“I’m sorry, Bullet, but I just can’t,” she finally said. “Not after…what happened.” It took her a lot of difficulty to finish her sentence, and were the situation less upsetting she would have been proud of herself.
“OK. I totally understand, if it’s personal or something like that—“
“No!” Fluttershy said quickly. “It’s not that; I just don’t feel like much right now. It’s still tough to deal with.”
“Oh,” Bullet replied. “OK. Well, if you need something, anything, I’m right down the hall. And I’m game for training anytime.”
“OK,” Fluttershy replied, and with that, Bullet left.
She thought about calling back to him, to take him up on his training offer; her skills most likely hadn’t improved in the time off. She stopped herself at the last minute, and slowly retreated into her room.
•••
The day of her flight exam came, and looking back on her exchange with Bullet 3 days before, she felt that she really should have taken him up on his offer; it really had been that she hadn’t been willing to do anything since the accident with Mach, as opposed to interponial problems between them.
“Cadets,” the sergeant barked out, “The fact that you are all here means that you passed your written exams, correct?”
“Yes,” the class nodded. Fluttershy remembered it being exactly as Dash described it: “If you can breathe, stand on clouds, and have wings, you’ll pass.”
“Good,” the instructor cooed. “Now I want you to tell me, what are your tasks, in order?”
“Clear! Fly! Fall! Recover!” the class chanted.
“Good,” he cooed again, “and what happens if that doesn’t happen?”
“Failure!” the class chanted again.
“And what happens if the judges lose sight of you?” he asked again in his smarmy voice.
“Failure!” they chanted once more.
“Now I want you to tell me,” the instructor said, slightly more menacingly, “are there any failures in this class?”
“Sir, no, sir!”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Sir, No, Sir!”
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU! WHAT DID YOU SAY!?”
“SIR, NO, SIIIRRRRRRRRRR!”
“NOW GET OUT THERE AND MAKE ME PROUD!”
“SIR, YES, SIR!” and with that the recruits proudly lined up for their tests. Fluttershy was slightly slower, but she made it before the first name was called. She had always hated the chants; she always thought they were too loud, and made everyone faceless.
One thing that Bullet had forgotten to mention (which the director brought up as she got in line) was that, because of the incident, she was the last one to test, which for some reason made her more nervous.
“Clear, fly, fall, recover,” was her every thought as the test slowly wound down. Before she could think, the instructor called out “Fluttershy!”
She snapped out of her fixation on that thought, and called, “Yes, sir!” before beginning her ascent. She began fine, if a bit slow, and calmly cleared the skies. She then plodded to the hoops and began poking through them, when the director called out, “Come on, Cadet, we haven’t got all day!”
She snapped into a frenzy and flew through the hoops as quickly as she could, which still wasn’t saying much, but was a marked improvement. She reached the height required, and centered her self
“Alright, now all I have to do is—“
She looked down as she thought this last word, and found, in her sheer terror, that her wings had chosen to do the job for her.
“FAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she cried out.
After a few seconds of this, the instructor, who, like the other members of the assembled party, was visibly worried at this point, called out, “AND RECOVER, SHY, RECOVER!”
She tried to hear what he was saying, but in her freefall, and fear, she couldn’t comprehend a word.
She hit the ground and bounced harmlessly off, like anyone would. As she flew back to the lineup, hoping to Celestia the judges would give her the benefit of the doubt, she overheard one of the judges say her name, and whisper, “failure.”
•••
After several hours of waiting, a colt with a Hooflyn accent walked up to her and asked “You Fluddashy?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, glumly.
“Come wid me,” the colt said. “Gots a job for foals like you.”
She followed him to a carriage where the other two test failees sat. The colt slammed the door and motioned for the drivers to take off.
“Where are we going?” she called to the driver.
The driver chuckled.
“You’ll find out soon enough kid, don’t you worry.”
•••
When the ponies arrived at their final destination, Fluttershy saw a familiar face. When it came time for her to go, she pleaded with this pony for mercy. The colt laughed and threw the lever.
•••
As he stood there, a second-level security guard swore he heard high-pitch screaming from the room behind him. As he was about to open the door a smidge, just to take a peek, his co-guard, several years his senior, chided him.
“Don’t do that,” the senior called. “You don’t want to know what they’re doin’ in there.”
124670 Thanks for the feedback! Nice to see ppl like the fic.
Anyway, I've done 2 blog posts on this particular subject. I also tried to edit them, but couldn't, so I left additional info in comments on said posts.
I do not like the route this is going. Please tell me that title of the chapter is misleading
127594 Sorry, no. That chapter applies exclusively to the grimdark path, though; you can choose not to read it, and I will post the non-grimdark variant a little later. When I first envisioned this story, I envisioned 2 paths, one where that particular title is descriptive, and a different one where the mane 6, different from the versions in the show, have to take on the responsibility of the elements.
Sorry about that; I didn't like writing it, but that's how I envisioned it. It killed me to write it, if it helps.
127605 I read the chapter before i posted that comment, I thought it was just purposely misleading
I said this last chapter, I sorta "know" the pre-reader, and I know how every chapter goes, I beleve the *NOT* grim darkish path is "Nopony dies", and the grim darkish path is Everypony dies
This is an extremely interesting idea, and the way you executed it was very good. From the very beginning you could see world-shattering differences between this story and that of FiM, which is quite appropriate enough, since Rainbow Dash's first Sonic Rainboom is arguably the catalyst for the entire series. I'm excited and curious to see where it will go, so much that I'm willing to follow both the "Everypony Dies" path and the "Nopony Dies" path (though if you're curious, I'll probably prefer the latter, despite my affinity towards dark stories!).
I don't have any complaints per say, except for a suggestion (which is ALL it is, a suggestion); I would have liked to have seen more of the other ponies beside Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash -- Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack -- and how this event has affected them all. Granted, to be fair the story is still in it's beginning stages, with some of the last few chapters being quite short, and now that Rainbow Dash has been sent away, this is probably the time that readers will get to start seeing those things.
Looking forward to more!
138102 Trust me... all will be mentioned at some point or another...