An Infinite Number of Pinkies

by AugieDog

Chapter 6: The Great and Powerful Pinxie

"Hey, wait!" Reaching for the lemonade pitcher, Spike stopped, blinked, pointed a claw at Pinkie. "This is just like when Twilight and me first came to Ponyville, isn't it? You're meeting all these other Pinkies the same way we met you guys, and you're gonna end up being, like, the Elements of Harmony and ev'rything, aren't you??"

Twilight gave a little laugh. "Well, in this case, it'd be the Elements of Pinkmony."

Applejack's low chuckle. "How 'bout the Elements of HarmonPie."

A snort from Dashie. "Try the Elements of Partymony!"

"Oooo!" Fluttershy clapped her hoofs. "I think it should be the Elephants of Harmony! Wouldn't that be funny? If we were all elephants?"

And while Pinkie's heart was doing a happy dance about having such wonderful friends, she put on her best pretending-to-be-annoyed face—ears down, eyes half-closed, chin tucked into her neck—and asked in as clipped a voice as she could manage, "If ev'rypony's quite finished?"

Rarity was tapping her upper lip. "Perhaps I'll think of one later." She waved her hoof at Pinkie. "But for now, yes, please, darling, do go on."

***

Pinkie peered from under the blanket at all the different carriages rolling along the street around them, all the different ponies pulling them and riding in them and strolling on the sidewalks, all the steel and glass buildings with their colored lights reaching up into the night sky, and thought that she'd maybe never seen anything so flashy and fantastic as this mirror version of Canterlot in all her life.

Beside her, though, Khannie was shifting uncomfortably. "How much longer must we cower like this?"

Modesty chuckled. "The palace is just around the next—" She stopped, her ears pricking, and Pinkie heard it, too: the wail of a siren drifting up from behind them somewhere and making Modesty's mouth go sideways. "Mackie, love?"

"Princess?" the stallion asked from his yoke up front.

"Might be best if we parted ways here and now." Her hoofs moving quickly, Modesty stripped off her sparkly dress and slipped back into the black sneaky-suit she'd been wearing when Pinkie'd first seen her, Pinkie grinning at the white domino mask cutie mark barely visible on the unicorn's slightly pinkish flanks. "Lead our friends in blue a merry chase for me, and I'll send word when I'm back in town." She took the case with the bracelet in it and held it out to Pinkie. "Could you do the honors, Pinkie, till we present it to her Ladyship?"

"Hooray!" Pinkie jammed the little box in amongst the tangles of her mane. "Are we gonna meet your princesses, then?"

Modesty had crouched down onto the floor of the carriage. "Thought perhaps we could use one of their Nibses' mirrors, as well." She raised her voice. "At the next corner, Mackie."

"Yep. See you 'round."

A shifting in the blanket, and Plinky Pie's wide-eyed face peered out. "What...what are we doing, exactly?"

The carriage was slowing, moving to the right, the buildings on that side of the road looming closer, the siren echoing off them. "Simple." Modesty touched a hoof to the door handle. "You're following me quick as you can." She glanced back. "Ev'rypony got it?"

"About time," Khannie rumbled, and Pinkie nodded her head hard enough to make the bracelet tucked into her mane rattle.

"Stalwart." Modesty flashed a smile. "Then we're going in three, two, one—" The carriage jostled, the door popped open, and Modesty tumbled out; Pinkie leaped after her, turned to grab Plinky, Khannie shoving her from behind, then scrambled beside the both of them into the alley where Modesty had vanished.

Not that she had vanished; her face, the only part of her not covered by the sneaky-suit, almost glowed in the shadows ahead, and as Pinkie's eyes got more used to the darkness, she could see her unicorn twin grabbing a metal grate, swinging it open, a storm drain gaping behind it. Plinky rushed through, Pinkie cocking her head at Khannie and trying to figure—

"It's a squeeze for Mackie," Modesty whispered, "but he can do it."

Khannie scowled. "I don't care much for the scale of these other worlds so far, Pinkie Pie." She ducked, her wings wrapped tight around her, and managed to slide in, Pinkie right on her tail just in front of Modesty clicking the grill closed, the sirens getting louder and closer outside.

"Press on!" Modesty hissed. "This first bit's rather dark, cramped, and unpleasant, but it opens up not much farther inward!"

A little whimper from ahead was followed by Khannie's voice, softer and warmer than Pinkie had heard it before: "We're here with you, small one. Single steps are what's called for now, one after the other."

Hoofs shuffled in the darkness, and Pinkie felt the stale air move. "That a girl, Plinky!" she added, stepping forward herself.

The way wound downward steadily but not steeply and was so dusty dry, each breath almost made Pinkie sneeze. After a few minutes, though, the sweet scent of fresh water tickled her nose, and she had to ask, "Is there a river down here?"

"Almost," came Modesty's voice with a little snicker in it. "Just about there, girls."

"Is that—?" Plinky gave a gasp. "A light!"

Pinkie could see it now, too, a shimmery sparkle splashing over the wall from around a corner ahead and showing her silhouettes of Plinky and Khannie. Then Pinkie was following them out into an arched tunnel, a channel flowing from left to right, a little walkway running alongside it. And while the stuff in the channel sounded like water, the way it glowed dark blue with silver sparks made Pinkie think of a summer night full of fireflies. "What is it?" she asked.

Brushing past her, Modesty grinned. "Their Nibses aren't quite like other ponies, are they? And what comes out the royal loo when they drain the tub or flush the johnny, well, that ain't quite like other ponies', either."

Khannie barked a laugh. "I often tease the Sky Mares, asking if they piss rainbows." She bunched herself to the wall to let Modesty shuffle by along the edge of the walkway. "Looks like I was closer to the truth than I knew."

Plinky was staring at the channel. "Then this is—?" She turned as Modesty stepped around her. "A sewer?"

"The royal sewer." Modesty started upriver along the path. "It flows down to Canterlot Water and Power where they mix it with the rest of the city's waste water. Freshens it up clean as you like, and they pump it back into the reservoir to start the whole trip over again."

"Thrifty!" Pinkie couldn't help bouncing up and down. "I wonder if they do that in the Canterlot back home?"

***

"So?" Pinkie blinked eagerly at Twilight. "Do they?"

Twilight had as horrified a look on her face as Pinkie had ever seen there, and Rarity raised a hoof. "I think I might perhaps speak for all of us when I say, 'Ewww.'"

"I dunno." Applejack was rubbing her chin. "As powerful magic as them princesses are, might be there's something there needs looking into."

"No!" Twilight brought her hoof down and somehow managed to make a pretty good crash even though she was just stomping grass and dirt. "We will not be looking into anything that has to do with the princesses' bathroom habits!"

"OK, OK!" Though Pinkie couldn't resist adding, "But y'know, Twilight, you'd be the perfect one to ask about it, seeing as how you spent so much time—"

"Enough!" Twilight was blushing now, and so was Fluttershy. "We're moving on! The story, remember?? You were telling us a story!"

***

Modesty led them another couple minutes through the tunnel, and while they passed openings ev'ry once in a while, she kept going without slowing down. "Makes a lovely little shortcut, coming through here, and not one that gets much traffic."

"I—" Plinky seemed to flinch from the sound of her own voice echoing off the tunnel's stonework; when she went on, Pinkie could barely hear her. "When Viceroy Gloaming's agents rescued me from my last master, we had to sneak out of Canterlot through the sewers. They...they weren't nearly this nice."

"Really?" Modesty looked back. "Your princesses falling down on the job, are they?"

Head drooping, Plinky didn't answer; Pinkie finally had to say, "They don't have princesses in Plinky's mirror."

That got Modesty to stop, Khannie stretching her neck to gently grab Plinky's tail before the little earth pony could run into the unicorn. "No princesses?" Confusion spread over Modesty's face like food coloring through frosting. "But how...how does that even work?"

And Pinkie had to be honest. "Not very well, from what I saw."

Plinky snapped her head back up, a sudden fierceness in her expression. "Our unicorn masters and mistresses sacrificed their lives and the lives of all their children to keep us safe! And meeting Pinkie Prime, well, I'm sorry, but she seems no different from most of the masters I've had!"

Pinkie shrugged. "Primey just looks like a princess, but she isn't one for real."

"Exactly." Khannie reached out a hoof and touched Plinky's chest. "When you gaze upon a Sky Mare, small one, you feel it here in a way that you've never felt anything before." She scowled, her wings partially unfurling. "All this Prime of ours makes me feel is a desire to be more heavily armed."

The only sound for a moment was the rushing of the sparkly water stuff, then Modesty faced forward. "Best get a move on, then, hadn't we? Not much farther, girls."

"Huh?" Pinkie waved at a part of the tunnel just ahead, the differences in the stonework small but obvious. "Isn't that the secret door right there?"

Modesty blinked from Pinkie to the wall and back again. "How in Equestria did you—?"

"Hooray!" Clapping her hoofs, Pinkie did a little dance. "'I spy with my little eye' is my favorite game ever!" She stopped. "Well, I mean, other than checkers and mah-jongg and go fish and—"

With a roll of her eyes, Modesty tapped the wall, a section sliding open to reveal a set of stairs going up. They climbed four flights, Pinkie listing more of her favorite games, but when Modesty pushed open the door at the top and the four had stepped through, Pinkie had to stop and stare, the room beyond all dark wood and marble, lights glowing low along the walls, tapestries and thick carpets making the place seem grand and comfortable at the same time.

But what really stoppered Pinkie's throat was the tall, elegant pony gliding across the room toward them, the smile wide on her dark face, a purple glow wavering around her horn, her wings just visible behind and through the diaphanous nightscape of her mane. "Modesty Pink," the princess said, and bowing to the floor, Pinkie gave a sigh: it had been way too long since she'd seen and heard one of the real princesses.

Her three friends were all bowing, too, Khannie giving a sigh of her own. "At last, small one," she said, drawing herself up to her full height—still a good head shorter than the princess, Pinkie couldn't help but notice—and smiling. "Here is a Sky Mare."

Plinky was staring up like a thirsty pony looks at a rain cloud, but all she said was: "Oh."

The princess had stopped, her eyes almost as wide as Plinky's. "Modesty? What—? Who—? How...how can these ponies be here? They...they're all you!"

Modesty had straightened up, that big grin back across her snout. "Long, confusing story, your Nibs, but I've been invited to help sort it out." She turned to face Pinkie and the others. "Princess Selene, may I introduce Plinky Pie, Pin Qi Khan, and Pinkie Pie?" She gestured for Pinkie to step forward. "Bit of a delivery for you, then we must dash."

Pinkie hopped forward—and the princess jumped back, silver sparking in her eyes and the sour tang of fear entering her scent. "I...I'm pleased to meet you all, of course, but you being here, I'm afraid, is extremely dangerous."

Putting on a big grin of her own, Pinkie nodded. "We're kinda figuring that out, your Highness, which is why we wanna get going pretty quick." She dug the box out of her mane and tossed it to Modesty. "In case, you know, me getting too close makes the world explode or something."

Princess Selene's jaw dropped even further. "Is that—?"

"What else?" Modesty caught the box and flipped it open, the bracelet glittering even in the dim light.

The purple glow increased around the princess's horn, and the bracelet rose into the air. "Excellently done, my faithful student," she said, bending down to touch her horn to Modesty's, and Pinkie smiled at both the nickname and at the way ev'ry bit of Modesty's coolness puffed away, leaving her blushing like a filly.

When the princess straightened, though, and looked back at Pinkie and the others, she was all serious and sad. "The implications of you three being here chill me to my very core, and were you the quantum doppelgangers of anypony other than my dear Modesty Pink, I would be rousing my sister as well as every pony I could think of who possessed even the slightest bit of magical knowledge. As it is, however..." She blew out a breath and turned to Modesty. "Whatever multiversal catastrophe has allowed this horrendous breach of all proper physics and metaphysics, I can think of no pony to whom I would rather entrust the repairs than you and your...your—"

"Sisters!" Pinkie shouted, her heart overflowing at the princess's words. "Sisters and cousins and twins and...and ev'rything!" Desperate to hug somepony, she swept forward and grabbed Khannie and Plinky. "Whatever else we do, your Highness, we won't let you down! That's a Pinkie Pie promise!"

Modesty rolled her eyes again, all her coolness back. "So begging your pardon, your Nibs, but if we can borrow a mirror, we'll be—"

"Must we?" asked a voice as soft as an evening breeze through a willow tree, Plinky hanging from Pinkie's grip, her gaze still locked on the princess. "Can't I just...just curl up in a corner somewhere? Please? You won't even know I'm here, my Lady, and I'll just...just...just..." She trailed off, pure happiness lighting her face.

A little silence, then Modesty gave a shrug. "Can we leave her?"

Pinkie shook her head, her ev'ry twitch telling her how disastrous that would be, and Khannie reached past Pinkie, took Plinky's chin in her hoof, forced her head to turn away from the princess. "We've work to do first, small one, work that you're a vital part of."

Plinky blinked. "I am?"

"You are," Khannie said, Pinkie nodding as hard as she could. "We'll not succeed without you."

"And then?" Plinky's eyes shone. "Can I come back then?"

Khannie didn't answer, and Pinkie blinked, not a twitch rattling through her to give her a clue. "We'll hafta see," she finally said, then a thought made her brighten. "Maybe you can come and meet my princesses! They're great, and me and them are practic'lly best friends!"

"Ha!" Khannie gave Pinkie a smack across the shoulders. "I am adopted daughter to my Sky Mares, and they will surely welcome you into their house, Plinky Pie!"

"Ummm..." Princess Selene still had that skittish look about her. "While I admit to not understanding the exact process that's allowing this to happen, let me just repeat how terribly dangerous it feels when I see the group of you together like this. You seem like very nice ponies, but having you here, it...it just isn't right."

"OK!" Pinkie jumped up. "To the mirror, girls! We've got a party to get to and then— I dunno: maybe we hafta stop it?" She shrugged and gave the princess a salute. "Playing it by ear, ma'am! Pink Squad's specialty, ma'am!"

Khannie had her eyes half-closed. "Pink Squad?"

Pinkie nodded. "I was thinking we could all get hats."

Modesty cleared her throat loudly. "What say we discuss merchandising options later?" She gestured to their left. "Mirror's this way."

***

"Hats?" Rarity shook her head. "Scarves, I should say, bright pink and just long enough to flare dramatically behind you as you all rush about doing—" She stopped, waved a hoof. "Whatever it is you're actually doing."

"Yeah." Pinkie sighed. "Too bad we never got a chance to talk about it."

Twilight had a troubled look on her face. "So Pinkie Prime was right about the princesses not even knowing she existed."

Fluttershy shuttered. "I don't like thinking that there's stuff the princesses don't know. It's like Princess Selene said: it's just not right."

And while that sort of nudged around the edges of things Pinkie didn't want to talk about, she found she was able to be completely honest when she said, "I can't even imagine how tough it must be being a princess and having to know so much about ev'rything. Like chocolate chip flan, y'know? I mean, is it a myth, or is it real? 'Cause it should totally be real! And who would know if the princesses didn't??"

She blinked at her friends, and they all blinked back, the wind rustling late-afternoon shadows over them from the high branches of the oak tree. "So," Applejack said slowly after a moment. "You was all heading for the mirror."

***

Pinkie did her dance in front of the fanciest mirror yet, the frame all silvery curlicues that almost looked like pony faces, Khannie hovering behind her with Plinky and Modesty crooked in her front legs: "We went through the cavern's ceiling to get here, recall," the big pegasus had reminded her. Then the glass went misty, and Pinkie leaped onto Khannie's back as they flew through into—

Music crashed over them as hard and refreshing as a water balloon on a hot day. Pinkie couldn't keep from bouncing a little, peering over Khannie's fiery-red mane at the cave floor covered with Pinkies and Pies laughing and dancing and eating and talking, the band wailing away from the little stage Pinkie had seen the first group of her twins putting together—

How long ago? Hours? Days? Pinkie had literally no idea....

Flocks of her pegasus twins swirled around them this time, though, popping in and out of mirrors all over and across the walls and ceiling, silver flashes going off everywhere she looked, the sheer smell of so many ponies cutting straight into the party part of Pinkie's brain and making her whisper, "It...it's beautiful...." Spreading her front legs, she let out a whoop. "Hello, Party Central!"

"Pinkie!" came an equally excited shout, and Primey burst out of the air beside them, a pointed party hat sticking up from between her ears, red and green fire spiraling up and down it. "You're back!"

"My front, too!" Planting her hoofs between Khannie's shoulder blades, she flexed her legs and jumped. "Catch me, Primey! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me!"

Three gasps behind her, but powerful wings whooshed through the air before Pinkie even had time to feel the pull of gravity, magic and arms wrapping her close but gently, whinnying laughter in her ears, Primey's wild eyes and grin suddenly above her. "You, my lovely one, are crazy," she said; then she was shouting it—"Crazy!"—was spinning, whirling—"Crazy!"—swooping high and low over the heads of the partiers—"Crazy!"—Pinkie clinging to her chest and laughing till she didn't think she had a breath left in her body. "Crazy!"

Eventually, though, the roller coaster ride evened out, and Pinkie got her eyes to focus, saw Primey was drifting along on her back, the very picture of relaxation, her front legs still around Pinkie, her head stretched out so Pinkie was pretty much lying on her neck. "Oh, Pinkie," Primey murmured. "Of everything I've seen throughout the multiverse, you, I almost think, will be the one thing I'll actually miss..."

A flotilla of twitches stormed through Pinkie, most of them bad. "Miss?" she managed to ask.

Beneath her, she felt all Primey's muscles tense, the big mare's eyes snapping open. "By which I mean, of course, that I miss you terribly when you're gone gathering the others of your sisters." Primey flashed a more controlled smile, but its phoniness stank like a box of powdered sugar the ants had gotten into. "And now with so many of my daughters here, we can let them take up that burden! You and I, we can...can...can enter the pie eating contest! Yes!" She straightened up, her magic yanking Pinkie away and holding her in empty air like a kitten hanging by the scruff of its neck. "Together, we shall be unstoppable!"

"Sweet!" Pinkie let her mind race. "But if we're getting to the games, shouldn't I go get the guest of honor? 'Cause I would love to see Thagoras try to eat a whole pie by herself!"

A tremor rattled the whole left side of Primey's face, jerked half her smile into a momentary grimace. "Not quite yet, my own," she said, reaching out to take Pinkie into her hoofs again. "Let the party play a while longer. Thagoras will be our pièce de résistance, and we'll reward her for her vital contributions to our efforts just before...before the closing ceremonies." A sort of sadness drifted across her face, but then that manic grin was back; lifting Pinkie, Primey tapped her forehead with her horn, and Pinkie couldn't stop a shiver, the touch as cold as a February icicle. "So return to your friends, Pinkie Pie! Eat, dance, make with the merriment, and let all be spiced cider and chocolate cake!" A flash and a laugh, and Pinkie found herself hurtling through the silver flashing darkness of the cave.

Eyes closed, arms spread, trusting her twitches, Pinkie didn't try to stop her corkscrew flight, her ears pricked for one very particular set of wings. Hearing them, she willed herself to go limp, took as deep a breath as she could, and whooshed it all back out when she collided with a broad muscular chest. "Blast it all!" Khannie's voice shouted, and Pinkie let her eyelids pop open, the big pegasus glaring down at her. "Are you trying to get yourself killed??"

"No time!" Pinkie grabbed the red curls of Khannie's mane. "We've gotta find Thagoras right now before Primey can blow ev'rything up!"

***

"What??" Spike shouted. "Wait! Go back!"

"Ha!" Dashie pumped her hoofs. "I knew it!"

Spike's head swiveled back and forth between Dashie and Pinkie so fast, Pinkie was surprised his eyeballs didn't rattle. "You knew Primey was trying to blow ev'rything up??"

Dashie puffed out a sigh. "No duh, Spike. 'Cause she's totally the bad guy in this!"

"Well,..." Twilight shrugged. "It's more like Fluttershy said: she displays a certain dichotomy."

Fluttershy blinked at Twilight. "I said that?"

Sipping her lemonade, Applejack chuckled. "Well, you said Primey was sometimes scary and sometimes not, and Twilight's just using a fancy word that means that same thing."

Rarity gave Applejack a look. "Speaking of evil twins, who are you and what have you done with Applejack?"

Applejack poked a hoof into Rarity's side. "Could be you don't recall it, sugar cube, but you and me went to school in the very same classroom."

"Hmmph!" Rarity shifted a little in the grass. "For my part, I'm not at all surprised to finally learn of this Pinkie Prime's true agenda! Oh, and I find I must agree with Twilight: 'The Elements of Pinkmony' has the best ring to it."

Spike still didn't look convinced. "So all this stuff about the party was fake? Pinkie Prime was just doing it as a cover to her wanting to blow ev'rything up?"

"Oh, no!" Pinkie leaned forward. "The party was as real as anything! In fact—"

***

"It's because of the party that ev'rything's gonna blow up! 'Cause we're all here!" Pinkie wanted to grab the other three and squeeze them hard enough so all the stuff slopping around in her brain would squish out of her and into them. "Your Princess Selene, Modesty, she said us being together wasn't right, and Thagoras said that, too! And the way Primey looked sad when she was talking about closing ceremonies and how she said she was gonna miss me—!" She sat back, spread her front hoofs, lowered her voice 'cause if she didn't she knew she was gonna start shouting. "Can't you guys feel it? The way the air's humming like seventy thousand electric bees??"

They'd moved far enough away from the party so it was just a muddy fog of light and sound in the distance, but still, a few of Pinkie's twins wandered by and waved before poking mirror spots, doing the dance, and stepping through. "Yes," Khannie finally said, ruffling her feathers. "It's the tension before the battle."

Plinky was staring around. "A string pulled an octave too tight."

"A balloon," Pinkie said with a nod. "Ev'ry one of us stretches it just a little more when we show up, and once we all get here—" She threw her arms wide. "Ka-boom!"

Modesty was rubbing her chin. "But what's it about? Is Primey just wanting to kill the rest of us so she's the only one left?" She nodded toward the ceiling. "Or does the blast blow out ev'ry wunna these spots and make the whole multiverse into one big charcoal briquette?"

Pinkie's eyes widened. "I hadn't even thought of that first one! But yeah, that'd make sense! 'Cause how can she say she'll miss me if she's gonna blow up, too?"

"Oh, no." Plinky had that hard look on her face again. "She's got an escape route somewhere." Her head drooped. "Like I said, my last master was the same way..."

Khannie's feathers were bristling. "So we don't know what her plan is other than that we're none of us meant to survive it." She looked from Modesty to Plinky to Pinkie. "We just need to stop her before the last of us arrives."

"Thagoras." Pinkie tapped a hoof against the blue-black stone. "Like I've been saying: If any pony knows how this stuff works, it's her! We needta find her mirror, go through it, and get her!" She looked at Modesty. "How's your magic doing?"

"Feh." The unicorn flicked her horn. "Another hour, maybe, but right now, ev'rything's still numb. And to be blunt..." She swept her hoof to cover the whole vast cavern, the part filled with their twins, the part nearer them with more and more popping in and out, and then the part past them, every inch and crevice and lump covered with little silver spots. "How're we to know which mirror this Thagoras is in?"

Plinky looked like she was thinking, and that was a good thing. But till somepony came up with something— "We need another unicorn," Pinkie told them. "One who's all fancy-flash and smarty-pants like my friend Twilight Sparkle!"

***

"Hmmmm." Twilight cocked her head. "Well, if I'd been there, I would've—"

Four ponies and one dragon held their various hoofs and claws to their mouths and hissed "Shhhhhh!" so whooshingly, Pinkie almost thought somepony must've sprung a leak.

Twilight blushed, whispered, "Sorry!" and waved for Pinkie to go on.

***

So they all loaded onto Khannie again, Plinky in the crook of her right arm, Modesty in her left, Pinkie along her back, and she leaped upward, her big wings pounding the air around them. "I've seen pegasi and earth ponies in abundance since our arrival," she said, her voice not even straining, "but not a single unicorn other than Modesty."

Pinkie leaned over the top of Khannie's head and pointed forward. "To the ceiling, then! And we'll go through whichever one Modesty wants!"

Modesty coughed a little laugh. "But no pressure, right? And since it's a bit of a drunkard's walk anyhow—" She flailed a hoof. "That one! Right there!"

Khannie pulled up sharply and rose to hover as close to the ceiling as she could get. "This one?" Pinkie asked, standing on the tips of her rear hoofs and reaching for a spot.

"Stalwart," Modesty said. "The very one I meant!"

"OK!" Pinkie poked it, and it unfolded, became a cloudy rectangle prob'bly just big enough for Khannie to leap through. "Hold 'er steady, Khannie, and I'll dance!"

This one was a lot smaller than the one they'd used to get Modesty so Pinkie could reach the top and the edges without having to do any acrobatics. And a good thing, too, since all this mirror hopping was getting her a little grumbly in the tummy: she really needed to suck down a couple or twelve egg rolls if they were gonna keep running around like this....

Then the mirror was misting up, and she pounded her hoofs between Khannie's ears like she was a big bongo drum. "Go, Khannie, go!" Khannie reared back, Pinkie digging into her mane so she wouldn't fall off, and the pegasus bunched herself up, vaulted through the frame—

And slid sprawling on her belly across a wooden stage, footlights burning to their left, a purple curtain hanging as a backdrop to their right. The sudden stop pitched Pinkie over Khannie's head, and she tumbled onto the boards, Plinky and Modesty rolling from Khannie's grip to plop beside her as she landed smack on her bottom, something small and hard striking her forehead and sticking in her hair.

Several gasps from beyond the footlights, and a voice behind her shouted, "Viola! Behold the miraculous prowess of the great and powerful Pinxie! Not only, sir, is your watch returned to you intact,—" Pinkie felt the familiar tingle of magic combing over her to pluck away whatever had lodged in her hair. "But Pinxie has brought it back to you courtesy of her four lovely assistants!"

Something moved between Pinkie and the glare of the footlights, a silhouette of a pony wearing a cloak and a big pointy hat. "Stand up and bow, fools!" the silhouette hissed. "Then get off my stage!"

Pinkie bounded to her hoofs immediately, saw Modesty do the same out of the corner of her eye, turned to help Plinky up, the little beige pony's pupils shrunk to pinpricks, Khannie looming up near the mirror standing at what Pinkie figured was about center stage.

An earth pony stallion was standing over there, too, his mouth open, his eyes staring. The cloaked figure slid up beside him, and Pinkie could see that it was indeed her twin, a unicorn of a pinkish-purplish color with a long straight purple mane under her dark blue hat, her cape covering her cutie mark. "Is this, sir, your watch?" she asked, a wristwatch hovering in the glow of her horn.

"Huh?" The stallion's gaze fluttered back and forth between Khannie and the showmare before his eyes fixed on the watch. "Oh, hey! Yeah! Yeah, it is!" He reach out a hoof, slipped it through the watchband. "That's amazing!"

***

"Pinxie??" Applejack's snort almost knocked Pinkie over sideways. "You have got to be kidding me!"

Twilight looked like she'd swallowed a bug, and Rarity's nose was wrinkled up the way it would be if she'd smelled something bad. But Dashie was hovering a couple inches off the grass with a huge grin on her face. "Don't keep us hanging here, Pinkie! What happens next??"

***

Applause trickled up from beyond the footlights—not too many ponies out there, Pinkie figured—but the showmare bowed anyway. "Amazing is indeed one of the many adjective that has been used to describe the great and powerful Pinxie!" She was trying real hard to sound excited and happy, but from the way her ears clenched tight against her head and her teeth flashed when she talked, Pinkie was pretty sure Pinxie was more annoyed than anything else. "And with that feat of legerdemain, the great and powerful Pinxie will bid you all goodnight! Thank you, Trottingham, for your abundant patronage!"

Pinxie bowed, and everything flared a cherry-red color, Pinkie blinking till her eyes cleared and showed her the purple curtain now in front of her. Turning, she saw her four friends beside her in a cramped backstage area, all of them looking about as discombobulated as she felt herself.

"Imbeciles!" Pinxie spun to glare at Modesty, and the way the two unicorns looked so completely different—Modesty smiling in her black sneaky-suit, coolness radiating from her, and Pinxie sneering under her pointed hat, everything about her screaming 'grouchy'—Pinkie felt even more certain that they were all twins, all right.

Modesty made a fish-face. "Sounds like somepony needs a kiss."

Pinxie was practically vibrating. "What I need is for you idiots in the Magisterium to take 'no' for an answer! I'm not interested in becoming one of your tame wizards, flitting about Equestria at their Majesties' beck and call! I am Pinxie, the great and powerful! And if I must play county fairs and dilapidated road shows for the remainder of my life because you're too insecure to allow me—!"

Khannie stomped one front hoof loud as a thunderclap, the whole room swaying like an earthquake had hit. "We're not who you think we are," she growled into the following silence, Pinxie staring wide-eyed, her mouth frozen partway open.

"I'll say!" Pinkie hopped past Plinky, also frozen and wide-eyes, and gestured around the group. "I'm Pinkie Pie, that's Plinky Pie, that's Pin Qi Khan, and that's Modesty Pink who thinks you need a kiss." She shrugged. "I woulda just said a hug myself, but, hey, whatever boats your float, y'know?"

Only Pinxie's eyes moved, her gaze hopping like a frog on a hot day to land on ev'ry one of Pinkie's friends. "You...you—" she finally said. "You're all me!"

Modesty touched the tip of her own snout. "On the nosey, sweetness! And we're here to recruit you into our little one pony band!"

Twitches rattled though Pinkie, made her wince as Pinxie exploded again. "Recruit?? Recruit??" She crooked a hoof at her chest. "Pinxie works for no pony but Pinxie! No bands, no groups, no ensembles! None are her equal, and any time that fools have tricked her into thinking they might be, when the truth finally catches up and collapses whatever house of cards we'd tried to assemble, it's always Pinxie stuck at the bottom with nothing but her own wits and power to see her safely out the other side! So while you may in fact not be stooges sent by the Magisterium, you will still find my answer to be the same!"

Pinkie opened her mouth, but Plinky's musical voice snuck in quicker: "Please, mistress! We...we're in direst need, and you're the only pony anywhere in the multiverse who can help us stop Pinkie Prime!"

Which wasn't exactly true, but the waver in Plinky's words combined with the helpless earnestness of her expression sure made it sound true. And judging by the way Pinxie sucked in a surprised breath and didn't use it to keep yelling, Pinkie figured mixing truth with flattery was the right way to go here. "We've come from a whole buncha diff'rent mirrors looking for you, Pinxie, and if you turn us down, I mean, I don't know what we're gonna do!"

Khannie was frowning just a little, but Modesty was grinning the same amount, so Pinkie figured they cancelled each other out. "We're real sorry about breaking up your show," Pinkie went on, "but if we're right about what's gonna happen, we maybe don't have a lotta time left."

"Please?" Plinky whispered, and Pinkie almost felt her mane start straightening, there was so much sadness and fear in that one little word.

Pinxie, though, her expression went completely blank—like she'd slipped a mask of herself over her face. "These two play their parts very, very well," she said. Her gaze flickered over Khannie. "Your warhorse, however, finds my manner distasteful and feels you should continue looking till you find somepony whose face she doesn't wish to stomp so badly." She pointed her snout at Modesty. "And you? What have you to say to the great and powerful Pinxie?"

Modesty shrugged. "Just that they're all four of 'em right. We need a unicorn if we're gonna figure out what Pinkie Prime's about, and my horn's all numbed up at the moment. That you're damn annoying's a point against you, sure, but if you're as good as the buzz I'm feeling off you says—"

"Oh, I am." Pinxie stepped forward, touched her horn to Modesty's, and the purple flicker that passed between them made Modesty gasp. "There." Pinxie stepped back with a smug smile. "The effects of hornvocaine are easily countered when one has an elementary understanding of magic."

Her grin gone, Modesty's eyes moved to focus on her horn, and a pinkish light began wavering around it and the curls of her short-cut black mane. "That," she said, looking back to Pinxie, "is absolutely stalwart! Can you teach it?"

"Perhaps." Pinxie's smile got even smugger, something Pinkie wouldn't've thought was possible. "If that's the price for you leaving me alone and going on your way, then I shall happily—"

"No." Pinkie said it at exactly the same time Khannie and Plinky did, but Khannie was the one who kept going: "We've not come here by accident, sorceress, and as much as I would wish nothing more than to, as you so eloquently said, stomp your fool face, we are now all caught in the same web. So if you ever wish to be free of us, you will come and add you strengths to ours."

"Please?" Plinky asked again.

"Besides," Modesty added, her grin back. "If Pinxie only works for Pinxie, well, like you said: we're all you, aren't we?"

"Yeah!" Pinkie couldn't keep from hopping up and down. "'Cause you're totally the pony Primey hasta meet! You'll knock her crown right off!"

All the smugness stayed in Pinxie's smile, but some of the anger Pinkie had already seen from the showmare came into it, too. "Knocking off crowns happens to be one of Pinxie's favorite pastimes." She held out her right hoof. "Very well. You may take us to this mirror world of yours!"

Comments

[AugieDog]

If this were a three act play:

And it is--this would mark the end of act two. Three more chapters to go!

Mike

[katarjin]

and what glorious chapters they will be

[Glazius]

Man, I can't wait to get inside Primey's head a little more.

Unless in a sense we've been there all along, in the space behind mirrors.

[Ebonheart]

It almost sounds as if Pinkie Prime isn't actually real, but some kind a metaphysical representation. That she is a theoretical amalgamation of the multiverse's Pinkies. Which would make sense if her ultimate design is to get all the Pinkies together, have reality go TILT, fusing all the Pinkie's and making Pinkie Prime "real".
Idle musings aside, we enjoy this and cheer for more.

[Divine Path]

Oh dear, a Trixie equivalent.
Intriguing.

[nemryn]

They'll still need another pegasus before they can really be the Pinkements of Harmony, though...

[Rarityshy]

Yes, I can't wait to see how theragous reacts to seeing five of herself show up in her world. It's going to be amazing
Chiao

[paintom_phan]

Knocking off crowns, eh? And just what was she going to do with that watch?

[Dess]

I love dimension hopping stories, and I love everything you've done so far, especially Khannie, but I really dont like the name Pinxie. It just doesnt sound right when I say it out loud. I believe I will replace it with Pixie when I read future chapters.

[banjo2E]

Calling it now: All of the Pinkies fused into a single Pinkie...who is currently telling the story of how said fusion happened to the Elements of Harmony.

[RaisingShad0ws]

I sense that even though this maybe a Trixie Equivalent of Pinkie, She may have the magical talent to back her show boating up. Just saying.

[Pawn Heart]

FABULOUS!

[kajisora]

1301636
And together they form....PINKIE-TRON!
lover of parties and the greatest threat to spacetime since the invention of the reverse waterfall!

That sewer idea...
I LOVE IT!

[AugieDog]

1301636
1361009

There's a song:

By the late Marshall Barer that I of course can't find a recrding of anywhere on the internet in which he sings, "Shall we join the ladies? Yes, do let's join the ladies and make one great big lady!" So let's just call that our mission statement.

Mike

[ForSpite]

1297591
That or she somehow... split herself amongst all the other dimensions and wants to be whole again.

[Duplex Fields]

Ah, the iconoclast. Wonderful!

[Lurks-no-More]

The grandest, most fantastic and exceedingly powerful Pinkie yet!

[toafan]

Excellently down, my faithful student

Typo report. Dunno how that snuck past proofing, but it's there.

[AugieDog]

2003844

Egad!

Thanks muchly! Typing too fast for my fingers would be my guess.

Mike

[GMBlackjack]

pie eating contest.

...Did Primey just slip? Does she want to DEVOUR them!?

*shudder*

-GM, master of I'LL GET TO THE END OF THIS ONE DAY.