The Social Rejects Squad: Loose Ends

by Betty_Starlight

Chapter 2-4: New Directions

“Just what in the hay do you want, jerk?” Cozy says as she lays in her bed on her back with the covers over her and glares at the motley form before her, floating in the darkness of her room illuminated by the pale moonlight from her window.

Discord smiles to make the large tooth on the right side of his mouth go out further as he bends downward, “Oh, but Cozy! We were developing such a history together!”

"That didn't answer my question!" Cozy snaps back. "What do you want from me?"

The draconequus frowns as he sternly says, “It isn’t about you this time. I’m cleaning up the mess I made earlier when I turned you, Chrysalis, and Tirek to stone. You’ve already passed my test, and so the question remains, what to do with our bug queen?” before looking to the right and bringing his eagle claw to his chin in concentration.

“You leave Chrysalis alone!”, Cozy shouts as she flips her body over to the right to get on her hooves and turns her body to the draconequus, “I took out Sombra and your work is done! Now leave!” sharply with a severe look in her squinted eyes.

“Oh no Cozy, you see, I understand now that I have loose ends to tie up and I’m taking responsibility for my actions!”

“Oh golly!” Cozy eyes down and then up at the draconequus, “Um, you’re absolved from your responsibilities! Now get out of here!”

“Not yet! Mwahahahaa!”

Cozy scowls harshly up at Discord, “I hate you!”

“I’m not especially fond of you either Cozy, but you should be thanking me! After all, I made you a hero!” Discord says while smiling and flippantly flicking his lion paw out into the air.

“I don’t want to be a hero! I want you to fuck off now and never come back!” Cozy shouts before fluffing her wings.

“If it were so easy…” Discord says before disappearing.

A few seconds later, the door opens to reveal a blue unicorn in a pink silk bathrobe. Trixie turns on the lights with her magic to the left of the door and looks at the bed with wide purple eyes, “Cozy! Why are you screaming?”

Cozy looks to Trixie to her left, “Discord is back!”

“Did he show up here? Where is he?” Trixie asks while trotting in and looking around to her right and then her left.

“Oh, he’s probably still listening…” Cozy says while looking up and then around the room, unsure of where Discord is.

“Right you are Cozy!” says a malevolent voice from nowhere.

Trixie starts and stares at the wall defiantly, “You leave my child alone, Discord!”

“Oh, but it’s not your, quote unquote, 'child' we’re talking about here is it? I’m interested in what she’s doing with Chrysalis!”

Trixie sternly says, “Discord, for the last time, this doesn’t concern you!”

The voice snidely says, “Trixie, I don’t think you’re seeing the big picture here… Chrysalis’s incarceration in stone was my fault and so reforming her is now my responsibility!”

Trixie frowns, “So you’re taking responsibility for your actions now. What does that have to do with my child?”

“Starlight wanted Cozy and her friends to help Chrysalis see that being reformed is the way to go! And so, my intervention may be necessary!”

Trixie grimaces, “It’s not Discord! It’s really not!”

“We shall see…”

Trixie and Cozy are both silent as they glance around the room for a moment. Finally, Trixie says, “Discord? Discord? Are you still here?” Both ponies wait in silence before she looks down to Cozy, “Okay little Cozy. I don’t think he’s going to be back tonight. Would you like to sleep with mommy, so you feel safe and comfortable?”

<*****>

Cozy is once again, enveloped in pillows, blankets, and the warm embrace of a blue unicorn. She slumbers there and begins to stir as she pulls her precious teddy bear close to her chest with her forehooves and brings her wings forward with a loving embrace... The pegasus begins to dream…

As Cozy emerges in the fog, she trots forward on the soft cool dirt with her hooves and glances around to see a forest beginning behind her and that she’s standing in a wide open plain. She sees a wooden fence to her right 20 feet that she quickly recognizes as the one from her old home. But when she trots forward, she doesn’t see the burnt out remains of her old cottage anymore, but an empty open field with a fence around it instead! This perplexes the filly as she frowns, "Oh golly! The perfect trifecta of irritations for me tonight! First, Chrysalis! Then, Discord! And now, lemme guess! Princess Luna?"

“Cozy, I needed to speak with you!” says a soft feminine voice from behind the pegasus.

Cozy turns to see a dark blue alicorn there smiling back at her with chartreuse eyes that appear to stare into her soul, albeit warmly, “Oh golly yes! Of course, you do! And lemme guess! It’s about Chrysalis, right?”

Luna frowns, “Well yes, it is actually!”

“Look!” Cozy says as she starts forward towards the alicorn and raises her wings, “I keep hearing things about this from Starlight, then from Discord, and now from you." she tilts her head to the right, "You ever think that maybe you should just give me a chance to properly reform her BEFORE all of you start interfering?”

“It’s not that simple anymore Cozy…”

“Why not? I mean golly! She said she wants to be destroyed right? Why not just do as she asks? Turn her back into a statue and smash it to dust?”

“We don’t kill Cozy!”

“Oh yes! Of course!” Cozy says before rolling her eyes. “We gotta be good and good ponies don’t kill right?” Cozy says before grinning nervously at the princess.

“No! We should never take the life of another! Not if it can at all be avoided!”

“Even if she really wanted it?” Asks Cozy while crunching her mouth with an inquisitive look in her brown eyes.

“No!” *

Cozy frowns, looks down, and says “Okay, I see… Well golly! Given how morally questionable I’ve been in the past, it’s probably for the best that I trust you huh?” before looking back to the princess and squinting her right eye in concentration.

“Look Cozy!” Princess Luna starts trotting forward as the pegasus corrects her gaze to the alicorn, “I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s important that you reform Chrysalis!”

Luna stops trotting about 5 feet in front of Cozy as the filly looks onward at her, “Ugh! You know, I already agreed to do this right? I don’t need to be convinced anymore!” before ruffling her wings in annoyance as she glances to the left.

Luna looks at the filly sternly, “After your visit from Discord, I thought you might need to call on me…”

Cozy looks seriously at the princess, “You know, he could’ve just intervened whenever he golly well felt like it. He had no reason to warn me…”

Luna raises her left eyebrow, “That’s true!”

“Which means!” Cozy continues while frowning, “That he must have some other reason for telling me he’s around?”

“That’s a very astute point Cozy!”

“Yes but…” Cozy sighs before looking up to Luna fiercely, “Can we just golly well get to the point already? Discord said he might intervene, which means he probably will… And now, you wanna help me?” As a thought suddenly crosses her mind, Cozy can only help but giggle maniacally.

Luna frowns at the hysterical child, “Why are you laughing Cozy?”

Cozy looks to Luna with her bright auburn eyes and says unsteadily, “You all want the exact same thing! You, Twilight, Starlight, and Discord! You all want me to reform Chrysalis! I still don’t know what the problem is?” before closing her eyes and bringing her head back to guffaw hysterically.

“I need you to understand how important this is Cozy!”

Cozy straightens herself, “Oh yes! Golly well important right?” Cozy sighs as she relaxes her body and moves her left forehoof up as she looks down and the moves her hoof down while glancing up at the princess with her bright eyes, “Anything else?”

“Yes, you need to know that if Discord intervenes, you need only call me!”

Cozy lowers her forehoof to the ground and stares back at the princess, “So, you think divine intervention is necessary?”

“It may get that way if Discord becomes involved yes…”

“Which, he probably will, like I already said…” Cozy nods before looking down and sighs. She finally glances back up at the empty lot where her home used to be towards her left. She then turns her body that direction and asks in a lower voice, “Why isn’t my old cottage here?”

Luna glances the same direction as Cozy, “Because it’s no longer part of you Cozy…”

Cozy turns her head to Princess Luna inquisitively, “What do you mean?”

Luna turns her head down to the filly, “You’ve reached a point now where you need not be horrified child…”

“Yeah…” Cozy says as she looks over the now barren landscape with her mouth straight and eyes forward, “It’s all gone now huh?” Cozy ruffles her wings.

<*****>

As the bowling ball struck all the pins for a strike in lane 2, not far from the station where they’re standing, Cozy stands on her hooves in near the ball pit, stares up at Starlight, 10 feet in front and says, “It’s been two days!”

Starlight frowns, “So?”

“So, the agreement was for me and my friends to go bowling with Chrysalis next week! Why are we doing this only two days later?” Cozy says before raising her left eyebrow in curiosity.

“Well, interacting with you seemed to do Chrysalis a world of good! You should hear the things she says about you!”

“Wait what?” Cozy says while scrunching her mouth and looking onward. She stares back at Starlight “What is she saying about me?”

Starlight smiles, “Just that even though you’re really small (Cozy frowns), she liked bowling with you and was actually looking forward to doing it again!”

Cozy widens her eyes to Starlight, “Okay, so bug horse is also obviously insane!”

Starlight raises her left eyebrow, takes a step forward with her left hoof, and frowns, “Why do you say that Cozy?”

“Because I’m a villain, right? A bad pony? Why would anypony want to hang out with me?”

“Your friends seem to love you?”

“Yeah, because they have no other options…” Cozy sighs while glancing onward, “Just once, I would like for a pony to like me for me and not be forced, you know?”

Starlight smiles, “Well, Starshine and Little Snack don’t have to hang around you, you know? They could just go back to their boring lives and never talk to you again? Or even hang out together from here on out and exclude you? But they always swing by your cottage to come get you, right?”

Cozy glances back at Starlight, “Well um, I guess that’s also true? Still, I’m definitely Chrysalis’s only option!” Cozy says before lowering her ears and wings.

Starlight sighs and raises her voice slightly, “That doesn’t matter Cozy! The only thing that is important is that you’ve been helping her! You think maybe you’re not as bad as you might think?”

Cozy looks back up and perks her ears to the unicorn, “Well golly! My friends don’t seem to think I’m a bad pony. And I’m guessing you don’t either, right Starlight?” She says while opening her bright eyes in curiosity.

“Not at all Cozy!”

“So maybe I need to stop thinking of myself like that huh?” Cozy says while moving her neck back, narrowing her eyes, and scrunching her mouth in concentration.

Starlight giggles softly, “Might not be a bad idea, little filly?”

Then, Cozy hears a squeaky flighty voice from behind her say, “Hey Cozy! I brought Starshine with me, but uh, where’s Chrysalis?”

Cozy turns to see the familiar green piggy-tails over the freckled orange face of Little Snack and notices Starshine’s white mop of hair and dark purple face behind her on the left. “Okay! We’re all here! But where is Chrysalis?”

“You mean to tell me that you never noticed me standing here?” Says a pink earth mare with blond hair standing at the table behind the lanes.

Cozy turns her neck to the left to see Chrysalis, in her disguised form once more, standing behind the wooden table with scorecards on it, “Golly Chrysalis! That’s such a good disguise that I didn’t even see you there!”

The pink mare smiles as she trots up to the lane and says, “Thank you Cozy!”

“You know, I like how pretty this form is on you Chrysalis!”

The mare smiles a mere 5 feet from Cozy on the other side of the lane, “That compliment means nothing on the other hand…”

“Oh golly!” Cozy says as she takes two paces forward, “That’s because it’s not your real form, huh?” and then widens her eyes in curiosity.

Chrysalis frowns down at the filly, “Can we just get to bowling please?” before frowning at the filly.

Cozy pulls her neck back, “Well um, okay!” She moves her neck forward and widens her eyes, “Ready to bowl everypony?”

Little Snack says, “You got it!”

Starshine chimes in, “Yes Cozy!”

The ponies and changeling all go to the ball claim area where they stare at the rack. Cozy selects a yellow ball with the 2 on it with her mouth and gets back to all fours and starts trotting towards lane 3.

Starshine selects a red ball with a 4 on it, using her magic, while Little Snack grabs a green ball with a 6 on it with her teeth while her little orange body is over the railing to reach…

Starlight sees the disguised changeling standing there watching the ponies, “Aren’t you going to get a ball Chrysalis?”

Chrysalis stares at Starlight insolently when her disguised blue eyes shimmer a green color, “I still don’t understand what playing these foal games has to do with reforming me?”

Starlight smiles, “Well, what else are we going to do Chrysalis? You need to understand something that was once taught to me… There’s another way…”

Chrysalis raises her left eyebrow perplexed, “Is this that whole 'Magic of Friendship' thing you ponies are always talking about?”

Starlight has a dazed look in her eyes, before giggling slightly as she says, “Well basically, yeah! I’m teaching you how to have healthy bonding experiences with Cozy Glow, since you two already have a history together! I picked bowling because I happened to be passing by the alley on my way home one day…” she giggles, “I live on the west side of town after all!” **

Chrysalis frowns, “You mean to tell me that this whole idea was literally planned at the spur of the moment?”

“Yup!” Starlight says while smiling.

“Did I ever mention how irritating I find you ponies, Starlight?”

“Uh, maybe once or twice?” Starlight says while looking up and scrunching her mouth. She leans forward, “Look! You already said you enjoyed doing it right? And it sure beats wandering the castle halls in disguise and just hoping you find somepony bored and interesting enough to talk to!”

Chrysalis stares at Starlight, “Or you could just destroy me and be done with all of this nonsense?”

Cozy Glow appears from the side and says, “Golly gee! I only got 4 pins that time! Uh…” she looks to Chrysalis, “Aren’t you gonna get a ball?”

“Ugh! Fine!” Chrysalis exclaims before finally turning to her right, reaching up on her haunches over the railing, and fetching a magenta ball with her mouth. She sighs and says through her teeth, “Well, here we go once more!” before trotting to lane 3.

She sets the ball down in front of the lane and stares forward at the pins before getting to her hind hooves and securing the ball to her right forehoof with the holes and then she brings it up to her chin with her left.

She takes a final breath before beginning to dance towards the pins, bringing her right forehoof back, and throwing her ball forward to slam into the wood.

The ball glides towards the ten pins and then inexplicably bounces over them to go into the darkened area behind without hitting a single pin!

Cozy widens her auburn eyes from the bench in the waiting area and whispers, “Oh golly!” before shouting, “Princess Luna!”

And the room suddenly grows dark.

Cozy hears a sly voice behind her say, “Oh Cozy! Did you really think you could just call on Princess Luna like that? After all, she doesn’t even know where you are!”

The room lights up again and Cozy finds herself sitting on a chair in the back of a wooden room. She sees the polished and shaped slats of the walls here decorated with all sorts of banners, pennants, old road signs, and various bits of paraphernalia. She looks around and it’s about 10 yards by 10 yards square. She also sees four empty pool tables all neatly arranged symmetrically within the room and she sees a bar in the back with various liquor bottles on three wooden shelves behind it.

She glances to her right and sees a large black changeling sitting there in the chair next to her that she quickly recognizes as the undisguised Chrysalis!

She finally turns to her front to see the serpentine form of a familiar draconequus in the air, wearing a yellow jersey with a '24' on it and purple highlights on it. He smiles with his misshapen teeth, “Welcome to your true redemption Cozy Glow!”***

(To be continued…)

Author's Note:

*Me talking to myself about suicide indirectly for the umpteenth time. “Even if I really wanted to die? I mean, it’s my life right? Why should I stick around just for you?”

**Note that in canon, this is not so. But we are ten years in the future after all! Starlight is gonna leave Twilight’s castle one of these days…

***I don’t even like basketball, but I looked up some information on Kobe Bryant because that’s the jersey I wanted Discord to have.

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[Ciphers]

She finally turns to her front to see the serpentine form of a familiar draconequus in the air, wearing a yellow jersey with a “24” on it and purple highlights on it. He smiles with his misshapen teeth, “Welcome to your true redemption Cozy Glow!”***

okay, Discord really need a Restraining order to stay away from Cozy Glow in 1km Radius