It was only a few weeks until the big day, the Coronation of Twilight Sparkle, and Ponyville had come out to celebrate their homegrown Princess one last time before she left to take her place as their ruler in Canterlot. A whole festival had been organized by Pinkie Pie herself, and everycreature was invited.
The day started with food and dancing, catering provided by both Sugarcube Corner and the local Burger Princess establishment, and would continue on with games and music throughout the day. And once Princess Luna arrived, the nighttime shows would begin beneath a spectacular, starry sky.
And what shows! An entire circus, out from Las Pegasus, seemed to fill the main square of the town. Jugglers, acrobats, and even fire-eaters entertained the crowds. Changelings showed off their transformations, Dragons their fire-breath, and chefs of every tribe and creature performed in the cook-off.
But there was one event that everycreature was looking forward to. Even the Princesses seemed entranced and excited for the final show of the night.
A magic show, performed by Ponyville’s own Trixie, the Great and Powerful.
The stage, set up that morning right in front of Town Hall, was a sight to behold. It was wreathed in lavender and midnight blue bunting, with a shimmering silver and blue curtain hiding the backstage from view.
Twilight and her close friends were sitting in the very front of the audience, applauding as wildly as the rest when fireworks began to light up the night.
Trixie hit the stage, and for almost a solid hour she held it with aplomb. The infamous azure unicorn knew her craft, and dazzled the crowd with her magical mastery. Even Twilight Sparkle, who was notoriously at odds with the self-aggrandizing magician, seemed to be having the time of her life, laughing and cheering along with the Ponyville crowd, who was also notoriously at odds with Trixie Lulamoon.
But the show had to end sometime, and Trixie would end it in her usual, spectacular way.
“Thank you! Thank you!” She waved to the audience, “You’ve been wonderful, Ponyville! But all good things must come to an end, and that includes this show. But I won’t leave you wanting more! The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie! Will leave you with one, Final, Act!”
The showpony waved to somepony offstage, and to everycreature’s unbelief, not only did Trixie’s longtime assistant, Starlight Glimmer, walk on-stage… but so also did Princess Luna herself! The waiting crowd hushed as they appeared.
“With Trixie’s lovely assistants,” the magician gave her pointed hat a flourish towards Starlight and Luna, “I shall perform a feat of magic only performed once before… by none other than Twilight Sparkle herself!”
The citizens of Ponyville, having honed a survival sense after dealing with disaster after disaster, instinctively glanced towards Princess Twilight. The purple Alicorn had started the performance laughing and cheering, like them. But, within seconds, she had slowly shifted to a guarded curiosity after hearing Trixie’s pronouncement.
What feat of magic could she be talking about?
Luna and Starlight took up positions on either side of Trixie, each about ten feet away from the stage magician.
“And now,” Trixie’s beaming grin could be seen from the back row, “I shall take the magic of these two ponies, combine them… and prove to all that I am truly the Greatest and Most Powerful Magician of all time!
“For, tonight!” She lifted herself onto her hind legs and pointed another hoof directly at the sky, “Trixie shall ascend to… Alicornhood!”
The audience was stunned to silence, every mouth agape and eyes locked onto the stage. Trixie had made some bold claims in the past, usually about paying rent, but this was on a whole new level.
The only pony in attendance who wasn’t shocked into silence, was Twilight Sparkle herself.
“WHAT!?” Her voice cracked the night.
“Calm down, sugarcube,” the orange mare to her immediate right placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder, “No need ta git excited.”
“I’m not excited,” Twilight hissed, “I’m furious!”
A rainbow-maned mare on her other side shrugged, “Eh, what’s the big deal? It’s Trixie! She’ll either fake it, or blow herself up.”
“That was one time…” Trixie groaned, rolling her eyes at the memory.
“No big deal?” Twilight glared at her friends, “It’s a very big deal! Alicornhood isn’t something you joke about, or take lightly! I haven’t even managed to swing it for you girls, and you’ve saved the world a couple of times. Each!”
Princess Luna spoke from the stage, “Twilight Sparkle, you needn’t worry too much on that account. ‘Tis a show, after all.”
“Oh, Twilight,” Trixie tut-tutted, “So obsessed with friendship and magic that you never stopped to think about the magic…”
A firework flew out from her horn and created a startling, beautiful display above the, once-again, cheering audience.
“... of Showponyship!” she concluded with fanfare and dramatic flourish.
Twilight folded her forelegs in front of her, and pouted, “... ‘s not magic…”
“And so!” Trixie struck her greatest and most powerful pose, “Without further ado, Starlight! Luna!”
Both Alicorn and unicorn’s horns alighted with blue and turquoise magic, their combined power causing the very air to hum.
“Light me up!”
Starlight and Luna lowered their horns, and each let loose a stream of brilliant light. The entirety of Ponyville was alight with it, shining as though the sun, or more appropriately, the moon, had landed in the town square.
But nothing, barring the sun itself, could glow as the traveling showmare did at that moment. At the center of two beams of magic, from two of the most powerful practitioners in all the world, Trixie Lulamoon appeared to be a living star. A silver candle flame writ large.
She was Great. She was Powerful!
She was burning alive.
Trixie’s screams would haunt the dreams of everycreature who heard them that night. And that would include many creatures, as the shrill, air-splitting cry would carry as far as the Everfree Forest on a night this clear.
“I can’t stop it!” Starlight cried out, just as the whole stage was taken in a flash of white-hot light.
A general panic began to set in. The ponies of Equestria were still skittish and prone to overreaction, and tonight they were living down to that reputation, immediately quivering in their horseshoes and looking to bolt for the hills.
Or, they normally would. But at that moment, ignoring the eighty-percent-disintegrated stage before them, Princess Twilight and the Elements of Harmony leapt into action. Twilight called out for a general calm, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash swept around the sides of the crowd, preventing anycreature from starting an out-of-control stampede. Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy jumped up to the stage and quickly pulled the dumbstruck Luna and Starlight away from the blackened gap where Trixie had once stood.
Spike, brave and glorious as he was, had fainted dead away when Trixie exploded.
“This…” Twilight managed to say after a few minutes, “This is awful!”
“Poor Trixie!” Pinkie’s mane deflated as she began to realize that there was no ‘ta-da’ coming.
Starlight, currently sitting on the grass and wrapped in a blanket, said nothing. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from the ruined stage.
“Twilight,” Luna sighed, “Perhaps we should cancel the remainder of the night’s festivities?”
Twilight hadn’t heard her. She was still staring at the stage as well.
She was right there. And then, she wasn’t…
“Twilight Sparkle!”
That got the lavender Alicorn’s attention, forcing her to look at the Princess of the Night.
Luna met Twilight’s misty eyes with her own, steeled, but not unsympathetic.
“Twilight,” she said softly, “I am so sorry, but we must consider the other ponies.”
“You’re right,” Twilight lowered her head and sighed heavily. A night meant to say farewell to Ponyville’s Princess had instead said a sudden, tragic farewell to one of its own.
“You’re right,” she repeated, “We should…”
“Darlings?” Rarity looked up into the sky, “Are my eyes deceiving me? Or, does it rather appear that there’s a second moon out tonight?”
Fluttershy narrowed her eyes, and turned to Pinkie Pie.
“Pinkie, if you spiked the punch again, I’m going to be so peeved…”
“I spiked the cupcakes, not the punch!”
“Girls…?” Twilight was looking up now, and what she saw…
A silvery light was quickly descending from the heavens. It came down, swiftly, but not like a crashing comet or meteor. It was moving with grace, and purpose. It glided down on ethereal winds, and made to land just at the edge of the ruined stage.
Twilight couldn’t believe what she was looking at. It wasn’t a simple light. It wasn’t a comet. It wasn’t even a pony.
It was a star. A silvery-blue star.
And then, in a flash, the star had gone. And left behind in its wake, appeared to be a very familiar showpony, kneeling down before the audience.
Trixie Lulamoon stood up, and to a chorus of gasps and surprise, she unfurled her wings.
The whole of Ponyville was silent. Utter and complete, shocked and horrified.
Except for Twilight.
“WHAT!?” Her Royal Canterlot Voice shook the buildings in the square, “HOW!?”
Trixie, however, merely struck another pose, one fitting of an Alicorn, and smiled.
“Ta da!!!” she sang, flapping her wings dramatically. Even considering the slight increase to her size from the wings, her stage presence was never as commanding as this.
And the audience erupted. There were cheers, there were whistles. Popcorn and other treats sailed through the air alongside a bevy of party cannon confetti launched by the newly re-inflated Pinkie. In the back, somewhere, a musical number began to start up.
All of which was stopped, dead, by Twilight Sparkle.
“NO!” she snarled, “Explain! NOW!”
Starlight and Luna, jaws hanging, joined her in approaching the showmare.
“What is there to explain?” Trixie smirked, now able to do it at perfect eye level to the Princess of Friendship once again. “I have proven my great and powerful credentials…”
“No! No, you have not!”
“Twilight,” Luna said, reproachfully, “Tis a happy occasion! Trixie has not yet passed from this world. In fact, she would appear to be an immortal Alicorn Princess, as you or I are!”
“Ali…” Twilight’s eye began to twitch, “Alicorn… Princess… Immortal!?”
Starlight shook her head, as though she were trying to wake herself up from a dream.
“Indeed!” Trixie laughed, “Such is the power of the Great and, uh, Powerful Trixie!!!”
“Immortal,” Twilight’s twitching moved to her face, “She’s… she’s immortal… immortal Alicorn…”
Starlight frowned, suddenly looking quite worried for her former mentor, “Twilight? Are you feeling okay…?”
“Fine!” Twilight smiled in such a way that her teeth ground against each other for a moment, “Why wouldn’t I be fine? It’s just that, of all the ponies who could have become immortal Alicorns, for some inexplicable reason, it was… Trixie. So, I’m going to be stuck with her forever…”
Applejack, watching her friend’s breathing grow more and more haggard, reached out one last time, “Twi? I think ya’ll need ta simmer down…”
“Need!?” Twilight slapped the hoof away, “Do you know what I need? I need… space! That’s it! I need space. I need… a moment. I just need…”
Her breathing quickened, and it was plain to the denizens of Ponyville that their beloved Princess was in the throes of full-on, Red Alert, Twilighting. Her eyes dilated, and she started laughing in between gasps.
“No, you know what I need?” Twilight turned a manic look over towards the newest Alicorn, “Princess Celestia. She’ll know what to do!”
And with a blast of purple light, she was gone.
“Can…” Fluttershy glanced around, just in case somepony else would ask the question instead, “Can she teleport all the way to Canterlot?”
Nocreature answered. There wasn’t a single being in that crowd who much cared about the answer at the moment. All eyes were on the spot where the Princess of Friendship had been standing a moment before… and they were moving slowly to the stage.
Trixie Lulamoon. Was an Alicorn. The mare that had once enslaved the whole town, and was responsible for half a dozen magical disasters that didn’t also include the Cutie Mark Crusaders in some way.
That skittish herd mentality was just about to kick in, when Starlight broke down into a fit of laughter.
“Alright,” Pinkie seemed lost in thought a moment, “I’m starting to suspect I did spike the punch…”
Starlight laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Even Trixie was starting to look at her assistant and Bestie funny when the magical mare finally seemed to collect herself.
“Oh boy!” she gasped, another chuckle bubbling up before she added, “That was the best prank ever!”
The audience murmured darkly for a moment, the words ‘prank’, and ‘hanging offence’ being thrown about liberally. But Starlight had her own sort of stage presence, honed from years of leading a cult… which she would rather everypony forget about, but never mind.
She held up a hoof, and waited for the crowd to quiet down some. “Don’t worry, everypony. Trixie did not actually ascend. It was all a gag!”
It was a tough crowd. Few laughed. Fewer made a sound as they awaited the rest of the explanation.
“Trixie, Princess Luna, and I thought it might be kind of fun to play a little joke on Twilight,” Starlight explained, “They’ve always had a weird rivalry thing, so we thought it’d be fun to play on that for the night. Don’t panic! We already told Celestia about the joke. Twilight isn’t going to blow up the town or anything.”
The crowd seemed… mostly convinced. There were even a few genuine smiles here and there.
And then, Rainbow Dash asked, “What about the wings?”
Starlight shook her head, and walked over to Trixie. “Just a complex series of illusion spells. Trixie and I made them ourselves. See?”
She reached out and tapped one of Trixie’s folded wings. It flinched and twitched like a real wing.
“Hey!” Trixie stepped away from the hit, one hoof up and nursing the spot where Starlight had tapped her, “Those are sensitive!”
Starlight blinked. She blinked again, and looked down at the wings.
“Uh, wow. I didn’t think we made them so solid… or gave them nerve feedback.”
“What are you talking about?” Trixie gave her best friend a deadpan look, “They’re sensitive because they’re new! I just got them a minute ago.”
Starlight’s eye twitched.
“Trixie?” she asked, her voice straining, “Dispel the illusion.”
The showmare frowned, clearly not understanding.
“Trixie,” Starlight said, a little more forceful, and a little more twitchy, “Get rid of the Alicorn disguise. You’re freaking ponies out!”
Trixie looked down at her wings. And then, she looked up at her slightly longer horn. She looked back towards Starlight, and gave a helpless little shrug.
“Uh… ta da?”
The pink unicorn paused, her eyes losing focus.
“I’m...” Starlight’s horn began to glow, “I’m just gonna go...”
With a pop, and a burst of light, she was gone. Which left all those ponies alone with Trixie Lulamoon... Alicorn Princess.
Herd mentality. Skittishness. Panic. Panic. The ponies were panicking. Everycreature was starting to panic.
“I’m kinda wishing you did spike the punch now, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash took a step backward from the ruined stage and the unstable showpony with god-like magical power standing a few feet away.
But… once again, laughter would save the night.
Princess Luna fell over onto her side, laughing like a maniac. She held onto her stomach as she guffawed and bellowed and rolled across the ground like a pony possessed.
It was starting to become unnerving. Very unnerving. Even Trixie was starting to step away from the giggling goddess.
“Oh, oh, how they thought they were the masters of this game!” Luna started standing up, still shaking with bouts of laughter.
“Ah, Your Highness?” Rarity tried to speak with as classy and un-shaken demeanor as she could muster, “Would you kindly let us all in on what is so funny? No offense to dear Trixie…”
“Trixie feels like some offense is forthcoming,” the showmare sighed.
“… but with her reputation…”
“There it is.”
“… you can see where we’d be concerned?”
The Princess’s eyes seemed to light up with starlight. Her mirth, now fully channeled away from raucous laughter, became a sort of aura about her. A mood that permeated the very air of night itself.
It was a motherly look she gave her ponies just then, and through that look alone did she try to calm her ponies and let them know there was truly nothing to fear this night.
“Ah, very well,” she made sure to make eye contact with as many creatures as she could as she spoke, hoping to allay their fears as efficiently as possible, “I merely added my own jest to Starlight Glimmer’s.”
Luna laid a wing over Trixie’s withers. “As an Alicorn, there are many spells afforded to me that could not be cast by even mighty unicorn mages. One of which is a very potent, solid, illusory spell.”
Trixie frowned, and looked down at her wings.
“So…” her voice was quiet, meek, “Trixie’s wings aren’t real? I’m not…?”
“An Alicorn? No.” Luna hugged the showpony closer, and gave her a gentle nuzzle atop her mane. “But that does not mean that We do not love you, Trixie Lulamoon. As We do all Our subjects. You are not diminished in any way by not being something. Your shows and your enthusiasm for your magic are an inspiration to Our little ponies, and We would not have you any different than as you are.”
A collective ‘aw’ rolled off the crowd. Even the Element Bearers found themselves looking on sympathetically, heart-warmed by the sight.
Trixie was, for once, speechless. Her smile was soft, and her eyes looked up to the Night Princess with a bounty of love and affection she could never fully express.
“Now,” Luna said, her horn alighting as she stepped away from Trixie, “I shall remove the illusion, and we can call this a completely successful show.”
The Alicorn’s horn lit up the night with its blue glow, bringing a peaceful calm back to the ponies and creatures of Ponyville. Luna smiled as she cast the dispelling effect, feeling her illusion melt away through her magical tactile senses.
Luna opened her eyes once it had been accomplished, and looked upon Trixie Lulamoon with pride.
And then, she blinked. And blinked.
“The…” she coughed, “The illusion seems to be slow in evaporating.”
Trixie held out her Alicorn wings, and gave them a few gentle flaps.
“Uh, Your Highness? I can still feel them.”
Luna nodded, her eyes now unblinking. “Indeed. Indeed. That is indeed what, indeed they… indeed…”
The two Alicorns stood before the ruined stage, staring at one another. They waited. And waited.
And they waited.
“Trixie does not think they are going away,” Trixie noted. “Huh… I guess the spell really worked.”
Luna hadn’t stopped nodding, “Indeed… so… You really mixed our magic and thine... I mean, yours?”
Trixie shrugged. “Well, yeah. I thought it would work. Seems Trixie was right.”
They looked out to the crowd. Every eye was rooted to them, still. Nocreature was breathing. Nocreature dared.
Except Pinkie.
“So…” she waved a hoof about in the air, “Should we be panicking yet?”
“Knock yourself out,” Trixie shrugged, again. It sort of fit the situation nicely.
The pink party mare nodded, “Thank you… EVERYPONY FOR THEMSELVES!!!!!”
Within moments, the entire town square would be emptied. Buildings would be torn down in the carnage, shops shattered, and stalls shot to pieces. The screams of stallions, mares, and foals filled the night air for miles around, and fires appeared to rise in the distance as rioting and looting took hold.
Which left Trixie to admire her new wings some more.
“I wonder if Dash could give me flying lessons?” she mused while checking how they could kick her cape out dramatically. She seemed pleased by the results.
“Indeed…”
“You keep saying that word,” Trixie frowned.
“Indeed… uh, I mean…” Luna shook her ethereal mane, and began pacing in place. Trixie knew that type of pacing. She called it her ‘Rent’ pace. She’d once hung out with the Flim Flam brothers, and they apparently called it their ‘Legal Loophole’ pace.
A very versatile pace, she noted.
Luna paused, and glanced off into the distance. If Trixie knew her geography (and what traveling showpony wouldn’t?), she figured the Princess was looking somewhere in the vicinity of Canterlot.
“Trixie?” Luna asked in a hollow voice.
Trixie swallowed, and tried to put on a brave face, “Uh… yes?”
Luna spun around.
Her face was Twilighting.
“Would you care to make your show a Two-Alicorn Production?”
Trixie started glancing around, wondering if she could run faster now that she had earth pony magic. She wasn’t sure she could fly, and she didn’t know how her teleport range had changed with the transformation.
“Why…?” she tried to stall.
This was not a wise move. Princess Luna was atop her instantly, her forehooves gripping Trixie’s collar, brining their muzzles to within inches of touching. At this range, Trixie could see the madness boiling in Luna’s eyes.
She could see the Beast Within.
“Listen to me, Trixie,” Luna snarled, “Either we get over the border before sunrise, or my sister will flay us both for this!”
“How long do we have to leave?” Trixie couldn’t look away, “Trixie has commitments!”
Luna threw the showmare onto her back and began galloping south.
“Oh, not forever!” she said, a bit of spittle escaping her lips, “Just a few centuries! You’ve got the time now! Let’s get going!”
The sun, despite being only half past midnight, began to loom over the horizon.
It was very red. Seething, even.
Not that Luna could tell. She was facing the complete opposite direction.
“I can hear my sister sharpening her hooves!!!”
