Fluttershy didn’t want to say anything; because the next few words that wanted to come out of her mouth were likely about how in the world did Gravitina’s neck manage support her massive heads weight. Being a pony that was currently representing her species even if she didn’t currently know how to find her planet, she politely chose to keep quiet about Gravitina’s forehead as it appeared on the screen in Star Commands central command room. Now if only Fluttershy could stop staring at it to be even more polite.
“Ugh, the Grand Councilwoman can’t get here soon enough, hope we can clean up the mess from this one before her ladyship’s ship arrives. We don’t need another budget cut!” Commander Nebula wasn’t happy to be dealing with the gravity menace herself again.
Roller being least polite being in the room revved that the bulbous mass at the top of Gravitina’s body looked weird and sickly. Since the only one present who could understand him was Fluttershy, she decided to let Roller have his comment all to himself and did not want to say anything in case she was heard being insulting to anyone.
Gravitina was smiling down at Buzz and Fluttershy on the screen. Her ship on a different screen was surrounded by dangerous asteroids that she would use to attack the planet and Star Command; she was after Fluttershy and had the firepower to get at her. Unlike the other ones seeking to kill Fluttershy, Gravitina was least evil of the most powerful villains in the Galactic Alliance. This was only an excuse for her to get at Buzz Lightyear.
The big headed wonder would likely only want to enslave Fluttershy because she looked adorable and she didn’t think adorable things needed to needlessly die, she also wanted Buzz to love her which wasn’t going to happen because she was insane most of the time. It was hypothesized that her insanity stemmed from her gravity powers.
“Well hello there Buzzy. Why don’t you and the ambassador just hand yourselves over to me and I won’t have to hurt anyone. I’m actually surprised my warning shot got noticed with as fast as I threw at you.” Kicking back in her floating seat the planet headed alien women was looking salaciously at Buzz making him shudder.
“All active cruisers put up a defensive perimeter; we’re not letting one rock past us. That goes for you too mercenaries.” Commander Nebula wasn’t negotiating with Gravitina, he was going to just deliver an ultimatum and then they’d start fighting. “I’m not about to hand over one of my rangers to you or the first contact ambassador, so you can either leave or we will have be having an altercation lady. Do your worst!”
“Humph, if that’s how it’s going to be then be prepared for my wrath. If I can’t have Buzz and that cute little fluffy ambassador, I might as well kill everyone so I don’t have to think about it any longer.” With a gesture Gravitina lifted her hand and pointed forward before she disappeared off of central room of Star Commands screens. “I’ll miss you terribly Buzz, but the money should make up for all the grief of having to kill you.”
“Don’t you worry ambassador Fluttershy; we haven’t failed anyone where it counted yet!” Booster was holding Fluttershy in his big strong arms and petting her to try and keep her calm. It was working, mostly.
“We got incoming asteroids people, make sure they don’t get through or I’ll have your hides back in training like yesterday!” Commander Nebula bellowed and all the cruisers that were currently hovering around Star Command went into action of blasting the first three large asteroids coming in.
Gravitina was obviously testing their ability to defend themselves, after she did that then she’d launch a storm of asteroids and really hit Star Command and their precious Capital Planet. Two of the asteroids were dealt with by four Star Cruisers launched by Star Command. The Star Cruisers were elongated tube like rocket ships with four fins; most of them were like this anyway. Team Lightyear had been through several variations of Star Cruisers because of how many they’ve trashed in the line of duty, their current version had four fins and two backwards slanting wings giving it an aerodynamic shape for atmospheric flying.
Fluttershy had seen Star Cruiser Forty Two while she was being given a tour of the docking bay by Booster, but she hadn’t been onboard. She hoped that things would calm down soon; she didn’t understand why so many people wanted to kill her for money. What did she ever do to them except for what was right? She was still reeling from what had happened to Kleptchi and Truffle; she decided to continue reflecting on it quietly.
“This is Falco, how is this broad headed woman controlling those things? This sounds like what happened to some of our friends in the military when they were going through the enemy fleets in Meteo, one of the asteroid fields from our system.” Falco popped upon the screen along with the four arwings were approaching Gravitina’s mobile asteroid field. They were already in the process of tearing apart the last testing asteroid with the combine fire power of eight high powered beams of rapidly fired energy.
“Gravitina has the ability to control gravity on a large scale, thankfully she’s not as good at controlling things on a much smaller scale or she’d just explode us all by creating expanding gravity fields from the center of all our masses and just blow everyone up instead of trying to crush us with a large amount of blunt force.” XR was giving them what the mercenaries needed to know as he stood guard with Buzz, Mira and Booster. “That’s Gravitina for you, all force and with barely any finesse at all. And let me tell you something about blowing up, it’s not a pleasant feeling and definitely not one of my favorite ways to get a leave of duty. Ugh, all that metal fatigue from blowing up messes with my head.”
“If I remember right they got through Meteo around the same time we were arriving at Aquas, that was about the time Fichina and Katina were getting hit hard. Wish we could have helped out at Fichina and Katina, but we would have never met the little darling otherwise.” That wasn’t all Peppy had to say about it, he could clearly hear the silence of his three friends as they were all thinking the same thing. He just put his voice to it. “She might have been just another victim and Andross would have gotten away with causing another Zoness to happen if we hadn’t gone the way we did. If this Gravitina has that much power then we’re not going to be able to get close to her without her smashing our ships into each other or crushing us with those asteroids.”
“Oh please be careful.” Fluttershy muttered as she watched the four fighter ships were the furthest out, even though she had seen what they were capable of she still had to worry about them. Fox and his close friends lived such dangerous if exciting lives.
“Everything will be fine subject Fluttershy. This is Rob Sixty Four; massive gravitational spikes detected trying to affect Star Command.” The robot kind of surprised the four pilots as they were hanging outside the small field of giant asteroids with Gravitina’s ship in the center of it and were staying well away from actually going into it. “Action of gravitational forces is currently ineffective.”
“Hmmm…? Her gravity powers are ineffective there, but why? From what I’ve seen of Star Command they don’t have anything to prevent something of that force from affecting the space station.” Slip hummed silently to himself and quietly considered what he heard Rob said about trying to affect Star Command. “Maybe… Fox I think I might have an idea how to quickly solve this situation.”
“What is it Slippy? If you hadn’t noticed she’s launching more asteroids our way.” Fox was already chipping away at one of the the next ten asteroids that were hurled towards Star Command and the planet behind it, he was swiftly joined by Falco in breaking down the asteroids.
“Can I have permission to give Rob a command that might sound a bit strange and possibly destroy our ships ability to operate?” Slip fingered and trigged his own ships lasers to tear an asteroid into harmless chunks.
More and more asteroids were beginning to move into position and launch forward, quite a few of them were slowly being torn apart by the Great Fox’s guns with support from the Star Cruisers staying around it.
-
Gravitina growled, why weren’t her powers working? It was like she was trying to grab hold of the most slippery thing in the universe, she was trying to pushing Star Command into crashing down on the planet. Her powers especially refused to affect the ship floating above Star Command.
After that she attempted to shove the four small fighters into hitting each other or tried to forcefully ram them into the asteroids she launched forward. Somehow her gravity powers had no effect whatsoever on the four fighters and it boggled her mind. At least she still had control over all the asteroids surrounding her ship.
She started launching them in waves of five at a time as hard as she could push each one in a salvo that promised to do some damage if any of them hit something.
-
“Permission granted Slip, if it will stop things from getting worse. This is almost overwhelming, almost…” Fox rolled his eyes as he charged up his ships lasers, once he released the trigger a ball of energy struck out and into an asteroid ripping it to small pieces.
“Rob this may blow out the engines a bit and the repairs are going to be a bit expensive, but I want you to moved start moving forward towards the asteroid field. Star Command Cruisers, please cover our ship. We have a quick solution to this situation.” Hearing Slip’s orders, Rob carried them out and once the Great Fox was close enough he’d give the order that would quickly wrap up this attack. “Guys we need to keep busting up these asteroids, at least until the Great Fox gets close enough. Then we’ll hit her.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing Slip.” Falco grumbled as he blasted his way through another large rock.
“You heard him, Cruisers ten, fifteen, twenty seven and thirty six. They need an escort, so fly escort! Keep those asteroids off of their ship!” Commander Nebula was willing to trust them if they had a plan, it was on ambassador Fluttershy if they weren’t trustworthy and Mira had also vouched for them be a good group of people for hire. It was hard for him to believe that they were the rarely seen noble and friendly type of mercenaries, but he trusted his gut enough times to know this was the right decision.
“Now stop and put all the power into the G-diffusion field!” Slip smiled as he watched the field go to work and the next five meteors that were going to be launched stopped moving into position. The asteroids started to drift lazily on the last bit of momentum they had before the gravity diffusing field struck them. “Yeah, yeah, the G Diffuser Systems aboard the Great Fox is nullifying her guys. We’ve got to hurry though; the Great Fox can’t hold that much of an output forever and we wouldn’t want to let her get away!”
“Good job Slip. You heard him guys, let’s bring this Gravitina down!” Fox and his friends formed up and shot towards Gravitina’s ship.
“If you can bring her in you’re going to get a reward for her capture, maybe a better one if you can put a big kibosh on her powers so we can actually hold her better in prison.” Commander Nebula didn’t need to tell the Star Fox team twice as they flew around the asteroids angling for Gravitina’s ship as it slowly turned around to start working on an escape vector while the remaining Star Cruisers dealt with her launched asteroids that were still heading towards Star Command and the planet.
-
Gravitina started panicking when her floating chair flopped uselessly to the floor, she tried to use her powers, but they weren’t working so she had to manually pilot the ship instead of just using her powers. She had been completely nullified by the gravity diffusion field being generated by the Great Fox.
It was unfortunate that being surrounded by as many asteroids as her ship was. Without being in control of them, her big blocky ship was getting battered. The only way to escape was to turn the ship around and fly out of the opening at the back of the small asteroid field.
She had to wonder, how did things go so wrong for her?
-
While Gravitina was being dealt with, Fluttershy had eased in her fears as it seemed like the situation was well in hoof. She watched the screens as the four ships burst their way through asteroids to start raking Gravitina’s ship with fire.
An explosion happened and the room filled with smoke. A rocket was fired and two figures were immediately taken down in the ensuing explosion.
“Heh, bet you didn’t see me coming eh Buzz? Managed to get a one you’re friends too, hope I get a bonus for… that?” Warp said, only to pause when he didn’t see anyone else in the room as the smoke cleared and there was no one shooting at him. One would expect to have the need to start dodging incoming fire and leaving injured opponents behind after making sure he dealt with the ambassador and earned his paycheck. What he saw was only a pile of stuffing from what seemed to be a giant Booster shaped doll that had been holding a life sized pony shaped plush toy. “What the…!”
Before Warp Darkmatter could do anything else his body erupted in a violently powerful electric shock that disabled his arm and two darts coming from out of nowhere went straight into his back knocking him completely out.
“That was not smart of him.” A voice said holding a small gun with an electrically glowing end. “He is cunning, but he didn’t expect us to be more so.”
“He is not ethical, so we shouldn’t have been either.” Another voice said blandly holding one of the equally small guns that was a dart shooter. “Still took the high ground even if force was a bit excessive.”
“Like him, we are not caring on this issue of excessive force.” A third voice said. “Still feel a sense of earned retribution for the earlier kidnapping of us and assisting in the taking of the Unimind.”
“We are in agreement that this course of action was warranted then, he would have hurt the ambassador who was sighted by The Claw.” Three LGMs wearing Space Ranger armor stepped out of the shadows from behind the fallen Warp Darkmatter after having lured him into a trap, they had quickly hacked the computer built into his mechanical arm the second it was detected entering Star Command. It was why they had Commander Nebula bring Fluttershy to the central command center of Star Command, if they had failed laying the trap then it would have been up to Buzz. “We are all pleased at this turn of events; friends of the True Claw are friends of ours. Helpful we are to our friends and learned much in turn we have.”
While the Gargantian’s had disabled the biological scanners at their entrance point into Star Command, what they hadn’t disabled was the secondary scanners for known illegal tech entering the station. Star Command had a lot of redundant scanners for everything now, including dimensional warping beings of complete evil. Not that the LGMs would ever tell Commander Nebula how they managed to create that last particular feature. Warp’s mechanical arm was his own downfall and he lost to the special LGM rangers unit, they may have missed the Gargantian’s but they had certainly caught Warp flatfooted.
“This is Team LGM reporting in, Commander Nebula we have successfully captured Warp Darkmatter.” The head of the special Space Ranger LGM unit said with a hint of smugness in his voice.
“Well doesn’t that beat all? You’re proving to be one of our most effective teams out there guys and I’m proud to call you Space Rangers. You’ve certainly come a long way since training and running straight into the line of fire all the time!” Buzz stated over the communications to the three LGMs started blushing at the praise they received from their hero who had likely watched them take down an old regret that became a huge thorn in his side.
“Just color me surprised that you didn’t screw this up like the R and D LGMs usually do with all their experiments!” This was Commander Nebula’s way of saying they did good.
-
Fluttershy relaxed a bit things hadn’t gone as horribly as it could have; nobody was dead, no permanent injuries or scars. Nothing violent happened in front of her aside from those poor little Gargantian’s that accidentally got crushed by Roller. She’s even met a lot of new people and made a lot of new friends, even if she was having trouble speaking up with so many odd or strange beings around.
“This is Fox, we have secured Gravitina! She’s not going to be bothering anyone for a while.” Fox appeared on one of the screens. “Hope you’re doing okay Fluttershy. It must not be easy to have people out looking to kill you huh?”
“I’ll be okay… I’m among friends. As long as I have a true friend near me telling me that everything will be alright, I’ll be just fine Mr. Mccloud.” Sure she may not have been perfectly happy and she wished she could forget about that planet that exploded with all that life still on it, not to mention her still mutated form.
“This is Rob Sixty Four; please continue to be happy or at least content Miss Fluttershy.” After a moment of hearing the dull monotone of a robot telling her to be happy, she couldn’t help but start giggling. “Disabling G Diffusion field operations to return to normal status, many repairs are necessary to the G Diffuser Systems aboard the Great Fox.”
“Gee, I wonder how our robot gained a soul.” On the view screen from Star Command control room, Falco rolled his eyes while speaking his sarcastic remark. He gave off an insufferable smirk. “Oh right, our favorite lost space hippie caused it to happen! Trouble is going have to go through everyone here to get at you and we’re planning on sticking around a while longer to make sure that kill order never happens. At least we know things are going to stay interesting for us, did you know Rob was your biggest fan. Never saw a robot like him sulk like that after you left the Great Fox the first time you came aboard with us.”
“Thank you for caring about me Mr. Lombardi, even if you are a really grumpy bird.” Fluttershy smiled at the blushing pilot who gave off a gruff sigh while looking away from her with a blush on his cheeks.
“Yeah, whatever, as long as things don’t get too boring around here.” Falco angled his fighter for the Great Fox; he needed time to cool his feathers as Fluttershy was just too damn adorable at times.
“I hate red tape and I don’t envy your current importance to your race Fluttershy, I’m getting on in years and I’m sure to be stuck doing something similar soon enough. I think you’re still young enough to get out of it while you can.” Peppy stated with a chuckle before he started coughing a bit. “I really am getting too old for all this. See you real soon.”
“Hey, while I’m here I’ll update the universal translator so that it can translate your speech into the Galactic Alliance languages. That was kind of a slight oversight on my part with making the translator, sorry that it hasn’t been working at full capacity recently. The update should fix the bug and I’ll reinforce the frame while I’m at it.” Slip sounded so cheerful to have been able to put a stop to Gravitina with swift efficiency. He might have been the worst pilot on his team, but he definitely made up for it in other ways. “That ought to help you out with communicating better around here and it will help with your upcoming meeting Fluttershy. You must be so nervous.”
Honestly Fluttershy was quite nervous, she didn’t know what to expect of the Grand Councilwoman of the Alliance Armada. She was becoming jitterier every second, until she felt a handle rub up one of her large ears easing her tension she looked to Mira who was smiling at her softly.
“Yeah, I hate politics too.” She chuckled dryly. “Don’t worry about it, be true to whom you are and I doubt you’ll fail to impress the Grand Councilwoman.”
“She sounds so… um… well… scary? Maybe even a little intimidating?” Fluttershy wilted under the gazes of everyone in the room with her, from the LGM workers to Team Lightyear surrounding her in a protective group.
“Well as long as we’re around, we’re not going to let anything bad happen to you personally ambassador.” Buzz put a hand on Fluttershy’s back and it was joined by three other hands of his friends and team members. “We heard from Mira here that you were in contact with your race, can you call them up and tell them about what’s going on? You might not be able to find your planet, but I’m sure we’ll be able to get you home eventually.”
“Yeah, we’d definitely go to infinity and beyond for a cutie like you.” XR waggled his eyebrows and Buzz glared at him cowing his quirky nature for a moment.
“Um, can you let me go? I really need to use the little pony’s room.” All four of the Space Rangers quickly pulled their hands away from Fluttershy and were suddenly embarrassed about how quickly they had backed off.
“Let me be of assistance.” An LGM said and he pulled up a map on the screen. “Nearest available bodily waste receptacle is out that door, three doors down the hallway and on your right. Since you identify as female, you are to use the middle door after entering the lavatory hallway. Males are for the door on the left and the door on the right is for indeterminate gendered species that need to do their unique form of business.”
“Thankfully there’s no Porcelon’s onboard. That one ambassador really should have double checked before he sat down.” XR chuckled derisively making Fluttershy wonder what a Porcelon was.