Chapter 17: Dissolution of Magic Part 4
Previously on The Adventures of the Apex Legion
"You know, I know Neighsay isn't racist towards ponies, but I'm kind of surprised he didn't lock you up as well, seeing as we're both close to the others, " I said.
"W-well..." Sandbar said as he rubbed the back of his head out of nervousness, "I may or may not have said that he was right and that I didn't want anything to do with creatures that threaten Equestria."
"I just hope the others aren't too mad," Sandbar said with a droop of his ears.
"I'm sure they'll understand once you explain it to them," I reassured as I put a hoof on his shoulder.
"Yeah," he said, "Anyway, we need to get the Cutie Mark Crusaders so they can convince Cozy to distract Neighsay so we can break the others out."
"Yeah...about Cozy..." I said, "Call it paranoia if you will, but I don't think we can trust that filly."
"What? Why?" Sandbar asked before he remembered something, "Wait. Ocellus told us that you stayed behind to check out what's beneath the catacombs. What did you find down there?"
"I...I found Counselor Starlight," I said, which made Sandbar gasp, "She's fine, but she's trapped in some kind of...magical orb. I wanted to save her, I really did, but...I couldn't."
"Why not?" he asked.
"When I got close to it, it felt...dark...malevolent. Like it was turning me into some kind of...anti-me. I was...afraid to get any closer," I said before I shrouded my hoof, "Hm. It didn't seem to affect my magic. Actually, now that I think about it, it hasn't seemed to disappear at all."
"Sandbar, think about it. Cozy herself said that Starlight left to go help Twilight and her friends, when in actuality she was trapped in the very same catacombs that we all saw her exiting," I explained, "And before you ask, no. That's not enough to directly accuse Cozy for the disappearance of magic. But you have to admit that it's enough to not trust her."
"Oh god. Now that I think it...Cozy is the only one besides you, me, and the others that know that the catacombs even exist. And she also said that she didn't want our professors to know about it," I remembered, "Now...I'm wondering if the reason she gave us is the real reason."
"I'm just saying dude. I could just punch the door down," I said as Sandbar and I walked outside the school, "I think it would be a lot more cool."
"Yeah. No. I mean, it would be cool, but no. I think it'd better if we do something more...discreet," Sandbar said with a crowbar in his hoof.
"But do you even know which window we need to open?"
"I...um..." Sandbar stopped in his tracks as we looked at all of the windows that were on this side of the building alone, "...oh."
"And I don't think we have the time to just check every single window. Nor do I even want to," I said, "Luckily, I can just use my magic to listen for our friends voices. Just give me few seconds."
"Pfft. I bet you're just saying that because you like~ him. And I mean like like him," I heard Smolder say.
"W-what?! I...I don't know what you're talking about!" Ocellus yelped.
"Ocellus, come on. It's just that obvious. Right guys?" Smolder asked, to which I heard voices of agreement.
"Does...does Legion know as well?" I heard Ocellus ask with a shaky voice.
"Nah. We all promised not to say anything," I heard Gallus answer, "I think the real question is how does Legion not know that you like him?"
...
"W-what?"
The Adventure of the Apex Legion
Written by DeffBwade
Chapter 17: Dissolution of Magic Part 4
"Did...did I just hear that correctly? No, I mustn't have. Surely my hearing is just a bit wonky right now," I thought.
Who was I kidding though? I heard my friends loud and clear through the power of plot convenience. Er, I mean my magic.
Now I'm good at keeping a calm expression (probably the reason why I can be a good liar towards my parents) and pretty much just hiding my feelings. So on the outside, I held a calm and neutral expression. But like I just said, on the outside. On the inside, though, I was in shock. Disbelief. Hell, you could say I was in denial. Because I was.
Ocellus...has a crush...on...me.
I mean...how do I even respond to-
"Can you hear them?" Sandbar interrupted my thoughts.
"Hm? Oh, yeah. Yeah," I said as I got my head out of the clouds, "They're over here," I said as I walked over to the window.
"W-well...maybe Sandbar just said what he said so he and Legion can snoop around and find out what's going," we heard Silverstream say as Sandbar pried the window open with the crowbar.
"I don't know," Sandbar said as he opened the window and climbed inside, "That sounds too clever for a couple of ponies to come up with."
Yona, being the lovable yak that she is, put on a face of glee and hugged Sandbar. And by 'hug,' I mean she fucking tackled him to the ground like a WWE superstar.
"Yona knew ponies were still our friends!" Yona exclaimed.
And his name is John Cena!
Insert the John Cena music here.
Actually, fuck it. Put in the John Cena meme for the haha funny.
Anyway, I looked into the room and indeed, all of our friends were in there, and sitting on the bed was...Ocellus.
"Okay. Stay calm Legion. It's just Ocellus. You've known her for almost a year at this point. She's your friend...who just so happens to like you and wants to be more than a friend. Wait, no. Stop getting nervous! STOP GETTING NERVOUS!"
Remember when I said I'm good at keeping a calm expression. Well, sometimes barriers break.
I started to sweat a bit as my expression turned from calmness to one of nervousness. Thank the stars that my knees didn't start to wobble, or that my cheeks didn't start to blush.
"Oh fuck! She's looking at me!" I mentally panicked as I noticed Ocellus's gaze had turned towards me.
I hastily climbed inside the room.
"As if we're just gonna leave you guys," I chuckled, trying to shrug away my nervousness. I then put on a serious expression, "Listen, we have reason to believe that Cozy Glow isn't who we think she is. I'm like 95% sure that she's responsible for magic disappearing."
And the remaining 5%?
That she's completely innocent and that I'm a retard for accusing a child for what's basically the magical equivalent of terrorism.
"What?!" my friends gasped.
"We'll explain on the way, but right now, we got to get to Chancellor Neighsay," Sandbar said as he-
Wait. What did he just say?!
"Huh?" Gallus asked out of pure confusion.
The others had confused expressions as well. Same could be said for me.
"I don't wanna talk to Neighsay," I deadpanned with an angry face.
Okay. Mine was more out of animosity.
"I know he doesn't like non-ponies..." Sandbar explained as he started climbing out of the window.
"No shit Sherlock."
"...but if we tell him what's going on, he'll help."
"I-I kind of doubt that, but okay," I said as the rest of us proceeded to climb out of the window.
"Besides, I trust you Sandbar. So if you say that some racist asshole will help us, then...I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask."
I decided right then and there that I'll think about what to do regarding Ocellus having a crush on me once this whole thing is over...no matter how much I want to talk about as soon as possible.
...
Why do I have a feeling it's gonna be a shit show?
Morning has finally come to Equestria, and the students of the School of Friendship were all gathered up in the lobby for some announcements. Imagine some of their skepticism when they found that Chancellor Neighsay, the very same pony that tried to shut down the school, was the one to make the announcements.
"I am sure you're all concerned about the magic situation, but I want to ensure you that this institution is safe, despite the absence of your headmare. As your new headstallion, let me be the first to ensure you that the reign of Princess Twilight is over!" Neighsay said with a stomp of his hoof, "From now on this school will adhere to EEA doctrine! As it should have from the start!"
The only response the chancellor got was confused muttering among the students. What does this all mean?
The sound of clapping hooves brought the chancellor's attention to the pinkish filly that was floating next to him the entire time.
"Thank you Chancellor Neighsay for that rousing speech," Cozy said with a puff of her cheeks, "I know you're a stallion who truly believes what you say. And when you say you'll run the school according to EEA doctrine, I know you mean it."
Cozy then flew down to the other students.
"And..." she continued, "...when you say there won't be anymore lessons from the Princess of Friendship at the School of Friendship, I guess you don't mean that too."
The muttering from the students made Cozy smile. So far, so good.
"That's not exactly-" Neighsay tried to explain.
"But!" Cozy interrupted, "Twilight decided to run her school outside of the EEA guidelines, and even though you tried to stop her, Princesses Celestia and Luna trusted her enough to support her."
More muttering from the other students. Almost there.
"W-well, I wouldn't say-"
"So since I know what you mean what you, my question is really for the students," Cozy pointed to the crowd, "Are we gonna give the pony who already tried to wreck Twilight's school once...another chance to do it?"
Now the students started to protest along with Cozy. Hook, line, and sinker.
Without even turning back to Neighsay, Cozy gave out another smile, but this time it was one filled with smugness. Being a cute, little filly, it was very easy for her to deceit and manipulate other ponies. And she should know that.
After all, it was how she became the top student in the first place.
"I guess things will have to stay as Twilight wants them, which includes leaving me in charge," she said.
As if the students were all thinking the same, all of students ran forward and carried the Chancellor away.
As the crowd carried Neighsay through the halls and towards Headmare Twilight's office, one of the janitor closets opened up, revealing Legion and the others hiding.
"I was...not expecting that to happen," Legion said.
"Maybe we need a plan," Sandbar said.
"Oh. Oh, not too tight. We don't wanna hurt the chancellor," Cozy said before she locked the chains that were currently binding Neighsay to the chair, "I'm sure Twilight will know what to do with him when she gets back. Now back to class everyone. We let the EEA disrupt our friendship studies long enough."
Once the last of the students left, Cozy Glow closed the door and turned around to see Neighsay trying to struggle out of his binds.
"Why are you doing this?" Neighsay asked as the filly floated up to him, "I thought you wanted to have somepony in charge of this school."
"Oh, I do. You just aren't the pony I had in mind," Cozy said as she took out a box filled with knick knacks, before she saw what the chancellor was wearing. She then removed the medallion from him and threw it in the trash. She wasn't a fool. She knew that was no ordinary medallion.
In hindsight, though, it probably wasn't the brightest idea to just throw it in a trashcan that was located right next to her little prisoner. Oh well. It's not like anypony is gonna save him. And sooner or later, that medallion is gonna become useless anyway.
"I can't very well have the EEA run the school if I wanna run it myself," she said before placing a picture of her cute self on the desk, "After all, I worked very hard to become headmare in the first place," she said in a more serious tone, "I once learned a long time ago that if you want something, you can't just ask for it or wait for it to be given to you because you've been a good little pony. Oh no sir. If you want something, you just take it for yourself! But in order to do that, you need power. Nopony could say 'no' to a powerful being after all. And if there's one thing I learned here, it's that friendship is the most powerful thing there is. And I'm not gonna let anypony get in the way of my hard work of procuring that power!"
Cozy then took a deep breathe.
"Golly. That got intense," Cozy giggled, reverting back to her cute and innocent demeanor, "Anyway, I got to get back out there. So many friendship tasks to do and whatnot."
She then proceeded to leave, leaving Neighsay to struggle on his own. As she walked out of the door and down the hall, she stopped and looked over her shoulder, swearing she heard something. When she didn't see nor hear anything else, she shrugged and proceeded to walk down the hall.
"That kid...is very troubled," I thought as I saw Cozy walk down the hall.
What I heard in there, however, just gave me more assurance that that filly is responsible for magic disappearing. She wants power. Magic is power. Therefore, she wants magic. Enough said.
Once I saw her turn the corner, I unshrouded myself and opened another janitor closet, revealing my friends. I nodded my head towards the headmare's door and then walked towards it. We opened it, and lo and behold, Chancellor Neighsay was chained to a chair. He was hopping towards a trash can, for some reason, I don't know.
"I wanna put on a smug face so bad."
You and me both.
"Oh. Wonderful," Neighsay groaned as he noticed us, "I suppose you've all come to gloat."
"Oh, you have no idea."
"Actually, we've come to undo all of these chains and free you!" Silverstream said ecstatically before she started fiddling with the chains, with Sandbar trying to tear off the lock.
"B-but why?" Neighsay said. Couldn't really blame him for being confused.
"Now that nasty pony met even nastier pony, maybe nasty pony not be so nasty," Yona smiled before she-
"Holy shit! Why's she charging at him?!"
Yona stopped dead in her tracks before she impacted him and then used one of her horns to pick the lock, freeing Neighsay from the chains.
"Oh, never mind."
Yona then pushed the chair over, shattering it to pieces.
"Don't know why she did that. I-I mean...he was already free, but...whatever."
"And also because we kind of wanna stop Cozy before she drains all of Equestria's magic," I said.
"She's behind that as well?" he gasped.
"I'm 99.99% sure of it," I said with a smile of confidence.
Oh for God's sake.
"I must get word to Celestia and Luna," Neighsay said as he started searching through the pile of papers that have fallen to the floor due to the trashcan falling over.
"How? Without magic, it'll take forever to get to them," Sandbar said.
"And Discord must've lost his chaos magic at this point. But why is my harmony magic still function-...o-okay. I swear, the more I say 'harmony magic,' the more dumb the title sounds."
"While it's true that unicorns have lost their abilities to cast spells, the most potent magic in Equestria is housed in our..." Neighsay explained before he found...some kind of medallion, "...artifacts," he then put on said medallion, "The EEA Medallion allows me to travel throughout Equestria. It's magic worked when I chained you up."
"Gee. Way to bring that back up."
"Perhaps it still has enough to send me to the Princesses."
After a few taps to the medallion, sparks came out of it and traveled to Neighsay's horn, causing it's orange aura to appear. He then summoned a portal and proceeded to walk towards it. Before he walked through, however, I could've sworn his face shifted to one of...regret.
"I hope he makes it," Ocellus said with worry as the portal closed.
"I hope he doesn't come back and lock us up again," Smolder said.
"If he comes back," Gallus said.
"Everything's gonna be fine," Silverstream exclaimed with a smile, "Twilight and the others are probably already on their way."
"Let's hope so," I said...before I remembered something, "Wait guys. We're not done yet. There's still one more pony we have to free."
"Why pony lead us back down here?" Yona asked as she and the others climbed into the catacombs.
"Because I don't know what'll happen if we simply wait for help to arrive. And I don't know if I wanna find it being a bad thing," I explained, "So like I said, there's one more pony we have to free."
If I was being honest, I would've avoided coming back down into these catacombs at all costs due to the negative atmosphere it gave off. Hell, I still felt the negativity down here. However, I did make a promise to Counselor Starlight that I would come back to save her. That is if I can. I'm literally thinking of a plan as I'm going along.
As for the others, they didn't seem to be feeling what I was feeling. That's...good...I think? Most likely.
We finally reached the open area where Counselor Starlight was trapped in and I was suddenly hit with a wave of negativity, sending a slight shiver up my spine. And yes, ponies have spines. I think.
"Oh! I guessed Starlight! Is it Starlight?!" Silverstream asked excitedly.
"No it's Robert Downey Jr.-...what the fuck is Yona doing?!" I thought with wide eyes as I saw the yak in question hurriedly approaching the trapped mare.
"Counselor pony, come out! We need help with nasty pony," Yona said as she continued to approach.
Even though the others couldn't feel the negativity in the environment, I was worried what would happen if they approached the source. Not giving a fuck that Counselor Starlight was watching, I flew down and blinked in front of Yona and stopped her from coming any closer. Doing so however brought me closer, making me more uneasy.
"Don't get any closer!" I yelled, "Sorry. Just...just don't get any closer. Whatever this is orb thing is...it's emanating some kind of...negative energy. It doesn't seem to affecting you guys though," I said as I looked at the others, "None of you are feeling...angry...right? Sad? Scared?"
"A little scared, but not angry nor sad," Ocellus answered, to which the others, sans Gallus and Smolder, agreed.
Well that confirms it. You're a special case.
We then split up a bit and observed each of the artifacts that are...presumedly siphoning the magic.
"Hey! This is just like chapter twelve of Kept Facts of Artifacts in Twilight's class." Gallus said with a smile, only to drop as we all stared at him, "Oh for Grover's sake. Finals are coming up, okay?!"
"Actually, I remember that too!" Ocellus said proudly (and cutely) as she took out a book from...somewhere, "Cozy must've used these artifacts to act like a mystical magnet. Attracting all of Equestria's magnet into that orb."
"But what is this orb for exactly? This glyph must mean something," I said as I looked at said glyph.
"Who cares? We can shut this thing down by yanking one of these out, right?" Smolder asked as she was about to grab one of the artifacts.
"Sure..." Ocellus answered, interrupting Smolder, "...though that would probably cause a magical feedback loop and destroy the whole school."
"Wait, what?" I asked, "I'm sorry, but when you say 'destroy,' do you mean...like an explosion or...or what?"
"Probably an explosion," Ocellus answered.
"Well crap," I said.
Destroy the school with probably an explosion? Fuck man. That's...we definitely don't want that. I mean this school is huge after all. Not only that, but I've had so many fond memories here. Most of them are obviously about hanging out with my friends. And I'm sure they, and every other student here, have fond memories as well.
"And what would happen to us if there actually was some kind of explosion?" I asked myself.
"Ocellus?" I asked, catching the changeling's attention, "If we did take out the artifacts and there actually was a feedback loop, would we still bring magic back?"
Ocellus stroked her chin a bit in thought before replying.
"I...believe so," she said.
So either we just let magic in Equestria disappear or we take a risk saving it.
...
Fuck it.
"I say we grab the artifacts then," I finally said, causing the others to gasp.
"But Legion, didn't Ocellus just say-" Sandbar began asking, before I interrupted.
"I know what she said! But we either take a risk at saving Equestria's magic, or we do nothing and let magic disappear. It's your choice," I said, causing the others to think about it, "Sometimes in life, we just gotta take a leap of faith."
The others didn't say anything. Not that I could blame them. I don't want to blow up the school either, but if we even have the slightest chance at saving Equestria, I say we take it.
Eventually, they made their decisions and nodded their heads, albeit with a bit of hesitation, but at the same time there was confidence.
As the Avengers once said in End Game, whatever it takes.
I guess at that moment though, I was being too hopeful. Before the others can so much as touch the artifacts, they suddenly froze, causing their eyes to widen.
"Guys?" I asked after a couple seconds.
"What the?! I can't move!" Gallus exclaimed, the others practically saying the same thing.
"Neither can I!" Smolder said.
"What's going on?!" Sandbar asked.
I tried to run up to them, but I couldn't move either, as if I was frozen in place. It was then did I notice that the others and I were embedded in red auras.
All of a sudden we were all flung away from the giant orb and forcibly kept to the ground, not even being able to stand, not matter how much we struggled.
"Oh dear. And just when I thought I was actually starting to like you all."
"Fuck. That voice," I thought as I looked up...and saw a familiar filly slowly walking up to this, a small smile adorning your face.
"Cozy Glow?" I asked as I continued to struggle.
"Surprised to see me Legion?" she asked smugly.
It was then that I looked closely and noticed something about her. I could feel some kind of aura emanating from her, and it sent more chills up my spine. It felt...dark...evil.
Not only her demeanor was different, but her eyes as well.
Instead of their usual moderate scarlet color...
...they were blood red.
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Why isn't there a crossover tag?
11278402
Cause its not a crossover
🧀🐀
word not describe how happy me.
We might need the Doom Slayer
demon filly!!! DEMON FILLYY!!!~
keep up the work though :D!