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// CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: Run Trixie Run 
// Story: The What and Whatiful Who 
// by cosby7 
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	“I warned you: It always ends up with the running!” Doctor Hooves yelled while tearing around another corner as quickly as all four legs would carry him. Four whole legs. Count them. One, eight, nine, twelve, three hundred eighty two thousand six hundred sixty eight, four. Or something. Regardless, the point was, “All these legs and I don't even have the chance to appreciate it!”

“Well, on the bright side,” Trixie replied, almost slamming into a wall as she careened around bends at top speed herself, panting slightly while she tried to speak, “Trixie's hat looks totally badass framed by all those deadly deadly magic knives.”

“Ugh! It's always that hat, isn't it? Everypony know the coolest hats are fez, Stetson, and Talpurian phostorenza bonnet!” This was good. Right? Probably. The talking? Keep moving, but not giving up, still chatting away to keep the spirits raised? Or maybe it was just tiring them out quicker and making them easier to find. Damn, that's right, 'hearing' was the sense ponies had, not 'pumbersquatch.'

It hardly seemed to matter though. Menlo was a powerful unicorn with a vendetta and nothing to lose. As much as that sounded like it should have been on a film poster instead of on their heels, the fact was that any wrong turn could very realistically be their last. The Doctor had failed many friends, but he could not imagine adding a sparkly unicorn with an adorable little cape to the list. That meant he needed time to come up with something. And that meant running.

So they ran.

“Doctor!” Huff, huff. “What happens if we run into a wall?”

“What a stupid question!”

“What? Why is that a stupid question?”

“Because I don't have an answer yet!”

That would get her to be quiet for a few seconds, at least, but time was always running out and she had a point: Sooner or later they were probably going to run into a dead end, emphasis on the dead. Not even the Doctor could tell any longer if the walls were still shifting, manipulating them into a prolonged torture or a quicker demise. At that moment, he was running, keeping track of Trixie, listening for Menlo, trying to navigate the labyrinth, come up with a way to get out alive, and working to confirm his suspicions about who might be behind all this. Keeping track of scratches and scuffs on the wall was just a little too much and something was bound to give as it was already. As with all things, it was only a matter of time.

Even if they made it out of the labyrinth, they would only end up back where they had started or somewhere inevitably worse. No matter where they ended up, they were trapped in a prison with an equicidal horse with shiny floating blood daggers. All the while, Menlo could be heard hunting them, his hooves hitting the ground nearly as hard as theirs. Whether his slightly slower pace was thanks to some perverse joy he found in prolonging the endeavor or his more pronounced age, presumably due to whatever exile or torture his master had kept him in for his failure, Doctor Hooves did not know. Regardless, at that moment, it might have been the only thing saving them.

Then, in the breadth of an instant, something changed. Something remote, nearly unnoticeable. What was it? What was it? He had to think. Something that was just there and now wasn't. It was on the tip of his breath, like he had just had it . . . the hoofbeats!

“Stop!”

THEEWWW-shk!

He had managed to pull Trixie to a stop just in time. An inch in front of her was one of Menlo's crimson energy blades, thin as paper, wedged cleanly into the ground at their feet. A moment later, it shimmered and vanished into mist.

“He's stopped chasing us,” the Doctor said, his voice a barely audible whisper. “He realized he can find us by listening. We need to proceed as quietly and carefully as possible.”

Trixie's eyes shook with a million things she wanted to say, but she only nodded. Doctor Hooves gave silent thanks for that mercy. He wasn't sure anything could help them if she spoke.

So, quiet as mice, they continued. Moving along at a crawl, picking up and dropping their hooves so softly as not to make a single sound, gave them a far better chance to observe their surroundings. However, the blessing was only a disguise. The truth of it was that Menlo had them exactly where he wanted them. Should they move too fast, he would hear them and immediately launch one of his weapons over the wall. Unfortunately, moving so slow that he could not find them only meant that he would be able to gain ground on them exponentially faster. With that last knife, he probably already had an idea of where they were. Doctor Hooves had no doubt the unicorn was smart enough to navigate the maze, even if he was distracted by a bad case of the nutsies. Worst of all were the unknowns. They knew Menlo was smart and they knew he was powerful and they knew he was crazy, but that was it. What spells did he know how to use? Were his abilities restricted to throwing knives or could he burst through the wall at any moment? Just how much was he toying with them? There was no way to know how safe they really were. Instead of a mercy, the slow pace at which they moved was an unmitigated torture.

Just how Menlo wants it.

“I'm starting to lose patience, my little ponies!” Speak of the devil. “I'm sure by now even the little insolent one has realized I can end this whenever I so choose. Fun is fun, but I am ever so eager to be back in my master's good graces.”

His malicious voice echoed through the walls, as if it could have come from a hundred different directions. He was close, there was no doubt of that. But how close? How close were they to staring another knife in the face?

I can't. I can't fail another one, not again. The Doctor chanted this in his mind, like a mantra. But fatigue was setting in. With every silent step, the labyrinth walls only became all the more confusing. From the start he had known that sooner or later he would have to confront their attacker, but Menlo had every advantage and he had nothing. Doctor Hooves was scared.

“Doctor!”

The whisper was shrill, low and small, but Doctor Hooves was close enough to hear it. His head hung to face her, filled with sorrow, masked with bravery. Until he really looked. She was scared for certain. Oh, yes, she was scared. But there was more than terror. There was hope. The magician had something up her sleeve.

“Trixie has a plan.” She gulped. “How's your aim?”



It's only a matter of time.

This is what Menlo the Mustachioed thought to himself as he moved amidst the labyrinth walls at a veritable mosey. By this point, it had been a long time coming. A very long time, from his perspective. When the Warden had first returned him from what he had assumed would be a shameful exile in the distant past, he was overjoyed. Menlo could not remember a time he had not been spellbound, hypnotized, by the mere thought of his master. He had always had a strong will and a dominating personality, but his fealty to the Warden felt proper, like submitting to a higher being. Truly, his master valued him, loved him, had pride in him enough to return him to her almighty presence. But it was not to be. The Warden did not tolerate failure. So, he was returned to the pit, all alone with his madness, his desire, and, most of all, his hatred. Truth be told, he did not know how long he had been kept in the darkness, with only the light above to remind him what he had lost, but the Warden had told him a time would come when he might be of use once more and he might redeem himself. For that sole purpose, he kept himself ready.

When that time finally came and he heard that hypnotic voice once more, he had been more than happy to do his master's bidding. As a show of faith, or at least that was how he chose to perceive it, he was even given the blue annoying one's hat to replace his lost turban. The stars that adorned it reminded him of his master and he treasured it all the more.

He had been a unicorn of considerable magical ability long before his placement within the confines of Ponyville Penitentiary. Outside the constant skirmishes that lingered from that archaic war, there were but a very few murders committed between ponies. Of course, that had made it all the more easy for him. Ignoring his status in society, just the mere fact that he was a pony had cast him above suspicion for a time. Much easier to blame that violent sort of behavior on creatures of a far more foul disposition, like dragons or sugarplum fairies. By the time he had finally been caught, he was a record holder. His particular combination of talents achieved him the first unequivocal victory of the pit and, more importantly, the regard of his esteemed employer. These prodigious origins, combined with all he had been taught since then meant one thing: He was the best. Until these two got in his way.

Whether or not he would kill them, violently, mercilessly, was not really a question. The only thing left for him to guess at was how long he would allow them to prolong their suffering. Security measures dating back to the labyrinth's inception meant he could not cheat his way through with magic, though that hardly mattered. He was a trained hunter, from his horn to his hooves. Indeed, it had only been a matter of time. And then it was a matter no longer.

“HACK!”

There! Reflexively, Menlo sent one of his daggers arcing over the wall, towards the direction of the coughing sound. The floating knives were, of course, a spell of his own design. Originally, the idea was simply to craft a weapon that would not leave a trace, but he had improved on the concept to a considerable degree. They were blades unlike any that could be forged in steel, even with the technology available at the time. So thin and light they could move like lightning, but so dense and hard that they could cleave through any material. Not once had they failed him. This time was no different.

“AAHHHghk!” came the squeal.

“NO!” came the scream.

Perfect. Menlo knew exactly what had happened. He had heard that sound many times before. Better yet, he knew exactly where his victims were.