I hear a small bit of commotion off in the distance. Groaning, I roll over onto my back. Don’t wanna be up yet. The sun is bright even behind my closed eyelids, but after a few moments, a cloud covers it, bathing me in shade again. I try going back to sleep, the cool grass of the field outside Ponyville feeling really comfy.

The commotion increases slightly, but I just ignore it. I curl up under my blanket and focus on ignoring the noise. Wait... I didn’t have a blanket with me, did I? Groaning and opening my eyes, I realize the entire world has turned pink. With a shout, I jump back as much as I could from my laying position, and with the ‘zoom out’ I realize Pinkie was literally right up to my face. “Jeez Pinkie, personal bubble? Whatcha need?”

“Fun!”

“Look, if you’re bored, bother someone else, I wanna sleep.”

“Fun!”

“Fine, whaddya wanna d-” I realize that my ‘blanket’ is made out of more Pinkie Pies. At my movement, they all try to climb back onto me and are looking at me very... excitedly.

“Fun!”

“Uh... what?”

One of the Pinkies decides to hunch down, her eyes half-closed. It looks like she’s trying to do a cat impression while half-asleep. The little growl she makes doesn’t do anything to change that impression I got. “Fun.” is the only word-based response, and she wiggles her rump for whatever reason.

The cat-Pinkie pounces on me, gripping me in a vicegrip of a hug. Waitasec. Looking back at the other Pinkies, they seem to have developed the same mannerisms. Oh crap. I get up and try to outrun my ‘admirers’, mind racing trying to figure out what happened. Damnit, don’t tell me Clark went with the cloning thing anyway...

Running towards Ponyville, I end up in front of an even bigger mass of Pinkies, all of them beginning their chant of ‘Fun!’ as they chase after me, growing as it picks up the Pinkies already chasing me, like a giant pink snowball. Also, I may be crazy but I swear that every once in a while I hear one of them say ‘Butt fun!’. This is not good!

It’s like whatever cloning process was used made a bunch of ‘simpler’ clones, which means these Pinkies don’t understand that everything’s better if we’re just friends, so they all wanna be ‘with’ me, not to mention they are obviously much less... intelligent.

The swarm seems to get bigger as I run, unable to escape no matter how much I speed up, they seem to at least know how to do the crazy things Pinkie does.

I keep rushing from one place to another, looking for places to hide. I hide under the bridge and the mass passes over it, but a trio of them come bouncing along after me, from seemingly nowhere. Gotta... keep... going...

I duck into a sort of alleyway between some houses but as the large wave of ‘fun’ passes by again, one at the tail end catches sight of me. With a joyous cry of “Fun!” the Pinkie grapples me in a hug. Thankfully, with a step back, she only catches me around the waist, her fluffy head planted in my stomach. The horde begins forming at the entrance to the alley, and I start to run again, trying to shake off the clinging pony on my front.

Each place I try to hide, a Pinkie seems to find me, or chase me down and slow me. I try going into a building but I realize my immediate mistake. The interior of Sugarcube Corner is filled with Pinkies on the floor, walls, and even hanging on ceiling fixtures, swinging back and forth. When the sound of the door slamming catches their attention, the entire room freezes. They turn to me and their smiles get a lot bigger. Phasing out through the door, I continue my mad dash to escape the new, smaller horde, which of course meets with the first and just becomes a swarm of Pinkies.

Running out of options here... what can I do, what can I do? I need help, but everywhere I go expecting to find someone, I just find another batch of Pinkies, as if something was turning them into the Pinkies, like some sort of zombie infection.

Is this it? Did some kind of magical surge go awry and now everyone is a stupider version of Pinkie Pie?

And why are they all chasing after me!? Okay, I kinda know that one already, but come on, I can’t be the only one Pinkie liked, right? The morass of pink, blue, and lighter pink confirms that apparently I’m the ‘preference’ here. Great.

So what’s the plan, run until I can’t run anymore and my heart explodes? Yeah, no I kinda like breathing. My burning lungs seems to protest this however, and the crowd behind me is getting bigger, closer, or both. I’d rather not find out, so I guess I do just keep running until I burst.

I honestly can’t think of doing anything but screaming for help at this point and hope that I can outrun the wave until it comes. It feels like I’ve been running for two days straight at this point, and the crowd of Pinkies is still not tiring. A group of Pinkies seems to have come around the corner, and now I have two to run from, one on either side. I climb up on top of a house, but it doesn’t help as the Pinkies quickly just make a huge pile of themselves to stand on. The mass of bouncing pink ponies is unstoppable!

I jump down to the ground rather unceremoniously, but I get to the ground fast and I rush inside a nearby house that looks empty. I shut the door and bar it with a chair and after a while, the pounding stops, though the chanting doesn’t. They seem to be piling up onto the house, but as long as I’m inside I’m fine. They can’t get-

“Fun!” A pair of Pinkies plops down out of the chimney, followed by more, and soon they start piling up in the hearth and spreading out onto the floor. Noticing me, they start charging happily again, and I can’t think of anything to do but phase through the wall and keep going.

But it seems hopeless, since every place I stop isn’t safe, a Pinkie jumping out of whatever could be jumped out of, and occasionally things one shouldn’t be able to jump out of.  Nowhere is safe, and it just keeps growing! 

A blinding flash blocks my vision and I can’t see where I’m going, and I run straight into a wall facefirst. I shut my eyes and curl up, awaiting the mass to surround me and smother me to death with a thousand pounds of pink fur.

“Ow... that looked like it hurt, sorry.” Huh? I look around. There’s no pink wave anywhere... I’m in the Town hall! “Hello? Are you okay Anthony?”

I uncurl and realize Twilight is looking me over, the rest of them, minus Pinkie obviously, are also present.

“Wh... what’s... going on?” jeez I’m out of breath.

“We’re not sure, but there’s so many Pinkie Pies right now!” Twilight says.

I hear Rainbow Dash mutter, “You could almost say too many...”

“Oh no. Five is ‘too many’. This is madness!” I correct. “So how do we solve this?”

“Well, I know a spell that can induce a power feedback loop that could invert any form of summoning, based on the energy of the summoned creature, but we’d need to make sure these are actually summoned clones, and not something else.”

“Why would it not be summoned clones? I guarantee you guys don’t have what it takes to make them biologically.”

“Well, if they’re just something that was turned into a bunch of copies of Pinkie, and I use the spell on them, it’d just make them, uh, explode.” I gape for a moment. “Into glitter. And quite possibly confetti.”

“I don’t think it matters what they explode into once you’ve clarified they will explode.”

“Well, I’m still trying to figure out why glitter and confetti, personally.” Twilight says, a bit peevishly.

“So what method do you have that doesn’t involve killing them?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be killing them. Unless they weren’t summoned creatures. But we’d want to identify them before attempting the feedback spell, anyways. A few summoned creatures can bounce things like that back at the caster.”

“So we need a Pinkie to test. How are we gonna do that?”

“This is not a plan!!”

“Sure it is, they like you, so just sit there and... be you.”

“Clark, open this door or I will-”

“Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m huntin’ Pinkies. Hehheheh.” oh Shor, that is not what Elmer Fudd’s laugh sounds like!

“Do you have any idea what they might do to me if they see me?”

“Great things, my friend. Terrible, yes, but great indeed.” Did he just quote Ollivander at me?!

“Shut up you fucking muggle and-”

“Fun!”

I close my eyes and make one final threat that I will probably make good on if I survive. “I will mount you over the fireplace for this...”

“OooOOOoooh! Fuuun!” the Pinkie now holding me says, practically purring into my ear.

“GetitoffGetitoffGetitoffGetitoffGetitoffGetitoff!!!!” Pulling at the pony has no effect, as she just sort of stretches, but ignores tension and sticks to me.

“Use the net!” I hear, and sure enough, a net drops around me and the Pinkie, and begins hauling us towards the second story. The Pinkie takes the time to snuggle closer and nuzzle my neck. I need a shower, now...

I’m finally let out of the net once inside, and a levitation spell keeps the Pinkie inside the net. Not bothering to think about how the Pinkie managed to undo my button-based ‘fly’, I close my pants back up and sit down. “I’m not moving from this spot until there’s only one left, preferably the one who doesn’t act like a horny retard.”

As the Pinkie, now separated from me by the net and several feet of distance, starts bawling her eyes out, Twilight answers me. “I’ll need to do some tests, but this one’s acting more like a- a golem or something, not like an actual full copy. I have no idea what could’ve done it, but most duplicator artifacts create either full copies of the template, memories and all, or just ‘blank slates’, not this... emotional median.” The netted Pinkie, still trying to reach me, failing, and trying harder, is carried out in the net, the soft glow of Twilight’s magic keeping it aloft.

“So, Anthony, noticed yet that Pinkie’s still got something for you?” Clark asks, arms crossed.

“She does not! As Twilight said, they don’t have her memories or experience. The real Pinkie already tried the whole romance thing with me, and we both agreed we like being friends better.”

“Uh huh.” Clark inclines his head disbelievingly. “So the entire mass of fuzzy pink pony-clones all wanting to jump you is purely coincidental, then?”

“Of course not, she wanted me before, but knows better now. These Pinkies clearly don’t have that knowledge.”

“Right... Well, my old friend, you can stew in your Egyptian river. Anyways, whatcha need? I’m guessing something like some hot cocoa and a trauma blanket are high on your list. We have a fuzzy towel, if that would work better.” Clark says, offering said towel. It does look very fluffy.

“Just get me some cocoa, all that running made me thirsty. Next time we need live bait, I volunteer you in advance.”

“Only if it’s a giant flight of shy yellow pegasi.” Fluttershy blushes and eeps at the comment.

“Yeah, if that happens, I don’t think anyone would mind. For one, her primal instinct isn’t to run around everywhere very loudly and destructively.”

“No, but you could bet your buns there wouldn’t be an uncared-for bunny in the land.”

“Anyway, back to the problem at hand. What kind of clones are they and how do we get rid of them?”

“Idunno, go ask Twilight. It’s been, like, a minute and a half.”

I figure that’s the smartest thing he’s said all day... Next Chapter: Chapter 175 Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 28 Minutes