Some say that time heals all wounds. Those ponies would be wrong.
I have spent the last ten years of my life traveling the world in a search to redeem myself for my actions, when I foolishly followed a person who taught me how to be the strongest unicorn in all the land, with power that can rival and surpass even alicorns. During my travels, I have done my best to help out wherever I can, fighting the forces of evil if needed and using my great magic to try and save lives--more often than not succeeding. But it doesn't matter how much good I do or who I save, I still get the same reactions no matter where I go. They hate me; they fear me. I can see it in their eyes and from the way they act around me. Oh, they wouldn't dare attack me; they are far too afraid of me for that, but they don't need to attack for me to get the message.
What did I do that was so bad to warrant all this hatred? I went along with a person who did something for me in a few months, that my own two parents failed to do for the full eight years that I lived with them. She showed me love. She taught me and acted like a mother to me. I didn't care that she was a psychopath bent on ruling Equestria and dragging it into darkness with her forces from hell; she was still my mother. I followed her into battle as she led her mind-controlled forces against the ponies of Canterlot, a force that shouldn't have been beatable. But thanks to a certain bat, we were completely defeated, even if I don't know how he did it. Although in hindsight, it was probably the orange filly that really helped to lead the final strike against Morgaine Le Fay. She was the one who convinced me to turn against my own mother to stop her plan to take over the world, even though it tore me apart to do so. But the pony was right; she was out of control and had to be stopped.
With both my mother and the bat dead, I had no reason after the battle to stay in Canterlot or Ponyville, despite the fact that the princesses had both pardoned me for my actions against them. So I packed up my items in what remained of my traveling wagon and left to the great frontier, heading from town to town with guilt in my heart for what I had done--and hope that I would be able to make up for it. But I soon found out that the ponies hold grudges. No matter which town I headed to or where I tried to stay and help, I was hated. Ponies would 'boo' me in the streets as I passed or throw things at me, things that hurt. I was insulted beyond my breaking point multiple times, and when the time to defend myself came, I did so. That was the first time I realized how terrified they were of me, seeing the look of fear in their eyes as I used my magic to simply defend myself. It was then I realized that I would never be able to make up for what I did, that they would forever see me as an outcast and a monster. So, now I stay away from the cities as much as I can and only enter the small towns at night--so that I don't draw suspicion or fear. But I keep busy, hunting the scum and criminals of the land. And they all fear me, more than the bat that has shown up in the east.
My name is Trixie Lulamoon. And I am the most feared pony in Equestria.
/W\
Hoofington.
Nearly all of the lights in the town were out for the night, for no sane pony would be awake and in the streets at this hour, no matter how strong or skilled with magic they were. Ponies everywhere knew that the night belonged to only two kinds of ponies: the criminals and the bat. But in this far off town, the bat was only an urban legend and the criminals were the ones who ran the town. But there was one place that stayed open this late, a small bar located at the edge of town, so that all of its customers could drop in without being noticed or forced to wander the streets of the town. Many of the scum of the area were drawn to it like moths to a flame, and the roar of the drunken ponies terrified the ponies that lived in the area, keeping most of them up at night. The criminals and scum believed themselves to be untouchable. They were horribly wrong.
The bouncer, who stood outside the bar to make sure that the ponies who were kicked out didn't get back in, tilted his head slightly as he heard the sound of wagon wheels coming towards him. He turned his head and narrowed his eyes to try and see through the darkness of the forest that surrounded the town to try and see the wagon, which slowly began to emerge from the darkness of the forest. He raised an eyebrow at the single cloaked figure that pulled the wagon, noticing how the pony seemed far too small to be able to pull such a wagon, especially since he didn't see an aura of magic on any part of the wagon, meaning that the pony was pulling it by herself. He didn't say anything since she (the build of the pony caused him to assume it was a she) pulled the wagon into the parking area and hooked it up to the locks, which were rigged to be broken by the owner of the bar so that he could steal from them. But then his eyebrow went up even further as a blue shield placed itself around the wagon, a shield the he knew was a grade five shield spell. That got his attention, since only a hoofful of ponies could produce a shield of that strength, and none of them were ponies that he wanted to mess with. But he still had to hold out a hoof to stop the pony in the brown cloak when she tried to enter the bar, feeling a chill run down his spine as she turned her hooded head to look at him.
"Sorry miss, but at this hour only special guests are allowed inside," he said in a gruff tone, hoping that his voice, along with his build, would be enough to get rid of her without the need for violence. She didn't say anything in response, but he saw the light from under her hood glow and he knew immediately that he was going to have to fight her. But much to his surprise, a large bag of bits came out from under the cloak and she waved them in front of his face, taunting him with the means of easy money. He hesitated for a second before he quickly grabbed the bits and placed them in his pockets. "Alright miss, feel free to head inside if you want, but I'll warn you now that a lot of these ponies aren't very nice, and you may not walk-" He stopped talking when he realized that she had already walked by him and was heading into the bar. He let out a small sigh and shook his head.
"I feel bad for her. Poor gal don't know what she's gotten herself into," he said. The mare closed the door behind herself as she entered the bar, her nose scrunching up slightly as the overpowering smell of liquor burned itself into her nostrils. Every thing and pony in the room smelled of it, and it was far worse than most of the bars she'd been to. Under her hood, her eyes quickly looked around the room and studied the ponies there, figuring out who was going to be a problem. At one table in the corner, two bulky stallions were hoof wrestling each other, with the smaller of the two clearly outmatched. They paid her no mind as she entered, but she placed them under 'trouble' anyway. Her eyes shifted to a large group of very well-dressed stallions sitting in the center of the bar with mares falling all over them, multiple tough looking stallions surrounding the table. The stallions with the mares? Pathetic. The guards? 'Trouble.' Finally, her eyes scanned the bar itself where a group of "friends" were all sitting together and laughing out loud, their tone and demeanor telling her that they were drunk. Probably would be a problem, or they would pass out on the spot. Either way, she had business to attend to and if they interfered they would be dealt with.
"What can I do for ya?" the pony behind the counter asked as she walked up to the bar and sat down on the least revolting of the bar stools that she could find. He looked up from cleaning a mug for only a second to examine her, his eyes doing a quick look over to try and figure out who she was. The cloak held up and he looked away with a shrug, placing the mug down as he turned his full attention to her. "Ah said, what can I do for ya? If yer not going to buy anything and just sit there, then I'm going to have you thrown out."
"I'm looking for information," she responded quietly, her cloaked head barely moving as she spoke. The bartender frowned as he tried to peer into her hood, but it was pulled down too low for him to see anything. The cloaked pony noticed that the talking had died down a bit and it was a little less noisy, meaning they were all listening to her a bit.
"Information can be a dangerous thing, my little pony," the bartender said with caution in his voice, noticing the other patrons' eyes all looking at her now. "I might have the information that you want, but it will take a little something for me to--" A thin smile spread across his lips as a small bag of bits slid across the counter. He scooped it up with a chuckle and looked up at her with a smiling face. "Alright, you've convinced me. What do you need?"
"Where does the criminal Blackjack and his gang of cards call home?" The bartender backed away from the pony while the entire bar went silent. All of the conversations stopped and all eyes turned towards her. She didn't move a muscle as she heard the sounds of chairs scraping across the floor, while ponies got to their hooves--or from the sound of those hooves, began walking towards her. She just waited for her answer.
"Miss, I'd tell you, but there's no point telling a dead pony," he said with a sigh as he crouched down behind his counter. "Ah'll sell your wagon for ya." The pony narrowed her eyes as she felt a hoof place itself on her shoulder, and she turned her head slightly to look at the stallion who glared down at her with a smile.
"I'm one of the ponies who happens to follow mister Blackjack," he said with a dangerous smile, tightening his grip on her shoulder. "And he doesn't like ponies that try to find him, especially since he prefers to do all of his recruiting personally. So what does a little mare like yourself want with him?"
"You have three seconds to get your hoof off of me, before I put you in the hospital for the next six months," she said in a quiet voice, causing all the ponies in the bar to start laughing when they heard her threat. The pony moved his mouth close to her hood with a chuckle.
"Then go on, little lady," he said with a laugh. "Do your--" The words never left his mouth as his left hoof was caught by her magic and spun nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, the sound of the bones snapping were quickly covered up by the sounds of him screaming in pain. The cry of pain only lasted a few seconds because a bar stool caught him in the gut and launched him across the room and into the wall, where he sank to the floor without a sound. She quickly rose to her hooves and spun around to face all of the other ponies in the bar, each of whom was pulling out a knife or a weapon of sorts.
"You've just made a big mistake, miss," one of the ponies in the center of the bar said as his bodyguards started to head towards her. "You're dead now. Boys, get--" If the situation hadn't been so serious, the pony behind the counter would have laughed as the beer mug smacked into the stallion's jaw and dropped him to the floor. His bodyguards roared in rage and charged at her, but quickly found themselves helpless against her magic as she lifted them into the air and drove each of them through a separate table. The two that had been arm wrestling barely had time to take a step forward, before they were each hit by a blast of magic that sent both of them flying across the room.
"Gotcha!" yelled one of the stallions who was supposed to be drunk as he grabbed the cloaked figure from behind. As she started a spell, he grabbed her hood and pulled it down...and both his eyes widened in shock as he looked into the eyes of the pony who was underneath of the hood. A long white mane had come tumbling out, falling from her Azure coat, and her purple eyes burned with rage as she glared at the pony who had grabbed her head. He quickly let go of her and backed away, all of the other ponies that weren't laying in the floor did the same as she slowly turned to face him.
"Oh dear Faust," he whispered with terror in his voice. "You're Trixie."
"Correct. And you're done." Faster than the stallion could register, she grabbed him and his buddies with her magic and threw them all through the front window, looking around the room as she heard the glass shattering to make sure that all of her threats had been neutralized. With only the mares on the couch cowering from her, she walked up to the counter once again and looked down at the cringing bartender, lifting him up with her magic so that he had to look her in the eyes.
"P-lease don't hurt me! All of the bits are in the register!" he screamed as he tried to cower behind his hooves as tears fell down his cheeks, the sheer terror in his voice ringing across the room. Trixie held him in the air for a few seconds to wait for him to calm down before she let him go, watching him drop to the floor with an 'umph.'
"Very well, I will not hurt you if you tell me what I want to know," she said in a quiet voice, looking down on him with narrow eyes. "Where are the Blackjack gang located?"
"T-they're in the caves to the north of the town!" he squealed as he tried to get even further underneath of his counter. "Y-you can't miss them, even at night! Please don't hurt me!" Trixie turned and headed for the door, ignoring the whimpering of the pony as she exited the bar. The bouncer gasped when he saw her leave and backed up against the wall, looking away with fear when she turned her head to look at him.
"I'm going to be gone for the night and I want you to look after my wagon," she said quietly, but he could hear the threat in her voice. "If anything happens to it by the time I get back in the morning, there will be no hole or crevice that you can hide in where I won't be able to find you. Are we clear?" After watching him nod his head nearly twenty times in the span of a second, Trixie turned towards the north and began to walk, figuring by the light of the zenith of the moon that she could get there and back just as the sun came up. She flipped the hood back up over her head as she headed towards the north, planning on making this quick.
/W\
Just as the cowardly bartender had squealed to her, the caves that supposedly held the infamous Blackjack gang were not that hard to find. In fact, Trixie saw the light gleaming from lanterns outside of them before she saw the actual caves themselves, telling her that the criminals were so confident that they didn't care if ponies knew where the caves were or not. And since the royal guard in the surrounding area was either bought or afraid, there was probably no pony who would deal with them. That's where she came in.
While most of the populace feared her as a monster and a traitor to Equestria, the higher-ups and those in office regarded her more as a bounty hunter of sorts, because she took the cases that most ponies would consider insane or suicidal. She was the one they contacted when they wanted a group of thugs or a criminal mastermind dealt with, but she only operated in areas far away from Canterlot and Ponyville, where the mysterious bat worked late at night. A few days ago the mayor of this town had contacted her and said that she needed the Blackjack gang brought down. The mayor had an election coming up, and she wanted them gone so that she could take credit for their removal, hoping to win the election as a result. Trixie really didn't care if she was recognized or not; she was already feared enough as it was and as long as she got paid, it was a small matter.
She looked up from the path on which she had been walking for the past two hours and headed for the rockier part of the area, where the cave system entrance was located. She stepped into the massive cave and narrowed her eyes, noticing how dark it was inside. A regular unicorn would have used a light ball spell or lit up their horn to gain some light, but that could give away her position. The solution was the 'light in darkness' spell, a spell that allowed her to see in the darkest of places as if it were sunny inside the cave. She blinked once as the spell took effect before she headed inside, looking around with ease while she looked for where the gangsters were hiding. However, she saw them long before she heard them, and she placed herself against the wall nearest to her as she slowly began to creep forward, looking around the corner to see two stallions talking to each other.
"I can't believe the boss just offed Stormhoof like that just because he dropped a barrel of bits," one of them said with a sigh as he stood on top of what looked like a bridge, holding a small torch that hurt Trixie's eyes when she looked right at it. "Dude didn't deserve that."
"Naw, dude was constantly screwing things up and I heard that the boss had been planning to off him for a while," the other one said with a smirk. "He got what he had coming to him." Trixie decided that she didn't care much for this conversation anymore and decided to shut the two up. She fired a stone spell towards the one with the torch, leaping forward with a burst of speed as the spell hit and the pony began to fall forward, immobilized as if he had suddenly turned to stone. His partner couldn't even give a startled cry as two hooves hit him in the back of the head, dropping him to the ground as azure magic caught the torch before it too could hit the floor of the cave. Trixie held the torch in front of her and blew it out with a single blow, dropping it over the edge of the bridge and watching as it fell into the darkness below. She left the two ponies laying there as she moved on, knowing that they wouldn't be going anywhere until she wanted them to. She continued to follow where the path took her until she came across a large room filed with an even larger number of ponies, none of whom looked to be the friendly type. She hid herself against one of the stone pillars that held up the ceiling as she scanned the room.
The place was filled with bits, most of which she assumed were not gathered in a legal manner, but they were insignificant compared to the pony that sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by mares and sitting on a golden throne. He was a dark black pony with red eyes and a red spade for a cutie mark. Trixie noted the horn on his head. She already knew who he was and was figuring out her best way to bring him down. The five stallions that sat in the room with him would be no problem, and her biggest concern was whether she should get rid of the lights or not. She decided that direct confrontation would be her best bet, so she stepped forward into the room, gaining the attention of all the ponies there.
"And just who the hell are you?" Blackjack asked with a snarl as two of his lackeys ran forward to try and grab her, but were quickly sent flying back the other way with a blast of magic. The rest of the gangsters would have attacked, but Blackjack held up a hoof to stop them, a coy smile playing on his lips. "Well, whoever you are, you certainly are a skilled wizard. Come on darling, take off the hood and introduce yourself." Trixie smiled under her hood as she reached up and slowly removed the hood, her smile growing wider as she heard the collective gasp of all the ponies there.
"Holy Faust. You're-"
"Trixie Lulamoon," she said with a slight chuckle, her horn starting to glow as her eyes narrowed. "And you're all dead." She fired off a pair of spells that dropped two of the stallions before they could move while she spun around and fired another spell at the third to finish him off. The mares screamed and ran for their lives, but were all stopped with another stone spell, leaving just Blackjack, who had backed up against a wall to get away from her.
"W-what are you here for?" he asked in a much higher voice than Trixie had heard only a few seconds ago, pressing his back up against the wall as Trixie slowly advanced towards him with her horn aglow. "If it's money, I can pay you! I'll triple whatever you're being paid!" His eyes shrunk as Trixie began to laugh, her dark laugh echoing throughout the chamber.
"Why would I want you money?" she asked him as she continued to advance forward. "No, what I want is to hear you scream." Blackjack began to whimper as she got closer and closer, but her attention was drawn away from him and to the sounds of hooves running across stone. She turned her head so that she could look behind her to see that ten more stallions had come running into the room, each of them holding a weapon of sorts.
"We heard the screaming, Boss, and decided to check up on ya," one of them said as he looked from the boss to Trixie, his eyes growing wide as he saw who it was. "Holy Celestia, it's Trixie! What's she doing here?"
"How should I know? Kill her!" Blackjack roared at his goons. The group looked at each other and shrugged with uncertain eyes, and they all let out a yell and rushed her, raising their weapons over their heads as they charged.
"At least give me a challenge," Trixie said with a smirk as she caught the first one in a magic sphere and used him like a bowling ball to knock the others aside. She picked up two of them and used them as a pair of bats to finish off any of the stallions that had remained conscious. She dropped the two "volunteers" with a smirk when she noticed the shadow of a pony failing to sneak up on her. "Seriously?" Trixie asked as she grabbed Blackjack with her magic and tossed him forward, watching him slam into a wall and slowly slide down.
'That takes care of them,' she thought to herself as she levitated some rope that had been left on one of the tables and tied up the ponies that lay around the room, leaving them in a corner as she started to look around. Blackjack's desk seemed to be the only place of true interest, so that's where she investigated first. Besides a few of the more vulgar items, she found a number of notes that caught her eye in one of the drawers. She picked them up one by one and started to read them with a bored expression at first, but got more interested while she read in more detail. As she studied them further, a scowl crossed her face as she discovered that Blackjack had been taking orders from somepony and hadn't been acting on his own.
'So the damn mayor was the one ordering the foal around?' she thought to herself with a growl as she held the note in her magic before she placed them inside of her inner coat pocket, making sure she had more than enough evidence. 'Well then, I'll have to make sure to do more than just collect my pay from her when I go to collect my reward.' Trixie left the grunts lying tied up in the corner as she grabbed Blackjack with her magic, heading for the exit with his unconscious body in tow. Once she was out under the starry sky, she dumped Blackjack's body on the ground as she aimed her horn to the sky, letting off a massive green spell that exploded into a number of smaller spells once it reached the zenith of its arc.
'That will alert the guards that were assigned to come capture the criminals once I finished with them,' she thought as she laid down on her back in the soft grass, dropping Blackjack on the dirt as she did so. 'Might as well make myself comfortable while I wait for them to show up. I think they'll want to see the goodies I have for them.'
{+}
"I have to admit Trixie, I thought that this would be a bit much, even for you," the mayor of Hoofington said as she poured herself a cup of coffee. Trixie stood in front of her desk with an annoyed look on her face at the insult. "But I see now that your reputation is every thing that I have heard. Even my best unicorns couldn't deal with Blackjack and his gang. But you tossed them around like they were nothing from your story. You truly are the greatest unicorn in Equestria."
"I wouldn't go that far," Trixie said with no emotion in her voice as the mayor started to drink, looking up at Trixie from over the rim of her cup. "I just do my best to make a living. Bringing down criminals as my mission is only an added bonus."
"I see," the mayor said as she placed the cup on her desk and started to rummage through her cabinets. "Blackjack has been placed safely in custody and is awaiting trial. The rest of the gang will follow suit, even the few mares that were found in the deeper parts of the lair who claimed to be foalnapped."
"I'm glad to hear it," Trixie said. The mayor nodded and pulled out a bag full of bits that she placed on the desk, giving Trixie a false smile that she saw through in an instant.
"Thank you for doing this, it means a lot, especially with the election coming up. I believe that you earned these." Trixie nodded and levitated the bag of bits over to her, placing them inside her coat pocket. She turned to leave when the mayor cleared her throat to get her attention again. "Um, I do not mean to pry, but you didn't find any kind of note or false documents in his base that would-"
"Tell the reader that you were the one ordering him to take out anypony that could be your competition and to hide the evidence, then having him proclaim that he was the one who did it to take the blame off of you?" Trixie said with a cold tone as the mayor's face began to fall. "Why yes, I did happen across a number of those. Why do you ask?"
"W-what are you going to do with that knowledge?" the mayor stammered out as she backed away from Trixie, who looked at the mayor with a cold smile on her face.
"Me? I'm not going to do anything," Trixie said innocently, her smile growing wider as she saw the mayor sigh in relief. She then walked over to the mayor's door to her office and swung it open, revealing a number of guards that had been waiting outside the room. "They, on the other hoof, will escort you down to the police station and go over those documents that you mentioned earlier." The guards rushed into the room and tackled the mayor to the ground, who did her best to escape their iron grasp with no success. She glared at Trixie with venom in her eyes as she was forced up to her hooves and was escorted from the room.
"I'm your employer! You can't do this to me!" she screamed as she was dragged past Trixie, who watched her get taken away with a smirk on her face.
"You stopped being my client the moment you paid me," Trixie said to herself as she moved a hoof to the bag of bits in her jacket. "But like I said, bringing in criminals is an added bonus to the job." Trixie headed out of the office and into the hallway, making her way to the front entrance where the captain of the guard ponies for the town was waiting for her.
"Thanks for bringing to light the mayor's involvement with Blackjack' gang. We had our suspicions about her for a while, but we had no evidence until now," he said as the both of them watched the still screaming mayor getting dragged away, a number of ponies who were up in the morning watching with confusion. "We appreciate the help." Trixie nodded in response and started to head out the door, but the captain put a hoof on her shoulder to stop her.
"Um, I mean this in the nicest way, but can you...use an invisibility spell or something so that none of the ponies here see you? It might cause a panic." Despite being nearly twice her size, the captain shrunk away from the glare that Trixie gave him at the insult he had said to her. Trixie then held her head high and walked into the streets, making sure that everypony could see her as she walked back to her wagon. And just as the guard had predicted, the ponies reacted to her the way he thought they would.
They panicked.