Immediately after their disappearance, Pepper and Trixie found themselves in front of the ruins of the two sisters' castle. For Pepper, during her first two months in Equestria, this was the best place to retreat away from everything, no matter what reason or situation caused her to isolate herself.

The illusionist was disconcerted to see the scenery change from one second to the next. "What? How?" She looked around her, trying to figure out what had just happened. Without warning, Pepper's hoof, which had been on her shoulder, slipped under her leg to come to rest on her chest and knocked the unicorn over onto her back.

Trixie felt the pressure pinning her in this uncomfortable position, and cautiously turned her attention to Pepper.

Pepper was looking back at Trixie with narrowed eyes. She seemed calm on the outside but inside she was like a volcano about to erupt. Gamine was on the lookout, ready to steal control of her body if things got out of control. Pepper jumped straight into interrogation mode, casting a spell upon Trixie. "Would you kindly not lie to me for an hour?"

Under the influence of the spell, Trixie blinked in surprise. "Trixie has no reason to lie to you."

"Oh, really? Why did you help me back then?"

"Trixie has been hired to help you for three days," she said without blinking before trying to gag herself with her hoof, realising she had just blundered.

The information left Pepper perplexed. "Who hired you?

The mercenary tried to answer wrongly, but it was a waste of time. "Trixie doesn't know his name."

That line of questioning didn’t appear to be leading to an imminent breakthrough, so Pepper picked a new angle of attack. "Why three days?"

"Trixie doesn't know," she readily admitted. "All Trixie knows is that you made Princess Celestia disappear, and that Trixie will be paid a small fortune to follow you wherever you go for those three days."

Pepper raised an eyebrow. "Unlike the others, you are taking the news pretty well, and you are even willing to help me for a bundle of money. Amoral and venal. In the past, I fought alongside comrades-in-arms, so I do not mind you sticking next to me, but as you seem to be willing to do anything for gold, consider this a warning: I killed Celestia. I can kill again.”

Trixie’s eyes grew round. "What?! She's dea..." The shock of the revelation overcame her, and she fainted on the spot.

"Oh, she didn't actually know," Gamine said, relieved to see that Pepper was no longer nervous about the truth behind Trixie’s boast.

Pepper laid Trixie on her stomach, only to start rummaging through her saddlebags to make sure nothing could be used against her. She found nothing dangerous at all, but a familiar smell made her dig deeper. Tucked into a food pocket were braised slices of pork; a tempting snack, if not for their unknown provenance and accompanying poisoning risk.

"Why three days?" Gamine whispered.

After mulling over the question, Pepper sighed. "It does not make sense. Equestria's ponies have a ‘carpe diem’ style of life so to speak. Even after the return of Luna, Discord, and the invasion of the Changelings, and … uh, I forgot the name of the tyrant king—they never prepared for the next problem. But one of them, obviously aware of what I did whereas the royal guards are not, ended up helping me in such a way..." she said as she turned to Trixie. "This is not a question for me. You are going to be back in control at the end of today, so what are you going to do in the next two days?"

Gamine thought for a moment. "I don't know. Go home, go to my mother's grave. I..." She paused, the vision of it and the feeling of the dirt that accumulated under her nails invading her mind.

"At least she has a grave. Celestia will probably never have that privilege," Pepper nonchalantly pointed out.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The sadness that had overwhelmed the young guardian as she thought about the last day in the place she could call home was instantly crushed by her rage. Her mind pounced on Pepper's, as if grabbing her by the throat, as her hatred towards Pepper grew.

The body, no longer under their control, collapsed to the ground while the spirits opposed each other.

Pepper smiled in response, not afraid for a moment. "Go for it! Surrender to your primal instincts! I know that underneath your guardian's appearance is a Dis Astro! Do not lie to me; I have noticed the ease with which you used our skills on the bat pony called Swift and the spell of obedience upon the bat pony named Antarès! Go ahead, do it, reduce all the efforts of your mother to nothing! Kill me! CONSUME ME!"

The cruel truth that Gamine was trying to obliterate and Pepper's confidence in the face of death gnawed at her strength like an acid. The weight of her duty crushed her little by little, and without the ritual that gave her the higher ground, she was no match for the monster. She fled, retreating away from the creature, folding back in on herself.

Pepper regained control of the body, both satisfied and disappointed by the conclusion. "You have been trained well, but sooner or later, I am going to make you succumb."

"What's wrong with you?!" yelled Gamine defensively.

"Oh, do not get me wrong, I will do my best to survive as long as I can, but I am under no illusions that sooner or later I am going to die, one way or another. But if you, the immaculate young Guardian that you are, corrupt yourself by killing me, you will succumb to the lure of my power. And for me it will be one last victory."

Gamine was terrified. She had no regrets about sacrificing her future to lock up the monster, but she never thought she would be harmed in any way given the level of control the ritual gave her over Pepper’s body.

In the end, if all the lessons her mother had tried to teach her were lost in a moment of forgetfulness, was it worth imprisoning one monster at the risk of creating another?

“Azari was wrong, I am not the last one,” whispered Pepper to herself.

“Who’s Azari?” asked Gamine, trying to change the topic.

Pepper, with her eyes closed, enjoyed the silence and the rays of the sun that warmed her coat. “A planeswalker like me. The first entity I talked to once I became one myself.”

“I see,” muttered Gamine.

Pepper turned her gaze to the walnut doors sitting on the ground, her eyes focusing on the blackened remains of a magical attack designed to destroy a bowl of soup that had just been offered to her. Next to them were the footprints of Luna's royal sabatons. The marks were the result of the righteous anger of the Princess of the Night following Pepper’s mockery.

Hah! You look like day and night! >

With these words Pepper warped to the marker just outside and hid in the ravine. Luna broke down the doors with a kick of her hoof and set off in pursuit.

Pepper chased the memory from her mind as she opened a portal to the hideout below her hooves. The lair was just below where she arrived, dug into the bottom of the ravine with dimensional magic. The entrance was hidden by rocks, allowing air to circulate, but also blocking light.

Pepper illuminated the small room with her magic, a square room that was just big enough to hold six adult ponies. This secret place was mainly used as a safe shelter for sleeping. In one corner of the room was her pallet: a vaguely rectangular bale of straw with an old sheet and pillow borrowed from one of the rooms in the ruined castle. The hideout was also used to store everything she could not afford to carry with her during her stay in Equestria—more specifically, mint & liquorice sweets. These sweets, which she loved so much, were scattered on a table dug into the rock. "Barely nine left," she thought after a quick count as she chewed the tenth. Pepper didn't pay the slightest attention to the toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste that Pinkie Pie had given her along with the candies, nor to the last item on the table—Gamine's bundle, still wrapped in white silk. Turning away from the table, Pepper summoned her weapon and waited for the dozen seconds it took for it to appear from the dimension she had left it in. She then left it to rest in its sheath against the wall; if an unexpected fight arose, she would be able to summon it in a split second now it was in the same dimension.

Cowering over herself, Gamine remained silent, thinking back to all the moments when her mother brought her happiness.

Pepper paused for a moment, looking at this cold and empty room, with its narrow opening to the outside. It brought a smile to her face, how much it reminded her of her current situation: imprisoned in a small box with a beautiful window to the outside world. In a more nuanced manner, this shelter summed up her life and what she would leave behind the day she would be killed.

As she remembered with a faint smile on her lips one of the duels of insults she had lost, Gamine suddenly raised her head, looking up through the monster's eyes. "Pepper!"

"I know," she said, her gaze filled by the orange wisps. "I can feel it through the marker I created this morning." She was already channelling the magic needed, and moved there the next moment.