//------------------------------// // Tearful Nightmare // Story: Party Girl // by Digital Ghost //------------------------------// Vice's ear twitched when she felt the mattress shift to compensate for the space no longer occupied by the mare beside her. Her eye opened, just a crack to let what sliver of luminosity would stimulate her sense. The lights were all turned off, but the moonlight that shone through the window provided just enough brightness for her to make out Cricket's silhouette slowly walking towards the bedroom door. At first, she didn't think too much about it, perhaps she had to use the bathroom or was simply thirsty, nothing to be concerned about. She tried to go back to sleep, but something didn't let her. There was a nagging at the back of her head that only seemed to grow the more she tried to ignore it. Ultimately, she decided to get up, slowly as to not wake the original. Vice found Cricket sitting at the dining table with a glass of milk in front of her. She had her head resting on both of her fore hooves. For a moment, Vice hesitated to approach, not just because the single light source hovering above the table made things look ominous. There was a deep sorrow floating around in the air, and it slowly began to grip at her heart. Vice just watched for a while, wondering if Cricket had fallen asleep. It proved not to be the case when she saw a glimmer falling from Cricket's face and onto the table's surface. Cricket's steady breathing cycled through abrupt starts and stops, and a moment later, Vice could hear quiet whines, sobbing, and sniffles in between. Quietly, Vice inched closer, haltingly. When she was within the radius of light, she cleared her throat. Cricket, startled, jerked her head up to see who it was. Her eyes narrowed in fear, but soon dilated when she recognized who had joined her. Her face was stained with tears, her hooves were fidgety, and her mane was ruffled up. There was sizable pool of liquid where her head was haunched over. She had been crying for a while. "Everything okay?" Vice asked. Cricket simply replied with a shake of her head. Vice took the seat beside the other clone, pulled it close to her. "Want to talk about it?" Cricket wiped her face with her already soaked hooves before looking at Vice and giving a single, reluctant nod. "I... I had a bad dream." "Tell me about it." "Initial experiments suggest that this is the final ingredient to create the perfect clone." "How can that be, isn't that just a drink from the tavern?" "Clover, Clover, Clover... Yes, that is true, but use your senses, don't you feel something... off... about it?" "Not really... Hmm wait... I think..." "Yes?" "I think I see it..." "Yes, yes." "Nope, it was just a bubble..." "Clover... well no matter, I'll just tell you. Do you know what they make this from?" "I don't know... uh...?" "Starts with an 'H'" "Horseradish!" "..." "What?" "Herbs... they're made from herbs" "Herbs?" "Correct! But those herbs aren't the ones you'd normally find at the stalls. No, those herbs are special. They contain an unusual, but delicate amount of magic, so they need extreme care, lest they crumble or explode in your face." "How do you know so much about these herbs?" "Because I was the one who cultured them." "That explains a few things..." "That's enough questions for now, my young apprentice. Drink, and recite the incantation." "Wha? Why me?" "Because if I were to do it myself, it would be difficult to stop the clone should things go awry. While you on the other hoof—" "—Won't be much a threat at all?" "Don't be so hard on yourself. You are still young, and have much more room for your powers to grow." "So I guess the measure of one's power is the number of wrinkles on their heads." "What was that?" "Nothing! So I just drink this, and say the incantation, right?" Hooves rang in the darkness, slowly encroaching on the pool. Ripples came and went with each step. There was a strange buildup of arcane energies as Clover made her way to the water's edge. She peered in, looked down into the eyes of her reflection. Something grappled her mind, a soft whisper, echoing freely. The spell rewrote itself in her mind exactly as it was penned down by her mentor. She took a breath to prepare herself and let the words drift gracefully from her lips. "Into her own reflection she stared..." An uneasy draft coerced her coat to a standing ovation. "Yearning for one whose reflection she shared..." Her words echoed eerily within her own mind. She felt a gentle tug from out of nowhere, but she continued, unfazed. "And solemnly sweared..." The water grew uneasy, and her stomach felt heavy, drawn to her own reflection. "Not to be scared... at the prospect of being doubly mared!" The surface gave off an azure glow, faint, but bright enough to illuminate the stalactites hanging over the water. Clover stood there, enchanted with her own reflection. Although the surface rippled gently as drops fell from the ceiling, she could see that the image blinked when she didn't. Curiously, she lifted her hoof and touched the water, unknowingly leaning too far, and fell. Yet the water didn't give the splash Starswirl expected when his student fell in. "Clover!" The water was dense and cloudy than before. It moved in a way that resembled syrup, like the water was somehow trapped in a gently halting time field. Starswirl ran to the edge to look for any sign of his apprentice, but it was difficult, given the water's murky texture. He jerked forward and back, unsure whether to dive in and look for Clover, or wait just a little bit longer. The pool was only discovered a few days ago, and Starswirl had yet to understand how its magical properties worked. If he dove in, there was a chance that the cloning process would have been disrupted, bearing unstable consequences. But when seconds turned to minutes, Starswirl prepared to dive. He took a deep breath, and wound up his pounce. However, just before he made his attack on the water, Clover broke the surface with a large gasp. "Clover, are you alright?" Starswirl asked, using his magic to drag the soaked apprentice to the edge. Clover only nodded and took the breaths she missed while underwater. "What happened?" "It seemed you were pulled into the pool. What did you see down there?" "Myself." A curious glow caught both of their attentions. It was a ball of liquid slowly rising from the center of the pool. It was as cloudy as the pool itself. It began to take shape. It slowly rotated. Six prongs elongated from the once-perfect sphere. Each turned into a part of a pony. Four became its hooves, one its head, and the last lengthened to a fine, long tail. The glow faded and revealed a splitting image of Clover was left hovering over the water, suspended like a kitten by its mother's teeth, asleep. The slumber however was rudely interrupted when the clone started screaming in pain. Its eyes opened wide, showing how its shrunken pupils darted from left to right in panic. Clover, now out of the pool, stumbled over backwards. The screaming was unbearable, but the sight before her was even more so. The clone's body expanded sideways, warping it like a balloon. Then the clone ripped in half, with each quickly fixing its respective body to once again mirror the apprentice. Clover shook in terror at the brutality she saw. The clones were sweating, faces still twisted in agony. When the mirror pool lost its glow, the two clones dropped, but Starswirl caught them with his magic and brought them to solid ground. "How curious..." Starswirl observed, "Were my calculations off?" The clones twitched. Their eyes fluttered. They lifted their heads and looked around until their eyes fell upon the two unicorns. The clones' reactions were varied. The first one was terrified, shaking as if she had seen a ghost. The second one displayed anger, and immediately fired upon Starswirl, who cast a spell to block the attack and trap the two clones in adequately-sized spheres. They thrashed around like caged animals, ignoring the unicorn's attempts to calm them down with words. The angry clone fired a bolt at her captors that penetrated her prison, hitting Starswirl on his hoof. Starswirl grunted in pain and growled. "That is it, back to where you came from!" Starswirl's glowing magic flooded inside the spheres, erasing any evidence that anything was there at all. When he was sure that he had undone the clones, he released his grip on the traps and let the vapor travel back to where it belonged. Starswirl sighed deeply. "Are you alright, Clover?" "How..." "It must have been an unforeseen reaction to—" "HOW COULD YOU!?" Starswirl stepped back in surprise "What? I only did what—" "They were scared, Starswirl! Didn't you see it in their faces? Please tell me that... what you did to them was painless." "I unraveled the fibers of their being, I can't say for certain if it was painless or not. Clover, I did what I did to keep you safe. As your mentor, that is my priority. It had to be done." "They were both me, Starswirl... am I that..." Clover failed to hold back the tears, "worthless to you?" She couldn't take it anymore, and she ran out. "Clover!" Starswirl shouted, but the mare paid no heed and just ran. Twilight's own eyes had watered just listening to the story. There was a dark stain on the wall where her head was pressed up against to listen in on the conversation. She was sitting under the light of her dresser, trying to calm herself down. It wasn't Cricket's nightmare that made her tear up. After Cricket finished telling about her nightmare, the clones said something that made Twilight reevaluate not only herself, but her feelings towards the two: "The worst thing is... I felt all of it. When the clone was torn in two, and when the clones... returned to the pool. I don't feel safe here. Twilight looks at us the same way that other unicorn did. I'm scared, Vice. I don't want to feel that pain again. Please don't let me feel that pain again. I can't bear it." "I swear nopony is going to hurt you. I promise." The alicorn looked into the dresser's mounted mirror and saw her own reflection giving her an angry scowl. It was the same face she gave the clones when she first saw them. It was also the same face she had when she was blasting away at the other clones during the first incident. After hearing everything Cricket said, she had a hard time facing herself. She never dreamed of causing pain, but she realized that she never really thought about how her clone banishing spell affected them. Was it painful for them? They bloated up like a balloon almost three times their size. The rapid expansion surely had to hurt... She remembered what she was thinking back then. 'It had to be done.' "What else was I supposed to do?" She asked her reflection, hoping that the answer would have drifted into her ears, but she heard nothing but the sound of the clones returning to their room. She unwittingly laid her eyes on a notebook and took it with her magic. She flipped the pages until she found her most recent notes. They were details of what she had gathered so far from observing the clones. Reading through them, she realized that it confirmed her initial suspicions. The orbs she saw escaping the mirror pool had formed two incomplete clones, each taking a portion of Pinkie Pie's personality. Vice had Pinkie's less dominant aspects, the ones she only showed once or twice. Anger, unwillingness to trust, being suspicious of other ponies, and... provocativeness. Cricket on the other hand was jolly, bouncy, and just as irritating as the original. It was difficult to see any difference between her and Pinkie, but Twilight noticed that to a certain degree, she had less control of herself. It was also interesting to note that Cricket possessed Pinkie's unique sixth sense, while Vice didn't indicate such. As good as her notes were, there was something missing. If Vice and Cricket were indeed two sides of the same coin, why didn't the others show, at the very least, subtle differences between each other? And why were they so disconnected from how Pinkie acted? They were like mindless zombies. What made the difference? Pinkie never went anywhere near the pool ever since the incident, so it begged the question on how the clones materialized in Manehattan. "Isn't that just a drink from the tavern?" "The drink!" Remembering the sample she saved, she quickly summoned the vial back to her from the castle. It appeared behind her, but she didn't focus on it yet. The dresser shone for a moment, and with a quick spell, her laboratory equipment appeared before her. "Something in this must have triggered these things. If the magic I sensed in the drink somehow reacted to any residual magic from the mirror pool, it would be possible that the pool sensed it and sent the clones here." She opened the vial to dump the contents into a beaker to study it through various tests, only to find—to her annoyance—that only a single drop was left. "Discord." The freshly brewed tea poured softly into Discord's porcelain cup. "Sorry to wake you up so late at night, Fluttershy." "Oh, there's no need to be sorry, Discord, I was just coming down to feed the night animals when you came by." The pair was outside, sitting on a picnic blanket under the late night sky. Fluttershy poured tea for herself and took a sip, taking casual glances at the owls perched on the trees to make sure they were satisfied with their meal, which they were. "It's a lovely night, isn't it?" Discord said after taking a long gulp of tea. "Y-yes, it is." "Ahh, this takes me back. Sitting out under the night sky, watching the fireflies frolicking under the canopies, and of course sharing some lovely tea with my best buddy. Although, of course it's much nicer now that I don't have to trap anypony in a magic cage to enjoy some quality time." "That's not very nice." Discord scratched his neck with a sly smile on his face. "What's a lord of chaos to do? Oh but I've reformed now. All that is in the past, and I'm getting used to this kind of lifestyle. Um... Fluttershy—" *Poof* Fluttershy gasped. Discord had suddenly vanished right in front of her eyes. "Um... Discord?" she called out quietly, "You're not trying to scare me again, are you? Discord? Eeep." "—I'm really lucky to have a friend like you to help me through this rough patch in my life. I just want to say that I could never have asked for a better friend, even if I were to conjure up a perfect one. This tea is marvelous by the way." "Discord." "Yes, Twilight?" "Is there something you'd like to tell me?" "PFFFFT—TWILIGHT?!" Discord almost jumped out of his skin. Twilight was drenched in tea and her mane had fallen over her eyes, but Discord could feel those eyes burning with anger. "Whoopsie, heheh, uh, gee Twilight, that wet mane look suits you." Twilight held out the empty container to him. "What is this?" Discord attempted to hide his recognition of the vial, but the sudden confrontation had taken him off guard. He tried to play it cool, but he stuttered in his reply. "Oh that? W-well, I think, I mean I see that it resembles one of your chemical containers, not that I've actually seen one up close, I mean I've seen similar, but not like yours, I mean—" He stopped himself and drew a sharp breath before using his magic to seal his mouth with a zipper. Twilight invoked Cadence's breathing technique to simmer down her rage before speaking. "What I mean is, what was in this vial? I need to know about it." She knew Discord had a hand in the mysterious disappearance of the drink, and Discord knew that she had already tied the crime to him. It was safer to just come out rather than to try and play it off this far into the game. He unzipped his mouth. "Well... it was a very special brew made from very special herbs that require ridiculously intensive care. Not to mention, it was was also very very tasty, as I'm sure you found out yourself." "I never touched it." "Whaaaat?" Discord gasped in over-dramatic surprise "You are missing out, Twilight. You'll never know happiness till you gulped down a glass full of this masterpiece. By the looks of things, you need one badly." A low growl escaped from the alicorn. "I think I can live without it." "Ohoho, that's exactly what Celestia said." "Princess Celestia?" "Well, she wasn't exactly a princess yet, though I would wonder how that would have affected her chances of staying in office, what with all the things she did just to get another glass. It was a shame I never got to see what happened to Hurricane after he took the last mug. Whatever happened, he was out of commission for a few weeks." Twilight's imagination took to constructing a scene where a young Celestia was fighting with the Pegasi Commander over who gets to have the last drink. It was impossible to picture Celestia in such a silly situation now, but earlier, hidden entries of the Journal of the Two Sisters plainly showed her less than mature side. Twilight shook her head to get her thoughts back on track. "What can you tell me about the herbs they used in making the... beverage?" "Okay, first of all, if we're to refer to the only masterpiece worthy of my highest regards, we need to refer to it by name." Twilight rolled her eyes. "Fine, what do you want me to call it?" "'Aether's Dew' is what 'Ol Sir Long-Bearded called it. I suggested it be named Spite, because the consequences of running out of it said everything, or Layman Lime, for that tangy finish any commoner could appreciate. Unfortunately, he really didn't like my wordplay, even though it was pure genius." "Discord, can we please get back on topic?" "Tsk tsk, Twilight. Don't you know, patience is a virtue? We'll get there soon enou—" Twilight's horn lit with a threateningly purplish glow. "—Very well..." Discord snapped his fingers and after flash of light, he was seated on a red recliner in the middle of the room, dressed in comfortable robes with a pipe in his mouth. In his hand was an open book of which he flipped the pages of. "Here we are!" He levitated the book to the alicorn and said, "Those are the herbs Starswirl and the tavern keeper used to make the Dew." Twilight scanned the page and her eyes glistened. "I never read anything about these herbs before. Their properties are so... arcane..." "That's because they were either engineered or modified by the old coot with magic, creating a completely different variation of the herbs you ponies use today. You know, Twilight, for somepony who practically idolizes such an important icon in the field of magic, you're surprisingly lacking in the knowledge of your idol's achievements. Then again, sometimes it might be for the best." "What do you mean?" Twilight lowered the book slightly upon detecting a change of tone in Discord's voice. Discord smirked smugly. "Let's just say old Starswirl did some things that were better left out of the history books. After all, it wouldn't do well for his image as a mage who was, as you scholarly types put it, the father of modern magic..." Twilight had half a mind to protest but the other half simply wasn't ready of what dark secrets Discord might reveal. For now she held her tongue and continued to read her new book. She was amazed at the level of detail dedicated to each page and each herb. It detailed everything from variations, required environmental and ecological conditions, how to properly cultivate them, even their reactions to other herbs. "Do you have everything you need now, Twilight? I was in the middle of a very important affair, you know." "Huh? Oh sure, but don't think I forgot about you drinking research material. We are still going to talk about that." "What do you mean they're gone?" Twilight burst into Pinkie's room, perplexed, and found it void of life. Pinkie came in after her, ears flat. "They were just gone when I woke up. I checked the kitchen, the bathroom, even the chimney! But I just couldn't find them, so I went downstairs and asked the hotel desk ponies if they saw them walking around anywhere, but they no, so I asked the bell colt, and he said no. I asked the elevator pony, he said no, and the chef said no too and... and... and..." Pinkie sniffled and sobbed. "Why didn't they tell me why they left?" She hunched over her bed and silently cried. Rarity moved in to comfort the mare, saying, "Oh I'm sure they'll come back. After all, you're unofficially sisters, right?" Twilight removed herself from the room, feeling torn whether to tell Pinkie what she had heard the night before, about them not feeling safe around her. How would she even say something like that? A loud knocking came to their door, and in a split second, Pinkie was there to open it, hoping to see her clones standing on the other side. But instead she saw Lucky there, sweat-soaked and panting. "We got... trouble... I think... you should know..." he said in between breaths. "Know what?" Twilight asked, looking over Pinkie's shoulder. The earth pony held out a hoof. "Lemme catch... my breath..." He steadied his breathing and swallowed a dry lump in his throat. "Ace saw Vice and Cricket over at the piers." "You found them?!" Pinkie jumped up in pure joy. "You guys are amazing!" "How did you know we were looking for them?" Twilight asked. Lucky stared at them in confusion. "We didn't, we just thought you might need to know." "Well that's a lucky break, isn't it?" Spike said. "Lucky break?" the stallion almost shouted. "Sorry, but this is anything but lucky. The piers... that's where the Switchblade gang hangs out, and their not known for their gentlecoltly personalities. Don't doubt for a second that they've been captured. And that's the best thing you can hope for." Pinkie stomped angrily. "Ooooh if those meanies hurt my sisters, they're going to get it!" "Oh those poor girls at the hooves of those ruffians!" Rarity disliked the thought of any mare being near any disreputable organization, and she wouldn't stand for it. "Can you take us there?" Twilight asked the stallion. "Are you insane? Those guys'll cut you up just for stepping on their territory. The city guards won't even think of bothering them out of fear of what they can do." "I don't care!" Pinkie shouted, surprising their informant. "I'm going there to rescue my sisters, even if I get hurt. It's what Maud would do for me." Lucky looked impressed and confused. "Who's Maud?"