//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: The Grand Finale // Story: An Extended Performance // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// Thirteen black-cloaked figures stepped into the square. In the extremity of her exhaustion, Trixie at first thought that she was in a waking dream, seeing something out of one of White-Beard's fantastic tales. There was something wrong about the way they walked, the way they stood, the way a night mist rolled off the harbor and around their feet, as if they had summoned it out of the darkness. Something emanated from them, something Trixie had neither seen nor smelled before. Were they really ponies at all, or something far darker in Pony form? The question came to her out of nowhere, without reason other than their silent regard, their unnerving gazes. Were their eyes glowing? Trixie could make her own eyes appear to glow, but suddenly she felt very sure that what she was seeing was no illusion, mere or otherwise. She remembered a tale White-Beard had told her once of Nine mortal Ponies, Kings of their kinds, who in pursuit of immortality and power had sold themselves to a dark master, and gained that immortality and power at a terrible price. Nine Ponies who had become wraiths, creatures of pure evil, spreading before them a Black Breath of sickness and fear. Nine who were servants of a great Enemy, and walked the Earth wreaking its will. The Thirteen she saw before her seemed tangible, but there was still something unearthly about them, as if they were beyond the concerns of mere mortality, as if their whole existence was the spreading of a great wrongness upon the planet, as if they had somehow become not unlife, but some sort of anti-life, something inimical to any sane order. All these fantastical thoughts flickered through Trixie's tired mind, even as the detect magic she almost instinctively cast showed readings off the scale, especially from the tall unicorn stallion who was obviously their leader. Suddenly, she was absolutely terrified. Oh, crap, was her thought. I think I know what's been happening to this city. She did not refer to herself in the third person, nor with an honorific title. Please, no. Not yet. I don't want to die. The hood of the tall stallion inclined toward her. She could just see his muzzle, and behind it his eyes, glowing with sickly-purple witchlights. He smiled, and in that smile was all the cruelty of the world Trixie had ever feared, everything she had ever fled by living in her world of illusion. In her whole young life, which she was now sure was almost over, she had never seen anything like the malice contained in that mere smile. With a certain dazed detachment, she realized that part of the reason why his smile was so terrible was that his teeth were not broad and flat like those of a normal Pony, but cruelly jagged and sharp, like those of some impossible equine carnivore. His eyes were wrong too -- not merely glowing, but cat-slitted. She thought desperately of the Night Guard, but their Nightponies merely looked like creatures of terror. It was all show. This was no show. These were real. These were what the Night Guard were trying to resemble, and miserably failing at the attempt. She had spoken to Night Guardsponies. They were ponies like any others. These were not. She could feel the waves of malice rolling off them, the scent of murders committed and more murders yet to come. To them, she knew, she was not a pony, but a sort of animate thing, to be used at need and crushed without remorse when her use was done. There was a foul smell of ancient malignity, of abyssmal depravity beyond anything she had ever conceived before this moment. She did not know how she knew this, but she knew it as surely as she knew that she had four hooves. The summer night was growing terribly cold. She stood there, and the fear washed over her, and her whole frame, wasted by her prior exertions, shivered in abject terror. She could barely stand. Her every muscle felt weak, and a tiny part of her, that still wanted to make a good show, was absurdly glad that she had used her chamber pot and had nothing to eat or drink immediately before going on stage, for if she had, she knew that she would have done something immensely undignified. The great stallion smirked contemptuously. She knew that he could sense her fear, that he had already dismissed her as unimportant, inconsequential, not even worth killing. At that thought, she felt more worthless and insignicant than she had ever felt in her whole existence. She was little and helpless before the gaze of true cosmic evil. She knew that even if she could sing or dance, acts impossible in her current mental state, there was nothing she could have possibly done to charm him. She was not the Nightingale, fighting for her true love. She was alone. And she was no heroine. Just Trixie. Nopony special. No, wait. Deep within Trixie, from the core of her soul, a steady voice began to speak. I am not little and helpless. I am not nopony special. I am ... I am ... The voice faltered. Caught in the terror washing off him, she could not remember who she really was. The black unicorn stallion jerked his head. Leave the stage, he clearly gestured. End your show. End ... the show? she asked herself in confusion, the arctic chill blasting through her bones. But ... it's not sunrise ... I'm not finished ... Suddenly she remembered White-Beard. No, felt him -- the scent of him, a mixture of old stallion and beard, of mane and the tobacco he would keep smoking, no matter what anypony said. A great warmth went through her, a great courage, and her limbs seemed to regain some of their strength. And the voice of her own soul rose up within her, and she remembered: I am the Great and Powerful Trixie, and ... and the show must go on! And at that she realized what had happened, and she smoothly, automatically dispelled the fear they had settled around her. She was still quite rationally afraid. They were enemies. They were evil. They might kill her. But she was no longer frozen by her fear. They were black magicians, obviously. However, magic was something she knew. Tricks, she thought to herself, all just tricks, even if deadly ones. But mine are better. "So," she said out loud, and her voice cracked once, but then grew in volume as she applied the amplifier spell. "It seems as if we have some neigh-sayers in the audience." Her gaze was steady, her tone loud and clear. "Are we to understand that you actually seek to challenge the Great and Powerful Trixie to a duel of magic?" At her first words, the head of the big black unicorn jerked back, as if she had lashed him with a whip. Hecklers, she thought. Braggarts and bullies. Trixie has met your kind before. A little extra might doesn't change what you are. He quickly recovered his composure. But now Trixie had his measure. He sneered, and Trixie saw it as an expression of weakness, a sign that he was not quite as powerful as he pretended. If you were what you're trying to be, you would already have struck me down, she thought. You're uncertain of what the Mysterious and Amazing Trixie may not be capable. No tangible spell you can perform is as great as that fear you emanated. You could start killing now, but ... Suddenly she realized the truth. You don't want to kill my audience. You want to stampede them. As a mob. "What do you propose?" the great black stallion asked mockingly. His voice was cruel, callous, but no audible voice could possibly be as evil as what his silence had suggested. Now you're talking, Trixie thought to herself. And you've handed the Cunning and Wily Trixie the verbal initiative. Mistake. Never let a rival magician control the patter. "You do your spell. Show your talent. And the Great and Versatile Trixie will astound all of you by surpassing it," she said, rolling her r's. "Anything you can do, the Great and Powerful Trixie can do better!" She wasn't sure what would happen next. She knew they were killers. She half-expected him to kill her on the spot. But she also knew that they were going to kill her anyway, her and a lot more ponies, and she'd rather die on her hooves, facing him, fighting as his foe rather than simply being slaughtered as his helpless victim. His expression changed, to one of elaborate contempt, and she knew that she'd won her first gamble. If he merely kills me now, she knew, he'll forever wonder if the Great and Powerful Trixie could have matched him. His own ego won't let him back down, and killing me without giving me a chance would be a form of backing down. Now for the next throw of the dice. She extended her every magical sense, analysis and detection spells. She had no idea where she was finding the energy -- it was as if when her courage had returned to her so had some measure of her power, but she would have sworn she was exhausted a moment ago. She did not question the gift. "I am the Night Stallion of Manehattan," the black unicorn said, "and behold my full power!" He reached within him, and a darkness flared, and engulfed him, an aura of pure Shadow sparking from his eyes, his horn, his tail and mane. She felt the familiar wash of fear, but this time she was ready for it, and quickly countered with her own protection spell. The audience recoiled from his presence. "Let us see you," he smirked, "match that." The Great and Powerful Trixie closed her eyes. She'd seen the magic done. She had no idea what it was -- it didn't look like any illusion spell she'd ever seen -- but she'd seen the way that the energies of the black stallion's soul had somehow curled and twisted, reached out beyond himself to to touch -- something else? -- which transformed his appearance. She was certain she could do the same. She'd always been able to match everyone else's magic before. Trixie thought hard. And at this moment she was just Trixie, with no need for any grandiose honorifics, for it was when she was doing some truly difficult magic, learning a new spell, that she felt no need to be anyone else but her true self. Her face was at first screwed up in concentration, then relaxed into an expression that those who had met Trixie in person rarely ever got to see, conveying an emotion that she almost never manifested in public, and then only on stage. For that brief moment, as her mental model of the magic and the magic itself flowed together, as she made the necessary adjustments to harmonize it with her own self, Trixie was simply and purely happy. She reached out with her mind, her soul, as she had seen the heckler do with his own. She did not, of course, touch any Shadow within her, for Trixie bore no such incubus. But there was something ... something she had always on a very deep level known about herself, something which she could only express in clumsy terms, in her favorite personal honorific. On the level on which she was now operating, well beyond conscious thought, Trixie reached out, totally unaware of what she was doing or why it might work ... she wasn't sure what to do, exactly .... Then it was as if an older, wiser hoof reached out to take her own hoof and help her, to guide her own efforts ... so she reached out in a direction she could not comprehend ... ... and touched her own symbiont. Somewhere beyond the stage, beyond the city, beyond this Earth, a truly Great Power awoke. And, though it was not the work of any conscious illusion on her part, Trixie's mane and tail began to shimmer, to glow with an inner light, to stream out under the kiss of a wind invisible ... *** Eight hundred miles away, in the tumbledown castle at the heart of the Everfree, within the form of a dark alicorn mare, another great power had awoken, and remembered whom she truly was, and leapt upon the Shadow that had tormented her for a thousand years, to give a little lavender stargazer the time she needed to invoke the Elements of Harmony. Eight hundred miles away, the fate of the world was being decided by the struggle within Nightmare Moon. In Manehattan, the struggle was smaller and more direct. Less was at stake. But it was no less heroic. Even though the heroine had no idea what she was doing. *** "Enough of this nonsense!" snarled the Nightstallion, his eyes blazing purple. "Time to die! His horn glowed a sickly purplish-black, the color of necrotic tissues, as he readied his death-bolt. His followers gathered behind him, uncloaking, revealing themselves as the nightstallions and nightmares they were. Their own hooves, horns, or wings coruscated with their own signature auras. The crowd shrank back in terror. No one dared to interfere with what they were suddenly realizing might not be part of any stage magic show. The Great and Powerful Trixie opened her eyes. The pupils were invisible, glowing as they were with the same delicate light-purplish glow that emnated from her horn, that crackled from her hooves, that streamed out, impossibly, from the great spectral wings she unfolded from beneath her cape. The audience gasped in astonishment at what they thought was illusion. And they were right. For Illusion had opened Her eyes, and gazed for the first time out upon the waking world. The Nightstallion laughed at what he too assumed was mere semblance, and the death bolt leapt from his horn. Leapt across the intervening space -- and was deflected effortlessly by a sort of shimmer which appeared between them. The bolt did not spray off, as it would have from a normal magical barrier. Instead, it seemed as if the space around Illusion somehow misdirected the hostile energy, sending it harmlessly up into the black sky. Illusion looked wonderingly at the Nightstallion, as if surprised by his malice. The glow in the alicorn's eyes was fading now, and pupils and irses were now approximations of Trixie's own violet-gray. The look in those eyes, though -- of newness and innocence -- was one that Trixie had not normally borne since she was a little filly, one which she only assumed sometimes in the repose of sleep. But then, Illusion wasn't even really yet a foal, let alone a filly, though She had shaped Her physical form on that of an adult unicorn. Her development had not yet gotten that far. It's real! thought the Nightstallion in dismay. Impossible, but real! That's an Alicorn! He considered bolting, but then noticed that the Alicorn seemed somehow uncertain. She wasn't fighting back. Weakness, his every instinct and that of the thing within told him, and suggested a course of action. "Acolytes, aid me!" cried the Nightstallion. "Combine our forces, destroy this creature. Now!" The horns of four more unicorns glowed. Beams, bolts and spirals of multi-chromatic energy shrieked toward Illusion. Four yellow-eyed pegasi took to the air, paramagnetic fields glowing visibly and turning into blades. Four black-coated earth ponies charged, their glowing hooves cracking the cobblestones with each step, the crowd parting before their onslaught. Illusion beheld all this without knowing what to make of it. Her muzzle twisted in confusion. Automatically, in defensive reflex, Her shield continued to parry attack after attack. One grayish bolt struck an iron streetlamp, which immediately sloughed away into rust. A red beam nicked one of Illusion's wingtips. Fur and flesh crisped away, for an instant charred, before almost immediately regenerating. Illusion gave a startled yip. Her ears pinned back. Then Her eyes narrowed, focused on her thirteen attackers with a new emotion. Anger. Inside Her, Trixie thought You can't trust other ponies, and the still-unborn Concept agreed with the advice of Her so far one and only Aspect. The pegasi dived, daggers of light shooting from their wingtips. With an irritated shrug, Illusion curdled spacetime slightly, and what would have been deadly proton packets sprayed away in a shower of harmless fireworks. Her eyes glowed, and a prismatic spray of colors washed over them. Their kinesthetic senses hopelessly randomized, the pegasi spiraled away, screaming in sudden fright as they crashed into buildings, the ground, each other. The earth ponies were almost upon her, and She stamped one lovely hoof. The street cracked, a pressure wave erupting right under her assailants' hooves, and they fell in a heap, looking back up at Her in terror. The crack suddenly vanished, as if it had never been there, for it had in truth been only Illusion, but the now-demoralized ponies bolted and ran in utter panic. The eyes of the Nightstallion rolled wildly. Then, calming himself, he looked left and right at his unicorn followers. They were stepping back, reluctant to flee when actually standing right at his side, but not launching any more bolts at the beautiful apparition. Illusion lowered Her horn, scraped the ground threateningly. Her wings flared, and a lambent pale purple light spread from them, began to fill the entire park. "Group shield!" commanded the Nightstallion. His followers looked frightened, but were used to obeying his commands. Habit held, for now. Energy flowed from their auras to his, and their combined power spread to form a spherical dark-purple shield surrounding them, which flickered at the touch of the energies coming from the Alicorn. Within them their Shadows writhed in terror. Each fought in its own cause, none knew love, either of their hosts or of their own kind, not even the love of show that animated the Great and Powerful Trixie. But, as the barrier only flickered, instead of failing, the Nightstallion gained confidence. Why, she's just a baby! he thought contemptuously. Newborn, uncertain -- she has no idea how to fight! We can take her! Counterattack! Yesss ... hissed his symbiont in agreement. A new Alicorn -- the ideal host for one of the Horde! The Nightstallion's Shadow began devising how it might make the transfer. A true Nightmare, not this weak fool it rode -- Nightmare Deception! It could become great in time, an equal to the one which rode Nightmare Moon. Neither of them were knowledgeable in zoology. A certain canary-colored pegasus, were she not otherwise occupied eight hundred miles away, could have informed them that the venom of the newborn rattlesnake is at its most concentrated, the better for self-protection. But they were about to find this out for themselves. The Nightstallion had his four unicorn mages, one of his pegasi and one of his earth ponies still able and willing to fight. Three pegasi were crawling away: two of them with broken wings and the third with a broken spirit. The earth ponies had done better physically, but had gotten up only to bolt away in other directions. So seven Shadow Ponies remained to confront Illusion. Again, bolts of hostile magic lanced out through the night at the Avatar of the unborn Concept. Again, and this time more adroitly (Illusion had learned from Her ouchie the first time this had happened) She misdirected them. Again, a pegasus took to the sky, sprayed death from above, death which She effortlessly dissipated. One brave but unwise earth pony charged the goddess standing before him. Illusion snorted and stamped. She had just woken up from a nice long nap, and She was cranky. She reared. Her hooves glowed with super-equine might ... She readied to trample him. *** The interior of a showstallion's study, five years ago. Master White-Beard the Grey was not happy with his apprentice. "But Master," the teenaged Trixie wailed, her eyes shining with tears, "they teased me! They said I was lazy, good-for-nothing, a disgrace to my family! They even insulted you -- they called you an old fraud! They said you didn't have any true magic, that all you could do was mundane. That I had no talent ... that you wanted me for ... other reasons." She couldn't bring herself to explain what they meant by that. She didn't have to explain. White-Beard had lived for many centuries, and he knew the cruelties of which even Ponies were capable, especially to a young misfit such as Trixie. The drawback to a herd psychology, he reflected. Still, I can't let her fall into this pattern. Her power is growing. Next time, she might kill, rather than merely frighten with it. What do I do? he asked himself, looking up at his ceiling as if he expected Heavenly inspiration. Even beings of his Order didn't get such inspiration very frequently, and usually not while still incarnate. I'll be discarnating soon, he thought. Too bad. Those like Trixie could use me. There's a reason new Concepts are born so rarely -- Celestia obviously didn't totally think this facet of her project completely through. She's close to a sociopath, he admitted to himself. Brilliant, charismatic -- and with the potential to be so incredibly dangerous. Dare I release her on this unsuspecting planet, a world so soon to face so many other and greater dangers? Briefly, he thought the unthinkable ... ... then drew back from the precipice with revulsion, as he looked down at the fragile little face, framed as it was in its mane of almost ethereal bluish-white hair, looking questioningly up at him. No! Never that, though the pillars of the planet be shaken! He could not betray that innocent trust. I must use the time I have left to make her safe for this world. To instill in her a moral code. He sighed. She's a bit old for this. Her parents really should have done it for me. Flighty pair. Still, we must work with the props at horn. Now, on what can I base it? What does she love? he asked himself. Well, me, but I won't be here for her very much longer. What does she love that will be there for her? He looked again at the beautiful filly, at her mane and coat whose silky fineness bespoke such careful personal attention, the arrogant filly who had recently admitted to him that she had absolutely no romantic interest in the members of either sex. And the answer was obvious. White-Beard smiled. *** At that last moment, a vision floated before the inner eye of Illusion. It was a vision of Master White-Beard the Grey, as seen by a teenaged Trixie. Trixie, the old stallion was saying, you are truly great and powerful, truly clever, truly special. Think twice, think thrice before using your great power to kill. Wanton murder is what ordinary, dull, mundane creatures do. You are better than that! Your magic is to delight, to dazzle -- not destroy! You are smart enough to find a better way than killing. Stay your power, as you love yourself. At the last moment, Illusion diffused the energy field around Her hooves. She angled it carefully, so that when She stamped on the ground the only one affected was the charging Shadow pony. There was a loud clop, a ripple in the air, and he slowed to a stop as if colliding with some invisible feather mattress, rather than being crushed by the steel sabatons She had originally conceived. She lowered her head so that she was muzzle-to-muzzle with his own now-terrified face. She glared at him from less than two feet of distance with Her huge eyes, in which danced strange energies. She spoke Her first word on Earth. It was a soft word, but a powerful one. "Go." He went. He may have left a deposit behind him, but this was a foul little neighborhood, and the smell would go unnoticed. She looked up and fixed the Nightstallion in her gaze. Her wings spread. "Anything you can do, I can do better," Illusion told him without moving her lips. Everyone in the square nevertheless heard her. "Wanna see?" She lowered her horn at him. He and his remaining disciples bolted. She looked about her. The crowd was gazing at her in mesmerized awe. They love me! Illusion thought happily to herself. They love the Great and Powerful Illusion! She yawned. I'm sleepy. That took a lot out of me. But there's something ... something more I have to do ... Oh yes, she remembered. Delight them. She spread Her spectral wings. Spread them wide, and wider, to impossibility. They glowed with every color of the rainbow, and many that were not part of any rainbow belonging to any mundane world. They were no longer two-dimensional, but three-dimensional, four-dimensional, filling the spacetime of Tompkins Square, permeating all reality, filling the minds of her audience. She showed them all the beauty of Her imagination, all the wonders of Her fantasies, all the splendors of Her soul. The watching ponies gaped, gasped, sighed in amazement as their own minds responded, and each of them touched that in themselves which made him or her special. Within Her, the merely mortal mind of the Aspect of Her that was Beatrix Lulamoon briefly felt an ecstasy unlike anything she had ever known in her young life, briefly touched it and then slipped off with a cry of disappointment. She was not yet ready to Ascend. The Great and Powerful Illusion spread Her wings still wider. They stretched all over the island of Manehattan, greatly rarefied now, just a touch on each sapient soul that reminded them of who they really were, what they really wanted, and who they really wanted to be. Those cowering in their homes straightened, the fear of the terrible morning lifted, self-respect restored. The rioters in the streets paused, stopped, and shook their heads, the madness abruptly fading. Those who were about to set fires dropped their torches with astonishment, wondering why they had ever meant to do such an insane and destructive thing. The city, teetering as it had been on the edge of madness, stepped back from the abyss. Manehattan would live. And at that moment, the Sun shot up into the sky over the Barrier Islands. *** In a ruined castle eight hundred miles away, the Sun Princess gazed for the first time in a thousand years on the small, weak but living and purified form of her little sister. The insanity of a millennium was gone. The Moon Princess opened her beautiful blue eyes and looked once again on a sane world. *** In a cave-riddled mesa in the Palomino Desert, looking out at an ancient hill crowned by standing stones older by far than the Cataclysm, an ambitious Queen looked out and hissed at the dawn. Still, she was not that disappointed. My power has grown, she told herself. The Day will come. I shall rise to my rightful rule. But not today. Today still belonged to the Sun. *** In the cold wastes of the North, something groaned in disappointment and went back to sleep. Now was not the time to emerge. Not yet. The Crystal City would remain hidden. For now. *** Inshore from a reef in the Stormy Sea, vaguely equine heads popped up to see that the Sun was shining. They looked at each other, made strange croaking cries which held all the varieties of expression which their great staring eyes lacked. Their expression was happiness, that the danger was past, that they could return to their normal lives, complete the term they must spend on land before the final freedom of immortality beneath the waves. The citizens of Hinnysmouth started to swim home. *** On a hill in the Whitetail Woods, one crowned by a circle of standing stones, Granny smiled at the rising Sun. Her followers relaxed, knowing that the threat was ended -- for now. The fluffy ponies, both the little visible ones and her huge but Least Noticeable Grand-Daughter danced down the hill, celebrating the Sun and life and their own boundless love. They, the Daughters of Paradise, were just happy to see a new day dawn. That biggest of the fluffy ponies broke off whole pine trees in her enthusiastic glee as she frolicked down the hill. Legs like barrels, which folded up with each step to absorb her great weight, left prints the size of pony heads, in the shape of more or less normal hooves, though of course she had far too many of them. In her multiple great invisible eyes, which saw the world in spectra unknown to normal Ponies, there shone nothing but innocent joy. On the hill Granny smiled still more widely. Her senses reached out, amplified by the pre-equine artifact in which she stood, and embraced her whole family. All her grand-daughters were fine, including her smaller but Most Noticeable Grand-Daughter who right now stood crying with happiness in a ruined castle far to the east in the depths of the Everfree. She had survived, conquering the greatest challenge of her life so far. That Pink grand-daughter was not as big as her Twin, but she certainly knew how to make ponies smile. Within her lived Paradise, waiting to be reborn. *** The Great and Powerful Illusion folded Her lovely rainbow wings. The crowd around her breathed out, a breath they had not even been conscious of holding. The transcendent moment was past. Time for reality to resume. She bowed to the audience, kissed Her forehooves, blew the kisses to them. "Thank you," She said with a voice soft as rain, sweet as honey, brassy as a trumpet, all in one combined. "You've been a wonderful audience. Farewell, one and all! Be sure not to miss my next performance!" She shimmered. There was a flash of light. The Alicorn Illusion was gone, back to sleep in the dimensions folded up invisibly small, in directions of spacetime inaccessible to mere mortals. She -- and Her mortal Aspect Trixie Lulamoon -- had some more growing to do, before She would again be ready to greet the world. The only living thing that remained on that stage was one very confused and tired little white-haired unicorn mare. The audience enthusiastically cheered, clapped their hooves, whinnied in wild appreciation. The Great and Powerful Trixie stared at them for a moment in utter, exhausted bewilderment. She could not clearly remember what had just happened. She must have been dreaming -- she had seen a vision out of White-Beard's darkest tales, been frozen by fear before it, and then somehow conjured the most intense illusion of her entire life, of a shining multi-colored alicorn. Reality had flickered on and off. For a moment, she'd imagined that she was her illusionary alicorn! Then her professional instincts kicked in. "Thank you, thank you!" she said, bowing and waving to the crowd. "The Great and Powerful Trixie appreciates your enthusiasm. Those wishing to express special enthusiasm may leave their gifts in the box beside our caravan. Have a wonderful day, Trixie hopes that you enjoyed the Summer Sun Celebration, and do come to her shows in the future!" She turned, whipping her cloak around her to make a dramatic exit, tossed her smoke bomb. Only one thing spoiled it. Over-channeling, lack of sleep, and transformation into and back from an impossible cosmic being had finally taken their toll on her. The Great and Powerful Trixie fainted in a heap before she could take one step off the stage. Nap-time now.