How To Train Your Evil Doppelganger

Chapters

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Part One

“Sunset! It’s good to see you again.” Twilight stepped forward, embracing her friend and giggling at the other pony’s slightly clumsy attempt to return the quadruped-style hug. “I’m sorry for getting here so late, court just wouldn’t come to an end.”

Sunset chuckled lightly and pulled back, shrugging it off with a mildly embarrassed smile. “Honestly, I kind of forgot about the whole you not living here anymore thing, so I probably could’ve planned it a bit better, too. Luckily Starlight was here to let me through before going back to her school though.”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, I asked her to come here to activate the portal in case I wasn’t on time. I figured you’d probably get anxious if the portal was closed and I couldn’t respond to messages.”

“After the last time? Probably.” Sunset nodded and rubbed her neck. “Although, uhm… we should probably get to the point, if you don’t mind. I left some people on the other side and I don’t think we want to make them wait even more. Who knows what they’ll do if they get impatient.”

“You said something about diplomacy, right? I thought most humans still didn’t know about the portal.”

“Most humans, yeah. These are… well, I told you about those agents, right? The ones from that organisation that actually already knew about magic?”

Twilight nodded, perking up. “Oh yes! S.M.I.L.E., right? It’s a bit fascinating because Equestria actually has a secret agency by that same name… well, not the same same, the acronym stands for something different of course, but– Right, sorry, going off on a tangent.” She chuckled sheepishly. “So, that organization is the one trying to establish first contact?”

“Pretty much… those same agents I’ve mentioned before, actually.” Sunset nodded. “They wanted to, ah… offer something as a sign of good faith? They didn’t give any details.”

“Right. Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means we can establish some communication on a professional level with the people in the other world.” Twilight paused, narrowing her eyes at Sunset’s slightly too wide smile and faint nervous sweat. “...it is a good thing, right?”

“Oh yeah, definitely a good thing.” Sunset nodded quickly. “I mean, uhm, in general a good thing? There… might be some minor problems with who they want to send over. I mean, it kind of makes sense, it’s just…”

Twilight sighed and smiled placatingly, putting a hoof on Sunset’s shoulder. “Sunset, calm down. Whatever it is, it’s not your fault and it won’t be anything that’ll irreparably ruin human-pony relations. I mean, I’ve already met humans, I’ll know not to judge them by whoever they happen to send over.” She smirked lightly. “Besides, I have to make diplomacy with griffons and yaks now. They can’t be any worse than that.”

“Hah! Yeah, uhm, funny you should say that…” Sunset laughed nervously, eyes moving back and forth to avoid eye contact. “So, uh… imagine the worst people you could think of to come through that mirror.”

There was a short pause as Twilight processed that. “Sunset… please tell me they didn’t send the Sirens as ambassadors to Equestria.”

“Hah, you wish… look, there’s really no good way to say this. I promise they’re not bad, but–” Sunset flinched and winced as a series of crashes came from deeper in the castle.

Twilight jumped and flared her wings in surprise, taking off towards the noise. “Was that from the mirror room? I thought you deactivated–” She skidded to a stop in front of the door, staring into the room with the mirror portal and the pile of creatures on the floor in front of it.

“–magic lasers from your forehead while I’m stuck with just having wings?! Look, just let me–”
“–if you touch that, don’t think I won’t or can’t just because I have horse legs now!”
“–you try making less of a ruckus, we’re already making enough of a bad impression as… ah, hello Sunset. And Princess Twilight, I assume.”

Sunset groaned softly, rubbing the bridge of her muzzle. “Just… why.”

Twilight just stared, mouth hanging open and eye twitching sporadically as she looked from the centaur giving her a polite bow to the large prevolution-style changeling holding a very familiar pegasus filly in a chokehold as the filly flailed her forehooves towards the changeling’s horn.

Chrysalis and Cozy Glow both paused, as one turning their attention to Twilight to glare at her for interrupting, at least until the changeling adjusted her hold on the filly’s trachea to elicit a squeak and a bug-eyed expression from her.

“...if you think that your awkward staring will make me stop strangling this child, you’re wrong.”

~~~~~

How To Train Your Evil Doppelganger

~~~~~

“Is everything alright, Twilight? I heard a crash and– GAH!” There was a yelp and whoosh of air as Spike backtracked out of the room, carefully poking his head back in and hugging his wings to his chest with both arms. “Villains!”

“How did you three even get here?! I know I closed the portal!” Sunset glared at the three intruders, two of them floating suspended in her magic to keep them apart.

“You can set us down, you know?” Chrysalis huffed, pouting as she hung in the air. “We’re professionals.”

“Professional menaces…” Tirek muttered, before clearing his throat. “My apologies for the surprise, we didn’t intend to make our first impression like this.” He turned his head to glare at his two partners. “You were taking rather long and my partners were getting rather impatient. So Cozy proposed we use the time to test out a setup to open the portal from the other side. I figured we would be in and out before anyone noticed. Unfortunately the transition was a bit less gentle than we’d expected.”

“No, that’s pretty much par for the course for the portal when you use it the first time…” Twilight blinked, then shook her head, backing away a bit to position herself in front of Spike. “Wait wait wait, no, not important right now! You’re the ones who are supposed to take up contact with Equestria? You can’t possibly think that that’s a good idea! No offense, but… no, actually, I think a little bit of offense is warranted, you three are the counterparts of some of the biggest enemies of the state!”

“‘Some of’, she says. Other me must’ve been slacking.”

“Chrysalis.” Tirek gave her a warning glance.

“Hey, she was supposed to give them advance warning!” Chrysalis glared back for a moment before she looked away and mimed zipping her lips shut, sitting down. “Right, sorry. You do the talking.”

“So you three are not our Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow. And you three are not criminals.” Twilight turned her attention back to this group’s Tirek. The centaur cleared his throat and didn’t say anything, avoiding eye contact. She groaned and turned to Sunset instead. “Seriously?”

Sunset blinked, then groaned and turned to Tirek in turn. “Seriously?”

“Oh come on, you open one little interdimensional portal above a town and nobody lets you live it down!” Cozy piped up from the side, rolling her eyes.

Tirek glared in her direction. “That little portal was the size of that town. You tried to pull an alien spacecraft through.”

“Well, duh.” Cozy rolled her eyes again. “Of course it was big, how else would the UFO have fit through? And it wouldn’t have been trying if your pals hadn’t shut me down.”

“You know, I am strangely not feeling very comforted right now.” Twilight gave Sunset a deadpan stare.

The unicorn winced. “Okay, I didn’t know about that one. But she’s not bad, really, just… very enthusiastic about magic. I mean, you heard the bit about trying to open the mirror, right? And you know that most humans get into trouble with magic because they don’t actually know anything about it. I mean, you told me about that time with the time-travel spell...”

“Do you have to bring that up?” Twilight sighed. “Ugh… fine, I guess I can’t judge someone else for a magical accident, even if it was a bit bigger than average.”

Cozy raised a hoof. “Excuse me?! That one was absolutely 100% intentional. Do you know how many weeks it took to track down that spaceship and get enough power to open that–” She paused, glancing over at the quite unimpressed look Tirek was giving her. “...right.” She mimed a zipper and sat down next to Chrysalis with a huff.

Twilight paused and took the momentary break in the conversation to look the three of them over in more detail, taking notice of the subtle differences. Tirek was the most obvious one, looking much more like the Equestrian Tirek in his prime than the admittedly millennia-old centaur she’d fought against. There was no white in either his hair or his beard and he was wearing an expensive looking suit and tie instead of silver bangles and neckpiece.
Chrysalis seemed to be slightly smaller than her royal counterpart, looking a bit more sleek and less ragged, with no holes in her legs and mane and only slightly tattered wings, and a silver scarab brooch on a plain black collar around her neck.. Where the Queen usually put effort into projecting an overbearing presence, however, this one’s presence slipped in and out of her awareness depending on whether the changeling wanted her attention or not.
Cozy Glow looked the most like her Equestrian counterpart, with only slightly shorter curls lacking a bow, an unassuming coin necklace around her neck and a more open expression than Twilight had ever seen on the filly short of when she was trying to conquer Equestria, showing mildly bored aloofness at the moment. A covert glance at her flank also showed a different cutie mark, a four-by-four chessboard with a single black pawn on the bottom row.

Tirek cleared his throat again and she quickly snapped her attention back to him. “Anyway, as I was saying. As it stands we are only here as liaisons towards our world’s S.M.I.L.E. agency. Someone else is slated to become ambassador to your country once we reach that point.” He refrained from glancing at anyone else in the room. “That said, Miss Shimmer did pass on much of her information you gave her on what has been going on over the last few years. Specifically, the part about our counterparts moving against Equestria.” He raised an eyebrow. “She said that the situation was handled and under control, but not much more. Going by some of her other stories on threats that you had handled – including these – I’m assuming that they were not actually completely disposed of but rather sealed away somewhere.”

Twilight blinked in confusion before nodding slowly. “Well… yes. They’ve been petrified by the Princ– I mean by Celestia and Luna and locked away somewhere safe. Why do you ask?” She kept herself from making it sound like an accusation, but couldn’t help narrowing her eyes just a bit.

The centaur held up his arms. “I don’t intend to disparage your victory or your system of imprisonment and reformation, but from what I’ve heard this kind of solution has turned out to not be… quite as final as intended. Very, very long-term, yes, but if I understand it right then the last years have had a lot of these kinds of imprisonments run out, and this one will probably eventually begin to degrade as well, yes? Not in the near future or even the next few centuries maybe, but at some point your and possibly our world will have to deal with them once again, if I understand it right.”

Twilight glanced away, unwilling to admit but unable to completely disregard the notion either. “It’s… not entirely impossible. Before this kind of thing was done by the magic of Harmony itself… Celestia and Luna are powerful, but I don’t know for sure if a regular spell will be more stable and lasting or less, so I can’t say that there isn’t some kind of limit to it that it might reach centuries from now.” She tilted her head. “I’m not entirely sure what your concern with this is, though. Unless humans live a lot longer than I’ve been led to believe.”

“No, anyone from our side of the mirror would be long dead at that point.” He shook his head. “What I’m leading up to is more a token of good faith, if you will. Our world has, at this point, still a very limited amount of magic inherent to it, and our agency in particular is well equipped to handle anything that they might be able to do, from what I’ve heard of their abilities. We’re here to offer to take them off your hands… hooves, so to speak, and deal with them now instead of in a few centuries when they might break free without warning and nobody remembers anymore how they were handled in the first place.”

“I would still remember, as would Princess Celestia, Luna and Cadance.” Twilight shook her head lightly. “No offense, but why would you offer to do this? And what makes you think that your method of dealing with them would be better than leaving them as they are? They could get up to quite a bit of trouble in your world before simply returning to ours through the mirror.”

“You make good points.” Tirek nodded. “As I said, it’s mostly intended to be a show of good faith on our part, to start relations off on a good note with a kind of assistance we’re uniquely prepared to provide. As for trouble, I do believe that we are equipped to handle whatever they might try, especially if their magic on the other side of the portal is limited as much as it has been for any other Equestrian who crossed over so far.” He raised an eyebrow. “We do keep track as much as we can. Still, if there are some unforeseen complications, we can at the very least subdue them for long enough to either imprison them ourselves, or have them sealed away again by you and your friends.”

Twilight frowned and looked between the three for a moment, noting with some surprise how the other two agents had been sitting quietly and politely back this whole time, before turning to Sunset with a sigh. “This seems like either a really good or a really bad idea and I can’t tell which one it is. What do you think?”

Sunset tilted her head and shrugged, frowning lightly. “I mean, honestly, I don’t think anything involving your version of these three can be called good, per se. But they do have a point, I think… from what you’ve told me, most of what made them so dangerous each time they showed up was setup. As long as they keep an eye on them, there’s only so much they can do. That’s why I even agreed to let them make their proposal in the first place.”

Tirek nodded, interjecting again. “Indeed. We only have a summary of events, of course, but they mostly seemed to have gotten to where they were through subterfuge and preparation. At their base level, I believe that they don’t pose much of a threat even just against us three, and we have the technology to keep them closely monitored at all times once they’re on our side of the mirror. I would ask for a more detailed account of everything you know of them, but from what I heard so far we and some of our agency’s analysts are of the hope that we can turn them… not to the side of good, but maybe to a more productive than destructive neutral grey area. Or forced and supervised community service, at worst.”

Twilight stared at him for a moment, then sighed and slumped down. “I still don’t like it. But I’m a ruler now and sometimes that means doing things I don’t like if it’s for the better of Equestria.” She straightened up and narrowed her eyes. “No unnecessary risks. I want to be informed regularly of what happens with them and if there’s any sign that they might become more of a problem than you can handle you contact me immediately.”

Tirek bowed his head politely. “That’s only fair. I have a contract over the extradition and some limited authority to negotiate. We already expected to agree to some concessions and safety measures, this is intended as a show of goodwill after all.”

“Alright. Don’t like it. Don’t like anything to do with those three, really.” Twilight let out one particularly deep sigh as she turned around to head back out the door. “I’ll have to make some arrangements to have their statue brought here safely and to get together all the people we need to reverse the petrification. We can discuss the details while we wait on that.”

She only made it a couple steps before a loud thud and yelp made her jump in surprise, wings flaring again and flapping to turn her around still in the air. Sunset, and Chrysalis had similarly jumped to the side and Cozy Glow was hovering in the air like her, all four of them looking down at the tangle of limbs on the floor. There was a snicker from Spike before he quickly slapped his claws over his mouth.

Tirek stayed there for a moment before slowly and deliberately pulling his four legs apart and pushing himself up on his hands enough to glare at Chrysalis. “Not a word.”

~~~~~

Twilight looked around the room at her friends spread out in a half-circle, all of them either subtly backing away or leaning toward the three people from the other world at the far wall with suspicious looks. At the center of the room was the statue of the three petrified villains, awaiting their release.

“So, how exactly is other-me hanging in the air like that?” Cozy looked around at the glares now focused on her. “What?! I can’t be the only one thinking it, that tail can’t possibly be structurally sound enough for that!” She huffed and sat down again, crossing her forelegs with a pout.

“...alright. Is everyone ready?” Twilight looked around one last time before slowly rising into the air, letting her magic flow and drawing on her connections to the ponies around her, a rainbow of magic starting to swirl around the room and wrap around the statue and slowly causing cracks to appear. The magic only lasted for a moment before disappearing again, followed by the cracked layer of stone bursting apart into dust a second later and sending the three villains sprawling in an undignified heap.

“Gah, what–? You!” Queen Chrysalis was the first to gather her bearings and jump up, glaring at Twilight as she lit her horn with blazing green magic. “I don’t know what your game is but I will yeeeow!” She yelped and collapsed, rubbing the base of her sparking horn and groaning for a moment before looking around at the changeling who had jabbed her horn and was now standing over her. “What?! Impostor! Who are you?!”
She leveraged herself back up to lean in close and attempt to intimidate the other one. “I said reveal yourself! Are you that whelp Thorax come to- yaaarghle!” Several of the ponies present winced as the Queen was suplexed back to the floor, limbs bent in several uncomfortable directions. “Not Thorax, not Thorax! Pharynx, maybe?”

“Defeated by your own minions, how predictable. This is why I hurg–” Lord Tirek was cut off along with his air supply, leaving him scrabbling ineffectively at the hand crushing his windpipe.

“I’d appreciate some courtesy towards my partner. She’d make a terrible minion, at that. No respect for authority.” After a few seconds the hand loosened just enough to let him breathe, pulling him around to face a much younger version of himself. The other Tirek glared down at him for a moment before turning to Twilight. “I didn’t expect him to be this old and weak. Are you sure he’ll even survive the next few years?”

“That is his form without any stolen magic. He is over a thousand years old after all. You can understand why we’d rather not give him any additional power, but there’s no reason to think that he won’t live another few centuries at the least.” Twilight paused, looking around with mild alarm. “Wait, where’s Cozy Glow?”

“Tried to sneak out while you were distracted.” The human Cozy Glow spoke up from the doorway, standing on top of her pony counterpart who’d been wrapped up in enough rope to leave only her head visible. “Don’t worry, she’s not going anywhere.”

“Right…” Twilight glanced at Cozy’s flank to be sure, relaxing a bit at the confirmation that all three villains were appropriately subdued for the time being. “Right. Let’s not waste any time then. You’ll understand if I want to get rid of them as quickly as possible.” She nodded to herself and stepped aside to let the human agents carry the villains out the door, down the hallway towards the portal room where the mirror was already activated.

“Completely understandable.” Tirek grabbed Queen Chrysalis with his free hand, letting his partners go ahead before unceremoniously tossing the three villains through the portal one after the other. “I won’t intrude on your hospitality any longer than necessary then, although I hope we’ll establish a more regular contact beyond the updates on their rehabilitation and punishment.”

Twilight watched him step through the portal as well before glancing over at Sunset. “This still seems like a terrible idea.”

Sunset shrugged. “There’s a lot of people making sure they stay in line, now. I’m just glad if I never have to meet them again. Imagine trying to distinguish them by name, what a mess.”

Part Two

Agent Tirek looked across the table at his counterpart as he poured some chamomile into a pair of flower-patterned teacups. Lord Tirek had, ironically, come through the portal dressed in a pair of factory-ripped and washed out jeans and a faded generic rock band shirt under a frayed leather jacket. His human form had turned out much less old and frail than he had been on the Equestrian side, making him look to be in his early to mid-sixties and leaving his outfit just on this side of ‘punk’ instead of the side of ‘homeless’.

He put the teapot away and placed a small porcelain bowl with honey and even smaller pitcher of milk on the table instead before pushing one of the cups towards the older man. “Well then, you have been informed of the basics of your punishment. Do you have any questions to begin with?”

Lord Tirek scoffed. “They told me they would give me a new name. I am Lord Tirek, and if you think I will play along with an indignity like that you can just turn me back to stone right now.”

Agent Tirek tilted his head lightly, pausing as if to think it over before shrugging and stirring half a spoon of honey into his cup. “That’s your prerogative, I suppose, but I think that out of the three of you you have the least to complain about in that regard. You’re old enough to pose as an uncle of me that I could have been named after, so ‘Tyrek’ seems like a fair compromise. You can even pronounce it like your old name and claim that it’s an accent from somewhere.” His lips twitched slightly. “Although if you want to avoid any indignities, I wouldn’t insist on calling yourself ‘Lord Tirek’. People will start asking what you are a lord of, and I doubt that you’d have an answer that wouldn’t get you some strange looks.”

Tyrek crossed his arms, glaring at his teacup. “I don’t see why you insist on this farce anyway. Your ploy to cozy up to the ponies seems to have worked, so just throw me in a dungeon and stop wasting my time.”

“Mmmh…” Tirek hummed taking a sip. “I’ve read through the files on your actions and personality, and I admit I’m… somewhat confused, as to what your goal was.”

“My goal?” Tyrek looked up at him, narrowing his eyes. “My goal was to have all the magic in Equestria, as is my right!”

“Yes yes, that was quite clear in the reports.” Tirek nodded and took another sip, ignoring the glare. “But having all the magic is like having all the money. It’s a means, not an end. If you don’t have any plans on what to do with it, they are essentially worthless.” He calmly looked at Tyrek, tilting his head slightly. “According to the Princess, once you had all the magic in Equestria, you did little more than throw it around and uproot a bunch of trees. If that was your whole endgame, that seems rather embarrassing. You could have just bought some toy blocks.”

Tyrek jumped up to slam his hand on the table. “Don’t presume that you know anything about my plans!”

“Well, as it stands I can’t do much more than presume since you didn’t show any hints of an actual plan, much less tell anyone about one.” Tirek stayed completely relaxed and placid, holding his own cup off the table and glancing down at the spill on the other cup’s saucer before looking back up to meet the other man’s eyes. “So by all means, do enlighten me.”

~~~~~

Agent Chrysalis tossed her sports bottle and towel onto the rough log-style bench in the corner of the small private gym and moved into a series of stretches, mostly ignoring the other woman trailing mulishly after her. “I don’t see what the problem is. You take on fake names all the time, don’t you?”

“At my own decision! They are temporary disguises, you numbskull!” The former changeling growled at her. “I am Queen Chrysalis! I am not going to abandon my name, and especially not at the order of some lesser version of myself!”

“Awww, don’t beat yourself up over it. A few weeks of exercise and you can be a bit ‘lesser’, too.” Chrysalis smirked and bent over backwards into a bridge, her already short sports crop top riding up a bit more to fully show off her sixpack. “Besides, you’re not much of a queen anymore anyway. So why cling to the rest of it and not start over completely.”

“I am the rightful Queen of the changelings, no matter what that usurper to the throne says!” The former, not-anymore, ex-queen stomped a foot. “And I certainly won’t take a name as plain as–”

“Aww, what’s the matter, Chryssie?” Chrysalis smirked more and flipped from the bridge into a handstand, raising her head to look at the other woman. “I think it fits your style quite well. Although if you prefer we could change it a little, probably… how does Chrystine Neverheart sound? You ever impersonated a journalist?”

“I don’t care for your worthless opinions.” Chrystine crossed her arms and glared down at where Chrysalis’ head was. “And I don’t care for these clothes either, even if they look somewhat acceptable.”

Chrysalis bit her lip, coughing lightly to hide a snicker. “Oh yes, they’re absolutely you.” She flipped back upright again, looking Chrystine over with a raised eyebrow. The former changeling was had come through the portal wearing a death metal style CHANGELING shirt under a black hoodie jacket, along with tight black pants with metal studs. Or as Chrysalis had decided to call it, the Hot Topic Special #3.

“I don’t like your tone.” Chrystine glared at her for a moment before looking around again. “And I don’t see why we had to come here of all places for this.”

“Honestly, we didn’t. But this world revolves around you even less than the other one and I wanted to get at least some exercise in today.” Chrysalis shrugged and stretched her arms and legs before bouncing over to a climbing structure and jumping onto it, jumping and rolling through a parkour routine. “I don’t know if you noticed but I don’t care much about what happens to you beyond what my boss tells me to care. Your motivations aren’t particularly ambiguous either, considering you’re supposed to be this master of deception. You wanted to take over the country and then got obsessed with revenge when the first attempt didn’t work out.” She shrugged while hanging upside down from a ledge. “Only thing I’m not so sure about is why you went with the whole invasion plan in the first place. Can’t have been for your people very much or you wouldn’t have gotten out of there and abandoned them the moment they turned on you.”

“They were traitors!” Chrystine screamed, moving in to growl right into Chrysalis’ face. “They were the ones who abandoned me! You have no idea what it’s like to constantly hunger, to feel the void consuming you from inside! I did everything for them!”

Chrysalis blinked, then swung around and flipped herself back up onto the structure. “I mean, yeah, I guess I gotta give you that one.”

~~~~~

“So what, you’re a nerd?”

Cozy Glow paused and looked back at the girl standing in the doorway, looking around the lab space. “If you mean that I’m capable of making and executing a plan without having it spoonfed to me, then yes, I suppose I am a ‘nerd’.”

The pony Cozy Glow scrunched up her nose, glaring back at her. “So what, you’re saying that you’re smarter than me?”

“Going by past accomplishments? Absolutely. At the very least I’m more competent than you.” Cozy moved over to a slightly rough and unpainted but polished wooden desk, bringing the computer screen back to life and turning on the printer. “I have opened a magical wormhole through space aimed specifically at an intergalactic trade ship to bolster all the resources I had at hand back in Hillbilly Nowhere, OR. You asked a criminal for a five-step plan to toss your most valuable resource down an interdimensional garbage chute. That’s why I was picked up as a child prodigy to put in my community service on an unpaid internship for the shadier side of the government while you were shipped off to join your questionably intelligent penpal in Tartarus. Here, this is yours.”

She ripped a newly printed birth certificate from the printer and held it out to the other girl. It showed the picture they’d taken earlier of the former filly, wearing the sparkly, girly and all-around overly saccharine doll top and skirt she’d come through the portal with as well as the little bow she’d already had in her hair. Below the picture was the name “Suzy Glow” followed by a bunch of data copied from Cozy’s own birth certificate.

“Suzy? What’s this supposed to be?!” Suzy Glow took it and waved it around angrily.

“Congratulations, you’re a twin now. Don’t worry about anyone questioning it, the chance that anyone else from my hometown ever moves more than five miles away from it is minimal.” Cozy rolled her eyes, already locking her computer again before turning back around to face Suzy. Unlike her twin, Cozy was wearing an entirely sensible pair of shorts combined with a regular shirt in soft baby blue, with gold sparkles spelling out the words “Golly Gee” in cursive on the front… and the words “Don’t #%&$ With Me” on the back.

“And what, you expect me to just go along with all that?” Suzy crossed her arms, glaring and pouting.

“Let me make this clear to you. The other two are a threat that we are going to keep contained one way or another. You? You’re a package deal.” Cozy raised an eyebrow. “You’re not a threat. You’re their errand girl. You followed a bunch of instructions to use a bunch of magical artifacts and a magical nexus to what I’ll generously call ‘your advantage’ and almost managed to take over a school for half an hour. Shimmer did that before you. Then you followed a different bunch of instructions to go on a treasure hunt and used a bunch of stolen magic to feel better about yourself for a bit before getting smacked down.” She moved closer, poking Suzy in the chest. “Point is, you haven’t accomplished anything that didn’t need a crapload of stolen magic or someone else spelling half the steps out for you. If you weren’t underage, we could drop you off in some random city and nobody would notice. Sure, you’re moderately good at manipulating people so you could maybe build up a small cult or a pyramid scheme… not particularly good but those are a dime a dozen in this country.”

She took a step back and put on her best innocent little angel smile, clapping her hands. “Golly, that sure was a lot of sisterly bonding for the first day. Why don’t we take a break and I show you around the lab so don’t break anything and don’t get any ideas about using something against me.”

She hummed and walked past Suzy without waiting for an answer, heading over to a workbench and picking up what looked like a futuristic toy gun with a split going through the barrel. “This is the Intelli-Ray. One of my newest inventions. It’s specifically designed to work with the properties of the Third Eye Diamond to make people more or less intelligent. The name kind of gives it away, I think.” She put the raygun down again, moving over to a number of empty cages. “You know, I had some test rodents here, I’m not quite sure what happened to those… oh well.”

She glanced back at the sound of empty clicking to see the gun aimed at her. “Of course the diamond in there is a cheap fake. The real Third Eye is back at Warehouse Eight for safekeeping. I’m not one of those stupid geniuses, you know.”

Suzy glared at her and dropped the gun, stomping onto it once for good measure. “What was the point of it anyway, then?!”

“Curiosity, mostly. A test to see if you are really as predictable as you look.” Cozy rolled her eyes and pushed Suzy back to pick up the broken casing, extracting the fake diamond and dumping the rest into the scrap bin. “What, did you think that would actually work?”

“You were pretty proud of all your stuff actually working a moment ago.” Suzy watched her with narrowed eyes. “What, was that just a trick, too?”

“All the actually dangerous stuff is locked away. That’s basic lab safety. Even Sparkle knows that most of the time.” Cozy snorted and frowned at the gun sticking out of the bin, grabbing a screwdriver and disassembling it into parts to make it fit better.

“Oh? What about this one then?”

“Look, that’s…” Cozy turned around, freezing as she noticed the small cartoon bomb Suzy was holding. “...something that rolled under the cabinet a few weeks ago and that you should really put down.”

“So much for lab safety, hmm? Maybe you’re not that smart after all.” Suzy smirked, bouncing the bomb up and down lightly.

“It’s a goddamn bomb, even you can’t be so stupid that you think setting that thing off in here is a good idea! Just put it down and stop bouncing it like that!”

“Oh come on, I’m not going to blow myself up. I just want to hear you say that you’re not all amazing either. Hmmm, or maybe admit that I’m the better Cozy Glow. Or let me–” Suzy hummed thoughtfully, causing her to fumble the catch and accidentally grab the bomb’s fuse. The fuse that turned out to be an artistically designed grenade pin, letting the rest of the bomb drop to the floor and the Cola, Mentos and Chemical X inside it mix freely.

Cozy showcased her own intellect, creativity and maturity by yelling out a few very mature choice words, ripping her necklace off and throwing it towards the desk, the coin glowing in the air just before the three ingredients in the bomb reacted very volatilely and expanded to claim the majority of the room, covering everything and everyone under a thick layer of purple goop… except for the computer desk sitting protected under a magic shield dome that fizzled out a few seconds later, the coin dropping to the floor.

Suzy blinked slowly, shrinking down a little as she looked around at the purple lab and the purple figure glaring at her from across the room. “Uhm… oops?”

~~~~~

“So to recap…” Tirek poured them both another cup of tea, despite the other cup still being mostly full. “You learned from another centaur how to steal magic from ponies, somewhat at least, which your parents didn’t much appreciate. So you dragged your brother off to the land of the ponies, which your brother didn’t much appreciate, and tried to steal all the ponies’ magic, which the ponies didn’t much appreciate. And since nobody was particularly in favor of your ambitions, your whole life goals basically came down to, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘show them, show them all, mwahahaha’. Did I get that all right?”

Tyrek glared at him silently.

“And the thought that if everyone says that your plans aren’t particularly appreciated, it might be time to change careers, didn’t register with you, I assume.”

Tyrek glared a little harder.

“Well, lucky for you,” Tirek set his cup down again, looking straight at his counterpart, “there’s a rather limited amount of pony magic around, none of the people you were hoping to show it all, mwahahaha, and quite a lot of things humans have invented that I wouldn’t recommend ingesting and that will probably be coming towards you if you try to go on another rampage over here. So I would suggest taking this as a chance for a fresh start and maybe think about some proper ambitions. They don’t have to be particularly high. Humans are experts of having relatively low ambitions in life, I’m sure you can find someone to teach you the art of happiness in mediocrity.”

“And if I don’t care for your offer?” Tyrek narrowed his eyes.

Tirek tilted his head for a moment, then leaned back and pushed out a long breath as he stared at the ceiling. “...honestly? I’m stumped. You’ve spent centuries alone in a cage in the middle of nowhere with nothing to entertain you. If you want to go back to that again in a human prison, there’s honestly not much we can do about that. I just figured that after all of that you might like to try something else rather than going back to eternal boredom.”

Tyrek scoffed. “And I suppose you’d know all about those low ambitions.”

“I suppose so, yeah.” Tirek shrugged. “Wasn’t too long ago that my only ambition was to be more on the Hulk side of history than the Abomination. Half of the challenge is to find something new to go on after you meet your old goals.” He looked Tyrek in the eyes again. “Nowadays, my ambition is a good cup of tea, keeping my partner safe and maybe this town as well as much as I can. Possibly teaching Chrysalis how to safely drive a car, but I try to stay realistic.”

“I don’t see how having inconsequential goals is in any way supposed to help me.” Tyrek snorted and crossed his arms, leaning back.

“It’s not really about how consequential your goals are. It’s about doing something that makes you happy.” Tirek set his empty cup down with a soft clink, staring off into the distance for a moment. “...carpentry.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve been trying carpentry. There’s no real reason or advantage to it. But it’s something to do that relaxes me, and something where I can see the results myself. There’s a few things around the house that I built.” Tirek leaned forward, folding his hands under his chin. “It also helps with the side effects, of… well. I don’t know how your magic works. But you seem to get less subtle and more aggressive the more magic you have, and your tunnel vision for revenge probably doesn’t help with that. Sometimes taking some time to relax or having something else to focus on can make all the difference.”

Tyrek stared at him silently for a moment before snorting out a breath and grabbing his cup, draining it in one pull and slamming it back down on his saucer, holding eye contact the entire time. “Don’t think that I’ll let you or anyone order me around. But if you think you can uncover some great secret to the meaning of my life, by all means, feel free to try.”

~~~~~

“Ugh… how much longer do I have to wait through this presentation? You’re very flexible, I’ve gotten the message. Everyone has gotten the message.” Chrystine whined and twisted around to flop across the bench, kicking the water bottle off the edge.

Chrysalis glanced over from where she was performing various kicks and punches on a sandbag hooked up to a zipline. “Put a towel–”

“On the bench, yes, there is a towel for Love’s sake. It’s like you think this block of wood is more important than the Queen of the changelings.” Chrystine raised an arm up high before turning the wrist to point at Chrysalis. “Don’t answer that.”

The agent grinned, flipping into a handstand for another kick. “Look at that, it’s almost like there was a personality all along under all the ‘I’m an evil vampire bug raaagh’.”

“I do not say raaagh. It’s simple self-preservation, as long as I talk I don’t have to listen to your incessant babbling.”

“If you say so. I bet you just don’t want to admit that you like me.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Of course you do. Everyone likes me.”

“Do they tell you that to make you stop talking? Does it work?”

“Only one way to find out~”

“I do not like you. I’m coming to despise you. I wish I was anywhere but here.”

“We all want to be at Disneyland Paris, but alas they don’t appreciate people crawling through the vents and leaving Dreamworks stickers on all the ceilings.”

“I… what?” Chrystine pushed herself up onto her elbows. “What does that even mean? Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know what goes through that head of yours.” She slumped down again.

“Is that why you’re so bad at impersonating people? Because you’re bad at getting into their headspace?” Chrysalis looked down at her, crouched next to the chain at the top of the sandbag. “Because I hear you’re really bad at impersonating people.”

“Lies and slander!” The former changeling pushed herself up again to glare at her. “Just because I prefer not to act all lovey-dovey and saccharine when I have an excuse not to. It gives me reflux. Literally.”

“Huh, learn something new every day about creepy vampire bug horse physiology.” Chrysalis smirked. “So, does that mean you’re better at impersonating bad guys?”

Chrystine narrowed her eyes. “What is that supposed to mean? I have no idea where you’re going with that but I don’t think I like it.”

Chrysalis pushed herself off and jumped back down to the floor, walking over to her and changing course at the last second to pick up her water bottle and another towel. “Awww, come on. I’m just giving you a chance to reboot your career. You know, show them all that you’re actually more than just a pretty face over a horrible bug face with holes and fangs. What were those holes for anyway? Or the fangs, for that matter.”

“They’re for none of your business.” Chrystine glared at her.

“Aww, no more creepy vampire bug horse physiology fun facts? Fair enough, fair enough.” She held up her hands, backing away with a grin. “Come on, get up. If this place isn’t for you, maybe something else is more your style. I want to see what you make of the mission closet, see if that magic of yours translates to anything over here.”

“As long as I don’t have to watch you jump around like an Abyssinian again.” Chrystine stood up to follow, then froze as her stomach grumbled audibly, gritting her teeth.

“Yikes.” Chrysalis paused as well, looking back at her. “When was the last time you ate, anyway?”

Chrystine rolled her eyes. “Does it matter? I told you, eternal hunger is a part of me.” She scoffed. “Another one of those creepy vampire bug horse physiology fun facts for you. Just ignore it.”

Chrysalis grinned a bit wider, throwing an arm around her counterpart’s shoulder and dragging her along against all protests. “Oh really? Well, you’re not a creepy vampire bug horse anymore and I got your new favorite four words for you. ‘Hey Dagi, let’s bang!’ No wait, those are mine. Yours are ‘all you can eat’.”

~~~~~

“I am not doing that.” Suzy slowly backed away from the loudly humming contraption Cozy was holding, eyeing it. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Well, tough luck because I’m not asking and I’m always thinking. Now hold still.”

Suzy yelped as the nozzle of the machine snagged onto her skirt, then her legs, and then slowly pulled the rest of her through the comically small hose before depositing her in the main body. The machine jumped and rumbled for a few moments before the hatch at the back popped open and spit her out again, sending her tumbling across the floor in a sparkly clean heap. The girl groaned, then shivered softly and curled up. “Gah, that’s freezing!”

“Yeah, well, suck it up. I went through the same thing and all of this is your fault anyway. You’re not gonna die from a little cold.” Cozy rolled her eyes and turned back to running the nozzle across the last few patches of purple goop on the walls and ceiling.

Suzy glared at her, pointing towards the desk with the computer and printer. “Hey, you wouldn’t have had to go through it anyway if you hadn’t been so stupid to prioritize those machines over yourself.”

Cozy snorted. “I have backups of everything and the computer could’ve been cleaned. I didn’t want to risk staining the desk.”

“...seriously? That’s even more stupid. Why would you do that?” Suzy stared at her.

Cozy silently stared back, unimpressed.

“Fine. Whatever.” Suzy rolled her eyes. “So you’re dumb and weird, big deal.”

“Unlike you, I’m perfectly fine without outside approval.” Cozy snorted again, turning back to her work cleaning up the lab.

“Yeah, sure.” Suzy watched her silently for a moment. “What the hay is that thing, anyway?”

“Magical vacuum cleaner.” Cozy gave the machine a light pat. “Made on a small Greek island, can clean just about anything no matter the size.”

“Is it just you or is everything in your lab stupid in some way?”

“Magic is as magic does.” Cozy shrugged. “And magic happens to like puns. I don’t think you could make something like this anywhere outside Zpeis.” She sucked up the last of the goop and turned off the machine. “That’s part of what I do. Take a magic artifact or five and figure out how to use it more effectively, how to combine it and make it better or get more results. Not like Sparkle who has to build everything from scratch and hope it doesn’t blow up on her again.”

“So you get magic artifacts just dumped on you but when I try to use one I get a lifetime in prison. Sure, that’s fair.” Suzy huffed, crossing her arms and pouting.

“It depends on how you use them. People always say that I tried to pull a spaceship through a portal, but I meant it when I said I come from Hillbilly Nowhere. Someone in that town says they saw a UFO, they can get in line behind all the other rural rednecks.” Cozy shrugged again. “S.M.I.L.E. actually knows that. It’s why I didn’t get tossed in a cell or therapy or some other crap, but instead got to work off my hours for them and keep the job afterwards.”

She glanced over at Suzy again. “...look, I get it. I’m a megalomaniac. Like, certified and stuff. I love feeling better and smarter than others, I love having power and I don’t much care who gets in the way or what I have to do to get it.” She shrugged, gesturing lightly. “But that’s no reason to get sloppy. You start causing trouble and making enemies, that all comes right back to you. Revenge is nice and all but if you try to go too far it gets inefficient.” She smirked. “I mean, look at me. I had a whole lotta nothing to start with and now I have my own lab, a bunch of magic stuff to play with and I get to feel smarter than other people all the time. And all I had to do was not be an unreasonable dick about it.”

Suzy huffed. “So, what, I’m just supposed to make nice with everyone?”

“You already did that, remember?” Cozy rolled her eyes. “Were all nice and cute and then screwed them over behind their backs for a half-baked plan. I’m a precocious jerkface to most people but I do good and people notice that. Actions and words, you can say a lot of stuff as long as you do better. Or something like that. Just because I don’t care if I’m good or evil, doesn’t mean I can’t choose to be good. If it’s all the same to me, why not?”

“And that’s enough for you?” Suzy gestured around, slumping down against a wall. “Just tinker away a bit with some magic, then let them have it and start over again? Give up all the good stuff to be good?”

“More or less.” Cozy walked over to a wall panel by the door, tapping in a code. A moment later a section of the floor split and pulled away for a huge contraption to rise up in its place, looking a bit like a giant centrifuge surrounded by several glowing towers and satellite dishes. “But for the days it gets really bad, I also have this.”

Suzy frowned, feeling the hairs on her arm stand on end much like her fur used to during thunderstorms. “What’s that supposed to be?”

“I call it the Genie Engine.” Cozy posed proudly next to it. “It’s a giant mana collector and infusion machine that can give someone up to ten seconds of near-omnipotence per day. The centrifuge prevents the magic from reaching out at the same time it infuses you, so you can’t actually do anything. But it’s a lot of help just to have the option… you know, actually *be* as powerful as you always wanted to be, so you know that it’s not all for nothing. I dunno, maybe it’s just me.” She shrugged and stepped aside. “Either way, I guess I’m offering you a try to see if it helps or puts anything in perspective. Or maybe it won’t, considering you’ve probably already been through this whole thing with your whole villain scheme. I figure either way it can’t make things any worse.”

Author's Note

Kudos to whoever first figures out the name of the vacuum cleaner artifact.

Part Three

Doctor Ulric Chia smirked down at the S.M.I.L.E. agent kneeling on the floor in chains in front of the raised platform that held the central control to his machine. “Ah, finally. The elusive spy that has been hindering my operations this whole time. It’s good to finally meet you, Agent…”

The spy straightened up, meeting his eyes with an unflappable expression. “Bonds. War Bonds.”

Doctor Chia paused. “...truly? That seems a little on the nose, doesn’t it?”

“I won’t deny there were certain expectations growing up.”

“Ah yes, speaking of expectations…” The villain tilted his head expectantly.

“You won’t get away with this!”

“There we go. You will find, Agent Bonds, that I will very much get away with this. You will find it quite easily, considering that you are going to have a front-row seat.” Doctor Chia paused again. “Now would be the time to ask me to explain my nefarious plan, you know. I’d be happy to, really. The machine needs a bit more time to power up and I’d hate for you to spend your last moments of freedom in awkward silence.” He paused again, looking over the good twenty pounds of chains. “Well, relative freedom.”

The agent tilted his chin up defiantly. “I’ve already uncovered your scheme. You plan to bounce a gigantic hypno-ray off the surface of the moon to enslave everyone on the continent to your will.”

“Awww, no! Who blabbed? Come on, I thought we had this whole thing going on!” Doctor Chia gesticulated wildly, whining a little. “Really, who else am I supposed to gloat to about this? My minions? They built this thing! We have weekly meetings about the status of the evil world domination plot! I can’t just hold a speech to a bunch of mindless hypnotized slaves, it’s just not the same.”

“There will be no mindless slaves!” Agent Bonds glared at him, squirming a bit in his chains.

“Oh?” Doctor Chia leaned in. “And who is going to stop me? You?”

“What? Of course not, don’t be daft. I’m quite chained up down here.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh yes, completely immobile. Quite expertly, I might add, just tight enough to be uncomfortable but not so much to be mean. I have to commend whoever did this.” Agent Bonds wiggled a bit to demonstrate.

“Oh yes, that was probably Jim, he says he used to be a magician’s assistant… no, wait, no! If you’re not going to stop me, then who else is?!”

“That would be me.” The buxom blonde overseeing the console straightened up and turned around, gloved hands taking off her wig and sunglasses.

“An infiltrator! Impossible!” Doctor Chia paused. “Another infiltrator, I mean. Not to disparage the skills of Agent Bonds earlier. Apologies, I tend to get distracted.” He gasped dramatically. “Impossible! You’re–! ...I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Chrystine Fey, although you might know me as Agent Queen.” Chrystine tossed her dark green hair and posed with a hand on her hip.

“...doesn’t ring a bell, sorry. I mean, you’re a secret agency, you can’t expect every villain to just coincidentally have a list of your most relevant agents.”

Chrystine tapped her foot, glancing over at Agent Bonds. “And this guy was a threat enough to send out two teams?”

“Eh…” Bonds tilted his head back and forth lightly. “He’s very good at HR and delegating.”

“My apologies, the tangents.” Doctor Chia shook his head. “What did you do with Miss Moneypincher, fiend!” He paused again. “And what did you do with her dehydrationator, for that matter? Really, that thing was quite expensive to make and ah there it is.”

Agent Bonds rubbed the blood back into his wrists, looking between Agent Bishop towering over him with the gun in question and the small silver cube that used to be the steel chains. “You realize that dehydration doesn’t work like that, right?”

Tyrek raised an eyebrow. “Do you want them back?”

“Magic, not physics. I’m good.” Bonds held up his hands, standing up and stepping back.

“Well now, this isn’t going to plan at all.” Doctor Chia pouted, pulling out his phone. “Test test, ahem… GUARDS! TO THE MAIN CHAMBER!” He paused, tapping his foot a little impatiently before looking at the three agents again. “Give them a minute. It’s a big facility, they should be here any moment.”

There was another few seconds of silence before one of the doors opened with a soft whoosh, a single sharply uniformed guard marching out a few steps before coming to a stop with a salute, futuristic rifle at the ready.

“Excellent, excellent! Well, 2.3 percent of excellent. Where’s the rest?”

The guard paused, blinking and looking around in confusion… and then froze, twitching lightly before he fell over like a tree, thin cords at his back still connected to the taser held by the small figure of Agent Rook.

“Sorry about that, must’ve missed that one. I swear one always slips by.”

Chrystine tapped her foot. “Was that all of them, then? Can we finally wrap this up?”

Doctor Chia sputtered a little before straightening up and pulling out a key. “Fools! Even if you have defeated all my henchmen, you can’t stop my Infinite Moon Spiral Reflector Cannon without the emergency key!” He blinked, looking down at his empty hand. “Oh right, Miss Moneypincher had the Larceny Gloves on her, didn’t she? Well, you still don’t have the secret password necessary to oh no wait, I told you that one twenty minutes ago, didn’t I? Well, there’s still… no, that was a different secret lair. Hmm…” He paused again, thinking for a moment before looking up sheepishly. “I’ll profess, this is a little embarrassing. I swear this doesn’t usually happen.”

Agent Bond patted him on the shoulder, putting him in a pair of handcuffs before leading him off. “If it helps, you were really quite sporting. Definitely one of the most accommodating evil mad scientists I have worked against.”

“Why yes, naturally. It wouldn’t do to be impolite just because you’re nefarious. You know, my mother always said…”

The three remaining agents watched them disappear into the lair until Suzy piped up. “So… we’re done here, then?”

Tyrek cracked his neck. “I’d say so. Someone else can take this whole mess apart. I think that guy has a partner with a whole crew at base for that stuff, Municipal or something.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Let’s go, I’m starving.” Chrystine shrugged and headed down towards the nearest door, leaving the other two to catch up.

Suzy grinned. “Well, it’s my turn to pick! I think I saw an Ukrainian restaurant in the town we passed through on the way.”

Tyrek snorted. “You know, some people will get concerned over your weird obsession with horse-meat-based dishes.”

“So? What are they going to say? We’re humans now, it’s cultural or something.” Suzy waved off. “Besides, you don’t hear me complain when Chrys drags us along every time she sees someone sell fried crickets, or all the money you spend ordering yak steaks and lizard-on-a-stick.”

Chrystine smirked, showing a hint of fangs. “What can I say. It’s a taste of home.”