Author's Note

Yes, this book will occasionally switch perspectives to other characters. Sorry if this confuses or annoys you, but the shifts are limited and generally somewhat 'necessary' for the story. Don't worry—we will return to D'mitry's dumbass momentarily.

(C̸̞̙̭̽̌̀̈́̽̕̕ȗ̵̧̨̢̻̩̞̘͙̉̋̊͂͘ŕ̷͖̦̍͝s̵̫̪̋̍͂̆̆͆̄é̶̡̧̺͖d̸͎͒̒̿̈̀) Black & White

She scurried forward. Above her, the skies were growing cloudy. It made sense. No pegasi to work in the clouds would likely mean abnormal, more severe weather than usual. Trixie figured as much.

Eh, we’ll see.

“Huh?”

Trixie turned around, but there was nobody there. She swept her head left to right, attempting to locate the voice. She heard the voice chuckle, but realized its sound was coming from every direction. Her heart sped up.

Relax, Trixie. It’s me, the Author.

“Author?”

Just think of me as your God.

Her eyes widened. What did this mean? Was she finally losing her mind?

“A god? No way.”

Yes way. Sorry to drop in and scare you like that. I just figured it’d be best if you knew that I was here.

“O…okay?”

You don’t have to speak out loud either. I can see your thoughts.

OH NO!

The Author chuckled some more as she tried to squander her most weirdest, sexual, and disturbing thoughts. They weren’t even in her head at the time, but the voice triggered them out of the deepest parts of her memory.

Haha. Funny how that works. It’s fine, Trixie. I don't judge... much.

“Um… okay?”

Carry on.

She slowly sped up to a walk again as she hesitantly glanced over her shoulders. Whatever this was was confusing her tremendously. The zombie apocalypse from out of nowhere was bad enough as is, but a random God showing up too? Bizarre. Maybe these really were end times.

She had grown to know the apocalypse in the past however many days, as she was forced to evade zombie ponies herself throughout town. She wished she had been doing her magic acts at Appleloosa or Dodge City instead of Ponyville when this crap struck, but time wasn’t on her side. She was only a day away from setting off again and traveling there when things went south, so her magic chariot was thankfully packed with most of her stuff.

She originally thought about grabbing her magic chariot and getting the hell out of Ponyville. The sudden outbreak made it difficult though. She also didn't have her slav-...

...

...her wonderful helper colts Snips and Snails to help her lug it around. Lugging around a large chariot seemed like a bad idea right now anyway. These zombies were curious as ever. They were so curious, in fact, that they surrounded her a few days ago and trapped her inside a Ponyville home for days.

Bastards. She’d been trapped inside with the homeowner, who was also a unicorn. This is how she realized magic was vanishing.

At least… other ponies’ magic. Hers was still intact for some reason. She didn’t quite know why, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to use it to her advantage now, and in the time she’d been trapped in the house, she came up with a plan.

She knew there was a book that possibly held the cure to this thing. You see, the idea of a zombie apocalypse happening wasn’t unfounded. Ponies throughout Equestria had pondered the thought for decades, ever since the idea of a brain-altering illness was first spoken in folk-tale. This meant that a little bit of research had been done in the past to figure out whether or not this kind of illness was viable.

Surprise! It was—much to the dismay of Equestria.

Regardless, with knowledge of this potential cure being out there, she was destined to find it. She had searched the nearby Ponyville library, but had no luck. Her next plan of attack was visiting Twilight’s castle, where she knew the brainiac probably had it. Seeing as though a cure wasn’t being spread throughout Ponyville already, she hypothesized that even Princess Twilight herself had lost her ability to do magic.

Ha. Not to fret. The Great and Powerful Trixie would step in, grab this mysterious, long-forgotten book from Twilight herself, learn of its old and powerful spell, and save the world from the brink of destruction! She was a hero in the making! They would make statues of her throughout Equestria and everypony would worship her! This thought kept her going, as SHE was the one to solve this and NOTHING! would stand in her wa-

Somebody burnt the castle down.

…

“What?”

Castle got burnt down.

...

"Huh?"

Twilight's castle. Fire! Castle burn. Castle burn dooooown.

...

...

"Are you serious?"

Yeah.

...

“No fucking way.”

She didn’t believe the Author, so she continued on.

I’m telling you the truth, Trixie. I don’t do that lightly. You should move on.

"Why would you even tell me that?"

To advance the story.

"What story? What the fuck are you talking about??"

Nevermind. Just move on. Castle is donezo.

“No.”

I told you I can read your thoughts. You don’t have to use quotes.

“Fuck you.”

She noticed a quick white flash erupt above her head milliseconds before a bolt of lightning flashed from the skies and struck her. It didn't kill or even injure her... it just felt like a massive taser sending shocks throughout her body. Once it was done, she froze briefly before shaking off the shock from it.

“Was that you?!”

Nah. A random one in a million lightning bolt came down to strike you on a patchy day.

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

Pretty sure a regular lightning bolt would hurt a lot more than that too. Anyway, I'm just trying to subtly nudge you to make the right decisions.

“I subtly don’t care. I’m going to the castle.”

She wasn’t far from the castle, so she trotted along the path. Eventually, she reached it, cresting over the ridge just to see the dark, partially collapsed, smoldering wreck of the castle.

Fuck.

Told ya. Stubborn bitch.

“Shut the fuck up!”

She was growing distaste for this new asshole of a God. In her disappointment, she reverted to her backup plan of heading to Canterlot. She wasn’t fond of the journey that laid ahead, but it seemed necessary now. She still wanted to be a hero, of course.

After a solid bit of time sneaking past town in an attempt to not be seen by these freakish zombie ponies, she finally arrived at the train station. There were no trains, as she expected, so she’d have to walk. Her bag was filled with snacks and water in preparation for this anyway.

She approached the train station, not expecting to see blood stains on the grass out front and shattered glass on the train platform. The windows were almost fully blown out, too. It looked as though a mob of zombie ponies had rolled through. Although no dead bodies were laying around, she wondered how many pony lives were claimed in the vicious attack. Three blood-stained patches of grass in front of the tracks made her ponder.

She debated whether or not she should even check the inside of the train station. There was likely nothing in there, but from what she remembered, the clerk was an alcoholic. She could definitely use a Bud Light right about now. So, she made her way inside, only to find glass scattered below the front station windows. Among the bits of glass were blood stains. It looked as though somebody got cut by the glass themselves. She was careful not to make the same mistake.

She checked the mini-fridge by the back of the office, noticing more glass shattered in front of it. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was the remains of a Bud Light bottle, and the beer was now staining the floor.

Fuck.

She sighed, wishing she’d gotten to it first. As she closed the mini-fridge door, she started hearing voices outside. Startled, she moseyed her way to the side of the side door and listened in as the male-sounding voices grew.

“I’m just sayin',” one of them said, “this walk's stupid as shit. Dumbass idea.”

“You’re just lazy. Fat fuck.”

“Nigga, shut the fuck up. You were whining five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, about the train’s lack of AC. Who came up with that shit? Makes no damn sense. Do these ponies just not fucking sweat or something?”

“I mean, why would they? They've got coats of fur, not skin. Dumbass.”

“Shut up fatass.”

These ponies?

What the hell were these voices talking about? What were these voices anyway? Dragons? She wasn’t sure what kinda species would talk like this. Despite being worried about them, she could hear their steps growing closer to the door. Not wanting to startle them, she called out before they entered.

“Hey! Somebody is in here.”

The steps stopped, and one of them called back.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s The Great and Powerful Trixie! I’m not one of them.”

A moment of silence ensued before she overheard one of them speak softly to the other. Whoever it was clearly wasn't smart enough to realize she could hear them. In that case, these couldn't be pony voices.

“Trixie? I thought they only brought in Jen and Abby.”

“Maybe they brought some more after us?”

“I thought they’d already ran out of magic though? How could they?”

“Fair point,” one of them said, before raising his voice again, “Hey! We’re not one of them either. Why don’t you come on out? We won’t hurt you.”

She was hesitant, but there was no other way around this. She eased herself to the doorway, pushing the side door all the way open. She was stunned to see two humans, neither of which were D’mitry. One of them was even a different color than D’mitry was. She didn't know they came in different colors. One was tan, or white, like D'mitry, and the other was brown. Both of them had black objects in their hands with circle holes at the end that they were pointing right at her. Whitey lowered the object before glancing at the other.

“Well then. Just a pony.”

Whitey stared at the other one for a few seconds, awaiting a response. Browny kept his object pointed directly at her. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but it looked menacing enough to where she felt threatened. She started glowing her horn, warming up a stun spell.

“Whoa!” whitey shouted, raising his object again. This caused her to stop warming up the spell, her horn settling back to idle.

“See, nigga?! Keep her locked down!" browny scoffed.

"Well pardon my ass!" whitey retorted, "I thought they were all losing their magic. How the fuck's she still got it??"

Before browny could answer, Trixie angrily responded, “Excuse me? Did you idiots forget I'm still standing right here? Who the fuck are you two?! Did Princess Celestia bring you here?”

Whitey exchanged a glance with browny before lowering his object and answering, “She did actually. We didn't mean to scare you... our bad.”

Browny, while keeping his object pointed at her, angrily looked over. "The fuck you doin'? She's gonna fuckin' kill us!"

"No she won't. Just hang on a minute. We can settle this."

"You white boys are so fucking belligerent. Y'all should be the first ones to die in horror movies. Idiots."

"Whatever fatass. Just relax. We can help her."

"Help me?" Trixie scoffed.

"Yeah," whitey replied, eying browny once more. He gestured for him to lower his object as well. "Bro... relax. We're good."

Browny hesitated, looking like he wanted to smack whitey upside the head. After a few more seconds of bickering, browny slowly lowered his object, keeping it in both hands.

Both of them stared at her for a second. She wasn’t one to trust anybody, especially other humans. The only human she trusted was D'mitry, seeing as though he was the only one she knew. She kinda wished he was here right now to protect her. She trusted him a lot more, especially since they…

Fuck. She forgot the Author was reading her thoughts.

Okay? I’m also omnipotent.

Ugh.

She sighed. She was uncomfortable with the fact that this new God apparently knew her past. She still wanted to keep her business with D’mitry secret. They'd both promised to.

Both of the boys moved forward. She took a step back before stopping herself, trying not to look suspicious. They both stopped a few feet shy of the doorway.

“It’s alright…” whitey said, “Trixie, right? We were sent by Celestia, like you said. We aren't bad guys, just a bit on edge.”

“I don’t care. I don't trust you," Trixie retorted, “What do you want?”

“We can help you... if that’s alright with you.”

“How can you help me?”

“So… you know about the whole apocalypse goin' on, right?”

Her eyelids fell sarcastically. “No, really? I thought I'd just missed out on a fun train station party. See, they even had fruit punch!" she exclaimed, throwing a hoof out to point toward the blood patches at the front of the station.

Whitey smiled. “You're funny. Fiesty. Anyway, we came here by train. We can take you back to… Canterlot?”

“Yeah,” browny affirmed.

Whitey continued, “Cool beans. Canterlot. So... Canterlot is safe. Celestia brought us here to protect it. Why don't you come with us?”

He extended his free hand out to her. She didn’t trust them, so she raised her hoof and slowly pushed away his hand in disgus-

Fucking shit!

While her hoof was pushing his hand away, he reached forward and firmly grasped it. With a bout of strength she hadn't expected, the fucker yanked her out of the doorway.

"Nigga! The fuck you doin'?!!"

"HELP!" Whitey exclaimed.

Trixie started warming up a shove spell, but she was delayed by whitey nearly shoving her ass to the ground. Browny joined in shortly after. With both of them working together, they managed to shove her body to the grass below.

Before she could release the hastily charged shove spell, she felt one of their hands squeeze down on her horn, slowly seeping the charge away. She fought against it, but the fucker squeezed even harder, preventing her from charging it up.

While she wrestled, wiggling her head in an attempt to free her horn, they yelled at one another to grab a conecuff. Before she knew it, the squeeze on her horn vanished. It was quickly replaced by the familiar, uncomfortable touch of a conecuff. It only took seconds before the conecuff covered her horn, quickly activating and squeezing her horn closed.

For reference, a conecuff is a magic-restricting cone that fits over a unicorn’s horn. It’d been a while since she'd seen one of these things, which were usually used by the police. How these humans had one was beyond her, but it was definitely working for them. She tried to warm up a spell in retaliation, but it was no use.

“Let me go!! Shitheads!” she hollered.

Whitey laughed. “Nah, bitch. You’re coming with us. Let’s go for a little ride, Trixie.”