Magical Girl Trixie: Revival

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7 (Narrated by Divinity)
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
End
Chapter 11

Chapter 1

I wish I could take it back. All of it. I was so young. I didn’t know what I was doing, but then again, I guess none of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into. None of us knew that once we made our contract, confessed our loves and received the power to become magical girls, we would also be put into a game where friendships became alliances and surviving meant murder. None of us knew that when we made the solemn vow to use our magic to help improve the lives of those in Manehattan, we would also be consenting our lives away to the spirit of chaos, allowing him to play whatever kind of mind games he saw fit…

Mind Games…

Paradox…

Cupid Symphony...

Marrow…

All of these are the names of magical girls who have died in the quest of completing this game, some by my hand and some by the hands of others who wanted the same thing that we all wanted: safety.

In this game, magical girl was pitted against magical girl until one unnamed game changer was finally defeated, and if none of us decided to act, Discord would take all of our magical powers away as punishment. To some magical girls, losing one’s powers was even worse than death, which meant that talking things out was no longer an option. Every magical girl in Platinum City needed to die one by one until the game changer was eventually snuffed out and defeated, but the problem was, not even the game changer knew who she was… until now…

“What do you mean Dreamdrop is the game changer?!” I asked Discord in anger, standing above the body of Marrow, a magical girl whom I had just killed myself.

“I mean that the game will not end until Dreamdrop is eliminated from the game one way or another,” the spirit said with a slimy smile. “I never said that she needed to die. You girls decided that on your own.”

“We had no choice!” I screamed as tears began to pour down my face.

Dreamdrop was the name of the magical girl who had been with me since the very beginning. She saved me from getting killed by one of my classmates and sequentially introduced me to Platinum City, the parallel world of Manehattan that the magical girls called home. The two of us had kept each other safe in this morbid battle royale, despite Dreamdrop not having taken a single life while managing to make it to the final four. The only girls left at this point were Dreamdrop, Palette, Night Seam and myself.

Dreamdrop had the power to put people to sleep, which she had used in order to save me from my classmate when I was moments away from being stabbed to death. Her power wasn’t very useful in the game we were playing, seeing as how not only did she need to make direct physical contact with the target in order to put them to sleep, but even then it only left the target asleep for five minutes. However, even with these handicaps, she had managed to save me from death, putting her own life at risk to jump into battle and come to my rescue from another magical girl named Night Seam.

Night Seam, whom I had known earlier in my life as Fleur de Lis, was arguably the most powerful magical girl left, despite having the most underpowered magical ability in the game. She had the power to turn anything she touched black, which she had used during an earlier fight when I had lost one of my best friends, Iron Maiden, to her and her allies. The only girl left besides the three of us was another one of her allies named Palette, who had the ability to use her multiple colored dress to paint objects into the air and make them come to life, but she had run away the previous evening. She knew that so long as she wasn’t the game changer, she could wait until we finished each other off, and as luck would have it, the game changer turned out to be Dreamdrop, my best friend, the girl whom I loved so much that I would die for her.

“Oh, I think you all had a choice,” Discord continued, pulling my mind back to reality. “You could have pulled straws to see who would be eliminated!”

“Did you really think we would do that and risk losing our powers?!”

“How would I know? Just because I’m almighty doesn’t mean I can see the future! The real question here is… what are you going to do now?”

I clicked my tongue, weighing the options in this impossible scenario. None of us were sure what would happen if we ended up losing our powers, and in a worst case scenario, we could potentially die, which was the reason we had all been fighting for so long. The best case scenario would be losing our powers, but the worst case was death, and I wasn’t about to let anything happen to Dreamdrop if it meant that she wouldn’t be safe. She was the one who made me a magical girl in the first place, which meant that if anyone deserved to live in this game, it was her.

“Is there anything else Trixie should know?” I asked with as much snark as I could.

“Hmm… Not that I can think of, but what would I know? You’re the one who keeps pressing for details.”

Without giving him a chance to say another word, I grabbed hold of my teleport gem and vanished from Platinum City, reappearing back into a small bedroom in Manehatten. This bedroom, however, did not belong to me, and as I looked around quickly to find out if the owner was there, I saw that I was left completely alone, which, to be honest, was something I needed. This house belonged to Dreamdrop, or rather, Summer Breeze, as she went by when she wasn’t transformed into a magical girl, and I had come the night before as a means to hide from the other magical girls. I had left for Platinum City in the middle of the night so that I could kill Marrow before she could hurt anyone else, but by doing so, I had left Summer Breeze alone, and I could only imagine how that made her feel.

What was worse, though, was that she was the game changer. The game would not end unless she was eliminated. It was a death sentence which meant that either she died or everyone else lost their powers, which no magical girl besides her was ready to do, and I had the obligation of being the one to tell her.

As I made my way out of the bedroom and down the stairs towards the kitchen, I battled with myself over and over again as to what I could tell her or how I would break the news. Honestly, I didn’t even know whether breaking the news would be a good thing, but if I didn’t, I would just be putting a target on her back without even giving her the decency to tell her. As I made my way into the kitchen, however, I saw Summer Breeze standing by her table motionless, staring down at her magical phone as tears poured down her face. Finally, she moved her head slowly in my direction, and with wide eyes and trembling lips, she muttered, “The game changer is me?”

My heart sank. I quickly ran over to Dreamdrop and engulfed her into a big hug, placing her face into my chest as she wailed hysterically, hugging me as if I were the only person in the world left. Summer Breeze was normally the happiest person I had ever met, but over the course of the past few days, I had seen nothing but tears as she saw girl after girl die without being able to save a single one of them… other than me.

“We both know what this means,” Summer Breeze said, pulling herself off of my chest. “I have to kill myself.”

“Summer Breeze, stop!”

“NO, YOU STOP!” I backed away in fear as Summer Breeze’s normally blissful demeanor was staring down at me with anger and frustration. “I’m tired of magical girls dying because of this stupid game! If I don’t do this, then Palette and Night Seam will just kill me anyway! At least this way I can do it on my own terms. Maybe this way…” Before she could complete her sentence, she immediately brought her hands to her face and began bawling hysterically again. “At least this way, maybe I won’t have to be so sad all the time…”

As I searched for what I could say to comfort her, I instinctively wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug as my hand made its way down her long, blonde hair. “You don’t have to die, Summer Breeze. You’re going to be OK.”

“How?” she replied between sniffles. “The game isn’t going to end unless I’m dead! How am I going to be OK?!”

Her question made me squeeze her harder, as if I was trying to force all the negativity out of her system by hand. Then, pulling away for just a moment, I stared into her eyes and said, “Let’s run away.”

“What?! We could never do that! They would find us eventually! It’s only a matter of t--”

Before she could finish her objection, however, I did the only thing I could think of in this situation and placed my lips against hers, silencing her completely as I kissed her passionately. The harder I kissed, however, the more Summer Breeze loosened up in my arms until she was reciprocating with her own arms and allowing herself to kiss me back gently. Summer Breeze was the first person I had ever grown to love, and it wasn’t until that moment that I truly realized just how much I wanted to be with her forever. As our lips broke, however, we were both pulled back into reality, knowing that Summer Breeze was right and that if we ran away, it would only be a matter of time before either Palette or Night Seam eventually found us.

...But we still needed to try…

“Do you think we’ll be safe?” Summer Breeze asked, holding me tighter while trying to keep herself from panicking anymore.

“Trixie won’t let anything happen to you,” I spoke as if I had any control as to what would happen next. I really wanted to believe what I said, but after the lengths I had seen these girls go through to keep their powers, I could never be sure that any of us would ever be safe again.

Immediately after my thoughts went spiraling away, however, I felt something buzz in my pocket and immediately reached down to grab my magical phone. Then, looking at the message that had been left for me, I squeezed the phone with so much anger that it nearly shattered in my hand, which did not go unnoticed by Summer Breeze. As I looked back into her eyes, I could already tell that she was going to put herself into danger just to make sure that whatever was bothering me would be resolved.

“That was Night Seam, wasn’t it?” she asked, making me click my tongue and drop eye contact. “What did she say? I need you to tell me.”

“She…”

Night Seam was holding my mother hostage. Whether or not my mother even knew she was in danger was unknown to me, but the fact that I had to choose to lose either Summer Breeze or my own mother filled me with so much rage that I nearly took off to kill her right then and there. I couldn’t keep killing more magical girls, though, but at the same time, I had to do something to keep the ones I loved safe.

Looking back into Summer Breeze’s eyes, I quietly said, “She’s asking me to give you over to her.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“N-no, she…” Summer Breeze glared into my eyes to get whatever information I was hiding, but I couldn’t tell her the truth and let her risk her life to save my family. This was my problem, and I had to take care of it myself. “No, she didn’t.”

Her stare then softened, but still remained stern, just to make sure she could get as much out of me as possible. “You would tell me if you were hiding something, right?”

“Yeah… Of course…”

“Good.” With that out of the way, she wrapped her arms around me again and held me as close to her heart as possible, and in that moment, I knew that I had made the right choice. No matter what, I would keep this girl safe. “I love you, Great and Powerful Trixie.”

Finally, for the first time in my whole life, I smiled authentically.

“I love you too, Summer Breeze.”

Later that evening…

I had asked Night Seam to give me a little more time before making my decision, which luckily for me, she agreed to. I wasn’t going to risk giving up either my mom or Summer Breeze, but I still needed a few hours to set up my plan while simultaneously keeping it to myself. The whole point of this game was to make it to where Platinum City had enough magic to survive, magic which the magical girls were using as fuel to make their powers work. That was the original plan, at least, before he introduced us to the game changer, the one girl whose magic took up more magic than any of the other girls competing.

“Trixie has a question,” I asked Discord through my phone when Summer Breeze wasn’t looking. “We’ve already lost six magical girls. If someone like Night Seam were to lose her powers, would Platinum City have enough magic to survive?”

“Interesting proposal, O Great and Powerful Trixie,” he replied. “I suppose if you, Palette and Dreamdrop were the only girls to keep your powers, Platinum City could theoretically survive, supposing we don’t add any more magical girls.”

I didn’t need a second longer to think of what I would do next. I wanted to ask Palette through our phones if she would be willing to vote Night Seam out along with Dreamdrop and I, but the risk of her ratting us out to her former teammate was too great. I needed to find Night Seam and remove her myself before it was too late, before anything could happen to Dreamdrop or my mother. I had already killed so many girls at this point that killing one more person didn’t even phase me anymore, especially if it meant that I got to keep the ones I loved alive.

Once evening came and Summer Breeze finally fell asleep, I made my way over to the Manehattan clocktower, where Night Seam wanted me to meet her, but unfortunately for her, Dreamdrop wouldn’t be there. I kept my spear by my side the entire time, the only magical item to my name, just in case Night Seam wanted to try to ambush me before I had the chance to face her, but fortunately, once I arrived at the top of the tower, Night Seam was there waiting for me, without weapons and without backup, at least as far as I knew.

The moment our eyes met, I could see her normally downcast face droop even further. “Where is she?” Night Seam asked without skipping a beat.

“Not coming. Trixie wants to deal with you herself.”

There was a long pause before Night Seam spoke again, her gaze staring down at the floor while she leaned against a wall within the tower. “I was hoping we would be able to end this game without losing any more magical girls. You know she’s just going to die whether or not you do anything, right?”

“Marrow said the same thing.”

Again, there was a long pause while Night Seam sighed in displeasure. “Trixie--”

“Trixie is gone. The only girl left is the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Finally, for what may have been the first time since meeting her, Night Seam smiled, and looking up from the ground to finally make eye contact with me, she said, “I’ve missed this side of you, Trixie.”

The sudden break in tension made me smile myself, despite knowing that one of us was going to end up dead tonight. “Don’t talk like you know Trixie, Fleur. You may have been her friend in childhood, but you were the one who chose to abandon her.”

“It’s funny…” Suddenly, Night Seam’s smile faded, and her gaze returned back to the floor. “Marrow said the same thing about you. She told me that she wanted to be your friend so bad, but she felt like you rejected her.”

Of course, Marrow and I used to be best friends back when I was younger, even though back then she went by her real name, Lulu Lemon. I couldn’t come play with her after school like Fleur did due to my mother not allowing me to leave the house other than for school, but it wasn’t like I could tell them that. I couldn’t let them find out that my mother had been abusing me for years, but I still didn’t want them to feel like I was ignoring them.

“But that’s in the past now,” Night Seam continued. “Lulu is dead now, and I don’t blame you for killing her.”

Night Seam’s response made me tilt my head in confusion. “Did you… not care about her at all?”

Again, there was silence, but this time, that silence was broken by the sound of a drop of water hitting the floor, right underneath Night Seam’s downtrodden face. Then, as she looked back up at me, her eyes were full of tears, another sight I never thought I would see. “Lulu was my best friend!” she cried. “We became magical girls together! We’ve always been together! Of course I miss her! I wish that the three of us could have been magical girls together, that we could have all made the world a better place like we talked about when we were kids, but…” With one final sob, Night Seam wiped a tear from her eye. “...but that’s not the reality we live in, now is it?”

“Fleur…” I began, trying to make the right words come out. “Why… Why did you become a magical girl? Why do you want your powers so bad?”

“To protect Manehattan and Platinum City.” She didn’t even hesitate to give her answer. “Another one of my friends died because nobody was there to save her. If there had been a magical girl protecting her, she wouldn’t have had to die.”

“And so you’re just going to keep killing magical girls?! Who’s going to protect Manehattan when all the magical girls are dead?!”

“At least this way, we’ll know that whoever survived until the end is the most qualified to protect Manehattan! Make your choice, Great and Powerful Trixie! Are you going to give up Dreamdrop, or am I going to lose another friend tonight?”

“Dreamdrop is your friend too!!”

Without taking another moment to think, I charged in, spear in hand as I made my way towards Night Seam, but without even flinching, she touched the floor and encompassed the entire surroundings in black, camouflaging herself completely. Then, swinging my weapon in the direction of where I believed Night Seam was, I felt nothing but air sliding under my blade, which meant that if Night Seam were right behind me, I would be dead in seconds. Quickly, I turned on my heels and slashed towards the other direction, again, hitting nothing, but just as soon as I had done so, I felt three knives piercing me in my side. Right as soon as I moved my hand down to grab them, however, I was left with the same sensation as before as the knives suddenly disappeared again. She had summoned her knives back, which meant that she had the ammo needed for another attack.

“It didn’t need to be this way, Trixie,” Night Seam said in the darkness. “You’re making the wrong choice!”

“How is protecting the lives of the innocent the wrong choice, ESPECIALLY WHEN TRIXIE IS A MAGICAL GIRL?!”

Night Seam’s answer, however, was three knives hitting various points in my body, one in my shoulder, one in my back and one in my leg, but unfortunately for her, this gave me her exact position. Turning towards the angle of where I had been hit, I quickly swung my spear backwards, feeling my spear hit flesh as Night Seam’s body flew backwards. Then, before she could summon her knives back again, I grabbed them with my magic, levitating them into the air, all of which pointed in the direction of where I had heard Night Seam land.

“Do you really think this is over?” Night Seam grunted, her voice giving away her pain.

“It was over before it even started. Trixie is the most powerful magical girl to ever live!”

“Then… I guess that settles it, doesn’t it?”

“...What?”

Suddenly, the black color covering the clocktower began to gradually fade away until I could finally see Night Seam on the floor, covering a large gash in her side as she bled out onto the floor. “I said that only the most powerful magical girl would get the chance to protect Manehattan, didn’t I?”

“Night Seam…” I mumbled, suddenly feeling regret as I saw another magical girl die by my own hands. “Don’t die yet! Trixie can save you! There has to be a magical item somewhere that will allow me to--”

“Don’t waste your brownie points on me,” she replied with a smile. “All I can do is turn things black. It was kind of dumb to pick that as a power, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t help but giggle, but that didn’t stop a tear from running down my own eye. “I’m sorry, Night Seam! Trixie didn’t know what she was doing! She was only trying to protect--”

“Then why are you so sad all of a sudden?”

Her question caught me off guard, not because of how sudden it was, but because I didn’t have an answer to it. I had killed three magical girls already, yet none of them had made me feel regret up until now. I really was trying to kill Night Seam, so why did it feel like this whole thing was just an accident?

“You know what?” Night Seam continued, coughing blood onto her dress. “I bet Discord has a way to save both you and Dreamdrop from losing your powers. He just didn’t want me in the picture when he did it, and I bet you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I… Just stay alive for a little bit longer! Trixie will--”

“If I stay alive, I’m going to kill Dreamdrop.” My heart fell into the pit of my stomach yet again, leaving me with the choice of either allowing another girl to die or risk having the love of my life killed in her stead. I couldn’t move, which physically prevented me from making any other decision than to let her die, and for the first time, I actually realized that I was taking away the life of another magical girl, another human just like me. “I didn’t think you’d put me over her.”

“You would rather die... than let Dreamdrop live...?”

Rather than answer me, however, she took out her magical phone and immediately called up Discord, who appeared as a hologram an instant later. “Alright, you win,” she said, facing the draconequus. “I’m going to die, so you can let this game end now.”

“Now, why would I do that?” he questioned in return, making my eyes go wide. “You’re not the game changer. That would be Dreamdrop.”

“Don’t give me that. We both know that Platinum City can go on if I die, even if I’m not the game changer. Isn’t that right, Trixie?”

I clenched my fist, dropping my eyes to the floor with no courage left to even look her in the eyes anymore. “Y-yes…”

“Hmm…” Discord mumbled with his paw running through his goat beard. “Well, I guess that’s that, then, isn’t it? Night Seam, you performed admirably, but it seems that you are unable to continue the game any further. I bid you adieu.”

As Discord bid farewell to the magical girl in front of him, Night Seam’s clothes and skin began to glow, encompassing her into a ball of light until the luminescence descended into the form of a middle school girl. She had a large gash across her middle school uniform and her eyes were left open as she lost consciousness, but even still, she somehow managed to maintain the beauty that she had when she was alive. Long, pinkish white hair, a perfectly clear skin complexion, long legs and the figure of a model, all too familiar to the image my old friend, Fleur de Lis, making me fall to my knees beside her as I began to weep.

“What’s wrong, O Great and Powerful Trixie?” Discord asked with a hum to his voice, completely ignoring the dead body. “You’ve managed to win while keeping Dreamdrop alive! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER! TRIXIE WANTED THIS GAME TO END BEFORE ANYONE HAD TO DIE!!!”

Discord put up his paws defensively while pretending to step back in his hologram state. “Whoa! Hang on! I’m holding up my end of the deal, you know! I will return Platinum City’s magic and restore it to its previous condition, all while allowing you and Dreamdrop to keep your powers! And Palette, for that matter, but who knows if you’ll ever see her again?”

“Discord… just… go.” I couldn’t even cry anymore as the feelings no longer processed through my mind, leaving me as an empty husk staring at Fleur’s deceased corpse. “Just go.”

Without saying a word, Discord shrugged, leaving the two of us alone. What was there to do now? Return to Dreamdrop and tell her what happened? Go back to my mom and see if she was alright? Stay there and pretend that Fleur would get up eventually, if only I just believed hard enough? I had done basically everything that I had wanted since becoming a magical girl: killing Marrow, protecting my mom and making sure Dreamdrop survived to the end, but for some reason, it still felt like I had lost. It felt like… I wasn’t even the same girl anymore…

*************

Later that night, once I finally managed to break myself away from Fleur’s body, I made my way back to the hospital to see my mom there, sitting down in a chair by my bed with her face in her hands. I could only watch from the outside window, keeping myself out of sight as much as possible despite the fact that I was still transformed into a magical girl. I couldn’t let her find out that this whole time, I was really putting her through endless pain just so I could run off and pretend to play hero, and I couldn’t face her when I would eventually tell her that I had to leave her… forever…

Once she left the room, even for the briefest moment, I snuck into my hospital room and left a note on the bed where I had been staying. It was on this bed where I had left her to play in this death game, the bed where I had survived my first encounter with another magical girl trying to take my life. When I transformed back into my normal form, I still had the scars from where Lulu Lemon had stabbed me, which would probably be a permanent reminder of the terrible things I had done to survive, but when I was in my magical girl form, all my human injuries had disappeared.

Just as soon as I had entered the room, however, I heard the sounds of footsteps approaching the room again, and grabbing onto my teleportation gem, I disappeared from the hospital room, never to see my poor mother ever again. The note that I left behind was the last she would ever hear from me, and it read…

“Dear mom,
First, I want to tell you that I love you so much, and I am so, so, so, so, sooo sorry for all the pain that I’ve caused you. I’ve been nothing but a burden to you my whole life, even though you’ve always been such a good mom to me. I think it’s for the best if I just get out of your life forever. I don’t want you to be so unhappy all the time just because I’ve been such a terrible daughter. I don’t want you to have to deal with all the headaches that I put you through. From now on, you deserve to be happy.

I love you.
-Trixie Lulamoon”

*******************

Four years had passed since that day when I left my home, and fortunately for me, Discord was true to his word, keeping Dreamdrop alive while allowing us to hold onto our powers. I could only guess that he told Palette what had happened, seeing as how in the four years that had passed, nobody had ever shown up trying to kill either Dreamdrop or I. Neither of us ever went back to Platinum City, however, since the last thing that either of us wanted was to run into Palette and create any kind of tension between us again. Not only that, but it was too hard for us to ever revisit that city again with all that we had been through because of it.

Summer Breeze and I moved in together in an apartment on the west end of Canterlot, not too far from the high school where I attended. She had since graduated from college and was making enough money to provide for the both of us while I attended high school, and the plan was to finally get married in two years once I graduated.

My school life had improved beyond what I could have ever imagined, especially whenever I thought back to my life at Manehattan middle school and dealing with Lulu Lemon’s constant bullying. Here at CHS, I could just be myself, even though that meant that I still talked about myself using the third-person. In fact, I pulled myself from one extreme to the other, telling all of the students at school how great and powerful I was (which Summer Breeze told me not to do, especially since my magical girl name was basically the same as my normal name).

The only real trauma I ever experienced in this new life was the memory of my old life, haunting me in my dreams every single night. On most nights, I would need Summer Breeze to transform to help me get to sleep, and even then, I would usually only be asleep for the maximum five minutes that her magic would force on me. Even when I was asleep, though, all I could do was imagine all the girls that I had killed when I was a magical girl. Mind Games, Storm Rose, Marrow and Night Seam had all been killed by my hand, far more than any of the deaths caused by the other magical girls. Lulu Lemon and Fleur de Lis would have both been set to start school at Crystal Prep Academy, the rivals of my own school, but they would never get that chance because of me. What did their families say when they found out? How much suffering had they been put under because of me?! HOW MANY LIVES DID I RUIN?!

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

“Trixie! What is it?”

As I opened my eyes with my chest rising and falling rapidly from my heaving breath, I looked over into Summer Breeze’s concerned face while wiping a trickle of sweat from my forehead. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Trixie didn’t mean to wake you. She just… had another nightmare, it seems.”

“Was it about… them again?” I gulped at the subject being brought up, but nodded my head, causing her to give me another look of concern. “It’s going to be OK, Trixie.”

“NO IT WON’T! IT WILL NEVER BE OK! THEY’RE NEVER GOING TO SEE THEIR FAMILIES AGAIN, AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT!!”

As I broke out into a pathetic sob, Summer Breeze collapsed around me, holding me tight and stroking my hair while I cried like a baby into her chest. “I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but none of us did. I’m alive right now because of you, Trixie. You protected me, so please don’t beat yourself up about that.”

Then, before I could say another word, I felt a warm glow against my shoulder blade pulling me back into a deep sleep, and suddenly, the world went black, making all of my terrors disappear, even if only temporarily.

********************

The next day, I started my third year of high school. The only person I felt like I needed to watch out for so far was a tyrant named Sunset Shimmer, who ruled the school with an iron fist, but fortunately for me, most of the time she would avoid me and find someone else to pick a fight with. Other than that, though, most of the kids there were my friends, even putting up my with constant narcissism (a word that yes, I had picked up from my manipulative teacher back in middle school). Every day, I was excited to wake up, see Summer Breeze, go to school and come home to a normal life, despite the fact that we both had magical powers that nobody could know about.

On this beautiful Monday morning, I returned to school life, going about my day to day just like all the other kids there. I avoided fights, I learned from my teachers and I performed music with my backup singers, all while starting up my own miniature magical act on the side.

“Feast your eyes as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most death-defying acts that the world has ever seen!”

“Can you pull a rabbit out of your hat?”

“I’ve told you, Flash Sentry, that Trixie’s hat is not to be used as a tool to hold rodents! Now, watch in awe as the Great and Powerful Trixie disappears before your very eyes!” Then, with everyone watching one hand circusing about, the crowd had completely lost focused on the other, which pulled a smoke bomb from within my shirt and smashed against the ground, filling the area with a billow of smoke. As the students close to the explosion began to cough hysterically, I quickly maneuvered my way through the crowd until I was on the other side of the hallway. Then, once the smoke cleared out…

“Behold! I have magically teleported before your very eyes!”

Ding, ding, ding, ding!

“Oh, great…”

Of course, I always managed to screw something up, and this time, I failed to realize that I had just performed my magical act right underneath a smoke detector, making the entire school evacuate like a fire drill.

“Alright, students! Out the doorway,” said the vice-principal as I tried to tiptoe my way past her. “And as for you, young lady, we’re going to have to have a serious chat about what you can bring to school from now on.”

“Yes, Vice-principal Luna,” I replied, slugging my shoulders as I followed the other students out of the school.

Of course I had to screw up with something like this on the first day of school! My self-esteem had gotten better since my middle school days, but the last thing it needed was for some kind of event to turn me into the laughingstock of the school again. I would stay low for a couple of days, but after that, I would go back to my normal shenanigans, trying to impress everyone with magical feats that the world had never seen--

“Trixie?”

Once we had all made it outside, I turned my head upon hearing the voice of someone calling my name. Upon seeing the owner of the voice, I noticed that it was a girl whom I didn’t recognize, even though she was still the same age as me. She had white hair and large glasses with pink lenses that went with her black and white dress. Come to think of it, I had heard a few rumors throughout the school about someone who had spent the last few years in some foreign country that was moving back home. Was this the girl they were talking about? Did I know her before?

“Yes, my name is Trixie. Um… sorry if this sounds rude, but… who are you, again?”

“Mein name is Photo Finish, but you probably know me better as…”

Then, taking off her glasses, I was met with a pair of eyes that contained the same anguish that only Summer Breeze and I had been through. It couldn’t be. No! There was no way that this girl was--

“Palette?”

Then, with a smile, she nodded her head.

Chapter 2

“Palette, what are you doing h--”

“Ssshh!” the girl with the oversized glasses whispered, putting her finger to her lips and covering my mouth with her hand. “Don’t use zat name! I am Photo Finish here.”

“But,” I began pulling her hand away, “why does it matter now that the game is over? No one is going to hurt you anymore.”

“Ssshh!”

Again, she placed her hand over my mouth, making me roll my eyes as she tilted her glasses to look at the crowd around her. So far, it didn’t seem like anyone was watching us, but I couldn’t even remember the last time I had to do reconnaissance since the game had ended, which meant that if there was someone listening, I would probably never notice.

“Is Dreamdrop here?” she asked in a whisper, still looking around to make sure the coast was clear.

I instinctively raised an eyebrow, still unsure of how much I could trust a girl who had tried to kill her just four years prior, especially since I didn’t know a single thing about her outside of the game. “She’s not here,” I replied hesitantly, to which Photo Finish slumped her shoulders.

“I see. She is safe, though, I presume, yes?”

“Yes. Trixie is going to make sure nothing ever happens to her.”

“I would expect nozing short of the MVP.” Her words, although congratulatory in nature, stung me to my core, which she didn’t seem to pick up on in the slightest. “I must say, seeing you here is a pleasant surprise, especially since you seem to have been avoiding your magical girl duties here in Canterlot.”

Again, I raised an eyebrow. How was it that she knew that I hadn’t been transforming since I had moved to Canterlot? Before I could ask her anything else, however, the faculty opened up the doors to the school again and began escorting everyone inside, but before Photo Finish lost sight of me, she quickly whispered in my ear, “See me on ze school rooftops tonight at midnight. I shall make everyzing clear. Until then, I go.”

Before I even realized she was there, she had disappeared into the crowd of students pushing each other along to get into the school building in a magic act much better than my own. Had she used her teleportation gem to go back to Platinum City? No, there was no way that she would leave during school hours to teleport to a magical parallel world, especially in a sea of people, but I still shuddered just thinking of the memories that Platinum City had given me.

***

“We’re moving.”

“What?! Hold on! Just give Trixie a moment to--”

Before I could say anything else, Summer Breeze turned around and pointed her finger at my face, giving me a fiery glare that communicated how little she wanted to hear from me right now. “No, Trixie! We have both worked too hard to lose everything all because some magical girl showed up and ruined our lives again. I’m not about to take any more chances, so do us both a favor and help me pack.”

“But, can’t we just talk about this?”

“What is there to talk about?! Do you want us to get killed? I know that Palette may not need to kill us with the game being over and everything, but who knows what her motives are anymore? After all, you were the one who killed Mind Ga--” Before she even finished her sentence, she immediately realized how cruel her words sounded and turned back with a restitute face, seeing me now shaking and on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, Trixie. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

With my hand trembling, I sniffed hard and said, “Trixie gets it. She’s a murderer.”

“No, honey! That’s not what I--”

“Trixie killed four innocent girls and will never be able to bring them back!” At this point, I fell down onto the bed by my side, sitting down with my elbows in my knees while I cried my heart out, and although it looked like Summer Breeze wanted to say something comforting to calm me down, she couldn’t get a word out due to how loud my loud tears were. Then, with another sniff, I said, “Trixie knows what the risks are, but she needs to do this. No… I need to do this, Summer Breeze. If she wanted to kill me, she would have had plenty of chances by now. If we run away, if she really wanted revenge, she could easily track us down and kill the both of us when our backs are turned. Please, trust in my judgement just this once!”

Summer Breeze then stopped pacing around the room and stood frozen, pinching the bridge of her nose while exhaling a deep breath. Then, turning towards me, she placed her hands on my shoulders before bringing me into a hug, nestling her face between my neck and shoulders. “You know I trust you, Trixie. It’s Palette that I don’t trust... but... I guess you’re right that I should trust your judgement. Maybe she has changed. However!” Summer Breeze then held up one finger in front of my face. “If she hasn’t, I want you to promise me that you’ll get out of there immediately. I’ll put her to sleep and meet you back at the house. Got it?”

I smirked at her cute face, then gave her a kiss on the cheek. “The Great and Powerful Trixie agrees. However!” I then held up one finger to Summer Breeze. “I want you to take back your spear.”

Summer Breeze flinched at the thought. Dreamdrop gave me that spear when I first became a magical girl so that I could use it to defend myself, but I had already used it to kill four girls. The last thing I ever wanted to do was see it again, but if it meant that Dreamdrop could use it to keep herself safe, I would be fine revisiting those memories for a little while longer.

“I… I don’t know,” she replied. “I want you to be--”

“If you say you want Trixie to be safe one more time, she’s never going to let you borrow her blue sweater again.”

“WHAT?! But--but--but that’s my favorite sweater! And it has your scent on it! You wouldn’t take that sweater away forever, right?”

I couldn’t help but giggle. It had taken a while after the death game had ended for Summer Breeze to feel comfortable returning to the bubbly personality she had when we’d first met, but ever since then, it felt like she had never changed. Every day with her felt like the best day of my life, which is why I couldn’t let anything happen to her. No matter what, I would never let anything happen to Summer Breeze…

*************

Midnight…

*************

Before the two of us arrived at the rooftops of Canterlot High School, we had both changed into our magical girl forms. Summer Breeze had transformed into Dreamdrop numerous times since the game ended, mostly just to help me sleep at night, but this was the first time that I had transformed since the night Night Seam died. Once I transformed into the Great and Powerful Trixie, despite my reservations, I felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity flow through my body, and despite how much I had been trying to avoid this new form, it felt like I hadn’t spent a day without it. Even though my breasts were larger, my hips were narrower and my legs were longer, this body felt more at home to me than my real body did, which made me shudder more than once.

Fortunately, I didn’t live far from CHS, and once transformed into a magical girl’s body, the school was literally just a hop, skip and a jump away. Even with such a short amount of time, though, doubts and anxieties came swirling through my mind. What if this was a trap after all? What if we weren’t the first ones there? Would she try to ambush us? Of course, we had made preparations for these kinds of scenarios beforehand, just to make sure, but now that we were actually back in our old bodies again, it was only natural that my emotions were the same as how I’d left it.

Fortunately for the both of us, though, Palette was apparently alone, standing on the roof of the building with no immediate threats nearby. The minute our feet touched down, she audibly gulped, tensing up her body and looking over at Dreamdrop whenever her eyes accidentally made contact with mine. “G-good evening, Dreamdrop and Trixie--I mean--The Great and Powerful Trixie!”

What was that reaction? Was she scared of me?

“Hey, Palette!” Dreamdrop said, waving her arms with a friendly smile, almost as if the whole trying to kill us thing was water under the bridge. “Long time no see!”

“Yes, it would appear so. Anyvay, ze reason I brought you both out here ton--”

“Whoa! You sound different! Then again, I guess I haven’t seen you in four years. Gosh the time flies by super quick, doesn’t it? Have you always sounded like that?”

“Enough!” Palette shouted, but once she looked back into my eyes, she flinched and returned an apologetic smile to Dreamdrop. “I’m sorry. What I meant to say was, yes, I have spent a few years abroad. So nice of you to notice. Heheh.”

Dreamdrop folded her arms, tilting her head in confusion. “You know, you’re acting awfully funny.”

I could see Palette visibly tensing up, but before she even had the chance to come up with an excuse, I cut her off and asked, “Why are you so afraid of me? You were the one who invited us out here tonight, weren't you?”

She immediately shrieked the moment I opened my mouth, which just proved me right. “I’m sorry! It’s just… you know, with you being ze top player of ze game and after what you did to Mind Games and Night Seam. You understand, don’t you? I was on zeir team after all, but that’s all behind you now, right, Great und Powerful Trixie?”

Just like that, all the memories from before came flooding back into my mind. The look on Mind Games’s face when I cut her throat, the sight of Fleur de Lis once she had changed back to her normal form, Lulu’s lifeless body, Storm Rose flailing as I choked her to death, all of it flashed through my mind in a wave of anxiety. It felt like I hadn’t left the game, like the deathmatch was still going on, and all I could do was scream, making Dreamdrop fall to my side while Palette shrieked again in terror.

“Calm down, Trixie,” Dreamdrop said, rubbing my back while I attempted to catch my breath again. “It’s gonna be alright. We’re gonna be fine.”

“What…” I asked as soon as I could breathe again. “What did you bring us here for, Palette?”

“I’m sorry!” she shouted, falling onto the ground and prostrating herself. “I just vanted to talk to girls from the game again! I vanted to see how you handled adjusting to Canterlot and Everfree City! I’m so sorry! Please don’t be mad, Great und Powerful Trixie!”

Suddenly, my ears perked. Then, lifting my head to make eye contact with Palette, I asked, “What’s Everfree City?”

At that moment, Palette froze, and after several long moments, she looked up and asked, “When was ze last time you went to Platinum City?”

Dreamdrop and I looked at each other in confusion. “Not since the game ended,” Dreamdrop replied. “Has something happened to Platinum City?”

“I… vould not know… since we can no longer go zere. I thought you knew?”

“Wait,” I said, cutting her off. “Why can’t we go back to Platinum City?”

“Because we are not in Manehattan anymore. Platinum City is just a parallel reality of Manehattan, and since we are in Canterlot now, we get transported to a new city called Everfree City.”

“Which means…” Dreamdrop began, and without her saying a word, I already knew what she was thinking.

“More magical girls…” I blurted out, to which Palette nodded her head.

“Yes. It would seem zat every city has zeir own magical girls. I have only been there once myself, but zen again, I haven’t exactly been living here for very long. I was actually hoping zat maybe the two of you…” Palette finally rose to her feet, holding her teleport gem with one hand while reaching out with the other to help me to my feet. “...would come with me to officially meet zem?”

I could see Dreamdrop beginning to lighten up, but before she had the chance to accept, I quickly slapped her hand away, rose to my feet, summoned my spear and shoved it into Dreamdrop’s hands. “And how are we supposed to know this isn’t a trap?! You’ve been acting awfully funny, after all.”

Quickly, Palette fell back to her knees, bowing herself again while exclaiming apologies. “Please, Great und Powerful Trixie! I did not mean to offend you! I don’t vish you any harm!”

“How can we be so sure of that?!”

“Trixie…” Dreamdrop then put her hand onto my shoulder, calming me down enough to see a poor girl literally kissing my feet. “I don’t think she wants to hurt us. You were the one who said she might have changed, after all.”

I switched several looks back and forth between Dreamdrop and Palette, getting frustrated with my own indecisiveness. “Then what do you want us to do?”

“I want to go to Everfree City. I want to meet the other magical girls. Maybe then…” Dreamdrop chuckled. “Maybe then we can finally move on from what Discord did to us.”

There wasn’t much I could say to argue with her. Even though I did want to keep the both of us safe, I knew that deep down, there was no such thing as safety, and the only way I could ever feel safe again would be to allow myself vulnerability. Looking down at Palette again, I thought back to the day when I killed Mind Games, her teammate. She had been in that exact same position when I severed her head, begging for my forgiveness, but instead of showing her mercy, I took out my frustrations by killing her. Mind Games died because of my ego…

...but I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Holding out my hand, Palette hesitantly grabbed hold, lifting herself to her feet and brushing the dust off of her colorful dress. I never really noticed it before, but she was staking her own life as well by taking the chance to meet us. She had taken a chance the moment she first approached me, knowing that I would have never expected her to be a magical girl if she hadn’t flat out told me, but now that I had recognized that, I began to feel a small wave of relief rush down my body. It was small, but at least I could trust her a little bit more.

“Alright, Palette,” I said, folding my arms to show her my hesitancy. “Show us this Everfree City.”

Dreamdrop immediately grabbed hold of my arm, bouncing up and down at my change of demeanor while Palette legitimately smiled for the first time since we had arrived. Grabbing onto her teleport gem once more, she said, “Very well. I just want you to know beforehand zat Everfree City is not like that of Platinum City.”

“What do you mean?” Dreamdrop asked, eliciting a smirk from Palette.

“You’ll see…”

Suddenly, with all of us grabbing onto our teleport gems, the world around us began to shift, changing colors and morphing into different shapes while the air around us became warmer. It had been four years since either Dreamdrop or I had used our teleport gems, and unfortunately, the short trip brought back more feelings of dread than a comfortable wave of nostalgia. With the two of us holding onto each other for emotional support, we held our breaths until the colors around us eventually solidified into stable shapes in the form of a giant city, and as Palette had said, this place was far different than Platinum City.

Letting go of Dreamdrop, I slowly began to take in the surroundings, which instead of running streams and forestry growing along the buildings was more of an old town, not unlike a peasant village. Whereas Manehattan had the smells of fresh flowers and clear water, Everfree City smelled more like wood and dirt, which was admittedly still cleaner than the normal air of Canterlot. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it still left an underwhelming impression for a magical girl who had seen other parallel worlds.

“This is it?” I asked, turning towards Palette.

“Not exactly,” she replied, walking down the dirt path before us. “Come. Let me show you what makes zis place so different.”

Dreamdrop and I exchanged looks and shrugged shoulders, basically following orders with no more expectations. By this point, most of the precautions we’d had before had diminished into a feeling of tranquility, mostly due to the quiet atmosphere around us. There were houses all around us, yet it didn’t seem like this place had any residents, or at least if it did, nobody was home. Everything seemed pretty boring, at least until we saw a shadow zip past us, making me reflexively step in front of Dreamdrop with my arms outstretched, looking around in all directions for a surprise attack.

“Do not worry, Great und Powerful Trixie. Zere is no one here who wishes you any harm.”

I hesitantly lowered my guard, knowing that even if nobody wanted to hurt us, there was still someone there, watching us as the two of us followed Palette down the dirt path. Dreamdrop didn’t seem too worried, which was all I needed to keep myself at ease, especially since at this point, we could finally make out a destination ahead of us. There were several people there, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a fountain as well. This seemed like exactly where a meeting point would be for magical girls, which Palette only confirmed by running towards the center with an excited skip.

“Look! It’s Palette!”

“Hey, you’re back!”

“I was so scared you’d leave us forever, Palette!”

Both Dreamdrop and I followed behind her, although neither of us picked up our pace, nor did either of us try particularly hard to make the girls notice we were even there. Of course, it didn’t take long, however, before the group of girls in the distance finally became clear images, all of which tilted their heads away from Palette to get a better look at us.

“Who’re you? Are you here with Palette?”

“Are you magical girls too?! Oooohhhhh, you’re both so cute~!”

My cheeks were now unexpectedly starting to burn up as my social anxiety kicked in. I thought I had finally gotten a better grip of that once I moved to Canterlot, but it looked like the nervousness from my preteen years had stayed with me at least a little bit. Luckily for me, though, Palette turned towards us with a smile before taking the reins herself.

“Everyone, I vould like you to meet my friends, Dreamdrop and ze Great und Powerful Trixie!”

Suddenly, a throng of about seven magical girls all cluttered around Dreamdrop and I, either trying to make conversation or gawking at our outfits as if they’d never seen real magical girls before. This was definitely outside my comfort zone, even despite all the crowds I had drawn at school with my show-offy shenanigans, and looking over at Dreamdrop, it looked like she was feeling the exact same way. Fortunately for both of us, however, Palette quickly moved in to intervene politely, at least enough to give us some breathing room.

“Wait a second!” a girl with cat ears shouted out, silencing the clamoring girls around us. “How did you girls get your meowgical powers, anyway?” She then turned to Palette, putting her paw-like gloves on her waist. “I was meaning to ask you yesterday, but does that mean you’ve met Autumn Blaze already?”

“That’s right!” added a girl with metallic skin and a blue outfit. “She never leaves Everfree City. Have you three somehow found a way to get here without the use of teleport gems?”

“You idiot!” shouted a girl with thick, dark eyeshadow and a bright pink dress. “No one can get here without a teleportation gem!”

“If that’s so, then how did those girls get their powers?”

Palette was obviously beginning to sweat, hoping that introducing us hadn’t started some kind of argument, but before she could even break them up, a soft sound began to echo throughout the city. It was almost like the sound of windchimes, mixed with the elegant tone of violins and harps brought together by the wind blowing the leaves along the barren city until a figure emerged in the distance. Then, lying on her back against the fountain was some kind of horse-like creature with a lion-like mane and a horn in the shape of a tree branch. She was definitely a creature born of magic, similar to Discord, only instead of being terrifying and nonsensical, she was quiet, peaceful and beautiful…

...until she started talking…

“Hey, girls! Oh, you have no idea how nice it is to see some smiling new faces around here! I mean, it’s not like I don’t appreciate the other smiling girls here, and it’s not like you girls aren’t smiling anyway, but I cannot believe, I repeat, CANNOT believe that there were magical girls that I didn’t even know about! I’m with the others. I am SO intrigued about how the three of you managed to get your powers without me. Then again, it’s not like you could come here without powers in the first place, and it’s not like you could get magical powers without coming here. Talk about a paradox, am I right?”

I couldn’t help but cringe, not only at her long-winded speech, but also at the sound of her bringing up a name of a magical girl that I had seen die, which no doubt she noticed.

“Oh, my bad! Am I rambling? I tend to do that sometimes. You know how some people’s minds run a thousand images per second? Well, that’s kinda like how my mouth works sometimes. It just keeps going on and on without stopping, you know? Haha! Oh, right. I’m literally doing the exact thing that I’m trying not to do. Anyway, my name is Autumn Blaze. This here is Lucky Star, La Proxy, Catastrophe--she gave herself that name, not me--Sun Shadow, Trickster, X Genesis volume nine--although I usually just call her Genny--and last but not least, we have Divinity. There are a couple of other girls as well, but they’re probably sleeping right now. I mean, come on! It’s just barely after midnight! It’s midnight, right? I haven’t been to the human world in forever! It’s so difficult for me to keep track sometimes haha. So! Who are you three?”

We couldn’t believe that we could actually hear silence again, which we had a feeling we would need to enjoy while we still could, but just as I was about to introduce myself--

“Hey, Autumn Blaze! My name is Dreamdrop, and this is my girlfriend Trixie. Oops! I don’t know if I was supposed to tell everyone that. Sorry! We’re here with Palette. Have you met her yet? It sounds like the girls know her, at least. So are you like the magical being that watches over this realm? Does every city have one of those? We all got our powers a long time ago, actually. Four years ago for Trixie and me. How about you, Palette? Four years for you too? I’m going to take that look to mean yes. These aren’t even all the magical girls here?! How many are in Canterlot? Sorry, I’m not sure if I’ll remember all of your names right off the bat.”

As Dreamdrop and Autumn Blaze continued their conversation, I pulled my hat over my face to hide my simmering cheeks as Palette nudged at my shoulder with a cocky smile. “So zis is your girlfriend, yes? You definitely found a keeper.”

“Please stop talking,” I said into my hat. “Trixie wishes everyone would stop talking.”

“Oh, my goodness!” Autumn Blaze continued, still intertwining words with Dreamdrop. “It has been forever since I’ve found someone who can keep up a conversation with me. No offense to anyone here, but they are not the best at communication sometimes, especially Sun Shadow. Oh! I’m sorry. I just realized that I said ‘no offense’ and then immediately said something that was probably hurtful. Ehh, you’re used to it by now, aren’t you, Sun Shadow?”

“Can I die now?”

“Ignore her. She’s just crabby because she missed her nap. By the way, I don’t think you’ve mentioned how the three of you got your powers yet.”

Dreamdrop’s face quickly lit up again. “Oh, that? The three of us are actually from Manehattan. We got our powers from a magical draconequus named Discord. There were originally ten of us, but--”

Autumn Blaze was no longer smiling, although it appeared that she was still trying to fake it. With her lips twitching as they tried to remain curled up her cheeks, she muttered, “Did you say… Discord?”

“Yep! Wait, do you know Discord?”

Immediately after hearing her response, it looked like parts of her body were beginning to turn black, even turning into flames around her mane, but before I knew for sure, she quickly shook her head and was smiling just like she was when she first appeared. “Oh, it’s been forever since I’ve seen his face! How is he doing? Still up to chaos, I take it? Well, that basically answers all my questions! Especially why you three left, am I right? Anyway, it’s so good to have new magical girls here! I’m sure the three of you are going to love it here in Everfree City.”

“Can you even call it a city?”

Suddenly, everyone’s eyes turned towards Palette, who looked around at her environment completely oblivious to everyone’s reactions. “I’m sorry,” Autumn Blaze began. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I’m saying zat zis place is all dirt! Maybe a few houses, but other zan zat, it’s a complete wasteland! What about having tall buildings, small rivers and lots of gardens und trees?”

Autumn blaze tilted her head. “That… would need a lot of magic to create. Heck, if someone were to have the ability to put people to sleep, it would basically mean that I’d have to cut down the number of magical girls by at least half!”

Her convenient response hit all three of us at our cores, but it also left me with a sudden question. “Wait, what about us? Are our powers affecting the amount of magic you need to keep Everfree City alive?”

Autumn Blaze shook her head. “Since you three are from a different city, your magic comes from wherever you got you powers, so whatever parallel world is connected to Manehattan is the only place that could be affected by your magic. Did Discord not explain all this to you when he made you into magical girls?”

“No,” Dreamdrop answered. “He’s not the best at communicating sometimes.”

“So I remember! It must be so hard for the three of you to have had to deal with someone like that for so long. Actually, if you wanted to transfer your magic here, you could be citizens of Everfree City and finally be rid of him forever. What do you say, girls?”

I held my breath. After all these years, there was a chance that I would never have to worry about Discord entering into our lives again, and if I was lucky, all the bad dreams that I had about the game he had forced us into would finally disappear. I would finally be able to transform into a magical girl without worrying that there would be a caveat to it, like I would be under the supervision of a creature that wasn’t trying to hurt us. From what it seemed, Autumn Blaze would just talk up a storm if she ever got bored, whereas Discord would create chaos, but before I had the chance to agree to anything, Dreamdrop stepped in.

“That sounds great, actually! But… would you mind if we took the night to think about it? It’s just kind of a lot to think about right now.”

Again, I saw a small flicker of black spreading on her coat before quickly vanishing. “I’m sorry,” Autumn Blaze began, “I guess I’m not sure I understand. What is there to think about? You want to be rid of Discord, right?”

Those were my thoughts exactly, but at the same time, it seemed a little too good to be true, a sentiment that Dreamdrop obviously shared as well. “I just want to make sure we’re not walking into anything too quickly. Can we see you tomorrow and give you our answers then?”

Autumn Blaze took in a deep breath through her nose and exhaled out her muzzle, quickly returning to her signature smile. “Absolutely! Take your time! In fact, let me add my number to your magical phones, just in case you need anything from me.”

Suddenly, I felt a buzz coming from a pocket I didn’t even know I had, and glancing over at Palette and Dreamdrop, it looked as though they were experiencing the same phenomenon. As I pulled out my magical phone, I saw a new message that said, “Autumn Blaze’s number has been added to your contact list!” It had been so long since the last time I had used my magical phone, with my last memory being the night that I killed Night Seam, but that just brought up a new question.

“Wait a second!” I exclaimed. “How did you know we even had magical phones?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” the girl named Trickster asked. “We all have magical phones.”

The answer did seem simple enough, but when I looked into Autumn Blaze’s snarky smile, it seemed like there was something that she wasn’t telling us, something she didn’t want us to know. Still, though, looking around at all the other magical girls, I noticed that they were also pulling out their own phones, asking the three of us to exchange numbers. They all seemed so carefree, so trusting of one another, just like the three of us had been before we discovered Discord’s true motive, and maybe I was just being paranoid, but for some reason, I had had goosebumps since the moment I met Autumn Blaze, and not in the good way.

***

“I’m soooo sleepyyyy!” The minute we got home, Summer Breeze collapsed onto our bed, grabbing onto her pillow and snuggling with the covers, too lazy to even tuck herself in. “Tell Palette that midnight is too late. Next time let’s go at 7:30, OK?”

Seeing her almost cat-like face made it impossible not to smile, but now that we were back home, there were a lot of things that I wanted to talk about. “So, what did you think about Everfree City?”

“I thought it reminded me of how much I love to sleep. That’s why I made it my magic power.”

“Summer Breeze, I’m serious.”

“And I’m seriously tired. Can’t we talk about this in the morning?”

Rolling my eyes, I pulled my hair back and placed a kiss on her forehead. “Fine, but Trixie expects full attention in the morning. Do we have a deal?” Rather than respond with any coherent affirmation, however, she answered with a loud snore, making me wonder how she could have possibly fallen asleep so quickly. “Sleep really is your special talent, isn’t it?”

“She looks so peaceful, doesn’t she?”

I immediately yelped, surprised not only from the surprise voice coming from seemingly nowhere, but also because of the ominous way its familiar tone rang through my ears. My skin was growing cold with goosebumps despite my heart heating up the inside of my body, causing me to break out into a cold sweat as my whole body began to tremble. Not only was my skin changing colors, but also the entire room, which turned dark, blackening the electrical light until the only colors in the room were emerging in front of my eyes. I knew whose voice that was, and it was one that I had hoped that I would never hear again.

“Good evening, Trixie!” the figure said, taking the shape of a colorful draconequus. “My how time flies. What have you been up to these past four years? I see you and Summer Breeze are still together. Isn’t love wonderf--”

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

Discord flinched, taken aback by my sudden rage. “My, my! Touchy, aren’t we? You know, that’s not how people normally welcome back and old friend. Besides, you wouldn’t want to wake up your little shmoopy doo, would you?”

I quickly turned my attention to Summer Breeze, who would have a total heart attack if she saw Discord again, but luckily, she was still out like a light, too engrossed in her dreamworld to be woken by my screams. With a sigh to calm myself down just enough to where I wouldn’t raise my voice, I asked, “What do you want, Discord?”

“Why is it that I have to want something? Can’t my only desire to be catching up with an old friend?”

“Discord, you and Trixie are not friends. Now please, get out of my house and never come ba--”

“Hey, you were the one who called me here.” With my heart rushing, I quickly looked down at my magical phone to see that, as he said, I had accidentally called him through my pocket. “So what was it that you wanted to talk about? I thought you would have thrown out your magical phone years ago, but I guess you knew that you’d never be able to forget your old buddies.”

“Discord, please leave us alone. Trixie is sorry for accidentally calling you, but she’s had a long night and needs some sl--”

“Speeeeaking of magical phones, I couldn’t help but notice that you have a few new numbers in your contact list. Now where might you have gotten those, I wonder?”

I then pinched the bridge of my nose, realizing that no matter how many times I asked him to leave, he was obviously here to do more than just answer my butt dial. “From Everfree City. Where else?”

Discord’s smile was beginning to fade, which was something that I had never seen before. He was already terrifying as he was, but I could only imagine what kind of terror he could unleash if he ever got mad at anybody. “Everfree City, you say? Ohhhhhh, do tell me all about it.”

“Do we seriously need to go over this? Palette told us that since we’re in Canterlot, if we use our teleport gems, we’ll end up somewhere other than Platinum City, so the three of us went to Everfree City, met all the magical girls and some magical horse girl named Autumn Blaze.”

Suddenly, Discord’s fur was beginning to burn into a bright green flame until it engulfed his entire body from his lizard foot to his lion paw, burning through the darkness in his seething anger. Fearfully, I backed myself up to the headboard of my bed, grabbing onto the blankets like they could somehow save me from Discord’s fierce eyes staring straight into mine. His teeth grinded together, his neck extending closer and closer until his fiery muzzle was only an inch from my face, causing my breath to stop short in my lungs. In all my life, despite my childhood, despite the death game I had been forced to participate in, I had never been as scared as I was in that moment.

“Did you say… Autumn Blaze?”

“Y-yes, sir,” I replied, reverting back to my childhood speech patterns. “Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry! I just--”

Before I could finish, however, the green flames suddenly vanished, along with most of Discord’s enraged demeanor. Instead, however, he stood there at the base of my bed with his claws behind his back, gazing down at my trembling body with a look of almost disgust. Finally, though, he turned away, looking at my bedroom wall as if there were something interesting about it.

“Trixie…” he began, making me even more uncomfortable. “Do you want to see something?”

Of course, I wanted to say no, and on most occasions, he would leave if I asked him to, but the somber tone of his voice made me fear what would happen if I said no this time. Knowing that he could see me even with his back turned, I nodded my head, and in a quick flash, the scenery of my room turned into a different place, one that I recognized very well. It was a large building with long hallways, hard floors and plenty of rooms, but the eerie thing about it was how empty it was.

“Discord, why did you send Trixie to Canterlot High School?”

“Seems awfully quiet in here, doesn’t it?”

“It’s night time. Why would it be any different?”

Discord snickered deviously, making me gulp again. “No, Trixie. We’re not in the present anymore. In fact, the time on my watch says 11:15 AM on Tuesday, two weeks from today.” He then showed me the watch on his wrist--which I was sure he wasn’t wearing before--to prove that sure enough, what we were looking at was supposed to be a school day where the hallways would normally be filled.

“What are you getting at, Discord?”

Without saying a word, he began walking down one of the vacant hallways, holding his paw behind his back while keeping his pace relatively slow. Immediately, I realized what he was doing and quickly caught up to where he was, looking around for any clues of what he was getting at by bringing me here. If left to my own devices, I would have believed that it was just a snow day, which was entirely believable based on how early Canterlot got snow as well as how dark it was outside, but there was always something more to everything Discord did.

Finally, we arrived at a doorway which would normally lead to my homeroom, where the draconequus stopped moving and raised his claw to the doorknob. “Would you like to do the honors, or would you prefer I did it for you?”

I tilted my eyebrows, still hesitant about doing anything Discord wanted me to do. “Trixie would prefer if you opened the door for her. You are a gentleman, aren’t you?”

Again, Discord snickered. Then, with my heart standing on edge, his claw grabbed hold of the doorknob, turned it upside down, and slowly pushed the door open, finally revealing what was hidden on the other side.

The second my eyes caught a glimpse of the insides, however, I fell to my knees and threw up, if not by the sight, by the smell. I then coughed out whatever I could to bring the air back into my lungs, but another round of bile made its way out of my throat.

“Terrifying, isn’t it?” said Discord with a wily smile.

“What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?! What happened here?! W-w-what’s going on?!”

Inside the room were several bodies scattered throughout the layout, all splayed as if they were each trying to escape or hide from something, the terror still edged into their faces. The worst part of all, though, was that these were my classmates, not just random people who I never thought I would meet again. The sight of someone who I believed moments earlier would live a long, prosperous life mangled on the back of a chair or protecting another student’s body just to have a hole piercing them both made all the feelings I’d been trying to hold back for four years return in an instant. In all my time as a magical girl, I had seen a total of eight dead bodies, but there were ten in front of me right now.

“Applejack!” I shouted with tears in my eyes, rushing over to my friend’s body. “Soarin! Cloud kicker! Fluttershy!” One by one, I addressed their bodies as well as gauged their method of execution, which just got worse and worse as I moved through them. Gun wound to the head. Severed jugular vein. Crushed bones. Bones sticking out. “No… Miss Cheerilee!” My old teacher, however, looked like she had suffered the most, with half of her body burned to a crisp, leaving only a skeleton with remnants of flesh and clothing.

“That’s not all, Trixie,” Discord said, making his way out of the room. “There’s more you need to see.”

“Explain what’s going on first!”

Unfortunately for me, however, Discord continued walking, and I really wasn’t in the position to be demanding anything from him right now. I quickly followed behind, dreading wherever he was taking me, but as I looked through the windows of each classroom and saw a vague representation of what I had seen before, I knew that I needed whatever answers he could give me.

Finally, we arrived at the auditorium, which made me panic even more about how bad the carnage would be once we entered inside. Putting my fears behind me, however, I took the reins and pushed my way through the double doors, but once we entered inside, I froze in place, a single tear running down my cheek. My body tensed up with my insides gripping like I was about to have a heart attack. The sight before me literally made me feel like I was about to die.

“No…”

I then fell to my knees, collapsed forward and bawled my eyes out. The body that I saw before me… was Summer Breeze’s, torn in half with both pieces just a few feet apart.

“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

“Look at her, Trixie! This is the future that we’re on the course for right now!”

“Summer Breeze! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME! PLEASE DON’T DIE!”

“It’s too late, Trixie!”

“NO! PLEASE! I’LL DO ANYTHING! JUST DON’T LET SUMMER BREEZE DIE!”

“You think Summer Breeze is the only one you have to worry about?”

Raising my head just slightly, I finally began to make out the other bodies along the auditorium floor. Rainbow Dash. Sunset Shimmer. Principal Celestia. Vice Principal Luna. And...

“Palette…?”

With my legs shakily pulling myself up, I wobbled my way forward again to make sure I was seeing things right, but sure enough, this body belonged to Palette, or rather Photo Finish, who had a purple dart piercing through her right eye, shattering her signature glasses. Turning my attention towards Discord again, my lip began to tremble. I needed answers, anything to help me make sense of the gory envelopment of my surroundings.

“What is all this?”

“This is a warning of things to come.”

“But… who did all this?”

In an uncharacteristic fashion, Discord fell to his knees and lowered his head to meet my gaze, placing his paw on my shoulder. “The creature you went to see tonight is not your friend, Trixie. She did this. She will murder everyone at this school, as well as anyone who tries to stop her.”

“Autumn… Blaze…?”

“No, Trixie. Her magical girls did this, under her command.”

“But… why?”

“Because she has a heart even colder than mine, and she will do whatever she can to get revenge for what this world did to her.”

“What do you mean?”

Without even acknowledging my final question, however, Discord rose to his feet, walking slowly again towards another part of the room. This time, I couldn’t find the strength to follow him with anything more than my eyes, but finally, he arrived at the edge of the room, just beyond what I could see in my current position.

“Trixie… Come see this.”

With a deep heave, I squeezed my eyes shut, weakly forced myself to my feet and made my way over to where he was standing. I held my left arm to my side, staring down at my feet as I walked, using my memory alone to guide me to where I remember his voice originating. Eventually, however, I was side by side with Discord, and with only enough willpower to lift my eyes to his claw, I could make out his finger pointing forward towards the stage. Finally, I lifted my head up just enough to see where his finger led, making out a leg dangling from the edge of the stage. The only problem now, though was…

...I knew that leg…

With a newfound urgency sending adrenaline through my veins, I rushed over to the stage, trying not to trip over my feet as I ran. The more I saw, though, the more I recognized the corpse lying motionless on its back. Then, I saw her. There was no mistaking it.

And I screamed.

“TRIXIE! WAKE UP!”

Before I knew what was going on, I was heaving deep, heavy breaths, holding onto my chest as sweat trickled down my entire body, which was seizing uncontrollably. I wasn’t in Canterlot High School anymore; I was back home, and upon realizing that I was finally back where I was safe again, I keeled over and began to cry hysterically into my hands. Summer Breeze, however, held me close on her lap, brushing one hand through my hair as I bawled pathetically like I did when I was twelve.

“Shh! Shh! Shh! It was just a dream, Trixie. It’s all over now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“Summer Breeze?” With timidity in my voice, I slowly turned my head to see Summer Breeze smiling down at me, filling my heart with joy, but for some reason, my mind immediately went back to the visage of her corpse rended in half on the Canterlot High floor, and I immediately began to cry again.

“It’s OK, Trixie! It’s me! You’re safe. Just breathe.”

Despite how much she tried to comfort me, which would have calmed me down completely on a normal day, I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t stop seeing what Discord had shown me. The smell of their bodies, the detailed colors of blood mixed with entrails, the horrified faces of the kids who knew they were about to die, all of it was too real to remove from my mind. The worst part of it all, though, was that corpse lying dead on the stage. I had an idea of who it belonged to at first, but after getting an up close view, there was no doubt. That body was…

...mine...

Chapter 3

I couldn’t sleep.

To ease Summer Breeze’s worries, even if only slightly, I pretended to be sleeping with no problems, but in reality, there was no way I would be able to keep my eyes closed for long. When Summer Breeze had to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I closed my eyes for as long as I could, but they immediately shot open the moment I heard the sound of the bathroom door click. I couldn’t bear the sight of the inside of my eyelids. If I wasn’t looking at something right in front of me, I would begin to see the bodies again, strewn out along the school grounds with faces filled with terror, never reaching the safety they so desperately sought after.

The door opened again, and I quickly shut my eyes just long enough for Summer Breeze to walk in and lay down on her bed before my eyelids opened wide again. Even in the few moments where I was pretending to be asleep, I saw each of their faces once again, as if their lives were taken mid-scream, but I couldn’t let that bother me too much. If I began to panic again, or worse, if I began shrieking like I had before, Summer Breeze would spend the rest of the night worrying about me. I needed to keep her as far away from this scenario as possible. If I didn’t…

I slapped my face with all of my strength, hoping the sound wouldn’t accidentally wake Summer Breeze, but luckily for me, sleep really was her special talent. I had to keep my thoughts away from what I had seen the night before, even though I still had so many questions. Why would Autumn Blaze do something like that? What kind of dispute was she having between her and Discord? How did Summer Breeze, who wasn’t even a student at CHS, get caught up in all this? As I began to think deeply about all the questions swirling around in my mind, however, the stress and fatigue were beginning to take their toll on me, and before I knew it, I was staring at the inside of my eyelids once more, gently being taken back into my dreams.

*Beep, beep, beep!*

“No school today,” I mumbled, slapping my hand over my alarm clock. “Trixie doesn’t believe in education.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

Just as I was about to be pulled back into my deep slumber, I was being pulled in another direction as my blankets were suddenly yanked off of my body, flipping me onto my stomach. Of course, looking up, Summer Breeze was standing above me with a beautiful smile, complemented by her adorable bedhead and signature teddy bear pajama bottoms. There was no way I could be mad at her, but at the same time, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about being forcefully woken up after two or three hours of sleep.

I rubbed my eyes, yawning loudly as I grumbled, “What happened to sleep being your special talent?”

“What happened to graduating at the top of your class with the most dazzling grades the world has ever seen?”

“Alright, alright! Trixie gets your point!” With another yawn, I swung my legs over the ledge of the bed, but I couldn’t help noticing that even though Summer Breeze was smiling, there was something that was on her mind. Of course, I didn’t need three guesses to figure out what she was thinking about, but that didn’t mean I particularly wanted to talk about it first thing in the morning.

“So…” she began. “About last night…”

“Do we really need to talk about this right now?”

Summer Breeze bit her lip, dropping her eye contact, but with another wave of determination, she looked back into my eyes and said, “I think you should do it. At least this way one of us can get away from Discord.”

Me? By myself?

“What about you? Trixie doesn’t want to do this by myself.”

“I know, but I don’t exactly have that option. My magic would ruin Everfree City.”

Oh, right. Then we would probably be put through another death game like the one Discord did, only for some reason, I didn’t feel as though Autumn Blaze would go as easy on us as Discord. Fortunately, though, not only did this mean Summer Breeze would stay away from her, but it also made it easier for me to come up with an excuse as to why I wouldn’t be joining Everfree City. Summer Breeze didn’t need to know the whole truth, at least not yet.

“Actually,” I began, “Trixie doesn’t know how she feels about becoming part of Everfree City either.”

Summer Breeze folded her arms, lifting one eyebrow. “Why’s that? I thought you’d be thrilled about being done with Discord. I mean, I know we haven’t seen him for a while, but--”

“Has Discord ever lied?”

“...I’m sorry?”

Rising to my feet and grabbing hold of Summer Breeze’s shoulders, I exclaimed in a half-shout, “Answer me! Has Discord ever lied?”

“Not that I know of, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dishonest!” Having my suspicions more or less confirmed, I fell back onto the bed, slumping forward while rubbing my temples. “What’s going on, Trixie? Is this about… the game?”

For once, it wasn’t, but I couldn’t let her know that.

“No. Trixie is just… concerned that maybe Autumn Blaze is more similar to Discord than we think.”

“Why would you think that?” With a concerned look of her own, she sat down on the bed beside me, running her fingernails against my back. “We both met the same pony, right? Did she really give you the impression that she was anything like Discord?”

“Did Discord give you the impression that he would get us all killed?!” Summer Breeze flinched, making me feel even worse than I already did. Not only did I not need to snap at her like that, but what I said wasn’t even entirely true. Discord never asked me to kill anyone. I did it out of my own anger. “I’m sorry, Summer Breeze. It’s just… At least with Discord, we already know what we’re getting ourselves into. With Autumn Blaze, we have no idea what to expect.”

Summer Breeze’s eyebrows furrowed, giving me the feeling that what I said may have been the wrong thing to say. “Are you saying you trust Discord?”

That was what I was saying, wasn’t it? I hated to admit it, but with a gulp, I looked into Summer Breeze’s eyes and said, “Yes.”

“...OK, then. I’ll trust in your judgement.” To my surprise, rather than getting angry, she hopped up to her feet, held out her hands and helped me back up to my own. “Now, you’d better start getting ready for school! We don’t want you to be late for your second day of classes!”

Once I was back up to my feet, I wrapped my arms around Summer Breeze’s waist, pulling her into the biggest hug I could imagine, and unlike what my mother had ever done for me growing up, she actually hugged me back. As I placed my face into her shoulder, getting a whiff of her natural scent, I felt a wave of comfort knowing that being in her arms was exactly where I could call my home. It was almost strange to think that had anything changed four years ago, I wouldn’t be able to spend every day with her like I was in that moment. Pulling myself out of her shoulder, I stood on my toes and planted a kiss on her lips, showing her in a way that words couldn’t express how much I loved her and how happy I was to be with her.

Unfortunately, however, when that moment passed, I would never feel this happy ever again.

*****

“Alright, class. Don’t forget that you’re starting your group projects today. If you don’t like your partner, welcome to the club.”

“Mr. Doodle, Trixie must object!”

“HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME MR. DOODLE?!”

“How can you expect Trixie to get a proper grade in your class when you pair her up with a southern bumpkin?”

“Say hwat now?”

Before the argument could escalate any further, however, the bell rang throughout the school, dismissing us for lunch as a sea of students made their way into the hallways. Of course, Applejack gave me a fierce glare as she walked out of the classroom, which I had a feeling wasn’t going to help out much when we started on our group project. With all that we had going on, though, I needed to make sure that I had someone who would be able to help carry some of the weight for me academically, especially if I got called away for some kind of magical girl business. After what Discord had shown me the previous night, I had a feeling that I was going to need a couple nights free from schoolwork. I was praying to myself that what I saw wouldn’t come true, but everyone’s life, including my own, was riding on me being able to stop it if something happened.

As I walked through the lunch line, receiving a scowl from Granny Smith (who gave me the least appetizing applesauce available), I didn’t even notice that I was staring down at my tray, barely looking up enough to continue my autopilot routine. After making it through the lunch line, I finally realized that several students were staring at me with concerned expressions, some of them even whispering into their neighbor’s ear. They were looking at me just like the kids at Manehattan Middle School did, which immediately broke me from my stupor enough to point my nose upwards, projecting an aura of confidence that I hoped the students would believe. No matter what problems I had, I still had a reputation to worry about. After all, it wasn’t like I could tell anyone else what was going on.

Then it hit me! I quickly looked around until I saw Photo Finish eating lunch by herself and hurriedly made my way over to her table, slamming my tray down and making her yelp in surprise.

“Photo Finish! Trixie is so glad she has someone to talk to!”

“Do you not… usually have friends to sit with during lunch?”

“No, but that’s beside the point! I need to talk to you about the… other thing.”

Photo Finish quickly looked around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping, and once the coast was clear, I sat down in front of her, leaning in to where we could speak quietly without being noticed within the roar of the lunchroom. “I’m guessing zis is about Autumn Blaze’s proposal, yes?”

“Yeah, about that…”

“Ach, isn’t this wunderbar! We can finally be freed from Discord and once again be magical girls! It vill be just like before we--”

“Trixie has decided not to join Everfree City.”

Photo Finish stared at me for several moments, pulled her glasses off of her ears, rubbed her lenses with her frilly sleeves and placed them back onto her face. “You are joking, yes?”

“No. I’m not. Something just seems… off about Autumn Blaze. At least with Discord, we know what we’re dealing with.”

Photo Finish sighed, resting her forehead in the palm of her hand. “And Dreamdrop is OK with this?”

“Yes. She’s also decided to remain loyal to Discord.”

With a loud groan, the fashionista began rubbing her temples, undoubtedly feeling the same conflicting emotions that I had been dealing with all morning. “And I suppose zat you vould like me to remain with ze two of you?”

“Listen, Pale--I mean, Photo Finish. Discord never lies. We don’t know that about Autumn Blaze. Sure, Discord may try to mislead us, but he will never tell us something that isn’t true. I think we can use that to our advantage. Also, Trixie saw some… things… last night…”

“Things?” I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact anymore, knowing that if I did, she would pressure me into giving her all the gory details, but nonetheless, I nodded my head, at least giving her a response. “Do these things have somezing to do vith Autumn Blaze?”

“Photo Finish…” I took a deep breath. “...Trixie thinks she’s going to try and kill everyone at CHS.”

“VAS?!”

“SSSSHHHH!!!!!” I whispered as loud as I could, reaching over the cafeteria table and placing my hand over Photo Finish’s mouth. As I looked around, fortunately, everyone was too immersed in their own conversations to notice her outburst, allowing me to take my hand off of her mouth and place it over my chest with a deep breath.

Photo Finish then looked around the room herself, closing the gap between us so that I would hear her as she whispered. “What did you see?”

“Trixie would… much rather not talk about it, although it’s safe to say that Autumn Blaze is the perpetrator, according to Discord.”

“You met with Discord?! Ach, it’s no wonder he doesn’t want you to join Everfree City! Can’t you see he’s manipulating you into believing that--”

“Palette.” Photo Finish cringed upon hearing her magical girl name in a public setting, but she couldn’t look around to see if anyone heard with my fierce gaze locking her in. “Discord. Never. Lies. He told me pointblank that Autumn Blaze is going to order her magical girls to murder the entire school. I saw the aftermath.”

Photo Finish frowned wider, but my stern stare wouldn’t break for a second. “You’d… prefer not to talk about what exactly you saw?” I shook my head, leading her to slump back in her seat, holding her chin up with her elbow on the table. “And I’m guessing zis means zat I won’t be able to join Autumn Blaze either, yes?”

“Do you still want to?”

“I don’t know! Scheisse! I was so excited to actually go back to being a normal magical girl again.”

“Photo Finish, you know as well as Trixie that there’s no such thing as a normal magical girl. We’re not here to spread hope, love and justice like we thought when we signed up. Our job is to kill, and that’s not going to change no matter who we take orders from.”

“But… I’ve met zose girls before. Zey don’t seem like zey would kill anybody, even if Autumn Blaze asked zem to.”

I put my hand onto Photo Finish’s shoulder, just so she could feel how much I was trembling.

“Neither did we, but we did what we had to do. I have no idea how Autumn Blaze is going to convince her team to kill a school full of kids, but I saw what it looked like. For some reason, she has some kind of vendetta against Discord, and she’s going to take that out on all of us, not leaving any survivors.”

“Wait… does zat mean…?”

I nodded my head.

“We’ll die too.”

Photo Finish looked down at her tray of food, stirring her fork around her applesauce until she lost her composure and threw the entire tray behind her, seething with anger. “I thought we could all be done with zis, but our problems just followed us here!”

As Photo Finish looked up to see my face, though, she noticed that rather than staring at her with the gaze I had been holding for the past several minutes, I was looking directly behind her. Then, once she turned around to see what I saw looking at, she saw a boy with a bright red mohawk, covered in applesauce and slamming his fist on the table, but just before he could find out who the perpetrator was…

“FOOOOOOOD FIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!”

...the entire cafetaria stood up and began throwing their entrees, leaving Photo Finish and I to shield our heads with empty food trays.

“Meet me after school tonight, same place as last time. We’ll go see Autumn Blaze and talk with her a little bit before giving our answers. Oh! And also, Summer Breeze says that she prefers seven thirty to midnight.” Before Photo Finish could answer one way or the other, however, a shiny red apple flew past our faces, cutting our conversation short. “I’ll see you then!”

Time seemed to fly by after speaking with Photo Finish. For some reason, having both of the remaining magical girls from Manehattan siding with me on such a sensitive issue put my mind at ease to the point where I almost forgot about it. Upon getting home, I filled Summer Breeze in on the details, and it sounded like she was thinking about the exact same plan. We would all go to Autumn Blaze, tell her that we would politely decline, and look for any signs that might hint that she’d want to take action against us. From there, if we were careful and observant, we might be able to prevent anything from happening to the students at Canterlot High. Summer Breeze didn’t need to know all the details just yet, but just so long as she knew that Autumn Blaze was trouble, she hopefully wouldn’t need to know the rest.

Before the three of us made our way back to Everfree City, I debated with myself as to whether or not I should talk with Discord about what we should do or say. Eventually, though, I decided against it, knowing that he would give me some kind of biased judgement that would work in his favor rather than ours. Not only that, but I was honestly frightened to ever see him again. It seemed like every time I spoke with him, something bad ended up happening, and for just once in my life, I just didn’t want anything bad to happen.

Before we made our way over, however, I pulled out my magical phone, remembering that before we left Everfree City, Autumn Blaze gave us a way to contact her as well as all the other magical girls. The last thing I wanted to do was message Autumn Blaze directly, but I also had a feeling that whatever message I sent to any of the other magical girls would probably be seen by both Autumn Blaze and Discord. I still wanted to get some answers, though. I would just have to be discreet about it.

Sifting down the names, I came across a name that I had heard the previous night, a name that peaked my curiosity. “Divinity,” I said to myself, reading the name aloud. “Maybe you can be of some service to Trixie.” Placing her name as the recipient of a text, I shakily moved my fingers, typing out a message that I knew was been watched by two mythical beings.

“Hey, Divinity. This is the Great and Powerful Trixie. I’m planning on coming back to Everfree City again tonight, but I had some questions first.”

The exact moment I had hit the send button, however, I immediately received a reply that read, “Ask whatever you’d like.” It was literally an instantaneous reaction, as if the message had been waiting for me, and all I had to do was hit send to receive my answer. With my nerves a little more on edge, I continued to type.

“How long have you known Autumn Blaze? When did you first receive your powers?”

Again, the exact instant that I sent the message, I already had my reply.

“I received my powers ten years ago. If you’d like to know more, I’ll make sure all the other girls will be there when you arrive tonight so that we can go over our powers and abilities with you. I think it would be preferable for you to know more about the girls of Everfree City before you decide whether or not you would like to join us. The three of you were planning on seven thirty, correct? Just say the word and I’ll make sure everyone is there.”

How did she know when we were planning on coming? Had Palette tipped her off already? Well, Palette did seem to know these girls a little already, so it would make sense if she did, not that it mattered much either way.

“Yes, Trixie would really appreciate it if everyone could be there.”

“Perfect. We’ll be expecting you. Also, the draconequus is right behind you. Don’t scream.”

Even with her warning, I could help but let out a shriek as I turned my head to see Discord laying in a hammock in my room, sipping on a beverage straight from the center of a pineapple. “Whoa! Calm down, Trixie!” he said holding up his paws. “It’s only me! It’s not like you didn’t know I would be here anyway.”

“What are you doing here, Discord?” I asked, holding my hand to my chest as I heaved air back into my lungs.

“Oh, why is that always the first thing anyone ever asks me? I’m here to spy on you, of course!” He then slurped through his straw so powerfully that the entire pineapple sucked straight through, which he gulped down with a satisfying sigh, picking his teeth with the straw before he swallowed that too. “So, I presume you’ve been thinking over what I showed you last night.”

“Yes, and Trixie would like to know a few things about that.”

“Oh? Is that a demand I hear?”

With my lips suddenly curling downward, I fell down to my knees, prostrating myself humbly before the god of chaos and finally getting a good grasp on what humility really meant. I hated myself for ever bowing to a monster like him, but if he could save both my friends and myself, then it would hopefully all be worth it in the end. “No,” I said sorrowfully. “Trixie is asking you for a favor.”

Of course, Discord immediately roared with laughter, floating in mid air while he clenched onto his sides. “Isn’t this something! The Great and Powerful Trixie is on her hands and knees! Ohoho! This is priceless! I have to take a picture of this!”

“Discord!” I shouted, losing my composure just as he grabbed a camera from behind his back.

“Fine. What exactly would you like to know?”

The question caught me off guard. I was so sure that he would lead me straight into a riddle that I hadn’t even thought of a good question to ask. “How about… What exactly caused the events to transpire that you showed me last night?”

“I already told you. Autumn Blaze used her magical girls to attack Canterlot High School and everyone in it.”

“But why?”

“Because she hates humans. That’s why she was banished to the magic realm in the first place.”

With every question Discord answered, two more popped up in its place. “What’s the magic realm? Who banished her? Why does she hate humans? Why Canterlot High in particular?”

“Whoa! Calm down! All these questions are making my head spin!” As Discord spoke, his head began swirling in circles comedically, and even when he grabbed hold of his horns and chin, his eyeballs continued to spin in opposite directions. “The only thing I can tell you is that the only way to stop the events I showed you from happening is by killing Autumn Blaze.”

No. Not again. Why did everything have to revolve around death?! Why was it that every time I spoke with Discord, he had some kind of agenda for someone to die?! There was no way I could kill again, even with my friends’ lives on the line. I would figure something out eventually, but as for right now, I wasn’t done with the draconequus in the room just yet.

“Trixie has just one more question.”

“Oh? And what, pray tell, would that be?”

Finally, I lifted my gaze from the ground, glaring straight into Discord’s large, yellow eyes.

“Why can’t you tell Trixie anything else?”

His lips then suddenly curled into a small smile, reminding me once again that I was dealing with someone who never answered questions with a serious response. “Because I want to see you grow, of course!” It sounded like he was lying, which would have disproven my earlier theory, but there was still probably some semblance of truth to his statement. Of course I would grow if I had to figure everything out by myself, but what good was having a living deity around if he never gave me any answers?

“Come on, Discord! There are lives at stake here!”

“Then you’d better take care of Autumn Blaze quick, before she goes after someone you love.”

I grit my teeth in anger, seething with so much fury that I grabbed the next closest thing to where I was kneeling (which, in this case was a pair of scissors) and immediately threw it towards the god of chaos, who disappeared without warning. “DAMN IT!” I shouted, pounding my fists into the floor after having let Discord slip away so easily, but no sooner had I done so when I began to hear footsteps racing up the stairs with urgency.

“Trixie, are you o--” Summer Breeze exclaimed, opening the door to our bedroom but freezing in place as she examined the room. “Is there any reason you’re kowtowed in front of a pair of scissors which are sticking out of our freshly painted wall?”

“Trixie can fix that!” I replied, getting back to my feet. “Sorry. I think I got a little emotional all of a sudden.”

Summer Breeze lifted an eyebrow, which was the proper response, even though I knew that this meant she was going to start asking questions that I really didn’t want to answer. “You’ve been acting strange all day. Does this have something to do with Autumn Blaze?”

“Trixie… can’t tell you that… I’m sorry…”

I couldn’t look her in the eye anymore, but I could still feel a wave of concern on her face as she placed her hands on my shoulders, gently running them down my arms until she was holding my hands. “Why can’t you talk to me, Trixie? You know that there’s nothing you could possibly say that would make me judge you.”

“It’s not that!” I wanted to tell her everything, and at this point, she really did deserve to know. Now the only thing keeping me from telling her was my own weakness. I was so afraid to bring it up, like talking about it would somehow make it real rather than fantasy. “Can it just… wait until after the meeting tonight?”

I still wasn’t looking at Summer Breeze’s face, but I could still tell that she was at least a little devastated. “Yeah… After the meeting… Actually, would you mind if I stayed home tonight? Since I’m not joining Everfree City anyway, there’s no real point in both of us going, right?”

NO! That’s the exact opposite of what I wanted! If you stay home, that would give Autumn Blaze the perfect opening! There would be no one left to protect you!

“Trixie thinks it would still be best if you came alo--”

“No. I’m staying home.”

My heart dropped. How was I going to talk my way out of this one? If I didn’t convince her to come with Palette and I, there was no telling whether or not she would even be here when I got back! My arms were beginning to literally shake, which I genuinely hoped Summer Breeze wouldn’t see, but I was so scared that I was close to falling back onto my knees and begging her to come along. Unfortunately, if I did that without telling her what was going on, I would just end up putting more distance between us emotionally, and as much as I feared for her safety, I could at least realize that there wasn’t a huge chance of anyone making any sudden moves on her. For all they knew, Palette and I would be joining, which meant that if they were going to retaliate, it would most likely be after the two of us gave our answers.

“Fine,” I said, trying not to sound too emotional, “but… could you do me a favor?”

Summer Breeze folded her arms. “Yes?”

“Trixie wants you to stay transformed the entire time she’s gone.”

Summer Breeze raised an eyebrow. “Just what exactly are you--”

“PLEASE! FOR THE LOVE OF DISCORD, WILL YOU JUST DO THIS ONE THING FOR ME?!”

The girl in front of me flinched, holding her hands timidly to her chest as I heaved out in frustration. It was heartbreaking to see how terrifying I had become, but hopefully in the end, it would all be worth it. Hopefully I would be able to find out what Autumn Blaze was planning so I could prevent it from happening and go back to making Summer Breeze happy again. I wanted this all to be over, but I had a burden to bear that nobody else needed to be involved in.

“OK, Trixie,” Summer Breeze finally responded, softening her frightened face. “I don’t understand what’s going on, but… I still love you. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

In that moment, a bright light encapsulated Summer Breeze’s body, enveloping her entire figure in a shell of luminescence until fading into the form of a magical girl with bright blue hair, a night-themed dress and a moon-shaped necklace. With her hand reaching out beside her, a large spear appeared in her grip, the exact one that she had bought me to stay safe four years earlier. I still wouldn’t be able to rest easy being in Everfree City without her, but at least now I knew that she would be as safe as possible.

“Well…” I began awkwardly. “Trixie supposes that she’d better meet up with Palette now. It’s about that time.”

“Yeah… See you later…” It didn’t seem like she was intentionally trying to be cold, but as she made her way downstairs, dragging her spear down the steps as she went, she had definitely lost the bubbly personality that I had gotten so used to. Of course magical girl duties would be making her upset, or maybe that was just me looking for any justification I could to blame her sadness on anything other than me.

With one final glance in Dreamdrop’s direction, I transformed into the Great and Powerful Trixie, grabbed hold of my teleport gem and made my way to the entrance of Everfree City. Hopefully in the end, this would all be worth it.

*****

The moment I arrived in Everfree City, Palette was already there, jumping from my sudden arrival.

“Ah!” she shrieked. “Oh, it is only you.”

“There is no ‘only’ when referring to the Great and Powerful Trixie. Are you still certain that you want to do what we planned on?”

“Only because you scared me out of it! Ach, and I was so looking forward to having new magical girl friends again.”

“Hopefully Trixie is wrong about them, but we can’t take any chances. I made sure that every magical girl in Everfree City will be here tonight, so we need to make sure we know what all of their powers are, just in case we need to stop them.”

“Speaking of which,” Palette replied, looking over my shoulder, “where is Dreamdrop tonight?”

“She… won’t be coming…”

“Oh? Did the two of you have a fight? Do you need couples therapy already?”

I gritted my teeth, trying not to let her get under my skin as she began to chuckle to herself. “Come on. Let’s just get this over with.”

As the two of us began walking towards the center of Everfree City, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us the entire way, whether that be Autumn Blaze, Discord or one of the magical girls. There was no doubt that someone was spying on us, and it wasn’t out of the question to consider the idea that maybe all three were keeping eyes on us, watching our every move, listening to every word we said. The whole time, whenever Palette tried speaking to me, I tried to respond with one-word answers, just to make sure that everyone was kept in the dark as much as possible. Nobody needed to know more details than was necessary, not even Palette, just in case Autumn Blaze would be able to sway her to her side.

Once we arrived at the fountain of Everfree City, we were greeted by a bright rainbow of girls in colorful outfits, waving and smiling as the two of us made our way forward. I couldn’t remember anyone’s names other than Catastrophe, X Genesis volume 9 and Sun Shadow, but the second I made contact with a girl wearing a beautiful white dress and golden laurel wreath along her glossy blonde hair, I could tell immediately that this was the girl whom I had spoken with earlier. Her outfit was nothing short of angelic, including greek sandals, golden bracelets and long sleeves that fell down her wrists, and the confidence that she carried with her gave me the impression that she was the leader of the group, not unlike what Marrow was to us.

“I’m glad the two of you could make it,” she said, breaking the throng of girls that had gathered around Palette. “Although, it’s a shame that Dreamdrop couldn’t be here today.”

“Dreamdrop won’t be here?” replied the girl with metallic skin. “That is a shame. We were looking forward to all of you joining us, but I guess two girls will still add an enjoyable experience.”

“Actually, about that…” Palette began, looking to me for guidance, to which I shrugged reluctantly. I wasn’t ready to spill the beans before I got the chance to study up on the other girls here, just in case they kicked us out of Everfree City the moment we said we weren’t interested. I needed to make sure that I learned as much about them as I could within two weeks, just in case I needed to use my powers again for the first time since Night Seam’s death.

As Palette continued to look in my direction for advice, I rolled my eyes, taking a step forward so that everyone could acknowledge me as the new center of attention. “Trixie believes what Palette is trying to say,” I began, “is that before we join, we would just like to know a little bit more about all of you first.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea!” called a voice similar to the sound of wind chimes. Both Palette and I flinched, but the other girls in Everfree City turned towards each other with smiles on their faces. Suddenly, in the center of the throng of girls, a wind began to pick up, sending the leaves along the ground swirling up in a cyclone until a figure about half their height with a goldish gray coat and grayish green scales stepped out, smiling at us with a smug grin. “Hey, girls! It’s so good to see you again! I know, it’s only been a couple of hours since the last time I saw you, but I have been so excited to see you back here again! I didn’t sleep a wink last night, not that I do sleep, seeing as how I’m an eternal being and all, but if I could sleep, I wouldn’t have been able to do it for one s--”

Then, out of nowhere, Autumn Blaze stopped talking, or, rather, she continued to talk, but for some reason, her lips were moving without any sound coming out. “Don’t mind Autumn Blaze,” said a girl wearing a dress with a round speaker in the center of her chest. “If I didn’t do something about her, she’d just go on and on, as you’ve probably noticed by now.”

Once she turned back towards the equine, however, she noticed that Autumn Blaze had stopped talking, motioning with her hoof towards the magical girl who had just spoken. “Aaaaaaanywaaaaaay,” Autumn Blaze continued, finally being able to speak again. “I think you’re right. If you’re going to be a magical girl here, I just want to make sure that you feel comfortable with all the girls here. After all, teamwork is my number one focus!”

I could breathe a sigh of relief, or at least I was pretty sure I could. It didn’t seem like Autumn Blaze had any idea that Palette and I had decided not to join, or at least if she did, she was extremely good at hiding it. Maybe this meant that she couldn’t see or hear things that happened in the outside world like Discord could, but just in case, I decided that I should still probably keep my guard up for the time being.

“So, why don’t we start out with you, Sonic Boom, seeing as how you’ve so graciously given us an idea of your power already?”

The girl with the speaker on her stomach scratched her head. “Huh? Oh, sure. My name’s Sonic Boom. My magic is sound manipulation. Uh… yeah… That’s about it.”

“You’ll have to forgive Sonic Boom. She isn’t very talkative, at least not as talkative as me. I’m guessing that’s why she made sound manipulation her power, so that everyone else could be as quiet as her. Not that it ever works on anyone here. Except Sun Shadow, but she was never really much of a talkative person either, right, Sun Shadow? Why are you giving me that look, Sun Shadow? I’m just going to ignore that for a little bit, but anyway, the point that I’m trying to get at is that just learning someone’s name and powers is kinda boring, don’t you think? I was thinking that maaaybe we could throw in one more little fact! Oh, like how long you’ve been a magical girl! That sounds like fun! So, Sonic Boom, back to y--”

Before Autumn Blaze could go on any longer, even though it seemed like she was getting close to wrapping up anyway, the words coming from her throat vanished in the winds, leaving her once again flapping her jaw without any audible sounds. “OK. Um… Let’s see… I’ve been a magical girl for six months now. It’s kinda fun. I’m enjoying it so far.”

The girls around us began to clap, making both Palette and I feel compelled to join in. Six months didn’t seem like a very long time, but then again, when I first joined Platinum City, it didn’t seem like many of the girls there had much more experience than that. I had to remember that even though I had technically been a magical girl for four years, I had only used my powers over the period of about three days, which meant that even the newbies probably had an edge of experience over me.

“Thank you, Sonic Boom!” Autumn Blaze continued once sound finally returned to her lips. “Now, let’s see… Who should go next? Oh! What if we went around in a little circle! Now do we want clockwise or counter-clockwise? You know what? I feel like breaking the norms today. We’re going counter-clockwise. Genny, if you would be so kind!”

“Certainly,” the girl with metallic skin said, wearing a light blue dress with matching arm warmers, stockings and high heel boots. “My name is X Genesis Volume 9, but as you may have seen, most of the girls here simply call me Genny. My power is indestructibility. I can endure fire, lava, shotgun shells, spears, swords, canon balls, even nuclear warheads if it came down to it. I am the newest magical girl in Everfree City at seven weeks after being introduced by La Proxy. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Once again, the girls all clapped, leaving me once again to analyze. If she were to try and attack anyone at Canterlot High, what could I possibly do to stop her? I felt relieved knowing that even if I wanted to kill her, I wouldn’t be able to, but how would I keep everyone safe if I couldn’t even pretend like I was a threat to her?

Before I could let my thoughts get too off topic, however, another girl I hadn’t seen the night before stepped forward. What she was wearing was a complete stark contrast to everyone else. Rather than being dressed in a pretty skirt with leggings, her outfit seemed more like a blue and black wetsuit, complete with a pair of goggles for swimming and spots all over her hands.

“Wassup, girls? The name’s Dokaeru. My magical talent is spitting. Like, that’s not even a joke.” As a special demonstration, she tilted her head back, spat a purple liquid into the air and caught several hardened needles between each of her fingers, and without a moment’s hesitation, she flung them at our feet, making Palette and I jump back with a surprised shout. “Those are poison darts. I can make ‘em weak enough to incapacitate someone or strong enough to kill them, and they’ll always hit their mark. Always… But yeah! Pretty sweet power, eh, ladies?”

“And how long have you been with us, Dokaeru?” Autumn Blaze asked, to which Dokaeru put her finger to her lip as she thought.

“Heck, it must be close to five years now. Dude, I feel old now. Anyway, good meetin’ you.”

The other girls clapped, but this time, Palette and I were a little more hesitant to applaud along, switching nervous glances between each other from Dokaeru’s surprisingly violent power.

“My turn meow!” shouted the girl with cat ears, cat paws, a short black skirt and an even shorter white top. “My name’s Catastrophe, and my power is…”

Suddenly, her whole body changed colors in a vibrant display of light until finally, she wasn’t there anymore. Insead, in place of where she used to be was… me?

“Are you not impressed?” she asked, imitating my voice. “Feast your eyes on the most stunning feats of magic that the world has ever seen!” Then, in another flash, she changed back, striking a cute pose. “I can body morph! I can change into whatever I want, whether that be people, animals, or even just everyday household appliances! I’ve been a magical girl for about a year now ever since my little sister Sun Shadow showed me how much fun it could be! That’s all for me. I hope you to decide to join the family!”

As everyone clapped again, I raised an eyebrow, wondering how on earth the most peppy member of the group could be sisters with the most obviously depressed magical girl in the circle. As Catastrophe went back to the circle, however, she gave a big hug to a girl in a pink dress, who she then pushed into the center of the fold. She had thick black eye shadow, long white gloves and long pink knee socks that worked perfectly with her bright blonde hair, but contrasting with that image was her menacing scowl as she folded her arms close to her chest.

“My name’s Sun Shadow,” she said in a little more than a mumble. “I’ve been a magical girl for thirteen months, and I can do this.” As if gravity were pulling her down, Sun Shadow then fell into the ground, being sucked into her own shadow, which then traveled along the length of the ground until it joined alongside my own. Then, popping out of the ground, she placed her hands at the center of my shoulders, making me flinch in fear. “Did I scare you? Don’t be embarrassed. I scare almost everyone. Can I be done now, Autumn Blaze?”

“Yes you may,” she responded with a smile. “Thank you for participating. Trickster, if you would be so kind.”

“AW YEAH!” a smaller girl with a flat chest and a tight green outfit then jumped into the center of the circle. “Bet you girls couldn’t wait to meet me! The name’s Trickster, and I have the coolest power of all!” The, with the snap of her fingers, she--

…

“Ugh…” I moaned, opening my eyes with dirt on my face.

Suddenly, I found myself rising from the ground, falling back onto one knee and rubbing my head to soothe my throbbing headache. Then, turning around, I saw her standing behind me, folding her arms and laughing boisterously. What happened in the microsecond between her snapping her fingers and me collapsing to the floor? How did I even end up on the floor?

“Go ahead and try to remember what happened after I introduced myself. I bet you won’t remember it. That’s because my power is memory-manipulation! I can alter or erase any memories you have, making it to where you forget everything you’ve ever known or even giving you a completely new identity. I’m still kinda new, only having been a magical girl for the past 9 months, but I’d still like to think that I’m the most powerful magical girl here! Nice to meet ya!”

Again, the girls clapped, but their powers seemed to be getting more and more terrifying. If any of them decided to turn on me, Palette or Summer Breeze, there was little chance of us coming out on top. Before I could think too hard about it, however, a girl on the opposite side of the semicircle made her way forward, wearing a red and black top with white frills and a green skirt with the patterns of numerous playing cards.

“Very nice to make your acquaintance, girls,” she said with a haughty, bourgeois accent. “My name is Lucky Star, and rather than demonstrate my powers myself, I’d prefer to give you the opportunity to see my magic firsthand.” Then, flicking her wrist outwards, she held out her hand, revealing a pair of six-sided dice. “Would you like to roll them? If you manage to roll any even number, I will have Autumn Blaze give you my power as reward.”

There was obviously something she was getting at, but rather than think too hard about it, I held out my hand and grabbed hold of her dice. Then, throwing the dice onto the floor, I watched them tumble along the dirt until one of them flipped onto its side, revealing four red dots engraved in its surface. This meant that in order to win, I needed the last die to turn over with either a two, four or six, but as I predicted, when it finally stopped rolling, it turned over on the number three, giving me a seven and ultimately losing the challenge.

“Oh, how unfortunate! Perhaps I’ll have better luck.” After bending over to pick her dice off of the floor, she rolled them for herself, revealing a perfect twelve once they finally stopped moving. “I guess this means I’ll be able to keep my power to myself for a little while longer. In case you haven’t noticed, my power is luck manipulation. It almost feels like I can control the whole world if I wanted to, but I guess using them for the good of the human race will have to suffice for now. I’ve been a magical girl for two years now, after meeting Divinity in a fortunate encounter. I almost can’t imagine what’s it’s like to go back to being ordinary girl anymore, but I digress. I hope for a prosperous relationship between us from here on out, ladies.”

Again, another magical girl with a tremendous power. This just left two more girls, however: Divinity to Autumn Blaze’s left and a girl with a bubbly light blue dress entering the center of the semicircle.

“Hey, girls,” she said in an almost menacing tone despite her soprano voice. “My name is La Proxy. I’m not going to demonstrate my power, and if you’re lucky, you’ll hopefully never have to see it. I have the power to alternate dimensions. I could combine Everfree City and Canterlot into one entity if I so pleased, but again, this is only a power I use under circumstances that call for it. I’m not proud of my power, nor am I proud of what I’ve had to use my power for. All I can do is hope that when we die, I won’t have to pay the consequences for what I’ve done in this life. I’ve been a magical girl for eight years, also having been discovered by Divinity herself. If the two of you joined, maybe it would mean I would need my powers that much less, so I sincerely hope the two of you join Everfree City.”

Her description was nothing short of terrifying, but with the ability to manipulate dimensions, I could see how she would feel a little uncomfortable with the power she possessed. Even with just the power of levitation, I wondered if my magic was too strong for my own good, especially after seeing what I had been able to do with it. The girls and I then clapped as La Proxy made her way back to the circle, leaving just one more girl to introduce herself.

With a large breath through the nose, the girl with the angelic outfit stepped forward and said, “My name is Divinity… and my power is…”

Palette and I held our breaths, wondering how her power could possibly compare to those of the other girls in the group.

“...omnipotence.”

Palette and I turned our heads towards each other, not able to grasp exactly what she meant.

“I’m sorry,” Palette began, “but vut exactly do you mean…?”

“I mean exactly what I said. I have any power I can think of. I can use literally any power ever conceived as well as those that have not yet been imagined. I can see the past, present, future, as well as things that don’t even exist in this continuum. I can read your thoughts, your desires, your moods and your goals, and I can turn them on their head before you even realize that you thought them. I can bend gravity, take over people’s bodies and cause the heat death of the universe without even snapping a finger.”

My eyebrows rose in fear while my heart began beating at a dangerous level as the amount of adrenaline filling my body began to pump perilously. If this girl had the powers that she claimed (which I had already seen glimpses of earlier), there would be nothing I could do if she ever decided to turn against me. I would die in literally the blink of an eye, losing my life before I could even decide on a plan of attack.

“I know what Discord showed you,” a voice in my head said as Divinity stared straight into my eyes. “Don’t let him make your decisions for you. You need to decide for yourself what you want to do. I can tell you that Autumn Blaze isn’t any worse, but ultimately, I’m going to leave the decision up to you.”

“Divinity has meowst awesome power of all!” Catastrophe shouted, breaking me from her trance. “I just wish I’d have thought of that when I chose my power!”

“No way,” Dokaeru chimed in. “I don’t want that kinda responsibility. Can you even imagine having the fate of the entire universe in your fingertips? Dude, I don’t even wanna think about it…”

“Don’t you girls think you’re being a little rude?” Autumn Blaze chided while never losing the pleasant timbre in her voice. “After all, she hasn’t told us the best part.”

Even without her omnipotent powers, Divinity could easily see what Autumn Blaze was trying to allude to. “Of course,” she responded in an almost emotionless tone. “I have been a magical girl for ten years. However… I have only been a citizen of Everfree City for a little over eight years. Before that…” Again, she looked straight into my eyes. “...I was a citizen of Platinum City.”

She knew Discord! She turned against him and joined Autumn Blaze!

“Why did you leave Platinum City?” I asked, hoping I didn’t accidentally step over any boundaries, but to my surprise, a small smile broke out on Divinity’s face.

“I moved.”

“...You… moved?”

“My parents did, I should say, and they brought me along with them when they decided to leave Manehattan. Once I came to Canterlot, I decided to settle into Everfree City. It wasn’t like I could just go to Platinum City whenever I wanted anyway.”

She was lying. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, she wasn’t telling us the full truth of what happened to make her become one of Autumn Blaze’s magical girls. With her power, she could move between both dimensions without taking a single step, which meant that the reason she came here probably had something to do with Discord. The weird thing, though, was that I thought Marrow whad been Discord’s first magical girl. How many more had there been?

“So!” Autumn Blaze exclaimed, pulling me back to reality. “Now that you’ve had the chance to meet everyone, what do you say?”

Everything made sense now! The reason why Autumn Blaze had allowed everyone to introduce themselves before getting our answers was to intimidate us, to show us how disgustingly outmatched we were against magical girls of their calibur! I wanted to join less than ever, but at this point, did I even have a choice?

“Actually,” Palette began, taking over the conversation, “now zat I think about it, we can’t just leave Dreamdrop by herself in Platinum City.”

She was coming to my rescue! This was perfect! “Trixie agrees. Since Dreamdrop’s power is putting people to sleep, there would be no way for her to join, and it’s not like you don’t have plenty of magical girls here in--”

“Are you telling me no?”

The blissful tune to her voice was gone. Now, Autumn Blaze was full-on glaring at us, her eyes beginning to glow as smoke rose from her mane and tail. She didn’t even look like the same being anymore, especially as the flames began to envelope her entire body.

“Are you saying you’d prefer to stay with Discord than to join me?!”

Suddenly, I fell to my knees, feeling just as powerless as I was when faced with middle school bullies. “I’m sorry!” I pleaded. “I just can’t leave Dreamdrop alone! I promise Discord has nothing to do with this!”

Looking around, however, I saw that time had been frozen, with the only people able to move being Divinity, Palette, Autumn Blaze and myself. Then, after a few more moments of black and blue flames searing through her coat, she returned back to a remnant of her joyful demeanor, but only a small portion of it.

“Girls, I think it would be best for the two of you to leave Everfree City.”

“Awwww!” Catastrophe cried out once time began to move again. “You mean they can’t stay?!”

“It seems logical,” Genny replied. “The two of them did insist that they would prefer to be members of Platinum City rather than Everfree City.”

“No way!” Trickster added. “So just because they decided to stick with their hometown, they can’t even visit?!”

“Girls.” Divinity spoke, and the others fell silent. “I think it’s best that we allow them to leave. It was nice meeting the two of you, but this is a sacred place. We would ask that you respect our home as we respect yours.”

Taking a look around, it was obvious that when Divinity spoke, the other girls would give her their unwavering loyalty. It wasn’t like there was much else to talk about anyway, but it was still a little bit of a shock being deported on the spot.

With a bow, I said, “Thank you, girls. The Great and Powerful Trixie appreciates your hospitality, and we’re really sorry that we couldn’t join your city.”

Before I even lifted my shoulders back up, however, I was back home at my house in Canterlot, standing alone in my bedroom. Turning my head in every direction, it looked like Palette wasn’t here anymore, which meant that rather than being transported by teleport gem, we were more than likely forced back to our own realm by Divinity’s magic. I then took a deep breath, glad that I was able to get the decision over with, but still scared about what would happen from now on.

Before I could think much further, however, I heard the stifled sounds of someone crying from downstairs.

“SUMMER BREEZE!” Without taking another moment to think, I jolted out of the bedroom, stammered my way down the steps and made my way into the living room to see Dreamdrop sitting on the sofa, spear in one hand and crying into the other. “Summer Breeze,” I said softly, falling to my knees beside her. “What’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Trixie,” she said, covering her eyes with her hand as she cried harder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

“It’s OK, Summer. Just tell Trixie what happened.”

“I’M SORRY!”

Out of reflex alone, I pulled Summer Breeze’s hand away from her face, holding on tight as I forced eye contact. “Listen, Summer Breeze. Trixie needs you to tell her what’s going on. Are you OK? Did anyone try to hurt you?”

“It’s not me, Trixie… It’s…”

“Yes?”

“...your mother…”

With my eyes going wide, I gently began to let go of Dreamdrop’s hand.

“...She’s dead.”

Now, my hands had completely fallen away as my entire body went numb.

“.................M-mom?”

Author's Note

Sorry about this chapter being so long. I promise I'll start whittling them down to more digestible chunks from here on out.

Chapter 4

The moment I learned about my mother’s death, I left home without another word to Dreamdrop, no matter how much she was begging me not to go. I knew how far away Manehattan was from Canterlot, but I had to see her again one final time. I immediately hopped onto the next train leaving for my old home, doing my best not to cry my eyes out and make the others on the train silently judge me. Unfortunately, though, there was no denying the tears streaming down my face and the sniffles from my nose, making me even more anxious to get off the train as soon as I could.

A million things were going through my mind during the ride over that I really should have stopped to think about before I left Canterlot. Who told Dreamdrop about my mother’s death? How did she die? Was there anything that I could have done to protect her? Was leaving home and moving to Canterlot going to be the biggest regret of my life? Plus, if this turned out to be bait from Autumn Blaze, that left Dreamdrop alone once again, only this time, there was no one keeping an eye on the magical girls from Everfree City.

The moment the train stopped in Manehattan, I rushed into a secluded area as fast as I could, transformed into the Great and Powerful Trixie and jumped onto the nearest roof, running from housetop to housetop until I arrived back at my old apartment downtown. The area was surrounded by ambulances, police cars and crowds of spectators trying to figure out what was going on, leaving me to hide on one of the neighboring rooftops.

Then, I saw her, or rather, what I could of her remains. She was completely encapsulated by a blue body bag, being lifted into one of the ambulances by a stretcher, and even though I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that this was my mother, my heart sank in complete despondence. I couldn’t imagine my mom ever leaving me, almost like she’d be a part of my life forever, but now, I would never be able to see her again. I’d never be able to tell her just how much I loved her and how grateful I was for how she raised me. Instead, I had just run off to play magical girl rather than being there for her, protecting her, caring for her in her final moments, making me feel like the worst daughter that had ever lived.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” a low voice said behind me. Of course, I didn’t need two guesses to realize who it was, and honestly, I didn’t want to be bothered right now.

Wiping a tear from my eye, I mumbled, “Go away, Discord. Just leave me alone.”

Of course, I had guessed correctly, and even though I wasn’t looking back to make sure, I could feel the draconequus slithering by my side. “Trixie, you can’t be alone right now.”

“And why not?”

“Because you’ll kill yourself.”

I bit my lip. I couldn’t believe how right he was. The main thing that had kept me alive during my childhood was my mom and knowing how many problems it would have caused for her if I had committed suicide, but now that she was gone, even though I had Summer Breeze, I couldn’t imagine going on any longer, living without the one person in my life who I thought would be the one constant that I had to live for. I had been through so much anxiety during the past day, and having this tacked onto it would have been the final push to send me over the edge. Rather than fight the thought anymore, I pulled my knees up to my face and began wailing my heart out, loud enough for everyone below to hear me if it weren’t for the sirens and loud conversations.

“You must be so confused right now.”

“I am! What happened?!”

Discord then placed a paw onto my shoulder. “I can tell you everything you need to know, but I can’t do it here. It’s only a matter of time before someone spots two suspicious creatures standing on somebody’s rooftop, and I personally don’t want to see them freak out when they see a handsome face such as mine.”

As Discord lent out a claw to help me to my feet, I weakly wiped a tear from my eye and asked, “Where are we going?”

“Where do you think?” he replied with a smile. “Since you’re back in Manehattan anyway, I thought you might like to visit your second home.”

My eyes went wide as I suddenly began to realize what he was alluding to. “You mean…?”

“Of course I mean!” Then, lifting me to my feet, Discord ripped open a hole in the space-time continuum, revealing a magical place filled with luscious gardens and beautiful meadows on the other side. “Are you ready to go, or should we wait until you’ve recomposed a little more?”

“No, Trixie is ready.” Finally, I wiped off one final tear before looking into the portal of my old home away from home, and with the hardest step I had ever taken in my life, I arrived once again in Platinum City.

*****

It was exactly how I remembered it, with the relaxing smell of fresh flowers, running streams and clean air, complemented by the beautiful sounds of birds singing and a light breeze skimming past my legs. It was almost hard to imagine that this was where two girls died in the death game that Discord had put us through all those years ago. I couldn’t imagine going any further to see the corpses of Paradox or Marrow, just in case their bodies never made it out of the city. Instead, I made my way to a large rock next to a quiet stream and sat down hunched over, digging my fingernails into my legs from all the stress I had been put under the past day.

“You don’t really plan on resting here, do you?” Discord asked. “Wouldn’t you rather we head over to the fountain? You girls seemed to love using that as a meeting ground.”

“...Lulu’s body is still there, isn’t it?”

“Weeeelll… I wouldn’t really call it a body anymore.” My whole body shivered as the grotesque image of a rotting skeleton came to mind. “But I guess here is fine too. You must have so many questions to ask right now, anyway.”

That was right, but the real question now was which one I wanted him to answered first.

“Can you tell me… how my mom died?”

“Alcohol poisoning,” he replied, looking at his claw in nonchalance. “It’s not like you didn’t see that coming for years.”

I sighed a breath of relief. This meant that she had died from natural means rather than by someone’s magic, which was what I had been most afraid of. “Then, does that mean you were the one to tell Dreamdrop?”

“Correct! Honestly, it’s no fun when you ask questions if you already know the answers beforeclaw.”

Again, more relief swept over me. I wasn’t exactly calm in this situation, but at least it was better than being left in the dark about everything. Was there anything else that I even needed to know at this point? Besides trying to figure out what Autumn Blaze was planning now that I had rejected her invitation (which Discord already mentioned that I had to figure out for myself), it seemed like everything was in place.

Then I remembered something, though. Something that was brought up in Everfree City.

“One more question.”

Discord stretched with a loud yawn, seemingly bored with everything I asked him so far. “Ask away.”

“Divinity. You knew her.”

Suddenly, his ears perked up with a smile forming on his face. “That’s not really a question, now, is it?”

“My question is… what can you tell me about her?”

Silence fell for more than a moment, bringing an awkward, uncomfortable aura into the air around us, but finally, after stroking his goat beard with his eyes in deep thought, he said, “She’s unstoppable.”

“...What?”

“Ugh. Do I really need to repeat myself? Divinity was a magical girl that I had before somepony decided to take her away from me. It’s such a shame, too, because before she left, she was single-handedly the most talented magical girl I’d ever had. Of course, I think anyone with a power like hers would be the most talented magical girl ever, but once you tack on the ten years of experience under her belt, it’s almost laughable to even try to stop her. If she had been part of the game, she would have won easily! Especially since her powers alone would have been too much for Platinum City to handle for too long. You can imagine why Everfree City is such a dump.”

I slumped forward again as I began to wonder whether or not there was even a reason to fight against Autumn Blaze anymore. With Divinity on her team, if she was as strong as Discord made her out to be, I would be dead in a matter of seconds, but if Discord knew that, why did he want me to try? Did he just want to get a few laughs in before I struggled myself to death?

“I know what you’re thinking,” he continued, “and no, I’m not going to let you die so easily. I sincerely need your help if I’m going to kill Autumn Blaze once and for all.”

“STOP IT!!” Discord flinched in surprise, but his smile never left his face, even though I was shaking in uncontrollable anger, sadness and confusion. “I’m done killing people! I can stop Autumn Blaze without taking any more lives! I know I can! I just need to--”

“You’re being naive, Trixie.” I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from blurting out something I would regret, but he carried on with his speech regardless. “Those girls have dedicated their lives to Autumn Blaze, and if she says to kill everyone at Canterlot High School, that’s just what they’ll do.”

“Why, though? Why does she want to hurt Trixie’s friends so badly?”

The draconequus then sighed in aggravation, rubbing his eyes with his lion paw before turning to me again and saying, “Fiiine. I guess I can’t expect you to figure out everything for yourself. The reason why she’s going to kill everyone at CHS is because of you.”

My heart sank, my eyes growing wide. “Because of… me?”

“Yes, because you chose to ally yourself with me. She wants to lure you into battle where she can ambush you with her entire team and murder you as well as everyone you love, all because she has some kind of petty grudge against me.”

“Wait…” I was now seething in anger as my blue skin turned red, my veins close to bursting out of my face. “YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT THIS IS ALL BECAUSE I CHOSE YOU OVER HER?!”

“Basically, but why fret about the details when--”

“I ONLY CHOSE YOU BECAUSE YOU SHOWED ME WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I DIDN’T!”

“No, I showed you what would happen if things progressed the way they were going. You can’t tell me that Autumn Blaze didn’t seem suspicious to you last night when you met her. You knew that I would never lie to you, unlike Autumn Blaze, and eventually you would end up leaving her to come back to me anyway, once again creating the outcome that I showed you last night.”

“If that’s true…” I then used my magic to summon my spear, hoping that Dreamdrop wouldn’t notice its sudden disappearance, but even if she didn’t, it would only be a matter of time before her worst fears came true. “If this whole thing really is just to get back at Trixie for not joining her, THEN I’LL KILL MYSELF RIGHT HERE!”

“WHOA! Calm down, magical diva!” With the snap of his claws, my spear suddenly disappeared, leaving me with nothing left to threaten him with. “Besides, it’s not like I won’t make this worth your while.”

I dropped eye contact, glaring at the ground in my total helplessness. “And what can you do that would be useful to Trixie?”

With a devious smile, he slithered next to me, wrapped his claw around my shoulder and whispered into my ear, “I can bring back your mother.”

Every muscle in my body froze, causing me to nearly lose consciousness from the shock I was experiencing. My mind was in pain just thinking of all the different interpretations he could have meant, especially knowing how Discord always left out the most important details whenever he wanted to trick me into doing something, but I couldn’t come up with any reason he would be trying to mislead me. It sounded like he could honestly use his powers to bring back the life I once had, just so long as I cooperated with whatever plan that he had, and if it meant bringing back my mom, I would do literally anything he asked me to do. There was just one thing that didn’t make sense, though…

“Wait a second! Didn’t you tell Trixie that you couldn’t control life or death?”

“You’re right in saying that I can’t kill people or bring them back to life myself. However, there is one caveat to that statement.” I held my breath, waiting anxiously and sweating bullets. “Even though I can’t kill or bring someone to life myself, I can have you do half of my job for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you were to kill someone--say, one of Autumn Blaze’s magical girls--then I would be able to transfer that life into someone you choose. You see, when someone dies, they momentarily have a spiritual energy above the body, trying to get back in, but if you wait too long, it will disappear like a gas dissolving into the air. If you manage to tell me who you want the spirit to be transferred to before that happens, though, I can transfer that spirit into somebody else, whoever you’d like.”

I fell back onto my rock, my head spinning dizzily as I tried to wrap my head around all of the possibilities of what I could do with that sort of power. The problem now was, I knew that Discord would try to trick me somehow, using me just to kill more magical girls.

“And this time, I’m not trying to trick you!” he added, making me even more confused. “Think of it as a business transaction. I need you so that you can get back at Autumn Blaze for stealing Divinity from me, and in return, not only are you keeping your friends safe, but you’re also bringing back anyone you’d like.”

“But my mom is in a body bag right now. I don’t think she’d like it if she woke up to that.”

“Oh, puh-leeease. Have you not noticed by now that you’re speaking to the god of chaos? I can return her to your home and alter her memories as if she had never died. I can also do that with anyone else you’d like to bring to life.”

“Why would I choose to bring someone back besides my mother?”

“That’s the best part! For every one of Autumn Blaze’s magical girls whose life you take away, I will bring back one person from the dead! If you kill all nine of her magical girls, I can bring nine people back to life!”

His deal was beginning to sound better and better the more he spoke, but the fact that he was convincing me to kill again was beginning to terrify me. I swore to myself that I would never take away anyone else’s life, but does it really count if I would be bringing somebody back to life in the process? All those girls that I had killed during the game and all my friends who had died in the process could come back, plus my mom! The stipulations seemed clear: I would need to start killing again, but the rewards were sounding too good for me to pass up.

Despite the core values that I had developed over the past four years, I was beginning to get excited to kill once again.

“OK, Discord,” I said hesitantly. “Trixie has just one more question.”

“Absolutely.”

“Can… Can I choose the memories that get altered when I bring someone back to life?”

Discord smiled wide, sending a quick shiver throughout my body as I realized that I was doing business with a spirit of chaos. “Oh? And why would you want to do that?”

“Trixie just… wants the girls she brings back to life to forget that magical girls exist. They should be happy, like Trixie thought she would be when she became a magical girl.”

With a laugh and a cheer, Discord held out his paw, his face beaming with joy. “You’ve got yourself a deal, O Great and Powerful Trixie!”

I looked at his paw with disgust, but even so, I was the one who was actively cooperating with his plan of my own free will and choice. Finally, with my hand reaching towards his, I shook his paw, sealing the deal with the devil himself. This was happening again. With a gulp, I realized that once again, the Great and Powerful Trixie would be a name associated with murder, and like before, I was going to do it with a smile on my face.

Chapter 5

“And just where in the hell have you been?!”

I shrunk behind my shoulders, trying not to look directly into Summer Breeze's icy glare as she bore down into me with her fierce expression. I was lucky enough that Discord was able to transport me back to Canterlot rather than force me to take the public transit, which no doubt wasn't even running this late at night. Still, though, when I returned, it just meant that I would have to face Summer Breeze, who was still wide awake with eyes red as if she had been crying ever since I left.

“I've been worried sick ever since you left! Were you even thinking of calling me to let me know where you were or that you were alright? OH! And let's not forget that the spear you asked me to hold onto just magically disappeared! Do you have any idea how much of a wreck I've been?! I thought you were going to get yourself kil--”

Before Summer Breeze could berate me any further, however, I fell forward, wrapping my arms around her waist and burying my face into her shoulder as she weakly propped me up by my underarms. Then, bringing a hand up to comb through my hair, she gradually softened her demeanor, holding me closer as I held onto her like she was the only thing that mattered.

“Trixie is sorry, Summer Breeze,” I said calmly. “Everything is going to be OK now. Trixie promises.”

Suddenly, though, Summer Breeze put her hand to my shoulder, pushing me away so she could lift an eyebrow with suspicion on her face. “What do you mean everything is going to be OK? Discord told me your mom just died. Is there something I'm not getting here?”

Shoot! That was the wrong thing to say for sure! I couldn't let her know that I was about to get myself into another death game, but at the same time, it would also seem pretty suspicious if my mom just suddenly came back to life. I needed to find a way to play this off as if she had never died, which would be particularly difficult after I had just spent all morning convincing her that Discord never lied.

“Actually,” I began, “it just so happens that she's only… mostly dead.” Summer Breeze tilted her head in confusion, adding to the pressure I was under to ad lib even faster. “There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead! Now, mostly dead is slightly alive. Now, all dead… well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing you can do.”

“...What's that?”

“Go through her clothes and look for spare change.”

I hated myself. I was the most terrible liar in the world, and the way I was trying to turn the situation into a joke just made myself look like an even bigger joke.

“Well… that's good to hear?”

And somehow she bought it. I wasn't sure whether I should have felt relief or disappointment that she would believe such a ridiculous story, but if it meant that I could spare her from finding out that my own life was in danger, I wasn't going to ruin the opportunity. Instead, I wrapped my arms around Summer Breeze again, holding her close enough to feel her heartbeat, because in the morning, I had no idea whether or not I would end up coming back home from school anymore.

“Hey, Trixie? Can you do me a favor?”

“Hm? Like what?”

“Can you just… promise me you'll be safe from now on? I have no idea what I'd do if I ever lost you.”

I visibly cringed, but holding back my guilt, I put on a fake smile and said, “Trixie promises,” lying through my teeth once again to the one person left in my life who actually cared about me.

“Photo Finish!”

I slammed down my tray of food in front of the girl in the striped shirt, making her flinch in surprise, holding onto her chest as if it would help slow down her heartbeat. “Ach! Why must you alvays sneak up on me like zat?”

“Trixie needs to talk to you!”

“About vas?” she replied, digging her spork through her mushy lunch meat. “Now that we're basically no longer magical girls, I don't see anything urgent zat we should--”

“Do you remember when you almost killed me?”

Suddenly, Photo Finish dropped her spork, and even though I couldn't see her exact expression through her large glasses, I could tell that the look she was giving me was not very friendly. “You mean when you grabbed me by ze neck and almost choked be to death? Yes, I remember.”

“Right. Sorry. There's a point to this! Trixie swears!”

“Zen would you please make it?”

I cleared my throat, trying to ease the awkward situation that had played out much more smoothly in my head. “What Trixie is trying to get at is… You were really desperate to kill me, even though we all knew you weren't the game changer.” Her stare was hardening, which meant that I only had moments to get my point across before she lost her patience. “Basically what Trixie is trying to get at here is… why did you try to kill us? You knew we weren't going to hurt you.”

Photo Finish sighed, finally looking away as I brought up the painful memories that she had undoubtedly been trying for years to forget about. “Zere is… no good way to answer zat,” she replied, looking off in the distance. “I was young, and I wanted to keep my powers. Everyone thought zat you were ze game changer, and if we were going to keep our powers, it meant zat you had to be eliminated one way or ze other.”

“So… it was all about keeping your powers?”

Again, Photo Finish sighed. “No. Even though I loved mine powers, what I really vanted was to protect my friends. Mind Games and Night Seam were my closest allies in zat game, and ze last thing zat I wanted was to lose a friend in a time where we could not trust anyone else. I thought zat if you died, ze game would end and zat life vould go back to normal. Unfortunately for me, however, I lost both of zem.”

The mood had somehow gotten even more depressing as Photo Finish looked like she was on the verge of tears, but even then, she lifted her head up and looked me in the eye once again.

“Trixie, I understand why you did vut you did. Even though I miss zem both dearly, I vill not judge you for protecting yourself as vell as Dreamdrop.”

“What if Trixie told you… she could bring them back?”

“DO NOT INSULT ME, MÄDCHEN!” Photo Finish slammed her hands down on the table between us, and looking around the cafeteria, all eyes were suddenly on the two of us. Her face was angrier than I had ever seen, but if she just listened to me a little bit further, she would understand!

“I mean it!” I whispered. “Trixie spoke with Discord last night, and--”

“Ohhhh no, no, no, no, no! Not zis again! Do you turn to Discord for everyzing?!”

“Photo Finish, my mother died last night.”

Suddenly, her face began to relax, and everyone who was staring at the two of us awkwardly began to look away, giving us the space we needed as Photo Finish sat back down at the table.

“I’m so sorry to hear zat,” she said, much more calmly than before. “Zis is ze person you spoke of ven you received your powers, yes?”

“Yes. Trixie understands why you don’t trust Discord, but even though he’s shady and manipulative, he never lies, and he never goes back on his deals.”

Photo Finish raised an eyebrow. “Vut do you mean ‘deals’?”

Of course she wouldn’t know. The only ones who knew the truth were myself, Dreamdrop and Night Seam just before she died. “After you left Manehattan, Trixie made a deal with Discord, and it’s because of that deal that you still have your powers.”

Photo Finish’s face looked shocked behind her glasses, which hopefully meant that she was gradually beginning to trust in my judgement of Discord. “And just vut kind of deal did you make with him?”

“I made a deal with Discord that allowed the game to end so long as there were only three girls left. I tried talking to Night Seam, but--”

“Did you really?”

Her question caught me off guard. Of course I had spoken with Night Seam before our battle, even having a heart to heart with her, but her point still stood that I didn’t exactly plan on trying to convince her to give up her powers. The two of us knew going in that only one of us would be walking out of there alive, and I was fortunate enough to be the one who actually survived. Talking was basically only a formality, a way for us to get our last words in before we tried to kill each other.

“No,” I replied, looking away, “but Trixie can fix this.”

“And you plan on doing zat with Discord’s help, correct?”

“Yes. It’s going to be dangerous, and Trixie could end up getting killed in the process, but there is a way to bring everyone back, including my mother.”

Photo Finish shook her head. “Ach… You alvays seem to put yourself in danger, don’t you, Mädchen?” I smirked sheepily, finally giving Photo Finish the opportunity to smile as the tension from earlier had seemingly subsided. “I may be interested in your plan, but you’ll need to tell me exactly what I’m getting into first.”

“Trixie isn’t going to sugarcoat this. It’s going to be almost the exact same as the game we were in before. Discord said that for every one of Autumn Blaze’s magical girls we kill, he can bring one of our friends back from the dead.”

“Vas?!” Photo Finish jerked back in surprise. “Were you not zer last night?! Zose magical girls have powers zat could kill us in zeir sleep!”

“I know. Trixie understands, but it’s either that or wait for them to kill us with no chance of ever getting our friends back.”

Just as the conversation was beginning to go right where I wanted it, however, the bell rang, ending lunch and sending us back to our classes. Before either of us began making our way back to class, though, Photo Finish grabbed me by the arm, leaned into my ear and whispered, “Meet me again on ze roof tonight at ze same time.”

“Are we really going to the roof again? We’re going to end up getting caught eventually.”

“Yes, you are correct. Perhaps your home would be preferable. I’m sure zat it is clean and presentable, yes?”

“...Trixie will meet you on the roof at seven-thirty.”

With a smile, Photo Finish picked up her tray of uneaten food and made her way to class in the opposite direction of me.

I thought that having the top grades in my class was already pressure enough, but once I added the stress of getting all my homework done by seven-thirty on a continual basis, it became obvious that I might have to begin sacrificing a little bit more than just my leisurely reading time. I was happy that Photo Finish seemed like she would be joining me in my new magical girl hunt, but at the same time, knowing that she would both be putting her life of the line as well as potentially adding the burden of taking away someone’s life made me feel guilty all over again. With a bittersweet smile on my face, I laughed at myself for ever thinking that my grades would be the height of my high school anxiety.

7:15

“Summer Breeeeeze! Trixie is going out!”

Suddenly, a girl with brown hair made her way out of the kitchen, wearing a frown that contrasted with her beautiful light blue apron, making me internally prepare for another argument. “But I just got started making dinner for us,” she said with disappointment in her voice. “I was going to cook us chicken pesto!”

I then gulped, trying to find a way to ease myself out the door with an excuse that would somehow justify me leaving. “Trixie has… a group project! It’s probably going to take more effort than expected, seeing as how Trixie’s partner can’t spell her way out of a haystack, so I might not be home until late.”

Slumping her shoulders forward and sighing with sadness, Summer Breeze turned back towards the kitchen and said, “Alright. I’ll leave some in the fridge for you to have later. Here I was thinking that since you turned down being a magical girl again, we’d have more time to spend together.”

I felt a pain in my chest, physically hurting from having to lie to Summer Breeze over and over, but if she knew what I was planning to do, there would be no way in hell that I’d be able to talk her out of joining me. In the vision that Discord showed me, all three of us, Palette, Dreamdrop and myself were all killed by Autumn Blaze’s magical girls, which meant that I had to do everything in my power to keep her away from them. Even if I could end up bringing her back to life, I didn’t know how I ever would have been able to take losing the one person I had left in this world.

“Trixie is sorry…”

Suddenly, Summer Breeze lifted her head with a beaming smile. “Aww, don’t worry! Just remember, you owe me a night for just the two of us, OK?”

I couldn’t help but mirror the smile myself. “Trixie promises.”

Honestly, there was nothing that I wanted more than to spend a night with just Summer Breeze and myself, having a relaxing evening where I didn’t have to worry about school or magic. As I made my way towards the door, I looked back one more time to see her beautiful visage waving at me, seeing me off like a wife sending off her spouse for work in the morning. My heart skipped a beat, mentally preparing for how amazing the day would be when I could be done with this magical girl hunt and finally be able to settle down with the girl I loved.

That day, though, would never come.

*****

“You are late.”

“Hey, Trixie is still a magical girl! When she sees a little boy looking for his ball, it’s still her responsibility to help him in his time of need!”

“Und how many brownie points did you get?”

I quickly pulled out my magical phone to check, seeing my number go up from the twenty I had before to the new number displayed on my screen. I knew that it wouldn’t be much, especially in comparison to how much things cost in Platinum City, but even this was embarrassing. With my cheeks burning a bright red, I looked away, stashing my phone in my pocket as if Palette hadn’t seen me pull it out.

“Come now, Great und Powerful Trixie. If you really were just doing your job as a magical girl, I’m sure you have been rewarded accordingly.”

“The amount of brownie points Trixie has is none of your concern!”

Just as I had put my phone back into my pocket, though, it began to buzz loudly, making both Palette and I cut our conversation short as I pulled it back out to see who was calling. My original thought was that it was one of the magical girls from Everfree City, seeing as how Summer Breeze would have just called me on my regular phone, but why would a girl from there try getting ahold of me again? I thought we had burned that bridge when we decided not to join Autumn Blaze. Of course, however, upon looking at the caller ID displayed on my screen, I realized how silly I was for thinking it could have been either of the other two options.

Pressing the answer button, I held the phone up to my ear and grumpily replied, “What is it, Discord?”

Then, suddenly, my phone was pulled away from my hand, not by Palette, but by some magical force that held it up in the midair, and in an almost comedic fashion, Discord pulled himself out of the screen, struggling to push his gut through the narrow display until he was finally all the way out. “I really need to make your screens bigger,” he said, glaring angrily at the floating phone before happily turning his attention towards Palette and I. “Hello, girls! Goodness, Palette! How long has it been? Four yea--”

Before Discord could even complete his sentence, Palette had painted a gun in midair and shot Discord in the head, causing him to fall backwards as if there were an invisible floor underneath him. “Not long enough,” she said, cocking her gun for the added effect, but as we both suspected, Discord then rose back up to his feet, wiping the multicolored paint off of his head.

“Well, I’m glad to see you too! Anyway, I’m sure by this point Trixie has told you about the new game we’re going to be playing?”

“Ze magical girl hunt? Yes, ze Great und Powerful Trixie has made me aware.”

“I wouldn’t call it a hunt per se.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t care what you call it,” I added with my own frustrations. “What do you want, Discord?”

With the snap of his claw, he then returned to normal size, hovering over both Palette and I and placing his paws over our shoulders, making us share uncomfortable grimaces between ourselves. “I’m just here to give you a little bit of a head start. You two are helping me out a bunch here!”

“Und what information do you have that we wouldn’t?”

“Oh, no, no, no, no! I’m not here to give you information. I’m here to give you these.” Discord then opened up his paw and manifested two small, crystal orbs hovering in the air, shining with a brilliance that could only be described as magical, subtly calming our moods down for just a moment. “You see, I’m having a special sale today. These orbs are going for… how many brownie points do you have again, Trixie?”

I turned my face away from Palette as I mumbled in frustration. “Twenty-six.”

Discord held his claw up to his ear. “Come again?”

“Twenty-six, alright?!”

Palette tried holding her hand to her mouth to hide her giggles, but I could still see how much her body was bouncing forward in laughter, making my cheeks grow an even brighter shade of pink. “You mean in four years all you’ve been able to get is that many?” he asked incredulously, no doubt just to piss me off even more. “Well, luckily for you, that’s exactly the sale I’m having today, and it’s buy one get one free!”

Suddenly, I saw my phone--still floating in midair--start to display the number twenty-six, rapidly falling down until it reached zero when the two orbs fell into the palms of my hands. Just by holding them, I could feel the magic flowing through my veins begin to grow hotter, almost like a shot of steroids that somehow increased the amount of magic within my body.

“What do these things even do?” I asked, handing one over to Palette.

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked! You see, these orbs are my own special creation. They prevent outside magic from affecting the inside of your body. Think of it like a spell repellant.”

“So does zat mean zat my magic cannot hurt her?” Palette asked, looking into her orb as she tossed it into the air.

“Actually, your magic would be too tricky to be deflected by one of these little doohickeys.”

“So they’re useless, then?” I retorted, raising an eyebrow.

Discord then slid his paw down his face, pulling his skin down to the floor while he gave the two of us an aggravated stare. “These orbs are here to prevent anything from happening inside your body. If someone tries to stab you or poison you--you know, with a poison dart--then it won’t be able to stop the magic from getting inside your body. However, if someone were to try and manipulate the magic in your body, like crushing your organs without touching you, then the orbs will be able to protect you.”

Even though it was still a little difficult to determine what exactly could still kill us, a light bulb began to go off in my head, making things at least a little bit clearer. “So, basically these orbs are just here to protect us from Divinity?”

“Precisely! And Trickster too, but I doubt you’ll need to worry about her too much. As long as you keep these orbs on your persons at all time, she won’t be able to use her magic to kill you on the spot. She’ll have to fight you the old fashion way.”

“Und why couldn’t you just create orbs that protected us from all magic?”

“Ughhhh! Did you not pay any attention to your magical theory classes in middle school? If I did that, keeping the orb on you would prevent you from using your own magic! Now will you take the darn things and get started with the game already?”

Palette cocked an eyebrow as she stared suspiciously at the orb in her hand, but with a shrug, she painted a necklace in the air and attached the orb around her neck. “Just one more question,” Palette began, taking her eyes off of the magical ball. “What exactly are we supposed to do now? In ze last game, we already knew most everyzing about each ozer, and vut we didn’t know, Night Seam did. How do you expect us to kill nine magical girls wizout knowing a single thing about zem?”

“Fine.” Then, with the snap of his fingers, my phone began to vibrate, displaying a new message which Discord announced aloud. “Your phone has now been updated. Everything you could possibly want to know about the girls in Everfree City--from what their names are to where they live to how much milk they drink a day--is going to be in a handy encyclopedia in your apps. Oh, and just between us, Trickster drinks the most milk out of all of them. She thinks it’ll help her around the bosom area, which she’s super self-conscious about. NOW! I’m going to head back to Platinum City before either of you two have the chance to ask me anything else. All these questions have turned my brain into noodles.” Discord then opened his head as if there were a hinge on the side of his forehead, pulling a spoon out from behind his back and scooping out a piece of his brain, slurping the strands like spaghetti followed by a satisfying sigh. “Toodaloo, ladies, and may the odds be ever in your favor!”

The moment he disappeared, I had to stumble forward to catch my phone as gravity finally began to drag it to the ground, but when I looked up at Palette, she was shivering with goosebumps all over her arms. “Why do I feel like Discord expects us to lose?” she asked in a little more than a mumble.

“I… I don’t know…” I replied, “...but Trixie thinks that he really does need us just as much as we need him.”

“I… don’t think zat I need to ask zis, but I just want to be completely sure before going zrough with any of zis.” With sadness, Palette looked directly into my eyes. “If I die, you promise zat I vill be ze very next person you bring back to life… right?”

I suddenly felt a pain in my chest, looking at her face filled with any fleeting hope she could find, but I knew that no matter what happened, my mother would be the first person I brought back to life. Period. By the same token, though, I couldn’t let her know that I had someone that I wanted to revive before her and expect her to do the same for me if I ended up getting killed.

“Trixie promises, just so long as you promise to bring her back first thing if she dies.”

A small smile crept over her face as she released a sigh of relief, causing me to curse myself on the inside again. “Of course. Perhaps now vould be ze best time to go over ze order of ze girls we vould like to bring back?”

I had forgotten that the whole purpose of actually meeting her on the roof was to convince her to join the hunt with me, but now that she had actually agreed, it was time to actually negotiate the incentive for her actually being part of it. “Oh, right. Should we take turns?”

“Not exactly.”

What the hell? Was she trying to haggle for more rewards with my life on the line as incentive?

“Since you just lost you mother, you deserve to have ze first opportunity to bring someone back to life. However, seeing as how you killed both of my best friends, I think zat ze next to be brought back to life should be Night Seam first and Mind Games second.”

I had to hold myself back from clicking my tongue, but she did had a very good arguing point. “Alright. Trixie agrees. Then after that, Trixie would like to bring back Iron Maiden and Cupid Symphony, both of whom were killed by your team.”

“Zat is fair. Any more requests? I believe we should save some wiggle room, just in case we experience a death somewhere during ze hunt.”

She was right. My mother had already died once already. If any of them wanted to use her as hostage and kill her a second time, I would need some room to spare, but I still needed to bring back at least one more girl from the previous game.

Doing the math in my head, I said, “There are nine magical girls in Everfree City, right? If we bring back all the girls we mentioned, that gives us room for four more girls. Trixie would like to bring back Storm Rose as well, just to give her a second chance at life… but Paradox comes first. We can bring back Storm Rose if we don’t experience any casualties.”

“I see you did not mention Marrow.”

I paused momentarily, glaring at her for even bringing up her name. “...Those are Trixie’s terms. Do you agree?”

I was not in the mood to play moral gymnastics in my head, going back and forth between reviving a girl whom I had killed or keeping her dead after all the torment she had put me through. Palette, however, seemed to shrug it off, holding out her hand with a smile on her face, and with a smile of my own, I took her hand and shook, finalizing our deal and officially beginning our hunt.

“Let’s win another one,” I said. “Only this time, we’ll make up for everything we did the last time.”

Palette nodded her head, holding her shoulders up with an energetic confidence. “Here’s to anozer victory! It’s time to make… de magics!”

Chapter 6

“Summer Breeze! Trixie is hoooome!”

As I undid my shoelaces and tossed my shoes to the side, a figure walked out of the kitchen, making my heart twitch, sending blood and adrenaline throughout my body. Rather than seeing Summer Breeze like I had been expecting, I saw her in her magical girl form, Dreamdrop, staring down at me with her hands on her hips. I could only imagine that Discord had tipped her off on something, making me click my tongue in my mind, but rather than give myself away, I held my surprised face as well as I could.

“What were you doing, Trixie?” Dreamdrop asked, folding her arms over her chest.

Shit! She does know! Keep cool, Trixie. You don’t know how much she’s figured out.

“What do you mean?” I asked as genuinely as I could. “Trixie has already told you. She went to work on a group project with Appl--”

“You’re lying.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, still trying to keep my cool while trying to figure out how exactly she knew, although I already had a pretty good idea. “And what makes you think Trixie is lying?”

“Oh, gee! I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you met with Palette on the roof again, or maybe it’s the fact that Autumn Blaze might be trying to kill you. OR MAYBE IT’S THE FACT THAT YOU’RE GOING ON A FUCKING MAGICAL GIRL HUNT!” At this point, Dreamdrop completely lost her cool, screaming louder than I had ever heard with a face that frightened me more than my mother ever had, but when the initial shock wore off, my own anger began to build up.

“HE TOLD YOU!”

“DISCORD DIDN’T TELL ME SHIT!”

I flinched in surprise, having lost the only credible idea that I had been able to come up with. If Discord didn’t tell her about the hunt--and I sincerely doubted Palette would have--then who even had the potential to know about something like that?

“Was it… Divinity?” I asked, still trying to come up with another logical solution, but Dreamdrop just sighed, shaking her head with a face of exasperation.

“No, Trixie. I found out on my own. I’m still a magical girl, remember?” Then, taking her phone out of her cleavage, she meandered through her menu until she showed me something displayed on her screen, seemingly from the inventory section. “You weren’t the only one who got a new item today.”

“Magic… contact lenses?” I asked in confusion.

“Yes. They allow me to see people’s underlying pasts. Paradox was saving up for these before she died, but it’s not like I haven’t been saving up brownie points too, you know. Four years I’ve been doing magical girl work to get these brownie points, and with you acting as weird as you’ve been acting lately, I guess today finally gave me something to spend it on.”

I took a step back, my head reeling from what I had felt was a total breach of trust. “You’ve been… doing magical girl work behind Trixie’s back?”

“I’m sorry. Was there some kind of rule established in our relationship where I’m not allowed to be a magical girl? Because if so, you’re doing a pretty bad job of it yourself.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie has been trying to prot--”

“I NEVER ASKED YOU TO PROTECT ME!”

“Oh, so now that Trixie has been trying to help you behind your back, that makes her the bad guy? Why don’t you tell Trixie what exactly those contact lenses are saying about her underlying past? What did Trixie see that made her want to keep you out of this?”

“I told you that I don’t need your protection.”

“This isn’t just about you! Dreamdrop, my mom died. Paradox died. Night Seam, Mind Games, Cupid Symphony and Iron Maiden all died, and now Trixie has the chance to bring them all back! If you died… Trixie could bring you back too.”

Dreamdrop stared into my eyes for several moments before dropping her gaze to the floor, breathing in heavily as she made circles with her foot on the floor. “And what about you?” she asked. “What do you think I would do if anything ever happened to you?”

“Summer Breeze, that doesn’t--”

“I would kill myself.”

My heart sank. Even if I ended up dying in this magical girl hunt, if Summer Breeze died too, I would never be able to forgive myself, even if there was nothing after this life. As she stared into my eyes, visibly holding back her emotions welling up behind her eyelids, I fought with myself as to what I was even supposed to do in a situation like this. I couldn’t very well just say that she could join the fight with Palette and me, but at the same time, if I told her that I wouldn’t fight at all, then we’d all get killed, which she must have known at this point. She had backed me into a corner where the only possible way Dreamdrop would make it out of here alive was if she joined in the hunt.

“Fuck!” I shouted, slamming my fist against the wall in anger and hoping that I wouldn’t accidentally punch through the drywall.

“Yeah. That’s what I’ve been saying ever since you came home. Do you realize how much of a shock it was to see everything that’s happened to you these past couple of days over the course of five fucking seconds?! Can you even imagine how much panic I’m going through right now, which could have been much easier to deal with if you had just spoken to me?”

“And how was Trixie supposed to do that? ‘Oh, hey, Summer Breeze! Did you know that Autumn Blaze is trying to kill us? Don’t worry. Trixie is going to kill them before they can hurt us, and oh, by the way, you’re not allowed to fight because Trixie doesn’t want you to get involved.’ Yeah, because that would have definitely worked.”

Suddenly, Dreamdrop fell to her knees, crying into her hands and making me instantly regret my word choice. “Why don’t you trust me?!” she asked behind her sobs. “I made it to the end of the game too, you know, even though I was the game changer! The game was only supposed to end after I died, but I still survived! I know I made it that far because I had you with me the whole time, but I’m going to have you here too, and if anything happens to you, I can bring you back! Why can’t you just trust that I know what I’m doing?!”

After watching Dreamdrop cry for a few more moments, I breathed in through my nose and exhaled all the tension I could through my lips, doing my best to calm myself down before what was bound to be another stressful conversation.

“Dreamdrop, how many people did you kill in the death game?”

Dreamdrop looked up at me with confusion, but almost as soon as she made eye contact with me, she seemed to suddenly realize what I was getting at. “N-none.”

“Trixie killed four girls. This time, we’re going to have to kill nine, and if you can really see Trixie’s underlying past, you can imagine how laughably outmatched their magic is compared to our’s, Marrow’s or Night Seam’s. If the Great and Powerful Trixie dies, then how do you plan on killing even one of them to bring me back to life?”

“I… I dunno! But I can still do it if you trust me. If we work together on this, then maybe we won’t even need to bring anyone back to life other than your mom and the girls from the game.”

I then sighed, grabbing her hand to lift her off of the floor and quietly lead her to our bedroom, where we both sat down on our bed. There was silence for several moments, both of us aware of each other’s arguments as well as the decision we were no doubt both going to come to. It didn’t matter anymore whether or not I wanted Dreamdrop to participate in this magical girl hunt; she was going to be there whether I liked it or not, and I definitely didn’t like it.

Finally, pulling out my magical phone, I opened up my newest app and began scrolling through the list of magical girls, once again being reminded of their powers so that I could plan accordingly.

“What are you doing?” Dreamdrop then asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You weren’t there last night, so Trixie is going to have to go over who all the girls are as well as the powers they have.”

Catastrophe, the girl who could change her body to become whatever she wanted, animate or inanimate. Trickster, with the ability to manipulate people’s memories, erasing them completely if she wanted to. Genny, the indestructible magical girl. La Proxy, who could create or travel through alternate realities, whose power was so vast that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what she was capable of. Sun Shadow, with the ability to sink into her own shadow and change her form to mimic someone else’s. Lucky Star, who had the power to change someone’s luck, a power which I would have to see to really understand. Sonic Boom, who could manipulate and create sounds. Dokaeru, the poison dart frog. Then, finally, there was Discord’s most cherished creation: Divinity, who could use literally any power she could think of.

“Which do you think we should go after first?” Dreamdrop asked, staring over my shoulder. The fact that she was beginning to grow accustomed to the idea of killing people was beginning to make me worry, but maybe after seeing death in the face again, she would want to stay out of it as much as possible.

“Trixie thinks that out of all of them, Dokaeru would be a good place to start. Her powers are meant for direct combat, which means if we can avoid being hit with her poison darts, we’ll survive.”

“That’s a good idea! Do you know if she normally hangs out with any other magical girls?”

I shook my head. “She wasn’t there when you came to Everfree City with me, which leads me to believe that maybe she’s a loner.”

“What does her profile say about her?”

That was right! Discord added all the information we needed to know about these magical girls and their real identities! We suddenly had a huge advantage over all the girls we were competing against!

“Let’s see…” I said, scrolling through her bio. “Her name is Lilypad, and she lives in Northeast Canterlot along with her two younger brothers. She’s nineteen years old and spends most of her day watching TV and playing video games. She doesn’t have a job. She’s not in school. She’s still a virg--Discord, Trixie didn’t need to know that!”

“She seems like the perfect candidate!” As Dreamdrop’s face lit up, mine cringed with discomfort.

“Dreamdrop… you realize that we’re about to murder a girl with no friends and two younger brothers just because she’s an easy target, right?”

Dreamdrop flinched, holding up her hands as if to shield how much my words stung. “That’s not what I’m saying! I mean… I guess it is, but… But we’re doing this so that she won’t hurt you or your friends, right?”

“Right!” I quickly replied. “But--”

“No buts! We’ve already decided that we’re going through with this. If we start to doubt ourselves at any point, that’s when we’re going to get killed. I need you to promise me that no matter what your conscience is telling you that you won’t let it stop you. Innocent lives are at stake here.”

Of course, until Dokaeru or any of the other magical girls did anything to hurt us, they were technically innocent lives too, but Dreamdrop had a point in saying that I couldn’t let my conscience get in the way of my better judgement. With a nod, I simply said, “Right,” while trying to brainwash myself into honestly believing that the two of us were doing the right thing. “Once she’s been eliminated, though, then the real challenge will begin.”

Dreamdrop tilted her head with an eyebrow raised. “What do you mean?”

“What Trixie is trying to say is that once we kill one girl, then the other eight are going to come after us.”

“Oof. You’re right. Do you think maybe we should start with someone else, then?”

Dokaeru was the perfect target, but now that I thought about it, that would make her easier to deal with down the road once the others knew what we were up to. Pulling out my magical phone one more time, I scrolled through the list of possible candidates, taking a look at their powers and backgrounds. Catastrophe was another good option, seeing as how her powers would allow her to be a much better option for an ambush attack when she didn’t know what was coming than an upfront battle. Then again, though, her little sister was Sun Shadow, and if we tried to ambush one of them, it would only be a matter of time before her shadow crept up on us before we knew it.

“What about Sonic Boom?” Dreamdrop asked, pointing to a name that I was scrolling past. “If all she can do is manipulate sounds, then we just need to promise not to say anything when we fight her.”

“She’s going to be able to do more than just manipulate our voices. What if I heard you scream? I would never know whether or not it was real--and don’t tell me to ignore it, because we both know that I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Well, who’s the strongest? Maybe we could go after her first before she expects us.”

The girl with the strongest power was obvious, but I had a hard time believing that she wouldn’t be expecting us. For all I knew, she was watching our every move, ready to snap her fingers and kill us at a moment’s noti--

“DISCORD! GET OVER HERE NOW!”

“Trixie? What’s going on?”

“Don’t talk!” I shouted, summoning my magical girl form and pushing my anti-magic orb into Dreamdrop’s hands. “Discord! Where are you?!”

As if I had spoken some magic words, a figure appeared in front of us with a poof! revealing an angry draconequus with yellow pajamas decorated with sheep, holding his paws to his hips as he stared at me in anger. “What is it?!” he exclaimed. “Here I was, about to drift into the most stunning nightmare I’d ever seen, but nooooo! You just had to--”

“Discord, Trixie needs you to give Dreamdrop a magic orb! NOW!”

Discord lifted one of his angry eyebrows, picking a giant wad of earwax out of his ear and flicking it off to the side. “I’m sorry,” he began. “I’m not sure if I heard you right. Were you telling me to give Dreamdrop one of my orbs of chaos? In case you weren’t aware, those cost twenty-six brownie points each, and last I checked, you were completely out.”

“Fine! Whatever! Dreamdrop, Trixie needs you to buy one of these crystal balls. Now.”

“But--” Dreamdrop began before I cut her off abruptly.

“Don’t argue with me! Just do it!”

As Dreamdrop tried to make words come out of her mouth, however, Discord began to roar with laughter, causing a shadow of dread to grab hold of my heart, and as I slowly shifted my gaze from Dreamdrop’s to Discord’s, I was met with a pair of large, yellow eyes filled with sick jubilee. “I’m sorry, Great and Powerful Trixie,” he said, “but unfortunately, Dreamdrop spent the last of her brownie points on her own magical item today as well. You weren’t the only one to capitalize on one of my last-minute deals.”

“Discord, you know that Trixie is just going to give Dreamdrop her own orb, so it would be in your best interest if--”

“No,” Dreamdrop said, cutting me off and completely ruining my negotiation strategies. I tried to communicate with my eyes what a bad decision it was for her to keep talking, but nonetheless, she continued as if I weren’t even there. “Trixie, you obviously need it far more than I do. I want you to have it back.”

“Dreamdrop, no! Trixie can’t take it! Look into my eyes! Try seeing my past and understanding why I can’t--”

“I’ve already done that, and that’s why I think you need it more than I do.”

As the two of us continued to argue, Discord rolled onto his back in laughter, making it painfully obvious that Discord wasn’t going to be cutting us any more deals tonight, but there was still one question that I couldn’t figure out the answer to.

“Discord,” I began, “it’s in your best interest to keep Dreamdrop alive. Why aren’t you giving her an orb like you did with me and Palette?”

“Who said keeping her alive was in my best interest?” he asked, making the blood in my body boil with rage. “Dreamdrop will hardly be able to help in your hunt, and if you decide to bring more magical girls back from the dead, we’re going to be back to our original dilemma of keeping Platinum City at full capacity with her magic draining all of its resources. If you want my honest opinion, it would probably be better for all parties involved to--”

I didn’t let him finish. Before he could say another word, I summoned my spear and threw it towards the center of Discord’s forehead, but not to my surprise, before the blade could connect, his head split into two pieces along his neck, causing the blade to slip past the two halves of his face. Then, with annoyance in his face, he snapped his claw, making the spear disappear as he put the pieces of his head back together. I tried summoning the spear back, but I could feel a block in my veins, physically preventing me from calling upon the magic I needed to bring it back. As Discord approached me, I did my best to not allow the fear inside me to show up on my face as I desperately tried to wiggle my muscles to get the knot out of my veins.

“I’m not going to let Dreamdrop die!” I screamed. “You’re not going to take her away from me! I’ll let those girls kill me! Then you’ll have no one to--”

“Fine.”

I stopped what I was saying, but I had to blink twice before the message processed through my head.

“W-what?”

“I’ll tell you what I can do.” Discord then dropped his glare and slithered over to Dreamdrop, making her reflexively coil back in timidity. “Dreamdrop, I would like to make a pact with you. As much fun as I would get from seeing you die, Trixie is right in saying that I do need as much help as I can get. What I can do is give you a temporary protection. I don’t have much magic left to operate Platinum City, so I can’t give you exactly what Trixie has, but I can give you something that will at least transport you back to Platinum City if anyone tries to harm you in any way. The only caveat is that you can only use it once, so don’t waste it.”

Shaking, Dreamdrop asked, “What happens when I use it the first time?”

“Then you’ll be under my protection. Not even Divinity or La Proxy would dare challenge me in my own domain, but once the hunt is over, you have to promise me that you’ll surrender you powers to me forever.”

“DREAMDROP! NO!”

“I’ll do it.”

The minute she said those words, Discord grabbed hold of her hand, eliciting a bright light emanating from their grips, filling the entire room with brilliance. I had to hold up my arm over my eyes to keep myself from going blind, but what little I saw of Dreamdrop was a face of full determination, making my heart sink from the obviously one-sided trade off. Then, the two of them lowered their hands, and the deal was done. Once this hunt was over, whether or not we ended up winning, Dreamdrop would lose her powers forever, leaving her with that much less protection in the future.

With a sly smile, Discord raised his paws and exclaimed, “Would you look at that? We all got what we wanted! Dreamdrop will be safe, and Platinum City will once again become my utopia for magical girls! Now, Great and Powerful Trixie, was there anything else you wanted to say?” I was so upset at this point that I couldn’t feel emotions anymore, and rather than answer him verbally, I slouched back on my bed, holding my hands to my face as I woefully shook my head. “Wonderful! The hunt will begin tomorrow! Oh, and Trixie…” Discord’s lips curled up again as his eyebrows furrowed menacingly. “...You have a visitor.”

In the next instant, he vanished, and immediately turning my attention towards Dreamdrop, I saw that she was looking at where Discord disappeared with a puzzled look on her face. “Do you have any idea what he was talking about?” I asked, but rather than respond, Dreamdrop held her stare in place, her eyes never deviating from the spot she was so focused on. I turned towards her line of sight to see if I could make out what she was supposed to be looking at, but from her viewpoint, it seemed like she was just staring at an empty wall. “Um… Dreamdrop?”

“She can’t hear you.”

My whole body jumped, elevating my blood pressure to dangerous levels. Turning towards the entrance of our room, I saw that standing in the doorway was a girl with greek sandals, golden laurels and a beautiful white dress. Quickly, I turned back to Dreamdrop, waving my hands in front of her face, but still, she remained motionless and unresponsive. “What did you do to her?!” I exclaimed, a little louder than I should have towards a girl who could kill me with her eyes closed. Fortunately, though, she didn’t seem upset with me in the slightest, keeping her calm demeanor and making my hair stand on edge.

“I froze time. She’ll be back to normal as soon as I leave the room. I just didn’t want any interruptions while I had my chat with you.”

Shoot! Did she know what we were planning?! Of course she did! She’s all powerful! I had to discreetly pull my orb out of Dreamdrop’s hands, futilely hiding it behind my back, and doing my best to crack a smile, I asked, “S-so what did you w-wanna talk about?”

“Your magical girl hunt.” The way she said it so bluntly made my heart nearly implode with anxiety, a feeling only made worse as she slowly walked towards me, taking a seat directly to my left. Even with my anti-magic orb, there was nothing stopping this girl from stabbing me where I sat. This was the perfect opportunity to kill me, but instead, she just sat there, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “I’m guessing I’m one of the targets as well?”

Yes.

“N-no! Trixie could never--”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Of course, I was just trying to do anything I could to keep her from killing me, but there was no way she didn’t know what we were planning already.

“Well… you… um…”

With a sigh, Divinity lifted her hands up just enough to rest her chin as she rocked back and forth on my bed. “I understand why you’re doing it, and honestly, I don’t judge you for it.”

“You… don’t?”

“No. I saw what Discord showed you, and you know as well as I do that he wasn’t lying to you. Autumn Blaze is already getting the girls in Everfree City set to kill the three of you.”

I rose from my bed in anger. “WHAT?!”

“Sit back down, Great and Powerful Trixie. We have a lot to talk about.” I raised an eyebrow, but realizing my place in this situation, I sat back down without any further comment. “As you can imagine, the girls are a little hesitant about killing, especially innocent people. Personally after ten years of being a magical girl, I’m immune to it, but the others are going to need at least another day or two for Autumn Blaze to convince them to go through with it.”

By this point, the gears in my head were starting to turn. “Wait. Does this mean… you’re on our team?”

“Unfortunately, no. I take my loyalty to Autumn Blaze very seriously. I will be watching from the sidelines until it’s my turn to intervene.”

“Then… may Trixie ask you a question?” Rather than answer me, however, Divinity sat there looking at me, filling the room with an uncomfortable silence as if she were already waiting for me to continue. “Oh--Uh… If you’re going to be fighting us… then why are you here?”

Divinity smiled with a soft giggle. “Because I don’t hate you. You and I are alike in many ways, you know. I mainly just wanted to wish you luck and ensure that there’s no hard feelings between us. Even though we’re trying to kill each other, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends in the meantime, does it?”

“We’re… friends?”

With another smile, Divinity rose to her feet, stretching her arms and back with a satisfying sigh. “Again, I really hope you don’t judge my loyalty to Autumn Blaze. I know she may come off as violent and amoral, but can you really say that Discord isn’t?”

“This fight is happening because you left Platinum City, you know.”

“Yes… it is, isn’t it? Or, rather, it’s happening because Discord sealed Autumn Blaze in an alternate dimension for all eternity. Wouldn’t that also be correct?”

“Wait… what did he do?”

With a sigh, Divinity looked up at the ceiling with sadness, almost as if she were looking into the past, which she very well could have been. “Autumn Blaze can’t see or hear anything that happens outside of Everfree City due to Discord punishing her for all eternity. Of course, he’s punishing her because I left him, but that only makes me support Autumn Blaze even more. I have to be her eyes and ears for everything that happens in this dimension, except for when anything happens on our magical phones.” She then pulled her magical phone out of thin air, holding it up in front of her. “Just remember, if you, Dreamdrop or Palette try to contact any of us through our phones, Autumn Blaze will see it.”

I quickly pulled out my own magical phone, rummaging through any of the messages I sent to make sure I didn’t accidentally send anything incriminating, but with a breath of relief, I looked back at her and said, “Thank you, Divinity. The Great and Powerful Trixie is thankful that you came to talk with her.”

With one final smile, she held out her hand and said, “My name is Cross Stitch. It’s nice to officially meet you, Trixie Lulamoon.”

I suddenly found myself grinning, rising from my bed once again and taking hold of her hand as if neither of us would ever hurt each other. Then, with the snap of her finger, she disappeared, bringing time back to its normal course.

“A visitor?” Turning my head to the side, I saw Dreamdrop looking at me with confusion in her eyes. “What do you think he meant by that?”

I couldn’t help but smile at her, sitting back on the bed and running my fingers up Dreamdrop’s back. “Who knows?”

Dreamdrop would be able to figure it out with her magical contacts eventually, but for right now, the two of us needed a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, the magical girl hunt would finally begin, putting both of our lives in jeopardy, but until then, I wanted the two of us to enjoy our evening with as much peace as we could possibly have.

...And hopefully by this time tomorrow, my mother would be brought back to life.

Chapter 7 (Narrated by Divinity)

This chapter is narrated by Cross Stitch, also known as the magical girl Divinity.

I was nineteen years old the first time I ever killed anyone, when I actually first attained my magical powers, the powers that made me into the magical girl Divinity. The real story, though, begins a few years before that.

My family lived on B Street in downtown Manehattan, which, to those who aren’t as versed with the geography of the city, is the poorest single street in all of Equestria. There are no houses, no buildings, not even any trees. Instead, the street borders the Manehattan cemetery, and the cops never kicked out the multitude of homeless people, just because they thought it would be easier to move our bodies into the next closest ditch rather than bring us back in a casket when we were undoubtedly killed by starvation or murder. All my parents knew when we moved there, though, was that this would be the place where we would call home, but in reality, this was where most people in Manehattan went to die.

I was sixteen at the time.

There had been a recession in Manehattan the previous year, which was only made worse when considering the fact that my father worked part-time at a minimum wage job, and even then, he gambled away most of the money he earned. My mother said that she was a stay-at-home mom, but in reality, she would spend all day and all night drinking, leaving our modest income to pay for rent, booze and whatever food we managed to steal from the supermarket down the road. While my parents were busy ruining their own lives, I was busy ruining mine, going to school just so I could sneak out with friends, go to parties, break into homes while people were away at work and drink until my liver forced me to black out.

Then the news broke that my father had lost his job, and to make matters worse, he had already asked for an extension on paying that month’s rent, which he had gambled away on dog fights. The three of us were on the street a week later with nothing to our name but a blanket and six bits to last us as long as possible. The cherry on top, though, was that the blanket would be stolen by the time the sun came up.

None of us were exactly ready to call B Street our new home, but I was the most reluctant out of the three of us, instead trying to live in my friends’ cars to avoid literal homelessness. Eventually, though, my friends all began to leave me to fend for myself, giving me excuse after excuse about how they didn’t have the money to keep feeding me or how I reeked of booze all the time or how they wanted me to get my life back together. They just didn’t want to come out and say what they were really thinking: they didn’t want to deal with some homeless girl mooching off of them and making them look bad in front of their friends. One by one, I ran out of friends until I was forced back onto B Street to join my parents, and to my genuine unsurprise, they had wasted their six bits on lottery tickets. Needless to say, they didn’t win.

For my first two weeks, I just lived how everyone else did, by walking around begging for money until the night broke when everyone on B Street came back to settle in for the cold evenings that Manehattan always brought. Then, when morning came, we would find whoever died the previous night, bury them as a group, find a place for the newcomers on B Street to get situated and go back to begging on random street corners. The rules of the street were as follows: don’t take anyone’s street corner, guard your shit, and every man for himself. Breaking the first rule, however, was strictly impermissible, and anyone found violating this rule would be given the death penalty, which was something we saw reinforced every night. If you ever saw someone being killed, the unspoken rule was to turn your head, cover your ears and try your best to block out the screams.

This life was not for me. In my sixteen year old naivety, I honestly believed that I had more to life, like just because I had goals and ambitions that that somehow made me better than everyone else on the streets. Growing up, I learned that my special talent was designing outfits, and even with my broken family and less than fruitious upbringing, I had the goal of being the best fashion designer in the city. Manehattan was the central hub for all of fashion in Equestria, after all, which meant to me that the odds were in my favor. Sadly, though, life has a cruel way of showing us what an unforgiving bitch reality is, and after I was caught stealing fabrics from a nearby shop, I was promptly arrested and sent off to a juvenile corrections facility.

It was just like what they show on TV. The walls were all white bricks, the cells were thick white doors with small windows, and we all had to wear the same disgusting white jumpsuits, making me detest that one color more than anything else. It was almost like a symbol for them trying to break our spirits, to wipe our psychological slate so that they could instill their own colors into our minds with whatever colors they chose. Even after experiencing homelessness on the most dangerous street in all of Equestria, nothing would compare to the anguish that I felt during the six months that I spent in juvenile hall.

I couldn’t believe all the things I had taken for granted on the outs, such as sunlight, fresh air, bearable meals, not having to smell someone taking a shit right next to you (although that did still happen every once in a while on B Street), but most importantly, even with the cancerous mentality of hopelessness that I had grown up with, I didn’t have someone constantly barraging me with inferiority, forcing a mindset of worthlessness down my throat on a daily basis. I once saw someone who talked back to one of our prison guards--excuse me, “correctional advisors”--and in a heartbeat, everyone in general population was quickly sent back to their cells. Then, even though I couldn’t see too clearly out of my cell window, I was able to make out the guard talking into his radio, and after several guards came in as back up, they began to escort her away. They didn’t think that anyone would be able to see when they took out their knightsticks and began breaking her bones in the middle of the hallway, an injustice that would be deemed as justified to anyone who wasn’t there.

Aside from the hell that was juvenile hall, however, was the one gemstone that would turn everything around, making the entire experience almost worth the trouble. Luckily for me, I shared a cell with a girl named Delilah Diamond, who just happened to be a member of the Diamond Dogs, a gang in Manehattan so powerful that even the cops thought twice about arresting its members. Delilah, however, was their leader, and when the cops arrested her, they thought that it would mean the end of the gang once and for all, completely unaware of just how pissed off it would make them.

For the first three months I was there, while Delilah awaited her sentencing, the two of us were inseparable, spending every waking minute talking to each other about our life experiences. When we weren't talking about life on the outside, we were finding new and creative ways to get into trouble, usually with one of us acting as a distraction while the other stole from the guards or fucked up any of the inmates who pissed us off the day before. The amount of power and confidence that she displayed, even while the two of us were locked up in a cell, was something that I always admired and would never forget, but halfway into my jail time, she was sentenced to life in prison at Canterlot Penitentiary, where she would eventually be given the death penalty.

Before she left me to fend for myself, knowing full well how much danger I was in now that the guards and inmates knew I had no backup, she told me how to get ahold of the Diamond Dogs, making everyone aware that if any of them tried to lay a finger on me, their families would be dead by sunrise the next day. She had just barely turned 18 the day of her sentencing, which meant that she could legally be tried as an adult, a fact that I was sure the courts had planned ahead of time. When I got out, I would make sure everyone associated with the death of Delilah Diamond would regret everything they ever did to her.

When I finally made it out of juvenile hall, I was seventeen years old, and as expected, my parents hadn't managed to find jobs or come up with any viable plans for leaving B Street. In fact, I was lucky that either one of them was able to pick me up from the facility, although when my mother came to get me, she was almost locked up herself for public intoxication. It was obvious that if I stayed with my parents for much longer, I would end up turning into them, mooching off of street corners forever while dedicating my life to alcoholism. If I was really serious about turning my life around, I needed help from someone else. I needed the Diamond Dogs, both for myself and for Delilah.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The next day, after I had arrived at the location that Delilah had given me, I was immediately met with a burly man with tattoos all over his body standing guard at the Diamond Dogs’ hideout. “Cross Stitch,” I said with an obvious bite in my tone. “Delilah sent me here, so if you don't back out of the way--”

As I tried to make my way past him, however, he held out his arm, further blocking the door and looking down on me with a pissed off glare, which would have been more intimidating had I not experienced this exact same thing for past six months. “Delilah's on death row. She ain't gonna save you.”

This had worked out far better in my head, but I wasn't about to let him get in my way. “So what?! You're not even going to follow your boss's orders anymore?!”

“I sure as hell ain't gonna let some bitch in a training bra give me orders.”

“The fuck did you call me?!”

Out of instinct from my jail time alone, I immediately reached into my shirt, pulled out a knife and swung it towards the thug at the door, but as if it were nothing, he grabbed my hand, punched me across the face and fell forward on top of me, sending my face down onto the concrete. As I struggled to get myself off of the ground, though, he reached into his own shirt and pulled out something much stronger than anything I had: a fully loaded revolver, pointing it straight at my head. When I was in jail, the guards had guns themselves, but they were mainly for intimidation while they crushed our bones with nightsticks and electrocuted us with tasers. This was the first time in my life that I actually had a gun pointed at me, and as tough as I had been brought up to be with Delilah's help, I was beginning to shake in terror, knowing that any second, I was going to be killed…

“Get off of her, Roadblock.”

...only, by some miracle, I had managed to survive.

With a little bit of hesitancy, the thug named Roadblock slowly began to pull himself off of me, but not before pushing my face into the ground, giving me another mouthful of the sidewalk. Once he was all the way up, I then followed suit, pulling myself up to my knees and brushing away the gross debris that was now all over my baggy shirt and pants. When I finally lifted my head, though, I saw a young man, probably no older than nineteen years old with the most stunningly gorgeous facial features looking back down at me. I would have been entranced by his beauty alone had I not been reeling from an unexpected adrenaline rush, which was still silently trying to convince me to turn around and run as fast as I could.

“You’re Cross Stitch, right?” he asked, to which I nodded my head hesitantly. “That’s perfect! Delilah said she’d be sending someone here! Roadblock, what are you doing? Go back to your door and do your damn job already.” Roadblock scoffed, turning his attention away from the two of us as the young man tilted his head to the side, inviting me into the dark warehouse.

Upon entering the Diamond Dogs’ home base, I noticed a stark contrast to how everyone else looked in comparison to the sleek, blue business suit that the man in front of me was donning. While the other members of the Diamond Dogs wore tank tops, ripped denim jeans and had tattoos all over their bodies, the man ahead of me had his golden hair combed back with perfectly tanned skin and a posture that projected eloquent elegance.

“Roadblock didn’t hurt you at all, did he?”

I quickly snapped out of my trance and replied, “No, I’m good… Where are you taking me, by the way?”

“To my office. We need to go through some initiation.”

I shuddered at what he meant by “initiation,” but I was the one who volunteered to come here. Plus, if I tried to cause any sort of trouble while I was here, that bouncer out front would probably put some led through my skull before I could even make it three steps towards B Street. Fortunately, however, it was only a few moments later that the two of us made it into a bright office whose walls depicted the entire map of Manehattan with several pins located in random parts of the town.

“Please,” he said motioning towards a chair as he sat behind his desk, “have a seat.”

As I sat down slowly, still be extra cautious about the area I was in, I asked rather bluntly, “Who even are you?”

With a smirk, he replied, “My name is Golden Gavel. I’m the de facto leader of the Diamond Dogs after Delilah’s sudden departure.”

The way he said it so matter-of-factly pissed me off inside, like somehow he was disrespecting Delilah’s true status as leader of the Diamond Dogs before she was even officially executed. At the same time, though, this was who she trusted me to before we were separated, not to mention the man who just saved my life moments earlier, and so with my head lowered in respect, I said, “I’m sorry if I came off as rude. I guess I’m just… not used to this new lifestyle just yet.”

“Well,” he continued, kicking his designer shoes onto his desk, “Delilah must have seen something in you to refer you to us. The real question now is, what do you expect to get out of the Diamond Dogs?”

In all honesty, that was something I was hoping he could answer for me. What I really wanted was a home, like a real home inside an actual building, preferably with a family that wasn’t dysfunctional, and enough money for me to be able to eat without stealing anymore. At the same time, though, if I told Golden Gavel any of that, he would almost definitely laugh in my face.

“Money,” I blurted out. “Lots and lots of money.”

“Well, rest assured that if you manage to move up our ranks, you’ll be able to afford a lot more than what I’m wearing now.” As he said those words, he made sure to pull back on his tailored suit to flash his golden watch before bringing his hands behind his head and leaning back in his lavish leather chair. Everything he wore was exactly the kind of clothes that I wanted to design growing up, and the fact that he could afford to wear something like this on a regular day gave me the slightest bit of hope that maybe one day I could return to the dreams I had growing up. I almost believed that I could actually have a normal life for once, but before I could allow the thought to sink into my mind, he brought his feet back to the floor and said, “Of course, you’re going to have to do a lot of grunt work before you can move up around here. This place is very competitive and very cutthroat, just like the real world.”

“I’ll do it.” He lifted his eyebrow with a small grin. Admittedly, I had just blurted out my commitment without really thinking it over, but if this was the way to get my life back together, it sure beat the hell out of whatever B Street was offering me. “Just tell me where to start. I’ll take care of the rest.”

The sentence would be the second most important sentence I ever said in my life.

After my meeting with Golden Gavel, he put me into a team with two other girls just recently out of prison, Easy Peasy and Mustard Seed. Easy Peasy was much more easy going, living as one of the Diamond Dogs mainly just to join the family that came with being part of the gang, but Mustard Seed was the polar opposite. She had recently just given birth to a little girl named Babs, and she wanted to work as hard as she possibly could so that she could make some money, quit the Diamond Dogs and never let her little girl find out about her previous lifestyle. The two of them combined gave me exactly what I needed: a family that was much stronger than what I had been born with and the work ethic to kick my ass back into shape to take on the real world.

Never had time passed so quickly in my life. It seemed like three weeks had passed when my nine month mark came around, a date I only remember because it was the day that Delilah was officially killed by the department of justice. None of us were allowed to see her execution, which was probably a good thing. If any of us had been there, watching the cops kill her in front of our very eyes, we probably would have done something stupid and gotten the whole gang into trouble. The police weren’t trying to bust our operation mainly because they thought that catching Delilah would mean the end of organized crime in downtown Manehattan, but little did they know that they just poked the hornets’ nest that would come crashing down on them like a fucking rocket.

Up until that point, my team’s responsibilities were mainly just transporting weapons, seeing as how the cops never took a second glance at a couple of pretty girls walking down the street. Unfortunately for them, however, usually on our way back to the base, we would typically see an extra body or two laying on the street, completely motionless as blood poured out of their bodies. At first it was just police officers that we would find dead upon our arrival, and honestly, even though everyone told me how mortifying it was seeing a dead person for the first time, all I could feel was gratitude, knowing that those punks who killed Delilah were getting a taste of their own medicine. What really tore me up, though, was when the cops eventually began to sniff our gang out, and every once in a while on our way back home, rather than seeing a dead cop, we would find the body of one of our brothers.

I was becoming more motivated than ever, both because I wanted to avenge my fallen comrades as well as because I wanted to finally have a life where I wouldn’t need to worry anymore. I didn’t necessarily want to leave the Diamond Dogs for greener pastures, but I couldn’t deny how scared I was that someday one of those bodies lying on the street would be mine. Paradoxically, in order to make that happen, I needed to work twice as hard, making twice as many deliveries, taking note of every possible detail so that I could report it and hopefully save one of our men. The more successful we were, however, meant the more people we needed to hire onto the team, which in turn meant more people competing to move up Golden Gavel’s occupational hierarchy.

After two years of working with the Diamond Dogs, though, I finally felt like I was ready for my promotion, even though I didn’t know what something like that was supposed to look like. All I knew when I knocked on Golden Gavel’s door that Thursday night was that I wanted to see how I could take on more responsibilities, hopefully in a less dangerous setting. Once I heard footsteps approaching that door, however, my throat quickly dried up, making me literally gag in anxiety as I waited for his silver doorknob to make its way ninety degrees.

“Ohhh, Cross Stitch,” he said, opening the door. “I wasn’t expecting you. Come right in, please.” As usual, he fell back into the leather seat behind his desk, and I took the seat across from him, hesitantly avoiding eye contact, which probably made me even more nervous than I already was. “So, what can I do to help you, dear?”

I rubbed my elbows, still looking away. “Well… I just hit my two year mark since joining the Diamond Dogs…”

“Has it really been that long? We should do something to commemorate the occasion!”

“N-no! Really! That’s alright…”

Golden Gavel then leaned over his desk, reaching into his drawer to pull out a small pair of glasses that he used to examine me even closer. The hair on my arms was standing up as he tilted one eyebrow with a mischievous smile and asked, “Then what are you really doing here?”

“I… uh…” I gulped hard in my throat. If I didn’t get it off my chest now, I had no idea whether or not he’d ever take me seriously again. “I was hoping that I could be given a new position, s-sir.”

His smile only seemed to grow wider as he sat back in his chair, putting his hands together and twiddling with his thumbs. “You’re a very brave girl to ask me for a promotion.” Finally, my heart had a chance to breathe. His demeanor and tone were so calming that for a moment, I forgot that I was in the office of the Diamond Dogs’ kingpin, but that was quickly erased once he opened his mouth to speak again. “Unfortunately, however, I have no way of helping you.”

“What?!” I snapped, leaping to my feet, glaring daggers at him while he relaxed back in his chair. “I don’t get this! For two years I’ve been doing your dirty work, putting myself in danger on a daily basis, walking out very openly in public--unlike what the boys are doing, by the way--and you’re telling me that it’s not good enough?”

“Calm down, Cross Stitch.”

“No! You’re telling me that after all that hard work, you’re not even gonna fucking negotiate?! Not even a damn pay-raise for everything I’ve done for your sorry ass over the past two fucking years?”

“Cross Stitch, I said calm DOWN!” Just for added effect, he slammed his hands down onto his desk, making me quickly fall back to my chair as I remembered that pissing him off would be far worse than pissing off some street cop. “Now, you accuse me of not negotiating with you when you didn’t even give me an opportunity to give you my rebuttal.” I wanted to answer him, even if it just meant nodding my head, but I was too intimidated to move a single muscle. “You want a new position? You’re going to have to earn it the same way everyone else does.”

“And… you’re saying that I haven’t earned it?”

“You’ve earned…” Golden Gavel smirked. “...an opportunity.”

“W-what do you mean?”

Taking his glasses off of his face, he pulled out a small cloth and began wiping down his lenses. “In order to move up, you need to go on a specific errand. What you’ve been doing these past two years is basically helping our security unit do their rounds. You haven’t even begun to see what’s going on in the inner circle, where we actually make the money that you use to eat with.”

Now that he mentioned it, I couldn’t believe that I had never asked how we made so much money to begin with. I had always just assumed that he was doing some kind of business negotiations with other gangs like insider stock trading or something, but I never actually thought to ask for the details.

“So…” I began, “...what do I have to do?”

Standing up from his seat, he made his way to his wall, staring down at a pin on his map of Manehattan. “You’re going to aid our main unit on Whinny Avenue. You see, most of the money we make comes from receiving firearms from regional distributors, shipping them to vendors and selling them to people just like you, straight out of prison who can’t obtain one legally. Unfortunately, the economy never changes, and with that comes competition. However, people in Manehattan need to realize that we have a monopoly in this business, and if they can’t be reasoned with, we need to remove them altogether.”

My eyes grew wide as I finally began to comprehend what he was saying.

Turning his head so that his eyes met mine, he said, “I want you to go in there and kill every single one of them.”

I had taken the evening to think about whether I really wanted to go through with Golden Gavel’s plan, even if it meant being able to put myself into less dangerous positions in the future. After Delilah Diamond’s death, I began to see human life as something precious, something that should be protected at all costs, and even though I was gratified in seeing dead cops everywhere I went, the pain of seeing my fallen brothers made me wonder whether or not any of this was even worth it. That being said, now that I had a family, a real family, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to risk my own life knowing that I finally had something worth living for, but if I never went through with this assignment, I began to wonder whether or not I would ever be able to truly move on from my duties.

Mustard Seed had recently left the Diamond Dogs on good terms so that she could care for her daughter, and Easy Peasy would be fine with the same job she was doing for the rest of her life. As I sat down that evening, honestly thinking of where I wanted my life to go, I had to make a decision on whether this one act of killing while putting my own life in danger was really worth whatever I hoped to get after that.

With my mind drawing a blank in both ethics and risk assessment, the only thing I could do was fall down onto my knees and pray, praying for anyone or anything that could hear me.

“I don’t know if there is a god out there, but any god would work for me. If anyone out there can hear me, please… give me an answer! I’ve worked so hard to be where I am now, and I’m so grateful that I’ve been given a second chance at life, but is this really how my life is going to be forever? Is there any way for me to have the life that I want? To choose my own path?”

I waited and waited for an answer, but unfortunately, the decision would ultimately fall back onto my shoulders. Then, with no other ideas left, I decided that this was a risk I would be willing to take, and the following day, I would speak to Golden Gavel, accept the assignment, and do my job, whatever it entailed.

My job was simple: head into a predetermined location for negotiations where both gangs would meet unarmed for a “healthy discussion” on how proceedings would take place. As we entered into the warehouse that we would be meeting in, both the Diamond Dogs and the rival gang would search each other for weapons, but there was an unspoken rule that the women would not be searched, which meant that I got to enter the warehouse carrying a fully-loaded pistol between my shirt and shorts with several extra rounds of ammo hidden in my boots. As I looked around at the turnout once seemingly everyone was inside the area, I didn’t see a single girl from the opposing gang. This was it. Everything had gone exactly according to plan.

Finally, the doors closed, leaving the warehouse’s dim lights as the only lightsource left in the building with no way in or out. Almost immediately, Golden Gavel stepped into the middle of the circle that we had created, with Diamond Dogs on one side and the opposing group on the other.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “I’m so glad that you could all be joining us today.”

“What’s this about, Golden Gavel?” a burly man with a scar across his left eye spat out. “I sincerely doubt that you wanted to negotiate in a way that would work out in our favor.”

“Hasty as always, Sharp Tooth. The reason I gathered you all here today is actually to provide you with money.” The opposing gang all began to talk with themselves as Golden Gavel called for a briefcase. Then, opening the briefcase for all to see, there must have been millions of bills worth of bits, making the opposing gang nearly salivate as they looked at the money with awe. “However,” he continued, closing the briefcase, “I cannot give you this money as a gesture of goodwill.”

“You’re asking us to leave, then. Is that it? You’re paying us off to shut down our operations in Manehattan?”

“I would prefer to think of it as a relocation stipend. It’s worth thinking over as a group, though, wouldn’t you say? You get twelve million bits to disperse amongst yourselves just for picking a new base somewhere else. That’s hardly a bad deal on my part, if I do say so myself.”

Sharp Tooth looked back to his men, who all nodded in agreement, then back to Golden Gavel, and by the look in his eyes, I could tell that they weren’t going to cooperate like I had hoped. “No deal, Golden Gavel. I’m sorry we had to do this to you.”

Almost instantly, several of the opposing gang’s thugs began to pull out handguns, including one thug who handed Sharp Tooth an automatic assault rifle. The Diamond Dogs, including myself, all began to look at each other in total fear, trying to figure out how they had managed to sneak in weapons, but moments later, we saw Roadblock, the biggest guy out of all of us, carrying an assault rifle of his own.

“Roadblock…” Golden Gavel began. “You double-crossed us?”

“Sorry, boss,” he said sympathetically. “I follow Delilah Diamond, not you.”

Immediately, Golden Gavel’s eyes fell back onto me, pleading with me for dear life for me to take action and save his life, but with all that was going on in that moment, my body wouldn’t move. I was frozen solid, trying to reach for the pistol in my shirt as the rest of the Diamond Dogs looked on in terror, wondering if any of them were going to make it out alive. I had more responsibility than to just kill an opposing gang; now I had to save the lives of my entire family while fighting about a dozen thugs, all of which were carrying weapons.

“CROSS STITCH! NOW!”

Closing my eyes, I broke past my mental block, reached into my shirt and pulled out my handgun, quickly pointing to Roadbloack who already had his gun pointed between my eyes. I needed to pull the trigger. Now. Not a moment later. Now! Do it, Cross Stitch! Why can’t you move?! He’s going to kill you! PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER!

Before I could make a move, though, I felt several bullets make their way into my body, poking holes in my windpipe, throat, shoulder blades, lung, and heart. I wanted to breathe so bad, but no matter how much I heaved, I couldn’t feel any air making its way back into my body. All I could feel was the entire room growing colder, or was that how I was feeling inside my own body? Had the lights always been this dim? I could see several of the Diamond Dogs screaming, but for some reason, none of the sound was reaching my ears, like someone just pressed the mute button during the biggest event of my life. Even when I hit the floor, I couldn’t feel or hear anything, but just before my vision blurred to the point of total darkness, I could see a river of red decorating the floor.

With one final heave, I took in a breath, but as before, nothing went in. Instead, I just breathed out the rest of the air in my lungs as the rest of the world disappeared behind me.

…

“Cross Stitch…”

…

“Cross Stitch…”

“H-huh?”

…

“W-wait! Is someone there?”

…

“Am I alive? Where am I? What’s going on?”

I was finally able to open my eyes, but when I looked around, all I could see was darkness, although this darkness was different than what I had seen before. When I looked down at my hands, I could see their shape in front of me, contrasting as if they were lighting up in the darkness surrounding me. I could feel air moving back into my lungs, but for some reason, I also felt like I had no reason to breathe anymore. I was pretty sure I could hear again, but the voice I heard earlier wasn’t talking back anymore.

“Hey! Are you still there? I want to talk to you!”

“What would you like to talk about?”

I still couldn’t see anyone, but I could at least hear their voice.

“Am… Am I still alive?”

“No, you are most definitely dead.”

I clicked my tongue. “Figures. Then what is this? Am I in an afterlife or something?”

“Not yet. Right now, you are in the balance between life and death.”

“So like… I’m mostly dead but not all dead?”

“Exactly.”

“OK. So… is there a way for me to go back to being alive?”

“Is that really what you want?”

I had to honestly think about that question for a minute. If I were dead, at least this way I could be free from everything I had to deal with when I was with the Diamond Dogs. I loved them as my family, but that didn’t change the fact that I was still stressing every day about whether or not I would ever make it out of there. At least this way I knew for sure, but if I stayed here, who knew what would happen to me?

“I… I think so.”

“Then I need you to make a deal with me, Cross Stitch.” Another deal. I was so fed up with deals at this point that I was just about to accept my fate and let death take me away, but before I could make that decision, the voice continued. “I want to give you magic that only you can use. Once you have that magic, you can do whatever you want with it.”

“Magic? The fuck are you talking about? I haven’t believed in magic since I was nine!”

“But you believe that what’s happening right now is real, don’t you? Were you not the one praying last night for any god that heard you to give you answers?”

“...Shit, you’re good. OK, hold on. Before I say yes to anything, is that really all you want? You just want me to be some kind of magical girl?”

The voice chuckled. “Magical girl. I like the sound of that.”

“Hello?”

“Hold your horses, Cross Stitch! I was just going to have you go back and cause chaos, but now you’ve given me an idea.”

What was he even talking about? He wanted me to create chaos? No doubt I was good at that, but what ideas did I give him? What did he want out of me?

“Alright, Cross Stitch. I’ll return you back to life as well as give you magical powers, but first you have to do three things for me.”

“Fine. Whatever. What do you want?”

“First you need to tell me what magical power you would like to have.”

I scoffed, thinking that the answer was obvious. “Can I have all of them? The power to use whatever power I want?”

The voice suddenly cackled demonically, giving me a disturbing feeling in my chest. “I like the way you think, Cross Stitch! Although, I think a new name would fit your new persona, wouldn’t you agree?”

I scratched my head, wondering whether or not what he said was some kind of subtle jab at my real name, but if this meant that I got to come back to life and hopefully save my friends, I would play whatever game he had in mind. This part, though, needed some serious thought. If I had to pick a new name, it couldn’t be like a tattoo that I would regret later in life. The name that I chose would have to give hope to the people close to me while creating terror for anyone who opposed me.

Finally, with my head held high, I said with total confidence, “Divinity.”

“Divinity, eh? It seems like you and I think on the same level.”

“OK, cool. That’s great. Wasn’t there a third thing you wanted me to do?”

“...Divinity, we really need to work on how you treat authority figures. Anyway! As you may or may not know, a magical girl’s power comes from the love she feels towards others. Before I grant you with this power, I need to make sure you can use it.” I tried to keep myself from laughing at his corny lecture, but I couldn’t stop myself from grinning with a stupid look on my face. “So, before I give you this power, you must tell me who you love more than anyone else in the whole world.”

“...You’re kidding, right?”

“Uh-oh! Your light is beginning to disappear!”

Looking down at my skin, I could see that he was right. The darkness around me was beginning to take over my sight once again, leaving me without much time before death pulled me away entirely. “OK! OK! I’ll answer the question!” The real problem, though, was that I really didn’t know the answer to the question. I didn’t love my parents, I loved everyone in the Diamond Dogs equally, and I sure as hell didn’t have a boy in my life that I was crazy about, but with the darkness overtaking my body, I had to come up with an answer quick. “I love… myself.”

The voice paused for a moment, making me wonder if he was even still there. “Yourself?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah. If there’s anyone that I can rely on more than anyone else, it has to be myself. I guess I’ve always been one to put myself before others, so it seems fitting that I say that I love myself most, right?”

There was silence for a few brief moments, but then I could gradually hear the faint sounds of laughter, growing louder and louder until it was a maniacal, ear-shattering cackle. “Divinity, I just know that the two of us are going to be best pals!”

Taking in a deep breath, I finally said, “OK. Turn me into a magical girl.”

This... would be the single most important sentence I ever said in my life.

Suddenly, he snapped a finger, and before I knew it, I could feel my body begin to change. Every piece of me was beginning to contort and change, from my hair which gradually grew down to my thighs or the blood in my veins which I could feel begin to change into something entirely different. I felt stronger, lighter, faster, smarter, and even prettier. Looking down at my hands, I saw a pair of golden bracelets dangling from my wrists atop a pair of long, white sleeves. Moving my hands aside, I noticed a white dress that wrapped around my thighs like a skirt, revealing my pure white skin contrasting with the golden sandals strapped around my legs. Then, with one final pulse of magic surging through my back, I fell forward, collapsing to my knees as a large pair of wings jetted from my spine with a size that was greater than my entire body.

I was no longer human. I was now this being’s creation: a magical girl.

As I finally lifted my head, however, I was met with a pair of bright, yellow eyes staring back at me, and if that didn’t scare me, then the eagle claw, lion paw and snake tail sure as hell did the trick. This was the creature that did this to me, and suddenly, I was wondering whether or not I had really made the right choice.

“It’s a pleasure to officially meet you Divinity,” he said quietly. “My name is Discord.”

Then, before I had the chance to even open my mouth, the darkness was beginning to fade away, turning into a blinding light and forcing me to squeeze my eyelids together. After a few moments of searing light, however, I was met with darkness again, although this darkness was considerably different than the darkness I was in before. This time, it was a much more familiar feeling.

Before I could open my eyelids again, however, I felt a searing pain in my shoulders, chest and neck, combined with the sounds of screams and gunshots all around me. There was no doubt about it. I was back to life exactly where I had died.

Gradually, I began to lift myself off the floor, my hand getting covered in my blood from earlier as I propped myself up with my wobbly arm. Then, using my other hand to feel my wounds, I could feel where the holes were, but somehow, they had already closed up. Discord didn’t bring me back just to die again, which meant that no matter what happened here, I had to survive.

“Cross Stitch!” one of my men shouted. “Boss! Cross Stitch is still alive!”

As I weakly tried to get myself back up to my knees while avoiding bullets, Golden Gavel came running to my side, pushing over a table to give us any protection possible. “Cross Stitch! We need to get you out of here! I’m so sorry that--”

“My name isn’t Cross Stitch.”

Golden Gavel, still heaving in terror, tilted his eyebrow. “What?”

“My name… IS DIVINITY!!”

Then, with all the magic in my veins pooling in at once, I rose to my feet, changing myself into a magical girl and reversing time itself, making everything turn backwards like a VHS tape in rewind. Finally, once I got to the part where Roadblock first pulled his gun on me, I lifted my hand, causing his brain to hemorrhage inside his skull, sending blood pouring out of his eyes and mouth. Then I went through all the opposing gang members with guns, killing them off one by one in a way that could only be done with my new powers. Heart attack. Internal electrocution. Organs literally disintegrating. Replacing blood with sulfuric acid. Even brainwashing one man into unloading his gun on himself, making sure that he used all of his bullets before he eventually put it into his mouth and shot down his throat.

As I killed off half of them, I froze the other half so that they could watch in horror as their own men died, but before they could run away in terror, I would cause them all to die by their own hand, in a way that was as long and painful as I could have possibly imagined. Then, looking over at my own men, I saw them fall to their knees and tremble in fear. It took me a few moments before I realized that I wasn’t dressed like Cross Stitch as they had remembered, but was rather in an angelic costume, bringing about my own divine justice. I couldn’t let them know that the Cross Stitch they had all come to love was now an angel of death, and with the turn of my wrist, I had returned to my normal form, replacing their memories with new ones, as if I had killed all the men with my pistol alone.

“Cross Stitch,” Golden Gavel said, his chest rising and falling quicker than his lips could move. “Did you… Did you do this?”

“Wanna talk about that promotion now?” I asked, ignoring all the thugs around me as the two of us began to talk business.

Then, turning to all of his men, Golden Gavel asked, “Would anyone here be opposed to that?” The men around us were all completely frozen aside from their heads shaking, and even if any of them had opposed my promotion, I could just brainwash Golden Gavel into giving me the promotion anyway. I could even get him to give me his own position as the leader of the Diamond Dogs if I wanted. I could get anyone to do anything I wanted. The world was literally under my total control.

Over the next two years, I ran the Diamond Dogs as second in command, allowing Golden Gavel to run the operation while I watched in the background, making sure he didn’t mess anything up. The main reason for doing so was because this way, I could still have the respect of being a valuable member to the Diamond Dogs while not being so superior that they thought of me as their boss rather than their friend. I could always use my magic to make them respect me regardless, but there were various things that I never wanted to use my magic to do, such as making people love me, looking into my future, and turning back time to get a better result. I had already seen what could happen if I did that once, and honestly, it felt like I wasn’t even part of the same world when I did, like there was no point in me even continuing the game if it was all really that easy.

In the meantime, in order to keep my powers, Discord asked that I use my magical girl powers to do good in the world and earn brownie points, which was really just his way of stealing magic from my world so that he could put it into his own masterpiece: Platinum City. It seemed that every city had some kind of parallel dimension, and Manehattan, being the largest city in Equestria, was where Discord decided to design his own kingdom. While other parallel dimensions had rocks and dirt, his city had luscious, flowing streams, giant high rises and beautiful green gardens. In fact, he loved it so much that he got angry whenever I entered, seeing as how my magic would drain the magic that I had used to build it up in the first place. Instead, I stayed in my dimension, using my magic that would then be transferred from Manehattan to Platinum City, helping Discord to continue stealing my world’s magic in hopes that the world would fall into greater chaos.

Eventually, though, Golden Gavel called me into his office, and by this time, I wasn’t the same girl I had been when I first joined the Diamond Dogs. By this point, I had already seen over one hundred people die by my hands, changing me from the punk hoodlum that I was into a refined lady that could grasp the value of life a little bit better. Not only that, but by this point, I was as rich as I could have possibly imagined, wearing designer clothes that rivalled even Golden Gavel’s attire. There was just no cause for me to be the rebellious girl that I used to be anymore. By this point, I began to understand how the world worked as well as how I fit in to make my own mark.

“Cross Stitch,” he said, sitting across from me at his desk. “I think it’s time we expanded.”

I smiled. “I think you’re right. You know, I’ve always liked that wall with the map of Manehattan, but I always felt like you deserved more. Like a skyscraper where you could look out over the entire city of Manehattan.”

“I was thinking differently, actually.” As I tilted my head in confusion, Golden Gavel leaned over his desk with a giant grin on his face. “How would you feel about Canterlot?”

“Canterlot? I… Wow! Umm… I guess I’ve never really thought about leaving before.”

“Imagine everything you just said, only we both get beautiful offices with glass walls where we can look out over not only the city, but halfway across the continent! Can you imagine us coming this far? And we wouldn’t have been able to do it without your help, which is why I’m going to leave the decision to you.”

Leaving Manehattan, however, would also mean leaving Discord, which he definitely would not have liked, but then again, with the powers that I had, it wasn’t like I couldn’t go back to Manehattan whenever I (or he) wanted. I could talk to him about it later, but in the meantime, I had a job to do.

“Yes, Golden Gavel. I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

We didn’t wait five days before we had secured the perfect spot to set up our business, doing whatever we needed to do to avoid the police sniffing around when they weren’t wanted. I still hated them more than anything else, but at least by this point, I had such a high reverence for human life that I would only intervene if it meant protecting my gang. I still hadn’t told Discord, but at the time, I didn’t feel like that would be such a big deal. If he needed me in Manehattan, I would transport myself to Manehattan a couple times a week, do the magical girl thing and come back as if life were proceeding as normal. Unfortunately for me, however, someone would find out about me much quicker than Discord did.

It happened one night when I was setting up my new office, completely alone at 3 o’clock in the morning while everyone else was asleep back in Manehattan. Golden Gavel had just turned in for the night, leaving me to take care of anything else that I wanted to take care of by myself, but the moment I turned into a magical girl, the first time I had done so in Canterlot, I could feel a new sense of magic. I could always feel how much magic I had in my veins whenever I transformed, but this time, I felt a lighter magic, as if I wasn’t the only one inside my body anymore. Just as soon as I noticed it, however, the feeling went away, again leaving me alone in my office while I was still transformed into Divinity.

“Discord?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. “Did you do something?”

“Discord? Me???” I turned to my side and yelped as I saw that rather than Discord being the creature summoned to my office, I was staring into the eyes of what looked like a pony with a lion’s mane and wooden horn in the middle of her forehead. I quickly yelped in surprise as she held up her hooves to calm me down. “Sorry! My bad! I just, well, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you or anything! It’s just so nice seeing new magical creatures here in Canterlot! Usually everyone just kinda sticks to their own dimensions or whatever, but it is so nice meeting a new face around here for a change! My name is Autumn Blaze. You can remember it because there’s a tree that has the same name as me! I promise, I came first, although I maaaay have had some influence in how the tree was named. Kinda vain. I know. Again, you can remember because trees have veins. Oh, sorry. Am I rambling? I do that from time to time. Now, what did you say your name was again?”

I blinked several times before I realized that she had even finished talking. What was this thing even supposed to be? I thought Discord was the only magical creature in the world, but I guess that was just in Manehattan.

“I’m Cros--I mean, my name is Divinity. I’m pleased to meet you, Autumn Blaze.”

“Divinity! That is suuuuch a beautiful name! Then again, you’re a beautiful girl, too! Hopefully that doesn’t sound weird coming from a kirin. I promise, I’m not trying to hit on you or anything! Anyway, I hope I don’t sound like I’m cutting to the chase, but I am so curious as to how you got those magical powers of yours! Were you born with them? Are you a human or something else? Shapeshifter? C’moooon! You’ve gotta tell me all--”

“I received my powers from Discord and I’m a magical girl. Please, forgive me if I seem blunt, but I’m not sure I have the patience tonight to continue talki--”

“Discord, huh? Isn’t he from Manehattan? You know, I’ve been to Platinum City a few times. Did you help him make that place?”

“Help would be a strong word,” I said, pulling a stapler out of a box and putting it on my desk. “Discord doesn’t like me visiting Platinum City much. He says I would suck all the magic from his beautiful creation.”

“And just what kind of power do you have?”

“All of them.”

As I continued to unpack my things, not waiting for Autumn Blaze’s reaction, she seemed to finally fall silent, seemingly in disbelief at what I had told her. “Now, when you say all of them, do you mean--?”

“All of them.”

“Jeeze! No wonder he doesn’t let you in there! That would suck all the magic out of that place dry! You know, me and Discord are pretty similar ourselves. Have you ever been to Everfree City?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you have! You’ve probably been to every alternate dimension by now! I’ll tell you what. If you wanted to help spruce up Everfree City a bit, I could sponsor your magic powers for you! It would mean leaving Discord, but I could make a deal with you to make it worth your while!”

“Autumn Blaze, please. I have a lot of work to do. What deal could you possibly give me that would make me abandon Discord for you?”

Autumn Blaze smirked. “I could make you the leader of Everfree City.”

Now my interest was peaked. I had already made myself the leader of this world, by proxy if not by any other means, and Discord rarely allowed me to ever enter into his masterpiece. Autumn Blaze was offering me literally the one thing I could not have on my own: dominion over a parallel universe. I took loyalty very seriously, something that was more honorable than anything else I had, but I had to seriously consider whether I wanted to stay true to the few morals that I had or give one of them up to reach what I thought before was an unattainable goal.

“Autumn Blaze… I…”

“She’ll have to deny your offer.”

Suddenly, I turned my head to the side, seeing Discord stare the two of us down with a face filled with anger and disappointment. He was literally the only thing that could ever scare me, and in that moment, I was petrified.

“Discord,” I began, “what are you--”

“Divinity, we’re going home. Autumn Blaze, I forbid you from ever speaking to my star pupil ever again.”

Autumn Blaze snorted. “Your star pupil? If you really hold her in such high esteem, how come you don’t even let her into the city she’s basically built for you all by herself?”

“I would watch my tone if I were you, Autumn Blaze,” Discord retorted, lifting himself into the air and floating in front of me, closing the distance between the two of them. “Divinity. Manehattan. Now.”

“Seriously, Discord? She’s a magical girl, not a dog! I think she should be free to make her own decisions!”

“And I think she should respect the god who gave her those powers in the first place.”

“Right, because that makes you sooooo noble? Divinity, I’ll let you keep every power you have as well as being the number one member of Everfree City if you join me!”

“She’s not interested!”

“Isn’t that for me to decide?!” Both Autumn Blaze and Discord turned to face me, albeit with stark differences in their facial expressions. “Discord, you know how much I respect you, but you also know how business works. If Autumn Blaze is offering me something that you refuse to give me, it’s going to take more than just my loyalty to keep me enlisted as your own personal chaos machine.”

Autumn Blaze smiled wider, to which Discord pinched the bridge of his muzzle. “Divinity,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to show you exactly what happens to those who defy me.”

Suddenly, my entire office lit up in a giant green light, which no doubt was bright enough to make half of Canterlot take notice. As I fell back onto my butt, I saw Discord and Autumn Blaze throwing blasts of magic towards each other, causing whatever they touched to disintegrate into thin air. Autumn Blaze was at a disadvantage seeing as how the only way for her to project magic seemingly came from her horn, whereas Discord had a lion paw and an eagle claw, both of which were shooting out magic at twice the rate Autumn Blaze could. While Autumn Blaze spent most of her time defending, Discord was throwing magical punch after punch, closing the gap between the two of them until it seemed like Autumn Blaze was no match for the draconequus.

“Divinity!” she cried. “Help me!”

“Discord, stop!” I shouted, but in the heat of his anger, it seemed like Autumn Blaze was about to perish. Doing the only thing I could think of, I sent Autumn Blaze away, back to Everfree City and putting a lock between the two portals to keep Discord from entering. Of course, he could just undo my magic, but I had put so many locks between them at this point that Discord would be trying for half an eternity to break them all.

Then, the moment he looked at me, I disappeared, returning once again to Everfree City, a barren wasteland that consisted of dirt and rocks, not even any houses to speak of. Turning to my side, I was now locking eyes with Autumn Blaze, who was looking up at me with grateful eyes.

“That was a very brave thing of you to do back there,” she said with a small, apologetic smile.

“I just did what any magical girl would do,” I said with a brief laugh, but rather than laugh back, Autumn Blaze looked back at me with a despondent expression.

“I can’t go back to Canterlot. You did something, didn’t you?”

I dropped my head forward. “I made it to where Discord can’t make it into Everfree City, but in order to do that… I had to make it to where you wouldn’t be able to get out.”

“Can’t you fix it?”

“I don’t know how. My powers only enable me to use magic that I can think of, and I can’t think of any ways that I can theoretically make you safe without putting a barrier between the two of you. Only magical girls can get in now.”

Autumn Blaze chuckled sarcastically. “Right. If only I had a magical girl of my own.”

Then, grabbing hold of Autumn Blaze’s hoof, I looked into her eyes and said gently, “You do.” Her pupils went wide as my smile began to grow wider. “Autumn Blaze, I hereby dedicate myself to you and to Everfree City.”

Suddenly, I felt a power shift in my veins. It was as if the color of my blood in general were switching from black to green, giving me a mixed range of sensations throughout my body like muscle spasms and a cold sweat, but once it was over, I didn’t feel any different than I did before the switch. I was just Divinity. The same Divinity as always.

“Is…” I began. “Is that it?”

“Yeah, but I would wait another minute or two for Discord to calm down.”

With a sigh, I squatted down, dropping my head down into my lap. “He’s going to kill me as soon as I get back, isn’t he?”

Autumn Blaze shook her head. “He can’t do that.”

“What?! He can’t?!”

“Nope! Beings like us, we don’t have any control over life and death of human beings, and even though you’re a special kind of human, we can’t kill you either.”

“But… I thought Discord had the exact same powers as I did!”

“He does except for this one exception.”

I then fell backwards, laying back on the dirt road. Finally, after a few moments had passed, I turned the dirt beneath me into a cloud, tossed my golden bracelets to the floor, undid my sandals and pulled my sleeves up, just to fall back down again with my arm over my forehead.

“This whole thing seems so confusing to me,” I said. “What even am I?”

“That’s easy! You’re a magical girl!”

I scoffed at the response, which I felt was a cop out to my real question. “In that case, what do we do now?”

“Well, I don’t think Discord is going to hurt you at this point. If anything, he’s just going to try to convince you to come back to him.”

“But if I do that, will you die?” Autumn Blaze nodded her head, to which I scoffed again. “I may as well never leave this place.”

“You can stay for as long as you’d like, but we both know you have a life outside of Everfree City.”

I sat back on my cloud for several more moments, trying to think of some kind of conclusion, but then an idea hit me harder than any idea I had ever thought of before. “What if I had a life in both places?”

Autumn Blaze lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“What if I continued to do what I was doing with Discord, only I would help make Everfree City a utopia?”

“That’s nice and all, Divinity, but with the amount of magic you use up just by coming here, I don’t think that would work out very well.”

I smirked. “Then we’ll just have to recruit more, then, won’t we?” Autumn Blaze’s eyes went wide, and finally, I felt like I had found my perfect niche in not just my world, but in all worlds. Falling back onto my cloud, I looked off in the distance, trying to wrap my head around the fact that from now on, I would be living a life that was different from anything I had experienced before.

“Autumn Blaze, let’s get more magical girls.”

Chapter 8

Divinity
Powers: Omnipotence
Identity: Cross Stitch
Bio: Unknown

I continued tapping on my magical phone over and over again, trying to refresh the page as many times as I could, but no matter how many times I tried refreshing, the information on the page never changed. There was no way this was faulty programming or Discord simply not knowing anything about her, especially considering that Divinity was apparently his star pupil. It must have been a spell that Divinity put on my phone, preventing me from learning any details about her life other than what she had personally told me. There was a possibility that Discord would be able to undo the spell, but I didn’t want to take any chances when it came to Divinity. In the meantime I would have to just deal with whatever information I had.

As soon as I put my phone back into my skirt pocket, however, the bell rang, dismissing us all to the lunchroom where I would finally be able to discuss my plans with Photo Finish. Dreamdrop and I had more or less decided that Dokaeru would be the first target, but I still wanted to get Palette’s opinion, just in case there was something that we were missing. Our first kill would be the easiest one of all, but it would also be the most important one, seeing as how my mother’s life hung in the balance. I couldn’t mess up and get myself killed first thing, especially since that would leave Dreamdrop and Palette with one less magical girl as backup when they tried reviving me.

Once I made my way through the lunch line, grabbing my tray of slop from Granny Smith, I quickly sifted through the sea of students until I found Photo Finish sitting at our regular table, burying her face into her hands. Then, setting my tray down and sitting across from her, I quietly said, “Hey.” Rather than answer me, however, Photo Finish remained motionless, staring down at the table between us as she rummaged her fingers roughly through her bangs. “You OK?”

“I cannot do zis.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I cannot do zis! Have you even looked at ze profiles of these magical girls?”

“Trixie... looked at two of them, but she hasn’t really taken any time to look at anyone else.”

Pulling out her own phone, she scrolled through her encyclopedia of magical girls, spinning it to face me and pushing it right underneath my nose. “I’m guessing you did not look at La Proxy’s bio, zen.”

Looking down at the information on her screen, I immediately saw a picture of La Proxy, or rather by her real name, Top Notch, who was twenty-four years old, lived with her husband in southcentral Canterlot, and… was the mother of a three year old boy. She was also currently six months pregnant. As soon as I saw that message, I looked back up towards Photo Finish with a look of horror, and just like me, she was shaking vehemently, holding back tears. We were going to be taking a mother away from her child, and in the process, killing a baby who had nothing to do with us.

“I had no idea…” I began, but before I could continue, Photo Finish started shaking worse.

“Zat is not all. Look at Sun Shadow.”

Doing as she said, I backed out of La Proxy’s profile and scrolled down until I found Sun Shadow’s name. Then, pulling up her information, I was immediately met with a picture of her as well as one of her real identity… and nearly started to cry where I sat.

Sun Shadow
Powers: The ability to fall into her shadow and manipulate her form
Identity: Candycorn
Bio: Candycorn is four years old, living with her big sister Sweet Tooth (Catastrophe, age twelve) in northern Canterlot. She likes her friends, recess, her family, and chocolate ice cream. She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up, but she’ll happily do anything once she finds out what her special talent is. More than anything, she wants to be just like her big sister Sweet Tooth, who is her biggest hero.

I quickly shoved the phone back into Photo Finish’s hands so that I could cover my face with my own hands, trying to hold myself back from crying. I had been so caught up in bringing back my mom and keeping CHS safe that I didn’t even stop to think who these girls were behind their magical girl exteriors. These weren’t just teenagers or adults going through the exact same experiences as Photo Finish and I. We were going to be killing mothers and children, something that I hadn’t even thought about, and if it weren’t for Dreamdrop telling me the night before to hold strong to the moral compass I had already decided on, I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d be able to go through with the original plan either.

“You see how bad zis is, yes?”

“Photo Finish, we’re not killing them just to bring back my mom and the others. We’re trying to stop them before they attack Canterlot High School. Both Sun Shadow and La Proxy are going to be part of that, which means--”

“And how do you know zat?”

I tilted my head in confusion, furrowing my eyebrows. “What do you mean how does Trixie know that? She saw it for herself!”

“Did you see ze attack for yourself?”

I flinched at her sharp words, realizing that all I saw was the aftermath of the attack rather than seeing all the details in real time, but even though I didn’t have much to go on, I still knew one key detail. “Trixie may not have seen everyone who was part of the attack, but Discord gave me the impression that all of Autumn Blaze’s magical girls were in on it.”

Photo Finish scoffed, looking away as she leaned her shoulders over the table. “Because we can always count on ze impressions zat he gives us, yes?”

“That’s not all.” As I paused briefly, I waited for Photo Finish to look back into my eyes before I delivered the one key sentence that would hopefully get her motivation back. “I know who killed you.”

Photo Finish froze in her seat, her jaw dropping gradually until she finally muttered, “How do you know zis? Who vas it?”

“When Discord was showing Trixie all the dead bodies at the school, it looked like someone killed you by shooting a purple dart into your eye.”

“A purple dart? You mean--”

“Dokaeru. Dreamdrop and I are going to go to her house after school. We’ve decided that she’s going to be our first target.”

“Does… zat mean…?”

A long silence fell before I took in a large breath through my mouth and out my nose, staring down at my hands. “Yeah… We’re going to kill her…” Photo Finish then dropped her eye contact back to her own hands, leaving the two of us in another awkward silence as we tried to find the moral silver lining to what we were planning to do. “So… will you come with us?”

Photo Finish sighed, and after a few moments, she said, “Yes. Do you think she vill have any backup?”

“No. She’s mostly a loner. Also, Divinity gave Trixie her word that she wouldn’t intervene, and from what she said, Autumn Blaze can’t see or hear anything that we do outside of Everfree City unless we contact one of her magical girls through our phones.”

Quickly, Photo Finish jolted up from her seat before quietly sitting back down, looking around to see if anyone was giving her weird looks. “You spoke with Divinity?!”

“Trixie believes we can trust her. She’s made it clear that she’s not on our side, but it also sounds like she won’t get in the middle of it either. It should just be the three of us versus Dokaeru today, and after that… it’ll be the three of us versus the eight of them.”

“If we are going to be doing a surprise attack, should we not be trying to attack one of ze stronger magical girls before she realizes zat we are up to something?”

“Trixie has already thought of that, and it always comes back down to the same thing. If we fail the first time, she’ll let the others know what we’re up to, and then it’ll be nine against three. La Proxy sounds like the strongest magical girl next to Divinity, but if she goes through another dimension before we can kill her, the entire purpose of our surprise attack will be pointless.”

“But she has a child to attend to. Do you not think zat she would be too preoccupied to notice an ambush? Zis may be our only chance, you know.”

“It’s still too risky. We need to think of a plan with her, but Divinity told me that Autumn Blaze is already getting her girls set to kill us too. Today is our only chance to make a first strike. Genny is another option, but I feel like she’s more defensive than offensive, which means that if we leave Dokaeru alive, she might have a higher chance of killing us than if we went after her first.”

Photo Finish sat back in her seat, folding her arms as she tried earnestly to ponder over all the girls, what their powers were and what the best plan of attack would be for each of them. “Sun Shadow and Catastrophe would be too difficult to plan for a sneak attack,” she began. “We vould have to separate zem somehow, and if zere is any way to spare zeir lives, I would prefer to do zat.”

“Trixie agrees.”

“Divinity is off-limits for obvious reasons. Trickster poses no real threat to us so long as we have ze orbs zat Discord gave us, and Lucky Star has a power zat is totally unpredictable. I think zat we should see vut she can do before we plan on attacking her.”

“And Trixie can’t battle Sonic Boom if Dreamdrop will be there. I can’t risk her tricking me into thinking that she’s in danger.”

Finally, after several moments more of silence, Photo Finish lifted her head with confidence, looking into my eyes as the two of us sadly felt a wave of relief wash over our minds. Even though we weren’t happy about what we had to do, we at least felt better knowing that we had both come to the same conclusion, which we hoped meant that we had made the right decision.

“It is settled, zen,” she said. “We vill go to Dokaeru after school today and bring back your mother.”

“Thank you,” I said, looking down at my hands again.

As the bell rang and all the students began making their way back to their classes, Photo Finish and I remained at our table, looking down at our hands without even realizing what was going on around us. We couldn’t hear the sounds of the bell ringing or the students walking in a uniform path outside of the lunchroom, as if we were in a bubble where we couldn’t comprehend anything on the outside. There was no spell cast on us, nobody using any magic to dull our senses, but it felt like there was something physically keeping us from moving, as if once we did, life would resume as normal, forcing us to return to our responsibilities.

Finally, though, Photo Finish stood up once everyone else had already made it out of the cafeteria, and that’s when I realized that no matter how much I wished I could ignore everything, life continued to move on, whether I was ready or not.

1926 Filly Court, Canterlot. Dreamdrop, Palette and I were waiting on a rooftop half a block away, watching through a window of Lilypad’s house to see a girl with greasy hair playing on her game console, completely alone. She looked almost bizarrely different when she was in her normal form. Instead of being a feminine beauty in a wetsuit, she had bags under her eyes, disheveled hair, baggy clothes, and a small, normal-sized tongue that stuck out as she focused intently on her video game.

“This is it,” Dreamdrop said, sighing loudly. “Should we just… walk in through the front door?”

“Ach! Are you insane?!” Palette replied. “Vut if one of her brothers noticed us?”

“Hold on,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Let Trixie ask Divinity something really quick.”

“Trix--I mean, Great und Powerful Trixie, do you not think zat maybe we should try zis wizout Divinity’s help?”

“Yeah,” Dreamdrop agreed. “After all, if you send a message to Divinity, Autumn Blaze will be able to see it. Plus, are you really sure that Divinity won’t try to stop us?”

They were right that Autumn Blaze would be able to see anything that I sent to her, but I needed to see if there was anything that she would be able to do to help us. Maybe a part of me wanted her to stop us, but either way, asking her for some last minute help seemed like the best decision to make, regardless of whether she would assist us or not.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie knows what she’s doing,” I said, beginning to write my message. “At least… I hope I do…”

The other girls watched me with hesitancy on their faces, obviously doubting my judgment, but still trusting me enough to allow me to finish writing my message. “Divinity, this is the Great and Powerful Trixie. Would you be able to meet with me right now?” The moment I hit send, I expected her to already have a message sent back, but to my absolute surprise, I was standing there, staring at my phone waiting for something to happen. I was suddenly panicking, wondering if the others were right and she was going to stop us, possibly even kill us to defend the other magical girls. What if Autumn Blaze convinced her to kill us? What if this whole thing was a mistake?

Just as I was about to experience an overwhelming panic attack, Palette quickly pointed to Lilypad’s window and shouted, “Look!” As Dreamdrop and I fixated our gaze to the window, we saw Lilypad looking up at something with total surprise on her face, and as she weakly got to her feet, we saw her becoming embraced in a big hug, although we couldn’t see by whom. There was obviously somebody there talking to her, to which she was nodding her head, and after about a minute of listening, she put her controller down, seemingly turned off her game console and switched into her magical girl form.

Shit! She ratted us out!

In the next moment, Divinity was now staring over us, hovering in the air with a pair of wings that we hadn’t seen her use before, giving her an extra dose of the total angelic package that we’d come to fear. She didn’t look angry, but she didn’t look especially pleased to see us either. Then, calmly, she descended to the roof in front of us, folded her wings back into her spine and softly asked, “What did you need to talk to me about, Great and Powerful Trixie?”

“Uh…” I was at a complete loss for words. I was now debating whether the three of us should turn back with our tail between our legs and find some way to leave town before she tried anything that would destroy us in a heartbeat. Just then, however, I realized that I still had Discord’s orb, which at least made it to where I would be safe from a snap death like she could do to anyone else. “Actually… Trixie was wondering… if you could give us some advice…”

“Oh?” Her eyebrow was raised, but it was still terrifying to look directly into her eyes. “Advice on how to kill my friend, I’m guessing?”

“It’s not like that! Trixie didn’t mean--”

“Please don’t lie to me, Great and Powerful Trixie. You’re here to kill Dokaeru and to bring your mother back, and now you want me to help you do that.”

“Did…” Dreamdrop began, shaking vehemently the moment she began to speak. “Did you tell her that we were here?”

“I told her that she needed to be on her guard, to keep her brothers safe, and to keep an eye on her doors and windows for the next thirty minutes. If you’re going to attack her, I want it to be a fair fight. If you wait any longer than that to ambush her, then I will protect her.”

“Does zat mean you are not going to fight against us if we attack now?”

As Palette spoke, Divinity looked off in the distance, sighing as if she were tired of having to answer our questions. “This is not a fight between magical girls. It is a fight between Discord and Autumn Blaze. It doesn’t matter who wins, but at the same time, I don’t want to see my sisters get hurt.” Finally, she looked back to the three of us and slowly walked towards Palette, making her stumble backwards before freezing completely. Then, placing her hand atop Palette’s shoulder, she said, “When the three of you first entered into Everfree City, I felt like I could consider the three of you my sisters as well. We all share the same backstory, after all.”

Divinity smiled, and even though Dreamdrop and Palette both flinched, I felt like she legitimately meant what she said, like she would protect us if any of the others tried to ambush us as well.

“I can’t help you,” Divinity continued, “but I’m not going to stop you, either. Regardless of who wins, I will miss whomever does not survive. I’m sad that it has to come to this, but I don’t blame any of you for acting on your best judgement. All I can say is good luck, and if you win, I will be there both to congratulate you as well as to mourn for my comrade. Just please promise that you will not harm her brothers in any way.”

“We promise!” Dreamdrop exclaimed before Palette and I even had the chance to register what she said. Then, with a smile, Divinity extended her wings again, and bowing her head, her body began to disappear, turning into an angelic light that dissipated into a stream of sparkles.

Once she was gone, the three of us then turned our attention back to Dokaeru, who was looking around her room anxiously, taking in deep breaths as she once again checked her door and window. It would only be a matter of time before she saw us, which meant that if we really wanted to have the best advantage possible, we had to act in that moment. Before Dreamdrop or Palette had the chance to hesitate, I jumped off the rooftop, landing on the adjacent side of her house where she wouldn’t be able to see us coming. The other two quickly followed as I tiptoed my way to beneath her windowsill on the floor below.

“OK, girls,” I said. “On three, we’re just going to break through the window and try to keep her darts as far away from us as we can. Palette, I need you to keep Dreamdrop safe while she tries to put her to sleep. I’ll try to keep her attention towards me, and if I get an opening…” I then summoned my spear, gripping it tightly in my right hand. “...I’ll go for the kill. Agreed?”

Dreamdrop and Palette both nodded, and trying to keep myself from waiting any longer, I held out three fingers… then two… then one… and then… we broke through her window.

Almost instantaneously, poison darts came soaring towards our heads, which Palette blocked with a colorful shield she had painted just moments earlier. I then tried to quickly pull the darts out with my magic, but when I tried to grip them, it was almost like trying to pull water out of a tub with my fingertips. The darts had an elasticity that was more liquid than solid, along with the fact that there was an additional magical component that slimed them to the point where I couldn’t hold on with my magic.

“TRIXIE! LOOK OUT!”

My mind had been so busy trying to analyze her darts that I didn’t realize that she had gripped herself to the ceiling, taking in air and getting ready to spit again. The three of us then tumbled in all different directions as her darts began to rain on us from above, and honestly, it was a miracle that even with our magical girl speed we were able to barely dodge in time. Once the onslaught had ended finally, we looked up at Dokaeru, who had a look of both sadness and panic on her face as she shakily tried to keep her grip on the corner of the wall and ceiling.

“Are you girls for serious right now?!” she asked in a tone of disappointment. “I don’t get it! We tried to invite you into our home and let you become a part of our family, and now you’re trying to kill us?! Dude, this is messed up on so many levels.”

“We’re sorry we have to do this, Dokaeru!” Dreamdrop shouted. “Please forgive us!”

“What the hell, dude! Why would I forgive you for trying to kill me?! I didn’t do shit to you three!”

“Then don’t forgive us!” I replied, trying to find the right angle for me to jump without getting a neck full of poison darts. “It’s not like Trixie isn’t living with regrets already!”

Finally, I got an idea: I would jump towards her, but then I would dig my spear into her wall, changing my trajectory before her darts would be able to touch me. With my plan in motion, I quickly jumped with my spear winding up, but right as soon as I was about to continue with my plan, rather than spitting out poison darts, she spat out an entire puddle of purple liquid. Doing the only thing I could think of, I wrapped my cape around my body as if it could protect me from her acidic saliva, and fortunately, Palette had managed to throw her shield at just the right moment, causing the paint to disintegrate as my trajectory sent me crashing into her body and bringing us both down to her bed, cracking her bed frames.

“Lilypad?” a voice called from outside her room. “Are you OK?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Dokaeru leapt off of her bed, grabbing a chair on the way and stuck it underneath her doorknob, just as soon as someone tried to make their way inside.

“What did I tell you brats about coming in my room?” she shouted angrily. Then, giving us the most pissed off glare she had, she mumbled, “If any of you pricks even think about going after one of my little brothers, I swear to Autumn Blaze, I will make you fucking suffer.”

“If you give yourself up, we won’t go near them,” I replied, hoping that saying that wouldn’t make Divinity intervene by mistake. I didn’t have any plans of hurting her little brothers, of course, but maybe if she thought I did, she would give herself up a little bit more easily.

“You really think I’m gonna believe that when you come into my house and try to kill me out of nowhere?!”

Once again, she took in a mouthful of air, and leaping to the side, I levitated her TV with my magic, snapping the cord out of her wall and using it to block all of her darts as they left her mouth. Unfortunately, I landed pretty close to Palette, who quickly had to jump away, painting another shield as more poison darts made their way towards her. The more distance between the three of us the better, especially if all of her attention was spent on Palette and I so that Dreamdrop could make a surprise attack, which was especially difficult with Dokaeru’s back always next to a wall. This meant that in order to keep Dreamdrop safe, both Palette and I would have to consistently charge forward, putting ourselves in even greater danger.

“Palette, can you shield and attack at the same time?” I asked.

“It depends on how many of her attacks are focused on me. If you can help take some of ze pressure away, I can attack when she’s focused on hitting you.”

Great. I just had to make myself an easier target, especially when my magic was next to useless against her darts… but not against my spear! Without taking another moment to think, I shouted, “Dreamdrop, get down!” and threw my spear towards Dokaeru, which she dodged by jumping off of her chair, sticking to the ceiling and sending a barrage of darts in my direction. I had to once again leap for my life, but by this point, Palette had already drawn another shield and tossed it into the air, blocking most of the darts headed towards me. Then, with her attention taken away from my spear, I used my magic to pull it towards Dokaeru’s direction again and sent it flying. Dokaeru was now the one on the defensive, and all we had to do was keep it that way until she unknowingly fell into Dreamdrop’s reach.

“Leave. Me. ALONE!”

Then, to my surprise, rather than dodge my spear, she jumped towards it, grabbing it with her sticky hands and landing right in front of Palette, who was currently in the process of trying to paint another shield. Suddenly, both Palette and I froze, knowing that no matter how we tried to react, we wouldn’t have enough time to respond before Dokaeru stabbed her in the neck. Rather than doing just that, however, she just stood there with my spear hovering over Palette’s head, and even though we both wanted to use this as an opportunity to get Palette out of there, we knew that any sudden move could end up in a reaction we didn’t want.

As we stood there, time seemingly frozen, the only thing that moved was Dokaeru’s chest bouncing forwards and backwards as she openly sobbed, still holding my spear menacingly over Palette’s head. “What’s your deal, man?” she asked weakly with tears streaming down her face. “I just wanted to stay at home today. No magical girl stuff, no justice, no being a hero. Autumn Blaze told us that since you three work with Discord, you’d probably just be trying to cause problems in Canterlot, but I didn’t want to believe her!”

“You don’t understand!” I began, but Dokaeru looked straight at me with fury in her eyes as she shouted again.

“QUIET! Just… stop, dude…” Finally, Dokaeru lowered my spear, still at an angle to where she could slice Palette’s jugular vein in an instant, but using her other hand to catch the tears pouring out of her eyelids. “I trusted you! I didn’t think you would actually go this far…”

“Dokaeru, please! Let Trixie explain!”

Suddenly, Dokaeru lifted my spear again, pointing it directly at my face, making me inadvertently step back before she made any hasty moves. “No! I’m fucking done! I’m gonna take out the artistic chick first, then I’m coming after you, you hear me? This is what you get for putting me and my family in danger! This is what you get for trying to sneak up on a girl while she’s trying to play video games in peace! And if you even think of escaping, I’ll get the rest of Everfree City to come looking for you, and we won’t stop until we’ve finished you three once and for--”

Then, without warning, her eyes went into the back of her head, and dropping the spear to the floor beside Palette, she lost her balance and collapsed onto the ground, motionless. She had finally put herself in a position where her back wasn’t against a wall, which gave Dreamdrop the perfect opportunity to sneak up behind her and use her magic to put her to sleep. We only had five minutes to finish her off before she woke up again, but from where we stood, it looked like we had actually managed to win. We were able to beat Dokaeru without any casualties.

“Lilypad! Can we come in?” a voice shouted from behind the door again. “C’mon! You promised you’d let us play your game!”

Dreamdrop quickly looked back at Palette and I, searching for an answer on what to do next, but when I turned to Palette, she had the same look on her face as well. It was obvious that I would have to be the one to take care of Dokaeru, and if I didn’t act fast, she would either wake up or her brothers would find some way into her room. The last thing I wanted was for them to see what was about to happen next.

Finally, I used my magic to lift my spear back into my hands, and raising it up over her head, I swung at an arc across her neck, severing her head from her shoulders and making it fall to the floor. I was secretly praying that I had somehow messed up and that what I had attacked was an illusion or a dummy, but in the next moment, her magical outfit sparkled until it disappeared, revealing her true form as blood began to pool out onto her carpet. Dreamdrop quickly covered her face at the sight while Palette looked away with a disgusted look on her face, but even though we were all repulsed by our own actions, unfortunately, our job was not done yet.

“Great und Powerful Trixie. It is time.”

Looking over at Palette, I quickly understood what she was saying and nodded my head. Then, taking out my magical phone, I exclaimed, “Appear, o spirit of chaos! Discord!”

In his usual manner, the room began to darken as fog covered the floor of the room and a shadow of a snake-like creature made its way through the gas. Finally, with a roar of laughter, the draconequus whom I had summoned stretched his eagle claw and lion paw, once again filling my heart with dread, an effect that I experienced seemingly every time I summoned him.

“Good afternoon, ladies!” he said with glee. “Goodness gracious! This is the first time I’ve seen all three of you together since I first announced that little game of ours four years ago! Isn’t this nostalgic?”

“Discord.” The way Palette spoke to him was more of a command than anything else. She was the only one looking Discord in the eye, while Dreamdrop and I were trying not to look at Lilypad’s body, the blood flowing out of her neck or anyone’s eyes. “We had a deal, yes?”

“Too right you are, Palette, and would you look at that! Her spirit is still in one piece, which means I should have no problem delivering it into whomever you choose. I’m guessing that the three of you came to a unanimous conclusion on who you would like me to revive?”

“My mother.” As I spoke, I began to shake, still not looking into Discord’s eyes as I tried to avoid looking at the body by my feet while a wave of guilt began to wash over me anew. I had just killed an innocent girl so that I could selfishly bring back someone to life that I valued more than her, and even though I could justify it by saying that she would have killed us later down the road, I knew that this would be another regret that I would carry with me for the rest of my life. “Bring back my mother, Discord!”

“Your wish is my command, o Great and Powerful Trixie. In thirty seconds, your mother will be revived and waking up in her bed in Manehattan, completely unaware that she was ever killed. All memories of those associated with her will be altered so that she can continue her life exactly where she left off. Is everyone in accordance?”

I looked back up to Palette and Dreamdrop to make sure that everyone agreed to the terms, and with the three of us nodding our heads, Discord smiled maniacally and snapped his fingers. Then, in the next instant, he was gone without a trace, leaving the three of us once again alone in Lilypad’s room over a body that would never again be reunited with its spirit.

Before I could even speak, though, Dreamdrop put her hand on my shoulder and quietly said, “Go to her.”

“Yes,” Palette agreed. “We should all go. This is ze last place I want to be when her family discovers her.”

Nodding my head, I said, “Yeah… You’re right. I’ll be back tonight.”

Then, without saying another word, the three of us jumped out of her window, trying not to look back at Lilypad’s body, especially if her brothers were to walk in right as soon as we left. Palette and Dreamdrop both headed towards their respective homes, but I had a train to catch. In just a few hours, I would once again be reunited with my mother, even if only for a few moments before I came back to Canterlot. I wished that I could have run away to Manehattan and stay there forever, but the girls were counting on me now more than ever, especially now that all of Everfree City was probably gunning for us already. I had to make this trip short, but I would make it worth it.

I hadn’t been on that doorstep in four years. The last time I walked through that door, I had experienced my first real day as a magical girl, watching a drug lord shoot his brains out after Paradox, Dreamdrop and I had tried to save him from his own men. I almost didn’t want to knock, as if I were afraid that I had somehow traveled back to the past and any alteration I made would affect the future, but shaking my head, I raised my fist and gently, steadily, knocked on the front door.

*Creeeeeak*

My heart stopped. Was this really happening? Was this actually her?

“Who is it? Do you have any idea what time it--”

Then, for the next several seconds, there was silence as the two of us looked each other in the eyes and tried to make words come out of our mouths.

“...H-hi, mom.”

Standing there at the doorstep was a woman I hadn’t seen alive since the day I left for Canterlot, her shoulders shaking as tears began to fall down her face. Finally, as she lifted her hands over her mouth, the floodgates began to open up, and just like that, the two of us were embracing each other, holding each other as tight as we possibly could. This was the first time I could ever recall experiencing my mother truly giving me a hug, but the way she held me felt like she had hugged me every single day throughout my entire childhood.

“I love you, mom,” I said weakly as tears began to flow down my own cheeks as well. “I love you so much!”

Finally, pulling herself off of me so that she could look back into my eyes with a smile on her face, she said, “I love you too, Trixie. I love you too.”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay long, but this whole experience was worth every moment. I knew that if I ended up staying even one day longer, she would fall back into her old habits of using me as her own personal punching bag, which honestly at this point wouldn’t even bother me anymore. If I didn’t have to protect Canterlot from Autumn Blaze’s magical girls, I would have stayed there forever, but at least for the time being, I could hold my mom like everything was going to be OK. Tonight, I would get to be happy, but the next day, it would be back to work.

Fleur de Lis… You’re next.

Chapter 9

I couldn’t bare to let my mother know that I would have to leave her again, possibly never to come home, so like before, I wrote her a note before leaving to go be a magical girl. Summer Breeze was reason enough for me to keep myself alive, but after having lost my mother, I knew that if we ended up winning in this fight between Autumn Blaze and Discord, I would need to return home to my mom once this was all over. It wasn’t like Summer Breeze didn’t have ties with Manehattan anyway, and as an added bonus, we would get to be reunited with all the girls from Platinum City again. It would be like returning to the life we wanted before Discord’s game ruined our lives forever, at least, so long as he didn’t make us do it again once everyone came back to life.

I left on a train to Canterlot at five o’clock in the morning. I would be missing the first half of school by the time I finally arrived, but the main reason I was even going in the first place was to talk to Photo Finish about our next plan of attack. The girls from Everfree City shouldn’t have known that the two of us were students at Canterlot High School just yet, supposing that Divinity hadn’t spilled all of our personal information, so I didn’t have to worry too much about an attack on the school before I could get there. Even with that being said, though, I knew how resourceful magical girls could be, and I also knew that it would only be a matter of time before their attack on CHS began.

Unfortunately, seeing as how Summer Breeze was a contributing member of society, she would be at her job by the time I arrived back at the station, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to go over any plans with her until after school. In the meantime, however, I would have to go through the list of girls that could potentially be our next target, so long as nobody got to us first and forced us to battle without a strategy.

The remaining girls were Divinity, La Proxy, Catastrophe, Sun Shadow, X Genesis Volume 9, Sonic Boom, Lucky Star and Trickster. The only girl who was definitively off the table was Divinity, and if she was really as close to us as she made herself out to be, there was a chance that we would be able to go through the hunt without even having to kill her. After doing the math in my head, I realized that even if we didn’t kill Divinity, we would be able to bring back every girl from Platinum City so long as we didn’t experience any casualties, which, realistically, was asking a lot. Of course, if Palette, Dreamdrop or I died on the way to making that happen, I wouldn’t feel bad resurrecting one of us over Marrow, but the goal was to experience zero casualties.

The real question now, though, was which magical we should target next, a question best suited for…

“Photo Finish!”

“Scheisse!” Photo Finish exclaimed, jumping back in her seat and putting her hand on her chest to catch her breath. “Why must you alvays sneak up on me, Mädchen?”

Sitting down across from her at our usual table, I asked, “Have you thought of what our next plan of attack should be?”

Photo Finish groaned, combing her hands through her bangs as she slumped over the lunch table. “How can I think about zat ven I can’t get ze image of zat poor girl out of mein head?” Again, Photo Finish groaned, this time dropping her head all the way into the tabletop, creating a loud thunk as her forehead collided with the wood.

Of course she would be acting this way. She had only ever seen one girl die, and it freaked her out so much that she left the country for four years. It also didn’t make it any easier now that both girls she had seen die in her life were by my hands, which would probably continue to happen barring some kind of turn of events where either Palette or Dreamdrop got their hands dirty. Truth be told, I wasn’t exactly sure whether or not I should keep Palette around, but even though she was one of the more skittish magical girls around blood, I needed numbers backing me up now more than ever. The amount of magical girls we had to go up against would diminish over time, but this was the moment when we were not only at our most vulnerable, but also when we were battling the most amount of girls who would be coming at us at once.

“Photo Finish, we need to come up with a strategy. Our lives are at stake here, and it’s only a matter of time before everyone else’s lives are at stake too.”

The fashionista however, turning her head sideways on the cold, wooden table, shrugged her shoulders, lacking any of the energy I needed her to have so that the two of us could make preparations. “I honestly have no clue, Trixie… I’m just not in ze right state of mind, as it seems…”

“Listen to Trixie,” I said with more urgency, grabbing onto her hands and causing her to finally look me in the eyes. “Last night, Trixie was reunited with her mother. Don’t you wanted to be reunited with Night Seam and Mind Games?”

With a groan, Photo Finish finally lifted her head into her hands and mumbled, “Yeeeees.” She was obviously still in no mood to think about killing anyone else, but at least now she was putting her future in front of how she was feeling. “Did you have any ideas at all?”

“Let’s do what we did last time.” As I spoke, I pulled out the list of the remaining magical girls, trying to ignore the large red X crossing out Dokaeru’s name and face. “OK, first on the list is Divinity.”

“Neeeext.”

“OK. Second is La Proxy.”

“She can create alternate dimensions, yes? How vould you consider we go about battling her?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I honestly have no idea, and if we make the wrong decision with her now, she would probably be able to summon us to a dimension where the other girls would be able to kill us on the spot.”

“Zen we should probably move onto whoever is next.”

As I scrolled to the next name, I began to worry a little bit. We would have to confront La Proxy at some point, even if we didn’t want to fight Divinity, and if we couldn’t find someone to target next, would there be any way of getting out of the situation we had put ourselves in? Shaking my head, I pulled myself out of my funk and went to the next name I saw on the list.

“How about Lucky Star?”

“Hmmm…” Photo Finish seemed to stare in contemplation, although it was difficult to tell with her giant sunglasses shielding her face. “Zat one is interesting. If I am not mistaken, her power is luck manipulation, which shouldn’t be too difficult if we are careful.”

“Basically, think of everything going wrong for us and everything going right for her. If we manage to create a big enough advantage, no matter how lucky she gets, we’ll still be able to win. All we need to do is come up with a plan where she won’t physically be able to get any luckier than us.”

“Zat seems tricky, but she is definitely an option.”

“Speaking of tricky,” I continued, scrolling down to the next name, “we probably wouldn’t have too much trouble with Trickster. You still have your orb that Discord gave you, right?”

“Of course! With zose orbs, she would have no magical control over either of us! Keep going. I want to make sure we’re making ze best decision possible.”

“Right! Next is… Sun Shadow and Catastrophe.”

“Too difficult for ze three of us right now. We need to come up wiz a way to separate zem first.”

“Trixie agrees. Another name on the list is Sonic Boom. How do you feel about her?”

“She can manipulate sounds, correct? I think zat so long as Dreamdrop is not present, she should be no problem to handle. You did manage to kill Mind Games with no problem, after all, and I vould argue zat she had a much stronger power.”

Hearing the name of another magical girl that I had killed made me suddenly sick to my stomach, and it didn’t help that Photo Finish was still obviously upset about it. Shaking my head, though, I continued, “The next name here is Genny, and she’s probably a hit or miss.”

“How so?”

“If we manage to find her in her normal form, we can sneak up on her and kill her before she’s able to transform, but if we’re too late, we’re as good as gone.”

“But if we wait too long, zen she probably vill not leave her magical girl form until after we’re dead.”

“So what do you think? Who on that list makes the most sense to you?”

Photo Finish then quickly pulled a paper and pencil from her backpack and began writing down the names of the girls as well as their powers, immediately crossing out Divinty and La Proxy. “I think zat we should hold off on Catastrophe and Sun Shadow for now as vell, seeing as how we can’t handle zem both at ze same time.” As I nodded my head, Photo Finish crossed out their names as well, leaving only four names left. “I’m also going to remove Lucky Star, just because I think zat zere are other girls who vould be easier to eliminate.”

“Good thinking.”

Crossing out the fifth name on the list, that just left Sonic Boom, X Gensis Volume 9, and Trickster. “Out of zese three, I vould prefer we target Trickster, X Genesis and Sonic Boom in zat order.”

“Trixie has no problem with that, although she does wonder why that specific order.”

“Simple, Mädchen. It is because Trickster has absolutely no power over us so long as we have our orbs, so she vould be without a doubt ze easiest girl to eliminate. I also want to target her sooner zan later, just in case anything happens to us where we lose our orbs.” I nodded in agreement, finding no flaws in her logic. “Next, I propose we attack X Genesis Volume 9 early on, because if we wait, she vill no doubt stay in her magical girl form until after she attacks CHS, and by zat point, there vill be nozing we can do to stop her.”

“And Sonic Boom seems like the next best option unless we can figure out a plan for either the sisters, Lucky Star or La Proxy.”

“Or Divinity, but I do not see zat happening.”

With another wave of confidence, I looked up at Photo Finish and smiled as the muscles in my gut gradually began to loosen to the point where I didn’t feel like throwing up anymore. As scary as the girls seemed when I first met them (and there were still a few that scared me), I finally felt like they wouldn’t be impossible to beat. I would definitely have to fight them one at a time until we narrowed it down to one or two, depending on how badly Autumn Blaze’s girls wanted to fight us and how badly I wanted to resurrect Lulu Lemon, but the fact that I knew that getting that far would be feasible filled my heart with peace.

“Trixie feels so relieved,” I said, sighing with pleasure as I rested my head down on my arms, folded on top of the lunch table.

“Do not forget our agreement. Night Seam is next, followed by Mind Games.”

“I know, I know! Trixie always stays true to her word. Besides…” I was no longer looking back at Photo Finish as my mind began to pull me away into my childhood memories… Memories of Fluer, Lulu and I when we were actually best friends. “...I’ve wanted to bring Night Seam back since the night she died.”

“Trixie hates math,” I said, dropping my head onto my desk. “When can Trixie be done with equations forever?”

“Uhh, Trixie? Y’all know we’re workin’ on a history assignment, right?”

As much as my magical girl duties had continued to wear on me, I still had an obligation to my studies, which I honestly would have blown off if it didn’t mean blowing off another student in the process. I had always hated group projects, not only because they put you and another classmate in the awkward situation of dividing work between the two of you, but also because it meant that if one of you screwed up, you would both be in trouble. Thus, while Applejack had opened a book on the history of Equestria over the past 200 years, I had opened a history book, a math book, and several handouts from all my other classes, doing my best to balance my workload while still being a good partner. Needless to say, it wasn’t working as well as I’d hoped.

“Right,” I said, staring at my math homework while doing my best to multitask. “The lunar eclipse from nine years ago, also known as ‘Nightmare Moon’, was a scare in Equestrian history where the moon almost entered a path that would have permanently blocked out the sun, leaving us with never-ending night. Seriously, how do you graph a z-axis on a 2-dimension sheet of paper? Is Trixie just supposed to guess where the points intersect?”

“Ya know hwat?” Applejack said, rising from her seat and closing her notebook. “I think I’m gonna turn in early tonight. You look like you’ve got other things to worry ‘bout right now.”

“Hmm? Oh, sure. Good night, Applejack.”

Admittedly, I was only paying enough attention to give a plausible response, not even thinking about what was really going on around me, but right as soon as I was getting the hang of my assignment, I felt a low buzz in my pocket. Pulling out my phone, I saw one new message from Summer Breeze, the only thing that could have brought a smile to my face with all that had been going on lately.

“You about ready for dinner? I’m making steak and french fries! Plus, if you get home quick enough, we might be able to catch the Later Tonight Show. ;) Love you!”

Aaaaand suddenly I didn’t care about math anymore. I was a master at procrastinating anyway, typically seen doing my homework during the period right before the assignment was due. With far more energy than I had during my group project meeting, I packed all my things back into my backpack and raced out the door, being met with the familiar chilly winds of the Canterlot evening.

I was just about to call Summer Breeze and let her know I was on my way, though, when out of nowhere, someone called out, “Psst! Trixie!” and made me turn my head around in every direction. It was night time at Canterlot High School, which meant that basically anyone who had a life outside of school wouldn’t be there, but I recognized the voice from one of my classmates. I just couldn’t pin down exactly who.

“Trixie! It’s Pinkie Pie! Come over here quick!”

Again, I looked all around me, searching for the origin of the sound, but Pinkie was easily the most unpredictable girl I had ever met. Just to make sure, I even double checked the tree branches, seeing as how getting stuck in a tree was something that I could legitimately see happening to her. Still, though, I continued to look around and couldn’t find anyone.

“Pinkie Pie, where are you?” I called out, still moving my head around in a circle. “What do you need?”

“I’m behind the school! I fell into the pool and got all wet, but when I left my clothes out to dry, I forgot to grab a towel. Can you go into the pool shack and grab one for me? I’m suuuuper naked.”

I was about to poke my head around the corner to see her, but if she was in the nude, I didn’t know whether I’d be able to unsee the image ever again. “Pinkie Pie, aren’t you freezing?”

“Yes! I’m c-c-c-c-cold! Could you hurry pleeeeease?”

I shook my head in pity, briskly jogging to the back area of the school where the pool and its adjacent supply closet were located. “OK. Trixie is on her way. Just stay right there and don’t freeze to death!”

“Huuuurrryyyyy!”

As I reached the pool deck, I noticed that half of the surface of the water had turned into ice crystals at this point, and if Pinkie Pie had fallen into this, it was a miracle that she was even still alive. As I looked around, however, I didn’t see any of the clothes that she normally wore, but I quickly turned my attention towards the pool shack, supposing that I would find a pair of wet clothes eventually. For all I knew, Pinkie Pie had them with her, which meant that every moment I wasted overthinking things was another moment she came closer to experiencing hypothermia.

Finally, I made my way inside the pool shack, opening up the dark room with only the moonlight to guide me through the mountain of disregarded contents. Rainbow Dash was the captain of the swim team, so it didn’t surprise me that she had left the pool shack a total mess during the offseason, but even so, finding a towel in here was going to be a nightma--

*SLAM!*

I jumped in my spot, seeing the light from the doorway fade to black. Had someone accidentally closed the door thinking that no one was inside? Was I going to be there all night? No, there was no way that anyone besides Pinkie and myself were still on campus, except maybe Applejack, but even she would have seen me lurking around inside. Was it the wind? It was so hard to see anything with the only lightsource being the small window on the back wall of the pool shack. I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to make it back to the door without stumbling and knocking something on top of me.

Just then, though, I saw the faint glimpse of a shadow moving towards me, and without a second thought, I transformed myself into a magical girl, not caring whether or not anyone saw me at this point. Then, summoning my spear, I sliced the air in front of me… and was immediately blocked by another weapon.

My body was now shaking. Was I being attacked? Who found me? Did one of Autumn Blaze’s magical girls go to my school?! Did somebody know who I was?!

“Who are you?!” I shouted, trying to overpower the person in front of me.

“Go to Hell, traitor!”

My eyes went wide. That was Pinkie Pie’s voice! I had to have been imagining things, but there was no doubt that the voice that had just spoken to me was the same voice that lured me into the pool shack in the first place. “Pinkie Pie? Is that you?!”

“Are you seriously that dumb?” Suddenly, the timbre of the girl’s voice changed to something different, but again, something totally familiar to my ears. “Or kin y’all really not tell who I am by now?”

“Applejack? Wait… No!”

Then, it hit me. I knew exactly who this was, and finally, I heard her speak with her real voice.

“I’m going to send you to Hell where you belong, Trixie! This is what you get for picking a fight with Everfree City!”

Sonic Boom. The girl who could manipulate sounds to whatever she wanted. I had been so busy worrying about planning my next attack that I had completely disregarded the idea of a sneak attack, and all I could do now was worry about the other girls from not only Platinum City, but also Canterlot High School.

“Where’s Pinkie Pie?! If you even so much as laid a finger on her--”

“Oh, give it up! I’m not a murderer like you are!”

In that moment, she had managed to pull herself away from my attack, sinking again into the darkness and sending the sounds of her footsteps reverberating all across the room, leaving me with no clue as to where she was anymore. Doing the only thing I could think of, I used my magic to levitate everything in the room, circling items all around me both as a shield and a way for me to pick out Sonic Boom’s location.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked, still keeping my eyes peeled for where she might be. “Are you a student here?”

Sonic Boom laughed, a sound which again bounced off the walls, coming from all directions. “You seem to know so much about us already, Trixie. What’s the matter? Did you not do your homework?”

She was right. I had double-checked all the girls to make sure that none of them went to CHS, but if she wasn’t a student here, how did she know where to find me? Did she know that Photo Finish was Palette, and for that matter, did she know anything else about me? What about Summer Breeze? I couldn’t exactly ask if she knew the answers to any of those questions, though, since if I lost this battle, I would only be tipping her off on where to strike next.

Suddenly, however, I felt one of the boxes I was levitating getting torn in half a few feet behind me, and with all my magic now concentrated towards a single spot, I flung everything in the pool shack towards the area she was in. The problem now, though, was that when everything landed, I didn’t feel anything hit her. Then, immediately figuring out what was going on, I dove to the other side of the room, seeing a tomahawk soar into the space where I had just been, just barely illuminated by the light coming in from the outside. It had been another trap! She was already thinking two steps ahead, and if I didn’t come up with a good strategy in the next couple of seconds, there would be a good chance that I wouldn’t make it out alive.

Quickly, though, realizing that she could probably hear even the tiniest breath, I pinched my nose, praying that I would be able to find her before my lungs gave out, but based off of how fast my heart was beating, that would probably only give me about ten seconds. I then surveyed the area as closely as I could, paying extra attention to the area where the tomahawk had landed, but again, she was smart enough to not put herself in a situation that would give away her location. In a battle where making yourself invisible was the key advantage, I was hilariously outmatched, and with my lungs beginning to collapse in on themselves, I let go of my nose and gasped for air.

“There you are!”

Again, I held up my spear in desperation, hoping that I could at least block her attack, and like before, I somehow got miraculously lucky and managed to keep myself alive against another blow from her weapon. She was beginning to overpower me now, though, which left me with very little time left to get as many questions answered as I possibly could have.

“How did you know Trixie’s identity?!”

“You really think I’m gonna answer that?! You killed my friend! For what?! Because the god of chaos told you to?!”

“You don’t understand!”

“Of course I don’t understand! She did nothing to you, and you murdered her!”

“Trixie was just trying to protect her friends!”

“LIAR!!”

Suddenly, I felt my spear getting pushed back even more, and if I didn’t act within the next few moments, she was going to have a clear shot at my throat once my arms gave out. In desperation, I looked around the room for something that could save me, debating with myself whether taking my hand off of my spear to levitate something over would be a smart move. If I could knock her out with a heavy object, I would be able to finish it then and there, but so far, all I had seen were kickboards, swimsuits, towels and… the one thing that would save my life.

With the little moonlight that I had, I saw the handle of the tomahawk that had been thrown at me the same time that I had jumped for cover. She must have had two tomahawks and given up using the other so that she wouldn’t give away her location! That would also explain how she was able to hit an object behind me without being in the same spot where I had tried attacking her! All I needed to do now was use my magic to pull it over, but with both of my hands trying desperately to hold back the weapon in hers, I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to make it in time.

“Say, Trixie. Have you ever heard of Krakatoa?”

“Stop trying to distract me!” I shouted. This was good, though. In the couple of seconds that she had spoken, I had managed to just barely gain some distance between her and her tomahawk, and if I continued to get her monologuing, I would have enough time for the final attack.

“They say that the sound of the eruption was so powerful that it ruptured people’s eardrums from eight thousand kilometers away, even killing people on the spot, just from the sheer magnitude of how loud it was. Can you imagine a sound like that all within the density of a room like this?”

“No… No! Sonic Boom! Please, let Trixie explain!”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses, Trixie! My friend is dead because of you, and as soon as I find out where your little friend Palette is hiding, I’m coming after her next.”

“You don’t have to do this!”

“You’re right. I don’t have to do this. I’m doing it because I WANT TO!”

I was now officially out of time. Closing my eyes, I let go of my spear with one hand, using my magic to call upon the tomahawk in the corner of the room, and to my surprise, Sonic Boom had released the pressure from her weapon as well. We were both getting our magic ready, but I had distance to travel whereas she could literally take me out at the speed of sound. I was now using every single fiber of my being to pull the weapon over as fast as I could, but I could already hear a sound beginning to grow in intensity, immediately causing me pain in my eardrums. Then the pain turned to a deafening blast, causing me to scream out in the most agony my ears had ever experienced.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!”

“That’s right! Scream! This is the power of Kraka--”

*Splat!*

Suddenly, the sound had disappeared entirely, but the pain from the eruption was still ringing in my ears, causing my whole body to tremble and shudder. Finally, as I shakily moved my eyes up to Sonic Boom’s, I saw a look of terror in her eyes with what little light I had, seeing her beginning to choke until blood began pouring out of her mouth, covering her clothes with a sea of red. Then, in the next moment, she fell to her knees and collapsed onto the floor in front of me, revealing a tomahawk jetting out from her neck as blood pooled around the floor beneath us. As her body convulsed on the ground, I held my knees up to my chest, watching in horror as her heart beat through her body until finally, she fell limp against the concrete with her magical girl form disintegrating.

Sonic Boom had turned back into the girl that I had seen from her picture, a woman in her early twenties by the name of Sound Cloud, who was trying to make it in Canterlot as a musician. Suddenly, her entire biography flashed through my mind. She had moved to Canterlot from Fillydelphia in an attempt to make something of herself, but she lived with her only grandfather in town who was now too old to take care of himself. She was dating a boy that she had met two months ago, and for the first time in her life, she was beginning to feel like she was falling in love with someone. Yet here she was, lifeless on the floor with blood covering my feet, and when I lifted my trembling hands, I saw more red liquid trailing down my palms, dripping onto my skirt and cape.

“Ah… Ah…” My eyes were bouncing back and forth in their sockets, bulging from the sight of someone else’s life literally dripping onto my clothes. I tried to keep it in for as long as I could, but as if it were based on reflex alone, I was no longer able to hold my screams inside my body any longer.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Hey, you guys! I think it was coming from over here!”

I needed to get out right now. Someone was going to catch me literally red-handed, standing above a girl’s dead body, but as hard as I tried to move, all I could do was tremble on the ground, no longer able to even sit up properly. I couldn’t hear as well as before, but I knew that there were people outside the pool shack, no doubt on their way to find out what all the commotion was coming from inside. With my neck rattling on my shoulders, I turned my gaze over to the window in the corner where the shadow of a student peered over to see inside. Fortunately, I was completely covered by the shadows inside the shack, but Sound Cloud’s feet were now stretched into the light from the outside, along with a puddle of blood stretching beyond her body.

“Hey! There’s somebody in there! Get the door open! Quick!”

I needed to escape. If they caught me, even in my magical girl state, I didn’t know whether I would be able to get away. At the same token, however, there was only one place that I could physically get to without being seen, the last place that I ever wanted to be, but once I saw the door to the pool shack begin to open up, I knew that I really had no other options. Grabbing hold of my teleport gem with all my might, I closed my eyes and waited until I was somewhere else.

Then, everything was different. The air was cleaner, the atmosphere was brighter, and rather than sitting on the hard floor in the corner of a pool shack, I was sitting on a dirt road at the gate of a completely new world.

“You know, you have some nerve coming here.”

I jumped and hurriedly rose to my feet, immediately making eye contact with a creature not native to my world. She had the body of a pony with a lion’s mane and a chitinous jagged horn prodding from her forehead, only this time, her entire color scheme had shifted to black and blue with dark flames searing on her body and tail.

“You’re lucky I can’t kill you after what you did to Dokaeru,” she continued. That’s when I realized, though, that she only knew half of the story. She had no idea that just a few moments ago, I had killed another one of her magical girls, but once I lifted up my hands to look down at the bloody evidence, it appeared on her face as if the message had finally begun sinking in. “No… Who was it?! At least have the decency to tell me who else you’ve killed!”

“I… I…”

“ANSWER ME!”

“I can’t!”

Then, just like before, I grabbed hold of my teleport gem and transported myself back to Equestria, but this time, I was in a place that was different than where I had originally come from. Now I was right outside where Summer Breeze and I lived, allowing a wave of relief to wash over my mind. Quickly changing back into my original form, I rushed my way through the door, kicking my shoes off and running as fast as I could to the kitchen. Finally... finally… I could have something go my way.

Sitting at the dinner table was Summer Breeze with her chin in her hand and an empty plate in front of her, along with a plate decorated with steak and french fries just on the other side of the table. As her eyes darted towards mine, her face began to perk up, causing tears to stream down my cheeks with the floodgates showing no signs of stopping. “Trixie? What’s wrong?”

Then, like a child, I ran over to her as fast as I could, and as soon as she rose from where she was sitting, I wrapped my arms around her waist, digging my face into her apron as I cried my heart out. “I love you, Summer Breeze!” I exclaimed between my sobs. “I love you so much!”

“I love you too? Trixie, what’s going on?”

I wanted to tell her how worried I was about her, how worried I had been that I might have never gotten the chance to see her again, but the only thing that came out of my mouth were wails. All I could do was cry pathetically as she ran her fingers through my hair, doing her best to comfort me as I lost my composure completely. I had no idea whether or not either of us would ever be safe again, but at the same time, there was no way that I could ever go on living if anything had ever happened to Summer Breeze. I was so happy that she was alright, but I was so scared that something might happen to one of us without either of us having any control of the outcome. There were so many emotions going through my head, battling each other out for dominance to see which one was the strongest, leaving me to come up with answers that I just didn’t have.

And so, with my composure long gone at this point, I continued to cry, holding onto the one thing that mattered to me most and never letting go.

Chapter 10

About an hour after all the events had transpired, I had finally stopped shaking, at least on the outside. Summer Breeze had been able to calm me down to the point where I could actually breathe normally again, although my mind was still paranoid that if Sonic Boom knew who I was, then the other girls would know too. Plus, if they knew about who I was, it was only a matter of time before they found out where I lived and where I had come from, which would put both Summer Breeze and my mother at risk. This whole battle was coming full-swing much faster than I had originally anticipated, and I had no idea what the other girls knew or what they were planning to do next.

Trying to find some semblance of relaxation, I quickly made my way to the shower, taking my clothes off and immediately putting my head underneath the showerhead as soon as it had finished warming up. Again, tears began to roll down my face along with the hot water from the pipes, and the sound of the shower hitting the ground made it to where I could cry vocally without Summer Breeze hearing and getting worried all over again. With my back pressed against the shower wall, I slowly slid down to the floor, tucked my knees into my chest and bawled into my hands, losing any hope I had of getting through this hunt after all.

After a few moments of feeling sorry for myself, however, I began to hear a foreign sound, causing me to jump up where I stood as my heart tried beating out of my ribcage. Was it coming from outside the bathroom? Was someone hurting Summer Breeze?! No… the sound was coming from inside the bathroom. Someone was just outside my shower curtains, but… the sound didn’t seem like anyone was trying to get a surprise attack on me. It sounded like… singing?

I then quickly yanked on my shower curtain to see--who else--but the god of chaos, scrubbing himself with a loofa in a bathtub that he had manifested on the other side of the bathroom. “Discord!” I shouted, covering all but my face with my curtain. “Get out of here!”

As soon as Discord looked back in my direction, however, he made a feminine yelp, pulling a towel out of thin air and holding it up to his chest as if to hide his nakedness. “Have you no shame, Trixie? I’m bathing here!”

“Trixie was here first! Now get out!”

“Ugggghh. Why must you always be so hostile when I appear in your home without giving you any warning?” Then, with the snap of his fingers, his bathtub was gone, but he was still standing there, looking into my eyes with his hands on his hips. “Well? Don’t you even want to know why I’m here?”

“Trixie has one idea.”

“Oh, puh-leeeease! I’m an ancient deity made entirely of spare animal parts! It’s not like I get anything out of seeing you in your *ahem* current predicament. Besides, it’s not like I’m not consistently watching you from Platinum City anyway.”

My face was now burning red. “What?! D-Discord, what do you want?!”

“I just came by to tell you that you don’t have much time left before Sonic Boom’s spirit disappears forever. If you want me to put it in another body, I suggest you do it soon, or else you may have one less resurrection in your pocket.”

Shoot! He was right! I had been so concerned about myself and Summer Breeze that I had completely forgotten the promise I made to Photo Finish! I then immediately turned off the water and transformed back into my magical girl form, and fortunately, I didn’t end up getting my clothes wet in the process.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie would like to come with you for this one.”

“Oh? And just who might be the lucky recipient of this new soul?”

“Don’t play dumb, Discord!” Then, with a sigh, I looked down at my feet, trying to make the words come out, but the request I was going to make was especially difficult knowing that I was the one who caused this mess in the first place. “I want you to bring back Fleur de Lis, and if possible, I want you to bring her back with her powers as well.”

Discord’s smile widened, his eyes growing larger in fascination, making me feel like I was playing right into another one of his traps, but I couldn’t worry about something like this right now. Bringing her back was the top priority, no matter what repercussions it meant.

“And you would like me to bring you along?”

“Yes. Trixie wants to meet her in the place where she died. I don’t want any of her memories altered except the ones that will help her function in society, but Trixie still wants everyone who ever knew her to have their memories changed as if she had never died, aside from any magical girls, of course.”

Discord chuckled in a low, booming voice, causing my heart to sink again. “Whatever you say, Great and Powerful Trixie.”

Then, with the snap of his fingers, the world around me began to shift and blur, the colors of my surroundings gradually changing until they took shape again in the form of the Manehattan clocktower. It was one of the most painful memories I carried with me, a memory that kept me awake for the past four years being thrown back into my face, reminding me of all the horrible things I had done. It was dark tonight, just like the night she died, although it appeared as if the blood from our encounter had been washed away, either by the city or by Discord’s magic. As I looked around, however, I finally found the shape of a person wearing all black, coincidentally in the darkest shadows of the clocktower and showing the tiniest, faintest signs of movement.

“F-Fleur?” I said, hesitantly approaching the figure. I still couldn’t trust Discord enough to believe that he hadn’t led me into a trap, so with every step I took, I made sure to hold up my hands, ready to catch anything with my magic. Instead, though, as the blonde-haired girl wearing a dark black dress finally began to prop herself off the floor of the clocktower, she turned her shoulders just wide enough for me to finally get a glimpse of her beautiful face. “Fleur? Is that really you?”

Rather than answer, however, she sat herself up and looked down at her hands, then all over her body until she had found enough energy to examine the entire clocktower before looking me back in the eyes. “I’m… alive?” she asked, making a tear fall down my face.

“Yeah,” I said, holding out my arms. “Welcome home, Night Seam.”

Unfortunately for me, however, Night Seam didn’t seem to want my hug as much as I did. Instead, she took several steps back, looking all around her for someone else hiding in the shadows, but upon finding no one, she hesitantly turned her attention back to me and asked, “What’s going on? Are we still in the game? What happened to Dreamdrop? How did I survive?”

“Sssshhhh, sshh sshh ssshhhhhh!” I whispered, keeping my hands up as if to motion her to calm down. “The game is over. You’re safe now.”

“I…” Night Seam began, holding her head in her hand as if she were experiencing a massive migraine after being dead for so long. “I don’t understand. Trixie, what happened to me?”

“Trixie brought you back to life. Dreamdrop and Palette are both safe. You have nothing to worry about anymore.”

It was obvious that I was going to have to explain things in a little more detail to her, seeing as how even after my explanation, she still seemed confused about everything that had been going on. So, I told her about everything that had happened in the time she had been gone, about the three remaining magical girls moving to Canterlot, the magical girl hunt, and all of Everfree City now coming after us. I thought she would be thrilled to be alive again, thrilled to be going back to her family and seeing her friends at school again, but the more I spoke, the more her signature agitated expression returned to her face.

“Let me get this straight,” she began, using a tone that was far less friendly than I had anticipated. “There’s another parallel dimension, similar to Platinum City that has its own magical girls as well as its own magical guardian?”

“Right.”

“And you’re trying to hunt them all down, both to resurrect the girls who died playing the game as well as to save your classmates at school?”

“Yeah.”

“Which just happens to be in Canterlot.”

“Uhh… Night Seam? You seem a lot less happy about this than I imagined.”

Then, out of nowhere, Night Seam’s face changed from aggravated to total fury, throwing a direct punch to my face, sending my body flying until I collided with the other side of the clocktower. “You idiot! Do you realize what you’ve done?!”

“What the hell was that for?!” I shouted, pulling out my spear in self-defense, but no sooner had I done so than she pulled out her throwing knives once again, making me fear that I was just going to have to kill her all over again.

“You completely abandoned your magical girl duties, and because of you, now an entire school is in danger!”

“It isn’t like that, Night Seam!”

“How can you say that?! The whole reason Lulu and I became magical girls in the first place was to protect the people in Manehattan so they wouldn’t have to die like Le Blanc did! I thought that when I died, I would be leaving this city in the hands of the strongest magical girl in Platinum City, but you turned your back on them! What was the point in even being a magical girl if you weren’t planning on helping anyone but yourself?!”

“I couldn’t stay here anymore!”

“You should have never become a magical girl!”

Then, with her fingertips touching the ground, the clocktower turned black once again, causing my worst fears to become a reality. My choices were to either let myself be killed by her hand, basically making everyone that I cared about easy targets for the girls of Everfree City, or reenact the battle that caused my sanity to snap four years ago. I wished that there was someone who would be able to save me, making it to where I wouldn’t have to make that decision, but even if someone did come, there was no longer talking any sense into Night Seam. Once again, this was a battle to the death between magical girls, and I hadn’t even fully recovered from the one I had been through one fucking hour ago, which was so far starting out in the exact same way the last one did.

Closing my eyes, I swiped my spear forward, fortunately knocking down a series of blades headed in my direction, although I knew that she could easily just recall them with her magic. “I’m not going to fight you, Night Seam!”

“Good! That just makes this whole thing that much easier!”

Again, I swiped at the air, feeling the magic coming towards me and blocking another barrage of attacks, striking them to the floor without even using my eyes. If I could just pick up on the magic around me before it got too close, her power would be useless, but if she tried a sneak attack on me without using any magic, I would be the one dead this time. It also didn’t help that if I were to die, Night Seam probably wouldn’t be as kind about bringing me back to life.

I knew that she could see me closing my eyes, making myself an easy target probably more so than if I had tried searching for her in the immense darkness encapsulating the clocktower. The part that worried me most, though, was that I really didn’t have a plan of attack. The only thing that I could think of was to wait for her to get tired or have some kind of personal revelation that would somehow change her mind about me. Both ideas, though, were pretty terrible, and just a few moments later, I felt a slight breeze behind my neck, hearing the footsteps of someone coming up behind me, causing me to squeeze my eyes shut even tighter.

“This is what you get for turning your back on Manehattan!”

“ENOUGH!”

Suddenly, I opened my eyes. That voice hadn’t come from me, nor had it come from Night Seam. As I turned my head towards the direction from where I heard it, I saw, to my absolute surprise, Dreamdrop, sending a harrowing punch across Night Seam’s face, launching her to the other side of the clocktower much like Night Seam had done to me.

“Dreamdrop?” I said quizzically. “What are you doing here? How did you know where to find me? When did you--”

Before I could even finish talking, however, Dreamdrop slapped me across the face, leaving a red handprint across my left cheek. “Don’t even start that with me!” she yelled. “Why is it that I always have to find out from Discord what’s going on with you? Why couldn’t you just say, ‘Oh, by the way, Summer, I’m going to Manehattan to revive Night Seam really quick. Did you wanna come to?’ Would that really have been so hard?!”

“To be fair, Trixie was naked at the time.”

Dreamdrop then somehow managed to raise one eyebrow while furrowing the other, shaking in frustration as she exclaimed, “What?! What does that even mean?!”

As I tried to come up with a good excuse to tell Dreamdrop, though, I quickly caught out of the corner of my eye Night Seam rising back up to her feet, causing me to stand on my guard again. Once Night Seam looked me back in the eye, however, just as she was about to get back up and continue the fight, a claw firmly rested on her shoulder, holding her back just momentarily enough for her to see who had stopped her.

“You know, Night Seam, as much as I love chaos, maybe you could refrain from killing the Great and Powerful Trixie for one night,” Discord said gently. “After all, she was the one who brought you back to life in the first place.”

Night Seam clicked her tongue. “Just by killing more magical girls.”

“I’ve just about had it with you!” Dreamdrop shouted, pushing me aside as she marched up to the girl in black. “In case you haven’t realized, Trixie already beat you once, and now that she’s here to give you a second chance, this is how you repay her?”

“How many people has she saved?” Night Seam asked, which made Dreamdrop so mad that a vein in her forehead began to bulge out of her skin. “From what she’s told me, she’s managed to kill six magical girls without saving one single life.”

“Excuse me?! She saved my life, you backstabbing bitch!”

“Whoa! Ladies! Ladies!” Before Dreamdrop got the chance to lunge towards Night Seam’s throat, Discord quickly intervened, physically putting a barrier between them with his lion paw and eagle claw. “Before you two start bickering about who’s right and who’s wrong, why don’t we talk this out a little bit more civilly? Do you think you can do that, Night Seam?”

“Tch. What is there to even talk about?”

“Well, since you’re so concerned about saving lives, does it even matter whether they come from Manehattan or Canterlot?”

Night Seam quickly glared at the draconequus. “I’m not letting you off the hook either! From the sounds of it, this whole attack on Canterlot High School was started just because you wanted to get back at some pony for taking one of your magical girls away from you. Also, when were you going to tell me that you had made a magical girl before Lulu?”

“Uh-oh! I feel my grip on Dreamdrop getting weaker! It would be a shame if she were to somehow get free and throw you off the tower.”

Finally, folding her arms, Night Seam stopped resisting, looking away with anger rather than face us any more than she had to. “So let me get this straight,” she said, still not making eye contact. “You want me to help in your hunt, right? That’s why you gave me my magical powers when you brought me back?”

“Oooooo!” Discord cooed in excitement. “I hadn’t even thought of that! Oh, but that’s right. You can’t because you have a duty to Manehattan and keeping the city safe and yada yada yada.”

“I’ll do it.”

All three of us blinked in confusion, suddenly surprised by not only Night Seam agreeing to actually help us, but also by how quickly her response came, as if it weren’t even a question. “I’m sorry,” Dreamdrop began, “but did you just say you’ll help us out in Canterlot?”

“If one life can be exchanged for another, that means we can bring back more girls to Manehattan, and so long as Dreamdrop is living in Canterlot where she won’t have access to Platinum City, we should be able to go back to life just as it used to be before the game. That is…” Then, finally looking me in the eyes, I could see an obvious double-meaning in what she was trying to say. “...unless either of you for any reason return to Manehattan, such as to be with family. Then we would just have to start the game all over again, only this time, we would know exactly who to target.”

Her threats towards Dreamdrop were beginning to piss me off, but before I could say anything, Dreamdrop intervened. “Canterlot is our home now, Night Seam, so once everyone else is brought back to life, you won’t have to deal with us ever again.”

The girl in black smiled, looking back into my eyes to see my expression, knowing full well that I couldn’t just outright say that when this was all over, I wanted to come back home and be with my mother. Unfortunately for me, however, they both had a point, making me realize that if we all survived to the end, I was going to have to choose between my mom and the love of my life. That, though, was a discussion for another time, especially with all that we had on our plates already.

“OK, Dreamdrop,” Night Seam continued. “It’s a deal. I’ll help you protect Canterlot High School, and you’ll stay away from Platinum City.”

“Fine!”

As Discord took a step back, Dreamdrop and Night Seam held out their arms and shook each other’s hand, finalizing a deal that I was still having mixed feelings about. Of course, Night Seam was one of the strongest, smartest magical girls I had ever met, and having her on the team just meant a higher chance of us all making it out of this alive. At the same time, though, knowing how nihilistic Night Seam was did nothing to put my heart at ease, especially since she had been willing to sacrifice even her best friend for the good of Manehattan, let alone how ruthless she was about Dreamdrop.

I looked back up into Dreamdrop’s eyes as if to ask her whether she really knew what she was doing, which she responded to with a genuine smile, the same smile she gave me any time she wanted to let me know that everything was going to be OK. Unfortunately for me, though, I really wasn’t sure whether or not everything would ever be OK again. I had to trust her, though. I had to trust both of them, and if more girls volunteered to help out in our cause like Night Seam did, there would only be one girl who could possibly ever stand in our way.

So long as Divinity didn’t intervene… We would win.

Chapter 12 Author's Note

WARNING!

This chapter includes some pretty graphic scenes inside. I've probably written more grotesque updates before, but while I was writing this chapter, there was legitimately one point where I started throwing up. I won't blame you if that makes you want to wait for the next chapter. Again, I'm probably overreacting and it's probably nothing, but I've never straight up vomited while writing a chapter update before.

Chapter 12

If I made any sudden moves, I was dead. If either of the girls beside me tried doing anything brash, it was more than likely that I would end up dead as well. In fact, the only way for any of us to make it out of there alive was to get some kind of lucky break, but unfortunately for the three of us, luck was in her total control.

“Let’s see who we have here,” Lucky Star said, squatting down to get a good look at the three of us. “Of course, we have the Great and Powerful Trixie here. If I heard correctly, you were the one who single-handedly murdered Sonic Boom. That’s quite impressive, but unfortunately not impressive enough to make it out of this one, it seems. Ah, is that Palette as well? It’s funny, really. When we invited you two into our home, we honestly believed that you would respond with gratitude, but it looks like all of us regret that decision now, don’t we?”

As Lucky Star continued to speak, I had to grit my teeth to keep myself from saying anything I would immediately regret, even though the way she was speaking to us was so condescending that I almost started a shouting match. She was monologuing, giving us the chance to make something happen, but with Palette’s and Night Seam’s powers too obvious, I was the only one who could try a sneak attack. The only problem was, I had no idea what I could do without getting caught, especially since it would probably end in an insta-kill for the three of us if I were to be discovered. Then again, our lives were already in danger, minutes--or possibly seconds--away from being slaughtered where we lay.

“Oh! I don’t think I’ve met you before,” she said, turning her attention towards Night Seam. “My name is Lucky Star, and you are…?”

“Night Seam. It’s a pleasure to officially meet you.”

“Ooooo, I think I like you. See, girls? Isn’t everything so much easier when you just speak politely with someone rather than sneaking up on them in order to kill them? Now, may I ask you what you’re doing here, exactly?”

Night Seam quickly gave me a glare, hinting that while the two of them were talking, it would be my job to create a diversion to get ourselves out of there. I then immediately started looking around the room, trying my best not to appear too conspicuous, just in case Lucky Star caught me and chopped my head off. While Night Seam began to speak, however, I finally took notice of a stereo on the other side of the room, still plugged into the wall socket despite my magic disorganizing the room.

“We’re here on Discord’s official business. He told us that Dokaeru was plotting to have us killed in secret, and now that she’s dead, it appears that everyone in Everfree City is trying to avenge her. We came here to snoop around and get information, just in case you tried to attack any of us like Sonic Boom did last night.”

“Hmm… I can definitely understand that logic, but why would any of us try and attack you? As far as I’m aware, the only one who would even know you exist is Divinity, but she’s told us that she refuses to intervene in magical girl fights. I’m guessing you’re from Platinum City then, am I correct?”

Night Seam glared at me again. She was doing a good job at ad libbing for the time being, but even someone as good as her would fall short eventually, especially seeing how many questions Lucky Star was throwing at her. In the meantime, though, I quickly tried my best to turn up the volume knob as much as I could, switching the tuning dial to the loudest radio station I could possibly think of.

“I am from Platinum City, yes. As far as I know, I was the third magical girl created by Discord, following Divinity and a young girl named Marrow, who was the one who introduced me to Discord in the first place.”

“Very interesting! And what might your power be?”

“I can change things black.”

Lucky Star waited awkwardly for the punchline, but when it never came, she shook her head in confusion, saying, “I beg your pardon?”

“I can turn anything I want black.”

“O-oh! My, that’s certainly a… erm… interesting power. Would you mind if I see it?”

Finally, with everything set, I used my magic to turn the stereo on, blasting the room with violent soundwaves and causing Lucky Star to reflexively turn her head backwards, which was all the time we needed to pull ourselves out of her furniture. Once I lifted the bookshelf and couch off of our backs, Night Seam immediately touched the bodies of Palette and I while stomping her foot on the floor, turning the two of us as well as everything surrounding us black. Once Lucky Star finally turned to face us again, however, we were already jumping away, blending ourselves in along with the furniture in her apartment. With an angry grunt, she snapped her fingers, causing the stereo to short circuit at the exact time she needed.

“She has a weakness!” Night Seam called out. “She can’t manipulate the luck of things she doesn’t know about! Keep your eyes on where she’s looking!”

“There you are!” Lucky Star shouted, snapping her fingers and causing Night Seam to fall facedown on the floor, undoing basically everything she had turned black. Then, with Night Seam on the floor, she turned her attention back towards the two of us, focusing on Palette first, who was busy trying to paint a shield in thin air. Unfortunately, though, with another snap of her fingers, Palette for the first time ran out of ink, causing her creation to fall down onto the floor in a sea of colors.

With the other two unable to fight, her eyes quickly descended onto me, and I really didn’t have anything to protect myself with other than my spear. Then, with a smile, she pulled out one of her cards and threw it towards my jugular vein. Just as I was about to block her attack with my spear however, my hand uncharacteristically lost its grip, sending my weapon flying to the other side of the room with the card now inches from my throat. I had run out of luck. It would only be another split second before my blood was spilling all over the floor…

*Slice!*

...or so I thought. As I opened my eyes, I noticed that the card had been pinned into the wall beside me by a throwing knife, and as I looked over Lucky Star’s shoulder, I saw Night Seam, holding her knives in her hand. “Why did you save me?!” I shouted. “You could have gone for Lucky Star!”

“Idiot! If you die, we’ll just have to revive you next, which means Mind Games would have to wait!”

“DON’T MENTION REVIVAL!”

By that time, though, it was already too late. I was now wondering whether Night Seam had inadvertently slipped out a key detail or if Lucky Star had used her magic to get Night Seam to reveal the secrets she knew she was hiding. Either way, she was now smiling from ear to ear, skipping over to Palette, who was trying desperately to get her magic working again, putting a playing card against her neck.

“It would really be a shame if I got lucky and gave Palette here a paper cut in the worst possible spot,” Lucky Star began, essentially holding Palette hostage. “Now, what’s this I hear about reviving somebody?”

Night Seam and I were debating whether or not we should say anything, but with Palette’s life on the line, the options were beginning to feel severely limited. Unfortunately for us, though, with Lucky Star’s hand glowing a bright yellow against Palette’s neck, our teammate opened up her mouth and started revealing all of our secrets.

“One of ze reasons we are trying to kill you is because it vill help us to bring our friend back to life. With every magical girl zat we eliminate, Discord vill resurrect a fallen magical girl from Platinum City. Now may I go, please? I really have no use being here, after all.”

“Well, lucky for you, I’m not going to kill you yet. I still have questions about these magical girls you’re trying to revive.”

“Yes, Frau Lucky Star. Anyzing you say.”

While Palette was busy spilling all of our confidential information, however, Night Seam sent me another glare, hinting that it was my turn to create another diversion. I quickly looked all around the room for anything that I could use to take her attention off of Palette, and to my surprise, there just happened to be a phone charger right in front of her foot. All I needed to do was get her to trip. Then, with her attention off of Palette, Night Seam would be able to use her knives to cut her down, but yet again, my plans didn’t work as well as I had hoped. Apparently, Lucky Star had seen me looking around the room, and even though she probably didn’t know what I was planning, with the snap of her fingers, my mind went blank, causing me a severe block any time I tried remembering what my plan was.

“How many magical girls are in Platinum City right now?”

“It depends on what you mean. Zere are four of us from Manehattan, but we are all living in Canterlot at ze moment.”

“And I’m guessing those would be the three of you along with that Dreamdrop girl from the other night?”

“Correct.”

It looked like Night Seam wanted to glare at me some more, but she kept her face forward, just to make sure Lucky Star didn’t catch her communicating with me. I didn’t know whether or not she knew what was going on with me, and for all I knew, Lucky Star had put the exact same curse on her, leaving us both with severe mental blocks any time we tried coming up with a decent strategy.

“And how many more magical girls need to be revived?”

“Six, which means we vould need to kill every girl except for Divinity in order to bring back every girl from Platinum City. We are currently trying to bring back a girl named Mind Games by killing you.”

“Oh, really? And how did she end up dying in the first place?”

Rather than speak, however, Palette lifted up her shaky hand, pointing her finger in my direction and making Lucky Star squint her eyes in confusion. She was starting to switch glances between Palette and myself, seemingly trying to figure out if she was lying before she focused all of her attention on me. This, however, was the exact chance we needed! She had taken her attention off of Palette completely, and upon summoning her throwing knives yet again, Night Seam quickly threw them all into Lucky Star’s neck before she realized what was going on.

Blood immediately started shooting out of her neck with each heartbeat, which was growing faster and faster from the sight of just how much blood she was spraying all over the room. Within seconds, almost everything in the area was colored red, leaving her trying to pull the knives out of her throat, creating an even larger spray of blood all over her apartment. Even the three of us were beginning to get covered in her bodily fluids as Lucky Star gripped at her neck, trying her best to stop the bleeding before losing oxygen. She appeared like she was trying to talk, maybe even scream, but instead, she opened and closed her mouth in vain, falling to the floor and convulsing while the remainder of her blood shot out of her body. She almost appeared like a fish out of water, flailing on the ground as her heartbeat attempted to regain its rhythm, but that image was quickly replaced once the red liquid began pouring out of her mouth and her movements gradually decreased, leaving a lifeless husk where the magical girl once was.

Finally, her body transformed back into Black Clover, lying in a puddle of her own blood, causing her tan skin to match the red color of her hair. Her eyes were in the back of her head with her mouth left wide open, further solidifying the disgusting appearance of her barren corpse. It hadn’t even been twenty-four fucking hours yet, but I still had to watch another girl die right in front of me, making me once again scream from the top of my lungs.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

“Palette! Get Trixie out of here!”

“NO!! LUCKY STAR! WE CAN BRING YOU BACK! DISCORD, PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T LET HER DIE!”

“Great und Powerful Trixie, we must move!” Palette said, trying to pull me away from Black Clover’s body. “It is only a matter of time before--”

“I DON’T CARE! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE DOESN’T CARE ANYMORE! WE CAN’T LET HER DIE!”

“Enough!”

As I tried to pull myself away from Palette’s arms, Night Seam turned everything black, making it to where not only could I not see Black Clover’s body in the midst of the rest of the furniture scattered around the room, but the blood was also blending into the rest of the environment. The only reason I even knew there was blood by my feet was because I could physically feel the liquid up to my ankles, causing my muscles to tense up. I had seen one too many girls die in front of me, and even if it meant losing Mind Games forever, I had to keep the same thing from happening to Black Clover.

Seeing black rather than red was somehow beginning to calm my emotions, but not so much my mind. I knew that she was still in that puddle of black somewhere, even if I couldn’t see her, yet even with my emotions reeling out of control, I could finally feel myself begin to breathe again. Night Seam was right that we had to get out of there, especially since we were on a time limit for how long we could take before her spirit disappeared forever, making this whole operation next to pointless. As I turned towards the door along with Night Seam and Palette, I took one last look back, trying to find Black Clover in the sea of darkness and finding nothing, allowing me to leave with one fewer graphic memory that would scar me forever.

The three of us then returned to the roof of Canterlot High School, making sure we checked the entire perimeter of the schoolyard before deciding to hold our meeting where people would find us. By this point, I was breathing properly again, although I continued to replay that memory of Lucky Star’s death over and over again in my mind, trying futilely to block out the visage of her desperate attempts to scream, just for more blood to pour out of her mouth. I was in no mood to continue being a magical girl right now, but the three of us had a job to do. Mind Games wouldn’t be able to wait for us forever, after all.

“Appear, o spirit of chaos,” Night Seam called. “Discord!”

The three of us then waited for clouds to appear in the sky or for fog to build up around our legs, but instead, we remained standing there, waiting awkwardly for something to happen. Just as Night Seam’s face was beginning to turn red, however, we all began to feel a buzz in our pockets, pulling out our phones to see a new message from the god of chaos himself.

“‘Can’t talk right now,’” I read aloud. “‘Busy trying to find a six-letter word for apocalypse’? Discord, get over here!”

“Fine!” I quickly dropped my phone as the draconequus pulled himself out of my touch screen, yanking himself out of the phone completely with a crossword puzzle in his claw and a pair of reading glasses on his muzzle. “Although if you ever need me to help you with one of your crossword puzzles, you’ll just have to find another omnipotent being to give you the answer.”

Night Seam sighed, making all eyes fall upon her as she aggravatedly folded her arms, glaring up into Discord’s yellow eyes. “You know why we called you. We want you to resurrect Mind Games.”

“Oooooo! And I’m guessing you have a soul for me to put into her body as well?”

“Yes. Lucky Star is dead. Now can you please bring my friend back before her spirit disappears?”

Discord chuckled loudly, holding onto his gut as he began laughing hysterically about seemingly nothing. “Alright, Night Seam! Whatever you say!”

Then, with the snap of his fingers, we were in a completely different place, surrounded by large trees and a marble statue in the center of a grassy area. The place seemed familiar, but at the same time, I felt a shiver run down my spine, as if I had specifically tried to block the memory from my mind. Discord had returned us to a park, yet for some reason, even though the sun hadn’t completely set, the area was completely void of people other than the three of us.

Just as I was about to question the scenario further, however, the three of us heard a noise coming from behind us, making us all turn our heads to see a girl groaning, holding her head as she sat herself up. She was extremely pretty, wearing a hypnotic black and white dress with long, frilly blonde hair and a silver hairpiece. Even as the years had passed, her magical girl form hadn’t aged a day, bringing a tear to my eye as I saw the girl whose murder I regretted the most finally breathing air into her lungs again. The moment she made eye contact with me, however, she jumped, cowering on the ground as if I were still trying to hurt her.

“What’s going on?” she asked, switching glances between myself and her teammates. “Why is the Great and Powerful Trixie here? I thought she was the game changer! Don’t tell me you two have joined her side!”

“Calm down, Mädchen!” Palette replied. “Zere is nozing to be scared of anymore!”

Mind Games tilted her head, continuing to switch stares between the three of us. “Whyyyyy are you talking like that? Seriously, if it’s something you can’t say out loud, you can just tell me in your mind.”

“There won’t be any need for that,” Night Seam said, helping Mind Games back up to her feet. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“The last thing I remember?” Mind Games looked away as she timidly tried to recall the memories she probably didn’t have anymore. “I… I remember us fighting… and the Great and Powerful Trixie had me trapped in her magic, but… I don’t think I remember anything after that.” Then, she looked back into my eyes, staring at me with a confused expression, as if I was the one who was somehow hiding her memories from her. “What did you do to me?”

“I… um…” I had no idea what to say. Should I lie and tell her that I knocked her out? Should I tell her that I put a spell on her and took her memories away from her? That was assuming she would believe me, however, which wasn’t something she would probably do in this situation, seeing as how in her mind, the death game was still going on.

Before I could say anything stupid, however, Night Seam butted in by saying, “The Great and Powerful Trixie killed you four years ago. She has since brought you back to life to atone for the mistake she made.”

“What? No! That can’t be true! Is the game changer gone? Who was it? Was it Marrow after all? She has to be alive! Nobody could kill her! There’s no way that I died either, especially four years ago! This is… I mean, this is--”

“Mind Games,” Palette said, placing her hand onto her friend’s shoulder. “It is over. We have a new enemy zat we must worry about now.”

Mind Games gulped. “What kind of enemy? Like a magical enemy?”

The three of us then looked back at each other and sighed before switching our expressions back to Mind Games, who looked just as confused as ever. This was going to be a long explanation, especially since even though we had just revived her, there would be a high chance that she would just end up dying again in our current death game. I hated putting everyone’s life in danger like that, including the girls from Everfree City, but somehow, I had convinced myself that what we were doing was for the greater good…. Somehow…

“Summer Breeze! Trixie is hoooome!”

As Summer Breeze walked out of the kitchen, however, wearing the apron that I loved just because it showed off her cutest features, she was holding a rolling pin in her hand, smacking it against her palm while pouting angrily at me. I had a feeling I already knew what this was about, but hopefully after saying my sorries, the two of us could kiss and make up so that I could do the exact same thing the next day, keeping her as far away from trouble as possible. She would catch on eventually, but hopefully by that point, Iron Maiden, Cupid Symphony and Paradox would all be revived as well, making this whole magical girl hunt worth it in the end.

“Let me guess,” Summer Breeze began. “You had a project?”

“...If Trixie said yes, would you pretend to believe her?”

“Nope!”

“Then she was out killing another magical girl. Oh, by the way, Mind Games is back. Are those crescent rolls Trixie smells? You always make the best--”

“What the fuck, Trixie?! You think you can just keep doing this like I’m not going to notice? Like I’m not going to care?”

“To be fair, this was kind of a last minute thing, and Trixie just maaaaaay have forgotten to tip you off about it.”

“Bullshit! You know what? Here’s what’s going to happen. From now on, I’m going to come with you every time you go hunting for magical girls, OK? I don’t care what Night Seam says. She’s never scared me, and you are going to let me so that I can protect you! Or do you not remember me saving your ass last night when Night Seam went berserk?”

I had to admit, she had saved me from Night Seam two times already, plus saving me from Lulu Lemon and saving Palette from Dokaeru. There was no longer any reason to hold her back other than my own fears that something might happen to her, but she was probably thinking the exact same thing whenever she saw me take on magical girls alone. As much as I hated to say it, I had no logical reason that she wouldn’t be allowed to help out, especially if I wanted our relationship to last… supposing we didn’t die.

“How about every other time?” I asked, grinning sheepishly while getting the staredown from Summer Breeze’s angry eyes. “Alright! Alright! Fine! Trixie will let you come along, but only if you promise to get out of there if things get too dangerous. OK?” Rather than answer, however, Summer Breeze continued staring down at me, her expression unwavering to the point where she almost seemed frozen. “Uh… is that alright?”

“She can’t hear you.”

“Eeeep!” I shouted, turning around to face the sudden voice behind me.

There she was again. Long, blonde hair, a pure white dress and golden bracelets decorating her wrists, giving her the perfect image of an angel, complete with the wings that she was hiding behind her back. Every time I saw her, whether I asked to speak with her or not, I felt something in my stomach drop, like she would cause the heat death of the universe if I ever unknowingly said anything that would piss her off. Plus, she always had this emotionless expression on her face, like she had seen so many terrible things that life didn’t even phase her anymore, but this time, she didn’t look like she was very happy to see me, making my heart drop even more.

“I need to speak to you, Great and Powerful Trixie.”

“Y-yes, Divinity?”

“These girls you’re reviving. You didn’t tell me that they would be helping you kill my teammates.”

Shoot! I didn’t even think about that!

“Trixie didn’t realize that they would be joining her! It just sort of… happened!”

Divinity sighed, taking in another large breath through her nose before looking back at me. “I hope you know that the reason I haven’t interfered so far was because I considered you, Palette and Dreamdrop as family of Everfree City, despite your allegiances with Discord. However, the girls you are recruiting have no dealings with Everfree City, and if you intend to use them as your weapons, I will start to aid my sisters against them. Lucky Star’s death was acceptable if it were to come from one of the three of you, but since Night Seam was the one to kill her, I’m going to be sending one of my own girls to kill her.”

“No!” I blurted out, causing Divinity to raise an eyebrow. “I mean… Is there anything Trixie can do to change your mind?”

Divinity stood in silence for several moments before finally saying, “You can use your next soul to bring back Lucky Star.”

I wanted to. I wanted to so bad. “But… Trixie can’t do that…”

“In that case, our discussion is over. I’ve given you my warning. Please do not allow it to happen again.”

Then, with her wings spreading out to the far corners of the room, she disappeared, sending time back to its normal course while leaving my head going through a tailspin. What was going to happen next? Was I just supposed to let Night Seam die? Could I really intervene as far as Divinity was concerned?

“Hellooooo!” Summer Breeze announced, putting her hands on her hips and pulling me back into reality. “So are you going to let me come along or not?”

Suddenly, though, I realized exactly what I had to do, even though I still wasn’t sure whether or not I was making the right decision. “Summer Breeze, we have to leave. Right now.”

Chapter 13

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 14

The place that Summer Breeze lived in was definitely not made for six people to live together, but with the magical girl hunt becoming as heated as it was, none of us could afford to be alone any longer. Once Iron Maiden had been revived, Discord then transported us all back to our home in Canterlot, where we would all be staying until the hunt was over and we could all return to our lives. Night Seam and Mind Games had both been kind enough to put their lives on the line to help us fight the other girls, despite the fact that they were being given a second chance at having a normal life again. Now all we needed was for Iron Maiden to join us, and if we were going to stay alive, need was probably putting it lightly.

“Alright, everyone!” Dreamdrop announced, standing in the middle of our bedroom (which I had forgotten to clean). “I think if we’re all going to be going through this hunt together, we should probably use my place as a homebase. Well, mine and Trixie’s place, and that’s considering Iron Maiden decides to join us.”

“Right, about that,” Iron Maiden said, rubbing the back of her head. “It would be nice if you could tell me what all this entails before I sign up for it.”

“It’s probably exactly what you think it is,” Night Seam added. “We’re killing magical girls, just like we were doing back when you were killed in the first place. The only difference is that now, rather than killing girls you’ve been friends with for months, you’re killing magical girls you don’t know who have been doing this for years.”

Palette shivered. “And who are much stronger. You should also take zat into consideration.”

Iron Maiden raised an eyebrow as Palette spoke. “Have you always had that accent?”

“I vas one of ze survivors of Discord’s death game. I zen vent abroad for ze next several years.”

“Wait. Really? You were one of the survivors? Who else made it out alive?” Dreamdrop and I raised our hands, making Iron Maiden chuckle with amazement. “No way! You two beat out Marrow and Night Seam? Who was the game changer?” I then immediately put my hand down, leaving Dreamdrop as the only one with her hand raised, giving Iron Maiden an annoyed stare. “You, Dreamdrop?! Oh, man! Discord really had us going with that one!”

As Iron Maiden finished speaking, however, Night Seam groaned in aggravation. “Is that really necessary right now?! Are you in or not?!”

Iron Maiden flinched, holding up her hands in defense. “OK! Fine! I’m in! I’m in!”

“Now hold on,” Dreamdrop began with concern in her voice. “I don’t want you jumping into anything just because you felt pressured into it! Remember, your life is going to be on the line here, and you have every right to go back to living a normal life again.”

Iron Maiden looked into Dreamdrop’s eyes for several moments until finally, she began to crack up, chuckling wildly while the rest of us looked at her in confusion. “Sorry, Dreamdrop,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye, “but I don’t think I’ll ever really have that option again. I knew what I was getting into when I became a magical girl, and I don’t think I’d give that up when my friends needed me most. Besides, I bet I could get some serious brownie points for this!”

“I must admit,” Palette added, “I have been craving sweets from Sugar Cube Corner ever since I left Platinum City.”

“Oh, did you not realize we have one of those in Canterlot?” Dreamdrop chimed in. “It’s like the exact same thing. Discord must have modeled the one in Platinum City after the one downtown.”

“Ze exact same zing? Here in Canterlot?”

“Yeah, we should go there sometim--”

Just as the girls were finally beginning to smile again, however, Night Seam cut them off with another loud groan. “Are you two finished? Or are we not going to discuss what we’re going to do next?”

Everyone then went quiet, turning their attention towards Dreamdrop. “Wow. Rude. Anyway, I do think that we should come up with a plan of attack, but before that…” Dreamdrop paused to take in a deep breath. “...I think that we should reveal our identities to each other.”

Once we all heard Dreamdrop’s prerequisite, we all turned towards Night Seam, who we were sure would be angry at her just for suggesting it, but to our absolute surprise, she tossed her hair behind her shoulder and transformed back into her regular form. We were all in complete shock, not just by her breath-taking beauty, but also by the fact she was the last person we expected to give herself away like that, making herself that much more vulnerable.

“I think that’s a good idea,” she said in her new, enchanting voice. “By knowing each other's true identities, it gives us the opportunity to go undercover if need be. This is my real form. My name is Fleur de Lis, and I am sixteen years old. Is there anything else you would like to know about me?”

“Uhhhh, nope! How about we all change back and we can go down the line and reintroduce ourselves? Does that work for everyone?”

As we all looked at each other for a common consensus, we nodded silently and changed back into our human appearances, making the experience that much more intimate, especially since I was seeing faces that I hadn’t seen in a long time.

“I guess I’ll go first, then! My name is Summer Breeze, and I’m twenty-two years old.”

“Photo Finish. Sixteen years old.”

Once we got to Iron Maiden’s real identity, however, half of the girls in the room gasped, shocked to see that her real appearance was a six-foot-six giant with greasy brown hair. “My name’s Basket Case. I guess with the four year difference, that makes me… let’s see… twenty-seven?! Holy crap…”

We then skipped Fluer de Lis and went onto Mind Games’s real appearance, which I had only ever seen with her head cut off. She looked a little bit younger than myself, maybe around the same age as Applejack’s little sister, and she was wearing a bright red shirt that contrasted with her deep black hair. She was the only girl in the room whom I hadn’t met personally. “I’m Checkers. Fourteen years old now, I guess.”

Everyone gasped at how young she was before finally turning their heads towards me, although by this point, all of them had already seen my real identity, considering the fact that they were all there when I became a magical girl in the first place. Still, though, I had changed significantly since they first met me after getting my ass kicked by Lulu Lemon, and breathing in through my nose, I announced, “Trixie Lulamoon. Sixteen years old.”

“Good,” Fleur said, bringing the attention back to her. “Now that we all know each other’s identities, we need to come up with a plan on how we can beat the remaining magical girls.”

“OK, but first,” Basket Case interrupted, raising her hand, “can you tell me who these girls are that we’re supposed to be fighting?”

“Yeah, I’m kinda out of the loop myself,” Checkers added. “That last battle was kinda scary, especially since I had to figure out the hard way what that girl’s power was.”

“Take out your magical phones,” Fluer said, pulling out her own as well. “There should be a new update waiting for you where you’ll be able to get the same list that we have. It contains all the details about all the magical girls except for Divinity, but we’re going to try to avoid her at all costs.”

“Whoa, is she really that scary?” Basket Case asked, eliciting a violent nod from the girls who had actually seen her as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. “What can she do?”

“Everyzing.” Basket Case and Checkers tilted their heads to the side, waiting for Photo Finish to go on further, but when she didn’t, their eyes started to grow wide.

“You don’t mean…?” Basket Case asked, unable to finish her thought.

Fleur, however, answered her with a nod. “She has literally every power she can imagine. She could cause an ice age just by sneezing. She could turn the planets of the galaxy into her own personal pool table.”

“She could make dogs really big and elephants really small!” Everyone then turned to face Summer Breeze, who was now cringing at herself. “She… probably wouldn’t make dogs really big and elephants really small… but she could…”

“And how are we going to survive with someone like that on their team?” Checkers asked.

“By not fighting her,” I answered. “Trixie believes that there is a possibility that if we stay out of her way, then she might spare our lives at the end, although the chances of that happening are becoming smaller and smaller.”

“Vut do you mean ‘becoming smaller and smaller’?”

“Why don’t I answer that for you?”

Suddenly, everyone flinched in fear as a girl who wasn’t there before suddenly appeared on the other side of the room, spreading her wings out (and causing the room to expand to fit her wingspan) while looking down on us with a fierce scowl. The first time I had met Divinity, she may not have had too many emotions on her face, but I could tell in my heart that she was legitimately happy to be meeting the girls and I. This time, though, when she looked down at all of us, there were no emotions in her face except for total anger, like an angel descending down to give her own righteous judgement.

“Girls, it’s nice to officially meet all of you, but I have a special announcement for the three of you.” As Divinity spoke, she pointed at Photo Finish, Summer Breeze and myself, the three girls who had actually met her face to face. “I only allowed you to live because I felt that you were just as much a part of Everfree City as myself. You introduced yourselves to us. You gave us the possibility that you would join our family, and even though Discord persuaded the three of you to stay on his side, I still commended you for giving us a chance. These other girls, however,” she continued, pointing towards Basket Case, Fleur and Checkers, “have nothing to do with my friends and have no right to take their lives. I allowed Sonic Boom, Lucky Star and Trickster to give you their lives, but not for you three to take away anyone else’s life.”

“But Trixie told us that the reason we’re fighting in the first place was because your friends were going to attack Canterlot High School,” Summer Breeze said, making all of us shocked that she could be so blunt with a literal deity. “All we’re trying to do is protect innocent lives! That’s what magical girls are supposed to do!”

“I cannot speak for my friends. I, personally, have come to respect all life on this planet and will not attack the school, but I understand their viewpoints and will stand with them to the end.”

“Wait, I’m confused,” Basket Case said, looking around to make sure she wasn’t saying anything rude. “Why are your friends trying to attack a high school?”

Divinity took in a deep sigh, the kind that could silence even the fiercest storm. “They’re doing it as a power move. They’re doing it out of revenge.”

“Revenge on who?” Checkers asked, leading the angel to point right in my direction.

Of course it was me. It was always me. As my teacher Mr. Fairweather from middle school taught me, I was a narcissist, which meant that I needed all the attention on myself all the time. It was almost as if the world would stop moving completely if everyone started paying attention to something other than me. It just so happened that this time, because everyone was paying so much attention to me, an entire school’s worth of kids was at risk of losing their lives.

“How does everyone know where Trixie goes to school?” I asked with gritted teeth.

“You can thank Sonic Boom for that. Apparently she went to see one of your musical performances at your high school one day when she was first starting out as a musician in Canterlot. I suppose she’s known who you were ever since you showed up that first time in Everfree City. It also helped that you seem to name everything by your given name: ‘Trixie and the Illusions’, ‘the Great and Powerful Trixie’. It isn’t difficult to put two and two together.”

I then looked over at Summer Breeze, who gave me the most sympathetic frown possible. She had tried to convince me not to go by my real name when I first decided to become a magical girl, but for some reason, I decided to go against her wishes. Now an entire school was in danger because of my vanity, because I needed to show the entire world how great and powerful I really was.

“Now, consider this your final warning,” Divinity continued. “If anyone else in your party is involved in the murder of any of my sisters, I will no longer stand back and watch it happen. If anyone dies by their hands, I will intervene. I’m not going to warn you again.”

Finally, with her body shining a brilliant light, causing all of us to shield our eyes with our arms, Divinity vanished, leaving the six of us alone again, only this time feeling much less confident. It was obvious in everyone’s faces that Fleur, Checkers and Basket Case could no longer compete, knowing that if they did try to help us, they would just become part of Divinity’s wrath. I had never seen Divinity fight, and quite honestly, I didn’t want to. I had to be the one to tell them that they were no longer allowed to join us in our magical girl hun--

“What was she talking about?” Basket Case asked uncouthly. “Like, does she honestly believe that we’re going to turn our backs on our friends just because she’ll fight us too? Marrow was way scarier than her… and you too, Night Seam--I mean, Fluer de Lis.”

“Tch.”

“Hold on, Basket Case,” Summer Breeze said, holding her hands up urgently. “We can’t just ask you to put your life on the line if Divinity wants to fight us!”

“Then don’t ask. We’ll do it anyway.”

Summer Breeze then furrowed her eyebrows, looking over at Checkers and Fleur de Lis, urging them with her face to talk some sense into their friend. “We’re honestly lucky to be alive,” Checkers added. “Even though we were fighting each other, Discord was really the one who tried to kill us all, and you saved us from him.”

“Besides,” Fleur continued, “I would like to see more of the girls from Platinum City come back to life, which I doubt would happen without my help.”

As I was standing there, trying to find a way to convince them of how dangerous things were going to get from then on out, the three of them smiled at me, making it that much harder for me to tell them no. I honestly couldn’t figure out why they were all being so supportive, especially since I had killed two of them already. They were given a second chance at life where they could see their families again and shape their lives how they wanted to this time, but here they were, risking everything to keep people they didn’t even know safe. Fleur at least gave us an excuse as to why she was helping us, though I still believed that she was doing this just to be a good magical girl.

“Then let’s not waste any time!” Summer Breeze announced, clapping her hands together. “What’s the plan?”

“Trixie, Photo Finish and I have come up with a plan that may work,” Fleur began, “but it would be pretty intricate. Basically, we would need to get Sun Shadow, Catastrophe and X Genesis Volume 9 in a room together, which would be easy enough for two of the three of them. At this point, we really just need to find a way to get X Genesis in the same place without interference from Divinity or La Proxy.”

“I say we attack tonight and forget about X Genesis,” Basket Case said. “We can’t just wait around for the perfect opportunity.”

“But we can still be smart about this rather than charging in without a plan.”

“Sorry, Fleur, but I’m with Basket Case on this one,” Checkers chimed in. “I think we can catch them off guard if we act now, especially since Divinity hasn’t gotten involved yet. If we wait to lure the three of them together, they’ll know for sure that we’re up to something.”

“So you’re suggesting we just ambush them and play it by ear?”

“Uhh… girls?” Summer Breeze said, looking down at her phone. “I don’t think we can wait much longer.”

The five of us waited for Summer Breeze to continue, but rather than stand there forever, we all took out our own phones, immediately seeing one new message. Then, upon opening the new notification, I could feel my heart freeze, and based on the reactions around the room, everyone else was feeling the same way. The message was from Divinity, and it was a group message to us as well as the girls in Everfree City which simply read, “The attack begins tomorrow.”

Suddenly, we all looked at each other with urgency in our faces but nothing coming out of our voices. “What do we do?” Checkers asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Change of plans,” Fleur said, transforming herself into the magical girl Night Seam as the rest of us followed her lead. “We need to eliminate both Sun Shadow and Catastrophe tonight, before they get backup.”

There was no disagreement, no complaining, and no second-guessing Night Seam’s strategy. Then, with all of us transformed into our magical girl forms once again, we opened up the bedroom window and jumped into the air, racing across rooftops as we made our way towards the home of Candycorn and Sweet Tooth.

Chapter 15

12 years ago…

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The girl on the TV was so powerful, so majestic, so beautiful. The way she managed to fight off monsters and save the world was so inspirational for my four year old mind, especially since she was able to do it all with her special magical powers. I would have given more than anything to be that girl on the television, and everyone would know me as the Great and Powerful Trixie.

Suddenly, the door to my home slammed shut, revealing my mom walking in and removing her work shoes, immediately making her way to the fridge where she would pull out her nightly glass of gin. As she poured the liquid contents into the glass cup, I approached as excitedly as I could, running up beside her and tugging on her skirt. “Mommy! Mommy! Come look at the TV!”

“Mommy’s busy right now,” she said, chugging down the glass in a few quick gulps. “Why don’t you be a good little girl and go to bed?”

“Awwww! But I don’t wanna go to bed! I want to see what happens next to Super Hero Lillie!”

“Trixie,” she said in a much less pleasant tone than before, “I told you I wanted you to be a good little girl. Now, are you going to do what I ask, or do you want to find out what happens to bad little girls?”

I didn’t hesitate to run back to the television, turning it off and running to my bedroom, crying as soon as I shut the door. All I wanted was to find out what happened next, but when my mom mentioned anything about bad little girls, I did whatever she told me, no matter how much I wanted to stay up and play. At first, bad little girls got spanked, which I tried to avoid as much as any kid my age would have. Then, eventually mom my got to thinking that maybe spankings were for little babies, and since I was four years old now, I should already know how to be a good little girl. That’s when she started coming up with all kinds of new ways to punish bad little girls, from belts to cigarette burns, and one time, she even dunked my head into the toilet, refusing to let me breathe until I learned my lesson. I thought she was going to kill me, but she said that if I was a good little girl from now on, she would never do it again.

Ever since then, as soon as I went into my room and closed the door, I crawled into bed, pulled out my notebook and began doodling, just to take my mind away from the terrors of my mother’s punishments. They were simple stick figures at first, with the words “Grayt and Pawerful Trixie” written in big letters at the top, but they helped calm me down whenever I thought my mom would discipline me again. At that point, she had never punished me just so that she could take her anger out on someone; I had always deserved whatever pain she gave me, but it would only be a matter of time before eventually, she would stumble into my room drunk and hit me for something out of my control. The first time, she slapped me because of something her boss did. The next time, she hit me because she was raising me by herself while my father was out playing magician in Las Pegasus. I never knew when the beatings would end, but the whole time, I would cry and cry and cry until eventually, she started slapping me for being a crybaby. The surprise punishments would end to a certain extent eventually, but she soon found a way to replace them by correcting me for any little thing I ever did wrong.

Those doodles I drew during those hard nights were the only thing that gave me hope. In fact, I was just eight years old the first time I ever thought about taking my own life, but when my mom wasn’t home, I saw another episode of Super Hero Lillie and became inspired all over again. For some reason, I honestly believed in my mind that if I truly believed in myself just like Lillie said at the end of each episode, then all my dreams would come true, and my biggest dream of all was that my mom would be happy. I decided not to kill myself that night because one day, my mom wouldn’t want to hurt me anymore, and maybe then I could show her all the drawings I made. I could show her the Great and Powerful Trixie, the girl I had always dreamed of becoming, a super hero that saved the day with a cape and a witch’s hat. As soon as the episode was over, I drew for hours, hiding in my bed when my mother came home to draw some more. One day, I would be able to show her these pictures and say, “I was going to kill myself, but then I realized how much I love you! This is who I want to be for you, mommy!”

The next day, though, would be a day that would change my life even more, making me regret for years to come that I hadn’t killed myself at eight years old when I had the chance…

“Hi, Lulu! My name is Trixie! Can we be friends?”

“Hellooooo! Equestria to G&PT!”

I quickly shook my head, turning towards Iron Maiden as the six of us continued our route to the house of Sun Shadow and Catastrophe, where we would hunt down and kill two more magical girls. “Sorry, Iron Maiden. What were you saying?”

“I was just saying that you look kinda nervous. Are you sure you want to come with us?”

Of course I was nervous. I was about to kill a four year old little girl and her twelve year old sister! All I could think about on the way there was how much I wanted to be a magical super hero when I was four and how I actually became one at twelve, which may have been the worst decision I ever made. Iron Maiden and Mind Games hadn’t had the chance to look up the personal information on Autumn Blaze’s magical girls before we made our way towards their house, so there was probably no way they knew how young these girls were.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is never nervous… but if you wanted to turn back now, nobody would judge you.”

“Turn back? Are you kidding? These girls sound like trouble, and the whole reason I became a magical girl was to stop trouble before it happened. Besides, these girls should be no problem now that you’ve got me and Mind Games helping you.”

Iron Maiden then laughed heartily, completely oblivious to how dire the situation was, and with my anti-magic orb in my pocket, there was no way for Mind Games to read my mind and figure it out herself, either. They would figure it out eventually, either when we got to their house or when we managed to kill them, revealing their true identities underneath the mask that came with being a magical girl. I just hoped that when the time came, I would be able to forget about their age and treat them as what they were: threats to the safety of Canterlot High School. In the meantime, though, I was having a hard time disguising my unease, which apparently everyone had noticed by now.

Finally, though, we arrived at a small house in northern Canterlot where the two of them were supposed to live, standing on top of buildings in the neighborhood that made it too difficult for a normal eye to spot us. If they were transformed into magical girls right now, they would have no problem catching us, but if they were still in their regular forms, we would be basically invisible from the distance we were. They had no cars in their driveway, giving us the impression that they were home alone, which could not have made this anything less than the ideal ambush. Night Seam took the lead for us, getting close enough to where she would be able to see through the window to their room until eventually, she gave us all a thumbs up, signaling the start of the attack. This was it.

We were really about to kill two little girls.

Just as we made a mad dash towards their window, however, a girl who must have been twelve years old caught us coming out of the corner of her eye, and transforming herself at an unimaginable speed, she pushed the younger girl out of the way just as Night Seam’s knives went soaring through their window, causing glass to crash everywhere. Then, out of nowhere, there were six of us in her room, jumping through the opening Night Seam created for us and using our magic to take out the two magical girls, one of which was still in the process of transforming. The moment Sun Shadow had fully transformed, however, she quickly dissolved into the floor, moving her shadow over to Catastrophe’s as she dodged every attack that we tried throwing at her.

“Sun Shadow! Now!”

Then, jumping into the air, Catastrophe changed into a vibrant rainbow of colors until her body morphed into a large shuriken, just in time for Sun Shadow to lift herself back out of the shadows and throw the weapon straight towards Night Seam. I almost didn’t make it in time, but at the last second, I used my magic to freeze the shuriken in midair, inches away from Night Seam’s face, which was perfect until Catastrophe changed back, pulling a knife from her pocket and slashing down. This time it was Iron Maiden’s time to save her, removing her steel shoulderpads and blocking the attack just over Night Seam’s head. Just as we had taken all of our attention off of Sun Shadow, however, she had disappeared again, making us all look down at our shadows, just in case she was hiding right under our noses.

“Don’t! Hurt! My! SISTER!”

Then, pulling herself back out of the shadows, Sun Shadow held out her hand as Catastrophe turned into a sword, which the younger sister used to swing towards myself, Mind Games and Iron Maiden, all of which we were able to barely block. Once she noticed Palette on the other side of the room, though, carrying two painted guns, she quickly threw her sister into the air and disappeared once again into the shadows, leaving her sister to transform into hummingbird, which flapped its wings rapidly towards her. As soon as she arrived in front of Palette, however, she changed once again, this time into a scythe, which Sun Shadow grabbed immediately upon popping out of Palette’s shadow, swinging it towards her. This time, it was Dreamdrop who was able to stop the weapon before Palette had been sliced open, but with Catastrophe turned into an inanimate object, there was no way to put her to sleep. Plus, with both of her hands holding onto the transformed magical girl, keeping her from slicing Palette into pieces, there was no way for her to put Sun Shadow to sleep.

Finally, before anyone could recompose themselves and throw an attack towards Sun Shadow, Catastrophe turned back into her normal form, interlocking her fingers with Dreamdrop and throwing her to the other side of the room. “That’s enough!” Catastrophe shouted, beginning to glow a rainbowlike color again. “If any of you makes a move, I’ll turn into an atomic bomb and destroy the entire city of Canterlot.” There was a very good chance she was bluffing, especially since Sun Shadow would also die in the process, but if they knew something we didn’t, we would just end up dying for nothing. We all seemed to look at Night Seam as if she were the one to give us the final verdict, and with her head nodding, we all put down our weapons, allowing Catastrophe to stop glowing.

“What’s wrong with you girls?!” Sun Shadow asked, glaring at us.

“You wanna talk about what’s wrong with us?!” Iron Maiden replied angrily. “You two are planning on wiping out a whole school’s worth of kids!”

“Only because you started it!” Catastrophe yelled back. “We don’t wanna kill anyone either, but you girls gave us no choice!”

“You always have a choice,” Mind Games added, eliciting a scoff from Sun Shadow.

“We’re choosing not to die, idiot! I may hate being a magical girl, but I’ll do everything I can to keep Catastrophe safe!”

Sun Shadow then disappeared into her own shade again, making us all pull out our weapons in response, but no sooner had we done so when Catastrophe started glowing a rainbow color again. “WHAT DID I SAY?!”

“So you expect us to just vait for your sister to kill us one by one?!” Palette asked furiously.

“You’re going to die either way, so at least you’ll be saving Canterlot if you decide not to move!”

Night Seam scoffed, glaring daggers at Catastrophe. “You’re not very good at bargaining. This just makes us more likely to attack you, seeing as how this way, we at least have a chance to save ourselves as well as your neighborhood. I would really recommend telling your sister to come out now.”

I couldn’t believe it! Night Seam was calling Catastrophe’s bluff, using our lives as bargaining tools as if there was no way she could be wrong. Fortunately for all of us, though, Catastrophe returned to her normal cat-like appearance, shrugging her shoulders. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now, Sun Shadow!”

Then, appearing right behind Night Seam, the younger sister leaped out of the ground, pulling a knife similar to Catastrophe’s out of her dress pocket and swinging it towards Night Seam, this time being blocked by the very girl she tried to target. The rest of us didn’t waste a second. Palette immediately pointed her guns towards Sun Shadow, who leapt away just in time to avoid it, causing Iron Maiden to barely block the attacks meant for the enemy before she was accidentally killed by friendly fire, soaking her shoulder pads in paint. Again, before anyone could catch her, she disappeared into her own shadow, sliding into someone else’s, although it was difficult to tell whose with all of us standing so closely together in the small room. Meanwhile, as we were searching for Sun Shadow, Catastrophe turned herself into Iron Maiden, smacking away her shoulder pads and grappling with her to the floor. As cliché as it sounded, by this point, we really couldn’t tell which one was the real Iron Maiden, which meant that with Sun Shadow disappearing into someone else’s shadow, we no longer had a clear target to attack.

“Change back!” Iron Maiden shouted.

“No! You change back!” the other replied.

As the two of them grappled, however, Mind Games quickly pulled out her rapier, shouting, “Iron Maiden! Get away from her!” Then, swinging her sword towards the magical girl on the right, the Iron Maiden on the left jumped away, leaving the other girl to fall to the ground, just barely missing a fatal blow.

“What are you doing?!” she screamed. “It’s me!”

“I can read minds, Catastrophe. Your power won’t be able to fool me.”

The Iron Maiden on the floor immediately clicked her tongue with a scowl. “Time’s up, Sun Shadow!”

Then, as soon as the words came out of her mouth, her sister rose from Mind Games’s shadow behind her, raising her knife and reeling back to slash through her neck. I almost didn’t make it in time, but at the last possible second, I was able to pull her knife away with my magic mid-swing, making Mind Games shiver from the wind whipping at her skin. As I pulled the blade closer to myself, I noticed that this was a handcrafted throwing knife, not a magical knife like Night Seam used. The pattern that I’d seen with Sonic Boom, Trickster and Sun Shadow was beginning to come together. Autumn Blaze wasn’t giving them tools to work with like Discord was!

“Dreamdrop!” I shouted, throwing the knife at the wall beside her, making her jump in surprise. “Take that and make sure neither of them can get it back!”

“B-but can’t she just summon it back?” she asked.

“No! None of Autumn Blaze’s girls have magical weapons!”

Once I had spoken, though, Sun Shadow immediately turned back into a shadow, sliding through the floor and reappearing in front of Dreamdrop, putting one hand to her neck and the other on Dreamdrop’s knife-wielding hand. I didn’t waste a second in closing the gap, but no sooner had I done so when Catastrophe grabbed my cape, pulling me back just enough to get in front of me while turning herself into a knife exactly like the one Dreamdrop had in her hand. Suddenly, Sun Shadow had her new knife pointed directly at Dreamdrop’s neck, making her yelp in fear, pressing herself as close to the wall as possible to avoid accidentally cutting her own throat.

“If you move, she dies!” Sun Shadow exclaimed, making me freeze in fear. Unlike the last time she tried bargaining with us, this time I had much more to lose if I tried intervening. If I tried using my magic to pull Catastrophe out of her hands, I might not be able to break her free from Sun Shadow’s grip before she slashed Dreamdrop’s neck open. Likewise, the other girls saw the imminent danger and backed off as well, leaving Sun Shadow with all the bargaining chips this time. “All of you on the ground! NOW!!”

Again, we did as she said, dropping our weapons and slowly getting down onto the floor, staying alert just in case we had to jump up and save Dreamdrop from a surprise attack. To our surprise, though, Sun Shadow pulled her hand away from Dreamdrop’s throat and dropped her knife, which transformed back into Catastrophe before hitting the ground. I knew that Catastrophe still had a knife of her own, but we would be able to stop her if she even tried pulling it out of her pocket.

Catastrophe then looked at the mess around her room and grimaced, from broken glass to paint splotches to just overall disorder that had been caused by the fight, leaving the area a total wreck. “Ugh…” Catastrophe groaned. “Mom’s gonna kill us when she gets home.”

“She won’t kill us if we don’t survive,” Sun Shadow retorted, keeping her grip on Dreamdrop’s neck.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true, which brings meow into my next question!” Catastrophe then turned to face all of us. “Why are you killing us in the first place? Autumn Blaze says it’s because you want to start up chaos. Is that right?”

“What?!” I exclaimed. “No! We’re doing it to keep Canterlot High School safe!”

“Don’t lie to me! We never would have planned our attack if you hadn’t killed Dokaeru! If Sonic Boom hadn’t told us where you go to school before she died, we would have had no idea where to even strike! Now tell us the truth! Why are you trying to kill us?!”

Things weren’t adding up in my head. Discord had explained how the attack would have still happened even if I had decided to join Autumn Blaze and her magical girls, but it still felt like this whole chain of events could have been avoided somehow. Discord never lied, which even Divinity confirmed for us, but even so, I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that no matter what we did, it would have ended in this magical girl battle, which was exactly what Discord wanted.

“We are telling you ze truth,” Palette responded, voicing her honesty as best she could.

“STOP IT! YOU’RE LYING!”

“Hey! Wait a second!” Iron Maiden intervened. “I have an idea! You want us to prove that we don’t want to hurt you, right? Maybe you could join our side! If you stand with us tomorrow in protecting the school, that’ll prove that we’re really just trying to keep everyone safe!”

“You’re so stupid!” Suddenly, everyone turned towards Sun Shadow, who was now beginning to cry. “I didn’t know being a magical girl would mean people getting hurt all the time! I don’t wanna be a magical girl anymore, but I can’t let anything happen to my big sister!”

“H-hold on! We don’t want to hurt your big sister!”

“Yes, you do! You’re gonna make her fight Divinity! She’s gonna die if she fights Divinity!”

“We will protect her from all of Autumn Blaze’s magical girls,” Night Seam said, stepping in.

“And you just expect meow to fight all of my friends?! Even if you didn’t betray me at the end, I’m not going to turn my back on Everfree City!”

“Then you leave us no choice,” Night Seam said, rising from the floor and summoning her throwing knives, leading the rest of us to get back to our feet and summon our own weapons as well. Sun Shadow then immediately let go of Dreamdrop, falling into the floor and slipping into Catastrophe’s shade, giving Dreamdrop the opportunity once again to catch her breath.

Again, Catastrophe changed shape, this time transforming into a gun which Sun Shadow rose up to grab, firing an immediate shot towards Night Seam that Iron Maiden had just barely managed to deflect. Palette and Night Seam then sent off a couple of their own attacks, which Sun Shadow dodged by descending to the floor again, leaving Catastrophe alone on the surface of the ground. Just as I was about to use my spear to stab her before she could get back up, however, she glowed a rainbow light and transformed once again, this time taking the shape of a pony with a lion’s mane and crooked horn, burning a blue flame along her black body.

“This is a little present from Autumn Blaze!”

Suddenly, the entire room was engulfed in a blue blaze, shooting fire everywhere other than the floors, walls and ceilings, burning our bodies immediately. If we didn’t do something in the next couple seconds, we would literally burn to death, but right in that second, I noticed a single shadow, barely avoiding Catastrophe’s hellish fury. I then levitated a chair in the corner of the room to shield myself as much as possible from the fire, making my way over to the shadow on the ground while I summoned my spear, raising it over her.

“Sun Shadow!” her sister cried out, ending the flame attack and jumping over to deflect my spear with her horn, glaring at me with the same fire in her eyes. “So you wanna die first, huh, Trixie?!”

“Trixie isn’t here, you ingrate! You’re speaking to the Great and Powerful Trrrriixiiiiieeeee!”

Then, using my magic to levitate her body, I threw her across the room, turning my attention back towards the shadow on the floor, raising my spear above her. Finally, I had the shot I wanted, winding up my shoulder to deal the final blow, but just as soon as I was about to attack, Sun Shadow lifted herself back onto the floor, covering her head with her arms and whimpering anxiously. Rather than seeing Sun Shadow, though, I saw myself when I was four years old... waiting for my mother to stop hitting me as I tried protecting myself against her blows in the exact same position Sun Shadow was in now.

“Mommy! Save me!”

*SLICE!*

I then swung my spear down to the floor, reaching a perfect arc as my weapons swung in a semicircle. To my surprise, though, even though Sun Shadow hadn’t moved, I had missed her completely, instead slicing the ground behind her without leaving the slightest scratch on the girl I was supposed to be attacking. My whole body froze, my eyes going wide as the two of us looked at each other, both surprised that I wasn’t able to kill her when I had the chance.

“Trixie, you idiot!” Night Seam shouted, summoning her throwing knives back into her hands. “You had the perfect shot!” Before Sun Shadow could risk getting hit by someone else, though, she immediately turned back into a shadow, joining the other magical girls’ shadows and doing her best to blend in. “I think I know where she went! Palette, I need you to jump, and try staying in the air as long as you can! I don’t want you getting hurt here.”

Just as soon as Palette was about to do as she was told, however, Catastrophe quickly changed back into her normal form, swinging at Night Seam with her knife that the girl in black was barely able to avoid. Suddenly, the two of them were in a knife fight, clashing blades at a rate too fast for any of us to be able to use to our advantage. If Palette, Mind Games or I tried to slip in with an attack of our own, there was a good chance that we would miss and end up hitting Night Seam instead, and knowing the aim that I’d had recently, I wouldn’t hit the right person.

The two of them were moving their hands so fast, exchanging blows that I couldn’t even see, making their arms nearly disappear as a clang sound echoed repeatedly throughout the room. It almost looked like a dance the way the two of them were moving their feet, stepping back flawlessly to center their weight as they blocked one attack, stepping forward at the perfect angle to unleash one of their own. Night Seam slashed through the air towards Catastrophe’s gut, which she avoided by arching her spine backwards, creating a right angle with her body threatening to snap at any moment, but when she stood upright again, she jumped forward, sending another strike towards her face that Night Seam just barely deflected. Once the attack was finished, however, Night Seam used her spare hand to push Catastrophe’s attacking hand forward, pushing her off balance and causing her to stumble.

I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening. Catastrophe was falling forward with Night Seam’s knife raised over her back, leaving no way for the other magical girl to defend herself in time before she was stabbed. The cat-eared girl then looked back with horror on her face, her mouth and eyes wide open, seemingly trying to find anything she could do that would save her life, but even a transformation wouldn’t be able to save her in time. Reeling her hand up higher, Night Seam immediately thrusted her hand downard, piercing skin and sending blood spurting along the floor. The thing that surprised everyone, though…

“Candycorn?”

...was that she hadn’t stabbed Catastrophe.

As soon as Catastrophe had been thrown off balance, Sun Shadow immediately leapt out of Palette’s shadow, lunging forward and taking a direct hit to the heart, saving her sister from the attack by sacrificing herself. Once Catastrophe fell to the floor, Sun Shadow followed quickly behind her, spraying like a fountain into the air with each heartbeat, which grew faster and faster as her body flailed on the ground. The cat-eared girl then weakly staggered her way over to her sister, ignoring all the girls around her as she tried applying pressure to the hole in her chest, covering it with her hand as blood sprayed through her fingertips.

“Candycorn! No! Please don’t die! P-p-please don’t die, Candycorn! What am I going to tell mom? You have to survive!”

“It hurts,” Sun Shadow replied, crying quietly as the blood loss was beginning to sap her of her energy. “Make it stop, Sweet Tooth!”

“I’m trying! J-j-just please stay with me! And you know what? After this is over, I’m going to take you to the candy store, just like you’ve been asking me to do!”

“I don’t wanna die, Sweet Tooth! I don’t wanna die-hie-hiiiiie!”

“S-s-stay with me! I promise you won’t have to be a magical girl anymore! I’ll stop being a magical girl too, and we’ll spend every day watching your favorite cartoons! We don’t have to stay up late fighting crime anymore! We can just play games and watch TV all day after school! Doesn’t that sound fun, Candycorn? C-Candycorn? No! Answer me, Candycorn! Don’t die! Don’t die!! Please don’t die! NO! CANDYCORN! ANSWER MEEEEE!!!”

Finally, Sun Shadow’s heartbeat gradually slowed down with each beat releasing less blood until it trickled into a small red puddle leaking from her chest, and as Catastrophe’s body shook above her, Sun Shadow’s body glowed a bright light before turning into a four year old girl with a hole in her chest, her eyes wide open in fear and her skin a pale gray. Catastrophe then lifted her hands away from her sister’s chest, her whole body shuddering as she looked down at her blood-soaked hands, causing her to shake even more. She shook her head in disbelief, looking back down at Candycorn like she would somehow get back up and keep fighting, but that never happened. Catastrophe’s sister was now dead, and there was no bringing her back.

“No… No! NO!!!”

Then, in a flash of light, Catastrophe changed her appearance again, changing into Autumn Blaze and immediately releasing an inferno of blue fire, covering the room in the most scorching flames imaginable.

“CANDYCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORN!!!!!”

“We have to get out of here!” Night Seam shouted, trying to raise her voice louder than the cackling flames around us.

The rest of us nodded our heads, jumping through Catastrophe’s window and running for our lives. We may have been able to deal with her Autumn Blaze form before, but that’s when we had Sun Shadow to use as a decoy. At this point, the only decision we had now was to escape, praying that she wouldn’t turn into something like a jet that would be able to catch up with us with no problem. By the same token, though, we couldn’t split up either, knowing that if she did eventually catch up with us, we would need all six of us there in order to keep ourselves alive. Catastrophe was much stronger than every single one of us was individually, which only made things scarier when I considered the fact that when school started tomorrow, she would be joined by three of Everfree City’s most elite magical girls.

The six of us then finally made it back to our homebase, panting heavily from the speed at which we were running. It didn’t seem like Catastrophe had tried pursuing us, which I took to mean that she was probably still crying over her sister, too distraught to chase after her killers, let alone take them on in a six-on-one battle without her companion at her side. Once we made it inside, though, none of us changed back into our normal forms, probably because we were all too scared that someone would track us down and attack before we had the chance to transform.

“Wow,” Iron Maiden said, falling back against the wall in our bedroom while still trying to catch her breath. “That… was a lot.”

“We did what we had to do,” Night Seam replied, uncharacteristically panting as well.

Mind Games, though, tilted her head. “You so sure about that? It’s not like you didn’t have the perfect shot to kill Catastrophe while she was crying over her sister.”

Dreamdrop then got to her feet in anger. “Show some decency, Mind Games!”

“Sit down, Dreamdrop,” the girl in black responded. “She’s right. I had a moment of weakness. I had the opportunity to strike, but I let my emotions get the better of me. I’m sorry I let you all down.”

“You did not let anyone down,” Palette said, putting her hand on Night Seam’s shoulder. “You managed to act better zan any of us, despite not being able to use your powers in zat situation.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, rising to my feet, “Trixie thinks it’s time to summon Discord, before Sun Shadow’s spirit disappears.”

Everyone then nodded in agreement as I called the spirit of chaos into my room, creating the usual fog and booming thunder as Discord snaked his way through the darkness. The shadows were a little bit too much, considering all that we had been through tonight, but finally, he emerged from the darkness to stretch his limbs with a maniacal cackle. “Hello, girls!” he said in an exuberance that contrasted with our own expressions. “Good job tonight, by the way! You had me on the edge of my seat the whole time.”

“Discord,” Night Seam interjected with annoyance. “Must we always deal with your facetious comments every time we try to summon you?”

“Yeeees! But I guess you do have a point. The six of you performed admirably tonight, despite Night Seam’s moment of weakness there at the end. I think you’ve earned the right to revive one more person, whomever you would like.”

I then stepped forward for the group, taking a deep breath as I faced the god of chaos. “Trixie would like to bring back Cupid Symphony, along with her powers. She doesn’t need to fight, and honestly, her powers wouldn’t be well-suited for this situation, but--”

“Whoa! Whoa! Slow down, O Great and Powerful Trixie! I’d love to hear more, but I’m afraid that’s just not an option I can give you.”

My eyes went wide, along with most of the girls surrounding me. My heart was beating so fast that it felt like I was going to throw up with all the emotions surging through my nervous system. I was so angry, so scared, so confused at what he had told me, making me wonder if he had planned to set this whole thing up just to get the girls to attack the school, where he would then stop reviving girls as we fought in yet another magical battle royale.

“What do you mean Trixie doesn’t get that option?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Oh, Trixie, you know you can be so entitled sometimes. Why should I give you the choice of whom to revive next when it was Night Seam who did the dirty work for you? If I recall, you did have the opportunity to deal the final blow, if I recall.”

My eyebrows furrowed in fury, pissed off that he could treat me this way, especially adding insult to injury at the end, but he had a point that I wasn’t the one who actually deserved the credit. Turning my attention to Night Seam, I waited for her to state her wish, which I assumed would be the same as mine, especially since Palette and I had planned out the entire sequence of girls that we wanted to revive.

“Thank you for this opportunity, Discord,” Night Seam said, bowing her head respectively. “I’ve been thinking very hard on this for a while now, actually.”

“Night Seam…” Dreamdrop said nervously. “What are you doing? Just wish for Cupid Symphony to come back to life.”

“I’m sorry, Dreamdrop, but I can’t do that.” My heart immediately fell into my stomach with everyone’s eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. I couldn’t believe what was happening. She was actually going against the plan that we had carved out in the beginning. “Discord, with this spirit, I would like to bring back…”

Discord smiled.

“...Marrow.”

My lower lip trembled. “No…”

Discord, however, roared with laughter, making the ground shake with the volume of his voice. “That sounds like an absolutely wonderful idea, Night Seam! In fact, since I already have her in Platinum City, why don’t I just deliver her to you?”

“DISCORD, NO!” I shouted, but by that point, it was already too late. With the snap of his finger, he disintegrated into dust, leaving behind a figure in the darkest corner of the room. I couldn’t see the figure clearly, but it was vivid enough to bring back the haunting memories I had experienced growing up, giving me another jolt of terror. I would have preferred just not reviving anyone, but now, my greatest nightmare was back to haunt me, weakly standing up and revealing the complete image of the only girl I had ever grown to hate.

She wore a black dress with large bones along her limbs, covering her legs, arms and especially chest with thick, white bones that acted like body armor against her outfit. Her skull covered her entire head aside from her eyes, which steadily opened to reveal a pair of dark green irises beneath the shadows on her face. Then, looking down at her body, she once again began moving from muscle to muscle, just to verify that she was actually in one piece.

As soon as Marrow lifted her eyes towards the girls in the room, she was met with a variety of shocked faces waiting for her to speak. “Girls?” she said with confusion. “Are we… dead?”

“No, Lulu,” Night Seam said, approaching her old friend, grabbing her hand and looking her in the eyes. “Welcome back to the world of the living.”

“Wait… does that mean… Did I really die? Who killed me?!”

Suddenly, everyone’s eyes in the room fell back onto me as I sent her the most condescending smile I could muster. I expected her to be embarrassed or angry, but she just looked intrigued, letting go of Night Seam’s hand and walking towards me. Dreamdrop quickly moved in front of me, but Marrow silently motioned for her to step away, causing Dreamdrop to back away slowly with her eyebrows furrowed, leaving just the two of us to stare into each other’s eyes.

“Tripsy? Were you really the one to kill me?”

“I think you mean, the Great and Powerful Tripsy.”

Despite how cocky I was trying to be, however, Marrow didn’t seem to be angry. In fact, she was more surprised than anything, making me question whether or not this was really the same person as before.

“You know something,” she continued, “I specifically tried to keep you from being a magical girl so that you wouldn’t weigh down the team. How the hell did you manage to kill me?”

“Magic,” I replied with a smug smile, summoning my spear.

“And was I the game changer? Is the game over?”

“Actually…” Dreamdrop said hesitantly, raising her hand. “I was the game changer, but that’s all over now.”

Marrow then put her hands to her hipbones. “Good! Now, who are we missing? Storm Rose, Cupid Symphony and Paradox? It looks like you managed to bring back a couple of us already, so how do we go about bringing them back to life?”

“That’s actually one of the reasons I brought you back,” Night Seam said, making Marrow turn her head in curiosity. “We need your help. It turns out there are other magical girls in the world, only they’re out for blood. They’re planning on attacking Canterlot High School tomorrow, and their powers are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“What kind of powers?” Marrow asked, to which we all looked away unconfidently as Night Seam sighed with sadness.

“You may want to sit down for this next part. We have a lot of explaining to do…”

Chapter 16

The time was 2 o’clock in the morning, but the last thing I wanted to do was go to bed, despite how badly I would need my energy the next morning. Everyone else would most likely have had the same problem I was having if Dreamdrop hadn’t offered to help them fall asleep, which Marrow highly recommended. Instead, though, I sat on the roof of the building where we lived, looking out at Canterlot knowing that there would be a bigger chance than ever that I would never see its beauty again.

“Hey you,” Dreamdrop said, sticking her head out the window and flinging herself up to the roof, taking a seat beside me. Even though I always knew how much I loved Dreamdrop and how happy I was to have her next to me all the time, I suddenly felt like I had been taking for granted every time the two of us had ever been able to spend a single night together. “You sure you don’t wanna go to bed?”

“Trixie hasn’t slept in years. It’s not like another five minutes are going to do anything.”

“It might help you relax a little bit.”

I wanted to respond to Dreamdrop, I really did, but there was just too much anxiety going through my mind with all that had been happening recently. My high school was going to be attacked, and it was all my fault. I was the one they were trying to get revenge on, and thanks to me and my constant need for attention, everyone now knew who my secret identity was, which eventually led to Canterlot High becoming the perfect place for an attack. It almost didn’t seem like I could really mess up this badly, but as Discord had said, no matter what path I had taken would have led to this eventuality, like my destiny was completely out of my control.

“Dreamdrop… do you think Discord wants us to die?”

The blue-haired magical girl beside me sighed, taking several moments to genuinely think of an answer before responding. “I think he wants chaos, and that’s just one way to make it happen.” I then lowered my head in despair, now having an even stronger conviction that nothing I did even really mattered in the long run. “But! I also believe that Discord needs you more than any of us. I think he may even need you more than he needs Marrow.”

“How so?”

“Well…” Dreamdrop swung her legs back and forth along the edge of the roof as she spoke. “For one thing, if he didn’t have you, then this whole magical girl hunt would have ended a long time ago.”

“If it weren’t for Trixie, it never would have begun…”

Then, just as I had lifted my knees to my chest, feeling sorry for myself as I buried my face into my legs, Dreamdrop wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a warm, intimate hug. She always gave me the best hugs, the kind that would make me vent out all my sorrows while she stroked my hair, but this was not the time to be making myself vulnerable.

“If it hadn’t begun, we wouldn’t have Iron Maiden back. Or Mind Games.”

“Or Lulu Lemon,” I responded with frustration, turning my head to avoid eye contact. Just as I was beginning to allow my anger to build up inside myself again, however, Dreamdrop placed her hand on top of mine, cooling me down as if it were her magical ability all along.

“Trixie, maybe that’s a good thing.”

The anger then came back twofold, making me puff out steam from my nose, again looking straight ahead to avoid Dreamdrop’s eyes. “I get it. Now that we have her, we’ll have a much better chance of surviving against Autumn Blaze’s magical girls. This is about the team, not Trixie.”

With a soft giggle, the girl beside me shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. You are true in saying that having Marrow with us will definitely add to our chances of surviving, but what I’m really trying to say is, now you don’t have to live with any more regrets.” Finally, I turned my attention towards Dreamdrop, looking straight into her beautiful baby blue eyes as she smiled back at me, making my heart race and my face blush. “Almost everyone who you killed has come back to life… and they all forgive you.”

“You don’t know that just yet. For all we know, Marrow could still hate me just as much as I hate her.”

“I don’t hate you, Tripsy.”

Suddenly, Dreamdrop and I both jumped, turning around to see a skeleton in the darkness, projecting Marrow’s voice like a puppet. Then, in the next moment, a girl in a black dress pulled herself out of the windowsill and jumped up to the roof beside us, once again reuniting with her skeleton and taking a seat next to Dreamdrop, facing me. Seeing her alive again was making me more furious than I could have imagined, even though I imagined it would have made me pretty mad to begin with, but rather than starting a fight, she looked back at me with a softness that I didn’t recognize, at least not from her.

“Why aren’t you asleep, Marrow?” I asked in anger.

“I’ve been asleep for the past four years. I think I could use the extra couple hours of being awake.” Then, there was a silence, an extremely uncomfortable silence that made me debate whether I really wanted to be awake anymore, even though Marrow wasn’t necessarily doing anything to ruin the moment. “Listen, Trixie--”

“Great and Powerful Trixie, thank you very much.”

“Right. Great and Powerful Trixie, I just wanted you to know that I deserved to die.” Suddenly, my ears perked up, making me turn my attention back towards Marrow, who seemed to be looking over the edge as if she were ready to jump. “I was so mean to you growing up, and I guess it took a shock to my system for me to finally realize just how bad I was to you. It’s just… I lost one of my best friends because I was too weak to save her, and I thought that if you became a magical girl, you would just slow us down, leaving even more people like my friend to die.”

“Wow,” Dreamdrop said sarcastically, “you really don’t pull back any punches, do you?”

“What I’m trying to say is… You were a better magical girl than I ever was.” Again, my ears perked up, making me tilt my head in confusion, too dumbfounded to actually believe that I was hearing the words coming out of her mouth. “I mean, I was pretty pissed when I found out that you had ditched Manehattan to live here in Canterlot, but then I realized that if I wanted Manehattan to be protected, then I shouldn’t have gone and died when the city needed me most. I have to admit, though, I still find it hard to believe that you killed both me and Night Seam while surviving to the end of the game. How long had you been a magical girl at that point?”

“Three days,” I said in as condescending a tone as I could, but again to my surprise, rather than getting angry, Marrow just laughed, leaning back on the rooftop and staring up at the night sky.

“Night Seam and I had been magical girls for two years, and when you add Storm Rose to the mix, you managed to beat the three magical girls who had been with Discord the longest.”

It was obvious that Marrow was honestly trying to make recompense with me, but after spending the latter end of my childhood making my life hell, forgiveness wasn’t something that I could give her so easily. “Is that all you came to say to the Great and Powerful Trixie?” I asked with my nose in the air.

“...No, actually.” I raised an eyebrow, looking back at Marrow to see Dreamdrop with the same expression on her face that I had. “I think it would be a good idea to ask Discord on what to do next, especially if he knows this Divinity girl personally.”

The moment she had spoken her name, however, a figure appeared in front of our eyes, spreading her majestic wings and floating in the air in front of us, making Dreamdrop and I jump back in fear. Marrow, however, seemed almost oblivious to the divine power of the magical girl in front of her, leaning in forward as she admired the grandeur that came with her reputation.

“If you have questions about me, why don’t you just ask me yourself?” she asked, flapping her wings for good measure, despite the fact that she was otherwise floating in the air. “After all, I have questions about you as well.”

“Then I guess you probably already know the answers to those,” Marrow replied with a chuckle, causing Dreamdrop and me to give her subtle glances to hint for her to stop talking. “Here, why don’t you have a seat? Beside me, probably. These two look like they’ve got a bad case of social anxiety right now.”

With a small nod, the magical girl in white retracted her wings and took a seat next to Marrow on the roof of the building, creating even more panic within myself and Dreamdrop. “I’m guessing you’re the leader of this group,” Divinity spoke, looking up at the night sky as we were moments earlier.

“More or less. I did call myself the original magical girl, but that was before I knew that magical girls existed anywhere else, let alone that there was one that came from Platinum City before me.”

I didn’t need to have Mind Games’s powers to know that Marrowing designating herself as the de facto leader had pissed Dreamdrop off, but we were both too scared to interrupt Divinity for one single moment. “I see. So what questions did you have for me, Marrow?”

Marrow snickered upon hearing her name, which must have been even more enthralling for her, seeing as how she had never actually introduced herself. “Well, for starters, I was wondering why your bio in our magical directories says ‘unknown’ whereas everyone else has a detailed description as to who they are.”

“Understandable. I have people in my own life whom I am trying to protect, innocent people who have no dealings with magical girls. I don’t believe I’m overstepping any boundaries in keeping them out of your magical girl hunt. Is there anything else you would like to ask?”

“Just one more thing. Discord apparently showed Trixie an alternate reality where if she had decided to join Autumn Blaze, the attack on Canterlot High School still would have happened. Is there anything you think he’s not telling us?”

Divinity then leaned forward, setting her elbow on her knee as she rested her chin on her knuckles. “Hmm… From what I saw in Trixie’s vision, Autumn Blaze decided to kill Trixie and her friends to get back at Discord for sealing her for eternity within the confines of Everfree City.” The way Divinity said that last part made me believe that there was something else that she was hiding, but I didn’t dare question any information she gave us out loud. “As for how this could have been avoided, the only realistically viable solution I could find would be if she hadn’t been introduced to Autumn Blaze at all.”

“Wait. Who introduced her to Autumn Blaze in the first place?”

“Palette.”

Marrow then furrowed her eyebrows, making her barely-visible eyes that much harder to see. “That fucker!”

“Marrow!” Dreamdrop corrected, giving her an angry look before switching to a pleasant demeanor as she looked back at the magical girl in white. “Sorry, Divinity. She’s not used to speaking to magicals as well-mannered as you.”

“Please,” Divinity said, holding up her hand. “There is no need to be so formal with me. I’m glad that she can speak with me in the same way she can speak with you.”

“If that’s true,” I began, shivering slightly as all eyes fall back on me, “then does that mean you’re still going to try to kill us tomorrow?”

Dreamdrop’s eyes were practically popping out of her skull in her panicked state, but Divinity just blinked twice before leaning back on the roof again, staring back up at the night sky. “I was never going to kill you, Trixie, but you had your warning. You deliberately disobeyed me when I asked you to keep your friends out of this hunt, and because of that, I am going to aid my sisters in my own ways. Just know, however, that we are going to win this hunt in the end, and when we do, I am going to bring back every single girl that you or your friends killed along the way.”

“Ha!” Marrow laughed. “Kinda cocky, don’t you think?”

Rather than getting angry, however, Divinity gave her a smile. “Well, unlike you, I have never died.” Dreamdrop and I both covered our mouths before we started laughing out loud, although Marrow undoubtedly heard the cackles coming from behind our hands. “But if that’s all, I really must return to Everfree City.”

“WAIT!” I shouted, sticking my hand out just as Divinity was about to lift herself off into the air, catching everyone off guard by my sudden vocal outburst. “Trixie has one more question.”

“I don’t recall giving you the opportunity to ask me any questions. You lost your privileges of being my friend when you went against my word.”

“I’m sorry, but just one more question…” I then held my hands to my chest, trying to get the question out of my mouth but freezing in the process, still trying to figure out whether I really wanted to know the answer or not. This question had been bugging me for days, and if I didn’t figure it out while I could still ask an omniscient being, I would probably regret it for the rest of my life, assuming I even lived through the next day. “It’s about my mom…”

“Oh?” Divinity said, raising an eyebrow.

“Discord said that she died of alcohol poisoning, but… that’s not the whole story, is it?”

Divinity then stared at me for several moments before lifting her hand into the air. “...Good night, girls.” Then, out of nowhere, my eyes began to feel heavy, and looking over at Dreamdrop and Marrow, it seemed like they were feeling the same, all of us falling backwards onto the roof as our eyelids gradually closed. Finally, after just a few seconds of trying to force myself awake, I fell into my dreamworld, losing my grip on reality completely.

When the three of us woke up, we were back in our room, groggily rising from the sound of my alarm clock going off, which on a normal day would signify that it was time to get ready for school. As we all woke up from the limited amount of sleep we received, however, none of us said a word to each other, probably feeling the stress build up to its peak now that the day had finally arrived. None of the girls had transformed back into their normal forms since last night, instead choosing to stay in a form where they could remain protected at all times. It was probably better this way, especially since we didn’t want to get too attached to our human forms right before the possibility of losing them forever.

Dreamdrop was nice enough to cook breakfast for everyone, but even that wasn’t enough to cheer us up, knowing that there was a good chance that for some of us, this could be our last breakfast ever. Marrow seemed to be the most calm out of all of us, probably because she still hadn’t seen any battle since she had been revived, leaving her much more lively than either Mind Games or Iron Maiden. Even Night Seam looked grumpier than normal, unable to look anywhere but her plate as she slowly began eating her eggs, and even though this would have been the time for Dreamdrop to liven things up, she had already been through this once before. I had to make sure that all of these girls made it home for dinner tonight, just so we could have a real meal together with smiles on our faces, and when we did, Cupid Symphony, Storm Rose and Paradox would be there to join us.

“You girls ready?” Marrow asked once breakfast was finished, to which none of us responded with anything more than a glance in her direction. “Wow. Such confidence.”

“I am sorry, Marrow,” Palette replied, “but now is not exactly ze time for us to be celebrating.”

“And it’s that exact attitude that’s going to get you all killed!” Suddenly, all of our attentions were perked up, mostly in anger, but still attentive enough to listen to her continue. “How do you expect to win if not even you believe you’ll make it out alive? Do you girls even care at this point?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Iron Maiden exclaimed, taking a step forward. “Last I checked, you don’t exactly have the best track record of staying alive either!”

Marrow then folded her arms, looking down at the ground with a sigh before electing to continue. “You’re right, Iron Maiden, but I managed to keep myself alive for two years as a magical girl. In fact, the only girl who ever killed me ended up winning Discord’s death game and is still here putting just as much effort into this as anyone! Now you girls have her on this team, you’ve no doubt seen what she’s capable of, and you’re not going to put your faith into your own teammate?! That’s not what Platinum City girls are about!”

My ears were now perking up, hearing for the first time Lulu ever saying something positive about me, taking away some of the pressure off of myself as well as those around me.

“Now, I know that the magical girls we’re going to be facing up against are pretty tough,” she continued, “but it’s not like we’re a bunch of weaklings either! When this hunt started, there were nine of them and three of us. Now there are four of them and seven of us, and if we manage to kill even one magical girl from Everfree City, our numbers will shoot to eight on three. Now how in the hell do any of you lack confidence after that?”

“Because we still have no idea how we’re going to defeat Divinity!”

All the magical girls turned around to see Dreamdrop practically shaking where she stood, not crying, though she looked like it could happen at any moment. Then, with what we could interpret was a smile, Marrow slowly made her way over to Dreamdrop, placing her hand on top of her shoulder. “You leave Divinity to me. I’ll make sure we win. I promise.”

At this point, we could all lift our shoulders a little bit higher, not to the point where we had smiles on our faces, but at least feeling confident enough that we stood a chance. Honestly, none of us had any idea how Marrow would go about beating someone like Divinity, but if we managed to bring back the other three girls first, a ten on one battle seemed at least within our reach. Just as I was about to lead the girls out, however, Dreamdrop quickly pulled me back into an embrace, saying “I love you,” and placing a kiss on my lips before anyone could see, giving me even more reason to keep everyone alive. Then, as I opened the front door to lead them all outside into the bright Canterlot sunrise, we finally made our way towards Canterlot High School, where we would finally end the war between Everfree City and Platinum City, one way or another.

*****

When we arrived atop a building just a block south of CHS, Marrow did a quick examination of the school grounds, looking out for any signs that the attack on the school had already begun. Fortunately for us, however, it appeared that we were the first ones there as students happily made their way to their classrooms, which just meant that Divinity was letting us have a head start. Then, once the bell rang to begin the start of the new school day, the seven of us jumped off the roof and into the school’s courtyard, searching around for any kids that might be coming in late.

“Seems like everything’s clear out here,” Marrow said, inspecting the area.

“But how vill we know zat zey vill attack here first? Vould it not make more sense for zem to attack within ze school first?”

“Uhh… girls?” Mind Games said, motioning towards an area on the sidewalk. “I don’t think we need to worry about where to find them. It looks like they found us.”

As the seven of us looked towards where Mind Games was pointing, we saw a black portal open up on the sidewalk, allowing four figures to walk through from the darkness. One of them had a tight blue dress that contrasted with her metallic skin, making more of clunk sound than the others as she approached us in her high heel boots. The second girl seemed to be shaking in anger, sporting a pair of cat ears, cat paws, a black skirt and a short white top, furrowing her eyebrows as she heaved in air furiously. Standing in between them was a girl with a bubbly blue dress, slit high for the fabric to almost uncover her entire right leg before drooping down to her pink high heels, along with sporting blue, translucent halos levitating around her purple, elbow-high gloves. Then, to the very right was the girl who we had dreaded most of all, the girl in the white dress, golden laurels and glossy blonde hair, making her way all the way out of the portal as it gradually closed behind them.

The seven of us stared at the four of them, none of us saying a word while we all waited for the other side to begin the conversation. We had no idea how we would start interacting with them right off the bat, knowing that they were planning on killing us as well as everyone at CHS, but if we started off charging towards them, we would be dead in a heartbeat. I had wished that Discord would have given the other girls magical orbs like Palette and I had, but for some reason, he thought it would be better to leave the others defenseless. We had been hoping to come up with a plan of attack before this moment would finally come, but as we stood there, facing our opponents, my mind was completely blank, leaving me to adapt like I had always done.

“It’s been quite some time since we last saw you, hasn’t it, Dreamdrop, Palette and the Great and Powerful Trixie?” La Proxy began. “I hope you wouldn’t mind introducing us to your friends here.”

Like they didn’t already know by now.

“Trixie agrees,” I said, stepping forward. “You were all kind enough to introduce yourselves to Trixie, so it only makes sense that Trixie introduces her friends to you. You’ve already met Dreamdrop and Palette of course, which just leaves Iron Maiden, Mind Games, Marrow and Night Seam.”

Catastrophe’s breathing started to pick up even more once I mentioned that last name, causing her to bite down on her cat paw in fury before she started lunging towards us already. “You all seem like wonderful girls,” Genny responded. “It’s just a shame that things were unable to work themselves out in a more sensible manner.”

“But we can still work something out,” Mind Games said sadly. “We don’t have to fight.”

By this point, Catastrophe had practically bitten into her paw so hard that she started bleeding, causing her to officially lose her cool as she screamed, “YOU THINK WE CAN JUST FORGIVE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS AFTER WHAT YOU DID TO CANDYCORN?! I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU BITCHES PAY WITH YOUR LIVES!!”

“Calm down, Catastrophe,” the fourth member of Everfree City said, holding up her arm. “We’re not going to get this chance again, so let’s just take a minute to speak like proper women and discuss things politely before things get out of control.”

“Right,” Iron Maiden said with a scoff, “because things totally aren’t out of control already.”

“...So are you saying you would like to initiate the battle?”

“Ack! N-no! No. Sorry. Go ahead and talk it out.”

Divinity then turned towards Marrow and said, “Is there anything you girls would like to communicate before we begin?”

Marrow then shifted her attention towards all of us, giving any of us the chance to speak if we wanted, but knowing that the other girls would probably all remain silent, I hesitantly stepped forward again, looking at the ground and rubbing my knuckles. “Trixie just wants to say that… She’s sorry.” Catastrophe was already on the verge of killing me on the spot, but Divinity held up her hand again to calm her down before she got too out of control. “The reason Trixie killed Dokaeru as well as the other magical girls was because Discord showed her a reality where this exact scenario played out, only it was one where we lost. Trixie had to protect herself as well as Canterlot High School from this attack, so she started killing magical girls one by one and reviving members of Platinum City. Trixie hopes you understand that she never wanted to hurt any of you.”

“LIAR!”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” Genny said, tilting her head with her hands on her hips, “but what instigated the attack in this alternate reality that was shown to you?”

“Autumn Blaze,” I said, trying not to choke on my words. “She was trying to manipulate you from the beginning to get you to kill us. She knew an attack on the school would draw us out.”

“Forgive me if I seem blunt,” La Proxy chimed in, “but why shouldn’t we believe that the entire purpose of killing us was to bring back your friends? You do get to revive members of Platinum City with every one of us you eliminate, correct? Perhaps Discord has been manipulating you into thinking that you were acting in justice, when really he just wanted to restore Platinum City to its former glory.”

“Discord doesn’t lie,” Night Seam said in response. “There’s no doubt that he and Autumn Blaze hate each other, and he does try to manipulate us into doing his bidding, but what he said about this alternate reality is true. No matter the choices we made, they would ultimately bring us here.”

“Then it seems that this battle has been unavoidable,” Genny replied. “If that’s so, then I would perceive that there will be no hard feelings, regardless of the victor?”

“FUCK YOU, GENNY! I’M ALLOWED TO BE PISSED!”

Again, Divinity held up her hand to silence Catastrophe, turning then to face me again, saying, “Is that all?” to which I nodded my head. “If that’s the case…” La Proxy then lifted her hand above her head, causing the translucent halo around her wrist to spin rapidly, creating another portal behind them. “...then let the games begin.”

Chapter 17

Suddenly, La Proxy slammed her hand to the ground, engulfing all of us through the portal and sending us to a completely different dimension where we felt the ground beneath our feet disappear. Looking around us, it appeared like we were in outer space, only the force of gravity was still taking effect, pulling us down at an incredibly quick speed with a bright, orange light surrounding my arm. In the next second, I heard Dreamdrop scream, and looking down, I found out exactly what their plan was in sending us here. As we freefell below, picking up speed as we descended, we were headed straight towards the sun itself, while the Everfree City girls floated safely from where we fell. Divinity must have been keeping them in midair while the rest of us were subjected to the gravitational pull of the star beneath us, leading us directly to our fiery deaths.

“Trixie!” Night Seam shouted past the screams of the other girls. “Use your magic!”

That was it! It seemed so simple, but in the heat of the moment, I had completely forgotten that I actually had the ability to halt our freefall! Then, nodding my head, I stuck my arms out, slowing down the speed of our descent until we finally came to a complete stop, allowing us to catch our breath, if only for a moment. We were still hovering above an actual star, far enough away to where our bodies were feeling warm, but not close enough to actually cause any damage to our bodies. Honestly, we were lucky enough to have oxygen in this alternate dimension, which La Proxy must have done just for the sake of keeping herself and the others alive while we fell to our doom.

The enemies, however, were still above us, although they were plenty far enough away to where we couldn’t see their reaction to us surviving their plan, instead appearing as four small dots. Then, it looked like something appeared by their side, and three of those dots then made their way through the portal while one of them stayed behind, which I could only presume was Divinity. The figure, though, was beginning to grow larger and larger until we could finally make out the colors blue and silver heading towards us. For some reason, X Genesis volume 9 was the one who had stayed behind, and without Divinity, she was falling down from the gravity, outside the reach of Divinity’s magic. Just as I was about to question it, however, I noticed that she was on a direct collision course with me, but before I even had the chance to react, her whole body collided with mine, breaking my ribcage and causing me to release my magic, sending us all back down towards the heat of the star.

“My condolences for doing this to you,” she said, “but we can’t have you using your magic right now. Divinity is watching from a safe place and will transport me back once you have all been eliminated. Thankfully, though, I can survive even solar radiation, so I shall remained unharmed. Well, it’s been a pleasure.”

I was in so much pain I couldn’t think, let alone move my body enough to activate my magic in order to save the girls screaming around me. Even air was hard to grasp, even though I was trying my hardest to pull the oxygen into my lungs, and to make matters worse, I could feel the heat under my back begin to grow more and more severe. In a matter of what would probably be seconds, the flames of the star beneath us would completely engulf us, ending the battle before it had even started.

Just then, though, the light around my body disappeared in an instant, creating total darkness as I faced the opposite direction of where I was falling. I couldn’t move my spine enough to see what was going on due to the pain in my ribs, but before I even needed to ask, I felt my body press against something soft, stopping my body from falling any further. My arms were now lying against what felt like fur, and looking over towards the other girls as best I could, I noticed that everyone else had stopped falling as well, although some were still crying in fear. Genny, however, was nowhere to be seen, which meant that whatever saved us was playing sides in this war, leaving only one culprit left that fit that bill.

“Discord,” Divinity said unhappily, appearing out of the darkness. “Why are you interfering?”

“Oh, so you think you’re the only omnipotent being who’s allowed to take part in this game, hmm?” I couldn’t see his face without moving my body, but the sound of his voice, for once in my life, actually made me feel a small measure of comfort.

“This isn’t a game. It’s a war.”

“I know! Which is why I didn’t bother saving your friend over there! By the way, are you sure you don’t want to save her right now? Even though she can handle the heat of the sun, I doubt it’s very comfortable for her.”

Divinity glared at the god of chaos before stretching her wings and descending down, leaving the rest of us to breathe a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Iron Maiden’s voice said, “but man am I happy to see you!”

“Don’t get used to it. I’m not going to save you every time, you know. I just wanted to make sure the playing field is fair.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Dreamdrop asked in a hurried tone. “Trixie got hit pretty hard; it looks like she’s in a lot of pain!”

“You know, I find it unfair that you’re allowed to refer to her by name, whereas I have to refer to her as the Great and Powerful Trixie. I’m just saying, it seems like a double standard to me.”

“DISCORD! PLEASE!”

Dreamdrop was right. I was in so much agony that I wanted to curl up and hold my chest, but every time I even tried, the pain inside me sent daggers to my brain, leaving me in misery no matter what I did. Just as I was about to surrender to the tears behind my eyes, though, Discord snapped his fingers, making the pain vanish instantaneously and allowing me to weakly sit myself up, seeing Dreamdrop’s wide smile.

“Great and Powerful Trixie, are you OK?” Mind Games asked urgently.

“Yeah,” Iron Maiden agreed. “That must have hurt.”

Nodding my head, I said, “Trixie is fine, but… what happened to Divinity and Genny?”

No sooner had I asked the question when Divinity and X Genesis reappeared, hovering above us in the space world with an icy glare coming from the magical girl in white. “What’s wrong, Divinity?” Discord asked sarcastically. “If you really have a problem, you could always just kill everyone right here, couldn’t you?”

All of our eyes suddenly went wide with half of our team vocalizing their disapproval, but Discord’s smile never faded, nor did Divinity’s angry scowl. “La Proxy!” she shouted. “Get us out of here!” Then, we all felt ourselves falling again, but this time, we landed on the pavement with a small thud, sitting ourselves up and rubbing our backs from the surprise landing. Discord was no longer there, instead leaving us with the four magical girls from earlier standing above us, each with starkly contrasting expressions.

“My, my,” La Proxy said with a grin. “It looks like defeating you girls isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”

“Indeed,” replied Genny. “It would seem that there are limits to how much we can do without Discord’s intervention.”

“THEN LET’S FUCK ‘EM UP RIGHT NOW! SERIOUSLY, WHAT ARE YOU GIRLS WAITING FOR?!”

“We need to adapt, Catastrophe,” Divinity announced, keeping the angry cat girl at bay for a little while longer. “Although you do have a point.” Then, as all of us got back onto our feet, La Proxy lifted her hand again, the thin halos around her wrist spinning rapidly until another portal opened up, revealing the inside of the school. The portal was to the main hallway, and although there were no students there at the moment, it would only take a few steps to get to the first couple of classrooms, a sight which made my heart clench and Divinity’s lip curl upwards. “We did come here for a reason, after all. Besides, we have some girls that we need to revive as well.”

“YEEEEES!”

Then, without wasting another second, Catastrophe jumped through the portal, which La Proxy immediately sealed upon slamming her hand to the ground. My worst fears were coming true, and without taking another minute to think about it, I turned on my heels and started running as fast as I could towards the front entrance of the school.

“La Proxy, take care of her!” Divinity shouted, and in the next second, I found myself running into a wall, only when I turned around, there was nowhere left for me to move. I was in a wooden chest that barely fit my entire body, and no matter how much I tried pushing the case open with both my hands and my powers, the doors to the chest wouldn’t open. The lack of space was beginning to make me grow even more anxious than I already was, leaving me breathing heavily in the darkness that encapsulated my vision as I tried to punch my way out. The more I felt around, though, the more I realized exactly where I was.

I was in a wooden coffin. I had been buried alive.

“Discord!” I shouted, continuing to pound on the door, sealed by both a latch as well as six feet of dirt. “Get me out of here!” After each second that passed, I felt like hours were going by, which was time wasted where Catastrophe could be halfway finished killing all the students at my school. “DISCORD!”

Just as quickly as I had been pulled into this new environment, however, I was quickly pulled out, yet again landing on my back, although this time, I was in a place that I actually recognized. The walls surrounding me were filled with lockers, trophies and doors to classrooms, but what I was really looking for was nowhere to be seen, making me panic just as much as before. Discord must have been the one to teleport me here, but he had sent me to the wrong hallway, which hopefully didn’t mean that I was already too late. With adrenaline now pushing me to run faster than I ever had, even in my magical girl form, I looked around everywhere I could to find a pair of cat ears or paws, but found nothing.

‘Are you really sure you want to be going in that direction?’ a voice in my head said, similar to that of Divinity. ‘Your friends are all over here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to them.’

Now I was more conflicted than ever. If I went after Catastrophe, I would be saving the students from her attack in the short term, but if I didn’t go back and help the others, there was a chance they would all die, leaving me to defend the school against Genny, La Proxy and Divinity all by myself. I could feel my pace slowing down, especially once I arrived at the main hallway where Catastrophe had entered earlier. I had made the decision that I would still go after the cat girl, even if it meant leaving the other girls with one less person to help them, but when I thought of Dreamdrop out there without me, fighting Divinity…

‘Great and Powerful Trixie! Behind you!’

With another voice echoing through my head, I quickly jumped backwards, summoning my spear to block a sharp pair of claws just before Catastrophe managed to slice my neck. Her eyes were shaking just as much as her body was, giving me the sense that any sanity she had before was long gone, leaving an empty magical girl whose primary psychological function was to kill.

‘Thank goodness I got to you in time!’ the voice continued. ‘I was able to read Catastrophe’s thoughts, and you need to trust me when I say that you don’t want me repeating any of it. The both of you are at the end boundaries of my magic, though, so if either of you go any further, I won’t be able to speak with you. Also, Marrow says not to worry about us and to focus on Catastrophe. We can fend these three off for now, but it would be a real huge help if you could get rid of her so we can bring someone else back. If you need me, just think real hard!’

Then, my brain was left with silence, allowing me a quick wave of relief, despite the girl in front of me swiping at my throat as if her life depended on it. ‘Thank you, Mind Games! Trixie owes you one!’

“DON’T YOU FUCKING IGNORE ME!” Catastrophe shouted, leaping backwards and glowing a bright rainbow color. Then, before she even touched the floor, her body started to morph, taking the shape once again of a pony with a lion’s mane and a large, crooked horn in the center of her head, touching down while glowing a bright blue flame. “You know what the difference between blue and red fire is, don’t you? THE BLUE STUFF IS ESPECIALLY HOT!”

Then, lifting her horn into the air, the fire around her body projected its way outward, engulfing the entire classroom in a blue blaze that stretched to the ceiling, leaving cinders falling into the air. I had managed to use my magic to create a forcefield to protect myself from the initial blow, but I couldn’t stay on the defensive if I wanted any chance of beating her. Then, leaping into the air and feeling the fire around me burn through my cape and outfit, I swung my spear down, feeling myself swiping through the air as she once again transformed back into her normal form, falling to the floor on all fours. Once she transformed back to normal, though, the fire around us immediately disappeared.

That’s it! The fire must be physically attached to her body when she’s in her Autumn Blaze form! She isn’t using magic to make the fire!

“You know something?” I asked in a condescending tone, trying to take advantage of her less than ideal mental state. “If you really wanted to kill me, wouldn’t it just make sense for you to transform into Divinity and kill me on the spot?”

Then, after growling with anger, she took another step back and once again transformed, this time taking the form of the magical girl in white, making me hope that I hadn’t misinterpreted her abilities. “I’m going to give you one chance to take that back,” she said, looking down at me just like Divinity would. “Your death would be much easier to deal with if you let me kill you in my regular form, but if you even think of fighting back, I will turn your pores into termites and have them devour you from the inside out.”

“Ha! Is that really the best you could come up with?” I asked, slamming my spear into the ground and leaning up against it. “Marrow came up with threats that were way scarier than that growing up. Oh, wait! That’s right. You don’t know Marrow too well yet, do you? I know I introduced her earlier, but just as a recap, she’s the girl we brought back to life after we killed your sister.”

Then, with her face so enraged that she looked like she could pop a blood vessel in her eyes at any minute, she once again changed back into Autumn Blaze, giving me the exact confirmation I needed. With her body sending scorching fires into the air once again, I leapt forward, ignoring the burning pain around my body and swung my spear once again, leaving her to do nothing but dodge or block with her chitinous horn. For the first time today, I was the one on the offensive, causing her to retract her flames so that she could focus all of her energy on blocking my attacks. Plus, in the mental state she was in, if she tried breaking free for one of her own attacks, she would be left defenseless against a fatal strike that would end the fight altogether.

What mattered most, though, was that I had made her so angry that she had completely forgotten where she was. She was so concerned about killing me where I stood that she forgot how easily she could break into a classroom, kill one student and get Divinity to resurrect her sister for her. All I needed to do was be patient enough for the opportunity to present itself, where I would deal the finishing blow and join the others against Divinity’s team.

‘Dreamdrop is dead, Trixie.’

Suddenly, my body stopped moving, allowing Catastrophe the chance to land her attack, changing back into her regular form and swiping at my throat, which I barely escaped by allowing my shoulder to take the brunt of the damage for me. I then fell to the ground, finding myself trying to avoid slash after slash from Catastrophe’s claws as the tables quickly turned around, leaving me trying to get back up to my feet as I deflected her blows. The voice had come from Divinity, which very well could have been untrue, but I needed to hear it from Mind Games first before I let my emotions get the better of me.

Backing myself up to where I had spoken with Mind Games last, I thought as hard as I could, ‘Mind Games! How is everyone? Is Dreamdrop OK?’ while simultaneously blocking another claw to the face. Unfortunately, though, as I waited for a response, deflecting blow after blow, I was left with total silence other than the sounds of Catastrophe’s claws striking against my spear.

‘Mind Games is now dead as well. Night Seam is currently on the brink of death at the moment, which leaves just two more of your friends that I need to worry about.’

No! There was no way! Even though my deflections were gradually losing their speed, giving the cat-eared girl the confidence she needed to attack even harder, I didn’t feel like I could concentrate on the fight any longer. Even if I did manage to beat Catastrophe, was there even any point to it with Dreamdrop gone? Even if I was able to bring her back, what would stop them from killing her again? After all, it wasn’t like I could kill the other three by myself. Was there even any point in living anymore now that she was gone?

As I fought with myself in my mind, Catastrophe managed to deal another blow to my stomach, causing me to keel over in pain, dropping my spear in the process as she stepped on my back. When I weakly looked up into her eyes, she still looked like she was lacking sanity, trying to savor this moment for as long as she could before finally eliminating me altogether. “How does it feel to be on the other side, Trixie? Are you scared? Because I promise you, THIS IS NOTHING COMPARED TO HOW A FOUR YEAR OLD KID FEELS KNOWING SHE’S ABOUT TO DIE!”

Was that what was going to happen? Was I going to die? I guess it didn’t really matter anymore. We were stupid to think that we could ever pick a fight with Everfree City, even after we had them outnumbered.

‘Great and Powerful Trixie! What are you doing?! Get up!’

‘Mind Games?!’

Then, just as Catastrophe was about to deal the finishing blow, I bucked her off of my back, leaving her stumbling backwards with one foot in the air, trying to regain her balance. Without wasting any time, I picked up my spear again and struck towards her neck, which she blocked with her paws, growling in anger from the sudden turnabout.

‘Sorry! La Proxy sent me out of reception for a little bit, but I read your mind to see what Divinity told you. None of it’s true! We’re all still alive! Well, except the part about Night Seam. We’re trying to keep her alive right now, but Dreamdrop is totally fine! Iron Maiden is defending her with her life!’

Suddenly, all the energy that I had lost moments ago was flooding back into my veins, giving me the resolve I needed to focus my magic again, pushing her back several feet with a telekinetic punch. Just as she tried to get up, though, I pressed my foot down on her shoulder and sliced her right arm off, causing her to scream at the top of her lungs in pain as blood sprayed out of her socket like fountain. Still, though, she didn’t let up for one second, using the adrenaline in her body to grab my leg and flip me over, sending me face first into a puddle of her blood. The two of us then slipped as we tried to get our footing back, sliding around in the pool of red that was continuing to cover more of the ceramic flooring.

“I’m going to kill you, Trixie!” she said in anger. “Once Divinity’s done with those girls out there, she’s gonna put my arm back, but I wanna show her what I did to you one-handed first!”

As she continued to bleed out, her movements were becoming noticeably slower. Upon dodging another swipe at my jugular vein, I summoned my spear back into my hands, swinging it towards Catastrophe and cutting her across the abdomen, leaving even more blood trailing out of her body. She then quickly used her only hand left to hold her stomach, trying her best to stop the bleeding, but by this point, there was only so much she could do. Her skin was beginning to turn a pale gray. Her stance was becoming wobbly with her knees caving in after every step, which was becoming slower and slower as I backed myself away from her. As she looked back into my eyes, though, showing me all the anger she had stored over the past several hours, it was obvious that the blood loss was finally killing her, which she had probably come to accept at this point.

“Give… me… back… my… sister…”

Then, she fell to one knee, gripping her stomach as tightly as she could while she heaved air in and out of her lungs, none of which made it to her blood cells. After every life I took, seeing the next girl die just became harder and harder, which was probably the exact reason why Divinity was refusing to kill us outright. She probably wanted her teammates to do the hard parts for her, especially after being a magical girl for ten years. As Catastrophe glared at me one final time, I remembered how angry I was at her age when I took my first life, but this was not a memory that I wanted to experience any longer. Finally, closing my eyes, I raised my spear up and slashed in an arc, feeling the blade cut against her neck as more blood splashed against my body.

‘Mind Games!’ I thought as hard as I could. ‘Catastrophe is dead! Give me a minute to revive someone and I’ll be right there. Don’t let anyone else know!’

‘Sure, I can keep it a secret, but how come?’

‘I don’t want anyone getting in the way like last time.’

This time, I didn’t even need to summon the god of chaos. As soon as I turned around, I felt his presence slithering beside me, leaving the prolonged introduction behind him for once. “You don’t want anyone to get in the way, eh? Now who could you want to revive that the others would be cautious about, I wonder?”

“Cupid Symphony. Right now. No questions. With her powers, and bring her here this time! I don’t want to have to go all the way back to Manehattan Central Park just to come right back five seconds later.”

“I’m sorry. Whoooo’s in charge again? I think you’re forgetting who’s the one who’s actually going to be doing the resurrecting here.”

“Discord, PLEASE! Trixie doesn’t have much time!”

Discord then rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. “Alright, fine. Just know that we’re going to have to talk about this attitude of yours once you finish the game… or rather, if you finish.” Then, with a loud cackle, Discord disappeared, revealing a girl with a love-themed dress and a heart-shaped eyepatch lying on the floor, just a couple feet away from all the blood coming from Sweet Tooth’s body.

“Cupid Symphony!” I shouted, running up to lift her head up, shaking her shoulders as I pled for dear life. “Cupid Symphony, you need to wake up right now!”

“Mmm,” she mumbled, her lower lip trembling as her eyelid gradually began to open, revealing those gorgeous baby blue eyes that would drive any boy crazy. “Great and Powerful Trixie? Oh, you must forgive me. I don’t seem to remember what’s going--SACREBLEU! What in the world happened here?!” The minute her eye opened up, it was immediately drawn to the pool of blood covering the floor beside us, giving her the strength to get back to her feet, shivering at the sight beside her. “Is that what a magical girl looks like after she dies? Who is it? Mind Games? Palette? Please don’t tell me it’s Iron Maiden!”

“Her name is Catastrophe,” I said, trying to sound strong even though I already felt guilt from taking away another life, but Cupid Symphony replied by lifting her eyepatch and squinting at me with both eyes.

“Great and Powerful Trixie, dear… What exactly is going on?”

I couldn’t wait another second. As students were beginning to poke their heads out of their classrooms to see what all the ruckus was, I quickly grabbed Cupid Symphony by the hand and started dragging her down the hallway, only rather than walking towards the entrance so that we could join our teammates, I was walking in the opposite direction. I could join them in a minute, but first, I had something important that I needed her to take care of for me.

“Trixie will explain in a minute, but right now, you’re the only one who can do this.”

Chapter 18

It was like a chain reaction as the two of us walked down the hallway. The moment we passed by a classroom, the students would open up the doors to see what all the commotion was in the hallway, creating more noise which would then lead to the next classroom opening their doors. Cupid Symphony was darting her eye all around the building, seemingly trying to piece together what was going on, even though there was no possible way she’d ever be able to figure out what was really happening.

“Great and Powerful Trixie, I understand that we don’t have much time for whatever you need me for, but… could you at least explain where we are?”

“Canterlot High School.”

“Erm… and what are we doing in Canterlot, again?”

I groaned in frustration, turning a corner and dragging her along as fast as we could go, ignoring the fact that she had asked one question that was obviously just going to lead to more. With the hallways becoming filled to the brim with students clamoring between themselves, apparently already realizing that there was a dead body in the school, the chances of them getting killed were at an all-time high. Literally all La Proxy would need to do is open up a portal and the students would be sucked in like a vacuum, which could have all been avoided if they had just stayed in their classrooms! Regardless, though, my main concern was getting them out as quickly as possible, just so we could resume our war with Everfree City without my classmates being used as leverage.

Finally, the two of us made it into the broadcasting room where the daily announcements were made, and since the class that was usually here was busy trying to figure out what was going on outside, that gave Cupid Symphony and I the perfect opportunity. I had never worked with broadcasting equipment before, but with everything that was on the line, I was pretty sure I could make a few fumbles along the way, just so long as everything worked out.

“Cupid Symphony, can you make a boy fall in love with you with just your voice alone?”

“I… I suppose? I’m sorry, Great and Powerful Trixie, but I’m afraid I’m going to need some context before--”

While Cupid Symphony was in mid-sentence, I forcefully grabbed her by the shoulders and stared angrily into her eye. “These kids are about to die, Cupid. If you don’t use your power right now, every single one of them is going to be killed by a group of magical girls. Please… Trixie needs you to use your power.”

The magical girl in front of me then gave me a concerned expression, her eye shaking until eventually, she nodded her head, looking around at the broadcasting equipment. “Alright. So what would you like me to do?”

“Make the boys at this school fall in love with you. Get them to go straight home immediately, and tell the girls that if they really care about that boy in first period, they’ll either follow him or go home too.”

Cupid symphony chuckled while grabbing the microphone that she would be using for the occasion. “My, my, Great and Powerful Trixie. You seem to know exactly how to toy with people’s hearts.”

Then, as soon as I flicked a switch, I saw a red light turn on, illuminating the control panel. “That might have been it! Try talking!”

The next moment, I was out the door, trying to hear the speakers from the outside while doing my best to prevent feedback from Cupid Symphony’s microphone as she spoke. “H-hello? Is it working?” With a giant smile on my face, I closed the door, giving her a thumbs up. “Oh, magnifique! Hello, my beloved bachelors! This is Cupid Symphony, and I’m looking for a certain man who can fix this aching hole in my heart. Ohh, how I’ve longed for someone just like you, to cherish and to hold in sickness and in health, to spend those warm summers lying next to you by the lake, or those frigid winters where we curl up in a blanket together, cuddling for warmth!”

As Cupid Symphony was getting a little carried away in her fantasies, however, I twirled my finger in a way to signal her to wrap things up quick.

“Oh, but I digress. I doubt that such a man like that exists in this world. In fact, if a man like that really cared for me, he would make his way home this instant, regardless of what his teachers or faculty may tell him, and girls, if you care at all about him, you might want to follow him.”

*SLAM!*

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!”

“Oh! I believe that’s all the time we have for right now. Travel safely, bachelors! Mwah~!”

As soon as she finished speaking those words, however, Principal Celestia walked up and grabbed the microphone out of Cupid Symphony’s hand just as she was signing off. “I don’t know who you two think you are, but this school has been in complete chaos this morning! There might be a dead body of a student who doesn’t even go to this school, and now two girls show up in costumes telling everyone to leave school grounds?!”

“Principal Celestia!” I intervened, trying not to accidentally give myself away, despite her eyebrow raising upon hearing her name. “You need to shut down the school today! These kids are in danger!”

“You’re damn right they are. I’m calling the police and having them escort the two of you off campus."

“No! You don’t understand! We’re not the enemies!”

Celestia didn’t seem to believe me, though. With her demeaning eyes glowering down at us, we needed to find some kind of excuse to get out of the situation, preferably in a way that would allow her to escape along with the students. Thankfully, however, we didn’t even need to think that far.

“Sister!” a woman with dark blue hair and a matching suit said, standing at the doorway with panic on her face. “The children are leaving the school in droves! If we don’t guide them out safely, there’s a chance that they might trample each other to death!”

Celestia looked back at her sister, then back to us, sighing heavily and pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ll be right there, Luna.” As soon as the vice-principal was on her way to guide the students out, however, Celestia turned towards the two of us with fire in her eyes. “I’m going to go make sure that those students make it home in one piece, and if the two of you are on school grounds by the time I get back, the both of you will be in handcuffs. Am I clear?”

“You mean you’re not going to follow them?!” I asked incredulously. “Principal Celestia, you need to get out!”

“Miss Celestia,” Cupid Symphony then added, taking place by my side, “I promise you that we only have your best interest at heart. If you trust us just this once, you may return safely tomorrow, and we will be gone. If you don’t, however, there are people who will use you as a hostage and try to kill you. You’ve already seen that there are lives at stake here, and this school needs you to be there tomorrow when the dust clears up. Please, mademoiselle, don’t give up on your students.”

Celestia’s indignant expression was beginning to fade, but only slightly. Finally, turning her body towards the door while her eyes remained locked on ours, she said, “Never come back to this school again,” and slammed the door in her exit.

I then immediately fell backwards into the wall behind me, sliding down to my haunches while exhaling a breath of relief. “Thank goodness that actually worked,” I said, trying to force myself to have the urgency I needed to get back to the girls rather than resting to catch my breath. I would have to join them in a minute, but right now, I just needed a second to enjoy the fact that things had gone according to plan for once.

“Erm… Great and Powerful Trixie?” Cupid Symphony said inquisitively. “Would you be able to tell me what’s going on now?”

I then sighed deeply, realizing that there were still a lot of uncomfortable details that Cupid Symphony didn’t know yet. “Do you remember the game?”

“You mean the elimination process? Is that all over now?”

“Yes. It’s been over for four years.”

Cupid Symphony’s expression twinged in complete bewilderment, making sounds come out of her mouth before they could form into coherent sentences. “Four years? I’ve been asleep for four years?”

“No… You’ve been dead for four years.”

“I’ve been… dead? I’m sorry, but I’m not quite sure I understand. How did I die? What brought me back?”

I then put my hand to my head and groaned, trying to find a way that would explain everything in as few words as possible so that I could go back to fighting the other three magical girls. “Mind Games killed you, but I brought you back. Right now, we’re fighting the Canterlot magical girls, and if I don’t get back there right now, everyone in Platinum City is going to die!”

“W-w-wait!” she cried, grabbing hold of my arm just as I had gotten back up to my legs. “How many cuts have there been? How did we end up fighting magical girls from a different city?”

“Trixie doesn’t have time to explain!”

“And when did you start referring to yourself in the third person?”

Before she could ask anything else, though, I grabbed her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes, giving her the most urgent look I could possibly give anyone. “Cupid Symphony, Trixie needs you to help Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna get everyone off of school grounds. Then, she needs you to make sure that all the faculty make it home safely. You are literally the only one who can do this right now.”

“B-but if your lives are really in danger like you say, shouldn’t I be there to--”

“No, Cupid!! You have to--”

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

Suddenly, both Cupid Symphony and I made our way out of the broadcasting room to see a female student running for her life, screaming at the top of her lungs while she cried hysterically. Then, coming behind the corner was another magical girl, wearing a blue dress and metallic skin, crashing into the staircase at the end of the hallway without putting so much as a dent into her body. At that moment, though, as the girl ran around the corner, the magical girl stood where she was, staring at the two of us and no longer pursuing the student she had been chasing after.

“Oh, greetings!” she said, raising her hand for a mechanical wave. “You must be the girl resurrected with Catastrophe’s spirit. I guess it would then only make sense to eliminate you next in order to bring back our fallen teammate while simultaneously reducing Platinum City’s supportline. I apologize for not getting the chance to introduce myself properly before you died. Good bye.”

“T-T-Trixie,” Cupid Symphony stuttered, hiding behind my shoulder. “Is this one of those magical girls you were talking about?”

“Yup!” I responded, getting ready to jump away, and just as I had predicted, in the very next moment, X Genesis leapt forward like a bullet, smashing her body into the wall behind us as I grabbed Cupid Symphony by the waist, pulling the two of us away just in time. Several pieces of wall toppled around Genny’s body in a billow of dust, but pulling herself back up to her feet, she wiped the debris from her arms as if she hadn’t experienced the slightest bit of pain. The moment she looked back in our direction, however, I turned my head in Cupid Symphony’s direction and whispered, “Go. Now!”

“Unfortunately, that is not one of your options.”

As soon as Genny spoke, Cupid Symphony started running as fast as her magical girl legs would let her while I summoned my spear, holding it out as if it could block a head-on attack. “You’re not going to hurt her. Trixie won’t let you hurt anyone EVER AGAIN!”

“I don’t quite understand how you plan on defeating me, especially if your plan is just to stab me with a flimsy utensil like that. In case you don’t remember, my body is unbreakable, even among the most destructive tools created by mankind.”

“Trixie will think of something!”

Genny, however, lowered her head and sighed pitifully. “I’m afraid that you have already stalled our invasion long enough. Divinity and La Proxy are on the other side of the school, awaiting the children to file out in an orderly fashion as if pigs on a conveyor belt to be slaughtered. I was sent here to eliminate students who were unsuccessful in making it out of the school in time while the others in Platinum City continue to fight pointlessly against my sisters. It is a shame that our encounter must be cut short, but I really must reunite with the others.”

Then, out of nowhere, she lifted her palm in my direction, opening a circle in the center of her hand to reveal a bright yellow light and a high-pitched hissing sound, as if something was charging up in her palm. “What…” I began, shaking my head in confusion. “What are you?”

“Ah,” Genny replied with a small smile. “Surely you didn’t believe that indestructibility was my only power. After La Proxy introduced me to Everfree City, I had plenty of magical girls with which I could base the premise of my ability. I then asked Autumn Blaze to turn me into the greatest war machine ever built, and along with my indestructibility came a variety of armaments for situations such as these. Likewise, my ammunition is charged by the magic pulled in by my surroundings, so I will never run out of power. Not that it’s ever taken more than one shot to begin with.”

The light in the center of her palm then continued to grow brighter and brighter until it enveloped the entirety of her hand in a blinding yellow light, causing me to lift my arm to protect my eyes. There had to be something I could use to defend myself! As I looked around at all my surroundings, however, the only thing that I saw was gravel from the wall that she had crashed into moments before, and there was no way that would be enough to protect or attack with. With the sound in her palm increasing to a level that sounded like it was ready to fire at any minute, I used my magic to put up a forcefield, knowing that there was no way my magic would be able to stand up to hers.

“Farewell, Great and Powerful Trixie.”

BOOM!

The light then released from Genny’s hand, filling the entire hallway in a bright light that destroyed the walls and lockers in a flash of energy, disintegrating matter itself as everything began to disappear around me. My forcefield didn’t stand a chance, and in the next moment, I felt my body being ripped apart, soaring backwards as the light began to encapsulate my body, sending fire into my nerve endings. With the rest of Canterlot High School becoming reduced to atoms around me, I finally gave into the light, allowing my body the sweet release from all the pain combusting inside my skin.

.
.

Or, at least that’s what I thought.

As the dust finally settled, X Genesis Volume 9 slapped her hands together, beating the debris and gunpowder out of the hole in her hand until it closed back to its original state. “My condolences to your family, sister. Perhaps next time you choose to begin an assault on someone other than the girls of Everfr--Hmm??”

She had been so busy smacking the gunpowder out of her hand, however, that she had completely missed a girl standing right where the attack should have collided. I, on the other hand, was several feet behind her, with my cape and body torn all over, leaving burns and scrapes all along my skin as the girl in front of me finally got back up to her feet. Genny, however, tilted her head in curiosity, noticing that there was now an extra girl in the hallway, tearing her shield in half and placing both segments onto her shoulders.

“Sorry about the late timing,” the girl said, smiling down at me. “That La Proxy girl can do some scary stuff.”

“Ah,” Genny continued. “Iron Maiden, correct? I see that you have managed to escape my sisters. No reason to fret. I shall simply dispose of you as well.”

“Just kidding!”

Suddenly, Genny’s mechanical eyes went wide, turning around to see another magical girl with blue hair and a night-themed dress pinching onto her neck, making X Genesis freeze momentarily. Then, after a few moments had passed… she tilted her head in curiosity again. “I’m sorry if you thought you could put me to sleep, Dreamdrop, but unlike normal magical girls, I do not require rest. The magic in the air is perfectly suitable to give me the revitalization I require.”

“What?!” Dreamdrop screamed, releasing Genny from her grip and stumbling backwards. “You’re not human!”

“Correct. I am a magical girl.”

With Dreamdrop stepping away in fear, however, Genny’s palm opened again to reveal a long needle extending out of her hand, moving towards her while she trembled in fear. I was barely able to get my magic off in time, pulling Genny’s arm into the air long enough for Iron Maiden to jump in with her steel plates, shielding Dreamdrop from any attack Genny could throw at her. I then tried to pull myself back up to my feet, but it was a struggle just to prop myself up after all the damage I had taken. Still, though, I couldn’t just watch X Genesis bombard my teammates with attack after attack until one of them grew too weak to continue, especially since Genny’s ability to pull magic from her environment meant that she would never get tired.

“Stay down, Trixie!” Iron Maiden called. “I’ll take care of metal chick over here. Dreamdrop, stay behind me.”

“Oh?” Genny asked in awe. “And how exactly do you plan on defeating me?”

“I… I don’t know yet, but I’m not just going to sit back and watch my friends get hurt while you pretend to be some hero of justice!”

“Hmm… ‘Hero of justice’, you say? Why would you assume I would label myself with such a title?”

“BECAUSE YOU’RE A FREAKING MAGICAL GIRL!”

“Correct, but you seem to misinterpret what justice truly is. You see, in the minds of Everfree City, the murder of every single man, woman and child at this institution would be justice, seeing as how it would result in an equal amount of pain that you have placed on us as well as restoring that which you have taken away from us. In your minds, justice would be preventing us from carrying out our fixed objective, despite the fact that no one in Everfree City has ever harmed a Platinum Citizen under any mode of reasoning.”

“Are you kidding?! Just look at the Great and Powerful Trixie! Are you seriously trying to tell me that’s not harming her?!”

“The message I am attempting to communicate is that justice is a matter of usurping personal ideals into justifying actions that you deem to support an overarching subjective value. The whole concept is far too partisan to give oneself the title of ‘hero of justice’ in a serious, respectable manner. Nevertheless, it appears as though our discussion has no purpose other than to extend time, which has no benefit to myself or my sisters. I wish you the best in the afterlife.”

In a matter of seconds, Genny had rescinded her needle and had opened up her chest, revealing another powerful reactor beginning to light up in a blinding flash. With all the energy in my body combined, I tried my absolute best to get back onto my feet, but the pain from her last attack was too much for my body to handle on its own. There was only a split second for Iron Maiden to think, and doing what appeared to be a last minute ditch effort, she stuck her steel plates into Genny’s chest where the reactor was just before it exploded. A dark red shadow suddenly fell over the remains to the school's interior, encompassing us in an almost apocalyptic light as the explosion sent Iron Maiden shooting backwards like a cannon, causing her body to smash through the walls behind her.

“Iron Maiden!” Dreamdrop shouted, just as another shadow loomed over her head. Then, turning her head slowly and timidly, X Genesis Volume 9 appeared over her once again, this time slamming her hand to the ground next to her feet with several mechanical sounds echoing throughout her body. “N-no! NO! TRIXIE!”

“DREAMDROOOOP!!!!!”

Now, even despite the pain, I was rising to my feet, pushing my aching body as quickly as it could move, but even while moving my body as fast as I could, a light began to rise up from the ground in a circle around the two magical girls. In the next moment, both girls were covered in a cylinder of combustion, rising from the floor to the ceiling as flames blinded their bodies from view, circling around them in a way that only Genny would be able to survive. I had been too late to save anyone. If Iron Maiden had survived her own fall, it would only be moments before Genny would come after her and use another one of her weapons, and I was in no condition to fight anymore. It seemed pretty safe to say that barring some kind of miracle, the girls of Platinum City were finished.

As the flames rescinded into small embers, only X Genesis remained, not even a small trace of Dreamdrop’s body surviving the heat of the blast. Just as quickly as I had gotten to my feet, I found myself falling back onto my knees with a painful tear dripping down my charred cheeks. My lip was trembling and my chest beginning to bounce from the sobs that I was still in too much trauma to release from my body. There was no way that she was really gone, just like that. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that she hadn’t survived, even though the emotions in my eyes were telling a different story altogether.

Rather than celebrate, however, Genny glared at the ground where Dreamdrop had once stood, smacking her hands once again to brush off the ash and debris from her attack. My blood was beginning to boil to a level I had never experienced before. She wasn’t even respecting the ground where Dreamdrop was killed, instead turning it into her own personal ashtray while she focused her attention back onto Iron Maiden.

“I suppose your friend should be getting up any time now,” Genny said. “Perhaps I should eliminate her before she becomes a problem.”

“Don’t… touch… her…”

X Genesis then looked back at me with confusion in her robotic eyes. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that you are in any position to be making demands. Perhaps I should dispose of you first?”

“GO AHEAD AND TRY!”

Before I even got back up to my legs, I summoned my spear into my hands again, holding it out like I could somehow pierce through Genny’s indestructible skin. The metallic girl in front of me, however, shrugged while shaking her head and exhaling in pity, taking small steps towards me until she was right above my head. Then, lifting her palm right above my face, she opened up the center of her hand to reveal the barrel of a gun, emerging from her palm and pointing directly at me between my eyes.

“Trixie!” Iron Maiden shouted as she attempted to get back up to her own feet. “Get out of there!”

With a last minute burst of energy, I was able to summon just enough strength to get my magic to pull her arm away from my face, angling it up in the air just as she had shot her bullet. “You realize that you are postponing the inevitable, correct?”

“I just have one thing to do first!” I shouted, pulling out my anti-magic orb. “Iron Maiden! Use this and go help fight off Divinity!”

Then, reeling my arm back as much as my body would let me, I threw the orb towards Iron Maiden, making sure I used as much of my magical girl power as I had in my system.

“Hmph. Quite intriguing.”

But even after putting all my strength into that one throw, X Genesis was able to snatch it out of the air like it was nothing. That was literally the only thing left that I could do to fight off Genny. Dreamdrop was gone, Iron Maiden would only be able to defend herself for so long, and my body had been reduced to a carcass that barely kept me alive. I had hoped that if Iron Maiden were able to get that orb back to Night Seam or Marrow, they would be able to stop Divinity and focus all their attention on the two less powerful magical girls, but I was wrong to think that Genny wasn’t on the exact same level as either Divinity or La Proxy.

“What?! WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?!”

...Or maybe I was wrong to think that we didn’t have a shot.

X Genesis suddenly dropped the orb out of nowhere, taking several steps away from it and holding onto her wrist while her eyes went wide. Rather than the familiar metallic hand that we were used to seeing, however, we saw a regular, yellow hand like the kind that would belong to any normal human being. Once she dropped the orb, however, the metallic color began to attach itself back to Genny’s skin, leading her to twiddle with her fingers just to make sure they were functioning properly.

That was it! The orb Discord gave us reflected magic from the outside entering into someone else’s body, which meant that if Genny touched that orb, all the magic that she absorbed wouldn’t be able to keep her body functioning! She would then revert back into her normal form!

“Iron Maiden! Keep Genny from getting away!”

“Wait! Aren’t we supposed to be escaping right now?”

As Genny looked back at me with fear in her eyes, however, she wasted no time in making a run for it, which I was barely able to stop by using my magic to trip her up. Once she was on the floor, however, I was totally immobile, using every drop of energy I had to keep her on the ground for as long as I could. Iron Maiden still didn’t seem to know what was going on, but regardless as to whatever she was thinking, she chased after X Genesis and held up her steel shoulder pads to block her from proceeding further. The moment I released her from my magic to grab my orb again, though, she rose back up to her feet, pointed both of her palms towards Iron Maiden and released an explosive jet, sending her halfway across the room before we could catch up to her.

Then, as soon as she turned around, my jaw dropped.

“Hey, Genny. Discord says hi.”

Out of nowhere, Dreamdrop had appeared in front of her, blocking her path from running the other way. Genny, however, was in too much of a panic to speak any further, immediately taking that opportunity to open her chest again while placing both of her palms onto the ground, but I wasn’t going to let her get away with doing that again. Using my magic, I flung the orb directly into the opening on her chest, making her back away slowly while coughing vehemently, reaching into her chest to pull out the orb before it killed her.

“Dreamdrop! Catch!”

Suddenly, the girl in the night-themed outfit reached out and grabbed my spear while I used my magic to move the orb around the inside of her chamber. Her whole body was changing from a robotic silver to a light yellow, replacing her shiny, blue hair with mossy green and her hard, blue dress with regular female attire. By the time Genny had managed to pull the sphere out of her chest, however, her entire body was now in its original form, and before she could get rid of it to return back into a magical girl again, Dreamdrop was raising my spear above her head, swinging it in an arc towards her neck.

“Dreamdrop! No!” X Genesis shouted, but in the next moment, without holding back, Dreamdrop swung her spear directly through Genny’s throat, severing her head completely off of her body. The orb then dropped out of her hand, rolling on the floor by her head as blood started to spray like a fountain into the air. Dreamdrop’s face, though, was especially heartbreaking once she finally realized what she had just done, falling onto her butt and backpedaling away from the body oozing blood around her hands. It was something I was hoping she would never have to experience, but now she knew firsthand just how terrifying it was to take another human life.

My body was now beginning to allow me to stand up again, but walking was still a chore with no way I would ever be able to fight the other girls in my condition. Iron Maiden, likewise was wobbling as she approached the body lying on the floor, trying not to look directly into the girl’s eyes as she arrived by Dreamdrop’s side.

“It never gets any easier, does it?” Iron Maiden asked, looking straight into my eyes. “I thought just seeing Cupid Symphony die was bad, but I’ve seen it happen two more times since then and not once have I been ready for it.”

“What was her name?” Dreamdrop asked, catching us off guard as she placed her hands to her chest and shook violently. “What was Genny’s name? Her real name! Tell me her real name!”

I then summoned my magical phone, scrolling through the names of the magical girls until I saw a picture with X Genesis Volume 9’s face crossed out in a red X. Upon pulling out her personal information, I read the words aloud, hoping that it would calm down Dreamdrop at least a little bit.

“Her name is Tropical Beach. She’s twenty years old and lives in Central Canterlot with her husband of one year. It says here she was busy trying to work to help put her husband through law school until she could hopefully one day become a stay-at-home mom.”

“Of course…” Dreamdrop said, biting down on her lip, nodding her head as it grew angrier and angrier. “Of course we had to pull a woman away from her fucking husband!”

“Whoa!” Iron Maiden said, taking a step back. “Did you not see her going after innocent kids back there? She needed to be stopped!”

“But it just had to be us to stop her, right?”

Iron Maiden tried to respond, but Dreamdrop just put her face into her hands and began bawling, letting out all the emotion that comes from killing a human being. I wanted to hold her, to stroke through her hair, to run my fingernails down her back, to tell her everything would be alright, but even if I did have the energy to do any of that, it was obvious that she wanted to be left alone. There is no easy way to tell a person to calm down right after they’ve seen someone die in front of their eyes, and it looked like Dreamdrop had severely underestimated how much worse it is when you’re the one with the weapon.

“Dreamdr--”

Before I could finish my sentence, however, a shadow ran along the floors, circling around the area until eventually, a large, dragon-like creature ascended from the puddle of blood, spitting the red liquid out of his mouth like a fountain. In fact, while we were lamenting over someone’s death, Discord was literally bathing in her blood, materializing a loofah so he could scrub underneath his armpits. All three of us had to hold back our anger, knowing that we still needed him if we were going to have any chance of surviving till the end. He had just saved Dreamdrop, after all.

“You know,” he began, materializing a showerhead and spraying himself further, “I find that when you turn the knob on these showers even the teensiest bit, it goes from freezing cold to squelching hot.”

“Discord, please…” Dreamdrop said, wrapping her hands under her knees and pressing them to her chest. “Can we just revive someone now?”

“Upupup! Now hold your horses, Dreamdrop! I believe the Great and Powerful Trixie and I have something to discuss.” Then, turning his face towards mine, smiling smugly with his large, yellow eyes piercing into mine, he said, “I followed exactly what you said. The first time anyone tried to harm Dreamdrop in any way, I teleported her immediately back to Platinum City and only sent her back once it was safe to do so. Now, she’s not going to get another chance, so you’re going to have to protect her from now on.”

I wasn’t happy about what he said, but I was still appreciative that he had done so much for us so far, which seemed to go against every grain of character that I had come to expect from Discord. With a gulp and a nod, I said, “Trixie will protect her with my life.”

“Good. Soooo! Dreamdrop, since you were the lucky one to finish her off, you get the prize! It can be whoever you’d like from celebrities to historical figures to distant relatives to--”

“Paradox,” Dreamdrop replied without hesitation. “She was my first friend in Platinum City and the first one to die. I want her back! Bring Paradox back!” As she struggled to make the words come out of her mouth, she buried her face into her knees, crying even more from the guilt she must have been feeling. Taking away a life to bring someone else back to life may seem balanced in theory, but when you’re the one to do it, it feels like the most selfish, despicable thing in the world.

“Well,” Discord said, putting his claw to his lip as he thought deeply, “I guess that works too. Funny how that just leaves Storm Rose as the last girl from Platinum City who has yet to be reunited with her body, but I guess she was never one to make many friends anyway, was she? Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself. Paradox! Wakey wakey!”

As Discord clapped his hands, thunder and lightning crashed around us, shining in a bright white light until he had disappeared completely. The moment he was gone, however, the three of us searched desperately to find where Paradox had ended up, splitting up in different directions and ducking around heads behind walls.

“Girls! Girls! I found her! I found her!”

Iron Maiden and I then rushed into a sprint, following the sounds of Dreamdrop’s voice until we reached the girls’ bathroom where Paradox was lying down in Dreamdrop’s arms. We couldn’t tell whether or not she was opening her eyes thanks to the goggles over her face, but we could at least see her lower lip moving, bringing a smile to all of our faces.

“Ugh…” she groaned, trying to get the strength back in her body that had been electrocuted out of her four years ago. “My head… I just had the weirdest dream. Discord was making cuts to Platinum City, and out of nowhere I just felt this weird jolt! Almost like I had peeved off Storm Rose during her time of the month and turned her into Typhoon Rose. I’m sorry. Bad joke. Why are we in a bathroom, by the way?”

“Because it’s where Discord put you when he brought you back to life after Storm Rose killed you because she didn’t want to get her powers taken away.”

“...Dreamdrop, leave the jokes to me.”

Just as she had spoken those words, however, the four of us were being sucked through a portal, and on the other side was the back entrance to CHS along with both the Platinum City and Everfree City magical girls. The environment looked like it had taken a beating with several craters carved into the ground, but fortunately, there were no bodies anywhere to be seen. Night Seam looked like she had been through just as much as I had, and Mind Games was busy holding her arms out to protect Cupid Symphony as she cowered behind her shoulders. The scariest part, though, was Divinity rising into the air, looking down on us with fury. Suddenly, Paradox was beginning to shiver as well, grabbing onto Dreamdrop’s outfit while everyone waited for the goddess of magical girls to make her move.

“NO MORE!” Divinity yelled, piercing our ears with her booming voice. “I WILL NO LONGER ALLOW YOU TO TAKE MY SISTERS AWAY FROM ME!”

“Then end this fight before it’s too late!” Marrow shouted confidently.

Marrow’s resolve, however, only succeeded in pissing Divinity off, making her scowl angrily as she lifted her hands into the air.

“Oh, I’ll end it! La Proxy, if Discord takes them anywhere, I want you to bring them back to this spot!”

“Vut are you planning on doing?!” Palette asked with panic in her voice.

Then, with a smile on her face as she descended down to the ground beneath her, she slammed her hands onto the concrete, and in the next moment, the heavens opened up, revealing several meteors making it into the atmosphere. There was no way she was actually doing this! There had to be some kind of trick! She was just trying to get us to do something brash! As I looked around at the other girls, however, they were in just as much fear as I was, and Divinity did not look like she was bluffing.

“I’m ending this war, AND THIS MEANINGLESS PLANET WITH IT!”

Chapter 19

There was no way this was actually happening. In all the scary moments that I’d had up to this point, never once did I believe that Divinity would do something as extreme as causing the extinction of the entire planet! When I looked over at La Proxy, however, she seemed to have complete confidence in her leader, ready to stop us if any of us tried to somehow prevent the meteors from colliding into the earth.

“Divinity!” I called out in desperation. “Please, listen to Trixie!”

“You’ve already spoken enough, Great and Powerful Trixie,” La Proxy answered for her. “She has nothing else to hear from you.”

“Then let me talk to you,” Marrow intervened, causing La Proxy to look in her direction with a hesitant eyebrow raised. “I looked at your profile, Top Notch. Turns out you have a husband and a kid at home, now why would any respectable wife or mother--”

Before Marrow could even finish her sentence, however, La Proxy’s face contorted in anger, sending a portal towards Marrow that she barely dodged after her skeleton spat her out. “Hmm,” Marrow then said, getting back up to her feet. “A portal to a magnified gravity realm? That last comment must have made you really mad, and I didn’t even get to ask the follow-up question.” Then, in the next moment, her skeleton from before rematerialized onto her body, covering her again with its bony protection.

“Do NOT talk about my family, little girl.”

“I just think it’s interesting that you’re OK with them being both killed, especially with a new baby on the way. Shows what kind of mom you are.”

This time, La Proxy used both of her hands to send two portals racing towards her, leaving me to levitate the real Marrow away as her skeleton yet again got sucked into the other portal. The meteors were still probably a good minute away from touching down, but I still felt that whatever Marrow was planning, she needed to get to the point quick before we were all dead. Knowing Lulu, though, she was the type of person who would trash talk someone all the way up until her death, making me worry that I was making the wrong decision in trusting her rather than taking care of things myself. I knew that Divinity could be reasonable, but we didn’t have a whole lot of time to reason with her.

“As for you, Cross Stitch,” Marrow continued, making Divinity’s glare grow fiercer, “I find it funny that you’d pull something like this after what you said last night.”

“Choose your words carefully, magical girl,” Divinity responded with a violent tone in her voice.

“Why’s that? You’re just gonna kill me anyway, right? In fact, why don’t you just save yourself the trouble and kill me right now? You could make my heart explode if you wanted to. You could make my brain crumble to pieces, putting me in way more pain than any space rock could do, so won’t you do it?”

Divinity growled. “Because I want you to see the consequences of your actions. That is my divine judgement.”

“Ha! You can’t even keep me from talking. All you would have to do is snap my vocal cords, but for some reason, you’re not doing that. What’s wrong? I thought you were supposed to be all powerful.”

“ENOUGH!” La proxy shouted, creating another portal that sucked her in like a vacuum, but with Marrow’s skeleton digging itself into the ground, she wouldn’t be able to suck her in without pulling the ground out entirely. With her entire focus on keeping the portal open, however, Night Seam immediately pulled out her throwing knives, tossing them in La Proxy’s direction and causing her to break the portal to open a new one, pulling the knives in to keep herself safe. “You can fight us all you want, but your time on this earth is limited!”

“Now why would you try to kill me when Divinity over here says she wants me to see the world end in front of my eyes? Do you really want to go against your leader’s divine judgement?” As La Proxy struggled to find an answer, though, Marrow pointed her finger towards the girl in the multi-colored dress. “Palette! I’m going to need your anti-magic orb for this next one!”

Without hesitation, Palette pulled the orb out of her dress pocket and threw it in Marrow’s direction, making the other two girls gasp in fear. “La Proxy! Don’t let her have it!” Then, in the next moment, La Proxy opened up another portal in the exact direction where the orb was headed, but using whatever strength I had left, I pulled the orb towards me just before La Proxy was able to suck it into another dimension. Both pairs of eyes were now on me, and there was no way I would be able to get away from a portal like Marrow had.

“Paradox!” I screamed. “Make me invisible!”

“Y-you got it, G&PT!”

I wasn’t sure whether or not this spell would work on Divinity, but I knew for sure that La Proxy would be subjected to Paradox’s powers, making it to where I could at least limp my way towards Marrow. The other girls all tried to keep their eyes on La Proxy so that she wouldn’t be able to tell my location, which I hoped would last long enough for me to get to her in time. Once I looked up, though, I saw that we only had about a half minute before the meteors eventually killed us all, and with the rest of the strength I had left, I tossed the orb towards Marrow, making it pop out of the air in La Proxy’s vision. Just as she had summoned a portal to suck it in, however, Marrow leapt forward, grabbed the sphere and once again dug a bone into the ground to keep herself from falling in.

“GIRLS!” Marrow cried. “We’re not in Canterlot! This is a parallel dimension!”

“So how do we get out?” Mind Games asked nervously.

“Get your teleport gems ready! We’re going to Everfree City!”

“But is that going to work?” Cupid Symphony chimed in.

Marrow, however, chuckled quietly. “Only one way to find out, I suppose.”

With all of us nodding in agreement, we each grabbed hold of our teleport gems, and just as La Proxy was creating a portal to pull us all inside, we each disappeared, reappearing once again in what appeared to be an old peasant village. I was hoping I would never have to come back here again, but when the opponent is La Proxy, I guess I should have realized sooner that this would become my eventuality at some point.

“Is everyone here?” Marrow asked, looking around at the group.

“Not for long!”

Then, the very moment we arrived in the beautiful paradise I called Hell, we were greeted by the devil herself, her body turned black with blue flames burning from her body. If she was anything like Discord, she wouldn’t be able to kill us by herself, but once the other two showed up to fight, it would be just like fighting two Divinities at once.

“Now, girls! Let’s use our teleport gems to go back to Canter--”

In the middle of her command, though, our hearts quickly dropped, seeing that Marrow’s teleport gem had shattered into several fragments, dropping to the dirty ground by her feet. As soon as we saw what had happened to Marrow, we all immediately looked back at our own teleport gems, and surely enough, our crystals were also breaking into pieces and falling to our feet. Without those, there would be no way for us to get out, and unless Discord somehow pulled us out, there would be no escaping Everfree City. We were stuck here until the war was over.

Then, to add insult to injury, both La Proxy and Divinity appeared out of a portal that La Proxy made, which she immediately closed before we could escape, not that we would want to enter into a meteor minefield anyway. The battle was now back on, although with Night Seam and I unable to do more than simply using our magical abilities.

“Discoooord,” Dreamdrop mumbled nervously. “It would be a really big help if you could pop out and save us agaaaaain.”

“Don’t bother,” said Divinity. “I’ve placed a seal on this dimension that keeps Discord from being able to enter. You’ll have to battle without him.”

“Whoa,” Paradox gasped in awe. “A seal that even Discord couldn’t break?”

“Magical girls and guardian deities such as Discord and Autumn Blaze have much different laws associated with their magic. Even though Discord gave me the power to kill people, he can not kill people himself, similar to how I cannot kill guardian deity. I used a seal through the powers he gave me to create a barricade that he cannot pass through, similar to the seal he used to prevent me from ever entering Platinum City.”

“So that’s the trade off,” Night Seam added. “Discord can’t come in and Autumn Blaze can’t leave.”

“Not that any of that matters,” La Proxy said with her hands on her hips. “We have you exactly where we want you now.”

Marrow, however, rather than panic, seemed to smirk as if everything was going according to her own plan. “Mind Games! I need you to listen to my thoughts and do exactly what I tell you. Everyone else! Keep Divinity and Autumn Blaze busy until I give you the signal! Attack now!”

Suddenly, Everfree City turned into a battlefield.

Without Discord being able to save us any longer, La Proxy’s alternate realities became even scarier, starting out with a yellow continuum that flashed in several patterns, hissing out a loud, high-pitched frequency. Everyone standing even several feet away were suddenly pulled into it, leaving me to halt everyone in the air while Night Seam once again threw several knives into her direction, causing La Proxy to drop the portal. With her halos still spinning, however, the ground beneath us began to vanish, and just before we could get sucked in entirely, Marrow appeared behind her, ready to stab her with one of her bones. The portal, though, still hadn’t closed, leaving us to feel the bone-crushing gravity of the dimension beneath us, and just as Marrow was about to strike, Autumn Blaze sent a green beam of energy out of her horn, pushing Marrow away. My foot had now entered into the void, being crushed immediately as adrenaline flooded my veins, which I then channeled as much as I could to levitate everyone else away from the portal while sacrificing myself.

“Oh, no you don’t!” shouted Iron Maiden, throwing one of her steel plates in my direction, and with the adrenaline still allowing me to move through my heavily injured body, I was able to grab hold of the steel shoulder pad just as it was coming down and catapult myself forward beyond the gravitational pull of La Proxy’s dimension. With my body being safe for now, though, Divinity appeared right where I had landed, her hand glowing with electricity as it came down towards me. This time, though, my muscles had completely tensed up, making it to where I couldn’t even move, let alone dodge an attack from Divinity, but just as I was about to give up hope, her hand came crashing down inches from my head, making both of our eyes go wide in surprise.

That’s when I looked over and saw Paradox, moving her hands towards Divinity as if she were controlling what she could see while breathing a sigh of relief. Divinity then turned her finger towards Paradox, and with a ray of light shooting from her fingertip, she sliced right through a wooden house behind her, missing her completely.

“You should really work on that aim of yours,” Paradox said with a giggle, tilting her goggles, but just as soon as she spoke, her face changed demeanors. “Ohhhh, so that’s the plan!” Divinity and I both looked at her with confused expressions on our faces, but as she began to grin herself, she disappeared from view, making it to where apparently nobody could see her.

“Trixie!” Marrow shouted. “Keep distracting her!”

“R-right!”

I had no idea how I was supposed to distract her without being killed, especially when I couldn’t feel half of my body, but so long as I had my anti-magic orb, I would be better protected than the other girls. Nodding my head in agreement, I used my magic to grip her by the neck, making her momentarily twitch in fear, though in the next moment, she physically broke through my magic, glowing a blue aura as if her body had created a barrier that prevented all magic from affecting her. Then, she looked around the area, smiling sadistically as soon as she found whatever it was she was looking for.

“She’s right there, La Proxy! Open a portal there!”

La Proxy then looked back at Divinity with a nod, and pointing her hands towards the goddess magical girl, the halos around her wrists began to spin again, creating a new portal. Only, the portal, from what I could tell, was nowhere near where Paradox was supposed to be. Instead, the portal opened up right behind Divinity, revealing a beautiful utopia of luscious gardens, tall skyrises and bustling creeks, completely different from what we had expected. She had just opened a portal… to Platinum City?

“What are you doing?! You’re going to let them escape!”

“Sorry, she can’t hear you,” said a voice in my mind, apparently echoing through everyone else’s mental ears as well. “She’s under my control now, and with Paradox using her illusions, La Proxy thinks you’re telling her to send us all to Platinum City.”

That was Marrow’s plan! With Paradox and Mind Games working together, they were able to create a power similar to Trickster’s, making La Proxy both see and hear things that didn’t exist!

“La Proxy! Can’t you see it’s a trick?!”

“I’ll take care of this one,” Autumn Blaze then called out with her horn glowing, sending a green light zapping in the direction of seemingly nothing, but in the next second, Paradox appeared out of nowhere.

“Get to the portal!” Paradox shouted. “I’ll try to use my magic again, but you need to hurry!”

With Cupid Symphony using her rapier to clash with Autumn Blaze, creating as much a distraction as she could, she quickly yelled, “It’s no use! She can see through your magic!”

“Then we’ll have to use something besides magic!” Night Seam added, placing her hands to the floor and turning the entire environment around us as well as our bodies black. Even with our showy outfits and hairstyles, it was nearly impossible to tell which of us was which, especially now that the rest of our surroundings was the exact same color. The very contours of our bodies seemed to blend together, and the best part was, seeing as how the blackness was physical rather than magical, there would be no way for them so see through it in the same way.

“Good thinking, Night Seam!” Marrow exclaimed. “Now, everyone to the portal before it closes!”

Suddenly, Autumn Blaze released a large blast of magic, sending Cupid Symphony flying into the air while shouting, “I’ll take care of them, Divinity! You close the gate!” In the next moment, Autumn Blaze shot another green beam of light towards Cupid Symphony, but Iron Maiden quickly responded by jumping after her, using her steel shoulder pad as a shield against her magic. Meanwhile, the blue aura around Divinity disappeared, allowing her to turn towards the portal with her hand outstretched. Then, clenching her fist as if to seal the gate, another portal to Platinum City opened up by its side, making Divinity gasp in confusion. “Divinity! NO!”

Then, as soon as the angel girl turned around, we were all gone, vanished from her view. “What happened?!” she screamed, looking towards Autumn Blaze.

“You turned off your magic barrier! That Paradox girl made you think you were closing the gate, but you ended up opening another one! Quick! Close it before they escape!”

“It’s too late for that.”

Suddenly, once the three Everfree City girls turned their heads towards the portal to Platinum City, Discord appeared just behind the gate, cackling maniacally as the girls scowled back at him. By this point, though, we had all made it back to Platinum City, thanks in part to Dreamdrop and Palette helping me walk the rest of the way after my foot started to explode in even more pain. We were finally safe enough to catch our breaths, watching the Everfree City girls glare at us in fury as the portal closed in front of them. Just before it was sealed completely, however, I heard Divinity’s voice scream, “La Proxy! Go after them!” which meant that it would only be a matter of time before we were pulled back into Everfree City again.

“Goodness, girls! What happened to you?!”

We were all panting at this point, trying our best to pull air back into our lungs, but Night Seam and I were in an exceptional amount of pain, undoubtedly suffering the worst injuries. “Divinity almost killed me,” Night Seam said, turning our bodies back to their original colors. “She turned my skin into fire at one point, but she only managed to burn the outer layer before I was able to put it out.”

“Gracious! I need to fix you all quick!”

Then, in the very next second, my body returned to normal, with all of the scorches, scrapes and fractures disappearing instantly. Even air seemed to flow through my body more easily than before as my muscles gradually loosened to where I felt like I could move them with no problem. Plus, as I looked around at all the other girls in Platinum City, even the ones who hadn’t experienced any injuries seemed like they had been revitalized, making us all cheer with glee.

“Thanks, Discord!” Mind Games exclaimed. “You’re the best!”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Night Seam chimed in with a chuckle, “but I really do appreciate all you’ve done for us today.”

“Good! Because I won’t be helping you with this next part.”

All of us suddenly tilted our heads in confusion. “...Wait, what?”

Then, out of nowhere, a portal opened up above my head with a hand reaching out, grabbing me by the throat and throwing me down, but before it could even pull me to the ground, another portal opened up beneath me. Before I knew what was going on, La Proxy was sending me down through what could have easily been hundreds of portals, each one closing behind her as a new one opened up beneath me. Finally, I felt the ground crashing into my back, making my pain receptors skyrocket from the giant fall that I had undertaken. I had just barely been healed from my other injuries, but I felt like she may have just broken my spine, which--so long as she kept me separated from everyone else--would make it that much easier for her to kill me.

As I looked around at my surroundings, I was in what appeared to be a giant sandstorm of different colors and shapes of crystals flying through the air, swirling in a circle around us. Just outside the storm, however, were the shadows of giant creatures, tall enough to crush me without even noticing that I was there. The worst part about this place, though, was that as soon as the pain from my back somewhat subsided, I felt myself choking on the air, grabbing at my throat from the burning sensation in my throat. La Proxy was also beginning to choke, coughing up blood with her hand leaving my neck so that she could soothe her own burning windpipe.

“I can’t stay here long,” she wheezed, blood now trickling down her nose. “I just came to drop you off, but don’t worry! I’ll make sure I bring your friends to somewhere just as nice as this place. Actually, I may even bring them to an exact replica of this dimension, only you won’t be there to save them. You’ll be stuck in this world forever, and if the storm or the oxygen here doesn’t kill you, then the inhabitants will.”

At this point, there was no doubt that I would never make it home again. I would never be able to see Dreamdrop’s smiling face or the fateful return to my mother at the end of the hunt. I would never even get to see what happened to Divinity at the end of the war, to see whether she went through with killing everyone in Canterlot or if someone managed to stop her. There was one final thing I could do, though…

“L-La… *cough* La P-Proxy…!”

“Hmm? Something you wanted to say?”

I then grit my teeth in anger.

“You’re a bitch!”

And then I sent a punch directly into her jaw, making her stumble over into the ground beside me. Even through the pain in my spine, I was able to lift myself off of the ground and summon my spear, heaving heavily with blood trickling down my outfit. Then, with a look of shock on her face, she quickly lifted her hand, opening up a portal behind her before I was able to stab her, but before she managed to make it through the portal, I channeled all of my magic into her body, bringing it forward to I could punch her in the mouth again.

Suddenly, the gate closed, and La Proxy quickly jumped up to her feet, grabbing me by the throat and sending me back to the ground, throwing her own punches directly into my head. Then, using my magic again, I pushed her off of me just enough to grab her by the hair and sending my knuckle into her gut, which she countered be driving her elbow into the back of my neck, making us both fall over. La Proxy, however, was the first one to get up, sending a kick into my ribcage along with an even harder blow into my already aching back. It had been years since I had felt this kind of pain just from a kick, but unfortunately for her, even years later, I was still used to it.

In the next moment, I lifted her by the neck with my magic and summoned my spear by into my hand, and just as I was about to slit her throat, my spine twinged, causing me to wince in pain and drop her from my spell. As the diamonds began to cut through our skin, though, the air took an even greater toll on our bodies, making it to where we were both on the verge of suffocating. All I had to do was keep her in this dimension a little while longer and she wouldn’t be able to hurt my teammates again.

“THIS. IS. OVER!”

Finally, with the halos around her wrists spinning rapidly, she held out her hand again, opening up a portal behind me, sucking me into yet another high-gravity dimension. Without wasting any time, I stuck my spear into the ground, trying to hold on for dear life, but the sandy floor beneath me wasn’t nearly as solid as Everfree City or Canterlot. I could feel myself slipping, getting pulled back into the abyss with no one to save me any longer.

“I’ll see you in a minute, Genny… just as soon as I eliminate the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

Suddenly, I felt my spear pop out of the ground. I was now falling backwards into a portal that would crush me instantaneously. Then, with one final burst of magic, I grabbed hold of La Proxy, making her eyes grow wide in shock, and just before I was sucked in entirely, I pulled her body into the gate, hearing her scream in terror before the gravity of the dimension crushed her body. Blood flew and disappeared around the crunching sound of her bones and organs, causing the portal to disappear the split moment before I fell in. Everything happened so fast. In one moment, she was standing over me, but in the next, she was killed by her own magic.

The sound of her final scream seared through my brain, making the adrenaline in my blood cause me to shiver as I dropped my spear and held my knees to my chest. The image of her body being crushed into a two-dimensional object with her blood covering my leggings was far scarier than any of the creatures this world had to offer. Even through all the dust and diamonds cutting through my body, even with the air literally killing me from the inside out, I couldn’t help but bury my face and begin to cry, coughing up my own blood as I found myself coming closer to death.

“Helloooooo!” a voice called. “Is this the dimension where I could find the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

Was that Discord? Honestly, at this point, I didn’t really care anymore. I had already given up on living before I even killed La Proxy, but after seeing her death, I just didn’t know if I had the mental energy to keep on fighting. I just didn’t have the strength to do this anymore, especially when my next opponent would be Divinity. I couldn’t tear apart another girl from her family!

“Trixie, you know it’s rude to keep a draconequus waiting.”

“She was pregnant,” I sobbed, clutching onto my legs harder. “I killed them both!”

“Ugh. We can have your little sob story later, but first we need to get you back home before this sandstorm kills you.”

I didn’t want to face the other girls, though. Burying my face into my knees, I continued to sob, replaying the sight of her death over and over again in my mind until it was permanently scarred into my memory. Despite my best wishes, however, I felt the air around me clean up with actual oxygen returning to my lungs. The wind around me had also calmed down to where I was no longer being pelted by fragments of colorful diamonds. I wasn’t ready to be back in Platinum City just yet, but I also knew that if Discord had kept me there for much longer, I would never have made it out of there alive.

“Great and Powerful Trixie! What happened to you?!”

“Where’s La Proxy?! Is she still down there?”

“Trixie, thank goodness you’re alive!” Then, without even needing to release myself from my knees, Dreamdrop fell down to my level, wrapping her arms around me and crying just as hard as I was. “I was so scared when she pulled you down there. Please tell me you’re safe. Please tell me you got rid of her.”

“...Yes,” I finally mumbled, pulling my face just barely out of my legs. “Trixie finished her.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” she replied, wrapping me into another hug. Of course she was happy. She didn’t have to see someone’s body being torn apart right in front of her while she screamed in horror.

Finally, after the initial relief period had worn off, it was time to get back to business. We were still at war, after all, and Divinity wouldn’t be waiting for us to continue with her plans. “So!” Discord announced, slithering to my side. “Since you were the one to finish old portal-hands off, I guess that means you--”

“Storm Rose.”

“Right. You didn’t even need to think about that one, did you?”

I then shook my head, although I really had given it a lot of thought. Storm Rose was the only girl in Platinum City who had yet to be revived, but I wasn’t so sure about letting her come back to life. She was the one who killed Paradox, after all, which ended up instigating the death game that Discord had planned out, leading to the deaths of all the other girls who we had to bring back to life before her. Even with that being a factor, however, I had seen Marrow, Mind Games and Palette all change for the better, so there was at least still some hope for Storm Rose as well.

“Perfect!” Discord announced, and with a poof of magic, making everyone cough into their hands, a woman in a yellow outfit with blue frills and lightning bolts all over her dress appeared on the ground. She had deep black hair with blue highlights, and in her hand was a magical wand, the same wand I had used when I killed her in the first place. Finally, though, with all of us standing over her, she finally began to open her eyelids, opening her mouth while making confused groans.

“Yo, Storm Rose!” Iron Maiden said. “You alright?”

Storm Rose groaned again before pushing herself up, rubbing her head to soothe the painful feeling that must have come along with being revived. “Girls?” she said quizzically. “Paradox? But… I thought… Great and Powerful Trixie! I thought you--”

“Calm down, soldier,” Marrow intervened, allowing our final team member back onto her feet. “We’ve got a lot to debrief you on.”

“Everyone’s here… but I thought--”

“Maybe you should quit thinking, then,” Paradox said with a chuckle. “Oh, and by the way, you caught me when my back was turned. Next time, I’ll be ready for you.”

Storm Rose giggled awkwardly, shaking her head as she tried to make sense of the impossibly difficult situation, but before she could even ask what was going on, however, Discord quickly intervened.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, girls, but if you don’t get back to Canterlot quick, it really is going to be the end of the world this time.”

“But what are we supposed to do against Divinity?!” Mind Games exclaimed.

Marrow, though, folded her arms with a confident laugh. “That’s just it, girls. She has a weakness.” Then, turning towards us, she gave us what I could only perceive as a smile hidden smile behind her suit of armor. “I know exactly how to beat her.

Author's Note

Two more chapters left!

Chapter 20

“Hey, Trixie?”

“Hm?”

“After all that’s happened, are you glad that we met?”

I was a little flustered by the question. The two of us were sitting on a skyscraper not too far from the beach, celebrating our three year anniversary with a much needed vacation, especially since Summer Breeze was in the tail end of her university program. Everything around us was tranquil, from the sunset over the shoreline to the blissful ocean air, making the entire area around us seem to sparkle along each of our senses. As Summer Breeze looked me in the eye again, though, her question seemed sincere, making me wonder how she could ever even think about something like that in a setting this romantic.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… You got involved in so much trouble because of me… You had to leave your home and your family to be with me too… Was that really all worth it?”

I couldn’t help but giggle, leaning my head onto her shoulder as she leaned her head against mine, hovering her hand above my own until our fingers were interlocked. As I turned my head to look into her eyes, though, I couldn’t imagine ever going a single day without being able to see her beautiful face looking down on me. As she stared back at my laughing face and began to giggle herself, her hair blocked out the remaining sunlight, leaving her smile as the only thing in my sight to brighten my vision.

“I’m serious, Trixie!”

“Well, duh! Trixie wouldn’t just fall for anyone, you know. After all…” I then gripped her hand tighter, nuzzling my face deeper into her shoulder. “...you saved my life… in more ways than one.”

Summer Breeze giggled again. “And you refused to let me die.”

“Of course. Trixie will never let you die.”

“Ever?”

“Nope! When our bodies are old and frail, we can change back into magical girls so we can be together even longer.”

“Haha! Already thinking ahead, I see. Are you sure that’ll work?”

“Trixie will try everything she can… but I don’t want to ever think of spending another day without you... You’re everything to me, Summer Breeze. Of course I’m happy I met you.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I was just thinking the same thing. I love you, Trixie Lulamoon.”

My heart began to flutter wildly, causing me to squeeze around Summer Breeze’s waist to show her how close she was to my heart, but as she hugged me back, I could begin to feel the faint sensation of her heart beating in tandem with mine. They were both beating so fast, causing us both to breathe heavily despite the fact that all we were doing was holding each other in our arms. It was so silly, in fact, that out of nowhere, the two of us start cracking up, breaking down in girly laughter until we had to calm ourselves down, just so we could breathe normally again.

“Hey, Trixie…?”

“This better not be another one of your self-deprecating questions again.”

Summer Breeze shook her head with a giggle. “No, it’s nothing like that. I know it’s still early and all, but--”

“Summer Breeze, if you’re talking about early in the day, the sun is about to go down, and if you’re talking about our relationship, we’ve been together for three years. Trixie is sure that whatever you want to say, it’s been too long for you to call it ‘early’.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I was just thinking…” Summer Breeze then began to twiddle her thumbs, looking down at her knees as her legs dangled over the building on which we sat. “You know, since I love you so much, and since--just from my own interpretation--it seems like you m-might like me back…”

“Summer Breeze, you’re doing it again.”

“Right. Sorry.” Then, with a deep breath, she pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was just wondering… if you wanted to get married after this…”

Suddenly, my whole body froze, despite the inside of my chest doing jumping jacks around my ribcage. My eyes had grown wide with my mouth trembling, trying to find a way to put into words what I was thinking or how I was feeling. I had been waiting this moment my whole life, but to hear those words finally come out of her mouth, especially on our three year anniversary, I was just so caught off guard that I couldn’t respond!

“I mean, of course, we have plenty of time to think about it, and you still have to finish high school and all. Plus, it’s not like you have to answer right now or anything, but anyway, I know I’m probably putting a lot of pressure on you with that question, so how about we just--”

“Yes.”

Finally, Summer Breeze looked up from her knees, gazing into my eyes with her eyebrows raised.

“W-what did you say?”

“Yes. Trixie would love to marry you.”

The girl in front of me, though, just seemed to laugh like this was all a big joke, but once she realized that I was serious, a smile formed on her face with her eyes beginning to water. “You mean it? We’re really getting married?”

“Only if you manage to find a ring that fits Trixie’s flawless complexion.”

“Oh, quit it. We both know that there’s no diamond in the world that’s that perfect.”

“Trixie disagrees, and when she finds it, you’re going to be the one wearing it on our wedding day.”

“Uh-oh! Unfortunately for you, I’m gonna be the one with a job.”

“But you’re also going to be the one with student debt, so I’ll still have more money than you!”

“...I hate you so much right now…”

“Good. That just proves that Trixie loves you more.”

“Oh, you want me to prove who loves who more?”

Suddenly, Summer Breeze wrapped her arms around the small of my back, pulling me into the most passionate kiss imaginable while I held her cheeks from her jaw. The way her lips pressed against mine made my heart race, causing my whole body to shudder while I pulled my mouth away, just to find a better angle to kiss her again, exhaling all my insecurities. Summer Breeze was the reason I felt great and powerful, like she was the missing piece in my life that made me who I am today, and as the two of us kissed, I felt myself crying just from the unimaginable bliss she made me feel. It was without a doubt the best memory of my life.

Summer Breeze, I love you so much… so why did you have to die…?

“Alright, Marrow,” Dreamdrop demanded with her hands on her hips. “You’ve got some explaining to do! You seem to know something we don’t. How did you know Divinity wouldn’t kill you back there? In fact, how did you know any of the stuff you knew back there?”

“Well,” Marrow began confidently, “first of all, I knew that we weren’t in Canterlot the moment Divinity told us she was going to end the planet. She told us so herself that she has people here worth protecting, people important enough that she would go out of her way to screw up our directories over, despite the fact that she never once touched any of the other girls’ bios. Same thing goes with La Proxy. I don’t care how bad of a mother you are, nobody is going to watch their family get killed just to end a stupid fight over magical girls.”

“But you seemed pretty cocky out there with Divinity, though,” Mind Games added. “How did you know she wasn’t gonna hurt you?”

Marrow chuckled. “Divinity couldn’t have hurt me. She’s not omnipotent.”

Suddenly, all of us began to clamor between ourselves, trying to make sense of the obvious contradiction in our minds. “Now, hold on a sec,” Paradox added. “I’m still not sure I have a complete grasp on things myself, but I was under the impression she could use any power she could think of. Am I missing something here?”

“That’s the logical conclusion, yes, but there was something I noticed when La Proxy sent us to that outer space dimension. Did you notice that when Discord told her to save X Genesis, she had to chase after her? Why not just teleport her to where she was floating? Because she couldn’t.”

“I don’t know how much more my head can take,” Cupid Symphony added. “Can you please just tell us what the point of all this is?”

“It’s the same reason why she didn’t cut my vocal chords when I was provoking her back in the alternate Canterlot about the same time she was trying to hit us with meteors. It’s the same reason she didn’t just deflect all of our magic and snap her fingers to break our necks. It’s the same reason she created a portal to Platinum City right as soon as she tried closing the one La Proxy made.”

“Out with it, Marrow!” Iron Maiden exclaimed. “What’s her weakness?”

“She can use any power she wants… but only one at a time.”

Suddenly, all of our eyes went wide, realizing that we couldn’t think of a single time when she had used two powers at once. The reason why we had been able to survive as long as we did was because every time she tried attacking us, she let her guard down for another magical girl to strike, and when she wanted to defend herself, she left us room to get away. This only made it easier for us with more magical girls at our disposal. Back when it was seven Platinum City girls against four Everfree City girls, we barely survived, but now that it was literally just her against ten of us, we actually had a chance of winning!

“Think you’ve got all that, Storm Rose?” Discord asked, slithering beside the most recent revival of the team.

“I guess, although I won’t know for sure until I see her for myself.”

“Oh! Then I have great news for you! I’m actually sending you all back right now!”

Mind Games then tilted her head as all of our eyes bulged. “Wait… what?”

“Toodaloo!”

Before we knew it, we were travelling dimensions again, shrieking in fear as the floor unexpectedly fell from our feet, sending us through a variety of different flashing lights as our bodies became weightless in the transitional process. We had all experienced it dozens of times before, but the sheer abruptness of the fall compounded with the dangers of where we were going made the entire trip all the more terrifying. It only took a few brief moments for us to end up where Discord sent us, though with everything that was going through our minds, it felt like we had been falling for hours. Even with all we now knew about Divinity, we weren’t ready to take her on in that exact moment.

“Hello, girls.”

But unfortunately for us, we had no choice.

Then, before we even knew where she was, I heard a crunch, causing Palette to collapse beside me, gripping onto her leg, which was now turned backwards. Then, turning the other direction, I saw Cupid Symphony bleeding out of her eyepatch, screaming and as she ripped it off of her face, gripping her eye socket which was now missing her eye. Before I could even take the chance to look around for where Divinity might be, though, I summoned my spear and swung backwards, hitting nothing despite hearing the sound of wings flapping behind me. Then, I suddenly ducked my head, avoiding a flash of lightning soaring towards my head from Storm Rose as she attempted to knock Divinity out of the sky, but in the next moment, Divinity had teleported directly to her side, grabbing her by the back of the neck and slamming her into the ground.

“Everyone!” Marrow shouted, jumping out of her skeleton while holding onto the anti-magic orb she received from Palette. “Attack now!”

“I’m done playing defense.”

Suddenly, the empty CHS courtyard had turned into a battlefield, with several different arrays of magic flying through the air at once. Divinity first dodged a metal plate thrown by Iron Maiden, which she retaliated by attempting to open the earth beneath her, but just as she faced Iron Maiden’s direction, Paradox began moving her hands towards Divinity, changing what she saw. In the next moment, Divinity broke the hypnosis by creating a blue aura around her skin, sending a kick into her gut and avoiding a flurry of knives thrown at her by Night Seam, compounded with the area around us as well as our bodies turning black in the next instant. Then, with her fist turning into a giant fireball, she slammed her hand into the ground, creating a circle of fire to spread out around us which Palette just barely saved us from after painting a gun and spraying all the flames away.

The two that I felt had the best chance of stopping her, however, were either myself or Dreamdrop, mainly because I had an anti-magic orb and Dreamdrop had the power of surprise on her side. I was trying to get as close to her as I could so that I could swing my spear in her direction, but she always jumped away to try and attack another teammate before I could land a clean hit. Meanwhile, I was also trying to angle her towards Dreamdrop, who was just doing her best to keep herself out of view, but Divinity always seemed to end up opposite of where I tried putting her.

“If you girls give up now,” Divinity said in between jumps, “I’ll make your deaths less painful.”

“Ha!” Marrow replied. “I was just about to tell you the same thing.”

“Then I guess I can start with you.”

In the next moment, a large, jagged rock appeared out of the ground right in front of Marrow’s face, but before she had the chance to dodge away from it, Divinity appeared right behind her, slamming her face into the risen earth so hard that it shattered from the impact. In the next moment, though, her skeleton swiped across Divinity’s body, just for Divinity to grab the skeleton in mid air and shatter the bones into dust. It seemed like she was going to get away until suddenly Dreamdrop showed up behind her, reaching for her neck. Before she was able to touch Divinity’s skin, however, the angel girl snapped her fingers, causing Dreamdrop to fall to her knees, clutching at her throat.

“Dreamdrop!” Marrow shouted, turning around with her skeleton reappearing on her body. “Take this!”

Then, as soon as Marrow handed the anti-magic orb into Dreamdrop’s hands, she quickly coughed out a pool of purple liquid onto the ground by her feet. “Thanks, Marrow,” she said, soothing her throat while I breathed a sigh of relief. “I think she tried to poison me or something.”

“Give that to any magical girl who looks like they’re being affected by Divinity’s magic. Trixie! Let’s go!”

“Right!” I shouted, jumping into the action myself. Suddenly, the two of us appeared on each side of Divinity right after she had dodged another lightning bolt to the face, but just as soon as the two of us were about to strike, she disappeared, leaving Marrow’s skeleton swiping at my neck. “Hey! Watch it!”

“What’s the matter, Divinity?” Marrow asked. “Can’t take it?”

“Divinity?! I’m Trixie! What are you--Wait! SHE HAS YOU BRAINWASHED!” Then, turning my head, I saw that everyone in the area other than Dreamdrop was sending their magic in my direction, causing me to use my powers to knock everyone to their feet while Divinity pulled vines from the floor and grabbed me by the legs. Just as I started whacking at the weeds with my spear, however, the other magical girls got to their feet again, getting ready to attack while I was busy trying to free myself. “Girls! Listen to me! Divinity is controlling you!”

“Mind Games! Catch!”

Then, turning my head, I saw Dreamdrop throw her own anti-magic orb into Mind Games’s hands, making her break free from Divinity’s spell immediately, and in the next moment, I heard a voice echoing through seemingly everybody’s mind. ‘Everybody stop! That’s the Great and Powerful Trixie! The real Divinity is right behind us!’ As soon as Mind Games’s announcement ended, the girls all turned their heads to see a second Divinity clicking her tongue and breaking everyone’s spell.

Just as everyone turned around to attack again, however, she froze everybody’s bodies except for myself and Mind Games, halting for a moment to catch her breath. “I don’t want to fight anymore, girls…” she said, panting heavily as she spoke. “I just wanted us to be sisters. I was hoping that maybe you wouldn’t act out on Discord’s plan, that you would trust that we’re no worse than you are.”

“But…” Mind Games began, “...you tried to kill an entire school.”

“Because you betrayed us. I was hoping that I could change your mind, Great and Powerful Trixie, before you decided to go through with this plan. I was hoping that you would become part of Everfree City so I could change that future from happening. I wanted to prevent this fight from happening, but it only would have been possible had you not trusted Discord.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, now with confusion and anger in my voice. “You told me so yourself that Discord doesn’t lie!”

“But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have changed your future! I tried! I honestly tried!”

“What do you mean you tried…?”

Finally, Divinity had caught her breath, looking me in the eyes with that divine look that made me come to fear her. “If you had joined Everfree City and never gone back to Discord, this fight never would have happened. That’s why I killed your mother.”

I then dropped my spear, my lower lip trembling as I tried to make sense of what she was saying. “What did you say…?”

“Your mother died of alcohol poisoning, didn’t she? I would know. I was the one who made sure it killed her. I thought that if you knew how terrible it was to lose someone this important to you, you would want to stay away from killing as much as possible. Then maybe you would choose Everfree City and rid of all your ties to Manehattan, including Discord. I had no idea that he would be able to manipulate life itself and bring magical girls back to life by killing my teammates, though!”

“I thought you could have any power you wanted!” Mind Games shouted. “Doesn’t that mean you can see the future?”

“The future isn’t set in stone. What Discord showed you, Trixie, was the future path that you were on. Haven’t you noticed that the events Discord showed you have already turned out differently? That’s because this is the future you chose! TO KILL MY SISTERS!”

“AND YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!”

“Only so that you would choose to start a new family with my sisters and I in Everfree City! Now look what you’ve done to them! The attack never would have happened if you had aligned yourself with us, but instead you chose Discord! Now because of you, I’ve lost Dokaeru, Sonic Boom--”

“Stop, Divinity…”

“Trickster, Lucky Star, Sun Shadow--”

“Trixie said stop!”

“CATASTROPHE, GENNY, LA PROXY!”

“TRIXIE SAID STOP!”

Suddenly, the two of us were both using levitation powers to grab each other by the throat, breaking everyone else free from their frozen bodies while the two of us lifted each other into the air. As everyone watched, however, nobody dared move, instead waiting to see which one of us would come closer to losing first before they even thought about intervening. My blood was so fueled with anger, however, that I would never allow myself to lose before making sure Divinity died by my hands, despite my vision gradually growing darker. Once the two of us were several stories into the air, however, Divinity disappeared, causing me to drop to the ground while she landed safely away from everyone else.

“Le Blanc! Save her!”

Then, just as I was about to collide with the ground, Marrow’s skeleton jumped off of her body, grabbing me in mid air and skidding to a halt on the pavement before I ended up getting hurt all over again. When I looked back up at the angel of death, though, she had a look of anger just as severe as mine, and she didn’t look like she was done with me quite yet.

“You want to take my sisters away from me?” she asked in fury. “Then I’ll take away someone from you. That is my divine judgement.”

Then, disappearing and reappearing again, she managed to pop up right behind the one magical girl who had been doing her best to keep herself hidden from the fight. With my eyes growing wide in terror, I saw her turn around with fear on her face just as Divinity’s hand materialized a thin knife, and in the next moment, time stood still in my mind. I couldn’t physically comprehend what was going on. I couldn’t hear the screams around me. I couldn’t see her hair in Divinity’s hands as she tried to break free. I couldn’t see the red line across her throat. I couldn’t see the blood spurting over her body. I couldn’t see her gasping for air. I couldn’t see her drop to the floor. I couldn’t feel the beating in my chest. I couldn’t feel the tears in my eyes. I couldn’t feel my mouth growing dry. All I could hear was the high-pitched ringing in my ears, shutting out the rest of the world around me, and I was begging for it to stop. All I could think was how I would make it stop. All I could comprehend was someone making it stop. It was literally all I could think. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!!

“DREAMDROP, NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

Storm Rose then shot a beam of electricity towards Divinity’s direction, making her teleport yet again so that we could all race towards Dreamdrop’s body. “Discord!” Marrow shouted. “Take us back to Platinum City before she can bring Dreamdrop’s body to Autumn Blaze!”

Finally, just as the world was beginning to come back to life around me, the ten of us were teleported back to Platinum City with eight of them standing over Dreamdrop’s body. All of them were giving her encouraging words while I knelt a few feet away, unable to move my body, unable to accept that Dreamdrop, my best friend, the love of my life, was dying right in front of my eyes.

“Discord, you can save her, right?” Paradox asked in a panic. “Heal her like you did with us!”

“I’m sorry, Paradox, but half of her spirit has already left her body. I can’t heal her at this point.”

“Then put it back in like you did with all the other dead girls!” Iron Maiden shouted.

“Now you’re just asking for the impossible. Once a spirit has left a girl’s body, it will then reject its original host.”

“So you are saying zat zere is no way to bring her back?!”

“I’m sorry, Palette, but no amount of magic can save her now.”

I continued to watch the girls all panic, trying to keep Dreamdrop alive as if Discord was wrong about his assessment, but in a matter of seconds, Dreamdrop’s body stopped moving altogether. Then, her body began to change shape, turning from a girl with light blue hair and a starry-themed dress into a regular twenty-two year old girl with brown hair, sandals, jeans and a tight tank top. Everyone around her gasped in shock before turning their attention towards me. Finally, getting back up to my feet, I slowly limped my way to the body on the ground, collapsing again when I saw Summer Breeze lying peacefully despite the dark red line permeating through her neck. Tears streamed violently down my eyes as I collapsed onto her body, screaming at the top of my lungs as if my wails would somehow bring her back to life. I gripped her body as close to mine as I could, refusing to believe that this would be the last time I would ever hold her again.

“SUMMER BREEEEEEEZE!!!!!”

The girls around me were now crying too, but nowhere near how much I was crying. Divinity must have thought that she was getting even with me, but even after losing eight of her sisters, it would never even come close to the insurmountable pain I felt when I held Summer Breeze’s lifeless body in my arms.

“We were supposed to get married! We were supposed to live forever together! We had everything figured out! This wasn’t what was supposed to happen!”

Again, my screams grew louder to the point where I couldn’t even breathe anymore, despite how hard I was trying to gasp for air. Despite how hard my chest was thumping, I felt lifeless, cold, like blood wasn’t flowing through my body anymore. My skin was shaking through my nerves, causing me to grip my fingers tighter into her body, waiting for her to get back up so we could go home. No more magical girl hunt. No more danger. Just the two of us. I didn’t care what else happened. I just wanted to be with the love of my life again!

“I’m so sorry, mademoiselle,” Cupid Symphony said, placing her blood-stained hand on my shoulder, but I just shrugged it off and continued to cry harder.

“DREAMDROP! SUMMER BREE-HEE-HEEEZE!”

“You think we should leave her here for a little bit while we go back?” Iron Maiden asked, scratching the back of her head.

“No,” Marrow replied. “We need Trixie with us if we’re going to beat Divinity.”

“Do you not see how much pain she is in?!” Palette replied furiously.

“And yet she’s being comforted by one girl who lost her leg and another who lost her eye. Speaking of which. DISCORD!”

“Oh! Right! I should probably get all that fixed for you.”

They were just going to move on. They were just going to go back to fighting and pretend like none of this ever happened, and they wanted me to come with them? No… I couldn’t go back there. I couldn’t leave Summer Breeze. I had to be there for her when she woke up. This wasn’t the end! There was no way this was the end! Summer Breeze couldn’t just leave me like that! Just like before, I refused to let her die.

“Trixie, now is not the time to mourn,” Marrow said with authority in her voice. “If we wait any longer, Divinity is just going to go around killing more people.”

No… I had to be with Dreamdrop. I wasn’t going to go back there if it meant leaving Dreamdrop.

Finally, I summoned my spear in my hands, but the part that made everyone gasp was where I had it pointed. With my teeth chattering in my mouth and my arms shaking profusely, I hesitantly raised the spear to my throat, making everyone around me shriek in protest. I couldn’t go back there, though. I wanted to be with Summer Breeze forever. I wanted to be with her right now.

“TRIXIE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

I squeezed my eyes shut, letting the tears pour down my cheeks as my body shook.

“Good bye, girls...”

*SLICE!*

Author's Note

One more chapter...

End

I had done it. I had slit my own throat. I was bleeding profusely. My eyesight was dimming. I could feel myself losing consciousness, bringing me ever closer to the threshold where I could finally be with Dreamdrop again. I would finally be able to be done with this hunt forever and spend eternity with the one person who mattered… but for some weird reason, I wasn’t in any pain.

“Dammit, G&PT! What were you thinking?!”

Suddenly, Paradox’s mind-manipulation wore off, revealing that rather than slitting my throat, I had actually sliced right through her arm, which was causing the profuse bleeding that I saw around me. I wanted to feel relief that she had saved my life right when I was about to act out on my emotions, but that wasn’t going to help bring back Dreamdrop, which is what I really wanted in the first place. I didn’t want to live in this world if it meant being away from Summer Breeze for one more minute!

“Discord, could you heal Paradox up, please?” Marrow commanded more than asked, but nonetheless, Paradox’s arm was healed instantaneously.

“Phew! Thanks, Discord! If only we had you on the battlefield.”

“Or…” Marrow continued, placing a finger to her lip as she thought deeply. “What if we brought Divinity here?”

“Didn’t Divinity say that there was a seal on Platinum City that kept her out?” asked Iron Maiden.

“Yes, but I’m sure Discord wouldn’t mind opening the seal just this once, right, Discord?”

“Open the seal? Open. The. Seal?! Sorry, Marrow, but that’s just something I can’t do, and before you ask ‘why not’ in your angry-as-always tone that you seem to love so much, it’s because her magic is much too powerful for Platinum City. Having Dreamdrop here was bad enough, but if you throw Divinity in a place like this, it would almost stop functioning the minute she walked through.”

Everyone had already moved on. Nobody cared but me. They were all focused on defeating Divinity, even though I was the one she was after. They attacked Canterlot High School to get back at me. The whole reason any of this happened was because I didn’t join Autumn Blaze when I had the chance. It was because I made the wrong decision that we ended up fighting Everfree City in the first place. It was my fault Dreamdrop died! It was just like Mr. Fairweather told me back in middle school. Everything always had to be about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, ME!

Again, while everyone was busy planning out their attack, I pulled my spear towards myself, this time at my stomach. It would hurt a lot more, but maybe this way nobody would notice. All my life I wondered if anyone would notice if I was gone, but this time, I really hoped that they wouldn’t. Closing my eyes and taking another silent, deep breath, I then angle my spear towards myself again.

“Trixie! No!”

“Le Blanc! Stop her!”

Just as I was reeling back to jam the object into my stomach, however, I felt something tugging my spear away from me, using more power in one hand than I had in my whole body. As I opened my eyes, I saw that Marrow’s skeleton had prevented my second suicide attempt, making me grit my teeth in anger. Of all the magical girls who could have stopped me, out of any of the powers that could have been used to save me, it just had to be hers.

“What’s your problem?!” I shouted, getting up to my feet as I glared into Marrow’s eyes.

“My problem? You really think that me saving your ass is my problem, or have you forgotten all the times I tried to kill you myself? You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Trixie didn’t want to be saved!!”

“Will you just shut that annoying mouth of yours?! Fuck, Tripsy! It’s like you bringing us all back to life was for nothing!”

I suddenly caused my spear to disappear from Le Blanc’s hands and reappear in my own so that I could charge forward and stab that motherfucker I had hated for so long, hoping that I could beat her skeleton to the finish line. Unfortunately for me, though, even despite the fact that I had managed to outspeed Le Blanc at the time when Marrow needed her most, I was unable to outspeed Iron Maiden and Palette, both of whom were able to shield her right as soon as I came down with my spear. They had betrayed me. They had all betrayed me!

“Great and Powerful Trixie…” Suddenly, my attention was caught off guard. Turning to my left, I saw that the person talking to me in her calm, soothing voice was Storm Rose, who looked more empathetic than she did angry. “I know I’m probably the least qualified magical girl here to say this, but we shouldn’t be fighting our team members. It’s not what Dreamdrop would have wanted.”

As much as it pissed me off to admit it, as much as I didn’t want to hear it from her voice in particular, she had enough truth in her statement to momentarily calm me down, allowing me to step back while Palette and Iron Maiden lowered their shields. I wasn’t breathing normally quite yet, but I was at least giving myself the chance to get ahold of myself for the time being, at least until Storm Rose was done talking.

“Please, Great and Powerful Trixie, realize that we still have a job that we need to take care of. That woman is out for blood, the lives of innocent civilians, and we are going to need all the help we can get if we’re going to defeat her. How would Dreamdrop react if you returned to her now by your own hands rather than fighting to get rid of this enemy before she has the chance to kill anyone else?”

As she said those words, the thought finally came to my mind that changed my mindset altogether. If we managed to kill Divinity, we could use her spirit to bring Dreamdrop back to life, and then everything we did would have been worth it! Why hadn’t I thought of that before?! I still didn’t know the details of how we would defeat Divinity, but if there was any chance in the world that I could bring Summer Breeze back, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second.

“You’re right, Storm Rose,” I said, nodding my head. “Trixie is sorry… to all of you.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Iron Maiden said, slapping me on the back. “Now, do you think you can handle your emotions until we can beat Divinity and save Canterlot?”

“Canterlot?” Storm Rose said inquisitively. “What the hell are we doing in Canterlot?”

Suddenly, half of the girls in the room started laughing, making Storm Rose’s confused expression contort even more. “We’ll have to explain later,” Marrow replied with a chuckle of her own. “Is everybody ready?” Then, with a final nod from everyone in the group, Marrow turned her attention back up towards Discord. “Alright. I think we’re ready to go back.”

“Actually…” Discord began, “...I think I have a better place I could send you to.”

“Like…?”

“Oh, you’ll see.”

He then laughed in his maniacal voice, causing storm clouds and fog to appear out of nowhere, booming thunder and lightning as we were once again forcefully transported back to Equestria. The nine of us then screamed again, seeing the lights flash around us as we traveled through the portal that led us back home, but once the lights finally dimmed into the surroundings of the afternoon sun, I noticed that where we were was completely different than before… but still familiar. It was as if I recognized where we were despite never being here in my life. As we appeared, though, there were several homeless people on a sidewalk staring up at our loud costumes in vibrant colors, which contrasted greatly to the cemetery behind them. Then, still feeling an unfamiliar wave of nostalgia, I looked up at the street sign, just to see if I knew anything about this place.

“B... Street?”

“What are you doing here?” Divinity asked, popping out of nowhere and making the crowd gasp again. “Have you come to take more innocent lives? Is this just your way of getting back at me? I thought you were supposed to be protecting the people of Manehattan.”

“Wait,” Cupid Symphony said, lifting up her eyepatch to look all around her. “This is Manehattan?! I must admit, I’ve never been to a place as dreadful as this in all the time I’ve lived here.”

“But the question now is,” Marrow began, “why did Discord send us here in the first place?”

Divinity then sighed, holding out her arms as the light around her shining body began to dim gradually. Once the light had dissipated, however, the girl standing across from us was wearing a baggy shirt, loose, torn jeans, a pair of tennis shoes that must have been at least fifteen years old, and messy hair that contrasted with the perfect elegance of Divinity. All of our mouths dropped from the total contrast, making us think that this was just a trap to lower our guards until--

“Cross Stitch? Hey, you guys! Cross Stitch is back!”

It was really true. This was the girl behind Divinity, this girl in tattered clothing with messy hair who for some reason associated with the lowest class in all of Equestria. Just as we were trying to wrap around heads around it, though, a woman who must have been in her late forties quickly rushed up to Cross Stitch, smiling wide despite her yellow gums and lack of a few teeth. Even among the standards of the people there, it looked like she had been through the worst of it, wearing little more than a garbage bag to keep herself covered.

“Is that really you, Cross Stitch?” she asked, grabbing the magical girl by the shoulders as she looked away from the homely woman in front of her.

“Yes… mother… It really is me.”

My eyes widened even further. This woman in the most dire of straits, hugging her child with all the love she had, was the mother of one of the most powerful women in all of Equestria? Not only that, but Cross Stitch seemed disgusted by the fact that she was even in the same breathing space together, a stark contrast to how her mother was looking at her.

“So, did you bring any money?”

Then, as Cross Stitch looked back at her mom with an eye of disdain, I began to realize why the two of them might not have got along so well. “Yes, mother.” Then, reaching into her baggy pockets, she pulled out a wad of cash, making the other squatters on B Street rise to their feet and hoot with excitement. “Now, where’s father? I have some for him too.”

“Oh,” her mom replied with a somber expression. “He isn’t with us anymore. He lost a bet three years ago, and, well you know how B Street is sometimes. Who are your friends, by the way? Are they the reason you’re so stacked these days? And now that your father isn’t here, you wouldn’t mind if I just took his portion, would you?”

“Actually,” Cross Stitch replied, turning a sharp glare in our directions, “we were all just leaving. After all, there’s no reason for us to be here anymore, right, girls?”

Suddenly, I realized exactly why Discord sent us here. If we knew where her family lived, she had an incentive not to attack any of our loved ones, including any of the students of CHS. If she even tried to hurt anyone we cared about, we could just return to B Street and attack civilians the same way she attacked the school. Of course, we would probably never do that, but the fact that we could was all Divinity needed to know in order to keep our fight just between magical girls from now on.

“Come on,” Cross Stitch said, leading us away from B Street. “I have a place where we can settle this without anyone else getting hurt.”

The fact that we could settle things on neutral ground rather than being sent back to Everfree City allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief, despite the fact that I had no idea where we were going. As she walked us down the streets of Manehattan, changing back into Divinity once the coast was clear, we all made sure to watch our backs, just in case she wanted to try a surprise attack before we knew what was going on. It could literally be as simple as stopping the heartbeats of anyone who didn’t have a magical orb, but Divinity had always had more honor than that. She would never trick us like that, no matter how much emotion she had behind her motives for killing us in the first place.

Finally, we arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse with dim lights that barely illuminated the walls painted in blood. I suddenly felt a shiver run down my spine, as if she had used this room to kill people before us, like this was a sort of ritual she had before doing whatever magical girl duties she had. Once the doors behind us closed, however, everything was fair game, but even though we all basically had permission to start attacking, nobody, not even Divinity, moved a muscle.

“What’s the significance of this place?” Marrow asked as Divinity gazed at the blood-soaked walls.

The angel girl then sighed, appearing mournful as she examined the warehouse further. “This was where I took a human life for the first time… Actually, calling it a human life wouldn’t be doing it justice. I was forced to kill dozens of men my first day as a magical girl. It was just supposed to be negotiation, but when they pulled out their guns and Discord told me to choose between dying and becoming a magical girl…” Divinity took another deep breath and recollected herself, looking down at us as she continued. “I did what I had to do to protect those who were close to me. Ever since then, I have refused to do three things: look into my own future, make people love me, and turn back time. Those are the rules that I have created to prevent my powers from getting to my head… but after you killed so many important people in my life, it’s becoming harder and harder to keep the promise I made to myself.”

I wanted to open my mouth to talk to her one more time, to tell her how mad I was at her for giving us no choice, for taking away the one person who mattered more to me than anyone else, but Marrow held up her hand, silencing me before I could speak. “You know what we came here for, Divinity,” Marrow said brazenly. “Is there anything else you want to say to us before we start this whole thing up again?”

“Yes…” Divinity then looked at her feet with sorrow in her face. “When this is all over, I want you to promise me that if I somehow don’t make it out of this alive, you won’t hurt any of my loved ones.”

“Only if you can promise us the same.”

With a smile, the angel lifted her head again. “Of course. Now, how would you like to begin?”

Marrow then grew a long, thin bone from her arm, snapping it off and holding it in front of her. “When this bone touches the ground, that’s when this battle will officially start. Does that work for you?”

“Absolutely.”

Then, with everyone nodding in agreement, Marrow threw her bone into the air while we watched it come down with lumps in our throats. We still didn’t have a very good plan as to what we would do to beat Divinity, but we had held up our own for this long. Just so long as we could keep doing what we were doing, we would be able to outlast Divinity, but if anyone else were to die by her hands, we would need to send her back to Platinum City before Divinity could revive one of her own girls. The bone was now at the apex of the toss, causing time to seemingly stand still as we all waited for its descent. Once it eventually touched down, someone wouldn’t be making it out of this room alive, and all we could do was wait for it to slowly make its way down. I couldn’t tell whether it was Divinity making time go so slowly or whether it was just my imagination, but it felt like something was physically forcing the object to stay in the air longer than it had to. Suddenly, though, I saw everyone’s muscles tighten, getting ready to charge in the second they were given the opportunity…

...and then the bone landed.

Immediately, Divinity snapped her fingers, and everyone who wasn’t holding onto an anti-magic orb flinched backwards as if they were shot in the head while falling to the floor, motionless and unbreathing. “Trixie! Give your orb to Paradox! Once she’s awake, we can start taking care of the others!”

I nodded my head in agreement, not particularly sure whether or not her suggestion would actually work but trusting in her judgement regardless. While Divinity was using her magic to defend herself against Marrow, I placed my orb into Paradox’s hands, causing her to wake up and cough out a black sludge, vomiting the substance like bile. It worked! She had actually come back to life! I wasn’t sure if there was a time limit though, and with all the urgency I had, I said, “Use your magic. Now.”

“Got it!” Paradox agreed, moving her hands to where Divinity began missing some of her attacks against Marrow. Then, without wasting any more time, I rushed up to as many magical girls as were on the ground, giving them the anti-magic orb and watching them cough out the black sludge in their system before heading to the next girl. Once I had brought back four girls, however, Divinity angrily shrieked, creating a blue aura around her and making magic seemingly useless on her.

Even as Marrow tried to stab her with her bones, her magic deflected off of Divinity’s body, leaving her defenseless while Divinity grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her off to the side. While she had committed herself to using this one magic, however, I summoned my spear, giving the orb to Iron Maiden and saying, “Go revive everyone else! Quick!”

Iron Maiden then nodded her head and took off towards Night Seam while I turned towards the angel of death and swung at her with my spear, but just like what happened with Marrow, my blade bounced off of her skin. Then, in the next moment, she grabbed me by the neck and slammed her fist onto my stomach, making me hold back my gag reflexes to keep myself from vomiting. I was then thrown to the ground and stepped on hard while she made her movements to Paradox, but before she could get there, I grabbed her by the ankle, causing her to fall over and accidentally undo her magical barrier.

“Paradox! Now!”

“You’re finished!” the angel shouted, and in the next moment, I saw a bolt of Divinity’s lightning flying past my ear, barely missing me as Paradox continued to manipulate her vision. “So that’s the game you want to play?! Then let’s play it your way!”

This time, lightning soared out of her body in thousands of different bolts, covering the entire room and hitting all of us with an electrical field. Even Iron Maiden and Palette were both being shocked through their shields as the electricity surged through their bodies, but Marrow, on the other hand, was able to charge through the electricity, landing a clean hit into Divinity’s ribcage. As soon as the electricity stopped, though, the gravity around Divinity began to amplify to the point where our bones were being crushed, which was something the orbs wouldn’t be able to save us from. Luckily, though, Storm Rose sent her own electricity directly into Divinity’s direction, causing her to break the spell just long enough for Paradox to gain control over her sight again.

“You think you can control me just by changing what I can see? Then I’ll close my eyes!”

Then, jumping into the air, she created a block of ice that froze us all in our places while giving herself a small opening to move her body as she pleased. As we all continued to struggle through the ice, however, I could feel my skin freezing along with the lower temperatures, trying to do anything I could just to wiggle the warmth back to my fingers. Once she saw that we were all completely immobile, though, she finally laughed, lowering her hands as her magic became physical, no longer needing her attention. She could teleport at any minute and leave us there to die if we didn’t come up with something quick! Somebody needed to do something here!

‘Don’t worry, everyone!’ a voice in my head called out, allowing my heart to slow down momentarily. ‘I think I know a way to get us all out of here, but I need you all to listen closely if this is going to work.’

As I listened intently to Mind Games’s plan, I felt a total reassurance in my mind, allowing me to smile internally as Mind Games finished up her directions to the other girls. Then, as soon as I was given the go ahead, I used my magic to grab Divinity by the leg, making her look down as if she was looking at Marrow’s skeleton grabbing at her ankle. Paradox and Mind Games were also doing their part to hypnotize Divinity into thinking that we had all made it out safely and that I was now using a forcefield to block her attacks.

“WHAT?! But how?!”

‘You underestimated us,’ Mind Games communicated in Marrow’s voice. ‘Good luck getting through our barrier now.’

“No, magical girl. It’s YOU who have underestimated ME!”

Suddenly, a high-pitched energy swarmed through the ice, causing it to shatter instantly, sending flying shards of ice all over the room. Palette then quickly drew another gun and began spraying the ice shards as they came down towards us, causing them to disintegrate in midair with a sizzle. Divinity, however, was completely oblivious to what was going on around her, still believing that she was actively murdering us with the high-pitched soundwaves coming from her hands, but just as Palette was getting ready to shoot Divinity with her gun, the magical girl broke the magical spell she was under again, dodging Palette’s shot and sending a kick into her gut. As Palette fell to the ground, Divinity then stomped onto her back, grabbing the gun from her hands and pointing it towards her. Just as she was about to pull the trigger, however, I used my own magic to pull the weapon out of her hands, making her eyes go wide in response. She may have been able to prevent me from using my magic on her, but Palette’s weapons were still under my full capability.

Suddenly, Divinity looked around nervously, seeing how long we had lasted despite her powers doing everything they possible could to end our lives from the moment she first snapped her fingers. So long as our magical orbs were in play, there was no way for her to kill us all from the inside, but so long as we had our powers, there was no way for any of her other attacks to kill us either. For the first time in my life, I saw that Divinity, the goddess of all magical girls, had fear on her face, as if there was something that she couldn’t do, and it made her terrified.

Then, however, she clutched her hands together and took a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut as she spoke. “You girls have no idea what you’re doing. You’ve given me no choice!” Tears were now beginning to fall down her cheeks as her chest took in heavy sobs, a complete turnabout from the cool and confident magical girl we had always seen. She looked… almost human. “I’m going to have to break one of the rules that I set for myself. I’m going to have to do something I swore I would never do again!”

“W-w-w-what do you mean?” Mind Games asked hesitantly.

“What else could you possible do to hurt us?” Cupid Symphony added with both panic and frustration in her voice.

Divinity, however, let another tear fall down her face as she took in a deep breath. I had a feeling I already knew what it was, but as soon as she said it out loud, my heart sank into the pit of my stomach. With another sad exhalation, she looked us in the eyes and said, “I’m going to have to go back into the past…”

“No!” Palette shrieked, but even despite her outburst, Divinity still wasn’t finished talking.

“...and I’ll have to kill you all before you ever become magical girls. It’s a good thing I did my own research on all of you before today. Basket Case, Checkers, Quick Wind...” Paradox clenched her teeth. “...Photo Finish, Heartthrob, Dazzling Gleam...” Cupid Symphony and Storm Rose then clenched their teeth as well after apparently hearing their names also called out. “...and of course Fleur De Lis, Trixie Lulamoon, and Lulu Lemo--”

Just as soon as Divinity turned her head to meet Marrow’s gaze, however, she noticed that she was smiling back at her, and the only way for her to see Marrow smile was if--

“Your skeleton!”

Before she could even move to activate another spell, however, a sharp bone pierced through her heart, sending blood cascading down her beautiful white dress as her legs became weak. She did not scream, but rather grabbed at her throat, trying to inhale oxygen that was refusing to make it to her lungs. Her legs were beginning to lose their balance, causing her knees to wobble until she fell to the ground, allowing the skeleton to pull out the bone as she placed one of her hands to the wound. Her hand was glowing faintly in and out, like she was desperately trying to heal herself, but the magic itself wasn’t strong enough to heal her completely. She was trying so hard to allow sound to come out of her mouth, but all she could do was allow whatever tears she had left to trail down her face as the rest of her blood covered the floor where she fell. Then, with one final burst of energy left, she held out her hand in my direction, shaking vehemently as if she were trying to speak to me, and before she left the world completely, I ran over to her side, grabbing her hand into mine.

“MIND GAMES!” I shouted. “WHAT IS SHE SAYING?!”

“Hold on! Hold on!”

Finally, with one last smile, she closed her eyes, gripping my hand as I held hers close to my chest.

“HURRY!”

“She says… ‘I wonder what would have happened if we had become friends instead…?’”

This was playing out exactly the same as when I saw Night Seam die four years ago. It just had to be after she lost that she wanted to be friends! It had to be after my friends were killed that she wanted to make peace! Why couldn’t they have just stopped the fighting in the beginning?! Why couldn’t things have been exactly the way they were when I first announced the hunt to Dreamdrop, when Divinity and I were in my room, shaking hands and forgetting that we were supposed to be enemies?! Why did everyone who ever cared for me have to die right in front of me?!

As I asked my internal questions, however, seeking for answers that probably would go unanswered forever, Divinity’s eyelids relaxed, allowing her one final breath out of her mouth. In the next moment, her form was changing once again to the girl we had seen earlier that day, with messy hair, baggy pants and shoes that were older than some of her teammates. She was much older than me, possibly even twice my age, but that didn’t change the fact that she was still a magical girl, someone just like the rest of us. Even though she was the one who killed Dreamdrop, even though she was responsible for the murder of my future wife, I couldn’t feel anything but loss at the sight of her body, defenseless on the floor with a hole in her heart… just like me.

After a few moments of mourning while everyone else watched in silence, I rose to my feet and screamed at the top of my lungs, venting out all the anger I had felt since this hunt began. “DISCOOOOOORD!”

Then, just as Discord had done time and time again, summoned fog all around our feet as stormclouds appeared above our heads, cracking lightning as thunder boomed around the room. A snake-like shadow then slithered through the fog, zipping around the room at a speed that my eyes couldn’t keep up with. He was building up the moment for as long as he possibly could before finally, he rose from the darkness, stretching out his eagle claw and lion paw while cackling demonically. I, however, was in no mood for any more of his unnecessary theatrics.

“Well done, ladies!” Discord announced, spreading his arms wide in cheer. “I have to admit, I actually thought that Divinity would make mincemeat out of you all, but you always seem to prove just how resilient you are. In fact, would I be overly pompous in assuming that my game was the backbone to your mental fortitude?”

“DISCORD! REVIVAL! NOW!”

Discord flinched at my surprise explosion but shrugged it off nonetheless. “Oh, fine. I guess we can celebrate later.” Then, slithering over to the space between Marrow and her skeleton, he wrapped his arm around the magical girl’s shoulder while his head leaned in uncomfortably close to hers. “And who was it again that gets to choose who I revive next?”

“Me, Discord,” Marrow said matter-of-factly.

“Ah! Your first ever revival! I must admit, it was certainly a shock when Night Seam revived you despite Trixie’s best wishes. It would be awfully ironic if that were to happen again, don’t you think? Oh, but I’m rambling. Who did you have in mind to revive, hmm?”

Marrow then dropped her face, staring into her hands before breathing a deep sigh. “I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while now…”

Wait. What was going on? How could she have been thinking about this for a while? Dreamdrop had been gone at most one hour!

“Quit fooling around, Marrow,” I said angrily. “Just say Dreamdrop and get it over with.”

“Shut up, Tripsy. This is something that needs to be done.”

“What do you mean this needs to be done?! What needs to be done is you revive Dreamdrop, so just say her name and GET IT FUCKING OVER WITH!”

Marrow, however, glared angrily back at me and said, “This decision isn’t up to you. I know what I’m doing.”

“What are you even SAYING right now?! JUST FUCKING REVIVE SUMMER BREEZE!”

“No.”

My heart then fell into the pit of my stomach. This was my entire reason for fighting in the first place. How could she do this to me? Out of all the terrible ways that she had tormented me in her life, was she really just going to refuse to revive my girlfriend--her teammate who had fought alongside her--just to punish me further? Was any of this even going to be worth it?! Someone who wanted to be my friend just died so that we could bring Dreamdrop back to life, and she didn’t even fucking care?!

“Marrow, if you don’t say Dreamdrop’s name right now, I’m going to kill you where you stand.”

“Think about someone other than yourself for once!”

“I’m thinking about Dreamdrop, you heartless bitch!”

Just as soon as I lunged towards Marrow, however, Iron Maiden quickly intervened, holding up her steel plates as a shield while keeping me from tearing into the magical girl behind her. “Hold on, Great and Powerful Trixie! She was the one who killed Divinity, so she gets to be the one to decide! It’s not our place to judge!”

“BRING BACK DREAMDROP!” I screamed, grabbing onto Iron Maiden’s shoulders as tears fell down my eyes. I wanted to fight Iron Maiden off me, to break free and kill that psychopathic bitch, but all my energy had been depleted from the fight with Divinity. There was nothing I could do now but watch. “Please, Lulu… She’s everything that’s ever mattered to me… I promised to protect her.”

“And I have to fulfill a promise I made to someone years ago as well,” Marrow replied, turning her attention back towards Discord. “You’ll be able to change everyone’s memories when this is all said and done, right?”

“Of course! Whatever you wish, Marrow.”

“Then when this is all said and done, I’d like you to erase everyone’s memory of Dreamdrop.”

“NOOOOO!!!!!”

Discord, however, was laughing hysterically at my pain. “Oh, that’s just rich! Anything else you’d like to demand?”

“I just want everyone’s memory wiped as if this whole thing never happened, from the game to now, and girls, I hope you don’t think that I don’t care about each and every one of you. If you recall, though, the reason why Discord’s little game started in the first place was because we grew a little too overzealous in recruiting magical girls, and because of that, Dreamdrop ended up sapping Platinum City of all its magic. If we brought her back to life, we would just have to go through that whole process all over again, so I’m preventing that from happening right now!”

My tears were flooding out of control. She was talking about Dreamdrop like she was a parasite both on our minds as well as on Platinum City. Dreamdrop was the one who saved me from being killed by Lulu in the first place, but now that she was gone, I had no way of bringing her back. I couldn’t forget about her, though! I wouldn’t let myself forget about her, even after Discord tried to wipe my memory! I would force myself to remember her for the rest of my life! They couldn’t take her away from me like that!!

“But I believe the question on everyone’s minds, Lulu,” Discord continued, “is who you would like to bring back to life with Divinity’s spirit?”

“A girl who should have never died in the first place.” Suddenly, Night Seam gasped, making me immediately realize what she was about to do. “Discord, bring Le Blanc back to life.”

“AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!”

“No…”

Suddenly, the skeleton beside Lulu’s body began to change shape, turning into a bright light that hovered into the air. All of us quickly shielded our eyes, trying not to go blind from the dazzling luminescence as the body began to shake and rattle in the air. She was being put together piece by piece from her organs to her veins to her arteries to her skin, all wrapped up in a package along with her hair, nails and clothes. She had the most pristine white hair that blended perfectly with her pink skin, much similar to Fleur De Lis’s natural complexion, but her facial features themselves appeared as though they had been carved by Divinity herself, making the most beautiful teenage girl the world had ever seen. Then, as the light faded, she fell to the floor, mumbling weakly as she breathed life for the first time in six years.

“Le Blanc!” Night Seam shouted, turning back into her normal form and running to Le Blanc’s side. “Le Blanc, can you hear me?”

“F-F-Fleur…?” she said, opening her mouth to release the most enchanting soprano voice. “Is that you?”

“It’s me, Le Blanc!”

“W-where’s Lulu?”

Then, as the two of them turned their head, Marrow returned back to her normal form, falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around her friend, crying deeply in a way that I didn’t know she could feel. She seemed so happy that Le Blanc was back… but I couldn’t hold back the anger in my heart any longer. I couldn’t just let them be happy knowing that they had sacrificed Summer Breeze to make it happen. This was supposed to be our moment where we could be together as a full Platinum City, but she had already forgotten that she ever existed!

Then, pushing Iron Maiden out of the way with my magic, I raised my spear, looking directly into Le Blanc’s eyes. She then cowered with fear, holding onto Lulu as if she could protect her, but now that Marrow’s magic had been brought to life, neither of them had any way to stop me. I would get to bring back Summer Breeze and put Lulu back in the ground. She was never going to fuck with me again!

“Now, Discord!” Lulu screamed. “Wipe our memories!”

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!” I screamed, but just as soon as I did, I could feel the earth around me begin to spin. “You… can’t…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence, falling to the ground in dizziness as the world began to fade into a translucent blur. I tried gripping my hands to the floor to push myself up, trying to keep the blood flowing through my body, but I couldn’t even prevent my consciousness from disappearing. My stomach was growing nauseous, my hands becoming just as cold as they were in Divinity’s ice prison, and no matter how much I tried to scream for Discord to stop, the only thing that came out of my mouth were high-pitched breaths with no meaning other than my total despair.

Everything was turning black. I was struggling, fighting to keep myself awake, but Discord’s magic was outperforming mine. No matter how much I focused my energy, just so my mental fortitude would forcefully prevent me from falling asleep, I couldn’t stop the darkness taking over my vision. My muscles were now useless. My mouth couldn’t speak, but with possibly the last chance I ever had, I thought a phrase that I would never remember thinking when I woke up.

I love you, Summer Breeze.

Good bye…

“Wake up, you fat piece of shit!”

My eyes then struggled to get open, but once I could finally see again, I saw my mother standing over me, glaring down as if I had done something wrong already. “I’m sorry!” I quickly said, jolting myself up to a sitting position. “Sorry, mom, but Trixie didn’t quite hear what you said.”

“Huh? What’re you talking like that for?” Oh, that’s right. I started referring to myself in the third person at school one day and never seemed to tell my mom about it. Then again, it was probably a good thing that I had kept it a secret for so long, just in case it somehow made her angry. Luckily for me, however, she seemed to just shrug it off this time, although it was doubtful that I would be that lucky a second time. “How long were you planning on sleeping for?”

I then reached out to grab my alarm clock, but to my surprise, it was still only 4 AM. My mother would normally kill me if I stayed up this late, even if she was the one keeping me up, but then again, that wasn’t something I could exactly tell her. “I’m sorry, mom… You’re right.”

“Anyway… We’re gonna be moving in the next couple of days.”

I had to do a double-take just to make sure I was hearing her correctly. Where had this come from all of a sudden?

“Oh, that’s exciting!” I said as happily as I could. “Where are we going?”

“Canterlot. My boss out of nowhere decided to transfer me there. I swear, it’s like there’s some kind of god of chaos that hates me for some reason.” My eyebrows raised. There was no way it could really be… “So I want all of our shit packed by Monday, you hear me? And I’m not hiring a moving team to come help, so you’d better not be on your fucking period that day.”

“Yes, mom. I promise.”

“Good. I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me.”

My mom then walked out of my room, closing the door behind her, but as soon as she did, I pulled out my magical phone and called Discord, summoning him to my room without the clouds or thunder this time. “Oh, my!” Discord said, yawning comedically. “I find it rare that you would be up at this hour.”

“And Trixie finds it odd that you would send her to Canterlot for no apparent reason!”

“Relax, Great and Powerful Trixie. I only have your best interest at heart here.”

“Will I even be able to go back to Platinum City? What about the girls?”

“Oh, we both know you wanted to get away from the fearsome threesome anyway.” I hated to admit it, but he was right about that one. The main thing that kept me home most days--other than the fear that my mother might notice my disappearance--was the fact that if I went to Platinum City, I would have to deal with the worst three magical girls of all time: Fleur, Lulu and Le Blanc. “Besides, I was thinking maybe this way, we could give you a new start.”

“What new start? Trixie is happy where she is!”

“You see, you say that, but do you really meeeean it?”

“Yes, I really meeeeeean it!”

“Oh… well then this is just awkward. What if I just showed you the place you would be moving into?”

I then gave Discord a scoff while rolling my eyes. “Fiiiine. Show Trixie this great and powerful home you’ve picked out for her.”

Then, grabbing hold of seemingly nothing, Discord pulled apart a portal to a place in Canterlot, specifically a bedroom that made me feel… at peace. I had never seen this room before, but it felt like I had lived there at one point, like I had settled down there with my special someone, despite not even having finished high school yet. I had been so hesitant about moving out of the blue, but just as quickly as my mom had made the decision, I felt a growing comfort knowing that I was going to be living there. It wasn’t anything special, but it made me… happy.

“Still opposed to moving?” Discord asked with a sly smile.

“Discord… what is this place?”

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah, but… Trixie feels like she’s seen it somewhere before.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. When in your life would you have ever seen a home from Canterlot before?” I tried to argue with him, but his logic was sound, leaving me to shrug my shoulders in confusion. “In fact, why don’t we give it a name, just so it feels even more cozy?”

“...You want the Great and Powerful Trixie to name a bedroom?”

“Why not give it a try?”

I rolled my eyes again, groaning as I tried to wrack my brain with whatever I could call this place. Almost as soon as I started thinking, though, I found a name that I liked, and no matter how hard I tried coming up with something else, this one name seemed to stick with me without letting any other ideas inside.

“So?” Discord said, seeing my stupid smile. “Let’s hear it?”

I couldn’t hold it back any longer. It was so silly, yet it somehow made me feel at home. It made me feel like the moment I started my new life in Canterlot, I would be protected, like there was an angel looking over me, and I couldn’t stop giggling about it. As I looked into Discord’s portal to see where I would be starting my new life, I felt a warmth in my heart, like someone was right beside me, telling me that this was where I belonged.

“Summer Breeze…”

And just like that, I was smiling again, ready to move onto the next chapter in my life.

- The End -

Thank you for reading!

Author's Note

Thank you all so much for reading all the way through! It's been such a journey getting here, and you all gave me the motivation to continue with my favorite story I've ever written!

Don't forget to check out the third and final installment: Magical Girl Trixie: Last Gambit

Chapter 11

*RIIIIIIIIING!*

The sound of the school bell had never felt so painful in my life. I had spent the entire night trying to recover from the horrible day that I’d experienced just to lay awake until morning, getting two hours of sleep if my internal clock was correct. I honestly wouldn’t have even made it to school on time if it hadn’t been for Summer Breeze literally leaping into the air and falling on top of me, waking me by knocking the wind out of me. She said that she had tried numerous times waking me up by calling my name, poking me and other less violent methods, but I had the feeling that she really just wanted to try bodyslamming me awake at least once in her life.

“Alright, class! I have a special announcement!”

Miss Cheerilee had always been the teacher with the brightest smile at my school, but for some reason she was extra chipper today, which I naturally assumed meant that Snips and Snails had been expelled. They had always been such a pain to deal with, and Cheerilee was always the brunt of most of their jokes. Then again, maybe that was just me being optimistic seeing as how I had received two hours of sleep and was woken up by my wonderful girlfriend jumping on top of me with all of her weight! My mind was also so tired that I managed to derail my train of thought this quickly in the few short moments that it took for her to finish her next sentence.

“Today we’re going to be joined by a new student! Everyone, please give a warm welcome to your new classmate…” Then, pulling my head off of the arm pillow on my desk, my eyes immediately grew wide, somehow disbelieving the visage in front of me, even though there was no denying it. “...Fleur de Lis!”

Despite my shock, there was no doubt about it. Standing in front of the class was a girl with high heels, long legs, a tight skirt, flawless skin, a figure seemingly carved out by angels, stunning pink hair, and a face that would make any girl jealous. I had to blink twice to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, especially since rather than taking any particular notice to me, she was looking out towards the rest of the kids of the class, waving her hand with a soft smile.

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” she said in a confident, refined voice. “I look forward to getting to know all of you and for us to become good friends this year.”

“Wonderful! Actually, we just happen to have a spare seat right here in the front row! Now, why don’t you take a seat while I start taking atten--”

“Actually, Miss Cheerilee, I’m farsighted. I was hoping I may be able to sit in the back, perhaps next to that nice-looking girl with the white hair?”

“Oh! Umm… Certainly! Soarin, why don’t you come up here to the front so Fleur will be able to see?”

The boy to my side suddenly jumped, putting his phone back into his pocket and trying to play it off like nobody had noticed. “Move to the front?” he said inquisitively. “But Miss Cheerilee! I think I’m farsighted too!”

“Now, Soarin!”

Soarin clicked his tongue as he gathered his things, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he slumped to his new seat, which honestly reminded me a lot of how Night Seam would have reacted. Then again, I would find out soon enough, seeing as how Night Seam herself was walking slowly towards me, holding her books against her chest while her hips swayed to her desk, making all the boys in the class turn their heads. Even I was caught off guard by how beautiful she had become, feeling a little jealous that even though she had been dead for four years, her new body came with voluptuous curves around her chest and none on her stomach.

As she sat down next to me, I found myself staring with my mouth wide open, not necessarily because of how beautiful she had become, but mainly because she was going to my school! Wasn’t she supposed to be living in Manehattan? I thought she had always wanted to go to the prestigious Crystal Prep Academy, the rivals of my own school, no less! The only reason I even realized that I was gawking, though, was because for just a brief moment, she looked back in my direction, giving me an icy glare before turning her attention back to Miss Cheerilee.

“You’re drawing attention to yourself, Trixie,” Fleur said quietly enough for just the two of us to be able to hear, still looking towards the front of the class as if she didn’t even notice I existed. “If you want to talk, you’re going to have to be discreet. I don’t want either of us getting in trouble because you let yourself get caught by the teacher. Surely after being a magical girl this long, stealth should be no problem for you.”

Yup. This was Night Seam alright.

“What are you doing here?” I asked quietly, looking back and forth between Fleur and Miss Cheerilee to make sure she wouldn’t catch me.

“You said that the entire purpose of this magical girl hunt was to protect the students of Canterlot High School. Needless to say, if you want me to help you, it wouldn’t make sense if I didn’t attend the school where the attack would take place. Then, once this ordeal is over, I’ll go back to Manehattan and attend Crystal Prep Academy while you get to enjoy life as a wondercolt.”

The way she chose her words so condescendingly was starting to piss me off, but she was the one helping me, which meant that I couldn’t get angry and have an outburst in class like I would have with a regular student. I had a reputation at school as being great and powerful, even though they knew nothing about my identity as a magical girl, and I couldn’t ruin that by starting a fight with the hot new girl. I had to remind myself that I still had a life outside of being a magical girl, even though the duties of one life had consequences far greater than those of the other.

“So?” she asked, still not even looking in my direction. “Is that all you have to ask?”

“Oh! Uhh, does that mean you live here now or--”

“Discord is transporting me here to attend school while I continue my life at home. He’s currently manipulating everyone’s memories so that when I return home, nobody here will remember me, and my family will never know I was ever here. He’s also the one who enrolled me in this school and made sure I had the exact same schedule as you.”

“...Please tell Trixie you’re joking.”

For just a moment, I saw Fleur’s eyebrows furrow just like Night Seam’s normal expression, but before anyone else could noticed, she returned to her normal aesthetic and continued looking straight forward. “If there’s an attack on the school, I want to make sure we’re together. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m going to need your help if we’re going to defeat the others. I think we should focus on a proper strategy during our next free period. Until then, though, I need you to pretend like you haven’t seen me since elementary school.”

“R-right…”

I had a feeling that until the magical girl hunt was over, school was going to start to feel a little bit longer than usual, but she was right about the two of us having strength in numbers, especially with her talent. These other girls had far more experience than either of us on top of having terrifying magical capabilities. Out of the nine magical girls that Autumn Blaze had raised, two of them were now dead, and now we had one more magical girl to use against her, making it four against seven. Plus, if we could get the girls from Platinum City on our side, the numbers would be in our favor after just two more fights! The main focus, though, was experiencing as few casualties as possible, just so we could make sure that everyone at CHS would remain safe.

I had never received so many stares in my life. Even though I had a reputation for trying to gain the attention of everyone at school, nobody expected that when the hot new girl transferred to my school, she would be hanging out with someone like me. By a logical standpoint, it made sense just because Fleur and I had been friends in the past, but when everyone looked at her walking with me through the lunch line, their eyebrows went up to their scalps while their jaws fell to their knees.

“Does everyone have lunch at the same time around here?” Fleur asked, trying not to sound too conspicuous. “It’s going to be difficult finding a table where just the two of us can talk.”

“Actually, Trixie has someone she wants you to meet!”

Suddenly, Fleur was glaring at me again, hiding her face behind her hair so that only I could see how horrifying she looked. “Trixie, this is not the time to socialize. We need to come up with a plan to--”

“Fleur, Trixie needs you to trust her.” The self-conscious girl from my past that she remembered was now gone, and with a long-winded sigh, she eased up on her expression.

“Fine. Show me who this mystery person is.”

As soon as Granny Smith placed our zap apple jam onto our trays, I quickly raced over to my regular table, grinning widely about the surprise I was about to show her. “Photo Finish!” I exclaimed, slamming my tray of food down onto the table in front of us.

“Yes?” she replied, looking down at her food without so much as a flinch. “Your sneak attacks no longer faze me, Mädchen. Now, if you are ready, I vould like to discuss--” Then, as she rose her head from her lunch, she tilted her glasses upwards, squinting her eyes at the beautiful girl to my right. “Er… Trixie, not to be rude to your friend, but I think zat vut we need to talk about is a little too sensitive for her to be part of our conversation.”

“Actually, Photo Finish, Trixie thinks that she would be perfect for our conversation. Fleur de Lis, Trixie would like you to meet Photo Finish.” I then smiled deviantly, getting ready for the punchline. “But, you would probably better remember her as Palette.”

Almost immediately, Photo Finish jumped in her seat, shielding herself with her arm while looking around in every direction to make sure nobody accidentally heard her. “Trixie, vut are you doing?! Do you not realize zat--”

“Palette?” Photo Finish and I both froze, looking back at Fleur de Lis who appeared as if she would cry at any minute, holding her hands to her chest as she took a small step closer. “Is… Is that really you?”

The girl in the glasses switched confused glasses between Fleur and I before hesitantly responding, “Y-yes? And you are…?”

“Palette, it’s me…” Finally, Fleur smiled. “...Night Seam.”

Then, for the first time since I had met her, I saw Photo Finish take off her glasses, setting them down on the table and rising to her feet. As the two of them stared each other in the eyes for several seconds, neither of them speaking, moving or blinking, Photo Finish finally began to break down, running over to Fleur and crying into her shoulders, making anyone who wasn’t staring before quickly turn their heads. None of that seemed to matter to Fleur, though, who ran her fingers through Photo Finish’s hair while her other hand pulled her into a warm embrace.

Once Photo Finish had stopped crying, however, wiping one final tear off of her face, she turned her attention back towards me, shaking her head in confusion. “I do not understand. Does zis mean zat--”

“Yes,” I said, motioning my head towards all the people who were watching us, giving her the hint that we should all sit down before anyone heard what we were talking about. Then, after we made sure that everyone who was watching us had turned their attention somewhere else, I leaned in to where only Fleur and Photo Finish would be able to hear me. “Sonic Boom is dead. She came by the school yesterday to ambush me, but I got lucky and won.”

“How did she know zat you go to zis school?”

“I don’t know. Trixie is trying to figure that out herself.”

Fleur scoffed. “And why didn’t you find that out when she was still alive? How do you know that all the other girls from Everfree City don’t have that information themselves?”

“Trixie was a little preoccupied trying not to get killed! Besides, I tried asking, but Sonic Boom wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“You tried asking her?” Fleur responded with a sarcastic grin. “Did you say ‘please’?”

Photo Finish must have seen that I was about to make a scene, and before I let Fleur have a piece of my mind, she quickly said, “Maybe we should tell Fleur about vut we discussed yesterday.”

“Good thinking, Photo Finish,” Fleur responded, folding her arms and holding her head up high. “Discord updated my magical phone last night, but I would really like to hear what the two of you were able to come up with.”

“Yes, vell, we decided zat ze next magical girl on our list should be Trickster, simply because she seems to be ze easiest to deal with.”

“I think we should hold off on her. The power to manipulate people’s memories is too much to handle by ourselves right now.”

Photo Finish and I looked at each other, then back at Fleur, who seemed to be picking up that there was something we knew about that she didn’t. “Actually, Fleur,” I began, scratching the back of my head awkwardly. “Discord gave us magical orbs with our brownie points so that her magic wouldn’t affect us.”

“...What?!” Fleur quickly pulled out her magical phone, scrolling through the contents, going back and forth between screens before slamming her fist against the tabletop. “THAT BASTARD!” Suddenly, everyone was looking over again, making Fleur come back to reality as she giggled femininely. “I can’t believe he broke up with me over text message! I deserve a man waaaaay better than him.”

As soon as she turned her attention back towards us, all the boys in the cafeteria began chuckling stupidly between themselves, no doubt too distracted to pay attention to our conversation. “I’m guessing zat Discord took away your brownie points, yes?”

“He took the item off of the market completely! I have no way of even purchasing it!”

“Zen you definitely should leave zis to Trixie und myself.”

“But in the meantime, the three of us should work together to eliminate the next girl right now. If what Trixie said is true, then there’s a good chance that they’re just going to learn more and more about us, giving them the upper hand if they wanted to try out another ambush. If there’s even a chance that these other girls don’t know who we are, we need to capitalize on that before they find out.”

“Trixie agrees on the urgency we need to have, but if not Trickster, who do you think we should target next?”

Fleur then pulled her phone out again, scrolling through her options until she got to the list of magical girls. “Let’s see… It would be smart to try and ambush Divinity if we could.”

“Don’t even try it,” I said, shaking at the thought. “Trixie has seen what she can do, and there’s a possibility that we might be able to finish the hunt without fighting her anyway.”

It appeared as if Fleur wanted to ask me a follow up question, but instead shrugged her shoulders, scrolling to the next name on the list. “Let’s see… La Proxy, Lucky Star, Trickster, Sun Shadow, Catastrophe, X Genesis Volume 9… I think we can come up with a strategy for beating Catastrophe, but it would involve fighting at least two other magical girls at the same time.”

“Zen perhaps we should leave Catastrophe for later?”

“Maybe, but not too much later. If we can get her to transform into X Genesis Volume 9 and trick the third magical girl into thinking that she’s indestructible, we might be able to get her to kill Catastrophe without realizing it.”

“But how would we even do that?” I asked.

As Fleur sat there for a few seconds, a smile began to appear on her face. “Mind Games! Let’s make that a priority! We just need to eliminate one more magical girl, then we can revive Mind Games and have her trick someone into killing Catastrophe with her telepathy! The only question now is who would be naïve enough to fall for it.”

“Trixie has an idea! We could use Sun Shadow! Not only is she Catastrophe’s sister, but she’s only four years old! That would be a great idea.”

“Uggghhhh.” Suddenly, Fleur and I turned to see Photo Finish running her fingers through her bangs, rubbing her scalp in frustration. “Must we really do zis? Catastrophe is only twelve years old!”

“And so were we, if you remember correctly.” Fleur’s logic was so sound that it made my heart sting, and looking over at Photo Finish, it looked like she felt the same way. “When we first started Discord’s death game, the three of us as well as Marrow were all middle schoolers, yet we got farther than any of the older girls we were battling against. Now, we’re all stronger as a result, and unlike you two, I actually know what it’s like to die. She’s not going to get any sympathy from me.”

“You may have a point,” I began, “but if we’re saving Sun Shadow, Catastrophe and Genny for later, then who would we use to revive Mind Games?”

Without responding, Fleur scrolled through her phone some more before placing it on the table and turning it around so that the two of us could see a picture of a girl with a black and red top. “Lucky Star. To me, she seems like the obvious choice. No matter who we choose to eliminate next, we’re going to have our work cut out for us, but I think that defeating her will be easy enough so long as we go in with a good plan. When it comes to luck, a lot of those variables mean being in the right place at the right time, and if I can take away the visual aspect of her powers, she’s going to have more troubles figuring out how to use her powers. Then, when she’s clueless about how to continue, we can corner her and attack.”

Without seeing any flaws in her plan yet again, I immediately took out my own magical phone, scrolling through its contents until I came across Lucky Star’s information.

Lucky Star
Powers: Luck Manipulation
Identity: Black Clover
Bio: Black Clover is nineteen years old, living with her friend Double Diamond in an apartment one block south of Canterlot Central University. She is currently studying statistics with a minor in psychology. She is very social, attending parties or having quiet, intimate get-togethers almost every night. The little downtime she has is mostly between the periods of 3 PM and 5 PM, which is when she is finished with classes and before Double Diamond returns from work.

“So you can see what we have to do,” Fleur said after I had had the chance to look over her information once more. “We need to strike today between the times Discord gave us. She can only manipulate luck while she’s transformed into a magical girl, so unless she’s expecting us, we should have no roadblocks preventing us from an ambush.”

“And vut do we do if she is expecting us?”

“Adapt. Overcome. Conquer. There is no other way around it. No matter how prepared we are going into a fight, we’ll never know exactly what will happen once the battle begins. The only way to survive is to be adaptable, which is especially true considering Lucky Star’s ability. Do either of you have any objections?”

Photo Finish and I looked at each other with the same expression, neither of us feeling amazingly confident, but it wasn’t as if we could think of a plan that was any better than what Fleur had come up with. Plus, it was a bonus knowing that her mindset was the same as ours when thinking about who we wanted to bring back to life next, which would avoid any uncomfortable discussions in the meantime. There would probably be a time in the future where we would butt heads about who should be brought to life next, but hopefully she would come to an agreement on at least most of what we decided on.

Finally, the two of us looked back at Fleur and nodded our heads, making her smile as she brushed her feminine curls behind her shoulders. “It’s settled, then. We’ll meet in the courtyard once school is over and further discuss our plan of attack.”

96 South Neighvada Avenue, Canterlot. The time was 2:56 in the afternoon when we saw a girl with dark red hair and light tan skin fumble with her keys as she attempted to get into her apartment. She was carrying two textbooks in one arm while trying unsuccessfully to pick the right key out of her keychain, dropping the entire set to the floor as her textbooks fell out of her arms.

“Are you sure zis is ze girl we’re looking for? She seems a little too clumsy to be ze manipulator of fortune.”

“Sshhh!” Night Seam whispered, and suddenly, Black Clover froze as she bent over to grab her belongings. She then looked all around her environment as the three of us hid behind the support beams of a nearby overpass, but after remaining frozen for about twenty seconds, she fumbled her things back into her arms and awkwardly made her way into her apartment, allowing Night Seam to catch her breath. “Didn’t I tell you that we needed to be quiet?!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think zat she vould be able to hear us.”

“You’d better hope you’re right! This is a mission we can’t afford to lose.”

“Then Trixie thinks we should move before anyone sees us.”

Night Seam looked back at me with a scowl, seemingly upset that she was taking orders from me, yet nodding nonetheless. As the three of us jumped from shadow to shadow, trying not to get caught by the college students making their way home from their classes, we ended up on the front porch of her apartment, discreetly looking through her window to see what she was doing. Night Seam was now turning the porch black, just to make sure there were as any shadows as possible to protect us while was stood guard, but after a few more glances upwards, Palette gave us a thumbs up to begin the attack.

I was the first to move, using my magic to gently turn the doorknob to see if it was still unlocked, and fortunately for us, the door silently clicked, allowing us entrance into her home while she was in another room. Again, Night Seam continued to turn the space around the room black to camouflage ourselves further as the three of us ducked our heads and silently made our way into her apart--

*Crash!*

“Palette! You idiot!”

“Turn back! Quick!”

Just as soon as I turned to open the door, however, I accidentally tripped on something beneath me, not only closing the door, but hitting my jaw right on the doorknob, pulling it off its hinges and essentially locking us in. There was no way that all this was just a coincidence! She knew we were there! I then immediately summoned my spear, along with Night Seam summoning her throwing knives and Palette painting two handguns. The three of us all looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do next, seeing as how we had no idea where she was in the apartment or what she had planned.

“Trixie,” Night Seam began, “start moving some furniture with your magic! Try to surround us on all sides! Palette, make us a shield, fast!”

The two of us complied, doing everything we could to shield ourselves from an attack while our backs were pressed against the door. Just as Palette was finishing up her drawing, though, I felt a sneeze coming on, one that was far too late for me to hold back. I then squeezed my eyelids together, trying to hold in the sensation flowing through my nose, but about a second later, the force went straight through my lips, causing me to momentarily lose control of a bookshelf which just happened to be above us at the time. Suddenly, the three of us were crushed by the furniture landing down onto our backs, and before we had the chance to get back up, a pair of red shoes with black and white leggings stepped in front of us. Then, as the three of us slowly looked up, we saw a girl with a red and black top, holding a handful of playing cards and staring down at us with a large smile plastered across her face.

“Would you look at that! Guess It’s my lucky day!”

Author's Note

I also found this picture of Fleur de Lis, which I thought was funny considering the farsighted joke I made. https://derpicdn.net/img/2018/7/10/1777630/full.png