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// Two Masks, One Grave 
// Story: The MMDW: A symbiote in Equestria 
// by Comet Burst 
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I tried to scream again, but I wound up spitting up blood. The reflection was absolute horror. My face was divided down the middle. On one side was my usual reflection. My Mare Do Well mask covered the upper parts of my face, hiding my eye and mane, but the bottom half had three gaping holes in it, revealing my nose and chin. It wasn't the worst part, though. The other half of my face was pitch black tar shining in the predawn light. My eye was now a huge asymmetrical blob of white. Needle like teeth floated aimlessly around where my mouth should have been, looking like tentacles with s at their tips. I didn't look like me anymore, not Trixie or Mare Do Well or even Venom. I looked like my mirror, shattered remains of something.

I yanked my head up and away from the reflection. I couldn't take it anymore. I swung my head wildly and let out some hoarse screams. Around me black tendrils flailed in any and every direction. I stared at the still black sky and felt my heart beat faster. Random thoughts of panic spilled back into my mind and I felt the black begin to crawl back over my face. As it did, one thought burned above all of them. I wanted nothing more than to kill Venom. After all the torment he put me through, the piles of bodies he discarded, the pain he put Princess Luna through, everything. He had to die. With that thought burning in my mind, I felt his presence stop. The crawling on my face stopped as well and it clicked for me. I could overpower his will.

"Trixie! Oh sweet Celestia, Trixie!" came a loud and worried voice. I knew it was Luna and as I thought of her, Venom renewed his assault on my mind. I focused again of that one thought and yelled "Princess!" She ran into my vision and I continued "Stop... You have to... Stop us." I groaned and she froze. "What does that mean?" she yelled back and I fought off another attempt of Venom's. "You have... To... Stop me. I... Need to... Kill this thing!" I replied and her eyes widened. "Trixie, what are you saying?! If you try to kill him, you'll..." she stopped her sentence and a loud crack shot through the air. I cried out in pain but kept my focus. Venom was now breaking bones to get me to lose my focus.

"I know... What will happen." I gritted out "I have to... Do this. I'm the only... One... Who can." Luna's eyes were wide and she stayed still. I could tell what she was thinking and I did my best to look at her. "Please..." I called out "Please... Lu-lu. Please don't... Let me lose." Lu-lu was a special name I had for her, one that was made when I made her the most important pony in my life. She lifted a hoof to her mouth and began to have tears run down her cheeks. I only said the name when I was sure. Understanding crashed on top of her head and she knew. I couldn't hold him back forever and I was already weak. "No, not like this." she whispered to herself. Another crack echoed through the city and I screamed again, making Luna recoil. It had to be done.

Slowly, her horn glowed dark blue and the wind picked up. Cold air pierced the city and me. Venom sensed it too and a loud hiss came from his half. Above us, a vortex began to spin and I knew she had done it. It was a transportation vortex. It spun faster and the wind picked up, sucking itself up into the vortex. I felt an unfamiliar feeling of pure anger and terror at the cold mix into my emotions. I had never feared the cold. It clicked to me then. Venom hated ice and snow. I frantically fought against his influence to run, to attack Luna, to do anything but go in that vortex. Upon realizing he wasn't winning the battle of wills, Venom did the next best thing. Tendrils shot from my hooves and burrowed into the ground, trying to anchor me here. I spat curses in my ruined voice and tried to focus on them, but his presence in my mind seized the opportunity to wrestle control of my body away from me. I redoubled my efforts to focus on my hatred of him and threw off his attack, but at the cost of the tendrils. Despite my best efforts, Venom was too strong an entity to mentally fight with.

That was when it hit me. The lamppost I had been thrown into earlier snapped at the bend and flew towards me and Venom. He shrieked in response and assaulted my mind, but he was too late. The post struck me in the legs and I felt the tendrils snap, along with my ulna. Suddenly weightless, I flew backwards quickly towards the vortex, my cape sucking me in. I closed my eye and just let it happen, feeling serene and free. I had sealed my fate, but it would also seal Venom's as well. We would both die in the cold, together forever. I heard a faint shout of my name and an icy wind pierced my heart. It was Luna, suddenly regretting what she had done. The vortex, though, would not relent its grip on me. It was hungry, just like Venom. I felt myself compress to fit the diameter of the wormhole, and I was gone. Gone from Manehatten, gone from Luna, gone from Trixie and Mare Do Well.

I felt my normal shape reform and I fell face first into a soft pile of something cold. Ice cold. Venom reacted in his own way, screaming and thrashing about. I could hear the vortex collapsing and I felt him reach out. When he couldn't reach it, he... spit into it. I felt a rather large lump of something leave Venom and pass through the vortex as it collapsed, leaving just me and him alone. Frustration, anger, rage and hate all assaulted my mind. It felt like a wildfire burning against my mind and it started to hurt. Why would he just not die? I steeled my will to kill him and opened my eye. All I saw was white, lots and lots of white. So much of it, I was sure I was already dead. That is, I thought I was until he pushed my left side up. My numb face registered the cold, but there was an odd burning sensation on my cheek. The kind you get when you ice a wound. I forced my head to look down and saw snow. However, there was something else. A patch of dark blue against a shifting pile of snow. It was ice. I was in the middle of a giant frozen lake.

That was when it became too painful. Venom refused to accept the idea he couldn't control me and attacked my mind with a vigor I was not ready for. My will shattered and I felt his presence slither into my mind like a nest of snakes. I was unable to stop his advance and I felt the black on my face move again. I was losing. "No!" I shouted to the ice "No! Not when I am so close!" my hoarse voice rang out. Venom didn't care. I felt the heat and energy drain from my body and my hooves, then legs and flank go numb. He was consuming me faster to build a storage of energy. He was going to run. I refused to let that happen. That was when an uninvited guest entered into my thoughts. The memory of Strattos leaving burned into my mind and I felt pure anger well up in me. So much anger, Venom's presence disappeared.

Consumed by my rage at him, I reared back and pounded the ice. I remembered everything he said to me, all the fake compliments, all the lies and his harsh words. I wanted to crush them here and now. I was tired of dodging them. If I was to die, I was going to face those memories and destroy them. My repeated assault on the ice formed several large cracks and I reared up one last time. I felt my magic take hold and I fell forward. My leg bones shattered at the impact, but the ice buckled under my strike. I fell forward into the deadly water and heard Venom scream in terror.

The cold was everywhere. It pierced through Venom, through my hide and my muscles. My blood chilled, my organs froze and I felt the icy hand of death grip me. I couldn't swim with broken legs, I had no breath and my mind began to fade. I could sense Venom thrashing in the water, but it all seemed so far away. I was watching myself die like I was watching a show. It was all so far away. Eventually, I felt him slow and stop moving. My lungs burned for air and the cold was all I could sense. My heart slowed and my mind faded. There was nothing left of Trixie.