//------------------------------// // No Rest for The Mutated // Story: Assassin's Tears IV: Loyalty by Corruption // by MisterGTFO //------------------------------// Chapter One: No Rest for The Mutated It only took several seconds for Silent Wind to rid of all the Changelings in his way. Though something made him curious and questioning. The last Changeling, was spitting corrosive acid at him. To Silent Wind, it was odd since even he knew that no kind of Changeling could do such a disgusting thing. Silent Wind moved towards it's twitching body as it was barely alive. Silent Wind looked back, seeing Shining Armor look below the twisting stairs that lead down into the deepest of the mine. Silent Wind looked down at the Changeling and it gave Silent Wind an angering growl. Silent Wind soon jumped back as he heard the Changeling gurgle in pain. He took a closer look as he skidded back with his hoof and saw that the Changeling was disintegrating into ash. Once it was nothing but ash, he didn't know what the hay just happened. Only one word came up to his mind as a hypothesis. "Mutation." Silent Wind thought. Before Silent Wind could think anymore, Shining Armor tapped his shoulder, urging to move on. "We must hurry, now!" Shining Armor ordered. Silent Wind nodded in reply to his order. Silent Wind ran ahead and Shining Armor followed his lead. Silent Wind didn't care to take his time, nor did Shining Armor. Unfortunately, as they got moved more deeper down, They saw even more Changelings by the seconds. All were cut down and eliminated by Silent Wind and Shining Armor. Soon after, Fatigue began to affect the two stallions as they began to feel completely exhausted. Silent Wind had extended his strength too much and Shining Armor did the same thing with his magic of course. Though it took a while, They had both managed to get to the portal. Which was completely infested with Changelings who had already made nests around it. Silent Wind looked at the portal. It was completely blue, nothing too interesting other than it was producing Changelings. Shining Armor was running up to it, attempting to close it down with his magic that he had exhausted. Shining Armor knew that he didn't have enough magic left to completely seal it. He came to a hard decision and decided to use his own energy to supply him enough magic for him to seal it. He turned his head at Silent Wind as he was looking at the glaring Changelings, who were about to attack at any moment. "You'll have to give me time, can you do that?!" Shining Armor hollered. Silent Wind made a small chuckle. indicating that he was agreeing to Shining Armor's request. Shining Armor looked behind while attempting to close the portal with his magic. "Yeah, I'll help anyway I can!" Silent Wind replied. Silent Wind closed his eyes for a moment, sheathing his Silentblade-Shade eyes from the Changelings. His physical features began to change, his coat becoming purple, darker than Twilight's coat. His mane becoming white, his teeth becoming much longer and sharper. He sighed and opened his eyes which were now covered with red and black. No longer purple and black. The most that stuck out was his wings, his wings that turned into bat-like wings and were larger than his normal wings. Silent Wind sighed and turned his eyes left and right, detailing which one would be attacked first. "Taking the middle would be best to take first. I have to make sure to keep them at bay and not let 'em get to Shining Armor.." Silent Wind thought. He made a crunching noise against the dirt ground as he pushed himself at the nine Changelings that were charging at him also. He took the closest Changeling near him and pushed his tip of his hoof against it's neck. He took out his hidden blade, causing it to pierce through it's neck. He re-sheathed his hidden blade, swiping his right hoof across two Changelings that propelled away from Silent Wind, hitting several mine equipments. Silent Wind saw that there were six left. He quickly thought of using 'it' but Shade objected to it. "No! It's best not to use it right now!" Shade objected. Silent Wind didn't agree to it since he wanted to try it out anyways, besides, he wanted to see what could happen to real hostiles other than trees. "Why not? It's the perfect time to use it!" Silent Wind replied back within his mind. He quickly held out his left hoof and there were sounds of whistling wind as a small ball of moving wind began to appear on Silent Wind's hoof palm. He began to become exhausted to just make one since it took a lot of energy to simply form dense wind into a now big ball of dense wind. Once it was prepared, he ran at the nearest Changeling that he locked his eyes on first. He dashed at it, with his cloak flowing freely. He pulled back his left hoof that had a large ball of dense wind and propelled his left hoof at the Changeling's chest. The ball began to rotate violently against the Changeling's hard flesh and all the sudden, a large vortex bursted outwards towards all the Changelings, making them all hit a object in their way and all of them falling down on the ground with a thumping sound. Silent Wind turned his head to his right to hear squelching noises from three large, moving eggs. He heard sharp screeches as the eggs bursted open with three new Changelings. The only thing was, they were different. The first one he had laid eyes on was a Changeling with a small, skinny body but his head was large and had the edge of an Ax on top of his head. He looked at the second one and saw that it had it's tongue sticking out. It was odd but other than that, it wasn't appealing to his eye. The third one had crusted limbs both hinds and forelegs. It was odd since that it would make it slower and that it didn't have wings. Every Changeling had wings and even Silent Wind knew that. "This is odd... I've never seen these weird Changelings. Something's not right.." Silent Wind thought. Before he could think any further, he felt something ominous on top of him. He looked at the Changeling that had shell-protect legs and saw that it had it's right hind-leg risen up. He quickly moved out of the way as the Changeling moved down and slammed down where Silent Wind was. Silent Wind skidded on the ground with his hooves and looked at the cracked ground that the odd Changeling had done. The limb-shelled Changeling turned it's head at Silent Wind and quickly dashed at him. Silent Wind reacted by dashing at it also and giving it a large fist to it's muzzle. It flew back several feet and looked at Silent Wind, it's shell peeling off from it's face. Silent Wind gave a small smirk and heard a screeching noise as if a hawk was nearby. He looked to his left and saw the large-headed Changeling, charging at him. Before Silent Wind could react, the Changeling lower it's head and swinged it right back up at Silent Wind's head, making him fall over on his back. The headbutt force was hard enough for Silent Wind to grab his head in pain as blood flowed down between his eyes. He raised his head up slightly while still holding his head with his left hoof, to see the Changeling's right hoof on his chest. He tried to get up but then the Changeling hissed as it putted it's right hoof on Silent Wind's shoulder. Silent Wind began to hit the Changeling with a sideways hook with his right hoof. It made the Changeling's swing to the right every hook but it only angered it. It blocked Silent Wind's arms as it pulled it's head back, about to give Silent Wind a fatal headbutt. "It's closing! Run!!" It was Shining Armor's voice. Silent Wind raised a free hind-leg and kicked the Changeling off him. He felt large the sucking force of the portal as buzzing sounds emitted from it. Every Changeling was being sucked into the portal with screechings of several Changelings. "'Wind! Over here!" Shining Armor yelled, making a gesture at Silent Wind. Silent Wind hovered over to Shining Armor, ignoring the crashing and buzzing sounds from the portal but all the sudden, he felt something tug on his left hind-leg and looked back in shock. It was that one Changeling who had it's tongue sticking out before and it's tongue was tied around Silent Wind's hind-leg. Silent Wind was slammed to the ground as he was being dragged to the portal, being taken along with the Changelings. "No!" Shining Armor roared. He attempted to go and help Silent Wind but since he used his own energy to turn it into magic, he became extremely exhausted and buckled down in fatigue when he had tried to teleport to Silent Wind. "Oh- Oh buck!!" Silent Wind panicked. He tried as hard as he could to crawl back but the force that was pulling him was too much. The force of the sucking portal and the pulling of a long, long tongue. He soon lost grip of the dirt ground and quickly, was reeled into the portal. The last thing he heard was Shining Armor's yelling. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In an odd vision, Silent Wind only saw a static vision which he was sure he was hearing murmuring. He couldn't put his hoof on what was he seeing or whatever was saying something to him. All he could point out was two words that didn't even sound right too much. "De..feat...Qu..een.." With that, Silent Wind snapped out of his trance-like dream. He saw that he was no longer being dragged by a long tongue and looked around, feeling delusional inside his mind. He saw the tropical greens and orange, fallen leaves on the grassy, dry ground. He looked up to see a dark, grey sky. He knew where he was at that point, he was in the Everfree Forest due to all of the vegetation he had seen. He wiped off the sticking leaves that were on his dark-grey coat sleeves and sighed. Despite of him knowing that he was on Equestria and nowhere else, he knew something didn't sum up. It was barely dark during the day time since the Weather Patrol had scheduled the whole week as every sunny day. He had to find out where he exactly was, he knew that the Portal wouldn't just take him outside the mines. That would make no sense at all to Silent Wind. "Something doesn't feel right.. I gotta find out what's really going on." Silent Wind said, rubbing his right shoulder with his shoulder guard on top of it. He sat up and sighed. Wondering which town was closest to him, he hovered up into the air to look around him. The closest town to him was of course, Ponyville. Curious if he had gone somewhere or not, he decided to make a trip to Ponyville. As he looked back behind him, he felt something slightly ominous but soon after shrugged it off and focused on getting to Ponyville. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As he got near Ponyville, he oddly noticed that there were less ponies outside than usual and he also took notice of two Stallions near the bridge that lead into Ponyville. It was no question to it, there was something very wrong to Silent Wind now. He knew that the Ponies of Ponyville would never stay outside in a dark, gloomy day and it was actually beginning to rain a bit. Know this, Silent Wind flipped his dark-blue hood over his head and hovered down to Ponyville. But before he went down, he saw a rainbow trail appear. He was sure it was Rainbow Dash. The only odd thing was, Rainbow Dash was flying at Silent Wind, fast. "Hey, it's Rainbow Dash. Jeez, She's really coming at me at fast speed. Wait.." Silent Wind stopped thinking once he saw that Rainbow Dash was flying at him too fast. He didn't have anytime to think any longer. "Uh. Oh."