Chapter 7 - Art of Distress
Party Popper was having the time of her life. At least the part of her life that was really hers.
Why had Pinkie Pie never told her how much FUN adventure could be? Surely she could've mentioned it at some point between creating her, teaching her about Pinkie's friends, sending her to have FUN with those friends, and getting those same friends to ruthlessly murder all the other clones, leaving Party Popper – excluded from the massacre by dumb luck – to flee the town in terror once she understood what had happened. A simple "Hey, do you know what's FUN? Adventure!" had to fit in there somewhere.
It wasn't all bad, though. This way, she was getting to discover the joy of adventure for herself, and that was FUN too.
At the moment, adventure had found its way to a clothing store on Saddle Row. After Frons filled the squad in on why the police officers were out looking for Party Popper again, Labrum had brought up how much she stuck out, looking like Pinkie Pie. Party Popper didn't see it. Her coat and hat made a brilliant disguise! But the police officers knew about her outfit too.
And so Clypeus had suggested getting her a new outfit that would hide her better, and quickly volunteered to go into the store with her. All of them coming would be "conspicuous", he said, whatever that meant. Mandible hadn't been satisfied with just Clypeus going with her, but Frons had wanted to talk to the rest of the squad while Party Popper and Clypeus were inside.
A little bell rang as Clypeus led the way into the store, disguised as a yellow, blue-maned unicorn mare with freckles. For some reason, Labrum had looked surprised when Clypeus shapeshifted into the form, but Popper just thought he looked cute like that.
Inside, they were met by a bespectacled, blue earth mare with her pink mane tied up in the back.
"Welcome to Rarity For You," the mare said politely. "My name's Blue Bobbin. I'll be your–" She cut herself off as she got a better look at Party Popper. "Oh! Pinkie Pie, so good to see you again. How may I help you and your friend today?"
Clypeus tensed.
"Pinkie Pie?" Party Popper asked automatically. "Who's that?"
Blue Bobbin raised her eyebrows and frowned. She backtracked, but kept her composure. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry," she said, "I must have mistaken you for somepony else. You look and sound very much alike."
"That's okay!" Party Popper said. "I get that a lot."
"So how may I help you today?" Blue Bobbin repeated.
Clypeus was about to say something, but Popper spoke first. "What's the best you have in disguises?"
"Disguises?" Blue Bobbin echoed, but professionalism once again replaced the surprise in seconds. "If you're looking for something that hides your natural appearance, I suppose the best choice we have would be the Wear-Do-Well line. You'll probably like it – it shares some stylistic similarities with your current outfit."
"Sounds good!"
"But we don't have it on display, so I'll have to go looking for it in the back."
"Take as long as you need," Clypeus said with a mare's pleasant voice. He didn't smile, but he sounded pleased.
Blue Bobbin nodded in acknowledgement and headed toward the back of the shop.
Once Blue Bobbin was out of earshot, Clypeus turned to Popper and said, cautiously, "You're… not a changeling, are you? You don't act like any changeling I ever knew..."
"Well, duh!" Popper said. "I'm an earth pony!"
Of course there was a little more to it than that, but she didn't like to talk about her origins. The memories of that day were not exactly FUN, and if word got out about what she was, it might make its way back to Princess Twilight. Party Popper didn't want to die.
Sometimes Party Popper was glad the Mirror Pool hadn't given her all of Pinkie Pie's memories. She had kept Pinkie Pie's basic personality, knowledge and skills – facts of the world and how to do things – but she didn't remember the things Pinkie Pie had experienced, or all the ponies Pinkie Pie had known. There were many things she knew, sometimes about other ponies Pinkie had met but she hadn't, which she didn't remember learning.
She was glad because it meant fleeing Ponyville had left her with no memories to miss from a life she never experienced, and no uncertainty about whether something she remembered was really her own memory. But most of all, she didn't think she could bear living in constant fear of Twilight Sparkle and her Council of Harmony if she'd had memories of being their friend.
She wondered if Pinkie Pie or Twilight Sparkle had thought about how the Pool worked anywhere near as much as Party Popper had.
Musings like those had also led her to realize that the Pool exaggerated whichever traits were at the front of a pony's mind when she used it. When she cloned herself, Pinkie Pie had wanted to go along with whatever her friends were doing in order to have FUN, and so her clones all had a strong attraction to FUN and a willingness to go along with almost anything. As the second batch of clones started making more clones, each generation had been increasingly obsessed with FUN, and their willingness to go along when Applejack corralled them into the town hall and Twilight sat them down to watch paint dry had ultimately led to their demise.
"I don't think the others know that," Clypeus said. Wait, know what? Popper mentally rewinded and found the answer.
"Ohhh." Popper said. That explained a lot. "So that's why Mandible wanted me to shapeshift!"
"Not so loud, Proboscis, Blue Bobbin could come back at any moment. Wait, is Proboscis even your real name?"
Real name? Did she even have a real name? "Nope! Mandible made that up. I'm Party Popper." She held out a hoof to shake, but Clypeus just looked at it.
"So… if you're not a changeling, why are you here? Why are you helping us?"
"Isn't it obvious, silly? It's FUN!"
"Fun?" Clypeus gave a confused frown.
"FUN! We're going on an adventure, and doing FUN things like breaking you out of jail with my money, and I've never been friends with changelings before!"
"Friends?" How was he still frowning while repeating these words? "Changelings don't really do friendship. Only squads. And being in a changeling squad isn't really all that fun."
"Well, that's a downer," Popper said. "You should try it sometime! Friends are great as long as you're the original you!"
"What?"
"Nothing!" Popper's ear twitched at a sound. "Oh, I think Blue Bobbin's coming back."
"Don't tell the others you're not a changeling," Clypeus said quickly, but firmly. "If they find out, they'll – oh, there you are," he smiled at Blue Bobbin as she re-entered the room. The smile was as fake as his freckles.
Blue Bobbin was carrying a cardboard box on her back, muttering something about unicorns and shelves. She placed the box down on the floor and opened it up. Clypeus, being the only pony in the room with a horn, levitated an outfit out of the box.
"Here we go," Blue Bobbin said. "The Mysterious Wear-Do-Well! I must admit I never understood the name, but she insisted that was what it was called."
It looked vaguely familiar to Party Popper, but she couldn't remember why. She was used to that sensation. It probably meant it had some connection to Pinkie Pie's life. Maybe Pinkie Pie had seen an outfit like this one before, and Party Popper had retained some knowledge of what it looked like but no memory of seeing it?
She pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the outfit. It was a dark purple bodysuit with blue socks and a collar that formed two short tails at the back of the neck. A long, blue cape billowed out from underneath it. Something told Popper that it should be even longer, but it was already long enough that it would cover her cutie mark had the bodysuit not already done so. It came with a matching dark purple hat, which had an even wider brim than the one she was already wearing, as well as a translucent veil that would cover her face. It looked great.
At the front of the collar was a small emblem of a unicorn's head with a curly mane – Rarity, Popper realized with a start. As it occurred to her what Blue Bobbin had said the name of the store was, and just who had designed all the outfits around them, Party Popper felt a little queasy.
"I'll take it!" she said, wanting to do no such thing. If she had a choice, she'd rather burn it. She strained to keep up her polite smile. "How much?"
"Fifty bits," Blue Bobbin answered, "but don't you want to try–"
"Won't be necessary," Party Popper said, hoofing over the rest of her month's earnings at the bakery with little concern for how expensive that was. Not bothering to go to the changing room – it wasn't like ponies normally wore clothes anyway – she quickly stored her coat in her mane and put on the bodysuit while Blue Bobbin was counting the money. The suit was a little tight, but fit well enough for somepony who just wanted to leave.
She tried to take off her hat, but it wouldn't budge without pulling out her mane. What the hay kind of glue even was that? She put the wider-brimmed Wear-Do-Well hat on top of her existing one, trapping the veil between the hats.
"Popper..." Clypeus said, looking confused and concerned.
"Fits great, thank you, let's go!" Popper said loudly as she collected the change from Bobbin's counter and quickly turned towards the door. Clypeus had no choice but to follow.
"Have a nice–" Bobbin's confused voice was cut off as the door to Rarity's store closed behind Party Popper. A second or two later, Clypeus came out behind her.
"What was that all about?" he asked, sounding… worried? What did he have to worry about?
"I just… I didn't want to keep the squad waiting!" she lied, sporting one of the most forced smiles she could remember making. "Now come on, Clype – we have a city to get out of."
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Remember my previous mention about how that episode potentially got unhappened?
Pepperridge Farms remembersMaybe the hats will feel a little less self concious if they had littler hats of their own?
9751174
Mysterious Mare-Do-Well? I don't, sorry.
In any case, it's not a great episode, but for the purposes of this fic, every episode is canon (though many haven't happened yet).
(The only episode I'd like to peg as non-canon is Fame and Misfortune – it just plain doesn't work with anything that came after it, especially not Daring Done – but then season 9 went and brought back the journals in a plot-relevant episode...)
9751225
Upon closer inspection, it was removed by one of my editing passes. Anyway, The things Twilight was reinforcing in It's About Time during her time-travel-induced mania have a significant overlap with the things that broke down in Mare-Do-Well, which potentially allows you to exile the latter from canonicity and make 28 Pranks Later less redundant in-universe.
9751238
So... you're suggesting that Mare-Do-Well happened in a doomed timeline* where future Twilight didn't show up? Interesting idea.
(*: My mind immediately jumps to Homestuck terminology when things like this come up.)
9751255
More like it happened in a doomed timeline where she decided not to travel back in time. Or something. My personal headcanon starts with the premise that we're looking at several different "universes" with no explicit delineation, and possibly some minor changes in dialogue (for instance, wondering why Sombra is evil again instead of wondering why he's alive again). It then goes on to have deliberate inconsistencies that are never explained, at least one of which is brought up solely to screw with Twilight's head (sandwiches, for the record. That previous pointing to Oliver is quite relevant here), because what fun is there in making sense?
9751275
Heh, sounds like a pretty solid way to excuse the various continuity conflicts. I'm not going to incorporate that kind of logic in my fic, but it's a neat thing to think about.
9751275
Oh, I like you. Krix, can I keep it?
9751225
9751486
You'll need to ask them, not me
9751486
Calling me "it" is what gets you a hard no. A very hard no, in fact, applied directly to the forehead at high velocity. Along with concepto-shenanigans that ensure your body knows what pain is and reacts appropriately, if such things happen to be necessary. (Being the herald of an incomprehensibly powerful being has benefits, just ask the Silver Surfer)
9751565
Well... tease me, then leave me hanging. Rude.
Although, I suppose you have a point, and I apologize... what are you, exactly? Male, female, non-gender/sexually specific descriptor?
9751598
(Tip for next time: If you aren't sure about someone's pronouns, "they/them" is 1000x better to fall back on than "it".)
9751598
Male.
Although you didn't ask, Opera is female because she wasn't intended to be anything more than a Fourth Wall Observer Fighting Clown on an RP site with extensive enough combat rules to enable such things. Then things happened, things whatever the opposite of happened is, and she ended up the origin of my current default username. (That would make sense if you knew the context, but the context itself arguably doesn't make much sense)
9751617
Ah. Well, your story intrigues me, good Sir.
9751606
I've had the use of 'them' bite me in the tail. But, I'll try using it next time.
I'll show that text-addict "Social ineptitude"... eventually.
Popper gets more interesting here. And now you've got me reading at work lmao
9762169
I've actually been looking forward to specifically you reading this particular chapter, since you expressed interest in some of the things this chapter begins addressing, back when you were beta reading the first few chapters.
Ouch that's sad I mean they could have approached it a little bit better in that episode although there was a story I read there was another way to do this it's called How It Should Have Ended - Too Many Pinkie Pies
Well finally somebody figured that out that she's not a changeling but I don't think he doesn't know that she's a clone
So apparently party popper it's time to remember some of the stuff that Pinkie Pie does in her past life but apparently we gained some new memories from her previous I don't know how that works but anyway party popper and Clypeus a disguise for party popper so they can get out of the city but apparently she's been having some that memories about what happened from season 3 look I probably kind of sugar coating this situation but I don't think they killed them they just probably just send them to the pool where they belong and I guess she doesn't want to go back there which I don't blame her so anyway when they got the disguise they're going to meet up with the other changelings but I wonder she's going to tell the truth about it