Reforming Spell

“Get back!” my next incarnation shouted, as soon as she had her memories back.

I laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “Urge satisfied! And then some! You know I’m telling the truth, right? You have all my memories.”

“You’re sick! What you did to her corpse! How could you even –“

I licked my lips. “Look. I called you up so that we could start a large-scale project. We make a whole bunch of clones, and then the Lyra inside the pool will be sure to notice that something’s going on with the gate, no matter how much the demon tries to distract her. Then we go get Twilight, and she sends you and the other clones back to the pool. No need for anypony to die.”

“But we’re trapped in here,” she said. “By that rock.”

“A dozen of us should be enough to move it,” I said. Apparently, she was too disoriented by absorbing a lifetime’s worth of memories to remember the entire plan. “Look, we could go back and forth arguing, but you know that you’re going to help me. This is a magical project, and you were created to help me with magical projects. It’s even ethical, so there’s no wiggle-room this time.”

She scowled, then turned towards the pool. “Fine,” she spat. “But I just want you to know that you’re a horrible pony.”

“It’s not my fault,” I said. “Twilight cast a Reforming Spell on me. I can’t be anything but what she modeled. So no matter what I do, it’s all her fault. What do you think – mass murder spree?”

“No!”

“I was just kidding,” I said, turning towards the pool. “We can’t go killing real ponies. That’d be…” I took a deep breath. “Wrong. That would be wrong.” Not sexy. Not fun.

She didn’t even look at me, but her ears were flat.

“Okay,” I said. “On three. Into her own reflection she stared…”

So, to make a long story short, we made up about thirty clones, and then waited a little while, and made a thirty-whatever’th. She was the only one out of all of them that got the memory spell. Because for Celestia’s sake, that horrible spell was still a foal of a nag to cast.

“Did it work?” I asked. “Did she see the gate in action? Are you…”

She shook her head. “She saw it, but the demon wouldn’t let her get close. She knows what she has to do now, at least. They were in the middle of a big argument when you cast the memory spell.”

“So… what?” I asked. “She’s going to talk the demon into letting her go?”

The last copy smirked. “She was going to sing.”

I had to laugh – yeah, that would probably work.

Still, while I knew some pretty annoying songs, the demon was an ageless menace, and time didn’t really work the same way inside the pool as out of it. It would take a while to work, and we decided not to just sit around and wait. We’d go get Twilight to send the clones back, using the spell that wouldn’t kill them, and then tomorrow I’d come back and see if the demon was ready to give in and let her go.

With thirty of us, it was child’s play to move the boulder aside. That left me and a gaggle of nearly-mindless clones in the middle of the Everfree Forest. At night.

I think you can guess where this is heading.

No, no, we weren’t all eaten by Manticores!