After the asteroid was out of the way the race was back on, Roller and Fluttershy had fallen behind a bit but at least they were still ahead of Herja. If the captain with the glowing energy mace was even still in the race and it was hard to think she was so easily incapacitated by a long fall down a steep ramp. Her lizard monster also looked positively dangerous to be bitten by.
Keeping her eyes out for asteroids Fluttershy would steer Roller when direly needed and otherwise left Roller make his own decisions about which way to move around the obstacles that left the road full of dents and slight divots. It was a rather bumpy ride to avoid all the asteroids; one had even struck Fluttershy in the side of the helmet knocking her for a loop. The other racers weren’t as lucky as to be wearing a protective suit and were likely getting badly injured by all the rock flying around the track they were racing along.
After glancing around again, Fluttershy spotted the guy Sylvia called Lord Hater coming up behind her quickly. She watched as his powerful mount barreled his head straight through several large asteroids without a problem. The catapult that was being dragged along had a green glowing barrier that stopped the asteroids from striking anyone on it, it even appeared to be repelling the dangerous rocks.
There were all kinds of things for Fluttershy study in this race, like the vast difference in racing mounts going on throughout this race. Some had incredible running speed like Sylvia; others had incredible durability and stamina like Lord Haters mount that no obstacle would ever really stop for long. It was so interesting seeing so many species of animals in action, how their muscles flexed, how they moved so gracefully along the track at such speeds that quite frankly scared her about their safety. She didn’t know how any of these thousands of racing alien animals physiologically worked or how to heal them if they got hurt; she at least knew how Roller worked after some intensive study into his species.
Roller found this all exhilarating as he was being challenged so well that he didn’t care if he didn’t pass the end of the road first. He just wanted to roll and he was doing what all his species naturally does as he zigzagged along the track dodging asteroids mostly on instinct while trying to not let Fluttershy get hit by too many more of them.
After a while of dodging meteors that came in all sizes they came to an empty road stretch of road that curved left and they could see Sylvia up ahead still keeping a good lead and setting a good pace. Without any obstructions Sylvia and Roller were among some of the fastest beings on the track depending on whether or not they were allowed to accelerate to full speed properly.
Fluttershy gave a sigh of relief that they hadn’t been squash or smashed by a large chunk of rock, she was having some bad flashbacks to when she was in the stiletto class fighter and about to die because of her curiosity. Quite frankly she was still inquisitive about space and all the many wonders out there, but she was certainly less naïve about how everything worked.
“Commander Peepers why aren’t we going faster, we have to get Wander!” With a twitching ear the pony looked back at the large four legged beast catching up with the leaders of the pack. He was yelling at one of the cute looking eyeball guys who happened to be wearing a strange helmet with a sharp looking lightning shaped blade on it.
“We’re currently as fast as we can get sir. That is unless we lighten the load, but we’d lose all the extra firepower. You know the same firepower that we need to get Wander with? Lord Hater, it is my solemn duty to try and carry out your orders, but we’re a bit constrained by the fact that if we continue attacking Wander the other racers might intervene on his behalf as I recognize some of them as being people he’s helped before.” The small one eyed guy seemed to be the leader of the other one eye beings that all looked alike in their strange uniforms. “The loss of ammo would help us move slightly faster though.”
“I don’t care; just take out the other racers as well if you have too, I want Wander gone!” Lord Haters comment pretty much had Fluttershy’s ears wilting. “Start with that colorful looking one on the wheel thing! You know I hate the colors pink and yellow Peepers!”
“We’ll get on it right away Sir! You heard Lord Hater guys, attack everyone! We’ll lighten up our ammo stores and it’ll help us deal with any of the competition that may have a chance of trying to stop us!” The other one eyed beings started a chant ‘hate’s great’ and ‘best villain’ alternatively at Commander Peepers words that were rather disheartening to the nearby pony.
“How can anybody like hatred? Oh, they must mean Lord Hater.” It wasn’t hard to for Fluttershy to figure out that Lord Hater was not a nice skeleton thing. Especially after he just told them to target all the racers starting with… the pony was not slow on the uptake when she looked down at Roller and all the other racers who didn’t have wheel shaped entities to ride on. Oh, she was the first target they’d be aiming for first.
They were still on the soft curve to the left until things straightened out and in the distance Fluttershy could see nothing but a solid wall of ice in the form of a humongous castle. It was so massive that she couldn’t see any way around it which meant that they were going through it; she was in awe of the scale of such a thing. With a jerk she came to her senses as a flaming rock exploded next to her and Roller, she whimpered as she looked over her back and saw another racer get knocked from his mount. That racer soon got up and so did his mount, meaning that they were okay if injured.
Roller picked up speed and fired a few star shots, ones that still drained him a bit, every once in a while to take care of a few of the harder to avoid rocks as they crashed down around Fluttershy and him. The little one eyed guys aim wasn’t that big a deal, but the amount of flaming rocks that they were managing to put into the air in such a short amount of time was.
It wasn’t long before they reach the entrance to the massive wall of ice, to see that it looked like a wide open cave system inside and it continued onwards, there were a lot of holes off to the sides of the main path of the open entryway each leading into a slide.
Roller immediately lost traction and fell over as soon as he hit the ice trying to dodge a flaming rock and went sliding down a nearby chute by himself with his momentum used against him.
Having been thrown from Roller’s backside, a flailing Fluttershy was sent falling to the ground. The sudden rolling impact with the ground had hurt quite a bit. The following slide down a long lit icy tunnel in a constant downwards pull that suddenly shifted to her somehow slamming against the ceiling when the gravity suddenly flipped randomly on its own was worse.
Scrabbling to find purchase on the ice, Fluttershy mentally tried to get her suit to clench on to the ice as well as it could, it slowed her down, but it didn’t stopped her from sliding down the path until she shot out into a dark wide open space at the end of the lit tunnel. She then felt herself suddenly start falling sideways and saw as much once she saw the tunnel she exited from zoom off, despite how little sense it made. It was a few moments after that when she slammed into a large blue object roughly causing her to yelp at the force she hit it with.
“Ugh, what the...” The voice sounded like it was Sylvia. After a moment of falling in odd directions through the bright expanse, changing several times in mid-air as they did, it was confirmed that the pony was latched onto the Zbornak who was currently missing Wander from her back. “Hey, let go of…”
Before Sylvia could say anything further they slammed into a large pile of snow together, she slowly stood up and looked down at the shivering form hugging her. After a moment Sylvia sighed and pried Fluttershy off of herself, she couldn’t get angry with Fluttershy because she was scared, alone and crying. They were both in the middle of a lit massive cavern with several more slide openings at the far walls, with snow almost leading all the way up to any one of them.
“Hey its okay, we’ve finally stopped. You’re that ambassador, uh, Flutter was it? Stop crying, I’ll protect you. Sometimes I swear Wander is making me too soft. Come on, if I remember right this place is a madhouse of gravity wells and slippery surfaces.” Sylvia gently placed Fluttershy into a sitting position on her back which made Fluttershy look up at her. “Been in this race several times before, so I know what’s up with this place. It’s not at all difficult to get through to the exit, but doing it without getting hurt is pretty hard. This place is meant to slow you down drastically and that’s the thing; this area is about going slow and steady. Racing through it at break your neck speeds on the icy parts will make you quite literally do that and the snow covered parts like this one are dangerous for numerous reasons. Tried to slow down before I hit the ice, as you can see I wasn’t successful and of course I got separated from my rider again. Just like the last time the racetrack went through this crazy place. Took me a while to come to my senses the last time I was here, by then that race was over and I had to be rescued. That happened a few years before I met…. anyway, the names Sylvia, don’t take my kindness for granted.”
“I... I’m Fluttershy… I prefer to be called that if it’s alright with you, but Flutter is okay to.” Fluttershy noticed that Sylvia stood up and started to slowly walk across the snow, her head and wide eyes swiveling about all over the place. She was worried about Roller first and Wander second, she was also worried about whether or not Betsy was okay. “Um, I know we don’t know each other very well, but if it’s not too much of me to ask…”
“Shh… quiet Fluttershy, don’t talk for a bit.” Sylvia didn’t mean to cut Fluttershy off, but she was looking around the snowy expanse while slowly treading softly. Each step of her two feet sent a very soft crunch in the snowy cavern they were both in. It was silent for a moment and then after another step Sylvia stopped and looked over her shoulder at something behind Fluttershy.
Being curious as to what Sylvia was looking at, Fluttershy slowly turned her head and tried to find the spot Sylvia was staring at. They weren’t alone in this cavern as something was blending in with the snow almost perfectly, had Fluttershy not had the ears she did from her mutation she would have never heard it moving much less seen the horrific looking eyes in the snow. Slowly her ears flicked and she heard more things moving in the snow.
“Yeah, this is one of the parts that I hate about this place… we’re in one of ‘their’ rooms.” When Sylvia whispered to the pony, they saw a slight movement in the snow as the creature or creatures in it dove downwards.
Fluttershy’s echo sight couldn’t be right, what sort of creature adapts to survive in cold inhospitable looking place like this that didn’t seem to have any food? Not to mention that the creatures looked horrifying in shape to her eyes, she almost didn’t want to know what they looked like above the snow that Sylvia was standing on.
“Hold on to me tightly, do you know how to fight?” As Sylvia’s eyes darted about the place she put up her arms and the muscles in her legs and tail tensed, she was being very quiet because she knew what the things in the snow were. Why couldn’t they have fallen into an easier snow room?
“I don’t like fighting, but I will defend myself if pushed and I’m armed with mostly non lethal weapons. They work better on robots, I really don’t like violence so please don’t kill anything in front of me.” That was an accurate summation of the pod grenades Fluttershy had, they were more lethal to robots with souls than they were to biological beings.
“Yeah, but the things we’re dealing with are dangerous. The reason why I’m talking so quietly is because they hunt by either movement or sound and no promises about the killing thing.” Sylvia had a vicious streak in her, she only tended to beat the tar out of whatever attacks her first to the point that it will live to regret its decision in attacking her or Wander.
“We are invading their home and woke them up, would you want to be killed in your own home by an intruder?” Not once can Fluttershy say she ever hated an animal, she likely never would. In cases like this it was best to leave the animals alone in peace.
“My home is with Wander and wandering the universe, so yeah that’s not going to work with me. If you don’t want me to hurt them, then maybe you could distract them if you have something to throw in those bags of yours?” After a moment of silence Sylvia noted that Fluttershy was holding a green sphere which she threw as far away as she could. It caused a lot of the figures in the snow to jerk a bit towards it when it landed, this left Sylvia wondering what that would do. A bunch of vines exploded harmlessly throughout the surrounding snow a distance away.
Instead of waiting around to ask questions, Sylvia immediately made for one of the slide tunnels and made it to them without being caught by the creatures that Fluttershy was staring back at in interest.
Looking back Fluttershy could see that there had been fifteen large creatures that were a horrific cross between a spider and shark with spindly limbs that were tipped with sharp blades of ice. They looked incredibly dangerous and frightening, a part of her saw the beauty in them even if they were vicious looking killing machines that went at the wriggling mass of vines biting, slashing and breathing out blasts of strange mists. The lighter mist did nothing while the other mist which was thicker froze the vines solid. She then lost sight of them as Sylvia went into the sliding tunnel.
“What were those, they were really interesting. The hairs on their spindly legs seem to make it so they can feel the vibration of whatever is moving on top of the snow as the thick skin of their bodies doesn’t seem nearly as conductive and is to prevent injury from tougher prey.” As Fluttershy spoke on about what she got from a few seconds of observation Sylvia looked at her in a funny manner. “They also seem to have a strong sense of community given how they are working together. I’ve noticed that some of them can spit chemicals that are likely to put the target to sleep or quickly freeze them, should they prove to be immune to the former so they won’t be able to fight back. They look quite efficient in how they digest foods and can go a long time between meals.”
“Those things are called Blackout Blizzard Bellows and that was rather informative for your first time seeing them and not knowing what they are. Now we need to go through about two more tunnels and hope that our friends have enough sense to do the same, no matter where you end up you’re always going towards the exit if you can reach a tunnel. I instead got into a drawn out fight with them once, couldn’t take a single one of them down.” The two were flung out into the open cavernous space again after Sylvia finished explaining the third important thing to know about this place, they were once again being tossed around randomly by gravity with Fluttershy clinging to her tightly.
“That’s nice to know, I’m really good with animals of all kinds. I like to observe creatures, even ones as dangerous as those looked to be.” After a few moments of being flung through a dark void with random gravity shifts, Fluttershy felt herself getting sick to her stomach and her face was turning a bit green. They were then flung in a single direction until they entered a room.
They slammed into the floor in the middle of a room full of ice; Sylvia observed the room and tested the floor while looking towards the ceiling. Even Fluttershy was glancing at the ceiling where a millions long needles made of ice were hanging above their heads. Sylvia gulped and hundreds of spikes fell in front of Syvlia and Fluttershy at even the barest of noise she had made from doing just that much.
Neither of them dared to talk, as Sylvia slowly edged her way towards one of the tunnels by sidling towards it. Nothing was making a sound until a familiar large yellow spiny lizard creature with snake fangs slammed into the floor and roared in their direction causing Sylvia to lunge for the sliding tunnel as millions of sharpened needles rained down from above.
After they entered the tunnel Fluttershy whimpered about the poor lizard that probably just got skewered back there, it looked to have been Herja’s mount. The angry yelling captain was still in the race, well that is if her lizard survived that and it probably did as its skin looked thick enough to survive being hit with so many icy cold needles.
-
Back in the previous room the snake fanged lizard had managed to get into one of the slides despite being covered in icy needles that had been loosely lodged in its skin, it was still moving perfectly fine.
As the lizard went down one of the slides the view in the entire room flipped upside down to the ceiling where Wander landed in the middle of it with an excited smile as he looked around in wonder at the beautiful crystal needles hanging along the ceiling.
“Wow, I bet Sylvia would have liked to see this, it’s beautiful!” Wander got up and continued towards one of the tunnels making a lot of noise in excitement about how pretty this place was. The little orange fuzzy guy had no clue about the danger he had avoided as hundreds of ice needles rammed themselves neatly back into the floor they fell from as he left.
-
Both Fluttershy and Sylvia slid out of an icy tunnel into bowl shaped room where they were at the lips of the bowl full of cold looking water. Opposite of the icy bits they were on, there was a large rocky surface with tiny bits of magma flowing through it in veins. On the ceiling was another bowl that was full of steaming flowing magma. The room was just comfortably warm.
“We’re halfway through, we can stop worrying about traps as the next area of this place is all about going as fast as possible and I’m not about to leave Wander behind for this part.” Looking up at all the tunnels from the icier part of this they seem to all converge on this one room, Sylvia sat down and waited for Wander to show up since he would obviously take his time to look at things. “So I’m staying right here.”
“There’s something that I wanted to ask earlier, but we were kind of busy. I was wondering if I can talk to you and Wander after the race, I have something really important that I need to ask of him.” Entering her doe eyed adorable mode Fluttershy hoped that Sylvia would be willing to hear her meet Wander.
“If you really need his help and most people usually do, Wander always tries to do his best to make others happy. He even got Lord Hater to smile once which was quite the accomplishment. It’s like it’s his mission in life to drive me nuts with his kindness. He always stops for everyone who needs help and I can’t help but love him for it!”A frustrated Sylvia looked into the water in the large bowl. “Yeah, we’ll meet up after the race; I’ll make sure of it.”
“Um… are you and Wander…” It wasn’t hard for Fluttershy to see that Sylvia liked Wander a lot; then again she was letting him ride her around and seemed genuinely happy in his presence. She took a seat next to Sylvia.
“I try not think about it, we’re the best of friends and we’ll always be together. That’s all I really want from him, he’s the greatest guy I’ve ever known.” Sylvia smiled a bit as she looked at her reflection in the water. “Sometimes I don’t even know what he sees in me. So why exactly are you looking for Wander?”
“I need some help from a Star Nomad and I was wondering if Janet was right in saying that Wander was one.” Clenching her eyes shut she waited for Sylvia to tell her that Wander was not one.
“You’ve met Janet! How’s that old planet been doing? It has been a while since we’ve visited her; I wonder how much she’s grown since then.” It took a moment for Sylvia to realize why Fluttershy had her eyes clenched shut; she put a hand around Fluttershy’s withers. “Also Wander is a Star Nomad, so you’ve definitely found the right guy.”
“Oh thank you!” It was the start of another friendship as Fluttershy latched on to Sylvia, giving her as tight a hug as she could. She would then proceed to drop a bombshell on Sylvia that was quite shocking for the Zbornak. “As for Janet, well, she’s had a few million children since you last saw her.”