Arc 2- 8 (Vile Ponies, Vile Inception [A])

“Hey there everypony! DJ-Pon3 here for a weekly wrap up of what’s going on in the Big Palace! But I’ll reading some fan mail first, and we’ll be starting with...”

Some paper rustles and DJ-Pon3 clears her throat.

“‘Dear Vinyl, will you date me?’ Sorry, buddy, I’m too busy keeping the music and news flowing to date. Next we have: ‘Dear DJ, enough with the political stuff. Play the music!’ Okay, first off, normally I don’t care for politics, but what Equestria is going through is too important to be ignored, even by a political hating filly like me. Secondly, screw you! I’ll run my station how I want to!”

More rustling.

“Okay, lots of mail... Lots and lots of mail... More mail than usual... Tsh-tsh-tsh, okay, I’ll read this last one before I play some music from Fifty Bits’ new album, ‘All Things Fall’ , which I know you rapping fans will love! Anyway,” DJ-Pon3 clears her throat, “‘Dear Ms. DJ-Scratch’ -aww, that’s cute- ‘Are you going to do more news on the mysterious vigilante? My foals love hearing you talk about her.’ Well, missy, the vigilante thing has been going on for a week so I don’t really have much on her, but I will say this: If you see anypony dressed up in sheets and beating the crap out of some of those a-holes ruining our streets, give them some bits and a slice of cake if you can spare it. Luna knows she needs them if she’s using bed sheets!”

++++++++++

Pinkie Pie whistles cheerfully to herself as she cleans a ski mask with blood specks on it the sink of a grungy bathroom that has a flickering light and walls and stalls covered with vulgar graffiti. Her whistling drones to a stop when she finishes her cleaning and then she admires her new green color. A few seconds of admiration later, she adjusts her wig and when it’s in the proper place she smiles to herself.

“Show time,” she says.

Then she puts on the ski mask, adjusts a cloak that hides her fake cutie mark, and steps out of the bathroom and into a ransacked bar. Nearly all the tables and bottle are broken, covering the ground in shards of glass, splinters, puddles of alcohol, and all of the attendants are unconscious and tied to pillars. The sign on the entrance had been flipped to “CLOSE” and all the blinds were closed, and to make things a bit more secure, Pinkie Pie blocked the back entrance with a fridge. Pinkie Pie walks up to one of the griffins tied to a pillar and pats her cheek to wake her up. The griffin stirs, but is still unconscious; a quick jab to the cheek fixes that. The griffin swears and her eyes shoot open, and when she sees Pinkie Pie, she struggles to break free, but she’s tied in such a way that it’s almost impossible for her to move.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you,” assures Pinkie Pie.

“Right! You just beat the crap out of me and my gang and tied us to poles!” snarls the griffin.

“We’re going by criminal terms here. We all know ‘hurt’ means ‘kill’ in your world.” Pinkie Pie sits in front of the griffin and forces her to look at her. “Now, I have some questions for you. They are very simple and only need simple answers, and if you’re good I’ll give you a cupcake. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds stupid!”

“First question, who put the hit on Bon Bon?”

“No one!”

Pinkie Pie punches the griffin on the side of the head, and her captive squawks painfully as her head jolts to the side with a gash over her eye. Then Pinkie Pie brings the griffin up to look at her again.

“What the fuck!” cries the griffin.

“I forgot to tell you, everytime you lie to me I’ll smack you. Also, if you lie to me three times, you will not be getting a cupcake,” says Pinkie Pie. “Now, who ordered the hit on Bon Bon!”

“Oh shit, are you Bon Bon’s mom?”

“What? No! Do I really sound that old?”

“...Kinda.”

Pinkie Pie sighs heavily and makes a mental note to check her mane for signs of graying. Before she can dwell too far into her age problem she brings her focus back to the griffin. She grabs the griffin’s head with both of her hooves and holds it in place so she is forced to look into her eyes.

“Who. Ordered. The hit. On Bon Bon?” demands Pinkie Pie.

“Look, I’m just-” Pinkie Pie raises her hoof for a strike. “It was Winny who carried it out!”

SMACK!

The griffin grunts as the hoof collides with her beak, this time leaving a crack in it. The griffin coughs and spits blood out and Pinkie Pie brings the griffin up again. Now the griffin is crying and begging Pinkie Pie not to hit her again.

“I don’t care who carried it out, I want to know who ordered it!” says Pinkie Pie angrily. “You know what the difference is right? Carried, as in delivered, like delivering a cake to a house. Ordered, as in the one who ordered the cake to be delivered to the house. I want the one who ordered the hit!”

“What?” Pinkie Pie raises her hoof again. “No! Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me! It was Gilda! She ordered Bon Bon to be killed!”

“Why?”

“She fell behind on her payments, that’s all I heard!”

Pinkie Pie rubs her temple with her hoof. “So let me get this straight, Gilda had somepony who couldn’t pay get killed?” The griffin nods. “And how did she plan on getting the money owed by Bon Bon if she was dead?”

The griffin opens her mouth, but quickly closes it as she ponders Pinkie Pie’s question.

“You know what, never mind, I don’t want to know,” says Pinkie Pie, “just tell me how to find her.”

“You can’t.”

Pinkie Pie punches the griffin again, and when the griffin slumps over in her bondage, she lifts her back up again and punches her again. Now the griffin is sobbing and swearing in her native tongue, face completely covered in blood, and Pinkie Pie doesn’t bother adjusting the griffin this time, she just lets her slump.

“What did I tell you about lying to me,” says Pinkie Pie dangerously. The griffin remains silent and Pinkie Pie sighs and drags a stake that was once a part of a table leg towards her. “I don’t think you’re taking me seriously.”

“What!” cries the griffin. “You fucked up my face! Why wouldn’t I take you seriously?”

“You lied to me twice already.” Then she strokes the stake, saying: “So we’re going to try this again. You tell me another lie and this stake is going into your leg.”

The griffin’s eyes widen as large saucers when she sees the crude stake, and when Pinkie Pie leans forward, pressing the stake into the griffin’s leg, the griffin starts thrashing in her spot. The pressure applied isn’t enough to draw blood, but she has it positioned so that all she needs to do to impale it in the leg is a quick thrust.

“Are you going to lie to me again?” asks Pinkie Pie in a threatening tone.

~~~~~~~~~~

A few minutes later, Pinkie Pie walks out of the bar and goes to her mini-train. Then she pulls out a box of cupcakes and cookies with a little bow on the top and walks back inside the bar. The griffin is still there, paralyzed with fear and the stake is shattered in front of her paws. Pinkie Pie puts the box of goodies in front of the griffin and then she grabs one of the rags used to clean the dishes and approaches the griffin again. The griffin flinches when she presses the rag against her her head to clean the blood off.

“Thank you for telling me what I wanted to know, although all this could’ve been avoided if you cooperated from the start,” says Pinkie Pie apologetically. “What is your name, by the way?”

“Blair,” says the griffin quietly and shakily.

“Blair? Okay, Blair, now that this ordeal is done and over with, I need you to quit this business you’re in before you get yourself killed. You’re still young and have a long life ahead of you.”

“What?”

Pinkie Pie unties the griffin and nudges the box towards her. “Take these, go home, and rethink your life.”

The griffin is too stunned to move, so she can only watch Pinkie Pie leave the bar. After Pinkie Pie leaves the bar, she heads straight for her mini-train and speeds away into the night without looking back. A few blocks down, she slows down to a casual driving speed and takes off her ski mask. A few minutes later, she finds herself waiting at a red light, and to pass the time she reaches behind her and pulls out another box. This box is a simple cardboard box and when she opens it up she smiles at its contents. Then she realizes that the light is green and she speeds down the road in search for Trixie.

=**********=

Trixie ducks behind a dumpster in a grungy alley next to a spray painted mural of an all white, winged crescent moon with its points facing downward. She’s about to move, but shrinks back when a patrol vehicle passes by, shining a light in her direction. Luckily the dumpster shields her from the light, and when the vehicle passes, she makes a mad dash across the street by a small, single story, building with a radio tower on it that has “86.5 Scratch FM” painted on the windows. There are radios playing a tune on the window display, which the windows have steel grates over them, as well as the door. Trixie also notices that the station appears to be acting as a home, too.

“...That was some good music wasn’t it?” says DJ-Pon3 from the radios pushed against the window, “But now that that is done and over with, I’m going to be finishing off with the usual.”

Trixie looks around to make sure no patrol is coming before she approaches the window. As she peers through the window she can make out all kinds of radio equipment and faint glow from the back room with someone’s shadow along the wall. And another thing she notices is a navy blue flag with the same symbol she saw in the alley stitched to it hanging over more equipment.

“And that means the lecture and then some lullabies. Let’s face it, in this day and age, we all need a lullaby to help us sleep and a lecture to help us think. Don’t worry, tonight's lecture will be soft, and these will just be words of encouragement more than anything else. ”

Trixie forces herself to leave before she gets too wrapped up in what DJ-Pon3 has to say, and as she snakes through the grungy alleys it hits her: 86.5 Scratch FM is the station that’s been encouraging her to “fight the good fight” all week and calling for others to support her! Trixie makes a mental note to figure out a way to thank Scratch FM for their moral support and a few minutes of aimless traveling later, she comes across an odd scene.

Pipsqueak is standing in front of a gang of eight mares, one of which is a pegasus perched on top of a motorized wagon to act as their lookout. Pipsqueak is wearing a basic saddle that appears to be empty, but the mares still want it for some reason.

“Just give us what’s in the saddle and you can go on home to your mommy,” says the lead mare, she’s an earth pony with a silver coat and a crazy mane that has obviously been dyed to look like rainbow puke. Her cutie mark is hidden by a thick, pink poncho, which looks to be the gang uniform.

“C’mon, Teaspoon,” groans Pipsqueak, “we’ve already been through this.”

“That was last week!”

“Yeah, and you took everything so what makes you think I would have anything now?”

“You little-”

"Hey!” yells Trixie at the top of her lungs.

The gang and Pipsqueak look at Trixie, and then Teaspoon glares at the pegasus.

“Some look out you are,” growls Teaspoon.

“I didn’t see her!” whines the pegasus defensively.

Trixie marches towards the gang, clearing her throat and grumbling to herself to get a perfect disguised voice. The whole time the gang is staring at Trixie, Pipsqueak cautiously inches to the safety of a dumpster.

“Eight fully grown mares against one colt? You must be proud,” says Trixie in her disguised voice, which is really gruff, raspy, and-

“You sound like you have throat cancer,” remarks Teaspoon, making her gang laugh.

Trixie stops and figures that they do have a point, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are picking on a colt with obvious growth problems. She looks at each of them and one word can accurately describe all of them: Butch.

“Great, I walked into a gang of violent lesbians,” mutters Trixie in her normal voice.

“What was that?” says Teaspoon while turning her head slightly and leaning in closer. “You got something to say about me and my gang?”

“Yeah,” says Trixie, back to her disguised voice, ‘Man, this voice sucks.’  “I see a group of cowards who are so afraid of a little colt that they have to gang up on him. You must really suck.”

“The only things we suck at is... um... SHUT UP!”

“Wow, even your insults are horrible. Why don’t you go home to have a pillow fight or something. Nopony needs to get hurt.”

Teaspoon laughs and points at Trixie and the others laugh as well. Trixie’s eyes narrow and she scrapes her hoof along the pavement as her gut is telling her she better prepare for a fight.

“Now why would we listen to you?” laughs Teaspoon. “You’re covered in bedsheets!”

“Either you leave or I leave you as bloody pulps for the guards.”

The gang stops laughing and make “Ooh”s while waving their hooves around like they are cheap ghosts. Teaspoon, however, glares at Trixie and wipes her snout.

“Look, whoever you are, just get on outta her and me and my gang put that shrimp in his place, or else we’ll break your legs and make you watch us beat him to a pulp.”

Trixie’s blood starts boiling and she takes a threatening step forward, which must’ve given off a vibe that she’s not messing around because the whole gang takes a step back.

“Last chance,” threatens Trixie.

Teaspoon laughs nervously as she scratches her hoof against the pavement. “Oh I love this guy.”

“Gal.”

“Whatever.” She turns to the crook closest to her, saying: “Take care of this clown, please.”

The mare hesitates, but she does end up charging Trixie at full speed. Trixie watches every step of the attacker, and Pipsqueak’s eyes widen when it appears that she’ll just take the punishment of the potential head butt, but at the last second Trixie turns around and bucks her attacker full on in the maw. She feels her hoof connect with the attacker and can feel, and hear, the bones break underneath her crushing blow. The mare can’t even cry out properly as her face is destroyed; she sails through the air and lands on her back on the pavement with another sickening crack. The rest of the gang stares at her, eyes wide and jaws open, as Trixie’s victim lies on the ground, sobbing with a bloody, destroyed face, barely able to move.

Teaspoon takes another step back and points at Trixie, stammering: “Wha-What are you waiting for? Kill her!”

Five of them reluctantly charge, but the pegasus flies to the safety of an apartment balcony and watches the scene unfold. Trixie and the five mares charge each other, and the first of the five mares reers up to crush Trixie’s skull with her forehooves, but Trixie tackles her to the ground. Before the others can react, Trixie smashes her target’s voice box and she instantly clutches her neck while gagging and curling up. Then Trixie jumps out of the way as the second brings her forehooves down, but instead of hitting Trixie like she had planned, she ends up stomping her fallen comrade’s gut. Then Trixie bucks the mare’s front leg and it bends backwards at the lower portion; the attacker shrieks and falls to the ground, trying to cover her injury with her other hoof. Trixie hears another criminal scream and charge her and next thing she knows, someone is on her back with their hooves wrapped around her throat. Trixie gasps for air and pushes herself up so that she’s standing on her hind legs, then she lets gravity take over. The choker is sandwiched between Trixie and the pavement, and Trixie smiles under her cheap mask when she hears a cracking noise and the mare grunt painfully. However, that smile is short lived as another mare stomps her in the gut. All of the remaining air in Trixie’s lungs is pushed out and she coughs painfully and twists sporadically to get her choker off as the attacker relentlessly tries to stomp her to death, each stomp sending a surge of sharp pain around her gut and sides. When the stomping mare brings her hooves up for another stomp, Trixie turns just in time for the hooves to land awkwardly on her choker’s side. The pony choking her cries out in pain and Trixie hears her bones snap like twigs, the pony releases her and Trixie levitates the one that stomped her off of the ground and throws her into the brick wall behind her. She screams as she flies back, but her screaming comes to an abrupt end when she hits the wall and lands on her face on the sidewalk with a nice blood splatter on the wall. The pony that was choking Trixie earlier crawls on the ground, gasping for air and coughing out blood, but a quick hoof to the head is enough to put an end to her noise.

“Hooooaaaaaahhh!!!” yells the remaining attacker.

Trixie turns around and sees the remaining attacker is a unicorn that is spinning a bunch of knives around her with magic while making weird cat sounds and flailing her hooves like an idiot. Trixie shakes her head sadly and her horn glows to make a small storm cloud appear above the unicorn. The unicorn stops with her antics and looks up, only to be zapped with a huge bolt of lightning that leaves her on the ground with singed fur and unable to move, except for slight twitches. When that is done and over with Trixie turns to Teaspoon.

Teaspoon looks up at the pegasus and Trixie looks up to, just in time to see her fly away, and she swears that the pegasus looks familiar. She doesn’t think too much about it, though, because the criminal is beyond her reach and she still has to deal with Teaspoon, who is now bolting down the road.

“Oh no you don’t,” growls Trixie.

She runs after Teaspoon, ignoring the pain in her abdomen, and quickly catches up with her. When she’s in range, she takes a flying leap and lands on top of Teaspoon. Both ponies roll end over end of each other, and stop when they hit a motorized wagon. The vehicle shakes a bit and Trixie does her best to ignore the worsening, splitting pain in her sides, and she also reminds herself to take some more of those pills when she gets back to help ease her pain. The good dreams will be a plus, too, after seeing all the blood and popped out bones.

Teaspoon clambers to her feet and attempts to buck Trixie, but Trixie dodges the attack and Teaspoon’s hoof ends up going through the wooden door of the vehicle. Teaspoon stares at Trixie with horror as she sees her front hoof heading straight for her face. After Trixie’s hoof collides with Teaspoon’s jaw, she yelps and falls to the ground with her teeth knocked loose and a hoof covered in splinters from the door; the door now having a huge gash in it from when the leg was awkwardly yanked out from the force of Trixie’s blow. She coughs and spits out blood and teeth and stares at Trixie.

“Wha-Who are you?” she says, her whole body trembling and drooping in defeat.

“Somepony better than you,” says Trixie gruffly; then she knocks her out and drags her body to the others. When they are all in a pile she closes her eyes and launches a ball of bright light from her horn. At first it’s nothing special, but when it explodes in the sky like a firework, lighting up everything, it serves as an unignorable signal for the guards. Trixie then turns to Pipsqueak, he’s hiding behind a dumpster, too terrified to move, and she says: “Let’s get you home.”

Pipsqueak nods and follows Trixie through the maze of the alleyways. As they walk Trixie ignores the soreness all over her body, and the silence between the two becomes awkward to say the least. The only real sound in the city now, aside from the approaching sirens, are the clip-clop sounds made from their hooves meeting the ground. The whole time they are walking Trixie keeps herself on high alert for trouble; during the past week she’s been doing this she had come across a few gangsters, but they were never in groups as large as Teaspoon’s and they usually scattered after she took down one or two of them.

“So...” says Pipsqueak uneasily, “what brings you around these parts?”

“What kind of question is that?” asks Trixie, being sure to keep her voice disguised, which is now hurting her throat.

“Yeah, that was a dumb question. So what’s you’re name?”

“I wear a disguise for a reason.”

“I know. I was just wondering what your superhero name was.”

“My ‘superhero name’?”

“Yeah, you wear a costume and fight crime, you must be a superhero.”

Trixie rolls her eyes, it is quite clear that someone reads too many comics.

“I don’t have one,” she says, then she winces and leans against a wall to get a breather. She’s coughs painfully, and to add salt to the wound, each cough feels like a stab to her side.

“You okay?” asks Pipsqueak, stopping to help Trixie.

Trixie waves him away. “I don’t need your help, I’m fine.”

“I don’t know, that fight looked brutal, like changelings in a gladiator match or something.”

Trixie stares at him for a moment before she shakes the thought of gladiator changelings out of her mind and proceeds to walk down the alley.

“So, where do you live anyway?” asks Trixie.

“I live across the street from Bon Bon Land, I’ll show you the house and maybe mum can fix you tea and crumpets!” says Pipsqueak excitedly.

“No.”

“Awww, but it’ll be a token of gratitude for your services.”

“No.”

“Oh, I get it.” He gets a sly smile and nudges Trixie in her side playfully, he doesn’t catch her wince. “Tea and crumpets are not a snack for the Dark Mare. You would want something like cider and hay bacon.”

‘If only.’’ “Look, I appreciate the offer, but I can’t because if I have tea and crumpets then I would have to take off my mask, which would defeat the purpose of this disguise.”

“You’re wearing bedsheets, though.”

Trixie stops and glares at him. “So!”

Pipsqueak also stops and looks at her apologetically. “Sorry, Miss, or Mister-”

“‘Miss’.”

“Miss. Sorry Miss, but with those bedsheets you kinda look like those bigots who wear those sheets to scare zebra immigrants with the burning totem pole things. You should try-”

Trixie’s jaw drops and she angrily points at Pipsqueak. “I am not a racist! And those ponies wear white sheets! This is not white, it’s more of a dark brownish color!”

Pipsqueak cringes, then his ears perk up and he stares at Trixie quizzically. “You sound familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

Trixie’s jaw locks shut and she starts sweating nervously as she realized she dropped her disguise voice to chew him out. She quickly clears her throat, sending another surge of stabbing pain in her side, and says with her disguised voice back: “No, and I don’t know you either.”

Pipsqueak’s expression shifts from suspicion, to curiosity, and then to pain, ending with him nodding his head subtly and walking ahead of Trixie with his head down. Trixie watches him and feels a twinge of regret for being harsh with him, but she can’t risk letting anyone know who she is. She shouldn’t even be outside without Minty’s supervision unless she’s at work; and even if she wasn’t on parole, she’d be breaking the curfew law, which reminds her...

“I guess I’ll lead you to my mum’s place, then,” Pipsqueak says quietly.

“Why are you out past curfew?” asks Trixie.

“Why are you out past curfew?”

“I’m doing a service. What are you doing?”

Pipsqueak hesitates. “I was at the park, fell asleep, and woke up past curfew so I tried to get back home before I ran into trouble. It obviously did not work very well.”

Trixie doesn’t believe him, and as much as she wants to prod him for the truth, she can’t since they arrived at a basic duplex with flowerpots on every step of the staircase and a lovely welcome sign hanging on the front door.

“Well, this is where I live,” says Pipsqueak while walking up the stairs, but before he goes inside he turns to face Trixie. “Thanks for your help, Dark Mare.”

Trixie smiles behind her mask and does a courteous nod. When Pipsqueak goes inside, Trixie instantly hears his mother shouting “Where have you been!?”, followed by Pipsqueak going with his fell-asleep-in-the-park excuse. Trixie doesn’t stay to eavesdrop on their argument, though, she has to disappear into the alley to avoid another patrol that was rounding the corner. She sneaks through the alleys, occasionally stopping to cough and wheeze for air.

~~~~~~~~~~

After an hour or so of aimless travel, she finds herself at one of the city parks, complete with trees in full bloom, cobblestone pathways, small playgrounds, and a fountain with a statue of Celestia posing on the top with the Bearers looking up to her with wonder. Trixie suddenly finds herself weaker and she hastily walks towards the fountain and is barely able to grab the edges. The tip of her hooves go in the water and she closes her eyes as the cool air and the calm trickling of water fills her with a sense of peace. However, that sense of peace is ruined when Trixie coughs again, this time pulling off her mask and spitting blood into the crystal clear water. She gets a sickening feeling as she watches the blood spread out and then she feels the pain in her side strike at full force. She grunts and slumps to the ground, cursing herself for allowing those scumbags to get those hits on her. She knows Gray Muffin would chew her out for it, and he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be touched, and now that she thinks about it, he would’ve executed all of those criminals instead of leaving them as pulps to be arrested.

Trixie closes her eyes and really wishes she had some of those pills to help her combat the dread and pain that is overwhelming her mind and body. She lightly bangs her head against the fountain and when she opens her eyes a few seconds later she sees that she’s under the Pinkie Pie statue like its her own guardian angel. Then she hears a vehicle pull up and she peeks past the fountain and sees Minty’s vehicle stopping just shy of the fountain; apparently she didn’t believe in parking spots and thought it was okay to drive on the grass.

“There you are,” says Minty happily with something on her back, “I just drove by a small army of Night Guards and paramedics loading up some of messed up gangsters. They pulled me over, but luckily I had this little baby with me.“

Minty giggles and holds up her badge.

Trixie smiles wryly. “I might’ve had something to do with that.”

Minty is about to say something, but when she sees the blood in the fountain she slides next to Trixie and starts inspecting her. When she touches her ribs, Trixie winces and bats Minty’s hoof away.

“That hurts!” snaps Trixie.

“You’re going to a hospital,” says Minty sternly while helping Trixie up.

“We can’t go to a hospital, it’ll be too easy to connect me to the thingy I did.”

“Your late night vigilantism?”

“Yeah... that. Ow.”

Minty stops and thinks about it for a second, then she helps Trixie into her vehicle and has her lay down. After Trixie is as comfortable as she can be, Minty drives down the road seemingly without direction, and a few painful minutes later, Trixie passes out.

[[[[O]]]]

“This is my life!” cries Trixie furiously; she throws a bottle of wine at a unicorn stallion standing in front of her; he has the same color scheme as hers, but with pudgy mane, and his cutie mark is a hammer and scroll crossing over each other. The unicorn ducks as the bottle flies overhead and shatters against the wall behind him, leaving a red splash all over like a little pony had splattered. “You did nothing for me!”

“I did nothing? I did nothing!? I gave you everything! Food! Shelter! A chance to be somepony great, and what do you do? You squander it with you stupid shows!” screams the stallion. Trixie tries to throw another bottle at him, but his magic overpowers her and he throws it to the ground next to her. Upon shattering Trixie jumps away to keep the wine from staining her coat or from getting cut by the broken glass, and while she’s distracted the stallion pushes her to the ground and presses his hoof against her chest; any attempts at resistance are quickly crushed. “I tried to help you! I tried to get you to the best school I could afford, but you failed and let the Sparkle’s take what was rightfully the Lulamoons. You failed all those exams in the academy. You failed yourself and the Lulamoon Family.”

Trixie closes her eyes and sobs, and when the stallion releases her she curls up on the floor, not wanting to see him or the accursed mansion that they are staying in. The stallion shows zero signs of remorse as he walks away, leaving Trixie to cry on the floor. A few minutes later she hears a thump and the floor shakes next to her head, she opens her eyes and sees a suitcase in front of her and the stallion behind it. Trixie sniffles, wipes her eyes, goes into the sitting position, and stares at it blankly.

“Get out,” says the stallion, “you have no place left in the Lulamoon Family.”

Trixie’s jaw drops and a new bubble of anguish rises up in her throat. “Father?”

Her father’s eyes narrow and he lifts her and the suitcase up with his magic and tosses her out of the mansion, into the cobblestone road. Some other ponies in suits look at Trixie and then stare at her father, completely horrified with what he did. And as Trixie awkwardly gets up her father trots outside and one of the guards, an earth pony mare, approaches him.

“Eclipse, don’t you think-”

“Shut up!” snaps her father, then he glares at Trixie, she shrinks under his gaze. “You want to be a traveling magician? Fine, go be a nopony! You won’t matter wherever you go, and you’ll find that out the hard way when you fail and no pony helps you, and don’t go crawling back to me when you do!”

Eclipse turns tail and marches back into the mansion, using his magic to slam the doors shut. Trixie looks at the guards for help, but they all either look at her with pity or look away, some even pretend to go on patrol. Trixie grits her teeth and stomps on the ground, prompting more tears to roll from her eyes.

“Fine! I don’t need you!” she yells tearfully. “I don’t need any of you! Trixie will be better than all of you!” She then turns to the mansion and sees her father staring at her out of the safety of one of his rooms. “I hope you die a horrible death!”

Eclipse looks down slightly, and some of the guards take a step closer to Trixie and she glares at all of them, breathing heavily and eyes red from the crying. She picks up her suitcase with her magic and walks towards the gate, making sure to give each guard a taste of her wrathful gaze. The guards step aside and a couple of them push open the steel gate, which she eagerly trots through, and blindly goes down the road.

“Trixie will be great. Trixie will be powerful. Trixie doesn’t need anypony. Trixie just needs herself,” mutters Trixie to no one in particular.

She continues her walk down the road, it is all but dead with the only life being the trees planted along the sides. Normally they would give shade, but the sun blocked by a thick layer of gray clouds, and when a strong wind blows through the trees, Trixie shivers and puts on her stage cape and continues her trek.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie will matter, he will see, oh yes, he will see.”

An hour of walking later and she comes across a covered bus stop; she goes inside for shelter, and her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. As soon as she goes there is a rumble of thunder and rain starts falling; the pattering noise that the rain makes against the cover is peaceful, but the chilling air and being disowned by her own father kills the mood for her.

“You’re too late, the last bus came and went thirty minutes ago,” says a familiar voice.

Trixie looks up and sees the Shadow Stallion again; she furrows her brow and pushes her suitcase against the edge of the bench.

“Well, it looks like Trixie is going to be enjoying a nice bench for the night,” she says angrily as she curls up next to her suitcase.

The Shadow Stallion steps inside, strangely not wet from the rain. “You do know that your father loves you, right?”

“Sure he does, that is why he disowned me.”

The Shadow Stallion takes a seat next to Trixie and looks straight ahead at the mountains; or at least Trixie thinks he’s doing that, it is kind of hard to know where someone is looking when they have no face.

“Why don’t you have a face?” asks Trixie sharply.

“It is the way I was created. Nothing more. Nothing less,” answers the stallion.

“That is a really dumb answer. Can I at least get your name?”

“Custos.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“It’s the name that was given to me and a name I’ve held since the inception of time.”

Trixie chuckles and shakes her head, now looking at the pouring rain.

“Wow, creepy,” she says mockingly.

Custos has no reply, he just sits there in total silence, and Trixie sighs and sits up to look at him directly. She opens her mouth to say something, but the question she wanted to ask disappears, leaving her with a blank brain, so she frowns and lays against her suitcase. A few more minutes of silences passes before Custos turns to Trixie.

“You do know that your father loved you, right?” he says.

“What?” says Trixie while glancing at him irritably out of the corner of her eye.

“Your father. He loved you, its just-.”

“Didn’t we talk about this a few minutes ago? Oh yeah, we did, and I said no ‘loving father’ disowns a child!”

“If you could only see-”

“Him fight for his life? That would be nice.”

“...Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah, I would love nothing more than to see him squirm and beg, I think it’ll be great. He’ll deserve every ounce of it.”

Custos is silent, but a couple of seconds later he gets up and stands in front of Trixie; she stares at him defiantly, but she’s secretly terrified that he might do something to her, and when his horn glows her fear becomes uncontainable.

“What are you doing!” demands Trixie while frantically backing away from Custos.

The glow from Custos’s horn engulfs the whole bus stop and blinds Trixie. When she can see again she’s in her father’s Canterlot loft, and just everything has been destroyed with the utmost brutality. Trixie can feel that most of her bones are broken, her breathing is labored to the point where it’s almost impossible to breath, and the overall pain is so unbelievable that she just wants to scream, but she can’t. What she can do, however, is raise her hoof, which is bloody and shaking, towards a dark figure wearing a cloak that is towering above her. The only problem is that she’s not doing it. Some lightning flashes and all she can see from the figure is his eyes, filled with nothing but hatred and a burning desire to see the pony under him suffer.

“What’s going on!” yells Trixie, terrified by what she’s seeing.

“P-Please... d-don’t...” begs her host.

“Father?”

Her father’s weakened heart starts racing and Trixie feels tears wash the blood from his face in little streaks as the figure towering over him just stares. But she also feels more than just fear, she also feels... regret? The regret is overpowering every other emotion and Trixie is quick to realize that the tears are not from fear of death, but from regret. Eclipse turns to his side and stretches his hoof out towards a picture nestled in a broken frame; a picture of him, Trixie, and her mother at the hospital the night Trixie was born. Eclipse looks overjoyed and Braille, while tired, is smiling down at a sleeping baby Trixie.

“There is only black and white,” says the figure ominously.

The picture is smashed and Eclipse cries out as if he just saw his family murdered in front of his eyes; but due to his near death condition it comes out more like a weak whimper trying to scream. His vision, as blurry as it is, becomes even more so from the tears to where Trixie can barely see anything.

“There is never gray.”

The attacker slides the picture out of reach, and he kicks Eclipse on his back, shattering some ribs and making Eclipse cough out blood. Eclipse gasps for air as he turns to his stomach and tries to crawl towards the picture again. The barbaric growl from the attacker is enough to send a shiver down even the bravest of the Royal Guards, and in the blink of an eye there is a back-breaking stomp and Eclipse stops moving, hoof outstretched towards the picture. She can still hear him breathing heavily and whimpering.

“For justice is absolute.”

[[[[O]]]]

Trixie wakes up screaming and flying into the sitting position; she tries to calm her racing heart by putting a hoof over it, and she wipes sweat off of her face and mane with a shaky hoof.

“It was just a dream,” whispers Trixie with little to no relief.

“Trixie!” calls Minty.

She looks at her blanket and sees that it’s covered in her sweat, then she realizes that she has a tingly taste on her tongue. She scratches her tongue against her teeth to get the taste out and she becomes even more panicked when she tries to levitate the blanket off. Her horn sputters, but doesn’t work.

“Oh no,” whimpers Trixie. When Minty bursts into the room Trixie jumps off of her bed and scrambles into a corner, crying and pointing an accusing hoof at Minty. “What did you do to me!”

Minty skids to a stop and carefully approaches Trixie, saying: “Trixie, I-”

“You gave me those mushrooms, didn’t you!”

Minty approaches Trixie and when she tries to run out of the room Minty grabs her and hugs her, tightly. Trixie immediately slumps to the ground, crying into Minty’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Trixie, but I had to do it,” she says softly over Trixie’s sobs while gently rubbing her back, “if I -if something had happened to you I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

Trixie’s body shakes as she cries, remembering what Sunshine did, and tried to do, to her, then unwanted memory of the pain she endured from Brisk Wind’s torture with those plants return as well. Minty continues her attempts to comfort Trixie with a warm embrace and soft strokes while apologizing. A minute later, Trixie pulls away from Minty, tears soaking her face, and hurries to the bathroom. Once inside, she closes and locks the door and pulls out the container from the medicine cabinet, which now has plywood instead of a mirror covering it that has “You’re Beautiful” written on it in marker.

Trixie has trouble getting the cap off without her magic and ends up breaking the container in half by smashing it against the sink. The pills fly out and a good portion roll down the sink, much to Trixie’s panicked dismay, while the rest scatter all over the floor.

“No, nonononono, please no!” cries Trixie desperately while frantically trying to prevent the pills from falling into the sink’s abyss. She manages to save a few and pushes them over the edge of the sink so that they fall to the floor, and she drops to the ground and literally licks two off of the floor and swallows them dry. The dry pills taste horrible and sickly feeling of wanting to puke surges up instantaneously, but with the way her throat closes up, she highly doubts that that will happen. Trixie slumps to ground and coughs violently into her hoof. A few seconds later, it all ends like someone flipped a switch. Her throat relaxes, the coughing fit goes away, and all despair is replaced with bliss.

Trixie smiles broadly and relaxes by the bathtub. “Wow, Trixie feels so much better now.” She picks up the broken container and holds to her chest, her blissful smile growing bigger. “Trixie loves you, pills, Trixie loves you all.”

Trixie gets up a moment later and heads back to her room with a skip in her step, and she stops dead in her tracks when she sees a box at the foot of her bed. She cocks her head and cautiously approaches the box, and when she’s towering above it she opens it up to see a costume inside. She giggles “Oh cool” as she eagerly takes them out like a child opening her gift on Christmas morning. The costume’s jumpsuit and cape are dyed dark purple with messy stitchwork all over them, and the cape is being held by a simple clip. The pads are hoofball pads that have been painted black and there is a large fedora that has been stitched around a bike helmet as well as durable goggles worn by pegasi; and to top it off, it has a black apparatus of some kind that goes around her muzzle.

After putting on the suit she does with some difficulty she does a test run by galloping around the room, jumping on and off her bed and fighting invisible ninjas. When she’s done she stands proudly on the edge of her bed, puffing out her chest and sticking her nose in the air like the boastful mare she used to be.

“The Dark Mare cometh,” she says in a fake threatening voice, which is muffled by the apparatus around her muzzle, followed by a cackle. Then she looks over the edge of her bed and imagines herself on the rooftop of one of Canterlot’s gleaming skyscrapers. Trixie grins and turns around so that her back is to the edge of the bed and-

oooOOOooo

Pinkie Pie is now slouching on her bed, completely dumbstruck about what had happened. She hadn’t known Trixie would react in such a way after finding out she was fed the healing mushroom that she had stolen from a clinic, which, in itself, took forever to find a clinic that even had them. Pinkie Pie is trying to figure out a way to apologize to Trixie for her mistake, however, with Trixie running around like a filly on speed and a sugar rush in the other room, it makes it a little difficult to think. That and Pinkie Pie is fairly certain that there are quite a few ponies who are clutching pillows around their ears and gritting their teeth, thus adding to her worry that she’ll be getting a “friendly reminder” to tone it down by the staff and neighbors. But Pinkie Pie’s every last bit train of thought disappears when she hears a THUMP, a few seconds of silence, and then Trixie groaning: “Ow.”

Pinkie Pie immediately jumps off of her bed and runs into Trixie’s room and sees that her roommate it lying on the floor, on her back, and wearing the suit that she made. Pinkie Pie is about to help her up, but stops when Trixie starts laughing, which makes it hard for Pinkie Pie to not laugh because the sight of a vigilante clad in menacing armor, laughing like an idiot, is something one does not see every day.

“They can’t call me a liar now!” laughs Trixie.

Pinkie Pie walks over and helps Trixie sit up. “What do you mean?”

“I told Fancypants that I was covered in boo-boos because I punched a mirror and did a backflip off of my bed.” Trixie pulls off her helmet, apparatus and mask with some difficulty and smiles at Pinkie Pie. “And now I have punched a mirror and done a backflip off of my bed.”

“...Did you say ‘boo-boos’?”

Trixie’s smile turns from that of amusement to a sly one. “Maaaybe,” she says in a drawn out, singsong-y tone.

Pinkie Pie sighs and stands up with Trixie, and while Trixie talks about how amazingly comfortable and flexible the suit is, she starts to wonder what exactly is in those pills that Trixie takes.

Trixie pulls off her helmet, analyzes it for a couple of seconds, then tosses it on her bed.

“This suit awesome! Why didn’t I get this earlier?” asks Trixie while bouncing around Pinkie Pie in such a way that it reminds her of the Cutie Mark Crusaders when they were adorable little fillies. Or herself when she first met Cranky Doodle.

“Well, you see, I was going to give it to you earlier, but I ran into some snags,” says Pinkie Pie shamefully. Her whole body sulks when she thinks about all the time that had been wasted and the risks Trixie took due to these complications.

Trixie starts chasing her tail, saying: “What was wrong with it earlier?”

Pinkie Pie watches Trixie spin in circles and when the unicorn stops, she wobbles in place, making a sickly moaning sound. Trixie then coughs and gags like she’s going to puke, even going as far as keeling over with her tongue hanging out, and just when Pinkie Pie is about to grab a bucket, Trixie swallows the puke. Pinkie Pie cringes in disgust and Trixie’s eyes widen she she realizes what she had done, but that’s doesn’t kill her mood by any means.

“So, the Great and Powerful Trixie demands to know what was wrong with the previous suit!” says Trixie using her degrading tone from her years as a showmare. Trixie bursts into a laughter a second later and falls on her back, kicking her hindlegs in the air while clutching her gut with her forehooves. “Wow, I sound funny. Do you think the Great and Powerful Trixie sounds funny?”

Pinkie Pie arches an eyebrow, her concern now reaching new heights. “Um...”

Trixie stands up and dismisses Pinkie Pie’s “Um” with a theatrical wave of her hoof. “Of course Trixie does. How crappy was the last suit?”

“I had to get those pads replaced and reinforced because when I tested them they kinda didn’t last long. But, these ones are more durable,” says Pinkie Pie, and to emphasize her point, she punches Trixie’s chest with enough force to make her skid backwards. “I also did some work on the cape, but I don’t think its a good idea to test it out right here.”

Trixie laughs and looks down at the chest pad.

“I didn’t feel a thing!” says Trixie happily, then she looks at Pinkie Pie with a challenging smile. “We should wrestle.”

Pinkie Pie cocks her head. “What?”

“Yeah! It’ll be fun! Trixie gets to test out this super cool suit and you get to be a good friend and punch me!”

“Um... I don’t think friends punch each other. I mean punching like what you want, because when I punched you that was to show you how well the suit is. Besides its late -or technically early, and we-”

Trixie lowers herself like she’s a predatory feline ready to pounce, she even has the swishing tail down! “C’mon, Minty, you know you wanna do it.”

“I don’t know, I might hurt you or something.”

“Scaredy cat.”

“No, I just-”

“I triple dog dare you to wrestle!”

Pinkie Pie smirks and cracks her back, one cannot turn down a triple dog dare, after all.

“Okay,” says Pinkie Pie, now shaking any tight spots out of her body, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you when I have you pinned.”

“That’s why we have rematches,” says Trixie with an eager smile.

“Okay, fine, we’ll do best two out of three.”

Trixie jumps to the sitting position and claps her hooves together.

“Yay! You make an awesome friend, Minty!” cheers Trixie.

Pinkie Pie’s smile fades and she looks down, a motion that Trixie is too excited to notice.

===

“Sooooooo, is that a yes?” asked Pinkie Pie hopefully while bouncing next to Applejack so the farm pony could see her with her peripheral vision.

Applejack sighed and bucked one of her apple trees with the usual amount of force that shook all the apples loose. All the apples landed in the buckets around the trees perfectly and she started loading each one on a steam powered cart with a decent sized flatbed that had more than its fair share of apple filled buckets.

“Sooooooo, is that a yes?” repeated Pinkie Pie.

“Look, Pinkie, Ah’d really love t’ help ya out an’ all, but Ah already have t’ help Twi with her spell thingamajig, Dash with her practicing, Fluttershy with disciplining Angel, and Rarity with her dresses,” said Applejack; she looked like she wanted to puke after mentioning she had to help Rarity with dresses, but this made Pinkie Pie grin from ear to ear.

“AJ helpin’ Rarity, eh? What will you to be doing? Will you be trying on different dresses?”

“No.”

“Making dresses?”

“No.”

“Is it something athletic and you guys are just using dresses as an excuse?”

Applejack glared at the pink pony while pushing one of the baskets farther back. “Ah’m just tryin’ to explain to Rarity the ‘fashion’ of us simple folk since she’s lookin’ fer rustic ideas.”

Pinkie Pie snickered and gobbled up one of Applejack’s apples in one bite; the farming mare did not take too kindly to that.

“Dang it, Pinkie! How many time do Ah have t’ tell ya not t’ eat mah apples!” scolded Applejack.

“Oh relax, you’re just as uptight as Rarity when it comes to your apples,” teased Pinkie Pie. “What’s the big deal anyway? It’s only one apple.”

“Well that one apple is life or death!”

===

“En garde!” shouts Trixie with mock ferocity as she charges Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie quickly side steps and rams Trixie on the side, thus knocking her over to her back. Then Pinkie Pie stands over Trixie and holds her down with her forehooves. Trixie laughs: “That’s one!”

===

Pinkie Pie stared at Applejack, completely shocked by her words and now feeling like a jerk for eating that apple. Applejack climbed in her vehicle and Pinkie Pie hopped in the passenger seat.

“Ah’m sorry fer snappin’, Pinkie, but finances are tight fer me and mah family,” said Applejack with genuine regret.

“What do you mean?” asked Pinkie Pie. “I know you said you were trying to save some money, but you look like your well off.”

“Ah don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because Ah don’t and that’s final.”

“Don’t make me go into a tangent about cherrychangas again.”

Applejack looked down, and when Pinkie Pie opened her mouth to unleash the cherrychangas Applejack is quick to explain her situation. “Ah found a great place fer Apple Bloom t’ go to so she won’t be stuck on this here farm. She can get a proper education and go somewhere and do somethin’ meaningful with her life.”

“Oh, that’s nice. What school is it?”

“The Smoky Mountain Architect Academy, but Ah still have t’ pay fer the expenses of Granny’s funeral, and Big Mac is payin’ some hotshot from Canterlot t’ fix the problems he and Cheerilee have. Sixty bits an hour is the cost, Ah believe.”

“Wait, Big Mac and Cheerilee are having problems?”

“Eeyup.”

“They don’t need a somepony in a suit with glasses to tell them how to fix their problems, what they need is a party! Yeah, a party to remind them how much they love each other!”

“A party won’t fix this one. This whole thing with him and Cheerilee has driven mah brother to drinking and now I have to help him pay for rehab after he-”

“Ooh, I didn’t realize he was drunk when he did that.”

“Big Mac is terrifying when he’s drunk, so Ah have t’ do this before he hurts himself or any other pony.”

“So the rumors are true about what he did to Vigilance with the stool...”

“Anyway, add that to the repair costs, maintenance, employee payments, the dozen and a half bills and new taxes, and the one thousand pages o’ regulations and mah family is left with crumbs. So fun and money is something Ah need, but don’t have a whole lot of right now. Every apple counts.”

When Applejack finished her venting Pinkie Pie noticed Applejack is trying to hide the tears in her eyes. Pinkie Pie quietly pulled out a bag of bits from seemingly thin air and plopped them in front of Applejack.

“What is that?” asked Applejack while raising a brow.

“My chess tournament winnings,” replied Pinkie Pie. “Why didn’t you tell any of us that you were having this much trouble?”

“It wasn’t yer guys’s concern; this is mah problem, and it wouldn’t be right t’ bring others into a problem that ain’t theirs... and when did you play in a chess tournament?”

“When I visited Donut Joe in Canterlot when he needed my help in making one of his cities. I got to make little marshmallow ponies; complete with all the clothings and everything! It was hard making the little sugar dresses, but it was worth it.”

Applejack smiled. “Sounds like it was quite a sight. Did it taste good?”

“Oh yeah! It was like a eating a rainbo-ohhh nevermind, rainbows are spicy. It was like eating all of the candies in the world baked inside all of the pastries in the world and then mixed inside a mixer that put in all the flavorings of the world and it was so good that I hallucinated from its goodness.”

“Say what now?”

“By the way, that’s yours.”

“What is?”

Pinkie Pie pointed at the bag of bits. “That is.”

Applejack stopped the vehicle and pointed at the bag. “That bag of how many bits?”

“Two thousand three hundred and fifty four. It was originally three thousand, but I bought some gifts for all of you guys and a vet visit for Gummy.”

Applejack continued to stare at the bag of bits, eyes wide and mouth watering from the idea of all the bills she can pay with two thousand three hundred and fifty four bits. Pinkie Pie saw Applejack’s trance and she giggled and tossed it in her lap, snapping the farmer out of her trance. Applejack looked at the bag of bits and a moment later shook her head disapprovingly.

“Ah’m sorry, Pinkie, Ah can’t accept it,” said Applejack apologetically. “It’s yer money and-”

“I’m using it how I want to, which is helping a friend who needs it more than me. Besides, a nonexistent business can wait, mortgage payments can’t,” said Pinkie Pie firmly.

“But-”

“Take the money or I’ll slap you to last week!”

Applejack’s eyes widened and she leaned back as if she was afraid Pinkie Pie had such devastating powers to breach the space and time continuum with a mere slap. Pinkie Pie then pulled Applejack in for a hug, Applejack is uncomfortable at first, but then she loosened up and returned the hug. A moment later she starts crying, and tightened her hug and Pinkie Pie did the same. She closed her eyes and patted Applejack on the back as her friend trembled in her embrace and her tears trickled down to her coat.

“Thank you,” Applejack said softly, “you have no idea how much this means t’ me.”

===

Trixie tries to tackle Pinkie Pie again, but she once again uses her waning, yet still superior, speed and agility to move out of the way. However, the sudden bursts of movement caused a bit of pain in her back which is only made worse when Trixie jumps on her. Pinkie Pie buckles under the sudden weight, but manages to push Trixie off. While Trixie flops on the floor like a fish out of the water, Pinkie Pie pounces on her and pins her down again.

“That was two out of three, time for bed, Trixie,” says Pinkie Pie sternly.

“Awww, but I don’t wanna go to bed!” whines Trixie.

“But you have to, you have to go to work tomorrow.”

“But I’m not tired!” Trixie throws a hissy fit by banging her hooves on the floor and pouting. “This is fun! Aren’t you having fun?”

Pinkie Pie sighs and reluctantly releases Trixie from her pin.

===

“You want to talk about the good old times?” asked Pinkie Pie.

Applejack pulled away and wipes her eyes of tears while sniffling.

“Like what?” she asked.

Pinkie Pie shrugged. “I don’t know... Some of our whacky adventures; like the time we fought all those changelings.”

Applejack smiled. “Or when we took a trip to Los Pegasus.”

“And we swore to never let you near a casino ever again.”

Both of them laughed, remembering the good times they had at the casinos; such as Rainbow Dash trying to count cards (leading to them being kicked out), Applejack trying her hoof at Palomino Hold ‘Em (which lost them all the money Fluttershy won), Rarity and Pinkie getting trashed, and Twilight being too scared to try any of the casino games because none of them were in her favor. Then they talked about how broke they were after their horrible gambling spree and how Fluttershy managed to convince a bus driver to take all of them back to Ponyville free of charge.

“Do you know what Fluttershy said or did t’ get us back t’ Ponyville?” asked Applejack, chuckling to herself as she remembered Fluttershy pulling of a saucy look that made Rarity jealous.

“Can’t say I do,” replied Pinkie Pie coolly while leaning in her seat, “but she was one happy little filly for a while.”

“Ain’t no denyin’ that.”

The two shared another laugh, and then they fell silent. Both of them stared at the seemingly endless supply of apple trees and the beautiful sunset, which was giving everything a more peaceful feel to it. Add that to the warm, summer breeze and anyone could fall asleep on the spot. It was moments like what they’d experience now that reminded Pinkie Pie why Applejack liked to sleep outside. Another few minutes of peaceful silence passed before a thought struck Pinkie Pie’s mind.

“Hey Applejack,” said Pinkie Pie suddenly. Applejack looked at Pinkie Pie and she looked back at her. “Do you miss it?”

“Miss what?” asked Applejack, genuinely confused about the question.

“Playing hero.”

“‘Playing hero’?”

“Yeah, you know that whole Mare-Do-Well thing? Do you miss it?”

Applejack scoffed and looked back at the sunset, saying: “Nope.”

“Really?”

“Pinkie, it may have been fun fer you guys, but it wasn’t for me.”

Pinkie Pie sat up and leaned closer to Applejack. “Why not? You did great when we did that whole thing with Dashie and was awesome when Eclipse came to town.”

Applejack sighed and shifted her position so that she could start the vehicle. “Well fer one, we made Mare-Do-Well to mess with Dash, and Ah never really forgave mahself fer that. Ah mean, what kind o’ friend does that t’ another friend?”

Pinkie Pie looked down to ponder Applejack’s remark.

===

Trixie lays on the ground for a couple of more seconds before she gets a devilish grin and prepares herself for another pounce. Pinkie Pie merely tsks and wipes her nose with the hoof that Trixie burnt during that fateful night.

“Are you seriously going to try it?” asks Pinkie Pie.

Trixie nods. “Oh yeah, and you’ll soon feel the wrath of the next great hero!”

Pinkie Pie goes in the sitting position and spreads her forehooves out. Trixie charges Pinkie Pie and with one swift swipe to the unicorn’s head from an injured hoof she goes down like a sack of potatoes.

===

“And another thing,” continued Applejack, the vehicle now rumbling to life, “Ponyville got all screwy with the sudden accidents when we put on those costumes. It was weird and every time Ah think about it Ah get the shivers.” To make her point Applejack shudders for a second before regaining her composure. “Thirdly, we never thought about protecting Ponyville, it was all t’ mess with Dash. Sure her attitude reminded me of the Great and Powerful Trixie, or whatever she called herself, and we had t’ take care of it, but what we did was... awful and downright rude, to put it lightly.”

Applejack started driving towards the silo where she stored all of her apples.

“And finally,” she said, raising her hoof for a second before putting it back on the speed lever, “Ah woulda liked t’ have somethin’ more than a towel between mah noggin and a hoof, like a suit o’ armor worn by Captain Equestria or somethin’. Especially when Eclipse-”

“What do you mean ‘towel’?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“Yer jumpsuit didn’t feel like a towel?”

Pinkie Pie shook her head in exaggerated movements. “Nope, it felt like I was wearing somepony else’s skin.”

“...That’s creepy.”

===

Pinkie Pie leans over Trixie and pokes the side of her head, prompting an obnoxious snore from her. Pinkie Pie pokes her again and again and again just to make sure that Trixie is, in fact, sleeping.

“Okay, let’s get you to bed,” says Pinkie Pie while standing up. She tries to wake up Trixie again, except this time with a shake, but all that does is make her mumble something about mint gum. Pinkie Pie sighs and drags Trixie to her bed, she doesn’t bother taking the costume off, though, and when Trixie is tucked in, she heads back to her room and slouches on her bed.

She stares at the doorway as if expecting someone to walk in, and the more she stares the tighter her jaw and the wetter her eyes become. She never really thought about Applejack’s words that day on the farm, she just figured that the farmer was being pessimistic, but now that she thinks about it, Applejack was right. Mare-Do-Well was never a hero; her very design was for humiliation, they never had the intention of protecting anybody from anything, only to break down Rainbow Dash.

“What kind o’ friend does that t’ another friend?”

Pinkie Pie presses the sides of her head with her hooves, closes her eyes and whimpers. Now that she thinks about it, she wants to save Equestria using a lost soul who doesn’t even know what she’s being conditioned for while using an idea that had a vile inception. Pinkie Pie starts trembling and she shakes her head, not wanting to remember all those nights she had to comfort Rainbow Dash for what she had only viewed as a prank. She understood why she was upset at first, but never grasped the severity of it until just now.

“What kind o’ friend does that t’ another friend?”

Then the memory of Spike bleeding all over her returns, as well as the pain that Twilight and Rarity went through. She can hear both of them crying and Spike’s heavy breathing, she can practically feel his blood on her back, and the heat from Twilight’s fire, and the shockwave from the explosion in Ponyville.

Pinkie Pie’s eyes slowly open and she looks at her hooves, hyperventilating, expecting to see blood on them. She starts to tremble and rock herself back and forth while her lips quiver and tears pour out of her eyes.

“You may have captured me, but they’ll just send somepony else. And after they deal with the Mayor, they’ll come after you for meddling with our business.”

Redheart and Vigilance, both murdered in a jail cell, soon to be joined by dozens of others.

“Spike! Oh Spike, where art thou!”

She can almost feel the pain and fear Spike felt when he was being murdered in the most brutal way imaginable by Terra. Her sadistic laughter rings in Pinkie Pie’s ears, making them fold and she presses them harder against her head in a feeble attempt to stop the laughing.

“You’ve done enough already, Pinkie.”

Pinkie Pie curls up on her bed, and starts sobbing as she strokes her tail. She knows she’s responsible for Shining Armor’s condition and the hundreds killed and injured, all in the name of defending a Ponyville icon. All in the name of protecting Ponyville from harm. When she closes her eyes, though, she realizes how she only made it worse. Everything she did led up to  Big Mac and Fluttershy almost getting killed and the explosion from the Trixie and Twilight’s magic that nearly destroyed the town, ending who knows how many innocent lives. Pinkie Pie pulls her pillow closer to her chest and buries her face in it, her weeping is muffled by the pillow, but its still heard all throughout the apartment.

“I’m sorry,” whimpers Pinkie Pie while scrunching up, ignoring the pain she’s putting her back through, because as far as she’s concerned, she deserves every last bit of it. “I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”

She closes her eyes as tight as they can go in hopes that doing so will replace the nightmare with something more peaceful. Something like a memory of her and Joe working together to make one of those pastry cities or the fun times they had when they went to those bakery trade fairs. But all she gets is a sickly combination of dread and regret as the memory of what she did at the bar to find Bon Bon’s killer takes over. The feeling makes her so sick that she wants to puke.

She tightens her grip on her pillow, now drenched in her tears and sweat. “Please forgive me.”