Out somewhere in deep space Fluttershy sat at the controls to the Head Hunter, she was going to scope out some of the sectors Meta Knight has visited before. They weren’t in the direction of the Galactic Federation with all the dangerous aliens and mentions of horrific visual dissections of living beings. It had been a day or so since she left Kirby behind to do what he did best, now she was just staring out into the void as the instruments continued to keep her on course.
One of the biggest and most dangerous problems with being in outer space was the rampant boredom. Boredom would lead to laziness. If something went wrong or something broke and you were too lazy to fix it, well you weren’t going to have a good day. Fluttershy was occupying herself with the scanners and tried not to doze off, she had been awake for a few hours and staying still wasted very little energy. She wouldn’t need to eat for a while unless she decided to get up and exercise a bit; she didn’t need to because she now had a small supply of those highly nutritious tomatoes to keep her fed and healthy.
Fluttershy was glad her glass knife would get some use; she could peel a small chunk off a maximum tomato when she needed to keep her stomach occupied with such a delectable treat. Said treat had such a ridiculous nutritional value packed so tightly into a red fruit that it made her incapable of eating food for a while for eating even just a sliver of it. The wonder fruit had thankfully cured her of her apple lust entirely.
All physically negative ailments involved with her mutated form were stripped away by the nutritional overload the first time she got half a foreign magical tomato shoved down her throat. Too bad it couldn’t cure the magical mutations, diseases and the like, but at least she’d be more in control of herself and her specific fruit related food cravings were no longer an issue. Even if apples still tasted like pure ambrosia to her that she was almost addicted to them, but not to the level that her mind was overridden with the need for them.
Snapping out of her introspection, all the lights in the ship started flashing red and an alarm sounded causing Fluttershy to pin her ears to her head. Writing popped up on the screen and Fluttershy quickly read the half griffon script as well as she could.
“Either this says I’m about to meet an ark full of banana headed monsters or… spatial distortion detected, warning imminent collision.” The space around the Head Hunter started distorting wildly and Fluttershy immediately slammed her hooves onto the controls to stop the ship. It was not a moment too soon when a highly corroded steel colored wall appeared in front of the ship covered in some ugly plant matter. She was a bare millimeter from crashing into this wall.
“It was the second one… that’s nice to know…” Fluttershy breathed out dazedly while shivering, with a slight whimper she tried to calm down her pounding heart after another near explosively volatile death. Well it was a possibly explosive end as the ship she was in could take quite a pounding, her body on the other hoof couldn’t take near as much a beating. The ship might have survived slamming into the wall at the speed it was traveling, but not without becoming inoperable and stranding her wherever she was now alongside possibly crippling her. She quickly set the ship down on the surrounding flooring of the small room that had enclosed her from out of nowhere.
“Oh dear, what am I to do? Oh right, I need to use the scanners!” Fluttershy had learned more about the scanners while she was piloting around Popstar, she decided to check the biological scanners first. It showed several levels of biological entities, from plant to animal and up to beings that were sentient. The scanners were quite powerful and had quite a good range to them.
The scanners showed tons of random mostly non lethal vegetation in a vast area all around Fluttershy wherever she was, as for animals there was only one, the last biological sign was that there was one biological sentient being. Both biological beings were currently located… on the Head Hunter?!
Fluttershy was starting to panic. If she was obviously the sentient biological the scanners indicated… then what was the animal? She checked the scanners for the location and found that it was in storage. Carefully she crept towards the storage space on the ship and opening the door she saw nothing. Slowly she craned her head towards the ceiling on a whim when something dropped right on top of her. Her heart almost stopped given the thing that landed on her was making a very scary, but rather familiar sound.
“Mr. Wheel, what are you doing here?” Well at least that other biological sign wasn’t some flesh eating monster, then again Fluttershy knew this creature did end up eating carrion once in a while.
The wheelie revved something closely relating to its purpose in life was now to follow and protect her. After that he just squealed out a question of what was going on.
“Oh we’re in some unknown location and… I really need to check the other things the scanners can pick up. Remind me to give you a stern talking to later.” Fluttershy went back to the pilot seat of the Head Hunters and went over the energy and motion scanners, while the wheelie idly watched on. There was a high energy reading making it hard to pinpoint any other smaller energy readings in this place. There was a lot of motion being tracked moving throughout the place her ship was now wedged into; at least none of it was nearby.
The only way to get the ship out of this room would be to blast a hole and fly out, but Fluttershy didn’t know what the repercussions of two plasma beam cannons going off in such close quarters would be. She was glad she figured out how to activate them out in space where she wouldn’t accidentally hit anyone with them, she really didn’t like the weapons even if they were quite necessary with the unknown dangers of space. One of the unknown dangers of which she now found herself stuck inside of along with a wheelie that should have really stayed on his home planet.
Fluttershy waited for the environmental scans to complete, a nearly clean nitrogen oxygen based atmosphere. At least the air was breathable and not poisonous. She checked the motion scanner activity again, but only what was going on within close general vicinity of the ship. Aside from her and the wheelie, there was not really much moving towards or away from her position in a timely manner. It was likely that the unknown cause or reason for this sudden predicament didn’t know Fluttershy was here. She would have been under attack by now otherwise, given it’s been a few minutes since this obviously space bound vessel appeared around her in a form of teleportation.
The map that came up on screen didn’t give Fluttershy a full comprehension of where she was, but it did at least let her know that she was close to the some kind of large power source. This is why the other energy readings were hard to get information on and firing the plasma cannons in that general direction would have been a very bad idea. Thus far all the pony could see was a deteriorated wall and she couldn’t turn the ship in this enclosed space.
“I’m going out to have a look around, please stay here Mr. Wheel. I really should think of something better to call you, if we’re going to be stuck together for a while.” Despite the fact that there didn’t seem to be any hostile life around, Fluttershy knew that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything dangerous. Normally Fluttershy would be against exploring or going to really dangerous places, she just currently didn’t have the luxury of avoiding danger as it was going to come to her if she didn’t try to move about. She wouldn’t be paralyzed by fear with her survival at stake.
The wheelie growled in a questioning tone before squealing that it didn’t like the idea that she was going somewhere alone, but a firm look from Fluttershy made him calm down. He would stay put, but he didn’t like it.
“You still need time to heal… I think I’ll call you Roller as you remind me of a few of my bird friends back home. Now stay here Roller and try to get some rest please. I’ll be right back after I’m done looking around and by then I might have a solution for how to get us out of this situation.” While gathering stuff to go out, Fluttershy eyed the wheel to make sure he still had his patch in place. She packed some food, water and her glass knife for protection; this was all she was going to take with her. Everything else would stay onboard the Head Hunter.
Ascending to the top of the ship she looked up at the flickering dim lights and the dilapidated walls that were partially covered in a mossy substance, she wondered why this place looked like it does. The lights were on and barely at that, but nobody was apparently home. Her ears twitched at the sounds of sparking electricity and a faint humming noise she could barely hear. She wished she had a flashlight right about now, if it came right down to it she’d have to rely on her ears for navigation.
Walking down the sloped side of the Head Hunter, Fluttershy stepped onto the metal flooring and made her way for the only doorway to this room. It was much too small for the ship could fit through. She stopped short of the rectangular hole, it looked like the ones back on the Valhalla where a sliding door would be only this one was damaged around the edges.
Peering carefully out of the doorway and looking in all directions, Fluttershy saw the lighting was equally spotty and the corridor beyond was as damaged as the room she had come from. The technological design looked on par with that of the Croakers and the walls, floor and ceiling were all a rather dulled metallic silver color.
Just seeing the random bits of damage here and there had Fluttershy on edge about it all. She felt that she should be clutching desperately at the knife in her saddlebags and feared the actual need to use it. She was a pony that wouldn’t harm a fly if she could help it and would only use a knife to defend herself in the direst of situations.
Fluttershy crept out into the hallway silently trying not to make a sound with her hooves. Of the things she noticed upon moving down the hallway, the other rooms she looked into were in disrepair as well and didn’t have much except for scattered chunks of scrap metal lying around. Her ears were alert and she was looking everywhere for danger. She made one very loud noise with her hoof by accident and stopped when she heard movement. Jumping back, she scrambled into a nearby room as something disc shaped dropped to the floor with a clinking noise.
The white turtle shell shaped disc quickly sprouted four small spindly legs and a small T-shaped protrusion with a red light on one end popped out of the top of its shell. It swiveled what passed for its head around three times sweeping its general surroundings for something. Once it was done it then crawled its way back up the wall and came to a rest on the ceiling where it went dormant folding back up into itself. Fluttershy had ducked out of sight when the red light was pointed in her direction and used her ears to keep it in her echolocation sight.
The thing did little else but return to its position on the ceiling where it now sat, this at least let her know that there was something to look out for. The pony had seen defensive mechanical systems like this before and this one seemed to have an intelligence driving it. The intelligence behind this was definitely not biological in nature given how it searched a small area around itself several times in a methodical manner while slowly looking in all directions before giving up.
Fluttershy carefully made her way around the mechanical thing, there was nothing biological about it and it was likely dangerous despite its general size being smaller then her. An active security system was a lot more dangerous than one that just spotted you and set off an alarm to let everyone know that something was amiss. That robot actually looked like it could stab her with its sharp pointy little legs or whatever else it was capable of and it wasn’t the only one hanging on the ceiling. In fact there were several inactive discs on the ceilings just waiting to drop down on her, she tried to make sure not to be anywhere beneath one of them as she carefully crept along.
She eventually came to what looked like a destroyed door with a hole in it that led to a shaft, Fluttershy peered down and then up into the darkness. Apparently whoever had been here previously had some pretty big elevators. She looked at the lit buttons near the destroyed doorway and thought better about activating the lift, what if she got attacked for turning it on or making it come to her? Sighing Fluttershy looked for a nearby doorway, she quickly reared up and hastily struck at the buttons and then evacuated to the nearby room with her tail between her legs. Inside was a small partially dismantled cylindrical looking machine, it had a cable with a rounded end lying limply on the floor.
A second later the whirring of the lift made a clunk sound as it came to a stop and the destroyed door tried to shift a bit as if it was attempting to open. Fluttershy didn’t hear anything aside from the frantic beats of her frightened heart when nothing else happened. She was on edge and she really couldn’t calm down very much. The strange claw like marks on the wall of the room she was in left an obvious sign that there was danger and that she should be wary of her surroundings. Whatever the danger was, it wouldn’t be biological in nature and she wouldn’t be able to stop it with a stare.
Taking a second look at the markings, they seem to have been involved in the reason that the roughly cylindrical machine looked like it was in the process of being taken apart. It didn’t look complete and upon further inspection, it had been slashed in two by something. Fluttershy wondered where the other portion of this thing was and shook her head, she had to keep moving. She wondered if Roller would really stay put the further along she wandered.
All the walls weren’t clean, but they didn’t look ancient or all too old. Whoever dealt with upkeep of this place wasn’t here anymore though. The shy little pony kept her ears twitching as she entered the elevator through the destroyed door and looked at the buttons. There were several floors along with the lit one showing which floor she was on. She didn’t know which one she wanted to head to and she memorized the floor number that the Head Hunter was trapped on.
Fluttershy quickly asked herself what was she more scared of, the attic or the basement? She immediately hit up one floor and the elevator started moving upwards, it came to a stop and the door to the next floor up opened with a swift hissing noise.
Exiting the elevator Fluttershy noticed the lighting here was a bit more messed up then the floor below, it was dark with a few spots of lights here and there flickering in and out of working order. She hadn’t seen much of anything in the rooms she passed on the floor below; she just chose a random direction to go down a hallway and could have just as easily went the other way. There was still a lot of random vegetation and strange forms of damage all over the place; she stopped for a moment once she saw something that looked like a symbol. It was red in color, a faded bent oval shape on the paneling of the wall where a few small dots of fading lights were weakly blinking on and off.
Shaking her head after trying to figure out what the symbol was, Fluttershy continued to explore looking for a computer or something that would tell her why or how this space vessel appeared around the Head Hunter. She hadn’t a clue as to what she was looking for yet and there weren’t any large ventilation systems near the floor; this was problematic for getting around undetected. There didn’t seem to be airlocks in the wide hallways which could easily hold eight ponies standing side by side with some extra leg room for movement.
Looking into the next room on her left she saw a…. a filled swimming pool? There were a lot of roots from the random vegetation sticking into the pool leading into the small vents. The room didn’t have much else aside from a few plastic lawn chairs and what looked to be the remains of some rubber pool toys. These highly recognizable normal objects were a bit out of place compared to the technological walking discs things that hung on the ceiling that she was constantly on the lookout for.
There was nothing in the room worthy of note and Fluttershy continued down the hall peeking into other rooms while paying attention to her surroundings. She was afraid and quite wary of what would pop out on this foreign vessel, taking a peek into a room on her left she saw a mat and what looked like… things she easily recognized as exercise equipment? Well at least she knew biological beings used to live here at least. There was nothing in this room that she would want to carry around as it all looked too heavy for her, so she moved on.
After a time some closed doors started showing up in the hallways, Fluttershy went up to a random one and hit the button to open it. It automatically slid shut once she went in; she quickly turned around to open and closed the door again to make sure she wasn’t trapped in the room. Inside there was a couch and some kind of shattered object that it was facing. The broken object in front of the couch had bits of broken glass and the top part of it was sunken inward slightly, with two metal mangled rods sticking out.
There were also two odd mechanical objects with buttons, dials and other things on it that were sitting on the couch; one looked like it could connect to the object that looked to have exploded. Of the two objects she saw on the couch, one looked completely destroyed and other had a slightly damaged wire.
Fluttershy didn’t bother with them as she didn’t know what any of this stuff did or if they could do anything anymore. Even if she was a more curious pony now, she wasn’t about to do something that could get her hurt and was overly cautious given her near lack of medical supplies. Maybe Fluttershy should have just given a small chunk of tomato to Roller so he’d heal immediately, that might be her first order of business when she got back to the Head Hunter then.
Deciding to explore the room further as it was well lit, in trotted Fluttershy towards the bunk beds against the wall that looked to have been in disuse for a long time. Opening one of the two other doors in the room she came upon a stainless steel toilet, a working faucet and what looked to be a bathtub. Yep she had found a classic looking bathroom for bipeds and everything that would be somewhat familiar for a pony. It still had running hot water and the drains worked perfectly fine. Though the décor looked a bit iffy, Fluttershy thought it was okay to use these facilities as they were.
After a refreshing shower and shaking the excess water off and taking note that she really needed to find a brush sometime sooner or later, Fluttershy set out once again wondering why the disc things hadn’t heard her. Most likely they had a limited range with which they would react to intruders; none of those discs were in the area she was now in and she was rather thankful for that. The last door to explore in this room was a closet with nothing of interest inside of it.
As she went back into the hallway, Fluttershy felt this place was dark, creepy and incredibly lonely. It wasn’t hard to explain why she was so frightened considering her situation. Watching the door shut behind her, her ears twitched she heard something was coming her way. It was a slight clanking noise, two legs and it looked like a metal wingless chicken in her echo sight; once it got closer she could physically see it with her eyes. The thing had stopped a good ten feet away under a working light, while she stood shrouded in the shadow of the dimly lit corridor staring at it curiously.
The top part of it had a lit yellow bar that was part of its head, it seemed to be tilting its head at her ever so slightly and after a moment the yellow bar turned a sickly red color. It let out a frighteningly loud screeching howl and charged for a stunned Fluttershy who was clutching at her ringing ears. With its toothy metal maw wide open, the little metal monster lunged for a chance to take a bite out of some rather pliable pony flesh.