Glowing in Everglow

by Darkmoon9

Chapter 15: The Inevitable and the Temple of Chaos

Diary of Cozy Glow
After the nights I spent with Nights Blessing in Green Square, the nightmares had subsided, whenever it was because of the prayers to the Moon Princess I always made before bed now or the night of passion we had spent together, I didn’t know, perhaps both. The nightmares were instead replaced by dreams about her, maybe the Moon Princess had a twisted sense of humor. There was never any person I have felt such feelings for other than Night’s Blessing. I had crushes before, at a time when I was too young to truly comprehend what it meant. Primarily for some of the other students at the School of Friendship, Ocellus and Sandbar in particular. But with Night’s Blessing, I felt like she understood me better than any other, she had been the only one from which I had to hide my true self, because she was like me, a trickster and manipulator, someone who would use their intelligence to get what they want. And most amazingly of all she was considered a hero among her clan as a result. I had thought long and hard about why Night’s Blessing meant so much to me, maybe it was that she was basically what I could’ve been if I had taken a different path in life. But me having these feelings for her did make things complicated for us both, as she had her husband back home and if we were discovered that could mean not only strife between the Red Rocks and the Black Hooves clans, but perhaps even conflict between the Turves clans and the kingdom of Taralos. Yet I found what truly bothered me was the possibility that our night together didn’t mean as much for her as it did for me.

Shortly after returning to Vil, Night’s Blessing had to return to her own clan, I was sad to see her go, but I knew she couldn’t stay forever. Soon after my return, Sunset filled me in on how things had gone on her end and about the mysterious creature of clockwork and bone that was working for someone in Arcys. Apparently, someone was seeking to disrupt the Tribe of Bones. She had already informed the king about her suspicions, suspicions which I agreed with. Someone was seeking to undermine Taralos, someone whose agent I already suffered a lethal wound from, Prince Swiftblade. If our suspicions were correct, he had established a sphere of influence for himself in Arcys and it was only a matter of time before he would make a move against his nephew King Shining Horn in order to claim the throne. Shortly after the King was informed of our suspicions, we were called to his presence as a new crisis had arisen. The king informed us that Flutterswarms had started attacking the village of Daisy’s Hope, a village that boarded the Forest of Dreams, no one knew why. So, the king wanted to send the defenders of Taralos to investigate.

Words were sent to Night’s Blessing, who would meet us on the way to Daisy’s Hope. It didn’t take long for her to catch up with us. It was nice seeing her again, even if there was only a short time since our last mission. It seemed she was eager to see me again as well, for she couldn’t stop subtly trying to flirt with me, even if it did go under the radar of Sunset, Twilight however seem to have picked up on that something had changed between us and that we seemed closer than ever. The journey itself took less than two days, and the weather remained clear and bright. Spring flowers were filling the air with an amazing fragrance. We met many ponies on the road that seemed happy. When questioned about Daisy’s Hope they said that they hadn’t been to the village and knew nothing about it.

Eventually we finally reached the village, it really was just on the edge of the Forest of Dreams, I remember the first time I put my hoof in that place after I just arrived in Taralos, when we entered the forest in search of the maid Lilac Blossom. I had encountered angry flutterponies at that time as well, they did seem temperamental. In a way it wasn’t a surprise that they could be attacking, but I guess it was now up to us to get to the bottom of why. There was a farm a short distance from the road, but there was a strange shimmering around the farmhouse, and I could hear a lot of voices shouting from inside. We immediately rushed to their assistance and found the farmhouse surrounded by a swarm of flutterponies. The swarms of these very small butterfly-like ponies seemed even more aggressive than usual; we had little choice but to fight our way through the swarm in order to save the ponies hiding in the farmhouse. The swarms were easily dealt with through a combination of fireballs and lightning bolts from Sunset and Twilight respectively, Silverwing and Night’s Blessing taking only some minor damage that Sunset easily healed.

The family within the farmhouse seemed grateful for our intervention. When questioned they told me that flutters were always common in the area, but they didn’t usually cause trouble if you treated them with respect. But recently something had happened but made them far more aggressive. They told us they would have to abandon the farm if things continued like this. I assured them that I and the other Defenders would do our best to get to the bottom of this and that if everything went well they would be able to stay in the area. When I asked them if they’d seen anything strange in the area apart from the flutterswarms, they told me that there had been sightings of a strange huge bipedal creature wearing what appeared to be heavy armor. It didn’t seem to be attacking people, but I surmised it was very likely this strange creature was connected to the aggressive flutterswarms.

With one family rescued we continued towards the village itself. The village of Daisy’s Hope was really nothing more than a scattering of houses and a small shrine dedicated to multiple deities. The village didn’t even have an inn. As we approached the village an elderly unicorn approached us and introduced himself as Wise Apple. He asked us why we had come and when I explained the situation, they immediately offered to let us stay in his home for the night. During our stay, I asked Wise Apple about the mysterious armored creature that had been sighted nearby. Surprisingly he had a lot to say about it. Wise Apple was scared of the creature at first but had managed to gather enough courage to approach it when it became clear it was causing no trouble. When he asked the creature what they were doing here, the creature responded that they were tracking an oathbreaker that had defrauded a lot of people in towns to the north of here. Wise Apple had told it he had seen a stranger heading into the forest a few days before, the armored creature soon followed suit into the forest. It was clear where we needed to go now.

Next morning, we proceeded into the forest of dreams, Silverwing managed to find the trail of the armored creature pursuing this oathbreaker. Which eventually led us to an ancient labyrinth. Or at least that was what it appeared to be, for there were signs of repair on its stone walls, suggesting someone had been here recently. My suspicions soon were proven correct as we were ambushed by a group of robed figures, hiding on top of the labyrinth walls. Night’s Blessing attempted to climb the wall to attack one of the robed figures, a goat wielding an axe in their mouth, but the goat knocked her down, keeping her at the ground level, a robed pony wielding a slingshot shot a rock towards Night’s Blessing, but she nimbly dodged it. From behind me came an enormous griffin, trying to hit me from the wall using a polearm, his first blow struck my armor, but his second blow drove into my flesh, I screamed in pain. Silverwing hearing me and coming to my aid, flying up the wall and decapitating the other griffin with a single strike. Sunset and Twilight turned their attention towards the slinger and made short work of them with a combination of fire and arcane magic. The goat threw an axe at Night’s Blessing, but her hoofwork was too quick for them. She finally managed to get up the wall with a single acrobatic jump and drove her blade into the goat. I decided to aid her, weaving a wicked enchantment into my insult which I directed towards the goat:

“You’re not a complete idiot, some parts are obviously missing.”

The insult was enough for the goat to fall off the wall and knock themselves out. We decided to bind them with rope and for them to wake up. During this time Sunset took some time to heal my wounds. After a quick good cop bad cop routine involving me and Silverwing, the goat decided to tell me what was going on here. The goat was a member of the Cult of Chaos and he had been told to guard this place by their leader, Valentine, who had restored the temple of chaos and used its power to summon a creature of chaos from the beyond. Valentine eh? There was a long time since our last encounter with him. I didn’t know he was the leader of a chaos cult, but it honestly didn’t surprise me given his knack for mischief and deception. He was a lot like the pony I used to be now that I thought about it, before I had found a purpose as one of the protectors of Taralos. I had thought long and hard about why this change had occurred in me, but I think it had something to do with the fact that, in Taralos, my skills and talents were appreciated. I never felt they were back in Equestria.

The cultist didn’t know how to get to the temple’s inner sanctum, a secret only reserved for the higher-ranking members of the cult. But after a quick investigation, Twilight detected the use of illusion magic at the very center of the labyrinth, dispelling it revealing a 40-foot drop to the temple below, a trap designed to trap whoever fell down this hole in a gravity well. Silverwing took Sunset down, while I flew down of my own accord and Twilight teleported. At the center of the room there was a figure in metal armor, suspended in midair by the gravity well Twilight spotted earlier. Twilight explained that the creature was kept in place by powerful gravitational forces summoned by powerful magic and therefore were unable to move. The creature had a physical form of a mighty gorilla, yet where there normally would be flesh, there was only arcane energy binding the armor together. The creature turned its judgmental glowing red eyes towards me, judging my very being, and spoke, a robotic voice that I instinctively knew couldn’t utter a lie because it was against its very nature:

“I sense a liar and a deceiver, through dishonesty you acted to benefit yourself, yet you are not a servant of Chaos, for your heart is that of Order, who are you? Why are you here?”

I answered the creature as best I could, sensing it would know if I told even the most minuscule lie and that it wouldn’t be too pleased with me if I did, I stuck to the truth.

“I am Dame Cozy Glow, Knight Commander of the Defenders of Taralos, these are my fellow knights, Sir Silverwing the Strong, Emissary of the Griffins, Dame Sunset Shimmer, the Redeemer and Dame Twilight Sparkle, the Wise. We are here to stop to Valentine and his Cult of Chaos.”

The creature nodded in approval and continued to speak:

“You speak the truth, I may not approve of your deceptive nature, Knight Commander Cozy Glow, but for now we have a common enemy. I ask of you to free me from this prison, and I shall assist you in taking down Valentine and his Chaos Cult. This device I am trapped and can only be disabled if you destroy the Heart of the Temple, it looks like a large crystal pulsing with different colors. But beware, the fabric of reality is being distorted by the sheer amount of chaos magic present in this place.”

I smiled towards the creature and told it:

“Before I decide to help you, can you tell me who you are and what you are doing here?”

The creature shook their head disappointingly.

“Help always comes with price with you, doesn’t it? Fine, if you must know I am a Vanguard of the Inevitable, it is my duty to protect Order and destroy Chaos. I am here because that is my purpose as an Inevitable.”

While the explanation of the Inevitable, as the creature called itself, left a lot of questions, it did confirm one thing, if this being existed only to destroy Chaos, they would be of use as a temporary ally. I made a promise to the Inevitable that I would track down and destroy the Heart of the Temple, and the Inevitable detected I was telling the truth, as I truly meant every word. Despite, I personally had no love for Chaos as a concept since Discord screwed me over back in Equestria, and despite being just as guilty of sowing destruction across my homeland as me and my co-conspirators were, if not more so, he was the one who had the gall to suggest our punishments to be imprisoned in stone forever. If I was any justice Discord would have served his sentence as a step to write a long side me, Chrysalis and Tirek. I swore to myself that one day I would come back to Equestria with and give Discord a piece of my mind. But for now, I needed to focus all my attention on stopping Valentine, whatever he was doing, it couldn’t be good.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Are there any badass little girls in this story?

[Darkmoon9]

11630286
Well, Cozy was pretty badass even when she was a filly. Villainous, but exceptional. If she could shake Equestria to its foundation even as a child. She has even more potential when she is older, for good or for ill.

This story is partially about exploring that potential.