Continuity Disrupted

by Doug Graves

41 The Jester, Part Six

The door to the wagon slams shut as Trixie huffs angrily, finally alone and able to let her cheery, unfazed facade drop. The rest of her performances that day hadn’t gone nearly as well as that first one, though still acceptably well, and it’s driving her crazy! None of the other stallions she invited to the stage had nearly the same charisma as that Doug creature, and didn’t warrant the same invitation. Just thinking about him had thrown off her timing, nearly making her drop one of the flaming pins!

Trixie rages back and forth, unable to stop, nearly leaving shoe-marks in the wooden floor from how hard her hooves are coming down. What was his problem? What did that… she shudders in anger as she recalls the name, Twilight Sparkle have that Trixie didn’t?! Or any of the mares that were with him? She had nearly no presence! Nothing like Trixie’s command and control, or her raw beauty! She couldn’t offer anything close to what Trixie could!

Trixie snorts as she recalls Doug’s offer, just like she snorted when she had stormed into her wagon earlier that day. Join his herd? Pah! It was an insult, not an actual invitation! Purely to save face, give him an out, to make him feel better about his rejection!

Well, maybe she had briefly considered it. She hadn’t felt like this before. But she would only have agreed to something like that if he is willing to follow her on her trips. Right? Since a town like Ponyville isn’t nearly large enough to employ a full-time magician. She would have to commute to Canterlot several days of the week! She’d lose her mind if she had to get other jobs, and so far this town is far too earth pony centric, even if it is populated by plenty of pegasi and unicorns.

Wait, why is she even considering this? She loves the life as a performer! And joining with him, settling down? It would ruin everything! She isn’t quite washed up enough to need to settle down. Her hoof nearly knocks over one of her boxes of fireworks as she motions - look at all the bits she made today!

Trixie sighs as she looks outside, her eyes catching the stars and moons above the wagon she has yet to take down. She did miss the stable life she had in Las Pegasus performing with her sire, Jack Pot. But there was only so much room in Grin City for stage magic featuring blue unicorns. So she had struck out, made her way as a travelling performer. And business has always gone well enough to keep herself fed, even if it didn’t do much for her hungry heart.

He isn’t the first stallion to make some sort of offer. Though the stallions she might have thought about accepting the offer from ran few and far between. Granted, she had always tried to select a stallion based on their perceived endurance and ability. Preferably not in a herd, but a few times it had turned out that he was and had to get permission. That always bothered Trixie, but often not enough to keep her from getting a little comfort on the road.

A knock breaks Trixie from her musing. She pulls on her hat and robe, a quick glance in the mirror before she opens the door. She gazes down coldly at the two unicorn colts staring up at her. A curt, “What do you want?” gets both of them to cower just a little. At least something is still going right for her.

“Here’s your smoothie you asked for!” Snails says, motioning to the brown concoction resting on Snips’ back. Only a few hours late. “With extra hay, just how you like it!”

“Mmm, hay,” moans Snips, the overweight colt drooling a little. Fortunately not on the smoothie he is moving close to his own mouth.

Trixie looks down disdainfully, her purple magic levitating the drink. That Pinkie Pie makes a mean smoothie. She slurps down several gulps, then pulls out a brush, beginning to comb out her mane before bed. She looks back down - they are still there.

“Yes?” Trixie finally says.

Snails stares at her with an empty, slack-jawed look, “Ooh, tell us another story, Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Yeah!” Snips exclaims, far too demanding for what should be a conciliatory request. “Tell us about how you vanquished the Ursa Major!”

“Guh!” Trixie snorts, barely sparing them a glance as she finishes brushing out her mane, “Trixie is far too exhausted from performing feats of magic beyond imagination. Begone with you until morning!” She hides her scowl; they did get her a smoothie, after all. But she does not want to deal with their cringe-inducing groveling right now.

The two kowtowing colts whimper something into the dirt as they back away. They run into that dragon youngling that had been hanging around Doug as Trixie walks back into her wagon with a huff. She lays down on her bed, sipping the last of her smoothie, trying to go to sleep.

Trixie muses to herself; they are dedicated little minions. Though any fillies she has would be brought up to much higher standards. Her own sire never let her relax in her studies, always pushing her to be the Great and Powerful, not the Moderately Talented Wash Up. Wait, fillies? Is she back on this already?

The Apple octet is much better trained, from what she could tell during one of her afternoon shows. Now there is a troupe in the making! Especially that Sweetie Belle, though the filly’s magic isn’t quite up to snuff. Criminal letting that sort of talent go to waste! But did she really want to give up her career as a stage magician? She loves standing in the spotlight, hearing the adoration of the crowd, upstaging those precocious pretenders who think they are oh so great! Not compared to her, The Great and Powerful Trixie!

She restlessly tosses in bed.

Counting the stars on her hat doesn’t help. Or the number of hoofkerchiefs she has tied together, after she added four more for her performances that day.

Neither does playing through her act, rehearsing and improving on some of the jokes. Even the trite ones she is contractually obligated to say. Stupid Flim Flam brothers.

She just needs to get him out of her system. Out of her mind. And there is only one way to do that. She pulls out her record player out from under her bed, blowing the dust off of what used to be her favorite album. Okay, fine, it still is. Tenth Century by the Fallback Fillies, specifically the track It Has’ta Be You.

What an amazing band. The epitome of what every filly band - sorry, vocal harmony group - should aspire to be. And they weren’t just for little colts! How did they manage to capture and encapsulate the experience she is going through? Equestria isn’t ready for those answers.

Her inspiration and motivation ready, and she starts the record, her wagon filling with synthesized guitars and drums. Did she want to skip the first three songs? Definitely not the first, that one always made it right. Maybe just the second and third, she always tears up during those. Even if they speak to the loneliness she is feeling right now.

Halfway through the second chorus of her favorite song - having not skipped any of them - a loud pounding at her door interrupts her frenzied dancing. Trixie huffs loudly, cutting off right after ‘All the way’. She smirks to herself; she will be going all the way. Just after she deals with-

A deafening klaxon rips through the town! The blaring, warbling racket drowns out her record player, leaving her reeling. Trixie grits her teeth, briefly stunned by the unexpected blast of noise as she pushes the top half of her door open. A few pegasi are flitting about randomly, barely illuminated by the town lights against the night sky. On the ground ponies are dashing this way and that, panicking as the ground rumbles intermittently.

“WHAT?” she shouts at the two colts, both of whom are whimpering, ears splayed back, heads turned towards the clock tower the alarm is radiating from. “Trixie thought she said The Great and Powerful Trixie did not want to be disturbed!” She points a hoof at the clock tower, “Did you do that?”

Snips and Snails both nervously laugh, glancing behind themselves, their gaze going higher and higher. “Uh,” Snips says, “we have a tiny problem.”

“Actually!” Snails amends, “It’s a MAJOR problem!” He points a hoof above and behind him.

Trixie’s gaze follows his hoof, gaping as she spots the blue outline of an enraged Ursa Minor. Her record player blares out, “It’s the way you-”

*

Inside the Golden Oak Library, Twilight Sparkle looks up from her book on Everfree Monsters as the klaxon goes off. An infuriated roar is heard over the alarm, glancing over as Spike dashes through the door. Twilight Sparkle turns to Spike, yelling, “Is that what I think it is?”

“Majorly!” Spike shouts back, running over to Twilight Sparkle. “What do we do?”

“As long as they shut that alarm off, we’ll be fine,” Twilight Sparkle says, quickly grabbing supplies. “And don’t use any non-magical attacks. An Ursa Major is very resistant, nearly immune, to magic. But something physical - like fire - could injure and then enrage it!”

*

Trixie, Snips, and Snails scream as they bolt away from Trixie’s wagon! The Ursa Minor’s paw comes crashing down - right during the ‘ooh ooh’, the record snapping as the player sputters out in a shower of sparks - roaring as it smashes the wagon to splinters in a single blow! It spins to follow the two colts that awakened it from its slumber, opening its jaws for a second deafening roar.

A sizzle preludes a single sparkler lighting under the blue paw. Then all of Trixie’s fireworks go off, engulfing the Ursa Minor in a sparkling, choking, burning cloud of colored ash and smoke. Seconds later the wagon explodes, the remainder of her pyrotechnics sending chunks of wood flying in every direction!

This merely incites the Ursa Minor further, the injured roar deafening everypony nearby.

A rainbow blur zips across town directly towards the clock tower, her shouting unheard as she turns the alarm off. Rainbow Dash flies to the ponies gathering on the outskirts of the town center, vortexes of colorful smoke billowing in her wake. A few of the ponies rally around Spoiled Rich on one side of the town, Amethyst Star on the other.

“Where’s the librarian?” Mayor Mare shouts as she gallops up to Amethyst Star, both ponies scanning around and trying to keep everypony under control. The Ursa Minor rears up again, a keening call as it looks towards the Everfree Forest and cradles its injured limb. “What should we do?”

“Trixie knows!” Snails shouts, eagerly bouncing up and down despite nearly being crushed earlier. “She defeated an Ursa Major!”

Snips adds, “Yeah, vanquish it! Vanquish it so we can watch, your Greatness!”

“Are you out of your bucking minds?!” Trixie shouts back, crawling out from behind a section of flaming debris. A frying pan slams down next to her, half of a red hoofkerchief attached, the other half burned off. The Ursa Minor spins around, looking for the perpetrator of its latest injury.

“It took a lot of trouble to get that thing here!” Snips continues, Snails nodding along.

“You did this? You lost me my home!” Trixie nearly drops to her barrel, staring at the remains of her wagon, barely paying attention to the smoldering wood curling her mane as her mind lists everything she owns, and has now been destroyed. Two hundred and forty hoofkerchiefs worth of supplies and memories.

The Ursa Minor hears her shout, seemingly recognizing Trixie as the cause of the explosion. The giant bear turns to face her, massive jaws exposing jagged rows of teeth as it sneers. It stretches one leg, then the other, shaking bits and pieces of wood from its coat as it crouches down.

Snips says, “Well, if you had vanquished it before-”

Twilight Sparkle interrupts Snips as she gallops over, her eyes tracing over the blue bear, shouting, “Everypony! We have an Ursa Minor about to start a rampage! We need to calm it down!”

“HELP!” yells Trixie as she takes off towards the middle of town, the Ursa Minor in hot pursuit. It roars every time its injured leg hits the ground, yet continues on, intent on dismembering the frantic unicorn.

“Right turn!” Rainbow Dash yells, taking off after Trixie and flying close to her. “Keep it to the center of town, try to lead it back the way it came! I’ll help!” Rainbow Dash flares her wings, quickly gaining altitude as her speed drops, setting her right behind and above the Ursa Minor.

More and more ponies begin to arrive at the scene, milling around as the leaders keep as many ponies out of the fray as possible. Twilight Sparkle shouts, “We need to quiet it down or its cries will wake up its mother, and then there won’t be a Ponyville to save it from!”

“How do we do that?” Applejack yells as she, Fluttershy, and Doug arrive on the scene, the latter two hanging far back. Applejack pulls out her rope, though stops as Twilight Sparkle shakes her head.

Twilight Sparkle taps a hoof to her chin as her eyes follow the rampaging Ursa Minor, “It was already injured by a physical attack, it’ll be especially wary of anything that isn’t magic. We need a magical way to cool off that burn, and then calm it down. Think of it as, um, a cranky infant that got woken up!”

“Lemon always liked a bottle when she was cranky!” Pinkie Pie says as she puts away her party cannon, even if it is loaded for bear.

“Maybe some water for the burn?” Cloudchaser says, though no clouds can be seen as she looks up at the clear sky.

“No, physical water won’t work!” Twilight Sparkle says, following her gaze. “But magical water?” She looks over at Rarity and Amethyst Star, many of the other unicorns also shaking their heads. “Nopony can conjure a storm?”

“Trixie can!” Doug shouts, heads turning to watch the blue unicorn huddling behind one of the destroyed sections of her wagon. The Ursa Minor is roaring at Rainbow Dash as the pegasus circles around its head, always keeping out of reach but still close enough to be annoying. The Ursa Minor continues turning, still favoring one leg. “And, Twilight Sparkle, you saw her perform the spell. Can you copy it?”

“Um, I wasn’t exactly paying attention then,” Twilight Sparkle says sheepishly. She begins worriedly pacing back and forth, “Ooh, I should have been!” glancing at Trixie and then the ground. “How could I have-”

She yelps as Doug’s hand smacks her flank, glaring up at him.

“Focus!” Doug yells, pointing at the Ursa Minor. “We need a really big bottle!” Not seeing any other ponies moving to help Trixie, not wanting to risk anypony or distract Twilight Sparkle even more, Doug runs from one section of cover to another. He makes his way to Trixie while, hopefully, staying concealed from the Ursa Minor. A lullaby lilts through the town, many ponies’ heads swaying to the music, but doing little to calm the still infuriated Ursa Minor.

Twilight Sparkle looks around the town, the components of a giant baby bottle practically painting themselves in the moonlight. Her horn flares brightly, sparks flying away from her as her power climbs higher and higher. The Ursa Minor briefly looks over, the bright light hiding Doug’s advance. The giant bear takes one hesitant step towards the light, then another, ignoring the rainbow blur trying to distract it away from the concentrating unicorn.

Doug slides next to Trixie, his hand clamping over her mouth as she tries to scream. She looks over him, wide-eyed, as he says, “Trixie! We need you to conjure a rain cloud next to the Ursa’s injured leg! A RAIN cloud, not a storm cloud! Okay?”

Trixie’s terrified gaze raises to the Ursa Minor walking next to them, the briefest of nods getting Doug to remove his hand. Her horn flares, as dimly as she can make it, a small gray cloud crackling with small amounts of electricity directly in the path of its leg. The two collide, the pained look on the Ursa Minor’s face fading to relief. It raises its leg, mere steps away from the brightly glowing mare, a curious look at the shroud of white. It giggles at the brief bursts of lightning, stretching its claws.

The Ursa Minor sits back, no longer cradling its leg, though it still looks a bit cranky. Trixie’s horn lights again, a rope and the backdrop curtain from her wagon levitating over. She ties the makeshift bandage around the burn, the bear growling appreciably as Trixie soaks the curtain with one cloud after another.

Its gaze travels around the sky, finally locating a large object drifting through the air. Moonlight glints off the metal cylinder, the brown wooden cap clamping on top. The Ursa Minor frowns briefly at the incoming projectile, though when the large ‘bottle’ slows down and stops it raises its large paws, grabbing on and guzzling down the milk inside.

Twilight Sparkle’s horn flares even brighter as she levitates the Ursa Minor. Sweat streams down her face and body as the town watches the bear disappear into the Everfree Forest - hopefully never to be seen again - until she collapses to the cheers of the Ponyvillians.

Comments

[badninja]

I hope they actually punish those two colts. Blaming Trixie is would be bad form.

[Doug Graves]

9394305
It's funny how frequently I look at your (and other) comments and go, 'yup. That'll be brought up in the next chapter.' And then I look back - because I know I had at least thought of how Trixie was treated as being incredibly unfair - curious as to whether I had already posted something to that extent. And, generally, nope! Just similar minds, I guess.

And other times, I go, 'you know, I should add a line or two to really emphasize that aspect.' Appreciated!

[chibilink]

I think you have Snips and Snails backwards in this chapter. Snips is the short fat one, Snails is the tall slow one.

[Doug Graves]

10108268
...Derp.

[Silentwoodfire]

10108307
Both of them arent terribly bright regardless

[MurderP0n7]

9394305
X2. It was unfair that, at most I should have had a message of reflection on not being too arrogant and a disclaimer every time it starts, with a certain "Everything said in the program should not be taken seriously and is only a method to get better public attention"