Even as Twilight, Pennington, and the rest of her friends ran up on the scene, what was happening became painfully obvious: there was a hooded unicorn bulling ponies in the town square. She had recently zapped Rarity into a dress that even the most color-blind of ponies would cringe at, causing the drama queen to swoon and faint, quickly carried away by Applejack and Pinkie Pie.
"Hey! What's going on here?" Twilight asked, glaring at the hooded figure.
"Well, well, well! If it isn't Twilight Sparkle!" The pony pulled off her hood to reveal a sky-blue mare with a silver mane and an all-too-familiar face, sending a collective gasp through the crowd.
"Trixie..." Twilight growled, feeling rage quickly building.
"What's she doing here?" Spike muttered, baring his fangs.
"Hmmph! You call THAT great and powerful?" Rainbow Dash huffed from above. There was a flash of red light, and Rainbow Dash was enveloped in a puff of red smoke. When the smoke had cleared, one of Rainbow Dash's wings was grotesquely larger than the other, causing her to veer off course and fly out of control.
"Good one, Great and Powerful Trixie!" Snails's voice called out from the crowd.
"Quiet, you!" Trixie snapped, sending another bolt of energy at Snips and Snails. When the smoke cleared, the two unicorn colts were affixed at the horn, sitting on top of one another, one inverted over the other. As they began to panic and run from side to side, they would periodically flip over and swap place, creating a comical display.
"Stop picking on my friends, Trixie!"
"You and I have some unfinished business, Twilight! My magic's gotten stronger since-" Trixie was cut off as a blue scimitar went spinning past her head, slicing off the ends of her hair and cutting her mane a few inches shorter. This sent another shocked gasp through the crowd, and all eyes, including Trixie's, came to rest on Pennington.
Twilight was shocked to see Pennington's face flushed, and the stallion was giving Trixie a glare that would have bored a hole straight through solid metal. His horn was still glowing, and another sword was quickly forming out of the white mist coming from his horn.
"Consider that your warning shot, Lulamoon..." He growled, stepping between the two rivals. "I've been having a good day, so I'm going to be generous... You have thirty seconds to get out of my sight, you filth!" He spat his words to her, obviously only barely keeping his anger in check.
Trixie stood there, obviously in shock. "P-Penny! It's me, Trixie! Don't you remember?"
"I know who you are, and I know your name... But all I see is an empty drawer of bits, a stolen manuscript, and an empty room upstairs I can't bear to sleep in..." If Twilight had thought that Pennington couldn't look any more angry, she was proven wrong at this point, as he began walking forward menacingly. She could see blood running down his legs again, and she looked down at Moonstone, who was staring at Pennington with a mix of shock and fear.
She must be seeing something different from the rest of us... I can only imagine what...
"You two KNOW each other?" Twilight shouted, drawing Pennington to a stop halfway between herself and Trixie.
"Of course we do!" Trixie replied, rolling her eyes, somehow only slightly put off by Pennington's rage. "Unlike you, bookworm, Trixie doesn't go unnoticed by stallions! It looks as though you've met my boyfriend, Pennington Inkwell!"
Twilight's jaw dropped in shock, as did Spike's and the jaws of several other ponies in the crowd.
"Make that 'ex-boyfriend,' Trixie!" Pennington began walking forward again. "In fact, you can promote me to 'worst nightmare...'" Finally, he reached her, their faces only inches apart. He was snorting loudly through his nose, obviously getting more and more angry. "You and I have nothing left for each other, Trixie. You destroyed all of that when you left!" Behind his back, another scimitar was beginning to form.
"Penny, just let me explain-"
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT, TRIXIE!" He screamed in her face, losing his temper. "I took you in when you had nothing! I gave you a home! You were closer to me than my own family!" Trixie flinched a little as flecks of his spit landed on her face. "And you used it to rob me! You took everything you could grab AND YOU LEFT! WITHOUT A WORD!" His legs were bleeding profusely, and the pain was obviously feeding his anger as he lost control.
Twilight was shaken out of her shock by a clawed hand grabbing her leg and shaking it violently. Looking down, she saw Moonstone, who was trying to get her attention.
"If you don't want to be cleaning up the blood of two ponies, you need to stop him!" She whispered, pointing at the sword swinging behind his back. Twilight looked up, trying to think of what to do. She reached out with her magic, hoping to crush the sword back into smoke, but it was too late: it had already swung around from his back and was heading straight for Trixie's throat. Trixie didn't flinch, even as the sword exploded into smoke when it reached her. Pennington stood for a moment, still enraged, but somehow not looking surprised at the turn of events, either. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just undergone a harsh physical challenge. Trixie smiled, mocking him.
"I knew you wouldn't do it, Penny..." She whispered.
"DON'T CALL ME-" Pennington was cut off as there was a huge burst of red light and smoke that engulfed them both. When the smoke cleared, Pennington was frozen in mid-scream, jaw dropped low and face contorted in pure rage, again. Rolling her eyes, Trixie levitated him to the side and out of her way.
"I'll deal with you later, dearest. I let you have your fun screaming, but you will listen to me when I explain the truth to you..." She pecked his cheek as he floated away before turning back to Twilight. "And we'll have to fix up those legs of yours..."
"Pennington!" Twilight reached out with her magic again, trying to free him.
"It's a time freeze spell.." Moonstone whispered, once again able to see more than everyone else. "He's not paralyzed, she's just stopped him in place... He's not afraid." In spite of this, however, Moonstone ran out to Pennington, going unnoticed by Trixie, and quickly began examining him.
A wave of relief washed over Twilight, though it did nothing to relieve her anxiety as she saw Trixie advancing on her. Time freeze spells were high-level magic, and she'd only dared try them on inanimate objects, like clocks. If Trixie was performing this kind of magic, something was VERY wrong.
"My magic's gotten stronger, Twilight Sparkle! And I've come back to challenge you to a magic duel!" Trixie cast a quick spell, re-growing the hair that had been sliced off by Pennington's "warning shot." "The winner stays, and the loser leaves Ponyville forever!"
"Forget it, Trixie! Why would I ever agree to something like that?" Twilight shook her head.
"Hm. Your choice..." Unhindered, Trixie picked up Spike, rolling his body into a ball and bouncing it up and down.
"Trixie, put him down!" Twilight pointed her hoof at the magician with the order. "And let Pennington go!"
"Not until you agree! Until then, I'm simply going to keep casting spells!" Trixie grinned as she tossed Spike through a hoop that she had summoned on the side of one of the buildings.
"Why are you doing this?" Twilight shook her head in confusion.
"Why? Because you humiliated me!" Trixie stamped her hoof, summoning a small screen depicting the events of the past, starting with Twilight's "defeat" of the Ursa Minor and changing with her narration. "After that fiasco with the Ursa Minor, I was a laughing stock! Everywhere I went, I was laughed at and ostracized! I couldn't make a living anymore, and I was reduced to living on the streets!" As the image changed, all present saw Trixie, completely alone and literally "in the gutter," laying outside, shivering in a complete downpour. "I found the single pony in all of Equestria willing to take me in, one pony that you hadn't corrupted!" The image changed again, this time showing the thoroughly drenched, mud-splattered, shivering Trixie desperately knocking on a door. There was a moment of stillness, then she started to walk away. She stopped after a second, though, her ears beginning to pick up off the top of her head. Twilight watched as the door swung open, revealing a shocked and confused Pennington, who quickly ushered her in. "He offered to let me stay with him, and our love was inevitable..." Twilight felt an indignant rage as the scene momentarily cut to the two of them locked in a passionate kiss before changing again, this time to Trixie running out of the door, saddlebags bulging. "Unfortunately, Pennington made a horrible mistake on one of his 'adventures,' and I set out to correct it, thinking I could catch him... By the time that I returned, he had left his home without any kind of sign of when or if he was planning on coming back. He obviously thought that I had abandoned him and stolen from him... Ashamed by what happened, I went to make sure that I could redeem myself, but I still had the same problem! You ruined me so badly, ponies still hadn't forgotten! Eventually, I had to take up work on a rock farm just to make a living! A rock farm!"
"Hey! You're lucky a rock farm would take the likes of you!" Pinkie Pie shouted, only to have her mouth magically "deleted" by Trixie.
"Now, I want revenge, Twilight! And I'm not going to stop casting spells until I get it!" She grinned as another bolt of red energy jumped out, this time taking the library itself in her grasp. Unrelenting, she picked the tree up out of the ground, turned it upside down, and began shaking it. Books fell out of the windows at every shelf in the library was emptied, as did Owlowiscious, who was doing his best to catch a few of the books.
Twilight looked around her, taking in the sights of Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, Pinkie Pie and even Pennington. Trixie was hurting all of them... And she wouldn't stand for it any longer.
"Fine, Trixie! Let's duel!" She felt a burning determination in her chest, a desire to protect her friends.
"Excellent!" Trixie immediately undid all of her spells, with only the exception of Pinkie's mouth and Pennington's stasis. "If I lose, I'll never set hoof in Ponyville again! But if you lose, you're the one banished from this one-horse town!"
A collective gasp came from Twilight's friends.
"And Pennington?" Twilight nodded towards the blue pony, who was starting to look ridiculous in his frozen state.
"What about him?" Trixie looked over at Pennington and Moonstone, then back at Twilight. A glint of realization lit up in her expression, and she began to first chuckle, then laugh.
"Y-you mean- You two are- Oh, this is rich! You're already where you belong: lapping up my sloppy seconds! I'll tell you what, Twilight Sparkle... Penny said it himself! I'm having a good day, so I'm going to be generous: the winner gets Pennington under their hoof..."
Twilight's heart skipped a beat as she imagined what would happen if she lost.
I've got to win this... If I don't, I could lose Pennington just after I've finally gotten him back!
"PENNY!" Pennington screamed, finishing his sentence. He blinked a few times as he realized that his entire surroundings had changed. He was now in his own home, laying on the couch in his living room. He sat up to see Moonstone walking in from the stairwell, holding a bowl.
"Wha-What happened? Where's Trixie?" He jumped up, only to feel extremely dizzy and lay back down again, gripping his head. "I don't feel so hot..."
"She put you in a time freeze." Moonstone stepped up to him, offering the bowl. The familiar scent of ramen noodles helped steady his head, and he picked it up out of her claws with a quick levitation. "It's been several hours since then..."
Pennington shook his head, trying to beat back the slew of questions popping up in his mind. "But... what happened?"
"Do you want the long version or the short one?" Moonstone asked, offering him a spoon as he began to gently sip the piping hot broth from the soup, feeling himself revitalized.
"I have a feeling I could only handle the short one..."
"Twilight lost the magic duel, and now Trixie's banished her and taken over Ponyville with an iron hoof." Moonstone cringed as Pennington nearly spit out his soup, only barely choking it down before breaking into a coughing fit.
"W-What? That's impossible!"
"And she seems to think that she needs to convince you that he was right to leave... Seeing as the spell finally released you, I would guess that she's on her way right now..." Moonstone took a quick glance out of a the window leading towards Mane Street. The small street they lived on was still empty, and there was nopony in the usually busy Town Square. "What happened between you two, anyway? She told us that you took her in, the two of you fell in love, and then she left to stop you from making some kind of 'terrible mistake...'"
Pennington shook his head, narrowing his eyes as he swallowed another mouthful of broth. "She left because she got what she wanted: my bits. She was homeless, and I offered her my home to stay in until she could get back on her hooves... We both grew... used to the arrangement." He looked down into the bowl, using the spoon to take a large bite out of the noodles before starting again. "I trusted her with everything. She was my... assistant." He looked at Moonstone, somewhat anxious about using the term. She simply stared at him, her arms crossed impatiently.
"Trust me, I'm not offended. It just means there's no way I can be worse than the last one. Go on..."
"Well, it happened after I'd come back from one of my trips to go and find the-" Pennington's jaw dropped, and he thrust his hoof into his forehead.
"What? What is it?"
"The Alicorn Amulet! I was so angry, I didn't even notice that she was wearing it!" He slapped himself several times over. "It all makes sense, now! She stole my manuscript, my notes, my maps... She must have known that I was trying to put it back where it belonged, and gone to get it herself! She took my money because she thought I was taking it all the way back to Saddle Arabia, and that's not a cheap trip!" He laughed with glee, rocking back and forth on the couch. "After all this time, I finally figured it out!" After a few seconds, however, his smile quickly faded. "I got dumped for a piece of jewelry..."
Moonstone chuckled, even though she knew that, given the circumstances, the levity was inappropriate, and gave his shoulder a gentle pat.
"I had been making plans to take up a job with the Royal Night Guard, and I'd even passed all the qualifying tests. I wanted to have a life with her where I wouldn't be traveling..." He sunk down into the couch as the pain of the memories returned. "I was going to settle down, take the steady job... My acceptance letter was in the mail when I came back from donating the amulet to the Museum of Magical History! But... she was gone. No note, no explanation, she'd just left with all of my stuff. It broke my heart, and I had to tell the publishing company I couldn't rewrite the novel... It was a huge hit in my career, since I'd been mentioning the book for some time to my fans, and they all wanted it so badly. I was depressed for a long time, even to the point of using my pills to stay up for days in a row, just so I could sit there and stare at blank pages... I couldn't write for almost a month... And all that came out was depressing poetry." He let out a long sigh. "She ruined my life at the time, and I never got over it. I swore that if she ever came back to Ponyville, I'd make her pay, but... When the time came..."
"I saw." Moonstone smiled. "You wanted to, but the good in you won out, and you couldn't hurt her... not in cold blood like that."
"I can't lay a hoof on her, Moonstone! She's untouchable!" Pennington groaned and laid back again. "If I'm going to fight her, I just can't bring myself to strike the first blow! I want to hurt her, but-"
"But you're an honorable stallion?"
"Hmmph, you make my weakness sound noble..." He muttered, setting the now-empty bowl down and turning inwards to face the couch.
"Well, if Ponyville ever needed noble, it's now! Trixie's taken over as a tyrant, demanding that everypony serve her and remake life here in her own, twisted image! She's put the whole town under a giant magical barrier, and Twilight's stuck on the outside!"
Pennington took a deep breath, trying to muster up the courage to do something, but the overwhelming feeling of defeat was too much, and he quickly sank into apathy.
"Sounds like a job for somepony who can actually do something about it..."
Moonstone jumped up on top of the couch, looking down at him. "Come on! In the face of oppression and wrong, is Scorching Quill going to lay around and say that it's 'somepony else's problem?' Is Daring Do going to lay down and take a nap while evil reigns? Will Pennington Inkwell give up, after felling kings and toppling kingdoms? After staring down monsters and battling the feral creature that grew inside of himself? YOU are just going to lay around on your couch and sigh?"
Pennington seemed to ponder the questions for a moment, then rolled onto his stomach. "Well then, 'Little Miss Hero,' what's YOUR bright idea?"
"You've already adopted one false identity..." She grinned, happy to see that he wasn't too depressed to at least listen to her. "If Pennington Inkwell can't strike down Trixie, maybe somepony ELSE can..."