Magical Girl Trixie: Revival

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.”