The mane was lifeless and flat, but for Twilight Sparkle, there was no mistaking the icy stare that bore a hole straight through her heart.
“...Pinkie…?”
Devoid of her usual mirth, the coat-clad party pony nodded her head slightly in greeting. “Twilight.”
Twilight gaped. “B-but how...how can you be here? The pony in the trench coat made you disappear, too! I was there when it happened!
Pinkie nonchalantly worked at the snaps on her heavy gray coat. She stepped out of it, and Twilight could see that her tail was just as deflated as her mane. “That wasn’t me. But what’s one less Pinkie Pie to you, right?”
“...what? I don’t unders--”
“Do you carve little pictures of balloons on your bathroom stall at home?” Pinkie hissed. “One for every kill you make, with a line drawn through them whenever you get to five?”
Fatigue caused Twilight to sit without thinking about it. “ Kill? What are you talking about?” She asked honestly. “I would never kill anyp-”
Again, Pinkie cut the princess off, this time with a dismissive snort. “Psh, I guess I mean so little to you that you don’t even consider it that?”
Twilight wracked her overstressed brain, but her cognitive process failed her. “I...I’m sorry but...I really don’t understand…”
Pinkie’s entire body flushed slightly red, such was her rage, and it looked as though one might fry an egg on her forehead. “And that’s the worst part! You kept asking everypony what you did, as if you don’t know! You don’t even remember - it wasn’t even important to you!”
Twilight flinched under her friend’s tirade. She dug into her own mind again; traveling the highways of her synapses at speed as she searched in desperation for an answer. Many avenues were withered and dull, but the very sight before her eyes as she averted them delivered her to her answer.
The patient waters of the mirror pool shimmered under the drab gray fedora that floated upon them.
Twilight gasped. Her head snapped back up.
“Y-you...you’re--!”
Pinkie nodded and thrust her hoof out at the water. “That’s right. I came from there. Thirty or forty of us did. I don’t remember how many, but as far as I know, I’m the last. You killed all the rest of us. And then you went on with your life, like it was nothing.”
Twilight sputtered. “Th-that’s not the same thing! You were all just magical constructs! All I did was dispel you!”
Pinkie lifted a brow. “Yeah? Then how come you were so worried about zapping the wrong one? If that were true - if we were all just spells - why would it have had any effect on her?”
Discord was floating in a corner, munching on popcorn and wearing paper 3D glasses. “You totally killed them all, Twilight. While they were watching paint dry, of all things. They didn’t even die happy. Tsk, tsk.”
Twilight abruptly stood. “You were all just magic spells! And you were ruining our town! I had to do something!”
Pinkie turned her head sharply, her straight mane whipping about her neck. “So your solution was to just start killing us off.” She stared blankly at a cavern wall, as though she could see her own past in it. “I got lucky. Just like all the others, all I wanted to do was have fun. Because that’s what the original Pinkie Pie wanted when she made us, and so it was the first thought any of us ever had. I just happened to bounce into the forest, past where you all were rounding us up. I didn’t know what was happening any more than they did, so if I hadn’t just bounced away, it would have been me in there too. Watching paint dry until the end.”
Twilight softened. “Pinkie Pie...you have to understand...you’re not actually Pinkie Pie...the mirror pool created you because Pinkie chanted an activation incantation over it. And then you all went haywire and started summoning more copies of yourselves. You were everywhere, and you were destroying things. Something had to be done.”
Pinkie fixed Twilight with a stare. “Something like what you did? Something like just getting rid of us all?”
Twilight opened her mouth and closed it again.
“See?” Pinkie scoffed. “You may not have wanted us all to be there, but it was too late - we were all there already, Twilight. You can’t just put a foal back when you get tired of it crying all the time, and that’s what we were. That day, all we knew was that we wanted to have fun. We would have calmed down eventually, just like the ‘real’ Pinkie Pie. Because we’re all her.”
“You’re not--”
“Yes I AM!” Pinkie shouted, tapping her chest with a hoof. “I breathe, I get hungry, I get sleepy, I laugh and cry...pointy things hurt me, cuddles feel good to me, and the sampler tray is my favorite sweet at Sugarcube Corner. I have every memory of Pinkie Pie, every urge in my heart that she has, and you know what? I was made last. I came out last of every other one, so it’s least of all my fault that I started existing. How am I different from Pinkie Pie?”
Discord, who by now had his popcorn bucket on his head and was working on another, cut in again. “Do you know what else she is, Twilight? She’s the Element of Laughter. Isn’t that just fascinating?”
“What?” Twilight turned towards the draconequus. “No she’s not. She can’t be. Even if she’s a near-perfect magical summons, she’s still a magical summons. There’s only one Element of Laughter, and Pinkie Pie - the real Pinkie Pie that is - is just a conduit for it. Like we all are for our elements. Unless…” Twilight glanced back at the image of her friend. “...unless that’s what this is all about. Taking over for the real Pinkie Pie. Becoming that conduit.”
“That’s what you think this is all about?” Pinkie simmered. “You think I just want to be the only Pinkie Pie? If that’s what I wanted, why did I take everything away from you, hmm? Why not just make Pinkie go poof, and take over for her? You’d never know the difference.”
“She’s got you there,” Discord quipped through a paw full of popcorn.
“I...I…” Twilight’s ears drooped. “...I don’t know, Pinkie. Why?”
“So you can understand how it feels, Twilight,” Pinkie replied coldly. “But it’s about more than what you did to the other Pinkies. After I realized what was happening, I ran away. I went into hiding. One time you all almost found me, when you were all in Manehattan helping Rarity set up her new boutique, but I had one advantage - you didn’t know I existed. To all my friends, my family, and everypony I ever cared about, I didn’t exist. What was worse, some other pony was living my life, and if I even tried to show my face there again, you would just have dispelled me like all the others. So I had to run away, and I had to stop being me. As I travelled, I found ponies I wanted to do things for. Throw parties. Make them smile. But I couldn’t. Each and every time I had to walk away, because if I started drawing attention to myself by being me, well...Pinkie Pie is famous. You’d have found out soon enough, and then you all would have come for me. Do you have any idea how hard it is to not be yourself? And I don’t mean just wearing a mask at a business meeting or something. I mean forever. Do you know what that’s like?”
“I…”
“What if I told you that you could never read a book again, or teach anypony anything, or wear your mane a certain way, or show your cutie mark in public, because if you did, other ponies would find you and make you stop existing?”
“P-Pinkie, I--”
“Well, now you know how it feels, Twilight. You made me not exist. So for you, I made everypony not exist.”
Twilight didn’t know what to say. Pieces of the puzzle were finally slipping into place in her mind, and with every one that clacked together, a measure of her sanity returned. She glanced at Discord and spoke her thoughts aloud.
“And the reason that history was never undone...the reason that removing Elements of Harmony or other ponies from the equation didn’t cause a disaster--”
“--is because that was never the point, Twilight,” Discord finished the thought. “I did tell you that this was all your fault, didn’t I? For once, your inflated ego is correct. It is indeed all about you.”
Twilight felt her legs give way. She was again resting in the soft dirt, the reflection looking back at her from the water one of shock. “You...both of you...destroyed reality...just to get revenge on me. I...I...I don’t believe it.”
“Well believe it Twilight,” Pinkie said, “because--”
“No,” Twilight said easily, her voice even. “I don’t believe it. You can say whatever you want, but this doesn’t add up, and I don’t believe it. What are we going to do now? Just sit in an empty world and wait for it to implode?” She turned sharply to Discord. “That is what’s going to happen, isn’t it?”
Discord summoned an alarm clock, checked it, and tossed it into the pool. It doubled into two, and though it couldn’t be determined if the division had been his doing or the pool’s, he rolled his eyes and made both of them vanish. “Oh, indeed. Quite soon, too. And for the record, Miss congeniality over there is quite correct. She is the Element of Laughter, just as much as your other pink friend was. You see-” Discord floated over to the mirror pool and dipped a claw into it. “-there’s something to be said for magical forces that are only devoted to a single task. This pool only does one thing - it only makes copies of stuff. And because it only does that one thing, it’s very, very good at it. Everything about the host pony is copied perfectly. Copy an element, get another element. Even I can’t do that.”
“...and you helped her in all this because…”
“Because she’s right,” Discord smirked. “She is Pinkie Pie. They all were. And you did such a horrible thing to them all. She made her point to me, and it was a very good point. What kind of friend would I be, if I let something like that go unpunished?”
“We could have...all this time…” Twilight muttered, “...we could have just duplicated the Elements of Harmony? Multiplied their power however we wanted to?”
Discord touched his nose, causing it to emit a sharp alarm klaxon. “Wrong again! Well, you could have tried that, and it would have worked, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. There’s a certain mojo to powers like that, you see. They like being unique, and they want to stay that way.” He appeared behind Pinkie and reached out to stroke her mane. “It’s a good thing I found my little friend here when I did. She couldn’t have been herself even if she wasn’t worried you would find her. Two Pinkie Pies, both vomiting up the power of laughter at the same time, would have been a trifle, how shall we say...vexing to such fickle forces of nature? Ever hear of crossing the streams?”
“The what?”
Discord dismissed the thought with a wave of his claw. “Never mind that. Let’s just say that there isn’t enough room in this town for two of the same element. And by town, I mean world.”
Twilight knitted her brow. “But there were thirty or forty Pinkie Pies bopping around that day, and they were all being very much Pinkie Pie.”
“For a few hours, yes,” Discord pointed out. “You really don’t want to know what would have happened if that had lasted for say, a day or two. You have no idea how close you were to a laughter cataclysm that would have spelled the end of everything.”
Pinkie Pie, her cheeks sullen by a short life devoid of smiles, circled the pond and stood before the only other pony who still existed. “So believe it, Twilight. Believe it all.”
“Pinkie, you’re going to die too, when the universe implodes!”
Pinkie shook her head. “I’m not allowed to be me, Twilight. So there’s not much to lose there.”
There was a sudden shudder, as if a great beast from Tartarus was shaking the very land like a cage. Powdery debris leaked from the ceiling into Twilight’s face, eliciting from her a sneeze. Alarmed, she turned to Discord.
“What was that?”
“Oh, that?” Discord shrugged. He was bathing in the mirror pool, complete with a showercap and a sponge attached to a stick for his back. “Nothing, really. The universe is becoming nothing. It’s a shame about your palace and your insane decoupage. Probably just stopped existing at this very moment.”
“How can we survive that!?”
“Oh, you can’t.” Discord touched a claw to his chin in thought. “Actually I’m not sure even I can.”
Pinkie Pie, resigned to the fate she had wrought, sat serenely in the dirt. “It’s all over, Twilight.”
“Is this really what you wanted!?” The princess shouted at the only other pony that ever was. “I’m sorry for what I did to you Pinkie - I understand that now! But isn’t this a bit much!?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Pinkie replied evenly. “It can’t be stopped, and there’s no escape.”
“Oh yes there is!” Twilight, indignant, took to her wings and flew over to Discord in the water, hovering as menacingly as she could before him. “The one part of this that still doesn’t add up is you, and it’s about time you came out with it. You wanted to punish me because you thought Pinkie was right, that I did an awful thing to her. I get that. But you agreed to wipe out reality, including all your closest friends, and possibly you too in the process? Spill it, Discord! Why are you being so nonchalant about certain doom!?”
The cavern shook again. Discord’s lip curled into a lopsided grin, exposing the gleam of his single fang. He rose from the water, casually stretching his back, neck, and talons as though he were just waking up.
“Well, I suppose it is about time to put the last bit of wood back in the Jenga tower, yes.”
Discord snapped the fingers of his lion paw. At once, an oval image appeared on one rock face. Wreathed in magic, Twilight peered into it and made out her friends - all of her friends, chatting casually around a pair of buffet tables on the front lawn of Sweet Apple Acres. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were even still in costume.
Discord pulled a suitcase out of nowhere and tightened a beige scarf around his neck. “Shall we be off, then?”
“Off to...where…?” Twilight asked.
Discord gestured towards the portal. “Back home, of course! You don’t want to miss the rest of Applejack’s birthday party, do you? As far as they’re concerned, you just went to the bathroom for a few minutes. I’m sure you can even blame those ugly bags under your eyes on your week of princessing again, as you are so often wont to do.”
Pinkie Pie stared in disbelief. She shot to her hooves. “Wh-what is that!?”
“I think I just explained it,” Discord huffed. “It’s a birthday party. A rather pleasant one, too.” His grin deepened. “Oh come now, you didn’t really think that I would go so far as to end all of space and time for your petty dispute, did you? I very much agree that you deserved your say, and I simply cannot pass up a chance to teach Twilight Sparkle a lesson, but I’d say she’s learned it.” He glanced at Twilight. “You have learned your lesson, yes? There’ll be remorse and tears later when we aren’t all in mortal threat of obliteration, hm?”
Twilight vehemently nodded.
“In that case, we’re quite done here,” Discord concluded. “Come along now, as I have just as little desire to deprive the world of you, as I do you of the world.”
Pinkie was snorting like a prized fighting bull. “Y-you...you tricked me!!”
Discord’s smile vanished. “I’m chaos, Pinkie Pie. I am trickery. Never forget that.” He placed a claw on the portal and made as if to hoist himself through. A third, more powerful tremor rocked the cavern, sending large chunks of rock splashing into the pool. “Now then, unless you can survive the Big Bang, we’ll need to be making our exit.”
Pinkie sniffed. She sat without care, obliging Twilight to nab a stalactite from the air in her magic and bat it aside before it impaled the despondent earth mare.
“Pinkie,” Twilight said carefully, reaching out a hoof. “We have to go now. We can’t stay here.”
Pinkie gazed dumbly at the offered hoof, but did not take it. “I’m not going anywhere. And before you think you’re going to say some magical thing that’s going to make me change my mind, remember that if I go back there, nothing will change for me.”
“I promise, Pinkie. I won’t use that spell on you. If I had known then what I know now, I never would have done it in the first place. I’m...I’m so sorry.”
Pinkie hugged herself, retreating into her personal cocoon. “That’s not the problem anymore. Even if you promise that, I can’t go back to being me. Not ever. You heard what Discord said. If I start being me again, horrible things will happen to the world. I can’t go back to not existing anymore. If that’s going to be my fate, I would rather stop existing for real. Right here and right now. I was never supposed to exist in the first place, after all. I’m just a mistake your friend made one day.”
“Pinkie--”
Pinkie turned away. “Go, Twilight. I don’t know what I wanted, but I thought this was all real, so what I tried to make happen is even worse than what you did. I just wanted you to understand. I guess you do now, so there’s nothing more to say. So go away.”
Twilight gasped. Before her eyes, images crackled into existence. They were fuzzy outlines, but she could just about make them out as the bodies of ponies. Dressed in the garb of geological and magical researchers, the staticy-phantom images were casually trotting about the cavern, traipsing right through debris to examine the walls, floor, and the waters of the Mirror Pool.
“Who are they?” Twilight asked aloud.
“The research team Princess Sunny dispatched here after you closed the pool off, of course,” Discord replied easily. He caught another falling boulder in one hand and closed his fist, shattering it into pieces that he took to juggling. “Or rather, this reality’s version of them, foreshadowed.”
“Foreshadowed?” Twilight repeated the word and turned to face the draconequus. “They’re coming back? We have to save them then!”
“Oh relax,” Discord replied as he tossed his three boulders into the pool. “They’re not here yet. But they will be. Remember when I said I couldn’t do anything to stop this once it started? That only you could? I was referring to you figuring out enough of the puzzle to prompt Crazy Pie to come out of hiding, which you did, the moment you spoke of going to the Everfree Forest to ‘make’ new friends. That’s why I brought you here directly - so we could get on with this between the two of you, and settle matters once and for all. I created all of this as a pocket dimension, but I’m too skilled for my own good, and what I actually ended up creating was an oscillating universe.”
Twilight went cross-eyed as she watched a research stallion walk right through her. “Oscillating…?”
“That’s right,” Discord explained. And even I can’t put a stop to a phenomena like the creation of an entirely new universe, in this reality or any other. In a minute or two, this universe will implode completely. Then it will explode again - that Big Bang I was telling you about - and recreate itself until it’s the very spitting image of the world you know. Minus you and your friends, that is.”
The princess attempted to parse everything she was hearing. She touched a hoof to Pinkie’s head protectively, but the mare just stared blankly at the dirt. “Why not us?”
“Because this universe has become greater than my original design, of course. There’s a mirror pool in it after all, and despite my creating that, it still has powers I do not possess. I can’t recreate the Elements of Harmony. If I were to add the six of you to this world after it reforms, you would just be empty shadows - puppets of your true selves. You’d look and sound the part to everypony else here, but there would be no real spark of life inside you. And no special powers.”
“...and...and the ponies that live here?”
Discord pinched his tummy, stretching his own skin out from it in a ghastly way before letting it snap back. “As real as you or I. And just as subject to all the wonders of life, from stubbing your hoof on a rock to winning the Equestrian Games. It’s a shame they won’t have long to be happy, but there’s nothing we can do about that. I may have become something of a softie in recent years, I’m not about to sacrifice my reality for theirs, when they only just began to exist.” Again he touched the portal’s edge, caressing it affectionately. “Our world needs you, Twilight. If you die here, it will be like you never existed back home - but the difference will be that our world will suffer from the appropriate changes to the timeline. Therefore, you’re coming with me. Like it or not.”
Twilight wasn’t finished. “Why won’t they be happy?”
Discord shrugged. “You really ought to be able to reason more of this out on your own, you know. How long do you suppose Equestria will stay a happy and free place, full of rainbows and horse love, without the Elements of Harmony? They’ll have a few months, or perhaps weeks...maybe even hours. But some evil force that’s as much a consequence of creating a reality that mirrors our own will subdue them soon enough. There might end up being a new me here, even. I wonder what he’ll do with the place, in a reality where none of you were ever here to choke the cornflakes of enlightenment down his throat.”
Twilight rubbed Pinkie’s mane. “...what about her?”
Discord tilted his head thoughtfully, but frowned. “She can do whatever she wants. She deserves to be taught a lesson as much as you do, after all. The lesson of what the madness of revenge leads to. I’ve killed two moral birds with one stone today it seems.”
Wind began to waft into the room from farther down the cavern. It increased in force, until Twilight felt the need to raise her voice over it. she knelt beside Pinkie Pie and summoned a magical shield to deflect the falling rock.
“Pinkie, we have to go!” the princess repeated. “Don’t throw your life away - don’t to do yourself what I should never have done to you to begin with!”
Pinkie was drawing smiley faces in the soft sediment with her hoof. “It’s better this way, Twilight. I don’t want to go on if I can’t be me anymore. I’m not being selfish either, because you all still have a Pinkie Pie waiting for you back home. Nothing will change for any of you, and that’s for the best. At least I can be me, here...for as long as it lasts.”
“You can’t be here!” Twilight insisted. “You won’t survive the implosion!!”
Pinkie surrounded the largest smiley face in a balloon and drew stars around it - it persisted, so long as the princess’s shield stood firm. She giggled gently, and somewhere in the sound was a small measure of her original tone. “Gee, I guess I am being selfish after all. Now I won’t have to have all these ponies on my conscience, like you will. Their lives are gonna be a major bummer without us.”
Discord had a flight cap on, complete with goggles. “Too bad, so sad for this universe. If it’s any consolation, they’ll only think they had a long and glorious history. They’re the eggs that broke making the omelette.” He held out his arm and spun it with his claw in a perfect 360-degree motion, as if starting a propeller plane. “Let’s go, Sparkle! The last train’s pulling out!”
Twilight scowled at the draconequus. “B-but there’ll be hundreds of ponies here - thousands! We can’t just turn our back on--”
Discord’s mirth vanished, and his eyes flashed a baleful red as the whipping winds tousled his whiskers. “There’s no time. And even if there were, there’s nothing that can be done. I already told you, I can’t make the Elements of Harmony. There isn’t a pot of gold and a thousand ponies doing the jig of joy at the end of every rainbow, Twilight. You can’t always save everyone. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and go for the best ending you can get.” He snorted as he watched a phantom researcher casually examining a crystal formation. “It’s better them than us.”
Twilight’s perspective changed. By the power of Discord’s magic, she suddenly found herself outside her own magic bubble, and standing next to him near the portal. Her mane stung her face as violet and raspberry locks whipped at her cheeks in the wind.
“We’re leaving,” Discord snorted. “Now.”
Twilight felt herself being lifted into the air by the power of chaos. She began to float backwards towards the portal, but she didn’t fight the effect - her mind was alive, and every sight before her eyes became, in her thoughts, a collection of theorems and calculations. She called upon her vast mental resources and forced them into labor, churning through the flotsam of tiredness and confusion until her temples burned with the effort.
And then the answer came.
Twilight scrambled, but when she didn’t feel her hooves touching the ground, she turned on Discord. “Wait! WAIT! I can do this - I can solve this!”
Discord was already halfway through the portal, his cloven hoof dangling in the peaceful autumn world of Sweet Apple Acres. “No,” he replied definitively. “Whatever you think you’re going to do, I will not risk you staying here a moment longer to do it.
The draconequus turned to make good his escape, narrowly avoiding a chuck of rock as it whizzed by his head. Rents and tears appeared in the walls and floor - even the mirror pool began to drain away into the earth, as what seemed like the very bowels of Tartarus began to open upon the world.
Twilight lit her horn. With a cursory effort, she tore away from Discord’s hold on her and hurled herself back towards Pinkie Pie, battering with her hooves the magic shield that kept the earth pony from being crushed.
“Pinkie!!” Twilight screamed. “I can do this! I can save everyone! I know what to do now, but I can’t do it alone! You have to come back with me!!”
Pinkie was staring down at the largest face she had drawn in her tiny, peaceful patch of ground. It was an image of herself, grinning merrily and staring straight back up at the flattened mane and withered countenance of a Pinkie Pie who had long years prior forced herself to remain unhappy. Again, Pinkie giggled, and she reached down to caress the crude image’s cheek.
“Aw, she looks so happy.”
“PINKIE!!” Twilight shouted again. “Come home!! I’m sorry for what I did to the others - truly sorry! I can never fully make up for it, but if it hadn’t been for what I did in the first place, this world would never have been created, and it wouldn’t be in danger now! This is all I can do to atone for what happened - help me!! PLEASE!!”
Pinkie Pie finally looked up. Her worn cheeks held a smile that Twilight missed more than she ever realized.
“...really?”
“Yes! Really!! Oh Pinkie, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me after all that’s happened, and I know you probably hate me now, but I’m begging you to take a leap of faith! I’ll make everything better - even for you! So help me, I swear I will!”
Twilight dispelled the magic shield. The drawings in the dirt instantly vaporized, and the princess held out her hoof.
“...just come with me. That’s all I ask. Come with me and I’ll make this right.”
Pinkie stared at Twilight, at her hoof, and then back into her eyes again. Discord spoke, his voice reverberating in both their minds in lieu of shouting:
“Well, if she swears it, then she swears it. She’s locked in now. Don’t worry Pinkie - if she doesn’t come through this time, I’ll personally make sure she regrets it.” Discord punctuated his words with a mischievous giggle.
Pinkie took the offered hoof, and used the leverage to throw herself into Twilight’s embrace. The pair began to float again towards the portal, and Twilight re-established her shield as they moved.
Pinkie buried her face in Twilight’s shoulder. “...I’m so sorry...wh-what did I do…I don’t hate you...I never hated you...I just wanted…y-you to understand...”
Twilight held on for dear life to her friend. “I do understand, Pinkie. Now I do. And I’m sorry too. Sorry for everything. Will you help me?”
Pinkie shuddered, nodded, and began to bawl into her dear friend’s violet shoulder.
Light, sound, and matter congealed into the morass of infinity that would moments later give birth to something new, and in that instant, the world ceased.