Chapter 1: A Dire Situation
"SILENCE!"
Fluttershy woke with a start, her heart instantly beating hard as she leapt to her hooves.
What was that sound? Wait... where am I?
She was outside. This was strange enough in itself, but the fact that it happened to be an outside she was completly unfamiliar with made her skin crawl. She was in the middle of the woods, and apparently NOT the Everfree. Some of the plants and trees here were unfamiliar. The strangest part of it all was the complete lack of sound. No birds chirped, no wind breezed through the leaves... but hadn't she just heard somepony shout something? Was somepony in trouble? Unsure which direction to look in, she cried out a hello. Only to realize she couldn't hear her own voice. or her own breathing. She could feel the words as she spoke them, but not hear them. She was, in fact, deaf.
OHNONONOWHATHAPPENEDHELPMESOMEPONYPLEASEWHEREAMIEVENHOWDIDI...
Suddenly she could hear again. And realized she was rambling.
"...get... here..."
Birds were chirping in the trees. The world seemed a little more familiar. Fluttershy forced herself to take a deep breath, trying to calm her fluttering heart. She still had no idea where she was, but it would be okay. She'd been lost before. Just needed to get her bearings. She took to the air, flying upwards until she cleared the lush treetops.
The sun was in it's zenith, shining down upon a rich green forest that was stretching as far as her teal eyes could see. She noticed structures in the distance. It looked like... large white towers or columns of some sort. And further away she could see some kind of huge structure. A castle or a fortress. Not one she remember seeing or reading about. If only Twilight was here, she probaly knew every castle in Equestria.
Turning around, her breath caught in her throat.
The forest appeared to be cut in half by a river in the distance, and on the other side of the river, it took on a distinctly different form. The trees where black, gnarled and lifeless. More towers were visible, although these ones were dark and brooding. There was even a structure to mirror the other one, although this one was black, illuminated by omnious crimson fires. Even the skies were darker on the other side of the river.
Well, at least I know what direction NOT to go in...
Landing gently on her hooves, she started trotting towards the nearest of the white towers.
***
"Twilight! Yo, Twilight!"
"Ugh... just a few more minutes..." Rolling over on the other side, Twilight tried to go back to sleep.
"Twilight, this is serious! Get up!" Something poked her hard in her ribs. Groaning, Twilight shuffled to her feet, shaking her head to disperse the lingering dizzyness. Opening her eyes, she barely had time to notice that she was outside(what in Equestria...) before Rainbow Dash grasped her by the shoulders.
"Twilight, just where in Equestria are we? If this is a joke, it's not funny."
"Umm..." Twilight let her gaze wander across the area. "I... don't really know. What happened? The last thing i remember is going to sleep... or wait..." She did remember more, althought dimly. Something about her friends? Something about a spell?
Rainbow Dash let her friend go with a sigh.
"So you don't remember either? It's so weird, it's like I can almost remember something... but it's all messed up. We were doing.. something? We and the rest of the gang... i don't know. This reeks of Discord if you ask me." She sat herself down on the ground. "I woke up a few minutes ago. I thought this was a weird trick or a prank of some sort but... something strange is going on here, Twilight. There is some kind of battle taking place here."
"A... battle? What do you mean?"
"I didn't want to get close, but... there were these green creatures and these red ones, and they were totally killing each other. Lots of blood and nasty stuff. From what I could see it looks like the green dudes come from this area, and the red ones keep coming from the evil forest."
"Evil... forest?" Twilight shook body, trying to ease her aching muscles. Sleeping on the ground had not done her body any service.
"Yeah, there's like a huge river not far from here. Everything on the other side is creepy. Like, mega-creepy. I sure hope the others are on this side, too."
"Of course!" Twilight gasped in realization. "If we are here, they must be too! We need to find them quickly. The best course of action wou..."
"SILENCE!!!"
The sudden, shouting voice that boomed across the forest caused Twilight to scream in surprise. Only she couldn't hear it. She turned to Rainbow Dash, whose mouth was working frantically without producing a sound. Her chromatic mane rustled as she twisted around, working herself into a panic.
Most fascinating... some kind of magic, clearly. Perhaps a audio-counterspell will...
She tried to cast a small assessment spell delve into the foreign magic, but found herself unable to do anything. Whetever was going on apparently affected her magic, too. As she pondered this, the noise of the world suddenly returned.
"...BOLT IF YOU'RE DEAF! MY LIFE IS RUINED!!"
"Calm down, Rainbow. It's over now, whatever that was."
"Oh, thank Celestia. That was terrif... I mean, it was a bit creepy, A little. Any idea what that was?"
"Some kind of anti-magic. It prevented me from casting any spells. I'm going to guess that whatever it was wasn't intentionally aimed at us. We probally just got caught in it. We won't find any answers sitting around here."
Rainbow Dash nodded, and smirked,
"You up for some flying, egghead?"
***
Fluttershy carefully peeked our from her hiding spot. She had come upon some sort of path. She could hear sounds in the distance, the clang of metal against metal, coming from further down the path, around the bend. From the direction of the white tower. A smithy of some sort, perhaps? She carefully stepped into the lane and started walking towards the source of the sounds.
Oh, I hope I'm not too far from home. My poor little Angel must be worried sick...
Sudden footsteps behind her. Fluttershy spun around and found herself being silently charged by a small group of redskinned, two-legged creatures wielding swords and clubs. Acting quickly, Fluttershy bravely threw herself to the ground, crawled into an intimidating fetal position and whimpered menancingly. She closed her eyes as the creatures ran up to her and awaited her doom.
Oh, Angel... mommey's so sorry.
A few heartbeats later, she was struck by the sudden realization that she was still alive. Peeking up, she saw the creatures hastily disappear around the bend towards the white tower and the source of the strange sounds. Flutteshy waited until she was sure they weren't coming back, and then carefully started breathing again.
Oh, sweet Celestia. They must have really weak vision, the poor things. Those were real weapons though... something bad is going on here. I should probaly get of this ro...
"RUARGH"
A nightmarish growl behind her caused her to freeze. Heavy footfalls. A long, gnarled shadow fell over her and she was struck with a sudden odor. She knew this scent. Taking care of the many animals of the forest, she would occasionally come across long dead, rotting cadavers. this was the scent of decay, of putrid death. Shivering, she slowly turned around. And found herself face to face with the face of death. The bipedal creature was enourmous, her head barely reaching its knee. It resembled one of those humans Twilight had described to her, only... wrong. Undead, surrounded by a cloud of flies. A zombie like in those horrible movies which Rainbow Dash had made her watch that one time, which ate brains. Only, not in pony form. Its gaunt face were home to a set of glowing eyes and its gaping mouth sported rows of yellow fangs. It reached of for her with a bony arm which ended in a hand with fingers like claws.
What else could she do but scream?