A gasp… eyes snapped open… they surveyed the darkness around them unsure of what was going on, the being felt so very weak and sickly. The smell of bile from ones stomach contents permeated wherever this location was.
It was hard to see when everything was so dark, the body was so weak and with a mind that was so heavily muddled. A vast ocean of pain threatened to swallow the figure, the taste in its mouth was horrid and septic in nature. Slowly the pain eased up.
It inhaled once, the air tasted just as awful as the rest of the figures mouth. It was stale and things felt so heavy that it was almost impossible to move.
“Mm… where...” Fluttershy started off, she didn’t have a clue as to where she was but her throat was dry and raspy. Now that she had a coherent thought in her head, she was starving and slightly dehydrated again. She couldn’t remember much, but she felt horrible about it all the same with only the bits and pieces she could remember before her mind drew a total blank.
Twitching Fluttershy felt her hair was pressed tightly against her body and something was shifting around her, after a moment she realized that she was upside down and that her surroundings was entirely made of dirt. She had been buried alive! Had the Aldebaran people thought they killed her and then buried her like this?
Fluttershy felt something push into her side and she shifted a bit. She was still wearing her saddlebags at least, how long had she been buried in the ground like this? Where was her air currently coming from? This was a rather highly claustrophobic situation for the shy pony and she usually like enclosed spaces.
Wiggling around she wasn’t packed in with the dirt and she felt a small breeze hitting her face, something was very odd about this. If she was upside down and there was air coming from below her, did that mean she was in a tunnel? Okay Fluttershy had to remember how she got here.
Fluttershy’s mind went back to a simpler time, her mother and father trying to encourage her to be more like Rainbow Dash. She clearly wasn’t anything like her daring friend as she was her own pony and preferred peace and quiet. She earned her cutie mark after singing about her love of everything to be found in nature and taking away the fear of all the nearby woodland animals. Well at least her memory wasn’t messed up.
She went through the memories of her and Rainbow Dash as they went through school, her move to Ponyville to live in the outskirts because she was too shy to live in the town itself. Rainbow Dash soon followed after still praising the Wonder Bolts as usual keeping her body in tip top shape.
Speaking of shape Fluttershy ran her tongue along her teeth. The right side of her mouth was fine, but the fang she felt in the left side of her mouth was foreboding. She fluffed her wings; she felt feathers from her left wing and membrane from her right. At this point Fluttershy was beyond the point panicking and crying, she was quite excepting of the fact that she was in a lot of pain and that something about her body was thoroughly messed up.
Continuing the memory diatribe, her little angel and all the little critters that live at her house, the Cutie Mark Crusaders and her friends back on planet Equus were all quite well remembered. The memories of her more recent friends followed, Fox and his brave crew facing the odds, Katt Monroe and her broken yet revived pride from the Lylat System. After that was her memories of the Aniverse Systems, the green rabbit, the squirrel of similar bipedal build, the friendly berserker baboon was something she could scarcely forget and the friends she made on Aldebaran. From that point however there was a huge blank in her memory with only bits and pieces there, flashes of what she hoped wasn’t blood.
How could she still be surviving whatever she was currently suffering from? She couldn’t exactly tell what her injuries currently were. Wincing Fluttershy wiggled toward the air that was filling her tightly enclosed space that quickly started to loosen, despite it being downwards it was the only way Fluttershy considered was towards safety and not being buried in the walls of some alien world. Her need to play, enjoy and spend time with her beloved friends urging her forward.
If she were an earth pony she would be okay with being stuck in soil, rock and dirt like this. A pegasus usually likes wide open spaces like the sky. With her current mindset of being buried alive and the pain she was in wasn’t helping her be calm at all. Most importantly Fluttershy hoped to any pony who would listen to her mental pleas that she didn’t hurt her alien friends before ending up here, wherever here was.
The soil started loosening at a fast pace, Fluttershy felt her weight start to shift downward in her struggling. Well she didn’t feel particularly good about was going to happen to her in the next few moments because she didn’t know how far it would be till she hit the ground and if her wings were truly mismatched then it would be much harder for her to fly. She really didn’t have much choice in the matter as her supposed gravesite gave out from beneath her and she fell into a very dark room head first in a slight angle.
Fluttershy grunted as her back slammed into something causing her to flip and land on her belly, she was really disoriented. Aside from the disorientation, hunger, thirst and generally unpleasant stiffness in her body she lifted her head from where she landed slowly taking in her surroundings. She carefully pulled her hind legs up onto what was solid metal flooring by flopping forward away from the edge.
Before her was a shaft of light that suddenly sprung up from where she had previously hit a wall back first, she didn’t see any wall now which was odd. Behind her, in the dark hallway she had fallen into, she could see a ton of bright little red eyes and heard the shrieks of what sounded like bats. Another thing in the darkened hallway Fluttershy could barely make out was smears of blood on the walls and considered her position on going in that direction. She did not want to go near those things while she was as weak as she was and they seemed to be avoiding the light, they didn’t seem particularly friendly from what she could tell.
Fluttershy continued to study her surroundings the corridor behind her was made of some strange purple stones and ahead of her the room that was filled with light seemed to be metallic in nature the same kind of metal of the walkway she was currently laying on leading into the next lit room. Looking above her she didn’t see any indication that she had been previously buried in the ceiling that looked like solid stone, in fact Fluttershy was pretty sure she might have been losing her mind as she didn’t see any dirt from her fall around her hooves either.
The pony struggled to stand, she was going to walk into the next room and then study herself to see how badly off she was. She was also going to look into what she still had with her in her saddlebags; maybe she could find a clue as to what exactly happened after she had lost her mind or was she still losing it? She couldn’t rightly tell at the moment whether she was mentally sound.
Instead of walking, Fluttershy could only limp forward as her entire body felt bruised and breathing was slightly hard at the moment. She really didn’t have to go very far; Fluttershy felt her heart sink once she finally stood at the edge of the drop off into the room at the end of the small cylindrical hallway she stood in.
The first thing Fluttershy noticed was that she found herself inexorably stuck in a dead end. She didn’t think whatever all those glowing red eyes were back in the corridor would leave her alone if she asked them nicely, considering the stale smell of blood they were probably hungry. The drop off in the corridor was the same height as the drop off in this room about six or so feet to the floor below, she didn’t know if she could currently handle a fall.
Surveying the well lit room from her perch that looked to be the only entrance to it, Fluttershy could see the walls were lined with metal and strange constructs. Even if the construction looked worn and ancient, it was very much consistent with intelligent beings having once lived here. Finally looking to the floor of the lit room she flinched, there were pieces of something lying scattered about the room where there were a few scorch marks on the wall. Whatever happened here had decidedly been pretty bad.
Lying against the metal cylindrical wall between the corridor and the strange small metal lined room; Fluttershy unstrapped her saddlebags and searched them. The pictures were okay; her headset was only slightly almost unnoticeably bent out of shape and… there was the Aldebaran Memory Stone. Fluttershy sighed, she had no way to get food, she didn’t see any nearby source of water and she was stuck in a dead end trapped by flesh eating creatures of the dark. To top it all off she might have been going insane as she could have sworn she popped out of the ceiling that looked to be made of purple solid stone bricks without leaving any dirt on the floor.
Looking to the many small red eyes in the corridor they hovered around the middle of the corridor where the light couldn’t touch, Fluttershy would have to make a decision on whether or not to try to bypass them. She put her saddlebags back on after placing her headset back on her head; it gave her some comfort but not much as she checked herself over.
Fluttershy definitely still had a fang in her mouth and her right wing was still like a bats. Reaching up with a hoof she felt that both her ears were a lot larger than normal so she still had the hearing of a bat which would explain why she could still hear all those shrieking red eyes in the darkness and the flapping of their wings against the air. They might sound small, but they would have swarmed her effortlessly in the condition she was in. Her hair was half ragged and half silky smooth, her body was covered in bruises and light cuts.
What had Fluttershy done to anyone to have deserved all this? She had just wanted to live a quiet life taking care of animals, have tea with friends and maybe break out of her shell once in a while to visit a Pinkie Pie party. Now, she was horribly magically mutated and that might be what was causing her the most pain and this was only the physical side of things. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before her body started ripping itself apart in a much more messy fashion from the mutations it was likely still undergoing.
Fluttershy was no psychiatrist, but she was pretty sure she was mentally snapping at the seams. If she wasn’t sure her friends would accept her no matter what she looked like, well she would have given up all hope right here and now. She had to wonder when the suicidal thoughts would begin to set in or when they would even start. No pony was supposed to handle so many levels of trauma dealt to them this quickly. The only reason why Fluttershy could do it was because she had friends, family and people who believed in her not to take the easy way out.
After a while of thought Fluttershy couldn’t come to a decision about what to do, something caught her right eye and she focused on something in the distance of the stone lined corridor. Her eye was probably warped like the rest of her body that was at war with itself. A blue circle in the distance disappeared and she could hear the sound of something moving towards her resting spot. She could slowly see three sets of yellow glowing eyes that showed intelligence were coming at her quickly and they were being ignored by the tiny red eyes floating around the corridor.
Standing up Fluttershy edged her way backwards and nearly fell into metal lined room with the destroyed fragments. The creatures of wherever she was obviously could jump or fly really well to have a corridor and the room behind her conjoined by a small cylindrical hallway that was several feet off of the floor below without stairs leading up or down into both areas.
Several beams of yellow energy flashed and Fluttershy didn’t have the wherewithal to really dodge or even the reaction speed to make a good effort of doing so.
A splash of blood erupted from Fluttershy’s shoulder as she was blown backwards spinning with the first shot that had ripped a bloody hole in her shoulder. Another ripped its way through her torso as she fell, of the five fired shots she had been only hit twice as she present a small target for her attackers.
Fluttershy’s shrill cry of anguish was quickly interrupted by her landing in the middle of the floor with a cut off scream in the metal lined room. She laid there in agony as a chunk of whatever it was laying about the room dug sharply into her left hind flank spilling, more of her vital life essences all over the place. Simply reacting to the pain she clutched at the wound through her barrel with her front left hoof trying to stem the flow of blood.
Fluttershy knew she was going to die one way or another at this point, she could see three tall black figures with dark green and grey carapaces taking up position around the entrance between the corridor and the room she now laid in. Their language was scary and she was quite sure one of them even cackled at her bleeding form.
Struggling to push herself into a standing position Fluttershy knew of only one thing that would save her in this situation and that would be a righteously angry stare to pin them. Even then once the stare failed… well she can’t say that she didn’t try and give it her all, all her friends would have been disappointed in her otherwise.
Putting pressure on her right hoof with her wounded shoulder caused Fluttershy to bleeding to worsen, but she tried to ignore that as she pushed herself into a standing position. She started to slowly back away with her tail between her hind legs and tried to raise her wings in a threatening posture, considering who she was and knowing her current condition she didn’t think she could really scream threatening in any meaning of the word.
The three beings hopped down and sauntered up to her cackling at each other they raised their clawed arms towards the pony taking aim to end her existence.
Fluttershy closed her eyes. She tried to block out the pain and focus on using her stare, what could she use to get angry at them for? Well the shot through the torso could have messed up any one of her organs with how she felt. Why they could have even just taken away her ability to ever have… okay it wasn’t so hard for her feel the anger welling up in her now.
Fluttershy’s eyes snapped open with raw fury; they dare take away that which was precious! She wanted children someday to dote on, she wanted to become a grandmother, she had baby animals back at home she would like to nurse back to health if they get sick and if she died who would carry on her work in her place? Kindness needed to be spread to all those in need. If she had just lost her ability to bring life into the world then these beings would pay somehow, it didn’t matter whether the crazy magically bat inclined mutations would have done the same thing to her in this case. Fluttershy was angry beyond all measure and didn’t feel like being entirely rational at the moment.
Even in her injured state Fluttershy still couldn’t think of killing as a viable option, even if those beings were the ones who have just grievously harmed her to the point that she might never have foals. She pressed home her anger as hard as she could to make them feel her pain.
The three bipedal crustaceous monstrosities had been about to fire on her when her eyes snapped open and a pressure wave of unknown force diverted all their shots into the ceiling where their arms became immobile. Their bodies were frozen in place and they couldn’t move no matter how badly they wanted them to aim their guns at the creature that suddenly became defiant. Their bodies weren’t responding, the onslaught the little pony was unleashing upon them could have very well turned them to solid stone.
Fluttershy felt herself getting weaker and weaker, she couldn’t keep this up forever. In her waning strength she saw a fourth pair of eyes that were rather curious about this situation. They connected with hers and her unstoppable anger, this pair of eyes didn’t freeze under her onslaught. Instead Fluttershy’s onslaught seemed to strengthen within them a powerful anger as well, but it wasn’t directed at Fluttershy. It was also directing its anger at the crustaceous monstrosities, ones that had wronged it as well.
A tiny one fanged smile crossed Fluttershy’s face and she sadly only had two words to say, one was a contraction and the other was completely heartfelt even in its simple brutality. Her words would be understood, she would make these crustaceous aliens understand what she had to say from the bottom of her heart. There was some consideration for an infinitesimal moment on what exactly was going to happen next. Would any of her friends think any less of her for this? Would they hate her if they knew what she was going to do in this moment, that even as she was dying that she could actually be so incredibly vindictive?
Maybe her pony friends or anyone else Fluttershy had met really didn’t truly know her so well after all.
“I’m sorry.”