The Night Janitor

by Knox Locke

Chapter 39: Splinters, Part 2: Imperfect Harmony

Cozy was still rattled after her encounter with Harmony, but she knew she couldn't go back. She had to make it to the library, and the only way to do that was to go through the catacombs.

She walked along the tunnel until she came across something peculiar. There was a beam of light being emitted from a crack in the ceiling. It was the color of the light that was even more strange, for the light was blue. As she looked further down the passageway leading to the first of the larger chambers, she noticed more oddly colored lights penetrating the darkness at odd angles. Some of them were blue, like the one right in front of her, while others were pink.

"Hmmm... How peculiar," she said to the pillar of light before her.

She reached forward to investigate it further. Suddenly, a small stone flew past her head and went through the beam of light. As the stone passed through it, a column of stone heavily encrusted with crystal spikes erupted from the ground and slammed into the ceiling.

Cozy stared for a moment before whirling around to see who threw the stone. She looked around, but found nopony hiding in the tunnel behind her.

Still not knowing exactly what had just transpired, but acknowledging the fact that these lights were triggers for dangerous traps that threaten to squash her, she made her way carefully through the hallway of lights.

After finally arriving in the large opening beyond the maze of lights, Cozy was honestly surprised to find it empty. After a hallway full of deadly traps, you'd expect some kind of trap or perhaps a giant monster. Nope, nothing here.

"Well, that was easy," Cozy said, confused by just how easy this was. She crossed the room, being very wary of traps, but nothing happened. She made it to the opening into the next passageway, once again full of lights, without problem. She turned to look back into the open area she was about to leave.

"Good golly, that's strange. I guess there's nothing in here."

She'd spoken too soon. She turned to face the passageway again, only to see the walls and floor of the tunnel were now crawling with spiders. They were all coming towards her, so she quickly backed away to the center of the open area.

This seemed to have been a bad idea when she noticed the walls in here were also lined with the arachnids. They all seemed to be crowding around her, leaving a circle about two feet in diameter for her to sit in since the rest of the floor had been overrun with the pesky bugs.

She was still looking around the room, astonished by the sheer number of spiders in the room, when one of the creatures starting to come towards her. Thinking back to the stories Gallus' friends had shared with her after their adventures in the catacombs, she deduced that this must be another construct of the roots. Specifically, Spindle, Yona's spider friend.

"H-hello," her voice stammered as she reached out a hoof towards the spider, "You must be Spindle. It's nice to meet you."

She looked at Spindle as he approached her outreached hoof, but she noticed something peculiar. This spider only had six legs.

'That doesn't make sense,' she thought to herself. 'The tree was intelligent enough to predict exactly who was needed for friendship quests. I'm pretty sure it knows how many legs to give a spider.'

Her mind drifted back to Harmony's words: "Sombra destroyed my connection to the roots. Only the splinters remain."

'Splinters... Of course! Sombra shattered the roots, so these tests are being created with incomplete information. Wait, wasn't Gallus' test different colored lights that triggered a single trap? Then, why are there so many traps here now? With a single trigger for each? It seems way more dangerous to me. Wait, if that's the case...'

She tried to jerk her hand away from definitely-not-Spindle, but she was too slow. Spindle bit her hoof but the sudden hand motion sent him flying. He squealed as he soared through the air, landing not far from where he'd started.

Cozy was now very wary of the non-spider's actions. Not-Spindle returned to a standing position on his six legs and let out a bloodcurdling screech. Cozy had to cover her ears, but the rest of spiders seemed to gather more closely around their leader.

As the cluster of arachnids continued to grow, Cozy was horrified by the sight of several of them fusing together. The more of them fused, the bigger Not-Spindle grew. He also was becoming more and more monstrous with each addition to his new form.

Cozy watched in utter horror as the spiders continued to conglomerate with the faux Spindle, until all that remained of the spider army was a monstrous amalgamation of spiders at least eight times bigger than Cozy. There was now no visible sign that this thing had ever been more than one creature. It was, for lack of a better term, a monster Spindle.

The monster roared ferociously at Cozy, and she knew it wouldn't be long before it attacked. She looked around frantically, searching for any semblance of a plan. She found it when she looked into the corridor the spiders had originally come from.

"You want me so bad?" she cried out as she took off and flew towards the monster. "Come and get me!"

She flew straight toward the creature's monstrous maw, only to veer to the right at the last second and soar directly past its head. She then continued her straight shot to the passageway entrance.

The monster roared in fury as it turned to pursue Cozy's taunt. Cozy flew into the passageway, narrowly avoiding a beam of light stretching directly horizontal across the tunnel entrance. She hovered in the air a few feet down the tunnel as the monstrous non-Spindle entered the passageway... and took a stone, splinter encrusted pillar straight to the side of the face. The spider-like creature wailed in agony as its head was bashed into, and through, the opposite wall. It clambered weakly through the hole it'd just made with its face and disappeared.

Cozy let out a huge sigh of relief once the beast departed. She couldn't have beaten that monster physically, so she was glad her scheming mind could help her defeat it mentally.

She turned around and took flight through the second maze of lights, and she accidentally brushed against one. She cried out in pain as a stone pillar bashed into her leg, sending her veering off course and flying through two more beams of light. She narrowly avoided another pillar and ducked just in time as a spear of crystal shot forth from the wall, directly where her head would've been.

"Golly, this is dangerous. Harmony wasn't kidding."

She carefully made her way through the rest of the hallway and entered the main chamber of the catacombs, the room where she'd created a mystical magnet to drain all of the magic from Equestria.

She walked through the area where the artifacts had been placed, but for some reason the balcony overlooking the room wasn't here. The openings were still visible, but there were sheets of sharp crystals blocking every entrance to the balcony. The balcony that attached to the library.

"What?" she asked the air. "How am I supposed to get to the library now?"

She heard a slow crackling sound and turned around, only to find the opening she'd come through being covered by rapidly growing crystal vines.

"NO!" she cried as she dived for the door. Her attempt was in vain, for the vines had locked themselves in place mere moments before she reached the opening.

A place that traps you with your worst fears. That's what this place had been, and that's what it still was. The time had come for Cozy to face her worst fear, and she wasn't doing very well at it.

Cozy flew around the room, scraping and scratching herself as she rammed against the spiky barriers keeping her from the outside world.

After trying this for a while, she resorted to sobbing on the floor as she tried to think of a way out.

'How do I get out of here? THINK! These were tests, right? There has to be an answer. Let's see here. Gallus originally had to select the right lights to activate, but I had to avoid all the lights. Yona befriended a group of spiders, and I smashed a monster's face into a wall with nothing but my wits. Things seem pretty backwards here.'

She looked around the room at the barricaded doors and openings.

'How would the tree want me to get out of this? Probably by trusting a friend to get me out. So how do these splinters want me to get out of this? Probably by trusting an enemy to get me out. But how will anypony even know I'm here?'

Something in the back of her mind clicked into place.

'Who threw the stone? The stone that saved me from that first light. Who would follow me down here in the dead of night? Who could disappear that well that quickly?'

As soon as she asked, she could come up with only two possible answers. One of them was currently hard at work in a building directly above the cavern, and the other was just what she needed right now.

"Ocellus!" she screamed into the empty chamber. "Ocellus, I know you're there! I really need your help. You're the only one who can get me out of here!"

As she finished screaming, she began crying again.

"Please," she added softly as she fell into a crying heap on the floor. If Ocellus didn't come, she might be trapped down here forever, forced to live out her worst fear.

She looked up as she heard a large bang and some cracking. Something was on the other side of the crystal vines separating this chamber from the previous corridor, and they were ramming them. Hard.

Two more huge crashes later and a bugbear with a familiar color palette came bursting into the room.

It picked up the crying filly and charged towards one of the spiky crystal plates standing between them and freedom.

In her rather monstrous form, Ocellus easy burst through with a couple swift hits from her gigantic stinger. She set Cozy down on the other side.

---

[Ocellus' Perspective]

At this point, Cozy was beginning to calm down. They were just casually walking together towards the library vent.

"Hey, Cozy," Ocellus asked, "if you were facing all of our old tests, whose fear was that?"

Cozy looked at the floor for just a moment before saying, "It was mine."

"Well, what exactly was the fear? Being trapped in that room?"

"It wasn't about me being in the room. It was about what else was in the room."

Ocellus thought back to the room they'd just escaped from. There hadn't been anything there except Cozy.

"What do you mean?" she inquired. "Nothing was there. No traps, no villains, no monsters..."

She was cut off by Cozy who had suddenly stopped walking, "No friends. No family. Nopony."

That hit Ocellus like a train. "You're... afraid of being alone?"

"There," Cozy said with finality. "Are you happy now?"

---

[Cozy's Perspective]

After exiting the catacombs, Ocellus had left out the window. Cozy, meanwhile, had gone in search of the book she needed. She flew around the room, trying to make sense of the new organization method they'd been trying out lately. Once she found the book she sought, she lifted it off the shelf... Only to drop it back onto the shelf as pale pink magic enveloped the door handles.

She quickly hid with her back pressed against the bookshelf as Knox entered the room. She couldn't get to the window without him seeing her. She'd have to get creative.

At least the throbbing pain coming from her injured leg would make it easy to put on a good performance.

Author's Note:

Wow, this chapter ended up being really long! I just wrote until I reached a natural stopping point, and it took over 2,000 words! This will probably be the longest chapter of the entire story for quite a while!

Nonetheless,
In The Next Chapter: Now that Knox is with Cozy, how will she get the book she needs unnoticed? Where the heck did Discord disappear to? Will the catacombs ever come into play again?

Comments

[asdtroi8895]

That hit Ocellus like a train. "You're... afraid of being alone?"

Interesting fear, I expected it to be a repetrification.

[Yosh-E-O]

Whoa! I didn't even realize how long this was due to how engaging it all was to read.

One of my gratest regrets is how I lost the last of my physical eyesight prior to Season 7. I've 'listened' to every episode but really wish I could have 'seen' the tests the Student Six passed that Harmony put them through.

What is interesting is how you really did a creative job with what a 'splintered' Harmony would conjure given how the essence of the tree is tainted, fractured, and in a state of slow death, or gradual recovery.
This tale has really gotten better-and-better with each entry. It's certainly at the top for me when it comes to stories about cozy Glow. Great job!

[Wild Stallion]

That hit Ocellus like a train. "You're... afraid of being alone?"

Makes sense. Given her power and modus operandi all revolve around utilizing others, I imagine that even if she was totally faking everything else, being left completely alone, without any choice in the matter would terrify her. It makes sense that in the end of School Raze it is ultimately the sight of Tirek that cheers her up, as opposed to anything else.

Love the chapter! Can't wait to see more!