Trixie was feeling more awake than she had ever thought possible. The coffee had succeeded in finding her sleepiness, backing it into a corner, and then beating the ever-living tar out of it. Go coffee! Trixie had never drunk coffee before. She always thought it made ponies too dependent on it. What a fool she had been. She felt like she could do anything! Why was she standing in this line? She should be running! Or hang-gliding! Or swimming! Or doing long division! Or drinking more coffee! Or—

What just happened? The line was shorter now, and the sun had moved. How odd. Trixie felt great. Her mind was thinking much faster. She wished she had drunk that coffee last night. Then when the carriage’s wheel had broken, she could have thought up a plan to fend off the squirrel army. Then she wouldn’t have been captured and forced to work in their underground nut mines for the past eight years, only escaping by chance when—

Wait, what? What was that about squirrels? Oh yeah, they had chased her when she had set out on her own after the carriage she had rented had lost a wheel. Stupid bad luck. What was with this line? It kept jumping around. And what was that coffee pony saying? ‘Are you alright?’ What kind of made-up language was that? Why didn’t she just—

Trixie awoke with a start and immediately regretted regaining consciousness. Her head hurt, the sun was too bright, and the world too loud. She would never drink coffee again as long as she lived. At least she had somehow sleep-waited-in-line. It looked like she was next. The coffee pony was baking something at a table and making a mess. Was this some sort of pre-test? Good. Trixie needed to bake something and drain her bad luck.

Drain her bad luck. It made no sense, but poison joke didn’t seem to make any sense itself, so in a way, it made perfect sense. Trixie had found a way to temporarily remove her bad luck so that she could at least function normally for a couple of hours. The way was simple: baking.

When Trixie baked, her bad luck exploded. Not literally, thankfully. It was more like a shook up bottle of soda spraying its entire contents onto the pony that opened it. Which was something Trixie had experienced no less than three times in the past twenty-four hours, with one of those times being with a bottle of non-carbonated apple juice.

“Miss? Miss? Are you competing?” one of the judges asked.

Trixie snapped back to reality. The coffee pony gave Trixie a friendly wave before walking towards the stadium. Trixie waved back.

“Miss!”

“Yes, yes. I’m coming,” Trixie said as she walked up to the table and the impatient judges.

An earth pony mare and a pegasus stallion were seated across the table from Trixie. Both wore a badge that designated them as official judges of the WBE. From the look of annoyance on the earth pony’s face, they had likely drawn the short sticks to be stuck running the pre-testing station. At least the pegasus was attempting to be friendly.

“Please present your signed acceptance form and be quick about it. We already have more competitors than we were supposed to,” the earth pony said then turned towards her fellow judge. “Honestly. The tryout stations have been far too generous this year.”

“That’s why we’re out here. To reduce the number to a manageable level,” the pegasus said, boredom in his voice. “You already turned away nearly half of the competitors. Now we have less than the expected one hundred.”

“It’ll just make our jobs easier in the next round of cuts.”

Trixie tilted her head forward and let her hat flop onto the table.

The earth pony glared daggers. “I said present your acceptance form, not your hat. What’s wrong with your forehead?”

“I had my form sewn into my hat so that I couldn’t easily lose it. The spots on my head are just a rash. They aren’t contagious.”

The earth pony rolled her eyes and looked into the hat. “Your acceptance form is illegible. Thank you for wasting our time. Please try again next year.”

“What?” Trixie had been expecting this and was prepared to fight for a spot.

The earth pony sighed then said slowly, “I cannot read your acceptance form.”

“Hold on, Prism,” the pegasus said. “It may be unreadable, but it’s still an official form. I say give her a chance.”

The earth pony turned on the pegasus. “If it was up to you, all of Equestria would be competing. Our job is to narrow it down to the top eight, and that means some ponies go home. This form is so covered in sweat and grime that I can’t even make out where it came from. The spots on her forehead are likely from where the ink rubbed off. If a pony can’t even take proper care of her form, then she doesn’t deserve to compete. It has to be a unanimous decision between us to get in, and I say no.”

“And I say let her bake,” a new voice said.

The earth pony turned her anger on the newcomer then quickly gasped and lowered her head. “M-madam Soufflé. I-I didn’t think that you’d—”

“Be walking around my own competition’s grounds?” Madam Soufflé asked.

Trixie looked at this Madam Soufflé. She was a unicorn wearing a simple-cut, red dress. Her coat was a very light purple while her mane and tail were yellow but with a few strands of silver running through them, betraying her age. Most of all, the way she held her head high and gave a tight smile projected a sense of authority.

“No,” the earth pony squeaked. “It’s just… with the chair-holder meeting about to start—”

“Oh, please. Like I’d want to be stuck in a room with those ponies for longer than I have to. Most of them only care about maximizing profits, and that’s not what this competition is about,” Madam Soufflé said, then tuned towards Trixie. “You have a very strange aura surrounding you. I’m curious to see how you bake.”

Trixie gulped and returned her hat to her head. The two judges were rapidly setting up the station for testing. This was it. It was time to see if bad luck from poison joke could fool these three official ponies into believing she had what it took to be in the WBEs.

Trixie looked at the table in front of her. A bowl of flour with a spoon, a cup of milk, a cup of sugar, an egg, and a stick of butter were laid out. She looked up at the judges.

“Combine the ingredients in whatever order you wish,” Madam Soufflé said, then gave Trixie a smile—this one actually seemed genuine. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Trixie wasn’t ready. She didn’t think she could ever be ready for this. Not after what had happened during her tryout. She really hoped nopony started screaming this time. Trixie lifted her hoof, unsteadily reached out, and touched the spoon.

The effect was immediate. The gentle breeze that had been blowing moments before stopped. The background noise slowly faded. Birds took to the air, rabbits hid in their dens, a group of squirrels that had slowly been cresting a nearby hill realized that now was a very good time to be a few miles away. The sunlight darkened as if it were shining through a dirty window. The world was silent save for the breathing of four ponies and the beating of their hearts.

The judges got out of their chairs and retreated a few steps. Their eyes had widened as they fought against their primal instincts telling them to run. Madam Soufflé seemed interested and unafraid.

Trixie breathed hard. She had started this and needed to see it through to completion. She took her hoof off of the spoon, grabbed the cup of milk in her mouth, and then poured it into the flour.

The milk curdled, then turned black. It bubbled and began emitting thin wisps of smoke. Trixie tried to ignore the smell as she bit onto the spoon and stirred the horrifying mixture. Her eyes burned from the smoke and tears began to flow, only to be mixed in with the other ingredients. Finally, she could take no more and stepped away from the bowl.

Trixie coughed as thick black clouds of smoke rose from the bowl. The clouds pooled and spread in the sky above them, turning the already darkened world into twilight. Red lights flashed within the clouds as they rumbled ominously. The winds howled their return, no longer the gentle breeze from before. The mixture stopped smoking. It was ready for the next ingredient.

The cup of sugar shook in Trixie’s teeth as she poured it into the bowl. She set the cup down and was about to reach for the spoon when she felt her mane begin to tingle. The bolt of red lightning streaked down through the sky and struck the mixture. Trixie shut her eyes. The bright flash of light had left a jagged line through her vision making it seem as if the world had been torn in two. The bowl shattered. The sugar bubbled; turning brown, then black. The egg exploded. The butter melted and burst into flames.

The clouds awakened. Lightning struck the field around them. The winds howled like a dying animal, threatening to blow the ponies away. Trixie raised a hoof to hold onto her hat.

“What have you done?” The voice was next to Trixie but sounded far away. The earth pony starred at her, eyes wide in fear. “This can’t be real!” she said. “Please tell me this is an illusion!”

“Don’t be a fool!” Trixie shouted back, her own voice nearly lost in the wind. “If I were to combine magic with my bad luck now, we wouldn’t survive!”

The forces of the elements were too much, and the table collapsed in on itself. The wood splintered and shattered, reducing the table into mulch. The dark mixture seeped into the ground. The grass withered and died as the circle of corruption spread. The ponies backed away, afraid of what would happen if they touched the black dirt.

The circle stopped growing after a few feet, and then the ground began to rumble. Thick black vines burst from the blackened earth. The vines twisted around the circle as sharp thorns grew from them. Then, the wind stopped blowing. The clouds rumbled a few more times before breaking apart. The sunlight shined once again.

The ponies stared at the thorn patch. In the center was a single red rose. The rose opened into the sunlight. Trixie looked into the rose, and her breath caught in her throat. She had never known that such beauty could exist. And then, after only a few moments of life, the rose wilted, dropping its petals to the ground. Sounds returned to the world, but the ponies remained silent for a time.

“Well done,” Madam Soufflé said softly. She turned to Trixie and spoke louder. “I have seen ponies with your... condition... attempt to enter my competition before. I’m pleased to say that you are the first I will allow to join. Don’t think this will be easy for you, though. So many bad bakers in one place can cause unexpected outcomes. However, I think with a lot of determination and a little bit of luck, you’ll do just fine. Remember, this competition is a stage, and you are the actor. It isn’t about winning. It’s about giving the audience a show they’ll talk about for the rest of their lives. Too many ponies seem to have forgotten that.”

Madam Soufflé began walking towards the stadium. “Enter her into the finals,” she said to the judges. “I think she’s proven herself capable.”

“But Madam Soufflé,” the pegasus said. “It takes a unanimous vote of the judges to let a pony skip the preliminaries, and there are only two of us out here.”

“Then find the other judges and tell them I told you to make the vote unanimous,” Madam Soufflé said without stopping.

Trixie couldn’t close her mouth. She did it. She got a spot in the finals. It was a good thing too. After that display, it would be several hours before her bad luck could recharge. She would have to try and pace herself during the competition. Making it through the quarter-finals only to have no bad luck remaining for the semi-finals, let alone the finals, would be disastrous.

The earth pony said something.

“What was that?” Trixie asked.

“W-who are you?” the earth pony said with a haunted look in her eyes.

“Me?” Trixie laughed. “I am the Great and Powerful Trixie! Remember that name, for soon it shall be on the lips of every pony in Equestria!”