Twilight's mouth hung open in shock as she saw the mare standing between Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

"You!" she said in shock.

"Yes Twilight Sparkle, me. The Great and Powerful Trixie has returned to Ponyville!"

"What are you doing here!?" asked Twilight angrily.

"Isn't it obvious? Trixie is here to get her revenge on Ponyville for the way that they treated Trixie oh so long ago!"

"You're Gabby Gums!?" said Twilight. Trixie cocked her head.

"Well no, but I am the one behind her! Or should I say, I’m the one behind them. You see Twilight Sparkle, when I heard that I was featured in a Gabby Gums article, I rushed over to Ponyville and using my amazing magical talent, I procured a copy of the article in question."

"Oh," said Twilight "That's what you were doing." Trixie raised an eyebrow at this.

"What do you mean?" she asked quizzically.

"Well Pinkie Pie saw you walking down the street a little while ago and she tried to say hello but you didn't seem to notice her," said Twilight.

Trixie's jaw dropped.

"But Trixie was using a brilliant disguise! No mere mortal could have possibly seen through it! How did a mere earth pony manage it!?" said a shocked Trixie. Twilight shrugged.

"You know, it's just best not to question things with Pinkie Pie. I tried it once and nearly went insane," said Twilight.

Trixie's mouth hung slightly open and she stared intently at the floor. She was clearly deep in thought and she was muttering something to herself about something or other.

"Could she have...no, you need magic for that and she's just a...but if she could...no that wouldn't work either. Well she...no, no, no, still need magic to...I...Maybe if she invented...no that's silly, she hardly has any brain power at...but what if..."

"I'm telling you, you're just gonna go mad if you try to figure it out," said Twilight in a slightly amused tone.

"Enough of this!" said Trixie suddenly. "Trixie was telling a story!" When they heard Trixie yell, Diamond Tiara and Silver spoon flattened their ears and flinched back. Twilight looked at them interestedly but before she could think about it any further, Trixie started up again. "As Trixie was saying, she saw the article and it was clearly just vicious lies by ponies jealous of the awesome power of Trixie! However, as Trixie observed the town, she saw that they feared this 'Gabby Gums'. They didn't know how to stop her at all so she ruled the town in fear. Trixie really liked this idea but she wanted to be the one ruling the town with an iron hoof! Luckily for Trixie, she overheard the one you call 'Rarity' talking to her sister and that revealed to Trixie that she was Gabby Gums! Well, Trixie wasted no time in telling everypony that she met that the foal was Gabby Gums and the whole town turned on her and her friends! It was most marvelous."

"You told Ponyville that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were Gabby Gums!?" said Twilight in disbelief.

"Indeed I did!' said Trixie with a satisfied smile. “I knew that as long as their identities were unknown, they would continue to write the articles and Ponyville would continue to fear and despise them." Trixie looked as if she had suddenly become lost in thought and a dreamy look crossed her face. "You saw how they all turned on the foals Twilight Sparkle. It was a beautiful thing to behold. Trixie knew that Gabby Gums would be the instrument of her revenge from that moment on."

"What revenge!?" asked Twilight angrily. "You are the only pony to blame for the Ursa Minor incident...well, you and Snips and Snails."

"You cannot make a fool out of me!" said Trixie. "Trixie knows that you were all jealous of her amazing powers and you made Trixie fail!"

"I...w...huh? How did we do that? That aside, why would I be jealous of you? I'm the personal protege of Princess Celestia herself, what else could I possibly want?"

"You are jealous of Trixie!" screeched the unicorn. Twilight opened her mouth to retort but decided that it really wasn't worth it. Instead, Trixie continued her Con Mane villain-esque monologue. "Trixie bided her time, waiting for the ideal moment to strike! Trixie knew that she would have to wait if her scheme was to take full effect!"

"Okay," said Twilight, holding up a hoof. "Before you continue your silly monologue, can you please stop referring to yourself in the third person? It's getting unbelievably annoying and when you think about it, it just makes no sense at all. Who are you performing for!?"

Trixie scowled at Twilight. "You cannot tell me what to do!" she said. "As I was saying, I had to wait for my scheme to take full effect, but I realized that I needed something more to really get the ball rolling, so to speak. So, in a stroke of genius that ponykind has never seen nor will ever be seen again, I invented this!"

Trixie used her magic to summon a vial towards her. It held a dark blue liquid inside of it that really didn't seem all that intimidating.

"Uh, a new brand of blueberry juice?" said a perplexed Twilight. Trixie gave a smug grin.

"Of course you cannot figure it out. You don't even have a fraction of my brainpower!' said Trixie. Twilight tolled her eyes. At least she had stopped talking about herself in the third person. "This is my greatest invention! This will change all of Ponykind forever, this--"

"Would you just get on with it!?" asked a very irritated Twilight. Trixie scowled at her once more.

"Suffice to say," she began calmly. "I have been dumping this in the Ponyville reservoir for some time now with the help of these two fillies. You see, when this mix is added to water, it creates an effect that when drunk by ponies it strengthens certain emotions inside of them. In this case, anger and fear. Haven't you noticed that the townsponies have been acting a little irrationally lately? Have you found yourself getting angry faster, Twilight Sparkle?"

Twilight's jaw dropped. Trixie had been poisoning the town's water supply!

"How dare you!" she said. "How do you know that that brew doesn't harm the ponies that drink it? How do you know it isn't poisonous to foals or the elderly? How do--"

"Trixie really does not care," said Trixie blankly. "Trixie only cares that the town is angry and scared. Anything beyond that is irrelevant." Twilight felt her anger bubble up inside her. She pondered for a moment that this meant that the brew really did work, but she didn't want to focus on that right now. She fired up her horn and shot a blast of magic directly at Trixie. Trixie screamed and jumped out of the way but she was too slow to get away completely. The magic blast hit the vial that Trixie was holding and both the glass and the liquid inside evaporated.

Trixie's eyes widened in fear. "Get her! Don't let her hurt me!" she said. Twilight looked at her confusedly. How in Equestria did she expect Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to protect her? They were only foals, they didn't--

At that moment, Twilight felt powerful arms wrap around her middle and she was lifted up into the air and thrown against the wall. The second she hit it, she felt a sharp pain as her shoulder broke upon impact with the wall. She screamed in pain but she still tried her best to get up. However, her assailant slammed a claw down on Twilight's broken shoulder, injuring it even more.

Wait...claw?

Twilight looked up and gasped at who she saw holding her down. She was in on it too!?

"GILDA!?" said Twilight in shock. Gilda let loose an evil laugh.

"Right on, dweeb. I've come back to Ponyville and I'm not leaving without Rainbow Dash!"

"I...what!?" said Twilight.

"I ran into Gilda here on the way to Ponyville. It seemed that she had been wronged by you six as well. She was more than happy to join me in my quest for revenge," said Trixie happily. Gilda leered at Twilight and gave her an evil grin.

"Trix here gave me the job of keeping an eye on those three pathetic foals just to make sure that they wouldn't do anything stupid!" said Gilda. "It would normally have been a boring job, but the looks on their faces every time they looked up in the sky and saw me sitting on a cloud, watching them, oh it was awesome!"

"So you're the one who has been watching the Crusaders!" said Twilight. Gilda cocked her head.

"Uh...yeah, isn't that what I just said?"

"With Gilda's help, it was no trouble at all to pressure these two here to join our cause! They proved most invaluable in helping us get rid of those nasty foals who were the original Gabby Gums," said Trixie. Twilight looked over at Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and to her surprise, they looked scared. They looked very scared actually.

"What did you threaten them with?" asked Twilight angrily. Gilda pushed down on Twilight's shoulder a little more and Twilight gasped in pain.

"Oh nothing much, just the standard threat: I'll let the town destroy your families unless you help me," said Trixie. Diamond Tiara began to cry. "It seems that Diamond Tiara here didn't quite like Trixie's generous deal to spare her family from the chaos that is to come to Ponyville very soon so I had Gilda here...have a little fun," said Trixie. Gilda grinned at this.

"I normally don't hit foals, but that little brat was about to blow the whole thing! I made an exception for her," she said.

"And once we framed her father for it by making him drink cider and manipulating a photo so that it would look like he was the one who hit her, Diamond Tiara learned her lesson, didn't you?" said Trixie. Diamond Tiara tried to stem her tears but she seemed to be failing. Silver Spoon put her foreleg over her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. "I SAID 'DIDN'T YOU'?" screamed Trixie. Diamond Tiara flinched away from Trixie.

"Y...yes Miss Trixie," she said through her tears. Twilight had never really liked Diamond Tiara very much. The way that she picked on the Cutie Mark Crusaders always really bothered her. But seeing how helpless and afraid she looked at this moment made Twilight feel overwhelming pity for her.

"Naturally I told the, what did you call them, "Cutie Mark Crusaders" the same thing and they simply dissolved in fear. Oh they were so easy to manipulate. A few bribes to the Ponyville News Office to Mr. Exely so that the Crusaders would be listed as the owners of The New Gabby Gums and we were in business," said Trixie.

"You wouldn't dare hurt their families!" said Twilight. As if to disprove her point, Gilda pressed down on Twilight's shoulder even harder. Twilight screeched in pain once more as she felt the bone crack a little more.

"Why in Equestria not?" asked Trixie smugly. "You saw what happened to Filthy Rich when nasty little Diamond Tiara tried to stop us, so why in Equestria wouldn't I do whatever it took to get my revenge?"

"We still need to deal with the orange one, Scootaloo I think her name is," said Gilda. Trixie cocked her head.

"Why?" she asked.

"She gave this one here a coded message telling her that they were being watched," said Gilda. Trixie's eyes widened.

"We shall make her suffer dearly!" she said angrily.

"Yeah," said Gilda. "And since she doesn't have any family that I'm aware of, I guess we'll just have to beat up Dash a bit in front of her before I take Dash back with me to Griffonia for good!" Trixie shrugged.

"Sounds good to me," she said. Twilight's eyes widened.

"Don't you dare touch a hair on her--"

She was silenced by a kick to the face from Gilda.

"Shut up now!" commanded Gilda. "The next one breaks your muzzle!" Twilight spit out blood before looking up at Trixie with nothing but contempt in her eyes. Trixie gave her a smug smile.

"I have wonderful plans for Ponyville Twilight. Suffice to say, I will continue publishing Gabby Gums each and every day. With the crusaders in jail, they'll begin to suspect each other of being Gabby Gums. Everypony in town will lose all trust in each other and when you combine that with my mixture, you only have to wait a short time before Ponyville tears itself apart completely!" said Trixie evilly.

"Go to tartarus," said Twilight spitefully which earned another kick from Gilda. Gilda was right; the kick did break her muzzle. Trixie smiled at Twilight's pain and she walked over to her, the smug grin still plastered over her face. Twilight looked up at Trixie and Trixie was beyond delighted to see genuine fear in Twilight's eyes. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked weakly.

Trixie looked at Twilight thoughtfully. "It's hard to say. There have been some brainwashing techniques I have always wanted to try out. Or, I could put you in a sort of private prison where nopony will ever find you. You would remain there until all of Equestria forgot about you entirely. Or I could just have Gilda snap your neck right here and now, do any of those appeal to you?" said Trixie. Gilda took her claw off of Twilight's shoulder.

"Whoa, you never said anything about killing anypony. You just said that I'd have to rough her up a bit!" she said worriedly. Trixie merely shrugged.

"I guess I'll decide after this is all over. I have great plans for Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle. I--" Suddenly, the wall closest to Trixie was hit with something and the force of the impact sent chunks of plaster flying at her. Trixie screamed and held a hoof in front of her face while she turned away to avoid getting hurt. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon screamed and hit behind a large crate.

When the dust settled, Trixie examined the wall. There was a gigantic hole in it and everything around the hole seemed to have been blown off. Trixie examined the hole in the wall.

"Is this...a bullet hole!?" she asked incredulously. Twilight felt a ray of hope inside of her. Gilda backed away from Twilight even more.

"Was that a warning shot or does the dweeb with the gun have really dumb aim?" she asked nervously. As if to answer her question, a second shot rang out and the three largest feathers on Gilda's head fell to the ground, severed by the shot. Gilda screamed in shock and ducked down. "Definitely a warning shot!"

Trixie was looking wildly around the room, hoping to find who was doing this.

"Show yourself!" she screamed. "Are you too much of a coward to fight The Great and Powerful Trixie!?"

At that moment, Twilight heard the most wonderful sound in the world: a shotgun cocking.

"So," said a familiar voice. "You have great plans for Ponyville huh? Well, Sweetness and I can't wait to hear all about 'em." Twilight, Gilda, and Trixie all looked towards the source of the noise and to Twilight's delight (but Trixie and Gilda's horror) she saw Applejack with a smug grin on her face and Sweetness pointed directly at Trixie's head, ready to erase it from existence. Trixie stared at Applejack in pure shock before she did her best to put on a brave face.

"How did you manage to find Trixie?" she asked. Applejack shrugged.

"Same way Twilight did: I followed somepony here, in this case, Twilight."

"You followed me here?" she asked before wincing in pain.

"I sure did," said Applejack with a grin. "As a matter o' fact, we all did. Ya see, the first thing we all thought of when you said to follow any possible lead was Diamond Tiara. So, we all went out lookin' for her together to see what we could find out. Turns out, somepony had seen her and Silver Spoon comin' this way and they also said that you were followin' 'em Twilight. Well, I rushed back to the farm to get Sweetness here and Fluttershy went back to her cottage to get...uh, what do you call your gun? Turtle?"

"Tortoise," said another familiar voice. In her pain Twilight couldn't quite figure out who it was so she just listened to Applejack.

"Right, Tortoise. Anyhoo, we all followed Twilight here to this here factory to see what was what. It's a good thing we held back a bit, otherwise you probably wouldn't have given your oh-so helpful and informative monologue. I reckon you only gave it because you figured Twilight wouldn't get outta here to tell anypony."

"Where are the others!?" asked Trixie.

"Well they just went to go get the cops and I reckon they'll be back any minute. Pinkie Pie's freaky memory skills helped her retain every single word you said so I imagine they got quite a lot to work with for ya. Until then, it's just me, Sweetness, and Tortoise holdin' ya back." Trixie scoffed at Applejack.

"How typical of you Ponyville cowards! You cannot face Trixie without hiding behind your weapons!" she said, doing her best to sound smug. Applejack merely widened her smile.

"Well, you have your magic to help you out and I got Sweetness so I think the odds are about even," she said.

"HA! Even you say? You underestimate the power of The Great and Powerful Trixie!" said Trixie as she fired up her horn. "Your pathetic gun is no--"

Once more a shot rang out. Twilight expected to see a headless Trixie fall to the ground but she was surprised to see that it was not Applejack who had fired. Instead, the wall next to Trixie was sporting a fresh bullet hole. Trixie looked around wildly once more.

"Who's there!?" she said hysterically. "Show yourself you coward!"

"Ya know," said Applejack. "My associate has every right to blow your head off if you try to fight me." Trixie was frozen to the spot. She had no idea what to do now. "You wanna know somthin' intrestin' about my associate?" asked Applejack. "I can shoot the eye out of a squirrel at 400 yards, but my associate could actually shoot my bullet out of the air if she wanted to."

"That's impossible!" said Trixie.

"That's what I thought too until it happened," said Applejack with a shrug before she continued on. "Now here's the deal: there is a large group of cops headed in this direction right now to come get you two. When we all figured out what was goin' on round here (thanks in no small part to your silly Con Mane villain monologue) we immediately went to go get the cops. I stayed here with my associate who we'll just call...oh what the hay; Fluttershy is the one with the sniper rifle up there."

"Oh, um, hi," said Fluttershy from somewhere in the shadows.

"The cops are on their way!?" said Gilda. Applejack nodded.

"Get ready to do a little time girls!" said Applejack happily. "Although in your case Trixie, I'd say you get life. Poisonin' an entire town's water supply is a little more than amazin'ly illegal."

Before Trixie could respond, a battalion of cops suddenly flooded the room and quickly arrested Trixie, Gilda, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon. Applejack and Twilight both convinced the cops to let the latter two go as they had both heard Trixie say that she had blackmailed them.

The next few weeks were some of the most interesting that Ponyville had seen in a while.

Twilight was taken away in an ambulance wagon and taken directly to the hospital. Her injuries were not amazingly severe although the doctors estimated a few month's recovery time for her.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were promptly released from prison once it was proven that Gilda and Trixie were really the ones to blame and that they, like their classmates, had been blackmailed into doing whatever Trixie had wanted them to do. There had been a tearful reunion between Applejack and Apple Bloom and Apple Bloom promptly forgave Applejack for what she had done.

Exely was removed from his position and sentenced to eighteen months in Prison for accepting bribes that put the lives of three innocent fillies at stake. His secretary did not upset to see him go, if she even noticed that is.

The trials of Trixie and Gilda became the big scandals of the decade and the town drank up every detail of the case whenever they could get them. Their main source of information was a little newspaper called 'Gabby Gums Strikes Back', a paper that five certain fillies assured the town would only be around until the end of the trial.

In regards to them, the town of Ponyville had done their best to apologize to the Cutie Mark Crusaders for how they had treated them. The three fillies spent most of their time either at home or in their clubhouse. None of them wanted to be around anypony in town for a while. Applejack and Rarity had already begun looking for good therapists for the fillies and the townsfolk had started a collection to pay for their therapy expenses.

Three months later

Twilight and her friends, as well as the Cutie Mark Crusaders sat in the courtroom, eagerly awaiting the sentences of Trixie and Gilda.

Twilight's shoulder and muzzle had healed very well over the past few months and she was at the point where she could take small foal-steps every now and again. Her muzzle was healed up to the point where nopony could even tell that it had been broken, even if it was a tad crooked.

Applejack adjusted her hat and shifted uncomfortably.

"When are they gonna get to the actual sentencin'?" she asked impatiently. "We've been waitin' here for hours!"

"Now calm down darling, I've just been told that it'll only be another few minutes before the jury is out. I imagine that it is merely an issue of which sentence to hand down. After all, guilt is not what is in question here," said Rarity. Twilight nodded and glanced over at Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow was staring intently at the ground and Pinkie Pie's forelegs were wrapped around her. The news that Gilda had been a part of all of this had hit Rainbow Dash hard. even after she found out that Gilda was a jerk these days, she had never expected her to go that far to get revenge on her friends. She had been hanging out a lot with Pinkie who was surprisingly good at listening to her problems and offering good advice on how to deal with it. Twilight leaned over to her.

"Are you feeling okay Rainbow?" she asked worriedly.

"No," said Rainbow blankly. "No I'm not okay. How could I be okay after hearing that one of my oldest friends was involved in something like this? I thought that I knew her and hearing about this is just...hard ya know?"

Before Twilight could respond, the twelve members of the jury filed into the courtroom. Everypony's eyes focused shifted from Trixie and Gilda, who were sitting at the defense table, to the jury. The judge addressed the jury.

"Have you come to a decision?" he asked. A member of the jury stood up.

"We have your honor. We find the defendants guilty as charged." The courtroom whispered amongst themselves and Twilight saw a single tear roll down Rainbow's face. The judge banged his gavel.

"Order in the court!" he said sternly. The crowd quieted down before the judge spoke again. "To the defendant Gilda, I hereby sentence you to ten years in the Canterlot Prison with the possibility of parole for two counts of vicious assault and conspiracy to blackmail." Gilda's head slumped down and she mirrored Rainbow Dash's pose. "To the defendant Trixie, I sentence you to life in prison without parole, also in Canterlot Prison, for the crimes of blackmail, libel, and the poisoning of an entire town of ponies with a mixture of your own design." Trixie's eyes flared up in anger but she held her tongue. The judge banged his gavel and Gilda and Trixie were taken away.

The crowd soon dispersed leaving only Twilight and her friends sitting in the courtroom. They sat in utter silence for what seemed like an eternity, each mulling over the events of the past few months in their heads. Each felt like they should say something, each wanted to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over them, but nopony knew what to say.

After a while, Rarity stood up and began to walk out of the courtroom. One-by-one, each of the ponies did the same. They slowly filed out of the courtroom, each hoping that their lives would get back to normal soon, but none believing that it would.