“But Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted, pointing at the other Pinkie Pie next to her. “That’s not me! That’s a-”
And just like that, it was done. The sun shone through the window of the Town Hall in Ponyville, illuminating the room with an eerie glow. The five mares looked at each other cautiously and then turned their attention to the last remaining Pinkie Pie, her blue eyes never wavering from the freshly painted purple wall. It was over. Only minutes prior a horde of Pinkie Pie’s were running amok in town. And now, only one sat before them.
The others… Well, they chose not to think about it.
“Well…” Twilight Sparkle started, stepping toward Pinkie Pie. “It looks like you won.” She wore a smile on her face and placed a hoof gently on Pinkie Pie’s shoulder. “You must be the real Pinkie Pie.” The others took that as their cue and quickly followed suit, dashing to the party pony’s side and hugging her tightly, smiles adorning all of their faces.
All except Pinkie Pie’s.
“Well shucks!” Applejack said loudly, breaking the group hug and fixing her trademark Stetson. “Sure is nice to see the real Pinkie Pie, right girls?”
“You got that right! I thought we’d never see the one real Pinkie Pie again!” Rainbow Dash added casually, ruffling her hoof through the pink mare’s mane. Pinkie Pie sat still in response, eyes fixed on the paint.
The ever drying paint.
“Indeed!” Rarity chirped, longing to be included in the conversation. “We sure were lucky, weren't we Fluttershy? Especially since there’s not a single doubt in our collective minds that this Pinkie Pie is the wrong one.”
“Oh yes, it’s impossible that we made a mistake in judging which of the many duplicates was the real Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy concluded, smiling lightly. “Right Spike?”
Spike the dragon smiled from his position outside of the story and (unfortunately) joined the party. “Exactly! And that part with Twilight firing blindly in the group?” he pointed out. “Only made it more likely that we got the real one!” He and the ponies looked cheerfully at the uncharacteristically taciturn Pinkie Pie.
“Deductive reasoning at its finest!” Twilight beamed. “I mean, what’d you expect me to do? Ask each Pinkie certain questions only the real Pinkie would know, seeing as the duplicates couldn’t even remember basic names without being taught them?” The lavender unicorn snorted and trotted to the stage.
Applejack joined her on stage and aided her with the wall, dismantling the stand and setting the wood back outside. The two were as happy as they could be. They knew they made the right choice, and openly discussed their pride in their choice. There was no doubting they chose the real Pinkie Pie.
After all, history had shown that Pinkie Pie was calm, cool and collected. Not a mare who couldn’t sit still for a minute and the unique ability to break not only the fourth wall, but the very laws of physics, making pony Einstein and Newton roll over in their pony graves. Therefore, they were totally right.
“Wait a minute…” Twilight Sparkle said, freezing in her spot. Suddenly it clicked. “Sweet Celestia, Pinkie Pie!”
The unicorn galloped full speed back into the Town Hall, Applejack following behind her. She kicked open the door and dashed to her friends who sat around Pinkie Pie awkwardly.
“I think we made a horrible mistake everypony…” Twilight began, trotting in circles nervously.
“W-what do you mean, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked curiously. She and her friends were busy watching Pinkie Pie, whose blue eyes hadn’t stopped staring straight forward. Even though the painted wall was no longer there.
“I, well, I don’t think we chose the right Pinkie.”
Twilight’s friends stared at her in awe. They were so convinced that in their rash decision making process they had done everything correctly. Surely there was no way they could have failed at such a task.
“I-I know it sounds strange, given our ingenious idea, but don’t you think Pinkie Pie isn’t acting very… how do I put this… Pinkie Pie-ish?”
The other ponies sat around a moment, hooves against their chins as if deep in thought. Sure, Pinkie Pie hadn’t moved in what seemed like forever. Nor had she blinked even once. But her pink mane, blue eyes and otherwise awesome appearance was surely unmistakable.
“Well,” Rarity admitted, brushing a hoof through her flawless mane. “she does seem relatively… dull. No offense, dear.”
“Yeah! Pinkie Pie hasn’t done anything since we got rid of all those imposters!” Rainbow Dash added.
A wave of terror suddenly washed over the ponies as their heads slowly turned to face the pony they thought only minutes prior was their beloved friend, their fellow Element of Harmony. Pinkie Pie was motionless, sending shivers down the ponies’ spines.
“Uh, Pinkie Pie?" Twilight started calmly. The party pony didn’t respond. “We’re just gonna go outside for a moment to, uh…” She looked to her friends for help.
“Uh, do some pony stuff!” Applejack chimed in.
“Yes, exactly! Pony stuff!” Twilight agreed, grinning sketchily. Her friends followed suit and quickly darted to her side. “You know, stuff that ponies do. Like… Well you get the idea!” In an instant they were outside, leaving Pinkie Pie all alone on the floor.
“Twilight, what do we do?!” Fluttershy asked, fighting back the urge to cry. “What if that’s not our Pinkie Pie?”
Rainbow Dash trotted to the back door and opened it up a crack, peeking inside at the lone Pinkie Pie. “Yeah, we gotta find out who that pony is! I mean, even all her copies were going crazy and having fun. Why is this one so… weird?”
“I’m not sure girls,” Twilight admitted, sighing heavily. “But Rainbow Dash is right. That might not be our Pinkie Pie in there. She seems depressed or something. If we can find out who that is, then we can worry about trying to send her back to the Mirror Pond and get the real Pinkie back!”
The ponies nodded in approval and started to the door, waiting by it for Twilight.
“Spike!” the unicorn called. In an instant her dragon friend was by her side.
“Yeah?”
“Run back to the library and get that book! We need to find out if there’s a way to exchange Pinkie Pie’s.”
Spike saluted and ran off.
“And hurry! We don’t know if there’s a time limit that could be classified as some sort of convenient plot device!”
“So, Pinkie Pie…” Twilight Sparkle started, trotting up to the pony casually, her friends trailing behind her. “How are you feeling?”
Pinkie Pie remained still and silent, eyes unblinking.
“Ya’ know, now that this whole thing is done, me and Big Macintosh were planning on restartin’ that barn raisin’ from earlier,” Applejack said, a falsely warm smile on her face. “Maybe you could come with me!” the orange mare moved closer to Pinkie Pie. “It would be fuuuuun…”
Still no response.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere!” Rainbow Dash interjected, her wings unfurling in a flurry of anger.
Rarity scoffed and stuck a foreleg in front of the rowdy pegasus. “Rainbow Dash, please. Try to be civil about this.” She turned her attention to the shell of her pink friend. “Now dear, what would you say about a wonderfully fun time at my boutique?”
No answer.
“We could dress you up! Ooh! Or restyle that mane of yours! Or we could go to the spa and get a hooficure, or-or design a new outfit for the upcoming Equestria’s Next Top Model competition! Or even-”
“Uh, Rarity, I don’t think Pinkie Pie likes to do those types of things,” Fluttershy interrupted quietly. Rarity put a hoof to her face and giggled, hiding a blush.
“Oops, you’re right dear. Sorry about that.”
The mares waited for Pinkie Pie to burst out with one of her classic Pinkie Pie-isms, but instead watched her unmoving body for several minutes, hope fading fast.
“Alright, enough is enough!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “You want to do this the hard way? Then we’ll do this the hard way!” The prismatic maned pegasus leapt on top of Pinkie Pie, screaming a battle cry.
“Rainbow Dash! Get off of her!” Twilight Sparkle used her magic to pull the pegasus off of Pinkie Pie and dropped her gracelessly on the floor some feet away. “Oh, no no no…”
“What? What’d I do?” Rainbow Dash asked, brushing dirt off her wings and trotting back to her group of friends. She suddenly froze. One of Pinkie’s deep blue eyes was rolling across the floor.
The group of ponies stared at the mess that was Pinkie Pie. An unmistakable red liquid began to pool at their hooves. Her body was broken and tattered, smashed into the hardwood floor at disgusting angles with her torn mane lying on top, almost as if a blanket.
“Too hard!” Twilight Sparkle cried, running over to Rainbow Dash. She shoved the pegasus backwards. “You tackled her too hard! Look at her!” She pointed her hoof toward the decimated remains of Pinkie Pie, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Why did you do that?!”
“Wha-I-I didn’t think that would happen!” Rainbow Dash tried to defend herself, but knew it was useless. Twilight shoved her again, this time knocking the pegasus backwards and onto Pinkie’s eye.
“Oh that’s nasty!” Rainbow Dash shouted, shooting into the air. “Get it off!” She slapped her hooves against her backside, hoping to hit off any remains of the eye from her plot. In her frenzy, she didn’t realize that she hit it off, and right onto Twilight’s face.
“Wait a minute,” Twilight started, examining the oddly blue nature of the thing on her snout. “Is that… is that a blueberry?”
She picked it up and threw it into her mouth. Indeed it was a blueberry. She trotted carefully back to the supposed tattered corpse of Pinkie Pie and bent down, examining the pool of “blood” at her hooves.
“It’s cherry flavored…” she whispered to herself.
“Twilight? Everything ok?” Applejack asked, her and the others coming in closer.
“I don’t think this was Pinkie Pie…”
“W-what do you mean?” Rainbow Dash asked, still horrified from the incident before.
“I, uh, I think we confused her with an actual pie.”
Just then Spike burst through the front doors, a large book grasped in his claws. “Twilight! I got the book!”
Twilight quickly levitated the book over and flipped it to the page on the Mirror Pond, reading as fast as she could to find a way to reverse the spell she cast on the real Pinkie Pie. “I found it!” she shouted to her friends, all of whom gathered around the lavender unicorn. “It says that we have exactly 2 hours from when the spell is cast to undue it!”
The ponies cheered and smiled at each other, a sense of relief washing over them. “Now. Does anyone know what time it is and when we shot the last Pinkie Pie?”
“Actually, I memorized the times for no apparent reason!” Spike announced proudly. “Especially not to advance the plot of this ludicrous tale!” He suddenly noticed the fourth wall breaking nature of this comment and exploded. But not before telling the time. “It’s 3:10 now and you shot the last Pinkie Pie at 1:20!”
Twilight sighed with relief. There was almost no time left, but at least it was all going to work out. These narrow time frames are something she had gotten used to in her many previous encounters with villains and other disastrous occasions that threatened the safety of not only her friends, but of all of Equestria.
“Alright girls, get back!” Twilight shouted, quickly rereading the spell to make sure she had it right. The ponies complied and gathered behind her, excited to see their friend again. Twilight focused all of her magical energy to her horn and closed her eyes, feeling the powerful spell overtake her. The Town Hall was enveloped in a bright white glow, blinding the ponies inside briefly with its sheer brilliance.
When the spell was over, they opened their eyes, smiles on their faces. There standing before them was…
Absolutely nothing.
“What?! I did the spell perfectly!” Twilight was astounded.
“Twilight…”
“I mean, I couldn’t have gotten it wrong! It’s such a simple spell!”
“Twilight…”
“Maybe I could try it agai-”
“Twilight!”
The unicorn turned to face Rainbow Dash and the others, frowns imprinted on all of their faces. “She’s gone, Twilight.”
“B-but I did it correctly! We still had time!” She stuttered, fighting back tears.
“No we didn’t. Spike’s a dumbass and forgot to turn the clock forward. Day Light’s Savings just ended last hour.” The prismatic maned pegasus said comfortingly.
“Hmph. An admittedly strange time of day, if I do say so myself.” Rarity said, trotting to the lavender unicorn. “But dear, you did your best. Pinkie Pie would be proud!”
“She’s right Twilight. Although this is a rather weak copout, Pinkie Pie would be proud to have a friend who tried so hard. Even if it was only once.” Fluttershy joined Rarity and Twilight Sparkle by the mess of pie on the floor.
“Yer darn tootin’ she would be!” Applejack added. “I mean, that pie looked just like her! There was no way we could tell that wasn’t! Just look at that cotton candy over there. Looks just like her mane!”
“Seriously! Could’ve fooled me!” Rainbow Dash and Applejack went over to their friends and joined in a group hug.
“You girls are right.” Twilight said, smiling. “So what we lost our friend forever? We have pie!”
That they did. An abnormally large amount of pie was lying on the floor in a heap.
In all its pie-ey glory.
Epilogue:
Everyone lived happily after that incident. Soarin showed up later that afternoon and fell in love right away with Rainbow Dash. Mainly because of his lustful pie desires.
Scootaloo also showed up with the CMC and learned how to fly, all while they gained their cutie marks. They later grew up to become members of the greatest pony metal band of all time: Cutie Mark Castration.
Scootaloo now lives in Palm Beach with her husband and two children, Scoota-Two and Ted.
Sweetie Belle never did fully get over her heroin addiction and still suffers severe flashbacks to the Changeling Invasion. During her times out of the facility she can often be found in Appleloosa, visiting her partner, Belley Sweets.
Applebloom is now a Congresswoman seeking her 3rd term.
On occasion the old band meets back up and performs at local folk-rock gigs under the name Canter Craters.
As for Spike, he remained exploded. And no one really cared.
Oh, and Pinkie Pie came back one day. Actually, exactly 36 minutes after Twilight and failed in trying to bring her back.
Hey. She’s Pinkie Pie.
