Trixie runs into one of the public bathrooms and empties her stomach contents in the closest toilet. The stomach acid burning her throat and the taste of regurgitation leaves a very unpleasant feeling in her mouth. She shakily wipes her mouth and flushes the toilet, watching the tan water swirl away into only Celestia knows where, but at least it’s not going to be near her.

Trixie moans and wipes her sweaty mane out of her face, she didn’t think that she was sweating that much until her hair stuck her hoof and she had to use her magic to pull it off. She grimaces at the fact that she’s a sweaty, stinky mess and she closes her eyes and rests her head against the toilet lid. The nice cool toilet lid that is her nice cool pillow that will cool off her head and-

Trixie’s eyes open up and she furrows her brows in disbelief that she had just allowed herself to sleep on a toilet lid after puking.

“Wow, I guess training with those zebras was too much for a tramp like you,” mocks Terra.

Trixie silently stand up and turns to face the unicorn that has been giving her trouble ever since she got here. Terra has a smug smile on her face and is gently rubbing a couple of stones together while sipping what looks like an amazing smoothie. Smoothie aside, Trixie remembers the good days when she wasn’t called a “tramp” and how she would embarrass any pony that had the guts to call her one, or have a strapping stallion take care of the problem. But she’s too tired to get in a confrontation with Terra, and even if she wanted to, she knows the news will make its way to Roar Shock which will only tick him off and cause more trouble.

“Did Gray Muffin send you?” asks Trixie wearily.

“Is that a serious question?” says Terra as she raises an eyebrow.

“Is that a serious answer?”

Terra’s eyes narrow and she approaches Trixie while morphing her rocks together to form a sleek blade. Trixie takes a step back into the stall and charges her horn defensively, hoping and praying that she won’t get stabbed to death in the stall.

“Listen here, tramp, I don’t know why Daddy would allow somepony like you in with us,” says Terra harshly. “If you are on a soul searching quest, take it up with the church and maybe if you’re lucky Celestia will take five seconds to hear you cry.”

“What is your problem with me!” cries Trixie.

“I don’t like how a fake skank like you thinks that they can waltz in here and be one of us. Once you’re evil you’re always evil.”

“Oh right, and once you’re pure, you’re always pure.”

“Once you’re better, you’re always better is more like it. Do yourself a favor and go hang yourself. The world doesn’t need you, and the League of Justice definitely doesn’t need you.”

Terra stabs the wall behind Trixie, making her yelp and slightly cower. Terra chuckles evilly, yanks the blade out of the wall and then leaves the bathroom. Trixie slouches on the floor and tries to calm her nerves enough so that she can actually move. She accomplishes this a few minutes later, and after washing sweat off of herself as best as she can with faucet water she leaves the bathroom. Once in the hallway she takes a couple of steps before Gray Muffin calls her. Trixie stops walking and turns around to see her mentor casually walking towards her. From the looks of it, he had just finished a brief conversation with Terra, most likely an assignment since her walking went from a smug piece of dung to that of purpose and determination.

“You’ve been sitting in the bathroom for ten minutes,” states Gray Muffin matter-of-factly.

“Sorry, sir, I just got tired,” says Trixie apologetically, although some of her annoyance does slip out.

“I see. Would you like some rest?”

Trixie is taken back by this and her mind goes blank for a second. She’s not sure if she heard the old stallion right, and if she did -which she’s sure she did- she’s wondering if he was feeling okay. That entire sentence seems like an anomaly to her.

Trixie sputters words to form a sentence, a sentence that no one, not even Trixie, can understand.

“You’ll have to repeat that. I don’t speak retard,” says Gray Muffin bluntly.

“Ye-Yes, sir, that-that would be great,” stammers Trixie, still in disbelief of what she had heard.

Gray Muffin’s tail suddenly wraps around one of Trixie’s hind legs and tugs it back, and as she stumbles to catch herself, he uses one of his front legs to trip her. She lands on the ground with a thud and she lets out a pathetic grunt, and while the hallway spins Gray Muffin pins her to the ground by pressing his hoof against her chest.

“If you want to rest, you’ll have to strike me three times,” says Gray Muffins.

Trixie rolls her eyes, but the negative thoughts on the matter are replaced with some concern. “But what if I pass out from exhaustion?”

“Then you’ll get your nap,” replies Gray Muffin in a barely noticeable teasing tone.

He helps her up, and right as Trixie is about to thank him, he strikes her in the chest, causing her to gasp in pain and stumble back, and then he bucks her against the walls.

After falling to the ground Trixie coughs and gags and clumsily pushes herself up. “Are we seriously doing this now?”

A swift kick to the face, and the bloody nose that follows, answers her question.

“That’s it,” growls Trixie.

Trixie blocks another one of Gray Muffin’s attacks, then she scrambles away from him and rams him against the wall, smiling victoriously when she realizes that she has him pinned.

“There’s one,” huffs Trixie.

“That isn’t a hit, that’s a pin,” says Gray Muffin smugly. He then headbutts Trixie, and as she swears and puts her hoof over her face, he pushes her back and kicks her in the side. She falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes. “That is a hit.”

“You’re too hard,” whines Trixie as she shifts on the ground, trying to rub her growing collection of bruises.

“Three strikes is all you have to do and then you can rest.”

Trixie pushes herself to her feet, and with an enraged scream she charges Gray Muffin. When she leaps in for the tackle he does something she doesn’t expect. He lies down on his his back and when she is over him, he uses his hooves to fling her clean over him and she lands on her back a good dozen or so feet away from him. Add in the sliding distance and it’s about twenty feet.

‘What the hay was that!’ wonders Trixie angrily while wincing from the burning pain in her back. ‘Fine, if we’re going to do tricks, then trick it is!’

Trixie groans and tells Gray Muffin that she can’t move, which isn’t too far from the truth. Her bones and muscles are aching, and any more punishment and she’s sure she won’t be able to move. And then she’ll have to deal with those cursed mushrooms again. She closes her eyes and pretends to go limp as she hears Gray Muffin walk towards her.

“Are you seriously trying to fool me?” asks Gray Muffin.

Trixie suddenly opens her eyes and uses her horn to blast Gray Muffin. The blue beam she shoots out hits him in the chest and sends him flying backwards into the ceiling. There is thud and he belly flops on the floor, motionless.

Trixie laughs victoriously, albeit with some strain, and she clumsily stands up. “Ha! Take that!”

But then she hears Gray Muffin growl and he stands up while giving Trixie the glare he gave Sunshine before executing him. Her ears droop and she takes a step back while stammering about not knowing she wasn’t supposed to use magic. As Gray Muffin walks towards her, she walks backwards, and with each step she takes she cowers further into the ground.

“You-you didn’t say anything about not using magic!” says Trixie defensively, now almost lying down on her stomach.

Gray Muffin is soon towering above Trixie, and she’s too scared and shaky to move. She closes her eyes to prepare for either a tongue lashing, a pummeling, or both.

“That’s one,” says Gray Muffin in a surprisingly calm voice.

Trixie opens one eye and sees Gray Muffin smiling proudly, and after taking a few paces back he motions Trixie to stand up. Trixie gulps and stands up, she’s still worried about will happen next since she doesn’t trust his smile.

“You are a unicorn, Trixie. Not using your natural gift is like a pegasus refusing to fly, or an earth pony refusing to use their legs,” says Gray Muffin. “You still have to strike me two more times before I allow you your rest. However, I want you to try something different besides your magic.”

Trixie takes her eyes off of Gray Muffin for just a moment to think what else she could do, that proves to be a big mistake. When she looks back at her trainer, he’s practically in her face and he tackles her to the ground. They both roll over each other down the hallway like a ball, and when they come to a stop, Gray Muffin is on top of Trixie and he has her head pinned so that her horn is away from him.

“Never take your eyes off your target!” growls Gray Muffin. “The moment you take your eyes off your target is the moment that have a chance to escape or harm you.”

Trixie’s eyes dart around the hallway to see if there’s anything she can use against Gray Muffin, but the hallway is completely bare. Then she gets an idea that is sure to work. Her horn glows and Gray Muffin is covered in her magical mist, but her plans are shot to dust when he strikes her horn at the base, and sends a horrendous amount of pain that surges through her head. The pain can be compared to a stallion getting kicked in the gonads, and to make it worse, her magic disappears.

“Do not keep to the same routine. It will make it easier for your enemies to combat you. And always know your target’s weakness and strike there every chance you get,” instructs Gray Muffin over her cries of pain.

Trixie bites back her tears and cries, and comes to the conclusion that since her magic is gone she’ll have to resort to dirty fighting. To her relief, Gray Muffin is in the perfect position, and so is her hind leg. Trixie kicks Gray Muffin in the crotch and his eyes bulge, and he groans while rolling off of Trixie.

Trixie gets to her hooves and after taking a couple of deep breaths she proudly says: “That’s two, right?”

Gray Muffin nods and gradually gets up, wincing in the process. “Fighting dirty, are we?”

“One more and I get my nap.”

Gray Muffin nods and is about to charge Trixie again, but stops and stares down the hallway with an irritated scowl. Trixie is almost skeptical of his scowl, but she looks over her shoulder anyway and sees Roar Shock trotting towards them. He completely ignores Trixie and walks towards Gray Muffin with the proud pegasus demeanor. Trixie swears that pride is genetically built into pegasi, because just about every single one she’s met has had some sort of ego problem.

“Let me guess, I’m late,” says Gray Muffin dryly.

“They are fully charged and won’t be testing themselves,” remarks Roar Shock.

Gray Muffin nods and looks at Trixie. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to cut this session short.”

“So do I get my nap?” asks Trixie carefully.

“What?”

“Do I get my nap, sir?”

“No, you struck me twice. I said three times. Go train back to the Arena and continue training with Adanz and Wazza.”

Trixie huffs and kicks imaginary stones away as the two stallions walk away, talking quietly amongst themselves. She doesn’t want to go back to the Arena with the zebras, last time she was there the two zebras made her puke! Why anyone would want to make their target puke rather than knock them out is beyond her. Aside from the puking nightmare, they also tried to show her Fallen Ceasar, and it was by far the most painful thing she had experienced. But, nonetheless she must return to the Arena to train lest she wants Gray Muffin to zap her again, and as she reluctantly heads towards the arena she silently prays to Celestia that the zebras are not there.

After getting “lost” for a few minutes, Trixie finally walks into the training arena, and lo and behold Celestia did not answer her prayers. The zebra twins are meditating on the mat with a circle of candles surrounding them. The smoke rising from the candles are colorful and they give off sweet smells that make Trixie’s nose tingle. But she doesn’t want to interrupt their meditation, she heard that interrupting a zebra’s meditation could possibly be deadly due to them experiencing what some have described as “mindbuck dreams”.

Trixie sits down outside the circle of candles and impatiently watches the twins do their session. This goes on for a couple of minutes before she tries to sneak away, but as soon as she stands, one of them speaks.

“You have come for more training, yes?” says Adanz -or maybe Wazza.

“Not because I want to,” says Trixie wearily. She sighs irritably and sits back down, trying to relax before her day is ruined by a world of hurt the zebras will no doubt deliver to her.

“You sound tired, are you weary?” asks Wazza -or maybe Adanz.

“You have no idea,” laughs Trixie.

The zebras open their eyes in unison, making Trixie all the more uneasy about them. The first zebra stands up and walks towards Trixie; she is about to stand up but he orders her to stay seated. She forces herself to obey and watches the zebra nervously as he paces around her.

“But we already trained, yes?” says the zebra.

“Yeah, but I was ordered here,” says Trixie quietly.

“I see, Adanz, what shall we go over with Trixie, this time?”

Adanz, silently stands up, cracks his neck and approaches the two. “How about a balancing exercise, Wazza.”

“Very good idea, I will get the rods for you.”

Trixie watches Wazza gallop to the edge of the mat and bring out a roll of rods. He turns them over to Adanz, who quickly sets them up to make an odd rectangle looking thing that has the width of a pony, but stands a dozen feet tall. Wazza smiles proudly at his brother’s handy work, and then he grabs a ladder and pushes it next to the structure and orders Trixie to balance on it.

“You can’t be serious,” scoffs Trixie.

“You’re right, four is too much,” says Wazza. He nods to Adanz, and he removes one of the legs and smiles at Trixie with Wazza. “Three legs to balance on is better, yes?”

Trixie groans and climbs on the ladder, then, using gut wrenching precision, she stands on the monstrosity. She shakes and whimpers as she tries to keep her balance, and for some reason it looks like everything is ten times higher than it’s supposed to be. The zebra twins look like ants and the candles are merely dots on the floor. Trixie starts hyperventilating and shaking, thus making her wobble and the weird thing she is balancing shake to the point of collapse.

And collapse it does.

The whole thing crumbles to the ground and Trixie’s screaming comes to an abrupt end when she lands on her face. Her groan is muffled since her face is pressed into the mat, but it’s still a loud groan. Thankfully the zebras are nice enough to help her up.

“That was pointless,” moans Trixie while tenderly rubbing her face, briefly wondering if her magic is back yet so she can zap the two.

“Of course it was, we just needed a laugh,” giggles Wazza.

Trixie levitates a rod with ease and lets it drop to the ground a second later with a small, satisfied smile. Though, that smile of hers disappears when she she realizes what Wazza said and she glares at him while he and his brother chuckle at her misfortune. “Ass.”

The two zebras stop laughing instantly and stare at her hatefully, and she returns the look in kind for the pain they brought to her face.

“We are part donkey,” says Wazza.

“I hope you’re happy,” sneers Adanz.

Trixie’s jaw drops and she stammers “Oh-oh I am so sorry, I-I had no idea you were-you were part donkey. You don’t look anything like donkeys!”

“Are you saying that we look nothing like our ancestors?” asks Wazza accusingly.

“Typical intolerance towards our kind,” says Adanz while shaking his head sadly.

“What! No! No, I-I didn’t mean it! It has been a long day and it was just a slip of the tongue,” says Trixie defensively.

“She said such horrible things to get back at us for making her puke, didn’t she?” says Adanz sadly to Wazza.

“Indeed she did, brother. Come, let us leave her intolerance behind with some orange juice,” says Wazza.

The twins start walking away and Trixie stammers a massive wave of apologies, and just when she’s about to collapse from loss of breath due to how many desperate apologies she spewed out, the two zebras stop and turn to her, grinning from ear to ear.

“We were only joking with you, silly pony,” says Adanz.

“Only donkeys see other donkeys as attractive,” adds Wazza.

“So... You aren’t mad?” asks Trixie carefully.

“No, of course not! We are full blood zebra! Would you like a hug?”

“No that won’t be necessary.”

Wazza and Adanz urge Trixie to loosen up and give them a hug as a way for them to apologize for messing with her. They emphasize this by standing on their hind legs and spreading their front hooves out. It only lasts a couple of seconds before they go back on all fours, but it still amazes Trixie that they were able to do that. After a minute or so of playful badgering Trixie finally gives in and goes to hug the twins. That turns out to be another big mistake.

Trixie staggers out of the Arena five minutes later, having to use the wall for support. Her mane and tail are ruffled into a knotted mess, is covered in fresh bruises and plagued with the new aches and pains that come with such bruising. She limps down the hallway and each step she takes she has to fight the urge to voice her pain, but instead lets her quiet seethes and twitching eye mark her unpleasant mood. When the demented twins walk next to her, untouched and grinning, she tries to ignore them, but they flank her and try to strike up a conversation with her with disgustingly cheerful voices.

“So what did we learn today, my little pony?” asks Adanz teasingly.

“Never trust a zebra when they want a hug,” fumes Trixie.

“She has a good point, Wazza.”

“I guess you’re right, brother,” says Wazza, “but did you learn anything else other than racial paranoia, Trixie?”

Trixie stops walking, and swiftly strikes Wazza in the side. He grunts and stumbles back, then his face turns into an odd tint of green and he gallops down the hallway, all while Adanz points and laughs at his brother’s misfortune.

“I finally remembered that move,” sneers Trixie.

And while Adanz is distracted with laughing at his brother, Trixie grabs the back of his head and slams his face against the wall, knocking him out cold. Then Trixie continues limping down the hallway, feeling just a little bit better.

“I need a drink,” grumbles Trixie under her breath.

When Trixie finally makes it to the cafeteria, she searches for anything that can serve as an alcoholic beverage, but all they have is juice, milk, and water. She curses under her breath and pours herself a shot of apple juice in one of their plastic cups. The way she sees it, if she can’t have alcohol then she might as well pretend that she’s having some.

She downs her drink and slams the cup down, and then she pours herself another one and gulps it down just as quickly as before. She repeats this silly act a couple dozen times before she gets bored, and disappointed for the lack of wanted drinks, and smacks the cup away with a loud, aggravated groan.

She really wants her nap! But she doesn’t know if she can take one since her so called training was just her getting her butt kicked by the zebra twins, and Gray Muffin told her that she needed to strike him three times yet she only has two. After about five seconds of contemplating on whether or not she should take a nap here or do something else to kill the time, she decides to play it safe and buck Gray Muffin in the mouth.

She marches with determination down the hall, demanding every pony she comes across to tell her where Gray Muffin is. Most do not know, but a couple of pegasi are smart enough to tell her that he’s testing something in the “Birdcage” and doesn’t want to be disturbed. However, Trixie’s persistence gets them to tell her where the Birdcage is and she wastes no time in finding it. She is determined to hit Gray Muffin!

When Trixie reaches the entrance to the Birdcage, she finds that the door is unguarded and easily pushes it open, then her eyes nearly pop out of their socket when she sees its design.

The Birdcage is another hollowed out room shaped into a dome that is hundreds of feet high and round with the floor being at least a hundred feet deeper than the entrance. There is a flight of stairs, but they don’t look trustworthy, leaving the only safe way down to be a cargo elevator. The Birdcage also has weird bars, rings and tunnels hanging from from the ceiling. Trixie also notices that there are scorches, scratches, and small craters littering the walls, ceiling, and floor. Even some of the things hanging from the ceiling are damaged.

Suddenly there is the whining of a small turbine engine, followed by a small boom and a blur zooms straight into the ceiling, and whatever it was that zoomed up lands gracefully on one of the bars. Trixie squints her eyes and realizes that the something is Gray Muffin wearing a full body jumpsuit with two turbine engine jetpacks latched on his back. The turbine engines have gems lining up on the sides of the engine, and the harness attached to the engines is clasped around his chest, which also has a large, glowing gem in the center.

“How’s the acceleration?” yells Roar Shock.

“Better!” yells Gray Muffin.

“Well, play with it some more!”

Trixie gasps when Gray Muffin jumps off the bar without activating his jetpack. And when he falls a few dozen feet the gems glow and his jetpack activates. Trixie is speechless as she watches the old pony skillfully fly around the auditorium in his dual jetpack. Sure it leaves an icky trail of fiery smoke, but his twists and turns leave amazing patterns in their wake. It’s like watching the Wonderbolts perform, except with two Wonderbolts performing ridiculously close to each other in perfect harmony.

Tixie watches in awe when Gray Muffin runs along the wall with the jetpack still going, and then he jumps off of the wall and spirals down to the ground. Right before he hits the ground he pulls up in such a way that would make a skilled pegasus jealous. She hears Roar Shock laughing and stomping on the ground in applause while cheering on Gray Muffin. That catches Trixie by surprise since every time she’s seen that pegaus he looks like he want to murder someone or destroy something, but here, he’s laughing like a foal and cheering.

Gray Muffin turns off the jetpack by pressing his hoof against the gem on his chest when he’s a safe distance above the ground and trots to a stop. Roar Shock gallops next to him and eagerly helps him remove the jetpack.

“I can’t believe it actually works!” says Roar Shock excitedly.

“Was there ever any doubt?” asks Gray Muffin smugly.

Trixie takes a step back after hearing her own phrase, certain that it wasn’t said out of sheer coincidence.

“I wonder if Trixie enjoyed the show,” says Gray Muffin loudly as he looks up at her.

Author's Notes:

Edited 10 Aug 2014