Werewolf Big Macintosh, who was a mare thanks to this crazy universe switcheroo, may have burned any evidence and letter she had from the mysterious Eight Legged Freak, but there was still something left, as Princess Luna revealed.
“ELF is staying at the Ponyville Hotel,” he said.
“Well, that was easy, but how is Big Mac tied into this?” I asked.
“She came by while that restaurant lawyer was harassing you,” said Twilight. “She said something about smelling spiders over by the hotel.”
“How does one smell spiders?” asked Luna.
“Moving on,” I said quickly. Technically, I was the only one who knew Mac was a werewolf. “I know we’re going on about the presence of spiders, but how does that help us find ELF? It could just be spiders.”
“There was also maniacal laughter heard,” added Luna.
I nodded. “Okay, I’m sold. Let’s go.”
Twilight, Luna, and I trooped out of the library. Crispy the restaurant lawyer was there. Luna slapped him with habeas corpus and made him buzz off. Sometimes, an unrestricted government works to your advantage.
Down the street at the hotel, something was definitely wrong. I glanced up at the building. “When Big Mac said that she smelled spiders, he may have literally meant that they crawled into her nose because they’re so thick.”
The hotel was covered in webs. Pinkie was there, stuck in them. He didn’t seem to mind, though, and was giggling like mad.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Well, earlier when we went to the karaoke club I warned you about Mr. Ears and nopony thought to ask how I knew about him.”
That was true. We’d been too caught up in getting information from Mr. Ears that we hadn’t thought to ask. I said, “Okay, how do you know about him?”
“I met up with an old friend and he told me his whole dastardly plan. Then he said to stick around.” Pinkie jiggled the spider webs and giggled again. “It’s such a funny joke.”
“So who is this old friend?” I asked.
“Who?” called a voice. “None other than the great and powerful Trixie!”
A robot—one I hadn’t built!—came walking up on eight steel legs. A blue unicorn wearing a purple cape clasped with a large ruby dismounted and came creeping over. I say creeping, because when a pony had eight legs like he did, there’s no other way to describe it. It’s freaking creepy creeping.
“So you’re the ELF,” I said.
Trixie looked confused. His face still resembled female Trixie even if the voice was different. Perhaps it was part of the extensive changes he had gone through. “What?”
“Come on, you branded yourself as the Eight Legged Freak and didn’t think about possible acronyms?” I sighed. “This town needs a better quality of villains.”
“But Trixie is,” he said. “In fact, he has you to thank for that. Your so-called nuclear bomb caused this.”
My eyes lit up. “No kidding? For once radiation didn’t result in horrible, deadly mutations?”
He growled. “And now, Trixie is going to have his revenge. On you, on Twilight Sparkle, on this whole town! This robot was constructed specifically to help with that task!”
“There are a few basic problems with that logic. One, you might be an eight legged freak, but you’re still Trixe, which is kind of a gay name for a stallion, by the way. That’s a problem, because you’re an arrogant moron with less magic than mouth.”
I threw my voice in a poor imitation of Trixie. “And what’s the other problem, Valiant?”
Returning to normal, I said, “I’m glad you asked, Trixie! The second problem is, there’s no way I would let you beat me in a robot duel!”
“We’ll see about that,” she said.
“No, we won’t,” said Luna. “I may not be Celestia, but why don’t we just banish her to the moon?”
I thought for a moment. “Well...”
Luna lit up his horn. Trixie looked like he might have some idea what was about to happen and sprinted to climb back in the robot. Sudden realization hit me. “Wait, we still don’t know who built the robot or who the Crystal King is—”
But I wasn’t able to stop the spell in time, and Trixie went to the moon. It wasn't even very dramatic to watch. Freaking loony Luna.
“Great,” I grumbled. “Now she has the ultimate high ground. What made you think that putting a mutated freak with a robot in space was a good idea?”
“Nopony said that she could breathe,” said Luna.
I nodded. “Oh okay, that works. I just hope her buddy the Crystal King doesn’t give her a hand or something. Then again, I wouldn’t mind kicking his ass.” I frowned. “Wait a minute, alternate universe, so…her ass?”
“I think we can agree that the gender and title identity issues in Universe 63 really make these things hard to talk about,” said Twilight.
I shrugged. “I just want to kick ass. Any ass. Is that too much to ask?”