Crippled, Beaten and Broken.

It was a Thursday when it happened.

He had come home from school to find his father dozing on the couch, a veritable carpet of crushed beer cans littered around him.

Ryan crept up the stairs that led to his room, not wanting to wake his father.

He got to his room, shed his school apparel, and flopped onto the bed, pulling his laptop open and letting its blue glow calm him down as it always did.

It helped him feel like a person again.

He had been feeling depressed ever since the night at the party, the look in his father’s eyes, the shame, the fact that he was weak; it all made him sick to his soul. He soon found that the blue and beautiful days filled him with annoyance and the peaceful and still nights made him want to sleep into twilight.

Then those feelings gave way to...nothing, nothing at all.

It had unnerved him, this new lack of caring, but it hadn’t motivated him to do anything about it, so he just sat in the darkness of his room, typing out hate-filled rants against Bronies that lacked their acid tips.

It made him feel worse, realizing how the brony community had become the linchpin to his entire existence: nothing else mattered, as long as he could strike back at them.

So, after starting yet another flame war and getting no satisfaction from it, Ryan found himself in the bathroom, the harsh fluorescent light making him wince as he opened the medicine cabinet...and pulled out a packet of razor blades.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at those razors, watching the light glint off of their sharp edges, wondering if it would hurt when he made the cuts, wondering if he even cared.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

He had watched them until his vision was overwhelmed by them, and it amazed him how such a small thing could have the potential to end his life.

He hadn’t realized that he was weeping until his vision went blurry.

Ryan whimpered in his drug-induced slumber.

The Black Monsoon was coming, and it would destroy his little island of sanity.

Around him the Bearers looked at each other with worry on their faces.

“D’you really think that it will work?” asked Fluttershy, “What if something goes wrong? What if we kill him?”

“The Elements would never kill another being.” said Twilight confidently.

“But-but he’s not from our world.” persisted Fluttershy.

“Ah agree with ‘Shy.” said Applejack, “Maybe it’d be best for the Princesses to try somethin’ else.”

“We can’t have him going back to his evil ways.” insisted Twilight, “Who knows what kinds of horrible things he could do if left unchecked? He’s a villain, remember?”

“I think he’s sad.” said Fluttershy, pity showing clear as day behind her blue eyes.

“Mad is more like it.” said Rarity, “I am in agreement with Twilight: we must use the Elements on him.”

Pinkie nodded, “And then, when he’s all better, I’ll throw him the biggest party he’s ever seen!”

“If he even wants one.” said Rainbow Dash cryptically.

Twilight looked at the prismatic pegasus with a raised brow, “What do you mean ‘if he wants one’?”

“I mean” said Rainbow, “he might not be in the best of moods if the Elements purge him of his powers or his evil or whatever it’ll do to him.”

“He might be really, really sad afterwards.” said Pinkie, understanding the implications in her friend’s words.

“If he is, then we’ll help him through it.” said Twilight with a small smile, “He helped Discord and Trixie, and we can help him!”

That seemed to do the trick and, after her five friends exclaimed their agreement, the Elements began to glow.

Ryan was being pulled in by the Black Tsunami, its slimy waters swirling around him, buffeting him, choking him, and pressing him into a solid ground that he couldn’t see.

He had never been more relieved.

The water roiled and then threw him high into the sky, allowing him to see the millions of drowned junkyard rats that had begun floating to the surface. He smiled as he began to fall back towards the bubbling waters, which were rapidly being obscured by the rat carcasses.

He hit the water and was immediately set upon by a swarm of red flies that had obviously been attracted to all the dead flesh.

One of the flies landed on his open eyes and he could plainly see its face: which resembled that of a fetus with closed eyes.

Ryan smiled and allowed the other flies to land on him.

He felt the island of his sanity crack and erode under the putrid waters of his madness. Feeling relieved as the last of his mental stability slowly gave way to-

The cracks stopped widening.

Ryan opened his eyes.

The erosion halted, then every crack and pit filled in.

NO! he roared, trying to get to the island as the damage that was done was quickly undone. Even worse, the island was actually growing!

He fought against the tide, but found that it was reseeding so fast that the pressure was too much for him to circumvent. Meanwhile the island was growing even faster, forming mountains and ravines, forming sanity.

Then he saw the rainbow-hued light seeping out from the island’s wounds, the light that was also flowing into the water, beating it back and making it clear and unpolluted.

He screamed, he knew he did, but the sound was lost amidst the sounds of the red flies burning into nothing in the wake of the purifying light.

Then the rats faded into nothingness and the darkness was pushed far, far away to some obscure vista, and Ryan Doe was pulled screaming and howling out of oblivion by the multi-colored powers of the Elements of Harmony.

The lights faded from the Elements and the rushing wind that had entered the room faded away, leaving a calm silence in its wake.

“We….we did it!” cheered Pinkie between panting breaths.

“Yeah…*huff*...we did.” said Rainbow, landing and falling gracelessly onto her rump.

“Was it…*wheeze*....supposed to be so….*wheeze*...tiring?” asked Fluttershy, looking at Twilight, who shrugged wordlessly, her fur already matted with sweat.

“Look, he’s waking up!” exclaimed Rarity, her voice distorted by the light breeze given off by the handheld fan that she held in her magic aura.

The Bearers watched as Zap slowly began to stir in his bed, his sunken eyes fluttering open and his fingers and toes twitching.

Suddenly he sat up with a loud gasp, sweat broke out on his pale skin and his eyes bulged out and began to wildly rove around the room. When they landed on the six colorful ponies his breath audibly caught in his throat.

They stared at each other for a long moment before his shoulders slumped and he hung his head, letting his long, red hair hide his face.

The Bearers exchanged worried glances with each other before Twilight cleared her throat and stepped closer.

“Hello, Zap.” she said calmly, “Do you remember me?”

The human looked up and nodded quickly, then he returned to his hunched position.

“Well?” prodded Applejack, “Aren’t ya gonna say somethin’?”

Zap looked up and turned his gaze towards her, and the farmpony’s eyes widened when she saw the tears that blurred and distorted his pupils.

“It’s gone.” he said in a low, watery voice.

“What is?” asked Twilight.

“The Black Water….it’s gone. It’s gone and now I’m alone again”, Zap gave an audible sob and pressed his hands to his eyes.

Twilight looked utterly taken aback. She turned and saw similar stunned and worried expressions on her friend’s faces.

“I don’t understand.” she said, looking back to Zap, “What’s the Black Water?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, then he said, “My insanity.”

The human raised his tear-filled eyes to her, then he untangled the thin covers from around his person and slid to the floor, arranging himself in what Twilight could only assume to be a pose of supplication, with his head down, back bend and spidery hands splayed palms down on the floor.

“Please.” he whimpered, “please give it back. I can’t live without it, I-I can’t.”

Twilight felt a cold stab of dread in her gut. This isn’t right. she thought, The Elements were supposed to reform him, not do...this! What happened?

Those questions continued to hurtle through her mind, even as she sank to the floor and wrapped a wing around Zap’s bony shoulders as the strange creature abandoned himself to silent weeping.