Trixie’s latest performance hadn’t been a complete success, which probably helped explain why she was currently being chased by a hydra. She’d been doing so well, too; it had been almost two weeks since she had last been chased out of a town by some local megafauna.
It wasn’t all that unusual for Trixie to find herself running from some kind of monster or another. In fact, she was getting used to it. She considered it a great moment to think about things. As the town outskirts began to make way for woods, she wondered just what her life was coming to. It didn’t seem like it was coming to much, but at the very least, as long as she kept running, it wasn’t coming to an end.
After the whole Alicorn Amulet incident, she’d tried to get back to her old life as a travelling magician. It hadn’t been easy. The only things she had left were her hat, her cape and her massive ego. She’d been forced to improvise now that she could no longer rely on her wagon full of props and effects, which unfortunately sometimes resulted in her accidentally summoning a manticore roughly four point three metres above herself[1]
She reached a crossroads, cast a smokescreen spell, and jumped in the undergrowth on the side of the road. The hydra charged straight past her. Once it realized it was no longer chasing Trixie, it returned to the crossroads, looking every which way to see where Trixie might have gone. When it didn’t see anything, it entered a path at random and walked away.
Trixie spent a few minutes catching her breath. The last time she had to run like this was when she’d accidentally set those timberwolves on fire - and really, how was she supposed to know that doing so would anger them? She was about to leave her hiding place when she heard hoofsteps. Peeking out of the scrubs, she noticed two ponies walking down the path, a lanky blue mare and a short green stallion, both wearing brown hooded cloaks.
“I can just tell we’re going to be the best cultists ever!” the stallion said. “Do you think they’ll let me perform ritual sacrifices?”
“Would you keep it down?” the mare said. “We don’t want to attract undue attention to ourselves.”
“Well you’re no fun,” the stallion said. “Why do you even want to join the Brethren?”
“Because I dream of a better world. A world where hard-working ponies get rewards and useless good-for-nothings are punished. A world in which I do not get passed over for a promotion in favour of that jerk Merryheart!”
“I’m not sure how joining a cult is going to change any of that,” the stallion said.
The mare laughed. “Because once we summon it, the Smooze shall wipe out the Merryhearts of this world!”
“Are you sure an ancient unstoppable monster of pure hatred will listen to you?”
“Of course it will,” the mare said. “Why wouldn’t it? We’re the summoners, after all.”
“If you say so!” the stallion said.
“So why do you want to join?” the mare asked.
“Oh, I’m just looking forward to the sacrifices!”
Trixie shuddered. Evil cultists hell-bent on summoning a nightmare into the world. They had to be stopped. She would have to alert the proper authorities and have them put an end to this plot.
… Then again, “The Great And Powerful Trixie Saves Equestria From Doomsday Cult” would make for a rather nice headline, and it would be nice to boast about her heroics, especially if said heroics were actually performed by her. She could just imagine the adoring crowds, the journalists wanting interviews, the ponies queueing up for her autograph…
And really, this situation clearly required someone of Trixie’s amazing talents. She was the only pony suitable for the job, and she had no choice but to accept the task ahead and foil this cult’s dastardly schemes.
She accepted her fate with a heavy heart, and chased after the two would-be cultists.
===
They arrived at a wooden house tucked away between the trees. The mare knocked, and the door was opened by another mare in a brown hood.
“The significant owl hoots in the night,” said the former.
“State your names, new recruits,” said the latter.
“I’m Sandwich Short!” said the stallion. “And this is Petty Periwinkle!”
“Greetings, brother Short, sister Periwinkle. I am sister Ebon Night. Please come inside.”
The two ponies did as ordered, and Ebon Night shut the door behind them. Trixie decided it was the perfect time to do some snooping around. The building featured high stone walls, though it was only a single storey. The few windows it had were small and set high in the walls. Trixie climbed into a tree branch near one of the windows, and took a peek inside.
The inside of the building consisted of just one massive room, filled with many ponies all wearing brown robes and hoods. On the edges of the room were cots and sleeping bags and the like. In the centre was an altar of sorts, lit by many candles. Trixie leaned in closer to see more. She noticed a distinctly pony-shaped depression in the altar, along with shackles and what appeared to be a long stabbing knife. She felt sick just thinking about what it was going to be used for. Nevertheless, she leaned in even closer for a better look - at which point the branch she was sitting on cracked, and she fell from the tree.
The second she hit the ground, she scrambled to her hooves and fled the scene, lest anypony might come to investigate the noise. At any rate, she figured she’d need to make her way inside to really find out a way to stop the cult.
===
The next evening, she was making her way back to the cult house, this time garbed in the same brown hooded cloak the cultists wore. She’d have to play her cards right[2]. She couldn’t let anypony know who she really was lest she would draw too much attention to herself. She’d have to keep her eyes peeled and her ears open, catch every last snippet of information, and figure out in an inconspicuous way exactly who to shoot fireballs at and at what time to fix everything.
She knocked at the door. Sister Ebon Night opened the door.
“Greetings, fellow evil cultist!” Trixie said. “The significant owl hoots in the night!”
“Uh-huh,” Ebon Night said.
“I am the Great and Powerful Trrrri- uh, err, Tricky!”
Ebon Night raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
“Why yes, that is the sound the significant owl would make at night!”
Ebon Night sighed. “Just get inside and we’ll perform the initiation ceremony.”
The initiation ceremony consisted of little more than a list of vows, some ritual chanting, and the taking of a blood sample to test for illegal substances[3]. After Trixie was found to be clean, she was free to join any cult ritual, as well as the cultists’ bowling team.
She looked around the place, trying to make some small talk with the various cult members. Sister Periwinkle was a bit too uptight, as far as Trixie was concerned, while Brother Short was slightly unsettling in a psychotic sort of way. In fact, most of the cultists were either small-minded ponies wishing to get back at others for perceived slights, or total loonies. Then there was one pony who consistently tried to avoid her, a purple mare called sister Sundown Gleam. Trixie got the strangest impression that she’d seen her before somewhere, but she dismissed the thought.
Having exhausted her repository of small talk, she turned to Ebon Night. “So how exactly are we going to summon the Smooze?” Trixie asked.
“Well, we’re actually pretty close to the grand moment. Our agents have just acquired a vial of Flume, so as soon as they get back here, we can sacrifice one pony of great magical strength and summon the Smooze. Don’t worry about getting sacrificed, by the way. The blood test showed us that your magic is only mediocre. No offence, of course.”
“The Great and Powerful Tricky does not approve of your claims about her magical abilities!” Trixie said. “Though Tricky does appreciate not being sacrificed.”
“Anyway, after the sacrifice, all that’s left is to combine the ingredients, head to the local town square so that we will have an audience in our moment of triumph, and cast the summoning spell. I just hope we can get the summoning spell right on the first try. It would be a real pain to have to deal with a manticore.”
“I see,” Trixie said. “So where and how do we find somepony to sacrifice?”
“Look, it’s all in The Smooze and You; a Cultist’s Guide. Please tell me you looked at more than just the route description to get here.”
“Ah, yes, that. Tricky must’ve misplaced it after learning how to find this place.”
Ebon Night sighed. “All you need to do is chant what we tell you to chant when we tell you to chant it and occasionally carry some candles around. Is that clear, sister Tricky?”
“The Great and Powerful Tricky is more than capable of doing that!”
“Good. Then grab a candle. We’ll be performing the Mass of the Thousand Eyes in a few minutes.”
“The Mass of What-Now?” Trixie said.
Ebon Night sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot in the presence of the cult’s newest sister. “Do you know anything at all?” she said. “How did you even find out about us?”
“Oh, I uh, I read an advertisement in the Equestrian Enquirer that said you needed more members!”
“I knew we should have never placed that ad,” Ebon Night said. “It’s been bringing in nothing but- wait, did you say the Equestrian Enquirer? Because we only placed an ad in the Canterlot Times. Are you lying to us?”
“Why, how dare you accuse the Great and Powerful Trixie of lying?”
“Trixie?” Ebon said. “I thought you were Tricky?”
“That’s ‘Great and Powerful Tri-’”
“Enough!” Ebon said. “You entered with a false identity, and clearly did not learn of us through through normal means! I declare that you are a spy!”
Trixie noticed that an awful lot of ponies were suddenly looking at her.
“Seize her!”
As one, the cultists charged at her. Suddenly, one of the cultists in the back teleported to her position, grabbed her, and teleported away, leaving the other cultists to collectively crash into one another, as per the ancient rules of slapstick.
Trixie found herself on the forest path outside the cult house. Her mysterious saviour was glaring at her. It was Sundown Gleam.
“What in Celestia’s name were you doing there?” she asked.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie was infiltrating the cultists to stop their nefarious schemes!”
“There was absolutely no need for that. If you’d just alerted the proper authorities, they’d have told you that I was already on the case. And now you’ve not only blown your cover, but also mine.
“Speaking of you,” Trixie said, “you look sort of familiar. Have I seen you before?”
Sundown Gleam grit her teeth, and threw back her hood.
“Oh my gosh, Twilight Sparkle!” Trixie said. “I had no idea it was you!”
“Yes, I’m sure I was completely unrecognizable. Anyway, I have to think of a new way to stop these cultists. Do me a favour and don’t get in my way again, okay?”
Without listening for an answer, Twilight teleported away.
===
The next day, an undeterred Trixie was present at the town square at the break of dawn, having switched out her hood and cloak for her traditional robe and wizard hat. It was a Thursday, which was the day all the secret societies and cults and conspiracies and the like strutted their stuff.
At around noon, Twilight arrived on the scene.
“Trixie?” she said. “I thought I told you to not get in my way, so what are you doing here?”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie will go where she pleases,” Trixie said. “By the way, did you lose weight recently? You look differently.”
“Umm, Trixie?”
“Yes?”
Twilight flapped her wings once.
“So you did lose weight,” Trixie said.
“I’ve become an alicorn princess!” Twilight said. “How did you not know this? The media wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks!”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t trust the media. Not since the Daily Mirror Pool gave my show a negative review.”
“Look, just don’t cause any more trouble than you already did, okay?” Twilight said.
The Smooze cultists began showing up a few hours later, wheeling in a mobile altar with a victim already strapped to it. Ebon Night turned to the assembled crowd, ready to give a speech. Before she could say a word, though, Trixie made a dash for the altar. Once there, she cast a quick smokescreen, and started searching for a way to undo the shackles that bound the unfortunate pony upon the altar.
Moments before the smokescreen dissipated entirely, she discovered that the shackles were, in fact, controlled by a very large lever on the side of the altar just out of reach for any pony lying on the business end of the altar. Trixie pulled the lever, the shackles came undone, and she lifted the would-be sacrifice off the altar. She gave the pony a good slap in the face to wake him up, after which he wasted no time in running away.
Trixie was about to start gloating when a number of cultists grabbed her, and forced her on the altar.
“How dare you disturb our ritual!” Ebon said. “Well, looks like our original ‘volunteer’ got away. I suppose you will have to take his place. I just hope your meager magic will suffice.”
“Meager?” Trixie said. The shackles closed around her legs. She had no way of escape.
Ebon drew her sacrificial knife.
Then Twilight stepped forward. “Drop the knife!” she said.
Ebon scoffed at her, then readied herself to bring the blade down on Trixie.
One blast of magic later, and Ebon found herself holding a handle with a smouldering bit on one end.
Twilight Sparkle blew some smoke from her horn. “Ebon Night, I’d like you to meet the captain of the local guard,” she said.
A white stallion in golden armour made his way to Ebon.
“Ebon Night, you are hereby under arrest for Conspiracy With Intent to Summon a Horror, Attempted Murder, Kidnapping, and Unlawful Use of an Altar!” the stallion said. “The rest of the conspirators are likewise under arrest for the first and third of the aforementioned offences. Take them away!”
A contingent of guard ponies moved in to arrest the cultists. A few minutes later, the cultists were being led away to prison, to await their trial.
“Alright, everypony, show’s over, nothing more to see here,” the guard captain said. The crowd quickly dispersed.
“Is anypony going to release Trixie?” Trixie said.
“Oh fine,” Twilight said, and pulled the lever. “But next time, try to avoid getting strapped to sacrificial altars, okay?”
[1] It is a well-known fact that most summoning spells, when cast improperly, will cause a manticore to appear roughly four point three metres above the summoner (the exact figure has been calculated to the 214th digit). To most academics dealing with summoning magic, this quickly becomes a source of great annoyance (and considerable financial loss due to property damage and the costs of reconstructive surgery), but unfortunately nopony has yet found a way to prevent this from happening. A rather promising attempt at finding the cause of this phenomenon by Dr. Glitter Star at the University of Canterlot has, unfortunately, been put on hiatus because the entire faculty is currently in the hospital due to manticore-related injuries.
[2] Which was a lot harder if she couldn’t rely on her personal deck of cards where every card was Trixie the Queen of Magic.
[3] There are certain levels of depravity even evil cultists didn’t sink to. Bringing about the horrible demise of countless of souls is one thing, but taking drugs just crosses the line.