Stripes of a Persona

by Wave_Chill

Why Magic Cannot Solve Your Problems

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Author's Note

sup, my name's Wave and this is my first fic here. Although I only write for the fun of it, I would highly appreciate critique if you're able to!
Without further ado, enjoy!
P.S: please forgive any grammar mistakes (or at least be a little lenient haha) as english isn't my first language ^^;

Edit: I deeply apologize if the ending seems rather rushed or oddly paced, I finished it at around 2am haha


Why Magic Cannot Solve Your Problems

"Are you done yelling yet?"

Twilight found herself glaring daggers at the rainbow maned mare sitting before her, she hissed, clenching her fists in an attempt to stop herself from mangling Dash to multiple little pieces. Rainbow had done quite a deal to piss of the friendship princess, including (but not limited to):
. Sneaking/Breaking into her home
. Messing with her potions
. "Accidentally" destroying a few of her books
. Making a mess of her study area
. Giving Spike a weird potion that was still being tested that seemingly put the dragon into a coma

Twilight personally believed she had every right to be angry, however that wasn't was got on her nerves the most. What really ground her gears was how Rainbow seemingly didn't care, the cyan mare didn't seem apologetic in the slightest, if anything she seemed angry that Twilight was angry. This made the alicorn huff as she spoke "so... that's all you've got to say? After everything you've done, you're only response is to ask if I've finished yelling at you?" The violet mare spoke softly, not losing eye contact.

"Well... yeah? Got a problem with that?" Dash coolly replied with a simply shrug of her shoulders.

Twilight growled "OF COURSE I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT!" she yelled "you never take anything seriously! Every single time you do something wrong, you shrug it off like it's no big deal! Well guess what Ms. Dash? This is a very big deal! Look at what you've done!" Twilight pointed behind her to show off the damage Rainbow Dash had caused. Ripped books, broken shelves, potions scattered everywhere, Spike possibly in a coma and so much more "do you just not have a serious chip in your brain or something!?" She scowled before sighing "to be honest, lately you've been acting so blase about everything, and when people call you out for it you get mad, it's just- urgh!"

Rainbow Dash scoffed, resting her head on her arm "honestly? You're being like, waaay too extra, it's just a few dumb books and some potions, and knowing you you'll probably just force Spike to fix the shelves, chill the hell out" she spoke as she closed her eyes, rubbing the bottom of them slightly and yawning.

This was practically the last straw.

With her horn sparking with rage and anticipation, Twilight felt her eye twitch "oh, so it's just a few dumb books? huh? Just a few potions, huh? I'll probably force Spike to fix them, huh!?" she yelled, stomping her foot.

"Well... yeah?" The other mare responded, seemingly unfazed by the princess's anger.

Twilight stepped towards the pegasus, steam practically spewing from her nose "you're such a... a... a selfish brat! You never take anything seriously! Sometimes I wish you never existed!" She yelled.

Suddenly, the alicorn felt her horn twitch and fizzle before shooting a magical aura dead at the pegasus involuntarily. For the first time during this whole lecture, Rainbow had a look of worry slapped onto her face, she quickly threw out her wings in an attempt to fly away from the shot, however she wasn't quick enough. Rainbow Dash was hit directly as she tried moving, the pegasus screamed whilst her friend looked ahead in fear. Dash was levitated into the sky and looked to be morphing or shape shifting, and in a split second she landed.

Or, Twilight thought she had landed.

"Rainbow Dash!" She quipped as she ran towards the now fading smoke puff, but when she reached it, instead of seeing a highly injured rainbow maned pegasus, she saw... six? They all seemed to resemble Dash, except they didn't have the whole... rainbow aspect "Rainbow Dash...?" the alicorn asked softly.

The purple maned Rainbow Dash clone was the first to sit up, this pegasus looked pretty much identical to Dash, except her mane was a deep purple (similar to Rarity) and had multiple loose curls that were tied into a messy bun. This mare had soft violet eyes and wore a figure hugging lilac dress with mulberry heels, another thing about this mare that caught Twilight's attention was the over abundance of makeup, something Rainbow never wore "ow... what a pickle" the mare said with an odd accent "this is most definitely not how I planned to spend my Sunday afternoon..."

"Tell me about it..." another one of the Rainbow Dash look alikes said, Twilight shot a look at the direction of the voice and saw this mare had a green mane. This mare had a short yet slick bob cut, she had soft lime eyes and wore large pear coloured square glasses. She wore a shamrock sweater with emerald sweatpants and chartreuse slippers. The green one looked about in confusion "this doesn't look like the Thought Dome..."

"You don't say...!" Another mare hissed, this one had a buzz-cut red mane and sharp crimson eyes, she wore carmine tape around her chest and had a vermilion puffy jacket on, which had a pattern on it resembling camouflage. Her shorts were a bright auburn and her sneakers were a softer claret.

"I don't care about this... I just wanna take a nap..." yawned the orange maned mare. Her mane was tied into two scruffy pigtails and she wore a chamomile sleeping cap with a see through peach dressing gown, underneath it Twilight could see that she wore a simple apricot set of pyjamas with cloud imprinting and fuzzy carrot colored socks. She used her soft papaya eyes to give the alicorn a confused look "wait a second..."

"Hey! Isn't that Twilight?" one of the mares yelled before knocking an unsuspecting Twilight over. This mare had a messy yellow mane that stuck out in multiple different directions, she had bright and almost glowing dandelion eyes, she wore a large puffy canary dress with white trimming and decorated pumps.

"Ah!" Twilight yelled as she was knocked to the ground.

"N-No, don't do that! W-We'll get into trouble!" what Twilight hoped to be the final Rainbow Dash look alike said. This mare had an extremely long blue mane, the length easily beat Fluttershy's by a landslide. She had soft and gentle baby blue eyes and wore a long cobalt sundress that reached just to the end of her calves. This mare wore a large summer hat that was encrusted with bluebells, delphinium flowers, morning glories and more.

"But all I was doing was checking if it was really her! But, I'll get off now!" The yellow maned mare quirked before finally getting up off of the princess. Twilight slowly stood up, brushing herself off, she then pointed a finger at the six mares, opening her mouth to speak, however no noise came out.

The green haired mare stepped forward "now Twilight, I know this is a lot to take in but-"

"Who are you and how do you know my name!?" She managed to squeak out.

The green mare looked at the others, as if looking for conformation. Once they had all somewhat nodded, the turned to face the purple mare "well, we're Rainbow Dash, except not really... to put it simply" she cleared her throat "we're different aspect of Rainbow's personality, and we live in her head, I represent her intelligence and memory-"

The purple maned one cut her off almost immediately "Oh, we're introducing ourselves? Well then, I represent her wants, needs, dreams, ambitions, goals, wishes and her confidence" she giggled, striking a pose.

The red one then stepped forward "I represent her will and strength!" She said, punching a fist "and anger..."

The orange one waved "I represent her... uh... I don't really remember... something about her calmness and nostalgia and memories or whatever, I guess I'm the one that stops her from fighting anyone who slightly pisses her off..."

The red one scoffed "which I think she should...!"

"Ooh, me next!" The yellow one jumped "I represent her happiness and excitement!" She yelled "also, if Twilight's here, where's Pinkie? I really wanna see her, she's my favorite!"

"I can see why..." the princess mumbled.

The blue one stepped forward "I-I represent her sadness and anxieties... I also represent a majority o-of her negative emotions..." she softly said.

Twilight blinked at the six mares, eyeing them with suspicion first before slumping "so... in a fit of anger I somehow managed to split Rainbow Dash into six different versions of herself? Great..." she groaned "also, do you have names? Or are you really just called Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple?"

The purple mare shot her her hand up "why yes, we do have names! I'm Violet and this green pusscule is named Viridi"

"Pusscule!? You prissy little-"

"Oh shut up!" The red one said "anyway, my name's Ruby, the blue one's called Azure, the orange one is called Apricot and the yellow one is called Arylide" she spat.

"I see..." the princess muttered.

Ruby smirked "I'm guessing you were mad at Dash for the mess she made? Well usually this woulda been a mess for Vio and Viridi to clean up, but those two were too busy arguing about nonsense, so poor me and Apricot were forced to take over"

Apricot yawned "no offence Twilight, but I really didn't care..."

Twilight perked "wait, arguing?"

Azure nodded "yup... Violet and V-Viridi have been going back and forth for a while..."

"Only because Violet reaches too far for Rainbow! Seriously, she wants Rainbow Dash to become everything under the sun except something realistic!" Viridi complained, fixing her crooked glasses.

"Oh really? Like that's the real problem, the issue here is that you're always on my case! You never get onto Ruby, who's needlessly negative for no reason!" Violet quipped on response.

Ruby scrunched her face up "me!? What about Azure, her existence is built upon negativity!" The agitated mare yelled.

"N-No it's not!" Azure attempted to shout "th-there's a difference between showing your emotions and being negative!"

"Yeah!" Arylide nodded "leave Azu alone!"

Viridi rolled her eyes "whatever, it's not like you take anything seriously Arylide, all you want to do is prank people and party"

Now it was Arylide's turn to be angry "what!? Why are you now on my case!? Why not Apricot? All she ever wants to do is either sleep or go through Dashie's old text books!"

"They have a lot of sentimental value okay!?" Apricot suddenly said aloud with actual tone to her voice.

Twilight couldn't believe this, was she really sitting and watching as six different Rainbow Dash's argued? She shook her head "if they've been like this lately then it's no wonder Rainbow's been acting really odd, her emotions don't even know what to do...!" As the six continued, the princess slowly walked in front of the crowd and threw her arms up "okay, okay, OKAY!" She yelled "QUIET!"

As she had spoken, the six Dash clones seized their bickering and faced the alicorn. Twilight shook her head "okay, now I have no idea why you girls don't get along, but it's obvious that this has negatively affected Rainbow, that coupled with the fact that Rainbow currently doesn't EXIST anymore... I need to gather the girls" the alicorn went to grab her coat and looked back at the six girls "don't mess anything up any more than it already has been, whether you're separate incarnations of her or not, you're still Rainbow Dash and I can practically sense the stubbornness oozing out of you"

The six of them, especially Viridi, felt rather offended by the condescending remark (well, maybe except Arylide) but nodded and murmured their okays. This made the princess nod, she soon waved, bid them adieu and went her merry way, leaving the huffy clones to themselves.


"Okay... this is by far the strangest thing I've ever seen"

"Stranger than Discord?"

"Stranger than Discord"

The four mares stared at the six others, they looked exactly like their rainbow maned friend "so... yer tellin' me that ya managed ta spilt Dash inta six different version of herself? And now, six aspect of her personality are just... runnin' ramped?" Applejack asked, her ears occasionally twitching with confusion. Her eyes widened when Twilight nodded reluctantly, "so, what in the name of Celestia's round behind are we supposed ta do?"

Twilight rubbed her temples and shook her head "I don't know" she sighed out with exasperation "I was thinking you girls could take at least one in? At least, until I figure out how to get Rainbow back, there's no way I could house all six..."

The four looked at each other, their eyes having a wordless conversation. Twilight watched as the anxiety piled, she was practically anticipating at least one of them to jump on her case for borderline killing their friend. However, they didn't. Instead, Rarity soon stepped forward with the warmest and most forgiving smile she could muster "please calm down Twilight, we'd be more than happy to take in these girls"

"Wait, how did you know I was-"

"I could see it in your eyes darling, believe me when I say you aren't as subtle as you may think you are" Rarity said with a wink. This light hearted comment helped to ease the alicorn's anxieties and instead made her chuckle, Twilight then gave a stretch before standing straight up.

"Well, they obviously know you, since they are technically just Rainbow Dash, so I'll let them choose who they wanna-" before she could even finish, Arylide had jumped up and ran towards Pinkie in a flash.

The yellow maned mare held onto Pinkie's shoulders, stared into her crystal blue eyes with her bright yellow ones before nodding "Pinkie Pie! I wanna go with Pinkie Pie!"

The pink mare tilted her head "really? Why?"

Arylide scoffed "pfft, duh! You're like, super duper fun and super duper happy! You're totally my type!"

"Ooooh, I like you already!" Pinkie squealed.

Twilight chuckled "okay, so Arylide is already gone, how about you Ruby?" She asked the rougher mare.

Ruby shrugged "I guess I'll go with Applejack, she seems alright and working on the farm could be cool" she said, placing her hand in her short pockets and swaggering towards the farm pony. As caught off guard as she was, Applejack chose not to question it, Ruby didn't seem too bad...

"Okay, how about you Azure?" Twilight said with a purposely softer tone "is there anyone you wanna go with?" Azure brushed some of her hair out of her eyes and nodded, this made Twilight smile "alright, who would you rather go with?" The sea blue maned mare pointed at Fluttershy, who simply perked in suprise.

"Me?" She simply asked.

Azure nodded again "i-if you wouldn't mind, of course..."

Fluttershy gave the smaller mare her signature, somewhat motherly smile "of course I wouldn't mind, I'd be happy to take you in, Azure was it?" This made Azure crack a small smile before gently making her way to the pink maned pegasus.

"Okay, now onto Vio-" Twilight watched in odd surprise as she saw Rarity and Violet already chatting away, laughing and giggling as if they had known each other for years. The alicorn wasn't shocked as she let it register, it was a no brainer that Violet and Rarity would get along "well, that already seems sorted, now onto Viridi!" She turned to face the glasses owner "who do you wanna go with?"

"Actually, I was wondering if I could stay with you? I mean, your book collection is rather impressive, as are your studies" she then sighed "however, Dash is not a big fan of books that aren't Daring Do and scientific and or magical studies, so my interests are usually if not always supressed..." Viridi then looked up at Twilight with noticeable hope "but I was thinking that if I stay with you I may be able to indulge in my passions, even if it is only temporary"

Twilight had to hold in a squeal of pure joy, she finally had a partner! Well, Spike was also her partner but she finally had someone to study with "of course you can stay with me! I have no issues with that!"

Viridi cracked a wide smile "truly? Well and truly! Oh, thank you oh so much Twilight! I most definitely owe you for this!"

The princess giggled a little at the pegasus' apparent excitement, before looking back at Apricot, who stood lonesome in the middle of the room. Twilight approached her, pitying her slightly when she realized there was no one left to take her "are you okay Apricot? Is there anyone you wanna go with?"

Apricot looked up and yawned "yeah, but she isn't here so I might have to go and see her"

Twilight was honestly taken aback "really? Who?"

Apricot blinked slowly "Rainbow Dash's marefriend"

Everyone went silent upon hearing that, that was until Applejack spoke "Excuse me, what?"