.out.of.character.

burst through the door.

Rainbow's eyes flew wide open, pupils shrinking under the gray malaise of an overcast sky.

"...will glow."

She was outside.

Turning around, she gazed up at the front face of the burnt out hotel. Her vision struggled to focus through the rainy drizzle. Only one window still had its glass pane up. Rainbow could have sworn she saw a figure gazing down at her. Its lime green head tilted about. Then something pressed up against the glass, straining it red with branching currents. A wide grin, and then a golden string separated the head from the rest of the body. After that, all was dark inside.

Rainbow slowly backed away from the hotel. She gulped. "Scootaloo?" She shuddered. "Scootaloo, it was too late for Fluttershy. We need to get out of here..."

There was no response.

"Scootaloo?" Rainbow spun about. Her jaw hung open. The filly was nowhere to be found. "Scootaloo?!" She twirled in place, looking in every which direction. From a distance, a dull bass hum intensified into a resounding growl. The sky dulled, taking on a darker tone of gray. Each rain drop was knifingly hard, intensifying the agonized throb in Rainbow's wing. "Scootaloo!" She was galloping at this point, heaving, shivering with each pounding hoofstep. "Scootaloo, where are you?!"

She didn't realize she had sprinted into the heart of town until she heard the screams. Rainbow flashed a flinching glance to her right. A mare was being impaled against a tree, one tent-pole per leg while things with antlers crawled up and gyrated against her. A few feet away, a group of fillies fought over the battered corpse of a headless dog. Thunder cracked, splitting the air as a hot air balloon descended, drenched in flames. Cherry Berry climbed out of the wreckage, trotting calmly across the rain-soaked road while her body roasted from the inside out. At last, the burning mare collapsed in a mud puddle at a street corner where Soarin' was repeatedly slamming his skull into a cafe's front window until the glass cracked in a dozen places.

"It h-hurts, sir," the stallion sputtered, gargling on his own blood and saliva. "It hurts to good. I could almost—"

"Shut your faggot mouth, piss-drinker!" Spitfire slurred. She squatted, facing him, with her hooves reaching down between her legs. "When the glass breaks. I want you to eat it, bitch."

"Yes, sir. Grkkk... thank you, sir..."

A wagon rolled by, dragging the bodies of mules by their roped necks. As Rainbow jumped aside to avoid the splash of mud, she saw a body standing atop Sugarcube Corner.

"I can't get her out." Pinkamena smiled, her straight mane billowing like a windsock. "She's too heavy." And she fell forward, plunging three full stories. She landed with a sickening snap as her neck bent ninety-degrees.

Rainbow instantly clenched her hooves over her face. She stumbled blindly, hyperventilating. There was a break in the screams, allowing her to hear Cloud Kicker's orgasmic yelps amidst the crunching of rusted metal.

Rainbow Dash loved her Daddy very much. She should never have left him.

"Quiet..." Rainbow seethed, her every breath panting. "Shut up. Just..."

A foal wailed in the distance before being silenced by a death rattle. Rainbow heard Mrs. Cake's high-pitched laughter, followed by the crack of a whip. Being in Applejack's arms was Rainbow Dash's only solace. Sometimes she wanted the mare to crush her thighs just so she could stop feeling the real pain inside.

"Shut up!" Rainbow bellowed, galloping in a random direction. Any direction. "I don't care how many ponies you've devoured! I won't let you get me! I won't—"

Rainbow Dash tripped on a spool of rope.

"Guhh!" She fell hard in the mud. Turning around, she reached down to uncoil the fibers from her fetlock. The cable was bloody and splitting at each squishy loop, leaking viscous defecation. "Aaaah!" Rainbow yelped and flailed, fumbling to disentangle herself from the spilled pony entrails. When at last she had crawled ten feet away, she hugged herself, staring at the mangled white body of a unicorn whose belly had burst open across the muddy earth.

There was a scraping and crunching sound from behind the corpse. At last, a little purple dragon looked up, his face stained with blood as he stuffed the scrappy remnants of Rarity's liver into his mouth. One last gulp, and Spike smiled, bile and fat dribbling from his maw. A giggle escaped his gullet, framed with Razor sharp teeth.

Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth. She crawled away from the dragon whelp. Her left wing throbbed, pulsated. The ringing was everywhere, passing through her. She whimpered from the pain, pulling herself past a shrieking stallion who fought and struggled as lashing thorned tendrils pulled him into a sopping wet mudhole. Thunder rolled. The smell of amniotic fluid wafted to Rainbow's nose. She rolled over, batting off tiny black skittering things as they crawled out of a bloated mare's womb to her left.

"Nnngh! Grhhkk... ummff!"

Maybe this was why Rainbow Dash hurt herself the other day. Secretly, she wanted to die. What pony ever wanted to live in the first place? What was even the point?

"Grnnng—Aaaagh! Shut up!" Rainbow clutched her hooves over her head. She forced herself up, growling in consternation. "I mean it! You've got nothing on me! You've got nothing—!"

A piercing wail echoed from a nearby patio.

Rainbow Dash gasped. She looked across the street. An orange shape caught her eye. Limping, Rainbow stumbled past Twilight as the unicorn tossed more books onto a burning pyre. She trotted loosely around Thunderlane and Blossomforth as they gyrated against each other. Finally, climbing over a hollowed out corpse, she approached the little filly. "Scootaloo...?"

"So ugly..." The little pegasus gnashed her teeth, then clamped her jaw over the bloody bits that remained of her left wing. "Grkkkk—Hrnnnngh!" Each feather stalk popped sickeningly as she ripped them out from their roots. Blood ran across her flank, staining her orange coat red.

"Scoots!" Rainbow Dash squatted down, holding the filly in place. "Snap out of it! What—" She wretched, staring at the exposed bits of bone sticking out of Scootaloo's back. "What in Celestia's name did you do?!"

"What h-had to be d-done..." The filly sniffled and whimpered. She looked up, her cheekbones hollow, pale. She vomited a tiny trickle of fluid, then smiled. "Hehehe... look, Rainbow..." She pointed at the blood running thickly across her flank. "...my cutie mark!"

Rainbow shivered. She looked over her shoulder. The town library had burst into flames. A pair of mares were drinking tea across the street. Fuming, Rainbow turned back and hoisted Scootaloo over her shoulder. "We're going, Scootaloo. Now."

Scootaloo winced as her bloody figure was draped across Rainbow's spine. "I just realized they were accidents... mistakes growing out of my back... that's all... it's that simple..."

"Don't give up hope, Scootaloo," Rainbow stammered as she broke into a firm gallop. She had to weave left and right to avoid the miscellaneous bits of carnage strewn across the streets of Ponyville. "You must never... ever give up hope! Do you hear me?!"

"I should have listened when I was still in the orphanage." Scootaloo clung to Rainbow, mewling. "I was abandoned for a reason. Who would want a useless freak like me?"

"There was no orphanage, Scootaloo." Rainbow frowned, breaking past the edge of town. Mist hung heavy and hot over the edge of the Everfree Forest. It was hard to hear her own words over the sound of thunder. "And you are not useless! Don't listen to it, okay?! Don't let it win!"

"The only time I was ever useful was when I was on the streets of Fillydelphia," Scootaloo cooed, a dazed smile of pain across her face. "A stallion scooped me up from the snowbank. He said he was going to show me where rainbows were made. So I followed h-him to this warehouse by the river. He and his friends played games with me. It hurt, Rainbow Dash..."

Rainbow clenched her eyes shut in mid-stride. "Scootaloo..."

"It hurt so m-much. But... but I knew I was making him and his friends happy." She nuzzled her blue fuzz. "I was being useful."

"Scootaloo, stop it..."

"Then one day..." The filly giggled. "I ripped open a stray kitten and drank from its neck. It was being useful for me too. We were both such ugly... ugly things before the fire..."

"Darn it, Scootaloo!" Rainbow Dash stopped altogether. She yanked the foal off her backside and held her in her outstretched hooves. "None of that happened! None of that could ever have happened!"

"They roasted... alive..." Scootaloo spat out another trickle of bile, smiling. "Their hair smelled wonderful. The ashes became the stars. Blessed be Luna's name."

"Luna would not condone this. Celestia and her sister would not allow any of this!" Rainbow hollered. "Don't you get it?!" She hugged the kid close, careful not to rub up against her mangled wing-stems. "Th-this is not our world, Scootaloo. Nothing about this is good. Nothing about it is cool or awesome. It's just horrible for the sake of being horrible! When have things ever worked like that?! Even in our darkest days, we still have each other to lean on! We have what it takes to get out of any mess! To overcome any obstacle!"

"I'm your only obstacle, Rainbow Dash." Scootaloo sobbed, her tears leaking against Rainbow's chest as they both shivered in the rain. "Maybe that's why you and Fluttershy won't adopt me."

Rainbow groaned, rolling her eyes towards the sky. "Scootaloo..."

"It's okay. I wouldn't adopt a little freak with useless wings either. But it's okay! I've fixed it!" She weakly gazed up, flexing her bloodied limbs. "See?"

"Scootaloo... this is Equestria. And we are ponies. We don't do 'misery.' We don't do 'hatred.' We don't—"

Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash with scrumptious sparkling eyes.

Rainbow wheezed, her breath short and shorter. "Don't... we d-don't..."

Just one little lick. A taste of cinnamon. A whiff of vanilla. Rainbow Dash was seconds away from letting go of the breath that she didn't even know she was holding.

"Scootaloo..."

"Yes, Rainbow?" The filly's tiny heart fluttered between them, precious and succulent.

Rainbow gulped. "No more temptations." She slapped Scootaloo once more onto her backside. "We're going and we're going now."

"Rainbow, wait—!"

"I've waited long enough!" Rainbow breathed... breathed deeper... and leapt for the sky.

Her body split down the middle.

"Aaaa-haaaugh!" Rainbow screamed, plummeting instantly from the pain in her left wing.

"Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo yelped, clinging tight with wide eyes. "Your wing! Don't—"

But Rainbow's hooves stopped just inches from the ground. She hovered tortuously in place, her cheeks expanding and contracting with each fuming breath. "Nnnnnnnnghhh—!!" Clenching her teeth to the point of breaking, she tore her way skyward, flapping slowly over the treetops of Everfree on throbbing feathers. "—Yaaaa-aaaughh!"

The edges of Rainbow's vision turned red from the sheer bloodshot to her eyes. White flashes of pain rippled left and right like moths in rain. She pushed and pulled, as if trying to force a machete out with her ruptured muscles alone. Somewhere beyond it all, Scootaloo protested louder and louder with deafening shrieks. Rainbow ignored her, ascending higher, faster. At last, after a bitter marathon of anguish, she found herself flying northeast at a brisk rate.

"Where are you t-taking us?!" Scootaloo yelped.

"To... C-Canterlot..." Rainbow hissed. The pain had wrung all the warmth from her blood. She felt like frosted pellets were being funneled through her veins. The foggy mists of an overcast sky enveloped them. All she could see was an endless tree canopy below. "If anypony can overpower this thing, it's Celestia!"

Thunder rolled, crackling into Rainbow's ear drums.

"That's right! You heard me!" Rainbow hollered, soaring forward. "Princess Celestia! Now there's a pony who can call down the thunder! She's gonna make you crawl back into whatever festering hole you—"

The fog parted. Straight ahead of her, the burning buildings of Ponyville peeled into focus.

"—came from." Rainbow hovered to a stop, eyes twitching. "What... what... wh-what...?!"

Ponies thrashed, wailed, and laughed in the streets. The Town Hall imploded into a burning shroud of embers while little foals and limping shadows danced around it.

Rainbow was hyperventilating ceaselessly at this point. She tilted her weight towards her good side, rotating towards the right. Facing south, she flapped her wings harder—whimpered briefly from the pain—and flew in a straight line.

Once more, she passed over forest. Once more, the fog rolled around them. Then, five shivering minutes later, the mist parted. Ponyville emerged, smoldering beneath the drizzle of cold precipitation. Rainbow watched in numb shock as Town Hall collapsed all over again.

It was no use.

"It's no use, Rainbow," Scootaloo droned.

She had to give in.

The filly nuzzled the back of her neck. "You might as well give in."

Thunder rolled.

Before Rainbow could hear the ringing in her ears, she snarled. "Ghhrkkk—NO!" Thrusting her wings back, she shot her body upward, piercing straight through the clouds as she ascended at a rapid rate.

"Rainbowww!" Scootaloo clung for dear life, shrieking against the high altitude winds. "It'll be gentle with us if we just don't fight it—!"

"I don't believe that for a second!" Rainbow hollered, seething in pain. "Maybe you do, kid! But I'm gonna save you from that!"

"But—"

"I'm gonna save everypony! I'm not about to leave the rest of Ponyville hanging—"

Something emerged from the clouds above. It was the earth's surface, dotted with burning buildings. Rainbow gasped as she found herself plummeting along the pull of gravity.

"Horseapples!"

She spun, flailed, and stretched her wings out. Something popped along her left joints. She howled in pain, but nonetheless maintained her trajectory, pulling up before she and Scootaloo could become stains across the rooftops of Ponyville.

The two ponies glided past a swirling band of misty rain. They climbed upwards, arching over columns of smoke. By this point, Rainbow's vision was turning foggy. Her body was numb, and the entire left side of her felt like a cold slab of meat trying desperately to keep up with the right.

So it was with meager surprise that Rainbow realized that she had glided long enough to finally pierce the mists. A blinding swath of sunlight cut across her face. She squinted, tilting her head up with a quivering expression.

Off in the distance, like a face peering through a cloudy window, was the hazy heights of Canterlot. Its majestic spires glistened with ethereal light.

Rainbow Dash grinned dazedly, a tear trickling down her rain-slick muzzle. "Thank Celestia..." She gulped dryly. "There's no smoke in the distance! That means there's still time to—"

A blinding flash erupted, devouring Rainbow's whole vision. She shrieked like a filly, reeling backwards as Scootaloo dangled from her back. Seconds later, a resounding burst of noise