With the less-than-stellar adventures surrounding the Mirror Pool incident, everypony seemed to take for granted that they'd gotten all of the Pinkies back where they belong. Never make assumptions, kids.
As the chaos surrounding the mirror pool died down, and the original Pinkie Pie was reunited with her friends, the Mane Six had assumed that all was well and good, and they'd gathered up all of the extra Pinkies.
Never make assumptions.
In a valiant effort to escape the fate of being cast back into the mirror pool, the remaining clones gathered their own identities and fled to the best hiding ground for multiple copies of the same pony they could think of: Manehattan. On the first train out of dodge, they set about the city and scattered to the wind.
Though not without promising to meet every week and exchange notes. Welcome to Pinkie Anonymous.
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Pink Press glanced around the diner, a restaurant she hadn’t ever visited before, giving it an appraising glance as she looked for an appropriate seat for her and her boss. She didn’t get long to look, as the aforementioned pony, an older gentlecolt named Buried Lede, trotted past her disinterestedly, carrying with him his notepad and pencil, and took a seat in what appeared to her to be a perfectly random booth.
She followed his lead, getting ready to sit across from him, when he quietly shook his head. “I’d rather you sat in the booth right next to this one. You know, behind the ponies we will be interviewing. I find it’s easier to get straight answers from somepony when they don’t have to decide who they’re talking to. It will also be easier for you to take notes when you’re just listening. Visual cues are important, yes, but they can be distracting. I’d like you to listen to what they say, get a good ear for how they say it, that kind of thing. You’ll get more detail that way.”
Press nodded. “That… that sounds good. So here?” she gestured to the booth with its back to the one Buried had sat across from. Receiving a nod from her boss, she sat down as directed, fidgeting slightly. She was really hoping to ask questions this time around, but being so new to the office, in fact, still an intern, she had little say in her assignments. Honestly, she was just happy to be here.
Her stomach growled slightly as she took a glance at the menu. “Also, it’s impolite to eat in front of your interviewee, and I could hear your stomach growling the whole way here. Go ahead and order something.” She turned her head to glance over the booth at him, and saw a wry smile on his lips.
She grinned sheepishly to herself, returning he gaze to the menu with renewed vigor. A waitress came to gather their orders, and she heard Lede simply ask for a cup of coffee. She still couldn’t stomach the stuff herself, not really having a palette for bitter things. The waitress said something in confirmation, and trotted up to Press’s table. “And what can I get for you, sugar?”
Press looked up, brushing a lock of fluffy pink mane out of her eyes, and lifted her wide-brim purple hat to get a better look at the waitress. She was that typical kind of diner-cute that you saw in picture shows and read about in crime novels and stuff. Pretty but forgettable, which she probably would, given how busy she expected to be with taking notes. “I’ll take… just like, a big stack of pancakes. Or waffles. Whichever is a better excuse for eating syrup.”
With a knowing smile, the waitress took the menu, saying, “Waffles it is. You’ll get ‘em faster and they hold more syrup. Trust me, I know.” She winked and walked away, leaving a glass of water to tide Pink over while she waited.
A few moments passed, with the bell over the door ringing a few times as customers came and went. Then, with another ring that almost went unnoticed as background noise, she heard Buried Lede behind her. “Ah, Miss Pinkie Pie! Over here!” Press flinched. Not just flinched. Almost took the table with her as she tried on sheer instinct to dive for the nearest window. Of course, she also made a valiant attempt to not move at all, which resulted in the most restrained full-body convulsion anypony had ever seen, had they been looking at her.
Pink Press, of course, was in fact Pinkamena Diane Pie. Or, used to be. In a way. A long time ago, she had found herself being pulled up from a large pool of water by somepony who looked exactly like her. She had a much simpler mind, and was surrounded by ponies exactly like her. Which rapidly went downhill in the most annoying way possible. She had been asleep in a tree when the rest of them had been rounded up and disappeared back into the pool, a fate she had gone out of her way to avoid, and so she had fled Ponyville on the next train.
Of course, she wasn’t the only clone with this idea. There had been an entire train car full of Pinkies, which had led to some rather awkward conversations with a very scared conductor. That train had led to Manehatten, where a small swarm of now rather scared, confused, and slowly more intelligent Pinkie Pies had been set loose on the unsuspecting populace.
That had been over two years ago, and through a crash course in the real world, and some solidarity with, well, herself, Pink Press had since settled into a quiet position as an intern at a respectable newspaper. She had done well to keep her head down, had maintained her weekly meetings with Pinkie Anonymous, and had in fact found her own true calling: bringing warm-hearted stories to a populace that was bombarded all too often with negative press and disaster stories.
Of course, the pony now taking a seat literally two inches away was the greatest chance possible to ruin all of that. All she had to do to avoid this, mind you, was to not draw attention to herself at all. Just… stay quiet.
The waitress brought her a small stack of waffles and a rather generous carafe of maple syrup, and she nodded politely with a small smile. She tightened her hat on her head, pulled out her notebook, and listened carefully to Pinkie Pie recount her adventures in her friend’s boutique. Making small notes whenever she caught a snippet of something resembling fact, as her “original” had a tendency to ramble like tumbleweed in a hurricane. She was able to piece together a narrative of things going, well, less than stellar, but it was a bit difficult to get an accurate recount of events from her rambling.
Press gave a small smile as the waitress noticed the striking similarities between her and the new arrival. Opening her mouth to say something, she was quickly hushed by Press shoving a hoof in her mouth with a pleading look in her eyes. Pink shook her head, slowly pulling her hoof back and crouching into the booth to make herself as small as possible. The waitress gave her a curious look, but nodded despite herself, and moved to take Pinkie’s order.
“Oh I’ll take like a HUUUUUGE stack of pancakes I love pancakes they’re the best things to eat syrup with-” Press rolled her eyes at this point, and noticed the waitress politely scribble down the order and disappear while Pinkie was still rambling.
Lede coughed politely, somehow getting Pinkie’s attention. They talked at length for some time, Press making a valiant effort to put together some notes from the consistent stream of consciousness her original was spouting. There was a clatter as the waitress brought a heaping pile of pancakes to the interview table, which was met with a few ‘Thank Yous’, barely interrupting the conversation.
“"Yeah... Making copies of yourself always sounds like a great idea, but before you know it, you're locked in a room with fifty Pinkie Pies watching paint dry,” Pinkie Pie noted, quickly shoving half the stack of breakfast into her face. Press gave a worried look over her shoulder at her boss, silently pleading to him not to say anything. If Lede noticed, he didn’t say a word, or give any sign. Which might have been a good thing, she wasn’t sure.
It sounded after a few minutes that the interview might actually be over, at which point Press almost heaved an enormous sigh, the finish line in sight. Then her boss opened his mouth.
“Oh, boy. That’s uh... that’s quite the bill. Whoo boy those pancakes really, um, stack up, don’t they? Press, can you help me out here?” he called.
Pink Press looked over the back of the booth with a terrified expression as Pinkie Pie turned to see who her interviewer was talking to. Their reactions overlapped, though they couldn’t have been more different.
Chapter One: One Pink Two Pink Smart Pink New Pink
Pink Press trudged down the street with all the enthusiasm of the accused on his way to the verdict reading. Hiding as much behind her wide-brimmed hat as she could, she walked purposefully and quietly, doing he best not to draw attention to herself in the crowded street, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t be much of a challenge at all. Most ponies in Manehatten were to absorbed with themselves that it would take an act of Celestia to get them to pay attention. She even knew of a few instances where a Princess didn’t even get regarded with anything less than the typical indifference.
Of course, the only thing higher on the list of attention-grabbing phenomena than Celestia was, of course, Pinkamena Diane Pie. She loud, bright, pink pony bounced over the typical hoof traffic with all the aplomb and acrobatic finesse of a leaf in the breeze. With verbal diarrhea.
“Oh my gosh are there a bunch of you why didn’t you go back in the pool are you guys ok I mean you aren’t going to try and steal my friends are you or are you just like a changeling or something or am I hallucinating I haven’t done that since I ate Rainbow Dash’s brownies I mean she’s a good cook but they tasted funny and I felt really weird afterwards like I was flying but I’ve flown before and that wasn’t it so maybe not flying but like floating in place or something kinda like at the pool but with no water man I’m thirsty-”
“SHUT. UP!” Press barked, wheeling on her progenitor with a harsh expression. “My STARS is it any wonder we LEFT Ponyville?!”
Pinkie Pie stopped mid-bounce in that physics-defying manner that all of the clones had come to accept as part of their lives. They’d all made use of it in different ways, but seeing somepony so blatantly-and almost ignorantly-abuse it like Pinkie did was unnerving. The bouncy mare settled back down to her hooves. “I’m sorry. I just… I get realy carried away with super-big-important news like this! How did you even… I mean all the other Pinkie clones were all bouncy and yelling “Fun” all the time! What happened?”
Pink Press rubbed her snout with her hoof. “Honestly, I’m not sure. You’d have to ask Pie Chart about that. But look, where I’m taking you… it’s a secret, okay?”
“Okie-dokie-”
“NO. NO LOKI. We don’t say that. And I don’t mean just ‘surprise party’ secret. I need your penultimate promise that you will never, EVER tell another pony about anything I’m going to share with you from now on, ok? EVER,” Press said sternly, punctuating her statements by jabbing Pinkie in the chest with a stubborn hoof.
“I Pinkie Promise! Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” Pinkie exclaimed, gesturing with each piece of the well-rehearsed rhyme.
Press looked at her curiously. “That’ll have to do. Now come on,” she grumbled. They strode down the street, garnering more attention than Press was comfortable with, before coming to a simple-looking office building, several stories shorter than it’s neighbors. On the front were the letters P.A. in plain font. Really, besides the two identical mares standing in front of it, there wasn’t anything that made it stand out in the crowd, and once they went in, it was purely an unimpressive piece of architecture surrounded by more of the same.
The inside of the building looked like what anypony would assume a receptionist’s desk and sitting room of a small office would: a small row of chairs, a few cork boards with various fliers tacked to them, and a toupe desk with matching walls. Supposedly it was a very soothing color. What stood out to the newcomer, Pinkie Pie, was yet another clone of herself sitting behind said desk. The mare, who lacked the trademark curls in favor of a short, friendly bob, looked up from taking a file to her hoof to greet the newcomers. “Oh? Oh hey, Press! I thought you had a… thing… today?”
“Interview,” Press answered dryly. “And I have bigger problems. Let’s just say my boss let me go home early given… extraneous circumstances.” She stood to the side, gesturing to Pinkie Pie.
“Oh, hello!” the pink mare behind the desk chirped. “A new one, huh? It’s been a while!” She leaned forward and offered a hoof, which Pinkie shook gleefully. “I’m Pinkwell! It’s been weeks since we saw a ‘new’ face!”
“Not quite,” Press growled, as Pinkie Pie opened her mouth to speak.
A mouth that soon closed, most likely remembering Press’s outburst in the street. “Hmm?” Pinkwell asked.
“I mean she’s not… new. She’s an old face. The oldest,” Press enunciated the last word intently, trying to drive the point home.
There was a second’s pause in which Pink was convinced she’d have to explain things further, befoe Pinkwell’s face shifted gears from excited confusion to near-panic. She took a deep breath, then- “PIE CHART!” she bellowed, a sound that reverberated throughout the building.
In a few seconds, yet another pink mare trotted into the room, this one with slightly longer hair than the receptionist’s, tied back in a bun. The more identifying feature, of course, was the triple-thick glasses on her face. “What now, Pinkwell?” she looked around the room, and caught sight of the other two. “Oh, hello, Press. Who’s the new girl?”
“Hi!” Pinkie said, having grown tired of being the only one of herself not talking. “I’m Pinkie Pie!”
“Yes, yes, so am I. Welcome to-”
“NO. She means she ACTUALLY IS Pinkie Pie,” Press barked.
Chart’s eyes grew so wide they surpassed the enormous frames on her face. In an instant, she rushed to the wall, opened a hidden panel to reveal a big red button, and punched it with great force. “CODE ALPHA!”
There was a loud burst of noise all at once as a loud alarm went off, the room filled with a strobing red light, and a bunch of Pinkies ran out of assorted rooms and made their way to the back of the building. Pink Press, having seen this coming, merely blew a strand of rather persistent pink mane out of her face, tucking it under her hat, and turned her attention to the original. “Don’t get too alarmed. It’s like a fire drill. Except the fire is a pony and the drill is getting everyone in the same room to keep a head count and make sure one of us isn’t being a complete tool. AGAIN,” she explained.
Pinkie, the original Pinkie, was holding her hooves to her ears and regarding the bustle of activity with all the curiousity of a cat seeing another cat for the first time. “SAY WHAT?!” she bellowed.
Press rolled her eyes, and motioned for Pinkie to follow her. Chart and Pinkwell had already filed in with the rest, and Press rounded a hallway corner in time to see the latter disappear into a set of double doors at the end of the corridor. After a few seconds, the alarm and lights went off, and Press turned her attention to her guest. “Just follow me, try to keep your hooves to yourself, please don’t stare, and for STARS SAKE don’t say Okie-Dokie-Loki.”
Pinkie nodded, making a flurry of gestures that Press interpreted as ‘taking the words out of her mouth, putting them in her coat pocket, zipping the pocket, taking off the coat, hanging the coat in the closet, and locking the closted door.’ Which simply agitated her more that it came so easily to her to understand that. “Whatever,” Press grumbled, walking her into the far room.
The double doors opened, and what Pinkie saw almost made her break her promise of not staring, even though her rather animated promise hadn’t included such, as before her sat at least three rows full of different iterations of herself. Unlike the Town Hall during the Mirror Pool fiasco, each one stood out as their own pony, despite the similar coloration and Cutie Marks. Some dressed differently, others had styled their mane rather particularly, as was the case with Pinkwell and Pie Chart, while others simply held themselves in a different air.
The far end of the room was a small stage with a podium, kind of like the Town Hall in Ponyville, though a bit less so. At the podium on her hind legs, stood another Pinkie that the original hadn’t been introduced to. Her hair was straight, yet business-short, a bit like Pinkie’s sister Marble. Pinkie only noticed her, however, when said pony called out. “YOU. The ‘original’ Pinkie Pie! Up here!” she commanded, in a voice a bit deeper than most Pinkies, though still recognizable as her own.
Pinkie Pie hopped up to the stage with her usual enthusiasm, standing next to the pony seemingly in charge, as Press plodded up the stage and sat in a chair set to the side. “What’s up?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“Since you are new here, I have a few things to say to you. First: understand that I do not take your claim as the ‘original’ on face value. We have a Code Alpha for a reason. Quite a few ponies in this room have made the same claim,” the head ‘Pinkie’ glared at a few as she spoke, who responded with various expressions of guilt and mischief. “So we have a few ways to weed out pretenders. My name is Pie Regard. I’m the leader, so to speak, of this little outfit. Welcome to Pinkie Anonymous,” she added, gesturing widely at the room full of clones. “Press!” she barked, not turning around.
The reported-to-be trotted across the stage with all the enthusiasm she didn’t have, until she stood next to their ‘leader’. “What.”
“What makes you think this is the ‘original’ Pinkie Pie?” Regard ask tensely.
“Um, because she showed up with the rest of the Elements of Harmony?” Press deadpanned.
There was a large wave of gasps and murmurs across the room at this statement, which was hushed by Regard raising a single hoof. “You say that, but why should I believe you?”
Pink rolled her eyes, as she knew Regard’s doubts were less out of distrust and more out of a deep-set sense of paranoia she’d bred through many false alarms and close encounters. “Look, my boss, Buried Lede, took me to interview a bunch of ponies responsible for the opening of that new boutique downtown. Turns out it’s owned by Rarity. We spent all midday interviewing the Elements, by which I mean he did all the asking and I hid in a booth while a very nice waitress brought me waffles under the table. You want to ask someone, ask him. Hell, just keep an eye out for the paper later this week. And don’t get me started on the long-winded line of bullshit I had to feed my boss when he realized who he was talking to.”
“And this, Buried Lede, is he your Contact?” Regard asked.
“What’s a Contact?” Pinkie Pie asked, again getting frustrated at the thought of being the only her that wasn’t saying anything.
Press looked past Regard and explained, “Each one of us is allowed to tell exactly one pony each about the whole clone thing. Other than that, we have to do our best to keep entirely out of each other’s lives and stay away from each other’s friends. At first we just pretended to be each other when the occasion arose, but as you can see, there’s way too many of us for that to be an option. SO we each get one pony who’s allowed to know about us being clones, so that we have someone who can help us keep our stories straight and out of trouble.”
“Ooh, like a Secret Keeper!” Pinkie exclaimed excitedly.
There was a loud voice at the back. “THANK YOU! FINALLY!”
“SHUT UP, PINKIE P.I.!” Regard barked.
“What did I say?” Pinkie asked quietly, off-put.
Press rolled her eyes. “Not you. P.I. as in P and I. Private Investigator. Trust me, you get used to it.”
Regards stomped a hoof on the ground. “Enough! Fine, fine, fine! Let’s say you are the original! Better safe than sorry. If that’s true, then you need to understand that you must, and I mean MUST keep all of this a secret. Nopony can know about us!”
Pinkie Pie leaned on her haunches, and raised her hoof. “Cross my heart, hope to-”
“Nope, nuh-uh!” Regard interrupted. “Not good enough. I need the ultimate promise from you. The same one I make everypony here take when it comes to the Secret. You need to give me your Infinity End of the World Double-Layer-Cake Ultra Pink Secret Promise!”
Pinkie Pie gasped so loudly and so long that one thought she might float off and explode in the stratosphere. “But-but that’s only for super-DUPER emergency secrets!” she expclaimed.
Regards simply gestured to the crowd, who were all giving the stage their best serious face. Some much more serious than others.
Pinkie looked out at the crowd. Sure, she wanted to tell all her friends that there were a bunch more Pinkie Pies out there. But she also remembered that, if she did, they’d all have to disappear. Which wasn’t fair to them. They all looked like they’d built their own lives. Like they were their own ponies. Even as far back as the door to the room, where a couple of Pinkies stood guard, no matter where she looked, she didn’t see the one thing she was looking for: herself.
With a deep sigh, she put her hoof on her chest. “I PROMISE.”
Pink Press had had a long day. With the near-disastrous appearance of the original Pinkie Pie, the thoroughly undeserved verbal lashing from Pie Regard, and the absolute cacophony of a ‘party’ that had ensued, she wanted nothing more than to go home, sleep her few hours, and get back to her regular job. Away from other Pinkies.
Unfortunately, there was one other order of business she had to attend to before she could ship off to slumberland. It was one she’d already been planning for since this morning, but after spending an inordinate amount of time ‘in the office’, she wanted nothing more than to not be here. Still, she, like every other clone, had made the same promise.
Weekly meetings with her assigned group of clones, to report progress, talk schedules, and overall shoot the breeze. Not that she minded the meetings. Some of her best friends were clones. They were also rather practical: one Pinkie out of each group took notes on the weekly schedules, and handed them in to Pinkwell each day. That way, she could tell each Pinkie where to be and when to avoid running into another of ‘herself’ in public. It was the only way they’d managed to go undetected so long.
It also helped that most of them had turned out so radically different after they’d left Ponyville that almost none of them had the same circle of friends, and those groups that did overlap had their ‘one’ in common that could cover their flanks. Still, one thing the original Pinkie had been good at was planning for the unexpected, a tait they’d all been rather grateful to inherit. One of the few.
“Hello, everyPinkie!” a cheerful voice interrupted Press’s reverie as she snapped back to attention, her gaze whirring about to land on the Pinkie clone that had spoken. They were distributed in a circle, much like a substance abuse meeting (which one or two of them had actually landed themselves in, after some rather unfortunate false starts in the city). The speaker was a clone named Ice Pink, who owned a froyo shop in the mall. Her hair was done up in an old fifties’ bob, cut a bit short but still curly. She seemed to have inherited the original’s taste for sweet things, if not baked goods.
“Hello, Ice,” groaned the crowd at large. They were all showing signs of weariness after the events today. One or two of them hadn’t been here for the actual ‘event’, having heard about it afterwards, but their exhaustion was no less earned: they’d only just showed up in time for the meeting after a long day’s work.
“Now,” Ice Pink continued, “I know everyPinkie has had a long, tiring day,” she started, a statement met with much low-key grumbling, if mostly in agreement. They’d also learned long ago that trying to break Ice’s habit of using ‘Pinkie’ instead of ‘Pony’ while at Pinkie Anonymous was a losing battle. She’d simply grown too fond of her mannerisms, sharing much of the original Pinkie’s flare for life and happiness. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, of course. But neither was Pinkie Pie. In small doses. As prescribed by a physician.
Ice Pink pressed on, “And I’m sure we’re all ready to go home.” More grumbles. “But we have a job to do, and a responsibility to our fellow Pie. Not to mention I can see a few kettles in the circle tonight that need to let off some steam,” she added kindly, looking to a few clones in particular. “Would anyone like to start?”
“I would,” said one Pinkie, dressed in a deerstalker cap that hid all but a lock of her hair, and sucking on a pipe. One that didn’t actually blow bubbles.
A few clones rolled their eyes, and Ice Pink said patiently, “Of course, Pinkie P.I. What do you have for us?”
The private detective shuffled through a nearby saddlebag, and pulled out a small folder. “Well, good and bad news. Kind of the same thing, in this case. Like we thought, that Pinkie is the real deal. Followed her after the party and saw her galavantin’ with the rest of the Elements. So she checks out.” A few Pinkies nodded. Having some confirmation outside of an unsubstantiated promise and a single witness eased a few minds, even if it did mean they’d come close to discovery. “Which also means she’s gonna keep to her promise. You guys all remember what happened the first time somepony here tried to break a Pinkie Promise. Let alone The Big One.”
“How was I supposed to know breaking my own Promise would actually hurt?!” one Pinkie growled. This one had long, straight hair, and glared at the circle as if it was one giant steak on the slab.
“Now now, Pinkemena, no one’s blaming you,” Ice said soothingly, “We’ve all learned our lesson. That’s good news, P.I. Now, does anyone else-”
“I gots more,” P.I. interrupted, in a flat monotone, not unlike one of their ‘sisters’. This statement was met with quite a bit more groaning, which she ignored as she pulled out a bigger file. “Followed that ‘Buried Lede’ fellow-”
“My BOSS?!” Press shouted. “WHY?!”
“Cause I needed to make sure he was on the up and up. Also he’s kinda hot for an older guy,” P.I. explained. A statement that was met with a few giggles from some other Pinkies. “Don’t worry, he’s fine. Just said something to his boss about how he’d sent you home to put all the notes together. I believe the words he used were-”
“-’Making herself useful?’” Press asked dejectedly. “Yeah, that’s him talking to the big boss, alright. Okay, I guess I owe you a thank you.”
“No problem. Now, about the alligators-”
“NOPE’” the clone previously addressed as Pinkemena interrupted. “We are NOT talking about the sewer gators again! What is it with you and this urban legend bullshit?!”
A few Pinkies gasped. “Mina!” Ice scolded. “Language!”
“I’m sorry!” Pinkemena barked. “I just… I wanna go home, ok! We got a ten top coming in tomorrow from the griffon embassy and I gotta be at work super early and carve an entire manticore and my boss is on vacation getting married! Do you have any idea how hard it is to prep manticore without poisoning a filly?!”
Another clone shivered. “Um, how about I just say ‘ew’ in a loud and carrying voice?”
“Whatever,” ‘Mina’ grumbled, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms in a pout.
Ice Pink blinked a few times as she shoved the mental image of a manticore on a butcher’s block as far out of her head as she could without chemical assistance. “So, Pecan Pie? Any… good news?” she asked the clone who’d shivered, one of the few who’d held on to the original manestyle.
“Well, not really. I mean, nothing bad. Just… more of the same. Man, I can’t wait for the holidays. We’re always so slow at work in the summer. Fall is way more exciting.”
Press nodded. “Yeah, no kidding. With all the awards shows and holiday deals and crazy ponies that come out with the cold weather, there’s no end of work. Honestly I’m just thankful to have a few weeks to store energy for the winter.”
There was a generally more amicable air as the conversation turned to the changing of seasons, the daily grind, and finally, working out the normal schedules. Once all was said and done, the Pinkies set about on their way home, eager to sleep and get back to a life away from… themselves.
Pinkemena was not a happy pony. She, in general, disliked ponies, griffins, dragons, and other sentient creatures in general. Really the only pony she liked was herself, or, ‘selves’. The other Pinkies, with their various-yet-similar personalities, similar roots, and weekly meetings (which she would rather swallow a butcher’s knife than admit she enjoyed), the members of Pinkie Anonymous were the highlight of her life.
At first, she’d been bitter. Watching dozens of versions of herself run around, being happy, while she got allotted the part of Pinkie Pie that only came out when she was genuinely upset, felt like a cruel joke. It had taken some time for her to realize that she herself could be happy, she just had to work harder at it than most. It helped that the other clones had gone from a source of irrational anger to an inspiration.
Unfortunately, it was rather difficult to be inspired when some grumpy old griffin is yelling at the top of his feathers at you. “Mina! What’s taking you so long with that manticore?!”
“Maybe YOU wanna carve these poison sacs out! Go ahead, take those broken old arthritic claws and dig around in this bag of venom, be my guest!” she bellowed back.
Her boss, Gary Wintalon (pronounced wine-tall-yon by the pretentious and idiotic, namely Gary), poked his ragged beak around the corner, just in time to see Mina take a small carving knife to a rather delicate portion of the dead beast’s anatomy. After a second of glaring, he commented. “You know the only reason I let you talk that way to me is because I know you’ll carve me too if I fire you.”
“Like a Turkey, old man,” she chided, with a hint of a smile.
A ghost of a grin crossed his features, and he dipped back out of sight. “Hurry the hell up anyway!” he yelled around the corner, with a helping of enthusiasm.
Mina shook her head incredulously, returning to her work with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, being the pony she was, she never actually got to eat any of the food she prepared at the Boiled Bird; the griffin- and dragon-centric steakhouse and pub she’d landed herself a job in, with not a small amount of intimidation. They fed her, of course, mostly with vegetables they used as garnish and seasoning, and she had no problems helping herself to the potatoes once in a while. No, her enjoyment was in doing something that she knew made other ponies upset.
Equestria had long learned to accept that the dietary needs of the other species was drastically different. They couldn’t reasonably expect visitors to forgo their entire diet if they wanted to encourage trade and diplomacy. Thus, the major cities had established small, out-of-polite-view eateries like this one, to cater to those who couldn’t subsist on sunflowers and daisies and hay fries. Although she’d seen a griffin or two trying a hayburger with mixed results, once.
Despite this, there wasn’t a lot of patience with these places in polite company, and the thought of a pony even setting hoof in one of these establishments was abhorrent. Thus, Mina derived great pleasure from other ponies finding out that not only was she a regular, she worked here. Pinkemena was not a member of high society, for obvious reasons. Except in Griffin circles. The embassy was rather fond of her, for a variety of reasons. Apparently playful antagonism was the closest thing some griffins had to friendship.
“Ey, Mina!” called a familiar voice. Speaking of friendship.
Mina looked out the window leading from the kitchen to the dining room, seeing a familiar beak poking itself over a divider. “Hey Gertrude! Tell your dad to slow down on the chimera! He’s gonna have a heart attack, and we’ll be out half our business!” There was a squawk of a laugh, and a talon in a thumb-up over the divide, and Mina went back to work.
She’d just finished severing the tail and one limb when the bell rang at the front door. At first, she didn’t notice it at all. Then it rang again. And again. Then it rang constantly, as someone was obviously trying to get a host’s attention. Mina poked her head out to yell at the staff again, when she saw a familiar mane of bright, colored hair.
“You better be right about this, Gilda. I’m getting sick just looking at the menu. I mean, you guys eat… pigs?! Seriously?!” barked a tomboyish voice over the din of customers.
‘Gilda’ responded with a bit of annoyance in her voice. “I’m not telling YOU to eat it, loser! Although I think you’d really like bacon.” A statement quickly followed by exaggerated retching. “I dragged you here cause you froo-froo ponies just eat boring flowers and apples and stuff. ‘Cept that apple cider stuff. You at least got that right.”
Mina had long since retreated to the kitchen, for fear of being spotted. She hadn’t gotten a good enough look at the newcomers to be sure of who it was, and she’d learned a while back that there was more than one rainbow-colored mane in the world, but she wasn’t about to take any chances. Especially after the real Pinkie Pie did in fact, stand up. The duo was met a few seconds later by a hostess, and quickly took a seat. Not as far away from the kitchen as she’d have liked, but it was good enough. She went back to work on her manticore, and soon enough, her ten-top showed up, ready to eat.
The rest of the afternoon was almost a breeze. Cut of meat here, sizzle there, snarky comeback with threats sprinkled on top. Soon enough the manticore was almost completely gone, the ten-top had been dealt with, and she was on her way home.
Confident that the rainbow-colored threat to her sanity had since vacated with her griffin entourage, she trotted herself out the front door, debating whether or not to stop by the ‘office’ on the way home. Of course, that was far too easy. The bell hadn’t even finished ringing when a familiarly boyish voice cried out, “Pinkie?!”
Rainbow Dash was very confused. She’d literally just seen Pinkie Pie on the other side of town not even an hour before they left for lunch. Now, knowing her friend, it was entirely possible that she had, in fact, simply followed them to the restaurant for... well, for Pinkie reasons. So maybe she’d seen what kind of restaurant it was, and gotten really upset that Rainbow Dash was eating there? That would explain why she was wearing her hair straight, and the grumpy look on her face.
Not the running, though. Pinkie usually never ran away from her friends. She also wasn’t usually this fast. “Hey, Pinks, slow down!” Rainbow yelled, speeding down the sidewalk, or more accurately, six feet above it. Were this flat, open ground, she would have caught up with Pinkie miles ago. Of course, they were in downtown Manehatten, where the street lamps, signs, crowds, and buildings turned even open air into an obstacle course. One Pinkie seemed oddly familiar with.
“Stop following me you one-mare pride parade!” Pinkie yelled back, in a rather un-Pinkie-ish voice. Pinkemena, for her part, was doing a fantastic job of restraining herself, opting instead to try to lose the pegasus in the back alleys and confusing street layout of downtown, and hadn’t even thrown any swear words at her. Why, for Luna’s sake, did the one friend who found her have to be a freakin’ Wonderbolt? Still, she was keeping ahead of her well enough, and was a few right turns and a risque storefront away from losing her pursuer for good.
At least, that was the plan. The group of mares on the far end of this one-way street, however, apparently hadn’t been informed of this plan, and thus stood in perfect thwarting formation. Namely, right in her damn way. She didn’t have much choice, though, as the only other direction was backward, which just so happened to be full of Rainbow Dash. “Outta the way, ladies!” she bellowed, and then almost crashed to a halt when she saw who it was she was yelling at.
Of course it had to be the rest of Pinkie’s friends. Of. Bucking. Course.
“Oh hey, Pinkie, there you are!” Twilight yelled, not having quite grasped the situation. To which she only had a few seconds left to respond.
Which she failed to do, as Pinkemena barreled through the gaggle of girls like a bowling ball with a rocket assist. “Sorry not really tried to warn you bye!” she hollered behind her, hooking a hard right and ducking under a large sheet of glass being held aloft by lots of rope and a couple pegasi. There was a satisfying thud as Rainbow saw, tried to brake for, and smacked into the glass, and a comical sliding sound as she ungracefully met the ground with a thwack. Finally, she was free of her tail. She didn’t slow down, though, in case one of the others decided to pick up where Rainbow Dash left -POP- ...off. She screeched to a halt as the innocuous sound of rushing air from a moment ago was swiftly followed by Twilight Sparkle appearing out of thin air. “Goddammit!” Mina bellowed, skidding into another hard right, which led her down a narrow alleyway. She heard another -POP- behind her and, being a quick learner, pulled the fastest 180 she could, now charging through the empty space Twilight had left to resume her original route. The subsequent -POP- and shout of “Wha-HEY!” told her that Twilight had indeed tried to show up in front of her again.
Mina all but slalomed between the ponies in the crowd, and various stands and benches and posts, eventually reaching a familiar storefront and diving through the front door.
Which, gratefully, was open, as she ended up sliding on rather comfortably soft carpet, not bothering to come to a halt. Instead, she dove over the counter and hid behind a very familiar-looking mare. “Frilly, you gotta hide me!”
The Pinkie clone behind the counter, Silly Frilly, was every bit as sultry and stylish as Pinkemena was antisocial and crude. “Oh, come now, Mina. Surely you can handle… whatever it is. I mean, I’ve seen you throw big, strapping minotaurs out of your restaurant before. Which I should thank you for, by the way. They did so need to be… comforted,” she added with an appreciative mewl as she stretched across the counter languidly.
“NOT NOW. We got a real problem! Don’t you have like, an emergency hatch or something?!” Mina growled, shuffling behind the counter towards a door she hoped led to a back room.
“Oh, now what could be so awful that the big, strong Pinkemena needs to hide… from… um hello how may I help you welcome to Lace Track!” Silly added in a panicked, almost overly-professional tone.
Mina looked back to say something else rude, but caught sight of the newest ponies in the shop through a glass display, under which she immediately dove.
“Hello, Pinkie,” said Twilight. “I imagine you have some… thing to tell us?”
Frilly put on a wide, overly cheerful smile, and tilted her head. “Ummmm, no?”
“Pinkie...” Twilight said dangerously.
“Sorry, really can’t tell you,” Frilly insisted, her smile losing some of its luster. “Like, physically, I can’t.”
Which is when the rest of Pinkie’s friends stormed into the shop, some of which were very confused, some angry. Then there was Rarity. “Oh my gosh, is that the new Bridle Couture line?!” she almost shrieked.
Frilly took the opening. “Why, yes it is! We don’t have many left, but if there’s a piece you -or somepony special- have an interest in, we take orders of all sizes! I can even show you some custom pieces, if you’re interested!”
It was at that moment that the rest of the girls realized exactly what kind of store Lace Track was. They were surrounded on all sides by glass counters, soft white carpet and walls, gold accents, and any and every manner of lingerie they had no idea existed. Fluttershy had almost shrunk into herself completely in embarrassment, slowly creeping back to the door. Rainbow and Applejack both looked like they wanted to be basically anywhere else, and Twilight had, for a moment, forgotten her pursuit in favor of a rather endearing blush in a very complimentary shade of vermillion.
Then the moment passed. “NO,” Twilight barked. “Nope, no, niet, nein, nuh-uh. We’re not here to shop. What the HAY is going on, Pinkie?!” she demanded, her face now inches from Frilly’s.
“Like I said, I can’t actually tell you. I promised,” Frilly explained. She then turned to look behind the counter for Pinkemena. Who had since disappeared into a back room, so that helped.
Until Pinkie Pie walked into the store. “Oh hey guys there you are what are you doing in a lingerie store are we shopping for somepony I thought none of us had coltfriends oh my gosh are you secretly dat-” her rant came to a crashing halt as she saw who was standing behind the counter. She looked from Frilly, to her friends, to Frilly, and her genuine smile became just a little too even.
Twilight rounded on Pinkie with a look of shock and awe akin to having gone to the human realm for the first time. “PINKIE?! But you’re… I mean you-” she said, turning back and forth between the two Pinkie Pies. “CAN SOMEPONY EXPLAIN THIS ALREADY?!”
“Sorry,” Pinkie Pie said sheepishly. “I can’t. I promised.”
The break room of Lace Track was rather lavish, as far as break rooms go. It was much the same décor as the storefront and show floor, only with less… frilly things. Except the doilies on the table. Those were all kinds of frilly. The absence of a thousand kinds of intimates had somewhat soothed the atmosphere, although Twilight still looked ready to explode into a million different directions.
There were three Pinkie Pies. Three. One was enough, in her opinion, and now she had two hundred percent more Pinkie than usual. None of which were talking. Neither, it seemed, were any of her friends. Everyone seemed either too sheepish or too dumbstruck to really find a way to kickstart the conversation.
Twilight was just plain MAD. “SO,” she barked, making everypony jump. “Oh… sorry. “So… Pinkie. Would you please kindly explain to me, in a way I both understand and will not spontaneously combust for, why there are more than one of you?” Her tone had gone from the loud barking to a cool, even temper as she tried to maintain her inside voice.
Mina just glared at her. “What part of ‘we promised’ is getting stuck on you horn?”
Twilight felt her eye twitch. “Pinkie-”
“Mina. Pinkamena Diane. Short one’s spelled with an I,” the butcher growled.
“...fine. Mina. What, exactly, is your problem?” the Princess demanded.
Both Frilly and the real Pinkie scooted away from the meatcrafter as her eyes narrowed. “You want to know?”
“Yes. Very much so.”
“Well too bad, I promised,” Mina said with no lack of snark.
It was obvious she was trying to get a rise out of Twilight, so she turned her attention to the ‘original’ Pinkie. “Pinkie Pie, is there any way you can tell us what’s going on?”
The three girls all looked to each other, then Frilly sighed. “There is, but you are NOT going to like it. At all. Let me just close shop early and we’ll take you there.”
Mina stopped her with a hoof, looking ready to protest. Filly shook her head. “This is the princess, Mina. She can make our lives all kinds of difficult. And even is she didn’t, how could she be expected to trust the original after this? I won’t do that to a fellow Pie.”
Mina’s ear twitched as her sense of irritation ground against her loyalty to the Pies. “FINE. But I don’t have to be happy about it.”
“When are you ever?”
Mina grinned, and Frilly decided that question should remain rhetorical. For everyone’s safety.
----------------
The trek to Pinkie Anonymous was both long, arduous, and tense. The other Elements had been trying to find something to talk about, but between Twilight and Mina’s bad moods, the obvious tension in the air, and the aura of mystery surrounding the entire affair, they either didn’t feel comfortable saying anything, or didn’t have anything to say.
Eventually, Frilly stopped walking, which brought the entire troop to a halt. “We’re here,” she said, gesturing at the completely nondescript office building with the letters P.A. on the front.
“And where… is here?” Twilight asked, her immediate confusion momentarily overshadowing her seething irritation.
Frilly sighed, pushing the door open, and ushering the entire group in.
The last of them, Fluttershy, hadn’t even felt the door close behind her when every alarm in the building went off at once. A loud voice said on an intercom, and from a desk in front of them, “CODE PRISMA! I REPEAT! CODE PRISMA! NOT A DRILL!”
Everypony in the room flinched largely and tried to block out the sound, which fortunately didn’t last long. The sounds of scuffling, running hooves, and doors slamming long outlasted the sirens and yelling over the intercom. Mina glared largely at Pinkwell, the receptionist, who was currently breathing heavy into a bag. Another Pinkie Pie tore into the room, this one with A tight bun in her hair and large glasses. “Pinkwell I swear to god you better… not… be… joking...” she trailed off, seeing the room full of ponies.
Steadying herself on the edge of the counter, she reached a hoof into the air, where Pinkwell handed her her own paper bag. After a few deep breaths, she fanned her face, and turned to glare at Pinkie Pie. The original. “I thought. We TOLD YOU. You PROMISED-”
“It’s not her fault, Pie Chart!” Mina barked. “THIS ONE-” she pointed an accusing hoof at Rainbow Dash, “Came into the grill earlier, and caught me trying to sneak out after my shift. She freakin chased me halfway across town, and ran into this lot on the way,” she redirected her hoof to gesture at the rest of the Elements. “I tried to lse them by diving into Lace Track, but then the original Pinkie caught up with them and they foud themselves in a room with two Pinkies. Normally, protocol would involve a really inventive lie or blunt force trauma, but unfortunately the princess is both smart and a princess and I don’t think I could get a pardon for clubbing her with a meat tenderizer.”
“Ex-CUSE ME?!” Twilight shrieked.
Pie Chart stepped forward and smacked Mina upside the head. “Could you not?” She turned her attention to the obviously upset alicorn. “Miss Sparkle, I apologize for… whatever this is, but rest assured we actually do have a reason for all of this. Not the least of which was trying to avoid this exact situation. So let me be the first to welcome you to Pinkie Anonymous.”
Twilight blinked once. Then twice. In fact, she blinked multiple times, because she was convinced she was hallucinating, and the only logical response she could come up with was to try and refresh the image in front of her by closing her eyes over and over until it changed.
It didn’t.
The room was filled with exactly forty-seven Pinkie Pies. Forty-seven. Which were, in fact, distinguishable from the others in a variety of ways, which somehow only made things worse. Twilight herself was seated in a row of fold-out chairs on a stage off to the left of a podium in what appeared to be a makeshift auditorium. Deciding that staring too long into the pink void was grounds for ‘Not Guilty by Reason of Mental Defect’, she decided to investigate the rest of the room.
It was big. Very big, actually, which made her wonder what this room was used for before it got turned into a giant meeting room for adorable nightmares. Metal fixtures on the walls that reached from floor to ceiling indicated that there used to be some kind of dividing walls installed, all of which had been taken down. Maybe this place had once been a room full of cubicles and smaller offices? With some proper organization she could-
“Princess?” Pie Regard asked curtly, cutting off Twilight’s train of thought.
“Huh? Oh, yes. I’m sorry,” Twilight said sheepishly, blushing as she snapped out of her reverie. She stepped down from her seat and approached the podium, much to the baited breath of everyone in the room.
“Ahem,” Twilight said, tapping the microphone lightly. “As all of you seem to be aware, my name is Princess Twilight Sparkle. I’m here because… well, to be honest, I’m still working on that. So let’s just say that after a series of very confusing events and long-winded conversations, I’ve been asked to speak to all of you in pony this evening. I understand that there are still a few of you not in attendance, but I’ll have to make do.
“Tuesday afternoon...” Twilight paused, as the events were still fresh in her mind and still parsing, not to mention the long winded series of debates that took place over the last few days. She tried starting again. “Yesterday afternoon, I was made aware of the existence of several dozen clones who had not been… dispelled after the Mirror Pool Incident. My first reaction, of course, was to put together a plan to gather you all and do exactly that.” When the crowd gasped at large and started in outrage, she raised a hoof and a wing and spoke over them. “That idea has since been discarded, for a multitude of reasons. I want you all to be aware, and very thankful, for the existence and testimony of your ‘Contacts’. I spent many, many, MANY HOURS listening to some very concerned citizens over the last few days about the progress you have made, the lives you’ve all built, and the individuals you have become.
“Thus, I have come to the conclusion that dispelling even one of you would be tantamount to murder. So I’m not going to do that,” she emphasized, much to the relief of pretty much the entire room. “However, there are some issues that must be addressed, both immediately and going forward. Fortunately, it is well within my purview to lay down a few Royal Decrees.” There was some unease throughout the crowd at this, as ‘Royal Decree’ could mean anything from ‘Into the dungeons with all of you’ *gasp* to ‘No chocolate on Tuesday’. “The first is that Pinkie Anonymous will now be seen as a government entity. No, this does not mean I will be bringing in a bunch of Royal Guards or officials to oversee what you have. No, the staff you have on hoof seems to be doing just fine, barring current circumstances. This organization will respond directly to me going forward. And before you ask, no, I can’t put Pinkie Pie or any of you at the top of this ladder, as the original Pinkie has been barred from government office. For a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is shenanigans like this,” she almost growled. Taking a breath to compose herself, she pressed on. “Now, this does mean that those of you working here will actually have government jobs, salaries, and benefits, for doing basically whatever it is you do right now.
“In addition, I think it’s in everypony’s best interest if Manehatten wasn’t the only place you all hunkered down. With so many of you here, this city is reaching a saturation point. After all, my friends and I did find you after being here only a day or so. Thus, I am creating multiple P.A. offices in major cities across Equestria. It should go without saying, but the existence of these offices will be known only to a select few people. The ponies in this room aside, the only others who will know are your contacts, any and all future Pinkies you find or who find you, and the Princesses. Who, by the way, seem to be significantly more blasé about this situation than I’m comfortable with, which makes me think there’s some kind of precedent. They said they couldn’t tell me over dragon post, so I’m going to have a very very interesting lunch with them tomorrow,” she concluded.
Pie Regard stepped forward to take over, and Twilight retreated to her seat. “Alright, ladies, here’s how this is gonna work. Any new Pinkie Pies that come to this office are to be put into a newly-established ‘Relocation Program’ effective the start of next month. There will also be relocation packages for anypinkie present, and the few who had to miss this meeting, with the desire to move out of the city. Some of you have already been offered these services. You are not required to accept them, but please, please consider doing so. I understand that uprooting your whole life to move somewhere new for the sake of secrecy is jarring to say the least, but we’re running out of room here.
“Also, new offices will be created in the company, available only to Pinkies. The list of available positions is in the pamphlet you found on your chairs when you sat down-” she paused as a few of the more… oblivious Pinkies reached under their butts and found a small booklet. “So please see Pie Chart sometime next week during office hours if you are interested in applying. Again, these are government jobs with benefits, pay and pensions, not volunteer work. There is more information available than what’s in your booklets, again see Pie Chart in the next week if you have any questions. Now, I feel it’s important to iterate than nopony here is being forced to move, give up their lives, or spill the beans about any of this. We’re merely providing the option. And lastly, could somepony please untie Mina from the light fixture before she chews her way through the chandelier chain.”
The room at large looked up at one particularly grumpy-looking Pinkie clone as she gnawed on the brass chain holding up a rather expensive-looking light fixture, to which she was fastly secured, which just so happened to be dangling precariously above the heads of a few other Pies.
Pinkie P.I. sighed. “I got it,” she grumbled, and pulled out a few suction-cup hoof attachments.
“Alright, dismissed!” Pie Regards concluded, as the sounds of plungers walking up a wall was drowned out by the mass exodus of a bunch of Pinkie clones.
Rainbow Dash turned to the original Pinkie. “I will never, ever, ever get used to having more than one of you.”
Pinkie scooped up Rainbow Dash in one arm and hugged her close, waving a hoof in front of them. “Don’t you know, Dashie? Pi goes on forreeeeeeeeevvveeeeerrrrrr!”
