Shim Sham's Bizarre Adventure

by Joey JoJo Shabadoo

Part 6-2: The Midnight Carnival

Applejack was stunned by the realisation that Trixie's Stand was the very stage they were standing on.

“What!? That’s ridiculous! You can’t have a Stand that big!” She disputed.

“Jealous?" Trixie mocked. "It’s certainly more appealing than thunder thighs over there. What did you even call that thing, Apple Bucker?”

“I-it doesn’t have a name.” Applejack answered nervously.

“Getting a little hesitant, are we?”

“N-no! My Stand doesn’t have a name and it doesn’t need one. It’s irrelevant!”

“Now you’re being defensive.”

“N-no I’m not! I’ve got nothing to hide!” She argued, as her face scrunched up and turned a bright red.

“You’re a horrible liar, Jackie.”

Applejack couldn’t respond, Trixie was reading her like a book and she wasn’t doing a very good job at hiding it.

“Well, audience?” Trixie addressed. “Who here wants to know the name of Applejack’s Stand?”

The audience barely understood what a Stand even was, but it only took the interest of one loud, little bystander to get the rest of the crowd riled up. “I wanna know! What’s your Stand thingy called, Sis!?”

As they chanted Applejack's name again, she couldn’t help but give in to their demands. Her honesty just wouldn’t allow her to keep it a secret anymore. “Gimme a break...”

“Excuse me?” Trixie teased.

“Gimme a Break! My Stand is called Gimme a Break!”

A hush fell over the audience, even Applebloom was silent. Trixie, however, could hardly contain her laughter. “Hahahahahahahahaha! Are you serious!? That’s not even a name, it's an expression! I almost feel embarrassed for you.”

“Shut up!” Applejack protested. “I didn’t even name it, my friend did!”

“Well, you always did have “special” friends.”

Applejack's anger reached its boiling point, not only from Trixie's Stand literally being the entire stage, but from her constant, unbearable taunting, but she needed to calm down and change the subject before their confrontation derailed even further. “Trixie! What about the audience? How can they see my Stand?”

Once she wiped the tears from her eyes she eventually gave an answer. “It’s just a side effect of The Midnight Carnival, our show will be much more entertaining if the audience can see what’s happening as well." Trixie calmed herself and focused on the task at hand. "Now that we’ve revealed our true strength, why don’t we see which of our Stands is the greatest and most powerful?”

“Well, I can’t pass up an opportunity to shut that big mouth of yours, now can I?” Applejack cracked her knuckles, readying herself for a fight. Trixie responded with a beckoning hand gesture, urging Applejack to come at her.

Not wanting to be rude, Applejack charged full speed toward Trixie, only for a box to appear in front of her in a puff of smoke. It appeared so suddenly, she had no time to respond and ran straight into it. The box closed, disappeared and reappeared behind Trixie where Applejack, still caught in the momentum of her run, flew right off the stage.

The crowd wasn’t sure what was going on with all this “Stand” business, but were nonetheless entertained by Trixie’s magic. Applejack, not so much. She picked herself up and climbed back onto the stage, even more determined to beat Trixie to a pulp than before.

“You wanna try fighting me for real, or are cheap parlor tricks all you good at?” She heckled.

“Oh, I’m sorry Jackie.” Trixie answered, sarcastically. “It was rude of me to throw you off the stage like a helpless child. Let me fix that for you.” With a click of her fingers, a bright light surrounded the stage for a brief moment and vanished.

“What did you just do?”

“I just put up a barrier around the stage.”

“Trying to keep me in are you? Not like I was planning on running anyway.”

“Oh, it’s not for you. I just don’t want anyone in the crowd getting caught in our cross-fire.”

“So, you really are gonna fight me for real?” Applejack was getting a little excited. Perhaps it was the spectators, or the unpredictable nature of Trixie’s Midnight Carnival, or maybe it was just that fact that she was finally having her first, real Stand battle, but something about all this felt riveting. Whatever it was, she was psyched and ready for whatever Trixie was conjuring up.

“Now!” Trixie announced. “Trixie shall show you the true power of The Midnight Carnival!” Dozens of knives appeared around Trixie, all of them aimed at Applejack. “Let’s see how you handle these!”

The knives flew toward Applejack, but thanks to her Stand’s incredible speed and power, it effortlessly batted the knives away with it’s lightning fast kicks. The knives that were cast aside bounced off Trixie’s barrier preventing them from harming the audience. After about thirty seconds it was obvious to Trixie that her knife throwing trick wasn’t getting her anywhere.

“Your Stand’s a lot faster than I thought.” Trixie praised. “But, now I’m certain I’ve got you beat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me, Jackie? Can your Stand do anything else?”

“No and it doesn’t need to. I don't rely on tricks to win my fights, unlike you.”

“In that case, you should have no problem dealing with some heavier artillery!” A large puff of smoke burst in front of Trixie, as a cannon suddenly appeared. The fuse was lit, about to fire at any second, but Applejack was confident. If she could take a hit from Bulk’s Stand, she could handle a simple cannonball.

The cannon fired sending the ball straight for Applejack, but as expected, her Stand was quick enough and strong enough to protect her, kicking the ball in mid-flight, killing all of its momentum. However, while the ball itself stopped dead in it’s tracks, the moment it fell to the ground, it detonated.

In a burst of smoke and confetti, the force of the blast sent Applejack flying into the barrier, the blast blinded her temporarily and left her open for Trixie to continue her assault.

“I have you now, Jackie!” Fireworks, suddenly fired from behind the stage and locked onto Applejack's position. With all the smoke blocking her vision and being flash banged from a bright explosion, she couldn’t fight back, only brace herself.

The rockets crashed into Applejack. Covering the stage in bright explosions and smoke. The audience were on the edge of their seats, with Applebloom hoping her sister wasn’t horribly injured. Trixie, on the other hand, was gleefully chuckling to herself.

“It seems our show has come to an end.” She announced, proclaiming her victory. “But, at least it went out with a bang!”

As Trixie continued to laugh to herself, the smoke cleared and her laughter came to a sudden halt. Applejack was still standing.

“What!?” Trixie cried. “That’s impossible! You should be lying face down in the dirt!”

Applejack seemed pretty happy that she was able to break Trixie’s confidence just by surviving her attack. “I gotta admit, you caught me off guard with that cannonball, but it seems performing cheap stunts is all you can really do. Those explosives of yours are all show and no substance. I’ve popped balloons more dangerous than them.”

Trixie was genuinely confused. She threw a cannonball and fireworks at her and yet Applejack wasn't phased at all. She had hoped her tricks would have roughed her up a little, how could she possibly survive multiple explosions to the face with such ease?

“Alright.” Applejack dusted herself off. “If you’re finished with your annoying tricks, I’d say it’s my turn to put on a show.”

Applejack’s sudden bravado frightened Trixie, but as Applejack came charging toward her, she remembered she had one final trick up her sleeve. The moment Applejack was about to attack, Trixie opened a trap door in front of her and with no time to react, Applejack fell through the stage and into the darkness below, with a crash.

“What the heck!? Trixie! Now what are you up to!?”

“Sorry, sugarcube, but I can’t have you ruining my show, so just stay down there and wallow in your own misery for a little while.”

Applejack attempted to protest, but Trixie simply slammed the door on her face. She was confident that she had finally bested Applejack and lowered her barrier. The stage felt stuffy when the barrier was up for too long, especially with all the smoke.

In a last ditch effort to win, Trixie locked Applejack underneath her stage, in total darkness. Applejack felt trapped, but she refused to lose to another one of Trixie's cheap tactics. While she stumbled around in the darkness she could still hear Trixie’s loud, obnoxious voice above her. Her loud boasting about how great she was only served as motivation to push Applejack further.

As she wandered the darkness, she stumbled across various different objects, but couldn’t see what they were. One felt like a large ball, while another felt like a sharp blade. She continued to wander until she came to what felt like a wall. The wall felt thick, a lot more sturdy than the stage appeared from the outside. Not that she saw that as a problem.

She unleashed her Stand to try and break down the wall. It was tougher than she thought, but Trixie's continued appraisal of herself from above gave Applejack the drive to keep going. She had to break free, just so she could shut Trixie's big mouth. It wasn't long before she started to see light peering through the cracks of the wall and with one final thrust she finally broke through.

She crawled out of the hole and found herself behind the stage. The light from the, now, setting sun shone through the hole and inside the stage revealing the objects she found earlier. A cannon, cannonball, knives, all the props from Trixie’s show were hidden underneath the stage. With this, Applejack was finally able to put the pieces together and figure out the true secret to The Midnight Carnival’s power and promptly removed as many of the props as she could.

Trixie was just about to wrap up her show when the audience gasped unexpectedly. She wasn’t sure what they were gasping at, so she just assumed it was in awe of her stunning abilities. “Do not threat, dear audience! Trixie’s show may be over for now, but her greatness shall one day return!” She turned to leave, only to jump when she met eyes with a bitter Applejack.

“What!?” Trixie cried. “How!? What!? No! What!?”

“I’m guessing you weren’t expecting me to escape your pit?” Applejack gloated.

“That’s literally impossible! How did you break out of my stage, those walls are as hard as steel!”

“I kicked them really hard.”

The audience chuckled at Applejack’s remark, which infuriated Trixie. She was not going to allow this hick to humiliate her at her own event, not when she was so close to finishing an otherwise perfect show. “The show’s over, Jackie! But if you want an encore so badly, I’ll give you one, but this will be our final battle!”

Applejack beckoned Trixie, urging her to try and defeat her.

Trixie wasted no time summoning her cannon again, she planned on blowing Applejack right off the stage to end the fight immediately and decisively. The fuse was lit and soon after, the cannon fired, but nothing came out.

“What!?” Trixie cried, again. “What happened to my cannon!?”

As Trixie was inspecting her cannon for any damage, Applejack slowly walked over to her.

“Forget it!” Trixie yelled in frustration. “I’ll just use my trusty knives.” She attempted to surround herself with knives just like before, but, again, nothing happened.

“My... my knives? Where are my knives?” She tried summoning her other props, from her cards to her fireworks, but none of them appeared, except for the magic box she caught Applejack with earlier. “Well, at least this still works.”

The box appeared in front of Applejack, despite walking at a brisk enough pace that she could just walk around it, she instead chose to walk right into Trixie’s trap. Trixie smirked to herself, as she mused over how stupid Applejack must be to literally walk right into her trap, but her confidence was soon crushed when Applejack’s Stand broke through the back of the box with a single kick.

“You...” Trixie snarled. “You tampered with my Stand, didn’t you!?”

“Maybe.”

“How dare you! What have you done!?”

“All I did was remove the props from under your stage. The cannon and box were a little too big to fit through the hole I made, but everything else I threw out. I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that all the props you used against me were under there, so I just put two and two together and figured it was tied to your Stand power.”

Trixie was devastated. Not only did Applejack escape her inescapable trap, but she even figured out her Stand's weakness! It was inconceivable, but even so, she still had her trump card. “Don’t get cocky, Jackie. I still have my final trick!”

As Applejack drew closer, Trixie opened her trap door, but wise to her tricks, Applejack leapt out of the way at the last minute, but that didn’t discourage Trixie as her true plan was to open the entire stage floor, with the exception of the ground beneath her own feet, in an attempt to swallow Applejack completely.

Trixie prepared to gloat over her victory, but was suddenly overcome with fear when she saw that Applejack’s feet were floating in mid-air. She slowly looked up, dreading to learn how she could have avoided her trap and more importantly, what she was going to do to her now that she had.

Thanks to her Stand holding her up by the arm, levitating over the void beneath the stage, Applejack avoided Trixie’s final trap.

“Nice try.” Applejack’s Stand carried her in it’s arms as they prepared to launch their final attack. “I think it’s time for me to perform a magic trick of my own.”

“What are you going to do?” Trixie asked with dread.

“Make you disappear.”

“Oh, geez...”

With one powerful kick, Applejack’s Stand sent Trixie soaring through the park and out the entrance as she crashed into a parked car.

And with that, Trixie retired and her stage disappeared in a puff of smoke. The crowd cheered at such a fantastic finale to an amazing, if somewhat bizarre, magic show. Applebloom ran to her sister to congratulate her.

“That was awesome, Sis! You and Trixie must have spent months working on that show! But how did you do all of that!?”

Applejack didn't remember working on any show, but decided to go along with her sister’s assumptions. “Sorry, hon. A magician never reveals her secret.”

Moments after the crowd dispersed and after taking Applebloom home, Trixie was omitted to the hospital, but Applejack wasn’t done with her just yet.

She arrived at the hospital and found Trixie’s room. She was bandaged up, but seemed to be in pretty good shape for someone whose entire body tore through a car. Stand users just seemed to be naturally more resilient to, what should have been, fatal injuries. She was calmly reading her book on magic, but nearly jumped out of her skin when she caught sight of Applejack again.

“Now what do you want!? Was humiliating me in front of my fans not satisfying enough for you!?”

“Humiliate? What you talking about? The audience loved you, said it was the best show they ever saw.”

“Really?” For a brief moment, Trixie acted surprisingly humble, before immediately reverting back to her arrogant self. “Maybe we should do shows together more often. I'll definitely beat you next time!”

“I’d rather not.”

“Oh, well, whatever. What are you here for, Trixie is quite busy reading at the moment and does not wish to be disturbed.”

“I just came here to ask you a few questions.”

“Trixie doesn’t really do post show interviews.”

“Trixie, for once, can you just cooperate like a normal person?”

Trixie continued reading her book.

“Trixie, if you don’t take this seriously, then so help me, I will do to you what you did to that car.”

Trixie heeded Applejack’s threat. She was in no position to argue and didn't feel like being mangled beyond repair. Of course, that didn't mean she had to like it. “Fine, ask away.”

“Where did you get your Stand?”

“In the park.”

“Okay, how?”

“Someone threw an arrow at me or something, it felt really weird now that I think about it.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“Not really.”

Interrogating Trixie was more infuriating than fighting her, but Applejack had to keep pressing on until she found something, anything that could help. “When did this happen and what were you even doing in the park?”

“It must have been late at night and obviously, Trixie was practising her magic.”

“How could you possibly think practising magic in the park, in the middle of the night, was a good idea?”

“Because it’s quiet and no one will disturb Trixie, there. Besides my Mom's always getting noise complaints from the neighbours when, honestly, they should be thrilled that they get to hear the behind-the-scenes training of Trixie’s spectacular magic shows.”

“Weren’t you scared of the rumours? You could have been attacked! In fact, you were attacked! You were shot with an arrow!”

“Yes and Trixie received her new, amazing powers from it, so if anything, Trixie should practise in dangerous places more often.”

Applejack was at her wit’s end. Trixie’s stubbornness was unshakable, but thankfully Trixie was kind enough to remember something peculiar during her time in the park. “Although, now that I think about it, something weird did happen to me.” She pondered.

“Well, what?”

“After I was shot, everything suddenly turned dark and this deep voice started talking to me about helping him achieve his goal or something. Trixie wasn’t really interested, but then he started getting aggressive and threatening me, however Trixie detests taking orders from others, let alone being threatened, so I sat on my stage, put up my barrier and refused to listen to him. And after a long stand off, he eventually left me alone.”

“I guess even the most powerful of villains have their limits, but what happened to the arrow?”

"Trixie threw it away."

"Of course you did. Do you at least remember anything he said to you?"

“I don’t know.” Trixie shrugged. “Trixie wasn’t interested, so Trixie didn’t listen.”

She may be the most painful person on the planet to interrogate, but Trixie didn’t sound like she was lying and her story lined up with what Rainbow Dash found out, but there was still one last thing bothering Applejack.

“Wait, so you’re not working for this shady guy after all?”

“Trixie works only for herself.”

“Well, why the heck did you attack me then!? I thought you were trying to off me!”

“Off you? I just thought it’d be funny to make you look like an idiot in front of my adoring fans.”

“You, what!?”

“And when I saw that you had a Stand, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a Stand battle in front of a live audience. People will be talking about this show for weeks!”

“You mean that was all just for your dumb show!? Even the knives and the cannon!?”

“Oh, please. They were just magical duplicates. I can’t actually hurt anyone with them, just rough them up a bit. Still, those fireworks should have at least left you a smoking mess. I swear you must have cheated or something.”

Applejack’s patience had finally run out, she had enough of Trixie’s complaining and just wanted to go home. This was all feeling like a complete waste of time. She was about to leave when someone caught her attention.

“Wait! Come back!” A pained voice cried out.

“Was that you?” Applejack asked Trixie.

“No!” She replied, offended that she’d ever cry to Applejack for help.

“Behind the curtain.” The voice asked.

The bed next to Trixie’s was occupied as well, but the girls didn’t notice since the curtains were closed around it. Applejack pulled the curtains back to find a girl lying in bed, bandaged from head to toe. She was in much worse shape than Trixie.

“Whoa, who are you?” Applejack asked.

“Name’s, Lightning Dust.” She answered.

“Lightning Dust? Aren’t you the Stand user who fought Rainbow Dash? Wow, she must have really done a number on you.” Applejack chuckled.

“Rainbow Dash didn’t do this.”

“What are you talking about?"

"I mean, I was attacked by someone else."

"What? Who?"

"I don't know..."

"Oh... well see ya, then."

Applejack was about to leave when the girl cried out to her again.

"Please, wait! You gotta hear me out!"

Applejack was cautious, she was technically their enemy and could be lying. "And why should I?"

“Because I'm scared.”

"Scared?" The look in Lightning's eyes were of desperation and fear, she was genuinely frightened of something. "What happened to you?"

“After my fight with Rainbow Dash I was hanging around Canterlot High. I was just thinking about what to do next when I was hit by some kind of magic, or energy or something, but suddenly, out of nowhere, I was engulfed in a tornado. After that I blacked out, apparently some students found me and rushed me to the hospital, with cuts all over my body. I never saw my attacker...”

“Well, that’s what happens when you hang around bad guys like that, they’re bound to betray you sooner or later.”

“That’s not even the worst part. Being attacked by my own powers was bad enough, but what was really terrifying was that as soon as I woke up, I couldn’t use them anymore. I think the person who attacked me stole my Stand!"

Author's Note:

Starting to split the longer chapters into multiple smaller parts to make them easier to read and digest, otherwise we'll start having chapters that go from 3000 words to 8000 and possibly more.

Stand Name: The Midnight Carnival
User: Trixie Lulamoon
Namesake:

Attributes:

Power: B
Speed: C
Range: E
Durability: A
Precision: C
Potential: B

Comments

[Windsor]

Nice fight. Still waiting to see what power Sunset's Stand have. But it seems that I will have to wait for a looooooooong time.

[Saiyan of the North Star]

KO awesome chapter, Applejack sure showed Trixie a thing or two about never messing with her. Shocking that someone could stole someone else's stand, hopefully the main 6 will him and stop him.

[ProjectRabbid]

Needs more views

[Super Ponyman]

“That’s not even the worst part. Being attacked by my own powers was bad enough, but what was really terrifying was that as soon as I woke up, I couldn’t use them anymore. I think the person who attacked me stole my Stand!"

White Snake? Oh great?

[Black--Soul]

So removing a Stand means tjey lose their abilitys. Sounds reasonable.

I forget this is more comedy than anything.