Mimicry
Twilight and company continued to move along through the cleared halls of Castle Bleck. Every now and then they heard something explode above them, probably a ship or another creature getting destroyed. It was hard to tell.
However, shortly after one of those explosions, they felt the entire Castle shake.
Cosmo looked up from the Light Prognosticus. “Did something crash into the Castle?”
“No, that’s been happening all the time,” Toph said with a frown. “That… was the same kind of tremor the Void gives when it grows.”
“So it trembles here too?” Caspian narrowed his eyes. “Wait…”
“That would suggest the Void is damaging the Castle,” Data concluded.
“Why would he want to destroy his own Castle?” Vivian asked.
Twilight thought for a moment. “Maybe he doesn’t even think the Castle itself is worthy of being in the new worlds he creates. He wants a completely blank slate.”
“I’m not sure that’s it…” Tippi said.
Twilight looked at her with concern. “Have you remembered something?”
“Nothing specific. But… I don’t feel like that’s who he is. He hated the Tribe of Darkness, not the Castle. And… I don’t know.”
“It’s okay, just tell us if you remember anyth—”
“HELP!”
The seven of them stood at attention as none other than Rarity came running at them with a light scream, galloping away from a massive slime creature that her sword was doing absolutely nothing to.
Twilight leaped into action, freezing the slime solid. Data shot it with his phaser, shattering it before Toph could do anything.
Rarity threw herself into Twilight’s embrace, hugging her tight. “Oh, thank you, thank you! I… I’ve had enough of this place. I… I’m done, darling. Simply done.”
“It’s okay, Rarity, it’s okay…” Twilight said, stroking Rarity’s mane. “It’s all over now. We’ve got you.”
“And we can’t go back,” Toph pointed out.
Twilight frowned. “Oh. Right…”
“It’s fine,” Rarity said, sniffing. “I just… like being with you. I missed you.”
“I missed you t—”
“Well! Isn’t this a sad excuse for a duplicate!”
Looking up, Twilight saw Rarity again, though this Rarity was covered in several different colors of blood, had part of her left ear torn off, and was swinging her magic blade around like it was some kind of toy.
“Mimi,” Toph said, pointing at the bloody Rarity.
“Oh for Celestia’s sake, Twilight,” the bloody Rarity said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s me.”
“D-don’t listen to her!” the clean Rarity said. “She’s a monster! Look at all of that on her, I would never do such a thing!”
Twilight glanced back and forth between the two of them. Turning to the bloody Rarity, she shook her head. “You can’t…”
The bloody Rarity winced in legitimate hurt. “I was worried I’d changed, but so much that a groveling whelp could pass for me more than the real me? For shame, Twilight.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, it’s time to play the who knows more embarrassing secrets about Twilight game. Twilight, you secretly snuck into Sweet Apple Acres two weeks before our abduction to look at Smarty Pants.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, staring at the bloody Rarity. “No…”
“You, Twilight, once spent an entire weekend in your castle organizing books, and then you came out and got neurotic about Discord’s orange joke. During your time on Earth in a human body, those teenage hormones drove you to a mad romantic fling with some man I don’t even know. You’ve secre—”
“S-stop,” Twilight stammered. “R-rarity… what happened to you?”
“I’ve been fighting a war behind enemy lines for months, dear,” Rarity said with a sigh. “I’m not the mare you once knew.”
Twilight swallowed hard, nodding as a tear ran down her cheek. Then she trapped the other Rarity in a magic box. “All right Mimi, how about you give up the a—”
“Mimimimimimimi!” Mimi shouted, transforming into a massive blob that broke through the corner weakness of the box. “I’m not done yet!”
There was a flash of smoke… and then there were two Datas, staring at each other, equally motionless.
Twilight sagged, putting her hooves over her eyes. “I can’t do this. I can’t keep seeing her take the forms of my friends. I just…”
Rarity tapped her hoof on the ground. “Well unfortunately I can’t ask this… Data, right?”
“Affirmative,” both Datas said in unison.
“Ugh…” Rarity rubbed her temples. “I don’t know him. One of the rest of you has to figure this out. Tell me which one to stab.”
“S-stab?” Cosmo stammered.
“Mimi’s one of the few of Count Bleck’s inner circle I can actually consider evil. The rest are all varying shades of gray that keep throwing me pity stories, except Dark Oak, but we’ve tried—stabbing him doesn’t work.” She drove her sword into the ground. “Let me have this.”
“Rarity…” Twilight reached out a hoof.
“Don’t lecture me on personal morality right now, dear,” Rarity said. “If I hadn’t done all of this, you wouldn’t be getting your chance to go after Bleck like you are now. Who else would have taken charge?”
“Sh-Shining Armor?”
“He’s a depressed stallion. Not broken—he’s fine—but he’s not in the mental space to be the absolute leader. Nope… that fell to me. Because I could be… vicious.” She smiled sadly. “Can’t be undone, sadly.”
“I’m so, so sorry, Rarity.”
“It isn’t your fault, Twilight. I’m just… different, now. I’m still your friend.”
Twilight smiled. “I never doubted that for a second.”
“You doubted if I was the real Rarity just a second ago.”
“You know what I meant!”
Rarity smirked coyly. “Just messing with you.”
“Perhaps we should return to the issue at hand?” Caspian asked, gesturing at the two Datas. “How are we going to tell them apart?”
“Data physically cannot have emotion,” Twilight said. “Any expression of it is an emulation he uses to connect with others.” She tilted her head back. “Data, turn off your emulative expressions.”
“Done,” both said in unison.
“Good. Now… we need to figure out how to trigger an emotional response from Mimi.”
Toph grinned. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Hey Mimi!” Toph shouted, clapping her hands together. “Let’s talk about how much of a whiny little brat you are because that’s a great thing to talk about! You think you can do anything but all you do is spend your days calling people names and dreaming about ‘cutie-pies’. News flash: no guy is going to want to be with a broken, mutant, clockwork spider freak! You’re like a second-rate replacemen—ah, there it is.” Toph flung a cube directly into one of the Data’s faces. The other turned to her, staring blankly. “Well done, noticing the twitch in the mouth.”
“It was motion. I was feeling for all motion. I knew one of the random insults would hit, eventually.” Toph folded her arms. “Please turn your emulations back on, that stare is really creepy.”
Mimi threw the cube off her, defaulting to her little girl state. “I am not a replacement! My brother was an arrogant idiot who thought death was the solution to everything! He was all shadow, no brains! I was necessary”
“Shadoo…?” Tippi fluttered. “Wait, you were… the one before me?”
“Guilty as charged!” Mimi giggled. “Mimi, ancient shapeshifting construct designed for Flipside. Deemed too ‘childish’ for function. Replaced by a scatterbrained butterfly who can’t do anything. Joyous, isn’t it?”
“Oh for Tartarus’ sake!” Rarity shouted. “Do any of you not have some kind of sob story!?”
Mimi cracked her neck to her side. “I think all of us do, even Dimentio!” She twisted her head around again and again. “I catch him staring off into space, clenching and unclenching his fists every now and then…” The spider legs sprung from her cubic center, reverting her to her true state. “And then he started accusing the sky of being wrong.”
“Mental issues, not surprised,” Toph said.
Rarity grimaced. “You all better have a plan for dealing with her while her invulnerability shield is up.”
“I do,” Twilight said, eyes white, the Element of Magic glowing like a star. Light shot from her, Toph, Cosmo, Caspian, and Data, collecting at Tippi. However, this time, the purple beam didn’t come from Vivian—it came from Rarity. The burst of rainbow focused through the pixl and hit Mimi dead on. It wasn’t strong enough to defeat her utterly, but it was enough to remove her invulnerability shield.
Vivian, not entirely sure what not being chosen for the Elements meant, still took the opportunity to punch Mimi in her spidery center, lighting her on fire. “Got her! We just need t—”
Rarity moved like a wraith, swinging her sword around in a brilliant arc that chopped off four of Mimi’s legs at the stem before the shapeshifter even knew what was happening. She twisted onto her back hoof, punching upward with her other hooves to knock Mimi over, where she could bring her blade back around and cut the rest of the legs off.
“Mimimi...mi?” Mimi’s cubic green head stammered in confusion.
Rarity pointed her blade right at Mimi’s core.
“Rarity…” Twilight warned.
“Relax, I’m not going to kill her,” Rarity said. “That was too sad of a show to warrant that, anyway. She just needs to know where she stands so she doesn't try anything.”
With a puff of smoke, Mimi turned into her girl form. “You… you doofuses suck. All of you.”
“Yes, well, I suck the most then.” Rarity dusted off her chest. “We’ve gotten you, and it wasn’t even very hard.”
“Hmph.”
“Twilight?” Rarity called. “Do you still have those sealing spells?”
Twilight nodded, lighting her horn. Mimi found her arms and legs bound by a purple rope that surrounded her with a soft blue aura. “She won’t be transforming unless you remove those. Her power is sealed.”
“I… I…” Mimi bit her lip, clearly trying not to cry. “This isn’t fair.”
“You’re trying to destroy all worlds…” Tippi said. “We… don’t have the luxury of playing nice.”
“G-go away.”
“It would be unwise to leave her unsupervised,” Data said. “These spells can be easily undone.”
“I can stay,” Vivian offered. “I wasn’t part of the rainbow, s—”
“No,” Rarity interrupted. “I was simply the bearer before you. You are Generosity now. You are Twilight’s new beacon of sacrifice and sharing. I’m just a warrior.” She smiled sadly. “You’re her support now. I will stay behind with Mimi.”
“You sure?” Twilight asked her.
“Absolutely. I have Resistance things to do, anyway. Go, continue on your way. And Twilight?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.” Rarity shook her head. “Not for becoming like this, but for treating you as I did when you didn’t recognize me. I don’t recognize me. I shouldn’t have expected you to.”
Twilight pulled her into a hug. “All is forgiven. And I can’t wait to get to know the new Rarity when this is over.”
“It’ll be quite an adventure, that’s for sure.”
“Stay safe.”
“Save the multiverse.”
Twilight broke out into a grin, nodding. Without another word, she turned and led her heroes further into the castle.
Mimi started crying once they were out of sight.
“Oh, do chin up, you’re a monstrous half-mechanical spider,” Rarity muttered. “Getting defeated isn't the end of the world.”
“I’m… wh… the Count is never going to be proud of me. I’m a failure…”
Rarity sighed. You think my pity would be dead by now…
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Because it's a crap castle?
Hang on... this is suspiciously Rarity like behavior from Rarity... Which makes sense in context but wow is that a strange sentence.
See, now that's more like it!
Gotta love how Mimi's is doing a way better job playing Rarity than Rarity is.
His name is Brad and he is a good dude who respects personal boundaries and is generally pleasant! Also because he was over in Star Trek Earth he's long since dead, RIP Brad.
Also she's just a really bad actress, which is par for the course when it comes to shapeshifters apparently. It's a really boring gimmick, go back to being a horrifying spider monster.
Oh, it absolutely can be undone. We have the technology, and the magic. It just can't be done ethically.
Is... is that a canonical feature Data has or just an excuse for Brent Spiner's understandable inability to stop having human facial expressions?
This... checks out more than it should, really. Also really throws into question how good Flipside's designers were at their jobs. Personally, I blame Biggs and Wedge.
Well, yeah, there's a great big bloody hole in reality floating in it! Geez Mimi, do you ever look up?
50/50 between Rarity having tenure and you having a hanger on with a dumb name. Take your pick.
I love this quote. I don't know why.
I mean, you are Generosity still, you gave up everything you were to fight this war. Also, tenure, and Vivian's chaotic hanger on. Vivian is one of the Heroes though, so you're still right.
The fact that it isn't means more than you might thing, Rarity... (also, GM, what is up with the way those last words are italicized? By, no, and w are all separately tagged, is Google Docs being a dumb?)
And that's minion number 2! Twilight and Rarity reunite, and Rarity's ongoing badassification turns out to be helpful, harmful, and massively concerning all at once! Someone get this mare some PTSD treatment, stat. Well, maybe we should save reality first. Might be a bit higher on the priority list.
… that was really well done
It look's like Vivian punch herself in this chapter. You should look it up.
Rarity has been through the grinder.
Not quite a giant crab, but in this chapter, Rarity fights an oversized arthropod.