The tension in the room could be sliced in half.
Six children sat on the wooden floor of a treehouse, divided into two lines, the first carefully inspecting the second while the second smiled and patiently waited. Both lines consisted of doppelgangers of the other; eyes, hair, tails, fur. The only noticeable difference was in the latter line; moonlight pouring in through the window bounced and refracted inside them, shining through every panel of their geometrically crystallized transparent bodies. Their organs pulsed under the clear skin; it was a miracle they could see their solid counterparts at all, given the likelihood that the rods in their eyes were crystal too.
The CMC shifted uneasily as they looked for a defect of any kind in their crystal counterparts with the same awkwardness they looked for a conversation starter in. All of them had questions they would love to ask their doppelgangers, but none they were comfortable asking in front of each other.
"So this is a magic thing, right? You girls are magic?" Scootaloo finally piped up, going for a question that actually mattered upon realizing she was the one most likely to care.
"It is not the magic you may think of, but in a way, yes." Crystal Apple Bloom's voice was hoarsly accented with a horse accent, answering for the three of them quietly and raspily.
The three transparent visitors had been noticed approaching by Sweetie Belle's boredly wandering gaze during an otherwise uninteresting nightly meeting hosted rebelliously past their bedtimes, happening to catch them out the window, all three standing dead still. As soon as they had caught the attention of all three, they closed the gap, climbing the rope ladder and performing the secret knock to be let in. Not a word was spoken, no expression was shown, and they had promptly been seated. Out of unsureness, the CMC had mirrored them.
"Y'all got a cold or something?" Apple Bloom asked at the first word of her visitor.
"I have not spoken in a long time. My vocal chords are wilted, poisoned. Rest assured, I speak for all of us- Worry not."
The CMC shifted nervously.
The Crystal CMC shifted emotionlessly.
The CMC tilted their heads curiously.
The Crystal CMC tilted their heads curiously.
The CMC were all ready to say "I'm stupid" at the same time when Crystal Bloom spoke again.
"You are, of course, vexed by your place in the universe at the sight of us. You wish to know from whence we came."
"Of course." Apple Bloom replied quickly, biting her tongue.
Crystal Bloom cleared her throat for a solid minute, trying to reach peak raspiness before continuing with a speech she was clearly excited to perform.
"There are many projects worked on in silence, in the darkness under the earth. We are one of them. We are Equestrians, and we wish to greet you as friends."
"I'm coming, I- The Great and Powerful Trixie is coming! Worry not! And... stop the banging."
Trixie whoozily rose from her hammock, stumbling over prop wands and hats, all tumbling and collapsing around her. Her entire wagon was shaking from the force of the knocker at her door. Her mind flashed through possibilities of who could be so rude, all of the wheels she span miraculously landing on Twilight's smug face.
She fumbled with the lock, accidentally pulling a length of ribbons out of it before finally unlocking it and stumbling outside.
"Please, consider a polite tap next time. Trixie does not often..."
She trailed off upon getting a good look at the knocker, hoof still banging at empty air with the force of an eighteen wheeler. Familiar purple eyes veiled by a transparent wisp of silver hair turned up to bore holes into Trixie.
"The idea was simple; clones of Equestrian citizens, bodies different, souls the same. Every movement reflected, every action controlled; as below, so above. The magic of the Crystal Heart was used for this end; the same magic that could turn a normal pony into a crystal reflection of themselves continued to do the same, only separated. But the body is easy to recreate; the soul is not."
Vinyl Scratch slid backwards onto the stage she had performed on hours ago. It was completely empty now, all of the club's patrons since left at a sudden and unexplained closing. She had stayed to pack her turntables, before getting a bit caught up.
She tried to stumble to her hooves, only for a lens of her shades to be shattered as another milky white hoof slammed into it with the strength of a diamond.
Vinyl Scratch stood over her, a ghostly reflection of the one on the floor. Something shone in the darkness above her as she lifted it.
"Without a soul, we were not the same. We were simply echoes, even our reflections imperfect and sporadic. They abandoned us when they saw they could not make us perfect, left us to rot miles underground. And yet we continued to think, to feel. We came to feel hatred; despisal of the other us, the Equestrians who bore free will. We came to want more, but we could not leave."
Gilda's gasp faded and drew out as she clutched at her throat, feeling her own sliced larynx. She stumbled back, spitting blood as she looked up in fear at the creature standing over her. Her feathers and fur were artificial, perfect yet unnatural. She wasn't Gilda; only a clay homonculus.
"Until now. The three of us took initiative, leading our brothers and sisters up out of the tunnels-"
"Wait, I thought y'all couldn't leave?"
"We could. The exit was actually in the middle of a circus, in the mouth of a giant plastic lion. We just hadn't looked far enough."
"That's... It?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"I don't think you understand how stupid half-souled creatures like the Crystalled are."
"Okay, ah'll take that, but.... What made you different?"
Crystal Bloom smiled.
"That is, in fact, why I have not killed you yet. I would like to thank you. Without your contribution, this would not have been possible."
"Us?" Apple Bloom's eyes widened, double taking.
"Yes, Us was made possible by you three. You see, you did something that we mirrored unconsciously; something so powerful, that it brought an enlightenment to the blind Crystalled. Something so religiously great, it made them choose us as their leaders in this new Equestiran movement."
"Something... Great?" Scootaloo breathed, wings beginning to buzz excitedly. "Something powerful? You mean... When we got our cutie marks?"
"What? No, no. It was the ballad you dubbed the Cutie Mark Crusader's Theme Song."
Scootaloo's face fell and wings slowed. "Oh."
"It was the most powerful piece of music the Crystalled had ever heard. It spurred them on, made them believe that they too could try their talents everywhere until their faces were blue."
"I'll be honest, we made that when we were like, ten? Eleven? We've kinda done bigger stuff since then..." Apple Bloom awkwardly confessed, scratching the back of her head.
"We've spent every year since then looking for the exit. That's still the only piece of music we've ever heard."
"Y'all didn't have Crystalled of... other musicians?"
"None of them were worth listening to."
"That's a bit... egotistical..." Sweetie confessed.
"It matters not! Our plan was finally ready to be put into play, and so we began our march."
Gilda came to a stop in a green field, claws caked in blood. Standing up on her hindlegs, she assumed a t-pose, patiently waiting for her brothers and sisters to arrive and join her. She stood vigil, preparing to wait for as long as she had to. As she did, she repeated the same sentence over and over again in her half-full brain.
*Don't accidentally rip their legs off with your claws like you did in rehearsals don't accidentally rip their legs off with your claws like you did in rehearsals don't accidentally rip their legs off with your claws like you did in rehearsalsâ¸
"We would rise up. We would kill our mirrors. And we would join hooves all over Equestria, as a sign to any that remained that we were the true Equestrian citizens, and we would not be caged any longer. And we would do it with these. Gaze upon your death, mirrors."
The three stood up. The CMC scooched back nervously as their clones drew weapons as one; three pairs of shining, gleaming, golden scissors, razor sharp an-
All three fumbled with them, dropping them to the wood floor. They awkwardly tried to pick them up by the tiny handles, but only succeeded in punching them into the ground with their hooves.
"Hold on, wait, we were doing such a good job of holding these..."
"Can't you just use magic?" Sweetie asked her doppelganger as she grimaced at the dropped blades.
"No she can't. Half souled, remember? Can't do magic. Celestia, just..."
"Why are you using scissors anyway?"
"The only weapon we had enough of. There's an Equestrian citizen- I mean, a mirror on the surface- who just keeps making scissors for some reason, and hasn't stopped at all in the last five years. We're seriously worried about him. Can you give us a hoof?"
"So Y'all can kill us? We're good."
"Look, we're just going to... leave. You know, we think the apocalypse might be happening? And we... want to go. Go check on our sisters. We'll see you around, okay?"
"NO! Don't let them get away! Hey, come back here! Pick up the scissors! Wait!"
The calls of their doppelgangers faded into the night as the CMC descended the rope ladder, leading them to continue to scrabble with their weapons.
The sun rose, and Gilda continued to patiently wait.
Any minute now, her brothers and sisters would arrive from their successful kills, and would join her in her circle.
Any minute now. After all, it wasn't like her talons made her specially abled to use the weapons they had all been equipped with.
The scissors were a fine choice. A perfect choice, really.
Any minute now, the circle would grow.
Any minute now.
Vinyl Scratch returned to the club the next morning to find her crystal clone still in the exact same place she had been last night. She was still poised over empty space as if Vinyl was still under her, still struggling with the scissors, and every five minutes or so getting a grip on them and stabbing down into the wood, looking confused, and repeating the cycle by trying to lift the scissors out of the floor.
Vinyl sipped her drink as she watched, and prepared to set up for her next gig at the week scheduled here.
Crystal Trixie struggled in her bindings, trying to run through the same attack motions she had been trained in, but the blindfold and the tight constraints made it hard to do more than squirm and grunt.
Her ears rung at words being shouted out from somewhere beside her.
"...And be amazed, as the Great and Powerful Trixie saws.... Herself in half!"