I Woke Up In My Favorite TV Show, But Before I Could Do Anything, I Was Recruited By The Villainess!

by Leafdoggy


Chapter 2

“Seriously, Trixie, this is a terrible idea. We need Twilight!”

Trixie was pulling her wagon through the streets of Ponyville, heading towards the edge of town. I was still inside, peeking out the window at the front of the wagon to watch Trixie trot along, and trying desperately to talk her out of this horrible idea.

“Absolutely not!” Trixie said with a huff. “The more you bring her up, the more I’m starting to dislike this Twilight Sparkle! What makes her so special, huh?”

“Well, for one, I’m pretty sure she’s the only one who can wake up the Elements of Harmony,” I told her, “and without those, we have no hope of stopping Nightmare Moon.”

Trixie ground to a halt fast enough to make the whole cart jutter. “D-Did you just say Nightmare Moon?”

“Yeah! Nightmare Moon is gonna show up at the Summer Sun Celebration.” I stuck my hooves out the window towards her in a pleading gesture. “That’s why we need Twilight!”

Trixie had been looking at me wide-eyed, but at the mention of Twilight, she scowled for a moment. Then, she shook her head and put on a shaky grin. “P-Please, The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t fear any pony, not even some old fairy tale! I’ll have you know I once defeated an Ursa Major.”

“No you didn’t!”

“That doesn’t matter. I just haven’t had the opportunity, is all.” Wow, Trixie could recover fast from being called out. “The point is, Nightm—” The word caught in her throat, and she had to swallow hard before she could start again. “Nightmare Moon doesn’t intimidate me. Especially not when we know her weakness! I just have to be able to wake up these Element things, right? How does that work?”

So, I explained the Elements of Harmony to Trixie—what they are, what they represent, who wielded them, what they looked like, whatever I could think of. I thought that maybe, with enough context, Trixie would finally realize the futility of what she wanted to do.

Of course, that was probably never going to happen, but I had to try.

By the time I was done, we were outside of Ponyville, and I could see the Everfree Forest in the distance. I’d already told Trixie where the Elements were, so we were headed straight there. Above us, the sky was a deep orange as sunset quickly approached.

We traveled in silence for a moment after my explanation, until I finally asked, “So? Surely, you can see that just the two of us can’t use the Elements of Harmony.”

Trixie was deep in thought, and it took a minute for her to reply. When she finally did, she was quiet, almost contemplative. “Well, maybe not all six,” Trixie said, “but maybe we could get two! From what you told me, it sounds like we might just need ponies who embody the Elements, not those specific six.”

I groaned. “Even if that could work, you have to be close friends for it! Like I said, the Element of Magic is also the Element of Friendship.”

“We’re friends, though, aren’t we?” Trixie asked.

“What? I’m locked in your wagon! You’ve done nothing but ignore me!”

“Oh, come on, you act like I abducted you or something,” Trixie argued. “Sure, we haven’t started on the best of terms, but we can look past that, right? It’s to save the world, after all!”

“Friendship does not work like that,” I told her.

“Says who?” Trixie scoffed. “Who’s the magic one here, huh? If they’re the same thing, I must be naturally great at friendship! And I think that we could decide to be best friends by the time we get to the castle.”

I slumped down against the window frame and groaned. “You’re gonna kill us both. I’ve been in this world less than a day and you’re gonna kill me.”

“Nopony likes a downer, bestie.”


“Well, this is a problem.”

We were finally at the edge of the forest, and Trixie was pacing back and forth in front of the window I was leaning out of. Ahead of us, a little, overgrown path led into the Everfree, but…

“I don’t know why you expected your cart to fit, Trixie.”

She glared daggers at me. “I didn’t think of it, okay? Now, less teasing and more helping me come up with a solution.”

“We could give up.”

“Very funny.”

“It wasn’t really a joke.” After another pointed glare, I shrugged. “I mean, our only real option is to leave it behind, right?”

“But if I do that, then…” She looked up at me and narrowed her eyes in thought. “If I open the door, are you just going to run away?”

“I probably should, but…” I sighed. “I can’t let you go in there alone. As frustrated as I am that you, well, kidnapped me, I still like you enough to not just send you off to die.”

“So… Does that mean you’re in? We’re partners?”

I groaned, and held my head in my hooves for a long moment before finally conceding, “I guess.

Yes!” Trixie practically flew through the air with excitement. A huge grin split her face, and she rushed around to the back of the wagon and threw the door open. “I knew you’d come around! I mean, it’s only natural, Trixie is the best choice to save the world, but still—Oh, just come here!”

Suddenly, Trixie’s magic wrapped around me, and I found myself flying out of the wagon straight at Trixie, who caught me in a tight, uncomfortable hug.

After hugging me for far too long, she finally let go, and I dropped down to the ground. “See?” She asked with an expectant grin. “Total besties!”

I rolled my eyes, and turned towards the forest with a wave of my hoof. “Let’s just go, we’re taking too long as it is.”

“Right!” Trixie puffed up her chest, and trotted out ahead of my to lead us into the trees.

The dark swallowed us, and suddenly, our world was filled with strange, foreign sensations. The ferns tickled our legs, swaying like they were alive despite the lack of a breeze. Insects buzzed all around us, almost oppressive enough to block out the squawking of the birds and the groaning of the trees as they settled. Branches swiped at us, tangled themselves in our manes and tails, and showed no hesitation as they tore gashes into Trixie’s cloak. It was a miracle that she somehow managed to keep her hat from facing the same fate.

We made it about five minutes before Trixie’s spirit broke. “Ugh! How far away is this castle?”

I laughed under my breath. “Uhh, probably a couple hours’ walk. We’ve got a ways to go.”

Hours!? Just how deep is this castle? Who in their right mind would build their castle so far into a forest like this?”

“Well, I don’t think the forest was as bad back then,” I explained. “It’s had a thousand years of unchecked growth, after all. As for how deep the castle is, I have no idea. I just know it’s a ways.”

Trixie stopped in her tracks and looked back at me. “Excuse me. You don’t know? I thought you knew where we were going!”

“Well, there’s only the one path so far,” I said.

“And what if there’s a fork!?”

I shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about it I guess. These things usually just kind of work out.”

“Maybe in your books,” Trixie said, clearly frustrated, “but in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not in a story! This is real! Anything could happen!”

I winced. “But, in the story—”

“I don’t care! Ugh!” Trixie threw her head back and stomped away. “Us being here is already different from your story, right? So you don’t know! All this whining about me getting us killed, and you were about to get us hopelessly lost in the Everfree Forest!”

I frowned and shrank in on myself a bit. As much as I hated to admit it, she was making sense. Still, I didn’t think it was entirely my fault. “But—”

“Enough!” She wasn’t letting me get a word in. “You are lucky that Trixie is here to save you, and that she was smart enough to notice your mistake!”

I frowned at her. “Come on, that’s not fair. You don’t know where it is, either.”

Trixie ignored me. She just huffed, blowing some hair out of her face, and lit up her horn, preparing to cast a spell. I stared at her, mystified—as far as I was aware, Trixie didn’t actually know any complex spells. But, just as I thought that, a thin, wavering strand of light blue magic slowly streamed out of Trixie’s horn and snaked through the air. It ignored the pathway, and instead wound in between trees and into the dark unknowns of the woods, where it quickly became obscured by a wall of trees.

I stared at it in wonder. “What, uh… What is that?”

“Hmph!” Trixie stuck her nose in the air proudly. “Why, it’s our salvation, that’s all.”

Before I could ask more, she trotted off into the trees, following the trail of magic, and I was forced to hurry after her. It was a lot tougher, moving off the path, and we slowed down quite a bit, so it wasn’t too hard for me to catch up to her.

“What do you mean, our salvation?”

“I don’t see why you’re so surprised,” Trixie said. “Surely your stories showed my magical prowess?”

“Uhh…”

She ignored my unsure response. “Just think about it! Trixie is a traveling magician. She must have some way to get where she’s going.”

I looked at her doubtfully. “You mean, like, roads and maps?”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Maybe for an average pony, but Trixie has no need for such trivialities! Just a simple locator spell, and I can find my way wherever I desire, and the fastest possible route, at that!”

“That’s…” I couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. “Anywhere? How does it lead you to places you don’t know the location of?”

“Uh, magic, duh. It’s not like castles and towns move, after all. Anything bigger than, say, a house will leave an imprint on the flow of magic after long enough, and it’s really quite easy to latch onto those flows and find my way wherever I may want!” 

Trixie explained it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, but I was blown away. “But I never saw anything remotely like that in the stories! Where did you learn a spell like that?”

“I just made it up,” Trixie said. At my incredulous look, she scoffed and rolled her eyes again. “Okay, maybe you don’t quite get it because you’re an Earth pony, but… It’s like asking how you learned to find the mouth of a river. It’s just something I figured out!”

I shook my head. “But why would Twilight not have ever used something like that?”

Trixie smirked. “Are you finally coming to realize my superiority in the realm of magic?”

“Not really,” I said, “but… Well, I’m impressed. Good work, Trixie.”

“Oh, please, it was nothing,” Trixie said, but she couldn’t hide the wide grin on her face. “Now hurry up, I want to get there as soon as possible.”

She trotted ahead of me, and for a second I thought I saw a hint of red tinge her cheeks before she turned so I couldn’t see her face.

With that, we fell silent for a while, and slowly trudged through the depths of the Everfree Forest towards the ruined castle, and our inevitable confrontation with Nightmare Moon.