Rainbow Dash leapt into the air and made to go after Cozy Glow. Her intent was echoed in Tirek, who forced himself to his hooves and started forward, even as one hand clutched at his torso. Before either of the two could get close to the exit, however, they were both seized in a magical aura and dragged away from the exit to the chamber.
“What the – ” Dash looked around, and saw that it was Scorpan, spear held in a trembling hand. She almost started shouting at him, but then she saw his face. He didn’t look like he wanted to fight – instead, he looked broken, almost like he was on the verge of tears.
Tirek was not nearly so restrained. “Release me!”
“N-no…I need…you need to listen…”
Tirek growled, gathering up his magic and forcing it around himself, then shoving his hands out, breaking the aura that surrounded him. Rather than heading for the exit, however, he started advancing on Scorpan, even though he was limping now.
“This is your fault,” Tirek said as he bore down on Scorpan. “You…if you hadn’t been in my way, I wouldn’t have – Cozy wouldn’t have – ”
“Whoa, hey!” Dash cried out. She struggled, but she was still held tight in Scorpan’s magic. She decided to not care as she jabbed a hoof at Tirek. “You’re the one who was dead-set on getting your hands on the Rainbow of Darkness even though literally everyone was telling you it was a bad idea, including Cozy! You’re as much to blame as he is!”
Tirek turned his ire on Dash, but before he could lay into her Daring Do galloped over to her side, turning to face Tirek. “Hey, focus, both of you!” She looked between Dash and Tirek. “The situation’s changed, a lot, and none of us are going to get what we want if we spend time shouting at each other!”
“Speak for yourself,” Glory’s voice put in. Dash’s gaze shot over to her, and saw that the unicorn had made her way over to where the Sun Stone lay. She was gingerly pawing at it with her hoof while muttering “ow” at the heat it gave off. Her horn lit up.
Scorpan’s reaction was immediate, wings spreading and lunging forward, releasing Dash from his magical hold. The ponies all whinnied and started to move to protect Glory – or stumbled away in fright in Glory’s own case – but Scorpan only snatched the Sun Stone from where it lay. He held it high over his head and used magic to keep it there – and positioned it, Dash noted, so that nopony’s shadows were reaching out of the room.
Glory took a moment to breathe with a hoof at her chest, before her eyes narrowed. “Oh come on! I came all this way and spent a fortune and had to fight for my life and survived an airship crash and had to give up my yacht for that thing!”
Scorpan ignored her, instead looking down and using his magic to conjure up what looked like a sundial, its gnomon casting a shadow that didn’t match the direction of the light from the Sun Stone. His eyes widened and he started muttering to himself, ignoring everything else in the room.
“Much as it pains me to say it, Miss Pose,” Caballeron said, trotting up to her, “there may be more important things to – ”
“I know! I’m not stupid, I can put things together as well as anypony else.” Glory sat back on her haunches, one hoof fumbling with the goggles she still wore on her forehead. “The Sun Stone was containing the Rainbow of Darkness, and it needs to stay here to do that. I’m not so selfish that I’d risk the whole world just for a gem.” She glanced up at the jewel in question, before lightly stomping her forehooves on the floor a few times. That got Scorpan’s attention, making him look at her curiously. “But I want to at least hold it once…!”
“I don’t believe this,” Dash moaned, covering her eyes at the petulant sight, and at Caballeron rubbing Glory’s withers to calm her down.
“Hey, at least she figured out on her own that she isn’t getting it,” Daring pointed out. Glory heard her, and made a rude gesture with her hooves.
Tirek, meanwhile, glanced between the Sun Stone and Scorpan. He started forward again, but when he did Scorpan dispelled his sundial and held forward his spear defensively. The action brought Tirek to a halt, and he grit his teeth.
“You…imposter.” He pointed at the Sun Stone. “How do I use that to remove the Rainbow of Darkness from Cozy Glow?”
Scorpan gripped his spear tighter, but then shook his head. “You…you can’t. None of us can.”
“Why?” Dash asked, and couldn’t help but take to the air and fly closer to Scorpan. He didn’t move his spear, at least, as she looked him in the air. “Look, yeah, maybe the Rainbow of Darkness is powerful, and Cozy is kind of pure evil, but come on! She’s just a kid.”
“She was bad enough to lock up in Tartarus,” Daring pointed out.
Scorpan blanched, eyes on Dash. “You locked a filly in Tartarus?”
“Not forever!” Dash objected – and it didn’t escape her notice that it was the most coherent sentence Scorpan had yet put together. “Princess Luna was going to let her out in a year, said that it would be a ‘time out’ for her so she could see what was in store for her if she really wanted to follow in Tirek’s hoofsteps. Princess Celestia and Twilight thought it was too long but then Luna just looked at us and said ‘oh yes, imagine how terrible it would be to be trapped in one place for a whole year.’ It was super awkward.”
“Princess Luna became an evil mare called Nightmare Moon and had to be locked away for a thousand years,” Daring provided for Scorpan.
“And it’s not like she was just left alone down there!” Dash continued. “She gets visitors, like, all the time! Psychiatrists and stuff, and the Princesses.”
Tirek started to say something, but before he could Caballeron stepped forward. “We are getting off track,” he noted, and nodded to Scorpan. “You conjured a sundial, Lord Scorpan. Was there a purpose to that? Can you explain how it is that Cozy Glow can be freed from the Rainbow of Darkness?”
Scorpan looked between the four ponies and Tirek. He backed up a few paces from them, then lifted it, leaning against it, and all of a sudden, he looked old. Nothing physically changed about him, yet his slumped body, sagging wings, heavy breathing, everything about him seemed to take on every single one of the centuries of age he had on him.
He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Erebus…Erebus can be forced from the filly with the Sun Stone, with a ritual I was able to create. But…but she must want it to leave her.”
“Well, good news there, she hated it,” Glory pointed out. “Cozy Glow agreed with us on not wanting the Rainbow of Darkness, so that’s step one down at least – ”
“No!” Scorpan interrupted. “No, you don’t…you don’t understand. Erebus can’t, can’t use its full power if she fights it. But it…it is inside of her. It feeds on darkness. It conjures up memories, visions and it…talks. It talks, it reasons it…it will convince her.” Scorpan hung his head. “It knows everything about you. Every thought, every emotion, every memory, and it uses them. It convinces you. It gives you all the power you could ever want…” He cupped his hands together, then closed them into fists. “But it’s a trap. It pushes you. You…you do things you never thought you would. But it makes them so reasonable. So sensible. It makes them sound right.”
Dash swallowed. “Uh…okay, that…kinda’ sounds bad. Cozy probably wouldn’t take too much convincing…”
“You underestimate her,” Tirek said, and grinned at Dash. “Again.”
Scorpan took a few breaths. “There…there is time. Erebus has a weakness – light. Sunlight especially. In sunlight it is robbed of practically all his power. Can only writhe in pain…can only suffer. It is daylight out.” He gestured at the altar where the Rainbow of Darkness and the Sun Stone had been. “Midnight Castle…the enchantment of darkness that surrounds it, was dispelled when Erebus escaped. It cannot leave the castle until night falls.”
“Okay, that’s good news,” Daring said, rubbing her forehead a moment and thinking. “We’ve got a little time until sunset. Maybe six hours? And…an entire, pitch-black castle to search…and we’ll just have to hope that Cozy is fighting the Rainbow of Darkness.”
“Yes…but all of you are here. You are in the light. Erebus can’t make dark slaves of you as long as no shadow it controls can reach you.”
The ponies paused. “Ah…” Caballeron said, raising a hoof, “what is a ‘dark slave’…and what would it mean if there were others in the castle besides us?”
Cozy Glow still couldn’t see in darkness, but somehow that wasn’t an impediment to her movements at all as she looked into the darkness of Midnight Castle, she just knew where everything that lurked in the shadows were. She flinched and braced herself while entering, expecting on some level that Erebus would rise up and seize her…but it didn’t. In the darkness that surrounded her as she trotted forward, Erebus shifted.
“Okay,” Erebus whispered with Cozy’s voice. “So those ponies I noticed are just a bit ahead. They’ve made a camp in the main hall. Go on, have some fun!”
Cozy intended to. She crept forward and past the utter, magical blackness of Midnight Castle’s entrance and stood in its main hall once more, looking at the vaulted ceiling with stone gargoyles perched in it, the broad staircase leading up and the bronze double-doors leading to the spooky hallway. Three earth ponies had set up small tents and awnings and a table in the center of the room, lit torches to see by, but were focused on each other and a card game they were playing.
They didn’t notice Cozy lurking just beyond the edge of their torchlight, a shadow still wrapped around her and turning her completely black. The ponies looked familiar…Cozy squinted at them, digging through her memories, and realized that they matched the description of three hench-ponies that usually served Doctor Caballeron in those stupid Daring Do books. Had Professor Dash really gone all-in on buying some kind of event vacation or something like this?
Cozy shook her head, bringing herself back into focus. Regardless of who these ponies really were when not pretending to be goons, they were supposed to be practice. Cozy sat back on her haunches and started gathering up the abundant shadow beneath her, and couldn’t suppress a grin at how it all just moved and shaped itself and solidified at her whim. She rolled it around in her hooves like she would snow, and soon had a ball of shadow in her grasp.
“Okay, now…” Cozy drew back her hoof, then threw it forward as hard as she could, aiming for the biggest of the three stallions. The orb of utter blackness sailed forward…losing a lot of its speed in the process and sailing right over his head.
Cozy pouted. The stallions, on the other hoof, all leapt and whinnied in surprise. “What was that?” The smallest of the three demanded, looking around.
“I dunno,” the middle-sized one, wearing a red handerchief, said. He peered into the darkness where the ball had landed noiselessly, just beyond the torchlight. “Rogue, go check it out.”
“How about you go check it out, Biff?” The biggest stallion countered. “I’m not that curious.”
Cozy rolled her eyes, gathering up darkness again into another ball.
“Something moves in this castle for the first time since the Doc went off and you’re not curious?” The middle-sized stallion demanded. “What if it’s Daring Do?”
Cozy rolled her eyes harder.
“Look, I’ll go,” the smallest stallion said, trotting off to where the ball had landed. He retrieved a torch, holding it in his mouth. He only needed to move a few feet to find the shadow-ball, which he looked at curiously and immediately reached out to poke.
The other two stallions let out whinnies again and moved forward to stop him – making Cozy’s next thrown shadow-ball miss as well and in fact not even be noticed. She threw her hooves in the air.
“Why do you touch everything?” The biggest stallion demanded.
“What? We’re explorers, aren’t we?” The small stallion said. He tapped at the shadow-ball. “It feels weird. Cold. What is this?”
“The thing that’s gonna turn out to be an egg for something that bites you,” the middle-sized stallion said.
“That was one time!”
“Yeah, and then we spent the next three days stuck on a boat with vampony-you! That was the first time the Doc and Daring teamed up!”
“Come to think of it the second time was when you rang the gong,” the big stallion noted. “And then there was the whole thing with Kali-Mare…every time we’ve had to work with Daring Do, it’s been because of Withers.”
“Not every…” The small stallion paused, thought, and didn’t notice when Cozy’s third shadow-ball landed short of them. “…huh. It really has been every time…”
Cozy was trembling with annoyance, not helped by the fact that she could feel a giggle being barely suppressed in her throat – and not hers, but Erebus’. “Do you want some help aiming?” Erebus asked.
“Shut up,” Cozy hissed back. She gathered up shadows into another ball, readied to throw, but just as she was about to the three stallions moved to gather around the original shadow ball. She’d begun her throw, tried to check it, and instead the shadow ball slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor at her hooves.
Cozy let out a shriek of anger – which caused the stallions to whirl around, something which she only barely saw due to her turning and bucking the shadow ball. It went sailing straight ahead with a lot more force than her throws had been able to muster, and hit the small stallion square in the chest. He let out a gasp as he fell backwards.
“The hay?” the middle-sized stallion demanded, noticing the shadow-ball that had come up short as well. “Who’s throwing – what’s that over there?” He pointed straight at Cozy.
The big stallion started charging right at her. Cozy’s eyes widened and she let out a whinny, turning and running out of instinct at such a large pony bearing down on her. Unfortunately, despite not being able to be seen in the darkness, her hoof-falls certainly gave her away, and the big stallion turned to give chase.
“Why are you running?” Erebus demanded.
“Because you are!” The big stallion said.
“Not you!”
Cozy realized that Erebus had a point. She struggled to get her panic under control, considered a moment, then skidded to a halt, grabbed the shadows behind her, and pulled them over her in a dome while making them hard as rock. She giggled when she heard the big stallion impact the shadows and be sent stumbling to the ground.
“There. You’ll get a knack for it,” Erebus whispered. “You can control any shadow that is connected to your shadow, no matter how many shadows there are in the chain. Use that! You have to get to a point where it’s instinctive.”
Cozy pulled back her dome, looking out. The big stallion was picking himself up, while the other two were coming over, squinting at her – they could still barely see her in the darkness. Cozy put one hoof on the darkness of the floor beneath her and willed their own shadows to grab their hooves…
And it worked! The stallions let out frightened whickers as their own shadows moved up and grasped at their legs, holding them in place. Cozy giggled, casting aside her dome and stepping out of the darkness and into the torchlight.
“Hi!” Cozy said as she pranced over to in front of the three struggling stallions. “Okay, so now that I’ve got your attention – ”
“What are you?” The smallest stallion demanded.
Cozy frowned at the phrasing, but then looked down at herself and saw she was still wrapped in blackness. “Oh, right,” She said, letting the shadows fall off of her. She looked back up to the three. “My name’s Cozy Glow! You may have heard of me.”
The stallions stopped their struggles and stared. “A…foal?” The small one asked. “The hay?”
“Wait, I think I remember something about this,” the middle-sized one said, eyes growing wide. “You’re that filly that Tirek manipulated into trying to destroy Equestria – ”
Cozy bristled, taking to the air and jabbing a hoof at him once she was at eye level. “That is not what happened! That was all my plan and – ”
Cozy noticed too late that the shadows around the three stallions’ legs had disappeared. The big and small one retreated back into the torchlight, while the middle-sized one in front of her reached out for her. She let out a yelp, flying backwards and away, out of reach of the earth pony.
“Hey, what gives?” Cozy demanded as she hovered well above the earth ponies, who were looking back up at her. “How did they escape?”
“You let us go!” The middle one said, retreating into the light as well with his companions.
“No I didn’t!”
“Actually, you did,” Erebus said. The ponies stared at her like she was a crazy pony talking to herself…which, fair enough, that would be how it looked. “You can control any shadow you’re touching. But if you’re flying, you’re not touching anything, silly.”
“How does that make sense?” Cozy demanded, throwing her hooves wide. “Darkness isn’t even there to begin with, so why does it matter if I’m on the ground or not?!”
“It just does,” Erebus answered. “But, come on, you’re doing pretty well for this being your first time!”
“Uh…Biff?” The big stallion asked of the middle-sized one. “She’s, uh…she’s talking to herself. And talking back.”
“I am not talking to myself,” Cozy said. “It’s complicated, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah, I don’t care,” Biff said, grabbing a torch and pointing to the others. “I care that you just told us what your weakness is! Get the torches, get us surrounded with light.”
Cozy ground her teeth together at Erebus speaking through her mouth while, faster than she could land on a solid surface again – one of the gargoyles near the ceiling – the three ponies had managed to surround themselves with glowing torches. She sat down on her haunches, staring down at the three, who were looking back up with…apprehension, maybe? A sort of nervous curiosity? Not fear, though, which is what she would have expected. And kind of wanted…
“How the hay did you even get all the way out here?” The middle-sized pony – he seemed to be the leader – asked. “Did you stow away on the airship or something? Do you have any idea how dangerous this place is?”
“I mean, she’d have to, if she was in the airship when it went down,” the smallest stallion said.
Cozy shook her head. “I wasn’t in the airship, I was already here. We got here before you dumb LARPers did.” She paused a moment, then grinned at them, leaning down. “And it was my idea to shoot down your airship! I figured you were here for the Rainbow of Darkness and there was no way we were gonna let you get there first.”
She’d wanted to inspire more fear. Instead, they just looked confused. “What the hay is the Rainbow of Darkness?”
Cozy rolled her eyes, leaning down on her barrel and putting her head in one hoof. “Right, you weren’t downstairs for everything…I don’t want to explain it.” She narrowed her eyes. “What I want to know is why you aren’t afraid of me! I can control shadows! Isn’t that scary?”
“Sure, ‘til we figured out how to stop it,” The big stallion said, pointing to the ring of torches they were surrounded with. “Now you’re just a little pony.”
Cozy grinned, getting up onto her hooves. “I know something you don’t know…” she sang.
“Oh yeah?”
Cozy wrapped shadows all around herself again…and stepped things up a bit. She made herself appear bigger, made the shadows around her wings look like bat wings, gave her head a horn like an alicorn’s, but curved like Sombra’s had been, and she filled her mouth with fangs. Behind her, her shadow-adorned mane and tail started waving, moving and undulating as though in a breeze that wasn’t there.
Cozy willed the shadows on the floor beneath her to surge forward. Torchlight wasn’t sunlight – it couldn’t stop them, couldn’t even slow them down, she knew that already. Each torch was seized by an arm of shadow-stuff and pulled back and away from the trio before they could do anything more than yelp, then shadows smothered the flames and plunged the room into blackness.
Cozy decided to try something new: she ran down the side of the pillar the gargoyle was perched on. Her hooves found purchase on the vertical surface as easily as if she was on the ground. She still couldn’t properly see anything – other than the vague motion of Erebus lurking and turning within the shadows – but once again that didn’t make a difference, she still somehow just knew where the other ponies were.
And with them now surrounded by total blackness, they were at her complete mercy. Darkness grabbed hold of them from every side. She hoisted the small one into the air on a pillar of darkness that grew out of the ground, trapped him in a cage of metallic shadow. The big one had tried to run, but she tripped him up, sent him sprawling and then had vines of darkness wrap around him and hold him in place on the floor, squeezing him tight.
And the middle-sized one, the one who was in charge, she grasped his hooves and held him in place, trapped him in a standing position as she trotted right up to him. He screamed like a little filly – Cozy would know – as Cozy made a staircase of shadows for her to climb, right up onto his back. He swung his head around to try and keep her away from him, but an arm of shadow lashed out of the ground and grabbed him around the neck, holding him in place as she leaned right up to his ear.
“I’m not a little pony. I’m a monster. Rawr!”
Cozy giggled – and swiftly began full on laughing as she sat back on the pony, rubbing her hooves together. Now this was fun! There was absolutely nothing that any of them could do to her as long as she was in control of the Rainbow of Darkness. She heard the small one crying out from within his cage above her and the big one almost sounded like he’d broken down into tears, and the middle one was…actually not making a sound. Had he passed out? Fainted from fear? Cozy started giggling again until she heard a strangled gasp from right in front of her.
Her eyes widened, despite the pointlessness of the action. She had the arm around his neck release him, and the stallion took in a huge, gasping breath. She’d been choking him without even realizing it, the darkness…
“What the hay, Erebus?!” Cozy demanded. She climbed off of the stallion – ignoring the sounds he was making, the hoarse words begging her for mercy – and tried to look directly at Erebus’ undulating form in the shadows. “Why were you choking him?!”
“I wasn’t!” Erebus countered. “You are in control, you’re the one who grabbed him that hard. What’s it matter, anyway? Don’t you want to see how strong my shadows can be?”
“Not like that,” Cozy said. She turned to follow Erebus’ ever-shifting presence. “These ponies are just a bunch of LARPers, they haven’t done anything to me, they don’t deserve to die. They’re gonna be my minions!”
“Minions?”
“Yeah!” Cozy turned to the three stallions. She decided to give the middle-sized one a break and instead trotted over to the big one she had pinned to the floor, jabbing at him with one hoof, eliciting squeals of terror. “Or, what I mean is, I thought of something for you to do rather than just offer commentary. As long as we’ve got two minds up here, we can take advantage of that.”
“How do you figure?”
“Like this!”
Cozy changed the nature of the shadows around the big pony. She had them wrap around him, seal him inside of them like she was sealed inside her own shadow-suit…careful to make sure it wasn’t airtight, though, she didn’t want a repeat of what had just happened.
“Whoa…” Erebus intoned as the big pony stood up at Cozy’s direction, the shadows around his body moving him. “That’s really neat!”
“Uh-huh!” Cozy agreed, and rubbed her hooves together. She glanced behind herself and up, at where she knew the little stallion to be, and repeated the process, then closed the third one inside a shadow-suit of his own. The shadow-suits clamped the ponies’ mouths shut, silencing most of their cries for help or mercy.
“See, I know I could just make shadow minions if I wanted,” Cozy said, and amused herself by using shadows to create a few ponies marching around her in a circle. “Buuuut nopony would feel bad about hitting those. But if there was a pony inside one of them, a pony they knew…then because of their friendship, they’d hesitate! Pull their bucks!”
“So where do I come in?” Erebus asked.
“Simple: controlling minions would be a lot of work for me,” Cozy tapped her head a little, “especially since I’m still getting used to all of this. But you could focus on puppeting them around, while I focus on other things! Sound good?”
Erebus was quiet, and Cozy was almost worried, before Erebus started giggling through her mouth. “That’s great! And super creative! Okay, sure, I’ll focus on the puppets.”
“Right. But don’t hurt them!” Cozy started trotting towards the hallway, and from there, the subterranean layers of Midnight Castle. The three dark slaves she’d created followed along at a steady pace. “I still want them to actually be my minions at some point once we take over Equestria. But for now, they get to be the honorary first members of the Cozy Guard!” She glanced at the three, even if she couldn’t see them. “You three be good until we’ve got Midnight Castle squared away, okay? Just need to save my best friend Tirek, and then I can let you go!”
She heard the three ponies gasp and cry out from within their shadow suits, and grinned. “Oh, right, you don’t know. Tirek’s here! And…he’ll probably want to drain your magic. Huh, I guess I won’t be letting you go. But that’s okay! I’ll still bring you back to Equestria with me and you can recover and then you can be my subjects when I take over Equestria!”
That thought put a little more spring into Cozy Glow’s step. With shadow-magic like this, Grogar would be a cinch to defeat – surely even he wasn’t a match for every shadow coming at him at once from all sides! Hay, even Tirek or Queen Chrysalis wouldn’t be a match for Cozy now. She’d just gone from being the weakest member of their alliance to the strongest!
Yes, things were definitely looking up – there really wasn’t anything like shadows to brighten up Cozy’s day, as long as Erebus was by her side!
Tirek wanted to grab the facsimile of Scorpan and smash his face into a wall. He wanted to grab his wings and pull them off. He wanted to take the fake’s spear and shove it down his throat. He wanted to strangle the life from him, he wanted to stomp him underhoof, and above all else he wanted to drain all the magic that the false Scorpan had, every last iota of it, to reinvigorate himself, to grant him the power he’d had before he had set hoof in Midnight Castle, and then use that power to drain the magic of the ponies here.
But though there was probably some way to make all of that happen, his thoughts invariably turned to Cozy Glow – and to the Rainbow of Darkness. The power it had…power that was now controlling her. Power that should have been Tirek’s already if not for these accursed ponies and this false image of his brother that mocked his memories and Cozy getting in his way…
Tirek grit his teeth as Scorpan finished explaining what he had meant by dark slaves. “I see this as no cause for concern,” Tirek said, cutting the air with one hand. “If this Erebus thinks that doing this will slow me down, it is sorely mistaken.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t exactly planning on pulling my bucks against your goon squad anyway when push came to shove,” Rainbow Dash said, looking to Caballeron. “No offense, but you are bad guys.”
“Some taken,” Caballeron retorted, though he glanced to Scorpan, “though I feel you miss our benefactor’s point. I doubt that the shadows you hit will be harmed all that much…but the ponies inside of them will be. The same blow that might stagger a pony will only inconvenience one of these dark slaves, am I right?”
Scorpan nodded. “Yes. To disperse the shadow around the pony will require…much more force. Much more than would be needed to fell a pony. And…and all the while, the victim inside…no control. Helpless.”
Rainbow Dash checked herself at that. “Oh,” she said. “Right…w-well, at least there’s only three, right?”
“For now,” Scorpan said. He looked over the small herd of ponies, and Tirek, his grip on his spear tightening. Tirek balled his hands into fists, daring Scorpan to act against him. He didn’t. “There are too many of you. You…I must take you outside – ”
“Oh thank Celestia,” Glory Pose mumbled.
“ – use the Sun Stone to guide you out into the sunlight. You will be safe while the sun shines. Then I will venture through the castle alone.”
“You will not.” Tirek said, stomping a hoof, and ignoring the pain it caused with practiced ease. “It’s your fault that Cozy has been possessed – if you hadn’t tried to blast me while she was in the way, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion!”
“Actually, I bet we would, only with Cozy Glow and with you having run off possessed by the ancient evil artifact,” Rainbow Dash said.
Tirek balled his fists as he turned on Rainbow Dash, but the pegasus looked totally unintimidated. Daring Do dove between the two of them before either could do anything, holding up her hooves. “Dash, please stop antagonizing Lord Tirek.”
She’d no doubt only used his title as a means of trying to appease him. Tirek decided to play along with it – he had bigger concerns at the moment as he returned his attentions to the false Scorpan.
“I will join you in hunting down Cozy. And when you drive the Rainbow of Darkness from her, it will be mine.”
Scorpan stared back at him, eyes looking over his face. His grip on his spear tightened and he closed his eyes, but rather than speak, he turned, walking directly away from the door and to the wall opposite it. It appeared like featureless bricks, but without hesitation Scorpan pressed his hands on two of them. They pushed in with little effort, then a large section of the wall with it, sliding to the side. Beyond a spiral stair led upwards and out of sight.
Scorpan looked back, using his spear to call the Sun Stone over to him, illuminating the hallway. “This leads to the first floor. From there, I can get you outside.”
Glory wasted no time in rushing over, Caballeron only a few steps behind. Rainbow Dash and Daring Do were slower to follow, keeping an eye behind them on Tirek as he came forward as well. His pace still favored one leg over the other three, but he ignored that pain, as well as the pain down his right arm as he folded both behind his upper back.
Scorpan watched his approach for a moment, but eventually turned and held the Sun Stone magically over his head. He tapped it with his spear, and the light and heat that it was giving off quadrupled, making it painful to look at and making Tirek feel like he was standing outside in the Nether Lands.
“Stay close,” he said, “as close as possible. And…beware the shadows. If they move wrong, let me know, immediately.”
“Won’t Erebus know about this secret passage?” Daring Do asked as they started moving. Her words made Glory jump. “Won’t it figure that you’ll use this to get us out?”
“Yes. But…but it will know that I know that. And I know that it knows. And it knows that I know that it knows. And – ”
Tirek snarled. “I will strangle you.”
Scorpan glanced back at Tirek, but nodded. He moved the Sun Stone over his head randomly a few times, pushing back all shadows, cutting the ones cast by their group off from the ones that lurked ahead and behind them. A wise precaution, Tirek had to admit, and one that would perhaps keep them safe should Erebus attack them…not that Tirek anticipated the need. He had every confidence in Cozy Glow to not give in to the Rainbow of Darkness so easily.
“Hey, Tirek,” Rainbow Dash said, interrupting Tirek’s musings, “I gotta ask…how did you and Cozy get out of Tartarus?”
Tirek looked down at her. “Is now really the time?”
“Might not get another. Last time I saw you, you were helping me and my friends leave.” She eyed him. “And you weren’t nearly so buff, either, how’d that happen without anypony noticing a bunch of drained ponies missing their cutie marks?”
Tirek growled. “I see no reason to tell you.”
Rainbow Dash groaned. “I bet it was Sombra. It was Sombra, wasn’t it? Something he did in case he failed again? Don’t know how he came back, but hey, it happened before.” Tirek kept himself from grinning, not wanting to indulge the pegasus. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know how I’m gonna stop you, but even if I can’t, as soon as I get back to Ponyville and get my friends together, we’re gonna hunt you and Cozy down.”
“Then perhaps I shouldn’t let you return,” Tirek noted, looking her in the eye and grinning at her. “I could use the pick-me-up right now…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow Dash droned. She took to the air, flying head of Tirek but looking straight at him with forelegs crossed over her chest, having no difficulty at all flying backwards. “Except then I won’t be able to help you get Cozy Glow free from Erebus. She was my student, and even if she was a little psycho, I can’t just leave her hangin’. So…how about it? Is that truce offer still on, until we deal with Cozy and Erebus?” She held out one foreleg.
Tirek stared at the outstretched hoof a moment, before reaching out his own right fist. “Until Cozy Glow is free,” he agreed, touching his fist to Rainbow Dash’s. “And if you stay out of my way when I claim the Rainbow of Darkness as my own, I’ll even spare you and everypony else here as well.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “I guess we’ll see.” She dropped down to the ground, but moved up alongside Doctor Caballeron. “And, hey, uh…what about you? You gonna help get your goon…I mean, your, uh, employees back?”
Caballeron grit his teeth. “If it were possible…but if they have been made into dark slaves, then our best hope will be to remove Erebus from Miss Cozy Glow, and our best chance of success at that will be to expose as few ponies as possible to becoming more dark slaves. Much as I hate to admit it, I will actually be more useful if I am not in the castle.”
“What he said,” Glory added. She and Caballeron both then glanced to Daring Do.
Daring Do looked back. “No, I’m staying. I’m not leaving Dash alone in here. I’ve encountered traps where you have to watch your shadow before, this isn’t any different. Well, except that the shadows will be moving on their own this time…but I can manage.” She fluttered her wings a few times, and tilted back her pith helmet. “Besides, saving the world is kind of my thing, same as Dash.”
Dash grinned, slapping a wing against one of Daring Do’s own. Tirek rolled his eyes, but was surprised when the pegasus took to the air to look at him just as Rainbow Dash had. “One thing I’ve got to know first, though,” she said. “If it comes down to it, Lord Tirek, which would you pick: the Rainbow of Darkness, or Cozy Glow?”
Tirek bristled. “What kind of question is that?”
“The kind that I know will come up. Call it…pattern recognition. At some point you’re going to need to choose between the two. So, which will it be?” She flew up closer. “That little filly called you her best friend. Are you?”
Tirek snarled, pushing past Daring Do. “It won’t come up,” he said, and completely tuned out any attempt she made at getting his attention again. There wasn’t going to be a choice. The Sun Stone would be used to force the Rainbow of Darkness from Cozy, and then Tirek would claim it and Cozy would be free. So why bother trying to pick between the two? It was foolish to even waste time contemplating such a thing.
He was still larger than the ponies, so him moving up had forced them all behind him…which unfortunately meant that he was not walking directly behind his brother. The facsimile of his brother, in any event…
“So, what are you?” Tirek demanded of the creature walking before him. “A magical construct? A golem? What simulacra did my useless brother create to mock me?”
The creature’s grip on his spear tightened. “I am Scorpan.”
“Time is suspended in Tartarus, creatures there don’t age. That’s not the case in this castle. Scorpan is dead.”
Scorpan looked at him. His shoulders and wings sagged. “Perhaps…perhaps you are right. Perhaps there is not really a Scorpan anymore, just…me. Just…just the gargoyle that imprisons the Rainbow of Darkness. Forever.” He looked ahead. Twitched his hand, sent the Sun Stone wobbling through the air, pushing back shadows. “It must be.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
Scorpan stopped, turning on Tirek. Still filled with power, he actually stood nearly as tall as Tirek did, and the few extra steps of the stairs that he was on brought him to eye level with the centaur. He banged the butt of his spear into the ground, drew himself up, clenched his free hand into a fist.
“I live,” Scorpan said, his voice steadier than it had been since he had first started speaking, “I sleep, I live again. I suspend myself. Seal myself in stone. I am awakened when the castle’s defenses are breached. Every time I close my eyes, every time I feel the rock and shale crawl up my fur and close around me and the dreamless, thoughtless void takes me, I wonder if it is for the last time…I hope it is for the last time.” He glared hard at Tirek, then turned around and started walking again. “That is how I’m still alive. Still alive to be here, to meet you again. To see you again, to see you like…this. Still. To lose the one last shred of hope I didn’t even know I still had.”
Tirek barely heard that, instead focusing on what Scorpan had said. He…froze himself in stone? Released himself when the castle was breached? That was certainly possible…easy, even. Tirek could think of ways to set up the enchantments, arrange the spells of Midnight Castle to trigger such an event. And Tirek had taught Scorpan much of the magic that Sendak the Elder had known…and then Scorpan had had years of additional freedom to learn himself…
…was this Scorpan? Could Tirek really be looking at his brother? And if so…how did that knowledge lessen his desire to wring the gargoyle’s neck? This was the traitor, the mutineer, the one who had turned on him and alerted the ponies to his plans, had aided Star Swirl and Celestia and Luna in imprisoning him in Tartarus, who had robbed Tirek of a thousand years of freedom…
…and look at what it had gotten Scorpan. A lost kingdom just as Tirek had lost the chance to create his own in the nascent Equestria. Isolation and a prison just as Tirek had been imprisoned. A fitting punishment, perhaps. There was symmetry to this, a symmetry like what Tirek had attempted to inflict on the Princesses of Equestria when he had escaped from Tartarus the first time. Scorpan had gotten not one ounce less than what he deserved…
They reached the top of the stairs, which terminated in an apparent dead end, the stairs going right up to the ceiling. But Scorpan reached up and again, without even needing to look, pushed in two bricks in the ceiling and then heaved, lifting it up and over his head, sliding aside a large block. The six of them emerged in the dark chapel to Lord Tirac, which looked outright alien in the hot, bright light of the Sun Stone. The stained-glass windows continued to refuse to let in any light from outside, and every creature paused to look at the great image of Tirac, arms spread wide as darkness – as Erebus – spread across the land before him and caused all whose shadow he touched to suffer.
“Such power,” Tirek mumbled as he looked at what Lord Tirac had once accomplished, the breadth of his domain.
Scorpan looked to Tirek. “Power has a price. And it did not avail him in the end.”
Tirek grunted, not wanting to even begin that debate. He turned around…and froze.
At the other end of the dark chapel, standing in its entrance just beyond the Sun Stone’s light, was an alicorn…a jet-black alicorn with batlike wings and a slightly curved horn, with a mane and a tail that were long and flowing shadow-stuff and eyes that stood out only by somehow being even darker than the rest of her.
But what stood out most about the alicorn was that she was shorter than Rainbow Dash. She was the smallest alicorn that Tirek had ever seen, and he’d seen four out of the five in existence. Perhaps Princess Flurry Heart was shorter…but certainly not by much.
“Tirek!” The alicorn cried out in a familiar voice. The blackness bled off of her, and Tirek had to fight back the urge to recoil when he found himself looking at the familiar pink fur and red eyes, and the much less familiar but still recognizable blue mane, not done up in its usual curls thanks to the desert’s heat outside.
“Uh-oh,” Cozy Glow said. “Tirek, did these bullies take you captive?”
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Who’re you calling a bully?” She paused. “Uh, also…who’s calling me a bully? Cozy Glow, or Erebus?”
“Oh, goody!” Cozy Glow said, looking at Scorpan, who was frozen in place, spear held forward, free hand held like he was ready to throw something – the Sun Stone through magical power, probably. “Thanks, Scorpan, for letting them use my – ”
“Wait, hang on, shut up,” Cozy interrupted herself, scowling and looking a little to the side. “Let me talk.”
“Got it,” Cozy Glow said.
Tirek blinked. “Cozy…?”
“Yup!” Cozy responded. “Uh…also, Erebus. The Rainbow of Darkness. He talks through my mouth sometimes. But this is me.”
Daring Do took a step forward – though she also made sure to remain behind the Sun Stone, keep her shadows away from Cozy. “How can we be sure of that?” She asked. “How can we be sure you are who you say you are?”
“That’s rich, coming from a LARPer who won’t even break character!” Cozy countered. “Now shut up, I’m talking to Tirek.” She turned back to the centaur. “It’s okay! Me and Erebus had a long talk, and now I’m using the Rainbow of Darkness. We didn’t have anything to be worried about after all! All he wants is to just be used, that’s it – no strings attached! He had plenty of opportunities to turn on me but didn’t take any of them!”
“Lying,” Scorpan said. His eyes were huge, and he was trembling. Whatever sanity he had been able to seize had slipped from his grasp, it seemed. “Lying, lying, lying…”
Cozy grinned widely. “Nope,” she said, and then turned back to Tirek. “Come on! Just get over here, I’ll cover you.”
Tirek almost did start forward, but checked himself. “Daring Do is right,” he said. “How can I be sure that it’s actually you? That you’re in control?” He inclined his head. “Step into the light.”
Cozy didn’t. “Erebus…doesn’t like it,” she said. She actually took a step backwards, into deeper shadow. “He doesn’t like the light.”
“So Erebus is in control.”
“No.” Cozy stomped his hoof, “no, he’s not, he’s my partner, just like you and Chrysalis!”
“You and WHO?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, eyes and wings both going wide. “You’re working with Chrysalis?! Did she let you two loose?! And – and was she behind Sombra?!”
One of Tirek’s eyes narrowed. Had Cozy just made a mistake, let her anger get the better of her and say something she shouldn’t have – or was Erebus trying to distract him by bringing Rainbow Dash into this? He stepped forward again. “Cozy Glow. Step into the Sun Stone’s light.”
“No,” Cozy said. “I shouldn’t have to! You should trust me! You’re my best friend!”
“Then as your friend, I’m asking you to prove that you are in control. Erebus can lurk in the darkness for a few moments.”
“No.” Cozy’s eyes were wide as she glared at Tirek. “You…you wanted the Rainbow of Darkness. You wanted it really bad. Wouldn’t even listen to me when I was telling you it was a bad idea, even though you’re supposed to trust me. You’re supposed to listen to me! I’m your friend!”
Tirek growled. “I had waited a thousand years to seize the Rainbow of Darkness! Of course I wasn’t listening to you when you stood in my way – ”
“And you still want it now, is that it?” Cozy demanded. She shook her head. Darkness started creeping up her legs, turning her fur and feathers black. “Want to take the Rainbow of Darkness from me?”
Tirek clenched his fists. He wasn’t listening to her? Why wasn’t she listening to him? “I want to see if you’re telling the truth. If you are, then you should be able to separate Erebus from yourself.”
“So you can have it?” Cozy demanded. “No.”
“Cozy, get into the light, right now.”
“Promise me you won’t try and take Erebus away!”
Tirek’s eye twitched. How could he make that promise, with how long he’d waited, with how much he’d gone through? He cut the air with one hand. “I will swear no such thing.”
Cozy stared back at him. The darkness that had been creeping up along her swallowed her whole, turning her into the solid-black alicorn again. Its void-like eyes narrowed. “Fine. Then I guess we’re fighting. It’s okay. Friends fight sometimes. But I’m gonna win.”
She stepped backwards, completely into the shadows. Tirek lost sight of her almost immediately.
Oh no...is it weird I feel bad for Tirek?
Honestly that's about as much diplomacy as Tirek is capable of right now. His Sisyphean curse is in full effect.
It's actually kinda scary. Like, Scorpan knows about the dark-slave thing, and Cozy Glow thought of it almost immediately. Is that just Erebus giving her ideas and she thinks it's her own? I want to say that Cozy's twisted enough to come up with it on her own, or that it's an obvious idea that Erebus's hosts almost always come up with, but then why did Erebus act like it was so stunned by her creativity?
Something here stinks.
Ooh, good chapter. I almost feel sorry for Cozy Glow.
Is it good or bad I want that one pony who's always touching stuff to get a, "You're a COMPLETE IDIOT!" speech by someone? He 100% deserves it.
Should be 'now'.
You said "big" twice, you might wanna revise that.
Unless Tirek has a drinking problem and is resisting the urge to enjoy some gin, I think this is a typo.
Anyways, good chapter, I'll stay tuned.
Come on, Tirek! You can do it!
Tirek rolled a critical failure in diplomacy!
Cozy trying out Erabus's powers was actually pretty cute. It really felt like a child playing with a new toy. It got quite menacing when she got creative with them though. The interactions between the other ponies and Tirek and Scorpan was good. It was nice that they had some time together without any action.
Because the best possible place to put a filly in time out is a small empty metal cage next to a thousend year old supervillain! At least Luna had the entire moon and her magic. Frankly, I'm surprised that her idea didn't suffer any more pushback.
Nice callback to the first chapter. It's certainly a lot more menacing when Cozy actually has power.
This makes sense. Cozy's goals were always to have ponies be her "friends"/minions. Killing everyone would be contradictory to those goals.
Except that she and her friends already did.
Foreshadowing?
That's actually pretty clever.
This is just one of the things Tirek will have to deal with when taking care of children.
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He was hampered by his inexplicable sense of Cozy-specific decency. It would have been easier for him if he was talking to literally any other pony, but he refused to lie to Cozy, and likewise refused to make her a promise that he had no intention of keeping. A black-hearted sense of honesty, but honesty nonetheless.
Damn it, Withers! Stop poking the obviously cursed artifacts! You'll end up incubating a xenomorph at this rate. (Daring Do and the Space Changelings was critically panned for A. K. Yearling's curious choice to delve into sci-fi horror.)
Tirek really should listen to Daring. An experienced adventuring autobiographer knows her tropes inside and out. Of course, he only recently dredged himself from denial with Scorpan. There's still fathoms of the stuff with regards to Cozy. This will be rough for him.
As for Cozy herself... yeah, between whatever Erebus is slipping into her thoughts and her own self-serving take on friendship, this wasn't going to go well. Rational arguments won't get her to part ways with her new friend. The question is what will.
And, of course, Dash has some incredibly vital intel. I have to wonder what, if anything, will keep her from divulging it. We'll see soon enough.
Damn it Tirek, you just had to do one thing...
I realized this between the second quote below and the still-hypothetical third: Buck Withers? Is that canon? Because it's literally "Kick Ass" in equine terminology.
(At least you remembered she doesn't have anything better to do it with...)
It's been a while; are they supposed to know that she's on their side at the moment?
I get the joke, but she lived a very sheltered life up until the point where she was the one with all the malevolent designs. Has she ever needed to scream like the little filly she is?
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In all fairness, this particular poke explicitly delayed the impending doom.
10769272 I would expect the Princesses to delve into Cozy's background and find out WHERE THE HELL SHE EVEN CAME FROM.
But, you know, TV writers don't need to be bothered with things like plotting and characterization. That's for the fans to work out later!
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Notably, RDD did so in a previous story because they couldn't justify reforming her without this either.
Good ol' Withers! Playing the classic role of the dumb minion who can't leave well enough alone. Also, this chapter really does well in advancing Tirek's character with the small amount of "screen-time," so to speak, that he has. He's being forced to make a choice between his goal and a friend, something he's never had to do before, because Scorpan betrayed him and he was just using Discord. He's finally learning that he can't always have both. Hopefully, he learns the right lesson before it's too late.
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An interesting take on the character. Doesn't negate what I said though. I said he made a poor roll in diplomacy. Honesty is not the same thing as diplomacy. Diplomacy, according to one cynic, is the art of saying "nice doggy" to a rabid hound while reaching around for a rock to brain it with.
Tirek's refusal to lie is an interesting insight into his character and his relationship with Cozy--doesn't change that it did make the situation worse.
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Yeah, Erebus is playing Cozy Glow like a fiddle. Everything stinks.
I think it's still safe to blame Rainbow Dash for all of this.
That's one awkward family reunion.
Another brilliant chapter, and were about to throw down with Cozy/Erebus it's sure to be good. Also loving the drama between Tirek and Scorpan, as well as the twist with the ponies getting another a piece of the puzzle of the threat workign against them with the name dropped with Chrysalis.
Admit personally hoping that Grogar doesn't turn out to be Discord, or if it does we actually see things backfire on him where he takes the head for his actions.
Also (“And it’s not like she was just left alone down there!” Dash continued. “She gets visitors, like, all the time! Psychiatrists and stuff, and the Princesses.” ) I think someone either been lying or there's been some misconception or misscommunication or misunderstanding somewhere. Either way can you say drama when Dash and the rest of her friends realize that this wasn't the case.
Not to mention if it's the first opton of someone lying about what Cozy was going through who and why, signs point to the princesses.
Witness him!
I think that Cozy is playing Erebus, making it think it's getting what it wants so it doesn't forcefully exert control over her and lets her stay in control. Then she'll double-cross him at the last moment. The dark slave idea, for example, seems to me that Cozy was anticipating what Erebus would try to do and suggested the idea herself to make it think she's all in for the "take over the world with darkness" idea. It depends how good Erebus is at reading minds, like if someone is strong willed enough maybe they could hide their thoughts?
Erebus seems to be a more fleshed-out version of the Pony of Shadows (especially the whole "dark alicorn" bit). Equestria is a place where emotions are depicted as very real and powerful magical forces. I like the idea that there are these hidden dark entities all around Equestria/beyond that find hosts who have anger/emotional problems and latch onto them, making them do worse and worse things, similar to how in real life things like depression or anger make you go down a dark spiral. Cozy however is much more accustomed to manipulation than Stygian, so she'd know the game that Erebus is trying to play (slowly corrupting her into doing what it wants) and turn it back on him (it?).
I also wonder if Erebus would gamble on giving up Cozy as a host and try to jump over to Tirek to get a more powerful host and repeat what it was able to do with Tirac's body.
10770066 I mean, is Cozy playing Erebus? We had a PoV from Cozy's perspective, and it really just seems like Erebus managed to convince her, straight-up.
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Gonna deal with something from this first, vis-a-vis Rainbow Dash explaining Cozy's punishment...
Trying to figure out how to reconcile the fact that I want the ponies to still be basically heroic, with what they did to Cozy in Season 8, was one of the things that delayed this chapter. It's something that has to be addressed, it can't be ignored, and some way to make the ponies look...I guess not terrible...has to be found.
This was the best I could do. I am very leaning into the fact that MLP isn't exactly the most serious of shows. It unfortunately creates a bit of a dissonance between this story, which plays the setting a little more straight, and what I'm implying here, which is more cartoony and lighthearted. My defense is that this is the corner that the show's writers put me in, and this is my level best attempt at getting out of it: by making it clear that it was never intended to be permanent. It's also why I've been dropping details about Tartarus that make it seem, well, again, "not terrible". You don't age, you don't get hungry or thirsty, and you can't go mad. Adding in a set ending date and making it clear that the intention was that she'd be visited regularly is...better. Still not good, but better, and if we can just remember that this is all just a cartoon, it becomes just barely palatable to me. An effort is being made.
...plus I have to admit that on some level I find Luna's line ("Oh yes, how terrible it would be to be trapped someplace for a whole year...") to be funny.
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I guess you'll just have to wait and see.
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Definitely on Erebus essentially being a more fleshed-out Pony of Shadows, that was a source of inspiration, though I'm really just sort of drawing from any "incarnation of darkness" that I've seen over the years. There's a fair bit of the Prince of Darkness, for example. Certainly Tim Curry is the voice I imagine for Erebus' true voice.
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I'm not not saying that Scorpan doesn't have a bunch of empty chrome spraypaint bottles lying around...
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I think I mentioned this before, but the decision about what to do with Grogar and Discord was the single hardest decision I have ever had to reach as a writer. There is just so much damn work to do no matter which way I go. I put it off for as long as possible - I still hadn't made the decision by the time I finished Trouble in Tiatartia - but while writing this I realized that I really needed to come up with an answer to the question before I start writing The End is Never the End, so that I can start dropping hints and setting things up and otherwise structuring the story correctly.
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Somewhat related to the above, you'll note that Dash here did something that nopony did in the finale: she held out her hoof to Tirek. Even if only for a temporary truce for dealing with the Cozy-possessed Erebus. Though on that note she also talks about not wanting to leave Cozy hanging. Dash is doing the best she can at being the best she can here.
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Oh, if only you knew....mwuahahahahahaha...
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I think ultimately a bit of Tirek's paternalism towards Cozy was on display here. "Young filly you put down that ancient evil artifact and get over here right now." Unfortunately Cozy's at that age where all she really wants is to hang out with the evil kids and take over Equestria. Surely that's just a phase. Also it doesn't really help that Tirek isn't exactly the most emotionally mature person himself. Like, certainly moreso than Cozy or Chrysalis...but he has his moments, Plus as I've observed before, he does have an odd honorable streak that may well have worked against him here.
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Just as important a question of course, is what will learning the right lesson cost him?
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Yup! Or even seriously writing her generally even if I didn't want to see if I could convincingly have her change her ways (which may or may not happen in this fic, mind). I mean, the writers didn't need to go nearly as far as I did, but I can't believe that if Haber and company were asked "but why does she want to do this", their answer is to shrug and say, "who knows?" or "just 'cause."
Like, way back when I was writing the Lunaverse story The Return of Tambelon, I never gave my take on Grogar there a backstory and never considered it, but I still made sure that I knew the answer to the basic questions of character motivation for him. You should always be able to give at least some kind of satisfactory answer to the basic interrogatives for a significant character, "who" and "how" and "why" being the most important.
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Yeah, the goon squad knows - Daring and Caballeron teamed up almost immediately after the airship crash. As for Cozy, while the backstory described in my origin story for her does make her come from a rich family and that she never really had any material wants, nor was she abused in any traditional understanding, it also shows that she kind of went through a trauma conga line as one disaster after another threatened Equestria and affected her. And that only covers up to Tirek's rampage. Granted things mostly settled down after that...at least until the Storm King rolled into town. Which I vaguely implied Cozy might have extra reasons to hate him.
So she'd definitely have had ample opportunity to scream in terror.
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Cozy finally found a friend who'll do whatever she says! Like a friend is supposed to! As for Dash, I've got a few ideas I'm sifting through, depending on how I decide to end this story.
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One of my problems as a writer at times is I'm very visual, which doesn't always get onto the page in quite the way I want. In particular, the scene with Cozy throwing the shadow balls and missing would probably work a lot better in a comic or cartoon than in text. Still, I had fun with it.
I really like to make use of the established setting and plot details, you've probably noticed with...well, everything I write. The sheer usefulness of being able to reliably petrify and unpetrify a creature can't be understated. Also note that I took this time to clearly establish that being petrified is definitely a form of stasis where you don't think and can't perceive anything - i.e., it's not a horrible waking nightmare, it's a sleep without dreams.
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In the Tails of Eqeustria RPG, Tirek's got a d12 in his Charm stat - for reference a 1st-level pony has merely a d6, and that's with ponies noted as being charming creatures by nature. That being said, sooner or later, everyone rolls a 1...
Now it just falls on him to figure out how to pick up the pieces.
10769048
To be honest after this ordeal Tirek could probably use a drink.
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Yeah, Withers does. He kind of started to get one in this before Cozy interrupted it. Plus like it was observed him poking the unknown thing actually technically kind of put off the inevitable doom.
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How good of a master manipulator can you be if everyone knows you're a master manipulator, I wonder?
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Not at all.
See you all next chapter!
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Can't wait to see what you have in store for us next!
10770195
Hopefully it won't cost him everything. I can't picture Tirek taking up gardening.
10770195
David Xanatos: *Gendo pose (actually, which of them did it first?)*
10770195 Even the most BRILLIANT child on the planet still lacks EXPERIENCE. That's why child villains either have to be comically absurd (Mandark in "Dexter's Lab") have more limited scope for their plans (Darla from "Cat's Don't Dance", which was combined with the absurdity, who just wanted to keep all fame and attention on her), or be either an old villain in disguise, possessing, or trapped in the form of a child (so many examples of this I can't pick just one! … Hmm, the tragic take on child actors in "Batman: The Animated Series" is probably the best one, Baby Doll.)
There are probably even a couple other routes to go as well. Robot child, alien child... seen enough to know how it CAN be made to work. Heck, there are a bunch of stories on this site with ancient evils of all sorts getting stuck in/reincarnated as foals. It's practically self-explanatory when done that way.
The sheer staggering practical AVOIDANCE of trying to flesh out Cozy's character took EFFORT! It's almost impressive that they made sure not a single character in the show ever slipped up and asked, "Wait, why is this young filly pure evil?"
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Let’s not forget that what Cozy did was horrible. She took away magic from all of Equestria leaving the entire population to suffer (potentially those that rely on magic will die). The entire Equestrian way of life would collapse. Even though we didn’t see all the effects of this in the episode, based on how reliant the ponies are on magic, not having it could be devastating.
Cozy also planned to trap seven innocent creatures in another dimension (which might have also killed them depending on that dimension’s physics but let’s assume it wouldn’t) and Twilight and her friends in Tartarus for eternity. She also actively lied to the entire school and manipulated them into liking her for her own benefit, then abused that trust to try and control them.
Her plans were ultimately a bit child-like in that she thought taking over the school would be enough of a power-base to take over Equestria. Maybe she was right and with a few more plans she may have succeeded. But, I definitely don’t think Tartarus is an over the top punishment, especially given that her “special ability” is manipulation so if you let her near anyone she would try to manipulate them into letting her go. She can’t talk to animals though so this wouldn’t work on Cerberus.
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Who was clearly the template for Cozy from top to bottom. They just kinda screwed up the scale, not just in the way you said but also in having to pretend only unicorns have/use magic or Cloudsdale dies offscreen (both the contraindicating Tirek and Cloudsdale itself factor into the plot of the two-parter, so they clearly didn't even notice this until after they'd already made the outline)
Go, Whithers, Agent of Harmony! May you become the alicorn prince of Frenemy Shipping!
10771059 And that's yet ANOTHER plot hole with Cozy I hadn't thought of... BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY PLOT HOLES IN SEASONS 8 AND 9!!! ARGGGHHH!!
I can find vore fetish fics with better writing. Not many, mind you... maybe, like, 3 or so... but they exist!
Let us rejoice! For RDD has updated another chapter! This one is pretty good. What I like about the Erebus/Cozy Glow dynamic is how Erebus is using the same faux-friend techniques Cozy used on every-pony else. The best bit is how he congratulated her for her “creativity”, yet from what Scorpan says, the shadows enslavement is a usual feature, so Erebus must be giving her these ideas while making her think they are her own brilliant ideas.
Speaking of Scorpan, I like your explanation for his survival. What’s brilliant is how it takes lore from the show and combines it with classical gargoyle mythology—that they turn to stone during the day.
So Rainbow thinks Cozy is being visited regularly, yet no-pony noticed they’d escaped months ago. Tartarus always felt like a place where dangerous creatures were left to be forgotten. The idea of locking up a filly in there is absurd. (Of course, that does happen in real life, like that story of the six year old boy who was prosecuted for picking tulips). Either The princesses hoped the Mané Six would forget about Cozy, or Luna meant what she said but didn’t realize she was supposed to visit her and send psychologists. (Probably because she got none of that herself) Celestia not knowing may be due to her attempting to show her trust in Luna. I think when this finally blows over, the ponies will need to rethink their justice system.
And now Rainbow knows about Chrysalis. Wait till Twilight tells her whom she saw in Tiatara...
Tirek’s character development is interesting. Let’s hope he makes the right choice.
Great update! I look forward to seeing your next post.
And so, Cozy put on the One Horseshoe from the Dark Horse Lord.
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I feel like bringing up my own half-joking explanation for this: it's where her only friend lives. That said friend is the aforementioned supervillain... well, that's the half that's the joke.
Aww! You poor thing! Administer the head pats stat!
And so by following through on just two lines, Glory became more redeemable than Discord ever was throughout nearly his entire show run.
Honestly I can't even blame her for that. But judging from her efforts to hold it previously it's a pipe dream. Like making money off the CCP. Better to give up now and save your hooves the trouble.
Seriously Glory, don't ever change offscreen. You're the only consistent character here.
I'd be honestly surprised if Rainbow Dash knows what the word petulant means.
Either way she shouldn't be jealous. Really she shouldn't. Just because Caballeron is putting up with Glory for now, hardly means he's reliable. At the very least I wouldn't be surprised if her bank account was more then a few bits lighter at the end of this.
Glory you made a contribution! You were completely wrong of course (you're no longer allowed to be smart now that you're not a main character) but at least it was a logical assumption to make.
What would she do with her hooves that could be considered rude? Why would ponies even have rude gestures? I mean it's not like they can afford to make their movements taboo all that well anyway, given their already limited options.
What would count as a obscene gesture anyway? Pointing with your back hoof instead of your front? Putting you hoof under your chin? Seriously what? Because unless your Pinkie Pie, I don't see that working out too well.
That's weirdly specific. Why would-
Okay that's annoyingly OP.
It also tells me all I need to know about how the final battle is going to go. Guess we know why Erebus has that weirdly specific weakness that would only be a problem for a Pegasus who spends a lot of her free time in the air.
Viscous autonomous goo? Yeah this isn't going anywhere good. Except a comedy show, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that.
Yeah no way that's going to come back to bit her given what just happened.
Why does Scorpan even have the moral framework to care about something like that? Seriously what values did ancient Equestria have? Because I find it hard to believe that "children should always be given the benefit of the doubt" would be one of them.
Really? Then how do you account for her being totally unfazed when she was put next to Tirek? Either you've grossly overestimated the effect this would have on her Luna, or you just like locking people up.
Yep that's definitely the vibe I got while they were both smiling away when mentioning her ultimate fate at the end of School Raze.
No, just no. Everything about this feels shallow and wrong in light of characters like Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer, Tempest Shadow, and Discord being reformed without any sort of trial period. This comes across as just pandering to Luna, and honestly given the cushy life she's lived since coming back (despite her very blatant misdeeds) I can't bring myself to muster too much sympathy for her position.
I know people have already mentioned this, but there are so many plot holes with this you might as well as stuck with the original Season 9 narrative. Certainly it set up her kidnaping by Grogar far better than her being imprisoned in a actual staffed facility.
This whole section suffers greatly from a "tell don't show" mindset, and on the whole it fails to account for any of the characters actions during the Season 8 final. I've also actually lost quite a bit of respect for your Luna, and that isn't something I say lightly.
Huh this seems familiar. Where have I seen this before?
Venom is that you?
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From what little I've seen of Mandrake and from seeing most of Darla Dimple there's actually a lot of overlap with Cozy. The reality is not that Cozy Glow as a villain isn't ridiculous on some scale; it's that MLP villains were always ridiculous, to beyond cartoon levels of silly. The show just makes Cozy look good, by being ridiculously dumb by comparison. The fact that Season 8 had some of the most spontaneously lazy and slapdash writing yet, didn't really help matters.
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Pretty much every reformed MLP villain was horrible. What's your point?
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It's not pandering to Luna. It's me leaning on my personal belief that of the two sisters, Luna is far more capable of cruelty, malice, and holding a grudge than Celestia; it's like anti-pandering, using her as a fall guy because I think she's set up for it as-is. And I know that it makes Luna look bad, but frankly I still think she looks better than the canon Season 8, wherein she apparently intended Cozy to be there forever.
I know everything you said, but I can't just lie back and think of England where the ending of Season 8 is concerned. Either I have to come up with some way to make an attempt at justifying it, or else I'd have to somehow confront directly that the ponies had morphed into cruel bastards at some point between the conclusion of the movie and the end of Season 8, for no good reason other than the fact that the show's writers had dropped mightily in quality - there's nothing in-universe that justifies it.
What else was I supposed to do? Where else was I supposed to go? Was I just supposed to keep ignoring it? Can you think of anything else that's less contrived, less hollow? What else was I supposed to do, to stop the ponies from looking like complete monsters who'd throw a child in Tartarus and throw away the key when they've bent over backwards again and again and again for the likes of Discord?
But I'm asking, I'm begging, for the benefit of the doubt here. I didn't just write this out to assuage my personal hangups over Season 8. It will be important down the line.
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I meant that it's a case of Celestia and Twilight pandering to her.
Depends on the context I suppose. Is Luna a worse person as a unthinking enforcer following her sister's edicts, who mistakenly believes Cozy is a more dangerous threat then Discord, or as a bratty child who just wants to see people suffer?
Honestly I think they always were pretty cruel and lazy (at least since at least Season 3, if not sooner).
Look back at "Too Many Pinkie Pies". They imprison/possibly forcibly disembody a entire species because they're annoying, dumb and wreck stuff. And it's not like the clones are incapable of learning or obeying commands (we see that through out the episode).
Yes they are destructive, but not intentionally so, and everything about the premise is horrifying. This is true especially given the fact that we don't know if they were organic drones like the Star Wars clones, or if they are all just big children with all of the traits of the original, and none of the core memories to keep them grounded.
This is all done on Twilight's cognizance by the way, with the added caveat that the ponies were so identical, she might've risked accidentally erasing the real Pinkie Pie by using the spell (which would actually account for Pinkie Pies decline in intelligence over the latter half of the series, if you want to get that dark).
Look at how the ponies handled the Changelings; no one went after them either to determine their point of origin and threat level, or to deal with them despite the fact they were dangerous life force stealing vamponies who clearly needed a longer term solution. But nah, blast them over the horizon, it'll be fine.
Even Tirek gets treated pretty awfully. Yeah he's functionally a vampire in that he needs magic to turn back the clock and keep himself from growing older and dying, but at what point is that any different from the biological reactions of someone like Chrysalis?
And unlike most villains, Tirek proves to be fairly honest and reliable (again and again) when he's forced to compromise with others. And what is Twilight's response to him asking her a legitimate question about Friendship? To blow him off and ask for the release of Discord. I don't have to tell you what ultimately happens to him in the end.
Twilight never bothered to figure out what made Starlight tick until it became obvious that she was powerful enough to keep on stonewalling her otherwise. She was all set to send Stygian to Limbo without knowing a thing about him, or how the containment would hold up over the next thousand years.
As for the other villains, she never seems to really like Discord and seems to tolerate him more out of respect for Celestia and Fluttershy, then any affection towards him personally.
We don't see her reach out to any of the minor pony antagonists either. Now maybe she did do so offscreen, but we never see her doing so. If anything The MLP Movie is very much the outliner for Twilight Sparkle (which actually makes sense given how she started this show).
Speaking of Discord; he was left in stone until Celestia thought he could be used, and Fluttershy's friendship with him was entirely at her prompting.
Now I'm no fan of Discord; I think he's one of the few villains who both enjoyed lying and was legitimately good at it, and his sadism is easily comparable to at least that of DC's Scarecrow. Combine that with beyond Q level powers and the end result is a villain who is endlessly dangerous, regardless of how you feel about him personally.
But his release and subsequently manipulation by Fluttershy is still pretty messed up when you think about it, especially given that no one ever encourages his chaos in a healthy way. They just confine him to one little corner, out of the public eye.
They could possibly encourage the few positive art forms of chaos we do see him capable of in his debut episode. But why would you do that when you want a living weapon, and apparently don't care about what trouble he'll cause in the meantime?
I guess what I am saying is that I don't view Twilight as being out of character so much as showing the worst of her character throughout Season 8. Twilight was an angry, whiny, misanthropy at the worst of times, but she balanced that with some level of problem solving skills and the determination to see things through, with a abundant love for her country and the truth. Very little of those traits are present throughout the main episodes in Season 8.
This paragraph doesn't reveal the reason for her putting EEA guidelines above her friends. Or her reason for not even launching a investigation into the CMC's claims to find out if what they were saying was true, to the point where everyone's most hated villain had to actually confess to her manipulations in order to bring the CMC back to the school. Or why she doesn't even try to counter Cozy Glow's erroneous beliefs. I mean I would assume that's why the school exists in the first place.
In addition to feeling shoehorned in via exposition (when you really almost need a whole scene focusing on the reality of these claims just to make Rainbow's comments feel genuine) ultimately this paragraph doesn't really feel like it satisfies those questions for me, anymore than "they would probably be released eventually" answers your questions for you when you watch the final. It just doesn't work for me.
At best it does make Twilight look more like a indecisive and cowardly pony, as opposed to simply unempathetic and lazy like she was in cannon, but the end result is still someone I am not particularly comfortable with being in charge of anything, much less being the sole proprietary voice on defining friendship.
And the end result is still a lot of ponies I don't like, more than ones I actually do. At least if the question was unanswered I could just imagine their various reasons for not questioning where Cozy was sent or why. As it is, I just have to wonder if all the Main Six know how this conversation went, and what justifications they are using to excuse it all for themselves.
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Well, no, but Twilight isn't here, and the paragraph isn't about Twilight, exactly; it's just meant to outline what the intended punishment for Cozy Glow was, the reason for sticking her in Tartarus in the first place. And it's something that had to come up because it frankly felt unnatural to keep dancing around how Cozy would feel about it. And we're in this situation at all because MLP was never written with a single creative vision or guiding head writer throughout its run; even Faust bowed out during Season 2.
If it helps, Twilight would likely have very little, if any, direct control over Cozy's punishment. Input and opinion, maybe, but what Cozy did was threatening the entire nation and so punishment would be up to Celestia and Luna, who have been pretty consistent with how they deal with those threats - banishment or imprisonment. While I haven't written out the full conversation, though, in my mind it's Twilight who came up with the details of having Cozy be regularly visited and talked to, specifically citing the examples of Discord and Starlight Glimmer as beings who have benefited not from being punished, but from being helped. It's just that Cozy still actively wants to be evil so she's not gonna be allowed the same freedoms as those two.
But more importantly, and like I said...it's just not something I could avoid. It felt unnatural to keep doing so.
10835114 It's the SCOPE and TONE that's the problem with Cozy compared to Mandark and Darla.
Mandark is meant to be the direct antagonist to the protagonist Dexter, who is ALSO impossibly smart... because that's the JOKE of that ENTIRELY COMEDY SERIES. You're not meant to take ANY of Dexter's Lab seriously at all. It's complete nonsense, with little real stake for the world, it being a very episodic series divided into segments which usually had zero relation or continuity.
Darla is an example of a child villain done right. She is focused on what she can reasonably understand: FAME. The desire for fame doesn't require intense study and learning. It simply requires a bloated ego and intense narcissism. Which can be achieved by any idiot on the planet. She's propped up by a giant strongman, and an industry that profits from her performances. THIS MAKES SENSE IN THE FILM CONTINUITY and basic plausibility. Her presence is exaggerated, but doesn't totally crack the world-building. Darla also has a HISTORY, which though briefly described is enough to set her foundation.
Cozy has NOTHING. Literally. NOTHING. She's just THERE. She simply pops into existence with NO CHARACTER BIOGRAPHY WHATSOEVER. She is as flat and empty a trope character as is possible.
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I mean maybe you have a plan to build more details later, and that would be great, but part of the problem is that it doesn't really do that here. We don't really know what conditions were like in Tartarus, and we don't really know what Cozy would have thought about it.
All we know is what Rainbow Dash has been told (which isn't much) and it feels less about building the world and more about exonerating the ponies who put Cozy in a hole in the ground, next to Equestira's biggest (official) villain and the guy who helped her cause so much trouble in the first place, in a location who's security she's already managed to circumnavigate once before.
The fact is that it still feels like a retcon, both in terms of conditions in Tartarus, and having Celestia and Twilight show concern for Cozy, when we have no real evidence that they could be bothered with her after the events of School Raze just throws me off the story.
It doesn't exactly help the events feel more believable, especially when that raises questions as to why no one has noticed Tartarus's prisoners are missing. The fact that its another change that feels like it happens off screen doesn't really help.
And to reference something you said earlier, there really is no way to address this issue of Cozy without sounding hollow, because the writing is hollow. You can rewrite Season 8 to make it workable but short of that, there really is no way to give it meaningful substance; it's just that bad.
Even a great deal of it's side episodes feel hollow and callous compared to what came before. For me, I honestly prefer heroes who can either back up what their saying, or admit when their in the wrong.
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That, at least, is fully intentional on my part — it is supposed to be raising that question.
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I hope there's a equally good answer, because if it's something like "we didn't account for magic in a world saturated with it" I may have to scream.
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Honestly I never took any of "Cat's Don't Dance" seriously, and once you try applying real world logic and maturity to MLP, it fails apart long before Season 8 and School Raze.
I will say that between the mindset and reality of "I can do everything a Cutie Mark can" which we see with numerous CMC clients, the fact said CMC's were apparently trusted to run a day camp of their peers with no adult supervision, and the immense reverence Crystal Ponies have for Spike, a villain like Cozy Glow actually made some limited sense in the world building even before School Raze.
Someone desperate for the unnatural levels of attention heaped on those around her and with more hidden talent than quite a few of the adults around her. A talent like Cozy's is in some ways the least fantastic thing on this show.
She's not some super genius; (we are pretty much told see needed Tirek's help to make the ritual work) she just happens to be more pragmatic and observant than most ponies. That is something children her age can do, and it's hardly the most ridiculous scenario we've seen in this show.
I'm still reeling over the fact that no one bothered to confirm Spike was speaking for Twilight after he made such a suspicious fuss over it in Princess Spike. "I'll insult you to your face and basically call you irrelevant, but I wouldn't dream of double checking to see if your lying." At least when Cozy speaks she has enough confidence to be semi-believable.
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Does no one understand the complexities and nuances of SETTING, TONE, and STRUCTURE in fiction writing any longer?
*looks at some papers from a college creative writing class...* Well that's a big NO.
10838037
So does this mean you are a college professor? Or are these essays ones you've acquired through other methods?
Wait are you saying that a child antagonist is outside of the tone of this show? Cause I look at even the second episode of MLP, and I see next level cringe.
From Steven Magnet being pacified by a very obvious clashing accessory to his mustache, to literally every thing about grown adults being scared by faces on trees, there is plenty of dumb stuff in this series that can't be taken too seriously, from as early as the airing of the second episode.
There were also plenty of things that weren't explained about Discord, Chrysalis, or Starlight Glimmer when they first appeared, and it didn't stop fans from being excited about them. The series was already broken long before the time Cozy Glow showed up.
Neighsay as a character basically predicted just about everything wrong with Twilight's school so he's not dumb, and yet we never get any motivation for his character beyond "duh racist duh".
Chrysalis is one of the most simple characters in the series (comparable to Thor when we meet him in his first MCU movie) and yet somehow she was capable of avoiding detection for decades, despite being completely and utterly dense.
Don't even get me started on the screwy power levels in this show.
I guess what I am saying is that, compared to the stupidity of this series as whole, the idea of a child that happens be very good at lying, isn't really that surprising, or that far fetched, especially when you realize the lies themselves as written are hardly that sophisticated or complex, and actually do feel like something a child would come up with to deceive others.
It's not Cozy Glow herself that's really a problem for me, it's how everyone around her acts that strains the level of believability. And they were showing signs of being that ignorant long before Mark For Effort aired.
Perhaps it's a valid criticism to say Cozy Glow should've had more detail put into her character, but at this point there's too many flaws in the narrative for me to really bother with the one I consider most consistent with the tone of the show.
I still can't buy the motivation of Twilight or Discord over the course of the last two seasons, and it really felt like they were just phoning it in with them by that point. Same with quite a few other characters by this point.
At least Cozy Glow feels consistent enough that you had some idea of what she was going to be doing over the course of the show. It feels like they actually put effort into animating and writing her, even if the details of her back story were never fully fleshed out.
For me it's less that the character is good, and more that everything in Season 8 is so objectively bad that any serious analysis fails flat in the face of much more relevant questions then Cozy's origins.
Why did Twilight still trust her with magical artifacts after being lied to multiple times? How would Tirek or Cozy Glow know how to use artifacts to create a world wide magic drain? What the heck is the key of unfettered entrance and how did Cozy get a hold of it?
Seriously though, we've seen crazy characters before in this show; they make up the majority of MLP characterization. Cozy Glow isn't nearly as far fetched as everything else they thrown at us over the years.
10840130 I have access to many things through... other means.
Well, you're not going to get any argument from me that Season 8 and 9 were absolutely terrible. There are still some Season 8 episodes I will NEVER watch because just the plot summary alone was enough to know they were going to be awful... and then the reactions proved it.
I suppose Cozy is simply a singularity composed of every bad writing decision for the final seasons, the culmination of not paying attention to anything they were creating.
10842436
10840130
Interesting interpretation of Cozy in Tartarus - Luna would have a different sort of perspective. Although if they're supposed to be monitored, then something is up...
Anyway, time for the big climax! This is gonna be fun...