"Careful with that, dearie," Rarity ordered Applejack, who was stuck lugging her heavy dress-filled suitcase down the stairs to the ground floor. The other girls stood on the sidewalk with their luggage, waiting for this last trip down to finish so they could leave.

"Why are we leaving Azrael's place again?" Rainbow asked, skeptical. "That place was awesome!"

"It's not safe there anymore," Shimmer answered.

"And where IS it safe!?" Rainbow argued back. "Did you forget that we have nowhere else to go?"

"I didn't," Shimmer replied, "but if he comes back-"

"Well well well." Startled, the seven girls turned to see that Trixie had run into them. "Trixie heard you girls were on the run. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. And it seems even your new friends have abandoned you."

"That's not true," Shimmer asserted. "Daniel's out there trying to fix this mess."

"Oh really?" Trixie inquired, skeptical. "And what about the other new kid, Azrael?"

Shimmer looked away. "We...we can't trust him anymore."

"Um...sorry to bother you," Fluttershy quietly piped up, "but why not?"

"He... What he did... We just can't!" The other six girls quickly understood, as it was clear her outburst was based on some sort of trauma. If only they knew...

"Anyway, now that we 'can't trust Azrael,' we've got nowhere to stay until this blows over," Rainbow mentioned, still angry.

"Oh, is that so?" Trixie pondered, giving them a smug look. "Well, if you all get on your knees and beg, Trixie will see if you can stay at Trixie's place."

"Yes, please," Shimmer replied.

"Well, if that's how you're going to- What?" Trixie asked, slightly surprised that Shimmer wasn't even slightly annoyed by her taunting, or even that she'd taken the offer seriously.

"You heard me," Shimmer answered. "We desperately need a place to stay, and I doubt we can just go back home anytime soon. If you're offering, we'll gladly lay low at your place. Right?" She looked back to her friends, who all nodded, albiet with differing levels of reluctance.

It took a while for Trixie to regain her composure. "Well then, let Trixie show you the way."

"Woah! This is your house!?" Rainbow asked in surprise and disbelief.

Trixie had dragged the girls all the way to the edge of Canterlot. There, they bore witness to the giant mansion sitting alone in the outskirts, surrounded by a lush green lawn and several beautiful hedges. The tall windows and ornate decorations gave the whole manor a very regal feel.

"Are you impressed?" Trixie asked smugly. "My father used to be a world famous magician. This kind of grandeur is nothing to him." She brought them up to the front door, and welcomed them inside. "Come in, and gasp in awe of the magnificence of Lulamoon Manor!"

The girls entered into a massive foyer. A large golden chandelier hung over a great staircase covered in a regal gold-trimmed red carpet. The carpet branched off to either side once it left the floor, each branch passing by two pots of colorful roses on their way through grand wood archways. Through the right archway was a huge dining room with an ornate table in the center. To the left was a large living room, where a great flat screen TV hung above a fireplace, with a velvet sofa overlooking the two. Another set of stairs in the living room went up to a balcony, leading to a hall on the second floor.

Rainbow and Applejack immediately made a beeline for the game console, and made a start on Trixie's library. Trixie looked on with disgust. "Trixie should have figured. Now, if it would please the more civilized among you, the Great and Powerful Trixie will show you around the rest of the manor."

She brought the remaining five girls up to the second floor, and brought them down a long hall. As the tour went on, each of the girls broke off to spend their time in a particular room. Twilight lost herself in the manor's library; Fluttershy decided to care for the bunny Trixie and her father used for their magic shows; Rarity took a good look at Trixie's stage costume, and decided to design a new one for her; Pinkie ran off somewhere, probably to spread gaudy party decorations all over the place. Only Shimmer was left as Trixie approached a lonely room at the end of the hall.

"And this," Trixie began, opening the door, "is Father's study."

They entered into a mostly rectangular room. The left wall was lined with bookshelves, which receded back in the center to make the sole fault in the room's geometric shape. The right wall was one giant window, looking out on Trixie's stunning backyard. A lonely desk sat in the middle of the room, facing the window. On the far wall were a few promotional posters for Trixie's father's show, the Great Gramarye. Shimmer was immediately drawn to the posters.

"Like Trixie said, Trixie's father was a great magician," Trixie explained. "His tricks were legendary. Teleportation, telekinesis, some pyromancy, that sort of thing. The thing is, no one ever figured out how his tricks worked, not even Trixie. They were so fantastic that he quickly earned the money to pay for all of this." She opened her arms to gesture to the entire manor.

Shimmer froze. She'd realized something was off with the posters, but she couldn't tell what...until Trixie mentioned his repertoire. The list of tricks reminded her of the night before, and then it hit her. The Gramarye Lulamoon in the posters was missing the half mask, but there was no mistake about it.

Trixie's father was Charade.

"Is something wrong?" Trixie asked, noticing how tense Shimmer was. "Are you stunned speechless by Trixie's father's greatness?"

Shimmer rushed to the desk, and began rummaging around it. Before Trixie could stop her or otherwise react, she found a button hidden underneath the desk. She pressed it, and one of the bookcases sank into the floor, revealing a dark staircase. Trixie was stunned.

"Didn't know this was here, did you?" Shimmer asked. "I doubt this is the only secret your dad's been hiding from you. If you want to know the truth about your father, I suggest you come with me." Trixie understood, and began to make her way down the stairs. Before Shimmer did the same, she noticed a fire axe hanging on the wall. She grabbed it, and followed Trixie into the abyss.

The stairwell went deep underneath the manor, getting darker and darker as it descended. Finally, they came to the bottom of the stairs, and entered a dark hallway. The floor, walls, ceiling, doors, everything was a black metal that seemed to drain all light from the room. The only color came from the silver metal running over each seam. Curious, Shimmer and Trixie opened the first door they came to, and came across some sort of medical lab. A seat connected to a large apparatus lay waiting for a patient in the center of the room, along with a number of restraints to keep the patient from escaping their fate. Shimmer walked over to a nearby counter, where she found a number of empty hypodermic needles. Looking around, she noticed a few more needles that had been utterly shattered. She wasn't sure what Charade was doing to people here, but clearly his patients reacted violently to his treatments. As she was looking over the counter, Trixie was drawn to another door in the room. She opened it, expecting to find a closet...

...and she screamed.

Startled, Shimmer rushed over to see what was wrong. What she found immediately made her hurl. The room beyond had no light of its own, but in the light from the lab, they could see a mountain of mangled corpses in different states of decay. Forcing herself to look at the pile, Shimmer noticed that a lot of the bodies had pony ears and wings jutting unnaturally off their bodies. These people were forced to pony up, and from the looks of it, their new growths were painful enough to kill them. So then, the needles...was Charade injecting magic into people? And if so, to what end?

Shimmer broke out of her thoughts long enough to notice a traumatized Trixie sobbing in the corner, and went over to comfort her. "Hey, I'm sorry," she apologized. "I had no idea we'd find this..." She trailed off. What they'd seen was far too horrible for words.

"Father...why?" Trixie asked through her tears. Shimmer got up to explore the facility some more. "I'm done," Trixie piped up. "I don't wanna be here anymore. You're on your own."

"I understand," Shimmer answered, closing her eyes. "There's still one thing I need you to do, though. Go back up to the mansion, and get my friends out of there. Pretty sure that place is more dangerous for us than Azrael's."

"And what are you gonna do?"

Shimmer turned to the door, allowing Trixie to see the axe she'd brought with her. "There are some questions I still need answered before I can leave." With that, she left Trixie alone in the room.

Author's Note

I mean no offense to gamers...especially considering I am one.