//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Modesty Pink // Story: An Infinite Number of Pinkies // by AugieDog //------------------------------// "So then—" Pinkie said. But that was as far as she got before ev'rypony else broke in: Rarity exclaimed "Gracious!" while Fluttershy, peering out from between her front legs, gave about the biggest gasp Pinkie had ever heard from her; Spike added an "Awesome!" to Twilight's "Are you serious??" and the "Whoa, Nelly!" from Applejack; and the way Dashie pounded the ground and hooted, "Pinkie Pie getting it done!" Pinkie was afraid she might spill her lemonade. She didn't, though, just sprang into a hover, stretched out a hoof, and shouted, "Hit me high, girl!" Grinning all over, Pinkie gave her a smack, Dashie spinning in place a couple times before settling back into the oak tree's shade and saying, "That big lug shoulda known better'n to try messing with you!" "Aw, c'mon, guys!" Pinkie didn't want to get stern with them, but— "Don't be so hard on Khannie! I mean, it's not like she's the only pony who ever tried to kill me two seconds after we met!" That got a laugh from Rarity, and she cocked her head at Twilight. "Did I ever tell you about the first time Pinkie introduced herself to me? We were just schoolfillies, of course, and I was—" "Ummm, Rarity?" Spike swallowed so hard, Pinkie could see the bulge of it travel down his neck. "As much as I'd really, really, really like to hear that story sometime, right now, we're kinda in the middle of..." He gestured with all his little claws at Pinkie. Several blinks, and Rarity started back. "Oh! Yes! Of course! Forgive me, Pinkie; you were telling us about taming the savage beast." "She wasn't—!" Pinkie stopped again, took a breath. "Lemme just tell you what happened next." *** Pinkie had thought they'd prob'bly all head back up the slope to Bomu's tent on the rim of the valley right away 'cause Khannie didn't seem the type to have mirrors laying around. But instead— "Please, my Khan!" Bomu was saying, and Pinkie could almost smell how hard she was trying not to look scared. "Leaving us to go off with these...these—??" She flailed a hoof at Pinkie and Plinky, and Pinkie, glad someone was finally waving at her, waved back. Bomu scowled. "It's madness of the worst sort!" A shrug from Hong. "'Fun,' I think, is the word you mean, sorceress." "Yes," Poyong said, the lighter yellow of the two earth ponies and Fluttershy's twin, Pinkie was guessing, from the three lumpy green cocoons she had for a cutie mark. But when she added, "New worlds and new adventures," her expression was such an odd mix of dreaminess and fierceness that Pinkie couldn't help remembering how good she'd been with that big shiny stick when she'd been sparring with Khannie. "Exactly!" Pin Qi Khan gave a crisp nod. "Jiu! When was the last time the northern clans staged a raid into Equestria??" The darker of the earth ponies shook her head. "Don't reckon I can remember that far back, my Khan." "Point one!" Khannie turned to Hong. "Have the griffons shorted us on their tribute since we forcibly brought the matter to their attention? Have the dragons made any further complaint about our pact since we paid them that visit?" Hong laughed. "They're none of them that stupid, my Khan." "Point two!" Her smile as sharp as a bucket of porcupines, Khannie gazed at the frowning Bomu. "Do our ponies starve? Are their crops withering? Their flocks dying? Has Linlang's treasury run dry of jewels or precious metals?" "No, my Khan...," Bomu muttered. The big pegasus stomped a hoof and flared her wings. "Then would you not say that we six have tamed this land, sorceress, with the blessing of our Mothers, the Sky Mares, and the occasional bit of more substantial help from that quarter? Would you not say that, Bomu Huahuo?" Bomu looked so downcast, Pinkie couldn't keep from sliding over to Khannie's side and whispering, "Just tell her you trust her and you'll miss her, then give her a hug. That'll make her feel a lot better." Khannie glared down, her ears folding, but instead of following Pinkie's advice, she turned back to her friends with a gruff, "Jiu! Hong! Poyong! Take yourselves to Linlang's tent! Tell her I'll be gone within a quarter hour if she has any need to see me and that I'm leaving the realm in your hoofs!" She took a stance so heroic, Pinkie thought it a shame no wind was blowing to make her dark red mane stream out behind her. "So says your Khan!" The three all bowed and left the tent, Khannie looking back at Pinkie. "Now, Pinkie Pie. How do we get to this land beyond the mirror?" Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Well, we kinda need a mirror first." The Khan growled, a sound, Pinkie realized, that she didn't hear too often from ponies. "Do you mock me, duplicate?" Snorting a laugh, Pinkie reached up and tapped Khannie's nose. "Just 'cause you're being so mockable!" The silence in the tent was only broken by the clatter of Plinky's teeth and the crack of Bomu's jaw falling open. But just like Pinkie'd thought, now that they were practically alone, Khannie gave a snort of her own, a smile bursting across her snout, and she crooked a hoof around Pinkie's shoulders. "Fair enough!" she announced. "Bomu! You have mirrors?" It took a second for Bomu to get her jaw back into place. "Of...of course, my Khan!" "Then take us to them!" Khannie wrapped her other arm around Plinky, hauled the gasping beige earth pony to her hoofs. "Worlds await!" Pinkie hooted. "And parties, too!" Turning away, Bomu sighed and repeated, "Of course, my Khan." "And Bomu?" Khannie's voice got much quieter, and she let go of Pinky and Plinky, stretched her wings, leaped overhead to land in front of the unicorn. "You are to have this." She turned her head, dug her snout into the part of her mane that bunched around her neck, and when she faced forward again, she had clenched in her teeth a little chain with a green gem dangling from it. Bomu's jaw dropped again. "Your signet, my Khan?" Khannie stepped forward and with surprising gentleness wrapped the chain around Bomu's horn. "Of all the rogues, varlets, thugs and ruffians I've surrounded myself with," she said, cupping Bomu's chin with a hoof and forcing the sorceress to meet her gaze, "you are the one who's always been a sister to me, who's always told me when I'm being petty or foolish, who's always looked beyond the question of where we're getting our next meal from to the question of where we'll be getting our meals next season. What peace Equestria knows now is because of you, and I entrust that peace to your keeping till I return." Eyes shimmering, Bomu whispered, "Yes, my Khan." "Now!" Khannie spun, threw to tent flap open, the afternoon sunlight pouring in. "On to our mirror!" *** "Y'see?" Pinkie thought about sticking her tongue out at them all, but she decided that would make it hard to keep talking. "I told you guys Khannie was OK!" Twilight was nodding. "You can't judge a book by its cover," she said. And Pinkie couldn't help it. "I don't think Khannie could read," she said with as straight a face as she could. That got Twilight's eyes rolling, and Rarity's mouth went sideways. "All humor aside,..." And if Rarity's accent was usually as sharp as the big knife at the bakery, it was even sharper now. "I suppose it's only proper to give this Pin Qi Khan of yours the benefit of the doubt." Fluttershy looked like she wanted to disagree, but all she said was: "She seemed nice when she was being quiet at least." "Guys!" came the wail from Dashie and Spike, and Dashie went on, "We're never gonna get to the cool parts of this thing if you keep interrupting!" "Really?" Pinkie cocked her head. "There haven't been any cool parts yet, y'mean?" Dashie groaned again. "No! It's just that we've finally get a pony here who can maybe kick Pinkie Prime's tail!" She sat forward. "Do they get in a big fight?? 'Cause I totally wanna see 'em get in a big fight!" Applejack cleared her throat. "Maybe if'n you'd let her talk, we could all find out." "What??" Dashie jumped into the air, her wings practically buzzing. "I'm not letting her talk?? It's ev'rypony else keeps jumping in all over the place! How am I the one not letting her—??" She stopped, blinked, gave a sheepish grin and a little laugh before drifting light as a feather back into her place among the oak tree's roots. "Hey, how 'bout I just sit down and let Pinkie talk?" *** Word must've spread through the valley as quick as pancake batter over a hot griddle about Khannie leaving 'cause as soon as Pinkie followed the strutting Bomu out the front gate, Khannie on Pinkie's left and Plinky on her right, she found herself staring at soldier ponies standing in the hard-packed dirt between Khannie's big tent-building and the rest of the camp. Whole bunches of other ponies had crowded in behind them, too, all of them staring and kind of worried-looking and none of them making a sound. Khannie gave a little growl. "Nothing's ever easy," she said so softly, Pinkie was pretty sure no one but her and Plinky and Bomu were close enough to hear it. Then Khannie was flexing her big legs, her wings spreading and flapping and rocketing her up into a hover, her red hide seeming even redder against the blue afternoon sky. "Loyal ponies!" she called, and this time, not only was Pinkie pretty sure ev'ry pony ev'rywhere would be able to hear her, but the wind was also making her mane flow the way it was supposed to. "Thank you for coming to see me off, and let me assure each and every pony here that I will return soon! For you are the blood that courses through my veins! You are the breath that fills my lungs! And by the Sky Mares, I swear that we will all meet again!" The soldier ponies cheered, the unicorns shooting little fireworks into the air, and a lot of the ponies in the crowd cheered, too. But some of them still looked nervous, standing five or six ponies deep on both sides of the path Bomu took during the long walk back through the camp and up the side of the valley: Khannie kept stopping was the thing, nodding, saying a word or two to the ponies standing there, making ears perk up all around her. They did get to Bomu's tent finally, though, the crowd not following them the way Pinkie'd half expected. Which made her wonder— "Hey, Bomu. Why's your tent way up here all by itself?" Clambering over the lip of the valley, Bomu looked back and sighed. "Trigger a few explosions, and suddenly you're not terribly welcome in camp." "That changes now," Khannie rumbled. "You and the others will take up residence in my compound till I return." She leaped the last few steps, glided to land beside Bomu's tent. "Keep this place for your experiments if you must, but I want everypony to see the five of you together." She raised her voice. "You hear that, you sorry wastes of horseflesh?? All of you! Together!" Pinkie heard a sigh and a laugh and a swishing of hoofs through grass, and the other mirror versions of her friends came trotting around the corner of Bomu's tent along with a unicorn swathed from ears to fetlocks in flowing purple cloth—satin or silk or something shimmery like that—only her deep turquoise eyes and the eggshell-colored swirls of her horn visible. "My Khan," this new pony said, her voice quiet and scratchy. "We will not disappoint you." "See that you don't." Khannie gave one of her crisp nods. "Linlang, Jiu, Hong, Poyong, take note who wears my signet." The four ponies gaped at Bomu, her smile as smug as any Pinkie had ever seen. "For should word of any unpleasantness among you reach me in the world beyond, I shall return early and crack your good-for-nothing skulls." She spread her wings. "Now go! Let our ponies know that Equestria remains united even without her Khan! And if either or both of the Sky Mares should stop by..." Her gaze flickered sideways to meet Pinkie's. "Tell them I've gone to visit some cousins." Khannie's friends bowed, trooped over the edge, disappeared back down into the valley, and Khannie seemed to droop a little watching them go. So Pinkie stepped over to the big pegasus and nudged her with a hoof. "I still think you shoulda hugged 'em." That got a sigh instead of a snort. "They have certain expectations of me," she said, everything about her quiet again. "You—" Plinky swallowed, shuffled back half a step when Pinkie and Khannie both turned to look at her, but wide-eyed and focused on Khannie, she went on: "You tell them to do things, and they...they listen to you. How...how—?" She waved a hoof. "How?" The smile that curled over Khannie's muzzle made her look like a completely different pony. "We all have our gifts, small one." She nodded toward Plinky's flank and the hammered dulcimer of her cutie mark. "I would guess you are more a musician than a leader of ponies." "Well,..." Pinkie shrugged. "There's such a thing as a song leader, y'know." They both stared at her, and Pinkie gave them her biggest grin. "Now, c'mon! We've got a party to get to!" *** "Oh, hey!" Dashie tapped the grass in front of her. "What was Pin Qi Khan's cutie mark, anyway?" Pinkie blinked at her. "Actually, that was the first thing Primey mentioned when we got back to the cave." *** Dancing in front of Bomu's mirror, Pinkie gestured for Plinky to go first, and while the little earth pony fit easily enough, even when Khannie squeezed herself, the mirror's frame was so tight around her barrel chest and powerful wings that for a long couple of seconds, Pinkie found herself sitting on the floor of Bomu's tent watching Khannie's fiery red tail and hindquarters thrashing around on one side of the mirror, nothing at all on the other side. "I can give you a push!" Pinkie called, then added, just to make sure: "Or I can go and get your friends! You think they'd be OK with kicking you a little?" That got more thrashing, and just when Pinkie thought she might actually have to try her hoofs at Khannie bucking, one last shove of those big hind legs popped the pegasus through, Pinkie tumbling after maybe two seconds before the mirror collapsed back into the dark blue rock of the cavern floor. Looking up, she saw Plinky letting go her grip on Khannie's front hoofs, heard that musical voice asking frantically, "Are you all right?? Khan?? Pinkie?? Did...did you get through??" "Moomph!" Khannie said—or something that sounded like that, anyway. Her wings shot out, lifting Khannie into the air with flaps so strong, the wind of it nearly knocked Pinkie over, then landing her on all four hoofs with a thump that seemed to shake the whole place. "I take it, then, that we've arrived in this other world?" She looked around, a weird mix of excitement and wariness in the set of her ears. "A bit gloomy, isn't it?" Pinkie looked around, too, more than a little surprised that there was nothing but the silent silver-spotted cave ev'rywhere. "Well, the party's s'pposed to be going on right here...somewhere. But to get to the other worlds, we've gotta poke those little mirror spots, do the dance, and step through." "Indeed?" Khannie lowered her snout, sniffed at the nearest silver spots. She jabbed a hoof at one and didn't even bat an eye when it sprang up into a tall thin mirror she would never have fit through. "And you will teach me this dance?" "She will!" came Primey's booming voice, and the big winged unicorn dropped from nowhere onto the blue-black stone beside them all. "The three upraised scimitars on your flanks say that you are the part of me known as Pin Qi Khan, and I bid you welcome!" Plinky, Pinkie couldn't help but notice, slid sideways so Khannie was between her and Primey. But Khannie turned slowly, her eyes half-closed, gave Primey a long look up, down, back, forth, and from side to side, then focused back on Pinkie. "Our hostess, I presume?" "I am Pinkie Prime!" Primey had her wings spread, one front leg cocked, the cotton candy and bubblegum of her mane sort of pulsing around her head. But Khannie was still looking at Pinkie. "And she knows she's not truly one of the great Sky Mares, doesn't she?" Twitches shivered all over Pinkie, Primey's face bunching up like she'd smelled something bad. "I'm not," she said, her voice quiet but not fooling Pinkie for one single second: the only reason she wasn't yelling was 'cause she was trying so hard to be princessy. "They have no concept of me, of course, no clue that I exist, but if they did, they would wish to be like me, would wish they could sprinkle themselves throughout reality and experience the multiverse as I have." A pink glow shimmered over her eyes, her voice getting a little growly. "Oh, how they would envy me. A pity it's already too late..." A nearly inaudible squeak, and Plinky dove for her regular spot beneath Pinkie's tail. Pinkie thought about maybe following her, but by then Primey was smiling, stepping aside, gesturing with a wing to the cave behind her. "But look, my own! Behold our party!" Some sort of curtain seemed to flip open, and light burst over Pinkie, a rush of music and chatter, the luscious scents of fried foods and punch, chocolate and happiness flooding past. "Surprise!" Primey shouted, her grin showing all her teeth, and Pinkie couldn't keep from hopping up and down, that whole end of the cavern filled with tables and balloons stretching back into the distance as far as she could see. And among those tables, Pinkies and Pies of every size, shape, and hue: the band all her, the dancers all her, the ponies talking and laughing and singing all, all, all her! Plinky was looking up from her crouch, her eyes wide, and even Khannie seemed impressed. "A party, indeed," the big pegasus rumbled. Primey was doing a little shimmy dance. "I've been waiting and waiting for you to get back so I could do that!" She did a flip in midair. "So many thousands of me, Pinkie Pie! And so many thousands more arriving with every passing second!" Another big sweep of her wings. "But come! Enjoy baklava and falafel before bidding your new friends farewell and sending them on through mirrors of their own!" The storm of twitches cascading through Pinkie told her that that would be the very worst thing ever. "Ummm, actually, Primey, I was thinking maybe me and Plinky and Khannie could stick together, y'know? Maybe—" The plan hit her so suddenly, it almost knocked her off her hoofs. "Maybe try summa those mirror spots up there!" She waved at the cave's ceiling. "'Cause Plinky's still not ready to go her own, and just looking quick, I didn't see any pegasus or unicorns at the party at all yet! So maybe if you have summa the others go through the spots on the floor here, they'll find more like Khannie, and if Khannie flies me and Plinky up there and the three of us go through, we'll find even more!" A small and quiet part of Pinkie, a part she didn't listen to very often and had almost forgotten she had, whispered that this didn't make a whole lotta sense. The rest of her, though, knew it was the only possible way to go about all this. And since she was dealing with the ultimate version of herself— "Of course!" Primey said. "Now that I've sprung my joke upon you, I shall let your sisters into this area as well! And the ceiling, yes, we must have wings to reach it, mustn't we?" She bent down, touched her horn to Pinkie's forehead, and the warmth this time felt more feverish than soothing. "You are as always, Pinkie Pie, the first among my various selves, and your efforts on our collective behalf shall never be forgotten!" She leaped into the air, winged across the cave to the nearest edge of the party. Pinkie scrambled to Khannie's side, Plinky's hoofs clattering behind her. "Can you get the three of us up there?" Pinkie asked. "Easily." Khannie's gaze shifted to where Primey was talking to a bunch of the others. "I've not felt nervous in more years than I can count, but looking at this Pinkie Prime, I find myself thinking that whatever it is she truly wants will be disastrous for everypony else." Plinky was nodding. "I've served unicorns like her," she whispered. "They see the rest of us only as stepping stones to reach their goals." Putting a front leg around each of her friends' necks, Pinkie also kept her voice down. "The thing is," she told them, "Primey's all of us, ev'ry Pinkie and ev'ry Pie, all crammed together into one big pony. And that means she's crazy in the good ways we all are and...and in the bad ways, too." She looked from Khannie to Plinky and back again, saw Plinky's eyes go wide and Khannie's mouth go tight. "So we hafta be ready, hafta be her friends even if she doesn't want us to be, hafta find out what she's doing and tell her if it's something she shouldn't be doing." She couldn't help remembering herself, her mane all horrible and straight, her mind all terrible and bent until her friends got her back to her good crazy self. "So we...we hafta get some unicorns in here in case we need to...to make her listen..." Swallowing, she couldn't go on. "Agreed." Khannie flexed her wings. "I long ago learned to trust my instincts, and this Pinkie Prime makes my hackles rise." Grabbing Pinkie and Plinky, she hefted them from the ground and vaulted upward. "Hang on!" The cave swirled around Pinkie, made her gasp for breath, Khannie's laugh echoing from the walls. "Now this is what I call a party!" *** "Of course!" Twilight said suddenly. "You were, weren't you?" Pinkie had stopped to take a breath, so instead of using it to start the next part of the story, she used it to say, "I was what?" Twilight blinked, gave a sheepish grin at Dashie scowling beside her. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt, but—" She pointed her snout at Pinkie's flank, her whole face all shiny like when she'd solved some problem or other. "You said at the beginning that Pinkie Prime had your cutie mark, but your other selves have all had different ones! So it's like Pinkie Prime said: you were her first iteration!" That made Pinkie blink, and Twilight rolled her eyes. "Her number one other self," she said. "Oh! Yeah!" Pinkie glanced back to check, saw the blue and yellow balloons right where they were supposed to be. Dashie sighed, but Twilight was going on. "It would mean that Pinkie Prime was the zero vector of the non-Euclopean space that our Pinkie experienced as this cave! And as such, she would've been completely unable to breech the De Trotglie limits constraining her from interacting with the larger physical multiverse unless her first iteration, the reflection of herself with the lowest possible eigenvalue, somehow formed a quantum tunnel into her initial matrix!" Applejack reached over to pat Twilight's hoof. "Sugar cube? I'm guessing that's all mighty important, but I reckon I can speak for ev'rypony else here when I say I ain't hearing much more'n buzzes and clicks." "It—!" Twilight began, then she stopped, took a breath, blew it out. "It just fundamentally changes everything science has ever thought about the construction of space and time." Her horn glowed, lifting her glass, and she took a big swig of lemonade. "I'll need to write several letters to the princess about this..." "But—," Fluttershy murmured then, and Pinkie looked over to see her eyes were wavering. "If Pinkie Prime really was crazy in a bad way, why...why did she save me from the fire?" Still not ready for that question, Pinkie held up a hoof. "There's still a lot more story till we get to that part, and by then, I'm pretty sure it'll make sense. Or, y'know, at least make less non-sense. But right then and there—" *** Hovering thirty feet above the cave floor, they shifted around a little: Plinky crept up Khannie's front leg and clambered to settle between her shoulder blades, the big pegasus's red wings flapping with a strong, steady motion. Then Khannie took Pinkie in both front hoofs and raised her the rest of the way to the ceiling, Pinkie poking a silver spot and making it leap down into a square the size of the display window at Carousel Boutique. It took a little more doing to touch all the proper places on this new mirror since Khannie couldn't get as close to the ceiling as Pinkie needed to be without her wings slapping the rock. But they finally worked out some acrobatics, Khannie tossing Pinkie upward so she could tap the frame where it needed tapping, then Pinkie spreading her arms as she dropped back down so Khannie could catch her around the middle and hold her up for the next move. Clapping and cheering rose up below them: Pinkie spared a quick look, saw a bunch of her twins staring from the cave floor where they'd started picking silver spots, and she gave them a wave. Then her mirror was going all misty, Khannine diving in— And they popped out into a long dark room, the picture windows on the wall a few yards across the way showing a starry night sky over a city that looked even bigger than Canterlot. Carpeting as clean as new snow covered the floor a couple feet below them, the couches and chairs all padded and fancy, the sort Pinkie imagined Rarity would really like to faint onto. Behind them, the mirror filled a big part of the wall, but on both sides of it hung painting after painting after painting stretching out into the shadows of the room like at one of Princess Celestia's art museums. Except...the third painting along on the right side of the mirror was sitting on the floor, a pony dressed all in black standing beside it and opening a safe set into the wall where the painting looked like it prob'bly shoulda been hanging. Pinkie didn't have time to wonder about this, though, 'cause that's when the alarm went off, a big hooting, clanging, ringing noise that made the pony in black jump away from the wall and spin around, her face and horn such a light pink, they almost weren't that color at all, her blue eyes going wide when they met Pinkie's. She heard Plinky gasp, felt Khannie shudder, her own twitches telling her the same thing. "Our twin!" Pinkie shouted. "Freeze!" somepony else shouted further off to her right; figures moved in the shadows down that way, and a bolt of unicorn magic sizzled past about an inch away from the tip of Pinkie's nose. "Let's go!" Pinkie swung herself onto Khannie's back. "All of us, I mean!" "Who—??" the unicorn in black managed to say before Khannie was swooping down, scooping her up, and barreling away from the sudden flurry of unicorn blasts, Pinkie barely having time the reach out and shut the safe: no point in leaving the place untidy, after all. Clinging to Khannie, Pinkie couldn't help whooping as the pegasus spun the four of them from wall to wall of the long room, more shouts and shimmers of magical fire crashing around them. One more roll and a dive, though, and Pinkie suddenly found herself staring between Khannie's ears at the back of a gigantic ceramic apple in a glass case, Khannie holding up the unicorn she had clamped in her front hoofs and demanding, "Magic us out of this place!" The unicorn wasn't squirming in Khannie's grasp, but she didn't look happy to be there. "Are you daft?" she asked. "Baron Von Hoofstoven has the latest in magical detection alarms!" She tapped her horn, not a single bit of a glint anywhere around it. "I had to numb myself up with hornvocaine before I dared break in!" More bolts of unicorn magic whizzed by, and Pinkie sighed. "'Scuse me." Hopping off Khannie, she stuck her head around the corner of the case and called out, "Hey, guys! We're trying to talk back here, and we just need, like, a minute! OK?" "Huh?" a voice asked from down by the mirror. In the shadows, Pinkie could see the silhouettes of two ponies in guard uniforms looking at each other, then one of them called, "Uhh, OK. Sorry!" "No problem! Thanks!" Pinkie waved, then ducked back, her three mirror selves staring at her. "How'd you get in, then?" "Climbed down the elevator shaft." The unicorn arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Don't suppose your new friends'd let us stroll past them and climb back up it, would they?" Pinkie shook her head. "They seem like nice guys, but not that nice, y'know?" Plinky had slid from Khannie's back by then. "There's a door here," she said, and that was the first time Pinkie saw why Khannie had stopped: the long room they'd been flying through ended in a wall just past the case they were crouched behind. That wall did have a door in it, though... But her unicorn self was shaking her head. "The Baron's emergency exit isn't magic, but it only opens to his touch! No pony's ever been able to break the code!" "No code." Plinky was looking dreamily at it, her voice somehow even more musical than usual. "Can't you hear it?" She started humming, and Pinkie could almost make out a tune winding in harmony around her. "Such a delightful melody..." "What's going on??" a grumpy voice yelled back by the mirror. "Why're you just sitting here??" A shuffling of hoofs, and Pinkie heard the guard she'd talked to saying, "They said they just needed a minute, baron." "Idiots!" the new voice roared. "I finally have Modesty Pink in my clutches, and you're doing nothing??" Pinkie peered around the display case, saw a third unicorn powering up his horn. "Ah...," Plinky sighed, and with a click, the door swung open. Then Khannie was grabbing her, grabbing their unicorn twin, leaping through the doorway while grabbing Plinky, and racing down the stairs on the other side, the one wall still a big window showing the glittering stars above and the gleaming city below. "Nice town!" Pinkie said, sliding sideways in Khannie's grip so she could grin at the unicorn. "I'm guessing you're Modesty Pink! 'Cause I'm Pinkie Pie, that's Plinky Pie, this is Pin Qi Khan, and—" Rounding the first landing, Khannie was scrambling for the next section of stairs, but the thousand pin-prickly twitches that swarmed over Pinkie made her shout directly into Khannie's ear, "We need to stop right now!" Khannie froze, and more crackling bolts shot up from between the steps she'd just been about to start down. Modesty sucked in a breath. "The guards below must be on their way up!" She swung her head around. "And we've left the door open at the top!" "Well, then!" Khannie wheeled, reared onto her hind legs, leaped charging for the window. "Cover your eyes!" Torn between wanting to see what happened and maybe not ever seeing anything again, Pinkie buried her face in Khannie's mane just as a shattering of glass cracked through the air around her, Pinkie's stomach stretching, the delicious sensation of free fall making her squeal. Plinky was squealing, too, but hers was the unhappy kind, Pinkie could tell. Shoving herself up to peer between Khannie's ears again, Pinkie couldn't stop grinning at the beautiful city stretched out below, Khannie's big wings pumping them even higher. "Where?" Khannie was shouting. "There!" Modesty, tucked under Khannie's right front leg, waved a hoof. "The alley on the other side of that third pyramid! I've a carriage waiting!" Gravity did some more amazing things, the city swinging around as Khannie banked them sideways and down, and Pinkie wished the ride would never end. But they were quickly past the purple and gold lights of the pyramid the unicorn had pointed to, were dropping toward the street quicker than Dashie when one of her tricks goes wrong, Khannie hitting the pavement running, lunging, ducking into the mouth of an alley, the ponies on the sidewalks clutching their hats as the shock wave swirled over them. Just like Modesty had said, a pretty fancy open-top carriage sat a few yards in, a big black stallion in a gray turtle neck sweater and a slouch-brim hat yoked to it. "Mackie!" The unicorn sprang from Khannie's grasp and pulled the carriage door open. "We need to be elsewhere quickly!" "Yep, princess," the stallion said, Khannie scrambling in, Modesty following to slam the door shut. "Princess??" Pinkie stared, Modesty stripping off her black suit to reveal a short, tight, sparkly white dress underneath. "You're not a princess! You don't have wings!" The carriage started forward, and the unicorn rolled her eyes. "No, I don't. I do, however, the occasional spot of work for the princesses." Her face got cloudy. "Like tonight when I was supposed to retrieve an item of Princess Selene's that the Baron had gotten hold of." "Huh?" The stallion snapped his head around. "You didn't get it??" Pinkie felt Modesty's glare poke into her as sharp as a prod from her horn woulda been. "I was somewhat interrupted before I could grab the case." "Case?" Pinkie dug into her mane, pulled out the case she'd taken from the safe before closing its door. "Y'mean this one?" Her unicorn self stared, laughed, and wrapped both her front hoofs around Pinkie's. "Well! Turns out I'm pleased to make all of your acquaintances." *** "No fair!" Dashie's wings had frozen in mid-flutter. "You got to be in a jewel heist??" "No!" Pinkie puffed out a breath. "It wasn't a jewel 'cause when Modesty opened the case, it had a silver spiral bracelet inside! And it wasn't a heist either 'cause we were stealing it back from the guy who'd stolen it from their Princess Selene in the first place!" Applejack didn't look convinced. "You're sure? 'Cause if'n this Modesty Pink was a thief already, might be she was a liar, too, and just told you she was stealing it back so's she could trick you into helping her." Pinkie shook her head. "If you'd seen that bracelet, you woulda known same as I did: it was definitely something for a princess." Twilight cleared her throat. "Well, since somepony already interrupted you,—" She gave about half a glare to Dashie. "I was wondering about the alarm system. Because if it was truly triggered by magic, well, your arrival through the mirror shouldn't've set it off! After all, Thagoras said herself that her method of travel wasn't based in magic, and all my investigations pretty much bore that out!" Happily, Pinkie realized she could answer that without lying. "Y'know, we actually talk about that later, so I'll wait till I get to that part. But right now, I'm still at this part—" *** From the floor of the carriage, a blanket covering her, a shivering Plinky, and a grumbling Khannie, Pinkie told Modesty all about the mirror stuff while the stallion trotted them through the carriage traffic rattling along the city's wide streets and the unicorn, lounging across the seat, tried to look like she wasn't listening. The gleam in her eyes and the excitement in her voice, though, told Pinkie the truth. "I knew there was something about you," Modesty said softly when Pinkie finished. "Other than the way you all popped out of that mirror, I mean. I had but to look at you, and it was like...like..." She shook her head. "Like meeting sisters I never knew I had." Pinkie liked the sound of that. "Does that mean you'll come with us? 'Cause we're gonna need somepony smart and good with magic if it turns out we hafta give Primey a little talking to." Modesty rubbed her chin, but Mackie spoke from the yoke at the front of the carriage: "Might be wise, princess, with the Baron all stirred up. You do this mirror thing, and I'll tuck myself into a nice comfortable bolt hole till I hear from you." "Yes. Problem is—" She moved her hoof to touch her horn. "I'll still be numb for a couple hours." Her gaze darted down, met Pinkie's, bounced away. "If you're planning on mixing with this Pinkie Prime any time soon." Plinky piped up: "Maybe we won't have to! Maybe...maybe she really does just want to have a party!" That got some more grumbles from Khannie. "Most of the petty dictators I've had to pound into the ground enjoyed a good party, too." Pinkie sighed and looked up at Modesty. "Besides, we can't really do anything till we've got Thagoras. The one time I met her, she said it was bad just to have the two of us together in one place, but maybe the cave doesn't count 'cause it's not really a place." She shrugged. "But Thagoras is prob'bly the only pony who'd know for sure." "Very well." Modesty tapped the side of the carriage. "We'll swing by the palace to deliver our cargo, then off you go, Mackie, and—" She turned a slow grin toward Pinkie. "Off we go as well."