*Gasp!*

“Oh, my goodness…”

“Das ist nicht gut.”

“Oh, Trixie…”

They all found out immediately afterwards.

Discord let the other girls know the news about my mother’s death so that I wouldn’t have to be the one to say it, and of course, all the girls were extremely supportive. As Twilight rushed in to hug me, though, I knew at that moment that I had to put on a brave face for everyone. I couldn’t start crying now and weaken my resolve when the entire world was depending on us to win, especially when my mother died just so that I could live for another week.

“If there’s anything we can do for you,” Sunset began, “please remember that we’re all here to help.”

There was nothing any of them could do. My mother was dead, and there was no bringing her back… until I killed one of the magical girls who got me to go to Canterlot in the first place. If I understood correctly, by killing magical girls, I could bring someone back to life, although I would still need to ask Discord what the parameters for that were. I also couldn’t exactly let my team know that I was turning into a cold-blooded murderer, especially when none of them knew that I had already killed nine people before tonight.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie will be fine,” I said, trying to sound confident, but not too confident to the point where they wouldn’t believe me. “I just need a little time to myself. Do you girls think you’ll be OK if Palette takes over for a little while?”

The girls all gave me a supportive smile. “Of course!”

I would still be there, watching over them, but there was no way I would be focused enough to be able to give them feedback on the night my mother died.

“Alright, girls! Let’s go!”

Then, as Palette guided the other four girls back to their drills, I fell onto my haunches, burying my face into my knees and trying my best to cry out the rest of my sorrows away. Sadly, though, even though I knew that crying itself wouldn’t be enough to soothe the pain, my whole body was so numb that I couldn’t even force the tears out the one time I actually wanted to. I was basically just a walking corpse, like Marrow, unable to feel anything but anger, and it made me wonder whether or not the god of chaos himself knew whether or not this would end up happening when he sent me to Canterlot in the first place.

“Discord?”

“Yes, o Great and Powerful Trixie?”

“Why did you send me back to Canterlot? You’ve never seemed to care about Trixie’s well-being before, after all.”

As I should have expected, however, Discord put his paw to his chest in offense, emphatically searching for words even though he probably knew exactly what he wanted to say. “Never cared about your well-being? Why, I’m appalled that you would even think that!”

“You knew what was going to happen, didn’t you?” Finally, the tears were starting to flow. “You knew I was going to kill my mom, didn’t you?! That’s why you sent Trixie back!!”

I couldn’t even wait for his answer before I broke down crying, grabbing onto my knees as the floodgates opened up. “Do you really think I don’t care about you, Trixie?” With water droplets still falling down my face, I wiped my nose and looked back at the god of chaos with a hesitant expression. “Trixie… I saved your life. Your mother was going to kill you. I went behind Marrow’s back and gave you a memory she told me to erase, just so you could continue to live.”

Then there was the whole issue about that memory.

‘Nice to meet ya, little girl! My name’s Dreamdrop! I’m a magical girl!’

“Who’s Dreamdrop? Why did I react so strongly to that memory? I was so ready to let my mom kill me, but as soon as I remembered her face… I just couldn’t let myself die.”

“Trust me. It’s better that you just forget about her again. Also, since you seem to distrust me so much, I can assure you that if I hadn’t sent you over there, those girls would have killed her themselves. Apparently no matter what you did, your mother was going to die tonight, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened. Besides, you did manage to get a sneak peek as to what Cozy Glow’s magical girls could do, didn’t you?”

Suddenly, I remembered something very vital that Cozy Glow had said.

“Discord! Can Trixie still get phone service if she wanted to text someone in Everfree City?”

“Probably, but who in Everfree City do you plan on texting?”

“Last Gambit. Duh.”

He would continue asking questions forever unless I stopped him there, and in the next moment, I pulled out my phone and started writing a message to the leader of Everfree City. She made a promise with me, after all, and I intended to make sure she kept that promise.

“What are you typing?”

“Sshh!”

“...Did you just shush me?”

“Sshh!”

And send. Now I just needed to wait for a message back, which hopefully wouldn’t take too long, supposing she was true to her word. She had been honest in keeping up with her part of all of her deals so far, but at the same time, I couldn’t just assume that she would be true to her word one hundred percent of the time, especially considering what was on the line.

In the next second, though, everything went black--not on my phone, but my entire vision! I immediately began to panic, falling backwards slightly as I flailed my arms around the object that had covered my eyes out of nowhere.

“Guess who!”

Oh. Someone was just covering my eyes? I knew that the voice belonged to someone I knew, but who would be able to sneak up on me like that without being noticed by a single--Oh.

“Paradox?”

Suddenly, the hands that were covering my eyes disappeared completely, and turning myself around, I finally saw a girl in a purple dress with matching goggles, grinning at me with a smug face. The very first friend that I had made in Platinum City was now standing behind me, putting her hands to her hips with a confidence that rivalled even my own. “Who else?” she said, falling onto her butt by my side. “So, Discord told us all about what happened.”

I then glared up at Discord, but he quickly turned his head away, putting his hands behind his back while whistling innocently. Stupid bastard.

“And Marrow told us about you doing some kind of mission in Canterlot. I’d love to help you out, but you know how she gets.”

“Yeah… Trixie understands, but she’s got it covered anyway.”

“I noticed! Who are the newbies?”

Just as I was about to answer her, however, I could see something bright headed straight towards our heads.

“WATCH OUT!”

Just as I was about to use my magic to deflect a ball of flames away from its collision course, however, a large, black monster with a huge torso and jagged black horns atop its head jumped in between us, taking the brunt of the damage with a harrowing roar. Then, looking up to the sky, we saw a girl in a pink dress with long, fiery wings and a matching golden horn in the center of her forehead, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment.

“Sorry about that!” she called out.

“You’re fine! Keep practicing!” I then turned back towards Paradox, pointing to the magical girl in the air and saying, “That over there is Sunset Shimmer, or as she’s known now, Daydream Shimmer.”

“Sounds like she took your advice on not doing the whole ‘secret identity’ thing. What kind of power does she have?”

“The power of the sun. She can defy gravity, use heat rays, shoot fire out of her fingertips, things like that.”

Paradox laughed in amazement. “Sounds pretty dang powerful!”

Then, in the next moment, another girl started running towards us, breathing heavily until she bent over with her hands on her knees, sweat dripping down her whole body. Of course, Upper Crust still wasn’t used to doing a whole lot of physical activity, passing even PE class with a C minus, but that was all going to need to change if she hoped to keep up with the other magical girls. She was wearing a deep, black dress similar to what all of her best friends wore, along with yellow sleeves and a long slit up the back of her dress to reveal her bare skin from her waist to her shoulders.

“Excellent job,” she said, approaching the black creature in front of us and rubbing underneath its chin once she could finally breathe again. “Momma’s so proud of you.”

“Thanks for saving us, Miss Monster,” I said. “Although Trixie still could have protected us without your help.”

The magical girl in front of us rolled her eyes before turning back to her creature. “Come, Beasty. We have more training to do.”

“Raaaahhh!”

As the two of them went back to the battlefield where the other girls were training, Paradox leaned over to me and asked, “So that girl’s name is Miss Monster?”

“Her name back home is Upper Crust, but yes. She’s actually best friends with Marrow, Night Seam and Graveyard Girl, yet I happened to be the one to turn her into a magical girl.”

“And I’m guessing her power has something to do with that black demon thing?”

“Did you notice that hole in the back of her dress? She can summon a monster from her spine and use it to fight for her. It’s already pretty powerful as is, but if anything were to happen to it, she could just summon another one in its place, supposing she’s not too weak from summoning the first one.”

“I can imagine forcing something like that out of your body would take a lot out of you. That’s why I’ve never had kids! That and because I’ll probably be single forever… I don’t know why I brought that up. What about those other two girls?”

Paradox then pointed towards a girl in a blue dress, matching knee-high boots, dark blue gloves and a black cape. Right as soon as she asked, the girl slammed her hands onto the ground, creating a ripple we could feel from where we were sitting, although where she was standing, the earth was beginning to split in two, trailing straight towards another magical girl. Just as soon as the rupturing ground reached the other girl’s feet, however, she slammed her own hands to the ground, causing the ripples to come to a complete halt.

“The girl in the cape,” I began, “is Juniper Montage, or as we call her, Daisy Quake. She can force seismic waves onto anything, from the ground to buildings to people.”

Paradox jerked her shoulder back with a shudder. “Yikes! I’d hate to be the person who feels that. What about that other girl?”

“Our last magical girl is named Midnight Sparkle.” I then pointed to the girl with dark purple skin and an outfit that appeared like a darker version of Daydream Shimmer’s, along with fiery blue rings around her eyes that resembled glasses. “She has the power to absorb any magic that people use against her...”

Then, Midnight Sparkle suddenly kicked at the ground, creating a tremor so strong that it knocked Daisy Quake onto her back.

“...and turn it against them.”

“She seems kinda scary, don’tcha think?”

“She was, at least when I first saw her back at the friendship games. It’s a long story, but she actually had magical powers of her own once before. This is what she looked like the first time she used magic, and she nearly created a rift between two parallel universes that almost destroyed them both.”

“Whoa. Seriously? Why would she choose to look like that again if the first time ended so badly?”

I had asked myself the same question when I first saw what she chose to look like, but the answer she gave was perfectly reasonable.

“She said that she wanted to forgive her past self,” I explained, “to overcome the things she did that were continuing to haunt her, and she felt like this was the best way to make that happen. She wanted to make Midnight Sparkle a force for good, not a weapon of destruction that only appeared in her nightmares.”

As I explained Twilight’s backstory, I could hear Daisy Quake complaining about how rough she was being, to which Midnight Sparkle responded with a round of apologies. It was actually kind of funny, to be honest. As I watched the girls all practicing against each other with Palette at the forefront, painting objects and creatures that came to life with the stroke of her brush, I gradually began to forget about the upcoming game and the death of my mother. That feeling of relief, though, was about to end.

*Bzzt!*

“Looks like you got a message,” Paradox said, pointing towards my phone. “Who’s trying to get ahold of you at this time of night?”

I then picked up my magical phone and saw a message from the person I had been so anxious to hear back from. Without taking a moment to explain, I opened up the message she sent, updated my phone and quickly scrolled through my apps until I found what I had been looking for: a complete, detailed list of all of the magical girls competing in the upcoming game. As soon as I opened up the application, there were two options which read “Team Great and Powerful Trixie” and “Team Last Gambit” respectively, and I didn’t waste a moment opening up the data on my opponent’s team.

Once I did, though, my eyebrows began to furrow as Paradox leaned over my shoulder in curiosity. “Are these her magical girls?”

“Yeah…”

Finally, I had exactly what I wanted. I was going to find out exactly which one of them was there when my mother was killed, and I was going to kill her with my bare hands.

Power: Ability to turn back time

Of course, the first girl had an ability so powerful that I couldn’t even begin to come up with a proper strategy to use against it. Fortunately, though, the list also included images of the girls who could use these powers. She wore a plain white dress with a clock in the center of her chest, along with black and white striped socks, white, elbow-length gloves and a black tophat on top of her beautiful black hair. This wasn’t either of the girls who I had seen outside my window earlier that night, and even if she was there, I couldn’t see how she could have used her powers to have influenced the outcome of what happened in any meaningful way. Next up was…

Power: Ice/snow manipulation

The image of this one was a little disconcerting. Even though she wore a beautiful bright blue dress with long, white sleeves that dangled off of her wrists, she also wore a white hood that covered the top half of her face with holes cut out in the eyes like a ghost. Her ability was a little bit vague, but I was guessing that the description just meant that she could create ice and snow from thin air and use it however she wanted. We would have to keep an eye on this one at all times.

Power: Disease inducement

Her image would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so graphic. She had snow white skin and a black dress, but her hair was disheveled with both her skin and dress covered with blotches of blood. What was “disease inducement”, though? She could make us sick? Did she have to touch us for it to take effect, or could she use it just by looking at us? How bad could the sicknesses get? Surely instantaneous death was against the rules, but now that I thought about it, Last Gambit would go to lengths like those to make sure that she won.

Power: Ability to play tag

I blinked in confusion.

“The hell?!”

“What do you think it means?” Paradox asked, seemingly just as confused as I was.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but suddenly, I noticed one key detail that may have at least cast some light on one question I wanted answered. Upon giving her a closer look, I noticed that she was wearing green roller skates on her feet, which meant that her power must have had something to do with why I wasn’t able to catch up with that magical girl I had been chasing earlier that night. The rest of her outfit was pretty plain, a yellow dress with fingerless red gloves and deep, pink hair. I was about to put her on the top of my list for girls I would try to kill first, but then I got to the last name on the list…

Power: Anxiety inducement

Her dress was a deep red, her hair a long purple with streaks of black and white. She also wore black high heels and a hairpin of a face closing one eye and sticking its tongue out, creating a disturbing image that was uncomfortable to look at.

The good news, though, was this was her, the girl I had been chasing after in Canterlot, the one who had been right outside my window when my mother attacked me. Suddenly, the gears were beginning to turn in my head. I had seen my mother angry and upset before, but tonight she kept telling me how stressed she was, how she couldn’t do this anymore, a mental breaking point unlike any stress she had ever dealt with my whole life. Now my teeth were grinding together, my mouth seething with rage. It was her. This whole thing was her fault!

“Uhh… G and PT? You alright?”

“She’s the one.”

“...The one what?”

“The one behind my mother’s death.”

“Whoa… Holy crap…”

Paradox had probably never seen me that mad before, but to be fair, I had probably never been that angry my entire life, at least in regards to the memories we had that hadn’t been erased. I wasn’t going to hide my anger this time, though. She was going to be my first target once the game began, and if I ever found her in real life, I would kill her for real.

“What about that last girl?” Paradox asked, taking my attention away from the stress momentarily. “You know, the leader of the team you’re up against.”

She was right! I still didn’t know what Last Gambit could do!

I then went back to the app and scrolled through until I found Last Gambit’s information, observing it as closely as I could. What I saw, though, made my heart twinge in fear.

Power: Ability to take away another magical girl’s power forever

So that was why she was their last gambit. She didn’t need to kill her competition; she just needed to take away their powers, permanently. Even if she killed us and we were somehow brought back to life, we wouldn’t have our powers anymore. I just had to check one thing to make sure, though.

“Discord!”

“Yeeeesss?” he said, slithering to my shoulder opposite of Paradox, making both of us shiver in discomfort.

“If this Last Gambit girl takes away our powers, could you just give us new ones?”

The draconequus then put his tail to his chin, rubbing it pensively while he mulled over the question. “It’s hard to say, really. It’s possible that I could, but there are so many variables that I couldn’t tell you for sure. Perhaps her magic puts a block on your body, thus creating a sort of exoskeleton that rejects magic from being able to enter your body, or rather, preventing magic from entering your body the good way. Gahaha! Get it? It’s a murder joke! I’m so funny!”

Basically, there was no way to know for sure, and we definitely didn’t want to find out the hard way.

“You got any plans?” Paradox asked, to which I shook my head. All of Last Gambit’s magical girls must have had individual strengths and weaknesses, but I couldn’t think of a single way to combat them with the team that we had. Maybe Daydream Shimmer would be a good counterpick to Frost Lass, but other than that, I didn’t know what our strategy would be when we finally confronted them. To make matters even worse, though, Last Gambit had probably already come up with a strategy against all of our magical girls. It was just a hunch, but I had quickly come to find that when a magical girl had a hunch, it was never just a hunch.

“Girls!” I shouted, making everyone out on the battlefield turn their attention towards me. “Everyone gather round! Trixie has news.”

The other girls then stopped what they were doing immediately and came over to form a semicircle around Paradox and me.

“What’s the news?” asked Daisy Quake.

“Yes,” Miss Monster agreed. “Have you received any updates regarding the girls who were at your home this evening?”

“Even better,” I replied with a smile. “We now have a list of all the magical girls on the other team as well as what powers they can use. I want everyone here to help come up with a good strategy to fight every single one of them, and that includes you two as well.”

Discord and Paradox quickly pointed a finger to themselves in confusion.

“Did you mean me or her?”

“Did you mean me or him?”

Yes, they were both idiots, but it was their kind of out of the box thinking that would prove to be fatal against Last Gambit. She may have figured out a science to how I thought, but she had never met Paradox before, and there was no way anyone would ever be able to figure out what was going on inside Discord’s head. (Night Seam tried on multiple occasions, and she failed every single time.)

With the team that I had assembled, though, and with all of our minds coming together to think as one, we had a serious chance to put up a good fight against Last Gambit’s team. Equestria was counting on the eight of us coming up with the perfect strategy, after all, and we couldn’t let everyone down, no matter what.

Getting revenge for my mother’s death, though, would definitely be the cherry on top.

Author's Notes:

Tenth day of Trixmas

GAME TIME!

Try and pair up each of Last Gambit's magical girls with who you think their true identity is!