Author's Note

Huzzah! Another NNN chapter!
Want to notify everybody that I'm currently working on other projects, so sorry if the chapters have become shorter and less big, but I promise to make things more interesting!

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Clones

Chapter 13:

A shimmer of light covered Midnight’s eyes as he was the first to exit the void. Peace swept through his mind as he felt the sun rays land on his face. There was always the reinvigorating feeling whenever Celestia’s sun warmed the world, and after spending days in the darkness, the blue pegasus silently rejoiced its return.

“Hey Shining! Come over here and feel the sunlight!” Midnight exclaimed, prompting the white stallion in question to walk over to the window. Shining closed his eyes and let out a light sigh as he was bathed in light. After deciding that he stood in front of it long enough, the Captain of the Royal Guard soon turned his attention away and towards an endless hallway of doors.

“No… Please don’t tell me we’re going to have to go through each door to find our exit…” Shining groaned. Midnight turned around and noticed the doors as well, but unlike his superior, he began to grin.

“It appears so! And hey! Maybe we can use up as much time as possible and force Discord into moving us to the next challenge!” The blue pegasus exclaimed, opening the first door only to end up having his nose pressed against the nose of a cyan pegasus. “Uhhhhhh…. ._.” Midnight simply blinked as the rainbow maned pegasus looked at him with her magenta eyes with a smile on her face.

“HEL-”

Midnight immediately slammed the door the moment Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, looking to the side in disbelief, before opening the door again to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

“-LO-”

The blue pegasus once again slammed the door in front of her, making her let out an audible ‘OOF!’ as she bumped into the wooden barrier. Midnight quickly recomposed himself before walking towards the next door.

“Onwards I guess?” Midnight hesitantly stated before opening the door and blinking once more as Rainbow appeared in front of it. She lifted her hoof to speak only to be silenced as the blue pegasus placed his hoof over her mouth. “Wait, hold up for a moment.” The blue pegasus said, before turning around and opening the third door, only to blink as another cyan pegasus appeared. Shining could only look with his mouth open in confusion before closing it again.

“May I speak now?” The Rainbow Midnight had silenced asked. Upon deeming her peaceful, and convincing himself that no Rainbows he’s faced so far might have been the real one, the blue pegasus slowly nodded.

“You may.” Midnight said. The cyan pegasus opened her mouth only to stop as she realized she forgot what she was about to say, and thus quickly made up a new sentence.

“You look fluffy, can I use you as my cuddle pillow?” The Rainbow maned pegasus asked. Immediately the one behind Midnight bursted into the air and pressed her face against the first one.

“Hey! I was about to ask that!” The second Rainbow yelled. The first simply chuckled and looked towards Midnight who had begun to walk towards Shining.

“You snooze, you lose.” The first speedster said with a smirk. The blue pegasus by now stood beside Shining who looked confused.

“Guess somebody used the mirror portal right?” Midnight asked, prompting the white stallion to look at him, studying the young colt’s calm nature.

“Aren’t you supposed to be confused about this as much as I am?” Shining asked. Midnight shrugged.

“Eh. Only confused about a certain topic that I don’t understand, but I’m able to understand other things easily. If they were the real Rainbow they would’ve pounced on me, but because Mirror Clones aren’t exact copies of the original, they take on slightly different personalities. And well, you shouldn’t let yourself be confused, it’s Discord we’re talking about, and if he likes having us trapped in endless loops and such, then certainly clones wouldn’t be out of the things he’d probably do.” Midnight stated, and slowly the Captain nodded.

“I guess… I guess that makes sense? Just don’t fall for any traps alright?” Shining said nervously as he watched the blue pegasus walk towards the pair of Rainbows, which had quickly become a trio as Shining realized that the door Midnight first looked at was now open. Deciding not to waste any time, the white stallion allowed the colt to talk with the Rainbows while he looked through each door, seeing which ones were definite traps, closing those that had a cyan pegasus within them, and trying to find one that was safe to travel to.

As the Lieutenant walked towards the Rainbows, one of them gave him a flirtatious look while blowing a kiss at him. Before she could say anything, he lifted a hoof in the air, silencing them.

“Alright, first off, let me put these numbers on you so that I can tell which of you are.” Midnight said as he held up three name tags, each with a number. The three cyan pegasi complied and quickly placed the signs around their necks. “Thank you. Now can any one of you tell me if there are any ‘hostile’ Rainbows within these doors.” The blue pegasus asked. The newly dubbed ‘Rainbow One’ nodded.

“Well, I wouldn’t really consider them ‘hostile’, more like ‘intoxicated’, but yes, I think there’s like a quarter who are like that.” Rainbow One said. “Could I pet you now?” The cyan pegasus said. Midnight blinked before walking towards a fourth door.

“I guess so. Let me open this door first.” Midnight said, only to yelp as a fourth Rainbow tackled him to the ground.

“YES! I FINALLY GOT YOU! YOU’RE MINE!” The fourth Rainbow yelled, her eyes filled with insanity. Before she could fulfill her destiny, she was suddenly shot by a ray of magic from Shining Armor, causing her to flip various times before collapsing onto the floor.

“Midnight it’s time we need to leave this place! Now!” Shining yelled as the blue pegasus slowly rose, wiping off any dust that was on his fur before following the white stallion. The two froze as Rainbow appeared in front of them, the mare grinning at Midnight who simply blinked at her.

“Don’t worry Midnight! We’re going to have a lot of fun!” The cyan pegasus said, before opening a series of doors. Immediately Shining began to pull Midnight away as they ran from the hordes of cyan pegasi that came from every door that Rainbow pulled open as she chased them. Even though most weren’t as intoxicated as the original one, they all still wanted to chase after Midnight, resulting in even the first three Rainbows joining the cyan wave.

“Midnight! Keep running!” Shining shouted as the army of Rainbows began to catch up onto them due to their incredible speed. The white stallion yelped and closed his eyes as he felt the wave catch up to him, but to his surprise, the horde of Rainbows ignored him, their target solely on Midnight who was at his max speed. “Keep running!” Shining yelled as he tried to see which door hadn’t been open, the logic being that the sole door that was closed would be the true exit.

The blue pegasus furiously flapped his wings, making sharp turns whenever one of the nearer clones jabbed to grab him by the leg. The end of the hallway soon started to come into view, with no corner to turn around. Gulping at this, Midnight began to pump his wings harder, gritting his teeth as he felt the original Rainbow nearly grabbing his hind leg. With the wall just a few feet away, Midnight did a small aerial flip before repositioning himself, his back legs connecting with the wall and causing him to bounce right off of it into the horde of cyan pegasi, none of them expecting him to do such a move.

The blue pegasus soon curled himself into a fluffy, making his hitbox smaller as the Rainbows began to jab at them, many of them missing and even hitting each other. Some were able to nip at his feathers, but after a few seconds, he popped out from the horde and began to fly the other way.

Around the same time this was happening, Shining Armor finally noticed a closed door. Reaching his hoof towards the knob, he was about to open it until a familiar purple thestral opened it herself. Her eyes widened at Shining before she smiled happily.

“Shining! There you are! Wait! Where’s Midnight?!” Moonlight exclaimed, before her eyes were filled with panic as she saw the blue pegasus being chased, the young colt struggling to get away from the sonic speedsters. “GET AWAY FROM HIM!” With that the bat pony began to charge at the horde, her wings extended out, revealing several darts underneath them. Just when the original Rainbow was about to tackle Midnight to the ground, Moonlight slammed into the crowd, using her sleeping darts to knock down dozens of them at a time, their inability to pay attention to anything other than Midnight becoming their detriment as they failed to realize her presence. As the mass of Rainbows began to crumble under Moonlight, the original Rainbow managed to tackle Midnight to the ground, eliciting a yelp from him, but by then the dose had caught up with her and she was snoozing on top of him.

By the time a minute had passed, all the Rainbow clones had been knocked out by Moonlight, who turned around and quickly pried the sleeping Rainbow off of Midnight. The blue pegasus gave out a wide smile at Moonlight.

“Moonlight! Thank goodness you’re here!” Midnight exclaimed, happy to see his friend again. The purple thestral smiled before giving him a nice hug, making sure not to prick him with her darts.

“Happy to see you too, Blitzy. Now let’s get out of this place.” The thestral said as a door suddenly appeared in front of them. After opening and checking inside to see if it was safe, Moonlight motioned them to enter, and thus the trio, now reunited, proceeded to hopefully escape the castle and complete their first mission.