Chapter 1 - It Came in Piece
Chapter 1 - It Came in Piece
A knife buried itself in Twilight Sparkles face, evoking a loud scream. Blood dripped onto the floor, making faint pat sounds as it fell. The knife glowed faintly and slowly pulled itself out, inducing another gasp of pain from Twilight. Trixie smiled maliciously.
"Where's your magic now, Twilight Sparkle?"
A knock came at the door, and Twilight prayed to the sun, moon and stars it was somepony who could save her.
Or rather, a knife buried itself in a paper cutout of Twilight Sparkles face, evoking a slight crinkling sound. Tomato juice dripped onto the floor, making the pitpitpitpit sounds that less viscous liquids often do. The knife glowed faintly, and slowly pulled itself out of the cutout, which continued to make no noise at all, save for the slight crinkling sound. Trixie smiled maliciously.
"Where's your magic now, Twilight Sparkle?"
A knock came at the door, and the cutout thought nothing of it. A gruff voice came through.
"Trixie, I pay you to clean the friers, not to play with your magic or whatever it is you do in your room. Now get out here and do your job."
Trixie was quite annoyed that her fantasies were once again being interrupted. She quickly cleaned up the juice, hid the cutout under her bed, put on her sexy face and opened the door.
"Oh come one, Pony Joe. I was just doing my hair. You like it, don't you?" she flipped her hair to emphasize the point.
Pony Joe glanced at her hair; it was as frizzy and unkempt as it had been the day before. He eyed her flatly.
"Yes, it's very nice. Now start cleaning."
Trixie glared, her old self returning.
"Let me remind you, the Great and Powerful Trixie only works here because she wishes to! I can leave you to your own friers and any time I want!"
Pony Joe laughed loudly. "Ha ha ha! That's right, I should feel special because you choose to work for me! I'll be sure to mention that to the next Ursa Minor I see!" He walked away, still laughing, leaving Trixie to deal with 3 large, grease covered deep friers.
Several hours later, Joe was cleaning the counter after closing the shop. He whistled a tune that wouldn't have sounded out of place in a spy movie as he cleared away the sprinkles left from his many customers that day. He heard a grunt from behind and turned to see Trixie, exhausted and covered in grease.
"Finished" she said, weakly. She put the rag down and went to take a bath.
Trixie woke up, as she often did, to a loud knock at her door. She got up groggily and opened the door.
"It's my day off..." she groaned, and began to shut the door. Joe stopped it with his hoof.
"Yeah, I know. I just want to talk about your pay before the store opens."
Trixie woke up nearly instantly.
"Oh, I forgot I get paid today!" she said happily.
Joe scratched his head awkwardly. "Uhh... yeah, about that. I cut your pay a bit, since you haven't been the best worker lately. I remember last time I had a unicorn working for me, she used her magic to clean every speck of grease she could find. Nearly went insane if she missed any." he said, reminiscing. "Hey, maybe you know her. You ever meet a Twilight Sparkle?"
Trixie's smile fell. She grabbed the bag of bits with a glare and slammed the door. Joe shrugged, and then gave into a sudden urge to sneak to the front of the shop like a secret agent.
Trixie angrily brushed her hair. Twilight Sparkle... The bane of my existence... She finished quickly and walked down the stairs from her room in the attic, intent on wandering Canterlot to take her mind off things. Besides, she had several hundred bits to spend before Joe realized that he hadn't deducted the rent payment yet. She walked through the myriad of shops, looking for some new way to fantasize about killing Twilight when she saw a strange little store she could've sworn hadn't been there a few days prior. It had an odd air about it, as if one wouldn't be surprised if it were full of skeletons. However, the curtains covering the windows gave a reassuring feeling that would've made one completely fine with a building full of skeletons. Trixie couldn't help but enter. At first, she was disappointed. Not only was there a distinct and utter lack of skeletons, the place seemed devoid of anything even remotely requiring the reassurance she had gotten from the curtains. In fact, the strangest thing in the store, which seemed to be nothing but an antique gift shop, was a cloud of smoke.
Now, smoke generally isn't very strange when accompanied by fire, but there was no fire in the vicinity. Also, it was purple, and apparently could talk.
"You interrupted my masturbation
So now I make this proclamation:
Buy things from me, empty your purse
Or you shall suffer a terrible curse."
Trixie wasn't sure how to respond to a cloud of purple smoke telling her that she had interrupted its masturbation. She nervously began to back out of the room when the cloud spoke again.
"I told you once, and now again
Buy some stuff or you'll wish you did"
Trixie eyed the smoke curiously and began to look around the store. Strange as this encounter was, she figured there must be at least a few interesting things here.
There weren't.
A faded, pink cushion. A necklace that struggled to be beautiful, but ultimately failed and settled with a dejected, half-hearted sort of shine. A chess set with a severe handicap on white, owning to the fact that over half the pieces were missing.
"The Great and Powerful Trixie has no need for such lame things" she muttered to herself. Apparently, the cloud heard her, because it reacted quite violently. It twisted and contorted, and vomited up a zebra, which stopped several inches from Trixie. This was all very surprising to Trixie, who screamed loudly and lept back, knocking over a large, glass vase, which shattered. It was then that the cloud demonstrated a wondrous new attribute: ventriloquism. The zebra's mouth moved around the pipe clamped tightly in its teeth, but it was the clouds voice that was heard.
"My favorite vase, and you went and broke it
Now you are cursed, put that in your pipe and smoke it."
To punctuate the point, he blew a puff of purple smoke into Trixie's face. It had a strange smell, and was thick enough to choke a small creature. Trixie, being a pony and having a fairly large windpipe and lung capacity, merely gagged. Her head spinning, she grabbed the first thing she saw, the white king from the chess board.
"I'll get this." she gasped through the haze. The zebra blew smoke at it, and then smiled.
"Right this way, then."
Trixie followed her, stumbling about, and knocking over another vase. The zebra sighed.
"The customer is always right
But please stop breaking every vase in sight."
Trixie decided to apologize, but apologies were not her strong suit. She ended up with a sort of half-assed compliment. Although, to put it bluntly, calling it half-assed is taking a bit of liberty. More of a quarter-assed compliment.
"Well, your store is so pretty, I didn't see the vase there."
The zebra glared at her and blew more smoke in her face.
"you should know, your compliment missed
And I am still, in fact, pissed as tits."
Even in her half drugged, groggy state, Trixie knew that that wasn't a word.
"Tits?"
The zebra sighed. "In another world, the men have a quest
To get their hands on a woman's chest.
The final goal of this odyssey
Are two mounds of flesh, which they call titties"
Trixie opened her mouth to reply, thought better of it, closed her mouth, felt awkward for doing so, opened her mouth again, and attempted to cover it up.
"uh... umm... So... How much do I owe you?"
"100 bits."
"100 bits? That's outrageous!"
"It is, isn't it."
The zebra blew more smoke in Trixie's face, making her gag again. Anything to get out of this place and away from this creepy zebra, she thought to herself, as thoughts often are. She paid the zebra and walked out of the store, as quickly as she could without breaking into a gallop. Because frankly, she didn't think she could gallop after all that smoke. Perhaps a nice trot, but certainly not a gallop.
Trixie spent the rest of the day wandering the city, observing ponies, sampling food, and spending bits on things. At the end of the day, she returned to her room and dumped her bag on the floor. A new hat, a patch to repair her tattered cape, some candy, and the chess piece she bought from that strange store and it's strange cloud of smoke. She picked it up an examined it. It actually was a fine piece, expertly carved and skillfully painted. When she held it, it had a strange feeling about it, an important feeling, as if this mere chess piece was going to be a major part of her life, or perhaps trigger an event that would create ripples across Equestria. She couldn't quite put her hoof on it, but she gingerly set it down on her dresser. She cleaned up the rest of her things and went to sleep.
Trixie...
Trixie woke to the soothing sound of absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening. Because of this, she promptly fell back asleep.
Trixie...
Again, she woke up. This time, she heard a faint thumping from Joe's room, but since this was also completely normal, she went back to-
TRIXIE!
Trixie did not fall back asleep, due to the fact that psychic contact was not at all ordinary.
Umm... Yes?, she thought to the whole room.
I've been waiting for you. Do you know who I am?
Trixie thought hard, but since it was 1:30 in the morning, "hard" wasn't much harder than the average pillow.
Nope. No idea.
A psychic sigh echoed around the metaphysical areas of the room, which are normally undetectable to non-unicorns, but since a lot is happening there right now, this story would be rather boring if I didn't translate for you.
A psychic sigh echoed around the metaphysical areas of the room, and Trixie got the impression that the voice might just be in her head, which she found rather creepy. The voice heard this thought and disagreed.
I'm not in your head, I'm in your room.
She found this rather creepy as well, and adopted her impressive, bragging voice. Or at least, the psychic version of this voice, which, compared to other psychic voices, wasn't particularly impressive. But it was all she had.
The Great and Powerful Trixie demands that you tell me who and where you are!
A psychic chuckled echoed around the metaphysical room, which, given the echoes, was much more acoustically pleasing than the average metaphysical room. Most higher beings have no acoustic taste at all, and their architecture often reflects this.
Ooh, the Great and Powerful Trixie is making demands! I better make sure to listen or she'll vanquish me, like she did the Ursa Major!
Trixie shot a metaphysical glare at the room in general. Now, metaphysical glares carry a lot more power than normal glares. Glares from particularly nasty unicorns have been known to induce overpowering feelings of dread and general negativity that last for days in non-unicorns. However, since Trixie wasn't particularly nasty or powerful, and was glaring at an entire room, it caused nothing more than a minor pang of irritation in the psychic entity hiding in her room. But the entity decided to take advantage of it.
Hey, no call for that! It was just a harmless joke!
The Great and Powerful Trixie will decide what is called for!
The psychic voice quivered a bit. I'm sorry, Trixie. I'm not normally like this, I'm just trying to make up for the fragility of my emotions. He sent out a wave of sadness and sensitivity. Trixie completely failed to see that it was fake, felt somewhat touched, and softened her approach.
I'm sorry. It's just, I'm not used to strangers in my room talking to me telepathically. Could you please tell me who you are?
I think you already know...
Trixie had a feeling that she did. She opened her eyes and they fell on the chess piece. The voice came back quieter this time.
You found me.
Trixie got out of her bed and slowly walked over to the dresser. As she did, the moon lined up perfectly with the window, and a beam of silver light fell directly in the chess piece. It sparkled beautifully, adding to the sense of wonder in the air. She reached out and gently brushed its side.
You found me, Trixie.
Trixie smiled, both physically and metaphysically.
I'm so glad I did.
She laid back down, the chess piece cradled in her hooves. The metaphysical, rhythmic breathing of the piece slowly put her to sleep. A wonderful, blissful sleep. She had finally found something that loved her for who she was.
Joe had been calling for Trixie to get up for nearly 20 minutes. The castle had put in a huge order, and Joe needed all the help he could get to fill it on time. But Trixie slept on, oblivious to anything except the small, carved chess piece lying next to her.
Joe put the dough in the fryer and angrily stomped up the stairs. As the landlord, he had the key to Trixie's room, but he had always had a strange fascination with picking locks. He carefully inserted two thin, wire-like tools, jiggled them this way and that, and the door opened. Trixie was lying sideways on her bed, blankets only half covering her, stroking a chess piece and giggling softly. He was about to yell at her when he noticed how fine a chess piece it was. The paint job was amazing, and the finish strong and lustrous. He leaned over to get a better look when Trixie slapped him across the face.
"Stay away from Chester! He's mine!" she yelled, her hoof up and ready for another strike. Joe, head cleared, backed off. He mumbled something about needing help and went back downstairs to check the donuts. As he did so, he thought about the chess piece. That was an amazing piece. I need to take a closer look at it...
Trixie came down the stairs looking happier than usual, although, admittedly, that's not saying much. She began to prepare the glazer for the forthcoming donuts, humming a song as she did. Joe looked around furtively, only moving his eyes, and using reflective surfaces and shadows to see things without looking at them. Kinda like a spy would if he had to blend in... he thought in the back of his mind. He casually slid up to Trixie.
"Hey, I need to grab something I left upstairs. Make sure the all the donuts are perfect, these are going to the castle."
He smiled disarmingly and walked up the stairs. Trixie was suspicious, but pretended to go along with it. She turned on the glazer and started covering the donuts in the thick, sugary liquid. For some reason, she couldn't help thinking about Chester as she watched the glaze cover the donuts. She looked up the stairs. Joe and Chester were both up there... with nothing to stop them...
Joe was, of course, quickly picking Trixie's lock once again. He slowly picked up the chess piece and held it up to the light. It was beautifully made. The glossy finish shone in the light, completely enthralling Joe. He had to have this piece. He moved like he was in a trance, slowly walking straight into an enraged Trixie. Her anger was tangible, at least, to those who have the necessary brain mutations to physically feel others emotions. But because Joe was not one of these blessed ponies, he had no idea how angry she was until she told him.
"You have no idea how angry I am" she told him.
Entranced as he was by Chester, he didn't. In fact, he wasn't paying attention to anything except the chess piece; he was totally oblivious to Trixie, the knife she was holding, the doorway she was standing in, the wall the door was a part of, the rug he was tripping on, the floor that was eager to introduce itself to his face, the magic that was propelling the knife towards him, and the incessant ringing of the doorbell. In fact, the only thing he did notice was the air that Chester was falling through after the knife had embedded itself in the hoof he had been holding him in. The world slowed down, and it took years for the magnificent piece to fall. Joe had time to go on several mental vacations with Chester, as well as get married and fail to have a child with him. He cursed the species barrier as Trixie repeatedly stabbed him while screaming nonsense.
He then realized that, even if there were no species barrier, they were both male. So he cursed his own sex as the door was forced open and a royal guard came in and subdued Trixie.
He reached out to Chester. They were separated by mere inches, if only he could stretch a bit more. But no, he had lost too much blood to remain coherent. He fell unconscious.
It is possible that he died there, but we can't ask him until he wakes up.
