Opening her eyes, it was a bit blurry at first. But the only thing she knew she was seeing was how black it is, wherever she is...
She does remember stopping by Pinkie Pie's bakery to pick up cupcakes for a party Fluttershy was hosting for a “special announcement”. She also remembered that Pinkie said something about trying out a new recipe that makes her cupcakes one of a kind, supposedly. Then the world became blurry and wobbly as she felt queasy and suddenly blacked out for some odd reason.
A she squirmed about, she noticed she was restrained to a table. And she felt something wet in those metal cuffs restraining her. Where in Equestria is she?
“I'm so sorry about the place, Rainbow Dash,” spoke an almost familiar voice. “I tried to keep it tidy.”
Out from the shadows was what Dash thought of as Pinkie Pie. But the extras she saw on her couldn't be Pinkie's trademark look. The blood staining her pink fur and mane was eerie for starters. And a semi-dry stream of tears was visible on her muzzle.
“Pinkie?” asked Dash.
“It's alright, Rainbow Dash,” she spoke in a slow, slightly lower tone. “I just need your help in making my special cupcakes.”
“How in the hay am I suppose to help you make cupcakes?! Besides, we got to get to Fluttershy's party.”
“She can wait. We'll be there...you especially.”
“Well? How's about letting me out so we can get there?”
“Not until I get my special ingredients.”
“OK.” Dash was sweating massively. “Where can I get it?!”
“You're the special ingredient, Rainbow Dash...”
(---)
The edge of the Evergreen Forest.
Fluttershy's home.
The guest ponies have never seen her so distraught before. Maybe it's because two friends haven't arrived yet. Maybe the promised cupcakes Pinkie Pie was making hasn't made it to her house. There's that whole “time of the month” deal some ponies undergo, but none of them wasn't it. It could be the announcement Fluttershy was itching to let out.
The remaining pony friends decided to pass the time by trying to get a little detail out of Fluttershy.
Twilight Sparkle (who left her dragon Spike home) came first. “You're moving?”
“But I like it here,” she replied.
Next was Applejack. “You got a new critter in the fray?”
She shook her head “No”.
Last was Rarity. “Someone you know moving in to Ponyville?”
Another shake for no.
“Cancer?” asked Twilight
“TWILIGHT!” shouted Rarity in disgust. “Why toss a party for cancer?”
“To hang out with friends for one last time before she kicks the bucket?”
“Healthy as a newborn colt,” said the pegasus pony.
“Seriously, sugar cube,” spoke the farmer pony in frustration, “I am NOT in the mood for guessing games! Only Pinkie Pie can toss a party for no reason!”
“But there is a reason.”
“Then tell us! I'm more frustrated than Rarity having no customers all day!”
“Hey!” shouted Rarity. It did hurt because of how true it was...
“Well...” Fluttershy began to blush and moved a hoof left and right as she began to hid her blushing. “It's about the ponies who are supposed to come... One of them, anyway.”
The ponies lean closer to the pegasus pony.
“I about to declare an engagement to one of those ponies.”
The news, despite the vague details on which of the missing is Fluttershy's bride-to-be, was too much. No one knew Fluttershy was like this.
Applejack couldn't handle it, as she suddenly collapsed.
“Dear god.” Twilight tried to recompose herself. “You never told me you...swing...that way...”
“I haven't known myself. I wasn't born with 'The Stare', you know. This is something I discovered myself without realizing I had it in me, just like that stare.”
“Please don't bring up that...again.”
“Oh, I would never abuse it on you guys. That's if you get me upset.”
“But you are now.”
“It's true.” She began pacing around the open area in the living room. “What's taking them?!”
“Maybe Pinkie needs help?” suggested Rarity.
“I bet they're coming,” suggest Twilight. “We just have give them time.”
She tried to wait, but Fluttershy was very on edge. Finally, she stomped her front hooves and griped, “NO! This cannot wait any further! I have to before she gets taken away from me!”
As the pegasus pony exited, the rest were shocked, save Applejack, still unconscious until Fluttershy slammed the door.
“Taken away?” asked Twilight.
“Don't ask me,” responded Rarity.
(---)
Rainbow Dash could only watch as Pinkie took a scalpel close enough to see her own panicked expression on her face.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Why are you doing this?”
“It's hard to explain. I just had the most wonderful idea to make my cupcakes extra special and more flavorful. Plus...I wanna show you something...” She then shown a light to a wall covered with a crudely patched and bloody blanket of skinned flanks with cutie marks.
Dash was panicking hysterically as Pinkie returns to the slab and her shackled pony. “Take it easy-peasy, Dash. It's not our friends...” She gets the scalpel to Dash's rib cage. “...yet.” She said that last word with such a disturbing look that the pegasus pony lost all control and wet herself while she began to cry.
Pinkie Pie pierced Dash's skin with the scalpel and slowly began to slither the blade down the sternum. The sheer pain made Rainbow Dash let out a loud scream.
As her scream broke the otherwise tranquil scene of Ponyville, Fluttershy recognized it as Dash's. As the screaming continued, it got louder as the pegasus pony came closer to Pinkie's bakery. No other pony around, Fluttershy dashed into the store.
The screaming was louder, but there was no Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie.
Frantic, she searched around until a door was found right next to a counter in the kitchen floor. She grabbed the hinge with her mouth and flapped her wings hard to pull it open. As the door opened up, Dash's voice screamed in terror “HELP ME!”
Fluttershy peeked in to see the most gruesome sight.
On the slab was a bloodsoaked Rainbow Dash, with a long cut from neck to rear on her chest and stomach, voice strained and eyes overflowing with tears and death. To her side was Pinkie Pie, who glared at Fluttershy's intrusion on her “fun.”
The scene was too much for Fluttershy to handle. She felt her mind shattered into pieces. Nothing makes much sense...
“Why are you...on the table, bleeding, dear Rainbow Dash?”
It might've been the shock from the pain overload, but Dash could've swore she heard Fluttershy call her dear.
The cream-colored pony was smiling, but her mouth was twitching about, trying to frown instead. She continued, “Why didn't you come to the party like I asked you to?”
“I CAN'T COME SHACKLED LIKE THIS!” screamed the fast flyer. “IT'S NOT LIKE I WANTED TO BE HERE!”
Fluttershy turned her attention to the bloody Pinkie Pie. “Why is my dear Dash here?”
Pinkie smiled dementedly. “She is gonna be the key ingredient for my best cupcakes! Wanna joined her?”
But to her dismay, Fluttershy was unaffected, still blank in the eyes. Almost broken. Just like the way she began to calm her fellow pegasus pony down.
Feeling ignored, the bloody earth pony screamed. “DO YOU WANT TO?”
A sudden swing of a hoof sent Pinkie back a few feet. As she tried to regain her footing and composure, she then came face to face with Fluttershy's face. The expression almost made her heart stopped; Fluttershy had a very tight scowl and rage in her now teary eyes.
“I must've hit a nerve,” the pink pony mocked. “It's rare to see you mad.”
“Dash was MINE!” Fluttershy's voice was loud and ferocious. “She belongs to ME!”
By now the blood loss was making Rainbow Dash's vision and hearing blurry and distorted. She can't hear Fluttershy calling her shackled friend her's, but she couldn't think or care. She just wanted to be save before...
Pinkie reeled bad as Fluttershy paced forward. “I must admit, I never thought you'd be so forward, especially about Dashie.”
“I have,” she said, as she began to smile just as creepy as her bloodstained opponent. “Longer than you dare know.”
“Too bad she won't last...”
“She will! And she will be mine! She will live by my side forever!” Her eyes were wide and her smile was even wider than her muzzle.
Pinkie had enough. “I'm starting to hate you now...”
It didn't matter how small that shred of sanity was left in the pegasus. It was gone when her expression rapidly changed to disgust and rage. “Oooooh. You will LOVE ME!!!”
Those word shook Pinkie at the core, but it didn't stop her from tossing a tray of sharp knives toward Fluttershy. The pony looked on at horror; Fluttershy banged the tray off with her head, still displaying her raged face and never letting her eyes off Pinkie.
The earth pony tried once more by shoving a cart, only to be shoved to the side. While Fluttershy glared on, Pinkie just couldn't take her eyes off her opponent's.
In the meanwhile, the fully enraged pegasus stomped forward, one hoof before the other, wings spread out to the width of the path between Pinkie Pie and her trap door. As she moved toward the bloody pink pony, Pinkie shuffled backwards into a corner. Fluttershy slammed two of Pinkie's hooves into the walls and stares straight into her eyes.
The cream and now bloody-hoofed Fluttershy began in a near growling tone, “You won't be touching my love Rainbow Dash in the near future, won't you?”
“If she lives...”
The pegasus crunched the earth pony's front legs into the walls. “WON'T YOU?”
Pinkie tried to look away but the stare was impossible to avoid, or escape. Insanity became fear while Fluttershy continued on, starting to shout louder each time she spoke. “ANSWER ME!”
“NO I WON'T!!” Pinkie finally replied.
“If I catch you doing this to Dash I will make you SUFFER TENFOLD!”
It became evident that she would deliver that promise as Pinkie felt her bones cracking under Fluttershy's pressure.
As soon as it seemed Pinkie finally got the message, Fluttershy struck her head, knocking her out cold. She then tried to calm down to attend to the unconscious Rainbow Dash.
She now noticed the blood that was all over the floor, and the blood on her hooves from stepping in it. She located a blanket and tried to put pressure on the open incision, trying to keep Dash alive, even though at this point it's hard to tell.
A voice was heard from the trap door. “Anybody in here?”
Fluttershy, now fearing for Dash's life-or-death situation, yelled out. “Help! Someone help! Call the hospital!”
She can only hope they could save Dash...
(---)
Dash was taken to the hospital almost faster than she was. Hours went through as Fluttershy was waiting in the lobby. Some went to the police and the Royal Guard ponies, asking her questions, figuring out what went on down there. Some went to her remaining friends, crying, wishing, praying that Rainbow Dash would pull through. And some went to filling out some forms, one of which would have Pinkie Pie institutionalized for her insanity. She wished she herself would be, as she still knows well what she looked like when she had Pinkie cornered so close she saw her own reflection in Pinkie's eyes.
The image stayed in her mind. The image of such a bizarre expression that she didn't feel like it was really her. She couldn't tell if she was a monster like Pinkie instead of a pony.
A medical nurse pony comes to Fluttershy. The moment of truth has arrived.
“Would you come with me?” she asked.
The pegasus was taken to Dash's room. The speedster pony was unresponsive, just as in that dark basement.
“She's now in safe hooves,” assured the nurse. “She just needs a few transfusions, some rest and to not do some serious work for a while.”
After looking from Dash to the nurse, she then asked, “Um, would it be alright if I stay around her, alone?”
“It's getting late for visiting hours, so please keep it minimal.”
As soon as the nurse left, she poured her emotions and tears out onto Dash's bed as she kept saying “I love you” and “Please come back to me” until she was asked to leave.
