Fighters Don't Have Friends

by BackroundVoice

0 - Part 2 : Twilight Phoenix Sparkle

"Full name?" the station manager asked me. He had a form on a clipboard in front of him, filling it out for a train pass that I had previously misplaced.

"Twilight Phoenix Sparkle," I told him, giving him my full name. I had asked if he could fill it out instead, as I could barely write with my injured hooves and not to mention my 'teeth-writing' still needed work for it to be legible.

"Why are you heading to Ponyville at this time of night, Miss Sparkle?" he asked.

"I have my reasons," I answered. He nodded and wrote down the hour the form was being filled out. 1:45 A.M.

"Address and phone number?"

"6482 Royal Lane. And I don't have a phone," I said, offering my brother's address and number instead for contact purposes.

"I think I've seen you before," the manager mentioned, he stopped his work to look at me. My sapphire colored hair and red streaks were probably recognizable to him. Not many other ponies looked as similar to each other as my family had. But I don't think he did. Well, the new me that is. "Did you use to go to the Unicorn Academy by chance?" When he asked that, I thought long and hard about what that used to mean to me, glaring at the magic he used to levitate and write with.

"Yeah," I said, "But that was a while ago,"

"Are you employed?"

"Golden oak library, I'm a bookkeeper, part-time,"

"Wage?" the questions he continued to ask me were just textbook procedures. Nothing too prying, which was nice. I never liked other ponies getting interested or questioning me. I preferred to keep my distance. Of course, such ideology made things more difficult when related skills were needed, but the more I could remain indifferent the better. Being attached never helped me anyway.

"I know it's none of my business, but were you in a fight before this?" the manager asked. I looked up at him with a blank stare.

Great, those questions.

He smiled awkwardly at me to answer, and that's when I took a good look at my reflection in the station stop's out looking window. My black hoodie was ripped on the shoulder from when I slid on the brick street and I had a swollen black eye from an off-duty guard, a jerk named Flash Sentry. I recalled it like a bad dream, and the more I looked at myself, the more I started to remember the pain I was actually in. I cringed at those moments when I was punched and kicked back and forth by a gang of delinquent guards. I grabbed my right hoof. One of them that gripped me from behind had twisted it a little too much. And then the last thing I reminded myself of was that hit to my horn. I bit my lip and turned back to the manager.

"I'd rather not talk about it..."

The manager nodded again, filling out the rest of the form with little help from me. When he was done he asked me to stand still for the photo on my new ID. I laughed when I saw my beat up mug, a clear depiction of what I felt like.

"I look like I just got out of prison, don't I?" I joked with the manager. But he just froze in place, as he probably just came to that conclusion. Most likely shuttering at the thought that I actually was a dangerous criminal.

"H- Have a good night, ma'am!" he said as he closed the station down for the night, quickly.

"Wait, I didn't mean it!" I called out to him, but before I knew it he had galloped for the hills. "That's not going to bite me in the flank later," I mumbled to myself. Taking my time to trot over to the ticket gate. I swiped my train pass over the scanner and the screen next to me lit up green.

Good thing I gave him my brother's credit card number, I might not have gotten in otherwise, I thought. Shining Armor, my brother, was not going to be happy about this. Using his funds for myself secretly was not something I had intended to do. But my wallet was back at the shopping district most likely, and I was not about to go back there.

As I walked into the waiting area, I spotted a yellow Pegasus with a pink mane sitting by herself at the far bench. She waved for me to come over, but I stopped halfway down the aisle as I assessed her from afar. "You followed me," I stated. Not exactly surprised, I still didn't expect her to wait here for me. "Are you crazy or something?"

She stopped smiling and looked down, a little cheerless as I sat at the opposite end of her bench.

Her name was Fluttershy if I remember correctly. She was there too when I had gotten into that scuffle earlier tonight. Almost a victim of Flash Sentry's harassment. I kept catching her glancing over at me. She was eager to ask me something, yet, didn't feel brave enough to raise her voice.

Fine by me, I need some alone time.

I stopped paying attention to the shy girl and looked out into the snow covered valley in front of me. A nice change of scenery from the busy city life of Canterlot. Why hadn't I left this place sooner? Out there in the more rural towns of Equestria, it was far more beautiful, more breathtaking, more...

"Excuse me," said a quiet voice in my ear.

"Fudge and Sprinkles!" I cried out as I jumped from my seat. I tried to steady myself into a fighting stance but ended up tripping over my own back hooves instead, my head making contact with the ground first. I spitefully murmured about my luck a little more before I looked back to Fluttershy who had snuck up on me, a stream of apologies flooding out of her mouth.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, I am so sorry, so sorry! I- I just want to talk to you," she confessed. Right now I was thinking of that wound on the back of the head. Flash Sentry, at the end of it all, threw me up against a corner of a building. I almost felt like crying just thinking about. So I forced myself to focus on anything else but that to avoid the mental pain. And I saw Fluttershy's hoof, extended out to me. I had considered pushing her hoof away to help myself. But one look into her big innocent eyes made me think twice.

I grabbed her hoof, and she helped me up.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

"Hurt is an understatement," I said, moving her aside to take my seat again. "I feel more like I've been bombarded by a moving truck full of furniture." The grimace on Fluttershy's face made me chuckle. Looking her over again, she was wearing a white summer dress with a blue coat buttoned over a scarf. Proper coverage compared to my lone hoodie.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Yes, why do you ask?" she answered with a smile.

Because you were cowering back there, I thought. Earlier, Fluttershy was just waiting around near a small shop, while I think a friend of her's was closing up a store. And that was when Flash Sentry and his gang showed up. It started out harmless enough, just a group of stallions hitting on some mares. But they were a little too insistent that they join them for the night. Fluttershy's friend escaped to go get help from the royal guard, but then they laughed saying that they were the guard. Fluttershy was left all alone.

"I need to thank you properly," Fluttershy said, "for saving me back there."

"You don't need to, I wasn't trying to be a hero," I told her, thinking back to earlier. My urge to fight was a combination of my patience fading and my hunger for combat. A feeling I hadn't felt for a few days now. While I thought I started the fight with the best of intentions, it quickly became my own personal problem to convince myself that I didn't waste my time in Ponyville, with my 'friends'.

I touched my horn, covered thickly with medical wraps. I could still feel the crack from the top of my horn to my skull.

I'm not a hero, just another selfish pony.

I could've hurt Flash even more if I wanted to, but it wasn't worth it in the end. I proved to myself that I was still skilled enough to be considered a fighter. That's all I wanted from that fight.

"But you are a hero," Fluttershy suddenly spoke up. To my surprise, she wasn't trying to be soft spoken anymore, she was trying to be inspiring, even if it really didn't fit with that high pitched voice of her's. "I followed you because I wanted to know how you got to be this way, you don't seem like the kind of pony who would fight like you did." I quickly looked down at my ID. The black eye and the dried up blood on my face made me think of nothing else but a pony with a troubled past.

"I don't?" I said, and then I groaned as I realized. Fantastic, she wasn't scared of me, to begin with, no wonder she followed me. I was just another mare going through life to her. How more unjudging and kind hearted could you get?

"So, you really want to know?" I asked as I looked back up at the night sky. She nodded, yes. "Then take a seat, it'll be a while before the next train comes anyway." Fluttershy sat next to me quickly, and I began where I think it all started. How I came to be more well known as simply 'Phoenix' instead of as 'Twilight Sparkle'. How I got muddled into the more conflict centered part of Equestria's branched culture.

"I was still living here in Canterlot," I began, "where I thought I'd always be. Studying magic, content that my life was perfect..."

Comments

[ParodiaTheSilent]

"I have my reasons," I answered. He nodded and wrote down the hour the form was being filled out. 1:45 P.M.

You meant A.M., right?

[Mahtan]

Hey! Stupid question but is this in an anthro universe or are they "normal"?

[BackroundVoice]

8491657
They have hooves and walk on all fours. If... that’s what you consider normal.