//------------------------------// // Trixie, Destroyer of Worlds // Story: Appledashery // by Just Essay //------------------------------// Rainbow touched down, sliding a few feet across the stone. She turned and tilted her head up... and swiftly tilted it back down as-- THUD! Sunset Shimmer's still-smoldering body struck the floor in a bouncing heap. "Unnnngh..." The unicorn's horn flickered on and off, but the menace was long gone. "Woohooo!" Pinkie Pie pumped her hoof in the air from the far end of the plateau. "Nice shot, Trixie! You can bottom lane ADC with me anyday of the week--!" The air whistled in several places. She looked up, only to be encompassed in a darkening shadow. "Wuh oh." Pinkie gulped. Maud spontaneously plowed into her. Both mares dove sideways, avoiding a falling wheel by a hair's width. All around, the ancient discs of Sunset's arsenal were collapsing one by one. With nopony to chaotically control them, they returned to their dormant deadness, slamming into the ground at regular intervals until the entire cavern resonated with dull thunder. Even Daring and Romulus paused in their fight to dodge a wheel or two. The henchstallions had all gathered against a nook in the wall, clutching what was left of their weapons as they watched the entire underground plateau collect with the piles of circular stone refuse. Around this time, Rainbow Dash had dragged a thoroughly bruised Sunset Shimmer to the opposite wall. By the last thuds of falling discs, Sunset started to wake, her normally glowing eyes reduced to a dull turquoise. "Unnngh... h-huh...?!" "Morning, Sleeping Beast," Rainbow grumbled. The mare sat up, rubbing her aching head. "Where am I?" She gazed at the underground cavern full of dormant wheels and gasped. "What's all this?!" Rainbow squawked, "Lemme guess. You don't remember being a methodically calculating psychopath who stumbled upon a chaos shard and used it to empower a bunch of ancient stones into doing your violent bidding?" Sunset fidgeted. "...I have my off days." "Unnngh..." Rainbow facehoofed, then glared across the way. "Where's that darn chaos shard?" "It's mine, wherever it is!" Romulus dove across the wreckage--only to be yanked back by his tail feathers. "Gaaaagh!" Daring's weight pressed into him, driving the griffon's beak into the stone floor. "Go get it, champ!" Daring hollered through the settling dust. "Grab it so we can get this crud over with!" "R-right!" Rainbow Dash stood up. "Don't go taking over any teenage high school dimensions." "O-okay..." Sunset gave her an awkward blink as the pegasus glided away. Rainbow zipped and darted through the sudden graveyard of discs, wheels, and stone rubble. Her panting breaths increased tenfold after a full thirty-seconds of no shard-finding. Across the way, Maud craned her neck to observe Rainbow's search. "I don't think she's going to find--" "Maud!" Pinkie yelped, pointing over her sister's shoulder. "Look out!" The henchstallions were trotting their way over with all sorts of weapons. Maud calmly brought her hoof down. WHUDDDDD! The thugs all fell to their flanks, grunting in pain. Maud continued. "Like I was saying." She blinked. "I don't think she's going to find the shard in time." "No?" "We would need a rock sorter for that." "Say..." Pinkie blinked, glancing around. "Where is Trixie, anyway?" Maud blinked for three and a half seconds. "There she is." "Huh?" Pinkie squinted. "Oh! Hey, Trixie! Say, that's a nice chaos shard you have there!" From across the way, Rainbow's voice cracked. "H-huh?!" She spun--then saw a figure standing above her on a pile of collapsed wheels. A blue pair of hooves clasped the stone dragon's tail. Trixie's eyes stared at the shard in her grasp with a glazed expression. "To think... that this has been the cause... of all the Great and Powerful Trixie's troubles..." Rainbow gulped and stretched a hoof out. "Trixie... how about hoofing that over, eh, girl?" "Trixie came to this town to earn bits... to start a new life..." Trixie's teeth glinted as her eyes started glowing. "And what did it get Trixie?! The same as Ponyville!" Rainbow winced. "Trixie, for realsies." She flew over. "Now would be a good time to--" FLASSSSH! "Aaugh!" Rainbow flew back, landing on her flank. She shook her head and glanced up. "Oh come on!" Trixie floated straight up, her mane and cape billowing in a magical wind. "The Great and Powerful Trixie understands now!" she hollered, grinning wickedly. "The wheels were never trying to bind Trixie, but liberate her!" One by one, the discs lifted alongside her, spinning around the mare in the subterrannean air. "They shall make everypony pay for Trixie's destitution! Today, Dredgemane! Tomorrow, Ponyville! And then, after that, all of Equestria will know of Trixie's pain!" FWOOOOOSH! All of the wheels formed a vertical column high above Trixie's head. They spun in alternating revolutions, drilling through the earth above and carving a jagged tunnel to the surface, through which Trixie levitated, laughing manicacally. "Mwahahahahahahaaaaaa!" Rainbow slumped to her hooves, watching with panicked eyes as every single wheel zipped up through the tunnel, following Trixie's possessed figure. Lancie stuck his head out of Rainbow's saddlebag. "Let me guess. You screwed up." Rainbow gulped. "Y-yup..." "Whole entire kingdom's now doomed?" "Uh huh..." "Sweet." Lancie yawned and slid back into the saddlebag. "Wake me up when it's half-past Armaregeddon."