Magical Girl Trixie: Revival

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.