Just Beyond the Surface

A silhouette walked through the castle on the tips of its hooves.

There was something almost illicit about what she was doing, and the shadowy figure couldn't quite suppress a smile as she moved silently through the halls.

If she was going for stealth, then the pointy hat and flashy cape seemed a little counterproductive, but that didn't seem to bother her. After all, this was a new experience for The Great and Powerful Trixie. Always before she would make a fantastic entrance, perhaps with fireworks and smoke bombs, announcing to all and sundry her grand arrival! She'd tried to tone that down recently after several complaints about smoke inhalation, and more than a few warnings from the fire marshals, but that wasn't why she was moving so cautiously now. Oh no, this was all about giving her friend Starlight Glimmer the biggest surprise of her life!

The two had been engaged in a prank war for the past few weeks.

It had all started not long after the night Trixie had performed the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive. Her hat had wound up somewhat disheveled in the course of the trick, and she had taken it off to mend. It was somewhat shameful that Trixie couldn't afford to have the work professionally done, but why spend hard earned bits on a trip to the haberdashery when Trixie could do the work herself? She had just finished sewing on the last star shaped patch when she decided to try it on and see how it looked in the mirror. The hat didn't seem to fit the way it had before, and it felt odd. While Trixie was no pro when it came to such menial skills, there was nothing that she did to the hat that should have effected its fit. Just to make sure, she took it off and looked inside...

That was when Starlight Glimmer had poked her muzzle out from inside the hat and cried "Boo!"

Trixie had jumped a mile as her friend magically pulled herself out of the hat. There was no telling how long Starlight had been waiting to play that trick on her. Though it had scared the day-lights out of Trixie, even she had to admit it was kind of funny. In the end Trixie didn't get mad... No, not one bit. But she did vow to get even, and had swiftly begun plotting there and then.

They'd been in friendly competition ever since, Starlight using her superior magic while Trixie used her knowledge of slight of hoof and all the stage craft she had ever learned. The magician was particularly proud of the time she had made it appear as though an Ursa Major had manifested from inside Starlight's tube of toothpaste. Sadly, after Starlight had recovered from her surprise, it hadn't been long before Trixie found the gravity inside her traveling wagon had been swapped so that the ceiling was the floor and the floor was the ceiling. She had to admit, the effect would have been fantastic for inspiring a little awe in the regular town ponies, but it made getting in and out of her traveling home a bit of a chore. The sensation of 'falling up' was never a welcome one.

Despite both ponies going to such extremes, the prank war was all in good fun.

Starlight had reversed the spell and returned the interior of Trixie's wagon to normal, and the remnants of Trixie's 'Minty Ursa Major' trick had still been usable for Starlight's morning routine. But Trixie couldn't help but feel she was on the losing end of the past few exchanges. It wasn't as if she resented Starlight, as she had with another certain unicorn turned alicorn. She knew this was just Starlight's way of palling around with her, and helping her sharpen up her skills as both a unicorn and an entertainer. It was just that the magician had something of a competitive streak, and she had her pride which already had its share of wounds. She wanted to perform a truly spectacular illusion, the likes of which would knock Starlight on her flank! But to do so, she'd need to get the drop on her, and that was no simple task.

True, it was no surprise that Trixie would be coming over for dinner later that evening. But if she arrived quietly a few hours early, she'd have time to set up the perfect prank! Or at least, so she hoped.

So what if what she was doing was technically breaking and entering? She'd just apologize as she always did and then take whatever scolding Twilight cared to dish out. If it meant finally one-uping Starlight, it would be worth it.

Unfortunately, the Trixie found herself to be totally lost.

The magician had thought that Starlight was exaggerating when she had told her how easy it was to get lost in Twilight's Castle. From the outside it looked to be just a fairly large treehouse. Inside, however, the halls were a maze of crystal and glass. Though it was indeed thrilling to sneak about in what she couldn't help but think of as 'the enemy stronghold', either Trixie was going in circles or this castle had more broom closets than seemed reasonably sane. Who kept this place sparkling and shiny anyways? Was it just that dragon assistant, Spike? She pitied the little dragon if Twilight made him clean all of this by himself.

"What-cha doin'?" came a high pitched voice, just behind Trixie.

She jumped so high that she landed awkwardly on the slick crystalline floor and fell in a crumpled heap,"Don't do that!" Trixie exclaimed. "You can't just sneak up on other ponies like that! You'll give some pony a heart attack!"

The unicorn filly in a dress the color of a ripe plum backed away, an apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I was just wondering what you were doing here. Are you lost?"

Trixie had never seen the little girl before. There was something odd about bumping into a stranger in a place like this, but she had no reason to lie. "The Great and Powerful Trixie does not get lost! She merely misplaces the proper path from time to time. She knows exactly where she is!" Just because she didn't have a reason to lie, that didn't mean she wouldn't.

"Well, I can show you the way if you like," offered the filly with a smile, perhaps seeing right through the magician's bluster. "Where exactly are you going?"

"Where Trixie is going is none of your business!" replied Trixie, turning away from the filly haughtily with a swirl of her cape. Despite this, she mollified her tone a bit and said, "However, if you know the direction in which Starlight Glimmer's room should happen to be, Trixie would be most grateful for your assistance." She looked out of the corner of her eye, expectantly.

"Oh, that ones easy!" replied the filly with a giggle. "Just follow me!"

Was it really going to be that simple? Trixie dared not believe her good fortune. She wasn't sure who exactly this filly was, but the precocious foal set out down a flight of stairs with far more conviction than Trixie's steps had held. Perhaps she really did know the way.

Trotting a bit to catch up, Trixie followed the bobbing ponytail of the filly down into the bowels of the castle. There wasn't as much stained glass here and, as a result, these hallways were much darker. Unlike the halls above, these also seemed somewhat disused. The crystal did not shine as brightly, and there was something of a layer of dust on the floor. In the past Trixie would have been thrilled to find such a flaw in Twilight's perfect image. The thought that the 'Princess of Friendship' would keep the halls ponies were most likely to see bright and shiny while allowing the castles underbelly to go to cobwebs and decay was just too delicious, even now that they were on better terms. However, that didn't seem quite to be what was going on here. Rather it felt like these halls had never been set hoof in before this moment.

Instead of a delightful feeling of schadenfreude at Twilight's expense, Trixie felt something else entirely.

She felt a mounting sense of dread.

Things only got worse the further Trixie and the little girl went. They climbed down another flight of stairs, and found themselves in an even darker hall, crowded with what looked to be broken pieces of science equipment and surgical devices. It wouldn't be like Twilight to be this neglectful... To not keep every inch of her domicile spic and span, let alone allow her instruments to languish in such a horrid state. The pony had always struck Trixie as being on the anal retentive side of things, and fixated on maintaining order to an obsessive degree. Twilight would be too much of a neat freak to allow things to get so cluttered with junk and coated in filth as this.

Trixie began to wonder if Twilight was even aware that these sub-levels in her own home existed at all. If she was, would she really consign her pupil Starlight Glimmer, to live down here? Was this Starlight's mess?

Trixie doubted it.

"Where exactly are we going little one?" asked Trixie, her apprehension removing all attempts at showmanship from her voice.

"It's just a little further," Violet replied brightly. "Just down this way!"

Trixie had no idea how the filly could see in this gloom. Her own horn was ablaze with light, but it barely did anything to clear away the dust clogged darkness she found herself in. As they went down one more flight of stairs, Trixie realized that they must be deep underground. There was a rough and unfinished quality to these halls. Here and there, she could see where black, damp earth had spilled through the walls. There was raw rock here as well, as if they were no longer in the castle, but rather a network of caves. Dark muck had seeped down into the floor and made a thick and unpleasant puddle that the pair of unicorns had to wade through.

The filly, for her part, didn't seem to mind and trotted on as carefree as if they were in a spring meadow. Trixie, on the other hoof had to gather her cloak about her for fear of it staining and move much more tentatively. The mud, which stank of fresh turned earth and other fouler things, seemed to almost suck at Trixie's hooves. The thought of sinking into that primordial slime made her grateful for her cloak as a chill shot down her spine. So preoccupied with maintaining her footing was Trixie that she almost bumped into the filly she had been following.

They had apparently reached their destination. A large door was set into the wall here. Though it looked thick enough that it would take a team of stallions to open, it swung open effortlessly with a touch of the unicorn filly's horn. "Right this way!" the filly in the plum colored dress exclaimed with a somewhat unsettling grin.

"Are you c-certain that this is S-Starlight's room?" asked Trixie tremulously. It was very cold in these chambers, almost as if all the heat had been sucked from the air, and she felt her teeth chattering. She was uncertain if that was from the cold or from her nerves as, looking back, Trixie realized she couldn't see even a speck of light to mark where they had come from. "This place doesn't seem f-fit for ha-habitation."

"Nope, this is the place alright," replied the little girl, as if everything were perfectly normal. "Go on inside, you'll see."

Despite her every instinct telling Trixie to flee, she stepped forward through the yawning portal. The room within was even darker than the hall outside. There was a sound from within. A clinking, like metal on metal. The filly just grinned, never blinking, urging Trixie silently to go further in. The foul smell was worse here.

Trixie carefully picked her way down another flight of stairs, but she dared not touch the filth slick walls, even to guide herself. "It's so dark," spoke the magician in a whisper. "I fear you've led Trixie to a terrible place little one."

"Having trouble seeing? Let me help you out!" The filly must have cast some sort of spell, for in that moment the chamber was flooded with crimson light.

With a sudden rush of relief, Trixie realized that they were in some kind of dark room. Most ponies didn't bother with developing film this way anymore, using the more popular Ponyroid cameras which spat out pictures as soon as you took them. A few shakes and you'd have a print suitable for framing. Here, the more difficult work of developing film by hoof was done in a series of shallow chemical pans lined up in several rows of narrow tables. Above them, prints hung dripping from strands of cloths line, held on by cloths pins and paper clips.

As Trixie moved down the line she looked at the developed photo's, and slowly began to notice a theme. Though some of the pictures were crowd shots in busy streets and others appeared a little more intimate, all held the image of Twilight Sparkle. Here she was speaking to her friends. Here again was a picture of Twilight engaged in conversation with the mayor. Here was a picture of her flying over head as if the photographer was far below. Here she was smiling. Here she was crying. Here she was staring into the middle distance. There were pictures of her eating. Of her sleeping. This picture seemed to be taken while she was in the bath. Trixie averted her gaze. There were details in some of these images that she had no desire to see.

Was Twilight so conceited that she had some professional photographer follow her around? That didn't seem right.

Was this some secret project Starlight Glimmer had been working on? That didn't seem right either.

While Trixie knew that Starlight had shared her fixation with defeating Twilight for a time, having gone so far as to stalk her for a few months so as to get revenge on her for what had happened in her village, this seemed a step beyond what the unicorn had done. Some of these pictures were very recent while, as she looked around to make sure, others seemed to have been taken quite some time ago when Twilight had still been a unicorn. Trixie didn't think Starlight had even known Twilight before she had become a Princess. To get some of these more intimate shots, somepony would have had to follow Twilight for years, not a few mere months. No, this spoke to an outright obsession that Trixie found terribly disturbing.

Was it possible that the dragon, Spike, could be responsible for this? Trixie had never liked the way he seemed to follow Twilight around. Nor did she think it a particularly healthy way for a child to spend their youth, even for a fire breathing dragon.

"I'm sorry, but perhaps you did not understand Trixie," she started to say, turning to where she expected the filly to be. "Trixie was hoping to find Starlight Glimmer's room, not this dark room or whatever... it... is?" Her voice trailed off as she realized she was alone. Worse, the door and the stairs she had walked down had both vanished! There was nothing but a blank wall behind her!

In the blood colored gloom, Trixie thought she heard a high pitched giggle somewhere off to her right. Trixie's skin broke out in goose pimples and the little hairs along her legs all stood on end.

"It's okay Trixie, just relax," she tried to comfort herself. "All you've done is follow a creepy little girl you don't even know down into a dark room far beneath the surface of the earth and now the way out has mysteriously disappeared." There was another soft, girlish chuckle, this time from the left. "And now she's laughing at you! Right, there must be a logical explanation for all this. Keep it together Trixie. Just relax and think... Think!"

And then it hit her. How had she been so stupid!? Of course this scenario was ridiculous! It was meant to be!

This had to be another one of Starlight Glimmer's pranks!

"Oh, very funny. Very funny! So you figured out tonight would be the perfect time for me to prank you back, so you decided to set up a trick of your own, huh!?" cried Trixie to the dark, to a fresh wave of giggles. "I have to admit, I didn't expect you to hire some filly to do your dirty work for you, but I can see where that was carefully calculated to throw me off," She walked past the dripping photo's and pressed further towards the back of the room. There was a doorway set there, and Trixie could hear the same clink of metal that she had heard earlier. This must be 'Starlight's Room' that had been set up specifically to scare Trixie. Well, she wasn't going to give Starlight the satisfaction. "I've seen through your little trick now! So you can go ahead and come out! I'm not scared by these kinds of theatrics!"

That last part was a lie, of course. Trixie had been very scared, but there was no reason to let Starlight know how close she had gotten to making Trixie soil her cloak. She expected Starlight to bound out of the shadows, laughing away at how she'd 'gotten' Trixie at any moment.

But that moment never came.

Trixie walked through the open doorway. The room she found herself in now seemed less open and horribly close compared to the dark room she had left behind. Exposed rafters propped up a high vaulted ceiling. Long lengths of chain hung down from above, and swung gently as if they had been recently distributed. That was the source of the clinking sound at least, and one mystery solved. As Trixie continued to walk forward, she was hit by the same sharp scent she had smelled in the corridor outside. Not the smell of fresh turned earth or even moldering metal. No, this was something else...

The scent was unmistakable. The floor was absolutely covered in a mixture of blood and viscera...

It didn't take Trixie long to find the source... It didn't take her long at all to find her friend, Starlight Glimmer.

She was hanging from the ceiling, illuminated by a single spotlight that shone down from above. A cruelly barbed hook had been forced through her forelegs, through her ankles, so that she hung by the tattered limbs. The tips of her hind hooves dangled slightly above a wide pool of drying blood that had mixed gently with the inch deep foulness that was already pooled on the floor.

Starlight was covered in wounds. Long sections of her hide had been stripped off of her back, and there were burns here and there that looked like they had been made by something red hot and very sharp. A thick layer of dried blood was caked around her mouth where a ball of dirty rags had been forced passed broken teeth. It looked like parts of her mane and tail had been pulled out by their roots, and parts if her scalp had been peeled back as a result. She was absolutely covered in tiny cuts that wept a steady stream of bitter red tears.

For a moment, Trixie was sure that her friend must be dead. No pony should have to endure that kind of torment and live. But then, as if responding to her friends thoughts, Starlight began to twitch. This caused her chains to clink together, making the sound that Trixie had heard when she first entered the subterranean room. Starlight was unconscious, probably from the pain, but her muscles were still spasming as she hung in a daze.

Trixie couldn't believe what she was seeing. She was too shocked to speak. It felt like ice water had been dumped into her veins. Who could have done this? She knew Starlight probably still had ponies who held a grudge against her from the old days, but what kind of sadistic monster would do something like this? Part of her wanted to suspect Twilight, but this was her pupil! Even if she needed to be punished for some infraction, like befriending a ne'er-do-well like Trixie, she would never go this far!

"Who!? Who did this to you?" asked the magician, mostly to herself. Starlight was in no position to answer.

There was a chorus of giggling from the darkness. "She did this to herself," spoke a child's voice, breaking into a fit of laughter as if she'd just told the cleverest joke in the world.

Had it been her? Had it been the child in the plum colored dress that did this? "To herself? No! How could she? It was you, wasn't it?"

"She was a bad pony," the filly replied, the answer echoing off the distant ceiling. "She made Twilight sad. She tried to force ponies to be how she wanted, act how she wanted. But in the end it was never enough for her. All she needed to do was make the right friends and everything would have been fine. Instead she wreaked chaos not just in Equestria but across time!"

"I know that! Don't you think I know all that?" cried Trixie. "Do you really think that she deserves to be punished like this? Making her suffer alone... Subjecting her to this sick torture... Imprisoning her here in the cold and the dark! This is just too cruel!"

There was more laughter. "You're right, it is cruel. Just as cruel as she was when she plotted to steal Twilight's destiny from her. Just as cruel as when she stole Twilight's cutie mark! just as cruel as when she locked her up in a room and tried to brainwash her into thinking the way she wanted her to think." There was no laughter now. Only seething anger. "But you're wrong about one thing... We never intended for her to suffer alone."

The chamber was suddenly flooded with lights in every shade and color. The room was far larger than Trixie had thought. Chains dangled in every direction as far as her eyes could see, each ending in a cruel hook. Many were occupied. Corpses swung from the chains, gracefully swinging in an unfelt breeze. Trixie's eyes were wide with terror already, but they grew wider still.

Starlight had been tortured, yes, but these other unfortunate ponies had been mutilated much further, and in very specific ways. Pegasi had horns jammed through their foreheads. Unicorns had wings sewn on their backs. Earth ponies had suffered both. Some were hung carelessly, with hooks through their stomachs, their necks, or upside down by one leg. One particularly unfortunate pony had her hook driven through her eye socket and back out the side of her jaw, which hung open in a slack and soundless scream. Others hung from more than one hook, twisted into poses that would almost look graceful were it not for the horrifying damage that had been done to their bodies to achieve them.

While they were mutilated and strung up in different ways, every pony had their mane cut into the same style. Each, also, had their cutie marks defaced, traced over with a familiar symbol. They all had Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark carved into their flesh.

Trixie felt a prick in her flank. She looked down to see a syringe jutting out of her side. Acting quickly, Trixie willed all of her magic on breaking the needle. The syringe fell, but already some of its contents had been injected inside her. Trixie turned to run, but found that the doorway she had walked through had vanished, just like before. There was nothing but more twisted hooks and chains. As Trixie staggered, her balance lost to whatever drug had been injected into her veins, she brushed against the jagged hooks that hung all around her. She sliced open her own flesh, gouging herself even deeper as she struggle to disentangle herself from the filth encrusted barbs.

Once she finally freed herself, she recoiled in pain, only to back into one of the 'Twilight dolls' that hung behind her. As she jostled the corpse, maggots erupted from its mouth in a burst of foul breath. Trixie gagged at the scent and tried not to lose her lunch.

The filly's laughter was all around her. Where was she? Where was it coming from!?

There!

There she was, grinning against a pillar, eyes manic. "You were a bad pony too, weren't you Trixie?" She was there for a moment and gone the next.

Now she was standing beside Starlight. How had she moved so quickly? Had she teleported? "You tried to make a fool out of Twilight. You tried to drive her away." Now she was gone again. Where was she? Was she hiding behind the hanging corpses somehow?

There was laughter and blood everywhere. As the drugs effect accelerated in her blood, it began to look as if the 'Twilight dolls' were dancing through the air, their sewn on wings flapping gently, their manes floating as though they were under water.

Trixie felt tears pricking her eyes. This was worse than a nightmare. This was insanity! Her body wanted so badly to sleep, but Trixie knew that if she passed out now that there would be no one to save Starlight. No one to save Trixie, either, for that matter. She tried to concentrate, to cast some sort of spell, any spell to get away. But her mind was already thick with fog. Whatever the drug was, it was no less effective in smaller doses, it just took longer to take effect.

"We could almost understand where you were coming from. After all, if you couldn't have Twilight, why should any pony else, right? But then after all you did you had the gall to ask for forgiveness," barked the filly, seemingly right in Trixie's ear. "To plead that it was all the work of that little trinket of yours, the Alicorn Amulet, when you were the one who had freely sought it out and obtained it. All to try and be better than Twilight. All to try and deny her what destiny had in store..."

As Trixie at last collapsed on the blood slick floor, rolling in the putrid puddle of thick filth that must have been accumulating for some time, she knew she was losing her mind. As she looked up she saw not one, but two smiling fillies looking down on her. No, more than that... From behind every hanging corpse there stepped a grinning filly. They were all laughing, all staring, all smiling! And each one of them held something sharp and ready to rip open her flesh. They gathered around the pathetic and powerless Trixie as she sobbed and at last gave in to the inevitable encroaching darkness.

"You don't deserve forgiveness Trixie," one of the mirrored fillies said. "You deserve to be punished."

"And that concludes the first half of today's lecture. If you would like, we can take a short break here," Twilight offered. Truthfully, she could use a break herself. She'd been talking almost non-stop, pausing only when Violet asked one of her many very intelligent questions.

"Aww, do we have to?" pouted Violet Flicker. "I was having so much fun pretending to be your student! I feel like I've learned just so much just now. I mean, your other pupil isn't even back yet, right?"

It was true, Starlight hadn't shown back up yet. Twilight checked the time. Starlight had gone on break hours ago! What had happened to her? It wouldn't be the first time that Starlight had blown off one of Twilight's specially prepared lectures. Though the unicorn had made a lot of progress, Starlight would still sometimes take advantage of a situation to get her own way if an opportunity presented itself. Had this been one such time?

Had today's lesson been so bad that she'd just blown Twilight off? Was Twilight that bad of a teacher? Was she boring? Twilight paced back and forth, her thoughts racing.

"Are you okay Twilight?" asked the unicorn filly, her brow knit cutely with concern.

"I'm fine, everything's fine," Twilight was a bad liar. But surely she couldn't be that bad of a teacher, right? Spike and the Crusader's may have left before she'd even gotten halfway through her earlier lesson, but Violet had sat through it all.

Violet was such an attentive student! She always asked the right questions and gave the right answers. She was always suitably impressed by the effort and skill Twilight had put into her lesson plan. She even gave the correct wrong answers, which gave Twilight the opportunity to explore a given topic even deeper. Violet even took notes! No pony had ever taken notes when Twilight had given a lecture before! It was so refreshing! No, if Violet was any indication, Twilight was an excellent teacher. Maybe she just needed better students?

"I think maybe I just need a break," Twilight admitted. She had a lot to think things over.

"Well, okay, if it's for you Twilight," Violet replied with one of her bright and sunny smiles. "I guess I could use a trip to the little filly's room."

The unicorn filly was up and out of her seat and heading towards the hallway that would lead to the bathroom before Twilight had the chance to give her directions. Perhaps Spike had told Violet where it was earlier? It really didn't matter. What mattered was figuring out what had happened to Starlight Glimmer. Moon Dancer and Trixie should be arriving any moment now. If Starlight had decided to run out on another dinner, even an informal one, then it might be time for Twilight to give her pupil another kind of lecture entirely. Twilight removed her teaching glasses angrily and slammed her teaching wand on the lectern hard enough that it bounced across the room and clattered on top of the desk that Violet had so recently vacated.

Twilight's fore-hooves flew to her mouth. She hadn't realized just how angry she was, and the violent outburst had surprised even herself. She was thankful that Violet wasn't there to see her like this. That's really setting a great example Twilight, she thought to herself, throwing a tantrum like a foal! She'd even managed to scatter the filly's carefully taken notes all over the floor!

Silently reprimanding herself, Twilight moved to retrieve the wooden pointer and pick up the fallen notes. As she began to leaf through the spilled papers, however, something strange caught her eye.

"Twilight and Violet forever," she read aloud. One entire sheet of paper was nothing but that phrase over and over, surrounded by little drawings of hearts. She turned to the next page. This one was just a giant heart with a doodle of 'Twilight' inside. In the margins there seemed to be some kind of... poem about Twilight's mane. This one was just Twilight Sparkle written over and over, each one in a different font style. This one was dominated by doodles of Violet and Twilight with hearts between them and the letters T+V in big cartoony letters. She rifled frantically through the notes. This one was nothing but doodles of herself and Violet in various stages of embrace... Or at least that was what she thought until her eyes went wide with realization.

They weren't just embracing.

Twilight felt her knees grow week in the as the realization of the content of Violet's 'notes' hit her. She sat down in the tiny plastic chair, but jumped back up immediately. The chair was soaking wet. Twilight really didn't want to think of why, but suddenly she understood what Violet had meant when she said she could use the little filly's room.

Oh dear.

Twilight had just thought that Violet was interested in what she had to teach her. She never suspected a filly her age could have those kinds of feelings for anypony, let alone Twilight herself. This was a catastrophe! What was Twilight supposed to do about this? She'd heard of students sometimes developing crushes on their teachers, but this didn't seem like a harmless crush! It was flattering in a way. Really, really creepy, but still kind of nice to know that somepony thought of her that way. Even if that pony was half her age...

No, this wasn't good.

Twilight didn't even think of herself that way. She'd never had a special somepony in her life. She didn't think it would be a good idea to start now... Especially with an under-aged student!

What was she going to do? What was she going to do!?