It was far too tempting to resist. More precisely, it was far too tempting for Pinkie Pie to resist.
It just doesn’t seem fair, not in the slightest! I know Celestia and Luna originally said that only Twilight should go through the portal,and then Spike went in with her as well, but I’m still so curious. Now that there’s a portal set up that could be used at any time to go over to that other world, it’s like a whole new world, with new friends to make, is calling to me! And I can’t go. No, it’s just not fair at all!
More importantly, there’s another Pinkie Pie over there! I’ve met a lot of Pinkies in my time, let me tell you. Most recently, when we went into the opposite world, I met my mean double over there. There was also the time when I made copies of myself using the Mirror Pool. That didn’t turn out so well, but that wasn’t entirely my fault. Magic is so unpredictable! And of course, who could forget the time when we were all trapped in changeling cocoons! There was a Pinkie in everypony’s dream world. Those are the kinds of other Pinkies I want to meet again. They were so much fun!
The other Pinkie through the portal even knows about me. I wonder if she wants to meet me, too. I bet she’s just dying to come over here and make friends with everypony. Twilight said that we were all just like our usual selves over there, we just looked a lot different. How different could we possibly look, though? I’m so curious, I can’t contain myself!
Twilight had moved the portal to a room in the back of the castle. It’s not like the room was under lock and key or anything, so Pinkie was able to get in there with no trouble. Sitting upon a shelf near the portal were several books, one of which was the journal that Celestia and Sunset Shimmer had linked copies of. Pinkie carefully took ahold of the book and placed it on the shelf above the portal. She frowned when nothing happened.
Shoot, I guess you still need somepony to zap this thing with magic to get it going! She thought, turning around and glancing down the hall. Twilight wouldn’t do it for me. Who could I convince to help me out? Rarity? No, I bet she’d be the same.
“What are you doing?” a voice came from behind the pink pony. She froze up, slowly turning her head to see who was there. Poking in from the next room, which was a study where Twilight kept more advanced books on magic, was a dark face with a dry expression plastered across it. Black, straight hair hung down over one of her eyes, the other of which was half covered by her upper eyelid.
“Linnai!” Pinkie said. “Oh, uh, nothing. Nothing, really. What are you doing here?”
Linnai shook her head. “Twilight lets me come here to study unicorn magic. I thought that was fairly common knowledge.”
Linnai was a changeling who had been instrumental in the defeat of Chrysalis during the changeling invasion several months ago. She’d taken up residence in Ponyville afterwards, partially because she wanted to stay close to Twilight, but also because Celestia wanted Twilight to keep an eye on her. She liked to think of herself as an ambassador of the changelings, along with her brother, Mulcibar, who also had moved to Ponyville. Pinkie considered her a friend, but thought that maybe she wore on her nerves from time to time, so she tried to contain herself around her, sort of like she did with Cranky.
I doubt she’d help me either. In the end, I guess this might just be a dream that will never come true.
“You’ve got the book set above the portal,” Linnai observed, taking a couple steps into the room. “Are you heading across the void?”
Pinkie shrugged sheepishly. “Well, I wanted to, but then I remembered that you have to charge up the portal with magic, and silly me, I forgot that I can’t do that,” she said, tapping her hoof against her forehead.
Linnai walked across the room to the small orb that sat to the side of the portal. She zapped it once with a quick spark of magic and the portal came to life. “There, that solves that,” she said.
Pinkie’s jaw dropped for a moment and then a big smile spread across her lips. She pounced on Linnai and squeezed her tightly. “Thank you!”
Linnai laughed and hugged Pinkie back, though only lightly. “Yeah, sure, just lay off the hugs,” she said. “But now that I think about it, should we really be doing this?”
“You have to keep it a secret from Twilight!” Pinkie said, pressing her hoof against Linnai’s lips.
Linnai pulled her face away from the pink hoof. “I think she’s going to notice that her portal is on. Let me guess, you were really curious about the Pinkie Pie on the other side and wanted to go meet her.”
Pinkie nodded her head, but fell back onto her haunches. She hung her head slightly and sighed. “I guess you know me pretty well. Yeah, but maybe we should just turn it off. I’ll never be able to go over there.” She almost felt like crying, even though she knew it was probably for the best.
“How about this, then?” Linnai proposed. “You go through, and then I’ll turn the portal off. When you want to come back, you could write a special mark on the first page of the book on the other side, and then I’ll open the portal back up and let you through again.”
Pinkie’s eyes lit up. “You’re really are a good friend!” she shouted.
“I wouldn’t go that far…” Linnai said, blushing slightly. “I just don’t get what all the fuss is about. It seems weird that nopony but Twilight can go over there.”
Pinkie was rubbing her front hooves together, her face becoming slightly devious looking. “Yeah, it does seem weird. Twilight never even has to know.”
“I never even have to know what?” Twilight’s voice came from just outside the room. In reaction, Linnai levitated the book off the shelf above the portal.
“It’s not turning off!” Pinkie whispered.
“It takes a sec for the magic to dissipate.”
Pinkie stared nervously at the door, now gripping Linnai nervously. Linnai was too busy trying to hide the book behind her back to protest. Twilight’s head popped into the room from around the corner and her eyes locked onto the two of them.
The tension inside Pinkie burst all at once. “Cheese it!” she shouted, and then shoved up against Linnai. In the blink of an eye, the two of them tumbled through the portal, complete with the book to the other side. The portal fizzled and shut.
Twilight stared at the portal, eyes wide. “That… can’t be good.” She bolted out of the room and down the hall, shouting as she went. “Spike! I need to you send a letter to the Princess!”
On the other side of the portal, Pinkie Pie and Linnai tumbled out of the base of the statue in front of Canterlot High, hitting the ground with a thud.
“Gah! My head!” Pinkie grunted as she tried to sit up. A second later, a fist came down on the crown of her skull. “Owie! There it is again!”
“That was me, you oaf!” Linnai replied, having already sat up. She stared down at her fist briefly, and then sighed. “Well, at least we know what Twilight meant about hands, now.”
Pinkie stared down at her hands and screamed.
“Hey! Keep it down!” a voice came from behind them. They turned their heads and looked up at the top of the statue’s base. A girl with red and yellow streaked hair was standing on top of the statue, staring down at the two of them. She was breathing heavily and was wearing what appeared to be a set of striped pajamas. The light from the full moon shone down from above, barely illuminating her face. “What in Equestria are you doing here? Where’s Twilight?”
Pinkie and Linnai just kept silently staring up at the girl, who groaned and put her palm against her forehead, massaging her temples. “Yes, I’m sure Twilight told you already, but we aren’t ponies on this side of the portal. I’m Sunset Shimmer, and you’re lucky I live so close to the school. I felt the portal’s magic being activated a couple minutes ago and came running as fast as I could.”
Sunset Shimmer jumped down from on top of the statue and patted her hand against the statue. “Solid. So it’s closed on the other side? Look, you two are going to have to start talking or I’m not going to have any idea what’s happening.”
Pinkie hung her head in shame.
Linnai nodded toward Pinkie. “It’s her fault! I had nothing to do with it!”
“What!?” Pinkie shouted. “You’re the one who opened the portal!”
“You’re the one who wanted to come here in the first place!” Linnai grabbed the book with her mouth and shook it.
Sunset Shimmer gasped. “That book! Oh no! Please don’t tell me that’s the magically linked journal!”
Linnai nodded her head, her eyes crossing as she stared down at the book. A second later, Sunset ripped the book from her mouth. “This book is how the portal gets linked up with us! Without this book on the other side, you’re stuck here for thirty moons!”
“What!?” Pinkie shouted again.
“Please, keep quiet! Let’s get back to my house, we’ll figure something out there!” Sunset Shimmer said. “For now, concentrate on standing up on two legs. Nopony—er—nobody walks on all-fours in this world.”
As the three of them slowly walked out of the school yard and onto the sidewalk, Pinkie and Linnai looked around at the city, quietly taking in the scenery. Linnai was doing considerably better than Pinkie, and could actually walk in a straight line. Pinkie sort of wobbled and stumbled for the first block or so.
Sunset Shimmer glanced at Linnai. “You don’t look like any of my friends. You’re not one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, so who are you?”
“My name is Linnai, Ambassador of the Changeling Empire to Equestria,” she responded proudly.
“Changelings?” Sunset asked, blinking. “Like the old stories?”
“She’s friends with Twilight and the rest of us, and Princess Celestia said she has to live in Ponyville so Twilight can keep an eye on her!” Pinkie whispered to Sunset Shimmer. “She’s really nice, though, even if she looks scary.”
Linnai’s eyebrow twitched. “I can hear you, you know. I prefer Ambassador.”
Pinkie grinned and hugged Linnai. “It’s okay, we still love you, Ambassador!”
Linnai sighed. “Enough with the hugs, please.” Pinkie detached herself and put her arms at her side.
Sunset Shimmer grinned. “Sounds like things are as eventful as ever in Equestria. Boy, you really are just like our Pinkie Pie.”
“I can’t wait to meet her!” Pinkie said in a gleeful tone.
“Yeah, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. We’ve never had anybody from Equestria meet their other self. Twilight’s alternate self has thankfully moved to another town and wasn’t around the last two times Twilight came. As for my double, I’ve never even heard of her existing here, so I lucked out, too.”
“Oh, don’t worry! I’ve met plenty of Pinkie Pies before! Sometimes I even hear them rambling around in my head, still! We called it the Pinkie Network!”
“You’re an earth pony, right? Certainly an unusual feature for an earth pony to have, although not unexpected from you, Pinkie Pie…” Sunset mused.
“Yeah, I guess. All those other Pinkies were alicorns!”
Sunset Shimmer laughed slightly. “Now there’s a frightening yet intriguing image.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, nothing. Nevermind.”
“She means you’d probably use your alicorn magic to make it rain cake or something. It’d be like Discord’s second coming,” Linnai said with a smirk. “Or is it third or fourth at this point?
“I did love that chocolate rain. Shame he never does that anymore,” Pinkie said, her eyes glossing over slightly.
The three of them arrived at Sunset Shimmer’s house. Upon entering, Sunset turned around and locked the door. “Okay, now tell me what happened, from the beginning,” she said, leaning up against the door and taking a moment to look at the two dimensional travelers again.
“Finally, we’re in a secure location. I assume this is a secure location, anyway,” Linnai said, glancing around and taking note of the curtains that were pulled over the windows.
Sunset Shimmer nodded her head. “Yes, we should be safe for now. I doubt anyone is going to come to visit in the middle of the night.”
Linnai smiled, and green magical fire washed over her body. She shrunk down, fell to all fours, and took on her normal shape and appearance from back in Equestria. Closing her eyes to concentrate for a moment, her horn began to glow slightly, but then dimmed again. “I see… I can still change here, but my magic is practically useless.” She looked up at Sunset Shimmer, who was staring wide-eyed down at her.
Sunset Shimmer blinked and shook her head. “Sorry, I had only ever read about changelings in old books, I’ve never actually met one, so—“
“Quite alright. Now, shall we find someplace more comfortable? I’ll tell you about what happened, though there isn’t much to tell.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty simple story, unfortunately,” Pinkie added.
The three of them walked further into the house, into a room with a couch and a couple of chairs.
Meanwhile, across town…
Pinkie Pie shot up to a sitting position in her bed. Her nose was twitching slightly, and there was a ringing in her ears. She sleepily rubbed her eyes and turned to look out her window.
“My Pinkie Sense… is tingling!” she said to herself with a grin.
To Be Continued… Probably.
