1. This Can't Be the Scene
1. This Can’t Be the Scene
BY: cleverpun
Moments after the sneeze, Twilight Sparkle lowered her horn and cast the spell. The flash of white and purple lit up the entire room. The blinding light faded very slowly, lingering far longer than any of the others. Eventually it receded, and as everypony lowered their hooves and opened their eyes, there was only a single pink pony sitting on the floor. She was still staring intently at the painted wall.
Twilight let out a deep sigh and walked towards her. “Pinkie, you can look away now.”
Pinkie blinked slowly. “I passed?” She rubbed a hoof against her forehead.
The other five had started to approach as well, and a small half-circle had formed around the pink earth pony.
Twilight smiled. “You passed. You’re the only Pinkie who kept staring at the wall.”
A small smile crept onto Pinkie’s face. “I knew I’d win! There’s no way I could lose something that important!”
“I knew you'd be up to the challenge.”
“So my prize is I get to stay, right?”
Twilight froze. “What?”
Rarity and Fluttershy exchanged a glance. Another passed between Rainbow Dash and Applejack. Spike looked up at Twilight, but she was still staring at Pinkie.
Pinkie’s smile widened. “That’s what you said right? Whoever wins gets to stay, and I won!”
“No…” Twilight’s word was barely a whisper, but the room was so quiet everypony heard it regardless.
“Yes!” Pinkie bounced up. “I remember! I heard you say it! You know, that was pretty fun now that it’s all over!” She had started hopping up and down. “Ooh, what should we do next? Something fun?”
“Twilight?” Applejack whispered.
Twilight took a few steps back. Everypony but Pinkie was staring at her now. “No…it couldn’t…” Her eyes flicked to the window and back to Pinkie.
“Twilight?” Fluttershy’s voice wavered a bit.
“Sugarcube?”
Twilight’s eyes darted around, landing everywhere except on her friends. She started breathing faster. She froze again. Her horn started glowing, she screwed her eyes shut and grunted as the spell shot out of her horn in a brief burst of purple light.
She was still for a few seconds. Her breathing evened out and her horn continued to glow brightly. Fluttershy and Rarity took a few steps towards her, when suddenly her eyes snapped open and she fell backward onto her rump.
She shakily stood up, then jabbed a hoof at Pinkie. “You. Come with me.”
“Are we gonna do something fun?”
“No.”
The lights in the conference room flickered for a moment. Pinkie shifted in her chair.
Twilight stared intensely at Pinkie. “How did you do it?” The question was icy, but angry. Twilight’s voice was low, but clear.
“I dunno.” Pinkie shrugged.
“You did something! Tell me!” Twilight finally let her voice rise. It made her feel better, if only slightly.
Pinkie winced. “I really don’t know. The other Pinkie just told me to have fun and act like her, so I did. She watched paint dry, so I did too. And it was a game, and games are fun, and I wanted to win. And I don’t really know how else to say it.”
Twilight slammed her hooves on the desk between them and leaned forward. “It can’t be that simple! There’s no way some clone outdid the real Pinkie Pie!” The conference desk wobbled and rattled slightly from her blow.
Pinkie recoiled again. “Twilight, you’re scaring me…”
Twilight's posture stiffened at the mention of her name. She leaned further over the desk.
Applejack put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, gently guiding her back to her chair. “Calm down, sugarcube. I know you’re upset about what happened to Pinkie Pie, but gettin’ angry won’t solve anything.”
“What else do you expect me to do?”
Pinkie scratched her head. “What’s there to get angry at, Twilight? I won the game, so I’m Pinkie Pie now. That’s how it works, right?”
Twilight finally lost what little control she had and burst out of her chair towards the clone. Magic would’ve been faster. Fast enough that Dash and Applejack wouldn’t have been able to tackle her. She knew that, of course.
Pinkie turned to the white unicorn next to her.
“Uhm, Rarity? Why is Twilight so upset? She didn’t lose the game, right? She was just the judge. Judges don’t win or lose, they just watch everyone else have fun. I don’t…”
The sound of Twilight crying interrupted Pinkie’s sentence.
“Why is she crying?”
“Because…Pinkie…” Rarity paused, “you may have been playing the ‘game,’ but the rest of us lost something because of the result.”
“Oh, were you betting something? I hear gambling is pretty fun! What did you lose?”
“The real Pinkie Pie.”
Pinkie smiled, innocently and sincerely. “Oh don’t be silly, Rarity! I’m right here! I won it fair and square! Pinkie told me to be like her, and I was so much like her I won! I must’ve done a good job, right? And now we can have loads of fun and throw parties and whatever else Pinkie—I mean, I used to…! Why is everypony crying?”
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Yeah, this episode was very.... dark. I mean, this was life and death hanging in the balance. And this is an interesting take on what would've happened if the real Pinkie lost.
I always thought that the way Twilight tried to find the "Real" Pinkie was an absolutely terrible idea. One screw up and boom. Thank God it's a family friendly show.
I'm sure I can be wrong in my assumptions on how this story works I mean hell there could be a way to reverse it but I think this pretty much requires a TRAGEDY tag.
Dis gun b gud. In a bad way.
The premise of this fic is rather flawed. The spell Twilight used on the Pinkies was meant to "send them back where they came from", since the original Pinkie is from Equestria, it would have had no effect on her.
OK, Clone!Pinkie's obliviousness is making this harder to read ON TOP OF the others breaking down in sad.
Wow, I really like where this story is going so far. So the clone outwitted the Real Pinkie Pie, what a plot twist, I didn't see that one coming at all!
I absolutely 
the fact that this story made it on to Equestria Daily!
I mean, that is really cool to have your story featured there!
2251802 If that's so, she would probably mass-cast the spell on the Pinkies in the first place. You know, do away with the inane contest stuffs?
In the end, I think it is the premise of the original episode: 'finding the real Pinkie through some questionable durability test instead of more logical or systematic alternatives, because we need a lesson about friendship at the end dammit!' that is tenable (not that it's not charming, by the way), instead of it being this fic's fault.
This fic aptly depicts how horribly wrong the results could have been if you test something using 'Friendship!' instead of contingent criteria like knowledge about the original's life and the like (Ironic for a self-professed academic). Of course, the extent of knowledge and intelligence of the clones is up to speculation in itself, but from the scenes, the clones don't seem to have much knowledge about the original, even about her most recent memory and goals, so telling them apart should be doable using some organized methods. But hey, that won't be quite as interesting and educational.
Anyway, this story is neat and to-the-point. Easily one of my favorites in these few months. Stories don't have to be wordy to communicate to the readers: after seeing much logorrhea and 'get on with it!'-inducing stories, this is very refreshing and welcomed.
2259807 You have to remember the real Pinkie Pie didn't know who the real Pinkie Pie was either, so how would that work? She would probably just give up instead, believing that she is a copy.
I'm thinking this is still the real Pinkie, because she wasn't sure if she was a clone or not.
Ha! you killed your best friend Twilight! How does it feel?
3498987 Shitty
I always found this episode & the Paint-Watching test fascinating because what the test was designed to find (And what they got) was the Pinkie who wanted to stay the most & could ignore distractions, which, as it turned out, was the original.
But what if it wasn't? The test worked because the clones didn't have the attachment to staying with her friends that the original did, most likely because they were shallow facsimiles that only had her basic personality traits, but we saw with the first clone's little breakdown that they were capable of learning, growing & feeling & in the paint-watching scene when it came down to the wire between the last 2 both were clearly suffering & trying to win. Was that because the last clone clearly understood the stakes & wanted to live? Was she the original clone who had lived the longest, learned the most & was the closest to being a real pony? At the very least, it shows that they weren't just magical copies & were capable of being more, & it highlights just how cavalier Twilight was about destroying them.
4630456
Dang it! Someone beat me to the theory!
Twilight: Good thing I know a spell that lets me travel back in time. Going to fix this now, be right back! *zap*
4633606
But that spell only works once
Wait, Twilight blasted a clone because she sneezed? That's not being distracted, that's letting your nose get the irritating dust out of it! What is wrong with Twilight?
Damn but this is still not as dark as that fic where the mane 5 kill all of the clones with guns and shit.
They're idiots in this fic.
and
__________________
Wow ... well ... Good going Twilight. You know have a feeling of what those clones you killed off must've felt. You mass murderer you
. Seriously though. A spell that kills off clones and sends them to the mirror pool. A high chance of getting the wrong Pinkie, and you get angry that a Pinkie kept her eyes on the wall like you told them with that little Ultimatum? 
4837157
How so?
The concept is blatantly obvious (that's why I didn't write one myself), but that's not going to hamper my curiosity for where this is going.
She's just a child. The clones acted more like children than robots.
4630456
Agreed. The writers trying to pass them off as soulless machines REALLY failed epically.
To an extent, I can kind of see why Dave Polsky wrote "Too Many Pinkie Pies" like he did - it added a heap of suspense to the climax of what would've otherwise been a forgettable episode - but the end result was simply too much. All other things aside, Twilight saying that if she messed up, the real Pinkie would be gone forever was definitely a step too far.
Excellent first chapter, by the by. Commencing with the others right now.
6101347
I'm glad that in canon at least one Pinkie Clone escaped that massacre.
This is what happens when you present something as 'supposedly' winnable, but the person who wasn't meant to win the 'contest' does.
8374369
I hated that cameo. For they proved many of us right; those clones were/could real ponies. Twilight murdered them all. Good job show writers. Good. Job.