Legends Never Die: The Beginning of Harmony

by bookhorse125

The Real Reason for Friends

Sunny dodged magic blasts and leaped over rocks and muddy puddles as she ran through the midst of the fight, her goal in her sight. Grogar’s bell, she had been told it was called - and, according to the Legion of Doom, the artifact that they had forced her to bring to them when she was under Cozy Glow’s influence through the mind link.

“It has the power to absorb any creature’s magic,” Flurry Heart had explained to her along the way. “And it can release it to another creature entirely. It was how they almost beat my aunt and her friends. They had to unite the world to beat them that time.”

And now, as Sunny looked around her, she thought that the world was united. Earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi fighting side by side. Other creatures finally coming out of the shadows for the first time in over a century. All of them uniting against these three villains who threatened everything they knew and everything they didn’t. Fighting not only for themselves, but for others.

For what was. For what had been. For what was to come.

Fighting for friendship.

Chrysalis, Tirek, Permafrost, Sour Lavender, Cozy Glow. One by one, they fell, overwhelmed by the teamwork that the creatures and ponies demonstrated, not letting each other fight alone but working seamlessly together as one.

Just watching it was enough to make Sunny’s heart swell with pride. She wished that the circumstances weren’t so dire, so that she could sit back and enjoy seeing all the friendship and magic at work. Or that she could dive into the midst of it and help her friends where they needed her most.

But they needed her most right here.

The plan was, Sunny’s friends would distract and bring down the villains long enough for Sunny to grab Grogar’s bell and use it to steal Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow’s extra magic and give it back to her friends, where it belonged. Then, with the villains suddenly much weaker than before, Sunny would take the rest of their magic, and they would bring them back to Zephyr Heights to show all of ponykind.

Hopefully, word would spread to the other kingdoms, protecting them from the impending war that was looming over them. Perhaps Equestria could open up its borders again and become more accepting towards other creatures! Thinking about such a happy future, possible now that this fight was really here, gave Sunny the courage to keep going.

So much was riding on them. They had to do this. They had to succeed. Failure wasn’t an option, and she didn’t want to think about what would happen if they did.

She shook herself and leaped to another rock. No. Don’t think about that. You WON’T fail.

Because Grogar’s bell seemed to take to drifting after Cozy Glow for some reason (Sunny desperately wanted to read more about the bell, and how it worked, and what had happened to it all those years ago, but for now, she focused on the present), Sunny was watching when three little fillies appeared from the forest, and she recognized them as the three who had run away to stay friends.

Midge recognized them, too, and his breath caught in his throat as he watched them, losing concentration on Chrysalis.

As Cozy Glow fled into the cave, the former changeling queen snarled at the way that the filly gave up so quickly. Then she saw Sunny reaching for the bell, a hopeful expression on her face, and she was filled with boiling anger.

No. She was not going to be defeated this easily!

Growling, she lit up her horn, and Sunny gave a shout of surprise as she was thrown back, landing in the middle of the muddy lake. While all her friends were distracted by the distress of their friend, Chrysalis shifted form into a tiny field mouse and wriggled out of Flurry Heart’s hold. She changed back into her original form and lunged for the bell, grabbing it and holding it close to her chest.

“Hey!” Imara shouted.

“She’s got the bell!” Flurry called, pointing at the changeling as she lifted Sunny with her green aura and threw her onto dry land. The earth pony hit a tree and crumpled to the ground.

“Sunny!” Hitch called.

Tirek took the distraction as a chance to stand up, blowing away his prison with a powerful blast and lifting up all the other ponies and creatures and tossing them onto land so that they formed a pile on top of Sunny. Even the Crusaders of Harmony weren’t spared, and they clung to each other, shaking in fear.

“Like I said,” Chrysalis panted with anger, hovering in front of them next to Tirek, who pounded his fist into his other hand threateningly. “You’ve lost.”

Cozy Glow walked out of the headquarters, wiping her eyes and looking around, startled to see the swamp suddenly empty. Her gaze landed on the pile of ponies and creatures at the edge, and narrowed in on the three fillies in front. Then she saw Chrysalis raise Grogar’s bell, her horn glowing brighter as she prepared to strike.

“NO!” she screamed.

The bell rang, and every creature flinched, waiting for their last bit of magic to be sucked away. But it never came, and they all opened their eyes to see Cozy Glow, having flung herself in front of them. The bell was sucking away her alicorn magic until she was just a regular pegasus again.

As the bell’s magic faded from sight, Chrysalis and Tirek gaped at the filly, who shot them a withering glare before turning back to the group of ponies and creatures. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go! Get out of here!”

Imara didn’t hesitate. She led the other creatures into the forest, ducking as Chrysalis shouted, “No!” and sent a magic blast that scorched the tree behind her, just above her head.

Tirek roared and grabbed Cozy Glow, pinning the filly’s arms to her side and crumpling her wings in his massive red hand. “What in Equestria were you thinking?” he demanded, shaking her and squeezing her tighter when she didn’t answer. “You let them get away!”

“What happened to power?” Chrysalis added, her own green magic engulfing the filly and forcing her to look into the changeling’s eyes. “You could have all the power you wanted!”

Cozy gave her a sad smile. She turned and looked at Lofty Skies, Jinx Evergreen, and Rose Blossom, all three of them standing at the edge of the forest, staring at her with matching shocked expressions on their faces. Behind them, Sunny appeared, watching, being supported by Hitch after her crash.

Conflicting thoughts ran through Cozy’s head right then. It would be so easy to turn on them, steal their magic and get back everything she had worked her whole life for. That’s what the old Cozy Glow would do, she remembered. A week ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated - she would have joined Tirek and Chrysalis as they sucked Sunny Starscout and her friends dry and locked them up so that they could never stand in the way of their plans. She would have gone through with her and Tirek’s plan to turn on Chrysalis before she turned on them. She might have even gone so far as to take all the power for herself. She would do anything to get all the power so that she could protect everypony from what had happened to her.

It would be so easy to just forget everything that happened and go along with life as it normally was.

But… would it be? Would Cozy spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder and thinking about the friends that she’d had - the friends that, for a few, short, golden hours, she thought cared about her? Who had cared about her. Who were her friends.

And she realized, with a jolt, that she cared about them, too.

“Power isn’t why you make friends,” Cozy said, turning back to the villains. “I finally understand that now.”

“You don’t need friends to get power!” Chrysalis screamed at her, her rage boiling over.

“With power, you can get whatever you want!” Tirek roared, and Cozy flinched as droplets of spit hit her face. “You don’t need friends!”

“Friendship is a disease!” Chrysalis added.

“Friendship is a waste of time!” Tirek agreed.

“It’s pointless!”

“It makes you weak!”

“It’s a… a distraction!”

“It’s all a lie!”

“Yes!” Chrysalis jumped on the opportunity, pointing an accusing hoof at the Crusaders of Harmony. “They’ll ditch you the first chance they get. They don’t really care about you!”

“They care about me more than you,” Cozy said coolly.

“Are you insane?” Tirek demanded, shaking her again. “What happened to the real Cozy Glow? She would never turn to friendship over power!”

The pegasus shook her head slowly. “No wonder Scorpan ditched you,” she said in a falsely sympathetic voice. “I would, too.”

The centaur’s jaw dropped, and his grip on Cozy slackened enough that she could wriggle out of his hand. She gave the shocked creature a pat on the head and said, “I’ve changed, Tirek. For the better, I think.”

“You think,” snarled Chrysalis, taking a threatening step towards the filly. “But how do you know?”

Cozy Glow shrugged. “Guess I just have to take a chance.”

“It won’t last,” the changeling said in a low voice. “It will never last. They’ll abandon you just like they did before - just like my hive abandoned me!”

Cozy studied her face and said, “I don’t blame them.”

She flew over to join her friends, who pulled her in for a group hug. Cozy sank into them, feeling all the anger and revenge she’d felt over the years sinking away as if it had never been there, replaced instead by an undeniable happiness, and she wanted more of it. She wanted all of it.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the Crusaders. “I never meant-”

“Hey, it’s all good,” Lofty Skies assured her, grinning at Cozy Glow. “But you have to tell us what it’s been like so far. I mean, teaming up with two super villains to gain all the magic in Equestria and probably take it over? That is so cool!” She gasped as inspiration struck. “We should totally make a movie about it! I sense a massive bidding war on the horizon!”

“You forgot the part where I was frozen in stone for a hundred years,” Cozy teased, and spread her wings, inviting her friends in for a hug.

“It’s not worth it!” Tirek called after her, his voice breaking slightly. “It’s not worth giving up all that power-”

“Oh, but it is,” Cozy snapped, turning to glare at them. “Because friendship is the most powerful magic of all. And I am never giving it up.”

Behind the four foals, just barely visible in the trees, Sunny watched the whole thing go down, and something that Cozy Glow said stuck with her. “The most powerful magic of all…” she murmured to herself.

She thought that they would need to get their regular magic back to defeat these villains, because they were using magic against Sunny and her friends. But perhaps the magic that they needed to defeat them was inside them all along. The most powerful magic of all. The magic of friendship.

“Sunny!” hissed Hitch, next to Sunny. “Come on, let’s go before they catch us!”

“We came here to beat them,” she said calmly. “And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

She stepped out into the open, and Chrysalis and Tirek both lit up their horns when they saw her, advancing threateningly and clearly intending to destroy her. But Sunny wasn’t the least bit afraid. Reaching deep inside her, drawing out the magic that had always been there, Sunny tapped, not into her anger and fear and panic like she had done in the past, but into her joy and happiness and love for her friends.

“Sunny?” came Hitch’s uncertain voice as all the other creatures poked their heads out of the trees to see what was happening. “What are you doing?”

Sunny took a deep breath and let the magic come out.

Author's Note:

So, how do you guys like the new profile pic? It took me, like, less than an hour to draw, but I really like how it came out! (Did you know that I draw most of my fanfic title images myself? I think I'm getting pretty good at it.) Tell me how you like it!

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Comments

[Phetiamwantip]

It looks great.

[Yoshifan30]

“Power isn’t why you make friends,” Cozy said, turning back to the villains. “I finally understand that now.”

I'm sure the Cutie Mark Crusaders and the young six would be so proud of you cozy glow

[Yoshifan30]

Whoa that was unexpected so once again the battle is to continuing and the others looks like they have the upper hand against of the Legions of Doom all they need is to get to the Bell but of course they outsmarted them and they defeated sunny and her friends and what makes things worse the Crusaders of Harmony were there as well but when cozy got out of there she saw them and they were about to use the Bell to suck up their last remaining Magic and somewhere deep inside into cozy glows heart she couldn't let it happen and she even sacrifice her power and let in the Bell suck up all the magic from her which the other two were not too happy about it but finally cozy glow understood about how friendship is even stood up to Chrysalis and Tirek Brave kid but she did an amazing job she apologized to Crusaders of Harmony and it looks like Sunny knows what to do now and she unleashes her magic hopefully it will be enough will find out next time

[Yoshifan30]

And by the way yes I do like your profile picture it's pretty cool

[Magic135]

Your profile pic looks cool.