o----[ Chapter 5: The Great and Powerful ]---------------------o
Lyra looked at me expectedly from the other side of the picnic table. A hay sandwich was in her hoof with a huge bite taken out of it. There was absolutely no way out of it now. Tentatively, I nibbled at my own sandwich, not wanting to offend the musician sitting on the other side of the table.
“It’s good.” I forced a smile, trying not to show how sick real food could make a stomach that was accustomed to digesting love in liquid form.
The look fell from her face. “You don’t have to lie.” She muttered.
“No really.” I insisted, not wanting to offend her. Lyra was the closest thing I had to a friend besides Twilight and she was my employer so that didn’t count. knowing I was going to hate myself for this later, I took a huge bite out of the sandwich, chewing and trying to overcome my gag reflex. I overestimated my will power however, and I soon spit it out on my plate. “Okay.” I admitted. “I don’t like it.”
Lyra shrugged. “So how’s it going at Twilight’s?”
Twilight? When I left for the park this morning, I had to calm her down again. It had been two days since Princess Celestia’s letter and the odd pony with the magic box and Twilight’s assurance in her abilities was beginning to fray again.
“Interesting.” I responded, throwing my sandwich and the paper plate it sat on into the trash. 5 bits wasted. “She over reacts a lot. For someone so smart, she isn’t always the most... level headed.”
“Yeah, remember that time when she enchanted her old doll so everypony would fight over it?” Lyra laughed. “My girlfriend and I had bruises for a week afterward..”
Girlfriend? Um... well... I... uh... okay then... Lyra looked at me expectantly, as if she was gauging my reaction. “I wasn’t around for that.” I choked out. Really, I had no problem with it. She could date whoever she wanted. It just caught me a bit off guard.
“Oh, yeah.” She dismissed. “I guess I forgot.”
“So, uh, what did you say you studied again?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“I didn’t.” Lyra replied, swishing her lemonade around in her plastic cup. “You’d think I was crazy if I told you anyway.”
Glad that awkward moment was gone. “You’d be surprised what an open mind I have.”
Lyra smiled. “I study mythological creatures.” She stopped swishing her lemonade. “Actually, everyone says they’re mythological, but I don’t think they are.”
“What are they?” I asked.
Lyra looked around. “You’ve probably never even heard of them.”
“Try me.”
“Well, they’re these things called humans.” Lyra flinched when she said it. “My girlfriend doesn’t like it when I tell ponies about them. I used to be really obsessed with them, and everyone thought I was crazy.” She sighed dejectedly. A subtle droplet of love splashed on my nose. I resisted the urge to try to lick it up. Yes, I know it sounds gross, but it’s what changelings do.
“Well, I’ve never heard of them.” I replied.
“There’s a book on them in the mythology section in the library if you’re interested.” Lyra suggested. “It’s called ‘Anthropology: the Study of Humans and the Things They Left Behind.’”
“I’ll check it out.” I promised. “But don’t expect me to start spouting that they’re real.”
“Eh, I’ve gotten used to ponies saying they’re not real. You’d just be another one. Even my special somepony tells me that I’m missing some of my marbles.” She smiled, showing her white teeth. She finally downed the lemonade in her cup, slamming it down onto the table and crushing it. “Let’s get out of here. I need to work off all this energy.”
“Where to?” I asked as Lyra levitated the plastic cup over to the garbage can.
“To the movies of course!” Lyra announced, earning looks from other outdoor patrons of the restaurant.
“The movies?” Immediately my knees began quivering a bit. “Where we’ll sit in a dark room filled with other ponies?” I could feel my phobia of crowds beginning to rear up.
“Uh, yeah. That’s kind of the side effect of going to a movie theatre. You coming?”
NO! Absolutely not! Just say no! “Sure.” WHAT? I forced a smile. “What are we seeing?”
“Batpony!” Lyra answered. I followed her as she walked down the street, her Lyre case floating next to her until she tired of carrying it with magic and rested it on her back. “His parents died of gang violence so he learned ninjutsu or something and hunts down evil so that what happened to him will never happen to anypony else!”
Sounded interesting at least. I could only hope that it wouldn’t be a popular movie so the theatre wasn’t full. I knew that my fear of crowds was a bit irrational, but that didn’t help me get over it. Every time I’ve been in a place packed with ponies, I’ve found myself quaking, short of breath, and thinking irrationally, and I didn’t want Lyra to see me like that.
Lyra trotted down the street happily, she turned to me and tapped her lyre case. “I hope you don’t mind if we stop by my place on the way there to drop this off.”
“Of course not.” I replied.
“My girlfriend works today, so she won’t be home.” Lyra continued without giving a hint that she even knew that I responded. “Maybe you’ve met her. She works in Sugarcube Corner.”
Pinkie Pie? Despite Pinkie’s party animal vibe, I never expected her to actually be in a relationship (let alone that kind of relationship). I was about to ask her about this when we reached the town square. A group of ponies was gathering. “What’s going on?” You asked Lyra.
“Heck if I know.” Lyra shrugged, cantering over toward the center of attention. I followed her, unnerved by the amount of people bumping into me as Lyra insisted to make her way to the front of the crowd. I slowly struggled behind her, saying sorry to every person I just so happened to touch until I finally emerged at the front.
“Twilight?”
The group of ponies were watching Twilight as she exchanged spells with a caped figure wearing a large hat.
“What’s going on here?” I whispered to Lyra beside me.
“That’s Trixie.” She whispered, glaring at the mare dressed in the starry cape. “She was run out of Ponyville two years ago. What’s she doing here?”
So these townsponies run ponies out of town? Great. Now I know I’d have to run again should I mess up and “Is she evil?”
“Well... Not the last time she was here.” Lyra admitted. “We were all kind of acting off of adrenaline from a giant bear made of cosmic energy attacking the town, and we took our anger out on her.”
“A giant bear made out of cosmic energy?”
“Yeah, It was a weird day.”
Twilight lashed out with her magic, striking Trixie square on the face where... a mustache suddenly grew. Not exactly awe inspiring, Twilight. Trixie countered this by spawning a pair of scissors and cutting it of. Well played, Trixie. You cut off a mustache. I would never have seen that coming.
“This seems kind of...” I started, unsure of where I was heading.
“Lame?” Lyra offered, a toothy smile on her face.
“Yeah.”
“Enough!” Trixie shouted suddenly. “Snips. Snails. Step forward.”
A pair of colts stepped out of the crowd and timidly made their way to Trixie.
“What is it Great and Powerful Trixie?” The smaller, pudgier one inquired.
Trixie, with hardly a warning, blasted them with a crimson bolt of light with her horn, causing a poof of red smoke to blow up from the ground beneath their hooves. When it quickly cleared, the two colts had been transformed into a baby and an old grandpony.
Twilight gasped. “An age spell? How can you do an age spell? Only the highest level unicorns can do age spells!”
“What’s the matter, Twilight?” Trixie bragged, polishing her pin. “Give up?”
“You can do it Twilight!” Somepony in the crowd shouted, a sentiment that was quickly mirrored by another pony.
“Yeah!” I joined in, a blush growing on my cheeks. “Show that mean Trixie who’s boss!”
Twilight tried to hide an exasperated look before closing her eyes; her horn lit up with her powerful magic. Snips and Snails began levitating, purple lights corkscrewing around them. She could do it, I thought. After all, if this Trixie character could do it, Celestia’s personal student could. Right?
Twilight’s horn flared suddenly, the light flickering sporadically. She wavered unsteadily, stubbornly trying to keep the spell from petering out. My sympathies went out to her. I knew what it was like trying to control unruly magic. My broken horn served as a spigot through which my magic could escape, but without a horn to direct the flow of magic...
Twilight’s back left hoof slipped on something unseen, and that was all it took. She lost her concentration and Snips and Snails fell to the ground, unchanged by Twilight’s attempt at restoring their proper age.
“I win!” Trixie screeched in a voice that seemed just as surprised as the crowd was. “Ah, I mean, of course I would win. The Great and Powerful Trixie is the highest level unicorn!” She let out a demented maniacal laugh.
“Do you think she’s laying it on a bit thick?” Lyra whispered. I didn’t answer, stepping toward Twilight to comfort her. Her confidence for her upcoming performance would be shattered, I suspected.
“Now,” Trixie said, a dangerous tone creeping into her voice, “It’s time for you to leave Ponyville! FOREVER!”
“What?” I shouted. The crowd milled nervously behind me, discussing things in hushed tones. Twilight’s friends quickly stepped up to defend her, barring her line of sight to the purple unicorn.
“That’s enough Trixie!” Applejack shouted. “You can’t expect Twilight to leave!”
“Fool!” Trixie shouted. “She’s already gone.” Her horn lit up with red energy, surrounding Twilight with her aura. She shot off the ground, spinning around violently as she shot off down the road out of Ponyville.
“Twilight!” They shouted, running after her.
“Stop!” I commanded at Trixie as Twilight’s friends chased her down. I hoped they could get to her before something bad happened.
“Why should I?” Trixie said, her horn flaring with a sudden blast of red light. A giant upside-down fishbowl materialized above Ponyville and hit the ground. I felt the shockwave and made an educated guess that Twilight was outside of the fishbowl. “The condition of the duel was that the loser leaves Ponyville.” She said, smugly smiling at me.
What did you do, Twilight? I never pegged her as a pony who would be so impulsive to make a deal like that.
“Fine then,” I stated, “I’ll fight you!”
Wait... Did I really just say that? what was getting into me? Was it Twilight, my one friend in this town being mistreated? Maybe it was my turn to run somepony out of town.
“How could you beat Trixie when you’re not even a unicorn?” Trixie smirked.
Time to pull some changeling magic. “I am a unicorn!” I shouted, green fire sprouting on my forehead as I edited my Midnight persona, not caring how I could explain it later. It cleared to leave a jagged bit of keratin; That was all I could spawn with my changeling horn broken. I wondered briefly what I was doing and what I hoped to accomplish using a horn as badly damaged as mine. It was too late now, though.
“So you are.” Trixie conceded, a glint of surprise in her eye. “Or half of one at least, but you’re wasting Trixie’s time. Trixie has already beaten the best magic user in town.”
“I might be better than you think! I live with Twilight!”
Her horn suddenly lit up, and I levitated into the air, my limbs flailing wildly. “That would certainly explain how you hid your horn. The Great and Powerful Trixie has never seen such magic!” Trixie stated, squeezing me uncomfortably with her telekinesis. “The Great and Powerful Trixie demands you tell her your secret!”
She wouldn’t like the answer. “Let me go!” I choked out through clenched teeth as Trixie’s grip slowly tightened.
“Was it your cutie mark? It appears to be a stack of books; is disguise your real cutie mark?”
“LEAVE HER ALONE!” A familiar voice came from the crowd. A mint green pony separated herself from the masses, her horn glowing green as she popped the levitation bubble Trixie had around me. I fell to the ground, landing unsteadily on my feet. I turn to my savior, Lyra, to see her smirking while keeping a wary eye on Trixie.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Lyra smiled wryly. “Now you’ve got me wrapped up in this.”
“I try my best.” I retorted. The crowd had started to thin out after Trixie defeated Twilight, but now there was a new spectacle and the crowd was beginning to refresh itself.
“Two on one?” She rolled her great and powerful eyes. “The Great and Powerful Trixie can take on a thousand unicorns!”
“Care to put your bits where your mouth is?” Lyra taunted.
One of the sides of Trixie’s mouth twitched upward in a half-smile. “Gladly.” Her horn lit up, summoning a much larger version of the pies she had thrown at Twilight earlier.
Lyra summoned a light green force field hemisphere that enveloped the two of us and the pie splattered messily as it impacted the magical barrier. She turned to me hastily. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, she didn’t hurt me too much.”
She looked relieved before snapping back to battle mode.“It’s her necklace.”
“What?” I asked,
“Her amulet lights up every time she uses magic. I’d be willing to bet that’s the reason she’s more powerful than Twilight. If we can get it off of her, we’ll stand a chance, but I don’t like our odds as it is.”
“Great. I like all or nothing.” Experimentally, I reached out to my horn, something I hadn’t done since I almost burned down my mother’s home. It lit up with sickly green magic before suddenly launching a flaming green ball that bounced off the force field. Lyra yelped as it flew past her, jumping around until the magic dissipated.
Lyra narrowed her eyes on my broken horn.“Can you control that thing?”
I shrugged. “There’s a reason I keep it hidden. It’s not as reliable as I’d like it to be.” Actually, it wasn’t reliable at all, but I didn’t see a reason to worry her with that.
Lyra opened her mouth to respond when a pickaxe suddenly hit itself against the force field, causing a spiderweb of cracks to snake across the hemisphere surrounding us. “Looks like our time is up. You’ll have to tell me all about it when this is all over.”
I nodded, knowing that Lyra wasn’t looking at me. “What’s the game plan?” The pickaxe hit the field again, widening the cracks and chipping the surface so that a small triangle of the upside-down fishbowl could be seen through a hole.
“Get her pendant away from her.” She responded, taking a battle stance.
“And if we can’t?”
“Plan B.”
“Plan B?”
“I’ll tell you when I think of it.”
the pickaxe struck again and the force field shattered into a million green shards. Lyra’s horn glowed fiercely; mine erupted in green flames. The battle began.