J Is For Genius

Chapters

Because Of You, I'm Covered In Parasites
Wake Up, Wake Up, Get Yourself Straight
The Cauldron's Boiling, Take Your Witching Stance
Disease Will Cause Your Fragile Lungs And Heart To Fail

Because Of You, I'm Covered In Parasites

Because Of You, I'm Covered In Parasites

And thus deserving the scolding of a lifetime.

"AIEE!"

It was a screech heard all across town. It was a screech coming from a particular tower, from a particular purple alicorn. A purple alicorn who just so happened to have just been coated head to hoof in a mess of leeches, fleas, ticks, really a whole manner of various nasties. Enough of them that they were audible, and it was a very unpleasant sound indeed.

A daphne blue unicorn was very gingerly trying to slink away from the situation, pretending to have not seen anything. Unfortunately for her though, she didn't quite manage to slip away unnoticed.

"TRIXIE!" The alicorn growled, not daring to open her mouth fully lest anything crawl in.

"Yes, Twilight?" She answered as sweetly as possible.

"What. Did. You. DO?!"

"Oh, not much, I only changed one part of the input matrix to make the output faster." Trixie explained, not quite meeting Twilight's gaze. "Honestly, it was such a minor change that anything went wrong then it must've been your fault."

"My fault? MY FAULT?!" The alicorn seethed. "Trixie, transmutation spells are highly unstable, changing any part of them changes the whole thing- OH GODS THEY'RE IN MY NOSE!"

Twilight disappeared with a flash of light, popping back into existence in the bathroom, if the sound of spluttering and the shower starting was anything to go by.

Trixie stood by awkwardly, watching the few pests that hadn't managed to latch onto Twilight wriggle around on the floor. She scrunched her nose and burned them away with a gentle fire spell. She could hear the sound of her mentor gagging through the walls, punctuated by little squeaks and squeals.

"So, uh, let's try again?" Trixie called out. "Second time lucky, right?"

"We are going to have WORDS, Trixie!" Her mentor shouted back. "Just as soon as I- UGH!"

Twilight didn't carry on, so Trixie concluded that that was the end of the conversation. Trixie didn't really want to know what was happening in the shower, so she decided that she'd call it a night early and try and catch up on some reading. With one last glance at the bathroom door, she shrugged and trotted down the tower stairs until she reached her room, lighting the candles inside with her magic. She flopped down on her bed, and picked up the copy of Forget The Minions: A Guide To Strong Leadership she'd left on her nightstand. It was a dry read, but it was something to do, at least.

Being a travelling mare, Trixie had never really had the luxury of having free time until Twilight had taken her on as a student. It had been a couple of years since she'd rolled into Ponyville, and having spent that time under Twilight's watch there was no doubt that she had become a better mage, Trixie just wished that Twilight would just focus on the actual magic stuff and forget about the arcane history and theory lessons. Those were boring.

Trixie sighed and glanced out the window, the crescent moon dimly lighting the streets below. Ponyville was a quaint, well defended town. It had to be well defended because it was surrounded on all sides by the Everfree forest, which stretched on for miles in every direction, and made the journey into town really rather perilous. Trixie always thought it was a dumb place to build a town.

She slowly worked her way through the book, killing time until she started feeling sleepy. She could still hear sounds coming from the bathroom above. Grunting and yelping, running water, odd buzzes and crashes. It was rather annoying, Trixie hoped it wouldn't carry on much longer, it was getting later after all.

Trixie hummed in thought. Realistically, she couldn't understand why Twilight was so mad. Yes, the spell went wrong, but it was really her own fault for not telling Trixie not to change it. If she hadn't wanted to be covered in bugs, all she had to do was tell Trixie not to alter the spell, it really was that simple.

Trixie would have to ask her for an apology in the morning.

Closing the book and placing it back on her nightstand having made little progress, Trixie stared at the ceiling. She was beginning to feel a little stifled by her situation. It was nice having a room and a bed and a tutor, but she felt like Twilight's teaching style left her with very little room for experimentation or improvisation, something that as a performer, Trixie relished. Twilight's teaching was very by the book. Trixie was looking forward to being able to take what she'd learned and run rampant with it. Interesting things always happened when you mangled spells.

Perhaps it was time Trixie put on another show, she thought. It'd be a good excuse to try all the new things she'd learned, and it had been a while since she'd last performed. And stars above the town could use some entertainment. She'd have to start planning tomorrow.

She drew the curtains with her magic and snuffed out the candles with a summoned breeze, which also managed to fling loose bits of parchment everywhere. Trixie would pick them up in the morning. She pulled the bed sheets over herself and curled up, hugging the pillow for comfort. She did her best to ignore the banging around coming from upstairs, which had quieted down a bit, but hadn't stopped. Thankfully, Trixie was quite the heavy sleeper.

Trixie drifted off pretty quickly. Hopefully in the morning things would be right back in track.

With a yawn, Trixie stirred from her slumber. Stretching her forelegs out, she sat up in her bed, blinking a couple of times. Light streamed in from under the curtains, it must have been late morning already. Trixie didn't usually get to sleep in like this, Twilight normally woke her up around six. Not that Trixie was complaining, who didn't like a lie in? It was just odd.

Lighting her horn up, she opened the curtains and threw the covers off the bed, sliding off the mattress and onto her hooves, ready and eager for breakfast. She trotted out of her room and up the stairs to the living area of the tower. If it was as late as she thought it was, she'd usually have already started lessons by now, so she was expecting to see Twilight up and about. As predicted, she could hear hooves clopping on the wooden floor, all but confirming Twilight was already there. Trixie crested the top of the stairs, and kicked the door to the floor open.

"Good morning, Twi- PAHAHAHAHA!"

Stood in the middle of the floor was a very irate looking, very hairless alicorn. Very hairless. No fur, no feathers, no mane or tail. She looked like a freshly plucked chicken.

"Something funny, Trixie?" Twilight scowled.

"Pfft, nothing at all, Twilight." Trixie snickered. "It's a bald look for you! Very experimental, but don't you think you'll get cold?"

Twilight didn't reply, she just continued to frown at Trixie. Trixie just trotted to the kitchen area, sliced some bread, and put it in the toaster.

"What's with the new look, anyway?" Trixie asked. "Early midlife crisis?"

The toast popped up, Twilight vaporised it before Trixie had a chance to take the slices.

"Hey!" Trixie protested.

"The 'new look' is because you covered me in parasites!" Twilight shouted. "Do you have any idea how long it took to remove them all?"

"I-"

"SIX. HOURS!" Twilight exploded, closing the distance between herself and the unicorn. "Six entire hours, pulling and scraping and washing and shaving! Do you know what it feels like to pull a leech off of your ear? It hurts. A lot."

"That's-"

"I had to spend the whole night making sure I hadn't been infected by any bloodborne diseases. I still haven't finished the last potion yet! I can only HOPE that nothing got into my bloodstream." Twilight continued, now nose-to-nose with Trixie.

"Are-"

"You know what happens when you get covered in that many little bugs, Trixie? They get everywhere. Everywhere. I had to flush out everything, over and over again."

"Ew."

"And to top it all off, I can't even tell you what you did wrong, because you changed the spell without telling me, and without working out what you were doing! I don't know why the spell did what it did because I don't know what you changed, so we can't even learn from the mistake!"

"Well-"

"What were you thinking, Trixie? I thought we'd been through this before, and you just go and do it all over again! Why? What do you have to say for yourself?" Twilight gave the unicorn a hard stare. It was especially unnerving, what with the lack of eyebrows and everything else.

"Uh... oops?" Trixie offered.

Twilight did not look impressed, and continued to stare a hole into the unicorn.

"That's it?" Twilight pressed.

"Well, to be fair, it's not all Trixie's fault." Trixie explained. "If you had simply told Trixie not to change the spell before we started, none of this would've happened."

"I shouldn't have to tell you not to change the spells!" Twilight cried. "Magic is a precision art, you can't just freewheel casting as you please! I told you as much last time!"

"And I told you last time that Trixie can not be constrained by conventional arcane measures! rules are made to be broken!"

"Arcane laws are not your plaything, Trixie! What if instead of covering me in bugs, you cause an explosion? Somepony could get seriously hurt, or worse!" Twilight protested.

"Well, what if instead of covering you in bugs I cured the common cold? Trixie does what she does for a reason!" Trixie retorted, crossing her forelegs.

"We've been over this before, you don't have enough of a grasp of arcane theory to be playing around with spell matrices like that! It's just not safe, not until you can theorise what the output will be!" The alicorn countered. "Innovation is fine, but not at the potential cost of lives!"

"Pah, 'theory'. Theory is the fastest way to kill creativity." Trixie scoffed. "You can't expect me to allow myself to be stifled!"

"Enough!" Twilight shouted. A proper shout, loud enough that it cause the glass in the window panes to rattle. It certainly shut Trixie up. "I thought we'd worked past this, but clearly I was wrong."

Twilight shook her head and turned around, slowly pacing in a large circle around the kitchen. She frowned, deep in thought. Trixie on the other hoof made use of the lull in conversation to make herself some replacement toast. Trixie watched Twilight as she walked, nuder than nude. It was a strange sight to behold.

The toast popped up, and survived un-vaporised this time. Trixie liberally spread a coating of peanut butter over the top, and was just about to bite in when Twilight stopped in front of her.

"Trixie." Twilight sighed. "I didn't want to do this, but I don't think I have a choice."

"Go on." Trixie said, eyes darting between her breakfast and the alicorn.

"Trixie Lulamoon, because of your flagrantly dangerous approach towards arcane sciences, I can't in good conscience allow you to continue to practice magic under my tutelage, or in my town."

"Wait, WHAT?!" Trixie cried.

"Your unthinking attitude poses a genuine risk to both me and the community. As your mentor, and as the high mage of Ponyville, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave both my tower and my town until such time that you can prove that you're ready to continue your studies. I hope that you'll take this time to reflect and do better."

"You're kicking me out?!" The unicorn yelped, toast dropping to the floor.

"That's correct." Twilight replied. "I don't know where you plan to go or what you plan to do, but I'd suggest you'd get packed up and ready. You have until sundown."

"N-now now, let's not be so hasty!" Trixie insisted.

"Oh, I don't think I'm being hasty, I had plenty of time to think about it last night while I was removing insects from my body." Twilight said angrily, fleshy wings flared. She breathed out and tucked her wings back by her sides before continuing. "I had hoped that you might have time to think too, I hoped that you might have learned your lesson and that we could have talked about it, but it's clear that you've not learned anything. Honestly it makes me wonder if you've really paid attention to anything I've taught you."

"Of course I've paid attention! Trixie's the most attention paying pony around!"

"Then why don't you act like it?" Twilight asked, sighing. "I don't want to do this Trixie, but I don't think you've left me with any other options. Just please, do better. I'll happily take you back in when you've made progress, but I can't have you here now, it's not safe for anypony."

"Trixie is perfectly safe! You don't have to do this!" Trixie pleaded.

"Prove to me that you're safe, Trixie. Spend some time away from here, and prove you're safe when you come back. We can carry on just like normal, but I need to know you've changed." Twilight pulled the door to the stairs open with her magic, pausing in the threshold. "You should get everything you'll need ready. I meant it when I said you had until sundown."

With that, Twilight trotted down the stairs, hoof falls growing quieter as she descended through the tower. Trixie stared at the open door frame, mind blank. She gazed down at her fallen breakfast on the floor, and then back to the door frame.

"Buck."

Trixie grunted as she pulled her cart through the town gates. It had been a couple of years since she'd needed to pull her cart anywhere, and she had a lot more stuff stored in it than the last time she'd used it. It was safe to say it felt very heavy on her back.

The cart rattled and groaned, wood no doubt protesting from disuse. Town guards watched on as she trudged her way outside the walls, of course none offered to help. As soon as she was on the other side of the border, the gates slammed closed behind her, leaving her alone on the dirt path out of town. The dirt path through the Everfree forest. The undefended, wide open path through the dangerious, untamed Everfree forest.

Trixie gulped.

It had taken her most of the day to get her cart packed up and ready to go, meaning she was only able to leave the tower just a smidge before sundown. Because of that, it was starting to get dark. Luckily, Trixie had the foresight to bring a lantern, so she wouldn't be totally blind, no. She'd be alone in the dark in the untamed wilds, but at least she'd be able to see where she was going.

Trixie unhitched herself and went to set the lantern up. The inside of the cart was pretty cramped up with all the assorted crap she'd amassed during her time with Twilight, but she'd had the foresight to leave the lantern by the door so it was easy to find.

She opened the valve, and called upon her magic to light the wick, generating a small, bright orange flame. Closing the door, she came back around the front of the cart, and floated the lantern up onto a pole protruding from the roof, allowing it to light up the area in front of her a bit better.

Well, now she could see, but where exactly was she going to go? The forest stretched on for miles in all directions, and getting off trail would be a surefire way to get lost. She probably shouldn't venture too far before daylight. Trixie sighed and set off down the path, into the thick foliage. The sound of bugs chirping and leaves rustling filled the air, accompanied by the wind blowing through branches. It made for quite an eerie atmosphere.

Trixie kept her ears perked up for any of the more fearsome creatures that called the forest home. They usually didn't get too close to the town walls, but she figured it was better to be safe than sorry, at least when it came to wild animal attacks. It seemed to be getting darker by the second. Glancing up, she could see through the canopy that clouds had started to build up overhead.

Still, Trixie carried on. She decided that she might as well find somewhere suitable to settle down for the night, the sooner the better. She couldn't just set up camp on the path, that was practically asking to be robbed, or at the very least it was a quick way to get woken up by an angry pony whose path you'd blocked. It'd be best to look for a clearing somewhere, something out of the way, that way she could set up a campfire too.

She kept an eye out for anywhere along the trail where the foliage thinned out. Fortunately, she didn't have to look for too long, as a large gap in the undergrowth came up on the left side of the path, under a particularly large tree. The ground was lumpy and soft, making it hard to pull the cart across, but she still managed to get there easy enough. She pulled around the back of the tree to make sure the cart was mostly out of sight from the path, before unhitching herself and stretching out, relaxing her muscles after the most strenuous physical workout she'd had in ages.

How did she ever manage to do this all day, every day? It was going to be a pain getting used to this again.

A stiff breeze blew across her withers, causing her to shiver. With only her cloak and hat to keep her warm, Trixie decided that the first thing to do was to build a camp fire. Being under a tree meant that twigs and sticks weren't hard to find, and she'd soon piled a neat stack of firewood near her cart. With a wave of her horn, the fire was lit, and she was already feeling warmer. She'd want to cook some dinner soon, she'd managed to cram as much food as she could into her cart before leaving, but for the moment she was content to just sit by the fire and think out her next move.

"Trix? That you?" A voice called out from above. Trixie recognised the voice.

"Down here, Dash." She replied.

A blue pegsus mare swooped down, dressed in the brown and tan light armour of a Ponyville scout guard, and carrying a long pike. Rainbow Dash, a friend Trixie had made when she first arrived in Ponyville, the only pony in town who shared her competitive streak that wasn't a total bore.

"What're ya doing out here? Leaving town or something?" Rainbow asked, settling down next to Trixie by the fire. "You know the forest is dangerous after dark, right?"

"Trixie is not leaving town." She said defiantly. "Trixie has merely been... temporarily evicted by Twilight."

"Wait, for real?!" Rainbow asked, Trixie nodded. "Geez, that's harsh, you really must've pissed her off!"

"You, uh, you could say that." Trixie grimaced.

"Well, what are you gonna do now?" Rainbow pressed. "You're not just leaving, are you?"

"I don't know, Dash." The unicorn sighed. "Twilight said she'd let me back in if I could prove myself, but I don't really know what to do."

"Well, duh, you figure out a way to prove yourself!" Rainbow rolled her eyes. "It can't be too hard, you're like the 5th or 6th smartest pony I know!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Trixie said flatly.

"I'm just saying, there's bound to be something you can do to prove her wrong!" Rainbow encouraged. "You'll think of something."

Then it clicked. 'Prove her wrong'. That was it, Trixie could get back into town much faster if she could prove Twilight was wrong about her! Of course, that would be the only option, because Trixie had done nothing wrong in the first place. It was so obvious!

"You might be onto something there, Dash." Trixie thought aloud.

"Of course I am, I'm Rainbow Dash!" She boasted.

Trixie got thinking. If she could think of something she could do to prove herself to Twilight, if Trixie could do something her own way and have Twilight accept Trixie's way of doing magic, then everything could go back to normal way faster! But what?

"Well, I gotta get back to town, rain's about to start. I know you'll come up with something, though. See ya around!" Rainbow picked up her pike and with a swift flap of her wings was up and away.

"Wait, what was that about rain?" Trixie called after her.

Right on cue, there was a clap of thunder and a single raindrop landed on Trixie's snout. It was quickly followed by a deluge, putting the campfire out and soaking Trixie to the bone even though she was under the tree, because of course it did. Trixie trudged back to her cart, flinging the door open and cramming herself inside, amongst all her junk. She hung up her dripping wet cloak and hat on the door and sat herself down in her hammock.

The rain pattered down the the roof of her cart, which she hoped was still waterproofed. She used an illumination spell to light up the inside, since she'd left the lantern outside and really didn't feel like going back out to get it. Most of the space inside the cart had been taken up by a variety of spell books and potion making equipment she'd acquired from Twilight, meaning she had to awkwardly shuffle around to get to anything.

One of those books probably had something she could use. If Trixie could perform a top level spell her own way and have it all go right, then Twilight would have to see that there was nothing wrong with Trixie's way of doing things, right? There had to be something impressive she could do that'd make Twilight see the error of her ways, Trixie just needed to figure out what.

The rumbling of her stomach made her remember she hadn't had anything to eat. With the campfire out, it looked like it was going to be a cold can of beans for dinner. Just like old times. Trixie was by no means a stranger to life on the road, but after living in Twilight's tower for as long as she had, it was a jarring change.

Still, at least it was better than eating pine cones.

Wake Up, Wake Up, Get Yourself Straight

Wake Up, Wake Up, Get Yourself Straight

Give up sleeping beauty plans to hesitate, there's no time now for faux pas and circumstance.

"So, it's revenge you seek?"

The voice was smooth, yet oh so powerful and commanding. It had an indescribable presence, something about it had an inescapable enigmatic draw. There was a certain feeling of wrongness about it, but it was overpowered by the sheer authority it exuded. There was an unsure tone of disagreement in the ether, and the voice seemed to take notice.

"Hmm, no, not revenge. Validation, perhaps?"

There was a more agreeable aura to that, 'validation', a more pleasant ring to the whole thing. The voice apparently understood.

"Yes, validation. You have something to prove, it seems. We can help."

There was a sense of swirling, a sense of blueness. A feeling of being overtaken by something, an all encompassing power. It was good.

"We can aid you in this venture, you may find us in the seat of power."

Suddenly it all stopped. The feeling of power, the swirling, the blue. It disappeared, and it left wanting in it's place.

"We shall be seeing you, Lulamoon."

Trixie woke with a start, enough of a start fling herself from her hammock, landing quite ungracefully on top of the cauldron she'd ~~stolen~~ borrowed from Twilight. She'd had less painful mornings.

She groaned, but didn't bother moving just yet, still kind of a little asleep. She must have slept weird. She had a funny feeling about something, but she didn't know what. Falling out of bed probably didn't help.

She didn't know what time it was, but it was past sunrise if the light coming through the shutters was anything to go by. Trixie rubbed her head and righted herself, landing on her hooves in a clear spot of floor. With a shake of her head, Trixie nosed the door open to the great outdoors. It looked like a beautiful day, sun was shining, air heavy with bird calls. This was ruined when Trixie stepped outside, immediately setting hoof in a large, dirty puddle. The ground was still soggy and muddy from last night's rain, the soil totally logged.

She frowned at her muddied hoof. It would not going to be a fun day to walk around the forest. And to make matters worse, Trixie didn't even have a shower to wash off with! It honestly made her wonder how she used to live like this, and it had only been one night.

The sooner Trixie figured out a way to get back into town, the better.

Trixie decided she would get started on that right after breakfast, it was the most important meal of the day, after all. After a brief inspection she had no doubt that the campfire from last night would be no good now, and the wet grass didn't really make for the best kindling. It seemed she'd be in for another cold meal.

She'd managed to get away from the tower with all of Twilight's peanut butter, and at least half a loaf of bread. It wasn't quite toast, but it'd do. Clambering back inside the wagon, and making sure to try and clean her hooves, she squeezed her way to the sack she'd stuffed full of food.

Food, she realised, but no utensils. This left her with an uncut half loaf of bread and most of a jar of peanut butter, with nothing to spread or cut with! As much of an Equestrian tragedy as this predicament was, she wasn't about to go smearing peanut butter on the bread with her hoof, especially not now that she'd stepped in mud. There had to be something she could do.

Trixie wrestled with this particular issue for a few minutes before settling for tearing off chunks of bread and dipping them into the peanut butter jar. She decided to call it a 'lateral thinking sandwich'. Problem solving was one of Trixie's key strengths.

Which nicely brought her back to the subject of solving the big problem: getting Twilight to let her back in. Not that she necessarily needed Twilight to let her back in, Trixie was sure that she'd do just fine on her own, probably better than fine, in fact! What would be nice, thought, would be the cudos she'd get as a Master Witch having trained under Twilight, that kind of status was worth it's weight in gold.

Of course, Trixie already considered herself a master witch, but having the clout of the most powerful mage in the country couldn't hurt.

She hummed in thought, chewing her breakfast. Surely there was something in the books she brought with her that she could use? She was sure that there would be a spell that Twilight hadn't covered in one of the books somewhere, if she could learn it and cast it on her own using her own methods, then there was no way Twilight could stay mad at her, it'd be proof that Trixie was right, and it'd perfectly demonstrate her greatness! A win-win-win situation!

Trixie nodded to herself. It was a good plan, a plan so good that she didn't even need to stop eating to start work. Rummaging around with her magic, Trixie pulled out the first spell book she could find in the pile of crap she'd brought with her.

Bastard Of Disguise: Illusion, Transformation, Transmogrification.

It was certainly a colourful title. Still, Trixie thrived on illusions, so this seemed like a great place to start. Taking another bite of bread, she flicked through the book, skipping most of the introduction. All these spell books were the same, with very heavy, dense, boring intro sections. They could save so much time and paper if they just went straight to the spells, those were the only important bits anyway!

It was easy to see when the wall of text gave way to the spells proper, mostly because the words stopped and runes started.

Trixie glanced at the headers of each page for the spell names. They usually gave a pretty good idea of what the spell was meant to do. Scanning the headers, she came to one in particular that looked interesting.

'Alicorn Apparition: impress and amaze by appearing as one of the legendary Astral Sisters of the sun and moon.'

What better way to show up an alicorn than by becoming an alicorn herself? Best of all, it was a spell she'd definitely not learned before. All she needed to do was pull it off without Twilight's help, get back into town, and rub it in Twilight's face about how wrong she was, and then everything would be back to normal!

Trixie smiled as she finished off the last of the bread. This was perfect! Who would've thought that the first thing she found would have been such a good idea? She looked over the spell, noting several sections that looked unfamiliar. Though she loved illusion, Trixie had never attempted a full body transformation before. It looked like it was going to be a tricky one, even though it was only a temporary spell. Still, if anypony could do it, it'd be Trixie.

The matrix seemed standard enough, even with runes she didn't recognise. Trixie figured it'd be safe enough to assume what the new runes signified, if she could work out the rest of the spell then surely it'd just be a game of filling in the blanks, right?

The bits she did know seemed simple enough. A little perception manipulation here, a little image projection there, standard illusion stuff. It was the rest of it that would need some working out. I didn't help that there seemed to be two separate spells, one for the sun alicorn and one for the moon alicorn. Honestly, she'd be more enthralled if she could somehow make her own Trixie alicorn version.

She smirked. Why couldn't she make her own Trixie version of the spell? There was nothing stopping her, Twilight wasn't here to reprimand here. Wouldn't that be the ultimate comeback for her?

Trixie knew what she had to do.

Trixie had the perception and projection down, but she'd need to work out how to bring everything all together in alicorn form. For one, she was going to need wings, or at the very least, to look like she had wings. Trixie used to have an illusion spell she'd use during her shows to make it look like birds were flying out of her hat. Birds had wings, which was close enough, so she decided to add that into the matrix.

Twilight was undeniably a little taller than Trixie, which Trixie didn't resent at all because she was perfectly formed. She didn't think the old legends mentioned anything about the Astral Sister's heights, but it couldn't hurt to be taller anyway. Probably. A standard Embiggenment spell would likely do the trick.

The last rune in the matrix was something or other regarding stars. Trixie figured if she was going to appear herself as an alicorn and not as one of the sisters, she could just ignore that part.

Satisfied, Trixie lit up her horn and cast the matrix. Next stop, alicornhood!

The was a pop, and a flash, and a tingle. And then nothing. Trixie was confused. She looked over herself, but she certainly didn't see any wings. She glanced at her mirror, only to find that she definitely didn't have any wings, nor did she look taller. That wasn't right, she should at least be able to see something!

She cast the spell again, but still nothing. Frowning, she double checked all her guesstimations before casting the spell a third time. But again, nothing. There should have been some kind of result. Even if she was doing the spell wrong, something should be happening! She couldn't be casting blanks, she was young, great, and powerful! There had to have been some sort of effect.

Trixie's hat fell off the hook. She looked at it just in time to witness the largest Parakeet head she'd ever seen poke out the bottom if it. She blinked. The bird ejected itself from her hat, flapping wildly. Then another. Then another. There seemed to be an endless stream of enormous Parakeets emerging from her hat! Trixie groaned. This is not what she wanted to happen at all!

Though they might not have been real, the birds were certainly annoying, flapping and screeching, and generally just creating quite a scene. They were now taking up most of the free space in the cart, and Trixie wasn't in the mood to be dealing with it. She managed to trudge her way to the door and get herself outside, sighing as she watch the inside of her cart fill up with gigantic birds.

She didn't have a counterspell for this, she'd never needed one before. And to make matters worse, the book was still inside, so she couldn't even try and make one up. Trixie looked back through the door, only to find a mass of feathers and plumage blocking her view. Even though the birds weren't real, searching through that pandemonium would be a fool's errand. She'd just have to wait this mess out.

Trixie 'hmphd', indignant. This was pretty close to the worst possible thing. Now she was stuck outside, in the mud. Not only were her hooves getting dirty, but these birds were going to seriously eat into the time she could've have spent one-upping Twilight! And to make things even worse, she couldn't even wear her hat because it was the source of the problem!

The unicorn frowned and slammed a forehoof down in annoyance. All this did was splash muddy water up her legs and barrel. She was not impressed. At least her cloak was still inside, so it didn't get dirty. Still, she felt kind of naked without her hat and cloak, she'd be happy when she could wear them again. Sooner rather than later, hopefully.

This left Trixie at something of an impasse. She was now stuck outside with nothing to do. She was already bored. She blew a strand of her mane out of her face, thinking about what to do next. She looked at her dirty hooves. Maybe she could find a lake or a river to wash off in? It'd certainly be better than being muddy all day. It'd be something to do, at the very least. Maybe she could even go for a swim, if the water was deep enough!

She perked her ears up to see if she could hear any running water anywhere, but the din from the Parakeets in the cart was drowning anything else out. Trixie was going to have to do some old fashioned exploring, it seemed. She slammed the door closed with her magic, making sure to lock it before setting off.

Which way looked most likely to have water? She could go back and follow the path to see if it led to a lake anywhere. She didn't ever remember passing one, but it had been a while since she'd had to use the road into Ponyville, so she could be mistaken.

It should be easy enough. She could just follow the path, and if she didn't find any water then she can just follow it back. How hard could it be?

Head held high, Trixie came back around the front of the tree and back onto the path. There was no way anything could possibly go wrong.

Trixie clung to the side of a tree trunk, breaths ragged and shallow. She was trying to make as little noise as she possibly could.

She didn't even know how this happened! She was walking down the path minding her own business, at some point she'd had a disagreement with a Squirrel, things somehow went downhill from there and now here she was, deep in the heart of the forest hiding from an angry manticore!

All she wanted was a lake to bathe in! How was she supposed to know that the fork in the path led straight into the manticore's cave?! What kind of idiot designed this road?

The manticore was pretty pissed off, which resulted in Trixie being chased through the trees. She was now well and truly off the beaten path, she had no idea where she was. Not that it was necessarily her main concern at the moment, she was far more focused on not being torn to pieces by a very angry predator.

Trixie peeked her head around the tree, to try and get a bearing on where the manticore was. It was close, it was sniffing around, but it wasn't quite looking in her direction. There was a chance that she might just be able to slip away, if it didn't notice her.

She steeled herself, taking a deep calming breath. She could do this, Trixie was the most sneaky-est pony around! Gingerly, she stepped away from the tree, being as quiet as she could.

This, of course, was ruined when a few paces from the tree she stepped on a twig and snapped it. Trixie froze. The manticore growled and started bounding towards her. Trixie got herself together and erupted into a full on gallop.

This was ridiculous! This kind of shit only ever happens in stories, it wasn't supposed to happen in real life!

Trixie weaved through the forest, ducking under branches and diving her way between trees and bushes. Running away in a zig-zag worked for Crocodiles, right? She reasoned that it should work just as well for a manticore. She glanced back, only to find the manticore much to close for comfort.

She deduced that the zig-zagging wasn't working when the beast started nipping at her tail. She couldn't get her legs to move any faster, she was already flat out, but she wasn't making any distance. Trixie wasn't built for running, she was a mare of luxury! Not that she was out of shape, not at all, Trixie was the very picture of health! It's just that she had dedicated herself to more refined pursuits in the last few years.

Trixie was quickly running out of breath, but unfortunately slowing down was not an option. Her legs were starting to burn, not used to the exertion. She was going to be very sore later.

Trixie yelped as the manticore's jaw clamped around her tail, tearing out a few magnificent strands. She was running out of options. She lit up her horn, preparing for an emergency teleport. She wouldn't be able to go very far because she didn't know where she was. The last thing she needed was to end up merging herself with a tree because she didn't look before she leapt.

The way ahead looked clear, so she flashed herself forwards to put some distance between herself and the manticore. Her lead didn't last very long though, and she soon found herself having to teleport forwards again just to escape the beast's jaws.

This wasn't working, she was going to have to get creative. Being the masterful tactician that she was, Trixie decided that this time she would teleport sideways, which would hopefully throw the manticore off long enough for her to get away.

Glancing through the trees, it looked like there was a clearing off to her right. Lighting up her horn again, she cast the spell and popped herself over, gasping and wheezing as she reappeared. She clambered behind a tree to get out of the manticore's line of sight, and desperately pleaded to the gods that it hadn't noticed that she was there.

She could hear the thing growl, she could hear it's pace slow down as it searched for her. She did her best to stay quiet, but her lungs really needed the air.

The manticore grunted in frustration at having suddenly lost it's prey. She could hear it trampling around, looking for her. She scrunched her eyes closed and hoped beyond hope that it wouldn't find her. Fortunately for Trixie, the creature stomped away, apparently having given up the chase.

Trixie waited to make sure it was gone before breathing out a massive sigh of relief. All the tension left her body and she collapsed on the floor, limbs aching, lungs burning, lightheaded, but alive. Another victory!

The unicorn could hear her blood pumping in her ears, and was feeling a little queasy after all that physical exertion so suddenly. It wasn't her fault she felt so bad though, she hadn't had time to warm up. For the moment, she was content to lie on the ground and rest for a while.

The adrenaline was slowly running down, and Trixie's body was making it's protest very much known to her. She was not looking forward to getting out of the hammock tomorrow morning. It was a shame she hadn't managed to find any water, because she could really use a drink. Sweat was pouring off her coat, and her throat was incredibly dry.

Still, it was a testament to her physical prowess and quick thinking that she had managed to outsmart a vicious predator. Not just anypony could do that! Truly, she was more gifted than even she had thought.

Now that she actually had a moment to think, she realised something very important: she had absolutely no idea where she was. She was totally lost, as far off track as she could get, probably. She didn't know how long she'd been running through the forest for, but it had been a long while since she was on the path.

Her heart had started to slow back down, breathing becoming less desperate. It occurred to her that she hadn't actually looked where she'd flopped down, and she was probably muddying up her coat. She just about managed to push herself up, legs wobbly.

Her coat, as expected, was a total mess. She was covered in mud, leaves, sap, generally just caked in dirt. Now she really needed to find somewhere to bathe, she couldn't let anypony see her like this!

The unicorn stood up. She was calm now, she'd calmed down, but she was shaking. The adrenaline was still working it's way out of her system, and she was going to be unsteady for a while after that ordeal. Her legs were already aching, but she couldn't very well stay in the clearing all day, not if she wanted to find her way back to her cart.

Her legs practically groaned as she stepped forwards. She winced as her aching muscles worked, putting in a heroic effort just to move. The first thing Trixie decided the first thing she was going to do when she got back to her cart was to lie in her hammock for three or four days.

She glanced around the clearing, getting a good look. It all seemed pretty normal, thick, lush grass, perimeter tree line, a few flowers. The only thing a little odd was a big rock in the middle, covered in moss and ivy. It was an odd shape, round and looking like it had broken off of something at some point. It was tall, it was very cylindrical, and inspecting it closer, it wasn't a rock at all. It was a column. Or most of a column.

What in Tartarus was a column doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Did somepony try to build a tacky casino in the forest or something? She frowned. She had heard of stranger things, to be fair. And actually, thinking about it, it would kind of make sense to build a casino here. Since the town guard didn't patrol this far out from the city, there was nopony to enforce the laws. You could gamble all you wanted.

Trixie knew one thing, if there was a casino out here, there was booze too.

Even if there wasn't actually a casino here, the column was a landmark. At the very least she'd have something to navigate by. It was a start, for now. Any gambling would be a bonus. Trixie didn't get her hopes up too high about finding a casino though, the column looked really rather old, very weathered and overgrown. Maybe it was a part of some old shrine or something?

She shook her head, she was surely looking into this too much. It was just an old column, who cares why it was there?

Now she had a marker, but which way should she go? As far as she could tell, it was just trees in all directions from here. She looked back to the way she'd entered the clearing. She had no idea what compass bearing it would be, but she wasn't all that eager to go back the way she'd came, because there was a strong possibility that the manticore was still hanging around.

Thinking logically, the safest direction would probably be just to head forwards, away from the angry creature. There was something pulling her forwards, forwards felt just about right. Trixie moved onwards, muscles straining to get her moving. It was not going to be a nice walk.

She was on edge now, wary of her surroundings. The forest was a dangerous place, and her letting her guard down now that there was an aggravated manticore somewhere in the woods was not a good idea. It was a good thing that Trixie was the alertest pony around, and brave too! Lesser unicorns would faint at the prospect of sneaking around the Everfree being pursued by angry animals, but Trixie could handle it.

She kept her ears perked up and her eyes open as she crossed back through the treeline again. Darkness washed over her as the canopy blocked the midday sun. She creakily made her way through the light underbrush, keeping a look out for anything less than friendly.

Now that she had time to take in her surroundings, something seemed different. This part of the Everfree felt... heavier, for lack of a better word. There was something of an oppressive air about it, something that put her on guard. It might well have just been the paranoia of being chased, but it felt like something more.

Cautious, Trixie pressed on, treading lightly and watching every shadow. The sooner she could find her way back onto the path and back to her cart the better. The birds would probably have all dissipated by now, she could have a nice spot of lunch and continue her research. That would be something to look forward to.

That was if she ever found her way back. Trixie grimaced as she looked around. Every direction looked the same, trees as far as the eye could see. It was no wonder ponies got lost so often in the woods, without a compass it was a very tricky place to navigate. She was glad to have the column as a landmark, but in reality it was only just a fraction better than nothing. Still, she could make do with that, Trixie was the best navigator she knew after all. She was sure that she'd be back at her cart in no time, having a well deserved rest.

Trixie was only starting to panic just the teensiest, slightest bit. That's not to say she was scared, no, not at all! She was merely concerned.

It seemed that she wasn't quite alone. Something was stalking her, she was pretty sure. A while ago she accidentally snapped a twig, and something growled. Whether it was the manticore or not she didn't know, but since then she'd had a very distinct feeling of being watched.

Night was now fast approaching, it was very quickly getting darker and darker, making it even more difficult for Trixie to find her way. She still hadn't managed to find her cart, or even get back onto the path for that matter.

She had passed more interesting things on her way. More columns, bits of old wall, a torn up cobblestone floor, but nothing that actually helped her get anywhere. Yes, she was progressing cautiously, but she'd hoped to have gotten somewhere! She wasn't even sure if she'd gone back on herself, a few of those columns had been really similar. Or maybe it was just one column she'd found multiple times?

Gah, this was getting her nowhere fast. Literally.

She'd been following her hunch since she left the clearing, and as it was she had no idea if she'd gotten any closer to getting back to her cart. But there was still something pulling her in this direction. It wasn't much, but a hunch was better than nothing.

Something rustled somewhere. It wasn't very close, but it wasn't very far away either. Trixie gulped. Hopefully it was just a fox or a jackalope or something. Something that wasn't going to eviscerate her. She picked up her pace just a little. It was getting dark enough now that she had to call upon her magic to light the way ahead. An owl's hoot echoed through the trees. Trixie had to admit that it was all just a tad spooky.

It was also starting to get rather chilly, too. Especially without her hat and cape. Stylish as they were, Trixie had practical reasons for wearing them too. That, and it helped to be distinctive when you worked as an entertainer. Trixie thought that her clothes made her look rather dashing, not that she wasn't already the picture of beauty. She looked magnificent with or without her getup!

Well, she usually did. Maybe not so much now that she was covered in dirt and her mane was all over the place.

Trixie shivered, her cape would have been especially appreciated about now. The chill that the breeze was carrying was most unwelcome.

As on edge as she was, Trixie was also tired. She'd not had a proper rest all day, and she'd burned through a lot of energy. Her bed was calling her, wherever it was. But tired as she was she knew she couldn't stop here, it probably wasn't safe. The nastier creatures of the forest came out after dark. She would do well to remain cautious.

Still, she couldn't stop herself from yawning. It was only natural for a tired pony to yawn, after all. Yawning helped keep a pony awake by taking in a load more air, or something like that. Twilight had told her why ponies yawned before, but Trixie wasn't really paying attention. She probably had witchier things to worry about at the time.

She was tired enough that it was taking real effort to keep moving. Trixie slowed down, but she didn't stop. Her throat was as dry as a bone, and a headache was starting to set in. She really needed a drink and a place to rest, neither of which she could find here.

She'd been on the move for hours now, just how big was this place anyway? All this walking and not one lousy lake? Not one river or stream? This was the Everfree forest, not Everfree desert! She'd settle for a pond, even rainfall would be good enough at this point! She wasn't desperate enough to start sucking the moisture from rocks and moss, she had standards after all, but she was going to have to find something to drink very soon.

Trixie's ears pinned back as she heard a twig snap behind her. She looked back, but couldn't see anything. It sounded much closer than the rustling. Trixie decided that it might be in her best interest to pick up her pace again. She quickened to a canter, despite her legs telling her to stop.

She was so busy watching her flank that she almost didn't notice when her hooffalls starting making a different sound. She glanced down, curious. Up until now the ground had been as expected from a forest, soft, muddy, and leafy. Yet now she found herself walking on what looked like finely cut, if worse for wear granite. Looking ahead, it seemed to stretch on, and she could see little bits of other stonework in between the trees.

Just where had she ended up now?

An unfortunate effect of walking on stone was that the clip-clopping of her hooves was now much, much louder. This is less than idea when one is being perused, since it practically advertised your location to anybody who cared to listen.

There was a throaty growl from somewhere behind her. Nervously, Trixie cast a light-hoofed spell to deaden the sound of her hooves, and also a basic perception glamour for good measure. She didn't know what made the noise, but she didn't really want to find out. Hopefully the spells could throw it off.

She didn't really want to, but if it came to it she'd have to stop the light spell too. If she had her books she'd probably be able to cast a night vision spell, but there was no way she'd know how to do it without them.

On the very slight upside, she at least had stable ground to walk on now. Even better it seemed to be leading the direction she was being pulled. With any luck it'd take her right back to the path!

The trees seemed to be getting more sparsely spaced now, thinning out as she pressed further. She was noticing more, for lack of a better word, ruins. Crumbling old stone walls, piles of rubble and the like. Some of them even looked like they used to be buildings, whole houses or something similar.

She couldn't see all that far ahead in the darkness, but she could tell that there was something different coming up. The treeline was changing, there was something at the end of this path. Trixie's eyes grew wider the closer she got. The trees gave way to another clearing, a big one. The clearing wasn't really the remarkable part though, it was what stood in the clearing that had thrown her for a loop.

Trixie slowed to a halt, gawping at what lie before her. In the middle of the clearing was a very large, very old looking castle. A proper, real castle! High walls, turrets, towers, moat, everything! It even had a portcullis!

It was partially ruined, sections collapsing and crumbling away, ivy and vines scaling the well worn stone walls. It looked like at some point in it's life it had been involved in a serious battle of some kind, there were craters and cracks all over the walls, and she could see ruins where towers had collapsed. It was still something to behold though, and there was something of an ethereal presence to the place, something she couldn't quite put her hoof on. There was a whole lot of residual magic in the air, something big had happened here. Was this what had been drawing her through the forest?

How come she had never heard of this place? How is it that nopony had mentioned it? Surely somepony knew about it, you could hardly miss it, it was enormous! She can't have been the first one to stumble across it, right?

Trixie's ears swivelled as the brush behind her rustled. Her heart dropped as she turned to see what the noise was. She didn't know if it was the same one from earlier or not, but stood just behind her, ready to pounce, was a manticore. The glamour she cast must have been as effective as using a colander as a cereal bowl, because the thing was looking straight at her. She froze, it roared. She didn't stay frozen for very long.

She bolted forward on instinct, making for the bridge into the castle. The manticore was not far behind.

Trixie couldn't believe this was happening for the second time today! She couldn't believe she had to run again when her legs felt like they could give out at any moment. Was this thing trying to get her killed?!

Don't answer that.

Trixie ran under the portcullis, pulling it down behind her with her magic. It took some effort, but she managed to slide it down, hitting the ground with a metallic clang. Alas, it seemed she was just a second too late, as the manticore was still right behind her. All she'd managed to do was trap herself in the castle walls with the beast.

They ran through the gatehouse and into the bailey. It was a large, open space with nowhere to hide. She had nowhere to go but the keep, which conveniently enough had it's doors open. Trixie decided that would be the best place to try and hold up. She lit her horn and teleported herself inside. This only seemed to make the manticore angrier. Trixie used all her strength the move the huge wooden doors, shunting them on rusty hinges until they closed. She managed to get a wooden beam across them in the nick of time as the manticore slammed into them, trying to force them open. The beam held, she was safe for now.

Trixie sat on her haunches, wobbly. She couldn't keep doing this. Yes, she was the very epitome of health, but she had her limits. She was in desperate need of a drink now, her breaths were painful in her throat. She was going to be so achey later. Her headache had increased tenfold and was well on the way to becoming a migraine. She felt pretty awful, and now-

She yelped in surprise as a slam caused the door to rattle in place. She backpedalled away, but the door held strong. A few seconds later there was another slam, followed by a growl. The manticore was trying to get in.

She decided to get away from the door. It was holding for the moment, but she didn't want to take any more chances. Grunting, she stood back up and slowly trotted further into the building. She was in a large, long corridor. It was dark, but oddly enough she didn't have much trouble seeing her surroundings.

She was sure that at one point the place had been finely decorated. Now all she could see was tarnished metalwork and rotted tapestries, but in better days it must have looked sublime. At the end of the corridor she could see a large set of double doors. There was something drawing her to them. She couldn't put her hoof on it, but she felt like whatever had she had been feeling the whole day was behind those doors.

Trixie slowly trotted down the hall. There wasn't a whole lot to distract her along the way, but she really wasn't up to moving at full speed again just yet.

She came upon the doors. They were tall, finely crafted things, very elegant looking, and with a lot of fancy trim. No doubt with a bit of polish they'd look as spectacular as when they were new. Perhaps once she'd gotten her room back in Twilight's tower, she could bring these doors with her. They'd look fabulous as the entrance to her bedroom.

She shook her head, she was getting ahead of herself. She grabbed the latch with a hoof and lifted it. With a click, the doors opened freely, being much lighter than they looked. On the other side of the threshold was a very big room. Big was an understatement, it was gigantic! A grand hall, full of stylised columns, woven banners and decorative windows, including one particularly huge one at the far end, showcasing a breathtaking view of the moon.

Moonlight filled the chamber, illuminating the place to a greater degree than Trixie thought possible. It may have been dusty, but the hall was beautiful, it seemed in a much nicer state than the hallway did. The marble floors still gleamed, the colours of the stained glass windows still vibrant. A thick, rich red carpet ran through the centre of the room, and up to two very impressive looking chairs.

There was a heavy presence here. A huge amount of magic had been used here some time ago. It still lingered even now. There was a certain unstable feel to the air. It seemed to be the epicentre of whatever she had been feeling.

"Ah, Lulamoon, you have arrived. Excellent."

Trixie jumped out of her skin. Somepony was here? Somepony who knew who she was? Somepony who was expecting her?

"W-who's there?" She asked, glancing around the hall for any sign of anypony.

"There is no need to be afraid, Lulamoon. Do you not remember our talk last night?"

"How do you know my name?" Trixie spoke, still looking for the source of the voice. It was tricky though, it was almost like it was coming from inside her own head!

"I have a great knowledge of many things, Lulamoon. I had thought to offer a helping hoof to you, your dream seemed tumultuous."

"My dream?" Trixie parroted, confused. She didn't have a dream last night, did she? Maybe? There was a voice or something...

"We had told you to seek us, and here you are. You are looking for validation, correct?"

Was Trixie after validation? She supposed she was, after all, she had to prove Twilight wrong. This all sounded a little familiar.

"That's right."

"We can aid you, young Lulamoon. Step upon our dais so that we might offer out assistance."

Uneasy, Trixie slowly made her way towards the far end of the room, towards the podium. She moved slowly and deliberately, watching the shadows. This was all getting to be very bizarre now, she wasn't about to let her guard down.

As she approached, she noticed a pile of dark looking armour in front of the large chairs. Like the rest of the room, it looked to be in very nice condition, still looking polished and shiny, ready for battle. It didn't even seem to have any dust on it, unlike everything else.

"Now, don our helm."

Trixie fell to her haunches and picked up the headpiece of the armour. It was a simple, elegant thing, crafted in a brilliant sheen of blue. The contours almost seemed to cascade off of it, it was truly a beautiful piece of work. The unicorn cautiously lifted it to her head, taking care to align her horn with the corresponding hole, and slipped it onto her head-

Trixie saw everything. Trixie saw the alicorn of the moon and the alicorn of the sun. Trixie saw the immense power wielded by both. Trixie saw the trials, the wars, the struggles waged by both of them. Trixie saw a fight between them, unfathomable arcane energy being exchanged. The legends were true.

Trixie felt that power. And it felt great.

She felt fantastic! Gone was the burning in her legs, the thirst in her throat, and the pounding in her head. She felt like she could run a marathon right now!

"Excellent, this should serve us better as a platform, no?"

The voice came from her mind. It wasn't her voice, and that wasn't her thought, but Trixie wasn't scared. She could feel another presence in her self, something powerful had merged with her. It was reassuring, she could almost feel the gravitas teeming from this new part of her mind, this... thing?

"'Thing' is a very ugly word, especially for your benefactor, Lulamoon. You may call us Nightmare."

That was an odd name, but it was certainly a fearsome one. Do doubt this 'Nightmare' wasn't somepony to be messed with. And surely by extension that meant Trixie now, too! There was so much extra everything she could feel from Nightmare, she was somepony with real expertise, knowledge that nopony else possessed. This was amazing!

The moment was interrupted when the keep doors finally gave way, and the manticore came barrelling into the building. It set it's sights on Trixie, and began sprinting down the hallway right towards her. Trixie got ready to run away, but before she had a chance to move, she was overridden.

"Ah, a pesky thing. Allow us."

Trixie's horn began to glow, a deeper, darker shade of purple than normal, she noted. She wasn't willing this to happen, she wasn't casting anything. It was strange, having somepony else work your magic while you were sill conscious. She was building up a great charge. She wondered what it was that Nightmare was going to do, before an almighty beam of violet light shot out of her horn, straight as an arrow down the hallway and right into the manticore. The thing collapsed, sliding along the floor as it's momentum carried it, stopping at Trixie's hooves.

There was a good chunk of it missing. The head, the tip of the tail, and a fair amount of the back was gone, it had been burned away, the body still smoking. Trixie was gobsmacked. She may never have paid much attention to combat spells, but this was way beyond anything she'd ever seen a guard or fighter cast. This was total overkill, that spell had a ridiculous amount of power. A terrifying amount of power. And Trixie could tell that for Nightmare that something like that was little more than foal's play.

It was amazing!

"Now then, with that out of the way, how can we help you, Lulamoon?"

Trixie smiled. With this much power behind her, there was almost limitless potential for her plans to show up Twilight. She could shapeshift into a dragon, she could move the moon, anything seemed possible right now. And yet, for as much as she could have done, she couldn't best the sweet irony of her first idea. The look on Twilight's face would be priceless, and that alone made it the most worthwhile.

"I want to be an alicorn."

"Ha, a simple matter!"

The Cauldron's Boiling, Take Your Witching Stance

The Cauldron's Boiling, Take Your Witching Stance

Newt eyes, snails, tails, fingers, knuckles, nails.

Trixie was currently engaged in yet another high-life cocktail party, wearing her finest red sequin dress and regaling the rabble with tales of her greatness. The crowd waited eagerly for her to finish her story as she sipped a martini.

"Lulamoon."

"...and then Twilight said, 'what do you mean you've not anchored the arcane field?!'"

"Lulamoon."

"And then Trixie said..."

"Lulamoon."

"...well, Trixie can't actually remember what she said, but it was very witty and clever!"

The crowd was silent for just a moment, almost looking confused. Then they burst out howling with laughter, clutching their bellies. Trixie was a masterful storyteller, after all.

"LULAMOON!"

Everything fell away and Trixie was left floating in a vast, slate blue cloud. The crowd was gone, the party was gone, even Trixie's martini was gone! She didn't have much time to lament this though, as from the swirling cloudy void in front of her stepped a tall, angry looking alicorn. She was a very dark shade of blue, almost black, and with a flowing ethereal mane and tail that seemed to contain the stars themselves. She was scowling at Trixie with a pair of teal serpentine eyes. This must be Nightmare.

"We do NOT take kindly to being ignored, Lulamoon." She sneered.

"Yeah, well I don't take kindly to ponies interrupting my parties! Did you see how that cute pegasus was looking at me?! Trixie was about to get into something!" Trixie protested.

"Do not test us, unicorn." Nightmare glowered. "Need we remind you which one of us is benefiting from this arrangement? Regardless, almost managing to fornicate within your own dreamscape is hardly an achievement."

"Fine, I'll drop it, whatever." Trixie huffed. "Wait, dreamscape?"

"Yes, dreamscape. We had come to tell you to wake up."

Trixie woke with a gasp, this time managing to keep herself in the hammock. Somehow Nightmare had managed some insane super powerful teleport and gotten Trixie back to her cart unseen in one hop. Trixie would have to ask about that one, it would probably be very useful. Groggy, she lifted her head and looked around, but everything seemed normal. Well, mostly normal, the cart was fine, but it was still dark outside!

"Hey, what did you wake me up for?" Trixie asked, annoyed.

"You had been asleep for the last 46 hours, it is well past time you started working, Lulamoon."

"Huh? 46 hours?" Trixie asked blearily, still tired. "Working? But it's dark out!"

"The night fosters creativity and a healthy work ethic, Lulamoon. We have taken the liberty of adjusting your sleeping pattern for you."

"No way, the night is for sleeping." Trixie protested, rubbing her eyes.

"The night is most certainly not for sleeping, the night is a muse, a time of beauty and mystery, and it is damn well time that ponies like you started appreciating it!"

"Alright, miss snippy, I'm up, geez!" The unicorn groaned, rolling out of the hammock and landing on the floor of her now bird-free cart with a solid clop.

"We will ignore your snide name calling just this once, Lulamoon, do not let it happen again."

"Whatever, just tell Trixie what we're doing." She said, rolling her eyes.

"You listen closely, Lulamoon. You will treat us with the respect we deserve. We are here for your benefit, but we are very capable of being a detriment, unicorn."

"Oooh, big scary alicorn stuck in a fancy hat! What are you going to do, give me helmet mane?" Trixie chuckled.

She immediately regretted her decision to taunt Nightmare. A wave of pain washed over her, her front legs buckled underneath her. Her horn was killing her, it felt like all the magic had left her body. She struggled to breathe, she couldn't move, it was like all of her muscles were cramping at once. Tears filled her eyes, her head felt like it was about to implode. It was beyond anything she'd ever felt.

Just as quickly as it had set in, the pain left. Trixie was left panting, collapsed in a heap on the floor. There was nothing lingering, no trace of the intense searing agony she'd just experienced.

"Hmph, helmet mane indeed."

Trixie shakily pushed herself back up to her hooves. She trembled, shrinking into herself, absolutely 100% not scared or intimidated at all.

"W-what was that?" She meekly asked.

"A warning. We shall let you off lightly just this time, next time you will not be so lucky."

Trixie huffed as she leaned against the wall. It might not have been the smartest idea she'd ever had to rile up an alicorn that she knew was stupidly powerful. Even if they didn't have a body. Which really did raise some questions that Trixie didn't have answers for.

"Get yourself together. The night is young, and we have ingredients to look for."

"You want me to go out into the forest at night?! Oh sure, in fact, why don't I just jump into a hydra's mouth and cut out the middlemare?!" Trixie snarked.

"Your wish was to become an alicorn, no? We have offered out assistance, we suggest you do not squander it, Lulamoon. Now get to it!"

"Right now? At least give me a minute to recover from whatever that was!" Trixie protested.

"Lulamoon."

"Okay, I'm going! Keep your tail on!" Trixie yelled. She recognised a warning tone when she heard one, so she quickly put on her cape and placed her own hat over the helmet. She wasn't all that happy about it, but she swung the door open and stepped outside into the chilly night.

She noted that she could see perfectly fine, despite the dark. It was odd. She was aware that it was dark, and everything looked dark, but she had no difficulty making anything out. Probably something to do with the whole Nightmare thing. Night vision would be handy when she was running for her life from the creatures that roamed the forest at night.

"Oh, enough of that train of thought. Surely you are aware that we are perfectly capable of defending the both of us?"

Trixie supposed she was right, if how Nightmare had taken care of the manticore was anything to go by. With something as powerful as Nightmare on her side, realistically Trixie had little to fear. Combined with the night vision, Trixie did feel at ease. Or as 'at ease' anypony could feel in the Everfree forest at night.

"What did you drag me out her for, anyway?" Trixie asked, glancing around the small clearing.

"Pay attention, Lulamoon, we have already said that we'd be looking for ingredients."

"Why? I've got plenty of ingredients in the cart. I think. What are we doing?"

"I doubt whatever scraps you have will be suitable. We require fresh ingredients for the alicorn potion, if you are to mix it correctly."

"Sounds difficult, can't I just go buy them from the shaman?"

"You are a witch, are you not? Any mage worth their salt should be more than capable of finding their own ingredients. There's nothing wrong with getting your hooves dirty, Lulamoon."

"Ugh, fine, what are we even looking for?" Trixie relented, scowling at nothing in particular. "My hooves are already dirty anyway..."

"There are a few parts to the potion. The easiest ingredients to gather will likely be the newts and snails. The rest will require some butchering on your part, and we will have to find a Chimera."

"...Trixie wants to go to the shaman."

"Pathetic."

"What do you want me to say?! 'Well gee, that sounds swell Nightmare, let's go!'?" Trixie yelled. "Trixie doesn't know where to find a Chimera, and Trixie doesn't know the first thing about butchery, I'm not a griffon!"

"Butchery is a noble art, and one you should be quite acquainted with as a witch. Processing flesh and bone is a key skill for ingredient gathering, and we're frankly not sure what to make of the fact that your tutor hasn't thought it important."

"We haven't needed to go over it because we can just get things from the shaman! I don't know how long you've been in that helmet for, but things have changed." Trixie said, rolling her eyes. "So if getting ingredients right this second is really that important, Trixie will go buy them."

"Absolutely not, we will not stand idly by while this part of your profession is glossed over."

"Oh, and what are you going go do about it?"

Trixie was smug, right up until the point that she felt her horn light up. She decided that having her own body teleport herself unprompted and really rather against her will was a very unpleasant thing indeed.

Trixie appeared in a flash of light, highly disoriented and stumbling. And angry, can't forget angry.

"Do you want to ask before you do something like that?! That's MY horn you're using!" Trixie snapped.

"Oh do be quiet, Lulamoon. You'd do well to speak to you betters with more respect, we are doing this on your behalf, after all. Do all ponies in this era complain as much as you do?"

"Trixie doesn't complain, Trixie merely points out wrongs against herself." Trixie 'hmphed', holding her head high. She might have looked haughty, were it not for the fact that she was still trying to stop herself falling over. She'd forgotten just how much an unexpected teleport could throw her out.

Unsteady, she took a moment to make sure she wasn't going to fall over. She still hadn't had an opportunity to wash, and really didn't need any more mud added to the problem. Getting herself grounded, she took a quick look around. Surprise surprise, she was surrounded by trees. It was a bit different from normal though, all these trees were dead and burned, and everywhere she could see was engulfed in a great big cloud of smoke. Something, Trixie deduced, was on fire.

"Where are we? And why?" Trixie asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Can you not infer, or are you just forgetful? A Chimera, Lulamoon. Snails and Newts we can find by any common river, we thought we'd get the hard part out of the way first."

"Couldn't we go to the river first? I'd really like to wash all this crap off." Trixie looked herself over, coat matted with dry mud and dust.

"In due time, Lulamoon. We shall get to that once we've harvested the Chimera."

Trixie didn't like the sound of harvesting a Chimera. Trixie didn't like the idea of having to wait even longer to wash off, especially since it seemed like Nightmare knew a place where she could actually bathe. She was really hoping that Nightmare might drop the whole 'mystic' shtick soon, it was getting pretty old pretty quickly.

"How do you know we can find a Chimera here, anyway?"

"When you have as much power as we do, you can feel the latent magic in all things, Lulamoon. How do you think we managed to call out to you?"

Trixie honestly hadn't thought about it all that much, but she supposed that made sense. Probably.

It was noticeably much warmer in this part of the forest, the air was close, but forest fires will do that. She had no idea where she was relative to her cart. Or relative to Ponyville, for that matter. For all she knew she could be on the other side of town. Not that it really mattered, if Nightmare could just teleport her anywhere, but it would've been nice to know.

"What exactly are we looking for here?"

"A chimera, Lulamoon."

"Yes, thank you, captain obvious. How do we find a chimera?"

"We jest, we are not dense. Finding the beast is a simple matter, we shall allow you to borrow some of our power, you should be able to feel it in the ley lines.

Trixie suddenly felt wired. Dark was lighter, colours were sharper, she felt like she could run a marathon there and then. More importantly, she could feel everything. She could feel the trees, she could feel the insects buzzing, she could feel a large, lethargic creature not far away.

She supposed that'd be the chimera. Her horn pulled her in the right direction. She didn't necessarily want to find the chimera, but she felt oddly compelled to head towards it for some reason. Surprisingly enough she put up little resistance. She mostly wanted to get this out of the way so that she could get to the river and have an actual wash. Hopefully a drink too, if the water was fresh enough.

Even more surprisingly, it seemed that Nightmare had a sense of humour after all. A pretty shitty one, but still, it was an unexpected development.

It was rather odd knowing where to go, even when Trixie couldn't actually see where she was going. The smoke kept getting thicker and thicker, and it wasn't long before she could hardly see her own snout. The air was getting much more unpleasant, and the more she pressed on the harder Trixie found it to breathe. She hoped it wouldn't take too long to get everything done, the last thing she needed was lung cancer.

The chimera wasn't moving, which made it a little easier to get to. Trixie honed towards it, passing by trees that looked progressively more burnt as she went on. It wasn't long before she started to come across embers in the air, ash falling from the sky. It was all just a teensy bit unsettling.

"Hey Nightmare, what's going on here? Why's everything on fire?"

"We don't know Lulamoon, but we'd suggest that we hurry up. We may be powerful, but we cannot stop you from suffocating or burning, which would be rather detrimental to the both of us."

"I thought you could feel the latent magic in all things?"

"Fire does not interact with the arcane fields Lulamoon, we have no sense of extramagical phenomena."

"Blue fire does."

"Do not start being pedantic now, unicorn. Just focus on finding the beast."

Score one for Trixie.

Head held high from her small but important victory of correcting Nightmare, Trixie drew in on the chimera. The forest was now totally charred and blackened, the fire must have passed through here already. She could hear wood still crackling, somewhere.

It was close. Very close. She could feel that she should be right next to the chimera, but she couldn't see it. That was very concerning. Trixie quickly remembered that she was alone in a smokey forest looking for a dangerous animal, and her cockiness disappeared. She was very quickly on the defensive, scanning anywhere and everywhere for any sign of the creature. She hoped that if she couldn't see it, then it couldn't see her. That's how it worked, right?

"At ease, Lulamoon. It shouldn't pose a threat, not in the state it's in."

"What do you mean-OOF!"

Trixie found herself on the ground, with a mouthful of dirt. Ashy, dry, dirty dirt. She quickly pushed herself up, spitting and spluttering, scraping her tongue to get all the nasty soil out of her mouth. She cast an angry look around to find out what had tripped her up, only to see a leg splayed out in the ash.

Not a pony leg. It was some kind of giant goat leg? Maybe? It had a cloven hoof, that was clear.

It wasn't just a leg either, it was attached to a creature. A large creature with multiple heads and odd body parts. This was the chimera she was looking for. She'd been scanning everywhere except right in front of herself, because of course she had.

It wasn't looking in too good shape. It was splayed out on the ground, wheezing. It looked like it'd taken a very nasty burn across it's back, the flesh was still raw. It was really quite unpleasant to look at, Trixie had to wince at the sight.

Trixie remembered that the thing could still be dangerous and jumped back. It, however, didn't really react, not even looking her way. With any of it's heads. It just layed there, panting and groaning. It was a little sad, really. Trixie had built herself up for a fight, but it looked more like she'd be providing end of life care.

"Trixie's, uh, found the chimera." She announced, unsure of her next move. "What now?"

"We don't need the whole creature for the potion. All we'll need is one of it's paws, and the serpentine tail."

"You want me to take body parts?! What, do you expect me to gnaw them off or something?"

"You'll do no such thing, simply cast an incision spell across the joint, that should cleanly separate it from the leg."

"Oh sure, right, no problem." Trixie snarked. "How can you be so matter-of-fact about this? The thing's still alive!"

"We're not sure why you're so shocked, Lulamoon, we had told you what to expect. You didn't care so much for the manticore that we saved you from. And honestly, look at it. You'd be putting it out of it's misery if anything."

Trixie went to retort, but paused. She couldn't really argue with anything Nightmare had just said. The chimera was on it's way out, and Nightmare had said there'd be some butchery. Maybe she felt a little bad for the creature?

"Hurry up, Lulamoon. There's a very literal fire burning."

"Alright, fine." Trixie sighed, looking at the beast. She lit up her horn and took a deep breath.

...

"What's an incision spell?"

There was a beat of silence, and Trixie had the very unusual experience of hearing a voice in her head exhale.

"We're not sure what your mentor is teaching you, Lulamoon, but we're very sure that her talent has been oversold."

Trixie again felt the unpleasant sensation of losing control over her magic. She didn't have much time to reflect on the feeling, as she immediately felt an unfamiliar spell matrix through her horn. The chimera howled in pain as two swift flashes of dark purple magic sliced the air, and it's body.

The thing's left paw and snake tail body thing had been separated. Blood was quickly pooling under the creature. Trixie couldn't help but feel bad. This wasn't a quick, painless death like with the manticore. This chimera hadn't threatened her, like with the manticore. It didn't even put up a fight. This wasn't brave or exciting, this was just kinda cruel.

"Quickly, Lulamoon the forest is still burning. Your immolation would not be beneficial to either of us."

Uncomfortably, Trixie picked up the paw and the tail with her magic. She absolutely did not squeal even a little bit when the tail started wriggling, the snake apparently still putting up a fight.

"Oh, mare up. It's already dead."

Trixie scowled at the snake-tail-thing, it's spasms getting slower and slower until it flopped down, and moved no more. She sucked in a deep breath, which was a bad move considering how smoke laden the air was, sending her into a coughing fit.

"What now?" Trixie croaked out.

"Now we go to the river."

Trixie was once again unprepared for the teleport. She unfortunately didn't manage to keep herself steady this time, and found herself sprawled out on her side in a swathe of damp mud that she had no doubt was already working it's way into her coat.

She was about to open her mouth when the severed paw landed square on her barrel, sliding off and leaving a bloody trail down her other side. Now not only was she dirty, but her hat and cape were filthy too.

Trixie growled.

"Get up, you've work to do."

"Now, you listen to me Nightmare!" Trixie seethed. "I don't know what you are, but you're using Trixie's horn and Trixie's magic, so you'd better start treating me right!"

"We'll have none of your backtalk, unicorn. We are providing you with power, not courting you, we shall proceed as we feel fit."

"Oh, and what if I decide to just take this helmet off?" Trixie threatened. "I don't have to listen to you, Nightmare! I don't need your help!"

"Ha, you wouldn't dare, you're helpless without us!"

"Try me!" Trixie grunted, sitting up and gripping either side of the helm with her hooves. Nightmare was silent, possibly trying to psyche her out. It wasn't going to work, though, Trixie was made of stronger stuff! She began to lift the helmet-

"My my, Trixie, fancy seeing you out here." Spoke a very familiar voice. Trixie snapped her head around over her shoulder to face it. "Goodness, you're an absolute mess!"

Behind her, sauntering out of the treeline and looking very amused was none other than Twilight Sparkle herself. What was her mentor doing out here? Twilight got closer until she was almost face to face with her mentor. Trixie thought she would have heard her approaching, but apparently not. Something seemed different about her, but Trixie couldn't quite put a hoof on it.

"Twilight?"

"I was wondering why you hadn't tried to come back yet, not that I'm surprised." Twilight said, coming to a stop and inspecting a forehoof. "I really wasn't expecting you to prove yourself anyway, if anything you're just saving me a lot of time and energy."

"W-what are you saying?" Trixie stuttered, shocked by her teacher's words.

"I'm saying that you've shown me I was right all along, that you never learn. I mean, if you ever had a chance of getting back into town, wouldn't you already be there by now?" Twilight giggled.

"I-I'm working on-"

"No, don't you worry, it's clear you're not worth the effort. Frankly it must've been a lapse in judgement taking you on in the first place! Why don't you go back to your little two-bit magic show? Kid's love flashy tricks, you'd fit in better with the foals anyway." Twilight winked, eyes seeming much colder than usual.

Trixie was stunned, she almost didn't notice the tears forming in her eyes. Nightmare had been conveniently quiet the whole time, not that Trixie was really listening for her anyway. Twilight being here was the last thing she was expecting, but Twilight talking like this? It hurt.

"W-w-why?"

"Because you're a disappointment, Trixie. Go home, you're not cut out to be a real witch." Twilight turned around, looking Trixie in the eye as she turned to leave. "Ha, great and powerful indeed. Goodbye, Trixie, I won't see you around!"

Trixie snivelled. Why was Twilight doing this? This wasn't like her at all! Why was she here? She didn't really mean any of that, did she? What had Trixie done to deserve this? Twilight was always supportive. Had Trixie really driven her that far? This was all so wrong! She wiped her nose with a fetlock, eyes scrunched closed.

Trixie was always loathe to admit it, but she really did care what Twilight thought of her. How could she not? Twilight was the highest mage in the country, after all. Trixie was so proud to have been taken in as an apprentice. This was pretty damn close to the worst possible thing.

"Are you going to allow her talk to you like that?"

"N-Nightmare?" The voice surprised Trixie. Her eyes snapped open. Twilight was nowhere to be seen, she was alone again in the mud. She must've gotten away quickly. And quietly.

"Honestly, a challenger appears and you cry? Do her words not fill you with rage?"

Trixie sniffed. Twilight's words hurt. They really hurt. Trixie felt they were entirely unjust.

"Are you going to simply sit there and take that treatment from her?"

Trixie frowned.

"Did you not come into the forest to prove her wrong, Lulamoon?"

Trixie wiped her eyes. She did come out here to prove Twilight wrong, and she was gonna do it, too!

"With our help, you can ascend to alicornhood and prove to her that you truly are great and powerful. Make her eat her words, Lulamoon. Channel your feelings, pain leads to anger, anger leads to hate. Those are powerful emotions, harness them!"

Nightmare was right. It was no good crying, Trixie would have to do something. And do something she would.

Trixie pushed herself up onto her hooves, fleeting despair gone. She had a newfound resolve, the flames of fury being fanned within her. She was not a disappointment, she was not a failure, and she was going to prove it. She had a potion to make, and then she was going to make Twilight Sparkle wish she'd never crossed Trixie Lulamoon.

"What's our next ingredient?"

Trixie stared intently at the bubbling cauldron, sat above a large log fire just outside her cart. The chimera paw and tail were currently stewing in water she'd plundered from the muddy banks of the Whisker river. She was still covered in mud and blood, but that didn't bother her so much, she was focused on one thing only, and that was getting the potion done.

Her steely gaze was fixed in a frown. Twilight's words replayed over and over again in her head. This had now gone beyond getting back into town and the tower, it was personal now. Twilight had made it personal.

"You've been very focused since your encounter. Focus is a virtue."

"When do we put the next ingredient in?" Trixie asked bluntly.

"Patience is also a virtue, unicorn. It shan't be long now."

Trixie nodded, and continued to stare at the fire. She'd sat by it since she'd got it started. She lost a lot of body heat out in the damp mud earlier, and the cool, humid air was especially jarring after the forest fire. She'd left her hat and cape to dry, she could at least cast a cleaning spell on those. No such luck for her coat, though. She'd opted not to bathe in the river after all, because the water really was filthy. That, and she wanted, no, needed to finish this potion as fast as possible. Everything else took a back seat.

She watched the water boil, now brownish-red and with chunks of chimera meat and bones floating around in it. Trixie knew it was going to be horrible, but it didn't really matter. A moment of discomfort would be worth it for her grand return to town, with a brand new set of wings to prove that she wasn't a waste of a witch.

Nightmare had had her foraging around the plants along the riverbank, collecting newts and snails, about a dozen of each. They didn't need the whole newt, just their eyes, but removing them was a fiddly job and Trixie wasn't going to do it in the field. She'd waited until she'd gotten back to her cart to finish the job. It was nasty work, but it was a necessity. The eyes were currently sat in a small jar next to her, she'd discarded the newts themselves into the undergrowth. No doubt they'd make a tasty snack for a passing owl or fox or something.

The newts may have been tricky to catch, but the snails were easy at least.

A steady stream of steam was rising from the cauldron, mixing with the smoke from the fire. It played with what little starlight there was below the canopy of the forest. It was getting late, the sun would be rising soon, the sky was already starting to lighten. The weather was turning, too, she could see clouds starting to drift in.

Trixie yawned.

"It's sat enough, put the snails in now."

Trixie did as Nightmare said, taking the lid off the snail jar and tipping it into the brew. The snails clung to the jar, sticky feet holding the glass walls, but a few swift shakes was enough to dislodge them. A small plume of blue smoke rose from the cauldron with the addition of the molluscs.

"Good, we'll let it sit for a few more minutes before we add the newt's eyes."

Trixie just nodded again, and set the jar back down.

She carried on watching the thing boil, observing that the steam rising from the brew had turned a shade of maroon. Trixie was the most observant pony she knew, after all. It also seemed to have started bubbling more violently, more noisily. The liquid itself had darkened, taking on a deeper shade of red. It was quickly coming together now.

The fire crackled, embers rising. Trixie yawned again. Her hammock was calling her, but she couldn't sleep just yet, not when she was this close to finishing her work.

The wind rustled the branches above her, loose leaves gliding down. She had to stop one or two from falling into the brew. Who knew what effect that'd have on the potion?

"It looks to be ready, add in the eyes and give it a swift stir."

Trixie did as she was told, emptying the jar of eyes into the cauldron. The potion reacted violently, frothing and spitting, overflowing. It changed colour again as Trixie stirred it with a ladle, turning a deep crimson. It looked angry, and it only seemed to be getting angrier the more Trixie stirred.

"Stop here, we shall cast the charm."

The unicorn stopped stirring and felt the now familiar sensation of somepony else's magic coursing through her horn. A glow fell over the potion, and it went very still. Perfectly still, even. No more spinning from the stirring, no more bubbling from the heat, it was as calm as a glass of water.

"It's ready."

Trixie felt another wave of magic run through her horn, and the fire went out. Trixie stared at the potion one more time. This would be the solution to all her problems. She would get back into town, upstage Twilight and show her what she was made of, and then...

What would she do after that?

"Drink up, Lulamoon, or it shall go cold."

Trixie looked uneasy, she was sure the potion was going to taste absolutely horrible. That and, well, if it worked, it would be a big change for her, she was mentally preparing herself.

"This is not the time to second guess your decision, Lulamoon. The potion will not sit for long."

Trixie grimaced as she took a large wooden mug and filled it to the brim with the red liquid. The smell coming off it alone was enough to put hairs on her tongue. She had no doubt the taste would be any better. Still, it had been a lot of work to make...

"How much of this do I have to drink?" She asked warily.

"We should think two pints would be enough."

That was quite a lot. Trixie thought it was, anyway, she never did well with measurements. At least Nightmare didn't say all of it. Trixie looked at the mug, sceptically. It was probably half a pint. Maybe? She had no gauge. She thought she used to have a pint measure in Twilight's tower, and the mug wasn't as big as that was. Probably.

"Today, Lulamoon!"

"Alright, keep your tail on!"

Trixie frowned and took a sip of the potion. Her eyes went wide. It was truly revolting. It tasted like charcoal, copper, broccoli and gravel all at once. It took genuine effort not to spit it out. She was especially green at the gills when she felt a lump of something in the mix. She really, really didn't want to know what it was.

"Gods, that's horrible!" She cried, gagging and gurgling.

"Grow up, it's for your benefit."

"It tastes like ass!"

"Where has your resolve gone? You finish it, Lulamoon, see something through for once in your life!"

"Hey, Trixie has seen plenty of things through!"

"Hardly, we've seen your memories, you cannot lie to us. Now, drink it. Maybe then you'll have seen at least one thing through to the end."

"You've seen my memories?! Those are private!" Trixie protested.

"We're as much a part of your experience as you are of ours, Lulamoon. You saw our memories when you put the helm on, and we saw yours. Now stop stalling and drink the damn potion!"

The unicorn grumbled and held her nose with a hoof, let out a deep breath, and quickly downed the rest of the mug. It tasted just as vile as the first sip. Trixie dropped the mug and started heaving, desperately hoping that the potion wasn't going to come back up.

With a gasp and a gurn, she quickly dipped the mug back into the cauldron for a refill. Now just wanting to get it over as quickly as possible, she repeated her actions, quickly chugging the potion down. Her stomach gurgled, and she was fighting very hard not to be sick.

"One more for good measure, Lulamoon."

"Ugh, really?" Trixie groaned. "I don't think I can take anymore..."

"One more for good measure, Lulamoon."

Trixie felt there was no room for negotiation there. Reluctantly, she dipped the mug in the mixture one final time, sighing and drinking the potion down. It wasn't as bad as the first couple, but it was still totally revolting.

But still, the course of the potion was over now. Trixie dropped the mug and concentrated. She was waiting for a surge, for a change, for a feeling. Any second now she'd ascend, probably in a blaze of glory, and it'd be incredible. Yes, she was moments away from alicornhood, she was sure of it.

So how come nothing was happening?

"Isn't something supposed to be happening?" Trixie asked. "Trixie feels normal, if a little queasy."

"The potion will need to run through your body, it may take a few hours before the process starts."

"A few hours?! But I want to be an alicorn now!" Trixie stomped a hoof down in frustration.

"Did we not say patience is a virtue? Regardless, we can hardly make time go any faster, you shall simply have to wait."

"Trixie is patient, Trixie is the most patient pony she knows!" The unicorn answered, annoyed. Nightmare hadn't mentioned a waiting time! All this work, and now she'd just have to sit around until something happened? Trixie wanted to show Twilight up as soon as possible, this was really going to eat into her plan. Still, if there were no other options, Trixie supposed she could persevere through this delay.

It was chilly again now, before dawn and without a fire. Bugs buzzed and chirped, wind rustled the leaves in the trees. There wasn't really anything of note going on. The clouds carried on rolling in, the sky kept getting a little brighter. Everything was normal.

"This sucks, Trixie's going to bed."

Pain. Pure, unbridled, blinding pain. It had come on slow, just as the sun had come up. It had only gotten worse since then. Trixie was on the floor of her cart, seething, rolling and twitching. She was in a pool of her own sweat, mouth dry, eyes clenched shut. She felt like she was dying. The worst migraine she had ever experienced in her life made for a toxic combination with nausea.

The worst of it though was her withers. It felt like her shoulders were actually going to break through her skin. She was so incredibly tense, almost unable to move.

Trixie whimpered. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know if there was anything she could do. She didn't know what was happening. Had she poisoned herself with the potion? Was she ill? Was it something in the water? In the air? She didn't have an answer. Nightmare had been silent the whole time. She was scared, this could very well be the end of her. Why, why oh why did she ever trust the word of a weird ghost-thing trapped in a helmet? What was she thinking?! If only she'd gone back to Twilight sooner, none of this would've ever happened.

Well, maybe. It seemed pretty clear that Twilight didn't want her back. Everything was going wrong.

Trixie squealed as a fresh wave of pain washed over her. She would've been sick, were it not for the fact that the potion was the only thing there was to come up. She burned all over.

It was all too much. Trixie passed out.

Disease Will Cause Your Fragile Lungs And Heart To Fail

Disease Will Cause Your Fragile Lungs And Heart To Fail

Witching, witching with the beast.

It was not a restful ~~sleep~~ ~~night~~ day? It was not a restful day for Trixie Lulamoon. She had spent the last dozen or so hours sliding in and out of consciousness. Not that she was really aware of it, from her point of view all she got where occasional bursts of searing pain before drifting back into nothing.

Hot. Trixie was too hot, burning. Dehydrated, nothing to drink, and sweating like a pig. Aching, her whole body was stiff, rigid, straining at even the slightest movement. Everything hurt.

She was vaguely aware that somethings was definitely not right with her back, as that was the source of the worst of the pain. Every time she'd woken up it had gotten worse, now having difficulty even shifting around, as if something was preventing her from rolling over. There was some kind of strange phantom pain going on, because she hurt in places that she was very sure didn't exist. She couldn't crane her neck around to get a good look at herself, not that she really felt like it in her state, who really wants to look at a sweaty mess of unwell equine? Even if said unwell equine was magic's gift to Equestria.

During the last few fits of wakefulness, Trixie had noticed a shortness of breath coming on, another problem to add to the ever growing list. It seemed like there wasn't an end in sight. Trixie certainly felt like there wasn't an end in sight.

It was mid-afternoon now, and Trixie awoke once again, particularly lucid this time. She was acutely aware of this, because her body's protests were making themselves very known, more so than the last couple of times. Practically every inch of her was screaming that something was wrong. It made whatever Nightmare had pulled during their argument yesterday feel like a twisted hoof in comparison.

Trixie didn't cry, or scream, or yell. Trixie just groaned. She'd found out the hard way that loud noises didn't agree with her so much at the moment. Her eyes cracked open, daylight greeting her like a thousand freshly polished daggers to the pupils. Her eyes did not stay open long.

She was in a haze. A very odd world of fatigue and hurt, with uncertainty piled on top. She hadn't had much of an opportunity to asses her situation beyond feeling like she was about to die, but that same feeling hadn't really left her in a state where she was champing at the bit to do so anyway. Not that she'd be champing at any bit anytime soon, her jaw just wasn't sitting right for some reason.

Not that Trixie ever wore a bridle or anything. She wasn't into that kind of thing.

So for the moment she was left blearily to loll around, still in a heap on the floor. She was distantly aware that some part of her was touching the wall, but she didn't know what and didn't really care either. She just wanted all this to stop.

Trixie croaked out an airy, silent scream as something in her withers clicked. Clicked hard and loud. A shooting pain ran down her spine, causing her neck to tense up.

She grimaced as the feeling spread over her whole body. She didn't know how long the feeling lasted for, Trixie had given up trying to keep track of the time. It seemed the light outside was different every time she woke up.

Much to her relief, after the rolling wave of hurt that had just come on, she found herself feeling a bit better. Just a bit, a teeny tiny little bit. What had been a full body, screaming pain had seemed to have dulled to an aching, lurking kind of pain. She still hurt all over, but it was more manageable than before.

The crux of it all was still felt in her back, which still throbbed and blinded, it just seemed that the worst of the pain from the rest of her body had eased up a little.

Trixie was exhausted. Sure, she'd been 'out' a lot, but that wasn't really resting. Especially not with her body feeling like it was.

That said, she'd kind of entered a trance at this point. Yes, she was technically awake, but she wasn't really processing any information. The lights were on, but there was nopony home, as it where. Not that she'd tell you that, because Trixie was the most aware pony she knew. But all she knew for certain was that her eyes were open and her back really hurt.

Everything was a bit of a daze for her, and had been for a while now.

She really wanted some water.

Trixie scrunched her eyes closed. Whatever was happening, she just wanted it to stop. What had Trixie done to deserve this?

A sharp stabbing pain made it's way across Trixie's horn, and she fell unconscious again.

"Lulamoon, rise."

One of Trixie's eyes rolled open, slowly followed by the other.

"Mom?"

"We'd shudder to think. Get up, Lulamoon."

"Five more minutes?"

"Now, Lulamoon!"

Trixie didn't know why she had to be up, it wasn't a school day. Blearily, she did as she was told, pushing herself up onto her hooves, swaying wildly. Something in the back of her mind was saying that this was all very weird, but she was too exhausted to think about it too hard.

The unicorn yawned and shook her head, before a sharp twinge in her neck caused her to wince. She needed coffee, she was sure she had a flask kicking around somewhere. She stumbled around, making her way to the pile of assorted crap, it'd probably be in there, somewhere. Trixie tutted at her wings, they were dragging along the floor. She must've slept funny, because she couldn't feel them properly.

Now where was that damn flask?

A beat passed. Trixie looked at her wings.

"AAAAHHHH!"

Trixie yelled, jumping back. This, of course, achieved nothing because the wings were attached to her body. She moves, they come with her. Trixie danced about in panic for five or ten seconds before her memories caught up with her. Her cart, the potion, the excruciating pain, all of it.

Trixie calmed slightly, but her heart was still beating a million miles an hour. She let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding, but did so just a little too hard, causing her to cough and splutter.

"I-It worked?" She asked aloud. She craned her head over her side to get a better look. She did indeed now have two more limbs than normal.

Now mostly aware of what was going on, Trixie immediately inspected her new appendages. Her curiosity very quickly turned to confusion. She was expecting elegant, downy wings, covered in luxurious azure blue plumage the likes of which would drive even the most well groomed pegasus to jealousy. What she had gotten was... not so hot.

Trixie did not have the feathered wings of a pegasus or griffon, or even Twilight. Instead, protruding from Trixie's withers were two large, dark, bony, leathery things. She tried to raise one up to get a better look, but she really had no idea how to control them, so she didn't get very far. She settled for starting a hole through the fleshy membrane that made up her new wings. This was not what she wanted to happen.

Trixie suddenly remembered she had a mirror on the wall. She grabbed it with her magic and pulled it towards her. She angled it down, allowing her to get a proper look at one of her new wings. They were large, spread out across the floor they both easily reached the walls of her cart. They seemed to be a deep shade of navy blue, and she could see the bones inside, all the blood vessels. It made her more than a little queasy.

She was about to angle the mirror to her other side when she caught a glimpse of her face. Her eyes went wide at what she saw. Well, she guessed they were her eyes. Her pupils had changed, they were now slit, like a cat or something. She hadn't noticed until now, but the change must have effected her vision. It was the middle of the night, the cart was unlit, but she could see just fine. It was very strange, to say the least.

That wasn't the only change, though. Her horn appeared to be a good five or six inches longer than before, which wasn't entirely unwelcome. Concerningly though, there was a trail of dried blood coming down from under the helmet, where her horn met her forehead. That was surely not a good sign. Her ears too had changed, they were larger, tufted, and seemed to twitch at every sound.

Topping it all of, Trixie gasped as she noticed that she now had a set of sharp canines protruding from her upper jaw. Opening her mouth confirmed that she now had a set of little fangs, complimenting the rest of her normal teeth.

This was all too much at once. And it was all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

"NIGHTMARE!" Trixie yelled.

"Lulamoon."

"What did you do to me!? WHAT IS THIS?!"

"We have done nothing, we merely directed you on your own course of actions. This was as you wished, Lulamoon."

"THIS ISN'T WHAT I ASKED FOR!" Trixie exploded. "I asked to be an alicorn, not this- this... THIS!"

"We fail to see the issue, you are an alicorn now."

"This isn't an alicorn!" Trixie gestured to herself. "I don't know what this is! I'm not even a unicorn anymore, I'm a freak!"

Trixie's head suddenly jerked to the left, her right cheek stinging. Her horn was lit up, but it wasn't her doing.

"Did... did you just SLAP me?!"

"We will not stand idly by while you insult our people, Lulamoon. Do not let it happen again."

"Your people?" Trixie asked, now even more confused.

"Thestrals are proud servants of the night, and we will not allow you to mock them."

"Thestrals?" Trixie parroted. "What are you talking about? No- Trixie doesn't want to know, Trixie just wants you to fix this!"

"This was your request, Lulamoon, and we have carried it out. We believe it is customary to offer thanks."

"THANKS?!?!" Trixie exploded. "You-you-you tricked me! You lied! Whatever the buck I am, I'm not an alicorn! I look like a monster-"

Trixie yelped, forelegs collapsing. Her horn felt more sensitive than ever, and it was screaming at the sudden lack of magic Trixie was experiencing. A migraine quickly formed, and all energy left her body. What Nightmare had done to her when she'd woken up yesterday was nothing compared to what she felt right now.

The feeling lingered this time, it wasn't as on/off as the last time. Trixie gasped ragged breaths, clutching at her head.

"Choose your words very wisely, Lulamoon, our patience is wearing thin. You need us, we do not need you, you will do well to remember that."

"Don't... need... you..."

"Oh? Pray tell, what would you have done without us? Been killed by the manticore? Toiled away pointlessly in an effort to gain entry into the town?"

Trixie didn't reply.

"You're helpless without us, Lulamoon. We will not accept any more insubordination from you."

Nightmare's hold over the mare loosened, and the tidal wave of pain started to wash away. Slowly. It'd probably be more accurate to say that it ebbed away, really. Trixie was still on the floor, new limbs twitching, ears folded flat against her skull. This was the third time in two days she'd found herself in excruciating pain. That was three times too many.

Trixie did not like that power dynamic.

This whole venture hadn't been what Trixie had hoped for, she had just wanted an easy way back into town. What she got was three days worth of shit from a haunted hat, a verbal beatdown from her mentor, and a load of deformities. Trixie should have never listened to a possessed helmet, what in Equestria was she thinking!?

Trixie coughed a hacking cough. Her lungs burned and her barrel throbbed, a nasty combination. She could feel her pulse through her temples. But worst of all was that Nightmare did kinda, sorta have a bit of a point. Not that Trixie was helpless or anything, no, Trixie was the least helpless pony she knew! But things did get pretty dire with that manticore...

Trixie didn't deserve this shoddy treatment.

The ex-unicorn was starting to feel more equine as the pain slipped away, but she didn't get up, not yet. For the moment she remained splayed out on the floor, fully digesting everything that was happening. It was a lot to take in, after all.

She didn't really know what to do. She had no idea how to use her grotesque new wings. She picked up that she was now hyper-aware of all the sounds of the forest outside, which was extremely distracting. Especially since her ears twitched and swirled of their own volition, tracking every breeze, every passing bug, every rustling leaf. For the moment she splayed them flat out against her skull, manually holding them in place.

One thing was clear, though: the whole situation blew. Trixie never liked feeling powerless, ever. Right now she was supremely powerless.

"Oh my, are we sulking now? This is infantile, Lulamoon."

"Trixie isn't sulking, Trixie is trying to work out what to do now that you've turned me into this thing!"

"I was under the impression that the entire point to this exercise was to get back at your mentor, it would seem that that is the next step."

"I CAN'T GO BACK TO TOWN LOOKING LIKE THIS!" Trixie yelled.

"Why ever not? It isn't as if you have many other options, unless you had planned on becoming some kind of nomad."

"Why not? Because I look like a bat made love to a narwhal! Trixie would be lynched!"

"We take offence to that Lulamoon, and do remember that you're already on incredibly thin ice. Regardless of your colourful protest, it'd be most logical for you to return to your mentor."

"Why? Why should I? Why do you even care? What's it to you?" Trixie asked, aggravated.

"This was your plan, Lulamoon. We don't have to explain our reasoning to you."

That sounded sketchy. Maybe. It was really hard to tell with Nightmare. She always seemed incredibly pushy, but Trixie still didn't really know why.

"It's not like I can get back anyway." Trixie sighed. "If the guards see me coming up to the gate looking like this, they'll probably attack on sight.

"Hmph, ignorant fools. It matters little, you can simply enter the town by air. Or are you so absent minded to have forgotten your wings?"

Trixie had not forgotten her wings. In fact, she was immensely aware of them. She scowled, gritting her teeth.

"Yes, brilliant, these wings that I can't use! I've only had them five bucking minutes!" Trixie growled. Nightmare chuckled darkly, which as a disembodied voice in Trixie's head was incredibly off putting.

"Allow us."

Trixie's newly extended horn lit up, but not of her own doing. Her eyes went wide as a wave of unfamiliar magic washed over her. She didn't have a chance to ask Nightmare what was going on before she stood up. Or rather, her body stood up. Trixie hadn't told it to do that.

"Hey! What are you doing?!"

"You've gotten what you wanted, now it's our turn. We've grown weary of your inaction, Lulamoon. We're taking control."

"What do you mean 'your turn'? Stop it right now!" Trixie cried as her wings folded neatly to her sides, and she trotted through the door. Her movements felt stiff and awkward, and it was an incredibly strange feeling not being able to correct it.

"Hm, it has been such a long time since we found ourself with a body, it is rather nostalgic."

"NIGHTMARE LET ME GO!"

"Be quiet, Lulamoon. Shouting will accomplish nothing."

"I'LL ACCOMPLISH YOU IN A MINUTE!" Trixie yelled. "NOW GIVE ME BACK MY BODY!"

"Not only is that an empty threat, but it also doesn't make any sense."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'll try to use better grammar when I've got control OF MY OWN BODY!" Trixie was getting desperate as she found herself stood in the clearing outside, wings unfurling. She could feel the gentle breeze dancing over the skin, suddenly very aware of the constant swirl and movement of air currents in a way that she never was before.

"Grammar isn't the issue, Lulamoon. Now shut your mouth."

Trixie's wings raised up in unison, coming down once, then twice, then she was off the ground and ascending. Very quickly. This terrified Trixie, not because she was afraid of heights, Trixie wasn't afraid of anything. No, Trixie was merely concerned by the lack of ground.

"NIGHTMARE PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW!" Trixie screamed. Nightmare did not put her down. "NIIIIGHTMAAAAREEEE!"

Trixie continued to scream and yell as she hurtled through the air well above the treeline. Being a unicorn she'd never flown anywhere before, and this was not how she would have liked her first time to have gone.

Something else she noticed was just how quickly the whole thing was taking a toll on her. Her new, previously unused wing muscles were already aching, and she was quickly getting out of breath. It was evident that her body just wasn't used to this kind of exercise, obviously because it would've been impossible for her until a few hours ago. She was wearing out fast too, her breaths came in deep gasps, and she was already starting to sweat.

The outline of town was fast approaching, but one of her wings had already started to cramp. Nightmare was apparently oblivious to this and just powered through, which left Trixie's entire side hurting.

"Nightmare...s-top! My...side!" She managed.

Nightmare didn't stop, didn't slow down, didn't even acknowledge that Trixie had spoken.

"NIGHTMARE!"

"ENOUGH! We are weary of your babbling, Lulamoon!"

Trixie's eyes went wide as her horn lit up again, and another spell flashed over her against her will. This time though, she felt...fine. Great, even! Her thoughts were a little cloudy, but nothing hurt anymore. In fact, she felt better than ever! A goofy smile crossed her face as all her aches and worries just seemed to evaporate. Why panic? Nightmare knew what she was doing. Sure, she didn't know why she suddenly felt so relaxed, but it probably wasn't a problem. Probably.

Instead, she thought about how wild it was that she was flying. Her! A unicorn! Flying through the air! She thought about how pretty the stars look and how weird the forest looked from above.

Actually, she was even starting to feel just a teensy bit drowsy. Trixie yawned, hardly even aware of how hard her wings were pumping, or how heavily she was breathing.

Trixie moved quietly across the night sky, enough to not draw the attention of any of the town guards or scouts as she approached the town walls. She stealthily cleared the perimeter with nopony the wiser. Not that she was particularly appreciative of that fact, she was rather busy admiring how pretty the stars looked.

Nightmare lined up an approach to the tallest tower in the town, the tower Trixie recognised as Twilight's. Somepony was clearly in as the top floor was still lit up. However, rather than landing, Nightmare aimed for a large open window, using Trixie's wings as a large airbrake before perching on the ledge and hopping inside.

She'd landed them on one of the staircase windows. This part of the tower was still dark, not that it made too much of a difference with Trixie's new super night vision. Trixie giggled, feeling every part the super spy. Nightmare guided Trixie up the sweeping staircase, hooves ever so slightly clacking on the stone floor as they made their way up towards the living area.

Soft light slowly crept from above, and soon enough they were before a closed door at the top of the stairs, bright rays shining from around it's edges.

Nightmare paused at the threshold before pushing the door open. The light was borderline blinding to Trixie's new eyes, and she found herself in a veritable sea of harsh white as far as she could see. Or couldn't see, rather. Something in the back of Trixie's mind was telling her that her eyes should be hurting, but they weren't.

"Wow! It is so bright in here!" She remarked aloud. Trixie was very astute, she was the most astuteliest pony she knew!

"Trixie? Is that you?" Came a voice from the far side of the room. Twilight's voice. "You've come ba- OH MY GOODNESS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!"

Trixie's vision slowly came back to her as Twilight galloped across the room. Her coat seemed to have grown back a little, but her mane was still looking decidedly buzz-cut. She also looked really worried about something.

"Twilight!" Trixie chirped upon seeing her mentor. Until she remembered that she was supposed to be mad at Twilight. "Twilight."

For her part, Twilight was trotting all the way around Trixie, taking in every detail of the blue mare. Trixie could understand why, Trixie was magnificent after all, but this was hardly the time nor place! Trixie was trying to be angry!

"Oh my gosh Trixie, are you okay?" Twilight asked, coming back around to face the mare. "Are you hurt? How did this happen. Stay here, I'll go and get help!"

Twilight had spread her wings to leave before Trixie spoke up, stopping her in her tracks.

"You were really mean to me in the forest, Twilight." Trixie said, managing her best scowl.

"I...what?"

"You said mean things about me when we were by the river and it hurt my feelings!" Trixie yelled. She didn't like her feelings being hurt! What had Nightmare said to her about pain an anger? "Pain is Prench for bread, bread is Prench for pain!"

"What?" Twilight asked cocking her head. "Trixie what are you talking about? I haven't seen you since you left!"

"Yuh-uh you did!"

"Trixie did- did you hit your head on something?" The purple alicorn asked, looking really rather concerned. "You stay right here, I'm going to go and get a doctor."

"We apologise for our charge, we've cast a quick numbing spell on her and it seems to have effected her mind somewhat."

"Ah! Who said that?!" Twilight yelped, scanning the room.

Trixie's horn called upon her magic again, forming a sphere of arcane energy. The ball pulsed and wobbled, dropping down to the ground and forming a holographic visage of Nightmare, in all her imposing glory.

"Neat, I didn't know I could do that!" Trixie cooed.

"You cannot, this is our doing." Nightmare spoke. Out loud. Twilight was immediately on the defensive, dropping down into a combat stance, horn ready.

"Who are you?" The mage asked, voice steely cold.

"We understand that you are the highest power presently in the land. We have use for one such as yourself." Nightmare non-answered.

"Who are you?!"

"My, how one-track of you. We are Nightmare Moon, regent of the night and rightful ruler of Equestria."

"That's just a story!" Twilight countered.

"We would say that we're evidence otherwise, no?" Nightmare posed. "It matters little what you think, young alicorn, we shall be requiring your services."

Twilight scowled, mulling over the holographic mare's words internally. It was almost an uncomfortably long pause.

"What is your relation with my apprentice?"

"Ah, young Lulamoon? We had need for an intermediate vessel, to which she has performed... well, to say 'adequately' would perhaps be pushing it..."

"You're possessing my student?!"

"Hmm, to a degree, we suppose. Not that we wish to for much longer."

"Aw, you're leaving?" Trixie pouted.

"Quiet, Lulamoon." Nightmare scolded.

"What have you done to her?" Twilight growled, gesturing to Trixie's additions. "What is all this?"

"Aside from the numbing spell, we have not done a great deal. Rather, we've merely guided Lulamoon along her own path. In fact, we would say that we've been instrumental in her surviving in the wilds for as long as she has." Nightmare nodded.

"No, Trixie wouldn't be able to do... whatever this is!" Twilight protested. "It's beyond her scope."

"Under your tutelage, mayhap." Nightmare smirked. "But, we are getting waylaid. We came here with a proposition."

"What do you want?"

"It's rather simple. We seek to retake or place as ruler, which we cannot do without a vessel. I can sense that you clearly have incredible power, which we have great need for. My proposition is that you become our vessel and in return enjoy a life of immortality in leadership over all the land. We shall rule from the lap of luxury, it is a most desirable position."

"And if I refuse?"

"Refusal is not an option."

Twilight was pensive, thinking out her next move.

"What about Trixie?"

"Ha, what about Trixie indeed!" Nightmare scoffed. "We shan't beat around the bush, alicorn. Lulamoon is dying."

"I'm WHAT?!" Trixie yelped, head suddenly feeling much clearer. Twilight's eyes went wide.

"Lulamoon doesn't have the latent arcane power to keep one such as us going, we've been draining her reserves since she found us. The longer we are intertwined, the worse her condition shall get. On the contrary, an alicorn such as you, Twilight Sparkle, has such vast mana reserves that harm would not even factor in to our relationship." Nightmare explained. "You have your steaks. Allow us to bond, or your student will unfortunately pass."

Twilight was stunned, silent.

Trixie was equally stunned. She was dying? How could she be?! She felt fine! She was young and fit! Granted things had been a little different since she'd come into contact with Nightmare, and thinking about it she'd experienced a lot of pain since then, internally and externally. Actually, she didn't feel fine at all. Nightmare herself had just said she'd numbed Trixie's pain. And there were those times where it felt like all her magic had gone...

Oh.

Was that what that actually was? Was that literally Nightmare running up all of Trixie's magic? Ponies needed magic to live. Especially unicorns.

This was bad.

"B-but Trixie is an alicorn now too, kind of? Right?" Twilight floundered. "Doesn't that make a difference."

"Ha, hardly. Lulamoon is a false prophet if anything, the horn and the wings, but no earth pony heritage and no clue. She is no true alicorn."

"Twilight." Trixie piped up. "Twilight, Twilight! Trixie really, really likes being alive, Twilight!"

Twilight, for her part, looked pissed. She wasn't even looking at Trixie, she had stormed right up to the holographic Nightmare Moon.

"Not only have you hijacked my student's psyche, you've toyed with her body and are holding her hostage! You are sick!" Twilight spat.

"Your words mean nothing, young alicorn. We still hold all the cards."

Twilight scrutinised the hologram for a moment, boring through it.

"What are you?"

"We are the spirit of the night, master of the moon and stars, and we are here to rightfully reclaim our throne." Nightmare asserted haughtily.

"Trixie, what is she?" Twilight asked, not looking away from the holographic alicorn.

"I-I don't know! Everything started when I put on this hat!" Trixie stammered.

"Our helm is no mere 'hat', Lulamoon!"

"Have you taken the helmet off?" Twilight asked.

"N-no."

"You're wasting your time, Twilight. The clock is ticking." Nightmare pointed out.

Almost on cue with Nightmare's words, Trixie noticed various aches and pains start to make themselves known again. Whatever spell Nightmare had cast seemed to be wearing off, and Trixie was sure it would hurt like a bitch.

"Well, if it started with the helmet, it seems fairly logical for it to end with the helmet. Take it off, Trixie." Twilight reasoned.

"I-I can't, I can't move or use my magic!"

"Then I'll- AH!" Twilight yelped as her own magic field was repelled by Trixie's horn.

"We can't allow you to do that." Nightmare growled.

"So you're bound to the helmet?" Twilight pondered. "Don't worry Trixie, we can get that thing off you and get you some help."

"You shall do no such thing! We've made our intentions very clear, young alicorn!" Nightmare sneered. "Make your choice!"

Trixie gulped. Her blood started racing. This was genuinely, actually terrifying. She knew Nightmare was powerful, and Twilight was powerful, but she had now idea just how powerful either of them were. And consequences in mind, she really didn't want to find out how powerful Nightmare was.

Y'know, because Trixie would die.

The three of them were caught in some kind of strange, bastardised version of a Mexicolt stand-off. Well, Nightmare and Twilight were, Trixie was a resigned spectator for the time being. She hoped she could stay a spectator. Trixie didn't know what kind of ghostly bullshit the holographic Nightmare was pulling, but she definitely could do without being used as a body in a fight.

Seconds passed and they felt like hours. Nopony dared move an inch.

"I choose." Twilight spoke, breaking the silence. "I choose to fight!"

"Ha, insolent foal!" Nightmare sneered. "You're of no use to us dead, young alicorn, but that shan't mean we shall be gentle."

Nightmare's hologram let out a dark chuckle before popping out of existence. That was not a good sign. Then Trixie's body started moving. Nightmare was using her to fight. This was the one thing she didn't want to happen.

"A fight you shall get, Twilight Sparkle. I do hope you're not opposed to us borrowing your apprentice!"

"That's a dirty move, Nightmare!" Twilight protested.

"D-doesn't Trixie get a say in this!?"

"We've heard quite enough of you already, Lulamoon. Now, be a good charge and let us fight the alicorn in peace!"

"Trixie really, really doesn't want to fight!"

"What Trixie wants doesn't matter! This no longer concerns you, Lulamoon."

"'No longer concerns me?' This concerns Trixie a lot!" Trixie bleated, all the while stalking ever closer to her mentor. "In fact Trixie would go as far to say that this concerns her the most out of anypony here!"

"This is beyond your scope, Lulamoon, now be quiet!" Nightmare warned, making Trixie's body snap to an aggressive stance that Twilight matched. Her horn lit up, charging some kind of immensely powerful spell.

"I'M SORRY!" Trixie yelled. "TRIXIE'S JUST WORRIED ABOUT THE FACT THAT SHE COULD LITERALLY DROP DEAD AT ANY FUCKING MOMENT! HOW INCONSIDERATE OF ME TO KEEP TALKING!"

"We've enough power to keep your body going until you're no longer useful. Now stop whining, you're making it very hard to concentrate."

"OH, EXCELLENT, THANK YOU!" Trixie mocked. "THAT REALLY PUTS TRIXIE AT EASE, TO KNOW THAT I'LL BE FINE AS LONG AS YOU NEED ME TO BE. WONDERFUL!"

"Lulamoon, shut up!" Nightmare growled as Trixie's horn flickered.

"My goodness, am I distracting you? I'm so sorry! It's just, you know, TRIXIE DOESN'T WANT HER BODY TO BE USED IN ALL OUT ARCANE WARFARE!" The former unicorn exploded. "IT KINDA TIES INTO THE WHOLE 'NOT WANTING TO DIE' THING!"

"Perishing in battle is an honour, Lulamoon. You would be a martyr for our cause. Now, we'll repeat this only once: shut up.

"That's great, I can be a martyr for the cause? The cause that I've heard nothing about up until right now? What a fucking privilege, knowing I get to be a footnote in whatever rule you're trying to establish! In fact, why don't- aaaaAAAAAAAAHHH!"

Trixie's rant was cut off when she suddenly lurched forward, making a beeline for Twilight. Apparently Nightmare had had enough of it all and decided to just get on with the whole thing.

Twilight was no slouch, though. She'd be waiting for Nightmare to make a move, and deftly dodged the oncoming assault. Nightmare was quick on the rebound though, unleashing the spell she'd been charging up. Twilight teleported out of the way, leaving the stream of arcane energy to hit the wall behind her, blasting a hole in the building.

Reappearing behind Trixie, Twilight's magic made to lift the helmet off the mare's head, only to be slapped away by Nightmare's magic.

"There'll be none of that!" Nightmare sneered, firing another bolt of magic at Twilight.

Twilight again dodged, leaving the bot to create another hole in her wall. Twilight wasn't overly concerned about the state of the building for the time being, though. She needed a plan to stop all of this, but without hurting Trixie. That was the tricky part.

Nightmare continued to use Trixie's body to attack Twilight, and Twilight continued to evade the onslaught. Trixie was really feeling the toll all of this was taking on her. Everything hurt like tartarus. Nightmare didn't care, Trixie was just a means to an end to her. This was bad, Trixie wasn't a means to anypony's end, and she'd prove it! Somehow! It was very hard to come up with a plan when she had no control over her body, was scared beyond rational thought, and was experiencing a wide variety of pain. That was a toxic cocktail by any stretch.

"TWIIIIILIIIGHT! MAKE IT STOP!" Trixie screamed.

"I'M TRYING!"

Twilight swooped down from above, trying to pry the helmet off of Trixie's head as she passed. No such luck, as Nightmare blasted the alicorn with an offensive spell, knocking her off course and flying into a table.

Twilight wasted no time in recovering, bouncing right back onto her hooves and charging at Trixie. Trixie's eyes went wide as Twilight made to collide with her, only for Nightmare to lift her out of the alicorn's path with a beat of her wings. Twilight skidded to a halt and doubled back on herself, also taking to the air.

The two mares were now essentially dogfighting in a very tightly enclosed space. It was total carnage. Furniture was being trashed, the building was being damaged, papers were strewn everywhere. Every move Twilight made, Nightmare had a counter. And every shot Nightmare took, Twilight evaded. It was a very odd stalemate.

And in the middle of it all was Trixie. Absolutely terrified. She was in the middle of a strange combination of sensory overload and sensory deprivation. The new information about her apparently impending expiration mixed with the constant evasive movement, and the screaming of nerves all over her body was overpowering her brain. At the same time, the lack of control over her body was also playing havoc with her mind.

Trixie would probably have been sick if there was anything left to come up.

It was hard for her to really make out what was actually going on. Twilight would teleport in and out of view, and as it turns out, it's very difficult to process your surroundings when you're not in control of where you're looking.

One thing that Trixie could tell though was that some of Nightmare's shots were landing. Every now and then Twilight would yelp, and when she next came into view she looked just a little bit more crispy than before. Trixie didn't know if it was a good or a bad thing that Twilight hadn't really been on the offensive. Yes it meant that Nightmare had the upper hoof, but Trixie also really didn't like the sound of being shot at.

The two were currently locked in a slow loop around the perimeter of the room, Nightmare trailing Twilight. Twilight was managing to duck, dive and roll around Nightmare's attacks, but it was slowly becoming obvious that it was a waiting game of who's stamina ran dry first.

Twilight glanced back at Nightmare/Trixie and smirked, horn shining brightly. The chase came to a rather abrupt end when a bubble of purple magic encased Trixie, stopping her dead. Twilight slowed to a halt, landing just in front of Trixie, checking over her shield bubble.

"Ha, I've caught you!" Twilight yelled triumphantly. "Give it up, Nightmare, I'm in control now."

"Bold of you to assume that you've attained superiority, alicorn."

"You're trapped, I'd consider that my advantage."

"Ha, we'll see about that-"

"AH!" Trixie yelped, as Nightmare used her forehoof to test the resilience of Twilight's shield. It didn't give an inch, and gave off a very odd tingly static feeling, a mild shock.

"Hmm, better than we had expected, alicorn. No matter, it'll do little to protect you."

"Protect me? From what-"

Twilight didn't get a chance to finish her sentence. A thin, intensely bright beam of magic shot from Trixie's horn, penetrating the shield bubble and hitting Twilight square in the forehead. Twilight's eyes rolled up and she collapsed. The shield flickered, but didn't entirely give, Twilight's horn still keeping the spell going.

"My, you're nothing if not resilient. I must commend your effort, even if it is futile in the end."

"I can... stop you." Twilight managed, eyes lulled and speech laboured.

"We'd say you're too late for that. We'd wager you're feeling rather woozy, no? Finding it hard to focus? Hard enough that you won't be able to prevent us from doing this."

There was a flash and Trixie disappeared from the bubble, reappearing beside Twilight. Nightmare had simply teleported out. Twilight grunted, the shield finally dropping.

"Nightmare what did you do to her?"

"Nothing that would harm her, that would be counter-productive. Why do you worry, Lulamoon? Did you not want to 'get your own back', as it were?"

"Yes, I wanted to get my own back, not be a pawn for some magic ghost to make her unconscious!" Trixie protested. "This is, oh, buck, this whole thing is fucking bucked!"

"How colourful."

"This is all your fault! All of this! If I wish I'd never found this stupid helmet! Everything could be back to normal by now!" Trixie lamented. "But no, look at all of this. Look at the state of me! I don't even know what I am anymore!"

"We wouldn't put too much stock into it, Lulamoon, you're not long of this world anyway."

"Not helping!" Trixie spat.

"We no longer have any reason to help, Lulamoon. Rather, now that we have Twilight, it is about time that we parted ways. We can't say we've not been looking forward to it."

"Oh right, of course, this is the part where you take over the world and leave me to die. Excellent, Trixie was looking forward to that part." The mare growled.

Nightmare trotted Trixie's body to where Twilight lay. Twilight was spread out on her side, Nightmare picked her up and set her right side up, carefully keeping her from falling over.

"Finally, a vessel from which we can lead the eternal night!"

"'The eternal night'?" Trixie frowned.

"Yes, the eternal night. Long ago the ponies turned against us, they scorned our night and celebrated the day. NO LONGER! They will learn to love our night, and hate the day as I do! With a proper vessel we shall use our mana to finally block out the sun for good, and allow all creatures to bask in our glorious night! It will be beautiful." Nightmare explained.

Something inside Trixie, a part of her she didn't know she had, snapped. She'd been pushed to her absolute limit, and now past it. She was going to die, and her last fuck had just been given.

"Eternal night."

"Were we not clear? Yes, eternal night."

"Do you have any idea how much of an absolute dumb fuck you sound right now?"

There was a beat of silence.

"Excuse us? How DARE you-"

"No, HOW DARE YOU?! How dare you orchestrate all of this just for the stupidest plan this side of Equestria!?" Trixie exploded. "I have had it up to HERE with you, you bitch, so you are going to shut the fuck up and listen to me or so help me I will die on the spot and you'll be trapped in that bucking helmet again!"

"We don't care for your-"

"Trixie does not give a hot shit what you do or don't care for! Do you think I care for being used as a meat puppet? Do you think there's a pony alive out there thinking 'oh gee, I sure would love to get possessed!'?" Trixie sneered. "There's not. So you are going to shut the buck up and I am going to tell you why your plan is craptacular!"

"Lulamoon-"

"What do ponies need to live, Nightmare? What are the basic necessities for living? The real basic, bare bones essentials that any mammal needs to survive?" Trixie asked.

"We fail to see the point in-"

"ANSWER THE BUCKING QUESTION!"

"Hmph, shelter, water, food-"

"That's right, food!" Trixie jeered. "Ponies are herbivores, we eat plants. Plants come out of the ground, Nightmare, we grow and cultivate them. Now, considering that ponies need plants to live, Trixie would say they're pretty important to our survival as a species, yes?"

"We suppose so..."

"Do you know what plants need to live, Nightmare?" Trixie posed.

"Care, water-

"PLANTS NEED THE FUCKING SUN!" The mare shouted, genuinely furious at the level of ignorance Nightmare was exhibiting. "No sun, no food. No food, no ponies."

"W-well, we-"

"Where do you think all the warmth on the planet comes from, Nightmare?"

"We don't-"

"It comes from the FUCKING SUN! So, you're ruling over starving land of ice, wonderful. Let's keep going."

"We've heard quite enough-"

"Do you know what vitamins are, Nightmare? Twilight told me that they're tiny nutrients that everything needs to live. They come from all sorts of places, but there's this one called Vitamin D. Vitamin D does a lot in a ponies body, and it's really important for keeping our bones strong. Want to take a stab at what the biggest source of Vitamin D is?"

"This is foolish-"

"The fucking sun, Nightmare! So, you're ruling over a dying, frozen nation, and any survivors have rickets. Doesn't that just sound amazing?!"

"It-"

"No no, let's keep going!" Trixie insisted. "Ponies aren't the only creatures living on the planet. There's yaks and griffons, birds, trees, whatever. You know what they all need to live too?"

"Lulamoon, if you say 'the fucking sun'-

"THE FUCKING SUN! Everything, I'll say it again, everything needs the sun to live, Nightmare! Got it?! We. Need. The. Sun. To. Live. But sure, go ahead, block it out forever, give it a few months and you'll have successfully exterminated all life on the fucking planet. Congratulations, you've committed omnicide, well done you!" Trixie mocked. "Aren't you proud of your little plan? Getting to be the queen of nothing for eternity, sounds absolutely bucking grand! I can see why they killed you the first time around, keeping somepony as dense as you around would be a real detriment to the gene pool."

"WE'VE HEARD QUITE ENOUGH FROM YOU, LULAMOON!"

"OH, HAVE YOU? HAVE YOU REALLY? BECAUSE I STILL DON'T THINK I'VE GOTTEN THROUGH TO YOU, YOU GHOSTY CUNT! IF YOU BLOCK OUT THE SUN, EVERYTHING DIES. NOT 'SOME THINGS', NOT 'ALL CREATURES', EVERYTHING. THAT INCLUDES TWILIGHT! EVERY-THING!" Trixie ranted at the top of her lungs. "SO FUCK IT, DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, IT'S NOT LIKE I'LL BE ALIVE TO SEE IT ANYWAY! WHATEVER YOU DO IS A LOSING MOVE, SO JUST GO WILD!"

Trixie was starting to sweat, it was getting more difficult for her to breathe, and there was a shooting pain running down her foreleg, but she didn't care. She was far to angry at that moment.

"Stars above, you're an idiot. Did you think any of this though at all?! You were just going to make it night forever and expect the world to carry on as normal?! It must be nice being so ignorant! And here I was thinking you were some kind of sage, ancient spirit! SILLY ME, RIGHT!?"

Nightmare was silent.

"And what, to your ends you've essentially enslaved and mutilated me, and attacked Twilight all for this backwards ass, back-of-a-napkin tier plan? REALLY WORTH IT, HUH?!" Trixie seethed. "I GENUINELY CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU DIDN'T FACTOR ANY REQUIREMENTS FOR LIFE INTO YOUR PLAN, HOW DUMB IS THAT?!"

Trixie started to laughed. She laughed at the absurdity of it all. She laughed at her situation. She laughed at Nightmare. She laughed and laughed and laughed. She was in hysterics, the whole thing had driven her to it, and all she could do was laugh.

"AND TO THINK YOU PLAYED YOURSELF UP AS SOME WISE, ALL KNOWING ENTITY! WHAT A JOKE! HA HA HA-CHAGH!" Trixie choked. She couldn't force anymore air out of her lungs. In fact it was getting very hard to breathe at all. Slowly, she began to slouch lower to the ground as her body started to respond to her own commands.

"You've made your point, Lulamoon, and now you are dying. How wonderful that you managed to delay me for long enough that you're body can't even co-operate with me. You must feel proud."

"B-Buck you!" Trixie managed weakly between hacks. Her eyelids dropped lower and lower, her breaths became more infrequent. Nightmare said that she was dying, and as much of a blockhead she'd just established Nightmare to be, Trixie had no reason to doubt Nightmare about this. She certainly felt like she was dying.

Trixie closed her eyes. At least she'd been stubborn enough to stop the total annihilation of all life before she shuffled off the mortal coil. That had to count for something, right?

Author's Note

I'm so sorry this took so long to get out.

One chapter left to go!