//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: The Invisible Hairless Ape 
// by McPoodle 
//------------------------------//


The Invisible Hairless Ape.


A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic.


BY MCPOODLE.


	THE Great and Powerful Trixie is the greatest unicorn to have ever lived. She told me this herself, and I have no reason to disbelieve her.

	I am a writer, a teller of true tales of wonder and mystery.  Perhaps you have read the account I penned of Trixie’s encounter with the Ursa Major.  I have written many others, and as soon as my publisher completes what she assures me is a “routine fact check”, you will be able to read of Trixie’s other adventures as well.  Nevertheless, I believe the story you hold in your hooves to be the greatest of all of her incredible run-ins with the supernatural.

	The Great and Powerful One has graciously allowed me to accompany her on her travels.  When she is in the mood, she shares her stories with me.  I have high hopes of one day getting her to tell me of the “Purple Loudmouth”, a creature apparently so terrifying that she does not think my constitution strong enough to hear it, as she always changes the subject when I press her on the matter.


~ ~ ~


	But you are here for the story of the Invisible Hairless Ape.  One night after a show, Trixie and I were sitting in her caravan, dining on salted crackers while she entered her profits in a ledger with a mathematical ease I have never before encountered in a performer.  I gently pressed her for one of her incredible stories, but Trixie demurred, claiming she had told all of the good stories that she could recall.  She suggested that I look through a nearby box of mementos to see if I could find something to jog her memory.  The box was mostly full of posters and press clippings, but I finally managed to find something that attracted my attention. 

	What I found was a collection of photographs, all of the same pegasus colt at the end of his adolescent years.  A rather handsome specimen, I thought, with bright eyes and a somewhat nervous disposition.  As I proceeded through the collection, it dawned on me that the photographs were not in fact pictures of him, but of his surroundings, the interior of a very old mountain estate.  In some photographs, only a single hoof of the colt might be visible, or the corner of an ear.  This was curious, but not particularly noteworthy.  At least until I reached the last photograph of the collection. 

	This picture was taken in the dark, and was illuminated by the light of a single flash, presumably held in the mouth of the earth pony photographer.  The colt was in the center of the image, caught in the act of turning his head upwards to look at something.  And what he was about to see, half-formed and coming out of the shadows, was the form of an enormous paw.

	No, in fact it was not a paw; it was unlike anything I have ever seen.  The paw of a southern ape comes closest, but this was an exaggeration of that paw, the phalanges even longer and spread far apart like a starburst. 

	I eagerly showed my find to the magician / monster-hunter.  Her first reaction was to push them away from me in shock.  “Where did you find those?!” she demanded. 

	“Where did you take these?” I pleaded.  “Please, you must tell the tale of how you defeated this monster!” 

	 “How I…” Trixie thought for a bit.  “Yes, yes of course it was I, The Great and Powerful Trixie, who defeated the invisible hairless ape.  And I shall tell you all about it…”