> Once You Go Pinkie
>  by Epsilon-Delta
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One:  Pinkie Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anypony asked what Gear Grinder’s job was, and they didn't, he was supposed to tell them that he was helping to cure shroom rot.  The disease appeared very recently, close enough to Canterlot to scare just the right ponies and get this whole, big research project underway.  Lots of ponies were working on this.

But in truth, his job was the exact opposite of that.  He was there to delay the project as much as possible.

Chrysalis was the one behind the shroom rot in the first place.  It was all part of some bigger plan that Gear Grinder wasn’t important enough to know of.  All he knew was that progress on a cure needed to be stalled as much as possible.

There were dozens of changelings in Manehattan working towards this plan, some trying to cut budgets, some dumping toxins into water supplies.  Gear Grinder alone probably delayed a cure by months, if not over a year already.

He sabotaged everything he could as much as he could without drawing suspicion to himself from destroying samples to making the life of every pony on this project as miserable as possible.  And everyone on this end was completely miserable, bored, lazy, and jaded with the entire project.  Yes, Gear Grinder had seen to that.

Except for this one guy. Risky Flask was one of those ponies. While everyone else was miserably dragging their feet, he was picking up all the slack, working through break, never losing hope for the project.

But hard work only got you so far.

As soon as Risky Flask’s back was turned, Gear Grinder took a rather important vial he needed and poured it down the sink, then refilled it with a volatile liquid.

A little later, Risky Flask tried to perform his test, casting a spell on the vial.  It exploded, sending blue liquid flying everywhere.

“What’s going on out there?!”  Anger Management huffed his way out of his office.

“I have no idea,” Risky Flask said in his defense.  “There must have been something wrong with the M-silicate, that’s the only explanation.”

Anger Management looked over the scene, his face flashing with rage when he noticed the problem.

“I’ll tell you what went wrong!  You used the wrong diluent!”  Anger Management picked up the nearby bottle of elemental acid, the same blue color that had exploded from the vial.  “Do you know how long it takes to get that sample of M-silicate?!  Do you know how much all these reagents cost?!”

“I don’t know where it could be!  I was sure that was it!  I know I checked it several times to make sure it was right!  Something must have-“

“Oh, what?  The vial just magically replaced itself?!  Get into my office!”  Anger Management pulled the haggard scientist into his office and slammed the door shut.

“See what hard work gets you?”  Gear Grinder whispered to his nearby ‘coworker’.  “That guy works his plot off and just one mistake is enough to get him in all kinds of trouble.  The more you work, the more of a scolding you get.  That’s why you never see me in a hurry.”

“Yeesh, you sure got that right.”  He gave a mournful look towards the office.  “And I keep hearing that shroom rot’s infection rates been dropping for months.  They’ve been inflating the mortality rate of it too.

“Wouldn’t be surprised. This whole thing is just a political boondoggling.  The people who signed off on this are just kicking their feet up.  We might as well too.”

It was impressive how much this sort of thing worked.  Everyone here was dragging their feet and anyone who refused to get fired.

The bell sounded, marking the end of Gear Griner’s shift long.  On his way out, he made one last act of sabotage.  Gear Grinder looked around to make sure nopony was looking and then he switched the regular coffee with decaf!  The night shift was all but ruined.

Now he could go home. There were people out there who got some small happiness out of going home, but Gear grinder wasn’t one of them.

The harsh sun beat down on his back as he trudged his way home.  Manehattan was a cold, colorless city.  It was sterile skyscraper after sterile skyscraper, all looming over you walk over the crumbling asphalt, trying not to trip over the potholes.

He tried to avoid contact with the ponies who shot him suspicious looks as he passed by.  He hated all the stupid, annoying ponies in this city and dreaded them every saying hello to him.  Bugs were swarming all over the place today, as if his life wasn’t already terrible enough, forcing him to swat them away.  Everything he passed by was an annoyance.  The whole city was an annoyance.

As always, he just closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried to block out all the senseless noise of the city until finally he was home.

Gear Grinder opened the door to his apartment without a bit of relief.  This place hardly felt like home.

The single buzzing lightbulb hanging overhead filled the room with more noise than light and threatened to fall down on his aching head at any moment.  The dim lighting did have the advantage of making it harder to see just how dingy the apartment really was.  A broken stove, broken dresser, broken stove, and a mattress decayed to the point of being a clump of springs were all he had in his apartment and yet it left him with only a few feet of floor space.  The place didn’t even have a bathroom, instead, the building had a public restroom downstairs he had to use.

Despite getting good pay for the ‘work’ he was doing, Gear Grinder had to live in this tiny room.  He had to send all of that money back to the hive… probably to buy Chrysalis some vase or something.  Maybe he could live with all that if this was where the pain ended.

As soon as he lied down on his mattress and tried to relax for one second, Chrysalis contacted him telepathically.  He groaned like the springs digging into his back and allowed her in.

Gear Grinder had a second job, collecting love, dumping toxins into the water, or otherwise sabotaging the city.  Between the two jobs, he barely had time to eat or sleep.

“My Queen-“ was all he could manage before being cut off.

“You’re behind on your quota!”  Chrysalis immediately started ripping into him.  Gear Grinder knew not to say anything in his defense.  “What have you even been doing this whole time?!  You lazy, worthless good-for-nothing insect!  Do you know how hard I work while you do nothing all day?! I demand you work even longer hours!”

“I already work eighteen hours a day, my Queen.”

“Well if that’s your attitude then make it nineteen!”  She shouted back.  “You don’t honestly think you can just slack off and get away with it.  You don’t work half as hard as I do! I deserve a vacation! I deserve a yacht!  You need to get a smaller apartment so you’re spending less money!  Get one of those beer helmet things and fill it with protein shakes so you don’t need any more lunchbreaks!  You need to find something productive to do in the bathroom too!  Maybe you can fill out paperwork or something.”

“Yes, my queen.”  Gear Grinder’s eye twitched.  Another ten-hour shift on his current eight-hour one.  No weekends no holidays…  At least he’d have his five hours to ‘sleep’ between the two jobs.

“Good.  And don’t let me catch you slacking off for even one second! Next time there will be serious consequences.”

And Chrysalis cut off communication, giving Gear Grinder his first sigh of relief today.  This stress was going to kill him.  Five hours of sleep wouldn’t be enough.  He needed something more, something stronger.  He needed to-

His blood began to flow again.  Gear Grinder checked out the window then closed the blinds.  He checked under the bed and out the peephole of his door.  Nopony needed to know about this little secret, about the one thing that made Gear Grinder's life worth living.

Gear Grinder enveloped himself in green flames and emerged as the world-famous Pinkie Pie!

Being Pinkie Pie was the absolute best.

Suddenly she felt less tired.  Suddenly the world was less grey.  Suddenly… she was actually able to smile again!  It was like flicking her happiness switch to on.  Just looking into the mirror at her new reflection made it hard not to grin.  She always loved seeing herself like this no matter how broken the mirror she was looking into.  She was Pinkie Pie.  Pinkie was Pinkie!

The excitement from just looking at herself in the mirror was enough that Pinkie found herself jumping up and down on the bed, humming along to the tune of the light overhead. The fact that it was all springs suddenly seemed endearing, made it better for jumping on.  It seemed like there was no way to not be happy when you were Pinkie Pie!  It was the one thing that made life worth living.

Discovering this secret had been a complete accident.  She was one of the changelings who attacked Canterlot during that wedding, one of the changelings who had directly attacked Twilight’s entourage.

Like most of her compatriots, Pinkie had been beaten senseless but not before a run-in with Pinkie Pie (that is, the real Pinkie Pie).  She assumed Pinkie’s form and very quickly decided that it was the best form she’d ever taken.  During that fight, as Pinkie Pie, she’d never felt so alive!  She laughed the whole time, trying to imitate that pink pony, her fighting becoming more and more like dancing.

Until the real Pinkie Pie punched her in the face and blasted her off a wall with that canon.  Even that didn’t seem so bad, in hindsight. Of the three times she’d been knocked unconscious, that one was by far the best.

It was… fun!  The best night of her life.

After that Pinkie was hooked on this form.  She couldn’t get enough of it.  The more she used it the more she wanted it.  The more unbearable her life as Gear Grinder became in comparison.

Just looking like Pinkie wasn’t enough anymore.  She found that the more she acted like Pinkie Pie, the happier she was.  Parties, balloons, candy, as Pinkie Pie she loved all of these things more than anything she’d loved before.  But the real love of her pretend life was making other ponies smile, just like the real Pinkie Pie!  Pinkie wanted everypony to be happy and spreading joy was a joy in itself.

That’s why she took up her little ‘hobby’ of volunteering to do charity work.  She’d visit old ponies and orphans to try and do her best to make them happy.

Sure, it meant she could never sleep again, but this was better than sleep.  Seeing the happy faces of those orphans, and lightening the day of ponies who needed it was more refreshing.  It filled her heart with a joy she’d never gotten anywhere before.

There was of course the irony that tomorrow…

Pinkie put the thought out of her mind before her mane could deflate.  She just needed to forget Gear Grinder existed.  It was the only way to be happy.

Pinkie crawled out the window and hopped down the fire escape before strolling out into the streets, merrily skipping over the one or two potholes before getting to the clear part of the road.

It was such a bright sunny day!  Pinkie took a deep breath, always amazed at how clean the air was for a city.  Pinkie loved Manehattan, the buildings were so varied and interesting, everywhere you looked there was something completely new and interesting to see.  You could literally just walk in any direction and find amazing places and ponies to talk to.  

One of the butterflies landed on the hook of Pinkie’s mane and she stopped to study it.  It was an awfully fuzzy butterfly, with antennae that must have been twice as long as its body.

It wasn’t alone, either.  Butterflies were all over the streets.  All of them were fuzzy like the one on Pinkie’s mane, but the colors varied wildly.

“Oh, hey Bubblegum!”  A friendly voice called out to her.  Pinkie looked over to see Mrs. Cane, her favorite asparagus-flavored candy stand pony in the world, waving at her from her asparagus-flavored candy stand.  “How are you today?  I haven’t seen you in days.  I missed you.”

Whenever ponies asked, and they did, Pinkie just told them that she was Bubblegum Lollipop, a professional Pinkie Pie impersonator.  It was a great cover if you think about it.

“I missed me more, trust me!”  Pinkie waved to her before trotting over, bringing her butterfly passenger with her. “I’m doing great as always!  There are a lot of butterflies today, though. Where did they come from?”

“Oh, we always get a ton of them near the end of summer.  These little guys all come out of their cocoons at the same time each year, see?”

“I guess I haven’t been here long enough to see.”  Pinkie blew the butterfly off her mane and sent it on her way.  “But I gotta go.  I’m visiting the orphanage again.”

She waved goodbye to Mrs. Cane and hello to everypony she passed on the way to the orphanage.

When she finally got there, the orphan master greeted her with his trademark grunt.

“Finally,” said Gruel Bowl. “I needed somepony to distract these kids while I go make the gruel.  It’s like they never get enough gruel.”

The orphans didn’t wait for Pinkie to come up to them.  A few of them were already waiting at the top of the stairs and came running down to greet her.

“Thank you so much, Bubblegum!”  Bootstraps jumped up to Pinkie and hugged her.  “If it weren’t for you, we’d have to go make gruel too.

“Yeah!  You’re my favorite Pinkie Pie impersonator of all the ones that come to visit us,” said Stock Breaker.

“Well, thanks.”  Pinkie patted him on the head.  “But how many Pinkie Pie impersonators even are there?”

“A lot.”  Gruel Bowl rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes.  “Like a lot a lot now that I think about it.”

“Well as long as it’s not suspiciously high.”  Pinkie chuckled and looked away.

“No.  No, it is a suspicious number.  A very suspicious number.”

“Well, dyuh-“ Pinkie’s mind reeled for a dodge and her training came through.  “Well, it’s not like we get paid enough to be suspicious about things, right?”

“Hehe!  You got that right, kiddo.”  Gruel Bowl actually smiled.  “Only thing I get paid to do is feed gruel to orphans!  Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He put his gruel hat on and went off to the basement.

“Well I’m watching you for the next couple of hours,” said Pinkie.

“Princess Twilight donated this book to us!”  Bootstraps brought a book over to Pinkie in his mouth.

Pinkie looked over the book.

“Practical Morals for Starving Orphans, huh?”  Pinkie read the title.  The cover claimed Twilight had written this book herself 

“Yeah!  I could use some more morals!”  Stock Breaker enthused.

“Well of course I’ll read to you kiddos!”  Pinkie laughed and cracked the book open.  “Once upon a time, there a turtle who, due to complex socioeconomic factors, only had five hundred dollars in savings despite years of hard work.  One day, on his way to the turtle factory, he came across a rabbit who was selling municipal bonds and…”

Pinkie spent hours reading to them.  They kept asking her to read book after book and she gave in every time, staying longer and longer.

And she wanted to too.  Somehow, in this form, making them happy was enough.  She didn’t need to stab them in the back or suck out their love.  She could just let them be happy.

“And the turtle cried so much that he drowned in his own tears and died!  The moral of the story is that the optimal percentage of your savings to put into stocks is equal to one hundred minus your current age, making increasingly conservative investments as you near retirement.”  Pinkie closed the book and gave it a curious look. “Huh.  These morals are a lot more practical than the ones I used to get.” 

“Do you think I’ll have a 401K someday?”  Stock Breaker asked.

“With a name like Stock Breaker, I’m sure you’ll have all kinds K’s.”

“Oh, wow!  Having somepony believe in me is the best!”

“Dyah.  I love you kids too much!  I could stay here all night and-“

Gear Grinder! Chrysalis’s voice boomed into her mind.

This was bad!  Pinkie lost track of time and was going to be late for the work Chrysalis was going to make her do.

“Er-!  Actually, I couldn’t.”  Pinkie threw the book and stood up.  “Sorry Gruel Bowl, I gotta run.”

Everypony let out a disappointed sight, including Gruel Bowl who had long since gotten back but had been taking the opportunity to slack off.

“Aw, man.”  Gruel Bowl looked up from his newspaper.  “That means I gotta go back to watching these kids.

“Yep! I just remembered I have an appointment,” Pinkie walked backward to the door.  “Important ponytarian stuff.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing now?”  Gruel asked.

“No, this is way more important! It’s uh-“  Pinkie stood in the doorway, trying to think what trumped orphans.  “I gotta donate blood to starving puppies.  You know how puppies get.  Bye!”

And she got the buck out of there before anypony would ask any more questions.

Chrysalis was already mentally shouting obscenities straight into Pinkie’s brain.  She was in so much trouble.  She got outside and into a back alley as soon as she could.  The sun had already gone down, which meant Pinkie should have started her shift with Chrysalis already.

“Forgive me, my queen,” Pinkie responded to her.  “I couldn’t talk without compromising my identity.”

“That’s no excuse! Your worthlessness is the only explanation I’ll accept!”  Chrysalis responded.  “And why are you disguised as that pink one?  What’s her name? Pine-kay Pea?”

Pinkie forgot to turn back! This was bad!

“I was just spying on some ponies,” Pinkie gave the first excuse she could think of.  “I realized that you were right about me not working hard enough, so I decided to wake up and start working early.”

“Well just don’t think this in any way makes up for your incompetence.  But I’ll let it slide because you’re already where I need you to be,” said Chrysalis. “I need you to do more sabotaging tonight.  Another one of my agents dropped off a barrel of radioactive waste on the roof of an orphanage.  But they didn’t get a chance to dump it into that water thing on top of the building. That’s what you’re going to do.” 

“What?”  Pinkie looked back at the orphanage and whimpered, remembering the happy faces of those poor orphan ponies.  “Th-those orphans?”

“If there’s another orphanage across the street you could do that one instead.”

Pinkie looked across the street, but sadly there wasn’t.

“But why are we irradiating orphans?”  Pinkie asked. “That doesn’t sound like it’d help us in any way.  Shouldn’t I irradiate Celestia or something?”

“How dare you try to think about things!”  Chrysalis shouted back.  “Are you the one who thinks about what makes sense?  Or are you the one who mindlessly obeys everything I tell them to do?”

“The- the second one.” 

“Exactly.  I’m queen because I’m smart enough to know these things. Orphans are the most likely to become badass heroes.  I need to take them out now before they become a threat.  It’s a long-term plan, that sort that you need brains to come up with.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Besides you’re not smart enough to irradiate Celestia.  And for asking that question, I’m putting you on double shifts for the next month.”

“I’m already on double shifts for the next four months, ma’am.”

“Well now it’s five. Try to learn something.”

And then Chrysalis closed out.

Pinkie stared up at the orphanage and felt sad for the first time in this form.  Pinkie wanted to make them happy, not radioactive!  Poor Bootstraps couldn’t smile if he was radioactive. The real Pinkie would never poison literal orphans.  Not unless they were really, really evil orphans.

But, no matter how much she fantasized about it, Gear Grinder wasn’t actually Pinkie Pie.  She was a horrible person.

At least she could still be in Pinkie form for this job.  That always made her feel better, even at horrible times like this.

Pinkie turned into a pegasus and flew up to the roof before turning back.  Sure enough, she found a barrel full of glowing green slime.  That was totally it.  With a sigh, she pushed it over and began rolling it towards the water tower on the other end of the roof.

About halfway there, somepony jumped out of the shadows and punched Pinkie hard in the face, sending her to the ground.  Not giving her a moment to recover, her assailant tackled Pinkie, slamming a hoof down onto her chest.

Pinkie was pinned, but she finally managed to get a look at her attacker.  Her jaw dropped when she saw who it was.

Pinkie Pie!

And not just your everyday normal Pinkie Pie.  No, today she was wearing a black cape that waved behind her heroically, blown by the sheer amazingness that was Pinkie Pie!

Pinkie stared up at the real Pinkie in awe of her presence.  She’d spent years dreaming about how amazing it would be to run into the real Pinkie Pie again.  And it was amazing!

But then she realized that actually this was the worst possible pony to run into!

“This isn’t what it looks like!”  Bubblegum (she couldn’t pretend to be Pinkie right now) tried to wipe the small bit of blood from the corner of her mouth. “I can explain!”

“You can explain that you’re a changeling impersonating the real Pinkie Pie?”  Pinkie glared down at her.  “Or is there something else you wanted to explain?”

Pinkie still maybe didn’t know about the toxic waste!  It was possible she just punched her for no apparent reason, other than looking like her of course.

“You don’t understand! I uh- fell into a Pinkie Pie costume factory and the zipper melted off!  Completely vaporized so I can’t get it off like ever,” said Bubblegum.  “Or actually I guess I just bought it and then the zipper vaporized, cause that makes more sense, right?”

“Oh yeah?”  Pinkie pushed her hoof down on Bubblegum’s chest harder and loomed.  “And did this store have a buy one, dump radioactive waste into the drinking water, get one free policy?!”

“Er- yes?”  Bubblegum made the worst attempt at a smile in history.

It did not work.  The jig was up!

“I’m sorry!” Bubblegum threw herself at the mercy of Pinkie.  “I never wanted to do all those horrible things!  Chrysalis made me.  I want to be like you, spreading joy and laughter through the world, but if I do Chrysalis is going to throw me in jail or kill me or maybe even throw me in jail and then kill me in the jail she threw me in!  Please don’t kill me.  That death would be too ironic!”

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you.”  Pinkie took a step back, off of Bubblegum.  She engulfed herself in green fire, changing back to her changeling form. “See, I’m a changeling too.”

“Oh!  I uh-!”  Bubblegum got back up and brushed herself off.  “I was just saying all that to get Pinkie to not kill me.  I don’t have to tell you how much fun it is to stab these ponies in the back after a good sob story, right?  Hehe.  Praise Chrysalis and all that.”

“But I’m a rogue changeling.”  The changeling flashed back to Pinkie.  “Not one of Chrysalis’s lackeys.”

“I was just saying that part about uh-“  Bubblegum already lost her script.

“Let me guess as to what’s happening here.”  The fake Pinkie flipped her cape and started trotting towards the edge of the roof.  “You were one of the changelings who attacked Canterlot and you turned into Pinkie Pie during the fight.”

“Well-“  it wasn’t like denying that now would help her. “Yeah.”

“And the moment you turned into Pinkie Pie it was like a weight was taken off your heart.  It was the single biggest rush of fun and excitement you ever had.”

“Yes.”  Bubblegum nodded enthusiastically.  She had no idea somepony could relate.  “It was amazing.  Like the first time I’d ever felt happiness at all.”

“And from then on you’ve been addicted to that feeling.  You wanted to be Pinkie Pie all the time.  You found that making other ponies happy, throwing parties, making smiles, makes you happier than anything else you’ve ever done.”

“Yeah!”  Bubblegum continued for her.  “And everything not-Pinkie related just seems too grey and boring.  When I’m not pinkie everything is just so horrible.  It was always horrible, but now that I know what it’s like to be Pinkie it’s even worse.”

“Like it’s all just a bunch of sugar-free bland flakes that have been left in spoiled milk so long that it’s all just mush and you can’t tell the bland from the flakes anymore.” Pinkie looked off the edge of the building, her cape flapping in the wind.  “You just can’t bear to not be Pinkie Pie anymore.”

“Exactly!  You do get me.”  Bubblegum ran over to the fake Pinkie’s side.  “I had no idea someone else went through the same thing!  It’s so exciting to-

“And!  You eventually realized what a horrible person you used to be. That the things you’ve done are unforgivable.  How unlike Pinkie you really were, how it was wrong for you to have ever fought against her in the first place.  And you swore to spend the rest of your life making up for it.” Pinkie turned back with a harsh glare.  “Right?”

“I-“  Bubblegum took a step back. “Not so much that last part.” 

“Yeah, I figured.” Pinkie brushed passed Bubblegum, moving back towards the radioactive waste.  “We’re not too different.  They call me Pinkie Two, cause I’m the first changeling to ever turn into Pinkie Pie.”

“Really?”  Bubblegum felt like she was meeting a celebrity, though not one as good as the original Pinkie.

“I was supposed to kidnap and replace her when she was just a filly but shortly after I changed into Pinkie, well, I’m sure you know the feeling right?” Pinkie Two laughed and looked down at the barrel as if lining it up for something.  “It took me one day to realize that depriving the world of Pinkie Pie would be the worst possible thing I could ever do.  So, I busted Pinkie out of her prison.”

Pinkie Two gave the barrel of radioactive was a hard buck, sending it off the roof and landing in the dumpster down below.

“But I realized that wasn’t enough,” Pinkie Two said.  “To make up for my past crimes, I decided to devote my life to helping Pinkie Pie from the shadows.  Spreading her ideals of laughter and fun, finding Pinkies lost baking utensils for her, beating up villains and occasionally helping her save the world and stuff.”

“Oh wow!  You’re so cool!  You’re basically living my dream and I-“ Bubblegum‘s mane deflated a little. “You’re gonna beat me up and throw me in jail now aren’t you?”

Pinkie Two gave a hum that ended with a “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I run into wanna-be Pinkies all the time.”  Pinkie Two trotted back to Bubblegum.  “Part of my job is taking wayward Pinkies like you and reforming them into true Pinkie Pies, ones who can spread the joy and laughter of Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie Two held her hoof out to Bubblegum in offer.

“Do you want to be a good pony?”  Pinkie Two asked.

“Yes!”  Bubblegum collapsed again into a bow, tears in her eyes. “Yes, more than anything in the world. I hate myself so much.  I want to be good like Pinkie is so bad, but I’m too weak.  Can- can you really help even me?”

“I can.”  Pinkie Two grabbed by her withers and pulled her back to a standing position.  “But if you come with me now, you’ll never be able to go back to Chrysalis again. You’ll be giving up your old life.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”  Bubblegum wiped a tear from her eye.  “Of course, I want to leave that behind.  I hate my old life!  I’ll do anything you ask me to.”

“Ha!  I get that one a lot, though most potential Pinkies want to actually see our secret base before they sign up.”

“Huh?  Secret base?  You mean there’s more of us?”  Bubblegum asked.  “A base filled with Pinkie Pie changelings?  How does this keep getting better?!”

“Oh, gee.  Didn’t even tell you that part.  Silly me.”  Pinkie Two knocked her own head.  “We’re the Pinkie Secret Society Team, of PSST.  We do all kinds of stuff.  If you want, you can look around before signing up.  Unless you’re one of those crazy ponies who signs long contracts without even reading them!”

“What?  Oh no, totally not.”  Pinkie said, though secretly she had done that several times.

“Then follow me!” Pinkie Two turned, flaring out her cape.

She ran to the edge of the building and jumped off the ledge, reaching the wall of the next building over.  She then ran up the side of the wall and pulled herself up onto the roof, then turned back to Bubblegum, actually expecting her to follow.

“Yeah,” said Bubblegum. “I can’t even almost do that.”

“You can fly.”

“Oh!  Right.”

Pinkie turned into a pegasus and flew across the gap.  Pinkie Two immediately ran off again, pulling off all kinds of crazy parkour moves as they went from building to building.  Even with flight, keeping up with her was far from easy, but Pinkie Two would always stop to wait when she got too far ahead.

Fear and excitement were coursing through her blood.  She couldn’t believe she was actually doing this!  There were so many times Bubblegum had dreamed about running away from Chrysalis like this, but she’d never had any way out until now.  Chrysalis would literally kill her if she even suggested it.

Bubblegum kept looking around to make sure Chrysalis and her lackeys weren’t around, the back of her mind certain they’d show up.  But they didn’t by the time they got to where they were going.

The secret base, it seemed, was hidden somewhere in a shipping lot, filled with row after row of train cargo cars.  There was a corner filled with rusty cars that Pinkie Two took her to.

“See the part of the trick was to hide it under something nopony would ever go looking for.” Pinkie Two stopped in front of one of the cars.

The freight car was painted blue and decorated with a picture of a blue unicorn Bubblegum had never seen before.  Above the unicorn were the words ‘The Great and Powerful Trixies’ Great and Powerful doll with Great and Powerful Kungfu grip!’

There was an asterisk next to that last part, reminding you that ‘great and powerful’ was subjective and that the dolls did not, in fact, have Kungfu grip.

A few of these dolls spilled out as Pinkie Two opened the car.  She pushed aside a bunch of them to get to a trap door on the floor.

Going through this led to an elevator with open sides so that you could see the cement tunnel it sat inside, like something that would lead down into a mine.  A single lantern sat in the middle of it, dimly lighting the room.

Pinkie Two pulled a lever and the elevator went plunging down into the ground, the walls outside the elevator moving rapidly enough for Bubblegum to stumble momentarily and worry for her safety.

The two of them descended for a lot longer than Bubblegum was expecting, long enough for her to wonder a few things.

“Huh.  We’re going down really far.”  Bubblegum watched as the walls whizzed by.  “Is that to hide from Chrysalis?  Is she looking for us?”

“She’s looking for a few of us.  She’s been trying to kill Pinkie Three for ten years, though, so I don’t think you gotta worry about her finding.  Sides, she’d have to go through me.”  Pinkie Two clapped her hooves together.

“Oo!  There’s a Pinkie Three?  What crazy back story does she have?  Does she fight crime and break into other ponies’ houses with noble intentions too?”

“Oh, her backstory is completely identical to mine.  No reason to even go over it.”  Pinkie Two leaned against the lever.  “Then there’s Pinkie Four who also has the same back story.  Pinkie Five, same backstory.  Pinkie Six, exact same backstory again.  Then Pinkie Seven-”

“Let me guess,” said Bubblegum. “Same backstory?”

“Heh.”  Pinkie Two rolled her eyes.  “You know, it’s funny but everypony always interrupts me when I get to Pinkie Seven and she’s the first one that’s different!  She’s not even a changeling.”

“What there are non-changeling Pinkies here?”  Bubblegum scratched her head.  “Wait. What would a non-changeling Pinkie even be?”

“Oh sure!  There are four elemental types of Pinkies: alternate Pinkies, changeling Pinkies, Pinkie clones, and the Pinkiefied.  Pinkie Seven is an alternate version of Pinkie Pie, one who came from the future!”

“That’s incredible! How far in the future did she come from?”

“Like two years ago I think.”

“But you said-“

“It was the future at the time.”

“Oooooh.”

“But see she got stuck here in the past.  If she goes back to the future or meets this timeline’s Pinkie the entire space-time continuum will collapse in on itself erasing all of reality.”

“Um- Questions about that?” Bubblegum asked.

“Oh, don’t worry.  I’m letting her stay here and I dunno if you noticed yet, but we’re ridiculously far underground so we should be fine.” Pinkie Two pointed at the wall to show the depths they were still descending rapidly through.  “Actually, there’s a whole bunch of alternate-reality Pinkie Pies that show up.  I try to recruit the ones that can’t go back and reform the evil ones.  Some of them are from dimensions that exploded or they’re from one of those monkey planets.  I think we’re up to eighteen-dimensional subtypes now?”

“Eighteen dimensional subtypes?”

“Oh, silly me.  I should probably give you the book.” Pinkie Two flicked her mane and a book popped out and landed in her hooves.  “Bam!  Took me ten years to get that right.  This book explains all the different types of Pinkie Pies that you’re gonna run into and what you should and shouldn’t do when you run into them.”

Pinkie Two tossed the book over to Bubblegum.  Bubblegum read the title, “The Big Book of Pinkie Pies:  All Pinkies from P to P”.

“Um.”  Bubblegum flipped through the book.  There were a little over a hundred pages on this stuff. “Sorry, but how many Pinkie Pies are there, exactly?”

“I only know the ones who are part of the club, but going by that you’d be Pinkie Pie number sixteen-sixty-five.”

“Wait!  Sixteen hundred?!”

The elevator thunked to a halt and the doors slid open.

The two of them were now up on a platform that overlooked a small town made of dozens of buildings. The ceiling was so high above the buildings that it practically felt like they were outside and yet the whole thing was brilliantly light.

Everything about the town was brilliant.  The houses were painted in bright colors.  Balloons hung from every lamppost.  In the distance, there was what looked like a literal bounce castle, four stories tall with bounce turrets even!

Trees weren’t possible underground, but in their place, the Pinkies had erected candy trees.  Instead of leaves, they had candy canes and lollipops hanging from their plastic branches.

And in the center of it all was a massive statue of Pinkie Pie herself.  Though it could have also been literally any other pony in the entire town, given they all looked the same.

“Welcome to Pinkieopolis!” Pinkie Two stepped out of the elevator. “The Pinkie Pie Paradise for Pinkies, by Pinkies!”

Bubblegum, or perhaps Pinkie 1665 as she wasn’t sure which one she liked more right now, looked out in awe.

Pinkie 1665 took one step out of the elevator and twenty party canons swung out of the wall and pointed straight at her.  Pinkie 1665 stood very still for a moment, unsure if they were there to welcome her or kill her.

“Just some security.” Pinkie Two waved and the canons retracted.  “We get a few meanie-pants who don’t like what we do is all.”

Pinkie Two jumped onto a spiral slide leading down to the town below.  Pinkie 1665 slid down after her, landing in a ball pit that cushioned her fall at the end.

There were dozens of Pinkies everywhere!  Pinkie Pies were bouncing down the inflatable sidewalks, Pinkies floating through the air on balloons, and Pinkies playing music in the streets.

Not all of them were completely identical, as she did notice a Pinkie with bat wings flying around a little ways off and one of them looked like a robot.  But for the most part, it was like being surrounded by Pinkie Pie.

“This place is amazing!”  Pinkie 1665 marveled at the rainbow overhead.  “How do you get rainbows underground?  I thought they get all mushy if you don’t have sunlight to dry them out.”

“Spectral rainbows made entirely of light,” Pinkie Two said proudly, “generated by our advanced rainbow generator technology built in our own rainbow factory.  And before you ask, it’s a vegan rainbow factory.  No need to worry.”

“A spectral rainbow?” Pinkie 1665 tried walking up to one and poking it.  Sure enough, her hoof went straight through it without getting wet.  “Wow!  I’ve never even heard of that.”

“We invented it ourselves. We develop all kinds of neat gear as part of our operations.  Come on, I’ll show you the command room.”

Pinkie Two jumped onto a trampoline by the sidewalk, bouncing her up with surprising force to a door carved out in the wall of the cave Pinkie had briefly forgotten they were in. Pinkie 1665 followed, finding the trampoline was far springier than a normal one.  She got thrown up towards the door, nearly crashing into the top of it, but she managed to duck her head down and make a crash landing inside the room.

Pinkie Two pulled her up and lead her to a bustling room filled with Pinkie Pie manning various stations.  They were clearly monitoring stations, with TVs hooked up to cameras in various cities or else devices Pinkie 1665 didn’t recognize giving readouts she couldn’t possibly understand.  Pinkie Pies carefully watched readings on various printouts, the noise of the printers filling the room.  Occasionally, a Pinkie Pie would pop down from a trap door in the ceiling and throw a paper airplane down at one of the others.

“This is the heart of our intelligence network.”  Pinkie Two strode into the room and knocked an incoming paper airplane out of the way. “We have all the most advanced spying equipment down here, including stuff we invented ourselves.  Over there is our advanced cupcake monitoring equipment or ACME.”

Pinkie Two pointed at another device.

There was a cupcake inside what looked like an oven, only the cupcake had all kinds of wires attached to it and lasers pointing straight at it.  Another Pinkie Pie sat in front of the system, watching the readings being printed out on four separate printers.

“Still a cupcake boss!” The Pinkie at the station gave Pinkie Two a little salute.

“Keep up the good work.” Pinkie Two gave her a pat on the back before continuing on.  “Here, we monitor all the emergencies Pinkie Pie gets involved in as well as track every pony on the entire planet who needs parties and or laughter.”

Pinkie looked up at a wall of TVs the two were now standing in front of, the left half was the Pinkie-cam and the right half was the Party-cam.  Pinkie paid attention to the cameras on the left, which were following several different Pinkies in several different cities, including two in Ponyville so that Pinkie couldn’t tell who the real Pinkie Pie was.

As the Pinkie Pies moved around, the shot followed them as though they had a camera hidden on every street corner.

“This looks mildly impossible,” said Pinkie 1665.  “Or do you seriously have cameras set up all over Equestria?  In ponies’ houses even?”

And those party cams actually were inside various pony’s houses.

“Ha!  Those aren’t cameras, silly.”  Pinkie Two draped her foreleg over Pinkie’s shoulder.  “And therefore not creepy?”

“Then what-“

“That’s just Pinkie 667 on your team!”  Pinkie Two pointed over at yet another Pinkie Pie working at the station.  She was wearing a helmet with a bunch of wires attached to it and staring intently at all the screens.  “See one time an ancient Sumerian god from another dimension appeared and told us to choose the form of the destructor.  So obviously we chose Pinkie Pie.”

“I decided I like throwing parties more than unleashing an unyielding cataclysm of torment upon the living,” said Pinkie 667 in a rather chipper tone, without looking away from the screens, “so now I use my cosmic powers to do that!  I take care of monitoring Pinkie Pie and whenever there’s a party emergency, I’m there to materialize cake and streamers into existence as needed.”

“But if you have cosmic powers, couldn’t you cure pony aids or something?”  Pinkie 1665 asked.

“Not fun.”  The Pinkie god shook her head and went back to work.

“I think we should just take what we can get.”  Pinkie Two quickly whispered in Pinkie 1665’s ear.  “Come one.”

Pinkie Two led them into another area with fewer techno do-dads and more display cases.

“Over there are all the evil magical artifacts that we took from all the evil Pinkie Pies we beat up.” Pinkie Two pointed to the left, where there was a glass wall blocking off the evil artifact ward, guarded by yet another Pinkie.  “We’re not gonna go in there for obvious reasons.”

Pinkie 1665 was able to see a few things inside the containment ward through the glass, though. What grabbed her the most was what looked like an entire shelf filled with Pinkie Pie’s Element of Laughter gem, but the labels beneath them showed they weren’t the same.  Some of the ones she had time to read included the Element of Sorrow, Element of Boredom, Element of Cringe, Element of Hiccups, Element of Apathy, and Element of Laughing at you rather than with you.

And there were almost thirty like that.  Pinkie Two must have gotten in more fights than she’d initially expected.

“And down here is our research lab.”  Pinkie Two reached a glass wall.  On the other side, Pinkie 1665 could see even more Pinkies mixing flasks, studying balloons with strange devices, and looking at objects with microscopes.  Things exploded fairly regularly, but they bounced back fast.  “Right now, we’re working on things like intercontinental party canons, self-streaming streamers, and something we’re close on- the bottomless cake!”

Pinkie Two tapped on the glass to point to one of the science Pinkies.  The Pinkie Pie inside the testing chamber cut out a piece of cake. Her slice remained and the cake regrew, becoming whole again.  She cut it two more times to get three slices of cake and a whole cake.  But when she went to cut it a fourth time, the whole thing exploded into green slime.

“We don’t have non-explody version of it, but we’re close.”  Pinkie Two turned her back against the glass.  “Then you really will be able to eat your cake and have it too.”

“That’s amazing!” Pinkie pressed up against the glass to marvel at the achievement.  “You could end world hunger with this.  Feed all the starving horses in Saddle Arabia and Stalliongradde.  Though I guess then they might get fat cause they’re only eating cake.”

“And also!”  Pinkie Two interrupted.  “At a party, you’ll never have to worry about extra guests showing up and not having enough cake.  Party optimization!  That’s the real advantage.”

“How are you able to make such advanced stuff though?”  Pinkie 1665, still pressed against the glass, looked back at Pinkie Two.  “Even if there are a lot of you, this is more than I’d expect most nations to be able to do.”

“See that Pinkie over there?”  Pinkie Two pointed to a Pinkie running on a treadmill.

She had all kinds of wires hooked up to her, including a big helmet with flashing lights on it and a metal clamp on her tail.  Behind her was a second Pinkie Pie in a lab coat 

“That’s one of our Pinkie Pie clones,” said Pinkie Two.  “Pinkie Clones are the third elemental type of Pinkie Pie.  We regularly scan them to learn the inner workings of Pinkie Pie. It’s thanks to them we’ve managed to create pocket dimensions in our manes and learned to slide up slides.  We’ve discovered all kinds of physical thingamajigs thanks to them.” 

“Wait!”  Pinkie 1665 objected.  “You cloned Pinkie Pie?  I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Oh no, that’d be weird. They’re from the mirror pool incident,” Pinkie Two said confidently enough.  

“The what?”

“You don’t know about it?” Pinkie Two gave Pinkie 1665 a look of disturbed pity.  “You really are behind on your Pinkieology.  Well, Pinkie made hundreds of clones of herself with a magic pool once.  But then Twilight Sparkle showed up.  She forced them to watch paint dry and then slaughtered them all!  Thankfully, we were able to save a bunch of them first.  Cause you can never have too many Pinkie Pies.”

“Did you say Twilight?” A nearby box opened just slightly enough for one of the Pinkie clones to pop her head out of.  “She’s not here, is she?”

“No need to worry.” Pinkie Two patted the new Pinkie on the head.  “This is a Twilight-free zone.”

Pinkie Two pulled her out of the box, but the Pinkie clone still shied away behind her at the presence of an unfamiliar Pinkie.

“This is Pinkie 987.  She’s a little traumatized, but a good scientist.” Pinkie Two put a foreleg around her and turned to Pinkie.  “And this is our newest Pinkie Pie!  Pinkie 1665!”

“Really?”  Pinkie 987 cautiously came out from behind Pinkie Two.  “I love other Pinkie Pies.  Do you like fun?”

Pinkie Two looked like she was about to say something, but Pinkie 1665 answered before she could.

“Well sure, fun is the funnest thing to every fun.”  She said, trying to act more like Pinkie.

Pinkie 987 liked that answer.  Like way, way too much.  Her smile became enormous and soon she was shaking in place with excitement.  Before Pinkie 1665 was able to finish her answer, 987 started jumping up and down.

“Fun!”  She shouted.  “Fun fun fun!”

The Pinkie clone was soon jumping around the room shouting ‘fun’ as loudly as she could, recklessly knocking over things of questionable importance.

Pinkie Two was fast, pronking into action and tackling the Pinkie clone before it could do too much damage.  She kept it pinned on the ground, with a hoof over its muzzle.

“Breath.”  Pinkie Two said.  “Remember your training.”

It took a moment, but the Pinkie clone did calm down and stopped struggling, at which point Pinkie Two let her go.

“Pinkies clones can get a little overexcited if you use the f-word too much,” Pinkie Two said.  “But they’re mostly harmless.  Sure, if they get their hooves on any kind of replication device while they’re like that they’ll create trillions of copies of themselves, overrunning dimension after dimension, but other than that they’re fine.”

“What?  That sounds kinda dangerous.  Are you sure Twilight didn’t destroy them for a reason?”  Pinkie 1665 asked.

“I’m really sorry about that.”  The clone got back to her feet.  “Y-you’re not gonna kill me, are you?”

“Huh?  N-no.”  Pinkie 1665 bowed her head.  She was about to say maybe Twilight had a point, but it was hard to tell somepony they were too dangerous to live right in front of them.  “I’m surprised at all the animosity towards Twilight, though. Maybe-!”

“Whoop!”  Pinkie Two lifted a hoof to silence her.  “Pinkie would not use the word ‘animosity’.  Not unless she was alliterating, at which point her vocabulary become infinite.  Here’s a copy of the pinktionary.”

Pinkie Two flipped a second book out of her mane, one that Pinkie 1665 barely managed to catch.  The back of it promised that the book listed every word and turn of phrase Pinkie has or ever would use.

“Okay.”  Pinkie 1665 was hardly comfortable with the idea of a pinktionary, but could only focus on one weird thing at a time.  “But isn’t Twilight on your side?  Like, maybe you should talk to her about this?”

“We don’t talk to Twilight,” said Pinkie Two.  “Like ever. She doesn’t know we exist and she doesn’t need to know either.”

“Twilight doesn’t know about you guys?  So Pinkie’s been keeping all this a secret from her friends this whole time?”

“Well.  Funny thing about that.”  Pinkie Two chuckled to herself.  “Pinkie Pie doesn’t entirely know about us either.  Or like at all.”

“Wait.  Pinkie Pie doesn’t know about all this?”  Pinkie gestured to the city outside the window.  “Why haven’t you told her she has an army of Pinkies hanging around?  Wouldn’t you be able to help her better if she knew you existed?”

“No!”  Pinkie Two stomped her hoof down firmly.  “Absolutely not!  We got a few rules and number one is never talking to Pinkie Prime.”

“But… why?  She’s the most amazing, wonderful pony who ever lived, right?”

“Now listen, I’ve been studying Pinkie Pie for almost two decades now.  I know exactly how these things go down.”  Pinkie Two walked across the room and pulled down a chart, with the needed diagram already conveniently written out.  She took out a stick and pointed at a picture of an elated Pinkie Pie. “Initially Pinkie Pie would be all ‘wow, this is amazing!’  We’d be way more efficient than we are now and everypony would be super happy.”

“Well, that sounds good.”

“But then!”  Pinkie Two smacked the next picture of the diagram, a picture of a few Pinkie dressed as maids waiting on the presumably real Pinkie Pie.  “Pinkie would slowly get more used to bossing us around and eventually start having us do her chores and stuff.  That’s when Twilight would show up.”

The Pinkie Pie clone booed at Twilight when Pinkie Two pointed to the next picture of Twilight lecturing Pinkie Pie.

“Twilight would tell Pinkie she’s going overboard.  A few of us would start annoying some of her friends, but before we can learn how to not annoy them, one of us would do something stupid.”  The next image was of a Pinkie Pie dropping a Faberge egg. “Then Twilight would teach us some kind of lesson about being yourself or something, then we would learn that lesson.  And then finally, having learned some lesson about being ourselves, we would never ever get to be Pinkie Pie again forever.  Not oneever, not twoever, but forever.  That be the worst possible thing.  I can’t live as not-Pinkie!”

“Also, Twilight would maybe kill us clones.”  Pinkie 987 raised her hoof.  “And the world might end cause of the Pinkie Seven thing.”

“Oh, yeah.  That too.  That’d just be icing on the cake.”  Pinkie Two nodded in agreement.  “But like bad icing on a bad cake.”

“Well-“  it did sound like Pinkie learning about this place would be dangerous, though it would be comforting for someone with better priorities to be in charge.  “It just seems wrong that Pinkie doesn’t know about all this.”

“I’ve studied Pinkie my whole life!  I know she’d be fine with it.”  Pinkie Two put a hoof around 1665’s back.  “Pinkie Pie wants to spread laughter and parties through the world and that’s what we do!  Isn’t that what you want to do too?”

Pinkie 1665 looked out through the window to the city below.  She tried to imagine a better place than this but couldn’t.  Maybe it did have a few flaws, but that wasn’t anything she couldn’t overlook, not when she was Pinkie Pie!

“Yeah.”  Pinkie 1665 nodded with confidence.

“Then you’re training starts tomorrow.”
> Chapter Two:  Pinkie One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wake up!”

Pinkie 1665 flailed in her new bed, nearly falling off.  She awoke to find Pinkie Two, still wearing the cape, jumping up and down on her bed excitedly.

As it turned out, the Pinkies had plenty of spare rooms lying around in anticipation of new Pinkie Pie recruits.  Though it was literally just a room, it was several times larger than 1665’s old apartment. Much better location, too.

She looked over at her clock, wondering if she overslept only to find it was barely past five.

“It’s like five in the morning.”  Pinkie 1665 was about to complain that the sun wasn’t even out yet, but then remembered that she was underground.

“Pinkie wakes up every day at 5:13 AM and from now on, so do you Pinkie 1665!”  Pinkie Two kept up her bouncing with far too much enthusiasm.  “You gotta start getting into more Pinkie-habits.”

“I do?”  Pinkie 1665 had little choice but to come out of the covers through the onslaught of bounces.  “I mean, just because Pinkie wakes up at a certain time doesn’t mean I have to.  Does it?”

“Oh, it absolutely does. This is a vital part of your reformation!  You gotta be as Pinkie as you can be.”  Pinkie Two backflipped off the bed.  “Today’s the first day of your Pinkie Pie training!  If you wanna be part of our organization, you gotta work on your skills. Beating you up was way too easy.  Come on!”

With that, Pinkie Two dashed outside.  Pinkie 1665 got out of bed more slowly, rubbing her weary eyes.  It was still too early to be Pinkie, but sleep deprivation was something she was used to.  If anything, this was more than she normally got.

As she walked outside, Pinkie 1665 noticed the artificial lighting hadn’t gone all the way back up it.  It looked like they dimmed it depending on the time of day, a dull red currently covering the distant ceiling.

“But wait.”  Pinkie 1665’s brain was starting to work.  “If it’s five thirteen now and you wake up at five thirteen then… how did get here in under a minute?”

“Oh, my little pony I have so much to teach you.”  Pinkie Two was already stretching, getting ready for whatever training she’d prepared. “Trust me, one week of training and you won’t even give something as silly as temporal distortion a second thought.”

“I can really learn to do that kind of thing?”  Pinkie 1665 asked.

“Yep!  But the training is intense.  One hundred pushups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred cupcakes, followed by a ten-kilometer pronk every day!  You gotta train till your hair become non-Euclidian and you can ignore gravity at will!”

“Uh- Yeah!”  Pinkie 1665 worked up some enthusiasm.  Who the heck wouldn’t want to be able to do that kind of stuff?

But her enthusiasm wasn’t enough.

The training was far more brutal than what Pinkie Two had just said a second ago.  A hundred sit-ups sounded relaxing by the time she was done. She spent several hours trying to shatter rocks with her bare hooves, climbing up rock walls then trying to slowfall back down and trying to pogo-stick around with her tail.

The worst was trying to slide up the slide.  Just trying the technique was exhausting.  Pinkie 1665 was completely floored and she didn’t even get up a single inch.  The real Pinkie Pie must have been some kind of cardio champion to do it.

She would have complained all that stuff was impossible, but then there were over a thousand ponies here who could do it all with ease.

Pinkie 1665 laid on the ground, her pronking muscles dead, her body trying to convert to pure sweat, her lungs in full revolt.  Her muscles were going to be sore for days. 

“Hm.”  Pinkie Two stood over her, unimpressed and not tired at all despite going through the same regime.  “I guess that’s as far as you can go for now.  We can stop with today’s physical training.”

Pinkie 1665 finally got some relief from that.  By now the artificial sun was fully powered up and the world was bright.  Things didn’t seem so bad despite the pain.  Even a strict workout regime would be preferable to her old jobs.  Though, maybe that was just the Pinkie talking.

“Of course, that’s only one part of your Pinkie Pie training,” said Pinkie Two.  “We need to reform your character too if you’re going to truly follow the path of Pinkie Pie.  If you want to learn to be a good pony and spread laughter through the world, you need to learn to be more like Pinkie.”

Pinkie 1665 wanted to ask what she meant, but her lungs wouldn’t allow it.

“I only gave you the Pinktionary and the big book of Pinkies before, but I brought you the rest of them this time.  Here’s Pinkie Pie’s autobiography, her manual biography, A book about the Pinkieverse theory, The Virtue of Laughter, Your Interdimensional Hair and You, and Screw Physics.”

Pinkie Two pulled out a stack of books from her mane and slammed them down in front of the still-floored Pinkie 1665.  It was a lot of reading material, days’ worth.  Yet Pinkie Two reached into her mane and started pulling out even more.

“Book, book, pamphlet, book, leaflet, the past eighty-three issues of the Pinkie Inquirer, a few of the more important newsletters, three more books, and a bumper sticker!”  Pinkie Two slapped the bumper sticker across Pinkie’s forehead, which of course meant Pinkie 1665 couldn’t see what it said. “You don’t actually have to read the bumper sticker.  The joke on it’s not that funny.” 

“Ehhh…”  Pinkie pulled herself up only to find herself surrounded by books on all sides.  “I don’t think Pinkie would actually go through this many books.”

“Now you’re getting it, sister!”  Pinkie Two bumped her flank up against Pinkie 1665’s, causing all the books and pamphlets to fall onto the ground.

Pinkie 1665 looked at a few of them.  The subjects were awfully pedantic, though she knew that word wasn’t in the Pinktionary. There was a ‘present biography’, which listed every present Pinkie had given or received.

Then she got to a book literally called ‘Pedantic particulars of Pinkie Pie’s Parties’, which was just long lists of things Pinkie had ever done at a party, down to bathroom frequency checks and percentage of time sitting down.

“I’ve been detailing every facet of Pinkie Pie’s life since she was four.”  Pinkie Two said rather proudly when she saw Pinkie 1665 go for the book.  “I’ve listed everything Pinkie’s eaten since then, every hairstyle she’s had, every gift she’s ever given etc. etc.  all vital information.”

“Do I really need to know every bathroom Pinkie’s ever used, though?”  Pinkie 1665 flipped through the book.  “I’m not sure how that’s going to help.  I can’t believe I’m saying this but isn’t this an excessive amount of Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie Two choked back whatever her gut told her to say to that.

“Well you don’t need all of it,” she composed herself and said instead, “but it does help you become more Pinkie.  Besides, we never know what information we’re gonna need for our research.  You’ll understand soon enough, Pinkie 1665.”

“That’s another thing,” said Pinkie 1665.  “I was thinking maybe all of us being named Pinkie Pie is a little confusing and 1665 is a bit of a mouthful.  Maybe I should pick a new name for myself?  I was going by Bubblegum Lollipop, though maybe I should pick an even newer one so it’s harder for Chrysalis to track me just in case.”

Pinkie Two chuckled at the suggestion.

“Oh, we’ve had that conversation a lot.”  Pinkie Two wiped a tear from her eye.  “Trust me, you’re a lot better off just calling yourself Pinkie Pie from now on.”

“Yeah, but if everypony is doing it-?”

“You get used to it.”

“But isn’t it a little weird to-“

“For all of us to be taking the exact same form?  Yeah. It is.  But it’s also fun!  The most fun you can have for free!”

Pinkie 1665 couldn’t really object to that.

“The great thing about Pinkieopolis is that we don’t need to care about what’s weird here!”  Pinkie Two took a few steps forward and gestured out towards the city before her.  “We only have to care about what’s fun.  And what’s fun is being Pinkie Pie.  The more like her you are the happier you’ll be.  Tell me you haven’t noticed that?”

“Well-“ Pinkie 1665 considered that.  It was true that the more she acted like Pinkie the happier she was.  “It just seems kinda culty and off you know?  I just wanna make sure that I don’t have to keep the name Pinkie and talk and act exactly like her.  Right?”

“You don’t gotta do anything except be less be less of a meanie-gus.”  Pinkie Two pronked back and messed up Pinkie 1665’s hair.  “You wanna pick another name, that’s fine.  But you’ll probably come around to being just like Pinkie eventually.  Everypony does.  It’s more fun!”

“Well.  I guess as long as I don’t have to…”

“But you will.” Pinkie Two winked at her.  “But your job for today is to make two friends and do five nice things for other ponies.  Gotta practice your friendliness.”

That, at least, didn’t sound like any sort of culty thing.  In fact, it sounded like a good thing.

“I could do that.” Pinkie 1665 nodded.  “I think.”

“Good.  But you’re on your own for this part.  I got Pinkie of Shadows things to get up to.”  Pinkie Two flipped her cape so it hung in front of her muzzle, then backed away slowly.  “Report back to me at sundown.”

Pinkie 1665 looked out at the town stretching before her.  It would be good to get to explore it without Pinkie Two around, maybe get what was really what straight here.  So, she trotted down the streets looking for someplace to find friends.

As she thought about it, Pinkie really did like thinking of herself as Pinkie Pie, basically thought of herself as such all the time.  Maybe it was less of a cult thing and just part of the natural reaction to turning into Pinkie Pie.  She could maybe live with that.

And making friends and doing nice things was hardly something Pinkie was opposed to.  She was a lot more sociable when she was Pinkie Pie.

She got closer to the center of town and found herself surrounded by stores of all sorts.  She passed on the movie theater, gift store, and library, mostly cause that last one was nearly empty.

Then she saw Pinkie Pie’s Candy Bar and Arcade.  Calling it Pinkie Pie’s did not narrow down who owned it, but it seemed like a good enough place.  She’d always wanted to see a real candy bar.

As soon as she entered, she heard a Pinkie Pie shouting.

“Gimme another kool-aid!”  the Pinkie shouted at the bartender in a slurred voice.  She was slumped over the bar, her muzzle bright red.  Clearly, this Pinkie was drunk which honestly 1665 didn’t know how worried about that to be.

“You know kool-aid isn’t alcoholic, right?”  The bartender asked her.  “You can’t actually get drunk off it, Pinkie Seven.”

“Don’t tell me what can and can’t get me drunk!”  Pinkie Seven slurred.  “In the future, kool-aid is the most alcoholic beverage!  And we have doors that you can open and close any time that you want. And we got magnets and shiny shoes and-“

Pinkie Seven slumped face first into the bar, unconscious, and began snoring loudly, a big of drool leaking out of her.

“Should I be concerned about this?”  Pinkie 1665 asked the bartender.

“Nah, she does that. She’ll be fine!”

Pinkie 1665 decided maybe this wouldn’t be the best Pinkie to make friends with and not just because she was unconscious.

She scanned the crowd for a potential target, nearly all of whom looked identical.  Really, only two stuck out in any way.  They were still clearly Pinkie Pie, but more alternate than the others.  One of them had her mane, dyed with purple and black stripes, let down and straightened out.  This pinkie was covered in black jewelry and makeup.  She had a black shirt and skirt on, with the words ‘fun is boring’ printed on the former.

The second one had her mane up in more of a bun and wore thick glasses, but didn’t have nearly as many accessories as her friend.  A calculator strapped to her left hoof and a pin-on pocket protector (one with no pocket to protect) was it.  It was nice to see two ponies that weren’t overly Pinkie Pie.

The two of them were sitting at a table near a ‘Sugar Rush’ pinball machine.  The nerdy one’s attention slowly drifted towards its flashing light, but the goth got her attention back by hitting the table and giving her embarrassed friend a disapproving shake of the head.

The bartender Pinkie Pie zipped over to them on her swivel chair.

“Hey Pinkie!”  She said to them.  “You want some kool-aid?  I know you do cause that’s what I want and we’re the same pony!  Haha!”

“My name is Clementine.” Clementine, the one with the black hair and skirt, narrowed her eyes. “And I’ll have some extra bitter tea, hold the flavor, and your most sour grapes.”

“I don’t really know how to make tea extra bitter, but I’ll try.  Maybe if I shake it.”  The bartender zipped back to the bar on her swivel chair.

So there really were ponies here that didn’t use ‘Pinkie’ as their name!  She needed to talk to these two right away.

“Hey!”  Pinkie 1665 walked over to their table.  “I’m kinda new here.  I noticed that you two don’t call yourselves Pinkie Pie.”

“Yeah.  Tangerine and I aren’t exactly fans of Pinkie Pie,” said Clementine.

“Well- wait, you’re not?” The idea was enough to distract Pinkie 1665 from her first question.  “But how can you not like Pinkie?!  She’s the nicest and smartest pony in the universe!”

“Pinkie Pie created us then left us to die.” Tangerine hit the table hard enough to nearly knock over the bitter tea.  “She should rally us together into an army and then… then… uh!  I dunno!  Built a better mouse trap!  Something other than sending us back into the mirror pool!”

“Oh.  So you two are more clones.”  Pinkie 1665 nodded.  “I guess I can understand why you’d be upset about that episode.”

“Technically, I’m a clone of a clone of a clone,” Tangerine said rather proudly.  “Triclone.  Thrice removed from Pinkie.  I know thrice isn’t in the Pinktionary, but you’re just going to have to deal with that.”

Tangerine smirked and bumped hooves with Clementine.

“We don’t self-identify as Pinkie Pie.  We’re nothing like her at all.  I’m a lot more sophisticated, for example.”  Tangerine adjusted her glasses.  “See that?  Sophistication.”

“Yeah!  And I’m a realist!”  Clementine made an exaggerated grimace.  “No cheery attitude here.  Nope, I realize that the only balloons in life are black and filled with nails!  The only party I want to go to is a pity party of one, or even a party of zero if I can pull it off.”

The two not-Pinkies bumped their hooves together.

“The only reason we hang out with all these other Pinkies surrounded by their lame-o parties that we totally don’t want to go to is cause we’re hiding from Twilight,” said Clementine.  “If you have a problem with us not worshiping Pinkie Pie like the rest of you sheeponies then you’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Actually, I’m kind of relieved to hear all this.  I was worried this place was going to be cultier the longer I stayed until I couldn’t take it anymore and had to run away in fear.”  Pinkie 1665 chuckled.  “But actually!  I was thinking of using a non-Pinkie name too.  They don’t like, throw you in the hole if you do something like that, do they?”

“First of all, we’re kinda already in a hole.”  Tangerine adjusted her glasses and smirked.  “But, yeah, Pinkie Two constantly forces all that Pinkie stuff on us.”

“She’s always telling us that we need to be more like Pinkie.  She says our personalities are just us lying to ourselves out of spite and that we’ll never be happy unless we are more honest with our inner Pinkie nature.”  Clementine pointed at her gothic hair.  “She needs to understand that this is not just a phase, it’s who I am!”

“It’s like she wants us to be perfect little clones of Pinkie Pie,” said Tangerine.  “To be fair we are literally perfect little clones of Pinkie Pie, but still!  Just because we’re exactly like her doesn’t mean we have to be exactly like her.  We don’t have to be some fun-obsessed-”

“Don’t say the F-word,” Clementine whispered harshly in her ear.  “You might trigger us.”

“I mean,” Tangerine continued on, ignoring her friend, “as if I’d ever want to do something other than reading these incredibly thick books about ancient tax codes while eating eclectic foreign dishes with unpronounceable names.  As if studying zebra legal history isn’t the most boring thing ever.  It’s like I’d rather be reading pop-up books and eating candy and making balloon animals and- and-“

“Eh hehehe.”  Clementine forced a smile, then grabbed onto Tangerine, pulling her aside to whisper harshly to her. “I think you meant to say all that stuff is for stupid babies, right?  Adults love brussel sprouts and flossing their teeth!”

“I mean, do I want kool-aid more than this bitter tea?”  Tangerine asked with a cracking smile.  “Yes. Do I want to sing silly songs with simple succulent-?”

“You’re starting to alliterate!  You gotta snap out of it!”  Clementine gave her a shake.  “Parties are totally lame.  Pinkie is the worst!”

“No, I love parties!” Tangerine started to sob.  She waved over to the bartender.  “Pinkie 999!  I want some kool-aid!  Extra sugar and a balloon on top!”

“Tangerine!”

“Just call me Pinkie-e-e-e!” Tangerine cried and collapsed.  “My name is Pinkie Pie!  I only called myself Tangerine cause that’s what I was eating at the ti-i-ime!  I hate tax codes.  I just want to have fun!  Fun fun fun!”

It looked like Clementine could hardly resist joining her friend in shouting ‘fun’ over and over again. She bit her lip hard, then breathed in and out for a moment to keep her calm.

“Don’t start!  You’re gonna trigger me too.”  Clementine stuffed some napkins in her ears to prevent herself from going full clone.

This was starting to get awkward for Pinkie 1665.  She began backing away as Tangerine started jumping up and down on the table, knocking everything over.

“Come on!  This is just a minor relapse!” Clementine pulled her friend off the table and tackled her to the ground.  She was having trouble keeping Tangerine in her grasp but managed to start dragging her towards the door.  “We’ll get you home and doing taxes in no time!  You know how much you love doing boring stuff!”

“Fun!  Fun!  Fun!”  Tangerine stopped sobbing by this point, instead switching to the same manic smile the other Pinkie clone had when she’d gotten like this.

Clementine managed to drag the struggling clone out the door.  Tangerine continued to shout ‘Fun!’ over and over again until she was dragged too far away enough that she couldn’t be heard anymore.

“I’m not sure what to make of that.”  Pinkie 1665 sat down at the bar.

“Ah, you get used to is,” said Pinkie 999.  “They’re not so bad as long as you don’t let them near a replicator.”

“That’s not what I’m not sure about.  I kinda got my hopes up over meeting a Pinkie who wasn’t totally obsessed with being Pinkie. But I guess you can’t really expect too much from a literal clone in that regard,” Pinkie 1665 leaned on the bar. “Hey, what’s your story?  Why do you call yourself Pinkie Pie?”

“I’m what you call a Pinkiefied Pinkie, we’re Pinkie Pies who used to be something else but got transformed into Pinkie Pie,” said Pinkie 999.  “Used to be a frog myself, but then Twilight cast a spell that turned me into an orange-frog hybrid and, well things get complicated but long story short one of Pinkie’s hair got caught in the teleportation machine and I turned into a copy of her.  That happens more often than you’d think.”

“But like don’t you feel like maybe this place pushes you a little too hard to be a little too much like Pinkie Pie?”

“Oh yeah, Pinkie Two was super crazy-times insistent that I stay a copy of Pinkie and use her name and be exactly like her.  She said being Pinkie was the best possible thing in the universe and that turning back would be a crime against Pinkie.”  Pinkie 999 stopped to think for a moment.  “Actually, she says that to everypony who gets turned into Pinkie Pie now that I think about it.”

“Okay, see.  That’s something a cult would do.  Like, do you really want to be Pinkie Pie, though?  Were you not happy as a frog?”

“Well.”  Pinkie 999 looked like she was only just now thinking of that for the first time.  “Flies don’t taste as good, but I do like being smart enough to open doors.  Also, my lifespan is eight times longer and I’d probably be dead by now if I turned back, but on the fourth hoof, I can now contemplate my own mortality.  Do frogs have souls?  Probably not.”

“I guess whether you specifically are happier isn’t the point,” said Pinkie 1665.  “It’s just that a lot of things make me think this is a cult.  It makes me think that Pinkie Two is some kind of dangerous megalomaniac whose obsession with Pinkie Pie is leading her to get involved with incredibly dangerous things that she doesn’t care nearly enough about to be involved with because her only actual priority is being surrounded by Pinkies!”

“Oh, all that stuff is totally true.”  The Pinkie frog nodded.  “This is absolutely one hundred percent a Pinkie Pie cult.  Pinkie Two?  Totally pushes everyone to be Pinkie Pie.”

“What?!  But-“  Pinkie 1665 could hardly find the words.  “But. If you know this is a cult why the heck aren’t you running away?  Should we plan an escape together?  Is Pinkie Two standing right behind me and I’m about to be killed?”

“No, silly.”  Pinkie 999 chuckled.  “I stay because being in a cult is fun!”

“Um.  No?”

“Um.  Yes?”  Pinkie 999 cocked an eyebrow.  “Everything good is unhealthy.  Candy makes you fat, playing video games all day makes your muscles melt, sliding up slides causes long-term sight loss, being in a cult blows all your money, and has a high mass-suicide risk.  But we do all those things anyway because they’re fun.  Ponies wouldn’t join cults if they weren’t fun and a Pinkie Pie cult is the most fun cult there could be.”

“Look, I’m sure some parts of being in a cult are fun, but the bad is too bad!  What about all the abuse and identity loss?  There are serious long-term consequences!”

“Well hey, we’re frogs, right?”  Pinkie 999 smiled like it was true.  “None of us are going to live past the age of ten.  If you only got a couple of years left who cares about what’s healthy?  Just do what’s fun!  Join the cult and eat as much candy as you can because Celestia’s charging at you full speed with her scythe and only oblivion awaits you because frogs don’t have souls!”

“I don’t- I don’t think most of that speech applies to me.”

“Huh?  Oh right.”  Pinkie 999 laughed, then went back to her work.  “Well, I am just a frog that somehow learned to talk.  Frogs are pretty stupid.  You should probably ask somepony smarter than me about this stuff.  Oh! Like Pinkie Two!  She’s the most like the real Pinkie Pie and therefore the most perfect pony here.  In my frog opinion, you should just do whatever she tells you to do.”

There was precious little doubt left in Pinkie 1665’s mind.

Pinkie had just gotten herself mixed up in a cult!  She was being indoctrinated, brainwashed!  Pinkie- or rather Bubblegum as she tried to assert in her own mind, realized that she was probably in danger.  It was only a matter of time until the cake hit the floor at this point.  She needed to get out of there before that happened. She couldn’t go back to chrysalis, but she couldn’t get wrapped up in a cult either.

“Uh- Look a fly!”  Bubblegum pointed behind Pinkie 999.

“I don’t eat flies anymore.”

“It’s a candy fly?”

“Oh!  Well then I’ll turn around for sure!”  Pinkie 999 turned around to look for it.

Bubblegum slowly backed away from the bar before turning and running outside.  Now she just needed a grand escape plan.

Being a changeling deep inside, her first thought was to assume a disguise and sneak out!  She peeked around the corner and realized that she already looked identical to everypony else.  Her disguise was already perfect.

Bubblegum cleared her throat and strolled out into the streets.

“Don’t mind me!”  She waved at the other Pinkie Pies as she walked towards the exit.  “Party! Woo!  Fun fun!  You know?”

“Hey!”  One of them glared back at her.  “That’s kind of offensive to us clones, you know.  We don’t just shout ‘Fun fun’ all the time.”

“Did you say fun?!” Another Pinkie, perhaps the same one as before, poked her head out of a nearby barrel.  She was quick to jump out of her hiding place and begin pronking up and down in place.  “I love fun! Fun!  Fun!  Fun!”

“You’re not helping my point!”  The first clone complained back at her.  “And now you’re making me want to- to-“ 

The first clone sort of ran in place for a few seconds before giving in and joining the other one jumping up and down shouting ‘fun’ over and over.  A second later, a third Pinkie clone got triggered and suddenly there was a whole commotion around them, the non-clones trying to calm them down before they got too out of control.

So keeping a low profile wasn’t going so well.  But they were paying attention to the wrong Pinkie Pies!  Bubblegum decided to take the opportunity to make a run for it.

She quickly reached the slide that lead back up to the exit.  There were no stairs, only the slide and Bubblegum had never learned how to slide up.  But this was the only way out.

Bubblegum sat down at the bottom of the slide, closed her eyes, and tried to slide up.

It didn’t work.

She closed her eyes and tried really hard to ignore gravity like all the other Pinkies.  She tried believing in herself.  She even tried believing in Pinkie Pie believing in her. But none of that canceled physics. How did the real Pinkie do it?!

“Pinkie powers go.”  Bubblegum rubbed her temples.  “Pinkie powers activate!”

This was probably why they needed all that science.

She tried instead clawing her way up the slide, but that thing was way too slippery.  She’d get up only a few feet before gravity claimed her as a non-Pinkie.

“Oh no!  I’m not Pinkie enough to stop being Pinkie!”  She wined as she began sliding back down. “Wait!  That’s it!  Not being Pinkie!”

Bubblegum transformed into a pegasus Pinkie Pie and flew up the ledge, landing and turning back to normal Pinkie Pie as soon as she got there. 

Now there was just the massive door that lead to the elevator stopping her.  She took one step towards it and alarms started going off. The defensive party canons emerged from the wall and all pointed at her.  For a second she thought she was confetti-toast, but the canons didn’t fire right away.

Still, all these alarms were going to draw somepony in seconds!  She needed to figure out how to open the door.  She ran over to it in a panic and found that it had a panel that needed a password to open it.

She really was locked in here.  This really was a cult!

The vindication didn’t help her situation though.  Bubblegum desperately hammered in obvious passwords like ‘Fun!’, ‘Party’ and ‘Twilight sucks’, but none of them worked.

She glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see Pinkie Two fall from the sky and land feet away from Bubblegum, her cape blowing in the non-existent wind.

In a last burst of desperation, Bubblegum pounded on the door, but not hard enough to open it.

“You’re not trying to leave, are you?”  Pinkie Two glared at Bubblegum, stepping forward with menace.

Startled, Bubblegum fell to her flanks and scrambled backwards. 

“No!  I was just going out for a walk!  Really!”

“Do you know what we do to little pink horses who try to leave?”  Pinkie Two leaned in towards Bubblegum, forcing her down and against the wall, glaring the whole way.

“Uh….”  Bubblegum looked around desperately for an escape route.

“Nothing!”  Pinkie Two jumped back and threw her front hooves in the air, her face changing in an instant. “Hahaha!  Can you imagine if we actually forced you to stay here? Absolutely not something Pinkie Pie would approve of.”

“Uh.”  Bubblegum could only stare up at her, unsure of what to make of any of this.

“But hey, why are you leaving?”  Pinkie Two leaned her hoof over Bubblegum.  “You do realize that when I said a ten-kilometer pronk I meant multiple pronks that added up to ten kilometers and not going ten kilometers in a single pronk, right?”

“Yeah, I get that. It’s just you all seem a little, I dunno, culty?”  Bubblegum paused to make sure Pinkie Two didn’t have any problems with the accusation before continuing.  “You’re more obsessed with being exactly like Pinkie than I thought you’d be. It’s creeping me out over here.”

“Yeah, I get that one a lot too.”  Pinkie Two laughed before letting go of Bubblegum and shaking her head.  “I guess I tend to assume that every Pinkie would want what I do too often.  If you don’t want to be exactly like Pinkie that’s fine, but most of us do.  We can’t really help it.  Being Pinkie is too great.”

“I guess maybe you’re not as crazy as I thought you were for a second there,” said Bubblegum.  “But I kinda want to get out of here and think about things some more.  Could I maybe get some alone time to decide if I really want to stay here?”

“Oh, that’s fine.  But spoiler alert, statistically speaking, most Pinkies do want to act exactly like her.  You’ll probably change your mind and come back later, but probably isn’t definitely so you can go be Pinkie in your own way if you want.”

“Well, that’s a relief. There’s really no catch?”

“No, I don’t-“ Pinkie Two froze for a moment, then took on a more serious expression.  “Oh, wait that’s right!  I almost forgot about the catch.  Thanks for reminding me.”

Bubblegum lowered her head and tried to back up, but Pinkie Two was quick to grab her by the scruff of her neck and pulled her in close.

“Don’t think I forgot about the radioactive waste.“ Pinkie Two glared into Bubblegum’s eyes.  “I’m giving you a clean slate, but remember that I have hundreds of Pinkie Pies all over the world and I’m always watching.  If you try to tell the real Pinkie about us or commit one more crime-“

Pinkie Two pointed at her eyes, then at Bubblegum, then the ceiling, then the floor.  Next, she moved her hoof up and down like it was riding a wave, then suddenly smacked her hooves together, pointed up, made a digging motion, drew a circle in the air with her hoof, then a triangle and a star. Pinkie Two made an X over each of her eyes, then over her heart, cutie mark, mane, and finally stuck her tongue and made an X on that too.

“Okay.  I don’t understand what any of that means, but I don’t think I like all those X’s at the end.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not supposed to.  Have Fun!”  Pinkie Two shoved Bubblegum into the elevator and pulled a lever on the side of the door. “Hope you come back soon!”

The door closed and the elevator lurched.  It launched her upward, somehow moving far faster than when it had come down.  Bubblegum found herself getting sucked towards the bottom of it.  When the elevator reached the top of the shaft it stopped suddenly, throwing her up to the ceiling.  Thankfully, this had enough padding on it that Pinkie merely bounced off it.

Bubblegum hit the floor, bounced off the soft Trixie dolls, then rolled out back into the storage lot, unharmed but alone.  She brushed herself off and turned around to see the entrance was already closed off again. She ‘escaped’ but now the question was where to go and what to do.

She couldn’t go back to Chrysalis and she didn’t want to either.  But she also didn’t want to go crawling back there so soon.  She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go crawling back there at all. So then where the heck was Bubblegum supposed to go?

What she needed was time to think.  Maybe go for a very long walk.

Maybe Pinkie Two would let her shut herself in a room down there until she figured things out?  But then, a potential cult leader wasn’t the best person to rely on when deciding whether or not to join her cult.

Bubblegum, fearing Chrysalis might be looking for her persona by now, decided to turn into one of her lesser used aliases, Cloudy Skies.  At least as Cloudy Skies she’d be able to walk around without worry.

Maybe it was just everything she’d been through lately, but Cloudy Skies suddenly felt fatigued to the point she had difficulty walking out of the storage lot.

The storage lot looked a lot rustier than she remembered.  The rust stains on the cargo cars seemed to consume them completely.  Really this place was more like a garbage dump than anything else.

She was glad to get out of there, but not glad to get back into the city.  It was as dull and grey as ever, worse even.  Maybe it was just paranoia, but all the ugly ponies she passed seemed to scowl at her, made her lower her head for fear that any of them might be one of Chrysalis’s spies.

It was beginning to rain. The rain was light but unbearable.  Every tiny drop on Cloudy Skies back felt like an insult, made her want to grumble.

It was at that point she realized something was off, and not just that the entire city sucked immeasurably.

It was getting worse! Getting to be Pinkie Pie for so long must have raised her standards even higher and it would only get worse from here as Pinkie Two said.

Maybe she was right.  Maybe there really was no way to deal with life now but to try and become exactly like Pinkie.

But…

There had to be somepony she could go to!  Somepony like-

No!  Somepony who was.

The answer was so obvious now.  There was one pony Cloudy Skies should have gone to in the first place, years ago even.

She needed the advice of the real Pinkie Pie.

____________________________



Cloudy Skies didn’t make it all the way to Ponyville before turning back into Pinkie again. Everything felt so dissatisfying when she wasn’t Pinkie now.  She did make it until nightfall before reverting to Pinkie Pie, but it was a long, painful wait.

Sure enough, immediately after she did, Bubblegum felt a rush of relief.  The millions of little things she’d been paranoid and annoyed about didn’t seem like such big deals anymore.  Her confidence started to come back, but in a way that wasn’t entirely good. It meant her theory about becoming more dependent on this form was correct.

By the time she found the real Pinkie’s house, it was a bit passed midnight and everything outside was still.  Bubblegum didn’t dare move through the streets for fear of running into another pony but stalked through the shadows.  She climbed up to Pinkie’s bedroom window and peered inside to find the pony fast asleep in her bed.  Other ponies lived here, she knew, so the door was out of the question.

Her heart was pounding from the excitement.  She was inches away from the greatest pony who ever lived!

Remembering that she was still Pinkie’s enemy killed most of the enthusiasm.  Though, surely Pinkie would forgive her for the assault and also for breaking into her house if it came to that.

Bubblegum knocked on the real Pinkie’s window, but that didn’t wake the pony up.  Next, the changeling opened the window and called out to Pinkie, but still no effect.  Not wanting to yell too loud, she climbed into the room and walked next to Pinkie’s bed.

“Pinkie?”  Bubblegum stood on the bed and looked down at Pinkie Pie, a perfect mirror of herself.  She considered changing back to Cloudy Skies, but winced.  She couldn’t do it.

Instead she went for the next level of escalation.  She jumped on Pinkie’s bed and gave her a slight shake.  Pinkie finally woke up and noticed Bubblegum standing on her bed.

“Oh no!  Not again!”  Pinkie yelled as she bolted upright.

“Shh!  Don’t worry Pinkie!  I’m not you,” Bubblegum reassured her.  “I’m a changeling.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.” Pinkie calmed down and lay back on her bed.  “For a second I thought I ate the wrong brownies again.”

“Huh.  So you’re not angry about me breaking into your house at midnight?”

“I’m not?  Oh, yeah that’s right I do have a problem with that!”  Pinkie pulled the covers over herself and screamed.   “Help! I’m being robbed!  I think?  Am I being robbed?”

“No!  I’d never rob you.  You’re like my hero.”  Bubblegum put her hooves together pleadingly and bowed her head.  “I came here because I need your help with something.”

“Oh!  Well that’s not so bad.”  Pinkie hopped off her bed and turned on the lights.  “Though maybe you could use the door next time?  And maybe don’t be me?”

“Well that’s the thing.” Bubblegum bowed her head low.  “I was one of the changelings you fought back in Canterlot.  I turned into you and it was the most amazing and fun experience of my life!  I’ve wanted to be more like you ever since.  I realized that I love making ponies smile. Now I don’t want to work for Chrysalis anymore.  I want to be good like you are.  But if I try to leave Chrysalis is going to hunt me down and the only other person who could help me is-“

She stopped herself before she blurted out Pinkie Two’s identity.  The last thing she needed was another hit pony after her.

“Is what?”

“Is uh-“ Bubblegum barely managed to come up with an excuse.  “Well they don’t exist!”

“Oh.”  Pinkie nodded knowingly.  “I can see how that’d be a problem.”

“Please.” Bubblegum threw herself at Pinkie’s hooves.  “I’ve done bad things.  I punched Fluttershy in the face.  I sabotaged Equestrian industry and dumped toxic waste in the water.  I nearly killed forty orphans and only stopped because a crazed vigilante beat me up.  If you want to throw me in jail, I’ll accept your judgment and go quietly.  I’ll confess everything I ever did.  But- but you’re Pinkie Pie.  You’re the smartest, nicest, and best pony in the world.  You’ve helped so many people.  Please, please help me.”

“Well of course I’ll help you!”  Pinkie said almost immediately.

“R-really?”  Bubblegum lifted her head and looked up at Pinkie with amazement.  The tears welling up in her eyes only served to make Pinkie look more mystical and wavy.

“Sure!  Helping you become good is way better than just throwing you in jail.”  Pinkie grabbed Bubblegum and pulled her up to her feet.  “Sides, I do this all the time.  It’s not like you’re the first changeling I helped run away from Chrysalis, you know.”

Bubblegum couldn’t hold back her tears anymore.

“Thank you!” Bubblegum grabbed onto Pinkie and hugged her tight, sobbing.  “You really are the greatest pony who ever lived!”

“Aw, thanks.”  Pinkie gave her a pat on the back and then held her out at arm’s length.  “Step one in the changeling reform process is getting a new identity.  Maybe one that’s not me?”

“Hold on.”  Bubblegum stopped her.  “See, that’s part of the problem.  You don’t know what it’s like being you!”

“I don’t?”  Pinkie blinked in wonder.  “Whoa, that is deep.”

“Okay, maybe you do. But you don’t know what it’s like to be you and then not be you anymore.  I can’t stop taking your form anymore, being you is just too great.  When I turn back or into somepony else it’s just blandflakes without the flakes, you know?  Everything feels slimy and grey.  I can’t be happy when I’m not you.  And it’s getting worse.  I’m not even comfortable changing my appearance anymore.”

“So you’re addicted to being me?”

“Basically, yes.  I can’t be happy as anything else.”

“Well that is one doozey of a dooze.  I almost feel responsible for this now.  I had no idea I was so addictive.  I should have a warning label or something.  But how we gonna-“  an idea flashed across Pinkie’s face.  “Oh!  Maybe we can still make this work.  This is just off the top of my head, but what if you pretend to be a me-impersonator, change your name to Bubblegum Lollipop and move to Manehattan where you help out with that orphanage.”

“Tried it.”  Bubblegum shook her head.  “It worked, but Chrysalis is probably already looking for Bubblegum Lollipop.”

“This is gonna be harder than I thought.”  Pinkie tapped her temple but didn’t need much time to come up with another idea.  “Maybe we could try to help you have fun when you’re not me!  How addictive can I really be?  So how different from me can you be?”

“I don’t know if I even can shapeshift anymore.”  Bubblegum scrapped her hoof against the floor.  “Like ever again.  I don’t want to.”

“Can you try?”  Pinkie leaned in with a pleading smile.  “Just a little different?”

Bubblegum closed her eyes and tried to shapeshift.  The thought of leaving her current form was like that moment before you jump into a pool of cold water but can’t seem to do it.  She brought up more and more similar forms to Pinkie in her head until finally getting to one where she was just comfortable enough to take the plunge.

She took a deep breath and burst into green flames.

“Huh.”  Pinkie looked over her new form.  “Either I changed or you didn’t.  Cause that looks exactly like I did five seconds ago.”

“My mane’s a slightly different color!”  Bubblegum pointed to her mane.  In her defense, it was a bit more red.  “I- that’s the best I can do.  I doubt I can shapeshift again.”

“It’s okay!”  Pinkie gave her a pat on the back.  “Maybe we can just work with this.  Change you manually like Celestia intended with some cool accessories.”

Bubblegum was worried this would go about as well as Tangerine and Clementine’s attempt to do the same, but she couldn’t really bring them up.  Pinkie reached into a drawer, in search of makeover fodder.

“Huh.”  Pinkie gave the pacifier a curious look.  “Mrs. Cake must have hidden this from the twins.  Well they’re supposed to stop using these anyway so you can have it.”

“I uh- You want me to suck on a pacifier?  I dunno if I’m into that sort of thing. “

“It’s a fashion statement.” Pinkie passed a thread through the pacifier to turn it into a necklace, which she threw over Bubblegum’s neck.  “Yeah!  All the cool rave ponies wear stuff like this.  Maybe we could go for that kind of look for you.  And it’d be perfect because raves are really the only thing you can do in this town at midnight that’s both fun and legal.  How do you feel about techno?”

“Techno?” Bubblegum gave the pacifier a flick.  “I don’t think I’ve ever really heard it.  I haven’t really listened to a lot of music.  I’ve been really busy working 24/7 and I don’t really enjoy stuff when I’m not you.”

“Let’s try…”  Pinkie jabbed Bubblegum’s mane with a needle, causing it to straighten out and fall to the side.  She pulled out some glowstick bracelets that she apparently always had on her and put them on next.  “And let’s add some glowsticks for uh-  Oh! That could be your name!  Pacifier Glowstick!  Cause that’s what you’re wearing.”

“Pacifier Glowstick?” Pacifier Glowstick looked down at her new necklace, unready to accept a pacifier as her namesake.  “I’m not sure about-“

“Oh.  Too long?”  Pinkie continued with Pacified Glowstick’s mane, tying it up into pigtails.  “Then we’ll just call you Pacifier Glow!”

“I meant the pacifier part! I’m not sure if I want that in my name.”

“Ah.  I got ya.  Pacifier to too long a word.  Okay, we shorten it again to Pacific Glow.”

“I don’t know if Pacific is shorter than Pacifier, but I can live with that name.”

“See?  This is pretty close but not me.”  Pinkie turned Pacific Glow around so that she was facing a large mirror.  “Is this good enough?  Do you still feel like that cereal I’ve never heard of?”

“I mean-“  Pacific Glow looked in the mirror.  She did look surprisingly different than Pinkie and not entirely bad. “It’s not horrible but-“

But not horrible was actually great!

“Oh, wait!  If it’s not horrible that means it’s working, right?” Pacific turned excitedly back to Pinkie. “Normally I see everything as horrible, but not this!  This is almost okay!” 

“Yeah!  See?  You can be like me without actually being me.  It’s as simple as pink, e, and pie.”

“It’s been years since I was excited 



Pacific Glow looked at her hoof.  The tingling didn’t go anywhere.  This wasn’t really the same as the bubbly rush she got from being Pinkie.

“Wait.  No.”  Pacific bowed her head.  “I just remembered that your hooves don’t feel fun.  I mean, almost okay is a lot better than bad, but uh-“

“Well that’s why we’re going to the rave.  And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just try a comically large list of things until we find something that does work!”

Pinkie grabbed Pacific by one of her new pigtails and dragged her to the window.  Before she could ask why they weren’t using the door, Pinkie jumped, pulling Pacific outside with her.

Pacific recovered quickly from the fall and looked around to see if anypony was watching.  She figured if she was with the town hero, she’d probably be fine, so long as nopony asked why the two looked so similar.  But she couldn’t stop feeling nervous.

Pinkie lead her down unfamiliar streets towards wherever this party was.  Pacific Glow kept her head down the whole way, glancing at all the objects. Things weren’t entirely grey, but she didn’t have that bubbly feeling that permeated all things when she was Pinkie Pie either.

It wasn’t long before they got to what was the spot, as it was the only place around with the lights still on.  Pacific Glow could feel more than hear the music, a thrum, thrum, thrum moving through the ground.  A short line of ponies was waiting to get in, but as promised, Pinkie was able to walk right up to the front of the line with Pacific Glow, only to be greeted warmly by the bouncer.

“Pinkie!”  He opened the rope gate for her straight away.  “How are ya?”

“Check it out!”  Pinkie grabbed Pacific Glow and held her so their faces were right next to each other.  “We’re practically twins!  Isn’t that crazy?”

“Uh-!”  Pacific Glow wasn’t sure if drawing attention to that was a good idea, but Pinkie was a genius.  She had to know what she was doing.

“We met in a dark alley, uh, rave club,” said Pinkie. “Yeah!  The Dark Alley.  Very exclusive.  And when I heard the amazing backstory, she had I knew I had to party with her some more!”

“Yeah!  I have a back story.”  Pacific Glow chuckled nervously.  “We all do, right?  It’d be suspicious if I didn’t have one.”

“Pacific Glow is the greatest raver who ever lived!”  Pinkie grabbed Pacific with one hoof and waved the other one out wide.  “When she was just ten years old, tragedy struck! Her entire family died in a rave accident and she knew she had to become a rave master to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.  She trained with a zebra monk, then a yak monk, then a minotaur monk, then-”

“Pinkie!”  Pacific Glow grabbed Pinkie and whispered harshly in her ear.  “Maybe you could talk me up a bit less.  I can’t live up to that!”

“Right,” Pinkie whispered back before going back to the bouncer.  “But that doesn’t mean she’s very good at it.  Her talent is trying to be good at raves.  Hehe.  See ya later!”

Pacific Glow got dragged straight into the middle of the place.

Directly opposite of the fact that she was now pretending to be a rave master, Pacific Glow had never been inside one of these places before and her vague ideas of how it should look didn’t prepare her for how overwhelming it was.

The music was so loud it blocked out everything else in a flood of noise, were it any more intense it would likely break her ears.  The room flashed with swirls and bursts of colors and lasers that pulled her attention in every direction, making it hard to focus on anything.

The whole place was a sensory overload, but that was giving her the familiar feeling of pretending to be Pinkie Pie.  It was like all of this was picking up the slack for her faltering Pinkieness. Maybe Pinkie really was on to something.

“So do you like it?!” Pinkie Pie shouted in Pacific’s ear but compared to the blaring music it felt like normal speech.

She really wasn’t kidding when she said she’d never really listened to much music before in her life. It was hard to say if she liked this, but she could absolutely feel the pulse of the music like Pinkie said.  It was almost impossible not to with this music.

“I’m not,” Pacific said, then realized she’d have to scream, “I’m not sure!”

“Well let’s try dancing!” Pinkie slid back onto the dance floor, a few other ponies making way for her.  “Come on!  Give it a try!”

Pacific Glow nervously looked at the other dancing ponies.  Their moves were so varied and wild that she couldn’t find any pattern in it all to imitate.  Her cover was going to be blown so easily.  But despite her fear she did creep down next to Pinkie.

“I don’t know how to rave-dance,” Pacific Glow said it out loud, though given the noise of this place that was the equivalent of a whisper.  “I don’t know any kind of dance!”

“Nopony knows how to dance at a rave!  You just throw your hooves around like a maniac and hope everypony assumes you know what you’re doing.”

As Pinkie Pie she knew she could just jump around like a maniac, but as Pacific Glow she hesitated. 

“You just gotta feel the beat!”

She could literally feel the beat crashing into her.  She had to admit this kind of music was growing on her, though it was so different from anything she was used to.  Pacific bobbed her head up and down.

“Maybe I could-“ Pacific lifted one hoof, preparing to make a step motion.

“Oh, pah!”  Pinkie knocked her hoof back down.  “As your personal fun expert, I can say you’re just overthinking this!  Try to just copy me. You should be good at that.”

Pinkie hopped back onto her hind legs, rolled her forelegs, and bend backward.  Pacific Glow took a deep breath and then did the same.  After years of practice imitating the movements of ponies, this was effortless to Pacific Glow.

Even though Pinkie was making it up as she went, Pacific followed her moves so perfectly that anypony watching would have thought they rehearsed this all.  Pinkie’s, and therefore Pacific’s, moves were so smooth and fluid, flowing seamlessly into one another in sync with the music. 

She really could start to feel the music flowing through her, and not just the banging of the beat.  For a moment, she lost herself and broke away from Pinkie’s moves, just feeling the music, letting its flow determine her moves

“You’re getting it!” Pinkie called after her.

She really was too!  It was like the music was in her heart. Other ponies were looking at her like she really was some kind of rave master.  Pacific Smiled wide and- stopped right there.  She realized what that meant.

“Wait!  This is fun!  I’m actually having fun again!”  Pacific Glow jumped around in a little circle, then glomped onto Pinkie, holding her in a tight hug.  “I love this! Pinkie, I think I can be Pacific Glow! You did it.  You really are some kind of genius.”

“And she lived happily ever after!”  Pinkie waved in a random direction.

“I did?” Pacific Glow looked at the wall Pinkie was waving to.

“Yep!”  Pinkie hugged Pacific Glow.

The End.