They came, the horde of nightmares. Bouncing, giggling, laughing. Without mercy, without pity, hunting their prey.

Pinkies.

“Hold. The. Line.” Fluttershy ordered. “Don’t let the main mass of Pinkies get into Ponyville.”

The brigade of animals braced themselves, nearly a hundred creatures in all. They were Fluttershy’s best warriors, all those who could be trusted with weapons. Not on the level of shock troops just yet, but they knew what had to be done.

The mass of Pinkies brightened and jumped faster when they saw Fluttershy leading the group of animals.

“Fun!” They chanted. “Fun! Fun! FUN!”

Fluttershy waited until she could see the crazed whites of their eyes. Then she swung her hoof down. “Engage! Hold them back!”

The Pinkie Pies slammed into the ranks of animals with all the speed and force of a pony on permanent sugar-high. They crashed through the first rank of animals but stopped dead and the second and third pushed back.

Pinkie Pies flew through the air as the animals either got underneath them and heaved, or in the case of larger ones like Matilda, bodily picked up Pinkie Pie and threw the many versions of her backwards. They landed with sickening thumps or splats as they hit the earth, but bounded back up, seemingly unharmed and hopped towards the line of animals again.

But the ranks of animals didn’t break. They held, and threw back the wave of Pinkie Pies again, and then again. Fluttershy herself caught the Pinkies that somehow jumped past the animals and bodily checked them back into the main mass, ignoring their high-pitched cries of ‘fun!’

Fluttershy gritted her teeth and grabbed a Pinkie Pie’s mane with her teeth. The clone’s head twisted back and it grinned at her, showing way too many teeth.

“Fun!” It said.

The pegasus’s wings pumped and she pulled the Pinkie up and tossed her back into the mob of Pinkies. Another bounded at her, giggling insanely. Fluttershy kicked the Pinkie out of the air and landed behind her animals.

“Don’t fall back! Protect each other and bring them down one at a time!”

Her animals heard her and redoubled their efforts. Their lines bent as the Pinkie Pies advanced though. Bent under the unending onslaught…and held.

Barely. Each second threatened to let the mass of Pinkies break through to Ponyville. Fluttershy couldn’t guess how many there were. Eighty? More. Already the other Pinkie Pies, a far lesser number were destroying parts of the town. If the rest arrived…

Unacceptable. Fluttershy dove back into the mass of Pinkies and fought to hold them there. They had to hold them there. Already the ground was churned and muddy as sweat and exertion churned the earth. There wasn’t any blood spilled, yet.

But how long could they keep it up? Fluttershy didn’t know, but she fought desperately for every second she could buy her friends to evacuate Ponyville or deal with the Pinkie Pies. She couldn’t back down, even as pink hell surrounded her.

It had been such a peaceful day, too.

----

Earlier…

“Explain to me again why you need Matilda and the other animals for a picnic.” Fluttershy surveyed her animals as they practiced using knives in the Everfree. “And this time, try to make me care.”

Today was training day, which was in fact, every day. Her animals were arrayed in a line in the forest, practicing under Fluttershy’s command. Spaced among them were the changelings, black chitin conspicuous among the rest of the fur and feathers. They directed the animals in groups, showing them how to strike and move in groups. The animals obeyed them, albeit reluctantly, and Fluttershy supervised the group as a whole.

Fake Fluttershy shrank back and trembled as Fluttershy glanced at her. She did that a lot, which Fluttershy supposed was good for the purposes of fooling every other pony. But she found it annoying every time the changeling did it. Fluttershy wasn’t a coward any longer.

“Well you see, I was having tea with Longfoot as part of my act, you know, being in plain sight, and I thought some other animals might want to join me. Longfoot enjoyed it, and I know they’re sort of tired. But if you don’t want me to, I don’t have to…” Fake Fluttershy cringed and waited for Fluttershy’s response.

“Fine. Just stay out of my way.” Fluttershy turned her attention back to her troops. She had better things to do than waste time arguing with a changeling.

Moreover, a part of her thought that Fake Fluttershy might be right. She had been pushing her animal friends quite hard over the last few weeks, ever since the Crystal Empire. It was necessary of course, and her friends didn’t complain, but Fluttershy knew they were tired. A break might cheer them up.

Fake Fluttershy sighed in relief. That annoyed Fluttershy almost as much as the rest of the conversation. She was just turning to yell at the changeling again when she caught sight of something orange in her peripheral vision.

Applejack? No. Fluttershy turned and her jaw dropped. A…flying orange with blue wings was fluttering towards both Fluttershys, causing the rest of the animals to stop their practice and stare as well.

Fluttershy backed up as the orange-bird approached. It stopped just in front of her and hovered unsteadily. A muffled cheeping of distress came out of the orange.

Hesitantly, and prepared to be attacked at any moment, Fluttershy put her hooves around the orange and unpeeled it. A very upset blue jay emerged from the pulpy insides of the fruit and squawked at Fluttershy.

“What happened to you?” Fluttershy asked.

Fake Fluttershy slipped away as the blue jay complained about obnoxious purple unicorns, overexcited pink ponies, and annoying dragons.

“Well, you’re safe,” Fluttershy concluded after the blue jay had stopped vocalizing. “I’ll talk to Twilight, but no one was hurt.”

Chirp! Chirp!

“No one but you,” Fluttershy corrected herself. “Look, just let Twilight do her thing. I’ll let you have the day off of training and a double ration of birdseed, alright?”

Mollified, the bird nodded and flew to a nearby branch. It eyed the training animals with interest.

Fluttershy sighed and went back to supervising her troops. She had just a minute of silence when a loud croak disturbed her.

Fluttershy turned and saw an orange with frog legs sitting despondently in front of her. This time she just sighed and covered a face with one hoof.

----

She offered to peel the frog, but it told her it was comfortable the way it was. After all the animals had practiced for another hour, Fluttershy called a break. The relieved animals sat back and relaxed together while the changelings sat further away, in their own group.

“Satisfactory,” Fluttershy told the changelings, pacing back and forth in front of them. They watched her somewhat nervously, but with obedient attention. “We need to work more on individual combat training though. The troops still haven’t been in a real battle, so they’ll hesitate and freeze unless we beat that out of them.”

The changelings nodded as one. That was something creepy about them; Fake Fluttershy was fairly individual, but the warriors were clones of each other. Well, they had their unique traits if you looked close enough, but their discipline made them very easy to control. They stared at Fluttershy with rapt attention, placing their faith in her every word. Like they had with Chrysalis, Fluttershy supposed. For some reason, that made her uncomfortable.

“Don’t get pat yourselves on the backs,” Fluttershy snapped. “I want you lot training as well. If you don’t have time during the day, do it at night. You changelings aren’t nearly as good as you should be if I could take you lot apart with a bunch of untrained animals.”

The changelings shifted and bowed their heads silently. For some reason part of Fluttershy felt guilty at that. “Well, you’re somewhat capable,” Fluttershy amended her statement. “But your leader was a fool.”

The changelings looked up as one and Fluttershy waited for an angry response. But they just stared at her, wide-eyed and silent. They weren’t big on talking at all. Or rather, it seemed to Fluttershy at times that they were talking without speaking, almost like animals. She almost thought she could hear what they were saying at times, but that was impossible.

“Break time ends in twenty minutes,” Fluttershy told them after the silence drew on too long. “Have the animals go through ambush tactics for an hour and then we’ll call it a day.”

The changelings nodded as one. Fluttershy nodded back almost unconsciously and went to have a more congratulatory conversation with her animals. Before she could though, pounding hoofsteps made every creature in the clearing turn warily.

The changelings were already gone and hidden behind a tree when Fake Fluttershy burst into the clearing. Fluttershy was about to shout at her for not sending word earlier, but the sight of the other pegasus stopped her.

Fake Fluttershy was covered in dirt, mane a mess, and wild-eyed. She stopped in front of Fluttershy and took a few deep gulps of air before she could talk.

“Um, I think we have a problem.”

----

Now.

Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy’s friend and a pony of much strangeness. Fluttershy couldn’t remember how long she’d known the party pony, but she was quite familiar with Pinkie Pie’s antics. For all that though she appreciated the pink pony when she wasn’t being insufferably annoying. A good laugh was essential to any army, and the animals had often relaxed and destressed thanks to Pinkie Pie’s parties.

But whatever magic had cloned Pinkie Pie’s likeness, it hadn’t done such a great job on her mind. The Pinkies Fluttershy hurled back were simple copies, mindless morons searching for fun. They made Fluttershy sick, and not just because they reminded her of changelings. Well, even changelings were more unique and individual than these…things.

It would normally be impossible to stop even a single Pinkie Pie even with a group. The party pony of Ponyville was simply too quick and too energetic to catch. But these Pinkies were a lot dumber and slower than the real Pinkie. Moreover, Fluttershy had organized her troops in formation.

They stood three ranks deep, shoulder to shoulder. The smallest animals were at the back, helping to trip up Pinkies while the larger ones worked together to push Pinkie Pie back. It was a living wall of flesh, and while it still let one or two Pinkies happily bounce towards Ponyville, the strategy was working.

Fluttershy rammed another Pinkie Pie back and gasped for air. Something grabbed her from behind and she struggled, but it was only Matilda. The big bear gently pulled Fluttershy out of the fray and deposited her behind the line of animals. Then the bear stepped into Fluttershy’s place and sent six Pinkies flying with one slow swipe of the paw.

Two creatures were waiting for Fluttershy in the relative safety behind the main army of animals. Longfoot, and Fluttershy, both looking concerned. The rabbit offered Fluttershy a bottle of water which she snatched from his paws.

“Report,” Fluttershy rasped, drinking down the delicious water and splashing more over her face.

“The Pinkie Pies are in Ponyville,” Fake Fluttershy said quickly, worry on her face. “Not many – only about forty from what I could see. But they’ve destroyed several buildings and Applejack’s new barn and they’re causing havoc wherever they go.”

“Get the ponies out of the way, and hide them in our hidden tree shelters,” Fluttershy ordered. She’d had the animals construct several hiding spots in the Everfree for just such an eventuality. “They’ll be safe there until word gets to Princess Celestia and she can muster the army. We can pull out the real Pinkie then and get rid of these fake freaks.”

“Right,” Fake Fluttershy nodded. “But uh, how will we know who the real Pinkie Pie is? They’re all alike from what I see.”

“No clue.” Fluttershy grimaced. “But we can’t find out without more numbers to deal with these Pinkies. And I’m not about to risk hurting Pinkie Pie if she’s one of these things. Now, where are the rest of the animals?”

Longfoot waved his paws and chattered, seemingly meaningless actions which both Fluttershy’s understood.

“I want them on standby,” Fluttershy said. “We’re doing well here containing the main mass of Pinkies. Let’s not waste all our forces holding them if this turns out to be a long battle. Have the rest of our forces wait for another thirty minutes. Then we’ll switch out all current fighters and have them rest.”

Longfoot nodded.

“Go,” Fluttershy ordered them. Both rabbit and pegasus sped off. Fluttershy looked back at the Pinkie Pies still bouncing at the ranks of animals. Thirty minutes. Then she could rest. Fluttershy charged back into the mass of Pinkies, holding them back until she could rest.

That was the plan. But even the best laid plans break.

----

Twenty minutes had passed since Fluttershy had given her orders when she felt a hoof pull her out of the fray again.

“What?” Fluttershy demanded angrily as Fake Fluttershy fought her way next to her. Both pegusi stood at the front lines, shouting at each other as the Pinkies bounced at the animals.

“Twilight’s left the safe house!” Fake Fluttershy had the shout over the noise of the Pinkies.

“What!?”

“I had them in the safe house under the tree,” Fake Fluttershy said. “But then Twilight started rounding up all the Pinkies! She’s got some kind of plan.”

“A plan?” Fluttershy growled and swatted a Pinkie aside. “Well, that changes our strategy. What’s her big idea?”

“I think she’s got a spell to return the copies of Pinkie Pie to the pond,” Fake Fluttershy said, dodging a bouncing Pinkie Pie. “But she has to find the real Pinkie first. It could take a while – she was saying something about a test—”

“Wonderful.” Fluttershy caught a Pinkie as it hurtled towards her and slung it to the ground. The bone-rattling impact didn’t seem to even phase the pink pony however, and it bounded up again with another cry of ‘fun!’

The Pinkie Pies weren’t that dangerous when you outnumbered them three to one. Fluttershy glanced down the line of her animals and saw that they were successfully blocking the Pinkies, throwing them back or bowling them off their feet. The Pinkies seemed to regard this as great fun, and so their progress was halted. Excellent.

“Get back there and help her,” Fluttershy ordered. “The real Pinkie’s not here. Pinkie Pie’s an insane idiot, but she’d never hurt anypony.”

Fake Fluttershy nodded and began to gallop away. But she skidded to a halt before she’d made it more than ten feet.

“Oh holy horseapples,” Fake Fluttershy breathed.

Fluttershy turned and her stomach sunk through her hooves. Coming out of the forest was a stampede of pink, a horde of bouncing, flying terrors nearly twice the size of the group Fluttershy’s army was dealing with at the moment.

“That’s—” Fluttershy stopped and stared. So many Pinkies. They raced towards the line of animals, shouting.

“Fun!”

“Go.” Fluttershy ordered Fake Fluttershy.

“But—”

“Go! Get Longfoot to call in everyone else! Hurry!”

Fake Fluttershy raced off. Fluttershy remained where she was, among the line of animals, watching the sea of Pinkie Pies approach.

“Fun!”

Their numbers seemed endless. They filled the sky and ground.

“Fun! Fun!”

The animals around Fluttershy faltered as they saw the new wave of Pinkies incoming. They were tired. They’d been fighting for over an hour without rest. They looked to Fluttershy.

“Hold,” she told them. “The others are coming. We just have to hold—”

“FUN! FUN!” The sound was deafening. The Pinkies crashed into the line of animals like the tide. Fluttershy battered two Pinkies out of the way, and then she was swept off her feat.

“FUN!”

They were dangerous. They were deadly. They were not fun; in fact, Fluttershy had never seen something so insanely violent before in her life.

The Pinkie Pies weren’t trying to hurt anyone. They just wanted their ‘fun’. Unfortunately, these clones had limited one-track minds and all the hyperactive energy of the real Pinkie Pie. In their need to find entertainment, they ran, jumped, and trampled anything in their way.

A fox was trying to pull a Pinkie Pie back when a second one landed on its back, knocking the wind out of the smaller creature. Fluttershy saw it trying to get back up, but then more Pinkie’s bounced on it, first one, then two, until they filled Fluttershy’s vision. She didn’t see the fox reemerge from the sea of hooves and legs.

This was bad. Fluttershy had given up on any pretense at niceness and had begun kicking and throwing the Pinkie Pies back as fast as she could, but they kept coming. They landed on her, rammed into her, smacked her to the ground and trampled her.

Fluttershy’s head struck a rock and a Pinkie’s hoof ground her face into the dirt. She threw it off her and staggered upright. The side of her head was bleeding, but far worse was the lack of air. She couldn’t breathe. It was a sea of Pinkies, a tide of flesh that was choking her.

Fluttershy fought for air. She unfurled her wings and leapt into the air. Pinkie’s bounced all around her, but she found a moment to breathe at last.

Below her was a sea of endless pink. Cotton candy manes bounced about and the same terrible word was repeated a hundred times each second.

“Funfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfun—”

Fluttershy could make out her animal task force, a few of them, no longer trying to hold Pinkies back and merely trying not to be stomped to death. She had to do something.

“Hey!” Fluttershy’s desperate voice was lost in the chanting. She tried again. “Hey! Look over there! Is that a party?”

As one, the Pinkie Pie’s heads turned in the direction Fluttershy was pointing.

“Party? Where?”

“Over there!” Fluttershy pretended to gawk at something in the distance. “It’s a huge party! Full of cake and balloons and…party hats! I’d hate to miss that!”

“Party! Fun!” As one pony the Pinkie Pies charged off in the direction Fluttershy was pointing.

Fluttershy sank to the ground, panting wildly as the avalanche of pink retreated for a moment. She gulped air for a solid minute before she could focus. When her vision had cleared enough to see, Fluttershy’s heart stopped.

Without the ever-present chanting of Pinkies, the forest was very quiet. Too quiet. The animals…her friends were around her, but only a few. She saw them limping, some in small groups still, trembling with exhaustion. Some of her animals. But the rest were lying on the ground. Still. Around her was silence. Silence, and death.

Half of her animals lay on the ground, unmoving. Fluttershy ran over to a squirrel and stopped. It lay on the ground, neck twisted at a terrible angle. Its limbs, even its body was crushed flat. The ground around the squirrel’s corpse was stained red and pounded flat.

Fluttershy breathed out slowly. This was…terrible, even by her standards. She’d never seen violence this cruel, not even in war. She bent down and touched the squirrel. An untested warrior. Trained, but not enough. But she’d asked him to fight, and he had. And now…

Shouting. Fluttershy whirled around. From out of the forest poured Longfoot and the other animals. Leading them were also the changelings, perfectly arrayed and ready for battle.

The army stopped when it saw the carnage before them. Fluttershy saw Longfoot’s white fur go even whiter, saw the confident expressions on the faces of her friends turn pale and shivery in a moment. Knives dropped from animals hands and they bent to pick them up, shaking. They had been trained not to let go of their weapons. But they didn’t approach.

They were too afraid. Too horrified.

Fluttershy lurched forwards and her army rippled. Several animals took a step back. Why? Oh. That’s right. She was bleeding.

The first rule of any leader is to command by presence. Fluttershy knew she wasn’t doing that now. She was tired. And the death—so many of her warriors…friends…were dead. She’d failed them.

But the Pinkies were coming. Fluttershy could hear their voices in the distance. She had to protect Ponyville. If the Pinkies arrived there and trampled ponies like they had her friends…

Fluttershy took a breath to shout orders and hesitated. She looked at the animals. They had fear in their eyes. She couldn’t do it. The words wanted to be spoken, but they weren’t warriors. They’d break and run. She couldn’t do it. She needed trained soldiers, not furry creatures. She needed—

The changelings stepped forwards as one insect. Fluttershy jerked upright automatically, and the changeling warriors halted before her. As one, they bowed low and then straightened. Their postures were low, their front and back legs braced. They could stand there forever or engage the enemy in a moment.

Discipline. And as if Fluttershy could hear their thoughts in her mind, she knew what they were saying.

Orders?

Fluttershy’s back straightened. She took a deep breath, and then another. Calm. The whirlwind of emotions in her subsided, and she looked back at the dead and fallen. The wounded animals struck her heart, but now sparks flew.

Anger.

“Get the wounded to safety.” Fluttershy’s voice was a mix between a field roar and a normal voice. She had to be loud, authoritative, but not enough to scare her friends…her army.

“Longfoot, get any animal too hurt to fight back to my cottage and have medical teams treat their wounds. But I want everyone else, and I mean everyone right here. The Pinkie Pies are coming back, and if we don’t stop them, they’ll kill every living thing within miles.”

Longfoot snapped out of his reverie and nodded. He started screaming orders at the animals he was leading and they too slowly shook themselves out of their daze. Slowly. Fluttershy knew she had to fill their minds with simple tasks rather than let them think about what was happening.

“You lot.” She addressed the changelings, who stood patiently waiting. “I’m placing you in command for the coming battle. Each of you, take a group of animals and lead them. They don’t know war, but you do. I want all of you following my battle plan to the letter, and so help me, if any of you so much as sneezes out of place I’ll use you as a piñata and invite all the Pinkies.”

The changelings nodded as one, totally unfazed by Fluttershy’s threat. Or rather, they knew she’d follow through with it, expected her to follow through with it, and were determined to follow her will. Such was a soldier’s duty to their queen. Fluttershy grinned, and she had no idea why. It just felt good to command like this again. Even in the heat of battle and tragedy of death.

“You lot can dig, right?”

The changelings exchanged a glance. Then they nodded as one.

“Good. Get me all the animals who can dig in one group, and all those who can cut wood in another. We’ve got twenty minutes to prepare or less. Move!”

The changelings nodded and ran back to the milling animals. Longfoot was trying to martial them by shouting and waving his paws, but the changelings were more direct. They picked up animals by the scruffs of their necks or towed them bodily out of the crowd, forming groups and hissing instructions. The animals were still afraid enough of them to do exactly as they said, which was what Fluttershy needed.

Longfoot hopped over to Fluttershy and tapped the ground quickly with his foot.

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “Just get the wounded off the field and prepare for more. It’s going to get very bloody soon.”

He twisted his face in confusion. Fluttershy could feel him wondering where the original plan to hold the Pinkies back until Celestia arrived had gone.

“She won’t get here in time. And besides, containment? After what they’ve done?” Fluttershy shook her head. “Forget that. Twilight might be able to find the real Pinkie Pie, but she’ll never be able to zap all of these freaks. We’ve got to stop them for good, or they’ll kill every living creature in Equestria just by trampling them to death.”

Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the forest. In the distance she heard the Pinkies shouting, and the crash of trees. They’d found something to be occupied with, but they’d be returning soon.

“They want fun? We’ll give them the party of a lifetime.”

----

The Pinkies bounded out of the forest and towards Ponyville again. They’d been looking for fun, and hadn’t found it. A party had been promised, but all they’d found were trees. That was…annoying, so they were going where there was definitely fun. Ponyville.

But something was in their way. Animals. A pegasus. The limited minds of the Pinkies didn’t know how to interpret the changelings, so they just thought of them as weird-looking ponies. But there were a lot of them, all lined up in a meadow facing the Pinkies. A bunch of dirt had been excavated, and long pits had been formed in front of the animals.

The Pinkie Pies brightened as one. This could only mean one thing. A party! They bounded towards the group more quickly, each Pinkie determined to have the most fun. After all, the pegasus in front was smiling. That was surely a good thing.

----

Fluttershy watched the Pinkie Pie horde approach and counted. They were moving fast and erratically, but her rough estimate put them at around two hundred. Not good. At least there weren’t more – Fluttershy supposed she was lucky the Pinkies had lost patience and not created a thousand copies of themselves. But two hundred would be pushing the limits of her plan.

“Fun!” The Pinkies chanted as they leapt towards Fluttershy and her waiting army. “Fun! Party! Fun!”

Fluttershy glanced back across her battleground, making a final check. Let’s see. She had four hundred animals, fourteen changelings, a single bear, and twenty minutes to prepare. Her animals were armed of course, but unused to fighting and certainly not ready to kill. On the other hand, she was facing two hundred ponies that had limitless energy and no concept of self-preservation.

Good thing she’d put her twenty minutes to good use.

Fluttershy eyed her preparations. The dirt in front of the lead row of animals was churned, the soil having been dug up recently. Nearby several trees had also been felled and dismantled – courtesy of the beavers and other animals who could chew through wood in seconds. These signs might have tipped off an observant pony commander, but the Pinkies wouldn’t expect a thing.

Excellent.

The Pinkies were two hundred yards away and closing fast. Fluttershy took her place at the head of her army where Longfoot and Matilda stood. Arrayed across the front line were the fourteen changelings, ready for combat.

“Knife,” Fluttershy ordered.

Longfoot hesitated for a moment. He held up one of Fluttershy’s knives but didn’t give it to right away. She could feel his uneasiness. For all they were clones, and for all that they were dangerous, Fluttershy knew he was looking at the Pinkies like the real thing. She knew better.

“They’re not real,” she told him. “They’re killers. Look.” She pointed at the bodies of the squashed animals, piled like leaves to one side of the battlefield. It had been…hard to get the animals to move their friends and families, but she’d made them do it. Better that then have them ripped apart in the coming melee.

Longfoot looked at the dead. His paws shook. Fluttershy gently took the knife from him. She could see the other animals looking at the dead and away as well. Some were still throwing up, but most were numb.

But behind that numbness was the same thing in Fluttershy’s heart. Rage.

“We tried to hold them back peacefully,” Fluttershy said out loud. “We tried to do things without hurting any pony. We treated these things like real ponies, and that was a mistake. They might look like Pinkie Pie, but you know she would never do anything like this.”

Fluttershy’s hoof took in the blood-soaked field, the dead animals, and the approaching Pinkies. “Hold this ground. I don’t care if you don’t want to hurt them; believe me, in a few moments you’ll see that they don’t feel the same way.”

The mass of Pinkies was nearly upon them. Fluttershy raised her hoof, ready to give the signal. Her animals tensed.

But then the leading ranks of Pinkies slowed, and stopped moving forwards. To Fluttershy’s surprise, the Pinkies stopped before they ran into the army this time. Rather, the leading row of Pinkies stopped and the rest of the Pinkies piled up behind them.

“Hey!” The leading Pinkie shouted at Fluttershy. “Do you want to have fun?”

“What?” Fluttershy looked at the Pinkie incredulously.

“Fun! We’re looking for fun! You look like you have lots of fun!”

Fluttershy glanced over at the dead animals. “Is that what you call it?”

The Pinkie glanced over at the dead bodies with interest. Its eyes saw the blood, the mutilated corpses, and the flattened bodies. But all it did was smile. “Yeah!” It said, bouncing up and down in place. “That was a lot of fun!”

Cold fury raced through Fluttershy’s body. To hear this creature with Pinkie Pie’s face say such things was unforgivable. But she remained calm. She’d try to reason with them. Once. She owed that to whatever semblance of Pinkie they had in them.

“You hurt them.” Fluttershy’s hoof tightened on the knife.

“But we were having fun!” The Pinkie’s face scrunched up in confusion. “It’s all fun!”

“Breaking a fox’s bones is fun? Smashing a mouse’s head in is fun? Killing animals is fun?”

“I dunno.” The Pinkie Pie shrugged. “Is it?”

That was it. Fluttershy felt something snap.

“Let’s find out.” Fluttershy raised the knife and threw it in one motion. It blurred towards the Pinkie who blinked and started to dodge too late.

The knife hit the Pinkie with a terrible ripping sound as blade cut into the pony’s flesh. Fluttershy had thrown the knife hard, and the blade gouged deep into the Pinkie’s left side.

The Pinkie staggered eyes wide with sudden shock. It put one hoof to its side and felt at the knife. It lost its smile.

The other Pinkies were still bouncing. They were still smiling. But the lead Pinkie wasn’t anymore. It felt at the knife. It’s face twisted in pain. Blood dripped from the wound and onto the ground.

“Not fun.” The Pinkie looked down at the knife embedded in its side. Its face twisted and its eyes wend wide with pain and then anger. “Not fun,” it repeated, more loudly. The other Pinkies stopped and stared at the injured Pinkie.

“Not fun!” It was one voice in the sudden silence. The Pinkie pulled at the knife, and more blood spurted from the wound. “Not fun! Pain!”

The knife must have been embedded in the bone. Yet still the Pinkie pulled at it, ripping its flesh open as it tore the knife out. It held the blade aloft, and now it was truly bleeding. A puddle of blood was already forming at its feet.

“Pain!” It screamed. “Hurt!”

The other Pinkies looked the first Pinkie uncertainty. But then another Pinkie shouted. “Not fun!”

It was a judgement. At these words, the other Pinkies’ faces changed. From happy uncertainty their expression instantly became hostile, their eyes narrowed and they began shouting the same words.

“Not fun! Not fun! Not fun!”

The wounded Pinkie had lost a lot of blood. It staggered, and Fluttershy hoped it would fall. Its head went down, and the Pinkie’s legs buckled. But then it looked up at Fluttershy, and she saw the crazed gleam in its eyes.

The Pinkie screamed and charged at Fluttershy, mouth open impossibly wide.

“Knife!” Fluttershy ordered. Longfoot tossed the blade up and Fluttershy caught it and threw in one motion.

The Pinkie Pie leapt and the flashing grey blade met it in midair. The knife embedded itself in the Pinkie’s forehead and the clone simply popped in midair. Fragments of the Pinkie’s skin and made hit the ground like confetti.

The other Pinkies stared at what had been the remains of the Pinkie in shock. Their eyes travelled from their deceased comrade to Fluttershy. Ten seconds of silence passed in which Fluttershy could practically hear the rapid beating of the hearts of the animals behind her.

Then as one pony the Pinkie Pies charged, screaming.

“Now,” Fluttershy whispered.

The line of animals heaved on the ropes and the earth shifted. From out of the ground wooded stakes emerged, long poles of sharpened wood. They had been buried beneath the leaves and dirt, and now the palisade rose, a line of pointed death the animals placed themselves behind.

Sharp sticks. Fluttershy had studied tactics and warfare. It didn’t matter whether the weapons were made of wood or steel; positioning, preparation, and numbers mattered just as much. And even if her force’s weapons were cheap iron and pieces of wood, Fluttershy still had the rest.

The line of animals had shifted. No longer were they a thin barrier of flesh and fur; now they stood between thick posts of wood, each animal armed and braced with two more of its comrades to each side.

Ordinarily, the act of making fortifications was tricky and time-consuming. A regular army would have needed a day or at least a few hours to pull together any kind of defensive formation half as good, but Fluttershy’s army was made of beavers, rodents, and creatures who had been born to shape nature.

Palisade in front, animals behind. In truth, it wasn’t a real wall, but more like pikes embedded in the ground. And the strength of this wall lay in the fact that while the gaps between the sharp wooden stakes were too small for even the smallest pony to squeeze through, Fluttershy’s animals could shelter between them just fine.

Any mortal foe would have hesitated upon seeing the stakes go up. They would have pulled back to reassess and attack the enemy from the flanks rather than go through that killing field. But the Pinkies didn’t even slow down. They charged onto the sharpened stakes in one horrific mass, screaming the entire time.

“Kill.”

Fluttershy was in the center of the formation, behind a squad of squirrels and Matilda. She watched in slow motion as the first Pinkies crashed against the palisade.

They didn’t even try to swerve to avoid the sharpened wood. Half of the Pinkie clones ran right into the stakes, nearly reaching the animals as they screamed and died. The other half made it into the gaps created by the dead, but met the defenders there.

Matilda swatted two Pinkie Pies aside and crushed a third with one paw. Two more rushed through the gap, howling.

From the left the squad of eight squirrels leapt on the closest Pinkie, knocking the pony off balance and stabbing with pieces of wood, bits of metal, biting and tearing with claws if they had no weapons. The last Pinkie ran on, not even realizing it was alone.

It came at Fluttershy, a thing of teeth and frothing foam. Gone was the original Pinkie Pie – this creature was mad vengeance, and leapt at Fluttershy with hooves already seeking her throat.

“Kill!” It screamed, “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Fluttershy stepped to one side and rammed the Pinkie mid-leap. Surprised, the clone fell to the ground but immediately tried to scramble up and jump at Fluttershy again. It was too slow though.

The Pinkie’s face came up and it looked around just in time to see two back hooves coming at it with speed. That was the last thing it saw.

Fluttershy checked to make sure the Pinkie was truly dead before she took her place back in the defensive line. Not that she really thought even Pinkie could survive with half a face. Applejack might have been the champion apple-bucker of Ponyville, but even the youngest pony could do serious damage of they really kicked with their back hooves.

Longfoot was riding a Pinkie and trying to stab it to death as it bit and tore at four more rabbits trying to encircle it. Fluttershy leapt at the Pinkie and tackled it to the ground. The clone bit at her, trying to rip her flesh off with its teeth as it screamed. It took all of Fluttershy’s strength just to hold the clone as it fought her.

A blur of movement. Fluttershy jerked to one side and Longfoot landed on the Pinkie’s chest, burying the cutting knife hilt-deep in its chest. The Pinkie convulsed, and then popped into fragments of flesh.

“Thanks.” Fluttershy shakily got to her feet.

Longfoot nodded and bounded back to the line of stakes. Fluttershy went ot join him but stopped. She had to see the entire battle. She flew up into the air and surveyed the ground. The animals were holding. For now.

Birds swooped through the skies, dropping stone missiles as they had in the Battle for the Everfree. This time though, they had to be wary. From the milling confusion below a Pinkie would occasionally launch itself impossibly high into the air, mouth opened wide to engulf a bird whole.

Still, the advantage was Fluttershy’s. She controlled the air and land in this battle. The Pinkies were an unthinking mass that knew only to charge forwards. Her troops were in formation and protected by wooden stakes, now covered with the dead Pinkie corpses.

But they came on and on. Even as they died, they still reached for their enemies. Fluttershy saw one Pinkie Pie drag itself across the ground, back broken, hooves shredded to bloody ribbons, still trying to bite and rip apart the animals around it.

It was madness. Fluttershy had never seen creatures so crazed. Part of her wondered whether this was Pinkie Pie, or whatever magic had cloned her. But there was no time for thought. The line of animals was bending under the unstoppable onslaught of Pinkies. If they broke, it would be a rout despite the overwhelming numbers.

Fluttershy saw a changeling warrior pressed by three Pinkies at once. The animals around him were gone, ripped to pieces. A Pinkie swallowed a ferret whole as Fluttershy watched.

“There!” Fluttershy shouted the command to any birds within range. Those that heard he turned and dove with her.

The changeling warrior fell back, trying to hold back the Pinkies as they lunged at him. One Pinkie bowled the insect over and the other two jumped.

Fluttershy slammed into one Pinkie, smashing it into the ground as she pummeled it with her hooves. The other Pinkie was suddenly engulfed in a flock of birds as they dove and clawed at its eyes.

The changeling warrior used the moment to throw the Pinkie off it. With one move it lunged forwards and gored the Pinkie through one eye with its horn. Then it came to the aid of Fluttershy who was trying to pull the Pinkie off her hoof.

The clone refused to loosen its teeth even when Fluttershy smashed it’s skull against the ground. Only after the changeling had helped stomp its face in did the teeth loosen.

Fluttershy saw her blood running freely as she yanked her hoof free. The bite was deep. But she ignored it and nodded to the changeling. Together, both insect and pegasus turned and raced back towards the mass of Pinkies.

They came on, screaming. They bled and died, stabbed countless times. But for every Pinkie that fell there were four more that ran on, biting, howling one word.

And for once Fluttershy agreed with them. She fought and struck with her hooves, and when that failed she bit and gouged, fighting, holding the line. And that one word echoed in her soul.

Kill.

----

The evening had ended and night just begun when Fake Fluttershy arrived with a few of the animals that had been in Ponyville to deal with the smaller mass of Pinkies. She stopped when she saw the battlefield.

In the fading light of the sun, the Everfree glowed with orange and dark green colors, the sun’s last light filtering through the forest and casting soft radiances wherever it fell.

But in the place where Fluttershy’s army had made its stand the light ran red. Crimson was the color of the ground, and it was all that remained. Crimson blood. And death.

The animals wandered the battlefield, silent individuals without words. They still held weapons, covered in gore and they mechanically stabbed any Pinkie they found mostly intact. There were far fewer of them then there had been earlier that day.

Fake Fluttershy’s eyes took in the carnage, but she didn’t weep. Instead, she turned to the animals with her, the medical corps paralyzed with shock. Gently, she pushed them and they moved, slowly going to animals and prizing weapons away, searching for wounds under the coating of blood.

Fake Fluttershy walked through the battlefield, stepping around bodies where possible. She looked over the death and saw what had happened. A warrior’s perspective.

There. A line of stakes, some still standing in the earth. Many had broken, but the row of wood had clearly done its work well. Dead Pinkies covered the sharpened barriers, and Fake Fluttershy could see where the wooden barriers had given way. There the dead lay most heavily, animal defenders entangled with the remains of the Pinkie clones.

They had flooded through the gaps, and the animals had stopped them inch by inch. Here falling back, there making a stand. Fifteen beavers had taken down the same number of Pinkies, holding the stakes until they were overwhelmed by the weight of bodies.

Blood. Carnage. Fake Fluttershy saw the changeling warriors, all miraculously alive, simply collapsed together. Around them the Pinkies lay like firewood. The changelings looked up at Fake Fluttershy, and she held their gaze for a second.

More important things. Fake Fluttershy looked away. Where was she? Her eyes searched. There. Among the fallen, where the fighting had been thickest. A pegasus covered in blood, stumbling around, checking bodies.

And Fake Fluttershy heard a noise among the silence.

Sobbing.

----

She walked among the dead, weeping.

They lay around her, lifeless dolls, puppets with cut strings. Their empty eyes stared at her. Their expressions begged for mercy, relief that never came. They looked at her, the origin of their suffering.

Fluttershy wandered her body a numb vessel for her horror. She searched among the fallen, the animals strewn among the Pinkie corpses. She looked for life, for survivors, and found none.

A Pinkie’s grinning face stared up at Fluttershy. She kicked the severed head aside and bent down. Among the blood was a small mouse, eyes wide with terror. It held a toothpick in one claw still and jabbed at Fluttershy reflexively before it focused on her face.

Fluttershy bent to scoop the mouse up with its hooves. But she hesitated, and moved more slowly as she lifted him. Only part of the mouse came up with her. The rest remained where it was.

The mouse was breathing weakly, but it smiled at Fluttershy. Bravely. She brought it to her face and nuzzled the small creature. It grasped at her mane and let the toothpick it held fall to the ground.

A toothpick. An insultingly small weapon – no, not even a weapon. But it was all the mouse had been able to find to fight with. Only a sharpened bit of wood, but the mouse had used it well. Fluttershy looked back at the dead Pinkie clone, and saw how one eye had been removed.

Yes, used well.

Fluttershy gripped the mouse gently, and it held her back. It was crying. With pain? No, relief. It hadn’t wanted to die alone. Fluttershy gripped more tightly and released when she realized she was holding it too hard. But the mouse held her just as desperately, with all its strength.

A long moment. Forever the pony and mouse held each other. The mouse sighed once, and gripped Fluttershy’s hoof tightly with one claw. And then it was gone.

Fluttershy gently lowered the body to the ground and stood, shaking. Her mind was filled with…grief. It wasn’t that she didn’t know war, but she hadn’t felt like this before. It was – the dead were – she was their leader and they had died for her.

As it should be. As any leader must. But they were her friends, not just her soldiers. They’d fought because she’d asked them to, and they’d died. Not all. Not most, in fact. Her strategy had worked. But it hadn’t been enough, because they’d still died by the dozens.

Something was next to her. Fluttershy looked over and saw her face, herself looking at her with concern. The other her stood among the broken remains of the battlefield in silence.

Fluttershy looked at the copy of herself, untouched by blood or guts. Innocent. Seemingly. It’s head was bowed, and it stared at the fallen. Was it crying? No. But Fluttershy could feel its pain even so.

Past the other pegasus the animals were moving. Wandering, shell-shocked and alone. But their eyes fell on Fluttershy as she moved forwards, walking towards the heart of the slaughter.

Movement. Fluttershy attracted it her wake. Her limbs were numb, her body unfeeling, but she still moved. And in her wake the animals around her looked up and began to follow.

The animals gathered, unconsciously moving in the one source of direction. They limped over, those that could walk, first fragments, ones and twos, and then all. More had survived than not. But the dead still left massive gaps in the crowd. They stared at Fluttershy silently, but their eyes were not.

A question.

She needed a place to stand. To look down on them all. Flying was no good. Fluttershy sought, and the pile of Pinkie corpses by the stakes called to her. She climbed it, and looked down at her army. Baptized in blood. Reborn by battle. Desperate eyes.

“We won.” Fluttershy’s voice was quiet, but the silence was even more deafening. Her low tone carried to every animal, even those bandaging wounds or at the furthest edges of the battlefield.

“The Pinkie threat is ended.” Fluttershy looked down at Fake Fluttershy, who nodded. “The real Pinkie was found, and Twilight banished the rest of the Pinkies back where they came from. A magical pond. The entrance was sealed, and it will be guarded. We won.”

The animals stared up at her. Numbly. They didn’t respond to her words. Fluttershy tried again. The words were hollow in her chest.

“I know it feels like we didn’t. But if we hadn’t been here, it would have been so much worse. These things weren’t Pinkie. Remember that. They were just mockeries of her, things that killed for fun and didn’t understand what pain was. But she showed them.”

More silence. Something was in Fluttershy’s chest. Pain.

“We’re here…” Fluttershy’s voice trailed off. She looked around at the carnage, the dead that filled the ground. Friends. She was speaking to them like a leader. She was a leader. But that wasn’t what they wanted to hear now. Words came to Fluttershy. New words.

“We’re here because no one else can do this,” Fluttershy said. “I’m here because I want to be.”

The animals looked up.

Fluttershy stood on top of the Pinkies, and looked down at her soldiers. Her friends.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot that war was like this. Killing, death – I know it well. You didn’t. I asked you to fight for me, and never told you the cost. Because I forgot.”

The animals shifted. Their weapons were still in their hands. Their eyes were filled with hurt. Fluttershy’s chest ached. But she kept speaking.

“There’s no salvation for me. Not anymore. I’ve walked on so many corpses that I can’t even remember how many I’ve killed.” The words came from deep in Fluttershy’s heart, begging to be said. And each word was true, the truest she’d spoken.

“And that’s fine. I can’t go back. I don’t even want to. This is my purpose. Here,” she indicated the bloody field, “is where I belong. But you don’t.”

The animals looked at her, eyes wide.

“This is what I can offer you. All of you,” Fluttershy said. Behind the crowd of animals the changelings watched her silently. “No peace. No happiness. Just this. No redemption. No salvation. Just war. Eternal war, to protect those who deserve peace.”

They were silent, watching her.

“All of you, I won’t ask you to fight any longer. Only those who truly wish to – I’ll use you if you’re willing. It’s wrong, but I need soldiers. I need warriors to fight with me. Even if the cost is in our blood, to protect Ponyville, to protect Equestria, I’d spend all our lives.”

Fluttershy nodded once. “It’s not fair. And I won’t pretend that it ever is. But that’s my mission. No one needs to follow me; you’d be safer and happier not doing that. But so long as I’m here, even if it’s by myself, I promise you: I’ll protect you all until my dying breath.”1

Silence. Fluttershy stepped off the mound of Pinkies and back to earth. Her friends watched her. The changeling watched her. The imposter Fluttershy stood there, next to Longfoot.

Watching.

“Well?” Fluttershy looked at the Fake Fluttershy, daring the changeling to say anything. But it only stared at Fluttershy, eyes wide with surprise.

But then the fake clone of Fluttershy bowed and stepped out of her way. Fluttershy walked onwards, among the dead and dying. And at her back the animals gathered. Some picked up weapons; others began dragging the bodies of Pinkie Pie into a heap. But they followed Fluttershy, by ones and twos, and then in a gathering mass.

Her friends.

Her army.

They had been broken once by flame and blood. Her forces had been scattered, murdered by monsters. But she had re-forged them, from different beings, and in different ways it was true. But her shield and sword was in her hooves, and this time Fluttershy would use it to protect Equestria.

And in the dying sunlight the pony called Fluttershy stood among the dead bodies of the pony named Pinkie Pie, surrounded by an army of animals and heard the leaves of the Everfree rustle as the wind picked up. The noise was faint and echoed strangely, but that wasn’t what made Fluttershy’s heart race. It was the nature of the sound itself.

For some reason, it sounded like laughter.