Rippled Reflections

Focus.

Focus!

Pinkie Pie focused. She focused like she’d never focused before. Distracting thoughts cast aside. Cramping muscles ignored. Nearby muttering, giggling, explosions: all tuned out.

There was just her.

And the wall.

A thin layer of paint and her own fraying attention span. That’s all that stood between her and proving that she was the one, the only, the real and genuine Pinkie Pie.

She didn’t even worry about the duplicates. She didn’t need to. This wasn’t about them. This was about her. All she needed to do was focus hard enough, long enough, and she’d outlast all the fakes.

And then she could tell her friends how sorry she was for all the mess she’d made.

But first, she just had to concentrate.

“Psst.”

Concentrate on the drying paint.

“Psst! Hey!”

And nothing else.

“Hey. Can you hear me?”

No distractions.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk if you’re scared: just listen.”

No matter what the other Pinkies said or did or what cool stuff they wanted to share from between the cracks of the floorboards, nothing would break her concentration.

“Some of us have been talking and… we’re getting a bad feeling about this.”

*KPOP-FZZZZ!*

An explosion sounded off to her left. One more fake Pinkie, reduced violently to a wisp of magic. Just a roomful left. Focus.

“Yeah. Like that. I may have been born yesterday, but that doesn’t look like fun.”

No, it wasn’t. But it was important. Necessary. That was what made her different from them. She could understand when it was time to be serious. They didn’t know the meaning of that word.

“So some of us have decided we’re going to make a break for it.”

Her concentration very nearly broke.

“I heard from Pinkie who heard from Pinkie who heard from Pinkie who swore that Pinkie told her that if we all go at once, then there’s no way they can stop all of us. Cause there’s only five of them and… a lot more than five of us.”

This was bad! So bad! Her friends had barely managed to wrangle all the duplicates into the town hall for this. That trick wasn’t going to work a second time, especially if they scattered instead of just hung around town.

“You hear those popping noises? Like—”

“Hey! Look what I can do-” *KPOP-FZZZZ*!

“—that. Wait for five more. On the fifth, we all run. Just like playing tag, right? Pass it on if you feel brave enough to speak. Remember, five pops.”

The whispers said no more, leaving Pinkie alone with her thoughts.

Thoughts that’d had the support swept out from under them like sand at the beach. What was she supposed to do? She had to warn her friends! Let them know that the other Pinkies were going to try and escape!

*KPOP-FZZZZ!* Four more till they ran.

But… how was she supposed to get their attention? If she raised her hoof, she’d get blasted. If she stood up, blasted. If she shouted, blasted before she could deliver her warning. She’d watched duplicates get hit for less.

She didn’t know what Twilight’s spell would do to a normal pony, but after seeing the front row of duplicates swell up and explode, she wasn’t eager to find out.

*KPOP-FZZZZ!* Three left.

…No. She couldn’t tell them. It was too risky. She just had to trust in her friends to handle the problem.

More of her mistake for them to clean up.

*KPOP-FZZZZ!* Two more.

She ignored it. It didn’t change what she had to do. Her goal was still the same: focus on the wall and get proven the real Pinkie. Everything else could be dealt with later.

*KPOP-FZZZZ!*

She locked her muscles and centered her balance. This was going to be loud.

*KPOP-FZZZZ!*

“SCATTER!”

Chaos. All around her Pinkies burst into motion, running and jumping and leaping and pronking and bolting for the doors and windows.

And Pinkie ignored them. All that mattered was the wall. If she could stay focused, she’d win. Her friends were smart and cool and strong and fast and kind and she trusted them to catch all the Pinkies before any escaped. She just had to focus.

Sound faded away. Time stretched like taffy. Space contracted to just her and the wall. She’d never been more focused in her life. The stakes had never been higher.

The next thing she knew, someone was shaking her shoulder.

“Pinkie? You can look away now.”

The world expanded again. She was surrounded by her friends, not a single other Pinkie in sight.

“Huh? I passed?”

“You passed. You’re the only Pinkie who kept staring at the wall.”

“Not to mention not trying to run away,” Rarity added.

Something tight inside her released and she collapsed, boneless. “Thank goodness.” She’d done it. She’d won. She was Pinkie. The real Pinkie. And there was no question about it anymore.

A thought crossed her mind that dimmed her relief. “The ones that ran away, you caught them all, right?”

Applejack shrugged. “Eh, I think a few mighta slipped by, but we’ll round ‘em up no problem.”

Pinkie nodded and embraced her friends as they all huddled together.

However, a part of her still felt unsettled knowing that there were a few duplicates still out there.

Pinkie trotted down the street, her hoofsteps light and her heart unburdened.

It’d been a little over a week, and with no signs of any lingering Pinkies popping up since then, she was happy to put what had become known as “The Mirror Pool Incident” behind her. If there was still any out there who were smart enough to not out themselves immediately, then she was more than happy to let bygones be bygones. She wished her not-quite-sisters good luck creating new lives for themselves far away.

But with them gone, life had pretty much returned to normal.

…except that someone was following her.

This wasn't that odd—ponies followed her all the time—but usually they tried to catch up or at least called out to her, not duck into side streets or behind bushes whenever she stopped. It was like they were trying to play hide-and-seek, but kept forgetting which role was theirs.

She stopped to sniff a patch of flowers and her follower darted behind a tree. They weren't that hard to spot, especially since they were the only pony on the street wearing a big rubber Nightmare Night mask. They were probably shy. Or maybe famous! Maybe she had a celebrity crush!

It made for a fun sort of game. Like a silent red-light-green-light as she stopped and went and they stopped and edged closer.

It was great fun, but she was nearly at Rarity's, so it was time to wrap things up. And what better way to surprise someone trying to sneak up on her than to surprise them first?

She turned a corner and quickly pressed herself up against the wall. She suppressed her giggles before they gave the game away. It wouldn't be long, they weren't that far behind. Three. Two. One. A hoof stepped around the corner and Pinkie leapt out.

"Surprise! I got y-!"

Pain.

The punch took her completely by surprise, slamming into her cheek like a hammer. She landed badly on her shoulder, sending a painful jolt down the limb as cobblestones dug into her side.

"Ow!" she cried, "Hey! What's the big id-" A savage kick to the belly forced the air from her lungs.

She gasped as she collapsed. Her mind reeled, woozy from shock and sudden impact. This kind of thing didn't happen in Ponyville. Violent thugs? Never! Was it a mugging? Maybe. She reached for the bit purse she kept tucked behind her ear only for her hoof to get knocked aside as another wild haymaker caught her in the jaw. She tasted blood as her lip split.

She’d rough-housed with her sisters and friends before, but this pony wasn’t playing around. She tried to scurry back, only to receive another kick for her trouble followed by a vicious twisting stomp that ground her leg against the cobbles; not enough to break, but it was a near thing. It’d be purple in the morning.

Her mind raced even as it felt trapped in molasses. Who were they? Why were they doing this? And why her? She'd never hurt anypony!

She tried to crawl away, but with her injured leg and woozy head her attacker had no trouble penning her in. She was trapped. With no way out, she curled into a protective ball as stomps and kicks and brutal punches rained down on her legs and back.

“Wha—” she tried, only to bite her tongue as another punch caught her in the back of her head. Tears brimmed in her eyes as something hot and sticky ran down her face.

“H-Help!” she managed to yell through the wretched metallic taste that filled her mouth. Her eyesight was blurry, making it hard to see where the next shot was coming from. She tried to fend off the blows with her foreleg, waving it around, clumsy and desperate.

Vicious punch followed cruel kick, one after another in a brutal flurry that held nothing back. She weathered it with soft cries and gasps of pain, instinctively curled up to protect her vulnerable face and stomach.

She'd been scared when Nightmare Moon had returned, but that was like being scared of a natural disaster. A fear of something powerful and inevitable. She'd been frightened when Discord broke loose, but that was an abstract fear. The threat he posed was simply beyond what she could imagine. This was a new, personal, intimate kind of fear that made her thoughts go too fast and too slow and made her flinch instead of fight and shake instead of run and nothing made sense and she hated it!

“Hey!”

“Sweet Celestia!”

“Somebody stop them!”

But she wasn’t alone.

It was the middle of the day and she was only barely off the main street. A few ponies screamed and ran, but more rushed in to help. Blurs that resembled Raindrops and Pokey Pierce got their hooves around the madmare and dragged her off while others hurried to Pinkie’s side.

“Pinkie! Are you alright?”

“Course she ain’t okay! Jus’ look at her!”

She tried to nod through the haze of head trauma. “...Been bebber,” she managed to slur.

“Here, lean on me. Can you walk?”

“Someone call a doctor!”

“Let’s get her to Rarity’s. She’ll have a first aid kit.”

“Who was that?”

The last question made Pinkie raise her head. She wanted to know as well. Five ponies were working together to try and haul the snarling mare away, and she was not making it easy on them. One of them managed to catch the edge of her mask and tear it off.

It didn’t matter that her ears were ringing, Pinkie could hear the crowd’s gasp as clear as a bell.

It didn’t matter that her eyes were blurry with blood and tears.

There was no mistaking that mass of pink mare and blue eyes.

She couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Thank you! Come again!”

It’d been four days and she couldn’t get her out of her head.

“Morning, Sea Swirl! Want your usual?”

Working the counter wasn’t working as a distraction. She knew the menu by heart and her regulars’ orders even better. It just gave her body something to do while her mind ran in circles.

“And three fifty is your change.”

Even when she did manage to distract herself, there were always reminders. The cut on her cheek wasn’t deep, but the scab pulled taut whenever she smiled.

Then she’d be thinking about her again.

“Do you wanna add a mini muffin to that? They’re half off today.”

It was the eyes that stayed with her. Her eyes— it’s eyes. The duplicate’s eyes. She’d only seen them for a moment as they’d hauled it off, but that was enough. It wouldn’t have been so bad if its eyes were hard with anger or wild with mania. There was a degree of otherness that made it easier to separate it from her. But they hadn’t been.

Pinkie caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass display case.

Its eyes had looked just as happy as she was used to seeing in the mirror.

A deviation in her normal routine brought her back to herself. “Hiya!” she greeted the heavily-dressed stranger. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around town before! What can I getcha?”

“I think I’ll take…” Pinkie froze at the familiar voice she’d hoped to have heard the last of. “Everything you have!”

Pinkie barely saw the stranger throw aside their coat. She barely saw them lunge forward. She barely glimpsed the gleaming steel knife clutched in its hoof.

All she saw was its bright, smiling eyes.

It was sheer luck that saved her from the first strike. Her natural instinct to dodge had her sway back just far enough that the knife missed its mark and gouged a jagged line through the countertop rather than her face. Someone screamed, snapping Pinkie out of it just in time to fall backwards out of reach of a follow-up swipe. The display case caught the blade in her place and shattered, ruining the array of sweet treats with a shower of invisible deadly shards.

Scrambling back to her hooves, Pinkie pressed herself against the back wall, just barely out of the reach of the duplicate’s sweeping blade. Her back pressed to the wood, she slid left and right to as the knife came again and again. The swinging door to the kitchen was right there but to get there she’d have to step within stabbing range.

“Hold still!” the duplicate demanded as it continued to slice up the air between them. It stepped into the shattered display, unconcerned with the shards of glass cutting into its forelegs and belly as it leaned in to close the distance. “This’ll be over faster if you do!”

Another wide swipe caught the register, sending it crashing to the floor and spilling its golden innards across the cafe.

Pinkie frantically tried to think of a plan, but there was nothing. No weapons, no escape. She had nothing but the bare inches of air that kept the knife’s edge from reaching her.

She was alone and helpless.

“Get the hay away from Pinkie!”

No. Helpless, maybe, but not alone.

The crowd had fled out the door when the glass shattered. All except for one. All except the mare who would always choose to fly towards danger instead of away from it.

Rainbow Dash body-slammed the duplicate like a furious blue cannonball, knocking the knife from its grip and sending both of them skidding across the floor.

Pinkie collapsed behind the counter and curled into a ball, too afraid to watch, too scared to help. Her heart beat like a jackhammer in her chest, drowning out her thoughts.

Dash’s fighting skills weren’t just for show. It took her less than a minute to end up on top of the duplicate, its forelegs locked behind it in a submission hold.

“Pinkie!” she called out, “I got her! You okay?”

The words broke through her fear like a ray of light in the darkness. It was okay. She was okay. Dash was here. She was safe.

She opened her mouth to reply… only for a different Pinkie to beat her to it.

“A couple of scratches, but I’m alright.”

“What?” came Rainbow Dash’s confused response. “Not you. Pinkie.”

“I am Pinkie,” it said, as calm and confident as if she was sitting at a table instead of being held down in a pile of bloodied glass. The duplicate wiggled ineffectively against Dash’s grip. “I really don’t have time to wrestle right now, Dashie. Just let me up, I’ll take care of the nuisance hiding behind the counter, and then we can go do something fun together, okay?”

“What are you even saying? And don’t call me Dashie. Only Pinkie gets to call me that.”

“But I am Pinkie. C’mon, please? We can do it together, wouldn’t that be fun? You hold her down and I’ll get my knife and pretty soon bing bam boom, there’s only one Pinkie left and everything will be just perfect!”

It sounded happy. Genuinely happy as dread swirled in Pinkie’s gut. Somehow, being killed with a smile felt even worse than without.

“You’re crazy. Like, actually legit crazy.”

Morbid curiously triumphed over her fear, and Pinkie peeked around the counter. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, the duplicate immediately fixated on her and started bucking against its hold. “There she is! Quick! Let me kill her before she gets away! C’mon Dashie, please, do it for me? Let me kill her pretty please with whipped cream and sprinkles on top?”

It continued to beg and plead until Dash gagged it with a wad of napkins.

Pinkie didn’t come back out from behind the counter until Twilight arrived with her counterspell to send it back to the mirror portal.

The clock chimed 10:45.

It didn't actually chime for every minute, but the ticking was so loud it might as well have been a tower bell.

Pinkie sat up in her bed. She still couldn’t sleep.

She didn't need to light a candle as she got up. She hadn't blown any of them out before laying down.

Easing slowly on tender and bandaged limbs, she crossed the room to the door. She jiggled the handle. Still locked. Just like the last time she'd checked. And the time before that. And a dozen more random doublechecks since... however long she'd been failing to sleep.

She checked the windows too. Also locked.

The clock chimed 10:47.

Her body felt like it was on fire. Like she had cola in her veins, shaken and shaken and ready to pop but with no way to release the pressure.

She checked the door again. Still locked. She checked the closet and under the bed: that's where she'd hide if she were the one hiding. They were empty.

She'd tried to sleep, but she couldn't bring herself to keep her eyes closed long enough to drift off. She'd tried to read, but the words fell off the page. She'd tried to pace, but her leg would hurt if she stood up for too long.

The clock chimed 10:48.

She got up to make another cup of cocoa.

She opened the cupboard. She had no clean mugs. Her whole collection was piled in the sink already, cold cocoa residue congealing in little crescents in each one.

Maybe she needed something stronger.

She opened the ice box and started pulling out ingredients.

The clock chimed 10:56.

She slumped on the table in her kitchenette, the neglected half of her Ultimate Sundae slowly melting into soup, a lone banana rising from the puddle like the prow of a sinking ship.

It hadn't helped much. A few bites in and the strawberry ice cream had reminded her of a batch of strawberry muffins, ruined by shards of broken glass.

And then she was thinking about her again. It. Them. They weren't ponies. They weren't Pinkies. Just duplicates. Water and magic. Imperfect copies of her mind and memories... that wanted to kill her for some reason.

Once was chance. Twice was a coincidence.

She didn’t want it to become a pattern.

The clock clanged 11:00, the extra-loud noise startling her out of a line of thought she'd been trying to avoid.

Sugarcube Corner would open at six, the Cakes getting up an hour before to start the actual baking. Applejack would be there at five thirty, just in case any fake Pinkies decided to try anything in the morning lull. It was still three hundred and ninety minutes away.

The clock chimed another minute. Three hundred and eighty-nine minutes away.

She sighed and picked up her sundae. Maybe a nice bubble bath would help coax her to sleep.

She picked up Twilight’s magic trinket and brought it with her to the bathroom. It was just a simple ceramic ball on a string, easy to break, but that was the point. All she had to do was shatter it and Twilight would know she was in trouble and where.

She carefully set it on the counter by the sink.

No, that was too far away.

She set it on the rim of the tub.

No, too risky, it might fall in.

She set it on the floor by the tub—no. She set it on the toilet’s lid—no. She set it—

No.

She took a deep breath, held it, released it. She set it on the edge of the sink.

The clock chimed 11:06.

The warm water soothed her bruises even as the soap stung her still scabby cuts. It was a good pain. Distracting. She sank deeper, leaving just her head above water as she let the fragrant oils and bubbles work their magic on her aches and pains.

But neither the water nor the bubbles could do anything for the chilling thoughts that kept circling like buzzards.

A lone bubble detached from the rest and floated up in front of her, her reflection in its surface bloated and warped.

It didn't make sense.

She'd chased the thought around and around until it wore a groove in her mind.

Duplicates were supposed to be the same as her. But she wouldn’t… she’d never do things like they had. So why had they?

Did the magic break somehow? Did a copy of a copy of a copy pick up so many tiny differences that the next came out nothing like the original? But she'd seen firsthoof that the further they were copied, the simpler they became. They couldn’t plan, couldn’t reason. Most of the last ones could barely string two thoughts together that didn't involve "fun".

On the other hoof, the early duplicates had been smart enough to talk and learn and make complex decisions. They’d have been the ones clever enough to escape, smart enough to plan and disguise, and cunning enough to then come back for... revenge? Something else? But if it was the early duplicates that were trying to kill her...

She shivered despite the warm water.

…weren’t they supposed to be the ones that were the most accurate reflections of her?

She sighed and closed her eyes as the loop started all over again, another cycle of worry and indecision.

There were too many questions she didn’t know the answers to.

Why did her duplicates want to kill her? Had something changed them, or had they been that way from the beginning? And if they had been like that from the start, was it something that came from the mirror pool or from—

Something grabbed a painful wad of her curls and forced her head under the water.

The first shocked gasp filled her mouth with water, the second ferried it down her throat. Soap burned her eyes and nose as she struggled, breathless, against a grip like iron that kept her firmly under the surface.

She couldn’t think: there was no room to think. No air to think. It only took a few panicked seconds to reduce her to little more than a cornered animal, flailing and lashing out as the light began to dim.

Her lungs screamed at her, desperately pleading for something she couldn’t provide.

She twisted and thrashed and managed to get enough grip against the tub’s slippery bottom to flip around. It put her face deeper underwater, but meant striking forward instead of over her head.

Suddenly, the painful grip on mane was released and the downward pressure disappeared.

Her head broke the surface like a breaching whale, sending water flying out of the tub. Sweet cold air filled her lungs as she gulped it down greedily, only for most of it to immediately flood back out along with her swallowed bathwater.

With what little focus she could muster, Pinkie heaved herself over the lip of the tub and collapsed onto the floor in a growing puddle of bile and bubbles. She wouldn’t give them the chance to try that again.

The darkness was fading quickly as oxygen reached her starved brain, letting her reason return along with her senses. The culprit had fallen back against the door, a hoof pressed firmly against one eye as a thin trickle of red escaped around the side.

On the floor between them was a bloodied ice cream spoon.

Between her heaving coughs and her attacker’s stunned injury, she had a moment of respite. A moment was all she needed.

Her hoof swiped at the edge of the sink. Twilight’s magic trinket fell and shattered against the floor.

Pinkie collapsed back in relief and waited for Twilight to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

It was supposed to be instant. That was what Twilight’d promised.

The clock chimed 11:15.

She wasn’t coming. Why wasn’t she coming?

She was on her own.

And the duplicate was beginning to stir.

“Owie,” it said with her voice. “That hurt, you know.”

She needed to stall. Twilight had to show up eventually, right? Right?

“Sorry,” she replied out of reflex. “But so did the drowning.”

“Yeah, that was my mistake.” For a moment, Pinkie wondered if she might be able to reconcile with this one. “I should have hit you over the head first. Would have been a lot easier.”

“...Why?”

“Because then you wouldn’t have been screaming and thrashing and stuff.”

“No, why… all this? Why do you keep coming after me? I told the girls to stop looking and let you be free to live in peace. Why can’t you just go and be happy somewhere far away?”

The duplicate fixed her with a look that felt so wrong to see on her own face. A sickly midpoint between a disgusted sneer and an angry snarl. “You can’t possibly understand.”

“Make me,” she pressed.

“Because I was made to be Pinkie.”

“But I’m Pinkie.”

“No, you chose to be Pinkie. I was made to be. I’m supposed to be Pinkie. Being Pinkie is the one reason I exist. I can’t not be Pinkie, and you’re in the way of that.”

The duplicate struggled to rise to its hooves, a fresh gush of blood and other fluids streaming from its ruined eye. “It’s your fault. I was made to be you. I can’t look at you and not see everything that‘s supposed to be mine! My friends. My job. My life!” It braced itself against the wall and started to pull itself forward. “I just need to get you out of the way, then I can step right back in and there’ll be only one Pinkie Pie!”

Pinkie inched away, but the tub was at her back. She was out of time.

She grabbed her spoon, still slick with blood from her lucky hit. “I-I’m not going to just… give up. I-I’ll fight back. You could die.”

But the duplicate just shrugged and continued inching closer. “Maybe, maybe not. But even if you do stop me there’ll be another coming later. And another, and another until one of us succeeds and then she’ll have to be ready for whoever’s left to try and take her spot.” It smiled, the blood from its eye dripping over its lips and staining the space between its teeth. “It’s kinda like musical chairs. We all want to win, but in the end there’s only one winning seat. We all have to be Pinkie, but only one of us can be. Maybe you’ll beat me, maybe one of the others will, but right now it’s my turn in the chair.”

She lunged just as a brilliant burst of light filled the room, blinding both of them.

“I’m sorry!” Twilight shouted as her teleport finished. “I fell asleep! Where is—”

“Duplicate!” the duplicate yelled, pointing at Pinkie.

Twilight spun and shot before asking questions.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“No it’s not!”

“You were trying to help.”

“I shot you!”

“We didn’t think the other Pinkies were smart enough to try and trick us like that. Now we do. We’ll think of a code word or something.”

There was a somber pause as they both realized the tacit acknowledgement that there would be a next time.

The room was silent but for the beep of a heart monitor.

“What did the doctor say?”

“It could be worse,” if the duplicate had had her way. “The spell strained my magic pretty bad, but I’m made of sterner stuff than some pony-shaped puddles!” She tried for a smile but it felt forced even to her. “It couldn’t actually dispel me, so it just tore some mana channels. The doc said it was the first case of thaumic hypertension he’d ever seen in a non-unicorn.” She gave a rueful laugh. “So I guess I’m going to be the subject of a few medical journals. That’s something good to come out of it, right?”

“I guess,” Twilight offered weakly.

“He said I should be out in a couple days once they rest and recover.”

“That’s good.”

The conversation died as guilt and worry sapped the energy from the room. Her eyes drifted to the side, to a small table filled with get-well-soon presents. Chocolate from Rarity. Flowers from Fluttershy. A bushel of apples from Applejack. And from Dash… a gift certificate to a local self defense course.

And a knife.

A long-handled switchblade.

It didn’t sit right with her, but it was probably the most practical gift of the lot.

“Do you know how she got in?” she eventually asked, if only to break the overwhelming silence.

Twilight nodded. “Yes. Apparently she went to the locksmith, pretended to be you, and got a copy of your keys.”

“Oh. That was… smart of her.” Smarter than she’d expected a duplicate to be. “I guess that means I’ll need to change my locks. Unless Tumbler assumes I’m another duplicate and refuses the job.”

“Which is, unfortunately, a possibility,” Twilight said, before her eyes widened and she quickly backtracked. “Not that you’re a duplicate! Just the possibility of more being out there. I’ve been doing some research to try and determine how many may be left. I can’t be perfectly precise, but I think I’ve been able to make a pretty good estimate based on the assumed rate of doubling and witness testimony from around town and a recreation of where they were seated in the town hall as well as a bit of statistical analysis…”

A small, genuine smile worked its way onto Pinkie’s face as Twilight babbled on about search patterns and game theory. It was how she coped with a problem she didn’t have an answer to: she broke it down into math.

She wished it was as easy for her. Giggling as the duplicates didn’t sound very helpful.

“We’ve alerted the Guard to the situation as well and they’ve helped round up a few who were hiding in the Whitetail woods, and even one that was halfway to Canterlot. With those taken care of, by my estimates there could be as few as ten of them left.”

Pinkie’s stomach dropped. Ten duplicates. Ten more attempts on her life. And that was the good news. But there was an unspoken asterix to that number that she could see dangling like a hanging blade. “And the max?”

Twilight looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “It’s… hard to say, Some of the reported numbers were contradictory, and we don’t know if any duplicates made more duplicates before we sealed the cave to the pool, and the memory-viewing spell gets less reliable with each reuse…”

“How many?”

She shifted uneasily, biting her lip as if trying to stop herself from talking, only to blurt it out anyway. “It could be as many as sixty, but that’s just the worst case estimate!”

Sixty.

Sixty.

The word echoed like a funeral bell.

She’d barely survived three attacks. Even with all the luck in the world, could she survive sixty fights to the death in a row?

“Don’t worry, Pinkie,” Twilight was quick to reassure her, a kind hoof on her shoulder. “You're not alone in this. We’ve got teams searching the woods and fields around Ponyville. The Guard is on the lookout for ponies matching their description—”

Her description. Ponies all over were going to learn her face and their first thought would be “dangerous fugitive”.

“—in other cities. I’ve even contacted a few of my old professors in Canterlot to see if we can create some kind of scrying or tracking spell that will find them at range. You’ll be safe. We’ll find them.”

‘But I can never be certain you got them all’, a small voice in her head pessimistically whispered.

“And I’ve been doing some research on legends of the mirror pool itself. It’s possible that enough cross-referenced accounts might give us a clue towards some secret method to dispel them all at once.”

“I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Did any of the legends say anything about the duplicates being evil? Or turning on their creator?”

“…No. Not that I’ve found.”

“I see.”

Silence again claimed the room for a long moment until it was broken by a knock on the door. A nurse entered, fully dressed in scrubs. “Excuse me. Visiting hours are almost over and I need to retake the patient’s vitals.”

Twilight nodded and rose, giving Pinkie a careful hug before she left, promising to return the next day with an update and an improved alarm trinket with better fail-safes.

“Alright,” the nurse said. “Let’s see how you’re doing. Temperature first. Say ‘ah’.”

Pinkie tuned her out as she went through the standard list of questions and measurements, her mind drifting down darker paths.

There was nothing in the pool to make the other Pinkies the way they were. But for those first couple fun-filled hours, they hadn’t hurt so much as a fly. So either something had changed them… or the potential for violence had been inside them all along. Inside her all along. Would she be capable of doing what they had done—been willing even—if she thought she had to? If she felt with all her heart and soul that somepony else was filling her role, living the life she was supposed to live?

The very thought repulsed her. She was a laugher, not a fighter. The worst injury she’d ever given anypony was the duplicate whose eye she’d stabbed, and that’d been blind luck. Even if some small part of her felt a sense of grim satisfaction for striking back against somepony trying to kill her, it didn’t mean she could do it again purposefully.

But in a sad sort of way, it didn’t matter. The duplicates were out there and she’d have to live with that until they all were caught.

However long that took.

But what would her life be like in the meantime? Forced to be ready to fight for survival at every moment of every day? Duplicates didn’t have to worry about friends or laws or morals. Their purpose was to be Pinkie and have fun: everything else was secondary.

What if they cared about the lives of others as little as they cared about hers?

Her heart rate monitor picked up the pace as a grim picture painted itself in her mind. Sugarcube corner: the doors locked, the walls on fire, a duplicate watching from outside. Completely unconcerned with the fate of the Cakes so long as she burned in the process.

She wasn’t the only one at risk. Anyone around her would be in danger.

A sabotaged party cannon would take out a whole party, her included. It wouldn’t be hard to do: just a few minutes alone with a screwdriver and a hammer. If she could imagine how to do it, then so could they.

And she could never be sure they got them all. Twilight’s guesstimate was just that. Even if they got all sixty, there was no guarantee that number sixty-one wasn’t still out there, biding her time, waiting, learning from the failures of the others.

She’d never again sleep soundly. Never be comfortable without triple-checking deadbolts in every door. Never not be wary around strangers that she’d usually hug with reckless abandon.

She flinched violently as she caught a flash of pink in the corner of her eye, but it was only her warped reflection in the nurse’s clipboard. Her heart monitor skyrocketed.

“Oh gosh, that’s not good. How’s your pain from one to ten?”

Everything ached, but not as long as she kept still. “A two.”

“Hm. I’ll still give you something to help you sleep. Lie back now.”

She laid back and closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn’t even safe from her own reflection.

Her eyes snapped open as something soft but dense pressed firmly over her face. Her nose filled with the fake floral scent of hospital detergent and old pegasus feathers.

“Just hold still,” the nurse repeated as she leaned her weight into the pillow. “This’ll all be over in a minute.” Her surgical mask fell away, revealing a wide smile that held no joy and blue eyes that held no laughter.

Memories of nearly drowning came back in a rush as the heart monitor screamed. She tried to kick, but she had a full pony’s weight on her. One foreleg was trapped against her side. The other could barely reach the side table.

The apples thudded against the floor as she blindly grasped. She couldn’t turn to look: her head was pressed in place. Her attacker’s smiling face filled her vision.

Her hoof closed around something cold and slender. She squeezed and something clicked into place, both in her hoof and in her thoughts.

Given the choice she’d never willingly hurt somepony.

But she wasn’t being given a choice.

With her head held in place, she had a perfect view as she plunged the switchblade into the other Pinkie’s neck.

The weight came off as the duplicate tumbled to the side and she could breathe again, but she still felt disconnected from her body.

She’d done it. Until that very moment, she hadn’t been sure if she’d had it in her to willingly attack with intent to kill. And when pushed to the edge, she had.

And deep in her heart, she knew she’d have to again.

Even if she could fight this one off, there would be more. An endless line of punishment for her mistake. The consequences haunting her forever. Maybe that was the real curse of the mirror pool.

As duplicate blood soaked through her thin sheets and pooled beneath her, she couldn’t help but wonder: even if she did survive, would she even still be Pinkie Pie by the end?