Sunny lifted her head as Chrysalis stomped into the villains’ headquarters, Permafrost stumbling along behind her. The changeling waited until Tirek poked his head out of his cave and nodded to acknowledge her before she shoved the unicorn unceremoniously into the water - the cave was surrounded by a filthy brown lake and the stone walls were punctured with holes and waterfalls - before joining the centaur in one of the adjoining caves.
Cozy Glow flew in behind them and said nothing at what was happening in front of her. She noticed Sunny looking and closed her eyes.
In her head, Sunny felt like a tunnel had opened up inside, a second channel besides her own, felt something crawl inside her mind and suddenly take control-
She gasped, sitting up. It was dark out. The villains were all gone - the fire was absent from all of the caves, indicating that they were either asleep or gone. Not that either changed her current predicament.
It didn’t matter if she could get out of these chains and make her way to her friends. For one thing, she was considered a traitor and would be arrested on sight. For another, Cozy Glow would just invade her head and call her right back. She might even make Sunny do something awful to her friends just because she could. No, Sunny was better where she was - her friends were safer.
A light ignited in one of the tunnels, a frosty blue instead of the warm gold that came from fire. Sunny sat up, curious, when Permafrost entered the room, his horn lit to provide light. When the torches were out, the entire fortress became as dark as the night outside it. When he saw that she was awake, the unicorn snorted and carefully picked his way down the stone ramp.
“You know you’ve lost, right?” he sneered when he was eye level with Sunny. “You may have saved Equestria before, but you’ve never dealt with anything like these ponies.”
“Are you saying that they’re better than you?” Sunny asked innocently.
Too late, Permafrost realized his mistake. “No - that’s not what I - they have different strategies than we did,” he spluttered. “Tactics that you have never dealt with in your life - skills and powers you could only imagine. The world you’ve saved has branded you a traitor. Your ‘friends’ don’t care about you. Trust me, my little pony - you lost before you knew there was a fight.”
“I haven’t lost,” Sunny retorted, drawing herself up. “As long as I have my friends with me-”
“Ah, but you don’t have your friends,” Permafrost interrupted, looking pleased now at the turn this conversation had taken. “You’re all alone, and you yourself believe that you’re far too dangerous to ever return. What a sad, sad story. It would be such a shame if everything you worked so hard to build - everything your father dreamed about - simply crumbled.”
A blazing anger filled Sunny’s veins, and a fierce love for her father and friends, and she stood up, taking a step towards the unicorn, her eyes flashing.“Friendship cannot simply crumble,” she snapped. “You can’t defeat it, no matter how hard you try. There will always be ponies - ponies like my father - who will fight against it. Nothing I have built will crumble, and nothing you can do will ever change that.”
For the first time, Sunny registered the fear in Permafrost’s eyes. She paused, then noticed that the unicorn was bathed in a golden light even though his horn had gone out. She turned and walked as far as her chains would allow her to peer onto the surface of the murky water.
Her wings and horn had returned, but now there was something… different about them. Instead of being purely gold, they shimmered with all the radiant iridescent colors of the rainbow. And was it just her, or were they brighter, too? There was something else as well - the stripes of color in her mane matched her wings and horn, shining brighter than ever. Her mane was floating just off her shoulders and was flowing though there wasn’t a breath of wind to be had. And it wasn’t just her wings and horn and mane that were glowing - it was her entire self. Sunny blinked, but the image didn’t change.
She turned to look at Permafrost, but the unicorn was gone. Sunny took a deep breath and felt it fading away - her wings and horn disappeared, her mane returned to normal, and she stopped glowing - if that had even been what had happened. Still, the fear in Permafrost’s eyes…
Sunny had thought that turning into a temporary alicorn had been the extent of her magic, but now… now she was wondering if there was more. More to the power of friendship than she had thought.
With a sigh, she settled down again, her chains clacking as she did so. Even if she did have lots of magic, that didn’t help her. She could still be mind controlled at a moment’s notice-
Mind controlled.
Whenever Sunny felt Cozy Glow take over her mind, it felt as if another channel opened up in her head, a… connection of sorts.
If it could work one way… why not both?
Cautiously, Sunny lowered the few remaining defenses she had left - not that they did any good. Cozy Glow could still invade any time she wished. But they did keep the pegasus filly from just reading Sunny’s thoughts every moment of every day. She gently prodded around until she felt something - something different.
A mind link.
Excited now, Sunny envisioned trotting down a long tunnel, the link that connected her mind with Cozy Glow’s, and suddenly she felt something else.
Sunny carefully, gently worked her way around the barriers and walls surrounding Cozy’s mind. She didn’t want to control her - that would be cruel and wrong. And there was no way she would be able to pull that off without the pegasus filly noticing. She merely wanted to understand - what made this pony tick, what did she want, why did she want that, what her plans were.
All of a sudden, she passed through, and she could see things…
She was crouching around a corner, the shadow of a large creature with four legs and two arms looming on the wall in front of her, not wanting to hear but unable to stop…
She was setting off to an unknown land, intent on robbing it of its magic, fueled by anger and a determination to prove herself…
She was facing a creature standing on two legs with large, bat-like wings as he lifted a necklace off his neck - a golden triangle - and handed it to her, his eyes large and apologetic. He lifted his claw, and two ponies suddenly burst out, wings spread and horns ablazing, wrapping her in beams of light and dragging her down while she roared…
She was trapped in a small cage on a rocky tower deep under the earth, her only company being a large three-headed dog guarding the only entrance and exit, the only thing she had to look forward to being scratching another mark on the floor every day, her only pastime being plotting her revenge…
She was running down an alleyway, covered in a heavy, dark cloak, hurrying away from that awful place, desperate to get away…
She was standing in front of a pony, a plain brown unicorn stallion, her mouth opening, his eyes glazing over, the glow from his horn being sucked away, and she felt herself growing stronger…
She was looking down at a small purple alicorn, opening her mouth, the alicorn’s horn lighting up and being sucked dry, and so much power flowed through her veins as she grew stronger and more powerful and grew to a colossal size, towering over everything in her way, the most powerful being in the land, with everything she had ever wanted, and yet, there was still an empty void inside…
She was facing down six ponies, surrounded by a glowing rainbow light as they shot a shining rainbow straight at her, and she could feel her power being stripped away, herself growing weaker and weaker and weaker until she reappeared back in her cage, back with the three-headed dog, back with the claw marks on the bottom of the cage, back to plotting her revenge…
She was sitting in her cage as a letter materialized in front of her, and she just stared at it, shocked, wondering who would write to her in such a desolate place, but when she read it, she had the most wonderful, perfectly evil idea that would show those ponies…
She was being tortured by a pink pony with cymbols and party hats and teacups, and then she gave up her magic, the little magic she had left, to get those ponies out of there, and there was a part of her that felt good about it, something inside that filled the void that she thought stealing magic would…
She was suddenly transported out of her cage into a cave with her new cell mate, where she was joined by a changeling, a pony of shadows, and an ancient ram that she had heard stories of when she was young…
She was sitting at a campfire with the filly and the changeling as they laughed together and plotted evil plans together and just had fun together, and she could feel the void inside her filling up, and it was the best feeling in the world, so content and full and happy…
She was hit with a massive rainbow, power stripped away once more, squashed by a giant cupcake, and then… zapped, and she felt her limbs freezing up, and she felt like she had failed…
She was free, she could move again, breathe again, and she had no idea where she was, and everything was so strange and unfamiliar and she hated it so much, and she wanted to go back, back to her time period, back to her home, back to the ponies and creatures she knew…
She was sticking with the filly and the changeling, because she was scared, she was alone, she didn’t even have the ponies to exact revenge on anymore, and they were all she had left now, all she had left…
She was herself again. Sunny gasped as she pulled herself back into her own mind.
That had been… interesting. She could still feel her heart racing as she had been dragged from one memory to the other, everything such a blurred mess that she couldn’t quite sort it out, but three things were very clear.
One, that had not been Cozy Glow’s mind. That had been Tirek’s. Which meant that she was not only connected to Cozy, but to all three.
Two, Tirek was fueled by a burning hatred and a thirst for revenge, along with a thirst to prove himself, because he felt unworthy. The memories had all been a crazy jumbled mess, but Sunny was sure of that much. The pain and agony had been what remained constant throughout the rollercoaster of his mind.
Three, Sunny had been able to enter his mind. She had been able to see his thoughts, experience his memories, feel his feelings.
She took a deep breath and raised her barriers again. But this time, they were stronger - she knew what they would try to use to get past them. She felt a bit of closing off, felt something inside her recede ever so slightly.
She smiled. It wasn’t much, but it was progress.