Shell Game
Trixie hauled herself out of the secret compartment in her wagon’s roof after, by her estimate, about ten hours had passed. There was enough space up there for her to move around in reasonable comfort, surprisingly enough, and she’d thought to grab her copy of Shadow Spade: Guest of the Excellent Host. After working the stiffness from her limbs, she carefully eased open the wagon’s front door, ripped off the piece of yellow tape reading “EVIDENCE”, and confirmed nopony else was anywhere nearby.
Then, she quietly trotted Ponyville’s entire perimeter, sure to give the Station’s brightly-lit collection of fences a particularly wide berth- at least for the time being. It was now pushing midnight, and like most little hick towns that meant Ponyville was already dark and quiet, effectively deserted- although unlike most little hick towns, she could see the occasional lantern lights moving in regular patterns through its cobblestone streets.
After watching the patrols for perhaps another half an hour, she located a sizable estate on the outskirts of town and slipped alongside its high wrought-iron fence to the narrow paths beyond. She’d reversed her backup cloak to expose its solid stage-black inner lining, and she was fortunate that her silvery-blue fur blended naturally into the moonlight- though a few lights still burned in the windows of houses she passed by, nopony looked out to see her. The owner of the sweets shop was busy closing up -at midnight? Weird- but Trixie gave her a wide berth. Something about that mare put her on edge at the best of times.
A few minutes of brisk, silent trotting took her around the patrolling townsponies and to the edge of the square. Trixie pressed herself into the shadows gathered on one side of the alley, and peered out to make certain the square was clear- a wise decision, as not ten seconds later a pair of ponies staggered out of a low building on the far end, which the sign above identified simply as ‘BERRY’S PLACE”.
“I think that’s enough for you tonight,” A purplish-red earth mare told the tottering, grayish pegasus stallion beside her, although she herself looked a little unsteady as well. “Iss-about time for me to close up anyway.” They set off at a gradual pace across the square, the mare’s hoof wrapped firmly around the stallion’s shoulder. Then, Trixie bit back a curse as they turned towards the exact same alleyway in which she’d taken refuge.
Quickly, she scanned her surroundings for concealment, and came up empty- the only thing remotely nearby was a rain barrel Trixie wasn’t sure she could open and was very sure was far too small. The alleyway was too long for her to simply back out of- especially since she’d be more visible if she was moving.
The townsponies turned down the alleyway and stopped short. The pegasus stretched out a wobbly wing in more-or-less her direction. “Hey, you’re… the Great’n Powerful Trisshie… right? I loved your show, with the fire, and the bea-ursha, and the… thing…”
Beside him, the purple mare peered suspiciously. “Hey, aren’t you supposhed to be in jail or somethin'?”
Abandoning stealth, Trixie slunk out into the center of the street, making sure to keep her head low and her muzzle pointed at the ground, looking contrite. “Well, no, but… You see, I… left my favorite cloak here in town, and… I just can’t really put on a performance without it and…” She shuffled her front hooves, not having to fake her anxiety. “Can you please, please, please not tell anypony I was here? I’ll be done and gone before anypony else finds out, I promise…”
Both ponies stood and blinked for a moment. The mare chewed on her lower lip. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, sure. Just… stay safe, all right?”
“Uhh, sure! And, hey, when you’re done, you should come hang out wish ush…” the pegasus stallion mumbled around a lopsided grin.
“Thunderlaaaane!” His companion gave him a smack under the barrel with her other forehoof, and they staggered off down the street.
Trixie swallowed hard, and dashed across the now-empty square to her first target. The Carousel Boutique was dark and quiet, only the dimmest outlines of the interior visible through its glass façade. The front doors were locked, of course, but yielded quickly to the picks Trixie slipped from the hidden pockets in her cloak. Then she searched for any alarm spells or wired systems, and found none. She had to love ponies in these small towns- they were so wonderfully trusting.
The showmare slipped one hoof inside, jammed a wad of cloth around the bell over the door, and then pushed it the rest of the way open. She edged past the counter and displays, eventually finding herself in a neat little workshop festooned with swatches of fabric, gemstones, a few racks of tools, and a drafting table full of sketches. She dug through the materials carefully, not daring to turn on a light or even use her telekinesis, fully aware that Rarity the tailor was in all likelihood asleep just upstairs. There was quite a bit of Lunar equipment spread out over the worktables and dress-forms, lovingly hoof-restored to a much better quality than what they were pulling out of the dig sites. Trixie ignored the armor and weapons -too heavy and loud to pack- but helped herself to as many pieces of soft fabric as she could carry. Then she paused, and rifled through the papers on the drafting table, searching for particularly Lunar-inspired designs. Her employers had mentioned they'd recently come into possession of a sizable textile factory offshore, sitting unused after some deal had fallen through; they could probably turn a quick profit off of Rarity’s spring line. The few designs for pony-sized animal collars and black leather bodysuits, she studiously ignored. She’d had to operate out of the shared dressing room in a Reino nightclub for a while last year- after that, nothing could surprise her.
Only then did Trixie catch a glimpse of her true goal- her original cloak, stashed under a worktable, soaking in a tub of some unknown royal-blue liquid. Carefully, she fished it out with one hoof and watched the remaining liquid slough away. Within a few seconds her cloak was perfectly dry, and seemed to be all in one piece. Experimentally, Trixie pressed her hoof against the tiny rune stitched into the edge of the collar. The entire garment shimmered faintly, and for an instant took on the coloration of the workshop floor, but that was all.
Figures.
For a brief moment, Trixie eyed the strongbox sitting on one of Rarity’s shelves. Then she shook her head. She knew a thing or two about locks, and getting around unnoticed and other trickery, but that didn’t make her a thief. This job was an exception, taken because she badly needed money. She’d give her employers what they were paying her for, and take back what was rightfully hers, but that was all. Rarity wasn’t even as rude as the ponies in some of the towns she’d hit last year, and if her own dealings with the tailor were any indication, very few of the ponies who did business with her even paid in cash.
She slipped the cloak on regardless, folding her backup into a neat triangle and tucking it underneath as she padded back into the front of the shop. Then she opened the door, pulled the fabric muffle away from the bell on top, stepped out, and locked it behind her. Wouldn’t want this place to get robbed, now would we?
Lights were still burning in the Golden Oaks Library across the square- which was probably why whoever was inside hadn’t bothered to post a guard out front. Classic rookie mistake. Trixie had planned to hit the Ponyville Watch’s evidence locker next, to reclaim her equipment and hard-won artifacts. With no concrete evidence, the case against her would be looking a lot less solid, and her employers could also hire some very good lawyers- in fact, they were very good lawyers themselves. However, the library was presenting a target of opportunity too enticing to pass up.
Keeping to the very edge of the square, Trixie edged closer and closer, before she finally pressed herself up against the side of the library. Crawling along on her haunches, she slipped under the nearest window and listened: one set of armored hooves, and the odd little click-tick-click-tick of claws, no doubt belonging to Twilight’s tame dragon assistant.
“… great if you could send some more of your ponies out to Site Twenty-Four,” the dragon was saying in his weird, raspy, reptilian voice, “until we get those etheric cannon rounds from the Yard-”
“More Night Guard would need to come by train from the Yard anyway,” another voice cut him off- a stallion, with the distinctive Old Ponish inflection of one of the Lunars. “Does not good Capt Marigold have her own ponies posted there?”
“Well, yes, but we have a whole squadron of Shadowbolts over at the Station,” the dragon replied, “And I’d feel a lot more comfortable with some of them out at Twenty-Four. I just don’t think two Guards are enough, we can’t risk anything-----” The sound of footsteps receded, and with it the rest of the conversation rapidly became inaudible.
Then, after a brief silence, Trixie heard something rattling at the front door. As it opened, she pressed herself closer against the wall and held her breath, counting on the thick hedge in front of her to offer concealment when Spike and a scraggly-looking armored bat pony stepped outside.
For just a moment, it seemed to be working, as the two freaks of magic continued on down the front steps. Then, the bat pony stopped, seemed to look directly at her, and held out a hoof. “Wait,” he whispered, “There, in the bush. Dost thou see?”
It was at about that point that Trixie recalled that dragons were said to have excellent night vision, and bat ponies would hardly be bat ponies without it. Very carefully, she reached up to the clasp on her cloak and tapped a certain very expensive gem once… twice… three times… four.
The dragon stopped as well. “Yeah, looks like… crystal, maybe… or like Tr- oh, shit!”
The Lunar turned, and leaped directly at her- and a perfect copy of the showmare dashed out of hiding, heading straight for the edge of town. Her pursuer cried out, changed direction midflight with a snap of his freakish, leathery wings, and set off after it. He was incredibly fast, but the copy was effectively massless and could move at arbitrary speed- Trixie had set it up to always stay just a few paces in front of him.
Spike yelped, shouted “Twilight! It’s Trixie!” and dashed back towards the open front door- then pulled up short and turned around. “Wait a second...” she heard him mutter. He grinned, pivoted to face the bush, and spat a globe of sizzling, lime-green fire directly into it. But Trixie was already off and running. She broke left -and another copy broke right. She broke right- and another broke left.
Spike paused again -very wisely, Trixie thought- and called out “Shank! Twilight! We got a problem here!” but by then the showmare was already long gone.
“Rarity? Rarity?!”
The tailor groaned, pulled off her embroidered silk sleeping mask, and switched on a lamp. Sweetie Belle stood in her bedroom doorway, hunched down and looking behind her nervously every few seconds. The clock on her nightstand read one forty-five.
“Yes, Sweetie, what is it?”
“I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I heard something m-moving around… downstairs,” the filly stammered, trotting another few steps into Rarity’s room.
This had to be the third time in two weeks her sister had interrupted her much-needed rest with some imaginary complaint. Rarity pulled in a deep breath, stifling a very unladylike sigh of frustration. Instead, she asked as gently as she could, “Do you think it might’ve just been a dream? How about I make you some of that honey tea, and then in the morning, we can both have a talk with-” She was cut off by the sound of raised voices outside her window, coming from the direction of the Golden Oaks. There was a brief flash of green light, followed by the motion of something dark and low to the ground in the town square below. Rarity wasn’t particularly able to tell, but she thought it might’ve been heading in her direction.
She rolled out of bed -Opalescence darting into the warm spot where she’d been and settling down for the long haul- and patted her sister on the shoulder, understanding, for the very first time, Rainbow Dash’s insistence on keeping a dagger in her nightstand. “Sweetie, stay up here.” Then she telekinetically grabbed a baseball bat -an unused gift from her father- from behind her dresser, and stepped out into the darkened hallway. Unfortunately, there was hardly time to do her makeup or even properly style her mane, but given the circumstances it couldn’t be helped.
Carefully, Rarity padded down the curving staircase that ran against the Boutique’s outer wall, horn alight, levitating the bat beside her the whole way. As near as she could tell in almost-complete darkness, the shop floor below looked quiet and undisturbed. She pulled in another deep breath, not bothering to hide her discomfort now, reached out with her telekinesis, and flicked on the lights. Mannequins and display pieces sat exactly where she’d remembered placing them. Nothing moved. Quietly, she switched out her baseball bat for her engraved Lunar rapier- a gift from Princess Luna. It was part of a set, along with a sword belt and scabbard, all decorated in fine silver, opal, and sapphire. Ordinarily she kept it in the locked display cabinet near the window, but it was very, very functional.
She trod across the polished floor on trembling hooves, pulled aside the curtain to her workshop as quickly as she dared, and then reeled back, feeling like she'd been kicked in the barrel. The entire place was ransacked. Papers lay scattered over the floor -far too few, she could tell at a glance that many of her more recent designs were missing entirely. Cabinets hung open, empty, and her dress-forms stood bare.
Very briefly, the tailor wondered who might possibly have been responsible- another ill-conceived prank by Sweetie and her friends, perhaps? Then she spotted the empty basin of precipitated mana pulled out from under her worktable.
That bitch!
In a drab little office in a forgotten corner of the Town Hall, Writing Desk was working late to finish the last of the permit applications for the Ponyville Harvest Festival. That wasn’t in any way unusual for her, and indeed she’d only even noticed it was past regular working hours when Deputy Rising Star stopped by on his rounds to share a hot cup of coffee and a little gossip.
“… I don’t think their marriage is going too well, actually. I mean, I haven’t been called over to break up any fights or anything like that, but Aloe told me Spoiled reallytore into him after that crazy Lunar guy- what in Tartarus was that?”
Having done her level best to ignore Star for the last ten minutes, Writing Desk now looked up from her book of fire safety laws to witness a flash of bright green somewhere across the square. “I dunno!” She stood from her chair and peered out the window. She could hear voices, faintly, but couldn’t make out what was being said. Was something moving out there? From inside the brightly-lit records room, it was hard to tell.
There was a knock at the front door, in the lobby outside.
“Who would be coming around at this hour?” Rising Star looked at Desk, then slowly and cautiously stepped out of the office.
Not sure what else to do, the clerk followed along behind him, keeping her head cautiously low. Rising Star grabbed the door handle in his telekinesis, then paused, and finally pulled it open.
Trixie the stage magician was standing on the other side. Even as Star whinnied in surprise, she dashed right past him and into- well, somewhere in the labyrinthine depths of the Town Hall; as soon as she was out of Desk’s field of view, the clerk utterly lost track of her.
“Hey, you’re not-” Rising Star shouted, then paused, and looked around, baffled. “Where’d she go?”
“I dunno!” Writing Desk peered around the lobby, then back into the records room. The showmare seemed to have vanished utterly, without even the sound of hoof steps to follow. She tried the door that led into City Hall’s main office block next, and found it still locked. Nonetheless, she dipped a hoof into her saddlebags and fished out her keyring. “There’s dozens of offices in here… she could be in any one of ‘em by now.”
Rising Star nodded. “Shit. Do you think we should wake up the Mayor?”
Melody was already fiddling with the lock on the door. “We’d better… before Trixie does.”
Twilight stood on the steps of the Golden Oaks, Spike right in front of her, Capt Marigold on her right, and an out-of-breath and positively furious Commander Steel Shank on her left. Night Guards, Royal Guards, and the Ponyville Militia were fanning out through the town as ordinary ponies turned on their lights, left their houses to look around, and gossiped with their neighbors.
“One-Two Actual here, spotted her on a roof on the corner of Ferrier Street!” came a report over Marigold’s helmet clairaudio.
“No, wait, I just saw her duck behind the Town Hall!”
“One-One, check your line of sight, Sun-dammit!”
“Shit.” the captain took her forehoof from her helmet, and kicked a loose stone across the town square. “We’re gonna have to put out a call for volunteers if this keeps up.”
“Aye! There she is, I have her!” whispered Capt Vortex as he dove towards the purple-cloaked unicorn in the street below. He closed in on her with incredible speed and utter silence, leathery wings wrapped tight against his sides. She continued on at a sedate pace, utterly oblivious- but when he was just about to pull out of his dive and wrap his forehooves around her barrel, his target was suddenly gone. He hit the ground running and scanned the street, only to see her several buildings down, banging on some poor shopkeep’s locked door.
“Blast!” he shouted, the need for stealth abandoned for the moment. “Nightingale! I need thee at the other end of the street. Sizzle, block the alley! Descent, stay at altitude and keep watch!”
A series of “Aye”s filtered back over the clairaudio link in his goggles- wonderful little spell, that. Even with his enhanced vision, Vortex couldn’t see the shadowy forms of his wingmates slipping into position, but that didn’t mean they’d be anywhere but where he’d told them to be. Then the Shadowbolt beat his wings and powered upward in an arching, spectacular vertical loop that took him over the row of thatched-roofed buildings. Only once he was sure he was out of sight of the intruding blue unicorn did he come to a stop, concentrate on the energies of the moon, and shift into his vaporous form. The world around him faded into a hazy, insubstantial, slightly luminous violet fog; his bones and flesh suddenly felt light and rubbery and infinitely compressible. Some of his fellows were discomfited by the sensation even now, but Vortex had always found it exhilarating- even in spite of the deathly chill that always came with it.
He pressed himself into the loose outer layer of a building’s thatched roof and slipped, all but invisible, between the individual strands. Though his vision was now much dimmer he could spot his target as he passed the peak of the roof, still resolutely banging at doors and storefronts for reasons Vortex couldn’t possibly divine. Gritting his insubstantial teeth, he slithered down the outer wall and through the gutter on one side of the street, the ice-cold cobblestones passing harmlessly through his vaporous innards. His target trotted on ahead, oblivious.
Silently, Vortex let himself slip back into corporeality, sprang forward- and felt his hooves once again meet empty pavers. “Nightingale! Glitterwing! Sizzle! Where-”
“I see nothing…”
“Nay, nothing here…”
“Fall back and regroup, then!” the captain called, already taking to the air. “She must be somewhere on this block…” Then, as the ground sank away below him, Vortex realized something odd- he’d been right next to his target, but while he could hear the sound of her hooves on the door, he hadn’t been able to hear her breathe.
“Winona? Winona, what’s the matter, girl?” Applejack stumbled down the farmhouse stairs still half asleep, listening to the sound of her collie barking furiously somewhere in the kitchen- and if Winona was barking, then there was a problem. Not bothering to turn on the lights, she headed straight for the back door and pushed it open. Immediately, Winona dashed out between her legs, heading for the nearby orchard. Bleary-eyed, the farmer stepped out onto the porch, dimly aware of something moving out in the darkness and the sound of hoofsteps on the stairs behind her.
“Applejack, wassall that racket?” Granny Smith’s voice demanded.
“Somethin’ out there,” Applejack explained without turning around, then called out “Winona? In the house! C’mere!” Whatever the intruder was, she didn’t like the look of it.
She stepped off the porch and headed for the orchard, then thought better of it, doubled back, and lit a lantern. In the dim yellow light, she watched incredulously as a blue unicorn mare in a bright purple cloak, looking very much like Trixie Lulamoon, rocked forward and bucked one of the apple trees over and over again.
“Hey! You!!” she yelled, advancing out across the lawn. “Git'cher bony flank over here, if you know what’s good fer ya!”
The showmare turned, looked at her, and then took off deeper into the orchard- but only for a few rows, before resuming her strange assault against a different tree.
Applejack took off running- and the showmare immediately dashed a few more rows ahead. She pulled up short, and Trixie stopped running as well. She jumped sideways- and Trixie mirrored her movements and jumped in the other direction.
“Why you arrogant lil’-” she paused, scuffed at the ground with one hoof, then turned back towards the farmhouse and called out “Granny? Go on back’n get’cher hammer…”
Twilight spotted a hint of azure blue near the Barnyard Bargains store. She fired a stunbolt at it to no apparent effect, but Marigold was already shouting “High, up high! She got up on the roof!”
“What? No, I just- gyaah!” Somehow, Trixie sprang up onto the library steps from off to Twilight’s left, slamming into her. The showmare kept on running through the open door, heedless of both Marigold’s wildly-swung sword and Steel Shank’s wingblades, and charged headlong into a bookcase.
Twilight yelped, and then shouted the incantation to her favorite flare spell. The entire library interior flashed bright, eye-searing purple, but Trixie didn't even blink. Instead, she began knocking books off the shelf with both forehooves like a giant, furious cat. The scholar immediately followed up with another stunbolt, then another, to absolutely no effect. Next, she tried a relatively low-power force bolt- and gaped, incredulous, as the showmare’s head distorted around it and let it pass cleanly through, to scatter loose papers and badly dent the cover of Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New Trottingham Canaan.
“What the-” Magiold called out.
Steel Shank flicked out a wing, lightning already beginning to crackle between the bony fingers.
“Wait!” Twilight stuck out a hoof in front of him, and fired off one last spell- this time, the silvery cone of a basic disjunction.
‘Trixie’ disintegrated as soon as the cone touched her, first her body and then her neck and head dissolving into a faint blue aura. The aura, too, rapidly faded away a scant second later.
“They’re all duplicates!” Spike shouted, half-out-of-breath.
Twilight nodded. “So that’s how she did that trick with the diamond, and the boxes. They’re self-sustaining, and she must’ve set one up in the box in between when she closed the door and I put the nullifier on her… oh, that’s clever…” If they were at all like the classical Spell of Promethea -which Twilight had no reason to doubt- the force they could generate was actually quite minor, and while they could make noise by bumping into things they were otherwise silent and had no capacity to communicate. They could follow simple instructions and recognize objects, but unless they came across something particularly delicate the harm they could do to Ponyville was severely limited. In fact, given the exorbitant number Trixie was apparently producing, without access to a freakishly large mana reserve their active period would probably be on the order of minutes. Some were probably already fading out of existence.
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense, but aside from shooting at them -which I’m getting pretty close to giving the order to do anyway- how do we tell which one’s real?” demanded Capt Marigold. “There must be a dozen of the rutters by now.”
Spike frowned for a moment, then scratched under one fin. “I think… I think it’s like a shell game.”
Both Steel Shank and Twilight peered at the little dragon confusedly.
“You know, like they do up on street corners?” he explained, making a quick little back-and-forth gesture with his claws, “With the three cups, or nutshells, or whatever, and a little ball, and you have to guess which shell the ball is underneath? But it’s not a game, it’s a con, a trick- the ball’s not under any of the shells, it’s in the frog of the performer’s hoof the whole time!”
Now, Twilight briefly closed her eyes, and pressed her hoof between them. “Spike, you’re right, of course, if she can make enough of these things, and they operate without any direct supervision, then Trixie can be anywhere within, oh, five, ten minutes’ radius? She could've even left town by now!”
Shank nodded. “All right, so, if Trixie is not in the town, then… where in the frozen depths of Tartarus is that sun-damned scoundrel?”
Trixie jogged through the Everfree’s winding, barely-recognizable paths. She kept one eye on her pilfered map, and one eye on her surroundings; trying not to think about cockatrices, or reanimated bat-pony corpses, or manticores. Or whatever was killing manticores. Or that yellow pegasus ranger weirdo who she’d heard was poking around out here. Or any small, innocuous creatures said ranger might’ve converted into loyal spies. Or ghostly tabloid photographers who might still be expecting her to be waiting at their rendezvous point.
She’d had a few false alarms, when something in the dark foliage rustled or squirmed, but nothing had actually materialized- although she didn’t think she’d ever get used to the constant, overpowering sense of being unwelcome.
Her map looked like no map she’d ever seen before, and she hoped she’d never see another like it again: just a disjointed collection of curved lines and annotations that seemed to only barely fit on two-dimensional paper at all, as though somepony had gotten drunk while trying to sketch out ley lines on a crumpled-up rail map. Take six lefts, then four rights, then turn around. You’ll be at your destination six minutes ago. Ironically, there was even an annotation in Twilight Sparkle’s dense, blocky hornwriting next to the label “Site 24”, claiming that ‘Although deep in the forest by linear reckoning, the geodesic leading here is a pretty short trot, provided you know the exact path to take.’ That certainly sounded like something the mad mage would come up with, at any rate.
Trixie had been able to navigate through the temple district well enough with this map, but the temple district at least had recognizable landmarks. Every inch of the forest proper looked more or less the same.
At least the Expedition had left a string of little flags on wooden posts to mark the way -Trixie had no idea how a pony would ever make it through this place without them. In fact, they’d left a lot of flags, far more than she thought was reasonable, although that might’ve been a deliberate attempt to compensate for attrition. Every so often, she found a marker snapped off, torn apart, covered in years’ worth of moss and overgrowth, or simply a gap in the series where one clearly should be.
Sometimes, entire trails even branched off of the one she was following, but weren’t recorded on the map- the showmare quickly concluded that exploring those would likely be unwise.
It felt as though she’d been walking for hours on end, although the moon up above had scarcely changed position- if anything, she thought it might’ve moved backwards compared to where it was when she’d left town. Fortunately, years of hauling a wagon across Equestria’s backroads had more than prepared her to face that particular challenge. That was the nice thing about staying fit in show business: she could outrun most of her hecklers if she had to. Trixie was fairly certain her employers had mentioned some old griffon in Innsbeak having once declared something similar.
Finally, she spotted a signpost up ahead: “DIG 24”. Underneath, another copy of the same map Trixie was carrying had been pinned to a piece of plywood, although something appeared to have taken a sizable bite out of it. There was also another sign planted beside it, lettered by hoof in reflective red paint:
ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE
Without express written authorization of Senior Staff
I got your authorization right here, you self-important purple twit…
Very briefly, the showmare considered simply heading up the path, but then thought better of it. She swallowed hard and stepped to the side, worming through the dense foliage on her belly. It was cold, and damp, and she swore she could feel it moving under its own power, but Rarity’s upgrades to her cloak seemed to be doing their job and keeping the worst of the conditions at bay. Experimentally, Trixie gave the rune on the collar another tap. This time, she saw the fabric fade into patterns of leaves and moss for a whole two seconds before the effect froze in place, gradually lost color and definition, and returned to solid black.
After walking what seemed a decent arc- which, Trixie supposed, could just as easily have taken her two meters, or well past the site entirely, or back to Ponyville where she’d started- the showmare turned and caught her first glimpse of Site Twenty-Four itself through the dark, moisture-slick leaves. There wasn’t all that much to it. A round, dark hole about three meters in diameter sank into the side of a small hill, bracketed by two more signposts, both of which simply read “HAZARDOUS AREA. DO NOT ENTER.” A small tent had been set up off to the side -more like a lean-to than the large A-frames on Castle Rock, and of utterly unclear purpose- beside some packing crates, and a big stack of chain-link fence segments and loose mesh. True to Spike’s word, there were two Royal Guards standing right out front with halberds at parade rest- Pvt Parhelion and Cpl Subtle Spark, Trixie recalled from her trip to the Cairn. Both turned to look directly at her when she peered through the foliage, but just as quickly they turned away again and went back to staring straight ahead. They probably heard all sorts of things go bump in the night out here, and simply didn’t have the time or energy to investigate every small disturbance. And, usually, the showmare was very good at hiding.
Unfortunately, that also meant they probably wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon, and Trixie couldn’t see any way past them pressed right up against the entrance as they were. So, she watched and waited.
After a seemingly interminable period, Pvt Parhelion spoke up. “Shit. I gotta piss.”
“I’m tired of playin’ games,” her stallion friend growled a little while later.
Parhelion turned in place and looked at him, head tilted sideways. “Wait, what does that even mean?”
“I dunno,” Trixie could see Spark blush slightly under his armor. “I just thought it… sounded badass?”
“It really didn’t.”
“More badass than complaining about having to piss, at least!”
Both stood silently, Parhelion shifting occasionally from hoof to hoof, her tail slowly flicking back and forth. Far off in the distance, something howled, but neither Guard seemed willing to pay it much attention.
“No, seriously, Sparky, my back teeth are floatin’, here!” the white mare finally said, her voice taking on an almost pleading quality.
“Okay, well, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Remember what happened to Piker?”
Sparky’s ears folded back against his skull. “Aw, yeah, shit-”
“Yeah… look, if I’m not back in two minutes, send up a flare, I’m probably dying or somethin’.”
Trixie thought the Guard stallion still looked rather unconvinced, but he nodded. “Okay, if you say so…” and his companion set off down the road, quickly vanishing from sight.
Knowing she had only one chance and very little time, Trixie circled back around to the rear of the site. Directly behind that strange, small hill she paused, very briefly, and concentrated, projecting a luminous illusion that looked identical to a military distress flare. She could hear Private Spark call out “What the- Who’s there? Sundog? Sundog!” There was no reply. “Awww, shit!”
After that, Trixie picked up the sound of an armored pony moving around the hill on essentially the same path she herself had taken. Quickly, she circled around in the other direction. The cave entrance was wide open and unguarded, and she wasted no time in dashing inside.
As soon as she was certain she was out of sight, she slowed to a careful, quiet trot. There was only one passage forward, first lined with hard-packed soil and then further on carved out of bare rock- which was odd, as there didn’t seem to be any sort of digging equipment anywhere nearby. In fact, the Expedition seemed to have brought in very little equipment of any kind at all. There were none of the usual lights, supports, sample containers, or dowsing gear, either, just a pile of that strange ‘detector’ gadgetry near the entrance. Very briefly, Trixie considered taking it along for her employers, but concluded it was far too heavy for her to stand much chance of moving unassisted.
Instead, she continued on downward. This cave had to lead somewhere; it was faint, but Trixie could see starlight against the walls up ahead.
Some ways on her keen vision spotted the glint of metal right where the floor started to curve upward and become the left wall. Peering closer, the found it to be a pony’s skull, still wrapped in a somewhat rusty mail coif, scratched and dirty but otherwise intact. There was no sign of the rest of the body. Trixie shook off the worst of the accumulated dirt and stuffed the thing in her saddlebags- she’d heard rare skulls were going for quite a bit of money now.
She kept walking. It no longer surprised her that the cave extended significantly further back than the hill itself was wide.
Slowly, the starlight grew brighter, accompanied by a faint, vaguely rotten odor. Then, the slight downward grade of the tunnel flattened, and it opened out quite suddenly into a rocky valley exposed to the starry sky above. The ground appeared to still be mostly bare stone, although there were isolated patches of moss, ferns, and a few unwholesome-looking mushrooms. The smell of rotten meat was stronger as well, although still far from overpowering.
Trixie paused, and pulled out her map. There was no mention of any structure remotely like this that she could find, but while Twilight and her minions had claimed to be surveying the Everfree by air that didn’t necessarily mean they’d found everything. That was encouraging- unexplored valleys meant potentially undiscovered treasures.
She trotted deeper into the cavern, zigzagging from spot to spot. There were quite a lot of bones now, mostly animals but a few recognizably equine, some still clad in crumbling outdoor gear and some that looked extremely old. She also spotted a few chunks of comparatively fresh meat -the source of the omnipresent putrid odor. When she came across a severed lion’s paw, Trixie began to suspect she was in fact looking at about half of a manticore all spread out- she hadn’t been lying when she’d told Rarity she wanted to incorporate large monsters into her show some day, and she’d spent more time than she cared to admit prowling around the manticore pens in Trailhead.
A gradual feeling of disappointment settled on Trixie. With all of the security and secrecy surrounding this place, she’d been expecting to find relics, jewels, and tomes of great magical power- and, of course, fathomless worth to the right kind of ponies. However, the overall impression now was that she’d stumbled into the lair of some sort of predatory animal. Briefly, the showmare considered whether she was in any danger from it, should it return, but then dismissed the notion. She’d be able to see it coming from a long way off over that valley wall, and unlike the average historical adventurer Trixie Lulamoon was very good at not being seen.
She worked her way deeper into the valley- whatever else might be said about it, it was certainly expansive- and then stopped when she thought she saw the telltale bluish gleam of astral steel somewhere against the far cliff wall. She set off towards it, straining to get a better look in the dim starlight- and then pulled up short when she heard the sound of armored sabatons on the stone behind her.
“Hold it. Right. There.” Cpl Subtle Spark hissed in a low, deadly serious voice.
Slowly and cautiously, Trixie looked back over her shoulder. Both Spark and Parhelion were standing near the valley’s entrance. For some unknown reason they’d abandoned their halberds, and now stood with crossbows held braced against their forelegs- which was odd, as both were unicorns, and could no doubt aim much more accurately using their telekinesis.
“Don’t. You. Ruttin’. M-Move.” Parhelion hissed, also deadly-quiet, although there was an odd, nervous tremor underneath. “Don’t talk, don’t do anything.”
“Now walk towards us. Slowly… hooves where I can see ‘em…” Sparky commanded, his voice still never rising above a stage whisper even as his eyes grew wide underneath his helmet.
Trixie, now feeling vaguely curious about the troopers’ bizarre behavior, remained right where she was.
Subtle Spark waved his crossbow, doing a very good job of concealing just how much his outstretched hoof was shaking, and stage-whispered “Now.”
Slowly, Trixie stepped towards them. If she could get out of their immediate line of fire, she might just be able to slip past them and into the rocky side of the valley, where she’d be a very difficult target indeed. She didn’t particularly fancy her chances striking across the potentially uncharted Everfree afterward, but then again she didn’t particularly fancy the Guards’ chances either. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the only one she had right now, and for whatever reason the soldiers looked more afraid of her than she was of them.
It was only when she’d halved the distance between them that Trixie realized something even stranger- both of the Guards’ crossbows were already cocked, but unloaded. “Actually…” She grinned, and kept walking closer, and lit her horn. “I don’t think the Great and Powerful Trixie is going anywhere with you!”
Private Parhelion actually backed away from her, ears pressed flat against her helmet, and stammered “Awww, shit, putthatout! Shaddapshaddap!"
"Nevermindgether!” Spark suddenly yelled. Both Guards sprang forward, crossbows seemingly forgotten- and then skidded to a halt, ears down, mouths hanging open, eyes wide and fixed on something up above.
Trixie dived to one side, rolled to dodge a tackle that never arrived- and then paused, confused.
The entire valley seemed to rumble at once, and up above the starlit sky moved.
“Awww, rut me sideways with a wagon wheel,” Parhelion muttered.
As she pulled herself to her hooves, Trixie could swear she heard something breathing. Above, the sky around the North Star wobbled and shifted, and all at once descendedwith a jarring thud. Paralyzed in equal parts raw terror and absolute confusion, the showmare watched as the inexplicable, moving firmament shuffled towards her on thick, stocky legs. Eyes opened on either side of the North Star, big luminous yellow ones, focusing right on her. Below them, starlight took on depth and shape; resolving itself into a blunt muzzle with nostrils and a massive, toothy maw, panting hot meaty breath tinged sweet by pure celestial æther.
Without another word, both Guardsponies wheeled around and galloped flat-out for the tunnel entrance.
Trixie was already following. “Actually, on second thought, lead the way!”
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Well Trixie, your petty crime spree has awoken a beast from outside reality as you know it. Good job
. And did you program those duplicates to especially go out of their way to antagonize anyone who might try to stop you? I can see her being absolutely pony-non-grata in Equestria after this. And of course it's Ponyville's fault for noticing she was conning them. So, a different path to the same canon outcome broadly. I think it definitely works. Can't wait to see the climax, how much of the village gets demolished?
Also: Called it. Trixie was hiding in her wagon and using a magic double. I will be insufferably smug the rest of today.
11172216
Yeah man, you called it. The cape ruse was a...
distaction.
11172220
::Smugness Intensifies::
I think you did such a good job getting across Trixie's slieght-of-hoof methods that I was prepared to be extra genre savvy for that kind of misdirection. I love a good mystery / puzzle the reader can actually work out.
Yeah, can't say much more than, once again, very good job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Yeah, I admit that Trixie's bit of misdirection was quite well played and I appreciated the details in the areas she was sneaking around in as well as Spike's catching on to the "'shell game'" bit. Unfortunately, Trixie and a couple of her pursuers got into a bit of a scuffle and ended up waking up an Ursa.
Anyway, very certainly looking forward to more of this.
If Trixie didn't accidentally wake it up now, it would have stumbled on the ponies sooner or later and likely when they'd be unprepared for it.
11172279
According to Fluttershy, Ursas wake up on their own maybe once a decade. So if nopony was stupid enough to go into the heavily guarded cave of doom in the middle of the eldritch forest of doom they probably could've contained it for quite a while. But some ponies just don't know to leave well enough alone...
11172517
I have to give Trixie something, poor gal is way in over her head here after all.
Maybe I'm sleep deprived, but I don't get what was up the the two guards at the end there. Why were they bluffing with unloaded crossbows? Was it all an attempt to not wake the Ursa?
11172928
Yeah, that was it. Shooting Trixie would've made too much noise. Didn't work, of course.
11172928
I wasn't specifically going for noise so much as, while the Ursa is incorporeal, I think it is aware of things like crossbow bolts passing through it. So missing Trixie and hitting it, or having a crossbow misfire and hit it, had an unacceptably high chance of waking it. But, yeah, same basic idea.