Mirror, Mirror, in the Pond

by AhriSafari

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Main 6
Length: 9500

Sometimes actions have unforeseen consequences, but in Ponyville those consequences are usually taken care of by the end of the day. Unfortunately I'm one of those consequences, a copy of a hyperactive sugar-addict, and this is my story.

"Sometimes actions have unforeseen consequences, but in Ponyville those consequences are usually taken care of by the end of the day. Unfortunately I'm one of those consequences, a copy of a hyperactive sugar-addict, and this is my story."

Welcome dear readers to my first FiM fanfic! Please go ahead and comment, whether its to praise me, criticize me, ask me questions, troll me, or even flame me. I'll try to respond to as many of them as I can. So without further ado, please enjoy!

Published 2013-01-07 09:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-02-23 01:02:32 UTC

Chapter 1

Fun fun fun fun fun fun fun funfunfufunfunfun!!! At the time that was the only thing I was thinking about. Really when you’re only an hour old and have the personality copied from a pony that is perpetually high on sugar that’s the only thing you CAN think. Looking back on it, I would call it quite monotonous really. What I didn’t know at the time was that my, admittedly quite short, life was about to get turned topsy-turvy, and not in the fun lets-mess-with-the-laws-of-physics way.

You see I’m nothing more than a copy of a pony named Pinkie Pie, who one day decided that it would be a good idea to make a bunch of copies of herself with only her base, hyperactive personality and none of the memories or experience to know (or for that matter care) how to control themselves. At the time I didn’t really know why, I was too busy having “fun” to pay attention when the original Pinkie Pie told us and I didn’t care enough to waste time asking. Of course by “fun” I mean running around Ponyville, causing more permanent mayhem and destruction then Discord, at least his mess got cleaned up by the power of friendship and rainbows!

Right about now you’re starting to ask yourself, “hey mysterious narrator? If you’re a clone of Pinkie Pie then why are you such a snarky plothead?” Good question! You see it’s always been my philosophy that experiences and memories have a greater bearing on your behavior than your base personality, and boy do I have different experiences then Pinkie Pie. I mean how well-adjusted would you be if you were born in a world you knew nothing about where everypony was trying to kill you? But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

So I was running around being an idiot and somehow I managed to make my way onto a roof. Then I attempted to do a stage dive, without a crowd, guess how well that turned out. Though it ended up hurting like hell I’m pretty sure this dumb move was the thing that saved my life, because at the same time all the other copies were getting rodeo’d into the town hall.

After about a minute I woke up and saw a flash of purple light coming from said town hall. I assumed it was more interesting than lying on the ground in pain and rushed to investigate. I stealthily, and by stealthily I mean I’m still shocked I wasn’t discovered and fried right there, peaked in one of the windows.

“Oh hey look, all the other Pinkies got together to have some fun! Hi everypony!!!” I said waving my hoof around to try to get somepony’s attention. Fortunately for me, only the Pinkie closest to me noticed. Unfortunately for her she turned to look at me with a huge smile on her face… then immediately was blasted with some of Twilight Sparkle’s magic, causing her to swell up like a balloon and explode with a magical ‘pop’.

Immediately my jaw dropped to the floor and my mane and tail deflated like a month-old inflatable toy that’s been stabbed by a needle. Why would someone ever do that? What had she done wrong? Part of me wanted to run away right there but instead I ducked down and peaked through the window, hoping to find some answers. Upon closer inspection it looked as if all of the various Pinkies, the few that were left anyway, were staring intently at the town hall’s stage. On the stage was a movable set wall with what appeared to be… drying paint? How horrid must these friends of Pinkie Pie be to put them through such torture! The 6 of them, 5 ponies and a dragon, surrounded the other mes on all sides and watched them intently, but for what?

I got my answer when one of the Pinkies turned to the other and challenged her to a crazy-face making contest. Both of them were then blasted with the same deadly spell from the purple murderous unicorn. This almost caused me to shriek in fright but thankfully I managed to stuff my hoof in my mouth in time to stop myself. At this point I managed to use deductive reasoning, despite not actually knowing what that was, to figure that they’re only blasting the Pinkies that looked away. If that was the case, what horrors would they do to me? I was never looking at the wall in the first place! Surely they’d come up with some new horror to subject me to before blasting me into oblivion!

A little while later there were only 2 Pinkies left staring at the wall. I could see the sweat collecting on their faces as they tried to avoid their certain demise. You could taste the tension in the air (incidentally, tension tastes like candy corn).

“Ugh, I can’t take it anymore!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed from the back of the room. She flew up behind the Pinkie’s and pointed to the window I was looking in through, causing me to duck down out of sight. “Somepony’s making balloon animals!” I heard her say.

“Hey! That’s cheating!” I whispered to myself. I didn’t dare to look back through the window and possibly reveal myself, so I only heard my cheerful other say “What? Where?!” only to be answered by a blast of purple light that illuminated the window I was crouched under. So then that left only one, what horrors would they inflict upon her for defying them for so long? My morbid curiosity compelled me to peak through the widows again.

“Pinkie, you can look away now,” Twilight Sparkle, the killer of my people, said to the one remaining me. I pitied the poor thing, how scared must she be right now? I readied myself to watch the only other pinkie besides me die just as I had watched the rest before.

“I passed?” the other Pinkie said. Huh?

“You passed,” replied Twilight Sparkle, “You’re the only Pinkie that kept staring at the wall!” What? So it had all been some sort of sick test?! What could they have been testing for that necessitated such brutality?

“I had to. I just had to!” Pinkie said, “I couldn’t leave my friends, I just couldn’t!” This apparently traitorous Pinkie was pleading to her friends as if SHE was the bad guy here. At the time, however, I thought it was just an act to avoid becoming another victim. “But I guess sometimes I will have to choose between them…” Pinkie said, leaving me more confused than ever. What did that have to do with anything?

“Knew you’d be up to the challenge,” Twilight said with a know-it-all smirk that just made you want to slap her.

“I’m me! I’m me! I’m MEEE!” Pinkie jumped up in the air with glee before landing and having a one second long Identity crisis, “Or am I? Ya, I’m pretty sure I am!” This apparently satisfied Pinkie as she broke out into a huge smile, which just left me with a deep frown. If she was me than who was I? For all my life up to that point (about an hour and eleven minutes) I had been operating under the assumption that we could all be me, but apparently that was wrong. Only she could be me, and if she was me didn’t that mean I was next to be blasted by the great purple destroyer?

All these questions distracted me from what they all said afterwards, so the next thing I noticed was them all walking towards the door. I knew I couldn’t let them find me, but I didn’t know what to do, in fact this is when I first began to realize that I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know anypony’s names (I’ve been using everypony’s name in my retelling of this tale just so I don’t confuse your simple little heads with the ever-changing nicknames I was using at the time. You’re welcome), I didn’t even know that I was in Equestria or even what Equestria was! So I just did the first thing that came into my mind: I ran.

Chapter 2

So running might have been a good strategy in the short term, but I was beginning to see the problems with it. For one running through the middle of the town is probably the best way to get yourself seen, and I really didn’t want anypony knowing I escaped the mass genocide I had just witnessed. I “solved” this problem by climbing onto the rooftops and jumping from one to the next. Though I must admit at the time I took the high road because it seemed like more fun than being stealthy. Hey cut me some slack! I was only a couple hours old; I’d like to see how objective YOU were at that age. Ya, that’s what I thought.

Anyway a possibly even bigger problem I had was that I wasn’t really sure where I was running to. The only real direction I could think of was away from the scary unicorn, which was a good start, but I really needed a bit more than that if I wanted to live to be a day old. Unfortunately I really lacked the knowledge to chart a destination. So for the time being ‘away’ would have to do.

After a while I started to notice less and less houses to jump to as well as fewer ponies below. Thankfully very few of those ponies looked up and the few that did seemed to just shrug and continue along with their business as if my actions could be considered normal, or if not normal at least common. Eventually I found myself at the last house at the end of town with nowhere left to go but the way I came.

The house was quite unlike the ones I had been hopping from before. For one thing it had a much older, gothic feel to its architecture, as if it was built before almost every other building still standing or its designer wanted to fly in the face of modern architectural standards. The building was also in deep disrepair. It had a hole big enough to fit tom the rock in its roof and all its windows and doors were boarded up. Of course most of these observations were made by me long after this point in the story, as my attention was occupied by something else at the time.

I heard a loud WHOOOSHHH (or perhaps it was more of a FFFHHHEEEEEEWWWW, hmm, memory’s a bit foggy on that one) as I turned to see Rainbow Dash, or as I called her at the time: Cheaty McCheaterpants, streak up from the center of town. I stared at the marvelous display of speed and agility before I realized she was about to bank and fly straight over me. Understandably I panicked and hid in the only pace I could at the time: the chimney.

I heard her pass overhead and I sighed in relief; it didn’t sound like she had seen me and slowed down, so I was pretty confident I was in the clear. It was when I attempted to get out that I encountered even more problems, I suppose Pinkie must have gone on an eating binge before copying herself because I was well and truly stuck halfway down the chimney. Ya I’ll admit it, I started to cry. Don’t judge me, it’d been a long first day of existence and I needed some release. It was then, as those VERY FEW AND INCREDIBLY RARE teardrops ran down my face, that I became acquainted with a feeling I now know to call sleepiness. After about an hour I was deep in my first dream.

***

“I’m tellin ya Pinkie, I jus’ don’t see a point to this.” My ears twitched as I was so very rudely awakened from my first, if quite uncomfortable, slumber by voices coming from the floor below me.

“Well that’s easy silly! I need to start planning my Nightmare Night party and I thought this spooky abandoned house on the outskirts of town near the Everfree Forest would be the PERFECT location!” I said, except wait, it wasn’t me, it just sounded like me. I was starting to get intimately acquainted with the idea of early morning grogginess. My limbs ached from the awkward position they had been forced into all night.

“But Pinkie, Nightmare Night isn’t for another 8 months! Why do you need to start planning now?” I didn’t know, nor did I really care who said that. I just really wanted to go back to sleep. I tried closing my eyes even more shut as a thick scowl appeared on my face and my tail started to twitch in annoyance.

“Only 8 MONTHS!! Oh I thought I had 9! Now I’m behin-”

“Will you all SHUT UP!!!” I yelled out before I could stop myself. I then quickly realized my mistake and shoved both of my hooves in my mouth. This turned out to be yet another error as the sudden movement was just enough to dislodge me from my perch and I came crashing down into the fireplace, causing a wave of soot and dust to momentarily cloud the room, obscuring everything around me. Not that I was really in any condition to be observing anything but the mysterious stars spinning around my head.

I looked up and as the dust settled I could see three mares standing over me with their jaws hanging halfway down to the floor. The first had a freckled orange coat and an utterly ridiculous giant hat, the next looked exactly like me when I still had excitement-powered gravity defying hair, and the last…

“Yaaaaaahhhhhh!!” I jumped back into the fireplace and started to climb up the chimney in an attempt to get away from the murderous purple unicorn who was looking at me like a predator about to rip apart her prey (well that’s how I remember it anyway, though I’ll admit at the time my perception might have been a teensy-bit colored by my biases)! Unfortunately hooves are notoriously difficult to climb with and I found myself not making much progress.

“Hold it sugarcube!” Applejack was the first of the three to snap out of the shock of seeing such an attractive pony seemingly appear out of thin air and quickly grabbed my tail to keep me from fleeing. Realizing I now had next to no chance of escaping, so I took a deep breath, turned around, looked Twilight Sparkle straight in the eye,…

“Please please please please PLEASE don’t kill me! I’ll do anything just let me live!!” …got down on my knees, and begged like a foal. Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit.

“Uh, what? I’m not going to kill you!” Twilight snapped out of the shock of seeing me appear, “I don’t even know who you are!”

“You don’t?” I said. I wondered if she was merely tricking me into a false sense of security before she zapped me with her magic head growth. Then I looked down and noticed my hooves were no longer pink, but instead a splotchy grey. I did a quick turn to examine myself and found that my whole body was absolutely coated with dark grey dust and soot. My mane and tail were also clumped together by dirt and grime, further hiding my appearance. “My name is uh… uh… uhhh… Dusty! Ya my name is Dusty!” I said, breaking into a huge (totally fake) smile.

“Well then Dusty, what exactly were you doing in the chimney of an abandoned house?” Twilight asked with a positively befuddled look on her face.

I turned away from her and looked at the fireplace to contemplate my answer, after a couple seconds I thought perhaps telling the truth would be an interesting shake-up. “Sleeping,” I said curtly.

“Why would you be sleeping in ther-”

“Hold on a minute Twi, I think something’s wrong with Pinkie!” Applejack said as she waved her hoof in front of Pinkie’s face, which still remained frozen in a state of shock since I had tumbled down the chimney, “Hellllooooo! Equestria to Pinkie Pie!”

“OHMIGOSH! For a second there I thought you were my sister Inky and I was SOOOOO happy but then I saw how splotchy your coat is and how your hair is too long and I was like: ‘Pinkie there’s no way that can be your sister! I mean Inky is back on the farm and she doesn’t sleep in chimneys anymore!’ No offense.” Pinkie suddenly sprung to life and began bouncing around me like she had springs in her horseshoes. She then seemed to take an interest in a bunch of randomly assorted blobs of soot on my flank, right where there had been pictures of balloons before, “What’s your cutie mark supposed to be anyway? It looks kind of like a face!”

“I think it looks like a tree,” Applejack said.

“You’re both wrong, it’s obviously supposed to be the constellation Gemini!” Twilight said looking quite proud of herself while her two friends looked at her like she had grown a second head.

“Um, what’s a cutie mark?” I gave them a confused expression as they all looked at me like I was the one who grew the second head.

“Now how can you be as old as you obviously are, have a cutie mark, an’ NOT know what one is?” Applejack asked while rubbing her chin as if trying to figure out the answer herself before I could reply, “That’s just downright peculiar.”

“Hmmm,” Twilight seemed to be studying me. At that point I thought I was well and truly doomed. She was about to figure out why I was acting so strangely and then I’d be on the end of one of those magical blasts from that horn, or worse! She’d lock me up in a strange dungeon where she’d slowly torture me to death! While I was silently contemplating my inevitable demise Twilight had apparently come to a conclusion, “I’ve got a good idea about what the problem here is!”

Before I could react Twilight reached out and put me in… a giant back-breaking hug. This elicited a confused “huh?” out of me as I couldn’t really compute why my greatest enemy was giving me more love and affection than anyone else in my entire life. Well at least it was better than getting the explodey treatment, but only just.

“Oh you poor thing! You must be suffering from amnesia and wandered into Ponyville by mistake! But don’t you worry, I’m sure there’s a book in my library that has a spell that can fix this sort of thing!” Twilight let go and puffed out her chest as if she thought of herself as some sort of hero that was coming to my rescue. Suddenly her confidence seemed to fall right off. Her eyes started to dart around the room and she began to pace back and forth furiously. “Oh but a healing spell of that magnitude must take some time to prepare and practice. I’d be a lot simpler if your memories had been tampered with by magic, but I don’t FEEL any evil magic on you, so it must be a physical problem. The longer it takes me though, the more her brain will adapt to its new structure and the harder it will be for me to correct the damage. Also where would I even start looking for a spell like that? My Psychology books? No, no maybe just in one of my basic healing magic spellbooks? But this sort of thing is FAR beyond basic… ” Twilight began to ramble before being cut off.

“Well why don’t YOU go work on that while WE show our new friend here around Ponyville!” Pinkie said. I silently thanked her as my head was starting to hurt from all the big words Twilight brought up that I didn’t understand, damn was I dumb back then.

“Ya Twi, you get goin, me an’ Pinkie can handle showin Dusty ‘round town.” Applejack added. I nodded my head enthusiastically, anything to get the armed and dangerous purple pony to leave.

“Really? That would be great actually.” Twilight said before turning around and walking towards the door. Just before she left she turned around and told us, “Make sure to swing by the library later so I can update you on my progress. Have fun!”

“Sure thing Twilight!” Applejack said before remembering something and turning back to me, “Oh right, we forgot to introduce ourselves didn’t we? I’m Applejack, my pink friend here is Pinkie Pie, an’ that mare who just left was Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia herself!”

“Ok, I just have one itsy-bitsy question,” I said sheepishly, “Who is Princess Celestia?”

Chapter 3

“An’ that right there is the hospital,” Applejack said as she pointed to a very wide three-story building at the end of a winding path that branched off the main road. Pinkie and I were already about halfway through her tour of Ponyville… and I swear I remember nothing of it before that besides the orange pony’s long rant about how the Apple family “made this here town with nothing but their wits and a bag of apple seeds,” and oh god was it tedious. I was beginning to realize that while I didn’t have any memories of any of these places, they all did have a sort of unnamable familiarity to them, as if I only had to see them at a slightly different angle and I would suddenly remember being there before. Now one might THINK that that would be a good thing for my continued survival, having a rough layout of the area in my head and all, but because of the monotony of being shown places I already knew I was almost more afraid of dying from sheer boredom. I thought about how I could sympathize with the clones that were forced to watch paint dry, but at least I could tune her out and focus on passing butterflies and the like.

“Uggghhh, this is SUCH a waste of time,” Pinkie said, proving that Applejack’s tour guide routine was just as tedious with memories as without, “I should be starting my planning for Dusty’s ‘Welcome to Ponyville, we Hope you Remember us Soon Party’! Oh it’s got to have party balloons, streamers, cotton candy, apple bobbing, a scavenger hunt, hide and go seek, refreshments, streamers, party balo-”

“Umm excuse me Pinkie, but what’s a party?” I interrupted my bouncing pink double. At this point neither her, nor our rustic companion, were particularly surprised, as it’s very hard to shock somepony with questions when you’ve already asked them who their immortal god and ruler is (its somepony named Celestia in case you didn’t know. Oh and her sister Luna too, but nopony seems to care as much about her). I didn’t even bother to ask what some of the other things Pinkie mentioned were, there was a limit to how dumb I was willing to look to satisfy my curiosity.

“Parties are the absolute best, most wonderfullest thing EVER! Everypony gets together and plays games, and has sweets, and dances, and acts all crazy, all NIGHT!!” Pinkie exclaimed as she put her face right up into mine, so close that out eyeballs almost touched, “You are going to have SO. MUCH. FUN!!!”

“Well that sounds…”amazing! I almost said, but then stopped myself right as I got to the damning word. No, I couldn’t like parties, even though it seemed every fiber of my being just perked up at the idea, like it was my very reason for being. But that was just it; it basically WAS my reason for being, because it meant so much to Pinkie Pie. Obviously I couldn’t be honest with them, or myself, as doing so would have blown my cover out of the water. So I did the only thing I could do, I pushed my living reflection out of my face with my hoof as I ended my pause, “…dreadful.”

Pinkie just stood there with a shocked expression for the second time that day as I walked away from her. This time, however, she recovered quickly and yelled after me, “You just wait and see! I’m going to put on the best party you’ve ever seen! It’ll be so good you’re gonna want a party every day FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!” She then made a quick turn and began walking away, muttering under her breath. I even saw some steam come out of her ears, even though I’m pretty sure that’s physically impossible.

“What?” I asked as I noticed Applejack stare at me with a disappointed look on her face.

“I’m all for honesty, but you might have taken that a bit too far,” she said, “Ah expect ya’ll to apologize to her next time ya see her.”

“Whatever,” I said as I tried to keep my face as deadpan as possible. I found myself feeling guilty for my harsh words, as if I had insulted myself just as much as I had insulted Pinkie. I didn’t have much time to ponder this though as a recognizable multicolored pegasus streaked out of the sky before touching down right in front of my companion and I. Yes, it was Cheater McCheaterpants herself, my fake displeasure suddenly became very real.

“Oh hey, I’ve been looking all over for you two!” the cyan pegasus said, more to Applejack than myself, “Twilight told me to tell you that Doctor Whooves saw one of the Pinkie clones escape yesterday…”

“WHAT?!” Applejack yelled out in surprise, interrupting Rainbow Dash.

“Ya I know! I thought we’d gotten them all. Anyway, Twilight and your brother went to go block the entrance to wherever Pinkie went to go copy herself to make sure whichever one got out doesn’t go make more. So ya I’m supposed to tell you that she won’t be able to work on that healing spell today,” Rainbow said, “Well sorry I can’t stay and chat but I gotta go get Pinkie so we can search the town for the runaway. Bye!” Rainbow bounced up and shot back up into the sky, leaving a cloud of dust where she once stood. She seemed to have so much energy and excitement at the prospect of tracking down a ‘dangerous renegade’ that, had she not had wings, I might have mistaken her for another Pinkie clone.

“Well that was rude, she didn’t even introduce herself,” Applejack said, her eyebrows crossed in frustration, “that was Rainbow Dash, our local weathermare. She was talking about an… incident we had yesterday that I THOUGHT we already had taken care of, but apparently not.” She then muttered something under her breath and roughly adjusted her hat with her hoof; obviously the rodeo horse was upset by more than Dash’s lack of manners.

I didn’t mind at all, in fact I was thanking my lucky stars that the pony hadn’t given me a second look. Assuredly the copy this “Doctor Whooves” (silly name, but he’s a nice colt once you get to know him) had seen was me, and that meant that they were all looking for me RIGHT NOW. I stood there with my pupils as small as pins, roughly breathing in and out. I thought about how it wouldn’t take very long for a pony that could fly that fast to search the entire town, along with a pony who arguably knew me better than myself. It was just a matter of timing before they found me and then… Bing. Bang. Zam.

“Hey are you all right sugarcube?” I realized Applejack had turned and was looking at me with a confused expression. I knew I couldn’t seem too shocked by this revelation or else I might be discovered. I forced my mouth into a creaky smile that looked more like I was attempting to snap my own teeth off with pure biting power and nodded my head up and down much too aggressively. It was less of a nod and more using my head to imitate a jackhammer. This just made the freckled farmer’s confused frown deepen, but apparently it was enough to satisfy her as she just shrugged her shoulders and continued her tour.

***

A short while later Applejack shoved me into a building she’d identified as the Carousel Boutique, a dressmaking shop owned and operated by her friend Rarity. AJ insisted that I meet her, though I tried to get out of it for reasons of my own safety as most of her friends were currently busy trying to find and kill me. Unfortunately the fact that her long hours working the farm had made her stronger than me greatly increased the persuasiveness of her argument.

“Now I know makin’ friends can be a scary business, but I’m sure you and Rarity will get along just fin-”

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” the white-coated unicorn who was present at the town hall massacre the day before rounded the corner, saw me, and started screaming at the top of her lungs. “What in the name of Princess Celestia were you THINKING bringing her in here!?!”

This is it, I thought, she’s figured it out, I’m going to die

“What in tarnation are you talking about Rarity? This is our new friend Dusty and I’m taking her on a tour of the town!” Applejack said, stomping her hoof on the ground, “Why’s everypony being so rude today?”

“I don’t care who she is! YOU just let a pony absolutely, positively, COVERED IN DIRT into MY shop!!” Rarity got right up into Applejack’s face and started randomly gesturing to me. The unicorn appeared to be trying to burn a hole in her friend’s head with her gaze, fortunately she didn’t appear to be succeeding. “If THAT is not rude I don’t know what is!!!”

“Well… I… uh… ” Applejack began to blush in embarrassment as she pulled the brim of her hat down over her face.

“You just stay out here and think about what you have done while I get Dusty cleaned up,” Rarity said before turning around with a huff and walking towards the shop’s back room. I felt myself get lifted up by a light blue aura dragged me along through the air behind the neat-freak. I wildly kicked around in an attempt to get away, but the magic held strong. “Don’t worry dear, I’ll have you all fixed up before you know it!”

Once we’d gotten to the back room she set me down. I let myself breathe out, if she was going to kill me she would have done it right there, right? But then what DID the unicorn have planned for me?

“Excuse me Rarity, but why did you bring me back here?” I asked, my voice squeaking in fright.

“Oh, just for a little wash… ” she replied with a scheming smile on her face as she backed up away from me towards the wall. Suddenly I saw that same blue glow that she used to carry me appear behind her as a large hose reared up behind the dressmaker. It moved almost as if it was a snake, its ‘body’ rolling back and forth, yet its ‘head’ stayed in place, as if staring me down with its non-existent eyes. “Now stay still for juuuussssttt a minute!”

“Uh oh,” I barely had time to utter before I was hit with a giant blast of water that threw me across the room and slammed me into the opposite wall with a loud bang. The pressure held me there for a solid minute before my assailant stopped the flow of water and I fell to the ground, dazed and confused. The entire world spun around me as I coughed up copious amounts of water from my lungs.

“Oh dear, perhaps I may have overdone it a lit… oh… ” I looked up to see an absolutely stunned Rarity staring at me with an expression of pure shock on her face.

Only then did I notice the black water pooling beneath me, and how pink my coat was.

Chapter 4

I really wish I could say something exiting happened after that, like ‘Rarity rushed for the door so I tackled her’ or ‘Rarity used her magic to assault me with random items from around the room’ but nope, none of that happened. Instead we both just stared at each other, mouths limply hung open, her standing over me as I lay sprawled out on the floor in a pool of extraordinarily dirty water. Not a sound was made except the clatter of the hose falling to the ground as it was released by the magic that was holding it aloft. This went on for about 10, maybe 20 minutes, neither of us daring to move.

“Um… Hello… ” Rarity hesitantly broke the silence.

“… Hi… ” I responded in kind, doing my best to put a smile on my face, and failing miserably.

“Well, why don’t you stay here Pi… Dusty… And I’ll go get Twilight… ” Rarity mumbled as she backed up towards the door, watching me but not making eye contact with me.

“… OK… ” I replied. It had been a fun ride, being alive, but at that point there was no use fighting it anymore. It was bound to happen eventually, you couldn’t just walk around with someone else’s face without being noticed. Even back then I knew that. I decided that I just wouldn’t fight it anymore, yep, I just gave up. I mean what was I supposed to do? Kill Rarity? No, I didn’t have the heart for that, and anyway she was supposed to exist, and I wasn’t. Strangely enough I also thought about how I’d actually MISS the ponies I’d met, because they’d been nice to me. I mean I knew I’d probably see them before they killed me, but they’d hate me then. I looked down into the pool of water and saw that my reflection was obscured by the small ripples created as the tears streaming down my face hit the water.

I just sat there, sobbing with my head held low, thinking the dressmaker had already left me to find Twilight. After a few moments, however, I looked back up to see Rarity standing over me again with an odd expression that seemed to combine the worst aspects of confusion, pity, and sympathy.

“Why are you crying?” She asked.

“*sniff* Why do you think I’m crying? Your about to go get *sniff* that purple friend of yours and she’s going to kill me *sniff* just like she killed all the others!” I said, sobbing. Why was she even pretending to care? She knew exactly what she was doing, or so I thought at the time.

“But… but you’re not real! How can Twilight kill something that isn’t real… ” Rarity said as she sat down so she was eye-level with me. I didn’t feel like she was looking at me however, it felt more like she was staring through me to something right past me.

“Well I think I’m real *sniff*!” I said, “And the other clones thought they were real too, but you killed them all anyway, I SAW YOU DO IT!”

“But we had to, you were all destroying the town, what were we supposed to do?”

“We had no memories, no knowledge, no directive other than to have fun… We were just following orders… You never even tried to talk to us!”

As I finished my statement Rarity’s head jerked a bit and her eyes finally focused on mine, as if she had no clue I was there and was startled by my presence. “Please excuse me for just a moment,” she said as she jumped up and walked out of the back room, I assumed to go and get Twilight like she said she’d do.

Boy was I surprised when she returned not two minutes later, alone, carrying with her magic a towel and a tray with two cups of tea.

“Here darling, take this and dry off. Then we can talk over tea like civilized ponies,” she said while levitating the towel over to me.

“Just *sniff* talk?” I replied pathetically.

“Yes just talk,” Rarity said, her expression blank and unreadable.

And that’s exactly what we did, for an hour I talked and talked about exactly what had happened to me. My smile returned when I talked about having fun with all the other clones. I shook with fear as I talked about the events I had seen at the town hall. My heart raced as I talked about my daring rooftop escape and subsequent discovery. Then finally I ended my story with AJ’s tour and our arrival there at the boutique.

I turned my head and found to my surprise that tears were streaming down the face of my unexpected confidant’s face. I’d been too focused on my story to hear her sneezing and sniffling. I just stared dumbly at the strange instance of empathy. Could she really have been sorry for ME?

“Oh dear that is absolutely the SADDEST story I’ve ever heard!” she said while embracing me in a giant hug, “It’s all my fault! I should have stopped that wretched test before it even began! I am a HORRIBLE PONY!!!”

“It’s alright… Please don’t cry,” I said. Before I knew it I was hugging her back and felt her tears stream onto my shoulder. Wait, why was I comforting HER? I was the one who had come close to dying the previous couple days more times than I could count, not her. But she’d listened to me, and NOT immediately wanted to give me the old zap-o-death, and I guess that made her my… friend? Something inside me just told me that that was the right thing to do when a friend was upset.

“But, you must HATE ME! I helped Twilight do that horrible thing… My hooves painted that dreadful wall! Oh how could you ever forgive me?”

“Well, I probably shouldn’t, but you could’ve gotten that purple friend of yours, yet you didn’t. I don’t really have anyone else right now, so it doesn’t really make sense for me to hold a grudge with you,” I said honestly.

“Really?” Rarity finally stopped her crying and released me from her vice-like hug. Suddenly she squinted her eyes and began examining my drenched coat, “Hmmmm, this won’t do at all.”

“What?” I asked defensively while crossing my hooves in front of myself in a vain attempt to shield my body from her inquisitive eyes.

“Well we need to hide your appearance somehow; you can’t just keep covering yourself with soot for the rest of your life. Plus what if you were to get wet again? Or encounter some wind? The pink coat is a dead giveaway, even if your mane isn’t poofy like Pinkie’s is.”

She did have a point, with the exception of my straight mane and lack of a big goofy smile I still looked exactly like Pinky. If I had kept my old disguise it wouldn’t have been long before ponies started wondering why I wasn’t washing myself. “Ok what do you have in mind?”

Rarity met my eyes and gave me a smile that was probably meant to look innocent, but something about it scared the living daylights out of me.

***

The next few hours were so torturously boring that I’m leaving them out of the story for your collective sanity, you’re welcome. However I had to say, Rarity did a great job. She dyed my coat a dark grey that more or less matched that of the soot. She dabbed a few darker spots on my cheeks to simulate freckles and on my flank to exactly replicate the splotches that had been there before (Rarity insisted that it would give me away in a heartbeat if anypony noticed my cutie mark was different than it was this morning). She dyed my mane and tail a much lighter grey and braided them. She insisted that this made me look like a monochromatic version of Applejack at the Grand Galloping Gala but with straighter bangs (this last part was very important to Rarity for some reason, apparently the bangs made it just original enough so that she felt that she wasn’t copying her own work). I wasn’t alive at the time, so I can’t say for myself; all I knew was that I looked good, and more importantly nothing like Pinkie Pie.

I walked back out to the main area to find Applejack asleep on one of the chairs. I walked up and gently nudged her with my hoof. As she came to she didn’t seem to recognize me or the surroundings before suddenly remembering. She jumped out of her seat and started apologizing, “I’m sorry! I musta dozed off! Ya look nice by tha’ way.”

“You know you could’ve left right?” I said, choosing not to acknowledge the complement as my appearance was entirely Rarity’s doing, not mine. I would have been content to roll around in soot every day until I got caught!

“Not on your life sugarcube! I promised I’d see ya around Ponyville and I meant it!” The farmer stomped her hoof on the ground for emphasis.

“Well it’s kinda late,” I said, motioning to the windows, which now filtered Luna’s moonlight into the room, “And Rarity already offered me a place to stay, so you can go home now.” Rarity had thought it better to use physical dyes instead of doing it magically, as while magical dye can be permanent if the wielder wishes to make it so, it also leaves a bit of a magic signature. The dressmaker was pretty sure that Twilight Sparkle, being so magically inclined, would notice it. Rarity insisted that once the studious pony noticed, she’d be too curious to resist trying to find out why. So I was given a dye that needed some upkeep every few days from Rarity otherwise it could be washed off by water, but was indistinguishable from a natural coat. So it made the most sense for me to stay at the Boutique. Plus it didn’t hurt that she was the only pony not currently trying to hunt down and kill me.

“Ok… Tomorrow you should come by and see Sweet Apple Acres! My family would love to meet’cha!” Applejack said before walking out the door into the cool night air.

After she left I went upstairs to the guest room that Rarity had been busy setting up for me and I got my first nights rest in an actual bed. And let me tell you: it. was. amazing.

Chapter 5

7 Days Later

“Are you sure you don’t remember ANYTHING?!”

I put a hoof up to my chin and made a big show of thinking about it just to see Twilight even more flustered. “Yaaaa… no,” I said.

“ARRRGGGGHHH!!!” Twilight ground her teeth together in frustration and paced around the library. This had become a common occurrence over the past week I’d been in Ponyville. Everyday Rarity and I would go to Twilight’s library where she would try some new spell in order to cure my “amnesia”. She never succeeded, of course, because I didn’t have amnesia, but we couldn’t tell the studious unicorn that. I barely managed to suppress cracking up at the mare’s frustration, her facial expressions were just so funny. “Are you sure I can’t use the memory spell to look into her mind and see what’s wrong?” She asked.

“Come now darling, you know that that is a terrible invasion of privacy,” Rarity didn’t even look up from the magazine she was reading, she didn’t need to. Twilight had asked that same question every time her spells failed to achieve any results, so Rarity’s answer had become habit for the fashionista. After all, there were a few memories in there that I’d very much prefer the frightening (to me anyway) purple unicorn not to see.

“Well then I’m at a loss! I’ve tried absolutely every spell known to ponies, and even a few zebra remedies! I’m sorry Dusty, but I don’t think I can help you,” Twilight Sparkle said, her eyes cast down towards the floor avoiding my gaze. I will admit, my fear and hatred of her had lessened just a smidge after seeing how she did legitimately care about my wellbeing and tried to help me. I say a smidge because I still was well aware that that compassion would vanish in an instant once she knew who I really was.

“It’s ok Twilight. I guess it’s just a new start for me is all. I’ll adapt!” I put a hoof on the depressed unicorn’s shoulder and gave her my now-signature smirk. Even though, thanks to Rarity, I didn’t look like Pinkie Pie anymore, I still endeavored to make my movements as little like her as possible, including not giving any of her giant goofy smiles.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rarity looking up at me and smiling. While Twilight was still looking at the ground I turned my head and shot her a questioning look, but she had gone back to reading her magazine as if nothing had happened.

***

Later that day I was lying on Rarity’s couch (the one that she sometimes lugs around with her when she’s feeling particularly dramatic) staring at the boutique’s ceiling. My host had left for her weekly spa trip with her friend Fluttershy. I’d been invited, but I could tell that Rarity kind of wanted a break from me, which was fair considering I’d spent most of my waking hours clinging to her in fear. Though, looking back on it, I’m not really sure what I thought Rarity was going to protect me from. But anyway I’m just sitting there minding my own business when suddenly I hear whispers coming from underneath the couch.

“So she’s just been staying here? And you have no idea who she is.”

“Nope, my sister didn’t tell me. I just came home from crusading a week ago and she was just here.”

“Well that’s mighty strange.”

“So what’s her cutie mark supposed to be?”

“I don’t know! I never asked!”

“It looks like a sword to me.”

“No way! It’s obviously some type of abstract painting.”

“Y’all are crazy, it’s definitely some sorta beetle.”

“Sword!”

“Painting!”

“Beetle!”

“You know, you could just ask me.”

The three fillies were suddenly silent as they slowly turned their heads to the right to see my face smirking at them. That smirk quickly turned into uproarious laughter as they screamed in surprise and bolted out from under the couch. You see, while they had been having their “private” conversation I’d quietly slipped off of my resting place and slid under the couch next to them, and they’d been too wrapped up in their argument to notice.

Still laughing, I crawled out from underneath Rarity’s furniture and found the three fillies standing there looking embarrassed. I recognized one of them as Sweetie Belle, Rarity’s sister, who lived here but seemingly spent almost all of her time either at school or playing with her friends, who I assumed were the bow-wearing earth pony and the orange pegasus standing next to her. Sweetie Belle was biting her lower lip and twisting her front hoof into the ground, looking like she wanted to say something. Her earth pony friend apparently thought that Sweetie was taking too long as indicated by the swift kick she gave to the unicorn’s blank flank.

“We’re really sorry Miss Dusty. We were just curious is all,” Sweetie said, not making eye contact with me, “Ummm, these are my friends Applebloom and Scootaloo.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, managing to make my laughter subside to a mere chuckle, “And as a matter of fact, I don’t know what my cutie mark is supposed to be.” The joke was on them in that my cutie mark really didn’t mean anything at all, being just a recreation of a splattering of coal and dust. I’d decided to use my “amnesia” as an excuse for not knowing what it meant if anypony asked me.

“Wait wait wait, how can you have a cutie mark and not know what it means?!” Scootaloo said, her wings buzzing in shock and annoyance.

“Scootaloo! That’s a downright rude thing to say! Don’t ya remember Sweetie Belle tellin’ us she had am… en… asia… ”

“Amnesia,” Sweetie Belle helpfully supplied.

“Ya, that. Which means she can’t remember nothin’. So a’course she don’t know what her cutie mark means,” Applebloom finished, shooting a glare at Scootaloo, “She probably doesn’t like to talk about it. Imagine how horrible that must feel, not even knowin’ what your own cutie mark means.”

“Actually, it doesn’t really bother me. In fact… I haven’t given it all that much thought,” I interjected myself back into the conversation, as I was a little bothered by how the little fillies were talking like I wasn’t even there, “I guess it’s just not all that important to me.”

“Not… that… IMPORTANT?!?!” All three yelled at the same time, which was a tad creepy to be honest. I swear I could not get a more shocked and horrified expression out of them if I suddenly turned into a changeling. I mean seriously, it was like I just killed their puppy or something.

“Well… I… um… ”

“Don’t you know? Your cutie mark determines what your DESTINY is!” The orange pegasus gave me an incredulous stare.

“Ya, how are you s’posed to know what type of pony you are without knowing what your cutie mark is?” Applebloom said.

“Well I can’t remember anything, so why stress about it?” The three fillies were getting just a teensy-bit annoying by this point, and by a teensy-bit I mean I felt how Twilight Sparkle looked after her dragon assistant accidentally set fire to her Starswirl the bearded costume, “And even if I were stressing about it, there’s nothing you or I could do to figure out what it’s supposed to mean anyway.”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo simultaneously looked at Applebloom, who gave a quick nod. The three then grouped up in a huddle on the other side of the room from me and began to intensely whisper amongst themselves. Occasionally one of them would stick their head up and glare at me, probably to make sure I didn’t eavesdrop on their conversation this time. After about a minute they seemed to come to some sort of an agreement and walked back over to where I stood waiting.

“You’re in luck Miss Dusty! We, as Ponyille’s resident experts on cutie marks, would be happy to assist you!” Sweetie Belle said.

“Well that’s nice of you. And I appreciate it, I really do. But I don’t think there’s really anything you can do… ”

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CUTIE MARK INTERPRETERS!!! YAY!!!” The fillies yelled, completely ignoring me. All three of them jumped me and started dragging me to the boutique’s front door.

“No, no, NO! I’m not going to go along with whatever scheme you’ve cooked up. No way! No how!”

***

“Note to self: don’t look in Applebloom’s eyes… ever,” I grumbled as I pulled a small wagon full of Cutie Mark Crusaders down the middle of Ponyville. I looked back to see Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo reviewing a sheet of paper on which they’d written what everypony we’d come across had thought my cutie mark was while Applebloom was taking a quick nap. That little seductress had managed to use her unbearable cuteness to get me to drag them around and ask everypony in town what they thought my ‘cutie mark’ was supposed to be. I briefly considered shaking the cart to awaken her out of spite, but I decided I preferred her asleep so she couldn’t hypnotize me again.

“So what did Lyra think it was?” I heard Scootaloo ask.

“She thought it was a…” Sweetie looked over the paper, “Bongo drum.”

“What about Bonbon?”

“Chocolate bar.”

“Vinyl Scratch?”

“A record.”

“Miss Cheerilee?”

“Whale.”

“Applejack?”

“Cow.”

“Pinkie Pie?”

“She just glared at Dusty then bolted off…”

“Typical Pinkie. What about Spike?”

“Two very odd-looking dragons.”

“Colgate?”

“A very unhealthy tooth.”

“Screw Loose?”

“A… Rorschach test?”

“Wait, why did we ask Screw Loose again? Everypony knows that mare is crazy. I don’t even think Rorschach is a word!” Scootaloo said.

The unicorn filly just shrugged and they continued to discuss the results of their survey. I tuned them out as I focused on pulling the cart back towards Carousel Boutique. A few ponies snickered as we walked by, but a glare from me quickly shut them up. The fillies didn’t seem to notice, however.

I was suddenly almost brought to my knees as one of the fillies jumped on my back, only just being saved from doing so by my earth pony fortitude. I looked back around to see that the offender was Applebloom, who had presumably just woken up from her nap. I briefly considered bucking her off but decided having a vengeful Apple family after me was not in my best interests.

“Why’re you so mopey Miss Dusty?” she asked with her giant, disturbingly cute eyes staring into my very soul.

“How’d you feel if you had to shuttle around three annoying little fillies all day?” I said, not bothering to hide my frustration.

“Well I suppose I’d be pretty happy I’d get to go out and have some fun. ‘Specially if I’d been cooped up at Rarity’s house for a week, not goin’ out to see nopony,” she put a hoof to her chin as she thoughtfully answered my very rhetorical question.

“Sweetie should really learn to mind her own business and not go blabbing to her friends about the affairs of others,” I muttered, shooting a glare back at Rarity’s sister, who was still absent-mindedly discussing the list of responses with her orange-coated friend.

“She didn’t mean nothin by it, she was just worried about you is all. It aint right for a pony to spend so much time alone. That’s why we were there today in the first place. So cheer up a little!” Applebloom gave me a big smile before jumping off my back into the wagon to get up to speed on what her friends had figured out.

I couldn’t help but grin at the little filly. As annoying as they were, it did make me happy that they’d made the effort to help me out. I didn’t think the fillies would be old enough to understand why I hid myself away from the rest of Ponyville, but they were right in that not getting out and seeing ponies left my life sort of… empty. I wouldn’t fully grasp the wisdom of her words until later when I found out what I had been missing out on, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. Back then the only thing I realized was that that day had, in fact, been marginally better than the ones that had preceded it.

Finally we arrived back at… well… my home for all intents and purposes, at least at that time. The fillies jumped off of the cart as I wiggled out of the harness I’d been using to pull it. The three continued to talk amongst themselves as I walked over and nudged the door open…

“SURPRISE!!!!”

Author's Note

Whew, that took much longer than it should have. But one or two days late never hurt anypony... *looks at calender* HOLY LUNA ON A STICK. Alright so some stuff came up irl and I found myself with a bit less free time than I'm used to, and I had a bit of trouble adjusting to the schedule. Really that isn't a very good excuse cause I write short chapters, but its all I got so... ya. I'm super super sorry, and I pinkie pie promise to the few dedicated readers I have that I won't take this long with an update ever again ever (though I'm not making any more promises about sticking to a concrete schedule @~@).

In other news, this is probably my favorite chapter so far (maayyybbeee tied with the first one). I absolutely loved writing dialog for the CMC and I finally got to give a punchline to a brick joke I set up way back in chapter 2.

As always I'm excited to hear what you guys think, so comment away!