//------------------------------//
// Fearsome 
// Story: Trixie Searches For Magic 
// by MagicS 
//------------------------------//

After a long afternoon spent waiting and backtracking the party that had gone to rescue the mayor’s children returned. They were greeted with a destroyed bridge, a smug Trixie, and a town roaring with joy and celebration. Gabriel and Giselle swept up their kids and hugged them so tightly others were worried they’d accidentally strangle them. In the hours they had been away but after Trixie had defeated Goliath their great and powerful friend had let the rest of East Glade know of her victory. The villagers were mostly ecstatic but the mayor and his wife were still waiting for their kids to return before they joined in on any sort of celebration, despite Trixie’s assurances that her friends would surely be victorious.  

But now with everyone back safe and sound the entirety of East Glade could rest easy. Because not only was the mission a success but it meant that they didn’t have to fear or worry about Goliath and his band of raiders anymore.

Gabriel wanted to put on another celebration or at least have the ones who went on the mission over to his house for dinner or a more private party but everyone besides Trixie was beyond exhausted at this point. They were forced to take a rain check so they could catch up on some sleep. Daylight pretty much conked out immediately after they got back to the village and Vector helped her to her hut while all the others returned to their own homes. Their more personal celebration would have to wait for tomorrow.

So Trixie also retreated to her wagon (which to her surprise and joy had been fixed by someone and was now standing as it should be) and slept well that night, looking forward to tomorrow. She had done it. She had actually succeeded and she was sure everyone would praise her and shower her with adoration, even the ones who knew she was a fake would surely forgive her and love her again. No one else would know the truth and the trust and faith her friends once had for her would be restored. The Great and Powerful Trixie indeed slept well.

While at the river’s mouth leading to the Grand Ocean a torn length of rope was washed away by the current.  





“I’m sorry about the bridge by the way,” Trixie said to Gabriel as she enjoyed the mayor’s party. Feeling it was only fair that she should apologize for that.

“You really don’t need to apologize,” Gabriel shook his head at her. “Fixing it will be no problem and what you did was well worth its temporary destruction.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” Trixie grinned. “I only wish you and the rest of the village had been there to see my triumphant victory, however your safety was my first priority.” Her shamelessness back on in full force.

The mayor was extremely grateful for all Trixie had done, but he excused himself from her so he could spend more time with his wife and sons. Despite the party being held in his house he really wanted to spend the time mostly with his family so he just let the protectors mingle with each other while they all relaxed. That left Trixie to chat with the eight others she had sent to rescue the kids and fight the “worthless underlings”. Senax had also been invited as a thank you for allowing them to use the Horn of Listening.

“I didn’t get to ask you too much about how it went, but how did things go?” Trixie asked Vector, now with all of them in Gabriel’s family room.  

“About as well as could be expected. Better actually.” Vector smiled. “I don’t think we’ll ever have to worry about any of them coming to East Glade again. And it’s all thanks to you.”

That was what Trixie liked to hear. “Well it was a good plan if I may say so.”

Vector’s smile fell slightly and he looked around to make sure no one else was listening in. “You know I still don’t know how to feel about how much you lied to us, but thank you for helping in the end.”

And that was a bit more sobering.

“I… I’m sorry, I never meant to do anything like this,” This kind of sincere apology still got to her, she felt awkward saying this to Vector.  

Just like with the mayor though, Vector was more than grateful.

“You don’t need to do apologize now. I mean you basically are as much of a hero as you said you were after everything you’ve done. And I’m glad you came here,” His smile returned and Trixie gave him one of her own. “Now I’m sure your students would love to tell you about how miraculously they performed at the battle as well.”

He was right about that. Speckle Wood was insanely proud of his small part and how he had handled himself and even Gold Embrace couldn’t help but be excited over how she had contributed. Trixie got a more than elaborate telling of everything that had happened while she was sleeping and dealing with Goliath. Of course her students were also more than happy to hear Trixie’s own story of how she defeated the foul griffon leader as well. Daylight and the others joined in to listen to her explanation, her excessively flowery and exaggerated explanation, and were all suitably impressed at how Trixie had handled herself.

“So that’s what you wanted the carpenter for,” Gizzard said. “I figured it had to do with the bridge when we saw it missing on the way back here, but I had no idea you put yourself on it when you collapsed the thing.”

“That escape artist practice gonna be useful for any future shows you do?” Daylight asked her with a grin.

“Perhaps. Maybe I can integrate my experiences into a new trick. Falling from high in the sky, helplessly tied down, only to escape the bonds at the last second and teleport myself to safety,” Trixie dramatically gestured and explained, she could already see it now in her head.

“I’m surprised you can teleport too. Even I can’t do that,” Daylight said. With perhaps the slightest tinge of jealousy in her voice.

“Me too,” Coil said. “Teleportation is a rare and difficult spell. Most unicorns can’t do such a thing.”

“Well as you all know The Great and Powerful Trixie is hardly an ordinary unicorn!” She smugly exclaimed.

Daylight Gleam rolled her eyes. “Yeah… just if you’re getting any ideas for your next show can you make sure not to include me in them this time?”

“That depends on how long I’ll be staying here, my second most great and powerful assistant,” Trixie told her. Of course Starlight was number one. “I still haven’t really accomplished what I set out to do here. I’ve just been getting sidetracked.”

“What do you mean?” Gold Embrace asked her. “Is there some other monster you came here to defeat?”

Trixie coughed. “Ahaha… perhaps, but I actually came here to study new magic to improve my shows and ability. I guess I never told you two that.” She finished, looking between her two students.

“Well it’s fine by me, you still saved our village just out of the goodness of your own heart,” Speckle Wood told her.

“Yeahhh, we’ll go with that...” Trixie awkwardly rubbed the back of her neck while Daylight glared at her and Coil fought to hold back his laughter.  

Gizzard meanwhile was talking with Senax.

“You used our sacred artifact as a cudgel?!” She yelled at him, her flippered tail flapping around angrily behind her.

The old griffon had felt kind of bad about keeping that a secret. Yesterday he had returned the Horn of Listening to her and the other merponies (after inspecting it to make sure it wasn’t cracked or anything) and had been greeted with nothing but smiles and thank yous. It just made him feel too guilty. So he resolved to tell her about his improper use of their treasure.

“Well it was just kind of on reflex… and the thing is made really well, there wasn’t a scratch on it!” Gizzard tried to reason only to see Senax getting angrier and angrier. “Heh, don’t think I’ve ever seen you this mad before.”

Steam billowed forth from the merponies ears as she angrily tugged on her spiky green mane to let out her frustration.  

“I’ll, um, just wait over here...” Gizzard said to excuse himself and avoid her wrath, going over to stand behind the dining room table where his two grandsons were arm-wrestling each other.

After Trixie’s own students finally gave her a moment of peace Coil decided to speak some more with her as well.

“You know I wish you could have seen my magic bombs in action,” The other blue unicorn said to her. “Brilliant explosives seem to be right up your alley after all. Hopefully I get an opportunity to use the last one for something and you can see it.”

“Be sure to notify me if anything comes up,” Trixie grinned, she liked the way Coil thought.

“Trixie! Trixie! Trixie!”

The Great and Powerful Trixie winced and turned to see the three children of the mayor running towards her, practically falling over each other to make it to her. It seems they had escaped from their parent’s embrace. The three little griffons jumped up and down ecstatically, each of them vying for her attention and trying to shove the others out of the way.

“W-What is it?!” Trixie asked as she backed away from the balls of boundless energy.

“So it was really your plan that saved us and you even beat Goliath all alone?!” Gabriel Jr. asked her.

“Er, yes, it was!” She put on a smile for them.

Now a normal pony might be annoyed at having to retell the same exact story but not Trixie! She loved getting to boast and dramatically act out her victory over Goliath all over again. Even most of the others here who had already just heard the story didn’t really mind getting it again since Trixie was such a good showoff. Aside from Daylight Gleam who just rolled her eyes and went to drink a glass of water with Senax, who was still miffed about the Horn.

“Have no fear ever again, for even if some new evil arises The Great and Powerful Trixie will vanquish it!” She finished, getting far too full of herself again.

“We’ll be there to help you again too!” Speckle Wood said, putting a hoof around Gold Embrace’s shoulders. “Our magic wasn’t perfect but I’m sure if we keep training under you we’ll get better in no time.”

I was hoping they wouldn’t bring up more training, why do they even care about that anymore? East Glade is safe! I’m not a teacher! Trixie went over in her head, not looking forward to the next time her students would come looking for lessons.

“Instead of all this talk about our big fight doesn’t anyone have something more positive to talk about?” Gizzard wondered. “Got any plans to put on another one of your magic shows? The whole village loves em.” He asked Trixie.

The three young griffons swiftly nodded their heads in the hopes that Trixie would say yes.

“No! No more shows!” Daylight yelled from the dining room table after overhearing this.

Trixie grinned. “Hmm, I hadn’t thought about it but it would be worth it just to annoy Daylight wouldn’t it?” She winked at the white unicorn.

“Ughh!” Daylight slammed her head into the table and covered it with her hooves.

At least the whole exchange got a giggle out of Senax.

For hours everyone in the mayor’s house chatted with each other, some of them wanted to talk about their recent heroics while others liked to think about how different things would be around East Glade now. Trixie was decidedly in the former category. Gizzard was in the latter considering his occupation as sheriff would require far less work with their major threat gone. His grandsons and Speckle Wood too were thinking about what they would do now, would they even have to fly their perimeters or be on the lookout for anything? Besides Goliath’s troupe most of the dangers faced by East Glade were random monsters that they could hardly ever do anything about.

“It’ll be a change around here. But definitely for the better,” Gizzard muttered.

“You’ll be able to rest your old bones?” Vector teased.

“Oh shut up, I ain’t that old!” He scowled at his pony friend.

“I don’t know grandpa, I think Vector may have a point. You got kind of tired on our way back here after all,” His grandson Garry said to him, earning a glare from his grandfather as Gullet snickered behind his brother.

“If you kids want me to show you just how good I’m still feeling we can take this outside,” Gizzard balled up his talon and threatened his grandsons with it.

Coil stepped between them to get the belligerent griffons apart. “Now, now, we’re supposed to just be celebrating here aren’t we? I’m sure some kind of monster will come around to fight sooner or later and then you can fight it instead. Besides, all three of you had a great showing in our fight at the plateau.” 

Gizzard snorted. “Yeah you brats better do well to remember that.”

The others had been watching this clash with no small amount of amusement. Aside from Trixie who was still left out of the loop when it came to the two grandson’s names. By now it was night though and their little private party was winding down. Daylight was still tired, their hosts in all honesty wanted some private family time but were too polite to directly say so, Vector said he had some things he wanted to look at and Gold Embrace said she needed to go home to her kids already.

“They should be asleep right now but I want to check on them,” She said, apologizing and bowing her head repeatedly as she excused herself home. As she walked out the door she gave Trixie a smile. “I’m sure they’ll be excited to continue our magic lessons too.”

“Haha, I’m sure they will be...” Trixie smiled a smile that didn’t reach her nervous eyes and waved goodbye to the golden unicorn.

The rest filed out shortly after that and Trixie said goodbye to Gabriel and Giselle too, and the three kids of theirs that really didn’t want the magician to leave.

“Thank you again, Miss Great and Powerful Trixie, I really can’t say that enough,” Gabriel said to her as she walked out the door.

“Me too. You returned our babies to us, we’re forever in your debt. All of East Glade is,” Giselle said, a tear nearly coming to her eye.

Trixie blushed in… not quite embarrassment. Is it possible to blush in pride? That’s what she did. “Well  it’s good for everyone then that I’ll at least be staying a while longer. But for now The Great and Powerful Trixie wishes you a great and powerful farewell and goodnight! Let us see each other tomorrow!” She grandiosely flourished her robe and walked into the night back to her wagon. Still on a kick for theatrics after no one got to see her defeat of Goliath.

While on the cliffs of the ravine a series of claw marks made their way from the water filled bottom to the top, right by the destroyed remnants of the bridge on the East Glade side.





Trixie hummed to herself as she walked out of East Glade, the peaceful night sky hanging overhead unobstructed by any cloud. The moon and stars shined brightly tonight and she could see the outline of her lovely wagon in the distance, a dark shadow cast by it on the opposite side from her thanks to the slanted light of the moon. She felt even better and more at ease than she had last night. Maybe it was presumptuous but now she thought that the rest of her time in East Glade would be even better than when she was acting all carefree and lying to everyone. It was just a good feeling she had.

“I really should put on another show for everyone. To celebrate.”

A smile blossomed on her face as she thought about that. But for now it was time to sleep, her wagon was right in front of her and she cheerfully walked up to the little ramp-

Squish~

The unexpected sound and feeling made Trixie glance down at the wet dirt under her hoof. “What the? Why’s the ground wet?”

It was difficult to see in the darkness but as she took another couple of steps she realized all the ground leading up to her wagon was wet. Which didn’t make any sense. She was pretty sure it had never even rained once the whole time she was here so far. Where did this water come from?

“Meh,” Trixie shrugged, not caring about something so trivial and took one more squishy step.  

But at the same time the dirt squelched beneath her hoof a much louder step from the shadows behind her wagon smashed into the wet ground too and Trixie jumped in shock.

“Gah! Who’s there?!” She yelled in fright.

“I waited for hours...” A cold and gravelly voice said as heavy footsteps came out from the shadow.  

Trixie froze and her pupils shrank to pinpricks as Goliath emerged from behind her wagon. The wet and pained looking griffon lumbered around it to come face to face with her. One of his back legs was limping badly and he seemed like he could collapse at any moment but his eyes still had a fire in them.

“B-But how?!” Trixie trembled and took a step back.

“I climbed,” He held up one of his talons for emphasis. “You should have used a chain.” A throaty laugh rose up from him as he stared down Trixie. “You… what did you say? That I wasn’t scary? So then why are you trembling right now? Oh… I know. It’s because you don’t have any plan to beat me here, it’s because you know how doomed you are...” His breathing even seemed laborious as he took another step closer to Trixie.

However even as tired and injured as he looked he was right, she had no idea what to do and she couldn’t help a base fear from erupting in her chest as a coldness took hold of her heart. She couldn’t defeat him in a fair fight and all that confidence she had back on the bridge was nowhere to be found here...

“T-The Great and Powerful Trixie is not scared of you. She shall be victorious yet again,” She tried to bluff as she took another step backwards.

Goliath leaped over her head with a sudden alacrity that she didn’t expect, she rounded on him with her horn lit up to use a defensive spell only to see him still standing there, not trying to attack her just yet. The powerful griffon turned around to glare at her once more.

“You’re. Not. Running. Away.”

Trixie gulped. “Well, sorry to correct you, but I am indeed running away.”

And she took off running full speed in the opposite direction. Goliath growled and chased after her, Trixie looked back to see that despite his injured leg he was still bounding towards her like it was nothing, either his anger and adrenaline letting him power through it or the injury not severe enough to matter. Either way that didn’t spell anything good for her. Especially since she was now running in the direction away from the village.

“Where do you think you can even go?!” Goliath shouted at her. “Just stand and fight and let me tear you to pieces!”

“Absolutely not!” She yelled back at him.  

“There’s nowhere for you to run to out here!”

That was unfortunately correct. She was just heading south parallel to the ravine right now but eventually she’d hit the mountain ridge she had planned her fireworks show on if she didn’t change directions. But then she’d just be running across empty dirt still far away from East Glade or anything else. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no way to stop an evil gargantuan griffon from turning the hero into paste.

Don’t think like that Trixie! You’ve gotten out of bad situations again and again, surely you can defeat this jerk again, right?

Something impacted the back of her head and she went tumbling to the ground. “Ack!” She sputtered, her hat knocked off her head. Feeling a hoof through her mane it came back covered in dirt, he had thrown a talon-ful of it at her at high speed with his strength,

She had no more time to register this fact as two talons bigger than her head slammed down on either side of her and a griffon who looked every bit as full of rage as she did of fear stared down his prey.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is going to become my great and powerful dinner,” He opened up his sharp beak to terrify her.  

It worked.

“Ahhh!” She screamed and blindly fired a beam of raw magic at his face. She may not have had the same level of output power as Twilight or Starlight but Trixie was still a darn powerful unicorn in her own right and an energy beam of her magic at point blank range hurt. Even for someone like Goliath.  

He reared up on his backlegs and tried to shield his face but lost his balance and fell over onto his back. “Grr! Stupid magic worm!”  

Trixie scrambled to her hooves and ran off again, but the mountain ridge was like an impenetrable wall only a minute away and she still didn’t have any better idea of what she could do. She tried to stop thinking about anything like that. That wouldn’t get her anywhere. She needed to just focus on dealing with Goliath with the means at her disposal… of which there weren’t many.

Even if I can concentrate enough right now to teleport up the ridge he’ll just climb up… Trixie was thinking as she came sliding to a stop right at the ridge. Might as well try, can’t do anything else!

The blue unicorn grimaced... and yelped as she felt something yank on her robe. She was roughly tossed to the side and rolled across the ground a few times before she came to a stop. Goliath had already caught up with her. The hatless hero looked up to see a panting and winded griffon staring down at her. The both of them now directly beneath the ridge and face to face once again.

“Why don’t you show me some of that courage from the bridge again?” His dark voice asked her.

“Why don’t you just go away already?” She scoffed back at him.

He took a single step towards her and lifted up his right front talon, splaying the clawed tips wide in front of her. “After you.”

A lot of thoughts would probably normally be going through her head right now if she hadn’t earlier been focusing on banishing anything useless from her mind, which was a lot of things when it came to Trixie’s mind, but instead she was just able to purely react once more and did the only thing she really could in this situation. Blindly shoot him with magic and hope for the best again.

As she unleashed all the power in her horn at once that she could though Goliath was ready for it. The powerful griffon swatted his talon forward and hit Trixie’s horn and beam right as it erupted from her horn.

“No more magic!” He yelled.

Trixie’s pink magic exploded against the mountain ridge next to them and she was knocked onto the ground again.  

“Ugh!” With a wince and a cry of pain Trixie struggled to get back up, looking through squinted eyes at the evil griffon.

He stood directly over her, grinning sadistically as he finally knew there was nothing more for her to do.

This can’t be the end of The Great and Powerful Trixie! The magician thought, eyes wide and body shaking.

But as Goliath was about to claim his victory over Trixie a rumbling sound reached both their ears and the ground around them started to shake. The both of them looked to see the mountain ridge next to them crack and begin to break apart after Trixie’s magic impacted it, the entire thing ready to collapse on top of them.

“No!” Goliath roared, trying to back away.

Trixie wasn’t about to let him escape and terrorize East Glade again though, she saw her chance and used the very last bit of her magic to fire a beam at his injured leg, the griffon squawked in pain and fell to his knees, glaring at his nemesis with his big, evil eyes.

“You-” Whatever else he might’ve said was drowned out as the entire ridge and all the tons of rock it made up fell over them, the sheer volume blocking out all light from the moon and stars.  

The Great and Powerful Trixie looked up at the last second to see a huge boulder coming right for her.  

Always wanted to go out with a bang… She tightly shut her eyes and waited, hoping it would be quick. 

The sound the ridge made when it collapsed was earth-shattering and it was felt and heard by everyone in East Glade. Who knows how many tons of that ashen gray rock came down in the landslide, more than enough to bury a house at least. Clouds of dust rose up in the darkness as rocks continued to shift and fall into place until eventually everything found its final resting place.

Trixie carefully opened up an eye, wondering if she was dead, before seeing the night sky above her and opening up both eyes.

“What the...” She wondered as she lied on her back, blinking down at her body and seeing it wrapped in a powdery blue aura. The collapsed ridge and pile of rocks no more than a few feet away.

“Are you… okay...”

The magician looked behind her to see a very tired looking Daylight Gleam with her horn lit up, panting from exhaustion. “I pulled you out at the last second...”

Gizzard then came down from the sky right next to them with Vector jumping off his back.

“Miss Trixie! Are you alright?!” Vector yelled as he tried helping her up.

Daylight canceled her spell and sat down, letting out a deep breath, and Trixie stood up on wobbly hooves to face her friends.

“How did you know I was in danger?” She asked them.

“Vector went to check up on the bridge to see if any of it could be salvaged, he saw the claw marks and knew Goliath must’ve climbed up,” Gizzard told her.

“I guess we got here just in time,” Vector said as he looked at the pile of rocks.

Trixie looked back too and grimaced as in the center of the rocks a single, unmoving, talon rose up. The rest of Goliath well and buried.

“I was lucky,” The Great and Powerful Trixie looked back at the three and smiled. “Lucky to have made such good friends here.”