> An Unexpected Surprise
>  by Salnalus
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> Prologue
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Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria...

Ok, it’s not starting that way.

It hadn’t been long when the Pinkie clones were all running rampant all over Ponyville. They were quite a force to be reckoned with, despite their abnormal intentions. Nothing but fun is all they wanted.

“Fun! Fun! Fun!” They all ranted.

And then it came down to a test-- nay, a challenge, to see which one of these Pinkies was the real Pinkie Pie. All they had to do was stare at drying paint. They weren’t supposed to be distracted. When they did, they were zapped back to where they came: the Mirror Pond deep within the Everfree Forest.

Where the brambles are thickest, there you will find
A pond beyond the most twisted of vines.

With every zap, the clones were sent one by one back to that Mirror Pond, where they originated. Once every single one was sent back, there was only one thing to do: seal the entrance so that the incident wouldn’t be repeated in the future. One Pinkie Pie was enough, but a whole town full of them? That was madness.

Standing there by the entrance to the alcove that housed the Mirror Pond was none other than Pinkie Pie herself. The real Pinkie Pie, but she had two others with her. Twilight Sparkle and Big Macintosh were also in the clearing, looking at the hole with disdain. They didn’t want any more Pinkie clones, or clones of anypony for that matter, running around again.

Twilight found a sizable boulder large enough to cover the whole entrance to that alcove. The boulder lit up with a deep magenta hue as it was magically lifted off the ground. It hovered over the hole, and was placed down slowly on top of it. Satisfied that the job was done, the two mares and one stallion smiled in relief that they didn’t have to face those troubles again. They walked away from that boulder, hoping to never cross it again.

And just above the clearing, hiding in a tree, appeared a pair of eyes. These eyes were a light blue in color, and it stared down at the three ponies as they walked away. Seeing that the coast was clear, the eyes then darted back to the boulder. That same boulder that covered the entrance to the Mirror Pond.

They disappeared back into the leaves before the figure that owned the pair of eyes emerged from it and dropped down in front of the giant rock. It appeared to be a pink Earth Pony. Its other features included a poofy mane with a just-as-poofy tail. The design on its flanks showed an image of three balloons: one yellow, and two light blue.

It seemed there was one more Pinkie clone they were missing. And it was in the Everfree Forest the whole time.

Like all the others, it just wanted fun. To the Pinkie clones, fun could be defined as almost anything, though their methods were somewhat unorthodox. Some were to just hop around giddily, while others liked to play on stuff. Destroying things, whether accidentally or on purpose, seemed to be another fun activity, as they had done with a certain cowpony’s barnhouse.

But not this clone. At least, at this time. All it was feeling now was loneliness. After all that mess, the clone knew they didn’t want another Pinkie around. She just stared at the giant rock in sadness, knowing she didn’t have other Pinkies to play with, and after what happened in Ponyville, if somepony saw her, she would join the other clones back in the pond.

Then something clicked in her mind, and her face instantly formed a smile. Ponyville would just zap her back if she was found. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t visit other cities or towns and try to have fun there too. And besides, she was a clone of a pony who loved to make friends. It would only make sense that the clone still retained that quality, right?

But where would she go? She was in the middle of the Everfree Forest, and even if she wasn’t, she didn’t have a clue as to where she could go. But the clones still had most memories of their real selves. Maybe the real Pinkie Pie knew some other places besides Ponyville?

It lifted a hoof to its chin in thought. The names of many locations raced in her mind as they came to her. Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus, Appleoosa, Hoofington, Vanhoover... a simple town or city would do.

One more came to mind: Manehattan. It seemed like it would be a simple enough place. As if trying to access a deeper part of her memory, she closed her eyes tightly and tried to think of how to get there.

Perhaps the train in Ponyville is an option. But wait... there was that problem of being caught. At least, during the daytime. That’s when a light bulb clicked in the clone’s mind. She could sneak into the train at night! It was a perfect plan.

She faced the direction of the entrance to the forest leading back to Ponyville, and trotted happily. Or rather, bounced happily, resisting the urge to repeatedly say ‘fun’ over and over again.

And there at the entrance she waited. Seven whole hours of staring off into the distance, looking at Ponyville without a break. A few things did distract the clone, though... if a few was equal to about one hundred.

She wandered off the trail a few times because of said distractions, but she always managed to find a way back. It did help that trails marked the ground of the Everfree Forest. Even if they weren’t there, it would be odd if the forest had signs pointing to the entrance, and others pointing to random areas. Not like anypony needed to find the cave of an Ursa, or the locations of herds of Timberwolves. That would just scare them senseless.

But no more getting distracted. That’s just what the other clones did in her position. They got distracted, and look where they ended up. It was a good thing this Pinkie wasn’t with the other Pinkies when each Pinkie claimed to be the real Pinkie when they weren’t in fact, the real Pinkie, so she didn’t face the path the other Pinkies traveled.

Did any of that make sense? Probably not.

She walked out of the forest towards the rather small town. Princess Luna’s moon glowed brightly in the alluring night sky. Ok, it wasn’t exactly glowing, but that was beside the point. The point is, It was nighttime, a Pinkie clone was sneaking off to Ponyville to get in a train, that is it.

As soon as she reached the edge of the city, she looked around. Not a pony to be seen. As soon as she saw that the coast was clear, she bounced ahead. But wait, she was supposed to stay hidden. There could be a pony still outside who could see her.

As if anypony was around outside at this time in Ponyville. But it doesn’t hurt to be careful.

With ninja-like stealth, the Pinkie clone crawled around, jumped around, rolled behind cover, climbed walls, jumped rooftops, and hid in bushes. But the train station wasn’t even that far away. And she realized that only a few seconds later when she was standing directly in front of it. Weird.

Grinning widely, she bounced straight for the boarding platform. Once she entered the train, with it surprisingly being open, she looked around the dark interior. Very empty it felt, and quiet as well. The only sound that could be heard were the clopping of the clone’s hooves as they walked on the floor and the crickets chirping outside.

She walked through the next few cars until she reached the caboose, and like all the others, that was empty too. This could make a good place to hide until the train started to move in the morning, or whenever the next time the train would be moving would be.

She quietly laid on one of the seats and made herself comfortable. She made a yawn before her eyes felt heavy, and she fell asleep.

Her dreams that would be filled with expectations of the fun to be had in Manehatten. It would probably be much more fun than Ponyville was. But whether she would see if that was true or not, she would have to wait.





Slowly, steadily, a certain blue unicorn was gaining profit from all her hard work. Hard work was well, hard. However, it always paid off. And it was no different for this mare.

Ponies everywhere dispersed from a largely-crowded area as what looked like a show had ended. A large stage was set up in front of where they were once standing, with a large red curtain with a single pony standing in the middle, looking as confident as ever.

However, deep inside, she didn’t feel confidence. She didn’t feel success. She felt humiliation. Failure. Nothing but a waste of time. And it reminded her of her past time in Ponyville a bit over a year ago.

It was the worst she had felt in years. There she was, wowing the crowd with her tricks. Then here comes another unicorn, and what does she do? Show her up by standing up to an Ursa Minor and showing her up with a fantastic magical trick of her own. She had enough at that time.

As soon as all the ponies from the crowd were out of sight, the mare frowned and her horn glowed, closing the curtain in front of her. She walked to the side, reflecting back on the passing months since that fateful day.

“This is unbelievable. Ever since Twilight Sparkle showed me up with that trick of hers, she has made me a laughing stock. Everypony has heard of it. None of them can give me a break. Does nopony care about Trixie?”

Trixie exited the stage from the side, and started to fold it up from the outside.

“I’ll have to come up with a few more things to try and excite this crowd. I’ve never seen a bunch this arrogant before. I have thought of a few certain tricks, but I need volunteers for them, and none of them seemed willing enough. What cowards! Well, no need. I always have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

The brave and determined face she had just exhibited soon lowered as fast as it had appeared. She sighed as the stage soon reverted back to its small form before she retired to her small carriage.

“Trixie shall have her next show in a few days. Trixie will show these residents of Manehatten who really is the most talented unicorn in all of Equestria!”
> Chapter 1: New Beginnings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Celestia’s sun shined bright across the sky. The air was warm and nice, making for a perfect day in Manehatten. Most of the ponies wandering the streets were plain, simple Earth pony folk. Well, some looked like high-class ponies with proper mannerisms and such.

But not like any of that mattered. Looking past that, the train coming in from Canterlot had rolled in. The ponies lined up at the boarding platform of the station waited as the train pulled up from the tracks, slowing to a halt. A loud screeching sound was heard as the train’s brakes slowed down the rotation of the wheels.

The screech was enough to wake up the sleeping Pinkie clone from the back of the train. She yawned quietly and stretched herself upwards from the seat.

Nopony else seemed to be sitting in the car, so  she was more or less alone. It was basically a guess that nopony even noticed she was on the train in the first place. That, or if anypony did see her, they just decided to ignore it.

She hopped off from the seat and proceeded to the back of the car, the same sound of her hooves clopping on the floor making its sound. When she opened the door, the sudden brightness of the sunlight stung her eyes. She immediately brought a hoof over them to shade them from the ultraviolet rays as she looked around the outside of the train.

The first thing she noticed upon looking to the right was a sign that read: WELCOME TO MANEHATTEN.

Looking above that, she saw the tall building of the city. Most were five to eight story apartment buildings and hotels, and others were fancy-looking houses, though those were more outside the left side of the city in the point of view she was looking in.

Wanting to check out the city, as she intended to do, the Pinkie clone happily bounced out the train with a wide grin.

As she entered the city, some of the ponies around her gave her some strange looks. It was as if the behavior of a grown mare being similar to that of a young filly was the most abnormal thing they’ve seen. That was the behavior of the hyperactive pink mare anyway, and she didn’t really care for the looks. She just carried on with her business of hopping endlessly towards no particular direction.

After some time, she ended up entering a park in the west side of the city. Flowers bloomed and trees decorated the landscape nicely. Fillies and colts were running around and playing, some others were simply having a conversation, and some relaxed on benches. Others were having a picnic with friends, and one mare was even reading a book. It was overall a calming atmosphere.

“Ooh, lots of fun to be had here! Oh, but what should I do first? Should I talk to her, or play with him, or... or...” Her eyes darted back and forth at all the groups of ponies as she pointed a hoof to every one of them she was referring to.

The clones didn’t have much common sense, and this clone wasn’t any different. In less than a second, she appeared behind one of the little fillies that were playing with another filly and a colt. She flashed a wide grin as she stood before the small group of three.

“Hey! Whatcha playing? Is it a game? Can I play?  Is it fun? What is it? How do you play?”

As soon as she started talking, the yellow Earth pony filly she stood directly behind jumped in surprise and fell on her back in front of the other two children. The other two stared in confusion at the sudden pink mare that just intruded on their little game, though all they were doing was rolling a ball around to each other.

“Umm, who are you?” asked the tan pegasus colt.

“Me? I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“Pinkie Pie? What kind of a name is that?”

“It’s my kind of a name, silly! I’m a Pinkie Pie, and I like to have fun!”

The filly that was startled earlier rose to her hooves and regained her composure. “If anything, your name should be Surprise. You really surprised me...”

Regardless of the filly’s well-being, the Pinkie clone kept her wide grin. “Call me whatever you want. Do you have anything fun to do? I like fun! Is this ball fun?”

She picked up the ball, and bounced it up and down on her hoof. The three children exchanged awkward glances before looking back at Pinkie. “I... suppose you want to play with us?”

The Pinkie clone gasped, and leaped high into the air at a surprisingly high altitude. She performed five backflips before she swung her hooves out and confetti appeared out of nowhere.

“Yay! Let’s have fun! Fun! Fun!”

The young fillies and colt started to chatter quietly among themselves while the Pinkie clone was busy enjoying her enthusiastic moment.

“What is with this mare?”

“I don’t know, but she sure is crazy and weird.”

“She’s more hyper than my elder sister after six cups of latte.”

“Who’s more hyper than latte?”

Suddenly, she reappeared behind them. The startled filly from before once again fell back onto her rump in surprise. It was pretty obvious she was easily scared. The colt sighed from seeing that.

“Jitters, you really should stop being such a scaredy-cat.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault! That Pinkie lady scared me.”

The Pinkie clone frowned in response. It was apparent to her that she was making her presence a problem to them. “I think I’m ruining the fun. Am I ruining the fun?”

The other filly, a light green unicorn, walked closer to her. “No, not at all. Look, if you want, we can have some fun.”

The colt brought his head closer and whispered in her ear. “Filla, what are you doing? You’re just going to let some random lady play with us? We don’t know her.”

Filla scoffed. “Relax, Aero. She doesn’t seem so bad. I mean, look at her. She’s basically a kid like us.”

They looked back at the Pinkie clone, who was smiling back before getting distracted by a passing butterfly. She hopped after it, chasing it while admiring its beautiful wings.

“I suppose you have a point. Go ahead and tell her.”

Filla nodded, and turned to Pinkie, who looked to be about a few feet away. “Hey, Pinkie lady!”

Upon hearing that, Pinkie literally paused in midair and looked back at the group. “It’s Pinkie Pie, not Pinkie Lady!” She landed back on the ground and trotted back towards them.

“Yeah, do you want to play with us?”

Pinkie gasped, and suddenly hugged Filla. “Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes! We’re gonna have so much fun, just you wait and see!”

Jitters was watching the whole time. She could only facehoof and sigh. “I just know this isn’t going to end well...”





The sun shone through the open window of the carriage, lighting up the room with bright sunlight. The warm rays rested upon the closed eyelids of a sleeping Trixie, who moaned a bit from the sudden light beaming through. She made a yawn while awaking up from her slumber.

“Hmm, another day. Another excruciating day ahead for Trixie. Couldn’t the sun wait for a few more minutes? The Great and Powerful Trixie needed her beauty sleep.”

She rose up from her bed. Her mane and tail were a mess, though that could just be bed hair. She walked over to the mirror she had next to one of the walls and looked at her reflection. Messy mane, messy tail, small bags under her eyes... what a horrible image.

Trixie’s horn glowed a light purple hue, and the brush in front of her levitated up to her face. She brought it up to just over her withers, and stroked it down her mane. She made long, clean strokes until it was nice and straight. She did the same to the top part of her mane until it looked as natural as ever.

“Even on the bleakest of days, Trixie has to look her best. Now then, what is there to do today? Yesterday, I entertained the masses of Manehatten. Too bad they did not enjoy the awesome magic of Trixie. What sort of different approach can I do?”

She walked over to the window and peeked her head out of the carriage. The streets of the city were a small distance away, about roughly half a mile away.

“Perhaps Trixie can seek an opportunity in the city. But from what? Nopony will speak to Trixie after that show yesterday. Everything was going perfect... until that mindless pegasus ruined my trick and ruined my show!”

Her face scowled in remembrance of the end of last night’s show. “There I was, the Great and Powerful Trixie, about to perform an amazing feat of disintegrating cards-- a simple yet effective card trick if I do say so myself-- until that pegasus flew by and ruined my concentration! Ended up nearly making myself bald. Does he lack control of his wings? If one was not mistaken, they’d say he was comparable to that confused mailmare in Ponyville... except for the eyes. Either way, it ended my show in humiliation yet again. But I shall try again. Trixie will not quit!”

She was interrupted by a feeling in her stomach, telling her she was hungry. “Trixie requires food. I wonder if Manehatten has a good place to eat.”

She walked over to the door and pushed it open. She inhaled deeply as the fresh air from the outdoors filled her nostrils. She stepped out and walked down the path towards the city.

The inside of the city was bustling with activity, as Trixie had seen in pretty much every city and town she had traveled to. This one wasn’t much different. Ponies were walking about, some were entering certain business buildings and others were simply having a conversation.

She stepped into the city, almost already running into a couple of ponies. She made sure to watch her step, but expected everypony else to do the same, as if they weren’t smart enough to watch their own steps. But it was nothing the Great and Powerful Trixie should fret over.

Right now, she was only focused on the growl of her stomach indicating her hunger. “Trixie is very hungry. Is there anypony here who knows a fine place to eat in? A small breakfast is all Trixie needs.”

She was hoping somepony would hear, or at least notice her. The joys of having to walk to somepony herself, creating effort which a certain blue unicorn was too lazy to do.

Trixie breathed a deep sigh and turned to the closest stallion to her position. “Excuse me, do you know any restaurant that can serve the Great and Powerful Trixie some breakfast?”

She was face-to-face with a rather tall brown Earth pony stallion with a grey coiffed mane. He was sporting a handsome tuxedo around as if it was normal everyday clothing, though by looking around, one would notice the citizens of Manehatten did possess some sense of fashion.

“Why, yes my dear. There is an exquisite breakfast eatery just five blocks due North. You’ll want to head in that direction.” The stallion turned and pointed a hoof to the North.

“Thank you for the directions, Mr...”

“Arc. You may simply refer to me as Arc. Everypony does.”

“Thank you, Arc. You are quite a gentlecolt.”

“For a nice mare such as yourself, certainly.” He nodded towards Trixie before turning his back to her and proceeded to walk away. For a small moment there, a small smile began to form on her face from the generous sentiment. It appeared not everypony saw her as any less of a pony just because of her attitude, even if she did not express it enough there.

“Yes, well... Trixie must be on her way.”

She turned to the North, and walked forward. She wondered if there were going to be other surprises that would come to her this day.
> Chapter 2: The Meeting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The start of the day was going pretty swimmingly for the Pinkie clone. She wasn’t missing Ponyville one bit, despite the amount of fun she had when she was back there.

She could remember the first time she came out the Mirror Pool. It was a normal day in the Everfree Forest. Well, as normal as it could get. The real Pinkie Pie had wandered into the cavern that housed the mystical pool. That is, after ungracefully landing flat on her face. After getting up from her mishap, and talking to herself for a bit, she stared into the pool and spoke the chant that would activate the magic of it.

And into her own reflection she stared,
Yearning for one whose reflection she shared.
And solemnly sweared not to be scared
At the prospect of being doubly mared!

And those words were spoken as she touched a hoof into the water, and soon her whole body went through. The feel of the water was refreshing, though while going through, it gave of a weird tingling sensation that only lasted a second. It would then be shown tat the mare that went through had indeed become doubly mared.

And being free felt wonderful. She could do whatever she wanted, when she wanted, as long as there existed something for her to do. Of course, there was the reason why Pinkie had cloned herself in the first place: so there was enough of her to go around so she could experience fun everywhere she went.

And then it ended after more Pinkies showed up, caused a whole mess of things, and were sent back. And the only remaining one left was in Manehatten.

She had just spent the last ten minutes or so playing with what she considered to be her new friends. They played around with a ball, and played Tag, told stories about each other, and many other things. It was almost hard to believe, but Pinkie had already made some new friends.

“Ooh ooh, is there anything else you guys wanna do? I wanna have some more fun! We could jump rope, or hop around cheerfully, or play hide-and-seek, or have a picnic, or--”

Pinkie would’ve kept on talking had Filla not cut her off. “Pinkie, would’’t you rather we take a break? I’d like to rest a bit.”

Jitters and Aero, the other filly and colt, nodded in agreement. Pinkie’s ears lowered, as she wanted to continue the fun. A thought came to her mind. “Well, I guess that’s ok. Maybe we can get something to eat? I am pretty hungry.”

The three children looked at each other, and huddled together.

Jitters was the first to speak. “Like, I know we just had a bit of fun with Pinkie, but I’m still not sure about her.”

Filla rolled her eyes in response. “Come on, Jitters. You’ve seen her. You even played with her. You know she’s not a bad pony after all. Don’t feel so anxious just because she scared you twice.”

“Now hold on,” Aero retorted. “That isn’t Jitters’ fault. She gets scared easily.”

“I do not!”

“You kind of do... you once got scared by a ladybug.”

Jitters sighed. “Nevermind that. Are you two sure you want to do this?”

“Totally! And besides, we’re getting something to eat, right? With her, since she’s a grown up, we could take her with us to some restaurant and she could get us some good food! I wouldn’t want anything my mother makes...” Filla stuck out her tongue in disgust. Her mother’s breakfast food wasn’t bad, but she didn’t exactly have an acquired taste for it.

“Yeah, good point. No offense to your mother, though. I just wish for better food.”

Jitters attempted a confident smile. “Well, I suppose she can get us some food. I am pretty hungry myself.”

Aero patted her on the back. “That’s the spirit! Now come on.”

The three turned back to Pinkie, only to raise their eyebrows at the new sight. She had the side of her head pressed down against the ground as if trying to hear something from underground. Filla walked up to her and tapped her on her arm.

“Are you ok? What are you doing?”

Pinkie put a hoof to her lips as a gesture to stay silent. She then spoke in a whisper. “Shh, I’m listening.”

“To what?”

“Well, I’m an Earth pony, right? And this is the earth, right? So me, being a pony, is listening to the earth. Get it now?”

Filla facehoofed in disbelief. “Pinkie, being an Earth pony means you don’t have a horn or wings. Instead, you’re more connected to the ground, or something.”

“Oh, I know that. Just thought I’d take it up a notch!” She lifted her head up to grin at a confused Filla.

“Umm, what?”

“Oh, nothing! So hey, where’s that food? Is it over there? Or there? Or there? Ooh, what about over there?” Pinkie kept pointing over in different directions. Jitters and Aero stood by Filla’s sides as she sighed.

“Pinkie, can we just leave? We’re all getting pretty hungry, and you know, wouldn’t like to stand around all day.”

“Oh, sorry. So where do we go? Do we go into that city there?”

Aero nodded. “Yeah, and it’s called Manehattan. It’s where we are now.  You must be new here.”

“Well, yeah of course! I just arrived this morning. I was kinda hoping I could have some fun here. I’d rather not go back to where I came from...”

“And where was that?”

“Ponyville.”

They all raised eyebrows. It was rather uncommon for Ponyville folk to visit Manehattan. “Wow... you came all the way from Ponyville? You didn’t like it there, or something?”

“Actually, it was very fun there. I had many friends there to play with. It was a real joy. But then... my friends disappeared. They all didn’t want me. So I left...”

Her ears lowered, and a sad, downtrodden expression appeared on her face. Never had the children seen so much sadness. It was rather creepy when they thought about it.

Jitters decided to speak up again, hoping to make the situation better. “Well, there is a restaurant my dad sometimes goes to with me. It has excellent food there. Maybe we can go there? That should cheer you up.”

Pinkie’s ears perked up, and she turned to the little Earth pony filly. A warm smile began to form on her face. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so sad. In an instant, the three found themselves in a big hug, made by none other than the pink blur that rushed to them.

“You guys are sooooo the best! You three are my new best friends!”

She hugged them tightly. The effect of her squeezing was making it difficult for them to breathe and get out any words.

“Pinkie...” Filla managed to get out a word, but with some difficulty. “Can you let us go? It’s hard to breathe...”

“Whoops, sorry!” She quickly let go of them, and they fell together in a heap on the ground in front of her. They somehow had blue faces from the lack of oxygen, but it returned to normal just as quickly. They were in a daze for quite some time before they all stood, holding their heads from the dizziness. Aero shook his head of the confusion.

“Let’s just go.”

“Well, you’ll need to point the way, silly! By the way, you guys never told me your names.”

“Right.” The tan pegasus colt cleared his throat. “I’m Aero. The yellow Earth pony is Jitters, and the light green unicorn is Filla.”

The two fillies shook off their daze. “Well, actually, my real name is Filament. Kind of a weird name if you ask me, so ponies just call me Filla.”

“Nice to meet you three! My name is Pinkie Pie... or did I already tell you that? Anyway, it’s follow the leader time! You lead, and I’ll follow!”

Jitters looked back at the streets of Manehatten. She knew that the restaurant she referred to earlier was quite a walking distance from the park they were presently standing in. She sighed, and started to walk forward.

“Ok guys, follow me. It’s a long distance away, but it’s worth it.”

The rest of the group nodded, and started to follow the Earth pony. Jitters very much loved the food the restaurant had to offer. To her, they had the best breakfast sandwiches in Equestria. They were heavenly to the taste. She would always remember going with her father, and munching on one of the most delicious cucumber sandwiches ever made.

Before long, they found themselves a few feet away from the entrance. Pinkie was grinning wide. “Ooh, is this the place? Is this the place?”

“Yes, Pinkie. This is it.”

The ecstatic mare bounced up and down, much to the children’s confusion. How exactly can somepony be so jittery in the morning? Did she drink a lot of coffee earlier? Sugar, perhaps? Or maybe this was just normal for her. They decided it was best to try not to figure her out.

Before they could head inside, they saw a light blue unicorn exit the restaurant, looking quite satisfied with herself.

“That Arc stallion surely has an exquisite taste in eating establishments. Trixie must thank him later. Now to get back to--”

Her eyes widened, and she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes were fixated on what appeared to be Pinkie Pie. She remembered exactly who she was. The pink hyperactive mare from Ponyville. One of Twilight Sparkle’s friends. If there was anything she didn’t like, it was that lavender unicorn, and seeing one of her friends only gave her a reminder.

Even if she didn’t see her, she had heard all about the Elements of Harmony and their representatives. The pink one was known as the bearer of the Element of Laughter. But Trixie didn’t care about that. She only cared about how this was one of her own rival’s friends.

Her eyes narrowed as she walked closer to the group of four. “You! What are you doing here in Manehatten? Here to mock Trixie, I see?”

Pinkie blinked in confusion. She didn’t remember seeing Trixie before, though it appeared she somehow knew her. “Umm, have we met?”

“We have not, but Trixie knows of your friendship with Twilight Sparkle. Surely, she has told you about me?”

Twilight Sparkle. If this was the real Pinkie, she would’ve smiled from the mention. But seeing as this was one of the clones of Pinkie, she felt quite the opposite. The sight of Twilight Sparkle, she admit, scared her. If she was seen by her, she would be sent back to that dreaded Mirror Pool. She didn’t want to end up like all those other clones.

Trixie was expecting a reply, but didn’t get one. “Hey! Trixie asked you a question. Are you going to answer it?”

Pinkie snapped out of her thoughts. “Oh, sorry. I was kinda deep in thought. It’s just... something I’d rather not talk about.” After those few words, she turned her head away.

The children looked at her with a bit of concern. Trixie was now confused herself. “Trixie does not understand. You are one of her friends, are you not?”

“She used to be...”

Trixie was not getting this at all. She knew Twilight as the one pony who kept friendship as the closest thing to her heart. To her, Pinkie seemed like the next-closest thing to a pony that showed friendship. But it couldn’t be that they broke a friendship. Something was off.

Hmm, Trixie shall not allow herself to be fooled by this pony’s tricks. But something’s not right here. Perhaps an interrogation is in order.

Trixie wasn’t too sure about what she was about to do, but it wasn’t like she had anything else important to do.

“If you do not mind, Trixie wants to speak with you... privately.” She raised her voice at the children, who stepped back a bit. Filla just rolled her eyes.

“Ok, but who’s Trixie?”

“Right... I am the Great and Powerful Trixie, the most amazing unicorn in all of Equestria, bla bla bla. Just come with me. We have things to discuss.”

Trixie began to walk past her and the fillies and colt. Pinkie raised an eyebrow, and turned to the children. “I guess I’ll see you guys later. Ooh, maybe she wants to be my friend too!”

She quickly hopped away. The three children stood there in disbelief.

“What just happened?”

We lost our chance to eat a good breakfast, that’s what happened.”

Filla and Aero both stared at Jitters. “What? That food is delicious. It’s better than the junk your mom makes, Filla.”

The unicorn filly, opened her mouth to say something back, but nothing was said. She sighed in defeat. “Good point. Let’s just go.”

They all went off towards a street to their left, their stomachs grumbling loudly.


> Chapter 3: A New Change
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie and Trixie were traveling down the streets of Manehatten, the sky clear of clouds and the sun shining down on the city below. The hyper pink mare bounced along happily while the light blue one merely walked.

“So where are you taking me? do we get to do something fun there? What is it? Are you going to be my new friend? What are we going to do? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. Trixie finds this annoying, but this should be quick. I only wish to see what this is about. There’s no way what she said is true. She must be hiding something, and Trixie intends to find out what.

“Hush, you. Trixie is bringing you back to her carriage to interrogate you.”

“Interrogate? Like, ask me questions? Ooh ooh, are we going to play Twenty Questions? That’s a fun game! Me first, me first! Ask me something!”

“No, that is not what Trixie meant. It is no game. It is an important matter we must discuss. You say you are not friends with Twilight Sparkle anymore. Trixie knows there is something behind that.”

She stopped bouncing, as this hit her again like a pie to the face, only it wasn’t a joke and not fit for giggles. “Why ask about that? I don’t need Ponyville. I’m staying here where ponies actually want me!”

As she said that, she wrapped a hoof around the neck of a random stallion, who got rather annoyed and removed her hoof. Pinkie stared at him as he walked away, then shrugged. “His loss. So where’s your carriage?”

“It’s at the edge of the city, about two blocks away from a park.”

Pinkie gasped, as if this sounded familiar and something came back to her mind. “I know what you mean now! You mean that carriage I saw as I made my way from the train station to the park! It looked weird, if you ask me. Are you poor, or something?”

“P-Poor?! How dare you insult the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Powerful? Not to sound rude or anything, but you don’t exactly have big muscles or anything.”

Trixie bared her teeth. She was getting really annoyed with this Pinkie character. “It is part of my title, you inconsiderate oaf! I’m not having any more of this. You shall sleep, now!”

“Sleep? But I’m not even--”

Before she could finish her sentence, a bolt came her way. It was lightning-fast, and she couldn’t react fast enough to avoid it. It hit hit her square between her eyes, and she flinched back. Her sight became blurry as she started to feel woozy.

“Woah... what happened? What’s happening to me...”

She collapsed with a thud.

----------

Wake up.

Huh, a voice? It sounded like a voice was heard. It sounded strangely familiar...

Trixie knows you can hear now. Wake up, or she shall force you up!”

Trixie. It was that blue unicorn mare from earlier. Pinkie remembered her. Her eyes opened slowly to the sight of the magician from earlier. Trixie looked down at the pink Earth pony as she laid on the tiny couch.

“Good, you are awake. We are now in my carriage. Relax here, and do nothing. Trixie has things to ask you.”

Pinkie shook her head to clear her vision and regain her senses. She looked around the room to get a view of her surroundings.

It looked just like any ordinary carriage, though one of the larger variety that looked more like a large caravan than anything else. It was populated with various cheap items, possibly used for magic shows. One one side of the room, there was a mirror and a small dresser next to it with a brush on top. On the other side, a map of Equestria was taped to the wall, probably just there for decoration. Her gaze returned to Trixie.

“So you live in here?”

“Yes, this is where Trixie sleeps. It is not much, but it is liveable for a traveling pony such as myself.”

Pinkie nodded in understanding, though something about Trixie’s speech confused her. “Trixie, why do you refer to yourself in the third person?”

Trixie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Is that any of your business? Trixie is the one who shall be asking the questions here, Pinkie Pie! You are to just lay there and answer Trixie.”

Pinkie scratched her head in confusion of the unicorn’s statement. “How do you know my name? I never told you. Did Filla, Jitters or Aero tell you my name? No wait, they weren’t with us. Wait, did anypony from Ponyville come here and see me, and they told you? Do they know I’m here?! I’m not going back!”

Her expression changed to one of frustration, and a bit of fear. Trixie herself wasn’t expecting it, and was left quite surprised by the reaction. “Calm down. We are the only two ponies here. Trixie would rather not see anypony in Ponyville herself, though Trixie plans to return sometime once Trixie raise the necessary bits to purchase a certain artifact from a certain merchant... but enough about that.”

“Ooh, I can help if you want! Raising bits sounds like fun!”

“It is not fun. It is a lot of hard work, which you would not know since all you do is bake sugary junk food all day.”

Pinkie shook her head. “Nonononono, the real Pinkie Pie does that--”

After suddenly realizing what she said, she clasped her hooves over her mouth. Trixie raised an eyebrow at the suspicion that Pinkie was hiding a lot more than she was saying. “Real Pinkie Pie, you say? Are you saying you are a fake? A doppelganger? A mimic? Trixie suggests you talk, now.”

The pink mare lowered her head worriedly. She didn’t want to get caught, but it looked like Trixie was on to her. It would've been no use to try and hide it further. She wasn’t going to say anything. However, Trixie was giving off a deep glare that intimidated Pinkie to the point that it was scaring her. The pressure was getting to her, and she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Ok ok, I’ll talk, I’ll talk. Just stop looking at me like that!”

Trixie groaned a bit before leaning her head back a bit away from Pinkie. She raised her head back up, although she was still feeling discomfort from the atmosphere given off in the carriage.

“Then let’s start with the first question: are you a fake?”

“Umm, well... I am, and I’m not. You see, I’m actually a double Pinkie, or like a copy. A clone? Whatever you want to call it.”

Trixie was dumbfounded. There was no way a simple Earth pony was able to make an artificial copy of herself. There had to be some sort of magic involved. It was time for Trixie to get more details about this mysterious business.

“Keep talking.”

"Ok. There is this pool in the Neversee Forest...”

Trixie cut her off. “It’s called the Everfree Forest.”

“Right, Everfree Forest. Anyway, there was a sort of pool inside a cave in there that contained magic. The magic allowed anypony who said a certain phrase of words to clone themselves. It’s called the Mirror Pool.”

There was no way a mere body of water could contain magic that made clones of ponies. It was just too unbelievable-sounding. Perhaps it was all this pony’s mere imagination. She heard about how wacky this particular pink mare’s antics were. From what she knew, Pinkie Pie loved parties and sweets, and did anything to cheer up anypony. However, something did seem different, but Trixie hadn’t personally met the pony. It was nothing but more listening for now.

“As soon as a pony said the phrase and looked at their reflection, said reflection would climb out of the pool as another pony. I was the very first one. It felt so good to come out of that pool and into the real world from inside. And I could remember the reason why I came out in the first place: to have as much fun as a Pinkie Pie could have!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. As if a pony couldn’t deal with too much fun. If this copy is that annoying, the original must be far worse, and with two of them? Trixie couldn't begin to imagine the chaos that could ensue with that.

“Let me guess, the Ponyvillians couldn’t handle two of you?”

“Actually, they didn’t even know yet. We were trying to do two things at once. The real Pinkie Pie was going to hang out with Rainbow Crash while I try to help out Applesauce with raising the barn.”

Rainbow Crash? Applesauce? Those are Great and Powerful mocking names! Trixie must remember those and come up with more.

“But then there was Fluttershutter with the cute little animals, and they invited me to have a picnic with them. Oh, who could resist all that fun?! But I couldn’t do those two things at once! It was either one or the other, and I couldn’t choose! So, the real me had a brilliant plan: make even more of us! Or more of me, or more of her? Something like that.”

“So you two made even more of yourselves with that pool?”

“Yup! But... things got out of hand. You see, the real me, after we copied ourselves so that we have two double hers, or a double her with another double double her, or a  double double double her if you will. We weren’t too careful with the whole business, and thought that the whole copying process was going to create more fun than we could ever have. So, we made even more Pinkies. A lot more. Like, about thirty of them.”

Trixie’s pupils became small. If two were too much, she’d expect to see Ponyville in ruins by now if there was thirty of them. “How exactly could all of Ponyville handle thirty of you?”

“Exactly! So you know, here comes Applesauce to try and chase us all, along with a cute little dog and a small yellow filly. While we were running, i saw a butterfly and started to chase it! I think they were trying to keep us in, but I somehow managed to make my way out to follow that butterfly. I kept chasing it all the way to a nice meadow where I found a whole bunch of  butterflies! Oh, it looked so beautiful!”

Pinkie looked at the ceiling in thought as she remembered the beautiful sight of the meadow. About over two hundred butterflies were gathered around each other near a large patch of flowers. When Pinkie witnessed the view, her eyes widened hugely, and her grin grew very big. What else was there to do than jump in on the fun?

And she enjoyed playing around with them for about the whole hour. So much fun was had in that hour, almost as much fun as baking treats, or pulling harmless pranks on unsuspecting ponies. How did she stray off into the Everfree Forest?

“And well, after all that, some of the butterflies flew away, and I saw them. So I followed them while yelling, ‘hey, where are you all going?’ But they wouldn’t listen  to me, so I chased after them! I mean, who wouldn’t right? So they went into the Everfree forest, and I followed them inside.”

“You went inside the Everfree Forest just like that? For no reason?”

“Pretty much! But, I lost the butterflies after some time. I then saw a cute little squirrel up in a tree, and so I jumped up to try and catch it! But when I got up there, it just like, disappeared out of nowhere! It must’ve been my imagination or something. It was then that I heard hoofsteps not that far away from the branches I was on.”

Her face lowered to a frown at the memory. “There I was up there, and from what I could see, there was Twilight, Applesauce’s brother, and the real me. You know what they did?”

Trixie sighed. She was going to open her mouth to guess, but like expected, Pinkie said the answer herself.

“They took a giant rock, and covered the entrance to the cave that had the pool in it! Something told me they brought back all the other Pinkies back to that cave and covered it up so we couldn’t make more. no more Pinkies, no more fun.”

Her ears slumped downward as she buried her head into her hooves. Trixie could care less about the pink mare’s feelings. All she wanted were answers. “So then why did you come here?”

She lifted her head back up, but the sad face was still there. “Well, that’s not hard to explain. Once I figured out all the other fake Pinkies were taken back, I had a feeling it was all because of that Twilight Spittle’s fault.”

“No, it’s Twilight Spar--” Trixie stopped suddenly. Perhaps she could have a bit of a laugh from this. It’s not everyday she heard something she could use to mock Twilight from somepony else. “I mean, yes. Twilight Spittle. It is most definitely her fault.”

“Finally, you get it! I thought I was alone here.”

If there was a time for a brilliant plan to arise from the current situation, it had to be now. And in an instant, such a brilliant plan hatched in Trixie’s mind. it was one that would solve both the Pinkie clone and Trixie’s problems, but she would have to get the sad pink mare’s attention.

“Very well. Trixie has a proposal for you. We may be able to help each other out.”

Pinkie blinked in confusion. What could Trixie mean by this? Was there really a way she could help the Earth pony, or at least cheer her up? At this point, Pinkie could go for anything right now. And if there was a possible chance of fun, why not take it? She climbed herself out of the tiny couch and onto the floor.

“OK, so what kind of proposal do you have? Is it a fun one?”

“Trixie thought she said--” Wait, she had to get this pony on her side, which wouldn’t work well if she kept up that attitude. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Yes, it shall be a fun one.”

Pinkie made another grin with an audible squeal before the unicorn continued, but she turned around think before doing so. “Since you are not the real Pinkie Pie, you don’t know who I am. I have told you before that I am the Great and Powerful Trixie. You see, Trixie is a showpony that aims to be the highest-level unicorn  all of Equestria! Trixie proves her skills in her magic shows. Trixie prevails in almost every show. But as of late, these ponies do not appreciate my talents. Or they do, but not as much as Trixie demands. Trixie wishes to wow her crowds, and for that, I must perform awe-inspiring tricks.”

She turned around to face Pinkie, only to see that she wasn’t in her previous location. She looked around the room to find that Pinkie had been standing in front of the mirror, looking at  her reflection. However, she didn’t look like herself at all.

She knew herself as the copy of the pink mare with magenta hair, baby blue eyes, and yellow and light blue balloons for a cutie mark. There were major differences now. Her coat was no longer pink, but now a clean white color. Her magenta hair was now a bright yellow. Her baby blue eyes, changed to purple. Even her cutie mark was altered to look purple instead of the normal yellow and light blue.

The look on her face was complete and utter shock, and Trixie could see that well. She walked close to the now white mare with a smirk on her face. “Trixie sees you have noticed a change. Do you like it?”

She kept staring into the mirror. “What... dd you do to me?”

“Ha, just one of Trixie’s Great and Powerful magic spells! See, it’s a spell that changes the appearance of every single part of your body from your head to your hooves. Impressive, isn’t it?”

Trixie had a look of confidence on her face. “Oh, and you have a little something on your backsides. No, it isn’t an illusion. They are real, but only temporarily.”

The Earth pony blinked, and looked back to realize she wasn’t an Earth pony anymore, but a pegasus. On her back were a pair of real pegasus wings. “I have wings?”

“Yet another spell created by Trixie. They are real, but the spell is so powerful, it drained a large sum of my magic energy. Trixie can keep the spell active, but her magic won’t recharge as a result. If I don’t keep it active, it‘ll only last for about three hours. Until then, I’ll allow you to enjoy them as you please.”

“It’s awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She tightly hugged Trixie, who was having a hard time breathing as a result.

“Back away from Trixie! Trixie does not tolerate this...”

“Oh, sorry!” Pinkie let go of the unicorn, who let go a few inhales and exhales.

“Trixie was not intending on making this a favor. It is all a part of Trixie’s plan. This disguise was so nopony here in Manehatten could recognize you. The other part of the plan is a proposition Trixie wishes to have with you. Trixie has explained earlier while you were busy staring at yourself in the mirror. Trixie requires your assistance in her magic shows as her Great and Powerful assistant.”

“You want me to be an assistant in your magic shows? Ooh, this is going to be so fun!”

Trixie hopes this doesn’t become a failure. The last thing Trixie needed was a helper, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“One more thing: since you are under a disguise, and therefore nopony shall recognize you, you’ll need a new name to complete your new identity. Trixie has not come up with anything yet, but...”

Before she could continue, she was interrupted. “Surprise!”

Trixie jumped back in recoil from the sudden response. She felt like her heart stopped, but only for a brief moment. “Excuse me? What reason have you for startling Trixie? And what sort of ridiculous name is Surprise?”

“Oh, I didn’t come up with it. Jitters did! Oh wait, you probably don’t know who that is. She is one of the fillies I met earlier! What do you think?”

Well, Surprise was an odd name for a pony. Then again, this is a clone of an odd pony. It seemed fitting.

“Very well. From this day forward, you are now known as Surprise, Trixie’s Great and Powerful assistant! Don’t make Trixie regret this decision.”

Pinkie, or now Surprise, raised a hoof to her forehead in a salute. “I shall not let you down!”


> Chapter 4: All The Feels
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few minutes later from that interesting conversation, and Trixie and the new Surprise made their way out of the carriage into Manehatten. They were still just outside the park, though some distance from it. The blue unicorn was simply walking normally, but the white pegasus was tempted to try out her new wings. She did loop-de-loops and flips, and weaved through ponies standing around them, though she was doing everything rather clumsily, most likely an effect of the spell. All of them got rather annoyed, and Trixie just rolled her eyes at the immaturity.

“Surprise, front and center!” She pointed her hoof downward at the ground in front of her. As soon as Surprise heard her, she flew back down to the showpony and landed in front of her perfectly, saluting her.

“Do not forget, Trixie only gave you those wings as part of your disguise. I can remove them if I so please, so listen to Trixie and do as I say, and you can keep your wings.”

“Yes sir, ma’am sir!” Surprise swung her hoof forward, completing her salute. Trixie turned back away from her, and toward the city.

“Good, then here's the plan. You agreed to be Trixie's assistant in her magic shows, but Trixie must come up with tricks that can be performed on another pony. Trixie does not get many volunteers for her shows, even when ponies are called out. That is where you come in.”

Surprise nodded as if she understood, though Trixie questioned whether or not she could really understand given the simple mind she had being a clone of a rather simple-minded pony.

“There must be some sort of library here in this city where Trixie can research some spells to use for magic shows. Go find one, and make haste, so commands Trixie!” she demanded as she stomped her hoof on the ground. Surprise grinned widely and shot up into the air.

How can anypony like that mare be so cheery all the time? Trixie thought. If you don't account for a few minutes ago, of course. I can't imagine anypony who could give birth to that hyperactive mess of a pink pony and live with it. Seriously, it's like she has no common sense. Her mind is one hundred percent immaturity and nonsense. If she was this bad now, Trixie can't imagine how she was as a little filly...

It wasn't until six seconds later from her clumsy takeoff that she crashed onto the ground face-first. Trixie facehoofed at the foolish performance, and walked up to the ungraceful pegasus. “You embarrass Trixie. Can you not keep yourself up?”

Surprise pulled her face up with a hoof, which looked as flat as a pancake. It took a second to form back to normal before Surprise noticed Trixie standing before her. “Woo, that was fun! Can we do it again, can we? Can we? Can we?”

“No!” Trixie barked. “You were supposed to be flying up to look for a library in this city. Get back up there and search some more.”

Surprise giggled and snorted. “Oh please, I don't need to do that!”

Trixie's eye twitched. “What do you mean, you don't need to do that? Are you disobeying Trixie?”

“Hold on, I didn't finish. I was going to say I don't need to do that because I already found one! It should be right over in that direction!”

She turned to her left and pointed a hoof down the street. “It should be that way for maybe, I don't know... half a mile? Something like that. What are we looking for there? Ooh ooh, is it a bedtime story? A drawing book? A foal's tale?”

“Silence!” Trixie held out a hoof to quiet the hyper pony, and it seemed to work. “Trixie shall not have to repeat herself again. We are going there to find some spell books so that Trixie may find something to improve her magic shows.”

“Aww, it's going to be just a boring old book, isn't it?” Surprise complained as she crossed her hooves while keeping herself afloat with her wings. She looked pretty annoyed, but it was hard to compare to Trixie's expression.

“Just lead the way, or Trixie shall remove your wings.”

Surprised gasped, and lowered her ears sadly and worriedly. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make things bad. I'll stop.”

She turned away, and started flying toward the direction of the library, with Trixie following close behind. Out of all ponies, Trixie couldn't believe that she would actually use this pony to assist her, but in due time, all her work would pay off.

After about twenty minutes of walking, or flying in Surprise's case, they stopped at the city library. The white building stood tall before them before one of them spoke to break the silence.

“See, what did I tell you? I found the library. I win! Can we play again?” Surprise grinned.

“No, this is no game, Surprise. This is serious business. We will go in there, find whatever we can, and get out,” Trixie stated calmly. She wasn't going to let Surprise get the best of her. She was going to stay focused on the task at hand.

“Alright, let's go inside. And remember, no goofing off.” She sighed before walking forward. Surprise landed on the ground and folded in her wings, walking forward herself. She was about to head in when a butterfly drifted by her face and flew to her left. She started to follow it until she felt a slight tug on her tail. She looked back to see a purplish glow surrounding it, followed by a voice.

“Surprise, stop getting distracted and get in here!” Trixie yelled while releasing her magic on Surprise's tail. She sighed sadly as she walked inside of the large building.

Compared to how it looked outside, the library from inside was enormous. It didn't compare to Canterlot's royal library, but it was still rather huge. Thousands of shelves were lined up everywhere, filled with books of just about every subject. It was basically a paradise for just about any librarian.

“This library is perfect! Surely, Trixie will find what she needs in here. Now let's look for the section... Surprise?” Trixie looked back to find that Surprise was gone. She mentally facehoofed as her frustration grew.

“I swear to Celestia, that pony doesn't know when to listen...” the unicorn groaned. Looking to the right, she saw a faint white blur speed through some of the bookshelves. She followed the blur until she saw Surprise sitting down in a chair by a table reading through a book.

“Ooh, there he is!” she exclaimed as she flipped to the next page. After scanning the pages for about five seconds, she spoke again. “There he is! I love this game!”

“Put that book back! We are not here to mess around, you oaf.”

“Ok ok, sorry.” Surprise got up from her seat and returned the book back to where she found it.

Trixie sighed. “Look, Trixie is sorry for trying to be so demanding, but we need to focus and find something that will help Trixie improve her magic shows. Can you do that?”

She looked back through the shelves, hoping to find something, and Surprise kept up with her. “Sure I can! Anything for a friend.”

Then the unicorn stopped, and looked back at Surprise. If anything, Trixie looked quite surprised herself. “W-What did you just call me?”

“A friend.” Surprise replied reassuringly. “Isn't that what we are? Friends?”

Trixie didn't get it. Nopony had ever wanted to be her friend before. They always looked at her as just a showpony, and nothing more. Perhaps somepony to admire and look in awe at the amazing magic shows, and other times as somepony who is just rather boastful. But to actually feel as if somepony cared about her enough to be a friend? That couldn't be possible. It was just too ridiculous for Trixie.

Surprise noticed Trixie just staring at her with a blank face, and she tilted her head in confusion. “Hello? Equestria to Trixie! Are you ok?”

That snapped Trixie back to reality, feeling like she woke up from a brief dream, and a ridiculous one at that. She shook her head to clear it from all previous thoughts. “Right... let's just look for what we came here for.”

She started to walk away, but not without those thoughts clouding her mind again. Just what was Trixie feeling? That was never felt before. Was it good? Maybe it was just nothing.

She cleared her mind once more as she noticed how all the shelves were arranged. “They are in order by genre, then alphabetically. This section is purely fiction. We are looking for...”

She looked around a corner, and spotted a sign above hanging from the ceiling. Trixie beamed upon reading what it said. “There! That's where we'll find the book we need. Come along.”

She trotted forward, but Surprise was getting distracted instead. When Trixie looked back, she saw her reading another book, though this one looked even bigger, and she was near a bookshelf of another genre: Myth.

“Ooh, genies are cool! Funny how the old ponies called them jinn. I mean, they're genies! But I wonder why they appeared only in... Saddle Arabia? Weird.”

The book suddenly glowed that same glow from earlier and placed itself back in the shelf. Surprise looked back at Trixie in a saddened state once more. It was like she wasn't allowed to have fun, and it was no fair. She just followed Trixie again.

This time, they kept going until they reached the place Trixie was most likely to find what she needed. “Perfect! Now Surprise, look for any sort of spell that might be of use to Trixie. Stay focused this time, and remember--”

“Found one!” Surprise exclaimed surprisingly loudly. Some of the other ponies nearby shushed her as an indicator to keep her voice down. “Whoops, sorry.”

She grinned nervously at everypony, who went about their own business afterward. She then turned her attention back toward Trixie, who was searching through the shelves. Her eyes moved up and down and all around, her head moving about to find what she needed.

And then her eyes laid upon something that seemed interesting enough. Her horn glowed, and the book slid out of the shelf and floated in front of her and Surprise. “Illusory Compositions: Everything You've Wanted To Know About Illusions. This seems perfect!”

The book seemed quite large in Surprise's eyes. “I don't know, Trixie... look at how big it is! I bet it's real boooooring!”

“Hush, you,” Trixie demanded. “Trixie intends on learning from this book. I know a lot of illusory magic already, but this book may hold secrets. It might even make me better than Twilight Sparkle!”

“Ooh, really? If you can be better than Twilight, it'll make you a legend!” Surprise threw up her forelegs in excitement. “Everypony will know the name, 'The Great and Powerful Trixie! Come see her astounding shows with awe-inspiring tricks and spectacular performances!'”

Trixie was imagining it now. Fans cheered her name as she stood above them all, taking in their admiration. Ponies asked for her autograph as she wore a confident expression. Even Twilight was looking up at her with amazement at what she accomplished. It filled Trixie's eyes with stars.

“That's it. We are taking this book, and we are going to learn from it. No doubt that this plan Trixie thought of was brilliant. Trixie will become the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria!” Trixie laughed maniacally, though a little too much. The other ponies shushed her this time, and Surprise made a small giggle at the funny scene.

Oh, shush me now, but you will soon be cheering for Trixie later.

“Looks like we'll be staying here a while, Surprise,” Trixie stated. “We shall practice these moves, and then Trixie shall be famous. Let us go.”

“Ooh wait, what about this book?” Surprise interrupted.

“Trixie said you shouldn't be distracted...” Trixie started to say until she laid her eyes on the book the hyper pegasus was holding. It looked pretty ancient, though it seemed very authentic. The title read, Advanced Magic Theories.

“Does this seem promising enough?” Surprise asked.

“Well... Trixie had her doubts about you. For once, you did something smart.” Surprise grinned widely at the compliment. Trixie led the way to the front of the library while Surprise held the books on her head. How she was able to do that without dropping either of them, Trixie did not know, and would rather not think about lest she be confused about it for the next few minutes.

After paying for the renting of the books, the unlikely duo made their way outside and towards the park. Trixie was pretty excited to be able to expand her magical prowess, while Surprise was excited to spend more time with somepony she thought of as her new friend.


> Chapter 5: Lighten Up
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the time spent in the library, Trixie and Surprise started going back through the city toward the park. Despite now being a pegasus, Surprise was bouncing alongside the unicorn happily.

“Ooh, this is going to be so fun! What are we going to do first? What does the book say? Is it full of cool-looking spells? Is it filled with boring, old spells? Does it bring love? Can it turn somepony into a dragon? Do they give somepony nightmares? Ooh ooh, how about give you some sort of mystical look that makes ponies scared of you? That would be cool because then you could do some sort of mystical stuff like create weird-looking masks and live in a strange home and speak in some weird voice and make some weird things with a giant pot! If I saw somepony like that, you know what I would call them? An evil enchantress!”

The whole time, Trixie hadn't been paying attention to a thing Surprise was randomly chattering on about. Her mind was on other things. More specifically, the book she received from the library. Her face was buried in it, skimming through some of the first few pages. She could find many spells she already knew how to perform, as well as spells that were interesting, but not “Great and Powerful” enough for the boastful mare.

She still held on to her confidence. She was one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria, right? She would have no problems learning a few advanced things. But what she was looking through didn't seem like anything good enough for her to use. Her eyes were narrowed at the pages as they proved to be anything but useful. Perhaps she needed to look further into the book to find the more powerful spells.

Other ponies in the streets were looking at the unlikely duo. Some gave them strange looks before continuing their business, others were walking away slowly, and a few just stared. They were mostly paying attention to the hopping white pegasus next to Trixie, rambling on cheerfully about who-knows-what. If anything, they guessed she had OCD or something. Who wouldn't think anypony acting like that would? Luckily, that may have been the only pony they have seen acting that way in a city such as Manehatten.

As the two were about to round a corner, Trixie bumped into another pony who just happened to come from the other side of the corner at the same time. The Earth pony fell back on his rump as Trixie dropped her book. Surprise stopped hopping as soon as she saw was going on. After rubbing her face with her hoof, Trixie glared angrily at the stallion.

“Hey, why don't you watch where you're going? Do you know what you have just done?” Trixie yelled at the downed pony.

“Oh, terribly sorry ma'am. I did not see you there. I really must watch my step.” He spoke in a sincere tone, but Trixie wasn't appreciated by it much.

“You should. Next time, be aware of your surroundings. Trixie hopes you have learned your lesson.” After that, she used her magic to pick the book back up and continued past the stallion. Surprise helped up the Earth pony.

“I'm sorry about her. She can be a meanie sometimes,” Surprise explained, and he understood completely. “Hope something like that doesn't happen again. Now I gotta go. She's leaving me!”

Before he could say another word, she flew ahead to catch up to Trixie. The stallion scratched his head before shrugging his shoulders, and moved on.

Once Surprise caught back up to Trixie, she landed next to her. “You know, you didn't have to yell at him. It was just an accident.”

“Hmph, an accident she says,” Trixie scoffed. “He should've seen me coming and stop in time for me to avoid bumping into him.”

“Well, maybe you can say it to him in a non-meanie way? Try acting friendly or something. You probably made him feel bad.”

Trixie stopped in her tracks. By now, they were just outside the park. Trixie turned back to Surprise and raised her voice a bit. “Don't lecture me. Trixie has dealt with too much recently to be given any lessons about being friendly and kind and all that absurd junk. Do you want to know what Trixie has dealt with in the past few months of her life? I had to work so hard on my magic shows, but not only did ponies not appreciate them much, I hardly received much money from them. I couldn't raise enough to keep myself fed.

“I had to get a get a job as a worker on a rock farm, Surprise. A rock farm! Could anypony think of anything more tedious and boring? I think not! Nopony ever gave me a break. Did anypony ever like Trixie? No. Did anypony ever appreciate Trixie? No. Did anypony ever respect Trixie? No. So why should I act friendly toward anypony when they have not done the same for me?”

From hearing all of that, Surprise lowered her head and ears. She displayed a downtrodden look while Trixie stared at her with a disapproving one.

“...You're wrong, Trixie.”

“What was that?!” Trixie retorted with gritted teeth.

“There is one pony that likes, appreciates, and respects you.”

“Oh please. Who would be that pony? I haven't seen my family in years, and I have no friends. Who would care so much about Trixie?”

Suddenly, she felt hooves wrapping themselves around her neck, and they caught her off guard. When she turned her head, she saw Surprise in a happy expression as she held on to the unicorn. “Me! You're my friend Trixie, and no matter how much of a meanie you are, I will always be by your side!”

As if by an impulse, Trixie felt another sudden feeling. It was something she felt earlier while in the library when Surprise called her a friend the first time. Trixie could sense a tiny bit of warmth in her heart. If Surprise was looking at her face, she would see a rather small smile forming. When Trixie realized this, she feigned a cough and backed away from Surprise.

“Yeah, that's nice. Now let us move on to learning these spells. My carriage is not too far from here.” Trixie moved forward, not paying any regard to whatever it was she felt back there. Surprise just happily followed her, knowing she got to her somehow.

Trixie made her way inside, tailed by Surprise. “So are we going to practice some of those spells here?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Trixie replied as she started to walk towards the mirror. “I came to get prepared.”

“Prepared how?”

As soon as she asked that, Trixie lit up her horn, and a large cloud of colored smoke appeared where she was standing. After the smoke cleared up, Trixie stood tall looking at her reflection. The only change Surprise noticed was that the showpony was now sporting her cape.

“Much better. Trixie needs her Great and Powerful cape when practicing spells. Now Trixie is ready.”

She turned back toward Surprise to see she was trying to brush her mane for some reason, looking at the brush in an odd way. Trixie rolled her eyes and took it out of Surprise's grasp with her magic, placing it back in its spot on the dresser.

“Don't touch Trixie's things. Now, since I'm going to need my magic for the spells, your wings are going bye-bye.”

Surprise's wings glowed the light purple that Trixie's horn was glowing, and they soon faded away. The now Earth pony gasped. “Hey, why'd you do that?!”

“Trixie already explained before.” She turned around to fully face the distraught mare. “Keeping your wings means I have to keep my magic active. If you still have your wings when I do these spells, not only will Trixie get exhausted earlier, but she won't be able to regenerate it without taking them away. So for now, you're an Earth Pony again.”

“Aww, I loved those wings! They were so fun to fly around with!” She sighed and looked down sadly. “But I wouldn't want you to lose your magic, so I understand.”

To this, Trixie smirked. “Good assistant. Now let's go. There's a secluded area just outside this park where we can practice these spells. Come, Surprise.”

Trixie opened the door, and exited the carriage. Surprise lifted her head back up and put on her smile again as she bounced out.
> Chapter 6: Even Illusions Hurt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was about one o' clock when the light blue unicorn and white Earth pony walked together out of Manehatten's park. Trixie's cape swayed with the wind as she walked forward. As usual, Surprise bounced alongside her, carrying both books on her head. The weather outside was quite sunny and the sky was clear.

“So, what are we going to do today?” Trixie turned and asked Surprise, who kept that wide grin on her face despite losing her wings.

“Practice spells from these books!” Surprise looked up toward the books on her head. It was like her mane had something in it that made the books stay without falling off. It was perhaps unexplainable physics that shouldn't really be questioned unless somepony wanted a headache.

On the other side of the park where they emerged from the carriage, Trixie led Surprise down a few blocks through another part of the city. Surprise thought the journey there was getting boring, so she thought of something to talk about.

“So, Trixie,” she started. “What do you think of me?”

She merely rolled her eyes. “How can Trixie put this delicately... you're an inconceivably strange filly in a mare's body that hardly comprehends the concept of maturity and tact. You lack understanding, and your intelligence is limited. You seem to have a habit of thoughtlessness for your actions, which proves vexatious in the end. Is Trixie going too fast for you?”

“Nope!” Surprised shook her head. Trixie wasn't sure if she really understood all of that. It was as if Surprise was either really ignorant of her message, she didn't really get any of that and assumed they were all compliments, or she really didn't care about all the bad things she was saying.

“Nopony will ever understand you. I will prove that now. What do you think of the Great and Powerful Trixie?” Trixie asked as she put a hoof to her chest.

Surprise stopped hopping. “Why, you're so cool! You can do so many cool magic tricks! Not that I've seen any, but you talk about it a lot, so I assume they're cool! You may be a meanie sometimes, but I know you don't mean that seriously! Or maybe you do. You're probably just insecure, but I don't blame you! You had a troubled past, but hey, you can always make your future better! You just need determination, and I believe you have that. And with me by your side, I just know we can show Equestria how Great and Powerful the Greatest and Powerfullest pony is!”

She kept displaying that big grin. She noticed that Trixie had a rather dumbfounded look on her face, and her smile dropped as she raised an eyebrow. “Trixie? Are you alright?”

Was Trixie underestimating this oaf? No way could she understand all of that. Not with her... Trixie took a few more seconds to look at Surprise, gauging her mindset. The white mare was still staring back at her.

Oh, forget it. Apparently, she has a bit of an intelligence level in her. Better watch out for any tricks.

Her face returned to a neutral expression. “Yes, well, let us move on. We have some magic to practice.”

She moved forward without another word. Surprise shrugged her shoulders and followed behind.

About fifteen minutes later, they stopped to see a rather big field just outside the city. Nopony was around, as it was an area of Manehatten ponies didn't really go to often, if at all. There wasn't a single pony around, which made it a perfect spot to practice her magic with no interruptions.

“I don't get why we have to come here. Couldn't we just practice in the park?” Surprise asked with a raised brow.

“Simple. As you know, Trixie had to remove your wings so the magic she had contained into keeping them on you wouldn't drain me. Trixie needs it to practice these spells. What does this have to do with us being here where nopony can see us? Remember, you are nothing but a clone of Pinkie Pie. If they saw you really didn't have wings, they knew you would be trying to hide from those who would send you back to that pool you mentioned. How would they know? You look exactly like her. The only difference is your colors, which are just an illusion, see?”

With a flicker of her horn, Surprise's colors started to flash. The white on her coat started shifting between that and pink. Her mane and tail did the same between yellow and magenta, her eyes from purple to light blue, and her cutie mark from purple to yellow and light blue. Surprise gasped as she noticed what was happening.

“Ok ok, I get it! Just stop doing what you're doing!” She looked around in fear, as if expecting somepony to appear and catch the act, inevitably sending her to her fate back to the Mirror Pool. Trixie nodded, and her horn stopped glowing. The colors changed back to the white, yellow and purple color scheme.

“So now you see why Trixie had to remove your wings and bring us here where nopony can see us.”

“Yeah, you're right. You're such a genius, Trixie!” From that, the unicorn smiled and flicked her mane.

“Trixie is a genius, isn't she? Now then, let's get back to business. Drop the books.”

Surprise tilted her head forward and the books slid off her mane. Trixie looked between both books. Each one had an interesting cover, and were equally as tempting to read.

“So we have Illusory Compositions: Everything You've Wanted To Know About Illusions, and Advanced Magic Theories. The second one doesn't seem to have quite the flair Trixie expects, but it is better than nothing. We'll start with Illusory Compositions.”

Surprise nodded, and placed her hoof on the second book, sliding it to the side to get it out of the way. Using her magic, Trixie lifted up Illusory Compositions and opened up to a few pages ahead.

“Let us start with something simple, shall we? We'll try this trick here.” Her eyes scanned the page. It showed a depiction of a unicorn, one that looked closely like Star Swirl the Bearded. The unicorn looked like he was using magic on a pony's ears. The image under it showed the other pony's ears glowing a bit brighter. Trixie flipped the page to read on. The next picture showed the ears extending while they were still glowing. The final image on the page showed the pony's ears were now that of a rabbit's ears.

“So, apparently this spell can change body parts into animal body parts.” Trixie read on. “'This spell wears off after about five minutes or until de-spelled unless a stronger unit of magic is applied, in which case, the spell can last up to about twenty minutes.' How magnificent. Let's try it.”

“Ooh, I can't wait!” Surprise exclaimed, bouncing up and down out of excitement and anticipation. “I get to see awesome magic at work! This is going to be so fun! What kind of animal parts are you going to give me? A bear? A bird? A bunny? A cat? A chicken? A dog? A...”

“Surprise!” Trixie yelled, and that shut her right up. “Calm down. This is nothing to get excited about. Now, since Trixie is feeling generous today, Trixie will let you choose what you want. Pick a body part, and an animal.”

“I get to choose? Yay!” She jumped up into the air where she hung for about three seconds before landing back on her hooves. “Ooh, what to pick, what to pick...”

Surprise put a hoof to her chin in thought. Then she came up with something. “Give me cat whiskers!”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Surprise, we are trying something new here. However, it also must be presentable enough to show to a crowd of ponies. Trixie doubts they would be impressed by a pony having cat whiskers.”

“Aww... but wait, why not try it just to test out the spell?”

“You have a point. Alright, we'll see if it works, then move on to something more impressive.”

Trixie's horn glowed, and she focused on Surprise's face. After a few seconds, the sides of her nose started to glow as well. Thin white lines appeared and stretched out of her muzzle. After the spell was complete, Surprise saw the whiskers, and squealed in delight.

“This is so cool! I'm like a catpony! Half cat, half pony! Or maybe not. All I have is the whiskers. Ooh, can you complete the set?” 

Trixie scoffed. “What are you going on about?”

Surprise just appeared directly in front of the unicorn in a kneeling position, practically begging.  “Please, give me cat paws and cat ears and a cat tail! I want to be like a catpony! Pleeeeeaaaaase?”

Trixie narrowed her eyes at the Earth pony, who just quivered her lip in desperation. She had that sad look on her face that any filly would give whenever they were pleading to get what they want. Trixie had to admit, she looked a bit cute doing that, but it was still pathetic. However, to see a pony actually begging for something to her gave her a bit of satisfaction, almost like somepony begging for mercy under her hooves. To this, Trixie smirked.

“Alright Surprise, since you are pathetically begging, I shall do this just for you. But only for a little while.” She started to perform the spell again, but this time her horn glowed brighter, presumably due to the spell affecting more than one part of Surprise's body. Her ears, hooves, and tail were all glowing white at that point, and began to morph themselves. Her ears started reshaping, the base of her hooves bended around and her puffy tail shrunk immensely. In seconds, after the glowing stopped, Surprise now had cat ears, cat paws and a long, yet puffy cat tail.

When Surprise saw the result, she made a loud gasp. “Oh my Celestia, I'm a real catpony! I'm the first ever catpony!” She bounced around on her new cat paws, though she clumsily slipped and fell face first into the ground. She wasn't used to having paws yet, so she had a bit of difficulty landing on them.

Trixie even chuckled a bit. “Trixie must admit, this is amusing to watch.”

After she got back up, Surprise had a thought. She smirked and faced Trixie. Trixie was now wondering what Surprise was doing when she saw her lowering the front half of her body down toward the ground while raising her rump into the air. But Trixie was familiar with the little furry creatures. This was the position cats took when they were about to...

Suddenly, Surprise lunged forward and pounced right on top of the unicorn, which caught her completely off guard. Trixie fell onto her back with Surprise on top. She was purring like an actual cat, and even tempted to meow which sounded almost like an actual cat's meow.

“Surprise, what are you doing? Get off of Trixie!” Even with the demand, Surprise snuggled against Trixie's body. The feeling of a cat rubbing against somepony's body was nice, but when the cat was actually a pony, it was just plain weird.

“You don't like kitty cat Surprise? She's pretty fun to play with!”

Trixie's horn started glowing, and it grabbed onto Surprise's cat tail. As soon as the magic tugged on it to attempt to pull off the white mare, she hissed and her claws extended in reaction to the pulling, and they dug into Trixie. She yelped in slight pain from the claws digging into her.

“Surprise, your claws! Retract them now!”

“Well, stop pulling on my tail! It hurts!”

No matter what, Trixie just kept on pulling on her tail. Surprise just wouldn't let go no matter what to the point where she was actually managing to scratch Trixie's body. “Surprise, stop!”

Trixie stopped pulling on her tail, and she let up on her claws. She slowly and carefully stepped off Trixie a few feet away. The unicorn proceeded to stand up, putting a hoof over one of the areas where Surprise had dug her claws into. Small scratches could be seen, and Trixie winced in slight pain.

“You could not keep yourself under control enough to not cause harm to me?!” she yelled, which caused the Earth pony to lower her head.

“I'm sorry... go ahead. Take them away.”

“Gladly.” Trixie's horn glowed, and all of the cat parts from Surprise disappeared. “Let us hope we don't run into a problem like that again. Let us move onto a different spell. This time, from the other book.”

Trixie set Illusory Compositions aside for later. Surprise picked up Advanced Magical Theories and brought it to the showpony as she grabbed it in her magic and flipped through more pages. The tome was slightly larger than the former book, which meant it should've been more promising in the long run. At least, that's what Trixie thought.

The pages looked a bit more authentic, as if they were much older than the average spell book. There were even a few pages in the back that used the same type of paper ancient scrolls were made out of. “This looks promising.”

She flipped all the way to the back to look at a few spells. There were kinds of spells that Trixie never knew even existed. One such spell explained the magical properties of gravity, and how a unicorn could take advantage of it. Another explained the physical properties that shaped a pony's body, and how that could be changed to shrink said pony. They all looked pretty complicated, but that wasn't going to deter the Great and Powerful Trixie from learning at least one of these spells.

It was then that she found the perfect spell. One that would not only show ponies that she could be the most powerful unicorn in Equestria, but one that could also make Surprise happy as well. It explained a spell that could make deep illusions a reality. But even that required a deep understanding of theories that shaped the understanding of how the body of a pony works.

“This is perfect. This spell will make Trixie legendary! Surprise, take position.” She stomped her hoof, and the white mare stood directly in front of her with a hoof to her forehead as if to salute. “Here is a spell that can make illusions true and real. Do you know where Trixie is going with this?”

“You're going to give me back my wings, and make them into real wings and not just an illusion?”

Trixie just stared at her. “How did you guess that correctly?”

“Just a hunch!”

The blue mare shook her head in response. “Surprise, you surprise Trixie sometimes.”

“Well duh, that is my name! At least, it's the name you gave me! But why would you make my illusory wings real? Would you really turn me into a real pegasus?”

Trixie sighed. “Let us face facts. You are a real nuisance. You have always been since we met this morning. I have always resented your actions because of it. However, Trixie has gained a new insight where she has actually placed trust in somepony else to assist her. That would be you. No matter what I did or said, you still accepted me and my orders without question. This makes you loyal to Trixie, and Trixie respects that.”

“But of course! You're my--”

“Friend,” Trixie interrupted. “Trixie has heard that plenty of times. But there is another reason. Remember, you don't want anypony figuring out you're another one of those Pinkie Pie clones. The one thing that will make them know it's you is your overall appearance. They would be seeing a Pinkie copy as an Earth pony. However, if you obtain wings, for the most part, they would think you were just a totally different pony that bears a resemblance to her without relation to that Mirror Pool incident.”

Surprise nodded her head in full understanding. “Got it!”

“Wait, there's more. If this works, Trixie will display a feat so amazing, she would be legendary around Equestria! Think about it, a rising showpony with Great and Powerful magic to wow the audiences everywhere. Now then, are you ready?”

“Whenever you are!” Surprised exclaimed.

With another flicker of her horn, Surprise's sides started to glow. A few seconds later, and her wings flared out once more.

“Now, let's do this.”

Trixie focused on her target steadily. Surprise stared back with a face of determination. Their gazes met for a few seconds before Trixie activated her horn. From what Surprise could observe, Trixie closed her eyes and bared her teeth, which she guessed was either from the intensity of the spell she was casting, or the pain from the earlier scratches. She noticed a bright purple haze pouring out of the unicorn's horn and slowly making its way towards Surprise.

The haze gradually covered Surprise for a while, and Trixie kept up the magic. It was wearing her out, but she was going to make sure this spell worked. She was sweating and even breathing a bit hard, but didn't give up no matter what. After a bit of time, Surprise's wings were being brightened as the haze started seeping into them. After her wings fully absorbed the light smoke, a bright flash emerged from her. The flash lasted for about ten seconds before it cleared to show her now flying into the air with her wings involuntarily flapping themselves.

Once she regained control of them, she began to fly around. It felt as normal as ever until she started to fly even faster. At this point, she would clumsily fall to the floor due to illusory wings not having the full power of real wings. This time, she had perfect control over them. Once she realized this, she beamed and flew all around in different directions, performing many different tricks. She was having a lot of fun, and it was a nice change of pace from what she was going through being with Trixie all day.

“This is fun! Thanks so much for this, Trixie... Trixie?”

She hovered in the air as she looked down at where Trixie was standing. A large cloud of dust had appeared where she was. When the dust cleared, Surprise could only gasp at what she saw.

“Trixie!”
> Chapter 7: Complete Understanding
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trixie couldn't see anything. Nay, she couldn't even feel anything. All was dark around her, as if she was in nothing but an empty space. Just what happened?

She tried to collect her thoughts as she attempted to remember what had happened immediately before. She was standing in the middle of a field outside the city, and there with her was the hyper white Earth pony she called her assistant. They were practicing silly magic tricks from one of the books, in which the first was successful, although leaving a regrettable mark. Then the second trick from the other book, which had a supernatural sense somewhere within.

Either way, it was a chance to be the best in magic, so she took it. A complex section in the back was all it took for the next thing to occur, and a rather surprising thing at that. Trixie could remember casting the spell... that was all she could remember. That, and a sharp pain coming from the scratches where Surprise had scratched her earlier with her cat claws. She couldn't focus hard enough on the spell because of the massive pain in her chest, and the last thing she felt was an overcharge of magic in her horn before she blacked out.

Hey, I think she's waking up!

Wait... what was that voice? Trixie could remember that voice. It was like a tone she knew for only a few hours, but remembered all the same.

Trixie? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, say something! Or at least, wake up!

There couldn't be a voice calling out to her in her mind. Trixie was a pony who kept to herself. However, it wasn't until recently when she accepted another pony, and the image was getting clear.

Then she felt a forceful slap across her muzzle, and it was enough to wake her up.

“Let us not do that again, lest I have somepony remove you from the room.” said a pink unicorn nurse with a long, two-tone light green mane dangling down from her head.

“Sorry, but she looked like she was having trouble waking up. I saw her eyes moving a bit, and I heard a little sound coming from her mouth, so I thought she could be slapped awake.” Another voice was heard, but this sounded like the one from earlier. When Trixie moved her head up, she could see the voice belonged to Surprise, the pony she spent the past few hours of the day with.

“Surprise? Ooh...” Trixie rubbed her left cheek with her hoof, having a slight stinging feeling. “Why does Trixie's face hurt?”

“Well,” the nurse started, “this mare decided it would be a good idea to slap you awake, even though it looked like you were finally waking up yourself just fine.”

She made a sharp glare at the white pegasus, who just laughed nervously while rubbing the back of her head. The nurse rolled her eyes and turned back to Trixie.

“I should've suspected...” The blue unicorn took notice of her surroundings. It wasn't what she was used to. From what she saw, she was laying down on a bed covered with a thin, white blanket with her torso wrapped in what looked like bandages.

“What happened? Where is Trixie?” She tried to sit up, but felt a sudden pain around her chest. The nurse pushed her back down gently as Trixie grunted.

“You're in Manehattan Care Hospital. This mare here brought you in here one day. Truth be told, if she hadn't, Celestia knows what could've happened to you.”

Trixie looked back at Surprise, who simply waved back with a wide smile, just glad that the injured mare was perfectly fine. She then turned back to the nurse with a raised brow at something she didn't notice until a few seconds after it was said.

“Wait, you said, 'one day.' Exactly how long has Trixie been in here?”

“Two days...” Surprised answered in a melancholy voice. “I was so worried. I thought you would never wake up.”

“Trixie is fine now,” she shot back with disdain for Surprise's tone. “But what happened to cause my injury? All I can remember is being in that field practicing magic with Surprise. And then... nothing. The next thing I know, I'm sitting in this bed with stinging in my cheek and pain in my chest.”

“You may want to rest for a bit,” the nurse suggested before lifting up a clipboard with her magic, a blue glow surrounding it. “By the way, you can call me Nurse Ember. I'll be your nurse for the duration of your stay here. Just stay put while I go for a bit. For now, just relax here with your friend.”

Before Trixie could respond, Ember left the room, leaving her by herself in the room with Surprise. The pegasus smiled calmly at Trixie while she placed a hoof over her abdominal area. “This hurts Trixie a lot... and Trixie can imagine why. Your scratches did this, Surprise. If you had stayed still while we were out practicing those spells, I wouldn't be feeling this!”

“But Trixie, that's nothing compared to what really happened to you. You were knocked unconscious! Just look at that bandage on your head.” Surprise pointed a hoof forward toward Trixie's horn, which the unicorn looked up at. She placed one of her own hooves on her head, and sure enough, she felt bandages wrapped around it as well.

“Was... was it that spell that Trixie performed? Feels like it took a big toll.” She rubbed her head to try and ease the soreness.

“Yeah, about that spell...” Surprise turned her head to the side toward one of the chairs. Laying on it were the two spell books they were using, with Advanced Magical Theories on top of Illusory Compositions.

“What? What is it? Are you hiding something? Tell Trixie!” she said as she narrowed her eyes at the pegasus, who only lowered her ears in response. She picked up the book on top and walked over to Trixie.

“Trixie, there was something in that section of the book you totally skipped. You went straight for the spells, but you missed something.” She opened up the book as she stood next to Trixie, turning to the back section where the spell Trixie used was written.

“There was a warning in the first page of this section about these spells. Let me read it to you.” Before she started, she cleared her throat. Once she was ready, she started to read the text.

“It says, 'WARNING: These spells are a highly arcane set of spells, and as such, are extremely powerful spells no mere unicorn can perform. Only the highest levels of unicorns have the abilities to wield these spells. They are extremely dangerous, and a high understanding of physics, an understanding of the special properties of spells, and a deep focus are necessary to conjure them. If a unicorn does not possess any of these, they may cause great harm not only to themselves, but to those around them.'”

Surprise stood silent. It was right then and there that she realized why Trixie injured herself with that spell. Seconds had passed before she looked back at the injured unicorn, who was now looking down at the blanket with a look of shock.

“I think I know now why, after I did that spell, I could feel a great pain in my head. That book said the unicorn needed a deep focus. However...” Trixie closed her eyes as the memory came back to her in a flashback.

“When I was performing the spell, I felt a great pain in my chest where those scratches were. I was unable to focus on the spell, and I focused more on the pain overcoming me that it was too overbearing.  And what did Trixie do? Shrug it off and continued with the spell.”

She reopened her eyes as the flashback ended with the bright flash. “And now look at Trixie.”

Surprise waited a few more seconds before turning to the next page of the book. “Yeah, there's more about this, and it was pretty much what you said.” She looked back down at the page before reading it again.

“Let's see... 'When performing these spell, the unicorn must know that it will try to absorb the stamina and magical power of him or her. As such, one of these spells must not be performed under any circumstance where he or she is harmed in any way by an injury, even a miniscule one as small as a scratch. When doing so, the spell will channel the stamina and magical power directly into the horn and release it in the form of the magic, then all of the stamina and magical power shall immediately flow back into the body if the deep focus stays. As such, it is extremely important that focus is maintained, and no distractions occur while the spell is performed.'”

After hearing that, Trixie blinked her eyes. “Does this mean...”

She had to try. She closed her eyes as she focused on releasing magic from her horn, even a tiny bit. It did glow, but only faintly. A tiny bit of light emanated from it, and it didn't take long for the aura to fade away. She winced and bared her teeth as the pain from her headache came back once more.

Surprise knew this was her fault. If she hadn't messed around immaturely, Trixie wouldn't be in this mess. Her hooves shuddered under the weight of the book, and she simply closed it. She couldn't bear reading anymore of that, so she set it back down on top of the other book.

“This is all my fault... I was so obsessed with having fun with you, I almost lost you. I did... that to you, and this happens. I never meant to do this. I should've never gotten excited over spending time with you and seeing you do those spells.”

After Trixie recovered from her little spell trouble, she stared at the white pegasus, and she couldn't believe what she was hearing. This was certainly not what she was expecting out of a mere clone of a hyperactive pony. It was as if she changed somehow. Not just in appearance, but in personality as well. It was as if this copy actually became her own pony self, nothing like the thing it was once like.

“I hurt my greatest friend. I can't forgive myself for that. I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to see me again.” Right after she said that, she hung her head sadly, and her mane and tail straightened themselves out. It was something Trixie had never witnessed before, and it was quite an unexpected surprise, almost depressing to look at. She could feel something welling up inside her, a feeling like she should do something. She knew what that feeling was, but it was something she thought she would never exhibit to another pony. But what harm could it do? She sighed as she gave into the feeling and faced Surprise.

“Surprise, come here,” Trixie said calmly.

“No, I don't really have to. I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have,” she replied as she looked away.

“Just come here.”

Surprise sighed and faced her again. After walking to her bedside, she was surprised with a hug from the blue mare. “Huh? I-I'm confused. I thought you didn't like something like this.”

And it was true. Normally, somepony like Trixie wouldn't dare show feelings like this in front of another pony, and Surprise learned that pretty quickly. But over the amount of time they spent with each other, Surprise had shown just how caring and mature she could be through her outside immature and hyperactive appearance. No matter what Trixie thought, she could see that, and realized it wasn't actually a bad thing.

The most notable experience happened earlier in the library, when she was called a friend. It was new to Trixie, because throughout her life, she had never been called a friend by anypony. If anything, it was her boastful and arrogant attitude that prevented anypony from even attempting to get along with her. She was astounded to see that Surprise saw past all of that and tried to genuinely befriend the showpony anyway. If anything, it gave Trixie somewhat of a new outlook.

“Surprise, Trixie knows you scratched her chest, and the pain from it while performing the spell caused this to happen. But I have to be honest.” She pulled away to look at Surprise directly in the eyes. “Had I read that warning in the first place, I wouldn't be in this hospital bed. If anything, I would find that you were a deep nuisance to Trixie. But, Trixie is not afraid to admit that she had her doubts about you. No matter what, you have tried to comfort me, make me feel happy and welcome, and all I did was brush you off. Even after that, you still wanted to be my friend. I just can't comprehend that...”

Surprise's sad face slowly turned into a soft smile as Trixie was speaking. After she was done, she smiled a bit more pleasantly. “Why should it matter? You looked like somepony who definitely needed a friend, and if I was to be your assistant, then why not be your friend too?”

Slowly, but surely, Trixie's expression raised into a smile. “Surprise, Trixie is obliged to call you a friend. For all that you have done, Trixie is glad to accept it.”

As if an involuntary force bonded them together, they hugged once more, but slightly tighter. Trixie winced in pain a bit from the injuries she still had, but ignored them as she held onto Surprise, whose mane and tail bounced back into their puffy selves.

As the touching moment carried on, Nurse Ember walked back into the room, seeing the beautiful sight. A smile appeared on her face as she said, “D'aww...”