Silence in Equestria

The Sector II - Episode XXIII:

Tartarus Day 1 - Welcome to the Netherworld

Silence flew through the sunrise, her mind still working on emergency scenes and worst case scenarios. Her head all heavy with the PPC inside, she yet to get used to it. Her train of thoughts however wrecked all of a sudden when a mesmerising melody caught her attention. She couldn't resist it, she started looking for the source of the sounds.

A few seconds later she landed on the green steppe outside Ponyville. The beautiful dance of a cello and a lyre welcomed her, her refined friend Octavia with a green unicorn. They instantly stopped when Silence came by and begin to apologize.

"Oh, sorry. Did we wake you up?" the green unicorn asked.

"Huh? No, please continue it's wonderful." the pegasus replied.

"Thank you Silence. I began to worry we're getting too carried away. Silence, my friend Heartstrings." introduced her Tavia.

"Just call me Lyra." said the green pony with a smile of a friend as they shook hooves.

"What a lovely name. Silence, nice to meet you." she replied, filling the lyricist's face with blush "How come you're out here so early?" she asked out of curiosity.

The cellist replied to that, her face became a bit depressing "Back... when I was living in Canterlot, I have been in many estelles. As canterot ponies love classical music, I met many musicians and made so much friends." she confessed.

"I see..."

"But still, since I came to Ponyville... since we parted ways, I miss them so much. Symphony was such a wonderful violist, and Nocturne... her bass solos were paralyzing. We always hung out to practice together in the morning outside Canterlot, as three string-friends." she continued, as her face was so depressed she almost ended up in tears.

"My... my condolences, Tavia. I'm so sorry for bringing it up." apologized the pegasus.

"Huh? No, I didn't mean it like that." corrected her the cellist "Symphony retired later, and Nocturne... she disappeared. I just..."

"...miss the times spent together, and for their remembrance you carried on the tradition with Lyra helping, right?" Silence finished it, making Tavia nod.

"I loved the idea, such passion, such longing for a good old times, ripping up your heart's wounds to let in the light of hope... it really struck a chord on my heartstrings." the unicorn confessed gazing at the sunrise with gently stroking the strings of her lyre. Her cerise eyes were sparkling from beauty and her lips seemed so wonderful as they whispered beautiful words in the air.

It was clear that Heartstrings was an extremely passionate pony, completely emotion-driven, a romance lover's dream. And Silence loved romance and what's more, she loved passion. She was extremely romantic and passionate, yet when time required she was fierce and tough.

But when the pegasus thought she knows her new friend enough, the unicorn made an odd move.

"Oh my, what a cutie mark!" she shouted, surprising Silence completely. Lyra stepped closer to examine it better.

"Are you an artist? Or is this a snowflake? Wait, I know it's a flower, right?" she asked smiling at the pegasus in  extreme excitement.

"(What's wrong with her?)" Silence thought. Heartstrings was pretty much like Pinkie Pie, only her smile was much creepier, as her grin was huge, yet her pupils so small. She kept staring at the pegasus like that, until Silence turned away the same way she turned away from Twilight, eventually making the unicorn come to realization.

"I'm sorry, if you wouldn't like to talk about it..." she apologized, making a few steps backwards.

"It's okay. So you practice here every day?" she asked changing the topic fast.

"Once a week. Would you like to join?" asked Tavia.

"If my time allows." smiled back Silence, planning to take off.

"Alright then, see you around." said Heartstrings.

She could listen to their music for hours, but she had an important mission to do.

After a smaller farewell she continued her errand, but the important things in her mind were replaced by the echoing melody of the artists, and eventually she began to long towards her beloved Twilight. Not only Twilight though, but Octavia and even Fluttershy and Heartstrings as well. Somehow Silence kept having a crush on a bunch of ponies, it was a child's play to turn her head if you hit one of her holes in her heart. It might be because Twilight is a strategist, a clever mare with an undying lust for knowledge, just like her, but Tavia was elegant, hi-class, an artist who loved expressing herself in more ways than just words, just like her. She barely realized she was flying over the Everfree, but when she began to focus on the real case again something bugged her ears.

"Who's there?" she shouted turning back suddenly, but none was there.

"(I swear I heard bugs or something.)" she noted in herself. Regardless, she was here, the caverns that lead to Tartarus according to the book.

"(The myth says that this cave leads to the gates of Tartarus. I hope it's not just a bear cave.)" she thought.

Carefully, slowly she walked down the small cave, as she emitted a small light from the barrel of her weapon to keep the visibility at the maximum possible. The cave had a rather flat floor at first but became more and more rough afterwards, on the walls there were no signs of Tartarus.

Eventually she reached a dead end, though something was strange.

"(That's the end? I feel the air rather fresh though... and is this... water dripping?)" she asked. She began to search for some cracks on the wall with her hooves, as well as tried to hear where the sound comes from with her ears. A few seconds later an irritating wind blew at her ear through a crack, but at least she found it. A smaller blast with the PPC gave a free way to her to a narrow corridor. This was undoubtedly not natural.

The corridor led to two ways, she had to decide she either goes to left, or right. She chose left, focusing her cannon in case something attacks, but all she got was a room, with three gemstones outside a magic circle. It was some sort of puzzle, and the answer clearly was behind that different colored stone wall on her left. Picking the easier way she blasted down that wall too, ending up in a natural-looking cave again, with another magic circle and the same gemstones. There were words carved into the wall as well as a smaller hole on the wall big enough for a pony to crawl inside. The tunnel wasn't long at all, and eventually, Silence ended up in a room in the cave with a huge hole on the wall. Wait, that was the same room she came from a few minutes ago. The pegasus looked back and forth in confusion, the quietly giggled when she realized the way she was supposed to enter. Trotting inside she took the right side this time.

The tunnel was completely rectangular shaped, all of its walls were flat, but the whole thing became really wet with time, with water dripping from the ceiling and puddles everywhere on the floor. The corridor suddenly ended at a chasm however. She got back into a natural environment. Looking down, only the abyss awaited her, however when she looked up, she saw artificial platforms built inside the walls. She looked around if she can find out where those lead, but their placement was so random it definitely not acted as stairs. Only another hole in the wall caught her attention.

She flew inside. Its surface was not as rough, rather soft and dusty. The tunnel was rather strange, it kept leading her upwards, eventually Silence got back to the same gigantic room as she came from, except she was in a much higher spot. The pegasus decided to fly as far high as she can in the huge hall, eventually reaching its top.

"(This makes no sense! Where does this noise come from then?)" she questioned in confusion. Lacking in any more energy she flew into a small hole closest to her and looked for an exit. She slowly began to lose her mind and panic, especially when she reached the end of that tunnel after long minutes of desperate walking. She had enough, without any thinking she began to infuse black magic into her horn to and began to shoot the wall upwards until she dug out, causing huge clouds of mist, she could barely see anything in.

After she opened her eyes, she noticed the environment became completely different. Her little mindless rampage drained most of her energy, she was so exhausted she could barely stand on her legs. She took off her weapon to clean it from the dust. Her hooves feeling the warm ashes as the air was filled with smoke. From all directions, ugly black clouds and dark grey mountains intimidated her spitting lava into huge ponds. It was just like the books said, creepy, deserted and volcanic. From a distance however, a giant black circle based building was standing out from the environment. With no windows, amazing obsidian adornation and a sharp top, it looked magnificent. The was to pegasus ran there as soon as she could, almost leaving the PPC behind. She put it back quickly in its place and was to reach her goal when she noticed a gigantic, black-furred, three-headed monster. The description of the book fit perfectly, it was undoubtedly Cerberus... taking a nap. Seemed strange in such a place but she was lucky she didn't need to fight this thing. Behind him were the gates, huge obsidian gates of the even bigger temple, simply breathtaking. All she needed was to snuck by him, easy-peasy just a simple invisiblity spell. But when she tried it something unexpected happened, her magic output didn't work. She didn't know the source of the problem, yet but she feared from the worst: that her horn broke. Maybe she hurried too much when she disconnected the PPC from the system? It was rather stressing in such situation, she had only one choice to avoid a fight with the beast: sneaking by.

Extremely carefully, on her hooftips she tried to pass by the demonic creature. Then, when she tried to open the extremely heavy-looking gate, the worst happened. The beast awoke, and as soon as it saw the intruder it roared furiously and charged. Unfortunately this couldn't be said about Silence's horn, and thus she could not use the PPC either. She kept trying and trying, but no response. As the beast prepared to attack Silence gave up and with all her focus, she decided to avoid the incoming attack. Cerberus' heads howled in three tones, its eyes became all red and the monster jumped on the pegasus. The adrenaline slowed time down, Silence flapped with her wings to dodge the charge, and mid-air, her weapon automatically fired itself, hitting the beast in the face. Cerberus, blinded by the light hit the door with his head, thus opening it. Not wasting a second, Silence flew in before the monster could get up. The temple inside was covered in marbles and paintings of heaven and hell, but as Silence landed on the light-grey marble floor - that was adorned with a blue star and a golden circle in the middle began to move. The floor opened from the centre of the room with deep abyss under it. The pegasus flew up and what she saw was breathtaking. It was the circular cavern she came from, the rectangular, artificial bricks began to glow with a pattern. Symbols carved on them lit up emitting a light blue light, along with lines of similar, glowing lines connecting the runes together. Even though they were all in different places, looking from above, from the place where the golden circle was a second ago the entire abyss looked like an enormous magic circle in the abyss. Cerberus was up on his four feet again, there was no time for thinking. Silence, still unsure but with her mind made up closed her wings, diving down into the darkness.

As she fell faster and faster, her vision became more and more blurry. She kept passing in between the increasing amount of runes with such a speed the whole thing looked like a giant tunnel. Suddenly, its light blue was began to rip up like old wallpaper, with a colorful mist in the emptiness under it. Slowly all the blue was ripped off, the gravitation eventually disappeared and the pegasus felt like she is going forwards rather than downwards, in the mysterious dust cloud. The colors however faded to white, as her vision became filled with more and more of a white. Suddenly everything seemed to stop, the fog became so thick she couldn't tell the speed, and eventually, her hooves touched something. It was stone, she was standing in the middle of nothing, her vision still not getting used to the white. She checked her system if everything is alright, and it seemed so. After some magic energy infusion into her weapon the pegasus became somewhat relieved it is working again.

She slowly took a step forwards, and another one. The stone was so cold, everything was so cold and damp. A few steps later, the fog partially cleared away, but not completely. She was in a forest, the fog was still so thick the sky was not seen at all. Everything looked so grey. From a distance though, something moved in the woods. Silence froke out, her sudden steps were echoing and seemed so loud in the quiet. Though the more noise she made, the more things started to show up, with ghostly, echoing sounds. They were coming for her, they were definitely coming for her. Suddenly, something touched her back, something cold, it paralyzed her body. She wanted to move but she couldn't... at all. The little touch however became painful chill, that went down deep, even inside her bones. It hurt her so much, and it was spreading all over her body. She broke the silence began to scream, scream as loud as her throat could bare. But all seemed so useless, the only thing in her mind was filled with was regret.

"Haayyahh!" screamed a high-pitched voice from behind, suddenly making her binds and pain disappear in a blink of an eye. She looked back, and from the black fume a ghostly, bit of transparent face looked at her.

"Come! I've got no time to explain!" she said as she grabbed Silence's hoof, picked up a pole-blade from the ground with her mouth and began to run like hell. Silence had no idea what's going on, from the woods however, the demons also started to charge at them. They ran side by side, the demons starting to swarm from the woods, Silence didn't look anywhere but forwards. In a blink of an eye two demons jumped in front of them to block the way. The stranger turned her head to her right, grabbed the end of her blade, and with her long tail, she began to fling her at the enemy without even slowing down.

"Hya!" she screamed at the black, red-eyed pony-looking creature as she cut it in half, making it scream up, then with a black smoke emitting from it turning into dust.

"Get out of my way!" she added, killing off the other one. Then she put the weapon back in her mouth. Eventually they got out of the forest, into a lakeside view with a small, old shack, a boat and an old ferry.

"There's the house, run!" she shouted, pushing Silence forwards. Silence didn't even question her, nor thought about helping just sprinted as fast as she could.

Silence only looked back once she was inside, the monsters charging at the girl who seemed to be confident what she was doing. She started making faster and faster circular motions with her blade, using her tail again. From below her, a circle started to fade in, eventually shining as bright as the runes Silence seen before. Then she threw up the blade, creating a giant pillar of half-transparent light, that continuously began to fade out, but with every circle the blade did it reloaded her brightness. The mare just stood there, as the corrupt creatures literally disintegrated in her pillar. The blade became slower and slower with each turn and eventually came to a full stop, falling next to her owner. Her legs began to shiver, and in all of a sudden, she collapsed on the ground. Silence instantly kicked the door she closed a few seconds ago and ran to her help. She grabbed her heroine, put her on the back and dashed back quickly. The demonic creatures were still standing by behind the bushes, but when they saw Silence getting close towards the weapon, they decided to retreat... for now.

The little shack had only one room, a cracked window, a really old wooden bed, a table, an empty bookshelf and lots of mildew. It seemed so abandoned, Silence wondered if she lives her or is this just a shack in the middle of nothing. She put her on the wet bed.

The mare was a dirty-white maned, white coated earth pony, she had a really long straight mane and tail and she wasn't completely opaque. Silence barely though, but could see the bedsheets under her. Even touching her was strange, she was cold as ice, but not bone-chillingly. She had no cutie mark either.

"Are you okay? Should I bring something?" she asked, no answer... for first.

"Ma...gic. Don't... magic." she moaned. Her voice was incredibly weird, but cute. She sounded to have some sort of reversed echo, and a cute voice that was sort of similar to Fluttershy's.

"Alright, I won't." the pegasus replied to the mare, whose life started to leak out from her eyes.

"Hey, hey! Don't die on me girl!" she shouted as her savior's eyes shut slowly. Not caring at all about the temperature she put her head on the chest of the mare, listening to her heartbeats. She was still alive, what a relief. Silence went out once again, to bring her weapon back. She hurried nowhere this time, grabbed the pole-blade and returned, for her surprise, the stranger changed to a more comfortable pose. She felt asleep. Silence took a closer look, swept her mane away from her face and kissed her ice-cold cheek.

"Thank you." she said "Rest now, you did more than enough today."

Now that the potential danger was gone, she had some time for recording the events. Opening the log in the control panel she began to speak out, and thus write the followings.

"Day 1: Tartarus... I guess. After a strange possible detour and some... changes in the plans I finally found the gates of Tartarus and ended up in a hall that seemed to be a teleport station. From information gathered from various resources I can assume this thing is Tartarus. It quite a foggy and not the most charming place, but hopefully will be good for training. The area is heavily inhabited by demonic, hostile creatures and insects of some sort with similar attribute, but I've yet to find out more... though not all of them seem to be hostile. It seems to be one weather and one time of day though, the foggy one. I'll try to report more ASAP. End of recording one."

She closed the log and let out a heavy sigh "(Darn, what did I get myself into.)". Her eyes were filled with regret as she turned back to check on her friend but what she saw made her somewhat embarrassed.

She was awake. "You kissed me." the girl said, looking at the pegasus with her sweet, blue eyes, and her face all blushed. Silence was kind of speechless, instead they kept staring at each other for moments.

"Hmmm... how was it again?" she asked in a rather calm voice.

"Just as I said, it was just leaking from everywhere my queen. It was so strong I could sense it from miles away, like a pantry with four legs." he repeated, bowing before his superior, whose grin turned into a wicked laughter.

"Mahhahahahahh, I think we should look a bit more after this... lovesick pegasus." she laughed.

She couldn't have such an opportunity go to waste, her highness sent out two more units towards Ponyville.