• Published 18th Nov 2013
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The Life of a Non-Brony - BronyWriter



TD's life in Equestria after the events of Wanderings of a Non-Brony

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27-TD and the Mirror Pool: Gathering Armies

It was some months before anything exciting happened to me aside from the inevitable Pinkie Pie party. It was both a party celebrating my return and helping to cheer me up be letting me know that I'm supported and loved by the community around Ponyville. Almost everybody in town turned up, especially all of the foals that I taught. Well, they aren't foals now, though. They are all young mares and stallions by this point.

Let's see, what are they up to? Diamond Tiara has her own jewelry business now. She had worked for her father at Barnyard Bargains for about three years until she could get enough money to buy a run-down shop to make and sell her jewelry. Her attitude has really turned around in the past six years, and she is far more... l dunno, mellowed out might be the phrase. Less cruel? She seems to not get her self worth from putting others down now. Like I said, she bought the store with her own money from her own work. She told me it was more meaningful that she didn't use her father's money. I couldn't agree more, really. She's nicer to the Crusaders too, but not 100% super friendly, of course.

Silver Spoon got nicer too. She is working at a restaurant making high-end desserts. She and Diamond Tiara are roommates in their own house a block or so from mine.

Featherweight moved into my old house about six months before I got back. He's working as a photographer for the Ponyville newspaper, but he's taking night classes in physics and chemistry. Snips is learning to be a barber, Snails is a gardener, and I've worked with him a few times since I've gotten back, Twist has a small candy store, and Dinky is a budding veterinarian who got her dog paw print cutie mark a year after I left. Apple Bloom works at the Acres, of course, but she also gets work as a repair pony. Given that this is Ponyville and it has disasters every now and again, well, let's just say that the Apple family is in a more comfortable financial state. Sweetie Belle is getting singing lessons, but she and Scootaloo are rooming together in a small apartment. To support themselves, Sweetie Belle is working as a secretary for Mayor Mare, and Scootaloo owns a small sports equipment shop.

Cheerilee's old class is doing pretty well, I'd say. I've met up with all of them many times since I've been back, often to lunch for one-on-ones to catch up. They really missed me, and I missed them too. They have all loved meeting Oswald, though. As a matter of fact, most of the town has taken quite a liking to him. He's always around with me when I'm working, so he's had plenty of interaction time with the ponies around here. He enjoys most of the ponies around here too.

Except Cheerilee.

Well, he doesn't flat out hate her, he doesn't hiss at her every time she comes around like he would somebody like Aepnet or Purgle were they still alive, but I can tell that he's wary around her. He never takes his eyes off of her when she's around unless I address him directly. He hasn't forgiven her for that punch, even these many months later.

Ah well. He will someday, I hope. Phoenixes can't have that long of a memory, right? Well, probably, actually.

Anyway, I decide not to dwell on all of that right now. It is time to wash some windows. Town Hall needs a good scrubbing down since it has gotten a little dirty in the however long since it's been cleaned before I got back. I'm going to be very thorough in cleaning it, let me tell you. The better the job the more money I make, right? I have to support myself and a phoenix, after all.

I spray my rag with window cleaner and am about to start washing the window in front of me when I hear ponies walking up behind me. I turn around and smile when I see the Mane Six coming up. I tilt my head in a nod, but my smile fades when I see how worried they all look. Fluttershy especially is breathing heavily and her ear is twitching nervously. I frown and put the window cleaner down.

"What's up? Is something the matter?"

"TD! It's just awful; simply horrendous!" Fluttershy says. She flies up to me and grabs my shoulders. "A timberwolf came to my cottage from the forest going after my chickens! I scared it off with the stare, but I didn't notice that it had already torn a hole in the chicken coop fence. When I came out to feed the chickens an hour later, they had all gone into the forest!"

"After some mythical promised land, no doubt," I grumble. I groan and facepalm, but in a rare moment of lack of foresight, I facepalm with the hand holding the rag with window cleaner on it, smearing the window cleaner all over my face. I give a grunt of disgust and begin wiping the window cleaner off of my face. "I take it you want my help to get them all back because I'm now a master of chasing chickens?"

"Oh it's not just you, TD, we're enlisting many ponies to help get them back." Fluttershy whimpers and begins rubbing her hooves together. "They could be in danger!"

"And they are, no doubt." I finish wiping the window cleaner off and set the rag down on top of the bottle of window cleaner. "Okay, I'll go help you find them. Just let me go get Reginald."

Fluttershy throws her hooves around me and squeezes me in a crushing hug. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!" She releases me and points towards the forest. "We haven't a moment to lose!"

* * * *

Twenty minutes later, I'm following Twilight, Rarity and Applejack into the Everfree Forest armed with Reginald and my knives. Rainbow, Pinkie, and Fluttershy have gone a separate direction. Oswald is flying high and ahead of us, his keen eyes better suited to finding the chickens from above. As I walk alongside them, I rue the fact that I have to get involved with this kind of thing. I mean, do I particularly care about walking through the Everfree Forest? Not at all. I mean, I did every other dangerous thing in the world. Why should I care about this? I'll fight a timberwolf, sure.

I do not, however, want to go through the forest looking for said chickens, then catch them and lead them back to Fluttershy's cottage. I'll probably have to help fix the fence, too.

I sigh and turn to Twilight. "So I have an idea. You can put tracking spells on things, right?" Twilight looks up at me and nods, something I return. "So I think it would be a good idea to put tracking spells on Fluttershy's chickens so in the event that this happens again, we can just go straight to them instead of having to wander through the freaking Everfree Forest hoping to find them. I mean, how--"

My words are cut off when I take a misstep and begin falling. With a yelp, I suddenly find myself sliding down a rather large hill, tumbling head over heels while hearing my companions calling to me. I'm not aware of where I am going, I can only hope that I land on something relatively soft that isn't a manticore or something like that.

Well, fate has it that I land on the hard ground instead, knocking the wind out of me for a moment. I groan and lie on the ground while I regain my breath before pushing myself back onto my feet. I hear Twilight calling to me, and I look up to see her on the hill. Turns out the drop was concealed by some rather strategically placed bushes. Stupid Everfree Forest. I cup my hands around my mouth and call back to Twilight. "I'm okay! I just got the wind knocked out of me!"

"That's good!" she calls back. "Try to find a way out of the forest! We aren't too far in! We'll regroup at the edge!"

"Got it!"

I rotate my shoulders to ease some of the stiffness in them that was gained from the fall for a moment. That done, I piked up Reginald and one of my knives that had fallen out during the fall. Okay, time to get out of this forest. I would hope that nothing else would go wrong, but I do see a bunch of brambles in front of me. I grimace and use Reginald to knock them aside as I walk through them, but some of them still catch on my clothes and stick me. This is not turning out to be a good day. I really don't see how it could get any worse.

So that's a perfect time for the ground to give out under me, of course.

With a shriek of pure terror, I find myself falling straight down into an unknown pit or cave of some sort. This is it. I'm going to die in the forest going after some chickens after everything that I went through over the past six years. Brilliant, just brilliant.

However, I see something below me that gives me a little hope. Instead of hard ground, I see a small lake of some sort below me. It's better than solid earth. I close my eyes and hold my breath in preparation of the impact. I hit the water and fully submerge.

I hold on to Reginald as best as I can. I'm not losing it in here. It's too precious to me to just let go, and I don't know how deep this thing is. I begin kicking and paddling with the arm not holding Reginald, and slowly begin rising to the surface. I break the water after a few seconds and suck in air like I haven't taken a breath in a week.

I chuckle and run a hand through my hair as I bob in the middle of the lake. "Well, that was something, wasn't it?"

I swim to the shore and toss Reginald onto land first before pulling myself out of the lake. The water drips off of my and pools below me as I slide about fifteen feet away from the lake, allowing me to gauge my surroundings for the first time.

It doesn't look good, I can tell you that. Aside from the hole in the ceiling, there is nothing that I can see that can get me out of here. It's just walls. Well, that and some glowing mushrooms and moss. So I suppose that I have some sustenance for a few days before I slowly begin starving to death. Well, that or Oswald uses his connection to me to find me then go get help. That would be pretty nice too.

At any rate, I think that the first order of business is to get dry. I can just sit here in wet clothes all day. Maybe I can... uh... burn the mushrooms or something?

Wait... no... my clothes are dry.

I frown and run my hand down my shirt. Yep, not a single drop of water on them. That's odd, to be sure. There are still puddles of water from where I got out of the pool, so I know that the water clung to my clothes. I look over at the water and gasp at what I see.

It's moving.

It's taking shape like the liquid metal terminator from Terminator 2. The large pool that I made coming out is rapidly forming into two pools that is starting to rise. Not only that, but it's changing color too. They're starting to look like...

No...

It can't be.

They're starting to look like... me.

But it is. The two pools of water are starting to form into replicas of myself. After a few more seconds... there they are. Two mes. They look almost exactly like me, but there are slight differences. The one to my left has a slight smirk on his face and a goatee. His hair is red like mine, but a little more red. Like fire. Mine was that color when I was younger, but mine has started to dull since I've gotten older. The other looks a little more embarrassed about the whole thing. He is clean shaven, but his hair is so blonde it's almost white. Again, mine was the same way when I was younger, but toddler years younger. I stare in shock at my two almost clones. Suffice to say, this is not how I expected the day to go.

"Dude, no way."

The one with the goatee scoffs and crosses his arms. "You can say that again. I didn't expect this to be how I came to be either."

I raise my eyebrow and cross my own arms. "So you know what's going on?"

Goatee nods. "Yes I do. We came from the pool when you fell into it. I cannot speak for my counterpart, but I can say that I have a fair few of your memories. Not all, but a fair few."

"I see." I look over to Blondie. "And you?"

Blondie bites his lip and shrugs. "Eh... well, I remember foals." His uneasy demeanor fades at the mention of the Ponyville foals. "Yeah, I remember teaching them in Cheerilee's class. I like them. I like everybody in Ponyville, really."

At the mention of Ponyville, the eyes of Goatee flash red, and he bares his teeth with a glare. "Screw them! I don't even remember foals! What have the rest of them ever done for us?! They force us to live among them like a freak and do their dirty work, especially that... Celestia."

Wow, even I never said the name 'Celestia' with that much venom and hatred behind it. Sure I felt hatred for her before when she brought me here, but never that concentrated amount. I... am beginning to have some doubts about the natures of these two. It's not my good and bad sides, is it? That would suck big time. My good side I know I could control, and he would understand the need. My bad side, however. Not so much.

This isn't going to be very easy, I'm gathering.

"Okay, I guess the question is what now, then?" I say carefully. "I mean, there can't be three TDs going around Ponyville, it's just not feasible. I'm not even sure..." My eyes widen when I realize what happened. "Of course! The Mirror Pool!"

Blondie frowns and cocks his head, but Goatee looks quite pleased. "What?" Blondie says.

"The Mirror Pool." I walk up to the waters and look into its depths. "Pinkie Pie told me that she used this once to make a bunch of copies of herself. That's where you two came from. I think you're a little different from me because I was submerged instead of saying the rhyme."

"Rhyme?" Goatee looked into the pool and his smile widened ever so slightly. "You mean ‘I solemnly swear not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly mared.’"

Crap.

Sure enough, yet another TD crawls out of the Mirror Pool. He straightens up and smiles at Goatee. "I suppose I have you to thank for my creation?" Goatee nods and TD Clone #1 nods. He looks at me and Blondie. "You're a bit different. Did he mess up the first two times or something?"

"No!" I point to myself. "I'm the original! I have a hunch that Goatee is my bad side and Blondie is my good side."

Blondie shoots me an appreciative look while Goatee raises his eyebrow at me. "Bad side? How can I be your bad side? I haven't really done anything yet. All I did as look into the Mirror Pool..." With that he looks into the Mirror Pool yet again. "And say 'I solemnly swear not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly mared.'"

And we're up to four TDs now.

"DUDE?!" I grab Goatee's shoulders and spin him to face me. "What the heck?! Stop making clones of me!"

Or at least, I assume they're clones of me and not him specifically. They don't have goatees and look exactly like me.

Goatee smirks at me and pushes me off. "Okay, firstly, you can't tell me what to do. You may be the original, but that doesn't mean you're the lord over me. Secondly, why not?" Goatee chuckles and rubs his hands together. "The world can always use a little more TD."

"Can't argue with that," TD Clone #2 says.

"Or a lot more TD." Goatee turns back to the Pool, but I have other ideas. I'm not letting him make more TDs. I'm not sure what he's planning, or even if he's planning anything, but there is only one me, thank you very much, and I like me. I can only hope that Twilight can send them back before they cause any damage. Still, I have to stop him now or else things are going to get even worse. I rugby tackle him before he can say anything else.

Well, it's on now. He's just as strong as I am and is the clone that knows all of my fighting moves. Figures that Blondie is a pacifist because the one glance that I catch of him between punching Goatee in the gut shows me that he's slowly backing away from the whole thing. The other two TDs are standing there looking at us with amused looks on their faces. I admit, I've always wanted to see me fight myself, but I never wanted to be involved.

Well, since I'm fighting my bad side, it means that he's willing to do cheap shots. He morphs his hand into a pony hoof the size of Big Macintosh and slams it into the side of my head, sending me flying backwards. So he has my shape-shifting powers too. Wonderful. I wish I had thought of that.

I lie on the ground, having dropped Reginald by this point, clutching my head and trying not to thing of the spectacular bruise I'll have if I'm lucky. Maybe I've even fractured my cheekbone. I groan and roll onto my back to see that he has picked up Reginald and is twirling it casually. "Look, there's no need for me to hurt you any more than I have to, but I want to invade Canterlot to get some revenge on Celestia. Why?" He gives an amused scoff. "Well, it sounds fun and what else am I supposed to do? Just sit around and wait? No, I know that Celestia's guard is far weaker than I am, especially with these powers of mine." He turns to the two normal clones. "You can shape-shift, right?"

The two clones look at each other, then down to their hands. The one on the left forms his hand into a bear claw, while the one on the right changes his into tiger claws. "I guess so," says Clone #2.

Goatee nods. "Right. I can give Celestia a real run for her money, then." He chuckles and squats next to me. "Think about it! An army of a thousand yous marches upon Canterlot, wiping out the royal guard, not killing, of course, I'm not a total barbarian, and we get our revenge on Celestia for bringing you here, and Luna for snapping your spine. We can teach them that the human race is not something to be trifled with, that we are powerful and that they should have respected you from the beginning." He shrugs. "I'll leave her alone once she's a bloody pulp on the ground then take my army somewhere, I... haven't thought that far ahead, but we'll have our revenge on her." He straightens up and extends his hand. "What do you say?"

A look of utter disbelief crosses my face. "Invade Canterlot to beat up Celestia? You really think that will work? How do you even think we're going to get out of here? Create a ladder of TDs?"

Goatee snorts and shakes his head. "Of course not." He motions over to what looks like a pathway that I somehow didn't notice before. "We'll just leave through the front door. If it's blocked then, well, we have all of the labor we want, don't we?"

"Your plan still sounds stupid! You think Celestia can be hurt by the likes of me or you?!" I snort and facepalm. "My evil side is dumb."

"More like single-minded," Blondie mutters.

"Whatever." I slowly sit up and shake my head to clear it. "Your plan isn't going to work. There is no way it's even feasible! You can't even get an army there!"

Goatee chuckles and pats my head. "Let me worry about that, okay? For now..." Goatee grasps Reginald more firmly in his hands. "If you won't join us..."

Crap. He's going to knock me out, isn't h--?

* * * *

I wake up some time later outside of the cave. I groan and gingerly touch the spot where he hit me to knock me out. I hiss when the stinging feeling courses through my head. Man, I really hate my evil side. I look around to find that I am leaning against a tree on the outskirts of the forest. Reginald and my knives are gone, which isn't good. If Goatee got an army of me, he has to go through Ponyville to get to Canterlot. I don't like the idea. I especially don't like the idea that the TDs that he's creating are loyal to him just because he's their creator. Well, actually, since he was their creator, his evil side is probably a touch more prevalent in them. That would make sense.

I slowly stand up and begin walking back towards Ponyville. I'm not that far from Fluttershy's cottage, but I can see that she's not there already. The chickens appear to be back in their coop with a repaired fence, so that's good. What's not so good is that the town is in utter chaos as I approach. Ponies are gathered around the Mane Six, led by Twilight who is giving some speech to the town. I see that the TDs have already been through here. To my delight, Oswald is perched on the podium that Twilight is using.

I raise my hand to get Twilight's attention. "Twilight! It's me!"

The townsponies turn and Lily shrieks. "It's another one!"

Twilight glares and charges up her horn. I squeak and duck just as the beam she fires whizzes over my head.

"Real me! Real me!"

"How do I know?!" Twilight jumps off of the podium and stomps over to me, her horn glowing. "How do I know that you're not some straggler left behind for some nefarious purpose?"

"I was taking a bath when you came to ask me about publishing my book!" I sit up and hold out my arm to stall her advance. "You crashed me through five walls when I punched Celestia, I asked you about the magic of music when I was confused that you were all singing at the Gala, I pied Blueblood at the Gala, I hit Celestia again there and Luna snapped my spine!"

Twilight has stopped now and looks less certain. Her horn is no longer glowing, and she is frowning. Her friends have come up beside her and are giving me wary looks. At that moment, Oswald flies off of the podium and lands on my shoulder. He coos and nuzzles the top of my head happily. I look up at Twilight with an expectant look, and she breathes a sigh of relief. "That's good enough for me. Oswald reacted quite adversely to your clones." Twilight turns to the crowd. "It's the real TD."

The crowd breathes a sigh of relief, and I stand up and dust myself off. "What happened to you, TD?" Rainbow asks. "Your face makes you look like you've been in a fight."

"I was." I jerk my thumb towards the forest. "When I was separated from the group, I looked for the way out and the ground gave way underneath me. I fell straight into the Mirror Pool. It created my good side and evil side, and my evil side made an army to march upon Canterlot. I tried to stop him, but he knocked me out."

Twilight nods and sighs. "Yeah, that matches up. I'm not sure how many TDs he made exactly, but he took over the train station and is transporting his army now. They were too dangerous to risk fighting them without any organization, TD. Your evil side was especially one that I didn't want to mess with." Twilight whimpers and her ears flatten. "To make matters worse he took Spike. I tried to fight them off, but they took me by surprise and there were too many. He took Spike so that I couldn't send word to Princess Celestia that he's coming!"

"Can't somebody fly over there?"

Rainbow Dash shakes her head. "He took Scootaloo too. If he sees any Ponyville pegasi in the sky he'll hurt her." Rainbow growls, but I can tell by the way her legs are shaking that she's scared too. "I don't want to risk it. Besides, if he gets off of that train and they're ready for him then he'll know we did it and hurt her. If something happened to her and it was because of an order that I gave..." She shakes her head. "No. I'm not doing it." Her determined look returns and she turns her head to Canterlot. "But we're going after them."

"If they're in Canterlot then they'll be more distracted," Twilight says. "They're there for Celestia, not Scootaloo and Spike. We can find them and get them out of there!"

"I think we'll all need to help." I grimace and look to Canterlot myself. "We'll need our own army to fight his. The Royal Guard isn't going to be enough, especially since Celestia isn't going to know what's going on. Celestia may see an army of TDs coming to Canterlot, but the attack will still be a surprise."

Twilight sighs and shakes her head. "I think you're right, TD."

"But we cannot fight them!" Rarity insists. "They are far more powerful than we are!"

"But we have magic that they don't!" I point out. I turn to Twilight. "Twilight, you know a spell that can send clones back to the Mirror Pool. Do you think that it is possible that you can infuse the magic with that spell with objects?"

Twilight's frown deepens and she taps her lower jaw. "I... I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. I could try."

"Then do it. Because one touch with those weapons and they're back to the pool. Also, maybe you can experiment with water from the pool and focus the magic so that it only works on beings with the same essence as the pool? That way no originals get sent back."

Twilight nods again. "I can try. We have nothing else to lose, really."

I nod again before walking up to the podium. I stand in front of the gathered Ponyvillians. "Mares and gentlecolts of Ponyville: an army of mes is marching upon Canterlot because my evil side wants revenge upon Celestia and Luna for everything that she has done to me!" I sigh and rub my temples. "Yes, it's one of those days." I shake my head and wave my hand. "Anyway, it is up to us to help stop them! Mares and gentlecolts... it's time to prepare for war."

“Er... before we do, TD...” I look over at Rarity with a frown. I see that she is frowning too and looking between me and Twilight. “What was that about Twilight walking in on you taking a bath?”

Twilight and I blush furiously.

Author's Note:

By the way, the "27" I've had in the title for the past two chapters references his age.

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