Trixie's Cursed Artifacts

by Emraldilian


World of Light

Almost expecting a cliche chase scene to go down as two stallions hauled a large piece of glass by her stall, Trixie grows irritated that they may be diverting potential customers... not that she's ever gotten any, but what could've been the first might be turning away right now to wait for the glass to pass and getting distracted.

"Now set 'er down there fer the moment, while I-"

The mare talking to the movers is interrupted by Trixie's shrill shriek as Nightmare Moon barrels down the road, threatening to crash through the glass and smash Trixie. She leaps out of the way, leaving her hat behind and curls into a ball.

The mare clears her throat, "Talk to the nice mare." She finishes, then proceeds to Trixie's stall. Beckoning Trixie to recover from her fright with a lighthearted chuckle the mare says, "She'll do that to ya, though now that 'cha know that just keep your eyes off 'er."

Trixie almost simply refuses to help outright as she looks around and gets up, hooves still a bit shaky. She knew cursed artifacts were scary but this one scared her out of her hat at first sight, literally. She picks up her hat from where she normally stood behind her stall and placed it on her head. Taking a deep breath and keeping eye contact with the mare, "Is that safe to bring outside?" Out of the corner of her eye Trixie notices other ponies flinching or jumping away from the glass then looking about bewildered, yet one albino filly just stares at Trixie through the glass from the other side of the street.

"Oh, well, ah guess we could bring her back to mine... I just thought maybe you had a special room or the sort to deal with this kinda thing." The mare waves the stallions back and they reluctantly begin hauling the glass back the way they came.

The filly follows behind the glass and keeps her eyes locked on Trixie, but Trixie keeps eye contact with the mare, "That'd be much better, do explain to Trixie about this glass pane on our way then." She follows as the mare turns and lead the way, keeping her eyes off the glass.

"She's been a right pain, no customers comin' in since she decided to scare off anypony gettin' near." The mare sighs, "'Tis all a terrible misfortune, ya know a jujube farm actually takes a lot of upkeep so without all my usuals I can't keep the books balanced for much longer."

"No worries, The Great and Powerful Trixie will banish whatever evil spirit is within your window!" She announces, which oddly puts a look of horror on the mare's face.

"Oh no no no!" The mare stops and gets face to face with Trixie, "Ya don't understand, that's mah daughter in there! You have to get her out of that accursed glass! Why, if it were just some spirit I'd have thrown it away long ago!" The mare takes a breath, "Apologies, I guess I should explain everythin' from the start." She begins her tale as she turns to continue towards her home.

"Ya'll probably know about this occult stuff all the fillies an' colts give a pass in their free time, well my daughter's a bit more into that than most. Now bein' the supportive type I went ahead and got her a few books she wanted in that category. Wouldn' cha know it she started writing one of her own. I'd tell you the contents, I did read her stuff when she left it about, gotta make sure she's not writing any filth about demons and the like, but I couldn't read a word of it, nothin' but symbols an' markin's. If that wasn't odd enough she started heading out to the front of the store an' talkin' to the display window we got here. I went ahead an' contacted a psychologist nearby to come look at her and she disappeared! Sweet Celestia that gave me a startle, and I had herds of ponies lookin' for her at every turn in no time. After a day of it I come home an' see her in the window of the store, speakin' of."

She stops at the front of a large store, likely a home in the upper floors, behind which lies a massive forest of what Trixie can only presume are jujube trees. Just inside she can see many products made with the fruit, confectioneries, treats, and some bowls of them simply plain. "So she then began to scare your customers?"

"That's right, I truly couldn't tell you why, other than her odd hobby she's always been quick to help with chores and loved talking with the customers. I assumed it was the glass trying to keep ponies from getting my daughter out, but it never did a thing before." The glass is set back in place, the stallions grumbling at their wasted trip but that was quickly quelled by small bags of bits Trixie's new client tossed their way. "An' more than that comin' your way once you're done." She directs at Trixie.

'Trouble balancing the books she said.' Trixie smirks, "Of course, a service such as Trixie's isn't cheap." Sauntering up to the window Trixie peers into it, the mysterious filly is gone and in big fancy letters "Jujube Jubilation" slowly fades onto it. Trixie takes a short breath, an event she hadn't considered stands before her... she has no idea what to do. 'That filly must be her daughter, would she be able to hear me?' "Worry not lost foal for Trixie will soon free you!" With that announcement and no response from the glass, simply a gaze of wonder from the mother, Trixie successfully dug herself deeper.

'You can do this Trixie, you need those bits, you need that stage!' Yet even with reaffirming thoughts Trixie is lost on what could possibly be done. However, not willing to be caught staring dumbfounded in front of her client she turns and asks, "Would you show Trixie these occult books? Whilst The Great and Powerful Trixie would have no issue solving your problem in a matter of moments it's always best to be safe and review the exact kinds of magic that cause any given issue."

"Sure thing, they're right through here." The mare nods, leading Trixie through the shop and into the house. Once inside the filly's room Trixie finds that the occult books are stacked on high and spread across the room. 'A few books she said.' But this was a good thing, Trixie now has an excuse for more time. "I suppose I'll leave you to it, I've gotta get on the farm." Leaving the door open the mare trots off.

Of course Trixie would crack open a book and stare into it, not reading a thing, just thinking about what to do. 'Alright, a filly traps herself in a window and can now manipulate the images on it. Said filly begins to scare ponies away from the store against her mother's wishes. The filly I saw was an earth pony, so the magic must've been in the window to begin with. Did the filly see it and decide to research a way to talk to it? Then maybe the window took a liking to her and trapped her... then began scaring other ponies away!

'So the window is at fault, now how to solve the problem. Breaking the window might make the situation worse. Can Trixie talk to it too?' Trixie levitates a plethora of books past her face, but since none are titled "How to speak to a cursed window." She abandons that idea, not even considering anything the filly had written herself might hold an answer.

'Maybe it's much simpler than that. The mother should be far off on the farm by now.' With nopony to judge any possible failures Trixie heads back downstairs and levitates the fruit and confectioneries on display away from the window.

"Alright you, uh...." With the window looking plain still Trixie falters for a moment. 'Wait! Maybe I can do this!' Trixie conjures a cartoon image of herself onto the window at the bottom, treating the window sill like a floor. "Show yourself filly!" She narrates for her image as she moves its mouth, "The Great and Powerful Trixie requests your presence!" The window darkens and the streets beyond fade away whilst the albino filly, now very prominent due to the contrast, walks in from the side.

"Fiend, speak, why hast thou invaded my world of light?" But the filly didn't speak these words, they appeared as fancy text above her head. "You've darkened this plane with your ill-refined image!"

Trixie countered with her own text, though it looked like crayon writing. "Trixie seeks to remove you from this world, to free you from this place!" She found herself caught up in a new narrative.

"Oh, you believe me trapped? On this plane I am already free! Now leave me, I've much more important matters to attend to." The filly shoos Trixie's image.

"Neigh! Trixie will not. Even without knowledge on how to get you out of here, Trixie must try."

"I don't think you understand who you're talking to..." A large desert stadium fades in with Trixie's image and the filly at the center. The seats are filled with ponies of all kinds, a barely audible murmur of crowds comes from the window. "If you wish to take me from my world then you'll have quite the fight on your hooves. En garde!" The filly conjures a gladiatorial sword and shield into her hooves.

Trixie reacts by summoning her image a large magician's staff and before she can focus on conjuring more text the filly leaps forward with a thrust of her sword. The crowd gasps, having gained only a bit of volume. Trixie makes her image block the strike and a "Clash!" sound effect text pops up. Noticing that the movement of her image is constrained to some physical laws now that she couldn't move it in any other way than pushing the filly back. After doing so she has her image conjure a force field, 'There might be some limits, but here goes.' The the end of the staff flashes as two timber wolves appear to guard Trixie.

The filly jumps back, "Ha! Your evil minions are of no worth!" The filly slams her sword into the ground and two rock spikes take out each wolf, shattering them into wooden bits. The crowd cheers, though the amount of cheers doesn't match the stadium size. However, as the rock spikes crumble the timber wolf pieces glow with a green aura and form back together into on larger wolf. Trixie didn't think of this and realizes that, although the wolves are still in Trixie's cartoon form they've gained a life of their own. The crowd gasps and Trixie is stunned as the wolf swipes at the filly, pinning her to the stadium wall.

"No!" Trixie shouts aloud as she fails to make her image react properly only getting it to take down the field and walk forward.

"Is that all thou has!?" The filly's text taunts as she struggles against the claw, and the wolf closes its head in to bite the filly.

"I don't want to hurt you!" Trixie puts in text over her image, still too frazzled to think of a way to free the filly she prompts, "Now leave this world or else!"

"The fight has only begun!" The filly suddenly immolates herself momentarily, catching the wolf's claw on fire. In a panic it lets go and tries to blow it out, only spreading the fire across its body faster. Before it can turn to ash however, Trixie makes her image wave its staff and gathers the fire into a large ball above the stadium. The crowd is left in awe and the filly recovers, staring gravely at Trixie's image.

"This is your last chance, surrender." Trixie's text says.

"You're a fool."

With only that, a tinge of anger dictates Trixie's next action to throw the ball of fire at the filly. As it descends Trixie spot a glare traveling its way to her image, the shield! It smacks her image in the head, knocking it onto its back and the fire dissipates. With a short smirk the filly throws her sword into the air and out of view. With a quick flash a line of light from the sky targets the felled image of Trixie and it flashes again fading over her image shortly, before leaving the filly's sword and floating bits of ash in its place. Trixie had been defeated. The crowd cheers in glee and Trixie fumes.

"No!" Trixie shouts at the window, and before the filly can change anything Trixie conjures a gargantuan form of her head in the sky over the stadium, now much more realistic than the cartoon images from before. Making a laughing motion with red anger filled eyes, a storm forms and strikes lightning at the filly, but she's quick to respond and dodges by phasing about. Having enough of the annoying filly Trixie conjures one final object, a spear from the heavens desends quickly as the lightning herds the filly directly underneath it. With her last show of resistance the filly pushes at the spear before it impales her. The crowd is awestruck and silent.

A text forms over the whole window: "What!?". Particles of light spray from the filly's wound.

Trixie's jaw drops as she realizes what she just did. She dances on her hooves in a panic as any attempt to conjure any images on the window fail and the lights slowly fade from it leaving only the filly, still stuck in her same position.

"This can't be!" The text continues, "My world... how could you beat me in my own realm? I don't understand!" A loud crack as the filly dissipates and the window shatters with loud gasps and screams from the other side where a crowd had gathered to watch Trixie's duel.

"What in tarnation?" The mother pushes Trixie aside and tries to gather up the pieces of window, "What have you done?" She asks breathlessly. "No, you can't be gone, please..."

"Mom?" A filly appears as if she'd been released from a stealth spell. 'Wait.' Trixie sees that the filly has a normal coat and mane unlike her albino opponent. The filly collapses and begins breathing heavily, as the mom moves to help her child Trixie's concern falls to whether the filly looked different in the window or that wasn't her at all.

Panic and murmurings fade from Trixie's focus as she spots a white tail sneaking out of the shop. She darts out the door and gives chase, only barely following around a multitude of corners. THUD! Trixie rams into the side of a dumpster and falls onto her flank in a daze. A snicker fills the air, followed by a thoughtful hum. Trixie shakes her head and snarls at the dumpster which now has text upon it. "That was fun. You destroyed my world but I suppose you've earned my respect."

Trixie looks up to the smirking albino filly, "How are you doing that without magic?" Trixie waits for a response but the filly points down back to the text which has now changed.

"I'm not normal. I'll explain when I've worked on my voice a bit, for now, do you have a spare bed?"