Trixie cautiously peeked around a corner, making sure there weren't any other surprises waiting for her. With a deep breath she zipped to the other side of the room and peeked out again to see what she had feared was right there, a pony at the door.
She gave an audible groan of frustration. After keeping out of sight from all of the guards, all of the soldiers, and even restraining her urge to reveal herself to Twilight and her stupid friends, her only escape was blocked by a single unicorn. She had made it too far to turn back, and every fiber of her being wanted to just run. Run and scream.
She kept quiet as a Celestial guard rushed past her, still unnoticed.
"Stand aside," the guard called out. "I have a fight to win for the Princess of the Sun, rightful ruler of Equestria, Celestia."
The unicorn shuffled as her horn lit up.
"I will not stand aside and let you pass," she said. "Beyond here is the trip to the end. I have the ticket, but you must pry it from my fingers."
The guard blinked in confusion as he looked over the pony. "Fingers?"
With a sudden slam, Trixie saw a large 5 digit object crush the guard into the wall. It's digits bent and kept attached like live tentacles as it pulled away, seeing them bunch together and then stretch out again.
"These fingers," the unicorn finally responded as the magically created object picked up the dazed guard from the scruff of his neck. "These fingers hold the ticket, and these fingers belong to the Element of Cruelty."
Dropping the guard, the object came flying towards where Trixie was, making her gasp before she leaped away from the corner. She watched the hand bash through it, confirming her fear of how strong this unicorn was.
"Come out, Great and Powerful Trixie," the unicorn called out. "I want you to face a demon, she's called Lyra Heartstrings. She believes in humanity, and Discord has shown her the way for them to come back."
Trixie reached into her bag and pulled out a firework rocket. She was well-versed on how to make them, and she considered herself one of the best in setting them off. Aiming the fuse to her horn, she lit the rocket and hurled it out from her corner at the giant hand. With a loud whistle and pop, the firework burst the magic hand and made her grin. She pulled out another firework from her bag as she walked from her hiding spot.
"It seems that Trixie will need to teach this demon a little respect," she confidently said, throwing and catching the rocket in her hoof. "And I'll even make it fair by not using my incredible magic talent to take you down." She lit the rocket and threw it toward Lyra, watching it fly towards her face.
Lyra's horn was still lit from her standing position, unmoving as two giant hands walled in front of her, blocking the explosion. Trixie became confused, thinking that the hands were going to fade away. The hands moved away to reveal Lyra grinning ear-to-ear, making Trixie take a step back.
"Good," Lyra said, making the hands move out over her head and pointing to her. "I like to see others test themselves."
Trixie panicked and pulled out another set of fireworks and lighting it. Throwing it out, the firework burst out in a bright light, blinding Lyra and giving Trixie time to hide again. She began looking around at where she could go as she retreated.
"You're very good at running away," Lyra called out. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say your cutie mark would have been a trail of piss from running like a scared chicken."
Trixie grit her teeth and waited for a hand to come by to try and strike again. She watched as Lyra walked by and checked for the door, seeing a hand walking on its fingers and pacing back and forth. Knowing she was in trouble she did the next best thing she could try and pulled out her 'disappearing' spell egg. It was nothing more than dust trapped inside, but she knew one good shot could blind the unicorn and get her past the danger.
The guard had gotten up and wiped his mouth off before readying his pike. Giving a charge toward Lyra, he was stopped by the hand that went with her. A mighty swing cut into the hand and a cry of pain went out from Lyra.
The hand gripped the guard and began crushing him, the sound of bones snapping as the guard let gave out gasps of air.
"I won't let you die," Lyra coldly proclaimed. "I'll just leave you here, your bones tearing into your organs, but not enough to bleed out to death. I'll refuse you that right, in fact I'll let the wounds heal, then I'll break it again, then let it heal again, and then break it once more for the encore of letting you see the malformed mass of flesh that comes from it."
Trixie came out from her hiding place and stomped a hoof to gain Lyra's attention. When Lyra turned, Trixie's bag of dust was thrown into her eyes, letting her scream out in agony. Lyra's horn shut off, making the hands disappear and drop the guard on the floor. Trixie ran for the door and hastily attempted to open it.
The wails of Lyra started to become louder as Trixie realized that the half-blind unicorn was trying to rub the irritant dust from her eyes and stumbling toward her.
"I'll tear off your tail," she screamed, continuing her taunts as a cloudy shadow began to form over Trixie. "No, your spine! Leaving you unable to move as I parade your limp body across the town and torment you. I'll take your eyes! Your hooves! Your muzzle! I'll let your ears capture every wailing child and every pony screaming out 'Merciful Discord, what is that thing!'"
Trixie finally wrenched the door open and held it closed tightly behind her, still hearing the threats and painful sobs of who she had barely made it by.
A slow clap began behind her, prompting her to put her back to the door to see what else was waiting for her. She watched as two giant hands clapped behind her and an insane laugh coming from the complete darkness.
"This, is your final destination," an echo of Lyra's voice called out. "There will be no escape!"
Trixie felt the floor around her lift up and stumbled forward. When she stood back up, she was surrounded by stars and the platform she was on didn't have much option in the escape department. She had to fight or be thrown out into space and left to an unknown fate.
She gulped nervously as both hands took opposite sides of the platform. With nothing to lose, she lit up a firework rocket and threw it to the hand on the left that was jutting its fingers in and out wildly. Her focus then came on the shadow that came over her as the other hand had made a fist and started to move to crush her.
Moving out of the way in time, she bit at the hand that attempted to harm her for good measure, making the hand go up and wave off the pain.
Her focus was too drawn to the waving hand as the left hand had crawled out like a spider and trampled over her, tearing her cloak and making her hat fly off into the void around her. She gave a snort and ripped the rest of her cloak off.
"You call upon the wrath of the greatest magician in all of Equestria!" she screamed out toward the wiggling hand. "And you shall have it!"
The hand attempted to sweep her off, but Trixie jumped up in time and began riding on top of the wiggling hand. She lit a cluster of fireworks as the other hand went to flick her off. Jumping off, the cluster went off, hitting both hands. They went back to their sides, but Trixie jumped up at the right hand and began flailing her hooves at it before dropping back to the floor.
She went back into her bag of tricks and lit a bottle of Hot Cider, throwing it up in the air as the two hands prepared to charge her in the middle. Hoping to time it right, she avoided being hit by the bottle and jumped in time for the hands to clap down on the bottle and light both of them on fire. Her rage was halted as she noticed bright lights at the fingertips of the right hand.
A stream of light burst out of its fingertips and struck Trixie, knocking her back into the left hand as it started dropping it's own explosives. Trixie tried to block herself with the little time she had and had been blown near the edge of the platform, her hoof kept a grip on the edge as she looked down to see an infinite void. Both hands began to move to where she was before a far away scream of excitement was heard.
The hands tried to locate the sound of the noise, but still couldn't seem to find it.
"-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-" the happy squeal continued until one hand was stomped to the ground, shocking the other hand back.
Trixie finally managed to pull herself up to see curly, bouncy, annoyingly happy, Pinkamena Diane Pie.
"That. Was. AMAZING!" She screeched out. "I just kept falling and falling and falling, and at first I was really scared that I was going to die because I couldn't fly. Then I saw the star stuff around me as I fell and I went 'OOH! I'm in space!' then I kept falling and did space stuff like moonwalk, see the stars, watch the void, and met this giant flying frisbee that had these things with eyeballs on it living inside!"
The hand underneath Pinkie pulled up from under her and pulled back two fingers while pointing its remaining fingers at her with it's thumb pointed upwards. Trixie heard a sound of ignition and pushed Pinkie out of the way as two cylindrical objects came from the two fingers and exploded when they hit the ground.
Pinkie had no time to thank Trixie as the other hand had decided to try and sideswipe them. Both ponies barely avoided the flying hand and watched it circle around and settle back to its spot.
"What are these things?" Pinkie asked Trixie, her backside against Trixie's own.
"Hands," Trixie hastily answered. "That's what the other unicorn called them."
Before any other questions were asked, the right hand made a motion that seemed to taunt them to come to him. Trixie pulled out another rocket and was ready to light it when with a gasp she was pulled up with a stretching rope that was around her body. The left hand had made a fist and was ready to crush the two ponies against the wall of the right hand.
Trixie and Pinkie landed back down and Trixie had realized she was wearing a blue snowsuit and Pinkie was wearing a pink snowsuit. They both had hammers too for some odd reason.
"Hit it!" Pinkie screamed as the left hand came close to them. With a stomp of the hammer in her hooves, the left hand began exploding, a loud scream of pain coming from it. Both Trixie and Pinkie turned to the right hand as it went to sweep them off the map. Trixie threw a firework up to her horn, lighting it as it continued up. Pinkie pulled out a cannon and readied it, the time feeling slowed down for both as the hand came barreling towards them.
Trixie swung out her hammer and smashed the firework towards the hand and in unison, Pinkie shot her cannon. The explosion was large; the right hand gave out it's cry of agony as it also exploded and fell out into the void.
With a flash of light, both Trixie and Pinkie arrived at the slowly filling room of survivors, many held back by magic walls to prevent them from attacking others.
"I'm digging the look," Discord lisped as he wormed out from behind the two ponies. "It has that sense of saying 'We're a team, but we're different!' to it while keeping extra toasty!"