"Well, I'm sure glad that's over" Twilight was saying with relief as she and the others walked through Ponyville.
"No kiddin'" Applejack said "If Ah had known that would happen, Ah wouldn' have said no tah Rarity".
"Oh, come now, Applejack" Rarity said "None of us could've anticipated that Fluttershy would get out of hoof when running my store".
"Out of hoof?" Rainbow Dash asked with a raised brow "She was bonkers!"
"Yeah, I haven't seen her that bad since she was trained by Iron Will!" Pinkie shuddered.
"Yes, well, she did mean well" Rarity said defensively "And I must say, she did show herself to be quite a talented actress".
"Maybe too talented" Applejack said flatly.
"Well, I'm with Twilight" Rainbow Dash said "I prefer my regular Flutters over those characters any day!"
Applejack grinned at the peagsus "Yah know, Ah couldn' help but notice tha blush on yer face when yah saw Fluttershy in tha outfit Rarity made".
Blushing profusely, Rainbow averted her gaze "Uh, I have no idea what you're..."
"Girls!" a voice shirked, getting everypony's attention while Rainbow Dash secretly sighed with relief.
Turning to the source, the ponies saw Fluttershy racing up to them in a panic.
"Fluttershy?" Twilight asked in confusion as the pegasus stopped in front of the group.
Gasping for breath, Fluttershy spoke "I-I have a bit of a problem!"
"Slow done, Girl!" Applejack ordered "Now, wha's wrong?"
"Well, for one thing that hat on your head went out of a style before you were even born!" Fluttershy cried in a posh accent.
Everypony's eyes widened in shock at Fluttershy's comment.
"Uh, Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash asked in confusion "You're not running a store anymore. And besides, I thought you were done with the one pony show?"
"I'm done with life in general" Fluttershy said in a monotonous flat tone.
"Is she making fun of me?" came a flat voice from off to the side.
"No! Of course not, Maud!" Pinkie Pie said as she hurried her sister and her boyfriend past "You two go on about your day and I'll see you later! Hey, I'll probably throw a 'Congratulations on your one month anniversary' party later!" Chuckling sheepishly until the pair was gone, Pinkie Pie turned back to Fluttershy with narrowed eyes. "Alright, Fluttershy. What's going on?"
"Well, if you, like, want to get up in my face like that, I just might not say anything" Fluttershy replied like a hipster. Upon the words leaving her mouth, Fluttershy placed her hooves over her mouth desperately "You see?" she finally said in her normal voice "I can't stop myself!"
"Uh, Twi?" Applejack asked "What do yah suppose is goin' on?"
"I don't know" Twilight shook her head "But we'll have to look into this. Come on! To the castle!"
At the Castle of Friendship, in the basement laboratory, Twilight was running tests on Fluttershy with Spike and Starlight helping.
"Anything so far, Deary?" Rarity asked the alicorn.
"Give me another minute" Twilight replied as she worked one of the devices Fluttershy was attached too "Hopefully, we'll get answers soon".
"No one can find all the answers they seek in life" Fluttershy said in her Goth attitude.
"Can you please, hurry, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash begged "She's driving me crazy!"
"Hang on!" Twilight cried before turning to her assistants "Spike, Starlight, anything?"
"We should be getting a read out any second now" Spike replied.
"So," Starlight said slowly "After I and pretty much everypony else she knew said they couldn't help her, Rarity turned to Fluttershy to run her shop in Manehatten, to which Fluttershy created different personas to give her the confidence to interact with customers, but then they got carried away and treated everpony harshly, and even after Rarity 'fired' them, Fluttershy can't stop herself?" Starlight elaborated.
"Yeah, that's pretty much it" Pinkie Pie replied with a shrug.
"Wow," the unicorn shook her head "I miss out on some crazy adventures".
"Well, if you ask me" Fluttershy said as her hipster character "It's, like, a relief that you didn't come. It felt, like, uneasy with the rest of these small town ponies as it was".
"Okay" Starlight said uneasily "I'm just going to ignore that until we figure out what's going on".
At that moment, the machine beeped as a readout was printed out.
"Here it is!" Twilight said as she picked up the readout with her magic and scanned over it "Uh oh" she said after looking over it for a moment.
"What? What is it?" Rarity asked nervously.
"If these readings are accurate, then Fluttershy's outbursts as her Manehatten personas are not just her being more impulsive than Pinkie".
"Nopony is more impulsive than me!" Pinkie cried defensively.
"Twi, wha are yah talking about?" Applejack asked in confusion.
Twilight sighed. "Well, it appears that when Fluttershy got into her roles to run Rarity's store, she put her all into it".
"Well, that is a sigh of a good actress, Deary" Rarity replied.
"No" Twilight shook her head "I mean, really put her all into it. I think that when Fluttershy invented her characters, she put so much focus on them that they took on lives of their own!"
It took a moment for the girls to process this, but afterwards, Rainbow Dash tentatively said "You mean that...?"
"I mean that Fluttershy has ended up creating multiple personalities!" Twilight replied.
The ponies all gasped while Applejack walked up to Twilight. "So, you're saying that Fluttershy has three other personalities in her head that could go off at any time?"
"That's about the gist of it" Twilight nodded.
"Oh, no!" Fluttershy gasped "What have I done?! Why do I keep causing problems for everypony!"
"Now, don't panic, Flutters" Rainbow said calmly "I'm sure Twilight can fix this" she turned to the alicorn "Right?"
"Uh, I think so" Twilight said hesitantly "It might take time though. So, in the meantime, we'll have to live with it".
"Well, if I have to live among these small town ponies" Flutteshy's posh character said "Then I will need to get this town up to standards".
"Oy" Rainbow Dash sighed as the others groaned "These is going to take some getting use to".
"Oh, please" Pinkie Pie shook her head "Having another voice in your head isn't that bad. You just need to know how to keep it in check".
"If Fluttershy can't be cured, can I turn her into next month's batch of cupcakes?"
"Can it, Pinkamena!"
Author's Note
Today's episode inspired this little idea. Considering many people think Pinkie Pie is a multiple head case, I thought it would be funny to see Fluttershy, who has actually shown multiple roles, as one.
Also, I'm thinking about mentioning the events of the episode in my "Marriage of Discord and Celestia" series (yes, that thing is still going). Fluttershy's jerkiness here matching that of the infamous episode "Putting Your Hoof Down" can work into what I'm planning.