Silver Storm

by PonyPixel


The Crystal Field Trip

The frightened hippogriff could only just stare at her breakfast. She looked up to infamous emblem just seconds before Spike wiped it away without knowing. "What are you staring at?" Gallus asked.

"Nothing," Silverstream replied before stuffing her toast in her mouth.

"That dream must've really scared you," Ocellus commented. "You wanna tell us what happened?"

"No!" This caught the group off guard.

"You sure you are okay?" Sandbar asked.

"Just fine. Let's just eat." Not another word was said for a while.

Yona was the one to break the silence. "Friends excited for field trip?" she asked.

"Yeah," Smolder said. "I can't wait to see the Crystal Empire."

"You aren't going to eat anything made of gems, are you?" Ocellus asked.

"What? Of course not." A bit of uncertainty crossed her face. "The second I try, you'll stop."

"Got it," her friends said.

"I don't know who could've trashed the school," Ocellus said, "Or why."

"Maybe to get someone's attention," Silverstream said under her breath.

"What was that?" Gallus asked.

"Nothing. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?" The hippogriff drank her OJ, her friends were starting to get worried about her.


At the train station, Twilight was checking off everyone that signed up for the field trip. "Okay, Starlight will investigate every creature until we get back," she said. "If any of you did it, you're safe, for now." Everyone climbed aboard the train before it set off.

"Yona excited," Yona cheered stomping her hooves. "Yaks and crystal ponies good friends. Yaks pass through to get to train."

"Good to know," Gallus said.

"Maybe we get to see Princess Cadence," Silverstream said, "Or maybe even Flurry Heart."

"It could be possible," Ocellus said.

"She's recovering fast," Smolder whispered to the changeling.

"It was just a bad dream, let's just try and forget about it." Smolder wasn't so easily convinced. Silverstream might back to her bubbly self, but she also looked a little worried. Gallus also noticed this but said nothing.

"Maybe school go to Yakyakistan next," Yona said.

"Or maybe we could visit Canterlot," Sandbar suggested.

The friends continued to talk about places they might visit in the future as Silverstream noticed something about her reflection in the window. For some reason, her eyes looked blue, but only for a second, then they went back to normal. A sudden headache hit her, making her groan.

"Silver, are you sure you're okay?" Gallus asked.

"I'm fine!" Silverstream replied a bit annoyed startling her friends. "Sorry, it's just a headache." Not much was said until they got to the empire. Yona was the first one off the train, she waved at a couple of the crystal ponies, most of them around her age.

"Yona," Twilight called stopping the yak with her magic. "All students must stick together."

"Sorry, head pony," Yona apologized. "Students meet princess?"

"You mean Cadence? Of course." The students all followed Twilight to the castle. Outside, waiting for them, was Princess Cadence.

"Twilight," the Crystal Princess said, "We're glad you could make it." By 'we' she also met Flurry Heart, who flew up to hug her aunt.

"Oh, Flurry, you've gotten so big."

"Aw, she's so cute," Ocellus commented. Flurry landed onto the changeling's head and giggled.

Silverstream was looking at the two adult alicorns. She didn't know why she just felt angry. Her paw did feel wet, and that was the drool that was coming from Smolder's mouth. "Could you please stop drooling?" the hippogriff asked.

"It's not that bad," Smolder protested. Gallus begged to differ as he pointed to a path of droll that that lead back to the train station. "Hey, I can't help it. It's like a vampire at a blood drive."

"Just stay strong," Silverstream said placing her paw on her friend's shoulder. "You'll get through it." She placed her paw on her forehead as her friends started getting concerned.

"So, what shall we start with?" Twilight asked her sister-in-law.

"Well, there is how King Sombra was banished," Cadence said before hearing a groan from the students. "It's really exciting, trust me." As they walked into the castle, Cadence explained how the king of shadows was defeated.

Silverstream was excited to hear it, but after a while, she found hatred rising. She didn't know why an evil king was defeated by the Crystal Princess and "Spike?" Smolder questioned.

"It was a last attempt," Twilight said. "Cadence was weak, I was trapped."

"So, is that why there's a statue of Spike outside the castle?" Sandbar asked.

"Gee, I don't know, it could be," Gallus said sarcastically. "Maybe they have giant size statues of all the princess and her friends if they got nothing better to do." Some snickering was heard from the students but the princesses didn't find it so funny.

Cadence would've said something if Flurry didn't pass out. "Be right back Twilight," she said. The mother walked away to put her daughter in her crib.

Smolder just looked around the castle as her mouth flooded. She even bit her own tongue to keep her cravings under control. "Just a little longer," she said to herself.

"It's funny seeing you like this," Silverstream said before smacking herself. "I don't why I'm saying these things."

"Well, try and figure out why."

The class carried on with the tour of the castle and the history of the empire, which made a couple of the students drift off into sleep. However, Smolder noticed that Silverstream was going off course. The dragon followed her friend and made sure to stay out of sight. The hippogriff also seemed to move stealthfully. While the girls weren't exactly ninja material, the guards didn't see them.

Silverstream was heading towards Flurry Heart's bedroom, where the baby alicorn was asleep. Smolder was confused about why her friend was doing in a baby's room, but then she saw Silverstream break a piece of crystal off the wall. The shard was incredibly sharp, and the dragon knew it would make a good snack for her species, but she could see the hippogriff about to drop the sharp part onto the sleeping baby.

The dragon rammed into her friend, making her drop the shard onto the floor. This woke Flurry Heart up, and she immediately started crying. Smolder pinned her friend to the ground, as Silverstream seemed shocked to find herself in the baby's room.

"How did I get here?" she asked.

"You were going to hurt the baby," Smolder answered. Silverstream started getting nervous as the guards and Cadence ran into the room.

"Flurry," Cadence cried picking her baby up and cradling her, "Are you alright?"

"What are they doing in here?" one of the guards asked.

"I... I..." Silverstream was at loss for words.

Smolder thought for a moment as she got off her friend. "It was me," she blurted out. "I couldn't help myself. I just hid in one of the room and broke a part of the wall so I could eat it, but I didn't know this was your kid's room."

"It's hard to miss," said one of the guards, pointing to the crib, toys, and change station.

"Just come with me," Cadence said sternly. Smolder held her arm as she and Silverstream followed her.

"Whatever I did, you didn't have to take it for me," Silverstream whispered to her friend.

"Trust me, I did," Smolder replied. "If you don't know what you did, I think I should help you out a bit." She could see her friend was very worried. "Look, we're going to figure out what's going on. I'll just take my punishment and swallow my pride." Smolder was forced to stay at the train station until the class had finished with their field trip.

"Your punishment is to help clean up the rest of the school," Twilight spoke as she walked up to her. "I'm very disappointed in you." Smolder just sighed as she boarded the train with the rest of the students.

"If it makes you feel any better, not much happened," Gallus said as the train started moving. "It was just history of the place. Though a part of the garden's tree broke off." He tossed a piece of a crystallized tree branch to his friend, making her grin.

Before she took a bit, Smolder looked over to Silverstream, who looked a little scared. "You okay?" Smolder asked.

"Of course," Silverstream replied. "I made sure to stay with the group. Yona helped me, and I kept listening to the empire's history."

"It was boring, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"No," Ocellus said. "What, I thought the Crystal Heart was very interesting and how King Sombra..."

"Was a complete idiot." Silverstream's friends were shocked by this. "He took his time and could've just flown in, killed the only thing stopping him and could've teamed up with some other powerful kings." Her eyes widened after saying this. "No, it's not true."

"Silver," Smolder said firmly, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Well, that nothing nearly made you kill Flurry."

"Friend do what!?" Yona gasped.

The five students looked at their friend with worry and frustration. "We can't help you if you don't tell us," Ocellus said.

"We're your friends Silver," Sandbar said. "Just tell us what's wrong."

Silverstream took a deep sigh explained to her friends the nightmare she had last night.


"And then I woke up to find the school trashed," Silverstream said finishing the last of her story.

"How can a dream make you act like this?" Smolder asked.

"Hippogriff think king is in real world," Yona suggested.

"But I didn't even remember going into the baby's room," Silverstream said.

"Maybe your just not thinking straight," Ocellus suggested. "Bad memory from history book added with a nightmare may through me off too."

"No, it wasn't a history book. It was a book to bring back spirits."

"Spirits as in ghosts?" Yona asked a bit scared with her friend nodding.

"But doesn't a ghost seem farfetched?" Ocellus asked.

Gallus knew what to say to this. "I'm part bird and loin, Silver's part griffon and pony and can also turn into a sea creature, you can change into any living species, and Smolder's a flying reptile that can breathe fire. I don't think ghosts are so hard to believe."

The train came to a stop and the students walked back towards the school. Smolder was trying to keep a smile, but Twilight's glare made it quickly disappear. Spike was still cleaning when they got back, Twilight walked up to him with Smolder right beside her.

"Spike, Smolder will be taking over cleaning for a while," Twilight said.

"Really? Why?" Spike asked giving his sponge and bucket of soapy water to the other dragon.

"She got into a bit of trouble at the Crystal Empire, so this will be her punishment."

"Alright. That works because, one, Starlight couldn't find the guilty student, and two, I get a well-earned break." Spike walked off back to the castle as Smolder started wiping the mess off the walls.

Meanwhile, the rest of her friends were in the library searching for the book Silverstream read yesterday. However, the book wasn't in the library. "Where is it?" Gallus questioned tossing orange books off the shelves.

"I don't know," Ocellus said catching the book her friends were just tossing.

"Book not on these shelves," Yona said.

"Same here," Sandbar added.

Silverstream saw a tired Spike walk in. "Ooh, Mr. Spike," she said, "Do you remember that book we got yesterday?"

"Which one?" Spike asked.

"It had a dark orange cover."

"I don't know, we have a lot of orange books."

"We noticed," Gallus said as he kept looking.

"Well, if it's that old one, we sent it back to Canterlot."

"WHAT?!" Silverstream cried.

"What's the problem? Was it about a story?"

"No, just history."

"Oh, okay. We've got plenty of those." Spike got some earmuffs and a blindfold. He then lay down a large pillow and fell asleep.

"What was that?" Gallus questioned.

"I don't want him involved," Silverstream protested. "I already got Smolder into trouble, I don't want to get Mr. Spike in trouble too."

"Well, she tried to put Flurry to sleep forever." Sandbar said. The group didn't know what to say after that.

"He said the book is in Canterlot," Ocellus said breaking the silence. "We can't travel there and back in one day without missing our classes."

"What friends do?" Yona asked.

"How about we try and think of something else while we just do our class," Silverstream said,

"We don't have that many options," Ocellus agreed. The students, with not having many choices, carried on with their day as it was normal. Silverstream's friends made sure that she didn't wander off, but that didn't stop her from using her mouth to say things she would never say.

When night came, the hippogriff didn't say anything and just flopped onto her bed. "Silver?" Ocellus asked walking in.

"Go away," she replied. "It'll probably be safer."

"If it makes you feel better I made this." The changeling showed her friend a dream catcher, which the hippogriff found amazing. "It'll help catch your bad dream while keeping the good ones." Ocellus hung it on the wall as Silverstream felt much more comfortable. "Night, Silver."

"Night, Ocellus." The hippogriff closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Silverstream found herself outside of what seemed to be Yakyakestan. She opened to the gate to find multiple Yonas and Prince Rutherford, as these were the only two yaks she had really seen. Apart from the snow, which Silverstream was conveniently wearing winter clothing for, it didn't seem so bad.

Then all the yaks started running from a large black ship. Silverstream was about to run to but she found that her feet were coated in ice. She tried to use her wings to fly away, but they weren't strong enough. All Silverstream could do was watch all the yaks get locked up in cages.

"So, we're visiting our friends, are we?" came a voice the hippogriff didn't want to hear.

"Let me go," Silverstream cried as she frantically tried to fly away.

"Where's the fun in that. I still need you."

"Why?"

"We almost had a good run with that alicorn baby, but that dumb dragon got in the way."

"Don't call my friend dumb. She was trying to stop you."

"Which is why we're going to take care of her."

Before she could ask how, some words were heard. Silver. Silver!"

"No," the king growled.

"Smolder?" The mountain area then got very hot as shown by the snow melting.

"Silver! Silverstream!" Then, out of nowhere, Smolder landed in front of her. "Silver, wake up!" Smolder shouted.

Suddenly, Silverstream found herself outside school fighting with her dragon friend. It was still night time and the dragon only had a black eye as that was her weakest point.

"Smolder, what happened?" Silverstream asked a bit scared.

"You were sleepwalking," Smolder answered. "Well, more sleep-fighting. You were fighting me for an hour."

"Ididn'tmeanto,thestormkingwasinmynightmareagain,IwasinYakyakestanuntilheshowedup." Smolder grabbed her friend's beak to stop her rambling.

"Look, it's not your fault. Can we just go back to bed?"

"S... Sure." The two crept through the school to make sure they woke no one up. Smolder made back to her dorm and Silverstream crept back into her's. Once the hippogriff was back in bed, she didn't want to fall asleep. What if she slept walked again? What if she actually hurt some creature? Or worse. Did she mess up the school? Probably. Silverstream thought the best way to stay in control, was to stay up all night long.

When the sun shined across Ponyville, the students made their way to the cafeteria. Silverstream was notably tired when she showed up to her friends.

"Did you even sleep?" Smolder asked.

"No," she yawned. "The Storm King will take control again." She tried to keep her eyes opened but they were very heavy.

"I guess my dreamcatcher didn't work," Ocellus sighed.

"It was worth a shot," Sandbar said making his friend feel better.

"Thanks. Unless we find a way to get the book, I don't know how we're going to..." The changeling paused as the hippogriff grabbed her arm tight. "S... Silver, what are you doing? That hurts. Stop!"

The group noticed Silverstream's eyes were icy blue for a moment but they snapped back to her normal violet and she released her Ocellus from her claw. "Sorry," Silverstream said, "I don't know what..." She stopped when could see her paws were now black. Her friends noticed this too, and also saw the fear in their friend's eyes. "It's getting worse."