“A horn...two wings...
I'm an Earth Pony, right? Why would I have a horn or wings?
What does all that mean?
Why does something like that happen to me?
And why was I so scared when I saw myself in this illusion, back then in the Crystal Empire?”
Those questions bothered Star Twinkle since the events in the Crystal Empire. As if he didn't have enough questions, when it came to his element, now there was something else that bothered him.
“Star Twinkle?” Steel Hammer asked, finally getting him out of his deep thoughts.
“Huh?” Star Twinkle replied absent minded as he looked at Steel Hammer.
“Are you alright?” Steel Hammer asked out of his worry while he walked up to Star Twinkle.
“What? Yeah, of course, I am alright,” Star Twinkle replied, trying to hide his worries as much as possible.
“Well, you are hammering one single nail into a board for the last five minutes...” Steel Hammer said while he pointed at the board that Star Twinkle was working on, making Star Twinkle realize that as well and make a flustered face.
Star Twinkle found himself daydreaming a lot in the last days. It was also not the first time since somepony grabbed his attention while he was in deep thoughts. But it's not like he could just forget what happened a few days ago.
Since he didn't want Steel Hammer to worry anymore, he just focused on his work again. That was until somepony interrupted and startled him.
“Hi!” Pinkie Pie shrieked as she greeted Star Twinkle. ”What are you doing? Something fun?” She asked curiously.
“I wouldn't consider working to be fun...” Star Twinkle replied.
“Oh! Too bad! See you then!” She instantly replied before she vanished again in rapid speed, leaving the two Earth-Pony confused.
“What was that just now?” Steel Hammer asked puzzled.
“Well, it's Pinkie Pie so as usual, I have no idea...” Star Twinkle said as he is now used to her random behavior.
While he didn't know what exactly this was about, this sudden encounter with Pinkie Pie did distract Star Twinkle from his previous thoughts a little. Though her sudden appearance and disappearance were kinda weird...
Later...
Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer continued their work in the Iron Hammer. Star Twinkle was on his way inside of the workshop with a cart full of wood and steel inside of it and attempted to go inside.
But suddenly, a pink flash ran past him and caused him to fall to the ground scattering all the wood and metal on the ground, much to Steel Hammer's dislike who dropped his jaw as he realized that they have to clean up this mess later.
After Star Twinkle got up again, surprisingly not being hurt by all of this, he looked past him to find out what just ran past him. It was Pinkie Pie again, who wore a watch around her neck which she checked after stopping in her track.
“Pinkie!” Star Twinkle exclaimed a little annoyed, causing her to look at him in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“Just timing myself galloping back and forth between the swimming hole and Sweet Apple Acres,” she replied as she bounced towards Star Twinkle.
“Why?” Star Twinkle asked.
“I was invited to spend time with Rainbow Dash, but I also was asked by Applejack to help to raise a barn this afternoon. So now I'm trying to cut some time so that I can go to Sweet Apple Acres to help with the barn raising after Rainbow Dash dived off the swing and before she lands in the water again! I only have to cut my time by twenty minutes,“ she explained excitedly but the last sentence made it clear that she seemed a little desperate.
Steel Hammer overheard the conversation between the two Earth-Ponies and felt to add something.
“Well, I'm not some fancy mathematician but I'm pretty sure that's impossible,” Steel Hammer said while he collected the scattered materials on the ground.
“I know!” Pinkie Pie cried out in frustration while she laid her hooves on Star Twinkle's shoulders. “But what am I supposed to do!? I don't want to miss out the fun of any of those!” She said in frustration as she shook Star Twinkle back in forth.
After Pinkie Pie was done with her lamenting, Star Twinkle couldn't help but smirk a little, even though he knows that it wasn't very nice. Pinkie Pie noticed and widened her eyes in confusion.
“What's so funny?” She asked confused. “There is nothing funny about missing out fun!” She exclaimed as she hectically waved her legs around flustered.
“Sorry, I just find it funny that you, for once can't make the impossible possible,”
“And what is that suppose to mean,” she replied as she put her hooves on her flanks in an almost serious manner.
“You know, you have this Pinkie Sense which kinda lets you predict the future. Not to mention all this other random features that nopony possess. So I wouldn't be surprised if you were able to be at multiple places at the same time. But I guess that's even impossible for you...” Star Twinkle explained while he kept a small smile on his face because of Pinkie Pie's frustration.
Pinkie Pie had an almost thinking stare on her face. This looked very unusual to Star Twinkle. She then suddenly, smiled widely. “That's it!” She said excitedly. “Star Twinkle, you're a genius!” She exclaimed happily while she pressed Star Twinkle's cheek together.
“I am?” He replied confused before Pinkie Pie released him again and left and ran away to who knows where.
Star Twinkle was confused and watched the pink pony running off into the distance while he wondered what exactly she was planning. But since it didn't have anything to do with him in the first place, he decided to not worry about it anymore and continued his work. Or to be more precise: cleaning up the mess that Pinkie Pie caused.
Later...
It was closing time in the Iron Hammer and Star Twinkle and Steel Hammer prepared everything to close the workshop. Star Twinkle put away some tools into a nearby cart, one by one until he realized how a familiar pony bounced its way towards him. Of course, it was Pinkie Pie. Knowing her for a while now, Star Twinkle figured that she would go the extreme to wait for Star Twinkle until he finished his work so that she could spend time with him. At least that's what he gathered from her because all she said was: Fun! Over and over again.
“Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!” Star Twinkle heard while he saw Pinkie Pie bouncing past him.
“Hi, Pinkie Pie,” Star Twinkle casually greeted while he continued his work.
“Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!” He heard once again as Pinkie Pie was bouncing past him again.
“Pinkie, I am preparing to finish off work so please wait a little,” he said while still continuing his work.
“Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!” He heard once more while Pinkie Pie bounced past him.
“Yes, Pinkie Pie, I know you don't want to miss out fun and all but...” he replied while he continued his work.
Suddenly, Star Twinkle realized that he greeted Pinkie Pie probably a little too often and looked back to the direction where he Pinkie Pie went. It was then that he noticed that there was not one but at least five Pinkie Pie's.
“What in the name of Celestia!?” Star Twinkle said in confusion after seeing multiple Pinkie Pie's going crazy all over the Iron Hammer.
When Steel Hammer walked out of the workshop, with a hammer in his mouth, he instantly dropped it because his jaw dropped in confusion. The two Earth-Ponies tried their best to stop this pink madness but they had a hard time even getting their attention. The word “Fun” could be heard the entire time and it drove Star Twinkle almost crazy. He always thought that Pinkie Pie, at times could be a little hard to endure but this was just too much.
“Make them stop!” He shouted annoyed while he covered his ears.
Meanwhile, Steel Hammer tried his best to prevent the pink ponies from causing more havoc on his workshop.
“If they stay here any longer, then the Iron Hammer will be totally destroyed!” Steel Hammer exclaimed in his frustration. “I don't even get it! What's so fun about this place?” He wondered.
After those words, an idea popped up in Star Twinkle's head.“That's it!” He said. “Though I don't know if that will work,” he added with hesitation while rubbing his chin.
“Just DO it!” Steel Hammer exclaimed frustrated, prompting Star Twinkle to at least try.
Star Twinkle realized that it was worth a shot since things couldn't possibly get any worse and climbed on a table in front of the workshop before he tried to get the attention of the Pinkie Pie's.
“Hey! I think heard something fun coming from this direction!” He shouted while he pointed into some random direction away from the Iron Hammer.
“Fun?” Every single one of the Pinkie Pie's said at the same time as they looked at Star Twinkle, making him feel a little intimidated.
But to his surprise, all of the Pinkie Pie's bounced into the direction of where Star Twinkle pointed at and left the Iron Hammer in one piece.
“I can't believe that worked...” he mumbled to himself before he jumped down from the table. “I'm gonna find out where all those Pinkie Pie's are coming from!” He informed Steel Hammer as he rushed towards some place where he would find out what happened.
“You'll do that!” Steel Hammer saluted happily but he soon realized something which made him form a worried facial expression. “Wait! Does that mean that I have to clean all this on my own!?” He exclaimed towards Star Twinkle after realizing how messed up the whole place looked after the Pinkie Pie's rampaged through it.
Star Twinkle ran towards the Golden Oak Library. If he knew one thing, then it was that not even Pinkie Pie could duplicate herself out of nowhere. But he had a guess what might have created them.
Magic.
For that, he was instantly looking for Twilight. She might know how those Pinkie Pie's came into existence or maybe she was even responsible for it. It was the best thing he could do right now.
But soon he found out that he wasn't the only one who came to this conclusion because there was a massive crowd in front of the Golden Oak Library demanding some answers from Twilight as well.
Star Twinkle quickly found his friends among the crowd who seemed to be either upset or angry.
It was obvious that those Pinkie Pie's were not just rampaging in the Iron Hammer, judging by the words of everypony. Apparently, they also raged through Carousel Boutique and Sweet Apple Acres.
Twilight was inside so instead of waiting outside with the angry crowd, Star Twinkle decided to get inside so that he would find out more from Twilight herself. Once he entered the library, he saw how Twilight and Spike were going through multiple books, most likely trying to find an answer.
Spike looked over to Star Twinkle while he handed down some books to Twilight. “Star Twinkle! Let me guess, A bunch of Pinkie Pie's?” He asked, even though he knew exactly that this was most likely the case.
“Any idea where they came from?” Star Twinkle asked, quickly getting to the point.
“I have a slight guess...” Twilight said while she scanned through her books. “But for that, I have to remember the name of that legend she mentioned,”
Star Twinkle had no idea what Twilight was talking about but he did remember how Pinkie Pie was thanking him for giving her some kind of idea what she was about to do about her “missing out of fun” problem.
After hearing what Twilight was looking for, Star Twinkle tried to find a book as well. He scanned through the bookshelves one by one until he found some kind of button on the wall which was shaped like a hoof. Wondering why there was something like this inside of one of the shelves, he decided to press it. It then revealed a book behind a fake wall which Star Twinkle took out for Twilight to check.
She quickly looked through the book and as it turns out, it was the right one. “Aha, here it is! "The legend of the Mirror Pond. After saying some words at the pool, you are able to fully duplicate yourself," she explained before she read further for a solution. "... It describes a spell I can use to send them back where they came from!” Twilight said happily.
“Alright, then let's go,” Star Twinkle said so that this mess could be cleaned up as fast as possible.
“But there's a catch,” Twilight suddenly pointed out as she continued looking through the book.
“If I can't figure out which one's the real Pinkie, I might send her back by mistake!” She said in shock of this realization.
“That might be a problem,” Star Twinkle replied with a worried expression on his face.
“But it should be alright as long as we find the real Pinkie Pie, right?” He said, trying to find something positive about this situation.
“Shouldn't be that hard,” Spike said optimistic before he opened the door.
Twilight didn't reply to this. Maybe she didn't know the answer herself. They both walked out of the library and Twilight turned to the crowd of ponies who still stood in front of the library.
“Does anypony here know how we can tell the real Pinkie Pie from all the rest of them?” Twilight asked the crowd to which they all replied with confusion.
“Twilight! I have to talk to you, I need your help!” One of the Pinkie Pie's said as she stepped out of the crowd.
“Excuse me, whoever you are, but I'm not talking to any of you Pinkies unless you're the real Pinkie,” Twilight replied as she focused on her current task.
“Oh, but, but I am the real Pinkie!” She quickly replied.
Of course, she would say that, thought Star Twinkle. They all would. In fact, after one of them assured that she was the real one, every other Pinkie Pie did the same. So of course, it was impossible to tell which one was the real one based on their words alone.
“How in tarnation are we supposed to tell which is the real Pinkie?” Applejack asked Twilight in order for her to come up with an idea.
“I have no idea,” Twilight replied confused.
With so many Pinkie Pie's running around in Ponyville and all of them saying “Fun” over and over again, It was impossible to find out which one of them was the real one. But Star Twinkle and Twilight had to hurry if they didn't want the town to be totally destroyed.
“Ugh, this is hopeless!” Twilight released in her frustration as she thought about a way to solve this problem.
“And it also starts to get really annoying...” Star Twinkle said who started to get annoyed by the constant “Fun!” Shouting of the Pinkie Pie's.
“Maybe that one's the real Pinkie,” Spike casually said as he pointed to an overly depressed Pinkie Pie who was sitting on a table with her head on it in depression.
“Please. The real Pinkie Pie never sat that long in one place her whole life!” Twilight pointed out which made a good amount of sense. Even in the most serious situations, Pinkie Pie was always acting like herself despite being exposed to great danger or conflicts.
“I'm gonna go ask,” Spike said as he walked over to this Pinkie Pie.
“Of course she's gonna say she's the real Pinkie! They all do! You're wasting your time,” Twilight said after him but the little dragon was already on his way and didn't hear her.
Star Twinkle began to think about this spell that Twilight wanted to use against the Pinkie Pie's and had to admit that it worried him.
“Is there no other reason to deal with all these Pinkie Pie's?” He asked which confused Twilight a little, especially since Star Twinkle said that they were annoying a minute ago.
“I mean, you said that if we have to find the real Pinkie in order to not send her back to the pond...
I would feel horrible, knowing that we send the wrong one away...” He added with a frown on his face. However, his worry was quickly overshadowed by Twilight's worry on her face which Star Twinkle quickly realized, causing him to nervously diffuse this situation.
“I mean, not that I would blame you if you would send the wrong one away or...” He said hastily in order to not put any more pressure on Twilight.
“If we don't do anything about this Pinkie Pie's then there will soon be nothing left of Ponyville. So I'm afraid that I have to take this risk...” Twilight replied while she looked down on the ground. “That is why we have to make sure to find the real one fast!” She added but this time with determination in her eyes.
Of course, Star Twinkle was very well aware of that but it didn't give him an answer for the situation.
“But how?” Star Twinkle asked.
Meanwhile, Spike returned after asking the Pinkie on the table if she was the real one. It was no surprise that he couldn't make it if she was the one, making him a little sad. “I miss the real Pinkie,” he said before his head dropped down in frustration.
Suddenly, the Pinkie Pie on the table spoke up to the three and came up with something that sounded like a decent plan.
“Hey. Hey! What if you gave them a test? Pick something really hard for a Pinkie to do, something not fun at all! Any Pinkie that can't do it goes back into the pond. But whoever wants to stay the most, that must be the real Pinkie!” She explained.
The three didn't bother to pay too much attention to her words but it still stuck in their heads.
“That Pinkie Pie makes a really good point,” Star Twinkle admitted.
After giving some more thoughts about it Twilight agreed with that idea as well. “It's worth a shot!” She replied as if it actually could work.
It was not like as if they had any other idea anyway. The plan was to gather all the Pinkie Pie's up into the Town Hall and give them a test that was everything but fun. Applejack and her family helped to gather them all up while Star Twinkle and the rest of his friends prepared everything.
Soon, Applejack arrived with every Pinkie Pie and brought them inside so that the test could start.
Twilight took it upon herself to explain everything.
“Welcome, Pinkies, welcome. Please have a seat and make yourselves comfortable,” she started but nopony listened to her as expected. All the Pinkie Pie's were hopping around and said “Fun!” Over and over again.
“Okay, I suppose you can't be comfortable staying in one place, but have a seat anyway,” she continued but the Pinkie's once again paid no attention to Twilight.
Meanwhile, Star Twinkle was blocking his ears because of all the “Fun!” screaming inside of the room. It was obvious that it was getting on his nerves really quick, causing him to clench his teeth in annoyance. Eventually, he couldn't take it anymore.
“Be quiet!” He screamed throughout the room, causing all the Pinkie Pie's to finally pay attention.
“Sit down!” He then said angrily to which the Pinkie Pie's instantly sat down with their heads focused on him.
“Thank you, Star Twinkle,” Twilight said, while she slowly pushed Star Twinkle out of the picture before he would do something that he would regret.
“Now, I suppose you're all wondering why I've gathered you all here today,”
Fun was obviously the first thing that one of the Pinkie's guess, but of course, the complete opposite was the case.
“Actually, it's the complete opposite,” Twilight replied.
“Pinkies, you've been brought here to take a test,” she then informed, causing all of the Pinkie Pie's to get nervous.
“Don't worry, it's a simple test, about as simple as they come, and whoever passes gets to stay,” Twilight assured which actually sounded not too assuring if you knew how it would end for all of them except one.
Twilight then gave a signal to her friends to open up a curtain behind her to reveal the test. A wall was revealed in front of everypony with fresh painted blue paint on it.
“The test... will be watching paint dry!” Twilight said in excitement, which was the complete opposite reaction of how the Pinkie Pie's reacted.
Just the thought of doing that for five minutes was impossible for Star Twinkle and he was used to doing boring stuff before he met his friends. But given that Pinkie Pie is the one who had to take the test, it was probably even worse for her.
“On your mark, get set, go!” Twilight announced as she started the test.
All the Pinkie Pie's immediately focused on the wall and from then it was only a matter of time until they would think that it was too boring and started to focus on anything else.
“Ooh, this is so exciting!” Spike said in excitement with popcorn in his claws.
“Is it?” Star Twinkle thought confused as he looked over to the little dragon in disbelieve. He probably never saw paint drying before.
A little later...
“Okay, maybe not that exciting,” Spike said after he finally realized that he was wrong.
“Yes, who would have thought that watching paint dry was boring...” Star Twinkle said sarcastically in an annoyed tone after Spike's realization.
“How long is this suppose to go? I mean how long has it been since we started?” Spike asked while he ate his last pieces of Popcorn.
Star Twinkle looked over to a clock that hung on the wall in order to answer Spike's question before he turned to him again. ”Two minutes...” He said a little bored to which Spike replied with a really long groan of frustration.
It was incredibly boring to wait for the Pinkie's to finally get distracted. All he and his friends could do was wait silently in the corner. The only other thing that they could do was joining them to watch the paint dry but that would have been even more boring.
Eventually, some things started to happen which finally speed up things a little. One of the Pinkie's looked away to the window and saw a bird flying by which instantly grabbed her attention.
“Oh, hey, look a birdie!” She said excitedly.
This caused Twilight to instantly focus her spell on this Pinkie, which made her blow up like a balloon before she was flying away, probably returning to the Mirror Pool.
Of course, the first thing that came to Star Twinkle's mind was that this hopefully wasn't the real Pinkie Pie. Even this solution wasn't all waterproof when it came to determining the real one after all. If The real Pinkie Pie wasn't careful enough, then Twilight would send her away without realizing. This suddenly made the whole process look kind of dangerous. But they came this far so there was no turning back now.
The Pinkie's started to get distracted by the littlest things, bouncing to the ceiling or watching one of the Pinkie's doing some random stuff. And every time one of the pinkie ponies looked away from the wall, Twilight readied her spell and sent them back to the mirror pool.
Star Twinkle was happy that there were less Pinkie Pie's left now and thought that it wouldn't take too long from now. But still, it was a little boring to just wait so he scattered his eyes through the whole room out of boredom. When his eyes looked out of the window, he saw something that caused him to get a little puzzled.
“Is that...a frog crossed with an orange?” Star Twinkle wondered confused as he looked out of the window after seeing an orange with frog legs outside. This grabbed the attention of some of the Pinkie's who instantly looked out of the window as well.
“Cool!” One of them said.
“Where?” Another one added.
Needless to say, both of them were shot at by Twilight's magic and sent back to the Mirror Pool as well.
More and more Pinkie Pie's were sent away after a bunch of random stuff that distracted them from looking at the wall. The strange thing was the things got weirder and almost creepy as time went on.
“Look what I can do with my hooves!” Before she blew into one of her hooves to make some kind of fingers pop out in her other hoof.
Star Twinkle made a puzzled face after that, admitting that it was a little crazy, even for Pinkie Pie. However, it was nothing compared what he saw another Pinkie Pie doing later.
“Betcha can't make a face crazier than...this!” Another one did a few seconds later before she literally remodeled her entire face to make her look like some kind of abstract or rather creepier version of herself.
Star Twinkle was shivering after he saw this looked in shock. Thankfully, Twilight send this Pinkie Pie away immediately, making Star Twinkle feel a little relieved. Things started to get a little too weird in his opinion and that's saying a lot when it comes to Pinkie Pie.
Eventually, only two Pinkie Pie's remained to stare at the wall so it was not long until the real one was left. Hopefully...
They both continued to not get distracted by anything and focused on the wall. This continued for a good amount of time until Rainbow Dash reached her limit.
“Ugh, I can't take it anymore!” She said bored before she speed up things. “Somepony's making balloon animals!” She said to which one of the Pinkie Pie's reacted after a while.
“What? Where?” She said before Twilight sent her away with her spell.
This only left one single Pinkie Pie who kept staring at the wall. She probably didn't even realized that she was the only one left. However, even if this was the last one, it didn't entirely prove if it was just luck or not so Star Twinkle tried to make sure and walked up to her.
“I heard they are giving away free cupcakes in Sugarcube Corner!” He said directly to her.
But Pinkie Pie didn't even attempted to look away and kept her eyes looked at the wall. The rest of Star Twinkle's friends also walked up to her and were confident that this was the real one so Twilight ended the test with a good feeling in her mind.
“Pinkie, you can look away now,” Twilight said, causing Pinkie Pie to nervously reply.
“I passed?” She replied while she covered her eyes out of fear that Twilight might shot her magic at her.
“You passed. You're the only Pinkie who kept staring at the wall,” Twilight replied.
“I had to. I just had to. I couldn't leave my friends, I just couldn't. But I guess sometimes I will have to choose between them,” she said in relief after everything was finally over and Pinkie Pie learned her lesson.
Everypony could finally go home and was relieved that there was only one pink pony who was left in Ponyville. And that was enough after all. Twilight took care to seal the cave with the Mirror Pool inside of it so that nopony would come across of it ever again.
Star Twinkle and Pinkie Pie were walking in the same direction when they went home with Pinkie Pie bouncing next to Star Twinkle happily. She almost acted like all the other Pinkie Pie's, making her look like the rest of them.
“You better be the real one,” Star Twinkle said almost amused as he inspected Pinkie Pie's behavior.
“I am! I'm sure of that!” She replied confidently.”Though it would be weird if I wasn't...” She added a little worried.
“It would, huh...” Star Twinkle replied which instantly made him relate to himself in his current situation.
“At first it was fun to spend time with all of my friends at the same time but once I realized that my friends are more important, I just had to make sure that I can stay with them so that we could have a lot more fun in the future!” Pinkie Pie explained happily with a happy grin on her face.
“Makes sense...” Star Twinkle replied returning a small smile himself.
“With all these other Pinkie Pie's running around, it actually made me feel like as if I wasn't the real one! That made me feel horrible!” Pinkie Pie further explained.
It made sense. She was probably the one Pinkie Pie he met before. The one who was all depressed and came up with this test in the first place.
Still, there was one question that he wanted an answer to... “So, how can you be sure that you are the real one, now?” Star Twinkle asked.
“That's easy!” She replied happily. “My friends were more important to me than having fun! But it wasn't for the other Pinkie's,” she explained.
It actually made some sense, despite coming from Pinkie Pie. The sole reason for creating the other Pinkie Pie's was to have fun with her friends but the other Pinkie Pie's didn't think like that. They prioritized fun over their friends. This explanation actually confirmed that this Pinkie Pie in front of him is the real one since Pinkie Pie would never let her friends down.
Realizing how Pinkie Pie was giving him an answer to this, he figured that he should ask her something else.
“I know, this sounds a little weird but...” Star Twinkle hesitated once he realized that from all ponies, he was about to ask Pinkie Pie this one question.
“You think that I am me too, right?” He asked while looking at her with a worried expression on his face.
Pinkie Pie put a hoof on her chin but then quickly gave a positive response. “Yep! You are you! I'm sure of it!” She replied with a smile on her face that didn't show any doubt at all.
“How can you be so sure?” Star Twinkle asked, not being so easily satisfied with Pinkie Pie's answer.
“Well, You are the only Star Twinkle I know! I mean, there are not a bunch of you walking around too, right?” She returned.
“I suppose not...” Star Twinkle replied. However, this answer was not really what made Star Twinkle feel better.
The day ended with Star Twinkle returning home. He laid on his bed and thought about the events that happened recently. Something that he didn't do for a long time now.
“You are me...and I am you...” He repeated to himself. It was the words that he heard in his head while confronting King Sombra and the words that he said in this one strange illusion under the Crystal Empire Castle. Those words stuck in his head and didn't leave him in peace and he didn't know why.
“I am me...and nopony else...” He said before he was eventually, overthrown by his tiredness and fell asleep without worrying about it anymore.