//------------------------------// // Bad Answers // Story: Me Again // by Waxworks //------------------------------// Rarity jolted awake. She lifted the mask off her face and threw it to the side, then shivered. Her room felt colder than normal. She turned to see if Sweetie Belle was having the same trouble, only to find that Sweetie wasn’t there! Rarity was alone! “Sweetie? You know Twilight told us to stay together.” Rarity’s voice felt quiet, almost muffled. She wasn’t sure if it was her voice or her hearing that was causing it. Rarity slipped out of bed and looked around the room. Her closet was open, and the dresses were shifted in a haphazard manner. One of them was on the floor, even. She lifted it back into the closet and hung it properly. Sweetie was probably in the bathroom looking at herself wearing some of Rarity’s clothes. Rarity walked around her bed and toward the bedroom door. When she passed in front of the vanity, she heard a noise. She turned to look, and saw that wide-eyed grinning face of the other Rarity staring at her from the other side of the mirror! “!era uoy erehT” The other Rarity pressed her face up against the glass of the mirror, and it bent outward toward her. “.won ni kcab gnitteg elbuort gnivah m’I tpecxE .llits dloH” Rarity screamed and bolted out of her bedroom. She slammed the door behind her, then heard the sound of breaking glass and a heavy body hitting the floor. She didn’t wait, but raced through the boutique, looking for her sister. “Sweetie Belle! Where are you? I need you!” Rarity slammed open the bathroom door, but Sweetie Belle wasn’t there. She looked back down the hall at her bedroom door, which opened and the other Rarity came galloping out down the hall, eyes wide and crazy, with that insane grin plastered on her face. She chased Rarity downstairs, where Rarity stopped, interposing one of her ponnequins between herself and the other Rarity. “What do you want!” Rarity screamed. “What is wrong with you!” She looked around the room for something she could use as a weapon, keeping the ponnequin between herself and this… ‘thing’ until she found something. “.uoy be annaw I” the other Rarity said. “I don’t understand! What are you! What are you doing here! How are you here? What purpose does this serve?” “.ereh uoy gnirb ot dah I os ,edis rehto eht no em lortnoc uoY” other Rarity said. Rarity just growled in frustration. She wasn’t going to get any useful information from this creature by talking to it, because they couldn’t communicate, but it had the upper hoof, because it understood what she was saying. Rarity and the other Rarity circled the ponnequin, until Rarity spied a pair of scissors. She glanced away from the other Rarity for a moment, nabbed the scissors with her magic, and turned back to see it leaping at her. She screeched and the scissors flew at the other Rarity. They pierced into its neck, spilling blood over her pristine white coat. It landed on top of her, choking, then shattered into tiny pieces. The pieces dissipated into air, and the body was gone. Rarity was shaking. She had no idea what had happened, or if the thing was dead, but she didn’t want to make any assumptions. She had seen other versions of it that weren’t backward, and were seemingly ephemeral, so there were probably a lot. She didn’t know if it had done anything with Sweetie Belle or if it had only targeted her, but it seemed like it was simple at the very least. It was brutish, and didn’t even use magic like Rarity did, that made it easy to outwit, but it knew what was going on. To solve a problem as strange as this, Rarity needed to talk to Twilight. Sweetie Belle should be okay, wherever she was, but Twilight needed to be informed of what was happening. Rarity went to the front of the boutique, unlocked, and opened the door. When it swung open, Rarity was expecting to see a somewhat busy town judging by the lights, but instead it was a barren and empty set of streets. The sunlight outside was muted, a pale and sickly lemon color instead of the bright and vibrant yellow of a Celestial day. Rarity blinked, trying to clear her sight, but the colors stayed, and Ponyville remained unsaturated. Rarity looked everywhere she could, peering out of her door, not yet willing to step outside, as though stepping out of her front door would trigger some dangerous trap and she would then be running for her life from more copies of herself. Or the same copy of herself. She wasn’t sure if the one she had stabbed was dead or just temporarily indisposed. She couldn’t stay here forever, though. Something was wrong, and she needed help to figure it out. That meant getting to Twilight’s castle. Rarity leaned back inside and grabbed the scissors again. She wanted some form of defense, no matter how small, then looked outside one last time and stepped out. The moment she did, color infused everything outside. Vibrant and life-like color washed through everything in a sweeping current. Rarity wasn’t sure where it began, but in the blink of an eye everything looked lively, the sun shone in that warm yellow glow, and the houses all around looked as though they would begin dancing in happiness. Rarity was alarmed. She turned back to her house and looked inside. The interior of her house was dim and bland. The bolts of cloth on her shelves and draped over everything were now dulled, as though they had the life sucked out of them. They sat forlorn in the dark interior of her boutique, cheerlessly awaiting her return. Rarity put a hoof back inside, and the colors spilled from outside to the interior, washing over everything once again. She removed it, and the color disappeared. “Curious, but important somehow,” Rarity remarked. Rarity stepped away from the boutique, shutting the door behind her. She began to walk toward the castle, but stayed away from any alleys or side streets. Any corner that would allow somepony to hide around them were avoided. She didn’t need that ‘thing’ catching her unawares. She needed to be on the defensive, especially since she was alone. That brought her thoughts back to Sweetie Belle. Had the thing taken her? Had it harmed her? The possibility seemed slim, because it had only expressed an interest in Rarity herself, and had taken on her appearance. Whatever it wanted, it seemed to only want it from Rarity and nopony else, or else why not attack Twilight? She was a princess, and much more powerful magically than Rarity or Sweetie Belle. It could also have just been arbitrary. The thing didn’t seem very smart or powerful. Rarity’s thoughts were interrupted when she spied something moving up ahead. She checked the building she was near for hiding places, then dove into a bush to peer out from and spy on the moving creature. It was another Rarity. This one was also carrying a pair of scissors in her magic, and was walking idly down the street. Rarity watched it carefully as it wandered past. It was walking casually, not interested in any of the corners or other places Rarity had paid so much attention to. It was also slightly see-through, unlike the one that had attacked her. That brought Rarity back to the first appearance of the creatures, and the times it had been just an apparition. At that point in time, it had just been copying her, mimicking her actions and not doing anything. It was only seen by Rarity and nopony else, and was essentially a silent and unobtrusive copycat. “Curious, but important somehow,” the see-through Rarity remarked. Rarity’s ears jolted up. Had it just spoken? “Curious, but important somehow,” it said again. It had! And she had understood it! But it was just saying the same thing she had said when she left the boutique. Was it actually speaking, or was it just a mimic? “Curious, but important somehow,” it said a third time. Then it jumped into a bush across the street. Rarity could see the scissors it was holding floating above the bush, then checked herself. Sure enough, the scissors she had been carrying along were floating outside her hiding spot. Cursing herself and her mistake, Rarity extracted herself from the bush and walked a short distance closer to the hiding spot of the other Rarity. “Curious, but important somehow,” it said while hiding in the bush. Rarity watched it for a moment, but it didn’t seem interested in her. It was copying her, but this one, being see-through, didn’t seem able to interact with her. It wasn’t staring at her with wild eyes and a predatory grin. It was just mimicking her actions and her appearance. Come to think of it, this one hadn’t had her hair parted the wrong way. This was an actual Rarity. A clone, if a stupid one. But why? And where were they coming from? Rarity turned away from the bush and started off toward the castle again. She checked behind her to see if the other Rarity was following her or creeping up behind her, but it seemed content to stay in the bush, scissors floating foolishly above its hiding place. Rarity approached the castle, huge and honestly a little imposing, at the edge of Ponyville. She approached it, then suddenly found it to be some distance away on the other side of Ponyville. Rarity turned and looked behind her, and could see the castle close behind her. She turned to look the other way, and saw the castle far away on the other side as well. She turned around and tried to walk to the closer castle, only for it to disappear and show her the castle far away on the other side again. “What in the world?” Rarity exclaimed. “What in the world!” another voice exclaimed from down the road. Rarity spun around. Another Rarity doppelganger appeared, walking down the middle of the street toward her. It was carrying scissors, and was waving its head back and forth, looking behind itself, then ahead. “What in the world!” it said as it walked. “Curious, but important somehow,” the Rarity in the bush said. “Wh—” Rarity stopped herself. They were mimicking what she said, and there were now two; one for each sentence she had said since leaving her home. If speaking was going to create more of these things, she needed to remain silent. They seemed harmless for now, but creating more might make things problematic for her. Instead, Rarity tried one more time to walk toward the castle that was just behind her. She once again found herself facing back down the pathway into town, with the castle both in front and behind her. Like a mirror. Everything here was like a mirror. The other Rarity that had attacked her had been a mirror image of herself, and these apparitions were holding what she was holding and repeating what she said. These ones weren’t reversed, though, and she could understand what they said. So, there was still something different going on that she was missing. Was it because she was now trapped in some sort of spell? Rarity ran back through town. If she was going to start figuring this out, she needed to be where it had begun, and that meant she had to go into her boutique. That ‘thing’ had come out of her mirror, so maybe that was some sort of door? If it could use it, she could try to use it.