Trixie snarled in frustration. She yanked all the cushions off the old, slightly beaten up (but well-loved loved, Sweet insisted) blue sofa nearby into the air with a levitation spell. They began to savagely spin around the room, gaining momentum so that the azure showmare could—
The demure clearing of a throat cut through the sound of whipping cushions.
—so that the showmare could put them gently back in place. Trixie even gave the resettled cushions a little squeeze to daintily fluff them up with her magic.
“Things not working out so much?” asked the white-coated pegasus lazily lying on the floor nearby. She had a hoof on the pages of a trashy gossip magazine, keeping them from blowing over in the wind that the unicorn’s tantrum kicked up.
“Well, look!” The unicorn pointed accusingly at her workshop floor. There, in black marker, two neat designs were drawn: one a chaotic collection of swirling lines, straight edges and sub-diagrams, the other a thing of geometric perfection, angles carefully measured, lines intersecting at precise mathematical points. Over each hovered a small black storm cloud, crackling with static. The precise one played host to a cloud not even two-thirds the size of its counterpart. “It doesn’t make any sense. Trixie’s design is elegant! The flow is ordered and efficient. If Trixie’s old Thaumatology teacher from Celestia’s School saw it he would choke himself, groveling in apology, for saying that it was not her subject! But Twilight Sparkle’s mess is getting better results.”
The pegasus didn’t even look at the designs, instead inspecting the storm clouds with a critical eye. “Maybe you shouldn’t do clouds,” she finally decided, sagaciously. “You unicorns are terrible at it. Leave it to the professionals.”
The unicorn narrowed her eyes. “My clouds are fine,” she snapped, defensively. “It’s the same for any kind of magic. The clouds are just that much worse, for some reason.”
With a long-suffering sigh, the pegasus nudged her magazine closed with a hoof. Trixie didn’t spare much effort feeling sorry for her. Sweet hadn’t turned a page in the last half-hour. She had just been using the magazine as a prop to pretend she wasn’t watching.
As if I mind an audience! Trixie considered it further. Okay, so I’d mind an audience watching me mess up. But it’s different with Sweet.
The smaller white mare pushed herself up onto her haunches for a better view and studied the designs. “Yeah. Makes sense. Miss Sparkle’s is better,” she chirped not five seconds into the study.
“That’s absurd! Twilight’s leaks magic like a sieve. Half of the lines don’t even end back at the main bounding edge.” Trixie desperately pointed to the various parts of the diagram. “These weird sub-designs don’t even do anything! They just pollute the flow! Sparkle may be smart, but that isn’t the way magic works! Glyphs are a way to help visualize the flow of magic, and Trixie’s flows.” The unicorn brought the pointing hoof to her face. “Ugh. Why is Trixie asking a pegasus about magic?”
Sweet rolled her orange eyes. She beat her wings just enough to free her forelimbs. She then brought her hooves close together, as if she was squeezing down on something. “Miss Sparkle’s is right, though. It’s more... squishy.”
“Squishy,” Trixie flatly repeated, wearing the most incredulous look ever seen by ponykind. “Has that become a scientific term that I’m not aware of?”
Sweet nodded happily, which made the unicorn groan. The pegasus ignored the wordless protests and spoke. “Magic is all about pressure.” She brought her hooves still closer together. A bit of light fog gathered between them, slowly forming a tiny cloud the size of a flower petal. “If you want to make a cloud seed, you have to think of the air squeezing down between your hooves, with all the water being pushed to one spot. If you want to fall through a cloud instead of walking on it, you’ve got to think about air pushing it away from you. Bucking a cloud is more like... an explosion you gather on the end of your hooves. A whole lot of pressure squished down, which you release to pop it.” Sweet poked the cloud, dispersing it. It did indeed make a soft pop.
Trixie closed her eyes, as she often did when lecturing. She thought it made her look wise. “I said magic, not simple meteorology. Real magic, unicorn magic...” With her eyes closed, all the azure mare noticed about Sweet’s approach with the whisper-soft swish of beating wings. Those were easy to ignore. “... is all about the flow of energy. To make fire or light you dump it into a point and let it frizz out wildly. To make a sound you grab a bit of air and make a shaky flow to vibrate it. You make light pour around an object to turn it invisible. Magic is more like water. It isn’t something you can squeeze. It’ll just pour out around your hooves if you try.”
Trixie leaped in surprise as a hoof jabbed at her chest. She defensively brought a forelimb up across it. “Gah! Hey!”
“Real magic, huh?” The slight-bodied pegasus hovered nose-to-nose with the blue unicorn. Her eyes were narrowed dangerously. “When I’m carrying a stretcher and a pony twice my weight across town a hundred feet in the air, how am I doing that? If I’m keeping someone breathing with my wings, how am I doing that?”
Trixie flinched back. The orange eyes of that little mare could look intimidatingly intense. “Pegasus magic?” the unicorn ventured, in a small voice, hoping it was the right answer.
“Yeah. Pegasus magic. So don’t be a tribalist. It’s not nice, and not attractive at all.” A little flutter of wings had Sweet settling lightly back down on her hooves. “Maybe I was mistaken about you being the most desirable unicorn in all of Equestria?”
Trixie gave a little toss of her head, letting her immaculate mane bounce with the motion. “You were not.” The unicorn dipped her muzzle ever-so-slightly with a small show of contrition. “Sorry.”
Sweet smiled beatifically at her.
Oh, why does that make me give in every time she does it? Trixie complained to herself, if half-heartedly. It makes me feel like a dog that just got bribed with a treat.
Sweet settled in for a lecture of her own, sitting down on her haunches. “Right. Just about every one of us in Life Flight, and almost all the respiratory doctors in Equestria are pegasi. My magic can stretch to make the things I carry lighter, just like it does to me, to let Pegasi fly with these small wings. If you know how to do it, you can use your wings to force air into a pony to keep them breathing. A very few of us can even gather enough lightning to jump-start a pony whose heart stopped.”
Sweet herself couldn’t do that. Trixie knew the limits of her skill there. Still, she could collect enough of a charge to make for a nice, tingly hoof massage. Trixie shamelessly daydreamed that she was getting one of those mane-curlingly excellent treatments instead of a foalish lesson on medical magic. The unicorn wizard knew all of it already. She was a wizard.
The pegasus continued on, oblivious to Trixie’s wandering attention. “Most every other doctor is a unicorn. They have spells to heal, or to diagnose, or even just the fine control with their levitation to do surgery. Almost every nurse is an earth pony. Earth pony magic is passive, but nurturing. Plants, animals, ponies, whatever. They make things grow and recover. Patients statistically improve much faster when there’s an earth pony around trying to take care of them, even if they don’t seem to do anything special. Ponies are magic. All of us.”
Sweet Relief pointed toward Twilight’s chaotic circle, which captured Trixie’s attention once more. “That one’s right for a pegasus. You can feel a difference in the air there. It feels more squeezable and solid, like how a cloud feels.” Her hoof shifted to point to Trixie’s instead. “That one just feels like dead air. Just some scribbles in marker. Might as well be a picture of your face for all the good it does magically for me.”
“Okay. Trixie gets it. It’s a better explanation than ‘squishy.’ You might want to lead with the well-thought-out academic answer next time.” To soothe any ache from her little verbal nip, she leaned forward and warmly nuzzled Sweet’s cheek. “If Trixie was a pegasus,” She fought down the urge to shudder at the thought. “then it would make sense why the cloud spell was better in Sparkle’s glyph. For unicorn magic, Trixie’s is far superior. And Trixie is the one doing all the casting. Sparkle knows something Trixie doesn’t. And Trixie has to fix that.”
“Maybe it works that way because a pegasus looooves youuu,” Sweet musically crooned. Trixie rolled her eyes, extending a hoof to brace it against the pegasus’s chest, holding her at arm’s length as she tried to go in for a kiss. She turned her head away from said reaching attack, at least until Sweet gave up and sat herself back down, grinning. “Was that priest in Luna’s temple a pegasus?”
“No, an earth pony,” Trixie responded, confused. “Why?”
“Well, you calming down that riot was pretty great and—”
“Trixie was just going along her usual Monday routine. That mob just got in her way.” Trixie raised her nose with effete disdain. “And I really can’t abide idiocy. The day stopped, but it stopped while the sun was up. It clearly wasn’t Nightmare Moon’s doing, so why would they go blame Luna?”
“Uh-huh.” The bright-white pegasus seemed less than sold on the excuse. “And the free magic show at the Hearthfire Home for Orphaned Foals last month?”
“It was a charitable event. And thus, a tax write-off.”
“The fire at that apartment building downtown?”
“The smoke was hurting Trixie’s eyes. It had to be put out.”
“That replaced mare last week?” Trixie started to open her mouth to answer, but Sweet spoke back up to cut her off. “And before you say ‘the bounty’, I’m going to go ahead and remind you that there’s no bounty for hugging and comforting that crying filly about her missing mother, like you were when I got there.”
The showmare cultivated an annoyed look. “Is there a point to all of this?”
“Well, it’s just that you’ve gathered a lot of good will in the last few months, from a lot of ponies. That’s love too. Some of them are pegasi, some are earth ponies, and some are unicorns. Maybe that leaves a mark? Lets you be a bit more... pegasus-y?”
“That’s not a word,” Trixie objected, reflexively. After a moment of quiet thought Trixie give her cape a dainty fluff with her levitation. The hat might have been left aside, but she was working. The cape made her feel properly magical. “Still, sappiness and mistaken motives aside, it’s a workable theory.”
The unicorn reared up, as she was prone to doing, and flared her cape. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has been subduing apartment fires, changelings and generals...” Sweet blinked, mouthing the word ‘Generals?’ in confusion. “...for weeks! All she needs to do is explain how, and all the world will know Trixie’s name!” She fell down to her hooves and looked over to the pegasus with lidded eyes. “What I do know is that most of it is thanks to falling in dizzying love with the Sweetest and most Loveable pony in all Equestria!”
Sweet’s eyes softened, even glistened, in a deliriously happy sort of way. Such an absurdly mushy pony. Trixie couldn’t help but needle her for it. “Yes, without the beautiful flower that is the remarkable Leaf Swirl to direct her affections toward, Trixie would have been changeling-food by now.”
“Oh!” Sweet’s lovey-dovey look vanished with proper alacrity. She winced as if someone had smacked her with a hoof. She hopped in place in anger, and stomped down her forehooves. “Oh! You... you... bitch!” Her wings beat to throw her forward at the unicorn. However, capturing leaping fillies and mares had practically become Trixie’s specialty during the last few days. With contemptuous ease she ignited her horn. A pink aura surrounded dainty white hooves and snapped Sweet back to the ground, as if she was attached to it by a giant elastic band. She’d have fallen forward onto her face with the shock of it, if her legs weren’t being kept straight by the wrapping of the unicorn’s spells. “Lemme go so I can kill you!” the pegasus howled, wings all but buzzing as they beat rapidly, trying to overcome the magical grip.
Pegasi were just the most fun tribe to anger.
“Tempting! No.” Trixie unhurriedly placed her magazine and quill in their proper place. She even closed her notes and serenely dusted at the cover with a hoof. Only then did she turn to walk toward Sweet, a swaying, almost prowling gait to her step. “Oh, how ironic. You’re a strong flyer. You might have been able to overpower Trixie a few years ago. But now your own love for Equestria’s most magical unicorn keeps you trapped in place.”
“Second most,” the pegasus taunted in revenge, while putting all her body and wing power in try to trying to pull her right front hoof off the ground. “Oh, and I totally don’t love you anymore.”
With Trixie keeping the smaller mare in a wide stance, she practically towered over her. It let her sneer down at her in mock disdain with no small effect. “Oh, but you do, little cloudseed. It’s all in the wings.”
“Don’t call me that!” the pegasus snapped, a whining hint in her voice. As for her wings, she gave them a glance in confusion. She folded them neatly at her side, once it was clear they wouldn’t allow her to escape. There was nothing amiss with them. That was the case until little swirls of pink light began to dance on the tips of her primaries and secondaries. Her eyes widened. “Nonono! Don’t touch the wiiiiiiings.” She drew out that last word in a wail as the her feathers were pulled on. She tried to resist the tug as best she could, but she didn’t dare put any real strength behind it. If she lost one of her primary feathers, she’d be grounded for weeks, at least. Maybe months, depending on the feather. So she had to let her wings be drawn out to an almost lewdly full span. The look of keen vulnerability on her face was crystal clear to Trixie’s practiced eyes.
“The name is so fitting, Trixie thinks. Like the little wisp of cloud you gathered earlier, you’re a tiny, harmless thing. And also like a cloud, you’re at the mercy of greater forces. To get blown about at their whim, never deciding your own fate.” The unicorn stretched the other mare’s forelegs further apart and forward, and gave a slight tug on her leading primaries. It forced the pegasus to lower her forward half into a bow. Sweet snuck a furtive glance up at the smugly satisfied unicorn. She stood brazenly in front of the pegasus, one hoof raised in a dainty posture, totally unworried about the threat of Sweet’s anger. It was like looking up at one of the Goddesses. The pegasus found herself blushing and averting her eyes.
Trixie’s smirk only widened at that pink shade creeping up on those cheeks. It was such a dramatic thing on a white pony. Perhaps it was one of the reasons she was so... entranced with this one. That and the radiant coat. Those sunset eyes, the angelic wings, her bubbly voice, or the easy challenge her temper provided. Possibly it was the way she listened so unselfishly. Or the adoration in her eyes. Maybe it was the tender personality deep under her playful fire. There surely wasn’t any discounting those toned flanks either, with that saccharine-sweet Cutie Mark of a winged cloud, upon which was the silhouette of a pony curled in rest.
The showmare gave the mentioned mark a little pinch with her magic. Sweet couldn’t jump, but she certainly gave a violent twitch. “So, little cloudseed, you don’t have any objection to Trixie using that terribly accurate name, now do you?” The tiny, meek shake of a yellow-maned head that followed was a sweeter thing for Trixie than the roar of an approving crowd.
Oh yes, it must be love.
The thought itself seemed to get a reaction from the pegasus; a rustling of feathers spoke of a quiver passing through her. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and swallowed.
An azure hoof lifted the white mare’s chin. “Now, my dearest admirer, we go back to Trixie’s research.” The smaller pegasus’s eyes shot open, regained a bit of their previous fire, stoked to outraged disbelief in thinking that Trixie would go back to playing with markers after all that build-up. The showmare allowed herself a brief smirk. Misdirecting expectations was a well-learned skill for any parlor magician. Said magician leaned down to meet the pegasus’s muzzle with a slow, unhurried kiss.
The best part of researching love, Trixie thought, was the hooves-on experimentation.
She doubted Twilight Sparkle, if she was out of the hospital and thus an acceptable target for distant gloating, was having so much fun.
* * *
Trixie gently nuzzled the practically limp pegasus mare after she levitated her down onto the living room couch. “I love you, little cloudseed.”
The snowy-coated mare made a happy little sound of acknowledgement.
“Tell Trixie you love her back,” the showmare whispered, crossly.
Sweet mumbled something noncommittal. The white pegasus squealed as Trixie bit down on the tip of her ear. “Ow! I love you! I love you! Leggo!”
Satisfied, Trixie kissed that ear in apology, causing it to flick under her touch. “Good. I’ll be counting on it in the Everfree. Trixie promises she’ll be back. Know why?”
Sweet dragged over a cushion with a hoof, hugging it to her chest, the very picture of contentment. “Mmm, because you’re just as Great and Powerful as advertised?”
“Well, yes.” How nice of her to notice. “But also because no monster can keep Trixie away from her mare.” The wizard gave a resolute nod. She was rewarded with Sweet making another happy little sound and squeezing that pillow into a tighter hug.
A little flick of magic sent her hat soaring over to her. A look in the entrance mirror after a flare of her cape reassured her that her fireworks were securely hidden under it, just below the base of her mane. She fed a bit of magic into the enchantments on her clothing, to top them up. The collar of her cape reassuringly tickled the back of her neck.
She caught a glance at Sweet on the couch behind her as she passed, in that reflective surface. The pegasus wore a hungry look as her gaze followed the azure mare.
Her normally orange-irised eyes were tinted noticeably green.
Trixie pretended she hadn’t seen a thing as she left through the front doors, to meet the guide that would lead her to her next stunning and inevitable victory.
* * *
It stung Trixie, in a morbid way, to have to overpay for her final meal. Still, since she very likely had only a few minutes to live, it didn’t seem proper to wait for the stall owner to whip up a new batch of hay fries, so she’d just snatched up one on its way to a customer. Since she’d needed both the appearance of normality and a lack of anything that would point to her rising panic, she’d forked over enough bits to pay for a replacement basket and then some. At least the fries were passably good.
Four more changelings had appeared in her awareness. There were, at that moment, over twenty strands of green light, visible to Trixie’s mystic senses as luminous silk threads, stretching out from Trixie’s horn to connect to Equestria’s enemies. More seemed to be passing in and out of the range of her spell. They formed a ring around her, a ring that had been suspiciously constant since the beginning, save for numbers. She was being tracked and surrounded, that much was clear. Presumably once they reached some sort of critical mass to ensure their victory, beyond any reasonable doubt, they would attack.
Honestly, twenty is more than enough, Trixie thought as she munched on a levitated hay fry with all the appearance of normality. It settled into her stomach like lead. Maybe they just don’t want to make their move somewhere so public as the marketplace. Which is exactly why Trixie had headed there directly upon casting her detection spell and figuring out the likely reason for the sudden flood of changelings. It was all she could do not to break into a very obvious gallop.
Thank Luna that the nighttime sky was deceptive. It was five in the evening, technically, and ponies were doing their usual shopping. It was the second full day of night. The newspapers said that Luna would attempt to raise the sun at the normal time tomorrow. Apparently the magic she was expending to heal Princess Celestia allowed for no sooner change. For now, though, ponies were doing the best they could to carry on as usual.
Speaking of Luna.
Leaf Swirl was standing in front of the Moon Goddess’s temple. Or at least standing vaguely near it, as far as could be from the doors while still unquestionably being at the meeting place Trixie had chosen. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction. Celestia had all of her temples converted to civic buildings centuries ago. Trixie had visited a few of the old cathedrals in the older cities to marvel, as many did, at the breathtaking spectacle of them. Her recently returned sister was rather more old fashioned when it came to the idea of open worship. It made a lot of ponies, like Leaf Swirl, uncomfortable.
Luna’s little temple in Hoofington didn’t have anywhere near the presence of one of the bright, soaring old Cathedrals of the Day Mare. It was pretty enough in its own way, but it didn’t take much to stand out in this city. Hoofington wasn’t exactly known for having a hidden soul of artistry. Looking under the industrial surface of the city just found you more steam, smoke, and gears. The grounds of the temple were a refreshing, if small, oasis of green. There was climbing ivy, lovingly tended shrubs, and curving banks of flowers, all deep purple, dark blue, pale yellow, and white. The structure itself was a low building of silver-white marble, artificially aged and weathered to fit pony expectations of what a place of worship was supposed to look like, with all of Princess Celestia’s being so ancient. Of course, Celestia’s tended not to be marred with burn marks and chipped masonry.
“Really, she faced down the whole mob?” Leaf Swirl’s voice was in fanfilly mode. It was a tone that Trixie knew well enough. She was talking to a pony scrubbing the char from a statue of the Moon Princess. Trixie thought it was the temple groundskeeper. Night Flower? Lavender Flower? Something with a Flower anyway. Names weren’t the showmare’s strong suit. Most ponies didn’t take the proper time to make them as grand and memorable as her own.
Act normal.
“It was not, Trixie is sad to say, the only angry mob she has come across in her time. This one was easy, it wasn’t even after her.” She trotted over to the statue and brushed a bit of the ash from the plaque on the statue’s plinth. It had been discoloured by the heat of the fire that had been raised. As if burning a bunch of stone in effigy would have accomplished anything. “Like Trixie has been saying, if Princess Luna really had tried to kill Celestia and take over, it would have been night, not day. Everypony was just scared out of their tiny minds and acting idiotic.”
“Hello again, Miss Trixie.” The stallion groundskeeper gave her a little bow. His own voice carried a different tone than Leaf’s, one less familiar. Respect. Real respect. Trixie privately reveled in it. At least as much as she could when her vision was obscured by those threads, which were thickening as her hunters began to close in. She got her first sight of some of them entering the light of the market square. The lines pointed right to them. A stallion and mare, playing at being a happy couple, a delivery pony carrying a bundle of Hoofington Post newspapers. A new light appeared, tenuous and flickering, pointing to an armored unicorn stallion soldier. A younger, weaker changeling? Someone under a changeling spell?
Act normal.
The temple would make for a defensible enough place to take a stand. It had resisted the mob admirably. The door was iron-shod and thick. The windows were narrow slits, too small to get a hoof into, nevermind a changeling. Trixie didn’t feel any shame in forting up until the city’s police or the nearby soldiers got off of their hindquarters to save her. Life was its own reward. She could make her hiding away sound like a heroic, defiant last stand to the papers later anyway: the great monster-slayer, Trixie the Changelingbane, battling alone against the shapeshifter horde. The ‘alone’ part was another benefit of the temple; there was rarely anypony in it. She wouldn’t have to worry about amateurs getting themselves killed.
Act normal.
“Leaf Swirl, my dearest admirer, do Trixie a favor? I want to go into the temple for a few minutes before we head out to the forest.” She levitated a handful of bits from the pouch under her cape. “But I don’t want to delay. There’s an excellent coffee shop a few blocks south called The—”
“The Magic Bean,” the filly chirped. “I know it, yeah. Starshower, one of my herdmates, works there in the evenings.”
Act normal.
“Ahh, good then. Trixie likes her coffee milky and sweet. Why don’t you go with her, Mister Flower?” The groundskeeper smiled, which told Trixie that she had remembered that part of his name well enough. Thank Celestia for small favors. “Get a drink and a snack on Trixie, for all the hard work you’ve been doing. This place looks much better than it did a few days ago. There should be more than enough for both of you, and for Trixie’s order.”
To forestall any refusals or further attempts at conversation, which would delay their departure from the site of the danger, Trixie turned and started toward the temple entrance. She wanted the pair far enough away that they wouldn’t get it in their heads to try any futile heroics to help her. Pony instincts being what they were, Trixie counted on the strangers to clear out quickly, with all proper panic. One could never be sure with ponies that liked her. Thankfully, the only sound on her way to the door was fading sound of conversation as the pair went off to fetch her fake order.
Act normal.
Trixie took a last glance around, as if examining the building’s damaged surroundings. She lifted a hoof to keep her hat in place as she did it. She didn’t want her horn showing, to reveal that it was ignited in maintaining the spell. She didn’t want to even risk them thinking she was onto them. It would cost her any chance to prepare and barricade herself in.
The threads of light in her vision began to draw to steeper angles. Changelings must have been moving along the rooftops, trusting in the darkness of night to hide them. The enemies she could see were working their way closer, without making it obvious that they were doing so. The collar of her cape tickled the back of her neck as they closed in, the cloth itself moving in fluttering motions. It was host to a simplified version of the detection spell she channelled, suitable for enchanting. It was just enough to tell her if a changeling was nearby. Placing that spell on her cloak a few days after the attack on Canterlot had seemed a little paranoid, even to herself, at first, but it had paid off the first time she had been out on the way to the amphitheatre to give one of her shows, and instead become a local changeling-hunting heroine.
Then, of course, there was her first time visiting Sweet after the enchantment had been placed...
Too normal. Stop reminiscing. More panic.
Trixie slipped into the doors of the temple as quickly as she could while still adhering to her mantra. After that she abandoned subtlety. She spun around and wrapped the thick bar for the door in an aura of pink levitation magic. She slid it into place; it had a comforting heft. She abandoned her detection spell in favor of channelling a quick magical locking spell. She had used it for years for securing her cart before its unfortunate reduction to kindling by a stray Ursa footstep. The spell was woven into place across that the temple door, further reinforcing it. With that done she began to levitate tiny fireworks out from under her cape. She dismissed the enchantment on them, a modification of a standard reduction charm she called the Shrinking Violet spell. They swelled up to full size with an absurd pop. The spell had been her senior project in Advanced Spell Theory in Celestia’s School, and it deserved a far better grade than it had received. For the niggling restriction of only shrinking purple objects it gained a great deal of efficiency. Besides, purple went amazingly well with her coat and eyes, so what loss was it, really?
The restored fireworks were quickly set into a semicircle around the door and adhered in place with a simple gluing spell. It was little more than a version of the bog-standard unicorn levitation spell which could independently maintain power for a short while, to hold an object in place. The door, as formidable as it was, wouldn’t hold for long against determined spellcasters, so it was best to leave a surprise or two behind. The exhaust from the rockets would probably cause some small measure of damage to the moon and stars mosaic on the wall opposite the doorway, but stone artwork could be repaired a great deal more easily than Great and Powerful unicorns.
With that done, she turned and went deeper into the temple, to find the priest and enlist his help in barricading. When she rounded the mosaic wall to enter the main gathering area, she stopped dead, mouth agape.
It wasn’t the structure that was the shock. There was the same altar she was used to, holding a wide bowl of still water. The engraving in the back wall was likewise perfectly intact, the crescent moon with the silhouette of a winged, horned pony in front of it, inlaid with silver, a familiar-yet-different image so similar to Celestia’s symbol. It glowed with a beautiful, otherworldly light from moonlight shining down overhead through an annulus in the ceiling, as it did most nights. There wasn’t a single sign that a mob had been battering at the doors a week before... except that the mob seemed to have moved inside and become prayerful. Where normally Trixie could count on being the only visitor most of the time, now the main hall was crowded by dozens of ponies, in a whole rainbow of colours which impinged on the monochromic serenity of the room.
“Oh, come on! Not even Trixie is this unlucky!” The unicorn accusingly pointed at the symbol above the altar with a hoof. Her voice rose to a shout. “You can’t even cut a break for the Lulamoon clan, you old blue nag!?”
A sea of heads turned to face her. An ancient, dark grey earth pony at the head of that crowd somehow cut through a rising tide of muttered disapproval with his quiet, dusty voice. “Miss Trixie. While I appreciate your earlier aid, I would still ask you not to speak that way of the Mistress of All the Night.”
“In about half a minute this place will be swarmed by Changelings. Luna will have to get in line behind them if she wants a piece of Trixie.” The azure unicorn’s words were met with a rising chorus of panic from the crowd, as would be expected. Prayers were abandoned quickly in the face of crisis.
“We won’t allow it,” the old stallion wheezed. Despite the tired age in the voice, there was steel behind it. The panicked voices quieted, at least enough for the others to begin to listen. “We gathered here to give what aid and comfort we could to the Princess of the Night, as she suffers to save Beloved Celestia. Even those that were once out there with torches and angry shouts. Let them come. This is one bit of Equestria we won’t allow those creatures to defile.”
Trixie admired the stage presence of the stallion. She’d have added some reference to the Hearth Warming Eve play’s events. Too bad the impending doom had distracted her from the possibility of raising a mob. Only momentarily. It would have come to me eventually.
“Fear not, brave residents of Hoofington! The words of... um—” Trixie stumbled over her words. What was that priest’s name? Dusk, something? Cloud? No, that wasn’t an earth pony name. “—your priest are surely true! Stand with the Great and Powerful Trixie, the Celestia-proclaimed Changelingbane, and none will defile this sacred ground! Just... stand sort of far back from the door. It’s the only way in or out, and it will be exploding shortly. Unicorns, grab something to pelt or hit the changelings with.” Trixie barely contained a groan as a few of them missed the point and picked up objects with their mouths. “From a distance!” she added, pretending she had intended to say it all along. Thankfully, most got the hint and took hold of their assorted candle holders and odds and ends with their horns instead.
Honestly! No wonder the changelings just want to get me out of the way, but are ignoring the army. And unicorns are supposed to be the smart tribe.
Trixie was cut short while congratulating herself on her superior intelligence when black chitinous forms began to drop into the crowd from the annulus in the ceiling. The annulus in the ceiling which she hadn’t considered as a point of entrance for the creatures. The creatures who could fly and stick to walls, avoiding the closed, barred door she had so carefully booby-trapped. She didn’t even have time to face-hoof.
Venom-green fire swirled around the falling changelings. Trixie knew what they were doing even before their spells finished. They would clothe themselves in the appearance of normal ponies and cause confusion in the crowd. She’d have to keep the complex detection spell active to sort it out if matters degenerated into a brawl. It would take a few seconds for things to become mixed and chaotic. Seconds were plenty for Changelingbane! The unicorn wizard sprang into a gallop in the direction of the crowd, horn igniting as she prepared to prove, yet again, that she was the most dangerous unicorn in Equestria.
The ground in front of the charging unicorn exploded. A wave of veridian fire and force, heralding sharp shards of rock which bit into flesh, slammed into her and the crowd. Shouts of confusion and fear became cries of pain.
Trixie found herself at the far side of a series of shallow craters in the rough marble floors. She was flat on her underside, broken bits of rock poking into her barrel and belly, which added some spice to the sourceless ache in the rest of her body. Her ears were ringing. That was all she could hear, in fact. Silent green blasts detonated in the crowd, as lances of destructive changeling magic poured down from the ceiling. Trixie looked up, and immediately met the glassy blue eyes of a pair of drones looking through the annulus. The showmare swore they wore identical looks of smug victory on their fanged faces as their horns gathered magic. The magic that would cut short her life with a blast of green fire.
What a Sad and Disappointing end.
An iron candlestick, hurled with an orange-hued levitation aura, struck the rim of the annulus. It startled the changeling pair, making them flinch back momentarily.
Trixie didn’t let her absolute shock at the usefulness of the bystanders paralyze her. She ignited her horn and poured magic into that hole in the ceiling. A dense black storm cloud swirled malevolently into being to fill that gap. She wasted no time in scratching and kicking her way forward with an uncoordinated lack of grace. Her instincts were rewarded, however, when the ground she had been laying upon a moment before exploded under a fusilade of blindly fired spells from the opposite side of the obscuring cloud.
Not that it was a clean getaway. The nerves in her rump filed notes of stern protest at their introduction to more rocky shrapnel as the unicorn tumbled end over the end through the air, propelled by that series of concussions. Her short but eventful flight was interrupted when she struck the sturdy body of a mint green earth pony stallion. True to that tribe’s reputation, she bounced off, barely causing the stallion to stumble. His head swivelled around to face the sprawling unicorn. His mouth opened to voice a very unponylike hiss.
He rocketed up toward the ceiling with startling acceleration, trailing residual pink magic from Trixie’s ignited horn. The shapeshifted changeling flew toward the hole hidden by the storm cloud. A disgusting crunch, barely heard around the ringing in her ears, announced that Trixie’s aim had been a bit off. The sullen storm cloud burst violently from the disruption from Trixie’s changeling projectile. A bright flash and a roar of thunder, felt more than heard, filled the room, followed shortly thereafter by the sharp smell of ozone. She tried not to think about the chances that the changeling she flung was... not okay.
Trixie pushed herself drunkenly to her hooves, swaying, disoriented and wishing that self-levitation wasn’t nearly impossible. Raising her head made her whole world seem to spin, but she gritted her teeth and ignored it. The pair of changelings dangling in the annulus looked shaken and a bit singed around the edges. They would recover quickly, and so the azure wizard couldn’t afford to give them the chance. She wrapped them in her magic, and before they could use their own spells break her hold, Trixie slammed them together, letting them fall through the opening in the ceiling, into the mass of panicked ponies below.
There wasn’t any realistic way to pick out the enemies in the brawl that the center of the temple floor had become. She was sure there were far more groups fighting than there were changelings in the crowd. Though it was difficult for Trixie to gather her concussed thoughts enough for real spellcasting, she ignited her horn. She only needed the detection spell to reach across a single building, so at least there wasn’t any need to focus on holding a great deal of power. After a false start or two, dozens of lines flickered hesitantly across her sight, as if the magic itself begrudged her shoddy use of it. Six of those lines twisted toward the crowd, the rest pointing off toward the front entrance. She didn’t spare attention for the latter. Thankfully, only three of the nearby six pointed to actual, conscious ponies. The other half were sprawled on the floor, unmasked and unconscious.
Well, three she could handle. A unicorn stallion and mare, and an earth pony filly. After a moment of consideration, Trixie released the tracking spell and focused instead on something so familiar even her addled mind could conjure it without worry. Sourceless, colourful light flashed and the notes of her theme played out at blaring volume. The brawl came to a rather abrupt end, ponies and changelings alike blinking dumbly in confusion. “Attention ponies and changelings! Stallions and gentlemares! Yes, you with the red coat too. That’s a real pegasus you’re so coyly sneaking up on. Trixie has something to tell you all!” Raising her voice was making her head pound, but such was the price of proper showponyship. She oh-so-briefly considered rearing up on her hind legs, but that would have likely resulted in her falling over. Striking up a nonchalant pose by sitting on her haunches was likewise out, due to the sharp stone slivers currently doing unpleasant things in her hindquarters. She settled for retrieving her slightly singed hat from the floor and giving her cape a bit of a telekinetic flourish.
With that, Trixie spun four new storm clouds out of thin air over the crowd. A few months before, she would have had to strain to manage two, nevermind when shellshocked. She let the fanfare of the four simultaneous flashes of lightning be the show in themselves. One each for the mock-unicorns. Two for the changeling posing as an earth pony. It was a testament to earth pony magic that while the horned pair collapsed into shocked unconsciousness, charred and exposed, the filly merely stumbled woozily, a few burn marks along her back, green fire flickering as she tried in vain to keep her illusion in order. “Those were the changelings. You may all now silently thank the Sisters for the presence of the Great and Powerful Trixie, who has kept half of you from sending the other half to the hospital.”
A murmur started in the crowd, interrupted only by the leap of several ponies onto the fake earth pony filly, rising toward an inevitable crescendo of raucous, victorious cheering. Trixie raised her voice once more to cut that short. “The ‘silently’ was the important part. Trixie has to compose a plan to lead the other—” She squinted in the direction of the front door as she recalled the tracking spell. The blue unicorn nearly lost her count when there was the dull thud of a battle spell striking the thick temple doorway. She managed to hide the startled jump better than most of the other ponies, and even managed to sound properly unflustered when she continued. “—fourteen changelings away from here in a properly heroic manner.”
Preferably without the inevitable death inherent to those odds. Trixie used her earned silence to its utmost, running one impossible or stupid idea after the next through her mind. Raise the mob again? A mental image of ponies charging out of the door and getting blasted by changeling spells killed that idea quite promptly.
Green light spilled around the mosaic wall when the next blast was heard, the result of the door bowing inward, or the thick boards starting to break and crack, Trixie was sure. When the door failed there would likely be a new rush of changelings, through both that and the annulus, in an overwhelming wave. The only death more inevitable than a mad rush against fourteen-to-one odds was those numbers being delivered from two directions simultaneously. In a situation like that, the lives of the crowd would buy her a few meager seconds, and little else. No pony worth the name would consider a trade like that, no matter how value to Equestria that one pony’s excellence provided.
Trixie steeled herself, starting toward the ailing door. She affected an image of perfect confidence, somehow keeping herself from dragging her hooves like a condemned mare.
No time to plan, then. Excellent! I always did well with improvising.
* * *