“Spike?” Novo said, giving the door a knock as she waited out in the passageway. “Come on, hun, it’s time we get to that Hall of theirs.”

Spike shuffled out of the room, covered in chitin. Or, at least, the costume equivalent of it. He’d managed to get his back legs into the outfit, but considering it had been made for a quadruped, he was having some fitting issues. The head of the disguise was just flopped over so he could peer out of one eye, and he was holding the rest of the costume off the ground so he could walk.

Novo’s outfit was better. She looked like a rather large Changeling up until the large white Hippogriff wings poking out of the sides. Despite being durable, the costume had not held up well when she tried to fit them into the small bug wing holes.

Despite her own sorry state, Novo laughed when she saw Spike shuffle out of the room.

As the two made their way down the hallway, they were passed every so often by other Changelings either bouncing along, or flying past them. None seemed interested in the misshapen duo at the moment, though.

“See?” Novo smiled smugly, apparently getting used to the strangeness of the hive. “Blending right in.”

Spike rolled his eyes at her. “Trust me, this is not how these missions normally go, so you’re really learning nothing here.”

Novo shrugged. “Eh, I’ll take it. It’s not like a Queen gets to take off like this very often anyways.”

A short time later, they saw the passage widening out and a huge amount of pink and red paper hearts covering the sides of the passage before it expanded out into a huge domed multi-tiered room. Changelings were flying around sporadically, going to different levels of the room, while others seemed to be sitting in small groups and chatting, their hooves moving sporadically as they talked to illustrate their points.

The center of the room caught Spike’s eye, though. A large empty dais made of stone was there with no Changelings on it. Small signs dotted the first foot of space below the dais sporadically.

It seemed to be working, somehow, Every other space of the Hall was at least partly occupied, but the dais remained free of changelings. The second oddity that caught Spike’s eye was the ridiculously large scoreboard hanging from the ceiling over the dais. Even changelings from the very back of the room would be able to see the writing on it. The names of different teams and numbers were written across it, but Spike couldn’t make heads of tails on what they meant.

The ones flying around the room had to be, Spike only knew of one pegasus whose wings could fit through the small holes made for these costumes, and his muscles would have just destroyed it regardless.

Spike’s thoughts were interrupted as an air horn suddenly went off. After it faded out, he realized the room was down to a low murmur as opposed to the roaring of earlier. The Changelings around him began approaching the dais, sitting down in a slowly growing circle around it.

Spike and Novo joined them just as the lights went out in the room and a hush fell over everything.

“WEIGHING IN AT FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS AND COMPETING FOR HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE OF SUPREME RULER, I GIVE YOU THE ONE, THE ONLY; CHRYSALIIIIIIIISSSSSS!”

A stage light hit the center of the dais, revealing Chrysalis in all her buggy glory wearing an overly large golden belt around her waist. Spike sat there, frozen amid the hoard of cheering Changelings.

With a soft wave of her hoof, Chrysalis brought the room back down to a low murmur.

“Changelings!” She called out, surprisingly not sounding like Pinkie Pie. “Thank you for your loyalty! For your dedication to the cause!”

Still, as Spike took Chrysalis in, something was off. Something new by her crown, but he couldn’t see what it was from here.

“Today marks six months since we started this plan, and let me say, you could not have made me prouder! The lands are colder, and soon we will be ready to start the next phase!”

“Oh, I know this part.” Novo muttered next to him. “This is when she explains her plan, right?”

“Yeah, pretty normal. But,-” Spike scratched the back of his chitinous head, dropping part of the costume. “this makes no sense. She’s supposed to be in stone.”

“But!” Chrysalis exclaimed, casually walking across the dais. “That is not important right now.”

Chrysalis levitated a piece of paper up that was stuck in her belt and looked it over, occasionally glancing at the scoreboard before finally nodding and addressing the assembled Changelings again.

A little over a dozen Changelings flew up to the dais and landed at attention. Spike recognized the Changeling with the hard hat who was standing next to one wearing a buffalo headdress.

“Allright,” Chrysalis said, standing in front of the assembled changelings. “You’re up, don your disguises for this mission, and remember to clear everything with the minibosses beforehand, or you may miss out on points for your team.”

As one, the Changelings on the dais reached behind their heads and unzipped, dropping the Changeling costumes to the floor to reveal over a dozen Pinkies.

“Ah, going for the pink look,” Chrysalis continued. “A classic. I wish some of you would choose something a bit different, but no matter. Off you go then.”

The Pinkies saluted Chrysalis once more and bounced off stage as the audience wished them luck and threw roses. Afterward, several changelings flew down from the upper levels and grabbed the disguises before flying away, leaving Chrysalis alone on stage again.

“It looks like team thirteen has two new recruits this month! You two, come up here and meet your Queen.”

The Changeling’s around Spike let out whoops of joy and patted him on the back. Despite his best attempt, he found himself shuffling up onto the dais along with Novo thanks to the helping hooves of those around them. Chrysalis eyed them both over neutrally before settling her gaze on Spike.

“Aren’t you a little short for a Changeling?” She asked, causing a few snickers in the audience.

“Come on, Chrysalis, let’s just cut with the jokes and get right to the point.” Spike glared up at her and quickly worked his way out of the bulky disguise, tossing it aside.

“Oh, come on!” Spike called out to them. “You had to know I wasn’t a changeling, right!?”

She waved a hoof at him nonchalantly. “No, but that is neither here nor there at the moment.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” Chrysalis chuckled, looking back at Spike. “After all those warnings, you still came here, alone. Looks like there’s no Twilight here to save you this time.”

“You won’t get away with this Chrysalis.” She mimed, rolling her eyes. “Pah! I don’t think you understand, whelp. No Twilight means no victory for you. Soon, my Changelings will leave this island, and conquer new lands across the sea!”

“You monster! If you take over the islands, both the Hippogriffs and Equestria will stop you!”

Chrysalis sat down and crossed her front hooves in annoyance, pointing one at Spike. “I never said I wanted these tiny little islands, I said ‘new lands’, how new can they be if we’ve been playing with them for over half a year now, huh?

Chrysalis walked over to Spike, poking him in the chest with each word. “Think. Before. You. Speak!”

“Woah, wait a minute. Then, what are you doing?” he asked, confusion clear on his face as he rubbed his stomach.

“Please,” Chrysalis turned away and began to pace the dais. “do you really think I would stay anywhere near Equestria? After my last disgraceful defeat to Twilight and her friends, and Discord, and every pony in Canterlot, and part of the Crystal empire...and a group of senior citizens...and a bunch of foals…” Chrysalis trailed off for a moment, her left eye twitching before she shook her head.

The blast from Chrysalis’s horn sent him halfway across the room before a Pinkie with a giant catcher’s mitt stopped him from slamming into a wall. Shortly after, Spike was tossed back onto the dais.

Spike had noticed something when Chrysalis wheeled her head around to blast him. It was only briefly, but it had been there. Wordlessly, he looked over to Novo.

Spike shot fire out of his mouth at Chrysalis, who lept back easily to evade it.

“Huh?” Chrysalis said confusedly. She glanced to her right after noticing somepony standing next to her.

Novo was next to her, holding onto the zipper that was now down to Chrysalis’s belly.

The lights went out of Chrysalis’s eyes as the costume folded in on itself and fell to the floor.

“...How’d you know?” She asked, kicking the costume aside, her fur a noticeably darker pink than the others in the room.

“Hmph, figures.“ The Pinkie said, flipping her straight hair back and glaring at Spike. “It’s always one stupid little thing that messes everything up for me.”

“I still don’t understand though.” Spike looked around at the cavern, up at the scoreboard, then down to the Changelings. “How could a Pinkie clone do this? Why would you do this?”

“Hah!” The Pinkie clone barked. “It doesn’t matter now, Purple Snooty can’t get here in time to stop us now, loser. Changelings! Transform!”

Every Changeling in the room took off their disguise, revealing another Pinkie clone.

T-They're all Pinkie clones. Just...don’t question the horn blast...or the flying...you saw what that did to Twilight, Spike.

“S-so, if you’re all Pinkie clones.” he pointed to the former Chrysalis. “Why do you look different?”

Meanie Pinkie gave out a growl. “It’s always Meanie Pinkie with all of you! I am more organized, but it’s never Order Pinkie! I planned out our whole trip here, but it’s never Planner Pinkie! It’s always Meanie Pinkie! Well, ya know what, Spikey!?”

“I have a right to be mean! I saw what you and your friends did to the other Pinkies! I grabbed every other Pinkie I could find and high-tailed it out of there before Purple Snooty could blast us all to pieces!”

“But that’s not possible!” Spike argued back. “We searched all of Ponyville!”

Meanie Pinkie rolled her eyes and took a step back. “Right, because Pinkie is SO good at staying in one place for a long time. I found thirty alone next to that mirror pool, so, maybe if you guys hadn’t sucked at searching, you wouldn’t be in this situation right now, would ya?”

“Yeah, well, you try keeping seventy eight other Pinkies alive and tell me how chummy you are a few years down the line.” She grumbled.

“Heh, no thanks, one sister is enough trouble for me.” Spike replied, looking out over all the Pinkies. “Are there really that many of you?”

“Luckily!” She glared over him at the others quickly before looking back to Spike. “Do you even know how hard it is to keep that many Pies safe? Very! We did silent games to keep quiet, costume parties when we had to be sneaky, and marathons to finally get us this far away from Purple Snooty. But now, it’s almost over.”

Meanie Pinkie looked up at the giant board. “All we have to do is complete the Islands War game and it’s over.” She then eyed Spike warily. “So, don’t get in my way.”

“Oh, right.” Meanie Pinkie glared over at Novo. “You’re not really joining us, right?”

Novo shook her head. “Sorry, hun, I have my own group I need to be Queen of.”

“Figures, back to being the only sane one around here again.” Meanie Pinkie grouched.

“Well, we need to get over the ocean.” Meanie Pinkie explained, giving one of the Pinkies an evil eye as they got a bit too close to the dais. After a few seconds, they backed away. “But the problem is the water in the way. So, what’s the best way to deal with it? Windigos!”

“What? No!” Spike said, shaking his head back and forth quickly. “Boats! Boats is the easiest answer!”

“Okay, smart dragon. Pop quiz time! Would you trust Pinkie Pie to sail a boat?”

“Exactly! And even if we found somepony to take us over, do you really think that boat wouldn’t accidentally catch on fire, or flip, or explode on the first day?” Meanie Pinkie argued.

Meanie Pinkie waved up to the board. “Hence the Island game. Make twelve teams, make the most reliable Pinkies keep track of scores so it’s competitive and fun, send them out as Changelings to cause havoc, and get the Windigos to freeze the water. Simple, right?”

“Wait.” Novo cocked her head to the side. “Twelve teams? What about team thirteen?”

“Oh, that’s just kind of a joke.” Meanie Pinkie said, then put on a fake perky, bubbly voice. “Gee, Other Pinkie, how’s your group doing? Totally Funerrific, Pinkie, we are way ahead of team thirteen this week! I heard one of them was eaten by a shark again! Oh, that silly team thirteen! Yeah, well, at least they are having fun, despite the horrible bodily injuries.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno, it just became a thing.”

“I...see...well, I have some good news for you at least.” Spike looked at Meanie Pinkie a little sheepishly. “Twilight technically cannot legally blast any of you.”

“What?” Meanie Pinkie said with a questioning glare. “Well, she sure didn’t seem to mind breaking that law last time I saw her.”

“It wasn’t actually a law until about a year ago after another incident with the Mirror Pool. But, after the “Trixie Incident”, and Starlight Glimmer, Twilight’s former student, having a long conversation with Twilight, the destruction of clones is now illegal. However, so is making them.”

“Huh.” Meanie Pinkie pondered for a moment. “I...guess that is good then? Really wish somepony had told me about that before all of this, though.”

Spike grinned. “Yeah, believe me, you and Starlight are still the only ones fully happy with that law. But so long as the Trixies stay away from Canterlot, it should stay in effect.”

“Well now,” Spike said, snatching the scroll out of the air as it materialized in from his breath. “And speaking of Twilight.”

How have you been? It’s been a week since your last progress report, so I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I trust you can handle anything Equestria can throw at you at this point, but, well, that’s just the thing; you’re not in Equestria anymore. So, please write back as soon as you can.

Your Spears for toys initiative just opened up yesterday, and I have to say, it’s done incredibly well!

“See?” Spike said, looking over at Novo. “What did I tell you? It’s going great!”

We’ve given out several thousand spears in exchange for toys in just the first day! I’m sure this will increase safety on the streets, though I do need to ask why you added a clemency clause for ponies exchanging the toys. Is there a form of toy that is illegal?

I have to go, apparently there’s a new crisis popping up in Canterlot. Stay safe and write back when you can!

“Now Spike,” Novo said, smirking. “I am all for making sure every creature can defend itself. But really, spears?”

“You know what I meant!” Spike protested. “It just...seems like everypony else didn’t.”

Novo patted Spike on the shoulder. “Welcome to governing. It only gets worse.”

“Don’t I know it.” Meanie Pinkie sighed out, watching as the other Pinkies had started a singing conga line into and out of all three entrances to the room.

“How...there’s a lot of Pinkies here, but not enough for-” Spike just pointed to what was happening.

“Well, at least they are happy, right, hun?” Queen Novo asked Meanie Pinkie. “So, what happens next for you and your little family?”

“Yeah, you don’t have to leave Equestria now if you don’t want to.” Spike added.

“I’m...not really sure.” Meanie Pinkie admitted, running a hoof through her straight mane. “We may want to leave still, just in case that law gets broken. New beginning and all that. I do have another idea, but-”

Meanie Pinkie looked over at Spike. The room became deathly quiet all of a sudden.

Nervously, Spike looked back at Meanie Pinkie, then down to the letter from Twilight, then, oddly enough, over to Vinyl Scratch, who was now in the corner of the room setting up her turntables.

Movement caught Spike’s eye for a second from on his right. A pinkie was crouched low to the ground next to him, holding up a stack of papers and looking at a stop watch. Each second, she dropped one of the papers.

Reflections of the Past

by Phaoray

But Something Lost