Dark Laughter

The chilly night air made Pinkie Pie shiver as she walked to Fluttershy's house. The moon was but a sliver, the stars non-existent. Any other pony would've felt something ominous in the air, but Pinkie Pie, as always, was oblivious as she went to meet her friend. Fluttershy had said that she had something really important to tell Pinkie. The excitable earth pony didn't enjoy serious stuff, but she would gladly sit through boring talk if it was helping her best friend.

As Pinkie approached Fluttershy's cottage, she rubbed her ears, unable to hear a thing. Fluttershy kept tons of animals in her house, and even at nighttime, there was always the hoot of an owl or the sound of crickets chirping.

"Maybe the animals are just being really quiet tonight!" Pinkie theorized to herself with a giggle, refusing to feel nervous. Laugh at your fears, that was her personal philosophy.

But as she walked up the pathway and was about to knock on the door, Pinkie could faintly hear a sound. It was a gasping, sniffling sound. It sounded like Fluttershy...crying! Pinkie gulped and considered not going in. She knew she had been pretty...what was the word...insensitive! Yeah, she had been pretty insensitive to Fluttershy lately. That was what her other bestest friends, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity told her. Was that what Fluttershy wanted to talk to Pinkie about? Was that why she was crying?

Pinkie grimaced, deciding to go in anyway. "Fluttershy wanted me to see her. I have to help her with whatever she's struggling with...even if what she's struggling with is me." She took a deep breath, and knocked on the door lightly.

The crying immediately stopped. "Come in, Pinkie," Fluttershy's voice could be heard.

"Alrighty!" Pinkie said, trying to sound upbeat as she swung open the door.

There were no lights on, and everything was pitch-black in Fluttershy's cottage. Pinkie stepped inside, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out Fluttershy's frail form lying on the floor.

"Thank you for coming," Fluttershy said, sounding quieter than usual. And that was saying something!

"Oh, it's no biggie," Pinkie said with a huge smile, then realizing that Fluttershy couldn't see her smiling in the darkness. "How about I turn on a light?" Pinkie suggested, walking over to where she knew a lamp was.

"No!" Before Pinkie knew it, Fluttershy was blocking her way. "I mean, it's okay," the yellow pegasus whimpered.

"If you say so," Pinkie shrugged. "So, uh, what was the really important thing you wanted to tell me?"

"I'll tell you soon, Pinkie...but I need to ask you a question first."

"Okie-dokie-lokie! What do you want to know? Do you want to know how to bake razzleberry cupcakes? Or how to make balloon animals? Or how to--" Pinkie was silenced as Fluttershy covered her mouth.

"This is serious, Pinkie. I need to ask you..." Fluttershy's voice lowered to a whisper as she continued her question. "Do y-you...love me?"

Pinkie froze up, not sure how to answer this question. "Um...do you mean love as in a friend, or...the other way?"

"Either way. I just n-need to know that you'll stick beside me, that you'll understand me...no matter what I do."

"Obviously!" Pinkie squealed, trying to give Fluttershy a big hug, which she fended off. "Fluttershy, you're my best friend! Of course I'll always love you!"

"Do you p-promise?"

"Pinkie Promise! Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!"

"Then I guess it's t-time for you to see," Fluttershy said shakily, turning around and flipping on the lamp. The bright light stunned Pinkie, and she fell on her stomach, squinting her eyes shut against the light. And when Pinkie opened her eyes, she was lying on the rug, looking at the dead body of Angel Bunny.

It took a few seconds for Pinkie to even understand what she was seeing. And when she did, she began to scream at the top of her lungs.

"Pinkie, please stop!" Fluttershy cried. Pinkie shoved her hoof in her mouth obediently and rolled onto her back to look at Fluttershy. Fluttershy had changed. Her fur was a darker color, her mane was a mess, her eyes were red, and her wings were bat wings.

The hoof came out of Pinkie's mouth. "FLUTTERBAT!" she shrieked. Despite her "laugh at your fears" principle, Pinkie was terrified by bats.

"Please, Pinkie," the bat-pony wailed, her eyes wet. "Please stop. You're going to wake up everypony in town, and then they'll come over here, and then..." Fluttershy crumpled in a heap on the floor next to Angel's corpse, sobbing.

Now, Pinkie Pie was almost always oblivious to what was going on around her, but she wasn't an idiot. She could tell that Fluttershy still seemed like her normal self, despite her scary appearance. When she became Flutterbat, as a mistake on a spell casted by Twilight, she lost all her former personality. This time was different.

"Fluttershy, what happened? Why are you a bat-pony again? Why is Angel...dead?" Pinkie asked, trying to stay calm and collected.

"I've been hiding it for so long," Fluttershy sobbed. "Twilight's spell to change me back...it didn't work entirely. I've been fighting the urges to be a bat since it happened. I can't anymore."

"Don't worry!" Pinkie comforted her friend. "C'mon, we'll get you to Twilight's, and she'll fix you right up!"

"She c-can't," Fluttershy stated. "Once I felt the urges coming back, I did some research in the library. It's really complicated, and Pinkie, you probably won't understand..."

"I'll try my best!"

"O-okay. Magic has limitations. You can't do anything with it. For example, the spell Twilight used to make the vampire fruit bats stop eating Applejack's apples, the one that got transferred to me. You can only use spells to change urges, you can't change who someone is. The urge to be a vampire fruit bat consumed me, and I became a bat-pony. But when Twilight removed the spell from me, she could only remove the urge to be a fruit bat, to eat apples. She couldn't remove the bat part, because that that had become a part of me. She made me look normal, but that would only last for so long."

"So we'll just have Twilight put up the spell again!"

"Sure, she could do that. But Pinkie, I need you to listen closely, and whatever you do, don't scream."

"Okie-dokie-lokie," Pinkie said, frowning.

"Remember how we removed the apple craves of the vampire fruit bats? I always wondered how they survived without eating apples. Well, the vampire fruit bats can also drink blood to survive, if they have to. So when Twilight took away the apple-eating urges from me, that left...the blood-sucking urges."

Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream, DON'T SCREAM PINKIE PIE YOU HORRIBLE PONY! Pinkie's mind commanded her. And by some miracle, Pinkie pursed her lips and nodded her head slowly.

"That's what happened to Angel," Fluttershy sniffled, tears streaming out of her eyes. "Once I realized what I was becoming, I made all the animals get away. But Angel refused to go. He loved me that much. And then...and then I got so thirsty I couldn't take it anymore. I just, I just pounced on him. And before I knew it, I had s-sucked all his b-blood!" Fluttershy broke down crying again. "A-and now, I'm feeling so th-thirsty again. Angel's b-blood wasn't enough. It's taking all my will not to attack you."

"There, there." Pinkie said. "We'll find a way to fix this." Pinkie put her hoof on Fluttershy's back. And then, like lightning, Fluttershy whipped her head around and sunk her long fangs into Pinkie's foreleg.

Fluttershy's eyes widened and a new round of tears burst from them, but she didn't let go. She couldn't let go. Pinkie could see it in her tear-reddened, crazed eyes. Fluttershy needed blood if she was going to live.

"D-drink up," the words tumbled out of Pinkie's mouth. "I know you need it."

Fluttershy's eyes bore intense relief and gratefulness, and she bit harder. Pinkie forced herself not to wince; Fluttershy would stop if she thought she was hurting her friend. But as the bat-pony began to suck her blood, Pinkie could feel the pain of Fluttershy's fangs ebbing away, the world fading into blackness...