The artifact room, just as Trixie and Tricky last left it. Since Trixie's imprisonment, no pony has gone in, not even Celestia and Luna. But, today, somepony has the audacity to break into the castle himself--with a team of course--and take a certain object that will hopefully improve his life for the better. But the taking of said object has proved a far more complicated ordeal than previously thought by the team of two pegasi, a unicorn, and an earth pony.
The earth pony--a colt of dark silver with a mustard yellow mane--steps up to a pedestal displaying a blue urn. He squints to see if it is indeed what he is seeking, more so with his left eye, which a scar--starting at his temple--runs through it and ends near his chin. He confirms that behind the dirty glass is in fact the object that has changed the world and can change it again.
With a practiced hoof, he takes a glass cutter with some magical runes inscribed on them and cuts the glass. Carefully, he grabs the urn and pulls it out the hole he cut. A desperate smile creeps up on him. It's as if he waited so long for this one moment. And everything he has worked for will finally pay off.
Like a delicate flower that can shatter at the slightest provocation, he rubs the urn to summon the being trapped inside. The urn shakes and blows its topper off, expelling a blue smoke that spills onto the ground in copious amounts. Slowly, the cloud takes the shape of a pony--a unicorn. First horn, then head, then body. Her mane is the last to materialize as the smoke she came from dissipates. Around her legs are gold bands and her horn is topped off with a gold tip--it's the uniform she will wear for the duration of her servitude (a courtesy of Ure.)
She gasps as if she has been holding her breath for the entire time she was in the urn. Her new look (the bands and head dress) are the first thing she notices. The second is the devilish smile of the colt who summoned her, and behind him, a blob of pitch black ooze engulfing some ponies. The only visible features that proves there are ponies in there are some legs, wings, and a horn protruding out from the mass.
More and more of the ooze spills out from the surrounding pedestals, completely ignoring the colt and attacking the ponies screaming and kicking within the bigger blob. Unflinchingly, the colt steps up to Trixie, smiling all the more as he gets closer. "Are you the genie who gave Tricky her power?" he asks.
Trixie opens her mouth to reply when a torrent of voices floods her ears. Thoughts and images race within her skull. Not again she thinks to herself before a foreign thought chases her mentality away, numbing her senses. The colt repeats his question--or at least Trixie thinks he did after reading his lips--but Trixie doesn't hear a thing. She tries counting to three like Erin instructed her to do. It helps focus her mind a bit, but the thoughts continue their onslaught. So she tries counting higher than three. With each passing number, her mind gains more clarity as she focuses all her thoughts on counting the next number, then the next. As she reaches twenty-five, the voices are nothing but a whisper in her ear. The images become fading afterimages.
"Do I really have twenty-five wishes?" the colt asks excitedly but confused.
"What?" Trixie asks, which makes the voices in her head louder since she stops counting. Refocusing her mind on twenty-six, then twenty seven, she continues counting in her head instead of out loud this time. "No, no"--twenty-eight--"you only get three wishes. Do you know what you want? Maybe you should consider saving your friends there." Trixie looks over him at what is left of the ponies, which isn't much.
"They aren't my friends. They're simply hired hooves I needed to pull this off. And I don't want to waste a single wish on them when I have something more important in mind."
Trixie sighs. "Very well, let's get this over with."
The colt laughs, which makes Trixie question his intentions. "Excellent, I wish Tricky was never born."
"So do I," Trixie responds, "but I can't take a life."
"What?!" The colts exclaims in disbelief. "Do you have any idea what she has done to Equestria while in power? Make an exception!"
"I can't."
"Why not?!" The colt screams into Trixie's face.
"Because..." She trails off. That's a good question. Why can't she break the rules? "Fine, so you have wished it, so it shall be."
The colt steps back. "Really?"
Trixie responds with a devilish smile of her own and gets to work. Pouring all her magical energy into her master's words, she casts the spell to make them a reality. She feels tons and tons of energy being drained from her magical reservoir, but simultaneously, she feels an outside force filling in the amount she is losing. So much energy is being used up in this wish, but Trixie doesn't feel its recoil. She doesn't feel tired; in fact, she feels she can go on forever, cast any spell she desires without fear of magical backlash.
After what seems like ages, the spell announces its completion by cutting itself off from Trixie's seemingly endless reserves of magic. Her horn sizzles in the air; she can practically feel the heat from her horn all the way down her face and down part of her neck. If she cast a similar spell under normal circumstances (with her not being a genie) the spell would have definitely killed her.
"There," she says, smiling all the while--though, not at stopping her sister's existence, but at the feat she has just accomplished without it fatally hurting her. But... something is wrong. The colt--everything--stopped moving as if somepony pressed pause on reality.
"Congratulations," Ure's voice echoes within Trixie's skull, and no amount of counting is chasing him away. "You created your first paradox."
"What?" Trixie asks out loud and in her head, unsure which voice Ure can actually hear.
"If it wasn't for your sister, you would have never become a djinn. If you never became a djinn, you never could have granted this wish. See where I'm going with this? Please say yes; I hate repeating myself. And I already have to repeat that boring list of rules to every one of my hosts."
"I'm not an idiot!" Trixie retaliates, almost hitting the immobile colt in front of her as she swings her hoof at where she thinks Ure is talking from.
"Opinions may vary. But at least you understand what you have done. I will fix this paradox and any paradox you may cause in the future, but please be careful. Time traveling wishes are not against the rules, but fixing a paradox is hectic to say the least. And I thought I didn't have to teach you how to grant wishes since you are a magic user from birth, but that spell was so ill-formed." Ure sighs. "You used way too much magic than needed."
"What do you mean ill-formed?! I cast that perfectly!"
"But it was only a spell you heard of but never really done in practice since it will end in your demise, am I correct?"
"Yeah, but--"
"Nevertheless, I will teach you spells you could not otherwise practice without me supplying you my magic. Of course, my magic is perpetual, but I'd rather have you rely on your magic than mine. After all, you will not be my host forever."
"Hmmpf." Trixie sits down. "Why the sudden compassion? I thought you were here to destroy us."
"No, no, no, I am here to help, to teach. If your planet can survive my trial, then it is worthy of continuing its existence. I am only here to purge the weak: the ones who fall victim to their selfish wants, their--how you say--undisclosed desires."
Trixie gets up with renewed vigor. From her experiences, she knows there are ponies who actually think of others than themselves. She can safely say she is not among one of them, but she has met ponies who are. All she can do now is hope Equestria will adhere to its standard of love and tolerate. "Okay," she says, "undo my wish. Let's try this again."