Behind the Azure Curtain
A green-gray rectangular machine came to life, emitting a low electric hum which bounced off the walls of the Library Treehouse’s basement. Such equipment would normally be operated by the bookworm that owned it or her small, purple assistant but he was still shedding tears in the floor above but he was not alone. The yellow Pegasus mare named Fluttershy kept vigil on him, something she was only too happy to do to avoid the situation that was unfolding below.
Rainbow grabbed a roll of paper on a shelf below the big counter, its countertop having all sorts of scientific equipment from beakers to microscopes to bizarre contraptions with piping providing who knows what to them. However, to the cyan mare, none of it was needed or at least, she didn’t think so. With the roll on her hooves, she hovered over to the free-standing machine and jammed it towards a slot near the top. It didn’t go in, prompting the supervisor of the room, Applejack to step in and assist. After a few healthy shoves, the paper roll finally clicked in and both mares looked at the wires sticking out of it, one red, the other blue, the last one green. The first two led to another smaller machine of the same color, this one with a few buttons and dials on it. The green wire connected to a large, domed helmet adorned with bulbs of many colors but none of them were on. Below the contraption was an azure pony that correctly claimed to be Twilight Sparkle except she couldn’t say that at the moment. Her mouth had been taped up and any chance of escape was hindered by tightened metal clamps that held her front hooves to the small machine, now being fiddled with by a white unicorn and pink earth pony.
“Are you sure that’s how to set it, Pinkie?” said Rarity.
The party pony had a smile on her face, moving a knob back and forth. “I don’t know! I just love the sound this thingy makes!”
“Will you cut that out, Pinkie Pie?” said Applejack. “We’re about to turn this doo-hickey on!”
She turned to the cyan Pegasus and with a nod, gave Rainbow the signal to flip a switch on the side of the larger grey-green machine, sending it from stand-by to fully operational. Nothing happened. Rarity immediately looked down at the connections on her end and seeing the color coding above the inputs, flipped the red and blue wires with her magic. Suddenly, a puff of smoke started coming out of the sides of the larger machine which imitated a beeping sound. The paper roll printed out currently useless results, a straight red line. The dome on top of Twilight’s head lit up like a Christmas tree, pleasing the cow-pony.
“Yee-haw! I think we got it!” She then focused her attention on what she thought was the trickster magician. “Ok. Maybe we’ll finally git some answers here! Rarity, if you please?”
With a dainty magic touch, the white unicorn peeled away the tape, finally allowing Twilight to speak. “Girls, please listen to me! You don’t under…”
Applejack trotted up and quieted the unicorn with a glare. “I don’t think you understand, Trixie. Twilight disappears and then you just happen to stroll in here? That’s might suspicious if you ask me. Now this is how it’s gonna work. I ask the questions, you spill the hay. And dontcha think you can git away with lying ‘cause this…thing will be up to your tricks.”
“But that’s not quite how this…”
Rainbow dashed over to a set of switches on the wall and dimmed all the lights, all except for one directly above the azure unicorn. The interrogation was underway.
“So, why are you back in Ponyville?” said Applejack.
The bookworm fidgeted on whether to tell the truth but she finally did, feeling that her earlier deception only made things worse. “Trixie came to steal my magic and I think she used that to do so.” Her muzzle aimed at Rarity, the new owner of the amber amulet. “Instead, we switched bodies so I’m really Twilight Sparkle in Trixie’s body.”
Pinkie and Rainbow watched the now-squiggling red line on the rolling sheet of paper, with the pink mare fascinated by it.
“Ooooooooh! Pretty!”
An eye-roll came from the cyan Pegasus before she grabbed the sheet, trying to make heads or tails out of nonsense. Rainbow guessed, not wanting to look silly. “She’s lying! I…I think.”
Even with the late hesitation in Rainbow’s words, Applejack bought it. “I told ‘ya you can’t lie to us, Trixie. Here, I’ll make it easy for ‘ya. Yes or no. You used that amber thing to put a spell on Twilight to write that letter and leave us.”
The smart unicorn stepped up her urgency, clinging to the hope that her friends would believe her. “That’s not it at all! I told you that I’m the real Twilight! Trixie is going to use my body and magic to make her magic show better! It’s not right! We need to go after her!”
Applejack turned to Rainbow, now furiously rubbing her mane and finally relented for a second opinion. “What do you think Pinkie Pie?”
She replied with useless energetic advice. “I think the line needs to be pink!”
“Ugh! Never mind. Um…lying! I guess.”
“It’s not a ponygraph!” yelled Twilight. “This machine can’t…”
Rarity, after a nod from Applejack, re-taped the mouth, giving the cow-pony free reigns to speak.
“Now, listen here, Trixie. You’re just diggin’ yourself a deeper hole with us with your fibbin’ so tell us the truth! Why did you come to the treehouse pretending to be Twilight? Are you just havin’ fun with us or is this all part of your plan?” Another nod gave the white unicorn permission to remove the tape.
Twilight could taste the singe of the cow-pony’s accusations and did not like the flavor, making her upset. “Again, I’m your friend, Twilight Sparkle! I came here to see what damage Trixie has done around here! That letter, it was her doing so that you wouldn’t go chasing after her!”
The lines on the machine spiked and the poof of smoke came out at irregular intervals, tooting gibberish to everypony except for the pink one who began dancing to it.
“Oooh, that’s my new favorite jam!”
Rainbow could only sigh before going back to the results, now spotting the line of red running from top to bottom. “Um, is it supposed to do that?”
“It won’t tell you whether I’m lying or not!” bellowed Twilight. She then saw the tape levitating back to her mouth and unwilling to be silenced again, she dug in deep and with the little magic she had in reserve, tore it to shreds. Applejack took it as an act of aggression and postured towards the azure unicorn.
“Oh, you’re not gettin’ away, missy!” She turned to Rainbow who now looked completely lost. “Well, you got that last bit she said figured out?”
“Um, I…um…”
“Will ‘ya hurry up?”
Rainbow finally raised her hooves in defeat. “I…I don’t know! How about twisting some of them knobs over there?”
“Oh for pete’s sake” muttered Applejack. She looked at the console securing the azure hooves and saw a few flashing buttons, a giant red button, and two knobs, all of them identified only with symbols, indicators familiar for a scientist but foreign to an apple farmer. After some haphazard turning of the two knobs, the cow-pony went back to the interrogation.
“All righty. Now let’s try that again. Why did you…”
Rarity hit the pause button. “Now hold on, dear! Don’t you think we should at least perform a quick test of the machine? Not that I believe the words of…” She glanced at the azure unicorn. “…whoever you are…but we must be sure it’s telling us the right information?”
The cow-pony glared at Rarity, questioning in her mind whether she was telling the truth on not buying the words of the accused but then again, the whole point of using the machine was to shed light into whether the pony’s incredulous claim had some merit. It couldn’t simply be dismissed out of hoof. “Fine. Okay, Trixie. How about telling us who we two are?”
Twilight saw an opening to get them to mistrust the contraption so she went with a truth and a lie. “You’re Applejack and you’re…” She looked at Rarity and waited a few seconds. “…Fluttershy.”
A new set of results printed out for Rainbow and Pinkie to inspect. The line moved up and down but to both, the truth looked like the lie. It made no sense so they both shrugged, providing Twilight a lasso full of hope. Unfortunately, Applejack pulled it back in.
“Guess it’s not dialed in yet.”
The smart unicorn groaned in sheer frustration as the cow-pony again took to the console, this time with a set of blue eyes assisting. Both Applejack and Rarity took turns spinning the knobs and pushing the flashing buttons before Applejack’s eyes narrowed on the big red button, as though it was calling her to put her orange hoof on it. It was an itch of curiosity she just had to scratch and with a click, she found out exactly what it did.
Suddenly, a surge of electricity travelled through the green wire and onto the dome helmet, delivering its full force on Twilight, sending her into a quick spasm before the white glow around her disappeared, leaving behind charred spots on the azure fur and a pony who was stung more on the inside than out.
“Ughhhhhh! I can’t believe that a simple letter could cause so much trouble! I mean, how in Equestria can all of you believe that I would just leave all my wonderful friends behind without even saying a word? That’s not like me at all. And…and to be a magician? Are you kidding me? You know how much I cherish being Princess Celestia’s apprentice and how much I look up to her. Why would I ever abandon that to show off my magic? That’s something Trixie would do but not me. I’m…I’m sorry I tried to trick you with my voice but I didn’t want you girls to see me like this, at least, not without coming up with a way to properly convince you.”
A stunned silence permeated the room, the words coming out of the azure mare a mismatch to the boisterous magician but a perfect one to their friend, the one they though had left Ponyville for good. The cliffs of doubt began to erode but continued to stand in defiance.
“You…you…no, you’re Trixie!” said Rainbow. “You have to be!”
The gears in her mind revolved at maximum speed, hoping to come up with evidence to present. “I am not Trixie! Can’t you girls see that? I mean, we’ve been through so much together. Remember when I had the tickets to the Great Galloping Gala and I was so stressed that I only had two to give out but we all got to go and even though the Gala itself was a disaster, we were all together and that made it the best night ever. We…we fought Nightmare Moon and Discord, together, and we won because of the power of friendship! And…and Applejack, Rarity, that one night, we had a slumber party and you two were fighting but when that tree came crashing down into the treehouse, you two worked together and got it out. Rainbow, I was there to see your Sonic Rainboom at the Coliseum and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and then I learned your first one, it helped me earn my cutie mark. Pinkie, your Pinkie Sense drove me crazy because I couldn’t explain it but I finally accepted it for what it was. Don’t you see? If I’m Trixie, how would I know all of that and why would I even care? Girls, will you please believe me?”
No pony had an answer for that; their only response is the rubbing of hooves on the ground. A hint of doubt lingered in the air but their hearts so wanted to accept the speech as the genuine truth. Finally, Applejack opened her mouth, sending a coded message to her hovering friend.
“Rainbow, go and bring Spike down here.”
The cyan mare hesitated, knowing the little dragon’s current state of mind. “Um, sure. You got it.”
As the basement door creaked open, Twilight looked at Applejack, saying with only a pained glance on why such an action was necessary.
“We…need to be sure of this” was all Applejack said.
Then, the sounds of quiet protest came down the stairs. The azure pony looked up and spotted Rainbow tugging along Spike with Fluttershy being the source of commotion.
“Please, Rainbow. Why can’t we just wait until he’s feeling better?”
“No can do, Fluttershy. We need to know now.”
Eventually, the small dragon, wet eyes and all, came to rest the group and Applejack gestured to Rarity to give him instructions.
“Dear, I know this may sound crazy but this pony standing in front of you might actually be Twilight in Trixie’s body but…we’ll only believe her if you do.”
Spike gave her a nod before walking right up to shackled mare, peering into the grayish magenta eyes to see whether there was somepony else behind them, one that was familiar to him. Before he finished, Twilight spoke to him.
“Spike, I know that…this is hard to take but I want you to know that…I would never, ever leave you. You’re my number one assistant and…you’re also my best friend. I know that I don’t give you the best birthday gifts and I’m sometimes hard on you but you’ve always been there for me like when I was worried about being tardy and…”
Her muzzle picked up a scent, a sweet one, the smell being one of her favorites. She then looked at the dragon's lips; it had bits of crumbly bits on it. Immediately, Twilight's mood switched from motherly to bossy. "Spike! Did you eat my ice cream?"
The dragon took a step back purely on instinct.
"I told you that I was saving that ice cream for a special occasion! Besides, I warned you it might be bad for your appetite! If you get a stomachache, you have no pony to blame but yourself! Ugh! This is just like the time you ate that…"
The ongoing rant rang through Spike’s ears, greatly annoying him. However, it also shattered the vision of the unicorn in front of him. He no longer saw Trixie the magician but a purple unicorn, one that was quite upset at him and from the looks of it, one that was going to punish him but that didn’t matter. Joy overcame him. “Twilight! It is you!”
Rarity loosened up the rings holding Twilight’s hooves, giving them the liberty to meet up and embrace the dragon who again shed tears but also felt a few fall on his head. “Oh, Spike. I’m sorry if I made you worry.”
After a few seconds, with a sniffle, Spike began reverting to his old self. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
“Oh yeah” replied Twilight without hesitation.
The little dragon ended the hug and started a protest. “Oh, c’mon, Twilight! I thought you were gone so I didn’t want it to go to waste!”
She didn’t buy it, giving him an eye roll. However, given what her friend had gone through, her heart had a lot of forgiveness to spread around. “Fine…but you owe me one, partner.”
“Deal!”
Twilight then turned to the rest of their friends, each of them carrying a heavy pang of guilt, with Applejack the most weighted down by it.
“Twilight, I just can’t tell you how might sorry we are for…”
The azure mare shook her head. “It’s all right. With Trixie’s questionable reputation, I know that trusting me wasn’t going to be easy…” A spark ran through the light cerulean mane, making her flinch. “…or painless.”
A call for action came from Rainbow. “Well, what are we waiting for? That impostor is running out there pretending to be Twilight! We need to bring her back here and…”
Twilight implored “Hold on, Rainbow! First off, she does have my magic powers so we need to be careful on approaching her. I overheard you say that she was going towards Hoofington so something tells me she’s going to start up her magic act there. That should buy us some time to come up with a plan.” She then turned to the wearer of the amber amulet necklace. “Rarity, let me see that for a minute.”
The white unicorn took a step back before nodded her head. “Oh, my apologies, dear. Seeing you like this may take some time to get used to.” A glow of light blue surrounded the amulet before it parked itself in midair for inspection.
“That’s all right, Rarity. I’m still not used to it myself.” Twilight then scrutinized the object floating in front of her and made mental notes of its features; roughly round, shiny, amber, star symbols deep inside, possibly can glow, looks heavy but feels light. Then, she cross-referenced the information to the multitude of books she had read, specifically, ones regarding occult magic tricks and devices. Imaginary pages turned, each one with fascinating tidbits that on any other occasion, would be read word-by-word but they were passed over until the section on amulets came up. Unfortunately, instead of an encyclopedia of knowledge, only scant words were available but there was enough to point towards a particular direction.
“Well, do you know exactly what that thing is?” said Applejack.
Twilight closed the book in her mind with a thud. “I want to say that it gives a boost of magic to the user so that’s how Trixie pulled this off. Still, I’m not quite sure what spell she used or how this thing actually works. I’m sure an expert magician would be able to tell me.”
Hearing those words flipped the switch inside of Pinkie Pie. “I know a magician! I know a magician!”
“You do? That’s great! How soon can they come over?”
From out of nowhere, the pink pony pulled out a kazoo and played a seemingly random tune before letting it rest on her hoof, apparently eager for…something, throwing Twilight into a loop.
“Um, okay. What does that have to do with…”
Suddenly, the kazoo made another random tune but there was no pony’s mouth in it to make it. Every pony in the room stood shocked except for Pinkie. She not only treated the experience as normal but also recognized the tune as a form of communications, one she was only too happy to translate.
“He says he’ll be here by sundown tonight! Yipee!"
The entire room looked at each other, wondering what the hay just happened. They thought that the day was weird enough with the sight of Trixie who was really Twilight Sparkle but now, they were just witness to Pinkie using a kazoo to contact a pony at who knows where in Equestria. Of course, this was Pinkie Pie they were dealing with and given her prior track record, anything was possible, even more so with a magician thrown into the mix. There was little point in doubting her claim and all decided to roll with it and enjoy the ride, with Twilight being the one to proclaim it.
“Ok, we’ll be waiting for him, then, Pinkie Pie.”
The dirt road to Hoofington carved through pine trees which roots entrenched them to the hilly ground below. Traversing the path was a smattering of ponies, most of them with plans to do some outdoor recreation around the immediate area. It was a perfect place for small merchants to set up and sell their wares to the tourists and the occasional pony with plans to go all the way to the next town. One such pony, a purple unicorn, came trudging up the incline, exhausted and whining out loud.
“That come-to-life-spell didn’t work! It only made the Amazing and Wonderful Sparkle weaker, if that’s even possible! Physical exertion is definitely not one this body’s positive qualities! In fact, other than the magic, this body is completely inferior to the body of Trixie! It will take ages just to get this rat’s nest that is Sparkle’s mane to be even close to…”
Trixie then spotted the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, a small and colorful smoothie stand. It beckoned her to come forwards which she did in a hurry. When she arrived, a pimpled and scrawny orange unicorn stallion rose up and when he spoke, it grated the ears of the unicorn mare with its squeakiness, a consequence of puberty.
“Welcome to the Smoothie Stop-and-Go. A smoothie for your journey.”
“Um, yes, well. It would please the Amazing and Wonderful Sparkle to purchase a banana smoothie with extra hay.”
“I’m sorry ma’am but we’re out of hay. You would like to try our imitation hay?”
The purple unicorn stomped her hoof on the ground, upset that once again, her beverage of choice was denied. She sighed, knowing her throat demanded some sort of liquid. “Very well, merchant. Sparkle has decided to be lenient with your incompetence and will acquire an inferior beverage.”
“That will be five bits” said the teen stallion.
“What?” screeched Trixie.
The outburst left her mouth dry and she scanned her surroundings for alternatives but found nothing more palatable. Begrudgingly, she threw down five golden pieces of currency and the stallion immediately fumbled around the bananas and in the air before they splattered into the blender along with a sprinkling of powder from a box labeled Stop-and-Go Imitation Hay, EFA Approval Pending. Trixie squirmed as the contents sloshed around unevenly before being poured into a cup smaller than she expected.
“Here you go.”
With smoothie in tow, she stormed away from the stand, muttering how expensive it was to buy something that was poorly prepared. With a small sip, the taste of substitution nipped her tongue, sending it outwards in rejection.
“Such horrible flavor! That’s the last time Sparkle buys smoothies on the road!”
Trixie dragged on up the hill, forced to consume her drink as her bits were running low. She needed most of them to hire a more competent pony to build a trailer to her traveling show, one she believed along with Twilight’s magic, would bring her back to prosperity and more.
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Whew! Got this out in record time! Don't be a stranger and leave some comments!
Author’s Hoof Notes
1. I still intend to finish Return to Flight before writing another chapter for Trixie’s Revenge. Granted, this story looks like the more popular one but I think focusing on just one fic is speeding up my progress as a writer. I’m still at the amateur level, though.
2. The machine being used is basically the same as the one seen in the episode Feeling Pinkie Keen save for a few minor additions. Twilight had tried to modify it to be a lie detector but the experiment failed. Her friends thought otherwise.
3. After Twilight gets zapped by the machine, I had many ideas on where to go with the chapter. Some of the rejected ones are below:
a. Angered by the mistrust, Twilight goes berserk, tapping into magic that Trixie apparently didn’t have and escapes. Not chosen because I thought it would make the story longer than I want it to be.
b. Twilight decides to use Pinkie Pie swears against them. Her friends are overconfident so they give the okay to say them out loud for every pony to hear. Hilarity ensues. Not chosen mainly because I couldn’t come up with enough of them.
c. Hocus comes in and explains everything. Not chosen because it’s deus ex machine.
4. Not written as part of the chapter: Rainbow had whispered to Fluttershy that she thought the pony downstairs was Twilight. Given her submissive nature, she went along with the assertion but not so much with using Spike to confirm it.
5. Initially, the Twilight-Spike scene downstairs was going to be all heartwarming but I wanted to flip the mood.
6. A late addition was the Trixie scene and it was written solely because not having her as part of the chapter would be a lump of coal to all my readers.
Enjoyable, though Trixie's scene reminds me a little of the post-Ginyu-body-swap scene, but with less violence.
79764
I actually watched Dragonball Z but I don't remember that scene. Maybe I subconsciously thought of it as I was writing?
80476
(I know that story, but yours is so interesting; please don't look up that arc until you're done
)
81104
Some of that arc is coming back to me but not all of it.
Doesn't matter anyway because I already thought out how I want to end the story but the ending won't be that apparent until the next chapter.
On a side note, oh noes! My stars are going down but I don't know why!
Okay, I said that mostly to use the
emoticon. Still, to any pony not too happy with my stories, if there's anything I can improve on, I'd like to know. Otherwise, I'd have to guess. 
Well, I for one can't vote 5/5 hard enough to make it go up, but I guess somepony might think it's predictable and be all
.
I'm not one of those ponies. I noted the strong parallels, but am still genuinely interested in the resolution of it all.
for nits to pick, but this story is really enjoyable, in my opinion. 
I'll have to comb the story
Keep up the good work.
This chapter right here makes me come back every time (7th this year), and loves Twilights attempt at con-convincing her friends, and that moment with spike... Makes my day
Trixie Trixie Trixie......strong raw Magic power is useless if you know nothing on how to use it effectively.
In fact, you're only hurting yourself further than if you'd just practice using your own magic.
Come on TGaP. Think about it.