Prologue
Princess Celestia had just arrived in her carriage to take Discord back to Canterlot. She came perfectly on time, somehow magically knowing that Discord had been reformed. She landed in front of the elements and Discord, and smiled to herself, seeing that she was right in assuming that Fluttershy would know best how to reform him.
"Yes Princess, I'm ready to use my magic for good instead of evil... most of the time," Discord said with an overdramatic bow in Celestia's direction, and a barely perceptible eye-roll.
Fluttershy giggled at Discord's theatrics, pleasantly surprised that everything was going as planned.
"Congratulations on your success ponies, I definitely sense a big change in Discord," the Princess said, her voice filled with pride. "I'll leave the Elements of Harmony with you Twilight, just in case," she said, quite a bit softer and meant for Twilight's ears only, and watched her nod in agreement before leaning back.
"You were right, when you said Fluttershy would be the one to reform Discord. By treating Discord as a friend, she got him to realize that friendship was actually important to him,..." said Twilight as she trotted over to Fluttershy.
What a joke, she thought. Discord had no intentions of making friends, his bond with her was simply business-like. She smiled at the thought, the other ponies likely taking it as a shy grin of embarrassment from being complemented. Ha. The things her "friends" thought they new about her.
"... and something that once he had, he didn't want to lose," Twilight continued.
When discussing the details of this moment, Discord had told her that fooling them would be no problem. She was smart enough not to voice her concerns at the time, it would have been a waste anyway. He was truly an amazing actor, if she wasn't working with him she would easily have been outsmarted. And here comes my line, she thought, snapping back into the present. Everything was working out like they planned. Perfect.
"Go on, say it," Fluttershy said encouragingly. She wasn't such a bad actor herself.
"Um...alright... friendship is magic!" Discord said, at first hesitantly, but then stronger and more convincing.
Mentally, she made sure that all six, tiny canisters were hidden from view in her hoof as she reached up to place them securely in Discord's paw. It appeared as an encouraging gesture, although in reality it was the most important part of the plan.
"See? He can be a real sweetheart once you get to know him," she said, barely holding in a snort of laughter. Discord was about as far away from "warm and fuzzy" as you can get.
With relief she pulled her hoof away as Discord closed his paw around the objects. The first stage in their mission was complete. Now all she had to do was to watch over the test subjects and make sure that the experiment went according to plan. And by "watching over them", Fluttershy had to make sure that they died.
Author's Note
So I had a few ideas about where this story would go, and I'm wondering if I should make it a tragedy. Please let me know what you would prefer, and if you aren't sure yet, let me know after a few more chapters. Thanks!
Chapter 1: Fluttershy
"Of course Angel anything for you," Fluttershy muttered quietly as she trudged out the door. It was 6:00 AM in the morning, and she was already letting herself get pushed around by that furry little rat of a bunny. She never did understand why she let herself be controlled by Angel, or anyone else for that matter. No matter how much she tried, she would always appear as a shy doormat.
But then again that isn't so bad, she thought, because a quiet, shy, pony could never be anything other than innocent. The ponies of Equestria are just too trusting for their own good. They would never see through Fluttershy enough to notice her hardened core, the result of years and years of being treated like a fool and a push-over.
She had woken up to tiny little claws raking against her flank, just like any other morning. She groaned and rolled over, pulling her blanket up, trying to prevent the scratching. But Angel was persistent, and refused to let Fluttershy rest even a moment longer. Sitting back on his hind legs, he let out an ear-piercing yowl, something so unnatural to a cute little bunny, that she sat up with a jolt. A grimace distorted her muzzle for a moment, but the urge to scream at Angel for scaring her to death was a fleeting one, and she soon found herself looking at him curiously.
WIth a sigh he had proceeded to explain to her that he was hungry, but not for just anything. He wanted vegetarian muffins, the likes of which Fluttershy had no idea how to make. She told him so, but he just shook his head, stomped his feet, and demanded that she find out how to. As she was pondering her options, she had an idea. Twilight! Twilight would have plenty of good books in her library about muffins, although she was worried that her friend would be angry about the early wake-up call.
After a few more minutes of thinking in silence, it dawned on her that there really was no one else she could go to, other than Derpy, but she just wasn't in the mood for a confrontation with the slightly crazed pegasus at this hour. Twilight would just have to deal with an early morning. She thought about arguing longer, but it would have been a waste of breath. Slumping her shoulders, Fluttershy had done a quick mane-combing, and then set off for Twilight's.
As Fluttershy walked along the empty streets of Ponyville, she scrunched her muzzle in confusion. Most ponies had the sense to stay in bed until the sun came up, but there were always the odd few that would be diligently working, trying to get a head start on the new day. But today, the streets were empty. Nopony was outside, the windows dark and shuttered, not even one little light on.
If her life was a movie, there would be tumbleweeds blowing across the desolate sidewalks. But what really scared Fluttershy was the noise. Or lack there of. The silence was so eerie, that she quickened her pace to a fast trot, and then a gallop, her mane whipping across her face in the breeze.
She reached the library doorstep, pressing her back to it as she caught her breath, her eyes skittishly patrolling the empty street for danger. She saw a sparkle out of the corner of her eye, turning, she gasped at the sight of one little star, floating right beside her. It was beautiful and mesmerizing, the purple hue pulsing, like the beating of a heart.
But as she watched, enthralled, she began to notice slight changes in the tempo of the pulse. There was a widening gap between each flash...1 second... 2 seconds... 3 seconds. And it could have been just her imagination, but she could have sworn that the glowing star had dulled slightly, the bright purple fading.
The breeze tickled her ears, arousing her from the peculiar twinkle. Fluttershy glanced around, and realized that she was still standing on Twilight's porch, for how long she couldn't have said. After a few more minutes of deep contemplation on the peculiar star, Fluttershy realized that the slight breeze was not the only thing that had awakened her from her sparkle-induced trance.
As she pricked her ears, grasping for the sound that taunted her at the very edge of her hearing, she slowly noticed a growing thump...thump...thump..., the steady beating of her heart, growing louder and louder.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
She clutched her hooves to her ears in agony, a lifetime of speaking in a pitch just above a whisper leads to very sensitive ears. It sounded like a heartbeat... felt like a heartbeat... but it couldn't be. Fluttershy was anything but nervous or excited, she wasn't sweating or breathing heavily. In truth she didn't even know what a heavily beating heart felt like, she had only heard of these "symptoms" while obliging to Rainbow Dash's proud boasting of her own stamina. According to Dash, an average pegasus would be on the ground with a heart attack before she even broke a sweat.
And Fluttershy believed her.
Despite the growing commotion erupting out of her chest, Fluttershy reasoned with herself. She was feeling quiet upset about waking Twilight at dawn like this, but she wasn't really feeling nervous. That wasn't the real her. She wondered, though, why she had to keep reminding herself of that. She had to be like this, hardened to the core, if she wasn't, she'd never feel accomplished in life. She might have been born shy, but she had become somepony that you wouldn't, in your right mind, mess with. Ever.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
But, seeing as there was no better explanation, her humble attitude must have been getting in the way, causing her heart to throb. And there was no better way to cure that than to get this encounter over with.
She tentatively reached her hoof out, still aware of the glittering star and her beating heart, and rapped on the door, gently at first, but then steadily hitting harder.
She stood on the doorstep, annoyed to have been kept waiting for so long, it was early, but Twilight would never let a pony stand on her doorstep for more than ten seconds, she was always one to keep to her organized schedules and systems.
She waited a few minutes longer, and then, convinced that her friend was refusing to answer the door, turned the knob and shouldered her way inside.
And was met with chaos. Complete, utter chaos.
Books were strewn about willy-nilly, ripped pages drifting across the room, one settling right in between her hooves. The piece had been torn right from the binding of its book, but it didn't appear to be an accident. Jagged tear marks along one side led her to a different conclusion.
These pages hadn't been ripped out, no, they had been bitten. And chewed on. The bite marks revealed everything to Fluttershy, what with her vast knowledge of animals and their habits. These pages had been savagely mauled, and by the looks of it, they had been bitten by a fanged creature, likely right through the entire book, even the hard, leather covers.
She dropped the page instantly, with equal parts fear and disgust. The rest of the library did not look much nicer. Fluttershy had never seen a natural disaster occur (the pegasi weather team claimed that wether catastrophes such as these were to dangerous to use in Ponyville), she thought that the room had been ransacked by a... What was the word?... Ah yes tornadee, that's it. She thought the room had been ransacked by a tornadee. Or something to that effect.
The table at the center of the room was upturned, resting on its side with two legs dangling in the air. Twilight's favorite statue, the wooden one of a stallion (a gift from her loving father as a congratulatory gift for becoming Celestia's most prestigious student), was on the floor in pieces, the hoofcrafted mane in splinters. But to make it even worse, Twilight's most prized possession, her Star-Gazer 5000, had toppled, and lay on the floor, the metal legs twisted and crumpled beyond repair.
But similar to the bitten books, there was evidence of an attack by a ferocious beast everywhere if you had the trained eye to see it. An Fluttershy most certainly had a trained eye. For instance, the fall that Twilight's telescope took would have most certainly have destroyed it beyond repair, but the twisted legs could have only been done by an extremely powerful beast.
Her legs shook with fear, her wings fluttering anxiously at her sides. She had never seen bite marks like that, not even on a wolf. She had never witnessed the destruction that an animal could cause like what she saw before her. It was terrifying, but the darker side of her was intrigued. What was this creature? And what had it done to Twilight and Spike?
She inched over the threshold tentatively, so as not to disturb anything that might still be in the library. With all of the new developments, Fluttershy didn't even realize that the pouring of her heart and her loud knocking on the door would have already awakened any such creature if there was indeed one still inside.
After her mind had begun to comprehend the disaster before her further, she laughed.
Not an evil, maniacal laugh.
But a laugh of relief, however out of place.
The resounding "Thump!" was not her own heart beating, but the door to Twilight's bedroom slamming shut. The window near Twilight's bed had been broken or opened, that was the only reasonable explanation, the window was the only place that an outside breeze could possibly enter the tree. The gale had been slamming the door shut, then letting it drift open again before shutting it again. Fluttershy snickered, unable to control the giggles that erupted out of pure fear alone.
She crossed the room, feeling more confident with each step. She trotted up the short flight of stairs leading to the door, and entered the bedroom. She closed the door behind her, mindful of her manners, as always. She spun on her hoof, facing the room, and gasped in despair and grief.
She couldn't believe her eyes. It just couldn't have happened! Her chest shook with silent sobs.
Twilight's owl had clipped a wing.
Owlowiscious lay there hooting on the floor, a bloody scratch deforming her left wing. Fluttershy ran to her side, and immediately began to soothe the injured bird.
"It's going to be all right, I promise. We can fix that, it's just a little scratch."
She gathered the owl into her arms gently, returning to the matter at hand. Twilight's room was in a state of utter disrepair. Unlike the main library, the items in this room were not merely damaged, but obliterated completely. Dust and paper swirled throughout the air, creating patterns that Fluttershy would have stopped to admire if she had the time to focus on them.
The sheets on the bed lay in tatters, as if one giant, clawed paw had reached up and scratched through the fabric from the head to the foot. Books and knick-knacks had been swept off the shelves, shards littering the floor. The large window near her bed had been shattered, however the occasional jagged piece still hung, clinging to the window frame. If Twilight had been there still she would have had a heart attack over the disorganization of a room she prided in calling her own.
Anything that was -at one point- recognizable was now destroyed. Torn and bitten until nothing remained but slivers of the past. Fluttershy was still at a loss as to what kind of creature could possibly have caused such damage, obviously nothing from Equestria. She would have tentatively presumed that the wreckage was created by a dragon, maybe an accident with Spike. But it just wouldn't have made sense. Any dragon of a size large enough to create such wreckage would likely have flown in, bursting through the branches surrounding the roof. But instead, the creature appeared to have crawled in, and jumped out of, the window in Twilight's bedroom, and then landed on the ground, crushing the rose bushes.
But the more obvious reason that points away from dragons was the fact that nothing was burnt. The rooms were in a state of decay, of course, but there were no ashes floating with the dust. No singe marks where fire had been breathed across a wall. No surviving flames threatening to grow and burn the tree-library to the ground.
Despite the tattered sheets, Fluttershy could tell that the bed was not made when the attack on Twilight arrived. And Fluttershy thought that she was giving Twilight a rude awakening not ten minutes ago!
She trudged across the room, head down, wings folded tightly on her sides. Fluttershy stopped at the foot of Twilight's bed, imagining the terror of waking up to a horrible monster looming over you, realizing in shock that you were seconds away from your own demise. Fluttershy wondered if she had screamed, or had she been killed ruthlessly before being able to utter even the tinniest squeak.
She could only assume that Twilight had been murdered in her bed, and Spike as well. But a shard of hope remained in her heart. There were no bodies left at the scene of the crime. They could have gotten away, however unlikely that thought was. Or maybe, the animal took them away to his secret lair to salsa dance for his enjoyment for the rest of eternity. Or, maybe, the creature realized the error in its ways and let them go without a scratch...
But that shard of hope was very small indeed.
Thump. Thump.
She sat down on the bed, rubbing the sheets in between her hooves, feeling the slight warmth that still remained from their recent use. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears, but she didn't let them flow. The time for grief would come soon, but first she had to find out who did this, and made sure that they never forgot.
Thump. Thump.
Her concentration broke. Her weak little heart was threatening to jump out of her chest again! What an annoyance. But then she remembered.
The beating wasn't her heart, but rather the disturbing sound was the banging of Twilight's door as the wind from the open window slammed it shut over and over again.
But... she had closed that door.
Author's Note
Sorry about the owl moment, I just had to do it knowing Fluttershy's love of animals. I was going to do something really dramatic, but decided I would add in a bit of over-exaggeration on Fluttershy's part instead.
Also, I realize that Twilight's loft has neither a door or a wall separating it from the main library, but I decided to add both in to make the chapter a bit better. Sorry realists!
As I said before, I'm still looking for opinions on wether or not this story should be a tragedy. Help me out please!
~ Simon4422
