Silence in Equestria

The Sector II: Episode XXVIII

Revelations

"Here you go mister Cycfox." calmed a gentle voice a one-eyed fox almost two times as bigger as her, as they slowly walked inside a cave in the middle of the Everfree Forest. Ponyville has been besieged by a destructive creature yet again at dawn, but luckily they had Fluttershy who quickly calmed the actually not even rampaging spirit, guiding it back home. The pegasus picked up her firefly lantern as they headed inside, where the monster was living.

As soon as she saw him feel relieved and comfortable, Fluttershy continued "Necf fime if you get loft in the foreft, juft look for the OW-". Her hoof slipped on the wet stones, making her body fall like a ragdoll and hit the ground hard, with enough force to break the glass of her lantern. The fireflies weren't lazy, as soon as they got the opportunity they seized it escaping in multiple directions.

"Oh no, please, fireflies, come back, it's dangerous inside." she whispered, but nothing listened to her. As they went deeper and deeper Fluttershy reached the dead end of the cavern. The bugs had nowhere to run now, but as soon as something strange caught the attention of the pegasus she could care less. It was from behind the ugly, dark green moss. Was it glass? What would such thing do here? She swept it away and what she found was beyond imagination. Not only that, it was beyond comprehension. The pegasus was filled with

fear as she was looking at these strange, egg-shaped... things, but she was more afraid of what she was behind them? Her little body shaking like an earthquake she stepped back slowly, running out from the cave in such a hurry she stepped into a shard of glass, cutting her hoof. She let out a small "Eep!" but continued running.

"I must show this to Zecora, these are not natural. Not natural at all."

Silence yawned a huge one, as she woke up from her half-bed-half-sofa, long time she did so

and she admitted that too. "Ah, I needed such a sleep for so long." The warmth of home was all she needed after such an adventure. She turned her head to the right, only to get reminded to the past event by the fan of the princess who rules the underworld. Though it was cracked and the energy that rose peach petals and flames lost, it made a nice decoration and was good for what a fan supposed to do. It was time to see how the other's are doing and she started with the one who she loved the most, especially now, Twilight Sparkle.

The sun was shining as wonderfully as it never did, or else it felt like that at least, something one would not really except in late fall. But despite all these thing something was bothering her. The royal guards were pacing up and down the street as they'd look for something. It was really an unnerving sight, not for her but for everypony, and this was written on their face. She knocked on the library door, and a few moments later a purple face welcomed her.

"Silence!"

"Twilight!" they shouted, giving each other a friendly, warm hug. "I'm glad to see you again." the unicorn added.

"Ah, she must be the girl you were talking about, right?" a voice of a mare told from afar. A voice of a cerise coat and a curly mane of rose, violet and beige, and an... alicorn?! Silence was shocked by the sight.

"Silence, this is Cadence, my sister-in-law. Cadence, Silence."

Silence was about to bow down, but Cadence was already reaching for her, ending up in a gentle hoofshake at the end.

"Pleased to meet you, Twilight told a lot about you." the princess said, making the pegasus blush a little in modesty. It felt nice that Twilight was caring about her why she was away, or hopefully she meant that.

"Twilight, what are these guards doing here?" Silence asked.

Twilight sighed "The black magic eruptions are coming from around this area, possibly the Everfree Forest. We need to be sure." she explained, her sight pointed outwards the window. She was clearly afraid of something, but as soon as she saw an ivory coated unicorn trotting along the street suddenly something clicked. "Oh, by the way, Rarity was looking for you."

"(Probably the job...)"

"She's having a bit of an uprise in her business right now and seems like Spike is not really enough for her." she added, her tone switching to a little mad tone.The thought of her speculations already made Silence chuckle, and with a healthy smile she left before Twilight pointed her out where her friend was heading.

As soon as she closed the library's door, though Twilight let out a heavy breath of relief "Finally..."

"So she is Silence. Are you sure you want this? She seems rather like a cutie than a freak." Cadence asked, as she stared at the grey mare catching up for the white one ending up in a delightful talk.

"Trust me, if you'd have read half of that thing I did, you'd also want that." Twilight replied with a low-toned voice as she headed towards her desk.

"That's a shame, but still, I think this poisoning is a bit of an overkill."

"No, it's not." Twilight shook her head as she picked up the book she was reading, with the recipe inside of an elixir called High Level Love Poison. "If I manage to reverse the polarity of the potion by a poison joke, Silence is going to hate me more than anything, but since she won't drink the entire thing she won't be my blood feud not will be addicted to me. And if that don't work I still have the plan B." she added, closing it and heading outwards. "Okay, I begin the phase one, and visit Zecora for the herbs." she said with confidence, assuming that the success is one hundred percent guaranteed.

"So, nothing special is going on? Nothing to help with or anything?" Silence asked in the boutique's workroom.

"No, as fast as it came it went. Too bad." Rarity replied, slowly strolling towards her worktable, picking up the pencil and the paper as well as bringing her sofa there. She laid down, made herself comfortable and began to stare at the ceiling. Than she pointed her sight towards the paper while playing with pencil, but still nothing.

"Seems like do need some help, after all." Silence chuckled. "If I can help with coming up with ideas..."

"Oh, sure darling, fetch a paper and a pencil if you'd like." Rarity smiled back, gazing deep in her thoughts as she drew a form of a pony on her sheet. Silence also did the same, but she didn't stop there. She also drew a mask afterwards, and after a little thinking a simple looking dress. It also caught the attention of the artist.

"I see you got something, dear." Rarity smiled, looking at the horrible drawing Silence made. The dress looked like a normal one, with the corset in the part of the chest, instead of the back.

"Mmmhmm..." the pegasus confirmed loudly "And what if we're like, cut it here, and then the rest of it is something different?" she turned towards the ivory mare, who, after a second thinking shouted up in a sweet voice. "Oh, I got it!"

Rarity grabbed her pencil and paper and copied her friend's design on her own style which was much more appealing, adding the following: "See? The rest of it could be something thin and light so you can see through it. Oh, wait!" she added, giggling and drawing some more details on the masterpiece.

"What's your opinion now?"

"It is lovely, Rarity. You did such a good job with the mask."

"No, no, no it's all thank to you. You gave me that little push I just needed. Thank you so much."

"Gee, it's not much. I'm the assistant after all, glad I could help."

"How much would you offer for it?"

"You must be kidding."

"Not at all. It was your design first place and I'm willing to buy it. Not a single word! I won't take "No" for an answer."

"But-"

"I. Won't."

"Okay.... 1 bit?"

Rarity's face was surprised at first, but she gave in, a bit annoyed but she didn't make a big deal out of it. It was an offer after all, even if almost free. "If you insist." she huffed.

She took her little purse and took out one, exactly one piece of bit coins, then gave it to Silence.

"Now, would you like to see it in real?" she asked.

"Are you planning on sewing it right here and now?" the pegasus asked in confusion.

"Why not? Just sit back and watch, darling, I got this." Rarity replied, taking out the corresponding materials and tools, then beginning to work.

Somehow, Silence felt warmth inside. She admired the generosity of Rarity without a doubt, her inner beauty ignited something inside the mare that was already on fire. No doubt, Silence fell in love with Rarity. She embraced the feeling as she did when Twilight shown up the day they met, she had no intention to refuse something that she already knew about for a long time, it was just too easy to turn her head. Even looking at the unicorn working pleased her heart, so she didn't oppose, just laid down on the sofa and watched the artist doing what she's the best at.

Three knocks on a wooden door broke the quiet of the Everfree Forest meanwhile.

"Zecora?" asked Twilight "I'm glad you're here, I need your help collect-... Fluttershy?!" she said with surprise and confusion. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Um..." Fluttershy couldn't speak, she just looked towards the zebra indirectly, who gave her a gentle nod.

"Fear not Fluttershy, Twilight is your friend, no need to lie." Zecora added after her firm sign of approval.

"What is going on?" Twilight asked, completely baffled.

"I, um, brought back Cycfox to his cave and I found something, and I thought Zecora might now what those are."

"But their beings are an enigma to myself, we think the answer might lie in one of your shelves."

Twilight became curious, "Well I need to see them first."

"Promise you will tell nopony about it." asked Fluttershy.

"Nopony will ever know." promised Twilight.

"Nopony." replied Fluttershy. Her attitude scared Twilight a little, it seemed the matter is extremely serious.

"Nopony." the unicorn responded.

Fluttershy took the lead, towards the cavern where the creature was still asleep. Twilight provided the source of light with her magic as they proceeded towards the location.

"Careful, he is asleep." Fluttershy warned her friends as they sneaked beside Cycfox. The slippery stones were not a problem this time, as they were all extremely careful down there. With time, they made it there, and while the sight crept out Fluttershy, it just raised the curiosity even more in Zecora and Twilight.

Five small, capsule looking device was scattered though the rocky floors, with metallic sides everywhere except the top, what was covered with glass. If that wasn't the only thing, but more interesting was what were inside them. They slowly approached one and took a look inside.

"S-so?" asked Fluttershy in fear.

"I... I have no idea." replied Twilight.

The capsules were filled with a creature never seen by pony eyes before. It had a pale, slightly yellowish skin with a short brown mane, its eyes were extremely little compared to how tall it was. Heading down her neck was most likely their core body part from where six insanely long limbs were sticking out. Two from below, which ended in a strange shape, sort of similar of a hoof, two from the sides of the top that revealed five-five little parts at their end and two black one from behind, folded together. They were almost entirely covered by a variety some sort of textile.

"They're so nasty." said Fluttershy looking inside another one, similar to the previous one but much longer, yellow mane and different decorations.

"Yeah, not the prettiest things I've seen in my life." Twilight agreed.

"Guys..." she sighed "Call me insane, but I think these things are sentient."

"Impossible!" replied Zecora.

"Are... are you sure?" asked Fluttershy.

"Look!" waved Twilight towards them, gathering at the first alien they saw. "See that black thing under her mane?"

"Yes?"

"I think it is an eyepatch. And this one big black one seems like a dress." she explained her speculations.

"This, a dress?" asked Fluttershy in confusion.

"I mean, that part seems like a skirt, those must be the socks, and that is an eyepatch, and that down there seems like a slipper." the unicorn said, pointing towards the directions of the parts she was mentioning.

"But why would they dress up like that?" asked Fluttershy letting out a huge gasp afterwards "What if they're... you know, dead, and, um, this is the funeral clothes?"

"That... doesn't make much sense, considering most of them wears different ones. Maybe it's a status symbol, or a tradition, I... don't know."

Fluttershy took another circle around the alien capsules, she just couldn't grasp what she found, and possibly nopony else did.

"Too many pieces are missing from this puzzle, we can't solve it this way, we either settle with this or double." Zecora suggested.

"You're right, we must know if they're hostile or not. Who knows what's going to happen if they wake up one day."

"W-w-wake up?" Fluttershy repeated as she huddled up in dread, but her rump accidentally touched something on the cold steel, making the glass cover open up in a blink of an eye, hitting her in the back. Fluttershy squealed loudly and flew away, where Twilight did quite the opposite.

"Great job, Fluttershy. You can get off the wall now." said Twilight.

"No... thanks." the pegasus replied.

In the capsule lied yet another one, same pale coat, but pink, curly mane. She also wore a long black dress, though relatively slimmer than the one before. Zecora and Twilight looked inside.

"Soooo...."

"No way I touch them." Zecora refused.

"Well, me neither." turned away Twilight. "Fluttershy-

"No!"

"Gah, okay." gave in the unicorn, slowly reaching towards the alien. She let out a small 'uggh' in disgust while placing one of her hooves under the creatures eye, while the other one on the other side. "Okay, three, two..... one...." her muscles strained as she opened up the alien's left eye. It's eyeball was similar to the ponies' eyes, on white base the iris and the black pupil. Though the iris seemed strange with the black circle in it and as the searing, shining color on it's lower side slowly faded to completely black at the top, but other than those it seemed pretty normal. Twilight waved her head left to the right with her magic light focused on her pupils to see any reaction, but nothing. She sighed in relief and took a small note "At least they eyes are pretty."

"So they aren't alive?" asked Fluttershy in a hi-pitched voice.

"Judging by the lack of reactions, it seems they really did pass away." said Twilight, shutting down the capsule. "Okay girls, what we saw here is taboo, not a word about that anywhere. We have seen nothing, okay?" she said in a bossy voice. The others nodded in agreement.

"Fine, let's get out from here." the unicorn suggested. The others didn't wait, they left the cave as soon as possible, with Fluttershy in the first place of course, who also mentioned on the way home a few seconds later something.

"Twilight, I'm scared."

"Me too, Fluttershy, me too." she stopped, hugging her friend in front of the entrance of the forest. The two friends bid farewell and decided to return home, not speaking about the past event ever again... hopefully.

As the Sun went down, with her daily job finally being finished, the Moon was slowly waking up from her slumber to take her place. Froud Valley was quiet, there were little to no fauna in the cold, rocky environment, only naked, dry trees of black filled with huge holes, as they'd have been burnt then vandalized. Next to a giant lake, castle was emerging from the unfriendly environment on a top of a cliff, its dark bricks forming a repetitive layer, narrow windows that would let only a small portion of the sunshine in. Sticky, green goo piled up at the foot of some walls.

In a sudden, rambling of unnerved creatures broke the usual calm, until a two-toned voice shouted up "Quiet! They're here..." it said, maniacally laughing afterwards.

"Are you sure this is the place." MERCY asked Silence as they flew towards the building.

"Look, I have no idea. Thee map said 'Dream Valley', and that was the only place ending with 'valley' on the map. But judging by all that disgusting green stuff, I'd say yes." Silence replied, as she landed around thirty meters in front of the door. They decided to approach the gate by hooves, as they were secured by two charcoal colored minions: changeling guards. However as they got closer and closer, the creatures looked at each other and didn't block the way.

"The queen is in her throneroom, just straight forward." said one of them.

"Thanks." replied Silence as she and her advisor continued her way inside.

The hall had pillars hogging from it's walls, torches were placed on them to give some light, though it was not much. No other decorations were seen anywhere, with the exceptions of the cracks, the spiderwebs, and the gigantic double-door that lead to the throne room, that was filled with changelings. They almost all looked the same, yet still it was possible to differentiate the female ones from the males due to their long fins. The room followed the same pattern as the previous one, with the exception of the throne itself, that was a beautiful, green lotus, with holes on the side of its leaves in the very middle of a pond. The gigantic flower was surrounded by many smaller ones, and the water was provided by a smaller waterfall from above. It looked like a natural altar in this cold, artificial castle.

And in the very middle of it was reclining she, a significantly taller creature, with her insectoid wings being much larger and elegant that any others', her fins being switched by a mane of cerulean and naturally, holes filling her legs, mane and tail.

Silence's cheeks turned searing hot red by the pure sight of her, which she seemed to take notice of as her mouth suddenly formed into a wicked grin. The other changelings in the room became noisy once again, as they looked towards each other rambling about something in private whispers.

"Quiet!!" she screamed again, turning after the two guests right afterwards... especially towards Silence "Aah, welcome, welcome. I'm glad you came, we rarely have guests around here." she said, with the unnerving smirk still on her face. She began flapping her wings and gently landing in front of them. "I'm Chrysalis, queen of the Changeling Kingdom."

"Silence, clan leader of the M.A.R.E." Silence replied, keeping herself together, despite she had trouble focusing because of the sight of the changeling, and the inconvenient feel in her chest, as something would crawl inside. MERCY however remained unnoticed, which she didn't really take well, giving a little hint to the pegasus in a form of a whisper "Don't fly away, now."

It sort of worked, as the grey mare managed to get back to reality and add "Oh, this is MERCY, she's the specialist in the clan." MERCY also shook hooves with the queen, though they both could care less. Chrysalis was more interested in Silence, and because of that, MERCY had a really bad feeling.

"Come, let's get inside." Chrysalis said, showing the way towards the door, with stairs behind it leading up to the tower, straight into the room of the queen. It looked the same as everything else, except it had windows and a ragged dark grey and green banner as decorations. A huge bed, several chests of drawers, chairs and a desk was all the furniture inside. The queen made herself comfortable in her bed.

"I don't like where this is going." noted MERCY.

"I assume you have some questions. I'm all ears." Chrysalis said.

"Well, yes." agreed Silence "First of all-"

"First of all what do you want?!" cut in madly MERCY.

"In the middle of it, hm? We changelings feed on love to survive. We came on Equestria since there are more love here than everywhere else. But we need friends as well, not just foes." she explained.

MERCY turned to her leader whispering the following "Wow, does she really want to fool us with that?"

"Wait, we can make a good deal out of this." she whispered back.

"We also needed an alliance, continue." told Silence.

"It's a simple trade, dear, nothing else." chuckled the changeling.

"So you need my love to feed on, I get this part, but what would you give in return." asked Silence

"Something you also need as much as we do." replied Chrysalis, graving her fangs into her arm, pulling out a second later, letting the blood flow down her arm. "Food for food." she added.

The two mare was shocked, they instantly looked at each other.

"She knows-"

"-too much, I know."

"Get into it. Free blood is only good for us." MERCY suggested.

"Wait, wait, we don't even know if her blood is edible."

"Who cares? If not, it'll come in handy for the Cluster."

"That's true, we could save big time and bounty without hunting."

They made the final decision and turned back to their partner. "Love for blood, that's a fair offer." confirmed Silence with a confident tone. "But we need to see if your blood is edible for us first." she added.

Chrysalis' face suddenly filled up with wicked happiness. "Why not? Be our guest and stay tonight." suggested Chrysalis.

MERCY became worried, but Silence firmly nodded towards her. "Okay. I'm in." she said.

"So is that a deal?" requested the queen.

"Deal." answered Silence with as a final word before turning back to her advisor. "MERCY, report back and tell the clan that we're in coalition with the Changeling Kingdom."

MERCY nodded, but before flying out the window she turned back once more "Are you sure you want to stay?"

"Trust me, there will be no problem." smiled back the leader. MERCY flew away through the window, soaring through the night with the report.

Chrysalis began to giggle behind her mouth, but as the strange looking mechanic went farther and farther she began to laugh out louder and louder, like a maniac, a crazy evil-doer. In a sudden, a horde of changelings roamed in the door, another dozen flew in the window, filling up the room entirely.

"FEEEAAAST!" screamed the queen, as in a sudden the changelings began to move towards the pegasus. The queen's body suddenly became engulfed in a green layer, slowly advancing upwards in her body, changing it entirely. The charcoal became purple, her tail turned dark blue and as the transformation finished, Silence's instincts caught on fire, seeing her beloved Twilight standing in front of her, giving her a look she have only seen in her wild dreams.

"Do you like what you see?" Twilight asked, as her eyes suddenly faded from purple to green, then black.

"How did you-" attempted to ask Silence, but were silenced by the hoof of the succubus, who kept giggling gently.

"Oh, you'd not believe how many things I know." she said, leaning towards the gray mare as she touched her left hoof, gently taking it and sticking the tip of her hoof into a hole, to the huge shock of the pegasus. But as soon as Silence looked to see what she was doing, the disguised changeling took her hoof from in front of her mouth and replaced it with something much sweeter: her hot lips.

The changelings in the back also began to change. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Trixie, Octavia, they all stood around her and they wanted her there and now.

Silence couldn't move anymore, her body paralyzed itself as the crawling feeling became stronger and stronger, as if hundreds of leeches were crawling inside, sucking on her heart. Like a ragdoll she was thrown onto the bed, where the love-sucking beasts surrounded her to finish what they started.