//------------------------------// // Stare // Story: The Revenge of the Powerful One // by stack //------------------------------// CHAPTER 1: STARE As the words "Ha!, you may have vanquished an Ursa Minor, but you will never have the amazing, show stopping ability of the great and powerful Trixie!" emanated from her mouth, Trixie knew that her pathetic act of bragging behavior was crumpled, and the only thing she could do in that moment was escape from the townsfolk's reprisal and avoid the humiliation she carved on her own. So, in a quick movement, she threw a smoke bomb and immediately turned around and left the town as fast as her legs allowed her. She thought that the town's ponies would follow her, seeking to make her pay for what her scams had caused, which gave her enough motivation to gallop at full speed almost for ten minutes. While running, she realized that she couldn’t stop thinking on the magnificent magical demonstration that Twilight Sparkle had shown back in town, and the embarrassment this made her experience. With this, she set her mind in only one idea. Revenge, but she analyzed the situation a little more carefully, if she was going to take revenge, she should be prepared for anything, she had seen the extraordinary abilities of Twilight, and tried to come up with a coherent explanation on how she got those stupendous powers. “Twilight lives on a library, so maybe she has access to privileged information, such as spells and enchantments of different types", she thought, when suddenly a reliable memory stroke like a lightning, “aha!... now I remember, she is the apprentice of princess Celestia… no wonder where she got those skills!”, she spoke to herself, “what an insult!, to diminish the great and powerful Trixie in such a barbaric way, that sure wasn’t a fair comparison of skills …and now I’m the laugh stock of everypony on that grace forsaken Ponyville!”, she yelled and changed her voice inflection in a derogatory way as she pronounced “Ponyville”. She barely ended that sentence when her front hoofs got jammed in what appeared to be a root popping out of the soil, and due the impulse, flew almost three yards until she crashed on the ground. “Damn earth ponies, looks like they aren’t doing what they should” she said sorely as she got up, Referring to the cleansing of roads. The fall made her cape and hat flew a few yards more, so, with a light movement of her head, the horn popping out her forehead started to glow in a soft pink light, which embraced both, hat and cape, and made them levitate towards the owner and take their respective places. “Looks like they aren’t following me anymore”, she mumbled as realized she hadn’t enough time to analyze her actual surroundings; her surprise was big when she discovered where she was. Her desperate sprint to escape had placed her in a worst case scenario. She was in the Everfree Forest. Trixie was exhausted, and terrified, “I’m so doomed” she thought while walking slowly trough the swampy yet dry soil, fearing the inherent fact that she might encounter with a wildlife’s former member of that fearsome place. She walked a few minutes until a crystalline pond appeared in front of her. A dry, thirsty throat was begging for a gulp of delicious water. She acted by instinct and approached to the pond, slowly reaching the water with her mouth but without stop watching the surroundings. When the cold liquid touched Trixie’s mouth, a greater force made her drink uncontrollably. It was a delight. Suddenly, a hissing, menacing sound assaulted Trixie’s ears, breaking the spell of the refreshing water. She looked around searching for the noise source as a fearful expression was drawn on her face. It sounded again, apparently behind some bushes. Trixie magically grabbed a considerable size rock as she doubtfully approached the source. She was ready to make the first move regardless of what could be behind the bushes. When the head of a chicken came out, for Trixie it wasn’t an unusual event due the fact that ponyville’s economy was propelled mostly for farming activities. “Hmph…to think that such insignificant creature was inspiring terror on me, if you excuse me, I’m busy doing something, so please, get lost”, she said in a cocky presumptuous manner. The creature stood still for a few instants, just staring at the pony, which turned around and left the spot. Then the creature came out completely of the bushes first making the hissing and then roaring in some way, showing to Trixie that it wasn’t a chicken. The begat had a head resembling the one of a chicken except for the sharp teeth and the snake like tongue that could be seen when the creature opened its mouth. The rest of the body was the one of a winged reptile, almost like an adult dragon, but in scale. Trixie lost her breath as the creature stared into her eyes. For some reason she couldn’t move, she was terrified and couldn’t stop thinking that it was destiny teaching a lesson for her despicable behavior. Amazingly, in instants her mind got clear, and calmly, she analyzed the situation. “Whatever this freak is doing to me, it surely has something to do with its glowing eyes” she thought, her horn started to glow and rapidly she took some bindweed branches that were near there, tying and blindfolding the creature. Immediately it started to produce a horrible groan, Trixie was coming back from the trance that the creature’s eyes produced, then she realized of something unbelievable, half of her body was turned into stone. She couldn’t process it entirely before a swarm of chicken headed creatures started to pop out from the surrounding bushes. “Awwww great!, more of these things, this is just lovely!” she said obviously in an ironical way, ”what a glorious way to perish!…with a bunch of freaks staring at you…I feel like a superstar”, she yelled, trying to soften the idea that this was really her end. The transformation was almost done and the only thing that wasn’t stone yet was her face, when suddenly a mysterious pony wearing a hood came out of nowhere sprinkling yellow dust all over the place making the all the monsters fall asleep, the transformation stopped and the stranger pinched Trixie’s nose with something that looked like a golden needle, “hey!”, Trixie yelled. The petrification started to regress. “T-Thank you…that was really close” said Trixie stuttering to the stranger as she turned normal again. “Don’t thank me; we better get going home, before more monsters get here”. Trixie noticed the rhyme in the sentence as she followed the stranger to wherever she was going, at least was better than staying alone on the woods.