***

After waving good-bye to Applejack and Apple Bloom at Sweet Apple Acres, Rainbow Dash flew her way toward Sugarcube Corner. She was nervous about how things would go with Scootaloo the next day and had an idea for mev work. She hoped that doing so would satisfy and temper her for tensions she wished to stave off if possible. She hovered just outside Pinkie’s open window and saw her friend lying on her bed, toying with her pet alligator.

“Quintaza,” Rainbow said in a low voice.

Pinkie stopped what she was doing before hopping herself over to the window. “Master Rainbow Dash, my turn’s not until tomorrow.” She gasped as a thought struck her. “Do you have a job for me tonight?!”

“You got it,” Rainbow confirmed with a friendly air. “You’re escorting me to the mirror pool. I want to check it out.”

Pinkie gasped again, more quietly this time. “That’s right; you’re immune to being copied. Are you bringing me because of my experience?”

“That and you know where it is. And as usual, a hunch. So, let’s get moving. Lead the way, Quintaza,” Rainbow instructed.

“Yes sir, Master, sir. Quintaza Pinkie Pie is on the case!” The pink earth pony spoke firm words with a firm salute and then jumped out the window. She thrust herself into Rainbow’s instinctively ready forelimbs, landing as if she were a large, cradled baby.

The hovering pegasus continued flapping her wings, stared into the eyes of her fledgling, and smiled. “Guess I’m escorting you to Everfree first.”

“Heehee!” Pinkie giggled.

***

The mirror pool reflected the master mev eyeing it closely, followed by Pinkie Pie poking her head out from behind Rainbow Dash. “So, now what?”

“You go stand back over there and give me some space. For now, you just watch,” Rainbow replied.

“Okie dokie lokie!” the fledgling agreed and bounced over to her designated spot.

Rainbow bent down again and took a quick lick of the water. Nothing happened, which was fine and expected. She just wanted to be sure before she continued. She began to lap at it. As she did so, Pinkie looked on. Swirling tiny balls of white light coalesced on the other side of the pool, across from her master. The lights began to turn pink and take the shape of a pony. Soon, Pinkie saw another Pinkie. The fledgling mev’s jaw dropped.

The copy wore a dark purple fedora with black trim. Against the black trim was a magenta piece of fabric, bearing the image of a white horseshoe. She glanced around her surroundings with a fearful expression. The master mev across the pool eyed her with a hungry, evil grin. The copy scuffled around in uncertainty. Before she could make up the mind of her path, a wide glowing red line on the ground encircled her.

The original Pinkie Pie continued watching in shock as Blitz lifted out and began her formidable slither, circling round, higher, and closing in tighter. The scared copy discovered she could no longer scuffle in her indecision. She could not bring herself to speak. Soon Blitz had fully closed in as if some giant serpent tower holding the copy in place. The leviathan dread dissipated with her part of the trap now complete. Rainbow swished her way over in an instant pounce, knocked the copy to the ground, and bit into her neck.

“No, don’t!” the Pinkie copy pleaded as she felt herself fading.

Rainbow drank up the magic essence inward and loved every second of it. “Ahhh,” she said, her thirst thoroughly quenched. The master mev wiped her mouth with her right forelimb and smiled wickedly. “You’ll be okay. Promise. I’ll take good care of you.” Her red eyes shimmered with her nocturnivlair on full display.

“Will you really?” the original Pinkie asked, grabbing Rainbow’s attention.

Rainbow Dash flew the few feet across the pond to land by her fledgling. “Really. Check it.” She blew a small breath of air, and the same copy she drank only a moment ago re-materialized before them.

The copy looked around and felt her own body to see if she was still there, not caring that her fedora disappeared in all the commotion. “I’m alive!” she declared with excited relief.

“Not necessarily,” Rainbow warned, followed with the reminder, “You are magical water essence.”

“Oh, right,” the Pinkie copy’s features drooped.

“I do have options for you,” Rainbow began. “You’re supposed to be in the pool. That’s where you’re from.”

“But…I don’t want to go back,” the sad copy noted.

“I sensed as much. I have certain special abilities as a master mev, including being able to store magic in a reserve, magic like you. That reserve is actually where you were after I drank you just now. It allowed me to summon you back for us to have this little talk,” Rainbow explained.

“Go on,” the Pinkie copy gestured with interest. “I’m listening!”

“I have limits on when and how I can use magic; I’m charged with managing that reserve after all. But, I am given some leeway when it comes to things that are important to my pack, and it just so happens that the original Pinkie Pie is a member,” Rainbow said.

Quintaza Pinkie Pie waved with a friendly smile, then more seriously saluted, notably silently watching and listening herself. She understood this matter was important business, and she needed to be ready to help.

“So, you think staying in your reserve is better for me? Because I’m a Pinkie and can help your pack?” the copy asked.

“Yes. I think it’s better for all three of us. Pinkie’s original plan when she made copies of herself was wanting to be in two places at once. She can’t do that, but having a Pinkie copy she can summon to help us out with our work? That’s now doable with our mev powers. And then that copy doesn’t have to spend the rest of her existence as magical water staying in a pool when she’s been out and had so much to see and experience on her own. She can still at least glimpse the outside world and hopefully would find fulfillment with that work I just mentioned. It’s no Manehattan, friend, but it’s an option all the same. If you accept, I would like to give you a name of your own as well,” Rainbow said.

“Really?” The Pinkie Pie copy already liked a lot of what Rainbow said, and being given her own name in particular seemed to cheer her up the most.

“Really. Those are my terms. Do you accept?” the master mev completed making her offer.

“I do! I accept Master Mev. I do!” the Pinkie copy hopped up and down with budding energy.

“Yay!” the original Pinkie could no longer contain her excitement, considering the transaction officially completed. “My very own Pinkie copy friend. I promise Master Rainbow Dash, I promise, promise, promise I’ve learned so much from last time. I’ll do a good job taking care of her for our special mev magic management!” She jumped up, bounced over, and gave her duplicate a hug. The two spun together, overjoyed with laughter.

When the hug ended, the copy’s eyes widened, and she jumped. “My name? Can I have my name now, please please please?”

Before Rainbow could tell her, another familiar voice projected into the air and asked, “Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie, her copy, and Rainbow Dash all looked to see Maud Pie, Pinkie’s sister.

“Maud! You’re just in time for the most amazing thing of amazing things!” Pinkie said.

Maud looked at the other Pinkie Pie, back at her sister, and said in a monotone voice, “Why did you copy yourself again? I thought you didn’t like how it turned out.”

“I’m a leftover copy,” the other Pinkie said.

“Master Rainbow Dash just drank her up into our reserve,” Pinkie explained, as if Maud would already know what that meant.

Maud looked over to Rainbow Dash and blinked. “What did you do to my sister?”

Pinkie giggled and answered for her master. “She turned me into a magic-eating vampire fledgling last Saturday. This is just work. Don’t worry. I’m fine, promise!”

Rainbow looked at Maud with mild embarrassment but confessed with a gestured forelimb toward the real Pinkie to confirm, “There you have it.”

Maud blinked and took one full second to reply, “Okay.”

“Name! My name!” the copy reminded Rainbow Dash.

“Soon. We need to make a few modifications first,” Rainbow said.

The copy blinked and turned her head curiously.

“You’re water, so I’m thinking blue,” Rainbow continued.

“Blue what?” both Pinkie forms asked at the same time.

Concentrating on the changeling feedback from Ocellus with a mix of mev magic, Rainbow released a breath of two streams, one of blue, and one of red. They each swirled into the copy’s mane and her cutie mark. When the task was complete, the copy had a streak of blue color in her mane, and the middle balloon of the copied cutie mark was also blue to match the others instead of yellow like the original Pinkie Pie. “There. Now we can more easily tell you two apart. Pinkie Pie here is Quintaza, so you shall be Pentaza, ‘Penny’ for short,” Rainbow told her. “Title and name in your own special way since you’re a special magic essence.”

Penny blinked and stared at her updated features with wonder. She soon lit up into a huge smile to embrace her new name. “I’m Penny! I love it Master Rainbow Dash.” She hopped around repeating it to herself. “Penny penny penny. Formerly Pinkie Pie copy but now Penny.”

“Team Awesome is pleased to have been of service.” Rainbow bowed her head and placed a hoof to her chest in sincerity. “I’ll be transferring you over to Pinkie Pie tomorrow night. Until then, you’ve got to return to the reserve in me.”

“Yes sir, Master sir!” Penny declared and saluted much as Pinkie herself did earlier that night. She soon found herself captivated by two red eyes before being drunk into the master mev all over again.

Maud eyed Rainbow Dash, then a grinning Pinkie Pie, and bid them good-bye before she retreated back to her own home.

“That was so much fun!” Pinkie said with a bounce and a smile. “You got to be your seemingly scary vampire self at night like you love, and we got to help out a loose copy of mine be happy. And I got to tell Maud I’m a mev! Being mevs is awesome for Team Awesome!”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said with a smile. “And I finally got to use a fear snare correctly on purpose with Blitz’s help. I think she was satisfied with her work tonight. It was everything I wanted and more.”