Part 1C: The Fabulosity has been DOUBLED!
Having already found out that half the Element Bearers of Harmony were in fact fake all along, or at least they weren’t the original ponies, not everyone present acted surprised. Pinkie did her over exaggerated gasp, the formerly sleeping Rarity fainted upon seeing her twin, and Spike seemed unable to decide whether he should be over the moon with happiness, or just plain confounded, so he fainted too.
The others, however, just waited for Sweetie Belle to begin her tale, suspecting that there would a strong level of woe. The filly in question glanced around to see the reactions to everything.
“You know… I’m not sure I like how well some of you are taking this,” she explained.
Twilight sighed, “Sweetie Belle, yesterday we found out Pinkie Pie is actually robot built by the Cakes, who are from a desolate future. Then, after having to catch her so she can be repaired, Fluttershy reveals herself to have been a Changeling from a different and more desolate future. Last but not least, we had just finished listening to Rainbow Dash tell the story of how she was once a human from another world… We’re sorry for not all being absolutely shocked at there being two Raritys.”
Applejack commented, “But don’t worry sugarcube. We’ll listen to ya.”
“Um… I’d like to know why the other Rarity is still conscious,” Cliff wondered aloud. “I mean, she is still Rarity, right?”
The conscious Rarity was actually distracted by Vinyl Scratch. The disc jockey had remained perfectly still since even before the music went quiet for Rainbow Dash. It looked completely unnatural. She didn’t even fidget with Rarity staring strongly at her. Eventually, she poked ‘Vinyl’, and the cardboard cutout fell over. Rarity screamed and joined her twin in unconsciousness.
Cliff blinked, “Oh, well, I guess that solves that.”
“Whoopsie daisy,” Pinkie exclaimed, tending to the toppled DJ. “Forgot about that. Sorry guys, but I could only book Vinyl for so long. I didn’t want the party to end so soon.”
There was a short silence while Pinkie put Vinyl’s stuff away. Everypony looked between them selves, a couple of coughs being heard.
“ALL DONE!”
All heads returned to stare at Sweetie Belle.
“... Right… well… I, er… I’ll start with how I came to live in this time period...”
I was born, or rather created, in a horribly corrupt future. Mankind and Equestria were at war. I have no memories of how it looked, as I spent most of my life in captivity as a human experiment. I was artificially cloned from pony DNA in a laboratory. My purpose was to infiltrate Equestria for the humans and help bring them down from the inside. What I do know was given to me by my creators.
Equestria’s conflict with Nightmare Moon had not been going well. Fluttershy, being a female Changeling, managed to overthrow Chrysalis and become the new Queen, recruiting her kind join the fight. Not only that, but she managed to befriend Discord. One would think this was enough to fend off eternal night, but somehow, the enemy was always one step ahead.
In a last ditch effort to change the tides, Rainbow Dash managed to pull off another interdimensional Sonic Rainboom and contact humankind. A few years later, she returned with a whole new army. The humans had managed to hold open a stable portal between the worlds. The war finally began to come to an end.
During the final battle, the combined armies managed to reach Nightmare Moon’s throne room, but she was nowhere to be seen. All that was left was Luna crying over Celestia’s corpse. The Nightmare had left. From going so long without any nourishment, Celestia had died during her imprisoning. It was not the best victory, but at least day could return to Equestria.
Peace was short lived, however. Humankind started becoming reclusive, most returning to their own world. Those that remained were cut off from their own kind. Eventually, they came, and they were now hell bent on invading Equestria. The humans that had still been in Equestria originally fought alongside the Equestrians, but they were slowly killed or turned.
This new war went on for centuries. Most of the iconic heroes of the New Nocturne War had passed on. Applejack died during the Era of Peace Fluttershy was assassinated by one of her own, and Rainbow Dash was killed in the humans’ initial attack. For some reason, Twilight Sparkle was still alive. Somepony had donned the guise of Mare Do Well, though it was believed to be several ponies. Pinkie Pie was still around, but along with Discord, had gone into hiding. humans were so chaotic, Discord had no influence over them.
And so, the Humans and Equestrians were at a stalemate. The threat posed by the humans had united the entire world, but the enemy was an adaptive foe, learning from its mistakes. This is where I would come in. I-
Rainbow Dash interrupted, “What about Rarity?”
“I was getting to that.”
I am a clone of Rarity. Not a perfect one though, clearly. The human scientists didn’t want an exact replica, in case somepony were to recognise me. They didn’t know who they had cloned either. They just happened upon Rarity’s ancient remains.
You see, I found out later that she was the missing link. She had been crushed by a splitting rock when Rainbow Dash pulled off her first Sonic Rainboom. Without her, there was no Generosity.
Over the years, I was developed steadily, being trained to blend in with ponies. I had been bestowed with a greater intelligence than average, as well as a talent for singing so I could become popular and be accepted faster. Entertainment was important for morale. All that was left was the brainwashing procedure. Without it, I would ‘sympathise with the enemy’.
They were right to worry, as I already disliked my creators. They were wrong to think I could be kept contained. Using my genius, I broke out. Not only that, but I found and hacked the self destruct mechanism for the base. Escaping was harder than originally planned, and I got lost, stumbling across another lab. There were all sorts of devices, ancient looking yet clearly not pony made. From my knowledge of humankind, I knew these things were not of their making.
One such device looked like a sort of portable shelter, so I entered it and began pressing buttons. In a flash, I found myself still in the machine, but outside the machine was an Equestria untouched by war or man. As it turned out, I had accidentally operated a time machine.
Upon exiting the machine, it sparked and exploded. At the same time, a rainboom passed overhead, accompanied by a scream and a crunch. Such a rush of things happening all at once was disorientating, but I managed to force myself to investigate the scream. The sight that fell upon my eyes was a disturbing one. Before me stood a gem filled rock, split in half. One half lay on the ground, a white leg sticking out, twitching.
Applejack grimaced, while Twilight tried to keep herself from throwing up.
Sweetie Belle continued, “So that’s how I came to live here in Equestria. I soon discovered that the location was identical to where my DNA had been retrieved, deducing the poor pony was in fact my sister. I quickly got to work on a small cloning facility, and Rarity was reborn. The universe was adamant she remain dead, so Rarity #2 didn’t live long. I upgraded my facility to adapt to the situation. Over the years, through trial and error, I perfected the system.
“All memories are saved in real time, so when one clone dies, another is produced with all memories, except for the death. Admittedly, it’s not entirely perfect, because it was fooled by the Pinkie Pie incident yesterday. For the last few hours, there’s been two Raritys in Ponyville.”
AJ trotted over to the second Rarity and looked down at her, speaking grimly, “So does that mean y’all are gonna hafta put one of ‘em down?”
The filly genius nodded.
Fluttershy was on the verge of tears, stuttering, “C-can’t you j-just send her off to C-C-Canterlot or something?”
Nods turned to shakes.
“She would just die out there anyway,” Twilight said plainly. “The universe would continue trying to correct itself.”
“You know what I wonder?” Cliff asked rhetorically. “We’ve had four Element Bearers turn out to be fake, or at least not what we believed…” The mare looked between Applejack and Twilight Sparkle, continuing, “So what about you two, huh? Either of you secretly from the past?”
She chuckled at herself; the whole room laughed alongside her, some more sounding awkward.
Twilight, who was laughing the most, commented, “I don’t know about me, but Applejack bears the Element of Honesty. If anything about her wasn’t real, we would never have stopped Nightmare Moon. Isn’t that right AJ?”
AJ opened her mouth to speak but a loud thunk sound came from the front door. Everypony looked expectantly towards it. There was a loud beep and the door blew inwards, blasted to pieces. Everypony screamed. Sweetie Bell managed to dive out of the way of the shards. Dust and smoke filled the Library.
Amongst all the consequential coughing, Rainbow Dash managed to speak up, “Everypony OK?!”
Confirmations were shouted back. Then hoofsteps seemed to echo from the hole in the building. Too infrequent for four legs. Some of the dust and smoke cleared, revealing a mare stood steadily on her hind legs. She wore a thick black sweater bearing the her cutie mark. Not only that, but she carried two holstered revolvers on her front, and some form of assault rifle on her back. Of course, not everypony there knew what they were.
Befuddlement spread over the room as they recognised the cutie mark; a bunch of grapes and a strawberry. They all watched this new Berry Punch chug a bottle of Applejack Daniels. She finished, wiped her mouth on her sleeve and threw the bottle behind her. The shattering glass went ignored.
The mare met eyes with AJ, and snarled, “Prepare to die, bitch.”
Hooves were a blur. Guns were drawn. AJ reflexively picked up the Rarity clone at her hooves, using her as a shield. The revolvers were fired, the gunshots deafening. The force of the first few bullets entering Rarity knocked Applejack off balance, and an opening showed it self. Berry smirked as she finally made her mark. The farm mare took nine hits, and then fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Discarding her six barrels, Berry ran over to her prey, slipping a small pistol out from under a sweater sleeve. Aiming precisely, two more shots were fired into AJ’s head. That seemed to satisfy the killer, turning to face her horrified audience.
Twilight absolutely lost it, mane and tale catching fire, coat going white and eyes going red. While the Unicorn rapidly charged her magic, Berry held the pistol up against her head. The magical blast Twilight then fired struck Berry, causing a massive flame to engulf the Earth Pony. It dissipated as quickly as it ignited, leaving behind a large scorch mark on the floor.
Returning to her normal state, Twilight Sparkle panted heavily, tears gushing from her eyes. The rest of her friends joined in with the crying.
“... AJ…” Rainbow whispered, staring at the body.
Fluttershy, angry and upset, turned to where Cliff and the original Berry Punch were sat, shrieking, “How could yo-”
The pair were gone.