//------------------------------// // 56 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// After having gotten back from the toilet and washing her hooves, Fluttershy was a little nervous about how she would go about meeting the Grand Councilwoman. For some reason nobody would use her name around her, all she knew was that the Grand Councilwoman of the Alliance Armada was always somewhat fair to everyone she met. The Gargantian’s invading Star Command was one thing, but the follow up attack by Gravitina and an almost missed stealth infiltration by Warp Darkmatter had everyone on edge. The LGM rangers were like all the other LGMs, going back to their jobs as if all the assassination attempts hadn’t happened. It was simply amazing that the LGMs had managed to trick Warp into a trap, they weren’t strong, fast or even powerful on their own. What the LGMs were was highly intelligent when given the opportunity to act, they could come up with a plan of action with more than a hundred minds working towards one goal simultaneously with their unified hive mind. Still, Fluttershy felt safe and surrounded by a bunch of friendly people who wouldn’t leave her alone to die. Mira seemed particularly wary and on edge knowing Zurg was behind these attacks and the previous mercenary assaults on Star Command to distract them from helping out Rhizome with the hornet assault. Didn’t help that a lot of people were getting injured trying to protect her, at least Gravitina didn’t do much more than minimal damage to the hulls of several star cruisers. The star cruisers were positively pockmarked with dents having combined their firepower and blasted their way through several large asteroids with help from the undamaged Great Fox. The fact that the Grand Councilwoman was coming to Star Command had the little pony pensive about her future. At least Slip helped her prepare by adding Galactic Alliance languages to her newly updated universal translator, now she could communicate freely without having to look someone in the eyes. Now she was back in the central command room of Star Command, just waiting for news of the Councilwoman’s arrival. “Hey you okay there fluffy? I know life is giving you a whole ‘ship’ load of ‘lemons’ at the moment, but that’s no reason to get all down.” XR’s attempts at cheering her up were not very effective, of course the word lemons had to be translated from something completely different or did aliens actually have lemons and they weren’t just a thing on Equus? Fluttershy would have felt the need for him to clarify what exactly he just said, but she thought lemons was a good word for everything that life seemed to be throwing at her. “Oh I’m okay; I’ve just had quite a few terrible months of horrible times. I’m sure all the mental scarring will heal eventually.” Fluttershy was speaking in a bland and surprisingly sarcastic tone. “Not to mention I’m trying not to think of all the friends back home and how sad they are that I’m not there with them. I’m also trying not to think of how the friends I’ve met along my travels are doing, despite the fact that we may never see each other again. Finding my home in a constantly shifting universe isn’t easy XR.” “Yikes, somebody needs a pudding cup.” XR muttered and rolled away to go look for one, a snack always cheered up Booster so maybe the same could be said for Fluttershy. For some reason he wanted her to be happy, it was itching at his processors like mad to come up with a way to please her. “Hold down the fort while I go find one for her, something someone from Rhizome would ingest right? I’ll be right back, maybe with some juice too!” “XR is right; you should try to be more positive. Sure you may have gotten thrust into all kinds of dangerous situations, but at least your still alive and mostly whole right?” Booster thought that as long as you were alive, you could still do some good and you shouldn’t let depression tell you that you can’t achieve the impossible. Buzz showed him that impossible was just a fancy word for not trying nearly hard enough. “Yeah about that Booster… I can actually see why you’re depressed and all Fluttershy, but maybe you could be a little bit more cheery for your meeting with her highness the Grand Councilwoman.” Mira kind of felt bad about all the things Fluttershy was being put through. If she hadn’t truly cracked from the stress yet, then Mira doubted she truly ever would as she was a tough little thing. Maybe not spirited or incredibly outgoing, but darn if she wasn’t cuddly and friendly as all get out. Zurg hated beings like her in a most passionate manner befitting the crafty bastard and it was understandable that she was being targeted as harshly as she was by some of their worst villains. “You have nothing to worry about, well make sure you’re not taken advantage of by anyone. Not while I’m still breathing anyway lady. Just enjoy our hospitality ambassador and relax, we’ve got everything completely under control.” Buzz wouldn’t say it, but Fluttershy was the nicest ambassador he had ever met. At times he’s met ambassadors that were so bad that he wished he wasn’t committed to risking his life to protect them. Fluttershy here was a different story as she was just what amounts to a lost and scared tourist, a civilians whose race were at best loosely defined as even being anywhere near space capable. It was a bit of a combined thought from all the present Space Rangers, but learning of ponies from Fluttershy they knew that her race wasn’t quite ready for the stars and they had only gained a level of space travel that would work randomly at best to just spread them throughout the universe. Travelling by bubble wasn’t unheard of in the Galactic Alliance, just not a popular or even safe mode of transportation. However bubble travel did tend to make for smaller less easily detected targets. After that they left the command room being manned by LGMs since they decided to give Fluttershy some space while they waited for XR to get back with the pudding cup, Commander Nebula was busy elsewhere preparing for the arrival of the Alliance Armada’s flagship. The Grand Councilwoman only had trustworthy people under her command and she was coming well armed to make sure nobody would dare attack the peace talks with a first contact. A few LGMs waddled up to Fluttershy swiftly earning her attention at what one of them was holding. It was her universal map and the LGM turned it noticing her attention on him. It showed her all the places she’s been to in a comprehensive manner; there were a lot of newly labeled places as well that she hadn’t been to. Apparently the little green guys mapped out all of the Galactic Alliance for her, they’ve even mapped out areas of space that only the Alliance Armada has been to and areas of space were labeled to not be safe for anyone like her. “We are sorry, but we still can’t find your home. We have added the full scope of the Galactic Alliance and more to the map data in hopes that we were at least of assistance.” The little blue uniformed green alien hit something on the device and the memory they received from the Head Hunters databanks combined with the knowledge of the Lylat and Aniverse systems filled out the map with even more information. The map zoomed out to what looked like a spiraling galaxy that had the pony staring on in wonder. “You have been very far friend; hopefully The Claw’s ship will see you to your home. We would like to visit it sometime.” “Why do you keep calling them The Claw? Isn’t the name for their race, Chozo?” It was just an odd thing to Fluttershy. “They will always be the ‘The Claw’ to us. They have claws that don’t rend or tear unless needed for they started out as warriors; they are now known to us as ancient peacekeepers and builders, we respect them as grand architects. We tend to show great naivety in anything relating to them, for that we apologize if it causes trouble. Their reach for knowledge led them to claw their way to the ability of seeing beyond what can be normally seen, they have seen many truths that we will likely never be capable of understanding.” After a moment the third LGM paused. “Now we have an idea that The Claw originated around this Galactic Federation section of space, however it seems they are no longer greatly present there. This Galactic Federation would not make good friends with the Galactic Alliance, their policies are… self destructive.” “Is there anything in particular that they did? It sounds like you revere them a lot.” It was easy for Fluttershy to talk to them; they all looked like children and innocent beings. Despite this sense of innocence, they were not as weak as they looked. “They once saved our race, The Claw as we know them helped us in a time of great suffering and our race would have perished had they not intervened. They saw something of great importance in us; we do not consider ourselves very special beings in comparison and yet they still saw something... something special.” The second LGM looked up at Fluttershy with a bit of concern. “They were exceptionally wise. They did not try to change us as we didn’t need change, they did not give us technology as we weren’t ready for it, they did not try to change our ways as we were but children that needed to learn to grow on our own and they didn’t do more than was needed. It has been a very long time since the ancient legends of The Claw, the very beings we met from beyond the skies of our world long before we ourselves left our planet to explore the vastness of space. We are still eternally grateful to them, for their grip was strong yet gentle enough to pull us from the brink of extinction. As such they are known as The Claw for their grasp of knowledge and how to use it correctly.” Fluttershy didn’t know what to say to that, it sounded like the Chozo were well traveled to the point that they’ve practically been everywhere. The fact that griffons had some odd lineages that might have been alien in origin said as much about how far they’ve traveled if they’ve been to Equus, it might explain why some griffons were much more peaceful or wiser than others were. It certainly might have explained the odd existence of how the hippogriffs came to be. The Chozo must have been one of the most ancient magical and spiritual races in existence… did any of them still exist aside from being involved in griffon heritage? The information the LGMs discovered didn’t involve any knowledge of the location of Equus or how the Chozo came to integrate into griffon society. “Hey, fresh pudding cup right here and a juice box too!” XR finally got back from the mess hall, the Galactic Alliance had many sentient robot races as members and as such he had a lot of money just sitting around unused. One of the reasons he likes gambling and a few other quirky things like it. He had job security after all, as he was doing what he was built to do with free health coverage for every single time he gets blown up. He was the expendable one of his team for a reason and he was always taking one for the team in so many different ways, at least his efforts were never unappreciated. Speaking of, the ambassador thanked him kindly and that made him feel rather special. - It had been a few hours and Fluttershy didn’t know how long it would take the Grand Councilwoman to get to Star Command, she thankfully wasn’t being kept cooped up in a single room. Being allowed to wander and talk to others coming and going from Star Command was something that helped Fluttershy stay calm, it was very intimidating approaching some of the aliens she saw as they looked really weird or strange to her. There was no trouble aboard the large station and with Fox and his friends flying patrol around Star Command there wouldn’t be any problems. The one alien that Fluttershy met that she really liked a lot was the friendly red three legged being with two eyes on stalks sticking from the top of his body that could carry a rhythm. Apparently he was from a planet where dancing and music was a form of communication as much as it was for fun; he could stomp, clap and vocalize out a rhythm that put Fluttershy in a cheery mood. Apparently he was one of the temporary recreational activity instructors aboard Star Command that helped resting rangers to relax a little; he happened to have rotated in recently and was generally liked. He definitely got Fluttershy in a better mood after leading her on a merry little game of copying the noises he made. While the alien was nice, he couldn’t make her forget all her worries. “Thank you for a wonderful time Mr. Jam; I have a friend who loves to party like you do and she would have loved to meet you. Provided I can find my home planet in both our lifetimes, you’re welcome to come visit me and my friends.” The alien nodded his eyestalks at Fluttershy as he gave her a quick one armed hug, he than waved at the pony as he walked off with an easy going three legged gait up to a big yellowish orange alien that was wearing sunglasses and shorts. The last Fluttershy saw of them, they were headed off towards Star Commands cafeteria. “Hey, I think I know those two guys...”A look of concentration was on Boosters face as he walked up to Fluttershy after having watched her spend some time with the three legged alien. “Now if only I could remember where from.” “Buzz, Booster, Mira, XR and ambassador Fluttershy, report to the hangar on the double!” Commander Nebula should really watch his blood pressure; maybe yell a little bit less over the station wide communications. “The councilwoman has arrived, so stop dawdling and get the little lady to the flagship! She wants to meet the ambassador in person and she has all her people on high alert for any sign of attack, only a complete idiot or a complete psychopath would try to get her at this point.” - Torque had hit his max limit to the clones he could make, every single one of them was riding a space cycle and every last one of them was armed to the teeth with differing kinds of cloned weaponry. He decided to make a variety pack, more bang for his buck as it were. He and his army of clones weren’t the only ones preparing; there were a lot of assassins, cutthroats and mercenaries that were joining Torque for this assault. It was so nice when evil guys could all band together towards one solitary goal. Sure only one of them was getting paid for the kill, but Torque had a good chance as he had hundreds of himself working together whereas they would all be working for themselves. Things were about to go boom alright. Torque chuckled wryly and revved his space cycle. He didn’t particularly care who died, just that someone did and hopefully it would be the main target. There were plenty of other targets that would earn him a lot of moolah even if he didn’t get the kill they were all after. What kind of intergalactic psycho would he be if he didn’t spread the joy a little? - “It’s almost time, I’m coming for you little brother and no dirty mugs, bloody psychos, armada assholes, the uppity space rangers or even that bastard Zurg will get between me and you.” As she said this Bonnie holstered two blasters and slung a bandolier of homemade thermal grenades onto her body, her mind was running through all kinds of scenario’s and she’d take advantage of every single situation she could. “Ugh, I can’t wait to have all my plans called into question again!” Only an idiot would run into a deathtrap like she was about to do, she wasn’t nearly as indestructible as her youngest brother. - Fluttershy had quietly boarded cruiser number forty two with Roller who revved softly as she held him after taking her seat. Roller had enjoyed his time on the treadmill or as the way he tells it ‘the endless road that led to the same spot’. At least he had gotten plenty of exercise; it was amazing how hard the advanced treadmill could be pushed. She had learned that Wheelies even enjoyed being put on one in the very least. One would imagine that Roller could power a space vessel with the amount of energy he put into rolling forward endlessly. If only Fluttershy knew about the Halberd when she had visited Popstar, she probably would have brought up animal cruelty with Meta Knight even though Wheelies enjoyed hard labor if it involved rolling as hard as they could for long periods of time. The pony had wondered when the LGMs would be finished putting Head Hunter back together; they were making it more user friendly for ponies while trying not to remove previous controls. Hopefully the LGMs didn’t make things worse and only made things better. Fluttershy looked out a view port to see that Starfox was flying escort for forty two and she inhaled deeply before exhaling slowly. She pulled out the memory stone; she had a call to make. “Discord, can you get me connected with Celestia or Luna please?” She was wearing her Rhizome suit for her own protection in case something bad happened, which was inevitably going to. She hoped she could broker a peace agreement between the alliance and ponies before that happened. She didn’t know much about politics to really be getting into them. “Oh you never call anymore to tell me about how your day went anymore!” The chaotic lord of oddness was as usual sounding amused, Discord saw Fluttershy wasn’t feeling up to teasing so he changed his mood to fit Fluttershy’s immediately. “Right, I’m going to switch you over to line two please hold while your operator gets Celestia on her lollipop. Hey orange juice, Fluttershy wants to talk to you and moon pie!” “Um… hello is this Fluttershy?” Celestia’s voice came through the stone, after a moment a snarl came from the other end. “Discord, change my horn back to normal this instant!” “What, I thought an orange flavored lollipop horn would suit you and you’ve got a connection to Fluttershy on it, what can be better than that?” A snapping sound was heard and someone was heard eating something. “Your sister doesn’t seem to mind the banana flavored moon pies.” “Discord I respectfully ask that you stop tormenting Celestia… for the moment at least. Hello princess, I’m sorry to bother you and everything. I know your really busy and everything, but I’m about to go into a diplomatic meeting and I was wondering…” Fluttershy was getting rather high strung about this meeting with the Grand Councilwoman it was easily noticed in her tone of voice. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you have any advice? I’m representing ponies to the nice alliance people and I’m really nervous.” “Be yourself, read the fine print if you’re asked to sign anything and above all Fluttershy treat others how you wish to be treated. Oh and don’t negotiate anything that you can’t promise we’ll be willing to part with. An offer of friendship will go a long way I think.” The gentle voice of her beautiful princess calmed her nerves somewhat. “If that does not work out you can go the way of Discord and wing it, huzzah!” It was a little surprising to hear Luna suggest that in such a joyous manner, it cause giggles to break out. “I’d rather not, but if it was my only option…” Fluttershy trailed off with a whimper. “It’ll be okay Fluttershy we believe in you, it’s not like they expect everything of us immediately. We’re new to this whole intergalactic thing, even Discord who now watches over you from beyond our world.” Nice sentiments from Celestia didn’t make the scars all better. “I think you’ll be okay and I trust that you can talk peacefully.” “I’m scared princess.” Fluttershy felt Roller rub into her side while revving a calming tone. “What if I don’t know what to say?” “You’re not alone Fluttershy, you have friends with you.” Celestia didn’t think Fluttershy could disappoint anyone. “As Twilight has recently found out, you can make friends anywhere there is life to be found. Be sure to inquire about an embassy while you are there, otherwise you have been proven to be resourceful my little pony. All you need to do is to tell them who you are and what your cutie mark represents, you can show them what ponies are like even though you’re the only one we have off planet. If you get scared then you can seek council with Lady Katrina or any of us.” “Um, okay princess Celestia. I’ll ask about the embassy when I get a chance and I’ll try my best.” Kneading her two hooves together Fluttershy was in full worrywart mode as the ship came into dock with a long mostly rectangular ship that was as big as the Valhalla was, memories of ventilation ducts ran rampant through her head and the mindless robots that hunted her in them. “That is all we can really ask of you Fluttershy. Learn to forgive yourself for things you can’t control and especially for the things you can that went wrong.” Twilight didn’t sound sad or happy, she sounded generally chipper. “None of us are perfect and we’re still friends aren’t we Fluttershy? Also have you made any new friends; I know how hard it is for you to talk to other ponies.” “Why of course we are!” Surprisingly it came out in a loud affronted tone, Fluttershy squeaked at realizing how loudly she proclaimed that. Her cheeks filled with heat at how loud she had gotten, even so she felt the need to reaffirm that despite the distance their hearts haven’t exactly become detached. “Yes, I’ve made quite a few new friends recently. I’m usually not good at talking with other ponies, but these beings aren’t ponies and I think necessity is making me less shy than I normally would be really.” “That’s actually a good thing, keep doing that Fluttershy and never stop making friends!” Twilight didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to as Fluttershy felt a warm fuzzy feeling in her heart; she could still feel her friends. To lose that feeling would mean a total loss of who she was and she could feel it gnawing at her.