> Ghost Hunter Twilight 2: Clone Lores
>  by Keywii_Cookies55
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1 Back From the Dead
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Thank you for your help,” came the calm statement of a mare trotting out the front door of the local bookstore.
 
Oakfield’s - as the locals had so fondly come to know it – was a two storey bookstore situated on the at the tee junction where Makeover road met Flat street. It was a quaint affair that had recently come under new management. Before the deed to the property was taken it belonged to a local, but no more than a month ago an unpleasant purple unicorn and her shifty dragon sidekick asserted themselves.
 
The unicorn’s name was Twilight Sparkle, and on her first day in town she assaulted a defenceless young filly and got our only farmer fired! The dragon, Spike, scared the poor previous owner into selling the property and running away. Twilight was known for her impressive scowl, which was matched only by her cutting wit; using both to her advantage, she somehow managed to accumulate a small collection of friends.
 
Pinkie Pie: a crackpot baker from downtown Partyville. Applejack: The once sole-farmer for the entire district. Even Rainbow Dash: the unemployed horror sci-fi novel fanatic. Twilight somehow convinced all of them to like her, and against all odds, they still did; they spent most of their time off at her stolen store, even Saturday mornings!
 
Twilight scoffed at the latest customer that came into her store, if they didn’t like her, why did they insist on shopping there? The latest one was just another brain-dead woman going about her day, visiting the bookstore and buying something because the cover was colourful. 

As much as Twilight hated her oppressive warehouse home, there was precedent there to keep her wits sharp. She knew her place, and low as it was, it gave her a sense of scale; Twilight knew her limits and consequences intimately. There’d been no room for error in Panhandlershot.
 
But in Partyville? The only problems she ever came across were her levels of patience, everyone smiled and said thank you and wasted her time. The only actual threats kept themselves hidden. How was she supposed to know what was wrong if there wasn’t constant overwhelming threat of bodily harm around every corner? If Twilight had to pick some asinine bright side, the only thing she could come up with was the local ghost society constantly keeping her on edge.
 
Knights, High Royals, Guardians; they hid themselves, but they still walked the streets of Partyville. As a Hunter, Twilight knew she was always on thin ice, which relaxed her at least. But even that didn’t give her comfort when the local ponies had nothing happening behind the eyes. Applebloom had her suspicions for why most of the adult ponies could barely hold a conversation, but Twilight knew the truth.
 
Not that she’d ever explain it to the kid, any edge she had she held firmly to her chest. Pinkie Pie explained the liberal mind wiping the same night Twilight asked her out. Twilight looked over at her marefriend talking about something with Applejack, the Hunter wasn’t listening. They’d been dating for about two week by that point, and in that time they’d at least gotten to spend time together. Twilight enjoyed her time in the relationship until it dawned on her two days in.

Pinkie was too nice.
 
Twilight shook her head, instead turning to Applejack. The two earth ponies moved in with each other shortly after the ex-farmer was freed by the Whisperer. Twilight suspected she should probably be jealous. With Applejack no longer enslaved by the Ghost Council, she was free to actually do what she wanted, and Pinkie had put her up at the Bakery. Pinkie was surprised when Applejack asked to move in, but accepted a few days later. Which was what made Twilight’s lack of jealousy surprising; shouldn’t she have cared? If you’re dating somebody and you go out together, shouldn’t you feel more than indifferent to them spending more of their day with somebody else?
 
She looked at Pinkie and the best she could muster was turning her deep glare into a more neutral expression. She couldn’t bring herself to care in the end; honestly what bothered her more was her new roommate.
 
As if summoned, hooves sounded from the stairwell on the left side of the store. It was the very same set of stairs that lead to Twilight’s upper loft. It had everything she needed to live comfortably, a bed, a desk to do research, a kitchen, the ship in a bottle she decided to start building…
 
“Twilight, we have a problem.”
 
…and Binding freeloading assholes that forced her into being a counterspy of some kind. “What?” Twilight demanded, the less she saw Applebloom the better, and considering her day had that far been at least bearable, she wanted nothing to do with the little stain.
 
Applebloom made her way over to the older ponies by the check out. “I was talking with Nona while you were running your store, and there’s been some movement with a few key players.”
 
Narrowing her eyes, Twilight couldn’t help herself from asking, “Who is it?” That is, she wasn’t able to stop herself from asking, no matter how hard she wanted to.
 
Pinkie turned to Twilight, “Nona?” She whispered.
 
“The Whisperer.”
 
Applebloom nodded, “First of all, there’s been some activity with a group of ponies from outside the city. They’re basically harmless, but worth looking into, they might be sliders.”
 
Twilight nodded, she didn’t particularly care about sliders, for the most part they almost always left her dimension before much even happened. They always talked about amazing powers or being able to fix everything wrong with St. Orangeberg, then when they spent any extended period of time in they city they left crying. They wanted to fix everything, but what was broken? Nothing, that’s what; the only thing wrong with anything was the people that lived there. And it was pretty laughable to think anyone could fix the city without some sort of mass genocide of some kind.
 
“Secondly, there’s been an increasing issue with the clones. It still isn’t enough to care about, but it might as well be dealt with now, get it over with, you know?” General agreement came from Applejack and Pinkie. “Finally, and most importantly, is what the Executioner has been up to.”
 
The reaction to hearing the title was immediate. Twilight shivered and in a rare moment for her looked worried; there was nothing more dangerous to a Hunter than an Executioner. Pinkie’s eyes widened and she took a step back, her regular nightmares about the local Executioner left her sweating when she woke up. Applejack though, reacted violently.
 
“WHAT THE FUCK HAS SHE DONE?!” she growled in her accented voice - the anger always bringing the Polish out of her -  and stomped her hoof into the floor. Applebloom hadn’t been expecting that sort of reaction and backed into one of the shelves. Not even Scootaloo’s violent hatred of Pinkie Pie could have prepared the red-maned Earth pony for such an outburst. Twilight, without realizing it, had jumped in front of Applebloom, her body moving on her own.
 
As a moment of calm washed over the room, Twilight inwardly cursed herself and her stupid Bound curse. She had no choice in being Applebloom’s bodyguard and protecting her. It was not only inconvenient, it was a giant bitch.
 
“Well?!” Applejack yelled, a touch more calm, but still fuming.
 
Applebloom knew she was safe when Twilight walked back behind the counter. “Well, the Executioner has been far more active recently, he’s been moving ghosts and building power; Overall he’s been far more threatening. Nona believes that if we don’t do something soon, it’s possible that the Executioner will come after us directly. And nobody wants that.”
 
Pinkie nodded in understanding, and Twilight simply tried to calm her beating heart. There was no way in fuck she’d survive an encounter with an Executioner. He’d trap her in her own body, rip off her limbs off and keep her alive and suppressed just to torture her until she lost her mind. There was nothing more bone-chilling than an Executioner…
 
Another slam sounded out in the bookstore; Applejack looked frustrated and impatient, “If we’re taking care of her then I’m going, none of you are ghosts, you don’t know what she does like I do. Her eyes have been haunting me since the day I died, and I want to make her pay.” Applebloom didn’t have time to react before Applejack stormed out of Oakfield’s. 

“I’ll…” Pinkie spoke, watching her roommate leave, “I’ll keep an eye on her. Ghosts can’t die, but you never know with an Executioner.” With a nod shared between them, Pinkie exited as well, leaving Twilight and Applebloom behind to parse what just happened

After silence filled the space left by Applejack’s explosive outburst, Twilight exhaled, relief washing over her. “Job or not, I’ll gladly let anyone else take care of that.”
 
Applebloom nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to deal with any of what’s gonna go on there.” The open sign hanging on the door settled back into its place before the red headed kid took her own breath and turned to Twilight. “Right, well it sounds like that’s being taken care of, what about you?”
 
“What about me?” Twilight asked indignantly, narrowing her eyes as if remembering she was supposed to hate Applebloom.
 
“Which of the two jobs are you going to do?”
 
Twilight stared for a moment, trying hard to forget that she basically had no choice in the matter. “As far as clones are concerned, I have a small assortment of notes on dealing with them back at my warehouse. But I’d rather not have to deal with the lunatics that live there today. So considering my two options, I’ll tackle the slider situation.”
 
A smirk crossed Applebloom’s smug expression. “Afraid, Twilight? I didn’t think you’d get spooked by a couple ponies asking for your lunch money.”
 
-SMACK-
 
A loud sound rang out in the bookstore as Twilight slammed her forehead hard against her checkout counter. “I JUST WANT TO KILL HER!” She cried out, Applebloom knew it was directed at her, but that was half the fun. If she wasn’t sure she could get away with it, Applebloom wouldn’t have said anything.
 
“When you’re down sulking,” Applebloom spoke, “You can handle something simple, while I go to your warehouse and grab your clone notes.”
 
There was a full two minutes of nothing before Twilight let out a muffled response, “What do I have to do?”
 
“There’s a scientist next district over that’s apparently an expert on clones, and should be able to help you, find her and ask her to help deal with the problem.”
 
“UUUUUUUGGGHH…” Twilight dragged herself back upright before looking at Applebloom’s stupid smug face, “You mean Ashton?”
 
“No, other direction, Sideo Breach.”
 
“Okay, good, as fun as being forced to work for you should be, I don’t feel like getting hustled today.”
 
Twilight officially hated Applebloom, the little shit thought she knew everything, and constantly flaunted her invisible superiority of being the Whisperer’s latest host around. If it were a level playing field, Twilight would have absolutely killed the kid by now. Just slit her throat out back, quick and easy, plus the ponies in Partyville probably wouldn’t notice... the living ones anyway.
 
Not everybody in the district had impaired brain function though, just the ponies that had yet to die. The ghosts were actually fairly smart, acting stupid to fit in. There wasn’t a sure fire way to tell them apart yet, but Twilight was still working on that. Thankfully the ghosts that hated Hunters and justified Twilight’s job to begin with weren’t really the ones that lived in Partyville. No, they apparently resided elsewhere, at some sort of ghost council military compound somewhere downtown. Instead, Partyville was designated high society for the ‘noble’ ghosts to get their freak on or some stupid bullshit.
 
At least that’s what her extended research into the topic netted her. Applebloom brought her back to the present though, “Are you even listening?”
 
“Of course I’m listening,” Twilight sneered, “You want me to go find some expert scientist in Sideo Breach while you go to my warehouse and find my own notes on clones I wrote down almost a decade ago.” Applebloom nodded at the recap, “My question though is why you don’t go find the expert while I go to my warehouse: I know the area better, I know where my notes are organized, and I’ll probably be faster.”
 
Applebloom smirked, withholding information, she winked before her eyes rolled back in contemplation. A moment passed by before her eyes returned to normal. “I thought it’d be funnier not to tell you, but basically the reason boils down to it making a better story.”
 
Twilight rolled her eyes, “Right, the different Twilights ‘sister’ thing,” she stepped out from behind the counter and looked around the store, Making a note to fix the hole in the floor another time. “You ever find it surreal to think we’re just characters in some book written by a sadist asshole?”
 
“Eh, maybe,” Applebloom answered, tilting her hoof back and forth, “I try not to think about it. If I’m a character or not, it doesn’t really change who I am, or what I want to do with my life.”
 
Twilight teleported the two of them up to their small apartment loft, Applebloom grabbed her side bags and trotted over to the fridge while Twilight herself went over to her desk and unfurled her maps for inspection. “Yeah, see, I get that - obviously - but what about free will? If I’m a string of text on a screen I basically have no control over anything I do.”
 
“But would you even if you weren’t? Who said free will was inherent anyway?” Applebloom stuffed several cans of Banana Smash into her bag and zipped it up.
 
Applebloom nodded at Twilight, the unicorn finished studying the map before rolling it back up and placed into back where it belonged, “I’m not convinced.”
 
“And why’s that?”
 
Twilight teleported them back downstairs, ready to leave. “Because if I’m under control by some shitlord god, how am I anything more than a puppet? I need to know that I-“
 
The door swung open suddenly and loudly, interrupting Twilight’s thought, standing in the doorway was none other than the rainbow-maned pegasus Rainbow Dash, she looked frantic and a little confused. Twilight and Applebloom gave a synchronized eye roll at seeing Dash, but she looked at the purple unicorn.
 
“Twilight, you have to help me,” She asked, walking up to them both, “There’s a pony out here that looks like me and she won’t leave me alone!”
> 2 A Man with a Plan
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The streets of Partyville were busy, still a bit early into the day, somewhere between breakfast and lunch. Dozens of ponies -alive and dead- all waved at each other as they passed in the street. Simple greetings were exchanged by almost all of them as they aimlessly wandered.
 
Two Earth ponies kept to themselves as they walked down the left-hand sidewalk. The first was a pink mare with a truly unkempt mane of curls and frayed ends; She had a hybrid expression that adorned her features. The first was a general displeasure for the ponies around her, one look at her eyes could tell she was bitter from years of being judged. The second was a tinge of worry for her friend.
 
Walking slightly ahead of Pinkie Pie was an orange mare with a deathly serious look in her eyes. She marched forward with purpose, staring directly forward without a hint of hesitation in her lime green spheres. She was a touch shorter than most, but built stocky and strong. She passed by the herds of people on the sidewalk in front of her that decided to ignore the aura of single-mindedness around her and say hi anyway.
 
Pinkie idly wondered if Applejack even had a plan for dealing with the Executioner. It was clear there was some kind of history there, possibly something that all ghosts experienced in Partyville, hard to say though. What she knew, though, was that Applejack stormed out of Twilight’s bookstore without a second thought. Did she even have a goal?
 
How does one ask that of somebody so angry though? Somehow ‘I know you’re ready to rip a phone book in half, but mind telling me what you’re doing?’ didn’t sound like the smartest question. So what to do then? Pinkie hadn’t known Applejack for more than a month, not in a way that counted anyway; the five years of farming proper where Pinkie knew she existed but never spoke to her didn’t count. So how could she go about stepping on Applejacks hooves?
 
Luckily though, Pinkie didn’t have to consider for long; As the two mares passed by the post office, Pinkie spotted a certain purple dragon engaging in a transaction with a pastel blue earth pony. The pony in question has handing the dragon the entire contents of her bag. Pinkie rolled her eyes at the scam.
 
How did somebody who couldn’t speak scam anyone, let alone to the point of taking most of their belongings from them. It was one of the many skills Spike the dragon obtained as a resident of the infamously crime-riddled Panhandlershot. Pinkie may have hated Partyville, it was filled with judgemental asshole ghosts, but it was relatively safe to live in.
 
She waved over at Spike as Applejack kept marching forward. Spike noticed them and gave a slight smirk, engulfing his ill-gotten gains in purple flames, making them vanish. Pinkie understood the action as storing it all in his horde – not that she knew where it was, but apparently it was pretty big.
 
Pinkie nudged Applejack, pointed at Spike. “Fine,” the orange mare relented, “As long as we get back to killing that bitch soon.” She stopped and watched Spike walk over to the two of them, leaving some rather confused ponies behind him.
 
“Hey Spike, you busy?” Pinkie asked.
 
Spike lifted up his shoulders, shrugging.
 
“We’re headed to my bakery to get supplies and work out a plan,” Pinkie explained, her eyes narrowing slightly at Applejack.
 
Spike raised an eyebrow, inviting her to elaborate.
 
“The Whisperer told us a few minutes ago that the Executioner is probably going to kill us all soon.”
 
“And we aren’t gonna let her!” Applejack fumed.
 
His pupils looking up and losing focus, Spike took a moment to consider the proposition. He bobbed his head back and forth a few times, as if tasting the idea. Applejack grew more and more impatient as time went on, but he wouldn’t be rushed. She tapped her hoof on the ground, and he ran a claw down his spines.
 
“Well?!” Applejack yelled after two minutes.
 
Spike smirked and pulled out his switchblade, Pinkie couldn’t tell where he pulled it from, but she assumed his horde. He turned to the side, giving a powerful swipe. He followed up by tossing his knife into the air and maneuvering his body around, giving a high kick and a sideways chop before catching the knife in his off hand and stabbing at the empty air in front of him.
 
Pinkie smiled at the display, and he finally gave his reply in the form of a thumbs up, putting his blade away.
 
“Finally.”
 
Applejack lead them down the street, passing condos, stores, bars, a small gym, and what looked like a playwright theatre. Pinkie noted the Greenly micropark that sat directly across the street from her own bakery. She liked the place, and enjoyed sitting under a tree in the early hours of the morning when no one was awake. At that moment she simply narrowed her eyes at the crowds of ponies filling up the park.
 
Walking up to the bakery’s front door, Applejack stepped inside, not giving a second thought to Pinkie or Spike. Pinkie rolled her eyes and motioned for Spike to go before her, he nodded and walked in. Once Pinkie stepped in, she flicked the ‘back in five minutes’ sign with her hoof. It may have been her day off, but never once had that stopped any of the locals from deciding to walk into her locked door. It wasn’t until she started putting up signs that change happened.
 
It was especially interesting when she put it up as a pony was walking in, only for them to stop trying to enter. They just… stayed in the doorway, almost as if the sign itself had some kind of weird seal on it. A few tests in years past proved that rules signs or different stipulations tended to affect the locals of Partyville. Pinkie recalled going to a public place, stealthily hanging a ‘no talking’ sign, and the instant she let go all conversation stopped.
 
It was interesting to say the least, and definitely more effective than actually locking her door. Pinkie idly wondered if her sign magic worked on Twilight, and determined to try it out after they sorted out the Executioner business.
 
…and to also write up a reference guide to sign magic to send to the editor of the modern spell makers source book.
 
Pinkie noticed Applejack already headed into the back of the store, and Spike had apparently followed her, so she walked past the counter -rang her bell- and stepped into the kitchen. It was thankfully clean, which was Applejack’s doing.
 
Being freed from the half a decade of farm work had left Applejack with nothing to preoccupy her time with. When you go from nothing but work to suddenly no work at all, it leaves you wanting something to take up your time. Cleaning the bakery seemed to do that, which Pinkie was decidedly grateful for. Making the food was hard enough, but cleaning up after herself was a pain in the ass and always had been.
 
Pinkie took a final moment to appreciate just how much better things looked spotless before she nodded and turned to the staircase leading upstairs. It turned to the left about six steps up and lead to the hallway. A few simple pictures adorned the wall, but nothing she really cared about, just her stupid family living it up across the city. She’d been meaning to take those down for months.
 
Reaching the top of the staircase, Pinkie spotted Spike down the hall to the right, outside of Applejack’s door. Originally the room was storage for her pitifully small collection of books, an assortment that could easily fit in her closet. But it made a great second bedroom. Walking up to Spike, Pinkie motioned to the door. “She say what she’s going to do?”
 
Spike just turned to her and raised an eyebrow.
 
“Right, I guess that was a pretty dumb question.” Pinkie took a few steps further down the hall, to the other bedroom door. “Well my station is in my room, c’mon.”
 
Taking the invitation, Spike followed Pinkie into her room. He reacted to the selection of furniture about the same way she expected him to, which is to say mild-but-fleeting interest. He glanced passed her old lived in couch and shelf of books to the more interesting collection of sensoring equipment. His eyebrows raised at seeing her set-up and she couldn’t help feeling a little giddy at the attention; the desk was what she spent most of her money on.
 
It had several monitors she’d… acquired over the years, hooked up to a Crystalex 1200 series computer. It didn’t have enough power or parts to run any advanced programs, so no games, but it was set to scry on several persons of interest. Pinkie pointed out a particular video feed to Spike as she sat down in her beat up office chair.
 
“So that right there is the Executioner.” Pinkie explained as she balanced herself, attempting to keep the chair together so it could support her weight. “I know it isn’t safe to watch the Executioner, or the Peixie battalion, or anything I watch really, but I want to know if it’s dangerous to go outside before I decide to leave my building.”
 
She noticed Spike watching the swamp monster on Feed 4, “I know it’s dangerous where you’re from, over there ponies are loud, have guns, and care very little about being subtle.” Spike nodded in agreement, “But out here in Partyville, being an outer district, there’s less problems and so subsequently less eyes on us. Bigger threats take the opportunity to remain out of sight by setting up shop here.”
 
Spike nodded again and started using sign language for Pinkie. ‘Where is the Executioner now?’
 
Pinkie motioned back to Feed 7, “It doesn’t show us what she looks like, but this is live, it’s showing us where she is right now.”
 
“She’s walking past the laundromat?”
 
Pinkie and Spike both turned to see Applejack having walked into the room. She was wearing a stun baton holster and looked more or less ready to inflict heavy damage on the next pony she came across. Pinkie nodded at Applejack’s question before she turned back to the screen and looked at the surrounding area.
 
The area where the Executioner was supposed to be was always slightly blurred out on the video, but the other ponies around her were reacting as if she were there. Pinkie reflected that she’d never actually seen the Executioner, but shook her head, shaking off her lack of focus. The surrounding area was a busy street, indeed in front of the nearest laundromat. Pinkie recognized it as the one five or so blocks away.
 
Then the unexpected happened, and a glowing ornate white door appeared on the wall between the laundromat and the bar beside it. It didn’t appear to be something the ponies on the feed noticed, but just to be sure, Pinkie turned to Applejack. “Do you see that?”
 
“See what?” the orange mare asked, Spike also shook his head.
 
Pinkie sighed, knowing exactly what it meant that only she could see it. She brought a hoof to her face and rubbed her temple briefly before dragging it down her face. “Don’t worry about it, just my immunity causing problems again. There’s a door on that wall that presumably the Executioner just walked into.”
 
‘Wouldn’t the camera follow the thing in?’ Spike signed. At Applejack’s confused expression, Pinkie relayed the question.
 
“No,” Applejack answered, “the bitch has a space only she can go into.”
 
“What, like a Folded Plane?” Pinkie asked, turning around in her chair, almost falling over, catching herself, and balancing again.
 
“I don’t know what that is, it’s a hidden room that only she can access.”
 
Pinkie nodded, that sounded like a Folded Plane to her. The only real question was what to do about it. There were only three of them: a baker with supernatural immunity, a freed ghost with a vendetta, and a mute dragon; they weren’t exactly Squad Force Mega. “We need a plan for dealing with the Executioner. We need Twilight, she’s a Hunter, she’ll know what to do.”
 
Spike nodded in confirmation, and was about to sign something before Applejack cut in, “And what’s she going to do? Last I checked the pain in the ass whore has known exactly what Twilight’s been up to since the first day she showed up in Partyville.”
 
Pinkie narrowed her eyes, “Believe it or not, Twilight has more experience than any of us in this sort of thing. She’s smart, determined, and better equipped to take out anything we come across, so show a little more faith.”
 
Applejack grumbled but said nothing more. “Fine, good, then let’s get prepared and go ask Twilight what to do.”
> 3 Beat Your Competition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight narrowed her eyes; up until moments ago her day had been going so well. Spike had opened the shop; so she got to sleep in. The coffee machine didn’t crap out. And out of the several dozen ponies that bumbled their way through the front door, almost none of them had browsed.
 
No, by all accounts the day was actually bearably enjoyable. Then shit stain junior came in faulting that Twilight wasn’t allowed to slit her throat, and forced her to work. Then she had to close the shop probably for the next few days. And now there was whatever the hell horror-story-harlot wanted to do with her.
 
Out of all the ponies Twilight had to deal with regularly, she probably respected Rainbow Dash the least. Who else was just as stupid as the rest of the slop in Partyville and only had a mind of her own because she decided to pick up literacy at some point? Plus Twilight couldn’t even enjoy taking advantage of Rainbows willingness to do what she said because the pegasus was too busy bugging her about the latest story by her hack of a favourite author.
 
Twilight stared at the blue pony in front of her, the one expectantly awaiting a response. A part of her wanted to never say anything, just stare at Rainbow silently for entirely too long, and see how long it’d take her to crack. But unfortunately Twilight was voluntold to find some clone expert the next district over.
 
“Another you?” Twilight deadpanned, “You mean a clone?”
 
Rainbow Dash looked confused for a moment before it seemed to click in her head. “Oh! Yeah! A clone! Why didn’t I think of that? It’s like in Dark Alley’s book: the Other-“
 
“Yeah, yeah,” Applebloom interrupted, “Just like the book, go outside and Twilight will take care of it.” Rainbow Dash nodded and ran out of the book store, violently ringing the bell above the door. Applebloom waited a few seconds before looking over at Twilight, “You think she’s getting dumber?”
 
Twilight saw the smirk on Applebloom’s face, she could almost hear the ‘heh’ that awaited her response. Twilight merely narrowed her eyes though. “The only two things she’s getting are in my way and on my nerves.”
 
Applebloom burst out laughing as Twilight walked to the front door of the shop. “She’s not the only one on my shit list, Applebloom,” Twilight thought as she summoned her keys. “She’s further down than your name.” Hearing the jingling noise of the keys Twilight was impatiently waving in the air, Applebloom quit laughing long enough to take a hint and leave Oakfield’s.
 
The wind was gently blowing and birds could be heard overhead. Twilight followed the earth pony out the front door and made sure to lock both locks she had installed. She still wondered if a third would have been better, but Spike was probably right when he told her that conventional security wasn’t something to get too worked up over. The locals in Partyville were either too dumb to consider breaking a rule, too caught up in their act of being stupid, or too powerful to even consider stopping with a simple lock.
 
The locks gave her piece of mind though, if nothing else: bars on the windows, deadbolts on the doors, a gun behind the cash register, and on top of the bars, most windows were boarded up. All of it made her feel like she had a place to relax and drop her defences a bit; Important as they were to keep up, it did get exhausting some days.
 
Triple checking that the door was in fact locked, Twilight turned around to greet the day. The first thing she saw was two Rainbow Dashes, which told her that her scowl was most assuredly deserved.  “Of all the asinine…”
 
The Rainbow Dash to the left was how Twilight remembered her: dumb look on her face, probably obsessed with some new book, annoying, barely able to hold a conversation that didn’t revolve around paperbacks. She was annoyingly taller than Twilight, self-conscious, trying to be smart if nothing else, and potentially somebody worth her time.
 
The pony to the right however was undoubtedly a clone. From a distance it looked like Rainbow Dash, a blue pegasus with a prism of hair colours, it even sort of stood the same way as the original to the left. That’s where the similarities ended though. Being a clone, it was roughly seventy or so percent smaller than the original. It also lacked the spark of Sight that all cognizant creatures had.
 
Applebloom stepped back and watched Twilight study the clone, while Rainbow Dash herself nodded, “See, Twilight? She looks just like me. She’s a clone like you said.”
 
“Shut up.” Twilight berated the pegasus before turning back to the clone. It didn’t seem to focus on anything besides Dash herself. “Can you tell me your name?” Twilight asked, sounding close to a soothing tone, her best attempt at one anyway.
 
In response the clone looked at Twilight, or at least in her direction, there was no real way to tell if the thing even knew it was being addressed. It didn’t speak, and instead the noise that came out of its mouth was a whinny. It then immediately lowered its head and started eating the grass on the ground. Twilight heard Applebloom laugh again.
 
Rainbow Dash took a few steps away from it, “And it keeps making that weird noise.”
 
“It’s the sound our ancestors made. And the fact that you don’t know that earns my pity.” Twilight thought as she watched the clone sidle up beside Rainbow Dash, closing the space made. “Right, well I can definitely confirm it’s a clone.”
 
“Leave it to the blue one to bring our problem to us.” Applebloom snickered as she stood up, having sat down at some point in the last minute. “Well you’re the guinea pig here Twilight, how are you going to deal with it?”
 
Twilight internally growled as she dragged her hoof down her face. She was supposed to be the expert. Want it or not, she had years of experience and knowledge. The fact that this stupid girl had the stupid Whisperer giving her a stupid advantage was stupid! If the Whisperer’s last host didn’t die, Applebloom would be just another kid going about her life.
 
If Twilight ever found a Nomad, she’d use her wish to make time travel possible just to beat the shit out of the jackass that went and killed the last Whisperer’s body. But she shook her head, escapism was the dumbest thing somebody could do, especially in the midst of a clone epidemic. “For starters,” Twilight spoke through gritted teeth, “I’ll track it back to where it came from and destroy the chain upward unti-“
 
Suddenly, Applebloom shot forward and chopped the clone on the back of the neck, knocking it out.
 
“Whoa!” Rainbow Dash shouted, jumping back.
 
Twilight took in Applebloom’s sudden movement with a cocktail of grogginess and anger she didn’t expect. Why didn’t she do anything? The clone was about to Split of all things, why didn’t she do anything about it? Worse, why did she let Applebloom take care of it?
 
With the clone knocked out, pausing it’s mitosis, Applebloom stared directly at Twilight, livid. “How stupid are you?! You almost let it Split, what kind of Hunter let’s a clone SPLIT?!”
 
Twilight looked at what could almost have been a disaster and then narrowed her eyes at Applebloom. Her reaction time may have been slow, but she would have doine something about it, “Maybe if I didn’t have a child breathing down my fucking neck, I could have done something about it sooner.”
 
“Done what? Glared it to death? You’re the worst Hunter in St. Orangeberg!”
 
Twilight stared daggers directly into Applebloom’s eyes, “And how the fuck would you know? How many Hunters even come out to this shithole? Partyville is filled with the dumbest people I’ve ever met, how does anyone with half a brain even stand living here?”
 
Applebloom stomped a hoof into the sidewalk, “Is Panhandlershot ANY better? You come from a place where stabbing is currency, you’re no better than anyone else around you.” She threw up her hooves in fake alarm, “Oh no, don’t take my knife Twilight, How will I pay to eat out of the garbage can today?”
 
A purple hoof stopped immediately in front of Applebloom’s face. Twilight wanted to flatten her into paste, to rip her in half and feed her to several rabid dogs, or whatever else, just to shut her the hell up. But no, fuck Twilight right, she just had to accept more abuse until the end of time, what even the fuck?
 
“Um… Twilight?”
 
At the sound of the uncertain voice, Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash, absolutely not willing to deal with any more shit. “What?” She asked as curtly as possible, almost sounding like a direct order more than a question.
 
“Me, I… um, the clone of me is waking up.”
 
Twilight looked at the clone and realized it had half open eyes, and was struggling to catch it’s bearings and stand. She didn’t want a repeat of seconds earlier, so she wanted to deal with it quickly, before it could continue Splitting.
 
She placed her hooves firmly on the ground, being in a bit of a hurry concentration would have to be forced. The air around the clone started to pick up a slight magenta hue as Twilight’s horn glowed to match. Rainbow Dash stepped back as the clone was lifted from the ground, being engulfed in a swirling sphere of light pinks and purples.
 
The sphere remained transparent enough that one could see the clone inside being compressed. The sphere compressed faster and faster until it was tightly wrapped around the clone. Quickly losing form and cohesion, the clone looked frightened as any trapped animal would. The air continued to condense until the clone was nothing more than a small sphere of its own, no longer holding form and being a sky blue ball held tightly in one spot.
 
Twilight was having a hard time holding the spell together, it required high levels of concentration to execute properly. And she was still pretty pissed off at Applebloom. As soon as the clone ball compressed to the size of a marble, Twilight found it almost impossible to finish the final step and purge the damn thing. And all shecould see in her head was the smirk on that stupid little bitch’s face.
 
A spark came off Twilight’s horn, popping loudly and suddenly, which startled her, and all at once the clone expanded outwards, exploding in all directions. Twilight was too spent of magic to pull up a shield, but she could easily dodge out of the way of the blue clone mass. She rolled to a stop off to the side, thankfully avoiding any of the mass. She looked over at Applebloom who was far enough away to avoid getting any on her, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t so lucky.
 
Fortunately it was hard to tell, because it was the exact same colour as her coat, but Twilight could make out quite a lot of clone mass on Dash. Getting up from where she’d dodged Twilight looked around at the surrounding mess.
 
Blue clone gunk was everywhere, and it smelled faintly like dead ladybug. The nearby ponies weren’t ghosts acting like idiots were smiling and stared at the scene. Twilight mused that if they were more intelligent, they’d likely be curious what had happened, akin to a child. But instead they just mindlessly stared at the splatter for a few seconds before moving on.
 
Twilight’s musing was interrupted by Applebloom laughing again. Turning to see what was so funny, Twilight saw Rainbow Dash looking at the clone mass covering her, she still looked dazed.
 
“That was awesome!” Rainbow declared, smiling, “Can you blow up more clones, Twilight?”
 
Instead of answering, Twilight studied Applebloom with a self-satisfied smirk. The little earth pony was disappointed that Rainbow Dash didn’t hate being slimed.
 
But almost as quickly as the disappointment came, it disappeared, and in its place was a calculated looking expression, one of scheming. Her pupils darted several directions in quick succession before she took on a jovial aura.
 
“You know, Rainbow Dash,” Applebloom commented as she walked over to the pegasus, specifically avoiding stepping in any of the blue puddle, “If you want to blow up clones, there’s none better than the Alpha Clone.”
 
Rainbow Dash turned to her with a curious and somewhat hopeful expression, “Really?”
 
“Yeah, if you blow that one up, it’ll be huge! Getting goo everywhere.”
 
Curiosity was replaced for a moment with hesitation, “Okay, why do you know that though?”
 
Twilight raised an eyebrow as she studied Applebloom, lying was interesting when you were watching it in action. Especially when questions came into the picture. Twilight may not have liked Rainbow Dash, but she had to give credit to asking an actual question.
 
“I’ve been talking to Twilight about it, we discussed it earlier.”
 
Rainbow Dash responded with a simple nod, “Okay, that makes sense.”
 
“Good, so what Twilight needs you to do is go find it in the forest outside of town so she can blow it up for you.”
 
With a salute and a flap of her wings, Rainbow Dash was gone, only dripping a small amount of clone mass. Twilight and Applebloom watched for a short while before Twilight turned to the only other pony still with her.
 
“She may be a waste of oxygen,” The unicorn spoke, cutting the silence, “But it was still pretty rude to send her off to die.”
 
Applebloom dismissed the comment. “She won’t die, the forest isn’t that dangerous.”
 
Twilight briefly considered how casual the outer district locals were with being outside the city. They seemed pretty nonchalant with leaving the only civilization for entire weeks of travel in every direction. But she wasn’t able to get far before Applebloom shrugged and motioned left down the road.
 
“C’mon, we have work to do.”
 
Twilight rolled her eyes but nodded, They walked away from Oakfield’s.
> 4 Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun drifted lazily across the sky over St Orangeberg, caring little for its inhabitants, or for any place that absorbed it’s greatness. There were no clouds blocking out it’s luminosity, but it wouldn’t have cared if the weather decided to stay cloudy for years at a time. The simple fact remained; the sun paid no attention to the world it was providing life to. Or even the one that had ponies on it.
 
On the world inhabited by ponies, there was a series of several megacities, spread far apart from each other. In one such city there was a mind-boggling number of districts all roughly the size of small towns. And in a single one of those districts dozens of streets were all lined with various businesses, homes, town services, alleyways, and small parks.
 
Walking along one of these street sidewalks was a small group of three, two earth ponies and a small bipedal dragon. Things were pretty quiet for a time, but one of the earth ponies decided to break the silence and strike up conversation. It seemed she disliked the lack of speech.
 
“So how’d you meet the Executioner?” Pinkie asked curiously. The neutral expression on Applejack’s face plummeted into the most foul of sour looks, “I have a few ideas, but don’t want to assume.”
 
Applejack stopped in place and slammed her hoof into the sidewalk, causing an unpleasantly loud sound to resonate, “KURWA! Niech to diabli I hate her so much! That… fucking… FLEJTUCH stole my life from me! When we find her I’m going to rip her in half!”
 
Pinkie could tell just how upset The Executioner made Applejack, even if she didn’t dip back into Polish, her accent always came through when she was emotional.
 
“We can’t find her soon enough,” Applejack started moving again. Pinkie looked at Spike, who - to his credit - had the decency to shrug and not to include himself in their conversation.
 
“I know, but why do you hate her so much?”
 
Applejack almost blew a gasket, but after exhaling harshly, she focused on her breathing and began calming down. She took her time to calm her nerves, not at all caring about how she looked to the other ghosts in Partyville. They all knew she was unbound by the one and only Whisperer, and was now under its protection. Not that any of them actually knew who the Whisperer even was, it seemed Applebloom wasn’t all talk in the way she kept her secrets.
 
The ghosts knew Twilight was the new Hunter in town, but that was different, the Executioner told them that the night she showed up. Calming down to the point of holding rational thought, Applejack turned to look at Pinkie. “She was the first face I saw when I died.”
 
Pinkie gasped, Applejack solemnly nodded and took a deep breath, “I remember it like it was yesterday. The pony that killed me stabbed me twice before I actually died, which means I felt the first two.” She brought an orange hoof to her chest to scratch at her non-existent wounds. “He was crazed and couldn’t have been reasoned with even if I had the time to think of anything.
 
“The shock kept me from feeling most of the pain; I remember thinking somebody punched me in the gut. Well, after I died I woke up almost immediately in a dark room. I didn’t know what was going on and was still in shock. I honestly didn’t know I’d died at first. I don’t remember much, just that I saw a pony and heard their voice telling me that I was a farmer now.
 
“I tried correcting her. I tried saying I was a noodle delivery girl, but what came out wasn’t English. It was like my ability to speak my language was stolen from me. After I quieted down a lot of information was put in my head about what I was: what my place in the world was, the fact that I died, and all the rules I was meant to follow and live by.
 
“She then explained that I was worth nothing, that she owned me. I wanted to object, but my mouth wouldn’t actually open, she was controlling me…”
 
Pinkie wanted nothing more than to stop and just hug Applejack forever, to take all that pain away, but she kept completely silent for Applejack’s sake. She also assumed that Twilight might get jealous.
 
Not that their relationship had really been… well a relationship. They hung out, chatted, ate lunch together, even tried cuddling. It was just disappointing, in her letters Twilight felt like a person that really got Pinkie, understood her. But Twilight turned out to be a walking mental breakdown.
 
So often she’d just berate everyone and everything around her, and not even in a public sort of persona way like Pinkie first assumed, but full on internalized contempt for most things around herself. Pinkie got to enjoy the softer side of Twilight a couple times, if she had to find a silver lining, it was a side that enjoyed quiet spaces and genuine affection. But those moments were so few and far between it almost wasn’t worth it. Pinkie was content being friends at least, even if she got the impression that Twilight didn’t want that either.
 
Pinkie shook her head of the thoughts, now was hardly the time to be thinking about Twilight, not with Applejack finally sharing what’s been on her mind. She looked at the ghost with sympathy as they walked. “What was your life like?”
 
Applejack’s left ear twitched slightly; most of her anger had disappeared, leaving sombre sadness, but Pinkie’s question seemed to pique her attention a little bit. “It was in a district on the other side of St. Orangeberg: Denray. I lived there a few hundred years from now, and a big part of life there was Gallowball. I worked as a delivery girl at a Griffon wok near the Denray stadium.”
 
Pinkie noticed Spike raise his eyebrow, but she expected he might. “Almost every ghost is displaced in time,” she explained, “most come from the past, but sometimes they’re from the future.”
 
Spike shrugged, ‘Sounds pretty stupid if you ask me,’ he signed.
 
“We still haven’t figured out why ourselves,” Pinkie sighed, defeated by one of the biggest mysteries to ever crop up in apparology.
 
Spike brought a claw to his forehead before signing in as annoyed a tone as sign language could allow. ‘If she’s from the future, why are we still poor? She could just make something we’ve never seen and sell it for shit tonnes of money.’
 
Pinkie relayed the question for Applejack but she shook her head, “I got my freedom back last month and the last thing I want to do is draw attention to myself. Do you even know how powerful the council is?”
 
The only thing that met Applejack’s question was a shrug from the dragon.

“Well let’s just say I’m going to wait a few years before I decide to do anything stupid.”
 
“What was your life like?” Pinkie asked, “In Denray.”
 
Applejack looked wistfully forward for a moment before sighing, “It wasn’t the best I could ask for. My mom was a neurosurgeon and wanted me to follow in her hoof steps, but it wasn’t for me. I dropped out of university to live with a friend of mine, got a job near the stadium and spent several years just living, I guess you could say.”
 
Pinkie nodded in understanding, “I know what it’s like to disappoint my parents.”
 
“Well my dad didn’t care too much, he was an autotherapist and spent more time with his clients than with family. Still, I guess someone has to help SI figure out their purpose, I never really held it against him.”
 
‘SI? Autotherapist? The hell do those things even mean?’ Spike signed, Pinkie ignored him.
 
“I’m not much for sports,” Pinkie admitted, “What’s Gallowball like?”
 
Applejack’s left ear perked up slightly, “A lot of fun,” She spoke sounding excited for the first time that morning. “There’s six teams of three and they need to navigate a multilevel maze while avoiding getting tagged by each other. My team was Cyan Cyanide.”
 
Pinkie considered the idea, it sounded like a competitive obstacle course mixed with spray tag. She could almost see that as a big spectator sport, but where did a ball fit in? “Cyan Cyanide?”
 
“Every team needs a colour, or they’ll…” Applejack trailed off as they saw Oakfield’s door closed and the lights off, but drew their attention was the big splatter of blue goo everywhere. Pinkie quickly looked both directions before crossing the street to inspect the mess.
 
It was everywhere, on the front of the store, the street, some even made it far enough to get into the parking lot next door. She suspected what it might be, but had no actual proof. “Let’s see, unstable consistency, solid colour, and the blast radius looks almost five metres wide.”
 
It couldn’t be the swamp monster, the colour was wrong. It couldn’t be a genie because the goop wasn’t hot to the touch. Pinkie looked at Spike, considering it may be the work of a dragon, but she dismissed it almost immediately, he wasn’t even blue. Harpies were out. It could be Ouroboros puke, but there was no reason one would ever be this far south.
 
Then Pinkie chuckled as it occurred to her how dumb she’d just been. It’s clone mass, Applebloom was talking about dealing with the clone issue earlier. She pulled some up with her hoof and gave it a taste, no memories though, apparently the mass was still too fresh.
 
While Pinkie was inspecting the splatter, Applejack and Spike crossed the street to join her. Applejack herself tested the door. “Locked, they already left.”
 
‘Nice deduction there, Goldberg,’ Pinkie glared at Spike, but he just smirked in return. ‘Well if they’re gone anyway, we should handle this without them.’
 
“I agree,” Pinkie smiled, liking the idea. Applejack raised an eyebrow, “Spike thinks we should take matters into our own hooves.” Pinkie explained.
 
Applejack gave a final knock on the front door before she turned around and started walking away, “Great idea, let’s get going.”
 
Pinkie got behind her to keep up, and Spike leisurely followed suit. “To the Laundromat then.”
> 5 Out of My Face
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight watched Applebloom leave Partyville with a deep scowl on her face; the little bitch could die for all Twilight cared, it’d be several less headaches to deal with. Maybe the bow-wearing stain would die long before she even got to the Warehouse, before Panhandlershot even. No Applebloom, no Whisperer, none of the recent bullshit anymore. Twilight would grab Spike and Pinkie and the three of them would go deeper into the city to…

Well not live in Panhandlershot, the less time spent there the better, really, for almost every party involved. Maybe they could live in Frontline… no, too many people. Groundhill was loud, Night Juncture was filled with prostitutes, Canarily was just plain disgusting, Longtrench was overrun by bandits a few years ago...

Twilight considered if there were really any good districts. It was almost like all of them had a singular glaring problem that made life there horrible in some way, at least as far as she was concerned. She was sure somebody didn’t mind mounds of garbage, or rednecks, or blocks upon blocks of mindless morons. It wasn’t Twilight though.

Realizing she was about to start spiraling into her issues again, Twilight shook herself out of her thoughts. Looking back up she saw Applebloom was past the district line heading downtown. The disgruntled unicorn looked around Applebloom, seeing the empty series of ruins once known by the name Pyrmidia.

It was one of the five things bordering Partyville. The first was the forest and farmlands to the west; the outside of the city. Nothing chilled people more than the thought of going outside of St. Orangeberg, not without some serious protection magic. 

Northwest was Ashton, a poor backwards place that really had no idea what it was doing as a whole, but had some crafty con artists. 

To the north and almost barely making any contact with Partyville was a cramped series of tiny alleyways, rooftops, walkways, and apartment buildings. No one really had a name for the place, mainly due to it constantly changing its official name.

Southeast of that was what might have once been a nice place - Twilight had no idea - but it’d been an abandoned set of ruins and decaying infrastructure for years. What few people that still lived there weren’t doing well. They were basically squatters that ignored the rumours of the bog monster.

Finally there was what laid to the southeast of Partyville, a university town by the name of Sideo Breach. It was likely the nicest place out of the bunch, at least as far as Twilight was concerned, but then she actually knew the least about it. The ponies there liked to keep as disconnected from Partyville as possible, so the information kiosk Applebloom’s unicorn friend liked to hang out at had next to nothing on the place. The only information Twilight could gather was that it was named after a failed expansion into the outer forest in the past.

And - Twilight amended as she saw the welcome sign - for being completely full of themselves. ‘Welcome to Sideo Breach, don’t touch anything’ it read; below was a digital readout displaying their population: 3207.
 
Squinting her eyes at the likelihood of moronic bullshit she assumed she’d come across, Twilight passed the sign and entered the district. The first thing that struck her was how well kept everything was. The streets looked newly paved, the hedges were green and cut at perfect angles, and the trees lining the street were tall and healthy-looking.
 
Her first impression was that it looked like Partyville but richer. It left a bittersweet distaste in her mouth. Sweet for the stuck up nature of ponies with money, and bitter for the beauty of the way they kept themselves. She stood on a residential street and there wasn’t litter, no stupid kids out and about, and no blank stares from braindead ponies walking around or the ghosts trying to act that way.
 
“And once again I’m surprised to find anywhere in St. Orangeberg that actually looks like it’d be nice to live in.” Twilight considered as she walked further down the street. An expensive looking cart drove leisurely past with a pompous looking pony behind the wheel. “And it’s got an annoying issue, so it’s not too good to be true.”
 
---

Twilight reached an intersection and saw three coffee shops, each on their own corner; the fourth corner contained a new age salad bar of some kind. She looked inside from across the street and saw several stuck up hipsters eating what looked like foreign vegetables: The kind you couldn’t grow in St. Orangeberg. Not that Twilight was anywhere close to an expert on veg, food was food – she regularly ate weeds growing in her reading spot.
 
Noticing that some of the ponies walking by were giving Twilight looks, she forced her eyes directly forward and ignored everyone else around her. She was looking for an expert in clone-related studies and nothing else, she wasn’t window shopping, she wasn’t admiring the scenery, she didn’t belong and she wouldn’t be there long.

“I’m unimportant, don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, leave me alone.”
 
---

It wasn’t until the third street after the salad place that Twilight finally raised her head again, unfocusing in the hopes of taking in what was around her. She immediately regretted that decision when she realized she was in front of some kind of large stadium or another. Hundreds of ponies were dressed up in overly colourful and ridiculous looking outfits.
 
Ponies didn’t wear clothes, it was stupid, they already had colourful fur on them. Twilight liked her coat, not only did it keep her warm in the winter, it was also a good shade of purple, a nice background colour that told most ponies to ignore her or fuck off. The only clothing she’d ever worn was a hat. Once. And even that was only because Trixie was torturing her that day.
 
But no, almost every pony around her was wearing stupid-looking, over-the-top garbage. A black and white dress with frills, some kind of faux action get up, a demented looking wizard robe. And just far too many pairs of catfolk ears, the hell were any of them even doing?
 
“…which didn’t even get resolved until later that episode.” Twilight overheard as two stallions older than her by several years conversing about something.
 
“By best girl.” A blue unicorn off-handedly mentioned in response.
 
The white pegasus with him snorted, Twilight noted that they were walking the same direction as her, so she wasn’t allowed to escape their conversation. “Please, Lost Moon is such a wet noodle, I prefer my tsuns with a little kick, you know?”
 
“You would, I bet you like Sun Sweeper.”
 
“Obviously!” the pegasus shouted, “she’d kick my ass and step on me.”
 
The fuck were these idiots talking about? Were these seriously some of the people that lived here? The ghosts in Partyville never talked about… the fuck was a ‘soon’? Twilight needed to get away from these fucking wierdos before she caught whatever they had. She turned left and crossed the street that instant, glad no carts were coming through.
 
“Hey,” one of them shouted at her, “where are you going? I was just about to get your number.”
 
Oh holy fuck they thought they were worth her time. Twilight did everything she could to not break into a sprint and draw attention to herself. Thankfully the viral infections wearing dresses didn’t follow her, but she still needed a plan. Apparently the biggest problem with Sideo Breach wasn’t the rich assholes, it was the freaks wearing costumes and talking about... were they fictional characters?
 
A shiver ran down her spine; not even the violent psychopaths back home made her that uncomfortable. Whatever they were, they weren’t clone experts, and Twilight continued walking down the sidewalk at as brisk a pace as she felt she could get away with. She didn’t think she’d get attacked - they didn’t hold themselves like predators or gang members - but you could never be too careful; Twilight kept a dismissal spell on standby.
 
---
 
“You’re look like you’re lost,” Twilight heard a voice to her left.  She was trying her best to avoid as much as she could, especially in what appeared to be Sideo Breach's laboratory neighbourhood. Who knew what scientists were capable of? They probably wanted to dissect her in a cold emotionless room to figure out what it takes to become a Hunter.
 
Twilight shuddered at the memory of meeting the only Hunter with a medical degree.
 
“Thank you, but I’m perfectly fine, please ignore me,” She dismissed to the stallion. He was a tall red guy with a smirk. The look in his eyes immediately raised multiple red flags for Twilight. “Who actually wants to genuinely help people?” He clearly wanted to sleep with her, kill her, or both.
 
When he raised his eyebrow, Twilight eyed a nearby recycling bin; it was plastic, but she was certain she could bludgeon this guy to death with it. “How can I ignore such an impressive scowl?”
 
Fuck. He was one of those guys.
 
“If you share your name,” He offered, “I’ll help you find what you’re looking for.” Twilight was seriously debating scoffing and walking away, but the people in Sideo were intelligent, if nothing else, and that meant she couldn’t make the same mistakes she made in Partyville.
 
Twilight made sure her voice was steady and gave no indication of any emotion. “Ignition, I’m looking for an expert on clones.”
 
The guy deflated at the request. Good, he shouldn’t have been talking to her to begin with. “Well Ignition, if you’re looking for local crackpot, you can find her down Causation Street. Lab 62.”
 
Instead of thanking the creep, Twilight turned and walked away. The less time she spent in Sideo Breach the better, it wasn’t even that stressful, it just made her exceedingly uncomfortable.
 
“It’s a few blocks south of here. You should avoid her though, she’s obsessed with peixies!”
> 6 Bad Reputation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Which is why they wipe everyone’s minds all the time,” Pinkie explained as she, Spike and Applejack walked down the relatively sparse sidewalk.
 
The sun was hanging directly overhead and there was a nice, comfortable breeze blowing past. It was still some time before the lunch rush, so most ponies with jobs were out of sight. That left the sidewalks free of prying ears, and loud ponies free to talk about whatever they wanted to.
 
Not that they were discussing anything particularly secret, the Ghost Society knew that Pinkie was immune. It was why they created the rumour mills: about her being insane, about her being evil, and about how her outcast nature would spread the more time you spent with her
 
“That’s what I was missing out on?” Applejack demanded, keeping her volume down in an attempt to quell her growing anger, “I was the sole source of local food for years! And you’re saying the elite erased memories so they could indulge themselves?!”
 
Pinkie chuckled, “Oh yeah. I don’t pay close attention, but they probably do something at least once a week. I don’t know how stressful being powerful and influential must be – probably not at all – but they pretty heavily cut loose.”
 
“All the more reason to snap that stupid bitch’s neck.”
 
“I’m not sure the Executioner specifically goes to those parties.” Pinkie explained, attempting to alleviate Applejack of the fumes billowing out of her ears. When the blonde mare seemed to quiet down, Pinkie sighed in relief. “But the Council, some of the things they do are worse than those college parties I’ve heard about.”
 
Spike silently chuckled, ‘From what I hear they summon creatures of destruction.’
 
“Yeah, they do, monsters of mayhem too,” Pinkie let herself smile in amusement, “I didn’t know Twilight let you read the Theorist’s Guide.”
 
‘She complained about it when we first came to Partyville.’
 
“I guess that sounds like her,” Spike could detect a hint of disappointment in her voice. Everyone knew that the two of them started off with wildly different ideas about each other. Twilight’s was mostly right: Pinkie was informative, friendly and spent most of her free time researching and studying to have an edge against the dead side.
 
Pinkie on the other hand was completely wrong about Twilight, “Most people are when they meet her.”  Spike reflected. Pinkie assumed Twilight was direct and talkative, and that was partially right, but the Hunter was also rude, judgemental, distrustful of everything around her, and possibly the most tightly bound knot of self-hate Pinkie had ever met.
 
Twilight was off-putting, more than most ponies Pinkie had ever met, and she didn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities unless you knew her long enough. Pinkie was giving friendship and even a relationship a try, but it just… she really didn’t know. It almost felt like Twilight was just doing it because she wanted to be less lonely, and not because she actually liked Pinkie. It was a confusing situation to be in, but she and Spike had been getting along well enough. 
 
Interestingly, even though Twilight was sort of their de facto leader… for whatever reason, Pinkie held them all together better.

“If you’re going to do that, can you at least tell me what you’re saying?”
 
Applejack’s sudden question knocked Pinkie out of her thought process, she shook her head and regained her focus. “Right, sorry. We’re talking about the book I left in Twilight’s warehouse last month.”
 
“Why?”
 
“Well in the book it talks about why the ghosts of St. Orangeburg even party at all, it’s to relax them. In the past they used to haunt living ponies, they can’t anymore which stresses them out. It’s why they erase memories too, so they can go all out and not have to face the consequences.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes, “WIsh I knew how to haunt people...” she mumbled.
 
‘Are the memory wipes why everyone is so mind-numbingly fucking stupid?’

Pinkie rolled her eyes, “Yes, the memory wipes are responsible for why the living ponies in Partyville are not all there.” She repeated most of what Spike asked for Applejack’s sake.
 
“That’s something I don’t get,” Applejack considered, “if the Council is erasing minds, making the living so stupid, why aren’t you affected?”
 
Pinkie looked down the several blocks of sidewalk still ahead of them, she sighed as she turned back to Applejack. “That’s my natural immunity to mind magic. The technical term for it is Nullism, but I just call it existential-crisis fodder.”
 
“No, no,” Applejack shook her head, “I know you’re immune, but there’s other ponies in Partyville that are still smart: Some of the shop owners, the one at the tourism kiosk, Rainbow Dash, the mayor, Twilight. Though maybe Twilight doesn’t count since she hasn’t been here long enough.”
 
“Oh,” Pinkie smiled, “Actually, I was talking with the Whisperer about that and I learned a lot. Apparently that’s because they’re important characters!” At the blank and quite frankly incredulous expressions meeting her, Pinkie continued, “It’s the same reason I’m immune and Twilight can read minds. We’re all part of this story being written, and the pony writing us likes giving everyone unique abilities. It’s why Spike is mute, why Sweetie Belle is a spectre and Pastel Garden is in a contr-“
 
Without warning, Spike moved faster than the two ponies could notice. In a single swift motion he pulled his switchblade out of his hoard and held the sharpened steel to Pinkie’s neck. His face read desperate anger, and he radiated an aura of pure death. Applejack took a step toward him, confused but sensing he’d become a threat, but he met her approach by pulling a second knife and pointing it at her.
 
“Wh-whoa!” Pinkie stammered, her brain catching up to her eyes, “W-w-what are you doing, Spike?!”
 
He stared into her soul, scrutinizing her. He hadn’t slit her throat yet, but he was from Panhandlershot, he could kill her in an instant, She hadn’t even known anything was wrong until she saw Applejack react. What was going on? Why was she suddenly in danger?
 
Spike stared into Pinkie’s eyes for... she didn’t know how long; she didn’t move for fear of her life, and Applejack held back as well. What did he want? Eventually he turned to look at Applejack, who stared angrily at him, but refrained from acting. Then, slowly, he lowered the knife from Pinkie’s neck, and walked backwards until he could see them both at once.
 
He had eyes of barely restrained fury. He focused his gaze on Applejack and started signing with his left hand. ‘Where the fuck is Pastel Garden?’
 
Pinkie was shaking, still very afraid; she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. She remained silent for long enough that Applejack turned her head but kept her eyes locked on the dragon. “What did ten skurwiel say?” She spat, her accent thick.
 
“H-he just wants to know wher-where Pas… w-where a pony is.” Pinkie gulped, forcing herself to relax at least a little bit. “Spike, she… I don’t know where she is RIGHTNOWBUTI’MNOTDONETALKING!” The outburst got an eyeflicker from Spike as he almost looked away from Applejack. “Sh-she-Past-she likes to spend Saturdays on the rooftops downtown!”
 
As she explained, Pinkie snapped her eyes shut, hoping to block out the situation. After all, you’re always more relaxed when you don’t see it  coming. At the sound of footsteps running off she slowly opened her eyes to see him gone. She took a deep breath before she rubbed the sting from her eyes.
 
“He’s gone.” Applejack spoke in what sounded like an attempt at a comforting voice. But it covered disgust, so it come across awkwardly. “Do you want me to go after him?”
 
“N-no, let’s… let’s just avoid him for now.” Pinkie stammered, still shaking, But Spike had left, and she was safe for a little while. “We’ll probably deal with worse when we get to the Executioner... so this was good practice?”
 
“Right…”
 
Applejack narrowed her eyes in the direction Spike left, another asshole to deal with. She looked at Pinkie, and felt relieved that the baker wasn’t hurt. Applejack didn’t think much of her, but Pinkie was a good pony, or tried to be anyway, and that was worth keeping alive.
 
And if Pinkie died, there was really no telling when she’d be displaced to.
 
---
 
The sun shone down on the two Earth ponies as they passed in front of the laundromat. Applejack took a moment to look inside and saw several catfolk waiting around as dozens of machines were going. It made sense to her though after, the cats actually wore clothes, before she saw it in Pinkie’s video feed earlier she wondered why there was even a laundromat to begin with.
 
There was a unicorn in there, but she looked pretty… prissy, if Applejack had to think of a word for it. Like the mare stepped foot anywhere that wasn’t upper class or higher. Normally Applejack would have ignored it, but ponies didn’t wear clothes, it was unnatural, so the unicorn inside seemed out of place.
 
But Applejack quickly remembered why she was there and walked over to Pinkie, the pink baker stood in front of the structural pillar between the laundromat and the bar. Applejack noted that it was the same brick as the rest of the building, and that there was nothing special about it. Certainly no door that led to the whores domain or whatever it was that Pinkie called it earlier - A plane of some kind.
 
“Is it still there?” Applejack asked, unsure.
 
Pinkie nodded silently as she looked the brick pillar over, she raised her hoof and traced it along what Applejack assumed was the door frame. After a moment of this orange mare looked around, seeing the dozens of ghosts walking the sidewalk, they weren’t directly watching, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out they observing them.
 
After what felt like several minutes, Pinkie finally spoke, “Of all things, why hide the door?”
 
A sour look devoured Applejacks more neutral expression, “If I know anything about this bitch, it’s that she likes her secrets.”
 
Pinkie brought a hoof to her chin, “I mean sure, but something as powerful as the Executioner? I never thought she’d worry enough to hide herself.”
 
“I don’t know and I don’t care, it’s time we teach her a lesson.” Applejack tapped at the wall and noticed her hoof go through the brick, she then flashed Pinkie a devilish smirk, “Let’s go kill a manipulative piece of shit.”
 
Despite her earlier trauma, Pinkie rolled her eyes and smiled, “If it means one less thing to worry about, I’m right there with you.”
 
Applejack nodded and watched Pinkie enter the brick pillar, disappearing like she never existed in the first place. She was glad to cheer Pinkie up, they were good friends, and it was good to keep things that way. Applejack looked around, spotting more than a few of the high society ghosts staring in shock. She refrained from laughing before pushing into the unknown.
 
The ghost bumped her left leg on the doorframe before adjusting and looking around.
 
It… it was an empty white void.
> 7 Reasonable Doubt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before the chapter begins, please read the blog post I left. https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/975719/hell-of-a-hiatus Thank you.

-----

The wind whistled in between the differently shaped laboratories flanking the street Twilight found herself walking down. By her understanding it was lunch time; Normally lunch was when ponies walked out and about, going from place to place to grab a meal from some sort of shop. Conversely, it was the time of day gangs roamed the Little Warehouse neighbourhood in Panhandlershot West for ‘food’, and Twilight made sextupley sure never to be seen under direct sunlight at such a time.
 
What she didn’t expect though was what Sideo Breach seemed to do for the second meal of the day. She looked at the different buildings, all unique in design; she saw the different giant numbers out front each address in what she assumed was a bid to stand out from all the other buildings. She saw towers of glass, concrete, metal and in some cases granite. Too many of them used specifically granite. She looked to her left and saw Lab 55 had two buildings, one tall and thin, the other no more than two floors but bigger than most Hoofgrab fields.
 
And the ‘55’ was flashing bright neon lights, which was stupid considering it was the dead of day and you almost couldn’t see it.
 
Most importantly though, what Twilight noticed was that the streets were empty, completely empty, which wasn’t something she’d ever seen before. Even at night there were usually some people out or carts moving around, but during the day? It was basically unheard of for there to be zero activity. It left Twilight feeling exactly as uncomfortable as what she’d dubbed the ‘Sideo Standard’.
 
From the instant she stepped foot in Sideo Breach she’d never wavered in how unnerving the place felt, from the creepy ponies to the bizarre pseudo suburban house layout, to the just unnecessary amount of coffee shops.
 
Twilight looked at the well kept hedges around Lab 57, it almost looked nice, but then she noticed that the builders of the place decided to take notes from every horror movie ever made. It was basically an abandoned mansion; she could even make out the hedge maze in the back.
 
Shaking her head and marching down the empty sidewalk Twilight finally came up to the building she was looking for. She looked it up and down and decided it’d probably seen better days. The entire building looked… weathered, she had to guess. While the rest of the buildings looked new, or at least well kept, this particular building was missing that upkeep.
 
Lab 62 was a pretty large building, a few storeys tall, and wide; there was a curve-top warehouse connected to the building that lessened Twilight’s glare somewhat. Not that she was about to compliment the place, but it felt like home to her.
 
The sign out front had seen significantly better days. The 6 was upside down and the 2 was nowhere around. The name of the place was… hard to tell based on the missing or damaged letters, but if she had to guess it was an art institute of some kind. The hell else could ‘Th_ _ut__ Re__a_k _art _’ even mean? Ignoring the clearly pointless mystery in favour of a relevant one, Twilight walked across the mostly empty parking lot of the facility towards the front door.
 
It was a two door affair: the front glass door, which was unlocked and meant the building was open, and a second locked glass door that lead into the building proper. The small room she found herself in upon first entering had a wooden bench, plastic plant, and a large window that lead to an empty reception area.
 
“Oh good,” She thought, looking at the abandoned suite of desks and office chairs, “The expert moved somewhere new and now I have to go find it.” Twilight sighed, she had absolutely no interest in playing cat and mouse with some deranged scientist clone expert. Not that she even wanted to be in Sideo Breach, but there’s really only so much bullshit you can stand in a single afternoon.
 
Twilight grabbed the interior door with her magic, confirming that it was indeed locked, “Great…” she muttered. Without a second thought she picked up the potted plant in her magic and tossed it at the door to break the glass. In response to this egregious act of criminality, the potted plant bounced off the glass without cracking it.
 
“Ah!” Twilight sputtered, she was pretty sure she had enough strength to break a glass door; It was GLASS! She picked the plant back up and started slamming it against the door. It wobbled, but not a scratch ever formed. Her left eyelid twitch and she grabbed the plant in her hooves, wielding it like a bat. Rearing it back, she took a heavy swing.
 
Instead of the plastic of the pot meeting the door, Twilight got a short fern stalk at the end of her attack on the door. Immediately following that she heard a cracking glass sound as the secretary window was struck by the fake pot.
 
“UUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH...” She groaned in frustration as she dropped the fake plant on the floor before her. She looked at the window she actually succeeded in damaging and there was an impressive web of cracks expanding out from a central impact point. She gritted her teeth, anger building up inside her.
 
“Safety glass?! IT’S FUCKING SAFETY GLASS?! HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO GET IN?!!” She screamed before turning back to the door and throwing her hoof at it. She impacted the glass and reeled back in pain. “Why can’t anything ever work for me?!”
 
Ignoring the pain she punched again, “I hate Applebloom!” Another punch.
 
“I have ghosts!” Punch.
 
“I hate Orangeberg!” Punch.
 
“I hate being a Hunter!” Punch.
 
“And I. FUCKING. HATE.”
 
Accentuating every word with another impact with the glass door, Twilight stopped when she noticed someone watching her. It was a unicorn on the other side of the door, one with a look of concern on her face. Twilight looked away, feeling embarrassed, why the hell did she just do that?
 
“Do I need to call the cops?” The unicorn asked, Twilight thought about it, if she was arrested, that’d probably solve a lot of her problems. She’d still have to do whatever the Whisperer said, so it’d be entirely possible she’d have to break out of prison at some point, but right then and there, at Lab 62 Twilight would have a fleeting moment of happiness as she was taken away by her slavers to be given over to a warden.
 
But also just being arrested probably wasn’t a painless process, and how much could they really do to her, what did Twilight even do, break a window? Property damage didn’t tend to get you arrested, just charged. No, she wouldn’t actually end up breaking free of Applebloom’s grasp not in the long term anyway.
 
Twilight sighed, “No... probably not.”  She weakly let out, defeated.
 
“Okay, good.” The unicorn stated sounding almost... happy? Which confused Twilight, wasn’t the unicorn afraid for her safety? She looked up to see the face staring back at her from the other side of the door.
 
The unicorn that met Twilight’s eyes was a faded purple colour, closer to pink, the look in her eyes was something akin to interest, which didn’t match being the recipient of an insane woman trying to break into her lab. Twilight resumed feeling uncomfortable when she realized the unicorn was studying her.
 
Twilight’s signature glare retook her face the more time went on. “What are you staring at?” The Hunter asked with venom.
 
“You,” The unicorn plainly stated, “You’re not from Sideo Breach. More than that, you don’t even want to be here.”
 
Twilight rolled her eyes, “Being observant doesn’t make you smart.”
 
A smirk rolled across the unicorn’s face, “No, it wouldn’t, but letting you in would.”
 
“I-” Twilight let out in confusion, her mouth working faster than her brain. She had no idea who this was, probably the clone expert, but what was her deal, “Why was... who did she... what?”
 
In response to the confusion, the unicorn chuckled, pulling a key off the wall beside the door and unlocking the door. “I’m Starlight,” She said, opening the door for Twilight, but her humour faded, “Why are you at my laboratory? And more to the point, why are you breaking my windows?”
 
Still trying to figure out who this unicorn even was, Twilight breathed in. ‘Starlight’ was straight forward in the way she spoke, but she was also friendly and that always meant trouble. That’s what Twilight thought, but then Starlight stopped smiling, stopped trying to be friendly, it was an act. She reinforced the door when the secretary window was easily breakable, even with safety glass and… not a lot of it made sense.
 
Twilight exhaled and took the invitation to walk in, she didn’t trust Starlight, but she was who Twilight was looking for, so it probably helped if they got along, at least while she was outside of Partyville. Twilight levelled her gaze at Starlight, “I’m looking for somebody.”
 
Starlight raised an eyebrow, “That’s apparent, but there’s easier ways to find people.”
 
“What do you know?”
 
“Plenty,” Starlight answered, her way of talking was… if Twilight had to assign a word to it, it’d be ‘crisp’, “I might not get out a lot, but I’ve learned quite a lot in my life.”
 
Twilight studied her expression; Starlight was level and calm, which was dangerous. She just saw what amounted to a crazy homeless person breaking her window and screaming loudly, but she not only let Twilight in, she also was relaxed? Starlight was either powerful or used to dealing with psychopaths.
 
…Also wait, Twilight wasn’t homeless anymore, she kept forgetting.
 
Starlight started walking down the hall, leaving an open invitation for Twilight to join, which the purple mare did. “Why is a Hunter looking for me anyway?”
 
Twilight almost choked on her own throat, “W-what?”
 
Starlight audibly sighed, “You yelled you’re a Hunter when you were punching my door, and you’re looking for somebody in a place that’s only had me living here for over five years.” She turned back to look at Twilight, raising her eyebrow, “Going to stand there all day, or do you want to answer my question?”
 
“Sor-“ Twilight caught herself before she openly apologized. “Right, I’m not used to talking to people that have two brain cells between them. Not one that isn’t in control over me in some way.” She started walking along with Starlight down the dimly lit hallway. Taking a moment to observe her surroundings, Twilight noticed that it was only slightly better kept inside than out. “I’m looking for a clone expert to come take care of a recent outbreak.”
 
“Ah, well I’m certainly that. I studied effingology in college.”
 
“How does that make you an expert?” Twilight glared.
 
Turning a corner, Starlight stopped in front of a short hallway before another door. “It wouldn’t, but the doctorate and sixteen years of practical experience do.”
 
For the first time in a long time, Twilight let herself smile. Starlight had a few… oddities, but she was smart, even if she was lying about being the expert, she could hold a conversation; there was intelligence behind her eyes. And it was a rare type that didn’t immediately threaten her. Pinkie was the only one that came close, and she was more of a hobbyist than an actual professional.
 
Also Pinkie wasn’t somebody Twilight was ever alone with, not really. Spike or Applebloom were always close by, or Applejack, or Rainbow Dash, or any of them. Not that there was anything wrong with Spike or Applejack, but sometimes Twilight wanted some time completely devoid of other people. Just one-on-one time, it was good to just have a conversation without there being eyes on her or danger looming over her.
 
She was probably overthinking it, but Twilight felt that Starlight was a little too good to be true. Smart, not a bitch and not surrounded by problems? No one was ever all three. Ever. Twilight removed her smile in favour of a neutral expression, Starlight smirked in response.
 
Starlight turned to the metal door several metres down the hall and walked over to it, “I’d like to get more details about your outbreak, but right now I need to check on my latest experiment. Follow me.”
 
Why would Twilight follow somebody that just talking about experimentation of any kind? She cautiously walked after Starlight, prepared to get strapped into some kind of chair, as the expert dexterously used her right hoof to type in a code on a number lock above the door latch. After an admittedly long sequence, the door unlocked and twilight felt the pull of some powerful winds.
 
Surprise, first and foremost, enveloped Twilight’s curiosity, with a shit tonne of wind, why wasn’t there noise? But Starlight walked through the now opened door and hit a switch. Immediately the pull of wind lessened, getting weaker by the second. Twilight walked into the silo part of the building, and the first thing that struck her was how bright it was. Compared to the hallway it was well kept. Starlight walked further in, heading towards the centre, which is when Twilight saw the red flag she was looking for.
 
Strapped to a slowly rotating stretcher was… well, Starlight. “Oh good, you’re still alive.” The Starlight that Twilight met at the door said. “I was wondering how you’d fare against setting seven. Please though, relax, I have business to discuss.”
 
Twilight wanted to assume that it was a clone strapped to the centre of the wind silo, but the… Starlight B had a look of exhausted rage. There was life in her eyes, the spark of Sight was present. Even if this was a clone professional, even if this was somebody directly mentioned by the Whisperer themselves, it still didn’t make any sense.
 
“Well Hunter, say hello to my latest experiment,” Starlight made a small show of displaying her double. The stretcher had stopped rotating and so now it was just a panting, exhausted looking, weaker version of the scientist. “Myself.”
 
Twilight fought the urge to act as disinterested as possible, “I’ve never seen a clone so aware before.”
 
“Reasonable,” Starlight walked back over to Twilight, “Most have a level of mentality more closely related to barn animals. Domesticated, but able to have some personality given their environment. No, what’s here before you is a young AutoOmega Primum!”
 
Starlight’s excitement plummeted when she she a lack of understanding in Twilight’s face. “A what?”
 
“An AutoOmega Primum! An original clone! One taken from a living specimen.” At the recognition coming back to Twilight’s expression, Starlight smiled again and continued, “Several hundred years ago the fabled scientist Dr. Mythos created the first successful clone of a living pony. It moved like it’s original, it talked like it’s original, it even thought it was the original.
 
“The simple act of recreating life made significant waves in all other fields of science: biology, astronomy, physics, everything! After all, if ponies could do what we all thought was the expertise of the gods, we could be unstoppable, we could cure diseases, solve aging, fix every problem in the city. Clementine Plains was to be the next great megacity because of this discovery.”
 
As Starlight explained the history of cloning, Twilight looked at the clone. It looked alive, like a thinking, breathing person. She was… a bit offput by how casually Starlight was subjecting wind torture on what amounted to herself. On others there were loopholes, different subconscious tricks to fool yourself into thinking it’s the right thing. But Twilight doubted she knew a single person who could torture themselves. Starlight was likely a sociopath.
 
“But after Dr. Mythos was killed by his own clone, nopony was having any luck replicating his work. No matter what they did, they couldn’t bring life to the physical replicas they were creating. They eventually caught the original clone and were able to clone it. And that seemed to do the trick. They didn’t have intelligence, but they weren’t mindless, they grazed, they interacted with each other in a primitive form of socializing.”
 
“Where does Splitting come in?”
 
Starlight walked over to her clone and lifted it’s head up by the back of the neck, “That’s something of an evolutionary mutation in the field. Originally they couldn't multiply. That was the result of chaining replications for several weeks. The puddle of mass that was once a functioning pony was able to take in energy and multiply it’s cell count, dividing like the common cell.
 
“The original scientist that conducted the experiment burned it, fearing it’s spread, but little did he know that AutoOmega vapour also multiplies like cells. It got into the atmosphere and is now in every trace of gas on the planet. It’s harmless to us, but the clones, it’s highly infectious, reconfiguring their chemical makeup.”
 
Twilight was officially tired of hearing expositing. “So about my problem?”
 
Starlight excitedly trotted through the room. “We can get to that later, for now I need to check my research, I’ve never met somebody so capable of listening, so I’m in no hurry.”
 
“Perfect.”
> 8 Dare to Be Stupid
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Are you sure?”

It was getting on in the day, well into lunch, and in Partyville that meant that the streets were filled with ponies. They were walking around for various reasons, some were looking for food, others were looking for company, others still were looking for someplace to sit. And another yet still was looking for answers.

“Yes,” answered a grey stallion with a certainty that indicated a lack of wandering thoughts.

“…okay, thanks,” replied the answer-seeking mare, she sighed as she turned around and walked off, giving little thought to the stallion. To his credit though he smiled and walked in a different direction, indifferent to any potential rudeness. The mare slumped slightly, considering her options.

“Would the tourist guide know where to look?” She thought as she walked along the busy Partyville sidewalk. She bumped into several ponies as she walked in contemplation, but either due to not noticing or not caring, she made no indication that she’d change or stop. I don’t really want to go out alone.”

As she walked, ignoring everyone and for the most part blending in, she avoided one pony that stood still on the sidewalk. Bumping directly into them, the mare backed up and shook her head.

“Rainbow Dash,” The bumpee plainly stated, lacking all nuance in emotion.

Rainbow looked at the pony and recognition filled her eyes. “Oh, hi Rose.”

“Hello.”

Rose was a pony Rainbow Dash considered a friend, they talked every couple days. Rose was a cashier at a hardware store and normally Rainbow wouldn’t go into stores like that, but after reading Dark Alley’s The Tool she wanted to see a hardware store for herself. Rose was a yellow earth pony with a red mane, she liked flowers, and most importantly, she was really the only one that remembered Rainbow Dash’s name. 

Looking around, Rainbow saw most of the ponies  walking around, she the looked back at her unmoving friend, “What are you doing here?”

“Standing,” Rose replied plainly, the same way she always did, but that was one of the things Rainbow liked about her. Unlike other ponies that liked to talk down to her or call her annoying, Rose treated her like an equal.

“I always thought you ate lunch at the hardware store.” Rainbow chuckled to herself.

Rose stared blankly at Rainbow, a simple smile the only thing on her face. Her eyes weren’t empty so much as uncurious.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Rainbow admitted, “I need some help, are you busy?”

“No.”

“Okay, I guess what I’d like is to know something. Do you know where in the forest I can find a clone?”

“The forest.”

Rainbow chuckled, “I guess that was a dumb question. I think I’m just afraid, I’ve never been out there before.”

Rose blinked, still smiling.

“Maybe I just need a second opinion. Are you afraid of the forest, Rose?”

“No.”

Rainbow tilted her head to the side a bit, “You’re not?”

“I’m not.”

“That’s good at least. Thanks Rose, I still don’t know, but I’m glad one of us is brave.”

“Rainbow Dash.”

“…yeah, I know, I’m sorry. I’ll try to be nicer to myself. I need to get going though. Goodbye Rose.”

“Goodbye.” Rose bid farewell plainly before Rainbow walked off towards the edge of the city. Rose’s simple smile never wavered, but a small teardrop escaped her eye before she walked away.

---
 
Rainbow Dash wasn’t somebody she herself would consider brave. She didn’t like being out at night, she didn’t like having to call ponies over the phone, and she’d been putting off mailing her brother for a few years. She wasn’t brave, she wasn’t fun to be around, and she didn’t like being pressured to talk with others.
 
That’s why she was still standing outside the forest, staring at it. She was mare enough to admit that she was uncomfortable with the idea of didn’t something she didn’t like. It was easy, really, she could just go back home reread one of her books and start work on that puzzle she’d been putting off, that sounded like a great way to pass her time.
 
No creepy forest, no searching for a clone, no helping out Applebloom or Twilight, no distractions, no change in scenery, no doing something interesting, no being proactive, no friends no… fun really.
 
Rainbow sighed, “I can’t let Twilight down, she’s depending on me.” She looked around, seeing other ponies pass by, they looked at her quickly before returning to whatever they were doing. A couple waved at her, and she smiled and waved back, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk with them anymore. Looking straight ahead, Rainbow saw the path before her.
 
The path was dirt and hardly tread, it lead into the forest, parting the tree covering some. Enough light was getting through that it wasn’t ominous, but Rainbow steeled her nerves anyway. “This isn’t a book, this is real life, I can do this.”
 
Taking a deep breath she stepped forward, beyond the official city border into the great unknown. She wasn’t sure if there was anything out in the wild; they didn’t teach much about what was outside the city during her days in school. It was just a forest that spread out into infinity, going on forever  and never stopping. The only ponies in the universe lived in St. Orangeberg, so it’s not like she’d run into any raiders or bandits. Rainbow even doubted she’d be followed by some sort of killer. After all, she was asked by a friend to go find something that wasn’t death scene material. If she had to guess, Applejack was going to be the one killed first, Earth ponies were always the first to die.
 
Well that and the kids sleeping together, but none of her friends really had that problem. Rainbow shook her head, realizing she was distracting herself from moving forward. Then she realized that apparently she wasn’t because she was already in the forest. “When did that happen?” She asked, beginning to shake.
 
“I-I must have kept walking with I was thinking. What was I even thinking about?” Rainbow asked, but didn’t know. She didn’t know how all her new friends did it, but they all had great memories, she bet they always knew where to go, what to do or what to say. And with a good memory, she doubted she’d need to always been rereading her old books.
 
She probably would anyway, she loved reading, but it’s probably be a lot easier.
 
Rainbow looked around, there was a bit of sky exposed between the tree tops above her, like a skypath. That was nice, normally Dark Alley wouldn’t describe the sky, not unless it was night time or red or something. But the sky above Rainbow was a clear blue, like it always was went it was sunny. She smiled, “Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.”
 
Immediately after saying those words her eyes darted around, “Wa-wait! I didn’t mean it; it’s just as bad as I thought! I’m not surprised!” She glanced at the bushes lining the path, and the tree branches, at everything around her. All in a vain attempt not to invoke whatever gods of literature didn’t exist. Seeing that the expression was just an expression, she sighed in relief. “That was a close one.”
 
---
 
Rainbow Dash was lost, plain and simple. She’d been in the forest for a while, maybe an hour, she didn’t really know, but it’d been a while at the very least. She stopped being afraid a few minutes after she entered, and that was nice, just exploring a forest for a while; being outside the city didn’t seem to matter, if this was everything else then she’d be fine with that.
 
But then she slowly started to feel nervous. What if she was just lost forever? No books, no food, nothing, and worst of all, no friends to spend her days with. She was still sort of new to the friend thing, other than Rose she hadn’t really talked to anyone until she met Twilight. Even in school nopony liked books or reading as much as she did. Twilight didn’t really either, she told Rainbow that Dark Alley was a bad author, but it was nice to talk and spend time with somebody.
 
Rainbow looked around herself, just more forest, she heard a bird or two, but didn’t see any. She considered flying up above the trees, but that wouldn’t really help her find an Alpha Clone.
 
…Unless they could fly too.
 
Spreading her wings out, Rainbow flew up into the skypath and saw what was around her. It was pretty much only forest like she thought, but it didn’t go on forever, after a while it just disappeared below the horizon. She turned around and saw that to her left was St. Orangeberg, which was strange, she thought she was walking away from it the whole time.
 
Not only was it not behind her, she could probably fly back in five minutes if she wanted to. The forest was apparently a strange place it was easy to get turned around in.
 
Looking everywhere she didn’t see another pony that looked like her, or any for that matter, so clones couldn’t fly, that was good to know. Rainbow decided to get back to searching on hoof, and so flew back down to the path and landed.
 
“Wait…” She said, unsure of herself as she looked down both directions the path took, “Which way did I come from?” Rainbow sighed, unhappy with her bad memory again, it was always something.
 
Maybe that’s why other ponies avoided her? No, she knew the reason was because she spent so much time with her nose in her novels. But that was fine, she guessed, she wasn’t as smart as Twilight, or Pinkie, or even Applejack, but she was just as smart as everyone else in town. Maybe even smarter?
 
“No,” Rainbow whispered as she picked a direction and started walking down the path again, “I’m not smarter than everypony else.” She knew more and bigger words, but that didn’t make her smarter, it just meant she used more time talking. She didn’t stare when you talked to her like the rest of the ponies in Partyville, but that just meant she wasn’t as focused as them.
 
“It wasn’t always that way, was it?” Rainbow asked as she saw a fork in the path, picking the left path. She remembered back when she was in school. She didn’t pay too much attention to the other ponies, but they were all different. They asked questions and played games, and pretended they were, well, they were all kids after all.
 
But then they all grew up, they stopped asking questions because they all knew the answers. They quieted down and focused better, stopped playing games and matured. “Not like me… They all grew up and I was too busy reading and not paying attention that they all left me behind…”
 
Rainbow lowered her head and just absently followed the path for a while. There was nothing she could do, all the ponies her age had so much more going for them, they had their lives together, and they knew who they were. And it’s not like she could ask Twilight for help, that unicorn had so much going on for her, she was on top of the world.
 
Rainbow sighed, resigning herself to the life she chose, it really was her own fault she wasn’t good at anything. You can’t get a job if your own skill is you like books, she checked, it wasn’t in the newspaper. No job listings were, really, that was another thing that was only in her books. The newspaper wasn’t a big bundle of paper with comics and weather and stuff, it was a sheet of paper with different changes going on downtown. She still remembered the last Partyville newspaper that had anything going on in Partyville happening in it. It was when they changed the name of the library a couple years ago.
 
It was nice to see something going on hear her in the local newspa- CLANG
 
“Ow,” Rainbow stepped back and rubbed her forehead. Looking at what she walked into, it was a chain-link fence with a metal sign bolted to it. St. Orangeberg city limits it read. Rainbow Dash was confused though. “I thought the forest was the edge of the city, why is there a fence here?” It looked pretty old too, the fence and the sign. Whoever built it, they do it a long time ago.
 
Then Rainbow looked past the fence and saw a clearing with… something… in it. Some sort of shack or garage. She stared at it for a couple minutes, wondering if a clone made it. It was outside the city after all. It was worth a try.
> 9 Executes Me For a Moment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie blinked.
 
It… was nothing. Everything around her, it was lacking in all colour. All sound. All movement. She had no idea if what she was looking at stretched to just a few feet in front of her or infinitely. She looked to her right and saw more nothingness, more empty white void. If not for the sensation of her neck muscles stretching and pulling, she wouldn’t have been sure she’d turned at all.
 
She looked down at her hooves, spotting the stark contrast of her normally pale pink fur against the whiteness enveloping her sight. Normally she thought her shade of pink was soft, something unassuming and light, but compared to the white, she may as well have been the darkest black.
 
No shadow was under Pinkie, even as she put her hoof back on whatever counted as the ground. So there were no light sources of any kind, which was even more disorienting to her internal sense of special awareness. She closed her eyes and in an instant the headache that was developing receded; not seeing the white allowed her brain to think she was somewhere normal, somewhere that followed normal rules of reality.
 
With her eyes closed, she was able to focus on the sensation of the ground. It was sturdy, hard, but not painfully so. Unlike concrete or metal it had a slight give to it, making it more comfortable to stand on. It had a consistency more closely related to hardwood or floor tile.
 
“Pinkie?”
 
It was Applejack’s voice. In Pinkie’s rush to reorient herself in the white, she completely forgot she was with anyone. She turned her head in the direction of Applejack’s voice – which was exceedingly easy to pinpoint – before she opened her eyes.
 
With Applejack as a reference point, Pinkie felt better. It was still disorienting to see the white, but it did improve things to have something real and visual in front of her. Applejack looked… uneasy, much the same Pinkie felt and likely looked herself. The ghost was staring directly at Pinkie expectantly. Pinkie had no idea what to do, but they were there to confront an Executioner, so like it or not they were in the deep end now.
 
Just in case, she looked back in the direction of where the door should have been.  Pinkie considered herself to have an excellent sense of special awareness, she was one of the only ponies she knew that could navigate somewhere completely blinded; she had to already know the place to do that, mind, she didn’t have a photographic memory, just a good sense of where things were in relation to herself.
 
…Which is why not finding the door upset her. Making sure Applejack wasn’t moving, Pinkie made a full rotation, seeing quite literally nothing except the orange ex-farmer. “Well, the bad news is that we’re trapped here now.” She didn’t hear the door close, but it didn’t really matter.
 
“And the good news?” Applejack asked.
 
In reply, Pinkie shrugged, there was no good news. She couldn’t even determine that she wasn’t dead. It was just two earth ponies trapped with one of the most powerful solo-acting entities. One that while it hadn’t shown itself, was more than likely watching their every move.
 
Applejack wasn’t happy with that answer, ti seemed, and decided to walk forward.
 
“W-wait,” Pinkie interrupted, “We need to work together.”
 
“I know, but standing around won’t help us.” Applejack glanced back at where she entered from, “The door’s actually gone?”
 
Only a nod returned Applejack’s question.
 
“Then we walk forward until something happens.”
 
Pinkie had no idea what to do. Applejack seemed deadset on just walking into the white, but then what? What was their plan? Where was the Executioner? How would they leave? Entering that door was probably the biggest mistake she’d ever made, and she was beginning to regret the decision to have any sort of confrontation in her Folded Plane. There were probably thousands of better places to shake down what amounted to a demigod. Why give her a home field advantage.
 
Pinkie walked after Applejack, they made noise as they walked, it was the only noise in the white. Applejack walked with determination, ignoring to surreal frame of reference problem that came with having nothing in your line of sight.
 
“Wait…” Pinkie thought, paying attention to her hearing, “that isn’t from either of us.”
 
As they walked into the white, Pinkie could swear she heard something like a crackling fire. It was only for a moment, but… it was distinctly a log cracking and falling over in a fire. Pinkie looked at Applejack's ears twitch, she heard it too. Their pace didn’t quicken, but Pinkie listened. She heard a fireplace going, and immediately following that a soft piano melody started playing.
 
This stopped Applejack, she looked back at Pinkie, the both of them sharing a baffled expression. Pinkie motioned forward - as the sound seemed to get louder the further they walked - and Applejack nodded, a little unsure. Pinkie walked up to join Applejack just as something started forming in their sight.
 
Floorboards and different pieces of furniture were falling from the sky and assembling themselves into the shape of a room. Boards of a lighter wood took on a single flat shape, a soft looking carpet coated itself over the boards. The wall built itself in much the same manner, an expensive looking fireplace filled out a space in the side wall. A curved purple love seat came to be with assorted throw pillows. A glass top coffee table and two chairs also filled the room. Numerous framed paintings formed on the wall, depicting scenery shots.
 
The entire place looked like it’d come out of a catalogue for rich homes weekly. A fire was going in the fireplace and as she walked further, a larger area to the left of the room took form, a place equally as rich looking, but less occupied by furniture. In it was a single grand piano being played by somebody out of sight.
 
Pinkie knew it was the executioner, but she didn’t expect someone so power hungry to have such an eye for fancy things. Maybe a bunch of tacky self-indulgent sculptures, or a giant throne, something that showed status as being in charge. But a grand piano, a fireplace, a painting of… what Pinkie’s lack of experience assumed was a beach on an ocean.
 
The melody continued paying as Applejack and Pinkie shared another look of bafflement. Pinkie could tell that Applejack still had a tinge of anger, but the two of them were really caught off guard ever since they walked into the White.
 
“Well… I was curious how long it’d take.” A calm, almost blissful sounding female voice spoke from the piano.
 
Pinkie knew it was the Executioner and held out a hoof to stop Applejack from reacting. If there was one thing the baker wanted, it was to get out alive and unharmed. She and Applejack were nowhere close to powerful enough to take on the Executioner; and it seemed that they never had the element of surprise. Pinkie’s plan was to try and negotiate, to hopefully avoid any and all altercation. Chat, reach some kind of common ground, regroup, apply newfound knowledge, and tackle the problem later.
 
“I’m sorry we’re intruding on your plane,” Pinkie hoped her apology didn’t come across as insincere.
 
“Think nothing of the slight,” the voice was smooth, but held a level of power, perfectly pairing with the music that had tapered off. “I’m simply humbled to entertain guests.” The Executioner rose from her stool and walked into sight, and Pinkie’s eyes widened.
 
Stepping into view was undoubtedly a mare, a woman that danced around the idea of free will. With only a single look into her deep blue eyes, Pinkie was distinctly aware of who was in charge. The Executioner gracefully strode forward, akin to a Bestial Breeze gliding across the tundra. And like the great winds of the tundra, her coat was as white as the White around them. The very unicorn closing the space between herself and Pinkie was not only a rogue entity more powerful than any one Hunter, but she was also a regular at Baking Thyme.
 
“…Rarity?”
 
“Really now,” The Executioner… Rarity… smiled, “I’d have thought you among most would know. It’s pretty obvious in retrospect.”
 
Mouth gaping, Pinkie stared, flabbergasted. “H-how-I thought you… I thought you were just a morning jogger.”
 
Rarity laughed and instantly Pinkie felt her mouth forcibly close. “Wouldn’t want you catching flies now, after such a world-shattering revelation.”

Pinkie couldn’t help but stare, mouth open or closed, at the unicorn she’d assumed was no one important. Just another local, one that liked to jog in the mornings and enjoyed fresh-baked bread. Her act was so… convincing. Pinkie was so absolutely mislead she never even took the time to realize that Rarity stopped showing up the day before Applejack was freed by the Whisperer.

“How could…” Pinkie began, stopping when she noticed the intelligence between the unicorns eyes, something that’d never existed there before it was unnerving. “How long hav-“

“AAAAAAAAUGH!” Applejack interrupted, the angry inside her building to a high boil and escaping her body all at once as a scream and a charge. Out of the corner of her eye, Pinkie saw Applejack sprinting full speed at Rarity.

“Ah, ah, we’ll have none of that.” Just metres before the two collided, Applejack stopped immediately, her body was frozen on the spot, completely immobile. Rarity looked at her with a smile as she was lifted off the ground a small height. “No outbursts in my dimension sweetie.”

Pinkie shuddered at the sickly sweet way Rarity was talking. Not just because it was a heavy contrast to what she’d been used to, but it was just a little too much on it’s own. Applejack was levitated over to Rarity, still frozen mid-run. The Executioner lifted one of her hooves and lightly tapped Applejack’s nose. “Who’s adorable? It’s you! Yes it is!”

“Can you… leave her alone? Please?” Pinkie asked, unsure if she should have spoken at all, but not wanting to let the Executioner get away with mistreating her friend.

Without dropping her smile, Rarity’s pupils turned to look directly at Pinkie. Applejack hovered off to the left a bit so the Executioner could talk directly to the baker, mano e mano. Pinkie regretted every decision she’d ever made. Rarity saw the fear in Pinkie’s eyes and giggled, it was a menacing sound.

“I’m sure I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’re in my playground. I have absolute control here and blah blah blah, I’m in charge and I like to play with my toys.” Rarity didn’t lower her voice, she didn’t put emphasis on any words, and she never once lost her sickly sweet smile. “No, you’re smart, I know you realize how little you can actually do to me, here or otherwise. So let’s have a little fun. Do you want to play a guessing game?”

Pinkie stood frozen, not because of the Executioners influence, she knew, but out of terror. Neither of them were dead so far, which was a good thing, but Applejack was out of commission, and Pinkie was completely out of her element. Her expertise wasn’t fighting, it was knowing. She’d spent years of her life studying ghosts, ghouls, everything, All in the vain attempt to gain some kind of control over her confusing life growing up with Nullism.

She really had no idea what Applejack was even planning, Pinkie only went because she was worried. What was one ghost going to do against the most dangerous singular entity on the side of Death? Pinkie was just hoping to get her and her friend out alive, to negotiate, to do whatever it took to deal with the problem while also living to tell the tale.

But then this… was unexpected, a game? Pinkie supposed it was like negotiating, but with a murderer with the mentality of a power-hungry child.

“I…” She looked at Applejack, who couldn’t speak, but blinked twice in quick succession. Applejack didn’t want her to go through with whatever guessing game Rarity had in mind. But…

“Yes, I-I’ll play,”  Pinkie replied, knowing there was really no other way to get out, let alone survive.

Rarity clapped her front hooves together. “Good, I’ll start.” She set the frozen Applejack down, leaning against the piano, and walked over to her sitting area, having a seat. “Why don’t you tell me about that Hunter friend of yours. How’d she free the farmer?”

The question echoed in Pinkie’s head, she shuddered again, “I don’t actually know.” The words spoken against Pinkie’s will. She slapped her hooves over her mouth in reaction, but Rarity actually laughed.

“No, no, no covering your mouth, I’ll hear what I want whenever I want.” Pinkie was lifted and brought over to the chair facing Rarity, she was sat down by the invisible force of the Executioners power. “It’s inconvenient you don’t know though. Okay, your turn to ask a question.”

The sudden shift in mood surprised Pinkie, but it was also getting to the point where she wasn’t even sure she was surprised anymore. It was an interesting mix of feelings and awareness. Being picked up and dropped on the chair was also interesting, if somewhat intimidating, at least it was a comfortable chair.

She thought about what she wanted to even ask the Executioner, there were a few things she wouldn’t mind learning. Who lead the council, how did displacement work, exactly how many different factions were there. In the end only one question came to her mind. “How did you find out about Twilight?”

Rarity beamed, excitement shining from her eyes, in another context it might have been considered adorable, but given the absolute power of who it was, Pinkie shivered. “That’s an easy one!”

“Okay, so I’ve been an Executioner in Partyville for over six decades, right? And in that time I’ve learned a lot.” Rarity stood up from her chair, the background fading into a much younger looking Partyville, one thriving far more. There was less ponies walking around, and while some of them seemed mindless, most were actually chatting with each other and enjoying their lives. There was less densely packed buildings, and more nature around.

“But by far the most important detail to keep in mind is Sight.”

“Sight?”

Rarity clapped her hooves again, the room returning, “Yes, Sight! It’s one of the very fundamental primordial sources of power across the world. In St. Orangeberg Sound reigns supreme, but Sight is no slouch. During my hold over Partyville I’ve been attuning myself to Sight, manipulating it, controlling it, harnessing it.

“In fact, all in my dimension is thanks to my use of Sight.” She giggled as she levitated the coffee table and rearranged it into a fish tank, complete with water and several koi. Pinkie instinctively reached her hoof into the fish tank, she felt real water and fish. “But it’s done more than let me reshape your perceptions of reality.

“It lets me keep track of everyone in Partyville, my domain. From the most powerful of ghosts to the most mundane of worthless bags of walking flesh. And the instant that Hunter and her mute dragon walked past the welcome sign I knew exactly where they were and what they were doing.”

Sharply Pinkie saw the smile abandon Rarities face. “In a single day that hunter ruined what I’d been planning. I’ve been gaining power for decades and in 24 hours she unravelled my tightly woven web of lies. I don’t know how she acquired that apple, but once I figure that out I can undo what’s mistakenly deconstructed.” Rarity returned the fish tank to the coffee table it once was, before she walked back over to her grand piano, Pinkie being levitated behind her.

“These hunters are a perversion of the natural order. When you die you enter your second state of life, you become a ghost. You gain eternal life, power, options; you become everything you’re meant to be. But these sardonic *cultists* have deigned that there needs to be a balance between the living and the dead.”

The Executioner inspected the frozen Applejack still leaning against the piano before she turned back to Pinkie. “Tell me, should there be a balance between those that can drive and those that can’t, or maybe virgins and those that have had sex. Of course not, their idea of ‘balance’ is to limit everyone to make the ones that haven’t died feel more special.

“Hunters and those like them are a plague, a pestilence that needs removing to restore things to how they should be; a world with two stages, alive and ghost. And when the pieces finally fall into place I’ll wipe all of them out. I’ll recreate this city the way it should naturally fall. And when I do, those pompous aristocrats on the council will finally understand what working will actually mean.”

Suddenly the menacing frown that was holding Rarities face hostage moments earlier had vanished and been replaced with a wistful look of whimsy. “When I enact my plan things will fall into place, no more war between the two sides, no more alive ‘or’ dead. There’ll only be one state of being, One group of ponies all under my reign.

“When the Hunters are eradicated and the council realizes I cannot be stopped, I’ll begin enacting laws to finally kill all the still living ponies, turn them into ghosts, and rule of them all by myself. The world will be gorgeous, it’ll be simple. It’ll be mine.”

Rarity directed her ‘smile’ at Pinkie, who was very specifically uncomfortable. The Executioner stroked under Pinkie’s chin, making their eyes meet.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Blocker?”
> Bonus Material
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

First and Foremost the incomplete and completely unedited chapter 10

Chapter 10: Welcome to the Jungle

The evening sun shone down over St. Orangeberg as the whispers of night tantalized the mind. A cool wind and some clouds had rolled in over the afternoon and now in this late hour they happily blocked more and more of the sky. In place of birds chirping though and other nature like sounds the cacophony that assaulted the ear was distant sirens and nearby gun shots.

Applebloom shivered as she listened to the noise, talking about killing people was one thing, but having the threat of death as a palpable flavour on the air was another thing. As much as she liked to talk a big game, she was still a kid; she hadn’t even hit puberty yet. It was probably gonna start over the next year, but the fact was it hadn’t by then.

She looked around herself, she hadn’t actually entered Panhandlershot yet, but that border was within sight. Even so, the district so simply titled Storage was pretty bad; Storage has a lot of parked forklifts and industrial equipment, as well as warehouses. It seemed to be the main thing populating the district, other than several factories Applebloom had seen, as well as a single office building.

Normally it wouldn’t be so bad, but the place was run down, Applebloom guessed that most of the workers had gone home for the day, so the only ponies she’d spotted were drug abusers, a gang that failed to notice her, and a travelling hobo that was lighting a palette fire. If not for her destination, Applebloom would be thrilled to leave Storage... not that she’d ever let anyone know her discomfort.

“I’d know,” Applebloom heard the Whisperer chuckle in her mind.

“You don’t count,” She thought back, met with more amusement.

Applebloom rolled her eyes and kept moving. It’s not that she was afraid per say, she knew Nona would keep her safe if anything actually happened, but it was unsettling. She’d lived in Partyville her entire life, travelling around the nearby districts, but never venturing too far into the city. She hadn’t seen a tree or even a patch of grass in over an hour and she was beginning to wonder if anything was even able to grow in the inner city anymore. Then again, apparently the elites downtown had full blown parks and hydroponic farms, as well as amazingly renewable energy.

If she were ever able to make it past the walled off downtown and it’s hailstorm of guards both alive and dead, Applebloom wouldn’t mind seeing how the other half lived. But pushing her impossible dreams to the side, she focused on the sounds around her, the voices of shouting and faint hoofsteps nearby. Despite being empty looking, the area seemed to be pretty populated.

Taking a deep breath, Applebloom approached the district border, to the unobservant it was just a bright yellow line separating some warehouses, one side had Storage stencilled onto the ground, the other side of the yellow line, which was marked with diagonal black and yellow stripes was Panhandlershot.

As she observed more around her, Applebloom noticed a metal bar running parallel with the yellow stripe painted on the ground, but roughly three metres up. It had twisted barbed wire above it, and looked like it was once a chain link fence, but that the fence part had recently been removed. Judging by the scrape marks, it was pretty violently removed.

Another observation was that an invisible line seemed to be drawn in terms of maintenance for the buildings between the two distracts. On the Storage side the warehouses didn’t look new, but they looked well kept, the windows were cleanish, the paint wasn’t chipping, and there was hardly any rust. By contrast, the identical warehouse buildings on the Panhandlershot side were comically in disrepair. It almost appeared as if they were thirty years older somehow, water damage marred the walls, the metal was rusting so badly in places that it had started flaking off somewhat. There was a row of what Applebloom could only assume was once windows, but most had long been destroyed or removed, the only pieces left were opaque grey.

The final thing Applebloom noticed up ahead, other than that the trend of negligence seemed to be uniform, was that there’d been some additions to some of the buildings up ahead. Cheaply constructed second and even third ‘floors’ were visible. With different hastily constructed walkways and rooves slapped together It must have been free to live in Panhandlershot, but there was evidence that plenty of people did - even if no one was visible.

Swallowing her nerves, Applebloom moved her left hoof forward, crossing the yellow line into Panhandlershot. She’d done it, she was in the place everyone used as an example of shitty living conditions. Applebloom felt a bit of the weight on her hooves leave her as her final legs crossed over. “So far so good.”

 

“Now for the rest of the district.” Applebloom heard chuckling at the back of her mind, so rolled her eyes and moved one hoof in front of the other. Slowly but surely she made her way into the district. She looked up and saw wooden boards between the two warehouses flanking her, it was pretty dark already but with all the extra slapped together walkways and huts and the like it got quite a bit worse. She suspected there’d be a couple places the sun never saw.

Exhaling from her nose she listened closely to the noise around her. Appleblook didn’t dare close her eyes, but staying alert did reward her with the sounds of a couple planks creaking. Stopping she looked up and saw one pony glaring so hard it made Twilight look pleasant. “Fuck you looking at?!” He screamed at her.

“Nothing,” Applebloom immediately turned away and continued walking, she was starting to understand why Twilight so frequently referred to herself as nobody every time anyone talked to her.

“Next time I catch you eyeing me I’ll slit your throat.”

Swallowing she didn’t look back, she doubted she’d be hurt, but better safe than sorry. Keeping her head down to avoid a repeat offence, Applebloom couldn’t keep the curious look off her face, ”I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that Twilight actually lives here. How does anyone live here?”

“I can confirm that Twilight has lived here for most of her life.”

“How?” Applebloom passed the corner of a dilapidated warehouse and narrowed her eyes, studying the area before she sighed in relief and began walking again.

“When all you’ve ever known is suffering, you become dependent on it.”

Applebloom rolled her eyes, “You’re being dramatic again, I’d be the exact same whether I grew up in Partyville, Panhandlershot, or the Inner Sanctum.”

The Whisperer made a noise to motherly disagreement, “Life isn’t the same for everyone, Applebloom, where one might see a train engine and think of the gears that make it work, another sees it as an antique that needs destroying.”

“But the pony that loves the gears is going to love the gears regardless of where they came from. That’s my point.” Applebloom looked around, things seemed to be getting worse the further in she went. At that point the makeshift scrap housing was pushing on five floors. And seemed to be getting worse the further they went. The creaking of the warehouse directly beside her made her nervous. “Not that I don’t love it here, but how much longer?”

“Twilight’s warehouse is actually on the other side of this development.”

Applebloom cocked an eyebrow, “You don’t sound happy, what’s eating you.”

“Panhandlershot was supposed to be a stand in for Canterlot, not some pony version of Kowloon.” Applebloom shook her head, Nona knew she had no context for that sentence but said it anyway. “I can’t help it, it’s just so forced at times.”

“Uh huh,” Applebloom quipped, she didn’t care, all she knew was that she needed to keep moving.

---

And that's all I did before I officially went on hiatus. I'd say it's about half way done.

However, here is the summary of all the chapters as I wrote it before I began the story. Everyone's chapter start with something, right?

1
It’s a month later, and Twilight is running her bookstore like normal, talking with Applejack and Pinkie. They talk about the latest goings on. Twilight reminisces over the changes and just as she gets to applebloom’s part, AB walks down from the loft saying that there’s two pieces of bad news, putting emphasis on the executioner (who has gotten more active recently) being a huge problem, and also the clones have gotten to the point of being needed to be dealt with. Applejack angrily says she’ll deal with the executioner, being a ghost so she can’t die, and Pinkie agrees to go with her. Twilight, who’s afraid of the executioner happily let’s them handle it. Applebloom says that Twilight should handle the clone issue by going over to the expert on the matter in the next District over. “Ashton?” “No, the other direction, Sideo Breach” “Good, don’t plan on getting accused of anything today.” Twilight says she has several dozen pages of notes on clones and how to deal with them (from her Trixie days) back at her warehouse. Applebloom says she can go to the warehouse while Twilight goes to talk to the expert. Twilight asks why they don’t just switch jobs, and AB says the Whisperer won’t explain why, it’s just better that way. They get ready to go to their respective places when Rainbow Dash walks in asking for help with “a pony that looks like me”

2
Applejack and Pinkie run into Spike on the way to Pinkie’s bakery, they ask if he’s interested in joining them in going to handle the executioner. He pulls out his switch blade and gives a few practice swings before offering thumbs up. They walk to the bakery and enter Pinkie’s bedroom, where she has some sensors telling her where the executioner was last seen. She has this mainly to avoid danger. They see the tail end of the pony enter a door on the side of a laundry mat several blocks away and plan to gear up before discussing things with twilight and Applebloom.

3
Twilight and Applebloom leave the bookstore, (twilight locking it up) when they spot another rainbow dash, but with the signature clone aspect of being smaller than the original, Just to double check, Twilight asks the clone her name, to which the response is a horse whiney and what looks to be the beginning stages of mitosis. Applebloom quickly smacks it in the back of the head, knocking it out and pausing the mitosis. Twilight charges up a spell that compresses the clone into a single spot, it goes wrong though and it explodes into goo the colour of Dash’s coat. Applebloom laughs before the real Rainbow Dash says that was cool. AB narrows her eyes and says that there’s an alpha clone out in the forest that needs to be found so they can dispose of it. Dash happily accepts the reconisense mission. Once she’s gone, Twilight comments on how even if Dash is a waste of oxygen, it was kind of rude to just send her to die in the dangerous forest. Applebloom shrugs and says she doesn’t care that much. They then walk towards the edge of the district.

4
Applejack, Pinkie, and Spike walk down the street to go meet with Twilight and discuss what to do next discussing Applejack’s history with the executioner. The executioner is a powerful ghost that works for the council, and happened to be one in charge of recruiting every ghost in PArtyville, including Applejack. And was the first face she saw when she initially died. Pinkie asks how Applejack died and they talk about her life before, (which was in the future on the other side of St. Orangeberg) It’s about here that they get to the bookstore and find it locked. Wondering what to do next. Spike signs that they should take care of things themselves, which Applejack agrees wholeheartedly, and they make their way to the laundrymat.

5
Twiight is watching Applebloom walk off, before she walks into Sideo Breach, immediately she’s met with the new town. It’s high tech and looks to be closer related to scientific discovery. Twilight internally comments on how nicely clean and quiet things seem to be. It’s nice to see smart people not being evil or assholes or corrupt. She passes by a conversation two scientists are having about a cartoon they both like and they act like fangirls about ‘best waifu’ and Twilight sighs, retracting any compliments she gave. She walks around for a bit, trying to locate who might be an expert in clone related problems. She asks somebody where the expert might be, and the somebody says that “the crazy mare who’s obsessed with clones and pixies is at (location) and Twilight thanks them for actually being helpful

6
AJ, Pinkie and Spike approach the laundry mat, discussing Pinkie’s reputation, when she mentions a name Spike recognizes, Pastel Gardens, he stops them and looks violently angry. Pinkie says that she doesn’t know where Pastel Gardens is at the moment, but that the Pegasus tends to spends Saturdays up on the roofs downtown. He immediately runs off, and Applejack comments saying she’s never seen anyone silently declare they want to kill anyone before. They make it to the laundrymat, having not been that far away. And spot the door, or at least Applejack does, Pinkie can’t see it anymore. Applejack asks why that might be, and Pinkie explains that ghosts can see more than the living can. Applejack opens the door (after commenting that it makes no sense and shouldn’t lead anywhere) and a doorway opens up for Pinkie as well. They enter the white void.

7
Twilight arrives at a slightly downgraded laboratory, it’s a large building though, reminding her of her warehouse array. She walks in and finds an empty reception area, noting sarcastically that it’s promising. As she debates leaving and checking elsewhere, she gets spotted by Starlight and they have a short and practical conversation about dealing with a clone problem. Twilight actually smiles at how to the point and reasonable Stralight seems to be, thinking it too good to be true, and wondering when it’ll fuck up. Starlighht suggests Twilight see what she’s doing. They enter a big room with a clone of Starlight strapped to a stretcher with a high powered (but quiet) fan blowing air at the clone Twilight sighs, realizing that Starlight, despite appearances is probably psychotic due to torturing a version of herself. Starlight tells twilight that it is an Alpha Clone, one that was directly cloned from somebody else, is able to change forms, and has a form of actual intelligence. Going into the lore of clones and how they work.

8
Rainbow Dash is walking through the forest, a bit afraid of the forest, but actively pushes on because she wants to be helpful to Twilight and Applebloom,. We explore her mind, how she doesn’t really have any friends due to reading her books (it[s implised that her mind hasn’t been whipped much due to not being around other ponies much. She recounts her books and how if she isn’t careful, she’ll end up like a victim, but as she plays out a scene, she comes across a clearing with a clubhouse in it.

9
Pinkie notices the door close behind them, sealing them into the white void. Applejack confirms that there’s no door anymore and realizes that they won’t be going back until they confront the executioner. The white gives way to a well furnished room. One with lavish furniture, a fireplace, an adorning dining room, and it’s mixed perfectly into the white void. Pinkie comments that she didn’t expect an executioner to have such good taste. Which is what causes the executioner to show herself. It’s Rarity, which Pinkie is shocked to find out, she thought Rarity was just somebody that liked to go for jogs in the morning. Rarity dismisses the shock, saying it was pretty obvious. Applejack lunges in anger, which Rarity stops midair with her powers. She briefly touches on how everything in her domain is completely under her control and “blah blah blah, nothing to go into” and then inquires about their Hunter friend. Pinkie asks how the executioner found out about twilight, and Rarity explains that she knows the identity and affinity of everyone in Partyville due to partially controlling the Power of Sight. She then begins her monologue about how the hunters are a plague on the city, and how she dislikes their idea of balance, wanting nothing more than to tip it in her favour. Turning menacingly to Pinkie she asks, “wouldn’t you agree, Blocker?”

10
Applebloom arrives in the Panhandlershot district, immediately noticing how horrible it looks. It appears to be a series of blocks depicting failing architecture, rusted metal, gangs huddled around burning barrels (not to keep warm, but instead seemingly to hoard the flames) Applebloom feels pity and disbelief that this is the place Twilight actually lives, it looks as poor and aggressive as possible. The Whisperer (in her mind) confirms that this is the place Twilight calls home, and it’s the main reason she’s so distrustful. As they pass into the warehouse city Applebloom notices that they all look almost exactly the same, and comments that it’s for the best, likely being easier to hide out in that way. She notices two groups sort of converging on the area so she enters Twilight’s warehouse before they notice her and takes in the look of it. Before getting to work in searching for the notes.

11
The clone is panting as it recovers from it’s wind torture, Starlight is checking over some printed readouts about the clone’s condition, and asks Twilight why she was sought out. Twilight explains that the clone issue has been getting a bit out of hand in Partyville and that something should be done about it. Considering it a perfect opportunity for revenge, the clone send out a pulse to all it’s ‘children’ giving them the urge to converge on partyville, this uses it up into a husk, as a clone pulse is only one use. Twilight, despite lacking her notes, recognizes what this means and yells at starlight to follow her. Starlight is devastated at her decade of lost work. But pulls herself together long enough to follow Twilight.

12
Rainbow dash knocks on the clubhouse, unsure of what she’ll get, the door is answered by Scootaloo of all ponies, who looks at Dash curiously. Dash asks if they’ve noticed any clones. Scootaloo rolls her eyes and almost closes the door before Sweetie Belle stops the slamming and talks with scootaloo a bit, they offer to invite her in, at least to chat. She compliments the book shelf, appreciating that scootaloo has a good collection of classic books. Scootaloo actually lightens up at that and they discuss different genres. Sweetie Belle gets in the conversation. Sweetie Belle stops when she hears something though, something that Dash and Scootaloo don’t hear. Dash asks what it is, and Sweetie explains that it’s related to clones and not to worry about it. Dash remembers that that’s why she was out in the forest in the first place. She was looking for an alpha clone. Sweetie says that’s not what they’re called, but the closest thing to an ‘alpha’ clone would be the Seeder clone, and it was just destroyed. Dash nods and says that she has nothing left to do for the day so they agree to at least chat for a bit longer before Dash goes back into town.

13
The pulse is heard by Spike next, who’s on the hunt for Pastel Gardens. He stops when he hears it, noting that everyone in the crowd except one pony continues moving. It’s Fluttershy, who looks up, stopped for a moment, but just long enough to be spotted by spike. He runs at her, dodging and weaving between the crowd. She sees him, knife brandished and takes the opportunity to fly off, but not before he grabs a broken flouresent light beside a dumpster and chucks it at her like a javelin. She takes it in the wing and goes down. He quickly makes his way towards her. She’s got a red demonic glow over her wing, healing it. Spike stares at her for a moment, before they both run at each other at the same time. 

14
Pinkie freezes in place, not from control over her, but due to fear. Being called ‘Blocker’ overwhelmed her senses and she’s not doing too well, she crumples slightly on the floor. Rarity laughs and pulls her back up to her hooves, conjuring a giant psychic hand that then proceeds to pet Pinkie like a cat. She turns to Applejack who had been quiet since she’d been stopped mid lunge. Rarity points out how adorably weak the living are by comparison to ghosts. And says that if Applejack joins her, she’ll give AJ powers beyond her wildest dreams. To demonstrate she gives Applejack a tiny fraction of the power she could obtain and AJ gets placed lightly on the ground. “well, what do you say?”

15
Applebloom is looking through a filing cabinet out of a possible dozen or so, marked ‘clones/sparks’ Applebloom says that she doesn’t believe in sparks before the whisperer says that they’re real, also that I should be ashamed of myself for plugging something I invented completely. They grabbing a thick folder filled with notes on clones and how to deal with them. Gunshots riddle sound in the air, tearing several holes into the warehouse’s metal walls. Applebloom gets down and asks how twilight can live in these conditions, the whisperer says that she thinks she deserves it.. Bloom hears continued screaming from the gun firers and agrees to go out the back, having what she needs, and grabbing notes on executioners as well, though that’s decidedly skimpier. The whisperer brings a few cans of soup with them and they make their way out.

16
Spike and Fluttershy stare each other down before they charge each other, she blocks his slash, he slides under her, she rages, he runs up the wall and jumps at her, she goes for a dodging maneuver but falters due to the wing injury.  He takes advantage of this and makes the wing injury worse. Fluttershy, seeing little else in the way of options, stops her healing magic in an effort to get out an ancient word. Spike notices this and slits at her throat, stopping her part way through the word. She jumps back, holding her hoof to her neck, the demonic magic glows under her hoof and the blood flow slows. Spike smirks and watches her as she backs up. He’s satisfied with the damage he’s done, and she tries to get off a word, but just gurgles blood, speaking no more. Spike flips her off and she’s had it, the demonic glow spreads to her hoofs and she holds them out in front of her, Spike notices a pressure on his torso, pulling both directions. He senses that he’s going to be rpped in half, so in a moment of desperation tosses his knife at her, she lets up for the barest of moments. Enough for Spike to avoid getting split in half, but his arm is caught, and not wasting any time, Fluttershy rips it off of him. She’s about to rip off more of his limbs, but she has a moment of weakness and immediately returns to healing herself as Spike runs off, bringing his severed arm with him, dripping dragon blood out of his now left stump.

17
Applebloom runs into a unicorn wielding a knife in his magic, the whisperer has already concealed all Bloom is carrying, so there’s no fear of being robbed. Instead the knife unicorn threatens Applebloom if she doesn’t buy some of his merchandise, pointing to a stall directly behind himself. It contains several shirts with an odd logo a few mugs, and even some hats. Bloom attempts to out-manipulate him, saying she’d love to but forgot her wallet, and that she’s on her way to go get it. He happily allows her to walk away before aggressively stabbing into the wall beside her and getting really close up, asking if she thinks he’s stupid. She doesn’t answer the way he likes, so he holds her chin up with the knife, specifically not cutting her, but getting close. She desperately tries to figure a way out of the situation but can’t find one. She also takes too long and angers the pony, who slices into the skin of her cheek, leaving a scar there, saying he’ll happily draw out the experience. The whisperer is about to step in when a gun shot goes off, hitting the cart, the knife unicorn tosses it at high speeds into whoever shot his cart, before telling Applebloom that it’s her lucky day, and he turns to deal with the gunshot. Applebloom takes no time running as fast as she possibly can away.

18
Applejack stares down a smiling Rarity. With her new found power she goes to punch Rarity. Rarity sighs with that same smile before all activity stops, the room fades away, Pinkie and Applejack both can’t move. And she says that it’s a shame Applejack won’t be joining her, before deconstructing applejack, lightly flipping through the ghosts internal organs (different from a living ponies organs) and asks Applejack where she thinks the name ‘executioner’ originated from. Neither she nor Pinkie know the answer. Rarity brings out a pulsing green sack of ectoplasm, lightly squeezing it to demonstrate that it is indeed Applejack’s. Rarity explains that the name comes from their ability to completely kill a ghost, to the point of them never returning. The ectoplasm floats out, dissolving on a molecular level. Half the fluid being atomized, which is reflecting in how much weaker Applejack looks. Rarity loses her smile for the first time, giving Applejack a serious look. Saying that if they ever mess in her affairs again, she’d kill Applejack and Scootaloo both. And give a hell of an effort to make Twilight’s life a waking nightmare she’ll never escape. She then chuckles saying that she probably wouldn’t have to even do anything for that to happen. Applejack is reassembled, and they’re given the freedom of movement again, Pinkie turns and sees the door having returned, she helps Applejack up, and the too leave, Rarity giving a final departing of “toodles”

19
Starlight and Twilight are outside of Oakfields, there’s dramatic winds and dark clouds and Twilight comments oj how cliché nature is. Starlight is setting up a beacon behind the bookstore with her magic, quiet and looking depressed. Twilight comments that Starlight should hurry the hell up and Starlight barely speaks. Twilight wonders how much longer they have before all the clones from all over St. Orangeberg arrive and destroy the place. Pinkie shows up, asking how things went, and Twilight comments saying that they have a plan to lure them to a single place in order to destroy all the clones. Starlight comments that she doesn’t actually know how to destroy them, just how they work and the patterns they follow. Twilight asks where Applejack is and Pinkie says she’s resting at the bakery. There’s a rumbling from the two storey spire of metal before it sends off it’s own pulse, powered by a battery containing Starlight’s magic. It’s followed by another rumbling as a bunch of clones emerge upon them. The three of them worry, since they didn’t actually have a plan for destroying any of them. Starlight shouts not to let them destroy the beacon. Twilight and Starlight both shoot husking spells, but they aren’t fast enough. Applebloom teleports in, pausing time for everyone except Twilight, who hears a speech from the Whisperer herself. Saying that Twilight is a Hunter and that that means she’s unlocked parts of her magic that don’t exist for other ponies. Twilight wonders what she can even do, and the Whisperer points out that she already knows, it’s just buried under years of underuse. But as a hint, the Whisperer says that she’ll reawaken one of Twilight’s skills and give her enough power to overload it enough to destroy the tidal wave of clones. Time resumes and Twilight unleashes her Chain-Vines, stabbing into every clone, sapping them all of energy and turning them all into piles of multicoloured goo. Rainbow Dash, who got caught up in the tidal wave, falls to the ground and gets covered in clone goo. They turn to Twilight, impressed by her actual ability to be a Hunter and isn’t all talk, when they see the energy pass out of her horn, showing a kaleidoscope of spell matrices before a perfect replica of Twilight is 3D printed in front of them. Starlight tries to stop it, knowing what will happen. But she can’t end the process, and watches the twilight clone create herself. It’s first response to to shrink back in fear, knowing her true nature and the events that *just* happened. She flees, being let free by Applebloom who stops the others from acting. They turn to the original Twilight who has collapsed and they rush over to her.

20 - Finale
There’s a party a few hours later, ‘party’ being in quotations, since it’s just a small get together for the characters from the chapter. Twilight looks better, at least being able to stand, but still seems kind of out of it. Pinkie asks Starlight about the beacon, and she explains that clones from all over the city and beyond will be drawn to it, but it’s keyed to her magic due to the rush job, and the batteries will run out, so she’ll have to stay in Partyville to recharge it regularly. Everyone nods saying they don’t mind. It shifts to Applebloom and Twilight talking. Applebloom hands the folder onto the counter beside them, alongside a couple cans of soup. Twilight is happy to see the food and impressed that Bloom made it, only for AB to show sympathy to Twilight, saying that when they first met, she had assumed they were in the same boat. But clearly Twilight had the significantly worse life, and officially forgives her for beating the shit out of her when they first met. Twilight appreciates the sentiment, but asks that she not get special treatment or anything. It’s at this point that the door slams open, revealing Spike’s armless form. They all ask what happened, and Twilight points out that she called something like this happening. Spike, having cauterized his wound stares at Twilight for a moment, she chuckles and waves him over. Pinkie asks what he said and Twilight says that she and Spike will be retiring for the evening. They chat about the differing experiences as they walk up the stairs, before they collapse onto the couch.