Out with the New

Though she tried to ignore it, the giant saw that stood a little bit behind and to the left of center stage seemed to somehow get

sharper and sharper each time Trixie glanced back at it, revealing a new jagged tooth with each turn of her head.

"I’m gonna’ tell you the truth, fillies and gentlecolts, I have no idea what’s gonna’ happen, no idea!” Trixie said, her voice echoing in the crowded theater as though she had shouted into an empty stone chamber, “I’m just as excited as you all are, because I just have no idea!”

She glanced back at the guillotine with the saw for a blade once more after a moment of soaking in the seductive cries of the audience. Bad idea. A new jagged edge stuck out, long and skinny and pointed to a needle at the top. Trixie felt her face drain.

Trixie worried for her mental health when she had these, well, they weren’t “hallucinations” so much as occasional “relapses”, “glitches” even, in reality, where for a moment things became dream-like in exaggeration and yet nopony else seemed to notice.

It was because of Old Trixie.

At first, Old Trixie only haunted new Trixie after the sun had fallen beneath the Earth and Luna had raised the moon. She would roll over to get comfortable in bed, her eyes would being to seal in slow, relaxed motion, and a whispering would jolt her awake. Most nights she told herself that the whispers had been nothing more than the empty words of the dream her half-asleep mind had been entering, but some nights she would see things too. She would see two rows of long teeth glaring down at her.

 Sometimes it was little things, like saws appearing sharper, the creaks on wooden stages sounding likes moans. Other times, she swore she could see Old Trixie in the crowd, grinning, when her spells failed onstage.

Still, new Trixie, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE, never went to a therapist, ever. The way she saw it , how could you pay for somepony else to listen to you whine about your emotional problems so that he or she can feel superior to you?

She never ran to a friend, either. That would have been an even greater offense.

Turning back to the packed audience at “Belle’s Fargo Center” of Fillydelphia, New Trixie allowed herself to feel true therapy, the kind where ponies pay you to perform for them so that you, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, can feel, no, not feel, BE, superior. The kind that does a much better job at making the voices in your head that tell you to do terrible, terrible things to yourself to go away.

That is, as long as you pretend not to notice the jagged edges of the saw behind you.

“Now, who would like the honor, the privilege, of working with the GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE?”

The crowd roared. Somepony in the audience with a voice as deep as a foghorn bellowed “Marry me, Trixie!”

Trixie blushed.

In her mind, she shouted back, yeah, why don’t you go ahead and tell that to your wife you misogynist yuppie, see how the hay that goes over!

For as much as Old Trixie turned and moaned in her grave over the shallow nature of the new, show-pony Trixie, they both agreed on one thing; they both agreed on the intellectual inferiority of the audience members.

It was catharsis.

“I need somepony with courage!” Trixie said, and fireworks whistled up to within ten feet of the auditorium’s ceiling before erupting into a shower of sparkling pink and gold.

The crowd cheered, as though everypony delusionally believed that he or she had an equal chance of getting selected. Even as she made the process appear unorchestrated, Trixie knew she had to choose the perfect candidate.

Show-bizz required an intense knowledge of just how “far to go”. The assistant needed to be cute, but not too cute. When an interviewer asked New Trixie “why do you do it?” or the like, New Trixie replied with somewhat of an innocuous answer, one was smart, but not too smart, just some platitude that could serve well enough in satisfying pulp journalists with the burden of requests to report on Trixie’s shows being plopped on their desks.

That’s just how showbizz worked. It was like the three bears. Everything had to be perfect, deliberate, in its construction. Not too hot, not too cold, j-

“-ust right!”

“I, I am?” said a yellow pegasus with waltzing pink hair, stammering.

“Why, yes of course!” Trixie said, “I can see the fierceness in your eyes!”

“Oh, that’s not fierceness,” the yellow pony said as she hedged her way onto the stage, “I sometimes have indigestion when I’m nervous”.

The crowd laughed, much louder than they had at any of Trixie’s jokes. Still, Trixie knew how to work the ball back into her court.

“Well aren’t you an honest pony,” Trixie said, her sarcasm coming out just a little less veiled than she had intended, “Would you mind telling us your name?”

The yellow pony mumbled something near-incomprehensible.

Shutterfly? Shuffleguy?

“One more time, please?” Trixie said.

“Um,” the pegasus said, looking down at her hooves. She then mumbled again.

“It’s okay, take your time,” Trixie said, this time making almost no attempt to veil her contempt.

Scattered audience members chuckled, but New Trixie could feel the audience’s attention dwindling.

“Eh hem,” Trixie said, glaring. The yellow pony whimpered.

Well this is a bucking disaster.

“Just a little stage fright,” Trixie said, “how about we show our support for dear old Shutterfly, huh?”

As the crowd cheered for a pony they had never met whose name Trixie had not pronounced correctly, Trixie said, “folks, we’ll be right back” and yanked Fluttershy behind the curtain.

“What the hay do you think you’re doing Shutterfly?” Trixie said, “you’re making The Great and Powerful Trixie look like a fool on wheels out there, and Trixie hates wheels!”

“I’m sorry, I-” the pegasus said, “well, my name is actually Fluttershy and-”

“Nevermind! Here, put this on,” Trixie said, practically shoving a minotaur suit into Fluttershy’s abdomen.

“What is it for?” she said.

 “No time to explain,” Trixie said, “but its helps with the illusion. I’m going to be teleporting you out of this suit, and then teleporting a yellow dummy pony into that suit before the saw comes down”.

“The, the sa-sa-saw?” Fluttershy said.

“Yes, Shutterfly, the saw,” Trixie said, “that big shiny thing on stage?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m just really nervous,” Fluttershy said.

“Gee, Trixie said, “Trixie would have never guessed”.

“Oh yes, I feel horrible,” Fluttershy said, “I’m not sure I can even do this. I mean, can’t you have a, a friend help you with this?”

“I don’t have any friends”.

Trixie’s eyes bulged, having caught herself too late.

“I, um, what Trixie meant to say…”

 She cleared her throat.

 “...was that The Great and Powerful Trixie does not need friends, unless they are equal or superior to herself”.

Just then, Craigswish gave the “let’s go signal”. Craigswish, Trixie’s one assistant, who she had found in a shady ad, and whose breath smelled of stale, rotting meat.

Yeah, real superior.

Trixie sighed, gathered herself, and walked back into the spotlight.

The act had begun.

Craigswish put a shaking Fluttershy into position. As the fireworks shot off, Trixie charged her horn to cast the spell. She felt the familiar rush, the sharp little jolt that always took her by surprise no matter how many spells she had performed in her life, and allowed the sparks to build up as they rushed to her head. Only they didn’t reach her head this time. They stopped at her neck. Trixie felt them there, warm and thick, as though they clung to the inside of her throat.

No, no not now.

Trixie looked to her less-than-lovely assistant and brushed a hoof across her chest, the “not yet” signal. Craigswish took no notice, biting at the ropes. Trixie tried to speak, but only a contained grunt came out.

She felt her tight cape strangling at her, as if to say don’t choke now, Trixie.

Between the magic sparks building in her throat and the cloak around her neck, her throat did her no favors.

It’s just nerves. Relax, Trixie, focus.

She built up more magic, but the sparks never reached the horn on her head. They stopped right at her neck, and joined the others.

She tugged at her cape. Making it tighter.

She groaned out again.

 Most of the audience, seeming to still focus on the guillotine, continued to cheer. The sound pounded in Trixie’s ear’s, yet those in the front row were quiet, looking at Trixie with scrunched faces and bemused, raised eyebrows. Trixie’s heart pounded like an impatient, tapping hoof.

Craigswish completed untying the first knot.

Trixie bit at the cape. She growled. She panted. Her eyes shot to the faces of the crowd. Now a good thirty-percent of the audience had re-focused their attention to the mad dog chewing at its collar. Some of them were even laughing. Laughing at “The Great and Powerful Trixie”.

Laughing at ME!

They seemed to laugh louder and louder. Trixie hissed at them, bits of saliva leaping from her muzzle.

Craigswish tugged at the second rope.

She looked at Fluttershy struggling, her eyes wild.

Trixie let the magic fizzle out, and the little constrictors around her neck unfurled, and released their grip. She gasped in air, then she let it all out.

“STOP!!!!!”

The audience drew a collective gasp. The weighted saw dropped, and Trixie darted towards Fluttershy. In her mind, she swooped up Fluttershy in graceful motion and held to her as they both fell to the ground, but as she neared Fluttershy she saw that she had no time for grace. She rammed her body right into the wood and forced the yellow pony to topple over. The saw skimmed the bottom of her tail, leaving little pink wisps stuck to the metal.

 “Fluttershy!” Trixie said. She ran over to the yellow pegasus, and began pulling off the minotaur suit.

From behind her, a small black stagelight fell and shattered. A couple more followed. The theater started shaking.

“What now?” Craigswish said.

Soon, the theater rumbled with the force of a small earthquake. Ponies chattered in nervous whispers. Some began to file out of front exits.

 “I, I don’t know,” Trixie said, “it’s not me, unless…”

“Well, if this ain’t some trick, then I’m gettin’ outta’ dodge, if ya’ know what I mean,” Craigswish said.

The main lights died. Only the focused circle of a single spotlight trained on Trixie remained. The volume of the anxious clamour intensified so that no one could talk to the person next to them. Then the spotlight went out.

“OH COME ON! THAT’S NOT ALL FOR TONIGHT’S SHOW, NOW IS IT????” said a voice, booming, impossibly loud, and yet uneven and distorted, with her phonic bouncing off the walls of the theater with no discernible pattern.

“SURELY THE ‘GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE’ CAN PROVIDE BETTER! OR ARE YOU JUST A GREAT AND POWERFUL FRAUD???? ”

The spotlight on Trixie switched back on, but it wasn’t the Trixie on stage. There she stood, Old Trixie.

Old Trixie wore the same tattered purple dress that her mother had sowed for her twelve years ago, the dress that New Trixie had buried in the forest one night before running away from home to start her showpony life. Her specter-like form shimmered, like she wasn’t quite meant to be there. Like she was a glitch.

“Impossible,” Trixie said, trying in vain to make her voice echo with as much force, “I, I buried you!”

“WE’LL SEE WHO BURIES WHO WHEN THE FINAL CURTAIN DROPS!!!” said Old Trixie, “THE SHOW MUST GO ON!!! ISN’T THAT RIGHT, FILLIES AND GENTLECOLTS????”

Old Trixie raised her arms, and the eyes of the remaining audience members glowed red. The tattered unicorn lowered her head as she grinned, the same awful, tooth-filled grin she always used when Trixie would catch a glimpse of her in the crowd.

Then, the ponies began to chant, quiet at first, and louder with each round.

“It’s not over!”

STOMP STOMP STOMP-STOMP-STOMP.

“It’s not over!”

STOMP STOMP STOMP-STOMP-STOMP.

“Who is she?” Fluttershy said, “what is she?”

“That’s me, or it used to be,” Trixie said, “So you see her too. I, I don’t understand. The hallucinations…”

It makes no sense, Trixie thought, those hallucinations of the saw getting sharper, was that her? Does she know some dark illusionary magic? Is she even real? Fluttershy or Shutterfly or whatever can see her but- no, no, I mean HOW can she be real?

“IT’S NOT OVER!”

STOMP STOMP STOMP-STOMP-STOMP.

“IT’S NOT OVER!”

STOMP STOMP-STOMP-STOMP-STOMP.

The red-eyed ponies lumbered toward the stage.

The spotlight moved over to focus on Trixie standing there, alone. She backed away, and found herself with her back against one of the woods beams of the guillotine.

“Trixie!” Fluttershy said, holding out her hoof, “grab on! I can fly you out a window!”

 “Hmph!” Trixie said, “the Great and Powerful Trixie can handle her own-”

Fluttershy snatched-up Trixie mid-monologue and bolted towards the top window. From below, the crowd continued.

“IT’S NOT OVER!”

STOMP STOMP STOMP-STOMP-STOMP

A line of pegasi trailed after them, reaching out to grab them and pull them into the pit of possessed ponies.

“IT’S NOT OVER!!!”

STOMP STOMP STOMP-STOMP-STOMP

“IT’S NOT OVER!!!”

The mindless, chanting crowd overwhelmed any attempt Trixie made to scream. She charged her horn for retaliation, but the warm sparks never even reached her neck. They squirmed in her chest, creating a burning pain.

“Hold on!” Fluttershy said.

Trixie shut her eyes tight, and Fluttershy shattered through the glass.

Outside of the Belle’s Fargo Center, fat, ugly raindrops spat down from the sky.

Fluttershy, her arms buckling, plopped Trixie to the wet stone road from five feet above. Trixie let out a small squeal, then hit the road, her hat falling next to her. She positioned herself to lay slumped on the road, leaning her back into the side of the wall of a small shop.

“We did it!” Fluttershy said, hovering down to the ground “Woohoo! We- oh, oh my, oh I’m sorry, did I drop you?”

“No, I just really like to hurl myself!” Trixie said, “it’s actually a really bad addiction, okay! My parents are worried and I’ve been in and out of ‘hurling yourself’ rehab!”

Trixie brought her knees up to her stomach and held them. Then she let out a sharp, cold breath.

“Hey, wait,” she said, her voice soft and her eyes unbolted, “you saved my life?”

Fluttershy nodded.

Trixie then narrowed her eyes and pulled her knees in closer.

“Why?” she said in a colder tone.

Fluttershy kicked at a pebble with her hoof.

“I don’t know,” she said, “it felt right, I guess. I mean, you saved me, right?”

Trixie shrugged.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Trixie said, “it’s, it’s all ruined now”.

She slammed her hooves into the wet stone road.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Fluttershy said.

“Just leave me alone, Shutterfly”.

“It’s Fluttershy, you had it right before,” Fluttershy said. She shook some droplets off of Trixie’s hat, fluffed it out so that the pointed top stood erect and proud, and offered to place it on Trixie head. Trixie swatted away the headpiece with a tired wave of her hoof.

“And I’m not leaving you here,” Fluttershy said, “not out here in the rain and cold”.

She put her arm around Trixie’s back. Trixie shivered, as though she had been struck by a tentacle, and shook off the limb.

“Please,” she said, “just leave me alone”.

“Trixie-”

“I’ll, I’ll never be hired again,” Trixie said, “I have nothing left”.

 “You have me”.

 “Why do you keep acting like you care about me?” Trixie said, “you, you don’t even know me!”

“Well, maybe I want to get to know you,” Fluttershy said, “I think I can help you”.

Trixie gave no verbal response.

“This whole ‘Old Trixie’ thing, it makes sense to me,” Fluttershy said, “I’ve had to face an older version of myself before. I even went around calling myself ‘New Fluttershy’! Stupid, right?”

Trixie still gave no verbal response.

“Oh, I get it,” Fluttershy said, her tone still gentle, “The Great and Powerful doesn’t need friends like me”.

Trixie turned her head, expecting to see the yellow pegasus hiding her face behind her flowing pink hair. Instead, she saw an open face and narrowed eyebrows.

“Have it your way, then,” Fluttershy said, and she stood up. She began to walk away.

Trixie entombed her face with her hooves, blocking out the world. She listened for the gentle, leaving steps of Fluttershy and tried to match her heartbeat to the cool rhythm, but a new gentle sound began to take shape. It was a whispering.

You’re all alone again, just like you deserve.

No, shut up!

Easier prey that way...

It crept up on Trixie, moving an inch closer with every step that Fluttershy took away from her, the hollowing out of her insides drawing her body close in on itself, as if to prepare for implosion.

“Hey, wait!”

Fluttershy made no move to look back at Trixie.

“Fine!” Trixie said, shouting over the rain after her, “The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t need friendship from an insufferable, frail, pathetic little nopony like you! She doesn’t, but...”

Fluttershy turned her head to meet a sharp ripping sound.

“...but I do”.

Fluttershy’s stern expression softened at the sight. There Trixie stood, knees wobbling, looking naked without her cape. The purple garment lay on the rain-soaked road, tattered and empty like shed snakeskin.

Fluttershy stared for a moment. Then she laughed.

“What?” Trixie said, “what’s so funny?”

“You look kinda’ stupid,” Fluttershy said, “but, it’s um, nice”.

“Nice???”

“Yeah,” Fluttershy said, “because it’s genuine”.