Trixie always expected to find herself, once again, alone and in the dark. What she wasn't expecting was to literally find herself alone and in the dark. She studied her new environment and saw that the darkness was everywhere. The sky above was just as pitch-black as the seemingly non-existent surface that held her body in the air. Trixie was standing on nothing and yet, for some bizarre reason, she wasn't spiraling into the void below. From what Trixie could tell, there were no other ponies here, living creatures, or sources of light. In fact, Trixie began to question if anything ever existed here … wherever "here" was exactly. There was only Trixie and the darkness. The confused mare decided to do what any sensible pony would do in this situation, walk around.

After taking her first step forward, Trixie notice that small ripples appeared in the darkness below her hooves. It was as if she were walking on water. "I'm definitely not in Manehattan anymore," thought Trixie. As she journeyed deeper into the void, Trixie asked herself the same questions over and over again. "How did I get here?" "Why am I here?" "How do I leave this place?" If she could recall correctly, she had frozen to death in an alley somewhere inside Manehattan. If that's the case, then could it be that she was in the afterlife? Funny, paradise wasn't quite what she had expected. There were no bright lights, angels, warm skies, or a supreme being to greet her with a smile. There was only oblivion.

Before long, Trixie was finally able to locate another source of life. Standing a few yards away was another pony but it had its back turned towards her. Elated to see that she wasn't alone anymore, Trixie ran forward as fast as she could with a smile. "Hey! Over here!" The pony didn't turn around. It was as if it hadn't heard her. "Hey," said Trixie while slowing down to a trot after getting close enough to the pony. "Um … do you have any idea where we are, or how to get out?"

There was still no reply from the pony. "Uh … can you even hear-" Trixie stopped herself midsentence as she stared at the pony. After Trixie realized who the pony standing before her was her muscles slowly began tense up. Light purple coat … violet, purple, and pink mane … and a dark pink star surrounded by five white sparkles for a cutie-mark.

"… Twilight?" called Trixie with uncertainty. What was she doing here? Ah, who cares? Although it wasn't her favorite pony in the world, Trixie decided that she'd gladly accept Twilight's company if it meant that she wouldn't be lost in the darkness all alone.

"Twilight?" Trixie called again, but still didn't get a response.

Trixie reached forward to tap Twilight on the back.

The instant her hoof made contact with Twilight's body, Trixie's vision was obscured by a sudden burst of light. The flash was so intense that it forced Trixie to shield her eyes and turn away. After a few seconds had gone by, Trixie finally opened her eyes. The unicorn was met with a mixture of shock and confusion. She was no longer in the darkness. She found herself somewhere much worse.

"Ponyville?" What was she doing here? From what Trixie could remember, she was standing in the town square. She looked up into the sky and saw storm clouds. The scenery was all too familiar to Trixie. This was how the town looked when she had her final showdown against Twilight. Trixie broke into a cold sweat as she backed away slowly. She stopped after she felt herself bump against something. The moment Trixie turned around she jumped in surprise and it wasn't just because of the flash of lightning that lit up the sky. Standing in front of Trixie were the very ponies that worked together as a team to bring her down: Twilight and her friends, the Zebra with the weird accent, the stallion, the fillies, and the elderly mare. The new setting felt all too familiar and Trixie began to wonder if she had somehow gone back in time. Her thoughts changed after she took a second glance at her former adversaries. It wasn't the murderous stare they were all shooting Trixie that forced her to back away with caution. Trixie backed away because they were all wielding knives.

"Listen everypony, if this has anything to do with what I did the last time that I was here then I just want you to know that I'm sorry." The intimidating ponies, and zebra, continued their slow, ominous, advance.

"No … stay back!"

Trixie's words fell on deaf ears as they continued their approach.

Trixie panicked. She turned around in an attempt to run away but was blocked by a large wall of ponies. She recognized many of them as the Ponyville residents.

"What's the rush?" questioned an earth-pony stallion with a sinister look in his eyes.

"Yeah, why don't you stay for awhile?" asked a nearby unicorn mare.

More of the town's folk swarmed the vicinity. Some came from nearby houses, some flew in from the dark skies above, and others seemed to emerge from the shadows of nearby buildings. Before long, Trixie found herself completely surrounded. There were so many of them, and they had any possible exits that Trixie could have used to get away blocked off. She was trapped, and her hopes of getting out of Ponyville alive were dropping fast. Another flash of lightning cracked across the sky.

Trixie turned back around; Twilight and the others were still walking towards her with their weapons drawn. Trixie aimed at her incoming predators and charged her horn with magic. Ah … magic. She didn't think she'd ever be so happy use the stuff again, especially after what happened last time. "Get back! I'm warning you! I will do it!"

"Do what?" asked Rainbowdash. "Tickle us to death with your amateur leveled magic?"

Trixie had flashbacks about her previous visit in Ponyville. After replacing the Alicorn Amulet with that cheap fake that was being used by Twilight, she fired her strongest attack spell at the rainbow-maned pegasus standing before her. She could still remember the shock she felt when she saw how ineffective her magic truly was. The memory only served to sink Trixie even further into the depths of despair. "No …" whimpered Trixie. The realization of just how powerless she truly was caused her to lose concentration over her magic. Just as her control over her only means of fighting back began to fizzle out, so too did her fighting spirit. She fell onto her knees in anguish.

The moment that Trixie collapsed, a pony that she remembered as being the mayor of the town ran from the crowd and grabbed her. Her grip was so powerful that it seemed unreal. The mayor, while still maintaining her vice-like hold on Trixie, turned the mare towards Twilight and the others.

The crowd erupted with insane laughter as Trixie screamed for help. The unicorn that defeated Trixie, and all of her friends, were now standing only a few inches away from Trixie. Twilight raised her knife high into the air while shooting Trixie an evil grin.

"Help! Somepony help me, please!" screamed Trixie at the top of her lungs.

Twilight smiled and said, "What creature in their right mind would help somepony as worthless, crazy, and untalented as you?"

That was the final nail in the coffin for Trixie. She was everything that Twilight just said and so much worse.

"Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!" chanted the on-looking crowd.

She didn't deserve to live anymore and the world would be better off without her. She slowly closed her eyes. She just hoped that Twilight would show mercy and make this quick. The moment Twilight plunged the knife as deep as she could into Trixie's breast, precisely where her heart was, another flash of lightning raced across the sky.


"AHHHH!" screamed Trixie as her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. She began to hyperventilate as she ripped away at the blankets that were wrapped around her torso and checked herself for any serious injuries. There was no blood … it was only a bad dream ... a very very bad dream.

"Hold on a minute … I'm covered in blankets? What the hay?!" Further inspection revealed that she was resting on a dark red couch. "Am I in somepony's house?" Before Trixie could further inspect her surroundings, an unfamiliar voice broke Trixie's train of thought.

"Alright! You did it Summer!" Trixie's body jumped slightly as she turned towards the direction of the voice.

Standing a few hooves away from the couch were two unicorns, both mares. One was covered in sweat and was panting heavily. Several sparks danced around her needle sharp horn. She had a light-orange coat and a short fiery red mane. Part of her mane grew out in front of her face, covering one of her dark purple eyes. Below her eyes were heavy dark bags, signifying that she hadn't slept in awhile. Her cutie-mark was a silhouette of a pony striking a punching-bag with enough force to make it explode, causing sand to fly everywhere.

The other unicorn was slightly shorter than the one that had sparks flowing from her horn. She had a light pink coat and a curly soft green mane, which contained thin yellow streaks of hair. Her cutie-mark displayed a picture of a large garden. She had a smile on her face that filled Trixie with a sense of comfort, but Trixie still felt far from safe. After all, she was in a house with a group of strangers.

"Whew ... that's the first time that I've ever used 'Thunder' based magic' to jumpstart someponies heart instead of a defibrillator. Good to know that it worked. If I'd gotten here any later, she would have died," said the unicorn with the red mane.

"…Uh … who are -" Trixie ceased her question as her body began to shiver violently. Why did she feel so cold all of a sudden?

"Hey, take it easy! You had a really bad case of hypothermia when she found you. You're body still needs time to recover, and if you don't keep warm you could still die," explained the orange unicorn.

The memories of being out in the cold returned to Trixie in full force. The last thing that she remembered before her collapse was seeing a pony run towards her with a blanket. That must have been the pony with the green and yellow mane. "And you are?" asked Trixie while rewrapping herself and turning towards her rescuer.

"My name is Autumn Daisy," said the pink unicorn. "And this is my older sister, Summer Daisy, but you can just call us by our first names. I looked outside my window and saw you crawling through the snow. I thought I was too late when I finally made it over to you. After I carried you back to my apartment and wrapped you up in as many blankets as I could find, I ran all the way to Summer's house. She's a doctor, so I figured that she'd be able to help you more than I ever could. Good thing I got her too, your heart stopped beating at least six different times and you had a core body temperature of 51.4 degrees."

Summer rolled her eyes. "I'm still pissed that you woke up me up just to run over here and save some random bum that you found in the streets. Helping you nurse a bum back to health … this isn't how I wanted to spend my Hearths Warming. When this is all over, you're going to pay me 100 bits for waking me up, another 10 for every day that I spend trying to heal her and an additional 50 if she has frostbite! And don't get me started about how much you'll owe me if my Hearths Warming gets screwed up!"

Trixie turned towards a window and saw that it was dark outside. The sun was still up when Trixie had fallen out so she must have been in Autumn and her sister's company for quite some time.

"So Trixie, would you mind telling me what it is that you're doing way out here in Manehattan? Or better yet, what you were doing outside in this kind of whether without a jacket?"

Trixie's eyes shot wide open. What did she just call her? She must have heard her wrong. "… What did you just say?"

Autumn blinked a few times. The way her guest asked that question made her feel uneasy. It was as if she'd just said something offensive. But how could that be? All she did was ask an innocent question. "I said, what were you doing outside in the cold?"

"No, before that."

"I said … 'So Trixie'?"

Trixie's breathing became shallow at the realization that a random unicorn had just addressed her by her real name.

"Hey, you okay?" asked Summer.

"Impossible! How does she know who I am?! The illusion spell should have -" Suddenly Trixie shot back up on the couch. She looked around frantically until she spotted a mirror resting on top of Autumn's fireplace. To her horror, she didn't see the disguise that she had conjured back in Ponyville. She saw her real self. There were a few minor changes of course, such as her somewhat sickly appearance due to several weeks of being deprived of decent amounts of nutrition, there were cuts and bruises all across her face from when those thugs stole the rest of her money, and her mane was stained a murky brown thanks to countless nights spent sleeping in unsanitary locations, but the unicorn that stared back from the mirror was without a doubt Trixie Lulamoon.

"No …" whispered Trixie.

"Is everything alright? You look a little pale," asked Autumn.

"No … no. No …! No! NO! Why?! How?! I put everything I had into that spell! It should have been able to hold up for years before the effects wore off!" That's when Trixie remembered just how weak she had become. Yesterday when she spaced out, she didn't even have enough strength to stand on her own four legs, so how was she supposed to have enough power to maintain something as advanced as an illusion spell? She must have returned back to normal around the time Autumn showed up.

Wait a minute … Autumn and Summer knew who she was, but she knew almost nothing about them. Why did they save her? Did they think that it would be amusing to have a broken unicorn of her public status contained in an apartment like this? Perhaps they wanted to make a quick bit by tipping off a couple dozen reporters about where she was staying. She could only imagine what the headlines of the newspapers would say. Oh no, if that were to happen, especially in a big city like Manehattan, it would be a repeat of everything that drove her into a self-sentenced exile times a thousand! Ponies would flock over to the apartment in droves if it meant that they could poke more fun at the already broken down mare! Forget running away from Ponyville, she'd have to leave Equestria!

"Ok seriously, now you're starting to make me a little nervous. Are you alright, Trixie?" Autumn asked once again.

The inner flames of Trixie's anger were beginning to ignite.

In reality Autumn was frowning, but all Trixie saw was a mocking smile. The imaginary smile then evolved into laughter, the kind of laughter that she often heard in her nightmares.

Autumn walked towards Trixie. She was going to check and see if her hypothermia had perhaps turned into a high fever. The sight of her approach alarmed Trixie. "Stay back! I know what you two are trying to do and it won't work!" Trixie kicked the covers off her body and rolled off the couch. Trixie screamed the instant that she landed on the white carpet below. All of a sudden, she felt an overwhelming pain shoot through every last fiber of her body.

"Trixie, are you alright?!" shouted Autumn. "Summer, what's wrong with her?!"

The medic trotted forward and examined Trixie. She was swelling up like a balloon. "Autumn, you know how if you stay outside in the cold for too long your hooves go numb?" Her younger sister nodded. "And you know how it hurts like hell when the feeling comes back? Well, it's the same situation with her only worse. She was out there for Faust knows how long, so it's not just her hooves that are regaining their feeling back, it's her entire body." Autumn's eyes widened with terror. She couldn't imagine how much pain her new guest was in.

"That's one of the things about hypothermia; it'll disappear once the body warms back up, but not before leaving a present for you to remember it by." Summer wrapped Trixie, and the covers on the ground, inside a cocoon of telekinetic magic. While Trixie was suspended in the air, Summer was able to catch a quick glance at the unicorn. There was a strange red swelling around her two front legs where her coat ended and her hooves began. "Frostbite. You already owe me an extra 50 bits little sister." She gently placed Trixie, who was still screaming and flailing about in the air, back onto the couch. Her horn glowed with a yellow light as she enchanted the covers, making it so that they forcefully pinned Trixie down. "There, she should stay put now."

"No! Let me go!" Trixie tried to break free but to no avail. The covers felt more like heavy weights now. They had her held down tight. If she were at full strength, she could have freed herself through a great deal of effort, but not the way she was now. Her body had warmed up a bit, but she hadn't improved all that much physically. It was only through her determination to escape that she had been able to find the strength to roll off the couch as quickly as she had done moments before.

Autumn sighed sadly as she looked to her big sister. "Is that really necessary?"

"If she tries moving around in that kind of condition she'd just end up hurting herself even more. Then I'd be stuck here trying to help her out even longer than I'd normally have to." Summer then fired a muting spell at Trixie. Her furious shouts were suddenly silenced. Trixie opened her mouth but no sound would come out.

How dare they? First they hold her captive and now they take away her right to speak? Just wait until she got her strength back! She'd fire up her strongest spells and – … no. She wouldn't do anything. She couldn't do anything. If she'd learned anything from her recent string of nightmares, and her experiences in Ponyvile, it was that all of her spells were mediocre. It was then that Trixie thought about just how badly everything in her life had gone. She was powerless to stop the Ursa Minor from wrecking havoc in the small town that she hated oh so much. Even with the Alicorn amulet; she couldn't get revenge against Twilight; there was nothing she could do when all of the other ponies turned her away after applying for a job, no matter how hard she fought back she couldn't stop those thugs from taking away what remained of her money, and now … she was stuck in an apartment with two mares that could literally do whatever they wanted to her. They could point a knife in her face right now and she wouldn't be able to do anything about it. She had little to no control over the obstacles in her life and it frustrated her to no end.

After calming down a little, Trixie turned her head towards the back rest of the couch.

"See that, she's settled down already!" Summer said flatly. Without another word, she turned around and walked towards the stairway that lead to where Autumn's bedrooms were.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"It's six in the morning, and thanks to her, I haven't gotten any sleep since 10 o'clock. Where do you THINK I'm about to go?" asked Summer sarcastically.

"But what about Trixie? What if she needs something?"

"Oh she'll be fine. Just look at her, she's probably on her way to sleep right now, which is where I should have been ages ago. Now, good morning little sis, I'll see you later. Oh, and Happy Hearths Warming everypony..."

Autumn looked back to Trixie, she was still facing away from her. The pink unicorn sighed sadly. "Poor Trixie. What has the world done to you?" A yawn escaped the mare's mouth. It would appear that her elder sister wasn't the only one in need of sleep. She took one final look at her house guest before walking upstairs. "This is going to be one long day …"