Or Starlight and Trixie's Best Bonding Experience Ever
"What are we going to do about this?" Trixie shrieked, turning to Starlight Glimmer. All that remained at her side, however, was a ghostly mental image soon replaced by the reality of Starlight’s absence.
Did she bail on me?
Her mouth hung open as she turned to Bulk Biceps. The stallion’s herculean frame hovered limp in the air by his neck, eyes vacant, and the faint glow of magic tugged tight at his collar. Finally a loud snap shattered the momentary silence.
Trixie screamed again.
"Starlight, what are you doing?" she screeched, locking on the unicorn standing slightly off to the side of Bulk.
"Getting rid of the witnesses," Starlight replied, tossing Bulk’s limp form onto the friendship map by the small ring of magic still around his neck.
The customer Bulk had worked on only moments earlier scurried across the floor like a mouse, making a beeline for the door. Just as she passed Trixie, she was yanked off the ground, a blueish purple aura around her tail. Before she could even say anything, a bolt of magic struck her right in the back of her neck. She dropped down on the floor, completely limp.
"Is she dead, too?" Trixie cried, jumping back from the pony freshly sprawled out by her hooves.
"No, Trixie." Starlight rolled her eyes. "I just did a transfiguration spell on her."
"Into what?” Trixie poked the body with her hoof. “She looks dead!"
"Yes, I transfigured her into a dead version of herself. Specifically one with a severed spinal cord." Starlight snatched the pony once more with her magic and tossed her onto the map with Bulk.
"Starlight! What in Celestia’s name—"
"Celestia will have nothing to do with this, or I may be getting rid of another witness. Twilight is trusting me here, and you won’t utter a damn word!" She glared right at Trixie, a vein popping out of her neck as she did. "Besides, whose colossal fuck-up was this again, huh, Trixie?"
Trixie shrank down a bit. "You didn’t tell Trixie accidentally teleporting a table—"
"Friendship map!" Starlight corrected.
Suddenly Trixie gritted her teeth and stood tall. "A friendship map could squash ponies!" She pointed down at the crushed bodies of Lotus and Aloe, looking like silly putty covered in raspberry jam.
"I told you it was advanced!” Starlight pressed a hoof to her forehead, massaging just below her horn. “That means high risk! There’s a reason you don’t see ponies teleporting heavy furniture all willy-nilly across town on a regular basis! Otherwise there wouldn’t be an industry built around big stallions moving heavy crap!"
"I thought ponies didn’t do it that often because it was hard!"
"No,” Starlight said through her firmly clenched jaw. “It’s because ponies die when you accidentally poof a two-ton solid magical crystal friendship map—or something like it—on top of their heads, Trixie!"
Another shriek rang out as Trixie pressed her hooves to her temples—a dire gut-wrenching scream that would run the blood cold of those in earshot if most hadn’t already been dead. "What are we going to do?"
"We are going to take these bodies, bury them behind the friendship castle, and hope Twilight never gets a dog."
"Wait, we?" Trixie’s ears fell flat. "I've never killed anypony, Starlight! Held a town hostage under a glass dome and enslaved two mentally challenged colts, sure, but never killed!"
"I’ve noticed." Once again, Starlight rolled her eyes.
"I can’t go to prison! I’m too pretty!" Trixie lunged at Starlight, squeezing her tight as she shivered. “Do you know what they’ll do to me in there?” Rattled with visions, she pinched her eyes closed, nearly crying. “Butt stuff, Starlight!”
With a flash of magic and her locked forelegs, Starlight pried Trixie off her neck. "Listen, Trixie, there's no butt stuff in girl prison!"
"How do you know?" Trixie whined.
It took everything in Starlight to not smack Trixie in that instant, so instead, she opted for her own forehead. "For the love of—Just follow my instructions."
With ears lying against her head and eyes quivering, Trixie whimpered. "You seem oddly okay with having killed four ponies."
"Two. And it’s not my first rodeo." Starlight glanced to the side, eyes distant for a moment before snapping back to reality.
"Arguably four, since you didn’t give me a proper warning." Starlight glared at her. "Look, if it means that much to you, we can split responsibility for the twins fifty-fifty."
Starlight's neck vein popped out again, throbbing uncomfortably. "Trixie…" she hissed.
"That’s one twin each." Trixie glanced down at the puddles that were once the proprietors of the spa. "I’ll take Aloe. She was my favorite after all." Her hoof swayed as she bounced from bloody mess to bloody mess before locking onto one of the piles. "I think that’s her," she finally said, less than convinced.
Starlight narrowed her eyes at Trixie. "It’d be so easy to just snap that pretty little neck of yours after today," she muttered so Trixie could barely make out what she said. Rather than acting on that urge, she opted for a deep breath, extending her hoof out and placing it on Trixie’s shoulder. "But I think I can bottle up this little annoyance for now." She cracked a smirk, and a small laugh soon followed.
Trixie looked back, deadly serious. "I don’t think this is really the time to make callback jokes about what happened earlier today." Tears welled up from under her eyelids. "Ponies are dead, Starlight."
Starlight waved a hoof dismissively. "Ponies die all the time. Some by heart disease, some by crystal friendship maps landing on their head. Point is, we’re fixing this." With that she turned her gaze down at the pony purée on the floor. "Now go find a tarp. Twilight still needs the map, and bloodstains don’t come out of enchanted crystal that easily." Just as Trixie opened her mouth to question, Starlight added, "Trust me."
Once a tarp was placed, Starlight’s horn sparked to life. She scooped the gooey pony pile up and levitated it onto the now-covered map. A swift jab of her elbow into a slack-jawed Trixie pulled her from her stupor. "Fifty-fifty, remember?"
"I got the tarp!" Trixie whined.
With a firm hoof, Starlight pointed at the body. "Scoop!"
A purple aura appeared around Trixie’s horn and the body. As the bloody mess levitated into the air with globs dripping back onto the floor, Trixie bounced on her tiphooves like a filly waiting for the bathroom. "Gross, gross, grossgrossgross—"
Starlight rolled her eyes and swept the remaining gore onto the map. "Quit being such a baby."
"They look like smashed walnuts! Only with red and goo inside…" Trixie made a pained expression. "Can’t you just poof them back to life?"
"You can’t just poof ponies back to life. Besides, something something natural order, blah blah blah." Starlight idly rolled her hoof through the air. "I mean, in theory, it’d take more energy than the universe has, and that’s just for one of them." It took a moment for Starlight to notice Trixie staring at her blankly. She then scratched the back of her head and giggled. "I did look into it once, but it'd take awhile to figure the math out for a work-around."
"So…" Left with no other options, Trixie took a deep breath. Her gaze drifted from Starlight to the four bodies piled on the friendship map. "This is it. They’re really dead…"
"Yup." A light flashed from Starlight’s horn, and she jabbed a newly manifested shovel in Trixie's side. "Now let’s go dig a mass grave."
"Does four count as mass?" Trixie raised an eyebrow.
Starlight stared at her flatly. "You’re not counting whoever sees us hauling this shitshow through town."
"Starlight, no!" Trixie stomped her hoof. A red splat from a stray bit of blood squirted out from the impact. She leaned away shaking what she could off her hoof. "We’re not killing any more ponies to cover this up! Can’t you use a cloaking spell or something?" Her lip quivered, adding to her plea.
"Look, if we’re digging a grave big enough for four, we’re going to be able to fit more in. I’m not one to waste space."
"No more bodies, Starlight! I can’t handle this!" Again, with a pained expression, Trixie's gaze fell to the map. A weight now burdened her shoulders—one she never thought she'd have. These four ponies were dead because of her. Their lives wouldn't have had to come to an end if she hadn't been so reckless. Just then she met the pony's eyes that tried to flee, her limp form lying on the tarp. But something was odd. That eye clearly stared right back into her own.
"Help me," the mare whispered, a tear slipping from her quivering eye.
Trixie screeched, jumping literal feet into the air. In a flash, she snatched the shovel away from Starlight, and smashed the metal end down on the pony's head. And then again and again, to a chorus of terrified wails.
"Trixie!" After the fourth hit, Starlight grabbed the shovel with her hoof. When Trixie swung again, her foreleg nearly yanked from its socket.
Even with Starlight trying to stop her, Trixie kept smashing.
"That's enough!" Starlight yelled, now using her magic to tug the shovel. Finally, after one good hit that loosed a squirt of red goo, Starlight ripped the shovel out of Trixie's grasp. "She's dead, Trixie! You did it, for Celestia's sake!"
Trixie thrust her hoof in the mare's direction. "She scared Trixie!" Amidst nervous tremors, she glared back at Starlight, panting uncontrollably.
"You have to be prepared for this kind of stuff. Sometimes a severed spinal cord isn't enough to do the trick."
"Trixie noticed!" she shrieked back, shoulders heaving with each breath.
After staring at Trixie for a few moments until the mare finally relaxed some, Starlight chuckled. "Look, I was just messing with you about the carrying this around in broad daylight.” she punctuated with a poke on Trixie’s nose with her hoof.
“I’m not in the mood to be messed with!” Trixie shouted. “Do you know how much worse this could get?”
“I’d rather not think about it.”
“No, you’re thinking about it! This thing summons Twilight and her friends! What if there was a—”
“Don’t you dare!” Starlight shoved the same hoof into Trixie’s mouth. She turned slowly to face the map, just waiting for it to start flashing a cutie mark. After a few moments, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Her horn lit up, and the air around the map shimmered like a crystal with small flakes of fine dust filling the air, bouncing light every which way. Slowly the map faded, obscured in the haze, until finally it disappeared, leaving not a trace. Starlight turned back to Trixie and put on a pleasant smile. “Let’s go hide our shame. You lift, I’ll cloak."
The two made haste for the friendship castle—as hasty as two ponies trying to avoid looking suspicious while speed walking friendship map’s distance apart with glowing horns and sweating up a storm could look. When they arrived at the castle, Trixie took the map back to the throne room while Starlight carried the four—still cloaked—corpses around the back of the castle.
Manifesting a second shovel with her magic, Starlight dropped the bodies with a thud and two splats on the ground. She wiped her brow and eyed an open spot tucked behind the Friendship Castle out of sight from anyone else. With a flash of magic, Stalight hoisted the gaggle of cadavers into the air and strolled over to the clearing. Setting them down once more, she took a deep breath, but before she could even thrust the shovel down into the earth, a hoof tapped her shoulder. Starlight swung around, shovel ready to whack whoever was behind her, only to see Trixie cowering.
Instead of smashing Trixie's horn in, Starlight shoved the shovel's handle into the mare's chest and grabbed the other nearby. Next she pierced the ground with a single stab and let out a small laugh. "This is a good bonding experience for us," Starlight remarked.
“Yeah, but let’s not do it again, okay?” Trixie glanced at Starlight from the corner of her eye with an annoyed expression. "Carrying invisible bodies stacked on a friendship map is far too stressful. Besides, there's far better, more legal bonding experiences out there."
"What, like singing a stupid song and a friendship montage?" Starlight accented with a sharp laugh.
"Murder cover-up, murder cover-up!" Trixie sang swinging her shovel out wide and striking a pose. "Let's hide these bodies near! Murder cover-up, murder cover-up! There's no time for fear! Because tomorrow it's unclear! If Twilight finds bodies here!" Trixie turned her shovel to the sky, finishing with a bright smile on her face.
"Keep it down or it won't be much of a cover-up!" Starlight hissed.
"It's not so fun being teased, is it?" With her tongue out, Trixie smirked.
Even with magic and two mares, the work was backbreaking. Sweat poured from their brows as shovelful after shovelful of dirt added to an ever-growing mound beside them. Before too long the two dug a proverbial pit to hell, so deep if they called down an echo would answer.
"Is it deep enough?" Trixie asked, peering down into the dank, dirt-reeking abyss.
"Should be."
"Should be? If we dig much further, we'll be breaking into Tartarus!"
"Yeah, now there's a prison with butt stuff," Starlight remarked under her breath. She then kicked a rock down and held her ear out. After a second or so she heard a soft thud. "At this depth, no dogs or wolves should smell the bodies once they start to rot."
"Gross!" Trixie puffed out her cheeks like she was about to vomit.
"I’m being pragmatic. You don’t want this little mess popping back up in a few weeks with Applejack’s dog showing Bulk Biceps’ bicep around town, do you?"
"They wouldn’t know it was us, right?" Trixie asked, chuckling sincerely at first and then shifting to nervous as she saw Starlight’s flat look aimed right at her. “I mean, we just have to keep quiet about this, right?”
Starlight tapped her chin, turning to the sky. "Let’s see, four ponies go missing on the day the friendship map disappeared, found behind Twilight’s house and two who’ve been crushed. If Spike says anything—seeing how you brought the map back—we’d be the prime suspects."
Trixie laughed again, only now outright panic seeping into her chuckles. "He wouldn’t though, right?"
A hard laugh was Trixie's reply. After a moment, Starlight added, "Let’s just say he’d put a quartet of canaries to shame."
Trixie screamed lightly through clenched teeth as her eyes spoke the volumes her mouth could not.
"That’s why we dug so deep, sweetie," Starlight said like a mother who spoke from experience as she dumped the bodies and tarp into the hole. She pointed at the dirt pile prompting Trixie's horn to spark, and she piled all the upturned soil back into its hole. The placed dirt towered in a mound, but Starlight projected a grave-sized barrier hovering above the dirt. She then pressed down until there was perfectly level ground where the hole had been only seconds before.
Starlight sat back on her haunches and dusted off her hooves. “And that’s how you get away with murder.” She glanced over at Trixie with a smug smirk. “Arguably a better lesson than turning stuff into tea cups, am I right?”
"Oh, cub of a timberwolf bitch!" Trixie stomped her hoof, leaving an imprint in the freshly covered grave. "I should have turned them into tea cups!"
"I was—” Starlight groaned. “Look, I think you’ve practiced magic enough for today," she said as she pressed a hoof to her forehead, shaking her head.
"No,” Trixie whined. “They’d have been so much easier to bury!"
Starlight stared at her for moments before her jaw finally popped open like a reverse mousetrap. "Why are you just now thinking of this?" Starlight asked, throwing her foreleg out.
“Sorry,” Trixie chuckled. “It must have slipped my mind between the surprise of two dead ponies when we lifted up the map—” she dropped the laugh and locked a glare back “—and you snapping Bulk Biceps’ neck!”
"You should be happy I took action before things got out of hoof!"
"Yes, Trixie thanks you for showing her how to dispose of bodies. You thoroughly destroyed her great and powerful moral fiber, pushing her over the edge—blah blah blah." Trixie rolled her hoof.
"Maybe I should have let you find out about that prison butt stuff firsthoof, you ungrateful—"
"Oh, come on, Starlight. I am grateful! We've got a dark secret just for us to share by burying it in crippling alcoholism. Together!" Trixie smirked, ears playfully tall.
A groan dropped out of Starlight’s mouth like a ton of bricks as her head drooped. “I think we've both come full circle at this point. Let’s just forget today ever happened. Maybe through some of that alcoholism you mentioned. I could go for that.”
As Trixie started towards the castle, she turned her head back at Starlight. “You sure? I mean, we still have a time travel spell that could fix this whole situation, do we not?” A punchably smug smirk sat upon her face.
“Shut up or I’ll turn you into a tea cup,” Starlight said, glaring as she finally joined Trixie on the slow walk to the castle. The sun lazily sinking behind a hill at their back.
A smile spread across Trixie's face—an earnest smile. "Well, at least Trixie knows the depths of your dark past now—murder, hiding bodies, and prison!" She wrapped her hoof around Starlight's neck, and pulled her in for a walking hug. "Just a shame four good ponies had to die for that though."
"Yeah, what a shame," Starlight said with a roll of her eyes. "By the way, you didn't tell Spike where you found the map, right?" Suddenly Starlight came to a halt, yanked back by Trixie's hoof when the other mare came to a dead stop.
"Trixie…" The vein on Starlight's neck once again throbbed uncomfortably.
"I may have let it slip we found it at the spa," Trixie muttered, scratching her cheek. "Accidentally, of course."
"Okay," After a deep breath, Starlight said with a long sigh. "I wish you had told me that before we finished filling in the hole, but that wouldn't have mattered anyway."
Trixie nodded. "Indeed. Twilight would notice Spike is missing, after all."
Starlight cracked a smile. "That's my girl." For a moment, Starlight disappeared in thought. "We're going to have to get creative with this one."
"Shall Trixie whack him with a forget-me stick?" With a blaze of light in her eye, Trixie grabbed the shovel from by the newly christened grave and tapped it against her hoof, menacingly.
"Metal end?"
It took a moment for Trixie to give a small nod.
Once more Starlight let out a sigh, this time one of contentment. "I was thinking the same thing, and I know I shouldn't be happy about that, but I totally am."
Trixie loosed a girly squeal of delight. "Now that you've fully popped my murder-cherry, getting away with killing is actually pretty exciting!"
Starlight wrapped a hoof around Trixie's neck and tugged her to the castle. "Yeah, but don't get too excited. That's how you end up being run out of town and starting a cult. No, like you said, this one will have to be non-lethal. Twilight is sort of attached to Spike like a brother."
"Screw that!" Swinging her shovel to point where the sun had already set behind the hill, Trixie boasted a big smile. "There's no stopping this friendship murder train! Trixie and Starlight: killers by day, lovers by night!"
Starlight rolled her eyes. "That's what I meant about getting too excited."
The End
Author's Note
Wrote after seeing the episode on a whim and with a dumb idea.
This is why I don't write comedy.
