//------------------------------//
// 3. Dawn of the Glorious Harvest 
// Story: One With the Hive 
// by Jank Rubz 
//------------------------------//

	When Fluttershy had fallen through the strange opening in the Everfree forest, Applejack didn’t seem to notice until half-way through her trek out of the Everfree. She had become complacent to her seldom talking, and during their trot out of the Everfree, she had barely noticed anything perilous happening to Fluttershy. When she had passed by an important landmark for the journey, she noticed that her companion was being too quiet to rule out any irregularity. She had turned her head to notice that Fluttershy was absent from her presence. 
“Fluttershy?” she asked the imposing forest. “Where are you?”
Her thoughts on escaping the Everfree to get back to Sweet Apple Acres had been replaced by fears of forgetting one of her best friends in a forest that had nearly petrified the both of them. 
“She better not be tending to no woodland critters,” she said to herself as she galloped back into the forest, back to where she and Fluttershy left the butterfly mob at. “Doesn’t she know of the dangers of the Everfree?”
To her, what she said sounded a tad silly. She knew that Fluttershy was more terrified of the Everfree than Applejack was, and if she herself was afraid of the forest, then it would take a gang of injured bunnies with a choir of bird bards singing off-key to sway Fluttershy from following her compatriot and abandon her goal of leaving the dreaded forest. 
Galloping as fast as she could while dodging random forest debris, Applejack made her way back to where she had released the butterflies, panting and filled with hope of seeing her forlorn friend. She had arrived at the scene what she thought was her disappearance, but no pony was present. In fact, it was eerie to see that no life was nearby. She had then recalled that her short trek to the spot was quite uninhabited by any woodland creatures scared of her fast movements. 
“Where is everything?” Applejack yelled to the lifeless forest. Not even a single bird was chirping to the tune of the waning day. Nothing was scurrying in the shrubs nearby, nor a single insect gracing Applejack’s hooves. Through mid-panting sessions, she mustered up the will to scream from the top of her lungs in desperation. “Fluttershy! Where are ya?!” 
She then remained silent, with the forest following in tandem. Applejack then started to shake at the stoic embrace of the forest, trembling from her fears being exacerbated by the situation at hoof. 
“It’s me, Applejack!” she shouted in desperation, keeping a keen ear to anything that might give an indication to Fluttershy’s location. “We’ve got to get out of this ‘ere forest, you and I! It’s not safe being ‘ere too long!” 
She felt that stating the obvious sounded foolish of here, but it would be just enough to sway Fluttershy. She pricked her ears up and tuned in to anything that made a sound in the forest. Suddenly, she heard the leaves of a nearby tree rustle, and she quickly directed her attention to the noise. A rush of cold air swept past her from her front, as she felt embarrassed that it was a simple breeze that startled her. 
As she prepared to leave the forest, she looked down at the ground to get a sense of direction, but realized that the forest floor she was above was composed of dead plants. She looked all around her in the clearing and noticed that the floor of the clearing was dead of not just animal life, but plant life as well.
“Why didn’t I see that before?” Applejack muttered to herself, looking in awe at the product of an unknown devastation that ravaged the clearing. “Then again, was it like this when we released them butterflies?” 
She then realized that something terrible could have happened to Fluttershy by associating the dead plant life with Fluttershy’s disappearance. 
“Something killed this part of the forest,” she said to herself, with fear laced in her words. “And it must have had something to do with Fluttershy!” 
“Hang in there, wherever you are, Fluttershy!” Applejack yelled as she then galloped back the way she had entered, racing past the living parts of the still surviving forest. “I’m getting some help to come!”
That definitely wasn’t like that before! she thought to herself as she expertly maneuvered herself through the thick forest debris covering her previous path. I know what to do, though! I’ll gather a search party and we’ll ask Zecora if she’s seen Fluttershy! I just hope that she made it home safely!


*	*	*


Fluttershy had wormed her way past the thick foliage of the forest in her new amorphous form, wrapping herself around trees only to give her a sense of direction, cascading down to the ground to draw energy from the soil beneath her. She relished the feeling of Mother Nature coursing through her veins, reinvigorating herself and revitalizing her senses.  
“This feels so good,” Fluttershy said to the ooze in her brain, ignoring the fact that she could simply think to communicate with it. “Nature itself is just so… invigorating!”
“We’re glad you think so too, Fluttershy,” the voices said in assurance to her. “But the fun has to stop sometime.”
“What do you mean by ‘fun?’” she queried the ooze, puzzled as to what it exactly meant. “I’m just getting accustomed to this new form before we go and search for your creator.”
“What we mean by fun is the destructive toll you are taking upon the forest,” the ooze responded frankly. “Look beneath you.”
Fluttershy complied with her orders and noticed that by absorbing the nutrients of the soil, she was killing all plant life underneath her. The once luscious green stalks of foliage turned withered and brown had alarmed Fluttershy, causing her to gasp in fear.
“Oh my!” she began. “I didn’t mean to do this! I didn’t want to destroy the Everfree!”
“We were getting to that,” the ooze responded, not sounding amused at all. “You can’t just keep spreading yourself into the soil collection nutrients. You’re going to render the whole world derelict of life if you keep doing that.”
The ooze had much more grand schemes to concoct that would fester and proliferate with what it would tell Fluttershy.
“Oh, okay,” Fluttershy responded meekly, retracting her roots from the soil and ceasing her leeching. “How will I obtain energy like this, then?”
“Why, that’s simple,” the ooze responded, sounding much more sinister than before. “You’ll have to acquire it from other ponies.” 
“What d-d-do you m-m-mean by ‘a-c-c-cquire?’” she replied, stammering at the frightening thoughts going through her head. “I don’t want to h-h-hurt no-p-p-pony.” 
“You wouldn’t be hurting any pony,” the ooze responded, restoring its gentle caress it had on the innocent pony it so easily could manipulate. “You’d simply be harmlessly drawing energy from them. They’d be safe.” 
“I just don’t want to hurt no pony,” she mumbled, slinking into the dirt until she could spread out as flat as she could, almost looking two-dimensional. “I’m not that kind of pony.” 
“You won’t devolve into anything like that,” it said, trying to cajole her into its nefarious plans.   “You’ll simply be borrowing energy from other ponies!” 
“Can’t I just borrow it from other animals?” she said, silently questioning the lack of animal life nearby. “I’m great with animals, and I’m sure they’d be more than willing to-“
“NO!” the ooze shot back, sounding as aggressive as before. “You have to extract it from other ponies!”
Fluttershy, at that moment, had begun to tear up, without any knowledge of where her tear ducts might be in her amorphous form. She then transformed into her tangible, regular Fluttershy form and began to sob, with tears oozing from her eyes and absorbing into her body.
“We mean,” the ooze began to rectify its erroneous actions, choosing its words very pragmatically. “We are looking out for you, Fluttershy. And we know what’s best for you. We just want you to extract energy from other ponies, that’s all.”
She gave an innocent sniffle and wiped her nose with her front leg. She tried her best to retain her composure after the ooze’s yelling attack.
“I’ll try my best,” she spoke in the quietest tone she could muster. “Just make sure I don’t hurt any pony.” 
“You won’t,” the ooze said in its signature caring tone. “Just do as we say and we can ensure that you live healthfully while we reside in you.”
“Is there any way that I can just energize myself with normal food?” Fluttershy asked, realizing that she was too timid to mention it beforehoof. “It seems like a much more viable solution to my food problems.”
“That would be viable, yes,” the ooze began, speaking in an instructing voice. “But it would ultimately fail. You are a part of us now, Fluttershy, and we are too advanced for mere pony food. We need more. We need the raw energy that resides in living things.”
Fluttershy then froze in fear at the sounds of Applejack’s voice in the distance. She turned amorphous and coated herself to the back of a tree, hiding herself from Applejack’s vision. Applejack had stumbled upon the location of the ooze’s cavern, conveniently covered up by a magical barrier of dead forest life to hide its presence, complimented by the dead plant life from Fluttershy absorbing nutrients from the soil. Applejack then began to yell for Fluttershy, which concerned Fluttershy.
“Wait for her to turn her back,” the ooze said slyly to Fluttershy, implying that stealth was needed for an unexplained reason. “Then confront her.” 
But why? she thought to herself, communicating with the ooze through her thoughts. Why can’t I just ask her nicely for energy? Plus, I feel quite sated right now, and-
The ooze then drew upon a large amount of energy from Fluttershy, draining her indefinitely to the point of making her famished and drowsy. With this, the ooze could bolster its control over Fluttershy, using less coaxing every time to get Fluttershy to comply with its orders. 
What just happened? She thought to herself, clenching what could be construed as her abdominal area from the excruciating pain of hunger. I’m suddenly so… famished!
“Do you see what happens to you when you refrain from feeding?” the ooze asked in an interrogative fashion, almost talking down to her in a sense to demean her as a foal. “You need to keep your energy up constantly. The ponies you feed from will always be there, but the ground you feed from won’t. Now go to that tree over there so we can make it look like you were lost in the woods.”
The ooze mentally points to a tree behind Applejack, a perfect spot to ambush her while remaining innocent. With the words of the ooze commanding her to obey it, Fluttershy quickly felt her mental fortifications slip as she became easily persuaded by the ooze. She felt that the ooze was becoming more transparent and easy to communicate with.
With what energy she had left, Fluttershy quickly dissolved into the ground from the tree, drawing a quick amount of energy from the ground to take off. Afterwards, she prepared her amorphous form to slither quickly past the trees to the one she was instructed to retreat to. She carried herself at full-force, creating a gush of wind that blew past Applejack as she made it safely to her destination. She then confirmed that she was undetected by her when she oozed by, much to the ooze’s delight.
“Now assemble yourself and confront her!” the ooze said. “We will lead you on from there!”
Fluttershy was clearly exhausted by that endeavor. Running low on energy from what she couldn’t fathom thinking of the source made her so weary, she had then dissolved into a puddle of green slime coating the forest floor, perfectly blending in with the scenery. She planted her roots deeply into the ground, drawing nutrients from the soil and further killing the ground beneath her in her quest to replenish.
I… I can’t, Fluttershy said to herself for the ooze to hear. She was a tired vessel, clearly used up and needing energy. I’m just so… tired… and hungry…
“She’s right there!” the ooze yelled to her, right when Applejack had come to her realization to form a posse to find Fluttershy. “She’s about to leave!”
But I can hardly move! Fluttershy whined to herself, her form monstrously pulsating and sucking nutrients from the ground feverishly to survive. Maybe next time, then.
At this point, Applejack had galloped out of their vicinity, much to the anger of the ooze, as defined by its vitriolic voice change. 
“First we drain too much and now we let the other go!” the ooze spoke to itself, belligerent and forgetful that Fluttershy could hear what it as saying. 
“What do you mean by ‘draining’ me?” she spoke with a soft, innocent voice. She was too swayed by the corruption polluting her mind to necessarily put “two and two” together. “And what do you mean by Applejack getting away? I know where she lives, so I can give her a nice holler if I need her.”
“No, Fluttershy,” the voices replied, keeping a cool composure with a nuance of relief that she was too stricken to foil its plans. “There is a change of plans.”
“Well, I’m always apt for a change of plans,” she said in a slightly cheery tone, feeling a little better from nutrient farming from the already dead patch of soil she was taking up. “But will it bring us to your creator sooner?”
“Yes…” the voices hesitantly replied, surprised that she even remembered. “But first, we need to find a proper source of energy.”
“Oh, well…” she began, but was at a loss for words. “I don’t know. Perhaps we should go to Ponyville and ask them nicely?”
“That would reveal ourselves to the other ponies,” the voices matter-of-factly replied with. “We need to keep in the forest for now, establish a station of reconnaissance and such. We also need a silent place where you can draw energy without having to kill the forest.”
The ooze could care less about the forest, which delighted it when Fluttershy foolishly obeyed it and began to slowly believe that ponies were the right answer to her energy crisis. 
“Well, I do know of a pony that does live in the forest,” Fluttershy keenly answered, her face lit-up with satisfaction. “She’s actually a zebra, if it makes any difference.”
“A zebra that lives in the forest?” the ooze queried her, sounding legitimately curious. “This zebra must be a savage, then. We must find other ponies.”
“No, no, no,” she responded with a feeling of disappointment. “She’s actually quite civil. She’s one of the nicest zebras I’ve ever known. She once cured me of a poison joke outbreak.”
At that point, the ooze’s plans were coming to fruition faster than it thought they would. 
“Wonderful, Fluttershy,” the ooze said in a caring manner, sounding almost like a filial kind of exchange of words. “Can you take us to this zebra?”
“Sure!” she answered eagerly. “I think I still remember where she lives! I just hope Zecora doesn’t mind me, I mean… us coming to her with something like this.”


*	*	*


Fluttershy had wormed her way through the Everfree, having the wits of a sherpa to guide her through what she before recalled to be the stuff of her nightmares without the aid of the ooze’s corruption to get to the infamous zebra’s residence. The ooze had continually been draining Fluttershy at fixed intervals to instill more of its influence in her mind, making her more malleable to its ways. She had crept along the side of Zecora’s hut, slithering her way along the coarse, wooden texture of the hut’s paneling. Her pores had filled with the sweeping scent of a potion Zecora was possibly concocting, which resembled a fine amalgamation of vegetables and a broth. 
She’s making stew, Fluttershy said to herself, directed at the ooze in a passionate fashion. I think I should go ask her for some-
“Don’t you remember that we cannot process normal ‘pony food’ while we are inside you?” the ooze corrected her, sounding like it was nearly scolding her. “You need to go to her front door and assemble yourself. We’ll tell you what to do and say from there on.”
Fluttershy did as she was told, and she slithered her way around the hut to assemble herself at the door. She lay facing the door on the dirt that surrounded her hut, and quickly tried to form her original self. With some straining and hardship, she finally managed to represent her true form once again, albeit with a greener tinge than usual. She then proceeded to knock on the door, with Zecora slowly approaching it to answer her aggressor.
“Why, Fluttershy,” Zecora said with a warm greeting, a smile stretching across her face to see a pony she hadn’t seen in a long while. “It’s nice to see you come by. What do you ask that seeks my reply?” 
“Now then,” the ooze instructed Fluttershy to say. “You will say everything that we tell you to. Now say…”
Fluttershy, from that point, began to emulate the words of the ooze to near-perfection.
“Um, hi, Zecora,” she began, looking at the welcoming zebra before her with a confused demeanor. “Can I come in and talk to you about something?”
“I cannot deny your arrival,” Zecora replied. “Our friendly relationship will experience a revival. Now, what ails you that could inhibit your survival?”
“Well, I was wondering if you had a book on Ancient Zebrican practices for aiding sick bunnies,” Fluttershy lied, complying with the ooze’s commands. “My poor little Angel is really sick.”
Secretly, Fluttershy did not enjoy lying to Zecora. She didn’t like lying in general. But she was so convinced at that point that lying to Zecora to obtain what she needed was paramount to her quest. 
“Hmm,” Zecora pondered for a moment, resting her chin on her hoof as she stood in front of Fluttershy while lost in thought. “I think I do. It should be in this bookcase, the book on the practice to renew.” 
Zecora at that point had turned her back and began sifting through books on her bookshelf, not even paying attention to the conspiring Fluttershy behind her. At that point, the ooze knew when to make Fluttershy act.
“Now then,” it began, speaking in a quick tone to conserve time. “Stand on your hind legs and extend your arms out.”
Fluttershy, looking confused, obeyed the ooze and stood in an awkward position, trying to achieve a perfect balance while extending her arms out from her chest.
“Relax yourself and make yourself almost ‘melt’ into the ground.”
She had complied, as her hind legs quickly began to dissolve into the ground, forming an amorphous base to support Fluttershy, giving her more comfort.
“Now then,” the ooze said, trying to make its words sound as comprehensive as it could. “Focus your hooves to create appendages. Tiny appendages. Like needles. You’ve been to the doctor’s office before. Make your hooves project finger-like appendages long enough to reach the zebra!”
Fluttershy, looking just a bit confused, had managed to achieve this goal. She had thought of the painful syringes she was injected with as a filly at the doctor’s office in her past, and she envisioned her hooves to emulate what she had grown a disdain for. Slowly, two sets of six long, pointed, finger-esque appendages began to protrude from each her hooves, growing longer at the cost of Fluttershy being cemented in concentration. Each hoof, bearing six of these horrid dagger-like fingers, grew to a length where they could reach Zecora. 
“Now move your appendages to the temples of her head.” the ooze said, much to the shock of Fluttershy, who had broken from her concentration to witness these pointed atrocities that had formed from her hooves. However, due to the corruption of the ooze, Fluttershy saw this as a necessary thing to do to help the ooze out. She complied with the ooze and lifted the draping appendages, spiraling towards Zecora’s head.
Zecora had grown wise to the sudden sounds of a liquid sloshing and hardening. She turned her head to witness the horror that had become Fluttershy. 
“Quick!” the ooze barked at Fluttershy, who was alarmed at Zecora seeing her. “Slide your fingers into her temples! Do it now!”
With much hesitance but a push in the wrong direction, Fluttershy obeyed the ooze and slid her “fingers” into the sides of Zecora’s head, where her temples were, before Zecora could even react. The unfortunate zebra was then caught in a hysterical rage of pain from the thin and delicate slicing of Fluttershy’s fingers into her skin, eventually stabbing through the skull with ease and into the temporal lobes of Zecora’s brain from both sides of her head. It had looked like Fluttershy was nearly hugging Zecora’s brain from afar.
Zecora’s eyes then rolled into the back of her head. The hostility she had provided, the violent sways of her body to combat Fluttershy were instantly ceased by a brain-dead gestured on Zecora’s part, as she stood in front of Fluttershy with her mouth agape, looking literally blank.
“Oh no!” Fluttershy cried, realizing what she had done. “What have I done?”
“You have pleased us, Fluttershy,” the ooze responded back in a joyous manner. “Now keep your appendages firmly locked into her skull as we do the rest.”
“What will you do to poor Zecora?” she replied in a frightened tone. “Is she going to… going to… d-d-d-”
“No,” the ooze interrupted her nervous stammering. “She will not die. She will simply join our cause and fight for us. She will help us find our creator and we can leave you at peace.”
Despite Zecora’s zombie-like appearance, her brain was surprisingly intact. She was able to freely think and act in her mind, but not be able to use her own body as a conduit. Zecora wracked her brain for an explanation behind this, coming up with no plausible answers except for Fluttershy being an imposter. Then, her mind was greeted by the presence of the ooze, with Fluttershy absent from the equation.
“Hello, Zecora,” the ooze spoke to her in a sinister fashion. “It’s so nice to meet out first addition.”
“Who are you, vile fraud?” Zecora said to the ooze in her mind, bewildered. “And what have you done with Fluttershy to make her look so flawed?”
“You can drop the rhyming act, foolish zebra,” the ooze retorted, sounding very snide in its speech. “There’s no way to mask the fact that you shall be assimilated into the glorious hive!”
“What is this hive?” Zecora demanded an answer from the ooze, sounding defiant. “It sounds like something I do not wish would thrive.” 
“The hive is an assortment of interconnected species formed in one glorious amorphous blob of perfection,” the ooze responded proudly. “And, since we already have a conduit for our goals, you are to be the first to blend with her.”
“Blend?!” the once angered now fearful zebra croaked. “I do not wish to blend with your kind, for which I wish you to bring my end!”
“No,” the ooze replied. “Your end will come later. Much later. For now, enjoy being a hive slave.”
With that, Zecora had lost all control of her brain. Her mind was transported to Fluttershy’s body through the razor-sharp information daggers protruding from Fluttershy’s hooves, leaving Zecora’s body to be a mindless, empty husk. The ooze had then went to work reprogramming the lifeless body, turning it into a machine of sorts. Since Zecora’s mind was amalgamated into the rest of the hive, the ooze had access to all of her knowledge, all of her memories, everything about her. The ooze, in turn, used this knowledge to turn Zecora’s body into almost a machine that acted like Zecora and could think like Zecora, but was ultimately a slave to the ooze.
“Now then,” the ooze said to Fluttershy, finally back to her. “Retract your hooves. The zebra is a friendly now.”
“She was friendly before…” Fluttershy squeaked in response, too feeble to act upon her beliefs. “But the quest must continue. She most likely would have ruined it.”
She had pronounced her last sentence with a heavy sigh, knowing that the ooze had inserted its own agenda into Fluttershy’s brain, essentially making Fluttershy a “free-thinking” slave to the ooze.
“What did you at least do to her, then?”
“We have introduced her to the hive,” the ooze responded proudly. “And her body is made to serve us. We would have used her as our link to the outside world, to communicate with the others. Instead, we found that she was a bit of a social outcast, clearly not suitable for swaying the masses. So, she has been converted into a ‘nutrient supplement. She is programmed to ingest as much food as her body can handle, with a bit of our divine touch accelerating the fat-producing processes, until she is swollen and ripe for blending.”
“Why would you make her do that?” Fluttershy cried, slightly breaking free from the implanted thoughts. “She was a good pony!”
The ooze then drained Fluttershy even more to implant more hive-friendly thoughts, leaving Fluttershy to break her half-pony form and dissolve into her amorphous self. 
“She is a cog in our glorious machine,” the ooze preached. “She serves us, to make us stronger. To make us more potent!”
“Yes…” Fluttershy said in an almost-monotone voice, not sounding like herself. “I understand. She will make me stronger, in turn, helping the hive survive.”
“Very good, Fluttershy,” the ooze responded, sounding like a supporting parent complimenting their child on good ethics learned. “She will feast, grow to a respectfully gorged size, and then we will in turn become more powerful!”
As the ooze was cajoling Fluttershy into the hive mentality, Zecora’s body was trotting slowly around the hut, searching for anything remotely edible and consuming it. It had eyed the cauldron that its former self was brewing a stew in, and ravenously consumed the entirety of the cauldron within seconds. The body’s skin then began to bubble, as what the ooze had left in her body began to accelerate fat composition, creating more flesh for the body to produce, making her look more bloated and larger than before.
“Let’s go outside and refuel for a bit, Fluttershy.” the ooze told her, as Fluttershy blindly agreed and lit-up to the prospect of harvesting nutrients from the soil. She had grown weary from the massive amounts of transforming she had done and slithered out of the hut, feasting on the nutrients of the dirt path leading to Zecora’s hut while the mindless husk of Zecora’s body was consuming anything in sight, growing exponentially more blubber on herself to be farmed by the hive.