All was silent within Sweet Shoppe. That was the first thing Fluttershy noticed, as she sat at the Rainboom’s unofficial table, with Pinkie Pie by her side. Both of them were waiting, for the rest of their friends to show up. Each second her friends weren’t there, caused Fluttershy’s heart to thump in fear, that they had been murdered, the images of her mind plaguing her as she tried to hide herself away in a tight shivering ball of stress and fear. Pinkie must have sensed her suffering, because a sudden hug pulled Fluttershy from her internal fears.

“Th-thanks Pinkie, I really needed that…” She says sincerely as she gently returns the hug, feeling much more calm than she was previously.

“No problem Fluttershy, I’m just helping a friend in need.” Pinkie says with her warm smile, that made Fluttershy feel like she was guaranteed to have a better day.

Before she could enjoy the little time alone with Pinkie she was given, the front door opened to the rest of her friends. Rainbow and Applejack were panting, as if they’d been running for quite sometime, and Rarity seemed slightly distressed about something, but otherwise was alright in her own way.

“Terribly sorry we’re late deary, I was pulled away on urgent matters when a customer simply demanded my attention. Then Sweetie Belle tried to steal me away for something about a song she made, so I couldn’t really say no...” She says nervously, whether in guilt for being late, or something else Fluttershy didn’t know, though she could guess Pinkie might know.

“Yeah, I had to watch over Scoots for a bit, lately she’s been wanting my attention more and more. It got to the point I had to put my foot down and tell her I needed to go take care of my friends.” Rainbow says as she relaxes herself into the seat. “I ended up having to run all the way here because mom took the car out and dad doesn’t trust me yet to drive his truck… The truck breaks down the one time I’m driving and it’s automatically my fault!…” She begins to grumble in her tired frustration kindly accepting a drink Pinkie pulled from somewhere.

Fluttershy always did wonder where she got her things, and for that manner, how did she manage to transport them all around like they were nothing. Suffice to say there were many things that Fluttershy questioned about her dear friend, but knew would never be answered.

”Y’all think it’s mighty bit weird that our siblings seem to be getting overly attached to us? I don’t know about you, but they never seemed to act like this before.” She says looking to everyone else as if to say something felt fishy about the whole situation. “I ask cause the same thing happened ta me earlier today. I was out doing chores like normal and Applebloom just pops up out of nowhere trying to hang out, now normally I wouldn’t see this as anything unusual. But what gets me is that she knows that I take the farm chores very serious and my friends just as much as my family, but she was hellbent harder than a dog after a juicy steak to get me to stay with her… I don’t know something don’t sit right with me, especially after the assembly today, like Pandora’s box been open and it’s contents dumped out.” Applejack explains to her friends taking a seat next to the exhausted Rainbow Dash and the pious lady Rarity.

Fluttershy starts to dwell on this, trying to sort out the facts from the emotional pain she felt when Sunset started this, and from her time as her personal bully at school. Well that was until her process was interrupted by Pinkie Pie in a way only she could manage.

“What, like Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle are all secretly anon-a-miss and started the account out of the perceived need to get rid of Sunset Shimmer so we’d hang out with them more, and simply let it grow out of proportion without any care to what effects it might have on students, faculty, us, them, or Sunset should the truth ever be found out?… That’s just crazy talk Applejack, have you been getting into your family’s special zapple cider again? You remember what happened last time you drank some of that?” Pinkie says stunning everyone to silence before slowly nodding their heads at how ridiculous it all sounded said aloud.

It had to be Sunset Shimmer, no two ways about it… They weren’t terrible friends, they just opened up to the wrong person is all, yeah that has to be what happened. Fluttershy thought to herself almost desperately, because the other option was just too terrible to contemplate, that it was them who were the terrible friends, and Sunset opened up to the wrong people… That thought led to dangerous thinking for Fluttershy, along with any depressing thoughts she normally had, and it would do to have her friends worry about her too much. Although it would help get her more time with Pinkie Pie if she asked her to spend the night with her, she’d probably have to ask her by herself so as to avoid letting the others down.

From there the conversations started to stem away from those depressing thoughts to more comfortable areas, like how the animals were doing at the animal shelter that Fluttershy volunteered at or Pinkie Pie’s new babysitting service she started up after she realized how good she was with children after taking care of the cake twins. By the end of the day they were laughing and giggling to themselves happily as they got ready to leave Applejack stopped them.

“Now y’all girls remember to come on by ya hear, otherwise I’ll come hunt ya down myself.” She says with a playful chuckle before tipping her hat to them after receiving a chorus of acknowledged as she got into the family truck, it was a heavily beat up Ram, one of the old models that should have broken down a long time ago, but was still running on spit shine, hard work, self taught maintenance, and duct tape, lots of duct tape. Fluttershy waited till the others left before turning to Pinkie Pie to stop her from leaving as well.

“Uh, I was wondering, if maybe you could… spend the night with me, I’m a little scared by what’s happened, and I know I’d feel better if maybe… You spent the night.” She says, twirling her hair in hope that Pinkie will say yes, her entire body was filled with anxiety waiting for Pinkie’s answer and felt like her stomach might explode from how hard the bunnies were playing within her. She never understood why Pinkie could make the butterflies into bunnies but she did.

“At least until Applejack’s Christmas celebration party that is…” She adds quickly noticing her error, she didn’t want to make Pinkie Pie feel like she was trapped, even though she secretly wanted to trap her in tight rough ropes…

“No bad thoughts, go away!” She thought guiltily as her face took on her signature soft blush.

Before her internal rambling and self-loathing could continue Pinkie gave her answer.

“Sure thing Fluttershy, we don’t get to hang out by ourselves all that often. It’ll be nice to spend it just between the two of us.” She says in her happy-go-lucky ways, as if the world would simply work out in her favor, like it always seemed to do, especially with her Pinkie sense.

As they left, they never did notice the person watching them from across the street, nor did they notice when the person started following.

Later that night at Fluttershy’s home.

Fluttershy and Pinkie found themselves inside her room, it was 12pm, but neither could sleep with the scary wind and tree’s scraping the side of the house. Each time they took a peak at the window or the nearby tree they could swear they would see a figure, but each time it wouldn’t be there when they took a closer look. Eventually tired of trying to sleep they decided to play some games, eventually getting into a small game of truth or dare. Fluttershy found herself having lots of fun, the dares were lighthearted and no where close to the “extreme” dares that Rainbow seemed to like to use whenever the game got played, and the truths were harmless and pretty funny now that Fluttershy thought about them.

Pinkie Pie similarly was having fun playing with Fluttershy, out of all of their friends Fluttershy was the one she was the least close to. Because she was always afraid she’d be too much for the poor shy girl, but it seems those fears were all for nothing, Fluttershy was having a blast thanks to her and wasn’t retreating in her shell like other times, even when the Rainbooms were there for her she’d still retreat in her shell at times. But right now Pinkie Pie had to ask Fluttershy a very important question, and she needed the truth. So when it was her turn she turned to Fluttershy and asked the question.

“Truth or Dare Fluts?” Pinkie asks using her special name for Fluttershy that only they knew.

“Truth…” Fluttershy answers after some thought, she had noticed that Pinkie seemed to grow serious before asking which gave Fluttershy pause from her stupor of a good mood, worried she had done something.

“Oh my what could I have done? I hope I haven’t done anything to offend her or anything… D-does she know?! Dear holy sweet Lord, please don’t let her know about my collection underneath Angel’s bed…” She silently prays within her mind as she starts to sweat in anxiety.

Pinkie took note of Fluttershy’s reaction, having been her friend for so long and being pretty good at reading people or situations after taking those psychology classes she prided herself on. She seemed like she was hiding somethings from her, which she guessed was alright given what’s happened lately with Anon-A-Miss, but she wanted to get closer to Fluttershy.

“Has Dumbbell been bullying you again?” She asks seriously giving Fluttershy the best version of her infamous Stare that Pinkie could pull off.

Fluttershy gulped at this, not expecting this question really from the pink girl, and almost wish she had asked about the items underneath Angel’s bed. Taking a moment to think of how to best avoid the question, it soon became evident that she could resist Pinkie Pie and her version of the Stare… It was just too cute for her, like a kitten and puppy hugging in the crib.

“Y-yes… He started up again after Sunset leaked our secrets onto Mystable. He does it when I’m alone, and sometimes…” She stops herself as at this point instead of tearing up she’s straight up crying. “S-sometimes he molest me… And threatens to do terrible things if I say anything…” She cries out as Pinkie envelopes her in a hug and gently begins stroking her hair, whispering sweet honey words to sooth her pain while internally she felt a war brewing between her two personalities, on what they should do.

Fluttershy soon fell asleep, however not before catching a glimpse of a shadowy figure leaving the window and off into the snow. Pinkie soon joined her friend feeling spent after that emotional bomb drop tore through her heartstrings.

POV Change - Shadowy figure

“So that’s who’s been harming Fluttershy, I always knew Dumbbell was an idiot, but he’s clearly on a whole new level… Well I guess it’s time I paid him a little visit.” The figure thought as they pulled a nice well kept jacket closer to their body, it's warmth unable to fully stand up to the cold winds. Yet the figure moved as if it felt none of it, their mind set on a mission their body would complete, the weather be damned should it try and stop them.

POV Change - Spot

Spot growled lowly as he sat in his room, cleaning a beretta pistol as he silently contemplated what happened, how in a span of a night and a day his world had been broken. One of his brothers, the most special one to him, had been murdered in cold blood, and worse yet they were still out there. Whether they were part of a rival gang or just some punk, Spot would find out who killed Rover and he was going to make them pay dearly for the pain they caused him.

Author's Note

Hope ya'll enjoyed, would have had this out sooner, but I was a little behind on ideas on where to go.