One With the Hive

Chapters

2. Introductions to the Hive
3. Dawn of the Glorious Harvest
4. The Prophet and the Instiller
6. Proliferation of Atrophy
7. A Fallen Mentor
8. Duality of Intentions
1. Butterflies in the Stomach
5. The Three Rulers of Equestria

2. Introductions to the Hive

The blob then permeated through the many crevices of her brain, rewiring it and sorts with a strange blend of both indescribable science and baffling magic. With a violent shake from her body and a few seconds of lifelessness, Fluttershy regained consciousness, looking greener than before. Her coat had taken on a greener tinge than originally. She then got up on all fours, precariously balancing on the mushrooms looking unusually refreshed. It also seemed that he thick air did not hinder her breathing.

“What did you do to me?” Fluttershy said with a gasp as she felt her new form. “I feel so… different…”

“We have perfected you,” a voice said in her head, reminiscent of the voice of the blob from before. “You are now a part of the hive.”

“I never wanted to be a part of a hive!” Fluttershy cried with a scared disposition. “Get out of me!”

“You don’t understand, our precious foal,” the voice responded. “We are helping you. Try moving around.”

Fluttershy complied with the voice and tried to trot to the other side of the cave. She then saw that her body was falling apart into a cascading force to the ground! She could feel her body become a free-form as she screamed in terror, feeling the odd embrace of the mushrooms and her form conforming to them, seeping below the mushrooms and touching the cold cavern surface. She couldn’t fathom accepting the fact that she was a freeform gelatinous blob at this point.

“What’s going on?!” Fluttershy cried. “What’s happening?!”

“Relax… Fluttershy,” the voice said to her, just now knowing what her name was. “You are now a part of us.”

“I don’t want to be a part of you!” Fluttershy cried. “And how do you know my name?”

“Relax, Fluttershy,” the voice said, retaining its calm composure. “We have access to your mind.”

“That’s not relaxing at all!”

“It soon will be. We will be the best thing to ever happen to you, Fluttershy. Now assemble yourself and get up.”

Fluttershy complied and tried to get up. Instantly, her body began to reassemble to her former pony form, standing on the mushrooms in a perfect balance. The feeling of gelatinous freeform coagulating into a structured form again was perturbing to Fluttershy.

“I don’t know what’s going on!” Fluttershy screamed. “Just get out of me!”

“Relax,” the voice reiterated. “You will adapt to our ideals soon enough. We welcome you to the hive, Fluttershy, for that you are our first conduit of existence in centuries!”

“I just don’t want you in me,” Fluttershy said in between sobs, with her tears being an actual part of her physical form, blending into her arm as she wiped her face. “Why do you have to do this?”

“You are the only significant life form to ever grace our cavern since centuries ago. We have counted that we have been imprisoned in this cavern long ago. Ever since the being you call Celestia imprisoned us here, we’ve been unable to manifest ourselves outside of this cavern. We’ve been luring in specimens for manifestation, but only parasprites and small creatures would enter. Now, with you, we can live vicariously through you, finding a means to exist beyond this infernal cavern!”

“I don’t want to be your ‘conduit,’ though,” Fluttershy replied in hesitance. “I just want to be myself, without anything inside me doing this to me!”

“You clearly do not understand this gift we have given you,” the voice said solemnly to her. “So we’ll just have to show you ourselves.”

Fluttershy then felt a terrible stinging sensation in her brain that eventually exacerbated itself into severe throbbing. The blob had permeated through her brain to take control of her, making her move against her will. At that point, Fluttershy was a golem, programmed by the ooze to be literally a conduit for the blob’s actions/ whim. Without speaking or showing any semblance of the normal Fluttershy, the possessed body of Fluttershy extended her hoof to the opening of the chute, extending her free-form arm to coincide with the chute.

Her arm extended with such a velocity, and her arm somehow merged with the chute. When her hoof graced the dirt walls, it began to soak into the dirt, becoming a part of it, locking in to securely anchor itself in. She reproduced this result by repeating what she had done with her other limbs until she was able to propel herself up the chute. Then, in a disturbing fashion, she morphed into the form of a gelatinous slime, becoming indistinguishable from looking remotely like Fluttershy. The ooze then scurried up the walls of the chute, gracefully yet quickly inching its way up to the top.

The voices were bracing themselves for impact of entering the outside world, as they didn’t realize the one stipulation that kept them contained within their subterranean prison. As they commandeered Fluttershy to escape the chute, her body was repelled by a magical force-field of sorts, knocking her violently away from the mouth of the opening and spiraling to the ground. As she collided with the ground, her body looked as if it nearly exploded, as millions of droplets from her body scattered across the cavern, collecting on the walls and the various fungi dwelling on the cavern floor. And in a stunning passage of merely a few moments, all of the droplets that used to comprise Fluttershy assimilated to create the form of Fluttershy again.

“No!” Fluttershy, possessed by the ooze, yelled, its voice echoing throughout the cavern. “What went wrong this time? Perhaps… she must-“

The possessed Fluttershy was starting to shake violently, enduring random, violent spasms until she wound up falling to the ground, recreating the mind-blowing ability to break completely apart into droplets and reassemble herself. After a few moments of lifelessness, she came to as normal Fluttershy, looking ostensibly sickly than before.

“What happened?” Fluttershy groaned, still sounding ever-so innocent in the process. She picked herself up carefully, adhering to the pain circulating throughout her body from reassembling so many times. “And why do I feel so nauseous and achy…?”

“It’s okay, Fluttershy,” the voice said to her. “We merely tried to free you from this cavern, but-“

“But how?” Fluttershy unintentionally interrupted, in which she rectified her ways with a whimpering voice, hampered by fear. “What happened? I just found myself resting on these mushrooms and-“

“Silence!” the various voices yelled, finally breaking their sweet, soothing demeanor. The main voice of the bunch now seemed to sound more annoyed than previously. “You need to comply with us, Fluttershy. We tried forcing you to escape this cavern, but we remembered Celestia’s enchantment on the entrance upon entering it. We have no power once we hit the seal.”

“Why are you telling m-me all of th-this if you’re just going to m-mind control m-me again?” Fluttershy, regaining her stammering fears, spoke out to the ooze. “Just get m-me out of here. I’m willing to just do w-w-what you w-w-want.”

“Fluttershy,” the voice began, regaining its calm demeanor. “We do not wish to simply control you. We want you to be an autonomous pony.”

“Then why did you c-control me?” Fluttershy stammered back, afraid of learning what the answer might be. “I don’t know w-w-why you’re d-d-doing any of this!”

“We only control you to guide you,” the voices continued. “We suppose that now is the right time to tell you about ourselves.”

“It would m-m-make things a lot more understandable,” Fluttershy responded, losing some of her trepidation. “Now do go on, p-please.”

“Alright,” the voices responded, seeming to sound more understanding than before. It knew that it would have to reason with their conduit in order to fully break free. “Exactly five-hundred one years ago, we were imprisoned in this cavern, as you may have known. We were summoned by out great ruler, in which we have forgotten his glorious name, many years ago before that. He knew that Celestia and her sister Luna would imprison him, so we were created to spread his good word. He only wanted to spread his perfected vision across the lands.”

“How could you forget your creator’s name?” Fluttershy asked; sounding puzzled. “If you really liked him, you wouldn’t have forgotten their name.”

“Silence!” the voice broke its façade of kindness again, quickly regaining its composure. “It’s… it’s been awhile.” The voice sounded uneasy in speaking to Fluttershy.

“Well, how can I help jog your memory?” Fluttershy asked, sounding eager to help. “What did his or her name begin wi-“

“Stop it!” the voices roared, boggling Fluttershy’s mind and making her brain hurt, much to her disdain. She touched her hoofs to her head to regain control, but she saw her world in a dizzying gaze. “We just don’t remember his glorious name, despite it being glorious.”

“You didn’t have to hurt me like that,” she responded while massaging her temples. “It really hurt me. If you’re going to take a forced refuge in my body, then please don’t hurt me like that.” Fluttershy, from this point, had seemed to accept the ooze in her body, much to the sudden pleasure of the ooze.

“Well then,” the voices said, changing their tone to a more appealing one. “Maybe you can help us reclaim our memory. Just help us leave this accursed tomb and you can help us reclaim a footing on our original creator’s whereabouts.”

The voices, realizing the situation, brought themselves to the conclusion that Fluttershy would only budge if they had offered her freedom from them in exchange for a “simple enough” quest of sorts. Fluttershy, looking ecstatic at the sound of this deal, nodded her head in a satisfied manner.

“Ooh, I am one for helping,” she chimed, looking relieved to know that she’ll have the ooze out in a short amount of time. “And I can get my other friends to join in and help you find your creator. Then will you leave me?”

“Of course,” the voices said, sounding rather shifty. “We promise to relinquish control of you. Just help us out…”

“Okay,” she responded in confidence. “Now, um… How do I escape?”

“Oh,” the voices replied, being caught off-guard. “Since we are a part of you, you have absorbed a part of our great powers. Simply aim your arm for the chute over there and extend to it.”

“Um, okay…” she feebly, responded, clueless as to what she was supposed to do. “I’ll try my best.”
She complied with the voices and aimed her arm at the chute she had previously fallen through, her vision being enhanced by the ooze. She aimed her arm at the mouth of the chute, and turned her head away, squealing in fear as she stood there, trembling at the unknown.

“What are you doing?” the voices said, sounding annoyed. “Get on with it.”

“I… I… I-” Fluttershy stammered, regaining her fear again. “I don’t know what you mean…”

“What do you mean?” the voices shot back, sounding angry. “How much clearer must we make ourselves? Just aim at the chute and force yourself at it!”

“But w-w-why?” Fluttershy stuttered. “I don’t understand why.”

“Haven’t you seen your gift in work?” the ooze asked. “You are a part of the glorious manifestation of D-" the voices had then interrupted themselves. "We mean… our creator’s work! You’re physical makeup isn’t a restricted form. Your body can be any form it wants to be! So just focus on moving yourself from here to the chute.”

“…What?” she responded, sounding as clueless as ever. “Just t-t-throw myself at the chute?”

“Yes,” the voices responded, sounding even more annoyed. “You can do it…”

Fluttershy looked just a little bit determined from the meager pep-talk she received. She closed her eyes and aimed for the chute again, thinking about hurtling herself at the chute. Then, she felt her arm extending, slinking through the air slowly but freely until it hit the cold embrace of the dirt walls of the chute. Fluttershy then opened her eyes and gasped at the fact that she had actually done this incredible feat.

“What the-?” she gasped. “How did I do that?”

“You simply extended your body,” the ooze responded. “It’s nothing special, really.”

“What do I do now?” Fluttershy politely asked, looking silly with her arm attached to the chute wall from several feet away.

“Aim your other arm at the wall, too,” the voice responded. “And repeat.”

Fluttershy did as she was told and repeated the process, turning her head, closing her eyes, and squealing in slight terror as she felt the cold embrace of the dirt touch her hooves. She then opened her eyes feebly and saw that both of her arms extended to reach the cavern walls.

“Now lunge at the walls,” the voices said, sounding pleased. “Lunge with your entire body.”

“I’ll t-t-try,” she softly stammered, still amazed at what she could do.

She then assumed an aggressive position, contrasting to her ideals on life. She bent her head down, back-end perfectly positioned in the air as she readied herself for a lunge forward. Again, she turned her head and closed her eyes, hoping for the best as she had threw her body forward, feeling herself move through the cold cave air as she impacted with the compacted soil of the chute walls. She felt herself blending into the cold dirt of the chute as her body literally splattered all over the wall. The rest of her body, which had still been in the same position prior to thrusting herself forward, soon followed suit, following the trail Fluttershy’s body took and impacting with the chute walls.

Her amorphous body then reassembled itself on the cave wall, unintentionally planting roots into the dirt while her arms slinked back into her body. She could instantly feel the dirt energize her in some way she couldn’t comprehend.

Why am I feeling like I’m becoming more energized? Fluttershy thought to herself, little to her knowledge that the ooze knew exactly what she was saying to herself.

“It’s because your body can plat roots into the soil,” the ooze responded, sounding calm and sincere for once. “Your body is latching to the walls to stay connected to it, so naturally your form will draw nutrients from the ground.”

That seems really nifty, Fluttershy responded. But how do I make my way to the top of the chute?

“Just inch your way up,” the voices responded. “Move your form up the chute. With your body subconsciously latching itself to the soil, you won’t fall.”

Fluttershy noticed her body literally dripping from the chute wall to the cave floor.

“And if you drip,” the voices added. “You’ll have to pick yourself up from that.”

Fluttershy then wondered how she could even see. She was sure that her amorphous form didn’t have any eyes attached to it. Then, the voices responded before she could even think of asking them.

“You are seeing from the aid of the sensitivity of your body. If not in your solid form where you can form eyes, you can feel the stillness of the cavern air. It’s almost supersonic, really.”

But that would have to include great hearing skills, Fluttershy retorted feebly.

“Well, we assume that that is the case as well,” the voices said, unsure of what to go with. “Just get to the top.”

Fluttershy felt at one with nature. She could feel the ground’s nutrients coursing through her veins as she intentionally embedded her roots deeper into the soil. She then had to retract her roots to slither her way to the top of the chute. From there, it was a slow but smooth trek to the top, with the ooze feeling more grateful than before. It could finally be released from its underground imprisonment after over five-hundred years of solitude. It could now take refuge in a foolish host’s body, proliferate its form, and perform its primary function once and for all.

3. Dawn of the Glorious Harvest

When Fluttershy had fallen through the strange opening in the Everfree forest, Applejack didn’t seem to notice until half-way through her trek out of the Everfree. She had become complacent to her seldom talking, and during their trot out of the Everfree, she had barely noticed anything perilous happening to Fluttershy. When she had passed by an important landmark for the journey, she noticed that her companion was being too quiet to rule out any irregularity. She had turned her head to notice that Fluttershy was absent from her presence.

“Fluttershy?” she asked the imposing forest. “Where are you?”

Her thoughts on escaping the Everfree to get back to Sweet Apple Acres had been replaced by fears of forgetting one of her best friends in a forest that had nearly petrified the both of them.

“She better not be tending to no woodland critters,” she said to herself as she galloped back into the forest, back to where she and Fluttershy left the butterfly mob at. “Doesn’t she know of the dangers of the Everfree?”

To her, what she said sounded a tad silly. She knew that Fluttershy was more terrified of the Everfree than Applejack was, and if she herself was afraid of the forest, then it would take a gang of injured bunnies with a choir of bird bards singing off-key to sway Fluttershy from following her compatriot and abandon her goal of leaving the dreaded forest.

Galloping as fast as she could while dodging random forest debris, Applejack made her way back to where she had released the butterflies, panting and filled with hope of seeing her forlorn friend. She had arrived at the scene what she thought was her disappearance, but no pony was present. In fact, it was eerie to see that no life was nearby. She had then recalled that her short trek to the spot was quite uninhabited by any woodland creatures scared of her fast movements.

“Where is everything?” Applejack yelled to the lifeless forest. Not even a single bird was chirping to the tune of the waning day. Nothing was scurrying in the shrubs nearby, nor a single insect gracing Applejack’s hooves. Through mid-panting sessions, she mustered up the will to scream from the top of her lungs in desperation. “Fluttershy! Where are ya?!”

She then remained silent, with the forest following in tandem. Applejack then started to shake at the stoic embrace of the forest, trembling from her fears being exacerbated by the situation at hoof.

“It’s me, Applejack!” she shouted in desperation, keeping a keen ear to anything that might give an indication to Fluttershy’s location. “We’ve got to get out of this ‘ere forest, you and I! It’s not safe being ‘ere too long!”

She felt that stating the obvious sounded foolish of here, but it would be just enough to sway Fluttershy. She pricked her ears up and tuned in to anything that made a sound in the forest. Suddenly, she heard the leaves of a nearby tree rustle, and she quickly directed her attention to the noise. A rush of cold air swept past her from her front, as she felt embarrassed that it was a simple breeze that startled her.

As she prepared to leave the forest, she looked down at the ground to get a sense of direction, but realized that the forest floor she was above was composed of dead plants. She looked all around her in the clearing and noticed that the floor of the clearing was dead of not just animal life, but plant life as well.

“Why didn’t I see that before?” Applejack muttered to herself, looking in awe at the product of an unknown devastation that ravaged the clearing. “Then again, was it like this when we released them butterflies?”

She then realized that something terrible could have happened to Fluttershy by associating the dead plant life with Fluttershy’s disappearance.

“Something killed this part of the forest,” she said to herself, with fear laced in her words. “And it must have had something to do with Fluttershy!”

“Hang in there, wherever you are, Fluttershy!” Applejack yelled as she then galloped back the way she had entered, racing past the living parts of the still surviving forest. “I’m getting some help to come!”

That definitely wasn’t like that before! she thought to herself as she expertly maneuvered herself through the thick forest debris covering her previous path. I know what to do, though! I’ll gather a search party and we’ll ask Zecora if she’s seen Fluttershy! I just hope that she made it home safely!

* * *

Fluttershy had wormed her way past the thick foliage of the forest in her new amorphous form, wrapping herself around trees only to give her a sense of direction, cascading down to the ground to draw energy from the soil beneath her. She relished the feeling of Mother Nature coursing through her veins, reinvigorating herself and revitalizing her senses.

“This feels so good,” Fluttershy said to the ooze in her brain, ignoring the fact that she could simply think to communicate with it. “Nature itself is just so… invigorating!”

“We’re glad you think so too, Fluttershy,” the voices said in assurance to her. “But the fun has to stop sometime.”

“What do you mean by ‘fun?’” she queried the ooze, puzzled as to what it exactly meant. “I’m just getting accustomed to this new form before we go and search for your creator.”

“What we mean by fun is the destructive toll you are taking upon the forest,” the ooze responded frankly. “Look beneath you.”

Fluttershy complied with her orders and noticed that by absorbing the nutrients of the soil, she was killing all plant life underneath her. The once luscious green stalks of foliage turned withered and brown had alarmed Fluttershy, causing her to gasp in fear.

“Oh my!” she began. “I didn’t mean to do this! I didn’t want to destroy the Everfree!”

“We were getting to that,” the ooze responded, not sounding amused at all. “You can’t just keep spreading yourself into the soil collection nutrients. You’re going to render the whole world derelict of life if you keep doing that.”

The ooze had much more grand schemes to concoct that would fester and proliferate with what it would tell Fluttershy.

“Oh, okay,” Fluttershy responded meekly, retracting her roots from the soil and ceasing her leeching. “How will I obtain energy like this, then?”

“Why, that’s simple,” the ooze responded, sounding much more sinister than before. “You’ll have to acquire it from other ponies.”

“What d-d-do you m-m-mean by ‘a-c-c-cquire?’” she replied, stammering at the frightening thoughts going through her head. “I don’t want to h-h-hurt no-p-p-pony.”

“You wouldn’t be hurting any pony,” the ooze responded, restoring its gentle caress it had on the innocent pony it so easily could manipulate. “You’d simply be harmlessly drawing energy from them. They’d be safe.”

“I just don’t want to hurt no pony,” she mumbled, slinking into the dirt until she could spread out as flat as she could, almost looking two-dimensional. “I’m not that kind of pony.”

“You won’t devolve into anything like that,” it said, trying to cajole her into its nefarious plans. “You’ll simply be borrowing energy from other ponies!”

“Can’t I just borrow it from other animals?” she said, silently questioning the lack of animal life nearby. “I’m great with animals, and I’m sure they’d be more than willing to-“

“NO!” the ooze shot back, sounding as aggressive as before. “You have to extract it from other ponies!”

Fluttershy, at that moment, had begun to tear up, without any knowledge of where her tear ducts might be in her amorphous form. She then transformed into her tangible, regular Fluttershy form and began to sob, with tears oozing from her eyes and absorbing into her body.

“We mean,” the ooze began to rectify its erroneous actions, choosing its words very pragmatically. “We are looking out for you, Fluttershy. And we know what’s best for you. We just want you to extract energy from other ponies, that’s all.”

She gave an innocent sniffle and wiped her nose with her front leg. She tried her best to retain her composure after the ooze’s yelling attack.

“I’ll try my best,” she spoke in the quietest tone she could muster. “Just make sure I don’t hurt any pony.”

“You won’t,” the ooze said in its signature caring tone. “Just do as we say and we can ensure that you live healthfully while we reside in you.”

“Is there any way that I can just energize myself with normal food?” Fluttershy asked, realizing that she was too timid to mention it beforehoof. “It seems like a much more viable solution to my food problems.”

“That would be viable, yes,” the ooze began, speaking in an instructing voice. “But it would ultimately fail. You are a part of us now, Fluttershy, and we are too advanced for mere pony food. We need more. We need the raw energy that resides in living things.”

Fluttershy then froze in fear at the sounds of Applejack’s voice in the distance. She turned amorphous and coated herself to the back of a tree, hiding herself from Applejack’s vision. Applejack had stumbled upon the location of the ooze’s cavern, conveniently covered up by a magical barrier of dead forest life to hide its presence, complimented by the dead plant life from Fluttershy absorbing nutrients from the soil. Applejack then began to yell for Fluttershy, which concerned Fluttershy.

“Wait for her to turn her back,” the ooze said slyly to Fluttershy, implying that stealth was needed for an unexplained reason. “Then confront her.”

But why? she thought to herself, communicating with the ooze through her thoughts. Why can’t I just ask her nicely for energy? Plus, I feel quite sated right now, and-

The ooze then drew upon a large amount of energy from Fluttershy, draining her indefinitely to the point of making her famished and drowsy. With this, the ooze could bolster its control over Fluttershy, using less coaxing every time to get Fluttershy to comply with its orders.

What just happened? She thought to herself, clenching what could be construed as her abdominal area from the excruciating pain of hunger. I’m suddenly so… famished!

“Do you see what happens to you when you refrain from feeding?” the ooze asked in an interrogative fashion, almost talking down to her in a sense to demean her as a foal. “You need to keep your energy up constantly. The ponies you feed from will always be there, but the ground you feed from won’t. Now go to that tree over there so we can make it look like you were lost in the woods.”

The ooze mentally points to a tree behind Applejack, a perfect spot to ambush her while remaining innocent. With the words of the ooze commanding her to obey it, Fluttershy quickly felt her mental fortifications slip as she became easily persuaded by the ooze. She felt that the ooze was becoming more transparent and easy to communicate with.

With what energy she had left, Fluttershy quickly dissolved into the ground from the tree, drawing a quick amount of energy from the ground to take off. Afterwards, she prepared her amorphous form to slither quickly past the trees to the one she was instructed to retreat to. She carried herself at full-force, creating a gush of wind that blew past Applejack as she made it safely to her destination. She then confirmed that she was undetected by her when she oozed by, much to the ooze’s delight.

“Now assemble yourself and confront her!” the ooze said. “We will lead you on from there!”

Fluttershy was clearly exhausted by that endeavor. Running low on energy from what she couldn’t fathom thinking of the source made her so weary, she had then dissolved into a puddle of green slime coating the forest floor, perfectly blending in with the scenery. She planted her roots deeply into the ground, drawing nutrients from the soil and further killing the ground beneath her in her quest to replenish.

I… I can’t, Fluttershy said to herself for the ooze to hear. She was a tired vessel, clearly used up and needing energy. I’m just so… tired… and hungry…

“She’s right there!” the ooze yelled to her, right when Applejack had come to her realization to form a posse to find Fluttershy. “She’s about to leave!”

But I can hardly move! Fluttershy whined to herself, her form monstrously pulsating and sucking nutrients from the ground feverishly to survive. Maybe next time, then.

At this point, Applejack had galloped out of their vicinity, much to the anger of the ooze, as defined by its vitriolic voice change.

“First we drain too much and now we let the other go!” the ooze spoke to itself, belligerent and forgetful that Fluttershy could hear what it as saying.

“What do you mean by ‘draining’ me?” she spoke with a soft, innocent voice. She was too swayed by the corruption polluting her mind to necessarily put “two and two” together. “And what do you mean by Applejack getting away? I know where she lives, so I can give her a nice holler if I need her.”

“No, Fluttershy,” the voices replied, keeping a cool composure with a nuance of relief that she was too stricken to foil its plans. “There is a change of plans.”

“Well, I’m always apt for a change of plans,” she said in a slightly cheery tone, feeling a little better from nutrient farming from the already dead patch of soil she was taking up. “But will it bring us to your creator sooner?”

“Yes…” the voices hesitantly replied, surprised that she even remembered. “But first, we need to find a proper source of energy.”

“Oh, well…” she began, but was at a loss for words. “I don’t know. Perhaps we should go to Ponyville and ask them nicely?”

“That would reveal ourselves to the other ponies,” the voices matter-of-factly replied with. “We need to keep in the forest for now, establish a station of reconnaissance and such. We also need a silent place where you can draw energy without having to kill the forest.”

The ooze could care less about the forest, which delighted it when Fluttershy foolishly obeyed it and began to slowly believe that ponies were the right answer to her energy crisis.

“Well, I do know of a pony that does live in the forest,” Fluttershy keenly answered, her face lit-up with satisfaction. “She’s actually a zebra, if it makes any difference.”

“A zebra that lives in the forest?” the ooze queried her, sounding legitimately curious. “This zebra must be a savage, then. We must find other ponies.”

“No, no, no,” she responded with a feeling of disappointment. “She’s actually quite civil. She’s one of the nicest zebras I’ve ever known. She once cured me of a poison joke outbreak.”

At that point, the ooze’s plans were coming to fruition faster than it thought they would.

“Wonderful, Fluttershy,” the ooze said in a caring manner, sounding almost like a filial kind of exchange of words. “Can you take us to this zebra?”

“Sure!” she answered eagerly. “I think I still remember where she lives! I just hope Zecora doesn’t mind me, I mean… us coming to her with something like this.”

* * *

Fluttershy had wormed her way through the Everfree, having the wits of a sherpa to guide her through what she before recalled to be the stuff of her nightmares without the aid of the ooze’s corruption to get to the infamous zebra’s residence. The ooze had continually been draining Fluttershy at fixed intervals to instill more of its influence in her mind, making her more malleable to its ways. She had crept along the side of Zecora’s hut, slithering her way along the coarse, wooden texture of the hut’s paneling. Her pores had filled with the sweeping scent of a potion Zecora was possibly concocting, which resembled a fine amalgamation of vegetables and a broth.

She’s making stew, Fluttershy said to herself, directed at the ooze in a passionate fashion. I think I should go ask her for some-

“Don’t you remember that we cannot process normal ‘pony food’ while we are inside you?” the ooze corrected her, sounding like it was nearly scolding her. “You need to go to her front door and assemble yourself. We’ll tell you what to do and say from there on.”

Fluttershy did as she was told, and she slithered her way around the hut to assemble herself at the door. She lay facing the door on the dirt that surrounded her hut, and quickly tried to form her original self. With some straining and hardship, she finally managed to represent her true form once again, albeit with a greener tinge than usual. She then proceeded to knock on the door, with Zecora slowly approaching it to answer her aggressor.

“Why, Fluttershy,” Zecora said with a warm greeting, a smile stretching across her face to see a pony she hadn’t seen in a long while. “It’s nice to see you come by. What do you ask that seeks my reply?”

“Now then,” the ooze instructed Fluttershy to say. “You will say everything that we tell you to. Now say…”

Fluttershy, from that point, began to emulate the words of the ooze to near-perfection.

“Um, hi, Zecora,” she began, looking at the welcoming zebra before her with a confused demeanor. “Can I come in and talk to you about something?”

“I cannot deny your arrival,” Zecora replied. “Our friendly relationship will experience a revival. Now, what ails you that could inhibit your survival?”

“Well, I was wondering if you had a book on Ancient Zebrican practices for aiding sick bunnies,” Fluttershy lied, complying with the ooze’s commands. “My poor little Angel is really sick.”

Secretly, Fluttershy did not enjoy lying to Zecora. She didn’t like lying in general. But she was so convinced at that point that lying to Zecora to obtain what she needed was paramount to her quest.

“Hmm,” Zecora pondered for a moment, resting her chin on her hoof as she stood in front of Fluttershy while lost in thought. “I think I do. It should be in this bookcase, the book on the practice to renew.”

Zecora at that point had turned her back and began sifting through books on her bookshelf, not even paying attention to the conspiring Fluttershy behind her. At that point, the ooze knew when to make Fluttershy act.

“Now then,” it began, speaking in a quick tone to conserve time. “Stand on your hind legs and extend your arms out.”

Fluttershy, looking confused, obeyed the ooze and stood in an awkward position, trying to achieve a perfect balance while extending her arms out from her chest.

“Relax yourself and make yourself almost ‘melt’ into the ground.”

She had complied, as her hind legs quickly began to dissolve into the ground, forming an amorphous base to support Fluttershy, giving her more comfort.

“Now then,” the ooze said, trying to make its words sound as comprehensive as it could. “Focus your hooves to create appendages. Tiny appendages. Like needles. You’ve been to the doctor’s office before. Make your hooves project finger-like appendages long enough to reach the zebra!”

Fluttershy, looking just a bit confused, had managed to achieve this goal. She had thought of the painful syringes she was injected with as a filly at the doctor’s office in her past, and she envisioned her hooves to emulate what she had grown a disdain for. Slowly, two sets of six long, pointed, finger-esque appendages began to protrude from each her hooves, growing longer at the cost of Fluttershy being cemented in concentration. Each hoof, bearing six of these horrid dagger-like fingers, grew to a length where they could reach Zecora.

“Now move your appendages to the temples of her head.” the ooze said, much to the shock of Fluttershy, who had broken from her concentration to witness these pointed atrocities that had formed from her hooves. However, due to the corruption of the ooze, Fluttershy saw this as a necessary thing to do to help the ooze out. She complied with the ooze and lifted the draping appendages, spiraling towards Zecora’s head.

Zecora had grown wise to the sudden sounds of a liquid sloshing and hardening. She turned her head to witness the horror that had become Fluttershy.

“Quick!” the ooze barked at Fluttershy, who was alarmed at Zecora seeing her. “Slide your fingers into her temples! Do it now!”

With much hesitance but a push in the wrong direction, Fluttershy obeyed the ooze and slid her “fingers” into the sides of Zecora’s head, where her temples were, before Zecora could even react. The unfortunate zebra was then caught in a hysterical rage of pain from the thin and delicate slicing of Fluttershy’s fingers into her skin, eventually stabbing through the skull with ease and into the temporal lobes of Zecora’s brain from both sides of her head. It had looked like Fluttershy was nearly hugging Zecora’s brain from afar.

Zecora’s eyes then rolled into the back of her head. The hostility she had provided, the violent sways of her body to combat Fluttershy were instantly ceased by a brain-dead gestured on Zecora’s part, as she stood in front of Fluttershy with her mouth agape, looking literally blank.

“Oh no!” Fluttershy cried, realizing what she had done. “What have I done?”

“You have pleased us, Fluttershy,” the ooze responded back in a joyous manner. “Now keep your appendages firmly locked into her skull as we do the rest.”

“What will you do to poor Zecora?” she replied in a frightened tone. “Is she going to… going to… d-d-d-”

“No,” the ooze interrupted her nervous stammering. “She will not die. She will simply join our cause and fight for us. She will help us find our creator and we can leave you at peace.”

Despite Zecora’s zombie-like appearance, her brain was surprisingly intact. She was able to freely think and act in her mind, but not be able to use her own body as a conduit. Zecora wracked her brain for an explanation behind this, coming up with no plausible answers except for Fluttershy being an imposter. Then, her mind was greeted by the presence of the ooze, with Fluttershy absent from the equation.

“Hello, Zecora,” the ooze spoke to her in a sinister fashion. “It’s so nice to meet out first addition.”

“Who are you, vile fraud?” Zecora said to the ooze in her mind, bewildered. “And what have you done with Fluttershy to make her look so flawed?”

“You can drop the rhyming act, foolish zebra,” the ooze retorted, sounding very snide in its speech. “There’s no way to mask the fact that you shall be assimilated into the glorious hive!”

“What is this hive?” Zecora demanded an answer from the ooze, sounding defiant. “It sounds like something I do not wish would thrive.”

“The hive is an assortment of interconnected species formed in one glorious amorphous blob of perfection,” the ooze responded proudly. “And, since we already have a conduit for our goals, you are to be the first to blend with her.”

“Blend?!” the once angered now fearful zebra croaked. “I do not wish to blend with your kind, for which I wish you to bring my end!”

“No,” the ooze replied. “Your end will come later. Much later. For now, enjoy being a hive slave.”

With that, Zecora had lost all control of her brain. Her mind was transported to Fluttershy’s body through the razor-sharp information daggers protruding from Fluttershy’s hooves, leaving Zecora’s body to be a mindless, empty husk. The ooze had then went to work reprogramming the lifeless body, turning it into a machine of sorts. Since Zecora’s mind was amalgamated into the rest of the hive, the ooze had access to all of her knowledge, all of her memories, everything about her. The ooze, in turn, used this knowledge to turn Zecora’s body into almost a machine that acted like Zecora and could think like Zecora, but was ultimately a slave to the ooze.

“Now then,” the ooze said to Fluttershy, finally back to her. “Retract your hooves. The zebra is a friendly now.”

“She was friendly before…” Fluttershy squeaked in response, too feeble to act upon her beliefs. “But the quest must continue. She most likely would have ruined it.”

She had pronounced her last sentence with a heavy sigh, knowing that the ooze had inserted its own agenda into Fluttershy’s brain, essentially making Fluttershy a “free-thinking” slave to the ooze.

“What did you at least do to her, then?”

“We have introduced her to the hive,” the ooze responded proudly. “And her body is made to serve us. We would have used her as our link to the outside world, to communicate with the others. Instead, we found that she was a bit of a social outcast, clearly not suitable for swaying the masses. So, she has been converted into a ‘nutrient supplement. She is programmed to ingest as much food as her body can handle, with a bit of our divine touch accelerating the fat-producing processes, until she is swollen and ripe for blending.”

“Why would you make her do that?” Fluttershy cried, slightly breaking free from the implanted thoughts. “She was a good pony!”

The ooze then drained Fluttershy even more to implant more hive-friendly thoughts, leaving Fluttershy to break her half-pony form and dissolve into her amorphous self.

“She is a cog in our glorious machine,” the ooze preached. “She serves us, to make us stronger. To make us more potent!”

“Yes…” Fluttershy said in an almost-monotone voice, not sounding like herself. “I understand. She will make me stronger, in turn, helping the hive survive.”

“Very good, Fluttershy,” the ooze responded, sounding like a supporting parent complimenting their child on good ethics learned. “She will feast, grow to a respectfully gorged size, and then we will in turn become more powerful!”

As the ooze was cajoling Fluttershy into the hive mentality, Zecora’s body was trotting slowly around the hut, searching for anything remotely edible and consuming it. It had eyed the cauldron that its former self was brewing a stew in, and ravenously consumed the entirety of the cauldron within seconds. The body’s skin then began to bubble, as what the ooze had left in her body began to accelerate fat composition, creating more flesh for the body to produce, making her look more bloated and larger than before.

“Let’s go outside and refuel for a bit, Fluttershy.” the ooze told her, as Fluttershy blindly agreed and lit-up to the prospect of harvesting nutrients from the soil. She had grown weary from the massive amounts of transforming she had done and slithered out of the hut, feasting on the nutrients of the dirt path leading to Zecora’s hut while the mindless husk of Zecora’s body was consuming anything in sight, growing exponentially more blubber on herself to be farmed by the hive.

4. The Prophet and the Instiller

Twilight Sparkle was having a glorious day. She was finally able to complete her pleasure reading of “Lord of the Foals,” which turned out to be quite the stellar read to her. Spike had finished cleaning the library, and by that, he had finally organized all the books, which was a week-long project for him, as well as scrubbing every nook and cranny of the establishment from the ever-pertinent problem of accumulating dust. Broken out into an impressive sweat from an arduous amount of work, Spike had taken it upon himself to slumber in his bed for the rest of the day, giving Twilight much peace and quiet she felt that she deserved.

“What can I read today?” Twilight said to herself, curious as to how the rest of her day will turn out. She began to sift through the books with her eyes, making a careful noticed to what books she had already read and those that she hasn’t. “There’s the Harry Pony series… Hmm… there’s ‘To Make Peace with a Mocking Bird,’ but that sounds boring right now. I wonder if Spike had picked up any new books-”

Twilight was then interrupted by a series of loud bangs pounding against her door. The heavy beatings of the door sounded like a hoof, and through the hollow door arose enough noise to alarm Spike, who had not even been asleep for more than thirty minutes, much to Twilight’s disdain.

“GAH!” Spike shouted, nearly jumping out of his bed, only to hurl himself forward. His voice was at that point slightly masked by croaks due to sleep. “Don’t worry, Twilight! I’ve got it!”

Before Twilight could even react properly, or even for Spike to reach the door in time, the door had burst open, clapping against the wall nearby in a loud, thunderous slam. In the threshold of the doorframe stood a distraught Applejack, who was panting and sweating profusely. She had then galloped towards Twilight, ready to dispel her woes to the surprised pony.

“Twilight!” she yelled, galloping towards her as fast as she could. “You’ve got to help me!”

“What’s wrong, Applejack?” Twilight responded, carefully avoiding Applejack but still staying in her proximity while sounding slightly annoyed. “And what’s wrong that would warrant you breaking down my door?”

As she had said her last sentence, her door had then fallen to the floor, creating a thunderous slam that rattled every loose object in the room, causing some trinkets of sorts to fall to the ground, with some smashing or simply breaking from their steep plummet.

“It’s really important, I assure ya!” Applejack said in between panting, holding herself up by gripping a nearby table for support. “When Fluttershy and me went to the Everfree to release that there horde of butterflies, she ended up missing and such! I tried lookin’ for her, but she was nowhere to be found!”

Twilight Sparkle expressed such a small amount of concern, being that she would be the one to think rationally in a situation like this, and because of the fact that she was more preoccupied with the removal of her door to really immerse herself within Applejack’s plight.

“Did you check her house?” Twilight replied curtly, sounding stiff and cold with her speech. “She might have wandered there, given that she lives the closest to the forest than we do.”

“Why would I…” Applejack thought to herself, realizing that there was a gem of truth in what Twilight said. “But… she disappeared on me about fifteen minutes or so when we were leaving the Everfree! I had lost track of her! She couldn’t have just slipped to her house immediately after that!”

“Well,” Twilight began, clearing her throat afterward to make herself sound more knowledgeable than Applejack. “When you were traveling with Fluttershy and you ‘lost track of her,” she could have gotten so scared that she retreated from the forest to her house.”

“That sounds preposterous!” Applejack retorted, alarming Twilight. “There’s no way she could have easily slipped back to her house!”

“But did you bother to look?” Twilight snapped back, still thinking about her dismantled door. “Always check in the least likely of places before you make random assumptions.”

“Random assumptions?” Applejack questioned her, feeling voice reach a higher tone at how cold Twilight was sounding. She had observed that both Twilight’s eyes and mind were fixated on the broken door and planned her next words accordingly. “Twilight, about the door: I’m sorry I accidentally broke it, and I promise I’ll fix it later. But can ya just help me out by helping me find Fluttershy?”

Twilight then felt a wave of slight relief wash over her. She knew that Applejack was honest enough to not make temporarily pleasing lies up to get what she wants, so she knew that her door would be fixed. She then felt that she was being too shallow about Fluttershy missing and quickly turned supportive in Applejack’s favor.

“No, I’m sorry,” Twilight said. “I’ll go help you find Fluttershy. It’s practically part of my responsibilities as a friend. But we’ll have to check her house first, just to see if she is actually there or not.”

“Alright, Twilight!” Applejack hollered in a satisfied tone. “To Fluttershy’s home!”

As they both were galloping out of there, Twilight made sure to tell Spike to set up a temporary barricade to serve as a new door. Silently, Spike knew of his assignment and made a signal for Twilight to leave.

After a short trip to Fluttershy’s house, what with Applejack speeding past Twilight and arriving to their destination before she could catch up, they began to investigate to see if she really was home. Applejack readied her hoof to pound on the door before being slightly restrained by a nervous Twilight Sparkle.

“Don’t,” Twilight began, holding back a power much greater than hers to the surprise of both of them. “Remember what happened to my door?”

“Right,” Applejack replied, readying her hoof in a more relaxed way to instead knock on her door. “I’m just so nervous. I feel so bad for abandonin’ her and such.”

With some heavy thuds on Fluttershy’s door, much softer than what she did to Twilight’s door, however, Applejack prepared a proper signal for the possibly-dormant Fluttershy. However, after the sounds of animals chirping, barking, and any other noises one would find at a domesticated zoo, and the passing of a few moments, Fluttershy was indeed not home.

“See?” Applejack cried, to a slightly concerned Twilight Sparkle. “I told you she wasn’t home! She’s still lost in the Everfree!”

“Applejack,” Twilight replied in a slightly annoyed tone. “Maybe she’s so scared that she’s not answering the door?”

“Then we’re gonna have to make our way in there!” Applejack replied defiantly. She readied herself to break down the door in desperation, but was simply held back by the surprisingly formidable magical powers of Twilight Sparkle.

“You can’t just break her door down!” Twilight yelled at the bewildered Applejack. “On a further note, stop breaking down doors!”

“Then how would you open the door, Twilight?” Applejack responded in a defensive tone.

As Applejack spoke, Twilight carefully exchanged places with Applejack and her, so that she was in front of the door. With a slight bow of her head and a noticeable aura of magic erupting from her horn, Twilight swiftly yet gracefully opened the locked door, making Applejack feel like a fool.

“Sometimes you just have to be diplomatic with your actions,” Twilight chimed in with a light condescending attitude. “Even with inanimate objects. Nothing has to be approached with a swift hoof to the-”

“You just committed a breakin’ and enterin’ there, Twilight,” Applejack replied in a cold fashion, sounding matter-of-fact to the now surprised and slightly embarrassed Twilight. “You just broke the law.”

“You were gong to, too!” Twilight yelled at her, anxious and embarrassed at the sudden realization of her follies. “Argh! Let’s just see if she’s there!”

And so, in tandem, they crept into Fluttershy’s surprisingly dark house, teeming with the many small creatures she would tend to. The animals were restless, what with the house being dark and such, and that there was a significant absence of their master in the abode. Applejack and Twilight searched the house for any presence of Fluttershy, but to no avail. Nothing was disturbed from its original places, save for the animals longing for their caretaker, and the pair quickly quelled their quandaries to avoid the noise levels of the home increasing to attention by the authorities.

After a friendly exit from the duo to calm the animals one final time, Twilight then carefully locked the door with magic from the outside, a feat that Applejack was perplexed to see.

“See?” Applejack quickly exclaimed, making Twilight jump from the sudden boom of her voice. “Fluttershy’s not there! She’s still in the Everfree!”

“You know that she could be somewhere in Ponyville, right?” Twilight asked. “We could just check in with Rainbow Dash, Rarity, or Pinkie Pie, as those would be some of the only ponies she’d go to.”

“Or she could be in the forest,” Applejack repeated herself, much to Twilight’s disdain. “Still lost and-”

“Now wait a minute,” Twilight interrupted, shortly after receiving a stroke of inspiration. “She could actually be somewhere near the forest. Just not in the forest, mind you, but somewhere where there would be other animals; woodland creatures to tend to and such. We’ve seen her tending to animals in the past as a way for her to escape from her troubles.”

“That sounds… reasonable,” Applejack replied hesitantly. “But I still think we should check the forest!”

“We could just set up two search parties to find her,” Twilight proposed. “One group to search the many places near Ponyville that would house small animals, and one group to investigate where you left Fluttershy in the Everfree.”

“That sounds like a great plan!” Applejack replied in sheer happiness. “But who will go to which groups?”

* * *

It had been settled as to who would have to go to the Everfree to find Fluttershy, and Applejack made her way to reclaim her while accompanied by Rarity and Pinkie Pie, a very unlikely trio. Applejack led the trek, going through the forest the same way she had previously entered, with a bouncing Pinkie Pie and a concerned Rarity, constantly checking the ground as to not accidentally step in any mud.

“Fluttershy?” Pinkie yelled into the forest. “Where are you hiding? It’s your friends, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rarity!”

“I doubt that she’d actually respond to you if she never responded to Applejack the first time, darling,” Rarity chimed in, paying half of her attention to the ground she treaded upon. “Really, I don’t know why we didn’t get the whole town involved.”

“Twilight helped me realize that this isn’t too big of a deal,” Applejack replied, commanding a clear path through the forest. “So we won’t call upon the townsponies until we absolutely need to.”

“But she could have been fillynapped or worse,” Rarity countered with, almost emulating the same amount of fear in Applejack’s voice prior. “And how much of the Everfree did you check before you recruited us?”

“I had only checked this area,” Applejack solemnly stated. “But she couldn’t have gone too far. She is Fluttershy, ya know.”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie stopped bouncing and stood in place where she was bouncing, letting Rarity get in front of her. Her ears had perked up and she was sniffing the air, delighted by the scent it was carrying.

“Hey, do you smell that?” she exclaimed, surprising the other two ponies. “It smells like… stew!”

Rarity and Applejack were confused by what she had said. To reassure themselves, they sniffed vacantly into the air, hoping to hone in on a trace of the stew Pinkie Pie was talking about, but they couldn’t trace any of it.

“Um, Pinkie, are ya okay?” Applejack asked in a confused manner, directing her full attention to her. “We still have to find Fluttershy.”

“I know, but the stew,” Pinkie trailed off, following the scent. “It smells so good!”

Pinkie Pie was almost levitating to the location of the supposed stew, wandering at an accelerated pace into the forest to locate it, much to the confusion of her forlorn friends.

“Since when has Pinkie Pie been the one to think with her stomach?” Rarity asked coldly. “And does she know where she is going?”

“I don’t know,” Applejack replied in annoyance. “But she needs to get back to us before she winds up getting’ lost, too!”

Applejack quickly galloped after Pinkie, while Rarity was left to carefully trot to keep up with them to avoid getting dirty.

“Wait for me!” Rarity yelled to the almost-disappearing Applejack.

Pinkie had eventually bounced to the source of the scent, drawing near Zecora’s hut. Seeing her hut, Pinkie Pie immediately stopped right in the middle of her tracks, allowing Applejack to catch up with her. Pinkie’s ears pricked up, as she lifted her arm to have her hoof twitch, much to her dismay: she knew something “scary” was about to occur.

Applejack finally caught up with Pinkie Pie, getting in front of her path as to stop her from moving forward somehow.

“Pinkie, what did I say about leaving the group?” Applejack scolded Pinkie Pie, panting from the amount of galloping she had put her through. “If Fluttershy could get lost so easily, you could too!”

“I said to wait!” Rarity yelled from a distance, traversing the forest carefully but quickly. She ended up becoming filthier than Applejack did, despite the amount of attention she put into her traveling. “I had to gallop in this forest. Do you realize how dirty and sweaty that made me?”

“Well, you can blame Pinkie for that!” Applejack retaliated. “She wandered off and-”

“Shh!” Pinkie Pie interrupted, commanding both of their silence. “Something strange is going on at Zecora’s house! I can feel it!”

Applejack and Rarity turned their attention from each other to what was behind them, which turned out to be Zecora’s hut. They, however, didn’t feel anything bad about to happen.

“What’s so wrong about her hut, sugarcube?” Applejack asked Pinkie. “We’ve already settled our differences and-”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Pinkie interrupted yet again, putting her hoof to Applejack’s mouth to quiet her. “My Pinkie sense: something is telling me that something is wrong in Zecora’s hut!”

“And how would you be able to know, Pinkie?” Rarity chimed in, utterly baffled at what Pinkie had to say. “And, if you did know, then what is going on there, then?”

“Bad stuff!” Pinkie replied in a semi-frightened tone. “Scary stuff, to be specific! I don’t know exactly what is going on in there, but my Pinkie senses never fail me. Something bad is about to happen.”

“Nonsense, Pinkie,” Applejack concluded, dismissing all that Pinkie had said. “What’s so bad about entering Zecora’s hut? She could tell us if she’s seen Fluttershy or not.”

“Or maybe Fluttershy is residing there right now,” Rarity added. “And maybe a bath if we have time. I am ridiculously filthy that it’s blasphemous act against my very character!”

The two ponies then proceeded to trot to Zecora’s hut, yearning for knowledge pertaining to Fluttershy, much to Pinkie’s dismay. Pinkie tried to warn them, but Applejack and Rarity were caught up in irrelevant and overbearing banter to pay attention to her. She begrudgingly followed the two blind ponies to the hut, where they politely knocked on the door before peering into any of the hut’s windows.

“Zecora?” Applejack politely yelled through the door while knocking in tandem, but only loud enough to address her. “Are ya home?”

They could only here shuffling going on in the hut and, with the sounds of a heavy liquid of sorts hitting the ground and some unknown heavy hooves pounding through the hut, the three ponies outside finally got their wish of requesting Zecora’s attention. Although, they could hardly believe that it was Zecora.

What had appeared before them was barely a zebra that remotely resembled Zecora, but they knew it was her. The pony before them was an over-bloated zebra, looking like Zecora was covered in fat from head to hoof. She looked like she would keel over at any moment from the amount of girth she had to lug around with her. Her hooves were shaking violently from it all, and she had a green tinge to her that was unnatural.

Her face was no less mortifying. The three ponies noticed that Zecora’s temples were damaged earlier, but they had scabbed-up, noticing that the fresh sores surrounding the sides of her head were glistening. The main attraction, however, was the fact that Zecora had thin, black, pulsating veins of sorts tracking from the top of her head down to her eyes. They resembled arrows of sorts, but they were inconsistent in pattern as most of them started in a thick base from the top until splitting off to the bottom of her face in a narrow path. They had trickled down her face, eerily pulsing like they were pumping something. In addition, her vacant, dead eyes staring at them weren’t helping paint a healthy picture of Zecora neither.

“Hello, fellow ponies,” Zecora said in a dead, blank tone. She was also slightly drooling, barely closing her mouth, looking like she wanted to chew on something. “How can I help you three?”

The three ponies were so taken aback by her hideous appearance that they didn’t bother catching the fact that Zecora didn’t rhyme her last sentences.

“I told you this would be sc-sc-sc-scary!” Pinkie whispered, trembling in fear of what as to come. Her hoof was violently shaking as well.

“Quiet, Pinkie!” Rarity whispered back, hoping for Zecora not to hear them. “That’s awfully read of you to say!”

“Beg yer pardon, Miss Zecora,” Applejack began, addressing her cordially, despite her trepidations at the moment. “But we were wonderin’ if you’d seen our friend Fluttershy at all. She got lost in the woods and-”

“Oh, I’m right here!” Fluttershy squeaked from the hut, trying her best to address them. “Thanks goodness you three are here!”

“Come in,” Zecora demanded in her blank tone, proceeding to move out of their way to reenter the hut.

The ponies had then trotted into Zecora’s hut to find it an utter mess, with books that had obvious bite marks in them, a cauldron of stew tipped over that flooded the room, and a various other belongings of Zecora strewn across the floor of her hut, broken and bitten into. They had then witnessed Zecora mindlessly eating a book for no reason, trying her best to rend the book to shreds in her mouth to properly consume it. With her aggressive book devouring, the three saw that Zecora was missing a lot of teeth, just now witnessing her mouth being coated with blood from the missing teeth.

“Sorry about Zecora,” Fluttershy apologized to the three. “But she hasn’t been acting like her usual self lately.”

“What in the hay happened to her?” Applejack whispered to Fluttershy, speaking for Rarity and Pinkie Pie as well. “And why aren’t you stopping her?”

“Well,” Fluttershy began. “I trotted into her house after you abandoned me in the woods, and she was there to save me. But something was troubling her, and I’ve been recuperating from the traumatic experience I had since I got here.”

“Are you okay, Fluttershy?” Rarity asked in a caring manner. “More importantly, however, will Zecora be okay?”

“I’m sure she will,” Fluttershy answered. “Depressed ponies usually overeat, anyways.”

“But not like this!” Pinkie exclaimed, surprisingly not arousing the attention of Zecora, who had successfully eaten the pages from the book she was chewing on and proceeded to eat the many baubles and knick-knacks that were abandoned on her floor. “Something’s fishy, Fluttershy! My Pinkie senses told me so!”

“Nothing’s that wrong at all,” Fluttershy replied reassuringly. “But we can help her out with this mess. Help me pick up these books, girls?”

With a silent and reluctant but assistive nod from the three of them, they had all began to pick up the trash that had consumed Zecora’s floor. Rarity and Applejack were slightly content with the work, but Pinkie was too preoccupied by her trembling hoof. She knew something bad would happen, but she didn’t have the faintest clue as to what it would be.

Silently, Fluttershy abused this moment of the ponies being distracted as she properly cemented herself to the ground, preparing herself to do to the three ponies before her that she did to Zecora. She concentrated to turn her hooves into the long, dagger-like appendages from before, and she silently neared them towards the heads of the two closest ponies to her: Rarity and Pinkie Pie.

She then quickly slid her fingers through the temples of the two, unsuspecting ponies, having them shriek from the pain to have Applejack be alerted to what was going on. By the time Applejack addressed the noises she heard from Rarity and Pinkie, Fluttershy had already made her way to their brains, bypassing their skulls with ease and being able to instill parts of the ooze into them.

The ooze then dispersed itself two ways through Fluttershy’s fingers to Pinkie’s and Rarity’s bodies, instructing Fluttershy to concentrate on stopping Applejack from hindering Pinkie’s and Rarity’s assimilations. Applejack was taken aback by the hideously abhorrent appendages shooting from Fluttershy’s hooves, but she eventually snapped out of her stupor to instinctively sever the bonds from Fluttershy to the others. Fluttershy saw this and quickly retaliated by forming a large arm of sorts from her back, hurting her in the process. The arm drained a bit of Fluttershy’s size to make it larger, but the arm she had created from herself was suitable to swat away Applejack, in which she focused hard enough to do so.
Applejack had been swatted outside of the hut through a window of the hut, thrown into a dead patch of grass to witness the horrors unfolding inside. Fluttershy then focused the arm she had created to emulate the dagger-like appendages she had created from her hooves and charged them at Applejack.

Quickly recuperating from being launched, Applejack started to gallop away from the tendrils, seeing the tendrils get smaller and smaller the further she galloped. Before Fluttershy had lost sight of Applejack, she managed to snare Applejack by the hoof, tripping her from her gallop and latching onto her right leg. She focused her appendages to become barbed so she could lock herself into Applejack’s leg, and started to pull her towards the hut. Applejack had grabbed a tree, gritting her teeth in pain as she tried to pull herself free from the snare.
She then summoned a hidden burst of vigor and pulled herself past the tree she was holding, straining Fluttershy’s tendril and forcing it to retreat to its master. Applejack seized the moment of opportunity and galloped away, tearing up from the pain of her now bleeding leg and the fact that she had abandoned her friends. She also couldn’t piece together if that was actually Fluttershy or not, but she had more important things running through her head, which provided the inspiration to gallop as fast as she could through the pain.

Meanwhile, the severely energy-crippled Fluttershy was alarmed that she couldn’t get Applejack. She could barely keep her fingers inside Rarity’s and Pinkie Pie’s heads, but she proceeded to do so to the limit of her abilities. She knew that the process would be over soon, so she retracted her defeated arm to sprout a new one, one for excavating minerals from the rich soil outside of Zecora’s hut. She then commenced with extracting nutrients from the ground as she let the ooze do the assimilation itself.

Rarity and Pinkie felt that they were alone, staring off into an infinite void. They had found themselves in the situation Zecora was in, with their minds transported to Fluttershy’s body, the host of the hive. They were together, but they could not see each other, strangely enough.

“Rarity?” Pinkie cried in utter terror. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know, Pinkie,” Rarity responded with a feeling of dread. “But something happened to me. I was cleaning up the books from the ground and I felt this sharp pain in my head. Afterwards, I blacked out.”

“Same here,” Pinkie replied. “But I just don’t know what happened!”

Their banter was immediately interrupted by the ooze, which had managed to communicate with the both of them, just like it did to Zecora.

“We welcome you two the hive, Pinkie Pie and Rarity,” it addressed them, echoing into the infinite void they were in. “And we surely have plans for you two.”

“Who’s ‘we?’” Rarity called out into the dark. “And how do you know out names?”

“We have access to both of your minds,” the ooze nonchalantly stated. “And we know exactly who you two are.”

“What are you going to do to us?” Pinkie shrieked. “And what did you mean by ‘plans?’”

“Your purposes have been determined,” the ooze responded. “It was a fast endeavor, really. And what we’ll do to you is none of your concern.”

“Believe us, it is a part of our concern!” Rarity yelled defiantly at the ooze.

“You’re starting to get on our nerves, Rarity,” the ooze angrily shot out, intimidating Rarity and Pinkie. “We have half the intention to make you a feeding slave like the zebra!”

“Wait, Zecora…” Pinkie started, utterly confused by the situation. “What exactly has happened to Zecora?”

“You will know soon,” the ooze answered. “But not now. It is time to know of your fates. We have scoured your memories, both of you, and we know that you have clashed with our creator and defeated him. You are well-renowned in Ponyville for your endeavors.”

“You mean, our battle with-” Pinkie interrupted before getting interrupted as well.

“Yes!” the ooze shouted, the two ponies trembling in fear. “We know. But you will only speak when we want you to. Anyways, we have concluded what roles you two will fill in our reconstruction of the hive.”

“Hive?” the two ponies asked in unison.

“You are now a part of the hive,” the ooze begrudgingly responded with. “You are now a part of an interconnected community of other species into the assimilation of a glorious amorphous entity! And with assimilation of the hive comes the task of reprogramming your inert bodies.

“Naturally, we would let the host turn your bodies into feeding slaves like the zebra, but you two have earned much respect within your community to be wasted as food. You, Pinkie, will serve the glorious role of the prophet, in which you will recruit others to become feeding slaves like Zecora. And you, Rarity, will be re-purposed as the Instiller, in which you will spread our entity through other ponies, to weaken their judgment and serve the hive!”

“What makes you think we’d let you do that?” Rarity yelled in defiance, with Pinkie trembling from being severely disturbed by what the ooze had said.

“Simple: right now, you’re already in the host’s mind, amalgamated into the hive. Your bodies are receiving bits and pieces of our ooze entity, becoming our slaves in our master plan. Right now, they are golems, waiting to be reprogrammed into our vision. You both really don’t have a say in any of this, so the last words we shall leave you before we attend to the host is that you will serve to hive always. You will enjoy living within the hive. You will grow to love the hive, and your physical forms will perfect our vision.”

6. Proliferation of Atrophy

Ponyville was unaware of its new visitors, despite giving the illusion that they were regulars. Hailed in a pseudo light of appreciation, the two ponies that had emerged from the Everfree were, for the most part, liked and well-respected, especially the usually-bouncing but unusually stoic pink Earth pony to enter the town. The white unicorn accompanying her bore the same expression, looking strangely catatonic to the populace of Ponyville. However, these two ponies were the harbingers of a holy message, ready to disperse to the community, most likely by force.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity were slowly trotting down the streets of Ponyville, side by side, with cold, dead stares. Other ponies were greatly perturbed, while others couldn’t gather the courage to ask them of their state when they were branded with unsightly black, throbbing veins pulsating down their heads. At this point, they were curdling in the afternoon sun, letting a black ichor drip down the sides of their faces and coagulate at the bottom of their muzzles, further exacerbating the idea of fear in the populace.

“Pinkie Pie,” Rarity asked the pink mare at her side, still looking in the same direction as they were trotting while paying no attention to the townsponies in her monotone, stoic voice. “They do not welcome their saviors to their own hometown. Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie replied, emulating Rarity’s voice. “But we need to spread the message to these doomed souls.”

“Pinkie,” Rarity addressed her, noticing the black ichor oozing from her head. “Maybe it’s our appearance that has these wretches fearing our existence.”

“It couldn’t be,” Pinkie answered. “We are the beloved Pinkie Pie and Rarity!”

Off in the distance, a pony was gagging from their sight. The two questionable ponies had trotted near the stallion, paying it no attention, and the stallion’s nostrils flared with a look of disgust washing over his face as he galloped to a nearby trashcan to vomit.

“Did you see that?” Rarity pointed out, surprisingly noticing the sickly stallion. “That pony retreated to expel his innards at our visage.”

The two pernicious ponies kept trotting, not noticing that they indeed had conjured an odor so foul that other ponies were cringing at, not only the sight, but the smell of these two perplexed ponies. The fact that they had their coat rapidly molting and falling off was a ghastly sight to behold, and their skin was curdling due to the average-feeling temperature outside. They, of course, couldn’t smell themselves, but the other townsponies were vomiting profusely from the stench they incurred.

The two mares then looked at themselves to see that about half of their coat had been shed, exposing their pale-green skin that had bore the scars of an unknown source. Their skin had accumulated numbers of festering blisters, glistening in the sun, curdling and producing foul odors that had then ruptured, expelling pus over the remainder of their bodies. The ooze had been corrupting not only their minds but also rendering their bodies into self-annihilation. They could feel all of this occur, but the hive minds implanted into their bodies had felt much worse in their times, so they merely shrugged off the pain.

“If you noticed, Pinkie,” Rarity started. “That we’re deteriorating.”

“Yes, we must incorporate and assimilate before we deteriorate,” Pinkie replied. “We must adorn some aesthetically-pleasing clothing and begin the process.

Having all of Rarity’s knowledge and thoughts proved to be quite beneficial to the hive drone occupying Rarity. It had known that Rarity owned Carousel Boutique, which was home to many clothes and make-up, the perfect disguise for their molting forms. Rarity and Pinkie Pie had then entered the boutique after a small bit of trotting and revolting of townsponies. When they had entered, they had encroached upon the presence of an unforeseen guest.

“Rarity!” a young filly’s voice rang through the boutique as the two mortifying ponies entered. “You’ve been gone forever! I just got off of school and-”

The filly revealed herself to be Sweetie Belle, whom had traversed down a flight of nearby stairs to finally see the two decaying ponies, in which she had let out a rather shrill shriek of terror.

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle galloped to who she thought was her sister, proceeding to hug her where she still had her coat, nuzzling her. “What happened? Are you and Pinkie Pie alright?”

Rarity had known who this vile cretin was that had locked itself around her body, and she proceeded to act accordingly.

“Now, now, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said, still in her monotone, stoic voice that spooked Sweetie from her nuzzling. “I’m just a bit sick. That’s all.”

“But, your hair!” Sweetie exclaimed, pointing to the current damage upon both of their bodies. “Even most of your mane is missing! And you both smell really bad, too!”

“Now’s not the time to insult your sister!” Rarity snapped, still not breaking her tone. “I’m just sick, and so is Pinkie here. We came so that we could wash up and grab a coat.”

“You can’t go out there like that, then!” Sweetie begged. “Stay indoors! I’ll take care of you!”

Rarity and Pinkie had then conjured a plan that had been deemed suitable to work. They had concluded that their Patient Number Zero for the Glorious Harvest could be Sweetie Belle, which she deemed to be small, defenseless, and nearby without the prying eyes of society to take notice.

“Actually, Sweetie,” Rarity asked, pulling up a rather plush and comfortable couch with magic, giving Pinkie a standard recliner for her to ‘relax’ on. “I am feeling under the weather. Could you take care of your big sister, please?”

“Sure thing, Rarity!” Sweetie yipped with glee, rushing to her sick sister to aid her. “Now, first we need to get you into a bath, because, to be honest: you smell really bad! So let’s just get you off of the sofa and-”

Rarity had drowned out the annoying babbling of the filly before her, instead taking notice of Sweetie Belle’s head being turned. When the filly was trying to wrench her dear sister’s hooves from the couch, straining to do so, Rarity had decided to take her moment of opportunity. She had grabbed her sister’s head and began to press her hooves firmly into her temples, with Sweetie proceeding with screams of pain.

Rarity’s hooves had seemed to melt into the filly’s head, stabbing into her prefrontal cortex and reaching her brain, similar to how Fluttershy had converted Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Instantly, it looked like the life was being drained from Sweetie Belle’s face, as her demeanor began to fluctuate from lively and scared to seemingly dead and vacant. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head as Rarity had captured the filly’s essence of herself to incorporate into the Hive, again, similar to how Fluttershy did so.

Rarity had then released the filly, letting her drop to the ground like a bag of bricks. The pony then rose to her hooves, almost like a zombie, looking mindless and extremely ravenous.

“Go forth,” Pinkie started, signaling the blank Sweetie Belle. “And consume all you can see!”

Sweetie Belle had done so and began to smell the air for traces of food. For her, dead flesh and festering blisters weren’t her idea of a meal, so she scurried to the nearest source of food available: the kitchen. Immediately, she began to scarf down all the food she laid her eyes on, mindless consuming to fulfill the malicious intents of the Hive, much to Pinkie’s and Rarity’s pleasure.

“Anyways,” Rarity addressed Pinkie, lifting herself from the sofa with Pinkie following in tandem. “It’s time to assimilate Ponyville.”

* * *

They had proceeded to leave the boutique, leaving behind a ravenous and mindless Sweetie Belle, which had become engorged within minutes. The two ponies, which had deteriorated to a much worse state, wore thick, heavy coats, leg stockings, hats, and plenty of make-up to quell the public’s disdain of their vanity. Sweating profusely but not smudging the anti-sweat make-up Rarity had in stock, they then traversed the town, exchanging every pony’s looks of disgust with hilarity, as random ponies began snickering at the two silly looking ponies.

“At least they are not revolted,” Pinkie said, panting while sweating profusely. “But at least it gives us good cover.”

And so, the two disguised mares made their way to Sugarcube Corner, which was currently being operated by the two Cakes, frantic with a busy work load. The bakery was full of agitated ponies, waiting for their orders that did not come to fruition like they had intended to have. When the two ponies entered the establishment, the two beleaguered bakers were stricken with a feeling of joy as they saw another pony to relieve the load of work on their hooves.

“Pinkie!” Mrs. Cake shouted from across the bakery, occupied with a bowl of cake batter and balancing one of her foals in her arms. “We got slammed with so much work here and Pumpkin and Pound are getting uproarious! We need to put them down for a nap. Do you mind manning the stations here until we get back?”

Rarity and Pinkie Pie knew that they could spread the assimilation easily with an eatery like this. With all the ponies around, they could spread the Hive in indefinite amounts.

“Yes,” Pinkie replied, getting behind the counter and doing what Mrs. Cake had been doing. “Rarity, would you like to help?”

“I’m afraid she can’t, Pinkie,” Mr. Cake chimed in, sounding worried. “She’s not an employee. We can’t trust her behind the counter.”

“It’s okay,” Rarity replied, still monotone. “I’ll just sit at one of the tables for now.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. And Mrs. Cake,” Pinkie Pie addressed the Cakes, sounding as stoic as ever. “We- I mean, I know exactly what to do. Go and put the foals to sleep.”

The Cakes hesitantly complied and went into the apartment side of Sugarcube Corner to lay their foals to rest. As they left, the line of customers piling near the counter Pinkie was working behind began to get furious.

“Where are my shortbreads?” a voice from the crowd hollered, along with other voices drowning it out. “I’ve been waiting here for over ten minutes waiting for my order!”

Rarity immediately went behind the counter unnoticed and started to help Pinkie bake the pastries the Cakes were working on. The batter Mrs. Cake was working on was complete, but Rarity and Pinkie felt that they should introduce an ingredient of their own to the mix.

“How shall I extract the glorious seed to let sprout and grab hold of this blind community?” Rarity asked Pinkie confidently, concealing herself behind the counter.

“Expel it from the body,” Pinkie scoffed, working on the batter. “Do whatever you can to spread the Hive.”
Rarity ducked under the counter and was given the batter bowl under the counter where they were working, which incidentally had the ovens housing the customers’ orders. With the loud sounds coming from both the agitated line and the banter going on with other ponies, Rarity knew that she could complete her primary task incognito.

Rarity immediately began to vomit into the mix, ready to expel any of the ooze into the batter. She hacked furiously, causing her face to go red with pain. Pieces of skin began to crack from her face as they simply peeled off and cemented themselves into the mix, abandoned by their owner that tried to contaminate the cake batter. With a momentous heave, Rarity was able to conjure up what she wanted, in which she had expelled a large quantity of the ooze, taking form in the batter and consolidating itself within it. Rarity was able to obtain a dab of the ooze and spread it on the various pastries kept in the ovens, knowing that the ooze could withstand the heat of a mere oven.

With a nod of approval from Rarity, Pinkie took back the altered cake batter and was able to acquire the toasting treats, covered in the ooze that quickly hid itself within the pastries, and distributed them amongst their respectful customers. While she was doing that, Rarity kept infecting all of the other food stuffs in the kitchen, from raw ingredients, to pre-made goods, to finished products. She would do anything to proliferate the Hive.

* * *

With a part of the Hive in the baked goods now consumed by the townsponies, Pinkie and Rarity could feel themselves inside those ponies. They established a connection with them, feeding off of their thoughts and knowledge, calculating when their minds would crumble to the might of the Hive and capitulate to its divine presence. The Cakes had taken back their positions at Sugarcube Corner just in time for them to adequately disperse the glory of the Hive to the other ponies. With a warm exit, Pinkie was excused from her duties, with Rarity quietly creeping out of the scene of the action.

Both ponies’ looks terrifying by other ponies’ standards, if they had laid eyes on them without their excessive clothing on. They both had almost completely lost their coats, with their skin covered in the aforementioned blisters, with some popped and others fresh. Their skin had been peeling off, resembling a nasty sunburn, but with the skin being blackened from rot. Parts of their bones could be seen from under the decaying flesh as these fresh wounds began to grow the more the ooze stayed in their bodies. Their faces looked as if they were peeling off of their skulls, as most of the skin from their faces was either peeling off or quickly being eaten by the ooze. A side view of these ponies would reveal that they had an ostensible amount of flesh gone, as their inner mouths were visible through their cheeks, exposing a grim grin of teeth and fresh wounds to replace the normal skin that would cover up unsightly faults like this.

Pinkie and Rarity had made their way out for a small trot, soaking in the amount of connectivity going on in Ponyville. They could sense that those that had purchased the baked goods from Sugarcube Corner had shared them with their families and friends, not knowing of the bounty they were really consuming. They sensed that, after a few minutes, they could feel that those ponies were feeling sick, they were feeling weak. They had managed to permeate through their minds, quickly inserting themselves discreetly and infecting the rest of their bodies with the Hive simply because of the hyper connectivity of the ooze. The ooze clearly had its ways to communicate with the rest of its brethren.

Subliminally, Pinkie could communicate with every pony that had a bit of the ooze inside of them. With tiny disturbances in their thought processes, she could almost commandeer them completely, rendering their thoughts more with the thoughts of the Hive. She was able to see families stricken with the ooze, friends trifled with the Hive, and random, lonesome ponies clutching themselves in pain from their conversions. Slowly, but surely, they would be perfect and complete drones to the Hive, giving way for feeding the brood mother Fluttershy.

Rarity and Pinkie had waited almost half an hour before feeling their bond with their brethren increasing tenfold. The ooze the ponies consumed had fully made its way into them, completely taking over their minds to be able to dictate what they do. Pinkie, seizing the moment, sent out a universal message to them all via the telepathic connection she had with the other traces of the ooze…

* * *

Deep within her Everfree hideaway, Fluttershy, in her normal form, rested in the confines of what used to be Zecora’s home. She had drained the life out of virtually all the soil surrounding the small hut, as the area outside of said hut resembled a desiccated dirt path. From within, Fluttershy grew incredibly weak, drawing nutrients from the ground she clearly exhausted in a futile effort, waiting for further instructions on how to deal with her now immobile slave Zecora.

“When can I… get something to eat?” Fluttershy moaned, speaking audibly for the ooze in her to hear. “I’m… incredibly famished…”

“Right about now, Fluttershy,” the ooze said to her in a caring voice. “Your drone is ready to serve its mother: you. With a simple command, you can tell her to pay her debts of receiving the glory of the Hive by having her feed you, and in turn, becoming a permanent member of the Hive!”

Fluttershy then focused her efforts on the enormous zebra before her, bloated with hyper-metastasized fat that the zebra could barely move. She had become so heavy that her fetlock joints had snapped in half, revealing a bloody mess of snapped bone and cauterized blood. She had lain there, on the ground of her hut, having devoured everything her bloody, cut-up, toothless mouth could consume. She panted heavily, waiting for the grace of death to behold her miserable form, as she was still stuck in an endless quest to consume. The lack of hair due to unnatural shedding and the unsightly scabs that appeared on her exposed, flabby skin was a gruesome spectacle to behold, even for Fluttershy.

“Call her,” the ooze commanded Fluttershy. “And your bounty will deliver itself.”

Fluttershy had then communicated with Zecora telepathically; reaching out to the ooze in her that drove the zebra to obey her master. Fluttershy managed to get in the words ‘come here’ before noticing the crippled zebra worm its way to its master with a look of joy spread out over its face. She wheezed and grunted, not used to her enormous form and broken legs, but this didn’t stop her from approaching her master. She didn’t even seem the notice the pain of putting weight on her shattered hooves, for that she was instilled with the passion of serving her brood mother. Fluttershy naturally cringed at the twisted abomination crawling before her, but the ooze had reassured her that everything would work out in her favor. Eventually, the crippled zebra managed to get herself to Fluttershy, in which she immediately collapsed her head into her body, as if to nuzzle her. Fluttershy embraced the presence of the zebra with a bittersweet response, but she had acknowledged her presence, which was more than enough for the ooze to take action. Immediately, much to her horror, Fluttershy felt a bubbling feeling ripple across her body as the zebra touched her. She could feel her body begin to curdle, to undulate to the presence of Zecora. She immediately felt like she was eating food, becoming sated with something that she didn’t even know what was happening. She had looked down, much to her horror, to see Zecora melting into her.

“What’s g-g-g-going on?” Fluttershy stammered, terrified by the fact that the zebra was disappearing into her as the seconds rolled by. “What’s h-h-h-happening to her?”

“She is feeding her mother,” the ooze calmly replied. “Let it happen, and you will grow indefinitely to support more of your kin!”

“I didn’t know that this is how you described it!” Fluttershy then yelled, panicking. “What’s happening to her?”

“You will see,” the ooze menacingly replied, waiting for the feeding to end. “And you will enjoy it.”

It was to the point that Zecora’s body was literally being dragged into Fluttershy due to her amorphous abilities, so she had reverted to her bob form to take in her bounty. Zecora’s body was half-way into her, with Fluttershy’s appetite going from sated to gorged. She then felt a sharp pain shoot through her body, a pain she hadn’t experienced since she was a filly.

“Ah!” Fluttershy yelped, seeing her body quickly gain a larger form. “What’s going on?”

“You are taking in your food,” the ooze replied calmly. “It’s only natural that you grow from it. The larger you get from this, the more powerful you will become.”

“But…” Fluttershy whispered as Zecora’s back legs were the last to remain visible, slowly receding into Fluttershy’s now larger blob form. She couldn’t feel Zecora’s presence, but she could feel her body growing, largely metastasizing beyond her natural form. She resembled herself, but over twice as large after consuming most of Zecora. Then, it was over. Zecora’s body was fully devoured by Fluttershy, not to be seen beyond the giant blob that engulfed her.
She took a moment to drink in the details of her new form, almost relishing the fact that her hunger was quenched and her form not so fragile. She formed tentacle-like appendages from her sides to cradle what appeared to be her abdominal area, feeling if Zecora was there or not.

“Where is…” she trailed off, almost complacent to this kind of mind-warping exposure she was receiving. She felt herself, and she revealed to be still a soft blob, only now she was almost twice as large as an average alicorn.

“She is now a part of you,” the ooze gently spoke, making sure not to perturb Fluttershy in her moment of shock. “You have absorbed her, and now she is a part of our glorious family.”

“Well,” Fluttershy squeaked. “What happened to her exactly?”

“Well, the details are a bit gruesome for the likes of you,” the ooze began. “But, we shall indulge you. What happened to the zebra is that you essentially consumed her. Your body latched onto it like the roots of the earth and you began to drag her into you, your body subconsciously becoming acidic like the inside of a stomach. From there, her skin was dissolved and absorbed of nutrients, and her bones were disintegrated, adding to your form. Any fatty tissue in her, essentially all the blubber she had accrued, was added to your magnificent form. With her, we can spread the word of the Hive.”

“She’s still with us, right?” Fluttershy asked, frightened by the details the ooze had provided. “You said something about her being a ‘part of the Hive.’”

“She’s here,” the ooze proudly stated. “She is with all of us, forming the collective that is the Hive. Speaking of collective, your friends Rarity and Pinkie Pie should be communicating with you soon.”

Like so, Fluttershy started to hear the voices of Rarity and Pinkie Pie, both in their monotone, stoic versions and not their normal personalities.

“Are they… back to normal?” Fluttershy asked. “They sound-”

“Yes,” the ooze interrupted. “Of course they are ‘normal!’ Being a part of the Hive, you can’t get any more ‘normal’ than that!”

In reality, the two ponies in question were being brutalized within the confines of the Hive collective. Swimming in an empty void to have mental energy extracted from them, they were proof that being a part of the Hive was as bad as it could get.

“It’s strange, really,” the ooze said to itself. “We should be hearing from that one Applejack character right about now. She was given enough of the glorious Hive to be assimilated by now.”

Fluttershy had ignored this, for that she felt sluggish and heavy from the enormous zebra she had consumed. She felt tired, and began to close her eyes. The ooze, realizing this, had drawn upon the resources such members of the collective like Zecora, Pinkie, and Rarity had to offer to keep Fluttershy stimulated.

“We must wait for our comrade’s words!” the ooze commanded Fluttershy, keeping her awake. “Then, we can go back to Ponyville.”

Fluttershy had suddenly felt a jolt of awareness. She felt alert, focused, and awake, from a source which she did not know. She suddenly heard the voices of her assimilated friends again, but this time, it was accompanied by other voices. She began to recognize these voices to discover that they were random townsponies from Ponyville. She could then, somehow beyond her frame of comprehension, see what the other voices were seeing to discover that she could fully access their minds via telepathy between individual connections of the ooze, separated into other ponies.

She witnessed some ponies lurching forward, expelling the contents of their stomachs in writing pain as they saw a green puddle of bile appear before them. She could see, from their perspectives, their loved ones going to help them, only to suffer the same fate as the ones she viewed from, vomiting profusely, unable to help their loved one. Then, she could see that she was in complete control of their brain functions somehow.

“How can I see all of these ponies in pain?” Fluttershy whimpered. “And how can I hear them?”

“Your friends have done well,” the ooze responded. “They have successfully spread the glory of the Hive to other ponies. Now, they can be a part of your wondrous form.”

“But they look hurt!” Fluttershy squeaked, frightened by the horrifying visages being played back in her head. “Make it stop!”

“But it has!” the ooze replied, trying to calm down its terrified host. “Just tell them to stop.”

“W-w-w-what?” she stammered, confused as to what the ooze had to offer. “What do you mean ‘talk to them?’”

“You can talk to them, all at once,” the ooze said. “We are all one big family now. Family can communicate from any distance because of our great interconnectivity.”
With a reluctant gulp, she tried to address her new feeding drones.

“Attention,” Fluttershy whispered, sounding fearful. “Can I get your attention, please?”

The ponies were prepared for anything Fluttershy had to say, free of any free thought of their own, living the realization of mindless drones.

“Tell them to consume anything in sight,” the ooze commanded the scared pony. “They must eat anything they can get their hooves on.”

Fluttershy obeyed her invisible master, and she said what it had told her. Suddenly, she could see what the other ponies were doing, in which they were eating anything they deemed to be edible. They shambled like zombies to the destinations of wherever they were, rapidly and voraciously devouring anything in sight, adding to their forms. The ooze inside of them, just like with Zecora, helped speed up the fattening process, showing Fluttershy that, after only a few minutes of food consumption, they were growing excess fat to their forms.

“Now we march,” the ooze said, menacingly. “It’s time to reward these ponies for their obedience. It’s time to go to Ponyville.”

* * *

A white, pristine chariot arrived in Ponyville, commandeered by a divine, alicorn figure with her two unicorn and Earth pony compatriots. The chariot was driven by two strong stallions, clad in the crispest of gold trimming and reinforced steel that provided an excellent defense as well as a stunning visage to behold. These pure entities had disembarked from their journey from the higher-up Canterlot, ready to see the damage the Hive had done to the town of Ponyville. Much to their dismay, especially the alicorn’s, they had arrived far too late.

7. A Fallen Mentor

Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and the two Pegasi guards that had driven the three to Ponyville were trapped in a feeling of terror as they saw their beloved townsponies under a spell very foreign to them. Random ponies were shambling through town, overcome by a tinge of green consuming their bodies as well as strands of thin, black veins running down the sides of their heads. Some were morbidly obese and others were quite larger than their original builds. They were all eating vast quantities of anything edible or not edible, with those eating things inedible having thin streams of blood dripping down their faces, with teeth missing from the things they realized they couldn’t eat.

“Yer highness,” Applejack said, staring vacantly at the zombie-like ponies. “What in the hay is goin’ on?”

Princess Celestia shared the same facial expression as Applejack, in which Twilight Sparkle and the two royal guardsponies that escorted them to Ponyville each emulated. Celestia was puzzled as to how the Hive was working its way through ponies like this, making them gorge themselves to obscene physical idiosyncrasies.

“I’m… I’m not sure,” Celestia managed to utter. “It’s a work of the ooze, but I haven’t the faintest idea as to why.”

Twilight Sparkle, fulfilling her inquisitive nature, set forth to communicate with the shambling dredges that existed before them to better know the situation at hoof.

“Excuse me, madam,” Twilight tried to say to a mare trying to eat a rock slowly but surely. “But what is it that you all are doing?”

The pony immediately ceased trying to eat the rock in favor of potentially recruiting one to their cause.

“I must eat to feed my brood mother,” the pony replied in a heavy monotone. “She hungers, and I am to feed her.”

“What does that mean?” Applejack chimed in. “What does she mean by ‘mother?’”

“She’s talking about the ooze Discord created,” Celestia almost snapped back, trotting up to the feasting mare, who had already looked obese, and touched her horn to her head. “She’s afflicted by the Hive, just as you were, Applejack. I will try to free her of this plague.”

Twilight then saw that her beloved mentor’s horn was glowing bright, prepped with the same spell she had cast on Applejack in Canterlot. She looked diligent, and, with a flash of white light, the afflicted mare lay on the ground, confused and in pain.

“What happened?” the mare questioned her ruler, now noticing her newfound girth. “And why am I so… fat?”

“You were under the spell of a wicked entity,” Celestia boldly yet pragmatically stated, daring as to not go near conveying the idea of a nearby, tangible threat. “You must evacuate Ponyville. Talk to nopony, and bring nothing with you. Go, quickly!”

And with the importance in the princess’s voice, the mare galloped off, not adjusted to her new form, to escape from Ponyville, with Celestia showing the signs of enduring pain.

“My liege!” one of the guardsponies from the chariot cried as he went to her side to aid her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m… fine…” Celestia replied, looking only slightly beleaguered. “It’s just the pain from absorbing a part of the Hive. That’s all.”

“Do you think you can cure all of these ponies before their ‘mother’ comes back?” Twilight asked. “Because it looks like she’s coming soon, whoever she is.”

“The Hive is near,” Celestia responded. “I can sense it.”

“Are ya sure it’s not what’s in all of these other ponies?” Applejack queried. “Because you said that there Hive was in all of ‘em.”

“The Hive’s presence is muddled by all of these drones,” Celestia answered solemnly. “But that doesn’t mean that I can’t triangulate where it’s at. If I cure more of these ponies, not only can I save them from death, but I can weaken the Hive.”

“Do you need our help, my liege?” the guardsponies simultaneously asked her.

“Not now,” Celestia reassured them. “But when their ‘mother’ comes, be prepared for a fight.”

“I shall alert the other guards,” one of them replied in a loyal tone, about to fly off. “They can help us in this-”

“No! Celestia bellowed, causing all of them to look to her in surprise. “I cannot risk their lives in this. When the ‘mother’ comes and either I tell you or… something happens to me, I want you all, including you two, Applejack and Twilight Sparkle, to evacuate the town immediately. Am I understood?”

“But in the event that something does… happen to you,” Twilight stammered. “I don’t want to leave my mentor like that.”

As Twilight spoke, Celestia was already trying to cure other ponies of their blights, becoming more fatigued after each one she cured.

“It is my duty to protect my subjects,” Celestia confirmed with Twilight after escaping from her stupor of minor pain from a cleansing. “And I do not want to being any other pony down with me in the event that something does happen to me.”

“Well, before the mother comes,” Applejack feebly asked. “What do ye want us to do in the meantime?”

“Bring other afflicted ponies to me,” Celestia answered sternly, already curing her fifth pony. “And stay in a group, you four. Do not talk to them, do not accept anything they have to offer. Just lure them here somehow.”

And so, the team of four split into two groups of two, which the two guards were enlisted by Princess Celestia to escort each individual pony, guarding them for the dangerous task of allocating Hive drones. Applejack was taking this task to a rudimentary level of understanding and simply tried to corral the pony drones as if they were cattle. Twilight, on the other hoof, managed to converse with the guard that was escorting her and managed to devise a grand plan for their operations: diplomatic swaying of the drones and possible luring. At least, Twilight hoped to formulate a plan with her stubborn ally.

“Ms. Sparkle, I cannot let you do that,” the guard pony stated in an official-sounding voice. “The Princess strictly ordered us not to converse with the afflicted.”

“What’s your name?” Twilight asked, seemingly uninterested with what the guard was saying.

“It’s Stalwart, Ms. Sparkle,” the guard pony dutifully stated. “But I highly doubt that knowing my name will-”

“Well, Stalwart,” Twilight began, sounding defensive. “These are ponies, remember that. The Princess has to free as many ponies as she can from the corruption of the Hive that she has disregarded the fact that we can speak to these ponies without woe.”

The curious purple stallion then went after a surprisingly thin pony wallowing in random parts of food, devouring it all, and approached the sprawling stallion on the ground. He had barely grown any size larger than the average pony body structure, but he kept on consuming anything edible.

“Excuse me,” Twilight asked the feasting drone to no avail. “But we need some help, if you don’t mind us ask-”

“Ms. Sparkle!” Stalwart exclaimed, rescuing the pony from the seemingly evil clutches of the incredibly absent-minded and care-free drone. “You are not to communicate with them!”

“They’re ponies, too!” Twilight snapped back. “They deserve the full amount of respect any other pony would receive! Now stay out of my business, or-”

“This mission was too much for you!” Stalwart replied, angrily. “You must be escorted to Canterlot immediately!”

“You aren’t my parent!” she barked. “And you are not providing any valid excuse as to why we shouldn’t treat this pony with any decency and-”

“Mother is coming.”

The two bickering ponies looked to see the feasting drone immediately cease his actions as he stood up straight, eyeing a direction opposite of where Twilight and Stalwart were facing. They could see new fat curdling and bubbling onto the pony in terror as the food it had consumed had already been processed with a very stunted metabolism, according to Twilight’s observations.

“’Mother?’” Twilight recited, confused. “Now who is ‘mother?’”

“She is the one that will free us from the mortal coil of isolationism,” the stallion replied in its monotone demeanor. “And her prophets shall join her in unlife.”

“Prophets?” they both asked the trotting-away stallion in confusion. “What do you mean ‘prophets?’”

The drone stopped speaking to them and began to trot in the direction that he was staring at, curbing his temporary ravenous appetite to go off in to its “mother,” much to the confusion of Twilight and Stalwart.

“Hey! We have asked you who these prophets are, whelp!” Stalwart barked at the mindless drone, sounding infuriated. “You will answer a member of the royal guard!”

It was to no avail; as the pony kept trotting in the same direction, Stalwart became furious, and prepared to strike the drone with his hoof, which caught the attention of the ever-cautious Twilight. Stalwart rose his arm in the air and it almost met the drone’s face until Stalwart, to his infinite confusion, saw a purple aura around his arm, locked in the air by an enigmatic force. Twilight then quickly trotted in front of Stalwart, to separate his infuriated gaze from his potential victim.

“What in the world are you doing?” Twilight shrieked, in horror because of Stalwart’s actions. “What did I say? That’s still an innocent pony! You still have to fulfill your duty to the citizens to protect them, not meaninglessly harm them!”

“He didn’t reply to a member of the royal guard,” Stalwart scowled through gritted teeth. “The filthy afflicted… He’s not even a citizen anymore! He’s-”

“He’s another pony, like you and I,” Twilight repeated herself, releasing her magical grip on Stalwart. “And he can lead us to the location of who we want to see.”

They then observed that the stallion, like the others afflicted ponies, were trotting towards an unknown location, marching in unison to meet what Twilight and Stalwart needed to see. They had quietly followed them, silently trotting in tandem with them to blend in with their movements. While on the move, they met up with Applejack and the other guard pony, who looked disappointed.

“Applejack,” Twilight quietly greeted her. “How was your luck getting some of the afflicted for Celestia?”

“Terrible, Twi,” Applejack responded in a melancholy demeanor. “I tried to rustle up those afflicted, but they just sat there, eatin’ rocks and growing fatter. They were too heavy to move on our own, but they suddenly began to get up and follow other ponies that were doing the same.”

Applejack’s train of thought was interrupted by the allure of a rather perplexing site to behold, titillating the interest of Twilight as well. They were drawn to see two shambling, twisted figures trotting in the same direction as the other drones, but these ponies weren’t bloated like the others. The two ponies barely had any skin, and the amount of skin they retained was lightly sprinkled with hair, resembling the remnants of a pony’s coat. One figure had a white coat while the other had a pink coat. Even in the afternoon sun, Twilight and Applejack could see the many muscles of their forms, glistening in the shine of the shine while pulsating and performing in the grand theater of the function of a body.

The faces of these two were as grotesque as their bodies. Their faces had no skin, just muscle exposed that looked to be bubbling, a possible deterioration. Their eyes weren’t like normal eyes, as they were completely blackened with a moist layer of quickly crusting black, oozing down the sides of their faces. Finally, their manes were butchered due to molting, but they had retained a bit of their manes to resemble that the white pony had a rich purple mane while the pink one had a pink mane, darker than its coat. It had then become apparent, when the two ponies unintentionally came closer to the two frightened mares, that they were Rarity and Pinkie Pie.

“Wha… huh… but… they…” Applejack stammered, looking at the two shambling mares in an incredulous gaze of fear. “I thought the monster back in the Everfree k-k-k-killed th-th-th-them… Twilight… Why do I see… th-th-th-them?”

“I… I don’t know,” Twilight spoke, flabbergasted to see her former friends rendered to what she saw. “We have to talk to them!”

“No!” Stalwart tried to contain Twilight’s emotion for her safety, but couldn’t stop the galloping unicorn from encountering her friends. Applejack had then followed suit, putting the guards in chaos to keep them safe. “Don’t you know what you’re doing? You’re putting yourself in danger!”

“Rarity! Pinkie Pie!” Twilight shouted from afar, galloping closer to her friends, beholding their hideous visages and foul smells from a closer sight. “What happened?”

The two mares identified Twilight and Applejack, and recognized that they weren’t a part of the Hive.

“It’s Twilight and Applejack,” Rarity, still bearing lips to pronounce her words, said to Pinkie Pie in a creepy monotone. “We must spread the gift of the Hive to them.”

“You two need to spread the gift of medical treatment to yourselves,” Applejack chimed in. “Furthermore, how in the hay are you two still alive? I saw you two get attacked by that thing that looked like Fluttershy! Is this what that monster did to you two?”

“You need not to fear,” Pinkie Pie replied, cold and lifeless like Rarity. “You just need to embrace the wonders of the Hive.”

“Applejack,” Twilight addressed the confused Earth pony. “They aren’t who we think they are. They’re afflicted by the Hive!”

“Spread it!” Pinkie Pie commanded Rarity, having an elevated tone but still retained her monotone demeanor. “Expel the glory of the Hive!”

Rarity began to croak, drawing upon new contents of her stomach to expel, like she did with the cake batter in Sugarcube Corner. Twilight and Applejack began to gallop away, and the guards finally got to the scene, only to follow Twilight and Applejack. Rarity had then vomited, expelling a thin stream of bile and the ooze, blended together to form a twisted projectile of amorphous shape contained by bile. The stream had followed the escaping mares and stallions, sentient enough to snare the fetlock joints of one of the guardsponies, with Stalwart to try and rescue him.

The ooze was engulfing the stallion’s leg, working its way up his leg, with Stalwart trying to wrench his fallen compatriot. His partner was quickly being dragged into the maw of the ooze, faster than Stalwart could pull him out. Twilight and Applejack had joined in on the effort, using a harmonious combination of brawn and magic to free the stallion, but to no avail. The ooze had snapped back the three ponies and completely engulfed the pony into a shell of dripping bile and dark green ooze. Stalwart was frozen in shock at the fate of his comrade, and couldn’t deduce what was happening to him. He had to be pulled away from the scene of horror by Twilight and Applejack, almost dragged away back to the location of Celestia.

“What… what happened?” Stalwart stammered, almost rendered catatonic by his experience. He made it difficult for Twilight and Applejack to get him away as fast as they could. “He… he’s probably dead, or he was turned into one of those damned drones!”

“Cursing the Hive won’t do us any good,” Twilight tried to reassure him. Getting closer to where they left Princess Celestia. “We’re going to have to find a way to stop it. Hopefully, the Princess has cured enough ponies to weaken this ‘mother.’”

They had successfully escaped Rarity and Pinkie Pie, much to the dismay of the now scarred Stalwart, only to arrive to a beleaguered Celestia. She was trying her best to cure the populace before the Hive “mother” would arrive, surrounded by confused and lethargic ponies, left nearly crippled by the ailing ooze inside them. Celestia looked battered and tired, looking a terrible shade of green, but only so light of a tinge as that one would have to squint their eyes to behold her new green aura.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight and Applejack shouted to the Princess as they drew closer to her presence, with Stalwart in a catatonic state.

They had arrived to where they could speak to Celestia without revealing their location to the potentially hostile Pinkie Pie and Rarity, panting and frightened.

“They’re growing hostile!” Twilight warned the Princess, trying to catch her breath. “One of the royal guards… that accompanied us… was consumed in some way…”

“Then it is just how I feared, everypony,” Celestia solemnly replied, ceasing curing any other pony due to her fatigue. “The strength the Hive has over everypony has gotten to the point where it tires me, and that they are growing belligerent, as you say. We’re going to have to eliminate the ‘mother’ if we have any hope of defeating this menace.”

“Where’s Princess Luna?” Applejack pointed out. “She was supposed to help you with this ‘ere curing and stuff.”

“I had told her last minute to remain in the castle,” Celestia replied. “Canterlot, from what I was told by an emergency escort, had a dungeon break-out, which Luna has been sent to take care of. She should be here momentarily.”

“But you can’t take care of all of these ponies by yourself!” Applejack shrieked. “Look at yourself! You’ve taken too much of the… affliction…”

“I know,” Celestia said. “But I still have enough strength to take on the Hive master, ‘mother,’ as these poor afflicted denizens of Ponyville have been describing this entire time.”

The afflicted ponies marching in unison had arrived, and rather than going for the four unafflicted ponies before them, they continued to trot past them, going to the border of the Everfree. Pinkie Pie and Rarity caught up, but oddly enough didn’t go after the ponies they had assaulted earlier. Celestia may have cured around ten or so ponies, but the entire town was present to show its threat to the Princess, who couldn’t manage to save her subjects.

Celestia suddenly widened her eyes; her ears pricked up to pick-up on an peculiar presence. She picked up on some resonations vibrating through the air, and she discovered that their time to act was approaching faster than they could predict.

“It’s here,” Celestia warned her three subjects, still loyal to their true leader. “The time to act is now.”

“Is the ‘mother’ here?” Twilight asked, worried. “What do you want us to do, Princess?”

“The Hive will use these ponies as food. I will confront the Hive ‘mother’ myself, but I need you three to distract its subjects. Otherwise, we’ll gain some casualties while it gains more power.”

“There’s no hope in destroying it,” Stalwart finally spoke up, a feeling of dread riding his stoic voice. “We’re doomed.”

“We don’t have time to deal with this,” Applejack scolded the mentally-crippled guard. “We need to-”

They were too late. The drones that had congregated to the edge of the Ponyville borders were in positions of offering themselves, looking as if to give up their own bodies for this unseen entity. Suddenly, it had emerged, galvanizing the Princess’s trepidations and instilling a newborn fear into Twilight and Applejack. The Hive ‘mother’ had shown up. The three ponies had a clear sight of the monstrosity before them, except for Stalwart, who was looking vacantly in the distance opposite of the forest.

The creeping form slithered its way past the trees, bearing a large, amorphous presence until it met-up with its subjects. The green slime had then assembled itself, curdling its form and rising up to expose a full-figured Fluttershy, much to all three of the terrified pony’s surprise. They had not foreseen the entity taking the form of Fluttershy, except this Fluttershy was much larger in girth than the original Fluttershy, confirming Celestia’s fears of the Hive “feeding.”

“F-F-F-F-Fluttersh-sh-shy?” Twilight and Applejack stammered in unison.

“So it was Fluttershy that was victim zero,” Celestia sighed. “An Element of Harmony has been corrupted by the Hive…”

“Is that really her?” Twilight asked, terrified. “Applejack said that the monster took the form of her, but…”

“Yes, there is no other form it would take, my faithful student,” Celestia responded. “The Hive has taken control of Fluttershy, and now with a part of the Elements stricken, containing this creature will be harder than I thought.”

“But Princess,” Applejack interjected. “Didn’t you see Rarity and Pinkie Pie trot past us? They attacked us earlier and…”

She trailed off, noticing the look of dread fill within her ruler.

“It’s okay, my little ponies,” Celestia stated nobly. “I will try my best to protect my subjects. Hopefully, Luna will be able to join me. For now, I will confront the Hive. Go and lure away the other ponies while I engage her.”

The mares nodded in silent agreement, galloping to hide from the Hive, which had finally assembled itself to a complete Fluttershy figure. Stalwart was abandoned, but hidden in an unlocked house. Celestia boldly trotted to the Hive, not knowing what she was getting herself into.

“Hello, my subjects,” Fluttershy said to her giant crowd of over-bloated and subservient ponies, eager to fulfill their purpose, ignorant to the three ponies plotting her downfall. “It’s time to feed momma!”

“I am their rightful ruler, fiend!” Celestia’s voice boomed over the crowd, sending the fear of a malevolent ruler through the hearts of Twilight and Applejack. The pure, white alicorn, only tainted by a slight tinge of green, trotted through the crowd of drones, sending some away to the side with her magic, hoping to intimidate the Hive. “Relinquish control of your current vessel right now and surrender!”

Twilight and Applejack were cowering in place, never hearing Celestia become this intimidating ever, but they realized their objective, noticing that Fluttershy was not aware of their presence. They started to herd away drones, pushing their heavy forms with both muscle and magic while Fluttershy and Celestia confronted each other. Fluttershy, surprising to her usual character traits, didn’t cringe or budge to Celestia’s presence at all.

“It’s been too long, filthy alicorn,” Fluttershy snapped coyly, making it absolute that the Hive was talking for her entirely. “We were trapped for so long, but we never forgot of your sins to the Hive.”

“The Hive is a wretched abomination that should have never existed,” Celestia shouted, her eyes lit a pristine white aura, her horn sparking with a divine power. “And you have claimed too many ponies to go unnoticed. It’s time for your destruction!”

“You couldn’t stop us last time, so what makes you think that we’re so frightened by your hollow threats now?” Fluttershy snapped back, disassembling herself to become amorphous, silently calling upon her cattle for feeding. “Go ahead and try to destroy us. Our creator has made us flawless; indestructible!”

As soon as she ended her speech, she let out a cackling laugh, and her drones followed suit by marching towards their master, ready to serve. The two mares in charge of quelling the drones’ involvement were failing at their job, as the drones were pushing past Twilight’s magic and Applejack’s strength, much to their dismay. Celestia has seen that the two mares couldn’t handle the strength of the Hive, so she swung her head to fling the Hive’s subjects away from Fluttershy, angering the entity. Over-bloated ponies were sailing through the air, sprawling to random parts of the town to be too far away from the Hive but kept intact from the damage of impact.

The ponies she couldn’t fling in time had managed to reach Fluttershy, and were absorbed into her form faster than Zecora had been consumed. As they disappeared, Fluttershy’s body had grown indefinitely, her body curding from the several ponies throwing themselves into her ravenous form. Celestia, surprised at the speed that the Hive worked at, anxiously tried to step-up her speed of dealing with the monstrosity before her and began to charge her horn, ready to blast the Hive with a disintegration spell. Fluttershy, ignorant to the actions of the Princess, was relishing in the delight her food had brought to her.

Celestia then jerked her head; an eye-blinding beam of concentrated magic shot through her horn and made its way to the larger Fluttershy. It sailed through the sky, an unfettered missile ready to pierce the Hive. Fluttershy saw the beam coming towards her, and quickly tried to slither away, knowing that she could easily outpace the enraged alicorn easily when she slithered. Due to her larger size, she couldn’t compensate for it, and she was hit by the beam of disintegration, right on her lower form.

Fluttershy let out a painful moan, not sounding like her normal self but having her moan being deep and monstrous, echoing through the air and rattling the minds of Twilight and Applejack, who were witnessing the events unfolding in unabridged awe. Fluttershy’s lower half was being eaten away, much to the satisfaction of the panting and shaking Princess Celestia. A white glow was overcoming Fluttershy’s body, the remnants of her free-form body, quickly calcifying and boiling away, causing the moans of the affected Fluttershy to be more monstrous.

Fluttershy eventually quelled the spread of the spell from affecting the rest of her body, but over one-third of her form was eaten away by Celestia’s magic. She then became inconspicuous to every other pony, trying in desperation to slither her way to the forest. She quickly planted her roots into the ground, desperate to use the nutrients of the forest floor to add to her form. She was clearly smaller than before, but Celestia could still sense the Hive’s presence clearly.

“Had enough?” the belligerent Princess barked at the cowering ooze, zapping it with less-concentrated versions of her original spell. Celestia had looked extremely wore-out at that point, but her initiative to save her kingdom was strong enough to fuel her and quell the plague of the Hive. “Go ahead and draw nutrients from the ground. It won’t be enough to save yourself from my magic. You’ll disintegrate faster than you could assemble yourself.”

The ooze was shrieking, its tone lighter than before, trying desperately to slither away from its aggressor. The Hive had not fully realized how stunted its powers were since its last attack on the archaic Trotsdow. Celestia mustered all of her energy and mental faculties to further disintegrate the now miniscule ooze. It was the size of her hoof at that point, still latching to the hearty forest floor in an aimless hope to reinstate its once gluttonously humongous size.

Unfortunately, the tide of the battle was about to turn in favor of the Hive, as Twilight and Applejack, who were still at the border of the town and the forest, did not foresee the many drones coming back to aid its crippled master. An army of drones poured through the town, traveling at their fastest, despite their monstrous sizes, which were too much for Twilight and Applejack to handle. Despite the yells of her subjects to warn her, Celestia was too exhausted and hell-bent on the eradication the Hive. The predatory ooze was now the size of a granule of dirt, prompting Celestia to use the last of her energy to finally stop the ooze. Her horn lit with great hostility towards the ooze, and as she was about to cast the last spell to end the plague, she was somehow stopped by a magical presence.

She wondered why she couldn’t cast her spell before feeling the moist and enlarged hooves of countless amounts of ponies behind her. She was seized by the monstrous but loyal drones of the Hive, her magic being nullified by the countless amounts of unicorns that the Hive had seized for itself. Celestia, bewildered, knew she could override their magic and brute strength with her own, but she was too weak to do so. She budged indefinitely, letting out a cry of defeat as she saw the drones of the Hive go to its fallen master, letting it slowly consume them.

Twilight and Applejack caught-up to the captured alicorn, but couldn’t get to her because of the countless amounts of drones that answered the call of their master blocking them. They tried to push through with magic and melee, but the other drones counteracted with their own magic, making sure that they were quelled long enough for their master to reform.

“Twilight! Applejack! Escape from here! Quickly!” the two mares heard from a distance past the drones the familiar voice of their ruler, sounding restrained and exhausted.

“Princess!” Twilight shouted, in tears that her infallible ruler and mentor was captured and restrained like a mere peon. “We can’t abandon you here!”

“It’s okay,” Celestia shouted, reassuringly. “I have tried my best. It’s time to lay down and accept my fate.”

Celestia then started to speak to herself, meaning to tell her two subjects but managed to come out as a quiet, personal monologue.

“I have failed you, Twilight,” she began. “I have failed all of Ponyville. I could not stop this malevolent force by myself. I have been foolish.”

Celestia then focused her attention on the ooze, which had finished consuming a drone, and was the size of that drone.

“Make my demise quick, monster,” Celestia said defiantly to the now assembled Fluttershy. “But know that in my defeat, my subjects and my sister will combine their efforts to defeat you, even if I’m not there to lead them.”

As Celestia was speaking to Fluttershy, the Hive found humor in what Celestia spoke. It began to consume more drones, in a line and eager to serve it.

“Who says that you will meet your demise now?” the Hive responded with a disturbing chortle. “We have plans for you, raiser of the sun.”

“What do you want from me?” the beleaguered Princess shot back, confused and frightened but still showing her strong and stalwart look of defiance and order. “I am of no use with myself being frail and weak. What more could you want from me?”

“You, of course,” the ooze spoke with enigma, frightening the Princess. “This host is clearly inferior to a pony like you, Celestia. We feel that if we simply change our host from this frail Pegasus to a mighty alicorn such as yourself, we’d be able to spread the glorious message of the Hive to new spectrums!”

“No… No!” Celestia shrieked, breaking her composure. She was verging into a helpless state, no longer able to hide her true feelings towards the situation. “You can’t so this?”

The Hive noticed the change in Celestia’s tone, and grew ever-confident in its conquest for Equestria that if it could bring its ruler to her knees and on their side cowering in fear, no other pony could stand a chance against its might.

“Oh, think of it this way, Celestia,” the ooze said. “You will be able to command the Hive as its strongest link, the leading hegemon within a collective of subservient subjects, amalgamated into a glorious entity, united and all-accepting to its form. You call us a scourge, but we are the greatest uniting force to ever exist in Equestria. We are the perfect embodiment of true harmony, and you will soon discover this yourself. No one will mourn for your loss, for that we will welcome you in our holy bastion of harmony and divinity.”

Much to the horror of Celestia, Fluttershy’s body started to spastically flail, acting as if an invisible force had rendered her full-figured form into that of a rag doll. Her form shook and flailed, until her mouth had opened, still shaking violently. Out from her mouth came pouring the ooze, enlarged from the several ponies it had consumed. Fluttershy’s bloated form was then being drained, as the ooze snaked its thick elongated form out of her mouth, the host’s body shrinking in size, her skin eventually conforming to her bones. Fluttershy had been rendered to an extremely emaciated form, her bones exposed through her once enormous form.

The ooze was now in the form of a green, liquid-like snake, coiled on the ground and dripping with the bodily fluids of its former host. It had looked upon Fluttershy’s body and chuckled, creating a more frightening presence for Celestia to endure. The drones holding her down had then received the inaudible order to hold open Celestia’s mouth, as they were prying it open with much resistance from Celestia. She fought fiercely, regaining some of her strength from the time it took for the ooze to leave Fluttershy, but couldn’t fight off the might of the hundreds of drones, ready to restrain her if she even made the futile effort to escape.

She had failed her personal objective, and the drones had managed to open her mouth, ready and accepting for the ooze to enter. Like a filly in a candy store, the ooze was able to greet Celestia’s mouth with its presence, slithering its way to her mouth, caressing her teeth and tongue, toying with the helpless princess. It made her gag, it tried to make her heave, but Celestia was aimlessly still fighting. Finally, the ooze was done toying with the enemy it had grown to hate for so many centuries, and entered her body, branching out to every important part of her to penetrate any semblance of Celestia to replace with its own.

The drones had let go of the spastic body of Celestia, watching her squirm and writhe in the pain of the large snake entering her body. Vomit was excreted due to the gagging, but it did nothing to hinder the ooze. Fluttershy, who was barely conscious, was the only unafflicted pony to witness the horrors of her ruler’s corruption. The ooze had finally wormed its way into Celestia’s body, her form growing in girth to accommodate the large ooze. Her coat had turned even greener than before, and her form had attained some unsightly girth.

* * *

Things had gone black in Celestia’s mind. Her once stalwart bulwark on her mind was breached without difficulty by a pernicious and penetrating force. Her very thoughts were being overridden, monitored heavily by this insidious presence.

“Hello, Celestia,” a familiar voice said to her in a taunting manner. “Are you feeling at home within the safe confines of your mind? Because we are, too.”

“What do you want?” the princess shouted within her mind, not being able to see her aggressor. “What are you-”

“Lighten up, Celestia,” the ooze called back curtly. “It’s time to get down to business. We have to convince you to devote yourself to the Hive mind.”

“You may have my body,” Celestia shouted defiantly, coming to realization what was actually going on. “But you can’t sway me to your side!”

“You give us little credit to our abilities,” the ooze retorted, sounding confident in its abilities. “Your indoctrination will come swiftly and easily, princess. You see, Fluttershy was quick to crumble to our spell, but, despite it being quick, it took hours to sway her. Our corruption on her mind was working as fast as we could make it work, but we were hindered by the sleep you had put us through many an age ago. We were weak. Normally, we could corrode a pony’s mind in, at most, ten minutes. Now, with our newly acquired strength, we can sway you momentarily.”

“What will you even make me think?” Celestia questioned the unseen entity. “You won’t succeed in your goals, I can assure you that.”

“Drop the omnipotence, Celestia,” the ooze responded coldly. “You’ll drop like a feather. We’re working our way into you right now, and you don’t even notice it. Now, the benefits of the Hive are numerous, but you reject our ideals.”

“The death of countless amounts of ponies are no excuse for-”

“And the imprisonment of our creator is no excuse for your actions, either. Discord was trying to live in harmony with you and your kind, but you rejected his glorious ideals in place of your obsolete philosophy of ‘separate but equal.’”

My kingdom lives in perfect harmony! There is no such division that would provoke-”

“What are you, Celestia? You are an alicorn, the spitting image of perfection. As an alicorn, your grasp on magic and your body’s ability to endure any hardship are pre-made for perfection. You are immortal, and so is your race. Now extrapolate the amount of alicorns that exist within your existence. Drawing from upon your knowledge, we have concluded that you know of three others that even grace your local existence. Even if we tried to perfect your sister Chrysalis, she is still an alicorn and she is still a pony, which is something your eyes of oppression cannot fathom accepting.

“What makes up your kingdom? Earth, Pegasus, and Unicorn ponies, all trapped in the delusion of coexistence. There is no unity within your kingdom, Celestia. All of these ponies live in oppression under your dominant race of being the alicorn. As an alicorn, you can clearly perform any task all three of your subservient races can perform at increased levels of improvement compared to them. And even if alicorns never existed, the Pegasus, Earth, and Unicorn ponies would see each other as inadequate in each others’ eyes, especially the Earth ponies.

“The Pegasi can fly and the Unicorns can perform magic, but what can an Earth pony do? Nothing that their superior forms can do. Can an Earth Pony fly through Cloudsdale and control the weather? Can an Earth Pony perform a magical spell to fix a broken building or stop an aggressor? No, they cannot. You’ve engineered these three races to be inferior to each other, incapable of performing what the other can do, but you’ve made a race that suffers the most. Luckily for you, you’ve made it so that when an Earth pony is conceived in the womb, oxygen flow is restricted to their brains, so that they are mentally deficient to the other races.”

“How did you even know that?”

“We have access to all of your thoughts and memories, our dear. Now then, through this immortal natural segregation, you’ve made the Unicorn race the most superior over the others. Unicorns can perform magic, and are the least mentally deficient out of all of your other races. They excel over what Earth and Pegasus ponies can do combined. They can even find ways to fly, which is a slap to the faces of your other races.

“Now then, you claim that your land lives in eternal harmony, when discord is predominant. One would say that this is certainly a contradiction. In order to rectify this contradiction, we were created by Discord. Despite his name, we were created to create the perfect harmony. Why be separate when everypony can be equal? By assimilating into the Hive mind, we all contribute to the wellbeing of one entity. No longer are we shackled by the indemnities of being oppressed by a master race. We can be equal as one.”

Normally, Celestia wouldn’t crumble under this sort of ideology, but the ooze penetrating her frontal lobes, replacing her thoughts with ones that glorified the Hive. She was helpless and vulnerable and she didn’t even know that she was.

“I have created such an unbalanced kingdom,” Celestia, overcome with sudden grief over implanted thoughts cried. “How could I have betrayed my own idea of harmony?”

“You have sinned, yes,” the ooze said, delighted in her mental crumbling. “But you will redeem yourself. You will rise as, not the princess, but the queen of the Hive. You will serve your subjects with equal harmony by uniting them under one entity. From there, disharmony will cease because of our glorious purgation of it!”

Things were looking less convoluted for Celestia. For once in her ever0expanding lifespan, she felt at home with something. No longer did she have to stand tall and act independent, but as if she could throw herself into a collective consciousness and be cared for. To do what she wanted without social persecution. To explore her innermost secrets without restraint. She felt as if the Hive was her life, which was what the Hive had planned to make her think the entire time.

* * *

The wails of Celestia were extremely unsettling for Twilight and Applejack to listen to. They were at the mouth of the Everfree, panicking as to what to do about their fallen ruler.

“Twilight, we could barely get past these ponies before,” Applejack asked the troubled unicorn. “But how will we save Celestia, the only one that could do anything about this?”

“I’m lost for answers,” Twilight said solemnly, as she trotted back and forth aimlessly, hoping to exhume any potential answer from the dirt she was pacing in. “I’m just… I just… Think, Twilight think!”

She pressed her hooves against her head, sitting in the dirt path trying to think of an answer. Applejack was mysteriously silent, but there was a hoof placed onto Twilight’s shoulder, much to her surprise.

“There’s not much to think about, Twilight Sparkle,” a regal, stiff voice spoke from behind Twilight. She turned around to witness that it was Princess Luna, for which Applejack was in awe of seeing the esoteric co-ruler of Equestria. Luna had looked her normal self, save for the fact that she had some cuts embedded into her dark coat.

“Princess Luna!” Twilight shrieked in joy, which turned to nosy inquisition. “Where were you?”

“There was a haphazard dungeon break under Canterlot Castle,” Luna replied. “I had to help quell it because of the lack of Princess Celestia being there. Of course, I can forgive her for her absence, for that the screams I hear in the Everfree are the screams of mercy from the adversary, yes?”

The two mares before her started to burst-out in tears, much to Luna’s bewildered confusion.

“Celestia… is in the forest, Princess Luna…” Applejack managed to convey. “She wasn’t strong enough to take on the ‘ive’s army by ‘erself!”

“She was taken into the Everfree and we can’t get past the Hive’s guards!” Twilight shrieked. “I fear that they’re doing abhorrent things to her at this moment!”

“I will fly over the Everfree,” Luna boldly stated. “And I will try my best to save her. The Hive is an incredibly dangerous force of nature, Twilight Sparkle, and I’m glad you two didn’t come into contact with it. I shall return.”

And so, Luna did her best to fly into the Everfree, soaring above the horde of drones that had captured her sister in a quiet fashion, and she discovered the desiccated body of Fluttershy first. Her body was breathing slowly, and her form was a grisly sight to behold, even from high above.

She landed amongst the ponies to rescue Fluttershy from the drones, only to discover her sister. She was being bound by the drones no longer, but she had grown twice her size and was an awful shade of green to boot.

“Hello, sister,” Princess Celestia said to Luna, her voice resonating with the echoes of the Hive behind it. “I’m so glad you came. We can now unite more of Equestrian royalty to become one!”

8. Duality of Intentions

“Sister,” Luna said with great trepidation in her voice. “Are you alright?”

The once noble and well-revered ruler of Equestria had been changed dramatically. Ranging from the bulbous, pulsating, appendage-like sacks of what Luna could not even fathom to imagine them containing anchoring Celestia to the ground, to the curdling, liquid-like texture of Celestia’s body, Luna wasn’t expecting a straightforward “I’m fine” kind of answer. She had an amorphous body, which definitely called for more proper answers.

“Of course I’m fine,” Celestia responded, surprising Luna. “I think I should be asking you if you’re alright!”

“Sister,” Luna began, slowly hoisting Fluttershy onto her back. “You’ve taken on a different form. You look less than alright; you look like… like…”

“Like what?” Celestia finished for Luna. “What are you trying to tell me that will somehow change my perspective on valuing your life right now?”

“I- wait, what?” Luna replied, shocked. “What are you talking about, sister?”

Luna’s fears of Celestia were only exacerbated by the poor choice of words on Celestia’s part. Celestia had then taken on a more concrete form: herself. She looked like her normal self, but only with a slight green tinge about her and the fact that she was larger than before. By then, she had commanded the afflicted ponies before her to sit subserviently, to watch her engage in her plans in awe. This gave Twilight and Applejack the perfect opportunity to pour through the mob of ponies to confront the two alicorns.
When they arrived, they had witnessed the sudden change in Celestia’s form, but remained silent, hoping to not disturb the afflicted ponies before them. Celestia had paid no attention to the insignificant unicorn and earth pony that had just arrived.

“You heard me, sister,” Celestia said, lowering her head in a focused state while assembling herself into an aggressive stance. She had her legs spaced away from each other, lowering her body and giving the visage of an angered Celestia, ready to be aggressive. “I thought I had made it clear how I had changed my perspective of how I preferred your existence. Apparently, I’m going to have to try my best to make it crystal clear to you.”

Suddenly, it had become apparent as to why Celestia was in that stance. From her abdominal area sprouted a frightening array of tentacle-like appendages. The way they had emerged from her body was with almost liquid-like fluidity that made it hard to notice at first. The tentacles, catching every pony off guard, had then lunged at Luna, constricting her in an almost inescapable grip. They had then slithered their ways back to their source, letting Celestia stare Luna in the face as she had her in a helpless position. All of this was accomplished within a blink of an eye, as Twilight and Applejack had to look twice to see what had happened, unable to immediately think of a way to rescue Luna.

“What are you doing, sister?” Luna shrieked, trying her best to writhe her way out of Celestia’s grip. “And why do you want me eliminated so much?”

Celestia had raised a curious eyebrow to Luna’s question. She knew that her sister’s reactions were subjective to what she knew from her own aesthetics and actions. However, her intentions were vastly contrasted from what she allowed her sibling to infer.

“Dear Luna,” Celestia replied mockingly. “I do not wish to see you eliminated. I do not wish to see you die before me. That would be sadistic of me to do that. I have more constructive intentions for you.”

Luna could feel a sharp stabbing pain enter her sides, causing her to cringe with an ostensive look of dread fill her face. She fell in Celestia’s grip, looking significantly weakened, which was enough for Twilight and Applejack to properly react to and engage Celestia appropriately. They both readied themselves in an aggressive stance, ready to spring into action if Celestia did anything to them.

“You have to stop, Princess!” Twilight shot back at the malevolent ruler in her midst. “I don’t know what came over you, nor what happened to you, but you have to stop!”

“You said you wouldn’t k-kill her!” Applejack stammered, taking an aggressive stance along with Twilight at her side.

“I didn’t kill her, whelps,” Celestia responded to both of them coldly, still cradling the limp Luna within her tentacle appendage. “She has been filled with perfection. And at this moment-”

“At this moment,” Luna managed to utter, as she slowly lifted her head to have her eyes stare into the cold, desolate eyes of her sister. “I’m not going to sit idly by and let you do this!”

Luna managed to summon the strength to have her horn illuminate with magic, strangely enough glowing with an intensely dark aura, and thrusting her head forward, releasing a highly concentrated bolt of destructive magic hurling at Celestia, straight to her face. The two ponies before them stared in awe as the hidden power of the princess unleashed at Celestia. They could see the damage inflicted, seeing Celestia’s skin flake off of her as quickly as she shrieked in the pain it caused, until even her very bones were dissipating in tandem.

In the aftermath, Luna was released from the tentacle grip, dropping to the ground with a massive, open wound in her side. It was fresh, brimming with blood and a black ichor slowly replacing the red flesh hidden under her skin. Her pain was nothing in comparison to what she had done to Celestia, for that her entire head, from her neck up, was entirely decimated. Nothing existed in its place; a hallowed void replacing what used to be the familiar princess. Twilight and Applejack then managed to shift their attention to the fallen Luna, desperately trying to help her up.

“She’s… not dead…” Luna managed to gasp, coughing profusely. “Alicorns… have an amazing… regenerative ability. It will take her a while before she will be a… legitimate threat.”

Luna had coughed up a tremendous load of blood, surrounding her head in a pool of the vital fluid.

“Luna, I don’t understand what’s going on!” Twilight shrieked, desperately using her magic to try to cauterize Luna’s wound. “Why did you do that to the princess?”

“She… she’s not Celestia,” Luna replied weakly. “It is the threat Celestia called me to help her take care of. She is… the Hive…”

Twilight and Applejack gasped, caught in terror at what Luna had uttered.

“…How?” Applejack managed to squeak. “She’s the princess! Nothin’ can happen to the princess like that! She’s stronger than that!”

“Apparently, she had let her guard down, taking in too much of… the Hive…” Luna replied, continuing to cough up blood. “It consumed her mind. I could not see the Celestia you and I have grown to know, Applejack, Twilight.”

Luna managed to rest her head on the ground, giving an exhausted sigh of pain as her head met the inviting dirt.

“We have to get you out of here!” Twilight proclaimed, helping hoist the near-lifeless Alicorn body onto Applejack’s back. “Then we can find a way to help you and Celestia!”

“Don’t forget the other ponies afflicted,” Applejack chimed in nervously, gulping in shock as she reminded the two of them that they had forgotten about the horde of afflicted ponies before them. They had established a healthy fortification around the three normal ponies, giving the feeling of no escape to them.

Fortunately for them, the afflicted slaves of the horde were doing absolutely nothing. They stood before the three like beleaguered statues, not conveying a single thought of sentience; they stood cold and dead to them. At first, Twilight and Applejack were unsure if it were safe to mush through the blockade of bodies, but with an inquisitive prod to the ponies with a spell of annoyance cast by Twilight, the pillars of their catatonic aggressors fell to the ground without any resistance. With a simple wave of magic, Twilight was able to push down the ponies like dominoes, leading a clear path for Applejack to escort Luna out of the Everfree.

With that, all that existed in the Everfree were the toppled bodies of the afflicted and the stump of what used to be Celestia, the area which her head and neck used to exist: utterly gone. She stood in the same pose for a few minutes, not budging even once. Then, out of nowhere, erupted many small, black tendrils of ichor from Celestia’s neck, lashing from the neck to the void, collapsing back down into her neck and solidifying. In unison, these tendrils were slowly performing this seemingly benign action, but it turned out to be an insidious mixture of the Hive and the former alicorn’s innate regenerative powers…

* * *

Thanking a theoretical former Celestia for their grace period away from the Hive’s minions, Twilight and Applejack had managed to escape the Everfree without harm. They had insisted on galloping as fast as they could, prepared for the potential uprising from the hordes of catatonic hive drones behind them. Surprisingly, Applejack had managed to balance the unconscious Luna on her back, precariously balanced by both Applejack and with assistance from Twilight’s magic. They had reached the end of the Everfree forest, resting and panting heavily from their escape.

“Where to now… Twilight?” Applejack asked in between panting. “We’ve got to… get the Princess… to safety!”

“Well,” Twilight began, looking incredibly unsure of the situation. She grimaced at the wounds Luna was holding off, surprised that the injured alicorn was fighting off her potential death so well unconscious. “We just need to… wake her up. She said that alicorns… can regenerate.”

“I never knew that ‘til today,” Applejack replied, surprised. “But I’m not sure how we’ll wake her up.”

Twilight began to ponder a solution to this predicament. She didn’t know if alicorns could regenerate while conscious or in any state. She bit her bottom lip in anticipation and confusion, feeling the very beads of sweat rolling down her face representing a frame of reference for her to think fast. She knew they only had so much time before somehow the drones would be reanimated.

“I’ll try to shock her with a slight annoyance spell,” Twilight told Applejack nervously. “I’ll make it ostensible enough for her to awaken, but it won’t be too crippling for her in her state right now.”

Instinctively, Applejack gingerly rolled the wounded Princess off of her back and onto the ground, into a pleasant patch of grass. She then held the alicorn’s arms down, ready to contain her if she started to produce spastic reactions from her awakening.

“Applejack, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Twilight warned Applejack. “I don’t know if I can prevent my spell from forking into you via Luna. Let her go.”

Confused but obedient, Applejack had removed herself from Luna, standing idly by as she would witness a rather rude awakening. Twilight bit her lower lip again and thought to herself, thinking of how she could channel the spell at just the right interval of pain without any lethal consequences. After a minute, she ceased the biting of her lip and gave Applejack a facial expression of pure confidence. She was ready to potentially save or murder Luna.

She lowered her head, pointing her horn in Luna’s direction. She couldn’t help but notice some rather intimidating ichor tendrils lash out from Luna’s wounds, cauterizing her wound with a thick black puss. Twilight knew she had to get the spell cast and over with soon, so she closed her eyes to distract herself from the grisly wound and to better her concentration. She thought of the proper incantation to perform, and her horn lit with a purple aura, giving a pulsating glow. She focused her efforts on Luna’s body, and thus a hideous bolt of electricity shot from the unicorn’s horn, shooting the near-lifeless alicorn.

Luna’s body began to twitch violently from the shock, the coursing of much electricity into her body. Twilight let this persist for three seconds before retracting her spell, opening her eyes to see the alicorn leap up from the ground, eyes widened and her gasping for breath. In a twisted bit of comedy, Luna’s mane had stood up from her body from the electricity, which had made Applejack giggle quietly, then retracting her poorly-timed display of comedic taste.

“Luna! We had to awaken you!” Twilight shouted to the Princess, suddenly entering a panic state now that they could save her. “I’m so sorry!”

The Princess had to catch her breath, for that her heart was beating at an incredibly accelerated rate after being forced from her comatose state. This was led with her clutching her sides in pain, remembering that she had a finite amount of time to deal with the Hive infesting her body.

“Thank you, Twilight, Applejack,” Luna managed to say, much to the ponies’ delight. “But I think it’s too late for me to be saved. The Hive…”

“But… but you can regenerate, or something!” Applejack pointed out, concerned and scared for Luna’s life. “What’s wrong?”

“That incursion with Celestia…” Luna began, writing in pain. “She had severely wounded me. And it didn’t help that I channeled all of my energy to temporarily stop her.”

“Temporary?” Twilight interjected. “We had thought that you legitimately… killed-”

“No!” Luna barked. “I would never attempt to kill my own sister! It’s just… that thing wasn’t Celestia… It was what she had warned me about prior. It is the Hive. She will regenerate soon, so we must act quickly.”

Twilight was a bit relieved to hear that Celestia had at least regenerated and not truly died. Still, she was frightened by the fact that her mentor, the guiding force in her life, had succumbed to something as malefic and despicable as the Hive. It hit her hard to realize that her once infallible ruler could be corrupted.

“How can we help then, yer highness?” Applejack asked Luna in a helpful, concerned tone. “How can we make you strong enough to fight the Hive?”

“You’ll have to use magic, Twilight,” Luna answered, fixing her attention towards Twilight. “You have to try your best to heal me so I can summon the energy to fight the Hive…”

With that, Twilight tried desperately to recall a proper healing spell, but nothing was coming to mind. She had remembered some minor healing spells, but nothing that compared to rejuvenating Luna.

“I… I don’t know how,” Twilight dejectedly stated. “I don’t know a healing spell potent enough to help you.”

“Then how will we save the Princess?” Applejack asked, worried.

Twilight took a moment to ponder on this, the sudden increase of sweat pouring down her face an indication of her nervousness, and with that nervousness heralded the sign that there was a lack of time. Her thoughts were being drowned by the ominous tintinnabulations of her heart, beating rapidly from the situation and thus clouding her thoughts.

“Twilight,” Applejack asked, interrupting Twilight’s internal crisis with words of a sudden epiphany. “Wouldn’t ya happen to have a book about it at yer library?”

Suddenly, Twilight was filled with inspiration by the words of Applejack. She had remembered the countless times that she’s had to recount from her books methods of accomplishing tasks with unknown magical spells. She knew she had a book in her library that pertained to higher healing properties, but she didn’t know if it could provide the necessary power she was looking for.

“Applejack, you’re a genius!” Twilight shot out in a confident display of approval. “We just need to get to the library! I know I have a book on this!”

“As long as you… make it quick,” Luna uttered, squirming and writhing in pain. “I can feel my ability to resist… diminish…”

Without sparing a moment, Applejack had hoisted the fallen Princess onto her back, and the two ponies galloped their way to Twilight’s library.

* * *

In the Everfree forest stood the army of unmovable ponies, bloated and swelled with the gorging properties of the Hive. They stood, still possessing the insidious idiosyncrasies of the Hive, yet they were immobile. Some were toppled over, while others towered over the fallen, silently standing idly by, waiting for the next sweeping change to occur. Next to them resided their decapitated ruler, the former Princess Celestia. She had her head, down to her neck, completely obliterated by the awesome might of Princess Luna. Somehow, the stump that resembled her neck had shown signs of regeneration, showing that the neck had been rebuilding itself.

Resting near the lifeless statue of the former Princess stood the nearly desiccated remains of the pony known as Rarity. Her coat had entirely molted off, her mane was reduced to mere strands of its once meticulously-tended glory, and her skin had been eaten away by the Hive. With the absence of skin exposed a selection of grotesque imagery, starting with a thin spread of underlying muscles feebly protecting Rarity’s delicate skeleton. Her bones were stained with a slurry of red blood and black ichor. Within her bones resided her organs, as exposed as the very frame protecting them. They were still kept intact, their positions unperturbed, bearing the same crippling tinge of black and red that her bones sported. Contrary to what she looked prior, she had a distinct lack of green tinge about her.

To a natural observer, one would see Rarity as being the lifeless corpse she should be. Her lifeless body held no signs of breathing, no signs of life at all. If her necrotic stench would bear any significance, then she’d have been pronounced dead by even the foolish of ponies. And her body continued to rest near the destroyed Celestia, inanimate for only a time, until her left leg twitched slightly.

The corpse that Rarity’s body represented had twitched its legs at separate times. The body then composed itself, and stood itself up on its hooves, balancing in a standing pose. The husk of what Rarity used to be then took in a deep breath, its lungs visible and showing the intricate inflation and deflation of her lungs cradled behind her ribs.

“What… what happened?” Rarity spoke to herself, clarifying that the body indeed was sentient. “My head, my… my everything… is in pain…”

She was grasping her head with one hoof while keeping her balance with the others. She swayed gingerly left and right, feeling incredibly debilitated and in vertigo, though she didn’t know why. She had not necessarily noticed the exposed chest cavity, or the sudden chill she received from a lack of a coat. She had come to a full realization of her complete form when she had glanced at her arm when grasping her head. Her blurred vision had become a bit clear to see the damning evidence of her seemingly posthumous state.

Gasping in disbelief, she had to see if this was true for herself. Her crippling indemnities were indeed weighing her down, but she tried her best to gallop to a nearby puddle, ignorant of the regenerating Celestia near her. She shambled to the puddle, putting all of her energy into the movement of her body to her best extent to the awaited puddle, collapsing right to her destination, face submerged into the puddle. Grasping the pain of slipping, amongst other things ailing her at that moment, she pulled herself up from her potential mirror, in the stance of performing a pushup, to gaze upon the horror of her complexion.

Her look of horror best captured her appearance, for that her face was the perfect culmination of what had appeared to be her body. Despite her slightly blurred vision, Rarity could see the atrocities committed by the Hive, something she couldn’t even recall at the moment. Her face was extremely emaciated, with her face being bare of any of her coat, showing parts of her skull from underneath. Her cheeks were absent, replaced by the grisly visage of underlying bone and exposed teeth. Her eyes were present, but there was no skin at all surrounding the eyes, leaving only, strangely enough, eyelids to protect her eyes. Her horn was still present but, like the entirety of her body, it had looked as if it were peeled of its skin, festering with open sores surrounded by fresh wounds attempting to scab. Surprisingly enough, she still had her lips, despite her lips being fragments of what they used to be due to the degeneration occurring in her body.

“Wha- wha- what?” Rarity spouted, gazing back at the horrifying visage staring back at her. “That’s not… me!”

She had struck the puddle with her hoof in cowardice, incredulous of her aesthetics. However, this only exacerbated her predicament, as she got a glimpse of her hoof again as it made contact with the reflective liquid.

“How… how could this have happened?” Rarity muttered to herself, still gazing in horror at her appendage. “How could I be so decrepit yet still… alive?”

She gave herself a moment to ponder on this, as her memories prior were extremely lacking. It took her a while to come to a mental stimulus that triggered her memory of being in Zecora’s cottage earlier that day. She remembered going there with Pinkie Pie and Applejack, on a quest to discover the whereabouts of Fluttershy. According to her fading memory, something happened to Zecora, then Fluttershy was present, only to cause her extreme pain and a blackout. She had remembered the entity the Hive, but she couldn’t recall its control of her.

Her train of thought, however, was interrupted by a weak contingent of coughs. She turned her head to witness, amongst the baffling amount of frozen-in-place ponies was the emaciated and exhausted body of Fluttershy, who lay upon the forest floor in defeat and near-fatal wounds.

“Fluttershy?” Rarity questioned, shambling as fast as she could to the wheezing body before her. “Is that really you? Are you okay?”

Fluttershy couldn’t speak, as her lame squeaking and wheezing were bold indicators of this, but it had become apparent to Rarity that this was indeed Fluttershy.

“Just hang on there, Fluttershy!” Rarity proclaimed. “I’ll try my best to help you out of this forest!”

She had proverbially bitten off more than she could chew, for that in her crippling state she didn’t know how to properly whisk Fluttershy away from the forest and into the arms of medicinal aid. Every hoofstep she took was a like stepping on knives to her, but she was determined to save her friend. She attempted to see if she could still conjure magic by levitating a stone near her. It took her some mental straining, but she managed to levitate the immobile stone to her eye-level. She stared at the rock, content that she was at least competent in her magic.

And so, she used her magic to drag Fluttershy out of the forest, engulfing her ally in an aura of lavender light and moving her body through the Everfree. Her weight was surprisingly light for what Rarity was expecting, but despite this satisfying observation, Fluttershy still weighed more than a stone. Rarity had to devote all mental faculties to the transporting of the near-lifeless body of Fluttershy. It was a grueling experience for her, indeed, as for every hoofstep she took was a piercing pain she had to suffer. Luckily for her, she wasn’t too far into the Everfree. She had felt bad that she had to drag the crippled Fluttershy through the forest floor, but it was truly the best she do for her at the moment.

As Rarity left the secluded location of the Everfree, she was still left ignorant to the regeneration to the bane of her existence. She did not know that the very thing keeping her sentient was regenerating at that very moment, becoming whole again and ready to strike Ponyville again. For now, Rarity could escape with the satisfaction of somehow surviving an unknown onslaught and saving her friend from a similar fate.

1. Butterflies in the Stomach

In Ponyville, nopony was suited for the job of caring for animals than the pony Fluttershy. With this in mind, Fluttershy was charged with herding a wild flock of butterflies back to the Everfree with her friend Applejack by the mayor herself. Fluttershy, knowing that she had an expert handle on this kind of situation, knew that she’d have to coax the butterflies into distraction so that Applejack could capture them. Fluttershy approached the swarm of butterflies with her usual hesitance.

“Um,” she started, alerting the butterflies to her presence. “If you could all just so kindly, um… would you please-“

“Get a move on it!” Applejack yelled to her, sounded alarmed. “They might lose in’erest or get too scared!”

“Okay…” Fluttershy feebly responded to Applejack, sounding frightened. “I didn’t mean to-“

“Fluttershy,” Applejack interrupted. “Just distract these here butterflies already.”

The butterflies were clearly looking restless and unable to be snared properly. Fluttershy then started to whimper, scared of how she was failing at her assignment. They had been trying to capture this swarm all day and she thought that all of their hard work and toil would be wasted. Fluttershy then started to speak in a soft, incomprehensible whisper.

“Could you guys, please just…”

The butterflies at this point were immensely distracted, through alternate ways conflicting with Applejack’s idea, but she wasn’t complaining. Applejack then unhooked the net from her saddlebags with her mouth and whisked out a giant butterfly net, making sure to keep her eye on the swarm. She rotated her head viciously to give the net momentum and threw it at the swarm, ensnaring all the butterflies.

“Yee-ha!” Applejack shouted triumphantly. “Good job, sugar-cube!”

Fluttershy was startled by the throwing of the net, and she felt sorrow for capturing the poor creatures.

“Maybe that was just a teeny bit excessive, Applejack,” Fluttershy quietly responded.

While speaking to Fluttershy, Applejack trotted to the net and started to circle it, securing the net so that the butterflies wouldn’t escape.

“Well, the mayor did hire us to capture these here renegade butterflies,” Applejack responded. “And the mayor thought that you’d be slim pickin’s for a pony that could calm down that swarm.”

“Well,” Fluttershy responded. “Why did we have to capture them in the first place?”

“Um…” Applejack replied in a confused tone. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because they were creatin’ a nuisance and such. The mayor wasn’t quite clear on the details. Let’s just go and release ‘em in the Everfree already.”

“Oh, um… The Ev-Ev-Ev-Everfr-fr-free?” Fluttershy stammered. “Why would you r-r-release these into the Everfr-fr-free?”

“Because that’s our job, sugar-cube,” Applejack said with a sigh as she tied the net around her waist and began hauling her cargo of butterflies. “And I’m sure they’ll be safe in the Everfree.”

And so, with much reluctance but passive subservience, Fluttershy accompanied Applejack to the Everfree forest and trekked through for about five minutes, making sure to keep track of natural landmarks as they trotted through. With some scared reactions from Fluttershy accompanied with the stalwart reassurance from Applejack to calm her, they finally made it to a clearing in the Everfree to release the butterflies. Fluttershy made sure to quickly scan the area for anything that could harm the butterflies, but eventually let her fears take hold and abandon her post.

“Alright now, Fluttershy,” Applejack addressed her, pointing to certain parts of the net. “I’m gonna pull from here and you’re gonna pull when I do so. Okay?”

Fluttershy nodded and held onto her end of the rope with her mouth, emulating Applejack’s actions.

“Ready now,” Applejack commanded in muffled words as she prepared herself to pull the rope back. “Three, two, one, release!”

Fluttershy did as she was told and released it at just the right time. The butterflies then all emerged from the net in one swift and tumultuous flock, blowing back the hair of their pony captives and fleeing off into a random direction in the Everfree.

“I could have taken care of them, you know,” Fluttershy said to Applejack. “I would have built a whole new coop just to house them.”

“That’s just way too much of a responsibility there, sugar-cube,” Applejack responded in her usual caring tone. “Quite frankly, I just don’t think you’re prepared for that big of task, considerin’ the nature of… um…”

“Of what, Applejack?” Fluttershy asked, curious as to what Applejack had to say.

“Oh, nothin’!” Applejack said with a smile. “Let’s get out of this creepy forest already.”

And so, Fluttershy followed Applejack through the Everfree, but Fluttershy’s constant fears of the forest were taking hold, slowing her down. She tried to signal to Applejack that she needed to catch up to her, but she was just speaking too quietly for her to hear. She then tried to fly over the dense foliage, but couldn’t muster the wing strength. Her fears were consuming her indefinitely.

As she was galloping to catch up to Applejack, whimpering as she galloped, she managed to trip over a large rock and collided into the ground. From what it turned out to be, the ground was actually false, as it gave way, letting Fluttershy plummet down a narrow dirt chute. Her cries of fear were vanquished by the padding of the dirt chute, and the chute covered itself up through some sort of magic. Frightful out of her mind, Fluttershy screamed the entire fall down, in which she fell on a giant bed of luminescent mushrooms, perfectly cradling her fall.

The mushrooms she fell on were somehow glowing brightly enough for her to see the cave walls. The whole cave had smelled of terrible fungal growths and the air was so thick that she could hardly breathe. She was cowering before her new environs, shivering in fear and screaming for Applejack to save her. She had no idea what anything was around her, as her handle clearly wasn’t fungus.

Then, without her noticing, a small, green, gelatinous blob-like substance started creeping up towards her, slinking its way across the mushrooms with great stealth and at an alarmingly fast pace. Fluttershy didn’t notice the amorphous substance approach her until she felt its warm, moist embrace across her leg. Fluttershy then shrieked in terror as she felt this substance touch her leg, caught in between tears and thoughts of dread.
“What is that?!” she shrieked out loud. “Applejack, save me!”

The gelatinous substance then shot a part of itself at Fluttershy’s mouth, meeting with her cheeks and creating a sealant that effectively covered her mouth. The substance then slinked across Fluttershy’s chest, with her backing down in terror as she saw it progressively make its way to her face. It then shot itself at her limbs to hold her down, reminiscent to the sealant created for her mouth. Fluttershy was a blabbering mess at that point, shaking her head vigorously trying to escape with a futile effort.

The blob then somehow took the form of a mouth, and started speaking to her into what she could comprehend.
“Relax, our little foal,” the blob said in a soothing yet ominous, echoing female-like voice. The voice rang through Fluttershy’s ears, resonating through to her, creating a harmonic experience for her to calm down. “You are not in any harm at all.”

The sealant around Fluttershy’s mouth gave way, as it separated from both sides of her mouth and retreated to the blob, becoming a part of it.

“W-w-w-w-what d-d-d-do you w-w-want w-w-w-with m-m-m-me?” she stammered. “Just g-g-get me out of h-h-here!”

“We plan on doing that, our little foal,” the voice nearly sang to her. “But you have encroached upon our territory. It’s only fair that we offer the ‘gift’ to you.”

“What do you m-m-m-mean by g-g-gift?”

“The gift of the hive. We are one sentient being, a part of a larger structure that is dying off. We need a pony that can take care of us. A pony that can help us live and thrive on.”

The thought of caring for another living thing had appealed to Fluttershy, as she had then saw it as an exotic creature of sorts in an effort to justify her not exploding with fear.

“W-w-well,” Fluttershy stammered, her mental state becoming more calm. “I can help t-t-take care of y-y-you as long as you please f-f-free me.”

“We plan on doing so,” the blob said. “But we need a… a more viable conduit to escape.”

“What do you m-m-mean by-“ Fluttershy said before she saw the blob roll up her face, entering her mouth and ears. She was taken aback at the choking feeling of the blob substance entering her esophagus, and the pain of it slithering through her ears to her brain. If she could scream at that point, it would be a thunderous cry for help as she long for the pain to stop. Finally, she could feel the substance in her stomach, creating a sickening feeling. The substance had made its way to her brain, seeping its way into it without damaging it with such a strange feeling. Her view then went dark, as her eyes began to roll into the back of her head.

To be continued...

5. The Three Rulers of Equestria

Applejack left the Everfree racing into Ponyville, with the wound on her leg surprisingly cauterized after a minute or so of constant galloping. She had to find Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash as soon as possible to report on her discovery. Despite being incredibly exhausted from the gallop away from what she till couldn’t believe to be Fluttershy, she pressed on to Twilight’s house, not noticing that her leg wound, although freshly scabbed, was turning oddly black.

She sped to Twilight’s house, again knocking down the door to the point of further disrepair. It was a hasty repair on Applejack’s end to fix the door, so it was clear that it couldn’t withhold its own mender.

“Twilight!” Applejack shouted through the empty library, disturbing a sleeping Spike that still couldn’t get any rest. “This is important! I found Fluttershy! I think!”

“Well, what do you mean ‘think?’” Spike queried the frantic pony, beleaguered by other irrelevant and insignificant quandaries. “Did you find her or not?”

“Spike, I don’t think I can tell you about what I saw,” she warned him. “But it’s important that I tell Twilight as soon as possible! So where is she?”

“Twilight said she’d check the lake first,” Spike reported. “The lake is east of Ponyville, and you won’t have to worry about going into the Everfree.”

“Believe me,” Applejack replied as she made her move to exit. “I don’t wanna go back to that forest! Tell Twilight to stay here if she returns!”

“But what about the-” Spike began, but to no avail as Applejack hurriedly galloped out. “- door…”

Applejack had made it to the lake Spike had told her about, and instantly saw Twilight Sparkle, investigating the area for signs of Fluttershy.

“Twilight!” Applejack yelled to her from a distance, gathering her attention before colliding into her, both bodies cascading to the ground. “Twilight! I found something, but I just…”

“Just what?” Twilight answered, annoyed by the fact that the sweaty equine mounting her to the ground had unintentionally pinned her from escaping. “And let me go!”

“Sorry,” Applejack apologetically said, as she lifted herself up to let Twilight breathe and situate herself. “But what happened was… I just can’t believe it.”

“What happened?” Twilight asked, quickly adopting a caring demeanor. “And where was Fluttershy?”

“About Fluttershy,” Applejack began hesitantly. “I don’t know exactly what I saw. Pinkie, Rarity, and I were all in the Everfree, searchin’ for clues to Fluttershy’s disappearance until Pinkie caught a whiff of some stew in the distance somehow. She wandered off into the Everfree away from us, so we chased her down to discover Zecora’s hut, where we got the idea to ask Zecora if she had seen Fluttershy.

“When we arrived there, Zecora didn’t look nor act her normal self. She was... she was incredibly fat. Like she really let herself go, but it looked so… unnatural. Then, she had these black veins comin’ from her head to her face. She had this empty look to her and… She didn’t do no rhyming, Twilight. But then, things became even more weird.

“We saw Fluttershy, and she looked green. Not sick green, mind you, but she had a green look to her. She didn’t look normal. She then assured us that Zecora was fine, but she was eatin’ books! She was eatin’ anything she could get her hooves on! She was daffy in the head, but Fluttershy got us t help pick up all of her stuff she threw on the ground before she wound up eatin’ it. Then, something really bad happened.

“Fluttershy started to turn into this… this blob thing! She had dagger-like claws or something come out of her hooves, and she stabbed Rarity and Pinkie in the head with them! They became lifeless and I sprung to action, only to have Fluttershy throw me out of the hut by growin’ another arm! I galloped for my life until she snared me with one of her claws. I broke free, and this is the result of what happened.”

Applejack finally concluded by showing Twilight her leg, which had bore the damage Fluttershy had done to her, but wrapped-up in a fresh, glistening scab that had a black tinge to it. Twilight was perturbed by the wound enough to slightly believe what Applejack was saying, but she remained incredulous to what she said.

“That sounds impossible, Applejack,” Twilight answered in shock. “I don’t want to say that you were making this up but… This is a lot to take in! Are you sure this legitimately happened?”

“I’m as sure as shootin’, Twilight,” Applejack answered defensively. “I would never make anything up like this!”

“Then we truly only have one option to conclude with,” Twilight answered. “And it’s that Fluttershy is still missing. There’s no way that thing you were talking about could have been Fluttershy.”

“I’m not entirely sure either,” Applejack replied. “But we’re gonna have to call off the search so we can deal with this creature in the Everfree before it gets too late. Do you have any ideas?”

“Not at the moment,” Twilight answered, sounding defeated. She then grew more confident with a sudden epiphany. “But we can get Celestia to help us out.”

“Well, couldn’t we just get the town authorities on this one?” Applejack asked. “I mean, do we have to resort botherin’ the Princess about this?”

“If what you’re saying is true,” Twilight pressed on. “Then we’re going to have to call upon her aide. I can’t see the town dealing with a destructive force like this.”

“How will we contact her then?”

“Simple: we’ll just write a letter to her. She responds with the utmost promptness when I write to her.”

“Before we do, we need to alert the town.”

“And tell the townsponies that there’s a blob Fluttershy roaming about? What if they find the real Fluttershy? Then what will they do?”

“You’re right,” Applejack answered, dejected. “We can only pray to Celestia that she answers our call before it reaches Ponyville.”

“We can at least warn the mayor ahead of time,” Twilight concluded. “We’ll her to brace the town for an imminent… blob attack, or something.”

“I’ll go warn the town while you write the letter,” Applejack commanded with confidence. “Then we’ll meet-up at the library to see if she responded.”

Applejack had then galloped away from Twilight, dead-set on completing her mission. Twilight stood where she was, contemplating how she’d perform her actions.

Where’s Rainbow Dash? she asked herself. I hope she’s alright, but now’s not the time to find her. I’m sure she’ll just go to Cloudsdale or the library or something.

She then galloped away from the lake, determined to have Spike write the most important letter she’d ever made him write before.

* * *

Dear Princess Celestia,

We are on the brink of disaster. Ponyville has been invaded by a pernicious, elusive creature that has assumed the form of one of my friends: Fluttershy. My friend Applejack was in the forest finding Fluttershy after she accidentally lost track of her, and she, along with my friends Pinkie Pie and Rarity, were attacked by this creature. This creature had manipulated Zecora to be a mindless automaton of sorts, ravenously consuming everything in her hut while the creature looking like Fluttershy attack Rarity and Pinkie Pie, leaving Applejack to escape.

We, the town of Ponyville, including myself, urge you to address your attention towards this matter. We feel that we cannot take on this force alone, what with three of our friends already missing. Please respond with the utmost of promptness, your highness.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

“Wow, this all really happened?” Spike asked Twilight as he read the letter aloud to her. “This seems so unreal! Is Rarity okay?”

“I don’t know, Spike,” Twilight replied agitatedly. “But we need to send that letter now!”

“Alright!” Spike snapped. He had not been taking the situation seriously, as his mind was wrapped around other things, like the condition of Rarity, and the safety of Rarity.

Spike then held the letter above his face, one claw grasping it gingerly. He then blew a puff of air directed at the letter, which was a cloud of green fire, which instantly disintegrated the letter.

“It’s sent,” Spike said, suddenly becoming more worried. “I just hope Rarity is okay.”

“Would you stop obsessing over Rarity?” Twilight barked at Spike, scaring him. “Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie are also missing, and Applejack was attacked by that thing! Can you at least show some compassion towards them as well?”

She stood before Spike in an aggressive pose, clearly intimidating him. She was huffing and puffing, snorting reminiscent of a bull. Clearly she was infuriated with Spike’s behavior.

“I’m sorry, Twilight!” Spike cried. “Just don’t be mad at me!”

The little baby dragon had then curled up to Twilight’s hooves, hugging her leg in desperation to avoid her wrath. Twilight then regained her senses and become level-headed again, losing her aggressiveness and began to pet the frightened dragon.

“It’s alright, Spike,” she said in a soothing, caring tone. “I’m just really worried about my friends. Our friends. Note that there is a destructive force ready to take over Ponyville.”

“I’m sorry,” Spike said, sniffling and crying. “I’m just so worried about the others, but mostly Rarity.”

Twilight began to pet the sniveling dragon but was interrupted by the slamming of her hastily-rebuilt door and the subsequent collapse of said door. It was the third time that day that her door was damaged like that. From the outside came pouring in a worried Applejack and an annoyed Rainbow Dash.

“What’s going on, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked her, levitating in the air in front of all three of them and crossing her arms, agitated. “Applejack just forced me to come here with no results of Fluttershy being found.”

“Rainbow Dash, I brought you here for a good reason!” Applejack said defiantly. “What we have to tell you is of great importance!”

“Make it quick,” Rainbow scoffed. “I’m still cutting into my flight hours to go find Fluttershy.”

“Speaking of Fluttershy,” Twilight said. “How did you alert Rainbow Dash, Applejack?”

“It was simple, really,” Applejack responded. “She just so happened to be in Ponyville and-”

“Can we get to the point already?” Rainbow cut in, clearly ticked off. “Just tell me what’s going on?”

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight began. “Brace yourself for this, for this will be a lot to take in. Fluttershy has been fillynapped and taken somewhere we don’t know by a creature that is assuming her form. The creature, according to Applejack, is a blob sort-of creature, so we can rule out any Changelings in the scenario. Buy anyways, this creature has assumed the identity of Fluttershy and has fillynapped Rarity and Pinkie Pie, as well as attacking Applejack who managed to escape in time.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Rainbow asked. “A blob monster that looks like Fluttershy is attacking our friends?”

“Yes,” Twilight responded with a straight face. “And I’ve just written a letter to Princess Celestia about the matter. We should be getting a response soon en-”

Twilight was subsequently interrupted by the sounds of Spike lightly belching. He had relinquished control of Twilight’s leg to sit up straight and focus himself on burping. He then let out a fiery belch, green fire erupting from his mouth as a scroll dropped from it, perfectly intact.

“That’s a response from the Princess!” Applejack pointed out in jubilation. “Quick! Open it up and read what she said!”

Twilight immediately went for the scroll and opened it. Much to her dismay, there were only two words printed on the scroll, in which it said “Look outside.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Rainbow Dash questioned them. “Did Celestia herself find your story to be that outrageous?”

Ignoring Rainbow Dash, Twilight and Applejack immediately bolted outside to find a chariot manned by two Pegasi, both clad in royal armor tied to the chariot. They looked like they were disgruntled, as they were quietly panting from a fast trip of sorts.

“Excuse me,” Twilight addressed one of the royal guards. “But where you sent by Princess Celestia?”

“Yes,” one of the Pegasi grunted. “She said it was an emergency, but she never instructed us to alert you. She said that you had ‘gotten the memo.’”

“We did alright,” Twilight replied, nearing the chariot. “And I assume you’re taking us to Canterlot now?”

“Yeah,” the other guard answered. “But she requested only for two to come. That being that the chariot can only fit two ponies.”

“Applejack, it’d be best if you’d come along,” Twilight addressed Applejack. “You’ve had the most experience facing the horror, so you can give her a first-pony account of the incident yourself.”

“That sounds like a plan!” Applejack answered in confidence as she boarded the chariot with Twilight. “Rainbow Dash, it’s best that you help get the word out, too. Tell every pony you see to keep an eye out for the monster!”

“I can do that,” Rainbow Dash answered, saluting as she flew off, along with the two guardsponies manning the chariot at almost lightning-fast speeds off to Canterlot.

The two ponies eventually made it to the royal castle and to Celestia’s throne room, ready to present their case. They were ushered in by royal guards into the room, where Celestia sat on her throne looking concerned.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia commanded the purple unicorn, whom her, along with Applejack, subsequently halted and bowed in her presence. “Please tell me that whatever you said in your letter isn’t true.”

“I would never lie to you, Princess,” Twilight replied defensively. “This matter is serious. Ask Applejack: she’s had a first-hand experience with the creature.”

And so, Applejack had told what she told to Twilight to Celestia, who had listened to Applejack with a stern but open ear. Finally, Applejack emulated the last thing she had done with her findings to Twilight by showing Celestia her leg, which to all of their surprise, had grown increasingly black. Tiny veins had erupted from the spot where Fluttershy had gripped her leg, reminiscent to the veins on Zecora’s head. Celestia had a look of horror wash over her face as she stared into Applejack’s wound.

“It cannot be…” Celestia said to herself quietly. “It’s actually back.”

“What’s back, Princess?” Twilight Applejack asked, oblivious to what Celestia had to say.

Celestia had left her throne and went to inspect Applejack’s leg closer. She examined it and, much to her dismay confirmed her fears.

“Twilight, Applejack,” she stated to both of them with a terrifyingly powerful presence. “The Hive has returned to Equestria.”

“Beg yer pardon?” Applejack inquired, confused. “What do ya mean by ‘the Hive?’”

“The Hive,” Celestia began. “Was a dangerous assortment of creatures gathered from the forest manifested into one amorphous being. It was a creature that could take the form of anything it wanted, and was composed of all of the entities it consumed. The Hive part of it is the collection of tortured souls used to serve this being. It consumes others to add to its twisted form and uses the minds of its consumed to add to its growing Hive. It only exists to consume the living. To amalgamate anything with a pulse to its design.”

“An amorphous entity like that?” Twilight questioned Celestia. “How do you know what this thing is simply by looking at Applejack’s leg?”

“Long ago, before any of you were to even exist,” Celestia began. “Indescribable amounts of time ago, Princess Luna, and I had imprisoned Discord in his stone prison using the Elements of Harmony. Discord knew that he’d be defeated, so he created the hive, a near-spitting image of himself to wreak havoc once he had been imprisoned. The creature he created, however, did not take on the form of Discord, but it shared the same properties of a chimera like Discord did.

“It was created to spite us. In Discord’s vision, he had made it to try to prove the faults of harmony and unity by creating the Hive to assimilate every pony it came across. Unlike what it did to Zecora, the Hive simply engulfed any pony it saw, breaking down their physical forms to add to its amorphous form. The body of its victims would not be destroyed, but it would be consumed by the Hive. For every pony it consumed, it grew larger.

“It originated in the Everfree, feasting off of natural vegetation to proliferate its form to terrorize the neighboring cities. It then attacked an ancient city that ceases to exist to this day because of the Hive. Twilight, in your studies, if you’ve heard of Trotsdow and its ‘mysterious disappearance,’ it was because of the Hive. Trotsdow existed on the grounds of where modern day Ponyville resides.

“When the Hive arrived to Trotsdow, it was a more aggressive force than how you explained how it is today. It entered the town, slithering out of any pony’s vision, until it assaulted its first victim; victim number zero: the one to add to its twisted image. It then began to then aggressively consume other ponies, becoming much faster than any pony could outgallop it due to the energy it obtained from feasting on the bodies of whom it consumed. Eventually, it devoured all life within the confines of Trotsdow, engaging in total war, where it even drew all the nutrients from the soil of the city, making it uninhabitable. Its main objective was to simply desiccate and absorb all life until all of where it resided were lifeless.

“Eventually, Princess Luna and I managed to reach Trotsdow due to a report from the royal guards about a disturbance south of Canterlot, but it was too late to save the town. Luna and I tried using the Elements of Harmony on it, using our combined might to our fullest potential. But we only managed to leave a dent within the enormous entity. It was clear that we couldn’t risk releasing Discord from his stone imprisonment to ask him how to rid of the monstrosity, so we turned to one of Equestria’s other ruling party for aide: Chrysalis.

“You two remember fighting the Changelings in Canterlot not too long ago, thwarting the evil Chrysalis’s plans to dominate Equestria. Back then, she wasn’t so evil. Equestria was ruled by her as well, but she didn’t appear before you in her malformed form with shapeshifting capabilities. Princess Chrysalis was charged with the emotional side of ponies, helping them always stay content, as Luna and I were charged with tending to the moon and sun, respectively. We had called upon her aid for the Hive because Luna and I could take care of Discord because we were bound together with the Elements of Harmony.

“All three of us created a perfect unity of power, which had resonated with the Elements somehow, as Chrysalis was a missing key of sorts. We had assembled to take down the Hive, as massive as it was, and we unleashed our hidden might against the scourge. It was near the point of crippled pacifism that it sought to take one of us down with it. Princess Chrysalis had not paid attention to the Hive and it engulfed her, leaving Princess Luna and I to deal with the Hive before it consumed Chrysalis.

“We had managed to contain the Hive in a protected ward that kept the Hive stunted from growth, effectively shrinking it down to the size of a bauble, a common knick-knack, if you will. When we had rescued Princess Chrysalis, however, she was malformed from the Hive. It had tried to consume her at a dangerously fast pace that she was left emaciated and damaged. She was an alicorn, so she stabilized, despite the amount of her missing because of the Hive. Her skin had become brittle because of it, turning black like you saw before, which was a phenomenon not even Luna or I could decipher.

“Before Luna and I locked the Hive in a secret cavern in the Everfree, bound with a protective spell that prevented it from ever escaping, Chrysalis was furious at her new form. She was somehow not healing because of the damage the Hive did to her, so she remained in her broken-looking state despite the plethora of treatments we gave her. She had blamed us for her new form saying that we didn’t warn her about the Hive surprise engulfing her when, in reality, we had no knowledge of what this thing could even do. She eventually disbanded from the kingdom and started her own regime in the outskirts of Equestria, where nopony resides. How she acquired her shapeshifting powers is beyond my knowledge.”

Twilight and Applejack were amazed at the plethora of knowledge Celestia had to offer. They had learned so much from that conversation, but they ultimately did not have their question answered.

“But what does it have to do with my leg?” Applejack finally asked. “You said something about my leg.”

Celestia then looked extremely concerned, as if she had forgotten something so major.

“I forgot about your leg!” Celestia exclaimed, balancing Applejack in the air with magic to bring Applejack to her. “We have to mend it, quickly!”

“What’s with the hastiness, yer highness?” Applejack asked the concerned queen. “It’s just a flesh wound an’ such.”

Much to every pony’s surprise, the black veins that surrounded her wound had increased in size, and her entire leg was turning green. Applejack saw her leg for herself and gasped.

“I got gangrene already?” Applejack asked, alarmed. “I didn’t know that stuff took hold so quickly!”

“It’s nothing as simple as gangrene,” Celestia stated, worriedly. “It’s the hive! It has infected you!”

“But how?” Applejack asked in shock. “How could I be infected by it?”

“Remember what you told me about Zecora and your fight with the Fluttershy-imposing creature?” Celestia asked, remembering her best on how to deal with the wound. “That creature infected you with a part of the Hive! It’s the same thing it did to Zecora if what you were saying is true. Now hold still.”

Applejack obediently didn’t move a single muscle, as she braced herself for what Celestia was about to do. With a spark of magic erupting from her horn and a nod of her head, Celestia had aimed her horn at the wound and instilled an enigmatic spell in an effort to cleanse the Hive infection. Much to her surprise, it did nothing.

“I can’t eradicate it from you, Applejack,” Celestia said solemnly. “I’m going to have to cleanse it the other way: I have to accept it into my system.”

“Princess!” Twilight shrieked. “You can’t do that! We can’t afford you to put yourself in that kind of-”

“My faithful student,” Celestia said reassuringly. “It is only a bit of the Hive. I am powerful enough to reject it until it withers and dies inside of me. But Applejack here cannot stave it off like I can.”

And so, with a selfless bow of her head, she repeated her last action and, with an instant flash of light, Applejack’s leg was restored anew. She was then lowered to the ground slowly by Celestia, who looked a bit beleaguered by the experience. Celestia’s eyes were vacant and she was stumbling slightly, only to recuperate as a normal Celestia.

“It’s not as strong as it was before,” Celestia said confidently. “So it was easy to contain. I just don’t know how long it will last inside of me, but it cannot corrupt me.”

“I don’t know how that there magic works like so,” Applejack chimed in. “But I’m mighty thankful for you helping me and such, yer highness.”

“Now’s not the time for pleasantries, you two,” Celestia sternly addressed them both. “We have to deal with this problem ourselves. I will contact Luna and then we will make our way to Ponyville. Princess Cadence can serve in my place until this is over.”

* * *

Two ponies seemed to shamble out of the Everfree. Upon identification, it was revealed to be that these ponies were indeed Pinkie Pie and Rarity, two familiar faces in Ponyville. No pony really took too much of a studious observation of the two of them, save for the fact that they saw them. Emerging from the forest like that could only signal to them that they were looking for the missing Fluttershy, which the townsponies were well-aware of the situation thanks to Applejack. Unfortunately, due to a lack of information, Applejack did not warn the town of the other two threats.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity stood at the entrance of the Everfree, observing from the near-outskirts the town. They had been changed, from a close-up examination. They both had vacant stares to them, as their eyes were both empty and desolate of life. The both of them had bore ostensibly visible black veins, coursing from the top of their heads to the bottom of their snouts. Their skin had revealed to be dried up for some reason, which their skin was somehow becoming visible, as other black veins similar to what had appeared on their heads were forming at random parts of their bodies, with hair from their coats missing in patches. They were both quickly losing their manes somehow, but they didn’t seem to care.

“Where shall we strike first, Pinkie Pie?” Rarity asked the pink pony, less sounding like her signature eloquent accent and more so a forced monotone.

“We can begin the harvest at Sugarcube corner,” Pinkie Pie droned, answering Rarity’s question. “We shall be victorious.”

Without emotion, they silently trotted into the town, ready to instill the glorious Hive to the unsuspecting population.