Before The Fall

by theycallmejub

Chapters

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter One

In a clandestine chamber hidden beneath the stage of the Canterlot Superdome, Trixie stood on a platform that would soon rise and deliver her to her adoring public. With eyes shut in concentration, she listened to the collective anticipatory chatter of the thousands in attendance. Even here, tucked away in this dark nook, she could hear that all too familiar murmur of suppressed expectation. Trixie had performed many times before. She lived in the public eye these days, but that sound always set her nerves on tenterhooks. That was the sound of restless expectancy. That was tremulous din of her ego being challenged, her self-worth being questioned. She needed to dazzle them. She needed their shock and their awe. Their admiration and their envy. The affirmation of the masses had made Trixie a giant, and without it she felt small and lost and as hollow as the chamber in which she stood.

The room beneath the stage was small, round, and empty. It had only one entrance, a doorway to a staircase that led backstage, and it contained no furniture, no lamps, nothing. And like the winter den of some hibernating bear, it was dark. Or rather, it would have been dark if not for the magenta glow radiating from Trixie’s horn.

Above the distant murmur of the crowd, Trixie’s on-edge ears picked up the barely-there sound of tiny feet shuffling down the staircase. The chamber entrance opened with a small creek, and an even smaller voice addressed Trixie from behind, talking softly and being careful not to startle the performer.

“You’re on in five,” said the voice, trying to hide its excitement with a whisper. “I know you still freak out and junk before shows, and I know this is the biggest show you've ever done—like ever—like ever, ever, ever—but I think you’ve got this—and you shouldn't freak out—and—and—”

“It’s all right, Spike,” Trixie interrupted gently, her eyes still shut despite the disruption of her meditation. “Trixie is not ‘freaking out’. She is composed and confident, as always.”

Spike took a calming breath and adjusted his microphone headset. “Of course you’re not freaking out. Whose freaking out? If anything, all this talk of freaking out is freaking me out.”

“Spike,” said Trixie, her voice a bit sterner now.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, blushing. “No worries, Trix. You got this.”

Trixie opened her eyes, but didn’t turn to face the baby dragon. “We have this,” Trixie corrected without austerity. “Trixie is only as great and powerful as her ever-diligent staff.”

Spike swooned, taken by Trixie’s humility. He hopped onto the mare’s back and hugged her neck. Trixie’s horn shone brighter, warming the baby dragon’s scaly cheeks. Together, in hushed voices, they counted the seconds until show time, starting at sixty and working their way down to one. When they reached the final second of the first minute, they began again at sixty and repeated the countdown. By the end of the second minute, Trixie was rocking back and forth on her hooves, swaying in time with the rhythm of her voice as it mingled with dragon’s tender tone.

This was their pre-show ritual. The gentle hum of their voices harmonizing chased away any lingering jitters, helping to set them both at ease. Though, after the few years they’d spent touring across Equestria, it had become obvious that the ritual was more for the benefit of Spike then the mare who was actually going up on stage. He had a habit of empathizing too strongly with his loved ones, so much so that he felt their emotions strike him with crippling force. He felt their pain and anxieties as sharply as he felt his own, and he shared in their triumphs with equal verve. Trixie often found the child’s capacity to emote overwhelming, even bothersome at times, but she also acknowledged that it was one of his better qualities. Rocking back and forth on her hooves, Trixie basked in the radiance of her friend’s affection as the last few seconds dwindled.

“Three…two…one…” they counted in unison. The forth minute was behind them now. In just sixty seconds, the show would begin.  

Spike quavered against Trixie’s back. His nervousness was contagious; It seeped into the performer’s pores and made her tremble as well.

Spike started to mutter an apology, but Trixie cut him short.

“Hush now,” she said, her tone hurried but not terse. “Be quiet and listen.”

Rarity’s elegant cadence reached them from overhead, amplified as it was by the microphones suspended above the stage. Trixie and Spike had missed the first part of Rarity’s introduction; they had been too lost in their counting and their closeness. Now they tuned in and listened to the tail end of Rarity’s speech.

“…And now”—Rarity announced, her deep azure eyes catching the spotlight and twinkling above the curve of her white cheeks, like stars above the Frozen North—“on behalf of Sweet Apple Inc. and Carousel Boutique International, it is my honor to present to you, The Great and Powerful Trixie!”

The audience erupted into cheers. Trixie’s ears perked as the roar of the crowd washed over, making her feel clean and safe and sure. If the crowd’s anxious mumbling was the sound of her worth being questioned, then their ovation was the answer to that question. “Yes, she did matter,” they seemed to say—speaking not with words, but with the heavy clop, clop, clop of stomping hooves. Of course she mattered; she was the Great and Powerful Trixie! Her fans needed her just as much as she needed them.

But not now. Not yet. She would attend to her chorus of followers in a moment.

Trixie’s horn sparked as she casted a powerful noise-canceling spell that dimmed the roar of the crowd to a faint hum. Spike climbed down from her back and together, looking each other in the eye, they finished counting down the last few seconds.

“Three… Two…”

“Wish Trixie luck,” said Trixie, flashing a humble smile.

“Nah,” Spike answered with a playful shrug, feigning a nonchalant attitude.

“Why you little…” Trixie chuckled. Then she patted the dragon’s head and shooed him out of the chamber.

As she watched Spike scurry through the door, her noise-canceling spell faded and the roar of the crowd returned in full force. She adjusted her hat and cape, then began raising the round platform with her own telekinetic power. As she lifted the platform, Trixie also pulled the brocade curtains aside with a single thought. Fireworks shot into the sky and burst high above the stadium seats. The spotlights roamed about the audience, as if searching for the show’s star among the crowd. Music blared, not from speakers but from thin air.

All these things: the rising platform, the drawing curtains, the fireworks, the spotlights, the music—all of them were created and controlled by Trixie’s magic. She shut her eyes and spread her mind thin, dedicating only a fraction of her mental and magical energy to each individual task. There were no stagehands, no ponies manning the lights or sounds, no effects crew setting off fireworks. The only ponies responsible for putting on tonight’s show were Trixie and her talented team of choreographers. That team was made up of her six closest friends: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and of course her best friend in the entire world, little Spike.

As the platform came to a stop in the center of the stage, Trixie looked out at her adoring fans and felt pride swell in her chest. Her horn did more than just glow; a circle of magic light floated above her face. Inside the circle was a veritable spider’s web of tiny detailed symbols, complex patterns, and elaborate designs, the meanings of which were understood by very few unicorns alive today.

Trixie’s best friends and most loyal fans were seated front row center, the five of them rooting loudly, as if trying to out shout the thousands at their backs. Trixie’s gaze fell first on her friends, then traveled up and out as she scanned the multitude of admiring ponies who had traveled from every corner of Equestria to watch her perform.

Insects, she mused, drinking in the unified clamor of their worship. So many insignificant insects…

The thought was entirely without malice. It was a casual observation, nothing more.

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A hooded figure approached the stadium entrance and was halted by a pair of guards: one unicorn and one pegasus.

“Ticket,” snorted the pegasus.

A purple light flashed from under the pony’s hood. “I don’t need a ticket to enter,” she said, waving a hoof before the stallion’s face.

“You don’t need a ticket to enter,” echoed the pegasus. He started to step aside, but the unicorn guard halted him by grabbing his shoulder.  

The hooded mare tried her trick again, but the unicorn negated her spell with his own magic.

“Nice try,” snorted the unicorn as he stepped in the path of the hooded mare. “Pull another stunt like that and I’ll have you arrested for…uh…messing with a Royal Guard Pony’s mind!”

The unicorn guard took a moment to bask in his own righteous authority, looking away and beaming as if posing for a photograph. The hooded mare cocked an un-amused eyebrow. The purple light flashed again, and an enchanted circle—one comparable to Trixie’s—appeared above the mare’s head.

“Stop,” said the hooded mare. “Five minutes.”

Following her command, the patterns within her circle rearranged themselves and took the shape of a simple clock. The hands on the clock struck midnight, which was the current time, and began ticking.

When the stallion first saw the circle appear, he had tried to cast another counter spell. Now he was frozen in place with his mouth agape and a small spark lighting the tip of his horn.  

The hooded mare grinned at her handy work and stepped between the pair of useless guards. She headed through the entrance and up the stairs, looking to find herself a seat.

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“For her first trick, The Great and Powerful Trixie is going to pull a rabbit from her magic hat!” exclaimed the performer, prompting a chorus of good-natured laughter from her audience. She removed her hat and set down in thin air, allowing it to hover without the veil of light that normally accompanied a levitation spell. Instead, the hat seemed to float of its own power as Trixie reached a hoof inside in search of the rabbit.

“He’s in here somewhere…” Trixie furrowed her brow in an expression of mock concentration, and the chorus of laughter rose as she comically, and rather impossibly, managed to fit the entire length of her foreleg into her hat. “Ah-Ha!” she shouted triumphantly as he pulled a white bunny dressed in jester costume from her hat. She held the rabbit in one upturned hoof and placed her hat back on her head. Agitated, the rabbit thumped one of his hind legs against Trixie’s hoof.

Though only the ponies very near the stage could see Trixie and her new friend, the rest enjoyed the show via an enormous overhead holographic projection, like a hanging monitor at a sporting event. The difference was that this screen was maintained by Trixie’s magic. The amount of concentration it took to sustain the hologram and perform her tricks would have proven too daunting for most unicorns. But Trixie wasn’t most unicorns. Not only could she hold the projection together while performing, she also used her magic to project her voice without the use of any microphones.

“Come on Angel Bunny, smile for the audience,” said Trixie as she petted Angel. The rabbit cocked an un-amused eyebrow and gave his round, red nose a single squeak. “Angel,” Trixie chided playfully, earning another round of laughter from her fans.

Trixie tapped her left hind hoof against the stage, and a table rose up beside her. It didn’t appear from out of some secret compartment built into the platform. Rather, Trixie had shaped it from the metal of the stage and caused it to sprout from the platform as naturally as a flower from the earth.

She set Angel down on the table. “And for her next trick, Trixie will pull a hat from her rabbit!”

Angel’s eyes widened at Trixie’s announcement, and he started to hop down from the table and flee. Magic or not, the bunny didn’t like the sound of something being ‘pulled’ from him.

But before Angel could escape, he was snagged by Trixie’s telekinetic grip. She placed him on the table again and patted his head reassuringly.

“Now say aww,” instructed Trixie. Angel crossed his front legs about his chest and turned away, refusing.

With a smirk, Trixie forced the rabbit’s lips open and used her telekinesis to reach into his mouth. A surprised look crossed her face when instead of a hat, she removed a piece of red tissue paper from between the bunny’s parted lips. She gave the paper a tug, and when it was completely out of Angel’s mouth, Trixie saw that it was tied to the end of another piece of tissue, this one blue. She gave another tug—and the crowd chuckled as she pulled piece after piece of colored tissue from the rabbit’s yawning mouth.

“That’s not right,” she said, stopping a moment to rub her chin theatrically. Then she grabbed the rope of tissues with both hooves and began pulling frantically, only to find, much to the amusement of her audience, that the tissue rope apparently went on forever.

Trixie stopped again to think. Shortly after this pause, a light bulb appeared above her head (literally), and she turned toward Angel with a start. Using her magic, Trixie quickly compacted all of the tissue into a single ball, which she then comically shoved into Angel’s mouth, causing his cheeks to bulge. The rabbit teetered as though he might fall, but Trixie caught him.

“Now chew,” instructed Trixie.

As Angel chewed, she tapped his head several times.

“Now say aww one more time.”

Angel did as he was told, and the audience watched in intrigued silence as Trixie removed a small, origami hat that was sitting on the end of Angel’s outstretched tongue. Pursing her lips in an exaggerated show of focus, Trixie slowly began unfolding the paper hat, and before long, the performer was holding a regular-sized, light-beige cowpony hat. She held up the hat for her audience to see, then walked it over to the edge of the stage.

“Excuse me, miss,” she said to Applejack, who was sitting between Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie in the very first row. “Is this yours?”

AJ patted her mane in search of a hat that was no longer on her head, but instead in Trixie’s hooves. She giggled and clapped as Trixie set the hat back on her blond mane, applauding the clever deceptiveness of the trick.

“Ladies and Gentlecolts, let’s hear it for the always cooperative, Angel Bunny!” extolled the performer. She and Angel beamed and took a bow as the fans burst into cheers.

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Parlor tricks. Cheap parlor tricks and clever misdirection—that's all Trixie's act was in the opinion of the hooded mare. Seated very near the top of the stadium, she crossed her forelegs about her chest and seethed with quiet fury. Bitterness twisted her face into a disgusted grimace. She felt ill from watching The Great and Powerful Blowhard prance around on stage like the gaudy, sideshow attraction she had allowed herself to become.

Glowering behind her veil of threadbare cloth, the hooded mare remembered a day when she had once considered this prancing, two-faced backstabber her friend. She recalled the long nights spent combing through the Royal Canterlot Archives with Trixie, studying, the two of them sharpening their skills as they cultivated their new friendship. They had mastered the mystic arts together. They had shared laughs and tears and secrets.

All lies. All tricks. The hooded mare knew that that was the secret to Trixie’s success. She was no great spellcaster; she was a trickster. She always had been.

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“And for her next trick, The Great and Powerful Trixie requires assistance from a very special young pegasus!” the performer announced. “Ladies and Gentlecolts, let’s hear a big round of applause for the lovely and talented, Rainbow Dash!”

With a thought, Trixie commanded the spotlights to follow Rainbow Dash as the cyan pegasus and fellow performer darted from her seat, cartwheeled through the air, and landed gracefully on the stage beside Trixie.

“Talented, sure,” proclaimed the pegasus, rearing up on her hind legs as she pressed a cocksure hoof to her chest. “But what’s all this ‘lovely’ talk? Sounds prissy. Some of us have a reputation to uphold, ya know?”

“Always the charmer, isn’t she folks?” laughed Trixie, prompting her fans to do the same. “Rainbow, would you be a dear and stir up some rain for Trixie?”

Dash nodded, flew into the sky, and conjured a small rain cloud high above Trixie’s pointed hat. Down below, the unicorn was performing some exaggerated stretches, when suddenly Rainbow let out a laugh and stomped the rain cloud, drenching the unsuspecting Trixie. Her hat, heavy with absorbed water, shagged over her face.

“Trixie wasn’t ready!” Trixie shouted in mock anger. She was livid for a moment. Then her animated expression dulled to a straight-faced, flat-brow gaze as she blew a lock of soaking silver mane out of her eye. The crowd chuckled at her antics. Rainbow giggled into one of her cyan hooves.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” laughed Rainbow. “Okay, for real this time.”

‘For real this time.’ That was Trixie’s cue to start taking things seriously. She shut her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and pushed it out slow, waiting in a meditative state for Rainbow’s second stomp. Trixie listened for the second thunderclap as she concentrated on the moister in the cloud and in the air.

Rainbow gave her cloud another stomp, and Trixie focused on the rapidly condensing moister as it fell from the cloud in drops. The magic circle of light above her glowing horn grew larger—but the patterns and designs inside the circle became simpler and simpler, until they disappeared completely, leaving an empty halo of light in their absence.

All of this happened faster than most ponies could think, and with her enhanced levitation spell activated, Trixie caught each individual raindrop as they fell. She held them them suspended in the in mid-air like twinkling diamonds hanging from invisible strings. Then Rainbow began pushing her cloud across the sky at an even pace, and Trixie walked beneath it, her eyes screwed shut in concentration as she continued to freeze raindrops in place, not letting a single one wet the stage. The crowd let out a deeply impressed cheer. Telekinetically catching a falling object was simple enough for any unicorn. But stopping a small downpour with nothing but a levitation spell was no mere trifle.

Trixie’s rain-catching trick ended when she sent the mass of suspended raindrops swirling over the audience, before letting them splash down on the center of the crowd.

Trixie beamed with pride.

The fans cheered.

Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“Meh. Not bad,” she said, yawning and pretending to be bored. “But I think we can do better. Right, team!”

Following Rainbow’s cry, two thunderclaps, one sounding after the other, disrupted the cheering and caused many of the fans to recoil with surprise. And following the thunder, a pair lightning bolts shot up into the sky from behind Trixie’s stage. At first the lightning bolts flew side by side before breaking off and zigzagging like mad above the stadium, causing the crowd to scream with excited glee. What an exciting surprise! The advertisements for tonight’s show had mentioned nothing about Trixie performing alongside the Wonderbolts!

Trixie winked up at Rainbow. Her horn sparked, there was a flash of light, and just like that the cyan pony was dressed in a flight suit that matched Soarin’ and Spitfire’s uniforms.

Together, the three pegasi used the night sky as a canvas, painting the midnight blue backdrop with vibrant streaks of color as they dashed and cartwheeled through the air, laughing like children at play.

“Citizens of Canterlot!” trumpeted Trixie. “Let’s hear it for the Wonderbolts, and their new team captain, the one and only, Rainbow Dash!”

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The hooded mare looked up at Rainbow, her countenance at first grim, then deeply morose. She had promised herself before coming to see Trixie perform that she wouldn’t cry, that she wouldn’t give Trixie the satisfaction of such a victory. But as she turned her face toward the sky, two defiant crystal clear tears rolled her cheeks.

At the start of Trixie’s show, the hooded mare had been furious. But seeing Rainbow Dash dart through the sky with the Wonderbolts chased away her furry and left her feeling numb. When had Rainbow become captain of the Wonderbolts? thought the hooded mare. This wasn't fair. She should have been there to see Rainbow’s crowning moment. She shouldn't have let Trixie take that from her.

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The Wonderbolts stirred up enough storm clouds to drench the stadium in rainwater. Trixie stopped focusing on her holographic projection. The screen blinked out of existence. Trixie wouldn't need it for this next trick.

Her circle appeared, simplified, and expanded again—and when her fans saw the familiar halo of light that signified Trixie’s enhanced levitation spell, a few of them covered their heads with concerned forelegs. Clearly, there were a few nonbelievers in the audience tonight, and the mere sight of them threatened to throw Trixie into a senseless rage.

Who were they to question her ability? Her power!

Her…worth...

Insects, she thought, and this time there was malice in the unspoken word. I won’t be questioned by insects!

“Bigger!” she shouted up to Rainbow Dash, who had just finished forming the last of the clouds.

Dash darted toward the stage and was at Trixie’s side in seconds. “Going for the gusto tonight, huh?” said Rainbow, jabbing Trixie playfully with her elbow.

“Do not laugh,” snapped Trixie. “You see that fool in the audience—the one covering his head?” She inconspicuously pointed out an earth stallion near the middle rows who was staring up at the rainclouds and holding a newspaper over his head. A mare seated beside him gave the stallion a playful shove, embarrassed by his antics, and the two of them laughed together.

Rainbow squinted in the direction Trixie indicated. “He’s just having a little fun, Trix,” she said.

“No,” Trixie snorted. “He doesn’t think Trixie can do it. He doesn’t think Trixie can stop them all.”

Rainbow Dash felt the air around Trixie start to heat up, the way it always did when the unicorn was angry or frustrated.  

“Cool it, Trix,” Rainbow threw a foreleg around her friend’s neck and pulled her closer. “It’s just a show.”

“It is not just a show!” Trixie snapped again.

“Uh, yeah, it is,” corrected Rainbow. “And buck what some random fanboy thinks of your act. You know who loves your act? You know who thinks you can do anything you set your mind to?” Rainbow looked Trixie in the eye and touched a hoof to her own chest. “This filly right here. Me. Your pal Rainbow Dash. And if the ol’ RD says you’re on the level, then you’re on the level, kid.”

Trixie let out a calm sigh, soothed by Rainbow’s words of encouragement. “You are right. Trixie is, as Spike would say, ‘freaking out’.”

“It happens.”

The two of them shared a brief, heartfelt chuckle. Then a tender hug.

“One for luck?” asked Trixie, removing her hat and kneeling slightly to offer Rainbow her horn.

“All right, all right, one for luck,” answered Rainbow, only a tiny bit embarrassed.

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The hooded mare used a sight-amplifying spell and leaned forward in her seat as she watched Rainbow Dash press her lips against Trixie’s horn in a gentle kiss.  

She gripped the arms of her chair and shook with rage.

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Trixie watched Rainbow float back into the sky. Through the arrogant eyes of the performer, the cyan pegasus was nothing but another insect. One of her favorite insect, perhaps, but an insect nonetheless. There was only one pony in Equestria whom Trixie considered her equal, and she hadn’t seen that pony since the day everything changed.

Trixie looked up at Rainbow and gave a wink.

Rainbow nodded, and then she and her fellow Wonderbolts darted through the air at breakneck speeds. They stomped a sky full of rain clouds, the three of them doing the work of at least a dozen ponies.

Trixie shut her eyes and felt the moister in the air condense and solidify above her. She caressed each of the still forming raindrops with her mind, feeling them, measuring them, weighing them against one another. She felt the astronomically small differences in their sizes and their densities and the contours of their shapes. And in the space of one second Trixie came to know each individual raindrop as intimately as she knew anyone of her closet friends.

Then she lifted a single hoof, and ordered them to be still.

The audience didn’t cheer. They didn’t make a sound. They sat transfixed, eyes seeing while hearts and minds failed to believe.  

The earth stallion with the newspaper reached up and brushed aside a raindrop that had stopped only a few inches above his nose. There was something like awe in his spellbound gaze—though it could have just as easily been fear.

Rainbow looked down from her cloud and returned Trixie’s wink.

Grinning inwardly, Trixie inhaled and pushed out a cold breath that flash froze raindrops, transforming them into snowflakes. The sudden rush of cold roused the fans from their stupor. They erupted into ovation, stomping their approval as flakes of snow drifted down and settled on noses and outstretched tongues.

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A lone snowflake landed on the hooded mare’s upturned hoof. She watched it melt away, then turned her face toward the winter-white sky. Her hood fell away as she peered up, revealing a long, dark-blue mane that was colored by two streaks: one purple and the other pink. The mane cascaded down the nape of a graceful neck, while a pair of lavender eyes awed at the small miracle in the sky.

For the first time that night, Trixie had impressed her. This was no trick. This was real magic.  

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Trixie waited for the last of the snowflakes to melt before announcing her final trick of the night. It was a spell she had performed only once before, and at a much smaller venue than this one.

Before she began, Trixie took a moment to thank her adoring fans for coming out tonight and supporting her. Without them, Trixie declared, she was nothing—less than nothing—and she wanted the crowd to know there would always be a special place in her heart reserved for each of them.  

She thanked her friends in the front row for believing in her when nopony else would. She thanked them for putting up with her haughty attitude. For forgiving her. For accepting the good with the bad, and for loving the flawed performer for who she was.

And finally, with warmth and love resonating in her voice, Trixie thanked her long time friend and mentor Twilight Sparkle, wishing the now wayward soul well, wherever she may be tonight.

“Now ladies and gentlecolts, feast your eyes and prepare to be amazed!” Trixie exclaimed as reared up on her hind legs, her voice booming thanks to a powerful voice-amplifying spell. “For her final trick, The Great and Powerful Trixie is going to make her audience disappear!”  

Alarm spread through the crowd.

“Not permanently,” she assured them, smiling at their collective panic.

It was neat little thought, though: making insects vanish forever. Trixie liked the sound of it. She liked it very much.

“In order for this last trick to work, Trixie needs help from all of her wonderful fans,” she explained. “All you need do is close your eyes and think of place. It could be your home, a hotel room, a bar—anyplace in Equestria! Just make sure it’s someplace you don’t mind spending the night,” Trixie added with a chuckle.

Nervous laughter floated up from the crowd. Unsure glances were exchanged. Then, slowly, very slowly, Trixie’s fans shut their eyes and began conjuring mental images of their homes.

“That’s it!” Trixie encouraged, “Think of wherever it is you’d like to be tonight. Think hard!”

Trixie closed her eyes and gritted her teeth in concentration. Her magic circle returned to its normal size, but now the patterns had become incomprehensibly complex. Thousands of smaller circles appeared inside of it, each of them signifying a different mind that Trixie was reading. Telepathy spells were difficult things to master. Reading one mind was a challenge for any unicorn. Reading dozens was impressive. Reading hundreds was near impossible. But reading thousands...that was a power akin to an alicorn's. Trixie reached into the minds of her followers, and was that much closer to the goddesses of sun, moon, and love.  

At first the sheer volume of abstract thoughts overwhelmed her. She saw nothing but blurs and flashes, and heard nothing but static. Then, gradually, she began filtering the mental images. They came to her one by one, then two by two, then three by three—and they kept coming, kept bombarding Trixie’s mind. And as she scanned the thousands of open minds, she stumbled upon one that was closed.  A psychic wall of some kind caused her to stumble for a moment, nearly shattering her concentration and ruining the entire spell.

Ignoring the minor hiccup for now, Trixie relaxed and let the audience fill her head with abstractions of bedrooms and cozy fireplaces. With thick leather sofas and creaky wooden rocking chairs. With silhouettes of doorways and barely-there outlines of office desks. With hardwood coffee tables, lava lambs, posters, old photos hanging in old frames, piles of dirty laundry lumped against hampers, faded winter jackets hanging from coat racks, bookcases, and soft blankets piled high atop softer beds. The images came in droves, and Trixie saw them clearly, as if she were, at once, present in each individual home.

And because “home” is more than a place—much greater than the sum of walls and floors and ceilings—Trixie smelled coffee burning in overused pots; and she heard the high-pitched whistle of antique teakettles; and she felt the gentle caress of parents and friends and lovers she didn’t know, she would never know.

And she heard buzzing. Her head ached from listening to the hum of a thousand thinking minds, a thousand insect wings, all of them beating in unison. Theirs was the cacophony of the insignificant. The dirge of the forgettable.

Trixie focused all of her magical energy to a single point at the tip of her horn...and wished away the buzzing.

There was a brilliant flash of light, so bright that for an instant night became day.

When the light faded and Trixie opened her eyes, the stadium was empty. Finally, the insects were back in their hives where they belonged.

Trixie stood alone on her stage, basking in the afterglow of another successful show. She felt like a giant.

After a long stint of this basking, a pair or shuffling feet disrupted the stillness of the empty stadium, and a voice that resonated with affection ruined the silence.  

“Nice work out there,” said Spike, appearing from backstage. The baby dragon hadn’t been teleported to back to the hotel suite he and Trixie were sharing during their stay in Canterlot, nor had he been transported back to their tree house library in Ponyville. But Trixie's spell had taken him home. Spike's home was here. It was at Trixie's side, wherever that may be.  

“Thank you,” Trixie replied. Then, simply because Trixie desired to feel the dragon's scaly body close to hers, she used her magic to levitate the him onto her back.

The two of them didn’t say anything for a long time.

“Uh oh,” said Spike, breaking long silence. “Don’t look now, but I think you missed one, Trix.”

It was dark, and the stage spotlights were out, but a dragon’s eyes are nothing if not sharp. Spike pointed out the dark shape of a pony still sitting in her seat. Trixie used her magic to activate one of the spotlights and shine it on the pony. What she saw took her breath away.

Trixie’s eyes bulged. Her legs moved on their own, carrying her toward the edge of the stage.

“Hey, you okay, Trix?” asked Spike. He waved a claw in front of Trixie’s face, but the unicorn was entranced by the vision of near perfection seated near the top of the stadium. That long indigo mane. Those piercing lavender eyes, rending the night to be pieces with their dreamy, otherworldly luminescence. They beckoned Trixie.

The seated mare wore an expression that was at once uninterested and brooding. With her hind legs splayed, she rested her cheek against an upturned hoof, looking down at the pair on stage like the bored Goddess Queen Trixie had always known her to be.

“Twilight?” Spike gasped, his eyes widening with shock at the sight of his old friend.

Trixie staggered forward and nearly fell over the edge of the stage. “…Darling…” she breathed, smiling a crooked smile.

Trixie was elated. She hadn't seen her old mentor in years.  

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The false world Trixie had spent the past decade building shook with every forward step of Twilight’s canter. She strode purposely down the preponderance of steps that led toward the stage, toward her nemesis and the baby dragon whom she'd once called friend.

Trixie was at once alarmed and delighted. She hadn't seen her old mentor in ages, and the prospect of finally settling their grudge filled her with a sense of both dread and joy. She wanted to be done with the specter of her old life that was Twilight Sparkle, but she would miss the pompous fool. In her eyes, Twilight was the only other pony in the entire world, and with her gone, Trixie would be left with nothing but the countless swarming droves of insects to keep her company.

Trixie felt Spike's claws curl into tight fists around the back of her mane. The baby dragon quavered against her back with equal parts anger and fear as his sharp eyes pierced the night, following Twilight's steady descent. His feelings, like Trixie’s, were mixed as well. Twilight was once his friend too, though, that had been a long time ago.

Twilight's horn sparked as she cantered past the front row seats, and a short column of stone steps rose from the ground. She ascended the steps, which had created a thoroughfare between the floor and the raised stage, and stood face-to-face with The Great and Powerful Trixie.

Trixie brushed a lock of silver mane from her face and batted her eyelashes. The gesture was subtle, perhaps involuntary, and flirtatious in a sheepish way. Twilight’s heart fluttered in her chest. She hadn’t seen Trixie in years, but the performer still held power enough in her stunning purple eyes to make Twilight weak in the knees. Twilight blushed, and the vision of pale red coloring her deep purple cheeks threatened to thaw the thick layer of ice that now caged Trixie’s heart. Her eyes traced the curve of Twilight’s red face, then stopped and lingered on the full, velveteen lips of a mouth that was slightly ajar, frozen in speechlessness.

A moment passed between them that was more awkward than hostile, causing them to look away hurriedly. Both had devised such elaborate plans in anticipation of this day. Both had practiced what they would say, how they would act. But now that the moment was upon them, it appeared that nothing would come of their scheming. Like colliding positive and negative charges, they seemed to simultaneously complete and negate each other.

Nothing was said for a long time as each of them sorted through their feelings.  

Spike broke the silence. "What are you doing here?" he growled at Twilight through bared fangs.

Upon hearing his tiny voice, Trixie was shaken from her entrancement, and had to fight a sudden and violent urge to laugh aloud. The vigor in Spike’s tone was enormous, and yet, Trixie couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly at how greatly his anger paled in comparison to her own emotions, and to the emotions that had invaded her rival's normally composed demeanor. He was an enraged ant shouting up at an Ursa, tragically unaware of his own insignificance.

Trixie paid him no mind. Her sparkling giant had returned to her, and for the time being Trixie's false world had narrowed to a pair of lavender lips.  

Twilight ignored Spike as well. Not because she wanted to, but because acknowledging his presence would have hurt too much.

"I know how you did it," said Twilight, addressing Trixie in a severe tone of voice. "I know how you made them forget me. I've figured out your trick."

Trixie laughed, a cruel high pitched sound that came from the back of her throat. "No you haven’t," she answered dismissively. "If you understood how Trixie did it, you would have reversed the spell by now. Your presence here only tells Trixie that you are growing desperate.”

Twilight started to protest, but Trixie shushed her with another flirtatious gesture. Trixie wasn’t ready to play Twilight's game of accusations just yet. She flicked her tail in Twilight’s face as she began circling the purple mare, bubbling with glee at the way Twilight's eyes instinctively traced the contours of her curvaceous hips and thighs and haunches. Here was a power that Trixie, even as a humble student, had always wielded over her master—and it delighted her to know that she could still strip away her mentor’s concentration with nothing but a glance and a turn.

"Clover the Clever," said Twilight, after several seconds of attempting, without success, to tear her gaze from Trixie’s dock. If the name meant anything to Trixie, caused her any concern, she hid it well.

"Oh, do go on, darling. I've missed your rants so dearly," said Trixie in a tone that only might have been sarcastic.

"During the years that followed the founding of Equestria, Clover the Clever created a spell capable of manipulating a pony's memories," Twilight began, her voice taking on a familiar studious quality, as if she were delivering an oral report before a classroom. "Clover had discovered a way to reach into a pony's mind and extract pre-existing memories, as well as implant new, artificial ones. Originally, the spell was created to settle the lingering animosity that still existed between pony tribes. Clover’s plan to deal with those ponies still harboring prejudice was to simply make them forget that prejudice."

"What is she talking about, Trix?" asked Spike, lost in the cataract of information pouring from Twilight's mouth.

"Hush, Spike," said Trixie. She spoke with the same measure of patience as before, but now there was a noticeable edge to her tone. Spike fell silent and didn't interrupt again.

"But her mentor Starswirl the Bearded rejected the idea," continued Twilight, monetarily losing sight of Trixie as the performer circled behind her. "He deemed such manipulation unethical, and ordered that Clover use the spell on herself. Thus...” The caress of Trixie’s tail against Twilight's backside caused her to shudder and let out a startled squeak. “Thus…”—she breathed sharply, trying to find her focus—“...forever ridding the world of such a terrible power."

Twilight paused. She had been shaken by Trixie's advances needed a moment to collect herself.

"Clover did as her teacher instructed—" Twilight began anew, only to be interrupted by Trixie.

"But not before writing down everything she had learned about manipulating a pony's mind," said Trixie, completing Twilight’s sentence. She dragged her tail along Twilight’s side as she finished circling the purple unicorn. "She encrypted her notes with a complex code before hiding them away among the many tombs that would later make up the Royal Archives…"

Trixie chewed impishly on a strand of her silver mane. “Somepony's been doing her homework," she grinned. "Nice to see you haven’t let yourself go, darling. You're just as sharp as I remember. In mind...and body."

Trixie tried to stroke Twilight's cheek, but the purple mare hastily swatted her hoof aside.

"Don't touch me," Twilight hissed as she retreated a few steps.

"Touchy, touchy." Trixie followed Twilight's retreat until the purple mare's hind legs reached the edge of the stage. "Resist all you like, darling. But Trixie predicts you will take her one last time before the sun rises," she prophesied.

Spike felt a strong urge to climb down from Trixie’s back. He wasn’t surprised to see that Trixie still had feelings for Twilight. They had been inseparable during their years as student and mentor—and it was no secret that their relationship had been…physical…for a time. But Spike didn’t understand how Trixie could be so forward with Twilight now, especially after all that had transpired between them.

"It was believed that Clover's spell had been lost for all time," Twilight said clumsily, fury rising in her tone. "That is, until seven years ago when you found it and discovered a way to use it on every pony in Equestria."

With her explanation finished, Twilight stepped closer to her nemesis, glowering. They stood mere inches apart, equal in height, size, and conviction. At a glance, and in the proper lighting, they could have been mistaken for sisters

Trixie stomped her front hoof in droning applause.

"An interesting theory, to be sure," she said, refusing to be intimidated by Twilight’s aggressive scowl. "You haven't changed at all, darling. You are still every bit the paranoid fool you were ten years ago." Trixie closed what little distance remained between them, enjoying the warm caress of Twilight’s breath against her mouth and cheeks. The purple mare's breathing was nervous and labored; not greatly, but enough for Trixie to notice. “But then again, maybe you have changed. You didn't used to get distracted so easily.” Trixie turned a cheek to Twilight and tugged the collar of her cape downward, offering her rival the base of her elegant neck.

Twilight felt a consuming desire to part her lips and lean forward...

"Is it true?" asked Spike as he hopped down from Trixie's back, disgusted less by Trixie’s whorish display and more by Twilight’s story about Clover the Clever. "About Clover and changing memories. Is any of that…” Spike’s voice trailed off. He shut his eyes and shook his head in frustration, not understanding, and honestly not wanting to.

But the question he now voiced was not a new one. It had always been at the back of his head, always on the tip of his tongue, nagging him like an itch he couldn’t scratch. There were nights when Spike would toss and turn in restless sleep, dreaming of the night Twilight turned her back on him.

The memory was real; he knew it was. And yet…there was something odd about his recollection of that night. There were times when the memory would change—never drastically—but occasionally it would be peppered with little inconsistencies. Sometimes Spike remembered Twilight bursting through a stained glass window and challenging Celestia in the throne room. Other times it was the wall or the ceiling she charged through, reducing huge chunks of the castle to rubble with powerful blasts of magical energy. Sometimes the duel stayed in the throne room, and other times the violence spilled out into the courtyard.

And what had he been doing in Canterlot that night in the first place? Had he been performing some royal duty? Visiting, perhaps? And if he was just paying her majesty a visit, why hadn’t Twilight been with him?

Spike couldn't remember. He thought the reason for his being at the palace that day should have been too important a detail to just fall out of his head, but Trixie had assured him that the stress caused by Twilight’s attack had affected his memory. The explanation made some sense—but while Spike was young and naive, he was no fool. He had always been bothered by the way Trixie so plainly talked around the problem of his missing memories. And whenever somepony brought up the events surrounding that night, Trixie was always quick to change the subject, claiming that it wounded her to much to relive her lover’s betrayal.  

He had never had a reason to distrust Trixie before, but with her odd behavior around Twilight, and all this talk of altering memories...

Spike peered up at his new best friend, as well as his old, and posed his question again. Neither unicorn answered or even dared to meet his gaze.

"Spike," Trixie said. "Run along to our room at the castle. Twilight and Trixie need to continue this discussion in private."

Spike didn't budge. He started to say something just as Twilight finally summoned the courage to look the dragon in the eye. And when her twin pools of light and lavender found Spike’s gaze, the words forming in his mind evaporated. He looked away. Then he scurried off with a grumble, climbing down the steps Twilight had created, and then up those along the stadium seats that led toward the front entrance.

Twilight felt a pang of regret as she watched him go. She felt the fissure in her already cracked heart widen as he disappeared into the distance. She blinked away a single stinging tear, not wanting to grant Trixie the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

"That must have been hard for you," said Trixie, her tone dripping with mock sympathy. She pressed her chest against Twilight’s and shuddered with arousal. "He hates you, you know. They don't all hate you, but Spike really took your betrayal to heart. I don't think he'll ever find it in himself to forgive—"

"Shut up, Trixie," Twilight interrupted. The purple unicorn shook from the effort needed to restrain herself. "That's enough. You've made your point."

Silence descended for a few moments.

Trixie was the first to speak again. She pulled Twilight into a tight embrace and whispered, "It's cold out tonight. Care to continue this conversation someplace warm?"

"What makes you think I want to talk?" said Twilight. She didn't welcome Trixie's hug, but she couldn't find the strength to retreat from it either. Trixie was soft and warm, whereas the world Twilight had been trapped in all these years was hard and cold.

Trixie laughed at Twilight's question. "Oh please, darling, do stop posturing. You have no talent for it." She took the tip of one of Twilight’s ears in her mouth and began nibbling it gently.

Twilight fumed, but didn’t resist Trixie’s advances.

"As Trixie mentioned before, it is obvious that you have grown desperate," she breathed into Twilight’s ear. "And since violence has never been your way, Trixie assumes you have come to grovel for your life back. You may begin now if you like, though, Trixie suspects you would prefer to be someplace warm as you shake off the last of your dignity."

Twilight considered this a moment. Hearing Trixie’s assumptions about her motivation only made Twilight realize how vague that motivation was. Before coming here, she had formed a solid plan for confronting Trixie. But now that Trixie was here, clinging to her, breathing on her, taunting and teasing and driving the purple unicorn mad as only she could—now that the moment had arrived, Twilight realized how perfectly unprepared she was. Perhaps Trixie was right. Perhaps she had grown desperate.

"Okay," Twilight agreed, nestling into Trixie’s embrace. "Someplace warm…where we can be alone."

Trixie giggled inwardly as she closed her mouth around Twilight’s neck, thoroughly enjoying the note of uncertainty ringing true in her rival’s voice. It was more rewarding than a thousand cheers—a million cheers! Every voice in Equestria could rise in praise of Trixie’s greatness, and it still wouldn't measure up to the pitiful quaver living in Twilight’s voice. After all, why revel in the love of insects when she could drink deep the misery of the only other pony in the world?

Trixie rose up on her hind legs, and wasn't at all surprised when Twilight rose with her. The performer's kiss traveled from Twilight's neck up to her lips, and Trixie was even less surprised that Twilight was the first to open her mouth. She mashed her tongue against Trixie's still closed lips, desperate for entry. Trixie resisted. She wanted to Twilight to struggle for it.

And as she forced Trixie's mouth open and slipped her tongue between her rival's teeth, Twilight hated that the kiss didn’t feel wrong, that it didn’t taste rotten. She hated how eagerly she tilted her own head in attempt to deepen it. The right thing to do at his point was to shove Trixie away, and Twilight might have done just that, except now the performer’s perfumed scent was wafting into her nose. It was a rich vanilla aroma that smelled of the candles the two of them used to burn during study sessions that dared not halt before sunrise. She moved the kiss from Trixie’s lips down to the base her neck, throwing the performer into a fit of breathless moans—and the sound transported Twilight back to their first night together. Back to the timid kisses and awkward touches they shared beneath a star-swirled bed sheet—that childish blanket that concealed a dance meant for adults, for wiser lovers than Twilight Sparkle and her Trixie. She had been so naïve to open her heart to a pony like Trixie. Their love had been a lopsided affair then, just as it was now. But Twilight didn’t care. She was past caring and fixed on wanting. She had been alone for too long and wanted something warm to hold onto, something to remind her of the life she had lost.

In a moment of weakness, Twilight dragged her hated rival to the floor and began making love to her on the grandest stage in Canterlot.

Trixie felt elated as she shuddered and moaned beneath her rival. She felt free. She felt like the old Trixie again, the pony who had lived in bliss before coming across that sad excuse of a town called Ponyville. Before she was publicly humiliated by the so-called Element of Magic. For the first time in a long time the world made sense. It made sense because Trixie had forced it to. She had twisted her reality until it snapped under the weight of her cunning, and then she had reshaped that reality into something she could stand to look at. She was bigger than it was. She was a giant, as massive and inexorable as the Ursa Major she claimed to have thwarted all those years ago. Trixie had become an unstoppable force—and now all that remained was the brushing aside of this unmovable object. This Twilight Sparkle.

Trixie shuddered and panted under Twilight’s hungry touches, their bodies as close as bodies could be, rubbing like sticks to start a fire.

Their private war of wills had begun anew. The first battle belonged to Trixie.

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

When Twilight awoke she found herself lying on the carpet of a spacious yet cozy room, her cloak folded around her body like the improvised blanket of a homeless mare. The room was a work of art one could reside in; its careful elegance seemed to mock the shabby figure that was Twilight Sparkle, reminding her of the tangles in her mane, the tatters in her cloak, the general weariness that had invaded her features.

The walls were a deep shade of burgundy and hung with several pictures of Trixie. The lights were so low that Twilight had to squint at them from where she lay.

In one of the photos Trixie was stylishly dressed and shaking hooves with an equally done up Photo Finish. In another she was posing on the deck of a yacht alongside Fancy Pants, shading her brow with a front hoof as she stared of into the distance, apparently at something eye-catching. And in another still, she was standing with the mayor of Ponyville in front of a large dome-shaped structure, which was most likely a theater of some kind. Trixie was using her magic to levitate a giant pair of scissors that were poised to cut a ribbon wrapped about the theater’s entrance.

There were several more pictures like these ones decorating the walls, and Twilight couldn’t help but laugh at them. There was something cartoonish about the photos that made taking them seriously impossible. Twilight thought they looked too obvious. “What does it mean to be successful?” they seemed to ask—and the answer was apparently “being awarded the key to the city,” or “performing for a crowd of sick foals at an orphanage.” For a pony as cunning as Trixie, Twilight was astounded and amused by the performer's staggering lack of creativity. She was also surprised by the absence of photos featuring Trixie’s “best friends.”

Twilight stood up and scanned the walls more thoroughly, suddenly engrossed by the idea of finding a photo of Trixie bird watching with Fluttershy or trying on clothes at a mall with Rarity. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to find such a photograph; perhaps she was looking to for something to smash against the floor as a way of venting her frustration with tonight’s events. Maybe she just needed a distraction. Falling back into Trixie’s forelegs as if nothing had happened was a very stupid thing to do, and Twilight needed to occupy her mind with some task, no matter how minuscule, in order to subvert the cavalcade of self-loathing thoughts now occupying her mind.

Twilight didn’t find any pictures featuring her old friends. Instead, she found a photo of her brother and his wife. In the photograph, Shining Armor was sitting upright in a hospital bed, clasping Cadence’s hoof and putting on a brave face for the pony taking the picture. More than half of that brave face was covered by bandages, concealing an eye that Royal Guard Pony would never see out of again.

A shiver shot thorough Twilight’s spine. She blinked, then turned away and sought out a new distraction.

Meandering about, Twilight noticed a door to an enormous walk-in closet standing ajar. She peered inside the closet and was astonished by the array of stunning dresses and gowns that hung from polished, wheeled racks. She stepped over the threshold and saw that one of the walls was lined with every kind of shoe imaginable: pumps, stilettos, boots—they sat in long rows upon varnished shelves, bearing a strong resemblance, Twilight thought, to trophies of war.

Somehow, this new distraction wasn’t any better than the image of her hospitalized brother.

"All Rarity originals," Trixie's voice was lighter than air as it drifted across the room. “She and Applejack have been funding my tour across Equestria, you know. They’ve been doing so well since you left. All of your friends have.” Trixie was sitting in a simple wooden director’s chair in the far corner of the room, staring at her reflection in an oversized mirror that was set into a gem-encrusted frame. She lifted a brush from off the dresser, removed her hat, and began brushing her silver mane, sighing contentedly.

“You’re saying I held them back?” Twilight answered automatically, only vaguely aware of what she was saying. The merry trill of Trixie’s voice had vexed her for a moment, even as she was responding to it. She had thought she was alone in the room—which she now realized was Trixie’s dressing room.

The purple unicorn withdrew from the closet doorway and faced Trixie’s back, watching the performer’s satisfied reflection in the mirror.

“Please,” Trixie sneered, “Trixie wouldn’t dream of giving you such credit. You never held anypony back. Trixie just used her fame to…elevate her friends. You’ve always had close ties to her majesty. You could have used your influence to do the same whenever you liked,” and there was something “very matter of fact” in Trixie’s tone that angered Twilight. She frowned, mostly because what Trixie said was true.

Since Twilight’s banishment, Trixie had used her new-found knowledge of magic—knowledge that Twilight helped her gain—to transform herself into the celebrity that she was today. Then she used her fame and ubiquitous public presence to elevate each of Twilight’s friends.

She wore Rarity’s designs on stage, and her fans flocked to Carousal Boutique, wanting to dress like their idol. She ate apples grown at Sweet Apple Acres and the masses swarmed, wanting to eat and drink as their hero ate and drank. She told them Pinkie Pie threw the best parties, and now the pink pony hosted balls in Manehattan, Red Carpet Events in Applewood, high-profile wedding receptions in Canterlot. Trixie told them that when she needed a pet-sitter for her owl, Owlicious, there was no pony better for the job than Fluttershy—and now the shy pegasus tended to the flora and the fauna in the royal gardens. She told the Wonderbolts that Rainbow Dash was the greatest flier she had ever seen. And they listened. And they believed.

And finally, she told them that Spike was the most loyal friend a pony could have, and the masses loved him. They loved him simply because he stood beside their idol. Trixie had mastered this place called Equestria, and those closest to her had inherited her riches.

“We don’t see each other as often anymore,” said Trixie. Her ears wilted at her side for a moment, and the hoof that held her brush was still. “But they are… happier now. I’ve made their dreams come true.”

Twilight was taken aback by the pinch of hesitation in Trixie's voice. For the first time that night, the performer sounded unsure of herself.

“I never felt the need to parade my friends to the public,” Twilight snapped, and there was a note of jealous anger in her tone that she couldn’t hide. “But then, parading has always been your way. It’s not enough that go around whoring yourself. You had to go and make whores of my friends as well.”

“Careful, Twilight.” Trixie dropped her brush and spun around to face Twilight, her eyes flashing with indignation. “They are Trixie’s friends now, not yours. You will mind your tone when you speak of them.”

Twilight gauged Trixie’s reaction and was astonished. Truly astonished. “Your friends?” she laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “What goes on in that head of yours, Trixie? You’ve been lying for so long you’re actually starting to believe your own deception.”

Trixie shrugged off Twilight’s assessment. "That’s just bitterness talking, darling,” she said. “It must eat you up inside to know Trixie has been enjoying the company her of  loved ones while you have been alone all this time. No family. No friends. It must be a hard life."

"You would know," quipped Twilight. "It was yours before you stole mine."

Trixie started to shout something venomous, but bit her tongue and held her composure. Twilight's quip had cut her deep, opened old wounds. But more than her words, it was the condescending tone of Twilight's voice that threatened to throw Trixie into a rage.

“That’s what this whole thing has been about,” Twilight continued, finally seizing an opportunity to go on the offensive. “You did this because you were sad and alone. Because you wanted what I had.”

“Trixie did this because you humiliated her!” Trixie shouted, no longer able to control her anger. She rose from her chair like a queen descending her throne and marched across the room toward Twilight.

Good. Twilight had her attention now. She knew what buttons to press, and she pressed them hard.  

“Oh, stop it. Just stop it, Trixie. You sound like a child throwing a tantrum,” Twilight asserted. “You expect me to believe this is over something that happened a decade ago? Because I made you look stupid in front of a bunch of perfect strangers. A bunch of ponies you didn’t know and didn’t care about?”

“You…!” Trixie struggled with her words. It was difficult to focus with Twilight’s condescending gaze boring into her, shrinking her, unraveling her, making her feel small and unsafe. “You always do this! You always make little of Trixie’s feelings! You never take Trixie seriously! Even now that I’ve finally beaten you.”

“You haven’t beaten any—”

“Yes Trixie has!”

Twilight fell silent under the enormity of Trixie’s rage. They were inches apart now; so close that Twilight could feel Trixie’s breath brushing her cheeks all over again.

“Trixie has finally trumped you, but you are too proud to admit it," proclaimed Trixie. "You are too full of yourself to acknowledge the truth.”

“Oh and what ‘truth’ is that, Trixie?” Twilight reared up on her hind legs and crossed her forelegs about her chest. “What does the Great and Powerful Phony know about truth?”

“The truth about Trixie. She’s better than you are. She is no longer your lapdog,” asserted Trixie, her eyes narrowing.

Twilight pulled at her mane and turned her back to the performer. “What are you talking about?” she groaned, all at once exhausted by this conversation. “I did nothing but try to be your friend. I forgave you. I loved you, Trixie.”

“Now who’s the liar?” Trixie turned away as well and returned to her seat, plopping down in the plain chair with equal exhaustion. “You never loved Trixie. Trixie remembers the way you used to shake your head at her. The way you would chide her when she made mistakes. ‘Not like that, Trixie.’ ‘Let me show you, Trixie.’ ‘You’ll never get it right at this rate, Trixie.’ On and on and on—you were relentless.”

“I was tutoring you,” said Twilight. She had wandered to other side of Trixie’s dressing room and was leaning her head against the door, unable and unwilling to face the haughty performer. “I wanted to help. Maybe I was a bit harsh at times, but it worked.” Twilight stopped a moment to choke down a lump in her throat. “You worked hard and you learned so fast. I was…proud of you, Trixie.” Twilight looked over her shoulder, her eyes soft and vulnerable. “I was so proud.”

“Shut up,” Trixie snapped, her bottom lip quivering. Without meaning to, she scooted to the edge of her seat and leaned forward as though she might throw herself across the room and attack Twilight at any moment. “That isn’t true and you know it. You kept Trixie around to make yourself look better. Trixie was a dog to you. A pet you could teach tricks. You never respected her as your equal.” Trixie wiped stinging tears from her face. “But that doesn’t matter now. Trixie has proven herself the better pony. All of Equestria knows it. They love Trixie. They fear Trixie. And they do something you never did, Twilight. They acknowledge Trixie.”

Twilight shook her head and was ashamed for her rival. “You’re right, Trixie. You are a better pony than me—or at least a smarter one. Because I must be an idiot to have believed somepony like you could change. Just look at you,” Twilight said, turning away from the door and pointing an accusing hoof. “Stealing. Lying. Cheating. Denying your own flaws. You’re pathetic. When are you going to admit that this has nothing to with me? You weren’t mad because I upstaged you all those years ago back in Ponyville. You were mad because I had friends that stood beside me instead of you. You want to talk about the truth, Trixie? The truth is that you hated the life you made for yourself, so you used the only things you’ve ever been good at—lies and cheap tricks—to steal mine. You’re phony, Trixie. You were a fake then, and you’re a fake now.”

Low, thought Trixie, brooding quietly in her chair. Bringing up Trixie’s past. Throwing old humiliations in her face. That was low even for the haughty Twilight Sparkle. Little miss perfect. Little miss pure of heart. The natural prodigy. As far as Trixie was concerned, Twilight had never struggled a day in her life. Twilight claimed to be a hard worker, but Trixie new better. She knew how easily Twilight grasped new information, how quickly and effortlessly she absorbed knowledge and mastered spells. After only the first few months of studying under Twilight, it had become clear to Trixie that while she was slaving to wrap her mind around the complexities of the mystic arts, her mentor was breezing through her own studies.

And she never seemed to fail, Trixie noticed, and when she did fail it was never for very long. In any case, Twilight had never known failure as Trixie had. She didn’t know what it was like to be humiliated and ridiculed and laughed at. To speak and not be heard.

Trixie sat silently. She pushed out a slow sigh, leaned back in her chair, and stared up at the ceiling. Trixie was no longer interested in the subject of this conversation. She decided to change it. She was good at changing things. Very, very good.

“She still cries over you, you know,” said Trixie, her tone flat and disengaged. “She isn’t like the others. She’s stronger. Keeping her in check has been…daunting, to say the least.”

Twilight stared quizzically at Trixie.

“She still cries over her prodigal daughter. Her fallen star. Sometimes Trixie stays up all night consoling her. And when she finally cries herself to sleep, Trixie sprinkles a bit enchanted sand over her eyes. And she chants the magic words of Clover's spell. And she makes your beloved Celestia dream about how you betrayed her. All those awful words you didn’t say. All those horrible things you never did.”

Trixie looked down at Twilight, her eyes glistening with dew-like tears. “She calls Trixie her number one student now.” She made no attempt to wipe away these tears. They weren’t bitter like the ones that had stained her cheeks before. They caused her neither pain nor shame. These were tears of joy. Of a victory that was nearly in her grasp. “Your Celestia…she calls Trixie her favorite.”

Twilight was stunned. She leaned her back against the door and slid down the wooden surface, settling in a sitting position. Her mouth worked wordlessly as it searched Trixie’s cozy dressing room for something to say.

In response to Twilight’s silence, Trixie leaned to one side and rested her cheek on an upturned hoof, draped in the veneer of a queen on her throne.

She stared at Twilight and saw the Trixie of a decade passed. She saw the pathetic creature that had been reduced to throwing herself at the hooves of Twilight Sparkle, pleading for forgiveness, begging for a second chance at the happiness her rival had monopolized. Trixie recalled, with grim countenance, the day she had humbled herself and asked Twilight Sparkle for help.

Now it was Twilight’s turn to be humbled. Now it was her turn to beg.

“Get on your knees,” the performer commanded, her posture slack, her voice monotone, her eyes dull with boredom. She was beyond this petty confrontation now. It hadn’t pleased her as she had imagined it would, and now she was done with it. “Beg Trixie for your life back. Take your rightful place at her hooves, and maybe The Great and Powerful Trixie will grant you some small mercy.”

And with that said, Trixie shut her eyes and waited for her victory.

Twilight buried her face in a pair of hooves that were ragged from wandering aimlessly about Equestria, always on the move, always searching, always looking for some way to undo Trixie’s trick. Her cheap trick. That’s all it was. Trixie hadn’t bested her. She hadn’t triumphed over Twilight Sparkle in any way that mattered or counted or proved anything. She cheated.

At first Twilight had devoted all of her energy to discovering the origin of Trixie’s memory-manipulation spell. Twilight knew that if she could discover how Trixie did it, she could undo it. She would thwart the miserable trickster just as she had thwarted all the other villains that had threatened herself and her friends.

But as the years passed—the long lonely years—a bitterness blossomed in Twilight’s heart that distracted her from her original goal. After she “attacked” Celestia, Twilight had become an enemy of the state. She was forced to live in hiding, and whenever she was discovered, she was met with hostility. She had to learn new magic, powerful spells that she could use to protect herself from the bounty hunters, and of course, Celestia’s own Royal Guard. She had even traded blows with her own brother, who had chased her as far as the Badlands south of Dodge City. Theirs had been a terrible struggle. The battle was as long as it was vicious, and though Twilight emerged victorious and in much better condition than her brother, the clash had opened a wound in her spirit that would never heal.

After that her state of mind changed. She kept looking for an answer to Trixie’s trick, but now her focus was split between undoing what the trickster had done, and growing strong enough to crush anypony who sought to impede her. Violence was never her first resort when dealing with opposition, but now it wasn’t her last either.

But Twilight was dealt the worst blow of all on the night she snuck into her own home to comb through her old archives in search of anything she might have missed. And sure enough, there it was: Clover’s memoir, her spell books, her encrypted notes. Everything. Everything Twilight needed to trump Trixie had been right under her nose the entire time. It didn’t make sense that it should be there, but Twilight had been too desperate for an answer to question her good fortune.

Twilight spent the next three years of her life mastering Clover’s spells. She learned how to phase through solid objects, become invisible, temporarily freeze time, fly…the secrets of the mystic arts unraveled before her. Clover had chronicled everything she had learned from her mentor, Starswirl the Bearded, and everything she had learned on her own. Clover had been a pony obsessed with mastering as many spells and gaining as much knowledge as possible—and now so was Twilight. She slaved over those pages for what felt like an eternity, and when she reached their end she had become something akin to her own mentor, Celestia. Something divine and frightening.

But the section of Clover’s notes that held the secrets of the memory-manipulation spell remained a mystery to Twilight. She couldn’t make sense of them. Clover had written them in a language that pre-dated unicorn civilization by several centuries, if not millennia. The meaning of the complex code of runes and detailed illustrated patterns made no sense. She exhausted every resources at her disposal in Equestria, and when her search proved fruitless she left her home country and began scouring the world.

Twilight ventured as far as griffin country in the east, hoping to find a mystic or a cleric who could translate the ancient language.

She broke bread with the witches and the necromancers and the voodoo practitioners of Zebrica. She danced their pagan dances and chanted their mantras.

She journeyed even as far east as Tarandroland, where she, among the witchdoctors of the reindeer tribes, denied Celestia and prayed to idols of stone and wood.

But nothing came of her efforts. No creature versed in the mystic arts—pony or buffalo or zebra or griffin or reindeer—could crack Clover’s code. There was no spell, no curse, no potion, that brought Twilight any closer to understanding those age-old scribbles. Clover had proven herself too clever for Twilight. Too clever for all of the greatest mystics in not only Equestria, but the entire world.

So how did Trixie do it?

How had she succeeded where even Twilight Sparkle, The Element of Magic, had failed countless times? The question plagued Twilight. It kept her up at night. I haunted her. It didn’t make sense…

…It must have been another trick…  

“Another trick…” Twilight muttered into her hooves. That was the only thing that made sense. It had to be another trick; Twilight couldn’t accept it any other way.

Trixie heard the morose pang of defeat in Twilight’s utterance, and grinned inwardly. She rested in her throne and listened as Twilight began sobbing quietly.

“Another…trick…” Twilight muttered again, as if trying to convince herself it was nothing more. Her sob grew into a cry, a loud and terrible lament for the life Trixie had stolen from her. She let her hooves fall to her sides and threw her head back as she stared up at the ceiling and cried.

Trixie listened, smiling at first…and then frowning a moment later. In her zeal to at last lay waste to her foe, Trixie had only imagined that the hollow sound filling her dressing room was a cry. Listening closer now, Trixie realized her mistake.

It was a laugh. After all that had happened, Twilight Sparkle still had the gall to laugh at The Great and Powerful Trixie.

The performer opened her eyes slowly, as if waking from a dream, and found Twilight standing upright on her hind legs, her head throw back in wild laughter. Trixie’s frown deepened. Her gaze fell away from Twilight and landed in her lap. She was past anger now. She was insulted and sad.

“Great and powerful is right,” scoffed Twilight, wiping tears of laughter from her face as she caught her breath. “Come one, come all, and feast your eyes on the Great and Powerful Fraud!” She spread her forelegs toward Trixie in a mocking, grandiose gesture. “Yes come, and watch as she pretends to be the most powerful unicorn in all the land! As she bows and scrapes for your love and admiration!”

Trixie shook her head dejectedly as she rose from her seat. “Unbelievable. You still can’t see Trixie.” The air around her grew warm as she trudged toward Twilight. “Does it really hurt you that much to lose? Is your ego really that small? That frail?”

Twilight returned to all fours, and the room quaked as her hooves touched the floor. “You’re the unbelievable one, Trixie,” said Twilight, stepping forward. “Thinking you could beat me. Thinking I would just let you have what’s mine.”

“Trixie offered to relinquish your friends!” Trixie growled. “Trixie will give them back, but only if you choose to see her! Only if you beg her!” Trixie searched her rival’s face for weakness, for some sign that was ready to break. But there was none. There was nothing but those condescending eyes, shrinking her, unraveling her, making her feel small and unsafe.

“Do you see Trixie, Twilight Sparkle!” Trixie shouted at the top of her lungs. “Do you hear her! She said get down on your knees and beg!”

And in that moment, Twilight was sure beyond any doubt that Trixie meant what she said. There was a passion in the performer’s voice and a mad desperation in her eyes that assured Twilight her life would in fact be returned if only she fell to the floor and groveled for Trixie.

Ten years ago she would have done as Trixie wished. Ten years ago she would have done anything—anything at all—if it meant reclaiming her friends and family. They were more important than her petty feud with Trixie. They were the most important things in her life.

…And yet…here was this other thing that seemed of equal—no—of greater importance. Here was this unstoppable force, this Great and Powerful Trixie, insisting that she yield.  

A decade ago, Twilight Sparkle would have gladly yielded. But not tonight. Too much time had passed. Too many things had happened.

Twilight’s horn ignited, and her enchanted circle of purple light appeared overhead. “You really are pathetic,” she intoned. “And you know what else, Trixie—I never once embarrassed you. You embarrassed me and you continue to embarrass yourself. I tried to teach you real magic, but you still insist on wasting your time prancing about on some stage.”

The curtains ruffled. A fissure appeared in the mirror. The photos fell one by one from the shaking walls, their delicate frames cracking even against the plush carpet.  

“I earned what’s mine through hard work while you did nothing but cut corners,” Twilight bellowed, her voice rippling with anger and pain. “I invented spells while you stole from minds more capable than yours. Great and Powerful,” she scoffed, dismissing Trixie’s self-appointed title with an insulting upward inflection. “Please, when are you going to stop lying to yourself? I’m the great and powerful one. I’m Celestia’s number one pupil. I’m the Element of Magic.”

Twilight stepped closer to Trixie, and when they were again only inches apart, The Element of Magic raised her chin and looked down her nose at the self-proclaimed Great and Powerful Trixie. “I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she declared proudly. “And you... You're just a show pony in a hat and cape.”

“No Trixie isn’t,” mumbled Trixie. She shook her head as if suddenly confused. “No…Trixie isn’t...”

“Yes you are,” said Twilight. Now every word uttered by the purple unicorn seemed to shake not only Trixie’s dressing room, but the entire world the performer had built for herself. The sky was falling and her reality was crumbling around her. “No more lies, Trixie. After tonight there will be no more lies. No more tricks.”

Twilight bore into Trixie with unseeing eyes that had been blinded by anger and hubris. She still couldn’t see Trixie. Well fine then, the performer thought. If Twilight refused to see her—if she was to be denied her true victory—then The Great and Powerful Trixie would have to settle for the next best thing. She looked down at the ground a retreated a few steps, grinning a sad inward grin.

“Oh, but Trixie has one more trick,” she boasted. “She’s saved the very best for last.”

Her horn sparked and the air in the room climbed to blistering temperatures. Then she rose up on her hind legs and spread her forelegs wide, as if addressing a crowd of cheering fans. Her magic circle appeared overhead, and her voice took on a grandiloquent tone as she declaimed:

“Now feast your eyes and prepare to be amazed! For her final trick, The Great and Powerful Trixie is going to make Twilight Sparkle disappear!”

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

The first blast from Twilight's horn crushed the air from Trixie’s chest and flung her into the mirror, shattering it. The second sent her crashing through a wall, then sailing across the backstage rooms, then barreling between the curtain’s folds—Trixie tumbled through the air, head over tail, head over tail, until finally she bounced to a stop at the edge of the stage. And because bad things often arrived in threes, the third blast ripped Trixie from the stage and hurled her into the stadium seats, where she now lay, agonized, her body spread across the length of two chairs with the pointed edge of a chipped armrest digging into her lower back.

Trixie gasped. She tried to inhale but spat blood as air escaped through a hole in her punctured lung.

Trixie twitched. She tried to move but the bones in her forelegs had been shattered and her spine felt like a knotted chain.

Trixie cried. She tried to think but was dizzy from blood loss. The viscous, black-red mess poured from a gash just above her pelvis—the wound like a crimson belt around her waist—and her insides felt the caress of a winter breeze as they surged up and breached the opening in her skin.

Trixie gurgled, choking on her own mortality. She was dying. Three blows from Twilight Sparkle, and she was already dying.

If Trixie hadn't gone deaf in both ears, she might have heard the rumble of Twilight's hooves as the purple mare charged up the steps. If blood hadn’t dripped into her eyes and blinded her, she might have seen the cataract of purple sparks that sprinkled down from her rival’s horn, leaving a trail of burn marks in her wake.

Doing her best to ignore the aches in her body, Trixie shut her blind eyes and, starting with her vitals, began conjuring mental images of her wounds. She pictured the puncture in her lung closing, the gash in her pelvis mending—and her horn blinked erratically as the mental images transcended thought and became reality.

Sweet breath filled Trixie’s newly repaired lungs, and her eyes snapped open just in time to see Twilight kick off the steps and bound toward her, leaping over several rows of seats. In mid-flight, the purple mare’s magic circle shrank to the size of a coin and zipped into her mouth. Then she swallowed the glowing coin, and a second later several columns of thick veins rose to the surface of her skin, showing beneath her purple hide.

Trixie’s jaw fell open as she watched her rival’s muscles swell to almost twice their original size.

A strength-enhancing spell. Trixie almost smiled. She had no idea Twilight was capable of such direct brutality.

Scrambling on limbs that weren’t fully healed, Trixie rolled in time to dodge Twilight's single-hooved stomp. Cement, stone and metal rippled like water, and though Trixie had avoided being crushed, the resulting shockwave tossed her like a rag doll. She pitched through the air and bounced off the backs of several chairs, skipping like a pebble across a pound, until finally she found her footing and skidded to a stop along the steps of the uppermost rows.

Dazed, she aimed her still flickering horn at the crater where Twilight had landed, and gave a start when she realized her rival was nowhere to be seen. Her head swiveled as she scanned the stadium. She looked left. She looked right. She looked left again—and in flash of light and a burst of parting air, Twilight appeared at Trixie’s side, balanced nimbly on her hind legs. Trixie had time to rear up on her hind legs and turned to face Twilight, but nothing else. She watched the purple mare’s hips rotate, and saw the brawny foreleg cut the empty air as it arched toward her, but could do nothing to stop the heavy front hoof from sinking into her underbelly.

A new wave of pain rippled through her body as her ribs shattered and poked through her sides. Trixie gasped. Clutched her stomach. Folded double. Vomited. She started falling forward, but Twilight struck her beneath the chin, breaking her jaw and snatching the ground from under her.

The blow rattled Trixie. She blacked out—losing a moment—and when her sense returned, she felt a cloud kiss her face with downy lips. The lips made her skin tingle as she shot through the cloud, climbing higher and higher as if meaning to touch the moon.

Trixie blinked, unsure of what she was seeing. Her mind buzzed. She was overwhelmed. Twilight was too fast for her. Too strong. She couldn’t beat the haughty unicorn fighting her head on. She needed to think of something. She needed a strategy. She needed—

Another flash of light found Trixie’s gaze, this one blinding. Neon spots danced before the performer’s eyes, and somewhere behind the spots she saw Twilight appear, her horn glowing, her mouth gnarled by a grim scowl, her eyes piercing the night like twin spear points.

With a bloodthirsty battle cry on her lips, Twilight clasped her front hooves together and brought them down in thudding hammer blow to her rival’s gut that ruptured Trixie's stomach and sent her careening back down toward the earth.

Trixie cried out as she fell, her hooves outstretched as if reaching for her rival, perhaps hoping to be swept up in Twilight’s forelegs and held close to her strong chest one last time. But her hopes were dashed when she felt the sting of hoof upon crash down upon her cheekbone. A second blow caved in her eye socket. A third broke her nose. And as the stadium neared the volume of strikes to her face, neck, and chest increased, each one more devastating than the one before.

Twilight lost herself to a maddening fit of rage. She pummeled Trixie as the two of them dropped from the sky. One blow for every night she slept alone huddled under a bridge with nothing but rags to keep her warm. One blow for every time she had to raise her hoof in violence against an innocent pony in order to avoid capture. One blow for every day spent in the presence of enemies rather than friends. One blow for every irreplaceable moment Trixie had stolen and enjoyed in her place: every birthday party, every first love and first heartbreak—Rainbow becoming a Wonderbolt and the crusaders gaining their cutie marks and the birth of her brother’s first born son. Her nephew who Twilight had learned about only a few days before coming here. Whose name she didn’t even know.

With an avenging cry on her lips and tears in her eyes, she pounded her rival until the two of them crashed down upon the center of Trixie’s beloved stage. One blow and one more and one more, and still never enough.  

The impact pulverized the stage, reducing it to a twisted pile of metal, wood, glass and cloth. Bits of rubble flew into the air, and when the dust settled after hanging about for some time Trixie lay broken at her rival’s hooves, her chest rising and falling weakly with her final breaths.

Twilight sank into thought as she stood over the mangled form of her ex-lover, her muscles small again. She stared down with disgust, watching Trixie’s horn blink…blink…blink…then fade.

Climbing from the hole took some doing. It wasn't terribly deep, but Twilight was tired. A bone deep exhaustion had settled in her limbs. Though she hadn't suffered a single blow, her body ached. Using such a powerful spell for so long was amateurish mistake, one she would pay for tomorrow morning when she woke up sore all over.

Tomorrow morning... Just the idea of it confused her emotions. Would things be different tomorrow? Would she wake up in a new world, one free of Trixie's tricks? Twilight didn’t know if killing Trixie would undo the memory-manipulation spell, but in any case that was too daunting an issue to tackle in her current state. Right now all that mattered to Twilight as fleeing from this horrid place as quickly as she could.

Twilight headed for the exit. She didn’t look back, but she did cry. Trixie was dead. It was okay to cry now.  

The purple mare was only a few steps away from Trixie's final resting place, when suddenly the air around her became sweltering. She spun around without a moments hesitation, eyes wide with grim disbelief.

In a brilliant flash of light, Trixie’s magic circle appeared above the stage. The patterns inside the circle fused together, twisting into a single shape: an ankh, the symbol for an advanced regeneration spell.

The performer floated from the hole—a phoenix from the ashes—her injuries healed, her tattered cape fluttering stormily as sparks danced about her glowing horn.

"Trixie's turn..." she breathed, flashing a crooked smile.  

--------------

Though he was nestled deep within the silken opulence of Castle Canterlot, Spike was trapped in a wakeful dream of discomfort. His mattress was too soft, his pillows too downy, his sheets too warm and snug. Unable to sleep, he tossed his blankets aside, rose, and paced the length of his private castle chamber.

It was a guest room of sorts, lavish, but not so decorated as to be garish. The carpet was velveteen to the touch, and the curtains were of a fine silk that fluttered with dove-like grace as Spike threw them open. He stood up on tiptoe and rested his elbows on the windowsill, sighing romantically. He wanted to see Trixie. He wanted her to open his camber door and prance inside with her head held high as she shamelessly declared herself the most gorgeous, most talented unicorn in all of Equestria.

It was no secret that Trixie could be obnoxious at times. Truthfully, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to claim that she possessed more bad traits than good, but her few virtuous qualities outshined the others with a stunning radiance that had illuminated an entire nation. Equestria was a brighter, richer place because of Trixie. She was more than a talented magician; she was an inspiration. She had come from humble beginnings, lived a wicked life, sought redemption, worked hard, endured her lover’s betrayal, sank into depression, bounced back—and at the end of it all, had somehow emerged a national hero.

This was Trixie's true magic: the magic of an indomitable spirit. The ponies of Equestria didn't love her because she could halt a raging storm. They loved her because she had reminded them of something they hadn’t realized they’d forgotten: that a single pony could transcend her lot in life and become something truly great and powerful.

But greatness is often hated and feared. Naturally, a greatness as influential as Trixie's was destined to inspire not only admiration, but envy as well.

There was a time when Spike had believed a mare as dignified as Twilight Sparkle was above something as petty as envy. And, staring out from his chamber that overlooked the labyrinthine courtyard below, he fumed at the thought of Trixie being alone with that traitor.

Upon arriving at the castle, Spike had been struck with the notion that he should inform the Royal Guard of Twilight’s return. Spike knew Twilight wasn't a threat to be taken lightly, but there had been such calm, confidence in Trixie’s voice as she ordered him to leave. It was clear to the dragon that Trixie wanted to speak with her old mentor in private, and that she knew what she was doing. Perhaps Trixie's plan was to convince Twilight to turn herself in and seek Celestia's forgiveness, just as Trixie had once sought Twilight's. Spike could only hope as he rested his chin upon the sill. He let his gaze tilt upward and stared at nothing in particular as he waited for Trixie to return...

And perhaps Twilight's as well. Spike wanted to see Trixie again, and he wanted to see Twilight just a badly. They were his surrogate sisters, Twilight and Trixie, and it broke his heart to think they might be fighting somewhere.  

High above the brooding dragon, Luna's silver-lit moon wanted for nothing. It was the very picture of tranquility, and as it smiled down on Spike, the young dragon remembered a time when the alicorn’s moon had appeared morose. His mood brightened some as he recalled one fateful Nightmare Night when a caring mare in a silly costume touched the heart of a goddess.

Trixie had been at her very best that night.  

…Or…had that been Twilight?

The thought escaped Spike as he caught site of something bright streaking toward the earth. A falling star, he wondered dreamily as he watched it plow into the courtyard with earth-shaking force.

Another falling star streaked into Spike's line of sight. But instead of crashing, this one stopped in mid-flight and remained hovering above the maze of greenery.

Spike saw a familiar flash of light. His eyes widened in shock.

The courtyard—suddenly it was on fire.