//------------------------------//
// Madness 
// Story: Plague 
// by AwSweetHolyHell 
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As far back as Fluttershy could remember, she had always enjoyed helping other ponies. It wasn’t really the instant gratification of knowing she had been useful: a feeling some used in order to deny the existence of true altruism by arguing it was all a matter of furthering the ego. Her love of helping others ran deeper than that insignificant upper crust of kindness. It was her defining factor, the value that stood at the heart of who or what she was, and the only thing that permitted her to keep an ounce of sanity in the desolate state the world found itself in.

Ironic, that such an innocent and pure concept would allow her to cope with fighting, and killing, for the survival of ponykind. Perhaps this was some form of mild denial? The Well knew that her friends had had their moments in the past three years. The truth of it was, she didn’t rightly know. Nor did she care to find out. Fluttershy could have Joshua try the psycho-analysis thing on her again, of course. It had helped her find the cold void of survival, the other half of the dichotomy that was her character, the reverse medal to the kindness… She just didn’t feel quite ready to have her cocoon of certainties shattered again. So instead, she kept the core of kindness that defined her as a pony and one of the Elements of Harmony under careful scrutiny and defended it as fiercely as any dragon would its hoard.

Obviously, that wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot. Some of the things she had done and, more importantly, permitted through her research weighed heavily upon her soul. She had long since abandoned any pretense at researching in the medical department to the great sorrow of her mentor, Joshua Syringe. It was but the first step on a long road to recovery.

Twilight had explained the concept of Karma to her: that belief in which the cause and consequence of every action was weighed by some universal balance. While Fluttershy didn’t believe in the bit over reincarnation, she did find solace in the basic idea of Karma. Besides, the end result no longer mattered to her, unlike during the war. Only the present was important. Funny, how life can be unexpected like that.

As a result, she was working relentlessly, almost day and night, in order to alleviate the pain of those afflicted by the Plague. The quarantined area was her domain, so to speak, as she seldom left it; even her room was located in a side-cave connected to it. She didn’t know if her feeble attempts at easing the suffering of the infected in their last moments before madness or terminal decay could be considered as good, but she liked thinking it was so. It helped her sleep during night cycle, a thing she wasn’t afraid of admitting.

Fluttershy paused in the process of adjusting the dosage of morphine analogue to a cream-furred pony. As with all earth ponies there had been no hope of salvation for him since their attribute coursed through their entire body, unlike unicorns and pegasi. Only his head was visible from under the blanket and already the left side of his face was gnawed away by necrosis. His cheek had almost completely finished decay, leaving the teeth exposed, and was making steady progress higher, towards the eye-lids. From there on, it’d just escalate from messy to messier.

A jolt of pain passed across the earth pony’s features, his eyes squinting hard and what was left of his lips contorting in an ungodly snarl. Fluttershy bent back to her task quickly, admonishing herself for taking her sweet time when somepony was in pain. She cranked the dosage of morphine up a notch and a peaceful if somehow disturbing expression returned to the patient’s face.

For the hundredth time, she marveled at how well this substitute worked as she turned to another bed containing yet another earth pony approaching terminal decay. Their stocks of true morphine had depleted months ago, which had created a real problem in the quarantined area, to a point where work had become impossible due to the lamentations of the agonizing. Joshua had consequently worked out a byproduct they could easily manufacture with what they had at their disposal. The catch was, despite alleviating pain even better than the original, it carried a plethora of nasty side-effects… But then, they only administered it to patients who were going to die anyway.

Fluttershy began checking the progress of the plague on another subject distractedly. Side-effects… They were the reason she had ultimately given up on medical research. During the war, she and Joshua had made great breakthroughs that had given Equestrian troops a much needed edge. Back then, she had been ecstatic with the help she had provided. It only became apparent later that the products Shy had created had side-effects: some minor, others crippling and others still lethal.

She had worked hard in an attempt at suppressing them, but new ones would always appear and, before long, the guilt trip Fluttershy carried around became too heavy a burden. That had been when she cast it aside, vowing never to research into medicine again. It still bothered her sometimes how Joshua didn’t appear to mind the defects of the products he created. He’d always go about how the good would always be balanced out by a portion of bad and say that the next medicine he pushed out would have to be that extra little bit more perfect…

“Hey, Shy,” the shaky voice cut through her thoughts neatly, bringing Fluttershy back to the present and the morphine injection console of her patient. With an intake of calming breath she upped the dosage generously; this was another desperate subject that wouldn’t last long, before facing the owner of the voice.

“What are you doing out of your bed Dash, you know you shouldn’t be walking around right now.” Fluttershy admonished gently.

The spectrum-maned pegasus pulled one leg up, reaching behind her shoulder as if to touch the wings that were no longer there but reined herself in rigidly, forcing it back down and starting to lick her lips nervously, eyes dashing about. “I know, I know… It’s just I can’t sit down or even sleep, I need to stretch my wings. They’re getting sore from being unused for so long.” She replied in denial, completely oblivious to the bandages wrapped tightly around her chest and back.

The defining core of kindness cringed inside. “Twilight brought you some books, not long ago. They ought to keep you busy for a bit, no?” Fluttershy prodded softly, trying to push Rainbow back into distracting herself from the lost limbs.

Her cyan-coated friend looked at her with wide eyes for a while, seeming unable to understand. After a solid minute her voice kicked back in. “No, I can’t focus. I can’t with that Celestia-forsaken itch in my wings!” her hoof began reaching for her wings again but she stamped it on the ground with a snarled grunt and glared it into submission. “I need to fly, Shy! You can understand, right? You’re a pegasus too!” her breathing accelerated and a frantic light entered her eyes.

Fluttershy cringed even further. “Yeah, I know,” she said, “but we need to keep you in observation for a few more days before…” she swallowed painfully, “Before we can release you.” A blatant lie. A terrible and dirty lie that couldn’t possibly fool anypony… 

Rainbow’s nostrils flared in a heavy sigh. “You’re the medical expert, I guess,” she said, a defeated timber to her voice. The afflicted pegasus fiddled with her hooves over the floor for a second, drawing a few circles in the rocky ground before her head whipped back up. “Oh, Yeah! I wanted to grab myself a glass of water too! That’s why I got up in the first place.” She said, a strained smile coming to her lips.

The suited pegasus looked over the two beds left in the row before flashing an encouraging smile at her friend through the helmet. “I’ll get it for you, but you do me a favor and go back to bed. Try digging in the reading and get your mind off the itch, it’ll get better then.” Fluttershy’s throat constricted painfully as more lies came forth. The fleeting distraction of literature would be nothing but a short-lived solace…

Dash nodded slowly, her smile growing more natural for a second, before turning on her heels and going back to her bed. Had Fluttershy not been looking for it, she might have missed it: the furtive glance directed at her hidden wings that betrayed the smile and demeanor. With a heavy sigh, she turned in the opposite direction and set off.

Madness was the other face of this affliction, and it was no pretty thing: far more harrowing in many regards. While terminal decay left a dead body behind, madness was vicious and hard to gauge at best.

Fluttershy came across the asylum part of the quarantined cave. The first problem with madness was that it manifested differently in each subject. As she passed next to it, the suited pegasus threw a glance in the first partition of the asylum, where rows of bed were stationed and on each sat pony figures with glazed eyes and drool dripping down their chins. This was the first and mildest manifestation, the easiest to cope with. The subject’s mind simply went into a vegetative state, choosing oblivion over facing the loss of their horn or wings.

The second partition was of a different kind, it appeared very much as a mess-hall. Many ponies sat there, going about the motions of jumping in the air or staring at objects as if expecting them to respond to their wills, sometimes even socializing. The second manifestation was by far the most common and slightly more difficult to deal with than the first. In this case, the patient would firmly settle himself in denial and go on living as if the amputation had never occurred. A few of the ponies present in that ward lifted their heads and greeted Fluttershy enthusiastically. She responded with a matronly smile, as if nothing was wrong, before hurrying on.

There was a third occurrence, but that one had no special partition allocated to it simply because unicorns or pegasi that devolved that far never lived long, one way or the other. 

With another sigh, Fluttershy stepped through a small door that led into a kitchen area. The worst part was, Rainbow was somewhere in the limbo between second and third grade madness. She was clearly delusional over the loss of her wings, but the nervous glances and the small moves like reaching for them were dead giveaways of the fact that the spectrum-maned pegasus would not remain in the second level. Dead giveaways of the fact there would be no pretty ending in this case.

It was all so unfair… Of all the Elements that could have been afflicted, it had to be Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty, who had lived as much through her wings and athletics as through their friendship. The injustice of it galled Fluttershy. It enraged her, made her want to lash out in fury and scream away at the world for permitting something so atrocious to occur. Why couldn’t it have been her? That was the question that haunted her ever since it had become apparent her friend was infected. Unlike Rainbow Dash, she wasn’t as keenly attuned to her wings. Her decay would have occurred slowly and she would have settled nicely in denial: living on obliviously, but still living. 

With some difficulty, she forced the burning rage back in its restraints. Although she longed to let it go, she couldn’t realistically do so. Not only was it not her way, but what would she direct it at? The plague? Not really. How could you curse a disembodied and mindless process? The Griffin Kingdoms? There was no definite proof that it was their doing and she wanted to be certain beyond a doubt before committing the rage to a cause… What did that leave her? Nothing, really. So she kept it locked away until the day she knew who the one to blame was. That day, she would lose herself in the glorious dance of retribution. Justice would be met.

Fluttershy stepped out of the kitchen with a glass of water held in her hoof, suppressing a third sigh. She quickly began legging it back towards her friend’s bed.

Her only warning was the inexpert noise of somepony running on their hinds behind her. Battle-hardened instincts took precedence over reason and sent her body into a barrel-roll to the side, barely avoiding the stab of a sharpened piece of steel. Fluttershy rolled over her shoulder and used the momentum to jump back up into a fighting stance on her hind-legs. She faced her aggressor and her features sagged in disbelief, hurt and defeat to the sound of glass shattering and water splashing.

“Why? Why did you take them away?!” Rainbow Dash asked through gritted teeth. On her hooves were strapped two jagged spikes of metal with what appeared to be ripped pieces of bed-sheets. It was a silly weapon, nothing like the katars typically employed by the Wonderbolts. Most certainly, the rags keeping them in place would give way on the first impact… But that first impact would occur. Considering Fluttershy’s unarmored anti-bacteriological suit, even if the hit wasn’t lethal, it would be as good as death.

Licking her lips nervously, Fluttershy answered, “It was to save you… If we didn’t cut them off, the decay would have spread to your body.” Her voice sounded weak even to herself: pathetic excuses. They should have found a cure…

“Lies! I’m gonna take back what’s mine!” Rainbow roared as she threw herself at her friend. Fluttershy cursed silently under her breath and brought forth the other part of the dichotomy composing her psyche. The steely and emotionless void slid protectively around the core of kindness, and as easily as that, she was ready to defend herself.

Dash was an ace of aerial combat, or had been before the amputation. Had this battle been air-born, she would have crushed the feeble Fluttershy in a matter of instants. But this was a grounded battle and here, Rainbow was clumsy and inexperienced unlike her pink-maned opponent. Even then, Dash was stronger, perhaps only outmatched by the robust Applejack. She was leagues above her target in that domain. But then, strength had never been Fluttershy’s way. 

Rainbow came onto her friend and unleashed a succession of three deceptively fast jabs. All missed as the suited pegasus flowed seamlessly between them and on the last one, Shy stepped close to her enemy, entering the proverbial eye of the storm. She caught her extended leg before Dash could retract it and twisted it sharply and suddenly, Rainbow’s momentum was hers to do with as she pleased. Fluttershy could twist further and steal her makeshift katar before ramming it into her friend’s throat to end this, but perhaps she could still reason with her? A vain hope, but hope was the mother of progress, or was that persistence? She expanded Rainbow’s momentum differently, sending her flying over her shoulder.

As soon as her opponent cleared the floor, Shy jerked into a run. The cyan pegasus hit the ground painfully a few meters ahead and Fluttershy jumped, aiming to stamp her hooves down on Rainbow’s chest. Her friend realized that and hurriedly rolled from under her trajectory, jumping up on her hinds and throwing another assault up, aiming a slash at the suited pegasus’s chest this time. 

Shy hit the floor and fell to a crouch, accompanying the shock of landing rather than foolishly attempting to absorb it and, in so doing, narrowly avoiding the slash. She firmly planted her front hooves on the ground and scythed her right-hind leg across Rainbow’s, trying to throw her off-balance.

With a snarl, her friend lunged forward in a low jump, barely clearing her opponent’s attack. Fluttershy’s eyes widened in surprise as she found herself facing the tips of the metal spikes aimed directly at her face. Desperately, she relaxed her body and let it slump down on the floor with no grace whatsoever. A small part of her mind informed her that Joshua would certainly have a stroke if he ever caught wind of that ridiculous dodge, but it was enough to avoid death, blessedly.

Fluttershy heard her friend’s screamed curse while she got back up and turned around. Rainbow was already up, eyes still gleaming with hatred and avarice. Cautiously, they began circling each other. “Rainbow, listen to reason! I’m only trying to help!” her kindness pleaded from beyond the steely void of survival.

“Help? Help?! By taking my wings away? Don’t you dare say you’re helping! You stole my identity!” Rainbow screeched in fury, rushing into another assault.

Although the words cut deep, Fluttershy didn’t let them affect her. This was all she needed. The feeble hope of talking Rainbow out of her madness died and the suited pegasus prepared herself to kill. She slowed her breathing to a steady rhythm and listened to the hoof-beats of her opponent’s run.

Rainbow descended upon her in a flurry of hooves and spikes, unleashing a combination that was as deadly as it was complex. It would have wreaked unmentionable damage on anything, had it connected. Once more, Fluttershy weaved and bobbed and dodged, stepping out of the assault’s trajectory almost before it began. With the same grace, she flowed intimately close to her friend and almost lovingly locked one leg into her own, beginning to spin and taking control of Dash’s movement anew.

Half-way through the spin, though, Rainbow stamped her hoof down with far more force than necessary, effectively breaking down her own momentum and leaving Fluttershy nothing to work with. With a feral roar, she pushed her shoulder into Shy’s belly, sending her backwards and off her hooves. 

The suited pegasus landed painfully on her back, air rushing from her lungs. From beyond the light-headed dizziness the pain and lack of air created, her instincts sent her front hooves up rigidly. She felt something land on them painfully and force them down an inch before she could prompt more strength into them.

Her head cleared slowly and she saw Rainbow sitting atop of her, her snarling face close to the helmet but not as close as the two sharp spikes tied to her hooves. Sweat dripped from her friend’s brow on her transparent visor. Desperately, Fluttershy tried forcing the weapons away. It was a useless endeavor. She was weaker than Rainbow under normal circumstances, and the madness seemed to lend even more power to her cyan-coated friend. All she could do was keep the spikes away from her suit.

Even then, through all of Fluttershy’s efforts, the makeshift weapons inched down slowly, almost ponderously. This was a losing battle. “Rainbow… Please!” she grunted through her gritted teeth. 

Rainbow’s sneer turned to a victorious smirk upon hearing the pleading in her prey’s voice and the strength behind the push increased even further. “Give me back my wings! Give them back, you monster!”

Fluttershy barred her teeth in concentration. Her eyes closed as she focused every little bit she had at her disposal into surviving. Into pushing her friend’s – and she could never consider Rainbow differently despite it all – assault away. 

For a moment, Fluttershy thought she heard a desperate wail as the terrible force pressing down on her vanished, yet that couldn’t be it; surely she was growing delusional with the harrowing strain. But then she opened her eyes and realized Rainbow was no longer towering above her.

Gingerly, Shy tried getting up on all fours before reconsidering and standing on her hinds. Her front legs felt painful after that little exchange, she wasn’t used to such head-on struggles. The suited pegasus rubbed them carefully as she scanned the cave, searching for Rainbow. The first thing she found were the two spikes, discarded next to the kitchen entrance.

Gathering her courage, she stepped inside, still cradling her front legs gently. Immediately, she became aware of miserable sobbing coming from one corner. “Rainbow! Rainbow, did you manage to fight it down?” Fluttershy asked in a concerned voice as she slowly edged closer.

The sobs cascaded into a soul-wrenching wail. “Get away from me!” Rainbow screeched through her tears, her voice constricted with misery and effort.

Fluttershy threw caution away, against her better judgment. She stepped closer to her friend and fell to her knees, hugging Dash. “Praise the Well, you managed to cast the madness aside! You did it!” her own voice was shaky with emotion. 

The wingless pegasus pushed her away, though. “I didn’t! It’s still there, that bucking itch, it’s driving me crazy!”

Shy found herself voiceless, unable to respond in the face of what Rainbow said. It still seemed surreal and the despair – for there was nothing else such knowledge could bring – cruelly took its time to settle in. She dropped heavily on the ground, her legs suddenly assaulted by a wave of weakness and a sob raked her entire body. The steely void used to survive gave way to the core of kindness as the dichotomy inversed polarities again while she stamped her hoof on the ground in frustration, hard. Pain blossomed in it, but she barely even noticed. This was so unfair!

“Ah, Fluttershy! I’ve been looking all ov-” Twilight’s voice reached her from outside the kitchen. The enthusiasm in it died away as she stepped inside. “What is going on here?” she asked in dread.

Fluttershy met Twilight’s eyes in a meaningful and teary glance before jerking her head in Rainbow’s direction. The lavender unicorn raised a hoof to her mouth, covering a desperate gasp. “Oh no… No, no, no! This can’t be happening!” she said, her voice cracking with sorrow.

Dash looked at Twilight and a cheeky, albeit strained, smirk found its way to her lips while the tears in her eyes died away. “Hey, don’t give me that pitying look, Twi. You know how it hurts my pride.” She said in a shadow of her former self, the one that was forever lost. "Now, be a dear and bind me. This instant.” She continued, her voice a frightening tone of command befitting the captain and last member of the Wonderbolts.

Swallowing with some difficulty, Twilight complied and taped into the Well, conjuring spectral bindings that she wrapped around Rainbow’s legs. Her spectrum-maned friend allowed herself a sigh of relief, although the expression of concentration never left or eased. 

“Thanks a bunch.” She said, “Now, I’ve got a favor to ask while I’m still in control. Can you do that for me, for old time’s sake?”

“Anything you want.” Twilight nodded fervently.

“End me.” Dash whispered in the dead silence of the kitchen.

For a time, the lavender unicorn’s mouth worked soundlessly, her eyes an image of confusion and hurt. Then her vocal cords kicked back in. “No! I can’t… I won’t do it!”

“Twilight!” Rainbow screamed, “You said anything!”

The steel in her voice didn’t work this time, though. “Anything but this! How can you ask this and expect me to do it? After all we’ve been through together?!”

“That’s exactly why I’m asking you!” She roared, making Twilight jump back in surprise. “I want to be remembered for what I’ve accomplished; I wanna be remembered as the friend, the Wonderbolt and the warrior! Not some crazed maniac in a pathetic quest to recover what’s been taken away!” That made Twilight pause. The hurt in her eyes grew as she considered Rainbow's words. Judging by the thinning of her lips in distaste, she didn’t like it one bit.

“But… There’s the prospect of a cure. I wanted to tell you the good news, the way forward… And then this?” Twilight tried half-heartedly.

“Oh, oh! Great! Why don’t you tell me that about a week ago…? When I still had my bloody wings on!” Rainbow hissed in reply, her voice dripping with acid.

Twilight recoiled from the answer as if physically hit, her mouth hanging open. Still, she shook her head hesitantly and Rainbow grunted in frustration. “What am I gonna have to do to convince you?! For crying out loud, I tried killing Fluttershy! I’m a danger to all the pegasi living here!” Dash pressed on, refusing to relent.

“Do it, Twilight.” Both Rainbow and Twilight’s head whipped in Fluttershy’s direction, looking at her disbelievingly.

“W… How can you say that? You’re the Element of-” 

“The Element of kindness, I know.” Fluttershy cut through the lavender unicorn’s answer confidently, so very much unlike how she would have three years ago, “Look at Rainbow Dash. Give her one good and scrutinous look.” 

Twilight complied dubiously. Rainbow’s cyan coat was soaked with sweat, dripping on the floor in an almost unbroken stream. Her teeth were barred in a snarl of concentration while she fought the madness back with everything she had, hopefully long enough to convince Twilight to do what had to be done. The most shocking thing was her eyes, though. They held the glimmer of madness: that slightly glazy and voracious light which meant that soon, Rainbow would stop at nothing to recover her wings. However, that glimmer was overwhelmed by the true Rainbow Dash. The one they had formed a team with, the one that had been their friend and companion… And that part of her longed for nothing more than to be remembered for who she had been.

Although it was the core of kindness speaking, Fluttershy let an inkling of the steeliness of survival slip in to prevent her voice from shaking. “Ending her is a kindness, Twilight.” She said with finality.

The lavender unicorn closed her eyes for a time and muttered something inaudible before swallowing painfully. A frown of concentration crawled on her face and, although nothing else changed, the stall air within the kitchen didn't appear as stall any longer. It felt like the tumultuous breeze on the eve of a storm.

Rainbow’s body began dispersing into specks of cyan light. The wingless pegasus looked at her hooves in surprise and wonder as she progressively grew more and more transparent. “Twi, whatever you’re doing, don’t stop!” She screamed in a muted voice, as if heard through a wall. An ecstatic smile was lighting her features. “It’s great, the itch! It’s going…” Her lips finished the message inaudibly as her voice grew too low to be heard.

The specks of cyan light congregated around the disappearing body for a time, growing proportionally. After what seemed like an eternity, their friend vanished completely and the light jerked into motion, rushing towards a wall, passing through it and relieving the kitchen of its cyan glow.

A gasp for air broke through Fluttershy’s amazement at the bizarre phenomenon and she rushed in Twilight’s direction, making it just in time to prevent her from falling over. “What did you do, Twi? It was amazing!” She said with a hint of excitement, despite the glum outcome.

“D’nno… Hope ‘twas good, Rainbow d’serves good…” Her lavender friend drawled sluggishly as her eyelids drooped.

“Whatever it was, it seemed to make her happy. You did great.” She said encouragingly. That earned her a sleepy nod. “I’m going to take you back to your room; the Well knows how long it’s been since you’ve had a proper night sleep… Mount up on my back.”

“’Sgotta be three days now.” Twilight answered from the fringes of exhaustion while she made it onto Fluttershy’s back after a couple botched attempts. As soon as her hooves cleared the ground, she was snoring in the deep sleep of the just. With a sigh, the suited pegasus got going.

   “Hey, Shy?”

It must have been the fatigue, shock and emotional trauma from everything that had just happened mixing into a potent little delusional tonic, but she heard the disembodied voice of her recently deceased friend. “What is it?” she indulged her tired brain.

“Sorry for trying to kill you. No hard feelings, right? It was an honest mistake!”

Fluttershy gave a fond snort before answering snidely, “You know you wouldn’t have managed, even if you really tried.” 

All the way through the asylum and quarantined area, the uproarious and more importantly, heart-felt laughter of Rainbow Dash followed Fluttershy. Somehow, despite it being an illusion conjured by her brain to cope with the loss, it felt right. The mirth in it seemed to chip away at the bleakness of the future.