Trixie and Maud: Heart of Stone

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter Seventy Three: The Rift

The long dusty hallways were exceptionally quiet as Trixie walked alongside Twilight Sparkle. There had been rumors of diamond dog poachers along the southern borders of Equestria, and their new assignment was to find them and if they possible to bring them in. So far little evidence of anything living in the northern half ruins could be found.

Trixie looked to her unicorn companion, doubt filled her mind as they traveled silently through the ruins. “Hey, Twilight?”

“Yes, Trixie,” Twilight groaned.

Despite the rude response Trixie found herself more worried about the actual mission. “Should we really be here? What I mean to say is that although we may be powerful and all, these poachers are scary.”

“They have been convicted of slavery, murder, and horn hunting. Trixie, we need to bring them down,” Twilight said carefully. “Though I wish that there was another way around this, trying to reform them is like trying to kiss Queen Chrysalis. It’s a really bad idea that will most likely end up in your death.”

“Queen Chrysalis, seriously, not even Shiny would kiss her,” Trixie said with a smirk. The reference to one of Equestria’s oldest and most dangerous villains however didn’t help with any of Trixie’s doubts, and when she considered how close to Changeling territory they were as of the moment, she only felt worse. “Um… could we stop talking about her?”

“Yes we can, and while we’re at it you can stop calling him Shiny. That’s my word,” Twilight said with a growl.

Trixie snorted and explained, “Shiny loves it when I call him that. He’s adopted me as his little sister you know, so I guess that you will just have to deal with it.”

“He just got back from his term of service in the Border Patrol. I shouldn’t have to tell you how dangerous that was for him, so I’ll warn you now, don’t get too close to my brother,” Twilight warned.

“Relax, I’m interested in mares. You will not need to worry about any foul play from me,” Trixie explained, for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Well… good. Keep it that way, he’s mine,” Twilight said while sticking her muzzle in the air.

For a moment Trixie wanted to smack the arrogant unicorn but instead she chose a new approach to win her argument. Trixie leered at Twilight’s body, Twilight was a little overweight but that didn’t actually detract from the unicorn’s natural beauty, in fact it just made Twilight’s flanks a little more attractive.

“W-what are you staring at?” Twilight asked.

“You don’t need to worry about your brother, Twilight, but he might need to worry about you,” Trixie said seductively before licking her lips. Trixie then returned her attention to the hallway and trotted ahead leaving a stunned Twilight Sparkle to lag behind.

At first Trixie was enjoying her victory in shutting down Twilight’s ability to think, until the smell hit her. A horrid, wretched scent slammed against Trixie like a brick wall and she stopped to gag. She couldn’t place what the smell was, it was a rotten, hot, and sickly smell that made every fiber of being shy away in revulsion.

Twilight noticed it as well and quickly put a hoof to her nose. “What in Celestia’s burning sun did you eat?”

Trixie shot a death glare back at Twilight and said, “Such a foul smell could never come from The Great and Powerful Trixie. Besides whatever it is must be coming from over there.” Trixie pointed her hoof at the small wooden door at the end of the hall.

“Makes sense,” Twilight said, despite looking like she was about to vomit she was wearing a smile. Trixie realized that she had just lost their little battle.

Slowly they approached the door and the scent became worse. Twilight used her magic to slowly open the door and suddenly they both gasped, which was a bad decision since it only meant sucking in even more of the wretched air. It only took a moment before Trixie took a step back in horror, turned her head to the side, and vomited against the wall. Twilight’s constitution was slightly stronger as she managed to keep herself from throwing up.

Inside the room it was a mess of red stains and bins full of dark meaty chunks. A fire was stocked in the back of the room and a few slaps of the meat were being cooked on it. Large hunks of red meat hung from hooks throughout the room. Twilight poked her head inside and after looking around said, “Yeah, we got diamond dogs here. Not sure what poor animal their cooking but I can only hope that it’s not pony.”

Trixie tried to throw up again but only managed to dry heave. Twilight would have scoffed but something had caught her eye. Trixie looked at the plaque above the fireplace and her mind shut down as she saw the assortment of different colored horns hanging from it. One of them was blue.

Suddenly Twilight backed up and her eyes grew wide. A large lumbering shape walked into sight from the corner of the room. The diamond dog stood hunched over, his gray fur stained with red, and a cleaver held tightly in his paw. He snarled at the two unicorns and said, “Dog has had enough cow, now it is time for dog to have new food.”

Trixie’s heart stopped beating and for a moment silence filled the small hallway. As it turned out Trixie’s bladder was fully capable of handling all sorts of monsters, from giant spiders to mechanical dogs, but the sight before was so much to take in that her bladder had simply had enough and decided to give up. Trixie wet herself.

The dog pointed at the frightened blue unicorn and laughed. One red beam of energy to the dogs head later and the creature was on the ground motionless. With her horn still smoking Twilight turned to face Trixie and said, “We are leaving, now!”

It didn’t take very long before the two unicorns made it back to the rest of the group. Twilight quickly sent Minuette and Lyra off to check if the way out was clear, following that she posted Candle Light as the guard for the rear. Now somewhere safe Trixie was able to get enough of her wits together to confront Twilight about this situation.

“You told us that this was going to be okay,” Trixie said loudly.

“Trixie, shut up and wait until we are out of here before you start with me again,” Twilight said while looking at a copy of the map they had.

“We don’t care, you told us we would be safe. We saw horns, and, and meat, and sweet Celestia why are we here?” Trixie asked as panic began to set in.

“I said that I will get us out of here, after seeing your incident, I now realize that you aren’t ready for this,” Twilight said calmly. “Right now I really need you to shut up though, I have to plan a safe route out of here.”

“We are kids, Twilight. How could we possibly be able to handle this? And why is Fire Light guarding us? She’s a weakling compared to everypony else,” Trixie asked her mind racing and her heart refusing to slow down for anything.

“I already told you that Candle Light is part of our team which means that she is as powerful as anypony else here. Celestia wouldn’t give me a weak pony and then send me on a dangerous mission, well she gave me you, but you aren’t weak, you’re just a coward!” Twilight stated angrily.

Trixie stomped a hoof into the ground and shouted, “Celestia gave you a weaker student so that you can try and teach her. You have just assumed that we have all grown at the same rate as you, and although that is true for some of the others, me and Fire Light are lagging behind! The worst part is that you refuse to help us.”

“Um, guys?” Candle Light asked meekly.

With extra anger added into her voice Trixie shouted, “I broke into Celestia’s study, that’s how I know all of this. I found all kinds of things in there, Starswirl’s time travel concepts, and dark magic galore, but I also found her notes on why we are all here in this group.” A little quieter she added, “Please, Twilight, can’t we just leave?”

“We will leave after I’m sure that everything is secure,” Twilight replied coldly.

“Um, guys?” Candle Light asked again.

“We need to leave now, we don’t want to be here, and we don’t want Candle Light to be here either,” Trixie said again. “Twilight, please do this for Trixie, just this once.”

“No, we take caution and move slowly or not at all,” Twilight demanded.

“Guys, help,” Candle Light asked weakly.

Both Twilight and Trixie looked over to their fellow unicorn standing guard at the entrance, intent on solving whatever her problem was so that they could return to their argument. Candle Light’s problem was a fairly obvious one as she was currently being held by her neck a few feet off the ground by a diamond dog. A glowing dagger with a blade of green shimmering energy was held in the diamond dog’s other paw. The small blade was threateningly close to her horn.

The diamond dog smiled evilly and said, “Looks like dog finally got ponies attention. Now dog can finally do this.”

Before anypony could react he gently slid the energy blade across Candle Light’s horn and it cut through the bony appendage like butter. Candle Light’s eyes grew wide and panicked as she watched her own horn fall forward, past her face, and hit the floor with a quiet thud.

The dog smiled and the entire world slowed down to a halt. There Trixie stood staring at her crush, the unicorn that she wanted nothing more than to be with. Candle Light looked more perplexed than anything else at the sight of the severed horn on the ground. The worst part was that the blade had cauterized the wound, and even magic wouldn’t be able to help reattach it now.

A dark feeling in the back of Trixie’s mind crawled to the forefront of her consciousness. As the world stood frozen around her she felt the darkness calling to her and asking to be let in. She denied it at first, thinking that whatever dark entity was, it would only end up hurting her. But it offered one thing that she knew could help this situation. It offered power, unrestrained and great. It told her that if only she accepted it as a part of herself; that she could easily become that which she always desired. Trixie could become truly great and powerful.

Candle Light’s life was ruined beyond repair, and no matter what Trixie did or said, this would all end in tragedy. With that knife in the diamond dog’s paw he could easily take Candle Light’s life before either her or Twilight could get a spell off. This power offered a way to circumvent this and to succeed where she never could otherwise. Candle Light might never be a unicorn again, but she could still be saved.

Power beyond Trixie’s understanding flooded her entire form in that instant and showed her things that she never knew existed. An amulet of even greater strength would be needed for her complete rise to power, its red glow offered something that even Celestia refused to give out. A dark green light filled Trixie’s eyes with a trail of purple smoke coming off of them.

In an instant time resumed its normal pace and a powerful blast of dark green and black energy shot out from her horn and hit the diamond dog in between the eyes. The knife flew back even further into the hallway as the green light struck it as well. Once the blade was far enough to be safe, it exploded. Candle Light dropped to the ground simply staring at her severed horn.

Trixie took a step forward but her world began to blacken and she heard Twilight screaming. Soon the other three ponies appeared and quickly tried to calm Twilight down, but it looked like Twilight simply wouldn’t stop screaming. The world became darker as Trixie struggled to stand upright. Minuette swung a hoof at Twilight’s face and knocked their screaming leader unconscious. Moondancer moved to Candle Light’s side and attempted to use healing magic on the surprisingly calm unicorn.

Trixie fell to her knees and fought with every ounce of her being to stay awake. The only thing she could do however was watch as Candle Light slowly reached out with a hoof and poked at the useless horn on the ground, it rolled away.

The darkness came in heavier then Trixie could have ever imagined as she watched the light in Candle Light’s eyes die out. The last thing that Trixie saw was as a puddle slowly spread out from between Candle Light’s legs, everypony was speaking, Lyra was speaking at Trixie but to her confusion she couldn’t hear anything. Slowly Trixie closed her eyes and the darkness took over.

Trixie awoke lying on her side in a cold dark tunnel. Dark, cold, damp, and painful, these were all words that Trixie could use to describe her current location. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she could see where in Tartarus she was, though that felt like asking for a miracle. As she slowly stood up her mind wondered at the memory she had just relived. That last mission had served as the end to the small group Trixie was a part of, and the end of her friendships with Twilight and Candle Light. The room suddenly got colder. Trixie began walking in the only direction she could, forward.

Walking, that’s what she did, just walking in the dark with no light, and no hope. She walked for an eternity; it felt like this would never come to an end. She didn’t know where she was, or how she had gotten here, but she knew that she had to keep moving.

Finally she heard something it was faint but it was clear. Ahead of her there was sound, clashing of metal, explosions, and screaming. Whatever it was sounded horrible but it was better than the silence so she raced forward. It took only moments before her world was dimly lit by an eerie blue light and before her stood two ponies.

One of them was a blue pegasus with a glowing white mane, a sword hung from his side. The other one was a giant alicorn with pure white fur and a sherbet colored mane. A feeling began to fill Trixie’s heart, at first it was hard to place what it was, and then it became clear to her. She was feeling joy at seeing the two ponies.

“Dad, Celestia, what are you two doing here?” Trixie asked as her mind attempted to figure out where here was exactly.

The room was circular and carved out of a deep blue stone. Six distinct pony statues sat on top of thrones, each one was slowly crumbling into dust. There was no clear source of light and Trixie felt that she had been here at least once before, but she couldn’t figure out where that was exactly.

“Trix?” Moonlight Sonata, asked in a worried tone.

Celestia gave out a sigh before answering Trixie’s question, “We came here to destroy the judges, they have been interfering with the Cosmic Council and we can’t have that. How are you doing, Trixie?”

“I…” Trixie tried to find an answer but she didn’t know. She couldn’t even remember how she had gotten here. “I just woke up here… it was really dark.”

Trixie’s heart began with a single beat that took the breath out of her lungs. She fell forward in pain, her wrist started burning and she could see rings of fire dancing around her fetlocks. Another beat and her heart began screaming in agony. She looked up at the two ponies before her with pleading eyes, she just wanted the pain to stop.

“Trix,” Moonlight Sonata said gently, “It’s clearly not time for you to explore this realm yet. Why don’t you come back here in about eighty years and we’ll talk then.”

“Dad, where are you, I need to find you,” Trixie begged, her heart beat again and now her entire body felt like it was on fire.

“I’m here, Trixie. I’ve been here for years, and I’m not going anywhere else anytime soon. Now go home and take care of your mom for me, can you do that?” He asked in such a kind voice.

“Okay, I’ll go home. But… will I see you again?” Trixie asked, despite the pain she was in, it was fairly easy to continue talking.

“Yeah, but if we’re lucky not for a very, very, very long time. Now go on,” He said with a wave of his hoof, and suddenly the world blurred away and a blinding white light filled her vision.