//------------------------------//
// 49 - A Path Well Trodden 
// Story: New Endings, Old Starts 
// by David Silver 
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"What are you doing?! Those are Twilight's student files!" Cozy wasn't actually stopping the chancellor from searching, but an annoyed expression she had time to deliver.

"These aren't. Not anymore. With Equestria under attack, ponies must stand together. Twilight has endangered us all by skipping off on friendship trips while these dangerous creatures run loose." 

His words only seemed to encourage Cozy, a smile growing. "You don't think they're the reason magic is disappearing, do you?"

"Yes, and I came to warn Twilight. But since she is gone, it falls to me to protect you foals from these monsters."

Comforting gasped. "What a jerk!"

Smolder rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but a jerk in charge," she whispered back.

"Did you hear something?" Neighsay looked up and scanned the room.

"It sounded like it came from over there!" Cozy flitted over to the door and knocked it open with a creak, causing the creatures there to topple over.

Neighsay scowled, his horn glowing with intent. "You again. As I suspected." The students yelped out as he wrapped them in sudden chains. "From now on, this school is pony-only! As nature intended. Now, tell me what you're doing with the magic and how to return it. Now."

Gallus shook a hand, the rest of him secured. "We don't know. Not like our magic's doing any better, genius."

"A likely story." Neighsay casually picked up Gallus in his magic, setting him aside to look at the others. "You." He scowled at Ocellus. "Changelings are quite talented at sneaky schemes. Out with it."

"I don't know much about magic, um, sir." She wriggled in her binds. "You know, chains can't hold a changeling very well." With a rush of green flames, she became a little parasprite, with equally small chains that dragged her to the ground with a thump. "Oh." She turned back into a changeling.

"As if I didn't prepare for your deceits." He shoved her smoothly next to Gallus. "Your kind always thinks its best."

"Unlike ponies." Yona looked smug at her burn.

Neighsay was not moved. "It's not. Tell me how to get the magic back, right now!"

"Use mighty pony power?" she ventured as if it were a legit strategy. "Works, yes?"

"Ugh." He tossed her, though a bit slower than the others. She was heavy. "Dragons are jealous. They think they should be in charge, of everything."

"Well, yeah." Smolder shrugged in an absence of argument.

"You admit it!"

"Never argued obvious stuff. Don't know about the magic though." She was as tied as anycreature else, but had her arms crossed in sullen defiance, eyes half closed. "If a dragon did it, you'd know."

"That is what I'm asking!" Neighsay stormed with a clop of a hoof.

"You wouldn't have to ask," noted Smolder in a bored and snarky tone. "It'd be really obvious. It isn't obvious? A dragon didn't do it. Call us all the names you want, but subtle isn't one of them."

"Enough!" He tossed her with the other students. "Since you refuse to explain your plot against Equestria and return the magic you stole, you will stay here while I summon your guardians to take you home."

Comforting did her best to raise a hoof with only mild progress. "Sir?"

"Wha..." He came up short. Even he had a hard time shouting angrily at the filly. She was exactly the kind of pony he was trying to protect. "What is it?" he repeated with strained lack of patience.

"My guardian is with Twilight, trying to fix the magic thing." Comforting tried her best smile. "Do I have to wait until she gets back?"

The other pony there, Sandbar, suddenly hopped into the conversation, "Wait! You were right about them from the beginning, Chancellor. I see that now."

Smolder recoiled in obvious shock. "What are you saying?!"

"Sandbar." Silverstream gasped loudly, just as surprised.

Sandbar sat up as well he could in chains. "I don't want anything to do with creatures that could threaten Equestria! Besides, somepony has to walk Comforting home. She's not even involved."

Neighsay was quiet a moment before a brief nod formed. "Wisely put, colt." With a brief glow of the amulet he wore and a touch, he undid the locks on Sandbar and Comforting's chains. "Everypony will come to their senses, eventually." He marched from the room with a purpose.





Comforting hurriedly trotted alongside Sandbar. "Where are we going?"

"To get some help. From a pony I know can and will give it." He perked an ear at her. "By the way... Why the, uh, trust. Not that I'm complaining."

"I trust you because it was pretty obvious you were lying." A contradiction that put a wry smile on her face. "You changed on a dime for my sake."

"Partially... I also have to save the others." They left the town proper and ascended in the dark towards the Apple orchard. "And staying locked up wouldn't help that. Making you stay locked up wouldn't help anypony, especially you, either. I know you're a smart filly, but you're still a filly."

A positive thing at times. "How will the Apples help? Applejack is with Twilight." Which meant she wasn't there, and the big quiet Big Mac seemed like the wrong pony for the job. "Also, how was he using magic?"

"Huh? Who?"

"That mean person from before, pointed beard?" Comforting pointed back where they had come from. A pony she didn't know was a relatively unusual experience. "Their horn wasn't glowing." She had been looking for that.

"Pretty sure it's the thingie he wears?" Sandbar brushed a hoof on his chest where the amulet would be, if he was wearing it. "Unicorns don't have magic right now. Oh! Right, you can see that magic, right? DIdn't you see it, um, glow?"

"I didn't think to look there," she admitted sheepishly. "I will next time. Why does that work and not our horns? So unfair..." They were coming up on a farm house. "This feels a little strange, sneaking up on someone's farm in the middle of the night."

"This is the definition of an emergency. They'll forgive me." He looked around. "Always an apple around here." He grabbed one off the ground where it had fallen. "Wake up!" He hurled the apple to bounce off a window.

But nopony woke up. So he grabbed a second to hurl. Comforting wasn't sure about lobbing apples, but tried to pick one up. It made it a few inches before falling, her horn sputtering sadly. She sighed as she nudged an apple towards Sandbar. "You sure this will work?"

"It has to." He ran out of apples, all thrown at that window. "She is a deep sleeper..." He looked around for something else to toss. The window opened while he wasn't looking. He grabbed a watering can, ready to toss that, but Comforting was in the way.

"Stop!" Comforting pointed at the open window with a sleepy Apple Bloom in it.

Apple Bloom noticed them down in the gloom. "What in tarnation are y'all doin' here?"

Sandbar rushed up. "Sorry. I need the Cutie Mark Crusaders. My friends are in trouble. Chancellor Neighsay locked them up."

Apple Bloom waved a hoof with a look of sleepy confusion. "Huh? I thought Cozy Glow was in charge."

Sandbar shook his head. "Not anymore. But you guys are good buddies. If you can convince her to distract Neighsay, I can break out my friends. Will you help me?"

Comforting clopped her hooves together. "Please!"

Apple Bloom smiled brightly, turning back inside. "Do mulberries have seeds?" She was gone, only to return a moment later. "That's a yes," she explained.

She came dashing down and fled the farmhouse to join them. "Let's get the others!" There were no arguments, and the three of them galloped away to fetch the other crusaders.

Scootaloo hopped on her namesake scooter. "Let's go!" Not that she could go full speed with the others charging as fast as they could, which wasn't as fast as a determined Scootaloo on her vehicle of choice. "So what's going on?"

Sandbar had Comforting on his back, the only way the filly could hope to keep up with their wild galloping. "Chancellor Neighsay has gone totally nuts, and we're hoping you can convince Cozy Glow to lend a hoof to distract him while I rescue my friends."

Sweetie raised a brow. "Not that I'm against lending a hoof for a good cause, but why Cozy Glow."

"She was in charge, remember." Apple Bloom charged over the bridge to the school. "While Twilight is away?"

"Oh yeah!" Sweetie looked left and right. "This place sure is quieter at night... Which way are we going?"

Sandbar pointed down a hallway. "I saw her go this way as we were leaving."

Comforting started, hopping down from Sandbar with the mad dashing seemingly done. "I didn't even notice! You're a perceptive pony."

"I can't see magic," he laughed, rubbing behind his head. "But I could see Cozy Glow. Let's see if we can't catch up with her." They soon entered the library where the Young Six and Comforting had met before, just as dark, except for a grate where light spilled out gently. "In here." He pointed at the grate, then popped it open easily with a clang. "I-I could've sworn I saw her come down this way when she left her office."

They all went down into a new area where strange artifacts were firing rays up into a hovering and trapped Starlight Glimmer. They all gasped at the sight, far from anything they had expected.

Cozy was circling slowly around Starlight, a cocky expression worn. "Enjoying yourself in there, Starlight? I'm sorry I had to push you in. But what else could I do? You were going to ruin all my plans."

Comforting sank to her belly for a better look, the others following with her.

Cozy Glow puffed up her curly mane. "You might get some company soon, if I can't make that annoying Neighsay back off!--" She paused to take a calming breath. "All this magic needs time to drain from Equestria before my vortex sucks it to another realm." She giggled with malicious glee "Three days can sure seem like forever, huh? You know, you ponies got it all wrong. Friendship isn't magic. Friendship is power! With Twilight and her lackeys out of my way, all of Equestria will bow to me! The future Empress of Friendship!" With her donned crown of friendship, Cozy Glow laughed wildly, daring the universe to do something about it.

She couldn't know the universe was actually watching.

"You aren't supposed to be here." Comforting looked around from her prone position, but the source of that voice wasn't obvious. Still, the tone seemed clear. 

"Harmony?" she whispered. "Is that you?"

"But you are. You serve without asking. Do your best. I know it will be enough."

Comforting smiled, bouyed by her orderly spirit's encouragement. If Harmony thought she could do it, well, then it must be doable!

She just had to figure out what she was doing.