The Great And Powerful Trixie Lulatoon

Trixie frowned as she read over the letter again. She didn’t know how that pink one from Ponyville had managed to get a letter to her while she was on the road, and she didn’t know why the mare had gone to the effort just to invite her to a Nightmare Night party as if Trixie was going to enter that town for another round of humiliation. The only reason she hadn’t tossed it out the moment she’d read it was the last line at the bottom.

Costume Contest: 1st Prize 100 Bits

It wasn’t something to be easily ignored. Most contests she came across only had a pittance for a prize, but a hundred Bits were a good show’s earnings just for showing up with the best costume.

Of course, that was another problem by itself. Trixie had neither the money nor the time to spend on elaborate disguises rather than her show outfit. And she knew from experience that her cape and hat did not count as a costume to most ponies. Holidays like this were usually some of her most lucrative nights, but for Nightmare Night her earnings and the size of her audience both plummeted if she couldn’t convince the crowd that her work clothes qualified as a costume.

Trixie grumbled as she folded the letter up again before stopping at the realization that her hooves had carried her down some dead-end alley while she’d been distracted. And not just any dead-end alley, but right up in front of a dingy dark store that looked suspiciously similar to one she’d last seen in a town half a country away.

Trixie looked back over her shoulder at the much brighter street right outside the alley and the total lack of notice from the ponies walking past. Then to the store that was guaranteed to have a winning costume for a ludicrously cheap price. Then down at the letter again.

She sighed and tucked the letter back into her mane, pushing open the door.

The little bell over the door jingled happily as she stepped into a surprisingly well-lit shop that fit in no way with the dirty and dingy alleyway it was situated in or the dark and dreary atmosphere of the last shop of this kind that she’d visited. The array of random wares also was a lot more colorful and, quite frankly, more on display than the half-hidden secrets of last time, if not even more weird and nonsensical.

There was a sound of a door from somewhere out of sight and a young earth pony stallion holding an elaborate masquerade mask on a stick in front of his face came up from the back of the shop, cheerfully leaning on the counter while keeping his face obscured. “Welcome to my little shop of mystical mysteries. If you’re here, then you’re looking for something only I can provide. Or Barnyard Bargains, but my stock isn’t mass-produced.”

Trixie glared suspiciously at the merchant. “Trixie has done this song and dance before. Trixie asks for a magical artifact to suit her needs, gets cursed, goes mad and is beaten and driven away in disgrace while being down her hard-earned savings.”

“Well yes, that is how these things generally work.” The merchant picked up a deck of cards, shuffling them casually between his hooves. “Nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid. Franchising, you see, it’s part of the contract. Although I like to think that I’m generally a lot more fun about these things than my competitors.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t much care about your fun. Trixie needs a costume that’s able to win a contest and doesn’t send her on a cursed rampage.” She pursed her lips. “Well, not one that would have her paying more than the prize money’s worth. Or being disqualified.” A mare had to eat after all, and morality was all well and good for other ponies who weren’t still paying off their second new caravan.

“A contest? Say no more, I have just the thing for you~!” The stallion turned around, transferring his mask to his tail to mask his backside instead as he rummaged around in some shelves. “Ah-hah!”
He turned around again to hold up a stack of black and white fabric. “The perfect costume for a mare of your temperament! A magician’s outfit!”

Trixie stared at him for a moment. “Trixie is a magician. Trixie already owns a magician’s outfit.”

“Then this should be perfectly comfortable for you~” The merchant grinned at her, pushing the stack her way. “Just give it a try, I promise you won’t regret it.”

She stared down at the stack, then at him again. “How cursed is this costume.”

He wiggled his hoof in a so-so motion. “Moderately cursed? Strange magic powers, touch of madness, should wear off after a week or so, probably. Just think of it as a bad cold.”

Trixie stared at him.

“There’s a considerable chance of taking morally ambiguous but not irredeemably evil revenge on the ones you feel slighted by.”

Trixie held the eye contact as she slowly slid the costume closer to herself.

“Changing rooms are right down the left!”

Trixie dumped the stack down on the bench of the changing room to look it over. It wasn’t much, just an admittedly rather fancy and elegant looking black cape with red lining, a top hat and…

“...why are there gloves?” She picked up one of the clean white four-fingered gloves, batting at the fingers with the tip of her rather obviously fingerless hooves before carelessly tossing it back to the bench, grumbling something unflattering about the store owner under her breath as she instead decided to try on the cape.

As she struggled with the too-long cape, the discarded glove started to move behind her back. Standing up on two fingers and brushing itself off before stemming the other two fingers to its side angrily. After glaring at Trixie’s back for a moment it jumped back up onto the bench, rousing its partner before pushing up the top hat to crawl inside, coming out a moment later with a large and shiny pocket watch. The two gloves looked at each other and nodded, one cracking its knuckles before jumping up to tug at Trixie’s tail while the other floated up above her eye level.

“Yeargh! What the-” Trixie yelped at the pull on her tail and spun around, only to come face to face with the shiny golden pocket watch swinging right in front of her eyes. “...haaaayyy…?” She froze in confusion, eyes locked onto the sparkling gems set into the face of the watch in a swirling pattern, head moving slightly as she followed it back and forth, back and forth…

The other glove moved up to snap its fingers in her face, getting her attention just long enough to gesture for her to sit down before the unicorn’s eyes locked back onto the swinging pocket watch again, pupils already filled with swirls. Another gesture and Trixie raised her hooves, making the gloves drop the watch back into the top hat before jumping forward to slip over her hooves.

Trixie blinked a few times in confusion at the sudden lack of focus, head tilting down to stare at the gloves on her hooves with still swirly eyes, the fingers dangling around uselessly. She stared a moment longer before blinking again and taking a deep breath, bringing one of her hooves up to her face to bite down on the limp thumb and start blowing into it, inflating the glove like a balloon. A short breather later and she was doing the same to the other glove, blowing them up until they were each easily bigger than her head.

She blinked again, the spirals slowly fading from her eyes as she stared at the two huge gloves blocking her vision, feeling an odd pressure building against her hooves. “Wha…?” There was a loud shoooomph and the gloves suddenly rapidly deflated, pushing a huge bulge of air down her forelegs and leaving a pair of perfectly solid and animate gloves attached to a pair of long noodly blue arms. Before Trixie could question what happened however the air reached her shoulders and went up, her vision suddenly going up towards the ceiling as her head was inflated like a balloon, puffing out her cheeks and ears and everything else to triple the size.

Trixie flailed around for a moment before her hands found her cheeks and gave them a push, forcing the air back down into her body and leaving a still fur-covered but considerably less ponyish face. Her back hooves floated an inch off the floor for a moment as her body ballooned out in the shape of a blimp before the air shifted with another shoooomph, pushing out her chest and her rump into considerably bigger and rounder shapes while leaving her barrel as a thin hourglass waist. Her hind legs stretched out slightly but experienced the least changes, leaving the newly minted anthropomorphized toonicorn standing on a pair of hooves and stocky legs.

She wobbled and flailed her arms comically for a moment until she managed to find her balance and turn around to the large mirror in the corner, giggling as she posed and stretched her limbs and clapped her hands and snapped her fingers, putting on the now much better fitting cape and top hat and ignoring the faint swirls still visible in her eyes. “Oh, the Great and Powerful Trixie is going to have lots of fun at that party~”