My Little Clony

by therealfeedback

Act IV, Chapter II

“So then it really is a game to you.” I stared into the Game Master’s eyes, a burning rage in my gaze.

“Your title for me was unwittingly apt.” Her own eyes met mine, equaling my rage with her playful condescension. “It’s not so bad,” she started. “You don’t have to worry about being killed through incident or random murder or anything, and you get to do what you want.”

“…Wait, what?” the rage disappeared from my eyes in an instant, replaced with genuine confusion. “…You’re not going to kill me? …You’re going to let me work towards uncovering you? …Why?”

“Because, what fun is a game without a little risk?”

“So we’ll see you again in a week?” Derpy nodded, a grin across her face. The three were standing at the door of a modest-looking house, with the two fillies inside, Amethyst star holding one cake box, and Derpy standing outside with the other. “Alright then. Goodnight mom.” As she finished, Dinky ran forward, jumping onto Derpy.

“Hurry home, mommy!” she said. Amethyst pulled the little foal off of her mother, setting her on the ground next to her.

“Easy, Dinky, mommy has work to do.” The tiny unicorn nodded, the smile still on her face, albeit looking somewhat dejected now.

“We love you mommy, and we want you back really really really soon!” she piped back up. With one last smile and nod, Derpy turned around, heading back to Caesar’s house.

“Alright, you’re a lot bigger than me, so I figure you should be fine with two.” Promontory stared at the two small pills and the glass of water next to them thoughtfully, or at least as thoughtfully as one could tired.

“Yer’ sure it’s alright for me to borrow these?” he asked.

“I don’t even use a full bottle every year. I can stand to give two away.” Trixie replied. “And don’t use ‘borrow’ for this – I’m not exactly keen on getting them back.” The comment pulled a chuckle from Promontory.

“Much obliged, Miss Trixie.” At that, he gulped down the sleeping pills before following them with the water.

“I’m…sorry.” She whispered.

“Hunh?” Promontory asked, not having heard.

“I’m…I’m sorry about what I said about you in Appleloosa, about being all muscle, no mind. I’ve…a while back a pony at one of my shows ended up making me look like an arrogant jerk, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I’ve been trying to be…nicer.”

“Ya’ don’t really seem like it with Caesar and the others.” Promontory replied.

“Yeah, well, Caesar I’ve known for a while. I’m comfortable enough around him to know he knows better. The others…I don’t want to seem soft. I learned a while back that if you want anything, you have to put on a tough face.”

“Yet here ya’ are, confidin’ in an idiot about all this.”

I-I just-“ Trixie stammered, her blue coat turning red around her face. “You’re the only one I felt bad about talking to like that, so you’re the only one I felt like apologizing too!”

“Ah’m sorry Miss Trixie, ah didn’t think—“

“Damn right you didn’t think!” She cut off. “get out already. The nerve of some ponies, you help them out, then apologize to them, and they try to make you feel bad…” There was a moment of silence, before Promontory nodded.

“Alright, ah’m sorry. Still don’t see what ah did that was so horrible, but ah’ll take yer word for it fer’ now. Ah’m gonna head back to mah room ‘fore these things kick in, if ya’ want ta’ talk again, just let me know.” At that, he turned around, walking out the door. A few moments later, an angry-looking Vinyl Scratch walked up to the doorframe, her eyes red and her face tired.

“Will you shut up with the yelling?!” she demanded. “Some of us are trying to sleep! …Also, let me know if you see The Doctor, I’ve been needing to ask him something. He never seems to be around…” With that, she slammed the door, before walking away, leaving Trixie to sit alone on her bed.

“So then…you’ve lost me.” I said simply. “You’re…here to tell me that you...want me to carry on investigating you? Even though you kill ponies for doing that?”

“Yes.” The Game Master replied.

“Because…it’s fun?”

“Yes.” She said again.

“I…don’t follow.”

“That’s because you’re very…what’s the word…young is too innocent…short-lived, I suppose would work. It gets boring being live for as long as I have – I’ve run this world for thousands of years, just having everything go as neatly as planned is, well, boring. Again, you’re too short-lived to understand.”

“You, and others like you, have been a pleasant way of mixing things up. Seeing what you do, how far you go, who you bring, how they react, comparing you to the last one who tried, things like that. You’re my little fun excursion – my ‘game’ if you will, which is why I still love the name you gave me.”

“So then why tell me all this?” I asked. “You’re invalidating the game.”

“One part of it, yes.” She answered. “There’s still your friends. I can still watch what they do, and it’ll still be valid. I’ll just choose a path one of the others went on for you.”

“So you want me to join in what you do? In guiding ponies how you want them to?”

“I guess you could say that. I prefer to think of it as suggesting how to do your job, with strong incentives in a certain direction.”

“Go to hell, and take your offer with you.” I replied flatly. “I’d rather you replace us all with copies now than let us entertain you for a few weeks, just to be replaced then.” To my surprise, my words drew a laugh.

“You want to stay the course. I like that. But I’m not going to replace you. A life of agony is worse punishment than death, don’t you think? I’d kill them. Every single one of your little friends, and make you watch, unable to do anything.” Every single word sent dread through my body. It only got worse from there though. “Then I’d kill their families. Or maybe let them live with someone they love gone, not knowing why. I’m not sure which one would torture you more. Speaking of torture, maybe I wouldn’t make you even watch in-person, but would take you away, make it so you could’ve done something, but couldn’t. And all the while I’ll give you a little ‘lesson’ of your own. We could have a lot of fun too, with all the knowledge I’ve gathered on ‘playing’ with you little things over the years – did you know that your heart hasn’t been beating this whole time? I’ve been keeping the blood in your body pumping via magic. Yes, I think I like the second one better.”

“Then I’d destroy all the evidence left that you’d dug up. Maybe drop you back into society, or maybe alert the authorities of what you’ve been up to with an anonymous tip, then pin the deaths on you so everything is capped off with life imprisonment…yes, I do like how this is going. You’d be left with all this on your mind, nobody who would believe you, and a lifetime to think about how your crusade went wrong.”

“See what I’m getting at? You have a choice, but the consequences…well, they’ll be fun for one of us, at least.”

“You…” I muttered. Once again, I was at a loss for words. “You…you’re…you’re an evil, heartless bitch, you know that?” again, the comments drew laughter.

“I’m well-aware. And I love it.”

“Anyway, you now know what I came to tell you. Keep going on the path you had started on before I arrived, and we won’t have any problems. I’ll contact you again if you do anything wrong, give you a chance to ‘atone’ before doing…well, we already discussed it, and I look forward to it too much to be brief about it.” With that, there was a fog, and when it cleared, she had left. I could finally think about what had been said, alone.

Not for as long as I had hoped though.

“And one more thing.” A voice whispered into my ear. I spun my head to see who was behind me, before being grabbed at the neck. “Lets get something clear. If you want them to live, then you’re going to watch your tongue, because right now you’re my toy, and toys that call their owner a bitch get replaced. Are we clear?”

“Y-yes…” I managed through clenched teeth.

“Yes who?” she demanded.

“Yes…you evil bitch.”

“Wrong answer.” At that, she pulled at my neck harder, a sharp pain and a cracking sound running through my body. I was pretty sure she had just broken my neck, but was keeping me alive with magic, similar to the blood. As I proceeded to learn, a broken neck is pretty painful if you live through it.

“Yes princess!” I shouted through the pain. Even through closed eyelids, I could see a grin on her face.

“Good.” She replied. At once, I felt her let go of my neck, and a strange, mending feeling run through it, the pain disappearing. It seemed she was equally capable of repairing necks as breaking them.

“If your suffering for breaking our little deal is a meal, that was licking the spoon. The worst is very far off.” At that, a cloud of smoke appeared once more. This time, she was gone, and I was left alone, neck repaired and heart once more beating frantically.

“That was…holy…that…wow.” My mind wasn’t quite back in working order yet, as thoughts were speeding through faster than ever. One thing was clear though – I needed to think of something, and I was treading on thin ice. I shook my head as if to clear it of the mixed-up thoughts. After a moment, I reached over to a small messaging device. A moment later, an identical device rang in Vinyl’s room.

“Mmmph…what is it?” she asked, clearly trying to get to sleep, her voice muffled by a pillow.

“Vinyl, it’s Caesar.” I said.

“Dammit, first Trixie, now you…can’t I just sleep?”

“What? No, Vinyl – look, just…just gather everyone outside my office, alright? I need to discuss something with the team.”

“Fine…fine…I haven’t seen Doc in a while, can he…not be there?”

“Yeah, sure, fine.” I replied. I honestly had forgotten the specifics of the members of the team, even though they were my friends. I was still lost trying to process what had happened.

“So…why did you call us all here? …And out of bed?” Vinyl asked, one of her forelegs wrapped around a small plush toy. Four of the others were standing before me, in the hallway outside of my office. The walls were a lime green, with a hardwood floor that had a rug running down it. A single light mounted to the roof lit the dim hall. All were there outside of The Doctor, Who was absent. He always seemed to be doing something important. Seemed to like the phone booth down the street when he needed to make a call, too. Derpy had just gotten in, and had some sort of box over her back.

“I’ve made some…progress…on the latest samples we collected.” I replied. It wasn’t entirely a lie, I really had made some progress. It was just overshadowed by, well, everything falling to the ground.

“And?”

“The sheriff isn’t our Game Master.” There was a cumulative sigh from the others.

“You’re sure this is all real?” Trixie asked.

“Of course.” I replied. “Positive.”

“Because the evidence seems to point otherwise. Maybe we just saw similar-looking ponies, not these clones you think.” Vinyl added.

“Just…look, I have a good feeling about this next one, alright? Please just stick with me on this? If I’m wrong again, we can all pretend this never happened.” An uncomfortable quiet stuck in the air, before what seemed like a mix between shrugs and nods from the others.

“We’ve narrowed the list down to the princesses, and the heads of the School for Gifted Unicorns. I don’t have a plan to get at the former, but I do have one for the latter, so that’s where we’ll go.”

“And what is this plan exactly?” Trixie asked.

“Simple, really.” I replied.