Spark, Rarity, Orea and Turbid walked side by side through the dark forest. By some miracle, White Tail hadn't attacked them once they entered his woods. Either he was too busy, or he wasn't paying attention. Either way, being allowed to come this far was reason for concern. As the four of them walked on the forest floor, Arrin and Sohl flew, often flying ahead, then waiting for the ponies and the nymph to catch up while waiting in the trees.
Spark couldn't help feeling more and more mistrustful of the griffon. There was something he seemed to be hiding from the group, even though Sohl didn't seem strange at all to Spark. The harpy wore her intentions on her talons, which she didn't bother to hide. Arrin, on the hoof, was polite, casual, and friendly. A griffon out here, in the wild, offering friendship so easily just seemed wrong.
The mismatched group continued on deep into the forest, each having their own uneasy thoughts on the silence. After an hour of walking, Spark sidled up to Orea, nudging her gently to get her attention. "Orea, what's going on? Can you feel the dryads nearby?"
Orea was silent for a moment. She looked down at Spark after a moment, a confused look on her face. "I can always feel them, my Storm. But it is strange, it feels as if they are moving from place to place within the forest at high speeds. One moment they are at the edge of the forest where we entered, the next they are at the center, and all around. It is confusing, and it worries me..."
Something else had been worrying Orea. Arrin, the griffon. There was something disturbingly familiar about him. Not his looks, he was the first griffon she'd ever met. No, it was life force. Despite meeting him for the first time, there was something familiar about him, something she'd met before, something that terrified her.
The group didn't get much farther when the ground began to rumble. Both Sohl and Arrin looked down at the other four from their perches, having noticed a change under their party's hooves. "Hey!" Sohl called. "Heads up, get out of there!"
Turbid, Spark and Orea looked down at the ground and realized that it had become viscous, like mud, their hooves sinking. Panic set in as Rarity began to sink first. "Oh, oh no, no! Spark Storm, help me!" She shrieked, her pretty white coat becoming marred with sloppy mud. Spark hopped over to her and wrapped his hooves around her, trying to pull her back to the surface, but he too was sinking.
"Turbid! Do something!" He called. His wings flapped, as if he expected to suddenly gain the ability to fly and rescue himself and Rarity, but of course it wasn't happening. Meanwhile, Turbid was sinking lower, even though her horn was ablaze with her magic.
"It...it's not working! My earth magic isn't working!" She looked around at herself and her friends. She couldn't help, and she was starting to panic until she felt several vines wrapping around her. The same was happening with Rarity and Spark Storm.
"Worry not, friends, I have you." Orea said. Several vines whipped out from her body, snagging nearby trees as she began to pull herself and her comrades from the sinking mud. Just as she had gotten herself out of the mud, she was tackled by a huge form, a form with a white tail. Her vines were snapped off painfully, and Spark, Rarity and Turbid dropped back into the mud. Rarity let out a scream as she dropped on her back, quickly sinking with her legs flailing about in the air.
Spark Storm watched in horror as both she and Turbid sunk beneath the mud. He didn't know what to do, and panic had frozen his movements. He was suddenly pressed down slightly as an enormous, deadly set of talons wrapped carefully around his middle. A second set, belonging to a long leg, dipped itself into the mud and pulled out a coughing/sobbing Rarity, completely covered in thick, gooping mud. The two were lifted into the air and dropped unceremoniously into the crook of a large tree. Rarity bounced as she dropped and landed on Spark Storm. She wiped away the mud from her mouth and eyes, and immediately latched onto Spark, sobbing her eyes out.
"Oh, Spark, I was so scared! I wanna go ho-ho-hoooome!" Spark held her, gently stroking her back before he looked up at Sohl, who seemed to be glaring at them expectantly. He nodded and gave her a grateful smile.
"Thank you, Sohl. We'd be dead if you hadn't gotten to us."
Sohl seemed to have gotten what she was expecting, then she looked down and around for Turbid. Seeing no sign of Orea or the unicorn, she found Arrin standing on another tree, with no signs that he'd helped rescue anypony. "Arrin!" She screeched. "What are you doing? Why didn't you rescue the third one?"
Arrin didn't say anything. In fact, he looked pleased as punch. He closed his eyes, lifted his head to the sky, and lit his body with green fire. It engulfed him, and when it was gone, a Changeling was in his place, tall, hard-skinned, and smug. "Finally, we have located White Tail! Soon, all too soon we shall be free from our curse." He turned, casting a warm yet derisive glance at Sohl and the muddy ponies. "It is all thanks to you. Thank you for leading me here." He turned his gaze to Sohl then, who stared at him with a look that screamed betrayal. "Oh...and thank you for the warm nights we spent together, Sohl. Sincerely, I won't forget you when you've gone."
Spark had gotten to his hooves, his wings raised, but he couldn't get them to light up. The mud had severely hampered his ability to generate electricity.
Sohl stared at the creature that was once her only friend in the whole world, her chest heaving with emotion. It couldn't be. Not from the beginning? "Y...you're a...how long? For how long?" she screeched, her voice nearly bowling over the Changeling as it tried to keep it's balance against the palpable force of the harpy's scream.
'Arrin' got back to his hooves and hissed smugly at the harpy as the woods began to darken as clouds - no, a cloud of Changelings rumbled overhead, their wings buzzing like a giant hive of angry bees. "For three weeks now. Your precious griffon is rotting at the bottom of a gorge somewhere. Don't despair, all of you will join them soon enough, and the dryads and the nymph with you! Though I must thank you, Sohl. Your love for Arrin, while unrequited, was delicious! Thank you, hahaha!"
Sohl began to tremble. She put her face in her hands and released a long weeping sound that tore at Spark's soul. Her tears feel from between her fingers as she dragged her nails slowly down her face until she could see him, thin trails of her own blood falling and mingling with her tears. "You will pay for this. One does not worm his way into a harpy's heart and then wound it so easily...You will pay for this Changeling, you will pay!"
The trees crashed, rumbled and cracked as two large figures pushed, pulled and rammed each other on the forest floor. Spark watched as he expected Orea and White Tail to appear, but instead White Tail and the older of the two dryads he'd seen with the crazed dryad before. Both creatures pushed and shoved each other about, knocking the other into trees, or picking up trees to use as battering objects.
Even as the two titans fought through the woods, hordes of Changelings descended into the trees. Spark raised his wings instinctively, and his feathers finally lit up. The mud having dried, it cracked and fell off his wings easily as the tiny threads of light pierced through the dried mud shell. He looked around as the creatures surrounded himself, Rarity and Sohl. There were too many, the whole forest had become like a dark cloud of choking numbers of the monsters.
A commotion broke out however, as the smallest of the dryads crashed into the Changeling numbers. Long, wooden spikes erupted from his body, elongating to spear Changeling after Changeling. The spikes whipped around to catch more of the creatures off-guard. He was pinned down easily enough as dozens of Changelings brought him down. The dryad was cleared of his attackers, though, as several shots of lightning bore down on the Changelings, cracking their shells painfully and sending the survivors to the sky. The dryad got to his hooves slowly as Spark landed on the ground next to him, with Rarity clinging to his back. She got down to her hooves, pulling several exploding arrows from her quiver and notching them all at once. With the air full of these monsters, aiming wouldn't be much of a problem.
The young dryad was a dark brown, and his skin was rough like bark. He was tall, about as tall as Celestia, though not nearly as dainty. "Thank you, Storm Bringer. I am sorry that my father has brought this madness among us. We must help my brother, he cannot hope to outmatch our father. But with these murderers..." Spark frowned in anger and frustration. There were two battles raging, and neither one could he afford to ignore. Well...three battles. He watched as Sohl launched herself at the Changeling that had been Arrin, who laughed and took off into the air, leading her away from the battle.
Spark spread his wings and brought down three Changelings in one strike as they tried to approach. Rarity shot off three arrows, all three of which collided with three Changelings, though only two of them she was aiming at. The arrows exploded in a four foot radius, completely destroying their targets. Spark shook his head and grabbed Rarity, who shrieked as she was set on top of the dryad's back. "Look, I want you to get my friend away from here as fast as possible! Get her to safety! Please!"
"Spark Storm! I will not be taken from this battle, I am just as capable as you!"
"You're more important! Dryad, do not stop until she is safe! Go! Go!"
Rarity shouted most unladylike things as the dryad bore her away, tied to the creature's back so she wouldn't fall off. Spark couldn't believe that worked so easily. Now, he was free to move among the Changelings as he saw fit, without having to protect anypony. Of course, the Changelings all saw this as an invitation to attack at once. A mistake, as any surviving Changeling would have told you. A blinding light filled the forest area as Spark's searching web stretched out to surround all fifty monsters around him. The scene changed into a vision of light, blood and limbs as he suddenly sent out actual, damaging lightning through the web, almost instantly igniting everything it touched with numbing, fire-inducing electricity.
Spark ran as he was surrounded once more. He prepared his wings for a second charge, but the monsters were moving too fast. Quite suddenly the earth itself rose like a wave, like a thick carpet and came down over thirty or so Changelings, crushing them all in one drop of earth. Spark stared as he witnessed for the second time as a titan made of earth, logs and vines emerged from the mud pit where they had all nearly died. Of course, Spark had never really lost faith in Turbid, though he had been worried. The Changelings converged on the earth golem, ramming into it and trying to tear it down.
With the Changelings distracted, Spark ran off around the mud pit to the place he'd last seen Orea. It only took her a moment to find her huddled inside a hollowed out tree space. He ducked inside, away from the multiple battles raging outside. As he stepped closer, his left hoof felt wet. He glanced down, and noticed that he'd stepped in a shallow green puddle. He looked at Orea again, and noticed the good-sized wound on the shoulder facing him. He ran to her and reached up, placing his hooves on her. "Orea! Hey, a-are you all right?"
She sniffled and reached down to pull Spark into her forelegs. She was trembling, and sobbed quietly. "I am unhurt, my Storm...but I am so afraid...White Tail, he...he tried to kill me...and all those Changelings, it is like last time...they want us all dead, Storm, and I fear they may succeed this time!"
Spark shush'd her gently, placing a hoof on her lips. "No they're not. We're all going to get out of here alive, and then we're gonna get you married to one of those dryads, ok? Then you're gonna have kids. So many kids, and the forests will never die. You'll see." He leaned forward and placed a kiss on Orea's forehead. He didn't notice the little seed that she placed inside his mane. She watched as he fled the tree, quickly so he wouldn't be seen and lead the Changelings back there.
Outside, Spark ran as fast as he could. He returned to the golem and started running up it's body, leaping from leg to leg to waist to arm, his wings propelling him upwards in his jumps and swatting down Changelings with an attack or two. He attacked the swarming monsters until he had a clearing, then yelled, "Turbid! We've got to find White Tail and take him out! There's no point arguing with him anymore, he tried to kill Orea!"
To Spark's shock, the golem turned it's head to him and bellowed in a voice that nearly knocked him off his perch, "Then lead the way!" The golem then grabbed a tree from it's body and swung it like like a bat, destroying the log and killing over ten Changelings in one swing. Spark took the initiative and took to the air, gliding from the golem's shoulder and to the trees, where he leaped again and glided off into the darkness of the forest, where he could just barely make out other sounds of fighting.
Sohl was seeing red, and not just from the blood in her eyes. For two months, Arrin had been trying to get closer to Sohl as they started this mission to locate a nymph and bring her here. For two months, Arrin had slowly but surely chipped away at the walls around her savage heart, earning her friendship, her trust, and eventually her affection.
And to learn that her only friend had been murdered and replaced with this thing, this monster that dared to pretend to care for her! Sohl's whole life had been one violent mistake after another, and to finally find someone to call friend, then have them ripped from her clutches like this...it was too much.
Sohl was getting closer and closer to the smaller beast with each flap of her broad wings. Soon, she could be on top of him, and she could rip his heart out through his back, and - she let out a terrified gasp as the Changeling turned around to face her, only now he was in his Arrin form. He smirked and gave her a wink before he kicked her hard in the chest, causing her to crashing right into a tree. Sohl groaned and pulled herself into a standing position when she was struck from the back, sending her flailing to the ground.
'Arrin' landed on her back, clawed hind feet pinning Sohl's talons to the ground. He grabbed the ends of her wings and held her tight against the ground, a sharp, bloodthirsty beak poised over her back. Sohl growled viciously and thrashed against the hold on her, then settled down with her face in the dirt. Tears fell as her breathing came down to a quiet lull. "Just do it," she whispered. "Do it and let me mourn in the afterlife."
'Arrin' let out a cruel laugh as he leaned down against the harpy's form, making her cringe and struggle. "Poor little harpy. Don't worry, I'll make sure that your carcass joins your friend's body at the bottom of the cliffs. I promise, you'll be together with him to the ends of time!" He let out a cruel laugh and reached up with one claw, readying to plunge it through her back. Sohl closed her eyes and waited for the death blow. Instead, there a sound like 'thunk thunk thunk'. Sohl felt something warm and wet dripping down along her back.
As she felt the Changeling turn into it's true form, Sohl wiggled out from under it and kicked at it's chest with one of her now-free legs, neatly splitting the monster in three different sections. It slowly leaned backwards like an accordion folding backwards, three arrows coming into her view, having been shot into the Changeling's chest. Sohl whipped around as the little white unicorn, now entirely covered with thick, dried mud, stood there some ways away. She slipped her remaining arrows back into her quiver, then, with a sad look on her face, bowed to Sohl respectfully before climbing back up onto her dryad companion's back. The two took off, continuing to head away from the battle.
Sohl watched them go as she pulled herself into a sitting position. She drew her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms and wept.