Fluttershy walked through the halls of the factory as she made her way out of the building. Something caught her attention, though, when she walked past the production line. Somepony was pushing to get a date with another pony a little too far. She walked back and over to the two ponies. "Hello," she said.
"What do you want?" asked one of them, his voice sounding a little more on-edge than most.
"I was just wondering what was going on over here," she replied truthfully. "Is there a problem?"
"No problem," he answered. "I was just asking the mare here out on a date."
"It didn't sound like asking," she said. "It was a little too loud to be asking."
"What's it to you?" he asked, taking a step forward. "Are you the police of asking?"
Fluttershy took a step back. "I just want everypony here to have good working conditions," she said. "Yelling doesn't promote a healthy environment."
"Well maybe an unhealthy one is needed," he responded, moving toward her again.
Fluttershy met his eyes. "Don't make me angry," she said, a fearful calm creeping over her. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
"Yeah, right," he said, lunging forward. Fluttershy moved to the side, caught him in the air and spun, throwing him to the opposite side of the room.
A quick beeping started coming from her hoof. Fluttershy quickly turned around, trying to calm her pulse. Soon enough, it slowed down, the beeping going silent.
That is, until she was tackled by the mare the colt was pushing around. "Thank you," she said excitedly. "I didn't know what to do and he was pushing and I was scared and-"
Fluttershy held up a hoof, cutting off the other mare. "You needed help, so I helped," she said. "You don't need to thank me."
"Not many ponies would have done that," she said. "You deserve my thanks." She quickly bowed her head and trotted out of the room.
Fluttershy sighed a little, following soon after to go back to her apartment in the hills. Hopefully, things would calm down a bit and there wouldn't be another incident. Hopefully, she could stay here for at least a little bit longer.
Others didn't plan for that.
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General Thunderbolt grinned at the team behind the mirror. They were the best soldiers of this generation from all over the world. One of them was from the northern Zebra Empires, his stripes setting him apart from the others. A griffon also stood there, surprisingly, her wings spread at-the-ready. Another had weapons from his home strapped to his back, unique armor on his hooves as well. One even held the infamous bat-wings of the Night Guard along with the signature armor and new weapons.
The General hardened his gaze, stepping out in front of the small group. He looked over each and every one of them, noticing the smaller details he hadn't seen earlier. A few scars here and there, noticeable muscle structures, various stances and alertness. He stopped in the middle and said, "You have each been picked to apprehend a very special subject. She is a yellow Pegasus pony by the name of Fluttershy. She is to be brought back here, alive. Am I understood?"
"Yes, sir!" they all said in unison.
"Good," he replied. "Now move out and bring me that Pegasus!"
All of them turned around and ran or flew over to the waiting helicopter. They filed in and it spun up, flying off toward that isolated town in the south.
The General couldn't help but grin. After all these years, he was finally going to get her. He was finally going to get what he wanted. Everything was going great, but that didn't mean he should take chances. He'd had situations similar to this before. That's why he brought up the live feed from the Night Guard's armor when he came into the situation room.
Now all he had to do was wait.
*******************************
Fluttershy was quiet for a time. It wasn't unusual for her to be quiet, but it was a much more solemn quiet than before. She had come to this place for a specific reason, and that reason had just failed. Her miracle-cure for what had happened to her had started to work, but it ended up causing a much more dangerous reaction afterwards, shattering the microscope slide with the blood sample.
She shook her head a little, trying to clear it. There had to be something she hadn't tried yet, some solution she hadn't thought of. Maybe she should just go home and ask Twilight or Rainbow Dash about it. Maybe she should try to find Rarity and hope she knew something about it. At this point, she was even considering finding Pinkie Pie to see if her unique sweets would help.
For now, though, all she could do was stay as calm as possible. She couldn't get angry, and she couldn't get afraid. She had to stay in one place and wait a little bit longer before going anywhere. She had to think of a good reason to leave without causing suspicion. She needed a plan before leaving so she could stay off the radar.
The dog she had brought in perked her head up and looked at the door a few seconds before a quiet beeping came from the security systems. Fluttershy looked over to the computer and saw a few masked ponies moving up the stairs. A griffon was waiting at the bottom, watching the team as they moved up.
Her eyes went wide and she took a step back. Looking around, she grabbed the saddlebags she kept for emergencies and tightened them. She moved to her bed and arranged some pillows, hoping it would buy her a little more time to get out. She took one last glance around the room before making it to a window and jumping out, flapping her wings a few times to get some air before dropping to the ground.
She took off at a quick jog, trying not to move too quickly to keep her heart rate down. She glanced back a few times, but didn't see anything behind her. Barking came from the direction she left from until it was cut short. A pang of pain and anger surged through her, kicking her pulse up a few beats, but she quickly got it under control and kept it steady. She kept running until she ran into a stallion she hadn't seen move into her path.
The two of them stumbled and fell to the ground. The stallion groaned a little, quickly followed by quiet chuckling. "Well this is a pleasant surprise," he said, the voice sounding oddly familiar.
Fluttershy got up and looked at him, recognizing him from earlier that day. He was giving her a sinister grin, and Fluttershy took an involuntary step back. A few others came up behind him, each of them wearing a grin of their own. She felt a small spike of fear run down her spine, the beeping at her hoof becoming more insistent. She looked around, hoping for a way out, and saw it in the form of one of the ponies charging her. She jumped up, kicked off his back and launched herself over the others and half a block away without so much as a skipped breath.
She kept her momentum up by rolling down the sidewalk and continuing her escape. A few shots rang out from not too far behind and sparked against the pavement beside her. She sped up a little, trying to keep up the pace without boosting her heart. The beeping at her hoof sped up a little, but not enough to worry about. She could focus on that once she lost these ponies.
That wasn't too far down the road, though. A quick glance around told her the factory she worked in wasn't too far away from here, and that was the perfect place to lose those soldiers.
Soon enough, she had found the factory and was hiding in a small, dark corner. Her heart was beating faster than she would have preferred, but it wasn't dangerous yet. The beeping would giver her away, though, so she tried to calm herself down a bit.
The sudden appearance of three stallions didn't help with that. The one she had now seen three times that day moved forward and hit her in the gut, not giving her a chance to fully realize what was happening. She cried out, but the others only attacked, each of them with similar vigor in their brutality. None of them listened to her warnings and her cries to stop.
Not until the beeping became almost a single note ringing throughout the factory as the strap holding the device was broken and it was flung across the room.
All three of the attackers were similarly thrown when a large, pony-shaped mass of muscle stood up. It was easily three times the size of an ordinary pony, probably more than that. Screams turned into growls, snarls of attackers into quivering fear.
More shapes moved in the shadows. Rattling gunfire erupted from a balcony and needles bounced off the hide of this giant creature. The pony using the gun looked up briefly, waiting for it to fall, but was instead flung into the ceiling when it ran under the metal framework and stood up taller, throwing front hooves up in the process and tearing through the metal and walls into the next room.
The sound of weapons reloading soon filled the small space and bullets started flying. Some of them sparked off the production floor, others off the hide of the creature. None of them did anything but make it more angry.
Green eyes glowed bright, looking around the factory floor and finding a forklift. The beast picked up the machine and threw it at the gathered group of ponies firing at it. A snarl escaped its lips as it turned around and jumped through the roof and off into the distance, away from the factory.
*******************************
"What happened?!" screamed the General. "Where's my live feed?!"
"The connection is dead, sir," one of the ponies in the room said. "There's no more transmitter."
The General screamed, throwing papers off his desk. "I want ponies on the ground doing cleanup work as soon as you can."
Muttered agreement and acknowledgements came over the room. There was nothing else to be done at this point. They had just lost the one chance they had at capturing her.
"Sir, I think I have something," said one of the ponies behind him, her tone urgent. "It's a radio signal from that factory."
"Put it through!" he said, hoping beyond hope it was one of the soldiers. Fortunately for him, it was. "General Thunderbolt!" came the oddly accented voice of the zebra. "I need extraction ASAP! Get me out of here!"
"Do it," the General said. "I want the soldier back here for debriefing within the next twelve."
"Yes, sir," came the replies of a few ponies around the room, each of them working to notify the nearest soldiers and transport.
"Maybe this one will be able to help us even with this mess," the General muttered.