As far as the natives to the magical land of Equestria were concerned, Mount Everhoof was the frozen desolate wasteland known to all of ponykind. This infamy was particularly impressive when one recalled that the entirety of the region of Equestria's Frozen North was already somewhat of a cold and desolate wasteland to begin with. The only nations that dared reside within the region were not actually Equestria proper, but rather two that were it's allies. These nations were the Yaks of Yakyakistan, who were all born in thick hairy blankets, and the shiny Crystal Ponies of the Crystal Empire. Said magical crystalline ponies were protected by the Crystal Heart, an ancient magical artifact that harnessed the love and hope of the Empire's citizens in order to shield them from any would-be invaders and conquerors. Granted, the questionable location may risk the Empire's demise-by-blizzard should said magical artifact ever break, but in all fairness, the lands of and surrounding Equestria were already the sort where one could find magical artifacts by tripping over them accidentally.
Such powerful artifacts were, as expected, quite dangerous in the wrong hooves, and required more precaution than being publicly displayed for others to fuel with their admiration. With the isolated Mount Everhoof being so far removed from what little civilization the North had, hiding an extremely dangerous magical artifact at the peak of the mountain was a foregone conclusion. After all, what beings would dare brave such harsh conditions in the pursuit of power?
"BETRAYAL!"
The very same beings who were already dedicated to invading and conquering, and desired a dollop of snow-cold revenge on the side.
The specific being who shouted with extreme anger and prejudice was that of one overthrown, now former Queen Chrysalis. The changeling visually resembled an equine, much like how demonic insects visually resembled the average Joe. The legs of her tall black hooves had as many holes as the Swiss-cheese jokes others typically made about them, the length of her horn were twisted and sharp, and a bite of her fangs was absolutely worse than her already very-bad-bark. There was also her literal insect wings, the chitin underneath said wings, and the eyes whose green sclera burned as brightly as the green flames she used to fell many an enemy in the past.
"Not betrayal, teamwork!"
Said eyes were currently pointed in the direction of one of the other horrific villains Chrysalis found herself reluctantly tolerating: some random five year-old pegasus upstart who thought far too highly of herself due to somehow stealing all of the magic in Equestria. How the conniving little pony had managed such a feat for a grand total of three days, the Queen did not find herself particularly concerned for the details. Though given that it had been the ponies that ultimately convinced her entire kingdom- her own kind- to betray her, Chrysalis supposed she should not have been surprised to see history to repeat itself with the filly who called herself Cozy Glow. Ponies had a habit of courting treachery and betrayal, it seemed. If even the changeling subjects she had guided for centuries would betray her, why had Chrysalis expected any different from a pony who would willingly do the same to the ponies she (presumably) grew up around?
The salmon-pink filly continued to speak, her curly light-blue mane and dumb bow bouncing with excitement as she spoke, sinister cunning cutting through her sharp scarlet eyes.
"If Tirek absorbs your energy, he might be strong enough to break through the barrier."
The random child (honestly, thought Chrysalis, why was she here again?) gestured to the self proclaimed 'Lord' Tirek, who was the third and final member of the villain's unusual trio. Centaurs were far from a common sight anywhere near Equestria, since the species largely preferred to keep to themselves in the distant Nether Lands.
The true Lord Tirek was frail and elderly, his coat greying. His torso was covered in black fur, which became red as it reached his arms and head, not unlike a vest of pony clothing. Both a thousand years of imprisonment in Tartarus and using dark magic to drain others of their magic against their will tended to have a negative impact on one’s health. It was only after the ancient evil known as Grogar generously provided Tirek with but a tiny portion of his magic as a snack that's Tirek's physical physic had grown...acceptable. The centaur that stood before the Queen now was tall and young, his coat's colors deep and vibrant. He had the body of a Saddle Arabian horse, with white hooves and a white tail complementing a silver coat. Silver bracelets around his wrists shinned the same color as his neck and nose rings, with Tirek’s head reminding the changeling queen of a goat somewhat. His pitch black eyes had glowing yellow irises, accentuated by his small beard and short but sharp horns.
Though said centaur looking at Chrysalis as though she were a five star buffet did not do much to curb her concerns of betrayal. She was the one who drained others of their essence around here! That had been her ability first!
“Better idea,” spoke the Queen. “Why don’t I just drain you two of your love here and now, and leave you here!”
The centaur frowned, crossing his arms, whereas the pony merely shook her head. “We’re villains, remember? Who do we love enough that would give you any kind of power, never mind the power you'd need to break that barrier?”
The Queen reluctantly conceded the point. Changelings were biologically required to eat love itself in order to stave off their hunger, but gouging on a particularly large source of love could boost a changeling’s magic immensely.
Secretly stealing Shining Armor's love for Princes Cadence for only a few days gave me quite the edge over even the likes of Princess Celestia. I invaded and conquered the capitol of Equestria once before, and I will do so again!
“Of course,” Cozy spoke, “if you’d rather do what the rest of your subjects did and give sharing love a try…”
“I would sooner be cut into pieces than live a single second as a reformed changeling! Honestly, the arrogant audacity of such a naming convention! For centuries the lands of Equestria and beyond have been full of monsters and warlords with the power to crush you with but a thought! Everything we've done, we've done to force the world to bend to our whims as it’s superiors, and now we have to bend over backwards to conform to the whims of others!? Change ourselves entirely? Bah!”
The other two creatures had shared an uneasy glance at one another as she spoke. That was good. The Queen should be feared!
The pony spoke up first. “Uh, yeah, preach it Chrysi!”
“Never call me that!” Shouted Chrysi.
“Just think about it. You help us get Grogar’s Bell, and you won’t ever need to share love for power! Scout’s honor! Even if never starving ever again sounds way more appealing…”
“I heard that, you little whelp!”
“Eep! Which is totally why you should show me what for once we get that bell!”
“Your idea of showing you what for is that I just stand around and let Tirek drain me of my magic!”
“Yup.” Cozy nodded.
“And then what, he gives it back?” Asked the Queen with absolutely no sarcasm whatsoever.
“Yup!” Cozy yupped.
Tirek was far more surprised than he should have been, if anyone asked Chrysalis. Not like any fool bothered to these days... “I do?”
Chrysalis gestured a hoof towards the greedy centaur. “See! You can’t expect me to believe he’ll give it back!”
“Golly, would we really do that to you?”
The queen, who had been betrayed by others, merely looked at the centaur who, at different points of his life, either had been betrayed by others or had been the one to betray others, and rolled her eyes as she gestured towards the pony who totally betrayed others. Yes, even when you discounted the fact that she was a pony!
“Okay normally, yes, we’d happily do that. But,” the filly said as she had flew way too closely within the Queen’s personal space, “the only way we’re breaking that barrier is the same way we climbed up this dumb mountain to begin with! Together!”
Aside from a sigh, Tirek did not protest further, instead adopting a diplomatic tone. “I promise to not keep your magic for myself and to give it back to you.”
“…fine. Do it.”
Tirek’s horns began to glow as he activated his magic and opened his mouth, while Chrysalis’s horn glowed against her will, the Queen instinctively attempting to cease her horn’s functions. The emerald magic that flowed out of Chrysalis’s horn shifted to Tirek’s amber orange as every part of him grew in both height and size. His muscles grew, his horns sharpened, and even his beard had became much longer.
Chrysalis, meanwhile, found herself closing her eyes in pain as she fell over backwards into the snow. Even opening them was painful…
“So. Much. Power!” Meanwhile, Tirek was having the time of his life, finally feeling like he was at full strength again. He looked as his improved biceps with pride, giving his arm a ‘hello baby, did you miss me?’ kiss.
He gleefully turned to the barrier, fully intending to burn it all away. “Welcome back, baby!” Gathering his improved magic, Tirek fired all the power he possibly could, burning an ever-expanding hole in the barrier. The barrier immediately shrunk the hole, preventing it from growing larger than Tirek’s head.
Frustratingly, Tirek was forced to admit that even with his current state of power, he was not strong enough to make the hole any bigger, much less destroy the barrier outright. “It’s not big enough for me to fit!”
“Maybe not for you!” Cozy shouted, flying towards the hole and into his magic.
Straining himself, Tirek attempted to guide his magic around the impulsive filly so that she didn’t burn herself into a crisp. Corpses were repulsive when anything remained.
“Just keep it open, or I’ll be stuck here forever!” And with that, Cozy Glow flew within the peak of Mount Everhoof.
Chrysalis could barely raise her head. “Ugh, would that be so terrible?” Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so weak and feeble. Starving had felt better than this!
Tirek couldn’t stop herself from chuckling, the jest humorous to him, though he couldn’t afford to do so for long, having to refocus his efforts on an already shrinking barrier.
“Can’t…hold…much…longer…”
What was taking Cozy so long?
Cozy was starting to see why nature lovers hiked so much.
The cave walls were covered in carvings of lines and symbols that illuminated with an almost otherworldly blue light, keeping the cave illuminated in a beautiful light no matter how deep within it she went. She vaguely recognized a bunch of the strange patterns. Some other language, perhaps? It was unfortunate that Cozy didn’t have the luxury of time to study them any further. Oh well. That’s what gaining more power and coming back later was for! And she'd do just that with Grogar's Bell! The source of power of The Father of Monsters himself!
At the end of the hallway, Cozy found herself in a very large chamber filled to the brim with statues of strange little...dolls? They certainly didn't look like the sort of terrifying monsters Grogar would have created, thousands of years ago. In fact, some of them looked almost as adorable as she was! Just what were these things?
Oh, there it was!
Up on a pedestal, Cozy found an ancient blue bell, torn by time and carved with what appeared to be an eye. She wasn’t quite sure what was on the pedestal itself, though. Was that one of the monsters created by Grogar instead? It was some sort of purple and gold biped creature, its arms raised in the air as it appeared to be screaming...whatever, none of this was her problem at the moment. Cozy immediately flew up to grab the bell, then booked it back towards the outside world as fast as her little filly wings could take her.
If Cozy had time to look back, she would have noticed that the statues within the chamber had begun to wildly glow all sorts of various colors. Every statue flashed its respective color over and over, before the chamber settled on the soft light of a now pink statue with polka dots and some kind of insect antenna. The colors withing the chamber began to shift randomly again, now settling on what appeared to be a cat, its eyes and whiskers piercing a striking neon green. Further shifting revealed a purple creature with what appeared to be butterfly wings, an orange creature with the tail of fox, a creature with a turtle shell glowing an even darker shade of green, a blue creature with what appeared to be the shape of a peacock’s plumage, and finally, the yellow glow of a statue that had what appeared to be the stripes and fuzz of a bee.
Finally, the statues had ceased glowing entirely, with only the pedestal’s light of the strange biped figure remaining. The bug and cat statues then began to glow the same purple and gold as the pedestal, before the light of everything died abruptly, darkness taking hold.
“HURRY UP IN THERE!” Shouted Lord Tirek quite loudly.
Just as the hole shrank entirely, the diminutive figure of Cozy Glow flew out of it as fast as she possibly could, crashing into a nearby snow bank.
Undeterred by the crash, Cozy raised her arms out of the snow, Grogar’s Bell within them. “Ta-da!”
The Queen didn’t celebrate just yet. “My magic,” she, ugh, begged.
Tirek frowned towards his bicep as he flexed it. Was he going to simply walk away?
He looked towards Chrysalis, began yet another deep sigh, and released his magic as he exhaled, his arms dropping as he shrank.
Chrysalis found herself able to flap her wings once more, taking flight to bring herself back to her four hooves as her magic flowed into her horn, green as ever. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say she felt even better than before her magic was drained!
…she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She was glad her magic was returned to her, sure, but something about the action still nagged at her somehow.
“I…” she began. “I wasn’t sure you were going to give it back.”
“Neither was I,” replied the centaur, who looked rather befuddled at himself. He put a hand to his head as he wracked his mind for an explanation. “But working together seemed smarter than continuing to fight one another.”
“When we helped each other,” spoke the pony, “it felt better somehow.” The pony looked back and forth between each of her companions, pondering the thought.
“I haven’t felt like this since before I lost my hive,” Chrysalis thought out loud. “Having others who will be there for you is…pleasing.”
“All these years,” Tirek admitted, “taking power from ponies…
“When you use your power to help others…” began Cozy.
“Yes,” Chrysalis continued. “It feels…”
She went numb, her insides now as cold as her surroundings. It felt nice!
The Queen within her warmed up immediately, her blood boiling with anger. “NO! NOOOOOOOOOO!”
“What the- ”
“Gyah!”
Cozy Glow shook her whole body, attempting to wake herself up from whatever deluded daydream she had been thinking of. Tirek smacked himself in the head, wondering if he could beat the insanity out of himself. Chrysalis stomped her hoof and prowled around the others, her body tensed as she inspected her present company, assessing if she was surrounded by fellow predators or easy prey.
“The Magic of Friendship is a disease! Like an infection that will always spread without a cure!” The Queen turned away, inspecting the various holes on her legs. “I watched it infect my hive. I will not allow it to infect me, not now, not ever!
“Same.” Concurred the filly.
“Obviously.” Stated the centaur.
“But…” Chrysalis whipped her head towards Cozy with impressive speed. “Uh, isn’t that what Grogar wants? The three of us working together?”
“Grogar is far too powerful and far too arrogant, using us as his lapdogs for weeks!” The Queen declared. “Something must be done about him. Allow Grogar to think his methods are successful, and that we are whipped. We’ll hatch a plan to deal with him in the meantime.”
“Oooo, I love a good backstabbing!” Cozy had actually mimed the action of stabbing another, the bloodthirsty little freak.
“After that, the three of us can go back to destroying one another!” Yelled an-all-too-proud-to-declare-that Tirek.
“So, what do we even do with this?” Cozy asked as she continue to hold Grogar’s Bell.
It was Tirek who had a plan. “I can hide it within the lair very well. Grogar already thinks lowly of us to begin with, so why not allow him to think we’re that incompetent for the time being.”
“A satisfactory deception. While Grogar thinks we failed his task to retrieve his bell, we can gather more information on how to use it, and use Grogar’s own creation against him!” shouted Chrysalis.
“Oh golly!” said an overjoyed Cozy Glow. “This is going to be great!”
"This is bad, isn't it."
If Queen Chrysalis wasn’t frozen in shock, she would have agreed with Cozy Glow. The trio’s agreed-upon plan had gone off the rails the second they took action and used Grogar's own bell against him.
It was rather difficult to betray a returned ancient warlord and drain him of his magic when the ancient warlord had never actually returned to begin with.
"Wait, Discord was Grogar?! Like, the whole time? Should we follow him?"
"Without magic, he's no threat. Besides, we have plans..."
It was fortunate that the bell already had plenty of magic from the real Grogar within it, as Discord’s chaos magic was, well, chaotic, having a uncontrollable mind of its own.
Before the Queen could curse the Spirit of Chaos for disguising himself as Grogar and escaping (it wasn’t as if it was her own fault that the three of them let Discord go free, much less her own fault for not destroying her enemies on the spot instead of wanting to watch them suffer) the heroes of Equestria took action against the villains that threatened it.
The massive army that stood before them were not just the kingdom’s usual heroes, or even its dedicated rulers and Royal Guard. It was one that contained all of the average, everyday citizens of Equestria, who had crawled out of the collective woodwork to make a united, last stand against the evil that threatened their comfortable lives of peace.
Worse, it was not simply the ponies of Equestria that had joined forces against those that were not kind. No, it was also the dragons, who were thought to be too brutish and confrontational to be loyal. It was also the yaks, who were too idiotic and violent to offer honest aid. It was also the hippogriffs, once too cowardly to do anything but run and hide from danger rather than laugh in its face as they did now. It was also the griffons, a species too greedy and selfish to understand friendship amongst even their own fellow griffons.
It was also her changelings. Her own subjects, that she had looked over for centuries, stealing the love of all other beings in order to feed so that they would survive and thrive as the dominant beings they once were, before The Traitor instead insisted on generously sharing love instead of stealing it. It was The Traitor who who managed to persuade all changelings to shed their old forms, proud and fearsome that they were, forms proficient at striking fear and terror into the hearts of easy prey, to instead turn them into…
Turn them into…
If she could have, the Queen would have shuddered. The current forms of the ‘reformed’ changelings were so horrifying, even she was unsettled. Instead, she stood there and allowed herself to be struck by a giant blast of rainbow light. The combined, ugh, Magic of Friendship from all do-gooders present had managed to overwhelm Equestria’s Most Wanted and strip them of the majority of their magic, severely crippling and weakening them.
Grogar’s Bell was now out of reach as well, having been knocked aside, if not destroyed outright by the blast.
Queen Chrysalis was forced to pick herself up from the ground, finally noticing that the enhanced exoskeleton the bell had granted her was normal once more.
Again, she thought. These fools stole my power once again!
The Queen snarled, and made her anger known. That the other two had begin to cower was of no concern to her! "You think friendship will save you?! We will always return! Nothing, and I mean NOTHING will ever stop us from- !"
A giant cupcake stopped them.
The Queen wasn't entirely sure that was what had fallen on top of her, but she recognized the scent of one. The cupcake even had the audacity to smell delicious, damn it all!
Chrysalis attempted to pick herself up so that she could stand tall once more. She could barely rise her own head up when it was squashed to the ground by several tons of cooked cupcake batter!
"I will not be humiliated time and time again by such mockery!" She grumbled.
"It happened again," Tirek stated morosely. "Even with new powers amassed, it was taken away just as easily at it was gathered." Was Chrysalis detecting...hopelessness? That the centaur had already given up? No! As if she would allow these ponies to steal another ally from her! There had to have been a way out of this mess!
"I HAVE AN IDEA!" Shouted the filly.
She really was desperate for some sort of solution, wasn't she? "Really Cozy? An idea for when the three of us have lost not only the magic of Grogar- the true Grogar, but our own as well? Lord Tirek is back to looking old and decrepit, and you no longer posses a horn!"
"The big T and I lost our magic, sure- "
"Do not call me that."
"-but you're still a changeling Chrysi!"
"Didn't I tell you to never call me that?"
"You bugs don't just steal and absorb love so that you don't all starve to death! You do it to make your magic even stronger! For you Chrysi, the love that you steal becomes power! Magic! You can help us escape our enemies!"
"What a wonderful way of stating the obvious, little Cozy. There's just one oversight- there's no love around to steal that could help us escape! The second I try, some other creature will simply stop me!"
She couldn't see it, but Chrysalis could still feel the little one roll her eyes. Cozy replied, "That's why you have to get it from me and Tirek. But that still won't be enough love, we’re villains! It’s not like when Tirek steals magic. If we want a big enough boost to make it out of this, you need to willingly share your love with us!"
WHAT.
"Are you ponies so obsessed with betrayal that you'll have me betray myself? I will not permanently disfigure myself into what my traitorous subjects have now become!"
"You won't!" Cozy insisted. "Because when the act of sharing love tries to transform you, Tirek will absorb the magic of the transformation instead to bulk himself back up!"
Tirek spoke up, a certain edge returning to his voice. "I think I see where you're going with this. Such a surge of magic would give me more than enough power to teleport us for a retreat!"
"Are you certain this won't infect me with friendship? The three of us are not friends, and we will most certainly not love one another!" She would not allow it! "What love would we even share?!"
"You can absorb any kind of love, right?" Asked Cozy.
"Naturally. It comes in many forms."
"Well, what do the three of us love doing?"
The Queen stared. “You cannot seriously believe such a loophole would work.”
“Why wouldn’t it? You just said love comes in many forms, and as far as absorbing love goes, you’re the expert! Who else could manage it but the Queen of all changelings? If you really think about it, that makes you the Queen of Love itself!”
“…you swear this will not disfigure me.”
“I promise! Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”
“What nonsense are you rambling about now? There’s already cupcake everywhere!”
“Exactly!”
The Queen frowned at the bizarre promise, no doubt some other ridiculous pony tradition. She had no intention of changing her true self, but was sacrificing her freedom worth the risk of not doing so?
”THIS IS THE DOOZY OF ALL PINKIE PROMISES!”
Gah, now her ears were ringing! Worse, the sheer volume of that shout had caused the cupcake to begin shaking! What even was a Pinkie Promise?!
“Both of you,” shouted Tirek, “focus on that moment we agreed never to talk about on Mount Everhoof! When we worked together to further our evil goals!”
“Oh whatever,” replied Chrysalis, “let’s just get this over with!”
The Queen took a deep breath, forcing her mind to return to what was undoubtedly a cursed moment of history between the three of them.
That Cozy Glow and Tirek had kept their word and chose not to leave her on that mountain. That for once in her long life, she willingly chose to trust others, and rather surprisingly, that trusting others hadn’t immediately proven to be her undoing. That it had felt…nice, to continue working with those two afterwards.
That the three of them would always survive.
The Queen shook her head, and declared boldly, "I have always loved revenge. As well as the feeling of crushing my enemies beneath my hooves!"
The Lord flexed his body, clenching his hands into fists. "I love taking the power of others for myself, to grow as powerful as I please!"
The self-proclaimed Empress' wings were fluttering, as she proclaimed, "I love manipulating others to further my plans! Lots and lots of plans!"
"If there is one trait we all share..." Chrysalis began.
"Something the three of us love doing..." Tirek continued.
"Then by badness, it's how much we hate everypony else!" Finished Cozy.
Such statements would not be considered by others to be declarations of love. But even love could grow to be twisted instead of pure, and no other creature around was as twisted as these three.
Deciding that such a twisted form of love was 'good enough', Chrysalis' heart shrugged and began to glow with love, as did the hearts of Tirek and Cozy Glow, the love in their three hearts beginning to connect with one another.
This was it then, the Queen mused. The reformation metamorphosis that claimed every other changeling alive was beginning to claim her as well. And yet, she could not find it in herself to hate it any longer. In all her years, her hunger hadn't felt so full, so satisfied. Not even a single pang of it remained!
"Now Tirek," Cozy said, interrupting the Queen's musings. "Do it now!"
Chrysalis shook her head. Reformation was already getting to her! Luckily, Tirek had begun to call upon his parasitic abilities once more.
The sensation of Tirek draining her magic wasn't as familiar as she thought it would be, given how the first time she allowed it went. Instead of draining her magic, Tirek seemed to be somehow absorbing her love directly! Even with her limited vision at the moment, Chrysalis could see that the combined strings of pink light that flowed from their collective hearts had split off into a new string leading back to TIrek.
"Curious, but I'm loving the results! HA-HA!" The centaur lord's old and decrepit body had begun to grow once more, as love, already being converted into magic, was again converted into life energy that revitalized his physical form to levels of increasing bulk. His body had grown taller, his wrinkles vanished as though the sands of time were reversed, and his familiar muscles took shape once again.
"Golly, what would you two do without me!" The whose-pony-was-this-anyways said smugly.
If she were a changeling, I'd be promoting her right now!
Once again, before the Queen could further reflect on her current thoughts, the three found themselves relived of the burden that was the weight of the crushing cupcake, as said cupcake was suddenly blown up by magic, its remains fading from existence.
Able to stand tall once more, the trio looked in front of them to see that they now faced the gobsmacked surprise of two of Equestria's princesses- the elder sister of the daytime, Princess Celestia, and the younger sister of the nighttime, Princess Luna. Even more satisfying was the face of sheer shock that was on the expression of Discord, who had annoyed the Queen at every turn due to his incompetence when she still thought him to be Grogar.
What had been the purpose of such a deception, anyways?
"HA!" Shouted the pink filly, who looked absolutely victorious over their many enemies despite the crushing failure she experienced just minutes before, and pointed a gray hoof towards said enemies.
...why was Cozy’s hoof now gray?
"HOW DO YOU LIKE US USING YOUR OWN TRICKS AGAINST- ?!" Cozy Glow had suddenly cut herself off with an uncharacteristic shriek of horror that had ~~caused Chrysalis to worry~~ assaulted the Queen’s hearing.
The Queen turned to face her ally, and in what was already the standard trend for her these days, found her emotions flooded by overwhelming anger and hatred towards her enemies.
Cozy Glow was being turned to stone. Chrysalis turned to warn their other ally, "Tirek, she's- "
"I know, us too!” The centaur's expression looked murderous, even as the rest of him was turning to stone as well. It was only when the petrification reached his glowing heart that the spell had met resistance, being forced to instead petrify around it. “It's messing up my spell into something else!" The Queen looked to herself, and found that she was becoming a statue as well!
"JUST DO IT NOW!" Cozy shouted, raising her head as though drowning, stone crawling across her neck.
Tirek gritted his teeth. There was no longer any choice left to be made, as the sparks of magic that attempted to petrify them had begun to clash with the teleportation spell he was attempting to cast. "HANG ON!"
If looks could kill, the Queen would no longer have any enemies. As it were, she was too angry to register that the magic surrounding them had now intensified in a bright light. She could not see the surprise on any of the faces of the naive heroes that opposed them, no doubt shocked that the trio had reduced themselves to sharing love in order to survive.
Instead, as the trio attempted to grab onto one another, the Queen played one last card. Whether or not they survived, her parting gift would be unwrapped. She highly doubted all of the allies of Equestria knew the truth of how their current situation started, anyways.
With a stomp of her now-stone hoof, she turned to face what she assumed to be the disfigured body of Discord one last time. "Discord! You will regret disguising yourself as Grogar to unite us!
Before she could see him (or any creature present) form a reply, she felt an odd combination of Tirek's magic, the Princesses’, Discord’s and some other form of magic entirely take hold of her, and after a flash, her enemies saw…no one. There were no longer any empowered villains ready to make a desperate last stand, nor were there any statues of petrified, defeated evil.
The only sign that anything had ever been there at all had been black, burnt grass.
The boisterous battlefield fell silent, attempting to rationalize what they had just witnessed. It was the reformed changelings who were most of all rattled to their very core. The sight of their former Queen, who had proudly rejected the act of sharing love in the name of revenge, was now willingly doing so with two other villains as vengeful as she was.
Wasn't sharing love suppose to mean shedding the old ways entirely?
A reformed, light blue changeling with a pink sparkly mane and what appeared to be a ladybug carapace surrounding her wings had been the first to break the silence. "Did Chrysalis...and Cozy...and Tirek...and, and, and-"
“Ocellus, breath.”
“DID THEY JUST SHARE LOVE?!"
A brown yak next to her followed this question, turning towards the adult ponies near her and asked, "What do villains mean, Discord was Grogar?"
One of the adults had begun to speak up, but an orange dragon snorted and unknowingly interrupted. "Guys, who do you think we’re talking about here? Professor Applejack? That was probably just a lie to mess with us."
Some of the adults cringed, and one attempted to speak up before being interrupted yet again, this time by a dark blue griffin. "I'm more surprised Cozy was even capable of love at all," he said with surprise, "considering how backstabby and crazy she turned out to be."
A pink hippogriff voiced her concern before the adults could try again. "I don't think I've ever seen anycreature so scared, ever! Not since the Storm King forced us into hiding years ago!”
A green, young earth pony shook his head and sighed, failing to notice that one of his elders had begun to hyperventilate. (Or, as the radical youth of Equestria would say these days, performed a Class Five 'Twilight-ing.’) “Where in Equestria did they even teleport to?"
In the morning hours of the daytime, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was a normal girl with a normal life.
It was just a shame that for her, normal meant a lot of things. It was normal for her to stay up far later than reasonable for any other fourteen year old girl. It was normal for her to sleep past her many, many alarm clocks meant to prevent the very normal scenario of Marinette being late for the beginning of the school day. Again.
This was almost normal until one remembered that Marinette only lived across the street from her school.
Her friends often joked it would be abnormal if she ever showed up to anything on time. Ha! If they ever knew just how abnormal that would be...
Rushing out the door of her home, Marinette rushed over to the crosswalk, looked both ways, and committed jaywalking. In her defense, it's not like the streets of Paris were normally full of cars that would run her over. That had only nearly happened to her that one time at the beginning of the school year, back when normal actually meant normal, and not Many Things™.
Either way, it was still normal for her to nearly trip walking up the school's stairs when she arrived at the entrance, since Marinette was normally a klutzy girl whenever she was out of her element. Since Marinette was late, the giant doors of her school were to be locked shut, but thankfully were still unlocked and therefore had opened when she threw her hands out to push.
(Marinette could practically hear the puns he would say. Those hands really come in handy! I've got to hand it to you, my lady! It looks like you've got a handle on today's situation! His big ego could never know she imagined him making so many puns, even if he already caught her laughing at them occasionally.
And even indulging in making the rare, not at all usual pun. And providing witty comebacks to his antics. And the occasional tease. All part of the job, of course! Not that she had a job. Not that jobs weren’t normal, but if she ever did have a job, it would be a normal job. Everything about her was normal!
...even in her own head, she rambled.)
Marinette nearly tripped again when she stumbled past the door, then ran up even more stairs, because the architects who built Paris really liked tall buildings and stairs. Finally reaching the front door of her classroom, Marinette allowed herself a rare moment to take a breather. Then, she opened the final door needed for yet another day of school at Françoise Dupont.
Huh. All of her classmates were seated in seats that were not normally their assigned seating. Not just all of her normal classmates, in fact. (Wait, was that Lila Rossi? What was she doing here? Had that liar finally gotten tired of lying to ditch class, that lying little…liar!) Today, everyone was looking towards an unfamiliar girl at the front of the room.
Or at least they were, until they all turned towards Marinette herself, the newcomer included. Thrown even more out of her element, Marinette's state of mind defaulted towards assessing whatever unusual situation she found herself facing this time, and turned towards the presumably new student.
Said student was short. Not as much as the miniature Alix, but definitely about Rose’s height. Shorter than Marinette herself, at any rate. She had to tilt her head down to get a good look at the mystery girl.
Said mystery girl had an eye color that was very much not normal- Marinette couldn’t quite tell if the girl's irises were pink or red, either of which would have been a rather unusual color for one’s eyes. (Those colors weren't completely unheard of, mind you- Juleka had eyes marginally closer to red than brown.) Marinette could see (not a pun!) that the unknown girl's eyes were looking back at her, making a distant part of Marinette note that said girl was very much aware of Marinette studying her appearance closely and had decided to study Marinette’s in kind.
The new girl had freckles on her cheeks, far more prominent than the minor freckles Marinette had above her nose. She had blue hair as well, but said hair was a lighter shade of the day sky’s light blue color as opposed to Marinette’s own dark blue hair of the night sky. Unlike her own signature pigtails, the other girl had her hair done up in many, many curls, wrapped up with a rather beautiful looking bow. The rest of her outfit matched said bow in terms of quality- a simple pink dress (bouffant, perhaps?) with white frills, wrapped with a bow identical to the one on the girl’s head. The girl's fancy look was complete with matching socks and plain Mary Janes for footwear.
By the time Marinette had finished studying the other girl, said girl had, coincidentally or otherwise, stopped studying Marinette's appearance herself, blinked, and offered her both a smile and a handshake.
“Golly, you must be the Marinette Miss Bustier mentioned! My name’s Cozetta Glasgow, but my friends just call me Cozy!”
Author's Note
Tossing my hat into the Legion of Doom ring. Obviously, the best course of action for that was a crossover. For any fans of Miraculous Ladybug just joining us, The Legion of Doom were the endgame villains in all of the long running cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. We all thought it'd be a guy named Grogar, but Grogar turned out to be a red herring because ~~the writers wanted a shocking plot twist in the series finale~~ Discord wanted to encourage Friendship is Magic protagonist Twilight Sparkle to be a more confident ruler when she inherits the throne. By, you know, gathering a team of supervillains, some of which were safely locked away in prison (and thus had to be busted out), to kill her. Duh.
Naturally, Discord is the one that gets the final say for some reason and turns the trio into stone, show's over, the end. No seriously, that's how the last season of FiM ends. This was as controversial as you think it would be, as Discord himself is not only one of the show's many reformed villains, he's the only example of a villain who didn't want to be reformed, but was offered a chance to do so anyways and grows into being one of the good guys, embracing the ideals of friendship over the earlier seasons. Every other reformed villain in FiM showed some level of remorse when they were defeated, even if some took an extra defeat or two to eventually get there.
The idea of reformation is also a hot topic in the Miraculous fandom, but more on that later. For any bronies unfamiliar, Miraculous Ladybug is, at the time of writing, a currently running 3D-animated magical girl/superhero made-in-France cartoon featuring a superhero duo in love with each other's secret identities. Ladybug and Chat Noir do not know each other's secret identities, however. This creates a love triangle featuring only two people, dubbed by the fandom the 'love square.' Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug, but she doesn’t accept because her secret identity is in love with Chat’s secret identity, who isn’t aware cause he’s in love with Ladybug…you can see where this is going. There's more to Miraculous than that, but the love square is the main gimmick/draw of the show, and we'll be seeing plenty more of what else the Miraculous world has to offer in the future. A couple of fun facts in the mean time!
- The Mount Everhoof scene was somewhat lifted directly from the episode 'Frenemies.' I changed the dialogue up a bit to be context friendlier for anyone who has never seen an episode of FiM before. If you have seen the original episode, you might be able to spot how and when this story diverges from that one. We also never get to see the cave Cozy goes into, so I took some creative liberties there as well.
- Cozy Glow is arguably the only villain in FiM that doesn't have any form of backstory whatsoever. She’s also the only one that’s the show’s original target audience, a little girl. Hooray?
- Grogar’s Bell doesn’t actually get destroyed in the original episode, nor does that happen here. It just falls to the ground and rolls over until Pinkie Pie picks it up and gets phenomenal cosmic power very briefly. A Pinkie Promise was never made in the original episode, however, nor should one be done lightly. A Pinkie Promise is serious business.
- Poor Ocellus. We get to see this young changeling live through her greatest fear in the show- being turned into Queen Chrysalis. She didn't deserve overcoming that fear only to see it come back and slap her in the most jarring way possible, and I doubt the other reformed changelings are having better luck in that department. Sadly, the butterfly effect is cruel and uncaring.
- In the original finale, Twilight Sparkle already managed to gather immense confidence in herself. It’s ironically the plan meant to make her more confident going wrong that shatters that confidence like stones in a glass house. Naturally, she managers to get her groove back by the end of the episode. However, an unintended consequence of the trio not only escaping in this timeline, but how much of a spectacle doing so caused? Well, she’s a lot like Marinette when it comes to stress, much like Marinette is a lot like Twilight when it comes to stress. They’re both very…imaginative.
- I will make an annoying amount of parallels between characters of both series, no matter how much of a reach that'll be.
