My Little Human: Friendship Across Worlds

“What do you remember before this world now your memories are back?” Spike asked.

Twilight stared at the cake crumbs on her empty plate, searching her newly-restored memory.

“The last thing I remember in Equestria...” Twilight struggled to piece together her last night among ponies. “...I was in Canterlot Castle. Princess Luna had summoned me to discuss a new field of study. We were looking through some of the books she had, some tomes I'd never even heard of, let alone seen.”

“That was last week,” Spike explained. “The day we went to Canterlot, something happened nopony imagined would ever happen again.”

The humanized baby dragon shivered slightly. “Discord got loose again.”

“What!?” Twilight shrieked. “How?”

Spike's eyes narrowed as he spat out a name like it was a bad word. “Trixie.”

Canterlot Royal Gardens

One week earlier

Ponies of all kinds came and went, some in tour groups, others in smaller groups or on their own. On a pedestal near the entrance was a stone form familiar to many: a tall, lanky draconequus – part pony, part dragon, part lion and parts of all sorts of other creatures – sealed in stone with the same look of horror he wore on his face when he was unexpectedly thwarted by the six Ponyvillians bearing the Elements of Harmony. After the chaos god's last rampage, however, signs had been posted around the statue warning ponies to refrain from arguing or bickering within a certain distance of Discord, lest he be able to draw power from any kind of disharmony and break free once again. But one pony had no intention of obeying those signs.

Trixie had dyed her coat a dark grey and using her horn and a mirror had meticulously repainted her cutie mark into a scroll and quill. Anypony who gave more than a casual glance still wouldn't recognize the former Great And Powerful Trixie, Ponyville's biggest pain in the plot since the parasprite infestation.

Trailing behind her in a similar disguise, looking rather chagrined, was Snails. The young unicorn was tethered to Trixie by an invisible rope, keeping him from breaking free by virtue of his simple inability to see where the knots were tied. He had tried to use his meagre magic to slow her down and signal for help as she abducted him one afternoon in Ponyville, but his power being far more limited than hers he had tired out quickly. Trixie stopped in front of Discord and Snails glared at her.

“What do you want with meeee?” he whined nasally for the umpteenth time.

“I told you, lamebrain, you're going to help me reclaim the power I had when I wielded the Alicorn Amulet!” The only thing that had kept Trixie going though weeks of planning and the last couple of days of hauling Snails all the way to Canterlot was her unquenchable thirst for power and her burning desire for revenge on Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

“How am I going to do that?” Snails whined again.

“You like Cheerilee, don't you?” Trxie asked sweetly.

“Uh... yeah, I do,” Snails admitted, with confusion and scorn mixed on his face. “She's a nice pony, not like you!”

“I bet you really really like her!” Trixie sneered. “You're in looooove.”

Snails blushed scarlet. “H-h-how did you know, Trixie?”

“Aaargh!” Trxie growled in frustration. “You're in love with Snips, too!” she spat out at random, hoping to provoke the argument she needed.

“I am not, he's just my friend!”

“You are too, I've seen the way you look at him. You're a colt-cuddler!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Am not!” Trixie suddenly reversed.

“Are too!” Snails was far, far too slow on the uptake and only realized the trap he'd fallen into when Trixie triumphantly told him “All right, I won't judge. Snips does seem like your type, after all.”

“He's not my special somepony!” Snails objected loudly.

Behind them, a small patch on the chest of the stone draconequus began to glow.