WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?

ONE WEEK LATER

In the Ponyville town square, a stage unfolded from a wagon as a booming voice announced the arrival of the "The Great and Powerful Trixie". Shortly afterwards, Trixie appeared in a puff of smoke and gave a very prideful smile to the curious spectators. She had been preparing for this show ever since she left the hospital and she was fully aware of the fact that she could not afford any self-doubt or imperfection whatsoever.

However, she had also figured that it would not hurt to increase the boasting she normally did during these kinds of performances. After all, she had to gain as much income as she could before the deadline that the doctor had given her and desperate times required desperate measures.

With that in mind, she dramatically claimed to be the most magical unicorn in all of Equestria before setting off several fireworks and therefore impressing the citizens. A small group of ponies, however, remained unimpressed and one of them, a cyan-coated pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane, demanded to know what made Trixie so special. Irritated by this, Trixie declared that she once saved the town of Hoofington from an "ursa major" by sending it back to the Everfree Forest. She then challenged anyone in Ponyville to step up, saying that she can surpass anyone’s abilities.

Soon enough, an orange-coated Earth pony with a cowboy hat accepted the challenge and performed a rodeo rope trick. In response, Trixie made the rope imitate a hypnotic snake that hog-tied the Earth pony. Next, the pegasus from earlier gathered moisture from clouds to create a mini-rainbow, but Trixie used magic to whirl the rainbow into a funnel and trapped the pegasus in it, spinning her around until she was dizzy.

Right after that, a white-coated unicorn with a lavender mane declined the challenge, saying that she is "above all this nonsense". But when Trixie goaded her into accepting by insulting her mane, she decided to demonstrate elegance by creating a costume out of stage curtains. Trixie responded by using her magic to turn Rarity's hair into a mottled slime-green mess with a stick and two rats' tails poking out of it. The unicorn then ran off in humiliation and even tearfully cried, “Such an awful, awful color!” A nearby green-haired Earth pony frowned on that and said, “Well, I never!”

Immediately afterwards, Trixie overheard a purple baby dragon with green spikes on his back trying to convince another unicorn with a purple coat to confront her. She therefore challenged that unicorn, but she quickly ran away. With no one left to face her, Trixie declared herself as “the most amazing unicorn in all of Equestria".

After the show, Trixie was busy packing her stuff and cleaning herself up when suddenly a couple of unicorn colts brought her a smoothie with extra hay, claiming that it was"just how she liked it". They also wanted to hear how she defeated the ursa major, but Trixie brushed them off, telling them she was way too exhausted and that they should not bother her until morning. As soon as they left, she retreated into her wagon, laid on a makeshift bed, and began contemplating on what she had done in the last few hours. She hated to admit it, but she did feel a twinge of regret about challenging innocent townsfolk, beating them at their own game, and humiliating them in front of their fellow citizens. Perhaps, she really had gone overboard with her boasting this time and she should probably give them a proper apology. However, there was also no need to rush it as she was scheduled to perform one more show in the morning before receiving her paycheck and leaving the town for good. Therefore, she could simply apologize to them after the show and depart in peace.

Thinking about all this, coupled with the exhaustion she had felt from her earlier performance, made her fall asleep really quickly and as she lost her consciousness, she began dreaming about the life she was planning to start with her brother after his treatment. They were going to live in a small quiet town like Ponyville, own a real house, and finally become a real family (or as close to a family as they could get). Plus, she was going to teach him everything she knew about stage magic so that he could one day succeed her as a performer and allow her to find a far less stressful job.

Before she could imagine what that job would be, however, she was awakened in the middle of the night by some pony banging on her door. Even though she was greatly annoyed by this, she nevertheless went to see who it was and came across the two colts who were bothering her earlier. She furiously asked them what was it that they could not wait to ask her about until morning when suddenly, she received her answer in the form of a gigantic blue bear with razor-sharp teeth roaring as loudly as thunder. She screamed in pure terror upon seeing it and became even more shocked when the colts revealed that they brought the creature to Ponyville so that they could watch her vanquish it. Despite her immense fear of the creature, she nevertheless decided to at least try to vanquish it so that both her reputation and everyone in town could be saved.

She first attempted to tie up the bear with a rope, but unfortuantely, she had enough rope to only tie up two of its fingers and the beast very easily broke through the bond with one snap. She then used her magic to form a storm cloud and send a couple streaks of lightning to the bear's backside, but they were so small that they caused little to no damage and only made the creature even angrier than before. When the colts questioned the now-panicking Trixie about the reason for her failure in defeating the bear, she reluctantly admitted that she made up the whole story of her vanquishing an ursa major just so she could look great and powerful in front of the town.

While they were taken aback by this revelation, the bear once again roared with pure rage and as the colts ran away in terror, Trixie just stood there, out of ideas and completely paralyzed from fear. Then, it raised one of its paws to the air and-

CRACK!!!

With a single strike of its paw, the bear not only shattered Trixie's horn, but also sent her flying several feet away and she was knocked unconscious upon hitting the ground.

When she finally woke up, it was still night and the bear was nowhere to be seen. In its place, there was a large group of ponies circled around her, curiously staring at her and exchanging whispers with each other. There was also the unicorn with a purple-colored coat from before standing right beside her and gazing at her with a concerned look on her face.

Upon seeing her, Trixie started rising back up with some difficulty and managed to ask, "W-where am I? W-what happened?"

Just as she lost her balance and was about to fall back to the ground, the purple unicorn caught her at the last second and softly explained, "It's okay. The bear's gone. I sent it back to the Everfree Forest while you were unconscious. It won't trouble you or the town any longer. Oh, by the way, I don't think we've officially met. I'm Twilight Sparkle, the owner of the Golden Oak Library and the personal student of Princess Celestia."

Trixie began to smile upon hearing this and said, "I-I'm Trixie Lulamoon. Nice to meet you, Twilight."

Unfortunately, her smile soon turned into pure horror when she realized that her horn had been broken. As a result, she let out an extremely loud scream and then exlaimed, "MY HORN! It's... IT'S GONE! No, no, no, no! This can't be happening! What am I gonna do?! WHAT AM I GONNA DO?!"

As she began sobbing, Twilight tried to help her regain her composure by saying, "Wait, calm down! I know this looks bad, but it's not the end of the world!"

"Yes, it is the end! THE END FOR ME!", cried Trixie. "Don't you get it?! From now on, I simply can't put on any more shows! Without my magic, I'VE LOST EVERYTHING!"

"Well, it's about darn time you came to that conclusion, missy!", said the orange-coated Earth pony from earlier as she and her equally unamused companions emerged from the crowd. "If you ask me, losing that horn was the best thing that could've happened to you. That way, you can learn a thing or two about just how dangerous showing off your talents and exaggerating your accomplishments are."

"Wait, you don't understand!", Trixie tried to explain. "I need my magic now more than ever! I have a little br-"

"Oh, don't you dare try to come up with an excuse to justify what you did!", interjected the white-coated unicorn with a lavender mane. "You boasting about your abilities and telling implausible tales of success was what led to that horrible beast coming here in the first place."

"I KNOW! And I'm really sorry for that!", exclaimed Trixie. "Please, I'll leave your town first thing in the morning. Let me just collect my paycheck and then you'll never have to see me again."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute!", the cyan-coated pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane replied. "You expect us to pay you for putting on a show where you humiliated me and my friends in front of the whole town, and telling a ridiculous story that made two colts bring here a humongous rampaging monster?"

Right after finishing that sentence, she began laughing extremely hard at what she had said. Soon enough, not just her friends, but also the entire town started to laugh with her. In fact, the only one of them who was not laughing was Twilight as she was rather confused by what was going on.

Trixie, on the other hand, was in so much emotional pain at that moment. The entire Ponyville mocking her, coupled with the fact that the loss of her horn meant no more money from magic shows, was simply too much for her to bear. She was crying even more than she was before and even though she tried covering her ears, the laughing was still as loud as ever.

And so, she could not take it any longer and promptly ran away from there with her wagon as fast as she could, leaving a genuinely worried Twilight to ponder what they had done and how this action could possibly affect them in the near future.