//------------------------------// // Desperate measures // Story: Day of Coronation // by CeresBane //------------------------------// When Twilight's blinding light vanished, all Trixie could see was fire and rainbows. Out of intuition her horn began to glow and with a surreal miracle the flames did not burn. They flowed through her, their intense heat boiling her cold blood. In pain, she screamed as the magical fire consumed her energy. And with great rebellion she began to kneel. Kneeling on the floor, exposed as she was, she practically begged for a rainbow mare to crash hooves into her face. This forced her horn's light to die and whatever enchantment it was playing had died with it. The heat of the inferno grew tenfold and instantly began to set fur on fire. But no sooner had the flame begun their work, they ended. The flames vanishing and phasing like spectres in the night. Trixie watched impotently as the ethereal rainbow mare flew to the side of the now lavender coloured unicorn in the distance. Why? Weakened as she was, looking up was all Trixie could do. Why did you stop?. However, the smirk on that sadistic purple mare's face was clear to even the increasingly blurry eyed filly. Kill me! And then there was darkness. She needs to die Twilight. The enemy deserves no mercy. From the tiniest of foals to the most ancient of elders, enemies of the empire had to die. She knew this, she echoed and repeated and admonished her this fact. But watching the little creature, so small, so helpless, a little one with such a life ahead of her. There was just something about her that she sensed, something precious. Something in her heart she knew she could never truly bring herself to destroy that thing. The cyan coloured phantom mare beside her looked with white eyes at her master. It coaxed and begged silently for the seemingly inevitable order, hopping lightly on its hoofs in agitation. But Twilight was silent and unmoving. Resigned into the recesses of her mind as she began. "Thi-" -s fight is over. "This is disgraceful!" Twilight eyes opened wide at the voice. Her words cut short by that voice that sounded so... familiar. "How dare you dishonour I, The great and powerful Trixie, with such an affront!" The she rolls those Rs. "I will have your head for this. Nay! Your body and soul." The way she says her nays and occasionally speaks in that low and sultry tone. "I will not suffer mercy by the hoofs of you of all ponies!" Trixie crackled with power as she spoke. Arcs of lightning striking out all around her as the energies within her gathered and saturated her being. "If you intended to cheat in the first place then at least go through with it! Not hesitate at the last moment!" There was no mistaking this mare. It truly was her. Standing so proud, haughty and with such exhibitionist flair. Twilight practically exploded with joy at the realisation. And then she wondered why. Bewildered her voice needed to take a moment to find itself out of her mouth. It refused her commands. With a stamp of her hoof she regained her composure, she forced her mind to focus. It was all she could do to seem in control. And yet that smile she was wearing just wouldn't leave her face. "Foal! Rainbow Dash is my magic, my power and my will. With my friendship I will defeat you!" Nostalgia washed over her. She hadn't spoken like that in such a long time. It had been eons since she could talk to someone who she could see as her equal. With a turn of her chin and an arrogant, "hmph!" Trixie made her interests clear. The orbs surrounding Trixie exploded into smoke. An inky thick supernatural darkness of smoke that dared to paint the world in night. Before Trixie vanished into the shadows, she met eyes with Twilight. An understanding resonated between them. These old tricks aren't going to work. "Hide in any shadow." Recited the old words. With a silent command Rainbow Dash flew up to the sky "But the light will eventually find you." There was such zeal in her delivery that she had thought herself somepony else. This feeling, this excitement, she hadn't felt so alive until this moment! Or dare she say it... happy? Diving in at great speed Rainbow Dash fell in amongst the smoke, blasting it with a rainbow coloured mushroom cloud. When the smoke cleared Rainbow dash stood dazed besides Trixie. Wearing a mocking grin at Twilight as she made a point not to kill her familiar right then and there. At another silent command Rainbow Dash shook her head and recovered her wits. With a dash and a rainbow she took to the sky retreating momentary, only to loop back around to come into another charge. A mach cone formed in front of the ethereal mare as she reached impossible speeds, crackling with power as she took to greater and greater velocity. Trixie still wore that smile upon her, making another point to Twilight as she winked at the old mare. Twilight curiously couldn't help but watch in astonishment. Knowing later that despite her regret, it all happened way too fast for her to help her imaginary friend. Kill her Rainbow Dash. End her! She commanded with such gusto. "Ursa Major!" Trixie shouted in a voice that befitted the first general of the New Lunar Republic. Around Trixie a magic circle blinked into existence. It's many glyphs and runes and symbols swirling in a great rapid maelstrom, that if one looked with mortal eyes, it would merely be a flash of light. A giant claw the size of the massive circle itself swiped for Rainbow Dash. For a good few seconds she flew the expansive width of the bear-like appendage until she was clear from it. She dodged just in time to avoid the worse of the attack. But on her flank, the true story was told as she bled, profusely, molten bright blood glowing with a searing, angry heat. By the lopsided flight the rainbow mare took, it had an injured wing. Landing clumsily to the side of Twilight and missing by several meters it hobbled to Twilight for help. But Twilight knew of Trixie's ways, galloping to her injured friend she threw Rainbow Dash over her back. It was useless however, the hot searing blood forced her to drop the injured pegasus. "I'm sorry Rainbow." Twilight said sadly as her horn began to glow and slowly she levitated out of the ground, just as the floor fizzled with electricity by the magic of the great and powerful Trixie. Flapping with beautiful butterfly wings Twilight continued to ascend. Even as Trixie's lightning flashed across the sky, she flitted upwards twirling and pirouetting as she went. Twiight had flown so high up into the sky that she was just a dot in the stratosphere. Normally if somepony flew with such wings they would burn out and die, but with eons of practice Twilight had learned to reinforce the wings with her magic. Making them elemental to fire as the one that bore the wings themselves, the wings would sooner freeze than burn. "Now that I'm here, none of your magic can reach me. Come into the light. Or do you fear to tred?" That was a lie. Twilight had no idea just how far this Trixie's magical reach came. But she knew exactly how far the original Trixie did. She would need to walk into the light which was weakening to the ponies of the night. At the range of Twilight's spells and weak as she would be, her victory would be assured. The little filly will have no choice but to surrender or die. Twilight promised herself to decide which when the moment comes. "It seems the great and powerful Trixie can do no more to help you. Twilight Sparkle knows of Trixie, but Trixie knows you hold many surprises for her." Awake descendant. Awake my distant daughter. It is not the time to dream. But to make dreams come true! "Do you surrender foal?" A lance of light illuminated around the foal, the air around it intensifying with magic. "I am better than you." Trixie's horn began to glow. The determination on her face marking the effort it required of her to do what she intended. Twilight watched as the aura of the filly's magic turned from night blue into an evil dark green. To Twilight this only meant one thing. But she had to be sure. She can't be. Screamed a fierce denial at her own reality. The aura bathed Trixie's body as it changed her round child-like pupils into something reptilian and predatory. Materialising out of nothing two wings were borne upon her back. Trixie began to hover. In place, transparent wings buzzed with activity, oscillating at impossible speeds. And with a flash of magic she vanished just as the lance of light turned everything white. When the light dimmed, face to face to the old mare, Trixie's true form hovered. She flew in close as to have the truth be beyond doubt at such close proximity. "You... you can't be! You're a half breed?" Trixie had found herself in the middle of the day side, with no idea as to how she found herself in such a position. Bathed in the baking sun she looked bewilderingly at the aghast ancient. Recognising the figure as Twilight Sparkle, the direness of her situation dawned on her. Any moment now I am going to die. The idea of death becoming a certainty to her mind, a swift rush of the mind came to her. It filled her head with voices and images and feelings and emotions. Memories that were not there before. Sobering with knowledge, she pieced together flashes of memory. What had transpired after she passed out, astonished her little mind. An impossibility was what had occurred. She's dead. I have the memories!" "What say you mongrel!" Twilight screamed, burning with ire for being ignored. "My family..." Trixie began faintly, letting those two single words resonate within. "My family would never sully their blood with the likes of you!" She screamed at the army before her instead of that insignificant pony in the sky. "So you'd consort with demons instead? Are you even a pony?" The empire to the east jeered and screamed. Throwing out names like monster and mongrel and abomination. While in stark contrast the night remained silent and astonished. Trixie let all of that flow through her, she shouldn't let this pain in her heart well. She had a job to do, bred and born to do so, beyond anything a Trixie has done before. Beyond even the morality and sense of honour of even many a Trixie before her. She was a monster made for this moment. In a great blast of air the blue and black Trixie the skies were alive with magic.