He Always Comes Back

"Come on, come all! Witness the awesome magical prowess of the one, the only, the...GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!!!" Trixie held her arms up with pride, only to open one of her eyes and notice she wasn't drawing a particularly large crowd, or any size crowd at all. Trixie sighed and slumped herself down onto the floor. "Why does nobody want to come watch my magic shows anymore? I used to be talk of the school, and then all that dumb magic stuff happened!!" She held her face in her hands for a little bit, letting out a frustrated groan. "What's it going to take for people to notice me again?!"

Standing beside Trixie was one of her faithful assistants, Fuschia Blush, who was helping her out as an assistant for her magic acts. "Maybe if you grew horse ears and wings, some hair extensions too, then people would notice you more?" She suggested, though unsure if what she was saying would actually be meaningful in any way to Trixie.

Trixie lifted her face and looked up. "Oh, yeah! Gee, why didn't I think of that? Fuschia, you're a genius!" She forced a smile on her face, an obvious sarcastic tone in her voice.

"Ooh, really?"

"No. Not really. Not really at all!" Trixie stood up on her feet and shot a glare at Fuschia. "I need to find a way to be BETTER than magical pony-girls. There has got to be something I can do!" She made her frustrations clear as she began to pack up her things. "...Sorry for snapping, I just...want to feel like I'm loved for what I do, but nobody even bothers to look these days."

Fuschia gave her boss a concerned look. "Hey, me and Lavender love what you do. How about you go home and rest, and I can maybe search the library for something?"

Trixie smiled a little bit. "Heh...I'd appreciate that. Thank you. Don't stay here too late, though." She gave Fuschia a pat on the shoulder before walking down the hallway, stopping at a vending machine to grab a packet of peanut-butter crackers, before resuming her walk. Fuschia watched until Trixie turned a corner in the hallway and left her line of sight.

Later that night

"Books, books, books...magic books." Fuschia wandered in between the various book shelves in Canterlot High's library, trying to find a section of books that could help Trixie's magic shows become popular again. "Why is it that this library never has the things people actually need?" She kicked the nearest bookshelf, regretting it and holding her foot mere seconds later. "Ow..."

Once the pain began to subside, she continued wandering around, trying to find some magic books. As she journeyed around the library, she suddenly bumped into somebody else, knocking herself over. "Hey, watch where you-" Fuschia blinked as she stared at the girl she bumped into. "Uh, Pinkie Pie?" She seemed confused as Pinkie grinned, holding a pile of books in her hands. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting cook books, silly!" Pinkie giggled. "Principal Celestia put me in charge of getting together the food for the big anniversary thing we're doing, and I want to make sure that what I make is super-extra special, and for that I need just a little bit more than my usual level of expertise! Hence the books." She smiled brightly.

Fuschia was still confused. "Anniversary?"

Pinkie nodded. "Yep! The big, super-tragic anniversary of those poor kids who went missing about 34 years ago. They used to be students here, so Principal Celestia felt it would only be respectful for us to hold an anniversary event in their memory." She added some more cooking books to her already impressive pile before looking at Fuschia again. "So, are you looking for magical books to help Trixie?"

"Wait, how did you..."

"I heard you talking to yourself earlier. You should try keeping it down, because..." She leaned closer to Fuschia, taking on a more hushed voice. "It's a library." She leaned backwards, returning her voice to normal. "Have you tried looking in that spooky corner over there? That bit might have some magic books." Pinkie pointed toward an abnormally dark corner of the library, that Fuschia hadn't noticed before. It gave off an uncomfortable, intimidating feeling. "You're welcome! Too-da-loo!" Pinkie smiled as she skipped her way out of the library, cooking books in hand and in her hair.

Fuschia stood still, a little surprised but also grateful that somebody was able to point her in a direction. "Um, thanks." She spoke in the direction Pinkie fled to before heading toward the darkened corner. Almost immediately, she felt a wave of dread wash over her. It was just a dark corner, what did she have to be scared of? She wasn't a kid anymore, so she wasn't sure why she was feeling so scared of a corner in the library.

Once she braved up enough to step into the shadows, she was greeted by a rusted, poorly maintained book shelf, covered with dust and cobwebs that would surely spark concern of poor cleaning on the part of the school. The shelf was largely empty, save for one book. As Fuschia walked over to the book, she began to wonder just how long it had been left there. It looked as though it had been glued to the shelf, a strange and thick black liquid coming from the book's pages and seeping down the shelf, pooling on the floor. "Eww...someone really needs to clean this up...disgusting." She cringed slightly as she laid a hand on the front cover.

She closed her eyes and gripped the book's cover before pulling with all her might and ripping the book from the black substance gluing it to the shelf. Fuschia looked at the book's cover, the writing having faded quite heavily due to time and the black liquid. She opened up the book, finding that most of the earlier pages had been glued together, not willing to separate no matter how hard Fuschia pulled at them. "This book is useless! Trixie's gonna kill me tomorrow..." She groaned before a couple of pages finally gave way and separated, once again filled with faded writing, but thankfully there were pictures to accompany what the text was supposed to be saying.

The pictures were doing nothing to calm Fuschia's nerves, however. One seemed to depict a tall, humanoid doll surrounded by grey ghostly figures wearing what appeared to be animal masks, another showed a yellow rabbit-looking figure surrounded by flame, a man watching over with a dark expression. The third picture looked as though it was depicting a dungeon, a pair of purple eyes and a poorly drawn purple grin behind the bars of a cell. "Well...I guess this book must be all about ancient magic and stuff. I'll see what Trixie thinks of it."

Pulling her bag over her shoulder, Fuschia unzipped the bag and placed the filthy book inside before unzipping the bag and walking out of the corner. She still couldn't shake off the feeling of dread she had upon first seeing the corner, and as she walked down the halls of Canterlot High, Fuschia couldn't shake the feeling that...something was following her. Stopping for a second and letting out a shaky breath, Fuschia turned around, catching a brief glimpse of a shadow-y figure moving swiftly behind the corner. Screaming a little, Fuschia made a mad dash for the exit, leaving the school and running back home before she could get a better look at whatever the figure was.

In an undisclosed location...

Within a dilapidated and very poorly maintained house, somebody was stirring within a bed. Mumbling unintelligbly to himself in his sleep, twisting and turning while doing so, the man suddenly shot up, letting out a quick scream followed by several shaky, fast breaths. "...No..." He spoke between breaths as he threw the covers off of him and walked over to a door-mounted mirror.

The man looked at himself carefully, his discolored skin giving off a slightly pale glow under the moonlight shining through his window, his eyes glowing with a faint white light as he looked down at himself. Sighing a little and moving his hand over a semi-healed wound in his abdomen before buttoning up his shirt and leaving his house.

Unlocking his car, the man got into the driver seat and looked at the house carefully. "...I thought this was all over. I just hope I can come home after this.." He spoke to himself before pulling out of his driveway and driving off into the night.