//------------------------------// // The Strange Beasts // Story: Trixie Searches For Magic // by MagicS //------------------------------// Night in this part of the world could be quieter than anywhere else. So out of the way, so sparsely populated. When it was quiet in a place like this it was quieter than the grave. On some nights, however, any number of strange occurrences could happen that would shatter the peacefulness. A month ago a magical storm hit East Glade right as the clock struck midnight. No one knew what it was aside from the fact that black clouds suddenly spawned without any warning and rained down purple lightning bolts across the village. A year ago a few hours before dawn, large transparent creatures that walked on six legs who couldn’t be touched migrated through East Glade. Whenever their bodies came in “contact” with a building it left a layer of frost behind that was colder than any normal ice. Three years ago an impossibly bright and gigantic rainbow arched from north to south without any warning over the entire mountain range. At night. And five years ago strange balloon-like monsters appeared in the sky. They were the size of a house and spherical with dozens of thin tendrils dangling from their membranes. Since it was so dark out it was difficult for the villagers to make out things like what color they were at first. But these balloon creatures didn’t merely float around doing nothing for long. Maybe they were communicating with each other, maybe they were roaring at something, whatever it was, powerful vibrations that shook everything in East Glade were emitted by these creatures. Low, ear-pounding shockwaves came from the floating balloons. Windows cracked and shattered, houses were shaken to their foundations and some of the more dilapidated ones fell apart, ponies and griffons trembled down to their very bones. It was hard to tell how many of them there were in the sky. They seemed to nearly block it out entirely but again it was pretty dark and they kept moving past one another, making it difficult to see their true numbers. Whenever they vibrated and created their thunderous bellows their flesh rippled in response too. No mouths or anything like that could be seen on the creatures so it was anybody’s guess as to how they were making this noise. Something inside them was rumbling to create the vibrations. With each shudder of their skin they changed color slightly. Going all across the color spectrum from blue to yellow to red and everything in-between. It would’ve looked pretty were it not so devastating to the village right below. One could only imagine what it would’ve been like closer to those creatures. Getting hammered by the shockwaves point blank as they all vibrated and roared around each other. The balloon creatures stayed in the sky above East Glade until the first light of dawn, at which point they disappeared entirely. Not a trace of them was left and if it hadn’t been for the destruction and pain they left behind you would’ve never known they were there. Horrible headaches and migraines followed every villager for the next day and joint and muscles pains lasted for well over a week thanks to the vibrations. But that was the only time those creatures had ever visited East Glade. After that time five years ago they were never heard from again. Currently the sun had dipped over the horizon a few hours ago, the last bits of light had now well disappeared from East Glade and Gizzard with his grandsons were flying up and looking out over everything to make sure Goliath wasn’t planning a night attack on anything. Everything looked okay so the three griffons returned to the ground and prepared to retire for the night as well. If there was any commotion during the night it would wake the whole village pretty quickly. Coil was in his lab, tinkering with something or another, Daylight Gleam was in her newly rebuilt home getting ready for bed. Vector was talking with one of East Glade’s carrot farmers about something. Gabriel was actually talking with Gold Embrace about when the next magic lesson would be, and Senax and her other merponies were quietly returning to their home. The night was ready to be as peaceful as most others in East Glade. The air was cold and calm and the sky was completely cloudless, letting anyone who looked up get a full view of the large moon and the glittering stars. Vector left the carrot patch he had been conversing in and made his way over the wooden bridge that spanned the ravine. Each step of his hoof made a clopping sound on the hard wood, the normally light sound instead seeming much louder due to nothing else being in the air to drown it out. The sound reverberated slightly in his ears and he winced at it, hoping that he was still stepping quietly enough to not wake up anyone who was sleeping in any of the houses close to the bridge. Normally he wouldn’t be out so late at night either but things were just so busy lately he had a lot of stuff to check up on for the mayor. I hope The Great and Powerful Trixie puts on another show for us soon, that first one was so spectacular! He thought to himself. Vector had by far become her biggest fan in the village. He finished his way across the bridge and politely waved to a griffon heading into his home. Things had been nicer around here since all the outsiders had started arriving. Everyone was a bit more cheerful now and there was something like… hope? In the air. However Vector was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the loose pebble in front of him until he tripped over it. “Woah!” He cried out as he fell to the ground. “Oof!” Vector wheezed uncomfortably for a second, catching his breath after the unfortunate plunge. He quickly glanced back and forth to make sure no one had seen such an embarrassing scene and sighed in relief when it looked like no one was around. Vector was lucky it was so dark and late out and not during the middle of the day, he would’ve had to deal with quite a bit of laughing and teasing otherwise. The moment he took another step towards his house a crushing blast of air hit him from above. Like the shock of an explosion without the heat that came with it it rattled his bones and almost forced him to the ground. He had enough strength where his knees only buckled greatly but it still cracked the dirt beneath him and caused him to gasp and sweat in exertion. “W-What’s going on?!” Vector barely managed to force out. The earth pony looked around him to see the houses and other buildings of East Glade shaking and dust being blown from the ground by the force of the air pressure. Already he could hear screams of terror and pain coming from the other villagers. Lights flickered back on in houses and some ran outside to see what was happening, where the shockwaves hit them harder. In a few more seconds the shaking and high-pressure air beating down on all the village was gone and a sweaty Vector checked to see if everyone was okay. “Is everyone alright?” He called out to the ponies and griffons around him. Some of them were pretty shaky in responding and others were looking over the damage to their homes but so far it didn’t seem like anyone had been harmed too bad. Vector’s teeth were still chattering in his mouth and a few griffons looked like they were having headaches now but for the most part everyone was fine. “What was that, Vector?” One of the griffons asked as he came up to him. The earth pony shook his head. “I’m not sure. Hopefully that was all and it won’t happen again.” “Ahhhhhh!” Both Vector and the griffon heard the scream of another pony and turned to see a villager staring in open-mouthed terror at the sky, pointing a hoof up at something. Now that Vector thought about it he should’ve noticed that it had become even darker all of a sudden, as if something was blocking out most of the light from the moon and the stars. As his eyes drifted up to follow what the pony was looking and screaming at he saw why. “Oh, I remember these things.” He gulped. The strange balloon beasts had returned in full force. Their dark violet skin rippled and slowly faded away into a lighter magenta color while their dozens of thin tentacles hung loosely beneath their voluminous bodies. Perhaps fifty in total floated malevolently in the sky above East Glade, the villagers now all remembered that they were the generators of those powerful shockwaves and vibrations and it was impossible to tell when more would come. And impossible for them to do anything about it. Vector was sure that single wave wasn’t going to be the end of it though. Now that he recognized the balloon monsters he remembered how they assaulted the village for hours that night five years ago. “Everyone stay indoors!” He shouted to the other villagers. Honestly not sure if it was the right call or not. If their house came down around them… but most couldn’t handle taking the power of the shockwaves directly. There was nothing more he could do. “Vector!” A new voice sprang up. The orange stallion looked to see Daylight Gleam running towards him. “What’s going on? What the hay are those things?” She asked him, confusion written plain on her face since she had no prior knowledge of these creatures. “I’m sorry, these things showed up once about five years ago. We don’t know what they are either but they kept emitting those shockwaves all through the night and nearly destroyed the village,” He explained to her. She frowned. “Let’s hope they don’t stay for as long this time then.” They both looked up to watch the balloon creatures, looking for a sign of what they might do next. The skin on their bodies kept shifting from magenta to a hot pink color and then a solid red. Both ponies knew that didn’t bode well for them. With a low rumble the creatures skin rippled again and a series of new shockwaves came from the sky like the wailing of a banshee. Daylight quickly used her horn to create a powder blue dome of magic above her and Vector to protect them. She winced and had to strain when the powerful blast of air hit her shield but the magic was able to hold and protect them with only a few slight cracks appearing in it. But she didn’t know how long or how many times she could keep that up. “What do we do to stop these things?” Daylight asked Vector. “I don’t know! They just left on their own last time!” He helplessly told her. The white unicorn looked up at the undulating beasts, watching them again shift from red to a bluish-green and then settling on a deep forest green. If it was anything like last time it probably meant they were getting ready to make noise again. “Are they communicating with each other like that?” She asked to nobody in particular. “Maybe it’s mating season.” It sounded somewhat incredulous to her but the theory held as much water as anything else she could think of. “Well if you want to try figuring that out be my guest, but I don’t know if East Glade can take a few more hours of this,” Vector said. And not a moment too soon as the vibrating of the creatures skin reached its peak and an all new shockwave was generated from the dozens of them. This time Daylight’s protective shield failed her and Vector and the two were blown across the street, crashing into the wall of an old, abandoned house. The vibrating didn’t stop there though, the heavy air kept pounding down on the two ponies, making them grit their teeth and hold their hooves over their ears to try and block out as much of the oppressive sound and shaking as they could. It didn’t do much though, both of their ears were ringing and their skulls rattled around in their heads like someone had forced a metal bucket down on them and banged on it with a pipe. “We need to find some way to hurt them and get them to stop!” Daylight yelled while the vibrations buffeted her and Vector. “How?!” Vector yelled back. “No griffon can fly up and reach them while they’re doing this and it’s too dangerous to try when they’re paused!” “Ugh, I dunno! My magic can’t reach from this distance either, I’m not that good at offensive spells,” Daylight complained, squinting to look up at the balloon monsters. The vibrating stopped as the beasts seemed to rest again. All of them floated and bounced around each other, constantly letting in little slivers of moonlight before obscuring them just as quickly. Their green skin kept gently rippling and Daylight worried that any change in their color would mean another barrage. She tried thinking of any way to stop them but she couldn’t levitate, any energy beams wouldn’t reach far enough, same with anything she threw, and there wasn’t really anyone else around who could help her. The pony furrowed her brow as she saw the green skin fading into a light-brown and then a reddish-orange, it was happening again. “I’ll just try and shield us as best I can, I think that’s all we can hope for,” She told Vector. Vector steadied himself in the slight reprieve they had before the next shockwave came. “I’m going to check to make sure everyone is okay.” “I don’t know if that’s really such a good idea. You should stick with me,” Daylight frowned at him. The earth pony shook his head. “No can do, I have to see how the villagers are holding out.” Daylight Gleam was going to retort and try to convince him to keep as safe as possible when a different sound from the loud vibrations reached their ears. It sounded like a high-pitched whistling noise as something shot through the air. The two ponies looked up to see several bright specks flying towards the balloon creatures. “Are those...?” Daylight looked at the streaking objects in surprise In the next second the whistling stopped and the objects exploded in a dazzlingly bright array all across the sky. The balloon beasts seemed just as surprised by the fireworks, their movements became erratic and their skin shifted into a wild tie-dye as the heat and brightness from each explosion rocked their bodies. More and more fireworks kept shooting up at them too, not allowing the creatures any sort of rest. The balloons continually bounced into each other and let out low wails that sounded frenzied and scared to Daylight and Vector down below. “You’re kidding me,” Daylight couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Vector on the other hand was looking at the impromptu fireworks show in awe. “It’s her. It’s Trixie! She’s saving us again!” One by one the balloon creatures started to blink away from this world as more fireworks went off. Hopefully traveling back to wherever they came from for good. Earlier that night... The Great and Powerful Trixie had stealthily pulled her wagon up onto a ridge slightly south of East Glade. Her mind had been made up, she would be leaving East Glade sometime very soon. However she didn’t feel quite right just abandoning all of them without notice. After all they were such big fans of her and were wowed by her amazingness far more than most others she had performed for were. Even if it might not have been wholly for her skills as a magician. So she felt she owed it to East Glade to at least give them a parting show. And there was no better idea she could think of than a late night fireworks extravaganza! “Right, this is going to be great,” Trixie said to herself as she surveyed her work. Several lines of fireworks had been set up on the ridge, most of their fuses tied together so she could send a bunch out at once. Trixie knew the villagers would especially love this, they had only seen her fireworks before in the middle of the day, seeing them at night would be a whole new experience for them. You just couldn’t even compare what a fireworks show at night looked like to one during the day. And then tomorrow night I can quietly get out of here. She thought as she finished up with the fuses. “I hate leaving without having anything to show for the trip though,” Trixie frowned as she looked at her arrangement of fireworks. But a quick thought back to Goliath and almost being torn apart made her shake her head to get any of those reconsidering thoughts to disappear. “Leaving. Definitely leaving.” She then smirked though. “But first, my greatest use of fireworks ever!” Trixie lit up her horn for some extra light and walked to the first line of fireworks, their fuses all tied to one spot. “I wonder if I should fire off a spell or something first to get their attention before I light the fuses? How many of them are asleep already?” Before she could think anymore about it though a deep pulsating vibration struck the ridge she was standing on. Because she was a bit further away from the village it wasn’t as powerful but the sound still rattled her brain and shook things enough that it felt like she was in the middle of an earthquake. The unicorn held her hooves to her head and screamed in discomfort. “What in Tartarus is going on?!” Trixie held on until it finally stopped, the groaning unicorn then looking around for what might have been the source of that sudden annoyance. Seeing nothing she shrugged and chalked it up to the random strange things that occurred out here that everyone in East Glade seemed to like talking about. She had her fireworks to get back to anyways. “Better make sure none of them fell over or anything.” She went to checking up on things but didn’t get very far when another shockwave hit, taking her completely by surprise again. Trixie grit her teeth and reflexively tried to create a bubble around herself to block out the noise… but the hammering of the shockwave in her ears caused her spell to falter and her magic wildly shot out from her horn in a shower of sparks. “Agh! Stupid magic!” She yelled as the vibrations continued all around her. The blue unicorn fumbled around incoherently until the noise from the unknown balloon beasts finally abated once more. She shook her head to make sure her brain hadn’t fallen loose and sat down. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is starting to get annoyed...” She mumbled as she rubbed her forehead. But as she sat there a very familiar sizzling sound caught her attention. Trixie perked up and looked at her fireworks, seeing the dozens of tied together fuses lit and sparking towards the set-up rockets. She sighed. “Well, it’s what I was going to be doing anyways.” Considering she was unexpectedly sitting in the middle of them right now though she felt it pertinent to put up a successful bubble shield around herself this time. Now only a few short hours before dawn, Trixie wheeled her wagon back down closer to East Glade. The unicorn was thoroughly exhausted after the unexpected experience and the cleaning up she had to do. She planned to sleep straight until noon today and then she’d be well rested for her sneaking off later. Trixie though should have learned by now that the world doesn’t care about her plans. Once she got in view of the town it seemed like every villager was already awake and running right towards her. “Did they like the fireworks that much?” She asked herself. “Trixie!” Vector called out to her from the front. “That was incredible, Miss Great and Powerful Trixie! You saved us from those monsters!” I did what now? The villagers crowded around her all drowning each other out in their praise of her and thanking her for getting rid of some so called “monsters” that Trixie was completely unaware of. The unicorn was totally flabbergasted but she did her best to act like she knew what was going on and just flashed her normal smile and accepted all the thanks she was getting. “Er, thank you, thank you.” She nervously waved to them all. “Just when I think you can’t do any more for East Glade you keep surprising me!” Vector told her, Daylight, Gizzard, and many of the others right there with him. “I honestly have no idea what we’d do without you.” “He’s right, Miss Great and Powerful!” Gold Embrace told her, jumping up right into Trixie’s face. “I can’t wait for you to teach us more magic so we can defend East Glade as well as you!” Trixie gulped. “Yeah...” “East Glade really needs you,” Vector said with the most honest possible smile on his face. “You do… don’t you,” Trixie slowly said. The noise from the crowd had faded away for her, whatever the others were saying no longer registered in her mind. Trixie was only thinking about that last thing Vector had said. It was the truth wasn’t it? They did need her. She didn’t need to be here for herself. She no longer wanted to be here even with all the wonderful praise that boosted her ego. But if she left them, what then? What would happen to East Glade? Trixie hardly considered herself a true (and certainly not a selfless) hero, she had merely been acting like one. But now that she was here and the truth of the situation really settled in for her… she couldn’t just leave them could she? There’s a lot she would’ve done for Starlight, since she was her best friend, but how much was an admittedly selfish and egotistical pony like herself willing to lay on the line for what still mostly amounted to strangers? I may be self-absorbed but this is something Starlight definitely wouldn’t approve of… Trixie thought as she made up her mind again. I guess I can act like a hero for a little longer. Still need to find some new magic after all. She looked out at all the cheering and smiling ponies and griffons of East Glade, they looked about ready to start tossing her up in celebration. And the perks aren’t bad either.