//------------------------------//
// Chapter 28 
// Story: The Adventures of Trixie if Her Father Was a Badass Alien 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	Trixie watched as the airship crew prepared for travel.  Cargo and luggage were loaded aboard and the steam engines were warmed up.
“I was meaning to ask,” Trixie said, stopping a mechanic as he went by.  “This airship clearly isn’t a balloon - it doesn’t rely on hot air for lift.  How does it fly?”
“Hydrogen,” the pony answered.
Trixie frowned.  “Isn’t that highly flammable?”
“Well, yes, but we’ve never had an accident before.”
Trixie was suddenly not convinced that she wanted to ride this airship.
There was a commotion near the ticket gate.  Trixie turned her head and froze at the sight of Starburst shoving her way through the line.
The grey mare looked worse for wear, the tip of her horn missing where Trixie had broken it.  Starburst was still battered from their fight aboard the ship, but had gamely tracked down Trixie once again.
Trixie’s mind flashed to the switchblade she carried.  The steel had been forged from meteor iron.  Was that how Starburst kept finding her?
Starburst’s story about being from outer space and having the ability to detonate stars had not been confirmed, but she was so persistent – and crazy – that Trixie was having a hard time ignoring the fact that her opponent might not be a normal pony.
The crowd of passengers for the airship cleared away indignantly as Starburst shoved her way into line, heading for Trixie.  She stopped a short distance away, a sneer working its way onto her face.
Trixie leveled her M60 at Starburst before the other mare could speak.  “You don’t take a hint, do you?  I thought that after almost killing you on the ship, you might stay away from me.”
“I’m not going to give up that easily,” Starburst retorted.  “I want that knife.”
As she spoke, Trixie thought she saw something unusual in Starburst’s mouth.  “What part of you did you get tattooed this time?”
“Hmm?  Oh, after you tried to drown me and I swallowed all that water, I marked the inside of my mouth, throat, and lungs,” Starburst replied.
What a freak.  At least Trixie couldn’t help the oddity of her body – Starburst was doing this to herself on purpose.  “I’m beginning to think that you really are an alien, just because no native Equestrian could be so stupid.”
Starburst ruffled her ugly cape.  “Enough of this.  Fight me.”
Trixie looked around.  “Ladies and gentlecolts, you might want to step back.”
When she turned her head to face her opponent, Starburst was already flying in her direction.  Trixie tried to react, but only managed to stop herself from being badly hurt as the two of them rolled together towards the airship.
Trixie came up and struck a glancing blow off Starburst’s shoulder.  The other mare grunted but kept coming.  Her horn was lit up, the broken tip spitting off sparks.  Trixie was still worried what she could do with it, even injured.
Trying to open up enough room to bring the M60 to bear, Trixie traded a few more blows with Starburst and backpedaled a little.  The switchblade would have been better for close quarters, but with the knowledge that Starburst wanted it, Trixie was reluctant to use the weapon.
The glow from Starburst’s horn increased and she fired a bolt of magic at Trixie.  Ducking it, Trixie let the burst go over her shoulder.  
An instant later, there was a flash of orange light.  Trixie’s back was to the explosion, but the look on Starburst’s face suggested that Big Trouble had been created.
An instant after that, the pressure wave hit.  Trixie spread out her cape and surfed the expanding bubble of force, tilting her head to take a horrified look at the place where the airship had been.  The fireball of hydrogen was enormous, and Trixie redirected the edges of her cape to take advantage of the hot updraft while casting a shielding spell to keep herself from being cooked.
Rapidly rising into the sky and swinging back to stay in the thermal currants, Trixie’s eyes popped wide open as Starburst came flying out of the heart of the blast, her cape tattered and singed, but her body unharmed.
“No explosion can kill me!” Starburst called, her voice dopplering as she went soaring past Trixie.  “Not even an exploding star!  Compared to that, this is nothing!”
She kept flying upwards, becoming a tiny speck high in the sky above Trixie.
Trixie paused, looking down at the fire and up at her hated rival.  She suddenly realized that after emerging from the fire, Starburst hadn’t had her tattoos and her horn had regrown!
Starburst could be beaten and would be injured.  However, fire had made her whole again.  Trixie wasn’t sure if that was because it healed her or because it had blown away her body completely and she’d regenerated.  Either way, it meant that Starburst effectively couldn’t be killed by normal means.
That put a whole new twist on things.  Trixie had so far held back on actually killing Starburst, but the fact that she might not be able to struck her with alarm.
Glancing up, Trixie saw that Starburst had reached the apogee of her flight and had started back down.  Shifting to make better use of the continuing updrafts that the raging fire produced, Trixie began to prepare herself.  
She felt the magic coursing through her body and her horn felt hot with power.  Trixie was going to take the most powerful shot at Starburst that she was able, and hoped that it would be enough.  It would have to be.
Starburst tumbled towards the ground.  Trixie tracked her as she fell, her vision tinged with green from the radioactive magic pent up in her body.  As Starburst fell back through Trixie’s airspace, the mutated unicorn fired a blast of magic more powerful than anything else she had produced in her life – even more than she had hit Berg with.  This was different than attacking the scientist.  She’d been angry at Berg.  Trixie was scared of Starburst.
The release of so much power struck Starburst squarely and transferred so much force that the mare was launched sideways despite the fact that she’d been falling at terminal velocity.  She was clouted with so much energy that she whizzed away at incredible speed, blasting off far into the distance and vanishing with a sparkle of light.
Trixie had put so much effort into attacking Starburst that she hadn’t saved enough power for her own stability.  With every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the force of throwing Starburst into the distance also acted on Trixie.  She went flying away, far over the horizon.