A Chance Meeting
Trixie Lulamoon, the traveling showmare, is once again on the back roads of Equestria heading towards her next destination. She has a show tonight in a small village known as Stable Hills. The town is so small that it doesn’t appear on many of the large maps of Equestria which is commonly found in most libraries and other public buildings.
Being a traveling showmare Trixie has a detailed atlas that list all established residential areas no matter how small listing coordinates and a population count. According to said atlas Stable Hills is a tiny farmer’s town with a population under one hundred ponies.
A population so small would not bring her much profit and most times she’d skip stopping there entirely, but seeing on how it is directly in her path on her way to her main show in Fillydelphia she decided to grace Stable Hills with her presence as it would also make a good stopping point for the night before she continues on to Filly.
A few hours and a couple of miles down the road the sun left its center position in the sky and lowered a bit in the west. Trixie is still about an hour away from her destination and is determined to get there before resting and doing her show. She comes to a short stone bridge that leads over a small river and sees a a golden earth pony mare who has a long auburn mane.
The mare is looking over the bridge and into the water apparently not noticing the approaching showmare with her wagon. It isn’t until Trixie nears the center of the stone bridge that the golden mare turns and acknowledges her. The mare gives Trixie a warm smile and trots over to her. “Hey there traveler do you have the bridge tax?”
The air changed immediately and Trixie went into a focus state honing in on the environment around her. The path she had taken lead her into a forest trail broken up by the bridge. She couldn’t see too deeply in the forest on either side from the middle of the bridge but Trixie knew she couldn’t have been doing this alone.
Deciding to hold off on anything rash until she was completely sure of her surroundings, Trixie put on her stage persona. “Trixie was not made aware of this bridge tax; she demands you let her through.”
The golden mare’s warm smile transformed into a cocky smirk. “Sorry if you want to pass, you have to pay.”
Trixie heard rustling of shrubs behind her and knew where are allies were but could yet make out how many there were. Still, she could tell that there weren’t very many. “And just how much is this bridge tax?”
“For you, one hundred bits.”
Trixie’s eyes went wide with shock. “How dare you ask ‘The Great and Powerful Trrrixie’ for such an absurd amount of bits. It would be best if you left Trixie to her travels lest you face dire consequences.” Trixie knew that she wanted to know more about her situation before engaging in any form of confrontation but she didn’t have enough bits to cover the cost making this inevitable even if she did want to pay the mare to leave her in peace.
The golden mare chuckles under her breath. “I don't think you understand what’s going on here.” As soon as the words left the mare’s muzzle two stallions, a slate grey earth pony and an ivy colored pegasus, came out from the shrubs behind her and began menacingly moving towards her. “We're not asking.”
Only three? Trixie thought to herself. She’s had to deal with much bigger threats than these amature highway thieves. This shouldn’t take long.
The golden mare spoke to Trixie as the two stallions strolled up behind her. “Now just be a good filly and pay us the bridge tax so you won’t get hurt.”
Trixie unhooks the harness and steps causing the wagon to anchor itself to keep it from moving. “Don’t try to run” the ivy colored pegasus said as he flexed his wings “you won’t be able to get away from me.”
Trixie rolls her eyes, “Trixie has to grab her bag.”
The pegasus gave Trixie a devilish grin, “Good girl.”
Trixie steps into her wagon under the pretense that she is going to retrieve her bit bag to pay the “tax.” She takes her actual bit bag and hides is amongst all the clutter in the wagon. She then takes an empty brown coin purse and fills it with smoke bombs. Are they really going to stand there and let me do this? Trixie thought to herself as she levitates the bag full of several smoke bombs. Idiots!
Trixie steps out to see the three ponies waiting impatiently for her to come out. She floats the false bit bag to the earth pony mare to grab it in her mouth. The mare gives the bag a skeptical look, “And this is a hundred bits? We’re going to have to count to make sure you don’t try to cheap out on us.”
The mare attempts to grab the bag with her mouth.
In a flash of motion Trixie releases only the bag out of her magical grip allowing it to fall to the ground while the six or so smoke bombs stayed in her magical aura revealing themselves.
The mare’s eyes lock onto the smoke bombs instinctually with widened eyes and it is at this moment that Trixie chooses to detonate the bombs.
Surprised by the sight of the smoke bombs the mare had drew in a sharp breath just before they went off. Instantly she started choking on the smokey explosion.
While the mare was coughing out her lungs the stallions rushed in on Trixie to find her gone despite the fact that she was only a few feet in front of them just a moment before. The stallions swipe at the smoke in attempts to attack the blue unicorn while not being able to see her.
Frustrated the pegasus flew into the air to see if he could spot where silver haired scoundrel could have run off to. From his position in the sky he can’t see any trace of her or where she could have gone. The pegasus realizes that she must still be in the smoke clouds with his earth pony partners.
The ivy pegasus dives back down towards the smoke cloud but before he could reach it a grey earth pony rolls out of the smoke having a bloodied nose and a puncture wound on the right side of his barrel, unconscious. In the brief inspection the pegasus doesn’t see anything that could be life immediately threatening despite the stab wound so he goes into the smoke searching for the golden mare to make sure she isn’t in a similar state.
The pegasus flies in with such speed the force of the air he generates hitting the ground blows away the smoke revealing the previously obscured scene.
The golden mare, his partner, is on her back trying to fight off the surprisingly strong unicorn that is straddling her chest. The unicorn, the one who refers to herself as “Trixie,” is swinging her forehooves alternately in a hook motion striking his partner in both sides of her temple.
The pegasus dives at the Trixie tackling her to get her off his partner. The pegasus and unicorn tumble along the ground while intertwined with the unicorn still in the pegasus’s forehooves. The pegasus tries to use their momentum to stop their rotation with him in an advantageous position but the mare slips out of his grip and scrambles to her hooves before he could do so.
Trixie back pedals a few feet to reset their position so the pegasus uses the moment to turn his head towards the mare she’d just been fighting with taking only a moment to assess the situation; she’s out cold. He turns his head back to the mare who he now has to fight alone.
They stare at each other studying the other’s movements, ready to strike at the first hint of a lapse in focus or any other opening. Now taking his time and getting a good look at Trixie he sees blood pouring from the tip of her horn to her forehead then down the left side of her face confirming what he already knew; she rushed in and stabbed the other earth pony while the smoke was still up.
The pegasus drags his right forehoof across the ground splaying his wings. He keens in on her horn expecting some form of magic to come into play. The mare may have taken a few steps back but they’re too close for her to try any magic. With pegasi having heightened sight and reaction time, the very second she tries to cast anything, magic burst included, he’d already be in range for a vicious attack.
Trixie conjures a very basic lightning spell and casts it at the ivy pegasus in attempts to put more distance between them, but before she could even fully get it off the pegasus hits her with a blindingly fast straight left hoof placing the blow right on her muzzle.
Trixie staggers back from the surprise attack. She regains her composure and straightens herself to face off against the pegasus but he’s nowhere to be seen even looking up into the sky she doesn’t have eyes on him. Just as she’s bringing her focus back to ground level Trixie is struck on the right side of her face by another quick blow to the muzzle from the pegasus this one having even more power behind it.
Trixie shakes her head to stop the oncoming dizzying effect of being hit so hard. There’s an iron tasting liquid on her tongue and immediately she identifies it as her own blood. Not lingering on that fact Trixie whips around to the left in the direction she’s sure her opponent flew off to, but just like before she fails to find him. She quickly turns in a three-sixty hoping to find a trace of where he could be. Still coming up with nothing she casts a shield around herself to discourage the pegasus from attempting another wild attack.
The pegasus zooms in so fast he nearly creates a sonic rainboom and shatters Trixie’s magic shield leaving her exposed once more. The shock of having her magic blasted through in such a way temporarily blinded her to a glorious white light and sent her into a stammering daze.
Trixie, feeling unbalanced on her hooves, struggles to stay upright before finally finding her feet with her vision slowly returning. Shaking her head once more to retrain her focus she sees the pegasus panting heavily in front of her no longer trying his run and gun strategy due to fatigue. The pegasus lips curve upwards into a smile. “Well you may not be great or powerful but you sure are tough. It only takes a few hits to knock a farmer pony off their ass and here you are still standing.” The pegasus takes a few more heavy breaths, “I’m impressed.”
Trixie didn’t feel too tough right now though. She’s taken some hard blows and while it’s true she’s standing she doesn’t know for how much longer. The pegasus’s breathing starts to return to a more normal respiration. Seemingly regaining some of his energy back the pegasus spreads his wings out and crouches down ready to attack again.
Trixie senses she’s running out of time to come up with a plan. Her mind racing the entire time he was recouping and yammering on about her but she hadn’t come up with anything worth while. Magic is completely off the table. He’s already shown to be much faster than her magic and after he shattered her shield she couldn’t use her magic correctly right now anyways. Maybe she could go hoof to hoof with him but with his speed he’d overwhelm her. She knew she needed a way to slow him down.
The pegasus begins to take flight once again. His speed slightly reduced due to the fatigue but he’s still plenty fast and much too quick for the blue unicorn to stop. The pegasus is on her before she could even process what’s going on. He places his forehooves directly on Trixie’s nose knocking her down onto her haunches. Trixie scrambles to her feet and upon standing is met with a powerful back hooves buck in the chin once again knocking her over on her back. Trixie struggles to her hooves feeling blood trickle out of her nose while more of the red liquid filled in her muzzle forcing her to spit it out.
The ivy pegasus keeps up pressure before she’s able to gather herself by using his right forehoof to sweep Trixie’s forehooves from under her. The momentum causes Trixie to land on her back and the pegasus rears up on his back legs to crash down on his front right into Trixie’s chest bruising and nearly cracking a rib. Trixie cries out loudly in pain meanwhile the pegasus takes to the air about fifteen feet then stops flapping his wings to bring his full weight down on her body. Trixie rolls out of the way and the pegasus lands with so much force Trixie could feel the small vibrations. Trixie gulps not even wanting to think about what would’ve happened if she had still been in that spot.
The pegasus starts to chuckle quietly to himself. Trixie tilts her head to the side wondering if the pegasus was starting to go mad. The pegasus then starts to laugh loudly causing various birds and other forest critters to scatter further out. The laughing was starting to freak out Trixie wondering what could have possibly happened. Finally the pegasus stops his manic laughter, “you’re out of time.”
Upon hearing this Trixie turns around to the golden earth pony approach her slowly with a knife in her mouth. The slate grey pony is conscious as well but tending to the stab wound she gave him when all this first broke out.
Trixie turns back to the ivy pegasus who’s staring at her with a sinister smile. “I’m glad you put up such a fight. It’s been too long since we’ve had an actual challenge, and now we get to have some real fun.” Trixie turns back to the golden mare approaching with a knife, a look of murder in her eyes. She turns back to the pegasus seeing that he has renewed vigor and boosted morale with his partners back up and ready to fight alongside him. “If you stop now we’ll make it quick, I promise.”
Trixie felt as if the world was starting to collapse around her; she was out of tricks, out of magic, out of stamina, and out of hope. The weight of her fatigue and the despair of her situation caused her to fall to her knees and barrel. She couldn’t think of anything else to either fight back or escape. If her magic was working correctly she’d attempt the teleportation she always screwed up as a last resort but now even that was out.
I’m going to die here.
The ivy pegasus strode up to her reveling in his victory wanting to play with his victim before violently killing her. “Beg!” The blue unicorn stared at him not understanding what was going on. “I said BEG!” Trixie looks at the pegasus in disgust; this sicko is getting off on this. “Beg, grovel, plead, kiss my hooves, offer your body to me, do anything you can think of to entertain me enough to spare you.” The unicorn’s eyes fell on her wagon and the pegasus spoke before she could even get a word out. “Oh that’s mine already, what can you give me now in exchange for your life?”
Trixie didn’t believe that she was going to get out of this alive no matter what the pegasus was saying, but she didn’t see anything else she could do in the situation. She was completely at their mercy so she’d have to either die now with her head up for beg with everything she had in her so that maybe she could survive this. Trixie closed her eyes and kissed the pegasus hooves thinking that there was no way out, but maybe going along with this she could stall enough to get her magic under control and create an escape for herself.
With Trixie kissing his right forehoof the pegasus started his manic laugh again.
A loud boom was heard causing him, Trixie and the golden mare to turn around to where the stallion earth pony had been. A light veil of black smoke covering the area that quickly dissipated revealing a stone figure of the pony.
“WHAT IN TARTARUS WAS THAT?” The pegasus screamed out.
The golden pony dropped her knife in a panic and ran over to his to check on his condition. The moment she got close a green orb shot it’s way towards her causing the mare to jump back to avoid being hit.
Another small smoke cloud rose obscuring the attacker but only for a moment. Teal eyes pierced through the cloud, and when the smoke cleared it reveal a dark orchid pony. The attacking pony, at first glance, appeared to be an earth pony of cherry mane, but upon further inspection turns out to be a unicorn with a broken horn that’s nothing more than a stump.
“Just who in Equus are you?” the golden mare demanded.
The dark unicorn walked up slowly carefully placing each step while she kept her eyes trained on the golden mare. “You can refer to me as Tempest Shadow.” The golden mare was about the say something but the darker unicorn cut her off. “I suggest you stand down and keep your mouth shut. I’m here to collect a bounty from Stable Hills concerning a small group of thieves. Though I'm pretty sure this moves you from thief into the bandit category.”
Hearing that they were being faced with a bounty hunter the ivy pegasus left Trixie so he could focus on the bigger threat. “Unless you want to end up like her” the pegasus said pointing a wing at Trixie who was just now trying to stand and having a hard time doing so, “I suggest you that you stand down and keep your mouth shut.”
Tempest gave the ivy pegasus an unamused expression that screamed ‘you’re nothing to me.’ “I’d advise against that.”
The pegasus continued in her direction picking up the knife his partner dropped. “So be it” Tempest said preparing for an oncoming attack.
The golden mare charged at Tempest thinking the unicorn was too busy staring down the pegasus.
Tempest stepped to the side easily getting out of the way while the mare shot right past her. Not bothering to face the mare Tempest kicks out her left back hoof striking the mare on the back of her head just above the withers. With the steel horseshoes that she's wearing Tempest didn’t even need to turn to check the mare’s condition knowing for a fact that she had just been knocked out. Even if she wasn’t, she’d be in so much pain that she wouldn’t want to move anyways.
Successfully taking down the golden mare Tempest turns her full attention to the pegasus. He sighs heavily knife still in his mouth. “Lesh eva da odssh” he says in a mess of a sentence his mouth being occupied.
He then quickly turns around gallops towards Trixie before eventually flying at her.
“DAMMIT!” Tempest screamed running after him but helpless to do anything to stop the pegasus from attacking the blue unicorn. Trixie had just regained balance on her hooves not too long ago and was watching. Her eyes go wide when she sees the pegasus coming at her with a knife in his mouth. Before she can react the pegasus dashes at her slashing a deep gash in her neck in an obviously fatal strike.
Trixie dropped to her sides struggling to breath as blood begins to clog the airways to her lungs. The ivy pegasus stops just past her and spits out the knife. “You can save her or come after me; you don’t have much time to choose.” The pegasus turns away from the orchid unicorn and starts to fly away. Using the last bit of his energy in that final strike his flying is stuttered as he vears in one direction then the other struggling to stay in the air.
Tempest doesn’t hesitate to let the pegasus go and see if there is anything she can do so save the blue unicorn.
She runs over to Trixie seeing that the pool of blood she was expecting wasn’t there. Did she stop the bleeding with magic? Tempest thought to herself, but just as she began to observe the injuries the pony started go transparent and fade away. Confused Tempest stumbled back watching until the pony was no more.
“That took everything I had.” An unknown voice called from inside the forest. Tempest honed in on where the voice had come from and a blue unicorn stepped out showing herself to Tempest giving a small but genuine smile. “I was going to run away until I heard fighting.” Just then the pony fell unable to hold herself up any longer.
Tempest trots over to the pony to putting the pieces together, “that was an illusion.”
Trixie nods her head still on the ground breathing heavily, “mhmm Trixie’s best trick yet.”
Tempest grabs Trixie by the withers with her mouth and flips her unto her back. “We need to get you into town.”
From Tempest’s back Trixie hummed her agreement, “Trixie was going there anyways.” Tempest started to move, “Don’t forget Trixie’s wagon.”
“I haven’t.”
“And the ponies who attacked Trixie?”
“Working on that right now.” Tempest walks towards the once again unconscious golden mare stopping about two feet in front of her. She takes a deep breath and focuses as her broken horn starts to send sparks flying in every direction. Tempest grits her teeth as a green orb forms in front of her. “Hold on” Tempest says as she rears up slightly so she can use her left hoof to send the orb downwards at the golden mare. When the orb makes contact with the mare her coat starts to harden into a rocky form quickly petrifying the mare.
“It’s temporary but it’ll last until the authorities show up to arrest her, and don’t worry about your wagon. They’ll take it into town for you and it’ll be there after you get some rest.” Happy with the answer Trixie relaxes on Tempest’s back as they head towards town.
***
Later that night Trixie walks out of her inn room having just taken a shower ready to put on her performance for the small town. Despite what she had gone through just a few hours before she’s ready to get her show going. Tonight is going to be a good night for her not only when it comes to her stage magic but also in her stories. Finally she could tell a truthful story about how great and powerful she is; she’d only need to alter the ending to where she helped Tempest take out the bandits rather than Tempest doing all the work and Trixie simply trying to survive. The town will be especially thankful for her performance as she not only stopped somewhere she normally doesn’t go but that even after her fight she perform for them. Trixie didn’t want to admit it but she knows this and is very excited at the end of the show that despite the town being small she’s expecting a big tip.
Trixie fixed herself up earlier and used some of her magic to hide a few bruises so she could look her best before the crowd. She didn’t have to do much to look as radiant as she did. Being a well traveled and tough pony her pony naturally recovered much more quickly than the average pony even in context of other creatures.
Putting on her cape and hat Trixie trots up the side steps that led to the small preparation area of her stage. She takes a deep breath to settle the nerves then uses the magic from her horn to light her fireworks and jump onto the stage to begin her show.
***
During the show that Trixie is putting on Tempest is found in the village’s only tavern. Having brought in two of the three bandits that the town put a bounty on the townspeople, guards especially, were happy that she was able to break them up and drive away the three ponies griefing and harrassing travelers even offering to just give her the full reward, but she declined saying that the job wasn’t all done accepting only a portion of the bounty offered. Tempest wasn’t in it for the money anyways. She’s looking to atone for the hardships she brought upon Equestria while she was allied with the Storm King; the bits were just extra.
While receiving her reward earlier Tempest had been informed that the three she had run into earlier were a very small part of a much larger group in the area. They all spread out in the area robbing travelers as they go from town to town. Due to the village being so small they only knew so much about the bandit groups and told her that if she wanted to know more she would have to check other with other settlements. With her mind made up to track down this group Tempest finally has a clear long term goal to help out the nation she nearly brought to its knees.
Tempest trots outside of the tavern ready to head to the next town to see what she could do to help while gathering more information about the group that terrorizes innocent on goers. She passes by Trixie’s show to confirm she’s in good health before turning down a dirt road heading into the next town a few miles south of Stable Hills.
The sky darkens as the moon rises up from the horizon to welcome the night over Equestria; all the while Tempest still continues her journey to a small town south. She never minded traveling at night. Most ponies were wary of night believing that with the darkness came terrible monsters but Tempest knew better than to fall for the common misconceptions and superstitions that plague most creature’s thoughts about the darkness. Most ponies were asleep and tucked in until the morning leaving the roadways clear of almost all traffic. Only occasionally did she come across another traveler at this time.
Today is one of those rare occasions.
“Thought I might find you around here!” A gruff voice calls out to Tempest. She turns around coming face to face with a familiar every ivy pegasus with a couple of new friends with him. “You really thought you’d be able to get away with what you did to me earlier? HA! You’re going to be begging for mercy by the time we’re through with you.”
Tempest looks past the pegasus sizing up the two ponies behind him: one unicorn mare and an earth pony stallion. She rolls her eyes. “Haven’t I already sent you flying with your tail between your legs? You don’t learn do you?”
The pegasus drops into a combative stance splaying his wings and baring his teeth to look as intimidating as possible. “Gloat about your temporary victory while you can. I promise you that it won’t happen a second time.” The two ponies behind him shift their positions preparing for to attack at the pegasus signal.
Tempest shakes her head side to side knowing that with their meager team this won’t be much of a fight. Still standing tall Tempest horn begins to spark as several green orbs start to form around her. “Looks like I’ll get the full reward for you after all.”