//------------------------------// // 64 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// The beige colored ship with three thrusters, heavy armoring and a small shield generator rose past the atmosphere. It’s was generally trapezoidal in shape with the front being smaller than the back end with two small side fins. It came with two manually operated bubble shaped laser turrets that could fire at any part of the ship and hit anything around it. The real name of the ship was not so much important as the ships making a blockade around the planet. “Attention cargo vessel, this is Captain Atomic Betty of the Galactic Guardians, if you are receiving this message please stop your ship now. I will give you some time to comply.” The voice was feminine and young sounding and it caused quite the reaction in Bonnie. Looking on the monitors to outside, they could all see a small aerodynamic looking red and white ship. Bonnie had her seat pushed as far forward as it would go so she could reach the controls, she immediately complied by slowing the vessel down to a stop. She looked rather nervous as she glances at Fluttershy who was looking at her with a bit of intrigue. “Under the orders of the Galactic Guardians and Star Command we are tasked with making sure no ship goes by without being inspected by at least one ship of the current planetary blockade. I’m now going to ask a few questions, if the information doesn’t check out we will proceed to disable and board your ship. Who is the captain of your vessel, what is its name and what is your cargo?” The voice sounded a tad irritated and Bonnie looked to be positively sweating and she was looking to Fluttershy with a fear on her face. “Uh… this is captain… sorry, I’m just kind of nervous… this is Captain Sweet Cheeks, we’re currently onboard the cargo vessel called…” The stuttering and bashful Fluttershy watched as Bonnie started talking to Lead Affront who gave her a thumb up. Then Bonnie came over and whispered to her some information which she repeated. Lucky came up and project the cargo they were hauling and where it was going, for some reason it sounded vaguely familiar to Fluttershy. “The Boojiboo… and we’re hauling ice cream to the planet of Bathyos as cargo.” “You can’t be serious; do you not know what planet you’re leaving? Why in the world would ice cream be going to Bathyos of all places, it’s a water planet. It sounds fishy to me and I know fish, care you explain yourself Captain Sweet or is it Cheeks?” This Captain Betty voice took on a rather stern tone, Fluttershy was about to answer when she was cutoff. “I prefer to be called Sweet.” It was one of Fluttershy’s defining characteristics after all. She was a sweetheart and she knew it, she liked being nice and nice things. “Now hold on there chief, they might actually be carrying ice cream in there. If they have all my favorite flavors can we confiscate all the ice cream if we take them in?” A chipper masculine voice sounded this time while smacking its lips in a way that sounded like he was rearing to confiscate the ice cream anyway, even if it didn’t belong to him. “Sparky we are not confiscating all their food or food related cargo on false charges, not after the last three times. You know Admiral Degill is still on your case about that!” There was an angry reprimanding tone in Betty’s voice. “Speaking of which, doesn’t Degill have a cousin or two on Bathyos X-5?” “Affirmative captain, he has three distant cousins there.” A slightly tinny robotic voice stated with a bland tone. “Captain Sweet Cheeks, we would like permission to scan your ship to verify that it does in fact have ice cream as its main cargo, we’ve already received data that verifies your captaincy and the name of the ship.” “Of course… I’m sorry if I’m a little jittery, I’ve run into space pirates before and I can’t help but worry about the presence of so many ships.” Fluttershy didn’t have to tell them when or where said space pirates were when she saw them. It wasn’t so hard to be nervous with so many star cruisers of different makes holding an orbit around the planet and that it was all because of her that they were there. - “I don’t like it. Fluttershy shouldn’t have to lie.” Applejack’s nose scrunched up and it was a few hours before it became dark, she was selling a lot of apple juice to thirsty ponies coming to see what Fluttershy was doing off planet. “Who says she’s lying? I find telling nothing but the truth tends to cause more chaos than anything.” Discord chuckled as he looked into the cargo area and all the ponies saw the ice cream in there. “Bonnie has given her the nickname Sweet Cheeks long before this. The ship has been stolen, so as the current unofficial owners they can rename it Boojiboo and as you can see there is ice cream in their cargo hold… a ton of it really. It does give me some ideas.” “Huh, well…” Applejack had to stop and think on that one, Fluttershy hadn’t lied but she did omit the truth a bit. Wasn’t omitting things a lie? “No Discord, you are not turning all the water in Manehatten into strawberry ice cream.” It sounded like Twilight was just as miffed at Discord as Betty sounded about Sparky. “Oh come on, not even a little sea salt ice cream iceberg?” The mismatched chaos lord chuckled. “Well if not in there then what about Ponyville’s lake?” Surprisingly it was not just Pinkie who responded with chanting that he should do this, Fluttershy could even hear Rarity chanting the words ‘do it’ alongside her and at the end of the chanting she included a ‘please darling’. In fact some of the other ponies were interested in have a lake full of sea salt ice cream as well as long as it didn’t mess with the environment too much. “Well, since you sweet little deer’s asked so nicely….” One could hear a few rolling of eyes at his declaration and the sound of two little whitetail does barking at Discord in surprise at the sudden species change. - “Confirmation acquired, they do have ice cream captain. Enough of it loading down their cargo bay to be considered a true shipment. The scans do not pick up any illegal substances, active weaponry and or anything dangerous showing up. None of the life forms aboard the ship appear to be in injured in any way. Nothing abnormal, which itself is strange and an oddity considering we’re over Tradeworld of all places.” After a pause of silence the obviously robotic X-5 concluded his thoughts. “What are your orders and how should we proceed from here captain?” “So there’s nothing in the ice cream, no injuries and a legitimate course heading for Bathyos? I’m a little confused considering what I know of Tradeworld, but they might be part of the twenty percent that don’t have any illegal dealings.” It sounded like Betty was straining with her own conscience on this situation. “Well I guess I’m cool with that, too bad about not being able to confiscate that ice cream though. So what do you say chief?” Sparky sounded a little sad that he wasn’t getting the entire cargo hold of ice cream all to himself. “… okay, let them through. Against my better judgment I don’t have a reason to hold them here.” Captain Betty was apparently going to let them go. “Captain Sweet, just one more thing before you leave, which is if you are willing give us a moment of your time. We’re searching for an ambassador that was recently kidnapped. Have you heard anything about her on the streets or have seen her personally? She has yellow fur and pink hair; she’s an adorable quadruped alien that’s shorter than a cyclocentaurian, without the upper torso and has two eyes.” “Um… I can’t say that I have… Captain Betty. We must be going now… Lead set course for Bathyos.” It was honesty at its finest; with a bit of omission as to what Fluttershy’s has heard and seen exactly. She hadn’t heard anything about herself, she hadn’t been on the streets long enough to hear anything with Bonnie leading the way. She can’t exactly see herself either, unless she looked in a mirror and she hadn’t seen one since she got to this planet. The heavy cargo ship zipped away on a straight course for Bathyos at Fluttershy’s command and Lead took control of the ship. Bonnie released a breath she had been holding in and unstrapped herself; Fluttershy looked after her as she passed through a closing door leaving the bridge. “We’ll make that delivery to Bathyos, it doesn’t feel right to not deliver the cargo. Will you be okay here by yourself Lead?” Fluttershy got a raised thumb from Ms. Affront and she unstrapped herself to go after Bonnie. It took a bit of wandering, but she found Bonnie sitting down with a bucket of ice cream which she slowly ate from. She looked up at Fluttershy and then went back to eating with a slightly depressed look on her face. A moment later, Fluttershy joined Bonnie in eating some alien ice cream in the peace and quiet of the kitchenette galley area of the recently renamed Boojiboo. It was an hour later and empty cart of ice cream that Bonnie decided to talk again; she wanted to broach the topic of why Fluttershy looked more depressed then she felt. She knew Fluttershy currently didn’t feel like she got ran over by a train, at least Bonnie knew that she’d be better in no time given some time to sleep off her injuries. “Okay what’s the matter with you? You sick or something? I know I’m still feeling a bit of my internal injuries here.” If there was one thing Bonnie didn’t like, it was seeing the cuddly pony looking depressed. “Well yes, I’m currently homesick. What’s the matter with me is that if all robots can eventually get souls then all of the ones I destroyed could have had a chance at life and I…” All those robots, even those four killer robot things on the train that nearly took her head off with their first few shots. They all could have eventually become something greater and more than what they were made to do. It was like preemptively ending a life that had yet to begun, she actually felt horribly sick to her stomach when she compared it to an aborted... “No sense in worrying about the past, you made a judgment call and there’s no worrying about ‘what ifs’ when you can be worrying more about what will or could happen. You’re doing the best with what you have, just like everyone else in the universe is. If you haven’t croaked yet, you must be doing something right, Fluttershy.” Bonnie smiled as the pony stared at her in shock when she brought her into a one armed hug wrapped around her neck. Yeah calling her by her name and then giving her a bright crap eating grin was sure to brighten her mood, even if it was by a tiny amount. “Whatever happened, happened, you just need to keep pushing forward. Who knows, you might actually convince some heartless creature that they can change for the better like a little girl once did for someone I know. She might even become a real friend if you give her some time; I don’t think she’s all too good at it and needs more remedial lessons in being good. I’m going to go find a place to lie down; it’s going to be a while if we’re going to make a stop at Bathyos before we go to Planet Z. And for what it’s worth I’m actually feeling sorry about all this.” Fluttershy watched as Bonnie stood up and left well stretching out her arms and cringing when her right arm caused her some pain, she left through the sliding door with a silly swagger in her steps. A small smile formed on her lips. - “It’s about time Fluttershy started getting through to her. Still though, it’s kind of interesting what’s going on with this Bonnie.” Even princess Cadence came to see how Fluttershy was doing in the universe and Shining was off in the distance playing with Twilight to get her mind off of the situation for a while. Also there were a few ponies eating sea salt ice cream. “I don’t think I’ve seen connections form quite like that between two beings before. It seems rather tenuous, tentative and unusual.” “Well Bonnie appears to be a chaotic being; she’s so used to using others that when friendship is promised and ultimately delivered without any strings attached she doesn’t quite know how to feel. Considering she has a brother, she has problems making close connections with anyone outside her family.” Chuckling Discord had experienced it himself when Fluttershy befriended him, he tried just using her to stop the elements of harmony from turning him to stone again and that disposition had quickly changed. Just because he was chaotic, it didn’t mean he couldn’t have friends all over the place. “She knows that she’s doing something horrible and knows she’s immediately forgiven for it without question. She’s trying to use and think of Fluttershy as a means to an end and is finding it quite hard to keep thinking like that with dear Fluttershy being so nice about it all. I happen to know that exact feeling quite well.” “You’ve made a lot of friends with your antics lately, are you sure you’re still Discord lord of chaos?” Cadence the princess of love was asking because Discord was more worried about a friend than causing chaos, she thought it was nice that his chaos was less mean spirited then it used to be. “Are you sure you’re wings didn’t just turn into floppy pickles covered in horseradish sauce?” Discord returned with a smirk. - Fluttershy explored the ship, this was very different from the cargo vessel the Croakers had, there was less wide open corridors and muggy atmosphere. She was walking around when she noticed a glow from the corner of her eye, her suits helmet immediately up as she wandered closed and she saw Lucky Day repairing the third DOK, the big red one that was still inactive. He was working on the inner workings and taking a moment to scrape dirt and what looked like cauterized biological material out of its nooks and crannies. She didn’t even have to ask what the big robot was good at; he was definitely made for battle or protecting others given his size. Lucky turned to her to wave and then he went back to work on the DOK almost twice his size and mass. He didn’t have enough resources to get the red highlighted DOK operational and would need to find a lot of parts for him. The red DOK in question was ironically designated ‘Absolute Resolve’; he was a Protector and Demolitions class of DOK. His shields, when they were operational, were impenetrable by most forms of handheld weapons fire no matter how focused. His armor used to be highly explosive resistant and was currently too dilapidated to be useful at the moment. Everything about Absolute needed to be fixed and he was barely salvageable, if he was repaired correctly he’d be a veritable tank when it came to a fight despite his slow deliberate movements. He was one of the DOK’s that had been essential in ending the problem from their last memories of being operational, he was one of the DOKs that was given a built on site rocket launcher made from spare parts found on the enemy vessel. The pony waved back and left Lucky to work on his friend, the red one still looked worse off than the other two by a fair degree. Idly she wondered how long the robots had been asleep and what had happened to them to leave them in such poor condition. Was it technically sleeping or was it death until they woke up alive again? Shivering slightly at the implications, she decided to think of other things as she found the bathroom and pulled off her Rhizome suit. She also flicked the memory stone from her ear and held it to her chest for a moment before placing it off to the side. Sighing Fluttershy decided that she needed a shower and saw a mirror and she looked at the pony that was looking back at her. Her eyes were worn and weary, her mane was a short sweaty mess, she had three scorched hooves and the only good thing she could think about herself was that she at least looked healthy and fit. She just didn’t look like herself at the moment, the bat wing, the fang, the ears and the twisted cutie mark mattered little at the moment compared to everything else that recently happened to her appearance. Roller revved and bumped against her leg and squealed sadly at the slightly damaged hooves, he was also rather apologetic about hurting her back on the fast floating giant quick moving animal thing. Lifting the one hoof that wasn’t covered in a blackened scorch mark, Fluttershy started rubbing Roller’s carapace gently and he nuzzled up into her touch. She giggled slightly at how Mr. Wheel saw the train as some form of living thing, could trains be given an artificial intelligence? Well he might not have been too far off in his odd belief if that were true. She gave him a nice smile, which told him that she was physically okay with her action alone and that she wasn’t going to stop moving anytime soon. He believed her at her soothing touch and affectionate body language. As she stepped into the shower and started it she sighed at the warm spray of water struck her fur. She closed her eyes and thought back to Equestria, the planet of Equus and all the things she would be able to do once she got home. She didn’t want to forget what her world was like and the beauty it held. Memories of her little rambunctious bunny, her friend Harry the bear and all the other animals flooded through her head as she started scrubbing her body down. She knew some of those animals wouldn’t be there when she got back. A clean and refreshed Fluttershy stepped out of the shower and shook off the excess water, she looked a bit better and the scorch marks on her hooves were less noticeable. She also had the knowledge of how to create a lighting cloud from Rainbow, something she hoped she wouldn’t need to use again. Once she got her suit back on she set out into the corridors looking for a bedroom and saw Lucky floating towards the bridge and she got his attention by waving a hoof. “Um… excuse me, I know you’re busy and everything, but do you know where I can find a place to sleep?” The robot raised a thumb at her and Fluttershy felt like this was going to be a recurring theme with the DOKs as their easiest way of saying yes. Following the hovering barrel shaped robot to a hallway with rooms it pointed out a few rooms that were unoccupied and it showed one that had Bonnie sleeping inside of it. Looking into the room she saw the Bonnie was having tossing and turning, it looked like she wasn’t sleeping very well. “Thank you very much Mr. Day, you can go about your business.” The little blue DOK saluted Fluttershy and then flew off, leaving her to move into the room Bonnie was in. She took off her suit and held out the Memory Stone. “Could one anyone who is there tell Princess Luna I need a little help with a friend, she’s having nightmares and I’m about to cuddle her and go to sleep myself.” Knowing that she was being watched constantly was actually more of a comfort than not being watched, she knew her friends were still worried about her and hadn’t forgotten her which was more comforting than knowing a bunch of random ponies were watching her zany, weird or dangerous exploits. “Sure can do sugar cube, it is nighttime here anyway and I’m mighty tired from a hard day’s work and all. You got a lot of folks wishing you well out there you know and even I’m taking some time out of my day to see how you’re doing too. I need to be getting on, Good Night Discord, Fluttershy and everyone else.” A chorus of voices answering Applejack was heard on the Memory Stone wishing her a good night’s rest as well. Watching Bonnie whimper as she tossed and turned on the bed broke Fluttershy’s heart slightly, she slowly crawled up onto the bed carefully trying not to wake her up. Slowly she brought Bonnie into her hooves and started singing lightly into one of her ears to calm her down as she nodded off herself snuggling the poor thing. - It was a few moments later that Fluttershy met with Luna and then they both would see what was in the mind of Bonnie Jookiba. Bonnie was with a larger masculine looking version of herself that came in two shades of brown and his left arm was mechanical, they were being captured by some red monsters. The scene changed to an arena of sorts where a whole ton of weird aliens that looked similar to Bonnie were being caged in by the red four armed monsters that were perfect copies of each other. “Shouldn’t we do something?” It looked like a memory to Fluttershy, if that was true then was this Bonnie’s family? “We should let it play out.” Luna was curious to see where this went. A ship in the sky prepared to fire some kind of weapon only to be destroyed, Bonnie found herself being rallied to fight by a blue version of the red monsters, despite the good start the tides quickly turned and Bonnie’s family started losing. The scene ended well enough as after the battle when the family won by singing a somewhat sad sounding song together, it quickly changed to a scene where Bonnie joined in a picture with some of her family. The picture became more prominent and it seemed to catch fire, it separated two of the beings from the rest of the others and it showed Bonnie and the one who had an arm wrapped around her. The picture split down the middle and changed slightly to show Bonnie and the other being reaching out for one another. “That must be her brother Clyde.” At least Fluttershy now knew what Clyde looked like and then the real nightmare started.