Fluttershy trotted through the streets of her hometown, Ponyville. She wanted to go home to tend to her animals and get some sleep. But something was off.

Very off...

The skies around her were almost pitch black, and the town was abandoned. There was no light in any of the houses and nopony on the streets on the way home. Not even her friends were nearby.

Just where was everyone?

Fluttershy sped up into a gallop and somehow ended up in the Everfree Forest. She tried to leave again, but she couldn't find the exit.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no... Where am I? Where's the exit?", Fluttershy thought, panic rapidly building up in her mind. Suddenly, she arrived at a spot in the forest that she didn't like to look at.

A tombstone sat in the middle of the forest. Angel's name was engraved in it.

Fluttershy knelt down to the grave. "Oh, Angel...", she said, "I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to--"

But before Fluttershy finished her sentence, the grave was glowing. Fluttershy backed away in fear and saw something that shocked her.

Angel's ghost came out of the ground. He had a chest wound in the exact place where Fluttershy struck the knife into. He opened his eyes and looked at Fluttershy with an angry glare.

"Why did you do that, Fluttershy?", asked Angel.

Fluttershy was trembling heavily. "Angel... Please...", she said in fear, "You have to understand... I... I wasn't thinking..."

"YOU WEREN'T THINKING, HUH?", Angel said, his voice angry and sounding demonic, "YOU COULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT BEFORE YOU KILLED ME FOR NO REASON!"

Instead of giving in, Fluttershy screamed back. "No, Angel!", she said, "You caused the closure of my beloved Sweet Feather Sanctuary, you got me into a deep depression because of that, and you ruined my beautiful picture! You even made me lash out my friends because I was so depressed because of what you have done!"

Angel screamed, turning more demonic by the minute.

"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR STUPID FRIENDS! IF THEY'RE SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU THAN ME, THEN IT'S TIME I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

With these words, Angel's ghost went into Fluttershy's body, and despite her best efforts to defend herself, Angel took control of it in one fell swoop.

"Now, let's end this...", Angel said and made his way to her friends.

When the day dawned, Angel arrived at Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie Pie's home. Fluttershy tried to fight the devil inside her. "Please, Angel... Don't do this...", she said, "They'll have my head for sure if you do that!"

"Haha, don't worry! They'll know it wasn't me!", Angel said, "It'll be you, the pegasus that turned the sanctuary into chaos!"

Then, Angel burst the door open, strided straight to Pinkie Pie behind the counter and beat her to death. Angel chuckled at the sight.

"Pathetic party pony.", he said.

One by one, Angel mercilessly murdered all of Fluttershy's friends. Rarity, Twilight, Applejack, even Starlight Glimmer and Discord weren't safe from his wrath.

Last up was Rainbow Dash, who tried to talk with Fluttershy to maybe get her to stop.

"Fluttershy! You gotta stop!", Rainbow Dash said, "I know how hard it is for you, but I know that deep down inside, that's not you!"

"It doesn't matter. I killed every last one of my friends.", Angel said, "And now it's your turn." With these words, using telekinetic powers, Angel held Rainbow Dash in place and stabbed her in the chest with a knife, the same one that Fluttershy used to kill Angel.

When Rainbow Dash fell to the ground, motionless, Angel laughed devilishly.

"How does it feel to be a killer, Fluttershy?", he asked.

Then, Angel's ghost left Fluttershy's body and vanished in the darkness.

Fluttershy, who was now herself again, looked at Rainbow's dead body and at the knife in her hoof.

"N-no... That's not me... That's not me...", she said, panicking heavily.

And then, she screamed into the air again.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Fluttershy startled awake, heaving for breath, trying to get her bearings straight. She was still in Tartarus, in her little cell, her mane a mess with dark bags under her eyes.

Nightmares. Again. For the tenth time in two weeks. And it was always the same one. Angel's ghost speaking to her, eventually turning into a demon, taking control of her body and slaying her friends like some sick butcher.

Fluttershy put her face in her mane and cried. She never wanted any of all that to happen. She just wanted to take revenge for everything that Angel took from her ever since the body swap. Her sanctuary, her picture, and now her life in freedom. It was all gone.

"I just want my life back...", she said, her voice muffled from her mane, "My sanctuary... And my friends... Just why did I do all that? All because Angel turned my sanctuary into chaos..."

Looking into a mirror in her cell, Fluttershy no longer saw that cute and shy pegasus. Instead, she saw a crying weakling, all alone in Tartarus.

A few nights back, she even heard rumbling and explosions, and she wondered if it was the doing of the Evil Trio that escaped without the guards noticing...

Fluttershy shook of her thought, sat down on her haunches and started thinking. What could she have done to avoid all this? Maybe she could have gone with her friends to convince Dr. Fauna to reopen the Sweet Feather Sanctuary, telling her that it wasn't her who turned the place into chaos. But it would have been of no use, since she witnessed her own body do the handiwork.

Other than that, her friends could have built another sanctuary for her, basically a way to start over, but it wasn't the same as the sanctuary she worked so hard for and looked after it alone, without help from anyone. And even so, if Dr. Fauna found out about her new sanctuary, she would close it down again, fearing the same thing would happen.

And as for Angel... Well, she could have just put him in a timeout, but since her strings of sanity completely snapped after losing her Sweet Feather Sanctuary, she just wasn't thinking, she just wanted to make him suffer for what he did to her.

There really was nothing she could have done. It's almost as if fate wanted this to happen. Fluttershy buried her face in her mane again and continued to cry. Nothing she thought about was comforting her, and the fact that she was in Tartarus without her friends by her side didn't make matters better. She blamed herself for not thinking what she was doing. All of this could have been avoided had she not gone to Zecora. She and Angel wouldn't have gotten these potions, then the swap wouldn't have happened, the sanctuary wouldn't have been closed, and Angel would be still alive...

Suddenly, her thoughts were cut off when she heard a sound.

A guard opened her cell door and pointed away from it. "Go on. Get out of here.", he said with a plain voice, "This place is finished..."

Fluttershy didn't understand what was going on. Her sentence was nowhere close to over. Why was she just released out of the blue?

"W-Why? What is going on?", Fluttershy asked the guard.

"I don't know how we missed it, but the Evil Trio escaped and took over Equestria" said the guard, "and they demanded that the evil creatures are released, no clue why though."

Fluttershy gasped. So it was true. The Evil Trio has escaped some time ago and now they took over Equestria. The only thing she could do at this point is to hope that her friends didn't pick a fight with them. Since she couldn't be with them, they were pretty much defenseless because she and her friends were the main key to harmony in Equestria, and every time they successfully defeated a villain, she was with them.

Now that she was absent for such a long time, Equestria was always at threat of evil forces, and Cozy Glow, Chrysalis and Tirek took the chance and took over Equestria.

"Oh... oh no! I have to find my friends!", Fluttershy thought, "If Cozy Glow, Chrysalis and Tirek took over Equestria, we have to find a way to defeat them!"

Still in disbelief, yet determined, Fluttershy exited her cell and thought about what to do next.

If she wanted to get to her friends, she first had to get out of Tartarus. And in order to get out of Tartarus, she had to get through the demons that were released on behalf of the Evil Trio. She may be able to befriend some of the new ones like the last time she was locked up in Tartarus with her friends, but she knew that there could be some that can resist her cuteness.

Regardless, she needed to escape first, and then, she had to find her friends...

Author's Note

Fluttershy locked up in Tartarus was also an inspiration from the comic linked in the Prologue.

The nightmare is an inspiration from Ranita, who also wrote an alternate ending to the same episode.

Can Fluttershy escape Tartarus? We'll see soon enough...