After Trixie's magic show (and seeing off Princess Celestia), Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer and Trixie retreat to the local diner for hayburgers and hayshakes. There, Twilight and Starlight point out that it's obvious how Hoofdini escapes the stomach of the manticore and reappears in the box: teleportation.
Trixie knows the truth behind the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive, but doesn't dare correct Twilight and Starlight's false assumptions. How could she, when the truth is so much more horrifying?
Now with a YouTube reading, thanks to FateMLP!
Day 1 of my Self-Imposed 31 Fics in 31 Days Challenge
Chapters (1)
7444929 It just means to say goodbye. A sendoff, if you will.
Edit after actually reading the story: Yeah, what 7444968 said. Not bad, but it could have used some touch-ups.
Yeah, probably does warrant those tags, the horror one at the very least. Still, great story if not a disturbing one.
What- I- just- man....
Please don't take this the wrong way because I it really isn't meant to be offensive but, this isn't that dark. I don't mean that in the 'I've seen better' kind of way rather, I mean it in the 'I've seen darker in my own mind' way. (Some seriously dark mojo goes down in there.) MLP you know, for kids.
However I still liked how this idea doesn't have plot holes like other stories I've read.
Good stuff. Probably the first fic of this normally restrictive length to weave a complex explanation linking multiple events together in a heretofore unexplored manner. While the Hoofdini twist is kind of obvious if anyone's encountered the likely inspiration, the Trixie twist is very good, even though it builds on something we all know already.
Good stuff, man.
Clever. I had never considered the possibility of doing the trick that way.
Since the commenters are talking about the tags, I guess I'll chime in, too. I feel like the only tag that's really needed for this story is the gore tag, and perhaps just ever-so-slightly the dark tag. The story seems too relaxed and ambivalent towards Hoofdini for the horror tag to apply, but maybe that's just me, LOL?
Anyway, this was a fun little read - thanks for writing it!
Valid argument when you think about it.
When I read the description I figured he meant go out the back door...
Hmm. I just thought they where to stupid to guess it was teleportation.
He went there and did that. Damn....
Most excellent work.
This was pretty good.
The part that I didn't get was why Trixie hated Houidini. Was it because she was a clone herself? Or because killing innocent lives is wrong? Or both?
7612934 Trixie isn't a clone. Her morals are such that she's utterly repulsed by Hoofdini's actions. Since she finds out about this before the events of Magic Duel, she's similarly disgusted by the actions of Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle (since Too Many Pinkie Pies is also right before Magic Duel), given the one carelessly used the Mirror Pool and the other zapped all the clones away without any apparent remorse.
7615963 Ah. Makes sense. Great story btw!
EDIT: Heh. I just realized I said that already. Whoops.
As soon as I read this It reminded me of The Prestige. Glad somebody else liked that movie.
Hooray, this is now in my head-canon! Gore, greed, a good Trixie!
I'm glad you mentioned The Prestige in your notes, even though this is different, it still reminded me a little of that. I was actually afraid that he was finding random unicorns and murdering them rather than clones. Somehow the clones made it more palatable... (get it? cause they were eaten? no? Okay...) Anyway, creepy in the right ways to be sure.
What shock value!? I figured it out by the description alone!
Good story, my only concern is that it may tarnish the reputation of the human version of Hoofdini. I don't think, from reading about him, that he was such a jerk. I'm not even talking about the willful evil of clone murdering for prestige, I mean his contempt for the audience and animosity towards other entertainers. Humandini[tm] (I just accidentally invented a new stage name for Ehrlich Weiss) didn't like frauds such as mediums and spiritists and he liked taking them down, but I don't remember him (I studied him in school a while back) being hostile towards his legitimate peers.
I never saw the movie you reference (scared to watch it) but maybe he's a jerk in the movie?