Turquoise Blitz sat against the tree silently, well away from the other fillies and colts playing during their lunch recess. Most days, he would just watch them play from his spot on the small hill, lamenting that he couldn’t join them in their merriment. Instead, he was forced to sigh and sit on his own off to the side margins of the school property.

The others were all terrified of his claws and teeth. They had been since he first went to school. The claws weren’t so bad, but the teeth were too scary. The fillies and colts thought he would eat them. Turquoise rarely smiled anymore since school started because of it.

Most of them were just scared, but a few colts would give him trouble every now and again for looking the way he did. He usually just brushed it off at the time and went about his day, never telling the teacher what was happening. When he got home, his mom and dad were either busy or sleeping, so he never told them. And Claire... she would just blow it out of proportion.

So, from his perch at the top of the playground, Turquoise watched over the others and just tried to imagine getting to play with them and have fun like a normal little colt. Playing tag, card games, reading comics...

Turquoise sighed, as he often found himself doing. “I just want to be normal...”

“Hey!” a familiarly coarse voice beckoned.

“No, please no...” Turquoise begged in his head. He turned to see the usual group of tormentors coming toward him. “H-hello...”

“What? Hello?” one of them repeated mockingly. “Not gonna bellow at us like a dragon?”

“He’s certainly no pony,” one of the others said.

“I-I am a pony,” Turquoise replied meekly. “My mommy and daddy say so.”

“Your daddy’s not a pony, is he?” one asked. Turquoise shook his head. “Then I guess he can’t say much.”

“Shut up!” Turquoise shouted, tears beginning to well up in his eyes.

“Oh ho, is the baby gonna cry? Or turn into the monster it is and spit fire at us?” the front one mocked.

Turquoise felt tears begin to stream down his face. “Just go away!” he yelled, hoping they would just leave him alone this time.

“Us? You’re the freak non-pony!” another one yelled.

Turquoise never kept track of who was making him cry; as far as he could see, they were just the same. Turquoise felt himself start to sob and curled up into a fetal position, hoping that if he couldn’t see them, maybe they couldn’t see him either.

“They should send you to a special school for freaks!” one taunted.

“Or send him to the dragons, since he’ll fit in better there,” another said.

“Please just, go away...” Turquoise begged.

“Freak!”

“Monster!”

“Mutant!”

Turquoise cried into the dirt as he had to very many times before, wishing that they would just disappear forever. That these colts would just be taken out of his life, and that he would never have to deal with them again. His only saving grace was when the belle finally sounded, and the colts had to run back to the schoolhouse.

“What’s a mutant?” One asked on the way back.

The other shrugged. “Something weird,” he replied.

Turquoise continued to lie where he was. He didn’t want to go inside where the mean colts were, where they would sneer at him and mouth words at him. Turquoise hated coming here. He hated being tormented. He hated being so alone.

Turquoise decided that he wouldn’t go back in there. Instead, he walked home, face wet with salty tears and dirt all over his side where he was laying on the ground. The teacher wouldn’t notice with such a big class. She had never noticed before anyway.

Turquoise knew that he had to be quiet when he went back into the house, since his mom was going to be working. By now, he knew exactly how to avoid being caught by hiding in fabrics his mom never used and using them to muffle his hoofsteps. When he made it to his room, he curled up into a ball and let himself cry until he napped.

No one ever noticed his leaving school and no one knew he was here. At least being alone with nopony around him was bearable.

Yet, after every day of living Tartarus he had to go through, he went back because he didn’t want to disappoint his mom and dad. So, the next day, he went to school once again. But this time, he was greeted by something else.

When the fillies and colts went out to recess, the teacher called him over. “Turquoise, would you come see me?” she asked softly.

Turquoise felt his heart begin to race. He was in trouble for skipping the second half of the day. He just knew it. He couldn’t stay totally invisible forever.

“U-Uh, okay,” Turquoise said. He walked over to the teacher.

“Turquoise, are you all right?” the teacher asked gently.

Turquoise was more than a little bit surprised at her soft tone. He should have been in trouble, shouldn’t he?

“Uh, y-yes,” he replied, his nerves collapsing around him.

“Sweetie, you aren’t in any trouble,” the teacher told him with an easy smile. Turquoise felt himself lighten up a bit and his legs went from rigid to normal again.

“I’m not?” Turquoise asked.

“No,” the teacher said. “I just noticed you weren’t in class yesterday. Is there something you need to tell me?”

“N-no, ma’am, I’m doing okay,” Turquoise replied.

The teacher wore a pained expression at his response. “Are you sure? You can tell me anything,” she said.

“R-really, I’m okay,” Turquoise said. Can I go outside?”

The teacher nodded. “Okay. But if you need to tell me anything, you can always come to me.”

“Yes ma’am,” Turquoise said.

Turquoise went outside, relieved to be out of the spotlight, and came out to nopony looking at him or even wondering where he was. None of them seemed to know he was ever around anyway, except those colts who always made him feel so alone.

Turquoise went to his usual spot again and sat. Watching over the ponies, though, he noticed something different. There was a colt in the crowd who kept looking his way, an orange colt with a red neckerchief. He looked at Turquoise like he was worried; probably that Turquoise would swoop down and try to eat him and his friends. Turquoise made sure not to look at him and keep his distance.

And then, as usual, the group of colts came up to him.

“Well, well, looks like he didn’t do what we told him to do,” one said.

“Just go away,” Turquoise said.

“Same conv... convo... conversation, as last time,” one managed to say.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?!” Turquoise shouted louder than usual. In the distance, a few fillies and colts looked his way, and the orange one with the red neckerchief furrowed his brow with a frown.

“You’re a monster, and monsters are dangerous,” one said.

“I don’t want to go,” Turquoise said.

“Maybe we have to make you,” one of them suggested. The orange colt in the distance made a run for the schoolhouse.

Another colt chuckled. “Maybe we should,” he said.

Without warning, he went and head-butted Turquoise in the nose. Turquoise fell back and landed on his rump, holding his nose and crying. When he took a hoof away, he saw blood, and started to wail.

“Go away!” he shouted. He tried to get up, but with bleary eyes, he tripped over the root of his tree in his escape.

When he tried to get up, another colt came and kicked him in the side, knocking him back down. Turquoise felt a pain in his side that made it hard to move, so instead of pushing himself up, he rolled over and used that to get back up.

“Let’s send him home for good this time,” one colt said.

When he stepped forward and went for a buck, Turquoise felt something change. He didn’t feel pain anymore, he didn’t feel afraid. He felt angry. He felt more than angry.

Before the colt’s buck could even begin, the colt’s friends’ faces had already switched from cockiness to terror at the razor teeth and dominating claws they bore witness to.

“Teacher, those colts are bullying Turquoise again!” the orange colt said.

The teacher turned around. “Thank you, Golden Delicious. I’ll take care of this.”

The teacher got up and trotted outside. As she left through the door, though, she heard the most shrill, bloodcurdling scream she had ever been subjected to, followed by cries of terror form a group of colts. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and she sprinted outside to where she suspected they came from.

When she saw the tree, her worst fears were realized; there stood Turquoise, the gentle green dragon-pony, snarling and growling, with his teeth and claws bared and a cowering colt before him. The colt cried terribly, begging for mercy, but from the looks of it, Turquoise couldn’t hear it.

“Turquoise!” the teacher screamed. She ran up to the young colt on the ground and covered him. “Turquoise, stop it right now!!”

Turquoise looked at her and paused for a moment. The teacher was afraid that he would attack her, but much to her relief, he stopped and blinked himself back into reality. When he came back, he looked around, confused, and then focused on the colt before him.

“Wha...” he said. Then he realized what happened. “No. No no no no no...” He started to step back.

The teacher refocused on the colt in front of her. “It’ll be okay, little one, you’ll be fine...” The colt just whimpered weakly underneath her.

Turquoise looked around. Everypony was staring at him. They were staring at the monster that had just attacked the little colt, brutalized him in the schoolyard. They all thought Turquoise was a monster that would eat them, and they were probably right.

Turquoise turned and ran away from the school. He turned and ran as fast as he could. The teacher tried to call to him, but he didn’t are. He had to run. And he wouldn’t ever come back, ever.

T jolted awake with a gasp and a cold sweat. His claws were slightly out and he could feel it deep in his belly that there was a fire ready to come out. He took a minute to calm himself, taking deep breaths and gently closing his eyes to make the feeling go away.

That day... He couldn’t forget that day. He had never meant to hurt that little colt... he didn’t know what happened. He just remembered going form getting ready to be bucked to being in front of all the other fillies and colts with blood on his claws and a cowering colt in front of him.

He still didn’t quite understand what happened. His father tried to explain it to him, but it just made him think he was a monster. Deep down, he still thought he was. Hopefully, Annie would never have to see it, but... T just didn’t know.

With yet another in a long series of sighs, T lie back down in bed and tried to sleep. But that day kept playing through his head.

After running home, the authorities came by and asked to talk to him. T thought they would throw him into monster jail, where they kept Tirek and other scary things. He didn’t deserve any better, after all. But they turned out to be very nice when asking about what happened.

When all was said and done, T was free to go. His parents never scolded him, although Spike had to teach him how to control himself in the future. All the while, nopony ever brought up what happened again.

When T returned to school after refusing to go back for two weeks, the other fillies and colts all tried to be friendly and nice, but T knew how scared they were. He could see it in their eyes. He wanted to just stay home again, but his parents wouldn’t let him. Claire said she would help him if he was bullied again, but T wasn’t worried about what would be done to him. He was worried about what he would do to them.

T had never wanted to hurt anypony; he just wanted to make friends. He would rather have friends who weren’t scared of him and be bullied every day than have no real friends. Hurting other ponies would bring him back to being alone.

He was lucky that there was somepony who wanted to help him. It turned out to be Del, and they struck up a lasting friendship after everything. Del was the first one to talk to T when he came back to school. He was the entire reason T was willing to go back at all.

T looked up at the ceiling. These memories came back up every now and again, but lately, they had been coming back with a force. He couldn’t explain why, he just couldn’t get it off his mind.

As much as he wanted to forget, there was one thing he made sure to remember; just how strong and big he is. A time after the colt didn’t return to school, T found out he and his family moved to Manehattan to be with family. T didn’t understand why, and no one wanted to tell him.

When he found out, he truly felt like a monster. The little colt couldn’t walk anymore, and he would never walk again. T had taken away a little colt’s life as an earth Pony, crippled him forever. He wanted to throw up, and it took his family days to get him to leave his room.

It was the day he found out about that that he decided he would never hurt anyone again. It was wrong. What he did was more wrong than what Nightmare Moon had tried to do. And he would never do it again. Or at least he hoped he so. He didn’t want to be alone again...

And so, once again, T shut his eyes to try to go back to sleep, old memories guiding his current actions and determining the future of his life, the only thing holding him back and enabling him to go forward and out into the world.