Havoc was bored. He had spent about two weeks of subjective time trapped in the stone, with nothing but his own imagination to keep himself entertained. However, with all things considered, he had been very lucky. Screwball should have killed him, but the fight had taken a heavy toll on her and she only had enough power to petrify him. She had been forced to leave Ponyville before recovering enough energy to finish her job when the Elements of Harmony returned from Canterlot, as they posed a great threat now that they were aware of her existence. The petrifying stare of a cockatrice, while being so powerful that only the strongest harmonic magic could heal it, was also very vulnerable to chaos magic, unlike the power of the Elements of Harmony. This means that the small amount of chaotic energy that remained inside of Havoc would have overwhelmed the spell by itself in less than a decade. It also means that an external source of chaotic energy would allow him to break free with little effort.

This chaos was provided a month after he was turned to stone by a pink mare who wanted to be with all her friends instead of choosing one. This mare was Pinkamena Diane Pie, the Element of Laughter. Pinkie Pie is a very special pony, who can do things that defy the rules of her universe. This, by itself, isn’t such a big thing, as a draconequus or anyone blessed by a draconequus can do this. What is really shocking is that her abilities are innate and compatible with being the embodiment of an Element of Harmony. It’s Pinkie Pie, there’s no other explanation. Let’s go back to the story.

The day of his release, Havoc felt something from the outside for the first time in weeks: a small burst of chaos energy that was quickly taken by his body. What the heck is going on? If only I could see what’s happening.

A few seconds before, two ponies were talking next to the lake.

“Duplicates of you, huh? Heh, Yeah, sure, Pinkie,” said Rainbow Dash, the embodiment of the Element of Loyalty, pausing to yawn. ”Look, I was just gearing up to catch some Zs, so, uh...”

“Gotcha. I'll have the rest of my fun really quietly,” replied Pinkie Pie.

The pink mare jumped way higher than a pony of her size and strength should be able to jump and, just before diving into the lake, she slowed the speed of her fall to avoid making a splashing noise.

“Wheeeee...” she whispered as she fell.

“How'd you do that?” asked Rainbow Dash, her confusion feeding Havoc with chaos energy and alerting him.

A few minutes passed with nothing chaotic happening, making Havoc wonder if that small amount of chaos would be all he would receive. Then, he felt a huge amount of chaos energy being released above him, which he took for himself as fast as he could.

“No more Pinkies! I can't take it!” Rainbow Dash shouted, using her deck chair as cover and an umbrella as a makeshift weapon against the horde of Pinkie Pies that crowded the place.

None of them was swimming underwater, so they didn’t hear the noise of stone cracking at the bottom of the lake. It started as a single crack on Havoc’s chest, which was followed by many more small fractures all over his petrified body.

Yes! Yes! At last I will stop being stoned!

Over the next minutes, the cracks grew in number and depth as Havoc struggled against the petrification spell. He almost killed himself twice be freeing his organs in the wrong order, such as releasing his head without having a heart to pump blood into it or lungs to avoid drowning. Moreover, even if he had freed his lungs first he was still underwater so he would have drowned anyways. Fortunately, he could replace his basic needs with magic, so he didn’t die due to a silly mistake. He released his head, arms and legs first and, with his torso still made of stone which make swimming impossible, he climbed the lake bed. When he reached the shore, two hours had passed since the Pinkies arrived and nopony remained in the area. He wasted another half an hour until not a single trace of petrification remained.

“At last!” he exclaimed as he stretched his stiff body. “A few more days and I would have gone crazy. Well, crazier.”

Havoc began doing a silly dance to check that he was fine, but soon he fell face-first to the ground, as a 500 kgs draconequus isn’t the best dancer there is.

“Note to self: I am an awful dancer,” he said as he got up.

He suddenly realized that he could be in danger, as he knew neither where was Screwball nor what caused the chaos that allowed him to escape. Therefore, he stopped wasting time and tried to find the source of the chaos. It took him some time, as he had barely used his ability to find chaos energy before, but he managed to pinpoint it. He quickly changed to his owl body and flew towards the chaos.

He soon found himself flying over the outskirts of Ponyville, his goal apparently being near the center of the town. Then he found it.

‘What the fuck?! Are those changelings?!’ he thought when he saw not one, but nearly fifty Pinkie Pies, running and laughing. A few seconds later he noticed that Applejack, Big Macintosh, Applebloom and Winona were herding them like cattle. No, if they were changelings they would be attacking, not laughing and shouting “FUN”. But then, where did all those Pinkie Pies come from?

He quickly flew to a window when the Apple family guided the Pinkies to the Town Hall, so he could take a look inside.

Twilight Sparkle was talking to the Pinkie Pies. “Don't worry, it's a simple test, about as simple as they come, and whoever passes gets to stay.”

The Pinkies nodded in agreement.

“Curtain, please,” said Twilight, and Spike rose it. “The test will be watching paint dry!”

This reveal caused most of the Pinkies to gasp in shock.

“On your mark, get set, go!” said Twilight, and the Pinkies stared at the wall without even blinking.

“Ooh, this is so exciting!” exclaimed Spike, with a bag of popcorn in his claws.

“Okay, maybe not that exciting,” he added several minutes later, when not a single Pinkie had failed yet.

“Oh, hey, look, it's a birdie!” exclaimed one of the Pinkies, when a red bird landed on a tree that could be seen outside the window.

Twilight immediately charged a spell and blasted said Pinkie, who was inflated like a balloon, only to pop and become a wisp of pink magic that quickly left the room.

‘What’s that?’ thought Havoc, and he quickly flew after the wisp.

The wisp was faster than him, but a few more wisps were travelling on the same course, so he had no trouble following them. He soon followed them into a cave in the Everfree Forest, where the pink wisps were vanishing inside a pool of calm water.

‘I don’t understand,’ he thought, but then he felt something that made his blood run cold. Whenever a pink wisp entered the lake, he stopped feeling the chaos energy that came out of it, which was identical to the one that came from Pinkie Pie all the times he had met her. He jumped to the conclusion that the only meaning of this sudden vanishing of the ‘Pinkie magic’ was that the Pinkie Pies were being killed by the lake somehow. Panicking, he tried to stop the wisps from going into the lake, but he soon found that countering the spell that had been cast on them was beyond his power. He decided that, if he couldn’t save them after Twilight used her magic on them, he would have to stop the purple unicorn as soon as possible. Even if that meant opposing Shining Armor and the Elements of Harmony themselves.

He followed the path of chaos energy created by the Pinkie wisps as fast as he could without teleporting, as he didn’t dare to do it again since Screwball managed to make him appear in front of her in order to attack him. He flew with his draconequus body, using his own magic to increase his speed. He didn’t bother to change to a less remarkable body when he entered Ponyville, but luckily for him all the ponies were hiding until the Pinkie Pie clones were dealt with, so he wasn’t spotted. He felt a twinge of panic when the wisps stopped, thinking that he was too late. When he returned to the window, there were only two Pinkie Pies in the room.

I have to save them! How do I do it?! Should I just barge in and stop Twilight? But what if the Pinkies are evil clones or changelings and I end up doing something bad? This seemed simple when I was on the way here, now I can’t think of-

“Ugh, I can't take it anymore!” shouted Rainbow Dash. “Somepony's making balloon animals!”

“What? Where?” asked one of the Pinkies, and Twilight quickly used her magic on her.

‘SHIT!’ Havoc snapped his ent fingers, teleporting the Pinkie to his arms and making the other ponies see her become a wisp of magic like the others. The Pinkie inhaled deeply, so he replaced her lips with a zipper which closed itself before she could scream.

The draconequus look through the window again, and he noticed that the rest of the ponies were now talking to the remaining Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie, you can look away now,” said Twilight, smiling.

“I passed?”

“You passed. You're the only Pinkie who kept staring at the wall.”

“I had to, I just had to. I couldn't leave my friends, I just couldn't. But I guess sometimes I will have to choose between them.”

“I knew you'd be up to the challenge.”

“I'm me! I'm me! I'm ME!! Or am I? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am.”

Havoc left with his own Pinkie before anypony noticed him. He materialized a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle and used it to travel through the trail of chaos energy left by the previous Pinkies, which became solid as a zip-line for him. This allowed him to travel to the Mirror Pool even faster than before, at the cost of consuming the trail of energy. When they were in the cave, he released the Pinkie and as soon as he did so, she hugged him and started to cry.

“Hey, why are you crying?” he asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

“I was so scared,” she managed to say when her crying . “I tried so hard to win. I had to, or they wouldn’t let me stay and they would do to me the same they did to the others. I didn’t know where they went, but I knew it was bad. And then Rainbow Dash shouted and I stopped watching the paint and - Who are you?”

‘Yeah, you are totally not the real Pinkie Pie,’ he thought before answering. “I am Havoc, who are you?”

“I am Pin... I am... I... I don’t know!” she said, and she started to cry again. “I have all these memories in my head of things I haven’t done, but they are too many and I can’t make sense of them!”

“Calm down! Please, calm down so I can help you. I need to know some things, can you answer a few questions?”

The Pinkie Pie sniffed a bit, trying not to cry. “I-I guess so...”

“First, do you know what this water pool is?” he asked, pointing at it.

“I... Yes! It’s the Mirror Pool. I came here with the other Pinkie Pie because two Pinkies weren’t enough to have fun with everypony. We said the magic words and then we were four. And then we that more Pinkies meant more fun! And then we were many Pinkies! And it was so fun! And then-”

“Wait, you were two Pinkies at first?” he said, interrupting her.

“Yes.”

“Do you remember being alone, without another Pinkie?”

“... No?” she replied, and then she frowned. “Wait, that doesn’t make sense, the other Pinkie must have come from somewhere.”

“What’s the first thing you remember?”

“I... I remember... I was here... and I was the only Pinkie around! Hey, then I was alone, how could I forget that? I looked into my reflection in the water and said the words... And then I crossed the pool. But I didn’t get wet, because I was suddenly with the other Pinkie!” then realization dawned upon her. Havoc could hear the noise of a balloon popping as the Pinkie’s mane deflated and became straight.

“I’m not the real Pinkie Pie...” she said between tears.

Havoc hugged her, trying to help somehow. She returned it and continued crying for minutes, while Havoc thought of what to do next. The idea of making an army of Havocs with the Mirror Pool came to his mind, but he had seen enough movies and series with clones trying to kill the original to know that making clones of himself without knowing more about the pool was a terrible idea.

"Come on,” he said, trying to cheer the crying pony. “It’s not that bad.”

“I’m not the real Pinkie Pie, I’m just a copy! Of course it’s bad! It’s the worstest thing possible!” she shouted between tears.

“You are who you are,” he replied, grabbing her by her shoulders. “So what if you have a lot in common with Pinkie Pie? That doesn’t change the fact that you are an unique pony.”

“But I’m not even a real pony! I came out of that pool a few hours ago!”

“I don’t care about that. You look like a pony, you think like a pony, you feel like a pony, you ARE a pony. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“...Do you really think so?”

“Of course I do,” he said, releasing her from his grip. “You are as real as the Pinkie Pie who is in Ponyville right now.”

“But, what can I do? I can’t return to Ponyville, the other ponies will try to send me away like they did with the oth-What happened to the others?!”

“They... They returned to the Magic Pool. I don’t know what happens when you do that,” the fake Pinkie Pie paled when she heard that.

“Those who return to the Magic Pool become one with it again,” she whispered. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Then you won’t. If you want, I’ll take you out of here, until we find a safe place for you to stay.”

“Yes, please. I don’t know where to go. I would get lost!” she said, crying no more but still sad.

“First, we need to get away from here. We can’t risk being discovered by anyone else.” Havoc got on all fours. “Get on my back, we are flying out of here.”

The Pinkie climbed to the space between Havoc's wings, and the draconequus minor flew out of the cave. Only when they were flying above the trees did he realize that he didn't know where to go, just like the pony on his back. Because of that, Havoc decided to fly with his back facing Ponyville until he made a decision.

“Woah!” exclaimed the pony. “I can see so many things from here!”

Less than twenty minutes after that, Pinkie talked again.

“We need to go down.”

“Now? Why?”

“Because I really have to pee! I drank too much water while we raised Applejack’s barn!”

Havoc briefly considered telling her to just pee from the heights, but then he remembered that she was, after all, a young lady.

“Alright, we are going to land! Hold tight!”

As soon as they landed, Pinkie ran to the nearest bush to do her business, and Havoc noticed that Pinkie’s hair had returned to its ‘happy’ style while they flew. He kept on thinking what to do next as he waited. Equestria is the only pony nation, right? I don’t think I can find a place for Pinkie outside of it. Where should we go, then? Maybe we could live on the road until we find-

“I see you travel with Pinkie Pie. May I ask you why?” a voice havoc had heard before, in a life he had almost forgotten, said from behind him. He turned around and found a zebra he recognized as Zecora a few steps away from him.

“I am more surprised by the fact that you managed to sneak up on me than by how casual you are around me. How did you do that? It’s already strange that we landed so close to you that you could arrive in just a few seconds. I guess you used some kind of zebra magic.”

“I was the first to ask, you should be the first to take off your mask.”

“That was a rather poor rhyme.”

“I woke up with a headache, just answer already mismatched drake,” she said, frowning.

“Alright, alright. You know what the Mirror Pool is?” he said, and the look of surprise on her face was answer enough. “She came out of it. Along with several more Pinkies. Twilight returned all of them to the Pool, save for the original and this one."

“Has Twilight become insane? Why would she do that, please explain.”

“So, the clones are just like real ponies? She probably didn’t think they were.”

“Indeed they are, even though their birth is different by far. Their lives must be treated with respect, for they are like you and me, in effect.”

“Havoc, who is this pony and why does she have such a funny coat?” asked the fake Pinkie as she jumped out of the bush.

“Zecora is my name, a zebra who in a boat, from Zebrica to Equestria came.”

That must have been the longest orgasm ever. NO, BAD HAVOC, NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR SUCH THOUGHTS.

“You talk funny, I like you!” Pinkie replied.

“Zecora, I need to find a safe place for Pinkie to stay. I don’t think that trying to convince the Elements of Harmony to allow her to live in Ponyville is a good idea.”

“Why do you think so? If you try to dialogue, to the truth they will bow.”

“I have been thinking... Those ponies are good and innocent. If you go there and tell them that they basically committed a mass murder, how would they react to that? They could be broken by the truth, and Equestria would suffer. Also, I will get in trouble if anyone discovers me. You know, being a wanted draconequus and all of that.”

“I see you care deeply for this mare, so a small secret with you I will share. Go to the old castle that lies deep in the Everfree, you will find something helpful between the debris.”

“I guess we could take a look around that castle, but I don’t know where it is.”

“Fly towards the sunset, you will reach it in an hour without breaking a sweat.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” exclaimed Pinkie as she climbed back to Havoc’s back. “Giddy up, Havoc!”

“Thanks, Zecora. We owe you one,” he said, then he reared up as he whinnied like a horse before flying away.

As Havoc flew over the forest, he started feeling some kind of chaos magic. Unfortunately, the pink pony on his back was deafening his sense with her own chaos, so he could barely feel it. She was also talking a lot and asking many questions about zebras which he didn’t know how to answer, so he couldn’t even focus on what he could sense. When they spotted the castle between the trees, Havoc realized that the chaos was coming from it. Maybe there’s some kind of chaos magic artifact hidden in there that will boost my powers? His mind began to wander, thinking of what he could find in there and what he could do with it. It was dark outside when they landed in front of the ruins of the castle. Havoc tried to find the source of the chaos energy, but the energy came from all over the castle instead of a single place.

“We should get some sleep,” Havoc said. “I feel very tired, I guess being turned into stone doesn’t let your body rest. We’ll look around the castle in the morning!”

“Can we make a campfire and tell stories?” asked Pinkie.

“Sure, why not?”

The castle itself was surrounded by a few smaller buildings, so they chose the one that was in the best state of conservation to pass the night. The ‘building’ had lost its roof, so it was just a square made of stone walls. Inside, they found traces of an old campfire made by previous visitors. Neither Havoc not the Pinkie Pie knew much about camping or how to use fire, so they didn’t know that those ruins had enough ventilation to make a fire inside without the smoke asphyxiating them while they slept, while offering a decent cover from the wind and the cold outside. All in all, they were very lucky to find such an ideal place.

Havoc used his magic to create wood and light it, and after that he created some apples when he heard Pinkie’s stomach growl.

“You know what an apple tastes like, right?” he asked.

“Yup!”

“Tell me if these ones don’t taste just like the one you tasted earlier. I have never given someone else food created with my magic, and for all I know it could be poisonous.”

Pinkie grabbed one apple and took a bite out of it. “It tastes like the apples I ate today, only worse.”

“Worse?”

“Yeah...” she took another bite. “Like, when a cake doesn’t have enough sugar. The taste is similar, but worse.”

“Hm... I guess you can eat them. I’ll try to find real food from now on, though.”

Pinkie asked Havoc to tell her a story while she ate apples. “Why don’t you tell a story, first?” he asked in return.

“Me? But I don’t know any stories! ... Hey! How come I don’t know any stories?!”

“Didn’t you say that you had memories of things you hadn’t done? I think those are the memories from the first Pinkie Pie. Maybe, if you try to tell me about them, as if they were some sort of story, they will become clear for you.”

“That’s a great idea! Let’s see...”

Havoc listened to Pinkie tell him about her life, or the life of the original one, in her family’s rock farm. She struggled at first, as remembering your first memories in order and explaining them is hard, especially when they aren’t even your own memories. However, Pinkie soon found herself telling Havoc about her family, the work at the rock farm, their house, and many other details.

Havoc asked Pinkie to stop when she only a bunch of cores remained from the apples and she started yawning every few seconds. “I will tell my story now, and then we go to sleep, alright?”

“Fine! What’s this story about? Does it have something fun?”

Havoc had decided to try a story for children, as Pinkie seemed to think like one most of the time. “Once upon a time there were three bears, who lived together in a house of their own, in a wood. One of them was a little wee bear, and one was a middle-sized bear, and the other was a great big bear...”

By the time Goldilocks discovered the three beds, Pinkie was already sleeping. Havoc created a blanket for her, which had drawings of ponies riding humans, and then he lied down to get some sleep himself.