Two Background Ponies Quickie: "Uncommon Bond" Aftermath · 11:04pm Oct 23rd, 2017
"Your turn."
The blue stallion frowned as he glared at the game board. Rolling his eyes and sighing, he leaned over and very carefully took up the dice in his teeth, first one and then, with some difficulty, the other. He leaned up then spat them out back on the game board. One went too hard and went off the table at that, but he simply groaned as he leaned over and read the values on both of them. Seeing it was eleven, he grimaced as he leaned over and, very carefully, struggling to put his snout on the end of his tiny token while also looking at the board spaces, he touched down and very slowly counted out eleven spaces. He sweat and strained the whole way.
Finally, on reaching the last place, he sighed and leaned up as his green friend looked over it. He whistled and shook his head. "Tough luck. Short Line Railroad. You owe me 150 bits."
The blue stallion let out a grimace and mutter, and looked to his stacks of play money. All he had left now were fives and ones. Gritting his teeth, he reached a hoof over and began to try and pull a bill out. He failed the first two times, and on pressing harder on the third he pulled out a whole wad. Groaning, he tried to separate them only to mess them up further.
"GAH!" He cried, sweeping his hoof around and knocking all the money aside. He snatched up a cookie from their nearby plate and began to chew it aggressively. "Why the heck do they make all these board games with such small pieces?! They think only unicorns are going to play them? Isn't there a law against pony race discrimination in products or something?"
His friend sighed as his own title deeds spontaneously fell off of his hoof. "Next time, let's just stick with a nice game of horseshoes..." He muttered. He nearly reached to start picking up the play money, when his eyes caught something. One of his brows quirked. "Whoa...dude, check it out."
The blue one looked up. "What?"
"Pinkie Pie looks like she's been through Tartarus."
He looked out where his friend was looking. Hair overgrown, hooves too large and curling, and seeming severely malnourished and soaking wet, Pinkie Pie was limping down the road with a wide-eyed, haggard look in her eyes. She glanced about at everything and everyone, looking both bewildered, confused, and half-crazed. Finally, her eyes turned over to the two stallions. She immediately froze and stared at them.
Both looked uncomfortable. "Uh...hey Pinkie."
Without a word, the pink pony was diving on them. Both of them recoiled in shock and alarm, only to find she was going for their cookies. She dove on them and greedily began to wolf them down one after another. In moments she was done and, not stopping for air, she seized their milk glasses and downed them as well. Both stallions retreated as though she might bite them next, looking anxious and uneasy.
Finally, once all was done, she gasped and wiped her mouth. "Sorry..." She spoke in a weak voice. "It's just...I haven't had any real food in..." She looked up to Ponyville Clock Tower. A single second passed. "...48 months. I've been living off of pond seaweed that whole time..."
Both stallions looked to each other anxiously, now rather confused. "Uh, Pinkie...what are you-"
Sam suddenly recoiled as the pink pony grasped him fiercely by the shoulders and shoved her snout in his face.
"Sam! Where is the Golden Oak Library?! When did the Cutie Mark Crusaders get their Cutie Marks?! Why am I suddenly the ambassador of friendship to a country called Yakyakistan?! Why is my sister living in Ponyville-Adjacent?! What of cupcakes, Sam?!" She shook him furiously. "What of cupcakes?!"
Sam was stunned into silence and his blue friend was cringing, both at a loss for words. As Pinkie continued to grasp the former desperately, however, two more ponies began to walk down the road: a light purple unicorn and a darker purple alicorn. They only got a few steps closer when both of them slowed down and froze, staring in shock at the pink earth pony.
"Pinkie...? What happened to you?"
Forgetting Sam, the pony wheeled to the two of them. A moment later, and the light purple one was shocked as she was throwing her arms around her neck and hugging her fiercely.
"I have no idea who you are, but thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for finally moving that stone! You're my new number one best friend!" She peeled herself off enough to glare at the alicorn. "A space that has just been vacated by my ex-number one best friend..."
As the two stallions slowly began to recover, the alicorn blinked in surprise. "Pinkie, I don't know what you're-"
"You sealed me at the bottom of the Mirror Pool, Twilight! For four years! How could you not know it was me?! I was the only Pinkie who was sad!" She paused a moment, then leveled her eyes at her. "Waaaait a minute...you're not Twilight! Twilight doesn't have wings!"
Both Twilight and the unicorn went wide-eyed. "What?!"
The green stallion lit up on hearing that, slapping his hoof against the table. "Ha! I knew it all along!" He wheeled to Sam with his hoof out. "200 bits! Pay up!"
The blue stallion grimaced as he began to reach for his saddlebags.
Twilight, however, soon toughened up. "Wait a minute...how do I know you're not just one of those copy Pinkies who escaped?"
"Oh, I can make sure!"
Everyone looked to the light purple unicorn. "I'll just use a Watermark Charm. It should clear this right up."
At that moment, with a light springing noise in her step, a separate, cleaner, and much healthier-and-happier-looking Pinkie Pie began to bounce by. "Hi Starlight! Hi Twilight! Hi Sam! Hi Pinkie! Hi CarwwwwhaaaaAAAAA?!" She backpedaled on the last one, turning her full attention to the haggard Pinkie Pie.
An instant later, Starlight aimed her horn at both of them and fired. Both reacted a bit to suddenly being zapped, and were enveloped by a light blue aura. Moments later, magical lettering appeared over both of their heads.
The one over the haggard Pinkie Pie read: "Original".
The one over the clean Pinkie Pie read: "Copy 57 of 150."
The haggard Pinkie Pie leveled a glare at Twilight while the neat one sheepishly grinned and shrugged. The alicorn swallowed a gulp.
"I, uh...don't suppose a surprise party will fix this, will it?"
Her snout suddenly compressed as Pinkie shoved herself in her face.
"You...owe...me...THREE...surprise parties!"
Carl shook his head at the sight. "Dear Celestia, we're an overly-forgiving species..."
Twilight pulled back nervously. "Well...the least I can do to start making up for it right now is get rid of the fake Pinkie Pie..." She aimed her horn at the other.
"What?!" The copy exclaimed. "Twilight, you're just going to zap me after all we've been through?"
The alicorn hesitated. "Huh?"
"After helping you with the Friendship Games, going through a magic comic together, decorating your castle with party cannons, making a party for Moondancer, keeping that secret about Flurry Heart, playing that prank on Rainbow Dash, and everything else, you're just going to zap me and that's it? I shot myself out of a Confetti Cake Cannon into a tornado for you!" She began to whimper and tear up.
Twilight began to look uncomfortable. Sam scratched the back of his head. "Uh...she has a point, Twilight. She didn't ask to be created. Just because she's a mirror copy, doesn't she still have a right to live?"
"Dude, we can't have two Pinkie Pies running around Equestria." Carl frowned. "If they both break the fourth wall toward each other it might implode reality or something."
The alicorn looked up and thought for a moment. "Well...I suppose there's one idea."
"...So the next time you two go anywhere, you take her with you, got it?"
Without another word, Twilight turned and walked off, leaving a happily-bouncing Pinkie Pie behind staring at an old stallion with drool around his mouth, frizzled gray hair, and a lab coat, and his nervous-looking colt grandson.
"Uh, I don't know about this, Pony Rick."
The older stallion put a hoof to his forehead. "Just...just shut up and go with it, Pony Morty."
Jesus are these all this dark?
(Not that this is unexplored territory.)
Sorry. It's not you; it's me. I've never liked this idea, and the evidence really doesn't hold up for it.