Of Villainy and Vectors

It was Monday at eight twenty three in the morning that a cyan coloured unicorn entered my study. A black cloak surrounded her, masking her identity, but such things were unnecessary. I knew exactly who she was... after all, it was on my invitation that she had come. "Greetings" I said, glancing at her and motioning towards some hooks on the door.
"I'd rather keep my cloak if you don't mind." You could have chilled an iced tea on her tone, but I'd known before inviting her that this might be a problem. Yet still I had requested her presence. It had been a long time since I had heard of anyone despising Twilight Sparkle the way I did. Well you know what they say, misery loves company. With a non-nonchalant shrug I closed my workbook and crossed my hooves before meeting her eyes.

"Miss Trixie, I have asked you here-"
"The Great and Powerful Trixie knows why you have asked her here." I bristled inwardly, but waved a hoof inviting her to go on. "Your secretary has told the Great and Powerful Trixie that you wish her to perform a service for you, but surely you know that the Great and Powerful Trixie's services do not come cheap. I will require payment upfront and a handsome expense budget. The great and powerful Trixie will settle for nothing less than the best." I bit back a sharp retort, which was not easy as I am known to have a bit of a temper, and looked her up and down. She was bluffing of course, which I would have known even if my secretary hadn't provided me with a short back story of where she'd found the mare, but I decided humouring her was my best option.
"Naturally." I replied. "As my secretary no doubt told you, money is no object, but I must insist you remain discreet."

The proud pony snorted indignantly. "Of course! The Great and Powerful Trixie would never dream of telling anyone what she is up to. But what exactly is it you want of the Great and Powerful Trixie?" A smile spread across my face and I leaned forward. Now we were getting to the meat of the issue. "It is not in fact about what I want from you... but what I can do for you that I am interested in Miss Trixie." Trixie frowned in confusion but waited patiently for me to elaborate. "I understand from what I've been told that you have a bit of a grudge on a pony by the name of Twilight Sparkle?"

At this the unicorn visibly tensed, her eyes darkening with clear hatred. "Twilight Sparkle... don't even talk to me about Twilight Sparkle! A fraud if ever I saw one and yet they say Trixie is the fraud! Did Trixie ever say she could, or even would vanquish an ursa major for the ponies of Ponyville? No! And why should the Great and Powerful Trixie lift a hoof for them when they tried to ruin her show?!" I nodded sympathetically, watching her body language as she raged. "But now, now the story is everywhere! Laughter fills the air where ever the Great and Powerful Trixie goes! And my cart! Vandalism is what it is, but does anypony care?! Pictures all over my cart, and how is the Great and Powerful Trixie supposed to afford a new cart when no one will attend her shows?! But does anyone care? The Great and Powerful Trixie even had to take a job on a rock farm! Meanwhile nothing but praise for perfect Twilight Sparkle! Oh SHE can do no wrong!"

I nodded sympathetically until she had worn herself out with her rants and my secretary had been and gone with some tea. I nearly spit mine out when she finally spoke again. "So how exactly can you help me?" After almost an hour of repeating her self-imposed title I had a hard time believing the words “I” or “me” existed in her vocabulary.
"Well" I replied "I know where you can acquire something that will help you take down precious perfect Twilight sparkle... but of course you can't tell anyone where you found out." The mare sighed exasperatedly... I guess I HAD been rather beating a dead horse. "In Manehattan... down central street there is a hole in the wall antique store...."

I suppose I’m coming across as quite an unpleasant pony at the moment. In order to better understand why I am not, in fact, a villain you are going to have to bear with my reflecting for a bit. I believe we last left off from my own story with me receiving my parents blessing to go to Canterlot. Upon arriving there I was immediately taken. Where Las Pegasus has bright lights and arts ponies this place was full of academics. Libraries were on every corner, in every coffee shop somepony was reading. The place even seemed to smell like books. Well, books, and fabrics, and expensive perfumes, but mostly books. I took a deep breath and let it out with a self satisfied sigh. Finally, somewhere that felt like home.

The feeling didn't last, after a few hours I was starting to feel tired and realized quickly that I had nowhere to stay. I paid one bit for the local paper and started looking for a job a blank flank youngling could do. As well as for a cheap place to lay my rump. My gaze fell instead upon an ad. An ad that would change my life for the better... and for the worst. "Princess Celestia wants YOU! In her academy for gifted unicorns." This line was followed by mundane scribbles about tuition and whatnot, but I didn't read that. Gifted... was I gifted? I'd lived my life thinking my little sister was the only gifted child in my family, but was it not possible that I too was gifted? Tearing the page from the paper I cantered through the streets making directly for Canterlot Castle.

I was accepted fairly easily, the entrance exam threw me a little. I mean how is anypony supposed to hatch a dragon egg? But I gave it my best try, starting with surrounding it in fire. I mean that makes sense right? Dragons breath fire, maybe the eggs need that warmth to hatch. I followed this attempt with an aging spell, but only the highest level unicorns can do those successfully. My final shot involved a disastrous engorging spell. My thought process was pretty simple, make the dragon inside too large for the egg to hold. It kind of worked, except that the only thing to get larger was the wings. They did poke out of the shell, but the shell quickly regrew and the wings fell uselessly to the ground. Stepping back from them with a grimace I glanced toward the teachers. The two to either end looked reasonably impressed, the third was scribbling feverishly. I sat down and tapped my hooves on the ground waiting with bated breath for their decision.

Shortly after I received my dorm assignment and began my studies. It was only two weeks that I had been there when a new classmate was introduced and a little unicorn entered with a tiny dragon crawling behind her. The dragon caught my attention immediately because it was without wings. Most ponies have little knowledge of dragons because they are rare but I have a little experience with dragons from my travels and all the ones I have seen have wings. The teacher said the girl was called Twilight Sparkle and bade her take the seat next to me.

Twilight took her seat and immediately began rifling through her books, of which there were many. I marveled inwardly at the beautiful covers and noticed a special seal on many of the spines indicating they were from Celestia's own study. How could this new student have books that belonged to our beloved princess? I wondered about this as she selected the book she needed and then noticed me eyeing her bag. "I'm Twilight Sparkle." She stated with an understated air of authority. "And this is Spike, I hope he won't disturb you I hatched him only yesterday. Everything has been just crazy since then, but I can't wait to visit the royal library again. It's so great that Princess Celestia lets us use it isn't it?"

I frowned thoughtfully, wondering why the princess seemed to have taken to this pupil in particular before allowing her words to sink in. "I hatched him... you hatched the dragon? I thought we were only supposed to test theories on how to hatch him... how did you do it?" I asked. "Well, I'm not really sure." She replied. "There was this huge explosion and then he grew to be really big... if I had to guess I would say it was an engorgement charm." I am afraid I became rather frosty at this news, but you would be angry too if your idea had been stolen. And besides that I had probably weakened the shell for her. "Oh I see" I said, forcing cheer into my voice. "Well I hope we all can study very hard and advance equestrian knowledge." She nodded and turned back toward the front. It was then that my eyes found the star on her flank... a cutie mark. Frustration boiled in me and as I turned back toward the front I had to fight very hard not to kick her yawning dragon.

Things went from bad to worse when I finally got my cutie mark a year later. I didn't have many friends, and neither did she, so we often were paired together for projects. Having been entranced by books for some time I began to wonder if it was possible to put the information from them inside a pony's head more quickly, perhaps have it all play out like a movie. I'd been doing some private experiments and made a little progress but with books like textbooks it was hard. The spell worked a little bit on works of fiction though, so I spent a few months writing out my very first book. Twilight helped a lot with research and facts but the actual written words were mine. It was a simple story about a flightless bird but it was sweet. It's sold hundreds of copies now, but back then it was just for a school project, to test my theory. On presentation day Twilight and I opened the book and let each pony place their hoof on the first page in turn. Since I had written the book I let Twilight be the one to deliver the spell, because in partner projects both are supposed to contribute equally. I could have done the spell just as easily. Watching the ponies close their eyes and smile as my story played for them in their minds something came over me. It was like this is what I was meant to do. Like these books were a part of who I wass and I knew I wanted to continue writing, always. A glow seemed to fill me from the inside out and when it faded I looked upon my flank in awe. There on my dark green flank was a scroll crossed with a pencil. The scroll of course representing the research needed when writing a cohesive story and the pencil being my writing tool of choice.

After the presentation was through there was thunderous applause, and I waited patiently for them to notice my cutie mark."Wow Twilight!" The chorus was heard everywhere, exclaiming in delight at her show of magic. Moondancer was the first to approach, claiming that she'd never seen magic like that before. My world fell to pieces right then, and I turned and fled from my despair. Suddenly someone called out "Wait!" And I whirled. Twilight had started to move in my general direction, but a crowd had once again formed around her. I cut my losses then, and ran as far and fast as I could. Far away from those who preferred magic tricks to my work of art. Far away from Twilight Sparkle.