The Element of Kindness galloped into the darkness in a full panic, knocking over a bureau and shattering a teapot in her fear. “I can’t!” She whimpered once again, stumbling around until she bumped against a coffee table, upending it. Shaking in fear, Fluttershy curled up into a little ball on the floor of what she assumed to be the kitchen, hooves over her eyes. “It’s too much! It’s too…oh Celestia, I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”

The little pegasus sobbed into her hooves, more of those terrible gunshots echoing in her ears from the front door. Here, all these ponies and all these humans were fighting and dying for her, and all she could do was sit and cry! It was pathetic. She was pathetic. Oh, why did she have to bear the Element of Kindness!? Why couldn’t fate find someone better, somepony braver, somepony who didn’t turn into a useless, quivering mass of pitiful goo every time something…

A hum filled her ears, like a tuning fork when it was smacked against a table. Slowly, Fluttershy pulled her face out of her hooves and looked around fearfully, wiping tears from her eyes. A small glow emanated from someplace, inviting her forward. It was strange: normally, a strange glow in the middle of a dark place might scare her even more, but this glow seemed to be calling her. Not with words, per se, but with a sort of pleading look, like a wounded bird on the side of the road would. Or even like…like…

Like Uris looked when I first saw him, she realized, and immediately she rushed forward, hoof reaching out to nearly tear the door off the cabinet. And that was it. There was her Element, dangling there between a colander and a frying pan.

“You,” she gasped in realization. “You knew I was scared, didn’t you? And-and you were trying to make me feel better?”

The little amulet’s glow simply dimmed. Fluttershy smiled. That was as good as an emphatic “yes” for her. She reached a hoof out, ready to take her Element up and assume the role every pony needed from her so desperately.

Suddenly, something smashed against the side of her face, nearly knocking her out cold. Her head spinning, Fluttershy squinted into the dark to see what had hit her. A pony advanced from the dark, a cold look gazing back at the little pegasus. It sent shivers up her spine. “Wha-who are you?” She asked, voice shaking.

“You mean you don’t recognize me?” The pony asked, its rage-filled eyes regarding her like a manticore might look at a steak dinner. “You little wimp, after all I’ve done for you, you seriously don’t recognize me? Even after years of seeing me in the mirror!?”

“Nuh-no,” Fluttershy gasped, backing away from that terrible, dark gaze. They were the same eyes that had looked back at her from her mirror so very long ago, before she met her friends, back in the flight academy, when sometimes the bullies just got to be too much and she ran crying to her room. On those nights, something mean would sometimes look back at her from the mirror as strange and terrible thoughts played out in her mind, terrifying her to this day. “No! Y-you aren’t real! You can’t be!”

“Oh, I’m very real, weakling,” the pony lashed out with a hoof across Fluttershy’s jaw. “You can’t deny it anymore! I am the ‘you’ that can stand up against cockatrices! I am the ‘you’ that can stare a manticore into submission! And you…”

The pony stepped forward into a shaft of moonlight, shining through a tiny crack in the curtains over the window. Fluttershy’s eyes squeezed tight. She didn’t have to look to know her own face would be staring back, its pink mane torn and ragged, its eyes filled with loathing for a world that had rejected her, and the soul behind it consumed with a hatred that blazed for everypony around her.

“…You are nothing,” the other Fluttershy said. “A version of me that never realized what a waste of time caring for everypony else was, especially when all they do is walk all over you.”

“Tha-that’s not true!” Fluttershy gasped, her eyes still closed. “My friends…”

A hoof lashed out across her face. “Look at me when I’m fucking talkin’ at you, ya puss!” A voice, once melodic and sweet but now torn ragged, screamed at the Element of Kindness. Slowly, without wanting to, Fluttershy obeyed, instantly taking a full blast of her own “Stare.” Gasping, she dropped to the floor, quivering.

“Pathetic,” the doppelganger muttered. “Lemme tell you a little something about ‘friends.’ They have their limits. They have a point where they will just turn around and say ‘no,’ where they’ll abandon you in an hour of need because it’s just too damn hard.”

“No…” Fluttershy whimpered.

“YES!” A hoof smacked her across her face again. “You know it’s true! Deep down, you have a voice telling you just that! And the sooner you face up and just accept it, the better!”

Fluttershy just kept whimpering through the barrage. Her double gave an exasperated sigh. “I should’ve known,” she mumbled. “You’re just too far gone. Too weak to understand.”

“Too…weak…” Fluttershy mumbled. It was true. All of it. She was always the weakest of the group, always the…the…

A small glow from the cabinet illuminated the tiny kitchen. She paused to look at it. “Buh?”

Her doppelganger followed her gaze in confusion. “What the hell’s…”

Memories flashed by Fluttershy’s eyes: picking up Uris in the Everfree forest, pulling herself out from underneath the bed when he’d woken up and started panicking, dashing after him without a single thought once she saw his bed was empty, returning with her friends when he’d fallen behind during the run from the enemy troops, standing up to that nasty human after Twilight had teleported them all, setting her own exhaustion aside to help some ponies in need during a crisis.

Suddenly, Fluttershy wasn’t so afraid anymore. She stood.

“Bitch,” her double snarled, raising a hoof. “Did I say you could…”

She paused as Fluttershy’s own hoof lashed out, blocking the smack. The double looked back at her in surprise. “You think I’m weak just because I don’t act like a total jerk to everypony I meet?” The Element of Kindness said, the beginnings of anger starting to edge into her voice. “Bitch, I WILL FUCKING END YOU!”

Tossing her mane aside, the Element of Kindness blasted her double with the greatest, most powerful Stare she had ever mustered in her life. Backing away in surprise, the double snarled and regained her hoofing. “BRING IT!” She screamed, returning the stare. The two looked full-on into one another’s eyes, neither giving ground, neither backing down, but even with her newfound courage, Fluttershy still couldn’t quite win. This dark Fluttershy had years of pain and hurt to draw upon, which she poured into her Stare. It took all of Fluttershy’s memories from a lifetime of friendship to keep that darkness at bay. That’s not to say she was losing either, but after five minutes, neither had gained an edge over the other. They were locked in an absolutely perfect stalemate, and in fact they might still be standing there today if not for outside intervention in the form of a large burst of confetti and streamers.

“Wha…” the Flutter-double gasped, momentarily distracted. It gave Fluttershy the opening she needed to step in with one last blast from the Stare. It was all over after that. The double’s defenses shattered and burned instantly in the face of the bombardment, years of crusty cynicism and self-loathing melting away and leaving a quivering, broken mass of a pony curled up on the kitchen floor, crying softly to herself.

Fluttershy stepped back and nearly collapsed with exhaustion, but a hoof was there to keep her up. She looked up into her savior’s face. “P-Pinkie?”

“You were expecting Mila Kunis?” The party mare replied, a massive grin on her face and the Element of Laughter locked securely around her neck.

“Oh, thank Celestia!” Fluttershy wrapped her hooves around her friend, who smiled and squeezed tight as she led them away towards the front hall.

“C’mon, our friends are all waiting for us, I’m sure of it!” Pinkie sang as she skipped along.

“Okay, I can’t wait to…wait,” Fluttershy paused. “Ohmygosh, I can’t believe I almost forgot my Element!” She turned to rush back into the kitchen.

“Hurry up!” Pinkie yelled. “We don’t wanna miss the whole battle, do we!?”

Fluttershy simply dashed back and grabbed her Element, never even giving the darkness around her a second thought. As she turned to leave, her hoof brushed against something. She looked down, realizing her doppelganger had a hoof wrapped around her own.

Looking back to her friend, the Element of Kindness instantly realized there was only one thing she could possibly do. She curled up next to her double and started stroking her mane. “There, there…” she cooed softly. “You did your best, that’s all that matters.”

“Sh-shut up,” her double sobbed, but didn’t pull away as the yellow pegasus continued to hold her, stroking her mane with the gentlest touch she could muster.

“Fluttershy?” Pinkie appeared at the doorway, nearly taken aback at what she saw. The Element of Kindness looked up at her.

“She needs my help,” she said plainly.

Pinkie smiled and shook her head, knowing full well that it was impossible to talk her friend out of helping somepony in need. “Well, I’m sorry Fluttershy, but there are a lot of ponies and humans out there who need your help even more. So c’mon: I promise we’ll come back for her later.”

Nodding, the little yellow pegasus stood, whispering: “I’ll be right back,” to her double. Her double didn’t respond, but kept shivering where she lay. Eventually, the little yellow pegasus trotted to her friend and the pair set off towards the front of the house.

“By the way,” Fluttershy asked after a short while had passed. “Did you have to fight your double too?”

“Y-yeah,” Pinkie replied, her perky demeanor shaking for a split-second before popping right back. “It’s nothing we should worry about now, though.”

“Oh-okay, well, I just wanted to know: what was she like?”

Pinkie paused, actually giving the question some thought. After a while, she smiled. Not her usual smile, mind you, but a sort of easygoing smile, her eyes glimmering with wisdom that seemed out of place on her. “Someday, Fluttershy, maybe I’ll tell you. And I’m sure we’ll all have a great, big laugh about it.”

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Two minutes earlier…

Pinkamena gazed up at the roof of the wheat silo from a puddle of her own blood. The makeshift bandage across her flank ensured no more would escape, but it couldn’t replace the blood she’d lost leaving her hovering on the edge of unconsciousness, barely able to move, much less keep fighting.

She turned to the sounds of hoofsteps approaching, Pinkie popping up in her field of vision. “You feeling better?” She asked cheerfully. “I certainly hope so! You lost a whole TON of blood!”

Pinkamena felt the night breeze against her own, naked body. “Whuh-where’s my…” she stammered.

“Hm? Oh, your dress? I took that outside and burned it. It felt pretty weird to touch,” she shivered. “And all scratchy. How can you even wear that? Rarity would have a heart attack just looking at it!”

The murderess panted heavily, trying to keep her eyes open. It took her a while, but she eventually worked up the strength to ask one final question: “H-how…”

“How am I so much stronger than you? Oh, you silly-willy, it only makes sense! After all,” she looked her doppelganger right in the eye, something alien gleaming in her gaze as she whispered, “I’m the one who kept fighting the voices for the sake of my friends. I never gave in.”

That was it. Pinkamena slipped into unconsciousness almost immediately after, leaving the other pink mare to casually stroll over her body, scoop up her Element, and trot happily away to meet the rest of her friends.

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Flutterbitch is a little bit of my imagination, plus that Discorded version of Fluttershy. Basically, I just asked myself: what if she was like that for longer? What if she decided to be Flutterbitch in High School, or even earlier? And this happened.

Also, Pinkamena is from Sergeant Sprinkles' "Cupcakes," and you know it.