I wish I could take it back. All of it. I was so young. I didn’t know what I was doing, but then again, I guess none of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into. None of us knew that once we made our contract, confessed our loves and received the power to become magical girls, we would also be put into a game where friendships became alliances and surviving meant murder. None of us knew that when we made the solemn vow to use our magic to help improve the lives of those in Manehattan, we would also be consenting our lives away to the spirit of chaos, allowing him to play whatever kind of mind games he saw fit…

Mind Games…

Paradox…

Cupid Symphony...

Marrow…

All of these are the names of magical girls who have died in the quest of completing this game, some by my hand and some by the hands of others who wanted the same thing that we all wanted: safety.

In this game, magical girl was pitted against magical girl until one unnamed game changer was finally defeated, and if none of us decided to act, Discord would take all of our magical powers away as punishment. To some magical girls, losing one’s powers was even worse than death, which meant that talking things out was no longer an option. Every magical girl in Platinum City needed to die one by one until the game changer was eventually snuffed out and defeated, but the problem was, not even the game changer knew who she was… until now…

“What do you mean Dreamdrop is the game changer?!” I asked Discord in anger, standing above the body of Marrow, a magical girl whom I had just killed myself.

“I mean that the game will not end until Dreamdrop is eliminated from the game one way or another,” the spirit said with a slimy smile. “I never said that she needed to die. You girls decided that on your own.”

“We had no choice!” I screamed as tears began to pour down my face.

Dreamdrop was the name of the magical girl who had been with me since the very beginning. She saved me from getting killed by one of my classmates and sequentially introduced me to Platinum City, the parallel world of Manehattan that the magical girls called home. The two of us had kept each other safe in this morbid battle royale, despite Dreamdrop not having taken a single life while managing to make it to the final four. The only girls left at this point were Dreamdrop, Palette, Night Seam and myself.

Dreamdrop had the power to put people to sleep, which she had used in order to save me from my classmate when I was moments away from being stabbed to death. Her power wasn’t very useful in the game we were playing, seeing as how not only did she need to make direct physical contact with the target in order to put them to sleep, but even then it only left the target asleep for five minutes. However, even with these handicaps, she had managed to save me from death, putting her own life at risk to jump into battle and come to my rescue from another magical girl named Night Seam.

Night Seam, whom I had known earlier in my life as Fleur de Lis, was arguably the most powerful magical girl left, despite having the most underpowered magical ability in the game. She had the power to turn anything she touched black, which she had used during an earlier fight when I had lost one of my best friends, Iron Maiden, to her and her allies. The only girl left besides the three of us was another one of her allies named Palette, who had the ability to use her multiple colored dress to paint objects into the air and make them come to life, but she had run away the previous evening. She knew that so long as she wasn’t the game changer, she could wait until we finished each other off, and as luck would have it, the game changer turned out to be Dreamdrop, my best friend, the girl whom I loved so much that I would die for her.

“Oh, I think you all had a choice,” Discord continued, pulling my mind back to reality. “You could have pulled straws to see who would be eliminated!”

“Did you really think we would do that and risk losing our powers?!”

“How would I know? Just because I’m almighty doesn’t mean I can see the future! The real question here is… what are you going to do now?”

I clicked my tongue, weighing the options in this impossible scenario. None of us were sure what would happen if we ended up losing our powers, and in a worst case scenario, we could potentially die, which was the reason we had all been fighting for so long. The best case scenario would be losing our powers, but the worst case was death, and I wasn’t about to let anything happen to Dreamdrop if it meant that she wouldn’t be safe. She was the one who made me a magical girl in the first place, which meant that if anyone deserved to live in this game, it was her.

“Is there anything else Trixie should know?” I asked with as much snark as I could.

“Hmm… Not that I can think of, but what would I know? You’re the one who keeps pressing for details.”

Without giving him a chance to say another word, I grabbed hold of my teleport gem and vanished from Platinum City, reappearing back into a small bedroom in Manehatten. This bedroom, however, did not belong to me, and as I looked around quickly to find out if the owner was there, I saw that I was left completely alone, which, to be honest, was something I needed. This house belonged to Dreamdrop, or rather, Summer Breeze, as she went by when she wasn’t transformed into a magical girl, and I had come the night before as a means to hide from the other magical girls. I had left for Platinum City in the middle of the night so that I could kill Marrow before she could hurt anyone else, but by doing so, I had left Summer Breeze alone, and I could only imagine how that made her feel.

What was worse, though, was that she was the game changer. The game would not end unless she was eliminated. It was a death sentence which meant that either she died or everyone else lost their powers, which no magical girl besides her was ready to do, and I had the obligation of being the one to tell her.

As I made my way out of the bedroom and down the stairs towards the kitchen, I battled with myself over and over again as to what I could tell her or how I would break the news. Honestly, I didn’t even know whether breaking the news would be a good thing, but if I didn’t, I would just be putting a target on her back without even giving her the decency to tell her. As I made my way into the kitchen, however, I saw Summer Breeze standing by her table motionless, staring down at her magical phone as tears poured down her face. Finally, she moved her head slowly in my direction, and with wide eyes and trembling lips, she muttered, “The game changer is me?”

My heart sank. I quickly ran over to Dreamdrop and engulfed her into a big hug, placing her face into my chest as she wailed hysterically, hugging me as if I were the only person in the world left. Summer Breeze was normally the happiest person I had ever met, but over the course of the past few days, I had seen nothing but tears as she saw girl after girl die without being able to save a single one of them… other than me.

“We both know what this means,” Summer Breeze said, pulling herself off of my chest. “I have to kill myself.”

“Summer Breeze, stop!”

“NO, YOU STOP!” I backed away in fear as Summer Breeze’s normally blissful demeanor was staring down at me with anger and frustration. “I’m tired of magical girls dying because of this stupid game! If I don’t do this, then Palette and Night Seam will just kill me anyway! At least this way I can do it on my own terms. Maybe this way…” Before she could complete her sentence, she immediately brought her hands to her face and began bawling hysterically again. “At least this way, maybe I won’t have to be so sad all the time…”

As I searched for what I could say to comfort her, I instinctively wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug as my hand made its way down her long, blonde hair. “You don’t have to die, Summer Breeze. You’re going to be OK.”

“How?” she replied between sniffles. “The game isn’t going to end unless I’m dead! How am I going to be OK?!”

Her question made me squeeze her harder, as if I was trying to force all the negativity out of her system by hand. Then, pulling away for just a moment, I stared into her eyes and said, “Let’s run away.”

“What?! We could never do that! They would find us eventually! It’s only a matter of t--”

Before she could finish her objection, however, I did the only thing I could think of in this situation and placed my lips against hers, silencing her completely as I kissed her passionately. The harder I kissed, however, the more Summer Breeze loosened up in my arms until she was reciprocating with her own arms and allowing herself to kiss me back gently. Summer Breeze was the first person I had ever grown to love, and it wasn’t until that moment that I truly realized just how much I wanted to be with her forever. As our lips broke, however, we were both pulled back into reality, knowing that Summer Breeze was right and that if we ran away, it would only be a matter of time before either Palette or Night Seam eventually found us.

...But we still needed to try…

“Do you think we’ll be safe?” Summer Breeze asked, holding me tighter while trying to keep herself from panicking anymore.

“Trixie won’t let anything happen to you,” I spoke as if I had any control as to what would happen next. I really wanted to believe what I said, but after the lengths I had seen these girls go through to keep their powers, I could never be sure that any of us would ever be safe again.

Immediately after my thoughts went spiraling away, however, I felt something buzz in my pocket and immediately reached down to grab my magical phone. Then, looking at the message that had been left for me, I squeezed the phone with so much anger that it nearly shattered in my hand, which did not go unnoticed by Summer Breeze. As I looked back into her eyes, I could already tell that she was going to put herself into danger just to make sure that whatever was bothering me would be resolved.

“That was Night Seam, wasn’t it?” she asked, making me click my tongue and drop eye contact. “What did she say? I need you to tell me.”

“She…”

Night Seam was holding my mother hostage. Whether or not my mother even knew she was in danger was unknown to me, but the fact that I had to choose to lose either Summer Breeze or my own mother filled me with so much rage that I nearly took off to kill her right then and there. I couldn’t keep killing more magical girls, though, but at the same time, I had to do something to keep the ones I loved safe.

Looking back into Summer Breeze’s eyes, I quietly said, “She’s asking me to give you over to her.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“N-no, she…” Summer Breeze glared into my eyes to get whatever information I was hiding, but I couldn’t tell her the truth and let her risk her life to save my family. This was my problem, and I had to take care of it myself. “No, she didn’t.”

Her stare then softened, but still remained stern, just to make sure she could get as much out of me as possible. “You would tell me if you were hiding something, right?”

“Yeah… Of course…”

“Good.” With that out of the way, she wrapped her arms around me again and held me as close to her heart as possible, and in that moment, I knew that I had made the right choice. No matter what, I would keep this girl safe. “I love you, Great and Powerful Trixie.”

Finally, for the first time in my whole life, I smiled authentically.

“I love you too, Summer Breeze.”

I had asked Night Seam to give me a little more time before making my decision, which luckily for me, she agreed to. I wasn’t going to risk giving up either my mom or Summer Breeze, but I still needed a few hours to set up my plan while simultaneously keeping it to myself. The whole point of this game was to make it to where Platinum City had enough magic to survive, magic which the magical girls were using as fuel to make their powers work. That was the original plan, at least, before he introduced us to the game changer, the one girl whose magic took up more magic than any of the other girls competing.

“Trixie has a question,” I asked Discord through my phone when Summer Breeze wasn’t looking. “We’ve already lost six magical girls. If someone like Night Seam were to lose her powers, would Platinum City have enough magic to survive?”

“Interesting proposal, O Great and Powerful Trixie,” he replied. “I suppose if you, Palette and Dreamdrop were the only girls to keep your powers, Platinum City could theoretically survive, supposing we don’t add any more magical girls.”

I didn’t need a second longer to think of what I would do next. I wanted to ask Palette through our phones if she would be willing to vote Night Seam out along with Dreamdrop and I, but the risk of her ratting us out to her former teammate was too great. I needed to find Night Seam and remove her myself before it was too late, before anything could happen to Dreamdrop or my mother. I had already killed so many girls at this point that killing one more person didn’t even phase me anymore, especially if it meant that I got to keep the ones I loved alive.

Once evening came and Summer Breeze finally fell asleep, I made my way over to the Manehattan clocktower, where Night Seam wanted me to meet her, but unfortunately for her, Dreamdrop wouldn’t be there. I kept my spear by my side the entire time, the only magical item to my name, just in case Night Seam wanted to try to ambush me before I had the chance to face her, but fortunately, once I arrived at the top of the tower, Night Seam was there waiting for me, without weapons and without backup, at least as far as I knew.

The moment our eyes met, I could see her normally downcast face droop even further. “Where is she?” Night Seam asked without skipping a beat.

“Not coming. Trixie wants to deal with you herself.”

There was a long pause before Night Seam spoke again, her gaze staring down at the floor while she leaned against a wall within the tower. “I was hoping we would be able to end this game without losing any more magical girls. You know she’s just going to die whether or not you do anything, right?”

“Marrow said the same thing.”

Again, there was a long pause while Night Seam sighed in displeasure. “Trixie--”

“Trixie is gone. The only girl left is the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Finally, for what may have been the first time since meeting her, Night Seam smiled, and looking up from the ground to finally make eye contact with me, she said, “I’ve missed this side of you, Trixie.”

The sudden break in tension made me smile myself, despite knowing that one of us was going to end up dead tonight. “Don’t talk like you know Trixie, Fleur. You may have been her friend in childhood, but you were the one who chose to abandon her.”

“It’s funny…” Suddenly, Night Seam’s smile faded, and her gaze returned back to the floor. “Marrow said the same thing about you. She told me that she wanted to be your friend so bad, but she felt like you rejected her.”

Of course, Marrow and I used to be best friends back when I was younger, even though back then she went by her real name, Lulu Lemon. I couldn’t come play with her after school like Fleur did due to my mother not allowing me to leave the house other than for school, but it wasn’t like I could tell them that. I couldn’t let them find out that my mother had been abusing me for years, but I still didn’t want them to feel like I was ignoring them.

“But that’s in the past now,” Night Seam continued. “Lulu is dead now, and I don’t blame you for killing her.”

Night Seam’s response made me tilt my head in confusion. “Did you… not care about her at all?”

Again, there was silence, but this time, that silence was broken by the sound of a drop of water hitting the floor, right underneath Night Seam’s downtrodden face. Then, as she looked back up at me, her eyes were full of tears, another sight I never thought I would see. “Lulu was my best friend!” she cried. “We became magical girls together! We’ve always been together! Of course I miss her! I wish that the three of us could have been magical girls together, that we could have all made the world a better place like we talked about when we were kids, but…” With one final sob, Night Seam wiped a tear from her eye. “...but that’s not the reality we live in, now is it?”

“Fleur…” I began, trying to make the right words come out. “Why… Why did you become a magical girl? Why do you want your powers so bad?”

“To protect Manehattan and Platinum City.” She didn’t even hesitate to give her answer. “Another one of my friends died because nobody was there to save her. If there had been a magical girl protecting her, she wouldn’t have had to die.”

“And so you’re just going to keep killing magical girls?! Who’s going to protect Manehattan when all the magical girls are dead?!”

“At least this way, we’ll know that whoever survived until the end is the most qualified to protect Manehattan! Make your choice, Great and Powerful Trixie! Are you going to give up Dreamdrop, or am I going to lose another friend tonight?”

“Dreamdrop is your friend too!!”

Without taking another moment to think, I charged in, spear in hand as I made my way towards Night Seam, but without even flinching, she touched the floor and encompassed the entire surroundings in black, camouflaging herself completely. Then, swinging my weapon in the direction of where I believed Night Seam was, I felt nothing but air sliding under my blade, which meant that if Night Seam were right behind me, I would be dead in seconds. Quickly, I turned on my heels and slashed towards the other direction, again, hitting nothing, but just as soon as I had done so, I felt three knives piercing me in my side. Right as soon as I moved my hand down to grab them, however, I was left with the same sensation as before as the knives suddenly disappeared again. She had summoned her knives back, which meant that she had the ammo needed for another attack.

“It didn’t need to be this way, Trixie,” Night Seam said in the darkness. “You’re making the wrong choice!”

“How is protecting the lives of the innocent the wrong choice, ESPECIALLY WHEN TRIXIE IS A MAGICAL GIRL?!”

Night Seam’s answer, however, was three knives hitting various points in my body, one in my shoulder, one in my back and one in my leg, but unfortunately for her, this gave me her exact position. Turning towards the angle of where I had been hit, I quickly swung my spear backwards, feeling my spear hit flesh as Night Seam’s body flew backwards. Then, before she could summon her knives back again, I grabbed them with my magic, levitating them into the air, all of which pointed in the direction of where I had heard Night Seam land.

“Do you really think this is over?” Night Seam grunted, her voice giving away her pain.

“It was over before it even started. Trixie is the most powerful magical girl to ever live!”

“Then… I guess that settles it, doesn’t it?”

“...What?”

Suddenly, the black color covering the clocktower began to gradually fade away until I could finally see Night Seam on the floor, covering a large gash in her side as she bled out onto the floor. “I said that only the most powerful magical girl would get the chance to protect Manehattan, didn’t I?”

“Night Seam…” I mumbled, suddenly feeling regret as I saw another magical girl die by my own hands. “Don’t die yet! Trixie can save you! There has to be a magical item somewhere that will allow me to--”

“Don’t waste your brownie points on me,” she replied with a smile. “All I can do is turn things black. It was kind of dumb to pick that as a power, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t help but giggle, but that didn’t stop a tear from running down my own eye. “I’m sorry, Night Seam! Trixie didn’t know what she was doing! She was only trying to protect--”

“Then why are you so sad all of a sudden?”

Her question caught me off guard, not because of how sudden it was, but because I didn’t have an answer to it. I had killed three magical girls already, yet none of them had made me feel regret up until now. I really was trying to kill Night Seam, so why did it feel like this whole thing was just an accident?

“You know what?” Night Seam continued, coughing blood onto her dress. “I bet Discord has a way to save both you and Dreamdrop from losing your powers. He just didn’t want me in the picture when he did it, and I bet you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I… Just stay alive for a little bit longer! Trixie will--”

“If I stay alive, I’m going to kill Dreamdrop.” My heart fell into the pit of my stomach yet again, leaving me with the choice of either allowing another girl to die or risk having the love of my life killed in her stead. I couldn’t move, which physically prevented me from making any other decision than to let her die, and for the first time, I actually realized that I was taking away the life of another magical girl, another human just like me. “I didn’t think you’d put me over her.”

“You would rather die... than let Dreamdrop live...?”

Rather than answer me, however, she took out her magical phone and immediately called up Discord, who appeared as a hologram an instant later. “Alright, you win,” she said, facing the draconequus. “I’m going to die, so you can let this game end now.”

“Now, why would I do that?” he questioned in return, making my eyes go wide. “You’re not the game changer. That would be Dreamdrop.”

“Don’t give me that. We both know that Platinum City can go on if I die, even if I’m not the game changer. Isn’t that right, Trixie?”

I clenched my fist, dropping my eyes to the floor with no courage left to even look her in the eyes anymore. “Y-yes…”

“Hmm…” Discord mumbled with his paw running through his goat beard. “Well, I guess that’s that, then, isn’t it? Night Seam, you performed admirably, but it seems that you are unable to continue the game any further. I bid you adieu.”

As Discord bid farewell to the magical girl in front of him, Night Seam’s clothes and skin began to glow, encompassing her into a ball of light until the luminescence descended into the form of a middle school girl. She had a large gash across her middle school uniform and her eyes were left open as she lost consciousness, but even still, she somehow managed to maintain the beauty that she had when she was alive. Long, pinkish white hair, a perfectly clear skin complexion, long legs and the figure of a model, all too familiar to the image my old friend, Fleur de Lis, making me fall to my knees beside her as I began to weep.

“What’s wrong, O Great and Powerful Trixie?” Discord asked with a hum to his voice, completely ignoring the dead body. “You’ve managed to win while keeping Dreamdrop alive! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER! TRIXIE WANTED THIS GAME TO END BEFORE ANYONE HAD TO DIE!!!”

Discord put up his paws defensively while pretending to step back in his hologram state. “Whoa! Hang on! I’m holding up my end of the deal, you know! I will return Platinum City’s magic and restore it to its previous condition, all while allowing you and Dreamdrop to keep your powers! And Palette, for that matter, but who knows if you’ll ever see her again?”

“Discord… just… go.” I couldn’t even cry anymore as the feelings no longer processed through my mind, leaving me as an empty husk staring at Fleur’s deceased corpse. “Just go.”

Without saying a word, Discord shrugged, leaving the two of us alone. What was there to do now? Return to Dreamdrop and tell her what happened? Go back to my mom and see if she was alright? Stay there and pretend that Fleur would get up eventually, if only I just believed hard enough? I had done basically everything that I had wanted since becoming a magical girl: killing Marrow, protecting my mom and making sure Dreamdrop survived to the end, but for some reason, it still felt like I had lost. It felt like… I wasn’t even the same girl anymore…

*************

Later that night, once I finally managed to break myself away from Fleur’s body, I made my way back to the hospital to see my mom there, sitting down in a chair by my bed with her face in her hands. I could only watch from the outside window, keeping myself out of sight as much as possible despite the fact that I was still transformed into a magical girl. I couldn’t let her find out that this whole time, I was really putting her through endless pain just so I could run off and pretend to play hero, and I couldn’t face her when I would eventually tell her that I had to leave her… forever…

Once she left the room, even for the briefest moment, I snuck into my hospital room and left a note on the bed where I had been staying. It was on this bed where I had left her to play in this death game, the bed where I had survived my first encounter with another magical girl trying to take my life. When I transformed back into my normal form, I still had the scars from where Lulu Lemon had stabbed me, which would probably be a permanent reminder of the terrible things I had done to survive, but when I was in my magical girl form, all my human injuries had disappeared.

Just as soon as I had entered the room, however, I heard the sounds of footsteps approaching the room again, and grabbing onto my teleportation gem, I disappeared from the hospital room, never to see my poor mother ever again. The note that I left behind was the last she would ever hear from me, and it read…

“Dear mom,
First, I want to tell you that I love you so much, and I am so, so, so, so, sooo sorry for all the pain that I’ve caused you. I’ve been nothing but a burden to you my whole life, even though you’ve always been such a good mom to me. I think it’s for the best if I just get out of your life forever. I don’t want you to be so unhappy all the time just because I’ve been such a terrible daughter. I don’t want you to have to deal with all the headaches that I put you through. From now on, you deserve to be happy.

I love you.
-Trixie Lulamoon”

*******************

Four years had passed since that day when I left my home, and fortunately for me, Discord was true to his word, keeping Dreamdrop alive while allowing us to hold onto our powers. I could only guess that he told Palette what had happened, seeing as how in the four years that had passed, nobody had ever shown up trying to kill either Dreamdrop or I. Neither of us ever went back to Platinum City, however, since the last thing that either of us wanted was to run into Palette and create any kind of tension between us again. Not only that, but it was too hard for us to ever revisit that city again with all that we had been through because of it.

Summer Breeze and I moved in together in an apartment on the west end of Canterlot, not too far from the high school where I attended. She had since graduated from college and was making enough money to provide for the both of us while I attended high school, and the plan was to finally get married in two years once I graduated.

My school life had improved beyond what I could have ever imagined, especially whenever I thought back to my life at Manehattan middle school and dealing with Lulu Lemon’s constant bullying. Here at CHS, I could just be myself, even though that meant that I still talked about myself using the third-person. In fact, I pulled myself from one extreme to the other, telling all of the students at school how great and powerful I was (which Summer Breeze told me not to do, especially since my magical girl name was basically the same as my normal name).

The only real trauma I ever experienced in this new life was the memory of my old life, haunting me in my dreams every single night. On most nights, I would need Summer Breeze to transform to help me get to sleep, and even then, I would usually only be asleep for the maximum five minutes that her magic would force on me. Even when I was asleep, though, all I could do was imagine all the girls that I had killed when I was a magical girl. Mind Games, Storm Rose, Marrow and Night Seam had all been killed by my hand, far more than any of the deaths caused by the other magical girls. Lulu Lemon and Fleur de Lis would have both been set to start school at Crystal Prep Academy, the rivals of my own school, but they would never get that chance because of me. What did their families say when they found out? How much suffering had they been put under because of me?! HOW MANY LIVES DID I RUIN?!

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

“Trixie! What is it?”

As I opened my eyes with my chest rising and falling rapidly from my heaving breath, I looked over into Summer Breeze’s concerned face while wiping a trickle of sweat from my forehead. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Trixie didn’t mean to wake you. She just… had another nightmare, it seems.”

“Was it about… them again?” I gulped at the subject being brought up, but nodded my head, causing her to give me another look of concern. “It’s going to be OK, Trixie.”

“NO IT WON’T! IT WILL NEVER BE OK! THEY’RE NEVER GOING TO SEE THEIR FAMILIES AGAIN, AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT!!”

As I broke out into a pathetic sob, Summer Breeze collapsed around me, holding me tight and stroking my hair while I cried like a baby into her chest. “I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but none of us did. I’m alive right now because of you, Trixie. You protected me, so please don’t beat yourself up about that.”

Then, before I could say another word, I felt a warm glow against my shoulder blade pulling me back into a deep sleep, and suddenly, the world went black, making all of my terrors disappear, even if only temporarily.

********************

The next day, I started my third year of high school. The only person I felt like I needed to watch out for so far was a tyrant named Sunset Shimmer, who ruled the school with an iron fist, but fortunately for me, most of the time she would avoid me and find someone else to pick a fight with. Other than that, though, most of the kids there were my friends, even putting up my with constant narcissism (a word that yes, I had picked up from my manipulative teacher back in middle school). Every day, I was excited to wake up, see Summer Breeze, go to school and come home to a normal life, despite the fact that we both had magical powers that nobody could know about.

On this beautiful Monday morning, I returned to school life, going about my day to day just like all the other kids there. I avoided fights, I learned from my teachers and I performed music with my backup singers, all while starting up my own miniature magical act on the side.

“Feast your eyes as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most death-defying acts that the world has ever seen!”

“Can you pull a rabbit out of your hat?”

“I’ve told you, Flash Sentry, that Trixie’s hat is not to be used as a tool to hold rodents! Now, watch in awe as the Great and Powerful Trixie disappears before your very eyes!” Then, with everyone watching one hand circusing about, the crowd had completely lost focused on the other, which pulled a smoke bomb from within my shirt and smashed against the ground, filling the area with a billow of smoke. As the students close to the explosion began to cough hysterically, I quickly maneuvered my way through the crowd until I was on the other side of the hallway. Then, once the smoke cleared out…

“Behold! I have magically teleported before your very eyes!”

Ding, ding, ding, ding!

“Oh, great…”

Of course, I always managed to screw something up, and this time, I failed to realize that I had just performed my magical act right underneath a smoke detector, making the entire school evacuate like a fire drill.

“Alright, students! Out the doorway,” said the vice-principal as I tried to tiptoe my way past her. “And as for you, young lady, we’re going to have to have a serious chat about what you can bring to school from now on.”

“Yes, Vice-principal Luna,” I replied, slugging my shoulders as I followed the other students out of the school.

Of course I had to screw up with something like this on the first day of school! My self-esteem had gotten better since my middle school days, but the last thing it needed was for some kind of event to turn me into the laughingstock of the school again. I would stay low for a couple of days, but after that, I would go back to my normal shenanigans, trying to impress everyone with magical feats that the world had never seen--

“Trixie?”

Once we had all made it outside, I turned my head upon hearing the voice of someone calling my name. Upon seeing the owner of the voice, I noticed that it was a girl whom I didn’t recognize, even though she was still the same age as me. She had white hair and large glasses with pink lenses that went with her black and white dress. Come to think of it, I had heard a few rumors throughout the school about someone who had spent the last few years in some foreign country that was moving back home. Was this the girl they were talking about? Did I know her before?

“Yes, my name is Trixie. Um… sorry if this sounds rude, but… who are you, again?”

“Mein name is Photo Finish, but you probably know me better as…”

Then, taking off her glasses, I was met with a pair of eyes that contained the same anguish that only Summer Breeze and I had been through. It couldn’t be. No! There was no way that this girl was--

“Palette?”

Then, with a smile, she nodded her head.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 30 Minutes