“Silent, STOP!” Primrose shrieked at the top of her lungs, throwing the dagger Scarlet had given her at Silent Edge. The pegasus turned and batted the projectile aside with his wingblade before jumping back to evade the follow-up swing from Sharp Lens. He gave a few flaps of his wings before coming to a light landing a short distance away.
“Prim… Lens…?” Scarlet breathed, looking between them with wide, confused eyes. “But… what…?”
“Didn’t I tell you earlier?” Lens asked, positioning himself protectively between Silent and Scarlet. “We came for you as soon as we could.”
Primrose slid to a stop at Scarlet’s side and fell to her haunches, eyes wide as she took in the damage the larger mare had suffered. Her entire body was covered in small injuries, while a massive and grotesque burn mark had covered her chest and forelegs. There was a conspicuously untouched stripe around her neck, and Prim realized that Scarlet had lost her cloak.
“Scarlet,” Prim whispered, her hooves hovering uselessly over Scarlet’s battered form. She tried to think of something she could do to take away the pain, but the only creature she knew of who could heal injuries like this was Flurry Heart, and she was going to be busy for the foreseeable future. “Oh my goodness, you’re so hurt…”
Scarlet put on a weak, crooked smile. “Heh… I may have gotten worse than I gave, but I still made him hurt before I went down,” she said quietly before wincing. Her eyes screwed shut, and she let out a series of moist coughs.
Primrose’s hooves flew up to cover her mouth as flecks of blood flew free from Scarlet’s mouth to splatter against the grass. “Oh my… you need help!” she said, trying to figure out some way to help the unicorn stand.
Lens risked a look back towards the two of them before focusing on Silent again. “...Silent, do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asked slowly.
Silent snorted. “I’ve brought Scarlet down, and now I aim to cut down the rest of you. Although, I must ask… where is the mother? I know she came with you.”
“She had a name, you know!” Lens barked angrily, his horn flaring brighter. “It was Sclera! And… and she’s dead. She was killed by the leader of the griffons you hired.”
Primrose screwed her eyes shut at the memory, stifling a sob. Her heart twisted in her chest, but she forced herself to ignore it, if only for now. She opened her eyes and looked down at Scarlet to find the mare staring back in shock. “...S-sclera’s dead?” she choked out.
Primrose looked away, hiding her face behind her mane. “I… y-yes. She… s-she gave her life to save me,” she mumbled, the energy draining from her muscles.
Scarlet stared at Primrose for several moments. With a quiet sigh, she lifted a foreleg, in spite of the pain it caused her, and pulled the filly in for a stiff embrace. “Oh, honey… I’m so sorry,” she whispered sympathetically. “I am so, so sorry… I should have been there…”
Primrose shook her head. “Don’t say that, Scarlet. Please, don’t blame yourself,” she glared up at Silent, her lips twitching in a desire to hiss at him.
Silent let out a snort of frustration. “So one of my targets was killed before I could reach them… a pity,” he spat before pointing his blade at the group. “Oh, well. I still have plenty of prey right in front of me.”
“Why are you doing this?!” Lens demanded. “If you followed us here, then you know that this place is protected by Spike and Flurry Heart, don’t you?!”
That actually gave Silent pause. He tilted his head. “That the dragon strongly resembles the first Dragon Sentinel, I will freely acknowledge, but Flurry Heart?”
“It’s true,” Scarlet choked out, managing to lift her head a little to look at the former assassin. “She and Spike have been hiding out here for centuries…”
“And they’ve been waiting for the lamp,” Primrose added, glaring at Silent as well. “They have it now, and they aren’t gonna give it up to you or anyone else!”
“It’s too important,” Lens went on, spreading his stance a little more. “And these two are too important to me for me to let you touch them.”
“So please, Silent,” Primrose said, her ears lowering. “Just… leave. There’s nothing for you here. Just go. You already took my mother away tonight… let that be enough.”
Silent stared at them all, completely dumbfounded. It had always been exceedingly hard for Primrose to get a measure of his emotions. Most of the time, it was as if Silent didn’t even have emotions. He was often stoic, cold, and impossible to read. Now, though, she saw a storm of emotion raging around him. Surprise, confusion, anger, sympathy…
Slowly, all of the other emotions bled away, leaving just the anger. Silent bared his teeth and crouched down low, ready to pounce. “Let that be enough?” he echoed Primrose’s sentiment in disbelief. “Enough?! I think not! It will not be enough until I have ended you! You three have cost me everything, and so I shall take everything from you! Now hold still!”
With that, the pegasus launched himself at Lens with remarkable speed. Primrose’s heart leaped into her throat when, in one swift motion, Silent knocked the unicorn’s borrowed sword to one side and threw him heavily to the ground. Lens cried out before Silent stunned him with a well-placed buck to the side of the head.
“Lens!” Scarlet rasped in an attempt to scream. She put her forelegs under her and struggled to stand. “You bastard!”
“Stay down, Frost!” Silent spat, galloping forward with his eyes glued onto Primrose. She stared back at him, fear and panic swallowing her whole. All of the confidence and determination she had felt earlier fled her in an instant, and she was a terrified five-year-old with no clue what to do all over again. Crying out, she sprang to her hooves and backpedaled away from Silent, her heart beating so hard she was afraid it might escape and run away.
Silent leaped over Scarlet, his eyes narrowed. “Come here, filly!”
“Silent, STOP!” Scarlet screamed after him, magic flickering along the length of her horn.
Primrose continued her backward retreat until one of her hooves struck a stray stone. She cried out and fell onto her back. She looked up to see Silent looming over her, blade angled for her throat.
“NO!” Lens’ voice echoed through Primrose’s ears, seemingly far away.
“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Scarlet’s voice screamed.
Silent grinned. “Goodnight, Primrose.”
“No,” Primrose whispered, her lips trembling as tears welled up in her eyes. “Please, no!”
Silent’s grin grew, his eyes shining with madness, and he thrust his blade down.
Primrose screwed her eyes shut, screaming at the top of her lungs and covering her face with her hooves.
“NO!”
Primrose heard a burst of magic right above her. She heard a blade piercing through flesh, and she felt herself being showered in a spray of something warm and wet. But to her surprise, it wasn’t her own. Silent’s blade never reached her. She reluctantly opened her eyes and looked up to see what had happened.
Silent’s blade, dripping with blood, was less than an inch from her face. It had been stopped by something…
“Prim…”
Primrose’s eyes widened, a shuddering gasp escaping her. Scarlet stood over her, Silent’s blade stabbing through her back and out her chest. Blood dribbled out of her mouth and down her face.
“Scarlet…?” Primrose whispered in a tiny, quivering voice. She reached up with a trembling hoof. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening…
Silent’s blade extracted itself from Scarlet’s body. Scarlet shuddered, giving a few choked gurgles before meeting Primrose’s eyes one last time. “...Live,” she managed to say through the blood in her throat. “Please… live…”
“Scarlet!” Primrose called out, reaching out.
Scarlet’s eyes drifted closed. With one last exhale, she fell to one side, revealing the stunned, almost horrified face of Silent Edge behind her.
Somewhere in the distance, the sound of thunder rolled across the world.
“Scarlet!” Primrose cried out, ignoring silent and rolling over to put her hooves on the fallen mare’s shoulder. “Scarlet, no! Wake up! P-please, get up!”
There was no response. Scarlet didn’t move an inch.
Silent stared down at her, dumbstruck. “Frost…” he breathed in disbelief, taking a step back. His eyes settled on Primrose. “...For her to give her life like that, to save you… a changeling… She must have truly loved you.”
Primrose ignored him, burying her face into Scarlet’s mane. Hysterical sobs ravaged her skinny body, leaving her incapable of forming a coherent thought or speaking. She pounded her hoof against Scarlet’s shoulder over and over in a vain, desperate hope that it might get the mare to wake up. But it wasn’t working.
“This can’t be happening,” she thought to herself. “It can’t! It’s not fair! We came so far! You can’t leave me like this, Scarlet! You can’t!”
She was vaguely aware of Lens charging forward, letting loose a howl of grief and rage that Primrose had not yet heard from him. She heard their blades clashing a few times before the signature thrum of one of Lens’ barriers filled the air.
“Oh no, no, no... this is bad,” Lens babbled, dropping his sword and falling to his haunches across Scarlet’s body. He quickly pulled his bandana free while his magic went to work tearing off his shirt. “W-we need to stop the bleeding! Primrose, do you have anything we can use?!”
Primrose lifted her head to look at him, her eyes red and puffy. She shook her head. “N-no… I don’t…”
“Dammit!” Lens swore, moving quickly to shred his shirt and tie it around Scarlet’s barrel. “Dammit, dammit, dammit! Prim! Help me out here!”
“It’s no use,” Silent called from outside the barrier. “Even if you stop the bleeding, she’s suffered too many injuries. She’s dying, and you cannot stop it.”
“SHUT UP!” Lens shouted at him in a broken voice. “You did this to her, you fucking monster! But we’re not giving up! We won’t let you take her away from us!”
Silent sighed and shook his head. “...Fine. If it makes you feel better. Just don’t be surprised when your efforts accomplish nothing.”
Primrose whimpered, watching Lens get to work in desperately treating Scarlet’s injuries. Alas, there was little they could do. Applying pressure to the stab was about all they had, and it was far from enough. Even if Scarlet was still alive, she wouldn’t be that way for long…
Primrose screwed her eyes shut as a new wave of grief washed over her. How many times? How many times was she going to sit by, powerless to do anything as a pony she thought of as another parent died in front of her? How many families was she going to lose before she could finally know some peace? How many?!
Her head was starting to hurt. Barely stifling her whimpers, Primrose reached her hooves up to clutch her skull. Faces and voices began to rapidly flash through her mind. The faces of every family she had been with, the things they had said to her… their screams as Silent cut them apart, or what she imagined they said after she left them just so they wouldn’t die, too.
It was like a chorus. A chorus of the dead screaming their fear and pain and sorrow at her from beyond the veil. All of those wonderful ponies who had died for the crime of accepting her into their families. All of those ponies who were doomed the moment she met them, and now another mare was joining them, giving her life to save Primrose just like every single mare that came before her.
It was too much. The screams rose in a crescendo before, at last, there was an audible snap in the back of her head. All at once, the screams fell into silence, and Primrose’s cries stilled in her throat.
“...Two.”
Lens looked up from Scarlet’s bloodied body when that word left Primrose’s mouth. “Huh?”
Primrose rose to her hooves, her head still down. She heard Lens saying something to her, but she paid it no mind. She slowly turned to look at Silent through the barrier. His blade was still dripping with Scarlet’s blood. “Two mothers in one night… you just don’t know when to stop, do you?”
“Prim? What are you doing!?” Lens suddenly demanded when Primrose began to walk towards the assassin. She tuned out Lens’ words, her eyes narrowing.
“My mother… my father… my brothers… every family I’ve ever known, I’ve lost because of you,” she went on, her voice devoid of emotion. “What else can you possibly do? What more can you possibly take away from me?”
“Prim! Stop! He’s going to kill you! PRIM!”
Without looking back, Primrose stepped through the barrier, coming face to face with Silent Edge. He looked at her in surprise, his brow quirking in confusion. “You’re approaching me instead of running away? I must admit, I didn’t see this coming.”
“Why would I run?” she asked quietly. “Every time I ran away before, you killed somepony I loved. Not this time. Besides, I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
“And why is that?” Silent asked, slowly unfurling his wings.
Primrose didn’t even flinch when the metallic scrape of his blade sliding free filled her ears. “I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m not scared of you anymore. I’m not running from you again.”
“PRIM!” Lens called out in desperation. “Please, come back! What will Scarlet think if you’re dead when she wakes up?!”
Primrose ignored him, taking another step forward.
Silent gave her a cocky smirk. “So… you aim to face the end with some bravery after all,” he remarked, a tiny hint of respect in his voice.
“Yes, I do,” Primrose replied flatly. “If there’s one thing Scarlet and Lens have taught me… it’s how to be brave…”
Silent’s smile softened just a little. “Well… then in honor of her memory, I’ll make sure your death is quick.”
For the first time since her soul went quiet, Primrose let out a gentle laugh. She looked up to Silent, a green glow filling her pony eyes as she began to channel her magic. “Oh, I’m sorry. I think you misunderstood me,” she said, her lips peeling back into a sharp-toothed grin.
Silent blinked, taken aback. “What in the…”
Primrose’s expression morphed into a sadistic grin at Silent’s surprise. “I never said I was letting you kill me, Silent,” she went on as green flames began to spread across her body. “I can’t die. If I did, then I wouldn’t be able to hear your screams!”
With that, she closed her eyes, allowing the flames to consume her.
Silent backed away in alarm as Primrose all but exploded in front of him. A dome of churning green flames expanded out rapidly, shielding her from view and filling the air with a distorted rumbling noise.
“What the hell…?” Silent asked under his breath, dropping into a defensive stance. “I’ve never seen her transform like this,” he noted. He knew she could change shape, of course, as he’d seen her do it on multiple occasions. However, she had usually just been swapping between her true form and her pony disguise. Never before had she done anything quite like this…
The flames suddenly parted, and a mass of pale blue chitin surged toward him. Silent gasped, realizing he had no time to get out of the way. Enormous pincers grasped him by the chest and lifted him off his hooves, squeezing with impossible strength. In a matter of moments, ribs began to pop and snap in his barrel, drawing a long, agonized scream out of his lungs.
He twisted and turned before lifting his wingblade and stabbing it down into a gap in the pincer’s carapace. His blade only dug in enough to draw a small trickle of blood before being forced to a stop. That seemed to do the trick, as the beast reared up and released him by throwing him to the ground.
“Guh!” Silent shouted breathlessly when he hit the ground. He rolled to the side and came up to his hooves, his eyes going wide at the sight in front of him.
Primrose was gone. In her place was a giant scorpion. The majority of its body was colored the same shade of blue as Scarlet’s fur, while its compound eyes glowed a deep shade of red to match its hungrily snapping mandibles, the eagerly quivering spikes on its back, the dripping barbed stinger on the tip of its tail, and Scarlet’s mane.
The scorpion charged him again, though this time, he was able to react. Silent rolled to the side, avoiding its pincers. He came up and brought his blade across one of the monster’s legs, only for the edge to bounce harmlessly off of the hardened carapace. He staggered back, his eyes wide in shock.
The scorpion slowly rotated to face him, several segments of its exoskeleton scraping ominously against themselves. A low chittering sound, like the angered hiss of a hungry alligator combined with the call of a giant cricket, came from its ravenous maw. Its eyes stared into his soul with a bloodlust that sent a chill down his spine.
The scorpion shrieked at him and charged yet again. Silent went to roll aside again, but it was expecting that this time. His eyes widened as he came out of the roll and right into the broadside of the scorpion’s tail, which struck him in the chest with an explosive force, drawing a breathless gasp out of him and throwing him back. He crashed to the ground and rolled for several feet before coming to a stop.
“This is ridiculous,” he gasped, forcing himself to rise. “She’s just a child! How could she be doing this!?”
He didn’t get a chance to ponder the question. He felt the scorpion’s pincer coming down on him from above. He gasped as he was lifted off his hooves, the ground disappearing beneath him far faster than he would have liked. He squirmed, eager to repeat the movement that had saved him last time.
Unfortunately, the scorpion saw it coming this time as well. As he flared out his wing for the thrust, he felt it being tightly grasped and constricted. The color drained from his face, and he turned to see that the scorpion’s other pincer had ensnared his wing. Its hungry eyes glared into his, almost as if it were asking him, ‘what are you going to do now?’
And then it began to pull.
Silent’s throat went raw. He screamed out into the air at the top of his lungs, beating his hooves frantically against the pincer holding him prisoner. It was like hell in his wing. He could feel the hollow bones shattering into dust, feel the tendons straining and pulling and tearing like wet paper. It stretched and stretched, the skin starting to split.
Silent blinked as he was overcome by an inexplicable feeling of dizziness. He felt light-headed, and his mind went foggy. He let out a few confused mumbles as his eyes lazily looked around, trying to find out where he was and what was going on. He knew he was fighting something, but…
Whatever was holding him let go. He hit the ground like a sack, crumpling into a limp heap. He squirmed and looked around in confusion. Why couldn’t he feel his wing? He looked back to see if there was something wrong with the appendage. He found that it was simply missing. There was just a useless little stump sticking out of him, fresh blood dripping out to paint his side a very uncomfortable shade of red.
Squelch.
Confused, Silent looked up. His wing had just landed in front of him, broken and mangled and covered in yet more blood. He looked up at where his wing had come from, coming face to face with glowing red eyes. Deep red orbs that filled his vision and burned into his very soul like a branding iron. In that moment, Silent Edge experienced an emotion he was very unaccustomed to feeling.
Fear. Complete and total terror.
Silent let out a terrified wail. He turned and scrambled to get away, primal instinct taking over and driving him to run as far and as fast as his legs could take him. He barely even made it a yard before something clamped down on his hind legs, causing the rest of him to fall to the ground.
“NO!” he screamed as the demon began to drag him back. Dirt and grass and stone scraped along his underbelly like the hungry fingers of hell itself welcoming him home. He kicked and he howled, tears welling up in his eyes as he was lifted into the air, upside down, to face the demon that sought to end his life. “No, no, NO! Please, no!”
The scorpion didn’t listen. It reached out with its free pincer to clamp down on his other wing. Silent screamed as it, too, came away, a sickening squelch and crunch filling his ears, like breaking seashells inside the guts of a rotting pumpkin.
“Please, stop…” he whimpered, his eyes closing in a vain attempt to hide his tears. “Please don’t… I’m sorry… please…”
The scorpion went rigid at those words. For a moment, he thought that maybe it would accept his apology and let him leave with his life. It had already taken the skies and his dignity. Perhaps that would be enough to appease it?
He cracked open an eye, and his hopes were shattered. The pure, uncomprehending rage in those red eyes was unmistakable. Silent’s heart went into a frenzy, and he lifted his hooves out in front of him when he saw its mandibles opening wide. “N-no no no! Wait-”
His words were silenced when the barbed tip of the scorpion's tail stabbed into his chest. Its other pincer grabbed onto one of his forelegs, and its mandibles clamped down on his neck.
And then the beast began to pull.
Silent’s scream was drowned out as his throat was filled with his own blood. His muscles were stretched in every direction, straining and burning and shredding. Blood ran down his face from his mouth to pour into his eyes, turning the world red and burning his skull.
And so it was that Silent Edge was undone, torn to pieces in a shower of gore by the filly he had devoted his life to ending.