This Performance is Murder
“Boo!”
“You suck!”
“Your show is bad and you should feel bad!”
“I heard you couldn’t even defeat a giant bear made of stars, you faker!”
The Great and Powerful Trixie ground her teeth. The audience was more hostile than usual tonight, it seemed; she had barely started with her show and already they were heckling her. It was almost like that night all over again. Still, she wouldn’t succumb to the pressure to put them down. That almost never ended well. Surely some ponies in the audience would like it once she’d gotten started, and—
A stallion with vomit-green coat and grey mane climbed on stage. “I could do your tricks even better, and I’m an earth pony!” he shouted. “Also, your hat looks stupid!”
Something snapped inside Trixie. Nopony, nopony makes fun of the hat.
Trixie smirked at the interloper. “Oh, you’re good at magic tricks, are you?”
“That’s right,” the stallion bragged. “Ain’t nopony in town better than me at card tricks. An’ I got this trick shoulder, see?” He stretched his left foreleg, causing an audible pop, and then swiveled the leg in a way it should not bend. The crowd went “Ooh!” at this.
“How… impressive,” Trixie muttered. “If you’re so good, then surely you wouldn’t mind taking part in a classic act?”
“Hah! Like what?” he scoffed.
Trixie grinned even wider and pulled her stage curtain aside, dragging in a large painted box on wheels. “The classic ‘cutting a pony in two’ trick!”
“Oh, I know this one!” the disgusting contortionist said. “Mirrors, right?”
“Let’s see, shall we?” Trixie opened the box and led him inside, before closing it up again. His legs protruded from holes in the bottom, while his head stuck out from the front. She then raised a large, thin sheet of steel with a sharp edge, levitating it directly over the box. “Are you ready?”
“Do your worst!” he cried. The audience cheered him on. “It’s just illusions anyway! Anypony could do it!”
“Fillies and gentlecolts, behold as Trixie cuts this stallion in half!” Trixie exclaimed, and dropped the steel sheet straight down and all the way through the box. The stallion’s eyes widened. “Ta-daa!” she cried, pushing the two halves apart, to show that the pony had indeed been cut in half.
Blood and viscera poured out of the sliced pony, right in the faces of the first row.
“Are you not entertained?” Trixie cried triumphantly. “Let’s give your friend a hoof for his part!” She stomped energetically on the stage, then kicked the boxes over into the audience, where they shattered and sent sticky body fluids all over the ponies.
“You murderer!” a pony cried, trying to climb onto the stage. He was a dusty blue unicorn, and judging from his girth, he did not get much exercise. “He was my friend! I’ll get you, you whorse!”
“Sorry, contrary to what you might think, Trixie isn’t that kind of showpony,” Trixie said, casually buffing her hoof against her chest. “And even if she were, she’d turn you down.”
“You… YOU!” the stallion cried. His horn crackled and let loose bursts of uncontrolled magic. “I’ll kill you with my magic!”
“Point that pitiful excuse for a horn somewhere else, will you?” Trixie spun around and bucked hard against his horn, breaking it off at the base with a sickly crunch.
“AAAH!” The unicorn-turned-earth pony cried out in agony, falling backwards off the stage. The other ponies scattered as he landed on his back with a thud. “My horn, my horn… it hurts, why does it hurt so?”
A milky yellow unicorn mare standing next to the victim started laughing at the sight. “Oh, that’s hilarious! You’ve, like, emasculated him! Serves him right, eh, everypony?”
“Hmm, Trixie doesn’t think you’re using that word right.” Trixie jumped off the stage and down on the ground. Her horn flared, and a large, serrated knife glowing with magic appeared before her. “Still, Trixie loves your idea!” She brought the knife around in a wide arc, and sliced into and through the stallion’s scrotum.
“HIIIIEEEEEEH!” he cried as a chunk of flesh carrying his most treasured things soared away. “Geeeeh! Buh-guh-guh…” He seemed to have completely lost all ability for coherent speech, or even coherent screaming, gibbering and crying in pain and panic.
“Oh, do shut up, you’re annoying!” Trixie stabbed him in the throat several times, which eventually drowned out his capacity for speech completely. She then plunged the knife into his chest and sliced downward, cutting him open all the way. Blood spurted out, covering Trixie and her outfit in a fascinating pattern of red. “Whee! Fun!” She tossed the knife aside, right between the eyes of a terrified mare.
By now, the more sensible audience members had started to panic. One of them bolted towards the forest… and then there was a sharp cracking sound, as he came flying back and landed in the grass, his skull a caved-in ruin of blood and brains. A sinister equine with a striped coat stalked out of the woods, hefting a bloody staff.
“Long have I been seen a joke,” Zecora said, eyeing her prey. “Not soon ago my patience broke. That unicorn thinks you’re full of crap, so we lured you here, into our trap…” The zebra sprung into action and swung her staff masterfully, shattering the legs of a bolting mare and breaking the neck of another in one deft swing; cries of fear and pain rose in a glorious symphony as she demonstrated her deadly skill. “I’ll crack your bones, I’ll make you kneel, before I make you my next meal!”
“And here Trixie thought she had a lot of pent-up issues,” Trixie said to her companion, the yellow unicorn mare from before. “You’re taking all of this pretty well. You must have some real spine.”
“Oh, I’m like totally high on several illegal substances,” the mare said blissfully.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Trixie warned. “Drugs are bad for you, and they will ruin your life. Or they would, if Trixie didn’t kill you first.” Her horn flared.
“You what?” The mare asked. “Oh wow, my head! It’s like my head is trying to get out of my head! Luna’s sweet plot this feels awes—” *SPLUT* Her skull tore right out of her, trailing a length of spinal column.
“What do you know, she really did have spine!” Trixie exclaimed happily. Most of the skin had torn off, but the eyes still remained, staring wide and blissfully back at her. Trixie tore off the jaw of the skull, doffed her hat, then put the bloody skull on her head as a hat. As a final touch, she put her hat back over the skull.
Zecora danced gracefully through the crowd. Though a few had tried to flee, most instead tried to fight the deadly zebra. They had little chance. With one step, Zecora drove the sharp end of her staff through a mare’s heart; a deft pivot was followed by her throwing a green liquid into the face of a roaring pegasus, melting his flesh off his bones as he cried in agony; when her next victim collapsed and begged for her life, the zebra sank her sharp, filed teeth into the mare’s neck and tore out the jugular vein, indulging her appetite for blood and flesh.
Zecora licked her lips and turned to Trixie. “Much as your accoutrement is a delight, your contribution, I fear, is slight. Pick up your pace, or you’ll lose our race.”
“Oh, a race is it, now?” Trixie said. “Well, Trixie won’t give up so easily!” She fired a burst of magic at a pegasus who finally remembered that he had wings and tried to take to the sky. The shot hit home, and for a moment nothing happened as he ascended. Then there was a wet rumbling from his belly as he exploded, showering the clearing with hoof-sized chunks of flesh. Almost as an afterthought, two feathery wings fluttered to the ground.
“Nicely you made him gone,” Zecora said, striking a pony’s head clean off her neck with her staff. “But that still only counts as one.”
“All right!” Trixie cried, darting back to the side of the clearing, with Zecora joining her. “Time to end this like we did in Hoofington!” Trixie’s horn flared with immense power, and a large sword appeared before her. “Ready, Zecora?”
Zecora raised her staff and twisted its haft. A sharp blade popped out. “Ready as I’ll ever be. On the count of three?”
“Three!” Trixie cried, bolting forward as the same time as the zebra. Blade and staff swung at their helpless foes, cutting flesh and breaking bone. The heckling ponies scarcely had a moment to cry for help as their bodies were torn apart in a storm of blood by the charging mares. The last victim had only one thought before he passed into the afterlife: “Maybe I shouldn’t have made fun of them.”
All was silent in the performing glade, but for the gentle drizzle of blood returning to the ground. And then the sound of clopping hooves. “Another audience killed, Trixie?” Twilight Sparkle walked out of the shadows and up on the stage, surveying the carnage. “Really? You have to learn a little self-control.”
“But Twilight, they were jerks,” Trixie protested, wiping some of the excess blood out of her eyes.
Twilight tsk’ed. “Trixie, being a jerk is not a crime. If it were, I’d have killed Rainbow Dash years ago.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hmm… nah.”
“Please, Twilight?” Trixie begged, walking up to Twilight and doing her best puppy-eyes. “Trixie had no choice, really. They annoyed Trixie even more than your friends do.”
“Much as Trixie makes excuses, these useless sacks were real douches,” Zecora observed. She tucked a few still-intact haunches into her bags, in preparation for a real stew later.
“Well, if Zecora is vouching for you…” Twilight ran her hoof across Trixie’s bloodstained flank and smirked. “Maybe if you make it worth my while, I’ll let you off the hook.”
“Oh, Trixie has saved her greatest and most powerful performance for you, Princess.” Trixie wrapped her hooves around Twilight and started kissing her passionately.
“Ahem.” Their eyes swiveled towards Zecora. “Since I’ve gladly given aid, how about I too get laid?”
“I had no idea you felt that way, Zecora!” Twilight exclaimed. “Sure, I’d love to do you too! What do you say, Trixie?”
“You know what they say about zebras,” Trixie said in agreement. “Trixie would love to get some of that striped flank.” She eyed Zecora’s curves appreciatively and licked her lips. “Your place, my place, or right here and now?”
“My place,” Twilight said. “I calculate that a threesome is 125% more awesome. But first you two have to get cleaned up.”
“Can we not?” Zecora asked. “The blood is kinda hot.”
“But Spike gets so whiny when he has to wash bloodstained sheets…” Twilight pouted. “Fine. But this had better be some really good sex.”
Author's Note
What prompted me to write this, again? Well, I decided I was bad at writing fight scenes, gore, sex, and Zecora rhymes. So I decided to combine them all for a little practice.
Don't worry, there were no children in that audience.
