//------------------------------//
// Ponyville 
// Story: Double Residency 
// by marmalado 
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There were few ponies who could match the exuberance and cheer of Pinkie Pie.

Ever since that fate-laden day, when the Sonic Rainboom had washed over her and her family's rock farm, sending her mane and tail in a tizzy and letting her experience an emotion not ever felt before, she had made it her life's mission to cheer other ponies up through any means possible. Even a simple game of hide-and-seek meant a lot to a pony who was having a crummy day, no matter how old they were.

But one of the most frequent, tried-and-true methods she went back to were parties.

Specifically, the kind of parties that made ponies happy from the moment they walked in to the moment their hooves stepped free of the doorway.

Pinkie liked parties because they weren't just a source of happiness, they were so flexible. Parties came in all sorts of shapes and forms, had all sorts of guests, and held all sorts of tones. A birthday party, for example, could be happy and joyful, but she had come across at least one foal who was in their goth phase and wanted something dark and brooding. The black had taken forever to get out of her hair that day, one of the cons of not turning to Rarity and instead declaring she could dye her hair herself. But the phenomenal party made the struggle worth it.

On top of that, there was no end to how a party could be decorated. If a pony wanted thousands of bits worth of decorations around their house, fine. If they wanted only a few balloons and a streamer or two, fine. Personally, Pinkie preferred going all out, but she too was flexible.

And the location...it could be anywhere. A park, the interior of a well-lit mansion, even a storefront. Pinkie believed the wilder the better.

Of course, life wasn't that idyllic. Nopony could live a life full of pure goodness without encountering something bad.

But it just so happened that the "bad" consisted of villains crawling out of the woodworks. Villains who didn't particularly like parties, or smiles, or even happiness. Villains that Pinkie certainly didn't feel sorry for.

As an Element Bearer, she had a duty to protect Equestria from harm, to protect it so that ponies could continue smiling and having parties. And together with her friends, she did it. She succeeded every time, even when the chips were down. The villains got blasted away or destroyed, just as they deserved. After all, somepony who didn't want to smile was an enemy of hers.

That was why she held a saying close to her heart: "once a villain, always a villain".

Many failed in understanding what power happiness had. It was infectious. If somepony was having a grumpy day, Pinkie would make sure they would smile by the time their head hit the pillow that night. The same held true for villains -- many had that evil "mwahaha, I'm going to defeat you and all your friends and all of Equestria" smile, and that was what ticked her off. That wasn't the smile she was looking for. She wanted a smile of pure happiness.

Take, for example, Tropical Cyclone. A Pegasus pony who had the power to conjure natural disasters whenever she was angry using a magical artifact known simply as the Weather-or-Not Necklace. Not even Rainbow Dash could stand up to her torrential torment of thunderstorms, nor could Twilight or Rarity dispel the nasty tornadoes and hurricanes that threatened to sweep them off of their hooves. It had taken some serious Element work to get her to calm down, but its light was not enough to dispel the darkness that sat in her heart. Even when Pinkie tried to befriend her, she had coldly whacked her hoof away with a wing, spoke swears that would have gotten Pinkie a spanking from her parents, and flew off into the sky towards the unknown. When Pinkie returned home that day, exhaustion and sadness washed over her. She felt a sense of defeat that made her hole herself up in her room and think.

Among one of those thoughts, out of many, was the possibility of going to every world and spreading happiness. After all, if Twilight had gone to the human world, what was stopping Pinkie from going to a different world to spread her mission?

She knew parties were her career calling. She knew spreading happiness and joy was her destiny calling. It was in her cutie mark and everything. But she couldn't just stop at Equestria. She couldn't just stop at Equus. She had to go beyond her world, to other worlds that could benefit from a touch of her wisdom and mentality. She was already making frequent visits to the human world, working together with her human counterpart to spread the cheer. What was one more for the road?

The problem was, she didn't exactly know how to get to any other worlds without consulting Twilight. And she already knew what Twilight would say if she asked her. Long lectures about how traveling to other worlds was dangerous if Pinkie didn't know what she was doing, how she could get trapped in a world she went to if something went wrong, how some worlds weren't as fond of equines as others. The same boring technobabble that Pinkie didn't care to listen to because she already had experience with going to another world and it wasn't as disastrous as what Twilight was describing, especially since the alicorn had no idea Pinkie was even going to the human world. (The two Pinkies resolved to keep their meetups a secret from their respective friend groups. They hated keeping secrets, but felt this was one crafted out of necessity that wouldn't nag at them too much.)

So when Pinkie managed to get a mysterious portal opened up to a mysterious world by way of dropping a bowl of cupcake batter on the floor, of course she was right on board with being the first (and only) pony to go through. It was, to put it simply, a happy accident, since putting in two cups each of rainbows and unicorn magic was only meant to make the cupcakes taste sweeter and the recipe certainly didn't include a "do not drop, otherwise portal will appear" warning.

But it didn't matter how she made the portal. She could worry about the logistics behind that later. Right now, she was standing in a whole new world. And somehow, some way, even though she had never been here before, she felt like she was home. She felt a renewed sense of purpose. Like a new avenue had been opened up for her dream, because...well, it had.

It was perfect.

Or, well...maybe not so perfect.