//------------------------------// // Cozy Glow, Evil Scheme Consultant // Story: Cozy Glow, Daughter Extraordinaire // by FunnyFany //------------------------------// It was early Fall in Ponyville, and in the halls of a school run by the Princess of Friendship, creatures of every kind moved through the halls, getting ready for their respective classes; the Running of the Leaves wasn’t for another two months, but already some of the young ones felt the excitement radiating through their skin against the cool breeze nipping their skin. More specifically, one certain pink hippogriff. “Oh boy, I’m so excited! Living underwater and then on Mount Aris which is, you know, waaaay south in the tropics, trees there don’t do the colorful leaf-shedding thing. Which, I think, good for them?” She shrugs. “If the perennial lifestyle works for you, go for it, I just think a little change is nice sometimes.” Smolder snorted. “As expected of a form-swapping hippogriff.” She frowned and tugged on her plain turquoise sweater, pulling a sleeve further down her arm. “Wait, was that insensitive? I think professor Pinkie Pie said something about stereotyping once.” “You’re learning,” Sandbar said, elbowing her gently. “Yona don’t think it hippogriff thing. Yona also excited for big stomping race! Make ground shake so hard, leaves fall all at once!” The yak slammed her front hooves on the ground, as to emphasise. It startles a few passerbys. “Easy there, Yona,” Ocellus began, lecture voice on. “The Running of the Leaves isn’t just a way to keep the seasonal cycle running, it’s an event of great cultural relevance for Ponyville. You see, when the town was founded by a family of earth ponies--” “Booooriiing.” Gallus interrupted, finally closing his locker door after getting his notebook. “If I wanted to learn about History, I’d be frequenting a normal school, not a cool friendship one.” He felt everyone’s glares on him and cringed. “I mean, I’m sorry about my tone, Ocellus.” Ocellus smiled. “I’ve just been reading ahead a little. We are going to be learning about this stuff next on… wait, where is everyone?” She looked around the now empty hall. Sandbar’s eyes widened. “Oh no, we’re late for class!” “Oh darn, Professor Dash is gonna kill me!” Gallus takes off with the semblance of someone who was threatened with bloodshed if they were late for class one more time. “See you guys during lunch break!” And off the rest of them went, all in equal hurry to get to their respective classrooms. It was early Fall in Ponyville, and all seemed well. Somewhere else, four beings watched the calm as they planned to bring the storm. “Why are we watching these twerps babble about seasonal events?” Tirek complained. “I thought we should be looking for places where they might keep Grogar's bell!” It was an odd scene: the four members of the League of Evil surrounded the flattened rock at the center of the main room, showing varying levels of interest in the image of School of Friendship glowing inside Grogar’s Beholding Eye. Little Cozy Glow had taken a spot on the table between the obviously bored centaur and former changeling queen Chrysalis, which placed her on the opposite side to Grogar’s usual place at his dais - and that would be the optimal place for her to keep an adequate distance from the Father of Monsters, but it also put her directly under his menacing gaze; hence, the filly had decided perching awkwardly on the side of the makeshift table (shielding herself from any potential danger Grogar might pose to her) was more comfortable than just sitting on top of it. She wasn’t scared of him. She was just playing it safe. “Locating my bell is certain to require in loco investigation.” Grogar dispelled the vision in the crystal ball. “Seeing that such ancient knowledge is lost to all but a few living Equestrians, including the princesses, and waiting for them to casually bring up the subject is not a viable option, approaching them might be necessary.” “Understood, but I still don't see the connection between that and spying on… an assorted group of children.” Cozy rolled her eyes. She supposed it made sense an old guy like Tirek would have trouble following the thought process (observe, assimilate, replace), though even she thought the student six weren’t the most ideal targets for Chrysalis to swap places with. Before she could say anything, Chrysalis raised her hoof theatrically. “Obviously, my shape-shifting ability means I can disguise myself as someone close to Twilight Sparkle and squeeze the truth right out of her.” The child prodigy silently took note of everything wrong with that concept. “And I might even get the chance to pay my dearest Starlight Glimmer a little visit…” “No.” Grogar asserted, and good, someone else noticed how bad a plan that was. “All our energy must be focused on the task at hand. You will have your petty revenge once we've successfully retrieved my bell.” Oh. It was at that moment that Cozy Glow realised why she was there: everyone else was incredibly stupid. She was going to have to step in. “Hold the thought, Mr. Grogar,” she finally said, fluttering to the top of the table. Grogar raised an eyebrow. “The thing is, Chrysalis needs to be extra sneaky once she’s out there.” She turned to the changeling. “You need to be able to talk your way in and out of the places they hold this sort of information in, and do it all without getting caught. Can you do that?” Chrysalis scoffed. “Are you questioning my stealth skills?!” “Not at all! We all know you're really good at that.” She gave Chrysalis an apologetic smile. “It's just that… You have somewhat of a short temper, and even though you have all the right to be angry that they were able to defeat you twice--” Chrysalis was glaring at her-- “taking a detour to torture your nemesis will only draw attention to you, tempting as it might be.” Cozy saw her anger turn to realisation at that, and if she’d have to carry the team on her back, she was at least glad they were as easily swayed by her words as ponies used to be. “Can you guarantee you won’t lash out at anypony?” “I… well, I mean.” Chrysalis shrank in her place, turning to scowl at the ground. “If none of them start provoking me, then maybe--” Grogar raised himself to an imposing silhouette, startling everyone. “Then find a way to give me a definitive answer.” He stepped down from the dais and walked toward the staircase to the upper level of the lair. “Chrysalis: your task is to infiltrate the princesses’ inner circle, confirm the location of my bell and bring that information to me. Do not distract yourself with your own personal goals. Do not attract unnecessary attention.” He turned to them as he reached the base of the stairs. “You have until tomorrow at sunset to formulate a plan.” After he disappeared upstairs, Cozy let out a breath she didn’t notice she’d been holding. Tirek, who’d been silent the whole time, stood up, visibly annoyed. “Well, this was a decent waste of my time. I’m clearly not needed here, so I'll be on my way.” “Wait,” Cozy called out. Despite the whole aloof attitude, Tirek was good to bounce ideas off of; besides, she’d grown to like his company. “Won't you help Chrysalis and I plan this infiltration mission?” “The two of you can handle this. Don't bother me.” He left through the stone path leading to the underground tunnels that surround the lair, leaving them by themselves. This always left the filly a little on edge, as she wasn’t as close to anyone else in the lair as she was to Tirek. Whatever, it was just Chrysalis. She could handle Chrysalis. “So much for teamwork.” Cozy shrugged and turned to the changeling queen, suddenly cheerful as a foal in a candy store. “Seems it's just the two of us then.” “I don’t want your help!” Chrysalis hissed. “As I’ve established, I already have a plan: the fool Ocellus seems to be especially interested in learning. I'll disguise myself as her, ask ‘headmare Twilight’--” she said with a mocking tone-- “about Grogar's bell, get the information and come back in ten minutes. Quick and effective. No one will even have the time to suspect anything.” Her wings buzzed triumphantly, as if that wasn’t the single most contrived, circumstance-dependent strategy Cozy had ever heard. Then again, this was the same creature who warned Canterlot of her own attack by sending a written threat to Princess Celestia herself. Cozy breathed in. “Alright. Um. Let’s take it from the beginning.” She scratched her chin, attempting to look as non-threatening as possible in order to cushion her verbal strike. “Chrysalis, your plan is… how do I put this? Really bad.” “Excuse me?!” “I'm not even sure if it counts as a real plan,” she continued, intentionally ignoring her teammate’s outrage. “I mean, you have the right idea, and there’s a semblance of a structure to it, but it's just full of holes. For starters, what will you do with the original Ocellus?” “I'll encase her in a cocoon, obviously.” “Mhmm. And then what? You leave her stuck forever, so her friends notice she's gone missing and notify authorities for any clues or suspicious activities?” She starts pacing around the crystal ball. “Or do you release her, so she warns everyone about you, Princess Twilight connects the dots and figures that you were the one asking weird questions about an ancient evil bell?” “Uh--” “And that's just one problem.” Cozy cut her off. “Since Grogar has been reduced to an obscure myth only creatures who were alive over a thousand years ago remember, there's a good chance Princess Twilight won't even know what you're talking about; you probably won't be able to get anything from her. Although…” She stopped pacing, now deep in thought. A few gears started turning in her mind. “Hmmm.” Chrysalis tilted her head, equally invested and confused. “Although?” “There are very few things Princess Twilight loves more than learning. That, and she’s really close to Princess Celestia herself.” An actual plan started taking form, and Cozy smirked. “I bet with the right motivation, she might eagerly hand you all the information we need, no questions asked!” Chrysalis blanked. “I don’t follow.” Cozy spun to look straight at her, eyes shining with inspiration on an otherwise straight face. “Chrysalis, tell me: how did your first attempt at taking over Equestria fail?” The fallen queen was obviously irritated at the mention of her humiliating defeat in Canterlot. Cozy needed her to follow that train of thought in order to convince her, so she waited patiently until Chrysalis realised she wouldn’t drop the subject and muttered: “Twilight Sparkle blew my cover.” Cozy nodded. “And why do you think that happened?” “Because she’s absurdly paranoid about every little thing around her.” Huh. Correct, but… “Well, I mean, that’s true, but I also know she’s familiar with Princess Cadence, who as far as I know was the pony you chose to replace.” Chrysalis started rubbing her temples. “May I remind you, my knowledge on that specific group of ponies was very limited. I did the best I could with the little I had, and--” “And it fell short,” Cozy interrupted, “because you didn’t account for personal bonds your target had - that is, aside from prince Shining Armor’s love for her. If you knew someone would suspect your behavior, you could’ve avoided a lot of problems.” “Can’t you just get to the point already?” Chrysalis groaned. “Stop talking in circles and say what your stupid idea is, so I can shoot it down and proceed with mine.” That stung a little, if Cozy was being honest, but she was confident. “What you need is to eliminate the chances of anyone suspecting you for that.” She started pacing around Grogar’s Beholding Eye again. “You need to be someone no one would recognize. Someone with no bonds to maintain or break. Someone who could ask around about ancient pony tales with a believable motive.” With a smirk, she stopped right in front of the shapeshifter. “Chrysalis… we’re making you an Original Character.”