*I had a feeling I was going to regret going to Twilight for magic testing.* I thought as I limped away from the crystal castle. *Should’ve done shit on my own.* I say limped because the last spell I used back there didn’t cause an explosion and fling me towards a wall breaking my right leg. And it also didn’t burn a few feathers off and I don’t look like a burn victim. No, none of that happened, I totally didn’t use magic to heal myself. Me and Twi were just testing my abilities. Nothing of the sort happened, not even a little moment of awkwardness fell over us when she asked how humans ‘mated’ as she calls, and I responded with ‘a guy sees a good-looking woman, or vice versa, they’re gonna end up fucking, maybe have a kid if they love each other that much, and spend about thirty years together until they can’t stand each other and split’. I later explained that some marriages do end up lasting a lifetime, but I got my point across either way; man see pretty lady, they fuck, uga bunga.

Anyway, we both decided that the trials would stop there and call it a day, or a year, or preferably, forever. And I decide to head over to the bakery, it’s been a long time since I’ve had doughnuts and I just got a real craving. Luckily the place wasn’t as packed as I thought it’d be.

“Hi Emby! What'cha doing here? Wanna buy some cupcakes?” Pinkie happily chimes from behind the counter as soon as I walk through the doors.

“Hey Pinkie. And no. I would actually like a dozen of your finest doughnuts please.”

“Ok!” She beams before she zips to and back from the door next to the stairs, box held up by one hoof. I’ve always wondered how they never fall walking on three hooves the way they do, if you saw what I see you’d know what I mean.

“Which ones do ya want?” She waves a dramatic hoof over the display of many of the glazed, sprinkled, coated, cream-filled pieces of heaven before me.

“Hmm… I’ll have two chocolate, three lemon cream filled, and three… regulars. And what’s one?” I pointed to a weird looking bread circle; dark brown bread, chocolate glaze, it looks like it’s filled with cream, and chocolate flakes cover the thing. A stark contrast to all the other brightly colored pastries.

“Oh! That’s my newest creation! Triple Chocolate Trinity Cakes!” Good god they look good, as a chocoholic I had to buy a separate box full of the chocolaty-goodness. I. Fucking. Love chocolate. “Let’s see… that’ll beeeeeee twenty bits!” I nod and snap my fingers. A small pile of bits pops onto the counter. Pinkie happily swipes them and shove the pile in the register.

“See ya Pinkie.”

“By Emby!” I’m really not liking that nickname. It only makes it worst that she practically screams it out so everybody hears it.

I pretend to not care, just smile and wave. But it’s really grating. I may be exaggerating, but you have Pinkie call you a stupid nickname in the high-pitched voice of hers, and tell me it’s not annoying.

“Hey lady, how ‘bout you come with me to make a couple bits?” And my day just got ruined even further.

-The alleyway to your left.- Embris states.

*Alright, let's find out what’s going on.*

“No! I don’t want to!”

“You do what I want or you little colt here gets it!” Ok, high alert now.

“Mom!” I rush to the alley and find that Button Mash and his mother, Nursery Rhymes if I remember correctly. Held up at knife-point, if that’s an actual term, by some guy with a dull brown coat and a dirty blond mane. I wasted no time and dashed for the stallion, and he. Didn’t. Know. What. Hit ‘em. It was by far the most theatrical display of ragdoll physics. I decided to kick him into the wall with one powerful swing of a leg. With how fast I was running and that I put all my weight into it, it was no surprise that he slammed into the wall with a resounding whack and slumped to the ground. Incapacitated. Luckily for me Button slipped from his grip when I kicked the absolute FUCK out of ‘em.

“You two ok?” I turn all my attention towards Button and his mom.

“Y-yes. We’re fine.”

“Yeah. Thanks again.”

“No problem… Does... this happen often?” I asked. I may be a little overworked, but then again this was the second time something like this happened to them.

“More than we’d like.” Nursery answered, confirming my suspicions. What? I can’t be concerned about a mother and her son? I was very close to my parents. I’d hate to see a family suffer meaningless pain like those two have. It… affects me. A lot. “But we’re used to it.” Ah shit.

“You know that’s not good.”

“I know, but what can we do about it?”

“I know, hold on.” I step away and turn my back to them. And use my magic to create and put together three little transceivers. With enough range to reach Canterlot,. “Here.” I kneel hand one to Nursery and Button.

“Woah, what are these? Are they the new Joy Boy!?” The fuck’s a Joy Boy?

“What? No. These are little transceivers that when you push the little button. It’ll send a signal to the one I’m holding, the screen tells me who pressed whichever button. And I can get to wherever you are as it tells me where you are.”

“Really?” Nursery asks and I nod. “Wow, is this… you’re ‘human technology’, everypony’s been talking about?”

“You guys are talking about it?” She nods.

“Yes, ever since Vinyl Scratch started talking about a… I think she said it was called it a phone?”

“Yeah, she said I have one?”

“She practically bragged about it nonstop! Saying she was ‘the first pony ever to use alien tech’.” Fucking Vinyl… But I can’t blame, her. I mean, I’d probably brag about it if I got to use alien technology that was far superior to my people’s.

“Oh. Wait, you know what a phone is?” They both nod

“Uh huh! We always hear about those things whenever somepony from Canterlot talks about it.” Well, that’s new.

“Huh.” I don’t what it is with this place and it’s inconsistencies with technology. There was Vinyl using a dj system, and some rooms in Canterlot Castle having light bulbs (The Gala), and then Pinkie Having a fucking flashlight in her mane. She loves to show me things for random situations, that case being ‘in case of a solar eclipse’.

“But I have one question.”

“Yeah?”

“IS it true that the phone you have can play music?”

“Yeah, it can.” Nursery’s eye grow wide, so do Button’s. “And it can do many more things.”

“Like what?” Button asked.

“Like, take pictures, record and play videos, you know what those are? Cool. Let’s see, it can also do simple and some advanced forms of math, store documents. Surf the internet, and that is basically a network of libraries that can share books and books worth of data in a matter of seconds. And I can play games on it.” Button goes off.

“Really!? What kinds of games?” He bounces in place out of excitement. Nursery just rolls her eyes with a smile.

“Pretty much any game you can think of, like racing, maze, puzzle, survival, first person shooters. Stuff like that.”

“Cool!”

“Gruuuhh...” And there’s the crook waking up from his catnap. I can see the looks of Button’s and his mom’s faces as I stare at the stallion.

“Excuse me.” I get back up and face the stallion as he groggily gets up.

“Ugh… what happened?” Time for a freak out! I love doing this.

“Nothing much, you just missed an epic kickoff.” He jumps and faces me. To his horror he sees the bottom half my face perfectly covered at an angle, and the top half perfectly illuminated. The rest of me silhouetted in the shadows. He started panting and looking everywhere but me as I got closer, revealing more of me. “ I guess you know who I am?” He flinches and nods weakly. “Then you know why I’m here.” He looked at me like a deer in the headlights for a full five seconds before he tried to gallop off. But before he could move a muscle I grab him in my magic, effectively immobilizing him.

“You two head home, I’ll take care of him.” I say to Nursery and Button. They nods happily and walk off. Through the corner of my eye I saw Button give me a thankful look and poke his tongue out at the guy before running of back to his mom. I then use my magic to hog tie the guy with rope and head off towards town hall with him slung over my shoulder; it also acts as the police station for some reason. I guess that can be beneficial, I forget if we actually do that back home…

“Lemme go!” He began to struggle.

“You really wanna get me pissed today, I’ve had a bad enough day without your lowlife horny ass. And stop struggling if you want stay awake.” The shuffling and thrashing stops I keep on my way. I nearly forget to pick up my doughnuts and the knife the guy used.

“... Where are we going?” Oh great, I got Mr. Chatterbox. Oh how so fun.

“Where do you think?”

“Oh… Wait! I can’t go to prison!” It took all my willpower to stifle a snort of amusement when he said that.

“Why not?”

“I’ll never last in there!”

“How would you know?” He pauses.

“... Do you?” Fucking wise guy, trying to get to know me. Anyone can tell he’s never been incarcerated.

“All too well little shithead. How about you shut up and you get to keep your teeth? Deal?” I get no response besides a quiet pony. “Good boy. I’d give you a treat if you’d actually deserve it. Oh, touch my wings and you’ll regret it.” I hear him grumble ‘bucking flank hole.’ It’s kinda cute that the ponies here have there own curse vocabulary that sounds like a censored script from Breaking Bad.

As I kept walking I couldn’t help but think; does this place actually have a dark side? These two encounters with Nursery and Button suggest that there is. And if things like this happen here in a small town like Ponyville, then could it be worst in someplace like Canterlot? I could only imagine what goes on underground here. Jesus this took a dark turn.

-I hate to pop your little thought bubble, but we’re here.- Embris rudely interrupted my train of thought.

*Thanks* Without paying attention I managed to walk to Townhall without smacking into something on the way, cool. And there’s an officer standing, well resting since he’s leaning up against the wall with his eyes closed, outside. Bonus! And I didn’t scare him when the floorboards creaked, another bonus, for him anyway. He still woke with a start though.

“Huh? Oh! Ember! What brings you here?”

“Hey Lawful. Just came drop this guy off.” I remove the guy from my back and set him on the ground.

“Why? What did he do?” He raises a brow at me.

“He tried to get… something from a girl by threatening her colt with a knife.”

“Oh? And what might that be?” He scrutinizes the tied up stallion.

“Is this true? Can you tell me if this is true?”

“I ain’t talkin’!” Of course he wouldn’t talk, time to offer an incentive.

“You’re already under arrest for mugging. You as well talk now-”

“Lawful? You mind letting me take over for a sec?” I looks at me weirdly, but nods. “Thank you. Now you, you tell him what he wants to know, got it? You really don’t want to clam up right now.” I will my eyes to turn red for effect. And it works.

“I-I just wanted some poontang!” They have that word here? Huh..

“Alright that’s enough Ember! I got what I need.” I step away from the stallion and remove the red from my eyes.

“Alright, I’ll be on my way then. Later Lawful.”

“Good day Ember.” I wave to him before I make my way home with my well-deserved doughnuts.

“So, Ember, what new things have you found out about your magic?” Spark asked as she bit down on a doughnut, yes, she can do that. I didn’t know she could eat either, fucking magic! Anyway, me, Spark, Golden, and Chrysi were sitting the kitchen table. They all wanted doughnuts as soon as they saw the boxes.

“Yeah, I’m a little curious myself.” Golden commented.

“Well, to start, I found out I can do this.” I held up my hand and it morphed into large knife-like claws. “I can alter parts of my body to do stuff like this.”

“That’s impressive, it’s rare to see non-changelings to, well, change their body.”

“That’s what Twilight told me. Even she was impressed when I first did it.”

“Oh… What else can you do?”

“Hold on, this one’s my favorite.” I turn my hand back to normal and stand up. “I kinda got to concentrate on this one.”

~After I told you to.~

*Shut up.* Fucker.

“What spell is it?” Golden asked.

“You’ll, see. It’s gonna be epic.” Next to the body changing spell this one’s awesome.

“What do you mean?”

“Shut up and let me do this.” Without wait for a response I close my eyes and concentrate my magic to flow around me. Within seconds the flow becomes constant. *C’mon, c’mon. C’mon!* *POP* *Yes!* I excitedly open my eyes and look to the left, and there stood an exact duplicate of me staring at me.

“What?” He spoke to me. “You want something?” And he acts just like me! I fucking love this!

“No, I just wanted to show you to them.” I motion towards the people in front of us.

“Oh, cool. Hey guys.” We both smile smugly at their mystified faces. And they just… sit there, looking at nothing in particular, just like that time I was with Cadence and Shining. “I don’t think they’re gonna recover on their own...”

“Me neither.”

“You wanna snap them out of it the usual way?” We look at each other with a sinister smirk.

“With pleaser, just don’t hit Spark so hard. She’s metal.”

“Got it.” I move to stand between Chrysi and Golden. And the other me stood in front of Spark, we rear our arms back, charging up for what I like to call ‘the smackening’. But Chrysi had to recover from her stupor and yelp in surprise. And that snapped the other two from there wasted stupors.

“Fuck!” We both shouted.

“Ember? What the fuck I’m seeing double!” Golden feverishly rubs his eyes.

“You’re not seeing double. Ember just created me with magic.” The other me explained.

“Oh… bu-but still! How the fuck did you do that? A spell!?” We both nod simultaneously.

“A duplication spell.” Chrysi said. “Spells that duplicate objects are fairly simple, but to duplicate living beings, nearly unheard of. I’ve only heard the spell’s only capable to duplicate little animals. And even then I was told that there were problems.”

“Interesting. I wonder how I’m able to do the spell perfectly… Mm… it could be that magic has different effect on me it could allow my to do spells more accurately?”

~Or it could be due to you having me, the Alicorn Amulet, in your possession.~

*Oh shut up Ruby, you know why I’m not telling them about you.*

~I know.~ Ruby chuckles. That little asshat.

“I guess… Didn’t you figure this out with Twilight?” Chrysi asked and I shake my head.

“She was too interested in finding out what I can do.”

“Oh… Well what else did you find out about your magic?”

“Well, I think he can do this magic eye thing, right?” The copy of me says.

“Oh yeah! I call them ‘Eyes of Ember’.” I snap my fingers and a little golf ball-sized dragon-looking eye. “When I close my eyes I can see it sees.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that it glowed yellow, and that it looks like your eyes.”

“Twilight said that the eye will look similar to the one who cast the spell, and that there would be a slight slight difference.”

“The difference being that looks like a dragon’s eye.” Golden says, more like a statement than a question.

“Yeah , pretty much.” The other me confirms.

“Ok, that’s great n’ all, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around the two of you.” Golden points to the both of us. “How can you two be right next to each other and not, like, freak out or… cause a paradox and destroy space and time?”

“Ooh, lemme answer this one… me.” The other nods and I go on to explain. “This is what Twilight explained to me earlier; he is an exact replica of me. He thinks like me, acts like me, hell, he even eats and shits like me! Don’t ask how I know that.” At the mention of things that will never be known to the public both me and my copy shudder. “Anyway, he is a copy of me, but, he is his own living being, he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and however he wants to do it. And only I can get rid of him with his permission. Since he is his own human being with free will.”

“It’s true, though we both agreed that if either of us go mad or turn evil to kill each other, or maybe create the greatest battle of all time.”

“Wait, does that mean he can use magic just like you?” We both nod.

“Yeah, I can do that eye thing too.” He holds a yellow glowing eye out.

“Yep, just as capable as me if that’s what you're asking.”

“So he can turn into that fire thing too?”

“I… uh… I don’t know. Can you?” I turn to the other me. Yes it’s really weird the first time he came about. We almost fought to be the real Ember. But he realized he was the magical double and we agreed to let him exist because of the whole ‘he’s his own person and he gets equal rights and treatment’ thing. I wonder how people back home would react to this spell…

“I… don’t know maybe?”

“And how do you know that Ember can into that fire thing? If you know what I mean?”

“Oh, since he’s exact copy of me he has all my memories too.” I explain. “Oh man, you should’ve seen me when I first found this out, this basically means he has all my memories and I later found out that anything he has seen or heard goes right to me whenever I stop the spell. Fucking awesome right?”

“... Does that mean he technically lives inside you head whenever you do that?”

“No, no. It’s more like combining two similar documents. Everything that’s the same stays the same, and the different stuff as added accordingly. You get it?”

“I think so...”

“Good, ‘cause it’s hard to explain this shit.”

“I know, but...” He drifts off.

“But what?”

“How do we know who is the real Ember?”

“Oh, we decided to just let you guys know when any of you lose track of us, all you have to do is ask.”

“That’s not what I mean! I mean, like, if you two are exactly the same in every way possible, then what defines the real you?”

“That’s simple.” The other answers. “It’s always going to be him that’s the true Ember,” We had a few hours of figuring this stuff out, it’s still a little weird whenever I or him talk about it. I don’t think we’ll ever get used to it. “I was created out of magic. He was created because mom and dad fucked and he popped out. I will always be the magical copy, and he will always be the original.”

“You understand now?” I ask.

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Good, I assume the same can be said for you two?” I ask Chrysi and Spark.

“Yeah, I just need something to… dumb myself down. Thinking too much.” Chrysi cradled her head in her hooves.

“Yes, I understand.” Spark answers.

“Good, now let's go do something stupid. How does freaking out everybody in town sound?” Ember numero two and I look at each other with evil smirks.

“Yeah!” Everyone eagerly agrees.

“Let’s go!” That rest of the day was spent having loads of fun scaring ponies and causing small, little freakouts. It was a shit-ton of fun.