"Come on!" Brimstone tried to convince the stallion and mare he was talking to. "You have to admit that it's at least a little bit suspicious, right? I mean, Celestia disappeared, and now Sombra, King of the Shadows, is ruler in her place! You're not the least bit concerned about that?"
"I will admit, we are a bit concerned," the mare said, "at least, we were at first. However, the two of us simply don't care enough about it to want a change in the way things are now."
"In fact," the stallion told him, "Princess Hope approved a loan for our business that Celestia herself wouldn't approve. Why would we want a change back to the way things were before if we benefit from the way things are now?"
"Honestly," the mare started, "it's in your best interest not to say such things, especially here of all places. That could be considered treasonous behavior in her and Alex's eyes."
"I understand…" Brimstones sighed, hanging his head low. "Sorry for bothering you."
It was about the response he expected, about the response he'd been getting when he asked ponies in the city. He just couldn't understand what he was doing wrong, why they couldn't see things his way. Sure, it'd been nearly two years since Princess Celestia was deposed, but he thought they'd still have a crippling fear of King Sombra, even now.
"Ugh, I should probably just give up…" he muttered to himself as the two walked away, leaving him standing alone in the courtyard to the castle. "Being a villain is so hard. I can see why Sombra gave up on it."
As he said it, he turned to the castle and thought about what he could do. Go in and rush them, and then… what? Then either one of them would stop him in his tracks and throw him in Tartarus, or, based on the responses he got from those in Canterlot, half the country would protest his rule. Not really an ideal scenario in either case, and it seemed the plan he wanted to enact was extremely flawed.
It was probably best to give up on it once and for all and go back to his family's business of using sulfur to make fertilizer. He might have had a villainous sounding name, but he just wasn't cut out for the lifestyle that was associated with it. It was clearly much too difficult.
As he thought these things, he faced the castle, and noticed somepony, Cadance, heading down the steps on the path to the main part of the city. As she did so, he quickly noticed that her ring was removed from her horn. As well, the second she reached the ground, she raised her wings and soared through the air, stretching out and going up to the clouds before diving back down and soaring out past the castle, heading off to somewhere else in Canterlot. Brimstone quickly took the moment to hide behind one of the few statues around to watch her until she left, considering what this meant.
He didn’t think his idea about her waiting for them to take her ring off after she pretended to be good, a comment that he really only made in passing, would actually work, but somehow it had. He wanted to laugh at their foolishness, but he didn’t because he knew Cadance was probably an obstacle to his goals. He tried to determine how to work around it. Maybe he could use Grogar’s bell on her to take her magic… and then what? He’d still have several other ponies to take down and then a thousand ponies who were satisfied with the current rulers against him. Being a villain was just too hard…
But what about being a hero? Being a hero would be easy, much easier than being a villain. He already knew that the alicorn was planning an attack. All he had to do was tell Alex about it, and presto! He would be a hero in their eyes! Easy peasy!
Or even better, he could take advantage of the situation! If he approached Cadance again to work with her, he could follow her around and save the day for everypony right when she tried to attack! Then, he’d really be hailed as a hero! And then from that angle, it'd be much easier to wiggle his way into power! It was a perfect plan!
With that in mind, he quickly ran off, towards the direction that the alicorn flew in to find her again.
“I’m telling you, she’s just going to try and work against us,” I told both Starlight and Twilight the second Cadance left our sight, running off ecstatically somewhere the second her ring came off. “I’ll put a million bits on it. I don’t trust her in the slightest.”
“I’m sure she’s trustworthy,” Twilight told me, “but just in case, I can put a protection spell on you. I’ve been working on this one for a while now, although it still takes up a lot of magic to do. Also, while you have it on, you won’t be able to use your own magic and it'll put you at a slight disadvantage while she uses her own magic. At least, until she wears herself out, not that she’s going to do anything. Like I said, I trust her completely. But I can use it on you if you want?”
“Yes, that would be greatly preferred,” I answered. “How long will it last?”
“As long as you want it to. Like I said, you won’t be able to use any magic, except casting a release spell to release the protection. But in theory, if you never release it, it’ll last the rest of your life. There are flaws in it right now, like only being able to be used on unicorns and alicorns, but if we could find a way to get it to work on earth ponies and pegasi… well, it might limit their natural passive magic, which wouldn’t be great. This spell still has flaws that need to be ironed out before we can put it into public use.”
“It sounds like it,” I responded casually. “You get to work ironing out those flaws. It would be great to have something like that in our archives. But first, use the spell on me. You may trust her, but I don’t, and somepony will need to defend the castle when she ends up going against us.”
“Sure thing, but I’m telling you, she really has changed. She told me so, and I believe her.”
Oh Twilight, you poor naive little purple.
It's going to be a big sledgehammer to her view of reality when Cadance's sudden but inevitable betrayal happens.
Honestly, the best way to be bad is to try too hard to be good. Brimstone will come around.
At least Alex isn't fooled. Let's just hope his "well duh" won't trigger anything...
Oh, I hope Alex will do more.
So if even after a couple of years or even hundreds or thousands of years in the future when Celestia will be released no one will want her to rule, etc.
Poor Twilight
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This proves that even the smartest can be stupid as well.
Yeah, and I hope you'll be the first one she puts against the wall if(WHEN) you're wrong, Twi...
Eh, to be fair, she did get outsmarted by a literal child once.
I think I've either lost track of the timeline or am mixing up a detail from elsewhere. Didn't Alex say that he'd agree to bring Celestia back a year and a day after he made the statement? If I am remembering that right, how close are we getting to that point?
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Ummm it was 10 months when he made that statement... it's been about a year and a half in total, so maybe a few months away at this point.
Brimstone is adorable. You... Did want to make him adorable right?
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He's absolutely adorable