//------------------------------// // Chapter One: Pinkie Two // Story: Once You Go Pinkie // by Epsilon-Delta //------------------------------// If anypony asked what Gear Grinder’s job was, and they didn't, he was supposed to tell them that he was helping to cure shroom rot. The disease appeared very recently, close enough to Canterlot to scare just the right ponies and get this whole, big research project underway. Lots of ponies were working on this. But in truth, his job was the exact opposite of that. He was there to delay the project as much as possible. Chrysalis was the one behind the shroom rot in the first place. It was all part of some bigger plan that Gear Grinder wasn’t important enough to know of. All he knew was that progress on a cure needed to be stalled as much as possible. There were dozens of changelings in Manehattan working towards this plan, some trying to cut budgets, some dumping toxins into water supplies. Gear Grinder alone probably delayed a cure by months, if not over a year already. He sabotaged everything he could as much as he could without drawing suspicion to himself from destroying samples to making the life of every pony on this project as miserable as possible. And everyone on this end was completely miserable, bored, lazy, and jaded with the entire project. Yes, Gear Grinder had seen to that. Except for this one guy. Risky Flask was one of those ponies. While everyone else was miserably dragging their feet, he was picking up all the slack, working through break, never losing hope for the project. But hard work only got you so far. As soon as Risky Flask’s back was turned, Gear Grinder took a rather important vial he needed and poured it down the sink, then refilled it with a volatile liquid. A little later, Risky Flask tried to perform his test, casting a spell on the vial. It exploded, sending blue liquid flying everywhere. “What’s going on out there?!” Anger Management huffed his way out of his office. “I have no idea,” Risky Flask said in his defense. “There must have been something wrong with the M-silicate, that’s the only explanation.” Anger Management looked over the scene, his face flashing with rage when he noticed the problem. “I’ll tell you what went wrong! You used the wrong diluent!” Anger Management picked up the nearby bottle of elemental acid, the same blue color that had exploded from the vial. “Do you know how long it takes to get that sample of M-silicate?! Do you know how much all these reagents cost?!” “I don’t know where it could be! I was sure that was it! I know I checked it several times to make sure it was right! Something must have-“ “Oh, what? The vial just magically replaced itself?! Get into my office!” Anger Management pulled the haggard scientist into his office and slammed the door shut. “See what hard work gets you?” Gear Grinder whispered to his nearby ‘coworker’. “That guy works his plot off and just one mistake is enough to get him in all kinds of trouble. The more you work, the more of a scolding you get. That’s why you never see me in a hurry.” “Yeesh, you sure got that right.” He gave a mournful look towards the office. “And I keep hearing that shroom rot’s infection rates been dropping for months. They’ve been inflating the mortality rate of it too. “Wouldn’t be surprised. This whole thing is just a political boondoggling. The people who signed off on this are just kicking their feet up. We might as well too.” It was impressive how much this sort of thing worked. Everyone here was dragging their feet and anyone who refused to get fired. The bell sounded, marking the end of Gear Griner’s shift long. On his way out, he made one last act of sabotage. Gear Grinder looked around to make sure nopony was looking and then he switched the regular coffee with decaf! The night shift was all but ruined. Now he could go home. There were people out there who got some small happiness out of going home, but Gear grinder wasn’t one of them. The harsh sun beat down on his back as he trudged his way home. Manehattan was a cold, colorless city. It was sterile skyscraper after sterile skyscraper, all looming over you walk over the crumbling asphalt, trying not to trip over the potholes. He tried to avoid contact with the ponies who shot him suspicious looks as he passed by. He hated all the stupid, annoying ponies in this city and dreaded them every saying hello to him. Bugs were swarming all over the place today, as if his life wasn’t already terrible enough, forcing him to swat them away. Everything he passed by was an annoyance. The whole city was an annoyance. As always, he just closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried to block out all the senseless noise of the city until finally he was home. Gear Grinder opened the door to his apartment without a bit of relief. This place hardly felt like home. The single buzzing lightbulb hanging overhead filled the room with more noise than light and threatened to fall down on his aching head at any moment. The dim lighting did have the advantage of making it harder to see just how dingy the apartment really was. A broken stove, broken dresser, broken stove, and a mattress decayed to the point of being a clump of springs were all he had in his apartment and yet it left him with only a few feet of floor space. The place didn’t even have a bathroom, instead, the building had a public restroom downstairs he had to use. Despite getting good pay for the ‘work’ he was doing, Gear Grinder had to live in this tiny room. He had to send all of that money back to the hive… probably to buy Chrysalis some vase or something. Maybe he could live with all that if this was where the pain ended. As soon as he lied down on his mattress and tried to relax for one second, Chrysalis contacted him telepathically. He groaned like the springs digging into his back and allowed her in. Gear Grinder had a second job, collecting love, dumping toxins into the water, or otherwise sabotaging the city. Between the two jobs, he barely had time to eat or sleep. “My Queen-“ was all he could manage before being cut off. “You’re behind on your quota!” Chrysalis immediately started ripping into him. Gear Grinder knew not to say anything in his defense. “What have you even been doing this whole time?! You lazy, worthless good-for-nothing insect! Do you know how hard I work while you do nothing all day?! I demand you work even longer hours!” “I already work eighteen hours a day, my Queen.” “Well if that’s your attitude then make it nineteen!” She shouted back. “You don’t honestly think you can just slack off and get away with it. You don’t work half as hard as I do! I deserve a vacation! I deserve a yacht! You need to get a smaller apartment so you’re spending less money! Get one of those beer helmet things and fill it with protein shakes so you don’t need any more lunchbreaks! You need to find something productive to do in the bathroom too! Maybe you can fill out paperwork or something.” “Yes, my queen.” Gear Grinder’s eye twitched. Another ten-hour shift on his current eight-hour one. No weekends no holidays… At least he’d have his five hours to ‘sleep’ between the two jobs. “Good. And don’t let me catch you slacking off for even one second! Next time there will be serious consequences.” And Chrysalis cut off communication, giving Gear Grinder his first sigh of relief today. This stress was going to kill him. Five hours of sleep wouldn’t be enough. He needed something more, something stronger. He needed to- His blood began to flow again. Gear Grinder checked out the window then closed the blinds. He checked under the bed and out the peephole of his door. Nopony needed to know about this little secret, about the one thing that made Gear Grinder's life worth living. Gear Grinder enveloped himself in green flames and emerged as the world-famous Pinkie Pie! Being Pinkie Pie was the absolute best. Suddenly she felt less tired. Suddenly the world was less grey. Suddenly… she was actually able to smile again! It was like flicking her happiness switch to on. Just looking into the mirror at her new reflection made it hard not to grin. She always loved seeing herself like this no matter how broken the mirror she was looking into. She was Pinkie Pie. Pinkie was Pinkie! The excitement from just looking at herself in the mirror was enough that Pinkie found herself jumping up and down on the bed, humming along to the tune of the light overhead. The fact that it was all springs suddenly seemed endearing, made it better for jumping on. It seemed like there was no way to not be happy when you were Pinkie Pie! It was the one thing that made life worth living. Discovering this secret had been a complete accident. She was one of the changelings who attacked Canterlot during that wedding, one of the changelings who had directly attacked Twilight’s entourage. Like most of her compatriots, Pinkie had been beaten senseless but not before a run-in with Pinkie Pie (that is, the real Pinkie Pie). She assumed Pinkie’s form and very quickly decided that it was the best form she’d ever taken. During that fight, as Pinkie Pie, she’d never felt so alive! She laughed the whole time, trying to imitate that pink pony, her fighting becoming more and more like dancing. Until the real Pinkie Pie punched her in the face and blasted her off a wall with that canon. Even that didn’t seem so bad, in hindsight. Of the three times she’d been knocked unconscious, that one was by far the best. It was… fun! The best night of her life. After that Pinkie was hooked on this form. She couldn’t get enough of it. The more she used it the more she wanted it. The more unbearable her life as Gear Grinder became in comparison. Just looking like Pinkie wasn’t enough anymore. She found that the more she acted like Pinkie Pie, the happier she was. Parties, balloons, candy, as Pinkie Pie she loved all of these things more than anything she’d loved before. But the real love of her pretend life was making other ponies smile, just like the real Pinkie Pie! Pinkie wanted everypony to be happy and spreading joy was a joy in itself. That’s why she took up her little ‘hobby’ of volunteering to do charity work. She’d visit old ponies and orphans to try and do her best to make them happy. Sure, it meant she could never sleep again, but this was better than sleep. Seeing the happy faces of those orphans, and lightening the day of ponies who needed it was more refreshing. It filled her heart with a joy she’d never gotten anywhere before. There was of course the irony that tomorrow… Pinkie put the thought out of her mind before her mane could deflate. She just needed to forget Gear Grinder existed. It was the only way to be happy. Pinkie crawled out the window and hopped down the fire escape before strolling out into the streets, merrily skipping over the one or two potholes before getting to the clear part of the road. It was such a bright sunny day! Pinkie took a deep breath, always amazed at how clean the air was for a city. Pinkie loved Manehattan, the buildings were so varied and interesting, everywhere you looked there was something completely new and interesting to see. You could literally just walk in any direction and find amazing places and ponies to talk to. One of the butterflies landed on the hook of Pinkie’s mane and she stopped to study it. It was an awfully fuzzy butterfly, with antennae that must have been twice as long as its body. It wasn’t alone, either. Butterflies were all over the streets. All of them were fuzzy like the one on Pinkie’s mane, but the colors varied wildly. “Oh, hey Bubblegum!” A friendly voice called out to her. Pinkie looked over to see Mrs. Cane, her favorite asparagus-flavored candy stand pony in the world, waving at her from her asparagus-flavored candy stand. “How are you today? I haven’t seen you in days. I missed you.” Whenever ponies asked, and they did, Pinkie just told them that she was Bubblegum Lollipop, a professional Pinkie Pie impersonator. It was a great cover if you think about it. “I missed me more, trust me!” Pinkie waved to her before trotting over, bringing her butterfly passenger with her. “I’m doing great as always! There are a lot of butterflies today, though. Where did they come from?” “Oh, we always get a ton of them near the end of summer. These little guys all come out of their cocoons at the same time each year, see?” “I guess I haven’t been here long enough to see.” Pinkie blew the butterfly off her mane and sent it on her way. “But I gotta go. I’m visiting the orphanage again.” She waved goodbye to Mrs. Cane and hello to everypony she passed on the way to the orphanage. When she finally got there, the orphan master greeted her with his trademark grunt. “Finally,” said Gruel Bowl. “I needed somepony to distract these kids while I go make the gruel. It’s like they never get enough gruel.” The orphans didn’t wait for Pinkie to come up to them. A few of them were already waiting at the top of the stairs and came running down to greet her. “Thank you so much, Bubblegum!” Bootstraps jumped up to Pinkie and hugged her. “If it weren’t for you, we’d have to go make gruel too. “Yeah! You’re my favorite Pinkie Pie impersonator of all the ones that come to visit us,” said Stock Breaker. “Well, thanks.” Pinkie patted him on the head. “But how many Pinkie Pie impersonators even are there?” “A lot.” Gruel Bowl rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Like a lot a lot now that I think about it.” “Well as long as it’s not suspiciously high.” Pinkie chuckled and looked away. “No. No, it is a suspicious number. A very suspicious number.” “Well, dyuh-“ Pinkie’s mind reeled for a dodge and her training came through. “Well, it’s not like we get paid enough to be suspicious about things, right?” “Hehe! You got that right, kiddo.” Gruel Bowl actually smiled. “Only thing I get paid to do is feed gruel to orphans! Now if you’ll excuse me.” He put his gruel hat on and went off to the basement. “Well I’m watching you for the next couple of hours,” said Pinkie. “Princess Twilight donated this book to us!” Bootstraps brought a book over to Pinkie in his mouth. Pinkie looked over the book. “Practical Morals for Starving Orphans, huh?” Pinkie read the title. The cover claimed Twilight had written this book herself “Yeah! I could use some more morals!” Stock Breaker enthused. “Well of course I’ll read to you kiddos!” Pinkie laughed and cracked the book open. “Once upon a time, there a turtle who, due to complex socioeconomic factors, only had five hundred dollars in savings despite years of hard work. One day, on his way to the turtle factory, he came across a rabbit who was selling municipal bonds and…” Pinkie spent hours reading to them. They kept asking her to read book after book and she gave in every time, staying longer and longer. And she wanted to too. Somehow, in this form, making them happy was enough. She didn’t need to stab them in the back or suck out their love. She could just let them be happy. “And the turtle cried so much that he drowned in his own tears and died! The moral of the story is that the optimal percentage of your savings to put into stocks is equal to one hundred minus your current age, making increasingly conservative investments as you near retirement.” Pinkie closed the book and gave it a curious look. “Huh. These morals are a lot more practical than the ones I used to get.” “Do you think I’ll have a 401K someday?” Stock Breaker asked. “With a name like Stock Breaker, I’m sure you’ll have all kinds K’s.” “Oh, wow! Having somepony believe in me is the best!” “Dyah. I love you kids too much! I could stay here all night and-“ Gear Grinder! Chrysalis’s voice boomed into her mind. This was bad! Pinkie lost track of time and was going to be late for the work Chrysalis was going to make her do. “Er-! Actually, I couldn’t.” Pinkie threw the book and stood up. “Sorry Gruel Bowl, I gotta run.” Everypony let out a disappointed sight, including Gruel Bowl who had long since gotten back but had been taking the opportunity to slack off. “Aw, man.” Gruel Bowl looked up from his newspaper. “That means I gotta go back to watching these kids. “Yep! I just remembered I have an appointment,” Pinkie walked backward to the door. “Important ponytarian stuff.” “Isn’t that what you’re doing now?” Gruel asked. “No, this is way more important! It’s uh-“ Pinkie stood in the doorway, trying to think what trumped orphans. “I gotta donate blood to starving puppies. You know how puppies get. Bye!” And she got the buck out of there before anypony would ask any more questions. Chrysalis was already mentally shouting obscenities straight into Pinkie’s brain. She was in so much trouble. She got outside and into a back alley as soon as she could. The sun had already gone down, which meant Pinkie should have started her shift with Chrysalis already. “Forgive me, my queen,” Pinkie responded to her. “I couldn’t talk without compromising my identity.” “That’s no excuse! Your worthlessness is the only explanation I’ll accept!” Chrysalis responded. “And why are you disguised as that pink one? What’s her name? Pine-kay Pea?” Pinkie forgot to turn back! This was bad! “I was just spying on some ponies,” Pinkie gave the first excuse she could think of. “I realized that you were right about me not working hard enough, so I decided to wake up and start working early.” “Well just don’t think this in any way makes up for your incompetence. But I’ll let it slide because you’re already where I need you to be,” said Chrysalis. “I need you to do more sabotaging tonight. Another one of my agents dropped off a barrel of radioactive waste on the roof of an orphanage. But they didn’t get a chance to dump it into that water thing on top of the building. That’s what you’re going to do.” “What?” Pinkie looked back at the orphanage and whimpered, remembering the happy faces of those poor orphan ponies. “Th-those orphans?” “If there’s another orphanage across the street you could do that one instead.” Pinkie looked across the street, but sadly there wasn’t. “But why are we irradiating orphans?” Pinkie asked. “That doesn’t sound like it’d help us in any way. Shouldn’t I irradiate Celestia or something?” “How dare you try to think about things!” Chrysalis shouted back. “Are you the one who thinks about what makes sense? Or are you the one who mindlessly obeys everything I tell them to do?” “The- the second one.” “Exactly. I’m queen because I’m smart enough to know these things. Orphans are the most likely to become badass heroes. I need to take them out now before they become a threat. It’s a long-term plan, that sort that you need brains to come up with.” “Yes ma’am.” “Besides you’re not smart enough to irradiate Celestia. And for asking that question, I’m putting you on double shifts for the next month.” “I’m already on double shifts for the next four months, ma’am.” “Well now it’s five. Try to learn something.” And then Chrysalis closed out. Pinkie stared up at the orphanage and felt sad for the first time in this form. Pinkie wanted to make them happy, not radioactive! Poor Bootstraps couldn’t smile if he was radioactive. The real Pinkie would never poison literal orphans. Not unless they were really, really evil orphans. But, no matter how much she fantasized about it, Gear Grinder wasn’t actually Pinkie Pie. She was a horrible person. At least she could still be in Pinkie form for this job. That always made her feel better, even at horrible times like this. Pinkie turned into a pegasus and flew up to the roof before turning back. Sure enough, she found a barrel full of glowing green slime. That was totally it. With a sigh, she pushed it over and began rolling it towards the water tower on the other end of the roof. About halfway there, somepony jumped out of the shadows and punched Pinkie hard in the face, sending her to the ground. Not giving her a moment to recover, her assailant tackled Pinkie, slamming a hoof down onto her chest. Pinkie was pinned, but she finally managed to get a look at her attacker. Her jaw dropped when she saw who it was. Pinkie Pie! And not just your everyday normal Pinkie Pie. No, today she was wearing a black cape that waved behind her heroically, blown by the sheer amazingness that was Pinkie Pie! Pinkie stared up at the real Pinkie in awe of her presence. She’d spent years dreaming about how amazing it would be to run into the real Pinkie Pie again. And it was amazing! But then she realized that actually this was the worst possible pony to run into! “This isn’t what it looks like!” Bubblegum (she couldn’t pretend to be Pinkie right now) tried to wipe the small bit of blood from the corner of her mouth. “I can explain!” “You can explain that you’re a changeling impersonating the real Pinkie Pie?” Pinkie glared down at her. “Or is there something else you wanted to explain?” Pinkie still maybe didn’t know about the toxic waste! It was possible she just punched her for no apparent reason, other than looking like her of course. “You don’t understand! I uh- fell into a Pinkie Pie costume factory and the zipper melted off! Completely vaporized so I can’t get it off like ever,” said Bubblegum. “Or actually I guess I just bought it and then the zipper vaporized, cause that makes more sense, right?” “Oh yeah?” Pinkie pushed her hoof down on Bubblegum’s chest harder and loomed. “And did this store have a buy one, dump radioactive waste into the drinking water, get one free policy?!” “Er- yes?” Bubblegum made the worst attempt at a smile in history. It did not work. The jig was up! “I’m sorry!” Bubblegum threw herself at the mercy of Pinkie. “I never wanted to do all those horrible things! Chrysalis made me. I want to be like you, spreading joy and laughter through the world, but if I do Chrysalis is going to throw me in jail or kill me or maybe even throw me in jail and then kill me in the jail she threw me in! Please don’t kill me. That death would be too ironic!” “Oh, I’m not going to kill you.” Pinkie took a step back, off of Bubblegum. She engulfed herself in green fire, changing back to her changeling form. “See, I’m a changeling too.” “Oh! I uh-!” Bubblegum got back up and brushed herself off. “I was just saying all that to get Pinkie to not kill me. I don’t have to tell you how much fun it is to stab these ponies in the back after a good sob story, right? Hehe. Praise Chrysalis and all that.” “But I’m a rogue changeling.” The changeling flashed back to Pinkie. “Not one of Chrysalis’s lackeys.” “I was just saying that part about uh-“ Bubblegum already lost her script. “Let me guess as to what’s happening here.” The fake Pinkie flipped her cape and started trotting towards the edge of the roof. “You were one of the changelings who attacked Canterlot and you turned into Pinkie Pie during the fight.” “Well-“ it wasn’t like denying that now would help her. “Yeah.” “And the moment you turned into Pinkie Pie it was like a weight was taken off your heart. It was the single biggest rush of fun and excitement you ever had.” “Yes.” Bubblegum nodded enthusiastically. She had no idea somepony could relate. “It was amazing. Like the first time I’d ever felt happiness at all.” “And from then on you’ve been addicted to that feeling. You wanted to be Pinkie Pie all the time. You found that making other ponies happy, throwing parties, making smiles, makes you happier than anything else you’ve ever done.” “Yeah!” Bubblegum continued for her. “And everything not-Pinkie related just seems too grey and boring. When I’m not pinkie everything is just so horrible. It was always horrible, but now that I know what it’s like to be Pinkie it’s even worse.” “Like it’s all just a bunch of sugar-free bland flakes that have been left in spoiled milk so long that it’s all just mush and you can’t tell the bland from the flakes anymore.” Pinkie looked off the edge of the building, her cape flapping in the wind. “You just can’t bear to not be Pinkie Pie anymore.” “Exactly! You do get me.” Bubblegum ran over to the fake Pinkie’s side. “I had no idea someone else went through the same thing! It’s so exciting to- “And! You eventually realized what a horrible person you used to be. That the things you’ve done are unforgivable. How unlike Pinkie you really were, how it was wrong for you to have ever fought against her in the first place. And you swore to spend the rest of your life making up for it.” Pinkie turned back with a harsh glare. “Right?” “I-“ Bubblegum took a step back. “Not so much that last part.” “Yeah, I figured.” Pinkie brushed passed Bubblegum, moving back towards the radioactive waste. “We’re not too different. They call me Pinkie Two, cause I’m the first changeling to ever turn into Pinkie Pie.” “Really?” Bubblegum felt like she was meeting a celebrity, though not one as good as the original Pinkie. “I was supposed to kidnap and replace her when she was just a filly but shortly after I changed into Pinkie, well, I’m sure you know the feeling right?” Pinkie Two laughed and looked down at the barrel as if lining it up for something. “It took me one day to realize that depriving the world of Pinkie Pie would be the worst possible thing I could ever do. So, I busted Pinkie out of her prison.” Pinkie Two gave the barrel of radioactive was a hard buck, sending it off the roof and landing in the dumpster down below. “But I realized that wasn’t enough,” Pinkie Two said. “To make up for my past crimes, I decided to devote my life to helping Pinkie Pie from the shadows. Spreading her ideals of laughter and fun, finding Pinkies lost baking utensils for her, beating up villains and occasionally helping her save the world and stuff.” “Oh wow! You’re so cool! You’re basically living my dream and I-“ Bubblegum‘s mane deflated a little. “You’re gonna beat me up and throw me in jail now aren’t you?” Pinkie Two gave a hum that ended with a “Maybe.” “Maybe?” “I run into wanna-be Pinkies all the time.” Pinkie Two trotted back to Bubblegum. “Part of my job is taking wayward Pinkies like you and reforming them into true Pinkie Pies, ones who can spread the joy and laughter of Pinkie Pie.” Pinkie Two held her hoof out to Bubblegum in offer. “Do you want to be a good pony?” Pinkie Two asked. “Yes!” Bubblegum collapsed again into a bow, tears in her eyes. “Yes, more than anything in the world. I hate myself so much. I want to be good like Pinkie is so bad, but I’m too weak. Can- can you really help even me?” “I can.” Pinkie Two grabbed by her withers and pulled her back to a standing position. “But if you come with me now, you’ll never be able to go back to Chrysalis again. You’ll be giving up your old life.” “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Bubblegum wiped a tear from her eye. “Of course, I want to leave that behind. I hate my old life! I’ll do anything you ask me to.” “Ha! I get that one a lot, though most potential Pinkies want to actually see our secret base before they sign up.” “Huh? Secret base? You mean there’s more of us?” Bubblegum asked. “A base filled with Pinkie Pie changelings? How does this keep getting better?!” “Oh, gee. Didn’t even tell you that part. Silly me.” Pinkie Two knocked her own head. “We’re the Pinkie Secret Society Team, of PSST. We do all kinds of stuff. If you want, you can look around before signing up. Unless you’re one of those crazy ponies who signs long contracts without even reading them!” “What? Oh no, totally not.” Pinkie said, though secretly she had done that several times. “Then follow me!” Pinkie Two turned, flaring out her cape. She ran to the edge of the building and jumped off the ledge, reaching the wall of the next building over. She then ran up the side of the wall and pulled herself up onto the roof, then turned back to Bubblegum, actually expecting her to follow. “Yeah,” said Bubblegum. “I can’t even almost do that.” “You can fly.” “Oh! Right.” Pinkie turned into a pegasus and flew across the gap. Pinkie Two immediately ran off again, pulling off all kinds of crazy parkour moves as they went from building to building. Even with flight, keeping up with her was far from easy, but Pinkie Two would always stop to wait when she got too far ahead. Fear and excitement were coursing through her blood. She couldn’t believe she was actually doing this! There were so many times Bubblegum had dreamed about running away from Chrysalis like this, but she’d never had any way out until now. Chrysalis would literally kill her if she even suggested it. Bubblegum kept looking around to make sure Chrysalis and her lackeys weren’t around, the back of her mind certain they’d show up. But they didn’t by the time they got to where they were going. The secret base, it seemed, was hidden somewhere in a shipping lot, filled with row after row of train cargo cars. There was a corner filled with rusty cars that Pinkie Two took her to. “See the part of the trick was to hide it under something nopony would ever go looking for.” Pinkie Two stopped in front of one of the cars. The freight car was painted blue and decorated with a picture of a blue unicorn Bubblegum had never seen before. Above the unicorn were the words ‘The Great and Powerful Trixies’ Great and Powerful doll with Great and Powerful Kungfu grip!’ There was an asterisk next to that last part, reminding you that ‘great and powerful’ was subjective and that the dolls did not, in fact, have Kungfu grip. A few of these dolls spilled out as Pinkie Two opened the car. She pushed aside a bunch of them to get to a trap door on the floor. Going through this led to an elevator with open sides so that you could see the cement tunnel it sat inside, like something that would lead down into a mine. A single lantern sat in the middle of it, dimly lighting the room. Pinkie Two pulled a lever and the elevator went plunging down into the ground, the walls outside the elevator moving rapidly enough for Bubblegum to stumble momentarily and worry for her safety. The two of them descended for a lot longer than Bubblegum was expecting, long enough for her to wonder a few things. “Huh. We’re going down really far.” Bubblegum watched as the walls whizzed by. “Is that to hide from Chrysalis? Is she looking for us?” “She’s looking for a few of us. She’s been trying to kill Pinkie Three for ten years, though, so I don’t think you gotta worry about her finding. Sides, she’d have to go through me.” Pinkie Two clapped her hooves together. “Oo! There’s a Pinkie Three? What crazy back story does she have? Does she fight crime and break into other ponies’ houses with noble intentions too?” “Oh, her backstory is completely identical to mine. No reason to even go over it.” Pinkie Two leaned against the lever. “Then there’s Pinkie Four who also has the same back story. Pinkie Five, same backstory. Pinkie Six, exact same backstory again. Then Pinkie Seven-” “Let me guess,” said Bubblegum. “Same backstory?” “Heh.” Pinkie Two rolled her eyes. “You know, it’s funny but everypony always interrupts me when I get to Pinkie Seven and she’s the first one that’s different! She’s not even a changeling.” “What there are non-changeling Pinkies here?” Bubblegum scratched her head. “Wait. What would a non-changeling Pinkie even be?” “Oh sure! There are four elemental types of Pinkies: alternate Pinkies, changeling Pinkies, Pinkie clones, and the Pinkiefied. Pinkie Seven is an alternate version of Pinkie Pie, one who came from the future!” “That’s incredible! How far in the future did she come from?” “Like two years ago I think.” “But you said-“ “It was the future at the time.” “Oooooh.” “But see she got stuck here in the past. If she goes back to the future or meets this timeline’s Pinkie the entire space-time continuum will collapse in on itself erasing all of reality.” “Um- Questions about that?” Bubblegum asked. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m letting her stay here and I dunno if you noticed yet, but we’re ridiculously far underground so we should be fine.” Pinkie Two pointed at the wall to show the depths they were still descending rapidly through. “Actually, there’s a whole bunch of alternate-reality Pinkie Pies that show up. I try to recruit the ones that can’t go back and reform the evil ones. Some of them are from dimensions that exploded or they’re from one of those monkey planets. I think we’re up to eighteen-dimensional subtypes now?” “Eighteen dimensional subtypes?” “Oh, silly me. I should probably give you the book.” Pinkie Two flicked her mane and a book popped out and landed in her hooves. “Bam! Took me ten years to get that right. This book explains all the different types of Pinkie Pies that you’re gonna run into and what you should and shouldn’t do when you run into them.” Pinkie Two tossed the book over to Bubblegum. Bubblegum read the title, “The Big Book of Pinkie Pies: All Pinkies from P to P”. “Um.” Bubblegum flipped through the book. There were a little over a hundred pages on this stuff. “Sorry, but how many Pinkie Pies are there, exactly?” “I only know the ones who are part of the club, but going by that you’d be Pinkie Pie number sixteen-sixty-five.” “Wait! Sixteen hundred?!” The elevator thunked to a halt and the doors slid open. The two of them were now up on a platform that overlooked a small town made of dozens of buildings. The ceiling was so high above the buildings that it practically felt like they were outside and yet the whole thing was brilliantly light. Everything about the town was brilliant. The houses were painted in bright colors. Balloons hung from every lamppost. In the distance, there was what looked like a literal bounce castle, four stories tall with bounce turrets even! Trees weren’t possible underground, but in their place, the Pinkies had erected candy trees. Instead of leaves, they had candy canes and lollipops hanging from their plastic branches. And in the center of it all was a massive statue of Pinkie Pie herself. Though it could have also been literally any other pony in the entire town, given they all looked the same. “Welcome to Pinkieopolis!” Pinkie Two stepped out of the elevator. “The Pinkie Pie Paradise for Pinkies, by Pinkies!” Bubblegum, or perhaps Pinkie 1665 as she wasn’t sure which one she liked more right now, looked out in awe. Pinkie 1665 took one step out of the elevator and twenty party canons swung out of the wall and pointed straight at her. Pinkie 1665 stood very still for a moment, unsure if they were there to welcome her or kill her. “Just some security.” Pinkie Two waved and the canons retracted. “We get a few meanie-pants who don’t like what we do is all.” Pinkie Two jumped onto a spiral slide leading down to the town below. Pinkie 1665 slid down after her, landing in a ball pit that cushioned her fall at the end. There were dozens of Pinkies everywhere! Pinkie Pies were bouncing down the inflatable sidewalks, Pinkies floating through the air on balloons, and Pinkies playing music in the streets. Not all of them were completely identical, as she did notice a Pinkie with bat wings flying around a little ways off and one of them looked like a robot. But for the most part, it was like being surrounded by Pinkie Pie. “This place is amazing!” Pinkie 1665 marveled at the rainbow overhead. “How do you get rainbows underground? I thought they get all mushy if you don’t have sunlight to dry them out.” “Spectral rainbows made entirely of light,” Pinkie Two said proudly, “generated by our advanced rainbow generator technology built in our own rainbow factory. And before you ask, it’s a vegan rainbow factory. No need to worry.” “A spectral rainbow?” Pinkie 1665 tried walking up to one and poking it. Sure enough, her hoof went straight through it without getting wet. “Wow! I’ve never even heard of that.” “We invented it ourselves. We develop all kinds of neat gear as part of our operations. Come on, I’ll show you the command room.” Pinkie Two jumped onto a trampoline by the sidewalk, bouncing her up with surprising force to a door carved out in the wall of the cave Pinkie had briefly forgotten they were in. Pinkie 1665 followed, finding the trampoline was far springier than a normal one. She got thrown up towards the door, nearly crashing into the top of it, but she managed to duck her head down and make a crash landing inside the room. Pinkie Two pulled her up and lead her to a bustling room filled with Pinkie Pie manning various stations. They were clearly monitoring stations, with TVs hooked up to cameras in various cities or else devices Pinkie 1665 didn’t recognize giving readouts she couldn’t possibly understand. Pinkie Pies carefully watched readings on various printouts, the noise of the printers filling the room. Occasionally, a Pinkie Pie would pop down from a trap door in the ceiling and throw a paper airplane down at one of the others. “This is the heart of our intelligence network.” Pinkie Two strode into the room and knocked an incoming paper airplane out of the way. “We have all the most advanced spying equipment down here, including stuff we invented ourselves. Over there is our advanced cupcake monitoring equipment or ACME.” Pinkie Two pointed at another device. There was a cupcake inside what looked like an oven, only the cupcake had all kinds of wires attached to it and lasers pointing straight at it. Another Pinkie Pie sat in front of the system, watching the readings being printed out on four separate printers. “Still a cupcake boss!” The Pinkie at the station gave Pinkie Two a little salute. “Keep up the good work.” Pinkie Two gave her a pat on the back before continuing on. “Here, we monitor all the emergencies Pinkie Pie gets involved in as well as track every pony on the entire planet who needs parties and or laughter.” Pinkie looked up at a wall of TVs the two were now standing in front of, the left half was the Pinkie-cam and the right half was the Party-cam. Pinkie paid attention to the cameras on the left, which were following several different Pinkies in several different cities, including two in Ponyville so that Pinkie couldn’t tell who the real Pinkie Pie was. As the Pinkie Pies moved around, the shot followed them as though they had a camera hidden on every street corner. “This looks mildly impossible,” said Pinkie 1665. “Or do you seriously have cameras set up all over Equestria? In ponies’ houses even?” And those party cams actually were inside various pony’s houses. “Ha! Those aren’t cameras, silly.” Pinkie Two draped her foreleg over Pinkie’s shoulder. “And therefore not creepy?” “Then what-“ “That’s just Pinkie 667 on your team!” Pinkie Two pointed over at yet another Pinkie Pie working at the station. She was wearing a helmet with a bunch of wires attached to it and staring intently at all the screens. “See one time an ancient Sumerian god from another dimension appeared and told us to choose the form of the destructor. So obviously we chose Pinkie Pie.” “I decided I like throwing parties more than unleashing an unyielding cataclysm of torment upon the living,” said Pinkie 667 in a rather chipper tone, without looking away from the screens, “so now I use my cosmic powers to do that! I take care of monitoring Pinkie Pie and whenever there’s a party emergency, I’m there to materialize cake and streamers into existence as needed.” “But if you have cosmic powers, couldn’t you cure pony aids or something?” Pinkie 1665 asked. “Not fun.” The Pinkie god shook her head and went back to work. “I think we should just take what we can get.” Pinkie Two quickly whispered in Pinkie 1665’s ear. “Come one.” Pinkie Two led them into another area with fewer techno do-dads and more display cases. “Over there are all the evil magical artifacts that we took from all the evil Pinkie Pies we beat up.” Pinkie Two pointed to the left, where there was a glass wall blocking off the evil artifact ward, guarded by yet another Pinkie. “We’re not gonna go in there for obvious reasons.” Pinkie 1665 was able to see a few things inside the containment ward through the glass, though. What grabbed her the most was what looked like an entire shelf filled with Pinkie Pie’s Element of Laughter gem, but the labels beneath them showed they weren’t the same. Some of the ones she had time to read included the Element of Sorrow, Element of Boredom, Element of Cringe, Element of Hiccups, Element of Apathy, and Element of Laughing at you rather than with you. And there were almost thirty like that. Pinkie Two must have gotten in more fights than she’d initially expected. “And down here is our research lab.” Pinkie Two reached a glass wall. On the other side, Pinkie 1665 could see even more Pinkies mixing flasks, studying balloons with strange devices, and looking at objects with microscopes. Things exploded fairly regularly, but they bounced back fast. “Right now, we’re working on things like intercontinental party canons, self-streaming streamers, and something we’re close on- the bottomless cake!” Pinkie Two tapped on the glass to point to one of the science Pinkies. The Pinkie Pie inside the testing chamber cut out a piece of cake. Her slice remained and the cake regrew, becoming whole again. She cut it two more times to get three slices of cake and a whole cake. But when she went to cut it a fourth time, the whole thing exploded into green slime. “We don’t have non-explody version of it, but we’re close.” Pinkie Two turned her back against the glass. “Then you really will be able to eat your cake and have it too.” “That’s amazing!” Pinkie pressed up against the glass to marvel at the achievement. “You could end world hunger with this. Feed all the starving horses in Saddle Arabia and Stalliongradde. Though I guess then they might get fat cause they’re only eating cake.” “And also!” Pinkie Two interrupted. “At a party, you’ll never have to worry about extra guests showing up and not having enough cake. Party optimization! That’s the real advantage.” “How are you able to make such advanced stuff though?” Pinkie 1665, still pressed against the glass, looked back at Pinkie Two. “Even if there are a lot of you, this is more than I’d expect most nations to be able to do.” “See that Pinkie over there?” Pinkie Two pointed to a Pinkie running on a treadmill. She had all kinds of wires hooked up to her, including a big helmet with flashing lights on it and a metal clamp on her tail. Behind her was a second Pinkie Pie in a lab coat “That’s one of our Pinkie Pie clones,” said Pinkie Two. “Pinkie Clones are the third elemental type of Pinkie Pie. We regularly scan them to learn the inner workings of Pinkie Pie. It’s thanks to them we’ve managed to create pocket dimensions in our manes and learned to slide up slides. We’ve discovered all kinds of physical thingamajigs thanks to them.” “Wait!” Pinkie 1665 objected. “You cloned Pinkie Pie? I don’t know how I feel about that.” “Oh no, that’d be weird. They’re from the mirror pool incident,” Pinkie Two said confidently enough. “The what?” “You don’t know about it?” Pinkie Two gave Pinkie 1665 a look of disturbed pity. “You really are behind on your Pinkieology. Well, Pinkie made hundreds of clones of herself with a magic pool once. But then Twilight Sparkle showed up. She forced them to watch paint dry and then slaughtered them all! Thankfully, we were able to save a bunch of them first. Cause you can never have too many Pinkie Pies.” “Did you say Twilight?” A nearby box opened just slightly enough for one of the Pinkie clones to pop her head out of. “She’s not here, is she?” “No need to worry.” Pinkie Two patted the new Pinkie on the head. “This is a Twilight-free zone.” Pinkie Two pulled her out of the box, but the Pinkie clone still shied away behind her at the presence of an unfamiliar Pinkie. “This is Pinkie 987. She’s a little traumatized, but a good scientist.” Pinkie Two put a foreleg around her and turned to Pinkie. “And this is our newest Pinkie Pie! Pinkie 1665!” “Really?” Pinkie 987 cautiously came out from behind Pinkie Two. “I love other Pinkie Pies. Do you like fun?” Pinkie Two looked like she was about to say something, but Pinkie 1665 answered before she could. “Well sure, fun is the funnest thing to every fun.” She said, trying to act more like Pinkie. Pinkie 987 liked that answer. Like way, way too much. Her smile became enormous and soon she was shaking in place with excitement. Before Pinkie 1665 was able to finish her answer, 987 started jumping up and down. “Fun!” She shouted. “Fun fun fun!” The Pinkie clone was soon jumping around the room shouting ‘fun’ as loudly as she could, recklessly knocking over things of questionable importance. Pinkie Two was fast, pronking into action and tackling the Pinkie clone before it could do too much damage. She kept it pinned on the ground, with a hoof over its muzzle. “Breath.” Pinkie Two said. “Remember your training.” It took a moment, but the Pinkie clone did calm down and stopped struggling, at which point Pinkie Two let her go. “Pinkies clones can get a little overexcited if you use the f-word too much,” Pinkie Two said. “But they’re mostly harmless. Sure, if they get their hooves on any kind of replication device while they’re like that they’ll create trillions of copies of themselves, overrunning dimension after dimension, but other than that they’re fine.” “What? That sounds kinda dangerous. Are you sure Twilight didn’t destroy them for a reason?” Pinkie 1665 asked. “I’m really sorry about that.” The clone got back to her feet. “Y-you’re not gonna kill me, are you?” “Huh? N-no.” Pinkie 1665 bowed her head. She was about to say maybe Twilight had a point, but it was hard to tell somepony they were too dangerous to live right in front of them. “I’m surprised at all the animosity towards Twilight, though. Maybe-!” “Whoop!” Pinkie Two lifted a hoof to silence her. “Pinkie would not use the word ‘animosity’. Not unless she was alliterating, at which point her vocabulary become infinite. Here’s a copy of the pinktionary.” Pinkie Two flipped a second book out of her mane, one that Pinkie 1665 barely managed to catch. The back of it promised that the book listed every word and turn of phrase Pinkie has or ever would use. “Okay.” Pinkie 1665 was hardly comfortable with the idea of a pinktionary, but could only focus on one weird thing at a time. “But isn’t Twilight on your side? Like, maybe you should talk to her about this?” “We don’t talk to Twilight,” said Pinkie Two. “Like ever. She doesn’t know we exist and she doesn’t need to know either.” “Twilight doesn’t know about you guys? So Pinkie’s been keeping all this a secret from her friends this whole time?” “Well. Funny thing about that.” Pinkie Two chuckled to herself. “Pinkie Pie doesn’t entirely know about us either. Or like at all.” “Wait. Pinkie Pie doesn’t know about all this?” Pinkie gestured to the city outside the window. “Why haven’t you told her she has an army of Pinkies hanging around? Wouldn’t you be able to help her better if she knew you existed?” “No!” Pinkie Two stomped her hoof down firmly. “Absolutely not! We got a few rules and number one is never talking to Pinkie Prime.” “But… why? She’s the most amazing, wonderful pony who ever lived, right?” “Now listen, I’ve been studying Pinkie Pie for almost two decades now. I know exactly how these things go down.” Pinkie Two walked across the room and pulled down a chart, with the needed diagram already conveniently written out. She took out a stick and pointed at a picture of an elated Pinkie Pie. “Initially Pinkie Pie would be all ‘wow, this is amazing!’ We’d be way more efficient than we are now and everypony would be super happy.” “Well, that sounds good.” “But then!” Pinkie Two smacked the next picture of the diagram, a picture of a few Pinkie dressed as maids waiting on the presumably real Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie would slowly get more used to bossing us around and eventually start having us do her chores and stuff. That’s when Twilight would show up.” The Pinkie Pie clone booed at Twilight when Pinkie Two pointed to the next picture of Twilight lecturing Pinkie Pie. “Twilight would tell Pinkie she’s going overboard. A few of us would start annoying some of her friends, but before we can learn how to not annoy them, one of us would do something stupid.” The next image was of a Pinkie Pie dropping a Faberge egg. “Then Twilight would teach us some kind of lesson about being yourself or something, then we would learn that lesson. And then finally, having learned some lesson about being ourselves, we would never ever get to be Pinkie Pie again forever. Not oneever, not twoever, but forever. That be the worst possible thing. I can’t live as not-Pinkie!” “Also, Twilight would maybe kill us clones.” Pinkie 987 raised her hoof. “And the world might end cause of the Pinkie Seven thing.” “Oh, yeah. That too. That’d just be icing on the cake.” Pinkie Two nodded in agreement. “But like bad icing on a bad cake.” “Well-“ it did sound like Pinkie learning about this place would be dangerous, though it would be comforting for someone with better priorities to be in charge. “It just seems wrong that Pinkie doesn’t know about all this.” “I’ve studied Pinkie my whole life! I know she’d be fine with it.” Pinkie Two put a hoof around 1665’s back. “Pinkie Pie wants to spread laughter and parties through the world and that’s what we do! Isn’t that what you want to do too?” Pinkie 1665 looked out through the window to the city below. She tried to imagine a better place than this but couldn’t. Maybe it did have a few flaws, but that wasn’t anything she couldn’t overlook, not when she was Pinkie Pie! “Yeah.” Pinkie 1665 nodded with confidence. “Then you’re training starts tomorrow.”