Pinkie's Pleasant Surprise
Vines twist and intertwine in the dark dephs of the Everfree Forest; a place that no sane pony would enter if they value their life. However, the wanderer of the Everfree at the moment is no sane mare, and is not even a wanderer in fact. She's been here before and memorized the layout of the pathway from her last visit. This mare, who is of many different shades of pink and possessing an incredibly curly mane, is on a mission.
The pink mare, who goes by the name of Pinkamena Diane Pie, or just Pinkie to her friends, trots hastily through the forbidden forest, on route to the underground pond that lies below the forest's surface. Without a moment's notice the mare had sneaked out from under her friends' noses just a few minutes ago and raced to the edge of the Everfree, but now she's getting worried. Worried that what she is doing is yet another big mistake on her part and that she'll be reprimanded for it.
"Pleaseletthisnotfailpleaseletthisnotfailpleaseletthisnotfail." Pinkie Pie rapidly mumbles to herself as she treks the confusing path that leads to her destination. Normally the party animal would talk more loudly to herself, but on account of what happened last time, she chooses to try to correct bad habits. Key word being 'try' of course.
Even after the failure of the pink pony's scheme to be in multiple places at once by cloning herself, the mare just couldn't help but give it one more go. This time, however, she will try her best to keep the number of clones to one; just one exact copy of herself to make her life twice as fun as it normally was. After all, it will be like having a twin sister who resembles you in just about every physical and mental trait. What could possibly go wrong?
"I just hope the girls won't mind just one more me. I don't want Twilight to zap me with her horn, especially if I'm a nicey-nice-pants." There is no doubt in the pink pony's insane mind that her friend wouldn't hesitate to do such a thing. Just zapping the others and sending their 'souls' back to the pond was difficult for Pinkie to take.
She thought, and still thinks, that perhaps the other Pinkies had thoughts and wills of their own, which made them living beings. But that has passed now, and Pinkie is determined to not let that happen again.
Beyond the most twisted and malicious vines in the forest lies the the massive hole that is the pink mare's objective. Fog rolls through the forest and the distant howls and roars of animals sends a small chill up Pinkie's spine, but she navigates through the brush and stands before the burrow that leads to her goal.
Pinkie looks down the long and winding tunnel nervously, as if considering backing out of her decision. "No! I'm not going back now. I promised myself that I'd do this, and I'm gonna do it!" She gulps deeply and starts sweating a bit before sticking with going down the burrow.
"Well, too late to back out now! In that case . . . GERONIMO!"
The pink party pony jumps, does a triple back-flip while airborne, and plunges into the hole. Despite repeatedly bouncing off the walls of the tunnel and perhaps obtaining some head trauma as a result, Pinkie tumbles out of the tunnel's end without a scratch on her person. How? Because it's Pinkie Pie, dear reader, and that is a fact.
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-!" An audible splat can be heard as Pinkie's face meets the fertile but rough soil of the cavern floor. Again, despite the faceplant, the pink mare seems to remain unharmed, and with gusto stands on her front hooves before the edge of the mystical pond.
She cranes her neck at an impossible angle and examines the legendary cave that she found herself in. Mysterious flowers and mushrooms grow without the need for sunlight. Water(?) trickles down the high walls of the cavern at a constant pace that imitates the purring of a waterfall. The mirror pond itself appears to remain untouched by time or the touch of beings, and is as magnificent in its image as ever.
Launching herself off her front hooves and landing on all four once again, the pink partier takes in her surroundings, and then sneezes confetti. "Hm, I don't remember using my party cannon recently . . . ah whatever! Now where's that-? Oh, here it is!" Standing right on the edge of the pond, Pinkie looks into her reflection with a hyped expression and recites the rhyme that she remembered by heart."
"And into her own reflection she stared
Yearning for one whose reflection she shared
And solemnly sweared not to be scared
At the prospect of being doubly mared!"
A hoof rises out of the mystic dephs of the reflective pond once the rhyme is completed. But what is this? A white hoof? Why, that's not pink at all! The pink pony notices this oddity and grabs the hoof with great hesitance as a figure emurges from her reflection.
"Huh?"
As Pinkie keeps pulling out what's supposed to be a copy, she realizes that something has gone terribly wrong. She doesn't know how or where she cocked up in the ritual, but surely there has to be a mistake. Not only is the coat of her clone white, but her mane is blonde although still as curly as Pinkie's. To top it off, the mare has wings, making her a pegasus, and Pinkie knows that she herself is not a pegasus.
The blonde pegasus, after coming into contact with dry land for the very first time, looks at Pinkie as if she were a complete stranger. Not only is Pinkie baffled that something like this could happen, but she's troubled by the fact that this pony is not her by any stretch of the imagination. Instead of rejecting the newcomer though, the pink partier decides to her with a hoof.
"Hello, I'm Pinkie Pie, but I guess you already know that though, hm?" The pegasi's expression changes from confusion to worry as this strange pink mare shakes her hoof. "Youmaynotbemebutwecanstillbefriendsright?Ofcoursewecanbefriends!Wewillbefriends,I'msureofit!"
"Uhhhhh," The blonde mare wobbles a bit once Pinkie stop shaking her hoof, and frowns at the intruder of her personal space. "Who are you exactly?"
"WhyI'mPinkiePie- wait a second there! How do you not know me? I mean, I'm you and you're me, right? How can I not know myself if I do but at the same time not quite be myself?" Pinkie's head literally spins at the idea that this 'clone' doesn't have any idea who she is. She also couldn't help but notice the pegasi's voice which, while identical in pitch to Pinkie's, is much more disjointed in flow and is also struggling to prenounce simple words. This is not unlike a foal's voice, and this alone worries Pinkie greatly.
"I-I'm Surprise but I don't know where . . ." The white pegasus trails off as she looks around the cavern which, for all intents and purposes, is her birthplace. "Pinkie?"
"Yeah, Surprise-? Wait a sec! Who gave you that name? That's not my name! Howcanyouknowyourownnamebutnotwhyyou'rehereorhowandwhyarewedifferent?!" By this point the two ponies' faces are only a few inches from each other. The pink mare can tell that the white pegasus smells like . . . vanilla? Her mane doesn't even carry the scent of cotton candy!
"Uhhhh . . ." Surprise simply shrugs and rests her chin on her hoof scholarly for a few seconds. "I give myself my name, I guess."
". . . What?!"
With that, the pink party animal sees stars above her head and faints in a fashion similar to how Rarity would pull off such an act. And when Pinkie faints from sheer shock and confusion, you know things just got serious.
=-=-=-=-=-=
"-inkie? Pinkie? Pinkie? Pinkie?" A soft white hoof keeps poking our heroine in the ribs. "Pinkie, why is a strange stallion reading my thoughts out loud? Hey Pinkie! Why is the sky blue?"
That last question causes Pinkie's eyes to widen and she instantly snaps back into consciousness. "Surprise . . . we're underground. You haven't even seen the sky yet."
"Yes I have! While you were out I climbed out of the tunnel and I went through the creepy forest and then a tree hugged me so I hugged it back, so it's all good!" Pinkie just stares at her feathered friend and notices that Surprise doesn't use her wings.
"How come you didn't use your wings to fly out of the hole?"
"I have wings?!" Surprise rubs the side of her midsection and feels her primaries. "Oh, yeah I do!"
Okay, now this blonde pegasus is starting to resemble her 'mother'. Actually that's not the correct term to use, since Pinkie was supposed to create a copy of herself through the weird pond. But is that copy like a twin or the spawn of it's original? If they were to have intercourse, would that be considered a very unique form of mastur-?
"GET ON WITH IT!" Pinkie shouts at me- errr nopony in particular and Surprise gives her an empathetic look.
"So the stallion talks to you too? You've been out for almost an hour and he's been narrating everything I'm doing." Surprise climbs a wall and starts chewing on a glowing mushroom despite her not knowing if it's poisonous or not. "Mmmmm, this is pretty good! I don't know what this is but it tastes like . . . I don't know but it tastes good!"
Ignoring Surprise's exclamations, Pinkie rubs her temples and tries to think things over regarding this not-clone. She should've gotten a duplicate of herself once she recited the rhyme! And how does Surprise know her own name but not what a mushroom is? The pink mare just sits on her haunches and contemplates the existance of the blonde pegasus and her mind races like a veteran Wonderbolt.
"Hey Surprise!"
"Yes, Pinkieeeeee?" The shrooms must've gone to the pegasi's head, because her speech patterns have become much more slurred and mellowed out than before. Celestia knows what she's seeing!
"How do you know that your name's Surprise? You just came out of the mirror pond and yet you know you're name. How do you even explain that?"
"Well, I was swimming in this ocean- is that you call it? Yeah, ocean, so I was swimming and I don't think I was myself because I didn't even have limbs. I swam through the water without limbs! And then I heard somepony's voice speaking in rhymes and I felt the urge to swim up to the surface to see who it is. I felt like going up to the pony's face and yelling 'Surprise!'. When I came up though the surface, I saw you and I got this really wiiiierd feeling, like there's an aura around you that I can't help but feel attracted to."
Surprise lazily lies spread-eagled on the cavern ground and yawns, as if just crawling up the walls and eating shrooms had taken a lot of energy out of her. The pink mare can't help but smile slightly at the adorable scene before her and sits down next to her white feathered friend.
"Ya know, you were supposed to be me. I mean, 'you' weren't expected to say the least. When I looked into the pond and into my reflection, I was expecting another 'me', but I got you instead." She didn't want to sound awkward saying that, but the pink mare can't help but feel like she's being a meanie to her friend, so she does something she normally doesn't do, even with her bestest friends. She gives Surprise a hug.
Now let me explain first! This isn't a rib-cracking hug that the party animal usually gives to any normal pony whom she claims to be a friend. This hug is of a much more . . . gentle nature. Almost the sort of hug that lovers share while they lay together by the fireplace. Am I implying something? Heck yes I am!
". . . Pinkie?"
"Yes, Surprise?"
"Am I a mistake?" This question, which seems so simple, stops the pink mare's train of thought in its metaphorical tracks. Technically, Surprise was a mistake; an unexpected result of what was supposed to be a fool-proof ritual. At the same time though, the pink mare had grown to take a liking to her 'double' in the short time of her existance. She isn't sure if it was the shrooms that caused the white mare to use the term 'aura' but Pinkie can't deny that there's a certain energy encompassing her friend, and this energy is something that attracts Pinkie to it as if it were a magnet.
"No you're not, Surprise, you were just . . . not what I anticipated is all. You're a really nice pony, and I can tell because we're not so different," Pinkie runs her hoof through the white mare's mane, which is exactly like her own aside from the color change.
"Y-You like me? Thank you very much. You're the first pony I've ever met and all . . ."
"Surprise?"
"Yeahhhhh?"
"Do you mind if I call you Super, as a nickname? I like to give everypony a nickname."
"I don't miiiind that name. You can even call me Super-Surprise sometimes if you like." The white mare lets go of the hug and wanders back to the edge of the mirror pond that had spawned her. She looks into her reflection as Pinkie walks up next to her and they look at their reflections. "So this means I don't have to go back in the pond?"
"You get to stay, Super, with me if you'd like." Despite some physical differences, the two mares do look alike in some ways. Their manes are both curly, are the same height, have the same eyes, and even have the same cutie mark. Even their personalities are similar, although Pinkie was never really a stoner and doesn't plan on becoming one. Surprise on the other hoof . . .
"Yeahhhh, I think I'd like to go with you to- where are we going?"
"Ponyville. It's a really fun place, especially with my friends around."
"Do you think they'll like me? What if they become suspicious? I don't wanna go back in the poooond!"
Pinkie puts her hoof on Surprise's shoulder and nuzzles her cheek reassuringly. "Oh, I'm sure they'll like ya, Super! I like you, after all, so how bad can they be?" The truth is that the others might not take too kindly to Surprise's surprising and abrupt appearance, and it wouldn't help that Pinkie fled the town for what could be hours. However, the pink mare is determined to let the white pegasus live her own life, even if it might harm the pink pony in the process. "I'll protect you, Super, I pinkie promise." Surprise is only slightly weirded out by the pink mare's pinkie-promise-ritual.
"I"m not entirely sure what a pinkie promise is, but it sounds better than a normal promise." The blonde partier couldn't possibly be more calm and mellow than she is now. It's not the shrooms either, but a warm feeling that's taking over the pegasi's outlook on the situation. She realizes the wonder and beauty of everything around her, even the blue-eyed mare sitting next to her.
"Pinkie?"
"Yeah, Super?"
"Thank youuuu . . ."
"Thank me for wha-?" With a bit of courage residing in the stoned pegasi's soul, she leans over and kisses Pinkie on the cheek. It's not aggressive or passionate by any means, but more pleasant and kind-hearted than anything else. This soft kiss makes Pinkie's heart skip a beat and she blushes a fiery crimson and she can't help but grin at the sincere action.
"Maybe we should go back up, there's so much for you to see and all . . ."
"Yeahhhh, let's. Just hang on a second, please." Satisfied that everything is going to be just fine, Surprise has one last task to do before finally leaving her birthplace. She takes out a pair of saddle-bags out of nowhere and collects multiple glowing mushrooms that are growing throughout the underground sanctuary. "I really like these mushrooms! They're so . . . fun to eat."
Pinkie helps Surprise with her saddle-bags and chuckles at the massive amount of shrooms that Surprise managed to fit in her bags.
"Yeah, I bet they're tons of fun. So are you ready to go to Ponyville now, Super?"
Surprise nuzzles her protector caringly and smiles.
"Heck yeah, I'm ready!"
FIN
