids,” Rainbow said, trying to quiet them. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Pinkie’s gonna be just fine, see?”

The babies stopped crying as Dash motioned to the Pinkie clone lying prone on the floor. Dash gritted her teeth as the clone struggled to rise, but fell back down. When Rainbow Dash faced the Cake twins again, she now saw only anger in their eyes. They were just babies, and she was the great and heroic Rainbow Dash, but somehow the look in Pumpkin’s eyes made her feel a strange pang of fear.

Pumpkin’s horn began to glow, and so did Dash’s body. Dash rose upward and upward, but not through the power of her wings. She tried to use her wings to escape, but she was held tight. Pumpkin’s magic was surprisingly strong, maybe even equal to what – Dash assumed – Twilight’s must have been at that age.

Any way she looked at it, Dash could not break free.

The Pinkie clone stumbled over, clearly very dazed.

“Pinkie, is everything alright in there?” Mr. Cake’s voice called out from the kitchen.

“Everything’s just dandy!” the clone called back. Then she noticed Rainbow Dash floating above her.

“Oooh, a piñata!” She said. “I love piñatas!”

Dash gulped. “Piñata?”

Upstairs, Pinkie found herself growing increasingly frustrated. She threw all sorts of weird and wacky things over her shoulder. Sure, some of them could work for her, but she had a feeling that they were not the type of clothes Twilight Sparkle was looking for.

“This is serious,” the green stallion said behind her. “You need to pay attention for once.”

“Look, mister, I know this is serious,” Pinkie said. “In case you haven’t noticed, there are about a billion-zillion copies of me running around Ponyville and destroying everything! So, if you don’t mind–”

“I know that, and that’s why I’m here,” the stallion said. “I came to warn you, to prepare you….”

“If you came to help, maybe you can help me find what I’m looking for,” Pinkie said.

The colt let out a small noise of disapproval. “Fine. Here, take this.”

Pinkie turned around to see that the colt was now offering her a large golden necklace with a blue gem – quite alike, in fact, to her old Element of Laughter. Pinkie’s eyes lit up. She grabbed the necklace and looked it over.

“This is just the sort of thing Twilight will want!” she squealed as she threw it around her own neck.

“Now that we have that out of the way, can you please listen–”

“I’ve got to go show this to Rainbow Dash!”

And, just like that, Pinkie burst out of the room and down the stairs. The old green colt sighed.

“She really hasn’t changed,” he said.

When Pinkie came downstairs, she could not believe the sight that greeted her eyes. There was Rainbow Dash, floating in an aura of yellow light, rotating randomly around as three Pinkies with blindfolds and large sticks took swipes at her. Below them, Pumpkin and Pound Cake laughed in amusement.

“For the last time, I am not a piñata!” Dash said as she just managed to move her hind leg enough to avoid being hit.

As she pulled her wings out of the way of another blow, she said, “If you break those, I am so suing all of you clones.”

“Pumpkin, Pound, what are you doing?” Pinkie said, her voice surprisingly stern.

The Cake twins turned toward her and their eyes flooded with apologetic tears. The light around Rainbow Dash disappeared and she came crashing to the ground. The three Pinkies continued to swing around wildly at the air.

Pinkie scooped up the twins. “You two know better than to turn ponies into piñatas. Didn’t I have to have a long talk with you about that the last time Sweetie Belle came by?”

The Cake twins fell silent and curled up in Pinkie’s forelegs, acting as innocent as they could.

“Oh, I can’t stay mad at you guys,” Pinkie said with a chuckle.

“I wish I could say the same,” Rainbow Dash said from the floor.

The three Pinkie clones had now realized that they were hitting nothing but air and removed their blindfolds. They saw Rainbow Dash lying there.

“Fun?” one Pinkie asked quizzically as she lifted her stick to finish the job.

“Try it and I’ll shove that stick straight down your throat,” Dash responded.

The other two Pinkies restrained their comrade. They exchanged nervous looks and backed away as Dash arose and faced the original Pinkie.

“What’s that around your neck?” she asked.

“Oh, this? This is what I decided to take to Twilight!”

Dash tilted her head. “That gaudy thing? It’s something I’d expect more from Rarity than from you.”

Pinkie smiled. “Well, you know, I was going to take my clown-ruff, but I don’t think Twilight would like it very much. Last time I tried to do the clown act for her, she fell over the side of her observatory-deck. It’s a good thing she now has wings, I’ll tell you!”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just get back to her so that we can get this whole mess fixed.” Rainbow responded, throwing an angry glance the clones’ way.

At this moment, Mrs. Cake came out of the kitchen. “Pinkie, dear, is everything going alright?”

“Alright?” Dash said. “What about this scene even begins to strike you as alright?”

“Really, dearie, this is just another day at Sugarcube Corner,” Mrs. Cake answered.

“Mrs. Cake, you have to be really careful, like really really careful!” Pinkie said. “Get me out of here and don’t let any of me come back ever ever until I say the coast is clear, okay?”

Mrs. Cake looked from Pinkie to Dash to the twins to the three Pinkie clones currently trying to make a discrete exit. With a shrug, she said, “Whatever you say, dear,” and walked back into the kitchen.

“What was that?” Mr. Cake asked from within.

“From what I can tell, Pinkie wants us to keep her locked out of the building,” Mrs. Cake responded.

“When’d she become so sensible?” Mr. Cake asked.

“Wait, I’m always sensible!” Pinkie said to herself as she listened to their conversation.

“No time for that!” Rainbow Dash said. “Let’s just get upstairs so I can collect my stuff and then get out of here!”

“But what about the Cakes?” Pinkie asked.

“Oh, they’ll be fine!” Rainbow Dash reassured her. “We’ll have this all fixed before they even realize anything’s going on. Just wait till we get back to Twilight. I bet she’s got a plan worked out by now and everything!”

Twilight held her eyes closed as she tried to concentrate. Concentrate on what she was trying to do. But no matter how much she tried, the pounding in her head was just too intense. Even something as simple as writing on the chalkboard had become an impossibility. Twilight looked at the white streaks she had just made. Some might have been inclined to think that they were symbolic of something, but Twilight knew they symbolized nothing more than the throbbing pain in her head.

The chalk lowered. Twilight shook her head and turned away. She had hoped to set up a diagram or something, something to show the others in order to make sense of this mess. But how could she hope to do that, when she did not even have the presence of mind to concentrate on anything? Even if she was not suffering this pain, how could she even begin to make sense of the day’s events?

“Okay, everything’s ready,” Spike said, carrying a large stack of suitcases, atop of which was perched Owlowiscious. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“It’s the only thing I can do,” Twilight said solemnly.

A voice came from outside. “Y’all can open up this bubble-thing now. We’re back.”

Twilight went to the doorway and saw that Applejack and Rarity had returned. And Applejack was not alone. She and Big Macintosh were together pulling a cart on which Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Granny Smith, and Winona all sat. Rarity cradled Opalescence, who just seemed bored to be there.

Twilight nodded and, despite the difficulty and the pain, made the force-field transient enough to let her friends come through.

“How’d it go?” she asked as they approached.

“Well, I was a might too late to keep the clones from the farm,” Applejack said. “They infested the place worse than fruit bats during apple-bucking season. But luckily I managed to get everybody out in the nick of time.”

“All those Pinkies are gonna give me nightmares!” Apple Bloom opined from the cart.

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said.

“Well, I didn’t have much better luck,” Rarity said. “Those cretin clones made off with nearly the entirety of my fall line!”

“Yep, that’s a real tragedy if ever I heard one,” Applejack muttered.

“Oh, but it simply is!” Rarity said. “This was going to be my finest fall yet!”

“Isn’t every fall you’re finest fall yet?”

“What can I say, darling? They say you can’t improve upon perfection, but somehow I always find a way. But luckily, I was at least able to save this.”

Rarity pointed to the large floppy hat on her head. “Not my finest creation, but I think I might be able to make a new fall line out of it.”

“As usual, you care more about your fall line than anything else,” Sweetie Belle said from the cart.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle! Of course I. worried for your safety too! Why, when I saw you in that cart, my heart nearly stopped! But I thought you were supposed to be with mother and father today!” Rarity said. “Speaking of which, where are they, anyway?”

“They’ll be fine,” Twilight assured her. “I’ve already taken care of it.”

Just then, there was a rumbling sound.

“Oh, no, not more clones!” Rarity said.

“This is starting to really get on my nerves,” Applejack said.

But it was not more clones. From the distance, in a cloud of smoke, came a large herd of animals, with a giant bear in the middle, leading them. And atop the bear was Fluttershy.

Twilight let her and the animals in. Fluttershy slipped off the bear and onto the ground.

“Now, I don’t want any of you to worry,” she said. “Twilight here is going to make everything all better, so that the mean Pinkies won’t scare you anymore!”

“I just hope Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie get back here soon so that we can get this all sorted out,” Applejack said.

“I think we’re in luck on that front,” Rarity said, point to the distance, “if that rainbow streak is any indication.”

“You better get ready, Twilight,” Applejack said. “Doesn’t look like Rainbow’s stopping for anything.”

Twilight made ready the force-field, and not a moment too soon. The streak did not stop. Rather, a rush of blue, pink, and rainbow tore straight through one of the windows of the library. From inside, a large crashing noise was heard.

Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy all went inside to find a large pile of Daring Do books, trophy pieces, a Wonderbolts poster, a party-cannon, Tank and Gummy, and underneath it all, Rainbow Dash. And underneath Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie.

“Hi, everypony!” Pinkie said, managing an enthusiastic wave from the bottom of the heap.

Dash pulled herself and Pinkie out. “Okay, we’re back,” she said. “Pinkie found what she was looking for. And before you ask, I can promise you that it’s the real her.”

“Oh, my!” Rarity said as she caught sight of Pinkie’s necklace. “Pinkie, my dear, I never knew you had such good taste!”

“Oh, this thing?” Pinkie said with a hint of pride. “I just got it, actually. It was a gift from a friend of mine in my closet.”

“A friend in her closet?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

“Don’t ask,” Rainbow said.

“Pinkie, I think you misunderstood a little,” Applejack said. “Twi wanted something that you’ve had for a while, so that it would have a personal connection to you and such.”

“No, AJ, it’s fine,” Twilight said weakly. “I’ll be able to make do with this just as well. Now, everypony, stand back from Pinkie. We don’t have much time.”

As the echoes of “Fun? Fun! Fun? Fun!” seemed to double above them – as though confirming Twilight’s claim – Pinkie began to glow with a maroon light, just as Twilight’s horn did the same.

“Oooh, whatcha doing, Twilight?” Pinkie asked in excitement. “This is the spell, isn’t it? What’s it doing? What’s it doing? I guess you can’t tell me because you have to concentrate and all, but I can’t wait to find – Yyaaaaaaaahhhhhh!”

Pinkie felt to the ground in agony, her screaming drowning out the cries of “Fun” from high above. All of her friends looked down in horror, all except for Twilight.

“Stop it!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Stop it! You’re hurting her! What are you doing to her?”

Rainbow rushed over and grabbed hold of Twilight, but by that time, Twilight had already stopped. Rainbow shook her, frantically repeating, “What did you do to her? What did you do?”

Twilight only gave her a wobbly, dazed smile. “All finished,” she said.

There were a number of loud thumps from the top of the tree. Clearly, the force-field was losing its effect.

“It’s… it’s okay, Dashie,” Pinkie said, trying to stand up. “I’m… I’m fine… really….”

Dash could tell that she was not fine and once more started shaking Twilight. “What is this? What is this? Is this your idea of a joke or something?”

Twilight, with surprising strength, pushed Rainbow off of her and walked over to Pinkie.

“I’m sorry I had to do that, Pinkie,” she said, “but it was the only way. As long as we could not tell you from the other Pinkies, both us and you were in danger. So I’ve bonded the necklace to your skin.”

“You did what?” Applejack, Rarity, and Dash shouted together.

“I’ll reverse it once the clones are gone,” Twilight said, “and I know another spell which should heal most of the scarring.”

“Okay, Twilight, if you had to do it, you had to do it,” Pinkie said quietly.

The others merely exchanged glances, none of them knowing what to say next. Finally, Applejack spoke up.

“Er, I hate to interrupt this awkward silence and all… but just how do you intend to get rid of the clones, Twi?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight answered.

“You don’t know!” was the general response from her friends. Even Fluttershy joined in this time, making up for the fact that Pinkie was too weak to say anything.

And then, a knock at the already open door. They all looked. There stood Mayor Mare.

“Your Highness, all the preparations you requested are in order,” Mayor Mare said. “I’ve gathered as many of the townsfolk as I could and we’re ready to leave as soon as you give the word.”

“Leave?” Rainbow Dash said. “Who said anything about leaving?”

“I did,” Twilight said. “This is what I’ve been doing while the rest of you were gone. Making preparations for our departure from the town.”

“You just want us to leave?” Dash snapped. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Twilight said, “but we have to face facts. I don’t know how to stop the Pinkies. None of us do. We can’t do anything about them now, so the only thing we can do is try and protect everypony else from them. We have to get them out of here while we still have the chance.”

“You mean….” Applejack began, unable to give further articulation to such a notion.

“I’m afraid so. We have to face the truth.”

Twilight’s face grew darker.

“Ponyville has fallen.”

Would they escape Ponyville?Read on.