//------------------------------// // Chapter 13-Brainstorm // Story: Abstract Helps Kyo Date Gilda // by AbstractThought //------------------------------// “Okay, enlighten me, Trixie,” I requested as I sat in a chair in a dressing room in the back of the tent. “What exactly do you want me to do for you?” “It’s simple, my dear Anthrax,” Trixie began. “Abstract.” “Whatever.” She waved a hoof dismissively before continuing her explanation. “You shall use your magical thoughts to add a little…pizzazz!” She punctuated that last word with a sweep of her hoof and a colorful spark of magic. I had a feeling she’d be doing a lot of that sort of thing. Joy. “What sort of pizzazz?” I pressed, unimpressed. “Well, do you know what an Ursa Major looks like?” Trixie asked. “Not a clue,” I answered frankly. “No matter,” she continued without missing a beat, barring a quick dismayed yet somehow relieved look that she attempted to mask. “There are endless possibilities with that ability of yours! Conjure up the most fearsome creature you can imagine, and I shall vanquish it with ease!” I raised an eyebrow at that. “Defeat a fake monster? Is that really the best method you can think of to impress your fans?” “Excuse me, it’s a perfect method!” Trixie said haughtily. “If Trixie can prove to her viewers that she is capable of slaying a mighty beast, then there shall be no doubters of my magical prowess!” “Magical prowess you don’t have,” I finished bluntly. “Can you imagine a mighty beast or not?!” Trixie snapped. “Alright, alright! Let me think…” With my magic activated, I imagined the biggest beast I’ve seen personally: a huge purple dragon with green spines roaring and towering over the town like something out of a Neighponese monster movie. It was big in my mind, but apparently it didn’t translate so well to my magic. “You call that a mighty beast?!” Trixie scoffed. “It’s barely taller than I am!” “Sorry, Trixie, this is the first time I’ve imagined anything so large with my magic,” I said, while the dragon in my mind stopped roaring and assumed an indignant look on its face. “Besides, I don’t think the size is the big issue here.” “And what gives you that idea?” she demanded. “All my thought images are surrounded by this cloudy border,” I explained while the image dragon gestured to the border in question. “So even if I can create a life-sized image of a dragon, it’ll still be obvious that it’s an illusion.” Trixie went bug-eyed at that realization, followed by a hoof to the face. “Ugh, unbelievable!” she griped. “I find a stallion with the perfect spell to aid my performance, only to find out he can’t even use it properly!” “Well, excuse me for not studying to be a magician like you, Your Highness!” I retorted sarcastically while imagining the dragon raising a finger and thrusting it in her direction. Sheesh, with an attitude like that, it’s no wonder she went crazy evil when she didn’t get her way. I took a deep breath, turned off my magic, and continued with forced calm, “So, it looks like the ‘monster-slayer’ approach is out.” “Perhaps,” Trixie conceded, a thoughtful look on her face until it lit up with inspiration. “Unless…” Oh dear. “Unless what?” I asked warily. “Seeing as your images are surrounded in a sort of cloud,” Trixie said while pacing excitedly, “the thought occurred to me: why not have the monster you imagine be made of cloud itself?” “A cloud monster?” I deadpanned with a scowl. “Oh yes, I’m sure the audience will be terrified of clouds.” “Honestly, for a pony named Alabaster Thought, you’re sorely lacking in imagination,” Trixie berated me with her nose turned upwards like the ponies in Canterlot are fond of doing, at least from what I’ve heard. “Abstract Thought,” I hissed. “Whatever!” Trixie went back to her fervent pacing and gesturing. “I am not talking about some white and fluffy pillow with teeth! I’m talking about a dark and sinister fog with menacing flashes and tendrils! An eldritch creature the likes of which those yokels have never seen the likes of before! Its presence shall strike fear into everypony who lays their eyes on it…except me of course,” she added matter-of-factly before returning to her melodramatic spiel. “The crowd will be brought to their knees in awe and admiration as they see this fearsome creature vanquished by my hoof with nary a sweat drawn! My reputation will soar to the heavens! I will be beloved throughout Equestria! I might even get my own blockbuster movie, with me playing the star role, of course!” She then suddenly shifted from boastful to doleful and pressed, “Surely it’s not too much to ask for you to look into your heart and support my dream, is it?” She gave me a tearful frown, quivering lip and all. Geez, does she see her life as one big play or something? I met her gaze with a long stare for a few seconds before replying with a sigh, “Sure, I suppose it’d be fun to imagine something like that, at least.” “Excellent!” Trixie cried, quickly returning to her regular hammy self. “Now, we have a lot of work to do to prepare for the next show, and when I say ‘we’, I mean you, of course, since I already know exactly what I’m going to do!” “I’m sure you do,” I said dryly. “Alright, let me try and see if I’ve got the sort of creature in mind you were talking about.” With that, I activated my magic and dug around in my imagination until I found it, the very creature that would be perfect for the sorceress before me… …A white and fluffy pillow with an evil expression and sharp teeth. “I suppose you think you’re a real comedian, don’t you?” Trixie seethed as I laughed at the expression on her face, like she could crack a nut with how tightly her teeth were ground together. “Relax, Trixie, I was just kidding,” I assured her through my chuckling. Not wanting to aggravate her further (yet), I shut off the magic and quickly composed myself. “Alright, I’m done. Let’s get to business, shall we?” Trixie took a deep breath to calm herself, then put on her game face and said with a smirk, “Yes, let’s!” ---------- “No, no, no!” Trixie barked in that shrill voice that had grown more and more insufferable the more I heard it. “For the last time, the flashes are supposed to be blood red, not scarlet! And the tendrils are all wrong! They need to be longer and thinner! Honestly, can’t you get anything right?!” I groaned loudly, partly due to pain growing in my horn due to it using magic for so long at once. “Trixie, you really think the audience is gonna make a fuss over these details?” I implored for what felt like the fifth time so far. “As long as they believe the monster’s real, and they get an awesome fight scene out of the deal, that’s good enough, right?” “Oh, Absent Thought,” Trixie chided me as though I was an ignorant colt (surprise, surprise), “this is why you’re the assistant and I’m the performer.” I couldn’t tell if “Absent Thought” was another case of her forgetting my name or if she had done that deliberately as an insult, but either way, I was tired of correcting her, so I decided to let that slide. I was about to make a rebuttal when I heard a growing roar of voices outside. “My next show!” Trixie burst out. “Trixie must get them warmed up!” She trotted to the door and added, just before she left, “Wait to the side and when I mention how unlikely it is that the creature will appear, you summon the best imitation you can!” With that, she left. I shut off my thought image and rubbed my sore horn, wincing. This show better turn one hay of a profit. I then grabbed a bottle of apple juice from Trixie’s cooler and took a big swig. Trixie had told me they were off limits to anyone but her, but screw it, she’s been nothing but condescending to me, so consider it a karma fine or something. I didn’t want my horn to hurt any more than it had to, so I carried the bottle in my right front hoof. Of course, it was tricky walking to the curtain using only three legs, but whatever. I came over to the side of the stage just as Trixie was getting started. A few simple tricks to get the audience pumped, and then it was fake monster story time. “Fillies and gentlecolts, I have faced many exotic creatures in my travels,” she narrated in her typical dramatic manner, “but none quite like…the Cumulonimbeast!” She let loose a couple of fireworks spells to create a starry image of the beast in question. I heard the crowd go “oooooh” at that, while I had to resist the urge to facehoof. I’m not sure if the pause was for dramatic effect or she needed time to come up with a name, but either way, she could have done a lot better. Then again, considering some of the official names for real creatures out there, maybe I can’t really fault her. At least not this time. But I digress. “I can still remember the night it happened clear as day,” Trixie continued. “I was wondering across the Foal Mountains when I noticed storm clouds rapidly gathering, despite the forecast calling for a clear evening. Imagine my astonishment when the clouds started flashing blood red…” Trixie cast a surreptitious look my way at that point, a look I responded to with a roll of the eyes. Dear Celestia, can she let anything go? “…and cloudy tendrils started extending from the dark mass!” With that, a bright flash and a sound like lightning sent the crowd into fervor. Can’t resist a little flashy punctuation, can you? Blah, blah, blah, fictional battle reenactment, I kinda tuned out at that point. Honestly, the methods she supposedly used to defeat the Cumulo-whatsit were suspiciously similar to the methods unicorns use to defuse and clear away storm clouds, at least from what I’ve read. Of course, since they were no other unicorns around but me, the audience was none the wiser. Figures. “…of course, it’s unlikely that such a creature would appear around these parts…or is it?” Oh cripes, that was my cue! Lighting up my horn with a wince, I conjured the image I had spent the last hour or so envisioning and revising and had it start to drift in from behind the curtains into the front stage. I still didn’t know how to deal with the light red outline surrounding it, but fortunately no one seemed to notice, especially with the blood red flashes (as though I was supposed to be familiar with the exact shade of red blood was) distracting them. “Dear Celestia, can this be?!” Trixie exclaimed with a feigned air of surprise. “Another cumulonimbeast?! Here to avenge its fallen comrade, perhaps?” She got herself in a battle-ready position as the cloud image started to get its tendrils out. “Foolish monster!” she shouted. “You dare to challenge the Great and Powerful Trixie, knowing full well that she vanquished your brethren before, with ease, with style, with undeniably mesmerizing–” I couldn’t resist. I had one of the cloud tendrils lash out and whip the tip of the nose. It didn’t hurt her, being an image and all, but it caused her to flinch and the audience to gasp, killing two birds in one stone (which is a rather strange expression and come on now is not the time to go off on a tangent). Trixie gave me a quick glare, then focused on the cloud creature before her. “So be it!” she bellowed as she lit up her horn and fired a spell into the center of the cloudy image. At that moment, it occurred to me that we never really got to rehearse how exactly the cloud image would react to Trixie’s spells. Thank you, Trixie, for focusing solely on making the monster look exactly the way you wanted it. I was so caught up in this revelation that I forgot to have the cloud thing react to the spell, leaving it exactly the same as earlier. Oops. Trixie was visibly nonplussed and a tad irritated at the lack of reaction, but she bravely attempted to save face. “Uh, so you failed to heed Trixie’s warning shot, eh?” she cried. “Very well, then, no more mercy! Or else,” she added with a low hiss. This time she charged up an even more impressive-looking burst of magic and shot it with gusto into the cloud beast. I wasn’t sure what sort of reaction Trixie wanted from the Cumulo-whatsit, so I decided to play it safe and go completely over the top with it. I had the thing recoil, writhe, flash every color of the rainbow, flail everywhere, implode, and finally explode for good measure. A soundless explosion at that; how realistic is that? Everyone stared silently at that spectacle for a few seconds, and then the crowd went wild. Wow, guess over-the-top death scenes aren’t hokey when it comes to monsters. Naturally, Trixie acted like that was just the way she planned it. “Thank you, thank you!” she said proudly. “It’s all in a day’s work for the Great and Powerful Trixie!” “Woo, Trixie,” I muttered sarcastically under my breath. With my part in her performance done and unaccredited, I decided to close my eyes for a few minutes and tune the rest of her show out. As I sat there, I wondered how Kyo’s date with Gilda was going. Lucky him; at least he’s enjoying his time with Gilda. I suddenly stared imagining what their children might look like if they had any; I’ve never seen a hippogriff, so my imagined blends of pony and griffon were somewhat rough and misshapen, not to mention I imagined them fighting each other over whose turn it was to play on the JoyBoy, with Kyo frantically trying to calm them down and Gilda just watching and laughing at the whole thing. I couldn’t help but giggle at that mental image. I suddenly noticed that the noise of the crowd had become less enthusiastic. I opened my eyes and noticed, of course, my thought magic was still on. Mega oops. “Now, uh, Trixie can explain…” she began anxiously. “Look! It’s coming from that pony backstage!” a cowpony shouted and pointed. Trixie’s face turned as pale as her hair. “Ah, uh, how dare you pull such a trick on the Great and Powerful Trixie!” she burst out. “Get out of my sight before I destroy you!” I could tell the crowd didn’t buy it, judging from the boos and demands for refunds that were emanating from them. I decided to hightail it from there in case they were steamed at me, too. As I slipped out from the back, I felt a tackle from behind and fell to the ground. “YOU!” I heard Trixie rage. “What were you thinking, exposing yourself like that?!” I did a double take at the way she phrased that. “Uh, excuse me?” “Don’t play dumb!” she shrieked. “Everything was perfect until you made that image completely unrelated to my show!” “I didn’t mean for that to happen!” I protested. “I swear, it just leaked out!” “Oh-ho, is that so?” Trixie trotted to my front and faced me with a glare that was almost half as impressive as Fluttershy’s. “You know what I think? I think you deliberately set yourself up so you could ruin my reputation even more than it already was!” Her horn then glowed and I felt my body constrict and rise into the air. “Well, if you think Trixie is just going to let you get away with that,” she continued with a chilling dark tone, “you’re even more brain dead than I thought.” Oh crap, I should have expected this sort of reaction from the tyrant of Ponyville, I thought as I started to sweat bullets (not literally, of course). And yeesh, even when she’s threatening me, she’s gotta use petty insults. “Let him go, you trickster!” a voice called from behind me. I recognized the voice as Little Strongheart’s, but I couldn’t turn my head to see. “Hah! You’re rather confident for a magic-less rat,” Trixie scoffed. “I’d think twice before trying any funny business, lest you want something to happen to your friend here.” With that, she turned me over so I was upside down and facing Little Strongheart, who was standing in front of the exit I had taken. I could feel the blood rushing to my head, but fortunately nothing worse, at least not yet. “You may thing you have the advantage here,” Little Strongheart said in a tone of authority, “but consider who you will have to deal with if you harm Abstract any further.” At that moment, Chief Thunderhooves and Cardinal Wing stood beside Little Strongheart, and I could see other buffalo gathering from the sides of the tents from my peripheral vision. It looked like at least the whole tribe was here, and they did not look happy. I just wish I could have seen the look on Trixie’s face at that moment. “So, ‘Great and Powerful Trixie’,” Little Strongheart challenged with a steely glare that made Trixie’s look pathetic, “are you truly strong enough to take on our tribe?” I heard a squeak from Trixie and then I felt myself drop and hit my head on the ground. Ow. “U-Uh…” I heard a stammering voice say, “T-Trixie will of course be happy to uh, refund anypony, er, buffalo, who was dissatisfied with…look, a moose!” I saw the buffalo quickly turn their heads, and then I heard a poof of smoke and the galloping of hooves, followed shortly afterwards by the quaking charge of buffalos, leading to vibrations that gave me a headache pretty quickly. Also, I think my horn got buried in the dirt from the fall somehow. And I never got paid. Oh well, at least Trixie got her just desserts. Only the three buffalo in my sights remained. After a few seconds, Cardinal Wing spoke up. “So…she was a total fraud?” “Pretty much, yeah,” I confirmed. Chief Thunderhooves turned to Little Strongheart and said, “Daughter, I am sorry I didn’t heed your concerns about the trickster.” “It’s okay, father,” she assured him with a smile. “I can’t blame you for being astounded by her magic. She was certainly convincing, at least up till the end.” She then turned to me with a glare. “You, on the other hoof, willingly aided her in her trickery. That cannot be so easily forgiven.” “I know,” I admitted with a sigh. “I only did it cause Trixie offered me a quarter of the profits. I shouldn’t have let her sucker me into this. If there’s any way I can make it up to you, please let me know.” Little Strongheart gave me a critical look, until she eventually asked, “Is your horn stuck in the ground?” “Let me check…” I tried to push myself up and out of the ground, but to no avail. “Yep, I’m stuck.” “I see,” she replied as she rubbed her chin with her hoof in thought. Why does that look make me nervous? “Well, Abstract, I have decided to forgive you, and even let you continue the interview with us, on one condition.” “Great! What’s the condition?” “You must remain stuck in the ground until the interview is over,” she concluded with a smirk. Chief Thunderhooves and Cardinal Wing giggled at that. Oh dear. I was feeling light headed already. Kyo’s definitely luckier than me. End of Part 13