Equestria's Mark

by MasterZadok

Ch 20: Tell and Show

Chapter 20
Tell and Show

Paint upon canvass, ingredients in a recipe, or notes in a song. By its nature, magic is both beautifully complex and hauntingly simple. To me, it was like telling a story.

If the world can be thought of as words upon a page, then magic is the ink that lets a magician edit it. For those of us without magic of our own, then, alchemy would be the art of boiling down existing sentences and forging new ones out of the pieces. To put it another way, spells are to potions what a handwritten letter is to a ransom note. Magic is chemistry, it is algebra, and it is poetry all rolled into one, and on the morning of that fateful day, I was experiencing the full might of this terrifying power with a smile on my face and a pat on my back.

Literally.

“Well! That’s certainly not something you see every day.” Rarity stood on the stairs, peering down into the rat’s nest that was Twilight Sparkle’s laboratory. My guilty gaze turned towards the unicorn, both arms sunk up to their elbows in a pulsing purple circle. An identical ring of light sat on the wall behind my head, my two wayward hands sprouting out from within and diligently massaging the kinks out of my neck.

“Let’s face it, this is not the worst thing you’ve caught me doing.”

“Are those… portals?” The white pony cautiously poked her way across the conduit-strewn floor.

“You like them?” I beamed, sweeping two pieces of paper off a nearby table. “Sympathy glyphs! What happens to one happens to the other. Just slap a teleportation spell on them and boom! All I need now is a condescending A. I. armed with deadly neurotoxin!

“Zecora helped me start this project months ago. Of course, most of that time was spent cooking up a cauldron powerful enough to make it work.” I gestured to a stumpy pedestal burbling contentedly in the center of the room with cables branching out of it like tree roots.

Rarity smiled supportively, listening to me gush about my new toy like a patient parent on Christmas morning. Even Pinkie Pie would have looked subdued compared to how tickled pink I was. In all honesty, though, the cauldron was the greater of the two achievements. I explained that, without magic of their own, zebras and alchemists must rely on magic “engines” in order to generate power, carefully mixing potions and elements together to create a stable self-contained chain reaction within the great iron tubs. Ingredients go in, raw magic aura comes out. Although most rudimentary cauldrons were no more powerful than a Bunsen burner and were only used for breaking down items into their base components, (like the ones used by Zecora or Harry Potter or the witch in Brave) there was supposedly no limit to how large a cauldron could be. Provided it was fed, of course.

“Quite impressive, I must say.” Rarity leaned over one of my portals, admiring the back of her own mane. “Well done! Besides personal grooming, of course, were there other uses for this spell or was it simply for your studies?”

“Snicker, snicker!” I squinted with a mousy grin. “Not that I can tell anypony, but let’s just say I’m glad I got this assembled before the delegates from Saddle Arabia show up.” Rarity looked at me askew.

“Did you just say ‘snicker’ instead of actually snickering?”

“Mebbe… Anyway, sorry for the mess. Twilight and I weren’t expecting anyone to come over today.” I cut the power running to the portals (much to Rarity’s chagrin) and began sweeping up stacks of stray papers into neat piles. “What brings you to the library?”

“Well, admittedly, I was looking for dear Twilight…” Rarity looked back over the lab as if still expecting to see the purple student buried under a pile of books somewhere.

“I’m afraid she’s off at Fluttershy’s place. Still practicing for when Celestia and her Arabian friends arrive.” I shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s perfectly all right, darling. I merely popped in to deliver a tin of my favorite tea. Absolutely revitalizing, my own blend actually, perfect for those late nights and looming deadlines. Or studying, as in her case.” Rarity’s deep blue eyes twinkled. “Though recently you seem to be using her laboratory even more than she is.”

“I’m telling you, it feels like not a day goes by when I’m not scouting the market for a place of my own.” A defeated hand scratched the back of my head. “But nothing’s come up.”

“Well, what are you searching for?” There was more than a touch of amusement in my friend’s voice.

“Nothing fancy, really.” I sighed. “Lilly and I don’t need much space, just a couple bedrooms, bath, and a little kitchen. And a lab, of course. A study would be nice, but if I was going to ask for anything special, I’d like one of those little mixed-use buildings downtown. They have those cute little shop fronts on the first floor so I can start selling my potions.”

“Starting a business?” Rarity sang. “That’s quite ambitious of you, Mark.”

“Like you’re one to talk.” I poked back.

“Hm, touché.”

“Boy, howdy, sugarcube! What’s with all this here racket? I recon’ there’s ‘nuff cluckin’ goin’ on down here ta fix up a regular chickin’ coop!” A freckled earth pony with a long blond mane and a Stetson suddenly appeared at the entrance to the basement, beaming with a toothy grin and warbling like a turkey choking on a marble.

“Oh Lord…” I cupped a hand to my forehead.

“Applejack?” Rarity looked up at her friend with wide eyes.

“Tha’s my name, sugarcube, an’ don’tcha go wearin’ it out, little missy!” Applejack reared up and kicked the air jubilantly. “Yee-haw! Ah just finished buckin’ the ‘ol orchard an’ wanted to say ‘howdy’ to my favorite deputies. Can’t seem to find miss Twahlight, though, sugarcube. Any of y’all seen ‘er? Whoo doggies, we ‘kin round ‘er up quick as a whip!”

“Dear, are you quite all right?” Rarity stance was more rigid than was strictly polite. “Are you feeling well? You sound a bit…”

“No, let her continue. This is good.” The corners of my mouth felt like they were trying to rise clear up to my eyes.

“Now what in the hay’s up with you folks? Y’all starin’ at me like I’m weirder ‘n a biscuit in a pigpen. Shucks, sugarcube, ah’m as fit as a guitar, an’ twice as purdy! Ain’t like ah’ve been eatin’ salads made of poison joke, so don’tcha recognize yer ol’ friend, sugarcube?”

“Ah… Can’t say that I do.” Rarity kept her eyes on the orange mare as she turned towards me. “Mark? What’s going on? What’s so funny?” At that moment, I was nearly biting through my tongue just trying to keep a straight face.

“That… That was amazing.” My shoulders shook from the giggles bouncing within my lungs. In the next moment, though, I fixed Applejack in a knowing glance and asked, “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

“Tell her? What? But, but… How did you know?” Lilly’s voice came out of the earth pony. A bright green tongue of flame licked up the pony’s bright hide and evaporated, leaving the little changeling standing in the laboratory. She pouted and began rubbing her foreleg dejectedly. “I thought for sure I’d win that time!”

“Well that explains a few things.” Rarity breathed a sigh of relief. Still smiling, I pointed at Lilly with a pencil and explained,

“Your disguise itself was wonderful. Right coat, right eyes, you even wore her braid to cover up your scar.” One of my arms pulled the changeling in for a half-hug. “But your choice of words wasn’t something Applejack would say. You were playing a character of her instead of the actual pony.”

“What does that mean?” Lilly scratched her scar self-consciously.

“Well, take Rarity for instance.”

“Moi?” The white unicorn blinked.

“She doesn’t say ‘darling’ every sentence now, does she?” I explained. “True, she says it more than most ponies, darling. However, darling, don’t you think that it sounds rather forced to inject it into conversation too much, darling? In fact, darling, it doesn’t even sound like Rarity anymore. Not to mention, darling, it almost sounds like you’re mocking the person you’re trying to copy. Isn’t that right, darling?”

“Sorry, Miss Rarity.” The changeling itched her ear.

“Oh, that’s quite all right,… dear.” Rarity giggled.

“It’s a common mistake.” I consoled my filly friend. “Even Pen Stroke, the author of ‘Past Sins’ struggles with it. Though, he got a lot better by the time he wrote ‘Sunset Slayer’…” (Seriously, though, dude, if you’re reading this, I’m a big fan!) I continued, “Likewise, Applejack doesn’t say ‘sugarcube’ all the time, Pinkie Pie doesn’t say ‘party’ all the time, and Rainbow Dash… Well, actually I take that back. Rainbow Dash does like to use the word ‘awesome’ more than is healthy.”

Boom!

“Twilight! Twilight! Hey, Twilight?” A distant crash shook the library, raining dust from the basement’s ceiling.

“Well, speak of the devil.” I muttered, but it quickly became clear that there was nothing ‘awesome’ about Rainbow Dash’s sudden appearance. From the basement, we could hear the blue pegasus shouting for Twilight, her voice even more strained than usual.

“She sounds worried.” Lilly Limn began scratching her shoulder.

“Properly distressed.” Rarity agreed.

“Well, let’s go see what the commotion’s all about.” I began poking my way back toward the stairs with Lilly right behind me. “And stop scratching! You’re gonna get a rash.”

“I can’t help it!” The changeling whined. “My tail’s itchy and my nose is itchy and my ears are itchy and my hooves are itchy…”

Back upstairs, Rainbow Dash was flying frantic circles around the library like a hornet caught in a glass jar. Owlowiscious hooted irritably at the pegasus’s disruptive clamor and looked to us hopefully as Rarity and I alighted on the main floor.

“Looking for Twilight? I’m afraid she’s not here, darling.” Rarity called out. She glanced at Lilly, suddenly very self-conscious about that last word.

“Guys!” Rainbow Dash dive bombed us, stopping within an inch of the white unicorn’s nose. “Where is she? She needs to know! We need to stop her!”

“Fluttershy’s cottage.” I cocked my head. “Rainbow, what’s going on? What does she need to know? Stop who?”

“Thank you!” Before the words had even left her lips, Rainbow Dash spun around and shot towards the front door. As she crossed the room, the pegasus hollered back, “There’s trouble at the town hall!”

“What trouble?” Rarity cried. Rainbow Dash poked her head back through the door.

“She’s back!”

“Who?” Rarity, Lilly, and I hollered.

“Trixie!” And then the pegasus was gone for good.

Like a trio of trees, our group suddenly found themselves rooted in place.

“Who?” Owlowiscious cooed.

“Shoot! That’s today?” I glanced at my naked forearm sarcastically and muttered, “God as my witness, one of these days I’m going to get a proper wristwatch.”

“You were expecting her, then?” Rarity glanced up at me.

“More or less.” My head tilted back to the ceiling. Not that I could tell Rarity, but I’d been looking forward to “Magic Duel” for a long time. One reason, of course, was to wrap up the drama of the disgraced showmare, but there were more personal reasons as well.

“Didn’t she call an ursa into Ponyville?” Lilly began scratching again, but stopped herself.

“No, sweet pea, that was technically Snips and Snails.”

“But is Ponyville in danger again?” The changeling studied my face warily. An iron line was settling onto my brow, a sure sign that I was weighing the various pros and cons of episode interference. (A face she had seen quite a bit of during the recent Summer Harvest Parade.)

“We’re about to find out.” I declared, stepping toward the front door.

Though I was confident that my friends and I would be able to resolve this episode smoothly, exactly how cautious I had to be with it remained to be seen. Trixie was no season premier or finale and her pranks had looked harmless enough in the show, but at the end of the day she was still a villain. And if there was one class of characters that wasn’t to be underestimated, it was the villains.

As the three of us stepped out into the bright sunlight, Rarity gently tugged on my sleeve.

“Now, Mark, I know Lilly has been working hard to find a pony veneer to call her own, but don’t you think her latest design is a little… conspicuous?”

“Her what?” I turned around and nearly cut my eyeballs on a scene of pure edginess. In place of my changeling filly stood a young alicorn with crimson stripes cut into a dark obsidian hide and a long tail ending in a spearhead of fur. Her pointed feathers were splayed like a rack of swords and her blood red eyes glowed with a faint light.

“Lilly!? What are you-? Take that off before somepony sees you!”

“But daddy!” The alicorn protested. “I worked hard on this one. Her name is Razor Night, and she’s the princess of Tartarus and black holes and she likes to fly on nights with no moon and eats lightning clouds so she can breathe lightning breath, but she’s always lonely because everypony was too afraid of her and-”

“How about her name is ‘Edgelord’ and she’s the princess of ‘where-did-I-go-wrong’ and her special talent is ‘what-did-I-tell-you-about-red-and-black-alicorn-OCs’?”

“That nobody likes them…” Lilly looked at the ground and shuffled her hooves.

“That’s right. Now let’s get changed before someone cuts themselves just by standing too close. Remember the story about Snowdrop? Just go with her for now.”

“Ok…” A flash of verdant flame later, and an icy blue pegasus filly with a snow-white mane took the place of the dark alicorn.

“Don’t worry honey. Someday we’ll find a guise for you.” I turned back toward the center of town. “And when we get back, remind me to get you some friends. Sheesh!”

We found the town square smoldering with energy, like a storm about to break. Ponies coagulated in the in front of the city hall, some curious, some nervous, all of them unwitting spectators in Trixie’s newest magic tour. Just as before, the blue unicorn had planted herself right in the middle of Ponyville, but this time she wasn’t using her wagon or fireworks to get the town’s attention. She wasn’t here for them.

“Where is Twilight Sparkle?” Smoldering red eyes looked over the crowd from beneath a black hood.

“What do you want with her?” Applejack challenged.

“Wrong answer.” The eyes flicked over to the Apple family’s produce cart and immediately one of the red fruits shot into the air like a rocket, smashing one of the windows of the town hall. As Rarity, Lilly and I ran up behind our friend, I saw at least five other windows were already knocked out. “Now, where is Twilight Sparkle?”

“We told you! She’s on her way!” The orange earth pony flinched as another apple leapt off the pile. The sound of breaking glass rang through the air.

“Too slow.” A line of pearl white teeth appeared beneath the burning eyes. “I can do this all day.”

“Well, good for you! Now quit it!” Applejack snorted. As if to annunciate, she and Big McIntosh pulled a tarp over their remaining stock and stood defiantly between it and the shrouded unicorn. The large red stallion lifted his head and stuck out his chest to make his already impressive stature somehow expand into a full-fledged goliath.

Trixie laughed at goliaths.

“Ooh, an earth pony! I’m so scared! Oh, wait,” The mouth curled into a snarky grin. “no I’m not.” A lance of crimson light shot out from under the hood and caught Big Mac squarely on his breastbone. At once, the large red pony’s hooves left the street and he began rising into the sky like a real-life Marjorie Dursley.

“Wuh? Nnnope!”

“Hang on Big Mac! I gotcha!” In the blink of an eye, Applejack whipped out her lasso and snagged her brother by one of his flailing forelegs. For the span of a breath, it looked like she was going to be pulled after him, but Lilly and I leapt forward and helped haul the wayward pony earthbound. If glares were guns, then Applejack aimed a Howitzer at Trixie as she fastened her brother to a nearby tree.

“Hey!” Pinkie Pie leapt forward sporting a scowl borrowed from a Dragon Ball Z character. Of course, her attempt at a serious face was undermined by the fact that she had a spot of flour on her nose and was still whipping a bowl of batter clutched under a foreleg, but it was the thought that counted. “Nopony gets to turn my friends into balloons except me!” She reached into her magic satchel and pulled out a white balloon slathered in eyeliner. “I call this one ‘Rarity’.”

Trixie didn’t have a good response to that, so she contented herself with snatching up the cupcakes-in-the-making with her magic and slapping it all over the front of the pink pony’s apron.

“Nooo!” Pinkie fell to her knees, liquid pastry running through her hooves. “Why? Why must the goods die young?”

“Trixie!” Rarity stamped a hoof. “That was completely uncalled for!”

“Oh, really?” Trixie’s Scott Summers leer flashed dangerously. “What’s the matter? Don’t like the taste of your own medicine?”

“Huh?” I was taken aback, but my bewilderment was drowned out by the sound of magic splitting the air. The new red gleam of Trixie’s aura enveloped Rarity, gripped her, smothered her, and squeezed her, and then the light faded, the white pony was wrapped in a loud dress of obnoxious green and sickly brown. Everypony in the crowd winced and I couldn’t blame them. From where I was standing, the ensemble that Rarity had been enveloped in looked less like a dress and more like an opera-singing boss from Conker’s Bad Fur Day.

“Augh!” Rarity seized like a wet cat, trying to shrink away from her prison.

“And you thought green was bad before.” Trixie gave a low chuckle.

“You beast!” The white unicorn shrieked. “This shade of brown should only be used for accents!” Her eyelids fluttered and the delicate pony began to fall into a swoon. Applejack and Pinkie Pie caught her and quickly beat their retreat away from the evening blue unicorn.

“What’s going on here?” Twilight appeared at the edge of the crowd, followed by Spike and Rainbow Dash.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Twilight Sparkle!” The sinister unicorn finally swept the hood off her head and smiled coldly at the magic student.

“Trixie!”

“What’s she doing here?” Spike growled.

The newcomers looked around the town square uncertainly. Signs of Trixie’s vandalism, both on the city and the ponies themselves, littered the scene. There seemed to be little reason or rhyme to the magician’s twisted sense of humor, other than the simple fact that everything she did was to demean or humiliate the target. Rainbow Dash jabbed an angry hoof at Big Mac and scoffed,

“You call that great and powerful?”

The blue unicorn took her eyes off Twilight Sparkle just long enough to throw a dirty look at the brazen pegasus. Immediately, Rainbow Dash’s right wing stretched to an ungainly size and the once-graceful flyer plummeted to the dirt.

There was a smattering of different reactions from the crowd. Most of them were as affronted and surprised as Twilight Sparkle, but a few still seemed to think that this was just another show by the Great and Powerful Trixie and chortled accordingly. Only the most loyal of fans, like Snips and Snails, legitimately found anything humorous about the scene.

However, not even they were spared. In one moment, the two unicorn colts were cheering on their idol, in the next, they were her new targets. As the wave of red magic washed over the foals, fusing their horns stalk-to-stalk, it became clear to everyone that this display of ruthless power was no longer for their entertainment. The TV-Y show couldn’t convey how macabre that scene really was. Or the squeals of pain it elicited from the two unicorns. I instinctively tried to shield Lilly behind my leg.

“Stop picking on my friends, Trixie!” Twilight’s frustration, however, only fueled the smoldering red light.

“You and I have some unfinished business.” Trixie said coolly. “My magic’s gotten better since I was here last. And I’m going to prove it! Me and you, a magic duel. Winner stays, loser leaves Ponyville forever!”

Despite myself, a shudder ran through me at the last word. Up until that point, Trixie had been relatively collected, but as soon as she threw down her challenge, something changed in her expression. I can’t say for certain, but for an instant, instead of the tainted personality of the Alicorn Amulet, I thought I glimpsed legitimate anguish. Perhaps Twilight saw it too and her first instinct was to try to avoid fueling Trixie’s ire any further.

“Forget it!” She looked away. “I’d never make a deal like that.”

But it wasn’t a request. Trixie continued her unholy crusade, first turning Spike into a dragon roll and then melting Pinkie Pie’s mouth shut like Mr. Smith from The Matrix. With shrinking patience, and with her burning stare never leaving Twilight’s face, Trixie meticulously recounted her life after her flight from Ponyville. With a damaged reputation, and in the wake of the heroic efforts of Celestia’s prized student, the lonely unicorn found it impossible to capture new audiences, let alone shine on the stage like she used to. Instead, she learned full well what it was like to be laughed at for the entertainment of others. Everywhere she went, her new reputation was waiting for her in the form of mockery, harassment, and even vandalism. Abandoned by the bright lights of the stage and betrayed by her own magic talent, it was no stretch of the imagination to see that when she finally hit rock bottom, (literally) her mind was in a very wounded and very dark place. It was almost enough to make one feel sorry for the little terrorist. Almost.

Finally, with thick red aura billowing around her horn, the disgraced magician uprooted the Golden Oak Library itself. We all watched helplessly as the building was torn from the earth like a weed and then turned over and over in the unicorn’s magic like a giant baoding ball. From where we stood, echoing thumps and the clinking of broken glass reached our ears as everything inside the building was scrambled.

“Shoot! Did I leave the oven on?” I muttered into my hand. By “oven”, of course, I was referring to my cauldron, but since the library was only bleeding books and not luminous green tar, I assumed the magic core was still sitting safe and sound in the basement.

A flicker of movement caught my attention and I glanced down to see Twilight Sparkle looking up at me with a worried expression. She inclined her head ever so slightly toward Trixie and the tapestry of spreading destruction. After a moment, my own face softened and I gave her the smallest of nods. Yes, this was an episode. Yes, she was supposed to duel. Yes, things would turn out all right in the end. (So long as we all played our part.) Relieved, but still wary, the purple unicorn turned back toward her challenger.

“Alright, Trixie.” She resigned. “Let’s duel!”

“Excellent.” The blue unicorn smiled through her silky white mane. All the provocative spells were undone, except for Pinkie’s mouth, and the two ponies squared off for their first proper horn-to-horn showdown. The town fell into a state of utter silence save for the stuttering voice of Yugi in my head.

The d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel was a lot more jarring to watch in person than it was to see on a computer screen, but the overall theme was identical. The two artists painted their spells at breakneck speed, Trixie throwing destructive curses about like a toddler wielding a roman candle while Twilight deftly caught and neutralized each one. The blue unicorn didn’t care for the collateral damage or even for the safety of the spectators, her actions were frenzied, angry, even intentionally hurtful. For as long as she could, my friend tried to restrain her power and limit herself to harmless spells, but she found herself in a corner more than once and had to rely on an explosive spell to save herself.

At last, Trixie smothered half the town in a blizzard to try and freeze her nimble opponent, but even that was countered when Twilight summoned a radiant heatwave. In the same motion, the purple unicorn shot out a spell, catching her attacker squarely in the face. There was no physical damage, but the elegant moustache that sprouted on Trixie’s face did a nigh-lethal blow to her intimidation factor. A few spectators chuckled nervously at the scene, but I could tell that Twilight was breathing heavily and wouldn’t be able to keep up with her opponent’s tempo for much longer.

At that moment, however, Trixie abandoned the anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better strategy and went right for the clincher. It’s not worth recounting the play-by-play, but suffice to say that Trixie stepped beyond what was supposed to be physically possible, even for unicorn magic. Her power wasn’t just enough to command the world around her, but its tendrils also ran back and forth through the streams of time itself and out of its churning currents she was able to pluck an older version of Snails and the younger version of Snips. Stunned by this sudden revelation, not only was Twilight unable to counter the spell, but she made it perfectly clear that it shouldn’t have been possible in the first place.

And that was it. After struggling over this conundrum, after trying to make sense of what she was seeing, after pouring enough magic into the air to make Ponyville buzz like Chernobyl, Twilight Sparkle had to concede defeat. One by one, the spectators in the crowd realized what this meant and as the confidence fell from each face, Trixie’s smile grew ever brighter.

“Trixie is the highest level unicorn!” The showpony tossed her head back and laughed. Upon her chest, the Alicorn Amulet glinted like wet fangs. All around the crowd, Twilight’s friends and neighbors shifted uneasily as the blue unicorn drank her cup of victory down to the dregs. “And now, it’s time for you to leave Ponyville! FOREVER!”

“That’s enough, Trixie!” Applejack placed herself squarely between the two combatants.

“You’ve made your point.” Rarity and the rest of the girls joined the earth pony. “But you can’t possibly expect Twilight to leave Ponyville!”

“Shouldn’t we join them?” Lilly tugged my pant leg anxiously.

“Highest level unicorns, windows through time, time spell, could it be?... Huh?” I blinked my way out of a particularly deep tunnel of thought. “Sorry, I was just creepily talking to myself.” Before we could make a move to join the protest, however, it was already over.

Trixie’s nostrils flared in a sneer.

“You fools! She’s already gone!”

With a surge of energy mighty enough to tear stones from the pavement, Twilight Sparkle was swept up in a burst of magic and hurled through the sky as if Bowser had just beaned her in the face with a homerun bat. The mare’s startled cry faded into the distance comically as the rest of her friends and I tried to follow on foot.

“I hope they cover ‘landing strategies’ in Celestia’s fancy school.” I puffed. In the distance, Twilight’s purple silhouette crash-landed beyond the outskirts of town.

However, not even Rainbow Dash could catch up to Twilight before Trixie conjured a titanic barrier around the city. As I ran, there was a warbling sound, like a Covenant ship dropping out of slipspace, and when I looked up, I saw a bulbous dome of glass swallowing the sky. Within moments, we were all cast in a Steven King book.

Twilight was just beyond the barrier, covered in dust and gravel, but otherwise unharmed. The only damage she seemed to have suffered was that to her confidence. That morning, she had woken up in the safety of her own home, surrounded by her closest friends, and looking forward to a visit from the princess. Now, she was cast adrift with no one alongside her and no way to get back to them. That didn’t mean that she was truly alone, however.

“Twilight!” Spike panted as he collapsed against the edge of the barrier.

“It’s okay, guys.” The student’s voice was muffled through the wall of glass. “I’ll figure something out. Just take care of each other.”

“No worries.” I gave a sly wink. “We’ll be all right.” Around me, the girls gave their own encouragement and reassurances. It wasn’t much, but our friend seemed to take some comfort in seeing us say so.

“And keep an eye on Trixie. There’s something strange about her.” Twilight glanced past us to where the blue unicorn was striding forward, gloating over the pathetic scene. Without another word, the purple pony took a deep breath and left Ponyville behind her.

“Twilight…” Spike watched her go with a visible heaviness.

“It’ll be all right.” I placed a hand on the drake’s shoulder. “It will take more than a fancy terrarium to defeat Twilight Sparkle.” For emphasis, I rapped my knuckles on the transparent barrier, sending ripples of light dancing over its surface. An effect, I noted, which implied that the fancy shield was made of more than simple glass.

“Don’t touch that!” At Trixie’s rebuke, a spark of electricity lanced through my fingers, stinging my knuckles and the hand I’d placed on Spike. We both jumped as the blue unicorn pronounced, “Nopony is to tamper with the magic force field. This will be the first rule of Trixie’s town.”

“Not a pony…” I sniggered. Trixie lifted a sleek eyebrow and a fresh burst of lighting leapt off the enchanted glass. Spike and I yelped as our spines were forcibly stretched into rods of iron. When the punishment ended, I collapsed forward, fighting to catch my breath.

“Mark!” Lilly lent a shoulder to support me. Trixie stepped forward and looked down her muzzle at the top of my head.

“Perhaps next time, you should try ‘yes, Trixie’.”

“Yes… Trixie.” Really, I wanted nothing more than to sling a rotten tomato into the bully’s smug face, but without said fruit on hand, I contented myself with the knowledge that she would get her just deserts soon enough.

With a haughty chuckle, the corrupted magician tossed her mane and began making her way back towards Ponyville. As soon as the coast was clear, my friends helped Spike and I back to our feet.

“Are you okay?” Rainbow Dash glanced at the imposing glass wall behind me.

“Now what the hay’s her problem?” Applejack tossed a dirty look at Trixie.

“And did I hear that right? Did she just refer to Ponyville as ‘Trixie’s town’?” Rarity looked worried.

“Yup.” I worked my stiff shoulders. “Best we learn to roll with the punches for a little bit. This is where things get interesting.”

The moment I first heard that the princess was going to visit Saddle Arabia, I had been faced with a choice; join Twilight Sparkle outside the dome and study magic with Zecora, or stay with the rest of my friends in town and endure Trixie’s new regime. Before the day of the duel even dawned, I had decided that my talents were best positioned within the captive city. It was where I felt I had the most control, if not openly defying Trixie, then at least protecting the rest of the girls, and that simple gesture would go a long way towards easing Twilight Sparkle’s peace of mind. We weren’t completely helpless, either, what with the lab and my potions at our disposal, and I was eager for a chance to study the effects of the Alicorn Amulet up close.

Of course, I still had no idea what we were really getting into.

If Trixie was elated over her epic victory against her sworn rival, the moment passed faster than a hummingbird’s heartbeat. With Twilight Sparkle gone, the young tyrant’s glowing red eyes wasted no time in finding new targets to dominate, new prey to devour, new necks to put beneath her hoof. She still looked like Trixie, still strutted like her, still referred to herself in the third person, but her flair for the dramatic had been twisted into a completely alien persona. What had once been a malicious breed of humor had mutated into an obsession for conquest. And everything around her was fair game.

“What is the meaning of this?” Our Mayor demanded.

The crowd of ponies hadn’t moved an inch from where we left them. Most of them were still trying to process what they had seen while the others were already frustrated with Trixie’s antics. Mayor Mare, unfortunately, was one of the latter.

“Just cleaning up this one-horse town.” Trixie polished a forehoof on her cloak. “Can’t have garbage lingering in the streets, after all.” More than a couple ponies shifted nervously.

“You can’t just ostracize an outstanding member of the community!” The Mayor squawked. “And the princess’s own student, no less!”

“You mean like how you ostracized the Great and Powerful Trixie?” The blue unicorn’s voice prickled like a porcupine’s backside. “Oh, but you’d never run a pony out of town, would you?”

To my surprise, a few individuals in the crowd averted their eyes.

“Yes, but, but a wall?” Mayor Mare quailed. “Isn’t this all a bit… much?”

“How are we supposed to run the train station?” A disembodied voice leapt from the gathered citizens.

“Or use the roads!” Another call chimed in.

“What’s a pony have to do to get back to the orchard?” Applejack demanded.

“Or just think about all the animals that are trapped here.” Fluttershy whimpered.

“I can’t run a business like this!” Cherry Berry hollered.

Trixie looked out over the rising sea of dissent as more and more ponies began to call for her to remove the shield. Suddenly, the blue mare’s face softened to a look of complete nonchalance and she began to step forward as if the angry shouts of the mob were no more than the buzzing of flies. She passed by a nearby produce stand where she snatched up a ripe stalk of celery and a jar of freshly blended peanut butter. As she continued walking, the owner of the stall, a pink earth pony named Daisy, tried to catch her attention.

“Um, miss? You still have to pay for that.”

“Oh? Has Trixie forgotten something?” The blue unicorn blinked innocently. “Or have you?”

Before anypony could intervene, the cursed red light flared along Trixie’s horn and enveloped the little stall. At once, the fruits and vegetables burst, their seeds swelling with magic energy and within a moment, a forest of vines and branches were laying down roots and tearing the wooden structure apart. Daisy herself was lifted up by her hind legs and dangled like a fly caught in a web above the street. Gasps of astonishment and loud protests filled the town square, but Trixie’s voice cut through them all like a scythe.

“Let this be perfectly clear, Ponyville.” Once more, wrath poisoned the unicorn’s features. “Don’t forget that you have already stolen everything from Trixie! You left her with nothing! Now you are the ones who still need to pay. Is there a problem?” As she uttered the last four words, Trixie’s voice swelled until the very ground trembled beneath its weight. A swirling breeze licked the dust around the magician’s hooves and the sky grew black with the manifestation of an iron storm cloud.

“Pinocchio’s conscience, this got dark quick.” I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry.

“Now, then,” Trixie dipped the stalk of her celery into the peanut butter and began chewing it thoughtfully. “The Great and Powerful Trixie requires a new residence.” She looked down her nose at the tallest building in town. “This will do.”

“The town hall?” The Mayor stammered. “But I’m afraid that’s impossible. It’s used for conducting legislation and-”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie… does not remember a question mark at the end of her sentence.” The sith pony leveled her horn at Mayor Mare like a lightsaber and in a flash, the old bird was dangling above the street, locked in a large gilded cage.

“Something tells me we should make ourselves scarce.” I bent down and whispered to my friends. They nodded, but as we turned to melt into the crowd, a haughty voice cuffed our ears.

“You there! Where are you going? Trixie has a job for you.” The blue unicorn smirked at our little band and began marching towards the Town Hall. Of course, being Twilight’s friends, it made sense that we would be singled out and we were given no choice but to follow.

It was going to be a long day.

Trixie threw her weight around like a sumo wrestler on a rugby field. Swollen on her newfound authority, the former vagrant was gorging herself on the spoils of victory, living like a king at the expense of our small town. After casting out everything in the town hall that didn’t suit her tastes, the wannabe princess set to work ordering us to reassemble it in her image. Everything had to be “Trixie” themed, from the cutiemarks engraved into the building’s (remaining) windows, to the tapestries of TGAPT herself hanging over every wall.

Our new overlord made it very clear that nopony had rights to their own property anymore. Three restaurants were ordered to provide three separate buffets from which only Trixie was allowed to eat, Rarity “donated” countless bolts of fabric to the tapestry project, and Applejack was ordered to stomp her own harvest into spoiled mash for no good reason. Old, young, hooves or feet, everyone was expected to jump at the whims of Trixie. Those who dared to speak out were slapped with a sneezing curse, rendering the would-be dissenters effectively mute.

“She said she came here for Twilight, but now that she’s out of the way, nothing’s different.” I muttered beneath my breath, wiping down a window with a soapy rag.

“Mmm-hmm. Mmph mmphnmg, mng hmmph!” Pinkie Pie nodded her head.

“Yeah, if anything, she’s worse.” I translated.

“I hope Miss Twilight’s doing all right.” Lilly came up beside me with a fresh bucket of water.

“At this point, I almost envy her.” My stormy eyes tossed knives over my shoulder.

“You two! Hurry up with my throne!” Trixie barked at the Cakes before whirling around on Applejack. “And you! How long do I have to wait for my applesauce facial?”

The earth pony had been wading around in a vat large enough to accommodate a hippo’s facial for hours, but there were only so many straws you could put on a camel’s back.

“Forget it, Trixie!” Applejack stomped, mashing one last apple. “I ain’t doing nothin’ until you let Twilight come home!”

All around the town hall, ponies looked up with wide eyes at the mare’s bravery. If the past dozen “sneezers” had been any indication, Trixie was not the negotiating type.

“Oh? An earth pony who refuses to work?” The blue unicorn smiled sweetly. “Then remind Trixie, what good are you?” She leveled her horn at the orange pony and released a bolt of magic. Applejack was knocked into the air, cringing and writhing, but this time around, the villain wasn’t using feathers to get her point across.

“Aaaaugh! Okay! Okay, I’ll do it! Just make it- just make it stop!” For a breath, the magic vanished and the room was still. Every eye was still locked on the floating mare. I suddenly realized I was wringing my towel into brutal knots.

“Correction, you little mud-pony, you’ll do it regardless.” With no more effort than fluttering an eyelid, Trixie sent Applejack careening into a pile of wooden bushels. The earth pony grunted in surprise, but wisely remained where she lay. “Because I said so.”

“Applejack!” Lilly and I dashed forward and helped our friend to her hooves. The country gal had suffered a bruise or two, but was fortunate enough to avoid any serious injury.

“Sorry for cavin’ in so quick.” Applejack gratefully accepted her hat from Lilly. “Felt like there was a family of ferrets scurryin’ under my skin.”

“Trixie’s take on the ‘Crutiatus’ curse, perhaps?” My words slipped through clenched teeth. “Nobody blames you, AJ.”

“Yeah, I know what that feels like.” Lilly grimaced, scratching her foreleg again.

“No you don’t.” I hissed.

“I thought I told you to dance!” The whole room jumped as Trixie rounded on Pinkie Pie.

“That was my fault, Trixie, ma’am.” I stepped halfway between the unicorn and her mouthless prey. “I told her to stop dancing until she’s had a chance to eat something.”

It was a weak argument, and my hint of sarcasm didn’t help it, but I was pinning my hope on the fact that Trixie would see just how unreasonable she was being and, hopefully, undo the muting spell she’d put on the poor pony.

“Need I remind you all who’s giving the orders in Ponyville now?” Pinkie visibly shrunk beneath the showmare’s gaze. “The Great and Powerful Trixie, or this two-legged earthworm?”

Before I could protest that I wasn’t that pink, the magician was already casting a new spell. Our overlord spun a ribbon of red light into the air which wrapped itself around Pinkie Pie and sunk into her hide. My friend grunted, held her stomach, and bugged out her eyes. Then, a look of nausea colored her cheeks as her pupils drifted towards each other.

“What did you-?”

“Oatmeal.” The blue unicorn brushed her mane out of her eyes. “Isn’t Trixie just the most benevolent unicorn in Equestria?” She wandered off to the far side of the room to torment a new group of ponies. Without the Great and Powerful cloud hanging over us, I dared to linger beside my friend for a moment longer.

“We’re meeting at the library tonight. Spread the word.”

“Mm-gmmm?”

“Oh, right. Well, just pass along the message, then.”

Rebellion is like farming; there’s only so much manure a pony can fling before the ground is ripe for the seeds of insurgency and Trixie had stunk up the entire town in just one day. No reason to drag out the inevitable if we could help it.

Evening finally rolled around, though there was little to distinguish it from the rest of the day. The storm that Trixie had brewed hung just as low and menacing over the town as ever, casting everything in a grey light. Ponies that could stayed indoors while the ones who had to walk the roads did so in timid sprints. Everywhere they went, the ponies could feel “Big Brother’s” eyes on them.

“We clear?” I asked Spike from across the library.

“Yeah. I don’t see anypony out there.” The little dragon peeled back a corner of the curtains to scan the bleak landscape outside.

“That’s a relief.” My neck muscles groaned like iron cables as I allowed myself a moment to relax. “Rarity, how’s that ointment treating you?”

“Absolutely heavenly.” The white unicorn looked up from a stack of books she had been flipping through. “It’s no day at the spa, but after today, it might as well be.” At her hooves was a bowl a warm tea-like concoction designed to soothe the myriad of cuts and pricks she had collected from working a needle all day.

Though it was no hospital, Twilight’s lab made the library one of the last sources of basic first-aid in the city. Applejack’s bruises were anointed and bandaged and Rainbow Dash was recovering from a lightning burn she’d acquired while trying to bust one of Trixie’s storm clouds. Pinkie Pie’s was the only ailment of real severity, though, and it broke my heart to see her… “struggle”. (Ok, I won’t sugarcoat it. She was trying to drink a cupshake through her nose.)

“Yeah… Something tells me you won’t be getting your spa back anytime soon, Rarity.” Rainbow Dash fluttered around the ceiling with one of Twilight’s notebooks in front of her.

“Oh? And what makes you think that?”

“Maybe because our new mayor replaced the sign with ‘Trixie’s Bathhouse’?” The blue pegasus rolled her eyes.

“Oh.” Rarity whimpered.

“Well, the sooner we figure out how she was able to best Twilight, the sooner we can be rid of that stupid vulture.” It’s a good thing glares weren’t rocks or I’d have smashed one of Twilight’s windows.

“Mark!” My unicorn friend clicked her tongue.

“Sorry. Long day.” I massaged the bridge of my nose. “I think her name calling is wearing off on me. Who would’ve thought Trixie had a xenophobic streak in her?”

“I still think you shoulda let me smack her after she called Scootaloo a chicken.” Rainbow Dash tossed the notebook and flipped open a new one.

“Heck, I would’ve smacked her myself if I wasn’t busy stopping you!” We shared a dry giggle, but Rarity still looked grim.

“I do hope this needn’t resort to use of force.” She brushed her mane out of her eyes. “Trixie seems to be a fair step ahead of us in that regard.”

“More like a hop, skip, and an Evel Knievel jump ahead of us.” My teeth ground slowly across each other as I pondered the nature of the Amulet’s power. Twilight Sparkle might have had Mr. Bearded in mind when she was talking about “time magic”, but I knew of one other source that she had not yet encountered. Whether windows to the past, dimensional locks, or a purple/white potion that revealed forgotten secrets, time magic was usually a sign that an alicorn was involved. Perhaps there was some meaning behind the Amulet’s overblown name after all.

In accordance with the episode, it was Fluttershy who finally found an article on the Alicorn Amulet and thus brought a little light back into our day. The brief glow was quickly strangled, however, as the girls soon learned exactly what they were up against. The corruptive power of the artifact meant that they not only had a super-powered tyrant lording over them, but that she was slowly falling into madness as well. Our hourly pleas for Trixie to come to her senses and see reason suddenly seemed like a waste of precious breath.

“Whaddya mean we can’t just take it off?” Rainbow Dash bristled her feathers. “How come she has to do it?”

“It could be any number of things.” I explained, steepling my fingers like Mace Windu. “The lock may be powered by her aura, so the stronger she is, the stronger it is. It could be something as straightforward as a retractable clasp that simply disappears until she wants to unlock it. Or it could be that the nature of the power has taken root in her very spirit, meaning that forcibly removing the artifact would put her life in danger.” I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “Like a parasite.”

“Which do you think it is?” Applejack wondered. Then she added, “An’ I’m not asking you for spoilers or whatnot, but because you’re a magic student.”

“I think it’s the last one.” My voice was grave enough to bury a body in. “It would explain why it corrupts the mind so effectively. A symbiotic relationship.”

One thing that I didn’t share was how much I admired the craftsmanship that went into the device. Not only did it charge and focus its host’s latent magic ability, but it filtered their senses until their every thought was a thirst for more power. That’s why, once worn, the bearer would never dream of removing it on their own. However, it’s also the exact reason why Trixie would give up the Amulet in exchange for Zecora’s doorstop.

I was suddenly very curious as to who would make a device that simultaneously created an unstoppable warrior and a gullible slave.

“Then we can still swoop in and steal it?” Rainbow Dash’s voice brought me back to myself.

“But, what about Trixie?” Fluttershy gasped.

“She’s right.” I pointed to the yellow pony. “A mangy git of a pony though she be, Trixie is still a pony and might as well be treated as such. I’m not calling her a victim after what she’s done, but let’s call turning her into a drooling vegetable ‘plan B’. What we need to do it get this information to an actual magic student.”

“But h-how?” The shy pegasus hovered behind Rarity.

“If any of us try to leave, Trixie’s magical force field will tell her.” The unicorn agreed.

“I’ve got it!” Rainbow Dash leapt into the air. “Trying to sneak past the force field would be impossible without help, but I know who’s got the goods to get into those woods!”

“It, it must be-”

“Daring Do!” Lilly squealed. Everypony and dragon turned to look at the changeling. She scratched her neck and fidgeted. “… What?”

“That’s actually a good point.” I conceded. “Remember, Dash? In ‘Daring Do and the Impossible City’? How she sneaks onto the ship by hiding-”

“-by hiding in a box of diving gear!” The blue pony cried. “Exactly! You know, kid, you’ve got a pretty good memory.”

Lilly pointed a hoof at the spot on the ground where Rainbow Dash had been sitting. There, among the scattered books, was the volume in question.

“Uh, in case y’all haven’t noticed, we’re fresh out of diving gear.” Applejack noted dourly.

“Then who-” Fluttershy was cut off as Dash swooped down and wrapped a foreleg over her shoulder.

“Fluttershy!” The rainbow mare held up her champion for all to see.

“Whaaat!?” On her part, the timid pony crumbled into a ball and fell like a meteorite.

“What do you say, Fluttershy?” Applejack stepped forward. “Can you handle the mission?”

“NO! I’ll crack under the pressure! I’ll snap like a twig!”

“But you’re the smallest and the stealthiest.” I pleaded.

“Like Bilbo Baggins.” Lilly nodded. “But without big hairy feet. Or a sword. Or riddles… She’s got the dragon part down, though.”

“Perfect!” The cyan pegasus’s idea of encouragement apparently involved ignoring her smaller friend’s protests. “Fluttershy’ll sneak out of Ponyville and find Twilight.”

“But… but I…”

“Mmm mgm m-hmm hmm!” Pinkie hummed.

“We’ll do everything to help, Fluttershy.” I agreed.

“Got any gold rings of invisibility she can use?” Lilly Limn glanced up at me.

“Mfufufu… Just wait until we get to ‘The Lord of the Rings’ before you start trying to pawn that little trinket off on people.” I smirked.

Everyone in the room formed a tight huddle and put their forelimbs out. The rebellion against Trixie had officially begun and through our efforts, we would defeat the tyrant and return our friend home. After a moment’s hesitation, Fluttershy joined us.

“Okay.” She whispered.

“All right!” Applejack hollered.

“Great!” I stood up from my kneeling position. “Dash and I will give you some ideas we think might work for that shield.”

“And I know just the design for a dangerous mission outfit!” Rarity exclaimed.

“Miss Rarity, you’re not tired from all your sewing today?” Lilly’s mouth fell open.

“Of course not, dear! Those mundane banners were toil, surely, but this! This is inspiration!” A manic blue gleam lit Rarity’s horn and she instantly began scribbling concepts and sketches on the back of a discarded pamphlet.

I watched the scene with a proud grin on my face. The girls had gone most the day without smiling and it was good to see some hope in their eyes again. (Somehow, even Pinkie Pie was smiling.) But as our crew of conspirators continued their cacophony of collaboration, I spared a moment to address Fluttershy privately,

“Actually, I have a small favor to ask.” My eyes floated over toward Twilight’s laboratory. “When you go to find Twilight, would you mind making a delivery for me?”

Operation “Chicken Run” was a complete success. By late morning, Fluttershy’s beaver friends had located a hollow tree near the edge of the barrier which the little pegasus was able to squeeze herself into. Our furry lumberjacks felled the timber right into the glass itself, causing its green leaves to spark like fireworks upon the enchanted dome. When TGAPT showed up to investigate, there were the rowdy rodents, gibbering angrily at her and beating the magic shield with their armored tails. Of course, Trixie was exasperated about the whole scene, but even in her unstable mental condition, she could see that if she didn’t open the barrier to let the varmints out, it would only be a matter of time before they dropped another tree on her precious shield. And so, she “banished” them into the countryside, dragging their precious debris along with them.

All that was left to do was wait until that evening, when the anti-Trixie movement would once again regroup in the library. Our beloved overmare didn’t make it easy. Despite everypony’s attempt to keep their heads down and avoid attracting attention, a lid could only be kept on a boiling pot for so long.

“What do you have to say for yourselves?” The blue unicorn’s voice cracked as surely as the heavy black whip she was wielding. “Are you trying to make Trixie look like a fool?”

“I- I don’t understand, oh Great and Powerful Trixie. We did everything you asked.” Mr. Carrot Cake balked. He and the rest of his family were huddled on the street, evicted from Sugarcube Corner by a blast of red magic.

“That pastry throne you assembled, MY throne, has turned dry and crumbly already!” Though her temper tantrums were as common as potatoes on an Iowa farm, Trixie’s voice had a dangerous edge to it that caused the rest of the town to stop and stare.

“Um… Yea? They’re day-olds after all?” Mr. Cake looked nervously at his wife. Cup Cake was shivering, fervently trying to calm a wailing Pumpkin without taking her eyes off Trixie. “We can make you another one if you-”

“Yes! Trixie does want a new throne! A better one! Two-no, three times as large! One that will never grow stale!” The magician cracked her whip and the sky split with lightning and thunder. Pumpkin Cake howled in response.

“Shh, sugar, it’s okay. Mommy’s here.” Mrs. Cake bounced the filly on her foreleg.

“What are you all standing around for?” Trixie demanded, catching the circle of spectators off guard. “Does not Trixie deserve a throne worthy of her glory? Is there any doubt that my seat should be capable of reflecting the majesty that is Trixie?” The unicorn reared, once more raining lighting down all around her, her voice mixing with the rolling thunder until the city was flooded with her presence. (And yes, all this fuss was over a chair made of doughnuts.) The town was stunned into silence. Except for Pumpkin.

“Quiet!” Trixie flicked an ear. “You dare ruin Trixie’s moment of splendor? I said quiet!” She stepped threateningly close to the infant.

“Hey, Dash?” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth.

“Yeah, I know…” The pegasus’s feathers rustled.

“I command you to be quiet!” Trixie screamed at the filly, raising her whip. “Silence!”

“Please, don’t-”

The braided black strand came down once, twice, three times. Mrs. Cake curled into a ball, tucking her wailing child beneath her as the whip bit into her back again and again. Trixie snarled, venting venomous clouds of rage and pride. Only after Rainbow Dash and I leapt in front of the unicorn did her assault grind to a halt. One final crack of the whip caught my friend on the side of the neck, threatening to tear her ear off.

“Sss! Ow! Ow, ow ow!” Rainbow Dash instinctively pressed a hoof to her neck, but didn’t find any blood.

“Trixie, stop!” I shouted, holding my arms out like a wall. The tyrant’s response was akin to pouring gas on a camp fire.

“You dare to command the Great and Powerful-”

“Just look at yourself, Trixie!” My voice squeaked. “Look at what you’re doing! You’re trying to beat a filly to death! With a bullwhip! Who does that!?”

“First you scare her, then you yell at her for it? What gives?” Rainbow Dash backed me up. All around the street, ponies were subtly nodding to each other. Trixie, though, didn’t hear reason. She only changed her approach.

“Those who disobey the Great and Powerful Trixie deserve much worse. But, if you insist, your merciful lord has other ways of getting what she wants.” A telekinetic spell thickened the air and a jar of bright red maraschino cherries was summoned from within Sugarcube Corner. Before anyone could stop her, Trixie plucked one of the candied fruits out of its container and stuffed it down Pumpkin’s bawling throat.

The crying instantly stopped. So did the filly’s breathing.

“Pumpkin? Pumpkin! Spit it out, darling!” Carrot Cake turned ashen white as his little girl stared at the world with wide open eyes. The filly’s tiny frame heaved, but couldn’t dislodge the fruit from the back of her throat.

“Haha! Much better.”

My own stomach convulsed as Trixie looked down on the scene and laughed. She laughed! As if she was pulling wings off a fly, she laughed as the filly’s cheeks turned pale blue.

“Help! Somepony! Please!” Carrot Cake turned his hysterical eyes toward the crowd, but they remained rooted in place, out of fear or horror, I couldn’t tell. His voice broke the spell my own body had fallen under and I quickly knelt down next to the two distraught earth ponies.

“Here! Let me take a look.” I gently took the struggling infant.

“I’ll find a doctor!” Rainbow Dash crouched low and prepared to shoot into the sky.

“Hurry!” My voice was shaky, but my hands were steady. “I’ll see what I can do.” Fortunately, that lifeguard class didn’t drag me through first aid for nothing.

With half the town turned to stone around me and TGAPT chuckling behind my back, I gently turned the filly onto her back and pried her mouth open. A bright red sphere sat just behind her tongue, like a cursed pearl, unable to rise but too big to be swallowed. Pumpkin stopped squirming as her eyes lost focus.

“Please let it be that simple…” My prayer slipped from trembling lips as I lowered a pair of fingers into the infant’s throat. The cherry was slick with syrup and mucus, but I was still able to get a hold of its soft flesh and pluck it from its nest. Pumpkin’s reaction was instantaneous. She gasped, filling her lungs with saliva and cherry juice, but breathing once more. I turned the filly back onto her stomach as a violent fit of coughing seized her. She sounded like a dog chewing on a squeaky toy, but at least the color was returning to her face.

“Pumpkin? Oh good gracious! Pumpkin…” Mr. and Mrs. Cake fell on each other’s shoulders, tears in their eyes. A sound like a forest breeze passed over the street as the spectators released their collective breath. Rainbow Dash soon reappeared with a nurse hot on her tail.

“It’s all right.” I assured her. “I think she’s going to be okay.”

“No thanks to a certain somepony!” Rainbow narrowed her eyes at Trixie. The blue unicorn studied her polished hooves with an unconcerned air.

“She stopped crying, didn’t she?”

“You can’t just-” The pegasus made a move to tackle Trixie like a freight train, but a solid arm in front of her chest stopped her.

“Rainbow…” My voice was lower than a limbo bar. “Let it go.”

“Hmph!” The cyan mare blew a cloud of steam from her muzzle. Slowly, she turned her back on the magical antagonist, but not before muttering, “Whatever. You’ll pay for that, Trixie.”

“Oho? And what’s that supposed to mean?” The malicious mare’s voice sunk into our backs like fishhooks. “Does Twilight sparkle’s favorite bird brain want to teach Trixie a lesson?”

“Let it go, Dash.” I tried again, but it was too late.

“Darn right I do!” Rainbow Dash flared her wings as she jabbed a hoof at Trixie. “You can’t just keep doing whatever you want because you think you’re so powerful! Soon enough, you’re going to find someone who can push back and then you’ll be in for it!”

“And who’s going to be this imaginary hero?” The blue magician’s voice was taunting. “You? Please. If you’re going to beat me, perhaps you should start by actually beating one of my storm clouds first.”

“I wasn’t talking about me!” Rainbow Dash snapped.

“Then who?” Trixie stepped forward and the entire town felt the tremor.

“Um…” Before my friend could think twice, veins of frosty magic enveloped her precious wings. With a cry, the pegasus was grounded, both wings fossilized in large blocks of ice, her muzzle an inch from Trixie’s hoof.

“Do go on.” The magician cooed. On her silken cheeks was a grin as cold as the arctic ocean. “Trixie would love to meet a pony worthy of facing her. Is it Twilight? Celestia? Luna? But they aren’t here, are they?”

“Trixie.” I said softly.

“What?” The corrupted pony spun upon me like a cobra.

“You’ve made your point. There is no one who can match you.” I lowered my head as I intoned a careful selection of words. “Please forgive Rainbow Dash. She’s the fastest pony in town, but sometimes her tongue is even faster than the rest of her.”

“Hmph!” My friend huffed into the dusty street.

“Must you stick your pointed nose into everything the Great and Powerful Trixie wants to-” Funny thing about tyrants, they always wind up with a severe case of paranoia. Trixie’s eyes flashed as a string of new thoughts sparked in her mind. “Interesting…”

“Ma’am?”

“Oh, just a thought. It seems the Great and Powerful Trixie has a new admirer.” Her voice dropped. “Or are you my new opponent?”

“I don’t understand.” I wanted to step back from the pair of glowing eyes, but my feet had turned into pudding in their shoes.

“No, I suppose it’s just happenstance that whenever Trixie has to punish naughty ponies, you’re the first to object… Quite vocally, too.” She stamped a hoof, almost crushing Rainbow Dash’s nose. Trixie snarled at her captive. “Is this your champion, bird brain? Twilight’s pet baboon? The walking flesh tree?”

“Hey! Nobody said anything about fighting-”

“Silence, rebel!” Trixie shrieked. Before I knew what was happening, the ground opened up beneath my feet, swallowing everything from my chest down like crocodile jaws. The street snapped shut in an instant, leaving me nothing more than a head and a pair of shoulders planted in the dirt.

“Gnnh!” The wind was crushed from my lungs, but my focus was entirely on Trixie. The unicorn was smiling again with that chilly aurora grace.

“That’s much better.” She whispered. Once more, her magic reached into Sugarcube Corner, this time snaring a pair of oversized candy canes. As she brought them closer, the rigid sticks of sugar melted, twisting and writing until they sprouted eyes and mouths. In my earthy prison, I could only watch as the insane showmare levitated a pair of red and white vipers in front of my face.

“Trixie…”

“What’s the matter?” She winked. “No secret human magic? No hidden talents? Are you really nothing more than a dog that learned to walk on two legs?” The reptiles floated closer. “Then let me teach you a new trick, mutt! You will never speak out against the Great and Powerful Trixie ever again! This is your place now. Beneath me. In the dirt. And if Trixie hears one more word come out of your mouth…” She chuckled. “She’ll sew it shut. Understand?”

I tried to nod, but the snake’s flitting tongues were licking my eyelashes.

“Good boy!” At Trixie’s wink, a pair of candy canes fell to the ground in front of me. The blue unicorn tossed her head and yawned. “Now, the Great and Powerful Trixie wants a hay shake. Snips! Where are you?” I remained in my makeshift prison, playing the role of a radish, doing my best not to let my face burn crimson.

“Breathe in, count to four. Breathe out, count to four. Breathe in…” I chanted, forcing my pounding heart to not jump out of my throat. Around us, ponies had begun to return to the street. Cloud Chaser and Flitter began chipping away at the glacier that bound Rainbow Dash while Big Mac pulled up like a backhoe and began unearthing me.

As the stallion hefted me from my half-grave, my smoldering eyes glanced up to where Trixie was vanishing at the end of the street. She turned back towards her handiwork, almost catching my leer, but in the blink of an eye, my mutinous scowl had vanished. The confrontation happened so fast, I very well might have imagined it, but as she continued on her way, I thought I caught the slightest pause in her step.

After the crowd dissipated and the ponies returned to their full-time job of avoiding Trixie, I took a moment to duck into an alley and just breathe.

“Well…” I huffed. “That was… a little more excitement than I like in my episodes.” My saving grace was that it was over. The trial was over. The day was over. And I could rest in the knowledge that, by that time tomorrow, Trixie’s reign would be over too.

After the sun fell once more into the embrace of the horizon’s stony arms, the quiet streets of Ponyville became barren and still. Only the bravest citizens dared to travel beyond their front doors, and only as flitting shadows beneath the cold and whispering sky.

“A curfew? Really? What’s next? ‘Trixie’s Youth’ and goose-stepping in the streets?” I hissed, peeling back the library’s curtains. A flurry of new regulations from “her highness” had locked down Ponyville tighter than a beartrap with tetanus and with the threat of banishment to the stocks a real possibility, our little rogue operation feel that much more authentic.

“What if they couldn’t make it?” Lilly asked, joining me beside the window as I watched for any sign of Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

“They’ll come.” I grunted. “They have to. The plan won’t work without them.”

After what felt like an eternity, though it was only five minutes, I caught a glimpse of orange hide and blue feathers in the murky night outside. Lilly and I quickly ushered our friends into the dark library and locked the door behind them.

“You made it!” I breathed.

“Did you have trouble?” Lilly chirped.

“Nah, just wanted to double back a couple times. Make sure we weren’t bein’ followed.” Applejack doffed her hat and brushed her windswept mane. “Doesn’t look like anypony’s silly enough to defy ‘the Great and Powerful Trixie’s’ lockdown, you know? Except, 'course, us.”

“I saw Snails.” Rainbow Dash added. “But he looked pretty jumpy.”

“Don’t worry.” My assurances came from a bubbling pool of confidence and excitement. “After tomorrow, no one will ever have to worry about our bozo overlord ever again.”

“Where’re the others?” Applejack squinted in the half-light.

“Right this way.” My hand swept toward the doorway to Twilight’s lab. “There’s something I want to show you. And Owlowiscious, mind keeping an eye out?”

“H-hoo!” Our nocturnal friend winked a large eye and fluttered up to the library’s balcony.

“Something to show us? The way you’re grinnin’, looks like you’ve got this dilemma of ours in the bag.”

“Just about.” My tone was about as confident as possible without physically patting myself on the back. “Ladies! Looks like everyone’s here.”

Beneath us, huddled around my glowing green cauldron was the rest of the gang. Rarity and Pinkie Pie looked up expectantly, their faces haunting in the darkness. Spike kept his eyes on Rarity.

“Quite the, ah, ambiance, Mark.” Rarity inclined her head.

“And it’s not just for aesthetics, either.” I ducked behind a table full of graphs and books. “Ladies and gentlemen, once again, great job on getting Fluttershy out of Ponyville! Now, what say we bring our friends back home?” With a flourish, my fingers snatched up a thick piece of paper. The fragile tag was covered in an arcane circle like the veins of a stained glass window.

“What’s that?” Rainbow Dash hovered warily above the floor. She watched suspiciously as I assembled my project against a blank wall.

“In the episode,” I explained, “Twilight Sparkle receives Fluttershy’s message and, in a burst of inspiration, devises a plan for tricking Trixie into taking off the Alicorn Amulet. However, I realized that she would need a way to collaborate with those of us back in town to make it work. Fluttershy’s stowaway strategy succeeded once, but I didn’t think we should press our luck to use it again. And, unfortunately, Verizon doesn’t cover Equestria yet, so…”

I traced a conduit from the murmuring cauldron across the floor to my piece of paper. There was a sound like rushing water, a gust of wind, and a bright purple circle burst into life. For a moment, it wobbled, like a bubble about to collapse, but soon stabilized. A ring of magic fire, about the size of a garbage can lid, sat up against the wall like a doggie door. A thick cool breeze flowed through the portal, carrying with it the scent of tree branches and alchemist spices.

“… I decided to Skype.”

“Eek!” A timid voice floated through the portal.

“Oh? Hey, look! It’s working!” Twilight Sparkle’s face appeared in the ring of magic. “Hey, girls!”

“Twilight!” Applejack cheered.

“This is awesome!” Rainbow Dash somersaulted in excitement.

“Awesome!” Lilly repeated, using Dash’s voice.

“Well that’s just fabulous!” Rarity stepped toward the spell.

“It’s so good to see you all again!” Twilight craned her head. “Especially you, Spike.” It was all I could do to keep the young dragon from leaping through the portal to hug her. “Fluttershy! Zecora! Look at what Mark did.”

“Is, is it safe?” a yellow pegasus head appeared upside down from Twilight’s.

“When Mark asked me to explain portals a bit more,

I couldn’t have predicted this is what he had in store.

A mighty spell and a talented brew,

it’s remarkable where your lessons have taken you.” A grey striped head joined the other two, this time coming from the nine o’clock position of the portal.

“Aw, thanks Zecora.” My cheeks were burning.

“Actually, this is rather disorienting.” Rarity tilted her head to see each face but to no avail.

“Oh, sorry, that’s my fault. We left the spell on the floor. Here you go.” Twilight snatched up the receiving portal card, giving the rest of us a vague sense of vertigo. She stuck it to one of Zecora’s shelves and the window across miles of space was finally completed. It couldn’t banish a moron core to the moon, but it was more than enough for our needs.

It took some coaxing, some encouragement, and a couple promises, but Fluttershy finally crawled her way through the portal back into Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle came through next and Zecora stayed in the Everfree forest, guarding the receiving spell tag. After the round of hugs and welcome circled the room, the magic student quickly began outlining her plan for outwitting Trixie. The rest of us crowed around her as if she were a television on Thanksgiving Day, taking notes, asking questions, throwing out ideas, anything to make sure our revolution would “viva”.

Twilight’s plan was to appeal to the corruptive nature of the Amulet, drawing out Trixie’s ego the way Cell tricked Vegeta into letting him reach his perfect form. If all went well, the arrogance fogging the showmare’s brain would jump at the opportunity to steal more power for herself. After that, it would only be a matter of reeling her in. Rarity’s most echoed concern, though, was that we only had one change to get this right. No “dress rehearsal”, as it were, so Twilight went over the plan again and again until she was convinced everypony had it memorized. Well, almost everypony. Rainbow kept dozing off on her. Once again, I was glad she could talk to us in person instead of relying on letters.

“Alright, so does everypony know what they need to do to get ready?” Twilight asked for the fifty-seventh time.

“C’mon, Twi, by now I could probably do this in my sleep!” Rainbow Dash snorted.

“Okay…” One-by-one, Twilight scanned our faces, the glow of pride shining through her nervous eyes. “Just promise me you’ll all be careful tomorrow.”

“What’re you talking about? If Mark says this is gonna work, then it’s already worked!” The blue pegasus clapped me on the back. “Trixie can’t do anything to us!”

“Ah, technically she can.” Despite my confidence, it was still healthier to maintain a wary outlook. “We are in her town, after all.”

“But Mark, you told me she’s nothing but a slobbery mangy stupid vulture.” Dash tilted her head.

“Ix-nay on the upid-stay.” I wanted to laugh, but a new voice poured over us like a bucket of ice water,

“Who’re you calling ‘upid-stay’!?”

The nest of conspirators looked up in shock to see her standing above us, eyes burning like a snarling jack-o’-lantern. The Great and Powerful Trixie. Behind her billowing cape cowered the small form of Snails. Owlowiscious looked on apologetically, his plump body stuffed into a stocking.

“T… Trixie?...”

“So, this was your brilliant plan, was it?” Trixie rolled into the room like a thunderstorm. “Breaking curfew? Hosting secret meetings? Smuggling criminals back into Trixie’s town?”

“She’s not a crimin-” Applejack was swatted across the lab.

“Quiet!” The tyrant hollered. She marched past me, her magic prickling against my skin like static electricity. “When Trixie suspected you were plotting insurrection, human, she was looking forward to something a bit more… formidable. Now all she finds is a bunch of would-be heroes playing spies with their disgraced leader? Hmph! It almost wasn’t worth sending somepony to trail you.” I could have throttled Snails right then and there, but he wasn’t to blame. He was a victim too, betrayed by his own fear of Trixie and honestly, I couldn’t blame him. It was all I could do to keep my knees from knocking together. “So tell me, Mark, who is the ‘upid-stay’ one now?”

But I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even move. My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth and a clammy moisture was slicking the inside of my palms. Everything was wrong. Trixie shouldn’t have been in that room. She wasn’t supposed to find us. She had discovered the plan too soon! The episode was falling apart before my eyes like newspaper in a puddle and my mind couldn’t keep up with the magnitude of the implications.

“Leave him alone, Trixie!” Twilight’s voice came from beside the portal. Zecora, however, quickly reached through the magic window and tried to pull the angry purple pony back.

“What is happening there is beyond our aid.

Come, we must sever this door your friend has made!”

Rarity and Rainbow Dash nodded and reluctantly, Twilight Sparkle backed through the shimmering doorway and tried to sever the connection.

“Oh no you don’t!” Trixie leveled her horn at the portal. To Twilight’s horror, just as the spell tried to implode, the burning red aura caught it and forced it back into a circle. “Oh, dear Twilight Sparkle, running off so soon? What’s the matter? Don’t you miss me?”

The blue unicorn’s chilling laugh filled the laboratory. I’d say it was somewhere above a nine, but I was in no position to measure it objectively. The sound cut clean through me, a physical blow to my stomach. But I had started to move again, my breathing was gaining tempo. The tongues of fear once more coursed through my blood, purging my muscles of paralysis. My eyes floated down to a rack of sleep grenades on a nearby table.

“Because I’ve missed you.” The showmare leaned closer to the ethereal window. “Trixie misses that look on your face. The one where you’ve been defeated and you know it. Yes, that one.”

“I know about the Alicorn Amulet!” Twilight snapped. “I know you cheated.”

“Cheated? Moi?” Trixie feigned innocence. I couldn’t help but admire my purple friend. Even when the sky was falling, she tried to salvage the threads of our plot.

“Yeah, and I thought you might wanna see what a real magical amulet looks like!” Twilight bluffed. “Aren’t you curious?”

“Are you asking for a rematch?” The showmare looked down her muzzle.

“I am!” The purple unicorn stomped a hoof.

“Why? So Trixie can banish you all over again?” The overlord’s midnight eyes narrowed to flaming slits. “But Twilight, why would I go through all that when I can just do it right here? Right now? It’s time for you to go. Again. And this time, you won’t be coming back!”

Trixie reared up on her hind legs, weaving a sphere of fire onto the tip of her horn. With a loud roar, she stomped the ground, hurling the fireball through the portal into Zecora’s hut. There was a flash of light, a wave of heat, and the portal collapsed. For an instant, I could hear Zecora’s startled shouts and Twilight’s scream. Then there was nothing but the flat laboratory wall.

“Twilight!” Spike cried.

“Show’s over, my little ponies!” The blue unicorn stomped on my remaining spell card, shredding it into tiny bits. “Time to clean up this mess!” At once, she turned her destructive magic onto Twilight’s lab, shattering blackboards and ripping apart all the magic circuits she could find.

“You monster!” I cried, my eyes still filled with the sight of Twilight wreathed in fire.

“Monster? Ha! Have you looked into a mirror recently, human? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re the monster around here!” She trotted over to the gently simmering cauldron. “Ooh, what’s this do?” My heart splashed into my stomach as her telekinesis enshrouded the great metal pot.

“Don’t touch that!” Suddenly, a red shape the size of a truck flew through the lab, falling upon Trixie like an intercontinental ballistic missile. Big McIntosh landed like a bag of cement, turned upon his massive hooves, and leveled a kick at Trixie’s face powerful enough to punt her to the moon.

“Eek!” The blue unicorn flinched, but the attack was already doomed to fail. Big Mac’s hoof was blocked, frozen, in a cloud of red light, an inch from Trixie’s ear. The overlord recovered quickly, “I’m sorry, was the Great and Powerful Trixie supposed to be impressed? Looks like somepony needs to learn some manners.”

“Leave him alone!” Applejack could only watch as her brother was lifted up and pinned against the nearest wall. A long black whip manifested beside Trixie’s head.

“Oh, relax.” Trixie smirked. “It’s only a flogging.”

The band of black lanced forward, but just before it could bite into the red hide, there was a flash of green flame.

Clink! The weapon beat uselessly upon the golden helmet of a unicorn royal guard.

“Wha-” Trixie almost dropped her prey. “How?”

“Oh no…” My heart fell from my stomach to my intestines.

Trixie redoubled her magic, the cursed red light swelling in intensity, burning and blinding. I think the guard pony was screaming in Lilly’s voice beneath the onslaught, but I couldn’t hear her. When the fires dimmed, there was the little changeling, still pinned to the wall by the blue unicorn. Her eyes were misty, but she hissed and snarled defiantly at the tyrant.

“Well, well.” Even in her madness, Trixie couldn’t hide her disbelief. “It seems this band of troublemakers is just full of surprises. But Trixie can’t have any more monsters running free in her town, so…” A wicked grin split the pony’s muzzle.

“Let her go…” A small voice cracked. I was almost as surprised as anyone else to learn that it was mine. My eyes tried to focus on the blue unicorn, but my vision had begun to melt like a water painting. “Trixie, please. The rebellion was my idea. I planned it. I organized it. So please, don’t punish her for what I did.”

“Oh?” The showmare blinked. “Oh I see. This changeling, this creature, means something to you? It’s special? You care for it, want to protect it? You’d do anything for it?”

I nodded.

“… Perfect.” The unicorn’s sneer returned. “Then you might be able to understand after all, human. You might be able to understand my pain. You tried to take everything from me? I’ll return the favor.”

She turned and started trotting back up the stairs, Lilly Limn clutched firmly in her magic. My heart fell from my intestines to my toes. Something inside me broke, and my chest throbbed painfully, pushing poison into my blood.

“You frigid witch! PUT HER DOWN!” With one motion, I swept up a sleep grenade and flung it at the back of Trixie’s head.

But I might as well have tried to throw a pumpkin bomb at a symbiote-enhanced Peter Parker.

Trixie tilted her head, letting the projectile whiz past her. She then seized it in her magic and sent it careening right back at me. The glass bottle smashed against me, breaking against my chest. I could feel its shards cut my shirt, and then the cloud of tranquilizer erupted in my face. I tried not to breathe, I tried to stumble away, but it was too late. My limbs began to weaken and leaden weights had already started to tug at my eyelids.

As I fell into a kneeling position, struggling against my own weapon, Trixie turned back around and stood over me.

“Like I said, human, Trixie can’t have monsters running free in her town.” As the world went black, I felt a telekinetic pressure seize me.

It was impossible to tell how long I floated in darkness. My mind was lost, adrift, unanchored, tumbling around and around in a cold sea of nothingness. I felt numb, I felt lost, and I felt hopeless. None of these feelings had to do with the sleep grenade.

It was over. It had finally happened. The episode I had tried to guide and orchestrate had finally thrown off my authority and was running amok. Trixie was now free, unstoppable, a villain that would continue growing more powerful and more dangerous all because my plan to stop her had failed.

But that kind of thinking was a fallacy, wasn’t it?

My eyes peeled open and I found myself laying in what felt like a large steel drum. It was cold and the walls echoed with the whispers of my breath. The roof had a slight conical peak to it, but there was no door, only a dripping pipe from which a small puddle was fed. The inside of the Ponyville water tower. I curled up against the wall to stave off the chilly air, but I couldn’t overcome the frost inside my bones.

My whole mindset had been a fallacy. A delusion of the highest caliber. In fact, one could argue that this day was inevitable.

How long had I thought of these events as my “episodes”? How long had I seen the world as a stage and the men and women merely players? How long had I cast myself as the maestro of their lives? With one little deviation, one little change, Trixie had suddenly and violently thrown her own future, no, the future of Equestria itself, off the rails and all I could do was marvel at the train wreck. I couldn’t have predicted anything like it, but perhaps that was for the best. How else could I finally see just how stupid I’d become?

As episode after episode had come and gone without a hitch, I’d grown blind with certainty. I’d begun to feel invincible, cocky, not realizing that the “plot armor” I’d dressed myself in was nothing more than make-believe. Even episodes that I had nothing to do with were claimed as personal victories. “Too Many Pinkie Pies”, “May the Best Pet Win”, and even “One Bad Apple”, were all examples of how eager I was to feel important, how much I wanted to believe I was in control. For months, I had wrapped myself in confidence like a blanket, trying to pretend the world was small and comfortable and manageable. Trixie had stripped it all away in a moment.

“And after everything, I can hardly blame her…” My voice fluttered around the metal room. “The last time she came to town, Trixie lost everything. Everything she owned, gone, and instead of helping her, we blamed her for something that wasn’t her fault. As if that wasn’t enough, the minute she got back, all I could think of was how to humiliate her again. So much for spreading that love and tolerance, huh?” I sighed and let my head beat against the metal wall. “Well, like the Good Book says, payback’s a bitch.” (I’m paraphrasin’ ya heathen!)

I don’t know how long I was locked in that chamber, but it hardly mattered. Celestia wouldn’t miss out on a letter because I’d ruined the end of “Magic Duel”, but Trixie wouldn’t get her chance at redemption either. In all likelihood, the sister princesses would swoop down and make things right again, defeat the crazed unicorn, perhaps seal away her amulet somehow, but that still wasn’t a comfort. Honestly, I just felt ashamed at how I’d let my friends down. My only prayer was that no one else would have to pay for my haughtiness.

The maintenance hatch had been melted shut by Trixie’s magic. Isolated and suspended in mid-air, the water tower was more of a tomb than a cell and there was no way to pass the time aside from curling into a tight ball and forcing myself into a fitful sleep. Cold on the inside and out, one can imagine my surprise to wake up with a warm black body curled up beneath my arm. I had to blink a few times to convince myself that the changeling beside me wasn’t a dream.

“Lilly?” I grunted, lifting my head warily.

“Mark!” My little friend pounced on me, locking me in an unbreakable hug. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What are you doing here?” I hugged her back, soaking in her warmth. “Is this real?”

“Trixie locked me up in a big jar in the town hall.” Lilly sniffed. “She said she was going to put me on display for the whole town to see. Then she left me alone. I was scared so I went to find you.”

“How did you get out?” I wondered.

“Well…” My friend blinked abashedly. “It wasn’t enchanted glass.”

“Of course. Your phasewalk.” I felt a tug of relief and pride at the imagery. “But what about Trixie? Won’t she come looking for you?”

“Um…” My little girl suddenly blushed and looked away. “She… I… Trixie doesn’t know I got out.”

“How did you manage that?” I ran a thumb across Lilly’s cheek, marveling at how clean and smooth she felt. Only then did a far more obvious fact leap out at me. “Lilly? Where’s your hoodie?”

“It…” Lilly looked up at me with eyes of sapphire, her bottom lip trembling. At last, she forced out, “My skin came off!” and she buried her face in my shirt.

“Your?...”

“I didn’t mean to! You told me not to itch and I know it was wrong! But I couldn’t stop it and-and it just felt right, but it was scary and I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! It all came off and it was gooey and I felt cold and I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!”

I looked down at Lilly’s glistening body with renewed interest, my fingers impossibly light as they ran over her silken hide. Her legs were glinting like obsidian and her back was oiled leather. Between her shoulders was a pair of silken wings, no longer the tattered rags I had found her in, but full and glittering in the low light of the prison.

“Oh, sweetie,” I whispered, “I think you molted.”

“Like bread?” She looked up with fright.

“No, not ‘mold’. ‘Molt’. It’s what baby bugs do to grow bigger.” I explained. “That must’ve been really scary.” It would also explain why she’d had an incurable urge to itch for the past few days.

“Yeah…” Lilly agreed. “It was. But I feel better now. And my wings are bigger!”

“They look gorgeous.” I breathed. The changeling hesitated and continued,

“My old body, my skin, it still looked like me, so I put my hoodie on it and Trixie thinks it’s me. Like I’m still sleeping.”

“That’s…” I slowly shook my head. “Lilly, you brilliant, brilliant girl.” Then, with a touch of sadness, I added, “But you can’t stay here.”

“But-”

“It’s not safe! You need to find the girls. They’ll be able to protect you.”

“But what about you? They need you too! You have to come back so we can stop Trixie!”

“Honey…” I deflated, “I’m in no position to do any stopping. I don’t think I ever was. After months of posturing and overconfidence, all I’ve managed to do was make a mess of things. I can’t see how we’re going to make this right.”

“Auntie Twilight says the plan might still work.” Lilly pressed. “That there’s still a chance if we all work together.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, dear, last we saw Twilight, she was inside a burning tree.” Again, I thoroughly blamed myself for not realizing that the only reason Snails would break curfew was if he was spying on behalf of Trixie.

“No, she’s in Rarity’s attic.” Lilly cocked her head.

“She what?”

“Yeah. And Applejack and Rainbow Dash and Sweetie Belle and…” For the next minute, she rattled off the names of half the town and their families. I was somewhere between surprise that Trixie hadn’t arrested them and confusion as to why they were still going through with a plan that had been thoroughly foiled. I didn’t have to wait long to find out, though.

“Oh, and it’s almost time!” Lilly trotted toward one of the metal walls, a bright green flame coming to life on her horn.

“Time for what? And how did Twilight get back into the city? Hey!” I watched as the changeling stepped through the water tower tank like a curtain, reappearing a second later with a small satchel clamped in her mouth. From inside, she quickly revealed a pocket watch and a piece of paper with a sympathy glyph on it. The hands on the clock were one minute from five in the morning.

“Three, two, one…” As soon as the minute hand reached the top of the hour, the sympathy glyph sparked to life, ripping a window in space. Through the resulting hole, I found myself staring face-to-face with a familiar purple unicorn student.

“Good evening, Mark. Or is it morning now?”

“Twilight?” I stared at the mare uncomprehendingly. “How is this-”

“Watch your step!” A purple aura enveloped Lilly and I and we were yanked through the portal, landing unevenly in a circular room filled to the brim with ponies. Some of them were moving mirrors, some were pointing at diagrams and a couple were getting their coats painted and their manes dyed. For an instant, I mistook Apple Bloom for a filly Applejack.

“But how is this possible?” I gawked.

“What do you mean?” Twilight smiled up at me. “You were the one who sent two sympathy glyphs along with Fluttershy.”

“Yeah, in case one didn’t work, but I mean, you were on fire! Zecora’s hut was on fire!” At the mention of her name, my zebra friend appeared at my elbow, wearing the same grin as Twilight.

“Relax, my friend, there’s no cause to shout.

As for the fire, it was swiftly put out.

Though she may have a meticulous personality,

Twilight’s quick on her hooves when she needs to be.”

“As luck would have it,” Twilight shrugged, “Zecora had me levitating water all day yesterday. Her hut is fine, but I was sure Trixie would have destroyed my lab. Instead, it looks like you and Lilly interrupted her. We’ve salvaged quite a lot.” The magic student gestured to a far wall that had been completely buried by a collection of recovered magical instruments including a quantum abyss and an intact alchemy station. Then, in a quieter voice, Twilight added, “When I got back to the Library, I found Lilly looking for you. We used the quantum abyss to pinpoint your location and she went to get you while the rest of us met in Rarity’s boutique.”

“This is crazy...” I sighed, to myself.

“Pardon?” The purple pony flicked an ear.

“Twilight, I don’t know if you realize this, but I can’t help you anymore.” My foot scuffed the floor. “The episode changed. We can’t rely on foresight or plot armor. Everything’s up in the air now. Anything can happen and no one else should be putting themselves in danger because of it.” I couldn’t match Twilight’s eyes as I admitted, “Don’t you think we should just cut our losses and retreat?”

Lilly and Zecora looked at each other, but Twilight kept her purple eyes firmly on me. Just as I was beginning to fidget, she shook her head.

“Welcome to my world.” The student intoned. “Mark, we don’t know the future. And that one time I did, I didn’t. This is scary, sure, but that’s no reason to shy away from it. It’s just life. Every day, things can go right or they can go wrong. Last night things went wrong, but today we’re going to try and change that. I guess the question is, are you still with us?”

My eyes floated over the heads of the ponies in the room, all of them buried in their plans. I saw Cherry Berry pointing at a map of Ponyville with a couple pegasi, I saw Vinyl Scratch pushing a subwoofer across the floor, and I saw Daisy crushing up dry roots with Carrot Cake. Coming straight outta my water tower of despair, the room was practically glowing with courage and determination. These little ponies that still dared to defy Trixie were the real heroes, and watching them patch up the ragged banner of hope was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in my life.

“Twilight,” My tongue worked slowly, “Did you know that changelings molt? Well, they do, and it turns out that itching is the first sign that it’s about to happen. And here I was, totally convinced that Lilly Limn had just developed an annoying nervous tick. The be honest, I was rather harsh on her. Actually, I was a proper prick about it. Turns out I don’t know everything about changelings. Just like I don’t know everything about Trixie. Or the Amulet. Or myself.

“But if you ponies are still crazy enough to go through with this, then I’ll be honored to donate my own crazy to the cause. It may not be much, but it’s all I have.” Lilly hugged my leg as I smiled weakly at my friend. “How can I help?”

“Well,” Twilight grinned mischievously, “Are you familiar with the story of William Tail?”

“You mean ‘William Tell’? Of course.”

“Great!” She tossed her mane. “How do you feel about wearing an apple on your head?”

The next day dawned as grey as graphite and as cold as iron. The streets were empty beneath the frowning sky and the only movement to be seen was the skittering of leaves on the breeze. From beneath the shadowy eves of an alleyway, the eyes of a half dozen refugees swept over the scene.

“Alright, let’s go.” Doctor Hooves whispered. One after the other, the ponies dashed across the street and cowered between the silent buildings.

“Is the coast clear?” Lyra Heartstrings cast a nervous glance behind her.

“Shh!” Bon Bon put a hoof to her lips.

Just like before, the convoy skirted through the alleys and melted into the shadows, pressing ever closer to the edge of town. After many minutes, they reached a dark house at the end of Main Street. Doctor pulled up a trapdoor leading into the building’s basement and the ponies began to vanish like rabbits down a hole.

“Not so fast!” Lightning split the sky as Trixie manifested at the head of the street. Her black cape flapped like wings as her wrath whipped the air into a tempest. “Well, well, what do we have here?”

“Oh no! Please! Please, oh Great and Powerful-” Doctor Hooves faltered.

“Silence!” Trixie snapped up the earth pony in her magic as the others watched helplessly from the trapdoor. “Were you really trying to hide from the Great and Powerful Trixie? Did you think you could escape her gaze?” As if to illustrate, the blue magician’s eyes flared like pools of lava.

“Please! Mercy!” Her captive squirmed. “We just want to leave. Let us go, please.”

“Leave?” Trixie blinked as if she had been struck. “You don’t get to leave Trixie’s town! You are mine! You work for me! I am your master! FOREVER!”

“We don’t want to serve-”

“Oh, you’ll serve just fine.” In a thread of fire, Trixie’s favorite black whip materialized beside her head. “You’ll serve as a perfect example to the rest of these traitors.” The unicorn’s lips peeled away from her teeth like dry paint. With the eyes of the other refugees frozen upon her, the tyrant lifted her weapon and prepared to paint red striped on the brown pony’s hide.

“TRIXIE LULAMOON!” A billowing voice, the rumble of a wildfire, sounded over the rooftops. “That's enough!”

As the showmare glanced behind her toward the center of town, a lone shadow detached itself from the ceiling of storms and plummeted toward the earth. Its arms were splayed like wings and the tails of a long brown coat fluttered behind its legs. A writhing storm of ravens orbited the figure like mist as it landed heavily upon the dusty street, but even through their ebony feathers, Trixie could see the human’s face and the burning white aura of its eyes therein.

“I said,” my voice shook the street, “Put. Him. Down.”

Trixie lifted a single razor-sharp eyebrow.

“Oh? Has Twilight’s pet human learned a few new tricks?”

“I’m calling you out, Trixie.” I seethed. “You’ve abused this power of yours for long enough. We gave you every chance to sate your lust for revenge and repent but you’re never satisfied. If power is the only thing you understand, then I’m here to reveal your folley.”

“Heh!” The icy blue unicorn tossed back her dark hood derisively. “Are you seriously challenging the Great and Powerful Trixie to a magic duel?”

“No.” The earth rumbled. “I’m here to put down a monster.”

On either side of the street, colorful muzzles began to appear. Curious ponies peeked out from the safety of their doorways and windows, their wide eyes turned on their overlord and the mysterious human that dared to defy her. Applejack stepped out from an alley to my left and tried to catch my attention,

“Mark! What’re you doing?”

“Big words from a creature with no horn!” Trixie scoffed. Her bloody red magic swung Doctor Hooves around like a rag doll until he was directly above her blazing forehead. Ribbons of time magic began to slither up through the air toward the frightened stallion. “You can’t even begin to comprehend the awesome power of the Alicorn Am-”

“Why?” I snapped. “Because it can do time spells? Please! Get some new material, you one-trick pony!”

“One-trick pony!?” Trixie’s pupils narrowed to pinpricks and her nostrils flared with indignation. “Who are you to speak to Trixie like that?”

I thrust my hand into my breast pocket and whipped out a silver flask. With a flick of my thumb, I popped off the cap and took a deep swig of the liquid within. Immediately, my skin shone with white light, my breath became a glowing nebula and my eyes flared like torches. Swiftly, I reached out toward Applejack and the startled mare found herself skidding across the gravel toward my open palm. My fingers closed like a bear trap and immediately there was a dusty eruption and the air thickened with a low rumble. When the haze cleared, an old orange mare stood upon rickety legs while her wrinkled eyes peered out at the world from under her iconic Stetson.

The red veins of light surrounding Doctor Hooves vanished like smoke as the showmare’s jaw dropped open.

“Or were you going to show off the other one?” My palm turned over and the dust erupted once more. With a startled squeal, the old Applejack vanished and a youthful one manifested instead. Trixie’s captive dropped to the street and crawled off to safety.

“Eh, so you can do an age spell. Big deal.” The blue unicorn sniffed.

“You’re right. Going back and forth is so rudimentary.” I clapped my hands together. “Why not mix things up a bit?” With a shout, I tore my arms apart. Even through the resulting burst of sound and dust, I could see Trixie gasp as the pony within my spell was torn into two, an old nag and a young filly. At last, with a grunt, my hands clapped together again and there was Applejack, whole and her proper age, albeit with crossed eyes and a slight wobble to her stance.

“But…” Trixie’s pale eyes were wide. “That’s impossible!”

“Is it?” I took a menacing step forward. “The key is in the name. ‘Alicorn’ Amulet. An echo of power to rival the princesses, a drop of astral magic from beyond the stars themselves! Arcana from the edge of the universe, energy beyond even time and space.”

“Stay back, fool!” Trixie pointed her horn at the dirt beneath my boots and a gaping chasm appeared. My ravens returned, fluttering in tight circles around me. My feet hung in the air, but I did not fall.

“I don’t think you understand,” I took another swig from my flask, my eyes igniting afresh. “You’re the fool here. All you wanted was power, but you didn’t stop to consider where it came from or what it meant. You dismissed my abilities without even knowing what a human was. I am not of this world. To reach Equestria, I had to swim past the celestial shoals and drown in the abysmal sea. Now do you see, Trixie?” A pale flame flickered down my arms and legs. “This power you adopted for yourself, I was baptized in!”

“Shut up! You are nothing compared to Trixie!” The mare shrieked, leveling her horn at a cart of covered fruit and hurling it at me.

I didn’t flinch.

Before the makeshift projectile found its mark, (no pun intended) there was a shuddering wave of sound and then utter stillness. The cart hung in the air, motionless, frozen, its contents strung in space like constellations. I continued walking.

“You’ve let this power blind you, my dear. But my eyes have been opened.” One of my hands reached out and snapped up a floating orange. With a flicking motion, I sent it hurling toward my opponent, but she caught it effortlessly.

“Really? Is this a food fight now?”

“Ribbit!”

“Eeek!” The showpony recoiled as the orb in her grip split open and croaked at her. The fruit fell to the street where it hopped away dejectedly upon a set of green amphibious legs.

“Nothing is as it seems.” I took another swig, feeling my body glow ever brighter with shimmering light.

“You beast!” Trixie screamed, eyes nervously flicking between me and the flask in my hand. “You fool! You monster! You want to play games with Trixie!? So be it!” She reared up, stretching out long bands of telekinetic magic. A squadron of candy canes came hurling over the rooftops, twisting into lethal bands of red and white serpents as they landed between myself and my foe.

The snakes shot forward like quicksilver, their eyes glinting with hunger, fangs dripping for a taste of me.

I snapped my fingers and a cloud of dust enveloped me. Within the span of a breath, my thin form was eclipsed by a giant hulking mass of fur and muscle, blotting out the weak light of the sky. Harry the bear leaned over my shoulder and let loose with a roar that threatened to shake windows from their panes. His teeth dripped with saliva and his claws hung above his head like sabers.

The snakes flinched, turned back on themselves, and retreated. At once, Trixie returned them to their original candy forms.

“It’s not over yet!” The red eyes burned like furnaces and the air in front of her bent in upon itself. There was a bright flash and a pop and I found myself staring down the long grey snout of one of the Everfree Forest’s cragadiles. It hissed and snarled, thrashing its half-ton tail around like a bludgeon, steely claws ripping up the packed dirt road as if it were made of Styrofoam.

“Actually, Trixie.” I snapped my fingers once more. “It is.”

The street grew thick with a misty green vapor. The cragadile’s beady eyes turned towards me with a hungry rage, but within a moment, all of its enthusiasm had vanished. Behind me, hovering in the mist where Harry had been a moment before, hung a pair of leering eyes. Their gaze met the monster’s, paralyzing his once-mighty body and shaking him to the depths of his stony heart. The cragadile quailed, whimpering humbly from the dust. At Trixie’s frustration, it vanished back to the forest from which it came.

“Then you leave me no choice!” There was only a moment before Trixie’s horn burned with plasma and in her fury, the unicorn released a stream of blinding lightning.

I lifted my arms and a stray wagon threw itself in the way of the blast. It ignited in sparks of fire before shattering into debris, but I had already vanished.

“Give it up, Trixie!” My voice called from a nearby rooftop. The sorceress turned her attack upwards, but I simply disappeared again.

Like a shooting gallery, my image manifested and disapparated up and down the street. Sometimes, my shadow would flicker in front of a chimney, or a window, or behind a flower pot, but every time the bright blue fire turned towards me, I would already be gone. Finally, after a rain gutter exploded in a shower of hot metal, it seemed I was vanquished for good. The street was empty save for Trixie’s panting frame. Her wild eyes flickered between the houses with a manic rage.

“I think you missed him.” I whispered into her ear.

“Aaah!” The unicorn sprung into the air like a cat beset by a cucumber, her horn coming to bear on where I stood. In a rapturous burst of heat and light, nothing was left of “me” but a small patch of scorched earth. Of course, that would make a lousy ending to the story.

“I’m sorry, Trixie. From where you're standing, this must look like an eighteen-carat run of bad luck. But the truth is, the game was rigged from the start.” Once more, I stood in the middle of the street, candy canes crunching beneath my boots as I strode toward my opponent. “It’s over.”

“How?” She whimpered. The unicorn’s knees gave out as my feet drew ever closer. “How is this possible? It’s not possible! It can’t be!”

“Sorry.” I sighed, pulling out my flask. “But you wouldn’t understand.”

“What wouldn’t I understand?” Her ravenous eyes never strayed from the silver flask in my fingers.

“How to bring out the magic’s true potential.” Lazily, I sighed to myself and prepared to take another swig from the container.

All of a sudden, a bolt of lightning fell from the murkey clouds, striking a weather vane and nearly turning one of my ravens into fried chicken. My eyes snapped upwards, but in that same moment, Trixie’s horn flared and my flask was ripped from between my fingers.

“Trixie!” I tried to catch the container out of the air but it was too late. The blue unicorn sat in the middle of the street, laughing with glee at the surprise on my face.

“Misdirection. The first rule of being a showpony!” She howled.

“You don’t know what you’re doing!” My once-confident voice was suddenly taut. “You don’t know what’s in there!”

“Oh don’t I?” The red eyes winked. “Even after you were kind enough to explain it to me the way you did? Heh. The true power of the Amulet? Magic in a bottle.”

“It’s not what you think!” I paled, my heart throbbing like a drum. “You can still put an end to this!”

“And Trixie intends to do just that!” The unicorn mare tossed back her head and pressed the flask to her lips. I watched the glowing red amulet rise and fall with each swallow as Trixie drained the whole container at once. When she was done, the supercharged villain locked her scowl upon me, eyes bleeding red tears of magic aura. “Starting with you!”

My lungs drew in a deep breath of air, held it for a second, and then released it all in a breath of relief.

“No, Trixie. You won’t.”

“What do you mean Trixie won’t? Of course she will! With your potion, The Great and Powerful Trixie will destroy all those who stand in her way! Now your magic is as nothing compared to mine!”

“Well, at least you got that right.” A chuckle escaped me. “I mean, after all, humans can't use magic.”

“What?” The red eyes blinked. “Well, of course you can. At least, when you had your precious potion.”

“Liked that, did you?” I crossed my arms and leaned back on one leg. “I thought a little flair was in order, so Twilight helped me mix up a batch of highlighter potion. Usually used by doctors to locate damaged nerves or broken bones, we altered this batch to make water vapor glow. Makes my skin look super saiyan. Eyes are kind of annoying, though, makes everything look like it’s in a fog.” A glowing white cloud erupted from my mouth as I sighed. “And I’m not even going to talk about the Nile and Amazon rivers beneath my arms.”

“Flair?” Trixie frowned. “You were flying! Teleporting! Casting age spells, mutation spells, summoning spells! If you didn’t get those powers from the potion, then what did I just see?”

“A show.” I said simply.

“A…?”

“Hey, Twilight?” My voice echoed back behind me. “What’s my favorite word?”

“Prestidigitation!” The magic student emerged from behind a nearby rain barrel. She smiled at Trixie who gaped at her in return.

“Exactly.” I leaned toward the blue unicorn. “The art of misdirection."

Behind me, the street began to blossom with more and more ponies. Some of them were carrying mirrors, some had bags of smokescreen powder, and others carried curtains of fabric between them. Applejack, Apple Bloom and Granny Smith cautiously approached Trixie while Harry loomed behind them. Above it all, the dim shape of the Twinkling Balloon and an entourage of four pegasi emerged from between the feral clouds.

“There’s no power that could match the Amulet.” I winked. “Fortunately for us, friendship is magic! And we certainly have plenty of that in our little town. Rarity recycled my cold weather coat to make something more ‘befitting a magician’, as she said, and donated a veritable funhouse of mirrors to the cause. Not to mention, this Harry Dresden getup also hid my harness and strings as I was lowered from Cherry Berry’s balloon.

“Pinkie Pie helped Vinyl Scratch hide her subwoofers up and down the street, magnifying my already-amazing voice to Greybeard levels of projection. Zecora is an absolute savant when it comes to smokescreens. Big Mac handled the heavy props while the rest of his family, as you can guess, provided the ‘time’ spell. Even the brave ponies behind you all volunteered to act as bait. Oh, and I can’t forget Fluttershy. She brought in Harry, lent her Stare to the cragadile, and organized the conspiracy.”

“This was all Fluttershy’s idea!?” If Trixie’s jaw fell any further, she’d be licking dirt.

“What? No, I said ‘conspiracy’. A group of ravens is called a ‘conspiracy’.”

“Oh… That makes more sense.” Trixie frowned. “And the orange frog?”

“We’re… really not sure where that one came from.” I glanced back at Twilight who blushed like a rose.

“I see…” Then the tyrant remembered that she was supposed to be the villain. “But wait! Why would you reveal yourselves like this?”

“Oh, that’s because we’re blatantly trying to buy time until the potion kicks in.”

“Potion-?” Trixie’s wide eyes turned toward the forlorn flask. “The highlighter?”

“No, that’s just what I was drinking. You see, it’s actually a gag prop donated by Pinkie Pie.”

“Mmmm!” The mouthless mare waved from beside a chimney.

“I’ve been drinking highlighter out of the secret compartment.” Trixie looked like she wanted to vomit. “What you just drank is a histamine poison that will cause your neck to swell and choke you to death unless you remove the Alicorn Amulet.”

The sound of a hundred vacuums filled the street as the entire town gasped in shock. Trixie paled.

“Mark! You didn’t!” Twilight gulped.

“Nah, I’m just kidding!” The street exhaled in unison. “It’s much worse than that.”

“What have you done to me?” The blue unicorn looked frantically down at her hooves as if expecting them to sprout toadstools at any moment.

“Trixie Lulamoon, what you just guzzled was an extra-strength memory potion.”

“Why?” The young mare didn’t understand at first, but I noticed that her pupils had begun to dilate, a sure sign that the draught was beginning to work its magic.

“To free you.” My fragile whisper was almost snatched away by the breeze. I knelt down to eye level with the frightened unicorn and explained everything. “The Alicorn Amulet corrupts its wearer, but I didn’t know how until you brought it here. After watching you, I recognized that it works like blinders, blotting out your history, your conscience, even your joy until all that you see is hate and anger. It locked away everything that made you who you are and filled the void with poison, ensuring that you’d never remove it because power was all you lived for. But you’re so much more than that, Trixie.”

“I… It’s like I’m really there.” Trixie blinked a couple times, her glassy eyes unfocused. “I can remember all the way back to when I was a filly. Trixie remembers her old house, her pet goldfish… her parents.” The pony coughed a giggle. “She can remember the first time she tried her hoof at magic. Trixie’s mother is right there, in the living room, watching me try to pull a stuffed rabbit from my daddy’s hat.”

“How about your first tour?” I coaxed. “The sound of a cheering crowd?”

“The look in their eyes as they all stare in awe are the Great and Powerful Trixie!” A new smile spread across the mare’s face. No longer frosty or hungry, the expression was warm and quiet, like a hearth on a winter night.

“How about your Cute-ceañera? Or even the day you got your cutiemark?”

“Mm! Mm hmm-hmm mm mmph hm hm!” Pinkie pie waved her arms frantically.

“Good one, Pinie! Remember the taste of peanut butter?”

“How could Trixie forget?” The showmare smiled to herself.

“Do you remember making fillies scream with delight?” The warmth in my voice turned to venom. “It’s a lot different from making them scream in terror, isn’t it?”

Trixie recoiled as the train of memories floating before her eyes suddenly changed to images of tears and pain. I could tell that she was living every moment of her tyranny as if it was still happening. She saw fright, heard wailing, and tasted misery. She saw an entire town cowering for their lives and in each of their eyes she saw her own reflection, standing over them with a burning horn atop her head and a long black whip clutched in her telekinesis.

Trixie slowly turned and gave a sharp squeal as she found the menacing weapon still floating in her magic.

“But that’s not me!” She cried. “It wasn’t me! I wasn’t thinking straight! I didn’t-”

“But a piece of you did.” I continued. “The piece that you gave into.”

“Trixie doesn’t just remember the parts you want her to, human!” The raging pony jabbed a hoof at my chest. “She also remembers being run out of Ponyville! She remembers how you all humiliated her! How you mocked her and took away the one thing she loved doing!”

“I know.” My gaze fell.

“And now you want to do it all over again! You want to trick Trixie into just giving you the Amulet! Without it, she’s nothing! She… I… will have nothing.” Veins of water began to stream from the corners of her eyes and from her nose.

“I’m not trying to trick you.” My head shook slowly. “I realized that was our mistake from the start. In the episode, ‘Magic Duel’, you’re not really redeemed. You’re just tricked, outwitted, stripped of your power, knocked back down all over again. There really isn’t a moment of forgiveness or kindness. It’s just like the first time you came to town, but this time the writers wanted to slap a warm fuzzy ending onto it. No, Trixie, that’s not why we’re doing this. You deserve better. You always did.” As I looked up again, the blue unicorn was startled to find matching rivulets of water on my own cheeks. “I just wanted you to be sane enough to understand when I say I’m really sorry for what happened. Please forgive me.”

Murmurs of assent and undertones of apology rippled down the street. Trixie swallowed hard, the war between the Amulet and the memory potion raging between her heart and her mind.

“Then, what happens? You just expect Trixie to surrender the Alicorn Amulet to you? Guilt her into taking it off so that she’ll leave your town alone?” She snipped.

“Honestly, I don’t care what you do.” I admitted sheepishly. “All I wanted to do was make this your choice. Not mine. Not theirs. Not the writer’s cliché happily-ever-after. Yours.”

“But without the Ammulet.” Trixie hiccuped. “I’m nothing.”

“No.” Twilight Sparkle stepped forward. “You’re nothing with it. The Trixie I know is witty, charismatic and more driven then most of Equestria. Not a puppet to anger. You are so much more than the artifact, Trixie. Won’t you let us help you prove it?”

Long seconds passed as the blue unicorn’s eyes turned toward her rival, the war within her igniting afresh. The whole town had fallen under a spell of silence, frozen like a wax museum as the Alicorn Amulet fought to hold onto its prey.

“You’d… forgive me?” Trixie whimpered. “How can I trust you?”

“Because,” I pulled out a potion bottle from my second breast pocket, “This is that histamine poison I mentioned. This could have gone either way, but I bet the future of Ponyville on the hope that you’re not a monster.”

Trixie held my gaze for a moment longer. Then she lowered her head and yanked off the Amulet.

“Here.” She grimaced, shoving the magical talisman into my hand. “Take it. I don’t care what you do with me… but at least I’ll be Trixie again.”

“Don’t forget ‘Great and Powerful’.” A thoughtful moment passed, as I peered at the Amulet and the nebulous red light within its crystal, and then my finger closed over it. It was all over.

“That took courage, Trixie.” Twilight applauded.

“Is that it?” Applejack crept forward cautiously. “Is it over?”

“Great.” Rainbow Dash folded her forelegs. “Somepony get her a broom and tell her to get started on putting our town back together.”

“Aaauuugh!MouthymouthImissedmymouthsomuchit’ssogoodtohaveyoubackohwe’regoingtohavelotsoffuntogetherthere’ssomuchtocatchuponandsolittletimethat’swhyIcan’twastetimeonspacesorpunctuationorevenbreathingIcan’tcontainmyselfandIdon’tevenwanttotrysomakewayformebecausenowI’mgoingtowhipupthebiggestbrunchEquestria’severseenandeverypony’sinvitedfollowmeeeeeee!”

“Sounds like somepony got her mouth back.” Twilight Sparkle laughed. Above us, there was a distant sweeping sound and the dome around the city vanished. The clouds were once more free to dissipate and within moments, ribbons of pure white sunlight had begun to lance down upon the humble rooftops. Only Trixie’s face continued to carry shadows.

“What happens now?” Her voice shivered.

“First, we’re going to lock this thing away.” I said, stuffing the Alicorn Amulet into my coat. “Afterwards, who knows? Probably some legal stuff with the Mayor and the princess, but you don’t have to worry about them. You might still have to replace some of the property you damaged, though.”

“But how?” Trixie scuffed the dirt. “I have no money. No job. Nowhere I can go. Besides prison, I guess…”

“Let’s call that ‘plan B’ for now.” I chuckled. “I don’t know about the others, but I’m not in any position to condemn you. In fact, we’re going to do what we should have done the night an ursa stepped on your cart.”

“What’s what?”

“Help you get back on your hooves, of course!” My hand started massaging my chin thoughtfully. “I’d offer a place to stay, but it’s not really mine to give, seeing as how I’m still bunked up at the Library. Not the mention it’s getting a little crowded. If three’s a crowd, then what’s four?”

“Hi! I’m four.” A human in a long brown coat spoke up from behind Trixie.

“Wha!?”

“Oh, yeah, and you’ve already met Lilly.” I muttered. “Excellent job, by the way, honey. You did an excellent ‘me’.”

“Aw, thanks.” My doppelganger began massaging its chin as well. “You made for excellent bait.”

“So, yeah…” I continued, “Anyway, there are a couple other houses in town you might be able to rent for cheap. For example, I’ve had my eye on a cozy little two-story just across the street from us. Haven’t seen a ‘for sale’ sign, but it’s been abandoned for months. Maybe you could make a deal with the owner?”

“Ah, well… hmm…” Rarity started to object, but quickly bit her lip. “Dear me, this suddenly took a turn for the odd.”

“What do you mean?” I turned to my friend.

“Well…” The white unicorn looked helplessly at Twilight. “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

“Tell me what?”

“See, the thing is…” Twilight scratched an ear humorously. “That place you mentioned? The one with the big front windows? That’s your house.”

“Wha-?” Lilly and I gasped in unison.

“See, it was going to be a birthday present.” Rarity tittered. “Oh, but I guess it was just what you wanted, then wasn’t it?”

“Awww, shoot! Now I’ve got to come up with a new birthday surprise for Mark!” Pinkie Pie poked her head out from an alley way before quickly vanishing again.

“I see…” My eyes were effectively knocked askew by this sudden bombshell, but I found stability in the humble blue unicorn still sitting in the dusty street. Barely able to believe it myself, I offered, “I am suddenly the proud owner of a house. A house, I might add, in need of a tenant. What do you say, Trixie, you help me clean the place up, you can stay there rent-free for the first month?”

“I… You’d let me do that? Um… Trixie doesn’t know what to say.”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe ‘thank you, Mark’.” Twilight Sparkle flicked her tail.

“I don’t know what to say either.” I admitted. “Wow! I mean, a house!? That’s- Thank you, girls! Kind of feels like My Big Fat Greek Wedding!”

“We’re moving?” Lilly stammered, collapsing into her original form.

“I know, right?” My feet suddenly felt very light and very bouncy. “And we can set up a lab in the basement and open a little shop in the front room and we’ll have our own kitchen and our own bedrooms and-!”

“I certainly hope you’re not planning on moving in while Trixie’s still living there.” Rarity apprehended.

“Why not? There’s two separate bedrooms and Lilly stays with me. Works perfectly!”

“Yes, well, it’s just that, it’s a rather tight fit for a young lady and gentleman to be sharing…” The white unicorn picked her words carefully. “Just saying, darling, you wouldn’t want to rush into a potentially awkward living arrangement, would you?”

“What? Because she’s a girl?” I clarified.

“Who do you think he’s been living with all this time?” Twilight bristled. We all shared a laugh and the mood on the street lifted like a balloon. Somewhere in the distance, songbirds had begun to sing again.

In the grand scheme of things, the changes to the episode turned out to be much smaller, and yet far more powerful than I could have predicted. Trixie’s rampage had been quelled, but not by me and not even by Twilight Sparkle, but by her own volition. That simple gesture somehow made the horizon feel so much larger than it had three days prior. My lesson in all this had been a hard one, the lens through which I glimpsed the world had been cracked, but as my friends helped me reforge it, they had revealed to me that the stage we walked was far more spacious and far more imposing than I had ever dared to dream. It was as if I had buried myself in a cubicle of star charts only to have someone take me by the hand and show me the night sky. A spectacle at once terrifying and exciting.

With the advent of this new perspective, one would think that my faith in my friends would have become adamant, invincible, a constant cornerstone that I could always cling to if I needed hope, and they’d be right. However, even the strongest metals can become twisted. Three days later, after Celestia and the Saddle Arabians had come and gone, I proved as much.

“You’re not joining us for sundaes?” Spike looked at me in shock.

“Do squids have feathers?” I shot back.

“Is that a 'no', or…?”

“Of course I’m coming!” I laughed. “You and Lilly go on ahead, I’ll catch up.” My hand shoed the dragon and the changeling toward the door like a feather duster.

“Still working on something?” Lilly Limn cocked her head.

“Left the cauldron smoldering.” My thumb jabbed back towards Twilight’s laboratory. “Hasn’t been the same since Trixie nearly spilled it.”

“Alright, then. Don’t take too long!” The changeling flashed a curtain of brilliant green flames and adopted the guise of a young pink earth pony. With wide humble eyes and a deep purple mane my little girl’s latest “ponysona” somehow managed to pay tribute to all of the main six at once while still making it her own. Even her choice to forgo wings and a horn was supposedly a nod to her human friend. As it had every day since she adopted it, my heart melted at the sight.

“I’m right behind you.” I promised.

At last, when I was finally alone, I pushed my way into Twilight’s basement and locked the door behind me. I had already begun the move into my new house and the floor was consequently flooded with boxes of my own work alongside Twilight’s, but at least the lab still had the one piece that mattered. My cauldron pulsed gently from its nest in the middle of the floor.

With a blank face belying a pounding heart, I pulled out a notebook from under my arm and began flipping through its pages. In it were diagrams of the future, hints about episodes, notes written in broken English. As I reached the page titled, “Goku vs Vegeta”, a spell card with a sympathy glyph slid into my hand. After three days, I was unable to restrain myself any longer. I drew a circuit from the cauldron to an enchantment table and activated the glyph.

After Trixie’s redemption, the Alicorn Amulet had immediately been sealed away. I had locked it up myself and handed its prison to Zecora for safe keeping. What I had neglected to tell anyone was why I had a box already ready.

The card sparked to life, pulling open a tiny keyhole in space. Through the swirling ring of light, my eyes could barely make out the inside of a lockbox and the dim glint of a bloody red gemstone.

“Hello, Kyubey.” My whisper fell like dry leaves. “I have a wish for you.”

Friendship is magic. The sum of all of us is greater than our parts. That much I knew. Through the bright days that we cherish and the dark days that we weather, I trusted my friends to and beyond the grave, but I wasn’t delusional. The day would come when they simply couldn’t be there for me. It’s no exaggeration to say that those ponies saved my life.

I was going to return the favor.

Author's Note:

Wow.
What I haven’t been able to accomplish in over three hundred thousand words, THIS BEAUTIFUL BASTARD did in less than TWO!
Seriously, though, be sure to give his BombShelter some love. He's hilarious. And don't worry, despite the uncanny similarities between our two stories, reading his isn't going to spoil the ending of this one.... Much...

I should also mention that I’m planning on doing an experiment of sorts for a while. No, I’m not going to stop writing, but I am going to take a short break from this particular story, see if I can’t build up some more motivation by taking time away from it. You know, if that makes sense.

Comments

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Damn dude, you updated with a bang!

[Fireeaters]

So is he going to unmake the amulet and syphon the power off somewhere?

[HIEfan]

Another glorious chapter, keep it up!

[smarioman64]

Man am I sure happy I checked my favorites before going to sleep I was able to catch this a little after it came out! Hmm I wonder what time it is- 3 IN THE MORNING! OH GOD! ah well it was worth it.

[Lazy Coyote]

Didn't... didn't she fucking TORTURE THEM!? I'm honestly not okay with that light of a punishment... if only for pound cake... fuck...

[lightning stroke]

This story here is what proves your worth in writing ... literally. I absolutely think this is your best chapter to date. 10/10 from me

[AnormalUnicornPony]

So.... Updates?

[turntechSoprano]

This is the Go-to HiE story for me, and it would be great if got updated more than once every few months. 'cause honestly, this fic is amazing, and it's sad that it hasn't been updated in a while.

[denneylaw]

7650053 so, this story isnt dead, right? are you just waiting til the end of season 7 to continue??

[MasterZadok]

8227989
No... And yes...
The story isn't dead, but I've never been at such a creative, intellectual, and emotional low as I am right now. This last chapter was so fun to work on and everything came together and you all liked it, but when I wanted to start the next chapter, I had no idea how I was going to follow up on it. The last act is about to start, and I just need one more episode to bridge the gap, but unfortunately, there's nothing there! Nothing I feel passionate about, no episode rework, no new revelations! I can't even wrestle together the threads of thought that usually tell me what overarching plot needs to develop. All I've cobbled together so far is a slice of life episode and you guys deserve better!
I don't want to keep apologizing over and over again, but I'm finally at a loss. Nothing is closer to my heart than writing. My schooling has floundered, my relationships are crumbling, and every day I wade through the ashes of a once-promising career, but I told myself that if I just hold onto my "special talent", then it will all come together some day.
And I've failed even that.
As you can see, not two days go by where I don't sign onto FIMfiction, hoping to foster my spark, and I see your posts encouraging me, but all I find is an identity crisis. Every day, I wish I could be writing. Every night, I cower from my keyboard as if it only reminds me what a dunce I am. What am I doing wrong? How many walls do I need to punch like a brat before I finally grow a pair? How do I get to where I was before, while learning from where I am now?
Anyway, sorry. Maybe I should vent into a diary and spare my readers from rants such as these. Or perhaps someone out there can direct me to a forum where I can bounce ideas off people. It's late, and another emotional wasteland awaits me tomorrow. Perhaps this time I'll finally find an oasis...

[Fawkes]

Wait what?! She is just getting away with it?! SHE NEARLY MURDERED AN INFANT, TRIED TO WHIP THE CHILD, AND ASSAULTED A WHOLE TOWN! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

[FanficReader920]

8231470
Ouch. I hate when that happens. Don't worry. Take all the time you need.

[jumpkan]

8231470
You could make a discord server you know? You can bounce ideas off there, and maybe we can help you with other stuff in your life too. You definitely are talented but it must be hard going through this trying period in your life. No matter what happens, You will always have our support!

[8bitmadness]

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ Want to make a contract?

Okay, in all seriousness, I wish you the best for the future. Read your comment from back in June, and I get how you feel. Here's some advice: Just write. You can always come back to it and edit it, and it doesn't have to be good. You don't even need to submit it here, or anywhere else. Write for yourself. Write for friends. Write for family. Even if you get writer's block, just keep writing. It really does help.

[dragonstj]

Fallout: New Vegas is the best Fallout game of all time.

[VunderGuy]

"However, not everything is rated TV-Y..."

And that's where you lost me. Coolio! Thanks for giving me the warning first!

[VunderGuy]

8231470
Oh, boo, hoo. Let me play a sad tune for you on the world's smallest violin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAlTOfl9F2w

[lightningcrash 300]

8626432 um....might just be me but that seems a bit harsh man, the author is trying his best to continue this wonderful story where he left off in....ok, just read how long this chapter was posted(damn I really need to catch up on all the unread chapters....) anyway, he/she is trying there best to write content that us the readers will enjoy, and not some two bit, run-of-the-mill slash fic where the hero easily wins through dumb luck, real hero's take risks and chances and can only hope for the best, they rely on not just on there streangth or knowledge, heros have to have hope in what they do is the right thing, and look at mark here, he is litteraly willing to sacrifice his sanity and being made into a villain by the amulets corrupting power. I havnt seen many stories like this one, and those like it are in my top favorite bookmark bar and downloaded to all my electronic devices. Personally? I dont mind the wait at all, just builds up suspens (like when your eating at a fancy restaurant and waiting for each wondrously delicious course of the meal. )
8231470 I have high hopes this story and waiting patiently (and hungerly) for the next chapter.

[Theboxcatgamr]

Take all the time you need

I'm just happy that the story ain't dead yet

[Theboxcatgamr]

Regardless of if he is constantly on this site the fear of this being abandoned is real

[TheWhisperInYourHead]

[-headshot123-]

“Did you just say ‘snicker’ instead of actually snickering?”

no, i ate one

[Gizmo Gear]

Moar?

[-headshot123-]

“Do squids have feathers?” I shot back.

He stopped and turned back, taking off his mask and raising an uninterested eyebrow. "Does the princess shit in the woods?"

[Haver]

More good

[Adrenaline rush]

Hey just want to say love the fan fic and I really hope ya continue it if ya can I'd love to read more of this ^^