Magical Girl Trixie: Revival

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.