//------------------------------// // 70 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Styg might not have known Fluttershy for long, but after she hugged him she cringed, or was it a flinch? It had him wondering. “Are you okay miss, Shy, was it?” The brain looked at a wincing Fluttershy. “Whatever I was injected with really hurts when I move too much.” It was an understatement as her body felt like it was on fire again, after a moment that fire cooled down and she sighed slightly. “You mean you didn’t wear it out or even beat it? How are you even still standing? That stuff was supposed to be stay strong and last for half a year’s time on this planet!” There was a look of awe in Styg Glip’s eyes; he had a good reason for it as a Cerebrian couldn’t survive even a quarter dosage of the stuff for more than an hour. A Grub certainly would survive it though and they might even enjoy such a toxic concoction, then again their biology tended to make some of them something of a naturally existing masochistic species. It was kind of obvious why some of the Grubs actually liked Zurg and it made him shudder to think of it. “Well…” Fluttershy was about to explain when her ears pressed against her head as several loud explosions were heard along with several other very powerful sounding dull thumps followed them. She tried to clutch at her head with her flailing hooves, the vibrations and loud noises really hurt and it caused her to lose some fine control of her legs causing her to smack herself in the face. She still managed to finish her thought despite curling up on the floor with Roller whining about her being in pain. “On my planet I’ve been poisoned by something like this, there’s a naturally occurring creature that makes stuff like what I was injected with. They are really quite friendly and I was poisoned by it by accident, spent a whole month feeling like this, so I’m used to it. What was all that?” “Hold on a second and I’ll see to it.” Using its six tentacles the brain creature crawled back into the robotic body and then moved it over to a control panel in the wall which revealed a screen showing several scenes of destruction across the empire. “My word… this is… incredible, how did they manage to hack into the system? I’m finding no outside interference whatsoever and every factory on the planet is going into meltdown. What we just heard was five of them exploding at the same time. Why, this is just positively amazing, someone has actually managed to find a way to topple most of the empires manufacturing strength! It’s the only real strength the empire has aside from subterfuge and… the subterfuge has also been wrecked, our operatives in the Galactic Alliance are being captured. I shouldn’t even be seeing information like this unless someone has busted our communications systems wide open! That should be impossible, hornet control is still going strong and that’s a given considering it’s on a completely different system that’s entirely under Zurg’s control.” “I don’t think it’s impossible… Bonnie must be really angry. Oh I hope her brother is alright…” It made Fluttershy wonder what happened to just escaping with their lives, this seemed like Bonnie was more on a warpath and that escape wasn’t entirely on her mind. A really dire inkling of fear started to run down her spine and that wasn’t the pain she was in from the injection, Bonnie didn’t have a communication device. “Isn’t that Jookiba experiment one-four-nine’s name? Well that certainly explains it, she must have found out what was done to her brother, she’s certainly doing a good job of wrecking things.” Styg just took in the damage that was already done and saw red alerts popping up all over the planet; every facility was quickly being evacuated as they were all beginning to overload and self destruct. “Glad I won’t be around to help rebuild all this… speaking of… can I bother asking for your help with getting a few of my comrades off the planet as well and how much cargo space is there in that vessel that you came down in?” “As long as they won’t continue doing bad things, I’ll gladly help anyone who needs it. I’m sure we have enough room but um, food might be a problem though. I’m willing to share what we do have with everyone. Hopefully you like ice cream because we still had a bit of a surplus after making a delivery to Bathyos.” After she got done explaining it, Fluttershy couldn’t help but notice the incredulous look she was receiving from Mr. Glip. “Bathyos, really, that makes… well some sort of sense, but still!” The robotic arms were thrown in the air by Styg’s robot suit and Fluttershy not knowing what to say about it just shrugged and winced slightly at the action. After a moment Styg turned around and started bringing up several beings on screen. Various Grubs and Cerebrians appeared on screen looking around fearfully. “Everyone we’re leaving the planet now, we have a ride out of here and you really don’t want to be here when the rebuilding starts! Fluttershy, can you get your people to help escort some fugitives to this ship of yours?” “Um…” A beeping was heard and after Fluttershy clumsily hit her face with her right hoof, she managed to hit her communications correctly on the second try. “We’re now dropping our Land Masters outside the city, Fluttershy are you okay? You weren’t caught in any of those explosions were you?” It was nice of Fox to check in on her. “I didn’t even think Bonnie was this dangerous, but she looks to be causing more havoc and headaches than even Katt did to the Venomian army.” “I’m fine Fox, but can I get a little favor from you and Falco. You know, since you’re already going to be helping me get back to the ship already?” She tried to keep her voice as pleasant and sweet as possible because Fluttershy knew that someone was going to be angry at her for this. “Oh no, what did you do space hippie? I felt like something just crawled up my backside and died, this escort missions is bad enough as it is already. I can’t even begin to think of what you could possibly say to make this situation that much worse.” After a pause Falco sighed. “I know you’re going to anyway, so hit us with it already.” “Can you figure out a way for them to know where everyone who wants to leave is Mr. Glip?” The Cerebrian in the robotic suit nodded and started transmitting some data to everyone to respond and then he looked to Fluttershy as he sent the data of all those who wanted to escape from under Zurg’s cruel foot. Said data was sent to the two blue and white tanks that just landed outside the city. “Some information is being sent I think… these are some people who want to leave planet. Can we help them?” - “You can’t be serious…” Inside his Land Master Falco looked at all the little green blips, the one large blue blip was Fluttershy’s location deep in the city and there were hundreds of green blips between him and her. Off to the side was a pink marking that marked the location of the stolen cargo vessel Boojiboo. “She is… oh brother; this is going to take some work.” “Looks like we got our work cut out for us. Peppy, Slippy, move to cover the Boojiboo we’re about to move a lot of people and things are going to get hectic if we’re going to save all of them.” Though he really didn’t want to say it, Fox knew Falco was right in saying that this was going to get worse. Now he had to actually watch where he was shooting or he’d hit someone friendly in a target heavy environment. “Fluttershy we’re going to need a little more help, can you get the DOKs back to the ship? We’re on it either way.” - “Hold on a second… hello Mr. Sixty Four, are you there? Can you please get into contact with Ms. Affront and Mr. Resolve that we need help protecting some people who require escort to the Boojiboo, well that is if they are done doing what they were supposed to be? That would be really helpful.” A sound of a beep was a heard and then Fluttershy got a response. - “This is Rob Sixty Four, complying and sending orders to DOKs for assistance by updating them on the situation. Keep up the good work!” Rob had just dropped both Land Masters on the ground and swung around to escape the swarm of hornets that started attacking the Great Fox. “Be safe Fluttershy and avoid damage to your chassis, it is very nice.” The Land Masters having been dropped on the ground began trundling forwards and started taking out swarms of hornets with charged shots and oval shaped energy blasts from their cannons. Slippy’s fighter flew past the tanks taking out a few hornets as it went. “Is it me or does Rob always act a little different when Fluttershy is around?” Distracted by Fluttershy’s conversation and the new objectives as he fired a charged blast into a hyper hornet on the ground, Slippy once again found himself the victim of being tailed by ten hornet robots shooting up the rear of his fighter. “Oh, not again, why is it always me!” Slippy flew past the Boojiboo and Lucky just happened to be in the upper turret at the time, he started firing into the bogey’s on Slippy’s rear end until they were gone. “Thanks for the assist Lucky!” As soon as Slippy was done thanking Lucky Day, he received some data accompanied by loud whistles and beeping noises about an incoming mass of hyper hornets stomping their way towards the Boojiboo. They were the ones that could actually damage the cargo vessels armor, if that happened then the Great Fox might become the only way off the planet. “Of course, we’ll take care of it right away!” - “Wait for them to clear a path before moving everyone! This is the day we’ve been waiting for, freedom!” A lot of shouts of ‘freedom’ were returned to Styg by multiple Grubs and Cerebrian’s on the screen. He had made certain only those who wouldn’t betray each other to Zurg were in on this; he wouldn’t want to betray Fluttershy’s trust in him already and he was hoping she’d hug him again before they had to part ways. “This is Styg Glip signing out; can the cargo vessel hold three hundred plus people?” “I think it can, we’ll make it work anyway even if it can’t… wait…” A sudden eerie thought had just occurred to Fluttershy. She hadn’t thought of it until now, but why hadn’t Bonnie planned for getting herself back to the Boojiboo? A sudden fear for her friend filled her chest with an icy cold rock in comparison to the fire still in her veins. “Do you know where my friend Bonnie might be Mr. Glip? I’m kind of worried about her and I’ve had this sudden chilling thought.” “Well… in all likelihood she would be… oh… well I can certainly see why you would be worried. This plan doesn’t exactly involve her leaving this planet alive does it? You do realize that you’d be more of a hindrance to her in your current condition if you tried going after her right?” The glare Styg received was so overwhelming that he couldn’t speak or think of anything for a moment, the only thing he could think of doing right now was answering Fluttershy’s question in its entirety. Now he understood what had Zurg so badly spooked, at least he wasn’t afraid of Fluttershy because she actually felt very nice to be around. “She’s probably going after Zurg in his main tower; it is where Zurg controls his hornets from. That place is dangerous and heavily guarded.” - Bonnie just continued walking forward unscathed; behind her were forty five completely wrecked hyper hornets. All them were well armored, had heavy weapons that could cause splash damage and they both outweighed and completely outgunned Bonnie by a metric ton considering she was barely bigger than a little human girl. They never even stood a chance against Bonnie with a single blaster pistol that was quickly running out of energy; the blaster pistol in question wasn’t even capable of puncturing the armor on a hyper hornet which led one to wonder how she even managed to bring down forty five of them. Experiment one four nine was halfway through the tower having decimated hundreds of regular hornets and a decent amount of hyper hornets. Anything that shot at her was irrevocably totaled within seconds. Despite the stress of using her evasive abilities in an offensive manner, she was doing somewhat fine even if her body was beginning to get really sore. Bonnie stopped for a moment to catch her breath and reached into her right hand holster to squeeze something lightly and then she looked at the red cloth wrapped around her right arm. Her eyes flickered briefly between red and blue for a moment. She continued marching onward into a horde of hornets coming straight for her with glowing red eyes, the blaster resting at her left hip had far less than half a charge left. Zurg wasn’t going to escape Bonnie’s wrath; she was dead set on killing him! - “Then I’ll just have to go after her anyway.” If there was one thing Fluttershy didn’t want to do, it was leave Bonnie alone and she also had to know what became of Clyde as well. “Can you wait until we get to that cargo ship? It’d be easier for us to fly you up there and you’d have help getting into the building, maybe with one of your friends to escort you too.” Of the reasons why Styg suggested this, Fluttershy’s survival was the major one. He’d never get another comfortable hug like the one he recently received if she was killed. “I guess I can wait for everyone to get on the Boojiboo.” The pain she was in was nothing compared to the idea of losing a friend, especially when you could have helped them and Fluttershy wasn’t about to lose Bonnie. “Hey space hippie, you have one of those guys defecting from this place with you right? Can you ask him where they got the designs for some of these things; they look almost Venomian in nature. Even these red treaded guys look very familiar.” The sound of Falco smashing something could be heard over Fluttershy’s headset. “Fox is inbound; he’s going straight for you and clearing the road. I’m protecting the Boojiboo from incoming enemies with Peppy and Slippy… why does saying the name of that ship make me want to vomit?” “It’s likely because Zurg did get the idea for his hornet tanks from Venom; the Grubs recovered some things from that toxic planet after this mercenary team… wait a minute, I knew you guys sounded familiar for some reason. You’re that crazy team that rammed your way through Area Six!” One of the things that Styg knew Zurg had gotten from having some Grubs infiltrate the Lylat system, was one of the things that he had hoped that the evil emperor hadn’t managed to get working yet.“Needless to say he didn’t get much, but what he did get is quite bad. Hopefully it’s not operational.” “Damn it, I knew some of these things looked too familiar. I’m near your position Fluttershy; I’ve cleared a good path for you so get a move on and start heading towards the Boojiboo. The DOKs are almost here as well to cover your egress. Do you copy?” Fox looked around the streets and continued to shoot down the hornets and hyper hornets that kept coming at the Land Master. He rolled the tank to the left and fired twice ripping a large hole out of a hyper hornet. “Copy what? Oh… um… yes, right, I hear you! I’ll be right out with Roller and my new friend Mr. Glip; we’ll be heading straight for the Boojiboo now.” The bubble helmet of Fluttershy’s Rhizome suit popped up and she moved over to Roller. After Fluttershy was situated on the wheelie, they turned to Styg. “Right well, ahem, can you swing that tank around to right and clear that street, we’ll be coming out there.” The tank immediately did that and Styg rolled his robotic suit up to the doorway. After waiting for a few seconds he opened it to see Fox’s tank right outside firing round after round of energy into a throng of hornets in the sky above them. They poked their way out of the doorway before quickly moving behind the Land Master. After using it as cover for a few seconds Fluttershy told Roller to go to the ship they arrived in and he set off at a quick pace with Styg trying to keep up, his robotic suit wasn’t meant for high speed movement. A shot nearly struck Styg only to be blocked by Lead Affronts shield, as she appeared swiftly from a nearby street. Her shield was bright, spherical and slightly blue tinted, it stood up to the incoming shots from the hornets until a hyper hornet struck her shield with a shot that caused it to drop, even then she kept her firing her rifle with incredible accuracy. The hyper hornet that had shot her went down from a blast of plasma to its side. Absolute Resolve moved in front of Lead wielding a hyper hornet’s arm that he held over his left shoulder, he had his left hand dug into his new weapon. He took the next volley enemy fire stoically, not a single one of their shots caused his shield to fluctuate or even flicker once. His shield looked to almost be made of solid matter; it would take something like Great Fox shooting at his shield to even bring it down. Absolute slowly returned fire; he did this by sending a charge through his fingers that were dug into the stolen hyper hornet’s plasma cannon. It fired a powerful blast of plasma wiping out the group of hornets that had been tailing him and Lead. The two hovering robotic barrels with arms took up position behind Fluttershy and the others while continuing to ward off the two main types of hornets. One of the rarer less seen red hornet tanks didn’t survive a shot from the plasma cannon Absolute wielded with dangerous efficiency; he took his time to aim his shots for maximum damage potential. He was now armed and dangerous, he didn’t have a weapon at the start of all this and had just started out as a powerful mobile shield unit for Lead. As Roller sped his way down the streets to where the Boojiboo had been set down, other Cerebrians and Grubs could be seen running for the ship and entering it. Fox in the Land Master was slowly following while trying to desperately keep all the hornets from grouping up on the escaping people. There were hornets everywhere, coming in almost endless waves in several variants from all directions. They were starting to quickly becoming overwhelming for Starfox, it was thanks to the factories exploding that the hornets were in such a disarray, they were only now beginning to come out of that and it was beginning to show with the ever increasing amount of firepower that was slowly being arrayed to take out the Boojiboo. Falco’s tank was sitting on top of the cargo ship, it was firing endlessly into the encroaching forces. Roller had reached the bottom of the ramp unmolested and took Fluttershy inside while Absolute stayed outside to continue helping Fox and Falco deal with the heavier problems with the plasma cannon he ripped off a hyper hornet. Lead Affront quickly boarded the Boojiboo and went towards the front of the ship; the robot put her body into the pilot’s seat and remotely took control of the turret beneath the Boojiboo to lend a hand in the defenses while she started a warm up sequence to get ready for takeoff. For Lead, splitting her focus between two tasks wasn’t very difficult. Roller rolled up to the copilots chair and let Fluttershy off onto it. Fluttershy gently patted his carapace while looking over the scanners and seeing a mass of red dots forming up on them. She frowned in worry. “Those hyper hornet things are getting a little too close for comfort Fox, there’s just way too many of them! We can’t hold them by ourselves for much longer.” While he didn’t like the situation; Falco didn’t stop firing for a moment from his perch on top of the cargo vessel. “It’s a good thing you won’t have to. Light them up Space Rangers, to infinity… and beyond!” From the sky twenty Space Ranger cruisers swung down from the dark red clouds and formed up five to a group. They then swept outwards from the Boojiboo and started firing into the streams of advancing hornets. “We heard there was a situation here, looks like we made it to the party just in time.” “Is Fluttershy okay? Oh please tell me she’s alright.” A worried Booster said over the communications. “Yeah, that’s something I’d like to know too! It took us forever to book Torque; I swear those bureaucratic nimrods would have kept us there forever if they could.” Even XR sounded worried and slightly angry. “Guys stop worrying so much.” A weary Mira sounded off in a particularly stressed tone. “I’m sure she’s fine and somewhere in this mess, she can take care of herself.” “I’m doing well enough; I thank all of you for worrying about me so much.” There was a silence for a moment and Fluttershy wondered why they were so quiet. Maybe they were just happy to hear her voice again. “Once all the fugitives we’re helping here are on the Boojiboo, we’re going to help Bonnie!” “What! Help her? But she kidnapped you! We’re just happy to hear that you’re still alive, especially in the middle of all this.” XR didn’t sound happy at the prospect of helping Bonnie. “Even so, aren’t Space Rangers supposed to help those in need? Well someone I call a friend needs help and I’m asking you to help me help her!” Fluttershy was firm and quite assertive on this one, all her friends on Equus would have been proud if they weren’t currently too busy with something else at the moment.