//------------------------------// // A Mirror Image. // Story: Live, Die, Repeat // by Hidden_Night //------------------------------// That source of magic should be here. Oh it’s just Apple Bloom, covered in Cutie Marks. I’m just gonna…ignore that. “Sorry Apple Bloom, Twilight is in the basement just go ask her for help!” I did not have any solution to that, what the fuck does a Cutie Mark even do? “Salut, où vas-tu? Reviens!” “No time! I’m going!” Yeah, I’m just gonna…go. Applejack was there and she was disappointed of the guy. Twilight has expressed she had maybe a tiny little itty bitty crush on him, just a maybe. She wondered what Twi saw in him, this is probably not his finest moment so she’ll give him a pass. Quickly running outside I take a deep breath, in case you were wondering, I left because Talent Imbuing magic is really annoying to get absorbed, you get a skill in something you don’t need and have the impulse to just do that skill. It’s how they get you to learn the skill, since it’s also a little bit of hypnosis magic. Taking a breath, I need to get a little bit away from Applebloom. She spoke french, she’s dead to me now. How dare she! Though to be fair, it wasn’t her fault, it’s the fault of whatever Talent Magic has taken ahold of her, and if I know anything, then the true culprit is in the forest! I shall find them, I shall capture them, and no one shall never have talent again. I’m not getting applause, I’m sad now. With my roaring energy I run towards the forest. If anything it should be somewhere. No idea where I’m going, but a bird is chirping at me. Turning my head to face the chirps I see Mr. Jay. “No time friend! I’m going deep into the forest today! I shall find this talent giving item and put a stop to it!” ‘Hey, Listen to me! The Zebra isn’t in her hut right now! She’s buying tea for a bit!’ The bird keep chirping at me, I’m not going to activate the talk to animals spell, because I don’t want to. “Cool, cool. See ya!” I turn to sprint into the forest. Deciding the dank depths are more favorable today. I’ll just avoid the path and hop into this pile of mud! Those blue flowers also look kinda spooky, they’re colored like they’re poisonous, so I’ll just side step those! Why am I like this today? Running into the forest and deciding to avoid social interaction? Manic horse brain probably. I just felt like running I guess? Do horses just take off for no reason when they’re discontent with life? I don’t know. Yet I am here, hooves muddy, body sweaty, and heart racing. My breath has gotten ragged and heavy. Probably some water is needed. Hearing some growling behind me, I can only assume a beast can smell me. “Fuck it! We go into caves today!” I don’t know where I am still, it’s too dark to get a precise location of where I am, but I do see a hole. It’s slightly glowing with bioluminescent flowers, but I’ll take my chances in hoping it’s unoccupied. I jumped in, curling my body into a ball as I tumble downwards. As I roll down the hill, the twists and turns of the cave caused me to speed up, I felt like hurling due to how fast I ended up rolling. Yet when I got to flat land I opened up my body and landed on my stomach. Groaning in pain I lift my head up. Looking out at the world around me, it’s wonderful actually. The glow of the plants perfectly light up the pool of water. The dark brambles line the walls line the floor and crawl up to the ceiling. This is quite peaceful, but I don’t know what this place is. Water is water, so I walked over and dipped my head inside, trying to take a sip, only to find that I can’t even get the liquid inside of my mouth, it avoids my mouth on purpose it feels. “Well. That’s pointless.” I sit down on the ground, looking at the pool. “I know right, what a rip off.” “Yep. Don’t I know it.” “Yep…” Turning my head, I see a green stallion with black hair and a question mark on his bum. He looks familiar, don’t I know him? “Hey. What are you doing here?” “Dunno. Was thirsty and heard monsters. You?” “Same actually. That’s pretty funny, how did I…” We pause. Staring at each other. Wait a second, that dude is familiar. It’s me! “WHAT THE FUCK?!” We yelled at the same time. “I…this…” My brain malfunctioned for a moment, shaking my head back straight we stare at each other. This is odd, a clone of myself but he isn’t evil, or a robot, or anything odd. I can’t detect a soul in him, so he’s not truly me, just a copy. My magic draining is being nullified as well, since we’re both passively absorbing each other at the same rate. “So…yeah.” We pause, trying to cope with this. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” He started up. “I hope so.” I replied. “On the count of three.” “One…” “Two…” “Three!” “WE SHOULD CLONE OURSELVES A LITTLE SISTER!” “DESTROY YOU TO RETURN TO NORMALCY!” “What.” “Pardon?” … This is going to be a long day, Twilight is probably busy with Cutie Mark Abomination Applebloom, so this is up to me to take myself out. … “So cloning a little sister? Using my DNA and this pool?” I look into the water, Anonymous the Second walked next to me and stared down with me. “Yep. I don’t know how we’re not absorbing the water here considering that we can just absorb stuff, but I’m willing to die for this cause. I ain’t got a soul so I can actually die!” “Wow…a miracle I can’t obtain.” At least they’re me, giving them death is a release they’ll actually have. Even if they just get deleted from the universe. “Right. You reincarnate. Whoops.” The Second lit his horn up and pulled out some paper. I didn’t store paper, so he probably just stole it from somewhere. “Let’s get to work.” The Second began to write down something on the parchment, it’ll make sense to me once I read it I hope. It is me writing it. He might have obtained a slightly altered version of me where he likes experimenting a bit too much, I wonder if that’s a side effect from my mood going into the pool. “I wonder…” I look at the pool, it was time to get to work after all. With a smile I jump in. “Roll call!” I call out to my horde of Anonymous Horses. “Right!” All of me’s lined up, ready to get to business. “Our goal! Figure out how cloning magic works, then learn it, then use it ourselves!” It’s probably already been studied, but the pool is painless and creates perfect clones. Why not abuse the power while I can? “And a little sister!” The Second in Command is Anonymous The Second. “That’s weird.” “Why is the second in command him again?” “Why was I born?” “Anonymous the Depressed! Keep your head up! You can die when you’re done!” I had to call out, you know, maybe thinking about sad stuff while jumping in the pool wasn’t a great idea. It probably is, it leaves the others knowing they’ll die once they served their use. It’s like Shadow Clones! “Yay…” “Break off team!” I announce. It was quite easy to delegate roles. Three teams of ten Anonymous Ponies were assigned. Team One was Observation, we take turns jumping into the pool, killing off the clone, then record any magic detected. Team Two was Replication, they tried to copy the magic data recorded by the Pool Observation team. Team Three was the Vanquishers, they kill off any spare clones made by the pool, or any failed replicated clones created by Team Two. Leading this charge was me, I dubbed myself l Anonymous the First, I was there to be the catalyst of the clone process. I jump into the pool and take a clone out, Team One records data, and Team Three eliminates the extra clone. Every good leader needed a spokes person, pony, so we have Anonymous the Second. He records failed spells from Team 2 in hoping to get a breakthrough. So far, we are a well oiled machine. Still I wonder how Twilight is doing, I kinda miss her. I should run experiments with her sometime. This is nice, but it’s still just me. Huh… Anyway! We got clones to make and kill! I can come home to Twilight with a brand new spell just for her when I’m done!