Neither Luna nor Fluttershy knew what to expect, but they could only see shadows and a light that showed a very sparse area like a flashlight. A mewling sound was heard and slowly the two spotlights widened revealing the surroundings area, after one sweep of the room it was entirely revealed.
The light had dimmed drastically to reveal that it was Bonnie who looked around the room she was in a sitting position looking at her surroundings curiously from the inside of a glass tube, next to her was another glass tube with a small sphere in it. Slowly a large being that looked like a four eyed alien bear walked into view holding a clipboard, he was wearing lab coat and had a thick mound of black hair on his head.
“You are experiment one four nine, is good to see you are already becoming aware of your surroundings as soon as you were activated. Your primary functions is stealing things that are not the being nailed down and then to be taking the nails too if possible. Your ability where you truly shine is to evade any projectile fire directly at you with incredible agility; I will test that safely later. Your abilities might even end up being put into future experiments, with some itsy bitsy tweaking here or there. Why I telling you this, you have just come to life… still is nice sentiment to tell you what you are even if you might not remember this.” The large being started writing some things down on the clipboard. He then proceeded to open the tube. “Now to be testing your ability to take in your surroundings. Do you understand what it is I am the saying?”
Bonnie tilted her head curiously at the big guy, she was little more than freshly born at the moment and her mind was quickly forming from all the new sensations of suddenly existing. She was already receiving information in her head about how to do many things, her stomach gurgled and her ears perked up she looked around frightened and then she felt something and looked down at her tummy. Jumba lifted her from her spot and carried her over to a nearby table.
“Ah, the joys of making a new experiment and then with the feeding of them, why they are always hungry seconds into life has been a puzzling dilemma I am having to work out for future experiments. I am the charging them full of energy and they always come out hungry. I am the getting of the food and then I will let you witness the activation of one who shares in your primary function and has abilities of his own that compliments what you are capable of.” As the large being left to get some food, Bonnie smiled and held up what was obviously a wallet and looked into it and smiled at the shiny bits of stuff she starting pulling from it. She was exploring this new object she had taken from the big guy; she looked at his image on a card and smiled.
“She is quite a sly one; I almost didn’t catch her taking it from him. She did it when he picked her up.” Luna felt a bit off being in the dreams of this particular being.
“She did say she was made to steal, this must be the day she was born. That must be her father and he is not exactly what I expected.” Then again, what had Fluttershy exactly expected the one who created Bonnie to be?
A door slammed bringing Fluttershy’s attention back to the scene, the big guy looked angry as he came storming back into the room until he saw what Bonnie was doing with the wallet. He gave a broad grin and let off an evil sounding chortle that startled Bonnie.
“Ah, yes, you are the clever one even a few minutes minute into existence. Is good data I will be getting from this, now to be giving back my wallet if you will?” The big guy held out a hand and expected to receive his wallet and his belongings back.
“Naga!” Bonnie said in a juvenile tone of denial and gathered all the stuff taken to her protectively. Instead of getting angry the big guy patted her gently on the head and petted her.
“Is being how I envisioned your first theft to go, is making evil genius like me proud. Jumba Jookiba log, experiment one four nine spoke in Tantalog. Like previous experiments, this is being a continuing anomaly. It possibly from the dead wall hopping creatures genetics having an odd effect in every experiment I make, should eventually switch to Galactic Standard given time as her linguistic cortex becomes stronger.” Jumba then left with his wallet much to the sad confusion of the affectionate attention suddenly leaving her all alone in the room. A second later Jumba came back and had a curious Bonnie’s attention as her nose lifted up in the air and her eyes fluttered at the scent and she had a smile on her face. “Is catching the scent of food, I like to spoil my experiments so I am the buying of a nutrition disk and you will share it with your other as soon as I release him. He will be activated in a moment, made him for exact purpose of working with you to see how it will affect you psychologically.”
Bonnie tilted her head curiously at the strange being who was talking to her as he walked over to the other glass tube. It filled with liquid a second later an explosion of light, a form started to appear in the tube. Bonnie’s ears rose in interest at seeing the sight of another almost like her except brown and big, at this point his left arm was just like his right one, being completely made of flesh.
“I am seeing curiosity in the presence of her other over need for sustenance, having left the box with the nutrition disk unguarded next to her. She does not seem to notice and is more interested in experiment one five zero’s immediate presence.” Jumba was taking in Bonnie’s curious gaze at the large brown creature as the tube drained and lifted out the way; he hefted the chunky creature and sat it next to Bonnie. Immediately Bonnie crawled over to the larger experiment and snuggled into his side despite Clyde still being disoriented from suddenly existing as much as Bonnie had been minutes before. “It seems I am correct in thinking all experiments to this point will have some level of deep rooted connection should they ever meet, it must be instinctual to her genetics that she would look after him over her own needs.”
The experiments stomachs growled and Jumba chuckled at them, this made them both look to him for a way to stop the growing pains in their belly regions.
“Is time to be learning the great need of eating, yes?” Jumba lifted the flap on the box to expose the gooey nutrition disk to the two. Instead of taking all of the food and eating it herself, Bonnie crawled over and started dragging the box back to Clyde. “Is sharing? Not in design, but fundamentally expected. She is looking out for her other who is less acclimated to the world. One four nine, meet one five zero made to be by your side and to be the more durable of the two of you… also to be the helping in carrying lots of stolen property due to greater size.”
The scene blurred out and Fluttershy and Luna looked at each other.
“You’re friend certainly is an interesting being. She was made to steal, but then she’s suddenly so giving? She must love her brother dearly, almost to the length that I once cared for Celestia and she should be doing the same for me.” Sighing Luna waited for the next scene to come into focus, trying not to relive her Nightmare Moon episode.
“That’s her brother Clyde; they were both made to be thieves.”Fluttershy gave a quick rundown of what was going on with her.
“She’d really sacrifice your life for her brother? Does she really care not for who stands between her and her brother? Such devotion I wish I had for my sister.” The questions were quickly answered and both Luna and Fluttershy watched it in full horror.
Bonnie and Clyde were escaping from a good run of recently picking pockets on some strange planet when a large ship high up in the air above them exploded. Hundreds of chunks of this ship were going to hit them and even Bonnie couldn’t have possible dodged it all coming at them at high speed and such mass. Clyde threw himself over Bonnie and took every impact for her, when it was all over his left arm was shredded and his skin all across his back was flayed and torn. Underneath him getting covered in his blood was Bonnie who was perfectly safe and sound, she was frightened by the sudden change in mood from being happy go lucky thieves to being suddenly put in a horrid situation had jarred her terribly.
“What the, One five zero your arm and there’s so much blood. Why?” Bonnie was already crying and looking around for something to staunch the flow of blood as he clutched it to his chest. Even with his body badly damaged from the falling debris, Clyde still managed to shove the portions of the wreckage that had crashed on top them off with his one good arm with a pained grunt.
“I’m b-built to be t-tougher, so I p-protect you. One four nine can’t be replaced.” He stated simply, looking around the area everything had been summarily destroyed and currently trying to ignore the massive blunt force he just took to his skull. Clyde was obviously in massive amounts of pain at the moment, but he managed to protect his big sister from suffering and he could smile about doing a good job of it.
“But what about you, you can’t be replaced either little brother! What are you smiling about you big stupid lug, you’re seriously hurt here and you might even Death Knell! Even Fat-Jumba can barely return you from that in the same condition going into it! Oh please don’t leave me alone.” Bonnie frantically looked around and saw a hover car fly down and there was this one eyed with an antenna poking his head out of the hovering vehicle looking around at the devastation with a wide open mouth revealing that he had two purple tongues. The scene turned slightly red, she didn’t care who was between her and her brother as she was going to save him!
Bonnie quickly ran up to the car and with a strength even she didn’t know she had, she grabbed the three legged noodle like alien by the neck and toss him from the vehicle without looking where he fell. She got into the vehicle and drove it over to her brothers injured form and quickly helped him get in and then the car shot off for the sky.
Both Fluttershy and Luna cringed when they watched the back of the noodle like aliens head smacked the ground and it laid there unconscious, it didn’t even look to of had the time to realize what had happened it. They turned back to the scene to see Bonnie flying off in the stolen car, presumably to save her brother’s life.
“I am to be doing what I can, but arm is being the totally kaput. Damage is being too extensive, is shocking development considering one five zero is designed to take being hit by lots of force. Parts of crashing battleship was not part of one five zeroes ability to resist injury, his survival is phenomenal occurrence.” The scene had shifted back to Bonnie looking worried and she was with Jumba. “You are being the lucky to even be getting him back to me, especially without the activation of Death Knell protocol. His resilience to pain is rather astounding that he managed to stay awake until arrival here. The parameters of this will help me learn to make more resilient experiments for future.”
“Can’t you clone it and attach a new one or something; this is my little brother we’re talking about here! Also stuff your parameters up your patookie; I just want my little brother to be okay.” Bonnie ran up to the tank and held her left hand up to the tank which presented a damaged Clyde’s body floating lifelessly in there. Slowly his right arm twitched and met Bonnie’s at the glass between them.
“Is complex genetic design, is taking forever to clone new arm… however can be making prosthesis replacement faster.” Bonnie didn’t look back at Jumba she just looked at Clyde’s hand against the glass trying to meet hers. “My mechanical expertise is not as good as the genetic experiments making, but will do what I can.”
“Then do it.” Bonnie said in a blank tone as she looked at her little brother.
“Is needing help to get used to new prosthetic when acquired, is lucky having you for partner. If was working alone, might have been first fatality out of all experiments.” Jumba received a look from Bonnie that had him frowning then the scene blurred out of focus.
“Why can’t we see everything? Why do we only mostly see what Bonnie does?” This would explain the metal arm Clyde had later when he was hugging Bonnie in that picture that burned.
“I can get a full recollection of what happened from multiple ponies minds to recreate the full situation in dreams. What we’re seeing is what Bonnie saw as going on around her and is in fact her memory which is constructing her surroundings as she saw them, so that is why they appear a little disjointed at times since she could not have been looking in all directions at once.” Even Luna didn’t like to admit that she was still trying to find the root of Bonnie’s nightmares. This was one of them and it was obviously losing her little brother who was bigger than she was. This Clyde was an amazingly tough being to handle the wreckage of whatever a battleship was crashing into him directly; he covered his sister with his body and almost lost his life in the process of protecting her.
The next scene showed Clyde and Bonnie on dark world and the skies were filled with black and red clouds.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean Clyde? I’m not going anywhere without you! We’ll find some way out of here together, I’m sure of it.” Bonnie looked up to a frowning Clyde who shoved something into her grasp.
“I’m going to lead them off while I get you out of here, sorry Bonnie.” The scene blacked out when a metal fist met with Bonnie’s face.
When it came back Bonnie slowly came too and was surrounded by a ton of dead bodies, all of them lifeless and bug like beings with antenna and their blank open eyes that stared at nothing. Then a sound was heard the world tumbled until Bonnie could see she was on a different planet. She slowly stood up and took a look around looked down at the object clutched in her hands.
“So the shipment finally arrived, I wonder what these things are or where they come from? All these bug things look vaguely familiar.” A man’s voice could be heard as Bonnie stumbled to her feet clutching at the object Clyde shoved into her grasp. Slowly she stumbled away from the pile of dead bodies; likely because of her size she went entirely unnoticed as she fled the dead corpses.
Another scene change showed Bonnie crawling through a duct and she stopped, looking down she saw what appeared to be an office below her.
“Hope they take this seriously or a lot of people are going to die, not that I care as it only means less people to steal from for me.” Bonnie carefully dropped the object wrapped in some cloth and Commander Nebula appeared alerted by the sound of it hitting the floor. Fluttershy recognized that Bonnie was in Star Command.
The next thing the two viewers in Bonnie’s mind saw was some digital news being put up on a screen from a computer. Both Fluttershy and Luna looked on as she read what was on the screen.
“Mysterious benefactor delivers plans to an actual planet destroying weapon being built by Evil Emperor Zurg, Team Lightyear once again saves the day. Yeah well, I wish I could save my brother. All I’ve got left is my rep and this stolen computer.” Sitting there on an abandoned couch Bonnie just sighed and looked out of the alleyway at all the people milling about. “Well I did my one really good deed in my screwed up life and to think all it cost me was my brother being captured by a complete sadist.”
The next thing that came up was an actual dream and not a memory. It was a haunting sight really, Bonnie was looking at a tall pillar and dangling from the two outstretched arms of the pillar were two hanging platforms. On these platforms were Clyde and Fluttershy.
“This is no memory; this is the nightmare that is haunting your friend and where her mind currently is.” Luna had never seen something as visceral as trying to balance the love she felt for her brother and the friendship she had with Fluttershy.
“Save her Bonnie, I’m likely already dead. Besides I’m not worth crying over and you don’t really need me. Without me around you’ll have all those things you steal to yourself, you know you want to let you’re greed consume you. Once I’m gone and no longer in the way you can finally be greedy to your hearts content.” Clyde here seemed to be advocating that Bonnie live as she wanted to. “I won’t be disappointed if you replace me with her either. It’s not like you to have used me all these years or that you never cared one speck about me as much as I did you. Oh right, you don’t care anymore! Some sister you are, you’ve never really cared about anything.”
“Just ask me to kill myself; I’m willing to die for you if it saves your brother. All you have to do is learn to let go of me, you don’t know me and I’m nothing special. I promise I won’t hold it against you, love and friendship is not greed. I will gladly throw myself away for you and then you can continue on being happy with your brother.” The Fluttershy here seemed to be off in that she had a pair of large white wings and a halo of light above her head. “All you’d need to do is ignore what you would be doing to me, there’s nothing special about me and I made those promises to you. I will keep them, but you have to give me up. I know that I’m lost and I might never find my home or see my friends and family again, but I will die knowing I did something important to help a friend who needed me. All you have to do is ask and then sacrifice me.”
“Yeah, but then she’d be losing a friend, oh wait… she doesn’t really have any! Ohana means ‘family’ and that nobody gets left behind, what a load of tripe that is. We couldn’t handle being around our family without causing problems. No matter what happens it all depends on where your greed goes, it’s our drug Bonnie.” Clyde now looked slightly grimmer than the saintly version of Fluttershy. “The need to steal is in us and you know you care little about what you actually take from others, yet you still do it. A life of freedom to do whatever you please, that’s what you really wanted isn’t it? You know Jumba can create life right? Then get some genetic samples from her and you can have him make a clone so you can have her all to yourself, best of both worlds huh? Who cares if she dies when you can have a false copy? It wouldn’t be the same because the copy would be what you wanted her to be. To think it can never know you led to the murder of the original that was actually born from a womb, unlike us bastards of the universe. Of course I might never speak to you again even if you do save me by telling her to off herself, murderer. You can certainly risk that I’m still alive right?”
Bonnie reeled back at the accusation, but she didn’t say anything and just stared between the two sitting on the scales and then curled up on the floor whimpering.
“Tick tock, the clock is ticking Bonnie. You can only keep one and lose the other or risk losing them both. Choose which one you want to save and then feel miserable for the rest of your life. That’s the kind of guy I am, I just wanted to kill billions of lives and you just had to go and save them all. Rather noble for someone so unnatural and created to be evil on purpose.” Zurg popped up in front of the pillar in a cloud of smoke wielding a pitchfork and had two red horns popping out of his helmet. “Save your new friend and I eventually murder you brother, save your brother and I eventually murder your new friend. Its win-win for me Bonnie, there is no other option.”
“What if she can save both, I ask this of you foul nightmare?” Deciding to make her presence known Luna stalked forward and looked at Bonnie’s inner demon.
“She won’t because she won’t risk losing them both. She knows either way that I will stab her in the back and try for a hat trick by getting all three of them or that I’ll always have people hunting Sweet Cheeks down, she can’t protect her forever. I’m a mastermind after all and I’ve been indirectly responsible for millions of deaths.” Nightmare Zurg seemed particularly pleased with himself. “She’s just a pathetic “little” coward.”
“I know she can do it.” The entire nightmare immediately collapses into itself with those solid words from Fluttershy leaving a spotlight on three beings; the inner demon had looked positively shocked as he disappeared. Bonnie just looked up from her curled up position on the floor to see the two ponies before her, Fluttershy held out her hoof to Bonnie. “All she needs is to do is believe in herself and try her best with whatever it is she’s planning. I trust her.”