Fallout Equestria: Killing with Kindness

Syntax's heart was breaking as Fluttershy sat propped up on pillows against the headboard of her bed, struggling to speak past her tears. So much pain and agony had to have been locked inside the gentle mare for all these years, and she wished for all that she was worth that there was a way to go back in time and change history. Prevent the horrors that had left their gruesome scars on her mind and heart.

"Why-" she swallowed. "Why a tree though?"

Fluttershy laughed mirthlessly, sending her into another coughing fit.

"I jokingly made a comment that I'd like to be a tree. And I guess they killing joke just decided how appropriate it was. Trap me in a place high enough to see everything fall apart, and trap me in a way that I couldn't get free and I couldn't die, using my own words against me."

"So they...made you eternal, sort of."

"The land in those days had a very, very ugly sense of humour." Fluttershy said quietly. "I wished they had killed me instead. In a way, I still do. My friends all..."

Syntax barely nodded. "They all died in that attack...well...almost all. Applejack made it to safety. But...well. I can't imagine how it feels to be the only one that, uh, survived."

"No. I wasn't." Fluttershy gazed towards her window. "Oh physically they passed, but they never truly died. Their spirits live on. And in Rarity's case, she...never really died either. Her soul still lives on."

Syntax blinked. Oh. Right. The soul jars.

She shuddered in horrified sympathy at the account in Littlepip's book of the memory orb, the one from Snips. The one which showed the gruesomely painful process of tearing Rarity's soul into pieces. Forty-two pieces. She had read this account with a mix of shock, horror, and, surpsingly, understanding. Rarity had wanted to give a piece of herself to each friend, and in so doing perhaps pull them all back together.

Sadly, it had never come to fruition. However, encased safely in the sould jars, her soul lived on, just as her spirit did in the minds and hearts of those who had been close to her or were close to her descendants.

"We all made it through. Together." Fluttershy said softly, tears in her eyes. "But we shouldn't have had to at all. I should have-"

She coughed, and Syntax flinched, hearing the guilt in her voice, but not daring to interrupt.

"Looking back, I should have known giving the megaspells to both sides was a horrible idea. But I just thought I could make everything better."

"Oh, surely this should work! Surely creatures will have to get along. If I can just get this to both sides, restore healing and health in place of war, maybe this will end and we can go back to normal!"

Fluttershy was pacing the floor of her office, talking aloud to herself, the only audience being a white bunny that sat in a chair, periodically tapping his foot against it's wooden surface in annoyance at the long speech.

"This will heal everything. It has to. This has to stop. We have to do better! Be better!"

Her office door opened to admit a stately looking zebra, who walked to stand stiffly before the Ministry Mare.

"You summoned for me. Why?"

Her oddly accented voice held a hint of loathing, as if it should be far beneath her to actually yield to the call of a common pony. Even one such as a Ministry Mare.

"To give you this."

Fluttershy opened her safe, removing an object that glowed with the magic inside it, and offered it to the zebra.

"What manner of magic is this?!"

"This is a megaspell. Well, a small one. When detonated it heals and restores everycreature and everything it touches. I'm giving it to both sides. In hopes we might end this senseless war for once and for all."

Fluttershy was deadly serious, her teal eyes locked into orbs of blood red. The zebra stared intensely from her to the magic she offered and back again, before finally accepting the gift.

"I will take it to my council."

With that, she walked away, shutting the door behind her as Fluttershy sank into her chair, a sudden mess of frazzled nerves. She had a twinge in her gut, small but nagging, making her a tad uneasy.

"Don't be silly, Fluttershy." She told herself. "It's a good plan. What you've just done might just save the world."

She would come to discover that she had actually done the opposite. She had only signed Equestria's death warrant.

"I never meant for that to happen." Fluttershy murmured. "I only wanted to heal Equestria and stop the war. But instead, I just sentenced all of us to death. When I first heard the news that they had used our own megaspells against us, I was...devastated."

Syntax inhaled, watching her in silence, seeming to share the pain as she listened.

The attack on Canterlot was unexpected and brutal, the explosions resounding viciously through the city as a pink fog started growing and expanding. Fluttershy was downstairs, preparing to go out and eat lunch, when the building shook with the force of the explosion.

Her eyes widened in horror, and that horror only got worse as a gasping guard ran up to her, panic on his features.

"They...there is magic in the...they used megaspell technology!"

Fluttershy felt like she had been hit by an entire cart of bricks. No. No...it couldn't be. No! Why?! How?! How could they do this?! No!

She fled to her office, tears already streaming. How could they? They had just killed everyone! And then it hit her like an even larger cart of bricks: they had just killed everyone using the megaspells she had given to them.

She ran faster, screaming out in frustration, anger, and panic, sobbing as she crashed into her office and frantically scrambled to grab a few things in preparation to leave for Stable One. Then there was Rarity, running in to find her, trying to comfort her, trying to save her life.

She shouldn't have needed saving, but she did, and it had been all her fault.