Rarity woke up staring right into the face of her double who was looking deeply satisfied about something. She was in bed, under the covers, with her double, who was smiling at her and she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened last night. All she could recall was there had been cider; quite a lot of cider actually and that they’d talked. After that it all went a bit hazy. Oh no... we couldn’t of.. could we?
“Good morning, sleepyhead. You were really putting them away last night.” Rock said, looking at her double with a fair amount of pride.
Rarity buried her face into her hooves. “Please tell me we didn’t...”
“What? Oh... Oh!” Rock looked highly panicked for a moment as she put the various pieces together before breathing out relieved, as recollection managed to pierce the veil of the previous night. “No, nothing happened, nothing whatsoever! We just drank, a lot.”
“Why did I think that was a good idea again? Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that challenging another version of yourself to a drinking competition is a contest nopony is ever going to win...” Rarity said with a groan, still cradling her aching head in her hooves.
“Yeah... I’ve got no idea how we thought that was going to work given we’re clearly going to have exactly the same tolerance for the stuff; what with being the same pony and all.” Rock said, then thinking about it—which wasn’t exactly easy with the pounding hangover she now had—would suggest practice would have played a factor too. Then again maybe them being the same pony their liking for alcohol would be the same as well, so they’d have both imbibed as much in their lives up to this point rendering the whole theory moot.
“Now I’m not the type of pony to sleep with a mare and run,” Rock said playfully, ignoring the death glare from Rarity. “But the sun has just come up, heh, it’s still weird saying that! Seriously though from what I remember that’s when the farms start work, so I really should get down to Sweet Apple Acres for the day.” The other white unicorn rolled out of the bed and retrieving her favourite blue rag from the floor before wrapping it round her head with her magic.
Rarity took a sniff of the morning air and immediately wished she hadn’t. “Rock, darling, when was the last time you washed yourself?”
Rock shrugged her shoulders. “I think I got rained on last week. Does that count?”
Rarity vacated her now utterly ruined bed—with a speed that even Rainbow Dash would have seen as impressive—and turned various shades of red, before settling on screaming at her double to get out upon pain of death.
“Okay, okay, I’m going... I don’t suppose breakfast first is out of the question?” Rock asked innocently, before ducking under a hurled pillow.
~~~
Rainbow Dash had been glad to finally get back home after the frustrating day she’d had yesterday. After circling Cloudsdale twice just to make completely sure she hadn’t missed this other version of herself and then checking out a few of the other villages near Ponyville she’d had to give up for the day, as the night had drawn in. Rainbow Dash hadn’t been able to sleep though, as tired as she was from a full day of flying and even with her fluffly cloud bed. Her mind was racing with visions with what could have happened to other self. She’d never been introspective before, so she really wasn’t used to feeling like this. Had she failed the sonic rainboom? Surely that was impossible, but how could that have happened if she really had failed?
Still even if her other self hadn’t pulled off the sonic rainboom she’d still be awesome. Hay she was a Rainbow Dash; she just had to be! As the pegasus had lain awake she’d wondered. Maybe the other Rainbow Dash was already a Wonderbolt and could maybe give her some tips. Not that she needed any of course! Or she could be a brave adventure pony like Daring Do. That’d be awesome, or maybe she was a royal guard in Canterlot and that’d be cool too. Though maybe a bit boring with the whole not moving at all thing.
Waking up the next morning Rainbow Dash had just been doing her daily stretches when she caught site of a distinctive rainbow mane walking right below her cloud house. This was mildly frustrating after spending most of the previous day looking for her to have her just stroll by so conveniently. Then she spotted the pony who her double was with. Not even pausing—as she turned the air around her as blue as her coat with several obscenities that her friends would be surprised she even knew—Rainbow Dash burst into flight.
Descending like a thunderbolt she’d been all set to give Trixie a piece of her mind, but Rainbow Dash had to pull herself up short. Trixie looked terrible. Her formerly perfectly styled mane was unkempt with random hairs sticking out everywhere and she didn’t look like she’d been eating properly for months. Her eyes were even twitching not unlike Twilight Sparkle on a bad day and she looked like a stiff breeze would be all it’d take to knock her over.
Completely ignoring her double, and the frankly mystifying fact that she was wearing Trixie’s hat, Rainbow Dash asked with some concern, “Trixie, what happened to you?”
“Ponyville happened,” Trixie replied with a fair amount of bitterness. “Anyway, Trixie is perfectly fine.”
“No offense, but you’re really not.” Rainbow Dash said, crossing her front hooves matter-of-factly while still staying in the air looking down at the former magician. “Look, Trixie. Just cause you’re a loud mouth and kinda annoying doesn’t mean you don’t need help. I could fly you over to my friend’s house in ten seconds flat to help you get properly back on your hooves, as she’d give you all the care and attention that you could ever want.”
“Trixie doesn’t need any help.” She sniffed, before turning her nose up. Trixie had never needed any help from anypony and she certainly wasn’t going to start now. Even if she could admittedly do with some.
“Fine, be that way. It's your loss.” Rainbow Dash glanced over at her double who was just staring at her with her wings extended. She wasn’t even flying on the spot like Dash would expect, just standing by Trixie’s side. Rainbow Dash never stopped flying if she could avoid it, so that was almost as weird as the hat thing.
“Is she alright?” Rainbow Dash asked, referring to her double. “You’ve not cast a spell on her, or some kind of evil enchantment, have you, Trixie? She’s just staring into space and drooling a bit.”
“Trixie hasn’t done anything, believe me. Though Trixie believes your double is currently living out a life long dream. Trixie asks, just out of interest of course, but you can fly pretty fast, right?”
Rainbow Dash was stumped by why she was asking, but answered, “well yeah! I won the Best Young Flyers competition in Cloudsdale a while back and I’ve pulled off the Sonic Rainboom a couple of times now.”
Trixie grinned wickedly. “You should be fine then.” Which just left Rainbow Dash even more nonplussed.
“You’re gorgeous!” The other Rainbow Dash blurted out. “Um... can I feel your muscles, you look like you work out, you work out right? My own double...” She breathed. “Now neither of us will be virgins!”
Trixie glared at Rainbow Dash, ignoring the Ponyville pegasus who was wondering what exactly a ‘virgin’ was. “Rainbow Dash, you’re not a virgin.” After a day's travelling and hearing far, far too many all to explicit details for Trixie’s liking of the other pony’s history, if there was anything she was certain of about this Rainbow Dash then it was that.
“I’ve never done it with my own double before!” she said defensively. “That’s kind of like being a virgin!”
“No. It’s really not,” Trixie stated flatly.
“What’s a virgin?” Rainbow Dash asked with some confusion, while keeping a good vertical distance from her double who was frankly beginning to unnerve her with the way she just kept staring at her.
Zipping the other pegasus’ mouth shut with a flash of magic, before she could say something deeply inappropriate, Trixie answered, “how can you not know, didn’t they have the classes in Cloudsdale or something? At least Trixie would have presumed your parents would have given you the talk.”
“Err, pegasi born in the cloud towns and cities don’t have parents,” Rainbow Dash explained, with her double nodding in agreement. She didn't take any offence though at Trixie's presumption, as pegasi really didn't like to make a big deal about it. “We’re taken away after we’re born and raised communally by elders while we’re still foals. It’s a tradition going back to Commander Hurricane’s days, so the community is more important to us than any natural family could be. Well that’s the idea anyway.” Ignoring Trixie’s surprise at that, she continued, “and I always used to sleep through most of my classes that didn’t involve flying theory and weather handling. Who needs to know boring stuff when you could be having a nap or doing super-cool flying tricks!”
“Well, Trixie certainly isn’t going to explain it and if she,” Trixie said, glancing at the other Dash. “Offers to fix it I suggest you say no. Not that it’s any of Trixie’s concern of course.” The other Rainbow Dash was pawing at her mouth trying to work out exactly how to unstick it. Trixie took pity on her and released the magic binding her jaw.
“I’ll ask Twilight then, she’s an egghead and knows all kinds of stuff.” Trixie was sure that would be an impressively awkward conversation for whoever this Twilight was. How was it possible for any pony to be so clueless?
“You don’t seem to be too surprised to see another pony looking exactly like you. Have there been others?” Trixie asked.
“Yeah, there’s six including her. Though one is probably in Manhattan we reckon and another one I last saw heading towards Canterlot.“ Dash said, leaving out the whole version of Fluttershy that could fly faster than her thing as she was currently completely in denial about that. “C’mon let’s head to Twilight’s, she reckons that she can send them home.”
~~~
Pinkamena Diane Pie had stayed the night at Sugarcube corner. She had been a bit concerned about introducing herself, but Pinkie had smoothed things over with the Cakes with about five minutes worth of free form gibberish. Pinkamena hadn’t been able to follow it herself in the slightest. The couple on the other hoof had seemed happy to accept, before offering her an amazing assortment of baked goods and confectionery. So good in fact Pinkamena had already mentally pencilled in a meeting for when she was back in the real Equestria to approach them regarding membership in the guild. Clearly she’d been neglecting a real business opportunity by omitting Ponyville from her plans and that had to be addressed ASAP.
There had been one minor annoyance though when she’d woken up to find that her tie had gone missing somehow. But after a quick rummage in a randomly selected draw she’d found another one. After all she did keep black ties stashed all over Equestria in case of a black tie emergency. Okay, so she didn’t really and certainly not in another version of reality; the key though was to believe that she did. After all being able to lay hooves on any small inanimate object—and also DJ’s for some reason—at a moments notice was just far too useful not to exploit on occasion. Pinkamena had dedicated a fair bit of trial and error research over the years to try to work out exactly how it all worked, but in the end had decided that it was all an impossibility, so she’d long ago decided not to worry about it.
Pinkie had to work in the bakery for her shift, but had suggested Pinkamena head over to the town library, as her friend Twilight Sparkle would be helping her get home.
Standing outside the shop Pinkamena looked around to make sure the other pink pony wasn’t looking. Sure she had promised Pinkie she wouldn’t abuse her abilities, but if she didn’t find out about it then what was the harm? Ignoring the pony with grapes on her flank staring at her with a look of utter horror—as she’d just rotated her head a full 360 degrees in a flagrant disregard for normal pony anatomy—Pinkamena stepped completely out of existence.
Berry Punch, who was still attempting to get over the creepy head thing, now had to try to process the concept of ponies who were there and then not there. Clearly she was far too drunk if she was seeing things like that or maybe she just wasn’t drunk enough? Ignoring the fact she hadn’t been to bed yet from the night before she went off in search for a wine bottle that she could make friends with and who might be willing to help her forget what she’d just seen.
~~~
There was a suitable hole back in between the fourth and fifth book on the bottom shelf of the practical alchemy bookcase and as Pinkamena squeezed herself through the impossibly small gap she had just a few moments to take everything in before the entire room went completely mad.
Most obvious were the two identical purple unicorn mares reading. There were a few minor differences like the cutie marks and a few other details, but otherwise they were the same; right down to the speed they were turning the pages with their noses. In one corner there was an owl and what appeared to be a baby phoenix of all things both asleep on a bird stand. Near one of the other bookcases there was also a male dragon child cleaning up in a far too frilly apron for Pinkamena’s tastes.
Upon noticing Pinkamena’s sudden appearance out of seemingly nowhere, one of the unicorns screamed before diving under a nearby table. Being suddenly woken up the baby phoenix flared off in panic setting the owl’s feathers aflame who started flapping around the room and hooting madly. The curtains were a burning pyre too, as the dragon tried to catch the owl while also attempting to calm down the phoenix at the same time.
The other unicorn sighed and her horn flared so brightly all of the room was bathed in white. Within seconds everything was back to normal and the owl was back on its perch inspecting its wing suspiciously.
“What was that?” asked Pinkamena, rubbing her eyes. She was just about acclimated to the sun being up now, but that had been blinding.
“Fail safe spell, so you’d be the other Pinkie then?” Twilight Sparkle asked, with her horn still glowing faintly.
“Pinkamema,” she corrected.
“Hey, Pinkamena. Think I’ve seen you around Canterlot.” She looked up and to her fairly considerable surprise; that had come from a yellow pegasus with a pair of goggles round her neck who was pinned spread eagled on the ceiling and held completely immobile by a field of purple magic. That couldn’t be...
“You know you’ve got a pegasus on your ceiling, right?” Pinkamena asked, just thinking she’d better check in case the unicorn was unaware.
“Yes and she’s staying there until I’ve decided she’s paid enough for what she said to Sparks earlier.” Twilight Sparkle said, still with her horn glowing, and showing no sign of any strain in keeping a full-grown pegasus aloft and pinned in place.
“All I said was—”
“Nopony asked you to repeat it!" Twilight shouted, her horn glowing brighter causing Fluttershy to yelp as the pressure increased.
“She only said—”
“And nopony asked you either!” Twilight snarled, rounding on her double who let out a quiet *eep!* before going back to cowering under the table.
Pinkamena looked up again, there really wasn’t any doubt about it. “Is that really Captain Fluttershy of the Shadowbolts up there?” Twilight nodded, causing Pinkamena to swallow nervously. The less she had to do with Nightmare Moon’s personal enforcers the better so to be in the same room of one of the three most powerful ponies in Equestria was certainly not a place that Pinkamena wanted to be.
“Right, for my peace of mind are you either or have you ever been a Discordian cultist, a mythological monster like a vampony or were-variant, a changeling, actually a stallion, or some kind of hive being made entirely of parasprites in a skinsuit to walk among ponykind?” Seeing Pinkamena’s expression, Twilight added, “please, it’s been a very odd couple of days.”
“No, I’m just a businessmare,” Pinkamena said, straightening her tie with a hoof.
“Huh, you know what, but that might actually be worse,” said Twilight, with a fair amount of disbelief.
“You never told me that the pony we were coming to see was her!” Trixie yelled accusingly at Rainbow Dash, not pleased in the slightest to find out that Twilight was actually the nemesis who had shown her up so badly. The three blue ponies had just entered the tree-house unannounced with Trixie in the middle, as Rainbow Dash was keeping the unicorn between her and her amorous double as frankly she just felt safer that way.
“Oh look, it’s Trixie. Now that’s just what my day needed.” Twilight Sparkle sighed, rubbing her head with a hoof, as she could definitely feel a migraine coming on. Just what had she done exactly to deserve this?