//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Thagoras Pi // Story: An Infinite Number of Pinkies // by AugieDog //------------------------------// "Hoo-whee!" Applejack stood, planted her front hoofs and stretched her back legs, tiny cracklings popping from her spine. "Gimme a li'l minute here, Pinkie: I ain't sat this long since Granny Smith roped me into taking her to armchair adventure night at the senior center!" Dashie glanced up through the oak's branches, her ears folding. "Whoa! It's gonna be supper time here pretty quick!" Even Pinkie could tell the sky was seriously considering slipping out of its afternoon clothes and into something more evening-y, but Twilight with her curliest grin—the one that always made Pinkie feel as floaty as a soap bubble—just said, "Time flies when you're having fun." "What??" Spike waved his claws frantically. "But Pinkie Prime! She's gonna destroy the world! How can you call that fun??" Twilight just blinked at him; it was Rarity who said, "Spike, perhaps you remember earlier today? All the shouting and rushing about and things bursting into flames?" "You mean—?" Spike clutched his chest. "That was her destroying the world??" Rarity sighed, and Fluttershy reached out to touch Spike's cringing shoulder. "That was her trying, silly, but it didn't work." She turned a gentle smile toward Pinkie. "You know, they ought to tell stories this way all the time! Because if I didn't know everything was going to turn out all right, I'd be hiding under my bed right now!" Pinkie made sure her own smile was showing, made sure it was covering any little twinges of doubt that might tug at her. 'Cause it wasn't really a lie to make her friends think ev'rything had turned out all right, was it? After all, it had turned out all right! Well, most of it had, anyway... A little humming noise from Twilight. "I don't know, Fluttershy. A story loses a certain tension, I find, when I know the ending before I even start." "Nah!" Dashie fluffed the cloud she was leaning against. "I mean, I musta read Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, like, five hundred times by now, and I swear, it just keeps getting better!" Applejack was shaking her hind legs: right, left, right, left. "Me, I like them myst'ry stories where I think I's got it all figured out, but then they pull one last fast one on me at the end. Don't happen that often, but I gets all goose pimply ever' time it does!" It took Pinkie some effort not to flinch, and swearing to herself that she'd make it up to all of them with extra-special cakes on their birthdays, she said, "Well, don't expect anything like that here. This story's just as simple as simple can be!" Twilight giggled. "As simple as anything with an infinite number of Pinkies in it can be, you mean." "I'll say!" Spike was still looking a little shaky. "I mean, what if Pinkie Prime did blow ev'rything up, and we just haven't noticed yet??" With a snort, Applejack settled in her place, leaning sideways to nudge her shoulder into Spike's. "Could be I'm mistaken, sugar cube, but I reckon that's the sorta thing one or two of us mighta picked up on." She nodded to Pinkie. "So, you was telling us 'bout this Trixie Pinkie y'all'd rustled up?" *** Pinxie gestured with her snout to the curtain behind her. "I'll ask you four to remain here a moment while I collect my pay from the rustic bumpkins who run this lovely little jerkwater review, then we can be on our way." "Pay?" Modesty arched an eyebrow. "We don't get going, won't be anything left to buy with it!" That got a little laugh from Pinxie. "Fear not for the safety of the cosmos. Pinxie makes it a habit to succeed at the tasks to which she applies her hoofs. Besides—" The glow of her horn pushed the curtain aside, and she patted Modesty's hoof with her own. "Since you've obviously never worked an honest day in your life, I wouldn't expect you to understand the importance of gathering the fruits of one's labors." A toss of her head, and she stepped out of the little backstage area. Plinky was staring after her with wide eyes, but Pinkie had to nod. "I like her!" "Oh, aye." Modesty brushed at her close-cropped black curls. "Can't wait to hear what other int'resting opinions she's got tucked away in that purple bonce of hers." Khannie gave one of her grumbles. "I had to go through six sorceresses like that before the Sky Mares brought me Bomu, and what a treasure she's been! More powerful than the wind and completely insane, of course, but as sweet and honest as a field of daisies." "She..." Plinky swallowed, shuffled half a step closer to Modesty. "Pinxie has so much anger in her...." "Yeah." Modesty looked at Pinkie. "You sure we need her? I mean—" She cocked her head, rose-colored light shimmering up from her horn. "She's got me back on all fours again. Whatever magicking we need, likely I can do it as well as that one can." Pinkie shrugged. "It's too late now." And as much as she didn't like pointing hoofs— "If you didn't wanna come through this mirror, you shoulda picked a different one." A little annoyance flashed across Modesty's face. "Pinkie Pie, I didn't pick it! I just flung my hoof up at random and nodded like a blinking wind-up doll when you asked if this was the mirror I meant!" "Huh." Pinkie looked around. "Weird how we still got here, then, isn't it?" Modesty rolled her eyes, but Khannie was slowly shaking out her wings, the air stirring around them. "As much as I dislike it, Modesty, I fear that this Pinxie is the version of us that we need. I can smell the destiny on her." Plinky nodded, and Pinxie's sharp voice spoke up. "Outvoted, Ms. Modesty?" The curtain whisked aside to reveal the darker of Pinkie's two unicorn twins standing in the center of the stage, the mirror in its frame beside her, the rest of the auditorium nothing but shadows. "Alas, that's what comes from giving our flighty pegasus and superstitious earth pony cousins an equal voice in affairs. Rest assured, however, that the great and powerful Pinxie, being a level-headed unicorn such as yourself, would also vote against her being allowed entry into your ranks." All the shadows made it hard for Pinkie to tell if Pinxie's smile was really as mean as it looked, but she kinda thought it prob'bly was. "Alas, again, but a final tally of three 'yes' votes to two 'no' votes would still fail to change the outcome." "Yeah." Modesty sauntered forward. "Both alas and alack, ain't it?" Like she was walking on eggshells, Plinky slid alongside Modesty, Khannie stalking across the boards after them, her laugh nothing like a real laugh. "But now we are one hearty band of Pinkies and Pies united to stop a force who fancies herself the original of us all and who has unknown but no doubt nefarious plans for the cosmos." The smile she turned on Pinxie wasn't real, either, Pinkie thought, except that it sure was real scary. "A worthy cause, wouldn't you agree, sorceress?" Pinxie just stared with half-closed eyes, then a little glowing ball popped from the tip of her horn, floated a couple yards up above the stage, and flared to a point as bright as the sun standing at noontime. "Shall we get started?" she asked. "Ooooo!" Pinkie was busy squinting at the ball of light. "I'll bet you practice all the time!" That just got a sniff, and when Pinkie looked back down, she saw that Pinxie was focusing her bored expression on Modesty. "Or is this all in fact not as pressing as you were leading Pinxie to believe?" Modesty shook her head, her smile not quite as mean as Pinxie's had been earlier. "Not me, sister. I haven't learned the mirror opening routine yet." "Then—" Pinxie turned a confused look toward the others, and Pinkie realized that was her cue. "Ooooo!" she squealed again, scrambling past Pinxie to the mirror. "Plinky! Gimme a beat!" Just like she'd hoped, Plinky had seen her do the mirror dance enough times to tap a nice little rhythmic accompaniment with her front hoofs over the boards, and Pinkie put a few more flourishes in under the pressure of Pinxie's gaze. She got more than a few gasps from the grouchy unicorn, too, as the mirror went through its stages, and she added a fancy spin right at the end so that she could end up on her knees with her front hoofs spread just at the exact moment that the mirror went completely misty behind her. "Impossible!" Pinxie blurted out, and Pinkie looked up to see her newest twin staring at the passageway the mirror had turned into. "Magic?? From an earth pony??" Khannie had moved up beside Pinxie by this time, Plinky tucked into the crook of her left arm, and Modesty sidled up to Pinxie's other side. "Stalwart, ain't it?" She tapped her horn. "Best have a levitation spell ready, Pinxie. Likely we'll be coming out thirty or forty feet above the floor of as big a cavern as you'll ever wanna see." "Besides," Pinkie added, nestling herself with a sigh into the strong embrace of Khannie's right arm, "this isn't magic. My friend Twilight looked at it, and she said—" "Not magic??" Purple sparks shot from Pinxie's horn and began arranging themselves around the mirror's frame. "Is this Twilight a simpleton??" *** "What??" Twilight sprang to her hoofs, one eye twitching, the words squeezing out from between her clenched teeth. "What did she call me??" Applejack reached for her. "Settle down, sugar cube." Twilight stomped, a little flicker of fire crackling into the grass. "I ran every single test anypony has ever invented on that mirror! Not only wasn't it magic, but it had never been enchanted, either! I don't know what this Pinxie thinks she's talking about, but—" "A cantrip!" Pinkie exclaimed. That stopped Twilight, her friend staring at her with her mouth open. "A...a cantrip?" Pinkie nodded. "After Pinxie called you a simpleton, she started saying all this stuff about what sort of magic the mirrors were using, but the only part I remember was when she said the dance was a cantrip. 'Cause I said it wouldn't be a very good dance if it made everypony trip, and when she turned to glare at me, that's when Modesty shoved her through the mirror." A thoughtful look had slid over Twilight's face. "A cantrip," she muttered, then eagerness flooded her. "Pinkie, can you show us this dance?" "Sure!" Pinkie jumped up. "I mean, yeah, it won't work anymore, but I can still—" "Won't—?" Rarity blinked, then smiled. "Ah. Because we haven't got a mirror." "No." Pinkie gestured to the afternoon around them, more than happy to tell this particular lie. "After ev'rything was all over, we changed the universe so the dance would just be a dance from now on. But I can still do it if you wanna see how it used to go!" With a sigh, Twilight sat back down. "No, that's OK, Pinkie. Maybe after you get the story finished." "Okie dokie lokie!" *** Clinging to Khannie's big forearm, Pinkie squealed happily to feel the half second or so of free fall tickle her insides before Khannie's wings swept out and back, the fall turning into a glide. Plinky gave such a tiny little yip, Pinkie was sure nopony who hadn't been expecting it would even have heard, and besides, the party below them was still in full swing, the music and the laughter easily covering any of Plinky's little sounds. And if that hadn't been enough— "You dare??" Pinxie was shouting at Modesty, both unicorns floating in wiggly bubbles of their own colored light just below the rectangular shimmer Khannie had just leaped out of. "Those who lay hoof upon the great and powerful Pinxie without her consent often find themselves with fewer limbs afterwards!" "Yaddiddy, yaddiddy." Swinging around so she was drifting along on her back, Modesty tucked one front hoof behind her head and waved the other at the mirror. "Thing is, love, these windows are limited time affairs." Which was exactly when the silvery shine leaped back up into the ceiling and vanished. "Me, I'd rather not be caught halfway when it does that." Pinxie was still glaring, her cloak snapping behind her like in a strong wind, but the anger on her face quickly changed to wonder as her gaze moved along the ceiling, then down to the party going on all over the floor of the cave. "This place! And those ponies! They...they're all...all..." Khannie rumbled a laugh, pulled around to hover between the two unicorns. "Take a moment," she said. "I'm still unused to the sight, myself." Pinkie couldn't bounce as much as she wanted to with Khannie's arm holding her in place, so she wriggled out onto the pegasus's shoulder and flipped herself over onto her broad back. "Isn't it great??" And when she looked over, for the first time since she'd met her, Pinkie didn't see any sort of sourness on Pinxie's face. "This is madness," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the ruckus shaking the air. "Can you not feel the stresses? It's like earthquakes, floods, and typhoons all striking at one time, over and over again..." Modesty had straightened up, her ears pricking forward, ev'rything about her serious again. "And that, my dear Pinxie, is what we've gotta stop." "I agree." Pinxie folded her arms. "Any ideas how?" "Thagoras Pi." Pinkie started to explain the whole thing, but the other three kept interrupting her when she tried to add all the interesting little bits and pieces. Still, Pinkie had to admit they managed to fill Pinxie in pretty quickly, floating there above the edge of the party, and Pinkie did get the last word: "So all we hafta do is find whichever of these is her mirror, and we'll be all set!" Pinxie was nodding, stroking her chin and looking out at the cavern. "Well, separating which of these has been used from those which haven't should be a simple enough spell. Then we can perhaps filter the unused spots by the percentage chance—" "Except," Pinkie had to stick in, "Thagoras's mirror did get used. She woulda come through it, like, a week before I came through mine and started all this." "Yes!" Plinky perked up in the crook of Khannie's arm. "I've been thinking we could look at each spot as if it were a dulcimer string!" She made a motion with her front hoof like she was playing her instrument. "Once a string is struck, it continues vibrating even after the sound dies away! So if we could separate the mirrors that have been used from those that haven't, then look to see which of the used mirrors is vibrating the least—" "Stalwart!" Modesty grinned at the little earth pony. "Full marks for that one, Plinky Pie." "Indeed." Khannie ruffled Plinky's beige mane, and Pinkie did some more bouncing on Khannie's back to see how poofy and happy Plinky's hair was getting to look. Still stroking her chin, Pinxie shot a little glance at the others, then went on looking at the party. "Quite a possible paradigm. We'll need to set up screens for the vibrations all these duplicates are causing, though, before—" "Got it." Modesty's horn flared up even pinker. "The ol' stealth spell, but kinda inside out." She squinted, her jaw clenching. "Insteada making us silent, it...makes us...so we can't hear...nunna...them!" A burst of sparks from the tip of her horn, and something like a giant soap bubble sprang out of the air to surround them, ev'ry sound and smell of the party cutting off like somepony had flipped a switch. "There!" She gave that big grin of hers. "Our own little portable spot of tranquility!" An impressed expression flickered across Pinxie's face, but it was gone so quickly, Pinkie wished she'd had a camera. "Interesting," the sorceress said, her sharp little smile back. "A spell you use often?" Modesty shrugged. "'Swhy they call me Modesty: whenever I pop 'round somewhere, I prefer slipping in and out without causing anypony any fuss, y'know?" Pinxie gave a sniff. "Pinxie much prefers the grand entrance, truth be told." The waver around her horn started getting brighter and faster. "Still, with this barrier in place, we should be able to see—" All the silvery spots suddenly pulsed, and when Pinkie next blinked, most of the ones in front of her had turned white while those to the side and behind her—she turned to look just to make sure—had gone completely black. "There." Pinxie was trying really hard, Pinkie could tell, not to look like she was straining, but the smell of her sweat gave her away. "The white ones are those that have been activated. Adding, then, a condition that measures the decay rate of their vibrational amplitudes..." The nearer white spots stayed white, but the ones closer to the center of the party took on a pinkish hue, the pink getting deeper and deeper the further into the distance Pinkie looked. "Yes." Pinxie nodded. "The more solid the pink color, the longer ago the spot was used." Pinkie smacked herself in the forehead. "Well, of course it's gonna be over by the wall where the party started! I shoulda thoughta that!" She looked up at Modesty. "You said this bubble could move?" "Aye, but..." Modesty's jaw was still clenched. "Not sure I've got the 'oomph' in me right now to do the pushing..." Khannie grunted. "Allow me." She reached out the hoof not holding Plinky, planted it against Modesty's rump, and gave a solid flap of her wings, the whole bubble sliding forward like it was on wheels as she pushed Modesty through the air. "Sorceress?" Khannie looked back over her shoulder. "Feel free to grab hold if you need a ride." A little sweat had broken out over Pinxie's forehead. "Thank you, but I—" She jerked forward, then stalled. Pinkie wrapped a hoof in Khannie's mane, leaned herself way, way back, stretched the other hoof toward Pinxie. For an instant, the stubborn look on Pinxie's face made her think she wasn't gonna take hold, but the way her eyes went wide and panicky as the bubble began leaving her behind quickly decided things; lunging, she wrapped her hoofs around Pinkie's. "Thank you," she said again, her voice about as quiet as Pinkie had ever heard it. They drifted over the heads of the partygoers, then, the silence making Pinkie feel like she was looking at pictures or watching a buncha ghosts or something. "Can they see us?" she asked. Another sniff from Pinxie. "Should they be bothered to glance up from their self-indulgent and frenetic hedonism, they would experience the joy of beholding the true artistry that flows from the great and powerful Pinxie, yes. But I feel certain that won't be a problem." Even the pegasi darting past just smiled and waved, but that was fine with Pinkie since it gave her a chance to smile and wave at them. There were more and more pegasi each passing second, though, the party raging pretty thoroughly all around, and looking ahead to the wall of the cave, the spots getting pinker and pinker the closer they got to the bandstand packed with Pinkies and Pies wailing away—not that she could hear them, of course—Pinkie realized something else, the twitch that rattled through her telling it as plain as vanilla ice cream on peach cobbler. "It's right there." She aimed a hoof at the little sliver of rocky floor between the front of the bandstand and the first scrum of dancing ponies, at the one little mirror spot seven or eight times pinker than any other spot in the whole cave, Pinkie was willing to bet, sitting smack-dab in the middle of that clear space. "Primey's got Thagoras's mirror right where she can see it all the time." Which was when Primey's voice sliced through the silence—"There you are, Pinkie Pie!"—Modesty gasping as her bubble burst, raucous music and laughter flooding over them. The big pink winged unicorn herself came sailing by, banked around, and settled into a hover there in front of them all. "And all your new little friends as well!" She cocked her head, her smile as weird and jagged as something reflected in a cracked mirror. "Come at last to join the party, have we?" "You bet!" Pinkie crowed, hopping up and down on Khannie's back some more. "In fact, we wanna be next up on the stage!" She looked back at the two unicorns. "Don't we, girls?" Without even the tiniest pause, Modesty slid right in as smooth as if they'd practiced it. "I'll say! 'Cause we've got right here, your Nibs, not just a couple terrific song-and-dance ponies—" She waved her front hoofs at Khannie, Plinky, and Pinkie, Pinkie giving as big a grin as she could since she was pretty sure Khannie and Plinky wouldn't be smiling at all. "But also a showmare par excellence—one might even go so far as to say the showmare of showmares—the great and powerful Pinxie!" She spun around to wave at Pinxie, and Pinkie couldn't stop a cheer when lightning flashed, thunder roared, and Pinxie seemed to appear from within a cloud of smoke, her arms folded, an expression on her face like she owned the whole world. "Gracious!" Primey put a hoof to her chest. "You certainly are one of mine, aren't you?" Pinxie's long straight mane and her cape billowed out behind her. "Pinxie is all things to all ponies!" she announced. "A mystery wrapped in a conundrum veiled in the mists and shadows of ages!" She did something to her voice when she said it, something that made the words ring clear through the hubbub of the party, made them cut like little silver knives right into Pinkie's ear, and the way ev'rypony seemed to suck in a breath and look around, Pinkie was pretty sure Pinxie had cut into their ears, too. Primey's smile got a little more real—though the itchiness of Pinkie's twitches made her think Primey might almost be too far gone into whatever she had planned for her whole 'destroying the world' thing to ever really smile again—and the big mare reared back, her wings spread, her horn dazzling. "And so it shall be!" she declared, her voice even sharper than Pinxie's had been. She whirled in place and faced out over the whole huge gathering, ponies covering the floor of the cave literally as far as Pinkie could see. "All my Pinkies and all my Pies!" Primey's voice blasted like a whole barrel full of trumpets, and every other sound ev'rywhere in the place stopped. "Prepare to be astounded, edified, and amazed at the prestidigitational exploits of your sister, the great and powerful Pinxie!" "Grand entrance, right?" Modesty asked so much more quietly, Pinkie almost mistook it for a rustle of a passing breeze. "All eyes on you, Pinxie, and we'll do the rest." The barest nod from Pinxie, and the unicorn shot forward to float beside Primey. "I thank you, your Ladyship, for the effusiveness of your introduction and your welcome!" She made the absolute most extravagant bow Pinkie had ever seen, so full of hoof flourishes and hat waves and bended knees that Pinkie might almost have thought that Pinxie was making a joke out of it. Primey didn't seem to notice, though, nodding like she wasn't just impressed but was actually expecting something as over-the-top as that. Pinxie turned away with a roll of her eyes that sent a ripple of laughter through the crowd and drifted further toward the ceiling. "I needn't tell you all," Pinxie went on, "how marvelous it is to be surrounded by a veritable plethora of my most ardent admirers—I refer to myself, of course." More laughter, Pinxie's horn flaring to fill the air above the cavern floor with multiple glowing copies of her own face. "But of course the great and powerful Pinxie has had many an adventure before audiences not nearly so lovely and refined. For instance..." She started into a story, illustrating it with scenes sketched in light around her, but Pinkie suddenly found the show getting further away. Blinking, she looked down and around and saw that Khannie was slowly settling toward the ground, Modesty dropping just a little faster to land on the edge of the stage, all the musicians standing with their heads craned upward, the sparkles of Pinxie's magic reflecting in their wide and smiling eyes. "Pssst!" Pinkie heard Modesty hiss. "Sorry, folks, but we're gonna need the stage for the last part of Pinxie's show." Khannie landed with just enough of a thump, Pinkie noticed with a grin, to make the stage shake, her various twins—all of them smaller than Khannie, of course—swaying from the impact. "Kushlamacree!" a greenish earth pony with a trombone both in her hoofs and on her flanks said. "Sure, and that one's a crew of roadies all on her own!" She slid her horn into its case and scampered down the steps at the side of the stage. The other musicians followed quickly, joining the crowd all staring up at Pinxie's display, and Modesty sidled over. "Bit of a snag," she murmured. "The plan's for me to lift the stage and Khan to shove it forward enough so's when I set it down, it'll cover over the mirror spot that'll lead us to this Thagoras of yours, Pinkie Pie. Trouble is..." She aimed her snout at the five or so feet of silver spots covering the blue rock between the front of the stage and the crowd. "Didn't quite mark in my mind which spot exactly it is, did I?" "That one." Pinkie had hopped off Khannie's back, and she waved a hoof at the right spot. Not that it was glowing pink anymore, but— "I spied it with my little eye, and once I've done that, I could find it buried under half a foot of custard." Which made her lick her lips, the wonderful scents of the party food tugging at her. "You s'ppose we can grab, like, a bucket of chili-cheese fries and ice cream before we go? I'm almost totally starving!" Plinky stared at her, but Khannie gave a little smile. "After we save the multiverse, perhaps," the big pegasus said. Pinkie sighed. "It's always so hard being the hero!" "And then!" Pinxie's amplified voice was echoing all around the cave, and Pinkie looked up in time to see what looked like a giant volcano exploding, a glowing river of lava streaming toward where Pinxie floated with a couple or twelve magically-conjured foals. "With the pyroclastic flow racing toward Pinxie and the poor band of orphans, all hope truly seemed lost!" *** "Orphans?" Fluttershy asked, her eyes wide. "Volcano?" Spike asked, his eyes wider. A little snort of Twilight. "Oh, please," she muttered. Applejack gave one of her low chuckles. "Sounds like this Pinxie of yours had herself a pretty fair line of patter." "Yeah." Pinkie sighed. "I mean, I guess. 'Cause you know the other bad thing about having to be the hero?" *** She waved her hoofs at the others. "We're missing the whole show!" "Can't be helped." Modesty grinned. "Not when we're the closing act." She tapped the stage and suddenly became all business. "Now, Pinkie and Plinky, we'll need you down on the ground right by the spot. I lift the stage, Khan pushes it over you, and I set it back down. You then trigger the mirror and start the dance, but stop just before the last step, see? Once Pinxie's down here, you listen for the signal, do the last bit of the dance, and bam! We pop through slicker'n eggs through a hen." "Signal?" Plinky asked, still standing on the stage right next to Khannie, her eyes huge and focused on Modesty. "What signal exactly?" "No idea." Modesty's horn started glowing, and Pinkie's stomach yawed, the boards swaying under her. "We'll try to make it a big one, though, so pay attention, and off you go!" A quick scamper to the edge of the stage, and Pinkie jumped down, careful not to hit any of the silver spots hard enough to make them spring up into full mirrors. Plinky followed even more gingerly, ducking as the whole platform behind them drifted a little further up and started inching toward them. Pinkie settled onto her stomach beside the spot Pinxie's spell had marked out earlier, and Plinky squatted, too, the stage slipping over their heads and settling over them, the shining of the spots all strange and slippery in the close dark space like moonlight glimmering on water. *** "See?" Pinkie shook her head. "A whole big fancy light show and story going on, and I end up stuck under the stage!" "Still," Rarity said, reaching over to pat Pinkie's hoof, "it must've been terribly exciting, knowing that only you and your few friends stood in the way of some sort of fiendish plan or other." "Huh." Pinkie blinked at her. "Y'know, I hadn't thought about it like that." Dashie flapped a puff of air through her lips. "Yeah, yeah. Just 'cause you've saved the world three times now and the rest of us've only done it twice!" Which made Pinkie feel like doing a little bouncing. "Hey, yeah!" "And besides," Twilight added, "when you're part of a team, everypony's important." "You're darn tootin'!" Applejack gave the grass a stomp. "Even if'n you're the one stuck underneath waiting for ev'rypony else!" Beaming, Pinkie slid forward, wrapped all her friends in a hug. "You guys are the best, you know that? The very, very, very, very, very, very best!" Spike squirmed free. "Aw, c'mon! Less mushy stuff and more volcanoes!" Pinkie did a backflip out of the hug and landed in her place under the tree again. "Your wish is my command!" *** Even though it was pretty much totally muffled by the wooden planks a few inches overhead, Pinxie's show still sounded pretty exciting, explosions and big swooshing sounds going on around the rise and fall of Pinxie's voice. Pinkie could hear whistles and cheers from the crowd, ev'rypony really getting into it, and she just hoped that meant Primey was, too. "Ummm," Plinky's voice asked, and Pinkie looked back down, the silver spatter and splash of the mirror spots' light and shadow dancing over Plinky's concerned face in the cramped area under the stage. "Which one is it again?" Pinkie looked around, found the little knob of rock that looked like Dashie's left ear that time she'd slammed into the side of the hill while working on one of her fancier moves, followed the curve of it over toward— "This one." She set her hoof gently on top of the spot. "S'ppose we oughtta get started?" "Wait." Plinky glanced around. "Can you—? I mean, you haven't mentioned it, so I don't know, but..." She took a breath, let it out with a whoosh. "Every time I've been in this cave, I...I've kind of heard them, y'know? Kind of heard the way all these spots sing and hum and vibrate together, and..." She blushed. "I guess you don't?" "No, I don't!" Pinkie scooted forward. "What's it like?? Is it music?? Or is it just buzzing like bees??" "It—" Plinky's ears twitched, her mane poofing up just a bit. "It's like the wind chimes in Lady Verity's garden: not organized like regular music, but really, really beautiful." Pinkie twitched her own ears, tried to stretch them far enough so she could hear anything like what Plinky was talking about, but all she heard was another explosion from Pinxie's show. "Well, I'm not getting it here," she said. "But I'll bet it's pretty neat!" "Oh. Yes. It...it is." Plinky squirmed, looked sideways, squirmed again. "But, see, I...I noticed that the little mirror we went through into Khan's world and the big mirror we went through into Modesty's world, they...they had different tones, kind of, like the big one was deeper than the little one if...if that makes any sense." "Well, sure." Pinkie brushed a hoof against her chest. "I've played enough banjoes to know the thick strings at the top make the low notes and the thin strings at the bottom make the high ones." "Exactly!" Her mane poofing up even more, Plinky reached out, touched her hoof to Pinkie's where it rested over Thagoras's mirror spot. "And that spot? It...it sounds even deeper than Modesty's..." A twitch shook Pinkie's spine. "Then Thagoras's mirror—" She looked up, the boards of the stage so close, Pinkie felt them brush the tippy-tops of her hair. The boards shook then, a thump from center stage behind Pinkie and to her left, Pinxie's voice suddenly louder and more understandable: "The final obstacle, then, sprang from the watery depths to block Pinxie and the orphans from the safety of the far shore: a wall of ice at least thirty stories tall!" Which was all Pinkie needed to hear. "Get ready to jump!" she told Plinky, and she stomped with all her strength on the little glowing spot. Her first thought had been to grab the top of the mirror so she could ride it up onto the stage, but some hard twitches in her shoulders pulled her front hoofs back just as a slab of silver fire burst from the rock, the thing not thirty stories tall, no, but plenty big enough and moving plenty fast enough to shatter the wooden slats above her with just as much of a crunching, crashing, smashing blast as any wall of ice could've done, the light of the party lanterns flooding in through the jagged hole now gaping across the stage, the mirror towering up ten or twelve feet through it. A gasp from Plinky told Pinkie her friend was OK, so she spun, grabbed the edge of the hole, hauled herself out to see Pinxie floating above her, sweat dripping from the straight edge of the unicorn's mane where it jutted out beneath her hat, her front hoofs spread to conjure a giant wall of ice, the image of it sitting very nicely between the mirror and the ponies in the audience. Modesty shot a wide-eyed glance sideways, the pale rosy fire of her magic, Pinkie could now see, weaving a support lattice holding Pinxie up, but Pinkie only had eyes for Khannie, just turning her head from where she stood blocking the steps leading onto the stage. "Khannie!" Pinkie waved her arms frantically. "Alley-oop me! Alley-oop me!" And she leaped straight toward the big pegasus. Khannie spread her wings, swooped to grab Pinkie out of the air, and hurled her toward the top of the mirror, Pinkie jabbing out to hit the edges in the proper pattern, Pinxie all the while exclaiming: "But were we discouraged?? No! For was not Pinxie one of the Pinkie?? Were we not one of the Pie?? Would we not conquer any foe, overcome any odds, triumph over any adversity to win the day for the good, the true, and the virtuous??" Sailing from Khannie's hoofs, striking the mirror and dropping back before sailing up again, Pinkie could hear the audience cheering, and as she gave the final poke, saw the mirror go completely misty, turned to give the unicorns the hoofs up, she couldn't help cheering herself. "Indeed we would!" Pinxie shouted. "And plunging headlong into the wall of ice, we expended our last iota of power, our last jot of stamina, our last joule of wherewithal, and tore a path to freedom for ourselves and our charges!" Leaping from the scaffold Modesty had formed for her, Pinxie vanished into the mirror, Modesty not far behind, Khannie sweeping Pinkie into her arms and leaping through, a little beige flash below them telling Pinkie that Plinky had followed. *** "Yes!" Spike and Dashie both crowed, Dashie spinning, Spike holding up his front claws, the two of them 'high-fiving' while the others looked on with grins. All except Fluttershy, of course, her hoofs in front of her mouth, her sides heaving like she'd just flown all the way down from Canterlot. "Oh, Pinkie!" she gasped. "I thought they'd catch you for sure!" Pinkie held up a hoof. "Well, we weren't outta the woods yet." *** Whiteness ev'rywhere, Pinkie couldn't manage to focus on anything—until two swooshes of color dropped right on top of her, Khannie whooshing out a breath and gravity going haywire as they tumbled from the impact. "Look out!" Modesty shouted from somewhere near Pinkie's right ear, and she hit the ground then with a squish and a squeak, the squish coming from the thick, white plush carpeting and the squeak from Plinky. Around about Pinkie's left ear came a groan and Pinxie's voice, rougher than before: "After that performance, we'd better save the world. Because I have got to take that story on the road!" Pinkie struggled to untangle herself from Plinky's feet and Khannie's wings, sat up, brushed the tail of Pinxie's cloak from her eyes, and saw a very big room, the whole wall behind them nothing but mirror while the other walls and the ceiling were all painted the same shade of white as the carpet. In the middle of the room, maybe five yards away, sat a ruby-red overstuffed lounging sofa, and lounging on it, raising her exquisite head, deep purple locks tumbling along her pure-white neck and shoulders, the most beautiful earth pony Pinkie had ever seen blinked languidly back at her. "Thagoras!" the pony called, her voice even more musical than Plinky's. "When you're finished fixing the sink, there's something gone wrong with my mirror!"