CHAPTER 23
Hey everypony. I'm back with the next chapter as promised, and sooner than I thought. I'm sure I have all of you tied up in knots wondering what the big reveal is, so I won't keep you from it. Here it is. Enjoy, and please review.
"Are you sure about this, Miss Twilight?" I asked as we walked down the winding path through the Everfree forest.
"Until you mentioned the part about the double mare thing, I wasn't even sure the legend was true." Twilight answered. Twilight and I weren't alone in this endeavor. With us were Steele and four of his soldiers who were still 'combat effective' as he had put it, as well as Rainbow Dash and Budder. Shadow had volunteered to go with us, wanting as much as the rest of us to get this done and over with. Masada could not go with us on our final mission. It turned out that she had four broken ribs, a sprained ankle, two stab wounds, several lacerations and a cut on her head. I was honestly surprised that she had been able to fight with so many injuries, and I reminded myself to never cross the Bitsraeli army.
"Stow the chitchat, sir..." Steele commanded from up ahead. "We might have something." We quickly and silently moved up to where Steele was approaching a hole in the ground, just off the trail. He flipped down the night vision device on his helmet, and slowly peered into the opening. He signalled to his troops, and two more locked their monoculars down and carefully stuck their heads over the hole. They backed off, and Steele crept up to me.
"This is the place." He whispered.
"How do you know?" I whispered back.
"Two of them down there..." He answered, pointing down. "Probably guards."
"How you wanna do this?" I asked. Steele grinned.
"Wanna see what we can really do?" He shot back.
"I'll try anything once." I said.
"Good. I have a job for you, sir." Steele said. "I need a distraction."
I watched the two commandos silently buckle themselves into rappelling harnesses and coil two long lengths of thick rope at the edge of the opening. They flipped down the night vision monoculars on their helmets and nodded. Steele patted me on the back, signaling me to do my part. I looked back and gave Dashie and my sister a little smile, then turned to the pit before me. I carefully lowered myself down until I could feel solid ground beneath my hooves. The hole was steep, almost vertical, and down below, I could see the two Pinkies, and hear them chatting away to each other. I took a deep breath. Now or never. I slid down, right between them, until I had the two Pinkies between me and the cave entrance above. They stared at me in surprise.
"Hi there." I stated. I smiled at the two killers. "I heard this is where the shithead convention was being held, and I came looking for the big turd."
"Ew...that's just gross..." One of them stated, just as the two commandos roped down behind them, and threw garrotes across their throats. In a few seconds, the Pinkies were laying dead on the floor of the cave. The rest of the team moved down into the tunnel, Shadow and Budder protecting Twilight as we moved deeper into the cave. Steele and I took point, walking ahead of the group. We came to an opening, and Steele held up a hoof in the military sign to halt. From somewhere up ahead, we heard voices. It sounded like an echo, as the voices were all repeating the same sentence.
"...not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly mared!"
"That's the poem...spell...thing..." I whispered.
"Yeah, I kinda figured that, L.T." Steele whispered back. He turned and made a twirling motion with his right forehoof. The four commandos quickly appeared next to us, their crossbows at the ready. Steele pounded one hoof with the other, pointed to the room, then made a circle in the air. The soldiers nodded. One took out a flashbang, lit the fuse, and tossed it through the opening. A few moments later, there was a loud 'BOOM' and a flash of white light, and the commandos went in, Steele and I following. Needless to say, in a matter of seconds, the BlackOps ponies had killed everything in the room, and as the rest of our group entered, we beheld a strange sight.
The large cavern we had entered had no obvious exit or hole leading to the outside, nor did it have any torches or lanterns anywhere we could see. It was like it was lit from some unseen source. In the middle of the chamber was a small, shallow pond of crystal clear water, and beside the pool were half a dozen dead Pinkie Pies. Two of them were laying half in the water, as if they had been crawling out when Steele's ponies had ended their lives. I scanned the room, trying to put it all together.
"The mirror pool..." Twilight said in a low voice. We all turned to the Princess of Friendship. "No...it...I thought this was just a story. The mirror pool can create a perfect double of whoever looks into it and says the incantation. This must be how they were making more of themselves."
"Uh...well..." I began. "Yeah, I guess that explains that, but who was the first one to double herself? And when? I mean...I killed Pinkie five years ago. Why did they wait this long to come back?"
"Maybe there was more than one back then, and she just waited until now for some reason." Budder offered.
"Who the fuck knows? This whole thing's been screwed up from the start..." Shadow commented. "and this is coming from me."
"Drake?" Dashie said softly. "All I'm wondering right now is like...which Pinkie was the real one? You know, was the one you killed the...original her, I guess...or was it one of these?"
"Sweetie, I'm so damned confused right now, I can't even make a guess..." I admitted. A strange sound made us all jump. It sounded like something lightly banging against metal. Steele's soldiers raised their crossbows and started across the chamber, in the direction of the sound, but I stopped them with an upraised hoof. I drew my saber, and slowly walked toward the noise, which came again. Behind me were Steele and his commandos, Shadow, and then the rest of the team, all of us wondering what new Hell would be waiting around the small outcropping of rock ahead. As I reached the wall, I took a deep breath, and leaped around the stone, my saber at the ready, five crossbows behind me to back me up. We all froze.
"Um...help me?" The pink pony in the cage said meekly, staring up at us with tear-filled blue eyes.
"It's just another one." Steele sighed coldly. "Kill it."
"No." I stated. "Something's...wrong here." The Pinkie Pie in the cage was different from the others somehow. Her mane was straight, and she was emaciated, as if she'd had little to eat for a long time. "Why the Hell would they put one of themselves in a cage?" I questioned. It hit me. I turned to the pony. "Are you...Pinkie Pie?" She looked up at me sadly.
"I...I don't know anymore..." She sighed wistfully. "Probably not. There's so many Pinkies...who knows who the real one is."
"She's not evil." Shadow advised. "Trust me." I nodded.
"Pinkie..." Dashie spoke, her voice trembling. "Is that really you?" The pink mare suddenly perked up in recognition when she heard Rainbow Dash's voice.
"Dashie?" She gasped. "Dashie, ohmygosh, it's you..." Tears filled her blue eyes and ran down her cheeks. "I missed you so much!" My marefriend fell to the floor sobbing, overcome with the mixed emotions she must have been feeling.
"Pinkie...what happened?" Twilight asked, walking up to the cage.
"Oh...Twilight! You're here too? Are you all here? Did you come to rescue me?" The Pinkie gushed emotionally.
"I...Pinkie...I need to know what happened." Twilight said again. "We have to know that you're the real you. Some really bad stuff has happened...and it was the...other Pinkies that did it."
"What?!" Pinkie exclaimed. "What did I do?!"
"You killed dozens of ponies." Steele stated. The pony in the cage stared at the captain a moment, and I could see his words sinking in. Suddenly, the Pinkie let out a wail of pain and anguish. She started hitting her head against the bars of the cage.
"Shit, she's gonna kill herself..." I said, opening the cage. Steele raised his crossbow, probably expecting her to come charging out at us. Instead, I had to physically reach in and drag her out of her prison. She collapsed on the floor, gasping.
"I didn't kill anypony...I didn't kill anypony!" She cried.
"Pinkie..." I began. "Pinkie!" She finally looked up at me. If my hunch was right, she'd been a prisoner down here for a long time. Having been held that long, her mental state was probably very fragile, and I needed to talk to her like a yearling. "My name is Drake. Okay? We got rid of all of the other Pinkies. They're gone. They did some really bad things, but they're gone now, and you're safe, okay?" She nodded sadly. I sighed. "We're trying to figure out how all of this happened. Can you tell us how this started?"
"Well..." She squeaked. "I...I know I was really sad because nopony remembered my birthday...and..and...I wanted to have a party..." she sniffed. "I remembered a story about this mirror pool, and I thought I could..."
"You wanted to make more of you to have a party." I said. She nodded.
"I was so mad at everypony...I thought my friends hated me, and I felt alone...and...I don't know what I felt." She explained.
"Stop." I commanded. I paced back and forth a few times. "Alright...my guess is that this pond here makes an exact duplicate of you, including your mental state at the time. She doubles herself in a state of anger and desperation, and what do we get?"
"An army of fucked up psychos." Shadow stated.
"Yep. And I guess they wanted to throw the party themselves...in their own way." I turned back to Pinkie. "Why did they put you in the cage?"
"When I made the first me...she made another. Then they doubled themselves...and I couldn't stop them. They said they wouldn't let me ruin their party, so they kept me down here. I don't know why they let me live this long..." She looked around. "How long has it been?"
"Five years." I replied.
"Really?" She asked in a shocked voice. More tears ran down her cheeks. "I hated it...I only had me to talk to...and I was crazy. But it was me...so I started thinking I was crazy and..."
"Shhhhh..." I tried to calm her down. "Pinkie...five years ago, one...you did some bad stuff. I killed her. Why didn't the others do something then?"
"The cave in." Was the reply. "Like...a little while after I made the other Pinkies, the huge cave in happened. They couldn't get to the mirror pool, and there were only two Pinkies left. They said they couldn't throw their party until they could make more, and they made me help clear the rockslide and it took forever, and they said nopony could know they were here. I can't believe it's been five years..."
"Pinkie..." Dashie said in a breaking voice. "I can't believe it's really you...I thought...Pinkie, I missed you!"
"I missed you Dashie!" Pinkie sobbed, running to her old friend. The two embraced, then Pinkie stepped back. "D...Dash...your wings...what happened to your wings?!" My marefriend let out a choked sob, and collapsed onto the ground, shaking. Budder and I ran to her, and I held her in my forelegs as she sobbed uncontrollably. "Dashie?!" Pinkie gasped. She staggered back, and looked at Twilight. "Did...Did I...I mean did one of me..."
"Yeah." I stated. "Yeah, Pinkie..."
"NOOO!" Pinkie wailed. She began breathing hard. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." She looked me in the eyes. "Kill me." She said. "Please...it's all my fault...kill me, please?"
"No." I answered. "I ain't gonna kill you. You didn't do these things. The ones that did are dead. That's good enough for me." I turned my attention back to Dashie as Twilight hugged the real Pinkie Pie close.
"It'll be okay, Pinkie..." Princess Twilight said softly. "We'll make everything okay. I promise..."
"Alright...I'm gonna vote that we get the fuck outta this weird-hole." Shadow interjected.
"Me too." Budder added. "Bub...what if somepony else finds this place though?"
"Don't worry about that." One of Steele's operators, a first sergeant named Frag stated. He gave a smug grin. "We brought something to take care of that."
We stood outside of the cave entrance as two of the commandos lowered a black bag down into the opening with a rappelling rope. Wrapped around the rope was a copper wire that ran into a plunger-style detonator. When the bag was dropped into the cave, the soldiers grabbed the detonator and stepped back. Budder stood on my left, and Dashie on my right. We glanced at each other, a silent moment where we professed our love for each other without a single word.
"Fire in the hole!" Sergeant Frag yelled. He pushed the handle of the detonator down, and with a loud, rumbling roar, the cave of the mirror pool was no more. I turned away, and looked to where two COLT commandos stood on either side of Pinkie Pie, a blanket over her shoulders. I had no idea what was going to happen now. I still needed to process a lot of my own feelings. Something had changed. Something was different, and I could feel it. I guess part of it was that old memory, that Dashie's best friend had tried to kill her once. Now that we had learned the truth, that shadow was gone. And now that I knew this part of my life was finally over, I felt like a great weight had been lifted. Still, I knew it would take a while to figure out what was going on in my own mind and my own heart. I knew Dashie was struggling with the same feelings, maybe more so. But we could get through it. After everything we had been through, I knew that my family could face anything, as long as we were together. What is it they say...time heals all, right?
Okay...nobody saw that one coming, right? That was a twist, not only in the plot of this story, but in Drake's life! Need a moment to process everything? Take your time. The final chapter will be up soon.