I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the day that Equestria began to fall.
To be fair to the princess, nopony saw it coming. Who would have been able to anticipate that a previously unknown race of insect ponies that can magically disguise themselves as absolutely anypony would decide to invade Equestria? And, to top it all off, it happening not a year after the princess was forced to strike down her own sister, leaving her an emotional wreck.
They say the changeling queen had an entire army with her during the attack at the wedding, but honestly, I don’t think she needed it. The princess was so distraught for months after the Summer Sun Celebration that she could have been deposed by a foal. It was only the respect and admiration that everypony had for her that kept her in the position of Equestria’s princess.
I was on my way out of a little town called Ponyville when it happened. I’d stayed a lot longer than I had anticipated, thanks to the fact that the townsponies absolutely loved me. After just one of my performances, they insisted that I stay for a few days. Of course, a few days ended up being a few weeks, but I wasn’t overly bothered. They were constantly bathing me in their adulation, and I’m never one to turn down a compliment, let alone a constant flow of them. Still, I wasn’t planning on settling down permanently, so I ended up leaving after about a month. I only had so much variety, after all, and it’s a lot easier to reuse routines and illusions when you don’t have the same ponies watching every time. Sure, the townsponies were sad to see me go, especially some of the foals, but I’m certainly not going to stay in one place forever.
As I was walking away from the town, perhaps a kilometre away, the city of Canterlot caught my eye. Most days, it’s nothing particularly special to look at. After all, there’re only so many times you can look at one thing before it becomes boring, and even a city sticking out of the side of a mountain is no different. This time, however, there was something different about it. Instead of the same mundane city I was used to seeing, there was a gigantic pink bubble surrounding the entire city.
My jaw went slack for a couple of seconds, before I snapped back to my senses and lit up my horn. Unfortunately, the bubble was far too distant for me to be able to tell exactly what it was, though the energy pouring off of it let me know that it was, in fact, magical in nature. If it was pouring off energy at a level that I could detect from this distance, whoever created it must have been phenomenally powerful.
I pondered over these facts for a few seconds, before realizing that the bubble wasn’t the only thing different about the view of the city. Squinting and casting a magnification spell on the air in front of my eyes, I was just barely able to make out black specks above the pink bubble. They looked almost like a swarm of insects, though in the back of my mind I registered that they must have been much larger than common insects if I was able to see them at all from this distance. Some of them were so densely packed in the air that they looked like a writhing black mass.
As I watched, some of the specks detached from the larger group and dove straight at the bubble, only to bounce right back off. A shield! That’s what that bubble must be! But… that would make those specks enemies of Equestria, assuming that the shield was being created by somepony who themself was loyal to Equestria. I didn’t even know that Equestria had enemies! Even the greatest threat we’ve ever faced, that of Nightmare Moon, was one that came from within. We’re a peaceful nation, who would ever attack us?
I didn’t have long to think over these questions, as, with a noise I could hear even from where I was, the shield around Canterlot suddenly collapsed, and the insect-like swarm dove straight into the city. I stared, wide-eyed, falling back to a sitting position. The… the city’s actually under attack!
I stood up again and smacked myself in the face. “No,” I said out loud. The royal guard won’t have any problems with those things. They’ve been keeping Equestria safe for centuries, and even in the past few months they’ve been doing it without the princess’ help. This’ll be a cakewalk for them!
Confident in my assessment of the situation, I turned around and continued on my way. No point getting worked up over that, after all. They pay the guards to worry about this sort of stuff, and it’s not like there’s anything I can do about from here even if I wanted to.
***
A few hours later, I came to a stop. The sun hadn’t budged an inch in the sky since I had set out from Ponyville at noon, and it was starting to get on my nerves. It wouldn’t have been the first time in the past year that the princess forgot about moving the sun, and I doubted it would be the last. Sometimes the princess’ state made me feel sorry for her, but at times like these it just made me irritated. How hard is it to do one thing! Move the sun! It only goes in one direction!
“Argh!” I stomped the ground, hot, tired and frustrated. There wasn’t even any shade around, for Celestia’s sake! It’s like the weather today is just out to spite me. I cast my gaze around me, looking for somewhere to take shelter from the relentless heat. There were few trees around, but the position of the sun meant they cast heardly any shade at all, and certainly not enough for me to cool down in. Growing increasingly frustrated, I cast a magnification spell just in front of my eyes once more, quickly scanning the area to see if there was anywhere at all where I could stop and rest.
Aha! A cave! From where I was, it looked just like a smudge in the distance, but with the magnification spell I was able to see enough to make it out as a somewhat sizeable cave that should have more than enough room to keep me in the shade. If I’m lucky, I might even find a cold water spring!
Letting out a tiny “Eeee!” of happiness, I dispelled the magnification and began cantering over to the cave. It only took a few minutes, and before long I stood at the mouth of the cave. It was even bigger than I had anticipated it being, and the interior was nearly pitch black. of course, that wasn’t an issue for me at all. I cast a simple light spell and sent the magic into the cave, illuminating it in its entirety. It was about the size of a dozen houses put together, and it looked rather cozy, despite the unfortunate lack of a water spring.
However, there was more than just rock inside the cave. As the light spell reached the centre of the cavern, I heard a quiet “Eeep!” from the far wall. Instinctively hopping backwards, I echoed the noise before strengthening the light spell to see just what had made the noise. Peering deeper into the cave, I could just barely make out the image of a gray unicorn mare with a simple black mane huddled up against the wall, shying away from the light and flinching as I approached.
“Who are you?” I asked, perhaps a bit more sharply than was necessary. The unicorn flinched once more, before shakily sitting up and looking at me.
“I-I’m Tene- I mean, u-um, my name’s, um…”
I waved a hoof at her. “Fine, fine, if you don’t want to tell me. I couldn’t care less, anyway. What it Celestia’s name are you doing in here?”
The mare looked more than a little nervous. “I’m just, um, just resting in here.”
“Great,” I grumbled to myself. “I find a nice cave and it’s already taken. This day has been just fantastic.”
The gray mare overheard me, though I hadn’t meant for her to. “Oh! Um, you can stay in here, I need to move anyway.” She looked like she was getting more nervous by the second. “Listen, um, this might sound like a weird question, but, um, has anything… unusual been happening in Canterlot recently?”
I scoffed at that. “What, besides the royal wedding everypony’s tripping over themselves to go see? Princess Moray, or something like that? Well, there was one weird thing today, but it hardly matters.”
The unicorn looked like she was barely paying attention to what I was saying, staring at the floor muttering to herself. “... Moray? Oh, Mi Amore Cadenza. But… hmm…” She suddenly snapped her gaze back to me. “What do you mean, one weird thing?”
I raised one eyebrow, both confused and curious about her strong reaction. “Well, there was a big shield over the city-”
I was interrupted by the gray unicorn as she breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back, a smile making its way onto her muzzle. “Oh, thank goodness. They listened after all.” She suddenly looked back at me as I coughed and gave her my best deadpan look. “O-oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“Right…” I stretched out the word in as sarcastic a manner as I could, before continuing to speak. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there was a big pink shield over the entire city for a little while, and it was being attacked by these weird black bug pony things.” The gray mare’s eyes widened at this, though she kept her relaxed posture and seemed less worried than she had been when I first walked into the cave. “After a little while,” I continued, “the shield just collapsed all on its own and-” I stopped the story once again as the unicorn stiffened up, paling rapidly. She stayed silent for a few seconds, so I decided to keep telling the story. “Anyway, the shield collapsed, and the bug things dove straight into the city. The Guard’ll probably take care of them. In fact, they’ve probably already…” I trailed off as the mare began to hyperventilate.
“Oh no. No, no, no, no NO!” She suddenly leapt to her hooves and started pacing around the cave. “Equestria’s in great danger, I have to warn them!” She ran up to me and stared straight into my eyes. “Where’s the nearest town? Please, you have to tell me!”
I shuffled backwards a pace, unnerved by the crazy pony now staring deep into my eyes. I walked over to the mouth of the cave. “It’s… Ponyville, right that wa- -”
As soon as I raised my hoof and pointed in the direction of Ponyville, the mare darted out of the cave and towards the town. I sighed and walked back into the cave, grumbling to myself. “Of course I have to run into the craziest pony in Equestria. A bunch of black bugs, and she thinks the Guard can’t handle them.
“Besides, it’s not like Equestria’s actually in any danger. Not with I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, here to protect it!”
Thus began the end of the world.
I looked around outside the cave. After my dramatic proclamation, just walking back inside to take shelter from the relentless heat felt somewhat anticlimactic. Ah, well. It couldn’t be helped. The Great and Powerful Trixie is not one to let the elements get the better of her.
Turning around and walking back inside the cave, I felt a twinge of unease. Just who was that pony, and why did she freak out over some little spat in Canterlot?
Just then, my ears twitched as I heard a very faint noise from outside, so faint that I couldn’t quite tell what it was. Racking my memory for any relevant spells, I recalled a weak sound augmentation spell from my days in Celestia’s school. It was unforgivably simple, being little more than a magical cone of sorts to cause sounds to echo and, as such, be louder, but it was enough to serve my purposes. Taking a second to cast the spell, I stood still and perked my ears to listen.
It was a noise I hadn’t really heard before, so it took me a moment or two to properly identify it. What was it they called it… chattering? Chittering? Perking up both my ears, my curiosity now piqued, I leaned a little closer towards the mouth of the cave. At the urge of my instinct, with a healthy amount of caution, I cast a quick spell to deflect attention away from me. It was similar in its simplicity to the sound augmentation spell, made more complex only by the fact that it was effectively an inversion of a spell designed to draw attention to the caster, which I occasionally used while rounding up ponies for my shows. It was certainly a spell I had little occasion to use in this manner, but not one I was entirely unfamiliar with. Crowds of rabid fans did get old, sometimes.
My instinct proved to be rather valuable as a strange, chitinous black creature walked into the cave. It seemed mostly equine in nature, save for insectile wings and distinct holes in its legs, and I surmised that it was one of the bug things I had seen earlier, only much closer up. As I watched the creature, it was engulfed by green fire, only to emerge with a different appearance entirely. My mouth dropped open just a bit, and I noticed in the back of my mind that I had unconsciously taken a step back from the creature.
It now appeared to be a completely normal pony: a blue-coated earth pony mare with a gray mane. I slowly began to take a few more steps backwards, out of the cave and away from the shapeshifter, as it called out into the cave. “Hello? Is anypony in here?”
It was completely silent inside the cave, even the sounds of nature from outside seemingly muted in the presence of this creature. Unthinking, I took another step back, only to cringe at the loud clop of my hoof on the stone. Instantly the mare spun around, looking directly at me, the weak attention-diverting spell no longer effective against the intense focus of this creature. I turned away and bolted at full speed towards the mouth of the cave, my eyes wide in something approaching panic, and charged up a new spell.
As I ran, another of the creatures burst into the cave, this one undisguised, baring its teeth to reveal sharp fangs that glinted in the sunlight. Startled by the new arrival, I released my spell early. The unfinished spell smashed straight into the creature’s face, generating a sharp bang and a puff of gray smoke. Dang. I’d meant for that one to be a fireball.
As my focus shifted to the undisguised creature, the other one tackled me from behind, grabbing my hind legs and driving me to the ground. I landed shoulder-first onto the cold stone, with a grunt of pain. I turned to face the disguised creature as best I could.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie demands that you release her, filthy bug-creature!”
The creature simply gave me a vicious smile as it dropped its disguise, horn lighting up in a green aura as it prepared a spell I didn’t recognize. With an incoherent cry of anger and frustration, I telekinetically shoved the creature off of me. It proved surprisingly resistant to my magic, only sending it staggering a few steps off and away from me, rather than sending it flying as I had expected it to. Still, it gave me the chance to stumble to my feet and continue my flight from the cave. As I passed the second creature, the smoke dissipated from in front of its face, and it turned with a snarl to continue the chase.
Bursting out of the cave into the sunlight, I felt my face twist into an expression somewhere in between shock and frustration as I saw even more of the creatures were waiting for me. Five of them were arranged in a semicircle near the cave to intercept me, and another dozen stood behind them. Thinking quickly, I cast a rapid sequence of firework spells directly in front of me. The five closest creatures hissed at the bright flashes and loud noises, some of them raising their hole-speckled hooves to cover their eyes as best they were able. Taking advantage of the distraction, I telekinetically shoved the creature furthest to my left as I barreled towards it, bracing for an impact.
Just as I had anticipated, the creature was just as resistant to my telekinesis as the other one, but the projected force was enough to put it off-balance as I rammed straight into it, sending it falling to the side, the impact barely slowing me down as I sprinted towards the treeline, where I hoped I’d be able to find some way to hide or escape from the creatures pursuing me. Unfortunately for me, the fireworks hadn’t distracted the creatures behind the initial five, and they all dove at me at the same time. In a flash of inspiration, I hopped as far as I could to the right while creating an illusory copy of myself that moved to the left.
The creatures seemed to be confused by my gambit for just a few seconds, but rapidly recovered their wits and split into two groups to chase the two versions of myself. Horn still alight with the effort of maintaining the double, I made the illusion duck under the creatures that attempted to tackle it as they caught up with it. However, with my focus so divided, I failed to realize that two more of the creatures had caught up with me, and the illusion dissipated as I was grabbed from behind by the shapeshifters, and my vision faded into darkness as my head slammed into the ground.
* * *
My senses returned to me very slowly. My eyes opened gradually to reveal… something. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, especially when it seemed to me that my vision was not clearing properly. The only thing I could see was a sickly green blur, with a few indistinct sources of light behind it. My hearing also seemed to be off, as I could hear what sounded like regular activity of any pony town, but very quiet, with a muted quality similar to the blur of my vision. My limbs felt heavy and stiff, and I couldn’t move them at all. Even my eyes felt heavy and weighed down by something, only able to be opened about halfway, and I felt a wave of lethargy sweep over me as I drifted back into unconsciousness.
* * *
When I next woke up, I did so with the feeling that there was something very, very wrong. I felt the same heavy feeling in my limbs at eyelids, but this time I wasn’t going to let it get the better of me. Someone had done something to me, I knew, and the Great and Powerful Trixie wasn’t one to let it get the better of her. I quickly readied a telekinetic push spell, only to realize that my magic was just as muted as the rest of my senses. A small ripple seemed to travel through what I had thought was just empty air in front of me, which I now realized was some sort of gooey green substance, presumably the cause of my impaired senses and magic. My frustration growing, I readied the spell again, with several times more power than I had before. This time, it actually caused the entirety of the goo encasing me to wobble, moving my whole body and giving me no small amount of nausea.
Taking a moment to recover from the unexpected movement, I noticed a few blurry, black forms moving around just outside of whatever I was in. Some of them had stopped, and were presumably looking at me to see what I was doing. Oh, you just wait. I’ll give you something to watch. With that thought, I charged up the spell for the third time, this time with every last scrap of magical energy I could muster. With a scream muffled by the goo, I released the spell.
With a bang I could actually hear this time, my vision, hearing and magic suddenly felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted, and I could finally see clearly what was going on in front of me. The spell had freed me completely from the green goo, and had sent it flying in all directions. Directly in front of me were two of the black bug creatures, mouths hanging open in clear disbelief, one of them with the goop splattered across its face. With a quick glance around the room, I noticed that it wasn’t the only creature to have been splashed with the goo, as several more around the room were covered with it as well, as were the stone walls all around us.
I was standing on something of a stone platform, with similar platforms in a line all the way across what I assumed was a tunnel underground. The other platforms had fairly large blocks off the same goo I had been trapped in on top of them, each with its own trapped pony. I realized that this must have been some sort of holding area for the prisoners of these shapeshifters.
I felt a smirk make its way onto my muzzle, as a feeling of triumph filled me. I had escaped from these creatures with ease, and if their expressions, which I assumed were similar to the expressions of normal ponies, were anything to go by, it was something either very rare or completely unprecedented.
This was my element.
I struck a proud pose. “Take note, filthy bug creatures! No prison can hold the awe-inspiring might of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
With that, I cast the biggest smokebomb spell I could manage from my newly reenergized horn, and created another illusion of myself. This was amazing! Now that I was out of the goop that had suppressed my magic, I felt like I had more magical energy than I had ever felt before in my life. Leaving the illusion in the centre of the smoke, I cast two new spells on myself. The first was the same spell to deflect attention that I had used in the cave prior to being caught, and the second was a spell designed to camouflage my coat, turning it the same colour as anything that it came into physical contact with. The three spells were tough to maintain simultaneously, certainly, but it was no big issue for the likes of the Great and Powerful Trixie. I allowed a smirk to cross my face, and gave the same expression to the illusion of myself.
Creeping outside of the smoke just as it dissipated, I clung to the nearest wall of the tunnel and watched as the creatures encircled my grinning double and attempted to tackle it. Moving along the wall away from the group, I made the illusion jump impossibly high, trailing false smoke for added flair, and dive-bombed past the creatures, rolling as it hit the ground at springing back to its feet. Grinning all the while, it took off in the opposite direction from where I was moving, quickly pursued by a growing crowd of the creatures.
Releasing my focus from the illusion, leaving it with a small shred of my will to flee from the creatures, I continued to move as quickly as I dared along the wall of the tunnel. There was a light just at the end of the tunnel. Though dim and green, it was brighter than the area I currently occupied, and I moved with haste towards the new area of the underground lair of the shapeshifters.
