The Social Rejects Squad: Loose Ends

by Betty_Starlight

Chapter 3-3: Helping Out

“Oh golly! So, what now?” The pink curly haired pegasus filly asks the colorful dark purple changeling across her living room while leaning towards her slightly.

Crystal Heart straightens her mauve neck and head as she stares forward with her dark blue eyes, “Tirek is missing now! I think he’s at the old hideout?”

Cozy frowns, “So, what does that gotta do with me?”

“Well!” Crystal says, taking a deep breath, “Given our history together, I think we should be the ones to retrieve him!”

“Oh no! I’m done! I have nothing left to say to him!” Cozy says with her eyes wide while flicking her right wing around her body. She leans forward and says at a higher volume, “I don’t care! Let him run away!”

Crystal sighs, “Cozy, you said you wanted to be my friend, right?”

“Um, yeah?” Cozy says anxiously while leaning forward more.

“Then please help me retrieve Tirek! If he manages to get that collar off, he’ll be a threat. But if we can reform him before that point…”

Cozy frowns, “Uh, don’t you think we should tell the authorities here? I mean, I would think escaped convicts is something they’d handle?” before looking up after blinking.

Crystal frowns, “Yes, I had thought of that! But you realize as well as I do that there are many escape routes underneath the hideout. We do that, and he’ll move to Celestia knows where and…”

Cozy rolls her eyes, “And we’ll never be able to find him! Oh golly!”

Crystal smiles, “Okay, so now we need to assemble your friends! Where do we start?”

Cozy frowns again, “Why would you think we need to get…”

<*****>

Cozy is standing between Starshine at her left and Little Snack to her right in the entryway to the Everfree Forest. Crystal is ahead of them facing forward as Cozy looks over at Little, “Golly! Do your parents even care where you go?”

Little turns her neck to Cozy, “Well, I don’t usually start trouble and I’m always home before dinner!”

Cozy narrows her eyes, “Uh, right! Honor system! You can take care of yourself!” She looks forward and says, “You know, knowing this place, it’s probably changed a bit in the last ten years! I’m gonna fly ahead and see what the path looks like! You guys stay back here!” before squatting and launching herself off the ground, flying away in the distance.

While that happens, Crystal turns around to face the two fillies behind her. She sees Starshine to the right with confused look in her blue eyes and Little Snack on the left as she vibrates and smiles excitedly.

Little Snack looks up at her with bright green eyes and paws the ground with her forehooves, left then right, “So uh, didn’t you used to rule the changeling hive?”

Crystal looks down to the earth filly and narrows her blue eyes, “That is correct!”

“Uh, what was it like ruling all those changelings anyway?” Little asks while Starshine glances to her from the left.

“It was very hard! I had to figure out how to collect enough love to keep my subjects satiated while keeping us all safe with routine patrols as well!”*

“Seems hard? Uh, why did you wanna rule Equestria anyway?”

Crystal starts, “What? Why wouldn’t I want to rule Equestria?”

“Well, uh…” Little says before looking down and pawing again, left and then right. She looks up at the changeling, “You were just saying that ruling the changeling hive was hard right? Don’t you think ruling all of Equestria would be even harder? Why not only handle what’s easy for you and deal with that! Heck! You had everything you needed, didn’t you?”

Crystals scrunches her mouth as she widens her eyes to this bold earth filly, “Can we please talk about something else?”

“Oh um!” Little says as she straightens herself and widens her eyes, “I guess it’s kinda like Cozy, huh? You don’t like to be reminded about your past?”

Crystal sighs, “Correct! It’s time to move on and leave that behind…”

Starshine looks to Little, “She used to boop me for that!”

Little looks to Starshine with a confused look in her eyes, “Boop you? What do you mean?”

“Well!” Starshine says as she turns and trots closer to Little before moving her left forehoof to Little’s nose pressing it down as she yells, “BOOP!”

Starshine lowers her forehoof while Little twitches her nose and giggles, “Hey! I get it now! But this shall not go unavenged!”

Starshine widens her eyes and takes a step back, “Hey, you wanted to know what a boop was!”

Little turns to face her and smiles and says, “Yes I did! But now, you must pay!” before taking her right forehoof to Starshine’s nose and yelling, “BOOP!” while pressing down!

At this point, both fillies giggle maniacally while Crystal stares and can only then feel a smile forming across her face as she stares at these two ridiculous little ponies. She looks at Starshine, “What did you and Cozy talk about Starshine?”

Starshine turns her body to Crystal while Little adjusts her body to face both pony and changeling and says inquisitively, “What do you mean?”

Crystal narrows her eyes as she looks down to the unicorn, “What I mean is, Cozy was reformed earlier while I was still trapped in stone, yes? How that happen exactly?”

At that point, the changeling hears flapping behind her before it abruptly stops while the two fillies see Cozy Glow land behind Crystal, towards the forest. Cozy looks up and says, “Well, the path we normally took has sunken into a trench. We need to take the long way on the right instead! It’s a little bit slower, but we should make it out okay!”

Crystal turns to face Cozy, “Very well foal! Lead on!”

As the two fillies trot forward to join their winged friend, Crystal leans over to Starshine on the right and says lowly, “We’ll discuss this more later!”

<*****>

As the three fillies trot in front of the changeling, Little Snack says from the back left on the trail, “What makes you think Tirek is out here, anyway?”

Cozy says back with her head tilted to the left, “Because it’s the only place we know of where he might be!”

“Gosh! Okay, that makes sense… Uh, so you guys had a hideout on the West end of the forest?”

“Well golly yeah! It was easy to hide there, easy to defend, and easy to escape if anything went wrong! We decided that it would be best to circle back around Ponyville and attack from the west, so the location of the hideout would remain a secret! That way, we’d have a place to go back to if things turned bad during the attack!”

Starshine chimes in, “Which they did, but none of you got the chance to escape!”

Crystal says from the back, “Obviously! Cozy! Do you recall where the turnoff point was in this trail? If it’s sunken in as you say, that’s where our detour should be!”

“Um, right!” Cozy says as she looks forward curiously with her eyes while continuing to trot. She spots a break in the trees coming up on their right and points to it with her right wing as she says, “It’s right there! Follow me!”

“Okay!” Says Starshine.

“You got it!” Says Little Snack.

“Ugh!” Crystal groans as she paces behind the fillies.

“Um…” Cozy says as she looks at the dirt incline at her right. “There!” She says before hopping with her wings to flitter over above the trench on the right of the trail.

“Okay, here I go!” Says Little Snack as she takes off and runs at Cozy with full galloping speed as fast as her little orange legs can carry her.

“EEP!” Cozy screams as she hops and flutters backwards with her wings, just in time for Little to scrape her way up the dirt incline to get up into the trail where Cozy was.

Little Snack shoots up from the slope and lands on her hooves before the pegasus, squatting at first before rising as she says, “Hiya Cozy!” excitedly to the frantic pegasus.

Crystal narrows her eyes at the spectacle, “Well, that’s one way to do it!” She looks at Starshine and corrects her solid dark blue eyes, “Would you like me to fly you over there with my wings? You aren’t as physically capable as the other two…”

Starshine turns to Crystal with wide blue eyes, “Gosh! You’d do that for me?”

Crystal looks down at the filly and narrows her eyes, “Of course! We are friends, are we not?”

“Um, yeah! Sure!” Starshine exclaims before bringing her forehooves together and then her hind hooves. She looks to Crystal and says, “Okay! I think I’m ready to be carried?”

“Excellent!” Crystal says before widening her legs and flapping her insectoid wings with their peculiar buzzing noise. She floats up before flittering above Starshine and then descends to grip her in her hooves. She grunts slightly as she begins to float higher while carrying the now backwards dark purple unicorn filly in her grasp. She says, “You’re heavier than you look!”

“Um…” Starshine says while looking up to the changeling carrying her and frowning, “Sorry about that!”

“Worry not foal! I have you!” Crystal says determinedly as she floats over the dirt incline and then downward to deposit Starshine on the other side, next to Little Snack, who watches all this from the side with a casual grin on her face. Crystal then floats above Starshine to land behind her as the unicorn and earth fillies both face her and turns around to say, “Not a problem!”

Cozy says from the far side of the trail, “Well, come on everypony and changeling! We don’t know what he might be planning!”

Crystal looks to Cozy, “Of course! Lead on Cozy!”

<*****>

“Um…” Cozy says as she walks through the trail into a clearing with an abandoned old, dilapidated house. The house is about 30 feet wide, two stories tall, with an enclosed balcony on the second story above the front door where Cozy and Chrysalis used to take off. There’s no longer any paint anywhere on the house and the roof has holes in some areas in the shingling. She says, “There’s our old hideout! Golly! I thought the forest would’ve claimed it by now!”

Suddenly, the same old sly voice says from behind Cozy, “Well, it did! But I brought it back, just for you!”

Cozy widens her eyes as she whispers, “OH SHIT!” to herself. She turns to see the motley form of Discord floating behind the two fillies and changeling roughly 5 feet off the ground. She says, “And just what are YOU doing here?” before the fillies and changeling all turn around and take a step back.

Discord smiles, “Why, I’m just helping you out Cozy! You were wrong about Tirek being at the hideout! That is, until I moved him there for you…”

Cozy squints her eyes, “Why would you want to help me?”

“Because getting you all reformed and correct was my end goal! Well, after that stage magician reformed you earlier, anyway! I thought to myself, 'Hey Discord! Cozy is being reformed! Doesn’t Chrysalis and Tirek deserve the same chance?'”

Cozy frowns and narrows her eyes, “I would think that would depend on who’s being reformed?”

Discord throws his lion paw and eagle claw to the sides, “No Cozy! Either everybody gets a chance at redemption, or nobody does! It’s the only way to be fair!”

Cozy leans forward and says at a higher volume, “Since when do you care about being fair, anyway?”

Discord looks down and narrows his yellow eyes, “Since I need to make sure that you three are taken care of properly!”

Cozy leans forward with her left eye squinted and yells, “And who told you that you needed to do anything with us?”

Discord lowers his head slightly and says at a lower volume, “I already told you Cozy! I’m wrapping up the loose ends of what I did earlier!”

“Ugh!” Cozy exclaims as she shuts her eyes. She opens them to the draconequus, “Okay, but what are you doing here?”

Discord smiles, “I already told you Cozy! I put Tirek in there, just for you!”

“And?”

“Oh! That little matter!” Discord says as he flicks his lion paw in the air, “Well, the spell I put in will keep him contained for three days! Good luck little Cozy! Oh, and there’s a bugbear behind you!” before fading away in the air.

“I BUCKING HATE YOU!” Cozy screams at the now empty air before looking behind her to see two fillies and a colorful reformed changeling there frantically with wide brown eyes before spotting a black and white bear-like creature with insectoid wings and a giant bee stinger roughly 30 feet behind them.

Crystal turns with the fillies to face this thing, rolls her eyes, and shouts “Get to the safety of the house fillies! Let me deal with this!”

“Come on!” Cozy screams while motioning towards the house with her left wing.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!” Little Snack screams as she runs towards the house with her green pigtails and ribbons streaming behind her.

Starshine runs as fast as she can as her white mop flies in the breeze of her movements, but she trips on a rock and says, “UGH!” as her chin slams into the dirt…

Little is already 10 feet past her before turning around with a skid to the right and then scrambling back to help her friend, while Crystal has already shapeshifted into a large stone gargoyle, roughly 10 feet tall with large bat-like wings and crouches with her claws wide open and ready. She smiles and says, “Your move, beast!”

Little bounds to Starshine while Cozy reaches her a split second later, on the side by flittering with her pegasus wings and landing there. Little puts her right forehoof down to aid Starshine, who solemnly grabs it with her left to be drug up by the earth filly, while Crystal takes the full brunt of a bugbear flying into her and lurches 10 feet back. She can be heard giggling maniacally in her vocoder voice while using her strength to push the bugbear back to the trees in mid-air while her large stone wings flap forcefully.

As Starshine is lifted to her hooves, she nods to Little before beginning another frenzied gallop towards the old house with Little just a few paces behind her.

Little smiles and whispers to herself, “Okay, just make sure the nerd doesn’t fall again! Yeah! That’s being a good friend!”

While this is going on, Cozy sees her friends don’t need her and so she squats before taking off with her little wings once more to fly to the house herself.

With the speed of flight, Cozy reaches the door first and opens it to the right with her mouth in mid-air before staring back at her friends behind her with her wings still flapping and motions to the door with her right forehoof, “This way!”

Starshine gallops in first into the darkened room shortly before Little Snack and Cozy then flies in just behind them and shuts the door with her right forehoof, turns back, and lands. She looks into the room at Starshine on the right and pants while asking, “Are you okay? Anything broken or sprained?”

Starshine stares to Cozy in the darkened room, “Uh, no! I just tripped, but I don’t think I really hurt myself. But my chin is kinda sore!”

Little looks over at her from the left, “Yeah, landing face first into the dirt will do that to you!”

Suddenly, the door glows a vibrant purple, like that of Crystal’s body before swinging open to the left reveal a smiling changeling behind it. Crystal smiles, “Insects! Are you foals okay?”

Cozy adjusts her body to the changeling, “Golly, yeah! I think so Crystal? Thanks to you…”

Crystal looks down at Cozy intently with her dark blue eyes, “We are friends, are we not?”

“Well um, golly right! Friendship!” Cozy says while smiling brightly with her brown eyes wide open.

Little and Starshine both look around the room to see a couch in the darker left side of the room and behind them, another doorway. They can also make out the cheesy pale green floral wallpaper on the walls while Starshine looks at Cozy and asks, “Okay, so now what?”

“Well, golly! It looks like we have about seventy-two hours to do this! Uh, whatever we’re doing here!”

Little looks to Starshine on her left and says lowly, “Does anypony know?”

Starshine looks over and shakes her head as she whispers back, “Not me!”

Crystal can only look down and giggle slightly at these two adorable fillies’ banter. She smiles, “Well, Discord obviously wants us to speak with Tirek!”

Cozy says, “Yeah, and since Discord has a lot more power than all four of us combined, I’m pretty sure we need to do this?”

Crystals says, “Well, I could fly and alert the authorities and they can be ready when the three-day mark hits?”

Cozy frowns, “Yeah, but I bet Discord has already thought of that?”

Crystal narrows her blue eyes, “In which case, we have no choice but to play his game again, by his rules…”

“Um, question!” Little Snack says while lightly vibrating, “What exactly are we doing here again?”

(To be continued…)

Author's Note:

*Being in “the closet” sucks!

Comments

[Ciphers]

“Oh! That little matter!” Discord says as he flicks his lion paw in the air, “Well, the spell I put in will keep him contained for three days! Good luck little Cozy! Oh, and there’s a bugbear behind you!” before fading away in the air.

so left 4 fillies alone with A bugbear is a good plan?, can't wait to see Cozy tell everything to Twilight or Trixie

Crystal narrows her blue eyes, “In which case, we have no choice but to play his game again, by his rules…”

The more Chapter I read, The more I Hate This Discord

[Betty_Starlight]

10918585
The truth is, at this point in the story, Discord is the primary (but not only) reason poor little Cozy is "less than stable." And so in this sense, Discord could be said to be a metaphor for a lot of the things that made me "the way I am..." And so, that actually makes sense! It's easy to hate something like that!