//------------------------------//
// X 
// Story: The Fire and The Flutter 
// by A. Tuesday 
//------------------------------//

	“No,” I said to no one in particular, “No, no, no.”
I held her close to my head, and the tears came rolling down. Her mane was now in my face, but I didn’t care. I needed to be with her. Nobody else.
My best friend who I met yesterday was now gone…another thing in my life taken away.
Only, I would never overcome this. This wasn’t moving or anything like that. This wasn’t being banished from a town. This wasn’t being outcast. This was Fluttershy’s life. I rested my head on her still-warm chest, and wept.
I saw through watery eyes the tears fall onto her hide. “Fluttershy…” I crooned, hoping she would hear me. But she didn’t.
She would never come back.
I knew it, deep inside, that it was over. But, I refused to accept it.
Suddenly, the sounds came back. I heard the ice flamer fighting off the five ponies, the ponies fighting and then running. I didn’t hear the whale whatsoever – that thing had to be long gone.
I heard the ice flamer roar, and then something inside me snapped.
With Fluttershy still cradled in my hooves, my deep depression turned into absolute rage. The flamer had done this. The flamer had nearly, if not completely, killed my best friend. It was the flamer who deserved to pay for this. My eyes saw complete red as I looked at the flamer fighting off the ponies.
No one – absolutely nopony or no thing touched my friends. And especially not her. She was a blessing in my life; I saw no reason for her to suffer but she did.
I no longer envisioned a fire – I demanded it to come into existence. I wanted everything in this room to burn down. I wanted that ice flamer to be a puddle of water. 
I felt myself begin to rise above the ground, Fluttershy still cradled in my hooves. The outer edge of my sight was now lined with a deathly black as they glowed like the night. My horn did more than tingle – it felt like it was building up, like more weight was being added although there was nothing there.
My mane turned into pure flame as I now rose about 20 feet above the room’s floor. A high pitched sound came from within me, as my rage completely built up. 
The five ponies on the other side stared in utter shock as they watched a scarlet red pony, with a mane that wasn’t even hair, a mane that was fire, and pitch-black but somehow glowing eyes carrying a deceased pegasus up into the air with her. I rose up as much as I would, and the ice flamer turned to me. 
Hell hath no fury like Firestarter. With no greater desire than to see this room aflame, I closed my eyes.

I opened them again, and simultaneously the entire room lit up in flame. Every inch of the walls, the ice on the floor, the doorway itself, everything was engulfed in flame. The roar overpowered that of the ice flamer’s, and I watched with joy as the flames reached his legs.
He flailed for mercy, trying to brush off the flames but it only stuck to him more, causing his hands and arms to alight. He screamed, pleading with me to end it. I had no intention of doing so, and I willed the fire to be even stronger.
The flames leapt up dozens of feet, encasing the flamer in his deathbed. He let out a final scream, as I watched his poor miserable life melt away, the flames following him into the water. Good.
The five ponies had left at this point, and so had the gathering crowd at the door. I could’ve stopped, but for whatever reason, that just wasn’t going to cut it for me. I had never been this mad. And it felt…good. This is what I was born to do – fire.
The wall of the room bent outwards, still flaming as it took the rest of it with it, showing off the flaming room to all of New Horseleans. The entire wall then fell into the bay, disintegrating as it fell. Then, why not the whole room?
I commanded the fire to get even stronger, and the flames turned from orange to a bright yellow as they vaporized the walls of the shed in seconds. I heard the citizen’s screams from below as I decided I might as well burn down the facility.
They had no idea what I’ve been through. No idea the tragedy I went through at Ponyville. They had the nerve to call me a monster? They were scared of me, were they? Just because I set their precious park alight? Well, let’s see about that.
The facility in less than a second went up, in now-white-hot flames. The fire only made me stronger, made me crave more burning. What was next on my agenda to burn?
Why not the entire block?
Fire spread out along the block, while ponies everywhere screamed and ran for their lives. NOW they had a reason to scream. Run away, little fillies, run away. 
Suddenly, a flash of light appeared, and the Wonderbolts came, soaring in from the distance, way too late to fight any ice flamer. I didn’t have a clue why they were here.
Then, they flew past me at Mach 1, cooling down my flame a bit. I saw now. I was the menace now. Is that what they wanted, a menace? I could certainly give it to them.
I willed a wall of fire to surround me, and it was so. There was no way any Wonderbolt was getting in, unless they wanted to come in as ashes!
I laughed, making a deep, dark, sound I had never heard before. I could feel the flames expanding, roaring – it was even as if I was controlling the flame anymore. It was as if I WAS the flame. It felt good. It felt great. This was what I was meant to do.
Something stirred in my arms. The flames were getting too close, possibly?
I looked down from my power, and no, it was Fluttershy.
Fluttershy…
I stared agape at the animal-lover. What…what was I doing?
The wall of fire dissipated. I watched as the facility still went up in flames, and the fire spread. I began lowering myself down, and extinguished the facility fire at a slow rate.
The building crumbled and toppled beneath the receding flames, and at this point I could see that it was little more than a heaping pile of rubble. A wall fell backwards into the ocean, creating a steaming pool of water the was extremely loud. The black went away from my eyes, and my mane turned back into hair.
My hooves touched ground again, and the pain in my bad hoof that had gone away now returned with a vengeance. I extinguished the fire completely, and now, nothing burned, but everything smoldered.
There was complete silence once the smoldering died down. Looking around, I noticed a whole mess of ponies on the ground, moaning, or twitching, or both. A couple of them were severely blackened. 
There was also a whole other mess of ponies – the crowd gathering outside where the facility used to be, wide-eyed in awe and fear, there mouths agape in what could only be described as pure terror.
Standing among them was a taller figure. Next to a purple unicorn with a red streak in her mane, a tall alicorn, tail and mane constantly flowing, and purple eyes that were gentle, yet seemed to stare in my soul, stood silently. I had never seen her before, but I knew with an even more gut-wrenching feeling who is was.
Princess Celestia.
Princess Celestia watched me burn down a building in pure fury.
I then looked down at Fluttershy, now lying on the ground before me where I had gently put her down at. Whatever part of her that was facing outward as now very red. Like a suntan, except it wasn’t. It was a second-degree burn. Her face, chest, stomach. All of it. By the wall of flames.
The flames I had summoned.
Only then did I realize, with horror, the extremity of my actions.
I had incinerated a shed, probably killed some other ponies, and failed to warn my friend in time before she was brutally killed by a horrible monster.
What had I done?