An Infinite Number of Pinkies

by AugieDog

Chapter 4: Pin Qi Khan

"What??" Dashie's jaw dropped. "You just left??"

"Yep." Pinkie took a long draw from her lemonade; all this talking sure was thirsty work!

"But—!" Twilight flailed her hoofs. "Viceroy Gloaming! You practically insisted she stage a revolution against this unicorn Council, and you didn't even stay to help??"

Pinkie shrugged. "Plinky and me had a party to get to."

Applejack laughed. "That's our Pinkie."

A toss of her mane, and Rarity's horn flared, levitated her glass over to Spike, the little dragon waiting with the pitcher. "Surely, darling, you were at least slightly interested in the outcome of what you'd begun in that odd mirror image Equestria?"

"Don't worry." Pinkie forced herself to wink and smile, tried to think of a way to get back to the story without lying too much. "We haven't heard the last of those guys yet. But right then and there, Plinky led me down some more hallways to one of Lady Verity's salons, I did my dance in front of a mirror that was about the right size, and we stepped through into—"

***

"Excellently done!" Primey's voice boomed, the winged unicorn bursting all pink and majestic into the darkness in front of Pinkie and Plinky as soon as the silvery rectangle behind them had sucked itself back into one of the little glowing spots on the wall of the cave. "I, Pinkie Prime, bid you welcome, Plinky Pie!"

With a squeak that would've done Fluttershy proud, Plinky ducked and scrambled, tried to bury herself in the tangles of Pinkie's tail. Pinkie blew out a sigh. "Might wanna tone it down a couple dozen notches, Primey." She turned, smiled one of her extra-soothing smiles at the cowering beige earth pony. "Primey's OK, Plinky. She's just real big and real excited about this party."

"She—" Plinky sounded musical even when she was whimpering. "She has a horn and wings! How...how can that be?"

"Ah." Primey's eyes softened. "You've arrived from one of those unfortunate universes." She was talking quieter now at least, and when she stepped forward, bent to touch her horn to the top of Plinky's quivering head, she had that whole 'almost Princess Celestia' thing going on again, her smile gentle, her bearing regal. "You have nothing to fear any longer, Plinky Pie, for you have come home to me at last. And together, we will bring about the grand work that has been so many countless millennia in the planning."

Pinkie blinked up at her. "You mean the party, right?"

Which made Primey blink. "The— Ah! Yes! The party! Exactly!" Her horn flashed, and a table appeared on the cavern's rough floor beside her, a cake jutting up from it, white buttercream flowers spotting each of its seven round blue-frosted layers. "You returned a bit earlier than I expected, so I have but the one cake baked."

"Nice!" Pinkie gave it her best professional once over. "Chocolate between the layers?"

"Of course!" Primey's smile became just a bit pointed. "Am I not Pinkie Prime?" She tapped a pink metal shoe against the stone like a bell chiming. "But there are more Pinkies and more Pies that must be gathered." Her voice was getting louder. "More slices of myself that must attend our festivities! For only in that way can we shake the foundations of the firmament and raise the very roof of heaven!"

Plinky had been creeping slowly back into the open, her stare a mix of fear and awe, but now she tried to squeeze herself between the cave wall and Pinkie's tail again. Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Notches, Primey, remember?"

Something that might've been annoyance flashed across Primey's face. "Nonetheless, my plans must continue. I must prepare more cakes, must mix more punch, must assemble more platters of egg rolls and sandwiches, and you, my own, you must journey separately to more universes, must draw your sisters here for the party to end all parties." Her ears perked. "Ooo, I like that!" She raised a front hoof, swept it through the air before her with a pink glittering swoosh. "The Party to End All Parties!" she announced, and Pinkie could hear the capital letters this time.

Pinkie's tail was shivering, but most of that, she figured, was from Plinky hiding under it. "Ummm, listen, Primey, how 'bout if Plinky sticks with me the first couple mirrors, OK? She's had kind of a tough time, I guess, and I don't think she's really the 'go-it-alone' type."

Unsure how Primey might react, Pinkie was glad to see some of that softness came back into her expression. "You have all had a tough time, my daughters, have all felt the unjust sting of the multiverse's disregard." She nodded. "Journey together, then, the two of you, and hurry back with more of your sisters in tow!"

***

"Hmmmm..." A little frown creased Fluttershy's brow. "I don't mean to be rude, Pinkie, but...Pinkie Prime seems sometimes scary and sometimes not, and I was just wondering—" She blinked. "Which one was she?"

The breeze ruffled Pinkie's mane, and she struggled to keep her ears up. "Well,—" she began.

But Applejack's snort cut her off. "After what happened yesterday? I'm gonna say 'scary' wins out."

Fluttershy ducked her head. "I know you don't believe me, Applejack, but Pinkie Prime did save my life yesterday."

Applejack sighed. "It ain't that I don't believe you, sugar cube. It's just, I mean, we still got crews out in what used to be my west fields checking for hot spots!" Her mouth tightened. "Whatever else mighta happened, I lost a good quarter of my crop, and that's whole trees burned to ash! Even with insurance, it's gonna be a rough next couple years!"

"I—" Dashie looked uncomfortable, something Pinkie didn't see very often. "Look, I didn't wanna say anything earlier 'cause, I mean, with all the smoke and the shouting and the fighting and ev'rything, I wasn't really sure, but..." She turned her confused gaze to Pinkie. "But I almost think I saw more'n one of those big pink princessy ponies crashing around yesterday. Like maybe four or five of 'em, even."

Pinkie swallowed, still not ready for this part of the story. "Lemme just...lemme just tell it like it happened, OK? Some of it, I'm still a little fuzzy on, and...and I think maybe doing it all step-by-step like a recipe'll help."

Twilight nodded. "Whatever works for you, Pinkie."

"Exactly." Rarity reached over to pat her hoof. "Take your time." She drew back, a little alarm coming into her eyes. "As long as there's no chance this Pinkie Prime will be coming back; you said that last night, didn't you?"

"I did." Pinkie took a breath, blew it out, found her smile, and used it to cover up the lie. "We're all safe and happy now, ev'ry single pony of us. And even the married ponies, too!"

That got a few chuckles, and Pinkie felt better. "So me and Plinky, we went through, like, six or seven mirrors after that, and, yeah, they were all int'resting, but they were pretty much normal, too. I mean, in one, my twin was Slinky Pie, a fancy dancer pony with a big hat and a rustly dress you woulda loved, Rarity, and in another, my twin had goggles and overalls and ran a little shop next to Quills and Sofas where she fixed stuff that ponies brought in."

"Lemme guess." Spike gave her a half-lidded look. "Tinker Pie?"

Pinkie tapped her snout. "On the nosey! I was kinda surprised how easy it was to convince 'em all to come—" She stopped, cocked her head, thought about that. "Though really, y'know, if a pony pranced into Sugar Cube Corner and told me she'd come through a mirror to invite me to a party with all my twins, I prob'bly woulda jumped at the chance, too! 'Cause, I mean, a party! With me! And not just me, but me and me and me and me and me and me and—"

A clearing of throat. "We got it, Pinkie," Twilight said dryly.

"Just making sure!" Pinkie set the story back into place in her mind. "But all these first mirrors we went through had Ponyvilles, and all my twins in them were earth ponies like me and Plinky. But by the time we came back out from something like mirror number nine..."

***

It was starting to look like a party now, Pinkie was happy to see, turning away from the mirror her miniature pony twin, Pink Kneehigh, had just stepped through. Like her other twins, Kneehigh had picked up the mirror dance pretty quickly—and having Slinky teach her a jazzier way to dance it had been the most fun Pinkie'd had in weeks! Then they'd all spread out, picked silvery spots of their own from the countless number shimmering all around the cave ev'rywhere, had stepped through and started fetching more Pinkies and more Pies.

All except Plinky, of course: she stuck to Pinkie like caramel on an apple, never quite bumping into her or rubbing up against her but always right in Pinkie's hoof prints or half a step to the side. She didn't say one word in any of the mirror Ponyvilles, either, her eyes never getting smaller than dinner plates, but Pinkie noticed that her other twins always spent a lot of time looking at Plinky while Pinkie was singing them her invitation song.

'Cause there was something about her, something that made Pinkie think of a filly who couldn't find her mom and dad and was just sitting quietly trying not to cry about it. It made Pinkie want to be her friend even more than she already wanted to, and all her twins seemed to act the same way. Having Plinky with her, Pinkie figured, really helped the others to believe what she was telling them, but once she got them through the mirror and introduced them to Primey, of course, well, that was it: none of 'em showed any doubts at all after that.

Primey was loving it, too, the big mare setting up a pretty good beat with those metal shoes while the others learned the mirror dance, and since all these twins came from mirrors that had princesses, they weren't anywhere near as scared of Primey as Plinky still was. And ev'ry time Pinkie and Plinky had come back from one of their trips, more ponies were wandering around, teaching each other the dance, tapping spots that would then grow into full-size mirrors, stepping from mirrors with another one of her twins staring around with her mouth open. Tables kept spreading out from that first one with the big blue cake on it, and neat glowing balloons hung ev'rywhere in bunches, tickling Pinkie's nose with a sparkly sort of smell.

"It..." Plinky said beside her. "It feels so very...so very different from anything I've ever felt."

Pinkie's heart did a little dance to see Plinky's plain beige mane looking puffier than before, and leaning over, she nudged her shoulder gently into her twin's. "Where I come from, they call that feeling 'fun.'"

Plinky smiled, the first time she'd done that, Pinkie thought. "I've seen fun before, actually, after I came into Lady Verity's service. They've been very kind to me in Ponyville." Her smile stumbled, her musical voice scratching a little like a bow going wrong on a violin. "Even when I scream and scream and scream in my sleep, they never beat me. It's been...so wonderful..."

Leaping onto her hind legs, Pinkie grabbed two cups of punch from a nearby table, thrust one at Plinky. "Then here's to Lady Verity and all your friends back home! 'Cause they sent you here so you could have a good time!"

Taking the cup, Plinky's smile strengthened, and she sipped at it, Pinkie tossing hers back with one swallow and flinging the empty into one of the trash bins set out here and there. "You're right," Plinky murmured. "They did." Another sip, and her eyes lit up. "I've been having a very good time so far, in fact, and have especially been enjoying your invitation song, Pinkie. I, well, I've come up with some harmony for it is the thing, and if you'd like, I'd be happy to add my voice to yours when we go through the next mirror."

Bubbles of pure happiness popped in Pinkie's brain at the thought of singing harmony with herself, and she jumped onto the table, spun around till she caught sight of Primey talking with Tinker and some more of her twins beside something that looked like it was gonna be a bandstand. "Primey!" Pinkie yelled. "Best! Party! Ever!"

Primey's smile got so big, it seemed to light up the whole cavern, and she spread her wings, rose into the air, glided across to land with a tippity-tap of her shoes next to Plinky, the little earth pony's eyes going all dinner platey again. "That it shall be, my own, that it shall!" She leaned down, touched her horn to Pinkie's head, and the shiver that burst through her was warm and wild and weird and wonderful all at the same time. "Still, you spoke of notches earlier, and I can't help but think it's time we kicked this party up one."

"Whoo-hoo!" Pinkie whirled and leaped, landed between Primey and Plinky, and even more bubbles perked in her when Plinky didn't try to scootch under her tail and hide. "'Cause I think we might just be ready for that!"

"Then behold!" Primey flared her wings, a little puff of red and white light shooting from her horn with a sudden peppermint scented gust of wind and sailing out into the depths of the cave on the other side of the table. "You have done splendidly well gathering my selves from those mirrors nearest to your own, Pinkie Pie, but now?" She stretched a front leg out, gestured her hoof toward the minty little light twinkling in the darkness. "Now we must venture further afield if we're to gather all your scattered sisters."

"A field?" Pinkie blinked, then shook her head. "Just looks like rock to me!"

"No, Pinkie!" Plinky whispered urgently beside her. "She means—!"

"Fear not, Plinky Pie." Primey had one of her Princess Celestia smiles on again. "As I am the source of you all, I contain within my infinite self all your limited aspects." Her smile went a little sideways. "Including, alas, your senses of humor."

"Humor?" It took some effort, but Pinkie almost managed to get her expression as innocent as Plinky's. "Me?"

Primey waved her hoof toward the floating light again. "Be off with you, my own. Perhaps you will find a field through one of those more distant mirrors."

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie hopped onto the table again, swigged down another four quick glasses of punch, then jumped to the cave floor on the other side. "C'mon, Plinky! I'll race you!"

She heard light hoofs clattering behind her. "Race?" Plinky called breathlessly. "But...where?"

"Dunno!" Pinkie lowered her head, broke into a gallop that sent her mane streaming along her back. "Let's find out!"

***

"Yow." Dashie was shaking her head. "Why'd you hafta go and have a whole big adventure without the rest of us, huh, Pinkie?"

Applejack cleared her throat. "Thank you right kindly, Rainbow, but the part we did have was plenty enough for me."

Dashie snorted, Fluttershy and Rarity both nodding, but Twilight had a thoughtful look on her face. "I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I mean, yes, adventure always disrupts my schedule, and most of the time I find I don't really enjoy it while I'm in the middle of it..." Her voice trailed off, but then her eyes refocused. "But it's all worth it at the end if we've done some good and we're all together, right?" She smiled at Pinkie. "And if we weren't all there for most of the adventure, well, then we can sit around afterwards and listen to the story of it!"

"We could," Spike grumbled, "if some ponies would stop interrupting all the time...."

Twilight glanced sideways; her horn glowed, and one of the lemon slices leaped from the pitcher to splatter against Spike's snout.

"Ha!" The little dragon's tongue snaked out, wrapped around the lemon, and popped it into his mouth, ev'rypony wincing as he chomped it down. "Tangy!" he said, then he turned to Pinkie. "Now, you were saying?"

***

After a few minutes, Pinkie slackened her pace and fell back to trot alongside Plinky. "I'm serious, y'know." She did a quick spin, her front hoofs stretched out so she could cover as many of the little silver spots as she could. "Ev'ry wunna these spots turns into a mirror that'll have some Pinkie or some Pie inside it that we need to invite." And since Plinky had started coming out of her shell a little— "So you pick the next one! Any one you like!"

Staring up and around, Plinky slowed to a walk, then stopped, the lights shimmering in those big eyes. "Any one?"

"Abso-tively, posi-lutely!"

"And I just have to—" Plinky reached out a hoof as gingerly as a snail's feeler, touched a spot on the floor beside them, and it inflated quicker than a balloon at the fair. But it didn't stretch up into a big cloudy rectangle like the others all had; this one came up sort of oval just barely big enough, Pinkie figured, for them to walk into.

She blinked at it. "Guess we'll hafta duck some."

Plinky was quivering again. "Did I do it wrong? Should we...should we try another?"

"Nah." Pinkie waved without looking away from the mirror. "We gotta do 'em all anyway, right? And besides, I've seen plenty of mirrors that weren't square." She pulled out one of her favorite special smiles and pointed it at Plinky. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Eyes bigger than ever, Plinky was shifting her gaze around like she was looking for someplace to hide. But they were out in the middle of the cavern, the party just a little glow way over by the wall, so there really wasn't anywhere she could go except— Pinkie gestured to the glowing circle. "You wanna do the dance this time?"

Knees folding, Plinky settled onto the weird blue-black rock and shook her head so vigorously, Pinkie was surprised it didn't rattle. She shrugged, though, reared up, did the dance with the extra little sashays Slinky had added—tap, slide, tap, double-tap, tap, slide, tap, double-tap, double-tap, tap, tap—and when the oval went misty, Pinkie looked back, waggled her eyebrows at Plinky, bent her neck, and slid through, her tail bunching up as Plinky pushed in right behind her.

The light here was dim and kind of fuzzy, and glancing around, Pinkie saw that they'd stepped out into some sort of big tent, the canvas walls all glowing and shadowy at the same time. Things hung on the walls, too, drawings or charts or like that, their careful lines and curves making patterns that sent Pinkie's senses twitching. "Magic," Plinky whispered behind her. "Like Viceroy Gloaming has in her special books."

Pinkie nodded, the rest of the place reminding her a little of the library and a little of her own fortune-telling tent: a few throw rugs, some round tables, an unmade bed tucked into one corner, shelves packed with scrolls and jars and little glass balls, the mirror on a low padded stand leaning against one of the shelves. A brighter glowing strip running from top to bottom in the canvas wall to her right showed her where the door flap was, so she turned and started toward it. "OK! Let's see where in Ponyville we are. 'Cause this could maybe be our twin's tent, but I think it's prob'bly gonna be—"

Nosing aside the flap, she stepped outside and had to stop, had to let her mouth fall open and her eyes do some staring. 'Cause with the joke she and Primey had made about the field...

Grass as green as the middle of spring rolled out in front of her, rolled out and out and out and away along low lumpy hills, a giant afternoon sky of pure crystal blue overhead, the few wisps of cloud drifting along on the breeze only making it look even emptier. And not a path, not a building, not a flag, not a thing except grass and sky and hills.

"Where...?" Plinky moved up beside her, the beige earth pony staring as well. "Where's the town?"

"Hey!" an almost familiar voice said, and turning, Pinkie saw a pony who looked almost exactly like Twilight in her Nightmare Night costume.

***

Twilight sat forward. "You mean... it was Starswirl the Bearded??"

Pinkie waved a hoof. "Well, she didn't have a phony beard like you did, and instead of that big fancy cloak like you had, she was wearing a plain gray fuzzy blanket over her back. Her hat was diff'rent, too, more like a big upside-down ice cream cone between her ears and her horn. Oh, and her hat had this cottony sort of stuff around the brim instead of any bells."

A couple blinks from Twilight, and Rarity sighed. "In other words, it was a pony dressed in a costume that looked just like Twilight's Starswirl outfit except, of course, that it didn't look like it at all."

Dashie laughed, and Pinkie nodded. "Exactly!"

***

Even thinner than Viceroy Gloaming, this unicorn was tough and wiry and had the look of a pony who would play hide-n-seek or checkers not because she thought they were fun but because she had to if she wanted to become the best hide-n-seeker or checkers player ever. "What are you doing lurking around my tent?" she demanded.

Without even thinking, Pinkie gave the only possible answer: "We were waiting for you!"

The unicorn's scowl seemed to sharpen, but Pinkie couldn't tell if that was good or bad. Then beside her, Plinky folded into a bow, ev'rything about her quivering, and panted the words, "Apologies, viceroy."

"What?" That scowl got scowlier, definitely a move in the direction of bad. "I am no mere viceroy! I am Bomu Huahuo, sorceress to the great Khan!" Purple light so dark it was almost black crackled up and down her horn. "Ponies who were truly waiting for me would know that, I think."

Laughing, Pinkie tossed her head. "Oh, Plinky's just getting confused a little. We've been in and out of so many mirrors today, I can't really blame her, and you do look an awful lot like—"

"Mirrors?" Bomu's scowl stretched into a gape, and Pinkie felt the butterfly-soft touch of magic stroking over her. "You...you two are each other's quantum doppelgangers!"

That made Pinkie blink. "If you mean we're mirror twins, then you're right-a-rooty!"

The excitement dawning over Bomu's face made her look a lot younger suddenly and a lot more like Twilight, too. "This is impossible! And no doubt insanely dangerous! Please, come in!" She rushed forward. "I'll need to run some tests!"

And as much fun as Pinkie had when her own Twilight ran tests on her— "Actually, we're having a big party for all the Pinkies and all the Pies, so we—"

"Pin Qi Khan??" Bomu literally screeched to a halt in the doorway of her tent, her hoofs digging divots from the grass, her head snapping around so quickly, she nearly lost her balance. "You're speaking of our Khan??"

"Maybe." Pinkie shrugged. "I won't really know till I look at her and see if she's my twin or not."

Staring from her to Plinky, the little earth pony standing again but still smelling scared, Bomu shook her head and started back along the front of the tent. "Come this way."

Plinky looked at Pinkie. Pinkie nodded, Bomu rounding the tent's corner and shouting, "Sergeant Hong! I have need of your expertise!"

Following the unicorn, Pinkie had to stop and do some more staring. 'Cause, yes, there was still mostly grass and hills and sky on this side of Bomu's tent, but the grass and the hills over here sloped down into a valley, a valley completely filled with tents: square ones, round ones, big ones, small ones, all of them with ponies even tougher-looking than Bomu walking around between them or sitting in front having cook-outs, the scents of buttered rice and bean curd wafting up from their campfires. "Hong Ruiqi!" Bomu was shouting now. "At your earliest convenience, if it wouldn't be—!"

A familiar tingle in the air, and Pinkie braced herself as Dashie's twin came swooping up from the valley below, Plinky squeaking and ducking, Bomu wincing, the shockwave blowing her hat clean off. "—too much trouble...," the unicorn finished, cracking an eye open.

"No trouble, sorceress." The midnight blue pegasus had landed gentle as thistledown beside Bomu's hat; she poked a hoof into it, flipped it back at the unicorn, speared it right over her horn like she was playing ring toss. "No trouble at all."

***

"But she wasn't you," Pinkie added quickly to Dashie.

Dashie shrugged. "It's OK. This one sounds cool."

***

Scowling, Bomu waved a hoof at Pinkie and Plinky. "These two, Hong: give me one of your vaunted snap judgments."

Hong's gaze flicked at them almost too quick for Pinkie to see it. "A jester and a broken doll," she said with a shrug that made her look even more like Dashie. "Anything else?"

"Wow!" Pinkie couldn't keep from hopping up and down. "You're good!"

This brought Hong's gaze back so sharply, Pinkie could've sworn she felt it combing through her mane. "Odd," the pegasus muttered. "There's something about them, something like pickled ginger or horseradish." She snapped her head over to Bomu. "Who are they?"

Bomu was adjusting her hat, light from her horn surrounding it. "They say they'd like to see the Khan."

"Who wouldn't?" Spinning toward them again, Hong spread her wings, fixed her hoofs, and practically barked, "What business have you with Pin Qi Khan??"

Pinkie thought for maybe half a heartbeat about singing them her invitation song, but she wasn't really inviting them, and with Plinky all shrunk up against the ground again, Pinkie kinda doubted she'd be ready with her harmony. So instead— "I'm Pinkie Pie! This is my friend Plinky Pie, and we're here to invite this Khan to a real special party!"

Hong blinked, then tucked her wings back to her sides. "Yeah, OK," she said, her voice normal again. "That's weird enough to be true." She turned to Bomu. "Khan's sparring with Ping Guo Jiu and Poyong Xi in her dojo. You gonna take 'em down there?"

A little smile from Bomu. "You don't want to see what the Khan does to them?"

Moving her glance from Pinkie to Plinky, Hong shook her head. "The pink one might be amusing, but knowing how the Khan feels about cuteness, I find I honestly wouldn't mind missing her reaction to the little beige one."

Bomu's mouth went sideways. "It's no wonder you're still a sergeant."

But Pinkie turned on her big smile. "Don't worry, Hong! Your Khannie's gonna love us! Ev'rypony does!"

"Khannie?" Whiteness rimmed Hong's eyes, and she staggered back like she'd maybe lost her balance for a minute. "Yeah, OK, sorceress, you've convinced me: I've gotta see how many pieces the Khan breaks this one into."

***

"Whoa." Dashie sat forward. "She really said that?"

Fluttershy looked concerned. "How scary a pony is this Khan going to be? 'Cause I can just cover my eyes right now if that'd be OK."

Rarity sniffed. "She sounds like a brute!"

"Khannie?" Pinkie waved a hoof. "Are you kidding? But yeah, Plinky was a little nervous about meeting her..."

***

"Pin Qi Khan." The words shivered out of Plinky's throat and surprised Pinkie, the two of them following Bomu down from her tent perched on the rim of the valley. "She...she heads the Council here?"

"Council?" Bomu looked back, her eyes narrow. "Our Khan takes no pony's council."

"Well..." Hong was drifting along beside them, not really walking but not really flying, either, her wings as blurred as a hummingbird's. "The Khan has a few advisors she trusts—me and Bomu, Jiu and Poyong and Linlang—but she's pretty much the law under the Arch of Heaven from one end of the steppe to the other."

"Neat!" Pinkie wanted to hop faster and faster along the slope, but Plinky didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry, and besides, it wouldn't do any good to get out ahead of Bomu since she was the one who knew where they were going. "I can't wait to meet her!"

Bomu stopped so suddenly, only Pinkie reaching out to grab Plinky stopped the two from crashing into each other. "Neat??" Bomu asked like she wasn't quite sure what the word meant. "There are those who say our Khan's father was a griffon and her mother the Great Sun Mare herself! Just the rumor that our Khan will be passing by has made whole communities spring up where none have ever been before and caused others to vanish into the grass of the steppe never to be seen again! When our Khan smiles, the rain falls upon the dry and barren desert, and when she frowns, the earth itself trembles! Our Khan is many things, Pinkie Pie, but she is not now nor ever will be 'neat'!"

Pinkie bounced forward and patted Bomu on the head, her twitches giving her a pretty good idea what was making the unicorn so grouchy. "It's OK, Bomu. I'll bet your Khannie really does listen to you when you talk! I'll bet she thinks of you as one of her bestest friends, and I'll bet she'd be more'n happy to give you a real big hug if you just once asked her to!"

The look on Bomu's face was one Pinkie saw a lot from her newest friends: like they thought maybe Pinkie was about to burst into flame and shoot up into the sky or something. And, yes, she did do that ev'ry once in a while, but this wasn't the time or place quite yet. "You...you...you," Bomu stammered.

But Hong burst out laughing. "Sorceress? I know you and I have had our differences, but I hereby forgive you all your many faults." She did a quick somersault in the air. "Because now I shall forever have fixed in my head the image of you asking the Khan for a hug!"

"Enough!" Bomu was blushing furiously, her eyes narrow and her teeth gritting. "You are a fool, Pinkie Pie, and I do not envy you the lesson you will soon be learning!"

"Lesson?" Pinky cocked her head. "Your Khannie's a teacher, too?" She gave a whistle. "She just sounds neater and neater ev'ry minute!"

Opening her mouth, Bomu froze, closed her mouth, and started stomping down the hill again. Grinning, Pinkie gestured for the shivering Plinky to precede her, then swung into her place with a flick of her tail and a skip of her hoofs.

They started passing other tents then, the tough ponies in their plain blankets and pointy hats looking at them with varying degrees of confusion—mostly, Pinkie thought, 'cause she kept waving at them and calling out things like, "Hi, ev'rypony! Hope you're having as good a day as me! And I'll bet you are 'cause that stew smells great!"

A lot of the younger ponies waved back, but the older ponies glaring at them made them stop. Pinkie didn't stop, though, and after a good ten or fifteen minutes winding through the camp, they came to the middle, a tent set up here so big, it was practically a regular building, posts that still looked mostly like trees holding up the sides with banners of ev'ry color Pinkie could think of streaming from the tops into the blue above. A kind of porch ran around the whole edge of the roof, and pegasi were sitting up there looking out at the camp. Pinkie waved to them, too, but they didn't seem to notice.

Unicorns and earth ponies stood and marched around down on the ground, most of them with little wooden spear-things tucked into sleeves strapped to their sides. None of them waved back at Pinkie, either, but she didn't take it personally: they looked like they were really busy standing and marching and all that.

Hong flipped overhead to land beside Bomu, and the two led Pinkie and Plinky right up through the hard-packed dirt to the wooden front gate of the tent-building. The unicorn standing there just bowed, lit up his horn, and sent the glow out over the big door to set it swinging open.

Inside was mostly open with a few smaller tents—they were only maybe the size of Twilight's library or Sugar Cube Corner—but no other ponies that Pinkie could see. She heard some things, though: hard breathing, the thwack of wood hitting wood, a grunt now and again. It was all coming from the tent just off to their right, the very tent that Bomu and Hong were heading for. Bomu lifted the flap with her magic, and Hong grinned back at them. "You're in luck," she said, her wings flaring. "For our Khan is a teacher as you said, and it sounds as if class is still in session."

Plinky made a little squeaking noise, but Pinkie knew better: however scary this was gonna be, being afraid of it wasn't gonna make it any better or any worse. So she clapped her hoofs together and sprang past Hong into the shadowy darkness inside.

A carpet of what looking like woven reeds covered the floor, and the only furniture in the whole tent were a couple of water buckets and a long rack beside the tent flap on Pinkie's left, a rack that seemed to be holding nothing but long shiny wooden sticks. But the middle of the tent was where ev'rything was happening, and Pinkie scooted to her right along the tent wall so the others could come in and see it, too.

'Cause out in the middle, a pegasus mare even bigger and redder than Big Macintosh was play-fighting with two regular-sized earth ponies, one a slightly darker yellow than the other. Not that they were playing, Pinkie saw right away by the sweat dripping from all their manes and the fierceness glinting in all their eyes. But the way they moved around each other and the strange happiness that filled the air thicker than the smell of their sweat, that told her they were friends. So instead of the kind of fighting where anypony was really trying to hurt anypony else, this was the kind that was more like a dance.

They were all good at it, Pinkie could tell, and as much as she didn't like to think about fighting, if she ever had to do it, she decided, she would want one of these three ponies beside her. Especially the big pegasus, fast and tough and holding her own against the others even though she wasn't using her wings at all, was just flinging the stick she had held in her mouth so skillfully that ev'ry time one of the earth ponies went in for a hit, she had that stick right there, knocking their sticks away and even aiming a bash or two of her own at them.

That she was Pinkie's twin was obvious, and seeing her in action, she could understand why Hong and Bomu—and all the ponies they'd passed outside in the camp—why they were such big fans of this Pin Qi Khan.

The tempo of the dance/fight had been picking up while Pinkie watched, a little foam flecking the lips of the two earth ponies, and Khannie gave a sudden snort strong enough for Pinkie to feel it all the way across the tent. The stick seemed to flash in the big pegasus's mouth, whacked solidly against the heads of both earth ponies, and staggered them in opposite directions. "A break!" she announced, slinging her stick with a clatter into the side of the rack, her contralto voice one that Pinkie immediately wanted to hear adding a bass line to her invitation song. "You're becoming lathered!"

Picking themselves up, the earth ponies bowed to the big pegasus, dropped their own sticks, and headed to the buckets, Hong leaping into a hover and wafting a breeze over them. The darker-colored earth pony looked up with a grin and said, "Always on the spot, ain'tcha, Ruiqi?"

Hong shrugged. "When it counts."

The other earth pony had stopped, too, her sea-green eyes, Pinkie discovered, focused directly on her. "Guests?" she asked quietly.

This got the Khan's attention, the big pegasus looking over from the rack where she was putting her stick away. "Bomu? What have you brought us here? They look almost..." Ev'rything about her became sharper somehow, the air suddenly seeming to crackle. "Familiar," she finished.

Bomu nodded. "They claim—," she started.

But Pinkie couldn't keep quiet anymore. "We're your mirror twins!" she shouted. "I'm Pinkie Pie, this is Plinky Pie, and we're here to invite you to a party!" She spun on Plinky. "OK! Just like we rehearsed it!"

Except, she realized, they hadn't actually had a rehearsal yet, and with Plinky cowering down against the reed mat, well, it looked like Pinkie would be singing another solo. Sucking in about half a lungful of air, she opened her mouth to start, but Khannie spread her wings, rearing back on her hind legs and shouting, "What nonsense is this?? Pathetic little creatures like you claiming to be my twins?? I should strike you down where you stand!"

"Well,..." Pinkie knew this game though she didn't much like it. Eyes downcast, she stepped between Plinky and Khannie, then raised her head, met Khannie's gaze straight on. "You could try, I guess."

***

"No way!" Dashie's ears, eyebrows, and smile were about as perked as Pinkie had ever seen them. "No way you really did that!"

And since it wasn't exactly a lie, Pinkie felt OK nodding. "It's all about knowing your audience. I mean, with Gilda, all I had to do was set things up, and she did all the work herself, showing ev'rypony what a meanie she really was. But with Khannie, well, she had a totally different problem..."

***

The tent went silent, Hong's wings freezing and dropping her the couple inches to the floor. Khannie lowered her hoofs more gently, a slow smile curling her muzzle. "A challenge, is it?"

Pinkie shrugged. "All we wanna do is take you to this really great party we're setting up on the other side of the mirror. Ask Bomu, and she'll tell you—"

"Sorceress?" Khannie didn't look away from Pinkie. "Is this one of your attempts at humor?"

Not looking away from Khannie, either, Pinkie could still hear Bomu swallow. "My Khan, they...they appear to be quantized images of each other and...and of you. I would've said it was impossible, but I've not yet had a chance to—"

"Enough." Khannie already deep voice got even deeper, her deep blue eyes narrowing, and Pinkie's twitches started pointing her toward some of the things the big pegasus wasn't saying. "You dare come to my encampment and challenge the great Pin Qi Khan, lowly duplicate?"

"You want a challenge?" Staying focused on Khannie's eyes, Pinkie waved a hoof over her shoulder. "Come with us, Khannie. We'll show you worlds—"

"Khannie??" Her wings burst from her sides again, and she launched hard and fast straight at Pinkie.

She was strong and quick, sure, but she was also pretty much an open book, Pinkie's twitches telling her what Khannie was gonna do whole tenths of a second before she actually did it; flexing her knees, Pinkie flipped herself right over the charging Khan, spun in mid-air, and landed easily between those wings on that broad back. "Worlds you've never even dreamed of," she whispered into Khannie's ears, folded tight against her thick red mane.

Khannie ducked and rolled, Pinkie just barely scrambling away before she could get squished. "'Cause that's what you need, isn't it?" She ducked the roundhouse kick Khannie wheeled at her. "A world where you aren't already the biggest and best pony around?" A flurry of punches sent Pinkie diving and leaping, but she couldn't stop now! "You've beat ev'rything this world could throw at you, Khannie, and now you don't know what to do with yourself!" Trusting her twitches, she stopped, turned, took a stance, found herself staring up into dark angry eyes in a red angry face. "Let your friends be in charge here for a while, and let us take you to places that'll truly give you the challenge you want! The challenge you need!"

Hot breath gusted into Pinkie's face from Khannie's nostrils, but second followed second with no hoofs slamming her. "Yes," Pin Qi Khan said slowly then. "I find myself interested in these other worlds of yours."

Comments

[AugieDog]

I wonder if:

This is gonna be like my previous big story, "Half the Day is Night," where each succeeding chapter kept getting longer and longer till the last one was almost as long as the first five combined?

Anyway, here's 4. Let's say another 10 days or so for 5: Sept. 8th, we'll call it.

Mike

[Samdamandias]

This is gonna be gooooood

[Frostbyite]

Well i can see where this is going

[AugieDog]

1170228

My guess is:

It's going where no Pinkie has gone before. But that's just a guess.

Mike

[AugieDog]

1169845

I sure hope so!

Mike

[Samdamandias]

1170583
KAAAAAAAAAAHN!

[RaisingShad0ws]

Pinkie... What have you done now? Is what I asked in the first chapter. But now, I'll let this story take it's due course. I mean after all it's getting good. One Question though, (Big Power Rangers/Super Sentai Nerd Alert) Are we going to see a pony ranger version of Pinkie? Because that would be really, Really cool.

[Rarityshy]

I'm loving the progression of this story, and it seems that Primey does go evil on everypony. It seems like you alluded to her somehow damaging our ponyville. I can't wait to see how this continues to develop. Waiting with baited breath dear

[Tay the Chemist]

1170228 I think I can too. Can you see the alicorn Nightmare Party Prime defeated by the Pinkies of Harmony?

[Frostbyite]

1173316 Honestly i think Pin Qi Khan was Prime's main objective. But the thing is the real pinkie is the only one with the names Pinkie and Pie in her name so she is actually the ultimate pinkie. Besides i think that the one ability that she has other than the pinkie sense that the others dont have is her "go anywhere" ability. that may give her an advantage when prime tries to take over.

[Tay the Chemist]

1173568 Actually, I somehow forgot about that. Not sure if what I'm saying next is where you were going with this, but if Primey got in a fight with Real Pinkie Pie, Primey would be an idiot: Pinkie would evade every attack, teleport randomly, and blast her away with the Party Cannon, whether or not she realizes it's a fight.

[Frostbyite]

1173631 If Primey is what she claims to be then she might be able to turn all of the others evil which is why it is going to be a problem. And like dash said there were more than one alicorn Pinkie out there so that power may be doubled.
The only problem i have with this story is that it is somewhat of a paradox because it goes against and yet still follows the string theory. It is said that there are an infinite number of universes and in which every possibility is possible. So far it seems that it is following it but due to the string theory, but there should be universes where there are whole planets inhabited by nothing but Pinkies all of them exactly the same as the real pinkie the only difference is that they are the the only ones there. but it also goes along with it because the mirrors only go to worlds that have a pinkie.
But that means there is a chance that pinkie goes to a world where this already happened and then what?

[AugieDog]

1172266

Alas:

No Pinkie Power Ranger is scheduled to appear among our main characters. She might be in the background, though--I mean, there's an infinite number of them, right?

1170667

And I should probably make it clear, too, that we won't actually be visiting the starship Equipoise or anything like that, either. Just so folks don't get any false hopes that Space Captain Pinkie Pie will be showing up. After all, that's a completely different fic.

1172721

Structurally, the next chapter will be the halfway point--if I end up following my notes--so nine chapters all told.

1173631
1173662

The word "pinkpocalypse" just popped into my head...

Mike

[RaisingShad0ws]

1174500
Aww.... Oh well, it's your story(And a very good one at that.) So I can't complain. I mean there are an infinite number of Pinkies to look out for.

[paintom_phan]

Just wondering, why do you always spell "every" as "ev'ry?" Is it habit, or...?

[AugieDog]

1180346

I started:

To answer this question, and found myself as hour later in the middle of an essay. So I'll put the short answer here--I'm doing it as an experiment in narrative voice--and ask anyone who cares to read a longer answer to check the blog section of my FimFiction pages later today or tomorrow.

Mike

[Seether00]

Geez how many Pinkie's can there be? And will gathering them all cause them to collapse into quantum singularity?

[paintom_phan]

1180654 Perk Added: Surprisingly Influential - You can provoke authors into writing essays by means of harmless comments.

But yeah, that makes sense now.

[AugieDog]

1183451

Perhaps:

A quantum pinkularity?

1186530

Just try to use your powers for good, that's all I ask!

Mike

[Seether00]

1187731

"..."

--Throws pun rocks at AugieDog

[AugieDog]

1187764

And that's not even:

One of the puns that made it into the story!

Mike

[1023nelly]

First thought after reading the title:

I've got a lovely bunch of Pinkie Pies.
doo doo doo doodoo
Here they are all standing in a row.
doo doo doo
Big ones, small ones, some as small as my head!
Even though some are fake, just bake 'em a cake.
That's what 1023nelly said.

For those who dont get it, attach the words to this song:

[AugieDog]

1225585

That is:

A classic! So here's another, slightly scarier Pink song to go with it. It's just the first two minutes of the recording.

Mike

[Andreas33324]

My head
gifs.gifbin.com/1238157980_scanners_-_head_explosion.gif

[AugieDog]

1357607

I'd say this:

Answers the question of whether something can explode more than once...

Mike

[sadron]

"Ev'ry"? "Prob'bly"? "Diff'rent"? Why the hell are you doing that!? I like the story but damn that's very annoying. Seriously why the hell are you spelling these words wrong?

[AugieDog]

1467279

I'm sorry it's:

Getting on your nerves, but if you can make it to chapter 9, you'll find that there is a reason for it!

Mike

[Lurks-no-More]

Oooh. Conqueror Pinkie, leading her pony hordes across the world. So awesome!

[Khym Chanur]

"What could possibly go wrong?"

I think Pinkie would be meta enough to know that you never say that.

[furryman]

Pin Qui Khan doesn't do push ups, she pushes the earth down.

[GMBlackjack]

Gonna put my theories out on what Primey's plans are before I continue. Possible options.
1) She really does want to throw the biggest party of all time, literally the party that ends the multiverse, because she is essentially the chaos god of parties.
2) she wants to turn the multiverse into an eternal, neverending party of pink.

if it's neither of these, I'll be impressed.

-GM, master of reading moar...