After Shining’s quick departure, Frosty dismissed Trixie and Safe Count and retreated himself to the chambers he shared with the fillies. He originally wanted to use this short interlude to plan out his next steps, however the fillies seemingly had different plans.

“Frosty?” Applebloom started, once they had entered the room.

“Yes, Applebloom?”

“Can I ask ya somethin’?”

“Go ahead.”

“So… we’ve been wonderin’… why are ya makin’ such an effort when ya could jus’ turn ‘em all undead?” Applebloom asked.

Frosty stopped in the middle of the room and turned to face the fillies. “Oh really? So all three of you have been asking yourself that?” He asked, more to Scootaloo and Sweetie than to Applebloom.

The two fillies looked at each other once, then shared a glance with Applebloom and then all three nodded to Frosty. “Yep, we did.” Scootaloo said.

Frosty chuckled lightly. He didn’t know what he had expected, of course they wouldn’t know. He never told them in detail what he was planning and they were too young to figure it out for themselves… probably.

“Alright, alright. I suppose it is time that I finally tell you my thoughts… to an extent at least.” He told them and went over to the desk that stood at the right wall from the entrance and took a piece of paper from it.

“My plan goes as follows: We all know Celestia as the one sole ruler over Equestria, right?” Frosty asked and the fillies nodded.

“Wrong. She may be the one who stands above all others, but no pony rules alone. Even the seemingly almost omnipotent Celestia needs…” Frosty quickly doodled a crown and drew a circle around it with three lines going downwards.

“… her Army,” He doodled a spear at the end of one of the lines.

“… and her Government.” He doodled a gavel at another.

“Additionally, the Elements of Harmony are also rather important.” He doodled a six-pointed star that roughly resembled Twilight’s cutie mark off to the side, drew five lines around it and put a rough sketch of the other bearer’s cutie marks at their ends.

“Now, since Shining Armor is almost on our side now and he represents and commands the entirety of Equestria’s military, I already crippled one of these ‘pillars’ as you may call them.” He said, crossing out the spear. “And with Safe Count, we technically already have a hoof inside her government.” He said, tapping his quill against the gavel-doodle. “However, I don’t intend on going any further on that front, simply because messing around directly under her nose is almost guaranteed to get me killed. Again.” He said, striking off the line to the gavel.

“That’s not a problem, however, as there is a third option that Celestia herself has opened up for us, through her own decisions and actions.” He said and drew the symbol for a mathematical sum at the end of the third line. “The general populace.”

“Huh? But, ah mean, didn’t she try tah kill ya, even if it meant that everpony else died as well?” Applebloom pointed out.

“Exactly. So what do you think will happen when somepony made that public?”

“Uhh, I don’t think that anypony would be happy about that.” Sweetie said.

“Indeed. To be exact, I think there would be quite a few protests and, if we dramatize things enough, maybe even revolts.” Frosty said, with an evil grin creeping up his features.

“Ah… so what about the Elements? You said they were also important earlier.” Scootaloo pointed out.

“Their importance comes from the power they grant to the ones that wield them… and to the one who controls their wielders.” Frosty explained and drew a fourth line from the crown directly to Twilight’s star.

“The thing is that the Elements of Harmony are the sole thing, besides an Alicorn, that can possibly potentially almost certainly destroy me. As such, their sole existence is a threat to me. Luckily, Celestia didn’t play her cards well in this regard. Her bond with Twilight might be almost impervious…” He said, tapping at the line between the crown and the star. “But her connection to the others only exists through Twilight.” He taps at the five connections going out from the star. “And through her own and Twilight’s actions, Twilight has been successfully isolated from the others, so that…” He struck through all five lines between Twilight and the other element bearers. ” … The Elements are no longer a unified force and are thus a lot less of a threat.”

“An’ some o’ them even like ya a lot.” Applebloom pointed out.

“Yes, however I don’t know if that is a boon that I can actually fully use. At least it’s not part of the plan yet… anyways, that’s the basic idea that I am pursuing. I would fill you in with the greater picture, but… there is none.” The fillies gasped when he said that. “Yeah, shocking, I know, but believe it or not: there is actually a reason. Planning ahead is good, but plan too far and you make yourself vulnerable to sabotage, unexpected events and things like that. Basically, the plan can’t fail if there is no plan in the first place.” He chuckled.

“Uhhh, buuut… ya’ve been actin’ pretty smart fer somepony without a plan.” Applebloom complimented.

“Yeah… okay, ‘no plan’ is not correct. There is a plan, it’s just… very broad and really not something you should worry about. Now, if you’d excuse me, I have a lot of fine details to take into account now.” He said, hopping onto the chair at the table and starting to scribble.

“I thought it was only a very broad plan?” Sweetie noted.

“Heh, just because it’s very broad doesn’t mean I can ignore the details, Sweetie.” Frosty laughed. “Now, how about you three go and take a relaxing bath? We haven’t had that luxury ever since our hut burned down.”

“YAY!” The three fillies shouted excitedly and ran off into the bathroom, leaving Frosty finally alone to write out his plans.

Author's Note

Infodump. Nothing more, nothing less. Yeah, I know, I'm an evil torturer letting you wait for what happens between Twi and Shining and whoever you want to see, but that was to be expected, wasn't it? After all, this is a story about a villain.