A gentle evening breeze rustled the leaves and stirred the soft blades of grass in the clearing on the edge of the forest. Grass and twigs crunched and crackled under feet clad in old, battered, faded sneakers which encased the smelly, sweaty, sock-sheathed peach-colored feet of a teenage boy with short, spiky cobalt blue hair and sky blue eyes. He wore faded denim jeans which had been indigo at some point but were now mostly a pale bluish-white, with frayed cuffs and holes in the knees. His skinny, underwhelming torso was protected from the evening chill by a warm, dark grey fleece hoodie which he wore over an old white T-shirt that repeated washing had long since turned from a V-neck into a U-neck; a neologism which, he reflected wryly, suited him perfectly given the history of his short, pathetic love life.
Flash Sentry, for that was the name of this night-wandering, shabbily-dressed teenager, bent to pick up a pine cone from the forest floor, turning it over curiously in hands which were callused from years of playing guitar, which was the only remotely interesting thing about him besides his sleek black muscle car. He studied the grey-brown facets of the rough, marvelous little piece of nature, then looked around curiously at all the trees he could see in the waning twilight.
Odd, this pine cone, for there were no pine trees to be found. Everything here was leafy and fruity and nutty and would, come winter, be dead, dry, and grey, the lush green leaves rustling and whispering around him a red and brown carpet on the cold, frosty ground.
Spurred on by curiosity and the lack of anything better to do in light of the pointed absence of any soft, beautiful maidens in want of a Friday night date, Flash Sentry picked his way through the forest trail, in search of whatever errant pine tree may have dropped this ponderous burden.
The evening grew darker, the dim light of stars filtering down through green-black canopies of leaves that rustled now not only with the wind, but with life—insects, small animals, and birds that only came out at night. Things slithered and scampered and chittered and hooted in the dark forest. Flash fumbled around in his pocket and produced a small, thin, cheap LED flashlight, which soon shone a white beam over the forest floor. Onward he pressed, undaunted by the chittering and buzzing and hooting of things high in the trees and low to the ground. Nothing here would harm him, and he wasn't afraid of bugs.
As Flash searched the forest, he reflected on what had brought him to this place at dusk on a Friday night, when most teens his age were out on dates, partying, babysitting, fornicating, or just relaxing at home with the television.
He had been packing up his guitar to leave after school when his ex-girlfriend, Sunset Shimmer, and her girl posse of best friends had come looking for him. Sunset, ever wise to the ways of worming favors out of Flash, had asked him if he wouldn't mind driving three younger girls—the "CMCs", they were known as for reasons Flash couldn't begin to fathom—out to the campgrounds in the Whitetail Woods on the edge of town. All of their older sisters and sisters' friends were either busy or lacked cars, but since Flash had a nice, fast car, surely he wouldn't mind, right?
And he really didn't, since he had no Friday night plans. So he'd agreed, and here he was now, out in the forest, with no particular place to go. Somewhere, back by the larger, safer, well-lit trails, the three girls were roasting marshmallows by the fire and swapping stories, and here Flash was, wandering through the dark forest with a flashlight and a pine cone, alone.
Always alone.
Something dropped out of one of the trees and landed in his path, startling him. He took a step back, dropping his pine cone. His flashlight beam swept across a large, dull, glassy black eye in a rheumy, glistening yellow field, surrounded by a leathery brown husk. It was slightly larger than a football, the thing that had startled him, and as he examined its segmented chitin, taking in its harsh, angular, somewhat phallic shape, it vibrated, issuing a rattling sound like a dozen cicadas.
He knelt down for a closer look. It was clearly alive, larger than any insect he'd ever seen, yet it had no legs, wings, or really any visible means of locomotion. It was just a mass of stiff, leathery chitin with eyes.
Without warning, the creature began spewing dozens upon dozens of strands of sticky, glistening silk, a fine mist of webbing and threads that layered themselves in Flash's hair and over his face and shoulders. He stepped back, flailing at his face, dropping his flashlight as he scrambled to pull the sticky silken strands away from his skin and hair. They held fast, and more kept coming. He backed away from the strange creature, but tripped over his own feet and landed on his butt on the hard forest floor.
More and more silk sprayed out of the creature—more silk than it could possibly be hiding inside its small body. Flash struggled as the layers of sticky threads covered more and more of him, trapping his arms at his sides, locking his ankles together, filling his mouth up with silk. He could no longer see, and the sounds of the forest were muted, muffled.
His heart hammered in his chest as a final layer of silk wrapped around him, hardening into a steely shell. Then even that, too, slowed; breathing was no longer possible, and his muscles would no longer move.
This, then, would be the end of Flash Sentry, he realized. Alone, in the dark forest, trapped and killed and eaten by some rare species of insect. Idly, he wondered if this was more of the magic Sunset Shimmer had brought with her into his world. Did her world have such seemingly harmless creatures that could trap a man unawares and render him helpless in mere moments?
He waited, for how long he knew not, for the end to come. For mandibles to crush his flesh and bones, or a proboscis to pierce the shell, stab into him, and suck the vital life juices from his veins. Or, perhaps, to simply be swallowed whole and digested, slowly and painfully, in the acids of some vast and horrible stomach.
He waited, and yet none of this happened. Instead, he felt a tingling warmth slowly pervade his body, a curious and magical sensation that filled him up with new energy and fresh vitality. His heart beat once, then again, steady and loud, filling veins with rushing, surging blood, rich with oxygen.
The silken shell wobbled, rippled, and crackled, before splitting open, its threads dessicated and weakened. Flash Sentry emerged, sticky and naked, from the great silk cocoon and turned his gaze to a suddenly too-bright sky, which shone with the light of a dozen waxing moons. He rose to his feet, but felt they didn't quite seem right. He tried to reach up to feel his face, but his arms were too short and stubby. His hands brushed against something fuzzy, and he knew that somehow, that fuzz covered his body.
A gentle weight tugged insistently at Flash's back. He twitched muscles he knew he shouldn't have, and immense, gossamer wings unfurled behind him, and he knew they were wings because he felt the night breeze upon them, encouraging him to catch the air currents and ride them up. And he did; with a flutter of his wings, Flash Sentry rose up, up into the night, gliding through the canopy of leaves and over the treetops. The world around him swam in a sea of multiple images, and slowly it all came into focus, the many becoming one even as it remained the many.
Flash Sentry flew over the forest, the waxing moon and the curtain of stars illuminating a beautiful, brilliant, peaceful world below. He spied a large pond and flew low over it. Its still waters, crystal clear and pure, showed him the wonderous thing he had become:
What had once been a gangly, awkward, average teenage boy was now a large, fuzzy, cobalt blue butterfly with a chubby body and a round head and huge red compound eyes. He had only four limbs: a pair of thick, stubby light blue legs at the base of his body, and two stunted, three-fingered hands of the same color which didn't seem capable of moving away from his fuzzy belly. Two antennae topped his round head, and massive, veiny wings with black edges fanned out behind him, fluttering gently as he flew over the pond.
A soft, gentle chittering filled the night, drawing his attention even as he scented pheromones that made his wings flutter just a bit faster. More butterflies—not normal butterflies, but strange, wonderful creatures like himself—closed in all around him, their fuzzy bodies vibrant in all different colors—lavender and amber and pink and alabaster—with jewel-bright eyes that shone in the starlight. They called to him, beckoned him, and he joined them, playing and frolicking and fluttering and diving and looping through the air, across the pond, across the forest, across grassy fields and beyond, leaving Canterlot City and its dirty roads and square buildings and the things of man behind and just flying, free and without a care in the world.
All through the night, Flash and his new companions flew, chittering to each other, communicating lifetimes of thoughts and feelings and aspirations through pheromones and glittering displays of shed wing scales that twinkled in the moonlight. As the first pinks and violets of sunrise lightened the horizon, heralding the coming of a new dawn, Flash Sentry felt completely at ease. Somewhere down there, in the city far behind him, his parents would be freaking out, his friends would be wondering what had become of him, and three girls would be stranded in the woods without a ride home, but somehow, none of that seemed to matter anymore.
All that mattered was the wind, the sky, and the beautiful butterflies he'd chosen to migrate with. Wherever they went, he knew he would go, and they would be a family, and fill the world with beautiful, happy butterflies that would spread love and joy for all the world to see.
An immense, shining bird with glowing blue feathers, broad, backswept wings, a white, downy belly, and huge, wickedly clawed feet shot up behind Flash Sentry, letting out a primal screech. As the swarm scattered, the great bird's steely, sharp beak opened wide and snapped down upon Flash's fuzzy body, spearing him. He struggled and fluttered and chittered, but it was too late. He'd never stood a chance. The bird's beak snapped down on him again, and Flash Sentry was no more.
The grand blue bird flew ever onward to the east, her prismatic crest of bright, beautiful plumage glowing iridescent in the wan light of the dawning sun.
Author's Note
Yeah yeah, there's a couple tags missing, obviously. But the tags would kind of spoil the story, don't you think? 
