Gasping for breath, Twilight Sparkle looked up, and then right. Flames and rubble were everywhere, the aftermath of the battle. She felt her lungs burn from the acrid smoke. But the burning let her know she was still alive. Life, she knew, always had some pain. So she inhaled again. She could take the coughing, and the burning. She'd recover from those. But looking left...

[i]Quetzalcoatl had been defeated, but only just. The ancient serpent bird had destroyed most of Canterlot, including the castle. The entire Royal Guard had been called, but had only made the beast flee towards Ponyville.[/i]

Twilight got her hooves beneath her, and, still coughing, moved to help others. There, a foal on the upper floor of a partially collapsed building! She levitated the colt down. Another, trapped by fire, and an ice spell to quickly extinguish the flames. Two ponies were on the roof of Sugarcube Corner... The mayor was stuck up a tree... It went on for some time, as Twilight circled the disaster area in a slow, clockwise pattern.

[i]Twilight tried to block the beast outside the town, but it took flight, landing near town hall. She'd wanted to avoid this, another fight in a population center. She almost felt it was trying for collateral damage.[/i]

As she circled the middle of town, Twilight heard the noise of chaos all around her. Ponies were crying out for loved ones, shouting names in search, or sobbing weakly in general fear. But there were other sounds too. She could hear the grunting of a bear, the frantic squawking and thwap-thwap of bird wings against a foe, and the scritch-scritch-scritch of tiny paws on rock. She kept circling right.

[i]To put it bluntly, they'd been losing. Badly. The jungle demon was quick and they'd underestimated it at first, giving it a huge advantage. But still, it was only a half-god. The other half was beast; a mortal entity with weakness and desires like any other. It was Fluttershy that had figured it out: Quetzalcoatl eats plums. But the god-beast didn't just eat them, he literally could not resist them, and the assembled ponies used that to lure him to his defeat.[/i]

Detached and dreamlike, Twilight had ambled through the town, until a realization struck: If you go right long enough, you eventually go left. She would have laughed if she wasn't so close to crying. In circling right, she was now back to where she started, facing the scene she'd avoided this whole time.

[i]As the giant feathered serpent writhed in its death throes, its tail had struck the town hall, sending the tower raining down upon those beneath. Fluttershy didn't even hesitate.[/i]

Knowing she could avoid it no longer, Twilight bit her lip and stepped forward. There she saw a bear, several otters, birds, uncountable mice and rabbits, and many others, all shifting the rubble of the town hall. Beneath it, a few yellow feathers stuck out, unmoving. As the animals moved more of the debris, a wing was revealed, and Twilight willed herself to keep watching. She could ignore the truth no longer.

[i]As the building collapsed, Fluttershy scooped up the baby bunnies Angel had been trying to shepherd away from the battle. She cuddled them beneath herself as the building fell, and, despite his protests, forced Angel himself beneath her protection as well. Later, as her last breaths left her, Angel promised her anything.[/i]

[hr]

Fifty-four rabbits in full battle armor surrounded The Princess of Friendship as she marched down the aisle. The first eight bunnies had shown up the day after the battle, refusing to leave her side. Now, a dozen years later, they'd multiplied, and her lapine honor guard had grown significantly. At first, she'd cried, and raged, and nearly kicked Angel in the head when he adamantly refused to go away. In her grief, she'd seen it as some twisted form of revenge; Angel reminding her of her failure. It'd taken months before she finally understood. It wasn't a reminder that she'd failed to protect Fluttershy, it was Fluttershy protecting [i]her.[/i] And you know what? It worked!

Sure, an alicorn is powerful just on their own, and the Royal Guard are quite capable at war. But in the past decade, nothing has struck more fear in the hearts of anypony that would cause harm to Twilight Sparkle than the thought of four dozen battle-axe wielding bunnies with a sworn life debt: The Royal Guard division known as Fluttershy's Revenge.