A blinding column of magical discharge split the schoolhouse in two. The roof caved in. The windows shattered. The screaming stopped.
Shaking partly due to adrenaline, Ocean got to her hooves and pushed open the door. Behind her, guards were recovering, one or two of whom called, ‘Wait!’ She paid them no heed. The silence of those who had been inside said it all. No longer was there any risk of harm from entering – bodily harm, at any rate.
The classroom was a ruin. Tables and chairs were upturned and broken. The walls were dark and ashy, with grisly silhouettes burned into them. Bodies littered the floor, not torn and bloodied but quiet and still. Ocean stepped over several – children who had done nothing to anypony. Her nostrils caught the smell of singed hair and flesh. She fought the urge to be sick.
‘How,’ she croaked, ‘could anypony want this?’
In a few hours’ time the press would take their pictures and write their articles. In a few days parents would be blamed and anti-bullying laws tightened. The victims would be buried. Equestria would mourn. Then life would carry on.
Tears stung her eyes. She wiped them away and sniffed. What more could she have done? What more could any of them have done? They had left the moment they’d heard the call. They had rammed the door and forced the windows, cast spells and flown in from above. They had tried their utmost, but every officer who had come within ten metres of the shooter was either injured or dead. Ocean frowned. She was neither dead nor dying. Had she really done her best? Had she really tried her hardest to save the innocent? Was that what she’d say to the parents of those whose lifeless bodies choked the room?
‘There was nothing I could have done,’ whispered Ocean, and she gagged at how false the words sounded even to her own ears.
Jackpot was slumped across a splintered desk, the expression on his face near apologetic. The amulet around his neck (which was burnt so severely that she could see his windpipe) had cracked and so had his horn. Taped to his belly was a sheet of paper.
Ocean wanted to turn around, run and never stop running. But she knew she couldn’t. She was an officer, and this was her job.
Slowly, she bent down. Jackpot’s face gaped slackly at her. She felt a spasm of hatred twitch somewhere deep inside. Then she peeled off the note. The door creaked open. Warren entered, his eyes bulging. He stared at Ocean and, gulping, said, ‘Is that –?’
‘Yes.’
She straightened up and read.
Never can they fathom that which drives us, which, although amusing at times, is also sad. We are psychotic milksops whose minds must have snapped like rotten twigs. We are gangling paragons of insecurity, socially inept retards whose feelings must have been irrational, unreasonable, incomprehensible. Never are we ponies who responded to our suffering predictably and appropriately, who reacted cruelly to cruelty.
Featherweight, the architect of one of Equestria’s deadliest spree killings – they speak as though he had no discernible motive, as though he was nothing more than a madpony. Fools! Did you not watch his videos? Didn’t you listen? Disgusted by the fickle, the shallow, the mean-spirited, those by whom he was surrounded, Featherweight did what he deemed necessary. Featherweight, who observed the overwhelming selfishness of the juvenile, chose to administer retribution. Would that bloodshed were moral.
‘What? What’s this bucker even saying?’ – your thoughts at this moment, I’m sure. Let me spell it out, then. You brand us as madponies because you haven’t felt what we feel. You do not understand, and you fear, or at least dislike, that which you don’t understand. Therefore, you twist us. We are lunatics because you can dismiss the actions of lunatics as lunacy. You twist us for your own convenience and then get on with your lives.
Featherweight was like me – an observer. We who are forced to stew in adolescent sewage notice everything. ‘You see her? Bucking hot! I’m gonna tap that!’ ‘Dang, that’s a fine flank! Shit, fellers, I’ma buck the shit out of that flank!’ ‘Let’s get smashed!’ ‘Let’s get baked!’ ‘This bitch is hot! Let’s see some pictures!’ ‘Cider!’ ‘Flank!’ ‘Nipples!’ ‘Sex!’ ‘Buck!’ ‘Mares!’ ‘Horny as hell right now!’ ‘You see that colt? What a bucking tool! What a – oh, hi, Ashton! We were just . . .’ ‘I love you, bae!’ ‘Love you too, bae!’ ‘I thought you didn’t like her.’ ‘I don’t. She’s a bucking whore . . .’ ‘Sooo hot! Check out his body!’ ‘Nice pecs!’ ‘I want him to buck me.’ ‘Let’s tease him a bit on Friday.’ ‘Oh, Jacob and me are getting on fine!’ ‘Psst. You seen Root? Hot af. I’m probably going to cheat on Jacob . . .’ ‘I hate how ponies are always chatting shit about everypony else the moment they get off the table.’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘Yeah. Like, Thunder is a bucking dickhead. He does it all the time. Nopony likes him. Oh, hi, Thunder. Bye, Astor. Yeah, Astor is a bucking nob, Thunder, isn’t he?’
All day, every day. The fickle, the shallow, the mean-spirited. You see? ‘Normal’ social interaction – something in which Featherweight never engaged because he despised it as I do. These subpony slivers of filth choked us, and they didn’t even realise that they did so. They torched our potential and hadn’t even the courtesy to watch the blaze. Now do you understand? We hate you. We hate your sneering faces, your whiny voices, your lack of values, your cowardice. We hate your skimpy clothes, your soppy smirks, your jeering laughter, your stupidity! We hate you, and you think you’ve done nothing to provoke such hatred. Bucking stupid! We hate you! It isn’t complex. It’s simple. We hate you. That’s why, in the end, we kill you, and then we kill ourselves – withered husks whose goodness you bludgeoned into a corner and continued to beat savagely until it was no more.
