Neon lights from the seemingly infinite number of signs for casinos or hotels bombarded the group of ponies, as their carriage pulled them through the streets of Las Pegasus, but even the blinding lights could not erase the smiles from the fools who had come to gamble their hard-earned money away. They saw every casino as a chance to make millions, and every hotel was there to serve their every whim. It was the city of money, yet few who actually entered it left with more than they had started.
Yet, the star attraction of the entire city was the golden Spire that had become the center of Las Pegasus, where the most expensive and also luckiest machines seemed to be housed. The once gray walls had been painted azure and purple, informing those who saw its beauty from off in the distance who ran the place. It was home to Trixie Lulamoon, the greatest unicorn who had ever lived.
"And that is our final destination," Trixie whispered when she walked back to where a red colt sat on the long carriage, who was still trying to get his wings to fold up properly, while also hiding his golden lightning bolt on his flank. "Some of the ponies I talked to said that once a week, Trixie performs a show there to show off her magic, meaning that the tower is open to anypony that has a ticket," she continued while hoofing Billy a drink that she had gotten from the front.
"So, the plan is to enter without being seen, watch a show about magic and then beat the fake in front of her audience?" Billy asked with a smile as he downed the drink. "Seems like a great idea for a Friday night."
"Actually, we will be seen entering," Trixie clarified while her horn glowed slightly, turning her coat from an azure color to a more reddish one, similar to what Billy's coat was. "There, so it seems like we're related."
"I still think it's going to raise some suspicion if you bring a kid...colt to a place where gambling takes place," Billy said while he looked out the carriage's side to see all of the adult ponies in the streets. "And what do you mean, 'we're going to be seen'? We don't have a ticket to get inside."
"Oh yeah, then why do I have these?" Trixie smirked as she flashed two tickets for the show, her smirk turning to a smile as Billy's face took on surprise. "Billy, you forget. I'm Trixie. Why would I not be able to get tickets to my own show? As for your other question, as long as you're here to spend money, most ponies don't care who or what you bring here. I think the last time I was at Las Pegasus, I saw a hydra here."
"Ponies are strange," Billy muttered as his gaze cast itself over the denizens of Las Pegasus.
"That they are, 'Thunderstorm', that they are." Trixie saw the look that Billy gave her and she smiled at him with a wink. "Come now, I can't go around saying your other name in public, can I? What if Black Adam was listening?" Billy conceded her point but her words did cause him to turn his gaze to the sky, trying to see in the spotlights if the black clad champion was there at that moment.
"So...Banner told me that when Adam took on his white clad form, that you were even angrier at him than usual," Trixie began, wanting to learn more about what had happened during that fight, while she had been out of commission. Billy's reply was silence and Trixie dropped the question there, leaving the both of them to sit in silence until the carriage came to a stop outside of the tower, the last stop for the ponies on board.
"Wow, this place sure looks fancy," Billy muttered from beside Trixie as the pair hopped out of the carriage and walked towards the Spire, both of them doing their best not to look agitated when they walked past a pair of guards who kept their blue-visored eyes on the group at all times. One of the guards by the doors asked for tickets, and one by one the ponies ahead of Trixie and Billy entered the Spire. Trixie flashed the tickets to the guard as they passed, but for a brief moment she could tell that the guard was staring at her.
"Everypony is wearing Trixie's mane nowadays," he grumbled before waving them in, barely giving Billy a passing glance. Billy hopped along after Trixie as she took in the red carpet and the azure drapes that seemed to consume every part of the entry way, nearly causing her to gag. The main room wasn't any better, with images of Trixie plastered all over the walls and even the tables--as Trixie found out--were covered in her own face and cutie mark.
"Wow, I did not think that you'd have this kind of ego," Billy said with a smile when he looked around at all the Trixie memorabilia, including a crane game off in the corner that was filled with only Trixie plushies. "Heh, I have a feeling that even if you win at that game, you'd lose."
"Yes, Thunderstorm, I used to have this kind of...ego," Trixie shamefully admitted as the pair of them walked down the steps to the seating area, picking a table that was off to the side so as not to draw attention to themselves. Her eyes quickly located a guarded staircase that ascended higher into the Spire, and a wink from Billy told her that he had spotted it as well. "But that was before Batmare, Morgaine and the end of my world. Now I live a simple life helping others and tending to my family. To see all of this bragging about myself brings back...memories that I'd rather not re-live."
Waiters walked around each table and began to take orders from the ponies. Trixie said she wanted nothing when they approached her table, but Billy ordered a salad with only vegetables and fruits.
"I swear, if I get grass in it again, I'm going to spit lightning. Think the show will be any good?" he asked Trixie when he rested his head on his hooves and blew his black mane out of his eyes. "Even though I won't get to see it."
"If she's as arrogant as I remember being, then we're in for something, I know that much," Trixie answered with a shake of her head. Fog began to roll off the stage and silenced the ponies that were sitting around the tables, turning all eyes towards the main attraction. Trixie looked around swiftly to make sure that nopony was looking at their table before giving Billy a quick nod, which he returned before slipping under the table and zipping towards the stairwell on the other end of the room. A quick flash of Trixie's horn dazed the guards long enough for Billy to go up the stairs undetected. She then turned her attention back towards the stage with a grimace, as a pony she hoped she would never have to see again took the stage.
"Hello, lucky ponies of Las Pegasus! Tonight will be the greatest night of your lives! Heck, just getting to see me in pony has already made it the greatest night of your lives!" an azure pony with a white mane said as she hurled her hooves into the air with a smile, nearly knocking her golden hat off of her head while her golden cape flowed behind her. "For tonight, you will get to see the great and powerful Trixie live in all her glory! Is that not the greatest honor?!"
The crowd cheered and roared for her in response, getting her to bow with a "humble" smile on her face. Yet, the entire time a certain red unicorn with a white mane identical to Trixie's was observing her with dark eyes, not wanting to miss a second of what her future foe could do.
"Now, to start tonight's show, I would like a volunteer," Trixie said while she scanned the crowd, yet Trixie was fast enough to slightly avert her eyes in a way that she knew would prevent Trixie from picking her.
'After all, I would never pick a pony that didn't make direct eye contact,' Trixie thought silently as she felt her eyes wash over her before moving on to another target.
"How about you? Yes you!" she called out to a unicorn in the first row, who stumbled nervously up onto the stage with an awkward smile as he looked around at all of the eyes looking up at him. "Tell me, good sir, how versed are you in magic? Would you say that you are good at it?"
"N-not really, but I do have a grasp on the basics," he said with a nervous chuckle. Trixie gave him a smirk before she continued on with her show.
"Well, Mr. Basics, even a unicorn that only knows the basics must know how hard it is to do an age modifying spell, wouldn't they?" The crowd gasped at what Trixie was implying, causing the great and powerful to laugh deviously as she nodded with a wicked smile.
"Difficult, until you find out that you can use magic to temporarily rewind the pony so that they look younger," Trixie muttered under her breath, despite herself. For a brief moment, it looked like the other Trixie's ear flicked towards Trixie, but if Trixie had heard her words she said nothing as she continued on with the show.
"But nothing is difficult for the great and powerful...TRIXIE!" Trixie cried out as her horn flashed, causing a torrent of fog to cover the crowd. When the fog cleared the crowd gasped at the baby unicorn up on the stage next to the smiling Trixie, with the only sound in the room coming from the baby. Then the crowd exploded into cheers and applause, with the sudden outburst of noise causing the baby to begin crying.
'That was no trick, not like what the old me would have done,' Trixie observed as Trixie reversed the spell, turning the crying foal into a crying stallion within a second. The unicorn nodded quickly, before running off the stage in embarrassment and into the bathrooms, Trixie giving him a sympathetic glance before turning her eyes back towards herself. 'So she has my old attitude, but nearly the same level of skill that I do. Bother.'
"Now then, for my next feat of amazement, I shall do what was only thought possible by Star-Swirl the Bearded! I shall create a vortex into another reality!" The crowd gasped once again at her words, yet this time they managed to worm out a smirk from Trixie.
"That's because opening holes in reality is actually a simple concept once you understand multiverse theory." Trixie muttered under her breath once again in spite of herself, yet this time her words did not go unnoticed by the stage performer, who turned her gaze towards Trixie with burning eyes and an evil smile.
"Well, well, it seems that we have a unicorn in the crowd who seems to believe that she knows more than the great and powerful Trixie," Trixie exclaimed to the crowd, turning all eyes to Trixie, who cursed herself for speaking aloud. "Please, come up here and demonstrate for the whole crowd what you were just mumbling." Trixie looked around at the crowd before shrugging, seeing that her performance would continue to distract the guards and make Billy's mission that much easier. Trixie rose to her hooves and walked up onto the stage, both Trixie's staring each other down as they circled like animals preparing to fight.
"Please, Dear, if you know so much about Star-Swirl the Bearded's work, then show all of us how to properly open a vortex in reality," Trixie said with a mock bow, getting the crowd to chuckle as Trixie looked up at the spotlights around her. For some reason she felt slightly nauseous underneath of the spotlights and with all of the ponies' eyes upon her, their stares causing memories that she preferred stayed buried to rise from their graves.
'Stay down there, damn you. I am happy with myself. I don't need...' Trixie thought as she gazed out at all of the ponies who were now looking at her, waiting for her...there for her...'the attention.' Trixie shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts before clearing her head while she turned to look at herself with a smirk. She then began to concentrate while speaking words of magic long since forgotten, her horn glowing along with the words she spoke. Her eyes turned pure white before she unleashed the spell into the wall, standing back and watching with a smirk as the very fabrics of time and space slightly unveiled themselves, so that the crowd could see into another world for a brief moment. But before any of them could truly feast their eyes, Trixie closed the portal with a smile.
"Was that good enough for you?"
"How did you do that?" Trixie asked with narrowed eyes that were more curious than they were angry or agitated. "There are no unicorns in the land who can match the great and powerful Trixie in magical abilities, and if there were, Black Adam would have brought them to Celestia's side long ago. Who are you and how can you preform such spells?"
Trixie cast a quick glance at the crowd to see that all eyes were on her, to see that the crowd was no longer paying attention to the doppelgänger standing across the stage from her. It was her stage now. With a laugh Trixie's horn began to glow, causing the magic that kept her coat red to vanish and return it to its azure color. All ponies, Trixie included, gasped in shock when they saw who was standing across the stage from Trixie.
"How can I do it? Because I am the greatest unicorn in my world," Trixie said as she let her white mane fall over her shoulders in the exact same way as the pony in front of her. "I am Trixie Lulamoon."
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Pinkie hummed happily to herself as she hopped down the streets with closed eyes, enjoying every second of the warm light that her friend Mr. Sun shone down upon her. So happy was she, that she almost ran head first into a figure that had been walking down the streets of Ponyville.
"Oops. Sorry mister, I didn't see you there," Pinkie said with a smile as she opened her eyes...to find herself looking at the lower half of a black cloak. Pinkie looked up to see that the figure who was wearing the cloak was twice as tall as she was, but she couldn't see his face due to a black hood with gold trimming that covered it. The figure simply nodded at her words before gliding around her, almost as if his feet weren't on the ground. "Wait up! I've never seen you around her before! Are you new? Well if you are, hi! I'm Pinkie!"
The figure looked down at her for a long minute as Pinkie continued to smile up at him, yet for a brief moment she felt sadness in the air around the cloaked being. The figure then pointed behind her, causing Pinkie to turn to look. "What? Is something over there? I don't see anything...wait, is it that? No, maybe it's that. Ooh, I bet it's that!" Pinkie continued to guess until she found what her new friend had pointed at, but even if she had turned around, the figure was long gone.
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"If ya had just listened to me, ya wouldn't have to go get yer rabies shots," Applejack grumbled to her little sister, who was currently resting on AJ's back and nursing a bite from a raccoon. "Fluttershy warned ya that some of her animals would bite anypony except her, but ya still had to go and touch every single one. What were ya thinking?"
"Ah just wanted to try and see if animal tamer was mah cutie mark," Applebloom defensively said in reply, biting back pain as she held her arm. "And now ah might never know thanks to..." Her words died as both she and Applejack spied a cloaked figure walking on the same path as they were, but he was heading towards the cottage. They couldn't see his face nor his feet, but what they did know was that he towered over them and was certainly not a pony.
"Uh, greetings stranger," Applejack said with a polite, but very wary, tip of her hat. "Never seen a figure like you before around these parts. You a friend of Fluttershy's?" The cloaked figure slightly turned his head to look at the two of them, and for a brief moment they both sensed sorrow. Yet, the feeling lasted only a second and the figure had already moved past them and towards the cottage. AJ considered tailing the stranger for a moment, but her sister whimpered in pain and she decided for her. With one last worried look, AJ continued her walk towards the hospital.
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Fluttershy hummed as she re-papered the bottom of one her bird cages, trying to take her mind off the scolding she had done to the raccoon that had bitten Applebloom. She hated to be mad at the creature, but even she had to put her hooves down at such rude behavior.
"I hope that she'll be alright, but it wasn't that bad a bite," Fluttershy said to one of the birds as it hopped around on the new newspaper happily. "But I'm glad to see that some of you remember your manners." The bird tweeted back before it turned towards the front of the cottage and slowly began to back away. Fluttershy turned to follow its gaze before her eyes went wide in shock as well. A cloaked figure was walking around her front yard and seemed to be looking over everything, from the animals to the house itself.
"What's the matter Shy? You look like you've seen a ghost," the birdcage beside her said, causing the birds within to squawk as they flew for their lives.
"There's a stranger outside, Discord, and he doesn't look very nice," Fluttershy nervously said as she hid behind the draconis who morphed out of his birdcage form. "Would you mind...asking him to politely leave?"
"Why, my dear Fluttershy, it would be my pleasure," Discord said as he turned towards the entrance, but at that same moment the hooded figure turned his head to look through the window and Discord felt himself enter the being's gaze. The moment Discord looked into the hood he felt sorrow, but also something else: Power. Unstoppable power. A power that even he could not fight. The two stared at each other for a long moment before Discord snapped his fingers and caused the blinds to lower themselves while at the same time barricading the door.
"Actually Shy, I think it's best that we wait for him to leave," Discord said as he wrapped himself around the Pegasus in a defensive stance, though he prayed for the first time that the being would simply leave. "I don't want to mess with him."
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Twilight had just finished re-arranging the shelves in her new library when she heard the bell ring from downstairs, telling her that a customer had just entered into the shop. "I'll be there in just a second!" she called down as she quickly added the final books to the second floor of the library. "Barely open a week and already so many customers. I didn't know that our town cared so much about learning," she said to herself as she flew down the stairs. "Hello. Can I...?"
"I am looking for a book on the complete Equestrian history," a cloaked figure standing in the center of the room said to her, Twilight unable to see his face as the hood slowly turned to show where he was looking. His voice scared Twilight, because it sounded ancient, while at the same time filled with power. Yet the being's voice was nothing compared to the magical power she felt radiating off of it, so much so that she could tell that it was trying to hide its full power but could not. "Sooner would be preferable."
"Er, yes. Of course," Twilight said while she levitated the newest volume of Equestria history off of the shelves and over to the creature, who revealed a hand beneath his cloak when he reached up to grab it. Twilight watched with both fascination and worry as the cloaked being burned through the pages, finishing in seconds what was a twelve hour read for her.
"Thank you," the cloaked figure said with both sadness and what sounded like loathing in his voice while he offered the book back to her, causing Twilight to be on guard as she turned to place the book back on its shelf.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few..." But her words were heard by only herself and as she turned to look back, she saw that the cloaked figure was gone, with the open door telling her where he had vanished.
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"It is the same as all the others," Black Adam said in a near whisper while he floated above the town of Ponyville, out of their sight, but he was still able to view them. But at that moment, his eyes were closed and his fists were clenched with rage--a rage at himself. "They are all so happy, so unburdened by pain or loss. Twilight and her friends live happy lives, there is no war that ravages the land..." Black Adam then turned his sights towards Canterlot and a moment later he floated above it, looking in through a window to see Celestia and Luna speaking with each other, occasionally laughing.
"And they are still sisters here. It is indeed the same as the others," he said with a cold bitterness in his voice, clenching his eyes shut once again in pain. "Discord is a friend to the ponies and not in the grave. Chrysalis and her armies are nowhere near the ponies, yet she lives with her family. Tirek is imprisoned in Tartarus with the power of friendship...and there is no war, no strife. only happiness."
Black Adam rocketed up higher into the sky, so much so until he floated just at the border where space and the atmosphere touched. He then turned to look down at the world below him, a world that was so similar to all the other Equestria's he had visited. It was filled with friendship, with happiness and with love; just like all the other ones. And just like all the other ones, there was one last key factor that they all shared, a factor that caused tears to fall down Adam's face as pain gripped his heart.
'It was all because of me. Everything that happened, from the death of the Elements to the war of the ponies was all because of me,' he grieved while he held a hand to his face, realizing what his simple arrival to Equestria had done. He knew now that all the blood that had been spilled from those who had died was on his hands. For all of the peaceful and happy Equestria's across the multiverse had the same happy story, because of one reason.
Black Adam was never a part of them.