“You know, I didn’t need your help,” Trixie declared as she followed her newest earth pony acquaintance into his home.
“Is that a fact,” he replied as he walked away from her, heading further into the house, “because from my point of view it looked as if you allowed yourself to get cornered, then gave up all hope of escape and resigned yourself to your fate.”
The magician shut the front door behind her with a little more effort than was necessary. “Trixie had them right where she wanted them,” she replied irritably.
The stallion stopped and whirled around to give her an intense look of frustration; Trixie shrank back.
“You cowered like a little filly when you had the perfect opportunity to strike, causing both yourself and I prolonged exposure to an opponent who could have easily killed either of us or myself alone. It was sloppy and unprofessional. Even with no training in combat I would have expected more mettle from somepony who at least had a horn to defend herself with!”
Stunned by his sudden explosion, she remained rooted to the spot she stood in.
The stallion snorted angrily and turned away from her, “ ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’ would have still had those dogs right where she wanted them from a cell a few hundred feet below ground.”
As he walked away from her, his taunt finally snapped her back to reality, and she snarled to herself. Stomping after him, she saw the stallion disappear behind a door a few seconds before she reached him, so she stood in front of it to yell after him, “Hey! I don’t care who you are or what you might have done for me; you don’t know me!”
“Oh?” the stallion said with a muffled grunt as she heard him struggling with something, “Try me.”
She puffed her chest out and smirked at the door, “The Great and Powerful Trixie was born in the star studded city of Las Pegasus: the daughter of a burlesque dancer and a crime lord. When she was old enough, mother taught Trixie all there was to know about the stage, but made sure Trixie also learned the greatest illusion magicks the world has ever seen: these having been passed down to her by her grandmother, a renowned gypsy seer, whose memory inspired Trixie to travel the world performing astonishing spectacles and wonders!”
The old stallion unlocked the door and looked out at the mare with an expression that seemed to say ‘Are you kidding me?’
As he passed her, Trixie saw he had wrapped a set of bandages around his back and midsection. When he offered no response other than the look, the unicorn mare pressed him, “Well? What snide comment have you to say to Trixie?”
He slowly turned to look her straight in the eye and simply replied, “You were born in Vanhoofer, Miss Lulamoon.”
Trixie’s eyes grew wide, all her confidence visibly drained, “How do you-“
“Your mother stayed at home to help raise you and your two older siblings, and your father was a tax accountant. Being the youngest by a wide margin, you have a pathological need to draw attention to yourself in order to feel emotionally stimulated by the ponies around you, which also might explain your bombastic stage personality: it is the idealized personality of the mare you wish to be, and what you believe others find to be a magnetic persona.”
Trixie vacantly stared at the stallion, who only stared back at her unflinchingly.
“Who are you?” she finally asked, her tone much more subdued than usual.
“Let’s start with your first question,” he said in return, ‘How do I know all this?’ There’s a rural town far to the south of here that you passed through several months ago, one which up until recently I had tabs on because of a recent and unprecedented increase of strange events in the region, including the likes of an Ursa Minor attack that coincided with your visit there.” The corner of his mouth became a little upturned as he gave her a moment to think, which he knew was unnecessary, “I expect you know the town of which I speak.”
Trixie looked to the side and grumbled to herself venomously, “Ponyville.”
He nodded, “Correct. Now, onto your second question: who am I?” He took a moment to sit back on his haunches, and ripped through the bandages he had just applied. He then brought them around to look at them: drops of fresh blood were scattered across the mesh surface where they had pressed into his back. “Excellent,” he muttered to himself, at which Trixie looked at him as if he were mad, “With as little time as we have names are meaningless. What matters is this: we are in danger, and I have a plan. Do as I say and we might survive tonight.”
The manor was still; not a thing moved. The twilight hours were beginning and the outside light was dying, waning away as night approached. The basement was dark and cool, and also an ideal point of entry for the likes of the burrowing Diamond Dogs: no one ever saw them coming, and by the time they understood what was happening they were already dragged below the surface to be put to work. That, however, was where this time was different: there would be no prisoners. There was no desire for profit from this bit of handiwork, only a thirst for retribution.
Three holes burst up from the workshop floor with a spray of pebbles and clods of dirt, and out of each quietly slunk a dog. They sniffed the air furiously, their heads turning this way and that. The stallion’s scent was everywhere, but there was a distinctive tang in the immediate area.
Blood.
“Where he at?” the lanky one asked impatiently as he continued sniffing.
The ringleader slapped him on the back of the head hard and hissed, “Quiet! He could hear us.”
The three dogs continued their search around the room, their night vision cutting through most of the darkness. Slowly they made their way towards the other side of the room, passing the workbench and heading towards the fume box. The smallest dog was bringing up the rear, sniffing closer to the workbench than the others. He could smell blood just as the others had, but there was a second source nearby that confounded him.
Then he saw a glimmer in the darkness. Inside a strange contraption just a few feet away sat a small pouch of golden bits.
All thoughts about the outside situation changed as the little dog’s greed took over. The bag was his! He’d be rich! Richer than the others! He just had to seize and hide it! The dog leapt at the coinbag, giggling a little to himself as he scooped it up in his paws.
“Imbecile,” he heard a voice breathe, and then there was the sound of a button being pressed.
Before the dog knew what was happening, the contraption he was in lit up, blinding both him and his compatriots. When the light from the machine had faded, the smaller dog was gone, having vanished with the light that had surrounded him.
Taken aback by the sudden burst of light, the lanky dog barely had time to process that they had been tricked before a hoof reached around to his face. A handkerchief soaked in an obnoxiously sweet aroma was shoved directly onto his nose. He tried to struggle and call out to his ringleader, but his strength was quickly leaving him. Everything went black after that.
Once the large dog could see again, the first thing he noticed was the old stallion, standing confidently in front of a flight of stairs, bandages around his midsection and an eyepatch on his face to protect from the burst of light, which he was now in the process of tossing aside.
“Well, you came to kill me, didn’t you?” he said, then he smirked, “Come and get me then!” and he disappeared up the staircase.
The ringleader was stunned only momentarily, but then his rage returned to him in full measure. With a furious growl and a great bark, the Diamond Dog tore across the room on all fours, climbing the stairs four at a time with each bound. He burst up to the main floor, blowing the door in front of him off its hinges to fly down the hallway to the right. Sniffing the air, he lumbered after the freshest scent, jumping over what remained of the door he had just destroyed.
As he bounded into the doorframe of a room on the right, he saw the stallion waiting on the other side in the opposite doorway, taunting him, “Keep up! How do you expect to catch me if I’m always outrunning you?”
The dog exhaled deeply, and a fire raged in his eyes. “Come here you damn horse!” he raggedly yelled, and he burst forward to grab his prey.
The stallion disappeared down the hallway, and this time his enemy was not far behind. His heart was beating in his ears. He was close to out of breath. This idea, by Celestia, had better work. He bolted into the kitchen, coasting on the smooth tile floor, and ran to hide behind the center island where he found Trixie nervously rubbing her front hooves together.
“Is it ready?” he wheezed as he caught his breath.
The unicorn mare, a jumble of anger and fear, whispered heatedly to him, “Of course it’s ready! What, did you think I couldn’t-“
A deep growl shut the both of them up very quickly, and they waited with bated breath. He braced against the wall, and she did everything in her power to avoid getting too close to the edge of the island. The ringleader had followed the scent to the room, and as he entered with a deliberate, lumbering pace he sniffed the air softly. The air was full of fear. That pleased him to no end, and he bared his teeth as he thought about it. He slowly loped into the room, looking for the source of the scent, his most immediate object of hatred.
The old earth pony looked Trixie in the eyes, then silently mouthed, “three, two, one."
The diamond dog’s eyes automatically jerked his attention to the stallion when he suddenly moved out from his cover behind the kitchen island.
“Here I am,” he declared simply, now without a hint of bravado, “What are you waiting for?”
Satisfied that his prey was finally right where he wanted him, the dog lumbered forward, barking angrily as he did. Once his paws found traction on the tile floor, he barreled straight for the stallion. Without warning, the unicorn mare from earlier popped up from behind the island, and with a burst of her magic’s signature magenta light she flung up a metal cooking tray at him like a catapult. A gigantic cloud of red dust hit the charging dog straight in the snout and eyes, and he howled in pain. Losing balance when he instinctively reached for his face, he stumbled and rolled end over end across the floor. The stallion effortlessly sidestepped the sliding dog, allowing him to collide with the wall at the back of the kitchen. As he tried to pick himself up, he couldn’t tell which was worse: trying to keep his eyes closed, or leaving them open. The unmistakable smell of chili powder infused every breath he took, burning his lungs and throat. His eyes were tearing up profusely. He pawed at his face and mewled in pain, even as he tried to keep his bloodshot eyes open to look for his enemy.
“Everything but his hearing is no longer a problem,” the earth pony declared to Trixie, and the dog’s ears perked up, “Keep your distance. He’s dangerous, in pain, and unpredictable now!”
The Diamond Dog blindly rushed in their direction, snarling and barking as he did. He easily flung a small cutting table out of his way and across the room, and aimed directly for the last place he had heard voices. With a hiss and grunt on the stallion’s part and a small scream of surprise on the showmare’s, they leapt away from each other out of the dog’s path. The old stallion stopped with a skidding slide in from of the pantry, while Trixie was forced back up against the wall’s extended counter, the back of her head just barely touching a row of pans hanging from above.
The dog careened through where they had been and slammed into the island. His impact caused it to tilt off balance as he ripped part of it out of the floor, and a gigantic caved in section was made in the wood where he directly hit it. His momentum still carrying him forward, he completely flipped over the top of what remained of the island and landed somewhere close to the kitchen entrance with a mighty thud. There was a brief moment of silence before the Diamond Dog, undeterred by what had happened, leapt onto what remained of the island, and howled with frothing rage, “I kill you! I rip you! I grind your bones!”
Without another thought, Trixie glanced up at the rack of pans above her and ripped them off their hooks, desperately flinging the cast iron missiles at the crazed hound. They struck him haphazardly, punching him in the side, the arm, and on the shoulder, while the fourth missed him entirely to embed into the wall’s wooden paneling. The fifth pan hit the side of the dog’s jaw, which was accompanied by a sharp cracking sound. The Diamond Dog spun off his perch, and fell to the floor once again.
The house once again lay still, as the only sounds travelling through it now were the punctuated heavy breathing of the two ponies. The old stallion picked himself up slowly with a grunt, and then looked around the room at all the damage that had been done to his home.
Meanwhile, Trixie walked around what remained of the kitchen island and slowly approached the unconscious hulking dog. There was a strange glimmer in her eyes, and her face couldn’t quite pick an emotion to fully convey. A strange mixture of sorrow, anger, and fear swirled murkily within her. Her horn lit up, and the pan that had been lodged in the wall, the largest of the five, was ripped free of its spot and flew slowly toward her. The field around the pan wavered erratically, while the light of her magic grew brighter, and with its greater intensity came less quaking. She struck the dog on the back with a relatively weak swing. Then a growling sob escaped her lips and she began to swing harder, yelling at him as she did, “Thought you could make me your slave? Thought you could just double-cross me? Well, who’s got the last laugh now, you stupid son of a-“
“Enough!” the earth pony exclaimed as he briskly approached her, then firmly tapped her horn with his hoof. Trixie flinched at the sudden touch by reflex, and the aural field around the pan faded enough to allow it to fall through to the ground with a clatter. “He’s down and out,” he continued, “From the sound of it you already broke his jaw, and there’s no point in trying to break anything else.”
“He just tried to kill us,” Trixie fired back angrily, and she snatched up another pan, “He wanted to use me! He deserves this!”
“True, he deserves punishment,” he replied, “but continue what you were doing and you will become a murderer. Are you willing to become that to satisfy yourself?”
The unicorn mare looked back at the old stallion defiantly for a few seconds, and then her gaze turned back to the fallen dog. After what felt like an eternity of indecision, she let the second pan purposefully fall out of her grasp.
“Wise choice,” the old stallion commented before he reach down to flip the dog over with a grunt of exertion, “Revenge is a sucker’s game anyway: you invest too much for far too little in return, and what little you get back always loses value to the point of worthlessness in the end.”
After momentarily examining the dog’s body for an idea of his injuries, he then checked the crook of the dog’s left arm, and afterward the right.
“So now what,” Trixie asked as she watched him work, unsure of what he was doing, “As soon as he and the other two dogs wake up, they’ll just come back for us again.”
“We only have two to immediately worry about,” the earth pony replied as he stood up and adjusted his glasses, “Besides, just because we let him live doesn't mean there aren't other ways to make sure he never bothers us again.”
The ringleader stirred awake slowly. His entire respiratory tract felt like it was burning from the inside out. He heard whispers coming from everywhere: from murmurs miles away to the screaming voices inside his bones. Every breath he took he saw fire come out of his mouth. He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t move his arms or legs. He was at least able to look around, as his neck seemed to be working just fine. His vision was red hued as he searched for where he was. He was back in the horse’s basement, only a few feet from the hole he and the other dogs had dug. He could see the whispers twirling around on the floor, dancing in the dust.
Without warning a deep voice bellowed into his ear, “LOOK AT ME!”
In a panic the dog turned to quickly look towards the source of the voice, his heart racing at the overwhelming stimulation he was receiving. He saw the horse’s face, but he was different now. The lenses of his glass split open like double doors, revealing two sunken grey eyeballs. They slowly morphed until each had a toothy mouth and a jagged elongated tongue, each of which whipped around, but also constantly trying to lash out and cut him open with their jagged tips.
His mouth subdivided, creating two orifices, one for each side of his face to speak out of. The dog screamed in terror as he tried desperately to claw away from the abomination only a few inches from his face, but he was paralyzed.
“LISTEN WELL,” the horse’s voice boomed, “IF YOU EVER RETURN HERE, I WILL KILL YOU. IF YOU EVER HARM ANOTHER PONY, I WILL FIND YOU. I AM EVERYWHERE; I AM EVERY PONY. LAY A PAW ON THEM AND I WILL REACH OUT AND KILL YOU.”
The voices in the dog’s head wailed, the fire in his bones burned like the desert sun, and he cowered and screamed in fear. The demonic horse’s face drew closer, its eye tongues reached for his jaw and grasped it. Lightning bolts of pain passed through him, and he almost passed out from sensory overload.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” he said with even greater menace in his voice.
“ESH,” the dog shrieked for his life through his broken jaw and hanging tongue.
The presence drew away and disappeared, but the voice still rang out through the fog of red, “I HAVE SPARED YOU ONLY THIS ONCE. I WILL BE LISTENING. I WILL BE WATCHING.”
The ringleader, crazed out of his mind, cried to himself and curled up into ball, rocking back and forth in sheer terror. The lanky dog, seeing his leader cowed and humiliated, looked on in fear from his prison within Trixie’s bubble. When the old stallion approached, he visibly flinched.
Silently gazing up at the floating dog, he murmured, “Release him.”
Trixie, who also couldn’t help but stare at the earth pony uncertainly, abruptly lifted the spell, and the lanky dog fell to his knees.
“Just something to keep in mind,” the old stallion said offhandedly as he looked down at him, “those statements also apply to you too.” He then turned to look back at the larger dog, “Take your fellow and leave.”
Wordlessly the dog scrambled around the stallion and away, grabbed his sobbing comrade, and disappeared down the closest hole he could reach. Each of the tunnels then quickly caved in behind the dogs as they left, and the earth sunk down as it settled. The stallion let go of a small breath as soon as he knew they were gone.
Trixie couldn't tear her eyes away from him after seeing what he had done, but finally she was able to quietly ask, “What did you give him?”
The stallion turned and looked at her, his face devoid of any readable emotion, “A few cc’s of muscle relaxant.”
“And the screaming?” she continued worriedly.
“A controlled dosage of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,” he responded as he went over to the workbench, picked up the two used syringes, and trotted over to a special container near his chemical cabinet and gingerly placed them inside, “I personally wouldn't recommend it, no matter the dose.”
“Right.”
An awkward silence fell as each of them wasn't quite sure how to proceed with no immediate danger present.
“I suppose you don’t have anywhere to stay for the night,” the stallion said abruptly, then made his way back towards the stairs, “I’ll prepare one of the guest rooms for you.”
“Yeah. OK,” Trixie replied, distracted by her own worries and thoughts.
Later that night, after taking a much needed shower, Trixie lay in bed. Even though it was the softest thing she’d felt in months she couldn't sleep. She stared at the ceiling, her head overflowing with her thoughts, and listened to the sounds of the house. The stallion had saved her life, true enough, but she couldn't help but feel afraid of him. Who was he? He had never offered a name. Was he some kind of assassin? He had money, and all those chemicals. He had training of some kind in hoof to hoof combat. Would he do something to her? To all these questions about her enigmatic host she had no answer, and that keep her up for a long time.