Sweat
"... ... ..." Flash Sentry stared dead ahead of him. There was no strength of conviction in his eyes as he scoured the furthest edges of the banquet hall. Instead, there flickered a childish desperation to find deep, shadowed corners and hide there forever.
While his eyes were guarded, his ears weren't. He heard Mrs. Cake repeat herself, "Don't you feel changed at all?"
Lyra Heartstrings interjected. "You've certainly done a lot of good for us here in Equestria!" An innocent smile shone in Flash's peripheral. "That has to count for something!"
Flash's ears folded—not to drown out Lyra's words, but to manage the pressure of the past suddenly weighing on his scalp. On his soul. On his very ability to breathe. Oxygen limped out of him in pitiful little squeaks. He felt cold, like a brisk draft was blowing through a car window and across his muzzle. His eyes twitched, envisioning street lamps looming cold and amber against the dead asphalt of a mostly-empty parking lot.
"Have I?" he finally murmured. "Have I really?" A bitter swallow. "Anybody could have waltzed in through the mirror and done the stuff that I did among you ponies... made the snazzy changes that I did."
"And..." Soarin leaned in. "...anybody could have come through and done a lot of horrible things, y'know." The Wonderbolt arched his eyebrow. "But you didn't. Don't be so quick to paint a cruddy picture of yourself, dude."
Flash stared back with glossy eyes. "It's not the horrible things that I have done, Soarin," he spoke in a fractured voice. "It's the things that I haven't done. The things I've refused to do. Every day. With every waking morning and damnable evening. I'm a coward. I've been a coward all my life."
"Considering where you've lived," Bon Bon said. "Isn't it somewhat understandable?"
"No!" he hissed at first. Trembling, he slumped forward in his seat and grasped his head in two fetlocks. "No no no no no no no no no no." He clenched his teeth, seething through them. "That's no excuse. It's never an excuse. Don't you get it? That's the problem. That's what will always be the problem. Rejecting the truth... rejecting my own part to play in adding to the shit pile..."
Octavia and Vinyl exchanged curious glances.
"What are you trying to say, Mr Flash?" Filthy Rich asked.
"What I'm trying to say..." Flash shuddered, tilting his head up with a pale expression. He fought for breath like a long-distance runner. Something loomed beyond the furthest crystalline walls of the place, and he was sailing towards it at a million miles an hour. His skin knew it, which is why the bulbs of sweat started to show. "...what I'm trying to say is that for all of my self-righteous preaching... I'm as hypocritical as it comes." He shook. He seethed. "My coming here... my time with ponies was just a phase to distract myself. To pretend I was something better than I actually am. If all this nonsense was indeed a baptism... it was a lukewarm bath at best... exposing all the shitty, grimey parts of me still left... the holes that need to be plugged and the promises left broken and unfulfilled..." He clenched his eyes shut. "The world may have been an ugly place when I was born... but it'll be even uglier long after I'm dead. And I only have myself to blame for it."
"But why?"
"Because... I'm not willing to do what's hard. I'm not willing to embark upon the only challenge that matters—to look at myself in the mirror and reject it all for something better. You see, even knowing how much of a loser I've been, I still cling to that image like gold. My shame is only ever so slightly eclipsed by own narcissism. A guilt that's clothed in sparkles does nothing for a soul—"
"That's quite eloquent of you to say, Flash," Octavia firmly interjected. "Poetic too. It sounds like you've had much practice in reciting these things. Perhaps to yourself." Her voice was gentle, yet piercing. "Now... could there be something you've never practiced... something you've not had the strength to say before now?"
He froze in place, lingering on the next breath. He knew she was right. More than that, he knew that his next breath would either break or bury him.
"Whether you're a righteous soul or a spawn of Tartarus, Flash, you've proven by coming here that you're strong enough to do amazing things," Octavia said. "Perhaps... just perhaps... an even greater test of strength awaits you?"
Flash felt the first of many bulwarks crumbling. It was all downhill from here. It was either talk or collapse right where he was and never move again.
So—one word at a time—his voice melted out his mouth. "I had gone out late at night to grab a few things from the local grocery store." His eyes opened, calm, emotionless. "I was driving across the parking lot in the car I had at the time, looking for the exit so I could return home..."
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Hmm... Did he see an accident and not help someone? He did say it was the things he didn't do.
Hopefully he'll try to actually change his own world for the better. But probably not. He's a teenager.
Ok now here it comes. At least I really hope so because at this point I don't think I can stand another fake out.
Finally! Now hope nothing interrupts.
We're FINALLY going to find out what happened? For realzies?
And now we come to the unpleasant core of the issue. Let's hope it will allow Flash to heal afterwards.
Honestly? how many common people are tooled up for a gun mugging given militery weapons are designed to penetrate militery defenses?
Or a collection of bladers having a blending session th local cops cant handle?
and now Flash is looking at his self and admitting to his self about his self.
The infection will never heal if you never take out the splinter. Let's see what the tweezers find.
Here we go.
8899802
That doesn't give a reason if any comparing the two actually makes an unbelievable person to what he has gone on to describe. Assuming you are using what most folks would identify with jocks and emo stereotypes, they are not that eloquent without real reason. It's your story so power to you in whatever direction you're going.
Next chapter will start with "And that's what happened", and the horrified faces of all ponies present. Then nothing of what happened will be mentioned again.