I Dreamt I was a Monster

It worked. The magical spell had worked. It may have cost Twilight an eye, but it worked.

Discord stared down at his love. His heart had leapt into his throat, keeping him silent as Fluttershy stirred awake. He wanted to rush to her side and embrace her. He restrained himself while clenching his teeth. He didn’t want to cause Fluttershy to somehow slip away again by jinxing the moment.

Then Twilight looked at Fluttershy.

Discord’s mix of joy and relief at seeing Fluttershy awake was shattered by her terrified scream. His heart dropped into his stomach as her scream turned into a snarl of rage.

“LIES!” Fluttershy yelled loud enough the word was nearly lost in a raw, bestial roar of fury. Discord stood locked in place as she leapt from her bed, ripping out various tubes running to her. As her hooves crashed onto the hospital floor, a stream of blood was trickling down her foreleg from the ripped out IV.

“What? Fluttershy, calm down, please!” Twilight pleaded, the lost eye apparently not causing her too much pain to speak. Discord wanted to say the same, but his tongue was as numb as his body. It wasn’t going to plan. This was supposed to have a happy ending. Twilight was involved.

“Witchcraft! Sorcery! I am not your puppet, Stardust!” Fluttershy yelled, stomping and flaring her nostrils. She staggered like a drunkard for a few moments before propelling herself with her wings towards Twilight. The burst forward turned into an acrobatic twirl as she neared the Princess to fly upside down underneath her.

Fluttershy’s kick upwards launched Twilight so suddenly and forcefully her head crashed into the ceiling. She fell back down with a heavy thump before Fluttershy had righted herself to land. She was taking fast, deep breaths that rumbled with a low growl.

Discord choked down a gasp when he looked into Fluttershy’s eyes. The normal kind and beautiful grace was replaced with a feral bloodshot rage. Her mouth pulled back into a sneer that showed teeth.

“F-fluttershy?” Celestia asked slowly. She reached a hoof out towards Fluttershy, like she was trying to calm a growling dog. Fluttershy had her eyes locked on Celestia and Luna.

Behind her by the bed, Doctor Mended Wing quickly worked to prepare a syringe full of something. Maybe a sedative. Discord was too busy asking why this was happening to focus on the doctor. He kept his eyes on Fluttershy.

She stood in place, still taking quick deep breaths. Discord could almost hear her teeth grinding as she clenched them.

“N-no… this has to be fake. The cyclops sorcerer is here casting her damned magic,” Fluttershy said. Spittle flew from her mouth like the froth of a rabid animal. “I’ll never escape the killing. I’ll drag you all to Tartarus with me!”

Fluttershy half laughed, half wept as she paced with her head held low and shoulders tensed to pounce. Discord had never seen Fluttershy like this before. What was she even talking about? Her stance reminded him of a wild cat or a wolf about to strike.

Discord caught a flash of movement out the corner of his eye. Doctor Wing had the syringe ready in her hooves as she flew towards Fluttershy.

Fluttershy twitched in her direction. Using her wings, she launched up and turned herself as if on a ten-cent bit to grab the doctor into a bear hug. She pressed the doctor’s wings to her back using her legs. Legs Discord had seen haul around fifty pound bags of animal feed multiple times a day. Fluttershy was strong despite how she looked.

He tracked Fluttershy’s flight to the ceiling where she spun around towards the floor and suddenly dove hard. The pair fell almost in slow motion as Fluttershy beat her wings to put all the force she could muster into slamming the doctor’s head into the tile floor. The doctor’s neck snapped with the sound of a tree falling.

Flutterhsy rolled away from the corpse and stood. The syringe was gripped in her snarling jaw. The room fell silent as Discord stared at the corpse. There was no doubt it was a corpse. Mended Wing’s head wasn't supposed to be at a ninety degree angle to her shoulders.

Discord snapped to Fluttershy as she used the stunned silence to fly into Celestia’s face. She slammed all four hooves against the alicorn’s head as she took the full brunt of Celestia’s magical bolt of golden energy. It only seemed to enrage Fluttershy further as she slammed the needle into the side of Celestia’s neck.

“Celestia!” Starswirl and Luna both yelled. The former sent a bolt of magic slamming into the back of Fluttershy’s head. It only made her jerk as pink strands of singed hair fell away. She glared at Starswirl and dropped the unconscious form of Celestia who still had the syringe pricking her neck.

“Oh shit!” Starswirl exclaimed before he teleported away. Fluttershy crashed down onto where he had been a millisecond after he was gone.

“Discord, do something!” Luna yelled. Discord was rooted to the spot. Fluttershy had just KILLED someone. This couldn’t be real. Fluttershy would cry over accidentally hurting a fly. He stared at the corpse of Mended Wing. Any second now she would get back up and everything would be okay.

When his mind finally let him snap back to the fight, Luna and Fluttershy were tangled together like alley cats. They punched, slammed, and even bit at one another until Fluttershy rolled under Luna and grabbed her right foreleg with her own.

Luna screamed in pain as Fluttershy pulled down with her forelegs and pushed up with her shoulder, leveraging the limb until a bloody white spear poked through black fur.

Luna sat and stared slack-jawed at the bone jutting from her hide, the leg flopping limply. She didn’t even flinch as Fluttershy jumped, spun, and kicked her in the side of the head, sending Luna sprawling to the floor in a heap.

She stood between the three unconscious Alicorns. Her gasps for air filled the silence hanging over them. Her snarl of rage softened to a look of shock as she glanced to the body of Mended Wing. Her eyes wandered to Twilight, then her breath hitched at seeing Luna’s mangled leg, until her horror-stricken gaze fell to Discord.

“What have I done?” she asked, her voice breaking.

The door to the room slammed open as Rainbow Dash shoulder charged through.

“I heard screaming! What’s going… oh my gosh!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, taking several steps back. The other girls had run in behind her. They all stared at the Princesses, and then Fluttershy. Blood still leaked from the IV wound,multiple magical burn marks across her fur, and a few good strikes from Luna’s hooves.

“I’m sorry… the nails,” Fluttershy said, her body shaking. She let out a snarl of rage and launched towards the window. With a resounding crash of breaking glass she disappeared out of sight.

Discord finally moved. He ran to the window to see Fluttershy nearly crash into a building before haphazardly correcting her sloppy flight away into the early afternoon of Canterlot.

Rainbow Dash watched as Fluttershy launched herself out the still closed window. Her shoulder slammed into the glass and shattered it. Rainbow had crashed enough times to know that you didn’t go through glass without getting cut.

What was going on here? There had been screaming, and she swore she had heard magic being cast. Then Fluttershy was awake and throwing herself through a window.

Taking flight, she surveyed the room quickly in a panic. She wanted to rush to Fluttershy, but Discord stood in a daze in front of the window.

Celestia was on the floor, unmoving and with a syringe jutting from the side of her neck.

Twilight groaned and stood up, looking at her with an eye completely missing.

Luna was whimpering on the ground. She clutched at her leg where bone poked through skin.

Then she saw the body of the nurse or doctor. Rainbow pushed the thought out of her mind as she flew to Discord’s side and hovered there, looking at Fluttershy flying down the street through the broken window.

“What happened!?” Rainbow frantically demanded, her heart thundering in her ears. “Tell me everything fast so I can go after her.”

Discord’s eyes were vacant. They were the deep wells of a shell shocked soul that stared into the middle distance.

“I don’t know…” He said in a pitiful, trembling whisper.

“Alright, then you help the Princesses. I’ll go after her to get answers,” Rainbow said before flying through the glassless window frame into the city beyond. Fluttershy had just rounded the corner of a building. It wasn’t an issue for a member of the Wonderbolts to catch up. Fluttershy had never been the strongest or fastest flier. With how wounded she was, it wasn’t even a race for Rainbow.

Rounding the corner into the alley Fluttershy had turned into, Rainbow flew next to her friend and balked at the sight. Blood was dripping from multiple cuts in her shoulder and a few on her face. It nearly painted Fluttershy red in places. One eye was starting to swell closed with a bruise, glass shards visibly jutted from her fur in places, and then there were the charred and bleeding wounds.

What could have burned Fluttershy? Just what had happened back there? Had the princesses used combat magic against her? How had Fluttershy, of all ponies, taken down three Alicorns?

Rainbow Dash was about to ask those questions racing through her mind as hooves crashed into her side and flank. It sent her into a reeling spin. It would have been a challenge to escape the distorting tailspin but Rainbow drew on all the training she had as a Wonderbolt and righted herself.

Fluttershy had gained a lead and turned around to face her. She hovered in place. Drops of blood fell from her, glistening in the afternoon sunlight before hitting the floor of the alley below. They were like the first drops of rain that signaled a coming torrent.

“Don’t follow me, I’m dangerous,” Fluttershy said in a panic. Her eyes were wide and wouldn’t stay focused on one thing. She kept darting her gaze around like a pony expecting dangers to leap out of every shadow.

Even as Fluttershy landed she kept her eyes peeled.

“What’s going on Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked, landing a good fifteen or twenty hooves away from her. She stared at her friend who wouldn’t stare back.

A million questions raced through Rainbow’s mind. Was Fluttershy the one who killed that mare? That was impossible, but why was Fluttershy acting so paranoid? Why did she run away? Rainbow wanted to help Fluttershy but she didn’t know where to start.

“I—” Fluttershy started, “Where am I? Is this Equestria?”

Rainbow stepped back like the question had the weight of a punch to it. It had taken Rainbow by surprise, but she answered her friend.

“Yes, it’s Equestria. You’re in Canterlot,” Rainbow said in a low, placating voice. She had seen Fluttershy calm down aggressive animals with soft words. Maybe it would help? Rainbow Dash hoped so.

Fluttershy looked to the sky then to the buildings around her, before finally looking Rainbow in the eyes. There was no malice of a killer in those teal eyes. She looked lost and confused as tears welled up in them.

Rainbow was about to say something but Fluttershy choked out a sob.

“I’ve gone insane. I can’t tell what’s real or what’s not. I’ve seen too much to trust that this is the real life of a mare I barely remember. It certainly hurts enough. Are you Rainbow Dash or Thundermane?”

“It’s me, Rainbow Dash,” Rainbow replied. Who was Thundermane? Rainbow took a slow, cautious step forward. “What’s going on, Shy? I don’t think you’re insane.”

Fluttershy laughed, stumbling to lean against a wall. She was pale with blood loss but it didn’t stop her from grinning maniacally.

“I do. I got everything and nothing I asked for… a reality ruled by Chaos,” Fluttershy said, choking out a laugh. “The orb sucked me into the life of a mare who was made for the insanity, and I went insane with her. So... much... blood. I couldn’t stop killing… the moment I stopped the nails would dig deeper.”

Fluttershy let out a weeping sob.

Rainbow Dash knew she should have guessed Fluttershy would have wanted to see something like that. She loved Discord to the point she married him and spent time in his chaotic pocket reality. But a whole world that ran on chaos like that?

No wonder Fluttershy acted strange. Rainbow Dash rubbed her blurry tear-filled eyes and swore to find that colt who made that defective magic ball. She would make him pay. Or at least fix what he broke.

Taking a breath to calm her own nerves, Rainbow approached Fluttershy.

“Come back with me,” Rainbow said, placing a hoof on Fluttershy, careful not to touch any of the glass still embedded in her. “The doctors will fix you up.”

“I’m a murderer,” Fluttershy babbled as she slid towards the ground, too weary with blood loss to stay standing. Rainbow Dash caught her, keeping her upright.

Fluttershy slumped her head over Rainbow’s shoulder and cried.

“Come on, Shy, I’ll get you back to the hospital.”

“Is she sedated?” Luna asked, staring at Fluttershy on the bed. Luna had her injured leg tucked protectively under her. Even with the cast it hurt to walk on. As if it reminded her, she asked sternly for emphasis. “Fully sedated?”

“Yes,” Dr. Wide Scope said with a nod, pushing up his glasses. “And as you can see, she’s strapped to the bed.”

Indeed she was. A thick leather cuff for each ankle secured to the bed by just as thick straps. Long wide straps ran across Fluttershy’s stomach and chest to keep her from sitting up. Luna thought the muzzle was excessive, but Luna wasn’t making any concessions for friendship.

Bound to the bed was a murderer.

“Isn’t this too soon?” Twilight asked hesitantly. She sported an eyepatch. “Fluttershy’s just out of the ER… again.”

“Getting out of the ER didn’t stop her from taking all three of us down,” Luna said in a hasty rebuttal, glaring at Twilight with a hard expression bordering on fury. “She snapped my leg like a twig and killed a doctor, Twilight. I’m going in to find out why one of the mares who saved me from my own insanity turned on all of us. She was speaking nonsense about nails and calling us different names.” Luna’s expression softened. “I fear what Rainbow told us may be true. She could be insane. If so, then the law will be lenient at her trial.”

Luna watched Twilight bow her head and clench her eyes shut. There was no need to say it, so it hadn’t been discussed yet, but Fluttershy wasn’t exempt from murdering a mare. A part of Luna hoped Fluttershy was indeed insane. It would make all the difference if an insane mare was defending herself while deluded rather than a sane pony maliciously lashing out.

“Can you fix her?” Twilight asked, a little hope creeping into her words. “While you’re in there, you can fix it, right? Like we did with the Tantabus?”

“I’m not sure,” Luna said honestly. She looked down in shame, remembering the engine of despair she created to torture herself in her own dreams. One she recklessly had let escape to haunt the dreams of others. “I will try. Failing that, I will have a first-hoof account of her mental state.”

Staring down at Fluttershy, Luna’s horn flashed as she dove into her mind.

Luna opened her eyes on the other side. She drifted like a spectre above a large stadium open to the blazing hot sky above. Awnings protected the immense crowd of hundreds of ponies as they stared into a sandy pit dominated by a stepped pyramid. The top of the pyramid was high enough to barely extend out of the lip of the pit.

Drawn by the clamor of the stadium crowd, Luna allowed her shimmering formless body to drift closer. She didn’t need to fear being seen. The dreamer or the entities of the dreams wouldn’t see her if she didn’t want them to.

Luna neared the top of the pyramid and looked down at the rim of the stadium’s pit. Every few dozen hooves, there was a portcullis-like metal gate allowing entry and exit from almost every angle of the slightly ovular pit.

The crowd of ponies watching the pit was vast. Far larger than Luna originally thought. Rather than hundreds, it was possibly the low thousands. Many sat on cushioned benches or lay on oversized pillows. She caught sight of one very overweight pony snacking on stadium food. They practically shoveled it into their mouth, chewing with an open gluttonous mouth.

Turning away from the sight, Luna looked up to spot dozens of shiny round orbs hovering around the stadium. They moved to congregate at the top of the pyramid where she hovered. The profile of the orbs was only broken by a protruding lens array like that of a camera. Luna could even see and faintly hear shutters clicking on the lenses as the orbs hovered around her, then dispersed to get multiple angles on one gate in particular.

Flying cameras were hardly the weirdest thing to dream of.

The gate the cameras stared at rumbled open with a loud screech of metal sliding against metal. Dozens of fillies, colts, and a few young mares and stallions entered the stadium, eliciting a cheer from the crowd that sounded like a stampede with the number of stomping hooves. None of the ponies entering looked older than eighteen or younger than nine by Luna’s guess.

As she narrowed her eyes to focus on the contestants, she noticed that the unicorns had silver rings on their horns while the pegasi had their wings bound by thick coils of rope.

As the final contestant entered the pit, the portcullis closed, keeping the contestants for whatever game would happen in this stadium from leaving. Was it a race to the top of the pyramid? The top tier of the stepped pyramid looked only large enough for a single pony.

Luna looked over the children again and her heart nearly seized with a mix of sadness and rage. The children had been abused. Large welts decorated their hides like someone had whipped them. They were also covered in a collage of bruises while ribs were visible from starvation. She cursed herself for seeing the shiny horn rings first and not the state the children were in.

But Luna reminded herself that this was a dream, and she was here to see if Fluttershy was insane or not. Messing with the dream with her powers would just skew things. She didn’t even see Fluttershy here in either the crowd of very healthy and often overweight stadium viewers or the abused children.

An announcer spoke in a language Luna had never heard before. The crowd cheered again for several long moments while the children visibly shook from the force of the noise. This was already insane. Thousands of adult ponies were spectating a pit of abused children and cheering.

The crowd’s cheering fell silent as dark, nearly green water leaked into the pit from all the portcullises that rimmed the pit. The water crept closer and closer to the children but they didn’t flee from it.

That was until the water touched the hooves of one filly and she screamed like she had been set on fire and raced away on smoking hooves.

“Climb, children!” Luna screamed in horror as she realized that the pit was being filled with some sort of acid.

As if the children had heard her yelling from the top of the pyramid, the children swarmed it in a panic. Many of them helped one another scramble to reach the first tier of the pyramid. As soon as everypony was safe they stood there and watched the acid finish filling up the bottom of the pit.

There was nearly no sound for several heartbeats as the acid finished covering the bottom of the pit. Then it rose, slowly at first but then whatever mechanism was holding back the acid was opened and the flow became a torrent.

The children screamed and rushed to reach the second tier, and with even more profound horror Luna realized the dark truth. If the acid kept rising there would be too many children and not enough space. The children seemed to realize this too as they began biting, shoving, and ramming one another in a blind race to the top tier.

The screams of those who didn’t make it ripped at Luna’s heart and crushed it as she sat there at the apex of the pyramid. Frozen in horror she watched open-mouthed as children murdered one another to save themselves.

Despite the speed of the acid’s flow, the dark contest went on and on. Luna turned her head away after one young colt slipped into the acid. He went under and fought his way back to the surface. But his fate had already been sealed, even as he resurfaced; blind with his face melting away until he was practically a screaming skull.

Luna’s brain shut off after that, trying to block out the agonized screams of the failures as they mixed with the cheers of the crowd. It was a roaring cacophony that bludgeoned her soul.

Tier after tier the acid rose up. The screams and cheering continued until one contestant remained. Luna watched as she kicked away a mare much older than her right into the acid.

A terrified, soft yellow teal-eyed pegasus with a unicorn horn, and no cutie mark on her flank.