Harry Houdini: The Great and Powerful

by CrackedInkWell

Chapter 7: Of Locks, Knots, and Spells.

Once everypony had settled down and the drowning device was removed from the stage, Houdini entered with his clothes fully on for the final act of the night.

“Before we draw this show to a close,” he addressed his equine spectators, “I want to take a moment to thank you all for being such a wonderful audience.” They applauded for a moment before Harry continued. “Now, for the third act, I’m going to do something a little bit different than what I normally do in my shows. I’m going to do something very interesting.” With a wave of his hand, an assistant came on stage to set a chair beside him. “If there is anyone who knows how to tie knots, or has a pair of cuffs that you think would keep me in place, I invite you all to join me on stage and do whatever you feel would keep me secured to this chair.”

One by one, Houdini was joined by various ponies, most of which were the magicians who were present during his escape from the prison, Trixie included. Once Harry sat down, the assistants brought on stage ropes, chains, locks, and cuffs for the ponies to use. The magicians took hold of the locks and cuffs, examining each of them very closely to make sure that they were real.

Meanwhile, a couple of ponies that had naval cutie marks started tying the human to the chair as best as they could. They bound his hands behind his back, his feet to the legs to the chairs, and tied strong sailor’s knots in front of his chest.

This was quickly followed by the unicorns as they slithered chains around Houdini’s neck, waist, arms, and legs, followed by padlocks that held it all together underneath his seat. Last of all was Trixie, who held two pairs of cuffs in her aura. As soon as she placed each pair around his wrists and ankles, her horn shot out a violet light that encompassed the cuffs.

“What did you just do?” Houdini asked.

Trixie smirked. “I’ll have you know, Mr. Houdini, that I’ve just placed a spell on those cuffs that will alert me if anyone should try to use magic to tamper with them.” She then walked up and whispered into his ear, “Let’s see how you get out of that.”

“My my, you certainly underestimate me,” Harry said as she walked off the stage.

Once everything was settled down, Houdini addressed the audience. “Since I can sense some scrutiny as some of you were tying me up, how about I place a special bet?” This got everyone’s attention. “If I cannot get out of these bonds that you’ve placed on me and I admit defeat, the ones who tied me up will get a share of the money that our tickets have sold tonight.”

“He can’t be serious,” Trixie whispered to her assistants. “Is he really that confident?”

“I’ll admit,” Miss Direction said softly, “the earlier stuff might have had some sort of trick behind it, but there’s no way he’s going to get out of that.”

“How do we know if it’s a trick?” Peppers Ghost questioned. “For all we know, it could really be done by magic.”

“That’s the reason why I placed that spell on his cuffs.” The two assistants turned to their boss. “If magic is involved, then it would explain everything, but if he somehow gets out without it, then that means there’s some clever trick involved.”

Th-clunk!

Everypony turned their attention to the human, quickly noticing that the cuffs around Houdini’s hands were the first to fall. Before their eyes, the human moved violently around his restraints, causing the chair to tilt side to side until he fell over. Soon, the chains loosened around him, the ropes unwound and untangled as he flipped around the stage, almost like he was being attacked by snakes.

Locks were left behind as Harry moved around and the second pair of cuffs fell soon afterward. This made Trixie raise an eyebrow, as her magical alarm spell hadn’t gone off. It was clear to her that there was no magic involved, but at the same time, it just added to the mystery of this human. If magic as she knew it wasn’t involved, and this was indeed a trick… then how was it done? How could it be done when none of the magicians could detect anything that would aid in his escape?

Then, finally free from the entanglement of rope and chains, Harry Houdini stood. The freed human received thunderous applause from the Equestrians. He took a bow, stepping forward and gesturing to both sides of the stage for everyone that had helped him as they, too, took a bow.

_*_

“Madame?” Trixie ignored Peppers Ghost’s voice, deep in thought. Her assistant called out for her again.

“What?” she replied, annoyed.

“The cab has already stopped.”

Trixie looked around to find that they had already stopped in front of her apartment building. “Oh, thanks.” She got out of the cab, trotting up to the driver to pay him.

“Ms. Lulamoon?” Miss Direction asked. “This Houdini fellow… what do you think of him?”

“Well,” she said as she hoofed over five bits, “he knows about suspense and presentation, that’s for sure.”

“Do you think that he might be a threat to our show?” the other twin asked. “I mean, those tricks he did were incredible. I’ve never seen any magic like--”

“I don’t know if it was really magic,” their boss interrupted. “In fact… I don’t even know if it was all some elaborate trick, or something new.”

“New?”

She shook her head. “Don’t mind it, you two. Get some rest; we have some practice we need to do for our show tomorrow.”

After saying their farewells, the twin assistants rode off, leaving Trixie Lulamoon alone with her thoughts once again.

‘Okay, from what I’ve seen, either this Houdini does his tricks with something simple like a hidden pick, or he possesses some kind of supernatural magic that we don’t know about.’ By now, she was already through the door as she made her way up to her apartment.

‘Of course, the only thing that’s bothering me is how. How could he have done it? Perhaps with the help of his assistants… no, we all would have noticed. Besides, those cuffs were certainly real, as were the locks, the ropes, the chains! Even I couldn’t break them!

‘But what if it was all an illusion? Maybe he had somepony perform some kind of illusion spell to make it seem like he was tied up, or that he was underwater, or that I signed my name on…’

She shook her head as she neared the door to her little home. ‘Oh come on, Trixie, think! Everything that giant has done was all a trick, it has to be! What else could it be?’

Even as she entered her apartment and flopped onto the couch, a word kept coming to her mind, yet she kept refusing it. There was no way that this thing could perform magic without a horn.

She never wanted to admit to herself that he was capable of magic as she pulled her cloak over her eyes, drifting to sleep. Perhaps this was a new kind of magic, completely unknown to Equestria. Maybe it was a form of human magic.

Comments

[Anon ymous]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIZFq3VDeUY

[dude5999]

Houdini: the worlds greatist magician!
Trixie: Equis's biggest show off!
And pinkie pie the stumper of all!
The three two greatist escapeists and stumpers of the mind!

[DracoDarastrix]

You know a magician doesn't reveal his or her tricks. Although I'm not a magician I do know how Houdini pulled off those tricks. But I won't tell because then it would spoil the magic of this story.

[IkioStar]

This strongly reminds me of a show on Netflix. Too strongly.

[Emperor]

I think that last stunt finally broke Trixie

Now for her to come back from it stronger than ever with some new 'Tricks Up Her Sleeve'!