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                    Guilt of the Victor                    
                       -by Axwrend-                        
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                 The Return of a Showmare                  
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The Return of a Showmare
Chapter 1: The Return of a Showmare
<--{(1v2)}-->
Some say the ponies of old settled together in the first towns because the roads were dark and lonely.
They were right.
A light blue mare walked on through the night, her only companions the moon in the sky and the wind through her silvery hair, tangling her horn into it ever so slightly.
The road was her only friend, the only words exchanged the click of her weary hooves and their echo. She had known it for a long time...most of her life, in fact, and she had once thought that so long as it was open to her...she had everything she needed.
Anger flared at the reminder, an ugly flame in the travelers mind.
It wasn't until everything she had worked for had been taken away that she realized just how wrong that sentiment was.
She had been somepony, once, with a big magnificent cart with a built-in stage for her shows, and crowds waiting for her every time she rolled into town, her name on the lips of many fans.
With a shout, The Great and Powerful Trixie stomped the ground in fury, ignoring the sharp crack that resounded through the air.
All of it was gone now. All her possessions and trinkets from her travels. Her home. Her crowds. Even her precious hat and cape of many stars, passed to her by her mother,was lost to her.
And for what? A tall tale to spice up a show? The foolishness of two foalish colts who hear of a traveling magician chasing off an Ursa Major and decide to bring another for her to prove it? The fact that her every attempt to do so only made it angrier...
She ground her hoof against the worn road.
And then the Ursa was was sent back to it's cave almost effortlessly after having crushed everything she owned in it's rampage, her reputation ruined by her confession that her boast was only a story, and even more by the reveal that the Ursa she could do nothing to stop was only a baby.
To make matters worse, the blame was laid on her and she soon found herself chased out of that tiny town.
She took a deep breathe to cool down.
She didn't blame Ponyville, the place of her loss. She was angry at those two fools who brought the Ursa Minor to town, but had to admit that they were children and thus had an excuse for being completely idiotic.
But the unicorn...that unicorn that had taken care of the Ursa Minor so very easily...who had chosen to wait for Trixie's humiliation to be complete before stepping in...who had done nothing until it had lost Trixie everything!!
It was not something she could simply brush aside.
The magician's anger cooled as she gave the bags on her back a comforting pat, just enough for a sly smile to cross her face.
And since she could not simply brush it aside, she could only make that unicorn rue the day she ever though to use Trixie to feed her own ego!
Her plans were made, simple enough that they couldn't fail, and in the months that had followed their making she had set forth from town to town, odd jobs and the occasional show just enough for her to slowly piece together the materials of her payback.
But she was done with it now. All the odd jobs. All the seeking of items of some sort or other. It was only the road beneath her hooves and time now before that lavender mare would be put back into her place!!!
The magician laughed, wildly, freely. Revenge was hers! All she had to do was go and take it! She was close enough she could almost taste it...
Her laughing fell to sudden silence as her stomach growled unpleasantly, quickly bringing her out of her thoughts, standing on a long stretch of road cutting through the wide meadows that made up much of Equestria, the dark eerie shape of the Everfree forest looming menacingly in the thankfully far distance.
When had she stopped walking?
The roads to Ponyville from the places beyond it were long indeed,, and only her overstuffed bags kept her from packing up food for her journey. Ponies could eat grass, though it just wasn't very appetizing, lacking taste, pleasant texture, and the ever important guarantee of cleanliness.
Turning her gaze down the road, she let out a sigh of relief as she caught sight of the lights from the windows of the taller buildings, still a distance that caused her weary hooves to scream out in protest but...she was almost there.
She could not, would not stop, not when her plans were so close.
With a sigh, she resumed her long trudge through the night, paying no heed to the unfortunate acorn smashed carelessly underhoof.
<--{(1)}-->
Waking up was a slow process for the Magician, though it was still quicker by far then when she still slept in her carriage, in that wonderfully comfortable bed that was undeniably hers. Arguably, the reason behind the quicker pace of awakening was that it was harder to ignore the suns light when one lacked a roof over their head.
Violet eyes blinked away the blurriness of sleep, and she slowly gained awareness of the rough surface bracing her body.
Her mind slowly rebooted, the sights of her surrounding flowing to the front of her mind like a very thick syrup.
Buildings surrounded her distantly, and ponies made their way between them in the late morning. Slowly the characteristics of shops were picked out from those of houses, and little familiar details hounded her mind.
In fact, as she sluggishly turned her thoughts towards that end, everything was familiar. She just couldn't say where she was for the life of her until her eyes fell on the most memorable and recognizable building she had ever seen.
Every town had it's odd building out or two, and she had been to many towns....but none of them, not a single one, stuck in her memory like the Frosted Gingerbread Shop Sugarcube Corner did.
It was enough to send her memories, buried beneath the fatigue of waking up, come rushing back, and it took all her willpower to resist letting out a series of cheers. She didn't have near enough to keep from breaking into a great grin.
She had traveled through the night for hours, far past the point she would normally sleep, and arrived utterly exhausted, unable to do much more then find the closest park bench and collapse on it.
Which...was slightly shameful. She may have seemed to be a homeless pony while she slept, preventing passerby's from recognizing how great and powerful she was.
But she would show them. She would show them all! She was The Great and Powerful Trixie! And that included the The!
She would avenge herself against those who had wronged her! Those foals would at the very least get a cold shoulder and at the most used as demonstrations in her show...although they would probably love that second option. That rainbow maned pegasus would get something as well, possibly even a refusal to let her see her shows for leading the chase out of town...though that would probably hurt Trixie more then it hurt her.
Trixie ignored how she had simply run, and the pegasus had only chased briefly several minutes after that fact. Revenge had no need for such logic.
But the purple unicorn, the one who stole away her career....Trixie had something special planned for her. Let her see how it felt to have all her magic suddenly worth nothing in the eyes of all ponies.
Trixie would have her revenge! She would...she would...her stomach rumbled.
The Great and Powerful Trixie would find breakfast first! And then her revenge would be nigh!!
A light purple glow enshrouded her horn and pulled forth her bag of bits from her saddlebags, carefully counting out all her money in the world.
She had more than enough. Her finances may have been drained severely to gather all the supplies she had crammed in the bag, but she was by no means broke. It meant that until her vengeance was done and over with, and she fully intended to profit from it, she simply had to watch what she spent.
How fortunate for her that a place to ward off her hunger was only a short distance away.
Sweeping her bag off the bench, where it had been working as a pillow, and onto her back, she made the short jaunt to the bakery with the exotic exterior, her stomach rumbling constantly as her thoughts danced over the possibilities of what she would find.
It took only a short minute for her to reach the door, immediately being engulfed in a world of wonderful scents that almost had her sigh in contentment.
Sugarcube Corner was cozy, just like last time. From the decorations, to the temperature, even to the ponies who ran it...all of it painted a highly welcoming atmosphere that was hard, if not impossible, to beat.
Approaching the counter, Trixie couldn't help but moisten her lips at the sight of the delicious bounty on display.
“Why hello deary”, greeted the mare from behind the counter, bright blue with pink hair styled in just the right way to remind Trixie of frosting, “Is there anything I can get you?”
Trixie scanned the tasty treats laid out across the counters, and pointed a hoof at a wonderful looking trio of cupcake, almost buying them on the spot. Almost.
“Trixie would like to know how much those are”
“For the set? That would be ten bits”
While she could almost guarantee that they would taste good...ten bits was quite a bit more then she was willing to spend for what amounted to a desert at the moment.
“Not that then”, she sighed regretfully, and pointed at a small pastry of some kind. “How much would that be?”
“Seven bits”
The magician resisted a groan and went with a sigh. Looks like sweets may be out of the question.
“Do you sell any bread?”
The shopkeeper looked stunned, but recovered quickly. “Of course we do, but we have to make it special. The cost of bread comes to be around seven bits as well”
Trixie nodded, already searching for a probable alternative while she asked, “And how big would the bread be?”
The shopkeeper searched for words for a moment, but ended up settling for gesturing with her hooves.
That...would be a lot of bread.
“Trixie will take it!”, the showmare declared, not wanting to risk the generous offer increasing the price.
Five bits levitated out of her bag and onto the counter, and were soon slid into the shopkeeper's apron pockets.
“Just give us some time to make it, and you'll get your bread fresh from the oven”, said the mare as she made her way to into the door the presumably led to the kitchen.
Well...they did warn that it had to be made special. With a shrug, the magician left the counter and took a seat at a window table, settling in for a hopefully short wait.
A minute passed, and then two.
Trixie impatiently tapped her foot against the floor as nothing changed much save the ponies coming in for their orders or the new pony at the counter watching her when she wasn't dealing with customers.
When another five passed with the same rate of change, the magician gave gave in and reviewed her revenge. It was only a matter of time before she could implement it and she wanted it done right.
She had the supplies. Several months and at least twice as many towns and cities had seen to that. Countless bookstores, antique stores, and pawn shops searched lay behind her now.
She was in position. The place where everything went wrong for her, and where most assuredly the mare who cause it still lived. Unless she didn't, in which case Trixie had to find where she moved, but the magician was confident that wasn't the case.
After that...well, that was when things got fun. The plan was purposely simple and vague enough that it couldn't fail, even if she had to try a dozen different ways to get it to work!
Trixie couldn't suppress a quiet laugh. And the first step, oh how she was looking forward to starting with the first step. The purple unicorn may have proven herself to be greater in magic then her, but for the magician, it was the thoughts of the crowd that mattered.
If they no longer respected her magic, if they no longer trusted her magic, if they considered her somepony they no longer wanted in town...they would celebrate and spread the fame of the one who chased the villain out of town.
Trixie planned to be the chaser this time.
A wide grin spread over her face as she thought how sweet it would be to show that unicorn her place...and twitched into a frown as she felt a rather hard poke on her foreleg.
A moment later their was another poke, and the magician turned to tell off whoever thought it was a good idea...and got poked in the nose.
“Boop!”, chirped the pink mare who had been behind the counter the last time Trixie had looked.
Trixie fixed an annoyed glare at the mare, who proceeded to not notice and send her hoof out for another poke.
“What do you think you are doing?”, hissed Trixie as she batted the hoof away.
The mare grinned brightly, and Trixie couldn't help but pity what must be an absurdly simple mind.
“Just getting your attention, of course”, chirped the mare again, almost vibrating from energy and excitement unknown, “I wanted to know what had you laughing and smiling over here all by your lonesome”
Or...not so simple, as it may be. Just eccentric?
Trixie blushed, the red standing out against her pale blue coat. “Well...you see...Trixie was just thinking of...of...of how good the bread she bought will taste”
The magician immediately cursed herself mentally and slammed her head down onto the table she was waiting at. Was that the best she could come up with? A thousand shows with a thousand stories and when bush comes to shove she comes up with the least believable one she can imagine?
“You too? I mean I love food, especially if it tastes good! Sometimes the food is sooooo good that I just can't help and eat it, even if it's on the Princess's Plate!”
“Errr...right...”
Trixie resolved to stay away from what was very likely the town liar and/or madmare.
She simply hadn't been in Ponyville long enough, even the time before, to realize that all the ponies in the town could be classified as crazy.
A bell rang, and the mare perked up even more, something Trixie would have sworn was impossible if she hadn't seen it.
“A customer! I'll be right back!”
And just like that, the mare was gone, replaced with a pink, of all things, cloud that rapidly disintegrated.
There was only one way to respond to that: What?
Well, hopefully this would keep the mare until her bread was done. With a sigh, Trixie leaned back into the chair, trying to will time to pass quicker.
“Hey! I'm back!”
Trixie buckled as she suddenly found an unexpected weight on her back, dragging the chair to the floor with a clatter.
Forcing herself back to her hooves, she turned to shout at returning mare who thought it a good idea to tackle her, and fell silent, her lips moving as she took in the bizarre sight.
The mare's head, as big if not bigger than her saddlebags was sticking out of one, looking at her expectantly.
“Wha...How...Can....”, gibbered Trixie as her mind tried to comprehend how a bag could fit a pony several times bigger then it.
She looked around the room to see if anypony else noticed it, and was somewhat surprised to see most of the tables had at the very least a pony sitting at them, apparently having gathered while she was lost in thought. She was even more surprised that those who looked her way, rather then be surprised or confused, simply gave her a knowing nod.
The whole thing should be impossible, if not from the size then from all the supplies she had stuffed into the bag...which still didn't explain the issue, or why nopony was surprised about it or why the mare decided it was a good idea to start digging through her saddle bags, throwing out a few quills, a rubber chicken, a few rubber balls, some gems, an entire birthday cake in a wheel barrel, and streamers. Lots of them.
Confused, Trixie consulted her brain which gave her only a single thought: She didn't remember packing those.
Shaking off her brains betrayal, she finally found her voice as the mare pulled out her bag of bits and started counting them.
“H-hey! Those are Trixie's!”
“Really”, chirped the bright pink mare, her cotton candy mane slightly darker and bouncing exaggeratedly with her every movement.
Then, before the magician's eyes, she popped into the bag and popped out of the completely unconnected opening of the other!
“Then we better get them back to her!!”
The pink mare promptly vanished back into it, and the weight the showmare had been compensating for vanished as quickly as it had come.
Suddenly off balance, she had no defenses for the pink blur that sped past, grabbing her hoof and attempting to drag her onto the street.
It was only an attempt, because, though the storm of ,“Who is she? What does she look like? Why do you have her bits? How did she drag Canterlot up the mountain?”, and many like it, Trixie managed to shout, “I'm Trixie!”
The mare stopped in a fashion that would have physics enthusiasts all over throwing their hats onto the ground, that being instantly with no period of slowing down.
It was only the grip the mare had on her hoof that kept the showmare from catapulting past her.
“Well, why didn't you say so!!”, asked the mare, dumping the bits back into the bag, and grabbing Trixie's hoof with both her own and shaking vigorously.
“I'm Pinkie Pie, and I've just met you. You're somepony new, and I'm sure we'll be the very very best of friends! I mean, I'm friends with everypony, and I mean everypony in Ponyville, and since you're in Ponyville, that means we must be friends already, and you don't already know it!!”
The beaming smile Pinkie directed her way was blinding in it's brilliance, and Trixie was forced to blink to avoid spots.
“Well, yes...of course...”, she voice, trying to wrap her head around the strange creature in front of her.
She found her hoof shaking the air as the mare was suddenly in the middle of a series of strange maneuvers that, among other things, included bouncing off the walls, starting not one but two dance numbers, exploding into fire works, and ending with a hoof pump and another mark on an invisible score board before bouncing back next to her.
“Why hello there super new friend Trixie! Lets-”
Trixie was saved from whatever the pink abomination wanted when the mare behind the counter, covered in batter like she had just led a charge into an army of uncooked pasteries, called, “One loaf of bread for the Blue Unicorn in the saddlebags...and Pinkie, what did I say about harassing Ponies from out of town?”
“Uh...not to do it when I'm working? Was that it, Mrs. Cake?”
Trixie accepted the loaf from the counter and made good her escape, catching the resigned, “I suppose that's the best we can expect from you” ,as she fled.
She was halfway down the street in a blink of an eye...but wasn't fast enough to get away without Pinkie yelling out, “Be at Sugarcube corner later today for your surprise.”
Despite herself, Trixie couldn't help the shiver that went down her spine.
<--{(1)}-->
Her stomach full of bread so good she was left craving for more, Trixie set off to find her prey.
While she could simply look for herself, Ponyville wasn't as small as she remembered. It would be far quicker, and far easier to simply ask around, and she was eager to get it done without any more encounters with this...Pinkie.
Those were the events that had her walking to a gray mare with an extravagantly styled red hair for information.
Why her? She was lounging on a bench, obviously in no hurry...and she was only a dozen steps from where Trixie was standing when she made the decision to ask ponies.
Clearing her throat, the magician asked, “Could you help Trixie find somepony?”
The mare looked up, and smiled- What was with these ponies and smiling, Trixie thought – before saying, “Sure. Who is Trixie looking for?”
“Would you know where Trixie could find this mare”, she asked, pulling out a picture she had commissioned early on in her vengeance, enshrouded in her magic's light purple glow.
The mare took hold of the picture with her hooves and scanned it shortly before giving a regretful shake of the head.
“Sorry miss. I don't know anypony with a crooked horn, bat-wings, and a body enshrouded with dark-magic. I don't think Ponyville has the pony your boss is looking for”
Trixie ground her teeth in frustration at yet another pony not immediately realizing who she was...and quickly flushed in embarrassment as the rest of what the mare said filtered into her head.
She snatched the picture away and blushed harder. It was indeed a picture she had commissioned. It was very high quality too, almost lifelike... save for the entirely fictional exaggerations she had asked to be included to remind her of what the mare truly was.
Hastily stuffing it back into her bag, she pulled out the picture she had meant to use in the first place.
“Sorry...”, she said to cover up the slip, “But this is the mare Tri...I mean, I am looking for.I, of course have and need no boss”
It pained her to not use her name so everypony would know it, but the annoyance of having to correct ponies that she worked for herself, and herself alone was already building.
“Now I recognize her.”, announced the mare, breaking the showmare from her thoughts, “That's Twilight Sparkle!”
Trixie frowned as moments passed with nothing else save the mare sitting there looking proud of herself.
After several minutes of nothing, she asked again, “Well, where can Trixie...I mean I, Where can I find her?”
The mare shrugged. “I don't know. I haven't seen her for the last few days. She could be just about anywhere”
Trixie's eye twitched, and she fought back the urge to proclaim the mare in front of her as useless. No matter how she wished to, that would only make the later parts of her plan more difficult.
“Thank you”, she forced herself to say, and turned back into the crowds.
At least she had a name now. And that if she didn't live around here, she certainly frequented it.
Turned away, Trixie never noticed the furrowed brow, or the thoughtful, curious look the mare gave her as she left the mare to her thoughts.
Perhaps the next pony?
“Excuse me sir”, Trixie called out to a passing Stallion in a Business Coat, “Where can I find Twilight Sparkle?”
“Don't know”, came his reply, “Haven't seen her since since last week”
Perhaps the next pony would be of greater help? Surely she could get something more then merely a name.
As it turned out, no, she couldn't. The first dozens didn't help, and the hundred after them answered her before she could ask...with the same non-answer almost word-for-word!
It was nearing dark when she finally hit her biggest lead yet...though it would be more accurate to say that it, in the form of an excitable pink earth pony, rammed into her, grabbed her, and dragged her off to a party.
Leads are like that sometimes.
<--{(End 1)}-->