A Touch Of Magic
by VampireSavoirZ2
Chapter 1
The Great and Powerful Illusion
United by fate, to be intertwined in an unexplainable way is a truly incredible phenomenon. It is capable of building the bonds of friendship and even create the formula that sparks true love.
This of course all depends on what you make of it.
The individuals words, actions, and emotions put into it determine the strength of the feelings and memories created. The flow of time offers it's challenges and how they are met determines everything.
A certain violet unicorn would learn that in ways she did not expect.
The night was cold, but gentle and beautiful as always. Twilight Sparkle looked into the sky and saw the moon shine bright and full among the stars. "Princess Luna must be very happy tonight," She said trotting into Ponyville.
The sight of this natural beauty relieved her of the steadily growing worry that was tugging at the back of her mind. She felt as if Princess Luna herself was watching over her and that particular night could be noting less than fantastic.
Twilight noticed the multiple posters resembling the one she had at home on several of the town buildings.
Each read:
"Tonight The Great and Powerful Trixie Returns!"
After being humiliated, exposed as a fraud, loosing everything she owned, and being forced to flee Ponyville Trixie was somehow able to bounce back. She was able to get everything together and hold a big gig in what should be her most hated place in all of Equestria or so one would think.
Quite an impressive feat.
She was able to afford a high caliber artist to create the posters for her show and have them widly produced and distributed. She also managed to easily sway all of Ponyville to attend her show. Twilight considered the possibility that Trixie may have had a very wealthy relative.
'That would explain why she's so priggish'. She thought.
However it took more than a nice bag of bits to get EVERYPONY in Ponyville to go to her show. Even Twilight's close friends all of whom thoroughly disliked Trixie happily attended.
Everypony was excited and happy like nothing had happened before. Could Trixie have cast a spell on the citizens of Ponyville? No that could not be. Twilight would have likely discovered that or even possibly become a victim to it. Besides that Trixie was very talented, full of potential and very capable with her magic but based on her own observation she felt that Trixie was nowhere near powerful enough to hex an entire town.
Twilight looked forward to learning the truth straight from the show horse's mouth and learn about her sudden boom of popularity.
She reached the center of town and her jaw dropped. There where so many ponies all in one place and that made it hard for her to see or find her way. Everypony was chatting and eagerly awaited the appearance of Trixie.
Twilight longed to find her friends, but the crowd was so large and hard to navigate in. To her fortune she managed to spot a very familiar brown hat in the distance. She looked harder and managed to confirm the sight of her friend Applejack. To the blonde earth pony's left was Pinkie Pie with several sweets and Fluttershy, with her jealous looking pet rabbit, Angel sitting on one of her wings. To Applejack's right, while it was a little difficult to see her body the bright rainbow colored mane of Rainbow Dash could be seen and next to it the slightly more identifiable form of the always ravishing Rarity. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. She would feel much more comfortable once she was with her friends.
"Hey Rarity, Rainbow over here!" She yelled, but they did not seem to notice. "Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie!"
Once again her attempts to get the attention of her friends failed. She sighed again. This time in disappointment and frowned.
"Darn."
She tried to make her way through the crowd to get to her friends, but that proved to be a difficult task.
"Um..excuse me." "Sorry..." she politely said as she gently pushed through may different ponies. Every one of them gave her a mean look. This made the young mare feel unpleasant.
As she came closer to closer to reaching her friends she called out to them again, but apparently they still did not hear her. Twilight was starting to feel even more unsettled.
"Hey!" She yelled louder than before.
At that point Twilight became confused as to how the could not notice her. Her friends were all looking toward the stage not moving a muscle or and not giving her a bit of attention whatsoever. So she pressed on and tried to reach them, but one of the other ponies pushed her hard causing her to hit the ground.
"Ow! Hey!" She wailed in pain and annoyance rubbing her side and then getting up.
The other ponies gave her aggressive looks even nastier than before then all turned their heads and ignored her. The citizens of Ponyville typically where not very mean spirited. No more than the average amount at least. They where usually friendly folk, but for that night there where exceptionally ill-natured. Why they were this way, especially to somepony like Twilight who had saved Ponyville many times was a mystery.
A mixture of confusion, frustration, sadness, and anger best described her at that moment. Her friends gave her no heed and the other ponies that surrounded her seemingly hated her. She hung her head low and wondered what to do.
A strange warmth suddenly coursed through her diminishing a small amount of her negative emotions. Her horn began to glow free of her will. Twilight, needless to say was more confused than before. She looked an noticed that everypony had become silent.
"Could this be..?"
She felt a feeling of an unexplained nature compel her to look to the stage and give her full attention.
A sudden burst of firework effects and a lot of smoke and sparkles engulfed the stage. Once the smoke cleared it revealed none other than the Great and Powerful Trixie herself.
Her appearance on the stage was met by booming yells of joy. Twilight could not deny the hint of excitement she felt. She still felt the unidentifiable warm emotions in the bottom of her heart. Did her cape and hat seem to have a bit more sparkle than before?
"Welcome citizens of Ponyville! The Great and Powerful Trixie is pleased to see you once again!" She said to the large group of ponies before her. "And so many of you! Prepare to be amazed as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes!" The young showmare said to her subjects with powerful enthusiasm beyond that of what Twilight had seen before.
She wished that Spike could see it. Alas her baby dragon had denied her offer to accompany her to the show. She wondered what her assistant could be doing while she was gone. Her greatest concern however was the situation at hand.
The strange way the other ponies acted, her friends ignoring her and Trixie's sudden re-appearance all puzzled her greatly. She had a suspicion that Trixie may be behind it all, but made the decision that the first thing she would do is try to enjoy the performance that blue unicorn magician had likely worked tirelessly to arrange.
"How about a simple classic to begin the show?" Trixie said in an excited and bubbly tone of voice. "But first..." The bluish glow of her horn brightly illuminated her hat while the magic emitted from it levitated a small table from behind the curtains to sit in next to her. She then used her magic to remove her hat from her head.
"Observe." She moved her hat in a way that would give the crowd a good view of the it inside and out to show that there was nothing inside of it. After allowing them the time necessary to make their observation she placed it upside down on her table.
"The famous 'bunny out of a hat'."
Trixie opened her mouth and moved her face into her hat reaching for something. "One much more adorable than your average bunny. A Cutie Mark Crusader!" Her words and the actions that would follow them would bring much surprise to Twilight. Trixie pulled her face out of the hat and in her mouth she held a rabbit ear of rabbit suit worn by a pale yellowish filly that she pulled from her hat. None other than the younger sister of one of her best friends, the earth pony's sister Applebloom.
Her feelings were very mixed, but a small unexpected and awkward smile made it's way onto Twilight's face. Somehow Trixie knew about the so called 'Secret Society' and possibly knew the three members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Highly unusual considering that Trixie's time in Ponyville was brief, only using it to perform and sleep. Plus she had not returned to the town since running away from it until her mysterious reappearance which was a long period of time.
Applebloom's strong adorable factor was on a far higher scale of cute than ever in her bunny suit and it's effects struck Twilight's heart hard. Though much of the "d'aww" effect had been greatly reduced when she noticed how emotionless Applebloom's face had been. Her face was expressionless.
No joy, no embarrassment, just nothing. Her eyes looked practically lifeless.
Young and beautiful of a brilliant garboge color they where. Twilight knew the eyes of Applebloom for showing great enthusiasm, sweet blissful ignorance, and child like innocence. This was supported by the expressions of a soft, adorable face that portrayed her mood an told much about the personality of Applebloom herself. It told a tale of a young, kind, and sometimes reckless filly that worked desperately to obtain her cutie mark. It was not there.
Something as natural as day and night was not there. There was a body, but Twilight could not detect a soul of any kind. If Applebloom had not been holding her head up slightly and occasionally breathing Twilight would have thought she was a corpse. Having a moment to take all of it in made things a bit horrifying for the violet unicorn.
The crowd was silent and this displeased Trixie. The blue unicorn with the lovely white mane had demonstrated facial expression composed of discomfort and steadily growing anger.
"A simple trick yes, but you can at least show some admiration. Especially considering how creative Trixie was for such a minor act. Right Applebloom?" She asked the young filly.
Applebloom said nothing when Trixie spoke to her.
'Applebloom?" Trixie said trying to inquire her attention again and failed.
"Applebloom!" Trixie yelled, but the filly in the rabbit suit turned her head.
Despite Trixie's frustration being loud and clear Applebloom gave no response. Twilight's confusion level grew. The crowd gave no applause. They just watched. Applebloom was silent and disobedient and Applejack didn't protest when she was yelled at.
Something was definitely wrong.
At first Twilight wondered if Trixie could be responsible for the strange behavior of her friends and the townsfolk. Once she saw Trixie's negative reaction to things she stopped believing this.
"As an assisant of the Great and Powerful Trixie you are oblided to do what she says and answer when addressed by her!" She yelled at the normally bow-wearing filly.
Trixie frowned and gently placed her hoof on Applebloom's back.
"At least give a smile?", Trixie voice had become soft and sad, but Applebloom still gave no response. Twilight felt a bit of sympathy for Trixie.
She was trying to be understanding to Applebloom, which to Twilight was unheard of, but Applebloom did not seem to care. More anger appeared on Trixie's face, but was hardly noticeable compared to the larger amount of sadness.
"Then begone with you! The Great and Powerful Trixie came to give Ponyville the show of a lifetime and that is exactly what she is going to do," the blue mare declared.
Applebloom removed herself from the hat and table and went backstage while Trixie reached for something else. She pulled put a wand with a beautiful star on one end and then placed her hat back on her head. The wand she held perfectly resembled the one that appeared in her cutie mark. Twilight was intrigued by it.
She had read several books that mentioned how using things such as wands and staffs where useful for unicorns in things like magic based combat, aiding and enhancing the casting of spells, and for advanced users effectively understanding and controlling the flow of magic within one's self.
Twilight had never had the opportunity to see a wand user before. To her the use of things like wands was something done by those of a very distant foreign origin and not a wildly popular practice among unicorns of the part of Equestria that Twilight descended from. Twilight had become excited nonetheless. It would be a wonderful chance to learn about the ways different unicorns use their magic, how they go about it, and how Trixie's wand effects all of the above. Twilight was ready and eager to know what tricks Trixie had in store for everypony.
Trixie closed her eyes and focused. Twilight gasped when the blue magician's wand started to glow the same bluish magical aura as Trixie's own horn in unison with it. The demonstration had only begun and already it astounded and amazed her. Her heart warmed when she saw a peaceful smile on Trixie's face.
Eyes still closed, Trixie made one graceful sway to the left. She and her levitating wand moved in sync. The light from the wand became much brighter with each step. Then she ceased her movement as did her wand.
Part of the light emitting from the wand released itself into the the air above the center of the crowd. Twilight placed a hoof over her eyes since the light was too bright. Her eyes would meet a most lovely sight upon being uncovered.
Flower petals, beautiful shining flower petals everywhere moving rhythmically above and among everypony. At first Twilight believed what she saw to be an illusion. She extended a hoof toward one believing it would phase though. Instead the delicate feeling petal brushed against her hoof before regaining it's rhythm and rejoining the others. The petals were no illusion.
Twilight could feel the softness of the petal and through that in an odd way she could feel a small portion of the great deal of magic and emotion Trixie gave to create them. The petals suddenly picked up speed all moving around everypony and spiraling. They gathered in groups and begun to merge and change form. Struck with awe Twilight watched the glowing petals morph into birds. Pigeons to be exact, all of whom each wore a blue a light blue scarf.
Trixie opened her eyes and the birds flew toward her landing on the stage in a neat and organized line behind her. On Trixie's face was a smile of high confidence. On Twilight's a jaw dropped look that represented shock, awe and great respect for the magician. She immediately started stomping her front hooves on the ground as a form of applause.
"Woohoo! Amazing! Bravo!" She happily yelled.
Trixie would have felt very flattered by this if not for the fact that Twilight was the only applause she received. She smiled awkwardly while looking at the part of the crowd that Twilight was in.
"Um thank you miss... but... what of the rest of you! Do you not know greatness when you see it! Do you know nothing of the beauty and elegance of the greatest performance you have ever seen!" She yelled at the crowd. The crowd said nothing.
Pure silence to such a degree that a pegasus in the front row coughed and everypony heard it. A powerful level of anger and sadness was felt and shown by Trixie. Twilight could tell that she put forth great effort in withholding tears.
"Then say it! Tell Trixie how much you hate her and her act!"
Seeing these soft of emotions out of Trixie was something new to Twilight. It felt odd... and unnatural to see.
"This is not like her at all..."
"Hmph!" An angry and disappointed Trixie turned her head away from her crowd.
She used her magic to lift up her hat allowing each pigeon to fly in it one by one before placing it back on her head. She looked back at her audience and venomously said, "You do not deserve to witness one as great as Trixie", Trixie declared and then marched off.
Twilight felt her heart sink. After all of the hard work and effort put into what was shaping to be a fantastic show, nopony gave any respect of appreciation. Twilight could take it no longer.
"What is wrong with everypony?" She yelled out. "Tonight Trixie has done something spectacular and likely had many other amazing things planned and all of them done for your entertainment!"
Many gave her angry glares. Trixie on the other hand looked at her from the distance with confusion, disbelief, and gratitude. At first there was no response, but very ill intentions would break the disturbing silence.
A large cup collided with Trixie's head spilling it's fizzy contents all over her. Her finely groomed mane and coat along with her high quality made hat and cape where ruined by somepony's soda. Twilight felt a high level of shock. As for Trixie is was difficult to determine which emotion was dominant, but her face carried large amounts of rage, confusion, and despair. Before she could think further her head was struck by a rock. Then a rotten cabbage, then another drink, and then an apple, cupcake, and a rotten tomato. Everypony laughed maniacally and threw whatever they could at their show host.
"Stop!" Trixie cried. Her pleas only coaxed them to increase their treatment of her showing an unbelievably large amount of schadenfreude.
Twilight had come the the conclusion that she was no longer in Ponyville. How she had reached this point she did not know, but what she did know is that somehow she wound up in a twisted parody of the town she knew and loved where the inhabitants where cruel and unkind to a frightening extent. There was only one she could count on. For this reason and the fact that she personally felt that nopony deserved to be treated in such a horrible way, she attemtped to save Trixie.
Focusing her magic she teleported in front of Trixie and cast a barrier spell in front of the two of them. She cast another spell to remove the various foods and filth from the stage and from Trixie partially cleaning her. She felt a sudden surge of rage that made her magic slightly erratic for a moment. Without giving much thought she threw everything her magic grabbed back at the large vile crowd.
Ignoring the angry yells and foul language Twilight helped the broken showmare. Even with Twilight's spell she still looked terrible. While her dirty mane covered much of her face Twilight could still see that she was crying.
"Trixie is... no good at performing?"
"Are you insane? You are amazing! I would love to know how to do what you did." Twilight argued hoping to cheer Trixie up by expressing her own feelings about Trixie's show. She put a hoof over the blue mare shoulder and hoped she would feel better. The other ponies in the crowd tackled against Twilight's barrier. Their violent nature and amazing strength scared her.
"Alright Trixie time to go. Everypony here is crazy!'
"...Yes...agreed," she squeaked out.
Twilight panicked when a sudden crack was heard. She slowly creaked her head back to look. The barrier along with Twilight's own hope was breaking. The crack grew larger creeping throughout the entire construct before the raging beasts of ponies that blocked broke through shattering it.
Twilight's vison began to fade. She was able to make out the sight of Trixie's horrified face before all went black. What was an overwhelming feeling of pain forced throughout her body became a soft nudging on her back.
Her vision returned to her. Her eyes saw her baby dragon assistant Spike looking at her with a great deal of concern.
"Twi are you alright? You've sweat a lot and you were tossing around making ill moaning noises," Spike informed with a worried look.
She looked around and realized she was in her bed. She had not gone to a big night event and had not been trampled to death by a bunch of crazy ponies. She rubbed her forehead and horn.
"I guess I am fine. Just a very bad dream, but I never knew a dream could feel so..."
"So what?" The baby dragon wondered.
"So real. It felt as real as me laying here talking to you right now."
Twilight rubbed her head some more and thought back on the things she saw while Spike looked at her strangely.
"You sure your alright in the head Twi?"
Spike's response provoked frustration out of Twilight. "Spike! This is not funny!"
"I didn't say it was funny! I'm just worried! Oh yeah your horn was glowing a little bit."
Twilight's anger quickly subsided and was then replaced by curiosity and fear. "My horn?"
"Yeah. Kinda weird. It started going on and off. Maybe it could be some kind of unicorn sickness?"
"I don't know, but I have to find out."
She hopped out of her bed and started to run out of her room and dive straight into her archives, but was stopped by a light tugging at her tail. She looked for the source and found her young assistant staring up at her. The composure of the expression on the soft innocent looking face of the baby dragon spoke mainly about his concern for her well being and confusion at her sudden actions.
"Aren't you going to at least get breakfast first?" Spike asked. "I mean don't get me wrong I am cool with you hitting the books hard and overwhelming yourself this early in the morning since this is you we're talking about, but at least don't do it on an empty stomach alright?"
Twilight paused so she could consider his proposition.
She smiled thinking about how he had shown that he really cared for her.
"Thanks Spike."
"No problem Twi, but do something with that mane of yours. The only bad hair day I've seen that beats yours is Rarity's after you guys ran through the poison joke. Heh."
The memory of the aforementioned made the green and purple dragon giggle.
Twilight looked in her mirror and blushed when she saw the Spike could be no more right. Her mane was very unruly as Spike had stated. She immediately searched for her nearest brush and with her magic tried to use it to fix the mane disaster that she created in her nightmarish last attempt at trying to get a decent rest. With hard work and magic Twilight made her mane look as neat and beautiful as it always looked.
She smiled at the fruits of her effort. Her moment of peace was ended when her mind brought back the disturbing image of the broken, fallen magician from her previous nightmare.
Trixie was brash. She was very arrogant and considered unbearable to someponys' standards. Even so Twilight never felt ill will toward her. So why was she dreaming about her suffering so much? Why did that particular dream end up being the most realistic she ever had? Come to think of it, whatever became of Trixie?
After the ursa minor incident, she vanished and the cart she traveled in had been destroyed. Many of her possessions had shared the same fate, but plenty of them remained in tact or where only partially damaged. Yet she came back for none of it not even the reasonable amount of bits that where found among her things. Sure things did not go well for her in the end , but why she would leave such vital things behind forced Twilight to ponder hard.
While the thought made her a bit uncomfortable such a terrible dream made her wonder if the fate of Trixie was one of tragedy, but while she could never fully deny the cruelness of reality, she felt no need to assume the worst.
As far as she knew Trixie traveled and performed all on her own. So she likely handled everything on her own. This offered her a little reassurance, but Twilight knew from personal experience that doing everything on your own without even considering the idea of making friends was not an easy path or a good one to follow. Trixie's personality was not an easy one to deal with and this gave Twilight another reason to wonder if she was doing well.
Either way the braggart of a mare needed a lesson in respecting others.
"A lesson..."
An idea popped into Twilight's head. She conjured a good reason to find Trixie. She needed a good lesson and Twilight felt that she was just the pony who could teach it.
Her first order of business was determining where to begin her search. This would be done through the possessions from the remains what seemed to be her traveling home all of which was contained in two large chests, one of which was Trixie's, in Twilight's largest closet. Why you ask did she bother to do this? It was because Twilight was one of the few who actually believed that Trixie could learn a lesson and make a turn around. Or at least come back for her things and ask nicely for that much... boy was she wrong...
She turned around to see that Spike had already crawled back in his comfy little basket and went back to sleep. Typical.
"Spike..." She sighed and then walked over toward him and started shaking him gently.
"Hmm... wha?" He opened one eye and lifted his head up slightly.
"Now is not the time to sleep," She told him in a firm tone of voice.
"Come on Twi... five more minutes..."
"Sorry Spike. Besides you just said a few minutes ago that breakfast would be a good idea."
Spike defiantly placed his pillow over his head. The spark of growing irritation within Twilight was quickly extinguished by a strong feeling of happiness, shameless amusement, and a good surge of victory when Spike's stomach started to rumble.
Spike got out his bed and sighed in defeat. "Fine."
Putting on his finest pout face that arguably rivaled that of his crush Rarity the baby dragon marched to their kitchen. Twilight could not resist a mischievous laugh.
In her moment of peace she felt the need to look outside. The intense yet delicate rays of the sun brightly lit the gorgeous blue skies and made a beautiful day. It was pure uplifting serenity like the soft motherly feel of Princess Celestia's presence to Twilight. Thinking of Celestia gave her a good boost in confidence.
She had good feelings about her plans. She would be the one to teach Trixie what she needed to learn. She may even get the chance to meet Trixie's family and maybe learn where she got her arrogance from and maybe, just maybe, garner her respect for holding her material possessions for her.
Another valuable opportunity to study and observe the different parts of friendship and others aspects that related to it had presented itself and Twilight Sparkle was going to take it. However the main thing on her mind at the moment of exiting her room was heading to her kitchen and enjoying a nice home cooked meal with her precious assistant.
Chapter 1: The Great and Powerful Illusion End