I swam out of darkness to find I was still stuck in the same hell as before. Grey skies, crushed statues, and a castle sealed shut from the outside world. I didn’t even get that tiny reprieve I’d always liked reading about in novels, where the protagonist thinks they’re somewhere nice only to be shown it was all a dream and forced back into whatever nightmare they’d briefly escaped from.

Or is that still what had happened to me, but to a lesser degree?

I had died. In my dream I had died. Horrifically. My chest had been ripped open and I’d had just enough blood left in me to glimpse the one that had murdered me. Queen Chrysalis. Along with Discord, she was a figure I could recall learning about in history class.

But that was only a dream, right?

I giggled nervously.

“Afraid not.”

Discord strolled up the lawn towards me, arms folded behind his back. There’s something familiar about this.

“I’ll spare you the details because we really don’t have time for them.” He pondered how best to say his next thought. “You died, Trixie. Fantastically, I might add. But, yes, you died.”

“That was a dream,” I told him meekly. “A nightmare?”

“Nope. That was reality. This reality, if you want to get technical about it.”

My lower lip quivered. “Does that mean I’m in hell? Are you the keeper of hell? I’m not surprised to see you here, but… a little sad, is all.”

Discord moaned. “Oh, grow a pair, Trixie! You’re not dead, so be happy about that. And no I’m not the keeper of hell. They said I needed more experience or some gunk like that….” He stopped himself. “What were we talking about again? Oh, yes. You were dead and now you’re not.”

I used a hoof to feel along my chest. It was almost hard to believe it hadn’t been there a minute ago. “Does that mean you brought me back to life?”

He waved a single claw back and forth. “No. Rather, I reversed time—brought you to a point before you were blasted across the lawn so spectacularly.”

“Why?”

“Because of the contract, of course.”

“The contract won’t let me die?”

“Something along those lines.”

An icy chill crept up my spine. “If you reversed time, then how far did you go? Canterlot’s still in ruins and we were only here for a few min—”

“I gave you a sixty second restart,” Discord finished for me.

I yelped. Someone was already approaching.

“Just what do you think you’re doing on my lawn?”

Instinctively, I rolled to my side as a blast of green energy shot at me, leaving a torched crater six inches wide in the dirt. I turned, my heart preparing to leap out of my chest.

“You seem… energetic,” Queen Chrysalis spoke flatly, as if speaking to a dog. “Tell me, anyone else here with you? I promise if you name them now, I can reward you a quiet slumber in a pod instead of a slow execution.”

I glimpsed Discord standing to the side of us. Why wasn’t he helping? Why wasn’t he jumping in to stop all this?

The changeling drone behind Chrysalis whispered into her ear. With a grimace, she nodded. “Oh, sorry, pet. I’ve just been told all our pods are currently full. What else can I offer you, hmm? A death bereft of pain? If you tell me where the rest of your group is, I promise you a needle-thin beam through your heart. You’ll hardly feel a thing, I—”

I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer—it’d simply become too much to bear. I faced Discord. “Do something, Discord! Do anything, you fool! Trixie is going to die all over again!” I tried to think of something more pertinent to the draconequus and what he valued most. “Your client demands help! So help her already!”

Blankly, he stared at me—eyes glancing from Chrysalis to her drone then back to me.

Then I remembered how much he hated the way I spoke. “Help me?” I tried.

Chrysalis gave a snort. “Who is she talking to? Could that be a code of some kind? ‘Discord’ something?”

The drone put a hoof up to his ear. “All guards say their areas are secure. No movement around the castle.” He shrugged. “There is a chance she’s not part of any group, my Queen. Resistance or otherwise. Perhaps… crazy? I’ve heard of that happening to wandering ponies before.”

Chrysalis knelt down until our eyes were level. She smiled, as if that would make her less intimidating. “Just a moment ago, who was it you were talking to?”

“Discord,” I squeaked. “He’s the reason I’m here.”

She snorted again and gave my head a hard pat. “I’m sure he is, pet, and correct me if I’m wrong… but hasn’t Discord been trapped in stone for the last few hundred years? Isn’t that his statue behind you smashed to dust? I would know about that. I was the one that gave the order for it. Right, One-Five-One?” She glanced at her drone.

He gave her an awkward nod. “Yes, my Queen. We… uh… smashed it good for you.”

“I’ll be the one who does the talking, thank you very much. All you need to do is nod and stand there, remember?”

The drone nodded and stood there.

Chrysalis turned to me again. “What can you do, pray tell? Sing? Dance? Besides spout crazy gibberish, I mean.”

I turned to Discord again, saw him watching us patiently. Could they really not see him there? He used his claw to stroke his beard. It was odd. Even if he wasn’t helping, I felt a tad more relaxed just by the fact he was there. Maybe that had something to do with how calm he seemed about everything. Would he react if something went wrong, though? I wondered anxiously.

“I can do tricks,” I finally told her. “Like magic. I used to have a cape, but it’s probably gone by now.”

Chrysalis nodded with a grin. “Well, that sounds just wonderful. It’s been so long since we’ve had a show inside the castle. I like magic. Don’t you, One-Five-One?”

The drone opened his mouth to speak, but Chrysalis overrode him.

“Of course you do. Entertainment is rather hard to come by these days—especially pony entertainment. I hope your act is good…?”

Her sentence hung in the air until I understood. “Trixie. Trixie the Great and Powerful.”

Out of the corner of my vision, I could see Discord smack his face with a hand.

Chrysalis’ grin widened. “I hope for your sake that’s true, Trixie the Great and Powerful. If your act doesn’t live up to our previous pony’s entertainment… .” She looked away as if lost in thought.

“Are you sure that’s wise, my Queen?” the drone behind her spoke. “There’s still a chance she might be part of the resistance, perhaps sent to confuse us into letting her in. The last time we let a conscious pony inside the castle… well, we lost Two-Four-Seven and Zero-Nine-Three.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes for only me to see. “And it was still a great evening, all things considered.” She gave me one last pat on the head before returning to her drone, giving him orders on retrieving shackles and chains for me alongside a containment orb, whatever that was. The drone made the necessary notes on a piece of parchment—including the time of Trixie’s show tomorrow night. Those not on guard or busy sweeping the city were required to attend.

Discord crouched down next to me. “You need to move, Trixie.”

“Why didn’t you do anything?” I hissed at him. “I asked for help and you did nothing! I looked like a fool!”

“That’s why I’m doing something now. I’m giving you advice and that advice is to move.”

“Why couldn’t they see you? Can they even hear you?”

He stuck a finger to his temple as if it pained him. “No, they can’t, and they won’t. As per contract rules, I’m technically not supposed to help you along. I’m as good as a ghost to you.”

“A useless ghost!” I shot back at him like an ill-tempered filly.

“I did reverse time for you—gave you a second chance.”

“What? Sixty whole seconds?”

“You’re still breathing aren’t you?”

I didn’t add to that. Discord noticed and flashed a fang.

“See? And you’re doing much better than last time! Like three whole minutes better! But, if you want to continue doing better, I’d suggest getting your ass away from here right this instant.”

I nodded to Chrysalis. “But I don’t think she wants to kill me anymore.”

Discord growled out between his teeth, “Yes, that seems to be true. Now she wants to show you off to her hive. A little magical act, just for them!”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“And yet you still fail to grasp the bigger picture! There was a pony before you that did a show. If you fail to top that last show, then you become useless to Chrysalis. Same as what would happen to the pony before you if you happened to outdo them. And considering in the previous reality Chrysalis tore you in two because you stepped on her lawn, boring her might find you an even worse fate than that.”

I gulped. Again, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then I wondered if my act would’ve beaten the previous pony’s show. Maybe if they didn’t sing. Singers were always hard to—

Discord gave my shoulders a shake. “Stop daydreaming and focus! As much as it might not seem like it, I actually want you to succeed here. But that means you need to run away from this insect queen right this moment.”

I glanced at the hand on my shoulder. “I thought you said you were like a ghost? How are you touching me?”

“Questions later. Running now.”

One hard shove backward and I ran as fast as I could.

Once beyond the entrance to the Canterlot maze, I found myself inside a place far darker than before. The tall hedges surrounding me cut off what little light the overcast sky allowed and every corner of the maze was wholly consumed by deep pockets of shadow.

At the time, I was happy to have my horn—a small dot of light on the tip to help guide me along. I was also thankful of the overall damaged and decrepit state of the maze. Most dead-ends I found myself in had at least one broken section large enough to squeeze through, although some just barely. With that strategy in mind, I pressed further into the maze, uncertain if the direction I was heading in was the correct one at all.

This bitter thought reminded me I actually had no idea of what my overall goal was at this point, other than the urge not to die again. Could I die? A needle thin branch raked my side as I stumbled along. Was Discord telling the truth when he said he gave me a… what did he call it? A restart?

The moment I ran away from the castle area, Chrysalis shouted after me, “Trixie? Pet? You don’t want to go in there! That’s the maze and you might hurt yourself!” Then, far quieter to her drone, she said, “She’s running away, isn’t she? I hate it when they do that. Gather a swarm. Not too many, though; we still have a perimeter to uphold.”

“You want someone to wake up Four?” One-Five-One asked.

“I still want her alive. No. Just get someone in there to scoop her up so we can call it a night.”

Since then, I hadn’t heard much of anything. I’d entered the maze by Discord’s suggestion and hadn’t looked behind me a single time. If Discord was still close to me, I had no idea. Although I didn’t think losing him was still an option at this point.

“Damn it!”

Halfway through the burnt part of a hedge, I got stuck—twigs and broken bits of branches painfully jabbed at my belly. “Discord?” I spoke nervously. I really couldn’t see anything behind me to see if he was there or not. “A little help, please? A push maybe?”

Ten seconds passed before I figured he wasn’t here. I shoved myself forward another two inches, receiving shallow cuts on my thighs. A haunting green glow in the sky pulled me away from my pain; a tiny green dot that exploded and bloomed out like a firework. I doubted it was any real firework, though.

Dozens of blackened silhouettes sprouted up in the distance, somewhere I assumed the edge of the maze was and some even further than that. I could tell by their shape they were changelings. Reinforcements? All to find me? It might’ve had something to do with the maze. One changeling and a lone unicorn in a maze versus thirty changelings and a unicorn. Clearly they wanted to stack the odds as high as they could in their favor.

Or they had that many extra drones to deploy.

The sight of the green spark in the sky pushed me along. I bit my lip and crawled to the other side of the hedge. I glanced down and found my body bloody. As I tried to recall a simple healing spell that may or may not have worked when I’d tried it last, I noted my next avenue of escape was completely blocked. Three solid walls of hedge stood before me—a section of the maze that was never supposed to be explored. The thought of crawling through the hole behind me again made me wince. That was when a changeling drone landed in front of me.

“Stand back!” I exclaimed. “Trixie is warning you! One more step and Trixie will use her bottomless magical gifts to vaporize you into dust!”

To think, I used to love boasting. But that was only when I’d believed what I was boasting about.

The changeling took another step towards me. Could it tell I was lying? I’d kept my face as rigid as I could. Can they sense fear? Or emotions in general? I wouldn’t have been surprised. From what I understood, their systems survived on love and little else.

I changed tactics. “One-Five-One, isn’t it?”

A terrible shot in the dark. Most changelings looked the same, so I’d almost have a better chance picking a completely random number out of a thousand. “You don’t want to hurt me, right? You’re supposed to bring me back to the castle! Chrysalis’ orders, remember?”

I was gob-smacked when the changeling actually halted his approach. “You think I look like One-Five-One?” It almost sounded hurt. “Everyone hates that guy!”

Something clearly wasn’t right about this.

I took a blink and the changeling was replaced with Discord, who twisted his head with his hands until it cracked. He sighed contently. “It’s been a while since I’ve been quadruped. My knees are gonna kill me come tomorrow.”

“Why would you do that?” I jabbed a hoof into his stomach. “I thought you were a—”

“Changeling?” he chuckled. “Oh, deary me, aren’t you ever fortunate that I was not. Were you trying to talk me to death? Or was the plan to get captured as easily as could be only to die at a later time?”

I raised my chin. “I could’ve escaped again. There could’ve been a mistake on the way back to the castle, or… or say if he’d attacked me, I could’ve fought back. Trixie has been known to fight upon occasion.” A lie. A rather useless one, too. Then I thought of something more pertinent. “You said earlier that I couldn’t die. So why are you even worried about me dying?”

He raised a curious brow. “Actually, if we want to get technical—and I do because it’s fun—you won’t die, because if you do the contract ends and neither of us gets what they want. Remember now, I’m not bringing you back to life if you die, Trixie; rather, I’m reversing time exactly sixty seconds from the point you’d ceased to be. In effect, allowing you a second chance to think things through. Or a third… or a fourth… or a fifth….”

He was still counting when I said, “So that means if I died a hundred times while finding my way out of this maze, I’d still make it out of here in the end?”

Discord thought on that. “More or less, yes, but what I think you’re failing to take into account is how short sixty seconds really is. Sure, Chrysalis might knock your skull in with a brick and you might restart at some point in time far enough away to avoid such a conclusion, but say someone cuts you open and lets you bleed. Say they leave you like that. You know how long it takes to die from blood loss?”

I didn’t, but I still had a feeling of where this was leading to.

“It can take a long time,” he informed me gravely. “Longer than sixty seconds, easily. Say you die from something like that? Where would you even restart? In the midst of bleeding out? Too far gone to heal yourself or to even be saved by others? If I reversed time, then where would that leave you besides trapped in a continuous loop of miserable pain and suffering? That’s not what I want to do to you, Trixie. As hard as it may be to fathom right now, I actually do care about you. Sort of. I guess. Like a roommate that pays the rent on time.”

I ignored his last sentence and focused on what I thought mattered. “So if I get stuck in a spot where it takes longer than sixty seconds to find my way out, you’ll what? Not give me a restart?”

“Yes. I think it’s kinder that way.”

I took a step towards him. “A kinder thing to do would be to help me, you ass! Or better yet, end all of this! Take me back to the Canterlot before any of this happened!”

“But you signed the contract.”

“So?”

“Once a contract’s been signed, I cannot break it. You wanted Twilight’s life ruined and this is the result. Now you have to live with it. Honestly, you should be thanking me. Giving you the restart; giving you advice along the way… I’m already breaking enough contract rules as it is.”

I growled deep inside my throat. “Fine! Be a dick! Just tell me how I get out of the contract? When does it end?”

Discord smiled as if he’d been waiting for this question. “The contract only ends when the client is deemed satisfied. Only then will our business deal come to an end.”

That revelation struck me like a bolt of lightning. “Awesome! Great! End the contract, then! I’m as satisfied as I’ll ever be! Oh, yes, yes, yes!”

He stared at me skeptically. “I dunno. You don’t look all that satisfied.”

The same smile I’d displayed to the audience in Canterlot was the one I gave to him now. “Looks can be deceiving, right? This… this….” I motioned to the dilapidated maze and untold changelings zooming overhead. “This sure is nice! And I really can’t think of a single reason to complain. Looks like the client is satisfied, then!”

Discord scratched at his chin. “Hmm.” Then he gave my head a turn with a paw, as if studying an ancient artifact. “Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.”

“What is?” I asked breathlessly.

“How dumb you must think I am. Or how poor a liar you really are.”

My shoulders slumped and I sighed. In only the last few moments, my list of “Things Trixie Hates” had grown by leaps and bounds. New entries included “Discord, Chrysalis, Changeling Drone One-Five-One, Everyone That Didn’t Clapped For Me At The End Of My Show,” and probably a whole lot more individuals I was forgetting.

“You ready to continue?” Discord asked.

“No,” I pouted childishly.

“Too bad, because it looks like company’s on the way.”

Discord peered behind me, to the hole in the hedge I’d scratched myself crawling through. On the other side, a half-dozen changelings zoomed down a path in the opposite direction. One of them was ordered to go a different way. Directly towards me.

“You might want to think about escape,” Discord suggested.

I shot him a look. “Oh, really? You think? Then zap us out of here!”

“Not allowed to interfere. Contract rules.”

“Can’t interfere unless you feel like it, more like.”

He rolled his eyes. “You wound me so. Want advice? Teleport. Problem solved.”

I felt my cheeks redden. “I don’t know how to do that,” I admitted quietly.

“Then what do you know how to do?”

I thought on that for a moment. Most of my magical act relied on distraction and misdirection more than anything altogether complicated. The tricks themselves were simple—the hard part came with making them seem tricky. Loud noises. Bright lights. Misdirection and sleight of hoof.

I looked up at Discord. “I can do sparks.”

Having found my first attempt attacking the hedge from a distance close to useless, I forewent a more logical solution and decided to just ram my horn into the nearest hedge instead. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my trick—an expanding pink spark I could conjure up in a variety of sizes; the same sparks I’d used countless times before in my show, sometimes to make big reveals flashier than usual or sometimes only to focus the audience’s attention away from me.

Only those show sparks were harmless. The ones I set off inside the hedge were both stronger and brighter than anything from my act. I grunted as I worked, and pulled my horn back. I could see a small flame in the middle of the hedge, already devouring the dry and brittle leaves and twigs inside.

While I waited for the fire to spread, I spared a glance at the hole behind me. The lone changeling that’d been heading my way was less than two meters away now. Still with a few seconds to use, I set off a second pink spark at the end of the path behind him. It let off a loud cracking sound as it popped. He went to investigate as another two changelings met him where the paths connected.

Damn. That wasn’t part of the plan.

I went and started a second fire in the opposite wall; by the time I got there, my first had eaten a good-sized hole in the hedge. At least if the trio of changelings came through here and tried to trail me, there’d be two avenues to explore… unless my second fire only led onto another dead end.

When the first fire had spread wide enough, I extinguished the worst of it with a hoof and dove through, landing in a heap on the other side. I stood and brushed myself off. Then I swore.

“Shit.”

Another three changelings faced me on the path. One brought a hoof up to their ear and muttered something out of earshot. All three charged at me, wings beating by their sides.

I ran, and as I did I flipped my head back and shot out another batch of pink sparks that billowed out and filled the space between the hedge walls. There was no chance it was going to hurt them; creating a spark that large for me meant that each part had less magic to it, less power. Thankfully that wasn’t the point of the spark. Before I faced forward again, all three changelings had halted with their legs covering their eyes. The one in front swatted at the remaining sparks hovering in the air. That meant they weren’t focused on me.

I took a right at the next intersection in the path, galloping as fast as I could to escape their sight.

I rounded countless corners, desperate to find a hedge with enough damage on it to crawl through. Sadly, the path I’d chosen had the fullest hedges of them all. Once I came to another dead-end after a string of them, I found myself face to face with another changeling. Although it was nearly impossible to tell, I believed he’d been one of the three that’d chased after me before. Maybe they’d divided my possible routes between themselves.

He stuck a hoof to his ear. “She’s been found.”

Who is he talking to? I wondered aimlessly. Do the changelings actually work through a hive mind? Or is it something different than that?

It was odd the thoughts that found you when you realized just how fucked your situation had become.

The changeling held a hoof out to me. “Stop running and I won’t hurt you.”

Where does he think I plan to go? Over the hedge with my shiny new wings?

“No more of those lights, either.”

Lights? Did he mean my sparks? Those actually annoyed him enough to mention them?

When I started thinking of my odds at besting the lone drone in a one-on-one fight, a second changeling touched down behind him. By his size alone, I thought I’d just become double-fucked somehow.

This new changeling stood head and shoulders above his counterpart. He must’ve been close to Chrysalis’ height and several times thicker. Around his torso and legs he wore deep blue armor, heavily scratched and dented. On his head, he had on an open-faced helmet that gave me a perfect view of his cold black eyes. An ugly, jagged scar ran vertically across his face, giving off a haunting purple glow.

And here I’d expected them to bleed green.

The smaller changeling turned to the larger one with a sigh. “Everything’s under control, Four. I’ll bring her back to the castle. There’s no point in you being here. You weren’t even summoned.”

“There’s no point in bringing her back to the castle. Chrysalis’ shows do nothing more than waste time,” the larger one spoke, his voice a low and somber one. He jerked his head in my direction. “Have you asked her where her leaders are?”

The other changeling choked at that. “I haven’t… Chrysalis must’ve—”

“Who are you here with?” Four boomed directly at me, causing me to jolt.

“No one.”

“Bullshit! No one could make it this close to the castle without being a part of them. Don’t test my patience, mare.”

“She’s coming back to the castle and that’s that!” The other changeling took a step towards me as I took a step back. I needn’t have bothered. The hulking changeling known as Four shot out a leg that wrapped around the other changeling’s head before giving it a twist. I heard more than a few things snap before he crumpled to the ground.

Four shook his head dramatically. “Look what you did.”

It took me a moment to realize he’d meant me. “What? No, I didn’t! Look at these hooves!” I raised them up to him feebly. “These hooves couldn’t snap anything!”

He angled his horn to the dead changeling and blasted a chunk of its neck and shoulder away. A puddle of green fluids stained the grass.

Green blood. I guess I was right.

Four spat next to the body. “Dirty unicorn magic. How could you do such a thing? Two-One-One was being so nice to you.”

“You can’t just blame that on me!”

Four furrowed his brows. “I don’t think you have your priorities straight, mare. The fate of my fallen comrade is the least of your worries. I want the names of everyone in your group, I want to know where your leader is, and I want to know what they’re planning.”

“But I’m not a part of any group!”

He made a noncommittal grunt. “That’s too bad, then. I still need to know if you’re telling the truth beyond reasonable doubt. No offense. The last pony I questioned made it eleven snapped bones before she’d finally opened up to me. Care to beat that?”

Not really, I thought. Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Fly By Night Estimated time remaining: 53 Minutes