Smoke and Mirriors

Magic, tricks, and sleight of hand, such things have existed for countless years. An art of trickery and wit used to dazzle thousands of people for generations with awe-inspiring illusions. But there are those wish to take away from the amazement of the tricks by explaining how simple some are in practice, not bothering to take and their many performances or the careful planning it must have taken to make the tricks in the first place. Because of this, it is an unfortunate truth that most magicians are looked down upon, as only a minor amusement for those of which are touched by the creativity, and only the truly great rise to the stars themselves. This is the story of one of the former, Mark Speedwagon( yes that is a JoJo reference) a young man twenty-five years of age. He’s not what you would call a professional magician, but rather his love for the magical arts is more of a hobby and a way to pick up some side cash. Now on this day, Mark was on his way home from a birthday party he had been hired to perform at, and with a smile on his face, he fondly remembered the looks of innocent awe the children had on their faces as he showed off his tricks, but his mood soured when he remembered how the moment was ruined by the birthday's girls older brother, he was cruel enough to come and smugly explain all the tricks, after he had looked them up on the internet.

“Asshole, there’s a reason Magicians never reveal their secrets it takes away from the mystery and awe,” Mark muttered under his breath as he walked past a pawn shop, but before he completely passed by the shop, something caught his eye. He walked into the store and picked up the item of interest. A purple wizard hat with large yellow and purple, with small blue and yellow spots in a beautiful design.

“Oh does that old hat catch your interest, lad?” The old man at the counter asked.

“Eh sure, I've always wanted a hat like this, how much?” Mark shrugged as he continued to look at the hat with interest,

“Eh, fifteen bucks,” The old man said with a smile.

“Ok,that's cheaper then what I was expecting,” Mark said returning the smile before placing the fifteen bucks on the table.

“Have a nice trip,” The old man laughed.

“Will do,” Mark said putting the hat before realizing what he meant, “What do you me-”

“Magic!” The old man said doing the magic motion with his hands, as Mark was blinded by a bright light.

When the light faded Mark found himself sprawled out in front of a sign that said: Canterlot Highschool.

“The fuck?” Mark muttered after getting to “his” feet in a now very feminine voice. With a surprised eep, Mark jumped back at the unfamiliar noise.

Mark quickly looked himself over, the first thing he noticed was his dark blue skin, followed by the fact that he was no longer a “he” but rather a “she”, if her new breasts were anything to go by, she was wearing a purple T-Shirt, which was covered by a dark blue jacket, and her around her waist she wore a purple skirt with a blue wave design with white dots that fell down to halfway down her upper thighs, wrapped around to a yellow star wand on the left of the skirt.

“Okay deep breaths,” Mark said panicking a bit, a took few deep breaths before regaining his composure. “Okay so I'm inside a teenage girl now...um that sounded better in my head, oh god maybe I should just stop thinking about!” Mark said before face-palming.

“So I'm obviously not anywhere near home,” She said eyes the sign,” Canterlot huh,” She thought for a second before snapping her fingers, “Wonder if it's from that My Little Pony show my friend Tommy is always trying to get me to watch, ah this must be some kind of prank,” Mark laughed before realizing that was retarded,

“Then how did I get in this body, dumbass,” Mark said holding the bridge of her nose. “As far as I can tell, the hat transported me to this new world and decided that it would be cool to make me a teenage girl,”

“Trixie? What are you doing the bell just rang!” Someone yelled from the entrance of the school.

Mark didn’t react, because One she didn’t know who Trixie was, and Two she was thinking.

“Trixie!” The person said walking out and revealing herself to be a girl with blue and green hair, and grey skin.

“Just leave her, if she’s late it's her fault,” A boy with black hair and orange skin said.

“Okay,” She shrugged as they both went back inside.

“Okay first things first,” Mark said checking for pockets on his skirt, surprisingly he found a small on under the skirt, and in the pocket was a purple wallet with a star wand on it. She opened it and pulled out the driver's license of the former owner of her new body.

“Trixie Lunamoon, sixteen,” Mark muttered before pulling a piece of paper while muttering, “Which means she’s probably a sophomore, huh this piece of paper has a code on it, must be her locker door code, of course it could be her phone password or computer password….crap this could be anything,” Mark facepalmed before going back into deep thought for a few minutes.

“Now that I think about it this might be some kind of cosmic prank, which means it might not be permanent, so I guess I should go to her school, after all, if we get switched back, and I ruin her future by getting expelled for tardiness, that would be a serious dick move,” Mark muttered and looking up at school, “Guess I'm going by Trixie for now,”

Mark walked up the steps and racked her head trying to figure out how she was going to find her locker. She decided on trying to find the principle’s office and just asking them, even though that was going to make her look like an idiot.

Mark then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to find the damn office. She walked up already fed up with this place and knocked.

“Enter,” A woman said behind the door said.

Mark walked into the room to see a woman with purple skin and rainbow-colored hair looking over papers, she looked up from her work her eyes lighting up at the sight of Mark.

“Ah, Trixie it's good to see you, how can I help you?” The woman asked with a warm smile.

“Um, where’s my locker?” Mark asked blushing at how stupid she must look.

The woman looked at her for a second in shock, “E-excuse me?”

“My locker,” Mark said her blush deepening in color, “I-I forgot where it was,”

Celestia covered her mouth and giggled a bit, causing Mark face to go as red as a tomato.

“Oh Trixie you silly girl, 238,” Celestia said waving her off.

“Thanks,” Mark squeaked as she ran off.

“Well that was horrible,” Mark thought as she found her locker, she tried the code and luckily for her it worked like a charm, in the locker she found her purse filled a pack of cards and other magic trick items.

“Oh, she’s a magician too? This is gonna be great! Hell, I’ll leave a list of tricks for her in case I know a few tricks she doesn’t,” Mark said with a grin as she put it back, she then found a piece of paper that had her schedule on it.

“Looks like I missed algebra, thank god I suck at math, but my next class is basic problem solving, wait a sec... that's a subject!?” Mark said in shock.

She made her way to said class, getting dirty looks from her classmates and the grumpy looking teacher as she sat down.

“So glad you could grace us with your presence, Miss Lunamoon,” The teacher said rolling his eyes.

“Yea sorry got turned around and stuff,” Mark sighed, plopping down in desk.

Everyone looked at her in shock, and the class went silent.

“What?” Mark asked, “Is there something on my face?”

The Teacher snapped out of his daze and said, “Well then back to business, the problem of the day is as following : a group of people is trapped in a room and the door is locked, there is a window in the back of the room but it is also locked, how do they escape, does anyone have the answer?”

Mark looked around and saw everyone thinking hard.

“Seriously?” Mark deadpanned.

“Tell me about it,” The teacher deadpanned.

“Guys just unlock the window and go out that way, windows only have those easy latches, and he didn’t specify what kind of lock the window had, so you can assume its the standard lock,” Mark said getting dumbfounded looks from everyone.

“Correct but you didn’t raise your hand so its invalid Ms. Lunamoon,” The teacher said gruffly.

“But I-” Mark began.

“Your right you did not raise your hand, and thus you have hopefully learned your lesson and will most certainly pipe down and raise your hand if you wish to speak again,” The teacher snapped silencing Mark before the class laughed at her embarrassment. Mark shrank back in a chair trying to become as small as possible.

“Now can anyone else answer the question?” The teacher asked.

A girl with an air of pride around her raised her hand.

“Cauliflower!” The teacher said point at the girl.

The girl stood with a smirk and looked directly at Mark as she mockingly said “Just unlock the window and go out that way, windows only have those easy latches, and he didn’t specify what kind of lock the window had, so you can assume its the standard lock,”

Everyone(except the teacher and Mark) burst out laughing.

“Alright quite down,” the Teacher said in a bored tone quitting the class, “Now flip to page fifteen of your book, and Ms. Lunamoon? Go get your books,”

Mark got up and brought up the hood of her jacket, as the class held back their laughter, her face beet red.

“This is so humiliating,” Mark thought to herself practically shaking, she pulled out her backpack from her locker and made sure to fill with it her books, which turned out to be heavier then what she was expecting.

She gritted her teeth as she heaved it onto her back, she then made her way back to the class, getting a few snickers as she sat down.

The rest of the day went smoothly and she kept her head down, hoping people didn’t start talking. It was moving slower than expected but people were definitely talking about how weird Trixie was acting. She sat in the back of the class(you’ve seen anime) and kept quit notes for the rest of the day. Thankfully Trixie had a kept a diary hidden in a little cranny in her locker. It wasn’t super detailed, just mostly stuff about her dreams and ambitions, but it did mention her home in enough detail that Mark was confident she could pick it out when the bus dropped her off. The bus dropped her off in front of a cozy little RV van, she walked up to it and whipped out the keys she had found in her rather large purse, and opened the door to the RV. She walked in and noticed an envelope on the small table, inside the envelope was a roll of cash and a letter.

It read, “Sorry I couldn’t stay and catch up sweetie, but your mother and I have a show in Las Pegasus, so we won’t be home for a long while, for now here’s some cash to get you through the next month, love you! ~Dad”

“Poor Trixie,” Mark cringed before slipping off her jacket and plopping down onto the bed, before drifting off into an uneasy sleep.