Love In The Adjacent Corner

Chapter 9

Fluttershy journeyed forward to the old shack where she would find Flim and Flam. She journeyed slowly. The pain all over her body hindered her speed greatly. Also she wanted to conserve her energy for where she would need it most.

The storm was growing more ferocious by the second. Strikes of thunder echoed through all of Ponyville, and the close lightning strikes illuminated the sky, and some of the ground too. Fluttershy took no consideration to walk around puddles, she trudged forward without thinking twice, and as a result, had mud spatters that passed her knees.

Fluttershy could see the old shack in the distance. Despite being covered in the darkness it stuck out blatantly. All the lights were out. Fluttershy walked lightly on her hooves as she approached.

Fluttershy put her ear against the front door. She couldn't hear anything from the other side. Perfect. Fluttershy took out one of her two knives from the saddlebag, and slowly turned the knob. The door didn't open—it was locked—but a locked door wasn't going to stand in Fluttershy's way. For a pony with murder in her eyes, a locked door didn't stand a chance.

Fluttershy shoved the knife through the lock of the door, and thrust it forcefully through the lock. After sufficient force was applied, the knife stabbed all the way through the lock. Fluttershy put all her weight into trying to twist the knife clockwise until the tumbler was forced to roll back. It made a terrible metal on metal squeak, but the lock broke open.

Once inside Fluttershy yanked the knife out of the lock, and held it with her teeth. She didn't notice that the tip of the knife broke off in the door. All she could see in the dark room was a moonlit staircase. The staircase took Fluttershy up to the second floor of the shack. She only been on the second floor once before.

From what she could remember, the room she was taken to with the earth pony, had no personal belongings in it whatsoever. She doubted two ponies with such corrupted wealth would live in such a room. There had to be bigger rooms somewhere around here, Fluttershy thought. She went down the opposite side of the hallway. Towards the end of the hallway she noticed two doors on opposing sides of the hallways that were farther apart from all the other doors. Probably because they're bigger rooms, she thought. One of the doors even had light coming from underneath it. Too obvious, she thought.

She threw the door open, and leaped into the lit room. To her surprise, but not to her concern, she saw Flim and Flam standing in the middle of the room as if they were expecting her.

"I knew I heard some pony messing with the front door," said Flim.

"And who might you be?" Flam asked.

Fluttershy was surprised at first when they didn't recognize her, but in all honesty, she knew that her appearance changed drastically since she last saw them. Her eyes had a blood-red color. Her soaked mane was hanging down in her face. Her body was scared and wrapped in bandages. Her legs and the underside of her belly were covered with mud, and her right-wing was in a completely unnatural shape.

Flim suddenly recognized Fluttershy. "Oh you're that one pony that escaped from us this morning, and you got a knife. Hilarious!"

Flam laughed, "Oh I see it now! It is her! Damn she got ugly in the last few hours!"

Fluttershy didn't mind that the two brothers were laughing at her. She was confident that the last laugh would be her own. "Is that the way you choose to behave when you are about to meet your death?" yelled Fluttershy.

"Our death? No. You were foolish to come back here, but now that you're here, you aren't leaving this place alive."

Fluttershy Lunged at Flam. Just in time he managed to hop out of Fluttershy's reach. Flim lunged at Fluttershy, landed on her, and pinned her on her back, and to the ground. Fluttershy's knife was still in between her teeth, and she stabbed it into his chest. Since the knife tip broke off in the door, the knife didn't pass through the pony's ribcage. Instead, the knife lacerated down his chest. Even though it didn't penetrate any internal organs, the laceration drew a large amount of blood.

After feeling the sharp pain Flim smacked Fluttershy across the face; forcing the knife to fall out onto the ground. Flim put his hoofs around Fluttershy's neck, and began to squeeze tightly enough so that she couldn't breathe.

Fluttershy knew their was another knife inside her saddlebag, and she could see the tip of the blade poking through the bottom of the bag. Fluttershy grabbed where the handle of the knife was through her saddlebag, and forced the tip into Flim's thigh. In reaction, Flim leaped off of Fluttershy.

Fluttershy saw Flim retreating backwards, and with her hind legs, she gave a solid kick into Flim's bottom ribs. The kick sent him flying back into the wall. The back of his head smacked against the wall, and knocked him unconscious.

Flam lunged at Fluttershy before she could get off her back. Since she was on her back, the quickest way to avoid Flam from landing on top of her was to roll out-of-the-way. Fluttershy managed to avoid Flam's lunge, but the process of rolling out-of-the-way involved rolling over her broken wing.

Her wing caused her more pain now than it ever had before, but Fluttershy yelled through her pain with a deafening war cry. She couldn't sacrifice any attention on pain. Every part of her mind knew that her focus needed to be on finishing what she started.

After Flam's lunge missed, Fluttershy took advantage of the opportunity to stand back onto her feet. Flam made a second lunge. Fluttershy expected the attack. She never been more ready about anything than she was at that moment. She could feel her adrenaline pound through her body like a drum, and everything she saw felt as if it was occurring in slow motion.

Fluttershy took a shuffle-step toward the side, and propelled a hoof into the side of Flam's skull. Flam's lunge just barely missed, but Fluttershy landed a perfect hit. It wasn't Fluttershy's strongest strike, but it was by no means weak either. It had just enough force to incapacitate Flam. Flam fell to the ground, and was barely conscious. The strike left him disoriented. He dropped to the ground, and he couldn't do much else besides groan in pain, and squirm around on the ground.

Fluttershy was doing it. Both Flim and Flam were completely at Fluttershy's mercy. Unfortunately for them, Fluttershy renounced her merciful ways after she vowed to kill them. She wielded the knife without the broken tip and mounted on top of Flam's squirmy body. She lined up her blade with Flam's throat.

"Wait, stop!" a voice called out from the doorway. Fluttershy looked up; she was surprised to see Rainbow Dash standing there. Rainbow Dash showed worry. She never seen Fluttershy act out in violence, and in her mind, she never would have imagined to see two male unicorns helplessly incapacitated by Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash herd Fluttershy's war cry from earlier and could only assume that Fluttershy would be the one in trouble.

Fluttershy left the knife pointed at Flam's throat. "Why would I stop! I should have done this a long time ago!"

Rainbow Dash wasn't expecting to be talking her friend out of murder, but she gave her best effort to anyway. "Is murder really the right way?"

Fluttershy answered with confidence, "It's the best way to do it! These ponies deserve to die!"

"Maybe they do, but do you have the authority to decide that for them?" Rainbow Dash said sympathetically.

Fluttershy was panting heavily. Even the muscles in between each of her ribs contracted as she took in a breath. She cried out, "Who better than their victim? Who better than the pony whose life they ruined! They took everything from me!"

Rainbow Dash lowered her voice, just a little, in effort to calm Fluttershy. "If you kill them, how will you be able to live with yourself?"

Fluttershy said angrily, "It doesn't matter how I live with myself. I have nothing left in my life to live for. I'm a pony with nothing left in my soul to salvage. Flim, Flam, and I have all overstayed our welcome on earth. I don't care how I live with myself after this! I don't care if I live after this! I just want them dead! I want to kill them like they killed my heart, and soul! I want them dead—They killed my daughter!"

Rainbow dash replied, "No matter how evil these guys are, killing them won't bring your daughter back."

"I know... It's just..." Fluttershy stuttered.

Rainbow Dash added, "What would your daughter say if she was here right now?"

"... She would say..." Fluttershy had to think a moment about what her daughter would actually say. "She would say that you always lose more from violence than you gain." For the first time since she was in the Everfree Forest, she started to cry. "Oh! I don't know what to do now!" Fluttershy's heart started racing.

Rainbow Dash said with comfort, "You can start by putting down the knife. Please Fluttershy, I'll do whatever it takes to help you get through this, but you have to put the knife down."

Tears started leaking out of Fluttershy's eyes, and for the first time she was able to admit, "I'm no less responsible for my daughter's death than they are." Once said, she let the knife fall from her hoof onto the ground.

"It will be okay," Rainbow dash promised. "It will be okay."

Fluttershy became dizzy. Everything looked like it was spinning. Her vision faded out with a dark haze. She fell to the ground.