Seduction of the Innocent

by Bumblebee Tuner

The World's Mightiest Magician

Seduction of the Innocent
By Bumblebee Tuner
Chapter 2
The World’s Mightiest Magician

It has been argued that there are no bad heroine’s only bad games. And, Starswirl the Bearded played a mean game of Othello. It was shortly after the failure of Black Clover, the young apprentice Starswirl banished to the other side of the universe when absolute power corrupted absolutely, that the befuddled wizard decided to isolate himself on the rock of eternity beyond time and space and live the life of a hermit. Clover’s ambition to rule Equestria with an iron horseshoe, under draconic laws which lead to the slaughter of innocents, while taking the moral high ground was unacceptable. Some 5300 years later, relatively speaking, Starswirl would eventually take on a new apprentice. And, this time, he would set up a few measures in place to prevent the apprentice from completely joining the dark side with Princess Platinum and her Merriwether Men.

One didn’t exactly need a graphic organizer to know what qualities Starswirl was looking for in an apprentice, but it really helps to put things into perspective. The Wisdom of Smart Cookie, who did something so important that no pony really cares unless it’s Hearth’s Warming Eve. The Gravitas of Tom, the boulder who wanted to become a diamond so bad he spent years perfecting his luster. The Fortitude of Apple Cider, who always did something so totally epic in a drunken fugue that he often forgot about it the following day. The Charity of Robbin’ Hoods, a changeling who wanted the love of the people so badly he eventually became a vigilante. The Charm of Squatty Potty, a unicorn whose marketing genius, and curiosity about the diamond dog‘s interest in her poop, revolutionized the equestrian economic system with her discovery of ice cream. The Loyalty of Weblos Woody, a pegasus who picked the wrong team and was gay for justice. The Flashiness of Independence Daye, an earth pony who invented gunpowder because the wahoos who built a dam on her property were selfish jerks. The Hope of Rebel Rouser, a seapony who most bodaciously lead the assault against Squirk the A-hole. The unflinching Faith of Little Casanova, who was vertically challenged and really liked his odds with the ladies despite being a head shorter than most mares half his age. And finally, the … of ! Which is breezy for ‘Parasprite Eve’ better known to the history books as ‘Flufflepuff the Thpppt!’ for defeating ‘Quickie the Chocolate Bunny’ in single combat.

Put it together and what have you got?

Smart Cookie
Tom
Apple Cider
Robbin’ Hoods
Squatty Potty
Weblos Woody
Independence Daye
Rebel Rouser
Little Casanova
!

S.T.A.R.S.W.I.R.L.! That’s right.

There’s power in a name, and no pony’s name carried more power with it than that of Starswirl the Bearded. From the rock of eternity Starswirl could have chosen anyone past, present, or future, to be his new apprentice. The Great and powerful Trixie really wasn’t his first choice, or his only option. That honor belonged to Twilight Sparkle. After all, if time and relative dimension in space are meaningless beyond the veil of Eisenstein’s gate, and if the limits set in place by the speed of thought are forever changing, all possibilities and options exist simultaneously so there’s no real hurry to do anything at all. Unfortunately, for all his book smarts he wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to temporal paradoxes, and he wouldn’t be the last wizard or scientist to look for gold with his head wedged firmly in his assumptions. Time, too, was a ticksy thing, and she had quite enough of any foal who would take over the role of fate without her permission. Time liked ambiguity and it was about time Starswirl learned how insignificant his plans for the future were on her watch. Especially in the face of overwhelming greed. Besides, Starswirl was far from the world’s mightiest magician anymore, in reality he practiced the darkest of arts and was the world‘s skuzziest necromancer. One who made his important decisions, like selecting his ideal apprentice, based entirely on the belief Twilight Sparkle looked like she would have just the right amount of cushion for the push’in when she finally reached the age of consent… if you know what I’m saying. Fortunately, thanks to the magic of main character plot armor, standards, practices, and comedic timing his chances of encountering Twilight Sparkle before he died were now slim to non-existent. Because today would be the day he met Trixie Lulamoon.

Using the gates of time, as had many semiphenomenal nearly omnipotent beings with the power cosmic, meant Starswirl had been tinkering with the natural order of things for far more than five thousand years. If a breezy flapping its wings in Ponyville could cause a hurricane to strike Manehatten (specifically after picking up a pod of sharks, that hurricane could eventually break down into three smaller sharknado’s, which would then rain certain doom upon the city unless the weather ponies have armed themselves with chainsaws and I.E.D.’s). You can clearly see how Starswirl’s meddling with time paved the road to hell with good intentions. One could only imagine the sort of global ramifications a rouge unicorn or pegasus could visit upon the world if Celestia didn’t have a vested interest in making sure everything that happened in Ponyville happened on a harmonious, tightly controlled, schedule. Which was never a hundred percent possibility given the proximity of Ponyville to the Everfree forest, especially with the number of things that could possibly go wrong in a city run by a confederacy of idiots. With an itinerary managed by ponies that were one half lunatic, eventually, somepony was going to do something incredibly stupid and gum up the works.

Still, Starswirl could often be found using the gates of time to peer into an unlimited number of alternate futures, mostly to read over the shoulder of his intended apprentice in order to know what he would have to teach her when the blessed moment arrived. Did I mention Starswirl was a total perv; because there were more than a few intimate and awkward moments, accompanied by questionable interventions that even Celestia would rather not entertain. Eventually, Starswirl became so obsessed with Twilight Sparkle the number of possibilities involving the future of said unicorn (that could be observed and encountered) became limited __rather than unlimited__. Until eventually few in number lead to justified meddling, until that number whittled away from a bonfire of possibilities, dwindled further down, until there was only one ember of a possible future left involving Twilight Sparkle. One that hinged upon the actions of a single Faust. Ironically, that faust was not Twilight Sparkle. And, worst of all, Starswirl was running out of tissue paper and booze. Which meant, unless he wanted to wither away into nothingness, relinquish his corporeal and spiritual form in order to become one with the cosmos of Time itself, he’d have to leave the rock of eternity and return to the real world very soon.

‘Well, screw that.’ Starswirl thought to himself as he contemplated becoming one with the cosmos… He hadn’t spent 5300 years of his life in social isolation playing God, and obsessing over the perfect woman, watching her life over and over again, for what seemed like eons, just to let such a fine piece of ass- that is to say “waste such a fine opportunity” for him to take on a new apprentice. Besides, after making sure Night Light was born a colt just so Twilight’s coat and mane would be the perfect shade of violet, magenta, blue, and purple, with natural highlights both stygian and white, this time around. He deserved; No, he needed to see his handy work up close and personal. Starswirl then donned his Yoke made of Starswirlium and put on his wizard’s cap, before taking off his Hugh Heifner smoking jacket and replacing it with the ritzy babarian cape he had purchased in Bitaly during a fire sale some thousand years ago.

It was with a final sigh of disappointment that he looked at his throne in the ossuary. The words “World’s Mightiest Magician” displayed proudly upon it’s spindle. The altogether bland stone slab, just below the top railing that was lined with the ribs of a dozen mares and fillies. Having waited for so long in anticipation of his beloved’s arrival. Especially considering he didn’t know where to hide the bodies of all the less than acceptable apprentice’s who had darkened his doorstep. It occurred to Starswirl waiting for his goddess to come to him may have been a bad idea after all. But, at this point, it was probably the only way he wouldn’t come off as a violent stalker…or the world’s laziest villain. Speaking of which, he had long since grown tired ice cream after having nothing else to consume for so long; as far as he was concerned it was starting to taste like cow’s droppings and there was only so much one could do to jazz it up without nuts or sprinkles. Not to mention, unicorn jerky wasn’t much better. Besides, he was running out of tissue paper… and he needed it for his extra special Twilight time with the dolls, which was the special nickname he applied to his taxidermist’s collection of false disciples. Each of which, holding so much promise, and every single one of them a failure compared to the perfection of Twilight Sparkle, and every one little more than pale imitations of his Black Clover. So, this was probably the best time to fill up his stores with the candy and the other staples he‘d need to survive in the months to come anyway. Plus, he could always use more building materials. And, children were so easy to manipulate what he was doing could almost be considered criminal.

It should probably come as no surprise that this would be the day young Trixie became an alicorn princess… a very young, if not naïve, alicorn princess. If Trixie had actually known her sire, she would definitely be a twinkle in his eye. While it’s true she had been adopted by Home Brew, a coffee brown earth pony who owned the Café Grandpa, when her mother married him; Snow Blind had been rather tight lipped about the identity of Trixie’s biological father. It wasn’t exactly a topic that worried her. After all, while Trixie didn’t know her father, she had two parents and that was absolutely good enough for now. Although, she would not deny she had suspicions her sire was Twilight Sparkle. Mostly because the name was the only one out of place in her mother’s hearth’s warming miracle story. The one about how she gained insight into the fact that the world was full of jerks. And even then, there was that other part of the story about being blind that made no sense to Trixie. Snow Blind was a very near-sighted pony and needed prescription lenses to see further than two inches in front of her face. As far as Trixie was concerned it was just another plot hole or inconstancy used as a red herring in one of her mothers tall tales. That being said, Trixie reasoned if her mother wasn’t blind then she wouldn’t need glasses to see. Seeing as her mother was still blind as a bat pony in daylight, she really didn‘t quite understand why her mother thought being able to see for the first time twice in one lifetime was so miraculous a wonder to behold. Seriously, what kind of twisted evil monster would bless someone with vision only for it to be some sort of cruel joke.

From what young Trixie had managed to piece together Twilight Sparkle pretended to be a fifth grader, knocked her mother up, then got Princess Celestia to cover up everything. It made total sense for the young middle schooler, especially since she heard Twilight married her brother or had reenacted ‘Gone with the Wind’ not one year later. Then again, there were a lot of inconstancies in her mother’s stories. Of course, her mother wasn’t exactly the most honest of ponies. Very often you couldn’t really tell where one lie ended and another began. And, she wasn‘t entirely sure how Princess Mo’lestia visited her mother’s schoolhouse when she was supposed to be banished for the next thousand days at space-camp. After running the calculations in her head Twilight would have been roughly seven or eight years old and her mother had been ten when she was conceived. Ignoring the fact that her rudimentary understanding for how reproduction works still couldn’t piece together how two fillies could conceive a child; since Twilight was a unicorn, the entire process was dismissed as magic. Then again, the entire story could be dismissed as a fabrication entirely out of hoof. After all, her mother was one hell of an actress. And, she had no trouble telling a lie when the truth fit best.

As young Trixie was busy wiping down one of the many 48” inch nautical dining tables that adorned the Café Grandpa, while wearing her green visor, black turnout blanket, and one of her mom’s old Engrish saddles, the kind typically designed with soft leather and engineered so that it wouldn’t interfere with a pegasus pony’s wings. A serving platter was currently balanced upon Trixie’s rump. It was being used to tray a dishrag, squirty bottle, several wet spoons, crumb filled saucers, a half empty copper teapot, and several damp backwash laden mugs and teacups that were once filled with hot chocolate, coffee, and tea. If Trixie was an indigo child, a sensitive capable of reading tea leaves, or blessed with the psychic fortitude to analyze the shadows of chocolate syrup, she probably wouldn’t have volunteered to help out at the Café Grandpa after school today. Unfortunately, the wisher tests had determined, beyond all reason of a doubt, that the filly was indeed a one trick pony. And, that trick mostly involved shooting lighting bolts out of her ass. Unfortunately, considering the fact she was half pegasus this wasn’t particularly impressive. After all, a survey indicated that full third of the weather management population can fart rainbows after eating little more than a pop-tart or toaster strudel.

Additionally, whether a useful ability or not, that sort of disadvantage would have crippled most ponies’ chances of becoming an alicorn the old fashioned way. Not that many fillies and colts had a fit of pique to light their farts on fire in a crowded room; especially while nursing a cold and hiccupping like a squeaky toy. That somepony named Mia had theoretically done so in her school lavatory one Hearts and Hooves Day, in an insane act of desperation, shortly after contracting the poots n’ vapors from a vegetarian chili (made special with great northern beans, alfalfa, lentils, chipotle, bran, and tater-tots) was a rare nightmare entertained by foals. It was indeed a wonder anyone at the school survived a blast so totally epic it razed the lavatory, rocked the foundation, unhinged the doors, reportedly knocked out every pony in the halls of academia, and shattered every window within the campus of her school. Naturally, one cannot light their farts on fire if their bodies are so efficient their poo discharges as an electrical current. Because that would be very stupid. Not to mention the consequences of such a thing happening would most assuredly be lethal. The poor creature would probably explode without so much as a punch line. Then again, it’s theoretically impossible to hiccup, scoff, sneeze, fart, and burp, at the same time you’re giving back to nature wile nursing a wing-boner…And, It’s clear whatever supplemental tinctures, tonics, chronics, or colloidal supplements Mia Amore Cadenza was using to alleviate the symptoms of her viral infection, physical discomfort, and emotional dysregulation that day must have been cosmopolitan in the extreme. Because, they just sort of melted, mutated, or mixed together in the cyclotron of her stomach while forging a gastronomical ex machina. That is, of course, until the soup of her digestibles reached a critical mass in the bowels of her tummy. Cadence, having gorged herself on sugar, spice, and everything nice, in light of the holiday season (despite being three hairs from death‘s doorstep) hadn’t really helped matters come to a head. Before that moment the chemicals just sort of broke down into the energon particles of Chemical X or just vaporized into the stuff that dreams are made of when she decided to light up that blunt.

Disturbingly enough, this story of how Cadence became an alicorn princess wasn’t near as tragic or dark as the series of unfortunate events that would lead to Trixie’s ascension. Because the day Trixie became an alicorn, was also a day which set in motion a process that would end with young Trixie losing her home, her name, her parents, her childhood innocence, and what amounted to a full third of her identity in no particular order that makes sense to a child. But, one could easily argue, the journey what lead to the blessed/cursed event in this dime store tragedy began several years earlier. After all. In theory, people manage to build a life that makes sense to them using a solid foundation to build a lighthouse and gather lantern oil for the coming storm. Unfortunately the foundation in Trixie’s case was hidden under the surface at high tide. Which made it very difficult to build without erosion, barnacles, parasites, or moss gathering without coral.

Trixie had an arguably rough childhood. At first they thought she might be one of those deaf-mutes. “They” of course being the confederacy of ponies charged with responsibility for her wellbeing. Not unreasonable considering her mother was too immature to take care of Trixie alone. Made more difficult given that Trixie would often wander off on her own. But, it became clear Trixie could hear, or at the very least understand and comply with what was being asked when she wanted too. Trixie just wouldn’t respond to commands like a dog. That is to say, if you asked her to do something she had to think about it first. She probably didn’t speak until she was five years old, and the fist words out of her mouth were appropriately enough “Tricksy?” A word which finally made sense to her twitterpated mind the moment it processed, the same moment a Barista caught her sneaking off coffee creamer shots from his coffee shop like they were gum drops. Apparently, all it took was a complete stranger saying something as seemingly innocuous as “Well… You’re a Tricksy one, aren’t ‘cha?” before the flood gates popped open. You can imagine her young teenage mother (bewildered and in desperate surprise) to not only have located her wayward child, but find her engaged in a somewhat on-the-level conversation for a five year old.

“…hat are clouds made of?” Trixie asked.

Home Brew shrugged. “I used to know the answer to that one, but I think they’re mostly water.”

“So how come they float?” Young Trixie hopped in place.

Home Brew clicked his teeth. “That’s because it’s evaporated water.”

“So then, why does ice float?” Trixie inquired excitedly.

“Because it’s cold. Ice floats because it wants to be closer to the sun.” Home Brew replied.

“Then why does the sun set?” Trixie queried.

“Seriously!” Home Brew thought everyone knew the answer to that question. “Don’t they teach you anything in flight school?”

“Silly bug pony. Trixie cannot fly, Trixie is grounded.” ..in more ways than one. After her mother somehow managed to track her down that is. In fact, Snow Blind had contemplated “belling the cat” (as it were) maybe with a collar or witches cap so she wouldn’t loose sight of the little moonbeam and pin it down. So far, dressing her up as an alicorn had been the most effective way Snow Blind knew of to get others to assist her in keeping track of her child visually. She had simmilar strategies such as mismatched legwarmers, unique saddles, funny hats, and a star studded cape at one point.

“Ok! You see the sun is like this giant paper lantern, that rises because hot air rises off the ground. The ground is at it’s hottest in the middle of the day. Then in the evening Celestia cools everything down so-” Home Brew was interrupted.

“NORA!” Snow Blind shouted.

“-the sun sets.” Home Brew concluded.

“ Go away, Trixie is not Nora. Trixie is tricksy.”

Having gotten over her initial shock that her daughter was actually addressing her verbally Snow Blind continued her tirade. “Noragami Lulamoon. You’re in big trouble missy!”

“Yes. Siri” Trixie said knowing her punishment was indeed inevitable, that she in fact was in trouble, and she had no idea how to pronounce Sorry. Technically, Siri was the closest approximation to her mothers name Trixie could manage without mangling it into Saw-wee or Sui‘whee. And, in spite of the fact her mother often insisted that she was Sorry too; Trixie was old enough to know she wasn‘t Sorry, she was Tricksy. From that day onward the name just sort of stuck like a red badge of courage. Which was ironic in sense because they wanted to hold her back for a third year in kindergarten because she walked immaturely. Ironic only in the sense Trixie had taken to goose-stepping while singing ‘captain jack down the railroad track’ and the heart-song wasn‘t particularly fair to the other students. But, thanks in part to Celestia’s ‘no pony left behind’ act Trixie was advanced to the next grade because she met the minimum standard for academic excellence, even if she did have the personality of a bodie troll. Of course, once Trixie was transferred to the Clever Hans School for Special Some-ponies no one really questioned the decision.

Clever Hans was one of those schools that got most of it’s government funding through grants and social experiments. It sort of helped that the school for special some ponies was in a coastal village. With most of the classes being made up of sea ponies, and 2/3‘s of the staff being made up of administrators and psychologists, the school managed to get a lot of financial aid, donations, research funding, and kickbacks from the Royal Canterlot Library as well. Still, in all fairness, while students at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns were learning about ‘the tortoise and the hare’ Trixie and her classmates learned the story about a pineapple who challenged a bunny to a race. Another way in which Trixie’s school was different had to do with how they taught mathematics. As if arithmetic wasn’t difficult enough without making it a polymath uniquely its own. First graders at Clever Hans were taught if you wind up with less than what you have, then you have zero; not that you owe the difference. Trixie thought this was dumb, and knew it too. Home Brew had already taught Trixie how to count back change and this didn’t make a bit of ‘cents’ unless your customer was very stupid. Which most of them weren’t. In second grade Trixie learned multiplication and division using the remainder system. This again was senseless to Trixie because she already knew how decimal points worked. Again, because her adopted father showed her how to work with money she got a better education at home than at school. In third grade Trixie learned fractions. Her teacher and a significant number of her classmates thought she was dumb because she wasn’t quite getting it when she insisted that the stem (or peeling for that matter) was not part of the banana and that the banana was not cut in half but into 2/3 and 1. In spite of protests that some ponies like a banana’s peeling and all; Trixie thought this was a load of horse-pucky. And Trixie was most definitely not stupid, she was ignorant and naïve, somewhere in the world there’s a BIG difference.

Trixie did not like her elementary school, she did not like it, not one bit. Which was fine because the teachers were rolling in money anyway, especially when they started lumping all the fourth and fifth graders together in the same classroom. Not only that, but the grading system was completely broken and personality based. Even Trixie thought it stupid (if not assinine) because everyone needs improvement regardless of how well they were doing. Of all the students at Clever Hans, Trixie was the worst one because she was considered greedy and had no character. You wouldn’t have character either if every time you made one mistake you moved from an A to a C, or whenever you made two mistakes you got a D-, and heaven help you should you happen to fail three times in a row. Trixie was always being put in a corner or banned from participating in group activities. Not only that, but even when she was good she would eventually be punished three times for the same incident or accident as it were. Her classmates were stealing her pencils and notebooks, she couldn’t recover them because she didn’t have a receipt to prove they were hers, and the teachers were never on her side, even when she went out of her way to prove they didn’t sell her specific brand of pencils in the student store. And, even then, when Trixie did provide a receipt, and with other proofs that she wasn’t lying, it was dismissed as a forgery because her father owned a café and being a greedy little (attention seeking) problem child meant Trixie had motive, method, and opportunity, to forge evidence; means and probable cause be damned. Some pony had even stolen her wristwatch, and then punished Trixie when the brass turned her fetlock green. There was evidently no genuine communication between staff, and whenever there was, none of it was anything good. The only reason Trixie wasn’t blamed for burning the schoolhouse down was because she had been suspended at the time. Fortunately, after someone pushed her out of line in the school cafeteria, and they had made her responsible for the other foal’s bad behavior when they didn’t really want to believe her version of events, she actually managed to have an alibi that was iron-clad.

Once she entered middle school Trixie was no longer a volunteer napkin collector at the Café Grandpa, she was on regular staff. She still didn’t get any allowance, and was currently working off a debt she owed to Home Brew for breaking an espresso machine, which totally wasn’t her fault by the way. Between what she could salvage, and the few bits she collected in tips, she eventually purchased all the tools and resources she needed to start her own business. . . Then Home Brew started charging her rent for things he considered his property, like the squirty bottle or dishrag. Trixie thought this was economically unfair and would have played the worlds smallest violin if she didn’t know Home Brew better, so she just gave up making any profit on the sly until she had a better business plan. Well, mostly, Trixie still knew she could make good money as a clown with little more than a deck of cards, pointy hat, shiny cape, bunny rabbit, pulley cart, and trusty hand mirror. Collecting money was the second oldest profession in the world after all, and Trixie knew she could be successful if given the right opportunity or resources. As mentioned earlier, if Trixie was an indigo child, a sensitive capable of reading tea leaves, or blessed with the psychic fortitude to analyze the shadows of chocolate syrup, she probably wouldn’t have volunteered to help out at the Café Grandpa after school today. She was so caught up in what she was doing while reminiscing about the unfairness of her life that she didn’t notice the red mist of sporen gas coalescing through the double glass door and materializing into a pony wearing a babarian cape, pointy hat, and yoke of Starswirlium. The jangle bells on the door hadn’t jingled and the visitor moved almost as silent as the grave.

With an arrogant tone and snobbish demeanor the visitor called attention to himself without skipping a beat. “Yo whelp. Who do I have to screw to get a cup of coffee over here.”

“EEK!” there was a loud crash and cymbalic clank as soon as the startled Trixie was alerted to the presence of her visitor. This was followed by Trixie tripping over her feet unsteadily, slipping on the wet floor and almost falling into the broken glass. Trixie then contemplated ‘FML’ before looking up to see the most wicked looking unicorn outside the covers of Greyskin, Redskin, and the Necronomicon ex mortis. Wicked of course meaning cut to the teeth, decked to the nines, and dressed to kill on Nightmare Night.

“Pwease don’t eat me!”

Author's Note:

A/n: This is a crossover between The World God Only Knows, MLP: Friendship is Magic (witchcraft edition) and SHAZAM! I may use pop culture references; but this work of fiction is far from sweetness and light. Eventually, there will be blood and pain. I consider the suggestion of lewd behavior, slavery, torture, and some forms of abusive interrogation gory and indeed sexual. Hence the reason for the tags. There will also be childish levels of copyright infringement well known to those who partake in Halloween fun and works of parody.

Comments

[Stocking-chan]

I read the description, and I was like ''FUCK YES!''

So now, I shall read the story!