Uncanoned - April Fool's Day: Pool's closed
“Alright, so I’m here. What didst thou want to show me?” Handy asked, trying not to show his exertion. It was a long, circuitous route they had taken to go up this particular mountain, which was in actuality little more than a glorified hill, but it was supposedly necessary for some godforsaken reason that had never been adequately explained to him.
Not that getting into Equestria was particularly hard. Oh no, that was the easy part. The bullshit started when he actually reached Ponyville and had to take a meandering route through the town, in the dead of night while everyone was asleep. He had hopped from alley to alley, following a pink daemon as she led the way to the princess, trying not to think too hard at the frankly terrifying ways in which she had distorted her body and seemed to pop out of places too small for her, or occasionally jumping in front of his reflection in a window pane without actually being physically in front of him, and the entire ordeal left him smelling like sugar. He did not know why that was so and it scared him.
Oh, and of course the princess wouldn’t be in, you know, the fucking castle. That would actually make sense. Apparently this Twilight Sparkle was a hands on ruler, and by hands, on he meant that she fucked off to study something strange and weird the second it so much as gleamed from the sun hitting the dew upon its surface.
Which was why they had to leave the town, by the same circuitous bullshit route of course, and promptly walked to the mountain, halfway up its height to reach a cave mouth. The journey had taken them hours, and Handy was not best pleased when he looked back down the mountainside and discovered a dirt path leading to the town, one that should’ve taken them minutes to traverse to get here.
There was much internal screaming.
“Oh, I’m not here to show you anything, silly!” the pink thing said before chuckling happily and pronking on the spot. Pronking and pronking, up and down, up and down with an annoying springing noise that was seriously beginning to grate on his nerves. It was what the pink thing did, it was what it always did, He did not like the pink thing, but he was polite to the pink thing so that the pink thing would leave him in peace. It was not that he was afraid of the pink thing, or had an intrinsic fear of that which should not be. Not at all. That was silly. You’re silly... never say such things again lest the pink thing should hear. You do not mock the happy fun pink thing. “It’s Twilight who wants to show you the pool!”
“Pool?”
“Yeppers.”
“I was summoned all the way from Griffonia for a pool?”
“Indeederoony! Well I had to take you this way because the other way involved going through a deep dark forest and falling down this hole and Twilight told me you didn’t like going undergroundsoIbroughtyouheretogothroughthisholeinthemountainthat’lltakeyoutothisotherwayinthatinvolveslessholesthoughIguessstallions likemoreholesandrollingandfallingonyourfaceandsotwilightcouldeasilybringdownallherbigshinymagicthingiestobetterstudythemagicalmysterymirrorpool!”
The pink thing gasped, and Handy just stared for a minute while the thing caught its breath, processing its diatribe. He rotated his jaw irritably when he thought of the sheer price it cost him to travel this far, to visit the Princess of Friendship as a sign of goodwill and solidarity between Equestria and Griffonia, and totally not because the alternative involved bad things with a banana and a sea serpent, only to end up investigating a fucking pool.
“Well, I did promise her Highness… Very well, let’s get this over with thank yo—” She was wearing a party hat, the biggest smile he had ever seen, and had a steaming hot pie in her hooves with sparklers in it. An actual pie, cooked and everything, not a miniature Pinkie, although he wouldn’t rule that being outside the realm of possibility with her. “...Thanks but I—”
“Come oooonnn~” Pinkie said as she leaned closer, somehow stretching her neck to more easily reach him.
“No, really Miss Pie, I’m quite fi—”
“It’ll put a smile on your face!”
“I am most grateful, truly I am but, uh…” He looked into the dark cave mouth, to the fields surrounding the base of the mountain side, and looked behind him before being forced to face the pink thing with a nervous smile. “I believe I am required to attend to her Highness in my best condition. I’m afraid a lifetime of habit has made me a most messy eater. Really, dreadful table manners, I’m afraid I simply must decline. Besides, I had a large breakfast.”
“Awwwww,” the pink thing said sadly, looking downcast before suddenly springing back to life and getting far too close to Handy’s face for his comfort, he actually took a step back. “But you’ll have some later, wontcha, huh huh HUH!?”
“...Perhaps?” he asked, not entirely sure of himself. She smiled widely, not showing any teeth, and her eyes narrowed. She raised a hoof and gently placed it on his nose, saying quietly:
“I’ll hold ya to it. BYE!” she said brightly before bouncing away down the path some distance and hopping down the muzzle of a comically-shaped, sky blue cannon that Handy was certain wasn’t there a second ago, before his vision was entirely subsumed by the pink thing. The cannon dropped to a position where it was aimed roughly in the directly of the town and promptly exploded. Literally exploded, with parts flying everywhere and with the pink thing sent flying over the distance. Now Handy had had more than enough experience with cannons, more than he’d like, and enough common sense to know that everything that just happened was wrong.
But he didn’t want to tell the pink thing that. She might correct him.
“Master?”
“Whaugh!” Handy jumped, turning on the spot to find a very concerned-looking Crimson standing right behind him. She eyed the smoking mark on the ground where the pink thing’s cannon had once been before looking up at Handy again. “Where the hell were you!?”
She winced before answering. “...Hiding.”
“How?”
“Ways and means,” she said evasively, waving a hoof.
“...Can you teach me?” he asked. Her horn glowed for a second, a contemplative look on her face, as her eyes crossed, looking up at her horn.
“Probably not,” she said. Handy sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Well let’s get on with this. What can you tell me?” he asked, turning to face the cave mouth and the infinite blackness within its gaping maw. Nothing good ever came of entering caves for him. Crimson walked up to the mouth and stopped, eyeing the edges before placing a hoof forward.
“Hmmm, some minor protective wards, nothing too maj— Whoops.” She tried to withdraw her hoof, only to find it was stuck in mid air. “Mm, looks like if we enter, we’ll be stuck until sompeony can deactivate whatever containment wards are being used here. This is pretty strong magic too.”
“Can you do it if it was necessary?” Handy asked calmly, not intending to be stuck.
“Yes, Master,” she answered calmly before entering the cave fully. Handy tried not to twitch at her use of master. He had long since given up on trying to get her over it, but at least she stopped calling him it in front of other people. Though there was that one night in that inn... In any case, she was happier too – they all were. Everything was smoothed over and explained and hunky dory with the world. All his adventures had been wrapped up in a satisfying and reasonable manner that was in no way completely and utterly contrived in order to justifiably make sense of why Handy would readily waltz right into Equestria at a pony princess’ request and enter a warded cave he knew he’d be magically trapped within for an indeterminate length of time for an unknown purpose. It all made perfect sense.
No, I will not explain myself. Shut up.
The cave opened up. What had once appeared to be darkness was anything but. The cave was perfectly visible and well lit, expansive and rounded, just the way Handy liked it. Not the largest cave he’d seen but an appreciable size, with the pool at its center which seemed to illuminate the cave with ambient light. A staircase carved out of the rock descended to the floor while a smoother incline could be seen snaking up the far wall to some massive, dark hole. It was honestly quite enchanting and peaceful. Or it would be if the cave wasn’t plastered wall to wall with MAD SCIENCE!
No, seriously.
Princess Twilight Sparkle had set up innumerable arcane-looking machines that frankly looked like something out of a nineties super villain's hideout. Immense machines with oscillating projections, various superfluous bulbs in random places that lit up at odd times, some kind of graphing machine that was measuring something while its pen went crazy and drew erratic lines on piles of paper that were spilling forth and the place had a frightening number of unshielded tesla coils from which lightning cracked and spasmed. The air was electrified, and Handy felt goosebumps as every hair on his body stood increasingly on end as the power in the room suffused them. Some of the machines were shaking with volatility, and steam gushed from somewhere, giving the atmosphere a humidity at odds with the dryness caused by the constant burnt ozone and the, you know, fucking lightning being thrown about the place. Crystal based magitek – this must have cost several kings’ ransoms. He had never ever seen this much of it in one place at the same time. Twiley dearest must have been fucking loaded.
Or she was, not anymore after this, holy shitballs. There were more traditional arcane paraphernalia Handy recognised. Diagrams, runes, some kind of magical formulae carved into strange rocks that didn’t look native to this cave, talismans, several magical-looking artefacts of some description. Some looked like ordinary things such as wooden spoons that had strange markings that seemed to exude a fine golden mist, while others seemed like unidentifiable fetishes. Whatever was going on here, Miss Sparkle was trying a lot of different kinds of magic.
“Master?”
“Mm?”
“What are we doing here?” Crimson asked warily, horn aglow as she looked at the machines suspiciously. Old magic shenanigans aside, she came from a rather different school of thought when it came to the arcane after all and had little time for the highly formalized methodology and theory most socially acceptable mages favoured. That was fine with Handy, considering he had experienced enough to find most people’s dogma on magic to be suspect at best.
“Politics,” Handy answered before speaking more loudly, “Your highness? Are yo—”
“Oh, there you are!” The princess appeared, popping out from behind a table set up with the most obtuse alchemy equipment Handy had ever seen, parchments and papers flying everywhere. She was looking distinctly less than regal, her mane out of shape and frayed, bags under her eyes, a nervous twitch, a disjointed smile, and a pair of glasses that were sitting lopsided on her muzzle which she quickly corrected. Her wings were in similar disarray, and she actually seemed to be wearing a coat of some sort that was stained with what Handy presumed was coffee. Good thing it wasn’t white or he’d start wondering. “I’m so glad you could come, you see I was really hoping you could help me with something.”
“I would be happy to. I brought my own expert on magic to see if—”
“Oh really!?” Suddenly, Crimson got a face full of alicorn and had to take a step back. “Great! Could you help me analyze the readings? I’d love to have a second opinion!”
“I… I’m not that well versed in such mechanical—”
“Great!” Twilight exclaimed happily before grabbing an alarmed-looking Crimson and dragging her over to the stenograph. That was what you call those things, right? It made graph and had a stencil? “Just keep an eye on this, this and this, and let me know if you see any anomalies. I’ll be over there checking the thematic actuator for any convulsion in the merlinford polarity. I need you to let me know if—”
And Handy tuned her out. It was all very fascinating, he was sure, but not having learned anything about magic, listening to someone discussing high level intensive magical theory was like listening to a mathematician explain his proof to you when you had never even heard of the concepts of maths. And never ever seen basic numbers before. And you were deaf. You just didn’t have even the most basic concepts grasped let alone anything on that tier, you noob.
He meandered over to the edge of the pool and looked down. It was mirror-smooth and reflected him near perfectly, albeit with a slight blue tinge to everything. It was magic, he could tell that much, but considering the very smart pony’s magical implements were just hanging an inch above the water’s surface without actually touching it, Handy figured it’d be best if he didn’t reach down for a drink. Even if the idea of a spot of water sounded really good right now. He looked up to see a rather bewildered-looking Crimson casting a worried glance in his direction before turning her attention back to the, frankly, concerning number of unstable implements.
“My Lady Sparkle?”
“Mm?” He turned around to find her on the far side of the room, a spell book open on a stand, with around ten different parchments, both ancient and new, floating around her as she cross-referenced them.
“While it is indeed a…” he waved his hand, eyeing their surroundings, “...unique experience to see thee again, may I ask what is so important about this pool that thou hast specifically required me to be in attendance for?”
“Oh right, I should probably explain myself. You remember that argument we had regarding magic?” Twilight asked, referring to an incident that totally happened and that the narrative was not conjuring out of thin air for ease of flow to help this farce maintain causal integrity. “Well, I wanted to see if I could use your experience with… unorthodox magic to help me understand how this pool works,” she said, indicating the pool with a hoof. Handy looked at it and then back at the princess.
“So what does it do?” Handy asked, looking over its edge. Then he felt something shoving him from behind, and he fell into it with a splash. Thankfully, it wasn’t too deep, and he emerged gasping for air before shooting the princess a venomous look.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, “but I need you for the control and for that you had to be wet.”
“...What.”
“You’ll see, just need to test something Pinkie told me.”
“Thou… needst me to jump into the pool?”
“Yes.”
“...Did you think to ask?” Handy deadpanned. Twilight shifted a bit as he pulled himself out. Well, at least it wasn’t his armour and not any of his good suits, but still it was going to be a bitch to dry this shit off. Twilight looked behind him at the pool as he got out, seemingly expecting something and let off a contemplative ‘hmm’ before checking one of her books. It seemed to be a journal of some kind. Handy cleared his throat, and she looked up in surprise before grinning nervously and hiding the book behind her.
“Right. Asking. Yes, that probably would have been more appropriate.” She laughed nervously. Crimson gave her a less than pleasant look over her shoulder before turning to the machines. “But it’s okay though! We’ve already proven one of my theories right and now we have a control!”
“And what did we prove?” Handy said, trying to remain calm. Reasoning just as he had fucked with her in the past, perhaps in more ways than one, she could be forgiven fucking with him just once without reprisal. Maybe. He would think about it.
“That you aren’t cloned just because you stepped into the pool!”
“...What.”
“Yes, you see?” she said excitedly, trotting over to the edge and pointing to the waterline and the ground surrounding the pool. It was dry; not a single drop of water had left the pool. Her implements that hovered over it were not so much as squirted by the water. “The water is contiguous, and the only way to take any from it is to literally take some in a container, soak something in it, or drink it. Just landing in it won’t cause a splash explosive enough to—”
There was another splash, and a pretty purple pony princess spluttered and flailed in the pool. Now, I’m not saying that the tall human had anything to do with it, and definitely not by carefully stepping back a tad and moving one leg in a position right behind her to shove her forward juuuust as she was leaning a bit too far over the edge. But at the same time, I was not saying he didn’t. She managed to steady herself and narrowed her eyes at the human, who smiled genially. Crimson kept a sly smile to herself.
“Right. Well, I guess I deserved that.” Handy simply nodded as she emerged from the pool and… proceeded to shake the water off of herself with Handy as front row witness. He frowned. “As I was saying, the magic in this pool can clone ponies, I have been studying it for a while now and I just cannot seem to crack it. It falls outside all known models of magic I can devise.”
Crimson was listening now. Her ears flicked up and rotated to hear the princess better as she continued, “It uses an incantation to activate its properties but doesn’t exhibit any—”
“The point, if thou wouldst be so kind, my lady.”
“Well. I’ve been… reluctant to test live ponies on it, but you seem to have experience with this kind of esoteric phenomena before.”
“Thats one way of putting it. So you wish to… test cloning on myself?”
“Well… yes you see…” She looked pained as if recalling some thought that had been bothering her for some time now. She shook her head. “Nothing, just... you don’t need to worry about anything. I can get rid of the clone peacefully. That’s why I needed you wet.”
“Keep saying that, it’s never going to sound right.”
“...Right, anyway. When clones emerge from the pool, although I only have Pinkie’s word for it, they’re completely dry. I’m hoping that’ll be the case so we can easily tell you apart from the clone.”
“So what if, because I am already soaked, the clone emerges soaked as well anyway?” Handy postulated. Twilight’s ear twitched and she stomped the ground, muttering something along the lines of knowing she was forgetting something. Handy looked around at the impressive array of bullshit around the pool. “How long hath thou been down here anyway?”
“Oh you know,” she said, looking off to the side, eye twitching. “A while.”
“And thou did not think having multiple… well me’s around would be a tad problematic?”
“Well, yes, I had considered it, but I figured you could handle it,” she said brightly. Handy shared a look with Crimson. “I mean, I know its a lot to think about. Not everypony is comfortable with being clo—”
“Okay.”
“...ned and— wait what?”
“What do I need to do?” Handy said, strolling over to the pool,. Twilight looked at him in confusion. Crimson’s mouth was open. “Thou mentioned an incantation, correct? Does one require inherent magical ability to use it?”
“I… well yes, sort of. Pinkie Pie doesn’t know any magic… I think,” Twilight said, suddenly unsure of herself. “You should be able to cast it. The magic is in the pool itself, not in the pony casting the incantation. Theoretically.”
“Then what are the words?” Handy asked casually. Twilight, a bit taken aback by how readily the human agreed to this, took a few seconds to stammer out an answer.
“Okay, well, ahem, repeat after me: into her own reflection she stared—”
“She?”
“...He stared, yearning for one whose reflection he shared. And solemnly sweared not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly there.” The pool seemed to glow brighter for a moment or two. Everyone watched it carefully as it slowly dimmed back down to normal. “Happens whenever anypony repeats the rhyme. My guess is if nopony is directly over it, and isn’t the one saying the words, nothing happens.”
“Convenient.”
“Quite.” Crimson snorted. Handy merely turned back to the pool and took a breath before repeating the words.
It was like he was drawn into his own reflection. He couldn’t feel himself move but felt as if he was being drawn by the millimetre and then faster and faster towards the surface of the water with each syllable. The water glowed brighter and brighter until finally, he saw himself. He was emerging from the pool of water deftly, as he looked upon himself looking back, slackjawed and surprised, at the two ponies in the room and the unknowable apparatus that surrounded them all.
Then he blinked and he was standing right where he had been next to Twilight as he watched his doppelganger pull himself to his feet. Dry as a bone, it stood up uneasily and looked upon his surroundings with a sour expression before eventually locking eyes with Handy himself. Both of them stared at one another for a long, long time. Twilight was excitedly hopping from hoof to hoof before checking her instruments and magical bric a brac, babbling to herself. Handy wasn’t listening, too busy gazing in wonder at for all the world was an exact replica of himself. He moved a hand to his own cheek, and saw his double do the same. He let out a breath, catching himself before he laughed outright.
“Master?” Crimson looked between the two of them. The clone looked at her with an odd expression.
“It’s alright, Crimson,” Handy said, taking a step closer to his clone. “It’s more than alright.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Twilight said, looking over her machines, paying attention to one in particular which seemed to display a number of colourful crystals floating within a transparent container. “Nothing happened, no spike, no readings… Did you get anything over there?” she said back to Crimson without turning. She didn’t get an answer and just let out an exasperated groan before rubbing her face with her hooves. “Ugh, I must have missed something. This is going take weeks to figure out. I’m sorry, Handy, seems I’ve dragged you here for nothing. Look, I’ll just… I guess I have to dispel your clone now, not really knowing—”
When she had turned around, it was just in time to see Handy, soaking wet Handy that is, with his hand on his double’s shoulder. She saw him smile, and saw his double smile back at him, a little hesitantly.
And then she saw Handy brutally murder his own face with his hammer.
The clone dropped to his knees before hitting the ground with his ruined face. “God damn, that was cathartic!” Handy exclaimed, hands in the air, bloody hammer and all. “Oh hey, I have two now,” he said, grabbing the hammer of the fallen clone. “Anyone want a hammer? No? Just me? Cool.”
Crimson looked on, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Twilight was still in shock as they watched the human gleefully loot his own dead body. Because, you know, that would be something you’d just do after killing yourself. “Wh-What did you just…”
“What?” Handy asked simply as if it were just any other daily activity, currently looting the clone’s coin purse. “Oh man, I can certainly see a use for this pool.”
“Wait how can you—! Thats just—! You just killed somepony!”
“No, I probably almost certainly did in fact mostly not.” Crimson squinted her eyes and cocked her head at him. “Here I’ll show you.”
“What,” Twilight said flatly as she watched Handy walk over to the pool and repeated the incantation before she could stop him. “Wait!”
“Nope,” he said as he helped his second doppelganger come out of the pool. Handy v3 looked at v2 in some manner of confusion, before looking up at Handy Prime, eyes wide with understanding.
“Oh,” the clone said.
“Yeah, oh. Want to have a go?” Handy said before immediately putting a hand on the clone’s arm as he reached for his own weapon. “Not at me. I’m the prime, remember?”
“Ah.” It looked back at the pool. “Clone?” it asked simply.
“You clones aren’t really all there, are you?” Handy asked. It shook its head. “Well, repeat after me.” And it did so, and two more Handy clones appeared. Twilight was visibly freaking out before shouting.
“Okay! Hold up! What do you think you’re doing!?” she demanded.
“Silly pony, I’m doing science!” She gawked at him. Crimson was looking from human to human in something approaching alarm, or maybe it was something else, but didn’t interfere. Her swishing tail was the only sign that she was discomforted at all. Her horn glowed as she tried grabbing all of them so they couldn’t go near the pool.
“This isn’t— You just— You can’t!”
“Look, thou requested of me to help thee with thy research. Am I not doing that?”
“No!”
“Oh,” Handy said, his grin dropping. Twilight sighed and let them all go, a shaking hoof raised to her forehead.
“I just… I didn’t think I’d ever see somepony die right in front of me.”
“It’s alright, Highness, clones aren’t people.”
“Thats what I thought back when…” her voice hitched in her throat, “back when Pinkie… But the thought always lingered. What if they weren’t, what if—” She looked up. Where there were four Handies, there was now sixteen. “What.”
“Now repeat after me,” Handy Prime said to his clones, his hand on the shoulder of Handy 3.0, his hammer hanging loose in his free hand which he swung back around and then forth in and upwards arc. His silver hammer crashed into the face of the second clone, crushing his jaw and knocking the clone off of his feet and back on the ground, mewling in pain as he clutched what remained of his ruined face. “Now that? That was a poor shot. It was an awkward angle, so make sure you go for clean kills, ‘kay? ‘Kay.” He grabbed his hammer in both hands and swung it overhead, bringing it down on the blighted clone’s head to end his suffering. A line of blood splattered across Twilight’s face as she watched Handy’s head cave in like an overripe melon. Her eye twitched and she whimpered.
After that it was pretty much chaos and carnage as the clones went to town on each other while the princess watched on in abject terror. Her expensive, rare, and nigh irreplaceable magical equipment was broken and being destroyed right before her eyes as her makeshift lab became a battleground, with clones occasionally taking breaks to bring out more clones to continue the cycle of violence, occasionally taking sides, turning a mindless melee into a grinding war of attrition which then turned into a confusing slaughter again. Twilight, the poor dear, was sitting there completely horrified when Crimson trotted over to her and sat on her haunches beside her.
“You okay?” she asked. The pretty purple petrified purple pony princess didn’t answer. “Yeah, I’m not okay either,” she said with a bored expression, a hot cup of coffee floating beside her. Twilight would’ve thought to ask how long it took her to find her coffee maker but then Twilight wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there getting absolutely traumatised. “I mean, here I am watching the pony who saved me from a life of slavery, by rather unorthodox methods it must be stated, killing himself right before my eyes. I mean, you know?” No answer. “I’ve seen worse things and I’ve seen stranger things, but sometimes…”She sighed. “Somethings just hit you hard anyway.” She took a sip before casually asking, “You want a cup?” Twilight just slowly shook her head. Crimson could’ve sworn she heard her neck creaking like a rusty iron door that hadn’t seen oil in a thousand years. “Yeah, I wouldn’t either,” Crimson said, taking a sip. “You have terrible taste in coffee.”
“Hope you don’t mind, Majesty, but I was making use of thy kettle,” Handy said, strolling up behind the ponies and leaning back against a wooden table, stirring his coffee. “I mean, I would’ve taken some milk as well, but thou hast likely acquired your milk from cows, and I have yet to reconciled myself to partaking of milk from a thinking creature that wasn’t my mother when I was but a babe. It does mean I’ve had to partake of goat’s milk instead, not the most pleasant thing, but you would be surprised at what tastes you can acquire.”
“You!” And suddenly, Twilight latched onto Handy and forced him back onto the table, spilling his coffee all over the table’s various contents and likely priceless arcane manuscripts and uncounted pony hours of diligent work destroyed in moments. He blinked up at her in surprise. “Why!?”
“Why?”
“Why!”
“Why not?”
“Why not!? Why not!?” she practically screamed into his face, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him back onto the table. Normally that’d be enough to push him over the edge and react violently, even to a princess, but he was in too good a mood after breaking his own face in. Twice. “Because you are killing ponies!”
“Correction, I am killing myself. A lot.”
“But they’re ponies!” she shouted, gesturing back at them with a wing as they milled about, brutalising one another in the background. Crimson was idly spectating as she nursed her coffee, occasionally eyeing the princess with disdain just to make sure she didn’t actually harm Handy.
“Really now,” Handy said thoughtfully, seeing just how distressed Twilight was. This clearly wasn’t just from being exposed to death and destruction. Granted, that might be part of the reason, but if it was the only one, she’d probably still be fretting over that tiny sliver of blood streaking across her cheek. “Then how is this any worse than ‘peacefully dispelling of my clones’ once they were done?”
The question bit deep, and he saw uncertainty in her eyes. He placed both of his hands on her withers and gently pushed her off of him so he could get up, “So, my lady Sparkle, tell me why is it you really wanted to test this pool?”
“I just… I wasn’t… I needed to be sure. I needed to be sure I didn’t… didn’t kill ponies… that I didn’t really kill Pinkie Pie over and over again.” Well shit. Handy considered it for a moment before drawing out his hammer, marching over to the melee and swinging, catching a poor, bloody-faced clone straight in the throat and sending him to the floor. “What!? Why did you do that?”
“Why do you think I so gleefully engaged in wanton violence against myself after I got cloned like this?”
“I don’t know, maybe because you’re bucking crazy!?”
“Probably, but consider this.” He swung. Another clone died. “The way I see things.” Death. “These clones don’t have souls.” Murder. “Like, not even material souls.”
“What the Tartarus are you talking about.”
“It’s complicated, but basically they’re less than plants or animals. Probably.” Horrific violence. “Therefore, it’s not even a sin to kill them. Maybe.” Facial deconstruction. “And I always hated myself just enough to always kinda sorta want to do this anyway.” Nonconsensual manslaughter. “Not kill myself, thou must understand, but kill a facsimile of me.” Something that would require a gore tag to adequately elucidate. “But if they do have souls, that would mean they are blank slates, then I am promptly sending them all to a nicer afterlife than anything they could experience in any world thou carest to name. Possibly. Also, that would mean this pool is God, so uh, congrats on finding pool God I guess.” Murderous death violence. “And if they are an exact replica of me, soul, history and all, then I really am doing the world a favour. I kinda had this coming honestly. Potentially.” He swung and scored. “Sure, in those last two cases, it probably is murder I guess, but I’ll only find out when I die anyway. Maybe. But the odds still are that these are literally just what the were before they popped out of the pool. Reflections, nothing more.”
“That’s… that’s insane!”
“Then tell me, highness, thine dispelling trick for the clones.” He picked up a spare warhammer and swung it, throwing it end over end before it collided with the head of one of the Handy’s on the other side of the pool before another Handy took him out. You know, for being exact clones of Handy, these guys were pretty shit in a fight by comparison. “How is it any different from what I am doing now?”
“I didn’t enjoy doing it!”
“A good point, but does it make it more or less wrong of an act in and of itself than what I am doing right now?” Handy asked. She didn’t have much of an answer. “Oh well, I guess I can just go on playing with myself then.” Crimson snorted, coughing up her coffee.
“But… b-but- I…” Twilight looked crestfallen. Crimson rolled her eyes and patted her lightly on the wither.
“Princess, does thy spell work on non-clones?” Handy asked, taking a break from the murder and looking down at himself. “Hm, yeah I’m going to need to wash all of this.”
“I… I haven’t tried it on anypony since. I had come up with it on the spot and didn’t think too hard when I used it. I don’t know if… if when I use it on somepony ‘real’ they’ll—” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “They’ll disappear or not.”
“Care to try then?” Handy asked simply, eyebrow raised. Twilight looked up shocked. Crimson’s eyes widened in alarm at Handy before narrowing at Twilight.
“No. She doesn’t,” she said warningly.
“Oh give her a chance, Crimson. She’s obviously holding back a lot of guilt. Imagine, thou didst nothing more than cut some wheat with a scythe but could never be sure thou didst not decapitate some innocent children in the harvest.” Twilight looked torn and slightly horrified at Handy’s choice of comparison. “‘Sides, if she does kill me, thou can just slay her.”
Crimson’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure about this.” Twilight eyed Crimson fearfully for a moment before looking back at Handy.
“Look, it’s either she finds out now, and worst case scenario she kills me and discovers she may or may not have killed her real friend and that there’s a clone mimicking the pink thing and then, in her turn, dies. Sad times all around. Best case scenario? Nothing happens to me, and the charnel house behind me disappears. We go home. I got to kill myself a lot, and her Highness is reassured that she is not, in fact, a horrible murderer. Everybody wins.”
“What about me?” Crimson asked.
“You get all my stuff.”
“That’s… not what I meant,” she said, looking downcast for a moment, frowning. Her bored expression returned for a moment before looking at the princess. Her horn briefly flashed red before turning a distinct green. “If you’re so certain about this…” she said, looking at Handy sideways.
“Oh, I’m not, but I remember how I felt when I first killed someone, and if I can reassure her Highness as a favour for Equestria on behalf of Griffonia, then so be it. The worst that can happen, after all, is death and there’s worse things than that.”
“Why... What… Why would you even think of doing this?” Twilight asked, unshed tears in her eyes as the situation turned so radically against her. The battle quietened down behind them with most of the magical paraphernalia broken and strewn about the place. There was only one clone left milling about, but he was too busy looting corpses to pay attention to the three of them.
“Thou asked for my help specifically because of my experience on the receiving end of strange and esoteric magic,” Handy said darkly. “I am here at thy request, and this is what has become of it. There are worse things than death, dearest Aine. Please own up to the consequences. This is what you have wrought, after all. You were so prepared to use your dispelling upon one clone.” He gestured behind him. “What is a dozen or so more? And if you really think you have killed living people, what is a few more? Have I not done you a favour by destroying my clones for you? You would only be killing one of me at worst.” There was a sound of something breaking behind them. “Well two, but you already know my feelings on these things. And then you’d know. One way or another, you’d know.”
“But what if… Pinkie…” She seemed to shrink. Handy remained quiet while Crimson retained a stern visage, occasionally looking over at Handy, betraying her own uncertainty.
“At best, you’ll learn it’s the real one as only the clones would have possibly been dispelled. At worst, well, thou still wouldst not know for sure, but thou would be too dead to care.” Handy narrowed his eyes at the pony. “Well, your Highness, doth thou truly wish to know whether or not th’art a murderer?” She looked down. He couldn’t see her eyes or hear her sobbing but saw the dark spots on the floor as the tears fell upon the dusty stone as her shoulders shook. Just as he thought, she didn’t look like a killer, didn’t have it in her eyes. She’d never follow through on what he challenged her to. His initial estimation of her seemed to be on the money. He sighed before nodding to Crimson, who deactivated her horn as he turned around and—
Twilight let out a scream and a wave of magic burst from her horn, lifting Handy and Crimson bodily into the air and sending them flying across the room. The cave was a mess as everything lifted in the magical storm she let loose and then dropped upon the ground. The bodies of the clones were lifted into the air before floating in slow motion and slowly dissolving into white particles that themselves disappeared before leaving existence with a short popping noise. The one remaining living clone seemed to collapse in on himself in a burst of magic, meaning there was an apparent difference between a living clone and a dead one that would doubtlessly be fascinating to Twilight if she hadn’t had her eyes closed, bawling tears when she cast her spell.
Twilight looked down at the ground, sobbing hard. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to no one in particular. The silence in the aftermath of her explosive burst of magic hung heavy on the air like a funeral shroud. “I’m so sorry… I had to know. I had to.” She looked up and her crying stopped.
A very bewildered-looking Crimson was lying in between two machines of undefinable purpose, on her back while trying to extricate herself from innumerable wires and cords and bundles of rope which had been used for God only knows what. Handy himself, soaking wet and now free of every drop of clone blood, mind you, was sitting propped up against an upturned table and beside a pile of broken glass, sitting in a puddle of colourful fluids as papers and manuscripts floated down to earth from where they had been blown into the air. He genuinely looked completely and utterly shocked, rendered speechless.
He was, however, completely whole and alive, so Twilight had that going for her. “Y-You’re alive!”
“Yes…” Handy managed after a few seconds of trying to get his brain to work, patting himself down. “It appears so. Crimson?”
“Master?” she answered, echoed questioningly by Twilight.
“It looks like you don’t have to kill the Princess.”
“That’s good, Master, I’ll be sure to enjoy that fact when the world stops spinning,” she said, flailing uselessly at her entanglements. Twilight wiped her tears away with her fetlock.
“Th-That means… Pinkie, she’s… Oh I’m so happy!” she said, sniffling, still crying but now for an entirely different reason. Handy managed to get up and check to make sure everything was in place, frowning that her dispelling spell had rid him of the clone money he had looted. A pity, but he’d rather concentrate on that rather than the fact he almost bloody died. He had not expected the princess to go through with it, he really didn’t, so much so he literally bet his life on it. He had been so sure he could push her limits just to fuck with her. Looked like a certain purple pony had hidden, terrifying depths of strength. He tried not to let how terribly shaken he was show as he busied himself making his way over to his ponyservant and pull her from the wreckage. Twilight was happily crying away as she levitated a journal from her lab robe and wrote into it without looking.
“Well, if that… is all. I believe we are done here, Highness?” Handy asked hopefully, deciding to be extra polite to the purple powerhouse now that he knew for sure that when it came down to it, she could and probably would kill him if pushed far enough. He’d be a bit more circumspect in fucking with little Aine from now on. Holy shit.
“Yeah…” She sniffled. “Thank you, Sir Handy. This has been such a relief, you don’t even know.”
“Think nothing of it, my Lady Sparkle, and my apologies again for the destruction of your equipment. And the magical fire one of my clones over there.” She nodded her head, a smile still on her muzzle and her eyes closed as the pair of them seemed to hurry past her. Then a hair plinked out of place on her mane, making it infinitesimally more of a mess than it already was anyway. Her eyes opened wide, her pupils pinpricks, her smile slightly strained.
“What,” she stated. For the first time taking in the raw destruction around her and mentally calculating every single bit it cost. All her artefacts, priceless books, weeks, months of research! All ruined. Soon she wanted to cry again but for yet another entirely different reason. She sat there frozen in place as the crackle of a magical fire somewhere in the cacophonous wasteland that the cave had become. She heard voices from the stairs behind her before Handy came up to her again.
“Excuse me, Highness, could you please remove the ward on the door so we can leave?”
“Oh. Sure. In a minute,” she said in a monotone. She blinked. “Wait. So the dispelling only works on clones, so I didn’t accidentally murder my friend?”
“I believe we established this, yes.”
“So does that mean the clones I killed weren’t ponies?”
“They probably had souls, I guess. So thou art probably still a horrible murderer.”
“Oh,” she said. It was very quiet for a minute or so afterwards before Handy shifted awkwardly.
“Uh, Princess? My Lady Twilight? The ward?” No answer. Crimson trotted up behind them and booped Twilight on the tip of her horn. It blipped twice like car keys, complete with sound effects and even flashed interiorly for a moment. And without questioning that little bit of nonsense, the pair of them promptly retreated leaving Twilight to her despair.
Some time later, there was a yawn and a young drake wandered into the main cave from whatever hole in the wall he had been sleeping in, dragging a pillow behind him. “Hey Twilight… Man, what happened in here?” he asked. There was the sound of a spring snapping and Twilight spoke.
“Spike! Take a letter!” she said happily. Spike looked at her with some concern before shrugging and grabbing a blank sheet of paper. It wasn’t blank and actually had an incredibly complex magical proof on its written side that would have eventually lead to the cure of every disease everywhere ever and also infinite kittens for everyone that Twilight had stumbled upon in the midst of a coffee high one evening when she took a break from the frustration of working with the pool. Now it would be ignored and lost forever as Spike prepared the letter to be sent. It would be read, the magical proof would likely seem incomplete or nonsensical to anypony else who read it and promptly disposed of and forgotten about. “I need to explain to a few dukes why I need to raise taxes for the next season…” she said with a nervous laugh.
--=--
“So you didn’t expect her to actually go through with it.”
“No, I honestly did not,” Handy said. “Did you honestly think I’d go through with that if I did?”
“After that display, I’m not so sure, Master.”
“Stop it,” Handy said as they traveled down the path to the town of Ponyville. For some reason, that town always struck him as familiar but for the life of him he could not put his finger on it. However, he stopped in his tracks when he saw the pink thing pronk down the path towards them. “Oh no.”
“What? Oh,” Crimson said, seeing the problem. Her horn lit up.
“Crimson—” He looked down. She was already gone. “...Bollocks.”
“Ohhhh HHHHaaaaannnndyyyyy~” the pink thing singsonged. The cheerful tune of doom drew closer, promising a creamy pie-filled demise. Handy didn’t even like pie. Despite everything, Handy had meant what he said. There were worse things than death, the pink thing was one of them.
--=--
Crimson admittedly felt guilty, hiding as she was in her shroud. It wasn’t quite invisibility and it wasn’t quite hiding in the veil, more akin to hiding close to the shore of the lake, hiding just below shallow waters. The world around her appeared grey and ashen as wind howled and black shapeless clouds the size of her head whipped past at blinding speeds, incorporeal and as unreal as the things a child feared in the darkness beneath their bed. She could see the world as it was, as if through a window pane darkened.
It was a high level spell, one she always kept with her in a slip of paper beneath her hoof, just in case she needed to use it and would forget it. No sense losing a part of herself because she needed to hide from danger but didn’t have enough sense to have a means on her person of remembering the spell. She watched on in sympathetic horror as her master fell prey to the pink thing and its threats of horrible horrible pies. It was hard to discern, and she could not hear what was said, nothing more than shadows in the howling storm of the veil.
“I’m so sorry, Master.”
“Well don’t be!”
“WAAAAUUUGH!?” Crimson screamed in surprise, jumping as Pinkie Pie popped out from a shadowy hedge behind her, as bright and colourful as she was. “How did you— mmph!?”
Pinkie stuck a hoof to Crimson’s muzzle, a steaming blueberry pie held in her other hoof as she leaned in closer, eyes sparkling and her smile wider than her face. Crimson whimpered in fear as she looked upon her doom. “Hush now,” Pinkie whispered. “Only pies.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.036 seconds
Total duration
1,103 users online
2,211,871 hits today, 2,571,732 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I had an inordinate amount of fun editing this, I hope you people know that. Let us say that the Funnissar Handy does his job well.
*Applauds* Well done, Very enjoyable and bonus points for actually stating it was an April Fools chapter in the chapter name!
1000/10 IGN love it.
...I'm shocked that your April Fools chapter is at least as good as your normal chapters, and has a moral/philosphical/ethical discussion in it.
Time to finally fave this fic.
I wonder what happened to being in too good a mood to post an April Fools chapter....Hmmmm?
i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/001/407/pool.jpg
That was the first and only April Fool's joke I've seen all day that I actually thought was funny, so good job on that.
Hilarious, no other words can describe it.
Pffft! That was hilarious!
mememaker.net/static/images/memes/3515457.jpg
My lungs hurt. This is probably the only April fools chapter I will read, ever.
http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2012/209/2/e/joker_pinkie_pie_by_ohthatandy-d58z3j3.png
Huh, so that's what would happen if Handy found the mirror pool... I half expected him to raise an army and take over.
Also I'm glad other people recognize the horror that is Pinkie, I mean don't get me wrong I love that character to death... But my god, to meet something that could actually do what she does, that would be terrifying.
Or of weakness, thinking about it. It takes a special kind of person to risk committing another murder for the sake of their own peace of mind - a definite streak of callous selfishness, if nothing else.
i1363.photobucket.com/albums/r710/Pacqorro/thumb-up-gif_zpsae4f01a5.gif
This.
I see you went with mine own prompt for this.
...
I might have giggled a bit. Maniacally.
Anyway, this was a fun AF chapter.
Well, that was rather amusing, although I feel like Handy should have made a Twilight clone or twelve to murder at the end there. Heck, with the way she locked up, he probably could have gotten most of the way through it before she even realized what was going on.
I can't.. I can't even..
10/10.
I love how Handy's reaction to his clones at first looks like he just decided "There can only be one!" And the rest are just like "okay"
Handy in this chapter be like:
33.media.tumblr.com/ec34412ee24556a9a03936d9d95ef05d/tumblr_njexh1BwmZ1qd4q8ao1_500.gif
This chapter better had and take the story to 800 upvotes.
lol
Ah yes, a man who takes after mine own heart! Stand boldly against thine end and hold face, for victory is ever in the reach of the warrior who hones not just body but mind. Accomplishments go out not to he who shines not unlike a diamond, rather the one who defeats thy enemy with honor.
Now that I got that mandatory archaic statement out of the way, how about I be quiet?
Great!
Fool mine self once, I am mad.
Fool mine self twice, how could thee?
Fool mine self three times, thouest officially that guy thou knowest?
But Handy, this was a chapter about morality and ethics. not funnys!
0/999999999999x9999999
What's this? No founding of a powerful anarchic Handy nation while the whole world shits itself? No, you can not kill the promise of Handyland.
Was funny chapter... if a little strange with how it jumped between serious morals and mass-self-murdering silliness.
I'm glad to see Handy has finally got over his fears and found lasting romance with the fire elemental.
5814457 You are literally the only one who has spotted the real April Fool's day joke.
Good job.
I don't know why I find it so enjoyable to watch Handy break Twilight's world. Hopefully they'll chat again soon in a more canon setting.
Best part by far was the monologue/slaughter.
Violence adjective!
5811608 Plus it hurt JBL to edit. Thats always a plus.
5811627 Eh, kinda wanted to avoid the confusion of the last one.
5811364 Hope you enjoy yourself =]
5811340 Oh then he'd be proper fucked.
5811633 It was okay.
5811634 Eh couldn't help myself, the issues been bugging me ever since that episode.
5811676 I am a lying bastard.
5811684 Aids in the pool.
5811696 Thanks.
5811713
5811723 Pleased you enjoyed it so.
5811753 Hehehe, good to hear.
5811774 Pinkie Pie has always been a bit screwy to me, and to someone like Handy who reacts appropriately to reality fuckery going on in his vicinity, it was too hard to resist emphasising the horror.
5811788 In my mind Twilight always seemed to have that possibility in her, more than other ponies she has seemed to possess the greatest ability to detach herself from a situation emotionally and Pinkie Pie excluded, she cracked way the fuck harder than any of the other ponies under stress based on evidence in the show. A dangerous combination.
5811859 That poor guy's hand...
5811989 Eh, it was fun to write after a fashion.
5812007 He'd have need to get her to say the words herself over the pool, might have been a bit harder than you'd think.
5812057 No one seems to even.
5812490 They knew what their existence meant.
5812609 COMETH AT ME BRETHREN
5812911 One can hope.
5813049 lel
5813129 i.imgur.com/fONCv9C.gif
5813922 =[
5814808 I didn't feel like going into detail, it'd get repetitive.
5814913
I really agree, the way her character is written always gives me that semi-creepy "latent fucking psychopath" vibe some people have. I absolutely see how Sir Grumpsalot would see that as a strength, given his personality and situation, I just felt like offering a bit of a counterpoint. The ability to commit acts of violence can be the result of strength of character, but only when it's under strict, conscious control. In someone who is fragile enough to react that emotionally to the thought of having killed someone, or even just watching them die, it's not only an expression of some emotional and moral deficiency, it's also a liability.
Handy-the-Character hasn't, so far, killed anyone who didn't actually do something to threaten him meaningfully - and he does have a sense of empathy, even if he doesn't like to admit it. Twilight, on the other hand, always gives that vague impression of someone who just doesn't quite think of other people as really real, and I know what those are like from experience (and Jesus fuck, those are scary people.) It certainly explains why she is so absolutely awful at that friendship thing she supposedly cares so much about. She certainly looks like she feels more sorry for herself than for her possible victim in this chapter.
And Pinkie ist just legit "psychiatric facility and medication" mentally ill. Like, seriously. Nobody is that happy and that fragile at the same time unless they're just totally broken.
5814913 Always a plus. I simply don't envy him the position. Fixing your worst mistakes is something that would give me nightmares.
5815053 Indeed. You sir, just surmised my opinions on Twilight fairly accurately. Just missing a couple of things that aren't relevant to the here and now, as of this moment.
5814913
I'm not sure about that. You made it sound like the pool as a whole energized when the rhyme was said in the chamber which would mean that one person could say it and the other could use it to duplicate. Alternatively, Handy could try grabbing Twilight and taking both of them through the pool at the same time to see if he can get a copy that way.
I'd love for this to be canon :3
5815810 No, when that happened, Twilight was saying the words and Handy was already standing over the pool and nothing happened. The person saying has to actually be looking into it or otherwise reflected, Twilight explained as much. otherwise there'd be a bunch of Twilights running around and ain't nobody got time for that.
5815867 Not happening.
5816060 But what about carrying her through the pool?
On the contrary, I think Handy would love to make time for that.
5816088 I suppose that could have happened.
Also having that many Twilights would be pretty terrifying, even if they are more mentally deficient than Twily prime.
5816124 That's what the hammer is for.
Forgot to re-release the mothballed April Fool's chapter, herpderp.
dis one made my day of how much i love handy coss how woulden wanto kill them shelf just for lols?
I WAS THE BEST!
Loot his own corpse... Yep, this guys is totally relatable and awesome for everyone who has ever played a game, die and wish that they could steal their own stuff.
6703707 Do it to get rich.
This is my favorite chapter so far.
Twilight's horn acting like car keys for the ward was what really got me laughing