“Is there something wrong ma’am? And have we met before?” These questions snapped me out of my stupor as I knew something wasn’t right here, especially when I saw the look of worry and confusion in her eyes. There is no way that Trixie is still alive as I went to her funeral centuries ago and she also doesn’t carry herself the same. It’s like she didn’t expect anyone to recognize who she was which means one of two things and I know that she isn’t a changeling. I calm myself down as I carefully probe at her with my magical senses to determine if I was right this.
Well I can definitely say that she’s not Trixie as her magical signature is way off, though there is a hint of her there still. It sure looks like her though except it feels as if she is just wearing the form but it doesn’t fit correctly. Looking a bit deeper I see why as there truly is an illusion around whomever this pony is as I can sense space where nothing truly exists as she is shorter than the illusion. This really isn’t a bad attempt at an illusion though, if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew what to look for and the fact that she was someone that shouldn’t be here then I wouldn’t have looked twice. It’s actually pretty good, especially if they only had a photo of Trixie to go by as I doubt Twilight would have shown her exactly what she looked like. There’s another thing that would have tipped me off, now that I think of it. Trixie almost never took off that hat and cape of hers unless she was only going to be around friends.
She looks as if she is getting a bit nervous with me staring at her so I decide to break the silence. “You know that’s a pretty good illusion that you’ve put up there, but is there a reason that you need it?” A look of shock passes over her face when I say this before it changes to a look of frustration replaces it as she stomps a hoof in frustration. “Aww, now the princess will never teach me how to teleport, and I only had to fool three more ponies as well.” I watch as the illusion fades away revealing a young unicorn mare with a pinkish-lavender coat and mane of the same color that Trixie had. Hare mane was shaped so that it hung down evenly around hear head to her shoulders while the part in front was cut so that it just covered her eyes. I noticed that she also had her cutie mark which looked to be two triangles overlapping each other in a star shape, but with the top one being invisible with starbursts highlighting the corners.
I watch her pouting for a while taking a bit of amusement at her reaction though I’m not sure if I should be. “I’m sorry about ruining the test that the princess, I really didn’t expect for her to have a student. Of course if she specifically said that it was only ponies that were to be part of the test then technically you didn’t fail.” I am surprised as she lets out a small ‘eep’ sound as she ducks down behind the desk as if I had surprised her. She peeks out from behind the desk at me before ducking back down again and I wonder what is going on until she speaks from her hiding spot, though she is kind of hard to hear.
“W-w-what do you mean by that? If you don’t mind me asking that is…” Oh great, she has a shyness complex just as bad as Fluttershy’s. Strange how she was talking to me just fine when the illusion up, I wonder if that is a major factor with how she speaks. “Well at the very least I can talk to Princess Twilight about it when I see her, I doubt she would hold it against you for not succeeding against someone that is more experienced than you with illusions.” I decide to show off a bit as I conjure up some illusionary butterflies and fly them around the room and even landing one on her nose. She watches in awe as the multitude of colors swarms around the entire room before I have them start to shatter apart in bursts of color. “So pretty…”
I smile as she turns to look at me, but this time without her hiding behind the desk in fear. Suddenly I hear a loud banging sound from the basement area of the library and I realize just where Twilight is right now as I look at the young mare. “Let me guess, Princess Twilight is downstairs doing some kind of experiment or research. How long has she been down there this time?” She looks at me shyly but actually answers even though it’s not much better than a whisper still. “One week now. She was up here for a while but she went back down again talking about someone coming. The door is warded so nobody can bother her.”
I sigh as I shake my head at Twilight’s antics. Of course I should have expected her to go overboard after receiving that letter. I guess Spike must have sent it to her once he received it but he wasn’t here to do anything to stop her from overreacting. That or she just ignored that part of the letter that he probably sent her. I examine the door that leads down into her old lab area and smile as I notice something. Oh Twilight, what have I told you about making sure you update your protective spells so that someone doesn’t sneak in using old backdoors. That’s probably why Aurora was able to get into my home past the spells designed to divert ponies away from it barring a few exceptions.
“You know this might be a good time for a little impromptu lesson regarding, not only illusions, but about ward spells as well.” The mare looks at me in curiosity as I say this, but she doesn’t interrupt. “You see ward spells, like most shielding spells, are designed to stop only certain things from passing through them. You can also make it where they stop everyone from getting through except for those that you want to be able to pass through. So you can’t use the exact same spell all the time or else you might have something like this happen.” I open up the door leading down to the basement as if the spell wasn’t even there as I pull a handful of smoke bombs out of my pack before tossing them down the stairs and closing the door again.
She looks at me in shock as I let out a small chuckle before explaining. “Oh don’t worry; those are just some smoke bombs. I’m an old friend of the princess, which is why I could get through the ward and play a little joke.” I hear a yell of confusion from below as the smoke bombs go off. “Now while she is figuring out what is going on we can start the lesson on illusions before she gets up here.” I pull out a length of rope from my packs and divide it into eight foot-long segments. “You see you surprising me with that illusion was a good thing, as shock can throw off a being’s senses enough that you can get them to believe almost anything is real. Of course once I recovered I was able to find the few flaws in your illusion, one of which is the fact that you were smaller than the illusion and there was nothing taking up the extra space.”
I cover the ropes with an illusion of snakes before tossing them to the ground in front of the door while moving them with telekinesis. “You can easily use other objects to make up for that issue as the illusion of substance is often enough to stop beings from looking deeper. Of course there are a couple other things you missed which I will explain in a moment.” I pause in my lecture before backing into a corner as I hear hooffalls on the steps behind the door. The door opens to reveal the familiar figure of a purple alicorn, whose mane is looking a bit frazzled though it’s hard to tell with the smoke billowing out around her.
I grin as I start to conjure up an illusion around me, making sure to quadruply shield it from being dispelled, and I pull a dry towel from my bags to assist with it. I then make sure to make it where the form will be detected as real with a few barriers before I finally adjust my magical signature and voice so that they match the new form as I pay attention to Twilight once again. She stops in the middle of the mass of fake snakes and starts speaking between coughs to the unicorn without seeming to have noticed me.
“Triguna Lulamoon, when just happened up here? How did somepony get through-“ She pauses as one of the fake snakes brushes against a hoof causing her to look down before her eyes shrink to pinpricks. “S-s-s-SNAKES!” With her cry Twilight leapt high into the air and clung to the top of a nearby bookshelf in her panic. Triguna Lulamoon, which I’m guessing is the unicorn I was showing off to, is just watching in shock at what is happening while I try to hold back from breaking down laughing. Getting my first good look at Twilight I see that she has also grown in relation to things but actually doesn’t look much different from my point of view as I come up to just above her withers like I did before. I do wince when I notice that both her wings are wrapped in bandages and I wonder what happened to them before I start the next phase of my little prank. She also is wearing a fetching set of silver regalia that was inset with magenta gems.
“So, the great Twilight Sparkle is still so easily fooled by mere illusions. I honestly expected much more from you.” Twilight stops in her yelling when I start talking in my changed voice before she fires off a spell to strip the illusion away showing the ropes slithering around the floor in a light magenta aura. Twilight’s eye starts twitching as she takes in this scene before she levels a glare at me as she climbs down the bookcase. “All right, who are you and how did you manage to get past my not only my guards but also my protective wards?” Her horn starts glowing in a threatening manner as I let out a small laugh.
“Oh Twilight, has it really slipped your little mind the identity of your greatest rival? The only unicorn powerful enough to match you even after you picked up your little wings? Well worry not, for once again you can behold the amazing skills of the Great and Powerful Trrrrrixie!” With that I toss of my bags and cloak with a flourish to reveal me under the illusion of Trixie with her hat and cape as I balance on my hind legs and fire off a burst of illusionary fireworks into the area around me. I know that I am enjoying this too much, but I can’t really help it as I view not only Triguna’s jaw drop but Twilight’s as well.
Twilight is the first to recover from her shock, though it hasn’t really helped her mental stability much as her mane starts getting even further frazzled than before. “Wait, this is just another illusion isn’t it? There’s no way that Trixie can really still be alive after all this time, right?” She fires off a spell to dispel the illusion around me, but only strips away a layer of protection with no real effect on the illusion itself. “Wait, why didn’t that work? It worked before and as I said Trixie being here is just plain impossible.” She powers up her horn again and attempts to strip the illusion away one more time, this time removing two layers of protection, but ends up with the same scene as before.
I drop to all fours once again as I imitate Trixie’s haughty glare at Twilight. “Is that really the best you’ve got Twilight? Trixie must say that you have really let yourself go if Trixie can defeat you without even casting a single spell.” Twilight is definitely not looking very good as her mane is a complete mess and her twitching eye has gotten worse. “This is impossible. You are completely impossible. It is impossible that you are here and I am going to prove it.” With that she starts teleporting around the room as she starts grabbing books seemingly at random and I wonder if I may have gone a bit too far. Sighing I decide to end this charade as I turn towards the young Lulamoon who looks to be on the verge of her own panic attack.
“Let this be a lesson to remember in the future Ms. Lulamoon. Even the most powerful magic users can be thrown off by a well-crafted illusion. Twilight was so sure that this was an illusion that even after trying twice and failed that she lost her composure and is easy to defeat if that is your goal. Had she tried again she would have stripped away the last of the protections I had placed to prevent her from doing so and I would have had to reapply them or lose the illusion. Even then she might not have been able to as part of dispelling an illusion requires you to disbelieve that it is real.”
The room had gotten really silent as I explained this but I still continued on. “Your illusion earlier was missing anything to direct others attention away from it being an illusion something off was noticed. That and the lack of any protections over the illusion were the other flaws that I noticed in your casting though not many would have seen through what you were doing. Off the top of my head I could name six other being other than Twilight that would have seen through your illusion as they personally knew the mare in question so would easily notice that you lacked both her personality as well as her magical signature.” Looking around I notice that Triguna’s eyes were wide open at my explanation, while Twilight was once again glaring down at me from one of the upper levels of the library with narrowed eyes before she teleported in front of me.
She took a closer look at me as she seemed to switch from her panicked state over to one of deep suspicion. “Who are you really? I know everypony else that would remember Trixie and the only one that I don’t know the location of is Discord yet you aren’t acting like he would.” I raise an eyebrow at this information as I was a bit curious about why I hadn’t seen any sign of him yet. “Really? So you found a way to track me through a portal to another world, yet you never bothered to let me know or knew that the message you got recently was from me? I guess you don’t really want that book that I saved for you.” I didn’t really need to ask the last part, but I was curious about how Twilight to react.
I seemed to have hit a nerve somewhere as she just stared at me in shock with her horn no longer glowing. “But it can’t be, we thought she was dead all this time. Can it really be you?” I look at her as if she was crazy though I just drop the illusion in response revealing me with the towel I was wearing as a cape. Twilight looks at me in shock and I can see her eyes start to tear up before she rushes at me. “Flarenza! It is you!” She grabs me up in a hug as she starts crying into my fur while I bring my left paw around to pat her back.
We were only there for a couple minutes before we were interrupted by Twilight’s student. “Excuse me ma’am, but why are you wearing a crown? Are you a princess, too?” I had forgotten that I was wearing my regalia but was reminded about it when she mentioned it as well as when Twilight jerked back to look at my crown. “Wait a minute, why are you wearing that Flarenza? Celestia won’t like it if she sees you with something like that on.” I sigh as I wasn’t ready to explain this yet though she would pester me constantly until she knew the reason why.
“I’ll talk to you about that later Twilight, though I will tell you that there is a very good reason for me to have it which she might not like either. Of course there are a lot of things that we’ll need to talk about after what I’ve learned since I got here.” I gesture towards her bandaged wings with a paw which causes her to look back at them and sigh. “So you’ve already heard about the war then. We need all the help we can but unless you have an army just sitting around in hiding then I’m not sure what you could do.” I say nothing for now, but something does come to mind that needs to be settled now.
“We can talk about it tomorrow, but there is one thing I have to know about now. How are Equestria’s relations with the changelings right now?” She looks at me strangely before exchanging a look with her student. “I don’t know why you want to know that, but we haven’t seen them since you were last here.” I look a bit worried at this as I have no idea what happened with Chrysalis, but finding a changeling in such an important position as a royal guard may not be a good sign.
“So you know nothing about that changeling that is standing outside the door posing as one of your guards?” Twilight just stares at me for a moment before she realizes exactly what I just said. “What?! What do you mean by that!?” Realizing that this is news to her I let out a sharp whistle, signaling Rose to subdue the changeling. From the yelling that starts up outside I assume she was successful but the other guard is taking offense so I open the door. She quickly drags the changeling inside the library while the other guard is atop her back trying unsuccessfully to get her to release it.
“Twilight, if you would call off your guard we can figure out what this is all about.” I dig through my memories for the spell before casting it on the changeling, stripping it of its disguise. What was revealed was one of the changelings that I remembered which only now noticed my presence causing it to begin panicking. “No! The Demon Fox is here!? The hive must be warned!” It starts struggling even more and I can feel its presence pressing on the shield I erected to prevent it from communicating with any others.
Twilight looks between it and me in shock as I just sigh before pulling out an old ring from my bags and secure it on the changeling’s horn. “So what do you want to do about the changeling Twilight?” This snaps her out of it and I see her compose herself before turning towards the other guard who was watching in shock. “Sergeant, secure the changeling in my alternate lab until we get a chance to interrogate it then enact the changeling contingency plan and make sure the rest of the guard is clear.” The guard snaps to attention to do this while the changeling continues to scream its head off in fear of me.
Once the guard is gone Twilight turns towards me with a look of frustration on her face. “Okay, now do you mind telling me why there is a timberwolf in my library and why it seems to be listening to you?” I just chuckle before responding. “She’s one of my guards along with two others that are back at my manor getting things ready. I’ll explain it tomorrow along with everything else.” She just groans and brings a hoof up to rub at her temple. “I had forgotten how annoying things could get with you around, though I am glad to finally see you again.”
I look away from her for a moment and see the time on a nearby clock. “Yeah, speaking of that it might be getting a bit worse than you think as I may have accidentally introduced one of the most dangerous things that Ponyville has ever seen back into the town earlier today.” Twilight just looks at me as if I was crazy before she brings up her other hoof to her head. “And just what do you mean by that? I haven’t heard any screaming yet so how dangerous could it be?”
I look at Triguna who had gone back to hiding behind the front desk when Rose showed up before turning back. “Well how much do you know about the ponies that are in town right now? More specifically about a certain white pegasus that has a blonde curly mane?” I see Triguna’s eyes widen before she rests a hoof on her face while Twilight looks confused. “I think I remember hearing about who you are talking about, her name was Surprise I think, what about her?” I grin sheepishly as I’m still not sure how to explain it.
“Well you probably should have paid more attention to Ponyville as not only did I see her get a twitchy tail just before a piano almost fell on a couple fillies, but she somehow managed to grab an illusion of the party cannon before she ran off with it.” Twilight seems unsure about what I am talking about at first but her eyes widen as she begins to comprehend. “Please tell me that you aren’t saying what I think you are saying.” I shake my head as a loud ‘BOOM’ rolls across Ponyville, shaking the library from she shockwave.
“I’m afraid I am Twilight. Her full name is Surprise Pie and from what I can tell is exactly like her ancestor Pinkie.” I watch as Twilight runs out the door to see what just happened and I slowly follow her leaving Ms. Lulamoon behind looking confused.