Reflections in the Mirror

After a few minutes passed, all the different versions of the ponies were awake and running around the library. The native Twilight took shelter by hiding on a bookshelf. She would normally be trying to do something about this, but was too scared to approach any of the nightmare-ish ponies. I need to do something. she told herself.

“Where am I?” one of the versions of Fluttershy cried, flying up toward the ceiling, trying to get away from the chaos.

A cyan rabbit with a rainbow-colored tail weaved through the crowd at top speed, calling for her friend. “Flutterfluff? Flutterfluff? Has somebunny seen Flutterfluff?”

The alicornian version of Pinkie Pie was hovering above the seaponys’ bucket, chatting with the Pinkie seapony. “And then I said, ‘Oatmeal? Are you crazy?’”

“What’s oatmeal?” Pinkie the seapony asked. “It sounds yummy!”

Alicorn Pinkie stuck her tongue out in disgust. “Nope, it’s all gross and mushy.”

A version of Rarity was holding a camera in her magic, rapidly snapping pictures. Her version of Applejack walked up, wearing a very large amount of jewelry. “Is now really the time ta take pictures, Rarity?” she asked.

“Chaos is the best subject for pictures.” Rarity replied. “It really brings out the emotion!”

The seapony Rarity raised her voice. “Will everypony please be quiet, and will somepony tell me what’s going on here?”

All the voices stopped as everypony exchanged looks of confusion. Then they all turned to Twilight, who really wasn’t sure what to say.

“Ummm… Hello?” she said.

“Let’s go; maybe we can learn more about this place by exploring instead of sitting in the middle of this crowd.” A version of Pinkie Pie with short, straight hair said. Her friends nodded, including a poofy-haired version of Rainbow Dash and the Rarity with the camera.

“Wait, you can’t!” native Twilight called after them, but the group had already galloped out the door.

“Yeah, let’s go too!” alicorn Pinkie told her group.

“Can we go with you? Pretty please?” the Pinkie seapony asked. The alicorn nodded, grabbed the handle of the bucket, and carried them out the door. The rest of her group followed.

“Everypony, wait!” native Twilight shouted, but went unheard as all the other groups decided to leave. The only group left was the six rabbits. Twilight slammed the door to stop them from leaving.

“Hey!” the cyan rabbit protested.

“I need all the groups in one place.” Twilight said. “So you have to stay here. I can explain what happened- or at least what I think happened- once everypony is back here.”

The purple rabbit hopped forward. “So you do know what’s going on.”

“Yes, I do.” Twilight said. “But first I need to worry about twenty-four unknown creatures running around Ponyville. I think I can gather them all and get them back here, hopefully before anypony notices, but I need you to stay here.”

“Should we trust her?” a white rabbit asked.

“You should.” Twilight said. “Because I’m you,” she pointed at the purple rabbit “as a pony.” Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. The unicorn creaked the door open a bit, peeking out the crack.

“Twilight?” it was Spike. “I’m back and I thought I saw the others, but they’re not supposed to be home until later, so-” he was interrupted as Twilight grabbed him, pulled him inside the library, and slammed the door.

“Okay Spike, something’s gone wrong.” Twilight said, setting the dragon down in front of the rabbits. “I need you to make sure these rabbits don’t leave the library while I go. They can speak our language, by the way, I’ll figure out why later. It’s not important right now because I need to go find twenty-four strange ponies running about Ponyville before they cause a panic.”

Spike blinked, confused. “What?”

“Just keep them in the library.” Twilight told him. “You took care of Fluttershy’s animals once, this should be a breeze for you.” With that she raced out the door, the lock clicking behind her.

Spike looked down at the rabbits. The cyan bunny grinned wickedly, then took off across the room.

-

The Pinkie Pie alicorn, who’s name was Pinkie Pop, held the seaponys’ bucket in her magic.

“This town looks an awful lot like Candyville.” the butter yellow pegasus, Taffy, said.

An orange earth pony mare tapped her chin. “Ah wonder… nah, it’s too crazy.”

“What is it, Caramel Apple?” Pinkie Pop asked.

“Look at that buildin’.” Caramel said, pointing at Sugarcube Corner. “It looks kinda like yer palace.”

“You’re right!” the cyan pegasus hovering about them, Skittle, said. “That does look like Sugarcube Castle.”

“What’s your point, Caramel?” the white unicorn, Marshmallow, asked.

“Well, the place we just came from looks like Candyville Library, but just a bit different. Just like that place that looks like Sugarcube Castle.” Caramel continued. “’fact, all these buildin’s look like buildin’s in Candyville.”

“So you mean…” Taffy asked, “That this is place is like Candyville… but not quite?”

“Like a messed up copy. With less candy.” Caramel nodded.

Pinkie Pop considered the idea. Then she smelled cupcakes. “Oooh, do you smell that?” she asked. All her friends nodded, mouths suddenly watering. “Let’s go get some cupcakes!” and the group ran for the building that looked like Sugarcube Castle.

-

The straight-haired version of Pinkie Pie led her group through the roads of Ponyville.

“This looks so much like home.” Twilight commented.

“It looks exactly like home.” Pinkie corrected.

“Woooooo!” Rainbow Dash flew upside-down, giggling. “You know what, Pink?”

“No, Dash, I don’t know what.”

“I think this is home.” The silly pegasus said.

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” Rarity pointed out. “Where did all those other ponies come from, and why was Pinkie’s library so different?”

“Oooh, maybe somepony teleported us to an alternate universe.” Dash said. “In that case, we should find our counterparts! I can’t wait to have a party with this universe’s Rainbow Dash!”

“That’s ridiculous.” Pinkie replied. “We have no proof.”

“I guess all we can do is walk around and try to figure out what happened.” Fluttershy said.

-

The group of seaponies sat in their bucket on a table in Sugarcube Corner. “Thanks to Pinkie Glo, we’re in the middle of an unknown place without water.” A white one with purple fins said.

“Lighten up, Angel!” Pinkie Glo said, “At least we’re not back with all those other ponies.”

“I wonder why there’s no water here.” the Twilight fish asked.

“Almaco Jack, what are you doing?” the Rainbow Dash seapony asked. Said orange mare was swimming up near the top and calling to somepony.

“Ah’m gonna see if they have any seaweed. Ah’m starvin’.” Almaco replied.

“We don’t know if the food here is safe!” the Twilight fish said. “It’s probably grown out of water!”

“Why are you all sad and worried?” Pinkie Glo asked.

“Maybe because we have no idea where we are.” Twilight replied.

The Fluttershy seapony swam up to the top of the bucket with Almaco. “I just really want to eat something right now… I mean, if they have anything.”

The Rainbow seapony stuck her head out of the bucket and saw Pinkie Pop sitting at a table, eating a large pie. “Can somepony give us something to eat?” she asked.

“Sure!” Pinkie Pop levitated a piece of pie over to the bucket. It was a normal piece of pie that would feed the average pony, but would probably fill the bellies of all the seaponies since they were about the size of small rabbits.

“What’s this?” the Rainbow seapony asked.

“It’s pie.” Pinkie said. “Try it; it’s yummy!”

Almaco was the first to try it. She reached out for it and grabbed a small piece with her fins. She popped it in her mouth and smiled widely when the taste hit her tongue. “It tastes great!”

“Not poisonous?” the Fluttershy seapony asked.

“Of course not.” Pinkie Pop said. “We’re all eating it and we haven’t died, silly.” She waved a hoof around at her group, who were all hungrily eating sweets. “Oh, and I never asked what your names are. What are your names?”

“My name is Golden Wonder, but you can call me Gold if you want.” The yellow seapony replied quietly.

“My name’s Mela.” The cyan seapony said, swimming over to the pie to try a bit. “It’s short for Melanotaenia, but don’t call me that. What were my parents thinking?” she added in a mutter.

“Mah name’s Almaco Jack.” Almaco told the alicorn.

“I’m Pinkie Glofish!” Pinkie Glo said, swimming to the top of the bucket and dragging the white and purple seaponies with her.

“My name is Angelfish.” The Rarity seapony said, pulling her fin out of Pinkie Glo’s grip. “But please, call me Angel.”

“I’m Twilight Starfish.” The Twilight seapony said, then turned to Gold and Almaco. “And for your information, that pie could be poisonous. These ponies aren’t the same as us, they could have a entirely different digestive system-”

She was cut off as Mela shoved a piece of the pie into her mouth. Twilight’s eyes widened as the sweet taste of the pie hit her tongue, her reaction much like Almaco’s was. “Well… It does taste pretty good…”

-

The Twilight Sparkle native to this universe walked about nervously. Where are they? she asked herself. Maybe I should ask somepony… but not tell them the truth. Oh no, that would really cause panic. Celestia would have my head…

Twilight, lost in thought and not really paying attention to where she was going, smacked into something. She fell back onto the street, eyes spinning. “Oh, are you alright, dear?” a voice asked.

Twilight focused her vision and saw Mrs. Cake. They were standing right outside Sugarcube Corner. “Yes, Mrs. Cake, I’m fine.” The unicorn said, climbing back onto her hooves.

Once she stopped and took a moment to recognize Twilight, Mrs. Cake wore and expression of pure shock. “But… weren’t you just inside, Twilight?” she asked.

“Inside where?” the unicorn asked. “Sugarcube Corner?”

Mrs. Cake nodded.

“No, I haven’t been to Sugarcube Corner all day.” Then Twilight thought of something. “But you say I was just in there, right?”

“Yes, you and all your friends.” Mrs. Cake said. “I just guessed all your friends had come home early. Pinkie was an alicorn, but I remembered her saying something about a princess costume so I think that’s what it is.”

Twilight smiled. “Thanks, Mrs. Cake. I’ll just be getting my friends and going to the library, then. I had a nice time stopping by.” With that, she ran inside the bakery, leaving Mrs. Cake to stand there with a confused expression on her face.

“… I’ll just get back to buying the flour.” She said. She turned and walked away, towards the market. This situation involved Pinkie Pie and magic, two things that she barely understood. If nopony was going to explain it to her, she wasn’t going to bother figuring it out.

Meanwhile, Twilight burst into Sugarcube Corner. At a table she saw Pinkie Pop and all her friends eating different sweets. “There you are!” Twilight sighed with relief.

“Oh, hello.” Pinkie Pop greeted her. “Did you come to eat some of this pie? It’s so yummy!”

All the other ponies sitting at the table with her made ‘mmmm’ noises in agreement, including the seaponies who were in the bucket on the table.

“No, I need everypony here to come back to the library with me.” She said. She walked over to the table and levitated the bucket into the air. “You can bring the food if you want, I just really, really, really need you out of the public.”

“Sure!” Pinkie Pop hopped up, balancing a plate of cake on her nose. “Come on, everypony.” She said to her friends. Her friends all exchanged a glance, but stood and followed Twilight and Pinkie out the door.

“Great! I’ll explain it all when I have everypony back to the same place.” Twilight told them. Three down, two to go. That was easy, I hope the last two will be just as simple.

-

The group of friends led by the straight-haired Pinkie Pie came to a sudden halt. “Look, it’s Sweet Apple Acres.” Fluttershy said, smiling. “I think we’re home.”

“Let’s go see if Big Mac an’ Apple Bloom are there.” Applejack suggested.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt.” Pinkie said. The group walked down the dirt path to Sweet Apple Acres.

“Oh, look at all the apples on the trees.” Fluttershy said, pointing. “I thought I just harvested them all yesterday.”

“Another mystery to add to the list.” Pinkie said.

Rarity suddenly stopped to stare at a big, shining red apple. “Oh dear, it’s beautiful!” She levitated her camera up to her eye level and started taking pictures.

“What’s so beautiful about it?” Twilight asked.

“Look at the way to light from the sun is hitting from behind, and it’s so bright red with all the pretty green leaves surrounding it!” Rarity explained.

Pinkie shrugged. “Rarity does have a real eye for art.”

“Applejack too.” Fluttershy said. “She does make the best jewelry.”

Both Rarity and Applejack blushed at the complements before they were interrupted by a call of “Applejack! Applejack, yer home!”

All six turned to see a young, yellow earth pony filly racing down the dirt path towards them. Fluttershy flew down to meet her. “Oh, hello Apple Bloom. Did you get your chores done while I was away?”

The filly looked questioningly at the pegasus. “Why do ya want to know?”

Fluttershy’s expression turned to one of confusion. “I always ask.” She said.

“No ya don’t, at least not that Ah remember…” Apple Bloom replied.

At that moment, two other fillies came running down the dirt path; Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. They stopped by their friend’s side. “Oh, hey, you’re back early.” Sweetie Belle said, smiling. “What’s up with the new manecut, Pinkie Pie? I like it.”

“My hair has always been like this.” Pinkie replied, touching her mane with her hoof.

“Hey, Rainbow, your mane’s different too.” Scootaloo said, running up to the cyan mare. “Did you mess it up when you were doing some awesome trick?”

“Nope.” Rainbow replied cheerfully. “My mane’s been like this since I was a filly, silly.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Hey, your cutie marks are different too.” Scootaloo commented, pointing at Rainbow’s flank. Instead of the rainbow lightning bolt that was the cutie mark of the native Rainbow Dash, this Rainbow had three balloons for her cutie mark. One was red, one was yellow, and one was blue.

At this, the three fillies looked at the others’ cutie marks. Pinkie Pie’s was three wrenches, Twilight’s was a pink hospital cross, Applejack’s was a necklace with an apple pendant, Fluttershy’s was an apple tree, and Rarity’s was a photo of three diamonds. “Are you guys just messing with us?” Scootaloo asked.

“Something really weird is happening, Pinkie.” Twilight said, shaking her head. “Maybe we should try to go back and find that mare that looked like me.”

“… can we come with?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Of course.” Twilight said. Pinkie nodded, and the group turned around and walked back the way they came.

-

Native Twilight swung open the door to the library and walked in, followed by Pinkie Pop’s group. “Spike!” she called. “I’m back and I’ve got some of them!”

The dragon appeared on the staircase, a pink rabbit wiggling around in his grip. “Great, you’re back!” he panted. “They won’t-!” He stopped talking when he realized the pink rabbit had wiggled out of his claws and was escaping once more. He chased after it.

“They’re messing with him.” the Twilight rabbit told her counterpart, standing next to her. “They’ve been running around the library since you left, making him chase them. I think they’re just bored.”

Pony Twilight just sighed. “Oh well, you guys all stay here no matter what, I’ll be back when I find the rest of the groups.” With that, she turned and left, closing the door and locking it behind her again.

“The door was locked.” The white rabbit said, hopping over to look at it. “But she opened it from the outside, and locked it again when she left. How did she do that?”

“Ponies have magic, Marshmallow-bunny.” Pinkie Pop explained. Her horn glowed with blue magic and she unlocked and opened the door without even touching it. “See? We can do that.”

“But only the ones with the horns.” Marshmallow said, her own horn glowing.

At that moment, the cyan bunny hopped out the door to avoid getting caught by Spike as he ran past. Instantly, Pinkie Pop surrounded her in magic and pulled her back, closing the door when she was inside again. “Hey, she said to stay inside.” Pinkie told the rabbit.

“Oh well, this game is getting boring anyways.” The cyan bunny dropped to the floor and looked up at Pinkie Pop’s version of Rainbow Dash; Skittle. “Hey, what’re those things on your sides? Are they wings?”

“Yeah.” Skittles spread her wings to show the rabbit.

“Cool! It must be so awesome to fly!” The rabbit looked up at Pinkie Pop. “Can your magic give me wings?”

“Sorry, I mostly know spells that have to do with candy.” Pinkie shrugged.

-

The black, nightmare-ish version of Rainbow Dash and her friends were sitting in a dark shed they had found unlocked. She had one of her huge, bat-like wings extended to block the sun shining in the window so it wouldn’t shine on the vampire version of Twilight.

“Do you see anypony, Tollie?” vampire Twilight asked, calling to the roof of the shed. Out of the darkness a yellow pegasus wearing long, black cloak and holding a scythe descended.

“I saw some ponies, but they didn’t look anything like ponies from home.” Tollie told her. “Sorry, Bloody.”

“It’s not your fault, Tollie.” Bloody told her. “But we do need to find out where we are. What did the ponies you see look like?”

“Like the ponies from earlier.” Tollie said. “Like normal and not scary; no cloaks, no skulls poking out, no melting, they all have their eyes, and nopony’s dead.”

“Nopony’s dead?” a skeletal version of Applejack asked, her bones rattling as she shifted in the darkness. “What kind of place is this?”

“I don’t know, Hollow Bones.” Tollie replied, clutching her scythe.

“Argh, maybe we should talk to somepony.” A version of Rarity with a peg-leg, eyepatch, bandana, and sheathed sword strapped to her side spoke up.

There was a gurgle from the corner. They all turned to see no doubt the most frightening in their group; Gloopy Pie. She was like normal Pinkie, only she had empty eye sockets and seemed to be in the process of melting. Drops of pink dripped from her and disappeared before they could hit the floor. She couldn’t speak; all she could do was make a gurgling sound. Because of this, her friends had no idea what her name was, and simply referred to her as ‘Gloopy Pie’.

“I don’t think Gloopy agrees with your plan, Ruby.” Bat-dash stated.

“What be wrong with it, Vesper?” Ruby asked.

“Well, we’re not like the ponies here, won’t they be scared to see a bunch of creatures they don’t recognize walking around?” Vesper pointed out.

“Not to mention the fact that Tollie, Ruby, and Gloopy are the only ones who can survive sunlight, and Gloopy won’t be much help asking questions since she can’t speak.” Bloody added.

Gloopy let out a gurgling noise and nodded her head in agreement. As her head nodded, a few flecks of pink fell off but disappeared before they hit anything.

“What’s yer idea, then?” Hollow Bones asked.

“Maybe we should wait until dark and then try to find out where Nightmare Moon is.” Bloody suggested.

“Wait!” Vesper held a hoof in the air to draw attention to herself before anypony could respond. “Princess Nightmare always wants new land, right?”

“Of course.” Bloody nodded. “Why?”

“This is a land of perfectly normal and probably easily scared ponies.” Vesper’s yellow eyes gleamed. “We could conquer this land easily, and when we find Nightmare she’ll probably let us rule it like queens or something!”

“Uh, I’m not sure about the queens bit, but I think it would be fun to scare a few ponies…” Tollie said.

“It always be great ta have a good fight!” Ruby jumped up and held her peg-leg up in the air. “I think we should attack, maties!”

“Nightmare would be mighty proud of us if we conquered a new land for ‘er.” Hollow nodded, her skull clanking as she did so.

Gloopy made a noise of approval and stepped forward, hooves making a squish noise.

“I guess there’s no harm, just don’t… kill, alright?” Bloody said. Her five friends gave her shocked looks. “Listen, I know it’s weird to hear me say that but we don’t know what this place is, and we can take over without killing. Killing could be very bad; we can’t take a life without knowing who it is or if we have permission. And Tollie has a list of who she can take and I doubt anypony here’s on it.”

Tollie shook her head. “Oh, wait, let me check.” There was a flash and a floating piece of paper appeared before her, suspended by nothing. She read down it quickly then shook her head again. “No, I know all these ponies.” The paper disappeared with a crack.

“Alright then, let’s stay hidden until nighttime.” Vesper grinned, showing her sharp, bat-like fangs.  “Then we’ll show these ponies what true fear is.”