//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 - Shattered, or - Cerebus Syndrome // Story: Adventurers in Equestria // by MarcusFirehaven //------------------------------// [Canterlot... again] Daemon was now experimenting with his magical artifacts. He wanted to see how they worked in Equestria. So far, he has noticed that there was no limit on flying, he could fly as long as he had energy, his enchanted star circle boomerangs that stack up to five now homed in on targets slightly, his chainsaw requires slime gel or other fuel to power it, but the slime gel was best, enemies spawned with a statue automatically know how to strafe and all that, and his spell book can actually be read. He had just removed his bed to see how the Magic Mirror has been affected. He raised the mirror, it began to sparkle, then it shattered. "OW!" Daemon shouted. "You okay?" A voice that is oddly familiar said. "Yeah, I-" Daemon saw who asked that, and it was... himself wearing blue adamantine armor? "BEST DAY EVER!" He looked around and saw there was a green him and an orange him as well. "There is only one thing to do." Original Daemon said. "Indeed." The others said as a psychotic smirk appeared across all of their faces. ... "CHARGE!!!" They all shouted as they started throwing glowsticks everywhere. Everywhere, there was glowsticks. Not a single square inch of the day court was uncovered. It was brighter than the sun in there, and all of the Daemons were laughing their butts off. "I really don't want to ask." Celestia said. "Magic mirror did this since I removed my- or is it our- bed before using it." Red Daemon said as he wiped a tear from his eye. "I have been checking out how the artifacts differ between universes, such as actually being able to open these magic books, and the chainsaw needs fuel. This happened." "I love this! I have never been so excited in my life!" Orange Daemon said. "Though technically my entire life is five minutes, tops..." His face didn't go all contemplative on how little time he has existed, he just said tops long. "Hey, lets make the ultimate chainsaw sword!" Green Daemon said. "Nah, that would be more awesome, but impractical since we have a better chance of harming ourselves in this environment as opposed to our two dimensional world. A rocket propelled hammer, though..." Blue Daemon suggested. "What about fuel?" Orange Daemon asked, which caused the others to think about it. "My own whimsy is ruined by myself!" Red Daemon exclaimed. "This is just as awesome and a lot less awesome as I thought it would be at the same time!" They all decided to mess with the Elements of Harmony (well, the bearers of them, anyways). [Ponyville, five minutes later... They work fast!] "Okay me's," Red Daemon said to the group of himself, "from what I know, Twilight lives in the library. Since we all just wasted our lightsticks on Celestia's day court, except for the normal ones, which we agreed go to the bakery for some reason, we should just throw all of those books we found in the dungeon trying to find that water tome, which we failed at." "We know the plan, we all think the same!" Blue Daemon said. "The only differentiation would have to be from minor changes in view and experience in the events that take place. Let's go!" They walked to the library, and readied their books. "CHARGE!" They yelled as they ran in and started throwing books everywhere, but then they saw Spike. "HOLY MOLY A DRAGON!" They all yelled as they ran up to the young dragon. "Are these those four adventurers you were talking about?" Spike asked Twilight, who was just charging up a spell. The four Daemons realized it was probably going to be used on them, and promptly sought cover as Twilight shot it at them. "Twi! What are you doing!?" Red Daemon shouted to the apparently bonkers unicorn. "We already faced too many Pinkie Pies once because of the mirror pool, I do not want to face that kind of thing again!" Twilight shouted to the group. "What's the mirror pool?" The four Daemons asked in unison. "Wait, what?" Twilight asked as she un-charged her spell. "How did you clone yourself if you haven't been to the mirror pool?" "Magic mirror experiment, and your response to extra Pinkie Pies was to kill them!?" Daemon shouted at the (now confirmed to be crazy in their minds) unicorn. "No! They were made of magic, and so they were just sent back into the pool!" Twilight explained, "and they were so annoying-" "I annoy my friends constantly, they don't try to kill me!" Red Daemon yelled at Twilight. Daemons clones looked at eachother with concern. "On would assume that since they could annoy, they were effectively alive beings, which you just said you effectively erased from being, and this does not ride on your conscience at all?! What measure is a clone! Maybe they didn't have Pinkie's memories? They wouldn't know to not annoy others in that case! My clones have my memories, they at least acknowledge that I am the original me! Is that why you removed the clones? because they claimed to all be the real Pinkie? That makes some sense, but you could have found a way that didn't involve killing them!" Twilight had her mouth wide open, Daemon's clones were leaving, clearly frightened, as opposed to Real Daemon's anger. "I... never thought about it that way..." Twilight said. "I got all of my information from this book." she said as she levitated the book of legends that are true that was used in the episode. Daemon scanned the table of contents for the information on the mirror pool, then looked up the information mentioned, then saw the spell... "WHAT IN THE HELL THAT I HAVE BEEN TO MANY TIMES IS THIS!" He shouted. "You could have lost the real Pinkie?! What did you do to make sure she was the real her?" Twilight explained what happened. Daemon's jaw dropped. His clones heard this, and went to Sugarcube Corner to drown their newfound information in sugary confections, and maybe the building itself if it is made out of confectionry like it looks, and met Pinkie along the way. "H-Hi Pinks." Blue Daemon said to Pinkie Pie. "Woah! There is three of you? Cool!" Pinkie said. "Actually, we are clones..." Orange said to her. "We heard what happened with the clone incident... we kind of want to know if you are okay, that kind of thing is traumatic..." Green Daemon said to the party pony. Pinkie's mane straightened slightly at the mention of clones. "I... don't want to talk about it..." "We should probably talk about it, talking usually helps, okay Pinks?" Blue told her. [Library] Twilight had explained everything that went on when Pinkie cloned herself. "I... don't think I can blame you for your actions, since what you know is very little, and you had no clue... We should probably talk to Pinks- Pinkie Pie, though..." Daemon told the purple unicorn. "Yeah, that kind of thing... it was pretty much psychological torture by any other name..." Twilight said as they left the library to find Pinkie Pie.