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Tilt: Part 2 of 2

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Applejack languished on her side at the bottom of the bubble with her eyes closed, still dizzy from the awful experience. She was only dimly aware that some new pony had magically appeared on top of the pinball machine and was currently talking with the fillies. Their voices were too enormous and muffled for her to follow, but there was another voice she couldn't help but hear nattering away nearby.

"Oh, you have made G.A.P so happy A.J.Exclamation Point!" said her tormentor. "Finally the high scorer has returned, all thanks to you and your little friends. Finally we shall be reunited!"

Applejack rolled open an unsteady eye and looked up at the glass ceiling that separated her water-logged playground of torture from the real world.  G.A.P. was floating up against it with her back to the bubble, joyfully caressing the transparent surface with her flippers and uncurling tail. Her adolescence was almost touching in that moment.

"G.A.P. will soon experience true glory again," said the sea pony dreamily.

Planting one shaky hoof at a time on the floor of the bubble, Applejack pushed herself up to a half-standing position and mumbled something nearly inaudible.

"What was that A.J.Exclamation Point?"

The orange mare repeated herself, but seemed to have a problem with her voice that limited her volume.

G.A.P. swam right up to the bubble's membrane. "Say that again, please. There maybe something wrong with your bubble that - hurkh!"

In an impressive show of strength Applejack had thrust her front legs deep enough into the bubble's wall that she was able to grab the sea pony outside of it in a fearsome bear hug.

"Well well, lookie what I caught," said the earth pony with grim satisfaction. "That little body of yours don't feel too sturdy. Guess sea ponies are the delicate type."

"What are you doing!?" gasped the sea pony as she wriggled ineffectually. "Release G.A.P. at once!"

"First you make all of this magic stop and set me free, else I'm gonna squeeze you into fish paste."

For a moment they stared into each other's eyes through the pink membrane of the bubble, Applejack looking as menacing as she could manage and G.A.P.'s fearful adolescent face seemingly on the verge of hysterics.

Then the sea pony smirked. "You're bluffing. Badly. It's all over your shifty eyes."

Applejack groaned and released G.A.P. "Horse feathers," she cussed before falling back against the other side of the bubble in defeat. "The Element of Honesty strikes again."

---

Trixie made a big show of magically scanning the pinball machine repeatedly with her horn while taking notes on a pad Big Macintosh had provided, but the truth was she'd figured out the main problem almost immediately. The cause of the problem was still something of a mystery, but she would puzzle that out once she got started with the real work.

"Well?" asked Granny Smith with an impatient clop of her hoof. "Whatsit gonna take, dagnabbit?"

With deliberate drama the showmare flipped the notepad closed and twirled to face the ponies assembled in the shed. Her audience consisted of Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and the rest of the local Apple family. "The real question is not what it's going to take but what it's going to cost. Trixie's success is guaranteed, but the sheer brilliance and complexity of the old spell she created will require a lot of effort to undo. Trixie's sweat doesn't come cheap, especially since it has been known to cure certain illnesses."

"Maybe we oughta call that nice Ms. Sparkle after all," Granny Smith grumbled half audibly to Big Macintosh.

"Absolutely out of the question!" said Trixie, who wasn't eager for yet another possibly humiliating encounter with the purple goody-two-horseshoes. "Only Trixie's incomparable talents can solve this problem."

Apple Bloom frowned. "I dunno. No offense ma'am, but after that whole mess with the ursa minor and what you did with the amulet I think I trust Twilight Sparkle more. She'd also fix this up for free, on account of her friend's life bein' in danger and all."

The audience was growing restless. It was clear they were too familiar with Trixie's rough spots for the usual bravura to work. A different approach was required if she was going to get anything out of this performance. With a shimmer of her horn she cast aside her hat and cloak to look more vulnerable. She then shot a quick kick into the Sea Pony Symphony in just the right spot to start the sad sounding 'game over' choir. She then used a tiny touch of magic to focus the light in the shed so that it hit her like a tragic spotlight.

"Alright, I'll come clean," she said in the sincerest tone she had in her manipulative repertoire. "You folks think of me as a charlatan, and in truth that's mostly what I am. I didn't get this cutie mark for my magical talent. Look at it; it's a stage magician's wand, and the key word there is 'stage'. I got it for putting on great shows without much substance."

She paused with her eyes downcast for effect. "But not every spell I cast is just a flashy parlor trick. When it comes to security magic for example I'm actually something of a pro, and although the spell on this machine is a very early, very sloppy version of my work it has taken on a dangerous life of its own."

"What do you mean?" asked Sweetie Belle. It was easy to see from the furrowed look on her face that she was taking mental notes for her own magical studies. Unfortunately taking mental notes was like building sand castles near the water for her.

"I mean it has gotten stronger, deeper, more intelligent. I don't know why yet, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that only I know it well enough to get your Applejack out safely, and I'm willing to do it just for the sake of my reputation and ego. And room and board for the night. And a bag of apples for the road. What do you say?"

Trixie secretly figured she could sweeten the deal after her inevitable success. The Apples looked at each other for a bit, then nodded.

"Eyup," said Big Macintosh. "But I got a question. Why put a dangerous security spell on a pinball machine anyway?"

Trixie turned to face the Sea Pony Symphony and all the memories it brought back: The smell of frantic sweat and out of control hormones in the air, The soda pop spills that left a sticky residue on the bottom of your hooves, the taste of braces against your dry lips, the constantly flashing lights that put some kids in the hospital, and most of all the chaotic racket that left your ears ringing for hours afterward. "It wasn't supposed to be dangerous. When I was in my teens I spent a whole summer trying to earn a cutie mark for pinball. I was pretty good, but it just wasn't meant to be. It turned out I was better at working up the crowds who gathered to watch me than actually getting the high score, and later on my actual cutie mark made that clear. This was the only machine I was number one on. When I gave up pinball I wanted to make sure no cheater could erase the score I earned, so I put a security spell on it to prevent tampering. The spell was supposed to deliver mild shocks though, not suck ponies into the machine."

"Wait a minute," said Apple Bloom, "you're the top score Applejack just beat? You're G.A.P.?"

Trixie nodded without looking away from the machine. "Right. G.A.P: Great and Powerful."

"Incorrect!" boomed a voice from the machine's speakers. A voice that sounded a lot like Trixie's but… younger? The assembled ponies took a step back in shock. "You may have once been G.A.P., but you cast aside that title when you gave up on the game. It belongs to me now, at least until you reclaim it."

"And who are you?" asked Trixie.

The backbox screen flickered with the image of another pony face rendered in blue light dots. Its mouth moved stiffly in time with the words coming out of the speakers. "I am the potential you abandoned, the talent you locked away in this machine. I am the cutie mark you could have had if you'd stuck to getting good at something instead of just talking about how great you think you are. I am G.A.P."

Well, at least Trixie now knew for sure why the security spell had taken on a life of its own. It also finally explained the mysterious stinging sensation she felt in her cutie mark whenever she retreated from a humiliating situation. She had likely been sloppy in tightening the security spell around the machine, and must have accidentally pinched off a small piece of her essence while doing so. Now here it was, a chunk of her lost pinball talent in all its adolescent glory, taunting her.

"What am I to you, G.A.P.?" asked Trixie cautiously.

"You are the high scorer of course, the one whose lost greatness G.A.P. defends."

"Is that why you kidnapped this pony?" asked Trixie while tapping the glass above the ball. "To defend my greatness?"

"Yes. A.J.Exclamation Point cheated to beat your score. It is G.A.P.'s duty to punish cheaters."

"My sister doesn't cheat!" protested Apple Bloom with a defiant lift of her chin.

Trixie ignored the comment. "Actually, your duty was just to stop them from cheating."

The machine's lights flared in what looked like an angry spasm. "Those who dare challenge the high scorer's superiority must be taught a lesson!"

Sweetie Belle chimed in sarcastically from the back. "Gee, I wonder who that sounds like?" Rarity still moaned about the green hair incident.

Trixie shot her a warning glance. "You're not helping!" She then turned back to the machine. "So, are you angry at me then G.A.P.?"

"Oh no, it's the opposite. G.A.P. knew you would come back some day and choose take back what should have been your birthright. Once you restore yourself to your rightful place at the top of the scoreboard we shall be rejoined, and with our combined power you will become a champion pinball player!"

It didn't come as a surprise that the spell's accidental mind had gone off the deep end, but the clarity of its goals gave Trixie a sinking feeling. "Stand back everypony, Trixie needs to test something."

Her horn started to glow with the aggressive power of an unraveling spell. In her unicorn vision she could now see the jagged and constantly slithering chains of security magic she had wrapped around and through the machine years ago. She willed them to shake loose, but instead they rattled like a mechanical snake and released waves of foul tasting negative energy that made her too dizzy to stand up. She and Sweetie Belle fell to the ground.

The white filly received most of the worried attention of course, but Trixie was pleased to note through her blurred vision that at least the burly red stallion had been kind enough to rush to her side.

"You OK ma'am?" asked Big Macintosh.

"Never fear," she croaked. "The indestructible Trixie has withstood dark magic that could peel the very aura off a lesser legend. A mere amusement hall gadget poses no threat."

"But what about Sweetie Belle!?" asked a panicked Scootaloo.

"I'm good," said Sweetie Belle rising woozily. "But, uh, I'm going to stand back some more, just in case."

G.A.P.'s laughter came in distorted over the machine's speakers. It was disconcerting to Trixie to hear the voice of her past self chiding her in the present. "No taking the easy way out this time high scorer."

Trixie stood up and tossed her mane back into order. "Well that confirms it," she told the others. "The spell's too strong now for magic to simply undo. Trixie will have to defeat it on its own terms to get your Applejack out."

Apple Bloom didn't like the sound of that. "You mean –"

"Yes. It's time to play the most awe inspiring game of pinball any pony will ever witness. You should consider yourselves fortunate that you shall be the ones to spread this story once Trixie triumphs."

"Finally!" sang G.A.P. The machine reset itself with a few mechanical clanking noises, ready for a fresh game.

---

Applejack scowled at her captor. "I knew I recognized somethin' about you. Makes sense that you and that huckster are connected."

G.A.P. swam backwards around her in wavy motions like a swooning pegasus. "Oh cheer up A.J.Exclamation Point. Once the high scorer takes her crown back from your scabby peasant head you shall forever be part of her glorious self too."

"Now what in the Sam Hill does that mean!?"

G.A.P. almost darted right up to the bubble to express her wicked satisfaction, but seemed to remember what had happened the last time and kept a safe distance. "Oh, G.A.P. should have mentioned that before. What the high scorer doesn't realize is that G.A.P. has a special gift prepared for her. She thinks beating your score and reabsorbing G.A.P. into herself will set you free, but in fact you are already too tightly anchored to this magic. Instead we will both become part of her, and your pinball skills will be added to her own. Perhaps her new cutie mark will even reflect your contribution."

For the second time that day Applejack contemplated a bizarre and embarrassing demise, but drowning in a pinball table just couldn't compare to becoming part of Trixie's rear end. Her jaw went so slack from furious terror that the only noise she could manage was something like an animal's roar.  Her hooves tore at the walls of the bubble with enough ferocity to scare G.A.P. just that little bit further from it.

"Oh, and don't bother trying to contact them this time," said the sea pony. "G.A.P. has fixed that leak in the machine's magic you cleverly exploited earlier. No pony can rescue you now."

---

With her hooves braced against the edges of the pinball table Trixie studied the playfield as like general would review a battle plan. She had not played pinball since that long ago summer. Still, how hard could it be to get back into the swing of it for a pony of her abilities?

"Apple juice," she commanded. Scootaloo rushed in from the side to bring a bottle of the stuff up to Trixie's waiting lips. The unicorn sucked from its straw without looking away from her task. "Enough for now. Fan." Sweetie Belle resumed flapping an old magazine in Trixie's direction to provide a breeze. "Back massage." Big Macintosh obliged with his powerful hooves. Trixie resisted the urge to purr.

"Oh get on with it!" said Granny Smith.

Reluctantly Trixie waved off the red stallion, used her magic to put on her freshly repaired wizard gear and tapped the coin slot imperiously. Apple Bloom stepped forward to place the coin in it with the reverence of a nurse delivering a crucial surgical tool. The filly then bolted away in anticipation of what came next.

Shooo beee dooo, shoop shoo bee doooo!

The sight of the machine's mane-blowing light show nearly sent Trixie on a roller-coaster ride through more of her memories of that summer. This time she squashed the nostalgia not with discipline but the knowledge that she was superior to what she had been then and therefore had nothing to learn from revisiting an inferior past.

The cursed ball with the helpless orange center was dispensed into the ball lane. Big Macintosh's eyes went a little moist at the sight of it.

"Fear not my brawny friend," said Trixie. "She will not have to suffer long with Trixie at the controls." She caressed his rock-solid shoulder to comfort him. Granny's impatient cough brought the comforting to an end.

Trixie cast a spell that would allow her to see the machine's magic working while she played; G.A.P. was too evolved and unpredictable to trust fully at this point. She then pulled the plunger with her teeth and sent Applejack back into the fray.

Call upon the sea ponies when you're in distress.
Helpful as can be ponies, simply signal S.O.S.


It was only now that the game was in full swing that Trixie could see the full extent of G.A.P.'s evolution. The spell had overrun everything like a greedy arcane fungus and created some kind of parallel reality inside the Sea Pony Symphony, probably to cope with the loneliness. This meant the whole experience had to be extra horrible for any pony trapped inside. Trixie felt a pang of guilt over her youthful carelessness, and thanked Celestia nopony else had been captured.

If your rudder runs aground or seaweed holds a grip – kelp!
Call upon the sea ponies, they'll see you get help.


---

After the second rough ricochet slammed her hard against the sharp rocks on the left side of the playing field it was apparent to Applejack that the sea ponies weren't playing around anymore. Their faces still bore that stupidly cheerful look, and their voices remained as irritatingly beautiful as ever, but they were throwing her around with more force now. G.A.P.'s revenge for the bear hug incident was anything but subtle.

She tried to concentrate anyway, running inside the bubble to stay upright and reduce her dizziness. If an opportunity presented itself she needed to be ready for it. It might be her last.

---

SCORE: 27.388.300.000 pts.

"Wow, that was fast," commented Scootaloo from an observation post she had set up for herself on top of a stack of crates. "You really are pretty good at this."

That was another thing. As a security spell G.A.P. was not supposed be able to cheat, yet it was pretty clear that she was helping. Trixie could see the flow of magical energy coursing through the flipper buttons and into herself, improving her aim and timing. Things couldn't have been smoother if she'd been using her horn's magic to guide the ball into the treasure chest and repeatedly rattle its gold trident. "What are you up to G.A.P.?" she asked. "A player of Trixie's caliber doesn't need assistance!"

The sea pony's cartoonish jubilant face slid back into view on the screen. "G.A.P. cannot help it! When you touch the machine you form a connection with the pinball talent you left behind. It is like we are already one again. This is more wonderful than G.A.P. could have imagined!"

"Oh. Well, in that case…"

The ball zipped around behind the octopus wire rails and through the lost city to hit the third very difficult to reach sea pony stallion bumper.

BASS MODE! Declared the screen.

The machine replaced its normal feminine singing choir with deep male voices:

Are you sinking fast?
Had some nasty shocks?
Feeling like all hope is gone
And washed up on the rocks?
Washed up on the rocks?


---

"Shucks, I almost never get that mode," said Applejack to herself.

The bubble rolled up the prow and onto the deck of the sunken ship, scaring off a school of red fish in the process. It looked like Trixie's strategy was to stick close to the ship and exploit the various bonus point tricks around it instead of bouncing between the ship, treasure chest and lost city the way Applejack preferred. It was a much faster approach to scoring high if you had the skill to pull it off, and if the unicorn kept playing the way she was then the game would be over in no time.

The ship tilted backwards on its pivot rock with a thunderous sound of cracking wood, sending the bubble into the brutal flippers of another gaggle of sea ponies. From deep inside that mass of manic smiles emerged G.A.P.'s taunting face. "Ready to become part of the legend?" she asked.

The sea ponies flung Applejack violently up the playing field, up onto a coral ledge slightly higher than the treasure chest. There the bubble balanced precariously, ready to tumble back down in a few seconds. If there was anything Applejack could do to save herself she would have to do it very soon. She looked around for anything she could use to throw a monkey wrench into G.A.P.'s scheme.

"Aha!" Not a monkey wrench, but a trident - the gold trident sticking out of the treasure chest!

The bubble slipped off the coral and rolled down toward the rotting wooden box and the weapon of her deliverance. Applejack strained against the bubble wall with all her might to grab the trident, but it was no use. Her prison skidded off a pile of coins and tumbled her away.

---

SCORE: 29.690.250.000 pts.

Too easy. Suspiciously easy.

Flipper to bumper, bumper to ramp, ramp to bonus point tab, down to flipper again, round and round in an unstoppable blur. The machine's multitude of bulbs pulsed in response to each of her masterful shots like a crazy lighthouse flashing through a magnificent storm. The other ponies in the room were speechless, leaving only the increasing majesty of the sea pony choir to fill the air. If not for the rapidly approaching point goal it looked like it could have gone on forever, the single greatest pinball game ever played in Equestria.

Trixie really wanted to believe she was this good, but even her infamous arrogance couldn't blind her to what was painfully obvious in her magical sight. G.A.P. was cheating without realizing it. The ersatz sea pony was so deluded about Trixie's adolescent talent that she was unintentionally using magic to make her beloved 'high scorer' more incredible than she had ever actually been.

It was an ego bruising realization, but at least the job was getting done, and none of the witnesses would know what had really happened. Legends had been built on flimsier foundations.

SCORE: 29.768.400.000 pts.

---

Probably my last chance. Here comes the chest. Keep running, stay upright. Eyes on the trident. Eyes on the trident.

Battered, bruised, winded, dizzy as glue merchant, Applejack punched her hooves deep into the bubble wall and flung them closed around the weapon.

Got it.

She was almost too senseless to feel triumph. For a moment she hung there, stuck against the chest, relieved to not be spinning. The she head G.A.P. yelling something. The sea pony was closing in.

"Don't make me do somethin' terrible," muttered Applejack, mostly to herself. "I'm a cornered rat now, don't make do it." She pressed the bubble membrane against the sharp tines of the trident, and finally managed to tear three holes in a barrier that had resisted all other abuse. Perhaps the trident was magical enough to break the spell; made about as much sense as anything else that was going on.

Water started rushing in. Applejack didn't care. Maybe she would drown, maybe not. Maybe she was unraveling the spell, maybe not. Maybe Trixie would be able to help her now, or again maybe not. Better to take a crazy chance than go quietly into guaranteed doom.

"You're ruining the perfect game!" shrieked G.A.P. The voices of all the other sea ponies rose into a thunderous musical shrieking with her. "Give me that!"

Applejack saw G.A.P. rushing toward her and sighed, "If you insist." She tore herself out of the deflating bubble, pulled the trident out of the treasure chest and stabbed it right into the sea pony.

---

'TILT!' flashed the screen.

"Argh!" screamed Trixie. She fell to the ground with a terrible stabbing pain in her cutie mark.

With a gush of water a full-sized trident burst through the glass that covered the playfield and lodged itself in the shed's ceiling. Figuring that all bets were off now, Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom rushed over to the machine and started pulling its soaked components out to find their sister's ball. "Hang in there Applejack!" said the filly. "We'll get you out!"

"Don't you foals," said Trixie weakly from her crumpled position. "That's cheating. It isn't over."

---

The explosion of the glass overhead had released enough water so that there was now a surface for Applejack to swim to and catch her breath. She did exactly that, pushing her way past a crowd of panicking sea ponies. Once she was done gasping she started yelling at her gigantic siblings, "I'm here!" Over here!"

Before they could do anything to help her a magical glow seized and paralyzed them.

"Cheaters!" bellowed G.A.P.'s voice. The other sea ponies echoed her words like a chorus of angry ghosts. "A whole family of cheaters!"

In the blink of an eye Applejack was wrapped in a new bubble. "No!" she shouted in frustration. Through the pink membrane she saw her brother and sister magically shrink until they too were wrapped in bubbles of their own. "Leave them alone!" They fell into the water next to her, powerlessly pounding their hooves against their prison membranes.

'MULTIBALL MODE!' declared the screen on the backbox.

---

Trixie's horn was glowing against her will. Somepony was controlling her, making her cast spells. No prizes for guessing who. "Release Trixie at once you insolent conjuration! Ow!"

Trixie's horn floated upward, yanking her to her hooves. What she then saw made her realize that for the second time in one day she was out of her depth; not a record, but increasingly common.

G.A.P. was now physically present at full size and floating in the air above the Sea Pony Symphony. Her form flickered erratically, a sign that her magical essence was destabilizing. If she unraveled the results would likely be catastrophic for anypony too close to her. Trixie tried to run, but her horn refused to follow her hooves, so she mostly kicked up dirt.

"Keep playing!" demanded G.A.P. The magic pulled Trixie up to the wrecked pinball machine and slapped her against it painfully. "Your destiny can no longer be denied, and we are running out of time!"

The machine's glass protection was gone, and the playing field was a mess of puddles, crackling short-circuited lights, and half transparent illusions. Trixie dutifully pulled the bumper to keep the crazed spell happy, and soon found herself playing with three balls simultaneously: one with a familiar orange center, one red, and one yellow. She could hear the Apple family members yelling and protesting in tiny voices while she juggled them around the malfunctioning bumpers.

SCORE: 29.889.900.000 pts.

G.A.P. turned excited back flips in the air. "Yes! Yes! Keep going!"

Trixie risked a quick glance up at her own jubilant teenaged face. The flickering was getting worse. It was only a matter of time.

"Get out of here!" she said to Granny Smith and the two remaining fillies. "I can still pull this off, but you need to be as far from this thing as possible!"

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked at each other, nodded, and got on opposite sides of Granny Smith to help her move faster.

"The show isn't over!" said G.A.P. "What is about to happen deserves an audience."

'WHIRLPOOL MODE!' flashed the screen, which flickered from a terrible growing rumble deep inside the machine. Trixie's pupils dilated in terror when she saw the sheer magnitude of the magic coming their way. There wasn't even enough time to shout another warning.

An impossible deluge of water blasted out of every opening in the Sea Pony Symphony. With a malevolent life of its own it swirled outward in a circular motion, filling the shed, dragging along the crates and tools and other stored items in its current and sweeping the three retreating ponies off their hooves. Within seconds Trixie found herself stripped of her hat by smashing waves, hanging off the front of the floating pinball machine, spiraling around the downward funnel of a liquid vortex that plunged into extradimensional darkness. She heard the walls of the shed being torn to splinters, and felt the ancient dust of the collapsing ceiling turning to mud in her mane.

"Keep playing!" commanded the sea pony, who was now floating above the center of the whirlpool.

"How!?" screamed Trixie over the hurricane roar of rushing water.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle zipped past her on top of a crate, clinging to each other with the tearful yet brave recognition of a young end on their faces. They were followed shortly by Granny Smith, who rode astride the spare market wagon like it was a theme park ride. "Yeeeeeehaaaah!" whooped the elderly pony with more raw energy than she had mustered in years, apparently forgetting she was in danger.

G.A.P. and her chorus answered Trixie's question. "No pinball feat is impossible for us! Once we are reunited the amusement halls of Equestria will tremble before our combined greatness!"

With all other possibilities exhausted, there was only one gamble left. Trixie pulled herself onto the machine's playing field and carefully stood up on it like a surfer to better confront the delusional spell. She was pleased to see, even in her terror, that her cloak was billowing very dramatically in the spiral of the whirlpool's motion. "There is no 'us'! There isn't even a me, at least not the way you think of me. My pinball glory was an illusion, just another show."

"What!? Explain yourself!"

"I got that high score by cheating! Your whole existence is a lie!"

'TILT!' flashed the machine's screen.

G.A.P.'s entire body flexed and twisted beyond the very limits of what a living creature could endure, her mouth gaping a voiceless scream. The truth was a wound to the very core of her misbegotten existence, setting a fire that burned from from the inside out. Trixie felt sorry for that decaying piece of herself; for all its corruption it had tragically done the only job it understood and deserved a rescue. No chunk of ego left behind. She waited until the force of the water started ripping apart the 'Sea Pony Symphony', until she was spinning as close to the writhing sea pony as she was likely to get, then leapt right into her.

SCORE: 29.920.140.100 pts.
NEW HIGH SCORE!

The short-circuiting speakers gargled their last:

Shooo beee dooo, shoop shoo bee doooouuhhghxrlzkkzzzzzzzzz-*

---

Silence. Peace.

Nothing but blue light in all directions as far as the eye could see. Applejack floated, drifted, suspended as if in the warmest of tropical waters, but there was no fear of drowning. She wasn't breathing at all. No pain, no dizziness, just a serenity that permeated her body and left her reassuringly numb.

Celestia preserve me, she thought. Is this it? Did I fail? Is this what a cutie mark is like on the inside? Or did Trixie blow us all up with that last stunt?

After a timeless moment somewhere between enlightenment and void she became aware of two muffled but booming voices arguing all around her. The first was Trixie's. The second was adolescent Trixie's.

"You're a fraud!" said the adolescent petulantly. "You've always been a fraud and you'll always be a fraud! You don't have any special talent at all!"

"Not exactly," said Trixie. "I'm good at pretending to be good. My talent is not letting boring old truth get in the way of a good show."

"That's just being a liar. There's no real glory in that. How can you live with yourself? How can you expect me to live in you?"

"Do you want to know what I learned from that summer of pinball? I worked hard to be a real champion, but it all led to nothing, and I was smart enough then to see I had hit a wall. I had a choice. I could keep training and training and end up like all those other sad chumps who didn't know when to give up, or I could just skip all that wasted effort and go straight to the glory.  So I cheated, and I put on a great show, and I made sure lots of ponies were watching when I cast you on that machine to seal the deal. I bragged about it for weeks.  What do you think happened then?"

"… Your lies were exposed and you ran away like you always do?"

"No. I retired from pinball. My performance became a legend back in that old amusement hall, and there are still ponies who think of me when they imagine a pinball wiz. I achieved glory, and while some ponies might say it feels better when it's earned, to me it felt good enough. Sure, sometimes you have to run when the rubes figure it out, and the truth catches up with your rep in the best venues, but there's always somewhere further to run."

Applejack couldn't believe what she was hearing. Evidently she wasn't the only one.

"You're crazy," said the adolescent. "You don't feel any guilt at all?"

"Should a stage magician feel guilty when she performs illusions for a cheering crowd?"

No response. Trixie went on. "Come on kid, you were part of me once, so if I'm crazy you are too. Do you want to rejoin me and taste some glory far away from here, or just fade away like a loser?"

Another timeless moment passed. Then Applejack was suddenly sucked upward, up through the blue light, up out of the watery substance, up into the air… and then down into mud.

"Hwuurkgluh," was the sound she produced when she tried to gasp and disgorged the water from her lungs instead. Something else came out of her mouth too. It took her a second to focus her dizzy gaze on it. A translucent pink pinball. She quickly crushed it under her hoof.

"Is everypony OK?" asked Apple Bloom nearby.

A chorus of coughs and moans answered her.

Applejack stood up and looked around her. Her friends and family were all scattered around in the mud of what had been the shed's dirt floor. The shed itself was gone, except for some half-buried wreckage. In the center of the devastation sat the collapsed remains of the Sea Pony Symphony. Its legs had been snapped off, its backbox cracked open, and its playfield was little more than a tangle of twisted wiring. Trixie was sprawled in front of it, face down like a worshiper.

"You a'right Trixie?" she asked.

The unicorn sprang to her hooves with startling speed. "Never better," she declared, and threw her cape out behind her dramatically. At least it was meant to be a dramatic gesture, but since the cape was covered in mud it only managed to swing around and slap Scootaloo off her shaky hooves. "The great and powerful Trixie has triumphed once more through the might of her magic and the cleverness of her cunning. Applause are not necessary, but certainly welcome."

"What happened to G.A.P.?" asked Sweetie Belle.

Trixie turned to inspect her flank and seemed satisfied with its unchanged state. "She and Trixie have become one again.  All it took were some words of wisdom and experience from an adult to a child."

Applejack pulled her soaked hat out from under the pinball machine and plopped it on her muddy head. "Right. Wisdom. You know, I'm mighty grateful and all for your savin' my hide Trixie, and I'm gonna make sure you get a real reward for your troubles, but we gotta have a talk here. I heard that whole conversation you had with G.A.P., and as the Element of Honesty I can't say I approve."

Trixie magically peeled the mud off herself and cast it aside. "Trixie graciously accepts your gratitude and rewards, but has little need for your approval."

"Hear me out now. What you did here today was real, not some illusion. You saved our lives. You didn't do it clean, and you probably did it more fer yourself than any kind of noble sentiment, but you did it all the same. Are you really so sure that doin' the right thing don't feel better than fakin' it all the time? Isn't the satisfaction just that little bit sweeter than make-believe?"

"What, are you seriously trying to straighten me out with a lecture?"

"Lecture nothin', I'm offerin' real help here. Folks 'round these parts respect me, and I'd be willin' to help you make a better second, err, third impression in Ponyville. You could set yourself up here in town as an entertainer for a while, but legit this time. I ain't sayin' it wouldn't be hard and humblin', but it would be real, and I'll bet you anythin' ponies love a genuine redemption story better than a tall tale. Whatta ya say?"

Trixie looked at the mud-splashed faces around her. Sucker faces, yes, but also honest faces. Peaceful faces. "I say Saddle Arabia is calling my name, but perhaps Ponyville deserves a real encore. Someday. When that whole Alicorn amulet business really dies down. Now, let's pack this cursed machine into a crate, bury it six feet under and put a serious security spell on it just in case."

Applejack cringed. "If it's all the same to you I think we'll take our chances and pass on the security spell."

---

They chose a remote corner of Sweet Apple Acres for the burial site. All seven of them worked together to make sure the Sea Pony Symphony would never see the light of day again. It felt like a funeral, except with more joyous laughter and smiles of relief. Big Macintosh pushed a sizable rock on top of the whole thing afterward just to be safe, and Trixie used her horn to draw a fitting epitaph on it:

SEA PONY SYMPHONY
HIGH SCORE
1. A.J.!. 29.897.320.100 pts.

As they all walked back to the farmhouse Sweetie Belle felt a musical impulse and started to sing. "Call upon the sea ponies when you're in distress…"

The looks she got put a quick stop to that.

THE END
My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic fan fiction

(Story edited for continuity with season 3 - now takes place between "Magic Duel" and "Magical Mystery Cure".)

Applejack is hell-bent on beating the high score on ‘Sea Pony Symphony’, her favorite pinball machine. Unfortunately the game has a dangerous twist in store for her. Will an unlikely retired pinball wizard be able to save her from a musical fate that is truly worse than death?

(Part 2 of 2)
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alexwarlorn's avatar
I don't know why. But this story has just stayed with me. Maybe because it's so a PRAGMATIC angle method to bring Trixie out of her box of mirrors.

How fitting I think it's rather ironic it's the Element of Honesty rather than the Element of Magic here that begins Trixie down the road to taking off her crown as the princess of liars.