• Published 27th Dec 2019
  • 5,197 Views, 224 Comments

The Hero: Cozy Glow...? - SoloBrony



Cozy Glow defends truth, justice, and the equestrian way, despite everyone trying to arrest her. It's mostly because she has brain damage.

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The Main Villain: Cozy Glow...?

"And that's how I saved Daring Do!"

"Wow, good job!"

Dash and I had been chatting up a storm while we ate our lunch on a cloud overlooking Ponyville. I didn't have much to say about my past, obviously, but I at least ran down the monster fights I'd been in so far, and she seemed suitably impressed.

I was actually a lot more interested in hearing about her exploits, though. It seemed like she was on good terms with someone called 'Twilight Sparkle', who was apparently another princess (Just how many of us were there, anyway?) and they'd spent a lot of time together saving Equestria.

I tried to keep my probing about the evil wizard group as oblique as possible, because I still wasn't sure what the deal was with them. I figured they must have been secretive; we must have been fighting some kind of invisible war, unknown to Equestria at large!

"So, who are all the princesses? There's Celestia and Twilight..."

Dash nodded, "Oh yeah, there's also Celestia's sister Luna."

"Does she have a dark-blue coat? I think I saw her at the retirement home."

"Right, that's her. She and Celestia are staying at Silver Shoals for now. And then there's Cadance, the Princess of Love. She runs the Crystal Empire with Shining Armor. There's also Flurry Heart, their kid – just a little baby. Didn't they teach you this in school?"

I shrugged. "Maybe, it's just a lot of princesses to keep track of! Speaking of, wasn't there another princess?"

Dash tapped her chin in thought. "No, I don't think so... the Hippogriffs have a queen, and I think her daughter counts as a princess...?"

"I mean another pony alicorn princess type thing."

Dash just shook her head. "No, definitely not. I've met all of the Equestrian princesses."

I tried to hide my surprise.

Holy smokes! I must not be from Equestria at all, then! Some kind of foreign princess? But then where am I from?

Dash saw me deep in thought and flicked a fry at me. "Bit for your thoughts?"

"Oh, just... I thought there was another one, that's all. I guess I just got it all confused."

I did my best innocent foal impression, and that seemed to convince her. She just shrugged.

"Don't tell Twilight this, but I kept getting it mixed up for the longest time myself. I often forgot that she was a princess, and at first I forgot Luna was a thing at all!"

"Gee, that must have made her feel pretty awful..."

"Yeah, maybe..."

Dash looked off at Ponyville in thought, and I seized the opportunity to consider where I must have come from. But I just couldn't imagine a foreign alicorn princess emerging without anyone in Equestria hearing about it, and I definitely knew more about Equestria than anywhere else... so did that mean I had only ascended recently, and nopony heard about it? I must have really nailed that secret-identity thing pretty fast!

"Say, Quillon."

I stirred from my thoughts again, and worried for a second I had messed up my disguise somehow.

"Huh? Yeah?"

"I know you don't want to tell me anything about your past or who you are or whatever."

More like I CAN'T...

I just nodded and she continued.

"I'm not going to push you on that. But... thanks. For helping ponies. Things have been absolutely bonkers since the big fight with Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow. The windigoes' coming back really spooked ponies, and now there's monsters rampaging, and Cozy managed to escape so there's this big pony hunt going on for her..."

An escaped villain? That sounds like prime super hero material.

"No problem, Dash. It's what heroes do, right? It's been fun."

Dash nodded, chewing her lip over. "Twilight's been really crushed by all of it. She's scrambling to fix the damage from the fighting, but with monsters cropping up all over, it's splitting her attention between crisis management and restoration."

"Well, tell her I can handle the monsters! Wherever they crop up, I'll have it well in hoof, so she can just focus on getting things back in order."

"She'll definitely appreciate it."

"So, Dash... that Cozy Glow you said escaped. What was she like?"

"Well, she was a foal, like you. But she was rotten to the core. She pretended to be nice, won ponies' trust, and then used it against them, manipulating folks. She thought friendship was about power, and didn't care about anypony but herself, like, at all. She stole a massive amount of power for herself and used it to turn into some kind of alicorn, and then she tried to beat us all with it. Came close, too."

"Wow. She sounds like..."

"A real monster?"

"No, a real loser! Like, what was even the point of trying to make friends and turn ponies on each other? What was even her game, there?"

Dash frowned in thought, and folded her front hooves.

"You know, I have no idea. She just wanted power, I guess...?"

"Yeah, but for what?"

"So that everypony would listen to her...? And love her? I guess?"

"Creating strife doesn't make everypony love you, though! Heck, ponies can't really spare time for love if they're panicking or worried about each other, anyway! And it sounds like she had things backwards; she made friends, who are by definition ponies who listen to you and love you, and then used them to get power, so she could make strife and get more power, so she could get more friends?"

Dash laughed at that. "When you lay it out like that, it does sound kinda silly! I guess she was just greedy? Had to have it all?"

"But she started out with friends, then lost them by being a jerk. Then she had power, and from what you're saying she ran off and caused even more trouble with that, and then she lost anyway! So she wasn't satisfied with friends, she wasn't satisfied with power... she just had no plan at all."

"Well, what's your plan?"

I shrugged. "I'm a super hero. I'm going to be the best hero Equestria ever had. No point in doing things half-measure, right?"

"Okay, but like, why? What do you hope to gain?"

I opened my mouth to speak, and then closed it in thought. Dash pointed a hoof at me.

"See? You're doing the same thing, where you're just kinda going through the motions, not sure why."

"That's not true! I was just caught short, but the truth is... I don't need a reason to be a super hero. I don't have to have some kind of end-goal or whatever. I don't need to have something to gain."

Dash cocked her head. "But then why do it?"

"Heroics are their own reward. You know what I mean, don't you?"

Dash chewed her lip. "I mean, the admiration and sense of awesomeness you get out of it are nice..."

"Yeah, but they're not why you do it, right?"

Dash considered that, and nodded. "Yeah, I do it because I care about ponies. I just want to save them when I see them in trouble. It's like an instinct."

"Well, I took it beyond just instinct. I'm making a whole lifestyle out of it. I want to be the best at it. That's just how it is."

Plus, the better I get at it, the more powerful I become. And I do like the power, the admiration, all of it. But that's not the only reason I do it, right? That wouldn't be very heroic, and I'm the best hero – so that's not why.

Dash chewed over some fries in thought, and then grinned at me. "Y'know, for a kid, you're really insightful."

I choked on my drink at that. "For a kid?"

Dash held up her hooves placatingly at my angry expression. "Easy, easy! What I meant was, you're really sharp in general, and that's even more surprising for your age!"

I nodded, placated. "Thank you. You're... actually pretty insightful, too. And that's even more surprising for a jock!"

Dash laughed and playfully swatted some cloud at me, and we engaged in the aerial pegasus equivalent of a pillowfight as we each snatched clouds to batter each other with. I was so at ease around her I almost forgot to disguise my wings as magic.

Author's Note:

They can't all be funny. Don't judge me!