"No, No..." Trixie shook her head, arms crossed. Her lower belly was on the ground, but her unusual form allowed her to still have a decent vantage despite it, watching Garou. "No."

Garou sat up, his limbs resetting from the strange other sizes they had assumed in his latest attempt. "Just copying your magic isn't working," he admitted, licking over his lips. His tail was not wagging.

"Why would it? Unicorn magic is for unicorns, which you are not." She pointed a hoof at him accusingly. "So, instead, tell me about your magic."

"My magic?" His ears danced, considering that. "That's... hard to describe. I ate a fruit and it lets me turn into a wolf."

Trixie raised a brow. "You weren't born with it? We suspected that... Trixie would want to know more of this magical fruit, but that's for another day. Now, you say 'turn into a wolf', but you have turned into not-a-wolf."

"Well, yeah, a wolf..."

Trixie rolled her eyes at his trailing word. "Keeping Great and Powerful secrets from Trixie is amusing but getting old, on with it."

"A wolf creature instead of a full wolf." Garou nodded, satisfied with his phrasing. "I am a creature normally, just not a wolf."

Trixie smugly smiled, pleased with how much she had teased from Garou. "Alright, so you imagine yourself taking on more, or less, canine features, yes?"

"Basically." His eyes turned over the sleepy camp. It was past dinner time. Most of the smarter ponies had already curled up where it was warm and were passed out. They were as close to alone as one could be in the situation. "More wolf or less wolf."

Trixie put her hooves together and slowly brought them apart. "What about, instead of imagining it like some kind of slide that only goes left or right for your whole body at the same time, you seperated it out." She tapped him with the flat of a new hoof on his shoulder. "Put one there." She rose up to nudge him with a lower hoof against his paw. "Another there. One back by your tail, where your legs meet. Your... hips, yes, that's the word."

"You forgot it?" He was looking back over the points she had indicated. "Huh..."

"It's late and I'm tired," she huffed with a little frown. "My advice remains. You are still becoming a wolf, just in different proportions and at different speeds." She clopped her upper hooves together. "The trickiest part is ending up with six limbs. Perhaps you have to... imagine growing instead of just changing?"

"Growing..." His thought went not to extra arms, instead to something relatively simpler. He heard Trixie make a little noise, but his thoughts were elsewhere, at least until one of her hooves gently landed on his head. He cracked open an eye. "Hello?"

"Can you not feel that?" she asked with a raised brow.

That was when he did, one tail brushing against the other, then both going rigid. He looked over his shoulder at the two limbs, where one familiar thing had become two aliens. "Ah... wow." A big smile suddenly spread. "That means I can grow new parts."

Trixie nodded with all the sage wisdom she assumed she had. "Which means, with practice, you can have your extra limbs. The way Trixie sees it, you can have all the wolf parts you desire. You could imitate the cerberus perhaps, though I'm not sure what an extra head would do for you. Would you argue with yourself?"

"You did that," he spat, the two tails starting to sway in curious countermotion.

"That was a performance," she scoffed. "I had that entire thing planned out. It was only the... finale that went awry." She curled a hoof to her upper chest. "Trixie would not be so daft, even a copy of Trixie, to interrupt a show with a petty squabble for life and death."

"Right..." One tail. Just one. He closed his eyes a moment, trying to return to normal wolf dimensions. Less distracted, he felt the change happen. "Weird." But it worked. His tail was back to its singular glory, wagging with his newfound optimism. "You're the best, Trixie."

"I know this." She waved a hoof idly. "But, please, go right on reminding me."

A sudden shriek split the darkness. Both turned towards the center of the caravan, but the trouble was taking place on the opposite end. A big bruiser of a creature, feline in nature, held a massive two-pawed curved blade dangerously close to a merchant mare he had just rudely awakened. "Scream like that again," he said in smooth tones. "And it may be the last. Now, begin--"

A bright bolt of magic struck the ground between them, another landing just beside it. He danced away as Luna came in with an angry snort. "Just one? 'Tis hardly a battle. Do you wish to flee now while the chance remains?"

Celestia landed to the left of Luna, her wings remaining out as if to make herself look bigger than she already was. "This caravan is under our protection."

"Oh ho ho ho," chorted the tall cat, holding the blade in one hand almost as easily as two despite its size. "You hear that, fellas? We got a real fight on our paws."

Eyes lit the darkness as figures scrambled forward from the darkness into the light of the campfire. Roughly a dozen rushed towards the princesses, but many others were hurrying for still rousing caravan members, greed shining in those eyes. They were not all cats, their leader apparently equal opportunity when it came to brigandry.

One of them was even a pony, the only one that hesitated on approaching Celestia and Luna. "What are you two doing here?" he hissed in a stage whisper so loud none could fail to hear it.

It was hardly time for a proper chat. Celestia folded her wings even as she erected a shield to deflect an incoming blade, dancing away. "It would seem we have a proper battle to attend."

"Verily." Luna drew a heavy flail and began to swing it with a rhythmic twirling of her head. "I've been wanting to test this." A badger of a creature stepped in range of it, holding a dagger in either hand, and she advanced in kind, swinging the unyielding metal bludgeon in terrifying arcs. The flail's spiked head glowed with her magic, enhanced and aimed with her power.

Suddenly it was too bright. Luna was forced to closed her eyes with a hiss, as was everyone else, save Celestia who lifted into the sky in the moment of reprieve. "Sister!" grumbled Luna, blinking her eyes and trying to find the creature she had been swinging at.

There he was, far too close to her. Pain lanced as he shoved one of his daggers into the joints of her armor. Ignoring the warm wetness, she grabbed him in her magic and gave him a mighty hurl, tossing him back into the darkness he had emerged from. "Damn it all..."

"Prepare to be dazzled." Trixie had arrived, flinging colors and fireworks at assailants as she galloped at full speed on her other four hooves. "Behold and tremble!" When several of them closed on her, she turned sharply and fled in a new direction. "Too much beholding!" Those were not words she was used to saying together.

Garou stumbled, aborting his most recent attempt to manipulate his gift in favor of being serious. With a sudden leap, he was in the middle of the same crowd that had menaced Trixie. They were just as eager to batter and stab him as anything else, but when they moved to do so, they struck a suddenly-there dome that sprang into being, protecting Garou from them.

A riot of colors washed over the group as Trixie rejoined the struggle. One of the attackers suddenly wailed as he caught fire from one of the fireworks. He fled wildly, removed from the conflict. Garou took the moment of distraction to rise up, becoming the great two-legged wolfman, a new shield snapping into being, hovering just next to his right arm, right at the correct position for him to slam it into the face of one of his attackers in a smooth punch. "Not just for defense," he growled out as the creature staggered back, blood dripping from his bashed nose.

Garou was suddenly glowing, wrenched back a precious inch to avoid a great blade slicing through the space he had been occupying. "Watch yourself," called Trixie as she wheeled and ran, a constant annoyance in the side of the enemies.

"Thanks." He threw his arm out, the shield somehow 'thrown', clanging against the blade and fading away as it bounced off, another appearing where it began.

The big bear he was facing passed the blade from one paw to the other. "Little tricks won't get me." He grabbed his blade with both hands, chopping with direct force. Garou caught it with his shield, but was being pressed back and down by the sheer force of it. Even as a great werewolf, the bear was strong, both of their arms straining, trying to win the contest.

Unfortunately, the bear had a lot more backup, and they were closing in to take advantage of the exposed position Garou was in.

His hand-held shield had become a liability. A mouse with a bandanna sneered, lunging with a twisted blade. Garou bashed it with his left hand even as it cut into his flesh with its sharp edge. An arc of red trailed in the motion even as he surged backwards, letting the blade fall, nicking his other arm. A low growling grunt masked the shout he more wished to do. A loud crack sounded as a crossbow bolt slammed into what had been an invisible dome he had formed, snapping it into pieces on impact and preventing it from completing its course into his soft body.

Luna had recovered from the first misstep, smashing one beaver on the foot as her magic wrenched a sword from the hands of another to send it flying at a third. She flinched. An arrow had just struck her, catching her in a leg. "They have archers," she called as she threw her flail entirely, the thing wreathed in her magic in a deadly twirling object. It crashed into someone's head, bringing them to the ground with barely a noise, consciousness beaten from them instantly.

Celestia spread her hooves as light gathered between them. "I see them." They saw her just as well, possibly more so with her glowing magic. Arrows began to be fired at her, angry deadly bees emerging from the gloom of the night. She released her power, a column of light evaporating the incoming arrows, but not aimed properly to strike the ones that fired them. "On it," she awkwardly assured, trying to correct her aim.

"Teacup!" cried Trixie, a bolt of eldritch magic wrapping around one of the larger attackers. She could feel his fortitude struggling, trying to remain itself despite her efforts, but she kept pressing. "Tea... cup!" The creature had turned towards her, charging at her galloping form. With an unhealthy snap, his legs became the bottom of the cup and shattered just as quickly. He tumbled forward with an agonized cry, short lived as it was, the rest of him becoming porcelain along the way, shattering on the ground in countless pieces.

"Ha, yes, take--" A magic bolt suddenly came from nowhere, grabbing her upper and lower halves and giving a cruel pull. "Nnno. You will... not outmagic... Trixie." Her horn glowed brightly, trying to counteract the magic. "She is too... Great... and..." With a suddenly loud noise of wet flesh splitting, her body gave way, ripped in two.

At least the merchants were getting away, fleeing in abject panic into the darkness. Garou was pinned beneath his own shield dome, countless bloodthirsty faces leering at him, waiting for the chance to finish what they had begun.

Author's Note

This fight is not going according to plan. Who wrote this script?!

Written early for patreons who got this ahead of everyone else. Want to get early chapters, or even your own story written? atreon!

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