Another sharp poke. She opened her eyes. A white blur. It leaned in and poked her again.
Rainbow yawned hard in her forelegs and curled up some more.
Poke.
Pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke
Ugh.
White, pokey and really not happy with her...
She rolled her head around and squinted.
Nah, way too slim. And kinda tallish too. Okay, sure, that one could fit, seeing how there probably was her picture in the dictionary next to 'on your high horse...' plus where that weird saying came from, maybe.
But the horn was yellow and on the bottom. So, even if she'd gone overboard with her diet number who-cares after her ice cream binge number same-thing, this wasn't Rarity.
Thank goodness. Was there a worse way to start the day than waking up to her of all ponies? Of all things? No siree. Except maybe being told that cider was gone for good.
...
Nah. No cider was definitely second.
But what was this stupid thing, then?
It poked harder. Ouch. Eyes open wide now, jerk.
Uh. It was still blurry, but that thing was flaring huge wings at her now apparently.
Ugh. It was too early to think. And that cloud was too comfy. Kinda like a haystack, weirdly enough... but with the perfect size and stuffing. You'd think pegasus farmers had made the thing.
Yeah. Far too early to think. She could hear her brain tick like a clock as she tried to understand this stuff. Or maybe it was because the angry discount Celestia kept hammering her forehead.
Heh. Discount Celestia. A swan, maybe?
She squinted again.
Oh, right.
Look, you leave it, you lose it. If you didn't want the first pegasus who flew by to nap in your real cozy-looking nest, you should have kept your butt in there instead of flying off into the sunset or wherever. You snooze, you lose, she got to snooze.
The stork poked her right between the eyes. Then it grabbed her tail with its beak and hurled her out.
Several blurry whirls and bounces off... walls or roofs or whatever later, Rainbow glared down at the stupid upside-down bird. It did what it should have done a lot earlier and shoved its butt into its nest so hard, she couldn't even see one twig sticking out of the chimney anymore.
She blew her hair out of her eyes. Fine. You win this round. But only this one. Someturkey was going to be forgotten down south next Winter Wrap Up.
Pft.
This wall really didn't hold a candle to that awesome naptrap... especially that she was standing the wrong way. Sitting the wrong way. Something the wrong way. The only thing on the ground was the back of her head. And her hind hooves hung dumbly in front of her face, too.
Some momentum and she was back on her hooves. It paid to be the meanest, leanest, flexiblest muscle machine this side of Tartarus.
She then stormed off, after not smashing her head into the wall because she'd still been facing it when she was done, thank you very much. That hadn't been a yelp of pain either, but a growl that promised the most horrible punishment to the wa... stork.
Thank you very much.
So, she flew off. Any pegasus worth their salt flew off when they stormed out. The whole thing was named after them, after all. Kings and queens of the sky, buddy.
Okay, so Fluttershy didn't use her wings when she stormed out... that didn't make her any less a pegasus. Probably. Just a... pegasus worth her honey or something. It was all the same sesame field since they were both food flavoring, right?
Did Fluttershy even storm out? Uh. Good question, that.
She watched Ponyville as she flew.
Scootaloo and the other two terrorizing the market stalls, Applejack singing with her hooves on her ears, Cheerilee shaking her head and walking away, Mr. Cake patting a sobbing Mrs. Cake on the back, Rarity next to a real cutie in a red dress and what's-their-names, Fluttershy's friend Grizzly the Bear or Bear the Grizzly, Rarity prancing out of the school, those two jerks running out of the school with all the other kids in tow...
Wait, wait, what?
She rubbed her eyes. It was brain damage from the stork, right? Please let it be brain damage from the stork.
Nope.
"Rarity... duplicates? And triplicates? Quadruplicates? Pentaplicates?"
She paused.
"Why do I even know these words!?"
After totally not flying around like an earth pony who'd suddenly grown wings, Rainbow didn't gather her wits because she didn't need to and came up with a plan.
She was going to wing it.
She was a pegasus, after all. The pegasusest pegasus to have ever pegasused, in fact. And no, she didn't care that this didn't make any sense.
Not like anything else made sense today, anyway. Like that weird feeling she had that none of the others would be of any help. She had no idea why she felt that way.
She glanced down towards the market. Applejack was still singing about apples or barns or whatever, still with her hooves on her ears.
Yeeeaaah. Maybe she did have an idea, after all.
This year's cider was gonna be great at least, from the looks of it. Bonus.
She'd need a whole lot of it once she was done, too. Good thing Applejack had opened a barrel or twelve to 'sample' down to the bottom like that.
She'd also need to think just an itty bit before going and winging it. Sure, that was egghead territory, but five times the Rarity meant five times the risk of being dragged kicking and screaming into a frilly dress.
Five times the risk bottoms, at that. Something about force contraption, or whatever it was Twilight said when she spent an entire afternoon talking science at her. All because she'd told the sucker of the week six against one meant six times the kicking-around and Twilight got offended that she got her precious little maths wrong.
She hated egghead territory.
But, yeah, she couldn't charge in like that. Well, she probably could and chances were whatever plan she came up with would be just that, but she still needed to know what to do after that.
In a nutshell: did she buck these changelings all the way back to their nest or cave or love-joint or whatever, or did she... well, if they came from the Mirror Pool, it'd be really jerkish to go and beat them up.
Throwing down with the real Rarity, sure, she'd wanted to do that ever since she saw those slick moves she pulled to defend Bob, Dick, Harry or whichever dumb name she'd given to that rock.
Or the can of thrashing she'd have opened on what's-their-dragons if Spike hadn't made them run for it instead.
Or the whole wedding business. Rainbow had counted. She'd kicked the most bug-butts, duh, but the runner-up was Rarity. Not Applejack. Not even close. Twilight got more of them than Applejack did, for pony's sake. Without the part where Pinkie used her like a freaking machinegun.
Rarity was hardcore when she wanted.
Seeing how Pinkie's fartoomanyplicates had acted though, if these were copies too, they'd make it two out of ten tops on the fight meter. Three, maybe, if you got some cake on their dresses or in their manes.
The real Rarity was something like thirteen on that meter. At least. Still way under Rainbow One-Pony-Army Dash, of course.
The changelings had a hard time even getting to one. And even then that was all of them together, not each on their own.
She kinda hoped it was changelings, just a little bit. Maybe she'd get lucky and they'd make up for just not getting this whole 'don't make ponies suspicious' by being the best fighters of the whole horde. Swarm. Stampede. Thing.
Uh. She'd been staring at Drunklejack the whole time.
She looked away and watched the park and school again.
Dang. The two Raritys she'd first spotted weren't there anymore.
She scanned the rest of Ponyville. Where had she seen the others, again?
Ah!
There was one Rarity standing on the roof of Sugarcube Corner.
Well, she thought it was Sugarcube Corner, anyway. It didn't look like a cake train had crashed into a building anymore, save for Pinkie's bedroom tower. That one still looked like a cupcake.
Wouldn't last, probably. The Rarity had a huge 'first you, then that tower, then the world' vibe to her. She kept glaring up at the chimney the whole time Rainbow flew closer.
Yeah. Not a changeling. This one was just too good at acting like the real Rarity. If their queen was so bad at her job even Twilight noticed something was off, the guys under her sucked even more.
The double scuffed and pawed at the chimney. And then she let out a small whinny that had no right sounding so cute and adorable. Cuter and adorabler than Tank looked, in fact.
That proved they weren't changelings alright. Them bugs just couldn't do cute, even when they replaced the princess of all things cute and cuddly, for crying out loud.
That was also reason enough to throw them back into the Mirror Pool. Nobody, nothing was allowed to be cuter and adorabler than Tank.
...Uh.
The copy didn't have any issue balancing herself as she hopped and scowled around the chimney. That was kinda impressive. The roof was crazy-sloped, especially now that the dumb fake icing was gone.
Then again, unicorns had been obsessed with climbing up and down every pointy rock that sprouted from the ground since before Equestria was a thing, so she guessed it made sense that Rarity could prance around on the roof like that.
Yeah, probably foal's play compared to the mountains unicorns kept building their castles and towns on, actually.
Rainbow hovered a little bit behind her. What now? She... hadn't thought that far ahead. But that was the point of winging it, and she winged it like a pro.
The copy skipped another half-circle around the chimney. Rainbow flew to the side to keep herself out of sight. She really didn't want to be prettified like that Rarity wanted to prettify the thing. She was going to lose all her cool, awesome and radical points forever if that happened.
The chimney could use looking a little less stupid though, she had to admit. Okay, a lot less stupid.
Uh. Prettify...
She smirked and darted towards her.
"Fashion emergency at the market!"
"Eek!"
Wow. That was some jump. The copy went all the way from the chimney to the cupcake tower thing.
Well, she was a unicorn. She could climb down from that candle she was clinging to like her life depended on it without breaking a sweat. In the meantime, Rainbow had other Raritys to handle.
Winging it like a pro, folks.
Rainbow smirked as she watched all the Raritys rush about down in Ponyville.
Then her smirk dropped.
They were running in every direction except towards the market.
Uh. They didn't know the town as well as the real Rarity, looked like.
Okay... Change of plans.
Rainbow dropped the last Rarity in the cart. The quintupli... double yelped when she landed, headfirst right on top of another double just as she tried to climb out of the cart. That one let out a whine instead.
She hovered above them and looked at the clock tower. Three minutes tops to gather all the copies milling about. Yup. Still awesome. But was there ever any doubt?
A chill ran down her spine. There was something wrong about that last thought. She had no idea what, though.
She had no idea where Applejack was either. She'd cleared off as soon as she'd brought the first Rarity to the market. Cider probably made her see a horrible white and purple monster or something.
It was kinda insulting that Applejack hadn't trusted her to defeat this 'monster,' to be honest. She should realize that Rainbow Danger Dash could handle anything, drunk off her hat or not. Weren't they supposed to be friends?
"That was most uncouth!"
Oh wow. Rarity's voice in stereo. Fiveo. Something-eo. That was real creepy. Almost straight out of a nightmare. That made it one thing that made sense today at least, because more than one Rarity was pretty much a nightmare.
Even just the real one was rough to deal with most of the time.
Rainbow glanced down. Heh. Cart-o-Raritys. There was probably a toy brand in that. Or a plushie one. She was fuzzy on the whole toys business.
Well, either way, they weren't happy with her. At all. They glared up a storm at her. Black and crackling and waiting to fry unsuspecting pegasi and everything.
Luckily, that was one deep cart. Even a unicorn couldn't climb out of that thing. Much less five. Unless they made a ramp out of themselves or something.
...
She didn't think this through, did she?
Their five horns glowed.
Then, the cart peeled apart like a freaking banana.
She didn't jump out of her skin and fly several feet away when that happened. Only... only half out of her skin and twelve feet. Or twenty.
The copies stepped out... down from the not-walled-up-anymore plank. They kept their heads down as they made sure to avoid the seriously-bent nails, then glared up a whole honest-to-the-stars Everfree Forest at her.
Rainbow gulped. "You unicorns are freaking terrifying, you know that?"
She really didn't think this through.
The Rarity at the front clicked her tongue. Then she raised her eyebrow. It was a good thing Applejack wasn't there anymore, because she'd probably spend the whole month crying herself to sleep because of how the copy schooled her when it came to looking unimpressed.
"A 'fashion emergency,' was it?"
She hadn't raised her voice, and Rainbow still heard it like she was standing right in front of her. Years of experience with dealing with her little sister, she guessed. She guessed, because her mom had never actually scolded her.
Yeah, she praised her to the skies instead of grounding her every single time she broke something or refused to eat her greens or collapsed half of Cloudsdale into a mountain. She even had a trophy made for the last one. Genuine gold and stuff.
...That probably wasn't healthy parenting, now that she thought about it.
Speaking of thinking, she needed a way out real fast. The Raritys were still peeved. Especially the one who'd just spoken.
Uh, was that the Rarity from Sugarcube Corner to boot? The one who apparently couldn't climb down after all, since she had to pry her off the candle?
Rainbow gulped again. Real fast.
She pointed at the empty stall of what's-their-names so hard she felt whiplash from her shoulder to her hoof. "Yup! Flowers don't match! Okaygoodluckseeyabye!"
And she hightailed it.
Or at least, she tried to.
Rarity's magic was already strong enough to pluck her out of a close fly-by if she really wanted it. So yeah, she didn't stand a chance against five. They brought her to the ground like a freaking spring.
She still had goosebumps up to the tips of her coat when she caught her breath. Ponies just weren't made to be grabbed with magic. Spooky didn't even start to describe it.
...She'd have to tell Twilight about that one day.
She turned around and looked up. The Raritys had formed a half-circle around her. And yeah... they still didn't look happy. At all.
If she was honest with herself though, she was pretty glad they'd only dragged her down. She'd have nightmares about that cart for months, she just knew it.
The magic finally left her alone. Her wings flared out just from being free again.
That startled the Rarity right in front of her. The Sugarcube Corner one? By the time she'd folded back her wings, her frown had dropped.
"Oh, I apologize." She gave an embarrassed smile of all things. "I forgot that pegasi despised feeling trapped."
The other copies blinked, shared glances and then smiled the same way at her. One even scuffed the ground and looked away.
Save for the one the most to her left, who just frowned harder and muttered "what's with today and pegasi?" to herself.
Rarity number in-front-of-her offered her hoof.
Rainbow squinted at it. Pranks weren't Rarity's thing, but at this point looking for a joy buzzer was probably a smart move.
Uh. Safe. Probably. Hopefully.
Rainbow grabbed her hoof and the copy hauled her back to her hooves like she didn't weigh anything.
Wow. Was the real Rarity this strong? She was going to have even more nightmares now.
...She also was a little bit impressed. Okay, a lot impressed. Not that she'd tell anypony about it.
The... 'main copy' sounded off. Sugarcube's Rarity gave her a good look once she was standing again.
And then her entire face lit up like a supernova.
Because yeah, she did know about those, thank you very much. They were huge explosions that vaporized absolutely everything in their way. Of course she'd know about something this cool. It wasn't her fault eggheads hogged the whole star stuff to themselves.
But yeah. Back to Sugarity.
"Oh, I simply can't not make it up to you! How about a dress?"
Always keep your eyes on the prize, right? Yeah, these were Raritys alright.
The others gasped. And grinned and nodded. And huddled a little bit too close around her.
"Trapped!"
They all froze and stepped back. Looked and sounded sorry again.
And she'd said that pretty awesomely, by the way. Not squeaked. No siree. She was just being smart and using the mistakes of the enemy against them and all this boring army stuff the teachers over at the Academy kept yammering about.
Uh. It was kinda fitting, surrounded by... well, they were a little too polite and apologizey to be enemies, so overeager fans maybe? She did have many things to have adoring fans about, after all.
So, what would the Wonderbolts do? She was working to be one, that was probably a good question to ask herself.
The little Spitfire in her mind stuck out her chest and strutted around roughly sixty-five percent as awesomely as Rainbow did on a daily basis. "There are no problems, there are only opportunities!" she squeak-yelled. "Dismissed!"
Then she kicked the little Soarin that was also in her mind right in the bum and flew away.
Rainbow blinked.
She knew she hadn't been sleeping enough but she had no idea it had gotten that bad.
She blinked again, and she realized Sugarity was fluttering her eyelashes at her. All of them were.
That was Rarity-speak for 'pretty pretty please with sugar on top.' She'd seen her string Spike along enough times to know that trick by heart.
But she wasn't a baby dragon with really bad taste in mares though, so it didn't work. Duh.
She chuckled as she unfolded her wings. "Yeah, no." She turned around for the take-off. "I don't do girly."
"But if anypony could make 'girly' look good, it'd be you."
Rainbow's ears perked up. She refolded her wings and turned around. "What?"
The Rarity on the far left half-climbed over the middle left, prancing-in-place one to shove her grin into Sugarity's muzzle. "Good? No, no. Great. She'd make it look great!"
"Gorgeous! Enchanting! Out of this world!" squeed miss Prances-a-lot.
Uh, yeah. The one and only Rainbow Dash could make anything look great...
The two on the right stepped closer.
"Or dare I say... cool," the first whispered in one ear.
"Radical," the second one added on the other side.
A familiar chill ran through Rainbow's body, all the way to the tips of her wings. A familiar thrill. And because it wasn't only bad things that always came in threes, there was also a familiar smirky grin on her lips too.
"Awesome," the last three of them sang.
Rainbow nodded. Slowly. "I don't do girly."
She was grinning so hard now, Pinkie was probably feeling threatened somewhere.
"I rock girly."