//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: The Adventures of Trixie if Her Father Was a Badass Alien 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	The Cult of Awesome slowly closed in around Trixie.  Despite the dark night, it was easy to see that each adversary pony brandished some kind of knife.  They were slowly encircling her.
Trixie picked up the M60.  The ship’s captain looked thoughtful.  “You’re out of firepower.  I mean, if you had any left, you would have used it on us already, right?”
That was true, but the machine gun still had some use.  With a sticky charm, Trixie bonded her switchblade to the end of the barrel, forming a makeshift bayonet.  She completed the spell just in time for the first attacker to try his luck.
The long arc of the slash was easier to accomplish with the whole gun for her magic to hold onto, and the extra weight helped with force.  The blade cut the attacker pretty badly.  He yelped and stumbled backwards.
Trixie whipped her weapon in the other direction to counter another pony coming from her other side.  This was just a straight thrust, and Trixie tried to line it up with the shoulder joint of the leg that was holding the knife.  Stabbed, this pony also retreated from battle.
Then the whole cult decided that maybe an overwhelming attack would work better.  As the entire group rushed forwards, Trixie slammed her knife blade into the deck, standing the machine gun up like a post.  Leaping to the top of the buttstock, she then jumped higher towards the sail rigging and caught a rope with her teeth.  Swinging towards the rear of the ship, Trixie was able to kick one pony in the face with a back hoof.
Her momentum carried Trixie over the mass of cultists and up to the steering deck at the back of the ship.  She knew where the shoreline was supposed to be, even if it was hidden by the darkness of night.  Swinging the wheel around, Trixie pointed the ship in that direction.  The quicker she could get back on land, the better.
The cultists began to pour up the staircases that lead to where the wheel was positioned.  Trixie ran further back and swung over the stern railing of the ship, improving her hoof grip with a bit of magic. She crashed through the windows of the deck below.  It turned out to be the captain’s cabin, and Trixie seized a large book of charts.  Opening the door, she saw that the deck was abandoned—momentarily.  She would have company soon.
Heading out the door with the book floating in front of her, Trixie tried to figure out her next course of action.  Everything was decided for her as the group chasing her opened the overhead hatches and began to drop down.   Trixie whacked the first few in their faces with the book.  She sprinted for the other end of the deck, aiming for the ladder at the other end.  A pony dropped down it just as she got there, and Trixie knocked him out of her way with a bolt of magic.
She arrived back on the main deck about where the fight had began.  Trixie turned to where her skateboard and stuck gun were waiting for her.  She started to tug on the M60 to get the attached blade out of the wood deck, but an attacker was running in her direction.  Carefully timing her attack, Trixie stomped on the tail of her skateboard and the nose whipped up and cracked the pony under the chin.
Exerting a large amount of magic, Trixie yanked the machine gun from where it was stuck, brandishing it menacingly at the rest of the cultists who had not yet been wounded.  They had all stopped dead, perhaps reconsidering their attack.
“Too awesome for you?” Trixie taunted.
“Who-who are you?” the captain stammered.
If the Flim Flam Brothers had reacted badly to learning her name, perhaps Trixie could use it to her advantage her.  She smirked.  “Me?  Why, none other than the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
“Uh, yeah, that’s kind of what I thought.”  The captain did not seem to be looking at Trixie’s face.  A sneaking, horrible suspicion came over Trixie, and she glanced over her shoulder.
She had eight legs, the extras sprouting from her body grotesquely.  This was the twisted form Trixie had taken when initially mutated.  The air around her practically glowed with radioactive magic.  
Managing to hide her trepidation, Trixie swung her gaze back to the crowd in front of her.  “Pick up your wounded and then lock yourselves in the brig.”
“Right away, ma’am!”  The captain barked orders and the whole group of cultists sped below decks to throw themselves in jail.
When they had cleared the deck, Trixie opened her package of special brownies.  This was a situation that required her to eat two—not only for the medicinal aspect, but as comfort food.
Her changed body reminded Trixie too much of the pony she’d once been.  While it was true that she had improved, some of the things that had happened were hard to forget.  Her freakish appearance was a hard reminder.
There was no way to tell if taking her medicine now, after the fact, would help.  Trixie carefully folded her legs and lay down on deck.  There was a faint hint of sunrise on the horizon and she watched as it grew, revealing the coastline only a few miles distant.
Trixie’s life had never been easy.  She was long estranged from her parents; and her brother, while caring, had been in continuous trouble with the law.  And then he’d disappeared completely.  It was hard to admit, but Trixie thought that she might never see him again and she would never know why.
Her traveling magic show had worked for a while, but Ponyville turned out to be her undoing.  Everything she thought was bad in her life had only gotten worse, not to mention her own fall into maliciousness.  The crime, spitefulness, and finally intense radiation had twisted her into something inequine.  It was something of a miracle that things had worked out the way they had.  Trixie had been given a chance to start over.
The sun continued to warm the horizon.  Hesitantly, Trixie checked herself.  Only four legs remained.  This was an intense reminder of the chance she had been given.  She vowed not to waste it.  She sighed with relief, rolling onto her back to look at the fading stars.  
As the sun continued to rise, the whole sky brightened and the stars disappeared.  The ship sailed into the shallow coastal waters and nudged into the sand, a gust of wind sticking it solidly aground.
Carrying her belongings, Trixie departed.  A few curious ponies had turned up to look at the ship.  She told them about the crazy cultists aboard and advised somepony to fetch the police.
Then, Trixie mounted her skateboard and rode away.